Welcome Home

I did the thing I never thought I would do: I put a college decal sticker on the rear windshield of my car. I also attached a red lanyard to my car key, further proof of my vague sense of school spirit. I would have bought a sweatshirt from the bookstore, that pinnacle emblem of college pride, but being a grad student isn’t exactly the most lucrative career and a girl’s gotta eat. So, lanyard and sticker had to do.

Classes began last week, and it felt strange at first to see the campus so populated after having it empty to ourselves all summer. I am realizing that I didn’t actually go to Real College before. Overpriced Private University wasn’t anything like this Huge State School. There weren’t large patches of grass upon which students tossed Frisbees; there was Washington Square Park and we shared it with bums, drug dealers, old chess players, and the ghosts of the bodies buried under the pavement. Here, the sidewalks are chalked with colorful Greek letters imploring you underfoot to rush this or that sorority (entrance to which is surely based on one’s ability to write so perfectly in pink sidewalk chalk). The uniform for boys and girls is roughly the same: college/frat/sorority tshirt paired with cargo shorts/denim skirts/gym shorts and flip-flops. I stand out in my I Used to Work at a Hedge Fund attire, but that’s the point, I’m their teacher. It’s strange to feel at once like a freshman, very much new to this environment, and yet removed from them in both age and authority. On my first day of teaching English 101, I was nervous and sweaty and probably talked too fast as twenty-one pairs of eyes stared at me like I was an alien, but by the second class my nerves were calmer and I may have actually taught them something! Tomorrow we are learning about argumentation through the stases and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a good class discussion.

Tomorrow afternoon I have my fiction workshop, my raison d’être. I left last week’s class so elated, so full of reassurance that I made the right choice in coming here and pursing this writing career. I suppose I can admit now that until that class, I wasn’t entirely convinced. I still don’t know if I’m weird or complicated or even smart enough to be enrolled in a master’s program – especially when they lump us with the English PhD kids who give new meaning to dedication to the cause – but I know for certain that I find a special brand of happiness in a creative writing workshop. And I’m making friends, the kind of friends that feel like I’ve known them forever or maybe I just wish I had, Papa Bear and A-bomb and Ramona Quimby and TJ the Worrier.

There is a sign as you drive into my apartment complex that says “Welcome Home.” I hate that sign. “This isn’t my home!” I want to yell back, but I’m slowly reaching a point where I’m less horrified by that thought. It’s not home yet, here in this unfurnished apartment, but it’s becoming a place where I have friends who will go with me to Ikea to buy a sofa. If moving taught me one thing, it’s that the friends who will carry your furniture are the ones worth having.

It Is You She Is Holding

This past weekend I made my first of surely many return trips to New York City. On Friday afternoon I went for a long walk with cycling girlfriend A, and it felt so nice to be able to talk with her in person instead of on our marathon phone sessions. I woke up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to go for a run in Central Park while I watched QZ’s bike race. Just past 72nd street on the west side I caught up to SJ, another cycling girlfriend who was also running and cheering on her husband in the bike race. It’s amazing to have lived in a city as big as the Big Apple and still be able to bump into a dear friend at 6am in the park.

That afternoon, QZ and I drove out to the Hamptons with P&S, a pair of wildly entertaining Australian lawyers, for a weekend of sun, a bike ride out to the Montauk Lighthouse, a very posh beach party, a 3am dip in the ocean, and a lot of laughs. A diehard Jersey Shore loyalist, I never expected to love the Hamptons so much, but with clean beaches, delicious sandwiches and fun company, what’s not to love?

Back in Manhattan on Sunday evening, I tagged along for QZ’s skeeball league game in the East Village (yes, competitive skeeball), then we went out for sushi with G&MH. I miss having so many terrific restaurants just a short walk away – here in College Park, the closest thing to fine dining seems to be the Ikea food court.

On Monday while QZ was at work I went for a ride in Central Park then met up with MQ for some lunch, girlie gossip and errands around the city. She’s a new friend, really one of QZ’s good friends that I’m getting to know better whose freelance work schedule let her roam around all afternoon with me. It’s unfair that even now I’m developing friendships with wonderful people in New York and I don’t even get to live there!

I thought leaving was difficult two months ago; this time around was infinitely harder. I’ve tried to be tough about the distance and how much I miss my life there, but last night I couldn’t fight the hot tears that streamed down my face onto QZ’s chest. Here I believed that I left the Midtown Holding Pattern – I even brainstormed new blog names! – but my heart has been there with him all along.

Suburban Stylings

Holy cow, did you guys see this?  It’s like the good (er, dubious) people over at American Apparel read my mind (or my blog!) and realized that yes, what the world needs again are Hypercolor T-shirts.  Sure, they’re calling them “Thermochromatic” but I know '90's fashion when I see it!  Being American Apparel and thus wholly misogynistic in every way (sorry, couldn’t resist the soapbox), they’re only selling them in men’s sizes.  Then again, being American Apparel, the clothes are made for scrawny, androgynous hipster men, so I will probably need, like, a large. 

Oh right, I live in the suburbs of Maryland now.  So I’ll have to drive to the nearest store, which the interwebs tells me is in Silver Spring, exactly four miles (14 minutes) away from my new apartment.  And then they probably won’t have them because only New York City stores are receiving shipments or some shit like that and I’ll piss and moan because mere weeks ago I could just walk a few blocks from my office during lunch and then I’d be the instantly gratified owner of a ridiculous nostalgic t-shirt. 

Can you tell I’m homesick?

The truth is, I don’t really miss New York City all that much yet. Sometimes it comes back to me like a knee-jerk when I realize there’s no Afghani bodyguard waiting for me downstairs, no Central Park a few blocks north, no roommate across the living room. It’s quiet here in my strange little apartment complex, and I’m not used to quiet. My lovely little Midtown apartment overlooked Ninth Avenue, whose loud traffic fed into the Lincoln Tunnel. Around the corner, QZ’s apartment is en route to a popular neighborhood gay bar. The gays, I learned, are a loud bunch – especially at 3am.

A city is a great place to be alone because you’re never really alone. There’s always someone in the next bedroom or the next barstool to keep you company if you so desire. The suburbs may be great for couples and families, and maybe it will be great for me eventually too, but right now it feels very lonely.

I’m getting there. I’m slowly finding my bearings around the area, and I haven’t gotten lost on campus since…well, yesterday. It’s a huge campus with no sensible grid whatsoever and while I can get to crucial outposts like the library and my classroom, I can’t seem to wrap my mind around the whole place. I’ve never been so good about the big picture anyway. When I get lost I start to berate myself, thinking that for a very smart person I should be able to figure out how to get to the recreation center. I could handle Manhattan, why can’t I handle College Park? For six years I could orient myself on that island just by looking at which direction the street numbers went, but now I feel like one of those rooftop weathervanes that has been spun around by a gust of wind and no longer points due north. I know I’ll get the hang of it eventually, but this is me here and haven’t I already mentioned instant gratification?

My NEW lovely little apartment is starting to come together as well, though the more boxes I unpack the more apparent it is that my living room utterly lacks furniture. I have a TV, a bookcase…and nothing else. Buying a sofa is high up on my To Do list, but it was trumped by buying a car last week. Sitting comfortably will just have to wait until I get a paycheck. In typical JackieOh fashion, I have a nice apartment in a questionable neighborhood. Okay, it’s kind of in the ghetto. But hey, I have lots of fast food restaurants to choose from! And nail salons, and cheap gas stations, and a convenient store that sells Swiss Farms Tea Cooler! What more could a girl want?

It’s funny how attached we get to our routines. All I wanted for the past two years was to escape the Midtown Holding Pattern. Now that I have landed here in Maryland pursuing my dream career, I miss it. I actually miss getting up and going to work every day; I miss the office interactions and the weighty lunch decisions. And while I don’t quite miss New York City itself (have I mentioned that I have TWO closets here?), I miss the little community I had built around myself of runners and cyclists and all-around wonderful people.

There I go now, getting all sappy.

And So Begin the Goodbyes

People always get a bit misty-eyed about Ends of Eras. Well, I might hate goodbyes more than I hate surprises, which is why I’m really glad I found out about the surprise goodbye party that Nice Hedge Fund is having for me tomorrow. That would have been a double-whammy of JackieOh awkwardness. See, goodbyes generally require hugging and everyone knows I only hug when drunk so unless they’re serving booze with that ice cream cake at 3:30PM in the conference room, don’t expect any weepy embraces from me.

Now I’m sure as shit not going to send out the obligatory Goodbye, Thanks for All the Great Work, and Here is my Contact Info Email before I clear out my collection of chapstick from my desk drawer and turn in my ID badge tomorrow. But if I were to send one, it would go something like this:

To: ALL
From: JackieOh
Subject: A Fond Farewell

Dear Nice Hedge Fund Co-workers,

It has been a pleasure working with some of you. I learned so much during my thirteen months here, mainly related to getting the most out of my $15 daily lunch allowance and which bathrooms were stocked with the best brand of tampons to steal. I have greatly enjoyed my time here, especially the times that involved make-your-own ice cream sundaes in the pantry, and I’ll always cherish the hazy memories of how embarrassingly drunk we all got at Easy’s holiday party.

Here is my personal contact information so we can pretend to keep in touch. But really, if we’re not already Facebook friends or gchat buddies, don’t expect to ever hear from me again.

All the best,
JackieOh

The Trip to AZ with QZ

I never really imagined I’d find myself in the desert of Arizona surrounded by cacti and Native American gift shops and breath-taking red rock landscape. The FamilyOh isn't the pack-up-the-RV-and-drive-out-west type. We beach, and we don’t exactly go far to do it. But Thursday evening, there I was at JFK boarding a plane to Sedona with QZ to attend his friends’ wedding. Having grown up in San Diego, QZ was amused that cacti were exotic to me – the suburbs of Philadelphia being rather un-desert-like and all. Did you know that the saguaro cactus can live for more than 150 years? And they start growing arms around age 75 to increase their reproductive capacity, which is dependent upon the pollination by bats and whitewing dove?

Early Friday morning, we excitedly arrived at a local bike shop for a guided mountain bike adventure. Well. Our tour guide, determined to show us city roadies just what MTBing is all about, took us on an intermediate level trail. Road bike skills do NOT translate to mountain bike skills, and what he deemed “intermediate” was more like “impossible.” My scrapes and bruises from the crash at Harlem two weeks ago were just finally healing, but after a few hours of struggling and falling on this death-defying trail I’m back to looking like a human punching bag. There was blood, oh, there were tears, but sweat, not so much because I had to dismount every few minutes to walk the stupid mountain bike up some steep rock formation. The entire experience was a battle royal between my determination not to give up and my threshold for pain. Even QZ, whose bike-handling skills far surpass mine, nearly fell a few times and had to walk his bike, too. I had been hoping to love mountain biking, maybe even add another weapon to my two-wheeled arsenal, but I ended up feeling discouraged and aching everywhere.

After that disheartening introduction, Arizona was not off to a great start. We then met up with the wedding group for a very cool hike up the beautiful Cathedral Rock trail and I decided that maybe Arizona wasn’t so bad. After some margaritas by the hotel pool (mixed expertly by QZ in a bike water bottle) and a delicious Mexican dinner with another couple, the morning’s mountain bike debacle was a distant memory and I had to admit that Arizona was completely wonderful.

On Saturday morning we went back to our bike shop and this time went with what we’re best at: road bikes. Armed with a map and directions from the cool bike shop dudes, we wound our way through Red Rock State Park, past ranches and along old dirt roads, and we only had to walk our bikes once – to cross a creek! The wedding ceremony took place that afternoon outside on a ranch set at the foot of a red rock mountain and even though the rental car’s thermometer said 104 degrees, it didn’t feel too hot. We had a great time dancing at the reception, and I did not, for the record, catch the bouquet. Just saying.

We spent our last day in Arizona exploring the town a bit – on four wheels instead of two. First we took a drive up to Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is a church built right into the landscape. Then we headed into the heart of Sedona, a shopping district peppered with Southwestern art galleries and New Age gift shops. Sedona, we learned from our explorations, has a touch of the crazy. It’s really no wonder why. For starters, there isn’t all that much to do besides admire the landscape. This landscape, arid and red with huge mystical sandstone formations shooting into the atmosphere, seems to a lot of people like the kind of place Martians might land if they were looking for a home away from home. Then there are the vortexes (no, not vortices), which are believed to be spiraling concentrations of spiritual energy (no, not wind). We skipped the vortexes tour and opted instead for psychic readings at the New Age Center. Yes, really.

Now, I’ve said it before: the stars know things. For a visual-based pragmatist, I give astrology a bit more credence than I’d like to admit in intelligent company, but I have moments where I know things without knowing how I know them. Sure, I always just chalked this up to intuition, but the psychic I met with said that actually this is because I’m a “transmitter.” Go on...

Madison Morgan, the psychic from Midtown East Manhattan, started off the reading by staring intently at me while asking basic contact information questions. She did some funky math on her notepad and declared me a Five of Spades – the genius card (ha!). Somehow that corresponds to the Ten of Hearts, the promoter card, which makes me a born leader and influencer. “You don’t like people telling you what to do!” she declared most accurately. I’m listening...

She next closed her eyes and read my aura. My head color was white/red, which means “majestic,” while my body color glowed green to mean healing (perhaps she noticed the HUGE bruise on my elbow?) She moved on to my palms, and that’s when things got really interesting. I’m going to live a long life and I’ll never be without a mate (possibly because my relationships have the tendency to overlap?) and I’m going to have two children. My fortune line isn’t yet complete, but I’ll always be financially secure. Writing is a good career for me, though I should consider screen plays ("Fuck the short stories, you want to make money, right?"), and she sensed a disconnect between writing and technology for me, which explains why I usually longhand everything before typing on the computer.

“Are you in love?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
"Does he have a lot of money?"
"Um, no?" He's a journalist with a cycling habit.

According to Madison, QZ isn’t The One for me because he’s too much in his own head, and he has fears, and as a Seven of Clubs he has an addictive personality that I should watch out for.

(Her: He could even become addicted to sex. Me: That wouldn't be so bad.)

Anyway, she said I should stay open because she sees someone else is in my future, someone with a lot of money. She was really into me having money.

Well, maybe the stars don’t know everything.

I mused over everything Madison said while we got relaxing hot stone massages, and then we took a drive up the switchbacks toward Flagstaff before hitting the highway for our redeye home to New York. Now that I’m back and the jetlag has subsided, I'm left with that unmistakable feeling that I'm a tiny bit different than I was before, a little more complete for having gone on this trip with QZ. I put my regular life on hold for a few days and it made me want more of that new-exciting-experiences feeling. Maybe it really is time to let go of New York and see what the rest of the country has to offer. And maybe what Madison saw on my palm wasn't a new man in my life but a new place for me to call home.

"If You Can Only Have One Great Love," 2nd Edition

Executives, regardless of self-sufficiency and perceived coolness, are a crazy breed. The JackieOh whirlwind assistant tour of Nice Hedge Fund has taken me through eight (count ‘em, eight) execs and will conclude in a few short weeks – just when things are getting interesting.

I like working for The Son of Mister Nice Hedge Fund. I should have applied for this position months ago when C left and I could have saved the HR Ladies from half a dozen Temp-induced headaches. It’s possible that I only enjoy this role because I’m so far out the door already, but I figure that if you have to be someone’s assistant you’re better off if that someone is as close to the top as possible.

So I got an email from the home assistant yesterday. The Son is in Europe for the board meeting with his family and like anyone in the history of people traveling somewhere, they forgot a few personal items. The list of oh-so-crucial forgotten items, and I quote:

Two black adult baseball caps
One bottle of pump spray sun screen
One cable for the camera
One pair of SPANX that are nude and waist high as opposed to being longer and going up past the rib cage
One regular black bra
One regular white jog bra (Champion)

Now, any normal person would, you know, head to the hotel gift shop for some sunscreen and tourist trap baseball caps. The undergarments might be a little trickier to wrangle, but SPANX? Oh honey, maybe eat a little less before trying to squeeze into that cocktail dress or work on the art of sucking in. Clearly, these aren’t normal people we’re dealing with here. These are billionaires, and they demand their own baseball caps! So the home assistant sent me their bag of crap via messenger, and I had to ask Easiest to please add it to his personal luggage. The entire exchange required nineteen emails involving five people.

I’d like to amend my Life Plan to marrying rich, but not helplessly, perspective-lessly rich.

Speaking of Life Plan, mine is finally starting to pull together. I drove down to Maryland last week and signed a lease on a nice one-bedroom apartment near campus, so that’s a huge stressy blob off my mind. Coach G decreed this past Sunday Jackie Day, and we started off the morning with yet another victory for Team Drinkin’ for the Kids in a relay biathlon. Later we went kayaking in the Hudson with a view of the Statue of Liberty and all I could think was how am I going to leave all this?

I’m leaving the Midtown Holding Pattern, and that of course raises The Break-Up Question. I don’t want to just cut off this relationship because I’m leaving – I want to say that I’ll visit whenever I can and things are going so well so don’t we owe it to each other to try the distance thing? Maybe we’ll be together again next summer, or maybe in two years after the program ends. But this is New York City I’m talking about here, and she’s a tempestuous lover. We’ve had our ups and downs these past six years, but I wouldn’t undo a single thing. (Okay, maybe I’d eliminate the robbery, or find lower rent while I’m in fantasy land, but otherwise, it's been a great relationship.) Even if it doesn’t work out while I’m four hours away at school, I hope we end up together in the future. When it’s right you know it, and feelings like these don’t just evaporate into the air above Ninth Avenue.

It's Not Me, It's You

So. Bike racing.

I haven’t written too much about it (yet) for several reasons. First, it’s been damningly frustrating so far. I got out of bed at 4:30AM and lined up for a race (the solitary girl in a sea of be-spandexed men) only to get dropped from the pack instantly because I couldn’t keep up. So I worked harder. I got out of bed again at 4:30AM and lined up for a race (this time in a field of beginner women like me) and felt strong, confident even, until some chick took out my back wheel on Cat Hill and ended my race. I rode home very slowly that morning with a non-functioning back brake, several broken spokes, and a bruised sense of determination. But I’m not giving up.

Second, I’ve been hesitant to abandon my runner roots. For over six years now I’ve tried to quit running, but that itch to lace up my sneakers and hit the pavement time and time again just won’t be scratched. I was a Lady Ford, then a Fighting Violet and now, a Screaming Yellow and if those team nicknames aren’t enough to make me quit this painful sport I don’t know what is. But when I injured my hip in April and it seemed like running and I were doomed for yet another breakup, cycling was there for me. It was the first time a NO RUNNING doctor’s order wasn’t accompanied by feelings of depression.

Maybe it was the bum hip that hurt when I did everything but cycle, or maybe it was the burglary that made me realize how important my bike was to me, but something changed in me and I started to feel more like JackieOh, Cyclist. I’d like to have a few words with whatever it was because cycling must be the most expensive sport on the planet and now I’m hooked. When I was home last weekend I bought a new road bike, a sexy red carbon fiber number with better components that feels like it was made just for me. Last month I fell in love with track racing at the Kissena Velodrome in Queens and bought a used Fetish fixie from one of the guys I met racing there. Gearing up for the fall season, I ordered a hideously yellow Cyclocross bike through Nice Hedge Fund’s discount program. Finally, rounding out this obsessive little buying streak, I’m trying to get my hands on a cheap beater bike for riding around the city and on campus in a few weeks. It’s a good thing I’m moving because my lovely little Midtown apartment isn’t big enough for this hobby.

After eight weeks of physical therapy, my hip has healed and I’m starting to regain pelvic strength. I can run again, so I’m told, but I just…don’t want to. I thought I’d be so excited for that post-injury run, to feel the spring in my step that can only come from taking nearly ten weeks off. Usually six or eight weeks off is all I need for my sieve of a memory to forget the pain, but not this time. Sorry, baby, I’ve taken up with someone new. He’s just different, that’s all, but my favorite part of the day is waking up to him. Cycling and I are really happy together, I hope you can understand.

Back in a Big Way

I need a new watch. I need many new things lately, few of which cost less than a thousand dollars, so a watch has a pretty low purchasing pole position. Still, I feel like I can handle this minute task of buying a new watch, especially compared to, say, the death-defying duty of buying a new (used) car. My digital running watch drowned in the Atlantic during the triathlon, my dress watch went the way of my bike and my computer, and I’ve been late for everything since.

I’ll probably buy a watch with an integrated heart rate monitor because I’m a grown-up athlete now and apparently grown-up athletes pay attention to stuff like that. But then today I was reading Fat Cyclist and I came across an ad banner for Freestyle watches. Holy cow, Shark watches are back? Man, I had the coolest purple and turquoise Shark watch when I was younger – with the Velcro fabric strap! – and I wore it with my Hang Ten t-shirts and Adidas winter jacket with the three stripes down the sleeves like every other Middle School student. So if anyone out there would like to fund my nostalgia, this purple/orange/yellow baby has JackieOh written all over it. Now if only I could round up a functioning Hypercolor t-shirt and some reruns of Hey Dude…

More Changes at Nice Hedge Fund

WARNING: I’ve been to the beach lately. The JackieOh Happiness Quotient is still through the roof.

Happy Wednesday that feels like Tuesday, lovers! I’m offering up this sacrificial staple-remover to the Gods of Four Day work weeks because this one is going to be a doozy.

I feel like a nomad around Nice Hedge Fund. I’ve barely chosen my computer desktop photograph down here in the HR Nook before I’m getting moved again. (As usual it’s one of the gazillion shots I have of me and Coach G.) Tomorrow I’m starting my third job in the past month here: Executive Assistant to…the President and Co-Chairman of Nice Hedge Fund. The Son of Mr. Nice Hedge Fund.

Um, what?

I’m not quite sure how this happened. His assistant quit, they need a body in that seat, and something about my flip-flop-wearing, online-chatting, internet-bike-shopping work ethic made me right for the job? I better pick up my dry cleaning and sharpen my Blackberry typing skills. This has potential to be ARM déjà vu.

In all honesty, I’m not worried about it. A) I have one foot out the door already – actually, it’s more like an entire leg. It’ll be tough to get too worked up about a job when the end date is so near. B) I sat next to C for so many months and paid attention, so I know what to expect. And C), I like Son of Mr. Nice Hedge Fund. He gave me baseball tickets to see the Phillies play/lose to the Mets back in April. He’s an Ironman. He solved my Rubik’s cube. How bad could it be?

I'll let you know.

Ow, ow, my skin. I spent a gorgeous Memorial Day weekend at the FamilyOh shore house with my wonderful running friends and the inevitable sunburn was worth every second on the beach. On Saturday morning, Coach G and I competed in a relay triathlon – we won! I thought I was going to die in the swim leg of the race because the water was too cold to submerge my face so all of my pool training these last six weeks went right out the window. Once I went numb I was able to get into a workable rhythm, and in the end the only casualty was my digital watch. The bike leg went really well despite a brutal headwind, and G kicked butt on the final beach run. It was a great feeling to have my friends and MomOh cheering for us along the way. When it was time to receive our award (boxes of Hammergels and a bike shop gift certificate, sweet!), the announcer called out “Team Drinkin’ for the Kids…a noble cause!” Indeed. We had some kayaking adventures with dolphins, several cutthroat games of bocce ball, even more games of darts, a dance party at a favorite local bar, a seafood feast, and lot of laughs from turning Cranium into a drinking game. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend! So now, naturally, I’m counting down the moments until I can go back.

I spent last weekend with friends from running world, but this upcoming weekend will be all about bike world. Tonight and Sunday I’m racing on the Velodrome in Queens, and on Saturday I’m racing in Central Park. Thank goodness for QZ lending me a bike or else I’d be a wreck right now. Wish me luck!

The Burglary

I have had four True Loves in my life so far. The oldest and truest has been, of course, The Beach. Now that the FamilyOh has a shore house, I feel like Beach and I are entering a more permanent and stable relationship, like a kind of marriage that will only get better with time.

True Love number two is Running. It's an abusive relationship, and while we're not seeing each other right now I can't quite let go of it. Most of my adult life and relationships have been somehow defined by Running. I need him, and I know I'll go back to him someday. I always do.

My third True Love is probably the most intricate relationship: New York City. We have a tough sort of love, one that makes me a better person because the city opened me up to food, culture and people I would have never eaten, seen or met otherwise. I've made the difficult decision to leave New York City in July and do my own thing in Maryland for a while, but ours is the kind of love where I'll always hope we can come back to each other in the future.

Cycling is my newest love, and we're still in those delicious early stages full of exciting firsts. We started off a little rocky back in 2006 when I was first learning to ride (ah, the ass bruise), but then our friendship developed in the second half of 2007 and now here I am falling in love instead of just falling down. It's funny how things work out that way sometimes.

So, dear readers, I have been heartbroken since early Friday morning. My lovely little Midtown apartment was burglarized on Thursday night when I was out at QZ's. No sign of forced entry, no fingerprints, no evidence. And the motherfucker stole my bike (among other things). I feel so angry toward the anonymous "they" who violated my home and shattered my sense of security. Being robbed is an exercise in the passive voice: my apartment was broken into, my belongings were stolen. But worst of all is how betrayed I feel by New York. I imagined how hard it would be to move but this is unforgivable and now my trust in this city is gone. I slept at QZ's place all weekend because every stray sound makes me jump and every footstep in the stairwell is coming upstairs to break in again. Replaying the What Ifs doesn't help either - what if we stayed at my place on Thursday night? Would this have still happened? Or would it have happened much, much worse?

And so I'm heartbroken. My third love betrayed me and stole away the means to my fourth love. Yes, I'm upset at the loss of all of my pictures, writing and music files that were on my laptop, and really, Burglar(s), did you have to steal my Netflix DVDs? That's just an inconvenience and for the record they were episodes of Freaks and Geeks. Oh, but my bike, my baby. It was the first big thing I ever bought for myself and I rode him with pride. Sure, I'll get a new bike, a lighter, fancier one now that I know how much I love this sport. But I always counted on having that one, even as I planned on upgrading in the future.

Like all True Loves, I hope my bike finds a good home with someone who loves him the way I did. As for me, I'm saying my prayers for the new deadbolt on my door and hoping that adage about lightning never striking twice is true.

That Makes Me the New One

Yesterday was my first full day working downstairs in the HR Department. The girls I work with are fun, they know all the good gossip, and they have an entire drawer full of cookies and candy. There are five of them down here: The Preppy One, the Tiffany & Co. One, the Loud One, the Quiet One, and The Boss. They wear good jewelry; carry pretty purses; compliment cute shoes; and write notes on colorful, flower-shaped post-its. I’m in love.

But the best part of working in the HR alcove has to be the private bathroom. Private bathroom! No more playing the quiet waiting game if someone else comes into the restroom when you’re doing your business! It’s incredible.

So far I’ve just been doing a lot of filing. As some of you may recall, I hate filing. I went months on end without filing a single document for ARM, and I’ve probably done even less filing for the Easys et al. in these past eleven months. Printing labels, fighting with those plastic sleevey things, getting terrible paper cuts from manila file folders…I hate it all. I do, however, enjoy alphabetizing things, and I get to read everyone’s salaries and other Top Secret Information so it’s not all bad. And shredding all the unwanted Top Secret Documents is pretty fun as well. I look at the offering agreements and see the pile of zeros at the end of some of the salaries and think, wow, I will NEVER see that amount of money in my life. Perhaps I need to tweak my Life Plan to be a little less College Creative Writing Teacher and a little more Trophy Wife.

Tonight, despite the fact that it’s raining cats and dogs outside, QZ and I are going to a barbecue with his cycling buddies. The discussion topics will surely not veer far from bike world (who bought what new gruppo, how so-and-so pro did in the latest tour de whatever, the team strategy for Sunday’s Bear Mountain Race…) and while I’m picking up enough of the lingo to translate, I don’t have much to add to the conversation. So I baked a marble pound cake with chocolate icing, and if that doesn’t say “This chick’s a keeper even if she doesn’t know her own bike’s gearing” I don’t know what will.

Now Lists, Lists I Can Handle

On Monday afternoon I received a phone call from the director of the creative writing program in which I will enroll in the fall. She had some news, she said.

In that instant, my mind started racing as I imagined all the terrible things she might tell me. Had I missed some deadline to accept my appointment? Was there an oversight and they actually don’t want me at all? I held my breath and braced myself for the worst news.

“Have you accepted anywhere else?” she asked. No. Fuck. I want to go to your school! Why, world, why are you taking my dreams away from me? I felt hot as The Redness gripped my neck and chest and my eyes welled with tears just waiting to waterfall down my cheeks.

“Oh good, we wanted to check because you’ve been chosen for a teaching assistantship…”

The rest of the conversation is kind of a blur. I tried to ask the right questions (when will I start? what will I teach? wait, full tuition AND a stipend?) but all I could think about was hanging up the phone and doing a big happy dance in my cubicle. It’s not every day that someone just calls you up and says, Oh by the way, now maybe you can afford to be a writer when you graduate because we’re taking away all your crippling debt! Ta-da!

I’ve been on cloud nine all week. Free grad school! And I get to teach immediately, which is exactly what I wanted. Hello, Fall Writing 101 students. I’m JackieOh, your neurotic, exercise-obsessed, scared-shitless teaching assistant. Now go read Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and if you don’t love it, get out of my class.

Of course, this changes my entire Pre-Back-to-School Plan, and I think we know how well I deal with change. Instead of lounging at the new FamilyOh beach house for a few weeks at the end of the summer, I have to take a summer prep course on how to be a TA that starts on July 15! That is SO SOON. I maybe had a teensy tiny little meltdown yesterday when I started to think about all the things I have to do between now and then to get ready…find an apartment, get a car, get car insurance, pack up and move out of New York City…aaand commence hyperventilation!

Slightly calmer today, I’m harnessing my nervous energy to more immediate plans. My Macro life is a little more than I can deal with right now, so I’m focusing on the Micro. And that means a Things I Need to Do Before Leaving New York List. This has to be the ultimate, super-duper, mother of all lists because I’m going out with a bang. Six years and I’ve never even been to the Statue of Liberty! So please, lovers, offer suggestions and join me in the fun!

To Do Before Leaving New York City:

Imbibe at the Brooklyn Brewery
See the Mermaid Parade, ride the Cyclone and eat Nathan’s hot dogs on Coney Island
Rent Kayaks on the Hudson
See the Jeff Koons exhibit on the roof of the Met Museum
Eat at Boat Basin Café
See shows at McCarren Park Pool and Central Park SummerStage
Hike with the girls in Cold Spring
See the Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy exhibit at the Costume Institute
Visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island



What else am I forgetting?

Big Changes at Nice Hedge Fund

Last week I slipped and told the girls in HR that I'm quitting Nice Hedge Fund for grad school.

It was after Take Your Brats to Work Day, and I had spent the better portion of my day ushering the kids from each different educational-yet-fun activity. Here's a JackieOh secret: I love kids. I feel like so many New York City Type A's echo the same sentiment about children, and it usually follows the vein of "I hate other people's kids, but when I have my own they will totally kick ass!" Not me. I see babies and I think, "I want one!" (someday) but this is not an easy thing for a cold-hearted bitch like myself to admit. I can't help it. Kids are usually cute and occasionally funny. They hold your hand; they notice when you change your hairstyle. And when they open their mouth you get a very clear image of how their parents raise them. This of course proved to be the best part about Take Your Brats to Work Day.

Example conversation:

Granddaughter of Mr. Nice Hedge Fund: I don’t like pizza!
Me: You don’t like pizza? What’s your favorite food then?
Granddaughter: Escargot!

Not even kidding. From the mouth of billionaire babes.

So afterwards, the HR Department wanted to thank all the helpers with Nice Hedge Fund embroidered office stuff. They handed me a backpack.

I am three months away from moving out of New York City and four years into living as a packrat in the same small Midtown apartment. I'm squarely situated in Phase One of Moving Mayhem: Panic About How Much Crap I Own. I couldn't bring home another backpack. I told them I was moving, and then blurted out the whole story before I could stop myself.

As fate would turn out (only in my silly little life), my confession got their gears cranking. They need a new HR assistant, and in the wake of several high-ranking office members leaving Nice Hedge Fund, co-worker D needs a new boss. So she is going to take over for my four guys (Easier, Easiest, JDate and The New One) and I’ll move downstairs to HR for the rest of my time here. I'm pretty happy about it - I've always enjoyed roles where I have my finger on the pulse of the action. D seems happy too, so all around its a good move. I start on Monday!

Later, after I agreed to the new arrangement, it occurred to me: HR people are like the benchmark of office behavior. I'm going to have to dress nicely, arrive punctually, and (gasp) probably log less hours chatting online. Shit. I might not be cut out for this role. And how will any of us survive without the constant inundation of Loud Guy’s personal life details?

Stay tuned, lovers. Looks like we'll have a whole new cast of characters to work with next week!

Puppets, Boobies, Hiking and Biking

Happy Patriots' Day, lovers! Let's all celebrate by drinking early and watching the marathoners run by!

Oh wait, I live in New York City, not Boston. Guess I'll have to celebrate by going to work and keeping my running sneakers on instead of changing into my dress shoes. Good thing Coach B is sending email updates roughly every six minutes so I can keep track of my friends'/teammates' pacing every step of the way! Seriously, he sent eight emails during today's race - though it's supercool that our women's 40+ team took fourth place. Hi, I'm JackieOh, and I like to live vicariously.

On Friday night after a few plans fell through I got a text message from Coach G: Want to go to a puppet show on the LES?

Um, sure.

So at 9:30 I arrived at a tiny theatre on Clinton Street, the door to which was manned by a girl wearing a toga and wrapped in silk flowers and vines. Good start. I took my seat next to Coach G and adjusted to the volume level of the audience. Everyone around me was yelling and banging the tambourines and maracas that were doled out on each seat. A few minutes later we were joined by the N Sisters, friends from running class, who looked equally perplexed by the rowdy scene.

Then the play/performance/thingy started. I don’t know how to explain it, or what it was about at all. There was a man dressed as a giant mouth, and he was attacked by a killer badger (which we tried to ward off with our percussion instruments); there were girls dancing around in what looked like shrimp costumes; and there were marionettes. Thankfully, we armed ourselves with big paper cups-full of wine – avant-garde theatrical performances should mandate a certain level of alcohol consumption anyway.

After the show Coach G led us to a nearby burlesque bar, theorizing that the only way to top what we’d just seen would be mostly-naked ladies swinging their nipple tassels around. He was right, I guess, and the burlesque show was a delicious mix of seediness and entertainment. TN and I have our sights set on new careers…maybe there’s a niche market for flat-chested runner chicks in the burlesque world! Anyway, it was a great night that could only happen in New York.

On Saturday I was awake before sunrise to marshal the bike race in Central Park. The race was pretty weak because all the good riders were racing upstate instead, but thankfully that made it much shorter than usual. I like watching bike racing the same way I like watching running racing: because I enjoy standing near the finish line and cheering on my friends. Being assigned to stand at a designated light post and blowing a whistle every time the field passes is obviously less fun. But you have to marshal if you want to race, so there I was.

Afterwards, I joined girl friends J and SJ for hiking outside of the city. We didn’t get lost, we brought enough water, the weather was perfect…it was so much fun. I love hiking! I’m hooked now. Back in Manhattan, we celebrated our expert hiking skills with burgers and sangria on an outdoor restaurant patio. We were dirty, tired, a little sunburned (despite our careful sunscreen application), but oh, so happy. There is something wonderful about having female friends who can talk about boys and weddings and all that girlie stuff – while trekking through the woods or riding around the park at dawn! I’ve really hit the jackpot.

On Sunday morning QZ dragged my tired butt across the bridge and up and down River Road. It was a chilly, windy ride and he’s much, MUCH better than me, but I did my best to cling to his back wheel for dear life. He gave me such hell when I showed up at his apartment wearing a bandana under my helmet and a running shirt under my jersey – apparently I didn’t look enough like a “real” cyclist and I needed his hat and arm warmers. Real cyclists, I’m learning, feel the insane urge to match everything from their helmet down to the paint job on their superfancy bikes. The only reason any of my gear matches is because I tend to buy things in my favorite colors red and black. When I get any good on the bike maybe I can justify the matchy-matchy gear, but until then I’d just look like another New York diva cyclist with more money than ability. Sorry, QZ, I’m sticking with my bandana…but I’m keeping your arm warmers.

We Don't Swim In Your Bathroom

Stupid legs.

It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that I have sustained yet another running-related injury. My pelvic support muscles are apparently weak, so I've been forcing my hip flexors and quadriceps to pull double duty to compensate. On Thursday evening when I got to running class, my left rectus femoris decided it had enough of working extra and cried mercy. Walking is painful – forget about running. Brace yourselves, dear readers: it’s going to be a bumpy journey along my mental sanity for the next few weeks. NO RUNNING. Ugh.

I’ve been relegated to the pool. Thank goodness for MomOh dragging us to swim team practice every day in the summer when we were kids - I guess some of that training stuck with me, and it turns out I'm still a pretty good swimmer. Also, I'm still wearing my swim team suit from...1998. Might be time to invest in a new bathing suit. Okay, so while I'd rather be outside in Central Park (especially now that the weather is getting warmer), at least I can get a solid, pain-free workout. Except I stink like chlorine no matter how many times I shower and there is this tiny little issue with me and pools. And peeing. The second I get in the pool, I have to go. Seeing as I'm not four years old anymore, I'm relatively sure this is not socially acceptable behavior for an indoor gym pool. Of course there aren't any toilets on the pool level, so I have to drip up the stairs in the locker room and then wrestle myself out of a wet bathing suit. It's a real problem.

Anyway, I’m going to physical therapy three days a week, which has so far just been a lot of ultrasound treatment and ice to ease the inflammation. My physical therapist seems to be experimenting with taping up my hip, though I don’t feel like it makes an ounce of difference. On Friday she ran a strip of hot pink tape from my navel to my knee; today it’s a bright blue asterisk centered on the most painful area of the upper leg. It's a sexy look, let me assure you.

I’m currently nursing my wounds with a cocktail of ibooze around the clock and a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup. Ah, the joys of going to the grocery store hungry.

Oh, So Many Running Skirts

It is possible that you don’t know this about me, because you don't interact with me every day (poor, unfortunate souls!), but I’ve been on top of the world lately. Everything is coming up JackieOh in this Year of Yes. All of my Life Plans are almost ready to fall into place perfectly, and I'm making the most of every last minute I have here in New York City.

I was just telling a friend the other night that I feel like I have something to look forward to nearly every weekend until the end of July when I have to leave, and this past one was no exception.

On Saturday morning I got up early to watch QZ and my other cycling friends compete in the bike race in Central Park. I wanted to be out there, and I'll get there eventually (maybe next weekend!) but, well, I'm terrified of bike racing. It’s not like running at all, where the strongest, fastest guy wins. There are team strategies and lead-outs and field sprints and get this – if you flat out or get dropped from the pack, you just quit the race! That Never Give Up attitude of mine isn't really applicable here. My cycling friends reassure me that I’m strong and will be a good racer, but I’m not quite so convinced. There are crashes all the time in bike racing! Don't they realize how klutzy I am?

After the race QZ and I got breakfast and then cleaned our bikes. Well okay, it was more like he cleaned while I watched and tried not to get sprayed by the hose, but my bike looks so shiny and new! At least I'll look good out there next weekend when I'm shaking in my spandex.

Saturday was a good day, but Sunday was downright wonderful. I ran my first half-marathon! My friend and teammate LZ and I competed together in the More Magazine half-marathon, an all-women's race that consists of two clock-wise loops of Central Park starting on the East Drive and finishing at Tavern on the Green. It was fun! And painful! We stayed together the whole time, and kept a steady training pace to finish well under the two-hour mark.

Now, I'm as much a feminist as the next youngish, liberalish, overeducated, two-x-chromosome-having New Yorker, but something about these women-only races makes me want to sprint away in the opposite direction. On Friday I went to the expo to pick up our race numbers and tshirts, and couldn’t get out of there fast enough. There were stations for makeovers and hairdryers; ladies were lined up to get manicures and purchase pink running shirts emblazoned with the phrase “I Run Like A Girl.” Hey, let’s embrace all the negative stereotypes about female athletics and repackage them under the guise of empowerment! Sure, I love manicures (and the color pink, for that matter), but let’s leave them out of a marathon and half-marathon expo, okay ladies?

On Sunday LZ and I lined up for the start in our fluorescent yellow racing jerseys and black tights amidst a sea of pretty coordinating tops and running skirts. Oh, so many running skirts. I cringed when the race director announced “You’re all beautiful!” before sounding the gun…but once we got going, I had to admit that the overall atmosphere was so warm and supportive that it made running 13.1 miles (almost) enjoyable. Then somewhere around mile twelve LZ and I fell entirely under the spell of women’s racing and exchanged those mushy “I’m so happy to have a friend like you!” sentiments. Funny how distance running can draw out emotions, even from chicks like us.

After the race, my coach (really outdoing himself this time in the jackass category) sent out an email with pictures of team members running in the race accompanied by this note:

“Fun runners waving to the camera were eliminated. Focus on your effort and the pain to achieve your ultimate glory.”

“Eliminated” from the pictures? Me and LZ.

Times They Are A-Changin'

Whoa. You guys.

Easy resigned today. His last day is Friday.

I mean, I’m not at all surprised. Nice Hedge Fund made him a very rich man and now he wants to go off and start his own fund. God bless him…and whomever he hires to be his executive assistant because if there is one thing that man is lacking, it’s common sense. He can execute trades at the global level, but good luck getting him to remember to bring in his check book.

Naturally, I have mixed feelings about all this. Easy was a very nice boss – when he remembered that I existed. His dopey, lost-puppy cluelessness could be charming sometimes when I wanted to appeal to my more sensitive side. (Okay, rarely.) I was constantly frustrated by the way he’d give me half-assed task instructions as he blew past my desk on the way down to the trading floor, a drive-by boss. But I was hired to be his assistant and therefore felt a sense of responsibilty toward him, with all the other guys on a peripheral level, so I guess I’m going to miss him.

I knew something was amiss all day. He had a long meeting with Mr. Nice Hedge Fund as soon as he arrived at the office. He asked me to schedule a breakfast at the place where the guys always go when there is some kind of turmoil. And then he asked for moving boxes.

Finally, around 2PM, he called me into his office to tell me what I already gleaned. He made a passing comment about needing an assistant; I told him I'm going to grad school in the fall. Then he asked me to edit his Goodbye, Thanks for All the Great Work, and Here Is My Contact Info Email that everyone feels so fucking obligated to send when they quit. (I made him remove specific names to avoid leaving anyone out, but overall kept the letter as stupid and sappy as he wrote it.)

Anyone want to bet a dollar that I'll be packing up more bosses before the end of my tenure here? The Easys are a Global Macro Team, a unit, and I can't imagine that they wouldn't try to stick together. Easier can't leave just yet - the Canuck needs Nice Hedge Fund to assist his naturalization. But as soon as that green card comes through...well, we'll see.

And here I was thinking, hey, adding Boss #5 finally brought me to critical mass capacity! I actually felt busy during the day! So much for that. Unpacked one boss last week only to pack up another this week.

As usual, THE STARS KNOW THINGS. Let's take a little gander at today's horoscope:

Your foundations are rattled and you need to quickly figure out the best way to maintain stability. It's really not as bad as it first appears and you could become very excited about the possibilities. The greatest obstacle could be your resistance to uncertainty. You like to feel secure by building on solid ground, but may have to live with less structure for a while.

Thank goodness there's a light at the end of this Admin tunnel.

In Defense of the Princesses

In the LA Times yesterday, Rosa Brooks wrote a fiery little opinion piece on the dangers of Disney Princess. “Resist the princesses!” she implores the Mothers of America – they’re the antifeminists without strong maternal relationships and they will brainwash your children!

Start with some light feminist analysis. It will not have escaped you, Mothers of America, that Disney princesses -- Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and the rest -- rarely slay dragons, play sports, pilot jets or do open-heart surgery. Instead, they fiddle with their coiffures, linger over invitations to the ball, flee ineffectually from evil crones and swoon.

You don't have to be Gloria Steinem to realize that these are not, for the most part, useful professional skills in today's world. So I was not thrilled when my 3-year-old informed me, over lunch, that she wants to be "a pwincess" when she grows up, and I was unhappier still when her 6-year-old sister expressed a similar ambition.

"Girls," I said, "you can do anything when you grow up! You can be scientists or ski instructors or hedge fund managers -- I beg you, be hedge fund managers. Why would you want to be passive, anorexic princesses?"

They looked at me as if I had gone mad. "Because princesses wear pretty dresses, Mama," they explained.

Oh, Rosa. I’d look at you like you’d gone mad, too. Your daughters are three and six and you’re encouraging them to be hedge fund managers? No. Let’s move away from Disney Princesses for a moment (but not too far away!): haven’t you ever seen Pretty Woman? Hedge fund managers don’t make anything except money, and lately they’re not doing that very well, at least not with their scruples intact. And let me tell you firsthand that working at a hedge fund, even Nice Hedge Fund, is killing my creative soul one day at a time. I would never wish that upon my daughters.

Ms. Brooks would probably say that I’ve been brainwashed, too. While I agree with the critics that grown women who want to act out their favorite Disney Princess fantasy for their fairytale wedding are absurd, don’t crush your little girls’ dreams just yet. Pop in the DVD of The Princess Bride and introduce them to a world where Princess Buttercup is not only beautiful but also smart and strong. Read them Still Life with Woodpecker (with a little editorializing over the sexy parts) and show them a fairy tale where the princess has to rescue herself from herself and Prince Charming is just a toad. Please.

When I’d announce, like the author’s young daughters, that I planned to be a princess as a future career, MomOh made no effort to stifle my imagination. Instead she and DadOh encouraged every ridiculous occupation to which I aspired because – now listen very closely, Rose – they knew I’d eventually grow up and find my best path. Look, let your kids be kids and wear their tiaras proudly. If they’re anything like me (or if you’re anything like MomOh in the parenting department, which I highly doubt), they’ll turn out just fine. Who knows, maybe they'll strike a happy medium between feminism and fairy tale so they can play sports and enjoy pedicures! Sure, they’ll wear a sparkly birthday princess tiara at the bar on their 24th birthday, but maybe they’ll work a secure, well-paying job with good benefits for two years before going off to pursue whatever ridiculous dream career they’ve finally decided upon (writer).

And their residual love for Disney Princesses will only manifest itself through the occasional purchasing of Aurora, Cinderella, Belle, and Ariel chapstick at the drug store and the lingering belief that Someday My Prince Will Come.

Easter Egg Hiking

Happy Easter Monday, lovers! Did the Easter Bunny bring you lots of candy? Hooray, Lent is over and I can drink beer again! That was a toughie to give up, though I surely benefited from the decreased empty-calorie and alcohol intake these past forty days.

Shhh, don’t tell God that I didn’t go to church yesterday. Instead I went hiking with two of my girl friends at Breakneck Ridge in Cold Spring, NY, about an hour drive outside of the city. Now, I haven’t been hiking since my Girl Scout days, but I loved those summers of sleep-away camp what with all the living in cabins and peeing in latrines and tromping through the woods. So when S and J invited me on this day trip, I jumped at the chance to be a little nature-y and adventurous. It was awesome in the truest sense of the word! We climbed huge mountains, did some rock scrambling, and of course got hopelessly lost in the woods at one point. What was supposed to be a four hour hike turned into nearly seven hours, and by the time we returned to sea level our legs were shaking from exhaustion (and a little fear, we climbed really high and had to come back down!). Afterwards, we went out to dinner at a cute restaurant in the town and each inhaled an entire pizza. We must have had “city folk” written all over us because everyone in the place kept staring at us – or maybe it was just because we were filthy, guzzling water as fast as the busboy could refill our glasses, and dressed in workout gear in a restaurant on Easter Sunday!

I had a wonderful long weekend full of cycling and hanging out with friends, but hiking was really the highlight. I’m hooked, and I can’t wait to go again when the weather gets warmer and our bodies have recovered.

And you know what? I felt way closer to God and myself while admiring the breathtaking view at the top of the mountain than I ever could have in a church. Oh shit, I’m becoming a tree-hugger!

You Know, Like the River in Egypt

So I’ve been thinking a lot these days about Love and Relationships because, well, I’m not IN either of them. It’s the No Boyfriend in 2008 pact, and I’ve hung onto my “single” status on Facebook for over two months now! This is something of a record stretch in recent years, as many of you well know. And no, the pact isn’t some girlie master cleanse because I’m SO Over Guys and I Just Need to Be on My Own for a While, it’s more like I Don’t Know Where I’m Going to Live After My Lease Ends In June. Unless divine forces intervene to bump me up from the waitlist I probably won’t be in New York City, so starting a relationship now feels a bit foolish. But you know, if the dude is really hot and fun and all-around perfect for me, the pact has a specific opt-out clause. Anyway.

The impetus for all this annoying thinking is rather simple: my ex-boyfriends are haunting me. Did the support group suggest they all seep back into my life as step 9 of the healing process? Fuck, they’re everywhere lately. They’re in my running class. They want to hang out and catch up. They’re moving back to New York and want to grab drinks. They’re in the neighborhood and how about breakfast? And I go! I agree to these olive branch excursions, the platonic lunches and the museum visits, and we have fun. Girl friend DC thinks I’m nuts, and even MomOh is skeptical about staying in contact with exes. Have I compartmentalized these relationships to the point where I can isolate the friendship quotient and drop the romantic remainders like elementary division? And is this even healthy?

I generally believe that keeping a friendship (or at the very least a friendly connection) is important whenever possible. Don’t burn bridges, you never know what the future will bring, blah blah blah. Sure, a friendship is not always possible and at the very least takes some time to establish after the heartbreak heals (ahem, R), but some of my ugliest breakups have turned into valuable friendships. There’s P – we split four years ago in what takes the cake as my messiest break up to date, but he still nails my music taste when he sends me cool new songs to check out. And T – we can still chat easily about running and triathlons and we’re genuinely happy that the other is doing well. So I’m sticking to my guns here and if it feels okay, it must be okay. Right?

Then there is this other little nagging thought, the one about missing people. See, I’m not so good at it. I have this piss-poor memory and I’m visual to a fault (seeing is believing; eyes on the prize; out of sight, out of mind; etc.). Sure, I've said "I love you" a handful of times, and in each case I believed it, meant it. But after, when the feelings fizzle and fade as they always have, doubt creeps in and I'm not so sure anymore. Was it Love or Lust or heartburn or worse, nothing at all? Maybe I've been cavalier with love, but missing someone in that can't-wait-to-throw-my-arms-around-him way, well that I'm certain about. So when I do actually miss someone, the feeling broadsides me and simply saying, “Whoa, I wish he would come back from his trip” isn’t really an adequate response. Instead I’m forced to admit to myself (ever the blind referee in the game of Emotions) that perhaps what I’m actually IN is Denial.

I'm Only Happy When It Raiinnnnss

Disregarding the current economic climate, however briefly, Nice Hedge Fund hosted a delightful Health and Wellness fair in the big conference room today. The subject line of the email that HR sent around to all employees read: Do you know your BMI number? One unfortunate woman accidentally hit “reply all” before writing back, “Don’t know and don’t want to know either!” and then tried to recall the message. (According to the dude who took these measurements, I have the lowest BMI of all the women tested at Nice Hedge Fund. Nothing like a little body fat analysis to get my competitive juices going!) So D and I headed down there around noon to poke around before our lunches arrived. I expected the same sort of dinky health fair that Overpriced Private University held regularly where the best giveaways were a Bic pen, a condom, and a pamphlet listing the signs of alcoholism. Not so! The stations were surprisingly interesting and varied, from blood pressure testing to Bikram yoga information. I got a Nalgene bottle from a physical therapist, a Crest Spinbrush from a local gym, and tons of good pocket food for cycling. Hooray for free crap at work!

More than a little concerning were the results of my cholesterol test. I consider myself a relatively healthy eater, but it looks like I need to try a bit harder. I say this after inhaling a huge, delicious Rice Krispy treat…maybe I can start being healthier tomorrow. Oh, right, I love cookies. And cake. And ice cream nom nom nom. It’ll be fine! I’ll just buy a box of Cheerios because that’s what television tells me to do for high cholesterol! Or maybe I’ll make an appointment with my real doctor instead relying on the traveling finger-prickers hired by Nice Hedge Fund. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.

Tonight is going to be insanity – it’s the first session of a new running class. The spring session is always a bit more crazed than its winter counterpart as everyone signs up for April and May races and then realizes they’re out of shape. And don’t forget about bathing suit season, yikes! I’m counting down the minutes until I can pack up my winter coats and unearth my flip-flops. I’ve never been so certain about my self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder as this past winter. Everything is coming up roses for me lately – new Life Plan that’s actually coming true, new laser-shooting eyeballs, new friends and crushes – but I feel like I’m staving off celebration until the warm weather arrives. We’re past the midpoint of March, but the forecast reads 37 degrees and rainy for this evening. Come on, Sunshine, I want to have some fun!

Watch Your Back, Loud Guy

Loud Guy, you’re on notice.

It started way back in the summer when I was tanned and freckle-faced and the novelty of having a new job hadn’t yet worn off. Back then it was your ex-girlfriend, the charming lady with a mermaid tattooed on the nape of her neck. The volume of your telephonic arguments earned your moniker and with no evidence to the contrary I had to assume that you are a spineless jackass.

It’s been nine and a half months now, Loud Guy, and I’ve gotten to know you. Sure, mostly through unwittingly overhearing your phone conversations, but you’re not such a bad dude. Spineless, yes (first impressions were correct on that one), hapless, sure, but you’re never intentionally rude. You occasionally share your Women's Wear Daily with D and you generously paid for most of the tab when we celebrated C's last day. You just have volume control issues.

But you’re pushing your luck this month, Broski.

I dealt with your apartment search. Heard you talking to brokers, making plans, discussing bathrooms and bedroom sizes. Then the movers, oh, the movers. Negotiating rates, ordering clothing boxes, and making special arrangements for that one work of art you own. Then the furniture ordering, the eighteen calls to Pottery Barn about your bed delivery. Finally, the home theatre installation coordination. I thought we’d get a little break, but I was mistaken.

Next it was subletting your old place. The same spiel over and over again: the iron gate entrance, the Upper West Side charm, the bedroom on the lower level. And every time you shot yourself in the foot with your nervous banter including phrases like “old facilities” and “not a luxury building.” There is no end in sight.

And now this. You traveled this past weekend, flights were botched, late, and missed, and luggage was misrouted. You’ve been on the phone for four days repeating your travel woes to every customer service robot on the other end of misery. Look, lost luggage is a lousy situation, and it sometimes takes a few tries to get a hold of the right person who can help. But Christ Almighty, when you DO get that person on the phone, don’t drop the line to pick up another call because you WILL NEVER get him or her again. You might just be the least competent phone call maker on the planet and if I have to hear one more time about how the flight to Seattle was delayed so you were rerouted to Philly I can’t reasonably be held accountable for my actions. On the third loop of the story this morning I actually had to walk away to avoid saying something regrettable.

This is your final warning, Loud Guy. HR is sucking up to me hard these days because they want me to take on yet another boss (that would bring the tally up to five if you’re keeping track) and I think I could parlay that into a bargaining chip to get you relocated. I hear the Nice Hedge Fund office in Istanbul has some open real estate.

Twenty-Twenty And Then Some

For the first time since I elementary school, I woke up this morning and could read the clock clearly. Of course, the time on the clock told me that I had overslept and was going to be late for my post-op appointment with my eye doctor…I guess some things can’t be fixed with lasers.

I have 20/20 vision! I’m still a little blurry and light-sensitive, and my eyeballs have big red blotches from all the levers and pulleys they used to pry my lids open, but the surgery went perfectly. I’m wearing sunglasses in my cubicle, I have my watch alarm set to go off every hour so I remember to put drops in my eyes, my eyelashes are glued together and I wasn’t allowed to wash my hair yet so I look pretty gross…but I can see without glasses or contacts!

I’m happy now, twenty-four hours later and mostly recovered, but I was a mess yesterday. The actual surgery freaked the heck out of me and I wanted to leap out of my skin for all seven minutes of it. They gave me a teddy bear to hold on to and I had it in such a tight headlock that I’m surprised we both survived. My doctor had to hold my head still and remind me to breathe the entire time, and I nearly hyperventilated from being so nerve-wracked. For something as serious as having lasers shot into one’s eyes, the procedure was very unceremonious. Afterwards the nurse pumped my swollen eyeballs full of steroids that stung like a bitch, slapped a pair of sunglasses on my face and sent me on my way. In my infinite stubbornness I turned down QZ’s offer to pick me up – I’ll just take a cab home it’ll be fine! Big mistake. Keeping my eyes open (especially outside in the sunlight) was agony and I couldn’t tell if cabs had their light on or not, but I somehow managed to blindly hail one and make my way home to sleep it off. Wearing a pair of oh-so-sexy protective goggles (yes, really), I slept for the entire afternoon, which wasn’t hard to do after fun-filled weekend I had!

There is half of a delicious apple pie in my refrigerator, the perfect souvenir to a great visit from L and her boyfriend S. We never had an actual Team Free Pie reunion – A skipped out on the very cool CD release party we went to in Brooklyn on Friday night. (Probably for the best.) Saturday’s rainstorms sent us to the Museum of Natural History to hang out with the dinosaurs, and on Sunday night we had a big dinner party over at QZ’s apartment/mansion because he actually has a dining room table that can seat more than two people. S and his brother J cooked a fantastic meal: mushroom-stuffed pork wrapped in bacon with an apple glaze, the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had, and (of course) a blueberry pie for dessert. It was heavenly.

I love the Year of Yes. Best. Idea. Ever.

Must Love Dogs

Recently I confessed my undying love for my newly-acquired, Admin-sanctioned space heater. I intend to blast that sucker until the office manager agrees to set the thermostat above 55 degrees and I don’t see that happening any time soon. But just when I thought my fate was sealed and I’d forever more wear a scarlet A when asked to present my résumé, I remembered another way in which I am not Your Typical Admin. Besides, you know, the whole getting into grad school and quitting in a matter of months thing.

Admins, on the whole, LOVE dogs. They all have stupid little yippie dogs with names like Daphne and Princess and Coco and they speak about them as if they were children. “She’s usually so high-energy but we took her to the park last night and she slept so well through the night!” They forward oh-so-effing-adorable pictures around the office of their puppy wearing a ridiculous outfit (cue the obligatory girl-pitched “AWWWW!!” reaction) and somehow relish retelling the story of how their precious fluffy wuffikins ate their best leather jacket – what a little trouble maker!

I do not like dogs, especially not little yippie ones who have to be carried everywhere and cost more than a month’s rent. The only dogs I have ever liked have been golden retrievers owned by friends and I knew them from puppies. And I’m not very good at faking that “awwww” refrain – I must have skipped that lecture of How to be a Chick 101. The professor probably also covered How Not to Look Like Crap Every Day at Work in that lecture, and I’m destined to fail that section of the midterm at the rate I’m going. Anyway. Dogs for me are like tattoos – I kind of like the idea of them, but having one puts you in a distinct category of people, they’re expensive, and I’m not all that good with commitment. I’ve never had any pet for that matter – even BrotherOh and SisterOh had fish at some point in our childhood, but not me. It’s tempting to blame my romantic blunders on this severe void of animal companionship in my upbringing…but let’s not kid ourselves, my cold, cold heart of stone is the more likely culprit. Instead, owning a dog becomes akin to marriage for me – it’s something that I might have in the future, but I can’t imagine it as a real possibility in my current state/city/apartment/lifestyle.

Where was I? Oh right. I don’t like dogs, but most Admins do. Most Admins also do their hair, wear makeup, and generally look like they at least give a shit about their pointless jobs. Easy just called me from one floor down and asked me to bring him a box of pens. Because surely there are no pens on the trading floor. It's tough to motivate myself to get dolled up for that kind of riveting stimulus.

Two hours until quitting time and then L (of Former Roommate fame) will be here for the weekend! Team Free Pie reunion! But I’m less than thrilled about the reunion including the third (ex-boyfriend) member of the team as it will most likely take EVERY OUNCE of my patience not to smack him at least once tonight. I better start drinking heavily.

I Got Into Graduate School!

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS!

The letter arrived yesterday in a regular #10 envelope that usually means one thing: REJECTION. I didn’t even tear it open immediately downstairs by my mailbox, like I did with the first rejection letter I received last week. So there I was, sitting in the bathroom with my stack of mail (because I’m a classy broad), expecting to read “Thanks for the sixty bucks, sucker,” when instead my eyes landed on “I am pleased to inform you that we can offer you a place…” Holy shit! (I said, most appropriately), then hurried up to call MomOh to tell her the good news.

I GOT IN. I actually got into an MFA program. All along MomOh has been telling me that I only need one “yes,” and now that I have it I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’m doing cartwheels on the inside, which is probably for the best given my propensity to klutz. DadOh’s reaction was predictably reserved (“I’m sure you could have gotten into law school, too”), but my friends have all been wonderfully supportive and congratulatory! Of course, I still have ten more programs to hear from in the next few weeks and it would be great to have some options, but the hardest part is over.

Whoa. It’s really happening. I’m going to be a writer…for a living! HOORAY!

Limping on Leap Day

If there was ever a Miss Klutzy USA pageant, I would being the reigning queen. Then I’d probably trip during my acceptance speech, a la Miss USA Rachel Smith. (Full disclosure: I watched this live and totally felt a kindred spirits thing for her. Sure, I laughed, but she still looks smokin’ hot after suffering the worst embarrassment known to beauty queens. I would have stayed on the ground and just bawled.)

So last night at running class, Coach S pulled me aside to discuss the workout and warned me about the lousy pavement conditions where we were running. She told me to alert the runners of any particularly bad spots and be careful. Sirens should have gone off in my head at that point. I’m already working with a peripheral vision deficit because I have to wear my glasses in preparation for the laser surgery. Well sure enough, in the middle of our third interval I turned my ankle on broken pavement in a dark spot where a street lamp was out. My students asked if I was okay and I responded, “Fuck! No! Keep running!” Somehow we stayed on pace but as soon as we stopped I knew I was done for the night. Coach S sent me limping back to school (a lovely mile south of where I got hurt) and Coach JC drove me home.

Cycling friend QZ came over and cheered me up with a pint of Haagen-Dazs raspberry sorbet and an ice pack, and then I started to feel a little better. Also helpful: copious amounts of ibuprofen or as I like to call it, ibooze. “Sports injuries are so cool, they make you seem tough!” he said, but I just laughed. He obviously hasn’t spent enough time with me during a NO RUNNING sentence to know that I’m not exactly one to suffer in silence when I can’t work out. Let’s just hope, for everyone’s sake, that this is just a quick little injury and I’m back to running on Monday. My ankle is sore and stiff but only a tiny bit swollen and I still have a decent (albeit painful) range of rotation. I’ll be fiiiine. Especially because there is some of that sorbet still left in the freezer.

The Year of Yes: Lasers

The next stop along the Year of Yes national tour will be…LASIK! Hooray, no more glasses or contacts! I’ll be able to wake up and see perfectly!

You know, so long as there isn’t some freak surgical accident and I end up going blind.

Gulp.

I went to my pre-screening exam yesterday, and the surgery is scheduled for March 10. That's so soon! I’m a perfect candidate, and there’s a 98% chance that I’ll have better than 20/20 vision. So the nurse poked, prodded, and dilated my pupils until I was blind and squinty, then gave me all the important paperwork to read and sign. Brilliant! I probably handed over my first born son and a pound of flesh to the doctor but wheee they’re going to shoot lasers into my eyes!

Or maybe there WILL be a freak surgical accident and the laser power will get trapped in my cornea, allowing me to shoot laser beams from my eyeballs at my enemies! How badass would that be?

Nice Hedge Fund pays for most of the surgery so as nervous as I am, it’s really a no-brainer. And they give patients a teddy bear to clutch during the ten-minute procedure, so that should be enough to take my mind off my pried-open eyelids, A Clockwork Orange style. I can’t wait!

Math is Easy but History is Tough

Bad news, potential lovers: I canceled my fitness dating site membership today. Gone baby gone. They make you check off a reason for cancellation and one’s options read like some poor break up excuses: “I met someone on the site,” “I met someone off the site,” “I’m getting back together with a past boyfriend/girlfriend,” “I’m too busy for dating right now.” I went with “I want to avoid automatic update,” so I’m not sure what that says about my break-up style. That I’m a liar? There wasn’t a “This site sucks because 98% of the dudes who email me are undateable and if I want to see a lot of shirtless boys I’ll just cruise the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog” option. Ok, so lesson learned. If I ever start thinking that internet dating is a good idea, please someone redirect me to these posts. Kthxbai!

Coach G gave me a ton of (deserved) crap for being on the site, naturally. Through our joking around, we’ve theorized a formula that all dating sites should employ to some extent. It looks something like this:

(Compatibility/Distance)^Alcoholic Beverages Consumed = Quality of Date

Then, if you make it past a few dates and find yourself teetering on Relationship Territory (dun dun dunnnn), the formula to use morphs into:

(Compatibility/Distance)^Salary of Partner = Quality of Relationship

Clearly, distance is a key quotient in the dating world, especially when we’re talking about new beginnings.


Anyway. My weekend was fun and busy with running and hanging out with friends. R and I had a slightly awkward but overall okay post-breakup hang out on Saturday afternoon at The Met. I felt the urge neither to smack him nor kiss him – he was just a guy I used to know hidden behind an ill-advised I Work In the IT Department goatee. Note to self: have all future reunions with ex-boyfriends in museums. No eating is involved. You don’t have to talk much. You don’t even have to be in the same room at all times! And when you get bored you can convince yourself that you’re bored by him, not the huge building full of old stuff and European tourists. It’s genius for this not-quite-ready-to-be-friends stage.

Now, as some of you may have gleaned, I hate my job. It's boring. I have four bosses and zero responsibilities. I'm in it for the free lunch, health insurance and inflated salary but my tolerance level is waning. Oh wait! Remember how sucky my life was when I worked for ARM? I think I've blocked that entire year from my memory. Good thing I wrote all about it so I can remind myself that no matter how bad this job is, that one was worse!

And so...

On This Day In ARM History:

On Fridays I try to look nice. I have two reasons: one, I frequently go out right after work for drinks and/or dinner, and two, The Coffee Email.

From: ARM
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2007 8:43 AM
To: ARMAssistant
Subject: French roast decaf
----------------------

He sends this from his BlackBerry during the staff meeting, which he leads. Some weeks he will type out the entire phrase including verbs. Sometimes he writes “please” or “thanks” (rarely) and occasionally he writes it in the body text rather than the subject line. There are rhetorical variations on a theme, but the gist remains the same: bring me coffee, woman.

Now I’m no shrinking violet. Walking into a room full of men and having all eyes turn to me doesn’t faze me. Maybe it's my inherent Gen Y pseudo-feminism that makes me hate doing this. I just…I can feel the sympathy in their gazes when I interrupt the meeting each week. I know what they're all thinking, and it's something between "Man, her job sucks" and "I wish I had an assistant to bring me coffee right about now because this meeting sucks." The second I turn the door handle The Redness takes hold and I instantly regret that my idea of “looking nice” generally involves V-neck sweaters that clearly accentuate my splotchiness. One day I’m going to bring in two coffees, and deliver the second unsolicited cup to one of The Analysts. (I’m calling you out, Analyst N. You still have time to get back on my good side.) Then I’ll wait outside the door to listen for ARM to explode. I think I’ll save this Brilliant Plan for my last day at Private Equity Firm and really go out with a bang.

Advantage, Admin

I caved.

It might be too late for me to escape with my dignity. I gave in to the last bastion of occupational indifference.

It doesn’t matter how much I resent my job “responsibilities,” or how many times I remind myself that this is just temporary until I get into grad school (fingers crossed!), there’s simply no denying anymore that I’m a full-fledged Admin.

You see, I got one of those under-desk portable heaters.

In reality, I grudgingly accepted the traditional tenets of Admin World ages ago. I walk to work in sneakers and carry my heels in my oversized purse. Before the days of free lunch, I’d pack my daily PBJ in Tupperware. I keep a nail file in my pen cup, lip gloss in my desk drawer, and extra panty hose in my filing cabinet. But the heater thing struck me as so Slow-Moving-Gray-Haired-Knee-Sock-Wearing-Receptionist and I’d like desperately to think I’m anything but, so I resisted. All of the Lifers have them, and I suspect the decision to become a career assistant requires a certain level of warmth and comfort at one's desk. When C left she bestowed upon me her heater and until today it sat under my desk unused. Well it snowed over night and I was freezing my nips off at my desk, so I cranked that baby up to see what I've been missing. Oh, it’s glorious. Now, I know I'll never be a career assistant because I'm never truly comfortable sitting still at my desk all day, but at least now I'll be warm for these last few weeks of winter. I'm still holding out from keeping an extra cardigan draped over my chair. Admins, it seems, are defined by their methods to cope with frigid office temperatures set by men wearing wool suits.

Easier just had a conversation near my desk with one of Nice Hedge Fund's Big Shots. They were comparing footwear for the snowy/rainy/icy weather outside and I tuned in just in time to hear Easier say with the perfect mix of incredulous and accusatory, "Do they actually make Ugg boots for men?!" I nearly fell out of my uncomfortable chair laughing. TGIF.

The Year of Yes: Polar Bear Plunge

Happy Tuesday that feels like Monday, lovers! Easy, Easiest and JDate are all out today, extending their long weekend a bit more I guess, which means I’m doing even less than normal. I’m occupying my time with boredom eating (I maybe had two donuts earlier) and registering for triathlons (an interesting combination).

This past weekend, NewNew Roommate M came with me to the shore. Sure, I know it’s February and not exactly prime beach weather…well that didn’t quite stop us from tying on our bikinis and jumping into the Atlantic Ocean!

Sea Isle’s 14th annual Polar Bear Plunge took place on Saturday, and we were among the thousands who thought running into the 35 degree ocean was a good idea. It was insanity. People wore outrageous costumes and marched in a parade that was led by the newly-crowned Polar Bear Queen on her throne of ice. The retiring queen was over eighty! The new queen looks at least seventy! And now I have to add “Becoming Polar Bear Queen” to my list of life goals. My sights are set.

Anyway. With my cousin J’s help we convinced SisterOh to join us – she was not a happy camper, but we all had a blast. We stripped down to our bathing suits and made a mad dash into the ocean screaming all the way, then turned right around and bolted for the warmth of MomOh’s minivan. My legs and feet were entirely numb – I had a burr caught in my foot from climbing over the dunes and I didn’t even realize it! A shower has never felt so good. After we warmed up M and I went back down to the party that was still raging on under the tent at LaCosta. We drank a few beers, rocked out to the cover band and took pictures with all the goofy people there until it was time to go home for dinner with my family.

[Sidebar: I totally won the Craigslist Roommate Raffle yet again. M is the perfect houseguest AND she’s a good sport about my Year of Yes craziness. Anyone who responds to my “Let’s do this silly thing!” email with “I’m in!” is good in my book.]

The shore in the off-season is a different kind of wonderful. The town was packed to the gills for Saturday’s event, but it cleared out for the rest of the weekend and I kind of like having the place to ourselves. The Acme isn’t crowded, there was no wait for a table at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, and our post-dinner activity of choice was a cutthroat game of family Scategories. We’re really that freakin’ cute. I love it.

My cell phone, not wanting to be left out of the polar bear fun, took a little plunge this weekend, too - I accidentally sent it through the spin cycle along with the sheets from my bed. Whoops. I dried it out and it’s mostly working again but it was temperamental before and machine washing it on warm with like colors doesn’t seem to help the situation. Brilliant, Jack.

Love Letters from Meatheads

Happy Valentine’s Day, lovers!

I’m wearing a pink sweater and pink bracelets from SisterOh’s jewelry line. I have my heart earrings in, my heart ring on my finger, and two heart necklaces around my neck. Perhaps I’ve gone too far…whatever, I love any holiday punctuated with food, pretty stationary, and the color red. My sugar cookies have been a big hit in the office so far, though if this were Private Equity Firm they’d be gone by now, those guys were vultures. The guy from whom I order Easy’s breakfast every morning sent me a long-stemmed red rose along with Easy’s usual egg white omelet and coffee, and I can’t decide if that’s adorable or sad. Let’s just go with adorable.

We’re bored like crazy over here at Nice Hedge Fund. I’m folding red paper into origami hearts, Receptionist C is making a cute Valentine card for her boyfriend, and D is finishing her fashion school homework. Silly creative-type Admins, why are we toiling away at a finance company? But since it’s Valentine’s Day and I’m in a loving mood, I thought I’d share with you a sampler of messages that I’ve received from the fitness dating site. As you may have gathered, I lost interest in it after about a week. Sure, I’ve exchanged messages with a few seemingly cute and charming dudes, but sifting through the crazies, olds, and weirdos to find them is pretty tiring. For your webular entertainment, I’d like to introduce you to one of my biggest fans, my most determined would-be suitor. Brief bio: he’s a divorced 43-year-old "advanced weight lifter" who lives in Nevada, he considers himself an “extremely outgoing, optimistic, and passionate guy,” keeps to a high-protein diet (read: bad breath), and takes home a salary of over $100,000. Such a keeper! Oh, and he’s on the prowl for ladies between the ages of 28 (which I am not) and 36 – what’s the male version of a cougar?

So the following are excerpts from emails he’s sent me, with no response. The increasing desperation level is fascinating to observe. The first email starts out normal enough. He opens with a compliment, then turns it back to himself – very smooth. But a quick look at his profile and pictures sends him straight to the “no” bin:

“You definitely seem like one of the more exceptional women on this entire website. Your great smile tells me you're a lot of fun to be around and that you could probably appreciate my great sense of humor.”

He tries again:

“As you may know, I just tried to IM you and didn't get through. Now just in case you thought you needed some extra time to prepare long and loving IM responses for me, it's not necessary....I'm actually a pretty laid back, easy going guy.........Hmmm.......perhaps you're getting a lot of IM requests all at once and it's probably kind of hard trying to figure out who to respond to first ....that's ok, I can wait...I'm also very patient.”

Ooh, patient and dense, just how I like ‘em. I’m wise to the “decline instant message request” option by now.

“Hi Miss Fitness Singles 2008 "Catch of the Year" Candidate…And by the way, if there really were such a contest going on right now it wouldn't really be very fair to the other female candidates ya know......seems like they just might not have much of a chance competing with you.”

I’m not even on the top 25 viewed profiles list (yes, such a distinction exists!) because I am unfortunately lacking in the fake tits category.

“Well I've been trying to figure out what's wrong with those NY guys to let you slip right past them like this and I came up with a couple of theories. Could it possibly be that all the guys who happen to have a secret “crush” on you are just afraid to approach you because they’re too intimidated by you, thinking you’re probably just a little too picky? Orrrr maybe they’re afraid they’ll find themselves suddenly captivated by your charms, helplessly trapped head over heels in the web of your magical spell?”

He’s not done yet.

“Hey, just because you can be pretty stubborn that doesn't mean I'm going to stop pursuing you..... [Ed note: Creepy!] Listen, I know that you're pretty young and all age-wise but as far as I can tell most girls your age would prefer to go to a bar or club, do drugs, and drink a lot and I get the impression you're not like that (now if you're really a devil in disguise just be sure to let me know now, okay?) The thought of meeting a great "quality" guy for something special doesn't even seem to enter their heads. And there's something else too....and I really mean what I'm about to say. I have this uncanny ability to be able to just look into someone's eyes and read a lot about one's character (I hope this doesn't sound too cliche but it's totally true). The very first moment I saw your photos I saw something that I really liked about you, whether it was your adorable smile or the sincerity in your eyes, but there definitely was no doubt in my mind that we could have some incredibly great chemistry together......I'm thinking sparks constantly flying, earth shaking, once in a lifetime "off the chart" chemistry!

“You'd have to be insane not to see what I'm talking about here!!!!!!!!!!”

A rather fitting use of that word “insane,” I’d say. Well hello there, “block member” option. Pleasure to meet you.

Purple Monkey Dishwasher, Running Class Edition

Snow!

Yesterday in the late morning snow started falling pretty heavily by New York City standards. But it was Tuesday, and that meant one thing for certain: Running Class. It feels good to be back coaching after that unfortunate NO RUNNING hiatus of the fall. Even when I’m assigned to a slower group that doesn't give me such a hard workout, I love leading that running class more than anything else I do. And Coach B, the ruler supreme of running class, doesn’t cancel for anything short of a national incident. What's a teeny bit of driving snow and sleet and below-freezing temperatures?

My runners were skeptical in the beginning that we could even get through our Cat Hill repeats, but I tried as hard as I could to keep their spirits and energy level high with lots of “You guys are doing great!” cheers. Despite the treacherous weather we had a good workout and it was one of my favorite practices ever, but then again I’m just crazy enough to enjoy running in tough conditions. Thursday’s class falls on Valentine’s Day (and right during prime dinner time), so I joked to the group that class will be like a singles' night because only people without dates will show up. Another runner joked back that the proportions won’t work for the girls' favor because there are far more women than men in the class. Hear that, boys? Forget fitness dating sites – try fitness classes instead!

Well. Through a rather impressive feat of rumor mongering, my “singles' night at running class” comment got misconstrued into “Jackie is recruiting students for a singles' mixer at Tavern on the Green after running class on Thursday.”

Um, WTF?


I don’t even know how that happened. I only know about the rumor because someone felt that I excluded him or her from this fabricated singles' mixer and reported it to Coach B, who sent me an admonishing email. It’s against class policy to promote personal events without clearing it with the head coaches first, and I know that. We got it straightened out after a couple messages back and forth – it was just a bizarre game of telephone until someone thought they weren’t invited and complained – but I was really upset by the ordeal. The actual miscommunication is pretty funny – it’s ridiculous that my joke (and not even a good joke at that, but it was cold and we were running and I was trying to be positive, okay?) morphed into a specific, exclusive party of which I was the unwitting host! And it kind of sounds like a fun idea, right? Tavern is so pretty! But! I felt hurt because there I was busting my ASS in the snow and sleet to encourage the class and keep things happy and still some sour puss reported me as a singles-recruiting-elitist to my boss! And he believed him/her, although he admitted that it sounded strange! That’s messed up.

It left a sour taste in my mouth. I’m afraid to have any fun in class on Thursday for fear that the same idiot will report me for only talking to the runners who are near me and thus excluding those in the back or some moronic shit like that. You know that line in that weird Baz Luhrman spoken word song that was all the rage in like, 1999? About how you should live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard? This is one of those moments when that lyric, however prosaic it seems now or then, rings clear and true. Sure, I could go into class on Thursday and be all business – no funny storytelling, no cheering, no friendly banter, but where’s the fun in that?


Instead of giving in, I'm baking five dozen heart-shaped sugar cookies for my co-workers and picking out which of my many red or pink clothing items to wear tomorrow. I know, I know, commericialized holiday of obligatory, over-priced romantic expression blah blah...I still love Valentine's Day. I am nostalgic for the Valentine's Day of my childhood when every kid in class exchanged cards and you ended the day with a whole shoebox full of hearts and cards and candy.