The land where nothing fazes

While reading the NY Times on-line over lunch, I was attracted to the headline "A Cab Burns: Midtown Takes It In Stride." Much to my dismay, I discovered in reading the article that taxis spontaneously bursting in to flame was anything but this one time occurrence! I already have been buckling my seat-belt religiously after hearing some horror stories about people going through the plastic partition in cabs during accidents.

The main problem is that when attempting to evaluate a cab driver's skills, like some abstract art, it is hard to differentiate between bad form and genius; they can frequently take the same shape. Driving the wrong way down a one way alley is either a brilliant maneuver to evade traffic or the guy doesn't know what 'Wrong Way - Do Not Enter' means.

Either way, I feel more nervous than ever.

perspective

I came across this photo on Ye Olde Interweb and realized what a perfect point of comparison it is to my life as a FT worker. I was telling/bemoaning to OTPET recently about how tired I am at the end of the working day/week but that I'd come to the conclusion that I'm simply in an adjustment period having not worked full time for about six years - imagine if you did no exercise for six years and then suddenly started working out 40 hours a week! You'd be bushed, too. And while to some it may appear that I've lost my head, like this gymnast it only appears that way from a particular perspective. In fact, both of us are performing at our highest level with real capability and total success.

The time to stop being lazy is now.

Also known as 'forced productivity:' This is what happens when someone should be blogging on their own but refuses to for reasons scapegoated by laziness. We all know it's 'cause you're too cool for school, Ashi. You probably had a blog when blogs first began and then deleted it when it became part of the mainstream (I'm recalling a specific moment; rebel with a cause).

So, here is your blog were it to exist. Your header is freakin cooler than mine. P.S. The Evident Utensil video made my editing glands salivate and now the catchy song has grown on me.

I've been nerding-out on music videos on youtube, and I have these songs stuck in my head (they alternate). Thought I would share them with you (or torture you with them). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPb--BzlEc0 (Note: Fred Frith is NOT performing in this, thank goodness) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LG39Wp7OzQ (I also like the "How to Datamosh Part 1") You may have seen these already and hate/love or are indifferent to them. I would start blogging, but I'd probably stop after the first day cuz I'm lazy. Love, Ashika

Common Ground?

“What I liked about Wall Street,” Mr. Brod said, “was that it’s full of manic-depressives. There are a lot of artists who are manic-depressive. And there’s a lot of creative people in Wall Street.”

Read the story if you like. It ends with a poem.

Whoever on the road.
Whoever still traveling.
Whoever says whatever.
Whoever is dead.
Long live whoever.

Can I get a witness?

I found a page on NYTimes.com where people write under a 'dear diary' header some New York related experience. I read this one today and was amused then relieved to know that I'm not the only native Californian whose perception of reality is being distorted by the city's steep learning curve.

Dear Diary:

My husband, Daniel, works on the 41st floor of an office building in Times Square, overlooking the Hudson River.

When US Airways Flight 1549 made an emergency landing in the water in January, Daniel and some of his colleagues gathered by his window. A co-worker walked by and asked, “What’s everyone looking at?”

“A plane just landed in the river,” Daniel answered.

“Oh, I saw that a few minutes ago,” said the co-worker, who had just moved to New York from California. “I thought it looked a bit weird, but then I told myself, ‘This is New York,’ and I just went back to work.”

- Rebecca Wolf

Amen, my Californian brother (or sister). Together we shall walk through this city of strangeness.

It's like a Bowflex for your mind, only cheaper.

An at-home exercise program for your 'little grey cells' - an hour a day, three days a week and you'll have a sexy, toned and perfectly sculpted left cerebral hemisphere in just a few weeks!

My friend Vanessa just turned me on to this website Academic Earth Dot Org where you can watch videotaped lectures on many different subjects by amazing academicians from places like Yale, Stanford, Berkeley - you know, places for the freakishly smart - as though you were taking the course itself. And while I must admit that I still like creating intricate C-4 traps to contain the falling napalm and oil, then blow it all up with the some fire on the original amazing time suck I am probably better off learning something from people who clearly know better.

Besides, who can complain when it's so free?

Spreading the yang to the yin of love

As you all well know, I am doing my best to keep with the positive in these times of trials and tribulations, but...well, I can't help but love the haters. This here is part of a rant from the blog 'Monkeys for Helping' that was started by a guy I knew at Con College. (I've started dropping the second N after watching Trailer Park Boys. I can now proclaim my alma mater with something perhaps not unrelated to pride.) Thank you Eric for your rant. And, I hear you, man.

Monday, March 16th; excerpt from Sipping on Haterade: a brief but profanity-laden essay detailing why I hate the Subway.

I make an executive decision to keep my sunglasses on. Yes. I look like a douche bag. I don't care. I need them. They allow me to spend my 35 minutes of misery doing what I enjoy most in the morning: Rolling my eyes and sending invisible hate beams in the direction of those I hate. Specifically..

1: Anyone engaging in any form or variation of what can be considered Ipod dancing.

2: Those clever little Cosby sweater type dude he guy who thinks he's a Sommelier for microbrews, plays bass or DJ's in 4 bands, and definitely would have sex with Brooklyn if Brooklyn somehow transformed itself into a artsy Japanese girl.

3: Blissed-out passengers that whisper-sing Dave Matthews violin solos. Fuck the fuck off. Go buy another scarf and choke yourself with it, you horrible, horrible, person.

4: Air drummers. WTF? What's the functionality and purpose of air drumming a Rush solo at 9 in the morning? God help you.

5: Yawners, moaners, T-Mobile walkie-talkie people, and any and all that engage in repetitive motions, excessive paper folding, sneezing, chewing, coffee slurping, etc. you know what I'm talking about. To the dude grossing me out in the seat across from me: Eat your Everything Bagel like a ninja, not a Golden Reteriver, barbarian. Shut the fuck up already.

Wow, I'm kind of a dick, huh? Oh well. (PS: Don't call me a dick.)

my counterpart

man in the dark

An amazing time suck.

First New York

I visited New York for the first time when I was in elementary school. I came with my dad on a work related trip I'm sure. My grandfather was here, too, and he took me on a day-long outing where we visited the UN building and he bought me my first Dove Bar from a street vendor complete with the little paper tray to catch the chocolate if/when it fell off the ice-cream bar. I remember noticing the way the streets smelled like old basements or sewers sometimes (certain places in Tokyo smell like that, too). We stayed at the Mayflower Hotel because they had kitchens and I remember the first time I turned the light on in the closet kitchen, the sickening sight of a large army of small, brown cockroaches scurrying to their hiding places and disappearing from sight completely, not that I was fooled. I knew they were just waiting for some privacy to come out and claim what they probably (rightfully) viewed as their own.

New York is also the place where I accidentally added lemon to my milk tea one morning at some restaurant(*). It curdled and I felt too embarrassed to ask for a new one and tried to drink it anyway, rationalizing that it would have combined in my stomach in any case. It didn't work; I couldn't do it. I remember feeling amazed, overwhelmed, excited, nervous, and intimidated in this place of huge history and many bustling people. I guess I still feel the same.

I recently saw this guy's blog in the New York Times and it made me wonder about feeling like your life/world is here in New York. I must say I really enjoy people who love this city and wear it like a skin. I remember once I came to visit my college boyfriend when he was studying at NYU and one of his roommates had just returned from a trip to San Francisco and he kept saying how glad he was 'to be back in the real world again.' For me, it's the exact opposite. All this gotham-citiness, busy people with places to be, weather and seasons, honking cars, coffee with milk unless you specify black, $2 subway rides, amazing things available but you have to know who to ask or where to look; it makes me feel a little like Alice down her rabbit-hole.

I wonder what it is like to have a sense of reality about New York like that roommate had in 1998?