I have been flagging in my duties

Sorry Carrie! I totally hear your call to arms, but I have to say that not much has been going on lately and I feel like I have nothing to post about. But let me try and think of something...

Well, it's snowing. That sucks. Not in theory, but in practice. I really don't like trudging through the precip. and though snow isn't as bad as rain, it can be pretty nasty, like now, esp. when you didn't expect it and are wearing cheap, ancient Old Navy flats instead of the warm, snuggly UGG boots you wish you were wearing. In any case, it's quite a change from last week.



It's not much, I'll grant you. I don't know how long it'll end up sticking around, either, but let the record show that, as the New York Times so helpfully pointed out, while it's only really snowed (meaning that some of it actually stayed for longer than than the nanosecond it takes to melt) once this winter in New York, two years ago today there was a HUGE blizzard, with a record 27 inches of snowfall, so...who knows? More could be on the way? I hope not, because my aunt Kika and cousin Emma are coming to visit for the three-day weekend and we're going to see The Lion King on Broadway!!!111ONE



I don't know what else we're going to do. They were here a few years ago and did the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building, etc. I know that Emma wants to do some shopping, but other than that I guess it's sort of open to spontaneity. If anyone has any suggestions from their various forays to NY, let me know.

(Have you noticed I include photos to make this very boring post more interesting?)

Hmmm, what else? Trying to entertain, trying to entertain...Oh! Wanna see something funny?



"...and pick up all that shit!" is my favorite line.

In blogosphere news, I'm sort of a newbie fan of The Anti-9-to-5 Guide, which promises tips and tricks to help you "flee the cube farm." It's probably the best resource for aspiring freelancers, and I'm not sure any of us are, but sometimes there are helpful little hints about other industries as well. Maybe you want to be a freelancer! Well, find out why it's worth it (or not).

Going along with the linkage, if you're not reading Jezebel, you should be (except Scott--it is very lady-focused). You should also be reading my friend Kate's undeniable style, and commenting--then maybe she'll post more!



Okay, and maybe this makes me a bit of a freak, but I'm really enjoying these morbid Barbie murder photos that I found for sale on Etsy. I mean, I don't want to own any of them, but I have to say that I think they're sort of brilliant. I might be inferring, but I see a sort of feminist commentary in them, on the role of the woman and the oppressiveness of the Madonna/whore dichotomy that, in part, is helping to inspire self-hating women to write alarmist essays about how settling is better than being alone. Please don't read the whole article; you'll only feel shitty about yourself, and then you'll feel shitty about letting Lori Gottlieb make you feel shitty about yourself for being single and childless--completely normal things for women our age!

Ugh, seriously, that article assumes so many ridiculous things: (1) That your ultimate goal in life is to get married, (2) that if you concentrate on your career and don't settle that you'll regret it, but that if you concentrate on finding a man and do settle that you won't regret that, (3) that any fucking man will do which he won't, (4) that women fall into two categories--the ones that settle and the ones that have ridiculously unrealistic fairy tale fantasies when it comes to men--which is patently false, and (5) that the women Lori Gottlieb knows represent any statistically significant cross section of women that deserve being written about as if they represent the majority of women, WHICH THEY DO NOT. "Marry Him!" just goes to show that projecting your regrets onto people can result in unwarranted, specious fear mongering. I'm personally of the belief that, barring any chemical imbalance, the way to be happy is to go through life trying to be happy and not sink under the pressure of always wanting more. That doesn't mean you won't want more, or that you shouldn't embrace those desires and strive to fulfill them, but we as human beings can never be perfectly happy and we shouldn't want to be because then we would stop existing and fade away because human nature? Thrives on the struggle. And that's all I have to say about that.

Wow. Very philosophical for a post that started with some "um"s and some blather about the weather. Sorry! But, ooh, check out my pic on my work website...it's my facebook photo but the McDonald's sign in the background is gone!

Okay, I'm tapped. Somebody else grab the baton...I'm Audi.

"A" "little" "precipitation"

Oh, Maggie. You want some preciptation? Check it out: we had the BIGGEST storm last Thursday. I mean, insane. I didn't really notice that much because I was at work, and for some reason (I think it's lake effect) the weather downtown is always different than it is other places in the city--I mean, it rained here, a lot, but it was nowhere near the kind of stuff I saw later when I went further out.

The storm was like a symphony (multiple movements). One happened while I was at work. It was particularly bad out in the suburbs where my aunt lives (and where I grew up), and on the northwest side of the city (where I live with my grandmother). Trees--big, old, stable trees--just crumpled and cracked open, blocking roads and falling on roofs and balconies (my friend Paul told me, "You step out on my balcony and immediately your face hits foliage"), etc. Power lines down, twisters, basement flooding--you name it, we had it. My grandmother's basement didn't flood, thank God, but there was a little bit of water in one small area, so of course she promptly freaked out.

By the time I left work, it had stopped raining. I got on the Blue Line to go home and, fortuitously, when I reached the California stop (the last elevated stop before the train goes underground for the Logan Square and Belmont stations) my friend Sandra called me, saying she was home (she lives about five blocks from the Belmont station) and did I want to hang out? I did, so I got off at Belmont and she picked me up and we were on our way to Target when another storm front moved in. It was raining so hard we couldn't see--buckets of water, and completely flooded roads. I was so glad I was in a car instead of having to wait the storm out in an uncovered transit center, looking in vain for a bus that would not come. Sandra drove me home, too. How awesome/coincidental is that?

In other news, my job hunt is still floundering. Many of you may remember me talking about that Mike guy (Kim, Bri, Scott, you met him briefly) who lived in my building and did the same internship as me at Ivan R. Dee? He was nice to me at work, but kind of a douche when we were around his friends? Anyway, he also wants to be in publishing, and he just moved to New York (he informed me on the email) but still hasn't heard back from any job prospects, same as me! So at least we're in the same boat. It's a leaking boat, but at least we're keeping each other company. I'll probably see him when I'm there in mid-September; I'm pretty much living for that trip right now.

I had a long talk with my mom yesterday and she said that if things aren't looking up after I get back from New York she will fly me home so that I can spend some time there (free of charge, free of grandma-related guilt), figuring I can apply for jobs from there same as from here. Which is so nice of her, and I appreciate how she's trying to be on my side about this New York thing now (she slips every once and a while, but she's been pretty good lately), but it's probably not the best thing for me to go home this early in the game. I feel like I'll just be sucked back onto the path of least resistance and start looking for a J-O-B in the Bay Area because I can (not that it's that easy there, either). But I know I won't be happy if I do that, even if most of the people I love live in California. So I don't know. Can I go out for a visit only? Will I be able to crawl back out of it if I do, or will I just cave to family pressure and move back home permanently? God, I hope it won't come to that--I hope things start picking up on the job front--but it would be nice to go home for a while. I don't know--torn! Like Natalie Imbruglia.

I actually disagree about The Nanny Diaries. I really liked it--I mean, I didn't read the book (wow, those words hardly ever escape my lips), but it seemed all right to me. I mean, I liked Scarlett Johanssen in it, and that's amazing, considering how much I've decried her acting talents and general likeability since Match Point. Plus, I mean, isn't Laura Linney amazing? The first thing I ever saw her in that I remember was The House of Mirth--remember when we went to see that in Berkeley? Wasn't Maggie on crutches? Good times! I mean, not the crutches part, but that was a good movie and it was fun to go see it together. Oh, but how gross was Paul Giammati in The Nanny Diaries? Ugh? He should not be cleanshaven, and I almost never say that about men. He did a great job acting--his character was supposed to be hiddeous--but still, when he leered at her? UGH. Anyway, I thought it was pretty good, although bogus stunt casting with Alicia Keys--that girl could not act her way out of a paper bag. Which is an expression I've never full understood.

I should stop blogging now. Even I'm getting sick of myself. Laters!