See last post for an update on the car fire, of which there are a couple of photos here, in my spankin' new gallery.

This morning at 6:30 a.m. I awoke to D saying "Do you smell that?" Never a good way to wake up. I sniffed and said yeah, what is that? I instantly thought that I must have left the toaster oven on or something. Then I noticed orange, flickering light reflected on the ceiling. We zipped the shades up and lo and behold, on the street right out front of my apartment, a big old white Jeep's engine was on fire; not just smoking or something, but on fire, in a big and unquestionable way. And it was parked right behind D's fancy car. We called 911, but they were already on it. D ran into the cops outside and they let him move his car, "if you hurry." He hurried. The cops sprayed the flames with their little tiny extinguishers but the fire just seemed to enjoy the attention and didn't get any smaller. The extinguishers made a big billow of white smoke/steam waft up to my open bedroom window and I was awake enough to close them before the cloud got inside. Then a fire engine showed up, and they hooked up a hose and sprayed the crap out of the car, but it still kept on relighting! Man. Finally they broke out the foam stuff, and that did the trick, though they had to whack the shit out of the front hood with a prybar in order to get it open so that they could really douse it.

By the time it was all over, the front half of the car was completely destroyed, and there was a very large white foamy puddle with small pieces of burnt car sitting in it. The woman who owned the car came out in her robe and be-towel-ed hair and said that earlier she had heard someone trying to steal her car, trying to get it to start. And I guess the car didn't turn over, but it got so hot that the dirty, oily engine caught fire. There are several key details missing in that story, though, and it's fairly unsatisfying.

UPDATE! I checked the local paper the next day and there was a little thing about the fire in the police blotter. They say it was most likely an electrical fire, and no foul play is suspected. So the whole thing about the owner hearing someone try to start her car was bullshit, apparently.

Some randomness:

I made a big mistake at work, and though the mistake was solely a result of my supervisor not informing me of something I should have been paying attention to, I still hate myself for not magically discovering what to do by myself.

A little tip: Have the Quiznobots put your sandwich through the toaster twice, so that it actually becomes toasted.

Bob Loblaw is the best character name ever, and makes me giggle a lot. "Don't talk nonsense to Bob Loblaw!" Hee hee heeee.

There's a level in the new Katamari Damacy game where your katamari is a ball of fire, and if you don't pick anything up for several seconds, your fire goes out. It is hard.

In related news, my sister has been mugging whores for money in her spare time. She says it makes her feel kinda bad, but that the hookers have the most cash on them, so what can you do? (By the way, if you want to watch a movie version of Vice City, go see Transporter 2. I think some of the scenes were just captured video from some guy's Playstation.)

Actually, I'd rather not click to "find out more about Britney's new scent," thanks.

The air conditioning in the temporary office was broken but now is fixed. I am working with the rest of the staff in a large, open conference room (with 14-foot ceilings, give or take a foot) until our permanent office is finished. Even when the loud air blower isn't on, I can feel the frigid air drifting down from the verts and settling on my body like a blanket of snow. This means that I have to wrap myself up like a poor peasant girl with my $5 pashmina I bought on the street in NY (thank you, shady pashmina vendors!!). And even then I almost have to break out my fingerless gloves.

Even though this big room is in a nice old building, the windows have thoughtfully been sealed shut with caulk and paint. So even though the temperature outside is perfect, we aren't allowed to experience any of it.

New topic: As if one needed an excuse to go to the Holyoke Mall, tonight at 7 Lord Russ is singing. At the Mall. Just like a Tiffany, or a Debbie Gibson. Or an off-season carny dressed as Santa. It will be glorious. So you should show up, unless you are below the age of 18, in which case you need to convince your parent to accompany you and make sure you don't frighten the other patrons with your loitering and your loud laughter and your disturbing youthfulness and your confusing clothing.

New topic: It was so lovely out after work yesterday that I extended my bike ride home, gliding right past my house and over to the dyke and then way over to the fairgrounds and the airport. And then I probably should have turned around, but instead I took a right, figuring eventually I'd wind my way back under Rt. 91 and to my neighborhood, which I did, except it took 30 minutes instead of 10. It was wonderful, though, even with my out-of-shapeness and lack of water. I missed doing this all summer long (that whole Manhattan thing - did that really happen? How strange!) and I had forgotten how much I love riding all alone on washboarded dirt roads through farmland, in and out of sudden patches of cold air and the smell of fertile ground and sweetly rotting leaves. The sky was beautiful, all big and colorful and cloud-studded. At times it got a little "Children of the Corn," since all I could hear was rustling corn stalks in the fields surrounding me, plus I had no real idea where I was going. For a long time there it looked like I'd end up at the river unless I made a u-turn, but then I found a more serious-looking road heading back in the direction I wanted. That lead me out of the fields and back up onto the dyke a block from where I started and two blocks from home.

Work is slow today. Can't you tell?

Tofu, one of the restaurants that opened in the Sushi Glut of Early 2005, has closed. They helpfully put signs in all of their windows that say "Sorry, We Closed." I hate to admit that when I first read them, I thought they had accidentally left the "are" off of the sign. Even now, just for fun, I kind of say it the wrong way in my head as I pass. It doesn't give me the same kind of joy as "They taste like real meats, but consist no meats at all!!!" but it'll do for now.

It's Sept. 21 and supposed to get into the 80s again today. It feels wrong to be wearing flip-flops on the day before fall. Speaking of flip-flops, there was a local radio ad on the air a few months ago in which a woman and a man are talking about summer fun or something, and she makes fun of him for saying "flip-flops" (as in, "oh, are you going to wear your "flip-flops"?? all snotty-voiced) and he acts all abashed about it like he knows he's being an idiot for calling them that. What the fuck? THEY ARE CALLED FLIP-FLOPS. Everyone calls them that! I didn't ever hear them referred to as "thongs" until a few years ago, and calling them thongs sounds completely retarded. In fact, I would totally make fun of someone who called flip-flops "thongs." Before hearing that ad, I had no idea that using the term flip-flops meant I was juvenile, or whatever it was that the woman was trying to imply. I can't remember what the ad was for, sadly, but every time I heard it I vowed to never spend a dime in their business (though I am fairly sure the place wasn't one I was in danger of frequenting anyway).

I blame Kelsey for linking to nordstroms, but man oh man do I want these. These are almost right, and cheaper (but not what I'd call cheap).

Man, it is weird to sum up your post-college life in one short-ish email. I guess it would be more difficult if I had lived in a bunch of places and had a bunch of different jobs. My relationship history makes up for that, though. There's no easy summary for that aspect of my life like "I got married in '97 and we have two kids." I didn't include shorter, smaller things like my 5-week cross-country road trip I took in 1999 PB (pre-blogging), although I could have.

(By the way, when is it too early to spring the photo albums on the new guy? One month? Four? Forever? He's bad at being an "active listener," so maybe never. Seriously, throw in an "uh huh" every minute or so, that's all I ask.)

I've got a bad case of the Mondays! Ha! Ha!

No, seriously. My doctor thinks I may need surgery.

Work is kicking my ass. I really shouldn't complain, as I just spent a couple of hours putting together a lion made out of Legos. But still. I am unmotivated to the extreme. When should I finally decide to call it a day, and live the life of a pauper artist? I mean, I roll my eyes at those who refuse to "work for the man" (because it's so much more noble to work for peanuts, and to not have health insurance), but I still wish I wasn't, well, working for the man. Not because of any political or pseudo-wannabe-bohemian stance but because I would be so much happier if I was actually spending 40-hours-plus a week doing things I like to do. I could probably come up with a couple of money-making schemes, and go into business for myself. However, I have an inherent laziness and tendency to not follow projects through to the end (see: Art-o-mat blocks, still unfinished and unsent; see: www.chowflap.com; see: strip quilt project, on hold until it gets colder out; see: Fellowship of the Ring book, abandoned halfway through). I have completed many things, though, so I am trying not to get all defeatist on my ass.

You know what's really fun? Riding a Jet-Ski.

I have to confess something to you, dear reader - before this weekend, I would have said that the kind of people who ride around on noisy Jet-Skis in a pristine natural environment were not my kind of people. But lo and behold, at this late date, I have discovered that I am that kind of people. In fact, I am maybe a little angry that I have lived this long without the Jet-Ski experience. My parents must take most of the blame for this.

I also went to Burlington and shopped fruitlessly for my imaginary dream boots. Yes, these are similar to the imaginary dream boots I have been looking for for several years. I still haven't found them, though I kind of like these and these. I am a freak, I know.

Speaking of freaking, I was gifted with a PS2 a couple of days ago. I feel guilty in advance of the wasted hours, but it's hard to feel too bad about anything when I'm in the middle of rolling up an awesome katamari, or carjacking some jerk's red Ferrari.

It was my birthday yesterday, and by leveraging my brand I was able to be in NY for it while also getting a free hotel room. (Of course I worked two semi-full days there to make it happen, but still.) More evidence that my sister and I are twins: We both love the new Giant Robot store in the East Village, and so I went there a couple of weeks ago to do some birthday shopping for my sister. They are having a really great illustration show, and one of the artists does these small paintings on what appear to be wood laminate samples. There were about 40 or 50 of them all hung in a grid, and gthey were each about $40, so I looked for one I might wanna buy as a gift. A bunch were sold already, though (marked with a red dot), including a few of my favorite ones, like the one with the birds in a leafy tree, and a cat so curled up its head has gotten upside-down. So I didn't buy any, and instead I bought her a cool shirt. Fast forward to my birthday, and of course my sister has bought me one of the tiny paintings, and not only that, but she's bought me the one with the upside-down cat in it. Amazing, no?

No?

Tonight on my drive back from the New Haven train station I was behind a minivan from New Jersey with one of those DVD playing screens mounted inside in such a way that it is highly visable to other drivers on the road. I cannot help myself when I see those things - I have to follow along and try to figure out what movie they're watching, traffic laws and concern for public safety be damned! Luckily for everyone, this one was easy: It was the original Willy Wonka, and it was the scene right after Charlie finds the ticket and the evil Mr. Slugworth waylays him as he's running home, and for a good minute Mr. S's face fills the screen as he tells Charlie to steal him a gobstopper. Awesome.

Yo. So here I am, back in my country home! Weird. It's like NYC was just a craaaazzzy dream. A hot, sweaty, stinky dream.

Only a few things have changed here in N-town: State Street was repaved. Something horrible happened to Good Thyme and it has tipped from borderline gross to really, don't eat here if you can possibly afford it gross. The askew block of sidewalk that tripped many people in front of 10,000 Villages has been gnawed down to a gentle slope by some insane machine. Cafe Casablanca became something I'm not interested in. Um... They just replaced the pinball game (it's always been pinball) inside of Hugo's with the exact same Buck Hunting game that, for some reason, is in 90% of the bars in the city. So of course I played it, and used my previous urban experience to bag me a Triple Buck Bonus. Onlookers pretended to share my excitement.

Things I kind of forgot about this town: The concentration of homeless people here is WAY higher here than in the city. There's no place to get a good lunch to go here, unless you want to pay $8 for sushi, or get Quizno's. I got very depressed today at lunch, walking through town looking for a nice pasta salad or something semi-fresh and semi-healthy, missing the Whole Foods' food bar like crazy. It might be time to actually start bringing my lunch to work! The horror...

p.s. to clarify my post below and the ensuing comments: In reality, symbols do not actually, physically embody what they symbolize. That means I can, say, criticize a WWII memorial, and also believe that it was very sad that there was a war where a lot of people died.

It's my last few days as a NYC resident and I am sick (with a cold, currently in the 'coughing up chunks of lung' phase). Thus the no posting. Tragically, I have been beset by various ailments since I posted last Monday. I still managed to cross one more thing off my must-do-in-NY list, riding the Staten Island Ferry. I kind of can't understand why the Ferry is free, but it is. It was a hazy day so all my photos will suck. But it was still pretty neato. I like all the crazy wheels and chains that raise and lower the gangplanks and the contraption that locks the ferry into place against the dock.

Then all of the subway stations in lower Manhattan were closed for one reason or another, so I got to walk past the WTC site, which is, well, just a big hole. A giant gap. I was almost four years too late. But I don't mind. It's a stupid thing to visit, if you ask me. If you haven't seen the original buildings in person - and I hadn't, except at a distance - then looking at the space where they once were is not going to add any sense of scope to the event, anyway.

Sorry dudes. I'm a little down. I had plans! And my body is failing me. Crap.

I am fucking EXHAUSTED. Man, I wish I could tell you about my weekend, but I don't want to get all live-journally on you. Instead, I will tell you that my 3-hour drive to Brooklyn yesterday afternoon turned into a 6-hour drive. Actually, calling it a "drive" is misleading, because for a good half-hour I was parked on the BQE.

You see, sometimes in the summer, when cold air and warm air love each other very much, they get together and make a thunderstorm. This can bring a lot of rain in a very short period of time. Apparently, it has never rained ever in NYC, because the main highways flooded as though sewer grates hadn't yet been invented. My drive was already very trafficky and slow when I hit the Triboro bridge, but that's where it actually became stop and go - the kind of stop and go where you stop for a full minute and then go forward two or three feet. Normally, since I am now in the iPod era, this wouldn't be a problem. But I was tired and hungry, and my bag of peanut m&ms was almost empty, and I had just an inch of water left in my plastic bottle. I did have a small bag of heart-shaped sweet-tarts that I had gotten on the street as part of a promo for a reality show called "Hooking Up," but that can hardly be considered food. Anyway, I had only eaten some french toast and the aforementioned m&ms all day, had gotten not enough sleep, and was now sitting in a car in the pouring rain, in traffic that was essentially stopped.

Finally, finally, I inched forward into Queens and the BQE, but once I managed to reach an extended underpass - more of a tunnel, almost - the "stop" part of "stop and go" won the battle against "go." As the minutes stretched on with no movement whatsoever, people started leaving their cars - the universal sign of "the laws of traffic have been overthrown by forces we do not understand. Anarchy reigns!" A guy in an Audi to my right got out of the driver's seat and changed his toddler daughter's diaper in the back seat. The Honda to my left had a cute white dog inside, so the teens in the car took it out for a walk, to try to get it to pee. I think the dog had a hard time deciding if we were outside at all, since we were essentially in a huge asphalt and concrete room with two big doors. Essentially. I put my car in park and got out and met the dog, who licked my face, and talked to some other people, who said they thought the road was closed because of flooding. My away team, reachable via cell phone, confirmed that for me. There was a bus behind me, and several people got off with their bags and started trekking forward. Godspeed, you fearless adventurers.

Eventually I saw, off in the distance, the glowing red taillights that meant that people were restarting their cars. Hooray! I hopped in and slowly rolled forward, leaving the protective underpass and hitting the heavy rain again, and slowly slowly merging and passing through the single lane that had been cleared as a two-lane lake was getting pumped away by a road crew. Then I was in the clear! for about ten seconds, and then the traffic stopped again. This time, however, I was close enough to an exit to take it, and I made it off the BQE and got back on just after the flooded section.

So I got to my sister's by 9:30 or so, and they were all "hey, welcome, we got stuff to make mojitos! Whee!" and even though I was half-dead from lack of nourishment I cannot resist a refreshing mojito, and my bro-in-law had made guacamole, and we ordered thai food, and by the time I should really have left to go to my apartment in Manhattan it was raining. I gave in to what the universe was telling me and I splurged on a $19 car service.

And last night my cat kept waking me up. This is why I am so tired today. So be nice to me, please.

Look at me, belting out some crazy shape-note tune! Look at how hard I bring the ROCK.
(Second row, middle one.)

My hair is completely out of my control. I've always kind of felt this way, but after cutting it myself a few days ago, I am realizing just how little power I wield over it. It's getting to the point where I have to put it in a ponytail or a bun nearly all of the time unless I want to look like an 80s-style headgear-wearing nerd. The hair trimming just made my triangle-head problem get even worse. I had to do it, though, because the hair was getting so long that I was getting ringlets - though I also get ringlets when my hair is short. I'd like to blame the humidity, but I'm not outside in un-conditioned air all that often.

You straight-haired people don't know what you're missing. Sigh.

No good Eye on Manhattans lately, though I did watch a guy feed a potato chip to a squirrel in Madison Square Park. It came right up and took it from his hand. Neat. I wonder if it's the same squirrel that tried to kill me with an acorn bullet a couple of months ago?

Currently listening to: Sufjan Stevens, Come On Feel the Illinoise

Current mood: Hanging in there, baby

Currently reading: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Currently wishing: That my office had a window, and that it was fucking 6 o'clock already

Currently playing (when I'm at my sister's house): The Simpsons: Road Rage

The Found Film fest was awesome. There were some amazing things in it, including some horrible things that now, having seen, I cannot un-see. Most of it was simply hilarious.

I see things every day that could be put here under the stolen title of Eye on NYC. And I should. So now I will try to do so. Here are some things from the past weekend:

There's a homeless twentysomething white lady (with one of those cardboard signs that explain that she's going through a rough patch) who sits on the sidewalk on Park Ave between 16 and 17th Streets. Yesterday she was in front of the bodega on that block, and when I walked past her towards the subway, she was sitting cross-legged as usual, but she was leaning to the right so far that her head was almost touching the sidewalk, and she was fast asleep. It was pretty impressive, if only because that's a difficult position to get into even when one is fully awake. Three hours later I walked past her again on my way home. She was still cross-legged, still asleep, but now her head was touching the ground directly in front of her - a tricky yoga move. This time, I noticed she had set out some nail polish and a bottle of polish remover next to her. I guess she was huffing or something, but I'd rather imagine she was waiting for her nails to dry when she nodded off.

Last night when I was alone on the Seventh Ave. (Bklyn) subway platform, a mouse kept checking me out. He would run out a few inches from underneath the metal trash can (which was rusted out), pause and stare at me, and then run back. It was actually pretty cute, though he was extra skinny and dirty. I often see rats running on the actual tracks, but mice are rare.

I also finally saw my next-door neighbor. We didn't "meet," but we shared the elevator. Though only the two of us were in it, she faced away from me, possibly to prop up a large Duane Reade bag against the wall. I hear her sometimes, talking loudly on the phone, or watching TV. She can probably hear me singing along to my music and talking to myself. Once I heard her having a phone fight with a boyfriend that was clearly on his way to becoming an ex-boyfriend. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, I swear! When I was walking to my door, it sounded as clear as if she was standing in the hallway with me.

My sister got a good Overheard inside the H&M Saturday but she's worried it's not good enough. But it totally is.

Thank you all (cough, cough) for voting. Here's what I hope to be doing tonight, though I've seen it touted all over the web today, and it might be sold out:

http://www.rooftopfilms.com/show_080505.html

NYC it is! The country will have to be patient.

I have a bit of a weekend dilemma. Should I:

Stay here? The heat wave breaks tonight. There's a showing of found film and home movies somewhere in Williamsburg tonight. And tomorrow my parents are taking care of Lula for my sister, so there could be some family fun sans-infant. And it is my third-to-last weekend here as a resident, so maybe I should take advantage.

Go to my country home? I was just there, but for a rushed one-nighter. And it is so hot here in the city. So very, very hot. When one is in the sun, one can feel one's flesh actually cooking and turning into meat. Even when the heat wave "breaks" it's still going to be in the mid-80s, and of course down in the subway stations it'll be in the 100s until, oh, November. And in the country I can go swimming and look at stars and pick my teeth with bits of straw go "hee-yuk!" a lot.

Go on a last-minute, unplanned drive up to Maine? This one is fairly impossible, because the friend who came up with the idea is car-less, and my car is currently in CT with my sister and fam until tomorrow. But the idea is fairly tempting. Maine! Rugged ocean coast! Cheap lobster! Maine! Who cares how we get there!

Things I learned today, already:

They're coming out with a new Furby, which is much more technologically advanced (i.e. creepy) than the last Furby.

The word "shitload" is in the dictionary.

Although Gary is a snail, he acts and sounds like a cat.

I eat a container of Stonyfield Farms yogurt every work day. At this rate, by the end of the month I will have enough lids to send in to get a free plush squirrel monkey.

See, kids? Even after you grow up, you never stop learning.

I am here! I was at the lake for a week. I went swimming a bunch, and also kayaked, hiked up to a place called "Inspiration Point" (beautiful view, but no Fonzie), did some archery (arched?), made an enamel (copper and glass) pendant, rocked in rocking chairs on the porch, laid in the grass, looked at millions of stars, ate five ice cream cones, finished reading a book and most of a second, and completed both Monday and Tuesday's NYT crosswords by myself. I did Weds's with a friend but we had her smarty-pants boyfriend get the last three answers we could not get.

And here I am back in the city, where bums shit on the sidewalk and air conditioning units piss on your head. Not that I hate it here. It is still exciting. I guess I just wish I was back at Inspiration Point.

Have I mentioned lately how adorable my niece is? She was also at the lake. She's very, very cute. She now will count to ten: One, too, fee, foe, fie, sis, sehmen, aie, nie, ten. And she will ask for a hug (99% of the time, she's asking her mom) by holding out her arms and saying "hut? hut?" because she can't yet do a "g" sound. Man, she slays me.