Right: I cut the shit out of my hand this evening. Oh ho ho, you say. How bad could it be? Well, I just spent the past two hours at St. Vincent’s, getting stitches. I am such an asshole. Who picks up glass when it falls? The answer is: ME! I pick up glass! Shards of glass! With my bare hands! Because I am super smart!
Jeezy creezy.
…You hurt yourself like 900 times while packing. My forearms are covered with pinchy little bruises and my thumbs are lacerated with cardboard paper cuts. I have also dumped several things on my head and barked my skull on a cabinet door at least twice. (It might be more. But I’m having trouble remembering things since the second time.)
I’m packing today, in preparation for Hop Across the Bridge 2006, and the following things have occurred to me:
1) Every box is either labeled “books,” “clothes” or “shoes.” Hardly any are labeled “cookware” or “knick-knacks.” Apparently, I do not cook and I decorate my home solely in reading material and cast-off shoes.
2) My apartment is hella dusty.
3) I’m really allergic to dust.
4) I hate moving.
5) I really hate moving in the summer, which is the only time I ever seem to move.
Today, it was so hot out, I actually had to install my air conditioner, even though I’ll be de-installing it in four days, which seems like a waste. The Donut called earlier and asked me what I was up to and I said, “Installing the air conditioner and whimpering.” Which is an accurate summation of my activities.
So: The move takes place on Friday. Next Saturday, a mere short week afterward, I will turn 30 and have a party at a bar in the LES. It’s a joint b-day, with my friend Angela, who is turning a spritely 29. If you know me at all, and I neglected to email you, please drop me a line and I’ll give you the details. If I currently have a restraining order against you, remember: Trying to figure out which bar and what time is, in fact, a violation.
Jennie SMASH!: btw, i will not buy the mom jeans that are currently coming back into fashion
MadCat: the tapered tight ones?
MadCat: cause i’m boycotting that
Jennie SMASH!: i refuse
Jennie SMASH!: no way
MadCat: and the knee length shorts that don’t look good on anyone who has hips or an ass
Jennie SMASH!: exactly
Jennie SMASH!: i’m like, thanks for making me look pearshaped
Jennie SMASH!: that’s what i needed
MadCat: yeah, it’s kind of unacceptable. i don’t think i’ll go along w/ the fashion industries scheme to de-hotify me
Jennie SMASH!: i know
MadCat: exactly. there’s like, maybe one person out there who is happy about this
Jennie SMASH!: they’re like, remember when people wanted to sleep with you? those were the days
MadCat: everyone else, is now i look even more pearish
MadCat: heh
Someone wrote to me at work the other day to ask if I was dating anyone in particular. This is because I write a daily newsletter, and there’s a reply feature. Also, my picture is on the newsletter, and although I sort of look like I’ve been hit in the head with a board, I am recognizably female, which means that some dude out there in the Land of the Internets wants to date me. Probably more than one.
So, totally unrelated: my friend Dave is an SEO consultant. I’m not really sure what that means either, but the short version appears to be that his paycheck comes from driving traffic to company’s websites using cunning, subterfuge, and scads and scads of Excel spreadsheets. The other day, Dave wrote to me to ask me to link to some of his companies, so that they’d get the full benefit of my twelve readers and the glory that is my Google ranking. But I’m mean and frosty, so I said no.
I don’t even have ads on my site, not because I particularly have a problem with ads, but because I’m lazy. (True story.) But if I did have ads, I’d put ‘em outside the posts. Because I love you all and want you to trust me, so that we can build a beautiful relationship full of trust and mild cursing and the occasional thrown ashtray, but I’m sorry baby, I didn’t mean it, you just make me so mad. Ahem.
So if Dave gets fired, I’ll owe him a beer or something, I guess.
I’m know I’m not totally bitter, because I got my friends’ wedding invitation tonight, and it made me happy. OK, there’s an open bar, but that’s not why, I swear.
It’s been a good couple days for giving back. Smyres called me tonight and needed a Chicago Manual of Style for a freelancing gig. I have one, so I can help her out. And then we’ll get Mexican food. It’s not much, considering that I slept on her sofa for six months while I was moving to New York, but she was happy, and it was nice to feel like I’d stepped into the breech.
Last night, I met up with a friend of the family who just moved to New York. It hasn’t been that long since I did the same thing, and it’s really familiar territory: fear of failure, financial craziness, unfocused ambition, etc and so on. I almost felt bad. Basically, I’m gonna give this guy a couple of contacts and he’s going to make me feel like a big shot, which I’m clearly not. It’s not an even trade at all.
One of the reasons that this is my favorite city in the world is that the wheel never stops turning here. Less than a year after you arrive, you could be an elder statesman, full of wisdom to share. Or: You could be bankrupt. Either one. Maybe both.
Anyway, my year anniversary, figured by when I signed my first lease, is July 1. Not that far away. It feels like years and years. I have a job I love, and projects I’m interested in. Good friends, and all kinds of adventures. The next year could bring anything. I’ll let you know how it ends.
PS: One of the hundreds of suckers who came to look at my apartment today left his hippie energy drink on my counter. Fuck those people. I hope he takes the place. I’ll leave him a packet of poo.
I woke up at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m. this morning, because a broker was letting himself into my apartment. Apparently, the Evil Management Company neglected to tell him that someone was living here. Thank God I have a chain on the door.
Anyhoodle, it’s official: I am hopping the bridge. (Or jumping the shark. Or screwing the pooch. Whatever.) I signed my lease on Tuesday and all necessary fundage has left my bank account and I’m moving to Park Slope. According to Gawker’s commenters, this means that I need to get an MBA immediately.
I have a ginormo presentation tomorrow, and I should be freaked out about it, but I’ve spent so much time tinkering with PowerPoint that I can’t really get exercised about the whole thing. I would like to think that this is because I have a great deal of confidence in my abilities, but I suspect that I am exhausted. (Although I do have a lot of confidence in my abilities. It’s going to rock, this presentation. Let’s all say the mantra: Ihavealotofconfidenceinmyabilities, Ihavealotofconfidenceinmyabilities, Ihavealotofconfidenceinmyabilities…)
Here’s the thing about me and these presentations: They require math, and I am just not a math person. I am almost entirely right-brained. Here are some things I am good at:
The making things up thing can be a problem, because while I never precisely lie, my stories tend to get out of hand. For example, the other day, I told someone that my father plays the bagpipes. Now, I’m pretty sure he can play the bagpipes. He’s almost obnoxiously musical. He can play guitar and violin and drums and the harp and an astonishing array of recorders, tin whistles and flutes. Why not the bagpipe as well? Because he doesn’t have one. That’s why. Lies!
Anyway, back to my point. I’m right-brained, not left. For example, here are some things I am not good at:
I spend most of my professional life doing things I really love, which is what they promised me in school, if I was very patient and got all A’s and was an intern for years and so on. (Lies again: They told me I’d have to move to cheaper state and become a waitress, since it was clear that writing was my only skill.)
But presentations, arrghh! So not my strong suit. How bad is it? Well, let me tell you. It’s like this: Someone from the research department will try to explain some formula or methodology to me, and I’ll blink at them a minute and then say something like: “I LIKE YOUR SHIRT, CUZ IT HAS DOTS! DO YOU LIKE ICE CREAM? LET’S SIT IN THE SUN! I SEE A BUTTERFLY!”
It’s really very impressive.
I got home from Boston tonight to find my apartment largely intact, which was a relief. Lately, I’m never sure what I’ll find when I come in. The other day, Evil Management Company or its minions, the Evil Brokers, left the door to my apartment wide open after they showed the place. For those of you who are keeping track at home, this means that I am protected from the outside world by two broken front doors, one wide-open back door and one unlocked apartment door. Sweet!
The door was locked this time, but my blinds were up and there were footprints everywhere, so I know they showed the place. I left the blinds down when I went away, which was a favor to them, really. I’m sure that the prospective tenant saw my view of the airshaft and ran screaming from the building. I hope he or she hit the broker with his or her purse on the way out.
I have a new plan to twart the Evil Ones, by the way. Before, I was just answering honestly whenever anyone asked me if this is a nice place to live. Now, I’m making the place look as shitty as possible by leaving empty antidepressant bottles and dirty underwear absolutely everwhere. I might actually ask my friends for empty liquor bottles, too, just to complete the portrait. The portrait, of course, is called “This Apartment is Currently Rented by One Bummed-Out Whore. Don’t You Want to Be Like Her? You Know You Do. That’ll be $7000, Please. Don’t Stub Your Toe on Your New Fridge on the Way to Your New Bathroom.”
(Do you think it’s too long? Cuz I could work on it.)
