emlocke

Category: Whining

  • Every winter I have to remind my parents that the heaters in my room don’t work

    I dreamed the other night that I wrote an entry about all the things I wear to stay warm through the long, cold nights in my house.  It was like a recipe for A Warm, Happy Emily.  It went a little something like this:

    Materials

    1. Spandex fitness top.  A seamless style without metal strap adjusters preferred (those teeny tiny things conduct a mean cold pinch!)
    2. Long-sleeved silk thermal top with four-year-old hot chocolate dribble stain down the front.  Thumb-holes allow a bonus inch-and-a-half of wrist coverage.
    3. Raspberry purple raglan-sleeved wool sweater.
    4. Dark gray cotton/Lycra blend leggings.  (May have been black leggings in a former life).
    5. Sweatpants.
    6. One pair of wool socks, extra itchy.

    Instructions

    To achieve a warm, happy Emily, layer her in the above articles and tuck her in to bed beneath one sheet; one cotton blanket; one wooly blanket (affectionately known as “The Sully Blanket” for its resemblence to the poncho that Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman‘s Sully donned on several occasions during Season One); and one down-filled comforter.  Tuck edges in under her like a burrito.

    Sleep eight to nine hours without disturbance.

    Upon waking, wrap in down vest.  Remove itchy socks and replace them with down bootie slippers.  Serve hot coffee with skim milk and three Splenda.

  • My mood has been a little too, “Yeah, so?” and not so, “Yeah!”

    Oh em gee.  Remember when I used to do this every day?  I don’t.  I can’t imagine how that ever could have been possible.  Did I have a lot going on?  If so, how did I find the time to write about it?  Was life too dull to occupy much of my time?  If that’s the case, what did I have to write about in all that spare time in which I had to write about it?

    It’s not that life has been particularly exciting or particularly dull, of late.  It’s just, I kind of feel like I do and think the same things every day.

    I loathe getting up in the morning.  I put on make-up on my way to work.  I want an iPhone.  I tell myself I don’t need an iPhone.  Consider getting a manicure or splurging on Blue Agava & Cacao from Jo Malone.  I do neither.  Write one of the e-mails I’ve been meaning to write.

    I try to think of a nutritious food for which I have an appetite.  I prepare or buy and eat that food and feel unsatisfied.  Open another box of chocolate graham crackers.  I go for a walk.  Jog half of the way home just because I get bored.

    Look at the calendar to see when the next Brooklyn Museum Free Saturday Night or 10%-off GapCard Purchases Tuesday or new episode of The Office or Law and Order: SVU will be.  Decide whether to wear my hair straight or curly the next day.  Make a mental note to charge my iPod/cell phone/camera battery.

    I’m used to taking a lot of pleasure from little things, like a special purchase, a special meal, a tough workout.  I looked forward to those things, got as much of a thrill from those things as I did from, I don’t know, Lilith Fair or getting my drivers’ license or quitting my first job to start my second (the first three things, in the last decade, that come to mind when I think about “excitement.”)

    God, I was so excited when I got my driver’s lisence!  But I already blogged about that.  So, I’m gonna need a new idea.

    This is what’s been playing in the background of the monotony this week:
    But, Honestly by Foo Fighters (still)
    Let it Rock by Kevin Rudolf feat. Lil’ Wayne
    Cruise Control by Mariah Carey
    Death Will Never Conquer by Coldplay
    Follow You, Follow Me by Phil Collins and Gensis (don’t ask, I have no idea)

  • “Most things look better when you put them in a circle”

    I’m testing the theory put forth by Banksy in this trite and yet oft referenced drawing.

    Well, I guess it couldn’t look any worse.

  • It’s a sinking feeling, pulls me through the seat of chairs

    Wednesday afternoon. Gmail.

    Subject: pizza

    Me to Jonathan: Tell me not to go eat the pizza in the kitchenette.
    Jonathan to Me: DON’T GO!
    Me to Jonathan: But I want it. And nobody’s watching.
    Jonathan to Me: BUT I’M WATCHING.
    Me to Jonathan: Okay. FINE. I’m going home. I had a bad day.
    Jonathan to Me: I did too. Let’s pout!

    Thank you, Jon.

    “Sometimes you need someone to tell you that it’s okay . . . that you messed up—even if you’ve done it before . . . someone to shake you out of your weariness.”—on Snow Day

    Thank you, too, Lisa Loeb.

  • txt the address i’ll cu l8r

    I am a reticent text messager. I don’t like awaiting a response without knowing that the recipient has seen the message or even has their cell turned on. I almost never get a meaningful answer to texted questions. What am I to do but follow up with another message: “Did you get my text?” I wind up calling anyway.

    Making plans with text messages is the worst. It’s like playing a game when no one knows whose turn it is; a cross between ping pong and 20 Questions. Want to hang out? Yeah, okay. What do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do? I don’t care. Where are you now? If it’s such a challenge to coordinate a social life, and I know that it is, why add this obstacle?

    I’d rather get together just to do the apathetic thing. Let’s keep each other company while we writhe with ambivalence, wrestle pent up energy and fend off fatigue. What do you feel like doing? I don’t care; what do you feel like doing? I don’t know; ask me again in ten minutes.

    In New Zealand, the hot cellular promotion was free text messaging on weekends. From Friday evening to Monday morning, pre-paying wireless customers (the vast, vast majority) could send as many pub addresses, estimated times of arrival, pick-up lines and where r u‘s as they could type. Which was a lot. The weekend timing was perfect. I just keep hoping that U.S. wireless companies will give in and give up a similar deal.

    And until they do, I’m going to hold out. I save texting for especially opportune situations. Because I know as soon as I really get into it, I’ll be a goner; I won’t be able to stop. I’ll communicate only in 160-character phrases and expect every word processor to guess the word I’m typing and fill in the end of it for me.

    I will enthuse that text messages are a fantastic medium for one-liners. If I were willing to pay for an unlimited texting plan (which I’m not, and that’s why relentless text messages irritate me so—twenty cents to send or receive!), I would use it to shoot quick messages to friends, just to say hi (plus a little).

    These are messages I would have sent today if I could have sent them for free:

    To: Caitlin
    Do we need 1,000 drinking straws? Four colors only $4.99!

    To: Jonathan
    Coming to see your new place. I don’t have a housewarming gift but do you need any drinking straws?

    To: Amy
    I know I said I didn’t like Leona Lewis but now I keep listening keep keep listening to this song

    To: Jimmy
    My parents are sending my car to DC with my little brother. He better not take the Mount Holyoke sticker off the back window.

    To: Will
    You better not take that Mount Holyoke sticker off my car!

    To: Rachel
    Just passed that Thai place with the purple logo and the weird bathroom sink. Take-out or gym? Take-out or gym?

    To: Chelsea
    Remember when we used to ‘smoke’ invisible cigarettes to ‘calm’ our ‘nerves’? Have fun tonight!

    To: Doug
    So, you never told me your marathon time

    To: Bridget (except Bridget doesn’t text at all ever)
    Did you know that the Harry Potter Lexicon guy is “vilified” and cast out from the HP society??

    And now, I think I have some phone calls to make.

    Further reading:

    Other New Yorkers gripe about Evites and texts in “Blame the Messager,” Alexandra Jacobs’ etiquette column in the May 4th issue of TMagazine. She quotes another Emily White (no relation).

    Anand Giridharadasa looks at textiquette and social evolution in Mumbai: Flirting by Text Message, Indians Test Social Limits

  • No more Miss Nice EmLocke. (If that’s okay with you.)

    This morning on my way to work, I taped a letter to my super’s door. I couldn’t stop thinking about it on the train, in line at Dunkin’ Donuts, or in the elevator.

    I emailed my roommate as soon as I got to my office: I’m assuming you saw my envelope taped to Mo’s door when you left this morning. Or had she already taken it down and read it and she was standing outside her door with her foot stuck out to trip you? Sorry that you have to be associated with a curmudgeon like me.

    Caitlin and I live right above our super—I’m calling her Mo. She came up to the apartment late last Sunday morning, a few hours after I had heard music pounding up through her ceiling and rattling my floor. The music has become a contention between us in the last four or five months, but I absolutely dread confronting her about it. The thumping always stops when I go downstairs and ask her to turn it down, but I never feel better.

    It’s not like it’s so loud that I can hear the melody or the lyrics from my apartment, but that almost makes it worse. The disembodied, incessantly rhythmless bass beat sounds ominous, sometimes like rumbling explosives.

    When she knocked on my door that morning, I hadn’t been out of the apartment but I was definitely out of bed. And yet, I pulled this ‘sleepy’ act. I had my knuckles in one eye before I reached for the door knob with the other hand. I stood there rubbing at imaginary sleep sand and sort of squinting. My end of our conversation consisted of mewls and mumbles and I thought “what am I doing? This isn’t even an accurate portrayal of me when I’ve just woken up.”

    Me when I’ve just woken up looks a lot like me still asleep, except scowling. The words, if there are any, are loud and have been known to hurt feelings.

    But the super came up and I transformed into a darling kitten. I couldn’t even look Mo straight in the eye as she said, “I was just coming up to ask: when you stomp, does that mean ‘too loud’?”

    Oh, so I guess she did hear me stomping those couple of times when I’d had it up to here and intentionally tramped down the hall or danced an aggressive running man, just to expel my own frustration. But when someone basically asks you, “are you so passive aggressive that you’ve resorted to throwing teensy fits?” can you really look them in the eye if the answer is “pretty much”?

    Mo went into my room to listen and neither of us heard anything at that moment, so she said she wouldn’t turn the volume up past that setting. We must have listened during a track change or something because the test failed. All week I heard the thumping. I couldn’t read or watch TV or brush my teeth without listening to it, eventually listening for it.

    Mo actually suggested that I continue stomping on the floor whenever the sound bothered me, but I felt like that could turn really quickly into me becoming a cat person who shuffles around in a polyester housecoat and carries a broom at all times. Enough!

    Finally, I put my plea in writing. I composed the letter. Cited a timetable. Delivered it. I put my foot down. And right now I would give anything to become a kitten and curl up in a basket so I don’t ever have to confront this issue again.

    P.S. The January 11th episode of This American Life is called The Super.  The free download has expired but it’s so worth streaming it for free.  Act I is particularly fun to listen to and has a stunning revelation at the conclusion.  Act II is a real story’s story.  It starts around twenty-seven minutes in. 

  • Haunted by the silent ‘h’

    Every time you turn the TV on in a hotel room, the channel resets to the hotel’s internal ad station. That drives me nutty.

  • I guess fleeing the country probably isn’t the answer

    My brother Will recently introduced me to LifeHacker.com. Click on that link at your own risk, as you will not just be embarking into a new browser window. LifeHacker.com is a way of life disguised beneath a URL and a slogan about how technology complicates our lives. Sifting through today’s morsel-sized posts, all delectable for their brevity alone, I discovered that it is possible to steer Google search results away from past internet indiscretions (incriminating photos, decade-old posts to Titanic message boards, etc.) I learned how to disable the startup sound on my MacBook (I don’t need to hear the electronic auditory equivalent of the rising sun dawning on a new day every time I boot up–especially at 3AM when I turn on my computer to watch puppy videos on YouTube because it helps me fall asleep.)

    I even watched a video demonstration about retrieving a cork that has fallen into a bottle of wine, even though that particular hardship has never befallen me. But I’m going to store that little life-byte away for future reference. That is, if I can find a place to put it; I’ve collected so many notes and nodes in the month that I’ve been visiting the ever-updated blog that I’m probably going to need a bigger brain. Therein lies the hidden meaning of the term LifeHacker. Am I taking control and streamlining my life by hacking into it? Or is the philosophy hacking into my life?

    Is there a hack to curb emotional and mental dependence on LifeHacker.com? Would somebody round up a blurb’s worth of info about active logic and independent problem solving? Is there a downloadable, or better yet, a browser-based web gadget that will compare a current problem with the existing contents of my brain and tell me when I need to refer to the LifeHacker.com archives because a solution hasn’t already been processed by my hippocampus?

    I had break a similar dependency on Google when I lived in a flat in New Zealand without internet access or a functional computer. Circumstances forced me to brush up on life skills that the glow of my laptop screen at home had brainwashed out of my mind: reading paper maps without zoom buttons; scanning books and articles without the ‘find’ function; looking up movie listings in the newspaper. Oh, I also taught myself to keep a running list of things to Google the next time I did have access to the internet.

    LifeHacker is a dynamic resource full of solutions for technological problems, productivity issues, and even more personal hang-ups that you may or may not know you had. But browser beware, because the chances that you’ll find a fix for a persistent and pre-existing problem often seem slim. I couldn’t find any information about an Auto-Complete command for one particularly tedious aspect of my job. There didn’t seem to be a new-fangled solution to my exploding closet dilemma. My searches for “bikini” and “flee the country” both returned zero results. I’m going to stick with casual browsing of the blog once or twice a week for now, but refrain from fully adopting the LifeHacker LifeStyle.

    The moment they launch a category called “How To Be Emily,” though? I will hack out a way to tattoo that RSS-feed on my hippocampus.

  • Between the Eyes

    One of my greatest New York pleasures is window shopping after happy hour. The heady combination of a few cheap cocktails cruising with my hemoglobin and the natural high that comes with aspirational browsing the twinkly-lit store displays is delicious. My toes feel so good, it’s as if they are imagining what it would be like to settle down in those emerald velvet ballet flats. And while the alcohol inhibits income bemoaning, the plate glass inhibits my hand-to-wallet coordination. It’s pure delight. It’s all fun and games.

    Until someone gets hurt.

    More specifically, me.

    I leaned in a little too close to peer at a very ornate bath caddy –one of those baskets that extends across the tub to hold the razors and scented scrubs and TV dinners of people with bathtubs big enough to accommodate a whole person. I was looking because I’ve always thought those things were silly. I ended up looking pretty silly myself, all watery and a little purple between the eyes after the bridge of my nose – the crooked bump that I hate – made direct and aggressive contact with the very plate glass meant to protect me from the merchandise.

    For the record, tearing up after a nose injury doesn’t count as crying. It’s an innate physiological reflex response to pain in the nose, which is served by the same cranial nerve as the eyes. I’m not purple anymore, just a little tender, so I don’t think my nose is broken. I guess I can’t use my window shopping accident as an excuse for re-constructive surgery.

  • Spring can’t come soon enough. Or can it…

    Doctor Dictionary’s Word of the Day:

    verdant \VUR-dnt\, adjective:
    1. Covered with growing plants or grass; green with
    vegetation.
    2. Green.
    3. Unripe in knowledge, judgment, or experience;
    unsophisticated; green.

    I was verdant enough to think her Agrippine very fine.
    — Henry James, “The Théâtre Français”

    Well, Mr. James, I was verdant enough to think that spring’s arrival would be a welcome respite from winter’s clinging bitterness. But it has not escaped me that all the growing plants and grass will release their fresh pollen, a biological sign of blossoming growth, and a potent threat to my respiratory system.