Sunday, January 31, 2010
10:28 PM Where am I?
The last 48 hours have been an absolute whirlwind. I got to work SNL last night, and the experience literally took my blood, sweat, and tears. Minus the blood. Okay, and the sweat. But when I finally crawled into bed at 5:30 this morning, exhausted, tipsy, and somehow still buzzing with adrenaline, I was reminded of one of my favorite Kenneth quotes. It rings very true right now...
"Do you know why I put up with this pitiful job, Mr. Donaghy? Why I fetch these folks’ lunches and clean up their barfs? Because they make television. And more than jazz or musical theater or morbid obesity, television is the true American art form. Think of all the shared experiences television has provided for us. From the moon landing to the ‘Golden Girls’ finale. From Walter Cronkite denouncing Vietnam to Oprah pulling that trash bag of fat out of the wagon. From the glory and pageantry of the Summer Olympics to the less fun Winter Olympics. So please, don’t tell me I don’t have a dream, sir. I am living my dream." - Kenneth the Page
Love,
Tara
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Things I Didn't Know Until I Was Living On My Own (Part I)
Thursday, January 28, 2010
8:03 PM Well, this is embarrassing...
Now, to preface, I'm not what you'd call a pantyhose-wearing kinda gal. I find them itchy and uncomfortable and up until now, there hasn't really been much reason to wear them. But now my work uniform requires it, so I went to the drug store, bought a few pair, sucked it up and suited up. Well, I tried to anyway.
...Did you know they come in different sizes?
I mean, they stretch... shouldn't this be a "one size fits all" kind of scenario?
I do realize that I probably should have realized there were different sizes when I was picking them out, but I was so confused as to whether I should be purchasing the Nude Regular Panty with the Sheer Toe or the Suntan Control Top Panty with the Reinforced Toe (I got both), that I didn't realize I had to pick a size too. I didn't realize it, that is, until I was standing practically naked in my bedroom before work one morning, silently struggling to break free from the giant pair of pantyhose that came up to my armpits. It took several scary minutes for me to find my way out of the layers of nylon. When I had, I grabbed the box to find a hosiery size guide on the side.
How convenient.
Apparently, you just find your height and your weight on this nice little grid and VOILA! You have your pantyhose size. Finding that I was a size "A," I flipped the box over to find what size I had actually purchased.
Q.
I looked at the other box. Also Q (of course).
Sigh.
I was already running late for work, so I crawled back into my spandex straitjacket and set off into the day. And no one was the wiser.
Except me.
And now, all of you.
Love,
Tara
P.S. I won't go into details, but going to the bathroom was quite a challenge.
8:03 PM Well, this is embarrassing...
Now, to preface, I'm not what you'd call a pantyhose-wearing kinda gal. I find them itchy and uncomfortable and up until now, there hasn't really been much reason to wear them. But now my work uniform requires it, so I went to the drug store, bought a few pair, sucked it up and suited up. Well, I tried to anyway.
...Did you know they come in different sizes?
I mean, they stretch... shouldn't this be a "one size fits all" kind of scenario?
I do realize that I probably should have realized there were different sizes when I was picking them out, but I was so confused as to whether I should be purchasing the Nude Regular Panty with the Sheer Toe or the Suntan Control Top Panty with the Reinforced Toe (I got both), that I didn't realize I had to pick a size too. I didn't realize it, that is, until I was standing practically naked in my bedroom before work one morning, silently struggling to break free from the giant pair of pantyhose that came up to my armpits. It took several scary minutes for me to find my way out of the layers of nylon. When I had, I grabbed the box to find a hosiery size guide on the side.
How convenient.
Apparently, you just find your height and your weight on this nice little grid and VOILA! You have your pantyhose size. Finding that I was a size "A," I flipped the box over to find what size I had actually purchased.
Q.
I looked at the other box. Also Q (of course).
Sigh.
I was already running late for work, so I crawled back into my spandex straitjacket and set off into the day. And no one was the wiser.
Except me.
And now, all of you.
Love,
Tara
P.S. I won't go into details, but going to the bathroom was quite a challenge.
Monday, January 25, 2010
A Day (Off) In The Life
Monday, January 25, 2010
6:15 pm This was not on my To Do list.
I'm procrastinating. I have to start giving tours tomorrow, but I decided to take a break from writing out and memorizing every single itty bitty fact I have to know, to blog. I'm going to try to make an effort to blog on all of my days off because it's really the only opportunity I have. Soooo, yes. Today is Monday, and I didn't have work. For the next year, I'll be getting random days off instead of real weekends. Personally, I think the ever-changing schedule kind of adds to the job's excitement... Of course, I say that now, when I'm one week in...
Anyway, this week my weekend was Sunday and Monday, after surviving a six-day work week. I already love my job, but I was definitely looking forward to some time off. There's a reason weekends exist. It gives you a chance to get away from the people and tasks you had to deal with all week! Since I moved here only last Saturday and started my new job last Monday, I still hadn't had the chance to fully unpack or clean my apartment. And now that it's Monday night, I'm realizing I've accomplished almost none of the things I wanted to. Same girl, new city.
Today started off...weird. I had planned on sleeping in to catch up after a week of very little sleep. This plan quickly went to pieces when I awoke at 9 AM to a banging on my door. Groaning, I rolled out of bed, grabbed my glasses, and threw open my bedroom door. To give you the proper visual, you have to understand that I had worn my hair curly the day before, so over night it had grown to twice its natural size. For pajamas I was wearing on old red BU t-shirt, and thermal multi-colored polka-dot pajama pants. I was a vision, boys, lemme tell ya. Anyway, I throw open the door and find my roommate Wen (who had also been woken up and got to the door before me) talking to two men (who turned out to be my landlord - we'll call him "Julio" - and the plumber). Julio took one look at me and stifled a laugh. I'd been calling him constantly for the past week about the running toilet and (did I mention this?) the COCKROACH INFESTATION, so of course he picked 9 AM on my day off to stop by. I knew I looked ridiculous, so there was really nothing else I could do but cry, "Good morning, Julio!" with a sassy wink. He knows he loves the crazy girl who calls him every day complaining about las cucarachas. He just doesn't know it yet.
So the plumber was plumbing in the bathroom, and I stood there, waiting for an exterminator to emerge. That was until Julio pulled out a blue can, and I realized that Julio's idea of an exterminator is himself and a can of Raid. Fantastic. While Julio made our kitchen foggy with Raid (a nice film has settled on our dishware... all of my children will now probably have a genetic defect like two right feet), I tried to make myself more presentable. When I had given up, I walked back into the kitchen and looked up to find... UNA CUCARACHA! "JULIO!!!!!" I screamed (he was in the bathroom). He came running from the bathroom (and by running I mean he quickly took the two steps it takes to get from the bathroom to the kitchen) to find me standing in the middle of the kitchen, now in my pink bathrobe, pointing angrily at the ceiling, "SEE??? THEY'RE HERE!!! THEY'RE LIVING BEHIND THOSE CUPBOARDS AND ALL AROUND THE SINK!!!"
Julio sprayed until the roach fell down and was writhing on the ground. Then he turned to me and said, triumphantly, "See? Es working!"
"Yeah, we'll see, Julio..." I grumbled, shaking my head.
Now the toilet isn't running anymore (so long as you jiggle the handle), and there aren't any more roaches (that I have seen). It's a regular luxury apartment...
People keep saying I'll look back at this time when I was young and poor and living on my own in New York City and laugh someday. For now, I guess I'll settle for making others laugh with my tales of woe. Someone should benefit from all this.
Love,
Tara
6:15 pm This was not on my To Do list.
I'm procrastinating. I have to start giving tours tomorrow, but I decided to take a break from writing out and memorizing every single itty bitty fact I have to know, to blog. I'm going to try to make an effort to blog on all of my days off because it's really the only opportunity I have. Soooo, yes. Today is Monday, and I didn't have work. For the next year, I'll be getting random days off instead of real weekends. Personally, I think the ever-changing schedule kind of adds to the job's excitement... Of course, I say that now, when I'm one week in...
Anyway, this week my weekend was Sunday and Monday, after surviving a six-day work week. I already love my job, but I was definitely looking forward to some time off. There's a reason weekends exist. It gives you a chance to get away from the people and tasks you had to deal with all week! Since I moved here only last Saturday and started my new job last Monday, I still hadn't had the chance to fully unpack or clean my apartment. And now that it's Monday night, I'm realizing I've accomplished almost none of the things I wanted to. Same girl, new city.
Today started off...weird. I had planned on sleeping in to catch up after a week of very little sleep. This plan quickly went to pieces when I awoke at 9 AM to a banging on my door. Groaning, I rolled out of bed, grabbed my glasses, and threw open my bedroom door. To give you the proper visual, you have to understand that I had worn my hair curly the day before, so over night it had grown to twice its natural size. For pajamas I was wearing on old red BU t-shirt, and thermal multi-colored polka-dot pajama pants. I was a vision, boys, lemme tell ya. Anyway, I throw open the door and find my roommate Wen (who had also been woken up and got to the door before me) talking to two men (who turned out to be my landlord - we'll call him "Julio" - and the plumber). Julio took one look at me and stifled a laugh. I'd been calling him constantly for the past week about the running toilet and (did I mention this?) the COCKROACH INFESTATION, so of course he picked 9 AM on my day off to stop by. I knew I looked ridiculous, so there was really nothing else I could do but cry, "Good morning, Julio!" with a sassy wink. He knows he loves the crazy girl who calls him every day complaining about las cucarachas. He just doesn't know it yet.
So the plumber was plumbing in the bathroom, and I stood there, waiting for an exterminator to emerge. That was until Julio pulled out a blue can, and I realized that Julio's idea of an exterminator is himself and a can of Raid. Fantastic. While Julio made our kitchen foggy with Raid (a nice film has settled on our dishware... all of my children will now probably have a genetic defect like two right feet), I tried to make myself more presentable. When I had given up, I walked back into the kitchen and looked up to find... UNA CUCARACHA! "JULIO!!!!!" I screamed (he was in the bathroom). He came running from the bathroom (and by running I mean he quickly took the two steps it takes to get from the bathroom to the kitchen) to find me standing in the middle of the kitchen, now in my pink bathrobe, pointing angrily at the ceiling, "SEE??? THEY'RE HERE!!! THEY'RE LIVING BEHIND THOSE CUPBOARDS AND ALL AROUND THE SINK!!!"
Julio sprayed until the roach fell down and was writhing on the ground. Then he turned to me and said, triumphantly, "See? Es working!"
"Yeah, we'll see, Julio..." I grumbled, shaking my head.
Now the toilet isn't running anymore (so long as you jiggle the handle), and there aren't any more roaches (that I have seen). It's a regular luxury apartment...
People keep saying I'll look back at this time when I was young and poor and living on my own in New York City and laugh someday. For now, I guess I'll settle for making others laugh with my tales of woe. Someone should benefit from all this.
Love,
Tara
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Well, She Did, And She Does, And She'll Do It Again
Sunday, January 24, 2010
3:36 pm I'm just saying.
Okay, I'm back. The blog is back. Meaning has been restored to your lives. For those of you who weren't paying attention, I am now living and working in New York City. I am a 22 year old woman living and working in New York City. I upgraded myself from 'girl' to 'woman' because when you move out of your parents' house, move into your own closet in an unknown city, and start a job, I think you deserve the upgrade. When you're on your own people don't give you A+'s and gold stars for the day. You give them to yourself.
Anyway, since I'm not going to talk about my job specifically on this blog (except to complain about how tired I am, of course), I came up with a kind of general theme for the week. A week. I've only been living here for a week. That's hard to believe because it really feels like it's been a month. Maybe that's because in the past week I've had about a month's worth of experiences. I don't know. It's all relative. Anyway... the theme is...Patience is a virtue. Now, I know Jesus or somebody said that long before me, but I'm finding that lesson to be very relevant in my life right now. Basically what I've found is that I'm most interested in instant gratification. And when you're living on your own and taking care of yourself...instant gratification is rare. This applies to your home and in other environments. I will explain.
If you've seen my tweets at all, you know I have roaches in my apartment. Now, I know I'm being a girl - I should probably just get over it... but I can't. I hate them. I really, truly do. There are un-girly things that I don't mind. I'm not scared of snakes. I don't mind mice. In fact, I would prefer mice to cockroaches. I really think I would because I HATE ROACHES. There's something about the way they scuttle that makes me want to cry and vomit and scream all at once (this is really hard to do). So, okay, I have roaches and I hate them and I want them to go away. So what do I do? I clean everything. I spray everything with Raid. I set out these little roach poisoning bait traps. And I call the landlord and tell him I need an exterminator. And I've been doing all of this almost every day for the past week, so I ask you...
WHY DO I STILL HAVE ROACHES?
Now, I totally get that this is very much a little rich girl problem to be having: 'Awww the girl from Connecticut doesn't like the icky bugs. DEAL.' Obviously there are bigger problems in the world (health care, Haiti, etc. - I get it). But as I mentioned before, these things are all relative. And I'm used to living at home where these problems didn't exist OR they were fixed for me almost instantly. I'm realizing now how much my parents took care of.
And then there are the "other environments" that all this applies to. Do you ever do the right thing and feel like it goes unnoticed? And that's fine except... there's someone doing the exact opposite, the 'wrong' thing, and that goes unnoticed as well. I realize I'm being vague here, it's just that it's driving me crazy. I'm okay with doing the right thing and not being commended for it. I don't need someone to give me a hug every time I recycle. It's just when I'm recycling and there's someone next to me dumping their plastic bottles into the gutter I WANT THERE TO BE CONSEQUENCES. To be clear, the recycling thing is a really obscure metaphor, but I hope you get what I'm saying. I want things to be FAIR. I want good to prevail and evil to fail. Is that so much to ask??
I feel like this post is getting cynical, and Conan O'Brien said not to be like that, so I'm going to wrap it all up with what I think the moral of this whole story is. And it's within this story...
A few nights before I moved to New York City, I was sleeping when a noise suddenly woke me up. My room was dark, and I lay there, confused and wondering why I had woken up. I listened for a while and heard nothing. I pressed a button on my phone to check the time. It was 3:30 in the morning. Why was I awake?? Then I heard the sound that had awoken me. It was a buzzing coming from by my window. I turned on the lamp next to my bed and saw that there was a fly (What is it with my life and bugs??). This fly was clearly on it's way out. What it was doing buzzing around my room in the middle of January I do not know, but it was not in good shape. It would fly really fast and then slam into a wall. Then it would buzz to life again and fly into another wall. Now, flies don't gross me out (See?? I'm not a total girl!), so I wasn't so much disgusted as I was annoyed that I was awake at 3:30 in the morning. So, I put on my glasses and grabbed the 'Self' magazine that was on my night stand and swung at it. For 45 minutes (no exaggeration) I would wait until the fly landed on a wall and then THWACK! But somehow, I kept missing it! Spastic and swearing I ran around my room, stood on my bed, even knocked over my lamp trying to kill that stupid buzzing sound. At 4:15 am, I sat back down on my bed. Wide awake, I watched as the fly did loop-the-loops around my ceiling fan. And then, as quickly as it had started, the buzzing stopped. I watched as the fly fell from the ceiling onto my bed in front of me. Dead.
I had just wasted 45 minutes on a problem that had worked itself out. I'm not saying that cockroach infestations magically disappear or that we should look the other way when people are doing bad things. What I am saying is this: You can run around your room like a crazy person at 3:30 in the morning, chasing a fly that is going to die on it's own, or you can take any obvious, necessary steps to solve the problem and then wait. There's only so much a person can do. Sometimes you just have to wait while these problems wear themselves out. The litterer will eventually be caught. The exterminator will eventually come. These problems will wear themselves out. In the mean time, we just have to be patient.
And in the mean time, I've worn myself out...
Love always,
Tara
3:36 pm I'm just saying.
Okay, I'm back. The blog is back. Meaning has been restored to your lives. For those of you who weren't paying attention, I am now living and working in New York City. I am a 22 year old woman living and working in New York City. I upgraded myself from 'girl' to 'woman' because when you move out of your parents' house, move into your own closet in an unknown city, and start a job, I think you deserve the upgrade. When you're on your own people don't give you A+'s and gold stars for the day. You give them to yourself.
Anyway, since I'm not going to talk about my job specifically on this blog (except to complain about how tired I am, of course), I came up with a kind of general theme for the week. A week. I've only been living here for a week. That's hard to believe because it really feels like it's been a month. Maybe that's because in the past week I've had about a month's worth of experiences. I don't know. It's all relative. Anyway... the theme is...Patience is a virtue. Now, I know Jesus or somebody said that long before me, but I'm finding that lesson to be very relevant in my life right now. Basically what I've found is that I'm most interested in instant gratification. And when you're living on your own and taking care of yourself...instant gratification is rare. This applies to your home and in other environments. I will explain.
If you've seen my tweets at all, you know I have roaches in my apartment. Now, I know I'm being a girl - I should probably just get over it... but I can't. I hate them. I really, truly do. There are un-girly things that I don't mind. I'm not scared of snakes. I don't mind mice. In fact, I would prefer mice to cockroaches. I really think I would because I HATE ROACHES. There's something about the way they scuttle that makes me want to cry and vomit and scream all at once (this is really hard to do). So, okay, I have roaches and I hate them and I want them to go away. So what do I do? I clean everything. I spray everything with Raid. I set out these little roach poisoning bait traps. And I call the landlord and tell him I need an exterminator. And I've been doing all of this almost every day for the past week, so I ask you...
WHY DO I STILL HAVE ROACHES?
Now, I totally get that this is very much a little rich girl problem to be having: 'Awww the girl from Connecticut doesn't like the icky bugs. DEAL.' Obviously there are bigger problems in the world (health care, Haiti, etc. - I get it). But as I mentioned before, these things are all relative. And I'm used to living at home where these problems didn't exist OR they were fixed for me almost instantly. I'm realizing now how much my parents took care of.
And then there are the "other environments" that all this applies to. Do you ever do the right thing and feel like it goes unnoticed? And that's fine except... there's someone doing the exact opposite, the 'wrong' thing, and that goes unnoticed as well. I realize I'm being vague here, it's just that it's driving me crazy. I'm okay with doing the right thing and not being commended for it. I don't need someone to give me a hug every time I recycle. It's just when I'm recycling and there's someone next to me dumping their plastic bottles into the gutter I WANT THERE TO BE CONSEQUENCES. To be clear, the recycling thing is a really obscure metaphor, but I hope you get what I'm saying. I want things to be FAIR. I want good to prevail and evil to fail. Is that so much to ask??
I feel like this post is getting cynical, and Conan O'Brien said not to be like that, so I'm going to wrap it all up with what I think the moral of this whole story is. And it's within this story...
A few nights before I moved to New York City, I was sleeping when a noise suddenly woke me up. My room was dark, and I lay there, confused and wondering why I had woken up. I listened for a while and heard nothing. I pressed a button on my phone to check the time. It was 3:30 in the morning. Why was I awake?? Then I heard the sound that had awoken me. It was a buzzing coming from by my window. I turned on the lamp next to my bed and saw that there was a fly (What is it with my life and bugs??). This fly was clearly on it's way out. What it was doing buzzing around my room in the middle of January I do not know, but it was not in good shape. It would fly really fast and then slam into a wall. Then it would buzz to life again and fly into another wall. Now, flies don't gross me out (See?? I'm not a total girl!), so I wasn't so much disgusted as I was annoyed that I was awake at 3:30 in the morning. So, I put on my glasses and grabbed the 'Self' magazine that was on my night stand and swung at it. For 45 minutes (no exaggeration) I would wait until the fly landed on a wall and then THWACK! But somehow, I kept missing it! Spastic and swearing I ran around my room, stood on my bed, even knocked over my lamp trying to kill that stupid buzzing sound. At 4:15 am, I sat back down on my bed. Wide awake, I watched as the fly did loop-the-loops around my ceiling fan. And then, as quickly as it had started, the buzzing stopped. I watched as the fly fell from the ceiling onto my bed in front of me. Dead.
I had just wasted 45 minutes on a problem that had worked itself out. I'm not saying that cockroach infestations magically disappear or that we should look the other way when people are doing bad things. What I am saying is this: You can run around your room like a crazy person at 3:30 in the morning, chasing a fly that is going to die on it's own, or you can take any obvious, necessary steps to solve the problem and then wait. There's only so much a person can do. Sometimes you just have to wait while these problems wear themselves out. The litterer will eventually be caught. The exterminator will eventually come. These problems will wear themselves out. In the mean time, we just have to be patient.
And in the mean time, I've worn myself out...
Tara
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