it all should be different now...but is it?

There comes a time when certain behavior just gets...old.

Now, I've tried to make myself the level-headed observer throughout most of my post-adolescent life. I'm the first to admit that I've done my fair share of crazy behavior. Everyone has. There are certain things you just have to get out of your system when you're young.

So yes, I partied a fair bit when I was in my late teens and twenties. I recall Williamsburg loft parties where rats chased each other across the floor. I've escaped random gunfire in Alphabet City. I spent many an evening huddled around a fire pit in the courtyard of an East Village squat, when still there were such things. And yes, hanging around such places, I saw firsthand how insane chemically-crazed people could be. But there was something about that whole behavior when you're young that makes it not really that...annoying. Out-of-place. Whatever.

It must've been around my mid-twenties when I grew tired of all the craziness and decided to grow up bit. So I did. Now, ten plus years on, I still find myself with some friends who just are stuck in that same old early twenties mindset. Like, just drinking and drinking and drinking, and acting progressively more obnoxious along the way.

What else can I say besides...haven't you gotten tired of it by now? I sure have. A long, long time ago.

My phone broke this morning

It was overdue for me to get a new one anyway.

What's everyone's opinions on this:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2282504,00.asp

Should I buy or is that a PoS?

What I am looking for in a phone: clear talk quality, ability to have a headset, should be easy to me to keep up on my SMS and email, a camera phone would be nice but not needed...

I still can't shell out $399 for one of the lower-end iphones. Still can't do it.

In the meanwhile, I can still check voice mail if anyone needs to get in touch with me.

pictures, ears, pot roasts, and geese

I had my passover brunch today. After everyone finished eating some of us walked to City Park and took pictures of geese. In doing so I finally figured out how to use my camera. I can now take pictures close up, woo. Pics are here. None actually of me up there yet, but maybe in a couple of days.

It was a lovely day, really too nice to be inside. Maybe better for a picnic, maybe next year if it's this nice I'll have a passover picnic. I always like to do something this time of year for passover, if nothing else because it gives me an excuse to cook for people. by myself I'll live off of boca burgers, english muffins, frozen pizza, and fruit that you don't have to cut up and/or peel. But today I made chicken/ matzo ball soup and a buffalo pot roast. And dandelion green salad. mm mm. Of course all of this stuff isn't the easiest to bring out to a picnic, but hey next year will definitely require some re-thinking on my part to make that possible.

Other than that, my life has been incredibly blah lately, a combination of waking up, going to work, going home, going to bed, waking up etc. Maybe it's this viral ear infection I seem to have picked up (and that stubbornly seems to stick around). Maybe it's because it's spring and I feel like I should be accomplishing something, with it being so lovely and sunny and warm and everything . But there's always something impeding whatever fresh and new I try to do. I think about going for a bike ride, but my tire is flat. I re-arrange the bedroom to just the way I like, and then I break my mirror. I go across the street for a mojito cupcake, and I find that the icing is unpleasantly sticky and warm. The bookstore is out of my favorite xtra-large ruled moleskine notebooks. I walk into the record store and realize, distressfully, that I gave away my turntable months ago, and would have no place to store a CD if I ever bothered to buy one. Then I think that wow, I am nearly a textbook case for there having to be a "National Record Store Day" in the first place, how depressing. I wear what looked to be comfortable shiny gold shoes to my friend's art opening, and develop nasty blisters on both of my pinky toes -- and I walked maybe a total of 3 blocks.

I need to get out of this boring slump. Maybe I'll consider dressing like Blythe. Not like I can find those clothes in a 14/16 X-X-tall, or can even sew them (oy). But I can at least consider it, okay?

Real World Audition Tape Fame Whore Alert

From jezebel.com.

If this is real (and I suspect that it is), no wonder why the terrorists hate us.

Seriously. Just click on it. CLICK ON IT. And behold...

Vitamin supplements may increase risk of death

From the Guardian UK:

The review, by the Cochrane Collaboration which regularly pools data from trials to evaluate drugs and treatments, found supplements vitamin A, vitamin E and beta-carotene are detrimental to health. In 47 trials with 180,938 people and a low risk of bias, the "antioxidant supplements significantly increased mortality", the authors wrote. When the antioxidants were assessed separately and low risk of bias trials were included and selenium excluded, vitamin A was linked to a 16% increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7% increased risk and vitamin E to a 4% increased risk.

Evidence for vitamin C and selenium was more equivocal, suggesting there was no benefit to taking these pills compared with a placebo.

rest of the article here.

Well, that just settles it then. Combined with the nasty food poisoning I got when trying to eat something "healthy" at a certain restaurant that used to be a leather bar near the Bluebird Theatre...why bother watching what you eat? If it's going to kill you anyway...

I think I'll get a veggie burger and fries from Watercourse for lunch. Ok, ok, I've been on a combination Weight Watchers / no eating stupid digestive diet plan the past few days. It's hard to get the healthy out of your system once it's already there.

David Bowie, "Life on Mars"

One of my favorite songs. I just found the video courtesy of YouTube, posting it here for your viewing (and listening) pleasure.

J-Street

Caught a bit of this on NPR this morning:



or, jstreet.org.

Sounds potentially promising. At least, I'm glad that there are many out there who are similarly creeped-out at the right wing hijacking the American viewpoint on Israel.

I think I'm going to have a Passover brunch on Sunday, speaking of...it's a lot easier than a seder.

mmmm...I can eat again

So the procedure today seemed to go well. Even the whole "conscious sedation" thing went fine. About 2 hours out, I am just a teeny bit sleepy -- and also, extremely hungry. I really hadn't eaten anything since that caramel sundae I had last night (yum).

The doctor advised me to start out on the light and easy to digest. So I made my dad's version of macaroni and cheese. He made this all the time for me when I was sick:

You will need:

1 small package vermicelli noodles, elbows, or other small pasta
about 2 or 3 tablespoons butter
about a cup of deglazing liquid of your choice. I used white wine tonight, but chicken broth also works very well
1 package of frozen peas
1/2 - 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
black pepper

Cook the pasta in a sufficient amount of salted boiling water until the pasta is a little tougher than al dente. Drain the pasta, and add the wine or chicken broth, the butter, and the peas. Cook over high heat, until almost all the liquid is evaporated, the butter is melted, and the peas are fully cooked. Shut off the heat and add the cheese. Top with black pepper and serve.

I'm eating this along with some toasted Pepperidge Farm white sandwich bread, also with butter. And maybe I'll have some pudding for dessert.

Funny how the most bland food tastes the most wonderful when your stomach's been out of commission for a while.

Now I see why people go bankrupt

With medical costs.

I called my insurance company to verify coverage of a test procedure I have to have done next week. It's considered surgery, even though it's really not. (maybe because they have to whack me out during it? good times...)

So many different categories! No, it's not "preventative," because that's usually done when you're older. It's a test the doctor ordered, for whatever. Ok, so it's covered 90 percent if the doctor and the surgery center are in-network, 70 percent if they are out-of-network... And a $100 co-pay for the surgery center.

Curious to see how much the test would cost overall, I called the medical center where I'll have the procedure performed. I asked how much the costs would be overall. It's something like $1000 for just the doctor's work, plus an additional $1500 - $2500 for the test itself.

Ouch.

Oh and the medication that I need to take to prep myself for the test could run me a couple hundred dollars without the insurance.

So we're talking over $3500 possibly for a diagnostic procedure. Let's add on the 2 days you have to be out of work (good thing I get paid for that, not everyone does) and the costs really start to add up.

Something really needs to be done to reform health care coverage in this country. If someone in relatively good health (such as me) has to go through this on occasion, how's it like for the chronically ill? Who are too young/make too much money to qualify for Medicare/Medicaid/whatever it's called?

Yelle, "Je Veux Te Voir"

Posting this per a conversation I had tonight with my work friend Cat. The shiny mid-80's are back! (sorta)

Mmmm...cheese...grilled

I've been having this ongoing craving all day for a Friendly's grilled cheese sandwich and fries.

Of course, there isn't a Friendly's in Colorado. I'd be surprised if there are even 2 of them left in New England, where they originated. Friendly's really was the food of my childhood, all served up on red-edged stoneware plates, with a promise of ice cream after. I can get a grilled cheese on white bread and fries at a generic diner anywhere, but it won't be like Friendly's. The bread won't be quite as perfectly square, the cheese will melt all funny, and there won't be that ridged dill pickle slice at the side. The fries won't be as perfectly crinkly. The ketchup will taste different. And I won't be able to have a butterscotch ice cream sundae at that same place for dessert.

Oh...let's admit it. My tastebuds have probably grown too sophisticated for a Friendly's grilled cheese. So I think I'll go for a Chedd's grilled cheese in the upcoming future. I don't like that I'm paying upwards of $8 for a cheese sandwich (usually the cheapest thing on any menu, no?). Also, I'm not the biggest fan of the calories. Heck though, I have to have a modified diet on Sunday to prepare for a medical test on Monday. Modified diet = no fiber, seeds, or anything remotely chewy or granola-crunchy healthy. So, Chedd's grilled cheese on Sunday am, here I come. And maybe I'll go by Good Times later in the day to have a butterscotch or caramel sundae. Without nuts.

Remembering Giant bagels...

I am over at St Mark's now, and I just ate a giant bagel. I recorded this dutifully in my (sigh) Weight Watchers journal: 5 points. I justify eating a bagel (plain, toasted, cut in 4's) today because my stomach is back to feeling a bit "off" from Thursday night's digestive episode.

And now the free association begins: Giant Bagel was a name of a bagel shop around the corner from the Strand. We'd do breakfast runs there all the time. I once asked the counter guy for a phone number. He was a bit taken aback: "My phone number?" Um, no, sorry, the phone number of the shop. I figured it would be easier to call in for orders ahead of time.

Although the major supermarket chain where I grew up was called Giant Food, I don't recall we ever got bagels there. My parents were major bagel snobs and would never buy a bagel from a supermarket, not even Lender's bagels. That's what you get for having one parent from Brooklyn and the other from southern Connecticut, I guess. No, instead they drove all the way down to this place called Bagel City to pick up their bagels. This place is still as good as it ever was. I'm partial to their black and white bagels, which are made of pumpernickel and plain bagel doughs twisted together.

Back to today's recovery: I brought some crystallized ginger with me to help with the stomach weirdness. It does seem to work, and is a lot less disruptive (and sugary) to my stomach than ginger ale.

Privacy? Hah, right!

Unlike approximately 95 percent of the people I know, I have a land-line as well as a cell phone. I like to have the land-line around as a safety factor, and it also makes it easier to take a work call from home.

I also like my privacy, so I keep my land-line number unpublished. I pay the phone company a set amount each month to make sure it stays unpublished. So why is it that my unpublished, land-line number is showing up on a website called http://www.hellodenver.com ?

I'm not going to link to that site from this blog, but those of you who know my full name and last name can look that up, and sure enough, you'll see my land-line listed. Which I thought was a private listing.

Thankfully my address isn't on that site. Still, creepy.

Whatever happened to these records I used to have? (part 1)

album purchased for 99 cents at some thrift shop in my hometown of Frederick, Maryland.



originally passed down from grandma and grandpa.



I had this on a 45 (remember those?). Gawd, look at what they're wearing! It's like you can buy those shirts and crap at H&M now.

back from the dead...

well, sorta, as it's already Sunday afternoon, and must go to work tomorrow.

I spent most of the weekend recovering from a nasty bout of food poisoning. For those of you who have never experienced this, let me just say that you'll know when it happens. Food poisoning is not a minor little bout of nausea. No, it's more like your body knows that something's contaminated it. And it'll next want to spew out those toxins in whichever way it feels to be the most convenient. For hours. And hours. And hours. You know it's finally over when you can manage to eat a spoonful of boiled white rice and go like, "Man, that tastes so good..." And keep that down.

Happily, that's over. An added benefit of me being ill is that I was able to catch up on all of those "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" episodes saved up in the DVR since like January (who, me, have time to watch TV?). I loved those Hanna-Barbera cartoons when I was a little girl, so to (the now-adult?) me, "Harvey Birdman" is a show of pure genius.

I went shopping today for a new wallet over at Belmar. I am pretty appalled at how expensive wallets are these days, at least cool, stylish ones that aren't going to fall apart on you in about a month. I finally settled on a beige vinyl one with a cartoon character glamour girl on front (from Gimme Gimme Pillow Toast). It was $26 and will probably fall apart in a few months, but it's a nice little store and they did give me a box of free cookies. The wallets over at Composition were somewhat nicer, but I just could not bring myself to drop $68 on the one wallet I liked. That just seemed too excessive. Maybe I'll be lucky and that wallet will go on sale one day.

That $68 wallet, by the way, was one of the cheaper wallets in the store. I blame the current Euro to Dollar exchange rate. It sucks. A euro is now $1.50. I thought it was bad last year when I was over there and it was $1.35.

Other reasons why the exchange rate is painful: I like these shoes. They are $325. They are in my size. Nothing ever comes in my size. Sadly (or happily?) I cannot bring myself to spend what amounts to a decent portion of my monthly rent on footwear. No matter how pretty and yellow and how much of a lifespan I'd get out of them...ok, I guess I should get back to whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing this afternoon (namely, finishing up a short story for class on Thursday).

one last video

before I call it a night....Dengue Fever, Sni Bong:



missed them in Denver, I guess they played about a week or so ago. Pity, I would have love to have seen them. I bet they put on a hell of a show.