holiday greetings.

since we can't offer you guys candy corn, a little homemade cyber-greeting will have to suffice! happy halloween - only eat the wrapped candies, and if trick-or-treating on staten island, please don't dress as a ninja.

note: while it looks like this scene was painstakingly set up for this meager little greeting card, don't worry - it wasn't. only the vegetables were added in for holiday spirit. the bears, their weapons, the skeletal remains and the scary tree all reside on our 'toy shelf' in our living room year round. although during the christmas season we do throw holiday baubles on the shelf to make it a tad less macabre.

back in the new york groove.

i have always been jealous of those people who don't eat when they're depressed. dieting? no, i just lost my cat. working out? me? never! but my fiancée did just leave me at the altar. these people amaze me. there is a definite difference between those who handle a tragedy with tight lipped poise and the rest of the world. i am, predictably, of the wallowing in self-pity with a bottle of kettle and a fistful of dark chocolate variety. ..and bread! and goat cheese! and put some butter on all of that and fry it, per favore.

this is neither here nor there, nor has high seas adventures been traded for self-help empowering women speeches of the oprahnian variety (never, we promise). this is just my little explanation of where i have been.

irregardless of the rumours posted here, missy has not been kidnapped by pirates, rendered computer illiterate by an unfortunate pedicab accident or tied to a chair by bear for the past year (but he HAS been hoarding a worrying amount of rope and twine). i have however noticed a pattern within myself. similar to my tendency to eat when sad, i also tend to create more. not to say that all posts on this blog have been a result of misery and sorrow, that is not the case at all. however in the past year i've settled into a pattern of work, a 9to5 routine which prior to 2007 was just the stuff nightmares and sissy's doldrum dinner stories were made of. but yes, here i am, a member of the corporate ranks --and it's not all glitter and hats like the village people made it seem.

in addition to my real life portrayal of the office (the british version, i'm sorry steve carell, you are a man of ben stiller-worthy repulsion) i have also had my first foray into the grown up world of monogamy. contrary to popular belief, i have not always considered monogamy to be a dirty word. rather, for a while, i just denied its existence. monogamy? isn't that a wood commonly used in furniture of the reddish-tinted variety?

but now here i am, a year into normalcy and it seems i've already obtained my membership to the stepford social club. not that i don't love and respect what i'm doing. and not that my life of anger and vodka and comedy was bad either. but why can't i have the puppies and the rainbows with a dirty martini straight up and some flippant remarks at the girl in the pink uggs (ed. note - really, still??) i'd like the house with the white picket fence, within which i can roll around in paint and hurl insults of Gangy-proportion at neighbors and blogosphere celebutantes alike.

i'm not really sure when i lost my edge, or if i just happened to fall over one, but i'm committed to righting that wrong. after all, no one likes a pants not paint.

xom

looking back...

i know this seems like it's just the lazy girl's method of posting, akin to me just plopping a video on a site to entertain your guys instead of using my brain to actually create new content, but i'm really just doing this to honor an amazing coincidence: in randomly clicking on my october 2006 link just before, the first item i spied was the post from October 29th, and, whoa, today is october 29th. so i just had to re-post what was happening last year at this time...


Sunday, October 29, 2006

you know.

you know you've become a nuisance to your coworkers when...

- your receptionist hands you a book on illnesses. tells you to "keep it for as long as you need it". slipped inside the book is a photocopied page of the index, with "cough - pgs. 25, 26,27,28" circled and starred.

you know you're a poor keeper of your own well-being when...

- trying to pay for items in CVS, the cashier cannot ring up the eye liner because there is no bar code. he asks you to get a new one. upon bringing him the new liner, which has a wrapper/bar code on it, the cashier scans the code while commenting "you know, you probably shouldn't buy makeup that isn't sealed. that's not really safe."

you know you've had a rough night when...

- you somehow convince yourself and the random boy buying you drinks that the bar is closing too early for new york city standards as its only 2am, when in all actuality its almost 4am and you were given an extra hour at the bar as daylight savings time ended sometime during your booze-a-thon.

and

- you also convince yourself during the cab ride home that the driver is incompetent and taking you and your friends in the wrong direction home. upon politely yet insistently shouting through the partition "excuse me sir, where are we going? we're supposed to be going downtown, and you're going uptown.", the driver points out that the street numbers are in fact going down, and inquires if you are ok.

but, you know deep down you're a good person which compensates for the rest of your nonsense when...

- you stop your car (and following traffic) in the middle of the street for a good minute or so, to allow a man to chase around the yarmulke that the wind has blown off his head.


and my, how times have changed! a new font, daylight savings time has yet to end, i stopped wearing eye liner, i don't let strange boys buy me alcohol, i pass out in cabs instead of trying to correct/confuse the driver, and i only cough in the evenings.

such progress. i can only imagine the amazing feats i will have accomplished by october 29, 2008.

why was the russian serial killer spending his trial in a glass cage, and other thursday questions...

seriously, why? that was the one part of the news story i couldn't get over. "In a glass cage to one side of the courtroom..." - like hannibal lecter? was this because he killed more than 40 people, or just generally how the russian court system works?

why do people point with their umbrellas? i almost lost an earring this morning - and i don't wear large earrings - as i passed by a man who decided to point the way downtown with his humongous golf umbrella. wasn't his finger enough?

how long do we think valentine candy can last? i came upon a laffy taffy from february in my desk drawer earlier, and am wondering if its still edible. as i'm in desperate need of sugar to lift me out of an afternoon slump, i'm thinking i will winding up consuming the candy before getting an answer.

and for goodness sakes, is this really necessary?!

dogs everywhere should revolt.

brief thoughts.

a tuesday is so, so much lovelier when you don't spend it in your office.

and my parents think i never listen to them...

if there is one thing i can count on just about every night of the week, its a phone call from my dad. generally he'll just call to say hello to his "dudes" - why a few years ago he started calling me "big dude" and missy "little dude" we will never understand - ask us what we're up to, how we're feeling, and make some small talk until one of us gets bored and rushes him off the phone or passes him off to the other one.

one of his favorite small talk topics is the news - typically a local SI story (he's a great source for ninja burglar updates) or a tale of something tragic that happened to a young woman, that way he can throw in a lesson or two about why i shouldn't get into cabs drunk or take the train alone past 9pm. i tend to tune him out during these preachy stories.

but the other night when he launched into the "did you see in the daily news..." portion of the phone conversation, he brought to my attention such a fascinating story that not only did i listen the entire time but i even found the article so i could read all about it myself.

and so we can all thank my dear old dad for this week's history lesson.

the durable mike malloy

making important discoveries for the tobacco industry.

if you eat a peanut butter cookie shortly after having a Halls cough drop ('ice blue' mint, i believe) it tastes like you've just smoked a cigarette.

which is both fascinating and a bit of a letdown, since generally i have a drink in hand when experiencing such a taste.

friday roundup: bitterness, literature, and pickup artists.

having just been condescended to in an email that went to our entire company by a dick (excuse me. but sometimes there are just no other words for a person.) manager who consistently condescends to everyone for absolutely no reason - he also spells 'cool' with a 'k', which should tell you something - i've decided i am exempt from doing work for the remainder of the day.

so here i am again. with so much to catch up on i figured it would be a good time for another installment of the good, the bad, and the ugly to sum it all up.


the good...

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - i know, everyone is heaping praise on this book - for goodness sakes, i even saw it in gourmet magazine - but i'm not just jumping on the bandwagon. i started reading it this week and it is damn good.

fall is finally here! - at least for today it is. how i've missed my jackets.

The Darjeeling Limited - i wasn't sure what to expect since although i really have enjoyed wes anderson's movies in the past, the most recent ones have gotten a bit too precious. but darjeeling had a lot more soul than i expected it to.

Showtime - currently responsible for about 85% of all the television we're watching.

the bad...

my computer
missy's computer
my foot
the internet situation in our apartment
the disk drive on my work computer
missy's brand new boots
the recording capability of our cable box

you know how sometimes everything breaks all at once? yup, we're in that cycle...

the ugly...

The Game:Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - it wasn't so much that the book was ugly (although it was, bound in imitation leather to resemble a bible, making it impossible for me to covertly read it in public!) or that the content was ugly, but i just felt so incredibly sad after finishing it. not like i read the book with the goal of becoming a "master pickup artist", or that i thought i'd be able to relate to it, but i also never expected it to reveal to me such a dishearteningly scary/pathetic side to the male psyche. not all of you are like the guys featured in this book, i know, but enough of you to keep the book in the top 100 on amazon more than two years after it came out.

eek.

a puppet-filled, tofu-less bicentennial celebration...

its pouring out, i'm limping*, and i'm starving** so i decided to not post the snarky cranky post i've been working on for the past week (week!) and write about something a little more uplifting.

(plus, i just realized i had let my 200th entry slip by, and therefore needed a most upbeat topic to commemorate such a momentous occasion. its our bicentennial! and at the rate i'm currently posting, i won't hit our next one until about 2012.)

so, i saw this recently - yes, die hard. as a musical. done with puppets! - and i highly suggest that everyone run out and see it whenever (if ever) it makes it to a theater near you. it was awesome, and i've never even seen die hard*** so i probably even missed out on some of the jokes/plot line.

but you'll love it - i promise.

*somewhere between the gym and a trip to staples last night, i managed to severely injure my foot. well, maybe not severely. but i couldn't walk on it last night and couldn't wear proper shoes today as it was still swollen. i have a sneaking suspicion that an overzealous treadmill workout is the cause, although i truly hate to think that my first day in a while of an actual intense work out put me in such a sad predicament.

**i couldn't eat most of my lunch as my healthy little organic corn + black bean mexican bowl also housed a hidden mass of tofu. (i hate, HATE, tofu!!! it reminds me of some non-food item from my childhood - i'm thinking it was the mattress for one of our barbie beds.)

***yea, yea, i know. but it came out in '88 and i was still totally in muppet family christmas mode back then since our mother had a more intense ratings system than the MPAA. but i did eventually see the third one, at least.

apologies, apologies.

i know. i post "breaking news" and then i don't bother to post the update until a week later. let's pretend i'm just a master of suspense.

so lets backtrack to last thursday.

around 3:30pm - note that the dead mouse situation was reported more than 3 hours earlier. why was this not a priority?? - two maintenance workers mosey into my office with a flashlight. after a few minutes of poking around in the corner, they decide they need to move my desk (this fact comes in to play a little later) to get a better look at the corner near the radiator. desk is shoved aside, a loud noise is heard, and a few moments later one of men ask me for a plastic bag. i hand him the bag, he stands there looking at me, and this conversation ensues:

maintenance guy: do you like mice?
chrissy: huh?
m.g.: do you like mice?
chrissy: umm, no. not really.
m.g.: ok.
chrissy: why? is there a live mouse?!
m.g.: no, its dead on a trap. so i wouldn't want you to see a dead mouse if you liked mice. but you don't...(bends to pick up mouse)
chrissy: i'm just going to go wait in the hall.

they bagged the mouse and bade me farewell. after securing a scented candle - a fire hazard in an office, i know, but after spending a morning smelling rodent rot i almost wanted to cause a fire - i discovered my computer had shut down.

not only did it shut down, but the jostling from the shifting of my desk knocked it so completely out of whack that soon after maintenance left with my mouse, the IT guy left with my computer.

i am happy to report that by now everything is finally back to normal.