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this morning @ 6:15am:
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from: .myboss@myjob.com
to: .everyone@myjob.com
subject: .casual attire today
given the weather conditions, please feel free to dress casually today.
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then I looked out the window and saw:
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my courtyard neighbors having rather raunchy sex.
normally, this would be a pleasant surprise.
but until now I didn’t know I had courtyard neighbors.
and not once have I pulled down my shades.
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ey oh.
found via firmuhment
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Okay. Not gonna lie. Lately, I’ve had sex on the brain like ..W..O..A..H... .At first I was concerned, but after obsessively researching the hyper-cherry headband featured in Douglas Friedman’s NYTimes “Dress Codes” slide show, it turns out I’m just getting an early start on Piers Atkinson’s Spring/Summer 2010 Collection. Whew.
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{@NYTimes: .it’s Piers, not Pier. .D..U..H }.
Character LEDs. Helsinki, Finland
Technically, we’re not supposed to wear jeans on casual Friday so I’m considering rocking this instead. Thoughts?
One time I was on a date with a guy who asked me to tell him something really embarrassing about myself. I think what I ended up admitting was pretty outrageous because he didn’t actually believe me (it was true!) and now looking back, I probably should have gone with a tamer reveal like the fact I check missed connections daily. Also mildly embarrassing – I came very close to responding to this:
I want a woman who will scratch my head – m4w – 29 (Manhattan)
That’s it. Seriously… I am happily married but my wife has this thing where running her fingers through my hair and scratching my head is like fingers on a chalkboard for her. So I am seeking a woman to fulfill this simple yet intimate pleasure I desire. I can return the favor with a killer massage or just some good company/conversation. I am smart, handsome, with an interesting job in the entertainment field. I am not interested in a relationship or even sex. I know this sounds a little crazy… but hit me with an email/pic if you’re interested. Discretion is a MUST.
Thanks, WA
Something strange you might not know about Indiana: until 2006, we didn’t observe daylight savings time. Why? Because the farmers insisted that their days were controlled by the sun, not the clock and daylights savings would cost them sixty minutes of valuable morning productivity. Hmm. Here’s a thought. Maybe instead of corn and tobacco you guys could try growing a pair. Ha! Anyway, I think all those years of DST deprivation is why I can’t stop telling people (strangers) how excited I am for March 14.
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Sunset at 7:00pm? Yes, puhlease.
If I ever open a restaurant, “man in the moon” aka “egg in a basket” aka “rocky mountain toast” aka “I don’t care what your family calls it because it’s gonna be delicious under any name” will be on our breakfast menu from day one and a huge reason we’re able to fast-track it to warm, friendly, neighborhood joint in no time. We’ll also offer a special called “apt 4s” that includes coffee, half a baguette, butter, and bonne maman jam for $3.50 and my hard-working/rag-tag/hyper-hilarious staff will be the reason I’m 100% genuine when I say I love what I do.
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I love what I do.
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Pitchfork and I are not friends. You see, before I got to college, I was convinced I had excellent taste in music and nothing made me happier than spending my weekend crafting the perfect mixtape (yes, an actual cassette mixtape) for my best friend Dee Dee. As I approached the final months of high school, I was sure the music education I had received from summer camp/my older sister/midwestern boycrushes would be more than sufficient to make me and my overflowing caselogic a smash hit at college.
Unfortunately, my favorite artists were Dave Matthews, Dispatch, and BNL.
Not long after a wildly unfriendly introduction to east coast music snobbery and the embarrassing realization that I had never even heard of the band playing at our fall concert (WILCO), I realized that my taste in music was, in a word, .A W F U L.. Then, like an unnecessary slap in the face, I met Pitchfork. Yes, this is exactly what my overwhelming state of utter vulnerability and confusion and wtf-am-i-doing-ness needs right now: another person telling me my shared library really need not be shared after all. Fuck you, Pitchfork. Leave me alone! I’m gonna go get some air and when I get back I hope you’re gone. And dead.
From that semester on, I avoided Pitchfork like it was my douchey freelance job and passive aggressively got mine when I dedicated my AMST 144b photo essay on hipsters to Dave Matthews. Ooohhhh Zing!
So now I guess it’s been almost 6 years since I first met Pitchfork and while we are definitely not besties sending each other silly texts and homemade mixtapes, I think we could probably hang out at the same mansion/apartment/shack/house party without one of us (me) leaving in tears.
Because we’re all adults now and being way hotter trumps terrible taste in music anyway.
Things Drunk People Say. Kathleen Go
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I found a new reason to be forever thankful I work in an era post floppy disks, MS-DOS, and dial-up internet. It’s called Nerve and it’s a totally office appropriate website/magazine about Love, Sex, and Culture. I’ve been checking it out all morning and I’m currently obsessing over their recurring piece “Talking to Strangers” where they ask random ladies and gentlemen at bars/houseparties deeply personal questions. Uhhhhmazing. Nerve also posted some excerpts from Kathleen Go’s fantastically hilarious book of originally illustrated quotes collected via various social networking sites by bar-hopping eavesdroppers called Things Drunk People Say. Let’s just say I’m in quite a mood and thinking about taking a sloppy/sexy copy back to my place right about now.
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Even though Topher Grace is the only swoon worthy dude in Valentine’s Day worth my hard earned $12.50, I’m pretty sure I’ll be spending this Sunday in the AMC Loews Village 7 watching it along with all the other single ladies [all the other single ladies] of the East Village. And, yes, on a scale of 1 to sadcliché.com, this probably deserves an 8.
Whatevs.
I’m single.
I do what I want.
Clockwise from top left: Valet Mag, Kitsune Noir, Gilt Man, Uncrate
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I’m totally crushing on these dudes . . . like woah.
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I decided to use my words
and told gchat, “emoticons off”
then the office closed early.
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high five, wednesday.
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we’re just not that into you.
sincerely,
the babies of 1985-2010
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Two weeks ago I met this guy (for anonymity’s sake let’s call him “Charles”) and his friend Wayne at my go-to East Village coffee shop Mudspot. After a brief exchange with Charles, he asked if I had a boyfriend and then for my number. I hesitated aloud – which sounds a lot like “ummmmmm” – as I calculated his percentage of crazy {high % = definite no due to possibility of physical danger, low % = okay to oblige and defer looking like a cynical city bitch until later}. Charles fell in the latter percentile and managed, despite my lackluster attempts to ignore his text, phone call, and voicemail, to convince me to travel above 42nd Street to check out Slash: Paper Under the Knife at MAD the following weekend. As I predicted: great exhibit, good conversation, zero attraction.
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And then something I couldn’t have possibly predicted:
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After mulling over some of the stranger moments of the date later that day (comments like “I wouldn’t exactly call Wayne a friend” and “We both thought hesitating before giving out your number was a great move!”), I decided to do a little research and quickly discovered that Wayne is actually Wayne Elise, a professional within the seduction community who gets paid to teach people the dynamics of effective conversation with strangers (ie how to pick up women). He’s also a contributing author of “The Game.”
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ummmmmm. ….{low %}
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As it turns out, not only is his philosophy very well regarded within this community, it’s also kind of brilliant. Here’s an mp3 of Wayne giving a seminar in Irvine, CA on April 26, 2007.
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I normally take a predisposed disliking to those 1001 bags bags bags boxy bullshit bargain books that clutter the fashion and design sections of most bookstores, but this one looked so classy and kind and clean perched on its McNally Jackson homeshelf that I couldn’t help but give it a chance. Thank goodness I did because, as it turns out, Perfumes: the A-Z guide is frank and funny and fantastic and has become my new twenty four seven three sixty five excessively obsessed till all my brains explode obsession. Turin and Sanchez rate every perfume they featured in the book on a scale of 1 star (avoid) to 5 stars (masterpiece) and their reviews make terrific use of a truly inspired roladex of metaphors and similes. Here’s one of my current favorites:
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Diamonds (Armani): 1 star raspberry vanilla $
When I was four and had a fever, I was prescribed a fruit-flavored liquid antibiotic, of which I had to swallow several tablespoons at a time. It took four adults to restrain me and force it into my mouth while I screamed. It tasted a lot like this. TS
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I never went to my senior prom. I think I was too busy making just above minimum wage in the children’s literature department of an unnamed giant corporate bookstore or taking an obscene amount of time to choose a movie at Hollywood Video or road tripping through Midwestern suburbia to visit random cooljews. Either way, I don’t really feel like I made THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE, but I have met several individuals long since I peaced the hell out of John Adams who have felt otherwise. G.O…E.A.G.L.E.S..!
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I’m inclined to think, however, that tonight’s culinary adventure might appease these winners (ie people who peaked in high school) because much like senior prom it will also include:
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1. ..faux-comradery with people I will never see again
2. ..disappointment due to massive over-hype
3. ..the near impossibility of ever happening again
4. ..non-stop complaining about the cost
5. ..waking up day of with at least 1 unmanageable pimple
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Well, this morning I woke up with 5, so don’t be too jealous that tonight I’m going here.
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On Wednesday nights at 6:45pm, I leave my small but totally worth it East Village apartment and spend roughly 1 hour on the streets/bus/subway so I can arrive at 168th & Broadway in time to teach improv comedy to Columbia Medical Students from 8pm to 9:30pm. I usually don’t get back to my apartment until 10:45pm (mostly because I get off the bus at 14th & 3rd Ave and ceremoniously reward myself with a slice of awesome from Milk Bar) only to wake up the next morning at 5:45am so I can be out of my apartment by 6:20am to attend what is, without question, NYC’s finest spin class (Union Square Crunch w/ Ashley Swartz @ 7:00am = holiness next to godliness next to sweatiness).
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Anyway, while the hike to Columbia Med can sometimes make my entire body explode with NY Transit overload, I keep going because it’s unbelievably rewarding and pretty much the only way I can convince my friend Chase to stop studying and hang out with me. Also, there are some fantastic moments of unexpected improv GOLD like the one that happened last night around 9:15pm:
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Me: ..This is a 1 min scene. Your inspiration is pumpkin pie and one of you must die.
Peter 1: ..Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Peter 2: ..What? What’s wrong?
Peter 1: ..I don’t know, but I made you this pie . . . WITH DYNAMITE!
Me: ..and scene.
I spent two weeks trying to identify all the songs on side b of this mixtape (right click and save the link) because I thought it would lead to an all out super stellar music adventure. Unfortunately, it was more like a non-billable epic fail because I got completely stumped by Track 4 (@ 6:53) and Track 10 (@ 20:40) and even the handful of geeky chic music enthusiasts I enlisted for help couldn’t figure them out. If you can, this means you must be something special and I promise to reward you kindly . . . with a .[..S..U..R..]..P..R..I..Z..E..!
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I’m kind of tempted to upload this image to wijot.com, but I don’t think anyone except me [and possibly bubble wrap dude] would appreciate the contribution.
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This morning, Pentagram’s What Type Are You? Application (password = character) diagnosed me as the hopelessly unappealing Architype Van Doesburg. Their therapist tried to console me that being Architype Van Doesburg means I’m brutally fair and the kind of person who believes all letters should be created equal, but really he was just avoiding the obvious: I’m a total square [divided into a raster of 25 smaller squares].
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Now tell me something I don’t know . . .
Top Shelf...My Library
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Mrs. Piane {pronounced pee-ahn-eee} has, without question, the best reading voice EVER. She was my librarian from kindergarten through 8th grade and reading time with her was crazy amazing and better than recess and snack combined. Seriously. If Mrs. Piane deemed a book worthy of being memorialized in her rockstar reading voice, you could be damn sure it would be good. No, better than good. It would be .F..U..C..K..I..N..G….F..A..N..T..A..S..T..I..C...
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Thanks for making reading time the shit, Mrs. Piane!
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My last new year’s resolution was to use the above response more frequently and, unfortunately, I only made good on it towards the [not so] bitter end. Lucky for me and few choice strangers, this year I’m going to make up fantastic lies about what I do for a living. So far, I’ve played with flight attendant for an adult-only airline and after-school magic program coordinator for inner-city teens. So far, soooo good.
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Thank goodness my roommate and I are both local NYC celebrities. Living with a not so famous nobody would just be not so awesome. And now you’ll have to excuse me as our butler, driver, and PR rep keep blowin’ up my phones, phones.
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Dear colleagues, close friends, and the entire internet,
I will be out of the office and thoroughly unavailable on the second Monday in February because I have to go learn how to be a superhero at 826NYC. I’m [not] really sorry [in the slightest] for any inconvenience this may cause.
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Sincerely,
Amy
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Let’s play, what I heard../..what you really said:
I hate Macs…/…I hate Max
I didn’t get the job at CVS…/…I didn’t get the job at CBS
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See? Everyone’s a winner!
Well, everyone except Max and CBS . . .
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it could be just me
dreading their cold conference
t..h..o..u..g..h..t..f..u..l..l..y…,…doors slam.
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The truth? My knees go weak for these g40 globe lights.
But that’s just me.
Girl / Slash / Nerd.
Word.
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This is how 2 cups of coffee, the internet, and I get it on: I have a friend named Sarah Brin. Sarah Brin has a blog called Internet Magic. Internet Magic is fabulous because it tells the world about things like middle school diary readings and gumby and Bobby Solomon’s Desktop Wallpaper Project. Bobby Solomon is not my friend [though I really, really wish he were]. Instead, he is a freelance designer and music enthusiast who writes a blog called Kitsune Noir. Kitsune Noir is fabulous because it tells the world about things like indie rock music and computer speakers and Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Bobby’s top three are 14, 15, and 18. My top three are 41, 42, and 43. With the help of Ben Cain and my graphically challenged work PC, this is how I told you so.
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Told you so.
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I realized this morning that the last movie I saw like a normal person (in a theater! with cell phone glare! and dirty popcorn!) was The Blind Side. And you know what? Screw all you 3-dimensional douche-bag eye rollers who can’t seem to fathom how I still haven’t seen Avatar. I love Sandra Bullock. She’s got everything I could ever ask for in an actress slash new best friend. Appropriate comedic timing that warms the heart and brings on a much needed, good natured smile? Check. Pretty but not soo outrageously gorgeous that I feel she might be a threat to all womankind? Check. Blockbuster, ballsmasher, sporadically academy nominated hits that she seamlessly pumps out again and again and again? Check. Sandra Bullock, you are GOLD. Today’s post is dedicated to you and to commence forth with this dedication, I am having another CONTEST. Name the origin of this movie quote and you will win something I haven’t purchased from Duane Reade or found in the back of my closet . . . yet :
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Boy:..I have to warn you, I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.
Girl:..Okay. We’ll have to base it on sex then.
Boy:..Whatever you say, ma’am.
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This past August, when I first began the most dangerous apartment search, I was adamant about moving to Brooklyn. Why?
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Brooklyn is cheap, they said.
Brooklyn is spacious, they said.
Brooklyn is fantastic, they said.
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In fact, they said so many soft and sweet and sound things about the borough that before I knew it I was swooning, hard. And then I spent almost the entire month of August bleary-eyed craigslisting and taking more than a lifetime’s worth of stale, sweaty rides on the Q train from Times Square to Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill, and Park Slope only to find out that Brooklyn was kind of an asshole. And a liar.
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Cheap in Prospect Heights meant living east of Franklin.
Spacious in Clinton Hill meant suffering on the C train.
Fantastic in Park Slope meant being seriously up-charged for a semi-illegal sublet.
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Come on. Don’t lie to me and tell me you don’t really know how much the total rent of your 3-bedroom apartment is because you can’t come up with 2 other equally over-charged albeit fake rents and then add them all up in your head fast enough to make me believe you are at least going to pretend to be a fair and balanced sublessor. I may be a wide-eyed post-college baby from Middle America, but I’m not an idiot. This, combined with the fact that not even one neighborhood or block or apartment I saw felt remotely like my new home, is why on August 28, 2009 I stopped taking any more of Brooklyn’s bullshit and did the unthinkable: I changed my search to craigslist Manhattan. And you know what? Now I live here.
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Suck it, Brooklyn.
You were a bitch.
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I realized this morning I have officially spent this entire year out of college. And instead of heading into the new year with a master plan, an all-consuming life project, or even a boring stock answer to the socially awful yet ever-so-popular inquiry of what I want to do with the rest of my post-college life, I’m full up on a whole bunch of these winners:
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Men and women can never be friends.
Going out of town was just a fancy way of saying, “I’m gonna get some.”
My job sucked sometimes…but not all the time.
No work Mondays made life awesome.
Free stuff made life awesome.
Bartenders made life awesome.
I went to the gym 215 times.
I’m still really good at looking stuff up.
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“Happy Fucking New Years Mother Fuckers.” – CWD
What happens when an entry-level assistant well into her quarter-life crisis takes over the Company Christmas Party playlist? GaGa and Jamiroquai, that’s what:
Bad Romance – Lady GaGa
R . E . S . P . E . C . T. – Aretha Franklin
Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
I Want a New Drug – Huey Lewis & The News
Working Nine to Five – Dolly Parton
Bad Reputation – Joan Jett
I Want to Break Free – Queen
Use Somebody – Kings of Leon
Virtual Insanity – Jamiroquai
Walk Away – Kelly Clarkson
And since it’s officially the most wonderful time of the year, comments to this post with your own how about them apples?! Company Christmas Party playlist will cause a very exciting [re]gift to appear in your mailbox. Responses should contain 3, 5, or 10 songs only, please. This is a playlist, of course.
My Hanukkah List. December, 2009
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When I was a kid, my favorite holiday tradition was drafting an official Hanukkah List. It was always inappropriately long and was mostly made up of all the CDs and gift cards I was just dying to have. Really, Amy? You want another copy of the original cast recording of RENT and a gift card to Claire’s? Again? But you only buy key chains and gel pens. Ooooh how I loved those gel pens. Soo inky! Soo pretty! Soo . . . well, to be totally honest, useless since all they really did was leave messy, glittery, unintelligible streaks all over the place.
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In any event, I can’t really remember the last time I sat down and actually celebrated Hanukkah so the fact that I’m hiking up to Harlem tonight with store bought latkes and applesauce to spend the first night of this long forgotten holiday with my cousin Natasha has caused me to wax all nostalgic and draft a more useful, grown-up, and ladylike Hanukkah List.
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Happy Holidays, Internet!
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Oh, hello. Have we met before? I used to post here all the time. Maybe we were introduced back then. Well, anyways, nice to [re]meet you. Did you know that according to music blaring from my favorite coffee cart this morning, it’s the most wonderful time of the year?
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The more you know . . .
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{cue NBC peacock slash shooting star}
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1. I am terribly sorry how absent I have been.
2. My life seems to be playing on the Crazytown [by Butterfly] b-side recently.
3[7]. Thankfully, come Wednesday evening, I will be on a delightfully crowded plane with my best friend Dan to number 37 of the NY Times’ 44 Places to Go in 2009. He promised me wings and a trip to a bonafide Target.
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I….C..A..N..N..O..T….W..A..I..T….
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I was born at 3:02 pm on Tuesday May 6, 1986 which makes me a Taurus and a Libra Rising. According to the internet, this means I am naturally introverted and less communicative.
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. . . WHAT?!
Anyone else?
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. … . … . …L…O…V…E… . … . … .
when Fridays feel like Fridays
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I just wish I knew where I was going.
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Let’s play, “Instead of going to work today, I would rather ______ .”
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I’ll go first.
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Instead of going to work today, I would rather explore Renzo Piano’s California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
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Y—O—U—R—-–T—U—R—N—.
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Today I found a whole new reason to love the internet and it’s called the nytimes.com video library. I rarely check the nytimes homepage until well after lunch, but this morning I was in a mix it up kind of mood and after only a few minutes on the site I already knew where and when the next world series game was going down and was happily watching a video feature on how to get hard cash for my family’s gold heirlooms in the diamond district. OOOhhh soo tempting.
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But then I realized the web layout I was navigating was really foreign to me. I mean, I knew I was on the nytimes website, but there were all these videos! Tons and tons and tons of videos about soooo many different things. And this place, this glorious video library place, was all kinds of dark and mysterious and recommending things I actually wanted to watch and learn about! Like the Urban Eye feature on CMJ! And that random snow day last year! And, oh my goodness, what’s this? Would I like to go backstage at the Marc Jacobs Spring 2010 show?
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No no, I would not like to go.—I’d LOVE to go.
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Now, follow me, because I want to introduce you to the FABULOUS Catherine Baba. She’s a stylist who attended Marc’s show and says things like, “Darling” and “Laa-Di-Daa” and “I feeeeeeeeel DIVINE,” and I would like to be her very much.
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Pleeeeeeased to meeeeeet you, darling.
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Post trick-or-treat candy sorting is the reason I am the fun-loving [albeit mildly OCD] person you see today. Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!
