You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Uncategorized' category.
Check out some new musings at www.rocket2rocket.blogspot.com, a/k/a Philosophize This.
Thanks to all who have commented. It is much appreciated! Say hello on the new page, Philosophize This.
Don’t call me “sir,” either. In fact, don’t call at all. Yesterday, on the 7 train, I was going over the rhythm for this new aria I’m trying to learn. Okay, this means I’m minding my own business, in my own little world and in my mind I’m wearing a sparkling black gown (the tiara is a given). I didn’t even see this one coming:
Creepy sexist man: My, my… that is a complicated piece of music for a lady.
What I wanted to say: No, not really. My man unchains me from the stove in his house once a week so I can put on shoes and study music.
What I actually said: No, not really.
Creepy sexist man: I would only study that for fun. Not for work at all. (Silence) So where do you work? The Met or something?
HA. Oh, that’s rich! Perhaps I should have been more specific when I said “no more 40 yr olds, please.” This man was clearly over 40, maybe over 50. I’m not even legally allowed to drink alcohol. After he sat down next to me he started talking about culture, or rather, lack of culture. I don’t mean to be rude, but what can this man expect riding on a train? He told me he was reading Cyrano de Bergerac. One of my favorites, I do not intend to let this sexist man spoil a beloved story. He claimed that he was forlorn because he was educated and sophisticated but not good looking enough to have a girlfriend. He asked if he could recite some poetry. I tried to say that I needed to study my music but he interrupted me and began Cyrano’s declarations of love.
As he was talking to me he said something in French, which I can’t begin to pretend I understand. I know a few words, though, thanks to my sister’s dirty mind and strange friends. Thankfully he got off at T.S. but not before shouting, “plute” into the car. Yes, I know what that word means, mr. disgusting worm! (He doesn’t even deserve capital letters!)
Every day in Manhattan is a surprise. I never know what kinds of people I’m going to meet. Last night as I walked to the subway from practicing I felt a deep affection for this city. Somehow it gets lost in the struggle for space on the over-crowded trains and expensive but mediocre meals. Was my fondness for Manhattan rekindled through music and practicing? Or, simply, was it magical New York City? The setting was surreal, a gray early evening sky and a warm breeze against the steely buildings, fluorescent signs and thinned crowds of people. It is difficult to put comprehensible words to my feeling of exhaustion after practicing because it is a complacent and happy exhaustion. It seemed like it was not exhaustion at all but it certainly was work, especially after an extended break.
I have been struggling with a topic for my blog post today. When I started the blog it was originally intended to be a documentation of my journey in vocalizing and practicing. However, I’m not inspired to write about music at this time. Hopefully this will change soon. Sometimes I like to record the strange incidents I encounter in the city, but today I will post about grammar. Call me a snob if you wish, there might be some validity to that argument.
I received an email today from a coworker about our new Team Green program. He added “And as always, please practice digression when printing out this or any other emails.” I looked at this sentence for a few moments. Okay. Shall I digress and think or speak of unrelated topics while I print out this email and other emails? Perhaps I should practice discretion. That would make more sense… Discretion and digression, though similar sounding, are not particularly close in spelling. He could have spelled discretion incorrectly, resulting in a word such as “discression,” but the spell-check offers this option: discursion.
In another incident a coworker asked me to read over an email she sent out to a customer. The email began “Affective immediately…” When I brought this up to my coworker she feigned indifference and said that the customer wouldn’t care or even pick up on the typo. Firstly: it is not advanced literary knowledge to discern between the [usual] verb affect and the [usual] noun effect. Please see below:
The effect of this email was distressing.
I am affected by her inability to use proper grammar.
Secondly: poor grammar shows disrespect and laziness. Take the time to understand how the English language works, people. Show others you care enough to think out sentences before you speak or write them, otherwise, you may lose credibility. It is hard to pay attention to content if it is written incorrectly and makes no sense.
Shall I bring up the mini-Malaprop who would exclaim “alas!” when she heard good news? The poor dear didn’t understand.
Then we’ve got the non-existent word “irregardless” surfacing at random. My p.t. boss uses “irregardless” a lot. I cannot correct her because she is my boss. However, I want to save her the humiliation of using that word in public. How did irregardless become incorporated in speech? My guess would be that some are making a connection to relevant and irrelevant.
Thirdly: Read a book once in a while & don’t assume something on the bestsellers list, as a hot summer read, will teach the solid rules. Who cares if it is the social “norm” to use incorrect grammar? Stand out from the crowd!
I do not mean to imply that I know everything about grammar and the English language. I still have a hard time with lay/lie usage (and so does Microsoft spell-check). In a society where the internet is accessible 24 hours a day we have no excuse to not look up the rules of speech.
So far my Wednesday is not going well. I ordered a soy chai latte, paid waaaaaaay too much for it and it tasted like the soy was old, really old. I didn’t figure this out until after I was at work. Terrific. The little I was able to choke down gave me a stomach ache. I guess its back to green tea… Since I’m stuck in this rolling chair for the rest of the morning I have to deal with a splitting caffeine headache – apparently 2 sips of chai does not a caffeine addiction satisfy. Now I’m grumpy. I hate this rolley chair because my legs aren’t long enough to be firmly planted on the ground. When I breathe too heavily or shift around too much my chair rolls away from the desk.
The lack of caffeine in my system makes me contemplative. Go figure. I begin thinking of all the things about me that are strange. One issue in particular has been bouncing around upstairs more than others: the only flirty attention or date offers I receive are from men who are 40+ in age. Yes, maturity is important. I also don’t like bar-hoppers. Yes, that is hard to find in a person under 40 years of age. Perhaps my picky attitude is reflected when I talk to everyone. I don’t care. I’m getting horribly fed up. I don’t particularly want to date right now and I’d prefer to have no attention directed my way. The last time I checked smiling and being nice didn’t translate into “I’m interested in dating you.” Good grief.
One another note, my voice lessons are soon to start up again. I’m not sure how I’m feeling about that. I’m enjoying my break a little too much this time I think. CSI has sort of replaced practice and the rest of the time I’m beating off 40 yr old men. I can’t seem to get moving and practice as much as I used to. I wish I could blame work— that I’m just too tired, but that is only a small part of it. Hello ennui, you’ve been gone far too long.
I took a cab today to 11th avenue from 5th avenue. It was rainy and I didn’t want to ruin my hair. My hair is perpetually bad and frizzy so when I actually have nice hair I am protective of it. I was also running late for a meeting. I rarely take cabs & these are the 2 reasons why:
Picture it: a sloppy, wet, gray day sometime in mid-December in Manhattan. It was cold and gross on those midtown sidewalks. Sleeping in felt so right. Then I realized that vacation had not begun quite yet. I jumped out of bed, turned the printer on and zapped out 12 pages of a final paper before the sweet repose of vacation could consume me. The words of my professor burning in the back of my mind, “If you are 1 minute late, this paper grade will go down.” Time check: 11 minutes until this paper is officially late. I hopped a cab around 57th and urged him to go faster. He was not listening to me, so I thought, as he was squawking on his cell phone, without a headset. I told him there was an extra juicy tip in it for him if he could make this tin can go any faster. Needless to say he floored it, all while I implored him to increase the speed. “Please, can’t you make this go faster?” “It is really, really important that I get there quickly.” “Don’t slow down! That light is a stale yellow!” I assume he was turning around to yell at me for being such a pain in the behind when SMACK!. We side-swiped another cab, sitting on the shoulder. The cabbie looked at me, my mouth open in an “Ooo, look what you did” position. He sped away. Our post-collision conversation:
“You just hit someone! You need to go back!”
“You! No more talking in my cab! You don’t talk in my cab!”
“But… but you just had an accident.”
“Here is your stop. Get out of my cab!”
Okay Mr. Crank-pot. Sheesh. No big tip for you.
I was not late to turn in my paper and my professor had no clue how awesome my paper’s little adventure was that morning.
Picture this one: sweaty girl, late for voice lesson, mid-July, changing into a tank top that has no falafel grease stain on the left boob in the back of a minivan cab. Okay. That evening I had the pleasure of riding with the one cabbie who wanted to chat. I tried to end our conversation so he would stop looking at me via the rearview mirror, lest we hit a bump and one of the ladies should pop out while he watched. Not only did my cabbie talk, incessantly, but he wanted to educate me about the reality and importance of time travel. Yeah, time travel. He also told me that he likes to watch people. Creepy, no? He said he’s seen a lot of regular people and a lot of time-travelers. He could tell the difference. Not even I have that gift… Then he asked if I was interested in time travel. I said I was. He asked if I was interested enough to try it. Now all I could think was “it likes to put the lotion on its skin,” so I tried to speak with neutral phrases that would not upset my driver to drive me to his basement in New Jersey. We rode on and he rambled out some mathematical phrase that I could never understand, even if I spoke crazy cabbie talk, taking into account the dimensions of our present time overlapping the past and the future. It all started to get genuinely interesting, even if it was mad, when I finally got to my teacher’s studio. Blast! I guess I’ll never unlock the secrets of time travel.
The past 6 months I’ve been conducting an experiment on my poor, feeble, unsuspecting body: I completely removed caffeine from my system. Back before October I was downing red-eyes from Starbucks 4 times per week. I had 2 cups in the morning, 1 cup during my lunch break and a tea after work. I was a junkie. I was having really painful stomach trouble so I had to stop. Also, I hated being dependant on a substance at this ripe, young age. Stomach aches were replaced with everlasting headaches and complete body fatigue. At work I couldn’t get motivated to do anything. This lasted for two weeks and I was miserable but I was firm and kicked the addiction. Now, 6 months later, I am still feeling the pain of withdrawal. In the afternoons, around 2:15, I get so tired that I zone out for a while in front of Excel sheets. Forget about the mornings. I am so grumpy, small children and the elderly and infirmed better watch out because I’m ruthless when I plow by the crowded streets, and my body feels like it is in a daze which lasts until my 2:15 zone out. I work a lot of hours with an internship and a job-job to pay the student loans. Well, silly goose that I am, I should realize that work is making me tired. That is why I’ve started letting caffeine back into my life. I don’t do coffee anymore because it still kills my stomach (it is probably a combination of the acid and the milk. I don’t drink milk anymore, only soymilk so my body has developed a slight intolerance, even with respect to my beloved ice cream.) but I am a great fan of green tea and it’s relatives. Today I had a green tea matcha blast form Jamba Juice. Those little guys are bliss. I have a terrific caffeine high and I am getting a lot done at work, with the exception of this blog post, sans stomach ache. Green tea is the way to go.
I am just a bull in a china shop. My parents should have named me “Hulk” because I don’t know my own strength. I break things all the time, a lot like a toddler. When I see something shiny (and okay, it doesn’t have to be shiny) I need to touch it and pick it up. I can’t just look with my eyes. The word delicate doesn’t register in my brain until I’ve smashed something into 1,000 little pieces. Not only do I have these butter-fingers, but I’m also a bit accident prone; I fall walking up and down the stairs. I walk into things and knock them down. I step on people’s feet, I kick things when I walk by and a lot of times I’ll fall over onto something and break it. Never sit across from me at the table because, chances are, if I have a glass of water I’m going to spill it onto your lap.
Knowing this I should have massive amounts of bubble wrap around me at all times to reduce the hazard for other people/objects. That got tiring after a while. Not to mention expensive. Of course the day I didn’t get all wrapped up in plastic I screwed up at work and broke a part of the computer. I apparently kicked a wire that connects the keyboard to the hard drive. Normally, this would not be a problem as I could just reattach the little sucker. Alas, the wiring leading into the circuit board was yanked a few too many times and this was Howard’s 9th life. (I like to name things. My iPod’s name is Doris. I digress…)
I try not to think about my incredible ability to break things and the incredible power I hold as a walking-accident. This is why I spent the afternoon perusing a little used book store in Chelsea, looking through a $500 copy of Virginia Woolf’s “Jacob’s Room.” The man behind the counter was in no mood for conversation. I though he’d be interested in my prized Walter Savage Landor’s Imaginary Conversations. He didn’t care. I don’t even think he knows of W.S. Landor. That is a sad thing. It seemed to me, as we conversed for an entire 94 seconds, that he didn’t give a toss for literature, only those vintage collectables which bring in money. Quite sad, no? Perhaps he sensed I could at any moment drop the $500 book and detach the pages from the spine. That would be an acceptable excuse for his coolness this afternoon. It is terribly disheartening to go to a place like that, surrounded in great thoughts and beauty that is a vintage book, only to find it is tainted with dollar signs. Other than the grumpy-greedy clerk, the store is quite lovely. I have my eye on a more fairly priced copy of Virginia Woolf’s “Waves.”
The dude who sits next to me at work listens to really bad music. Okay, so I listen mostly to Classical and Baroque, which narrows my taste in music, but I think most would agree that this noise is painful to hear. I feel like I’m playing a 1990 Nintendo game. I never cared much for Nintendo. Although the guy at work doesn’t have his music up full blast I can still hear the piercing sound from his headphones. It is a very high pitched sound, think the new N trains taking off, and it is extremely irritating. I don’t like high, sharp sounds. I think he may be a science fiction/fantasy geek. Terrific. To his credit, though, he seems to be having a wonderful time listening. His head is bopping side to side and his face is making crunched up expressions. Either that N train sound is in every song or he is listening to the same song over and over again. Although it irritates me I’m glad he has a special kind of music to relate to and enjoy. We all need that. Good grief, it sounds like a space ship getting ready to launch. Our office just may take off and begin to orbit the earth.
Moving forward, 2 years, to be precise, to Oberammergau’s Passion play taking place in 2010. I believe this one will be the 41st. So far, I don’t have plans to attend, and as I understand it these spots fill up quickly. I’ve always had a deep interest in theology and history — and a fascination for the macabre events surrounding J.C.’s life/death/resurrection and the fight between religions. I suppose the Catholic Church has always been an enigma to me.
Yes, the play was admired by Hitler & crew, and I get swept up by the intense emotions it stirs in people. Controversy at it’s finest. I say, let the play play on. Okay, so now my Jewish roommate, reading this, will put a lock on her bedroom door and cease all contact with me. She doesn’t have to agree – I actually would prefer that she didn’t agree with me, but we still sleep in close proximity to one another. My view is this is a form of art and art is always offensive to some. I am fully aware that the perception of the play is that it resurfaces old feelings of animosity. But will intolerance go away by darkening the stage? No, it will not. Prejudice is not on the stage. The intention to hurt and cause pain is not put there by paint or muslin. The play is the reminder of a battle still raging for some. It is martyrdom and glorification for some and perpetual persecution for others. It is passion. It is theater. It is life. It will spark debates and intelligent conversation as well as random acts of stupidity. I suppose I want to see it because I am curious about the props, the audience and the dialogue. I want to know who goes to Oberammergau and how they interact.
I’ve always wondered when taxi drivers have the time to use the restroom. Do they stop the money-maker during rush-hour traffic to find a restroom? And then there would be the matter of parking. Whenever I take a cab I see the driver with a coffee in hand. I certainly couldn’t be a cab driver with my bladder capacity of a 90 yr old woman. Perhaps there are a few plastic bottles, I so naively used to think, under the cabbie’s seat to just go while he drives. All these questions have been stewing inside my head since I’ve been in NY. I suppose they’d go under “what to ask God when I finally get there.” Fortunately one of the questions was answered for me the other night. As I stood on the corner waiting to cross, at 1:47 am, a cab pulled over next to me. When the driver opened the door I heard a zipper and saw his, ahem… accoutrement get whipped out. He saw me with my mouth hanging open, pulled it in, shut the door and sped away. Honestly! Some people are disgusting. Thanks for contributing to NY’s perpetual urinal smell.
