Catch-up

I had started and stopped a couple of stories/ updates in the past weeks that either weren’t coming together like I wanted or that kept getting pushed down the priority ladder by real work. This is a quick catch-up.

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I have a website that I started when I left for Korea. As is the case with most of my projects, the webpage has been in a constant state of heavy construction with no foreseeable completion in sight. I’ve been planning a major clean up/ update/ streamline/ restyle/ overhaul of my site since I’ve been back in the US, but my computer died and I don’t have access to any of the pictures or webpage files I was working with. So… until I (hopefully!!) get a new computer this summer my webpage will have to stay in the planning phase.

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I confess I have some guilty listening pleasures and indeed some horrific musical skeletons in my closet, but I typically shy away from all things MTV and Top-40 or New Rock Radio. I will watch the first few episodes of American Idol to catch all the really bad singers have their hopes, dreams, and egos decimated on national television by the judges, but I never stick around for too long after that. This season, however, I was compelled to follow the season for the pool of talented North Carolinians making their way into the latter rounds of the competition, and of course, for Taylor Hicks. Twenty-nine, gray-haired, goofy-as-hell, and with this gritty, soulful voice he’s hardly Idol material, so every week that he stayed in the competition I was more and more excited about the show. He’s definitely talented and could very well put out an Idol-backed CD that I would buy, so I was elated when he actually won. He’s a breath of fresh air after Clay Aiken et al.

I must admit that Taylor’s first single, the one debuted on The Idol, is bad. Really bad. Typical IdolPop. I think his first CD will be more of the same, I’m sorry to say, but I think we’ll get some good stuff out of him before too long. It’ll take them a while to calibrate the HitMaker3000 song writing machine that cranks out the radio-worthy Pop singles. Or who knows? Maybe they’ll actually let him write some of his own songs.

Heed the Cookie

My fortune cookie just told me, "Love is the only medicine for a broken heart." It failed to consider Scotch.

Lucky Numbers 6, 8, 11, 14, 16, 43

What a Cool Name!

"...The former colonial ruler of East Timor - Prime Minister Jose Socrates..."

What an awesome name. I mean, seriously.

City Sidewalk Scenes

On the sidewalk in front of where I’m standing, waiting, two women speak a language I can’t place and pass two men of a different unrecognized tongue. The women are young and attractive. Their clothes skirt a fine line between provocative and professional. Both wear large designer sunglasses and bounce on purposeful, staccato steps. The men are an older, suspect pair. They slink untucked and disheveled along the sidewalk. One pushes a cart full of kitty litter bags and the other’s laugh reveals missing teeth behind his three-day stubble.

As the pairs pass the men suspend both conversation and stride, turning in sync to regard the bouncing female forms walking away. After a quick but thorough study, the men turn slowly back around, pause briefly to exchange knowing looks, and return to slinking untucked and disheveled along the sidewalk.

What's the Good Word?

I just realized how much I like writing the word 'diaphragm'. The consonant combinations effuse a strangely captivating visual aesthetic.

Retraction

Hey, so remember how I said the weather up here is great? Yeah… Well perhaps I was a little too premature in making that assessment. After five mornings of waking up to gray skies and fits of rain, I can safely say that the weather here is, in fact, not great.

I am not a morning person. Waking up is hard for me even under the best of conditions, but I can usually peel myself out of bed without too much trauma if I have something to do or a schedule to keep (and want to keep). This morning I sat on the edge of my bed for 15 minutes staring through the window at a charcoal sky, listening to a steady rain fall on the awnings, and trying to psyche myself up for a run. I eventually relented and left for an abbreviated and miserable jog, but only because the same internal debate the day before ended in a quick retreat under the covers.

Patches of sunshine redeemed what could have been a very depressing weekend, and with nothing but rain in the forecast, I’m very protective and appreciative of any blues skies I might find overhead.

Inconvenient

New York is the supposed city that never sleeps. Brooklyn, then, is the borough with a lot of accounting to do for its whereabouts between the hours of 6PM and 8AM. The dry-cleaners, grocery stores, and laundromats are all closed by the time I get home from work. Brooklyn is also the borough that doesn't take credit or debit cards. I'm going to have to run errands in Manhattan and lug everything back on the subway. Pain.

Summer in the City

May in New York is the best. I just recently moved back to the city to engineer for the summer while my grad school applications are pending. I've been spending my free time falling in love with the city again.

Restaurants along Hudson Street have their sidewalk tables set up and full of people. The fashionable are out walking their accessorydogs. One dog looked like a boot-size Ewok. I named him Wicket. The West Village is very trendy, eccentric, and a great place for people watching. Why is there an engineering firm here? Summer is also cleavage and back tattoo season, which are two of my favorite seasons.

My apartment is a quick ride on the L train into Brooklyn. It's noisy and I love it. East Williamsburg on the Avenue of Puerto Rico. There's a lot of Spanish around, so I should have some good chances to practice. My roommate and I went to get Mexican food last night. She ordered in Spanglish and Pointing and her order was repeated back to her in Spanglish and Pointing by a girl whom I suspect speaks English pretty well.

I can't sleep for the noise outside. My second-floor window hears everything. Snippets of walk-by conversations and arguments. Motorcycles racing at night. Busses, garbage trucks, and sirens, all with their own insomniating sounds that set off car alarms as they pass. The bright side is that I've been getting to work really early and have been going for morning jogs to explore the neighborhood. The more in-shape I get, the deeper into trendy, Hipster Williamsburg I'll be able to venture. Came across a great park today, but was tired and started back towards home. The gentrification has already started around my apartment, but is still a few good years away.

Gorgeous woman on the L train. Stood next to me as I sat. Looked like Angelina but trendier, with bigger eyes, and without kids and Brad. We have the same iPod. I'd love to know what she was listening to. I bet nobody has ever heard of those bands, but that for once they really are the greatest bands ever. Mesmerized by her thumb ring as it tapped on the metal handrail to an inaudible beat. Copper, gold, and silver. There was a horseshoe but I couldn't make out the rest. I checked my watch to see what she would do. Her bag brushed my leg.

**The spellchecker suggested “inseminating” as an alternative to “insomniating”. Sometimes fake words work better than real ones.