Holidays Schmolidays

Ah, holiday season in the office. Every afternoon the mail guy makes his round and delivers a bevy of DHL and FedEx packages for the Easys. On Friday it was a set of ugly pens that weigh approximately ten pounds each and a food basket. Today, Easy received an iPod shuffle (I totally considered pocketing that sucker), a Zagat’s guide, a book about Spanish wines that he’ll never read, and one very peculiar packet accompanied by a note:

Dear [Easy],

Enclosed please find our holiday gift: a mesh bag.

WARNING: DO NOT USE WITH LIQUIDS.

Pencils are fine, however.

All the best,

[Redacted]

Um, wtf? We’re not talking just any mesh bag. It was a mesh bag with a smaller mesh bag inside it, with an even smaller mesh bag inside of that. Three mesh bags! And good thing that warning was there, because for a second I considered pouring my Perrier into it and saving it for later! Let’s re-imagine this letter:

Dear [Moron Clients],

Enclosed please find our thoughtless/lame holiday gift: a mesh bag. Yes, I’ve already fired the idiot who thought this was a good idea. Did you get an iPod too? That would have been a better idea.

WARNING: DO NOT USE WITH LIQUIDS. THEY’RE MESH, NOT ZIPLOCK, DUMBASS.

Pencils are fine, however. And mascara, a little rouge, and some powder for your nose, you saucy minx. We know what you do on weekends.

All the worst,

[Redacted]

Only 7 shopping days left until Christmas!

I Don't Want A Lot For Christmas

What…what is this feeling? Where is the hangover, the nausea, the thick lump of regret in my throat? Last night was Nice Hedge Fund’s holiday party, so one might easily assume that I’d be a greasy food-craving mess today, but I’m not! I’m alert! I’m happy! I had a great time at the party without falling down or deeply embarrassing myself in front of my coworkers!

Weird.

Seriously, the holiday party was so much fun. Delicious food, a cool downtown hotel venue, and plenty of sweet, glorious champagne to go around. I was pretty nervous when we first arrived, but I warmed up once we found C and D and I had a drink in my hand. C and I dominated the pool table, kicking our boyfriends’ asses and proving once and for all that we are the greatest duo in the history of cubicle assignments. But the real entertainment of the night was a flipbook station set up next to the dance floor. Couples or groups of people took turns dancing/generally making fools of themselves in front of digital video camera, and then each frame was printed out and stapled together into a little flipbook the size of business cards, old school movie style. My favorites are the one of R and me dancing together (he dances!) and with C and some other girls doing a conga line. So fun.

I realize that companies have their holiday party mid-week to discourage extremely bad behavior, but really, today was such a wash. Even those of us who weren’t hurting this morning spent the day looking at pictures instead of working. Easy strolled in wearing jeans, loafers and cufflinks, prompting Easier to give him hell (“They let you out of the Upper East Side dressed like that?”) while C’s boss greeted her with a “Morning, hustler,” when he arrived. I took advantage of the no-work attitude and went out after lunch to do some Christmas shopping in Columbus Circle. The only people left on my gift list are DadOh (always impossible) and SisterOh (I’ve got some ideas). Ten days until Christmas!

When I got home tonight, Roommate M was completely moved out, her keys on the kitchen table. Alone, again. My apartment needs a serious cleaning, but I couldn’t really face it tonight – the emptiness was palpable, creepy even. I usually like living alone, especially here in my small place, but between the gray winter chill that has seeped into me from outside and the general uncertainty of my current life plan, it’s a less-than-ideal situation. Craigslist, here I come.

I’m responding to the solitude by blasting Mariah Carey’s Christmas album. All I want for Christmas is you, okay?

Bikram Yoga is Hell on Earth in Midtown

Happy Hump Day! You know what I could really go for right now? A sexy massage. I’m going to have to start paying R for them at the rate I’m begging. Next week I have to face another Great Midtown Roommate Hunt and I may have to revisit my original roommate criteria. Anyway.

So on Monday I tried Bikram yoga with my friend DC, hence the sore lower back. She’s been doing it for like, six years or so, but it was my first yoga experience. Ever. And while I put a lot of faith in astrology (THE STARS KNOW THINGS!), I’m really not into the whole New Age-y, “this pose will cleanse your soul” baloney. I don’t even know what “namaste” means. (Okay, Wikipedia tells me it’s an Indian greeting and parting phrase that means literally, “I bow to you.”) DC has been inviting me to join her for a class for about two months now, and I kept finding excuses until now.

I hated it. Bikram is about as close to hell as I imagine it: they crank the heat up to about 105, you’re surrounded by ugly, mostly-naked people, and a wiry gray-haired lady who looks better suited for an artist colony in New Mexico than a studio in Midtown Manhattan forces your body into unnatural poses. Also, yoga makes me fart a lot, apparently, but the room smelled like sweat and ass so badly already that my contributions didn’t make a significant impact. Occasionally the instructor would totally call me out for not having my legs spread far enough apart (heh) or tell me to not look so sad/worried/about to fall over. Then I’d get all red and even HOTTER than I was before. Sweet. I mean, I tried hard to do everything right and get into it and make funny noises when I breathed, but really I just felt foolish and even more ungraceful than usual, if you can imagine. I’ll stick to running and cycling and being entirely unstretchy, thanks.

I’ll probably go back.

Here at Nice Hedge Fund, we have these nifty little portable phones that interact with our regular phones so you can walk around the building and not miss phone calls. It’s pretty useful, and I definitely wish I had one when I worked for ARM and felt chained to the desk. However. Invariably, the portable phone rings the second you plunk your butt down in the bathroom. I mean, every freaking time. My guys generally answer their phones themselves, but I cover when they step away from their desks, which they seem to do whenever I need the restroom. So there you are, sitting on the toilet with a ringing telephone and a great debate. Answer it? Ignore it? Take down a name and number on a piece of toilet paper?

Speaking of ARM, the Queen of Darkness emailed me this week. She was looking for last year’s list of how much money ARM gave each doorman as a holiday gift. I haven’t worked there for SEVEN MONTHS but do I know where a single piece of paper is? The assistant before me attempted sabotage by stealing documents, but I didn’t even have to make that much effort. That’s quite an operation they’ve got going over there.

Stay tuned, lovers! Tomorrow is the Nice Hedge Fund holiday party!

Ballerina vs. Nurse vs. Lawyer vs. Control Freak

I’ve been trying to write my Personal Statement for graduate school applications, but let’s just say it’s going slowly. I’m easily distracted by such paramount tasks as eating cookies, watching football, and removing the red eye in all of my digital photographs.

Okay, I suck.

During one of my moments of distraction I turned to MomOh for some inspiration via gchat. “You’ve always been a writer,” she said. “It’s kind of like breathing.” Yes. But how do I convey that to the admissions board in 500 words or less without sounding like a self-absorbed ass? MomOh pulled out the folder in which she keeps school projects and other mementos of my precocious childhood and dictated to me some of my earliest “invented spelling” works. This poem, written by Kindergarten JackieOh, was accompanied by a goldfish wearing a bikini top:

Did you ever see
A fish Whairing
A beckene

It even rhymes! Where is that talent now?!

The real gem of the collection was a life timeline that I made in first or second grade. I was going to have my first boyfriend at 14, be in the Olympics 19, and attend law school at 20. I had lofty goals! Alas. But it gets better: At age 30 I’m going to move to Washington, DC, then get busy because at 32 I’m having a baby girl named Nicole. Baby Eric will come along at 35, followed by Katie at age 38. Apparently I’ve been a life-planning control freak my entire life. I also named my grandchildren (Nicole will have a son named Matt and a daughter named Diana) and plan to die at the ripe old age of 98. ("Who plans her death on a timeline?" wondered SisterOh.) It's not a bad life, really, but it didn’t help me write this personal essay of why I want to go to grad school for writing. Now, if I were still on the law school track (and in DadOh’s good graces!) I could use this timeline as evidence that even from a young age I have always wanted to be a lawyer.

I’d just choose not to mention one of the other drawings that MomOh uncovered that read: When I get biger I whant to be a balarena. When I gro up I whant to be a Nars.

I Maybe Also Puked in a Kitty Litter Box

I’m sure you are all just DYING to know how my high school reunion went. “Strange” and “awkward” are two words that leap to mind. It was like being in the cafeteria (“The West Commons” for those in the know) only the lights were dimmer, everyone was a little older, I had a glass of wine in my hand, and the food was worse. For $40 I expected a little more excitement than domestic beers, mozzarella sticks and boring conversations with people I didn’t care about five years ago and care about even less now. Where were the scandalous hook-ups, the outrageous transformations, the alcohol-fueled confrontations? Yeah, the reunion was lame so I got drunk and then everything was a lot funnier. Like when I fell over while getting carded at the next bar we went to and then the bouncer wouldn’t let me in because, well, I was fall-down drunk – uproarious!

If I had my wits about me I might have argued with the bouncer that really, I fall down sober all the time. Mere hours earlier SisterOh and I went for a run on a nearby nature trail and it got very dark very quickly which made avoiding tree roots nearly impossible. I tripped and hit the ground hard with my right shoulder and hip. The fall on the track still takes the cake, but I had the wind knocked out of me and needed to walk for a minute to catch my breath. So you see, Mr. Bouncer dude, you may have been right and I may have had about three too many glasses of wine, but falling down will never be a good indicator of my sobriety.

This inability to hold my liquor is a very disturbing development. Am I…getting old? Saturday night was really the only drinking I did all holiday weekend. Screw that, I just need to build my tolerance back up and maybe I can get back to drinking shape by New Years. Older, more responsible Jackie isn’t scheduled to show up until at least 2012.

GAH I am the sorriest excuse for a female! Here I am, trying to be all cute and wintery and office appropriate by wearing pantyhose, and I can’t even make it to noon before getting a run in them. I need to find a job where I can wear gym shorts and sneakers to the office - I suck at this heels-and-skirt thing.

So JDate is having some big meeting this week, and invitees are calling to RSVP. One lady just called from a company called Jewcy. She spelled it for me, or else I would have assumed it was Juicy, famed overpriced velour sweatsuit peddler and not some terrible pun on religion. Still, nothing compares to He’Brew, the Chosen Beer. Anyway, I emailed him the names with the subject line: Jewcy (really?), and he responded with: Hilarious. Can you tell he’s totally my favorite?

You Know, I'd be More Thankful If You Refilled My Glass

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are enjoying the year’s best holiday (an entire day devoted to EATING DELICIOUS FOOD!) with your friends and loved ones. Almost. I actually wish you were here with me, witnessing the circus tent that MomOh’s family calls a holiday gathering. Everyone is on their best behavior because DadOh’s parents are here, but there is plenty of room for under-table-shin-kicking. At this very moment, Aunt F is pissed off at Uncle J because he made an insinuating comment about her movie tastes, Aunt C and MomOh are discussing my relationship with R without realizing I’m within earshot, and Uncle D and Uncle J are planning to deep-fry the turkey next year. In classic JackieOh form, I filled my plate with stuffing and cranberry sauce and broccoli rice casserole, inhaled, and escaped to the guest bedroom upstairs where the quiet is only occasionally punctuated by laughter traveling up through the heating vent.

It would be easy to overlook the true meaning of Thanksgiving when it is overshadowed by MomOh’s outstanding cooking and football and Turkey Trot 5K races, but I think I’ve had enough wine at this point to start dishing out the weepy I’m Thankful For’s. I’d advise you refill your own glasses and brace yourselves.

I’m thankful for the wonderful FamilyOh: for MomOh who always knows what I’m thinking and DadOh who supports me in everything I do, for BrotherOh who cracks me up when we’re driving around and SisterOh who reminds me of myself so much it hurts sometimes. I’m thankful for my beautiful friends: for E in Philly and L in Texas and M in Nashville and J in New York, for my running loves and my cycling loves, for the friends who knew me before I moved to New York and became well-adjusted, for the friends who made New York a home, and for the friends I will always go home to.

I’m thankful for C and D and the Easies+JDate for making my nine-to-five something to enjoy instead of something to dread, and I’m vaguely thankful for ARM for reinforcing the notion that I can do anything I attempt. I’m thankful for my lovely little apartment, mice and all, and for my even lovelier little commute to the office. I’m thankful for early mornings in Central Park and late nights on the Upper West Side and shared pints of coffee-brownie ice cream and warm arms that wrap around me until I fall asleep.

And I am thankful for you, dear readers, who make this silly little blog worthwhile.

Well look at that, I’m out of wine.

Love,
JackieOh

And Now, Here's C with a Public Service Announcement

It’s Goofball Friday over here at Nice Hedge Fund, and we’ve got a serious case of the giggles. We ordered burgers and onion rings for lunch, and there is quite a bit of internet hot dude ogling and Loud Guy trashing going on. C came in this morning hungover and, well, kind of orange. Note to self: Spray tanning in November is a bad idea. It seems her definition of “light, natural color” didn’t quite match that of the sprayer and she’s growing more orange as the day wears on. By lunchtime she looked like my cousin who as a baby ate only carrots and sweet potatoes. At this rate she’ll be a full-on Oompa Loompa by mid-afternoon – good thing the girl loves midgets!

When C mentioned she was spray tanning last night, I thought, “Hey, maybe I should try that so I don’t look so pale at the reunion next week!” Phew, dodged that bullet. Now I can focus all of my outward reunion panic on what I’m going to wear! I’m thinking this calls for something tight, short and low-cut.

While Middle School Jackie was awkward with regrettable hair/braces/fashion choices, High School Jackie was only marginally less awkward with regrettable hair/fashion/extracurricular activity choices. This is certainly not to say that I’m cured of my adolescent awkwardness as Post-College Jackie. I trip far too frequently, repeatedly lock myself out of my apartment, and I really should have worn a thong with these pants today. But I’ve got my hair under control, I no longer shop exclusively at Express, and maybe no one will remember that I was one of the founding members of the Robotics Team and voted “Most Likely to Injure Herself or Others” in the marching band. Oh yeah, I’m saying my prayers to the Goddesses of Distraction by Inappropriate Clothing . Tight, short and low-cut may be my only hope. That, and lots of booze.

I’m nervous about this weekend. Tomorrow I’m having lunch with R, his mom and aunt. Then in the evening we’re going to his cousin’s surprise party with his brother and sister and their significant others. See, the last time I spent time with his family we played a fun little game called What Else Hasn’t R Told Me About Himself? and I’m not sure I’m ready for a rematch.

And of course, there is always the burning issue: What am I going to wear?

Eyeballs, Boogies, and Religious Catchalls

I had to get my eyes checked yesterday. Note to self: Take a half-day for next year’s eye exam.

Normally I like scheduling doctor appointments during office hours. You get to leave for a little while, no one is particularly jealous or resentful because you aren’t going anywhere fun, and it breaks up the monotony of the day a little bit. Lord knows I need that. Well, yesterday I learned that computer screens and Nice Hedge Fund’s fluorescent lighting scheme are the arch nemesis of dilated pupils.

The examination itself is a kind of low-level torture. They sit you in a dark corner and make you look through microscopes and say what you see! There I was, sweating though the whole thing, nervous about giving a wrong answer – I couldn’t make out a number in that last circle, oh no I’m going color-blind! I can’t find the white dot in my periphery, can they tell if I fake it? It’s too much pressure to handle before lunch! Then, as if that isn’t enough agony, they make you stare at a green light and then shoot a puff of air into your eyeballs. Test for glaucoma my ass, that scared the shit out of me and once I knew how much it sucked I was understandably reluctant to let the girl test my other eye. The one and only highlight of the pre-dilation tests was the eye patch I got to sport.

(Girl: You can just hold it over your eye.
Me [ignoring her, putting on eye patch]: Argggh!)

But the worst of it all occurs after the exam, when your pupils are unnaturally widened to the max and you have to blindly navigate the streets of Manhattan wearing non-prescription sunglasses and wincing at the sunlight like a misdirected mole person. Then, once you make it safely back to your office by following pedestrian traffic, you get to look like a mid-afternoon lush wearing sunglasses indoors and vaguely stumbling around. Ah, if only.

Could someone do me a solid and tell me where autumn went? Or, specifically, September and October? Because I sort of blinked and it’s already a full week into November. Holy cow. The Time and Temperature Tower outside my window (such a nifty feature of my Midtown Manhattan view) said 35 degrees at 5am this morning when I was piling on layer after layer of spandex to go meet the girls for a bike ride, and I am just NOT READY for this kind of weather. My under-nose area is already chapped from wiping my boogies on my bike gloves, but I’m still shamefully lousy at snot-rockets. An unfortunate percentage of my attempts land on my shoulder, or helmet strap, or face, or innocent passersby. Just a friendly little PSA reminding my readers of what a classy broad I am!

Also, it's dark when I'm leaving the office, and it's not like I'm ever here past 5pm! I'm about to get on board with Midwesterners and declare my hatred and possible boycott of Daylight Savings Time. Can it be like a religious thing, as in, "Oh, I'm not an hour late, I just don't believe in Daylight Savings Time"? That's the direction I'm heading.

Like I Really Need A Reason Anymore

My major accomplishment of the day was making mailing labels for my graduate school applications. Yes, anything to avoid working on my actual application and writing sample. I’ve been considering alternative formats for some of the supplementary materials I need to send: the Why You Should Admit Me Haiku, or perhaps, a Personal Statement Sestina? Really, asking writers to write about why they want to be writers (in 500 words or less) seems, oh I don’t know, defeatist.

I’m desperately avoiding the “I write to discovery the poetry of my soul” bullshit. Heck, I write because I have a memory that is less like a steel trap and more like a copper sieve and I want to hold grudges. I want to stay pissed off at the people who hurt me, I want to remember exactly what so-and-so said to make me lose my temper. Sure, I want to remember the good stuff too, the compliments and the pet names and the sweet nothings, but those nuggets of happiness are denser, stronger, and they don’t slip as easily away through the slots of the sieve. It’s the anger that I lose so quickly, that hot-headedness that boils and dissipates in a matter of seconds.

(Side note: Loud Guy is on the phone lauding Al Gore to one of his Dude Bros. He just said, “Hey, he invented The Internet and he’s going to save the environment” AND I DON’T THINK HE’S BEING SARCASTIC. Removing shoe...)

You know what Fridays at the office need? 3PM Cocktail hour. One of the other assistants just came over to my cubicle and said, “Come have some wine with us!” Gee, ask me twice! Her boss, the chairman of Nice Hedge Fund (and eldest son of Mr. Nice Hedge Fund) was choosing wines for the upcoming Holiday Party and she was instructed to share the leftovers. A glass of pinot and a glass of champagne later, I’m pretty ready for the weekend. I would gladly allocate my fifteen dollars of lunch money toward the greater good of getting drunk every Friday.

But if that won’t fly with HR, at least I can say my TGIF’s that my bosses clear out by 4PM for the weekend, and I can follow suit. I’ve got a whole weekend of Marathon fun ahead of me (watching, not running) and that, my friends, is something to drink to.

Deal...or No Deal?

Hello there, lovers, what did you dress up as for Halloween?

A few weeks ago, R and I planned on dressing up like Howie Mandel and one of the briefcase-holding models from the TV show Deal or No Deal (respectively), but then we kind of dropped the ball and didn’t do anything about creating our costumes.

Well.

He came over around 6:15 last night carrying his usual backpack but also a black suit. In my infinite gullibility I believed his “I have a job interview tomorrow” explanation, and I didn’t even notice that he’d trimmed his goatee down to a soul patch. And that he was wearing a hat. I know, I’m terribly self-absorbed sometimes. Surprise! He had gone out and bought all of the supplies I needed to make a cardboard silver briefcase, and even shaved his head! I put on a pretty dress and used mascara to darken his soul patch to look more like Howie’s and we were the perfect Deal or No Deal duo. All we were missing was the manic contestant trying to do math – my briefcase even opened up and we used Velcro to switch up the dollar amount it contained. Sure, I still have silver spray paint on my trigger finger, but it was a terrific surprise for someone like me who, as a rule, hates surprises. I even like the shaved head…

We took the subway down to the Village and watched the insanity that New York City calls a Halloween Parade. No matter how many times I see it, I seem to forget in the ensuing 364 days just how crowded and crazy and naked it all is. I grew up thinking that Halloween was a night for clever, creative costumes; walking around Westgate Hills collecting candy in a pillow case; and watching The Blair Witch Project in basements with my cross country teammates. Not so in New York. Here, Halloween is the night where the notion of public decency is utterly trampled by the two million people crowded along Sixth Avenue, where the sale of fishnet thigh-highs reaches its annual peak, where trick-or-treating involves riding the elevator around one’s luxury high rise building or going door-to-door at the bodegas and Chinese laundries. Halloween is the chance to play out fantasies because it doesn’t really count: girls dress as slutty cops/childhood icons/superheros/angels/devils/felines and guys dress as girls dressed as slutty cops/childhood icons/superheros/angels/devisl/felines. The next morning you’ll wash the glitter out of your hair, trade your platform hooker heels for more conservative footwear and maybe put a shirt on over that sequined bra, but for this one night your indiscretion is beyond reproach. With R in his suit and me in a dress that wasn’t nearly short enough, we looked like a pair of Republicans out for nice dinner who found ourselves instead at a seedy burlesque show.

Then again, on our walk to the bar where we were meeting friends we took a detour and stopped in an ice cream parlor for a root beer float and an orange creamsicle cone. Really, I far preferred sitting there in the window enjoying my dessert to getting my ass grabbed by a gigantic dude in a frighteningly uncanny Dee Snyder costume at the crowded bar. Ah, if only I had dressed like a slutty cop, then I could have hit him with my nightstick.

There’s always next Halloween.

Going Postal, Talking Before Thinking, and Getting Hit on by the Terminator

About once a week I get a phone call from someone trying to reach the post office. Typically they blow past my “Nice Hedge Fund, Jackie speaking” greeting, none of which sounds like “post office” really, and launch into their sob story about how they filed for address forwarding but it’s been weeks and they still haven’t received their mail and what am I going to do about it? If I can get a word in edgewise I try to explain that, no, this is a private office and not the post office, but sometimes callers rant for twenty seconds before I can tell them they have the wrong number. Really, it’s like I’m doing everyone a favor: the caller gets to bitch about the unreliability of the postal service to someone who isn’t going to take personal offence to their slander, and then when they finally reach the person who can help them they’ve calmed down a bit. And also, the calls tend to be the most entertaining I get all week.

R and I celebrated his birthday yesterday with a nice sushi dinner uptown followed by a slice of cake like something out of a six-year-old’s dessert fantasy: part chocolate mousse, part brownie, and part cheesecake, drizzled with caramel, and topped with rainbow sprinkles and walnuts. All it was missing in this cake’s quest for perfection were Oreo cookies and a maraschino cherry on top. I had given him his present – a dartboard – early so we could hang it and play with it over the weekend. It was a low-key kind of night, but we had a good time together devouring that cake.

Then I went and invited him to Thanksgiving dinner.

We were talking about how our families celebrate the greatest holiday of the year (an entire day devoted to EATING!) and while I gushed about MomOh’s cooking and the fun/crazy energy that emanates from family gatherings on her side, he said that he doesn’t really like Thanksgiving now that his sister and brother go to their in-law’s.

Okay, don’t misunderstand me: R is completely qualified for Take Home to Mom and Dad Status and overall a wonderful addition to my life. But as soon as the words were out of my mouth I remembered that what my family thinks of as “fun” and “crazy” can also be considered “overwhelming” and “self-referential” by outsiders and newcomers. Nothing is definite (he said he’d think about it) and I’d be very happy if he came with me, but this is one of those situations that will either be a lot of fun or a complete disaster. This Friday he'll get a little introduction to the family with the Queen of Crazy: Aunt C and her husband will be in town for the opera and are taking us out to dinner, so that should be an interesting prelude.

My lovely little Midtown apartment is having a mouse problem. An aggressive mouse problem - the little fucker ate through a ziplock bag and helped himself to a batch of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I've heard him scamper through the walls occasionally in the past and generally ignored it, assuming he was just passing through, but the cookie incident was just too much. My leasing company is useless, so I hired an exterminator (which I keep accidentally calling a Terminator, but that's cooler anyway) to kill the mouse. The Terminator was, as one might imagine, quite the character. He moonlights as a bouncer at various clubs I've never heard of, and wasn't shy about showing off his stab wounds. Really. Then, when he was putting down the traps in my bedroom (which looks like my closet exploded), he offered to "come over and help me clean sometime" and pointed out a stray thong that had missed my laundry basket ("sexy"). Sure thing, creepy Terminator, I'll be sure to request your service if this round of baiting doesn't do the trick. Now my lovely apartment is littered with little cardboard box traps and smells vaguely like peanut butter. Gross.

There Is a Handbook, Right?

Nice Hedge Fund has a new receptionist. She is friendly if a bit overzealous and perhaps suffering from a mild case of alopecia, but she seems perfectly capable of answering the phone and assigning my meetings to conference rooms and that’s really all I care about. Also, she studies Numerology.

According to her (and my birth date), I’m a One and that makes me a leader with a strong drive for success, a creative thinker with a rapid mind, and given to frustration when things are not developing as rapidly as I would like (read: impatient). Well, duh, numbers! The planets and stars and plain old hanging out with me could have told you that. But wait, there’s more. New Receptionist told me that 2007 is a development year for me, full of new beginnings. Sure, I’ll give you that – new job, new roommate, new boyfriend, new friends, new sport, etc. Then she asked, “Are you engaged?” See, according to Numerology, 2008 is a Two year for me, during which I’m supposed to get married. So let’s get cracking on this, Numbers, ok? Because if I’m getting married any time soon let me know so I can, like, stop eating burgers and start getting facials or whatever brides-to-be do to prep for The Big Day. I’m assuming there will be a handbook included with that diamond ring.

Be so proud of me! I’ve been working diligently on my grad school applications all week (and concurrently ignoring work completely). I requested letters of recommendation, downloaded forms, started to fill some applications online, and made a chart of due dates. Also, fuck, applying to school is expensive! One has to seriously consider the futility of paying a hundred bucks to apply for a program that accepts FOUR students a year. It seems Jackie’s Laser Hair Removal Fund will now be redirected to Jackie’s Applying to Grad School Fund. The real question is: with which would I be most satisfied in ten years? On second thought, let’s not go there.

Happy Friday, lovers. It’s raining, it’s pouring, I’d rather be snoring, but instead I’m leaving work early and going to the gym.

On The Bright Side: No Flat Tires!

Tired doesn’t begin to describe how I felt last night. Or today, for that matter. My fuel gauge is pretty solidly sunk on E, although I have faith that the cheesecake I ordered with lunch and a handful of Emergen-C packets will get me through the day.

What a great weekend! I’m bruised, bloodied, and sore, but I survived the MS Century Ride yesterday mostly in one piece, thanks to Cycling Friend A’s help and encouragement. Around mile 75, after being on the bike for nearly 6 hours, I wanted to curl up on the side of 9W and take a little nap, but she kept me going to the whole way. It was definitely one of the toughest physical activities I’ve ever encountered – and I can’t wait to try another one!

Of course I couldn’t get through that many miles without falling – with my track record, the odds are clearly against me. I caught A’s back wheel on a tough climb around mile 55 and took a tumble. Thankfully I was going at such a low speed that I didn’t get too hurt, but I shredded one of my gloves, the road rash on my stomach and elbow hurts like hell in the shower, and the bruise on my left hip/leg some kind of awesome. If it weren’t on such a scandalously high place on my leg, I’d be showing it off around the office right now.

As if that wasn’t quite enough, I clinched the title of Queen of the Klutzes yesterday when making my grand entrance to City Sports, the kids track program I coach on Sundays. A and I were running late and pedaling as hard as our tired little legs could take us across the George Washington Bridge to get there on time. We arrived with minutes to spare, quickly threw on our coaches tshirts over our sweaty bike gear and hurried over to the group. So there I was, smelly and starving but so happy to have finished the ride and made it to coaching on time. I was excitedly running towards the big group of stretching kids while all of their parents looked on from the stands above when suddenly THUD! There I was, sprawled out on the ground, now thoroughly hurting everywhere and kind of in shock. In my haste I had tripped over the metal ledge that separates the track from the infield and went flying into the air, cartoon-style. Parents were applauding. Kids were laughing. Coaches were laughing. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I sort of did both as Coach JC helped me up. It was really the crowning achievement in my Klutz Career. So technically we could add “bruise and scrape on left leg” to my list of MS Ride-related injuries, though I only have my own clumsiness to blame. I'm a mess.

It was very quiet around Nice Hedge Fund today. Easy has Jury Duty, Easier is in Croatia to run a marathon (I know, he’s my hero), Easiest is practically non-existent, and JDate is self-sufficient. It was also a good eating day. Besides my delicious sandwich and cheesecake lunch, I also ate half a dozen cookies that were left over from someone’s meeting. Mmm cookies. Restricted list, my ass, I earned them yesterday. Maybe after I get another century ride under my belt I can reintroduce bagels to my diet. Maybe.

Quiet Down, I Have a Surnouncement!

Of course, on the one day that I completely oversleep it’s actually busy here at Nice Hedge Fund. I’m scheduling car services, setting up meetings, refilling staplers…riveting, I know. My job is about 30% phone coverage, 10% meeting coordination, 8% random bullshit for Easy and 52% sitting around looking pretty – but without showering this morning, that last part might be a bit out of reach. Also, I’m wearing a white argyle sweater that I ALWAYS spill something on. Not that that really distinguishes it from my other clothes, but you know how there are just some items that seem to attract stains? Like my light blue sweater whose sleeves contain several unforgivable stains including red wine and Sharpie. I ordered tomato cheddar soup for lunch – we’ll see how many bites I can get through before I’m wearing it.

Last night R and I went to an informal wine tasting at a bar near my apartment. The theme was Wine & Chocolate so I imagined each station would have accompanying chocolate pairings, but that wasn’t really the case. It was more like, here is a lot of wine, and, oh right, over there in the corner is some chocolate. One of the “desserts” that R bit into turned out to be a jalapeño popper topped with chocolate sauce that surely must have been a mistake but after that culinary horror we focused mainly on getting drunk. There was quite a showing of dessert wines (most of which I hated), some delicious champagnes, and a memorable pinot noir. When it comes to my palette, R jokes that I have the taste buds of a 12-year-old because I’m disinclined to such “adult” tastes as coffee and asparagus. I do love any food item that could be found on a kid’s menu (grilled cheese, burgers, ice cream…) but of course I’ll never concede to his point. He likes to play the game Guess If Jackie Will Like It Based on Its Adultness, and it kills me that he’s usually right.

“Oh, you won’t like this wine. Adult taste.”
“Yahuh, I like it!”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Fine, I know, I hate it. Can I dump it out now?”
“I’ll drink yours.”

Anyway, we had a fun night. Check that off the Fall To-Do List!

Ok. Enough is enough - this is killing me. I’ve been holding in BIG NEWS for the past week or so, mostly because I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to have everything fall through. And sure, it’s possible that something could still come up, but at this point the outlook is good. Seriously, readers, this is HUGE. Are you ready?

THE OH FAMILY IS BUYING A SHORE HOUSE!

Phew! Oh, it feels so good to put that in print, to see it as a reality instead of a lifelong dream. MomOh and DadOh put a bid on a house this past weekend and it was accepted, paperwork signed. The best part is the location – we’re on 66th Street and the Bay, E’s house is on 66th Street and the Beach, and the S Family’s house is in the middle. And, I mean, it’s a house. At the shore. My favorite place on earth. It could be a trailer instead of a brand-new five-bedroom construction and I'd still be celebrating.

[Cue happy dance.]


[Surnouncement
n. A magical, made-up word combining the sounds and meanings of "surprise" and "announcement." Origin: Drunk/Awesome La ca. The Sink at Lucky Cheng's]

Failure to Lunch

You know that movie, Failure to Launch? I’m relatively certain that I watched it while snow-banked in a hotel during a college track trip gone awry, and I always mix up the plot with The Family Stone (which I also watched on a college track trip that also went awry, but then again they all sort of did) but my point here is: the title always appealed to me, far more than the unmemorable movie itself. Failure to Launch is a related and debatably worse fate than being stuck in the Midtown Holding Pattern. Is it better to endlessly circle in search of a safe and happy spot to land than to never get off the ground in the first place? Although I’m stalled at the moment, my case implies a certain level of progress, but I’m afraid of landing somewhere that maybe isn’t the safest or happiest place simply because I’m running out of fuel and Dramamine. Is it worse to start things and never finish them, or just not start at all?

I am, as it turns out, a failure. Of the twelve items on my Summer To-Do List, I completed four. Four! I scored a lousy 33 1/3% for the summer – and they were things that I wanted to do! Sure, I accomplished many things that were not on the list (like learning how to drive a boat) and some of the things from the list turned out to be unfun (like the Guggenheim Shapes of Space exhibit) but I’m undeterred and shooting for a higher Social Life GPA this semester.

The Fall To-Do List:

The Arcade Fire, 10/6
Apple-picking upstate
Divine Bar Wine Tasting, 10/9
Tori Amos, 10/11 & 10/12
MS Bike Tour (possibly my first century ride!), 10/14
HHS XC retirement party for Coach W, 10/20
The Shins, 10/24
Foundation for Hospital Art Mural Painting Event, 10/30
HHS Five-Year Reunion, Thanksgiving
Enchanted, in theaters Thanksgiving (don’t judge me)
Visit The Cloister Museum once the leaves change colors
Mythic Creatures exhibit at the AMNH, through 1/6
Richard Prince exhibit at the Guggenheim, through 1/9

Implicit in this list o’fun is the goal to finish what I start, to follow through with plans, to say “yes” (or “no") and mean it and hold true to those convictions. Also: to stop temporizing about grad school and just fucking apply. Then if I actually get accepted I can debate the merits of attending. Duh.

In other news, I've been doing okay regarding the dietary restricted list. Sure, I've indulged in a fruit tart (or five) but overall I'm pretty proud of my willpower. Then, some days, I just fall completely off the wagon. Today wasn't even about pastries or desserts, my usual pitfalls. It started out innocently enough: my standby tuna melt sandwich, a Perrier, and a fruit tart. Then I fell and ordered a personal pizza. A delicious margarita pizza on hand-rolled crust with basil, tomatoes and mozzarella. I half-ass planned on taking it home with me and eating it for dinner. Cut to 2pm and the entire pizza is digesting unnecessarily in my tummy. So much for that willpower.

Correction: I Was in Fourth Grade When They Last Won the Pennant

Eeep! Human Resources sent out a Save the Date email about the annual Nice Hedge Fund Holiday Party. That only leaves nine and a half weeks to figure out what I’m wearing and how I’m doing my hair and oh, I’ll have to bring a date, too, and how soon is too soon to ask R without scaring him off? I mean, I’ve done a remarkable job up to now of hiding my particular strain of crazy from him, but this could make or break us! CAN’T HANDLE THE PRESSURE.

Aaand, breathe. I’m going to wear a black dress like everyone else, I’ll be due for a haircut then anyway so I’ll get my hair blown out, and I’ll talk to R about it a few weeks beforehand. Also, what did we learn from last year’s office holiday party, boys and girls? That’s right: Don’t drink too much, and set the alarm clock before going out. That brilliant “I pulled my deadbolt out of the door I’m late for work because I’m waiting for a locksmith not because I overslept and might be still drunk” excuse can’t possibly work two years in a row.

Dear readers, I’m tired. I feel like the cold weather crept into Manhattan and is slowly sapping me of all of my energy. What happened to staying up way too late every night of the summer and making poor life decisions but still surviving to tell about it? I want that JackieOh back, not this girl who voluntarily wakes up at the crack of dawn to ride in circles around a cold, dark park which is at that hour only populated by fellow cyclists and criminals. Going to bed before ten? Dinner that is neither liquid nor carbonated and occasionally nutritious? Who am I?

The worst part is how well I was running on such a self-destructive lifestyle. There’s a picture of me in the latest New York Road Runner magazine from the Club Championships, the one real, good race I had before it all unraveled. Between that reminder and watching SisterOh’s cross country race this past weekend, I’m itching to get back to running. I think I can fend off the urges for another six weeks or so, but with a no stress fracture diagnosis, the only thing really keeping me out of my trainers is an unfortunate yet persistent reluctance to pain. If only I weren’t such a big pussy I could be out running right now!

Ok, enough blathering, it’s time to focus. PHILLIES. Oh, baby, we’re in the playoffs and Game 1 versus the Rockies is this afternoon. Sure, I’ll admit that I’m a bigger Eagles than Phillies fan but that’s really just a case of quantity versus quality. Count me in for all sixteen regular season football games, but 162 regular season baseball games are simply more than I can handle. Blame it on my commitment issues, but now it’s October and that means everyone born within view of One Liberty Place is a diehard fan. Um, hello, MLB? What’s the deal with 3PM games during the workweek? This isn’t Boston; some of our fans actually have jobs.

Didya Miss Me? Didya?

I need a vacation.

I thought a little sabbatical from the holding pattern would help, but really, not writing only further depletes my sanity. And we all know I’m always just barely hanging by a thread.

I couldn’t stay away long, lovers. As my horoscope reminded me, “it's critical that you don't withdraw or shut down. Your tendency may be to steer clear of a sticky situation, but avoidance won't solve the problem.” THE STARS KNOW THINGS.

So back to vacations, you know, to avoid sticky situations like figuring out my future. I don’t know where I’d go or when or with what money, but I’ve been thinking about going somewhere alone, just to see if I could do it. Is vacationing alone cool or pathetic? I can’t decide. Yes, these are the kinds of crazy things I dream up when I’m a) not running and b) not writing.

Yesterday was a bad day. I mean, overall it was fine, except for this one little blip when a taxicab sideswiped me on my bike and smushed me between the cab and a road divider. I managed to walk away with just a few scrapes and bruises and without any damage to my bike that I couldn’t fix with my multi-tool, but I owe the Swear Jar about twenty bucks for the words I directed at that cabbie. Still, my cussing was drowned out by the line of traffic, with the typical level of New York City compassion, laying on their horns because they were missing the green light. Don’t mind me, down here on the ground under the cab! I’ll get out of your way just as soon as I make sure nothing is broken, jerks. Maybe my bike and I just need a vacation from Manhattan drivers.

Today is a much better day. At 4:51AM my alarm clock blasted Kanye’s “Stronger,” which is a pretty appropriate song to hear before cycling at such an ungodly hour. I was a little shaken up by yesterday's incident, but I’m very glad I went because somehow after these early morning rides with the girls I feel like I can handle the day without being such a hot mess. I actually washed and dried my hair. I’m wearing my favorite shoes and a new shirt that I even ironed this morning. I am JackieOh, Nice Hedge Fund Assistant, perpetual klutz and occasional heartbreaker, and I’m ready to take on the world in my red suede d’Orsay pumps. Really, they're fantastic shoes.

Easy just limped over to my desk and handed me his business card. I had no idea what was going on for an instant. As it turns out, he pulled out his back over the weekend, and his job title is spelled wrong on the new set of cards that just came in. He is not, in fact, the Global Marco Portfolio Manager, and the game “Macro, Polo” just doesn’t have the right ring to it. Ha, whoops. I’m calling the mail room now.

LOLBoss

It’s approaching mid-afternoon, I’ve been awake for FAR too many hours, and I’m getting a little delirious. This week I joined a group of girls who cycle in Central Park at 5:30AM on Mondays and Wednesdays and while the bags under my eyelids might tell a different story, I’m little-girl-giddy over this development. My reasons are two-fold:

1. I’m making female friends.
2. I’m making female CYCLING friends.

Let’s face it, my life was a little short in both categories. Cycling with the boys is fun, and as they’re generally faster than me so I’ve improved a lot this summer, but for the sake of my relationship, riding with girls is a probably a good idea. You know, because that whole “I do what I want” attitude only gets one so far in the dating world and then it’s time to play the “If I were in his shoes” game. But anyway. The third reason for my excitement is that they’re doing the MS Bike Tour in October and invited me along! We’ll probably do the sixty-mile race and forgo the ambitious century ride, but still, I’m pumped. I’m going to start soliciting fundraising contributions…now. Give me your money!

Work has been busier this week, in a good way. Sure the “work” I’m doing rarely extends beyond adding guest names to the security list and reserving conference rooms, but it’s better than staring blankly at my monitor and contemplating ocular damage with my letter opener (slightly). The phone was ringing off the hook this morning, which is one of the drawbacks to having four bosses.

(“And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Eight bosses.”
“Eight?”
“Eight, Bob.”)

When I started here back in June, I was replacing a woman who was moving to France to pursue her career as an opera singer. Really. She had this rare magnetic personality and the week she spent “training” me (read: chatting and generally charming the pants off of me if I swung that way) was interspersed by every single Nice Hedge Fund employee coming by to wish her good luck. They threw her a huge surprise going away party with pizza and cupcakes and ice cream. That line about having big shoes to fill felt very apropos, and like any good Admin she left a few pairs under the desk when she quit. Still, I always had this sneaking suspicion that maybe I’d bump into her on the street because maybe she didn’t move to Europe to be a singer and live with her French lover. Maybe she felt so guilty about wanting to leave Easy, Easier and Easiest after several years of devoted servitude, and the Europe excuse got her out scot-free. Then, yesterday, it happened! I was a mere two storefronts away from my apartment, on the phone with MomOh, when I saw her. Of course her story was air-tight (just here for a few days to renew her visa, blah blah) but I have to wonder…am I psychic? I kind of think so!

Apparently my predecessor was not able to impart any spelling skills on Easy. His emails read like cat macros, my current favorite being, “when is my sezxual harraament semianr” [sic, obvs].

ZOMG I can haz blakbery???!!1!!

I'm Changing My Work Email Address to PhatGrrrrlOh

I had an interesting weekend. Not “bad interesting” just…interesting.

M, of post-running class drinking fame, was in town for the weekend and of course, crashing on my futon. Many a house guest has stayed on that futon (it’s remarkably comfortable), but M was no ordinary visitor, partially because she lived here in New York for a little while so she didn’t need to be babysat or constantly entertained like other guests. Also, she spent the majority of the weekend traipsing around with an entourage of middle-aged German men who were in town for Oktoberfest. I met about nine of them last night at a billiards bar, each bigger than the next and all named Jan or Fritz. They were not so good at pool, caught on to shufflepuck pretty quickly, and were remarkably adept at foosball. Despite the bizarre crowd, it was a fun night and around 10:30PM R and I headed home while M and Coach G kept the party rolling with Die Deutschen.

This morning I met Cycling friend A and two of her friends for a quick ride in Central Park before work. (Sidebar: Hooray! Riding with girls!) M still hadn’t come back to the apartment. Sure enough, as I rolled up to my apartment at 6:45AM, there was M and Coach G on the front stoop, eyes bloodshot and reeking of beer. They followed me upstairs where Coach G proceeded to crawl into my bed and spoon a still-sleeping R while M curled up at their feet. (R relocated to the sofa when he realized that Coach G was not, in fact, me.) Oh, and M missed her 7AM flight this morning because they really needed those two extra hours of drinking. That about sums up the entire weekend: a fun time that I hope to never repeat.

Autumn always seems to catch me off guard, even though I know the season will inevitably breeze through every September. Still, it seems like the weather changes on a dime, that last week I wore sandals and a sundress and today its pumps and suit pants and I'm never quite ready for the cold weather. While I love New York City in the fall, I know the weather is only going to get colder and I'm not sure how many winters I have left in me here. I wonder if the University of Hawaii has a decent MFA program?

The majority of the work I’m doing right now for JDate involves scheduling interviews with candidates. Exciting stuff, I know. Anyway, JDate asked me to email a guy about coming back in for a second interview. His email address: phatguy1@somethingorother.com. Really, we’re considering a candidate who continues to use the email address he created at age fourteen? He's not even the original phatguy@somethingorother.com - he had to use a number! And can you imagine the shame of being phatguy2 or 3? Listen, Dude Bro, you’re applying for a big boy job now so it’s time to get a new address that perhaps uses some configuration of your name and an ounce of common sense. Christ. I can’t wait to meet this guy in person. JDate assures me that his email address is made even more comical by the fact that was entirely devoid of a sense of humor during their first meeting. It’s always the quiet ones who turn out to be porn stars, you know.

What's Up With You, Nice Hedge Fund?

Something is amiss here at Nice Hedge Fund.

I don’t know what’s going on. I never really know what’s going on here – I don’t even know what a hedge fund does, per se. Sure, I hear Loud Guy discussing the sale of luxury goods when he isn’t bitching to his (ex)girlfriend, and JDate is always meeting with telecom analysts, but that is the extent of my understanding of How We Make Money. There is a pervading atmosphere of unrest on the Executive Floor this week: a lot of out-of-office or behind-closed-doors meetings, a lot of please-stop-by-my-office requests. Last time they had shadeball meetings like this it was my first week and Easier had just decided that he didn’t want to come in to the office for a few months. I’m determined to get to the bottom of this. And while I’m at it, I’m determined to find out why Nice Hedge Fund insists on setting the thermostat to 55 degrees. My lips are blue and I have goosebumps and I’m wearing a turtleneck sweater with C’s jacket. People keep walking by and asking if I’m cold, then offering to switch desks because apparently everyone else is sweltering.

Really, my whole body chemistry is off this week. The weather is changing, I haven’t been working out or drinking heavily lately, and I’ve actually had to be half-cognizant during the working hours since Labor Day. I’ll get a break tomorrow and Friday because Easy and JDate will be out for the High Holy Days (duh). Hello, long lunch and leaving early!

Breaking News: Loud Guy is, at this very moment, on the phone with a girl he met last night and asking her out. Poorly, I might add, but he seems to be having some vague success. She’s French, which is perhaps her only excuse for this terrible lapse in judgment. Loud Guy, that sputtering, red-faced fool, didn’t have a place or time or even day picked out to suggest, so the actual date-planning process will now required several emails and phone calls per his MO. Instead of making tangible plans, he gave her every possible mode of contact (work phone, cell phone, work email, personal email), nailed down her complete work schedule for the rest of the week, and promised to brainstorm “fun places on the Upper West Side” where they can go. Oh, swoon.

Holy cow! Loud Guy just turned to me and C and said, “Am I the most entertaining soap opera in this office?” Holding in my laughter was the greatest test of willpower yet, and she and I haven’t been able to make eye contact since. He’s giving us intimate details about his now-over relationship that we have already gleaned from his boisterous conversations! We're advising him for his date! What’s happening here? He’s breaking the third wall! ACK!

The Thing That I Never Thought Would Happen, Happened

ARM actually paid me.

He sent me a check (way less than what I would have gotten if I stayed until July 31, way more than the ZERO I expected) and a note that said, “I hope your new job is going well. Are you currently running a blog I can read?” Ha, no. There it was for an instant, that glimmer of a sense of humor that kept him out of the 100% Pure Evil category and sometimes made him downright fun. Well, thank you, ARM. It won’t buy back the sanity I lost during those 365 days under your employ, but it will buy me a massage and a facial and enough booze to potentially wipe my memory clean.

What more could a girl want?

The weirdest part was when I looked at the printed return address before I opened the envelope. I recognized it without really processing that it was ARM's home address, like it was innate or perhaps my own address. It was a familiarity like the moment when you become fluent in a foreign language and can think and respond in that language without going through the steps of translation before every phrase. I cashed the check immediately and threw out the card.

I took the stupid GRE yesterday afternoon. The whole experience felt like I was being punked: the whitewashed walls, ubiquitous Dude Bros in various degrees of preppy attire (all presumably taking the GMAT) hovering by the locker area, oddball employees who seemed like it was their collective first day, and an overly chatty man from St. Lucia who both told me his scores (they were pretty bad) and asked me out for a drink (I politely declined) as we exited the testing center. At any moment I expected Ashton Kutcher to leap out from one of the cubicles, scare the shit out of me, and inform me that this was all a set-up and I'd have to take the real GRE again. I scored 100 points higher on the math section than the verbal section, which is distressing for one who wants to study creative writing. Perhaps I should reconsider that engineering career after all. Anyway, that step is done and now it’s on to begging for letters of recommendation and editing the heck out of my portfolio. Oh right, and figuring out where I want to go and how I’m going to pay for it and then praying to the Gods of Higher Education that I get in. Piece of cake.

During lunch today I went out for the MRI on my right leg. I kind of like MRIs and that sort of test. You lie down wearing big headphones and take a little midday nap while the machine makes weird clicking noises and if your leg inadvertently twitches they start the whole thing over and you can nap for even longer! Hooray!

Thank Goodness It's Friday

Sentencing day. I went to the doctor on my lunch break, and it went exactly as expected. Well-worth the ten dollar co-pay for him to poke my leg in a few places (“Does it hurt when I do this?” “Yes.”), diagnose the pain as “weird” and write me a prescription for an MRI. For a little perspective, I spent the same amount of money last night after haggling with a striking taxi driver, and that at least got my drunk ass home from the bar. Ugh. And it’s not like I can just waltz out the door and get the MRI. No, first the doctor's office has to contact my insurance company for authorization, then call me to say they have the authorization, and then I get to make an appointment at an inconveniently-located imaging center. After waiting a few days for results, I have to go back to the doctor. Every time I get injured I vow to quit running entirely, but once I get better and get back into it I can’t imagine why I ever wanted to stop. Oh right, now I remember. Jumping through hoops to get a diagnosis and a few weeks of physical therapy ends up being more painful than the original injury.

On an unrelated note, do fruit tarts count as pastries? I feel like they probably do, but I can rationally squeeze them past security because it’s a pastry covered with fruit, so it’s healthy! Either way, I just ate one and it was delicious. Let’s hope it was enough to stave off any potential emotional meltdown at the hands of low blood sugar and pent-up frustration.

Last night I met up with Former Roommate La at one of our favorite bars near her new apartment. Between her expert flirtation with the hot 39-year-old bartender (he’s a whole voting-age person older than her!) and our fan club of rowdy businessmen, my vodka tonics with extra lime and her Amstels were comped all night. Normally I hate accepting a drink from a guy because then I feel obligated to talk to him, but these dudes were middle-aged, harmless, thoroughly entertaining, and running a hefty tab on a corporate card – the exact kinds of people you want to meet at a bar. Good times had by all.

Fast forward to 7:42AM. I woke up three minutes before I’m supposed to be at the office, threw on some mostly-clean khakis and my Nice Hedge Fund polo shirt that they give out at orientation and that no one ever wears, and bolted for the door. I made it to work by 8AM where I promptly applied a liberal amount of deodorant to my underarms. I keep a stick in my desk drawer for just this occasion. Oh, but it's Friday - Gods of Four-Day Work Weeks, I love you.

I need a cookie, a hug and a shower. Maybe not in that order.

These Are Dark Times For Me

For the past I don’t know how many weeks (months, possibly), there is always a pile of unread newspapers in the vestibule of my apartment building. Anytime I walk past I think to myself, Gee, why isn’t this person reading his newspaper? On Tuesday morning I looked down and my eye locked on the delivery label: it read my name. It seems that I am an unwitting subscriber to the Wall Street Journal, and have been for some time. I don’t think I’m paying for it (I certainly hope not!) and really, why would I – of very minimal financial know-how – sign up for the WSJ in the first place? So on Tuesday I figured I might as well read it while eating my bowl of cereal at my desk. Yesterday I forgot and walked right past it (habit!) but today I remembered and read it again. Sure, I kind of skip over the Money & Investing section but maybe it wouldn’t kill me to know what’s going on with the subprime market or how the iPhone’s price cut will affect the economy. Maybe I’ll even learn a thing or two, and next thing you know I’ll be signing up for the GMATs. Can’t get enough of that standardized testing, mmmhmmm.

I went out at lunch to try to buy a pair of brown leather flats that I put on hold this morning. Some people, when they incur a sports injury, go to physical therapy. I opt for retail therapy. Putting any weight on my right leg hurts something wicked so heels are out of the question. I thought I could cheer myself up with a pair of nice work-appropriate driving mocs (as opposed to the flip-flops I’ve been sporting) but of course they were too wide for my skinny foot. Throw me a bone here, Universe, will you? These are dark times for me, and pretty new shoes will help guide me through! Come on!

I bought a shirt on sale instead. I guess I’ll pull through.

After shopping I met up with Former Intern from Private Equity Firm, who looked adorably tan and Eurotrashy in his black polo, white shorts, black trendy sneakers and aviators. He was back from his summer in Greece and wanted to meet up to give me a present before he heads off to Impressive Ivy League College. He’s come a long way since the winter when he started as my intern and ARM made me find him a dermatologist to treat of his “severe acne.” Seriously. How did I ever sleep at night while working for that man?

Anyway, tomorrow is my sentencing hearing, also knows as my orthopedist appointment. Hopefully the good doctor can tell me why I can ride 50 miles on my bike but I can’t walk without whimpering. If the verdict is NO RUNNING I’m getting a second opinion.

How Many Dude Bros Does it Take to Pick a Lameass Fantasy Football Team?

This is Day 2 of no cookies and Day 5 of no running and I’m already knee-deep in a funk. It’s only going to get worse from here, dear readers, but I promise that if I fall within view of rock bottom I’ll limp downstairs to the deli and dive headfirst into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

While walking is painful and running is excruciating, cycling is relatively pain-free so I strapped on my Velcro-closured, carbon-soled, cleated shoes, pumped up my tires and met up with Cycling Friend J for a ride last night. We crossed the GW Bridge and cruised through the lovely and hilly suburbs of Bergen County, NJ. “Cruised” might not be the right word to describe it. He was cruising; I was just trying not to die, especially on a four-mile climb that nearly gave me a heart attack. Still, we agreed that it was one of the more enjoyable longer than expected, one water bottle, no food, nearly hit by a car, cramped calf muscle, caught in the dark on 9W ride either of us has had. I slept like a baby last night. And we’re doing it all over again tonight. Sweet.

I know I goof off at work as much as the next person (okay, possibly more, for lack of actual tasks), but Loud Guy is ridiculous. He’s ridiculoud. He’s been on the phone with his Dude Bros for the past two hours discussing his Fantasy Football draft. Seriously, Loud Guy, are you that inept that you can’t make your picks without a conference call? At this point, C and I are convinced that he’s never watched a game of football in his life and is just using buzz words he’s heard to fake it. You know, like how I jabber on when someone asks me how Nice Hedge Fund operates. (Quantum macro group! Trading Floor! Futures growth! Long or short assets!) I’m full of shit frequently enough to recognize it in others and your cover is blown, Loud Guy. You just mispronounced that Carolina QB’s name – it’s French you moron, the “H” is silent. Then the website he was using for his draft wasn’t working and he actually called IT to help him with what is so obviously NOT A WORK ISSUE. I can’t decide if he’s ballsy or just that clueless.

I think I’m going to call IT now and complain that porn isn’t working on my computer and could they maybe help me with that? Great, thanks.

Then he gets on the phone with his boss and says he’s “just back from a few meetings.” Right, the way “on a call with an analyst” translates to “screaming at his girlfriend for not texting him back the other night because she was having sex with someone else.”

I love football season (Go Eagles!), but it’s going to be a long five months if I have to listen to him on the phone every week with his Dude Bros lamenting the suckitude of his team.

"I Would Send You a Bouquet of Sharpened Pencils"

Welcome back to my Midtown Holding Pattern reality. The doldrums of summer at the office are over, the bosses are back, and I’m wearing mascara. Labor Day is like the inverse relation of Memorial Day where x equals fun. (See? I’m totally ready for the GRE.)

The end of summer is always so bittersweet. Despite being out of college for over a year now, I can’t resist feeling nostalgic for the Back-to-School jitters. I’m excited for new classes that I’m not in, and new people that I won’t meet and new clothes that I’ll buy anyway because I’ve never met a J.Crew catalog I could refuse. Maybe this is the dissonance throwing my body off-kilter. Can I blame the nagging pain in my right leg on another autumn without school?

Of course it happens when I finally feel faster, when I start to see the rewards that come from paying my dues for a full year. Is this how the rest of my running life will go? Start from scratch, train hard and then harder, get better, get hurt, repeat? Every time it happens I try to convince myself that maybe I’m not really JackieOh, Runner. Maybe I’m JackieOh, Cyclist or JackieOh, C-Cup, or worse: JackieOh, Fat Girl. Somehow, because I’m too slow I guess, running catches up to me every time and I take it back all over again. Running is the abusive boyfriend that I can’t leave. You just don’t know him like I do – he’s really sweet to me when we’re alone. Oh that injury? It’s nothing, I mean, I bumped into a chair. I’m fine.

Oh, but I’m not fine and for me to admit defeat and make a doctor’s appointment means that my leg is about ready to stage a bloody coup d’etat from the rest of my body. I may have passed the point where a normal person would have stopped running about a week and a half ago. You can’t really blame me for disliking my orthopedist though – every time I go it’s the same diagnosis: NO RUNNING.

In my preparation for the NO RUNNING death sentence, I’ve vowed to eat a bit healthier and cut down on some of my carbohydrate consumption. MomOh jokingly calls my eating habits the North Beach diet - all carbs. I will NOT be JackieOh, Fat Girl. So here is my restricted list, written on a Post-It note and stuck to my computer monitor:

!!!! NO !!!!

Bagels
Muffins
Pastries
Cookies
Cake
Ice Cream
Soda

I’ll probably add to the list as I think of more indulgences, but those are my heavy-hitting gluttony favorites. My first draft included beer, but that was a bit ambitious. I figure I’ll keep beer in my diet but make more of an effort to drink more hard liquor instead! On an empty stomach! Woo hoo, drunk quicker!

Maybe this fall won’t be so bad after all.

See Jane Run. See Jane Write.

Today feels like a Friday because I’m taking off tomorrow and heading home to H-town for Labor Day weekend, but there it was this morning, the retardation that is the New York Times Thursday Style Section to remind me of my miscalculation.

Now I realize I don’t yet have the clout or connections to have a column in the Times. But how Gina Kolata acquired her new “Personal Best” column that will run every two weeks about “exercise science and how to improve workouts” is beyond me: it certainly wasn’t based on any discernible writing talent.

Sure, it’s a cliché to bust on a Style article, but the Gray Lady makes it so easy! Okay, Gina, are you telling me that those foolish women who purposely order a filet mignon on a first date to seem easy going are the same women who now “hang back [at road races], often because they are embarrassed to be out there with the men, acting like determined athletes”? Come on, gals, make up your minds - are we feminine or feminists this week? I’m calling a big fat bullshit on this one, ladies.

This article is so insipid I can only imagine it made the “most emailed” list because every runner like me is sending it to her friends with the note, “WTF?” It has all the makings of a bad Style article: she opens with a boring anecdote, launches into some poorly rendered “research,” misappropriates quotations from the president of the New York Road Runners (come ON, Mary, now I KNOW you didn’t say that women are “too inhibited to put their full passion out there”), and she closes with some absurd generalizations about third-wave feminism.

Yes, my particular pedigree of running may qualify me for the Crazy Category but I’d rather be a crazy runner to some than a crazy non-runner to all. Trust me – it’s not a pretty picture when I’m injured, sanity-speaking. Still, I’m not an anomaly and there are plenty of femme fatales just like me in the New York City running community alone. Come visit the running class I coach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Ms. Kolata. My group of speedsters is predominantly of the late-twenties to late-thirties feminine variety. Sure, we’ll poke a hole in your theory that older women are more successful in races because they’re trying harder than the younger women, and you might not be able to keep up because we don’t hold anything back and act like determined athletes, but maybe it would be good for your “training.”

The article had a glimmer of potential when the author brought up “the message of some ads and magazine articles telling people to run easy,” and we all KNOW how I feel about those Reebok ads. “A run-easy message is fine if it helps get people started in the sport. But, [Mary Wittenberg] added, there is also a risk, ‘in that it sneers at hard work and pushing to limits.’” Yes, Gina! Focus on this and shut up about the boring results from mom-and-pop 5k races in the suburbs!

I do agree on the “epiphany” point of the article, that an older woman may appreciate her new-found opportunities to run and race more than a younger woman who had opportunities her whole life and might now take them for granted. I may be half the age of someone in my class, but I’ve been running for half of my life where she might have just started. Thanks, Title IX.

Still, the urge to run can strike a woman at any point in her life and the desire to run fast has everything to do with competitive spirit and nothing to do with age.

Want to race, Gina?

Rock and a Hard Place

I am, in general, a rational, well-grounded person: rarely given to great leaps of faith and a devout subscriber to the School of I’ll Believe it When I See it. But as any English Major worth her weight in dangling participles knows, there is an exception to every rule.

Astrology is one of my guilty pleasure exceptions.

Logic, schmogic – my horoscope is ALWAYS TRUE. The stars and planets KNOW THINGS, okay?

This is an excerpt from Capricorn’s monthly forecast:

For what must seem an endless amount of time, you have struggled with a difficult financial situation. It may not have been of your making, as it appears you have trusted someone who may not have returned that trust…If you've hoped against hope that a check would show up, you would now realize it probably won't. As painful as this realization may be, you seem to be ready to face the truth and draw up new plans. If you have to extricate yourself from an old alliance, let it be. You have bigger fish to fry in the future.

So true! ARM never responded to my email about my exit bonus, and I was nearly resigned to putting it out of my mind along with the true memories of that horrific job. Sure, I spin the stories so they come out amusing and shocking, but the reality remains that I hated every day of the last six months I worked there and no amount of money can fix that. Still, money is money and as MomOh would say, it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye. Most things are.

This morning I got an email from the Queen of Darkness, ARM’s current assistant. She needed help regarding ARM’s father’s apartment, for which I had single-handedly managed the renovations. Feeling a little proud of myself for standing my ground, I responded by saying that I will gladly help her when ARM upholds his side of our bargain. Now if I were dealing with a normal person, I would have been appalled at his nerve to ignore my email and still tell the Queen of Darkness to ask me for help, but this is ARM we’re talking about here – nothing he does surprises me anymore.

ARM emailed me instantly. His father passed away last week, which is why Queen of Darkness needed the help urgently, and “there is a check in process that will be cut and issued next week.”

Ah fuck. I felt like an asshole until I reminded myself that his father was alive two months ago when the check should have been “in process” and this is a shameful excuse for poor professional conduct. Then I felt an odd rush of sadness because I really liked ARM’s father. He was in failing health, a victim of a four-movies-at-time Netflix subscription which ARM controlled, but still a very witty old man and I liked him. Rest in peace, ARM’s father. In Heaven you can probably watch any movie you want, not just the ones your son makes his assistant order for you.

I guess my horoscope wasn’t completely accurate, because it didn’t mention anything about needing emergency foot-in-mouth surgery this afternoon. Regarding the check...I’ll believe it when I see it.

Sea Legs and Wake Surfing

The first time R and I hung out, he said something about how he can surf on a lake and I thought he was joking. I probably laughed too loudly as I do when I’m nervous and gave some witty response along the lines of “Nah-huh!”

He didn’t elaborate then, but I found out on Saturday afternoon on a boat in Connecticut that you can, in fact, surf on a lake.

On Friday after work I threw some clothes and a bathing suit in a duffel bag and took a cab to Grand Central. I’m not quite sure how I survived 5 years of living in New York without ever stepping foot in Grand Central Station, but there I was, completely awed like a tourist. All of these years taking Amtrak or New Jersey Transit from gross Penn Station and I didn’t know what I was missing: marble archways, fast-moving ticket lines, nice shops and restaurants besides Hudson News or Houlihans. I think I’m in love.

I got there about an hour before my train because I wanted to get a gift for R’s sister, whose lake house we stayed at for the weekend. I meandered through a stationary store, wanting to buy everything in sight for myself, but decided that it’s really difficult to buy a gift for someone you’ve never met. So I went with what I know: food. I called MomOh from an outpost of a very famous bakery and asked if bringing a cheesecake was weird or good. She voted good, conveniently, because after deliberating between the chocolate or raspberry swirl I was only a few moments from drooling on the glass bakery case.

I was pretty nervous about meeting R’s sister and brother-in-law because that’s a Big Deal in the world of dating, but it went fine (I think). The cheesecake was well-received, and we had a great time cruising around the lake in their very cool boat. By the second day R’s young nephews warmed up to me and weren’t afraid to climb all over me in the boat. R taught me how to wake board, water ski and wake surf, though I definitely spent more time falling and getting water up my nose than standing and riding behind the boat. My favorite thing was the wake surfing (which I kept accidentally calling “boat surfing”). Like water skiing or wake boarding, you start crouched in the water holding the rope handle, and the speed of the boat pops you out of the water. Unlike water skiing or wake boarding, your feet aren’t attached to the surfboard, which is a bit shorter and thinner than a conventional surfboard with a rubber grip surface. If you’re really good (I wasn’t), once you get going you toss the rope back in the boat and continue riding the wake just by shifting your weight between your front and back feet. By Sunday afternoon I could get up quickly and surf in the wake with the rope slacked, but I wasn’t quite brave enough to throw it back on the boat and risk losing my ride. It is by far the coolest water sport that I’ve tried – I like it even better than kayaking.

The world is still a little wobbly from being on a boat for two full days, and I feel a bit like I cheated on The Beach with The Lake. It was just a fling, I promise! It didn’t mean anything!

But of course, that’s always a lie, and the trip meant a lot to me.

I'm leaving work early and meeting up with R to cut his hair. He bought clippers and decided that my rooftop would be the perfect locale for his haircut. I have about zero men's haircutting experience, and piss-poor hand-eye coordination. We'll see if we're still dating tomorrow.

The Maybe Barfight

I do stupid things with alarming regularity, but last night really tipped the crazy scale.

For the past week, Coach G, R and I have been recruiting cool people from running class to join us for our Thursday night no-shower happy hour. Last night we pulled it together, and nine sweaty runners made our way over to the same lingerie-strewn Upper West Side bar where Coach G purchased the “mystery pitcher.”

I’m not sure I can go back there anymore, which is a real shame because they play great music and fifty cent beers is a perfect price tag.

I may have been forcibly ejected from the bar by a burly bouncer. Because I may have started a fight with a whore who needed to pull her skirt up about four more inches and get her vajayjay out of R’s face when he was taking his pool shot. And she maybe threw a beer in my face and I maybe started swinging until the bouncer tackled me and dragged me out a side exit, still yelling obscenities at her. Maybe I used words that are not appropriate for polite society, and maybe my friends had to pull me away so I didn’t go after her outside. And also, I may have been drunk. Just a tiny bit. Maybe.

R’s take on the whole debacle was pretty classic: “Next time, just say something to me if you’re getting pissed off, but that was totally HOT. You were AWESOME.”

Today, sobered (mostly), I feel an odd mix of badass and foolish. Clearly, she had it coming, and being doused with fifty cents worth of beer catapulted me from “back off my man” to “bitch, it’s on now!” in half a second. But since when am I confrontational? Or violent, for that matter? I’m a total wuss! Apparently cheap beer for dinner invokes my bizarre, territorial, inner prize fighter. Weird.

So yeah. It was a great night from start to finish. And now I’m eating a cheeseburger for lunch, because I figure I earned it.

I came in to the office today solely for the free lunch. I strolled in around 9:30AM, and JDate gave me the go-ahead to leave early (“I wouldn’t tell anyone if you left now!”) so I’m cutting out as soon as I’m done digesting. For all the bitching I do about being bored at Nice Hedge Fund, there are some definite advantages to working a mindless job with zero responsibilities.

Happy weekend!

If My Head Wasn't Attached

About once a month, on average, I lock myself out of my apartment. My keys are attached to my wallet, so walking out the door without my driver’s license, money, credit cards AND keys is really a feat of impressive stupidity. Through the providence of roommates and/or the grace of God, I’ve never been truly stranded on my front step for any significant period of time, but I’m pushing my luck.

On Monday I went out for a bike ride without my keys, cell phone or ID, the three things that I’ve been trained to toss in my saddle bag for emergencies. I returned home, dismounted, and as the realization dawned on me and the word “Fuck” started to form on my lips, New Roommate M walked over from the other direction. “Oh, great, I don’t even have to pull out my keys!” I felt strangely compelled to bluff as I tossed my bike over my shoulder and followed her through the front doors.

This morning I did it again, and realized before I even arrived at the office. I should have turned around and gotten them while New Roommate M was still at home, but for some reason I carried on to fulfill my oh-so-critical daily task of dialing the phone number for the 8AM conference call. Then when I got upstairs, Pain in the Analyst had already dialed in to the call. I’m an idiot. So at lunch, rather than brave the Jimmy Choo sample sale with C (I didn’t have my wallet, after all, and wasn’t in the mood for a cat fight over a pair of living-beyond-my-means ankle boots), I trekked back home to buzz every apartment until someone let me up. Again, I don’t know why this seemed like a good idea, as surely less people would be home at 1:30PM than at 5PM after work, but there I was ringing every doorbell until my Afghani Bodyguard-cum-Savior stuck his head out of his restaurant next-door and revealed that he had a key. Man, I love that guy. He’s nosy, he knows my name from the one and only time I ordered takeout, he makes me do pushups with him on the sidewalk when I get back from a run, and his omnipresence in the restaurant entranceway gives pause to any unwanted male suitors. He really completes my Living In New York City experience. AND he has an extra key.

I lied and told him that I had my apartment key just not the building key. Not only do I have a key-forgetting problem; I also have related compulsory lying issues. I don’t know what he’d do if I told him my plan of climbing down the fire escape from the roof through my open bathroom window. In a dress, of course. Cat burglars, take note: I forget to lock my bathroom window more often than I forget my keys.

Wednesday is Hump Day

In accordance to The New Life Plan of getting my MFA in Creative Writing (and securing my spot in the unemployment line), I’m studying for the GRE. Perhaps I should say “studying” because as far as I can tell from my “Cracking the GRE” prep book, passing the third grade is all that is required of the math section:

“Decimals are just fractions in disguise. Basically, decimals and fractions are different ways of expressing the same thing. Every decimal can be written as a fraction, and every fraction can be written as a decimal. For example, the decimal .35 can be written as the fraction 35/100: these two expressions, .35 and 35/100, have the same value.”

Now, I’m sure the actual GRE isn’t quite so elementary, but I can’t help feeling that I wasted $33.95 on a book that includes such helpful notes as, “Percent literally means “per 100” or “out of 100” or “divided by 100.” If you haven’t yet mastered those tricky little percentages by the time grad school starts to sound like a good idea, well, you’re probably a lousy tipper. Necessary life skills aside, I fail to see how realizing that in the equation z2=144, z = +/-12 will ever influence my writing abilities. I’m not one of those English Majors who shrinks at the idea of math and can’t do long division in her head. I went all the way to calculus in high school (though all I really remember is loading shortcut programs onto my TI-83 Plus graphing calculator) and for a long period of my life I wanted to be an architect or an engineer. What was I thinking?

Last night after running class R and Coach G came back to my apartment for beer and burgers. While I grilled and boiled the corn on the cob, the guys set themselves to task hanging up my Bud Light dartboard that has been sadly residing under the futon for the past three years. They put Roommate M and me to shame with their superior hanging-things skills, and the dartboard is a frat-tastic addition to our living room. Of course with the apartment being so narrow, the official throwing line is exactly at the door jamb, so we have to wedge open the front door and play from the hallway. Classy. Roommate M and I have a plan to practice and get really good so we can hustle the boys for drinks at bars.

I never thought I’d say it, but I just want Labor Day to come and summer to end. I don’t know how much longer I can stand working at this Nice Hedge Fund ghost town. For the past hour C, D and I played a cutthroat game of Uno in the chairman’s empty office (C kicked our ass). We had fun, but even the game got tedious under the strain of our collective boredom. This is what despair looks like: no makeup, undone hair, flip flops and a pair of loose-fitting khakis that make me look like it’s 1995 and I should be listening to Hole’s "Doll Parts" on my Walkman. Central Park is covered by a white fog like some depressing preview of February, and I think I just dozed off at my desk for a few minutes. I need sun and sand and a frozen beverage, stat, though I’d settle for a nap and a pint of cookies and cream. In reality, I’m going to the spa to pay a small fortune for a heavily-accented woman to torture my ladyparts with hot wax and fabric strips.

Being a girl is awesome.

Also, Title and Fascinating Story TKTK

Admins, when left to their own devices due to extended absentee bosses, will quickly fall into deviant behavior patterns that involve but are not limited to: gossiping about Loud Guy (literally) behind his back via instant messages; hovering around one another’s computer to watch funny YouTube videos; stealthily snooping over Loud Guy’s shoulder to see pictures of the chick whose MySpace profile he’s discussing on the phone with one of his Dude Bros; eavesdropping on the MySpace login and password Loud Guy is using to view said profile but only collectively catching three letters of a password that may or may not contain more than three letters.

More updates tktk (obviously!) when he goes into a meeting and we’re able to test out the overheard login information…

Last night Roommate M and I attempted to hang up some shelves and framed pictures in the living room above the futon. We’re not inept girly girls. We have tool kits, a drill, a level and occasional common sense, but man, did our handiwork suck last night. I spent more time patching over mistake holes than actually hanging things. It wasn’t our fault, really – it seems the contractors who renovated the apartment before I moved in three years ago got a little creative with their stud placement and there is no rhyme or reason to their locations. By the time we finished (read: gave up), the sofa was covered in drywall dust and the one shelf we managed to hang was scattered with about twelve bent and broken plastic anchors and failed screws. I think we can just about forget hanging her flat screen TV on the wall now.

In other news, it’s icky and raining outside and I’m not looking forward to freezing my tail off at running class tonight. This morning I made it from front door to office in 8 1/2 minutes, shattering the previous World Record of 9 1/4 minutes. So even though I could probably leave work now, about an hour early, the idea of being outside is far less pleasant than being warm and dry here at the office.

Yes, it really is this boring here at work today. I’ll bring my A game tomorrow, I promise.

Hedge Funds: Where Creativity Goes to Die

On Saturday morning, after more than a year of completely sucking, I finally did it: I had a race. A good race.

Sure, I’ve worn my fluorescent yellow team jersey and participated in races. I started running when the gun went off and stopped at the finish line, but in between my thoughts were, “Try not to keel over. It’s 8am on a weekend, why am I doing this? Am I done yet? Will anyone care if I drop out? This hurts.”

Then Saturday something clicked over in my head and those thoughts came out more like, “Hey, I’m going kind of fast, and I’m relatively sure I’m not going to die. Maybe I could pass that girl in front of me. This isn’t so bad. There’s R cheering for me! Five miles is a tough race distance, but I’m almost there. Also, I’m hungry.”

As I warmed up with five of my teammates (the really fast girls) and afterwards devoured a bagel and snacks at our post-race picnic, I felt like part of a team again. Happy JackieOh.

The resultant runner’s high carried me through Sunday evening, though it’s possible that the overarching awesomeness of my weekend was the source of my happiness. On Friday night R organized a dinner with a few of his friends, one of those fun but potentially awkward situations where everyone just knows R and the one friend he or she brought. Pitchers of sangria were the perfect solution to smooth out any lapses in the conversation and everyone was having a good time. Then things got weird.

I had suggested we go to an Italian restaurant across the street from my apartment because it can accommodate groups, and there’s always a bachelorette party going on and who doesn’t want to see a chick in a tiara, veil and sequined “BRIDE” tanktop getting drunk with twelve of her sluttiest girl friends? Well, us, as it turns out. The bachelorette party disrupting our dinner was sad and a little traumatizing for the easily offended – the future Mrs. could only round up three of her girl friends, but she outslutted them all when it was time for the waiter to dance/grind with her while Jock Jams played from the speakers. The waiter must moonlight as a stripper, and the bride-to-be was way too into dry humping him in the middle of the restaurant to be getting hitched any time soon. At one point a waiter sprayed a line of whip cream down her cleavage and licked it off. You can't even make this shit up. Not surprisingly, R banned me from ever choosing the restaurant again.

Saturday was one of those Fun York days, starting with the race. R and his friend M came to watch my finish, then the three of us and Coach G headed to the Great Lawn for some Frisbee action. We challenged four other dudes to a game of Ultimate, even though Coach G and I had nothing left in our legs. M carried us with some incredible catches, and I even scored one of our points. The other dudes wimped out before we could play to eleven, so we’re calling it a victory for The Good Guys. Later that evening, after naps and showers, we met up with R’s cousin and her husband for beer and barbecue. Life is good. We ordered a huge fishbowl drink that came with a plastic alligator filled with an additional shot. I spent the rest of the evening drinking with an alligator sticking out of the pocket of my khakis, the universal sign of a classy broad.

Sunday was cool and drizzly, so R and I went to the Guggenheim to see the Shapes of Space exhibit (check it off the Summer To-Do List!). We liked the permanent collection, but the exhibit itself was bizarre and disappointing. I’m pretty liberal with the sliding scale of What Counts as Art, but this pushed even my boundaries. Square of gold lamé on the floor? Not art. Plywood chicken coop with a TV inside playing a video of the chicken coop building process? Really not art. And the main attraction (as advertised on the subway) was a floor with square tiles that lit up in patterns to 50 Cent’s "Candyshop." I was disenchanted to discover that the tiles weren’t interactive and didn’t light up when patrons danced on them like the piano at FAO Schwartz in Big. Boring! But nothing a little ice cream in the park couldn’t fix. Really, there isn’t much in this world that ice cream can’t fix for me.

We rounded out the Fun York weekend with Chinese takeout and Superbad. Holy cow, I’m still laughing about a few parts. I feel like the movie makers took a big risk with a title like that – the potential for self-fulfilling prophecy is high. Humor is on their side, but if it sucked, one could answer the question, “How was Superbad?” by saying, “Super bad.” Anyway, it was hilarious. Supergood.

OK, I’m so bored that I might willingly make vocabulary flashcards to study for the upcoming GRE. With Easy and Easiest out on vacation I’m just left with Easier and JDate, neither of whom give me any work. Man, late August is a weird time at Nice Hedge Fund, when all of the bosses are out and the assistants are left to their own devices. T and I were talking this afternoon about our respective jobs. He works with creative types at a creative job where the tattooed to not-tattooed ratio is high, while I can think of two people in this entire office with visible tattoos: an over-muscled, intentionally bald IT guy with tribal bands around his biceps and a pseudo-cougar with your standard sun inked on her ankle just above the peep-toe stilettos that she wears every single day. The only “creative types” here are the admins who would rather be doing something else but can’t pass up the money. Hedge funds, it seems, are where creativity comes to die.

I think I’ve had enough fun for one day. Time to duck out early.