How To . . . Scare Him Off!
Really Creepy Self-Help Titles Available on Amazon:
1. Updating! How to Get a Man or Woman Who Once Seemed Out of Your League
2. We Need to Talk. But First, Do You Like My Shoes?: Dress Codes for Dumping Your Man
3. How to Spot a Bastard by his Star Sign: The Ultimate Horrorscope
4. Mr. Right, Right Now!: How a Smart Woman Can Land her Dream Man in 6 Weeks
5. Stop Getting Dumped! All You Need to Know to Make Men Fall Madly in Love with You and Marry "The One" in 3 Years or Less
6. Red Flags: How to Know When You're Dating a Loser
7. Why Men Love Bitches
8. The Hookup Handbook
Do not leave these books on your nightstand.
Other items to consider moving:
Your therapist's home phone number, all 16 pages of your credit card bill, any hair removal products known to cause cancer in the state of California, and while we're at it, let's limit the number of prescription bottles to 4 or 5.
Because I needed something new to be paranoid about.
So I (ok, almost) got stuck in the elevator today at work. I was on my way to lunch and it mysteriously stopped on floor 4. I was in the elevator by myself and I immediately began to panic. I could just imagine the conversations that would be going on back in the office. "Anyone know where the new girl is?" "Oh, I haven't seen her. One of the elevators is down." "Hm. Interesting." How long would it be before anybody connected the two!?
I quickly envisioned my future. After the FDNY had to be called I would stop being The New Girl and would immediately become The Girl Who Got Stuck In The Elevator. Years would pass as my seniority increased, I would be upgraded to simply "Elevator Girl."
Thankfully the door opened when I pressed the button revealing 4th floor abandoned offices and I was saved. this time. (good story.)
college freshman are all the same. but you already knew that.
NYU is back in session. The freshmen were out in full force on the New York streets during my lunch break. Like all college freshman, they walked in large clumps, overdressed for the occasion, talking too loudly, making awkward conversation with the new people around them.
A young man was on his cell phone, drifting to the back of yet another mob of young co-eds, "I don't understand!" he said angrily, "That trust fund is there for ME!"
I turned the corner, half expecting to see a hundred girls lined up in sundresses, a J. Crew catalog come alive, eagerly anticipating this year's rush on the corner of 8th and Broadway.
the out of control, stolen tractor-trailer that almost hit me.
I have a really useful voice in my head that warns me when extremely bad things are about to happen. In high school it saved me from flying around a corner in my Buick into six deer that were in the road. I was driving late at night and something told me that I had to slow down drastically at a curve on a road where I routinely drove well over the speed limit, because I was 16 and dumb. I hit my brakes, went around the curb at like 15 miles an hour and had just enough time in the dark and fog to stop completely before six deer finished crossing the road.
Last night, this same premonition may have saved me from being hit by an out of control, stolen tractor-trailer. Because apparently those show up on my front porch now.
I walked outside last night at 11:30 to meet Emily as she returned from work to do some serious dumpster diving and I had to cross the non-busy part of the road in front of our house. (Our road makes a gentle right off of the main road, Meeker, forming a giant asphalt triangle. We're adjacent to where the main road splits, a gas station is on the opposite. The main road is the hypotenuse. I'd draw a picture, but I'd rather use trigonometry.) The same voice in my head told me that something bad was about to happen and I neededto be really careful crossing the street, so I checked the road with extra scrutiny before quickly crossing the street and heading to the gas station to walk and meet my sister. Moments later, I heard several loud crashes and turned around to see a giant tractor-trailer jump the curb in front of my house, crash through our street sign, shoot across the street I had had a bad premonition about crossing moments earlier, and slow down slightly before hitting a large truck parked at the gas station.
A fire hydrant was shooting water and five or so people were rushing over. I couldn't see the driver, so another man and I rushed to open the door of the truck, worried someone had collapsed, and instead found it completely empty. I called the police, and they took a solid 30 minutes to arrive. Because apparently "empty tractor-trailer crashing through my neighborhood" does not actually qualify as an emergency. The owner of the truck arrived, out of breath, in asking for a cell phone. This whole string of events began when he dropped his cell phone and lost the little chip. He had to stop at a (different) gas station about 4 blocks down the road to run inside and get change to call his wife, he turned around and his truck had been stolen. He explained this to me and I said, "So you broke your phone . . . and as a result thishappens? That sucks." Because I have never been good at sympathy.
He borrowed my cell phone and argued with his wife, who apparently thought the whole thing was a long ruse to explain why he hadn't called earlier.
I think the truck-stealer saw that he was headed toward a gas station, pulled the emergency brake and jumped out of the truck. He obviously didn't know how to drive stick, and since he was headed almost directly towards two gas pumps (And me! thank you very much, asshole!) in a truck he couldn't control, I guess he just jumped and ran. I didn't see him. The fire department eventually came on accident. There was a false alarm at the building next to ours, and as they were leaving that they asked me if something had happened. (All members ofthe FDNY, btw, are super cute.) Eventually the police came, I gave my statement that the owner of the truck was not driving, and Emily and I were able to continue on our dumpster diving quest. (4 supercute wooden chairs from the elementary school around the corner!) This morning the street sign had been cleared, a traffic cone set over the broken hydrant, and both trucks were gone. All that was left was me and some broken glass, standing on the corner with a renewed fear of tractor-trailers. Because this is actually the second time I have been nearly killed by one of the damn things.
An Observation. (#3)
By and large, women who read on the subway are reading erotica.
Has anyone else ever noticed this? Society calls (most of) these "romance novels" and its a huge publishing industry.
To prove this theory, I have made it a habit to read over the shoulder of any woman who looks really deeply engrossed in her book. So far, I have not made it past the second paragraph without seeing the word "throbbing" at least once.
Perhaps similarly, the man next to me on the L train this evening was reading the pages on "Meat" straight from his huge edition of "Joy of Cooking."
Funniest thing I saw today. (post #2)
Walking outside in New York, even for just 5 minutes, will inevitably allow you to see something that makes you burst out laughing at the expense of someone else. Polite people like to say "Oh, the people watching in New York is just great! Sometimes I sit outside in a cafe for hours, watching who passes." Less polite people say "The best part of New York is judging strangers. Sometimes I waste hours a day, sitting outside and judging strangers."
Moving on. Today I walked behind a man in tapered Calvin Klein jeans, the thick white elastic waistband of his underwear was high on his hips, his white t-shirt firmly tucked into the underwear. We soon reached a Blockbuster with shiny glass windows and the man stopped to check his reflection. I exhaled in relief, like when the person in front of you realizes they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe without you having to awkwardly point it out. The man then proceeded to tuck his shirt in a little more, pull up his tighty-whities just a tad, checked again in the back, and nodded at his reflection in approval before continuing down Broadway.
So I burst out laughing. At his expense. I'd call myself "Less Polite."
back in action. #1
I'm a little concerned about the world wide web and karma at this time. After subjecting people to rereading the post about my pedicure every time they logged in to stalk me, one of my toenails mysteriously fell off. I didn't stub my toe or anything, I just woke up one morning and the third one on my right foot was gone. Now, I cannot get a pedicure again until it grows back, in like 6 months. I don't know which one of you thought evil thoughts about my feet because you weren't appropriately amused while visiting your favorite blog but please, please, never do it again. I have learned my lesson about being overly boastful, wasting money on pedicures when children are starving and I can't pay my rent, blah blah blog, alright? Now I'll just post several times in a row to try and make amends.
