Expanding Horizons

So the Lollipop song grew on me. I mean, it really attached itself..like barnacles. Hahah. 

I haven't got time for blogging and I've got some nerve making this pit stop at JH, but I always like to mention when I think a new artist has potential.  When I had the time and leisure about a decade ago, digging through CD bargain bins at record shops in the Village was a hobby of mine. A very musical and equally competetive friend of mine and I were on a mission-to outdo one another.

It was a mad dash by foot, internet and horse drawn carriage to find the world's best unknowns and early rising artists and wave our rockin' finds in the other one's face.It all ended in laughter, dizzying head-banging and a all around good time, but the thrill of the chase still lives in me.  WooHoo!

Since I don't get a lot of time to roam Greenwich aimlessly or sit in front of a computer terminal these days I haven't found very many new artists. My last bragging rights were to a band named "Disturbed" who blew up about a year after I fished their first CD (in a cracked case with yelllow tape on it) out of a bargain bin.
 
Today, everyone at the office is making "siren sounds"; They've been "going off" for days and it's starting to annoy the hell out of me.  Lil' Wayne seems to have this way of burrowing into people's heads with a repetitive rythm and staying there. His CDs will make a great instrument to introduce subliminal messages in a time where things are quickly starting to resemble Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
I've got a feeling about this guy. 

Does anyone else think of a young Busta' Ryhmes?

12:34 PM - September 11, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Natural Beauty

I caught the tail end of a movie called "Adrift in Manhattan" this weekend.

I can imagine my life as a photographer. The idea of so many New Yorkers allowing a stranger to capture them from close up that way seems absurd to me...

But if it weren't...

If people were unafraid to be seen as they really are, it might make for an incredible collage. It' s an unfortunate aspect of human nature to care about what others think..and some of us care to the point at which we are giving up precious experiences. If a camera captures us at an unflattering angle, we can always just delete the image in one click..

Could these deletions be the most beautiful sides of ourselves going to waste?

9:00 AM - August 24, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

UK Humour...

5:24 PM - August 23, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

No YouTube for HTC Boobs

The first (and often default) stop of choice for many new smartphone owners is usually a great video site, like youtube or dailymotion. Sure, we're interested in the thousand other features that avail us, but what better way to show off those awesome handheld super powers than with full motion video?  For many HTC Tilt owners, your first visit to Youtube had to have been a nightmare.

I'm writing this blog to help those of you who are fiddling with this beautiful device right out of the box and feeling absolutely alienated, because you know your wifi link can handle the content you're looking for, but your phone keeps telling you to go scratch. After a while you gave up, thought "this 600 dollar piece of crap is going back", and started to play solitaire.. 

Fear not, all hope is not gone.

This baby can rock FMV with the best laptops out there. You just have to know where to look for a solution. I'm going to hand this one to you on a silver platter, because I'd hate to see another person hunt the web for weeks like I did for one complete fixer- upper.  For me, web research can be compared to "real-life" research in dog years. For every hour I surfed the net only to reach a dead end, I lost the equivalent of SEVEN years of my life in the real world. lol

Since I consider that a great sacrifice, I will at least torture you for the length of one blog while I illustrate the process I went through, before I surrender the info.    

Or, you can just scroll down to the highlighted link towards the bottom of the page. There's something for everyone here.

The first step in your quest for knowledge will leave you at a loss for words-keywords, that is. You're not initially sure where the problem lies unless you're a seasoned hacker (and I was out of the loop a LONG time ago!) You'll probably google phrases like "Tilt Windows Media problems" or "Can't see Youtube on HTC". You'll get lots of advice from bloggers that think you can fix this by adding a codec to your Windows Mobile player.

Does absolutely nothing.

Now your Tilt's memory is depleted and you're going to have to go into your file manager and remove all the crap you just downloaded that's corrupted your Windows player. You downloaded RealPlayer somewhere along the way, too, didn't you? Now it starts on it's own when you try to play the media you could play before and freezes all your functions for ten minutes...? You poor sap. Uninstall and resist the urge to wretch everytime you see the Real icon henceforth..

If you took the same steps I did, you'll then be drawn to Core Player references. Hmmm, that little black, ticker tape icon just feels like it's gonna' work when you click on it...

It doesn't.

Ahh, and let's not forget Flash Lite, Adobe's exciting new innovation that will revolutionize cell phone technology as we know it, by shrinking big daddy Flash into a neat, little mobile version of itself that your cell phone can read. I'm sure you hightailed it to the Adobe website and seen an ad where a download button should be, then scanned your sad, little Tilt screen for a that button. You've been looking for half an hour (time flies when you're in hell) and you're wondering if you missed it or if your phone just can't see it.

Sorry, button just doesn't exist. 

There is  an experimental version of Flash Lite out there, but (as stated on it's download page) this is a commercial-only bundle and will not work with actual applications on the web. Wha..? Don't you read the fine print? It's there for a reason!

Hacking Flash Lite for free won't solve the problem, but you're taking the right path as far as having figured out that the answer has to do with hacking a program.

Your neck's probably in pain at this point and you just might be sick of looking at your Tilt. Let's hope you'll fall in love with it all over again when you see what it can really do.

The following blogger is the only one I found who combines the correct procedure and the right 2 program extensions-because this one's not only about what you download, but where you download the file(s) to and in what order! Follow his instructions to the tee and you'll get to enjoy the fact that YouTube has now launched a version of it's website tailored to mobile watchers at m.youtube.com.  However, you won't even need youtube's mobile site with these codecs and this angel of a blogger has even included a folder full of other compatible websites you can visit. That folder will turn up in your Start menu once download is complete, so you can get straight to the good stuff. Without any further ado, here's the page: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=339269

If your TCPMP doesn't work the first time, you probably didn't follow his instructions in order. Bear down, focus and start all over again. If you're confused about whether the PPC or Smartphone download will serve you best, I'd go with the PPC. You'll have to register at a website to access the main codec, but the other is a piece of cake.

Now my only problem is saving too much writing onto my hard drive. Have they invented an HTC Tilt zip drive yet?!?! 

2:30 PM - August 23, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

And in the news...

"..If you know you're going to be running for office, keep it in your pants!" ~Unknown correspondent on the CW11 News

Yep, there's a quote that should go down in history..

Rest in peace Isaac Hayes and Bernie Mac. (No relation at all to the comment above) Heaven just became a cooler place to be.

4:50 PM - August 14, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Caveman Discount

When you´re somewhat un-well-off in the digital age, it´s easy to get left behind really fast. 

Eventually, I always seem to catch up. For instance, 7 years after everyone was raving about DVD, I was still buying VHS tapes from bargain bins at .99 cents a piece. There wasn´t any title I couldn´t get at a steal because the VCR was becoming defunct.  

Now I´ve got a DVD player...but I´ve also got a thousand cartons of VHS tapes taking up space in my closets while their data slowly disintegrates. =P Ahh well..   In the nineties when you got left behind, you had about five years to catch up before the next great innovation came along. In the year 2008, however, it takes about a month to be considered supremely out of the loop. I´m resisting the urge to poke fun again at iPhone owners who had to wait a year for 3G...  

...Or every iPod owner on the planet whose holding a device the size of a credit card and peering enviously over at the person with one the size of a tic tac. Hahaha..  

I saw a commercial the other day that made me think. If you haven´t seen it, it´s the one that makes fun of our great grandparents who used to sit us on their laps and say things like, "In MY days, we had to walk TEN miles everyday, in the snow, wearing holey sandals made of bamboo to get to school!"

If you were blessed, you had a relative like this in your life. It was the same amazing person who shaped who you were by telling you amazing tall tales about history and myth...the one who used to leave you mystified by pulling quarters out of your ears..the one who used to let you play with his false teeth when no one was looking...Who winked your way knowingly but said nothing when you knocked down great grandma Sarah´s favorite porcelain vase and blamed the dog.  

Except in this commercial, the old farts were ...our age??  EEEK! And they were saying things like, "In MY days we got our TV from a dish! WE had to walk 5 miles to a video store to get OUR DVDS....WE had to actually WAIT to download information..."

"Buffering...buffering...BUFFERING..!!"  

Here´s the depressing part.  I have yet to subscribe to cable or own a dish, and I can´t even afford a Verizon landline.  So if these are my ancestors..then the following would make me...prehistoric in this day and age?!  I can just see me on some evolutionary school chart, hairy and hunched over, somewhere between a monkey and a no fault insurance lawyer.  Hahah  

I'm late with this info, but not too late to be of some aid to a fellow cave person. Most of you know you'll be losing your analog television signal if you haven't got cable by February of 2009. The only way we'll be able to watch those sickening reruns of "Friends", etc on channels 2 thru 13 will be if you have something called a converter box. If you're PO-ed and wondering why YOU should have to pay for a change your government is thrusting upon you, then the coupon at the following link is for you:

https://www.dtv2009.gov/

What you may not know about converter boxes is that there are A LOT of them out there and all of them are NOT created equal. So, take my advice which is the result of over a week of research: Once you have your coupons, look for the Tivax brand unit. It's one of four machines out of dozens that have been rated by consumerreports.org AND private bloggers alike to have any functionality at all.

That's right, over a hundred of these things (including ones made by brand name makers we've always counted on like Zenith) won't give you picture and sound that meet current standards, let alone digital ones. Pick the Tivax because it's the only one that has function AND frill (perks like on-screen menu and a unit design tailored to ease of operation) The other three sacrifice one for the other. I'm about to tell you how to give yourself an 80 dollar discount on top of the one your 2 converter coupons will give you...

Consumer reports will direct you to a website that markets the Tivax for 79.99. With your discount coupons you'll get to deduct 40.00 from each unit, which brings you down to 39.99 plus shipping. If you buy two units, it'll cost you about 100 dollars for 2, shipping included.

Don't go to this website.

Instead, take a trip to another authorized site on your coupon list: consumerelecgroup.com. You'll find the Tivax for $48.95 there. After the gov. discount? $8.95. Two plus shipping? About 34 bucks.

Congratulations. You have just saved yourself 68 smackeroos on the best converter on the market at this time. I was forced to invest in 4 units for 2 caveman households, so I was thankful for the 136 dollar discount.

We cavemen have to look out for each other.

10:36 AM - August 10, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Book Learnin'

Lotsa' times when you're surfing the net things whiz by you so quickly that you can miss something really cool.

I remember a bulletin once that asked of its readers: "If you could pass on any valuable lesson, what would it be"? I've thought a few times about that one and you know what they say about thought-the poor dear shit himelf to death! I've got my fair share of e-sperience to pass on (wakka wakka wakka lol), but the following came from my gut. That was hella more easy than some dramatic tidbit that might attempt to encompass the sum of my immense wisdom.

So here it is, ANY lesson...

Do we have any avid readers out there? Come on, I've seen some of you trying to fake it with a paperback on the train. LoL Take a stroll through your favorite library or bookstore sometime soon. Leaf through some of the books in the fiction section. The rule today is to make sure you read at least a page of anything you put your hands on, enough to get a real taste of the author's writing style. I'll bet you found a few you liked, huh? A couple just had this great hook and now you're intrigued and ready to cash out, swipe that library card..? Put them back and go find the book that had absolutely no apeal to you, the one that least fit you, the story you'd never continue reading. Even better, find one whose first page felt like slow, dull corneal death. For me, that book was "Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter. I demand you not be a copycat and go find your own crappy story!

Now take it home and force yourself to read that book cover to cover, no cheating.

By the time you're done reading, you'll have learned a valuable lesson. The next time you meet a person that gives you the same initial feeling as that book, apply your new wisdom...

--People are a lot like novels; their last page often makes a much better impression than their first. Cazmia Falcon

10:24 AM - August 10, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Summer of '08

Shadow Writing Summer of '08 Doesn´t quite have the same ring as Summer of ´69 does it?  

That´s because they don´t make decades, people, cars or buildings like they used to. That being said, there are some things that never change. Every sizzling New York Summer needs a signature song.  

Yes, it´s another musical blog. Long live rock and roll!  

Fall and Winter in the city that never sleeps are a perpetual party, what with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve in quick succession, but there isn´t much to cling to during a sticky, sultry city night but our music..   I´m addicted to my favorite Summer tune and I´m supremely ashamed of myself.  They say a single chord drove one composer insane. According to my last IQ test, I´m only a regional genius. Had I been a universal one, I might fear the same fate. lol   

As a child, I once saw a woman break a champagne flute with her vibrato. I developed a deep appreciation for opera and classical early on. I was determined to break my own glass someday..  

Mom brought me into my own century by sitting me on her lap beside the 8-track machine. She was a little bit country. (sings 'til I tip over) "You´ve been talking in your sleep..Loving her the way..you used to love me..."  

{Thump!}

Then there was Abba. I could almost feel the tambourine slapping against my hip. To this day, the natural born gypsy in me emerges in the strangest of situations. I am prone to taking my shoes off and gyrating at any given moment.  =P  

Music takes me to another time. It´s the only thing that seems to lend some sense and sequence to all the pictures in my head. For two or three minutes, I can dream and live in just one era at a time..Instead of being the nutty hodgepodge of thoughts and memories that I normally am.   

Oh, how I loved Mom´s Motown collection. Those records were for the rain, to spread out before me, set the needle down and weave a 50´s dream.

Then came the eighties and rock ruled my preteen world. From Pat Benatar, Olivia Newton John and Prince, it´s an easy transition to U2 and Depeche Mode..and they are a hop, skip and a jump away from Industrial.   

Ahhh music.

After all I´ve been exposed to, I can´t believe how THIS damned song floats my boat. Haha

I even tried transference. I tried to pour myself a tall glass of "I´m That Chick", a song that a friend spoke highly of.  Though it had a somewhat early 80's Michael Jackson tempo I could appreciate, it just didn´t do it for me.  

It was no use...

I hear that other ditty from a distance and already my rhythmic chakra , wanting what it wants, starts my body moving. Some primal Codec in ME supremely responds to this song..  

So which is it....?  

Hehe...      

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4pjvs_lil-wayne-lollipop-2008_music

Just don't get caught crooning the words, "CALL MEEE, SO I CAN MAKE IT JUICY FOR YA..." in the shower...

.....by your stunned father who happened to be passing the bathroom on his way to make a ham sandwich...

Shut it.. Grrrr 

10:26 PM - July 10, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

The Semi-Fictional Life of Jack and Diane...

I'm playing with a narrative novel.

 I'd like to treat you to a glimpse into the lives of Jack and Diane. Though all writers have to draw from their own pools of experience, this is a fictional work. Here's to the joy of the written word...

I can't believe it's been a year since Jack came back.

After six long months away, Jack returned as emaciated as he had left. Although he'd managed to quickly snag two jobs, juggle them and gain esteem at both, the loneliness of being alone out in Deliverance territory had gotten to him. In his absense, I'd been treated to an average of ten hateful calls a day from him that had usually ended in my tears. I was suffering here in the city, through my own hardships..but hurtful words wore at my soul more than my life broke down my body..

Jack fell into a deep depression there. When he said his parents whom he had supported in the past would not return his calls because he'd asked them for money to buy a pair of workboots, I'd told him to come home. His stubborn father was just angry and his mother was missing her son..

When he called in a drunken stupor and said he hated me and that a doctor said he couldn't have children I'd said, "Doctors say stuff like that everyday to couples who end up getting pregnant...Come home, Jack..."

When he said he'd made a bad business decision and had lost everything, said he was worth more dead to me than alive..said that I wil never know how much he loved me and hung up on me..I cried and left him a frantic message after trying for hours to get him...

" Time heals all our heartbreaks, Jack..." I was speaking from the heart, using concrete examples from my own life.."We have our whole lives ahead of us. No one can do it alone..Come home, Jack."

I hated myself for what we had become.  How many times had I been curled up and crying with my pillow as he cursed my tears..until I learned how to sob quietly. We were virtually children in the eyes of this vast life when we met, Jack and me.. Life is a series of stages and I'd watched him cycle through quite a few. My changes would take years more. My life would weather me gradually, carve me slowly into who I am today. But Jack was living too quickly...bumping upruptly into glaciers and sinking again and again. If burning your candle at both ends signified a need to slow down, Jack's candle had to have been aflame from end to end, shaft and all..

Without a doubt, As man sheds coat after coat in the journey to becoming who he will ultimately be, it is the woman by his side who will feel those growing pains.

As bad as the bad times were, the good times had been electric. We were extreme people, both of us. Maybe that was the flaw in our bond. This is the same man who had bathed me..cooked me meals..made love to me as we held hands..who laid his head on my breast like a child and asked me to kiss him again in that way I did-like I was in love with him. He had been my baby..and my rock...my best friend..and my worst antagonizer.

Through our vicious fighting and our passionate joinings I had come to believe that some people are just drawn together without explanation; they can share nothing in common. The combination of personality and mentality can blur the line between love and hate, logic and lunacy and yet...separate from one another is an unnatural state for them.

I couldn't believe how uneasy I felt the day he appeared again from a black sedan. I didn't feel like the woman he'd left behind. I had forgotten what it was to be a woman in the way I once was with him. His raven eyes didn't have their wild glow. He had a crew cut that ended with a cowlick which for some reason made me think of Ben Afleck. And thankfully, he looked as uneasy as I felt standing there before me with his hands jutting into the pockets of his jeans..He looked like a Southerner in his plaid shirt, said hello with a slight drawl. One thing that always amazed me about Jack was his incredible ability to assimilate. It irked me as much as it intrigued me.

Seeing him again reminded me of the last time he'd been so skinny... During the affair. My own life had fallen down around me when it hapened. Maybe I'd been looking for an escape from it all. I was cursing my circumstances and either crying or biting his head off all the time. I don't blame myself completely as he'd done as much pushing away as I had. I'd grown tired of the 18 hour work days of a truck driver and of watching the toll it took on him. An on and off pain he'd complained about for years became an almost constant one.

Jack seemed to get more irritable everyday until finally the pain had affected every facet of our lives. There was no joy in anything. He distanced himself from me and I suspect it was because the pain had driven him to lows he didn't want me to observe..I felt so alone that I learned to embrace my solitude and I all but disappeared from his life. He was alone when he found out his pain was Crohn's Disease. Alone when he sat across from a doctor who told him he'd have to have surgery. He'd been by himself through the whole demeaning medical procedure..He wouldn't tell his family because he thought the stress of that news would agitate some health conditions they'd had and he recoiled into himself..

I became wrapped up in what were once just diversions for my loneliness. I realzed there was a me beyond the us that was Jack and Diane, and that I had interests and could actually enjoy them myself.

Not to mention I had been somewhat busy..falling in love with someone else...

After Devon came into my life, the Jack and Diane who rarely spent a day apart had already become once a month Jack and Diane. On my birthday, after I'd been scarce for months, Jack had made his way into the house with an old key he held onto, snuck up behind me and "caught me" talking to Devon on the web. I wondered why he even cared enough to stage the whole intrusion.

Jack always hated the fact that I was an avid web surfer. He hated anything that took time away from him. Most of our fights centered around the time I spent with my parents, or at my computer or anywhere but in his bed. I don't measure love in terms of time, but to Jack every moment I wasn't with him was a degree less that I loved him. He's Piscean, that way. I once read that people born under his sign are more spiritual than their secretive, laid back nature would imply; They need love to be the sky above them and the stable floor beneath their feet. I'm a Gemini. I need to be out in the sunlight feeling the world shift and the wind in my hair. I'm unstable, lighthearted, unserious-the opposite of the secure kind of person a Pisces needs to anchor his heart.

Months after my birthday "surprise" Jack said he wanted to be wth someone else. We drove around for hours the night we met to have "the talk". When we lived together,we often stepped out in the middle of the night for drives like these. It's an "us thing". Except at the end of this trip we cried and held each other...and then he was gone. He had left me.

I stalked him for a good week, calling him constantly in tears. I was in shock. Up to this point, I'd never understood not being the center of his world or the world of anyone in my midst for that matter. I had been taking it all for granted. Strangely enough, Jack answered his phone every single time to berate me and argue for a good hour. I wonder how you can fit calls of that length into your Saturday nights when you're cheating..It started to feel as if he were feeding off my misery.  Perhaps I was the volatile object that fueled the affair in the first place.

So I took myself out of the equation. On the seventh night, I let him go.

I was emotionally spent. I hadn't

told him or anyone that I was losing my home. With packing, work and torment from the landllord who was asking me if it would be alright if he could knock down my walls and build around me, I couldn't even sleep to escape my sorrow. I apologized to Jack for being a nuisance andexplained that I had only needed the last week to prove to myself that I had done my part-I needed to know I had fought for us, laid down my pride and bore my soul so that I could move on without regret. I didn't want to lay up anymore thinking of one more thing I could've said..but didn't.

Then I wished him well. He seemed stunned by the cool, calm revelation. Afterall, I was sending him towards a better life we never seemed to be able to have. I had a shameful home with no plumbing to speak of to scotch tape together, no life to offer anyone, not even myself..and now, I was prideless. I hung up and cried alone at my desk the rest of my shift. I walked the long way to the bus after work. It's a desolate stretch of warehouse district I call my trail of tears. I cried all the way home, then cried myself to sleep in the wee hours of the morning.

When Jack called the next evening, I was entertaining myself during a late shift at work, singing online karaoke. I had pretty much figured we had said all we needed to say during our last phonecall. Not knowing what to do or say, I simply continued to sing. The song was Bryan Adam's "Heaven". Had the phone not rang, the ironical meaning in every word would've made me lose it mid-song..but as I sang it to the person it's words were intended for, I was empowered.

"I made a terrible mistake.."

"I know..." was my only response. I had no idea the dove I freed would return so quickly.

That night, Jack turned up in my hallway at midnight. He showed me the respect of not letting humself in. That night was the first time I'd noticed how much weight Jack had lost.. Never in my life had I seen him looking so fragile as he did tonight. Jack was always as solid as he was lean. He now had the painfully ethereal profile of one of those Ambercrombe and Fitch models. I can't bare to look at that particular catalog. The cuts at the hips, the shallow cheeks..It was starvation, not fashion. I never thought I'd se Jack like that.

He wanted to go for a ride again.

Before I could decline, I was wrapped up in a feeble hug. I wanted to push him away, wanted to hate him, wanted his touch to feel dirty like it should, but I wasn't holding an adulterer..I was holding a human being, one who I once promised myself I'd love for better or worse andthat human being was suffering.

My arms slid around his tiny frame and I was gripped by this awful, instant alarm.  It felt as if he might break in my arms. I asked him if he were alright. He'd just smiled dumbly and said, "I'm fine...now".

He hadn't told me at that point that he needed a second surgey.

So..fast forward to the hick coming out of the black sedan. I wasn't so sympathic that night. I heard the shriveled woman inside me wake up on the wrong side of the cave and thank Jack sarcastically for the six months of torture and inconvenient phone sex he had shared via phone. At this point the logical Diane writing this story was floating outside myself just enjoying the show.

It took seeing him again in person to make me realize I wasn't over the whole tramp incident. 3 months later, Jack was drinking Mylanta straight from the bottle. There didn't seem to be a conversation that didn't have the perfect opening for me to bring her up. I was making him miserable and every meeting ended in a screaming match and hurt feelings. I wanted to be the mature woman who, when the disbelieving girls at my office said I should make him pay, shook her head and said, "I have to REALLY forgive, not just say I will if this is going to work".

I wanted to be that woman, alright.. Instead, I stopped answering Jack's calls.

I was officially freaking out and decided that I needed some time alone to do that. During my phone hiatus I accumulated messages. LOTS of them. In 24 hours, Jack had warped my voicemail. "You think I'm just going to give up on us...I'm going to keep calling and calling..until you talk to me..!!".. I ended up in that black sedan sitting beside him, both of us twiddling our fingers..He hadn't given me my time and naturally SHE came up again.

Then something strange happened...

Quietly...Jack began to cry. Jack isn't a man who does that. In a decade, I'd only seen it happen twice. It was the first real sign of remorse I'd seen. I didn't consider him getting drunk in that other state and angrily describing another woman's naughty parts to me until I cried an apology.

"It was a bad experience..Please. Don't punish me anymore...I love you..." He'd said.

Sometimes it's hard to be a good friend. I was reminded for the first time in years of the me I once was. Time and time again, Jack had told me what separated me from other women was that I was his best friend, someone he could talk to. Jack needed that person again. He needed to hear that we were going to make it through this. Standing at this fork in the road, I could be the angry, bitter crone his mistake was making me become..or I could find it inside myself to be me again-the me I admired.

 So I made a completely insensitve wisecrack that didn't fit into the moment one bit and we laughed. Even I was shocked that I could joke about it..but I guess love gives you strength. I loved myself enough to decide that I wouldn't let another woman define who I am. You want to believe that your lover is half of who your are. That night, I had to loosen my figurative deathgrip on the whole soulmate theory. Romance wasn't the only thing I was about. I was my own woman-creative, ambitious and hungry for all that life had to offer, not just to be "Mrs. Jack". I had learned that during our time apart.

 A dialogue started-not between a man and a woman, but between two friends... Friendship was as much as we simply could handle for a while. Jack always did need a lighthearted Gemini like me in his life.

I'm hiding in my toilet with a swiss cheese sandwich as I type this. I can't seem to eat anything these days without finding Jack on the other end of it. One year and 25 pounds later, we're still fighting over my delegation of time...but I grin at the fact that Jack's pants with the 32 waist are starting to cut off the circulation...

Next Up,

Chapter 2: Devon and Diane

9:46 PM - July 10, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Simply Said

Caught these profound words whilst whizzing by journalhome during my lunch break. This fellow raconteur is stuck in editing mode. Longwindedness can be a pitfall for any good writer who thinks too much. (I just had the urge to raise my hand)

Sometimes the most time-consuming part of writing is weeding through A LOT of words to get to what you really want to say.

I strongly suugest this blogger not eliminate the following:

"..for writing is a lonely profession, and it ought to be. There's only room for ONE ego in a novel".

Mighty bitchin' considering I didn't write it.

So with a poem and a critique I've broken the ice.  I've been afraid to banter causally. My mind's been looking for a way to broach the subject of an event in January that could've changed my life forever. I'm such an orderly perfectionist I felt as if I couldn't write again until my mind was able to concoct an explanation.

Then I realized I didn't owe anybody one.  I meant that lovingly.

I happen to disagree that there's only room for one (ego). I think I'd like to collaborate on a novel someday.

12:09 PM - July 1, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Unwritten

So you feel like you were born

In the wrong place and time

You were meant to be a hero

You were born to tow the line

Queen in a past life,

Is a pauper in the next,

Growing hopeless as the story

Runs beyond all text

Winged as the dawn,

Rooted in the night,

It's a learning experience

Watching life pass you by

12:13 AM - July 1, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Lyrics

Life is a coin in a fountain.

I'm sorry I made you believe.

I only wanted to hold you.

You were the air that I breathed.

Sorry that I disappoint you.

Truly for wastin your time.

Sorry I couldn't deliver.

I was always a fool out of time.

With everything I have inside

And all the love my heart can give..

Ohh baby..I hope you live.

I hope you fly. Have lots of kids.

How I wish it could have been you and I...

I hope that hope opens its doors.

I hope you find 

A thousand reasons not to think of me.

Anymore.

We never had it easy

Did we?

6:19 PM - June 29, 2008 - comments {0} - post comment

Bigger Than a Bread Box

Today I saw my dream house. 

Well, not in person..but in a newspaper. If anyone can take a vision contained within a 2 by 3 inch square and fly with it, it’s me.  I’m pretty happy I picked up AM New York this morning.  My destiny always seems to lie in black and white print.  I met my husband because of a newspaper article and I’d like to believe me and this house also have a destiny together. =P

I get my daily fix from AM’s horoscope and crossword; It happens to be one of the few free pleasures left in New York City; It and my morning cup of joe have recently become one of my few links to sanity in the morning.

For years, I’ve cut out magazine clippings, printed online images and utilized just about every free home design program on the net in my quest to create that “perfect space”.  In my early twenties, I thought it might be smart to look into interior decorating as a career option.

Little did I know that all I really needed was to lay eyes on this. Are my days of design over? From a creative standpoint, I find this place’s utter perfection almost discouraging. I can’t think of a thing I could add , a tile I could turn that would improve upon it.  (Well, I'd nix the cheezey painting lol)

I can see myself running across that cherrywood foyer, perhaps behind a gaggle of knee-biters, on Christmas morning..or even making love right there in the middle of the floor on a snowy night. 

Ahhhh.. I’ve found the place I’d like to disappear to every day of my life! So I have one room of my dream house in front of me.  The rest of the place is still mine to imagine. 

I want to stand behind my mom with my hands over her eyes at the front door of this place, slide a key into her hand and whisper, “This is ours, mom”!

Funny, how the lofty dreams of my youth seem pitifully outdated.  After 5 or so years of hardship, my one solitary dream has become to own my own home. Strangely enough, my heart feels ten times larger now that my dreams have gotten smaller.  Maybe it took the last five years to make me see what's really important in life. 

The office is speckled with green garlands, tinsel and the personalized Christmas stockings I made about two years ago.  We’re looking pretty spiffy for the Holidays.

While we all have our wants, our fantasies our 3 bedroom, 2 bath castles in the sky with a view of the river, my greatest gift is mom, dad, Raj and Eric-the people I care about most.

Their well-being is my Christmas wish. 

Of course, if anybody’s interested in helping me buy this bad boy, it’s on sale for just under a million!  Hahah 

Merry, merry people!

5:45 PM - December 13, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment

Have a Fortune Biscuit Your Way?

Sure, I could’ve just thrown it away..but Monday mornings are slow at the office here and I’ve always liked to play with wrappers.  So I took my time with my Burger King sausage biscuit and savored it's outside as well as it's meaty, flaky inside.  I'm feeling insanely loopy today, a rarity, so I'm hoping each bite was helping to balance out the karmic wackiness I had absorbed from the universe. MmmmmMmmmm Flaky, flaky, flaky. 

And if I hadn't stopped to read my sandwich wrapper I wouldn't have noticed these words staring translucently at me through a circle of grease. What?  A message?  For..moi? 

When was the last time fast food was this deep?  Could we be following the way of the fortune cookie and awakening to a new and deeper philosophy as a society? Moving as a whole toward a unified people that is tired of commercialism, ready to stop worshipping the almighty dollar and ready to feel again?!?!?!

I didn't think so either. 

But thanks for the encouraging words, most honorable breakfast sandwich.

5:14 PM - November 5, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment

Shadow Shortage

Gee, it's been a long time since I've last written.  Crazy how quickly time passes when you're struggling to keep up.  Someone once said,  "Life is what's happening while you're waiting to live..".  I really should've taped the that quote to my forehead. 

Being a daywalker isn't as bad as I thought it would be. 

I don't fit in in this bright, stuffy world, but I learned I was an adaptable little bugger a long time ago.  When the need arises I can be a chameleon, too.  If I stumble clumsily, I'm the only one who knows it.  Fake it 'till ya make it..

I pride myself on making the transition look effortless.  One valuable thing daylight hours have given me are the ability to delve headfirst into progress as it pertains to my personal life.   I was tip-toeing past life, even before I got thrown out of my home twice and into the chaos that is my current state.  Happily, it feels as if the physical punishment is over for now.  I am pet-less, have cut the sum of my belongings in half and, although it looks like I might be laying my head at yet another foreclosure case, I'm clinging to a lease I just signed for dear life.  Eesh! How many times can a gal scrape up 2 months security and 1 month's rent, anyway?? 

So the brunt of my distress appears to be finanacial.  I'm a New Yorker.  We're made of tough stuff.  The Big Guy has always thrown me a raft when I thought I was about to sink.  For the time being I'm doing the dog paddle.  I

The disarray that moving into a place with a hell of a lot less space has caused me is starting to fade slowly into an organized mess. lol  I'm starting to be able to move and find things I'm looking for when I actually need them..Hoorah!  I made a space for my hairbrush!  I was getting tired of running my fingers through my hair on my way out. I had the same amount of time under moonlight, yet I didn't start making this alarming progress until I took my act into the sunight

Hard work is harder without motivation. 

We all have those little notions we cling to that get us through a tough patch in life.  For me, it was the idea of nights by my computer desk visiting my favorite websites.  I like my independence when I surf and I'm censored here. 

My main motivation was the thought of who I was looking forward to...of curling up on my couch (once I can afford one) with a good friend and watching kung flu flicks whilst we munched down on high-carb only delights until dawn.  Sadly, I found out that I might be losing that loved one to distance and that humble, lil' dream of mine may never become a reality.

It hit me like a fist in the bread basket.

I cried shortly, something I'll only admit here.  A voice in my head moaned, "don't go!"  A part of me wondered if he might be waiting for someone to say that..then I realized how much of a selfish narcissist I was for even entertaining that thought...Ultimately, I wish him well...very well.

Although, on my end...

I'm full of regret that we'll never get to meet at the Manhattan Mall and share a Cinnabun by the penny fountain..That we'll never borrow and lose one another's books and movies. That we may never enjoy the leisure of dropping in on one another on the odd winter night when one sneezes over the line and the other decides to drop in unannounced with chicken soup...I do things like that, weird unbelievably loving things.

See, I've always thought you should live the kind of life worthy of publication.    So I'm on a mission to create for my loved ones a patchwork quilt of quirky memories.

I also regret that we'll cease being able to celebrate being comrades of New York blood (Go Yankees!)...I'm just too damned slow a bloomer, I suppose.  His news had me frustrated at my situation even though I'm doing great work at it. I transferred that anger to life in general yesterday and hated everything and everyone for a few.  My family and coworkers know when to stay away from me. 

But change is a part of life..and the adaptive chameleon in me must go on. 

I have to admire my pal's gumption in leaving.  I couldn't imagine being anywhere else but here, at the center of all technology and entertainment, for an extended period of time.  Sure, I'd love to visit Paris or run barefoot down a tropic footpath in Greece, but Manhattan Island would always call me home again. I'm aware of the speed-demon, creature that never knows peace urge within me.  Any New Yorker is part masochist.

Someday soon I'll be back at my old haunt, myspace, and that Firewall-free log-on will symbolize for me how far I've come.  I'll be thinking about how hard I worked just to get back to this place, to get back on my feet again..if I ever really did have my feet on the ground, that is. 

Then, after about ten minutes there, I see myself logging off and wondering why I was so excited to be back...

That's what happens when you're deprived of something you love for too long.  In the process of trying to attain what you thought you wanted...you end up outgrowing it.

And to think, only months before I come out of my shell, I lose the ray of sunlight that I always thought would greet me when I arrived ...That teaches me not to take those I love for granted.

Fate dictates that everything happens for a reason.  Maybe it was just bad timing.  Or maybe I thought something was meant to be that wasn't.  My slogan about destiny being a path that cha' can't stray from keeps coming back to slap me in the face...

I just wonder where I'm headed...

And I wonder who will be waiting for me at the end of the path I'm on...

Would that I could steady the world, so it might cease upon a time that belongs to us.  ~Cazmia

4:53 PM - September 21, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment

Ahhhh Me..

I'm a forgiving sack of tears if ever I saw one.  The coworker who had that emtoional thrombosis a few weeks back after we talked about my schedule seems to want to play nice again. I was impressed by the fact that she came to my desk to conversate as usual, knowing I didn't have a lift tonight.

You can't help but admire the ones that come by without needing anything from you.  That's rarer than it sounds.

Everyone's been asking about our new hire, a gentleman I've gotten very close to in the past few weeks.  I have an official "trainee", a young man who I am personally educating to fill my shoes. 

To date, he's assisted me in doing what I do for 10 nights and he's terrified. lol 

He keeps insisting this is a 2-man shift, and telling me that I'll be by his side a LONG time based upon all that he needs to understand.  I've expressed that I believe the anti-Christ (my loving term for my manager) is trying to replace me, not give me a helper.  It was one of those very touching "soon you'll have to stand on your own, grasshopper" type speeches.  "It was a two-man shift only 4 years ago," I said, grinning calmly, "..but no one else wanted it, so it is now a one WOMAN shift, my good man.."

Then I put my hand on his shoulder.."You'll be fine," I said. "There is no teacher like hands-on repetition to nauseum".  lol

Well, that's whatcha' get for ten years of devoted service on your department's least desirable shift.  You get told your schedule is changing for no apparent reason, whether you can handle it or not. 

Ahhh me. Said I to my visitor.

Before coworker could open her mouth and put her foot in it like she did the last time,  I leaned forward as if I were about to say something momentous.  The promise of juicy info always shuts a person right up in mid-sentence, and I saw a smile cross her face and the eyes light up.

"If you know what you're doing, it hardly matters what shift you're on and I'm about as qualified as they get...I come to work.  Doesn't matter what I do.  That's why I don't sit there and whine when other people's work somehow makes it to my desk.  I consider it a service that makes my time go faster.  Whose work or what work isnn't important.  When I'm on the clock, I've got everyone's back here..and they know it, even that ever-hating manager of mine.  I'm there for her too...she just hasn't figured that out yet."  Then I laughed, much to my coworker's vexed horror. lol

"The anti-Christ is jumpy about her usefulness around here, because there are a lot of things she hasn't chosen to understand..."

Sure, it sounded like I was taking sides, but I never say anything I don't sincerely believe..and I don't believe anything rock solid demonstrative proof hasn't convinced me of. I saunter in like an old housecat, sit my ass at my desk and juggle 3 lines, 2 Nextels, and talk to the sales rep next to me while eating a slice of pizza almost everyday. (Well, sometimes it's Chinese food) I'm used to the circus and it's effortless work for me. Hell, I think I'd need a labatomy if I had to cover reception and sit there staring straight ahead all day.  I was designed for chaos.

Truth be told, all the knowledge in the world still will never make you indispensable.  I'm thankful that I'm not in McDonalds with a college degree in my back pocket asking, "Do you want fries with that?"  I wouldn't consider what I do a career, but it's reputable and I'm relaxed, respected and comfy..

"So I'm humble," I said,  "...Is it so terrible that I'm not emotional when it comes to my job?  When she's nailing us to the wall with useless and knit-picky demands and restrictions I am happy to oblige my manager.  I think it irks her.  I think she wants me to protest, argue, be generally disagreeable like many of us have been and I continue to do my job with a smile."

"I irk her...I irk her by being me."

 Dammit, I know I conduct operations like I own the place, but I'm not trying to be cocky. I've been running and troubleshooting flawlessly for a decade here..How can this job not be second nature to me? I'm at ease.  Where's the challenge?

Gee, my coworker had a sweet smile.  It was about time I saw it. lol With white teeth all ablaze she retorted, "Just make sure you don't budge on this.  The shift still needs to be covered.  Why not by the person who's always done it, when no one else wanted it..?"

I shrugged.."Don't know. She says these are the changes she wants..I say you don't fix something if it isn't broken  A few months from now this guy'll bow out and when she tells me to reaarange my life again, it ain't gonna' happen..."

"I'll tell ya, I'd love to sit this woman on a needle loaded with truth serum and ask her what her real motives are for all of this." I said, winking one eye closed.  I can just hear her now....

"I'm miserable, THAT'S why, and it makes me feel good when I know I can make everybody else miserable too....DUH!" 

So where can a gal pick up some sodium pentathol in this day and age?

6:11 PM - July 31, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment

Missing Myspace

It kills me..It really kills me. 

Being stuck behind the office Firewall is sometimes worse than not having any access at all.  Well, it wouldn't be fair to say that.  It's nice getting to peek in and see what's going on with my old myspace buddies..

I remember the days when I actually stayed in one place long enough to set up a humble home office in my bedroom.  I'd often crawl out of bed in the middle of the night and chat to a good friend.  One of the great things about the net is that there's almost always someone awake to clown around with.  They call New Yrok the city that never sleeps, but a nocturnal like me (a term I invented which seems to fit "my kind" hah!) knows to scoff at that slogan.  Never sleeps, my caramel arse.  Try satsifying a milkshake jones at 3 am in the morning.  Maybe that cricket might be able to direct me to a nice diner that's still open...

The only true realm that never sleeps is the web.  I miss those long nights in front of my computer.  I miss being able to go past my login screen at myspace.  That's as far as the firewall lets me get most of the time.  (Dammit!)  Still, somethin' is somethin', or so they say.  You've got to count your blessings and not your roadblocks...

Sometimes I just miss...independence. 

Tonight I realized how long it's been since I've seen that website without the restriction of a Firewall.  Heck, I'm lucky I've been able to fool the Firewall for as long as I have.   (If anyone asks, it wasn't me lol) Sometimes I get the sense that virus filter is getting smart to me.   It feels as if it's getting more and more difficult to access my old favorite hangout.  These learning programs always outgrow me.  I haven't exactly got time to hang around the house all day and stay an in-the-know hacker. lol

It hit me tonight that I may never upload another picture or blog at myspace again. What a bummer.  That was enough to trigger a hormonal low that's had me in a sad haze all evening.  It wasn't a choice. It just seems like the luxury of time online at home(my favorite past time of all) has just been squeezed out of my life.  I've spent many a hopeful month trying to get back on the horse amidst circumstances I can't control...And I'm no closer to those warm, wonderful nights by my terminal than I was a year ago.

Well, guys...If you're reading this...I went unwillingly into that pixelated night.  Trying to regain the life I once had feels like trying to do step aerobics in quick sand.

 I just might have to accept that the myspace era of my life has come to an end.

At least this writer's still got JournalHome. {Looks around, because I think I just heard a pin drop} I'd kill for a 50 question bulletin right about now. 

9:21 PM - July 24, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment

BANG! ZOOM!

Read Me: http://www.wherethehellwasi.com/categories/tv-movies-games-o-my/two_tricky_tickets.html

I found my latest blogger of interest accidentally. We don't agree on the whole Prince issue, but he's as fun as a barrel of meerkats and he kind of reminds me of Ray Barone's brother, Robert, who reminds me of Ralph Kramden...That's a good thing...er..yeah. 

Aw, come on..Read it.  Have I ever steared you wrong? I guarantee a fantabulistic cavalcade of quotes like this:

"I'm not sure I'm interested in a movie where the hero is able to both lick his own crotch and talk about it afterward. So really, anything with Jason Lee is out." (His pre-critique of "Underdog")

........Me after half an hour more of reading.....

   I'm hoping this guy could get a job writing for network tv, so I can stop watching crap.  Not everyone can afford cable.

Holy papercuts, this man has a lot of entries.  Freakin' comedians.  I may have to quit my own blog for a year or so and come back here after I'm done reading.

6:30 PM - July 24, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment

Happy (A Poem That Rhymes with "E")

It hit me like a memory,

Today, it just washed over me

The long-lost sense

Of who we used to be

The ease with which

You set my spirit free

5:17 PM - July 24, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment

Update

The very same moment I found out my house was being sold, I stormed straight into the landlord's office (which is in my building).  It was the maintenance man who had told me and before he could mutter something about an apartment inspection, I'd strode past him to get my info straight from the horse's mouth.

The office looked empty until I walked past the public area and started to bellow in a friendly but firm voice..or was I just coming off as irritated and flustered?  Well, I remember hearing myself sound rather friendly.   The landlord's sister almost reluctantly made her way over.  I think I started speaking before she could say hello back.  I hadn't meant to do that, but when you've been through the same crap a few times, cordiality starts to lose all function.  So I stood there, and a part of me floated outside myself, hearing me exclaim..."I'm not hearing right, am I?  Tell me you guys didn't sell the building..I've just been through this.."

The woman shrunk before me, which is pretty tough since I'm 5 feet tall.  I was trying to smile slightly and speak in calm tones, but I could feel that all the blood in my body had already risen to my head and that my face was a bright pink.I'm part Irish, you see.Despite an olive tan, I was still born with 90 percent of all my blood vessels underneath my cheeks, nose and neck.

"It wasn't me..It was my sister.." Was all she said. There may have been a few more words, but I don't really remember much after that.  I tend to tune out immediately after my inner lie detector goes off.

A somewhat reliable source once told me that this building was a family inheritance.  For one to be able to sell, all the family heads listed in the agreement would have to okay it and divide the profits evenly among them. Her sister was obviously passing the buck, but I could hardly blame her.  My landlord is  just as lousy a communicator.

At about 9pm that night, a very official and loaded down messenger knocked on everyone's apartment door.  I got the call while I was at work that each tenant had been served with paperwork that we were all required to have.  It was a bundle of court papers as thick as my fist RE a case of Complaint against my landlord from her mortager.  They (the mortager) are also suing the NYC Dept of Parking Violations and DEP which, although I am a layman when it comes to law, makes me think that's the mortager's way of saying, "You're not taking her house, because she's losing it to US first!"

Like two fat dogs fighting over a scrawny bone my skinny chihuahua landlord was powerless to hold onto. 

So how do you sell a building that you still owe $675,000 on? 

That's what I've been wondering.  I'm also wondering how sad a financial situation you would have to be in to refinance a gift from a family member and risk losing it that way, if I indeed had my information correct.

Again, not judging.  I haven't walked in her shoes.  The girl has medical problems of some sort.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to unpack and organize my abode.  My last move left me nearly naked as I was dumb enough to pack most of my wardrobe up in boxes I haven't even gotten to open yet.  My theory is, organization is never a bad thing.  Even if worse comes to worse and I do have to move again, it wouldn't hurt unpacking so I can repack with some sense and order the next time. 

I thought I might buy a label maker.  That seems easier than opening ten cartons to find your favorite pair of panties.

Once I'm done making my place mine, I might even have enough room to set up my 'puter terminal again and do a little tai chi.  Sure hope I get to stay this time.

I'm just happy that I've had a few nights to swallow this bitter pill and accept uncertain circumstances in a more adult manner.  Sometimes this life just makes you wanna' crap your diaper and scream bloody hell.  lol

But that doesn't get you anywhere, now does it? 

Methinks I'll buy myself a pint of Edy's Butter Pecan today and read barefoot by my window until it starts to rain.  Woo hoo! 

Afterall, that's what I'd be doing on a Sunday night anyhow..so why change my plans??

Sometimes you've gotta' be thankful for what you've got. 

"If you don't stop to smell the roses now, they might end up on you."

~Husker Du

Read Me: http://www.wherethehellwasi.com/blog/100things/55.html

2:38 PM - July 22, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment