why hello, 4am! haven’t seen you in a while

It's very early. (Although not quite as early as it was when I got out of bed... three and a half hours ago.)

I just had one of those can't-sleep-anymore nights, and figured that rather than lay around in bed, I'd get up and make the best use of my time. (And by "best use" I mean "um, I probably should do all this crap and now's as good as any time.")

Here's my recommended list of Ten Things To Do When You Get Up Godawful Early And Can't Get Back To Sleep:

1) Watch an episode of CSI, thinking it will lull you back to sleep.

I highly recommend NOT picking the episode with your boyfriend, Alan Tudyk, in it, as you will have to stay up and watch it (even though Alan plays a gay pedophile who (spoiler!) was guilty.) *sigh.*

2) Clamber back into bed, thinking that you are now on a different brain wavelength (especially if you accidentally watch the Tudyk CSI and feel your heart palpitating with odd, gay, pedophilic love) and will be able to drop off to sleep instantaneously.

This step may not aid you in getting back to sleep, but it will offer you the opportunity to eat a slice of bread (to quiet the rumbling in your tumbling) without having to consider it part of your caloric intake for the day. "I must have been sleep-eating" you hear yourself say later.

3) Surrender to being awake.
This involves putting on pants (fuscia) and your robe (lavender) and your sleep shirt (black and red) and looking like a supermodel.

4) Balance your checkbook.
No, I'm not kidding. Your math will suck just as badly at noon as it will at 5:30 a.m. so why not get it out of the way? Sure you'll be depressed longer about how little money you have but some things are just bound to suck anyway.

5) Listen to your podcasts.
You're reading a new book that is a) almost 500 pages and b) due back in the library in probably two weeks, so you're reading that feindishly on the subway. You'd pick it up now, except it'd probably put you to sleep... Wait a second...

However, listening to your podcasts (espeically if they're NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) may yield you checkbook-balancing balance: turns out, Women with small waists and big hips also have big IQs. How cool is that?

6) Write in your blog.
Your readers have noticed a considerable drop off in your writing in the past few months. I'd recommend adding some sort of apology, like how your new job actually keeps you busy all day and makes it hard to have inania to remark on. (Sorry readers!) (Oh, also sorry that "inania" isn't a word. It should be.)

7) Scrub your shower and hang your new shower curtains.
What? You did that last night?

8) Mop your kitchen floor.
Ok, surely you're joking now. I balanced my checkbook and filed my paperwork. What more do you want???

9) Sew that button back onto your jacket.
You know, Kate, you're really pushing it here. It's already 7:30 and I regularly get up in half an hour anyway. Why don't I just go back to bed?

10) Resist the urge to go back to bed and be thankful that it's Friday.
At least you can sleep in to your heart's content then.

If none of these solutions work for you, then clearly, you're not me.
Good morning!

tag-a-doodle-doo

I've been tagged! Gasp!

Apparently, these are the rules of having been tagged.

1. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.2. At the end of your blog, you choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Except that, aside from my tagger (Aaron) and a couple of other friends (a few of whom were tagged pre-Aaron), I don't know anyone else who writes and would actually post this.

(Does that count as a random fact about myself?)

Ok, so here goes:

1. When I was a kid, I used to call pillows "pellows." My friend Sherri Berglund called me on it once and when confronted with the truth, I lied like a rug. "That's how Swedish people say it," I claimed.

Um, yeah, Sherri Berglund was also Swedish.

2. This is creepy. Aside from a rug, a bookcase and a shelving unit in my kitchen, I have not purchased any of the furniture in my house. (Awesome roman shades do not count.) Most of it has been passed down in my family, given to me as a gift, inherited from old roommates or boyfriends, or simply picked up off the street.

3. Sometimes my pantyhose are so tight that they give me a tummyache.

4. I have a rabid fear of puke. If someone on the subway looks green, or a kid nearby starts to cry and cough, I change locations. I haven't seen someone puke in years, and I have absolutely no desire to see it again any time soon. (I mention this only because I almost barfed in a cab today. I didn't! But it was definitely an option.)

5. I loathe reality television, and yet I'm secretly addicted to The Biggest Loser. I am rooting for just about everyone on that series, because, really, who doesn't want an unhappy fat person to be a happy thin one?

6. My favorite parts of a man's body are his hipbones and his upper arms/shoulders. However, my only physical requirement of a man is that he be able to pick me up and carry me. (Not into the next county, for example, but at least into the next room.)

7. I don't always flush the toilet every time I use it.

8. I can put leftover frosting in the freezer and forget that it's even there. However, once I re-discover it, I usually can't walk away from it and end up having to throw it out. (Why save it in the first place, you ask? Hmmm. Good question.)

So here's the part where I tag people, huh? Well, how about these fine folks:
Sara
Romero
Christina
Ian
John
Marcia
Bonnie

Bring it on, guys, bring it on!

yay! canstruction!

What do you call it when a bunch of artists make a building full of sculptures out of cans of food?
Canstruction, of course!

(From their website: "A foundation of the Society for Design Administration (SDA), Canstruction® is a design/build competition currently held in cities throughout North America. Teams of architects, engineers, and students mentored by these professionals, compete to design and build giant structures made entirely from full cans of food.")

Last year was my inaugural year, and, like many good things done more than once, the second time didn't quite live up to the first, but it was delightful in its own ways.
My favorites from this year include:

..The cute little car from Cars, that, if I were younger or older (or married with children, rather), I'd probably be able to name. I think I'm thankful that I can't.
Also on the kiddie tip... although this one's universal.
Hmmm, I'm sensing a theme here. Strangely, most of the attendees were adults. I thought for sure this would be something kids would want to see, but then again, it's probably something kids would much rather smash apart, so it's probably best to keep them home.
I liked this one because it was both retro and meta at the same time. (Don't forget, all the cans in the sculptures and the cans donated as entrance fees go to food banks -- one sculpture of a polar bear was made entirely of ingredients for New England Clam Chowder, all of which had been packaged and processed in New England. Talk about meta!)

And then, every year, there seems to be a pervading element. Last year there were lots of dragons/loch ness monsters (another one showed up this year, too), but this year, everyone had somewhat more of a dairy thing going on...

I scream:

You scream:
We all scream:

My two favorites, though, were both way cooler in person.
There was a sign at this stop saying "View through your camera or SQUINT." (I guess the woman at the front desk was tired of telling people what this was.) (It's Mona Lisa, if you can't see it.)
And this one was pretty dazzling to look at -- the color, which is not well reflected, thanks to my crap-o camera, came from the fact that it was constructed entirely from canned salmon. (bleck!)

A funny note about last year's canstruction -- if you look back at the old link, you'll see a collapsed statue. Yeah, that's the one that won the judges' award for structural integrity.

Oops.

This year's exhibit runs through tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5pm and costs only a can of food. You should check it out of if you can. It's really pretty amazing.

my brief foray into photojournalism

The weather was not cooperative this year in terms of my ability to pursue my photojournalism project, The Geriatric Pumpkins of South Park Slope. It was too warm for too long, and nobody really carved their pumpkins until the very last minute, and of course, they then molded and caved in and died on November 1st.

However, this weekend, I stumbled across two new additions to the project, making TGPoSPS almost a viable project for 2007.

So, my project started last year, when I caught this guy, aging and sighing, and complaining about how when he was a kid, things were so different and children had more respect:

This year, his cousin (son? grandson?) on the same stoop also got really old really quickly (although there's something almost down-syndromy about this particular gourd):
And then there are this weekend's finds (caught with my cameraphone, so the quality's a little pathetic).

Old Pumpkins In Jail:
("I didn't do it, man. Don't let them convince you that I did. How could I? I have no teeth. Can an old man with no teeth have committed a crime like that? I ask you.")

and Aging Is Hard On The Skin:
("Don't buy that Pearl Cream secret-of-the-oh-wee-ent stuff. It doesn't work. I repeat: IT DOES NOT WORK. But come on in. I have cookies. You look like you could use a cookie.")

The Christmas decorations are already up. I don't think pumpkins and santa should overlap.

today’s accomplishment

If you were to move in across the street, you wouldn't be able to see me roaming around in my apartment, thanks to my new roman shades! (Of course, if you lived across the street, I'd worry about you, since that's a junior high, but that's a whole nother story.)

I still have venetian blinds behind the roman shades -- I guess because I wanted a united Italy in my window. Come to think of it, I've been wearing a lot of brown shirts recently, so if I change my name to Mussolini, someone come over and punch me.

If you're an astute picture-looker-atter, you'll notice my ATTRACTIVE hot pink velour pants and non-matching t-shirt in the mirror. Also, if you're wondering what the splotches are on the left hand window, that's a vine that's grown from a bean-in-a-can that my cousin gave me last Christmas. And if you had just-outside-the-frame-vision, you'd see the magnets I stuck to my ceiling last weekend. I've had a tin ceiling for over two years now, and only just caught on to all the things I could be doing with it! Ceiling collage! Magnetic poetry for those reclining on the couch! A new place to hang postcards!

I think I need to get out more.

scary ass candy

I've been meaning to take pictures of this and post it here ever since halloween, but I haven't gotten around to it -- either out of fear, or a sense of admiring awe. (Hard to tell. Sometimes those get confusing.)

Someone in my office was giving out little gummy food items for halloween -- ice cream cones, hamburgers, milkshakes, etc. They were all really cute, and somewhat tasty, actually. But there was one among them that was just too scary (and repulsive) to just pop into your mouth without adequate reflection (and photo opportunities).

I bring you... (drumroll please)... THE PHILLY CHEESESTEAK!

At first glance it's a mere hotdog. But after some label-reading, I discovered it was, in fact, a philly cheese steak.

Even more frightening out of its wrapper, the cheese steak haunts me now. Mostly because, once I took it apart, only one image stuck with me, and the only phrase I can come up with to describe it would have to be "vaguely-syphilitic"

But if you're sitting on the edge of your seats wondering the same thing I was...

Yes, it was quite tasty.

blah blah blah blah blah blah (you know you want to read this)

Things I heard today:
In my office (said by, um, someone who looks an awful lot like me), "Ooh, I like Time Warner's hold music. I might call them back just to hear it again..."

On the subway (after a foul odor wafted through the car), "Aw man! That's awful. What did someone eat?! If my grandma were here, I would blame her..."

At a theatre talkback, after I had asked a representative from Ben & Jerry's and a well-intentioned bakery in Yonkers if either company (both of which were there discussing their do-goodery in the community) were doing anything to combat obesity: "Um..., good question." (pause, uncomfortable look around) "Next question?"
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I am beginning to learn, bit by irritating bit, that you can't force people to learn. (And this is not a comment on relationships, it's a simple fact of life at my law firm.) There is an ongoing technology upgrade going on at my firm (which is too boring to detail) and it requires some additional training for a large number of people in the firm. The best, fastest and easiest way to do this, of course, is for me to teach the fewest number of classes to full classrooms.

The way I'm going to do it, however, is to teach as many classes as humanly possible, and then, for the people who can't be bothered to come to my classes, I'll do side-by-side training with them at their desks.

Paint me giddy with delight.

(It's funny, actually, because I like the classroom teaching part of my job the best. It just chafes me that people wait until the very last opportunity to take my classes, and then -- oops! They get stuck doing something else. And then, alas, so do I.)

Mrrrrr.
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I made a new friend at the gym today (who was not a Possibly-Dead-Possibly-Alive-Communist-Dictator-on-a-Treadmill). She got on the machine next to me and started chatting, which, I must say, is not easy 25 minutes into your 30 minute elliptical workout. In between wheezes and gasps (mine), she told me that she had just moved here and found that working out in New York City didn't mean climbing mountains like it did in California.

I, of course, told her that I love climbing mountains, and gave her my card, telling her to call me the next time she wants to climb a mountain (which hopefully won't be in the middle of December...)
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Did anyone want to know how cute I look in my new coat?

The answer is: Extremely Cute, Thank You.

culture vs. nature

A brief overview of my weekend, if you will:

Friday night

Excellent date with Australian Frank. 'Nuff said, mate.

Saturday day

Excellent museum date with my friend Sean. (Ladies, Sean is single and I highly recommend him. Go ahead, check him out. I'll wait.) We went to the Met to see the shark (who we affectionately now call "Sharky Shark") and ended up checking out the whole museum. My favorite? This one:
We hit the modern stuff, the furniture, the weapons (did I mention Sean's a prop master?), the tapestries and (my favorite) the benches.

After all the culture we could stand, we headed to Chinatown for an Adventure Dinner. There was a place Lisa and I had discovered last summer during a Taste of Chinatown and I tried to go there once for dinner but discovered it was nothing but a junky little take-away place. Doomed to repeat history once again, I sighed heavily and turned to go, when Sean said, "Uh, Kate, there's a staircase here that says 'Open.' Do you want to see what's in the basement?"
I agreed, but only if he would go downstairs first.

And boy were we lucky! What a find! Go to Sanur! It's on Doyers Street and it's AWESOME! Sean ordered Assam Stingray (which is wikkid bony) and I ordered ginger and scallion crabs -- which came in their shells!! Totally a little hole in the wall, but the most adventurous dinner I've had in a long time!

Sunday day

I got a call early in the morning from Lisa, who asked if I wanted to come with her and RJ and Max to check out a cabin RJ was interested in LongSomething Manor, NY. (Longacre? Longfellow? Longmeridian? I forget.) I said, sure, why not, I love car trips, and we headed out the door.

LongTripFromHome Manor, while cute, wasn't much to write home about, but it was nice to be out in the country, peeping at the leaves and catching a smidge of nature.

I think this photo sums up how the local kids probably feel about living in a place where the sidewalks roll up around 3pm on Sunday:

After lunch and tea, we headed back to the city, stopping along the way at a store whose billboard announced itself as "Memories: Possibly the Best Store Ever. GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!"

And back in the day, I can see why M: PtBSE might have been a hit. Full of knick-knacky goodness, it must have died a little on the inside when eBay came on the scene. Because they were selling things like porcelain booties (which I happen to force my brother-in-law to collect by giving one to him at every gift giving occasion) for $9.95. (They're worth about a whopping 99 cents.)

By the end of the weekend, I was exhausted, culturified and naturalized. (And I had small cuts all over my hands from trying to eat crabs in their shells. Good god that's a pain in the ass!)

Lather, Rinse and (as often as you can) Repeat.

art? or just construction?

I was walking to Bryant Park the other day and right in front of me was what I could have sworn was an art installation: the main branch of the New York Public Library, covered in fabric, with a guy dangling from a rope above the doors.

"Surely," I thought to my enlightened, art-aware self, "this reflects the truly precarious nature of man, and his relationship to higher learning. The fabric on the building is an attempt to keep knowledge in, and the man hanging in front is there to coax us into a peaceful acceptance of limitations."

Then I looked down and saw the construction barriers and the guy with the cherry picker. Oh well. I guess art truly is in the eyes of the beholders. (and imaginers)

However, I share with you the building itself, as it looked really odd, all wrapped in an outfit:

Almost like a marshmallow or something...

cats and dogs

My brother in law sent me this, and while you've probably seen it (or something like it) a thousand times already, I was charmed and entertained by it no less:

DOG DIARY
8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

CAT DIARY
Day 983 of my captivity. My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmatesand I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets.

Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt todisgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouseand dropped its headless body at their feet. Ihad hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescendingcomments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hearthe noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due tothe power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

This morning I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of mytormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try thisagain tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs. I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches.

The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems tobe more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded.

The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with theguards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captorshave arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe.

For now...Cat

lesson learned

A theory, free of charge:

Everything happens for a reason. And the key to making the most out of life is focusing on learning the right lesson from your mishaps. [although that word, "mishap," is one of those words that distracts me. Shouldn't it be pronounced "Mis-shap?"]

So, earlier this summer I was repeatedly getting cancelled on at the last minute, and it was starting to drive me out of my mind. "Don't you have the consideration," I would shout to my empty shower (in lieu of said cancellers), "to think ahead and make a plan you can stick to?!?!" And I would roil and stomp and do all those things we do when we think nobody else is looking.

I thought (naively) "what lesson could there POSSIBLY be in this crap?!?" and then tabled the discussion with myself, and just kept on trucking.

And then I got stood up. I didn't think much about why that happened, I just thought, "oh poo, a Friday night ruined" and "eh, he sucks" and I went home. Well, last night I got stood up AGAIN, by someone else entirely, under completely different circumstances. (He, too, was a douchebag about it, though, TEXTING me a weak apology and asking me to hang out later if my previous plans fell through. I should have made a plan with him and then stood HIM up! Drats! Next time!) And that conversation I was going to have with myself jumped right up off that table and came waltzing into my brain.

I learned two things:

1. I would much rather be cancelled on at the last minute than stood up; and

2. It is far better to have risked and flopped than not to have risked at all.

Oh, and I learned a third thing:

3. There are some really cool installations at the Brooklyn Museum right now, including the Dinner Party by Judy Chicago. You should go!

a compendium of claptrap

This is the transcript of an actual email sent between me, my mother and my sister:

I wrote:
I have an appointment tomorrow for an MRI because my doctor says I am showing symptoms of a growth in the spendulla shoplongata section of my brain. The symptoms include buying a new pair of boots and shoes, neither of which were on sale. The doctor I spoke with said that the growth was probably not malignant, and was most likely due to the recent increase in my brain activity.

My mother wrote:
Dr. Gortha says you are suffering from idiopathic fiscal hypermania, a common condition resulting from your gene pool. Don't waste your money on an MRI. Think of how many more boots and shoes that could buy!

My sister wrote:
I'm sorry but I'm not sure what "not on sale" means...
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Last night I skipped the halloween parade (that apparently 1/8 of New York actually went to), and instead had sushi with Andrea. On our way out the door, we noticed a tray of jelly bellies, which, as you already know, are one of my favorite candies of all time. I was about to dive in and start chowing down when I realized that they were the "Harry Potter" jelly bellies -- the ones flavored like dirt, boogers and vomit.

I opted for a Krackle instead.

Trick or treat, indeed!
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Speaking of candy, my boss came by my office today with a huge bag of it. She then hid it around my office like a remedial Easter Bunny.

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I saw Sufjan Stevens tonight at BAM with Keri. He is so AWESOME. I'm definitely not part of his hipster demographic, so a lot of the design elements and videography felt really forced and plastic to me, but I just love his music and his cute little voice. And he had four disco balls going at once! Hipster or no, I can't argue with that.

And he wrote an ode to the BQE! (you can catch part of it here) For about an hour tonight, I felt like Brooklyn was actually made out of heaven.