I've thought a lot about how I should define myself when I'm asked (by the type of person who asks such questions), "how do you define yourself?". I think a deep question like that merits a response that's as well thought out as the plans of the inquisitor - the insightful intellectual who conjured the emotion within their soul to create such a conundrum just to keep the simple folk in check.
I was flipping through one of those music-flipper things (I think that's the technical term) that you see in old diners. This one was actually in one of the Jackson Hole burger chains in the city, but it's kind of set up like a diner. It was in this home of the 7-oz burger where I might have reached my most profound moment of self-realization. It was as if I had been squatting alone in utter darkness and someone had suddenly turned on a very bright light. I was flipping through the music flipper and I spotted the music title that said it all...the lyric that would define ME. Just below "Oops I did it Again" and "She Bangs" was the greatest Queen title of them all, "I'm in Love with My Car".
I was literally stunned by the profundity and it's relevance to my existence. I could barely move or stop looking at the title as I sat in this rustic mid-town burger joint - alone - eating really good pickles.
The amazing thing is I don't even know Freddy Mercury - and of course I mean that in the spiritual sense since he's dead; but I didn't know him when he was alive either. The real quandary here is (aside from me hating the world quandary and then using it so freely) that I didn't even own a car at that moment. So, HOW could I have been in love with my car? Ah! But that's the point, isn't it.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Who The F CoOpted the Word "Urban" And Made It Black?
I am so sick of the media taking perfectly generic terms and making them into something so specific that any real sense is taken out of the word. Case in point: "Urban". I have always considered myself to be urban. I grew up in an urb, as it were. and while I never refer to myself as "urban", I do consider myself abso-friggin'-lutely urban. I am not only from New York City, but I'm from the freekin' Bronx! Who has more of a right to be urban than that. I am NOT, however, even slightly black. While I support the right of all races to refer to themselves as urban, I take offense to the notion that I am not urban simply due to a my lack of pigmentation. It's not just annoying, it's ridiculous. I also think it's racist. It's like they create these names because somehow it's either politically or socially incorrect to refer to people by their race - at least that seems to hold true for black, hispanic and asian peoples. White people, on the other hand, have no special names; at least not polite ones.
Real estate agents do this with neighborhoods that are either not trendy enough or have a bad reputation in order to get those prone to duchebaggery to pay higher rents. (See: NoLiTa; Upper Yorkville, SpaHa.) Now various media are using it to make us believe that all urbanites are black. Is that because "Cinemax's first BLACK erotic television series" wont appeal to anyone? How fargin' racist is that?
Friday, July 18, 2008
How I Feel When I Eat A Cupcake
It seems like a lot of other adults I know don't really like cupcakes that much. I sometimes feel a little odd when I am around cupcakes, myself. It's part cautious as I don't want to seem too eager to jump on the cupcakes and seem too greedy and it's part shame as I scan the area for children, for whom the cupcakes were probably intended.
That said, I do discriminate among cupcakes. Not all of them are created equally and most of them are not that great. For example, there is a very famous bakery here in New York named after a certain type of tree. I won't say which but it rhymes with Mongolia. Actually - that's a lie. It doesn't rhyme with Mongolia but it almost does; but it's not Asian in any way. Anyway, the point is the cupcakes there look amazing but they don't taste so good. Too dry. They probably comply with that crappy "no trans fat" law we have in New York. Our toothpick mayor thinks we need to be healthier. Whatever. So, the "Mongolian" cupcakes don't do it for me.
I was walking up a certain street in Midtown East when I used to live there one sunny afternoon. I passed a place that actually had the name 'cupcake' in it! I was pleased as pie. (I love pie too.) I then proceeded to pay $1.90 for a friggin' cupcake. Not a big one, mind you. A normal-sized cupcake. It was puuurdy. But it tasted like nothing I'd ever tasted before...especially a cupcake. It was crap.
People laugh at me but for me the best cupcakes are the ones my mom and/or my sisters used to make. They weren't even from scratch. They were simple Duncan Heins Moist Delux cupcakes! Yellow, Devil's Food, Marble - whatever. They were the best! I love that store-bought icing as well. I HATE when people make it themselves and it just tastes like sugar. The only substitute I can handle is preserves or jelly with coconut or maybe melted chocolate on top of a mini bundt cake. Just give me the damn store-bought preservative-laden stuff. It just tastes so goooood.
I made some cupcakes today for my wife's birthday. Her birthday isn't today but I couldn't wait. I really wanted one. I eagerly watched them baking through the oven door and the smell was making my belly churn. When they were cooling I was like an expectant father pacing the floor for his newborn jelly donut...I mean, bouncing bundle of joy. (That jelly donut comment was purely for effect. I HATE jelly donuts.) I couldn't help but stick my fingers in the container as I spread the gooey chocolate icing on the now-cooled yellow cupcakes. Mmmmm. S u g a r. I love it with all my heart.
I often eat the cupcakes before they are totally cooled and they don't taste as good like that but I simply can't wait. I did that today too. Kind of a waste of one perfectly good cupcake. After I ate it I was unsatisfied and I started to worry that the child had left my body - that I was losing my inner niño. But, thank God, I ate another one when the cooled and it rocked. I felt satisfied from the inside out. I had the proper flashback to birthday's of old - like the time when my mom baked like 100 cupcakes for my entire 2nd grade class and she wrote my name is blue icing on all the cupcakes. It was like I was some kind of cupcake celebrity! We had so many we had to invite the 1st grade to share them. Of course I could've eaten at least 20 by myself. I'd have gotten sick, but who cares. Those were some cupcakes. That was a great day. Each time I eat a cupcakes I remember that day. That, combined with the fact that they just taste so damn awesome, makes eating cupcakes a truly blissful experience for me. Enough said.
That said, I do discriminate among cupcakes. Not all of them are created equally and most of them are not that great. For example, there is a very famous bakery here in New York named after a certain type of tree. I won't say which but it rhymes with Mongolia. Actually - that's a lie. It doesn't rhyme with Mongolia but it almost does; but it's not Asian in any way. Anyway, the point is the cupcakes there look amazing but they don't taste so good. Too dry. They probably comply with that crappy "no trans fat" law we have in New York. Our toothpick mayor thinks we need to be healthier. Whatever. So, the "Mongolian" cupcakes don't do it for me.
I was walking up a certain street in Midtown East when I used to live there one sunny afternoon. I passed a place that actually had the name 'cupcake' in it! I was pleased as pie. (I love pie too.) I then proceeded to pay $1.90 for a friggin' cupcake. Not a big one, mind you. A normal-sized cupcake. It was puuurdy. But it tasted like nothing I'd ever tasted before...especially a cupcake. It was crap.
People laugh at me but for me the best cupcakes are the ones my mom and/or my sisters used to make. They weren't even from scratch. They were simple Duncan Heins Moist Delux cupcakes! Yellow, Devil's Food, Marble - whatever. They were the best! I love that store-bought icing as well. I HATE when people make it themselves and it just tastes like sugar. The only substitute I can handle is preserves or jelly with coconut or maybe melted chocolate on top of a mini bundt cake. Just give me the damn store-bought preservative-laden stuff. It just tastes so goooood.
I made some cupcakes today for my wife's birthday. Her birthday isn't today but I couldn't wait. I really wanted one. I eagerly watched them baking through the oven door and the smell was making my belly churn. When they were cooling I was like an expectant father pacing the floor for his newborn jelly donut...I mean, bouncing bundle of joy. (That jelly donut comment was purely for effect. I HATE jelly donuts.) I couldn't help but stick my fingers in the container as I spread the gooey chocolate icing on the now-cooled yellow cupcakes. Mmmmm. S u g a r. I love it with all my heart.
I often eat the cupcakes before they are totally cooled and they don't taste as good like that but I simply can't wait. I did that today too. Kind of a waste of one perfectly good cupcake. After I ate it I was unsatisfied and I started to worry that the child had left my body - that I was losing my inner niño. But, thank God, I ate another one when the cooled and it rocked. I felt satisfied from the inside out. I had the proper flashback to birthday's of old - like the time when my mom baked like 100 cupcakes for my entire 2nd grade class and she wrote my name is blue icing on all the cupcakes. It was like I was some kind of cupcake celebrity! We had so many we had to invite the 1st grade to share them. Of course I could've eaten at least 20 by myself. I'd have gotten sick, but who cares. Those were some cupcakes. That was a great day. Each time I eat a cupcakes I remember that day. That, combined with the fact that they just taste so damn awesome, makes eating cupcakes a truly blissful experience for me. Enough said.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Mala Suerte
One of the first words I learned in Spanish was "suerte". I liked the way it sounded. Most of all I knew I didn't have any of it and envy is notably motivational.
There is that silly expression about being lucky in love and unlucky in everything else. That is mostly true for me. I have a great wife and a great family and I think at least some great friends who love me. Then again, love is tricky. We never really know if it's there. It's intangible. Not like 196 million crisp dollar bills: the same dollars I did NOT win in the MegaMillions lottery last week. I was really upset about that. I kind of needed the cash. Of course I probably wouldn't have taken the money in one-dollar bills. That would just be silly. They also would have taxed about 55 percent of it so I'd only be able to roll around in about 89 million dollars. There weren't enough 9's involved I guess.
Yesterday was a particularly unlucky day for me. I was supposed to do the laundry, as I had promised my darling wife but I woke up very late and as I was running late for an appointment downtown I quickly dressed and left the building. It was raining that annoying drizzly rain that is just enough to make you extremely wet in a three-block walk but not enough to justify the use of an umbrella. Anyway, I didn't have an umbrella, or a jacket as I'd hurried out of the apartment. I rushed to the subway station where I swiped my Metrocard and found it to be empty. In a rush, I swiped the next Merocard in my wallet which was a funny white color instead of the usual yellow. Well, hellz yeah, this one worked and I rushed through the turnstile. I started down the stairs when a large, fat, dark voice shouted "mister" several times. ..."excuse me, mister!".
I reluctantly turned around and found myself faced with a rotund police officer smirking at me. "Can I see the Metrocard you used to swipe in, please?"
My hands shaking, I pulled out the empty yellow card and showed it to him.
"No, I think there's another one in there somewhere. That's not the one you used."
I reluctantly showed him the white one. I knew what it was. It was my nephew's. He'd been visiting me a couple of days prior and left his Metrocard with me because he - out of pure teenage laziness - doesn't carry a wallet. I had it in mine and forgot to return it when he left. He never called me to look for it, so there it was - in my wallet...waiting for me to use it. The trouble is it's a school subway pass meant for children and it's provided free to all New York City students under 18 years of age.
I mean, I think I look pretty good for my age, but maybe not younger than 18.
The officer was kind enough to ask me my age when he saw the student Metrocard but he didn't really wait for me to answer before he asked the next question:
"Have you ever been arrested?"
I felt my heart in my throat: "No. Not yet."
This was the first and only time that I have ever gotten a free subway ride in my entire life of riding the MTA's sorry-ass excuse for a transportation system and wouldn't you know it...mala suerte! Maldita sea!!!! The mo-fo didn't arrest me but he did give me a 60-dollar ticket and humiliate me for 20-minutes or so in the subway station. I was even the butt of some jokes while there. Two young black gentlemen passed by and saw this round, black officer all but handcuffing me, screeching on his walkie-talkie and muttered rather unmutteringly clearly: "Now there's something you don't see every day. We should take a picture."
I was late for my appointment. It was a job interview. Needless to say I didn't get it.
When I got home a few hours later my wife had told me some friends were coming to pick us up to go out to a bar. So I quickly got changed. Being that it was still a rainy day, I looked for my blue rain jacket but I was having the darnedest time finding it. "Honey, do you know where my blue jacket is?"
"Oh, I sent it to the laundry. It was so dirty."
"Did you happen to take the car keys and the money out of the pockets?"
- "No. Why would you leave the keys in the pocket?"
"Um....I don't know but....$$*)#(#*$@(#&$(*&@(~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pretty much everything I said after that is unprintable. This is a family blog.
The sad thing is that that was the only key for the car and I had to pay 100 dollars for that key and it took a week for the car company to make it. Money's kind of tight so I didn't make two keys.
Maybe my bad luck is my fault. I mean, obviously I did some stupid things but I was certainly helped out a lot by other people's stupid things, no?
Anyway. Yesterday my mom broke a rib at home. She apparently fell and broke it and now she's in pain. Of course, she's 78 and wears 4-inch high heels all day, every day. One could argue that she also was stupid or silly in her habits.
However, I do think that all these bad things happened in one day...one unlucky day. Yet, everyone is alive today and nothing really bad has happened...knock on wood. I'm still married to the most beautiful girl in the world and have the greatest, sweetest mom anyone could ever hope for. I live in the best city in the world and have a relatively stress-free life (though I constantly make stressful situations out of it because I think all humans have a need for stress even if we try really hard to avoid it, as I do) and mostly - a lot of love.
I'm still pissed off about not winning the lottery though.
There is that silly expression about being lucky in love and unlucky in everything else. That is mostly true for me. I have a great wife and a great family and I think at least some great friends who love me. Then again, love is tricky. We never really know if it's there. It's intangible. Not like 196 million crisp dollar bills: the same dollars I did NOT win in the MegaMillions lottery last week. I was really upset about that. I kind of needed the cash. Of course I probably wouldn't have taken the money in one-dollar bills. That would just be silly. They also would have taxed about 55 percent of it so I'd only be able to roll around in about 89 million dollars. There weren't enough 9's involved I guess.
Yesterday was a particularly unlucky day for me. I was supposed to do the laundry, as I had promised my darling wife but I woke up very late and as I was running late for an appointment downtown I quickly dressed and left the building. It was raining that annoying drizzly rain that is just enough to make you extremely wet in a three-block walk but not enough to justify the use of an umbrella. Anyway, I didn't have an umbrella, or a jacket as I'd hurried out of the apartment. I rushed to the subway station where I swiped my Metrocard and found it to be empty. In a rush, I swiped the next Merocard in my wallet which was a funny white color instead of the usual yellow. Well, hellz yeah, this one worked and I rushed through the turnstile. I started down the stairs when a large, fat, dark voice shouted "mister" several times. ..."excuse me, mister!".
I reluctantly turned around and found myself faced with a rotund police officer smirking at me. "Can I see the Metrocard you used to swipe in, please?"
My hands shaking, I pulled out the empty yellow card and showed it to him.
"No, I think there's another one in there somewhere. That's not the one you used."
I reluctantly showed him the white one. I knew what it was. It was my nephew's. He'd been visiting me a couple of days prior and left his Metrocard with me because he - out of pure teenage laziness - doesn't carry a wallet. I had it in mine and forgot to return it when he left. He never called me to look for it, so there it was - in my wallet...waiting for me to use it. The trouble is it's a school subway pass meant for children and it's provided free to all New York City students under 18 years of age.
I mean, I think I look pretty good for my age, but maybe not younger than 18.
The officer was kind enough to ask me my age when he saw the student Metrocard but he didn't really wait for me to answer before he asked the next question:
"Have you ever been arrested?"
I felt my heart in my throat: "No. Not yet."
This was the first and only time that I have ever gotten a free subway ride in my entire life of riding the MTA's sorry-ass excuse for a transportation system and wouldn't you know it...mala suerte! Maldita sea!!!! The mo-fo didn't arrest me but he did give me a 60-dollar ticket and humiliate me for 20-minutes or so in the subway station. I was even the butt of some jokes while there. Two young black gentlemen passed by and saw this round, black officer all but handcuffing me, screeching on his walkie-talkie and muttered rather unmutteringly clearly: "Now there's something you don't see every day. We should take a picture."
I was late for my appointment. It was a job interview. Needless to say I didn't get it.
When I got home a few hours later my wife had told me some friends were coming to pick us up to go out to a bar. So I quickly got changed. Being that it was still a rainy day, I looked for my blue rain jacket but I was having the darnedest time finding it. "Honey, do you know where my blue jacket is?"
"Oh, I sent it to the laundry. It was so dirty."
"Did you happen to take the car keys and the money out of the pockets?"
- "No. Why would you leave the keys in the pocket?"
"Um....I don't know but....$$*)#(#*$@(#&$(*&@(~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pretty much everything I said after that is unprintable. This is a family blog.
The sad thing is that that was the only key for the car and I had to pay 100 dollars for that key and it took a week for the car company to make it. Money's kind of tight so I didn't make two keys.
Maybe my bad luck is my fault. I mean, obviously I did some stupid things but I was certainly helped out a lot by other people's stupid things, no?
Anyway. Yesterday my mom broke a rib at home. She apparently fell and broke it and now she's in pain. Of course, she's 78 and wears 4-inch high heels all day, every day. One could argue that she also was stupid or silly in her habits.
However, I do think that all these bad things happened in one day...one unlucky day. Yet, everyone is alive today and nothing really bad has happened...knock on wood. I'm still married to the most beautiful girl in the world and have the greatest, sweetest mom anyone could ever hope for. I live in the best city in the world and have a relatively stress-free life (though I constantly make stressful situations out of it because I think all humans have a need for stress even if we try really hard to avoid it, as I do) and mostly - a lot of love.
I'm still pissed off about not winning the lottery though.
Friday, May 09, 2008
The Number 9
Okay. Now is the time when anyone who reads this blog will realize that its writer is crazy, assuming they haven't already.
I am obsessed with the number 9; but in my defense, I have to say that I have some semi-logical reasons: The first being that 9 is a magic number. If you don't believe me you can read about it on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(number)
The main 'magic' happens when you multiply 9 by any number the resulting digits will ALWAYS add up to 9.
The other great thing about 9 is that it's the biggest or highest digit! So naturally it's superior to all the others. It has real value and you can find 9's everywhere!
So, what's my connection to the 9?
Well, here's why I'm so into it: If you add up all the digits on the day I was born (year, month, day) it adds up to 18 which adds up to 9. Get it?
I like 9's so much that I can accept 3's and 6's in my life as well and any number whose digits add up to 3 or 6. That's because 9 is divisible by 3 and 6 plus 3 is 9.
Here's where it gets weird: I do almost everything in 9's now. I work out in sets of 9. It could be 3, 6 or 9 sets of 9. I try to use weights that measure out to a 9. For example: A 45 pound weight is perfect. However, this does present a problem when I want to make progress and my next choice is 50 or 60, I have to jump to 60 and then the next would be 90. I do make concessions and add half pounds and add in decimals to make things work out better for my mathematical urges.
I also got married when I was 36 in 2007. So you might see some 9 add-ups in there. My wife, sadly, was born on days that add up to 7, which she claims is her lucky number. However, I did find that if you add our wedding date together with her birth date the single digits add up to 6 which is an acceptable number.
I looked up our 'numerology' on some website and I am apparently a 1 and she is an 8 but that is because they include the '19' in the year but I don't include that because it screws up my neat little 9 situation.
Neptune is my favorite planet because in the memory-jogging sentence, "My very educated mother just served us NINE pies", the 'n' in 'NINE' represents Neptune! Cool no? And Neptune really is a cool planet - no pun intended. I'm a Pisces and Neptune is an aquatic god, so that makes total sense to me. Additionally, Neptune and Pluto apparently pull a switcheroo every so often and Neptune is actually the 9th planet for the sun!
Well I'm going to stop now. I have a lot more to say about this but I am starting to sound like I have nothing happening in my brain except nonsense.
I am obsessed with the number 9; but in my defense, I have to say that I have some semi-logical reasons: The first being that 9 is a magic number. If you don't believe me you can read about it on wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(number)
The main 'magic' happens when you multiply 9 by any number the resulting digits will ALWAYS add up to 9.
The other great thing about 9 is that it's the biggest or highest digit! So naturally it's superior to all the others. It has real value and you can find 9's everywhere!
So, what's my connection to the 9?
Well, here's why I'm so into it: If you add up all the digits on the day I was born (year, month, day) it adds up to 18 which adds up to 9. Get it?
I like 9's so much that I can accept 3's and 6's in my life as well and any number whose digits add up to 3 or 6. That's because 9 is divisible by 3 and 6 plus 3 is 9.
Here's where it gets weird: I do almost everything in 9's now. I work out in sets of 9. It could be 3, 6 or 9 sets of 9. I try to use weights that measure out to a 9. For example: A 45 pound weight is perfect. However, this does present a problem when I want to make progress and my next choice is 50 or 60, I have to jump to 60 and then the next would be 90. I do make concessions and add half pounds and add in decimals to make things work out better for my mathematical urges.
I also got married when I was 36 in 2007. So you might see some 9 add-ups in there. My wife, sadly, was born on days that add up to 7, which she claims is her lucky number. However, I did find that if you add our wedding date together with her birth date the single digits add up to 6 which is an acceptable number.
I looked up our 'numerology' on some website and I am apparently a 1 and she is an 8 but that is because they include the '19' in the year but I don't include that because it screws up my neat little 9 situation.
Neptune is my favorite planet because in the memory-jogging sentence, "My very educated mother just served us NINE pies", the 'n' in 'NINE' represents Neptune! Cool no? And Neptune really is a cool planet - no pun intended. I'm a Pisces and Neptune is an aquatic god, so that makes total sense to me. Additionally, Neptune and Pluto apparently pull a switcheroo every so often and Neptune is actually the 9th planet for the sun!
Well I'm going to stop now. I have a lot more to say about this but I am starting to sound like I have nothing happening in my brain except nonsense.
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