Sometimes, Blog Titles Just Don't Encompass All That I Want to Convey.

As of Wednesday night, I am now back in the city of New York. And it is indeed quite snowy here--lots of dirty mush piled up on the sidewalks and plenty of perfect powder in the less-traversed places. (And I do mean powder. When trekking about Central Park yesterday, it was as if I were actually walking upon confectioner's sugar. It was very nice. Made me want to eat a belgian waffle right there in the snow.) So snowy, in fact, that I do not recommend attempting to take public transportation from the airport back to one's apartment, as I so dumb-ass-edly did Wednesday night. A trip that should've taken me only an hour, at most, took a little over two. And I was so awkward at moments, tripping along with my huge-ass pink suitcase and two horribly overloaded and stupidly heavy carry-ons, that I managed to blush so furiously of crippling embarrassment that I raised my body temperature enough to sweat. In twenty-something degree weather. (A very nice young man just getting off from work at LaGuardia offered to heave my suitcase into the bus's suitcase rack. Naturally, I accepted his offer. He was unpleasantly surprised to find, however, that my suitcase weighed a perfect fifty pounds. His involuntary exclamation of effort, surprise, and distaste upon lifting the suitcase managed to balance out my extreme embarrassment.)

So, yes. I have returned. All four of us living in the apartment have been absent for quite some time now--a week, pretty much--so I was disgusted but not wholly shocked to discover a long-dead cockroach in the front half-bath yesterday morn. Kayla was the only other roommate home, so I asked her to come stand behind me for moral support while I went to great lengths involving take-out fliers to scoop the roach up into the toilet while staying as far away as possible from said insect. Now, Kayla has a great, great aversion to insects. I know this because we once spent three hours (nope, not an exaggeration) disposing of a bug inside her apartment back in high school--she wouldn't even go within ten feet of the insect, and I couldn't bear to kill it, so I wound up placing Kayla's sister's tennis shoe near the bug so that it would crawl on top and I could carry it outside. Unfortunately, I panicked once the bug was on the shoe and the shoe was in my hand, and I ended up flinging the shoe into the toilet. Sorry, Candice. But you see: the two of us don't have a great insect history.)

Kayla initially refused to offer me moral support, blockading herself in the kitchen and whimpering profusely, but I kept yelling at her until she caved. I wasn't asking for that much, really. I just wanted her to stand behind me, catch a glimpse of the roach, fully grasp the sacrifice I was about to make, and forever worship me. She slowly--ever so slowly--shuffled over, still whimpering. Let me make clear at this moment that Kay knew exactly what she was about to see; I had described the roach in full detail: large, fully dead, on its back, in the right corner. She knew what her eyes would alight upon, once she made it over to the bathroom doorway, seventeen years later. And yet. And yet, and yet, and yet. Once she had finally made it, a good THREE FEET from the doorway, FULLY COGNIZANT of what she is about to see--she screamed. Not a baby scream, either. A full-on, blood-curdling, someone-is-murdering-me scream. Sustained, too. "AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHHH!"

Ridiculous.

Also, I almost died yesterday. But I would have croaked in a completely happy state, I tell you. Totes blissed out. And this is because I was sledding at the time of my near-death.

I am the proud owner of an Uncle Bob's Yeti Wedge Snowtube, a delightful appartus that is triangular in shape and requires many, many deep breaths to be inflated. But fifteen minutes and a good dose of lightheadedness after its inflation, it does not disappoint. I somehow convinced Andrea, the roommate of my good friend, Vals, to climb aboard this inflatable sled with me and take the steep route down Cedar Hill in Central Park yesterday. Having sledded last year in the same spot, I knew that our combined adult weight would guarantee both speed and an inability to safely come to a stop, but I desired all of this. Some thoughtful Central Park groundsman or woman has placed bales of hay along the bottom of the hill, for safe crashing, as well as a two-foot wire fence behind said bales in case of misdirection or extreme speed. Andrea and I fully surpassed the hay bales--probably because we were inadvertently hurdling down the hill backwards--and slammed into the wire fence. Now, last year, I slammed into this fence several times and was none the worse for it. In fact, I was more the grateful for it, since behind the fence are many potentially painful trees and bushes. This year, however, was a bit different.

As we screamed our fool heads off on the way down, craning our necks over our shoulders to observe our impending death, we flew past the hay and headed straight for the fence. I braced myself, ready to bounce off of it and no doubt scream at some small, nearby child to get out of the way before he or she dies. We did indeed hit the fence, but our velocity and mass somehow managed to allow Andrea and myself to fly through the air and land on the other side of the fence. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. We were AIRBORNE! Though briefly so. The sled quietly remained on the other side of the fence. I heard a young kid loudly exclaim, "HOLY SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS!" (Which almost eclipsed my joy at still being alive.) Andrea and I stayed frozen in our landing positions--that is, fully on our sides, but still in a sitting position--laughing hysterically and full of I'm-still-alive endorphins. Valerie, who had watched from atop the hill, told us later that our crash-landing had captured the attention of everyone on the hill; apparently, there were audible gasps, followed by stunned silence. (Broken, of course, by shiitake mushroom child.)

Ah, but it was so worth it. My entire sternum feels as if it's been pummelled, but it was worth it. Ah, glorious snow. And sledding. Thank you, Uncle Bob.

Christmas Time. Is Here.

I am in Florida. For Christmas. And it is lovely and warm. Unfortunately, I fly back to New York tomorrow, where I will be met with fifteen inches of snow. If my flight doesn't get cancelled, that is. And it will be so very, very cold. And speaking of. A few days before I left to come to my parents' house, Allie and I were walking home from the train, entering the apartment complex. It was way too cold for people and animals without blubber or extra fur, and it was suuuper windy. Naturally, Allie and I were walking as quickly as our legs would allow us. Just as we turned into the complex, Allie mentioned that she'd probably start wearing her scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face, as Audrey had sometimes taken to doing.

"But I'll never wear one of those ski mask things," she vowed.

I nodded vehemently. "I know what you're talking about. Those things that only let your eyes show? Yeah. Makes you look like you're about to mug someone."

(We're now passing the complex's courtyard, which is guarded by a security guard.)

"Yes!" Allie agreed. "Those things should just be called 'robber masks.' I mean, that's what they look like. They're for robbers!"

(We are now within two feet of the security guard, as that last bit there is being spoken. We begin to veer left, as we simultaneously turn our faces to the security guard to bid him a goodnight.)

(We notice that he is, in fact, wearing a ski mask. There is a palpable moment of acknowledgment on both sides. He knows what we've just said; we know that he knows what we just said; and he knows we know that he knows. Though this moment lasts maybe a fourth of a second in real time, it seems to stretch out for far, far longer in our minds.)

"Goodnight," the security guard intones.

Cue horrible embarrassment and uncontrollable laughter, respectively. Tactful we, apparently, are not.

But things are nice here. Nice and warm. And lots o' good Christmas loot.

Including a Glee karaoke game for the Wii that Lauren and her husband, Matthew, gave Kristen and me. Which we, of course, opened immediately following church and proceeded to experiment with. (Maybe now would be a good moment for me to say that I am not a good singer. I am not even a middling singer. In fact, it would perhaps be most accurate for me to say that I am a bad singer. Terrible. Awful. I know what tune is supposed to come out of my mouth, but I have no control over making it come out anywhere close to that. And yet, I feel that Broadway is calling my name. Screaming it, if you will. Lauren told me once that Charlotte Church went to bed one day and woke up with a miraculous voice the following morning, and I have always hoped that the same will one day happen to me. I try not to wonder if that story is actually founded in fact or just something Lauren told me in a moment of great pity. Anyway.) So when Kristen sang the karaoke songs on the program, words would pop up on the television screen at the end of every phrase, often with exclamation points behind them: "WOW," "GREAT," "GOOD!" If she sang a section of the song particularly well, you'd even hear the harmony of glee kid voices singing "Glee!" in an exclamatory burst of emotion. Naturally, I thought I might be able to garner some of the same admiration, considering I first chose a song I was well-acquainted with: "And I Am Telling You," from the musical Dreamgirls.

Instead, I was greeted by a sound and the animation of breaking glass. Every time I finished a phrase. To add insult to injury, the glee cast members also...booed me. Repeatedly. Therefore, I shall never play this silly game again.

If You Are Walking Along The Street On A Cold, Windy Day, And You Happen To Accidentally Get A Grocery Bag Hooked Around Your Ankle, Do Not Kick Your Leg Around Wildly. This Will Only Cause The Grocery Bag To Climb Your Leg More Easily. And Stay There. Like A Garter. If You Will.

Amidst all of our Christmas happenings at the apartment, there has been, of course, a flurry of secretive gift-purchasing and clandestine gift-wrapping in respective bedrooms. (Kayla, who adopted my bedroom as Gift Wrapping Central after buying Allie's gift, left my door temporarily open as she cut and taped and tied, confident that Allie wouldn't budge from her comfortable couch position in the living room. When Allie innocently inquired what we were up to in my room, Kayla--without saying a single word--swiftly slammed my bedroom door shut with an enviably effective sweeping motion. I laughed at this transpiration of events. As did Allie, once she figured out why Kay was slamming the door in her direction.)

Audrey and I recently made a journey to the Target of East Harlem (yes, Mary Schindler, they DO have Targets in New York...Manhattan is still part of Planet Earth, it would appear) for some last-minute Christmas gifts and goodies. Target is easily accessible by bus--it's only one stop, and then we just have to walk a couple of avenues east--but waiting for the bus is often torture, particularly in this cold, hellishly windy weather.

Once we were properly laden with bags, then, for our return trip, walking the extra avenue west to catch the bus seemed horribly tiresome. Audge had my Christmas gift in tow (she'd sent me elsewhere in the store while she went off to pick it out and purchase it), so she was trying to keep that particular bag as far away from me as possible. I, meanwhile, had of course purchased a variety of oddly-shaped things, including two rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. One of these rolls was a respectable three-foot size, but the other was easily four-and-a-half feet tall. And while the salesgirl used the largest shopping bag possible to house these rolls of wrapping paper, I kept inadvertently stabbing Audrey in either the leg or side (or sometimes both at once! Little victories, my friends.) as we trekked back to the bus stop. I also had a gallon of skim milk and several other bags of heavy groceries that were hurting my arms. I should not be blamed, then, for suggesting that we just hop onto the bus still heading down First Avenue, rather than walking up the extra avenue and catching the same bus line heading down Second. I theorized that since it was the same bus line, whose final stop on First was 125th Street, it would just make a left at 125th and then head back down Second. Really, we'd probably save time. 125th was the very next stop, and then we'd only have to ride the bus back down two stops to 101st and 2nd, which is where we'd get off. We'd have the warmth of the bus for a comfortably nice length of time. And we wouldn't have to walk any further with our ridiculous and potentially injury-causing shopping bags.

Perhaps I should mention at this point that this is certainly not the first time Audrey has been involved in helping me carry an awkwardly-shaped package for a somewhat daunting distance. Very shortly after Audge moved into the apartment with Allie and me, I forced her to journey to the Bronx UPS pickup station with me so that I could employ her to help me carry piano legs for my keyboard that my parents had sent me. (This is, in itself, quite a story. Suffice it to say that my little sister forgot to include the LEGS OF THE PIANO when she delivered said keyboard to Audrey for her cross-country-journey to the Land of New York with the moving truck. I am still unsure as to how one forgets to include the very apparatus that holds the keyboard up when making such a delivery, but when I asked dearest Kristen why she hadn't included them, her response was only: "You didn't ask for them specifically." Oh, Little Kristen.) Anyway. The package containing the keyboard legs was approximately five feet long and somewhat heavy. It required both of us, each holding an end of the package, to walk in a carefully-timed pattern, in order to avoid jostling one another with the edges. 'Twas a long walk to and fro the subway, too. On top of all of this, I INSISTED that we see a movie at the theatre sixteen blocks from our apartment that was being shown in the early afternoon. By the time we got to the UPS station and had actually procured the package (the UPS man literally defined the phrase "taking his own sweet time" for us, kindly enough), we had only an hour to journey back to the apartment, drop off the keyboard legs, and run to the theatre.

I say "run" because that's actually what we did. We ran. Or, we jogged. First we jogged with the piano-leg package. (Which got both whistles and chuckles from onlookers, depending on what section of the city we were in.) I had our walking plan mapped out and timed down to the minute, and we were heavily out of breath by the time we arrived at the apartment and quite literally threw the package into the living room before running back out. We then did legit speedwalks from the apartment to the theatre: Audrey had not yet become fully acquainted with the New York speedwalk, wholly useful in times of especial tardiness or aggravation, but this experience was certainly a learning one. I had a good speedwalk already mastered, with resulted in my walking a full block ahead of Audge for the majority of the trip, on the opposite side of the street. I took to looking behind me every half-block or so, just to make sure Audrey hadn't given up on me completely. (This also occurred in September. In the boiling, boiling heat.) By the time we got to the theatre and were safely seated (we only missed one preview!), I was so incredibly sweaty that I had to lift my shirt up over my shoulders. (I chose this day to wear a woolen shirt. Sometimes...it be like damn.) So. Disgustingly. Sweaty. Took me most of the movie to return to a normal body temperature and pulse.

But. But, but, but. I digress. (Duh.) We're back to the Christmas Target Trip. I have just had us catch the bus heading in the opposite direction of the way we're actually trying to go, in the hope that it will immediately turn itself around.

Naturally, this did not happen. The bus did hang a left at 125th Street, but it then parked and all passengers were ordered off. This was where the bus driver took his break. So Audrey and I had to hoist all of our packages off the bus, wait in the freezing cold for an absurdly long time, awkwardly make small talk with the MTA bus drivers standing next to us, purchase new bus tickets, and then climb back aboard the bus to now, finally, head back downtown.

The moral of this story is that I should always listen to my instincts regarding public transportation and then do exactly the opposite of what my instincts are telling me to do.

Ramblings.

Audrey stuffed each of our stockings with a few small treats, including individual Christmas chapsticks. Each chapstick was a character from the claymation version of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. She gave me The Abominable Snowman chapstick. He is a disturbing shade between gray and purple, and he is hairy. I hate him. And Audrey.

Which is why I sneaked into Audge's room last night as soon as I heard her step out of the shower. I crammed my entire body into her laundry bucket, balancing in a forced arch on both my toes, in a rather uncomfortable squat. My heart was racing, my cheeks were flaming, and my chest felt like it was encased by rubberbands. Unfortunately, Audrey peeked into my room on her way back from the bathroom and became suspicious when she didn't see me inside. So she walked rather casually into her own room, calling out that she knew I was hiding in it. Blast. I gave myself a near-panic-attack for naught. (By the way. My mother is fully aware of Audrey's mischieveous doings, but she APPROVES of them. Because she thinks that they will condition my body to act appropriately when something actually scary happens to me. This logic...baffles me.)

Before all of this laundry-basket-hiding occurred, however, Audrey, Allie, and I were watching the San Franciso Ballet Company's version of The Nutcracker on television last night. (I should mention at this point that all three of us are dancers.) It occurred to me today that we probably sounded as if we were watching a highly-anticipated sporting event. There were screams, clapping, cheering, moans, and sighs of contentment. Audrey, at one point, announced that a particularly good musical cue had made her actually salivate. There was also a lot of voiced hatred toward the very talented male danseurs, especially when one of them would execute something like a quintuple pirouette and then saut de chat into the rafters. And there was a highly realistic circus bear that emerged from Mother Ginger's skirt. He was so realistic-looking that he deserves being mentioned. (And now I have done so.) I also remembered during the viewing that I could perform a one-handed cartwheel, so this required an immediate performance. Except Audrey hid her face behind the couch pillow because she was pretty sure that I was going to kick the floor lamp over. (I didn't.) (But I may have injured a hamstring slightly.)

Also. If I ever get my own dog, I shall name him Quat. Because then I can say, "Come, Quat." And it will sound like the word kumquat.

Tidbits.

This is an actual transcript of a conversation that occurred between two of my roommates, Audrey and Allie, three days ago:

Audrey: "So, Rachel. Why don't you tell Allie what you were doing this morning with that saucer full of milk?"

Allie (cheerily and indulgently, without waiting for an answer): "Trying to lap it up like a cat?"

Rachel: (Silence. A sheepish grin.)


I don't know whether I should be pleased that Allie knows me well enough to make that guess correctly on the first try or offended that she automatically assumes the weirdest about me. (And is, therefore, correct.) In my defense, though: have you ever seen a cat lap up a saucer full of milk? It's only, like, the coolest thing ever. Their tongues are like itty-bitty hummingbird wings, and suddenly--BOOM! The milk's gone. I figured it was worth a try, seeing if I could emulate their semi-prehensile tongue special effects. Alas, I was unable to. I picked out the smallest bowl we had in the apartment, filled it with milk, and then assiduously set about trying to drink it with only my tongue.

This resulted mostly in my snorting milk up my nose and accidentally dunking my chin in a cool milk bath. It also resulted in a lot of Audrey making fun of me. For being dumb, a weirdo, crazy, messy--the usual litany of complaints. Kayla was slightly more accepting. And for this reason her Christmas present will be slightly better. (Take that, Audrina!)

SSWW.

I'm really good at keeping secrets. I grew up with an older sister who had a very difficult time keeping any present she bought for me a surprise, despite how much I'd beg her not to tell me. (At our grammar school, an entirely overpriced establishment known as "Santa's Secret Shop"--referred to by our father, the Pun-Maker of America, as "Santa's Secret Swindle"--would be set up before Christmastime for a couple of weeks. Each student would be sent to school with petty cash to purchase ridiculously tacky Christmas gifts for each member of his or her family. Lauren could never resist calling me over to her side of the bed and fishing out my Christmas gift well before present-opening time. I soon grew wise to her ways, but she'd stop at nothing: she once waved me over, exclaiming that she wanted to show me what she'd gotten Daddy that year. I crept over and knelt beside her, only to see her swiftly whip out a serving platter that had a pastoral scene with impressionist sheep upon it. "LOOK WHAT I GOT YOU!" she screeched. Tricky, she was. Also, her gift ideas as a child were questionable, at best. I mean, a sheep platter? Why would I even need a platter, let alone one with sheep on it? I'm still baffled by this, to this day.)

But anyway. The point of the previous story is that I, however, can keep a secret quite well. Someone had to in our household. So when I got the idea to create a secret society and then induct some of my closest and unsuspecting friends into it, I kept my mouth shut about the almost unbelievable things that happened when said induction occurred. I found out months later that, despite having sworn to keep everything they'd seen amongst those involved only, everyone else in the secret society had blabbed about the induction, save for Allie. I was mentioning this to my friend Wesley a couple of days ago, and he immediately responded that I will make a fantastic grandparent. This is the loveliest compliment I have gotten in quite some time. And it also helped me realize that it'd make a good blog post, now that the cat's been out of the bag for a good while.

Myself, with my friends Sarah and Toni, decided to create a secret club called SSWW (Sui Generis Sneakers of the Written Word), the purpose of which still remains unclear, to this day. I know it had something to do with a book exchange, but I can't really remember what our other motivations were. Regardless, we didn't put the thing into action until my senior year of college, the spring of my graduation. Sarah, Toni, and I selected three worthy individuals--Sam, Allie (one of my current, long-suffering roommates, yes), and Cheryl--and then set about making plans. I wrote a nice, long pledge that the new members would be required to repeat, burned a soundtrack for the mysterious car ride, rounded up some costumes, and worded an appropriately cryptic text message to serve as the inductees' invitation. Toni, Sarah, and I each selected a favorite book of ours to give to another member of SSWW--a secret-society-warming-gift, if you will.

The proceedings began at midnight. The three of us piled into my Honda and drove to each inductee's dorm, at which point either Sarah or Toni would step out of the car and blindfold each girl before shoving her into the backseat. I should probably mention at this point that the music I'd selected for our car ride was Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor. And I was blaring it awfully loudly. (Maybe your reading of this blog entry would be improved if you youtubed this fine piece of music at this point and continued to listen to it as you read the remainder. It will give you an approximate feel of how the night progressed.)

No one spoke during the car ride, naturally. After we'd gathered all three girls, we drove to Pride Field, a big, open field in front of our university's gym that served as the marching band's practice ground. (We had originally wanted a more secretive venue, but sacrifices had to be made, seeing as it was the middle of the night.) As soon as the girls piled out of the car, they were forced to don bridesmaid dresses that I had been keeping in my dress-up trunk in my room. Toni, Sarah, and I were, of course, already wearing our dresses. These dresses were, I should mention, from the local thrift store. They appeared to be from the late seventies or early eighties.

We then lit and passed out candles for each person to hold, and I began reciting the speech I'd prepared. There was a bit of giggling, but things were going smoothly for the most part--the whole thing felt vaguely illegal and mysterious. Which was desirable. I had just gotten to the pledge that was to be recited when we noticed a police car circling the gym's parking lot. I pressed on, inwardly reassuring myself that it was just the police car assigned to campus, making its rounds. We wouldn't be bothered--we weren't doing anything actually illegal. Or were we? When the police car stopped, parked, and an officer emerged, heading straight for our circle, panic immediately ensued.

"Blow out the candles!" Toni commanded. We complied, unsure of what to do next. The officer was getting closer.

"What do we do?" I whimpered fearfully. I'd gone from fearless leader to jail-fearing 'fraidy-cat in a matter of seconds.

"Run," Sam stage-whispered. (She never took this thing seriously enough.)

At this point, the officer was upon us. I bravely picked up where I'd left off in the pledge, muttering something about promoting literacy to the masses, as the police officer quietly joined our circle and appraised the situation. After we'd finished reciting and repeating, he made a motion to speak.

"Just, uh...what's going on here, ladies?" he inquired.

I could feel five heads swivel toward me. Apparently I'd been elected spokesperson. Lovely.

"This is a secret society," I timidly began, fully cognizant of how ridiculous I sounded. "And this...is an induction ceremony."

The police officer nodded thoughtfully, and then took something out of his back pocket to hand to me: his card. His name was Officer Knight.

"Well, then. I do believe I've just been inducted into a secret society," he said, with the beginnings of a smile forming at the corners of his mouth. "You girls can just let me know the next time you have a meeting, and I'll make sure nobody gives you any trouble." With that, he left the field, climbed back into his car, and drove off. We were left standing in our circle, dumbfounded.

The rest of the night was rather uneventful, comparatively. We exchanged books (Cheryl was unable to get past the fact that this was the climax of the night. "Do you mean to tell me that this--this midnight meeting, with cops and blindfolds and scary music--is nothing more than a glorified book club?" she seethed), and then we drove the girls home. 'Twas one of the best nights of my life, I tell you. An unusual conglomeration of events, to say the least.

And I THOUGHT we were all sworn to secrecy. But the other girls confessed later on that the story had been far too good to keep to themselves, so they ended up sharing it with siblings and significant others. Humph. See if I induct them into my next secret society.

Hocus Pocus and Barbie World. (How can you not read a post with that title, I ask you?)

Items up for discussion: the wondrous movie Hocus Pocus and a little game I like to play called What Would This Be In Barbie World?

1. I have long harbored an obsession for the delightful film Hocus Pocus. If you are familiar with this movie, you will recall the scene in which Max and Allison try to sneak open Winnie's magic book of spells when Binx isn't paying attention. When Binx discovers them, he jumps atop the book (he's in cat form at this point) to close it and berates them for trying to meddle with powerful magic. His direct quote, I do believe, is as follows:

"No! Nothing good can come of that book."

This is accompanied by a paw swipe in the vicinity of Max and Allison's faces. The extraordinary thing about this moment of dialogue and gesture is that while Binx speaks in a very forceful tone, emphasizing the word "no," his paw swipe is at a leisurely pace. My friend Sarah and I discovered this and immediately tried to replicate this odd combination of harsh, fast words and a lazy paw swipe. Let me tell you: it is difficult. It took much practice to even begin to approach mastery. I am fairly confident, however, that I can now perform this difficult task.

All of this came to fruition during a recent rehearsal, in which Mari, my choreographer, called me out for speaking very quickly and loudly in our most recent piece whilst moving my arms far too slowly. This was not the effect she wanted--she wanted my tone and speed of voice to be matched by a frantic port de bras--but this moment was actually one of personal pride. I had succeeded! My mastery of slow-cat-paw-swipes and an accompanying angry voice had infiltrated my other gestures and speech. This, this is to have succeeded, my friends. And I wanted to share this with you.

2. When my sisters and I were younger, we had a ridiculous amount of Barbies--something like thirty. (About a third of them, give or take, lived in a perpetual state of nakedness. We also had only one Ken; every year, we'd stage a big ball for the Barbies in which Ken got to choose his new wife for the coming year. This never struck any of us as odd. Or completely chauvinistic. Or stupid. This...worries me. Retroactively.) Naturally, I was obsessed with Barbies. I found myself, as a child, constantly observing objects and wondering what they'd be like in Barbie World. That is, what they'd be if they were something Barbie owned or used. For example: at my grammar school, whenever we had a good rain, a very, very large puddle would form near the portable classrooms--sometimes it got so large that it became difficult to jump over. To me, this was Barbie's Lake. I imagined it as a woodsy retreat at which Barbie might take a dip, perhaps swinging off a nearby vine into a refreshingly cool body of water. (There were no tiny vines, however, near these large puddles. In real life, I mean.)

Disturbingly enough, this game has continued into my adult life. I bought some delicious chocolate-mint candy canes last week, and as I selected one from the cookie jar in our apartment, I found myself imagining it as a Christmas staff for Barbie--perhaps carried by one of the Wise Men in a Barbie living nativity scene.

This...cannot be normal. A of all, I'm twenty-three years old. It's time to stop thinking in Barbie terms. B of all, a Christmas staff? Seriously? That's the best I can come up with for the candy cane? I've lost my touch. Sorry to say.

New Awkward and Embarrassing Things. Terrif.

So. Two items of note have occurred in the recent past at work. At the restaurant, I mean. Both are somewhat humorous, and the latter is my own extraspecial combo of Quite Awkward and Horribly Embarrassing. (Big surprise, I know. Huge.) Here we are, folks. (Folks? Why did I just type that? A of all, I have about three followers on this here thing. So using the plural form of any noun referring to my readership is ridiculous and, frankly, dishonest. Also, I just used the word readership. Redundantly dishonest, Rachel. Going for the gold here. B of all, I don't ever use the word "folks" in conversation. I don't refer to people as "folks." Because that's folksy. (Hardy har har.) (Parentheses within parentheses--the world is exploding!) Ah, well. Back to the stories.)

1. When I came into the restaurant last Wednesday, Fio informed me that an ipod had been left behind the bar the night before--he told me this in case anyone called, looking for said ipod. (Sometimes the servers and bartenders like to play DJ and hook up their ipods to the sound system. Clara, another server, had found this one and taken it home with her, for safekeeping. She was working again that night, so she planned on just bringing it along with her.) I absorbed this information and proceeded with getting the restaurant ready. Minutes later, Fio asked me if it happened to be MY ipod. I told him no--I'd never, never, ever use my ipod as ambient bar music at our restaurant, mainly because of my music selection--and then asked him why he thought it might be mine. He told me that Clara was going through the ipod's music and had noticed that there were a lot of showtunes. She and Fio had deduced, then, that it was mine.

This is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First of all, this case of mistaken-ipod-identity meant that the people I work with at the restaurant had begun to associate me with musical theatre music. People: this is a big deal. I dream of being The Musical Theatre Laureate Of The World--a position that does not yet exist--and sitting atop a mountain, which people will climb in order to ask me musical theatre trivia questions. Or any questions concerning musical theatre, really. I would be more than happy to share my opinions. Or stories. Or other bombasticity. (Not actually a word, but it should be. So there.) This situation pleased me immensely. I love being thought of as the-girl-who-listens-to-nothing-but-showtunes-and-has-an-ipod-full-of-them-and-is-unhealthily-obsessed-with-all-things-musical-theatre. The second reason this is worth mentioning is that even though I was absolutely certain that I had not used my showtunes-laden ipod to entertain the masses at the restaurant, I was so flattered by the musical theatre association that I actually went to check my purse, just to make sure the recently-found ipod wasn't mine. (It wasn't.)

2. This past weekend, I worked a very busy brunch that often left us servers scrambling to get silverware to our tables before their food came up. I was delivering some roll-ups to an outdoor cafe table (oh, yes) that wasn't actually in my section but needed silverware quickly, as their food was about to be brought out. As I set the roll-ups down on the edge of the table, I noticed that one of the women sitting at this table had a bangin' color nail polish on. Excitedly, I asked her what color she had on. (I was pretty sure it was an OPI, but I wasn't positive.) She glanced at her fingernails and told me that it was, indeed, an OPI color--Commander in Chic, specifically. Thinking our conversation had reached its end, she proceeded to reach for the roll-ups at the end of the table. I, however, assumed that she could only be extending her hand in my direction so that I could fervently grasp it in my own and examine her nail color up close and personally. (Duh. Upper East Side women just loooove it when rando girls grab their hands.)

Unfortunately, I didn't realize my rude mistake until I already had her fingers in my hand. She, naturally, attempted to retract her hand from my greedy little paws, but I was already too far into this awkwardness to just give up and relent. My brain, stupid dumbass that it is, told me to just go for it--just hold her hand like you don't notice that she's desperately trying to pull it away! Just be cool. Be suave. You got this, yo. I'm sure you can guess that I couldn't pull this off. Not even a little bit. She only tried harder to pull her hand away from mine, and I only continued to grasp it more tightly. This terribly embarrassing situation ended with me lamely saying something along the lines of, "Oh. Nice. I like it." She then removed her hand for real. And I slunk away to the safe haven of the kitchen, where I was free to marvel at my constantly-increasing level of social awkardness in peace.

New York is driving me mad. In the insane sense of the word, that is.

New York is making me weirder. Seriously. All joking aside. (And I think we're all aware that I am a weird-ass person to begin with.) (But really, it's just because I'm interesting. Not weird. Just interesting.) I think this new and unimproved level of weirdo is because I am surrounded by legitimately crazy people here, and this lulls me into a false sense of security. That is, I feel secure that my recently developed oddities aren't anything to worry about, since I'm not dancing suggestively--without the aid of musical accompaniment--to my own reflection in the subway car or applying Shade Of Whore lipstick WELL above my natural lipline--we're talking a full half-inch here--just to pick up some shampoo from the Duane Reade. (Both of those are real, actual instances that I have witnessed. Oh, yes. The crazies are out and about on the Upper East Side, my friends.) (My bloggers? My bloggees? My peeps-who-have-mistakenly-stumbled-upon-this-blog-and-have-now-decided-to-immediately-navigate-away-from-this-page?)

But yeah. New York City + Being A Waitress = Crazy Rachel. Today, at work, this very pretty girl and highly handsome man walked into the restaurant and requested one of our small booths in the back corner. Two seconds after I'd sat them, Fio leaned across the bar and whispered into my ear, "That is one VERY attractive couple. I'll...take their babies."

Now, this in itself is a creepy statement. Very creepy. Instead of being appalled, however, like any other normal person, I immediately and heartily concurred. Fio and I then proceeded to refer to this couple (out of earshot, of course) as Beautiful Couple and alert all people sitting at the bar of their hotness, even going so far as to persuade them to take an unnecessary trip to the bathroom to check out Beautiful Couple for themselves. Make believers out of them, you see. Encourage them to imagine their nonexistent Beautiful Children. Tell them to go back and take a second look when they returned even the least bit skeptical.

Do you see this? This is weird. Way weirder than I've ever been. And I didn't even stop to consider how weird this is until I got home today and reviewed the weirdo stuff I'd said and done in the grocery on the way home from work.

This is where the shit really gets weird. For real. Tonight, in the grocery, I happened to pass the aisle of chocolate bars. Naturally, this warranted immediate perusal. Chocolate is not a purchase to be taken lightly. My eyes alighted upon a large Toblerone bar and stopped there. I wasn't hungry enough for an entire Toblerone, but I grabbed it anyway, sure that I could find some way to force it all down. After tossing it into my grocery basket, I saw that there were also smaller, cuter versions of the Toblerone--maybe a third of the large-sized one. This was the perfectly-sized chocolatey snack I was searching for! Aloud, and without forethought, I squealed loudly and said in that ridiculous voice people use only when talking to babies and dogs: "Ooooooooh! BABY Toblerone!"

Really, Rachel? You're using the baby voice to talk to chocolate bars? Aloud? In a grocery store? In full view of other people? What's happening to you?

I then saw a chocolate bar wrapper that promised peanut butter nougat. Of course, this was something that required my full attention, so I eagerly plucked it from the display. Unfortunately, I almost immediately saw that this was actually a peanut-butter-and-jelly chocolate bar. (Now, for those of you who know me well, you will remember that I am not a fan of the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Sandwiches of peanut butter and jelly are easily the most delicious thing in the world, but when these two heavenly substances are adulterated and disgustingly smushed together between two slices of bread, I vomit involuntarily a little bit inside my mouth. I like to eat my slice of bread with peanut butter thickly spread upon it, and then I like to follow this up with a jelly-encumbered slice of bread. Delish. Smacking my lips as I type this, I am.) The idea of this chocolate bar, then, was utterly revolting to me. I threw down the chocolate bar and began actually backing away from the chocolate bar display, muttering "Nhh-mm. Nhh-mm." over and over again. Aloud. In full hearing of the other grocery store patrons.

Now, come on. Was the candy bar going to jump out of my hand, unwrap itself, and cram its little disgusting chocolatey-peanut-buttery-and-jellied body into my mouth? Did I really need to alert the entire grocery of my hatred for the combination of the tastes of peanut butter and jelly? Did I actually have to toss the candy bar away from my person and quickly back away, shaking my head back and forth and mumbling like a lunatic?

I. Am. Going. Crazy. And I blame you, New York. I blame you entirely.

I will never work Marathon Sunday again. If I have to lie, cheat, steal, or kill. (Well, I won't kill someone. But maybe I would inflict bodily harm.)

This, I fear, will be a depressing post. Though I shall try my darnedest to make it into one of humor. (Spoiler alert: I do something stupid/embarrassing at work. Shocker, I know.) But here goes.

Yesterday, I had the worst day I've ever had at the restaurant, climaxing with me, wedged in a corner, crying silently as I stood directly behind the restaurant's owner. Life was stupid-awful yesterday, frankly.

I was tapped to work Marathon Sunday, the day of the New York City Marathon, at the restaurant, a day which was predicted to be pretty busy for us, albeit mostly at the bar. Only two servers were waitressing--myself and Jen. We've both been working at the restaurant for a good while, and we knew that making money probably wouldn't be in the forecast for us. The manager had taken all of the tables out of the inside of the restaurant, anticipating a large bar crowd that would want to mingle and use the dining room space.

Things started off rather slowly. Jen and I got to eat some delicious breakfast (I had oatmeal, if you must know. With cinnamon and bananas and walnuts. Delish, I tell you.) and leisurely take care of a a few tables. The booths--we have six of them--were occasionally occupied, and neither of us even needed the busser to run our food, really. As the bar started to fill up, though, the crowd began spreading to the booth area and then even to some of the dining room. It took some circuitous planning to get to our tables, but it wasn't impossible. When more people began wanting to sit down and eat, the busboy brought in some of the cafe tables from outside (damn those cafe tables, I tell you!). (I like to tell you things.) Which was a bit hard to navigate, what with the crowd getting larger and also drunker by the minute.

Now would be a good time for me to point out that I don't like people. As you surely know by now, I am socially awkward and become nervous when confronted with people I'm meeting for the first time. (So, yes. Waitressing is the single most terrible job I could have possibly picked. You are correct.) Being amongst large crowds of people, then, is akin to putting me and my super-hairy arms in a room with a bunch of beautiful hairless-armed girls who were never teased as a child for resembling a chimpanzee. It causes me great, great anxiety. This is a large part of why I hate Mardi Gras: many obnoxiously drunk people do not a fun scene make. For me.

So anyway. The crowd started getting out of control around by, say, 1:30. I had to work till 4, and I was literally counting down the minutes at this point. Jen and I would exchange pleasantries every time we had to wait for drinks at the bar, since we had ample time, as all three of the bartenders had their hands quite full juggling not only the crowd but our table drink requests. We joked about how frustrated our tables were getting with the wait for drinks, and how it was becoming more and more difficult to get to and fro the kitchen and our tables with food. The busboy had long ago been swallowed by the needs of the bar, so we no longer had a food runner. And it wasn't too much fun carving a path to our tables through drunkies who obviously thought they had dancing skills that required quite a large berth.

By two pm or so, though, the situation had gotten out of control. The bar was so incredibly full of people that I actually had to fight my way through hordes of people to make it to any of the following: the bar, the kitchen, or my tables outside. (We'd long ago stopped seating folks inside, as there was absolutely no place for us to put them. People were jammed against the booth openings, if they weren't already shoving themselves inside.) Whenever I managed to get through to the bar to put in an order on the POS or wait for drinks, I could feel several people pressing up against my back, either hoping to catch one of the bartenders' attention or else just smushed there because of the ever-growing crowd.

Now I was panic-stricken. I couldn't find our manager to tell him that I could no longer get to my tables outside. Each and every time I needed to move anywhere in the restaurant, I had to physically push people out of the way, yelling out "Excuse me! I need to get through!" as I went. (This was difficult for me at first. I am taciturn by nature. Within a few trips, however, I was just screaming. The DJ had the music up ridiculously loud, and I couldn't even hear my own voice yelling for people to move.) Unfortunately, all of the tables outside ended up being large parties--I had a table of five, ten, and eleven at one point. Because it was taking me between five and ten minutes to push through from any point in the restaurant to the outdoors (we're talking about travelling a fifteen-foot distance), I tried to consolidate my trips. But carrying eleven drink orders on a tray is hard enough in a reasonably empty restaurant. Pushing through this pulsing crowd with a huge tray of drinks was--all exaggeration aside--almost impossible. It was also scary. I was terrified of dropping drinks and scattering shards of glass all over the floor, and I had to take several deep breaths as I was shoving my way through in order to keep myself together. My chest hurt. It felt tight. When things got truly awful, I man-handled my way back to the kitchen (the day's safe haven, really) and did a few quick breathing exercises. Unfortunately, my manager also happened to be back in the kitchen when I did this. He now thinks I am crazy. Because I was taking very large, heaving breaths and counting aloud. With my eyes closed. And my hands clasped tightly in front of me. Oh, Rachel.

But as bad as things were at this point, I knew that if I could just push through until four o'clock, I'd be golden. I knew that things couldn't get any worse. I told myself that I could deal with hordes of drunk people for just an hour and a half or so more. Ninety minutes more of stupidity, and then I'm done. I could do it. Right?

Duh. You complete moron. Of course things were going to get worse, you dumbass.

I think things started to implode when that eleven-top's food came up. I can only carry three plates at a time, and this is a precarious situation in the first place. This meant four trips to and fro the kitchen. Through that awful, awful crowd. It was so very miserable. All I could do was hold onto the plates as tightly as possible and scream and push my way through the crowd to the side doors leading outside. Four times. And it took me at least five minutes each time. When I brought the first three plates out, one of the girls sitting at the table asked for extra ketchup, salt, and pepper. By the time I finally brought those out to her, on my now fifth trip, at least half of the table was finished eating. This table's frustration with me was indeed palpable. On my last food trip out there, I apologized profusely for the delay, citing the ridiculous crowd inside, but because it was relatively quiet outside the restaurant--as compared to the can't-hear-yourself-scream environment inside--I'm sure it was hard for the table to sympathize. One dude called me to his side and told me that the lettuce was bad.

"I just wanted you to be aware of this," he snippily said. "It looks brown and wilted. This is not good. They shouldn't serve this. Just so you know."

Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Nonononono. I could feel tears start to well up in my eyes. Immediately, I made some excuse to the table and hurried back to the doors to push myself through the throbbing mass. I knew that I couldn't let them see me cry, even though I had to return as quickly as possible to their table with a requested three more waters and a Brooklyn Brown beer.

I have never cried at work before. Never. People have tipped me terribly, fussed at me, yelled at me, and I have been overwhelmed with the number of tables I've been in charge of at once, but I have prided myself on never crying. I learned early on that the compartmentalization of emotions is a necessary evil in the waitressing world. I'd probably have no self-esteem left at this point if I'd let it truly get to me every time someone was upset with me while I'm working.

This was too much for me to handle, though. I was doing my best to keep my tears from spilling over as I fought my way back to the service bar to get those four drinks, but the thought of returning through all of these people with a tray full of drinks was so very, very disheartening. I managed to eventually make my way to the ice bucket, where I loaded up three glasses with ice on my tray and prepared to fight the final two feet to the actual bar to request the beer and pour the waters from the soda fountain gun. I know that it sounds ridiculous to say that I needed to "fight" my way through two feet of space, but it is the truth. At least three or four people were jostling in front of me at the bar, including the restaurant owner, who'd come in today to help out with the craziness.

And then suddenly, I literally could not move. I was jammed on three sides by what felt like a multitude of people, and it was all I could do not to spill my tray of ice-filled glasses as my left shoulder was forced into the ice-bucket corner. I was wedged in and I could not actually move. I was there for probably about ten minutes. Unable to move. Of course, I just started sobbing. There was absolutely nothing I could do, and I just knew that that damn outside table was cursing me for not returning with their drinks. The owner turned around at some point and observed my babyishness. He must've felt sorry for me, because he leaned down to me and yelled into my ear that he'd fight for a place for me at the bar as soon as the dude in front of him got his drink order. I just nodded and tried to cry less noticeably. (Brilliant response there, Rach.) Another waitress, Jules, who'd come in early for the evening shift, eventually sidled up next to me and tried making a joke about the stupid crowd until she noticed I was crying. A lot. She immediately assessed the situation, saw that I'd reached my breaking point, and went about making magic happen. She grabbed a water bottle that we used to refill waters at the tables and filled my ice glasses. She then took the tray from me and took off for the outside table. This left only the Brooklyn Brown for me to procure. Once I'd been cleared a space at the bar, Melissa, one of the bartenders, saw me crying and got me the beer as quickly as she could. I still had to fight my way through the crowd again, but this time it was only with one drink.

It would probably be a nice ending to this story if I could say that the day at least ended well. Alas, it did not. I had to deal with computer issues which wouldn't let me correctly process a big gift certificate, one of the guest bartenders accidentally fell halfway down the stairs behind the bar (very nearly injuring himself seriously), and I cried at least two more times that I had to fight my way through that crowd of people. I felt like a complete failure as a waitress. Ew. I was a complete failure as a waitress, actually. Truly an awful day.

I suppose there is humor somewhere in this, though. I must've looked like a bewildered orphan child, wedged in that corner, drinks in hand, tears coursing down my face. Amidst a crowd full of happy, dancing, drunk people. That was probably quite the humorous image, I'm sure. So nice that the restaurant owner got to see my meltdown in action, too. Lovely, really.

I have to go back to work tomorrow. I know it won't be at all like Sunday, but I'm still scared. Yuck.

The Mischief-Making of Audrey. And what it has done to me.

I've mentioned one of my roommates, Audrey, on this blog already, concerning her friendship hijinks, but I think it's high time I went into greater detail regarding her capacity for mercilessly teasing me and, simultaneously, driving me--quite literally--crazy.

Audrey and I met our second semester of college, both of us having transferred from other places to the Mississippi university we eventually called home, but we didn't become good friends until the end of our sophomore year, when we were both cast in a fellow dance major's spring piece. For at least the first year or so of our friendship, I dealt easily with Audrey's propensity for mischief: she could reverse-shoulder-tap with the best of them (she refers to herself as The Queen of Reverse-Shoulder-Tapping without even a hint of sarcasm), and she often enjoyed pushing me off the sidewalk during our walks to the cafeteria or back to the dormitory. It wasn't until later on that she began showing her true colors--that is, her desire to make me certifiably insane.

Audge lives to scare the daylights out of me. (One of these days, I will actually drop dead of cardiac arrest, and then--THEN--she'll be sorry. Until then, unfortunately, I will just continue to suffer mild heart attacks and wait out a few painful seconds of remembering how to breathe.) After reading my blog post concerning her love for Rachel-scare-attacks, she promptly decided to one-up her personal best. As she was exiting the shower that night, clad only in a towel and a Turbie Twist (the fact that the Feeney household at one time contained twenty-seven Turbie Twists should give you some small clue into her personality), she heard me singing blissfully in the hallway to our apartment, retrieving my keys to open the door. Just before I entered the apartment, she jumped into the storage closet--naked, let's remember, save for only a towel and Turbie Twist--that opens up directly across from my and also another roommate, Kayla's, rooms. Kayla was exiting her room just as I was approaching mine, quite oblivious to the fact that Audrey was waiting for me in the closet. Kayla, upon entering the hallway, made an odd face as I told her hello; I later learned that this was because she was facing the naked Audrey, who was making frantic "Shhh!" motions with her hands. As I paused to tell Kayla hello before entering my room, Audrey jumped out at me, screaming and waving her arms spastically. (Her towel stayed on, thank goodness.)

Naturally, I almost died of fright. I don't think I regained a normal breathing pattern until ten or so seconds after Audrey's attack. Audrey, of course, scampered off to her room, fearing my wrath. Truthfully, I wasn't sure whether to kill her or applaud her intense commitment to giving me a good scare. I mean, really? Naked in the closet? That took dedication.

There's also the time she stole my keys from me in the cafeteria and quickly rode the down escalator before I could snatch them back. Gleefully waiting for me at the bottom of the down escalator, she made sure to pause her antics until I had begun my trek down the escalator; once I was safely in the midst of running after her to the bottom, she quickly placed my keys on a step of the UP escalator. Tiring immediately of this game, I quickly ran down the remaining down escalator steps until I could begin climbing the stairs to the up escalator. As I approached my keys--and, consequently, the top of the escalator--I learned that she'd employed another of our friends, Little Mary, to grab my keys and place them on the down escalator.

This continued for several rounds. I strongly considered killing Audrey at this point, but I tried to remember her redeeming qualities and give her a second chance. This was, obviously, a huge mistake.

Audrey also enjoyed offering to give me a ride from my sorority dorm to various places of interest on campus, since most of our classes and errands coordinated nicely. Unfortunately, most of her enjoyment in this endeavor stemmed from the fact that just as I was approaching her car--nearly grasping the door handle--she would abruptly floor the gas and take off around the spacious parking lot, cackling like an imbecile. Each time she looped around near me again, she'd promise that THIS would be the time she'd actually stop the car and let me inside. Usually, I had to wait it out through three or four "promises" until she let me inside.

When riding inside my car, Audrey was no better behaved. One would think that she'd have the decency to appreciate the fact that I was generously giving her a ride (and NOT forcing her to jump into a moving vehicle), but no--never, in fact. She--and whoever else was riding with us that she could quickly persuade to join in--would begin playing what she referred to as, simply, The Game: that is, alternating between turning on my emergency flashers and blowing my horn at inappropriate moments. I quickly learned to drive with one hand covering my emergency flashers, elbow ominously extended in the direction of anyone who tried to sneak in a horn toot. This was, as you can imagine, very difficult. My fellow drivers probably thought I was crazy, at best, what with sporadic emergency flasher use and long toots of my horn for absolutely no good reason.

And though we've now graduated from college and therefore truly entered adulthood, Audrey hasn't slacked off in the slightest; in fact, she's only upped her game. Apart from scaring me whilst naked in closets, continuing to reverse-shoulder-tap me, and roughly push me into the street, she also enjoys calling me stupid in various ways. One day, while walking through IKEA, Audrey mentioned that she might want to buy a wok. Now, as I've detailed in earlier posts, I know little to nothing about cooking. I'd never heard of a wok before. I made the mistake of alerting Audrey to this fact, innocently asking, "What's a wok?"

Instead of merely answering my question and then going about her daily business, Audrey began poorly imitating my voice--putting it up at least an octave or two--and asking questions that I clearly knew the answers to as if she were me. "What's a wok, Audrey?" she'd ask, smiling like an idiot and tilting her head to the side. "What's stir fry?" "What's Chinese food, Audrey?" "What's a NOODLE?"

Sigh. This is what I put up with on daily basis, I tell you.

Of course, I am not without retaliation. I suppose I should mention that I currently have a framed, poster-size picture of Audrey, circa eleven years old, hanging behind my door in my bedroom. It is truly the most awkward picture ever taken of a child clearly in the most awkward phase of her young life, and it is hanging for all to see. (I suppose I should also mention that I stole this picture from Audrey's house, blew it up at a Kinko's to poster size, and then hung it in the dressing room for all to see and mock during tech week for a dance concert one semester. What can I say? When I'm good, I'm good.)

I almost regret creating this post, as I'm fairly certain it will only further incite Audrey to torment me. But I also need the world to know the truth. Which is that Audrey is, without a doubt, a demon from the innermost bowels of hell.

Me and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Today has not been so great. I wish I could say this is because the forces of the universe have decided to conspire against me yada yada yada, but it's actually due entirely to my own stupidity. Gah.

When I got to work at the restaurant today, I immediately headed to the kitchen area, as I always do. I tend to the coffee, ketchup, iced tea, and roll-ups first; once I finish all of that jazz, I head back out to the front and help Fio the bartender set up the outdoor cafe tables (those damn things again, yes) and the dining room. This is my routine. It works rather well. Unfortunately, we sometimes get deliveries of liquor or beer or wine at the restaurant in the mornings, before Fio gets there. (I go in at 10 am, and he gets an extra half hour of whatnot before he has to show up. Lame.) I say "unfortunately" because Fio is a very particular person and bartender with very particular ways of handling deliveries, and I usually fail when attempting to deal with a delivery in the same method. This morning was a perfect example of such a situation.

As I was creating the ramekins of ketchup, I heard someone hollering "Hello?" up front in the dining room. Abandoning my ketchup-making, I headed to the dining room to see a delivery man looking for someone to sign his invoice. He'd already stacked up boxes and boxes of what appeared to be port and some other wines in the dining room, right next to the bar. (This was no-no numero uno: Fio hates to have all of the wine delivered upstairs. He likes to meet the delivery men outside, in front of the restaurant, and request that they only bring in a box or two or whatever he needs immediately behind the bar; he has them bring the rest of the delivery downstairs, where the alcohol is stored. This way, he has less to carry up and down the basement stairs. This makes perfect sense, but if I don't get to the delivery man before he enters the restaurant, Fio's First Rule is already broken.) (So yeah. I'd already messed up.)

This delivery man also seemed to be in somewhat of a hurry. He thrust the invoice that I needed to sign in my face, already rattling off the number of boxes that he'd placed in the center of the kitchen and what kinds of alcohol each box was. Completely flustered, I took the invoice from him and attempted to quickly match up what had been ordered with what was being delivered. (This is Fio's Second Rule: always make sure that what was ordered is what's being delivered. Don't let them deliver too little or too much. Once you sign that invoice, you're agreeing that the delivery was, indeed, correct. And if you sign off on the delivery and it's NOT correct, Fio will get very angry with you. This has happened to me before.)

I didn't have a pen on me to sign, so I asked Delivery Dude if he had one. Nope. He didn't. He made a half-move, as if to go to his truck to get one, but it was one of those half-moves where you can tell it's purely out of politeness and that the person has absolutely no real intention of performing the requested task. Seeing this, I began turning around in place, as if a Pen God would soon descend from the ceiling and drop a writing utensil in my open palm. (This, sadly, did not happen. Delivery Dude started combing the bar and found one of Fio's pens for me to use.) (Side note number four hundred twenty-seven: do not steal Fio's pens. This also angers him greatly.)

I quickly scribbled my name on the invoice, sensing Delivery Dude's impatience. ("We gotta lot of deliveries to make this morning. We in a rush.") (Sure, no pressure. Thanks, Delivery Dude. I've only got The Wrath of Fio on the line here, man.) He swiftly rushed out, and I was left with some twenty-odd cases of wine. I'd already noticed that several of them were cases of port, which seemed dimly unusual, but I chalked up this oddity to the fact that just last week we'd run out of our last bottle of port. (Here's where bells should've been clanging crazily in my pea-brain: we hadn't ordered any port in a reeeeeeally long time. Like, maybe since last winter, Fio said. And yet I was okay with us apparently ordering ten CASES of port. I remember thinking that the port remnants Fio had allowed me to sample last week were quite tasty, and that it must be quite a popular winter drink, indeed, since we needed to order so much of it.) (Insert international soundbite for stupidity--something along the lines of "uhh-duuuh," in a dumb-sounding male voice.)

Cut to twenty minutes later, when Fio arrives. As I'm exiting the kitchen, heading to the dining room, I see him standing amongst the cases, with his jacket still on and the invoice in hand. I immediately prepare to apologize for not getting to the delivery man fast enough, so that the wine could be stored downstairs, but all I could get out was something along the lines of "Yeah, I kn--" before Fio cut me off.

"Who signed for this?" he demands.

I am scared to answer. His face is comprised of disgust, anger, and complete unbelievability. I stammer.

"I--I did."

Wordlessly, he hands me the invoice, with his finger pointing to the company name and address at the top of the page. Rather than reading our restaurant's name, it has the name of the liquor store down the block. Yep. I'm a moron. I allowed a liquor store's delivery to be dropped off here. I completely forgot to check the invoice's address. I am a very dumb person. (You are really dumb. Fo' real.) I cringe visibly and brave a look at Fio's face.

Nope. Not a good idea. In this brief moment of time, it is unquestionably clear to me that Fio actually wants to kill me. Possibly with one of these many cases of port. For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. Then, slowly and carefully:

"So you actually thought we ordered ten cases of port?"

I nod, timid and still fearful for my life.

Huge, exasperated sigh. Fio's brow is suddenly lined with sweat. (Which probably formed as a result of his trying to quash his currently homicidal rage.) I begin taking small backwards steps toward the kitchen, as if I were leaving the company of royalty. I am terrified that if I turn around, Fio will throw a small knife into my back. (Or perhaps a large one, to ensure no chance of survival.)

For the rest of my setup time, I skulk around in the kitchen area, desperately trying to avoid Fio until the situation has been resolved. I later learn that he called the delivery company and had them come back to remove the offensive cases of port and wine, to re-deliver them to the wine store. Naturally, he will never let me live this down. Never. By the time my shift is over, he's already told the regulars who come to the bar of my complete idiocy and threatened to tell my manager, as well as the owner of the restaurant. I am, of course, mortified. I feel like a waitress rookie all over again. (Definitely not a feeling I like to relive. You know.)

I have no happy anecdote to end this blog post. I still feel dumb. And stupid. And incompetent. Bah. My tummy hurts.

A would-be love letter to the city of New York.

You know, if you think about it, I've been living in the city for over a year now. I mean, I know this. I have known this. And this has been, without question, the longest year of my life. So I've known that I've lived here for a very, very long time, even though it's only been a year in real-life time. (Just go with me here.) What I mean to say is that it's still very surreal, sometimes. You know? I'll be walking down the street, jamming to some excellent musical theatre selections on the ipod, feeling like Edna St. Vincent Millay ("O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!" Or something like that.), wondering where the nearest frozen yogurt shop is, and it'll just hit me: I live in the city of New York.

But I don't mean that I'm in awe of the city itself. When I think that thought in my head, that is. I mean, I am in awe of the city itself. Constantly. (In fact, it would be very accurate to say that I am so in awe of it that I am afraid of it. Most of the time.) It's more that I'm in disbelief about the events that transpired to get me here. I still have trouble believing that I managed to pack up and move my 'fraidy-cat-self away from all family and friends (save Allie) and learn to live The New York Way. Which would be the way of public transportation. And the way of eating ninety percent of my meals on the run. And the way of the starving-artist-waitress thing. And the way of winter hats. And the way of becoming desensitized to homeless people. And the way of ubiquitous stairs. And the way of walking quickly. And the way of creepy apartment hallways. And the way of constantly wondering how anyone can afford to live here.

I mean, for real. Allie and I were just two naive Southern girls who allotted a week of our pre-New-York summer to find an apartment. We stayed in this semi-sketch hostel and shared a bathroom with randos. And we learned so, so much. In just that week. We were so studious; every night, we'd take our laptops down to the hostel lobby and craigslist our way through hundreds of apartment listings, making phone calls and setting up viewing times and writing things down in our prim little notebooks. We were so diligent. (The two of us are nothing if not diligent. And also fastidious.) And I was so very terrified. On our first day of legit apartment hunting, I had a terribly upset stomach. (When I get nervous, I become super nauseated.) As we exited the subway and came back above ground, I had to rest for a minute under a tree and dry heave into some bushes. (The next day was even worse, beeteedub. I actually threw up. In a subway station. In a trash can. Oh, Columbus Street Station. I shall always associate you with my vomit. It was revolting. Subway trash cans are pretty disgusting in and of themselves, lemme tell ya. And there I was, hunched over one, retching uncontrollably. Passersby were equally revolted. They probably thought I was some hungover college kid losing my post-party greasy breakfast. Gah.) Poor Allie. (I love you, Allie. And not just because you can deal with me vomiting. Promise.)

I remember discovering the magic of hopstop.com. I remember climbing into the broker's car and wondering if she would be taking us to a deserted lot and murdering us, rather than showing us a different apartment. I remember the terror of those first two weeks, when I would sit on my bed, surrounded by pink pillows and blankets, desperately trying to find a job on craigslist. I remember my first day at the restaurant--I didn't know how to set up the tables, and when I tried to decorate the chalkboard that we propped outside the front door, the bartender told me that I didn't really have that great of handwriting. I remember journaling almost every day about how scared and sad and lonely and homesick I felt. I remember crying. I remember crying to my parents, specifically. All the time. About everything. I remember going to my first audition, for The Lion King on Broadway. (Update: I didn't get the gig.) (Hahaa. I crack myself up.) (I mean, I really didn't get it, though. It was funny because there's no way I would've gotten that dance job. And also because I wouldn't be a waitress now if I'd gotten any job dancing on Broadway.) (Oh, my. This is getting depressing.) I remember getting my library card. I remember the first time I wore tights under my jeans. I remember buying my first pair of boots.

It's just weird. I am not a courageous person. I say this with no false modesty--I am timid, deferential, and mediocre in most things. Moving here is easily the most difficult and also the bravest thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I still don't know if I made the right choice, moving here. Which is a pretty scary thing to come to terms with. I'm sincerely hoping that the next thirteen and a half months convince me that I've made the right choice. That this is where I'm supposed to be. (Because, you know, if not--I just wasted a year and a half's rent futzing around the good ole NYC.) I think things are looking up, though. I love my new apartment; I love having so many roommates; I love dancing for Mari; I love the twinkle lights in my room; I love the library system. I am scared of the winter and the coldness and unhappiness it will bring, but I feel more prepared to face it, this time around. I want to like you, New York City. Really, I want to love you. I do.

Things I've Learned From My Roommates. (A work-in-progress, naturally.)

I am very lucky to have three of my closest friends as my roommates--Allie, Audrey, and Kayla. Audrey and Kayla just moved up to the city a few weeks ago, but Allie and I have been weathering this city together for over a year. We moved up here together, as it were. (A story for another day. But oh, what a story.) And I very much love living with these three girls. Really, I do. (Despite the fact that Audrey sometimes seems to be acting on orders from a higher power that she make my life as miserable as possible in a variety of ways, least of which are burying me beneath piles of clothing and shoes and deliberately creeping up behind me in potentially spooky situations and then screaming loudly, giving me small but very real episodes of cardiac arrest.) (And also despite the fact that Audge hacked my facebook account this morning and posted a status proclaiming that I bite my toenails.) (And also despite the fact that Audrey routinely pushes me off the sidewalk when we walk ANYWHERE together, in a very forceful and unfriendly manner.) (But I digress.) I love my roommates. But they make me feel dumb. A lot of the time.

Not purposely, of course. I feel dumb in comparison to them. They seem to have all of this knowledge about things I know absolutely nothing about. And this knowledge, according to them, is common. Everyone knows these things, they tell me. But I don't. So the feeling of dumbness sets in. I have compiled a partial list of the valuable information that they have thus far passed along to me. It has greatly increased my quality of life.

1. If you want to be able to successfully remove your baked good from the pan in which it was baked, you must use Pam.

On Allie's first birthday here in New York--last September--I decided to wake up early and bake her a cake the morning of her day of birth. This in itself was a monumental decision, mostly because my baking and/or cooking skills are nil. Zilch. Nada. I spent a lot of time on the phone with my mom and older sister, getting their advice on cake mixes and supplies and flavors. I eventually decided on a yellow cake mix and a lemon icing, simply because Allie's favorite color is yellow. (Turns out that the combo of yellow cake and lemon icing is...odd. Not necessarily bad. Just odd.) I ended up burning the cake slightly, but this error paled in comparison to the huge chunk of cake that was left in the pan when I tried to remove it. I used one of those special silicone pans--the "no stick" ones, you know?--that was in the shape of a rose. Too bad the rose was missing a good chunk. My panicked solution to this problem was quick and easy. And also messy and inefficient. And also somewhat revolting. I just globbed on a shitload of extra icing where the missing chunk was--the upper left portion of the cake. This both looked and tasted ridiculous. The icing was sliding all over the place and sort of melting and generally looking completely unappetizing.

Allie, of course, was a good sport about the whole thing, and reminded me that it's the thought that counts. She gamely ate the cake, as well. And she also told me that Pam, as it turns out, is not an optional part of baking. It's rather necessary, actually.

2. If you use heat warmers to keep yourself toasty in the winter during your morning commute, do not apply them directly to your skin. Or to your tights.

When we lived in Ridgewood, I'd have to travel an hour to and from work each morning. In the heart of winter (even though winter HAS NO HEART), I was completely miserable. All I did was complain about the cold. Eventually, Allie's best friend, Gloria, must've grown tired of hearing about my whining from Allie, because she mailed me some of those heat warmers that you can put in your pockets to keep your hands warm. You know what I'm talking about? They have adhesive backs, sometimes, and you can just stick 'em to your clothing. I figured heat warmers were the greatest invention ever. But I wasn't going to waste a heat warmer or two on just my mittened hands; I wanted those puppies on my stomach, warming my core.

Allie and Gloria warned me that the heat warmers would get pretty hot. Naturally, I paid no attention to anything they said. On a particularly cold morning, as I was running late to catch the subway to work (but not faceplant-late, of course), I yanked up my dress just before I left the apartment and stuck two heat warmers on top of my stockings, right over my tummy. I was practically salivating at the thought of riding the subway blissfully warm.

In the panic and hustle of catching the train, I didn't even notice that the heat warmers were doing admirably well. In fact, it wasn't until I'd grabbed a seat on the train that I noticed just how well they were performing. Those things were HOT. My abdomen felt as if it were on fire. Painful, hot fire. (Is there any other kind? Probably not. But I needed those adjectives. Don't judge me.) I tried a number of new positions in my seat, twisting and turning and squirming and generally making a spectacle of myself. When this did nothing to alleviate the crazy-hot heat emanating from my stomach, I tried slouching ridiculously in my seat so that my tummy wasn't pressing against the stockings (and therefore the heat warmers) with as much direct force. (If you just read that and thought it made no sense, you are indeed correct. This did not work. Slouching had absolutely no effect on the heat warmers.)

I was desperate, really. Still slouching, I yanked my stockings by the waistband and pulled them tautly away from my skin. People were beginning to stare at me. There I was, sweating, slouching, and holding my dress and stockings six inches away from my stomach. I looked crazed, to say the least. And this STILL didn't work. Those suckers were still insanely hot. I ended up having to reach up my dress (Yes, this is a true story.) and rip the heat warmers off my stockings. You could hear the adhesive backing as it was pulled away from the cloth. Basically, it looked as if I'd just reached up my underwear and removed two pantiliners, one after the other. I couldn't even raise my eyes off the floor for the remainder of the subway ride. I was so very embarrassed.

And hot. I got home that night to discover two perfect oval burn marks on my stomach. Battle scars, if you will. Ah, winter.

3. If you don't apply primer to a wall that has been painted far too many times, it will peel. When you try to paint a new coat.

I got quite a few panicked text messages from Audrey one morning when I was at work: she'd decided to paint the living room wall with the paint I'd bought the day before, but it wasn't going so well. The paint kept bubbling up and then beginning to peel. In foot-long sections. I had no idea we'd needed primer. Audrey wanted to kill me, naturally. Especially after I made the infinitely stupid suggestion to her that she should attempt to peel off the paint that had bubbled up. We ended up with giant, gaping holes of white on our cranberry-colored wall.

Audge ended up having to prime the whole wall and sand down the edges of the peeled paint and a laundry list of other fix-it steps that I still am not fully cognizant of. The wall looks good now, though. Thanks, Audge.

This post has gone on long enough, so I won't tell you how I learned that pay stubs do, actually, serve a purpose and should be saved (and not thrown away, as I did with mine), or how I learned that cutting one's own bangs won't come out too good if one uses her hand to plaster the bangs against her forehead before snipping them (this will actually result in said bangs being exceedingly too short once one removes her hand from the pressed-down bangs). Nor will I detail how turning up the heat on the stove to cook one's pancakes, in theory, faster, may actually result in the smoke alarm going off. (And this is undesirable, especially when one has an urge for pancakes at one in the morning, when the rest of the apartment building is sleeping.) I will leave all of that to your imaginations.

People. (People who need people.) (Are the luckiest people. In the world.) (Sorry. Couldn't help it.)

I think I need to say a little something about the people of New York. Having lived here for a little over a year now, I feel confident in saying that my preconceptions of New Yorkers were actually pretty far off. I imagined the population of this city as little more than bitter, rude, and downright mean--particularly when they were forced to interact with other people who were new to the city. Basically, I capitalized on every New Yorker stereotype I'd ever heard of. But I was pretty wrong. People here are often abrupt, yes, and they're usually pretty direct--which can sometimes come across as rude--but very few are bitter and mean. Most of the time, in fact, New Yorkers are instead downright friendly.

This is not to say, however, that there are not exceptions to the rule.  Some New Yorkers find creative ways to make you feel uncomfortable, ignorant, and insignificant. Having worked as a waitress on the Upper East Side for the past year, I've been unlucky enough to experience several different varieties of New Yorkers. Let's talk about three specific types here. Shall we?

1. The Privileged, Uppah-Clahss.

These are the people I hate dealing with the most in the restaurant industry. I may be a waitress--therefore poor, without good health insurance, and dressed embarrassingly monochromatically--but I am not, in the words of Eliza Doolittle, dirt under your feet. (Someone else other than the fictional character of Eliza Doolittle has probably said this, too. But I would like you to imagine Eliza Doolittle's version, if you please.)

At our restaurant, we have an outdoor cafe that we set up during the spring, summer, and early fall. I'm required to spray down every outdoor table (with what appears to be Windex, since we keep ALL cleaning substances in Windex bottles, but is actually dishwashing soap. This is odd, no? Patrons of our restaurant must be disturbed by our ubiquitous use of Windex. Alas, this is a story for another time) and then wipe it clean. Now, a spray bottle has a certain radius of stream. This is not breaking news, either to me or those walking along the street directly in front of the restaurant. I do, however, try to wait until people have passed me before I spray down a table, on the off chance that some of the faux-Windex stream will graze them. One morning, however, I unknowingly sprayed a young woman who was talking on her cell phone and walking very quickly past the restaurant. Without breaking her stride or getting off her cell phone, she managed to turn her torso halfway around and berate me. In a Hispanic accent. Which I will try to duplicate here. She said, "Don't you spah-ray thaht fuh-king SHIT awn me!"

Now. Come, come. Really? Really? First of all, the faux Windex barely TOUCHED her. She was also moving at lightning speed, so I highly doubt that any of it had time to truly soak into her clothing. Second of all, it's not like this was some horrendous substance. It was cleaning solution, for goodness' sake. It could only improve her clothing, really. Third of all, she was implying that I sprayed her ON PURPOSE. I did not! I would never purposely spray someone down with Windex. Or any other substance. Unless we're talking about my sisters. Because I'd probably spray them down. In fact, I probably have sprayed them down, at some point in our lives. But anyone else--never. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to fire back a withering retort at this silly woman, but I did not, sadly. I only stared after her, open-mouthed, completely at a loss for words.

2. Lookin' to Make the Trouble for You.

These are the people of the working class who feel that living in the city of New York gives them the right to do whatever the hell they want, simply because they deserve the best of everything, money and social status be damned. They are generally unhappy and dissatisfied, finding pleasure only in making trouble for someone else. They are also usually cheap.

On another morning last fall, whilst wiping down those lovely outdoor cafe tables (so much awfulness in my life has happened amongst those tables), my bar rag that I'd been using became so dirty from the grime atop the tables that I had to journey back inside the restaurant and find a new cleaning rag. Having discovered that there were no more clean rags, I quickly grabbed a clean napkin from the stack of linens that would be later used to roll the silverware and proceeded to finish spraying and wiping down the outdoor tables. Let me reiterate that this was a CLEAN napkin. Let me also say that this was totally normal--other servers would use clean napkins to wipe down tables when rags were unavailable, and even the busboys and bartenders would do the same, on occasion. Let me say, too, that our napkins actually do a better job of cleaning table surfaces than our bar rags; the rags leave white morsels of fluff behind, whereas the napkins do not. So.

As I'm wiping down a table, a Jamaican woman pushing a baby stroller (with a Caucasian child inside) walks by and notices me. Without even bothering to ask what I'm doing (or even tell me good morning, for that matter--but who am I kidding? I crack myself up), she begins to berate me. "Ahrr you seeriously using ah NAHP-kin to wipe down tha taybles? Ah'm gonna re-PORT you. You using ah NAHP-kin tha' you gonna be givin' to tha' people to eat with. Ah'm gonna re-PORT you."

Now, this woman is obviously a nanny for some rich UES housewife. And maybe she's tired of having to wake up early and take care of some rando woman's kids every morning instead of her own. And maybe she's tired of placating this probably very spoiled child and giving in to her employer's every ridiculous whim. And maybe she needs to redirect her anger and frustration elsewhere, so that she keeps her job. But I do NOT deserve to be berated by her, loudly and embarrassingly. And jesus christ. I would NEVER give any patron of the restaurant the same napkin to wipe his or her mouth with that I'd used earlier that day to clean tables with. This is not just common decency. This is common sense, lady. I'm personally offended that she would even consider that I would do something like that. Gah.

3. The Overly Talkative. Or, The Truly Crazy.

This is kind of a catch-all category, I suppose. But it has been my experience that those who have the capacity for and seem to enjoy talking excessively are, indeed, crazy. For example. My former landlord, Mr. Josif. This was a man who: A.) willingly slept in the basement, amidst the stink of his cigarette smoke and the clutter of forty years' worth of crap; B.) was sixty-nine years old but looked much nearer to two hundred; C.) my roommate and I regularly crept past in order to avoid conversing with, since we knew that even the most mundane of conversations could last for hours. Hours. No topic was left uncovered by this man--AIDS, alcohol, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the Spanish bar around the corner. His garrulousness was matched only by his far-reaching prejudice. This man seemed to hate all religions, all ethnicities, and all political views without exception. Really, if you think about it, he wasn't prejudiced at all--he just chose to hate everyone. Everyone.

The Saw Lady from the subway station also falls into this category (she uses an actual saw to play recognizable songs for money, with both a baseball cap bearing the words "THE SAW LADY" and a constant beatific smile), as does the older man from the restaurant where I work who insists on telling me every time he comes in that I should work for the CIA, since I have a "nondescript" face. (What does that even mean? Does he mean that as a compliment? Does one desire a nondescript face? Why would he tell me this, that I blend into a crowd, having absolutely no discerning features? This bothers me. Still). I would also include the exceedingly grumpy woman who routinely comes into the restaurant, CLEANS her plate, and then complains vociferously about how terrible the food was.

So, yes. Welcome to New York. (Maybe the rats should have their own category?)

Why the season of winter is, to say the very least, the bane of my existence.

I refuse to accept that it is already chilly. In September. I simply refuse to accept it. And if I refuse to accept the arrival of chilly weather, I am confident that it will immediately be replaced by warmer climes. I mean, it was far too cold today. Scarily cool. As in, this weather is scaring me. If it's this cool in September, I shudder to think what December will bring. It makes me physically ill to consider a winter colder than last year's. For realz.

It's highly possible that I have seasonal affectiveness disorder. I say this in complete and utter seriousness. I become a grumpier, more morose person in colder weather. This may be due largely to the fact that I have so many unpleasant memories associated with last year's New York winter, such as The Great Subway Faceplant of '09. This is a terrifically embarrassing story and is, I now realize, therefore perfect for me to discuss here and now.

Ah, The Great Subway Faceplant. 'Twas an extraordinarily chilly day in December, and I was, of course, running late for work. My roommate and I still lived in Ridgewood, Queens (Never heard of it? That's because it's so ridiculously far east that it actually exists as a small island in the Atlantic Ocean), and I had to commute an hour to and from work. (THAT got old fast, lemme tell ya.) (I'm a big fan of parentheses. Lemme tell ya that, too.) Naturally, I quickly learned to plan my mornings so that I could literally roll out of bed, throw on my work clothes, brush my teeth, and dash out the door in approximately seventeen minutes. The subway closest to our apartment arrived at the station every ten minutes, at seven past. I had to make the 9:07 am train in order to get to work promptly at 10 am. This required me to leave the front door of our apartment no later than 9:03 am; this particular subway station was an outdoor one (God bless the M train), complete with steps not only leading up to the station itself but also with an extra set leading to the actual train once one had swiped his or her metrocard and gone through the turnstiles. (I should also mention at this point that I suffer from a few fundamental challenges, as varied as climbing stairs successfully--I don't pick up my feet enough, and I consequently trip pretty frequently--and forgetting to breathe. I do not know why this is.)

On this particular morning, I left the house at something like 9:05 am and was doing that awkward speed-walk thing to the subway station. (You know. We're talking just short of a pathetic jog but hurried enough that one feels the need to sigh audibly and impatiently when stuck behind leisurely-walking pedestrians.) As I swiftly climbed the first set of subway stairs, I could feel the station shudder as the train made its arrival. Already panting from the effort I'd exerted thus far, I hurriedly swiped my metrocard, hurtled through the turnstile, and attempted to run up the final set of steps leading to the train doors. (I am also an inherently nervous person. I live, in fact, in a low state of constant fear. Feel free to imagine my wind-blown hair, harried facial expression, and supreme inner anxiety at this moment in time.)

Just as I reached the second-to-last step, my legs decided to fail me. I was only feet away from the now-open subway doors: I could hear the announcer's voice announcing the stop; I could envision myself heroically crashing through the closing doors at the very last possible moment. Sadly, this was not to be the case. In all the excitement of the moment, I forgot to remind my brain to lift my knees high enough to crest the next stair, and I pitched forward onto the cement. Things seemed to be happening both very quickly and quite slowly: I was fully aware that I was about to fall face-forward onto the ground, and yet I had no time to even put a hand out to cushion the blow. I did a real, live, one-hundred-percent authentic faceplant. My body, now laid out across the ground, almost reached to the now-closed subway doors. My fingers were only inches away.

I heard horrified gasps from bystanders and from the subway conductor himself. The next few moments are hazy in my memory; I know that I got up far too quickly, refusing any of the profferred hands which were immediately and worriedly thrust into my face. I also know that the train conductor must have felt truly sorry for me, because he re-opened the train doors, allowing me to enter. (Was this my silver lining? If it was, the entire experience was in no way worth it. In no way.) As I quickly made my way to the very back of the subway car, eyes downcast in shame, people in my left and right peripharies were literally jumping to their feet, offering me their seats. This was how completely pathetic I appeared. (People don't give up their seats on trains, save for pregnant women and the very obviously physically disabled. And sometimes not even then.) Of course, I ignored them all. I took the only legitimately empty seat at the very end of the car, pulled my book out of my purse, and pretended to read vigorously. After an acceptable amount of time had passed, I dared to surreptiously assess my injuries. My hands were throbbing, and for good reason--they were scraped and bleeding and flecks of dirt and grit were in them. I'd also ripped a hole in my stockings, but the part of my skin visible through the sizeable hole showed no serious damage--or at least, no damage equal to the immense throbbing I felt in my knee. (It was only after I got to the restaurant and did a full and private assessment in the bathroom that I realized my stockings had gotten slightly rearranged in my fall; there was, indeed, a horribly large scrape on my knee--one that had bled profusely and in the meantime congealed to my tights. Mmm. Lovely. Peeling my tights off that open wound felt stupendous, lemme tell you.)

So, yes. I have good and plenty reasons to hate winter. And I will not accept that legit fall is upon us. I will not, I tell you. I deserve at least one more month of pleasant weather. I also deserve to never have to suffer another faceplant again, for as long as I live, subway or otherwise.

This blog thing. Yeah.

There's something weird about people blogging, if you think about it. I mean, we're talking about thousands and thousands of people (Hundreds of thousands? Millions? I never understood math. Or estimation.) who think they have worthwhile or significant things to tell their exceptionally eager readers. (And when I say "exceptionally eager," I mean, of course, "nonexistent.") And if there's something indubitable I've learned in my twenty-three years of life thus far, it's that people think far too highly of themselves. I'm guessing, then, that there's a whole lotta unread blogs littering the blogosphere. (Gah. I just used the word "blogosphere." Who am I? What have I become, six minutes into this? A great depression just came upon me.) (And yet...I continue.)

Anyways. Numerous people have been telling me that I need to start a blog, mostly because I moved to New York Cit-ay last September and have since then experienced several embarrassing and extraordinary things. Mostly embarrassing, I would say. This bloggy thing should be a great way to record those Fun Facts. I also enjoy the anonymity of blogging--I can write about people that drive me crazy and anger me and sadden me. And they'll never know! Because they'll never read it. Because no one cares about other people's blogs. Because people are inherently A.) selfish and B.) self-important. (See above.)

I sound reeeally jaded. And rude. Is this what New York has done to me? Add this to the list of vices I seem to daily be increasing in, including: profanity; alcohol consumption; and impatience. Vom.

So maybe I should recount today's awkward occurrence. Since that's the only thing of interest I have to offer, really. Here goes: Whilst walking home today along First Avenue, I managed to run a half block and catch a bus. (Awkward sitch in itself, really. I will die somewhat happily if I am never forced to view video footage of myself running, let alone running to catch a bus, purse and ponytail flailing behind me.) After plugging in and removing my metrocard, panting inattractively all the while, I made my way to the back door, where I could organize my fancy, pink, sequined wallet quietly and inobtrusively. Naturally, the bus driver chose to lurch away from the curb and hurtle into traffic at the exact moment when I was in that awful bus-limbo--walking down the aisle, but not holding onto any nearby pole or seat. The change from the coin-purse section of my wallet immediately went flying, scattering the floor of the bus with glittering currency. I could feel my cheeks burning. I could also feel everyone staring at me. Staring at me in that I-don't-really-care-what-happens-to-you-but-I'll-at-least-feign-interest-so-that-you-feel-sufficiently-embarrased New York sort of way, that is. I assessed the situation, saw that all of the change on the floor was either pennies or nickels (and therefore worthless), and decided to stare stoically ahead, cheeks aflame. This may have worked, had it not been for the kindly young man who decided to take pity upon me and crouch the next time the bus stopped, painstakingly scooping up my ridiculous coins. When he straightened up and handed them over to me with an earnest smile, I truly meant to say something along the lines of, "Oh, you really didn't have to do that. Thank you, though." Instead, however, I only managed to utter: "Oh, no." And nothing else. So this generous man probably considers me the rudest person he's met in a while. Rather than applauding his act of kindness, I somehow managed to make him feel as if he'd done something wrong. "Oh, no." Oh, no? Oh, no. Please don't tell me you've just picked up my change. How dare you. Oh, no. How could you? You complete moron.

Gaaah. This is my life. I swear that I'm missing some circuit which coordinates what one's brain actually wants to say and what comes out of one's mouth. This is the second time this has happened to me in a week. Last weekend, when I was working a brunch at the restaurant, I served a man his turkey club and asked him if he needed anything else. He nodded quickly and seemed about to say something, but then he did that silent burp thing that people do--do you know what I mean? There's no sound involved; it's like the polite version of the burp. But there's an unmistakable lowering of the head while swallowing, followed by a very short pause. Anyway. That's what this man did. After finishing his silent burp, he said, "Pardon me." (Which was polite of him, wasn't it? The word pardon doesn't get used enough, I think.) And then he followed that with, "I'd like a side of mayonnaise." Normally, I'd have nodded back to him, repeated what he wanted--"A side of mayonnaise. No problem!"--and made a swift and efficient trip to the kitchen to procure the necessary item. This time, however, I gave a quick nod and said, "Pardon mayonnaise. No problem!" And then I made a swift and efficient turn on my heel, headed to the kitchen. Mid-heel-turn I realized my mistake. I could feel my face morphing into a horrified expression, even as I couldn't help myself from repeating my idiotic mistake. Pardon mayonnaise? Really, Rachel? Fantastic. Lovely. You've got such a way with words. I ended up making the busboy bring the mayonnaise to the table, for fear I'd offended the man who'd asked for it. (Pardon mayonnaise? Seriously. Seriously?)

So, yeah. I say and do pleeeenty of awkward things. Excellent fodder for this blog, but kryptonite to my already pathetic social skills. Whatevs. I feel supremely confident in my lack of blog followers. Take that, blogosphere.