An unpleasant experience at Target

From http://en.wikipedia.com:

"The effect of "Mace" or "Pepper Spray" varies on humans. [...] If in contact with eyes it causes automatic closing of the eyes due to intense pain if open. This along with a feeling of suffocating if inhaled it causes the person to be very vulnerable and dependent..."

Yep, that's roughly what it felt like as I coughed my head off while tears streamed down my face today in the Bronx Target. I was just shopping like everyone else, browsing for a full length mirror in the home section when I was overcome by a coughing fit. As I struggled for air, I noticed a great number of other people around me were also coughing. I made my way out of the section while digging in my purse for a Kleenex to wipe the tears away. I ended up having to pause in the frying pan aisle so I could take a drink. Shortly thereafter the security guards were ushering us all out of the area and I overheard one of them say that someone had sprayed mace. No wonder that stuff is illegal in most Western countries...nasty! The effects didn't last for more than a minute or two, but it was scary enough to run me and others out of the store into the fresh air.

Role reversal on Amsterdam Avenue

A conversation between a mother and roughly 10 year old son overhead this morning on my way to the gym on the Upper West Side.

Mom (veering right toward a store front): Oh look! There’s a new store going in here.

Son (mildly annoyed): Oh come on Mom.

Mom: I just want to take a quick look through the window. Come on, check it out.

Son (sighs): Let’s just get done what we have to get done Mom.

Mom (looks away from shop at son): Yes, Sir.

Rebound

Ok, so Wednesday was better on most levels, save the roughly 45 minutes where I essentially lost my vision to another opthalmic migraine (am I going to get these regularly now? That's not something to look forward to). In any case, life wasn't so boring and routine because a dear college friend I hadn't seen since August 2004 came into town for work. Tony and I met up for dinner last night and enjoyed cheese fondue and good conversation at La Bonne Soupe. Afterward I walked him back across town to his employer's apartment and enoyed an excellent view of the Chrysler Building from the 58th floor roof deck. It was so close I could have practically reached out and touched it! A little self-portrait for you to enjoy:

I got home around 11:30 and attempted to sleep, which was obviously foiled by the cappucino I drank with my dessert at the restaurant. Grrrr. When did coffee start affecting my ability to sleep? This is the second time in six months that this has happened to me and I think I'm really going to have to switch to decaf after 5 PM. Anyway, I laid in bed until 1:30 AM and decided to get up and do something productive with my time, which I decided was reading Kant's essay on Enlightenment in German, which is my first assignment for the German literature course I started yesterday. The professor wasn't kidding when she said we were starting with a hard text! The language wasn't that hard, although I definitely spent some quality time with my dictionary; it was the writing style and constant references to God knows what in the previous sentences. I think "of which" and "for whom" were Kant's favorite phrases.

The remainder of the week was uneventful. Last night I went over to Claudia's and we watched a movie and ate oil-popped popcorn and guacamole. Yum! For the most part I'm doing the same old boring stuff, but it seems a little less boring at the end of the week. :)

This is why I love the city!

An up-close and personal view of the Chysler Building from my friend Tony's 44th Street roof.

Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Today I was malcontent with my life. Boring, routine, dull...these and any other adjectives you can think of that are synonyms for "uninteresting" could all be applied. I'm not even sure what triggered it. I took a quick survey of the past few weeks in my head and found myself constantly repeating things, like going to the same classes at the gym on the same days, watching the same TV shows, eating the same foods, doing the same thing at work.

Deviating from the normal routine of eating at my desk, I went to lunch with three of my colleagues and afterward I dropped of the rest of my materials at Teachers College, thereby officially completing my application for Admission. Upon returning to my desk, I was just struck by inertia, heavy and mind-numbing. I overheard my boss talking to a potential candidate for the Assistant Director position (a candidate that we passed over in October ironically), which didn't help matters. My colleague Amanda and I have been doing all the work of the assistant director all year, and neither of us has been recognized for it. Amanda has been working there 17 years and actually makes less than I do, which I don't think is right, particularly when she's doing what I do plus statistics and part of the assistant director's job too. And I'm sure you all know how I feel about having to do ghost work...it's like Roland Berger all over again.

The malcontentedness was enough to get me looking at job postings, which is the first time I've done that since July. Not that I'm seriously thinking of going anywhere, but I just needed to look. I also felt wanderlust tug at my shirt sleeve like a little kid looking for a playmate. Why is the grass always greener on the other side of the fence from my perspective?

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), I brought up my annoyance with everything to Natalie, another colleague, and found she had recently experienced the same thing. Maybe it is the time of year? All the exciting events of winter have come and gone, leaving us with gray skies, biting cold and little hope of being tan ever again. Is anyone else experiencing this right now?

Here goes nothing!

My application for admission to Teachers College is due on Monday, which is a few short days away! Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it), I will be at work for most of the day on Saturday due to Merrill Lynch interviews, so I'll have plenty of time to rework my essay for the 84th time and finally submit the silly thing without wondering if my internet will work long enough for the documents to upload. I have to turn in a writing sample and I am using a paper from my semester in the Netherlands. It's about the Dutch royal family and the monarchy's history; not exactly riveting, but once I removed the phrase "bumbling idiot" from my description of King William III, it became nearly passable. The problem with everyone wanting a writing sample is that I don't have that many papers from college anymore! I was lucky to find this one on a random diskette in my filing cabinet. I mean, who even uses diskettes anymore?

*sidebar: there was just a loud crash from the bathroom...I wonder what Angel's doing in there? I hope the other shelf didn't fall off the wall!*

Speaking of interviews, tomorrow is the first morning all week on which I don't have to get up during the six o'clock hour or be to work by 7:30 AM. Yay! I can't wait to go back to a 9 AM start next week.

What the heck is a beta version?

You know, technology annoys me most of the time. It is perpetually out-of-date and then when you try to upgrade, sometime inevitably goes wrong and you end up having to close the program every 37 minutes or download/install the whole thing again after removing it from your program list. Argh. Now blogger wants me to switch to "new blogger". What's wrong with this version I ask?

Happy New Year!

The much anticipated Mummer's Parade didn't actually take place on New Year's Day as it should have thanks to nasty drizzly rain, but even without it, I had a great time visiting Carolyn for New Year's in Philadelphia. I hadn't seen her since October, when we visited a corn maze in NJ at Irene's request, so it was great to catch up. I had never seen her current apartment or met many of her Philly friends, which is such a shame because I love touring other people's worlds. This time I got to see it all though, including the apartment (huge! lots of windows! her very own washer/dryer stacking combo!) and some good friends of hers who we met up with on New Year's Eve.

We celebrated in the classic style of young people...cocktails at home while getting beautiful (the first time I've ever enjoyed gin!), cocktails at the first bar, beer at the second, fireworks at Penn's Landing, more beer back at the second bar, pizza on the street, a short visit to a strange house party and sloshing through the streets in the rain while searching for a cab at about 3 AM. We were both hung over and headachy the next day, so perhaps it was merciful that we didn't have to get up at 9 and hit the streets again for the parade.

All in all a vast improvement over last year, when I was lying in my bed in Iowa (yes, alone) watching Sex and the City so intently that I completely missed midnight. This year was definitely better. Thanks Carolyn!

A couple shots from Philadelphia:

Carolyn and her city!

Yes, we are wearing paper hats.