cheap tricks

When there is no sun, I will buy sunflowers.

strange how hard it rains now

It's one in the morning and Peter Pan is not at home.

In any other situation in which two parties share an apartment, this would be cause for worry. This would be cause for worry if I didn't know exactly where he was (whether nor not he bothered to let me know.)

I am trying to concentrate on the lovely tapping of the rain on the roof, the sounds of my new neighborhood on a wet and quiet Saturday evening, as I type this thing I should not be typing, as I listen to the Ns and Ws whiz in and out of the terminus. This moment is none of anyone's business but mine because I chose it. So I lie here thinking of baseball games and burgers and beers—and debates about the Quilted Northern bears and the relative merits of Nietzsche's analysis of the Dionysian and the Apollonian ideals. That's where my brain wants to be. Not imagining my erstwhile boyfriend sprawled on his parents' loveseat in various stages of undress, too drunk and selfish to put his shoes on and come home.

Then I think... but of course, you stupid cow, this is not his home. And if he were to show up tonight to this address we supposedly share, he would only be furious that they turned off the water until morning to fix a plumbing issue. (My net regrets remain at zero, in case you are keeping score. I love this place.)

So... rain. And quiet. And Iain Pears. I can do this. Doubt me at your own peril.

question for my generation

What the hell is this new trend of adding extra letters to the ends of words for emphasis?

Seriously. When you type "byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" I see the Avon Lady (or some other saccharine creature in coral lipstick and a skirt suit). When you say your day "sucksssssssssssssss" I think you mean to be speaking in Parselmouth. Similarly, "I wanted to partyyyyyyyyyyyy last nightttt" confounds me. As does, "fuckkkkkkkk" and "butttttt." Consonants just aren't supposed to bend that way.

And I keep seeing this foolishness. Running rampant on the internet. And while I've tried not to judge other people's cyber-shorthand (though I cringe at the "ur"s and other multiple abbreviations for perfectly short—and easily typable—words), this is just too egregious to ignore.

Please make it stop. Or at least explain it to me.

just take my word for it

Con: For lack of curtains—and due to some serious eastern exposure in my bedroom—I have yet to sleep past five am this week.

Pro: I've been woken up each day by the most consistently breathtaking sunrises. I tried to take a picture on my phone this morning, but in my sleep deprivation the results were less than special.

I have this

I'm still at a whopping zero when it comes to regrets about my new place.

Do you see what is behind that windowpane? Do you? It is a tree. A TREE. It may not be a very big tree, or even one tree among other trees, but as my Partner In Crime put it, I'm "one tree up" on a lot of people in this city.

My commute may be 45 minutes, but my rewards are church bells on Sundays and a view into a square of little oblong backyards. I can see the skyline from my roof. My neighbors are old women in housecoats who hang their laundry to dry and host grandchildren in plastic deck chairs in the afternoons. Every morning, an aged yellow lab babysits a golden haired toddler who tries to ride him around the cement playpen.

I should probably put curtains up, since our little alley town offers front row seats into each other's privacy and anyone peeking out a window at night can see straight through my fourth wall, but for now I just hop from shower to dresser trying to shimmy into my clothes before peeping toms notice there's nudity afoot.

So there's that. Now I have only to continue accumulating all of the (surprisingly expensive) items needed to play house as a functioning adult, sort out the minor details (paint the bathroom, caulk the holes, hang the curtain rods, switch the hot water pipe) and wait for the gas to be turned on. Oh, right, and convince Peter Pan to actually sleep there. Right now the only clue to his existence in my life is a shaving kit under the sink. Unacceptable.

n train to a-town

Hard to regret impulsive moving decisions when this is the view from my commute.

moral relativism

I know I'm not supposed to like the Yankees. I know Derek Jeter's new record is based on a relatively useless statistic. And I know that it is wrong to applaud for a team against whom you've sworn eternal enmity.

But I couldn't help it. You see, it was such a beautiful night for a game, bright and chilly, and the heavens did open for precisely the right at bat, and sitting there in the stands with my buddy, sharing a bag of peanut m and ms, is my idea of perfection. I just forgot myself—and my loyalties—for a moment.

Dear world,
Please forgive me for my conduct last Friday evening. It is my belief that there were extenuating circumstances. It will not happen again.
Sincerely,
Repentant Red Sox fan*

baseball and bigelow?

Does anybody else doubt the credibility of this ad campaign?

As much as I would like to see these baseball greats swap their gum-cancer chaw for some straight-up antioxidants, I sincerely doubt tea would be their beverage of choice.

with light in my head

To mixed reviews, I have concocted and embraced a new philosophy, a livable creed effective immediately, which is to let the Universe—capitalized here for effect and future reference—make my decisions for me. Which is not to say I relinquish my agency, just that, when confronted with decisions large and small, my new plan requires that I take full stock of the signs around me before leaping. (Or, in my grand tradition: before agonizing and analyzing in a cycle of chronic indecision.)

First example: my rather hasty decision to move back to Astoria. Made possible by several failed attempts to see other apartments in bigger, better boroughs, a fortuitous half-friday at the office, a canceled broker appointment, and the happenstance and serendipity required to have chanced a peek at the craigslist postings that morning (for lack of a more stimulating activity). Without any of these (seemingly coincidental) occurrences, the apartment in question would have gone the next day and I would never have seen it. But I did see it. And I fell in love with it. We cut a check within the hour and now it is ours. Impulsive? Perhaps. Although my new therapist (unwitting champion and muse for this new philosophical roll-out) prefers that I refer to it as "being capable of making an informed and rational decision in the heat of the moment." Translation: I had my finger on the beating pulse of the Universe and I followed its direction? Or maybe just: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Regrets current: 0 (although there may be doubts). Net regrets: TBD.

Second example:

My Labor Day Weekend—which would have involved a trip to Storyland with Supermom and the cutest kids in the world had not my boyfriend been swept away to Florida on a business venture cum bachelor weekend. Instead, I got to follow the Universe (and salute myself for that decision) on a spur of the moment trip to Gettysburg with my favorite partner in crime, which became a trip to Baltimore, which ended at an O's/Rangers game at Camden Yards and 36 hours full of good music, crab cakes, NCAA football and beers.

Net regrets: 0.

I may be utterly foolish. This experiment may be nothing but overdressed spontaneity. The road may be paved with chanciness and I may be backed into dangerous corners I cannot get easily out of. But it sure beats the alternative.

I am more and more convinced that the data for decision-making is always right in front of us, from who we want to be to what we want for dinner. All I have to do is pay attention, trust myself, and leap.

Stay tuned.