the deep untangling

2007-12-16T16:43:00.001-05:00

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Walked through a volcano. Used the phrase "my boyfriend" in reference to someone other than David Wright. Went whitewater rafting. Walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. Voted in a real voting booth.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Let's see! Last year, my new year's resolutions were:
1. Cook more of my own food, and eat more balanced meals. (If by "cook" I meant "defrost," then yes, I kept this one.)
2. Volunteer my time, maybe as a Big Sister. (I did volunteer at the New York City Marathon in November. Baby steps!)
3. Take some sort of class for my own edification, maybe besides ballet. (Nope. No time.)
4. Run a marathon in a state other than Massachusetts, because if I start this year, I can run a marathon in each of the 50 states by the time I'm 73. (Darn it! Oh well, I'm definitely running New York next year.)
5. Be more social; be more spontaneous; and be more socially spontaneous. (Hmmm.)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but my cousin is due in July 2008.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, I wasn't that close to Anna Nicole Smith.

5. What countries did you visit?
Several states in the good old U S of A, including California, Hawaii and South Carolina.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Last year, I said "my own apartment," and what do you know, here I am! If I say "a million dollars" this year, do you think it'll happen? (I did get a subscription to the lottery for Hanukkah.)

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
September 4, 2007 -- the first day of doom. Er, I mean school, the first day of school.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
That time I got second grader Sebastian to stop throwing a kicking, screaming tantrum on the carpet? That one was pretty good.

9. What was your biggest failure?
RIP, Project 365.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nonstop since the start of the school year, thanks to those darn kids and their germs.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
DVR! Particularly since I can't stay up past 10 pm anymore, the DVR does all the heavy lifting of taping Project Runway and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Also: plane tickets.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Ann Taylor Loft. Work clothes are pricey.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Any promise of a reunion with assorted members of S2P, including but not limited to my trip to San Francisco to see Dianne, my trip to Hawaii to see Carrie, my road trip to South Carolina with Carrie and Caitlin, and planning a trip to California in February.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Rihanna's "Umbrella," Matt Nathanson's "Car Crash," Matchbox Twenty's "How Far We've Come" and Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" (those last two were frequently playing on the radio in my office. Usually while I was in there crying!).

17. Compared to this time last year, are you
happier or sadder? My personal life is happier. My professional life is sadder.
older or wiser? Just older. Not wiser.
thinner or fatter? thinner. Thanks, stress!
richer or poorer? I probably am richer, thanks to my "real job," but I feel poorer, thanks to my "real rent."

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Advocating for my dream job.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
I kind of say this every year, but: I wish I had done less FREAKING OUT.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Introducing Phil to It's a Wonderful Life. And hopefully eating Chinese food.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Yes.

22. How many one-night stands?
Zero.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
In the first half of the year, House. In the second half of the year, Heroes. All thanks to the wonders of Netflix!

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I hate at least 55% of the people who ride the Q58 bus.

25. What was the best book you read?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, naturally. For good measure, I'll throw in Cynthia Lord's Rules, and in the world of non-children's books, Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
It's a tie: Amos Lee, courtesy of this year's S2P mix, and Matt Nathanson, courtesy of the iTunes Free Download of the Week.

27. What did you want and get?
A genuine full time job with health insurance, psychiatric help, and my own apartment.

28. What did you want and not get?
My dream job.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I was stunned by Sicko, but I don't know if I'd call it a "favorite." I can tell you that my least favorite film of the year was Across the Universe. Maybe my favorite was The Namesake.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 24 in 2007 (although one night I forget this and found myself actually struggling to remember how old I was), and I hosted my second annual bagel picnic in Central Park!

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Good health. Physically, mentally and emotionally.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Confused? It was a struggle to get myself into the groove of dressing professionally every day, especially since I dropped ten pounds when school started and all of my clothes were falling down.

33. What kept you sane?
This year? It was totally the Lexapro.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I know I said it last year, but I think I've still got to go with David Wright!

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
After seeing Sicko, I was all about the sorry state of health care in America.

36. Who did you miss?
Wacky but true: My cat.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Phil.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
The first job you ever have will not necessarily be the last.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"Leave everything you know/And carry only what you fear." --Bruce Springsteen

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night

2007-10-28T18:39:00.000-04:00

Because my apartment lies between the elevator and the stairwell, I don't overhear much noise through the walls. In the kitchen and the bathroom, though, through some odd quirk of engineering, I not only hear my neighbors through the vents, but occasionally I hear them very clearly. I don't mind, because I've always enjoyed eavesdropping, and sometimes I even hear music that sounds vaguely familiar -- like something I would listen to.

This evening at sunset, I was reading the New York Times when I heard the unmistakable chords of one of my favorite songs in the world. "That's Bruce!" I exclaimed, jumping to my feet and hurrying into the kitchen. Sure enough, my mysterious neighbors were listening to "Thunder Road." I couldn't help singing along in the hopes that they would hear me: "Come take my hand, we're riding out tonight to chase the promised land..."

Things to look forward to

2007-10-15T17:33:00.000-04:00

clementine season
Entenmann's Halloween cupcakes with candy corn on top
the NYC marathon (I won't be running, but I'll be volunteering/cheering)
the last two episodes of Heroes coming via Netflix
winter vacation, when Dianne comes to visit
my evening television lineup
better days, better days, better days

I am so cool and famous

2007-10-09T17:33:00.001-04:00

Claim to fame #1: My union is going to pay me $150 to reprint an excerpt from my teaching blog that already ran on their website.

Claim to fame #2: I write reviews for New York Newsday. Check out my first one here. (My picture screams "I didn't have any time to put on makeup before this photo was taken.")

State of the Union

2007-10-08T12:02:00.000-04:00

Five things you need to know about my life right now:

1. I changed my cell phone ring tone from Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" (I wanted something mellow, but it rang so softly I missed most of my calls) to Bruce Springsteen's "Badlands" ("I wanna find one face that ain't looking through me, I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these badlands").

2. I'm eating lots of pita chips and bagel chips with hummus, but very little in the way of actual meal food; consequently I haven't weighed this little since the sixth grade.

3. My new building is chockablock with unsecured wireless networks, so I don't pay for Internet. So I splurged on DVR and I love it. Now I can store America's Next Top Model marathons for times when it's too quiet in my new apartment and I just need to hear Tyra Banks' voice in the background.

4. Rocking Horse still makes the best margaritas in the whole world, and eating there still makes my life perfect, even if it's just for a few hours.

5. It's six weeks into the school year, and I am still the most stressed out, anxious and frantic steaming ball of unhappiness that I have ever been. And if you know me, you know that's saying a lot.

Lyrics that resonate

2007-10-06T23:33:00.000-04:00

...from the free iTunes download of the week!

Just push me till I have to fly
I've shed my skin, my scars
Take me deep out past the lights
Where nothing dims these stars
Nothing dims these stars

I wanna feel the car crash
I wanna feel the capsize
I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop
Till I'm satisfied
I wanna feel the car crash
'Cause I'm dyin' on the inside
I wanna let go and know
That I'll be all right, all right

DAMMIT, METS

2007-09-30T16:38:00.001-04:00

Incomprehensibly bad performance by a previously stellar pitcher? Check.
Stranding ten runners on base in totally failed effort to stage a comeback? Check.
Worst collapse ever in the history of Major League Baseball? Check.

Being a Mets fan is turning out to be almost as heartbreaking as being a Red Sox fan. Actually, this season, it's worse -- because the Red Sox, by the way, are in the playoffs. And so are the !@#$ing Yankees. Heck, even the freaking Cubs are in the playoffs.

I am so disappointed in my life right now.

2007-09-13T13:57:00.001-04:00

The back story: Amir and Streeter work for CollegeHumor.com, and they've been in a prank war with each other for a year. Amir finds out that Streeter is going to a Yankee game with his girlfriend. He buys a marriage proposal for the JumboTron to Streeter's girlfriend from Streeter...only Streeter has no idea it's coming. Chaos ensues.

Best idea ever

2007-09-03T19:03:00.001-04:00

Once I move into my new apartment (knock on wood, cross your fingers and all that jazz), I want to invite people over on a Tuesday night to watch House and call it a Housewarming party. Get it? Get it? Ha ha ha!

I guess I should watch The Office

2007-08-26T13:12:00.000-04:00

Your Score: the Wit

(66% dark, 34% spontaneous, 21% vulgar)

your humor style:
CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK

You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm
talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

The 3-Variable Funny Test!

2007-08-26T13:07:00.000-04:00

Your Score: Pure Nerd

69 % Nerd, 30% Geek, 21% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

2007-08-25T17:09:00.000-04:00

Diseases that, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I have self-diagnosed myself with in the past few weeks:

1. West Nile Virus
2. Hepatitis A
3. viral meningitis
4. mono

Remember My Girl, when Vera kept running to the kindly town doctor because she was sure she was dying of some disease? Now hypochondria is so high tech!

2007-08-24T15:33:00.000-04:00

So when I first got hired, I thought I would have a teacherblog. Then I found out I wasn't going to have my own classroom, so I thought it might not be as interesting. But then I decided it would still be informative, and helpful for me, to reflect on my first year as a teacher (and totally something Dirck would support! Ah, remember Dirck? Man, those were the days).

So I would like to unveil my teacherblog, miss brave teaches nyc. (If you know my last name, you know that people often mispronounce it as a word that is a synonym for "brave.")

Ten days until school starts!

I am awesome

2007-08-06T22:03:00.000-04:00

1. Go here: Nike+ NYC Half Marathon Results

2. Type in my name.

3. Marvel at my race, beautifully graphed by Nike. (I'll say this for Nike, I haven't heard great things about their shoes, but they've got the tech side of running down to a glorious science.) The numbers represent my split times in K (5K, 10K, 15K, 20K and the end).

Look at that finishing kick!!!!

R.I.P., Red 2006 Mizuno Wave Rider 9s

2007-08-05T20:03:00.001-04:00

You were strong, loyal sneakers, braving the mud and the rain, the scorching heat and the pounding you took on the pavement of New York and Boston, all to run with me. You withstood scores of training runs at dawn and dusk, ferried countless ChampionChips and my faithful Road ID, and made a crucial return to service when your counterparts, the purple 2007 Mizuno Wave Rider 9s, were cruelly decimated by an ill-conceived decision to wear them through the muddy downpours of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and then take to them with a blow-dryer -- a beating from which they never fully recovered.

This morning, you came through in the clutch one last time, carrying me to a new personal record in the second annual New York City half marathon at 2:04:55 -- surpassing our last performance in the NYC half by fifteen precious seconds! And thus, it is with a heavy but grateful heart that I send you to your retirement, passing the Road ID to the brand-new Mizuno Wave Rider 10s.

Red Mizuno Wave Rider 9s, you will always fill a special sneaker-shaped place in my heart, second only to my 2004 pink Mizuno Wave Precision 3s in which I ran the Cape Cod Marathon...and that's really saying something.

Lay down your laces, red 2006 Mizuno Wave Rider 9s, and rest at last.

Good luck, Harry Potter

2007-07-30T15:53:00.002-04:00

(Warning: This post contains formidable spoilers for the seventh Harry Potter book. If you haven't finished it yet...get going!)

Ah, Harry Potter. In preparation for book 7 and movie 5, I read books 1-6 and watched movies 1-4. Then I saw movie 5 and read book 7, and then I read 1-7 all over again. I've been reading Harry Potter so much this month that I actually have dreams about it at night (two nights ago it was something about Dobby's Hover Charm in book 2). Some final thoughts:

Small Details I Noticed When I Read the Harry Potter Series This Time Around, Firmly Establishing J.K. Rowling's Utter Brilliance in My Mind (and the Fact That I Have Too Much Time on My Hands to Re-Read Harry Potter)

1. In the very first Harry Potter book, when Harry and Hagrid are hurtling through Gringotts (with the goblin who reappears in book 7!) to Harry's vault, Harry catches a glimpse of what he thinks might be a dragon. In book 7, Harry, Ron and Hermione escape from Gringotts...on a dragon!

2. In book 5, Harry's Aunt Petunia shockingly reveals her knowledge of Azkaban and the dementors, admitting that she heard "that awful boy--telling her about them--years ago." Harry and I both assumed that she was referring to Harry's father, but in book 7, we discover that it was actually Snape! (It occurred to me that Petunia would have saved Harry a lot of heartache if she had gone on to say, "His name was Severus and he was totally in love with Lily.")

3. In one of the earlier books (alas, I can't remember which one), Harry, Ron and Hermione are once again discussing Snape's allegiance, and someone makes a comment that Snape wouldn't have been able to disappear so quickly unless he could implausibly turn himself into a bat and fly away from the castle. In book 7, just before the climactic battle for Hogwarts, Snape actually does this!

4. There are a few delightful allusions to the first book in book 7: When Harry, Ron and Hermione are at the Whomping Willow and Ron despairs of finding a way to turn it off, Hermione says, "Are you a wizard or aren't you?!", which is what Ron says to Hermione as they're trying to save the Sorcerer's Stone in the first book; in Snape's memory, Harry's father says, "Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?", which is what Draco Malfoy says to Harry about being in Hufflepuff when they first meet at Madame Malkin's in the first book.

Things That Made Me Cry in Harry Potter 7 (A Better Title for This Would Be "What Didn't Make Me Cry in Harry Potter 7, Because Seriously, I Was a Total Waterworks the Entire Book")
1. Hedwig's death, because I was quite fearful Hagrid might be next
2. when the locket Horcrux said all those horrible things to Ron before he finished it off
3. Dobby's death, even though I never really liked him; "Here Lies Dobby, A Free Elf"
4. when Neville came walking through the picture into the Hog's Head
5. Percy's sudden reappearance
6. when all the students stood between Harry and Pansy Parkinson (that little whore)
7. Ron and Hermione's pre-battle snog session ("Is this the moment?")
8. Fred's death (according to J.K. Rowling on last night's Dateline interview, Fred was the funnier but often crueler of the twins, which was startling news to me because I never saw any difference between them)
9. poor, poor little Colin Creevey
10. everything the Pensieve revealed about Snape, but most especially: "What will you give me in return, Severus?" "Anything"; "I sometimes think we Sort too soon" and his doe Patronus
11. I open at the close...hoo boy, that's where the waterworks really got turned on
12. Harry on dying: "Does it hurt?"
13. Dumbledore to Harry at King's Cross: "You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man."
14. McGonagall's scream at the news of Harry's death
15. Neville to Voldemort: "I'll join you when hell freezes over. Dumbledore's Army!"
16. Kreacher egging on the other house-elves to "fight for my Master, defender of house-elves!"
17. when Harry found Ron and Hermione after the battle
18. when Harry walked into Dumbledore's study and all the portraits applauded

Lines That Made Me Laugh the Hardest
1. Ron's Great Auntie Muriel at Bill and Fleur's wedding on Luna's father's bright yellow robes: "Merlin's beard, what is Xenophilius Lovegood wearing? He looks like an omelet."

2. Ron to Harry on saving Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle: "IF WE DIE FOR THEM, I'LL KILL YOU, HARRY!"

The Line That Made Me Say "Whoa, Mrs. Weasley, Who Knew You Had It In You?!"
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!"

Plot Quibbles I Let Slide Because My Love for J.K. Rowling Knows No Bounds
Ron manages to open the Chamber of Secrets? And return with armfuls of basilisk fangs?

Minor Disappointments
1. Harry totally gave Nearly Headless Nick the shaft.
2. Nearly every single character ever makes a reappearance, but where was Moaning Myrtle? And the Fat Lady? Even Sir Cadogan had a cameo.
3. From Dumbledore's speech at the end of book 4 ("We are only as strong as we are united") to the Sorting Hat's song in book 5 ("We must unite inside her/Or we'll crumble from within"), there seemed to be foreshadowing that the whole wizarding world would really have to come together to fight Voldemort. I wish we had seen more of the payoffs of this, like if at least someone from Slytherin had stayed to fight (I think Slughorn does, but it's not clear), and I wish we had heard a little more about the Resistance (like Potterwatch and Neville's efforts in the Room of Requirement).
4. If I'm reading correctly, Zacharias Smith turned out to be a total weenie!

Major Disappointment
The epilogue, which I'm going to pretend didn't happen. I could have guessed they all live happily ever after; if I was going to have it spelled out for me, I'd have liked some extra information too like what everyone's profession is and what happened in the wizarding world as a whole, not just the news that everyone got married and had babies. That was far too reminiscent of the kind of "Mulder and Scully have kids and name them Melissa and Samantha" fanfic that I hate. (According to J.K. Rowling on Dateline, Harry and Ron have revolutionized the Auror department and Hermione is high up in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.) In fact, I almost didn't read the epilogue at all in the first place when I turned the page and it said "nineteen years later," but that's easily fixable; I'll just close the book when Harry is wondering whether Kreacher will bring him a sandwich in Gryffindor Tower, which was the most satisfying ending I could have asked for.

My Personal DNA Report

2007-07-26T19:51:00.000-04:00

Your preference for concrete, visually pleasing things, combined with your confidence and your respect for order make you an ARCHITECT.

You are logical and detail-oriented, which allows you to get things done efficiently.

You are quite sure of yourself, so that you tend to know the best ways of doing things.

Your eye for aesthetic beauty and style indicates that you know a lot about design.

Having a routine and sticking to it is important to you; you find comfort in tradition and familiarity.

Self-reliance is something in which you take great pride—you are confident and down to earth.

You have a basic faith in yourself in many areas of your life, allowing you to be self-assured when facing challenges.

You much prefer to have time to plan for things, feeling better with a schedule than with keeping plans up in the air until the last minute. Your decisions are well thought out, and you're not the least bit impulsive.

If you want to be different:

Try moving beyond the things that you find comfortable—open yourself up to a broader range of experiences. Question how much you know about things by imagining different possibilities.

How you relate to others: You trust others, care about them, and are slow to judge them, making you CONSIDERATE.

You value your close relationships very much, and are more likely to spend time in small, tightly-knit groups of friends than in large crowds.

You enjoy exploring the world through observation, quietly watching others.

Relating to others so well, and understanding their emotions, leads you to trust people in general, even though you're somewhat shy and reserved at times.

Your belief that people are generally well-intentioned contributes to your sympathy regarding their problems.

Although you may not vocalize it often, you have an awareness of how society affects individuals, and you understand complex causes of people's behavior.

You like to look at all sides of a situation before making a judgment, particularly when that situation involves important things in other people's lives.

Your close friends know you as a good listener.

If you want to be different:

Because other people would benefit immensely from your understanding and insight, you should try to be more outgoing in social situations, even when they make you uncomfortable. Others will want to hear what you have to say!

Harry Potter and the Magical City of New York

2007-07-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a big day. Momentous. HUGE. Magical.

Well, first I went to work, which was neither momentous, huge, nor magical, except that I randomly ran into a fellow Brandeisian whom I hadn't seen in a year in the ladies' bathroom. Then I walked through the Shakespeare Garden and the Ramble in Central Park, which was lovely but still not magical. Eventually, though, Marissa and Hannah and I made our way down to the Harry Potter party at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. Only instead of looking like Barnes & Noble it looked like this:

Marissa and Hannah and I were thrilled, so we looked like this:

Then we headed down to Scholastic's "Harry Potter Place" in SoHo. We decided to walk, and along the way we quite randomly bumped into someone we all went to high school with, and then a girl I went to junior high school with, and then John Travolta and Robin Williams. No, really, they waved at us. ...and the large crowd of other people watching them film a movie.

Before proceeding to the Scholastic party, we refueled with Italian food in Little Italy (where we raised our wine glasses in tribute to "the Boy Who Lived" -- I swear to you, we actually did this), topped off with a visit to a rice pudding store (rice pudding cafe? rice pudding restaurant? like Pinkberry or Jamba Juice, only for rice pudding?), where I quite shockingly encountered another long-lost friend, this one from college.

We finally made it to Harry Potter Place (we had to wait on a very long line), where there was a Whomping Willow!

And Keith Olbermann doing an interview:

...bringing the total number of my unexpected people encounters for the day up to seven, which as we all know if we believe He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, is the most magical number! Hence, my magical day. Which ended with a few drinks at a bar we have taken to calling the "canoe bar" (because it had several canoes hanging from the ceiling):

But the most absolutely shocking part of the evening occurred when my friend Marissa, Miss "I Never Commit to Anything More Than an Hour in Advance" herself, uttered the words, "We should have planned ahead of time!"

I drove home after midnight, at which point I seriously considered heading over to Barnes & Noble or, believe it or not, Duane Reade, to purchase the book. Instead I came home and ate a satisfyingly delicious cupcake from Martha's Country Bakery, only then I didn't sleep very well because I kept dreaming that it was time to read Harry Potter and then waking up to find that it was only 4:00 AM.

Eventually, I prevailed. But did Harry? I'll never tell.

(One survey reported that fully one-fifth of readers will turn immediately to the last page to see how it turns out. Who does that?!?!)

Is it absolutely crazy that despite having re-read the first six books for about the dozenth time in anticipation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I'm considering reading the entire series through from beginning to end? After all, one of the absolute greatest joys of reading the last book was marveling at J.K. Rowling's deft references to everything that had come before -- and besides the memory refresh I got from reading the books again, it was most enlightening to see the growth in the characters and the series. Which, all in all, is a bloody brilliant way to end things.

My very own Age of Love

2007-07-16T18:44:00.000-04:00

Today I had an inexplicable craving for sour straws (well, not so inexplicable: I happened to noticed sour straws at a kiosk on Broadway and instantly I coveted them), so I stopped at the newsstand after my afternoon run to buy some. While I was waiting to pay, I was mesmerized by the woman in front of me, who was purchasing close to $40 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets. And because I am nothing if not easily susceptible, I decided to buy one too.

As I opened my mouth to request one, a nagging shadow of a doubt crossed my mind. He wouldn't! Would he?

"I'll take one," I said.

"How old are you?" he said.

OH NO HE DI'INT!

I drew myself up to my full, sweaty 5'1", mustered my haughty indignity and said: "24!"

"Seriously?" he squawked. "You look so young! You look like 16!" And thus, the unofficial disparity between how old I look and how old I actually am holds steady at an appalling eight years.

2007-07-13T08:37:00.000-04:00

"In Houston, $225,000 will buy a three-bedroom house with a game room, den, in-ground pool and hot tub. In Manhattan, it will buy a parking space."

This New York Times article is about parking spaces in New York City selling for upwards of $200,000. PARKING SPACES! The woman I hate the most in the article doesn't even live in her New York City apartment on West 28th Street; she and her three kids come into the city twice a week for their "modeling appointments" and use that apartment as a "pied a terre."

"If we’re coming in late from dinner or we have a lot of stuff in the car, do we really want to have to walk a few blocks to get home?" she says.

Oh my God, lady, you have no idea what some people go through for affordable living situations in New York.

2007-07-11T19:45:00.001-04:00

OK, do you remember a few days ago when I posted about my new, awesome apartment and how new and awesome it was?

See, that was called "counting my chickens, before they were hatched: Exhibit A."

Yeah, I didn't get the apartment. Why? Because I'm a fucking elementary school teacher and I don't get paid what I deserve, that's why.

I hate Craig's List, and I hate Nancy the real estate broker, and I hate being told I'm not good enough for nice places because I don't have enough money.

New York City real estate sucks.

Foods I Love Now

2007-07-10T15:38:00.000-04:00

1. pistachio cupcakes from Martha's Country Bakery (aka the Magnolia Bakery of Forest Hills)
2. vitamin water, particularly the "b-relaxed" flavor (guava-jackfruit with L-theanine!)
3. Orville Redenbacher's natural light popcorn
4. key lime white chocolate chip cookies
5. sushi
6. Stacy's Simply Naked pita chips with hummus

I'm going home to the place where I belong

2007-07-09T15:10:00.001-04:00

After we graduated from college, some of my friends moved to different cities. Some of them moved across the U.S., some of them moved across the ocean, a few of them even moved to different countries.

Me? I'm going to move three blocks away from the apartment I grew up in. But when I was apartment-hunting in Manhattan and Brooklyn, I had to consider what that means: it means being three blocks away from the local and express subway and the new bakery whose cupcakes are as good as or better than Magnolia's (!); it means living in a renovated, legitimately huge studio at a fraction of the cost I would pay anywhere else; it means easy access to the car I've been sharing with my father; and it means that if my mom is planning to cook something delicious for dinner, I can invite myself over to eat without first being reprimanded about cleaning my room.

And what's more, when I have a housewarming party, my guests will actually fit.

Our house...in the middle of hell

2007-07-07T23:26:00.000-04:00

Here, without question, is my favorite Craig's List apartment listing ever (all [sic], clearly):

THIS ROOM IS VERY INDEPENDENT. IT HAS IT'S OWN ENTERANCE AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO INTO THE APARTMENT UNLESS YOU HAVE TO USE THE BATHROOM.YOU CAN ALSO STORE THINGS IN THE FRIDGE AND THEY WON'T BE TOUCHED. BUT THERE IS NO COOKING.THE LAUNDRY IS 1 BLOCK AWAY. IT HAS VERY LOCAL TRANSPERTATION THE R TRAIN IS ONLY 5 BLOCKS AWAY. AND THE F TRAIN IS 11 BLOCKS AWAY. IT ONLY TAKES ABOUT 15 TO 20 MINUTES TO GET TO THE CITY. IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO GO TO SUNSET THERE IS THE 63 BUS WHICH IS ONLY 2 BLOOCKS AWAY. AND TO MAKE IT EASIER TO GET TO THE F TRAIN STATION YOU CAN TAKE THE 67 BUS WHICH IS ONLY 1 1/2 BLOCKS AWAY. THE NEIGHBORHOOD IS VERY NICE,QUIET AND SAFE. THIS IS NOT A GAME. TO GET MORE INFO YOU CAN REACH ME AT [redacted].

You don't have to go into the apartment unless you have to use the bathroom?! And there's no cooking. Pretty much the only thing that separates living in this room from living in an actual hole in the ground is the $600 a month rent they want for it.

2007-07-06T18:14:00.000-04:00

Conversations you will hear only among my friends, while sitting in the massage chairs at Brookstone:

H: "Rachel, do you ever get lower back pain because you have...[delicately draws the shape of an gigantic ass in the air]"
Me: [mouth hanging open, insulted]
H: "Don't be insulted! I have the same problem!"
Me: "You only have lower back pain because you have huge boobs!"

2007-07-04T18:21:00.001-04:00

I have a title: Writing Cluster Teacher, grades K-2.

When I first found out, I made an internal noise like this: UHHHH... because I had been mentally gearing up to have my own classroom. But the more I think about it, the more I love it: K-2 is my favorite age range, writing is my favorite subject to teach, and I can think of a number of perks that go along with being a cluster teacher as opposed to a classroom teacher that I think may outweigh the negatives.

The next hurdle: An apartment to call my very own -- I very badly want to live here, but it is just as unaffordable as anywhere in Manhattan (which is to say like wanting to live on the moon), so I may end up living, well...here. Just as long as it's not, like...here.

Circle of friends

2007-07-01T19:35:00.001-04:00

When I was a little girl, I loved the American Girl books, about strong, smart, cool, resourceful and historically accurate girls -- each with her own complete line of outfits and accessories. An unofficial sampling of women who grew up with American Girl will likely reveal that most of them favored Samantha, but my favorite girl was Molly, possibly because I admired her pluck as a young girl during World War II and possibly just because I coveted her round glasses and adorable yellow rain slicker.

I always, always, always wanted a Molly doll (okay, let's be honest: I always, always, always wanted the complete set of Molly gear that cost a cool $600), but I never got one, because she cost $89 and I already owned every Cabbage Patch Doll ever produced, including the babies.

In fact, I never knew anyone who actually owned an American Girl doll until I grew up and made friends with Marissa, Julia and Hannah, who between the three of them owned Felicity, Samantha and not one but two Molly dolls, and who for the past seven years or so have listened to my wistful, all-consuming desire to own Molly.

So today at the American Girl store (because the way Mattel have synergized and consumerized what used to be a humble little historical fiction book series is nothing short of amazing), Marissa and Hannah secretly made me the elated owner of a miniature Molly. Outside on Fifth Avenue as we excitedly tore open the box and carefully placed Molly's tiny plastic glasses on her tiny plastic face, tourists on the tops of two separate double-decker buses stared down at us. One took a picture.

Plans for an American Girl sleepover, at which we will all do our hair to match our dolls', are already in the works. And now, thanks to my friends, sixteen years or so after I first fell for them, I too will have an American Girl doll to play with.

Where the buffalo roam

2007-06-29T10:14:00.001-04:00

Recently, my mom and I have been browsing Craig's List for apartments I might want to live in. This morning, just for kicks, my mom searched for apartments in Manhattan (already depressingly out of my meager price range) without specifying an upper limit to the rent.

Our eyes widened. Our jaws dropped. "Dad!" I exclaimed. "Guess how much these apartments cost!"

"$1,000 a month," my dad guessed. I rolled my eyes.

"Think outrageously expensive," I urged. "Guess!"

"$3,000 a month," he said. (Clearly his heart wasn't in the game.)

I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted at his ear: "FORTY THOUSAND A MONTH!!!"

It's true, folks; you can pay per month for an apartment in Manhattan what many people don't even earn in a year.

Why my friends are the coolest

2007-06-28T17:57:00.000-04:00

Today Caitlin and I shared our meticulously-updated Google Calendars with each other, and the very first thing I noticed was that for July 21, we had both written "Harry Potter!"

The only thing dweebier would have been to fill in "Location: Platform 9 and 3/4."

Calamine is the new black

2007-06-26T13:15:00.000-04:00

Mike and Becky got married.
I got thirty mosquito bites.

But it's all good, because I looked smokin' (well, I did before I got all the mosquito bites waiting for our cab after the wedding -- now I just look like I have a flesh-eating disease), the wedding was lovely, and they are a couple worth getting thirty mosquito bites for.

2007-06-18T19:20:00.000-04:00

I don't get it. How come the networks won't show commercials for condoms, but they'll advertise to death drugs that alleviate erectile dysfunction? Remember that one where the guy is trying to throw a football through a tire swing, but it emasculatingly keeps bouncing off until he takes Viagra? I mean, c'mon!

Eat that, Donald Trump

2007-06-12T13:47:00.000-04:00

I got hired.

I'm still fuzzy on the details, because it happened like this:

I receive a voicemail that says, "Hey Rachel, this is M from P.S. 000. Give me a call back at 718-blah-blah." So I do. She says, "I just need your Social Security Number so I can put you in the budget."

Time slows. My brain grinds into sludge. I dumbfoundedly repeat: "The budget?" Pause. Pause. "Does this mean I've been hired, because I never received a phone call to that effect?"

M responds: "Oh, you didn't get the letter? We sent you a letter." (A letter that, had I received it yesterday, would have saved me hours of misery at the Brooklyn job fair.)

So allegedly there is some "letter," that hopefully specifies details like, um, what grade I'll be teaching, because I don't even know.

I just said "grade" and "teaching," yo. I'm a teacher. God help me and the children of New York City!

Project 365

2007-06-11T10:42:00.000-04:00

Because I am a total copycat and have never denied it, I am stealing Gwen's idea of participating in Project 365, the endeavor in which you take at least one photograph every day for a year and post it on the Internet for all to see.

Thus I announce my own Project 365, one picture a day from the year I'm 24.

Run easy

2007-06-11T09:51:00.000-04:00

Every intermediate runner knows that the cardinal rule of racing is this: DON'T GO OUT TOO FAST. You might be suckered in by the flow of fast-moving runners around you. You might be cocky from your training and convinced you can keep up. You might be feeling energized at the starting line. But DON'T GO OUT TOO FAST, because inevitably it will come back to bite you.

This weekend I ran the New York Road Runners Mini 10K for the fourth time. The Mini 10K is the first race I ever participated in, and it's always been my favorite: it's women-only, it's my favorite distance, it attracts awesome elite athletes and this year, it was on my birthday. I've also set a personal record for the 10K at this race every year and I was determined to do it again.

So what did I do? I WENT OUT TOO FAST. I have always run negative splits in races, which means that I always run the second half of the race faster than the first. But this weekend, I was attempting, against all logic that served me well in the past, to run each and every mile at a zippy 9:00 minutes or faster. I did that for the first mile, and then for the second. And then I crashed, bonked and hit the wall all at the same time. You know that Reebok "Run Easy" ad that says: "Why hit the wall? It hurts." Dear Reebok: I get it now. At the third mile, I felt like I had at about the 25th mile of the marathon. I poured water over myself like I was in a war, but my legs simply refused to go. I tried to stick to my friend, who had not gone out too fast and consequently caught up to and then passed me, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't even summon the energy to kick at the finish. It was, without question, the worst race of my life.

When it was over, I had finished about 30 seconds slower than last year, but I felt about 30 times worse. But you can't set a PR at every race, and the races that humble you are the ones where you learn that important lesson: DON'T GO OUT TOO FAST.

Sicko

2007-06-08T11:29:00.000-04:00

If you ride the subway in New York City, you're probably familiar with the phenomenon of the sick passenger. "Ladies and gentlemen, due to a sick passenger downtown, your train will not be arriving for a fuckillion and a half years." "Ladies and gentlemen, this train will not be moving because of a sick passenger, please exit to the platform." And, of course, those advisories put up in subway cars by the MTA that ominously ask: "What if you are the sick passenger?"

Indeed, what if you are the sick passenger? This morning I boarded a Manhattan-bound E train at around 7:15 am on my way to an interview in the Bronx. It is a long, long journey from Queens to the Bronx by subway, including possibly the World's Worst Transfer through the infamous tunnel of doom at 42nd Street. Approximately one minute into my journey, a terrible sense of foreboding washed over me. I was about to faint, or vomit, or possibly both, in the middle of the crowded express train during rush hour. I was about to become the Sick Passenger.

Abruptly I knelt down in the middle of the car, interview suit and all. I put my head down. I put my hand over my mouth. A woman above me started fanning me with a rolled-up copy of the Metro and asked the people around us if they would give up their seats. (A testimony to the value of a seat on the subway during rush hour: No one budged.) I held onto the pole and weakly protested that I would just get off at the next stop. The train crawled. The woman fanned. The air stagnated. I thought about how much it sucked to have gotten up early on this 95-degree day before my birthday to put on a suit (complete with pantyhose, no less) to go to the Bronx to interview for a job I didn't really want and then not even make it there. The train slowed to an agonizing, stuffy, funereal pace. I almost, almost threw up all over my suit.

It is amazing what the body can accomplish by sheer force of will: I pictured myself losing consciousness on the filthy subway floor, with the woman above me frantically fanning my lifeless body with that damn copy of Metro while bored teenagers on iPods and stressed businessmen spitefully glared at me for further slowing their commute, and slowly the dizziness and nausea eased. I stood back up. I concentrated purposefully on a pair of pink shoes in front of me. The train finally arrived at Roosevelt, four hundred years after it had left the stop where I got on. A seat opened up and I sank into it. Eventually I made it to the Bronx. I arrived at the school and was about to head inside when I realized that...it was the wrong school. I suffered several small heart attacks: Had I mixed up my addresses? Could there be two schools in one building? I checked in with a crossing guard about the school I was looking for. "That's not around here," he said. "Far from it." I decided maybe I should just lay down and die right there in the street.

Then I noticed another school down the block. I was in the right place.

Every New Yorker knows that subway commutes can range from tolerable to hellish. But there's nothing quite like barely escaping the stigma of becoming the sick passenger.

Now I would know too much. Now I would know.

2007-06-06T21:58:00.000-04:00

Maybe all that time it wasn't a yearning for home I was experiencing but just a yearning to be somewhere different, somewhere familiar -- anywhere but here.

There's a line in the musical Avenue Q that goes, "I wish I could go back to college; in college you know who you are." And here's the thing: It's completely over-dramatic, but sometimes I think that, since college, I don't know who I am.

I loved almost everything about college -- I loved having a purpose and a role I thought I fulfilled (quite well, if I do say so myself), I loved having a tight group of friends, I loved being at the center of a place where I never had to go very far to find something to do and someone to do it with. I loved that when I was gone, people noticed; people missed me.

College was the first time I found myself satisfied with how I looked; quite frankly, college was the first time I liked myself. Now, it's not like I've backslid into not liking myself or anything, but there is a serious quarterlife crisis going on over here in the life of Rachel, with lots of second-guessing my choices and big ugly existential questions like: What are my goals? What do I want? What makes me happy?

I always thought New York would make me happy. As soon as I get back to New York for good, I'll be happy. And it's not that I'm not happy, because I am, most of the time, and I know that in my head when I pictured it, I had a real job and my own apartment, two elements of security that I'm sure would increase my happiness exponentially. It's just that I can't help thinking I used to be capital H "girl with a big smile" Happy..and since college is supposed to be the best time of your life, sometimes I find myself worrying that, well, it was. Or that the power of positive thinking has failed me: I wanted very much to believe in my dream of working at the Children's Media Dream Job and living on the Upper West Side, when the reality looks more like settling for any elementary school that will have me and living in a closet somewhere in Brooklyn.

I don't know if a big upheaval like moving to a different state or living a more nomadic life would make me happy. I don't know if challenging myself to be somewhere different, just for the sake of difference, would make me happy. I suspect that it wouldn't, because as past experience has shown, wherever I am, I just wish I was somewhere else: somewhere familiar, or somewhere totally different, somewhere closer to the subway, or somewhere quieter, somewhere I am totally alone, or somewhere with friends nearby.

The truth is, I am trying very hard to have a Zen attitude about my life right now, to convince myself (and my parents) that it will all work itself out, that the job I get will be the one I was meant to have, that my choices are fluid, that I'm exactly as self-confident and composed as I was as an undergrad. But that infamous college bubble has long eroded; every other recent graduate in New York City is equally as fabulous as I am; no studio apartment in Manhattan costs less than $1,500 a month.

Winston Churchill once said, "When you're going through hell, keep going." But my primal, fight-or-flight instinct has always been to turn and run, hence all the hand-wringing about upheaving my life completely. Feeling "stuck" in New York City isn't the same thing as being stuck in a small town, but it's still stuck. Or maybe it's just a yearning, full of temporary frustration, to be somewhere different.

Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more often
rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get
the hell out of there to
anywhere else. Perhaps though
boredom is happier. It is for dogs or
groundhogs. Now I wouldn't be bored.
Now I would know too much.
Now I would know.
--Margaret Atwood

Two (make that three) great mysteries

2007-05-14T19:50:00.000-04:00

1. This morning I woke up with a song very persistently stuck in my head, but I couldn't identify it. After some judicious Googling of the lyrics (no, Google, I did not mean to search for "feel better bettor") and an iTunes clip to confirm, I identified the song as Regina Spektor's "Better." I don't know where I've heard it before, but I suspect it was a montage in a movie or TV show that wasn't House.

This kind of thing happens to me often and it always makes me wonder about how my brain works: Have I watched so many movie/television music montages that my own dreams demand a soundtrack? And what brain-playlist set to "shuffle" dredges up some song I may not have heard for months and hits "repeat"?

2. Today I washed my new pair of jeans, which are a size 0. I was enjoying my Olsen twin-esque thinness until I realized that I was wearing a pair of jeans that fit just fine, and they happened to be a size 8.

Buying clothes is like being that dude in the house in The Phantom Tollbooth who's totally average but claims to be the thinnest fat man in the world and the fattest thin man in the world and the tallest short man in the world and the shortest tall man in the world. (I just opened up The Phantom Tollbooth to make sure I had that right, and I opened up to the exact page. Oooh.)

3. This post unpleasantly reminds me of the kind of post that would be written by someone whose blog I read for the sole reason that it is extremely irritating...but I wasted five minutes writing it so I'm going to publish it anyway.

Cute story

2007-05-09T21:35:00.000-04:00

Tonight I was walking home from the track when I stopped at a crosswalk with a woman pushing a jogging stroller. Her son was about three, and he was looking at me and looking at me. Finally he said: "That's another mama!"

First I thought: I feel old. Then I thought: Maybe he imagines that mamas are nice-looking ladies who run through the park. And that made me feel good...about me, his mama and nice-looking lady runners everywhere.

Get a job

2007-05-09T21:23:00.000-04:00

I try not to use my blog as a vehicle for complaining. But allow me my moment of weakness:

Writing cover letters gives me a stomachache.

Make it work!

2007-05-04T10:22:00.000-04:00

I met Project Runway's Tim Gunn, and he totally rocked my socks. In person he is just like he is on TV, which is to say utterly delightful, and he signed all the books "Make it work!"

He also said my name in his awesome Tim Gunn voice, and he put his arm around me for this picture, at which point I thought: "Oh my God, Tim Gunn just said my name in his awesome Tim Gunn voice and put his arm around me."

I love Tim Gunn.

It's funny 'cause it should be TRUE

2007-05-03T16:50:00.001-04:00

MLB To Place Asterisk, Pound Sign, Exclamation Point, Letter 'F' Next To Bonds' Name In Record Books

Who says Brandeis isn't cool?

2007-05-02T11:59:00.001-04:00

I was friends with these people in college and heard all about this prank, but I'd never seen it before -- praise YouTube.

2007-04-30T10:18:00.000-04:00

Proud to be an American (or, Why Fred Phelps Can Suck It)

2007-04-27T12:48:00.000-04:00

You may have heard of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist "Church." (I say "church" because it's actually a hate group.) They got started on the road to national notoriety by picketing at the funerals of gay people, including Matthew Shepard. I'm not linking to their original website, but it's called "God Hates [Insert Derrogatory Name for Gay People Here]."

Since they're really big on picketing at funerals, they moved on to picketing at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. OK, let's tell it like it is: They say nasty things at soldiers' funerals. Soldiers.

This was really big fodder for their next website, "God Hates America." Fred Phelps is apparently blessed with divine connection to God Himself (or Herself) and therefore knows that the following people are in hell: Gerald Ford, Coretta Scott King, and most outlandishly of all, the Pope and the Amish children who were killed in Pennsylvania.

Let's review. According to Fred Phelps, every tragedy in the world is linked to the sin of homosexuality. And because homosexuals in America are not immediately put to death, God hates America. And that's why some little girls in Amish country are in hell.

All this has come to my attention because apparently Westboro was planning to picket at the funerals of the students who were murdered at Virginia Tech. You see, Fred Phelps thinks they're in hell too. I imagine, though he hasn't said this, that he thinks a special section of hell is reserved for the Holocaust survivor who was murdered while he barricaded the door so that his students could jump out the window. And since I'm home alone, I had nothing else to do with my rage except scream at the computer, "FRED PHELPS, WHAT AN ASSHOLE!!!!"

I hate that Fred Phelps fills me with hate for him for being so filled with hate. Isn't that the essential paradox of tolerance? And having just finished Julia Scheeres' Jesus Land for the second time, her amazing memoir about having grown up in the racist South with intolerant parents and black brothers, I believe it's not helpful, maybe even a little dangerous, to turn the other cheek. Which is why I just don't have it in me to ignore Fred Phelps and his messages of hate. He's not entirely doing things like this simply to get a rise out of us; he's doing it because he genuinely believes that his God hates America and everything America has come to stand for.

I believe in free speech, and that's why my ideal America is a place where when Fred Phelps spews his nasty, intolerant rhetoric, Americans of all different backgrounds and beliefs -- all of whom God hates, according to Fred Phelps -- rise up in response. In fact, I do believe that even people with whom I disagree vehemently about foreign policy or gun control or civil rights could get together with me on the fact that Fred Phelps is a jerk. (Case in point: Even Bill O'Reilly hates Fred Phelps!) If our tolerance in the face of difference is wrong -- if our grief in the face of tragedies like Virginia Tech is wrong -- if our sorrow at the deaths of U.S. soldiers is wrong -- if we continue to pray to God even in the face of Fred Phelps' warnings that He hates us because these things are wrong -- well then, Fred Phelps, I don't want to be right.

It's all in the timing

2007-04-06T19:59:00.000-04:00

How good am I at my freelance job (aka the job that would be the job of my dreams if it were my real job)?

So good that the director of my department called me a "star," proclaimed, "We have to get you a job" and said she would hire me in an instant.

Too bad there aren't any jobs cuurently available at my company, ha ha!

I will 100% be hauling out this pearly anecdote the next time one of my nosy relatives or friends asks why I can't get myself hired full time.

Homemade cake: now K for P!

2007-04-04T16:58:00.001-04:00

Passover cake 002
Originally uploaded by gradrachel.

So my people wandered in the desert for forty years. And then God was all, "OK, sure, you can entered the Promised Land and all, but only on the condition that, once every spring, your children forsake their pizza and bagels and work diligently over pareve matzoh meal mix to create monstrosities like this."

Waiting for my real life to begin

2007-04-04T16:06:00.000-04:00

10 Little Things I (Somewhat Surprisingly) Miss About College:
1. the salad bar at Sherman
2. the mailroom's package slips
3. Rick Recht Havdallah (YES I SAID IT)
4. "If it's Thursday, something must be happening"
5. Shabbat (note: does not apply to Sherman Shabbat dinner)
6. my meal plan with 1,000,000,000 points to be used at the C-store, particularly for bulk candy and Cadbury eggs (note: does not apply to Chicken in a Biscuit)
7. being a tour guide
8. the staccato dial tone/little red light on my phone that signaled: "Voicemail!"
9. that adventurous "shortcut" through the science quad (I think it's gone now, which is why I kind of miss it)
10. rachelis@brandeis.edu ("Rachel is at Brandeis -- I get it!")

I can think of few things I miss about grad school, and most of them involve a combination of our funky attic apartment, television and Carrie. (Fond memory: After every show we watched together, the announcer would encourage us to "stay tuned for scenes from the next episode," and Carrie would inevitably echo eagerly, "Scenes!", which is something I think of now every time I hear that phrase.)

As usual, Mr. Rogers has the answer

2007-04-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

"When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed. So in all that you do, in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are." --Fred Rogers at Dartmouth College's commencement

These days, it's all about the choices.

Sunny days

2007-03-09T22:33:00.001-05:00

I was watching classic Sesame Street videos on YouTube when I came across this: the Make-A-Wish Foundation arranged a trip to the Sesame Street set for a boy with a rare neurological disease. Watch Grover smother him with kisses and then tell me it's not the best children's show on television.

United in our common interests

2007-02-27T20:46:00.000-05:00

In the days and weeks after September 11, 2001, in the midst of our shock and grief, there were things that nobody in America wanted to see or hear about on the radio or in the movies. That's why, the rationale went, there were certain songs that couldn't be played and certain films that couldn't be shown. The World Trade Center was digitally removed from TV shows and movies. The climax of Spider-Man was scripted to take place between Tower One and Tower Two, but the ending of the movie was rewritten.

Of course, censorship is not a lasting response to mourning. Eventually those shots of the World Trade Center were re-inserted and it was okay to listen to John Lennon's "Imagine" again. (Yep, it appeared on Clear Channel's list of "questionable songs" that radio stations were encouraged to refrain from playing just after September 11.)

Independence Day is, I'm sure, one of those movies that was unofficially "banned" from TV in late 2001. I happened to turn it on today just as the gigantic spaceship was looming over lower Manhattan, hovering above the World Trade Center. In the streets, panicking New Yorkers screamed and fled in terror.

For a moment, I was uncomfortable. As long as I live I will never forget those images: crowds of New Yorkers gathered on street corners, first bewildered, then horrified, wailing as the towers collapsed above them.

Then I realized that, as is often the case, real life rarely resembles the movies. And on September 11, 2001, New Yorkers screamed, and fled in terror, but we did not panic. Our firefighters ran into the burning buildings.

Independence Day ends right where action movies should: The heroes save the day. But what happens to them then? Newsweek's cover story this week, "Failing Our Wounded," is about the disgraceful way wounded American soldiers are (mis)treated when they arrive home. A 25-year-old Marine with severe symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder hanged himself after the VA consistently failed to provide him a spot in their mental health clinic. The mother of a 22-year-old soldier who had an artery severed by shrapnel took a second job at McDonald's to help support him when his military disability benefits failed to kick in for over a year. As Mike Luckovich's political cartoon puts it: "Support our troops* " (this in the traditional yellow ribbon image)..." *offer void if injured mentally or physically, requiring quality care, therapy, recuperation and/or disability income."

In the days just after September 11, 2001, Nancy Gibbs wrote what I still think are some of the wisest words on the subject:

"Do we now panic, or will we be brave? Once the dump trucks and bulldozers have cleared away the rubble and a thousand funeral Masses have been said, once the streets are swept clean of ash and glass and the stores and monuments and airports reopen, once we have begun to explain this to our children and to ourselves, what will we do?"

What will we do? We need to do better.

I'm gonna tell you a big bad story, baby

2007-02-26T18:39:00.000-05:00

This announcement may come as a galloping shock to some of you and as absolutely no surprise to others. But here it is:

I miss Boston.

It all started about a month ago, on a date. (Did she say "date"?! I suspect that's the part that will come as a galloping shock to some of you.) When I got in his car, the Date gallantly offered me two choices for music: XM satellite radio, or "something that will be nostalgic for you." Intrigued, I chose the latter, assuming it would be either Beatles music (we had gone to see a Beatles cover band on our second date), or '80s music.

But it turned out to be the soundtrack to Fever Pitch, the Jimmy Fallon/Drew Barrymore movie about love and romance among the 2004 Boston Red Sox season. "Awwww!" I said as I heard the opening chords of the Standells' "Dirty Water" ("I love that dirty water/Boston, you're my home").

Then there was the great Aqua Teen Hunger Force debacle, during which multiple U.S. cities were infiltrated by a stealth advertising campaign for the Comedy Central show. Among them, only Bostonians freaked out and erroneously thought the ads were actually homemade explosive devices. New York Newsday published several unflattering articles about Boston's ill-conceived war on terror (and by "terror" here we mean "lame advertising concepts"), insinuating that Bostonians were merely simpering crybabies who were easily duped by talking fast food. On behalf of Bostonians, I was offended. Boston is the kind of place where residents take notice of the mysterious and sudden appearance of small, bomb-like devices on their usual route. New York, on the other hand, is the kind of city where people like David Copperfield regularly perform every stunt short of exploding into flames in Lincoln Center and no one pays much mind. We are, remember, home to the Naked Cowboy.

Then I heard Alex Trebek, on Teen Tournament Jeopardy!, do the absoute worst Boston accent ever produced by a non-Boston native (naturally, he was trying to pronounce "park the car in Harvard Yard" -- leave it to the New Englanders, Alex).

Then, more recently, the Date asked me if I ever missed Boston. I thought about it for a moment. "Yes," I said, shrugging, "but not really enough to go back there."

Alas, sometime in the past few days, my mom has developed a liking for the Augustana song "Boston" and has taken to singing it around the house, a song which contains these immortal words ripping into the Cheers theme song and tearing out its optimistic heart: "I think I'll go to Boston/I think I'll start a new life/I think I'll start it over/Where no one knows my name." Ouch, Augustana!

Still, there is something there, something that reminds me of late summer nights whizzing down Route 2, of ice skating on the Common and window-shopping on Newbury, of jogging through Medford and into Malden along the Fells. Today I almost went to see The Departed, not because it won the Oscar last night, but because I wanted to hear some Boston accents and catch a glimpse here and there of the Boston skyline: the Pru, the Zakim Bridge rising up above the chaos of the Big Dig, Fenway Park with its billboard about gun control looming over the Mass Pike.

I miss Boston -- maybe not enough to move back there, but enough to perk up when I hear it referenced, enough to click on any news links that mention it in a headline, enough to tell stories that confirm the outrageousness of Boston drivers and Boston public transportation. Enough to recognize that it is a special city, where I had special experiences with special people. Enough to carry it all around with me every day. New York may be my home, my first true love, but Boston is at least my exciting affair. New York may be where I grew up, but Boston is where I really grew up, grew into my own, grew my future life.

It's also where I learned to call traffic circles "rotaries." And that, my friends, is an important life lesson worth learning. Because you can take the girl out of Boston and put her back on the subway, but once she's driven through a Massachusetts rotary, you can not take the road rage out of the girl.

Bothered and bewildered

2007-02-26T16:08:00.000-05:00

Let me preface this by saying that I don't watch the Fox News channel, and that I'm pretty sure it's not the only 24-hour cable news network that has sold its soul for wall-to-wall coverage of Anna Nicole Smith. But this is worth blogging about:

John Gibson, host of Fox News' The Big Story, accuses reporters who cover the Iraq war as opposed to Anna Nicole Smith, like CNN's Anderson Cooper, "snobs" who consider themselves "too high-class for that story." (In a perfect world, wouldn't we all be too high-class for that story?)

"Oh, there’s a war on, there’s a war on. Maybe, just maybe, people are a little weary, Mr. Cooper, of your war coverage, and they’d like a little something else."

As Think Progress points out, since Anna Nicole Smith's death on February 8, 42 American soldiers and 969 Iraqis have been killed.

Oh, there's a war on, all right.

The spirit in the sky

2007-02-17T16:02:00.000-05:00

"We're kickin' it for Christ!"

I just watched an amazing documentary called Jesus Camp, about the children of Evangelical Christians in Missouri who are trained to become "soldiers" in an "army for God."

Nine-year-old Rachael has my name and my freckles, but then I watched her go up to an adult stranger at a bowling alley and earnestly encourage the young woman to become saved in Jesus' name. Twelve-year-old Levi nods seriously when his mother, who homeschools him, quizzes him from a textbook called Exploring Creation With Physical Science: "A popular thing to do in American politics is to note that the past few summers have been very warm. As a result, global warming must be real. What's wrong with this reasoning?" And ten-year-old Victoria, whose favorite music is "Christian heavy metal and rock," worries that people will suspect that she dances "for the flesh," when really she is dancing for God.

When the children give testimonials at the Kids on Fire Bible Camp, where they also speak in tongues and pray to God to end abortion, one little boy has the chutzpah to stand up and admit that he sometimes finds it difficult to believe in God, because He can't be seen. His fellow campers stare at him, stunned. Later on, we see the same boy with his arms outstretched to the Lord, weeping.

The children's minister who runs the camp points out that Islamic radicals train their children to strap on hand grenades and become suicide bombers, and it is Christians' duty to retaliate by training their own children to become warriors for Jesus. Then she tells the kids that Harry Potter, were he in the Old Testament, would be put to death. "This means war! This means war!" she chants, before the kids pray for the faith of a life-sized cut-out of George W. Bush.

It's a really stunning film, up for an Academy Award next Sunday. I highly recommend it!

Bono strikes again

2007-02-14T15:42:00.001-05:00

It's just like when Forrest Gump met JFK! Only cooler.

I could devote a whole blog to my hair and call it a hairblog

2007-02-12T19:13:00.000-05:00

I've never been absolutely certain of what I want to do with my life, which is why I've considered a number of possible careers. Astronaut. FBI agent (preferably one with kicking style and short red hair). New York Times columnist. (Okay, that one was mostly considered for me by my mother.)

But never once have I considered the possibility that I could become a model. Until now!

Heh, a hair model, that is. Today I went downtown to participate in a "model call" at the Bumble and bumble University Model Project, which is a fancy way of saying I waited in a long line with lots of other women to determine my hair's "suitability" for a Bumble styling class, where "professional hairdressers from top salons in the country" participate in "advanced cutting and styling training." Which is a fancy way of saying: Free haircut!

As I was leaving, appointment card in hand, I noticed a crafts services table set up just outside on the cobblestoned sidewalk (who knew that 13th Street west of 9th Avenue was cobblestones?). Fortunately, someone else thoughtfully decided to ask the crafts services guy what was being filmed: a television show called Six Degrees.

Cobblestones, an industry sighting, Poetry in Motion and a free haircut: four more reasons New York is the greatest city on earth.

It's official

2007-02-10T16:11:00.000-05:00

"Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more -- and it is time for our generation to answer that call. For that is our unyielding faith -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it."

Obama '08!

2007-02-09T22:01:00.000-05:00

My regular jogging routine has been interrupted recently due to sub-zero temperatures and freelance work. To celebrate while I was finally jogging again today (okay, really to keep my mind off the fact that my face was freezing off and I was really, really tired), I composed this song!

We're running 'cause we love it
We're running 'cause we miss it
We're running 'cause we haven't run in several days!
We're running to the park
Where we should not run after dark
We're running 'cause we're a little crazed.
We're running 'cause we own it
We're running 'cause we've grown it
We're running 'cause we feel fat and lazed
We'll run until our face freezes...off!
We'll run until we wheeze and...cough!
We'll run and run for days and days!
(Big finish)
Run like a champion!

I guess you had to be there.

In other news, you can compare our personalities by taking this quiz I stole from Caitlin and putting in my user name, rachelblue: Twins Personality Test. (Caitlin and I are like 89% similar (things that make you go "hmm").

Why does it ask about alcohol and caffeine consumption? I have no idea.

Geek heaven

2007-02-07T11:57:00.000-05:00

Fantasy Congress!

There's also Fantasy Fashion League, Tabloid Fantasy League, Fantasy Moguls, and Fantasy Music League.

Sweet!

Mazel tov

2007-02-07T11:10:00.000-05:00

Some time ago, someone expressed surprise that I know so many future rabbis. "Please," I said, "I could go through my Brandeis yearbook pointing to photos and saying, 'Rabbi, rabbi, rabbi.'" Then, I realized, I could also go through my Brandeis yearbook pointing to photos and saying, "Married, married, married."

Come to think of it, I further reflected, I could also go through my Brandeis yearbook pointing to photos and saying, "Married and a rabbi...married and a rabbi..."

Brandeis: It's not just a university, it's a lifestyle choice.

Cry, baby, cry, make your mother sad

2007-02-01T15:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I read two things that made me cry. The first was an old Sunday New York Times Modern Love column by a woman who loved to listen to the Beatles with her 5-year-old daughter, until one day the daughter very suddenly died from strep and now her mother feels like she has to escape the Beatles whenever she hears them. I first read that column a year ago, and I distinctly remember being in my room in Medford and crying so hard I gave myself a headache.

Last night my mom and I had a rousing discussion about which Modern Love column was the saddest ever. I voted for "Now I Need a Place to Hide Away," but my mom voted for "My Husband Survived; the Man I Married Didn't," whose author has, for six years, been going to visit her husband at the facility where he now lives after being hit by a car and suffering a traumatic brain injury that completely altered his personality.

The best Modern Love columns are the ones that make me bawl for hours.

The second thing was this poem by W.S. Merwin. I have been on a W.S. Merwin kick lately. Well, to be fair, I have been on a W.S. Merwin kick since we read The Vixen in Contemporary Poetry sophomore year, but until now I have never gone out and purchased the selected works of W.S. Merwin.

It might be gimmicky that it's really most effective when you know (a) the title and (b) the date it was written. But sometimes I like gimmicky. (See Kenneth Koch's New Addresses.)

To the Words

September 17, 2001

When it happens you are not there

O you beyond numbers
beyond recollection
passed on from breath to breath
given again
from day to day from age
to age
charged with knowledge
knowing nothing

indifferent elders
indispensable and sleepless

keepers of our names
before ever we came
to be called by them

you that were
formed to begin with
you that were cried out
you that were spoken
to begin with
to say what could not be said

ancient precious
and helpless ones

say it

Deathly hallows

2007-02-01T13:13:00.000-05:00

"J.K. Rowling, the author of the record-setting Harry Potter series, announced today that the seventh — and last — book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be published on July 21."

I totally added this to my Google Calendar. Because in the Dweeb Olympics that is my life, that move guarantees me a gold medal.

Why I run

2007-01-30T20:12:00.000-05:00

Earlier today, I wrote about how my ice skating class has helped me realize why I love running so much. Incidentally, tonight I came across a little essay I wrote about "why I run" when I was trying to insert myself into a publicity campaign for last summer's New York City Half Marathon. So I thought I would share!

“Hurry up! She’s cooooooming!”

This last word disappears into a frenzy of whirling arms and legs that spiral frantically around the track while heads anxiously turn to look behind us. The year is 1997, and I am a freshman in a high school gym class that takes itself, in my opinion, far too seriously. Our teachers are incredibly fit and possess the stunning athletic prowess that I both long for and painfully lack. When they run with us on the outdoor track -- which they do, three days a week, in every kind of weather -- we are expected to keep up with them. When they lap us -- which they do, three days a week, in every kind of weather -- we lose points. And if we fail this gym class, we suffer the most terrible fate imaginable: we have to take it again.

I hated gym. I hated every second of the time we spend running on the dreaded track -- or worse, when it was raining, up and down the stairs of our school. As soon as I could, I signed myself up for bowling gym instead. Finally, blessedly, I was free of running forever.

Or so I thought. In my first year of college, I was surprised and a little dismayed to discover that I faintly missed the feeling of pushing my body farther than I thought possible, of quizzing my classmates on their history facts while we puffed and panted our way through those infamous runs. Secretly, I took to running a mile here and there around the university’s hilly campus at night, and I found that the solitary nature of running suited me better than the loud, sweaty crush of the exercise room at the gym. But I wasn’t a runner, I reminded myself sternly; I was just someone who preferred the outdoors to the elliptical machine.

Then I encountered Trisha Meili -- a woman better known to the public merely as “the Central Park jogger.” In 1989, Ms. Meili was jogging in Central Park when she was attacked and brutally beaten. Doctors expected her to die, but she survived a severe brain injury -- and then ran the 1995 New York City Marathon in just over four and a half hours.

When I read I Am the Central Park Jogger, I was incredibly moved by Ms. Meili’s courage and determination. Improbably, something took root within me that I couldn’t expel or explain.

It was the urge to run a marathon.

The only things I had going for me were my dedication and my copy of The Non-Runner’s Guide to Marathon Training. Family, friends and classmates regarded me with a mixture of skepticism and awe. But the more I ran, the less room I had in my life for doubt and anxiety. As I trained, I found myself slipping out of my dorm room before the sun was up to run fourteen or sixteen or eighteen miles at a time. And as the marathon neared, I realized I didn’t recognize the girl whose reflection flashed by me as I jogged past store windows: She had become a runner.

It took me five hours, but I ran every step of my first marathon; running without stopping was a discipline I’d learned well in that freshman gym class. (Incidentally, if you’ve never seen anyone burst into tears from sheer joy, you’ve never seen a 5-hour marathon runner at the finish line.) I was unbelievably proud of what I had accomplished. Running had taken root within me -- and it had transformed my life.

We are all running for something. I run because I still have something to prove to my high school gym teachers, and to myself. I run because all it takes is some Dri-Fit shirts, a good pair of sneakers and a phenomenal dose of determination. I run so I can reward myself with Gatorade and a long shower. I run because there is strength inside me I never knew about until I hit the road for the first time. I run for Trisha Meili and every other female runner who paved the way for me. I run because I like knowing that my legs can take me wherever I want to go -- and I don’t stop until I reach the finish line.

Ice ice baby

2007-01-30T16:17:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks, I have been taking ice skating classes. As is typical for me, I started out with great excitement that waned a little bit when it became clear I wasn't destined to become the next Nancy Kerrigan overnight. (I have occasionally felt the urge to clobber my fellow ice skaters in the knee, however. Perhaps I am instead destined to become the next Tonya Harding!)

Last night, while I was trying to master the two-footed turn, I had a little epiphany. Two little epiphanies, actually. The first is that one of the reasons I like running so much is that it requires little to no skill mastery. Unless you have some problems with your breathing or your gait, once you run, you can run. You might need to train to get faster, but you don't need to practice at the other stuff.

The other is that the reason I like running so much is that I've never been athletic at any other sport I've tried, and the reason I've never been athletic at any other sport I've tried is that I'm afraid of failing, which it is possible to do at most sports but not at running.

In ice skating, it's falling. I have a fear of falling. I watched all my classmates do their two-footed turns and then move on to backwards one-foot gliding and jumping and crossovers while I skated back and forth across the length of the rink, staring down my reflection in the glass while poppy pump-up music played. I stuck my arms out. I bent my knees. I turned my shoulders. And I tried, over and over, to pivot my hips and lean up on my toes, but something in my torso always stuck at the last moment.

If it had been one of those dance movies I love so much, I totally would have hit that triple lutz at the last minute.

The American dream is alive at Wal-Mart

2007-01-26T17:37:00.000-05:00

As a bleeding-heart liberal living in the northeastern United States, I always suspected that Wal-Mart sucked. I didn't realize how much it sucked until seeing the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

Everything you'd suspect about Wal-Mart is true: the union-busting, the lack of adequate benefits for employees (which ends up costing taxpayers bilions of dollars when employees go on federal assistance programs, by the way), the relentless steamrolling of local and family companies, and on and on and on. But the part that affected me the most was an interview with the former Global Services Operations Manager, who had worked with the company for many years. "I probably led more Wal-Mart cheers than anyone," he said. "If you cut me, I'd have bled Wal-Mart blue." He described visiting factories overseas to enforce health and safety standards and weeping when he returned to his hotel room as he considered what he had witnessed. Then he described making his reports to Wal-Mart's corporate offices, confident that they would want to change course and do the right thing. He says:

"When I went in and started reporting factory violations, during the certification process, I didn't know that we weren't going to make it the goal to correct the violations. I didn't think that any retaliation would be brought against me for doing my job." He gets a sad look on his face. "Now I realize that I was pretty naive."

Yup, he got canned.

At the end of the film, there is a scrolling list of communities that have rejected Wal-Marts. And one of them is Queens, New York! Yeah baby. We put up with a lot of shit in Queens, but we will not put up with a Wal-Mart.

Also: If your grandmother is anything like my grandmother, she is always forwarding you ominous e-mails about young ladies like yourself being abducted in parking lots. You probably thought these were just grandmotherly urban legends. But apparently this is something that happens all the time at Wal-Mart!

Shelter dogs

2007-01-25T12:22:00.000-05:00

David Duchovny, my first love and a dog lover (because if you were at all a good X-Files fan back in the day, you know all about his dog Blue), does the voiceover for a Pedigree dog food commercial I see all the time that accomplishes two astounding things:

1. It kind of makes me want a dog (I am totally the type of person who would get a dog just because David Duchovny told me to), and
2. It makes me tear up. (It's a commercial for dog food, people!)

You can watch it here, and it goes like this:

[shots of adorable dogs gazing lovingly at the camera] "I know how to sit, how to fetch, and how to roll over. What I don't know is how I ended up in here." [Camera pulls back to reveal that adorable dogs are actually in cages looking sad. The horror!] "But I do know that I am a good dog...and I just want to go home. When you buy Pedigree, we make a donation to help shelter dogs find loving homes."

Pedigree also has a program on its website called Fetch-a-Name. Unfortunately, there is no match for "Rudy" in their database...but then again, neither is there one for "Biffle."

The future of hope and opportunity?

2007-01-24T19:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a high point in terms of Rachel-geekdom. In the morning: Oscar nominations. Word up to Little Miss Sunshine! How awesome is that for little Abigail Breslin?

Then in the evening: the State of the Union.

There were so many things in last night's State of the Union with which to take exception: Bush's continuing insistence on viewing the world through a prism that dichotomizes our foreign policy into "good" and "evil"; the parade of shallow, meaningless, empty and ineffectual statements that will probably have no measurable impact on actual policy in the United States; the hideous neon yellow suit jacket and gray skirt worn by some poor pathetic member of Congress as shot from behind.

But surprisingly enough, the moment that made me yelp the loudest was the moment when Bush introduced Julie Aigner-Clark, the founder and CEO of the Baby Einstein company.

Slate explains it beautifully:

"Baby Einstein is part of what Alissa Quart, in an August 2006 piece in the Atlantic, called the Baby Genius Edutainment Complex, an industry that preys on the status anxiety of neurotic parents who, until Aigner-Clark and others told them otherwise, didn't sweat the meritocratic rat race until it was time to place their pint-sized strivers in preschool."

(The non-profit child advocacy group mentioned in the article that filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission about Baby Einstein's deceptive claims, by the way, is the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which sponsored that Raffi event I attended in the fall.)

In other political news, I am reading The Audacity of Hope and it is awesome, in that wait-this-book-is-really-just-one-long-stump-speech kind of way. It's like: "I'm Barack Obama, and I sensitively see and address every side of every issue and still come out in the right! P.S. I kick ass."

Your history acts as your gravity

2007-01-19T13:41:00.000-05:00

Today Freddy the doorman greeted me with a hearty "Soon you be going to work!"

You know your post-degree vacation has gone on too long when the doorman is encouraging you to get a job.

In other news:

It snowed yesterday! And some of it stuck! It's all melted by now, but still! Our long New York nightmare is over.
The library actually had a copy of Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. I can't wait to geek out and read it!
The books I am currently geeking out on happen to be Fodor's travel guides to San Francisco and Hawaii. 'Cause I booked my plane tickets, baby! I promised my mother I wouldn't jump off a cliff in Hilo (don't even ask how that came up in conversation), but shhh, I'm totally going to. Because the answer to the question "If Carrie told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?" is always yes. (What if Carrie told you to walk through an active volcano? Also yes!)
Aron is going to be a rabbi! (Like there was ever any doubt.) To celebrate his acceptance to HUC, I went out for falafel. In the elevator, the Candy Man told me he was going to shave his moustache and wear a hairpiece so that he could come join my class, and Crazy Julie (who is admittedly less crazy when she is on her meds, as she appeared to be today) told me I was wearing a pretty coat. Freddy didn't say anything to me on my way out, but I assume it's only a matter of time before he breaks out the classifieds.

We worship an awesome God in the blue states

2007-01-18T09:31:00.000-05:00

"Yesterday, at about 9 am, you may have heard something. [cue choir of angels singing] That can mean only one thing: Barack Obama did something." --Jon Stewart on The Daily Show (Caitlin, I may have made this up in my head but I think I heard you laughing at one point!)

This week, Barack Obama announced that he is forming a "presidential exploratory committee" and will make his final announcement about running for president on February 10 (hence The Daily Show's "countdown to Obamania!"). With any luck, February 11 is when I will make my first contribution to Obama's campaign.

But if you, like my friend Hannah, have never heard of Barack Obama (!) and upon hearing his name assume that he is a terrorist (!!), here are five reasons why you should consider supporting him:

1. Let's get the superficial one out of the way right now: Politically, he is a hottie. Aside from the fact that his ears stick out disturbingly like George W. Bush's, he will undeniably be the most attractive president to occupy the White House since John F. Kennedy (and probably without all the secret philandering and drug addiction!).

2. Obama's detractors are going to say he doesn't have enough experience. But the truth is that in politics, the more experience you have, the more the opposition has to hang you with. John Kerry had a truckload of experience, and he was all but burned in effigy on the national campaign. Meanwhile, George W. Bush's "experience" amounted to screwing up every company his daddy let him run, and he was hailed as a great man of the people. Experience should be a non-issue in this campaign.

3. Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the appearance that launched Obama to national fame in the first place, is still the most energizing, inspiring political speech that I've seen given in my lifetime. "It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kids with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope -- hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!" It was like a moment out of The West Wing, if Martin Sheen was taller, skinnier and of mixed race. And the fact is, on the campaign trail, political rhetoric sells -- look at John Edwards and his "two Americas." Hillary Clinton is, let's face it, just not that great a public speaker.

4. Let's talk about electability. Right-wingers hate Hillary. They've been spewing nasty, horrible rhetoric about the Clintons for about fifteen years now. Right-wingers are obviously not going to vote Democrat anyway, but there's enough vitriol out there against her to turn moderates and undecideds against her. Obama hasn't inspired nearly the same level of blind hatred, and I think he will appeal to those people more.

5. Hillary voted for the war in Iraq. Now she has maybe, possibly changed her mind. She's pretty much totally hedging her bets. Remember the "I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" debacle of the 2004 election? I guarantee we will see a repeat of that in this election if Hillary is the nominee. Obama, on the other hand, never passes up an opportunity to say he has always been against the Iraq war (easy for him to say considering he wasn't a senator when the vote went down, but that's neither here nor there).

Also, I just discovered this useful site called On the Issues -- "every political leader on every issue." You can search for a candidate to see where they stand, and you can take a quiz that will match you up with the candidate whose stance most resembles your own. (The last time I took a quiz like that, I kept getting Dennis Kucinich. Thanks, that was helpful. They should divide it up into "Candidate Whose Stance Most Resembles Your Own" and "Candidate Who is Actually Electable That You Might Find Least Objectionable.")

Music makes the people come together

2007-01-10T09:41:00.001-05:00

Am I the only one who's already considering song choices for the next S2P album?

Perhaps they should be a bi-yearly event.

Apparently we can blame El Nino for this

2007-01-06T14:35:00.000-05:00

Date: January 6, 2006
Temperature: 72 degrees (and sunny)
What I wore outside today: Flip-flops and a short-sleeved shirt, with no jacket
What I saw other people wearing: scarves; wool coats; hats; down jackets; fleece vests

It's as if people literally cannot believe their eyes.

Today's entertainment: Walking around Forest Hills Gardens taking pictures of the bare trees; and going into fancy boutique shops on Austin Street and choosing the most outlandishly expensive dresses to try on for fun. Except it turns out there are no mirrors in the dressing room (!), so that kind of took all the fun out of it.

When we turned blue

2007-01-04T14:53:00.000-05:00

I am starting to get really, really worried about global warming.

It started -- much like the Internet! -- with Al Gore, when I saw An Inconvenient Truth this summer. Instantly I regretted every positive thing I had ever off-handedly uttered about climate change (you know, like when it's unseasonably warm out and you're like, "Sweet, global warming is awesome!"). Then the seasons changed. But in name only. Because it's January 4 on the calendar, but here in NYC it's a balmy 52 degrees. It's supposed to get up to 62 on Saturday (January 5!). I think in both the cities I've lived in so far this winter, it's dipped below 45 degrees during the day maybe twice. We haven't seen a single snowflake in New York -- not one -- which hasn't happened since 1878.

Meanwhile, everyone is in denial, or at least they are in Newsday: "It's wonderful to walk out into the garden without a coat and see the trees in bloom, the insects buzzing about and other flowers blossoming months early," said Mark Tebbitt, a horticultural taxonomist at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Well, Mr. Tebbitt, as a horticultural taxonomist you should know that it's bad for plants to bloom this early in the season. (Isn't it? I'm sure I heard that somewhere.)

Newsday also calls the unseasonably warm weather a "welcome blessing for joggers," but I'm a jogger and I call it "a welcome reason to forgive Al Gore for being a stiff and instead get 100% behind him and his wacky theories of climate change." I bought a winter jacket today for $15. Clearly the people at the mall know something the rest of us don't: that it's never going to be cold again. (Cue ominous music.)

Let's tell the world we're doing fine

2007-01-01T18:43:00.000-05:00

Best New Year's ever:

traditional dinner of Italian food, this year in Little Italy
a viewing of my favorite X-Files episode ("Paper Hearts," for those of you keeping score) and several episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
perfect timing:
Hannah and I ran the mile and a half to Prospect Park, crashed the Brooklyn Road Runners' 3.35-mile run at 11:15, finished at 11:45 and polished off some water and hot chocolate just in time for...
fireworks at the stroke of midnight, topped off with champagne, noisemakers and a round of "Auld Lang Syne"
hearing "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" in Dave's car...just as we were leaving Brooklyn
pink champagne cupcakes at Marissa's
pancakes, scrambled eggs, coffee and mimosas for brunch
a round and a half of bowling
U.J.'s nachos, grilled cheese and chocolate milkshakes for dinner

And after careful consideration, I would like to revise my answers to the following survey questions:

Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
It turns out I did make new year's resolutions last year; I resolved to develop a better teeth and skin care regimen; be better at keeping in touch with old friends; and never drink again. I would say all three of these things went marginally well.

What was your greatest musical discovery?
On December 31, I discovered Joseph Arthur. So I'm slipping him in under the wire!

Also, I don't think I would use the phrase "favorite film" to describe it, but for some unearthly reason I chose to watch United 93 a second time and it left me just as much a sobbing hysterical shell of a human being as it did the first time. So, uh, props to Paul Greengrass?

Meet Griffin Magnolia

2006-12-31T09:27:00.001-05:00

Meet Griffin Magnolia
Originally uploaded by gradrachel.

Yesterday I went to Build-a-Bear. I had never been and I had always secretly wanted to go, but I had no idea it would be such a scene. (Perhaps the fact that we went to the one on 5th and 46th, the biggest Build-a-Bear in the world, on the day before New Year's Eve in New York City explains the fact that there was a line out the door.)

First I had to choose a bear. Then I had to choose a heart for the bear and rub it on various parts of my body (um...all those parts of my body were above the waist, by the way) to ensure that my bear would have something. I'm not sure what, because it was too loud to hear the bear builder. Then I had to decide if I wanted my bear to be soft, medium or hard. (More innuendo.) Then I had to groom the bear. Then I had to choose an outfit for the bear. This was by far the hardest part. He was either going to be a teacher bear, a runner bear, a New York bear or a Mets bear. It turns out that there is no such thing as a runner bear, that a teacher bear requires the purchase of lame teacher accessories and that if I wanted a Mets bear, I could just...buy a Mets bear.

So my bear wears a New York hoodie and no pants, because all the pants (including the red satin panties, ow ow) look lame on him. He's too cool for pants. He's also too cool for the $4 hat that looked adorable on him but...cost $4. For a bear hat. With holes for his ears.

And he's definitely too cool for the $10 miniature Skechers sneakers. That light up. For his bear feet.

Come on. Griffin Magnolia is the coolest bear you know.

Signs of the times

2006-12-28T15:20:00.000-05:00

An Associated Press poll asked voters to name 2006's villains and heroes.

#1 hero? George W. Bush.
#1 villain? ...George W. Bush.

"Bush won the villain sweepstakes by a landslide, with one in four respondents putting him at the top of that bad-guy list. When people were asked to name the candidate for villain that first came to mind, Bush far outdistanced even Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader in hiding; and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who is scheduled for execution.

The president was picked as hero of the year by a much smaller margin. In the poll, 13 percent named him as their favorite while 6 percent cited the troops in Iraq."

So, some Americans think George W. Bush is more evil than murderous dicators and terrorists...and some think he is more heroic than the soldiers whose lives he is risking.

Both of those stats blow my mind.

How to have a successful Jewish Christmas

2006-12-24T16:46:00.000-05:00

Christmas Eve
1. Brave the last-minute shopping crowds with your Christian friend who has waited until 4:15 on Christmas Eve to attempt to buy wrapping paper. Amuse yourself by pointing out that Hanukkah wrapping paper is 50% off and by digging through a "Take One -- Free!" bin of fugly Christmas stockings with random names on them.
2. Eat latkes and kosher chicken left over from the eighth night of Hanukkah. Roll your eyes when Mom sings, "I'll be hooooome for...latkes!"
3. Watch It's a Wonderful Life on TV. Cry buckets.

Christmas Day
1. Fortunately, Gotta Getta Bagel is open from 7 am to 6 pm! Eat bagels.
2. Take the annual Walk of What's Open through the neighborhood. ("Want to go on a walk?" "Why?" "To see what's open.")
3. Then eat Chinese food.

Believe it or not, I have actually been putting a lot of thought into my New Year's resolutions this year! And they are:

1. Cook more of my own food, and eat more balanced meals.

2. Volunteer my time, maybe as a Big Sister.

3. Take some sort of class for my own edification, maybe besides ballet.

4. Run a marathon in a state other than Massachusetts, because if I start this year, I can run a marathon in each of the 50 states by the time I'm 73.

5. Be more social; be more spontaneous; and be more socially spontaneous.

Merry Christmas, everyone! And remember what the Muppets say:

"Bless us all, that as we live
We always comfort and forgive
We have so much that we can share
With those in need we see around us everywhere

"Let us always love each other
Lead us toward the light
Let us hear the voice of reason
Singing in the night

"Let us run from anger
And catch us when we fall
Teach us in our dreams and please, yes, please
Bless us one and all

"Bless us all with playful years
With noisy games and joyous tears
We reach for you, and we stand tall
And in our prayers and dreams we ask you
Bless us all

"We reach for you, and we stand tall
And in our prayers and dreams we ask you
Bless us all."

Read this book

2006-12-21T15:01:00.000-05:00

The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina, by Frank Rich (one of my favorite New York Times columnists)

If only because you've got to admire any book that praises Jon Stewart, scorns George W. Bush and makes judicious use of the word "hagiography."

My new favorite way to waste time...

2006-12-21T11:34:00.000-05:00

...is to participate in studies at Harvard's Project Implicit.

There are about a hundred different versions of something called the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures your implicit associations or assumptions or feelings about a certain thing. Like, of course we're not racists, but do we have underlying associations of blackness with bad things?

Each time you log in, you get to take a different test. So far I have learned that I prefer coffee to tea (not surprising), jazz music to teen pop music (not surprising) and American places to foreign places (slightly disconcerting), that I associate masculinity with science and femininity with liberal arts (sad, but not that surprising), that I more strongly identify with artists rather than musicians (random) and with books over television (relieving), and that I slightly prefer creationism over evolution (extremely surprising. Not indicative of anything I learned in school, Caitlin!).

Try it, it's fun!

Where no one knows my name

2006-12-20T09:52:00.000-05:00

In May, I wrote that once I finished my master's degree, I would celebrate by eating at my favorite restaurant in the North End. And yesterday, I did! I also went to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Common (where I saw two movies), Newbury Street and Mike's Pastry. Ah, memories...like the corners of my mind...

Fortuitously, I still had my Brandeis staff ID buried in my wallet (I have no idea what happened to my student one), so the MFA was free. I have decided that Monet and Arthur Dove are my favorite artists, and I wonder if there is some kind of psychological quiz online that would explain what that says about me. (Like how Carrie and I once imagined that in the European composer version of The Apprentice, Donald Trump would be disgusted with contestants who preferred Haydn to Beethoven.)

The movies: Charlotte's Web was a disappointment. I know this because it should have made me cry like a little girl, but it did not. Its most basic problem was that Julia Roberts was the voice of Charlotte, which...no. Just no. Her voice is too recognizable and she's not a particularly talented voice actress, so it was totally like: "That's Julia Roberts talking. That's Julia Roberts talking." Plus, I think the genius of E.B. White's book (which the New York Times called one of the most beloved classics of all time) is probably in its description, and the movie fell short in translating that to the screen. I thought The Chronicles of Narnia last year did a fantastic job in bringing the book to life, whereas Charlotte's Web just sort of faithfully plodded through the plot because it had to. I think it assumed that its viewers were already in love with all the characters, which is true, but looking back on it I didn't really get to know any of them. Fern was one of the earliest great girl heroes in my life, but from the movie alone I wouldn't have guessed why.

Then I saw The Pursuit of Happyness, because it was too cold to walk around Newbury Street for three hours. At one point I thought, "Damn, Will Smith, who knew you had it in you?" but then I remembered that episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where Will is shot in a hold-up and Carlton goes out and buys a gun, and Will convinces Carlton to give it up and the episode closes on Will in his hospital bed unloading the bullets from the gun and crying, and I realized that The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air foreshadows Will Smith's future as a great actor! It was a good movie. Will Smith's son is freaking cute. Really cute. I thought it was extremely interesting that the written epilogue that flashes up on the screen after the movie is over is all about how the real-life Chris Gardner is now filthy rich. That's the success story: wealth. As my mom would say, money may not buy happiness (or happyness, as the case may be), but it helps.

The lasagna at Piccola Venezia is still the best lasagna I've ever had. The counter ladies at Mike's Pastry are still rude and impatient. (Sidebar to S2P: Remember Carrie's angry neighbors from freshman year? "And the laughing!" One of them was in Mike's Pastry.) The conductors on the T still make inexplicable choices about their routes that force me to get off the train before my stop.

And Boston? Is a city I'm going to miss.

Heartbreak Hill

2006-12-18T21:33:00.001-05:00

Heartbreak Hill
Originally uploaded by gradrachel.

This month's Runner's World (thanks Caitlin!) had a "Life List": "...just a few of the things you must experience in your lifetime to fully appreciate the history -- and the quirky pleasures -- of our sport." One of the things was "Summit Heartbreak Hill," that (in)famous climb at the 20th mile of the Boston Marathon.

After five and a half years of living in Boston, this runner is about to leave, and I had never run Heartbreak Hill. So this morning I impulsively drove to Newton to do it.

It was totally worth it. Now I just have to get started on that 50 marathons in 50 states thing.

Al Gore must be freaking out

2006-12-17T11:39:00.000-05:00

This morning I was jogging along in my shorts and I absent-mindedly thought to myself, "What a lovely fall day!" Then I had a realization that nearly stopped me in my tracks:

It's December 17. It's not supposed to feel like a lovely fall day this late in December.

Global warming: It's not just for melting ice caps anymore!

525,600 minutes

2006-12-10T17:11:00.000-05:00

I was going to wait to do this until after I returned from the Bahamas. But now I'm not going to the Bahamas and my life is sad and empty because of it, so I'm going to do it now. (It's not even an excuse to procrastinate because stick a fork in me, I am done.)

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Drugs.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I make my resolutions at the Jewish new year, the better to avoid being condemned to death on Judgment Day.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Baby Tyler (my cousin's son) was born on my uncle's birthday in March!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No. As they'd say in Brookline, Baruch Hashem!

5. What countries did you visit?
Well, I was supposed to go to the Bahamas. But did I? No. Because all my vacations are doomed. Doomed!

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?
My very own apartment. All to myself. No dirty dishes in the sink. Maybe a cat to go with it. A fat one.

7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Perhaps December 11, 2006? Because it was the date all my final projects were due (well, before all the due dates got moved), and the day I was leaving for the Bahamas -- the calendar representation of the completion of my master's degree. Speaking of which...

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
It's called a master's degree because I am the master, baby.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Well, I failed miserably at sustaining a romantic relationship. You know, as usual.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Last year the Flu of Death kept me down for close to a month. So this year I got a flu shot...and one week later fell victim to a mysterious virus much like last year's Flu of Death, only without the Hacking Cough of Evil (a major improvement). At least this one only lasted a week.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Coffee.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Usually in answer to this question I say "food." This year I will go out on a limb and say "candy," specifically candy from Hidden Sweets in Harvard Square.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Rocking Horse margaritas and Magnolia cupcakes -- the food that will be served at the banquet in my heaven. (There will be no buffet. Buffets are tacky.) Also my upcoming Hanukkah party.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?
KT Tuntsall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree." In that song I'm driving through the streets of Medford, to and from Super Stop 'n Shop and Tufts and Target and the Wellington T stop and my first year in graduate school.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you
happier or sadder? Happier, I guess. It's always nicer to have a master's degree rather than be halfway through it.
older or wiser? Neither.
thinner or fatter? I feel fatter, but I don't currently own a scale, so I have no empirical evidence to back up my claim.
richer or poorer? Richer, I think -- I guess that's what having five jobs can do for you!

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Drugs.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
I wish I had done less existing in a state of constant anxiety. That would have been nice.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
The same way I always spend Christmas, Pinky: with The Muppet Christmas Carol (or the real Christmas Carol, come to think of it) and some delicious New York Chinese food. The more important question is about how I will be spending Hanukkah, and the answer is: having a kickass Hanukkah party at my house!

21. Did you fall in love in 2005?
We're all falling in love, every day, with our world and each other. Aren't we?

22. How many one-night stands?
Seventeen.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Project Runway. Carry on!

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
"Hate" is a strong word for it, but I strongly dislike this junior who's been in a lot of my classes.

25. What was the best book you read?
Too...many...choices...paralyzed by...indecision...Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson, in the fiction category...and in non-fiction, American Bee: The National Spelling Bee and the Culture of Word Nerds by James Maguire.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Raffi's new CD? (Hey, it was a slow musical year.)

27. What did you want and get?
Every year, in answer to the question below, I say "a boyfriend," and this year I say: Be careful what you wish for.

On a much more uncomplicated note, unexpectedly landing the Sesame internship rocked my socks!

28. What did you want and not get?
A trip to the freaking Bahamas, for the second year in a row. Sheesh.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
An Inconvenient Truth? No, I'm only saying that to sound intelligent and politically aware. There isn't really a movie that stands out to me, actually. But I saw some amazing movies from other years through the power of Netflix, among them Why We Fight, My Flesh and Blood and Promises.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 23 in 2006, and I hosted a bagel picnic in Central Park of which I am very proud because a dizzying array of old friends attended.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Peace of mind.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?
Pinks and browns and lots of khaki.

33. What kept you sane?
I kept myself sane. I'm still not sure how.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
David Wright, third basement for the New York Mets. He's a fine ballplayer...and so cute. A close runner-up: Project Runway's Tim Gunn. "Make it work!"

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
I have a DEFEND DEMOCRACY -- IMPEACH BUSH magnet on my car.

36. Who did you miss?
Every year out of college, I miss my college friends a little more. Especially around this time of year, when we should be having our annual Secret Santa party. And I've been missing Marissa and Hannah for going on five and a half years now -- I can't believe we're about to be together forever in NYC in 2007!

37. Who was the best new person you met?
I got along really well with all four of my roommates, three of whom I had never met before I moved in. So that's lucky!

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.
Just keep on keepin' on, like a bird that flew -- oh, wait, that's supposed to come in the next question.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"It's hard to know where I stand
It's hard to know where I am
Maybe it's a puzzle I don't understand

Is it any wonder I'm tired
Is it any wonder that I feel uptight
Is it any wonder I don't know what's right
These days
After all the misery made
Is it any wonder that I feel afraid
Is it any wonder that I feel betrayed"
--Keane

Hmm, that was a little depressing, eh? Let's follow it up with something a little more uplifting!

"I will walk out of the darkness
And I'll walk into the light
And I'll sing the song of ages
And the dawn will end the night

I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm standing in the darkness
I don't want to wait no more"
--Van Morrison

2007, here I come.

Take a look, it's in a book

2006-12-05T12:53:00.000-05:00

It's almost time to pack for the Bahamas, and I'm concerned that I won't have enough room in my suitcase.

Not for my clothes. For my books.

We're staying at Old Bahama Bay, where there is apparently nothing to do except lie on the beach and drink daquiris -- just the way I want it. By then the only schoolwork I'll have to do is grade papers (I think that'll work out well for my students. Grading papers on the beach, everyone gets an A!), and I want to make sure I have enough reading material. What if I don't bring enough books, and I run out of things to read? Tragedy!

My mom says that when I was a kid and we went on family vacations, we'd have to bring along an extra suitcase just for all my books. (And that was back in the day when you could only take out 25 books at a time from the public library, too.) Alas, the books I read as a kid took up a lot less space in a suitcase; all the books I got yesterday at the library are dismayingly large and heavy, and I shall have to choose among them.

Fiction
Please, Mr. Einstein, Jean-Claude Carriere
The Plot Against America, Philip Roth
Not the End of the World, Kate Atkinson
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Ann Brashares

Non-Fiction
Hard Lessons: The Promise of an Inner-City Charter School, Jonathan Schorr
Finders and Keepers: Helping New Teachers Survive and Thrive in Our Schools, Susan Moore Johnson
Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression, Spencer Overton
Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley and America's Greatest Marathon, John Brant

Education, liberal politics and running -- my non-fiction choices say a lot about me, don't they? I'm not totally psyched up about any of these books except possibly Please, Mr. Einstein, which got a good review in the New York Times (we all know how seriously I take my New York Times).

And speaking of non-fiction, I went a little wild yesterday adding documentaries to my Netflix queue; I think the best thing about Netflix is that I can get all these movies I've never heard of because they'd never have them at Blockbuster. Right now I'm expecting Running on the Sun, a documentary about the Badwater ultramarathon, and after that My Flesh and Blood, about a California woman who adopts eleven children with special needs.

4eva

2006-12-03T09:28:00.000-05:00

Lately I have been having all these strange, involved dreams about some of my friends -- the ones I'm not in touch with on a totally regular basis. The dreams usually involve something major happening in their lives (a marriage, a baby) about which I am completely out of the loop. I think my subconscious is telling me I need to do a better job of KIT with my BFF.

Commitment!

2006-12-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

(You need to say it the way John Adams in 1776 says it, otherwise it just doesn't have the same effect.)

Belive it or not, I have been purposely waiting for this day to update my blog. I anticipated that I would have Very Big News, and I wanted to be able to share it.

So, I do have Very Big News...sort of. As it turns out, Very Big News is a little bit complicated.

Today I received a "letter of commitment" to be a teacher in a New York City public school. What does this mean? It means that I am guaranteed a full-time job as a classroom teacher in New York. I am guaranteed the (surprisingly high, for the non-profit sector) starting teacher salary. I am guaranteed the health benefits. I am guaranteed the union membership (the UFT is the best teachers' union in the country). Sweet!

The catch is, I'm only guaranteed all that in September 2007. (Am I kicking myself a little for being in such a hurry to finish my master's program in a year and a half? Yes, yes I am.) Starting in January, I can substitute teach -- I can maybe even be a leave replacement in a classroom -- but I don't officially become an NYC public school teacher until September.

In the meantime, this leaves me with a lot of options, and as most of you know, I'm uncomfortable with having a lot of options. I can of course do what I was planning to do anyway -- substitute teach, maybe be a leave replacement, freelance or temp for Sesame. I could travel! Take time off, like everyone is always trying to convince me to do!

But do I keep an eye out for full-time work? I have eight months to think, "If something better comes along in the meantime..." But what would be something better? If Sesame happens to hire me as a temp and then happens to offer me something full time, I guarantee the salary and benefits won't be as good.

In short, it boils down to that age-old question: Do I want to be a teacher, or not?

On the way home, I felt like I was in that movie Fools Rush In, the one where Salma Hayek tries to convince Matthew Perry that there are signs everywhere. In the Prudential Center, I saw a man who led a teaching workshop for my program at Brandeis. On the T, an elementary school class got on. The kids were giggling and pushing. Their teacher was reprimanding them. And I smiled.

I think I want to do this.

I've done it again

2006-12-01T14:11:00.000-05:00

Apparently Overheard in New York is just four months behind schedule.

Screamgirl's Ululation Can Bring Down a 747 in Mid-Flight

Little girl: Stop the train! Stop the train!

Train stops.

Little girl: Why did the train stop?
Dad: Because you were talking too loud.

--Uptown R train

Overheard by: Rachel

2006-11-30T09:55:00.000-05:00

I submitted it approximately four months ago, but it finally made it on Overheard in New York!

Yes, It Was the Most Recent Antarctic Expedition, And...

Tourist mom to son: Hold on tight to the pole.
Tourist dad: Hey, Stephen, when I met your mom she was on a pole.
Tourist mom: Stop that!

--Uptown R train

Overheard by: burst out laughing

I am?

2006-11-19T14:32:00.000-05:00

Dude! You're 90% from Massachusetts!

Dude! Me and Sully and Fitzie and Sean are gonna hit Landsdowne tonight after the game, hang out at the Beerworks. I'll pick you up at the Coop at 6.

How Massachusetts are you?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Say hello to your friends

2006-11-07T18:54:00.000-05:00

When people ask why I failed to graduate on time, do I have to admit it's because I've been reading these Baby-sitters Club fanfics?

I think Carrie and Gwen might understand, but other people might think it's...odd.

On Sunday, my cousin ran the New York City Marathon, and my parents went to see her. According to my mom, Alanna ran right past them without noticing them at first. This was understandably upsetting to my mom, especially since she had made a sign.

"You made a sign?" I inquired, uncomprehending. It wasn't that I doubted my mom's ability to make a sign. It was that I have run in nine officially sanctioned races, including one marathon and two half-marathons, and not only does my mother typically avoid having to come and watch me run, she has definitely never made me a sign.

"I don't know what got into me!" my mother replied, sounding both bewildered and exhilirated by her own sign-making prowess. "I made them in Greetings Workshop [a computer program]. They said things like, Way to Go Alanna!"

"Wait," I interrupted. "They? How many signs did you make?"

"I made three signs," my mom said, sounding increasingly sheepish.

"Three!" I cried, completely petulant. "You have never made me even one sign! Not one!"

I think both my mother and I learned something very important as a result of this conversation. My mother learned that she is totally coming to my next marathon, with at least four signs. And I learned that I am definitely a spoiled only child.

(And, Carrie and Dianne's marathon signs were better.)

Rachel plans, God laughs

2006-11-02T12:11:00.000-05:00

When I started in my master's program, both my advisors assured me that I would be "well positioned for a job in the industry" once I graduated. This summer, my supervisor told me I could "basically have any job I wanted" once I graduated.

So after sending out approximately 30 resumes, as well as handing off my resume to anyone I know with any kind of tenuous connection in the education/media industry, I have finally received one job interview.

Can I get a woo-woo?

Also, this just in: Getting a flu shot, taking a multi-vitamin every day, exercising every day and practicing good hygiene do not guarantee that you will not come down with a mysterious virus that presents itself exactly like strep throat but cannot be cured by antibiotics and saps you of all strength mere days before you are scheduled to take off for a weekend in Chicago that you have been looking forward to for months.

And did you know that before you can purchase Sudafed, the drugstore takes down your name and address and makes you sign something? Because the tissues and the Cold-Eeze were probably just covers for my massive addiction to pseudoephedrine.

You're the answer in the wind, a candle in the dark

2006-10-27T11:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I met Raffi. The Raffi, of "Baby Beluga" and "Apples and Bananas" fame. He was receiving the Fred Rogers Integrity Award (which comes in the form of a Neighborhood Trolley!) from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston for his consistent refusal to let his songs be used as commercial endorsements to market directly to children. (One of the things he won't do is sell his songs as ring tones. Which is kind of a shame, actually, because I could use a "Baby Beluga" ring tone.)

He spoke about his philosophy of "Child Honouring," which is interesting and a little pie-in-the-sky all at the same time. (It begins -- and I think the phrasing is kind of funny because Raffi is Canadian, not American -- "We find these joys to be self-evident: That all children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect.") You know that phrase that says, "Think globally, act locally"? Well, Raffi thinks globally and acts globally, and I found some of what he said to be a little crunchy-granola, like where is the action behind it? But then he'd sing this song about how "the children are counting on you" and I'd find myself getting really moved. Plus I admire anyone who uses whatever celebrity status they have to champion something greater -- Raffi, for example, makes sure that all his books and CDs are printed on chlorine-free paper, which costs more but is less toxic (and less toxicity is always a good thing, no?).

In any case, Raffi seems like a lovely, lovely man, who is childlike himself but utterly captivating, and it was fitting that the award was named after Fred Rogers because he reminded me a lot of Mr. Rogers in his ability to impress upon a group of adults the necessity of caring for children.

From his album Resisto Dancing: Songs of Compassionate Revolution, here is the song Raffi wrote for us "Beluga Grads," who grew up with his music and are now young adults:

"Impossible samba
Improbable rumba
Dancing in your junglehood

Celestial mambo
Terrestrial tango
Tapping and dancing in your junglehood

Resisto dancing to keep your love alive
Resisto dancing to keep your song lines open and humming
You're the answer in the wind
A candle in the dark
With a state of the possible in your spacious heart

All grown up and on the go
Tuned into the global radio
Dancing in your junglehood

All grown up and so much to do
The power and blessing of being you
Is dancing in your junglehood

Here come the turbulent times
Here come the hard, hard rain gonna fall
As it tumbles in your junglehood

And now a clarion call
A call to give it your all
As you're dancing and twirling and tumbling in your junglehood

So to thine own self
To thine own voice
And to thine own dreams
Stay true..."

2006-10-15T21:53:00.001-04:00

Top of the fifth, tie game. Two men on, no outs, Carlos Delgado comes to the plate for the Mets. I say out loud to no one in particular (because no one else is in the room with me as I watch the Mets-Cardinals playoff game and read for my Development of Language class), "You know what we need right now? A three-run homer. That would be good."

Commercial break, and when the game comes back, Delgado smashes a three-run homer and the Mets take the lead! I claim at least .001% of the credit.

Also my boyfriend David Wright (he is 23, a terrific third baseman and so cute, we are totally getting married) hit his first post-season home run tonight. Awww, they grow up so fast.

2006-10-12T20:47:00.000-04:00

In my Language Disorders class, we are working on developing a resource guide for parents about language and communication disorders and differences. My group is concentrating on autism, and our first assignment was to write a paper on its etiology. The paper was supposed to be written in -- these are the key words -- a colloquial style.

Today my professor gave back our papers and selected a few sample sentences from them as examples of passages that were far too academic. Mine was one of them. I had written:

"Other studies document the atypical progression of brain development among children with autism, causing some scientists to hypothesize that the brains of children with autism may become 'overloaded' with neural matter that fails to function appropriately."

What on God's green earth gave me the impression that this was an appropriate sentence to include in a colloquially written paper? Apparently years of academic writing and pretending to know what the hell I'm talking about in order to impress my professors has robbed me of the ability to write for a general audience.

I'm going to go rewrite my paper now, and that sentence will not appear in it.

2006-10-10T21:53:00.000-04:00

I was more productive today than I have been in the combined five weeks or so since school started.

It feels stupendous. Why aren't I productive more often? It's a little like running: Sometimes getting out the door in the morning is a total bitch, but I'm never sorry once I'm in the kitchen gulping my Gatorade.

I am going to be this productive every day for the rest of the semester. COUNT ON IT.

You find it in your heart, it's pulling me apart

2006-10-07T11:12:00.000-04:00

The Rocking Horse Cafe in Chelsea officially makes the best frozen margaritas of all time. They always get me exactly the perfect amount of drunk -- drunk enough to have a bold conversation with my ex-semi-boyfriend on the phone (during which I cut him off with the immortal words: "Look, I've got to go, we're following sailors"), but not drunk enough to sway my coordination and make me drop my Magnolia cupcakes while we street-performed a few numbers from Les Miserables.

Our espionage brought us to Penn Station, where I serendipitously spotted Jay from Project Runway! (Thanks to Netflix, I'm making my way through the first season.) We had lost the sailors by that point, but fortunately there were more -- there must be a ship in port.

Meanwhile, I spent the day (a) scamming my optometrist out of another free pair of contact lenses (hallelujah, I'm back in business); (b) buying jeans at the Gap (a long process wracked by indecisiveness, as I was afraid that my friends with the expensive designer jeans would scorn my Gap curvy flares); and (c) visiting the Queens Museum of Art. Which was awesome! They have this gigantic panorama of New York City. When I heard "gigantic," I thought "big, but on a table of some sort." It's actually in a room about three times the size of my apartment, and it's extremely cool. Plus I enjoyed all the photographs and artwork by Queens artists.

Also I discovered I still had $10 left on my summer MetroCard. Bonus! Now here's hoping Hannah's father's wife can get me a job.

Empathy belly

2006-09-30T18:10:00.000-04:00

In my last post I wrote about some of the funny conversations I've recently had with kids at work. Dianne responded and said that one of her students had once asked if she was pregnant.

Today at work a kid asked me if I was pregnant. No lie! I graciously refrained from responding with what I was really thinking, which was: Dude, what the fuck?

Today I helped a six-year-old girl type the word "Sunday." She spelled and I typed. Only I didn't put the capital letter. She accused me of forgetting it. I said, "You didn't say capital S. If you said capital S, I would have typed it." She said firmly: "But you already know that because you're older. You're like an adult already and you know everything.'

Flattered, I said, "Thank you!" To which she clarified: "About school."

It's true, I've mastered everything. I guess that's why they call it a master's degree.

The mouths of babes

2006-09-29T21:07:00.000-04:00

Today while I was at work it started to pour. My director told a pair of five-year-olds that God was crying. "Why is God crying?" one of them asked. "He's mad at Rachel," the director said.

Then he told them, employing a blatant falsehood, that I was a Yankees fan. "She thinks the Red Sox stink," he lied. Instantly legions of Massachusetts children everywhere turned against me. "That is not nice and God doesn't like it!" the 5-year-old sternly told me.

Two hours later I inadvertantly gave a different 5-year-old the finger while I was helping him subtract 7 from 8. Which was still
not as funny as the conversation I had with another 5-year-old last week:

Him: "Can I tell you something?"
Me: "Yeah, tell me something!"
Him: "When my mommy was pregnant...I had nine million dollars."
Me: "...uh. What?"

I think, though I cannot prove, that he was trying to one-up the third-grader next to him, who moments before had told me dramatically: "Before I was born...my parents lived in a castle!"

Is it any wonder I inevitably leave my job with a headache?

A sense of poise and rationality

2006-09-22T13:29:00.000-04:00

So I read this article in the New York Times about the Princeton Review's Counselor-O-Matic, sort of a "find your perfect college" tool. You take a little quiz and it give you a list of "good match" schools, reach schools and safety schools. So for kicks, I mentally traveled back in time five years or so and pretended like I was in high school looking at colleges. And lo and behold, among my "good match" schools were Brandeis and Vassar, my two top choices when I actually applied to college.

I remember visiting Tufts in high school and not being impressed at all, probably because we had a really boring tour guide. I didn't even apply. Now that I'm there, occasionally I'll think, "You know, I think Tufts would have been a really good fit for me as an undergrad," and then I think, "What am I talking about, I loved Brandeis." I think choosing a college is probably the first major decision a lot of teenagers have to make, and I think it really is a big decision -- I didn't meet my spouse at Brandeis like all the other good Jewish girls seem to, but if I hadn't gone there I wouldn't have made the friends that I made and I might not have made some of the choices I made and maybe I wouldn't be on the path that I'm on. Sometimes I think life needs a little George Bailey button -- some kind of tool where you can find out what things would have been like if something had gone differently. Life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book where you don't get to stick a bookmark in the page and return to it later when something goes off track.

Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea

2006-09-20T20:12:00.000-04:00

I just bought a ticket to An Evening With Raffi and I am so freaking excited about it. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which is a non-profit outlet of the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston, is presenting Raffi with the Fred Rogers Integrity Award, and he's going to do a presentation about his philosophy of "child honouring" (yeah, he spells it with a U), which sounds super aligned with Fred Rogers' philosophies.

Raffi! It's going to be such a thrill!

I am shielded in my armor

2006-09-15T22:45:00.000-04:00

Ten things I have done today that will give you a broader sense of where my life is right now:

1. Admired my legs in the mirror (my brand-new Somerville running route courtesy of the fantastic Gmaps Pedometer takes me up a monstrous hill not once but twice; have not yet stopped at the scrumptuous Danish pastry shop at the base of it)
2. Researched the Peace Corps, Americorps and open teaching positions in places like Arizona
3. Watched Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on my newly-connected cable TV (some things never change)
4. Made plans to go on a second date tomorrow night; immediately thereafter mentally dismissed date as someone I won't be interested in after date is over; attempted to counteract defeatist attitude with open mind and casual, carefree approach to date
5. Thoroughly enjoyed exclamation-point job (new kid contest puts me in charge of a team of kids named "Rachel's Renegades," a name I did not choose; anticipate month of being asked what a renegade is); then left it with headache
6. Completed little to no actual work of real value to my classes
7. Purchased $9.99 sneakers at Target in anticipation of walking in foul weather
8. In the course of writing this post, answered bizarre but delightful phone call requesting me to remember the name of elementary school classmate I haven't thought about since 1995
9. Experienced feelings of isolation and loneliness warring with equally strong feelings of independence and Simon/Garfunkel syndrome ("I am a rock, I am an island")
10. Questioned everything I thought I wanted out of life

2006-09-13T21:14:00.000-04:00

"And so here we are five years later. Fearmongering remains unceasing. So do tax cuts. So does the war against a country that did not attack us on 9/11. We have moved on, but no one can argue that we have moved ahead."

In this Sunday's New York Times, Frank Rich writes a column entitled "Whatever Happened to the America of 9/12?" that echoes the sentiments of my "column" below more clearly and poignantly than I could say them.

Alas, one must be a "Times Select" subscriber to get to the article online.

In a similarly political vein, the first movie I got out of my new Netflix subscription was a documentary called Why We Fight that is so fantastic it's hard to put into words. You need to see this movie.

Also, I did my civic duty this week and voted in the New York primary by absentee ballot, even though all the elections were total landslides. Jonathan Tasini, who ran against Hillary Clinton, claimed on Facebook that he was polling at 44% (extraordinarily high considering that most New Yorkers didn't even know Clinton was being contested in the primary at all; I suspect that number was substantially inflated). Yesterday at Urban Outfitters I saw the book version of Sorry Everybody -- the website that was quite possibly the only good thing to come out of the 2004 presidential election. My favorites were the commiserations from other countries ("On behalf of the Dutch people, me and my sister would like to thank you -- we too are sorry and wish you good luck for the next 4 years") and people with regional pride ("Northern Ohio is REALLY sorry!").