launching

Columbia University
Originally uploaded by Sciamano.

if all goes well, today will mark the last assignment i need to complete for my masters in social work. it's hard to believe after all of the foot-dragging that it is finally here. yay me!

on the other hand i still haven't figured out exactly what i will do once my job finishes out at the end of the summer. i would like to continue to get paid and get benefits, but i'm not sure for what. anyone want to pay me to bum around on my couch and play with my bird? i'm very good at that.

the smells of the city come sifting through trees

i love this city just about as much as anyone, but there's a certain stench that takes over on hot, humid summer days that cannot be accounted for just by the mounds of trash rotting on the sidewalks, the overwhelming b.o. of the man whose arm arcs overhead on the subway, and the sticky trails of dog pee adorning the columns in front of our building. somehow everything that reeks comes together to create a special aromatic medley that can only be described as "new york in the summer." it's not a constant -- it will come upon you surreptitiously in moments of quiet reverie, as you stroll past a starbucks or hike into the sun from the subway stairs. as you gulp that first breath of fetid air, a wave of nausea strikes fast and hard. your only hope is that your next step will take you out of the cloud of ny stench... and into a welcome pocket of clean air.

sunshine, rollercoasters, and good friends

coney island thrills
Originally uploaded by atb20.

that's really all you can ask for in a birthday weekend. if you click on this photo, you might just be able to make out metsfan, mil, and me plummeting to our near demise. we roasted in the sun and consumed hotdogs, ice cream, and some scary looking thing called a meat patty (or something of the sort). ms. cat claimed that they were quite tasty if you didn't look at what lurks beneath the flacky yellow crust. i stuck with chicken sandwiches, and i think my stomach was grateful for it. anyway, for those of you who haven't been to nyc's most ghetto beachside amusement park, i do heartily recommend it. i've never seen so many pregnant young women leading large broods of toddlers this far from utah. quite a treat!

not photoshopped

empire state building
Originally uploaded by atb20.

mil and i went for a walkabout last weekend. we started at home, stopped by tiffany's to use a store credit from back in the wedding gift days, and finished the day at my favorite pet store in the village... with a necessary stop at mil's favorite fast food joint. i thought of ms. cartoonsite as i scarfed down my 7-layer burrito. healthy stuff. anyway, en route we passed a few of new york's non-monuments, including the one pictured above.

baby fever

anouk pinafore
Originally uploaded by atb20.

so, while i'm still getting used to the fact that it is not only okay, but desireable for people my age to start having kids, i did have a lot of fun playing with two wily little munchkins at the park yesterday while catching up with friends. shortly after wiping the drool from my hands and applying aloe vera to my sunburned back, mil and i had dinner with my 6-year old cousin and video-chatted with my other 2-year old cousin in california. all of this is coming together to prepare me for the joys of aunt-hood. in a couple of months this, my personal piece de resistance, will become even cuter with the addition of a real live, human baby. hard to believe it could get any more adorable, eh?
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anyway, i'm trying not to think about what's going on in the world right now. i'm just trying to be thankful for my own good fortune and help the few folks i can. maybe next week i'll start thinking about politics and all of the shameful stuff that's happening at gitmo as...i... type..., again.

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btw, don't ya love my new banner?

this is why i love public transportation...

overheard on the subway this evening:

"if my guy was robbing banks for me, i wouldn't never leave him."

this was said by a young woman straddling a young man who at one point in the conversation asked for her name and another point discussed the real possibility of moving in with her and her 2.5 year old daughter. now if that ain't white trash, i don't know what is.

motivation

townhouse
Originally uploaded by atb20.

so, it's now june. i should be spending what free time i have scouring monster.com and hospital websites. i should be hard at work finding future employment, and here i am sitting on my rear, looking at townhouses online. why? because my father has somewhat casually suggested that i might be able to go into business renovating townhouses with his assistance. apparently, some folks he knows are planning to start work on a couple of buildings in the west village, and what for him might be an interesting investment opportunity might, for me, be a great learning opportunity. at this point there are far more questions than answers: not the least of which is how would mil and i survive financially while i'm learning these valuable skills? and what does this mean for my planned social work career?

well, at this point, it makes most social work jobs look downright lousy. maybe its where i am in my internship... getting geared up for "termination" with my clients as two youngsters i've been seeing are still in serious jeopardy. the stress of this work is getting to me, and i don't know if i have the emotional reserves to deal with such difficult populations. granted i am only doing this two days a week at this point, so there is also the added tension of not really being available for my clients as much as i would like to be in addition to the exhaustion from switching back and forth between work, internship, and class. it's possible that these other factors are clouding my judgment of a career in social work.

but on the other hand, i've always found architecture and design interesting. i love wandering the streets of new york and seeing how people live, imagining myself preparing a meal in a sprawling chef's kitchen in a charming townhouse with immense casement windows facing a quiet cobblestone street. or lounging on a couch with a martini in a sparse soho loft with towering warehouse windows facing a bustling spring street below. whenever i see a stately older building suffering from years of abuse and neglect, i imagine grabbing a sander and some paint and bringing it back to its former grandeur. of course at this point i don't have the money or the time, so someone offering both would be a dream come true.

life is sweet.

mm... breakfast
Originally uploaded by atb20.

i'm a lucky person. i just wanted to be clear. despite my occasional lapses into self-pity or the moral outrage at the bush white house, i've been an incredibly fortunate individual. i've got an amazingly stable family, a supportive (and adorable) husband, and kick-ass friends. that said, the government of this country is crap. i'm not talking about the cuts to the homeland security funds for nyc (honestly, i couldn't tell you what they've been doing with them in the first place). i'm talking about the deplorable way our leader is handling the horrors of haditha and ishaqi.. blaming the troops for ethical deficits, when he has the greatest ethical deficits of all. the way troops behave in war is a direct result of the atrocities that they've seen and the attitudes and behavior that has been modeled by their superiors. these troops were not acting alone... they were acting in a way that reflects the environment they are in and the psychologically traumatizing events to which they have been subjected. that does not excuse their behavior by any stretch, but for bush to make statements about rooting out the individuals who are responsible without taking a moment to look in the mirror and see where they learned it, is like an abusive father wagging his finger at his son who beats his wife. and now they're going to employ ethical training...without taking a moment to understand why in three separate and seemingly unrelated incidents (at least of those that have been reported) several american troops have treated the iraqi people like target practice. this is not a matter of poor ethical training, it's a matter of being put in an environment where ethics no longer exist...