recharging

sleep hasn't been coming so well lately, and when that happens, i go a little batty. night time worries creep into my daytime. everything feels so much more pressing, serious, unpleasant, and dramatic.

so imagine how i felt this morning when i woke up to this error message on my computer: Your battery is able to charge normally, however it is reaching the end of it's usable life.

oh. dear. goodness.

i remained calm and googled my problem.

google is my favorite fix for any kind of computer glitch. the google result usually takes you to a forum that a billion other people with the exact same problem have already posted about. this one told me to get in touch with dell support. that if my computer was under a year old, they might just send me a new battery.

i ran to last years tax receipts. computer purchased....9/16/10.

bingo!

instead of calling in for help. i went against my grain and engaged in online tech chat. (i have this fear of being hacked).

it was actually terrific. "Monica" answered immediately. i explained my problem fully in three different messages, and after only a tiny glitch where she wrote: I understand the problem is with your battery. I am able to help you with that. and i wrote, did you understand my question? and she wrote yes i understood your question. and i wanted to write but didn't: then why are you writing that you understand the problem is with my battery. I JUST SAID THAT. she asked if she could take control of my computer.

she wanted permission to hack me basically.

um. sure?
after one little downloaded (they say it's NOT downloaded software that they're access ends as soon as you close the windows) approval thingy, i watched as she poked around and found the place on my computer that said, yes indeed my battery is f'd.

I will send you a replacement battery, she wrote. That's terrific! I wrote.

Monica then asked if i had a second to talk to her manager. i wrote: um, okay, but i only have a minute. ('cause i'm generous and friendly like that. i did mention the no sleep thing tho, right?)

sed Manager asked what i thought of Dell support. i said it was great. Manager wrote: That's all, I wanted to know if he helped you.

so i'm getting a new batttery. Monica is now a boy's name. and tech support jobs are still being shipped overseas. or at least that's how i understand it.

scared? who me?

i win the Worst Blogger Ever award.

a hurricane (ok, tropical storm. erm, hard rain) passed over my city this weekend and i didn't take one picture. not one!

this means i didn't capture the "BRING IT! - NYC" that someone tagged on a boarded up coffee shop. or the sign at the bar that said "We'll be open NO MATTER WHAT! Come in for a hurricane shot." nor did i capture a picture of the storm swell that i saw in Queens, which would have shown a perfectly calm river, only an hour before the rains, with not a ripple in it.

what did i do? i fled my apartment in the early afternoon. i put plastic soup containers around the legs of my couch and moved all the electrical things into my bedroom. if it flooded, there wasn't much else i could do. out on the street, i immediately saw how skewed my vision was by my subterranean living. from my windows all i saw were ominous grey skies and rain, but out on the street? life!

every neighborhood i road through was full of people -- laughing, eating, drinking. all the restaurants i passed were slammin'. maybe in a few hours there would be total devastation, but in the meantime, New Yorkers were gonna enjoy their last bit of peacefulness.

it was a good lesson in "you experience life based on how you choose to experience life." one person's hurricane is another person's fiesta.

so after that initial bout of "do i stay and protect my apartment or leave and protect my sanity" it turned into a great day. i went to a bbq. met some great people. ate and drank my butt off. then watched a hitchcock movie and slept over at my friends. at night, their house got rocked by rain. in the morning, brooklyn was leaf strewn and beautiful. riding my bike home, i watched the first tentative people emerging from their apartments looking like i felt. awed.

we'd lived through something. something that turned out to be nothing. and now we have yet another "remember when?" nyc story and a lot more canned goods in the house because of it.

* thanks to all the sweeties out there who left me great hurricane advice and wishes of safety and concern in my comments. you guys are amazing! i felt so much better prepared and cared for because of it.

what would you do?

so um, a hurricane is headed my way.

now would be a good time for anyone who has past experience to throw me some tips in the comments below. do i leave two windows open so i can get some decent cross ventilation in here? no wait. that's tornadoes. are they serious about purchasing canned food? what about all the extra sodium and plain, bad taste?

okay, so i'm worried, but not.

since i've lived in brooklyn, there's been a tornado. it flew past my restaurant seconds after i got to work. moments before the entire sky had been a weird green color. there's also been a bus-stranding blizzard. which didn't seem all that special to me since i'm from buffalo. but it was special to all my friends who had to walk 3 hours to get home that night, because all public transportation failed. i think that one was more the city's fault.

my biggest concern about this hurricane is the flash flooding. have i mentioned i live in a garden apartment? yes? be quiet about it already? right.

the hours leading up to a catastrophic event are the weirdest, aren't they? what would you do if you had 24 hours until a hurricane hit? no, really, what would you do?

my answer, apparently?
oh, you know, i'd blog. work on my edits. go to work.

granted, this weekend's weather is not life-ending. hopefully, it's only another weird, intense weather day in brooklyn. but maybe i'll treat myself to some nice chocolates on the way into work, just for the heck of it. and maybe tonight after work, i'll go dancing. not that it'll be my last time doing it or anything, but it's not bad to have a reminder to make every minute count.

and not to keep boring you with my dance class videos, but they've been such great dances lately (always), i can't not bore you with my dance class videos.

happy dealing with a hurricane east coast. hope to see you safely on the other side.

fin

i completed my spanish class!

in my head the graduation music is playing right now (though, really, i think it's the Olympic's music).
my professor even gave me a certificate.

did it help? am i more fluent? i dunno.

yesterday i sat in class, and i swear, i didn't understand a word. i couldn't have written an akward, classroom scene as good as this: the teacher smiling and looking at me as she spoke. me thinking, please don't call on me. please don't call on me. the next word out of her mouth: Corrie?

GARH!

how is it possible to de-improve at something? (i'm sure there is an actual word that describes de-improving, but apparently my english is failing me, too). i began the class with such happy promise. yesterday the teacher said, you are somewhere else right now? to be fair. i only ended up making it to little over half the classes. but still.... i wasn't supposed to get worse!

ok. this isn't entirely fair. damn my tongue (actually, please don't. it's useful to me. poor tongue.), but my ear has improved.

the other night at the restaurant a (cute) boy/guy/man came in with his spanish speaking father. the, lets call him a guy, had to translate everything i said for his father and each time he did, i snorted (mentally, otherwise that's weird and rude) and thought, geez, i could have said that.

it was my perfect opportunity to bust out what i've learned. the only spanish i spoke was lo siento (i'm sorry). when he gave me $100 and asked for change on his $75 check, i gave him back $15. (i know it's like 4 quarters in a dollar, still that one always gets me.) the man didn't say de nada. a ten percent tip was his reply.

oh well. onward.

first the ear improves, then the vocabulary, then one day...at some point... i will be fluent. 'cause while maybe some people would improve over three years of trying to speak spanish. or gasp they'd actually be able to speak spanish by now. i've only gotten kind of crappy at it. but whatever. a less quickly melting ice cap is still a slightly improved environment. a lessened number of murders each year is still less people dead. so i'll take my barely improved spanish and run with it.

i've got a lot of life left to live. (you know, hopefully.) and since my ear for french and italian has oddly improved, too, who knows how many languages i'll one day be able to understand and speak crappily.  

a lil' help from my friends

i don't like asking for help.

in fact, i do everything in my power to avoid it. this means i work when i'm sick. i cook and do the dishes. and i've never learned to graciously accept help when others offer it. the only exception to this rule? carrying heavy stuff. like the cast iron mussels pot at work.

no. please. you take it.

i don't mind this trait. it doesn't even register on my list of "things to be worked on in this life."
(for the record, i don't have a list like that. fine. maybe i do. but it's a mental one... that i update constantly)

this week i discovered the one thing that being self-sufficient deprives me of. i can't think of a non-cheesy way to say it. but sometimes when you ask for help, the perk (other than being helped) is feeling the love from the people that step up to do the helping.

i have to do a project on a Spanish speaking country for my conversational Spanish class. shocker, i chose Mexico. (it's no secret i have a thing for the Mexican culture.)

i had no idea what this project would be about. possibly because i didn't understand the teacher when she explained it. it was my turn to go last week. i said i needed more time. beside the fact that i can't take ungraded homework seriously, i was a little intimidated by the project. other student's presentations were in PowerPoint. they had embedded YouTube clips. themes. notes.

inspiration struck. but i needed help.

none of the guys in the following film relished being in the following film. but they're my friends. so when i asked them to do it, they came through, which felt....indescribably great.

apologies to most people reading my blog. i haven't put subtitles on the film. i figured, what better way for my conversational Spanish class to improve than listening to conversational Spanish. the CliffNotes are that i ask the guys to tell me something about Mexico that most American's don't know (it's clean there! also in small towns there's no heat or air conditioning.) i ask about their favorite foods (which inspired Jose to talk about turkey eggs). and i totally flustered Cesar who couldn't really think of anything to say.

i love how many times all of them broke into English. in actuality, this films a bit of a farce. my Mexican friends are more American than anything else.

still, i'm proud of this film. i'm proud of my friends. and as i usually am when i break down to do it, i'm glad i asked for help.

changing it up

something good is in the air.

change and exciting things are happening. my crit buddy got approached by an agent. my old community collaborative buddy from buffalo got published in the Buffalo News. my good work buddy got engaged. my sister buddy got a great new apartment. and another family buddy is buying a house.

and me? well, things are a bubbling, but i'll keep them under my hat until i know more details.

change. it's one of those things i contemplate forever. worry over needlessly. crave but never embark on. and then it happens. out of the blue and all at once and it feels...really freakin' damn good.

i know our lives can't always be filled with change. i know that we need stability, too. but when it does happen. when it's pervasive in the air like this, you can bet'cher bottom i'm gonna celebrate it.

so congratulations everyone! thank you Change! hopefully, i'll be seeing more of you soon.

in the meantime, let's dance!

shorty

i've picked up crazy shifts at work the next two weeks, so today is one of my few days off. which means OUTSIDE HERE I COME.

hope this provides a few giggles until i return:

http://www.animalsbeingdicks.com/

super productive monday

good morning everyone! today i am having a super productive day.
in a city where even police officers are multi-tasking:

and business women use their break to get the tai-chi in:

i know, she's hard to see, but you get the picture, si?

in the next six hours i'm gonna put all these fools to shame. laundry will be done. fellowships will be applied for. spanish homework will (finally) be looked at, erm, i mean completed. clothes will be folded. stuff will be tidied. blogs will be half-assed.

the last few weeks i've taken a bit of a break from productivity. i'm waiting for responses to my WIP and i also couldn't look at the damn thing anymore to make my own edits. i've noticed my spirits flagging ever since i set the project aside.

today i make up for that! i'll do an amount of chores and whatnots in a few hours that would normally be spread out over a week. but first, coffee.

oh dear goodness, i need some coffee first.

please tell me kids still pass notes

my spanish teacher was writing on the blackboard (okay, dry erase board) the other day when she stopped and sighed: sometimes i forget how satisfying that is.

she meant writing.

it's such a simple statement. it took me totally by suprise. i've been thinking about it ever since.

when was the last time you saw your handwriting? i still make shopping lists on paper. i still sign and mail checks. when i remember (oops) i write birthday cards. i jot down notes for novel ideas. during the really grumpy years, i kept a journal. but that's about it. and for most people that's probably a lot. there's an app or online easier way to do everything i just described.

someone in my spanish class pointed out that kids (it's always those kids) aren't as good at reading handwritten words anymore and their own writing is suffering from everything going digitial. a hugely broad statement, i know.

but i still can't stop thinking about it. i never expected one of our most basic ways of communicating to fall by the wayside. will we teach handwriting in the future? or typing.

color me...

annoyed.

yesterday, if i was a little kid, i'd have stomped my foot.

what follows is my pictorial review of an annoying day. (be prepared. these are not: my car broke down then got hit by a bus type of annoyances. but this was my yesterday and i've got to blog about something.)

it began at lunch. in an effort to get out into the world more, i've decided to treat myself once a week-ish to a working lunch in a restaurant. i headed to a new french coffee shop in the 'hood. it's common for a nyc lunch to run the lunchee $15 to $20, but i shopped the outside menu. everything was well in my range of cheapness. between $4.50 and $7.95.

anticipation grew when i stepped inside and saw a sandwich that looked like this:

yes, folks. as you guessed, that's a sandwich covered in melted cheese with a giant delicious salad next to it.

in an effort to be, i dunno, adventurous? i went for the special. a tartine with avocado, fresh ricotta, pears and a black pepper honey. possibly yum-yum, right?

yeah. this was my plate.

for the record. those are two cucumbers at the bottom of the cutting board.

i'd never realized tartine translated as: toast with bits of stuff. lo and behold, check comes and it's the most expensive thing on the menu. had i known, i would have ordered the smoked duck over green beans. i would have ordered the cheese drenched sandwich. i would have ordered three things and not gotten to the price of my three triangles of bread. i wanted to cry, how can you charge $11 for produce from the bodega?!

instead i ordered a coffee and tried to ignore that i was as hungry as when i walked in.

cut to spanish class:

why do the people with the most inane thoughts always have the most to say?

we've begun class presentations about spanish speaking countries. same guy as above does the music of Uruguay and the first youtube clip he shows is of a japanese band with japanese subtitles. sigh.

cut to the other guy who simply needs to speak in english. when asked if he thinks all movies end happily (as one classmate had said), he answers (in english): "you're asking what kind of movies i like? oh, i like, kung-fu. actione. fantastica."

a. no that's not what we were asking. b. i'm pretty sure not one of those responses was spanish. at all.

sigh.

worse than any of this is the fact that the more effort i make at learning spanish, the worse i get. granted, when i speak spanish i say spanish words that keep up with the english ones in my head, so sure, the translation is bound to be off. the other night at work i was prattling on in my corrie spanish. when i finished speaking there was a stunned silence, into which my one friend said: "dude, that was terrible."

granted, said friend is the guy who when i commented that i'd gained a little weight and felt it in my belly, replied, "yeah, and you can also see it in your face." (i love having boys as friends.) but still...

last tonight i couldn't make it through one spanish sentence without realizing in advance that the entire thing made no sense. i left class feeling annoyed, dense, and popsicle like from the air conditioning.

what greets me out front of the building? the wall street bull. or, rather, tourists taking these kinds of pictures:

it's been the same since i began my spanish class. yes, occasionally tourists take pictures in front of the bull, but 9 out of 10 take pictures of themselves coming out of the bull's rear. or fondling his, uh, stuff. this tendency transcends all cultures. maybe that should make me feel better. last night, it just made me wonder what the freak is up with mankind?

maybe this is why writers write. without the mandated solitude, we'd be forced to be out in the world like normal humans and it would turn us into petulant, little tyrants.
 
back at home, i imagined the tyrant safely put away for the night. corrie would be annoyed by no one else that evening.

around 3 a.m. a beetle made it's way into my apartment. it careened around my ceiling then threw itself into a dusty corner. i found it with a flash light, rolled up paper in hand to squash it. but the little guy was too cute. he kept walking into the baseboard trying to find a way out. i got a glass and trapped him.

"i'll help you lil' buddy," i said, as i slid paper beneath the glass. "no worries." (yes, when i save bugs lives i speak like an australian cowboy).

or not.

lil' buddy's head made a terrible crunching sound when i accidentally decapitated it. his legs kept wiggling. i felt awful.

at least yesterday is behind me. i woke this morning to a text inviting me to a soulgasm dance party. whether that pans out or not, i'm making a point of today being the kind of day that you can color me: peaceful.

blah monday

there's a heat advisory shaping up this afternoon in NYC. soon we'll all be wallowing in 93 degrees + temps. bringing my coffee cup to my mouth feels like overexertion. and i live in a garden apartment. i can't imagine how the abovers (that's what i call anyone who doesn't walk down steps to get to their front door. actually, no it isn't. that's the first time i ever called them that.) are dealing with this.

oh right. air conditioning.

naturally, my agenda today involves running errands before work. i'll probably leave the house right when the heat advisory goes into effect.

my friend at work last night said i was muy intellegente because i managed to get about 25 pieces of silverware to slide off a dirty plate into the dirty silverware bucket all at once. (glamorous job, ain't it?) i replied a veces. which means: sometimes.

muy intellegente, a veces describes me pretty well, i think.

who'd want to be smart all the time ,anyway? some of the best things can come about from being muy estupido.

* sorry. this was a lame blog post, i know. and i have new followers to try and impress too. but did i mention it's sweltering here? and the most exciting thing on my plate today is going to the post office. oh! and buying garbage bags -- kitchen and recycling. whoot!

so apologies. hopefully i'll be in better form for wednesday. but at least now that bloggings over, i can resume sluggishly eating blue cheese dip straight out of the container -- with my finger.

new traditions

my lil sis' and her hubby came to visit this week. in NYC or back in buffalo we always have fun together. but i especially love when they come here (this goes for all visiting family) because we have entirely new experiences and interactions than the ones we've had our whole lives.

that being said, this was my lil sis' and bro-law's third time visiting. and as much as it's fresh and fun every time, i'm picking up on some new NYC-style family traditions.

New Tradition 1: Corrie picks the hottest day of the year and plans for her and her family to spend it outdoors with half a million other people.

this tradition started the last time sis visited NYC. we went to the Bronx Zoo. not only was it 100 degrees outside, but it was also Pay What You Like Day.

ever spend a humid, sweltering day standing in the sun shoulder to sweaty shoulder with half of NYC? no? yeah, i wouldn't recommend it.

in keeping with tradition, this year we went to Six Flags. granted, it wasn't a special day, because i think all days at Six Flags are Either Pay Your Rent or Buy a Ticket to Six Flag days, but it was at least 90 degrees and cloudless-sky sunny. tiny bottles of water cost $3.50. lines for rides topped out at an hour and a half.

we decided to forgo next month's rent and bought skip-the-line passes. 

all this to go on roller coasters that were literally terrifying. remember how you used to get a little nervous riding roller coasters? your stomach would get a little oooohhhh we're almost at the top tinge. now it's a Hail Mary, i hope i survive this, thank goodness it's almost over kind of effect. you can't even scream on rollercoasters anymore. your lungs are too busy working at staying in your body.

luckily, there were a few rides that were more our speed:

New Tradition 2: Gorge. Gorge on food. Then gorge on more food.
(i know this one doesn't need explaining, but it's a good reason to put in food pictures.)

it turns out, in Greenpoint, they named a restaurant after my bro-in-law.

naturally, we stopped by to say hello. none of us expected the monstrous deliciousness we were met with.

now, i grew up with polish food -- kielbasa at Easter and my uncles duck's blood soup during the winter -- but we never had white borscht or pickle soup. why? why did we never have these things when they are the tastiest foods known to man?

i realize there are fabulous restaurants in NYC that serve mind-blowing, gourmet deliciousness, but sometimes you can't beat the polish plate on the $9 pre-fix lunch menu at your neighborhood Krowleskie's.

New Tradition 2 Part 2: The very full face picture.

what's better than gorging on ridiculous amounts of food? photographing the aftereffects! last time this took place at the barbecue joint, Fette Sau. this year, it was at Tribeca Grill.

bro-law's full face picture:

lil sis's full face picture:

corrie's full face picture:

* my red-haired sis opted out of full face pictures this time around. she simply looked lovely (though full).

New Tradition 3: Dancing!

last year, my sisters and i donned silly outfits and danced in my living room. this year, we did the same thing. in public.

my red-haired sis' bought us all matching shorts that said Brooklyn on the butt. we all wore them to my hip-hop class. check out my little sis' rockin' it out in the back row.

and now my little sis' and her hubby are gone.

and i can't lie, the apartment is roomier and neater without them here - remember the trunks Tom Hanks bought in Joe Versus the Volcano? those trunks had nothing on my visitor's suitcases. no lie, combined they were probably larger than my bathroom. but my apartment's also a lot emptier in a not good way.

i hate leaving day. it feels so lonely when it goes back to just me. knowing i won't see my fam again for monthsdoesn't help. and even though it's practically 90 degrees outside, there's a tinge of fall in the breeze. which makes everything feel that much more bluesy.

luckily, there's a Fourth New Tradition: Bro-law's catch phrase.

last time he was here, i think my bro-law might have said Malfatti (a pasta my restaurant makes) one million times. no, really, one million. this time, he (okay, we) got a little addicted to the below video.

so even though they're gone and i miss them mucho already, i'm comforted by knowing that our new family traditions will endure and grow with every visit. in the meantime, i have captain jack to wipe all other thoughts from my brain:

excitement and fear of dying all rolled into one

what is this odd shape? it's only the tallest rollercoaster in the world! and for only about $200 in admissions and other ticket add-ons, i was able to be scared to death and close my eyes on it.

whoo-hoo six flags!

full report on friday. now it's off to Greenpoint with the visiting lil' sis and bro to eat borscht!

lil lessons learned on the road

my weekend was tre chichi. i went to the Hamptons.

since i don't travel anywhere new (nope the sentence doesn't end there) without trying to learn some valuable life lessons to post on my blog, here's what i took away from the trip.

Lesson 1: When you tell people you are going to the Hamptons, you must affect bored indifference.

"My weekend plans?" big sigh, "Oh, I'm going to the Hamptons."

no really. you have to say it that way or otherwise they won't let you in. "Sorry girl, you sound positively too excited to be admitted today." it's tricky enough getting there as is. you have to travel at light speed.

Lesson 2. There's all kind of (the) Hamptons.

a friend told me that when she went to the Hamptons -- she'd been hired by a family to teach pool-ates to an eleven-year-old -- the house she went to had a fountain in the frontyard the size of a swimming pool, white marble coated the entire interior of the house like a museum, and the owner's dog had it's own room.

my (the) Hamptons wasn't like that. it was more awesome.

first of all the people at my (the) Hamptons were interesting and super friendly. (i'm not saying that people who choose to decorate their house solely with white marble aren't friendly. i'll let you know when i meet one. i am possibly saying that they aren't interesting). at the party i went to, most people were tattoo artists.

i love being my red-haired sis's guest to tattoo functions. a. because my sis and i have fun together, but also b. i get a kick out of being with a group of people who are usually in the minority suddenly being the overwhelming majority. most everyone at the party looked like this guy:

except less frightened. you figure it must be nice being around people who aren't once going to ask you, "Did that hurt?"

there weren't any giant fountains at my party, but there was a car show:

and a horse:

huh? where? oh sorry, i mean, a horse:

Lesson 3: Steamers are the grossest and also most delicious food ever.

did i ever tell you my friend Jared and i tried out to be hosts on the food network. no? we did. it was for a show called Cheap Eats. we got called in to audition and never got called in again. i hope whomever they did pick to host Cheap Eats does a segment on steamers.

what is a steamer? it's this thing:

delicious looking, right? no. exactly.

steamers are related to clams and they require some work to eat.

first, you must take the steamer out of the shell. next, see that...what's a nice way to say it?... wiener hanging off the right side of the steamer, you have to pull the black thing that's covering it off it. then you dunk the steamer in a cup of murky water to wash off the sand. then you dunk it in a cup of butter. then you ingest it.

Lesson 3a. It's okay to make a face of disgust whilst preparing your steamer.

i did for at least the first 6 i ate. but here's the thing, if you get a really tasty steamer, they're sweet like lobster. see that bucket of empty shells? me. i did that. by the end. i was a little addicted. i still can't stop thinking about them, creepy wienery thing and all.

moving on.

Lesson 4: Beaches exist near NYC with water you'd actually like to swim in.

have you heard about the NYC sewage treatment plant that just dumped a few days worth of waste into the Hudson river? no? well, they closed a few beaches around here because of it. but in the Hamptons (pronounced HAAAAAMMMM-ptons, when spoken in this context) that's not a concern.

the beaches are beeeaaautiful. the water is frigid at first, but you instantly get used to it. mainly because you have no choice. the waves and current pummel you regardless of your "how wet shall i get" preference.

Lesson 5: It's never as fun going home from places as it is getting there.

Lesson 6: If you and your sister decide to take different connecting LIRR trains back into the city, make sure you give your sister her ticket so she isn't charged $12 by the conductor for not having one. oops. still feeling bad about that one.

and finally:

Lesson 7: Life is like a bucket of steamers. You enjoy it more and get better at it, the more you eat of it.

boo-yah, yes, i went there. 'cause when you visit the Hamptons for a whole seven hours, that's how you do.