Liquid Diet

Ah, nothing says it's the holiday season like applesauce, pudding, yogurt, and puréed soup...

Yesterday, around 1:30pm, I became a tiny bit less wise. My lower right wisdom tooth (tooth #32, the last one on a jaw chart) was removed from my head by Dr. John S. McIntyre, DMD (by the way, if you're in need of an oral surgeon, I highly recommend this guy - he's at One Hanson Place, in the old Brooklyn clocktower bank building, which, like everything else, is currently being converted into luxury condos).

All I have left of my wisdom now is #17, the lower left one...it's still hiding out inside my gums. I hope it stays there a good while, as I'm sure I'll need to remove it once it starts to surface.
According to an online chart I found, human third molars (wisdom teeth) generally "erupt" between the ages of 17-21. My first wisdom teeth (the ones on top) did not begun to erupt (nice choice of words) until I was almost 27. I have always had retarded teeth - it's true, I didn't lose all my baby teeth until I was 14 1/2. My sophomore year high school picture features a small gap in the upper right side of my smile, where I was waiting for the "grown up" tooth to make its way into my face.

I opted not to be put under during the surgery yesterday (instead taking three long jabs of a needle into my gumline, for local anesthesia)...I'd be interested to know what it feels like to be put to sleep, but not for the additional $350 fee. Anyway, if I'd been asleep, I would have missed the soundtrack to my extraction. Dr. McIntyre cranked the stereo for me while he went to work, and, I kid you not, the first track to come on was "Don't Fear the Reaper." Awesome.

So, yesterday afternoon and evening was a bit painful...well, a lot painful, even with a couple prescription-strength Aleve AND a couple vicodin swimming through me. I wonder what it would have felt like with no pain medicine at all.

Today, I am sore but most of all hungry. Yesterday, eating involved carefully slipping liquid foods into the opposite side of my mouth, avoiding the hourly-changed gauze covering the bloody hole behind my teeth. I look forward to chewing, carefully, again sometime soon.

I think I have become a New Yorker.

1) I have lived in Brooklyn for 8 1/2 years.

2) Over the last year, I have really started to enjoy Woody Allen movies.

3) Most of my friends are in therapy.

4) Seeing tourists treat my city like an amusement park disgusts me.

5) I’ve started to feel superior to people who don’t live here.

6) I can see the NYC MTA subway map with my eyes closed.

7) I am friendly but don’t like it when people waste my time.

8) I can’t imagine my life without Brian Lehrer.

9) I remember how it was before “everything started changing” (the southeast corner of 2nd Ave and 10th St was most certainly not always a Chase bank, and the Village Voice didn’t always suck).

10) I watched the towers fall from my rooftop.

11) I am homesick when I’m not here.

A (sorta) tasty menu option for the lazy and cheap

In my quest to spread my dollars ever further, I have been pondering easy ways to make cheap, tasty-enough entrees that I can stretch (preferably) into several meals.

I am a person who can maybe sometimes really enjoy cooking, but who almost always has a zillion other things that I need or want to do...therefore, I love time-effective meal preparation.

Strolling through the grocery store recently, I came up with the following super-easy yet decently-tasty meal scheme:
-half a box of bow-tie pasta
-two cans of chunk white albacore tuna packed in water
-one can of "Mexican" corn (I dunno, that's what it says on the Green Giant package...it's basically corn with some chopped green and red peppers, and extra sodium)
-one can of dark red kidney beans (preferably Goya, cause Goya is good and easy to locate nearly anywhere)

Cook, drain, and rinse all of the above that needs cooked (pasta), drained (tuna and corn), and rinsed (beans), and toss that shit together...yum, a semi-tasty meal with a respectable amount of protein.
If you've a smallish belly like me, you can refrigerate this dish and spread it out to 4 meals (lunch or dinner)!

Bon Appetit! And happy barely-depleted wallet!

Work

There are soooo many things I've been wanting to write about recently, but I've kinda been living like a robot in auto-mode, trying to get through the days, and I've had such little energy to write.

Let me explain...

I am so very broke right now. The stars converged in such a way this Fall as to bless me with a multitude of debts. The list of costly events in my life includes: moving (and all that entails - broker's fee, security deposit, man with van costs, setting up the new pad, etc...), dental work (oh, will the work -and costs- on my poor, poor crown never end?), computer dying (new Mac laptops ain't cheap), etc, etc, wah wah wah poor me.

Fortunately(?), my past lives include the livelihood that is bartending...I happily left the bar life two years ago, vowing never to return...but, let's face it, desperate times call for desperate measures, and there's no other way I can think of (that I'd actually do at this point) to turn a few quick bucks. Mmm, cold, hard, beer-soaked cash.

So I called up my old bar boss and asked to be put on the list for fill-in work. I've already worked two shifts - two Sunday nights in a row. Sundays are good, 'cause they're six-hour shifts (8pm-2am) instead of eight-hour shifts (8pm-4am), and they're not super-busy (meaning it's easier for now-older me to get back into the bartending swing of things).

All in all, I consider myself lucky to have this bartending option for some extra dough...but, man, I am so beat. See, I work full days Friday through Tuesday at my retail job, which means my schedule the past two weeks has included the following:
1) Sunday, work at store in Manhattan from 11:30am-7:15pm
2) go straight to bar in Brooklyn to work 7:45pm-2:15am
3) get a car service home (goodbye to $20 of the cash I just earned!)
4) get up Monday morning to work at store in Manhattan from 11am-7:15pm
5) go home, crash in the bath Monday night, make sure I get up in the morning to work at the store again all day on Tuesday

The above scenario is my explanation to myself for not writing as much as I'd like these past couple weeks. Yes, there are other days in the week, but, I have a life, too, sometimes (and I've been filling in Thursdays at the store, too).

Wah wah wah. I am hoping for a big tax refund, my light at the end of the too-much-debt, too-much-work tunnel.

Home

When can one officially call oneself a New Yorker?

I felt so content tonight as I made my way home to my apartment.
I love coming home to my apartment.
I love coming home to my cat (she is really due for some new cat toys!).

I was just thinking, after an awesome evening out, how happy I am and how lucky I feel to live where I do.
I have been a Brooklyn resident since August 1999...can I check New Yorker as my official status yet? It certainly feels that way.

I caught a little bit of the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC (our local NPR affiliate) this morning before work, and I learned in one of his segments that I now live in the most ethnically diverse zip code of New York City. My heart swelled with neighborhood pride...neighborhood pride is a big thing in New York, I have learned over the years...I have felt New York neighborhood pride many times myself, in a few different places that I have called home.

I like it here. I might even stick around for another 8+ years.

2nd Best Show Ever (The Muppet Show is #1)

I just want to make sure as many people as possible read this:

Sweeping the Clouds Away, by Virginia Heffernan

...and/or listen to this:

Beware the Cookie Monster, Brian Lehrer Show 11/19/2007

Has anyone seen a recent episode of Sesame Street? I think the last time I stumbled upon a new episode was about two years ago, and I remember being bored out of my mind. It was such a disappointment, as I had remembered Sesame Street as such a weird, funny, quirky show.

I plan on obtaining a copy of these old school DVDs asap.

There is nothing like...

...Popeyes biscuits at one-thirty in the morning on a drunk, empty stomach.
Thank you, Popeyes!

I love my neighborhood.

I can't make this stuff up.

I just poured myself a drink and turned on the TV for some pre-sleep brain numbing, and I came across an amusing infomercial hosted by Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock of Air Supply. I thought, "this is going to be amusing," and it was - it was the Time-Life ad for their Classic Soft Rock Collection. 168 Hits! Yes! A real score for late night brain melt!

Time-Life infomercials are made for the wee hours of the morning. They're made for folks who are hanging out too late in front of the television, getting sleepy, possibly drunk, maybe lonely, probably stoned. The Time-Life folks aren't dummies - they know this demographic is the most primed to pick up the phone and pull out the credit card.

And then there are people like myself, who watch these infomercials for pure entertainment. Over and over I got to hear clips of Kenny Loggins, America, Chicago, Boz Scaggs, Christopher Cross, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, 10CC, and more...not to mention watch clips of Elton John's "Daniel" and Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" over and over and over...
Check out these quotable gems:

"Some people like a fine wine, others reach for a cold beer, but in 1979, everyone wanted a Piña Colada..."
"Soft rock takes me to a relaxing place, like a beach..."
"This is the music that made soft rock pure magic!"
"You'll find yourself singing along to songs you didn't know you knew all the words to!"
"You could spend hundreds of dollars trying to buy all the songs found on this collection" (um, iTunes anyone? 168 songs x 99cents per song...hmm...)
"There were so many songs from my high school times, and those were truly the greatest years of my life..." (Oof.)
"In the eighties, some artists put away their guitars, and plugged in their synthesizers." (Yeah, baby!)
"Every time I hear these songs, I feel like I'm on vacation." "You're so right, Angela."

A few other notes and highlights:
1) An acoustic "All Out of Love" by Air Supply, performed live on set by Graham and Russell, pitcher of lemonade on the table in front of them. Ah, so relaxing!
2) The video for "Sad Eyes," by Robert John - Did sexy used to equal a balding guy in a track suit? Is this the sexy that Justin Timberlake promises to bring back? Awesome!
3) Eric Carmen's "All By Myself"- I never noticed the physical resemblance to Prince before...am I crazy here?
4) I still don't understand Meat Loaf.

The soft rock is now floating in my head, along with my delicious nightcap...I can't wait for the dreams ahead...

Bulk Mail

Anyone else ever take the time to notice the subject matter of all that spam email that usually gets automatically directed into your Bulk Mail folder?

My Yahoo email account has been active since I first opened it in I *think* 1999, giving me many years to end up on seemingly every spam email address list in existence. I swear, I must receive at least a handful of new spam emails every five minutes. (Thank you, thank you, Yahoo, for so accurately diverting nearly all of these into my Bulk Mail folder.)

I know that Yahoo will automatically delete the spam emails from my Bulk folder every 30 days or something, but the ever-growing numbers of them annoy me, so I go through regularly and clean 'em out myself, too. Recently, I began taking an interest in the subject lines of these emails. I figure the goal of the subject line is to lure as many people as possible into opening the email and reading it, so what do the following choices of subject lines say about the (assumed) headspace of most computer users? (these are all the subject lines that appeared in the spam emails of my Bulk folder just within the time it took me to type these paragraphs):
"10K Scholarships - Year-Round Giveaways"
"Government Grant Money Available, Act Now"
"eHarmony - Review your matches for free!"
"Attend detective College on a grant"
"Millions in Nursing Scholarships"

It looks like people are looking for: money, love, a better job/education. No big surprises there, I guess. But...are people less interested in penis enlargement than they used to be, or is this just an exceptional batch of spam?

You, too, can be an ass!

What is up with the giant Calvin Klein billboard on the northwest corner of Lafayette and Houston?
This particular billboard spot has belonged to Calvin Klein for as long as I can remember into the recent past. I often glance at it as I dash into the Broadway-Lafayette subway stop after work, and I've noticed that the CK folks switch up the image maybe every 2-4 weeks (or maybe not that often, but I do feel like I've seen lots of different pictures on that spot recently - CK jeans, CK underwear, CK fragrance...)

This evening I looked up and noticed a new image had been placed on the giant board, a new image that I found both amusing and disturbing: a teenage(?) girl is reclining, her head in the lap of a teenage(?) boy. Both are fully clothed in CK gear, and the boy's hand is resting on an exposed portion of the girl's waist.
It was the expressions on the faces that got to me. The girl appears completely bored out of her mind (or maybe drugged), and the boy is staring into the camera, looking confused and/or pissed off, as if he has nothing but scorn for all the little New Yorkers walking around below him.

I gotta ask: how does this image help to sell CK clothing? I, for one, do not want to wear anything that heightens any sense of 1) boredom, or 2) superiority over others. Do other people want these things? Am I missing something?

What makes a house a home?

As of this evening, in my opinion, the answer to the above question is none of the following:
-reliable internet access
-unpacked boxes
-a roach-free environment

Sure, I'd love to have the ability to email at whim, the comfort of having everything in its place, and the knowledge that I'd never buy another Combat roach trap again, but these things do not make a home.
Tonight, I confirmed my belief that a home is really made by surrounding yourself with the things and, more importantly, the people you love.

My new apartment hosted its first get-together this evening. Just a few close friends, a floor, a six pack of beer, and some take-out roti from a West Indian food joint down the block. What more could I need? It was absolutely perfect. Even my cat came out of temporary hiding and stared at us all night.

It's Halloween, y'all...

It's the first Halloween in a long, long time that absolutely nothing Halloween-y has appeared on the radar. My friends and I all seem to be in the same boat: no parties, no costumes...no real acknowledgement of the holiday at all, really.

Is it because Halloween falls on a Wednesday this year? Is it because we're all getting older, and we just don't care as much as we used to? Perhaps.

I went about my business as usual today, and as day wore on into evening, I saw increasing signs of city Halloween life (it's hard to ignore Halloween completely in New York, after all). Kids and grown-ups in costumes (though, with the grown-ups, it's sometimes difficult to tell whether the clothing is a costume or just the everyday attire of an eccentric personality), candy being given away to Trick-or-Treaters at neighborhood stores, more interesting outfits than usual on the folks waiting on subway platforms...
(I did have a favorite costume - someone had stuck a fake oversized hot dog bun on his dog, adding a strip of fake ketchup on top for good measure).

I didn't really care about celebrating the holiday myself this year, but there was something comforting about seeing those yearly signs of Halloween life. More than most holidays, Halloween just blends so seamlessly into the fabric of my beloved New York City. Something would just be wrong if Halloween disappeared completely - so thank you to everyone who made an effort this year. Maybe next year I'll be back in the game...

I just got health insurance, and now I need PHONE insurance, too?

I've always been very aware of how many people seem glued to their cell phones as they're walking down the street, but today that awareness took on an extra clear sharpness. You see, for the first time ever, today I lost my cell phone.

I work at a small store in Manhattan, and I had my Motorola RAZR sitting next to the register as I rang up our customers. At one point, with a sinking feeling, I noticed that my phone was no longer next to the register. I am pretty sure my RAZR left the premises with a customer, who inadvertently grabbed it thinking it was her own, OR with a NON-customer, which would be just...evil.

Ever lose a cell phone before? There are so many annoying things about the whole experience, not the least of which are the following two:
1) the ridiculous expense of buying a new phone while not in my "free upgrade" time window (this one's especially fun, having just moved AND having just replaced my recently-crashed laptop. Yay!)
2) the process of attempting to retrieve all the phone numbers I lost (does anyone keep a hard copy rolodex these days, besides my mother? Perhaps now's a good time to start...)

I don't consider myself the most "connected" lady in the world, but I do enjoy my share of text messaging, and it's painful right now to have that activity missing from my life. Thank goodness for my new neighbors' open wireless networks...at least I still have email until I scrape together the funds for a new phone.

I hope the new owner of my RAZR is enjoying the phone photos of my cat.

New Home

Once again, it's moving time for Catherine...

I have lived in seven different apartments (including this newest one) since moving to Brooklyn just over eight years ago. I am not counting the various places (read: friends' couches) where I have crashed for various lengths of time in between homes...I am just counting those places where the post office has deemed it official enough to deliver mail to me.

This newest apartment is in a neighborhood of Brooklyn that is completely unfamiliar to me, a whole new zip code and cable service provider. I've hardly had a chance to explore the 'hood (moving takes its sweet time), but I am already finding things to appreciate: 24 hour fruit/vegetable groceries on nearly every block, West Indian/roti eateries seemingly every 50 feet, a laundromat across the street, a public library behind my building...
There is more of a longstanding "Brooklyn" feeling here than in the other considerably more gentrified neighborhoods where I have lived, and I like that...but there are also just enough chain establishments to create a feeling of comforting familiarity. Every major bank, a Blockbuster videostore, and a Duane Reade drugstore are all within easy walking distance. And, while it is totally gross if consumed on a regular basis, I can't argue with having a Popeye's down the street that is open until 2:30am (3:00am on weekends).

Up until now, I've hardly had more than an hour or two at a time (usually at night) to check out my new surroundings. I am interested to discover how my perceptions of my new locale and my place within it will change and develop in the coming months (and, I hope, years...moving is exhausting, and I'd prefer to cut down the frequency of its occurence in my life).

Breakin' this hiatus

My blog is getting off to a shaky start, as I haven't posted to it now in weeks, and there are only three posts before this one to begin with.
Such lapses in productivity cause me to consider my lifelong companion: Procrastination.

Most people I have met are familiar with procrastination, and some succumb to it more than others. In my experience, people procrastinate for one of two reasons: 1) They don't really want to do the thing that they are putting off, or 2) They REALLY REALLY want to do the thing that they are putting off, and they are just not giving themselves the time and permission to get to it already. Or, maybe people are just lazy.

I find that procrastination is most deadly when beefed up by Excuse-Making.
It's easy to say that life can get in the way, people get busy, blah, blah, blah... I can verifiably say that I have had plenty going on in my life in the last few weeks, plenty to keep me busy outside of this blog. But, I also like to follow things through as long as I still have interest in them, and I am most certainly still interested in this blog.

So, in an attempt to keep my posts more free-flowing, I am going to be less prohibitive with my choice of posting topics. Maybe I'll even supplement the social criticism with some straight-up creative writing. Life is hard enough without placing further restrictions on oneself, I say...and I just want to write more.

Advertisements

I love taking notice of what commercials are paired up with particular television programs. I think it's possible to learn a lot about a program's point of view and assumed audience based on the advertisers that buy time during broadcast.

Recently, I happened to be home at 6:30pm on a weekday, and out of curiosity I flipped on a show that I never watch: CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. (I generally avoid this show because I find Katie Couric mildly grating, for reasons I can't quite pinpoint).
Anyway, as a disclaimer I must admit that I have ideas about who regularly watches the CBS Evening News - I could be wrong, but I'm guessing it's mostly folks who have just gotten home from work and are looking to catch up on a quick bit of news before eating dinner with the family. Oh, and in my mind these people live in suburbia. These are the assumptions I am starting with, and they could be totally wrong, but I have a feeling that my description is accurate for a good chunk of the CBS Evening News demographic.

So this is what I ended up thinking after observing the commercials: suburban Middle America is uncomfortable in a variety of ways, and pharmaceutical companies are ready to encourage folks to medicate themselves excessively to alleviate these discomforts.
During one commercial break, three ads were shown, all by pharmaceutical companies. The three ads were selling drugs to alleviate the following: irritable bowel syndrome, nasal allergies, and something called "restless leg syndrome."

Granted, some medications are necessary and help people to live better lives, and I'm not denying the existence of allergies. But my primary reaction to seeing these ads one after the other was: why are Americans suffering from so many ailments, and why are we so ready to load up on medicine?
Personally, I am of the opinion that lifestyle changes would lead to greater health in America than would mass dependence on drugs. How about exercise, healthy eating, and a more reasonable balance of work and leisure (can't deny the connection between mind and body)? While we're at it, let's throw in friendlier workplace conditions and more reasonable wages for all Americans, so that people don't have to spend so many hours worrying about how to take care of their families and pay their bills.

But this is just where I stand, and it's certainly not going to lead to any profits for the pharmaceutical companies, on whose advertising dollars the CBS Evening News depends.

Why write?

It's been over a week now since my last posting here, and I think I know why...Ever since I started this blog with a single post, I have found myself slightly overwhelmed by the number of topics I might find myself discussing through text. What would be the direction of my blog? Would there even be a "direction," or would this be something that emerged only as time passed and posts accumulated?

In an attempt to dive into my questions about writing even more deeply, I began reading Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing, by Margaret Atwood, last night. This, of course, only got me thinking more, and prompted ever more questions in my head: Why write? What is the urge to write? What is my urge to write?

I suppose that writing can serve many purposes: communication, persuasion, documentation, explanation, entertainment, etc...But talking can also serve many of these purposes, in the form of conversation, debate, storytelling, etc. So how do I choose what to talk about and what to write about?

What is the difference between talking and writing? I suppose, if one has written something, and someone else is reading it, then there is no opportunity for that someone else to interrupt the writer, as is possible in live communication. Of course, the reader could also very well choose to close the book, or journal, or article or whatever, to stop reading...and isn't that the ultimate interruption? There's no chance to win your reader back if they refuse to listen.

Win your reader back?
Is this a contest?
A fight?
A debate?
These thoughts on writing are occupying my mind.

I don't mean to imply with these questions that I desire to win people over to my point of view (though, this is surely bound to be the case sometimes). Rather, I ask these questions because I am curious as to why people take the time to read particular authors, or listen to particular speakers.

Two years after Katrina...

I've been considering many topics over the last week or so with which I could initiate this new online component of my life. I've mulled over the changing roles of religion in Western society, the genre of memoir, and various influences in the development of contemporary music. I am sure I will make my way to all these topics and more in due time, but I've decided that right now a discussion of the state of affairs two years after Hurricane Katrina is most pressing.

Two years ago today, in the early morning hours of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the southern edge of our country, devastating many lives in Louisiana and Mississippi in particular, though the damage spread into other states as well. Over 1,800 people were killed. The city of New Orleans was especially hard hit - to date, only 10% of the population of the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood of New Orleans has been able to return home.

None of the above is news to most anyone with a pulse over the age of five. I am not writing now to describe the effect that Katrina had two years ago. I am writing now because I believe it is a disgrace that Katrina has fallen out of the public consciousness as much as it has. I guess most attacks against our current federal government are focusing on the invasion of Iraq and the various instances of questionable ethics in the Bush administration (and the ensuing mass exodus of the rats from the sinking ship that is the G.W.Bush legacy)...these are, in my opinion, warranted and timely topics...but let's not forget about the role (or should I say, lack of a role) our elected officials have played in the recovery of a great American city.

I was heartened today to come across some two-year anniversary coverage of Katrina, though I worry that much of the country will forget all about it again until the third year anniversary next year (soon before a highly anticipated Presidential election). Both Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate discussed it today on WNYC. As Brian Lehrer said, "it's really a damn shame" that there hasn't been more political fallout due to the exposed ineffectiveness of government in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Oprah Winfrey had a special new show today, a week and a half before the start of her Fall season, called "Katrina Two Years Later: An Oprah Special Report," which included CNN's Anderson Cooper among other guests. Oprah applauded Anderson Cooper for keeping the Katrina story alive on CNN, and I applaud Oprah for bringing the story to network television (especially since I do not have cable myself). Anderson was blunt in his assessment of the government on local, state, and federal levels; as he said, "it takes leadership (to improve the situation of those hit by Katrina), and that is what has been lacking." Anderson also said that "it was left up to individuals to figure out a system on their own."

My sincere appreciation goes out to anyone who has volunteered time and/or resources towards rebuilding New Orleans and surrounding areas. I believe many aspects of recovery would not be possible without individual citizens taking the initiative to pitch in. My anger today is a result of the obvious lack of government planning in cases of national disaster, and the lack of responsibility and initiative demonstrated by our elected leaders.

Facts:
-4500 doctors were displaced in the storm, and only 50% have returned
-25% of New Orleans residents currently get their basic medical care in emergency rooms (six New Orleans hospitals remain closed, including Charity Hospital, designed to serve the uninsured)
-the death rate in New Orleans is nearly 50% higher than before the storm
-people are still living in what were supposed to be temporary FEMA trailers, some of which contain over 20 times higher than acceptable levels of formaldehyde in the building material
-some studies suggest that 2/3 of New Orleans children are struggling with depression and/or chronic fear
-there were 196 psychiatrists in New Orleans before the storm, and now there are 22...not a good statistic in a city where suicidal thoughts have increased in a fair proportion of the population
-violent crime is on the rise: as of today, 27 people have been murdered in New Orleans in this month, August 2007, alone