Tuesday, November 28, 2006

On Hiatus

Had to Move will return when I finish making sure my brain doesn't blow up. Some people bite off more than they can chew when it comes to work; apparently, I have done ordered up one of those 72-ounce steaks in the hopes that if I eat it all, no one will make me pay the bil.

Monday, November 27, 2006

I'm Alive..But Barely

I escaped South Dakota unscathed. None of the typical travel travesties -- late or missed flights -- dogged me, and somehow it hovered around a magical, temperate 50 degrees as opposed to the usual extremities-freezing single digits.

However, the rest of the trip was nothing but strange. It involved bunny shootings, thinly veiled (if that) overtures from not one but TWO married "men," (luckily, none of them family members), and near-constant mental breakdowns over the fact that I was unable to tackle a tenth of the crushing workload I needed to because I felt it was more important to go over old family photo albums with Granny before she's not around anymore. Plus, she wouldn't let me get up from the table.

All this, along with some other personal developments, has left me rather rattled, so I apologize in advance if these pages aren't up to snuff in the next few days. Not that they ever are.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

This Year, I am So Thankful...

I'm headed home early tomorrow a.m. for South Dakota, by which I mean I'm headed to O'Hare, where I will LIKELY be delayed by weather for four or five days, miss my connection, endure countless cancellations, and spend Thanksgiving eating a $27 turkey sandwich in the airport, crying, and wishing I were dead. That's what happens most years. Alternately, I will make it home via some holiday travel miracle. In which case, I look forward to enjoying the forecast highs of 12 and lows of 2. YES!

I'm thankful as always that I have a great family to spend my holidays with. I just wish they'd move a wee bit closer to an airline hub.

(p.s. to all my friends who have come to expect my annual New York Thanksgiving dinner -- lumpy gravy and all -- I promise to be back next year [siblings' procreational cycles willing] with MORE BOOZE THAN EVER. I'll miss you more than you know!)

Ten Things Tuesdays: I Saw It With My Own Two Eyes

When I was a kid, I loved books. Still do of course, but apparently I was quite the little sponge when I was a tot. Mom said I had memorized full books before I was 2 years old, and she could never get away with skipping a page because I could quote entire tomes by memory. (If only I had such a photographic memory today -- guess I should have held off on the beer bongs in college.)

Of course, Mom read me a lot of Dr. Seuss and I remember loving "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," a book about a young boy named Marco who is exhorted by his father to keep his eyes peeled for interesting sights during the day. All he sees with his eyes is a horse pulling a wagon, but in his imagination it's a zebra pulling a chariot, or a reindeer pulling a sled, or an elephant with a prince on top!

I knew how poor little Marco felt. All I saw when I looked out the window when I was a kid was cows chewing cud and endless acres of corn fields. Maybe if I was in for a real treat, I'd get lucky and spy a soybean field. Oh, the variety! South Dakota is a nice, safe place to grow up, and it's starkly beautiful in a way, but I credit part of my zest for New York in all its endless variety to the 17 formative years I spent in what amounted to a very large sensory-deprivation chamber.

It's theorized that Seuss's Mulberry Street is based on a street near his childhood home in Springfield, Mass. But there's a Mulberrry Street in New York, too. Here are some random, weird, wonderful and terrible things I've seen in my wanderings here. New York can be gorgeous, or ugly, but whatever the case there's always something to see.

1) A woman on the subway throwing up in a Tupperware container, then primly closing the lid and putting it in her purse.
2) A waiter in a red tuxedo running full-steam down the sidewalk in the Village, a pineapple held aloft in one hand over his head.
3) An irate woman hurling Dunkin' Donuts at a legless, earless man in a wheelchair, while her toddler looked on. God help us all.
4) A three-legged dog sitting on a bar stool at a pub, lapping beer out of a glass.
5) An elephant meandering around in the street near Madison Square Garden. Why hello there!
6) Two buildings being hit by airplanes, and crumbling to ash before my eyes.
7) A man in a loincloth and feather headdress, standing under a bridge in Central Park, playing a violin while dancing and singing opera in falsetto. (His name is Thoth, by the way.)
8) Ice skaters whirling around on an outside rink -- on a 70-degree day in October.
9) For sale: Live frogs in a bucket, on the street. Mmmmmm, dinner!
10) A fully made-up mime walking down the street, carrying a Hefty bag, and smoking a cigarette. (OK, it's recent. Sorry!)

What are the most memorable random things you've seen while out and about?

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Quips Near Times Square

Today my friend Roger took me out for sushi at lunch. Afterward, we were walking up Broadway back to his office, when a very sour-looking female mime -- in full face paint -- passed us, carrying a bulging Hefty sack in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

We looked at each other, with eyebrows raised, and I said "Was that a...?"

"Mime smoking a cigarette?" he finished. "Why yes. And a mime is a terrible thing to waste."

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

11:11

What is the clock trying to tell me?

Every day when I happen to glance at the clock, it's 11:11. The other day, on Nov. 11, I looked at the clock, and it was 11:11. On 11/11. That really freaked me out.

I feel like the clock must be trying to tell me something of import. But it can't be, because I'm NEVER doing anything important at 11:11. I'm sitting at a desk, staring at a computer. But it doesn't just happen there. I'll be walking down the street, running late to work from the gym. I glance at a parking meter. It's 11:11. At my cell, it's 11:11. It's like the time awhile back when I kept hoping someone would call me, and every time I picked up my phone to check my old TMs it rang, and it was him. Freaky.

Maybe the date 11/11 is somehow supposed to be important. But on 11/11, the day I saw 11:11 11/11, I think my day went like this: gym, work, home, tv, Tylenol PM, sleep. GOOD TIMES.

Maybe something important will happen on 11/11/2011 at 11:11. Maybe I will meet the man of my dreams, although, I hope not, since I will be 36 by then. I'd like to have met him on 11/11 of this year, thank you very much. Or maybe I'll get mowed down by a taxi. Maybe I'll adopt a Chinese baby on 11/11/2011. My dad informed me he was difficulties trouble dividing up the family fortune in a trust thanks to me and my troublesome lack of procreation, because he doesn't know how to split up his fat wads of cash evenly between spawn-producers and non-spawn producers. And I hate to be problematic.

On a totally unrelated note, is it weird and totally junior-high-school of me to, at any given time, feel as though one or more of my friends or acquaintances is "mad" at me for something, or that they're "not talking to me"? It's totally self-centered. These people probably never think about me, and they're probably just busy.

But I secretly fear they're mad.

I'm going to bed in 59 minutes, when it's 11:11.

Ten Things Tuesday: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

I'm aware that Ten Things Tuesdays is actually going up Wednesday. I apologize.

I'm sorry to disappoint all seven people who came here yesterday, eagerly awaiting another edition of Ten Things Tuesday. What with Monday being the new Saturday and all, I had spent the previous night drinking oh, I dunno, 87 beers with a friend who was in from out of town. We talked, we laughed, we reminisced, and we got pie-eyed. He's about to move to a foreign country where people wash, drink, and throw dead bodies all into the same river so I figured I better cherish a few last moments with him before he develops an inevitable case of cholera.

Of course, this left me completely incapacitated with regard to creative thought come Tuesday, and instead of writing a Ten Things list, I ate a quarter pounder with cheese and moaned.

Wednesday has come around, and I STILL don't have a good idea for a Ten Things list. If there's something you'd like to see, hey, feel free to holler in the comments below. Until then, I give you 10 misguided reasons people have come to my web site via fruitless google searches in the recent days. (I know, I know, it's so masturbatory. I apologize.)

1) "Is cheesecake midwestern?" No, but Jell-O salad is! According to Wikipedia, "The first recorded mention of cheesecake was during the ancient Grecian Olympic games." American cheesecakes "generally rely on cream cheese, invented in 1872 as an alternative to French Neufchchatel."
2) "John Krasinski girlfriend" People, how many times do I have to tell you that he DOES NOT WANT TO DATE YOU? You are an average-looking, middling member of society. That's fine -- but you need to accept the reality of your situation. You probably work as a bank teller in Beloit, Iowa. I promise you that the only ladies John Krasinski wants to date are the types who don't have to Google him. So PLEASE stop searching here and go read People.com or something.
3) "John Krasinski Jewish" I don't know whether he is Jewish. Even if he is, he still doesn't want to date you -- I don't care how good your blintzes are. Why? Because you are a Jew who had to Google him. That automatically dqs you. Go back to JDate.
4) "Internet lady" Someone needs to take a class in online sleuthing.
5) "Different moves bye-bye" HUH?
6) "Learn some football moves" I imagine this search came from an earnest seventh-grader somewhere, who is dying to make the JV team in order to impress his father. This made me a little sad, but it made me even sadder that my blog was the best he could do in researching this goal.
7) "A famous research" See No. 4
8) "Rashida Jones" Yes, she's dating John Krasinski, or at least she was. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.
9) "Dead beavers" I don't even want to think about this one.
10) "Bulging biceps" I guess if you guys want some pictures, I can flex and take a picture.

Have a nice week. Sorry for my tardiness, and a tangible dropoff in quality.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Wherein I Spot an Endangered Species

For the past seven years, I've slogged my way through the heat and the slush and the rain and the throngs of public-housing dwellers around 17th Street to make my way to Chelsea Piers. I sweated, I froze, I waited untold weeks -- in vain -- for the M14 bus so I could use my beloved climbing wall or work off the day's stress on a treadmill while looking out on the Statue of Liberty.

Afterward, I could pick up a great sushi roll in the cafe or lounge around in the spacious steam or sauna rooms. Best of all, its membership is 98% Chelsea Boys -- bulging biceps, tight tanks, and not a one of them looking to pick up, or pick on, the ladies. I don't have to care about my boobs sweating or my face turning bright red from an hour on the treadmill, or endure unwanted advances on the off chance I happen to show up looking glamorous. The gays don't give a flying, fat-free fig, either way. Of course, this also means that you will never, ever meet anyone date-able at the gym, which judging by its consistent ranking by Glamour magazine as one of the top 5 places to meet good dudes, is a shame.

There's no doubt about it, I LOVE Chelsea Piers. But I HATE the commute. It's 45 minutes to an hour from ANYWHERE, unless you live directly above the Half King, and it's nowhere closer to my offices in midtown than it is to my home in Brooklyn.

This week, my patience finally wore thin. I decided to cash in a short-term guest pass to Equinox, which has a branch two blessedly short blocks from my office.

I got to the gym fairly early and had my pick of machines. But soon it started filling up with strange people. These were men, but they weren't wearing the tank tops and patting each other on rounded, canteloupe bottoms. There was a suspicious absence of waxed limbs. They were wearing beat up old T-shirts advertising basketball teams or company picnics. They were wearing dorky socks and smelly shorts. They were watching sports and looking at women's asses. HOLY SHIT, THEY WERE STRAIGHT!

There pheremones in the room were palpable, and there was friendly banter and flirting -- even some hitting of other people's body parts with their towels! Despite the dorky socks, these guys were...hot. Sure, they were likely lawyers and bankers from the surrounding buildings that probably wouldn't interest me at all if they actually opened their mouths, but it was nice to have eye candy -- and eye candy that looked back, at that.

If anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas, please make it a yearlong membership to Equinox? I can't give up my Chelsea Piers, but I'd like to cheat with Equinox for my side dish of straights.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Coincidentally...

a great article today from Cary Tennis (see post below) on street harassment, which shows that some men do have insight as to why this happens and why it's a problem. An excerpt:

"There is something to be said for being invisible. For the city is also a stage, occupied by actors trying to become real. Suffocated by the sheer numbers around us as we sit on the buses and subways day after day, we sometimes feel that we are less real than others, less powerful, less important and respected; we dream of doing something to take some of that power and visibility away from them. So we attack them, take their money and spend it, take their credit cards, take their lives.

How do we pick our victims? We pick the ones who catch our eye, the ones whose bright colors enrage us, whose sexual attractiveness fills us with resentment and anger. Who will be the victim? That pretty one there."

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Getting Off on the F Train, And the Umbrella of Fury

Longtime readers are probably familiar with my frequent rants about street harassment, something that I (and thousands of other New York women) grudgingly put up with every day. Men seem to fail to understand why it's such a big deal if someone hisses "Nice ass, honey" and gives you the creepy up and down when you walk by, or honks his horn at you before making lascivious gestures with his dirty, cheese-coated tongue, or sees fit to let ya know that you're a super sexy mami and why don't you come say hi? They're COMPLIMENTS after all, right?

Today I was getting on the F train at Rock Center to go a few stops south for a meeting. As I waited for the doors to open, the man on the inside of the car gave me the eye, but whatever -- he could have been looking for the closest stairwell for all I knew. But nope, he was looking for someone to force himself on. And -- lucky, lucky day! -- it was me.

This guy had the bug-eyed visage of T-bag from Prison Break and smelled of rancid five and dime cologne, bought way back when five and dimes still existed. I waited for him to step around me so I could get on the train, as he was getting off (both literally and, apparently, figuratively).

As he stepped out of the car, he rubbed his hands across my chest and slid one back around me in an attempt to grab my ass. I yelped and lept into the car, screaming that he was a slimey creep and to get his fucking hands off of me. I'm a nice Christian lady but when a stranger tries to shove his hand in my snatch in a public place I think that Jesus himself would cheer on a counter-attack. Greasy-haired T-bag got off easy. (And one more time with the double entendres.)

I was shaken. I got off at 34th street and not one but TWO more jerks, in the space of three blocks, decided to run off their mouths with regard to my various body parts. And folks, I was not looking my best -- my jeans were soaked and baggy from the rain, my hair was pulled back in a frizzy ponytail, and I was half obscured by an umbrella anyway.

And then, the hot-dog man. The Middle Eastern hot-dog man at 32nd and 5th -- apparently not yet used to seeing women out of headscarves -- decided he absolutely had to tell me that I was looking beautiful and that I needed to come back and talk to him.

I snapped.

I turned around and, weilding a huge wet umbrella like a comical and ineffective saber, attacked the hot dog man. A stream of obsenities poured forth and I let him have it. I chased him back behind his hot dog cart, waving the steely tines of my Umbrella of Strength before me. I bet they don't do that back in Iranistan, do they? Huh? HUH?

This is probably not an effective way to deal with street harassment, and should I ever crave ketchup and pig eyeballs in a tube whilst in the vincinity of 32nd and 5th, I'm out of luck. However, there is no way to *prevent* street harassment, as far as I can tell. I told one of my male friends about the incident and he said, "Unless you can somehow stop being hot, it's just going to happen. Deal." But being ugly doesn't even help -- I get as many hollers on super-fugly days as I do on my cutest ones.

I feel like I should be able to walk down the street looking my best -- or my worst, for that matter -- without having some stranger give me his two unwanted cents or trying to reach down my (totally conservative) shirt. Street harassment makes me, and other women, feel intimidated, preyed upon and vulnerable. And since the only antidote I've ever found to it is having another man around (even if I could probably kick the harasser's ass more thoroughly than he could), I'm calling on the non-harassing men of Manhattan to step up a little. I don't need a man to protect me, but when you see someone getting tit-grabbed or worse, be a good-neighborly bystander and inquire, "Is that man bothering you?"

Or, if you have an umbrella handy, weild it with fury.

Oh, and finally? I'm getting a taser and going Veronica Mars on the next man who hassles me. The T-bags and hot dog men of the future will only WISH I had an umbrella then.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

I Voted Today

And it made me feel so much better.

Ten Things Tuesdays: And you wonder why I'm single

I've been dating now for oh, 16 years or so, which has given me PLENTY of time to amass an interesting menagerie of exes, each with myriad appealing qualities. That said, it's also given me plenty of ammo to poke fun at people -- after all, it's no fun to talk about how GREAT someone was in the sack or how SWEET it was that Mr. X always gave me cab fare to get home or how SMART so and so was on the crossword puzzle. Which is why I'm going to share with you 10 conversations -- a few of them sublimely ridiculous in retrospect -- which preceded the end of previous relationships. Out of context, it's kind of funny what people say to each other in an attempt to wind things down.

All I can say about any of these things moments in retrospect is -- wouldn't a simple "It's not you, it's me," on either party's part -- have sufficed? But then, I guess I'd have nothing to write about.

1) Him: "I'm moving to Australia. But...you can come visit!"

2) Him: "It'll be great. We can live on a farm near Omaha, and you can work at the World-Herald! I'll tend the cattle, and you can be an investigative journalist!"
Me: "But I'm sick of cows."

3) Him: "When? When did it all change?"
Me: "I don't know. Remember that time we met up at McDonald's? I saw you sitting in the window, and you were drinking a carton of milk. MILK. It was just so weird. I think that's when it changed."
Him: "You're breaking up with me over milk?"
Me: "No." [Exasperated sigh.] "That's just when things changed."

4) Me: "We've been dating long distance for almost two years now. Maybe I should move to Colorado. I love it there!"
Him: "I been thinking about it, and it seems like living in the same state might put too much pressure on our relationship."

5) Me: "Why, why can't we be together? I love you! We'll work through whatever it is!"
Him: "I want to have sex with men."
Me: "Oh." [Hysterical sobbing.]

6) Me: "It's been like TWO MONTHS since you kissed me on the lips. What did I DO?"
Him: "Nothing. I just have a lipgloss phobia and intimacy issues. You KNEW that."

7) Him: "Sometimes I just can't help but wish that I was back with my old girlfriend, that things were the way they used to be."
Me: "You mean the one who refused to marry you and aborted your love child?"
Him: "Yeah. Her."
Me: "I can see the appeal. She sounds like a PEACH."

8) Him: "Why? Why do we have to break up?"
Me: "Because when I think about marrying you, I have panic attacks in the shower."

9) Him: "It's so funny. Did I ever tell you? I had the biggest crush on your sister in college. I totally made out with her once! God, she was hot."

10) Me: "I'm sorry, I'm in college now, this can't go on."
Him: "But who am I going to take to my junior prom??!"

Friday, November 03, 2006

Tenaciously Clinging to the Bar Stool

So I'm in the process of lining up some new consulting work and the person who's doing the hiring started calling my references today. He called me later to tell me I had a "fan club," and I assured him it was only because I had given each person $20 to say something nice. Aren't I the comedian?

One of my friends and former colleagues I had put down as a reference IM'd me shortly after she got off the phone with the employer and told me he had asked some kind of unusual questions. One of them was, "What are 3 words that you would use to describe Hadtomove?"

I asked her what she said, and she said, "Tenacious and smart."

I thanked her for leaving out "frequently inebriated" and knew that my twenty bucks had been well spent.