Jersey, I'm Over You

I’ve had it. 

I thought when I decided to live in New Jersey and not New York because it was cheaper I was the smartest thing since spell check.  That when all my friends who live in Manhattan would complain about how poor they were I’d just sit back and chuckle to myself in my little inexpensive apartment.  And that I’d master the NJTransit system and all would be well.  What a crock of shit.  Because nooooooo, there’s train schedules to learn and station hours to remember and buses that stop running at ridiculous times so every time you go out of Jersey the only thing you end up thinking about is how to get back into effing Jersey. 

Last Monday I was doing just that.  I’d gone out to a bar with a friend near Soho and had left early (ish) so I’d have enough time to catch the last train home.  Little did I know (I freaking know now damnit) that the NJ schedule had changed and the last train had left 12 minutes before I’d gotten there.  Seriously?!  12 minutes?!  Why?  So those of us who tragically live here now have to spend even more time here?   What, oh dear Jersey, are you afraid that extra hour across the river at night will make us never want to come back?  Well duh!  It’s New York and you’re the exact opposite.  No wait, you’re the armpit of the exact opposite.  So here I am, wandering tipsily around Jersey City while one half of my brain is screaming in panic and the other half is contemplating how good French fries sounded at the moment.  If someone would’ve come up to me and offered a #10 from McDonalds right then and there in exchange for something, I don’t know, inappropriate, I honestly cannot tell you what I would’ve done. Gang rape anyone? 

An hour later after another train (there’s only about 50 gazillion to memorize…what? you don’t have them memorized yet? what the hell’s wrong with you?!) I found a cab, which I had to share with weird guy who seemed about as uncomfortable as I was, and got home.  Which of course, I was overcharged for.  Hi, I wasn’t that drunk Mr. Cab Driver I just didn’t feel like yelling at a you because it was 3 in the morning.

Oh, but it gets better… because not a day later did I get a citation for having the wrong ticket for the Lightrail (how I get to work). 

Little did I know that there are two different kinds of $54 monthly passes and that I’d mistakenly gotten the bus one and not the train one so got a $74 ticket.  And when I tried explaining this to the very tall, very large security guy, he just went “Mhmm” in that exasperatingly smart ass way they all seem to have.  For realz.

So guess what Jersey, I’m done with you.  My lease can’t end soon enough and then I will cross the river, and just like you feared, never come back.

On a brighter and whiter note it snowed last night (19 inches) and I've a snow day today.  Which I just realized means more time...

in Jersey...

I Did It!!!

Yup, I did it!  I actually did it!!  After a few weeks of gobbledygook, I got two internships!  Yes, TWO!  Come February yours truly will still retain her career as a professional intern.  But until then I'm going to go celebrate the best way I know how.... sledding in Central Park.

Guess Who I Met?

I forgot to mention that about oh, two months ago I went with a friend to see David Sedaris read at the Barnes & Noble here in Union Square.  For those of you who don’t know who this is, Sedaris is one of the rulers of the humorous creative non-fiction genre.  Granted I don’t read a lot in this area so my view’s pretty limited but if you can think of someone who’s funnier when describing his experience at summer camp you let me know.

And for those of you who do, well teehee, don’t ya wished you lived here?

I’d gotten there an hour and a half before he was to come on which apparently wasn’t early enough as all the seats were nearly taken, the first few rows by people who’d been there so long they knew the names of the B&N staff…(Sorry but no, you are not cool if you camped out in a metal chair for 22 hours with your 7 books to be signed only to glare at the rest of us who got there after our, oh I don’t know, jobs.  I’m talking to you weird green sweater girl in the front, four seats from the right!)

Anyway my friend had luckily snagged us two and was wiggling, literally wiggling with excitement next to me (and don’t you say you weren’t because I could feel it in my chair) when he appeared on the podium before us.  Through the cheering and the cat calls of a room full of English majors all sporting either tweed jackets or strange hats, I saw that he was a tiny man.  Like as in shorter than me tiny.  I guess I’ve no one to blame but myself for my surprise as his picture is probably on the inside jacket flap of each of his books, but honestly who really looks at those things?

He only read to us for a short while, followed by a list of his favorite jokes, saying he wanted to get on the book signing part as soon as possible as it was his favorite.  I can see why he wanted to get it going; we were still there two hours later waiting in line.  By this point I was so hungry I had started daydreaming about Taco Bell crunchwrap supremes so I was a bit distracted when our turn came.  But I do remember that when we moved in front of him he looked at us and sighed, shoving in another bite of noodles someone had brought him, as I stepped to the side to let my friend talk, (her wiggling had morphed into a kind of bouncy-hop dance) and he wearily talked back.  He talked like he had to, like he had done it so many times before that it had become an afterthought, like he’d had a long day and all he wanted to do was curl into a ball somewhere away from rowdy people like us and sleep. 

It was fun, yes, and I’m glad I went (bought two quesadillas and one of those nacho things on the way home btw) but it also got me to thinking.  Even though I got to meet a man I studied about in college, I think I like my heroes at a distance, as things that I can never see as real and human and tired from a long day, to remain staunchly on the pedestal I’ve put them on. 

Keep Movin, Movin, Movin

I am sorry to say that I have reached that point where my energy is just about gone.  Gone are the exuberant days of looking forward to learning how to wrestle the copier into printing labels (and figuring how to make labels in the first place), the days of seeing how fast I can make spreadsheets, the days of emailing all 346 people who bought books last month from the press I work for to get their credit card info. (as a side note people, it’s a little scary how easy it is to get this information, for realz) 

Maybe it’s the weather; not only has our atmosphere decided to be cold but it’s decided to dump 14 gallons of rain on us at the same time with what seems like -27 degree wind gusts.

Maybe it’s the fact that I had 6 interviews, yes 6, last week and my brain is fried from hoping this one might be the one, and then maybe the next one might be the one. 

Maybe (and this is a big one) it’s the fact that Netflix has decided to kidnap my soul when I’m not doing said interviews and I ended up watching all FOUR seasons of The Tudors (and we think we’re jacked up) in the last two weeks…. not a fact I’m proud of but I’m awesome at mega random facts about the 1500s now.  Seriously.  Try me.

Or maybe just maybe, it’s the fact that I’ve realized that it is time, oh by god it is time, to move on.    

Move on to what I don’t know. (fingers crossed I’ll find out in the next week or so…)   But change is good.

And yes I realize this post has been a bit emo and whaaaa but don’t think too much of it, I’m just going through Jonathon Rhys Meyers withdrawal.  That and I saw Black Swan yesterday and I feel like it made me need therapy.

As I Read Ever, Ever On

I realized last night when I looked at my clock at 2 something in the morning that I’d literally been reading for 15 hours yesterday.  I’m not really sure what this says about me, that I’m perfectly content turning into a hermit, that these days are sometimes the happiest because it gets me, at least in my mind, out of my apartment with it’s mice that like to chitter chatter in the walls, and that it wiles away the days as the snow falls outside… Gaah, I really gotta get out more. 

This notwithstanding, besides running my Kindles battery to nil, I delved through a manuscript that had been given me as the second portion of an interview.  This is a manuscript that was sent to an agency which then is to be read in full and evaluated on its ability to be published; yes, no, or yes- with revisions.  It’s all hypothetical in my case as the decision has already been made on it, this is just a way for agents to see how well potential interns can critically read things.  Huh, guess I got something out of college after all…

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

                                                                     ~ Dylan Thomas

This poem was part of the book Matched which I recently finished and something that stuck with me 

It's a Marshmallow World

The air is cold today with a sharp bite to it.  A storm is moving in, a front from somewhere even colder than here that is promising to bring more snow and wind and ice with it.  The snow from last week’s blizzard still lies in piles on the streets, giant mountains reaching sometimes 10 feet in the air, something I discovered today as I nearly walked into one on my way to work.  We all look like bulky marshmallows as we walk around in our overcoats and scarves and furry boots.  Slightly pissed off marshmallows but still.  I’m not one right now, but I will be in a little while as I’m off to talk to a literary agent about the other side of publishing, the non-publishy part.  But until then I’m just going to look outside and wait for the flakes to start to fall. 

Getting Down to Business

So it’s a new year and it’s time to get serious about this job thing.  Yeah, that little, annoying thing that won’t go away like those weird parasites that live on the side of sharks.  (And yes I’m very proud of that metaphor thank you very much)  Anyway, recently, a friend told me that the old way of getting a job is dead.  That the days of sending out a resume and waiting to hear back that, whammy! you get an interview are long gone.  Nope, today it’s about having contacts, knowing people, which has made me come to realize I don’t.  I thought I did, I have 211 Facebook friends to prove it right? I text all the time to people which has to mean something right?  Again, nope.   

So here I sit at my computer trying to squeeze out any morsel of a contact that I might have acquired in my 22 years of existence.  Maybe the girl who babysat me when I was nine has a friend whose husband knows someone who works at an agency.  Maybe that weird dude who gave me his number at a gas station once actually has a cousin who’s interning for someone who once talked to someone who wrote a book.  So here I sit with my face all scrunched up as I try to remember every single person I’ve ever met to see if it’ll lead somewhere.  Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch.  Anything?  Not yet.  Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch…

On a lighter note a little Christmas elf gave me a Kindle this year and it’s pretty much blowing me away.  Did you just hear that?  That was my mind exploding with the awesomeness of this thing.