photo courtesy of jamelah e. via flickr
I emerged from the 2 train this evening at dusk tense from a day filled with work stress, financial worries, and concern for friends. As I walked around the rotary that is Grand Army Plaza, I tried to focus on a calming and upbeat playlist I had made for myself earlier in the day, consciously willing the muscles in my shoulders to relax.
And then suddenly a flash of yellow light caught my eye on the edge of the wooded area to my right. As I walked the three blocks to my apartment the flashes became more and more frequent.
There, in the middle of Brooklyn, I was surrounded by fireflies. And in an instant a huge smile swept across my face. The respite from reality may have only lasted for as long as I could hold one of them in my hand (I forgot how they tickle!), but it made all the difference.
Are the Rays for real?
Why is anyone even asking this anymore. It seems to have become a favorite topic on sports talk shows, radio broadcasts, and in print and online media. What more do these guys have to do? They’ve got the best record in baseball, lead one of the toughest divisions by 4 games in July, have the 3rd best team ERA in all of MLB. Exactly where do the questions come in?
Sure, they’re unproven in the postseason, but this isn’t the postseason. And right now these guys are clearly in it to win it. Even as a Sox fan, the team they are leading by 4 games at the moment, I kind of feel bad for them. Doing this well and they can’t even get decent representation on the All-Star team. Of course if you went up to most MLB fans, they wouldn’t be able to name a single guy on the team. MAYBE Longoria, if only because they’ve heard jokes comparing him to Tony Parker’s wife.
From my perspective, the question no longer needs to be asked. What needs to be asked is: “How do we beat them?”
Filed under: misc.
Well, less than 24 hours back and there are already a few glitches I didn’t quite anticipate. I didn’t set my time zone before importing all my content from blogger, and then when I tried to fix it later the times on ALL of my posts was changed … making it appear as if I’m the worst insomniac ever. Anyone know how to fix this? With almost 500 posts over a number of years fixing it manually isn’t all that appealing.
Filed under: writing
I often wonder about how language, grammar, and style evolve. Who was the one person who first thought “you know, dashes should be different lengths”? And how did they convince others to follow suit?
Along those lines, I’ve got some pretty geeky pet peeves. For example, I have a severe aversion to hyphenating the word “email”. Ten years ago, I could understand. When email was still a new tool, there was a reason to emphasise that this was “electronic mail” as opposed to conventional mail. But at this point, “e-mail” should be a thing of the past. The culture as a whole has gotten the message. We all know what email is at this point.
But the thing that’s been bugging me lately is this new trend in phone numbers. When did we decide that periods should replace the dashes when including phone numbers in invitations, programs, ect? It’s become so pervasive that I saw a phone number the other day on the side of a moving truck that looked like this:
212.123.4567
I’ve heard a couple different argumens for this – the one that infuriated me the most was that this looks “classier”. Um, how? It actually makes it harder to read, nevermind that the dashes indicate a pause, not a full stop, which of course, you’re not doing in the middle of a phone number.
Damn, I think I just bored even myself. And on my first post back, no less. I’m seriously out of practice.
Filed under: misc.
Hi everyone! Take a look around. I’ve taken far too long off from blogging, or really writing in general. I’ve been taking some serious steps of late to get my life back on track, and this is one of them. Hope you like the new place. Let me know if anything’s acting wonky.
More to come soon.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t been in the best of moods lately. I’ve been working almost constantly with no end in sight, I haven’t been sleeping well, I’ve just been sort of … I don’t know … blah. It’s not to say that I haven’t had some great nights out the last few weeks, or that I haven’t had any stories to tell around here, I just quite simply haven’t been up to it.
But this morning – for no particular reason other than I was fast asleep by 9:45 last night – I woke up with a smile on my face. It was a smile that persisted through my commute. As I stood on the 4 train, with Gomez flowing through my ear buds, I kept smiling at random moments. I’d be subtly mouthing the words to the songs and not realize it. Well, I didn’t realize it until a man sitting in front of me caught my eye and smiled. I was a little embarrassed then, but that didn’t stop it from happening again just a few minutes later.
As the guy got up to get off the train a few stops later and I moved in to take his seat, he looked me straight in the eye and said ” It was so nice to see someone in a good mood on the train. Thanks for starting my day off with a smile – have a good one.”
I rocked out a little bit harder to the music after that.
For a little while today, I got to concentrate on baseball. Not for great reasons, mind you, but at least I was reminded that the season was close. I’ve already got three sets of tickets to Fenway (thank you six hours of virtual waiting room hell a few weeks ago), and yesterday I received an email letting me know that I had won the lottery for the opportunity to buy Opening Day or Yankees tickets at Fenway as well (what can I say, I’m just a lucky SOB).
And then this evening, as I am heading out of the office, I see this. A window on the Lexington Side of Bloomingdales. It’s like I ALMOST get past it, and then it just gets rubbed in my face all over again.
But I will say that stopping to take this photo led to an entertaining story. A guy walked up to me and smiled and said, “Giants fan?”. I explained that no actually, I was just trying to prove to people how hard it was to be a Patriots fans in NYC with stuff like this window around all the time.
“Next you’re going to tell me you’re a Red Sox fan too!” he laughed.
“Well, yeah, actually I am.”
He starts laughing that oh-get-a-load-of-this-girl laugh, and says “Ok, well, uh, Buckner!”
“2007″
“Boone!”
“2004″
“Yeah well,” he trailed off. “Maybe the Giants will have reversed the New York curse.”
And that, that right there, was enough to send me heading down the subway steps with a smile on my face.
In any other city in the world I would have been over it by now. Sure, I would have been devastated. But I would have had time to properly mourn. I would have been able to hang my head, drown my sorrows in my beer, and wonder over and over again … what went wrong? I would have been able to avoid certain websites, not listen to certain radio stations, and completely avoided whole channel blocks on my television until the mere mention of the event stopped sending daggers into my heart.
The Giants are the Super Bowl Champions.
I want to be the bigger person. To give the Giants their due. I mean, they won! It wasn’t some cheaply won, bad call kind of game, they out played the team I root for. But the minute the game was over it started. The taunting. The jeering. The chants in the street of “18 AND 1!” “18 AND 1″. When you live in enemy territory, well, it’s just what you get.
The next morning I tried to avoid any mention of the game. I got ready in silence, choosing to awaken to my alarm instead of my typical Mike and Mike in the morning. My massive hangover from drowning my sorrows as the last of the seconds ticked away the night before dulling the dread of what I knew awaited me outside the safety of my apartment. The joy.
It surrounded me on the subway. Even with my nose shoved firmly into the spine of my book I could see images Eli Manning hoisting the trophy above his head all around me. On the backs of papers. On the fronts of papers. His goofy I’m-only-twelve-years-old face mocked me everywhere I went. When I got into my office my coworkers had plastered him to my door. So what that I was nice to them when their Mets COLLAPSED at the end of the season? The Giants won the Super Bowl!
Coworkers stopped by to gloat. Especially one who had called, back in July, that the Pats only loss was going to be to the Giants. Of course, he was thinking week 17, but his prediction came true none-the-less. On Tuesday it was just as bad. Giants jerseys were everywhere as the city celebrated their heroes with a parade.
Most days I love this city. This week? I think I’d rather be anywhere but.
Bring on pitchers and catchers.
Filed under: Uncategorized
This past Friday night, Professor Thom’s welcomed a very special guest:
That’s right, the Red Sox 2007 World Series trophy made an appearance at my favorite bar. The good people at Bombo Sports (the guys who brought you Still, We Believe) have been shooting a new documentary at Thom’s all season, featuring some of my good friends and fellow regulars. So the Red Sox were kind enough to send the trophy down to the bar for all of us to enjoy.
And enjoy it we did. It was an absolutely amazing night. I had the good fortune to have my photo taken with the 2004 World Series Trophy as well, but it was at a fundraiser that I didn’t really know anyone at. Friday? I was surrounded by the people I spent all season watching the Red Sox every move with. The people who have become more than just fellow regulars at the bar, but friends you look forward to seeing. So the two trophy sightings were drastically different, but both equally amazing.
Some photos from Friday:
Chris carries the trophy through the adoring crowd:
So pretty:
Yeah, that’s right, I kissed it:
AND hugged it:
Other moments included us all rubbing our happiness in the nose of the owner of the Yankee bar next door (photos from that are all sorts of entertaining), lots of dancing to Shipping Up to Boston (which I really hope the documentary crew didn’t get on tape), and just general euphoria. More photos here.
The days immediately following the Red Sox World Series victory are still a bit of a blur. Too much alcohol, too little sleep, and a whirlwind trip to Boston for the victory parade all contributed to me no longer knowing what day it was. So when I met MBB (the name will make more sense later) I was completely shocked that he asked for my number, never mind that he actually used it.
But after meeting me at my absolute worst (read: on no sleep, fresh off the sox parade, slightly buzzed and looking like hell on an Amtrak train) he did, in fact, call. While on the train I had found out that he was 32, lived in midtown, and was a former marine. He was now the part-owner of his own company and had a pair of eyes that could seriously melt a girl. When he planned our first date as dinner and drinks at a sports bar before sitting in tenth row seats to a Knicks game I was pretty much sold.
Ok, so there were a few red flags. I wasn’t a fan of the fact that he’d never gone to college. I was worried the marine thing would put him staunchly on the right hand side of the political line. And who lives in midtown? But you know what? I was having a damn good time with this guy, and all of those things I had been worried about turned out to be totally unfounded.
And then he dropped the bomb. The “I’m divorced and have two kids” bomb. This came on about our 5th or 6th date. We had had dozens of long conversations on the phone. I was really starting to like this guy. But an ex-wife? TWO KIDS? But again, after a long conversation about it I decided, you know what? I’m having a damn good time with this guy. So we continue dating.
Flash forward: MBB and I have now been dating for about a month and a half. And we haven’t hooked up once. Oh, sure, we’ve made out like bandits on random street corners, but that’s as far as it’s gotten. I realize that I’m the first girl he’s really dated since his ex-wife, but damn! So one night we meet up. We get outrageously drunk. I decide that this is absolutely the night that I am getting laid.
It is now 5:30 in the morning and we have just exited what feels like the tenth bar of the night. He looks at me and says “Do you want to stay in midtown tonight.” After telling him that it is no longer “tonight” I say yes. What I really want to say is “Do you honestly think that wasn’t my intention? We’ve been molesting each other in public for hours now”. I restrain myself. Barely.
As we walk into his building the following conversation ensues:
MBB: You are finally going to see where I live.
KIM: Yeah I am excited.
MBB: Me too.
KIM: It kind of looks like an office building.
MBB: Well, it kinda is.
This should have been my first clue that this was not going to go the way I had hoped.
As the elevator doors open we are deposited into a reception area. The logo of MBB’s company is hanging on the wall above the front desk. MBB takes my hand and gives me a quick tour. As we wander through the cubicles it still hasn’t hit me yet. I’m wasted, I just don’t get it.
Then we reach an office in the back corner. Like my office, the wall that faces the hallway is floor to ceiling glass. Unlike my office, this glass is blacked out somehow.
MBB takes out his keys and unlocks the door. I am now just flat out confused. What are we doing here? MBB steps inside the office. The door is only half open. And then I see why.
There is a Murphy Bed unfolded from the wall blocking the door.
That’s when it hits me.
This is where Murphy Bed Boy (MBB) lives!
Inside the room there is just the Murphy Bed, a dresser with a TV, cable box, tivo, and playstation, and an odd compartmentalized closet type thing. This should bother me more than it does. But the minute his lips touch mine I forget where I am. The copiuos amounts of liquor probably had something to do with it too.
Then, suddenly, it’s morning. Or, more accurately, later in the morning than it was when we fell asleep. Now hundreds of questions are running through my head. The most important of which are the immediate ones. Where in the world is the women’s room, and IS THERE GOING TO BE SOMEONE WORKING IN THE CUBICLE OUTSIDE THE DOOR!
I wake MBB to ask these questions and realize that the reason I am freezing is that they turn the heat off in office buildings on weekends. After a thousand assurances that no one will be outside, i quickly dress and head towards the women’s room. Two things happen here. 1. I find mens shaving gel next to the sink. 2. I hear someone moving around outside and almost die of a heart attack. I imagine exiting the bathroom and running into one of MBBs coworkers. What would I say? “Uh, hi, I’m Kim. I’m just visiting MBB … at 10am on a Sunday morning. With bed head. And his shirt on. Nice meeting you!”
I basically run back to MBBs, I don’t even know what you call it, his room? and find it empty meaning that whatever I heard before was him. I breathe a sign of relief. It’s a quick one because I then find my own shirt and have my coat on before he returns.
He tries to convince me to stay and watch football. Not once has he made any mention of the fact that we are in the middle of his office. He’s acting like this is totally normal!
Me? I bolt as fast as my aching, heeled, walk of shame feet can carry me.
Only in New York, folks. Only in New York.
