The Pursuit of Happiness

I am a big fan of secular holidays, but Thanksgiving is stressful and Valentine's Day is fraught. The 4th of July and Groundhog's Day, however, are reasons to celebrate.

Today's events did raise one question: if you know you are plunging into the thick of a huge crowd--say, for example, the masses watching fireworks by the river--why would you bring your GIGANTIC dog?

This Too Shall Pass

If I lived in a basement apartment, it would be less hot. If I lived in a basement apartment, I'd have few windows and no light. Two ineffective fans per single room later, I'd be willing to live in a cave.

Gilded Lilies

On the subway yesterday, it hit me: I am beginning to resent middle-aged women. I know this is the height of misogyny. [The sense of disgust of older women is so deeply entrenched in Hollywood that even when the role is specifically for an older woman, no one wants to see an actual older woman on screen, writes Hadley Freeman in The Guardian.]. Still, I can't help it.

In my defense, my feelings don't extend to all ladies of a certain age: it's a special breed of women I keep encountering who are unwilling to cede their now-faded youth to the young. They are the Gertrude-aged actresses auditioning for Juliet. They are the aggressive shoppers fighting high school girls for ironically acid-washed jeans at Top Shop.

Despite it being an almost-constant hindrance, my youth is allegedly one of the few things I have going for me. Can't they let me have even that?

He Does WHAT and Lives WHERE?

Everyone knows there are two topics of conversation at parties in New York: Where do you live and what do you do? I didn't realize, though, that there are apparently also only two topics of conversation between friends: Where other people live and what other people do.

The Sidewalks of New York

The weather is [mostly] warm; the sky is [often] sunny. This can only mean one thing: the street canvassers have come out of hiding. They are everywhere, and they are coming for you. I will cross the street. I will talk on my phone. Once I was walking through Union Square sobbing. But there is no obstacle too large for the canvasser. They will find you, they will block your path, they will follow you down the street. I have never been physically attacked, though I feel it coming.

And the thing is, I have canvassed. I, of all people, should have sympathy for my fellow soldiers doomed to a life of liberal causes. I should have sympathy, but I don't. My bleeding heart has turned to ice. Common manners no longer apply. It is a matter of survival--one must escape or risk the consequences.

I <3 My Cat

Lesson from house-sitting: if you live in a studio apartment and you have two cats, the cats never. go. away. Ever. You have one room. They have one room. Unfortunately, it is the same room. Goodbye privacy, goodbye productivity, hello Fancy Feast.

Crash

Sometimes when I am walking in midtown, I find myself an obstacle in someone else's trajectory: unless one of us steps aside, we will crash. When I first moved here, I was always the one to move. Then I got angry. Why do I have to be the one to move. I began to mow past people in my path. Sometimes they moved. Mostly, I bumped into them. What, you expect me to move? I always move. You should move!

Then I realized everybody else probably thinks the same thing.