Small Victories

So after my many postings of rage and crazies, it seems like the world is finding small ways of making me smile. Friday saw the end of my 10-day decaffeination project, and when I went to buy my victory coffee the Starbucks lady gave me too much change, so my coffee was only 81 cents. And on the Metro North today, the conductor punched the wrong place on my ticket and I got a free. Then I got a business card! I felt so official!

Last but not least, on Monday evening, I conquered my fear of sweetbreads. I've never found the idea of eating pancreas/thymus particularly appealing, but I was practically dared to try them at this Greek restaurant. You know what? They were pretty good. For some reason I'm always afraid that organs are either going to taste like liver or have the consistency of grits, but these were sort of tender and veal-y. I don't think I'd eat a whole plateful, but as an appetizer they were pretty pleasant. I'm sure it didn't hurt that they were in a garlic-lemon butter sauce......Still, now I get to cross it off my List of Things I'm Scared of.

Know what makes everything awesome?

The Ghostbusters theme song. S'right.

Cat's Crazies #2

It's been a while since I've had some good old fashioned crazy. Sure, I saw a man walking down the street with a cat sitting on top of his head. I also saw a woman in the subway, who was totally normal-looking, except that she was barefoot. BAREFOOT! How badly did she want a staph infection? The answer is: pretty badly. But none of that happened to me, it was all just general New York mad-hattery. Today, though, my boss forwarded me a message and asked me to respond, and oh, what a delightful phone call it was.

Basically, the call was from this woman who wanted to publish her poems. Our conversation went a little something like this:

"Hi, my name is XXXX*, and I need you to give me some information about poetry publishers"
"Um, well, you're aware that we don't publish anything right?"
"Yeah, yeah, but, you know, you guys have all that information, and I need to get in contact with these people."
"May I ask why?"
"Well, you see, let me explain. It's like, I wrote a poem, ok? For a funeral, you know? It's called 'Why I Say Mother'. But then I was looking at it, and I changed it to 'Why I Say Grandmother', then 'Why I Say Father', and then, before you know it, I had 30 poems, all with different family members. So what I was thinking is, I would publish a book of my poems, but it would also be a how-to book."
"Ok"
"Yeah, it would be like my own poems and then the rest would explain how I wrote them. Because these poems are good for anyone. I mean, you always need poems for a funeral, and this way people could read mine, and then I'd tell them how to write their own so they'd have them for a funeral."
"I see."
"So basically, I need to get these published and then I can sell directly to funeral directors."
"Oh. Well. Uhhhhhh, you know, the best way to find and contact publishers is online. Have you checked out the Poetry Society of America's list of small presses?"
"You see, now that's a problem, because I live in a very rural area, so I don't have access to a computer out here."
"I understand, but, you see, the best way really would be to go online. Is there a library somewhere you could use to get on the internet?"
"But I live in a rural area."
(Because they don't have libraries in any rural area? Whatever lady. How'd you find this number then?)
"I see. Well that's a very difficult situation, but unfortunately, I really can't help you. I'll give you the website in case you're ever near a computer and able to do some research."
"Oh, ok, well, do you know anything about children's publishers? Because I have an idea for a children's book. But I'd really need a co-author first, but then I could write one."

......and on and on and on for 20 minutes. I pity the funeral director who decides to buy her book.



*name omitted to protect the Crazy.

Things On My Shit List

Friends, please don't think that I'm a rage-filled person. I'm really not. But every once in a while, I have a series of days that can only be dealt with by unleashing vast quantities of snark upon the world, or upon my blog and the 5 people who read it. Here are the things that have been making me a bitch(face?) lately:

1) Taxis
Sure, it was raining. That would certainly explain why the first 300 drove right by me with warm, snuggly New Yorkers already swaddled in their pleather back seats. But when one finally stopped for me, and I asked "Penn Station?" He just gave me a dismissive hand-flip and drove away, as if to say "Oh, piffle! That's only a 20 minute walk through the freezing wind and rain on this, the first truly wintry day of October, and I have some very important calls to make on my bluetooth. Your $8 of easy cab fare are dead to me, you miserable resident of the Garden State." Really?! You won't take pity on me, with my backpack, oversized purse, and broken umbrella? A pox on your bluetooth!

2) Inappropriate footwear
Well, hello teal silk flats. Aren't you looking lovely today? I think we'll make a delightful outfit, you and I. Let's take a stroll through the city. Oh.....it's raining? Well, I'm already out the door, no time to go back up and change into boots, so we'll just have to manage. What's that? You're not water-proof? Well that's alright. You are, after all, made of silk, so I wasn't expecting a miracle. I'll just stay away from the deeper puddles. Oh, wait, when you said "not waterproof," what you really meant was YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE DOING YOUR JOB, which is to be a FUCKING SHOE and protect my feet from the elements. Seriously. How is there water coming through the soles of my shoes?

3) People who can't walk in a straight line
Pick a side, swervy! I've got places to be. On a side note, I knew I had gotten just a little tooooo feisty when, walking behind an old lady in CVS, I almost choked because of the effort it took not to scream "make a slow lane, grandma!" Old people can't help it, and yelling at them is never cool. If I ever do that, end me.

4) Dunkin' Donuts
Dunkin' Donuts is usually a consolation in times of great need. Their iced coffee is like crackinacup, and there's no denying it. So why are they on my bad side? Folks, pumpkin spice is hands down the most delightful of seasonal flavors, and it's really hard to screw up. I had no coffee in my apartment, and I thought "well, I'll treat myself to a pumpkin latte on the cold, rainy, bad-shoed walk to work. It will be like a little oasis of Autumn under my pathetic, leaky umbrella." But you know what it tasted like? A gingersnap that got lost in the couch. How did they do that? No, really, SOMEBODY TELL ME HOW.

Ok. The End. Coming up next, a list of things I love....full of fluffy kittens and joy. I promise. No more rage.....

Cat the Creampuff

Or, the Epic Battle of My Multiple Personalities.

I was doing so well guys. I had this bitch face going, and I would walk right by those "save the animals" kids with their clipboards and their baby seal t-shirts, and they knew--don't ask Bitchface for money. Bitchface won't give it to you.

But then came the day of the voucher. In my defense, I was really tired, really hungry, and I'd been thinking about getting a haircut for weeks. I wasn't at my best. Here goes:

On my way out of work last Tuesday, a very non-threatening, lanky gay man came up to me and said "hey can I ask you a question?" Now, Bitchface wasn't awake and being all scary, and it's a touristy area, so I honestly thought he wanted directions. But nooooooo. He wanted to offer me a special voucher for a discount package at a new Paul Mitchell salon. The former teenager with a Cosmo subscription deep inside of me went "ooooooooh!" And then he pretty much had me: $70 for a haircut, manicure, mini-facial, eyebrows, shoulder massage, etc. Yes, please, I said. So he said "just put your name and zip code on the voucher," which seemed harmless enough. Then he pulled out his clipboard--why, oh why, is there always a clipboard?--and showed me where to enter my credit card information.

That's when Bitchface woke up and gave me a swift kick in the common sense. I started backtracking. "Oh.......what?......forgot my wallet......no cards......." Then LankyGay was sad. "Can't reuse the voucher because you wrote on it (pout pout). Can you pay with cash?" Says LankyGay. "I only have $20," says CosmoTeen, as she steps hard on Bitchface's foot. Replies LankyGay: "well, don't tell them I did this, look, I promise I'm not cheating you, look, here's my card, see the name? Look at my driver's license, and my credit card. Same name, see? You can call the salon right now and make an appointment, you can have the voucher for $20, just don't tell them that's how much you paid when you get there, ok?"

And, in the epic battle between CosmoTeen and Bitchface, CosmoTeen pulled the unforgivable girl-fight maneuver of yanking Bitchface's hair. Hard. During Bitchface's stunned moment of "oh no she didn't," CosmoTeen handed over the $20.

I called the salon (all three of me, that is), made the appointment, and hated myself. I went home, looked them up online, and you know what? They're legit, as in they exist, but apparently they suck, so rather than get a bad haircut, I decided to just be $20 poorer.

But I learned an important lesson: I am a creampuff. Why did I feel like I owed LankyGay anything? No, Cat, no! LankyGay, vaguely a con man, does not get a $20 consolation prize just because I didn't give him $70. Bitchface is really mad at me right now, but she's practicing her moves, and I have a feeling she's never letting another dollar out of this wallet. CosmoTeen is totally grounded.

Holy Cannoli!

Today, I went to not one, but two Italian festivals. One in Little Italy, the Feast of San Gennaro, and one in Hoboken, the Feast of the Madonna dei Martiri. And feast I did. I can't even begin to list all the delicious things I ate, stared at, sniffed longingly, or bought "for later," but I will tell you that I started out at the amazing Ferrara's, and that a shameful number of pastries were involved. San Gennaro's was definitely more of a typical street fair, complete with rain, mud, and those ring-toss games with prizes that nobody wants, but I'm not complaining, especially since there were rainbow cookies. Later I hit the Hoboken festival, lured by the promise of a cannoli-eating contest, which I thought would be a great spectator sport. It wasn't quite what I expected--the contestants were mostly pre-teen boys, they were only given five cannolis each and a two minute time limit--but the winner ate all five mondo cannolis in 43 seconds! I felt a little sick watching him, but not sick enough to restrain myself from getting a bag of Kettle Korn on the way out. As I left, I felt a sense of lightness of being, and that's because the feast of the Madonna dei Martiri has an extra benefit, which is that anyone who attends receives a plenary indulgence from his holiness the pope-n-ator. Basically, all my sins were absolved because I ate a slice of pizza and listened to a Dean Martin cover band. Hooray! So fresh and so clean! Also, I made a new best friend, so I might need to take up smoking. But seriously, who doesn't want to hang with this guy:

Employment!

Hey guys,
I really wish I hadn't wasted the "victory" title on some silly cappuccinos, because guess who now has two (count 'em, two) jobs? Me! One as a part-time study abroad advisor at a university, and one with the magazine I've been interning at for the last 6 months. So yay! Do they add up to less than 25 hours a week? Yes. Do I have to commute for an hour at least one day a week? Uh huh. Am I still living below the poverty line? Absolutely. But since I'm not really a grown-up, I'll actually be making enough money to live. I'm pretty darn excited, because not only is the seemingly endless and infinitely frustrating job search finally at an end (at least for now.....dun dun dun....) but I get to do two things that I am enthusiastic about. I get to stay with the people I love at the magazine, and then I also get to do something else I love, which is get excited with students about studying abroad. And I get to advise them, mold them, turn them into my minions....muahaha. Anyway, I'll be on both payrolls starting on Monday-ish, and I will buy you all a beer or a cookie with my new piles of money.

Milky, Frothy Victory

So my parents had this little rinky-dink cappuccino maker in their basement, and when I moved out they gave it to me. I was a little nervous about using it, because the first thing I did when unpacking was to drop it on the floor, but today Jackie and I decided to give it a try and ended up with two pretty darn good lattes. A little strong maybe, and we splattered espresso just about everywhere it could get splattered, but I'm confident our method will improve with practice. And in the meantime I might just kill myself from over-caffeination. I think my long-term goal should be to learn how to make pictures in the froth. What should I do first? Hearts are kind of boring, but probably easy. I'm hoping for something like an elephant or kissing fish!

What is going on?

Seriously, New Jersey, what is your problem? The mayor of Hoboken just got arrested for accepting bribes, after only 23 days in office. He was taken down by some real estate dude who defrauded a bank out of $25 million, got caught, and decided to take the entire world down with him. Literally. He bribed/got involved with 3 mayors, 2 assemblymen, 5 money-laundering rabbis, and A GUY WHO SELLS KIDNEYS. Why is NJ so bad at being legit?

Spam (List #3)

And my obsession with list-making continues. Do any of you ever read your spam e-mail? Because I do, and let me tell you, some of it is hilarious. I don't read the actual messages, because inevitably I'd have a case of clumsy sausage fingers and click some link that would melt my hard drive, but just the subject headings make for good reading. Here's a list of the funniest ones (so far. Some of them are pretty lewd, just to warn you):

1. May we build a nest on your lovely hat?
2. Turn your meat battleship on
3. Did the turtle swiftly go?
4. Deeper in her entrails
   
5. Attack her ham pocket (I know...4 & 5....gross)
6. If you will but bring me my ball back again (alas! If only I could)
7. You'll peck her like crazy (psycho bird attack?)
8. Wake up your hot monster
9. The Pobble swam fast and well
10. Barak (sic) Obama is a woman!
11. Is 7pm appropriate? (That depends. Appropriate for what, exactly?)
12. Rode the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo
13. On this coast so wild and shingly
14. We sail away with a pea-green sail (off into the sunset on the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo? With the swift turtle? And the Hot Monster?)