May 30, 2006

The Failure of Shameless Materialism

Dear Craigslist-- You're supposed to be the go-to in the clutch, the site that everyone told me that I should go to when trying to sell my couch. I believed in your prowess, enjoyed reading the Rants n' Raves section, and generally have heard great things about experiences. And I'll admit it--it was partly my fault--I tried to sell a couch on the Friday night before a long weekend, when lots of people aren't in front of their computers and those that are are probably never going to leave and therefore won't be looking at or carrying any couches any time soon. That said, Memorial Day is supposed to be this huge commercial holiday (though of course, it's got that somber tinge to it as well, and such memories should be kept and preserved), when people go out and think about entertaining their friends and family with flamethrower grilling and lawn darts and sprinklers and hot dogs and beer in the sun and...well, you get the idea. The point is, this is when people are often moving into and out of apartments, thinking about new furniture for entertaining, seeing what they can get and what they need. And here, I got a single offer from a person who offered me $100 for it and pick up a day after my must-move-by date and an expression of interest from someone who hasn't replied to my email and both of whose phones have been turned off. If you're telling me that capitalism isn't at least just a bit sick, I'm telling you to think again. Love, Shoe

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May 25, 2006

Be Careful What You Wish For

Okay, so you know those health quizzes where they talk about stress factors and events contributing to heart attacks? You know: "If you started a new job, add one point. If you had a death in the family, add 3, and 2 more if it was a close relative like a parent, spouse, or child." Right. That kind. Maybe I'm only making one up (because I couldn't find it doing a half-assed Google search for something like that; perhaps typing in "heart attack stressful events death job" isn't enough), but I'm pretty sure that I've seen these, and all I know is that they suggest you limit the number of such events to as few as possible over as long a period of time. Yes, yes, you're not supposed to love, move away from home, work, get married, etc. Then you'll live forever. However, despite no longer being a teenager--and frankly, never having been one of the ones who thought he was invincible or whatever--I do fully recognize my own mortality, and rather than take another vitamin or schedule a prostate exam, I have apparently wholeheartedly embraced the Stressful Events Vortex as though it were a Sunday morning toilet bowl and I was a frat-boy who found a free case of Boone's Farm late on Saturday afternoon. I got myself married to S, who is now S Blue Shoe. Two days before the wedding I was offered a new job, doing music law work for a firm I have always wanted to work for, and then upon returning, the Missus and I packed all of our stuff (okay, our friends Torrie and K, along with some movers packed it all up), and we moved, and then I accepted the job at the end of the last week. If you add that up, that's 3 Major Life-Changing, Personal World-Shattering, Heart Attack-Inducing Events in the space of three weeks. I'll see you when I get out of the ICU next month some time.

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March 27, 2006

Made it

I'm alive. I will admit only to ending the night on an upnote, in that I wrestled a Navy SEAL and was beating him for at least part of the match.

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March 10, 2006

I Get Sprung

New Yorkers, tell me true: Have you heard the dulcet tones of birds twittering lately? You know, like spring might be here? My heart grew two sizes as a direct result of my first observed bird-caroling earlier this week. Absolutely music.

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March 5, 2006

Ah...Civilization

This evening, I apparently edged out a man who had been waiting for a taxi on a wintry street for a half hour. I didn't see him, and I saw the cab, ran around a corner and up a street to get it, only hearing voices behind me once S was getting into the cab. I must admit, however, I was much less inclined to ease off and ask S to get out of the cab once he'd elbowed me, called me an asshole and hit me with the open car door.

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March 2, 2006

This Message Brought to You...

...by AWW, the Awfully Worried Weatherpeople: Holy shit!!!! SNOW!!!!! SNOW EVERYWHERE!!!! It will drown you alive, hide your babies for a week, eat your car and make you wish you were born a polar bear! It will cover every living thing and everything that every living thing has ever created! It will be white and thick and it will be unlike anything you've ever seen before! It will be AWFUL. It will prevent you from being able to work, to play, to eat, to drink, to sleep, to wake, to do anything except bemoan the awful, awful whiteness that has befallen the Earth in this time of God's forsaking us! Run for your lives! It's SNOW!!!!

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January 9, 2006

Temporary Remedy

Yesterday's minor tragedy was the cab driver outside of H&H Midtown Bagels East, who had managed to lock his keys inside of his running taxi. Heaven and Hell, right there, for all to see.

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December 22, 2005

We Wish You A Merry Crash-mas

In the middle of all this strikery, I noticed yesterday what I had been waiting for for so long--the whiff of Christmas spirit on the air. The thing about New York--and this holds true even for the people who hate the city on principle--there are a couple of times of year that are simply magic in this city. One is the springtime, because when the flowers come up on Park Avenue, and everyone starts going back to Central Park for the first time, there's nothing like it. Springtime's rebirth is emphasized by all the concrete and glass, and somehow the city feels calm, as though it were taking a deep breath again. This is actually one of the main reasons S and I are getting married in late spring here. While there are others, to me, the most magical time is late evening during the second and third weeks of December, especially if a bit of snow comes down. Somehow you feel transported back to the 1950s, with people holding hands, scurrying along to some new shindig, dreaming of mere (i.e. not entirely crass) material gifts, and the city feels enveloped in an uber-familial glow. To me, the scent of Christmas trees being sold on the corners just encapsulates all of this. And last night, as I saw neighbors helping neighbors with rides to wherever-it-was, I was struck by that piney whiff. It made me happy. Ironically, the other reason why I'm remembering it is because I'm not being distracted by my computer at home, which croaked out a miserable hard-drive failure for the holidays. I'm thrust back to actual experiences, while simultaneously researching new computers, trying to figure out just what I want. It's sort of like Christmas, except I'm being Scrooge to myself, trying not to spend good money without reason.

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December 21, 2005

Cold As Ice

When I was a but a little shoe, I had a friend who rode horses. For some reason, a lesson he told me stuck with me. To this day, I don't know if it's accurate or not, but I remember it from time to time. He told me that when you're riding a horse at a gallop, you can't just make it stop; you have to slow it to a walk and then bring the horse-rider combination to rest. If you don't--he said--you end up making the horse's stomach tie up all in knots and kill it. When I first heard the story, I wondered if that was something that could happen to humans. I doubted it, but I wondered anyway. And we all know the benefits of cooling down. But this is what is frustrating me, personally, about the transit strike. I won't get into the politics of it, because I make a very healthy wage, and I recognize that sometimes drastic measures are needed to call attention to issues. I also won't get into the fact that I would really have preferred that the workers went on strike in the springtime, where I didn't freeze myself on the 25 block walk to work. I also recognize I've got it pretty good on that front. This week, I've been coming to work with nothing to do and leaving without having done anything. It may be letting the cat out of the bag a bit to say that the majority of my clients are investment managers running hedge funds, and that many of them were required to file their registrations with the SEC last week. This means that the majority of my work suddenly was completed, and my superior from whom I get all of that work has gone on a (well-deserved) little vacation. At the same time, I've had a project with a very senior member of my firm who doesn't seem to be very concerned with making forward progress. In reality, I know it's that he's worried about the forward progress of far more lucrative and time-sensitive clients, but the fact is that my emails don't get returned and my voicemail take at least 3 days to provoke a response. Which is why it's a true delight to call him and check in (what a bizarre situation that one of the most-junior people in the firm is calling one of the most senior to ask him to pay some attention) only to find out that he has gone on vacation for the week without telling me. Result: no work on that project for Shoe. Which brings me back to being the horse--I was busy, I was very busy, and then suddenly, I have literally nothing to do. I spent 18 minutes yesterday doing client-related work. Yet I had to walk to work, and I had to walk home. And when you are forced to dress up nice-like, trek in eye-watering cold to a job at which you need to be, but have nothing to do after having raced all year…well, that's just a recipe for getting your insides all twisted up.

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August 10, 2005

Knives Out

One of the hazards of my profession is that you rarely get a normal meal. One is constantly eating in or eating out. Food is almost always eaten at a desk or a conference table. But somehow today, I discovered that I have about a gross of utensils, and only one fork. I have enough knives to arm a third of China, but nothing to put the food into my mouth. Tragedy.

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August 8, 2005

You Can Hear Me, But Why Won't You LISTEN?

Dear Verizon-- I'm sick and tired of these little love notes you keep sending me. You know, the passive-aggressive little notes that you send once every two months or so when you haven't written to nag me lightly? I mean, I know our relationship seems like I take and take and take, but don't you know that I bear most of the financial burden in this...us? Why can't you just acknowledge that although you've got the finances, I'm the breadwinner here? And if it weren't for the fact that your wireless was so good, I don't know if I could keep overlooking your lackluster commitment to our DSL time. It's up, it's down, it's slow, it's fast...it's as though I'm dating a manic-depressive schizophrenic. But honestly...don't tell me that I have to pay my bill or you're going to disconnect me when you never told me I owed you money in the first place. Two months go by, and I'm supposed to remember to pay you? When all along, our relationship was based on you billing me? Put simply--Verizon, don't you dare threaten me with a disconnect notice for nonpayment if you don't send me any mail, electronic or otherwise. Just remember, ultimatums don't work.

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July 10, 2005

Must You Be My Neighbor?

Bang! I'm out of bed in a flash, with a look at the clock bedside. It is five of six. It's already light out, though--the curse and blessing of summer. My old officemate could never understand my love of and fascination for the summer months and daylight savings. "You don't get to enjoy it in the office," he always insisted. But it helps that the bump in the night has a little sunlight about to kill it, and I respond in my toughest Mister Robinson's Neighborhood voice: "Who is it?" "Let me in." Look, I'm a man, and not a particularly ominous one, but you can bet that even with a doorman on duty at my place, I'm sure as hell not going to open that door without the trusty door chain on it. So...just slip that sucker on, and open the door to-- A half-naked man with keys in his hand, his belt swinging free and just about enough sagging pants and boxers to flag that his belt really was holding up his pants. Fortunately they haven't made it to his ankles. "Can I help you?" He stares blankly. "Can I help you?" "Puh-leesh" It takes several repetitions for me to realize he's saying "Police." As far as I can tell, this is the only English the guy knows. He says it enough times and no other words, so it seems a natural response. I close the door, pressing the house phone for a moment and scrambling for my computer to call the doorman downstairs, because he doesn't seem to be in any actual physical distress and I still don't know who he is. As I look it up, the phone rings again, and I explain to the doorman that there's someone banging on my door, who I don't know and he's asking for the police. From the other side of the door, suddenly I hear: "Hey buddy, you don't need to do that..." I open the door again, and we have an extremely repetitive conversation wherein it is firmly established that he is unable to tell me his name, what apartment he's supposed to be in besides mine, and Bobby. Yeah, so it appears he's staying with Bobby, and I explain that there is no one here named Bobby, that Bobby doesn't own this apartment, and maybe he should be on a different floor. Several times, when asked who he is, I get the response, "C'mon man, it's me." No...I'm me. You're you. But that still doesn't help me figure out who the hell you are. Apparently, he seriously thinks I'm a buddy of his who's locked him out and is just messing with him. Finally, he begins insisting that I should let him "or else there's going to be a scen-ah-rio." Not wishing to correct his pronunciation, I explain that there is already a scen-ah-rio, and that someone's coming to help him. Finally, I close the door in his face as soon as he gets his fingers out of the doorjamb. I return to bed and just close my eyes as I hear the doorman remonstrating with him. And then the doorbell rings. I open the door--still chained--and find the doorman, who asks: "Is this your guest?" Nope, I've never seen him before 5 minutes ago. "So you don't know him?" Uh, no. As I close the door, I hear, "See? You don't live here, guy?" Several hours later, I'm walking into the lobby when the guy at the front desk starts laughing and says he has something for me.

Dear NBS: I justed wanted to apologize for last night. All I can say is that it was just "one of those nights" and that it wont happen again. Thanks for your patience. Sincerely, XXXXXX 11C

He lives downstairs from me! Who makes that just one of those nights??

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January 7, 2005

6 o'clock in the Morning, You're the Last To Hear the Warning

These are the days you learn to loathe. Not how to loathe another person, place, thing, or other entity, but how to loathe the day. The dark-rising. The precipitation that is too heavy to ignore, that keeps getting in your eyes, mouth and ears, yet is too light to use an umbrella against, because who wants to look like that idiot holding an umbrella against nothing? The precipitation that is just warm enough to not be cute, comforting, peaceful or cheery, but is cold enough to seep into every pore, every joint in your body, and indeed, it seems, into your brain and very soul, weighing things down so that you feel you need a hair dryer just to make it through the day. There is, of course, the looming work, the lack of sleep, and the general worry about career, life, etc., but for the moment, that just takes a full back seat to the awful press of the alarm against your ears, Death Cab For Cutie playing or no.

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November 18, 2004

Despicableness Is More Than A Word

As much as I love this city o' mine, sometimes it fronts up some of the most vile behavior possible. Sure there are murders, rapes, drug overdoses, assaults, and the like both here and everywhere else, but it's the really subtle stuff, the supremely insidious stuff that you end up being face to face with that makes you shake your head and fear for people. This morning, I got two: 1. The person who let his dog crap in front of the Lighthouse For The Blind. The blind, jackass. And yes, for those of you willing to be a little disgusted, it was plain that someone had stepped in it and then continued walking on.#[service] [service]: I don't know that I'd excuse someone walking a service animal here, either. 2. The two oh-so-macho men in the lockerroom this morning talking about Sean Penn's new movie, and how it was about [whisper] "fags". And how you don't call them that, you call them "tree huggers". You know, if you're whispering, then you probably know that isn't right. A great big middle finger extended to you, palsies.

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November 17, 2004

It's Like This and It's Like That

Sometimes people from other places get me on the phone, with no real concept of what it's like to live in New York, never realizing that the main difference is the size and the variety of people and places, not aware that New York isn't nearly as different from their hometowns as they might think. I'm sure I do the same, when I almost uniformly choose Omaha, Nebraska as my Random Place Name to Say in This Story. However, I feel that by watching Requiem for a Dream, The Godfather, Annie Hall, and the thousands of other New York movies, these people get a very misshapen view of what it's like to live here. And so, for a little bit of verisimillitude, I offer: Real Scenes From The Last Week In New York 1. Just before 8 o'clock at night, at the apex of the time to go out, not a single free cab is to be found on the streets. You can, however, find pockets of New Yorkers huddled against the cold at each corner of every major intersection like bad fishermen, following the crowd to where they think the taxis might be. Of course, everyone also gives each other "the eye", as though they would be responsible for taking away that glorious, golden cab. 2. A taxi driver, especially a private car driver trolling for business on a Saturday night, will spend your entire drive downtown prying out details of your life, lecturing you on marriage, and also taking issue with the phrase "practicing religion": "What is this? A basketball game? Why you gotta practice?" 3. A silent, sullen cab driver getting pulled over by the police just after you have gotten into the cab. He hasn't made a move to start the meter, the journey, or indeed, even acknowledged that he could hear you. 4. A homeless man walking past a dilapidated old beater of a bike, unchained and missing its handlebars, only to return a moment later, taking it as though he had just misplaced it for a moment.

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October 20, 2004

A Sob Story

I could feel it attempting to penetrate the right side of my head as I waited patiently. Much like a barrage of very small splinters thrown by agitated chipmunks, it was only annoying once I finally noticed it, the spite flowing towards me at this early stage of the morning. Already, I had been cut off and circumvented unnecessarily, and when I found myself in this line, again facing the possibility that someone was trying to get in front of me, I did what any New Yorker would do. I silently stood my ground, twisted my shoulder and awaited the confrontation. > In New York, for all of our F-You's and muggings and so on, when it comes to normal interaction, we usually will harrumph and possibly "Excuse me", but rarely does it go beyond that. Okay, maybe that's just the Upper East Side. [For you Midwesterners or Brits, that's the equivalent of southern North Snootyville.] But my experience has been: shoulder turns, other person quietly burns. And not because I set them on fire. For once, though, the confrontation wasn't far off. The stare grew harder, and I looked up, puzzlingly. After all, I'd done no wrong. Not according to this woman. Upon finally meeting her eye, she veritably exploded with disgust. She thought I had cut in front of her. Interesting. Interesting because I was standing directly behind the man who had cut in front of me and whom I'd followed down the stairs at a rapid clip. The man that she now claimed, in a typhoon of indignation and self-righteousness, that she was behind. Right, lady--I forgot--the laws of physics don't apply to tall, thin women wearing dumb-ass hats.#[hat] > A quick digression: as a lawyer, and--to my eyes--a good human being, I am a strong believer in lines. I believe in not creating them if you can help it, but that if there is one, unless there is some very good reason or customary way of doing things differently, you get in it, and you stay in it. So when Man-Whose-Butt-We-Wanted-to-Be-Behind had cut the entire line, I was already fuming about the state of lines, and propriety in society going to hell, and so on. Then this all occurred. The Explosion. The Tantrum. The-- Why don't I just show you? I explain, calmly, without any sense of anger, dismay, or unrectitude, that, no, I'm sorry, I was right behind this gentleman coming down the stairs. "Incredulity" does not give the barest hint of meaning to the look on this woman's face. Utter incomprehension. Total non-understanding. The lady just didn't get it. After some trills of further annoyance on her part, I stand my ground. "No, I'm here." And her response, guaranteed to passive-agressively change your mind: "Well if it's that important to you...." Well, no, madam, it's not that important to me to be first in line--which you were obviously intimating--but I do have a sense of honor, one core principle of which includes not hitting a woman, no matter the reason. Unfortunately, another core principle is that lines are there for a reason. Also, I was a bit late for work. Of course, there is that one last core principle. Actually, two. Number one: sometimes I'm just too much Nice Shoe. Number two: I'm sarcastic.#[sarcasm] So loudly, and with much eye contact with the gentleman behind me, I announce: "No, no, it's not that important to me, you go ahead. In fact [my voice growing louder with and emphasizing "fact"], I'll go behind this gentleman behind you, because of course, I'm wrong!" I might have used stronger language. I'm sure that doesn't bother you; I just don't remember. She bought her MetroCard. She got on the train. The guy in front of me got his. He got on the next train. And me, two trains later. I spent most of the morning wondering why the thought in my head couldn't get itself to my tongue in time: "No, actually, it's not that important to me to be first, but you know what? It must plainly be important to you to lie so baldfacedly about something so transparently unimportant. But you know what? Even though it doesn't matter to me, I'm not getting out of the way, because I believe in honesty and fair play. So screw you; wait your turn." She: "Ay, I am wounded to the quick!" [Dies.]
I: "Thus with all villains. Come fellow commuters! To Office!"
Exeunt [hat]: A word of explanation: not a hat that makes her stupid; just a stupid hat. I'm looking for a picture to show you, but even the Internet doesn't want that, apparently. It's one of those crocheted things that look like they could hold $1000 in pennies and also (!) has a bill on the front to block the light out when your 100,000 pennies have pulled your head back so you're forced to look into the sun. You know what I mean, even if the metaphor's a bit strained. [sarcasm]: My handwriting analysis of a couple of days ago (its use of the word "hisself" notwithstanding) indicated that I might use sarcasm to point out my own weaknesses. True, but that's because everyone is subject to the same standard.

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