A**hole New Yorkers

This happened today. I am the character "Me".

Scene: Starbucks at 42nd Street and 11th Avenue (yes, 11th Avenue exists). Waiting in line for a treat or coffee, I am undecided on just how much sugar I want to ingest. A woman waits at the register while she places her order, and I am standing approximately 3 feet (perhaps the width of 2 people away?) to the right of her. There is no room to wait directly behind her as there is a table there, so the line must form to the right.

Enter: a man (certainly not a GENTLEman) in his 40s with newspaper tucked under his arm and brow furled. He steps in between myself and the woman at the register. I glance over at him.

Man (to Me): You waitin'?
Me: Yes I am.
Man: Welll how am I supposed to know, you're too far away from her. [He then steps to the right of me.]
Me: After being on crowded subways and crowded restaurants, I figured it's nice not to crowd people if you don't need to in this city.
Man: [pregnant pause]
Me: [delighting in his idiocy]

Woman leaves register with her $8 coffee, and I slide over to order at the register.
Man: Well cuz you know you need to be in a line so I actually know it's a line.
Me: Now I know why people from out of town dislike New Yorkers.

And dammit, I've lived here six years and I'm not an asshole, am I? I secretly hoped he burned his mouth on his coffee or it gave him diarrhea.

Argh!

Just wrote a long post after not being online for a month with my blog, and it disappeared! Argh, technology. Too frustrated now to write it again but will re-write tomorrow. This is more of a reminder for myself than anything, but I will write about:

1) Quitting my job
2) Babies having babies
3) Prom date turned rock star

Interesting topics, huh? Makes you want to check back in, right?

Sunshine State of Mind

Florida in less than 24 hrs. Still fragmented typing (carpal tunnel in BOTH wrists). Happy Passover!

Doctor's report

- carpal tunnel
- tennis elbow tendonitis
- rotator cuff tendonitis

- ice, therapy, wrist splint, ice therapy, no medication (thank you crohn's disease for no anti-inflammatory pills allowed dammit).

one word. fuck.

what is the sound of one-handed typing?

wrist is still in SUH-VEERE pain. too hard to type many caps (or full sentences) with one hand. this sucks. no computer use on this hand for 2 weeks? more? you are shit out of luck when taking two plates out of a dishwasher at one time is too much weight on hand. also shit out of luck trying to play piano at rehearsal one-handed. oh yeah - and the desk job that's 100% e-mailing? fuck fuck fuck. how depressing is this? ok not so bad - in the words of my dad it's more "high quality problem" but i feel so useless. at least it's- right hand - i'm lefty. don't even get me started on how long it took to type this, but being at the computer is a bit addictive for me. or is it addicting? ack - brain going to mush, too.

Aaaarrrrrrgggghhhh

New desk. Adjustable legs for optimal height. Fancy schmancy desk chair for optimal positioning. So why the fuck does my wrist and arm hurt all day and all night long? This is so depressing - it makes it so hard to have a desk job and makes working really painful.

American I-DULL

Don't you people get sick of "American Idol"? How stupid do the producers have to be to assign the wrong phone numbers to the wrong contestants? I watched one season of this show, season 1, then said "I've had enough". Each week, they each sing a song, they slap together some stupid montage, have Paula/Randy/Simon fight, and oh wait! Oh goody! AMERICA gets to pick who wins a crappy recording contract that means you basically sign your life away and have to sell over a million records before you'll even see one cent of earnings.

I was mildly annoyed - at my singing group's rehearsal (oh the irony) we HAD to delay warm-ups so people could videotape this week's show. They almost left the volume on during warm-ups. Are we serious? A group of singers want to watch these Disney-esque fabricated robots perform with waaaaay too many "swooping crane camera shots"... enough to make me nauseated from the motion.

Oh how I despise that show. But - at a rehearsal where the majority of people like it, I just sit in silence about it, which is a rareity for me. Even better - Frenchie Davis (yes, the infamous "I kinda did porn but not really") lives in my building, and she still turns heads! She was outside on a photo shoot with someone and had another person with a video camera filming her. My building has glass entry doors, and they stopped right on the other side of them. Here I am with dog in tow and a giant, awkward package that I had to pick up, and they STOP in front of the doors. I say excuse me, practically nailed Frenchie in her not-so-small ass with my box, and headed to the elevator. They followed me in and continued to film her documentary-style, so I made sure to say my dog's name very loudly and "good girl" so whatever footage that they had would go in the garbage. Luckily I was behind the cameraman. I guess Frenchie deserves a 'good for you' because she's on Broadway... oh wow. I had to check Justin Guarini's web site... he could've been pretty famous from Idol, and look - he hasn't updated his OFFICIAL web site in over 7 months.

Wow, I never realized how much I hate that show. Maybe I just love to hate it.

Living Up To The Length

After so many lengthy entries I'm worried I'll dissapoint myself with a short entry. So - I'm breaking the cycle and making this short. I visited my sister and her family this weekend with my husband, and my niece looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid. HUGE cheeks that make her facial features look smushed. So cute.

15 Year Friends

I have this friend Dave who I've known for 15 years. We went to middle school together, then the same boarding school, then stayed in touch somewhat during college. The last 6 years we've both lived in NYC and I can honestly say (which I told him) that he would've been a bridesmaid at my wedding if he didn't look terrible in purple (and a strapless dress).

It's so great when you hear someone has finally decided to 'decompress' (aka "leaving a 80 hour/week job at Goldman Sachs after 7 years") to discover what he's been put on this earth for. Dave, my husband and I all went to dinner last night and it was such a simple reminder to be sure to do what you REALLY want to do for a job... he said "I want to leave the world in a better place than when I got here".

So am I doing that by promoting music at the high school level (save the arts!) - definitely - but I still feel like there's more for me to be doing. Not just writing checks to charities, not just giving leftover food to homeless people... I think this is why ever since I left my life-sucking corporate job at a major record label I've been so torn with what the next step should be.

Maybe writing makes the world a better place because I can impart what knowledge I have to others. Too bad (or perhaps good?) that you will rarely, if ever, see anything about politics, current events or religion on here. Those are the futile discussions that go in circles for me... I'll leave it up to the people who are fueled with a passion to discuss those, not a "eew get me out of this conversation" mentality.

If only I wasn't such a huge ass procrastinator with so many things I do (insert fear of failure, rejection and no concept of how long things really do take... which is not that long) and had more of an explorer-type personality (insert insane love for dog and apartment life).

Why Do I Care?

Our a cappella group is trying to come up with a name for our CD. We formed a CD committee - three people in charge of the entire 'production' side of the CD. Thankfully I'm not on it since I'm busy mixing, but why do I give such a crap about the CD title? Maybe because the two options we were given to vote on were:

1) Flair - as in the choice red items we wore at one show. One show. And hello - "flair" as in the "flair" that Jennifer Aniston and her co-workers have to wear at their restaurant... a minimum of 15 pieces. Interesting - there are 15 of us in the group (or there were when we recorded).

2) Better Than Karaoke - ok that's just insulting. It's like saying "take a form of music that's really shitty, and say we're better than it". It's like "feel bad for us, buy our CD because hey - we're better than karaoke".

I went overboard sending suggestions, phrases that might spark good titles, and not to say my ideas are any better (because at the end of the day we all have our own opinions) but could someone please help me not give a rat's ass about this? If the name sucks, so be it - at least I'm responsible for the music part only.

On a non-music sucking topic, I went to see Duwende with my friend Sara last night. They were amazing. I sat there with a shit-eating grin on my face thinking "Now THIS is the level of a cappella I'd love to do" but then again, guys aren't as much fun to gossip with as girls. Then again, most of the gossip I do is whining and complaining about a very small number of people in my group (emphasis on small).

Tomorrow - our first gig since December. This is an easy one - 3 songs at a brunch. Phew - no solos for me to screw up!

Why cheap blogging sucks

I need a blog where I can have private posts instead of making everything public. The chances of certain people in this world of 6 billion plus reading my blog is not as 'slim to none' as you'd think. I've told a handful of common friends about my blog but haven't told others, knowing that I might want to bitch about them soon on this cyber-dumping space of nonsense.

I'm hitting that point right now with absolute amazement at how much people can annoy me. Staying as vague as possible for a slight fear of my oh-so-secretive blog getting out, let's just say that if you are an adult and decide to do an extracurricular activity (get your mind out of the gutter this is not a drug or sex reference), why would you be involved in it if you don't actually do the activity? Like why would you join a chorus, go to rehearsal, and not sing? I just don't get it. Especially when I'm the one teaching the music, I hate to sound like a school teacher and say "Now Susie - why didn't you do your homework"?

Maybe this cold is just getting to me. On a lighter musical note, check out MatisYahu who is this amazing Hasidic rapper who sings reggae like the best of the Jamaicans... it's incredible. Worth a watch, and no - nothing perverted or that the boss can't see.

Happy Birthday (yesterday - whoo hoo that I called her on time AND got a card in the mail) to one of my favorite lawyer friends, Grace!

Is 28 The New 65?

My husband is getting me hooked on NPR. Yes, National Public Radio. I have temporarily put my taste in music (Kanye West, Sade, any Chopin, etc) on hold to listen to two excellent shows in the afternoon:

The Leonard Lopate Show
Radiolab

Right now on Radiolab they're talking about the concept of time. The concept of the show is essentially discussing a topic and using various sound bytes to illustrate a point. Apparently some artist decided to stretch Beethoven's 9th Symphony into a 24 hour performance (imagine how slow that is?!?!) to show how to us, the piece feels painfully slow, you're waiting for the musical climax and it never happens. But - what about to a hummingbird? How fast/slow would it seem to them, because they beat their wings SO fast yet in 'hummingbird' perception of time, it's normal speed.

What an awesome mindfuck.

Celebrity Singer?

My Dad is throwing a 50th surprise party for his wife this spring, and she's not a fan of surprises... at least that's what I gather. Now the whole world will know how old she is, and for the longest time she seemed to keep it a pretty good secret. So - my a cappella group has decided to perform for all these upcoming gigs: bridal shower, birthday party, anniversary party, and we could use the money for our CD. So I asked my Dad if he wanted us to sing for her party.

Shocking reply: "Actually, I hopefully have a celebrity musician coming, I'm not 100% sure yet but it looks like it's happening." Me - the musician in the family, is dying to know who - and my OWN father won't tell me. He said "oh no I want it to be a surprise for everyone."

He's shelling out WAAAAY more than what my group would charge, I'm sure ;)

Macy's = The Devil

Don't ever buy anything from them. I had a HORRIBLE customer service experience with them. It lasted 2 hours on the phone to buy bedding. We signed up for a card so we'd save 15%. Oh hell I am so frustrated it's not even worth it to write about the mundane, mind-numbing details of the entire ordeal. Just do yourself a favor - never go to that zoo of a store on 34th at Herald Square, and don't allow your fingers to ever type www.macy.....

A Quiet Sunday Morning

My husband has noticed that, during the week, I usually wake up much later than he (his alarm is set at 6am and I'm out of bed around 7:30AM). On the weekends, something odd happens - I'm up no later than 7am. My only alarm is internal - so it must be my body telling me to get up and enjoy the peacefulness of a Saturday or Sunday morning in NYC.

I'm not talking about in Central Park or a coffeeshop - this peacefulness happens in my own apartment. When you live facing the West Side Highway and have a building of hundreds of apartments, here's what you get during the week:

There's a constant hum of cars, sirens, NYC busses, and delivery trucks buzzing by or droning their "I'm picking up speed in bumper to bumper traffic" sounds.

There's "I-can't-let-go-of-college" neighbor 11 apartments away who feels a constant need to yell at whomever he's speaking with down the hall.

There's the barking dog, left home alone each day, who must have vocal chords of steel to make that much noise each day.

There's the smoking neighbor - thanks to our cheaply built structure of an apartment, the smell of smoke seeps into our home office each day through the door jam in a bathroom. You can literally put your hand in front of the jam and feel the wind from an apartment above, or next to us, sucking the clean air out of our place and depositing nicotine-filled smoke back in.

There's the elevator ding. 7 elevators on our floor - 4 within auditory range of our front door.

There's the door slams. After all, everyone's door is on one of those hydraulic arms that makes it close automatically behind you - and imagine if people actually closed the doors instead of letting them close on their own.

It's not that these sounds particularly annoy me that much during the week - it's that I can sense their absence at 7am on a Sunday morning like today. This morning I hear the humming of my refrigerator, the humming of my computer, and can isolate 2-3 cars' wheels whirring by on the highway. Maybe that's why my internal clock gets me up so early on weekends.

Rollerskating in NYC

I never knew there was a place to go rollerskating in NYC (other than Central Park), until another member of my a cappella group told me about it a few weeks ago. The Roxy has rollerskating every Wednesday night, and she invited all of us on a group outing (something we all complain about not doing often enough). Well after all the complaining, a whopping 2 of us showed up (nice job ladies) and Beth was the gracious host from our group.

Beth, Dana and I had such a good time. Dana and I went together, knowing that getting there early would mean less people to crash into and more room for moves like "crack the whip". Despite being 6 1/2 years older than Dana, I felt young again to know that skating was an 'in' thing to do when she was a kid as well. Unfortunately - we never got to try crack the whip, but man - there were some characters there. A window into who we saw:

Spandex Ass Man: we chose a seating area right along side the rink (aka "dance floor"). You literally stood up from our couch and took a step down onto the rink. Ass Man, every time he went by us, managed to turn around and thrust out his hips to stick his ass in our face. Oh yeah - he was dressed in black spandex from head to toe.

The Doublemint Twins: Two adorable women, in their 50s, dressed in black cotton pants and a plain black t-shirt with identical haircuts; short, grey, cropped to the ears. They held hands in an arm-crossed fashion. Twins, sisters who looked alike but weren't twins, lesbians or a combination of them? We didn't know.

Dana's Rollerboyfriend: White afro hair, white heavy t-shirt, white knee socks, and rollerskates with wheels that flashed. So hot in a "I raided Mr. Rogers' wardrobe" kinda way.

Couch Crashers: Two girls who pretended to "not notice" our jackets at our table and chairs and sat there until I asked them to move. One was wearing a yellow "I Love the 80s!" t-shirt. I think she was 2 years old in 1989. They made me feel good because they were the worst skaters in the place (I was probably in the top 10 worst even though I never fell and never bumped anyone - I just didn't have 'moves' like everyone else).

There were over 20 people there who had "moves" - who could either go backwards, dance on skates (literally dance in couples formation) or could do moves like crossing your legs and putting one skate out and one underneath you with your body balled up inches from the floor. It was impossible to describe and more impossible to execute, I'm sure.

The nice thing about the evening was there was no hidden agenda - no pick-up lines, no girls in groups scowling at each other as to who was dressed sluttier... I guess it just wasn't like your typical NYC bar that I hate so much. Ok - maybe Dana, Beth and I were making fun of so many people, but hey - we amused ourselves and offended no one

There's a fungus among us

Bagel's test results came back. Not only did she not have a tumor, there's no cancer. She has some kind of fungal infection that caused her to lick her arm. We probably didn't have to do the surgery but we wouldn't really have known unless we waited it out for about a month... so I'm glad we did it.

All we have to do now is keep this silly collar on her, wait 2-3 weeks to bathe her (eew), and put some cream on her little scar. I felt like I took my first deep breath today and I've been unable to for the last 10 days. I'm so relieved - I want to send flowers to the vet, but I figured "She already has about $750 of our money from this ordeal" so a thank you note will be just fine.

5 Random Thoughts This Morning

1) I love when it snows and it's a holiday - streets are empty and I can get my errands done in 30 minutes.

2) My dog still hasn't gotten results back from her mass removal. I hope it's benign.

3) Cab drivers have great stories. Talk to them.

4) It will be extremely difficult to write in this blog once a day.

5) Chubby Hubby ice cream is the best flavor. Ever.

What goes around comes around.

A few years ago I found a cell phone (note: a nice cell phone) in a cab on my way home. I left it on, waited for someone to call me, and when the owner found me and his phone, I arranged for him to get it back. How nice.

Today, apparently I put my wallet back in my bag on the LIRR on my way home from a doctor's appointment. It didn't really make it into my bag. I hopped in a cab, and in front of my building panicked that my wallet was gone. I assumed the worst - it was stolen - and proceeded to dump the contents of my bag on my dining table while calling 2 of the 3 credit card companies to cancel my cards.

The phone rings. A Maryann Consiglio calls to tell me she tried calling after me on the train when she saw my wallet sitting on the seat. She looked me up (I'm SO glad I finally changed my license to the NY license after quasi-illegally having a Florida one for the last 12 years) and I got my wallet back tonight. I didn't even care about the money or credit cards or license. My wallet is one of those Filofax wallets with my entire life schedule written down. THAT's what mattered to me. Yippee!

A Cappella

I have a healthy obsession with contemporary a cappella. I just got the unmixed files for my group's recording that we did in January, and I am SO excited to hear the tracks. Even with no mixing, we're pretty damn good, and it's a great feeling to lead the group and hear the product of my efforts. Ok - a little self-absorbed, it's everyone's effort because everyone sings, but who teaches it?

Can't wait to work on this album, and I get to record my vocal percussion separately since I was too sick to do it the weekend we recorded. Big bonus. Ed - our engineer - said that we will record it differently from how I'd sing it live, because we'll lay down each instrument (bass, high hat, snare, etc) and it will rock out. Hee hee - I'll actually sound like I know what I'm doing with VP instead of sounding like I'm just spitting on myself.