a roll through the park

well, i didn't make it to the peace march this morning, and that was disappointing. it just seemed like it would cut into too much paper-writing time. i imagine there will be more... seems like there should be an extension for political activism at a social work school, but i guess i could have always been more prepared and started my papers last weekend. since i didn't though, i had to take a brief opportunity to escape the confines of my apartment. by 4pm it was impossible to focus on my paper any further, so i strapped on my rollerblades and took to the park. as a reminder for myself during those painfully long days strapped to my computer in the cellar of schermerhorn, here is a photo tour of my voyage...


the cherry blossoms were still in bloom though the leaves were starting to sprout as well...






i'm not sure what kind of tree this is, but it has the most beautiful purple buds growing all the way down the branches.


looking across the ballfields from the east side, just before coasting down "the great hill"


one of my favorite spots in the park... unlike the lower half of the park, above 100th st. is pretty peaceful and tourist-free.


i almost didn't notice this guy hiding in the tree. he swooped down to within feet of me as he tried to escape from a few pesky jays.


no doubt it's spring.







park enthusiasts will notice that i didn't get any shots of the popular lower east corner of the park. while beautiful, that area attracts more navel-gazing tourists than i can comfortably wheel around with my camera. in addition the entire area reeks of horsesh*t, so i try to get through it as quickly as possible. it was really a spectacular day for a rollerbrake though -- i hope my fellow ny-ers got out to enjoy the day.

hmm...

well, if i'm gonna go for a walk tomorrow, this seems like a good excuse. any new yorkers want to join me??

imagining myself outside

Umbrian arbour
Originally uploaded by giles sanders.

hell, if i'm going to start imagining myself someplace i might as well go for the gusto. i shall imagine myself on our honeymoon terrace in italy... reading under the tuscan sun under the mediterranean sun... listening to the excited shouts of the local children standing on the cliff nearby: la medusa! la medusa! hearing the blue-green waves lap against the rocky ledge below... mil napping in the cool shade of the room... a belly full of tomatoes caprese and soury sweet peaches and pears. the breeze sweeping through the crisp sunlight blowing strands of hair into my face... the sparkling, crystalline water summoning me to challenge my fear of jellyfish... and dive in.
**
bringing myself back to reality, i can at least take comfort in the coming weekend. unlike last weekend, we should be able to expect sunshine and highs in the 60s. unfortunately, i have two papers due next week (in what will be the last week of my spring semester, yay!), so my outdoor time will likely be limited. though i plan to make every effort to fit it in where i can.
**
final note: for some reason, i'm not able to post comments from my work computer, so it seems that both mbajackass and cartoonsite have gone unresponded to.

c, thanks for the input re: bird adolescence... i've tried a "birdsitter" dvd to little avail. at this point i'm very tempted to post an ad on craigslist: "spf, 5, looking for friendship and maybe more."

m, no need for gifts -- thanks for offering though! many congrats!

the terrible fives

when i took her to the vet a few months ago, i was told that she's in her adolesence and in a few years she'll calm down and become a more respectable member of the family. what they didn't tell me was that in the meantime she could get much, much worse.



izzy has officially lost it. she is no longer able to entertain herself in relative peace and quiet. if we are in the apartment and she is not either in our food or destroying one of our possessions, she is screaming and/or pecking at our feet. she used to have long periods of relative mellow-ness interspersed with brief bouts of flapping, screaming, and destroying. now it is the other way around. i'm not sure what to do with her at this point, and lord knows, mil is well past his "cool." any bird experts out there? is there something i can feed her? ambien? xanax? honestly, i think she just needs to get laid. any handsome galahs out there looking for a good time? she likes long walks on the kitchen tile and eating her way through cereal boxes...
**
in other news, mil took his mcat this weekend. that's eight hours of his life that he'll never see again (then again, neither will i). it was touch and go for a while there, but i think he's beginning to regain his usual spunk. he's still not sure how he did, so he's trying to get used to the idea that he might have to take it again in august... i guess i need to do the same.
**
i'm having some moments of inspiration re: the job search recently. after watching several episodes of the west wing, i'm thinking i might want to incorporate some policy work into my next job. i saw some interesting listings on monster for a political advisor for the mission of japan and a program associate for the council on foreign relations. sounds much more interesting than poorly paid social worker at underfunded clinic in the bronx...

learning...

yay ladies night!
yay martinis!
yay weekend!
yay samoas!
yay spring!
boo social work!

i made the mistake of going to an msw job fair this afternoon, and it was very depressing. everyone was nice and eager and talking about all the important work you get to do with cancer patients or adolescents or substance users. then i ask them about starting salary and they talk about their "competitive starting salary" of $46K, and this is from the hospitals which are known for their relatively high salaries. now, yes, i know that this is more than i'm making now and not a bad salary for tulsa, but in new york city, after taxes it barely covers the rent... on a 1br apt. back to the drawing board...
**
don't tell my boss (who's one of the founders of the cognitive tradition in psychology), but i'm learning to love psychodynamic psychotherapy. there's a certain artistic and intuitive quality that makes it more engaging than other, more "evidence-based" intervention techniques. it also uses the therapist more so than a more cognitive or behavioral approach. i am learning a lot about myself as i explore the various pathologies and neurotic tendencies of my clients. i always thought of myself as a fairly uninteresting specimen. my parents once gave me a cartoon from the new yorker with a college girl sitting in her dormroom writing a letter that says: dear mom and dad, thanks for the happy childhood. now i'll never be a writer psychologist. and i thought it was pretty much true, but as i go through the process of analyzing my clients, i realize that there's a lot of me that i've left unanalyzed (maybe for the better). i mentioned in an earlier post that i am more neurotic than i ever thought of myself as being. i tend to judge myself pretty harshly against a standard of perfection that i will likely never achieve. i think this is part of the reason i've had such a difficult time figuring out what i should do with my life. at some level, i've internalized my parents' hopes and desires for what i'd achieve, and they're not quite meshing with what i see myself enjoying. the difficulty is parsing out what is me and what is my parents and what is everything else.

think happy thoughts

sequoia rays
Originally uploaded by zrim.

so, mil is counting down the hours to the mcat this saturday... and though i'm not of the religious sort (as is blatantly obvious in my post from earlier this week), i've taken to offering supplication to the little known g*d of standardized tests. mil has found himself seeking counsel from the buddha. and now i ask those of you who have some love for that mop-headed encyclopedia of useless movie trivia and simpsons quotes, i call my husband, to think happy thoughts for him this weekend. we'd be much obliged to ya.

i've been blessed

someone here in the department has a girl scout for a kid, and that means i get to dine on one of my favorite springtime delicacies... samoas... it's been a while, kid, i'm happy to see you've come back.
**
i'm feeling motivated to talk politics what with the looming threats against iran and the whole controversy surrounding these generals who've spoken out against rumsfeld. but there is a part of me that's tired of complaining... i know the administration wants to paint all liberals as a bunch of screaming hippies, but really we just want a country that will make us proud to be americans and a world where our kids and our kids' kids can enjoy life in peace. i don't think that those desires really make us distinct from the conservatives in this country. i think it's more important to have a dialogue that shows our commonalities and allows us to open our hearts and eyes to alternative perspectives than to hurl labels at eachother a la o'reilly and randy rhodes. (honestly, i love listening to randy, and i think she's a smart person -- unlike o'reilly, but she's an entertainer. i don't think she's doing anything to encourage a dialogue.) i was listening to that paragon of democratic ideals, jerry springer, this morning, and i think i fell in love a little bit. the man speaks respectfully to everyone who calls into his show no matter what their viewpoint is, and he responds thoughtfully and intelligently. if you haven't tuned in to air america recently, his show's worth a listen (9-12 ET).

shocks!

birch aquarium
Originally uploaded by atb20.

my cousin's little cutie, pictured here, can't quite distingush fish from sharks (or "shocks" as she likes to call them). i don't blame her... i think i was about ten before i figured that one out. (and whales are mammals?? you're kidding me, right?) anyway, we enjoyed an afternoon at the birch aquarium out of fear that it might rain -- of course, it turned out to be the most beautiful day of the trip. that said, my day was made when the kiddo here vehemently waved "bye-bye!" to every passing car as we left the aquarium. and when i say vehemently, i mean it was an order. bye-bye... bye-bye! BYE! BYE!

there and back again

so, as you can see, i didn't manage to post from california... you can probably glean from this fact that i also did not work on my various papers. fortunately, none are due this week. somehow the presence of my family makes it virtually impossible to accomplish anything substantive. i don't know how they do this. even my brother was parent pressured into playing hooky on friday. (though this is relatively simple... you just have to utter a simple four-latter word: golf.) i did eat well and get some knitting done. i had the opportunity to see my statuesque sister-in-law with a growing baby bump. and i finally got to tour the stylish suburban casa my brother and sister-in-law call home. makes me feel a little behind the game, but i guess that's the nature of being a little sister -- nevermind that my brother was much further along the path to adulthood when he was my age. he has that innate drive to make a living wage that seems to have passed me up.
**
so, for those of you who miss the presence of papa moosk in their daily lives, i thought i'd recount a bit of family conversation on the eve of "good friday." (please note: this conversation took place after moosk and parents sat on a plane for over eight hours arriving at their hotel at what would have been 2am ET.) my father, the paragon of tact, asked my brother & sil, "isn't good friday supposed to be the day that jesus died?" response: "yeah." dad: "well, that sounds pretty sh*tty to me. whey do they call it 'good friday'? shouldn't it be 'sh*tty friday'?" and my father doesn't say things quietly -- he says them for all to hear. and if he thinks that what he said was funny, he will repeat it over and over again. and he thought this was funny. meanwhile, the rest of us were scanning faces to see if anyone around us was sending evil karma our way.

happy 201st post!

there was a period there where i never thought i'd see this day, but here it is... 201 posts. my baby blog is all grown up...
**
so, i'm a little ocd now with the banners. i apologize. i think the new tagline says it all. still, i will try to leave this one up for at least two weeks. i just kept seeing that cloud banner and saying to myself -- oh, i can do better than that. this one is courtesy of the world's most boring social work class. genuine doodle, folks.
**
finally, the reason for the new change of scheme is that i'm heading out of town tomorrow, and i feel bad leaving you guys to suffer through a long weekend without me. to those celebrating holidays, i wish you the happiest of easters and passovers. personally, i get to enjoy all of the feasting without any of the fasting thanks to a little thing i call agnosticism. i will actually be bringing the computer along to get some paper-writing done over the weekend, so there's probably a good chance you'll hear from me before monday.

my emergence from the cave...

there are few moments more revitalizing than the first steps out of a dark, dank, cavernous lab into the brilliant sun of a midafternoon on a thoroughly warm and breezy spring day... so spring-like that the pink and white petals from the blossoms on the trees flitted to the ground in the breeze...

...and fewer moments more disheartening than the clank of the door shutting out the chirping birds and the laughing undergrads, leaving me alone with my computer monitor and the recycled air of my own personal dungeon.

i like to believe...

...that i don't care what anybody else thinks of me. unfortunately, i do. i often ask mil whether or not i should cut my hair or wear a certain outfit or write a certain thing in my blog. unfortunately, as well, he is rarely able to offer much more than a "whatever you want to do, hon." (okay, maybe that's a "fortunately").

...that i didn't care what anybody else thought of me...in high school. for some reason, i always fancied myself "above the fray" because i was never popular and never made much of an attempt to be so. a more correct portrayal might have been that i was "beneath the fray" because, like many adolescent girls of my ilk, it seemed like it took a lot of work to become popular and i was lazy.

...that i am a generally nice person. the evidence is to the contrary. i rarely give up my seat on the subway to people loaded down with bags or groceries or the borderline "elderly." i purposefully walk into people when they don't make room for me on the sidewalk. and i've laughed at more politically incorrect "family guy" jokes than i'd care to mention.

...that i pull my weight at home. again, the evidence does not support this assumption. i don't know how many times mil has done my laundry or made my dinner or cleaned up after me, but i do know that the number far exceeds the times i've done so for him. all despite the fact that he currently has absolutely no free time.

anyway, just felt the need to clear the air there. anyone else have similar self-delusional thoughts?

not working on my paper

this is a recurring theme here at elegy... me, sitting at home alone on a saturday or sunday, knowing that i should be spending time catching up on homework, but consciously doing anything but. you'd think that at this point in the game i would have figured out how to psych myself up to accomplish a little more than creating a new banner for mba jackass and playing with my bird on a rainy saturday. but, alas, i haven't. fortunately, at least izzy is happy for the attention. she's been her more adorable self most of the day, wagging her entire body for a soaking shower, playing bull to my matador as i fluff the blanket, and purring on my chest at naptime. now that mil is home, the day isn't showing much sign of improvement as he has decided to use this time to score the practice mcat he spent the first 8 hours of his day completing (note: his prep course will score the test by monday, but that's just not soon enough for my little masochist). here's to hoping i can do my part to distract him...

how much for zee little children?

in a move that surprised no one here in nyc, the city council approved the yankees bid to use public funds to destroy one of the largest public parks in new york city. in case you were worried about this being a bad thing, the parkland will be replaced by a new 53,000-seat stadium with 60 luxury sky boxes and 10,000 parking spaces when it is completed in 2009. phew... and i thought this might be a bad thing for the residents of the south bronx. i was busy worrying about the children of the bronx who already have the highest asthma rates in the country and probably the highest rates of child obesity and diabetes. according to the 2003 census, one third of the residents of central bronx do not get any physical activity and one quarter of the residents are obese. 41% of public elementary schools in nyc do not have regular phys ed classes. in addition to the lack of formal pe classes, many schools have eradicated recess due to lack of space or lack of supervision. 55% of nyc elementary schools have no access to a playground and 18% have no gymnasium. so, yeah, that's what the bronx needs -- a new yankee stadium.

oh, and for those that argue that the new stadium is a financial boon to the community... the yanks "will pay for the construction through $930 million in bonds issued by the city, of which $860 million will be tax-exempt. taxpayers will also bear some of the costs because the team will pay back the bonds through payments in lieu of taxes to the city." sounds good to me. maybe the yanks can donate some of that new income from the luxury boxes to the hospitals in the communities because according to a CDC report (2003), annual hospital costs to treat obese children and adolescents during 1997 to 1999 were $127 million, up from $35 million between 1979 and 1981. so, yeah, i can't really trump up pity for bronx councilwoman arroyo when she says that this was a tough decision for her. she seems more than willing to sell out the health of bronx children for a few short-term construction jobs.

this is what i'm talking about

the careerwoman wars

i decided it was time to trot out a new banner because though i loved it dearly, the old one just reminded me how fickle april is (sunny and 70 one day, rainy and 30 the next). now i'm thinking happy thoughts, happy thoughts.
**
so, i was catching up on some of the blazing comments from dooce's post on letting leta "cry it out", and i realize how self-righteous people can be about their personal parenting decisions. i guess this is one of those battles that you don't really feel the heat of until you step into parenthood... thank goodness.

since i have no part in the well-touted "mommy wars," i thought i would bring up a little battle that's waging on inside of me... though i must admit it's far less interesting since both sides of me are somewhat blase about the whole thing. over dinner the other night my father asked me if i wanted his help finding a job after i graduate. as many of you know, my father is not a social worker, so he does not mean a job at a local hospital or clinic. he's a real estate guy, so he means a job in real estate. why would he suggest such a thing? because when he mentioned it once before, i didn't refute it outright. for him, this was an opening for me to live up to my potential as a "business woman" -- whatever that is. so, once again, caught off gaurd, i say something noncommittal like: i don't know. what kind of job are we talking about?
his response: well, whatever you find interesting... you could do something like marketing, but that doesn't pay very well.
moosk: what's "not very well"? what... would the starting salary be $50K? $60K?
dad: (look of bafflement) well, no, you'd make more than that. but if you did investing you could make a lot more.
me: like?
dad: like probably around $125K...
me: (absorbing the concept of moosk making a 6-digit salary) what would the hours be like?
dad: like what your brother was working... 9-9/10.
me: (realizing that i'm well out of my league) ok. so, what's "investing"?

clearly, the conversation didn't lead to a job offer, but it did make me question everything i believe in. i left theatre to do something meaningful, something interesting, and real estate investing sounds about as interesting as watching toenail fungus grow. (my brother later confirmed this). marketing could be more interesting and would have shorter hours but it would still be a stretch to call it "meaningful." additionally, when i asked my dad how many working mothers he knew of in the business who had a good work-life balance, i received a blank stare in return. not very encouraging. so, why am i still thinking about it? i know that social work is interesting... incredibly difficult and painfully underpaid, yes, but very meaningful and very interesting. why do i have to choose?

my career priorities in order of importance:
1) reasonable work schedule (i.e., time to sleep, time to see my man, and eventually a flexible-ish schedule that can allow for parenthood)
2) interesting content
3) reasonable wage (i.e., i no longer have to beg money off my parents)
4) meaningful work (who knew it was so far down on the list?)

is that too much to ask? hrm... i guess i will have to continue mulling... advice is always welcome.

pockets of sun

chillin
Originally uploaded by atb20.

i don't know how i'm going to get myself into work tomorrow... leaving behind the sunshine, budding trees, and fresh air for a dungeon with a computer. yay!

it's been a nice weekend. we spent friday night with our long, lost friend ab who's busy acclimating to a new job. we rarely get to see him because he's a budding young executive with a new apt in jersey, so we were grateful he was willing to do the late night, reverse commute to hang with us for a while.

yesterday we did our taxes... i can feel the envy from here. but, guess what -- we got a refund! this is a first for me. i'm so excited... that money's already spent.

and then we went up to westchester for some spoiling by the 'rents. mil actually only lasted overnight because he had his mcat class in the morning, but i got to stroll through rockefeller state park with my mother and tour a little chapel in pocantico hills that has stained glass windows by matisse and chagall. the afternoon was capped off with homemade ice cream in tarrytown and a train ride back to the city. i really don't want to go back to work...

frilly skirts... and other pleasures of spring

Spring Is Here
Originally uploaded by paololluch.

hmm... where to begin... it's been a rough week. some days i'm just not emotionally prepared for the onslaught of human need that confronts me as a therapist. yesterday was one of those days. i second-guessed my ability to help others by offering a empathic ear. i lost my train of thought as each session wore on. i wondered whether i have the constitution for the breadth and depth of emotion that a therapist must endure on a daily basis.

though i'm still wondering and second-guessing, i feel a little bit better about it because i have some amazing friends. i have friends who will listen to me complain about my day and not offer advice or make suggestions about what i should do or change the topic to something that they're more interested in discussing. they'll listen with interest, and they'll support me and tell me that i am making a difference. it's hard to get too down on yourself when you have people who care about you... so, today, in addition to the beaming 70 degree weather, i am thankful for my friends.

the three rs: readin', ritin', & 'rithmatic

i was just reading the nytimes article about schools cutting back on other subjects in order to focus on improving their reading and math scores on "no child left behind" tests. though i'm pretty staunchly opposed to the bill which encourages teachers to teach for tests rather than teach for learning, there is something of this bill that strikes a chord with me. i agree that children should not be graduating third grade without knowing how to read. there is no reason why i should be seeing teenagers that still have a tough time with cat in the hat. yet, i do. i even agree that in standard classrooms, reading and basic math should be prerequisites to history and science since it's tough to read a history book when you haven't mastered silent "e"s and blends. (then again, i can find no excuse for not teaching art). i guess what i don't agree with is the penalizing mentality. penalizing schools for poor test scores; penalizing students for being in poor schools. as any behaviorist will tell you, people learn much faster with positive reinforcement than punishment. why not encourage schools to improve by rewarding positive test scores and creative teaching techniques. schools having difficulty reaching federal minimums need more support, not less. and when teachers feel the pinch, students feel it, too.

adolescent fears

last night as i was headed home from work on the subway, i was faced with one of my worst fears of raising children in the city (and perhaps raising children anywhere). at 66th street two punk-ish-looking teen girls got onto the train (and by "punk-ish" i mean black clothes and messy hair, still young enough for their parents to forbid multiple piercings and blue hair). it was immediately clear that one of them was blasted on something. she was propped up against the subway door languidly, and her friend was repeatedly righting her so that she wouldn't slide into the woman in the seat next to the door. i could see the concern reflected in the woman's eyes... the thought, "that's someone's daughter," go through her head as it went through mine. it was actually not as bad as it could have been because she had a friend... someone to make sure that she got home okay... that she didn't get taken advantage of or end up alone on a train in coney island.

while i love the idea of having children, i fear the day that i have an adolescent daughter. that fear is multiplied when i see all of the experiences that the city has to offer anyone old enough to figure out the subway system. at least in the burbs you can control access to transportation... kids can only go so far without a license and a car. in the city, you can go from riverdale to coney island on pocket change. maybe by the time i have teens, they'll come with tracking devices...

friday!

i'm not sure if there's much worse than your first full week back after a vacation. it seems endless... monday... have to wake up early again (why is that alarm so insistent?), slog through your wardrobe to find something presentable... tuesday, oh yeah, class... were we supposed to read something? paper? next week? really? crap! wednesday... oh, wedneday, why must you be so cruel? work, then class, then field? all in one day? ugh! but then "lost"... new episode, how you move me even if your pace is that of a sloth on tranquilizers... thursday, the beginning of the end... after wednesday, a mere 9-5 seems like a dream. and friday, you wonder of a day... i know i have to work, but it's comforted by the knowledge that a nice, fluffy weekend lies at the end of the work day. even if that weekend will be full of paper-writing, at least it will be on my terms. hooray for friday! hooray for crimson's b-day party! martini anyone? (i know it's only 10am, but don't i deserve one?)

new york minute

this morning i found myself sitting next to a young woman on the subway. she was neatly coiffed with a trendy little hat and a significantly older man by her side. being the inquisitive person i am, i noted that the paper in her lap said "college preview." i took a double-take at the girl... my first thought was: i don't look ten years older than that girl, do i? of course not!

then i realized that it had been a good eleven years since i made my own, very brief "college preview" with my own "significantly older man." my dad had a business meeting in new york, so he brought me up with him to see columbia and vassar. i spent the first night with a girl i knew from high school. she had a painted cinder-block room in the crappy, 1960s-era freshman dorm and was friends with dorky, high-achieving types... but from the perspective of my sheltered, prep-school existance this was a cultural mecca of urban sophistication. i was so excited to be there, listening to the street sounds below and imagining myself living such a life, that i wasn't able to sleep at all. (perhaps that was why the calc 2 class my chaperone took me to the next day sounded like gibberish... or maybe it was just that it was calc 2... i couldn't tell ya.) the next night my dad shuttled me up to poughkeepsie. i stayed with two rather pleasant girls in the drama department. the rooms were charmingly rustic with dark wood beams and creaky doors. the metrosexual guys and pretty girls talked at length about train rides into the city and the boredom of campus life. i realized almost immediately that it was not the place for me despite the fact that the campus doubled as an arboretum and the drama department attracted some of the most well-reputed actors of previous generations. not only was there little chance i'd meet the man of my dreams (combine my lack of initiative with a 25/75 guy/girl ratio, and you've got "no dice"), but it was an hour and a half from new york city. who wants to be an hour and a half from new york city when you can be in new york city? anyway, i applied early to cu, and the rest is history...

the newest metsfan!

mets hat
Originally uploaded by atb20.

well, i hoarded in on metsfan family territory today as i rushed to greet their newest member and future baseball hall of famer mere hours after he breathed his first breath of new york city air. it was amazing to see the adorable couple become an even more adorable family. may we all be so lucky...

now back to my knitting... three more babies are still on their way!

home sweet home

cloudy hillside
Originally uploaded by atb20.

i survived five days of skiing with nary an injury -- primarily due to fate smiling on me versus any particular coordination on my part. we had five days of fresh, fluffy snow to cushion our falls, and a couple of days of sunshine to warm us up. all told, i skiied well, i ate better, and i got plenty of sleep, so it was a fabulous vacation that could have only been improved by the inclusion of mil in the family hijinks. mil was grateful to be left out of the skiing, but the eating and the sleeping would have done him some good. lately, he's turned into the incredible shrinking man thanks to the high stakes of mcat-ing, orgo, and physics.

anyway, not much to say, other than it's good to be back home. i'd enjoy it more without the work, but i have yet to learn how to make my money work for me... anyone got any tips?

it's official

if you live in south dakota, mike rounds has decided that he knows what's best for your uterus. so, mike, if your teenage daughter gets raped, i hope you are able to "help her to see the value of the gift that is a child, and nurture the mother for her own sake and for the sake of her child." i hope the fact that she has to take time off from school to give birth and give up some of her own career goals to take care of another human being, doesn't upset you too much. because, you know, we women wouldn't know what to do with our bodies if we didn't have you big, strong, smart men to make decisions for us. and, okay, it's not bloody likely that i or anyone i love would make a home in south dakota (though not impossible), so what really scares the f-ck out of me is that this is likely going to go to our new and improved supreme court. abortion opponents are already sending rounds money for legal fees, so, folks, now is the time to get active. write letters, send money to planned parenthood... do whatever you can to make sure that our country doesn't turn into one, great big south dakota. (and, yes, that is a knitted womb up there. it's more womb than mike rounds will ever have.)

happy shower day!

cupcake
Originally uploaded by atb20.

mm... cupcakes!

procrastination

it's amazing how much you can get done when you have a paper to write. i've worked out. i made a decadent breakfast for myself. i've ice skated. i've created about 5 new banners for the blog... (btw, if any of you blogger folks want a customized banner, let me know because i love photoshop. i want to have like a million of its babies... not really, but i could make banners all day if it meant i didn't have to actually work.)
**
so, i'm counting down the days till school is over... well, months... five months. that's it. then, i reclaim my weekends! though, as you can see by the note above, i pretty much claim my weekends already, i just feel really guilty about it.

my little girl is growing up

tall izzy
Originally uploaded by atb20.

miss izzy's 5th birthday went by without much ado. february 28th marks exactly five years from the day she hatched from her little, fragile shell. a wormy little thing -- all beak and gawky legs. of course, i didn't meet her till a couple of months later when she crawled into my arms and settled into what was to be the first of many, lengthy head scratches.

that day i needed a bird. i needed a little feathered friend to offer her fluffy head during tv shows and a loud squawk on my arrival home. a mere three days after my precious squeak's untimely demise at the hands of his flaky owner. though i still haven't forgiven myself for my negligence that day i left the gas stove on and came home to find my baby lovebird konked out on the bottom of his cage, i am getting closer to whole thanks to my cranky, little pink monster.
**
so, it seems like the nytimes has picked up on the topic of the month with these two articles on parenthood in the 2000s. the first one makes me want to run as far from this city as possible, but as i've mentioned many times before, i just can't imagine living anywhere else. brooklyn, perhaps... westchester, that's getting a bit far for my taste. we'll see what the future holds since it ain't all up to me.

who? me? work?

i just got off the phone with mil and said, "well, i should get back to the grind." funny since i wasn't "grinding" before, and as is clear by this post, i am not "grinding" now. the problem with a hectic work month is that the minute the hectic is over you want to just chill for a while, and that means "not work." problem is they are paying me to be here to work, and meanwhile i'm quite defiantly not working. since i arrived, i made two work calls, dropped off the laptop borrowed for last night's class, checked a budget, got frustrated, checked nytimes.com, checked dooce.com, checked incremental degrees (very good post about the february doldrums), sent two non-work-related emails, checked mbajackass's blog, sent a work-related email, moved money (and not the good way), looked for a new obgyn, hours later made an appointment with a new obgyn, checked a little pregnant and sweet juniper, got call from mil, and now here i am. something's gotta change...
**
other thoughts i've had lately revolve around procreation. while my clock has settled down a bit (thank goodness!), i'm still puzzled by this whole parenthood thing. i monopolized a large chunk of cat and metsfan's sunday peppering them with questions about how the f-ck people afford to be parents in nyc? (for those not in the know, the lovely couple is about a month away from becoming lovely parents, at which point i'll have to discontinue use of terms like "f-ck") unfortunately, our conclusion was that most of them chuck family life in favor of ungodly sums of money and let the nanny raise the kid. this is reinforced by the sight of numerous racially mismatched "mothers" and kids on the sidewalks of the upper west side when i went to see my doctor yesterday. now, maybe i'm odd, and i really can't find a rational reason for this belief, but i am staunchly opposed to the idea of a nanny... at least in my life. the truth is, mil will have to be a doctor for many years before we could ever consider affording a nanny, but my revulsion to the idea goes much deeper. despite the fact that i really do want to work outside the home, i also really want to be a daily part of my child's life. i want to be the mother, and i don't want there to be any confusion about that. for some reason daycare seems more pallatable. as metsfan pointed out, it's more like school. there's no confusion... it's clearly not home, so that's clearly not my mother (or father). i'm curious as to what other people think about this issue (or if you have thoughts on the issue at all). i think this is one of the reasons i peruse so many parenting blogs. i wonder how other people are making it work, yet it it seems like many of the people i read about seem to have the luxury of more cashflow and/or a cushy, work-from-home gig. our little group all agreed that it would be great if the world was set-up so that we could each work out of the home part-time and care for our children part-time thus removing the necessity of choosing one over the other. for me, family trumps work every time.

wish i was here

"One Tree Hill" Antioch, California
Originally uploaded by Todd F.

i love new york. i think that's clear, but sometimes i see photos like this and i remember how nice s p a c e is. space to stretch your legs, space to be alone without the wail of sirens or the screech of breaks, space to create, space to allow life to slow down... i feel so mentally cluttered these days that i've forgotten what space feels like. hopefully, utah should remedy that... if only temporarily.
**
anyway. i'm tired and ready to head home, so i'll leave you with two of sad bits of news that are taking up space in my dusty attic of a brain:
- don knotts died.
- south dakota has banned abortions.

admitting ineptitude

i generally think of myself as a relatively intelligent person, but that perception is being shaken this afternoon. i have been asked to proof a 40-page grant on placebo effects in the brain. never before has my head hurt so much. i am seeing these words like "anti-nociceptive systems" and "carfentinil binding," and my little brain seems to work up a sweat just to pronounce them. am i alone here? do other educated people quiver like this when they're taken out of their realm of expertise? i've found myself taking 5-minute breaks after reading each page of this stuff. (hence the frequent posting today.)
**
here's another question i have... is it okay to have loud conversations in the gym? i ask because yesterday my new issue of jane exhorted me to go work out. there i was, happy as a clam, reading about facial exfoliators i can't afford and grooving to lady day, and this bear of a woman charges toward the elliptical machine next to mine, deep in conversation with a diminuative, metrosexual type. thing is, she was talking in her outdoor voice. more specifically, her barroom voice -- the one used to talk over hoardes of drunken college kids and a blaring jukebox. and our building gym is a quiet place... it's six o'clock and the three of us in there are exhausted from a long day of listening to other people's crap. at first i thought perhaps she's just walking in with this guy and the conversation will stop once they both begin to work out... i was wrong. the guy she was talking to just stood there, listening to her yap, for a half an hour... i'm not sure what the other people were thinking, but my thoughts were, "who the f--- does this woman think she is?"; "if she didn't look like she could kick my ass, i would totally give her a dirty look"; and "who the hell is the random guy who's standing next to her just listening to her rant about her co-workers for a half an hour?" needless to say, i said none of these things, though next time i might just try that dirty look.

this is for you, mj

puerto rico
Originally uploaded by atb20.

from my trip to PR (with the folks) a couple of years ago...

billie's words

i'd just like to dream of a cottage by a stream with my man
where a few flowers grew and perhaps a kid or two like my man.

oh, my man, i love him so, he'll never know...
when he takes me in his arms, the world is right all right.


even when we disagree, i can't help but think of how lucky i am to have him. yeah, i wish the mcats and med school were over and done with. yeah, i wish we had more of an income and more time to play, but really, it's my life, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

utahhh...

utah
Originally uploaded by atb20.

things have been mad around here... "here" being both in my head and in this office where i type (4 grants due in the space of a week!). thankfully, i have been offered a reprieve. my folks are taking me skiing (sans mcat studier) in a couple of weeks. i'd almost forgotten what the out of doors looked like... i am now marking the days on my calendar.

currently consuming

update

the traffic light is on the fritz again. if you don't hear from me for a while, please check the local mental hopistals.

honk, honk

honk honk
Originally uploaded by atb20.

so, i want to make a confession. i haven't done any homework all weekend. and i've got absolutely no desire to start now. i'm not in the mood to do much of anything except lounge on the couch... eat chocolate... maybe knit a couple of little goodies... i'm actually dying to show them off, but since they're going to one of my few loyal readers, i will wait until they've been presented in person before i present them in blog.
**
this lovely sunday morning began with the soothing sounds of horns from the street below. thanks to a spastic traffic light, i was forced to endure hours of incessant honking. i was actually yelling through my closed window eighteen floors up because by 1pm the cicadadic rhythm of the taxi horns had actually taken my sanity. i think my neighbors were concerned. it was at this point i decided to leave home to run some errands. thank goodness. i returned home after the light was fixed and what little sanity i possess had returned.

the cult of celebrity-ish

as i cave in to a few moments of entertainment tonight, i want to make something clear: a woman who is a professional wrestler cum "dancer with the stars" is NOT a celebrity. equally, a woman who was in "america's top model" and engaged to a "brady" is NOT a celebrity either.

puppy love

so. i'm still here. and despite my hectic schedule i still seem to suffer from occasional bouts of wanting stuff. yesterday i was reading a book about psychodynamic developmental theory, and it was all about how special the mother-infant bond is. while reading it, all i wanted was a little baby milmoosk in my arms exhibiting gaze recognition and secure attachment. i had to remind myself repeatedly that it would not be good to start my job search looking 6 months pregnant. repeatedly. this incessant ticking of the old biological clock is starting to get louder, and mil is getting frightened. though i know that there's a part of him that is excited as i am, he seems better able to separate a want from a need and an intelligent idea from a stupid one. these are things i seem unable to do at the moment. fortunately, the two jobs, two classes, and the internship seem to keep time moving pretty quickly. one moment it's monday and i'm dreading the week ahead... a few moments later its friday afternoon and i can't believe how much crap i didn't get done.

i've started a little campaign this past week thanks to dutch and my own need to have something to look forward to... i'm going to start bargaining for a puppy for my birthday (in june). see, i have this little rule: since mil hates izzy (though i'm convinced at some level he loves her dearly), and i can be retardedly impulsive when it comes to pets (case-in-point: rose-breasted cockatoo with a 4-digit price tag purchased 3 days after my $50 lovebird died), it is up to mil to make the next pet purchase. the way i figure it, there are several things working in my favor: (a) puppies are cute, (b) mil really wants a dog, too, (c) mil will likely have a lot of time off over the summer to puppy-raise, (d) i will be going to a normal work schedule starting next fall, (e) and mil will still be working insane hours, so i will be lonely, and (f) puppies are damn cute. sounds good, right? work with me here, folks!

a little science

central park in winter
Originally uploaded by atb20.

perhaps i should just stop reading. that might be good. then i might not be so worried about the direction in which our country creeps a little more every day. i could maintain a steady diet of fox news and remain blissfully unaware that children are dying in darfur and diplomacy is losing what little foothold it had in the middle east. i could think that all muslims are bad and good teenagers never have sex. it would be so much easier.

unfortunately, it's difficult to unlearn how to read. i'd have to give up dan brown along with the new york times, and chances are i'd still occasionally flip past bbc world news and accidentally get real news. not to mention what would happen to my job... i don't think they hire too many illiterate research assistants.

so today i learned that nasa is editing their press release about a white dwarf star so as not to frighten people about the eventual demise of our sun -- hundreds of billions of years from now. that's a wee bit disconcerting, but what was even more so was that kansas school board removed the big bang from their science curriculum in 1999, and i don't remember hearing so much as a peep about it! it's these little things that get buried in the 5th page of the newspaper that scare me... its the little things that change a country, not the big things. and i think bush et al. are happy to have us duke it out over roe v. wade while they surreptitiously change educational curricula and fund abstinence only "education." so far it seems to be working...

btw, happy valentine's day!

brr...

trees in winter
Originally uploaded by atb20.

so, i did end up venturing out yesterday -- hell, anything not to write a paper, right? well, it started out innocently enough. brunch with the folks in their new apartment (they're to thank for the tree top photo). i could do that and easily make it back for some quality homework time before mil returned from mcat class. alas, my parents taunted me with the prospect of sledding in the freshly fallen snow, and who am i to resist the awesome power of sledding in the country -- even if it involves a treacherous drive to the suburbs on a day when the mayor staunchly warned against any automobile travel. but, seriously, sledding vs. homework. not much of a contest. needless to say it was long past twilight when i returned home to set to work... and by then mil was home with hopes of catching up on some west wing. clearly, this was not meant to be. the only question i have is this: how did i ever make it through college?

gun control is wrong

just plain wrong. thanks for the link, ms. doodlebug.

snowy sunday

i woke up this morning with a flash of inspiration... i thought i had the perfect name for my blog... but that might mean throwing off my three loyal readers... so, i've tucked away the perfect name for the moment and made some fun banners for this one. besides, if i have a new blog name, i might have to have a new blog, and i'm not ready for that.
**
what have i been up to for the last several days, you ask. well, interestingly enough, i've been working and going to school. i know, this is a great departure from my usual pattern of working and, um, going to school. honestly, i don't know why anyone reads this blog. mil has given it up entirely. when i ask him if he's read it, he says, "no, honey, but if you want me to, i will." that's the sign of a budding literary career, isn't it? fortunately, i never had that as a goal.

so, this weekend we're getting our first blizzard of the winter. it's a beautiful whiteout complete with icy window sills and blustery winds. fortunately, i've got no reason to leave the apartment. yesterday, i didn't leave home till 8pm when i had to find my way down to the lower east side for mbajackass's birthday festivities. mil and i had many broken engagements to make up for, and leave it to us to pick the one event that involved a blizzardy trek to rivington st. it was all worth it to hear the slightly shocked sound of mj's voice over the cell phone, "you're coming? really?" granted we lasted all of a half an hour before shuttling off for home, but at least i could say i left the house. who knows if that'll happen today.

happy tea

Chaleira
Originally uploaded by dan nation.

there's a little afghan restaurant on 9th ave and 53rd st that's tucked away between a take out place and a newstand. no larger than the newstand, the restaurant barely fits five tiny tables, but they make the most savory "spinach" (sooo much more than spinach) and the bolani kachaloo are enough to cause small skirmishes at the table. that said, the best thing about ariana is the "happy tea" -- a spicy, cardamon-y concoction that wakes you up out of the consumption coma (induced by the several orders of bolani kachaloo required to keep the peace) and the giggly smirk you get from wali, the lone waiter, when you order it. it's been far too long since i've had my happy tea, but i have high hopes that with the return of mbajackass we'll be seeing much more of wali and that tasty tea.

sinking a little lower

so, what started out as a journey toward self-improvement has turned me toward a life of smut... a few weeks ago, mil and i re-discovered they gym. we were looking forward to a healthier semester replete with regular physical activity. it was to be a beautiful thing. then i remembered the table full of trashy magazines that welcomes you to our local fitness center. ok!, hello, us weekly, star, people... months worth of brad and angelina, jen and vince, tom and katie, charlie and denise, and, of course, paris and her fiance of the month... for years i was able to resist, looking down on the poor wretches who slavishly followed the ups and downs of people they've never met. now... now i'm one of them. i even found myself watching "extra" last night waiting to find out what angelina had to say about marrying brad. save me...

identity

there are certain things that my propriety keeps me from discussing with the world of the web, but let's just say that there's nothing like a good husband to take away the stresses of the day... i found myself singing the lyrics of a snappy junior brown song last night: i make the most of what i got at home and forget what i left behind. i'm halfway gone, but my better half's coming home.

i know a lot of folks are driven to succeed... whether it be money, power, academic achievement... i think that's cool, but i've come to realize that i'm just not one of those people. i'm happy to work, but i'm happier to play, and if it's going to stress me out or exhaust me, i'd rather not do it at all. not much of a good capitalist upbringing, i guess.

nevertheless, i've discovered a bit about myself by going through this internship thing. i have a psychodynamic therapist as my supervisor, and, as such, she requires me to do a lot of self-examination as part of my work with my clients. one of the things i've realized is that i've always been in a rather driven environment. by comparison, i've always been a bit of a slacker, happy in the middle type. i don't need to be in the top of my class or be in the most clubs to feel good about myself, so i always thought i was kind of a free spirit. turns out, when you're not at an ivy league university or a snooty prep school, there are a lot of people who take things a lot easier. huh... my supervisor seems to think of me as a bit of a neurotic, achiever type, which is really funny because i just never knew i could be thought of that way. i guess it's always good to take a peak at yourself through somebody else's eyes and realize you're not quite as normal as you thought you were.

that said, when i'm surrounded by these masochistic young folk who are gunning for a phd, i feel like i'm judged for "just" getting a masters. i find myself explaining... you see, i'm older, and i like to make money every once in a while... and you know, someday, i might just go back to school and get that phd in social work... really. i feel like somehow i have to prove i'm smart. one professor i work for seems to be surprised whenever i can figure something out on my own, or type up a powerpoint slide in a couple of minutes... like somehow because i'm just a lowly masters student i don't have the brainpower of those goal-oriented phd students (born in the 80s, no less). then again, i spend about half my week with smart kids who are special ed-ing their way through junior high and very intelligent adults who never got through high school. by comparison, i guess i seem like the masochistic, over-achiever. go figure.

truthiness

i was just hunting through the msnbc website to find a story that mil and i watched last night... it took me a full five minutes of searching through various stories and headlines to find it, and in the meantime, i discovered that:



the story that i was actually looking for was this one:


apparently, the cia -- our most powerful weapon against terrorism (note: not terror), had mistakenly posted the photo of abu hamza al-masri in its attempt to find midhat mursi al-sayid 'umar. the former is a "radical london imam" and the latter is al-qaida's expert on poisons and lethal chemicals. hmm... honest mistake. now i'm not sure what frightens me most about this... the fact that the supposed experts on terrorism can't tell the difference between one muslim man and another. or the fact that hundreds of individuals are being held in detention centers in guantanamo bay without charges. or the fact that our president is illegally wiretapping american citizens... or maybe, just maybe, its ALL THREE! i'm also bothered by the fact that a story of this magnitude required a full five minutes of searching in order to find at the bottom of the "u.s. news -- peculiar postings."

the thing i like most about my internship:

i'm nobody's assistant. can i tell you how sick i am of being called "so-and-so's ass-istant"? it doesn't happen often, but when it does, my blood boils. interesting that i chose this job two months after i'd finally gotten a non-assistant job (though i was technically an "assistant general manager," there was no "general manager," so it doesn't really count). then again that job sucked, so making peanuts working for world-renowned psychologists while i got my msw seemed so much better by comparison. what was i thinking...?

can i tell you, my greatest fear of returning to the business world is that i'll have to accept some crappy assistant job where they pay me big bucks to make sure mr. ceo has his dinner reservation at babbo. (is that not the hot place anymore? these academics aren't really into the hot-restaurant-of-the-moment thing, so i'm out of the loop on that one.) i guess i just have to make a pact with myself that i won't sink that low... money just isn't worth it anymore. if i can be a therapist, and make $50K/year vs. be an assistant and make $70K, i'm taking the therapist gig. but what if they offer me $100K? can i really turn that down? or would i turn into johnny damon and say "just call me ass-kissin' moosk"?

dumb like a moose

izzy mac
Originally uploaded by atb20.

i know that it is sunday. i'm pretty sure it's january. classes have begun, and my brain is still goo. when people ask me what's going on, i stutter for a moment, trying to remember who and where i am... what's going on, eh? i'm alive. i seem to be talking to you. what was the question? in my dream world, mil and i go back to italy to spend a month "re-connecting." i want to have a whole month away from all responsibility, all work/school-related nonsense, all the "how the f-ck are we going to pay rent?" crap.

mil has had a month off from school, but he starts back next week. this makes me sad. i've had him to myself for whole days at a time this past month. last weekend we spent almost the entire time wrapped in blankets watching movies and tv. it was heaven. starting next week he'll be back to his 7-day/week schedule w/ no moosk-day. i'll have to make due with snippets of time on saturday morning and sunday afternoon. pphlllbbt.

the only hope i have is that one semester of this hellish year is done... only one semester left. i can do it. i just have to forget that i have needs and wants beyond work and school (husband, what husband? puppy, what puppy? baby, what baby?). it's just the bird and me for a while... and she's sort of a pain. quite literally. (i currently have little red marks around my neck and shoulders from where she has decided to try to groom away all my imperfections. thanks, sweetie.) anyway, i'm sure more interesting things have happened but i can't remember them. i do remember that i promised to give a shout-out to loyal reader and future daddy, metsfan. someday, mil and i will see you and cat more than three times/year... someday... mil has promised me that if he goes to medschool in nyc, he will let me live in brooklyn. yay!

der winter ist kalt

the hudson
Originally uploaded by atb20.

indeed it is. we had a brief reprieve this week with highs in the 50s, but that came slamming to a halt with today's high of 29. i know you massachusetts folk laugh at our paltry twenty degrees, but we have to walk... outside! okay, so it's not really that bad, but i'm feeling especially lazy this weekend, and i like to have a good excuse. yesterday mil and i left the apartment twice -- once to workout (downstairs) and again to get more tissues... it wasn't until i was frumped-out (a la britney) in the elevator and ran into a woman in 3" heels (in rainy 30 degree weather) that i remembered it was saturday night. ah, i love married life...

yay politics!

i was sitting here twiddling my thumbs, listening to air america, and i thought to myself -- woo-hoo, alito! here's a guy who'll really listen to the word of the law and interpret it, no law-making here, just strict, unbiased interpretation... hahaha... yeah, apparently this dude was really excited about being a member of this club at princeton that fought against the introduction of female students at the college... cause, you know, female students would take away the sanctity of a princeton education. mm.. that's the kind of guy i want making decisions about my civil rights.
**
outside of the political sphere, there've been news reports of a young woman in new york taking time away from her masters in social work to pursue a graduate degree in sudoku. have you tried this sh*t?? it's seriously addictive. i've been trying to get mil hooked on the stuff, but he's resisting my peer pressure. what good's a husband if you can't share an addiction?
**
finally, a post, eh? not much has changed. i survived meeting with my potentially homicidal client last week, and it looks like i'll be seeing him again tomorrow. exciting, eh? otherwise, i still want a puppy, and i've still got a cold... btw, thanks for the comments... i'm a little starstruck that dutch has been stopping by my blog, since he has just about the cutest little kid ever -- and quite a popular blog to boot. and, as always, i'm amazed that someone who writes as well as doodlebug checks my rinky-dink blog every now and again. and mil... darling mil... well, you know how much you mean to me...

bloggered out

yeah... i think i've hit the wall. not the good wall, mind you, but the wall that stops you dead in your tracks and tells you it's time to try something else. i will type here every once in a while if i feel so inclined, but it won't be anything regular or substantive... more likely just mindless ramblings that tumble out of my overcrowded, poorly-functioning brain. hell, that's what i've pretty much doing anyway, but from now on i'm relieving myself of any pressure to be consistent about it. hope ya'll don't mind. i still plan to be a regular reader, and perhaps i'll become a more regular commentor, but that's about it. now with all that talk of regularity... i'd best be on my way.
xo, moosk

over the hump... sorta

haunted house
Originally uploaded by atb20.

i've made it out the other side... i think. no papers, finals, projects for a whole month... ahhh... then again...

last night my supervisor basically confirmed my suspicion that i am the least fortunate intern in the history of social work... i've had 3 emergency situations in 4 months... 2 calls to acs, and last night i had a potentially homicidal patient in my office... a teenager, no less. it sucks. i'm beginning to think that god (or whatever higher being i ascribe to) doesn't want me to be a social worker. i mean how the f-ck am i supposed to deal with this kind of sh-t?!? i want a job where i can go home and sleep at night, not worry about whether the adolescent i just met will kill someone because of something i did or did not do. i don't know how mil will deal with having other people's lives in his hands. this is bad enough, and i'm not the one holding the scalpel.

what the - ?

"Two weeks of treaty talks on global warming neared an end today with the world's current and projected leaders in emissions of greenhouse gases, the United States and China, still refusing to take any mandatory steps to avoid dangerous climate change."
-NYTimes

winter is...

Bathesda Terrace
Originally uploaded by ryecroft.

...brief moments of beauty followed by days of grimey slush and cold noses.
**
i'm vershmeckled (my own personal spelling, thank you very much)... the brain is a vat of goo and the muscles i once knew have become useless lumps of flesh. i still have a final exam to finish and a brochure to type up on the perils of medicare plan d. woo-hoo... before you turn green with envy, i also just learned that the grant which supports my position (which in turn supports my education) has suffered a rather large cut thanks to some military operation in iraq and a hurricane that destroyed an major metropolitan area earlier this year... so, moosk's days of limited financial stability might be numbered.

since i'm tired and i still have miles to go before i sleep, i'll leave you with this link. buying gifts through the hunger site will make you feel good about the rampant consumerism that ensnares us all this time of year...

first snow

trees at dusk
Originally uploaded by atb20.

so, this morning, mil wakes me up at about 7:30 to tell me it's snowing. i could hear that little bit of childhood glee of the first snow of the season... (mil and i are both from warmer climes, so real snow always comes as a bit of a surprise.) unfortunately, by the time i'd pulled myself out of bed it was mostly slush on the streets and a light dust of white on the rooftops... i guess you've got to get up before 10 to really appreciate it.
**
so, yeah, i couldn't keep myself away, but posting will still be slow... btw, i've uploaded a few thanksgiving parade shots to flikr if anyone's interested... we were forunate to have a nice (warm) spot about eye level with scooby.

please stand by

due to the onslaught of final exams and end-of-semester presentations, moosk's brain has experienced technical difficulties and is no longer in service. we hope to return you to our original programming after december 14th. till then, safe and happy shopping to all!

congestion

Ernst & Young
Originally uploaded by atb20.

it continues... the endless running, dripping, sniffling, deafening mess. a smarter woman would call a doctor, but that woman would also be willing to sacrifice an entire morning or evening to my PCP. i'm just not sure i'm ready to do that. nothing a good four-day weekend won't cure, right? right.
**
so, many of you have probably made it to the theatre to see the latest installment of the harry potter cinema series. i must admit, i too felt the draw, and actually made it there opening night thanks to the generousity and forethought of fellow fan. (thanks, ab!) while i wasn't as disappointed as mil, i found it to be a bit of a mish-mosh. nothing close to the cuaron masterpiece of "prisoner of azkaban" -- though not as hokey as the first film. individual scenes were actually quite engrossing, but the film came together in an awkward fashion. (kinda like my words.) i'm curious to hear what others thought since this wasn't my favorite book, and i know for many it was...

whole foods + sunday evening = stupid

whole foods
Originally uploaded by atb20.

yeah... it was nuts. i don't know what part of me thought it would be a good idea, but i was in desperate need of vegetarian chili, and associated was all out. well, that and whole foods tortillas are muy, muy bien. so here i am a few nerves shy of a meltdown and a fridge full of yummy tortillas. i guess it all evens out in the end.

back when i was in high school, whole foods was just an old hippy hangout. lots of sprouts and organic granola in bulk. i loved it. it was the only place i could get a hummus sandwich while admiring the cute, scraggly-looking bagboys (give me a break, it was the 90s...). it was a far cry from the whole foods of today -- no jamba juice, no low carb sugar, no bugaboos clogging the lanes, and certainly no line stewards guiding hoardes of yuppies a half mile long. ah well... this is what i get for having the luxury of yummy, buttery tortillas around the corner...

grandpa

Grandpa
Originally uploaded by atb20.

this month my fiesty, old grandpa would be turning 108. it's easy for me to keep track of how old he would be because he's exactly 80 years older than me. he was married to my youngest, and only living grandparent, the glamorous and spry grammie, who was a mere 62 when i was born (i'll let you do the math since ms. g would not be cool with my revealing her age -- even in a relatively anonymous forum like this).

grandpa died just before my 13th birthday. he had been in and out of hospitals since he was 55, suffering from maladies as benign as shingles to such killers as colon cancer (i think that was circa 1960), so it was a surprise to us that he went off with such little fanfare. one moment he was on the couch, needling my grandmother for not making his sandwich fast enough, and the next he was gone.

for as long as i knew him, he would croon in his gravelly voice: you'll miss me when i'm gone, baby. apparently, it was actually a song, but my grandpa wasn't much of a singer. he just wanted to make sure we appreciated his acidic wit while he was around. now that i'm older, i wish that i'd had more time to talk to him. he had such stories to tell. born in 1897 to immigrant parents, the youngest of 18 (or 17, depending on where you look) kids, he would tell stories of sleeping head-to-foot in his tenement apartment. apparently his father counted their feet when he came home to make sure they were all accounted for. i heard another story about the lickin' he got for stealing a nickel from his father to go see a movie. (he always claimed that my brother and i were lucky to have my "easy-going" dad around, because we'd have a lot more lickins if we were his kids. i always thought that was funny... "lickins.") we never heard much about his service in world war I and II, but he was there for both. (i wonder what he'd have to say about the sorry state of affairs that currently exists in iraq... hard to say.) later in life, my grandpa owned an italian restaurant in foley's square. he and his young wife were the lives of the party as they entertained famous judges, politicians, and scandal-ridden defendants from that day. i was most excited when he said that salvador dali came to his restaurant one day... "weird-looking guy" was the only quote i got out of him. as a younger man, my grandpa gave up on formal religion and lost touch with much of his family in the process. this came in handy, though, when he later met my grammie, a catholic-school girl gone bad. despite his distaste for religion, grandpa lived by the ten commandments ("that's all the religion i need."), and was quick with the lessons for us young folk "be a leader, not a follower," "listen to your father," and mil's personal favorite: "ugh, get that d*mn bird out of your mouth."*

happy birthday, grandpa. you were right. we miss you.

* author's note: the bird was never in my mouth.

oh...

and what about this one...


and this one.

yeah, and this one is asking $479K...

metsfan, cat, ab, are you with me yet???

elegy... the real estate edition

manhattan

here we have a lovely 1br apartment in the hip, desireable, mid-village area. asking $500K, this 480 sq. ft. gem would fit izzy and perhaps a couple more of her feathered friends, but mil and i would have to lilve with my folks...

brooklyn

this charming apartment in the idyllic, family-friendly park slope section of brooklyn offers slightly more space for your $500K. at 550 sq. ft., mil and i would have room to sleep and eat, but izzy might be consigned to the fire escape... and little'uns would be out of the question.

westchester

at 1,778 sq. ft. we've finally found a place larger than our current 1br. apt. far from stunning, this cute little home is near a quaint, historic town along the hudson river, a mere 40 minutes by train to the heart of manhattan. mil, izzy, and i would have plenty of room, and we'd even have some space for a couple of little ones. of course, we don't have $500K laying around, and this little house would probably require quite a bit of work to become the moosk family home... and there'd be a lot of 'holding it' with one bathroom in the house.

houston

(go to the website to get the full effect.) so now you see my dilemma... not that it's an actual dilemma at this point given, (a) we don't know where mil will get into medschool, and (b) we don't have anywhere near $500K. but houston is eh as a city (though this house is definitely in the cooler part of town), and all of my friends (or at least the highest concentration of my friends) are here in ny. anyway, this is why i say i'll be happy to live anywhere, because despite the fact that i love nyc and i love my friends here, anyplace is cheaper.

breakthrough

Window bird
Originally uploaded by marissa b..

some days this therapy sh*t kicks *ss. i had only one client today, but she was my most difficult... today, i finally made some progress, felt that first bit of contact with someone who'd barely held my gaze the first few sessions. it was amazing... here's to hoping i don't screw it up next week.

nyquil... take me away...

so, here i am -- back at work on a monday morning and drugged to high heaven. how does that work? i took the nyquil fourteen hours ago and i still feel like i'm going to zonk out on my desk. my body is floating in teh cotton-y drowsiness that is night-time nasal decongestants. key word: nighttime. i'm supposed to function under these conditions?!? i would have used my love-child, the afrin, but i've used it at least three times in the last week, and i don't want to become any more addicted than i already am.... heelllppp...

so, this guy walks into a taco bell...

another view of the park
Originally uploaded by atb20.

oftentimes, i write about how much i love this grizzly city. today was no exception. take a look... it doesn't get much more beautiful than this.

however, prior to a much needed saunter through the fall leaves, i met mil for one of our favorite outings... taco bell on fourth street. despite the college students and the multi-million dollar apartments, the village is still a rather colorful place. case in point, mil and i were dining at one of the small tables on the far side of the "restaurant." a large black man in a hoodie and with an intimidating, limping gait walks in and heads straight for the bathroom door. on noticing it locked, he yells over to the cashier, "the door's locked!" "yeah, it's for customers only." "well, i'm a customer!" "you have a receipt?" "i don't need a receipt!" the cashier dutifully buzzes open the bathroom door.

(i'm thankful that the cashier has the same sense of self-preservation i do.) about ten minutes later, mil and are finally breaking into the last of our gastronomic feast, and this ancient, hunched-over lady who had been sitting at a table nearby heads over to the bathroom door. she tries the knob unsuccessfully. she tries it again. still not opening. she then looks over to the cashier (a new one this time) who buzzes her in; however, the door still doesn't open. confusion ensues. mil and i commisserate, recognizing that the scary man has not come back out yet (now talk about scary -- what's that guy been doing in the restroom for ten minutes?). eventually, some guy knocks on the door and hears the guy in there, and tells the old lady, but she doesn't hear, so she continues to knock on the door and gets other cashiers involved in the effort with various buzzing and trying the knob going on. meanwhile mil and i are picturing this large man taking out the three-foot tall grandma as he storms out the restroom. fortunately, after five more minutes of this, the guy eventually came out, and despite a few choice words hurled in her direction the guy left her alone as he made his way out of the "restaurant."

hello, texas

Eastern Penn skylight
Originally uploaded by ClemieWynn.

your senators (and many others) just passed an amendment to withhold the right of habeus corpus for those hundreds of detainees in guantanamo bay who have yet to be charged with a crime...

"(e) no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to consider -

1) an application for a writ of habeas corpus based on policies established by the Secretary of Defense under Section 1071 (a) of the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2006 filed by an alien who is detained by the secretary of defense, or

(2) any other action, challenging any aspect of the detention of an alien who is detained by the secretary of defense as an enemy combatant."

thanks, lindsay graham, for making america a little less free.

see obsidian wings for more.

old friends

kiddos (circa 1979)
Originally uploaded by atb20.

bro, showgirl, & moosk in the radioflyer.

yeah, those were simpler times. my biggest concern when i woke up in the morning was whether showgirl would be home when i ran over to her house at the crack of dawn -- this was always indicated by the garage door. open = home. closed = not home, sad moosk. (btw, it's really weird to refer to a three-year old as "showgirl." perhaps i should come up with a new moniker -- especially since it's been over a year since she's been in a vegas show. somehow "p.e. teacher" doesn't have the same ring, though.) over the years, showgirl and i have straddled ourselves on opposite sides of the country. she in vegas, me in new york. we've also followed quite different pathways: at 19, showgirl became pregnant with her older boyfriend's child. she left the comfort of her small texas college, driving distance from her parents and younger brother, to pursue love in las vegas. unfortunately, love didn't pursue her, and at 24, she was a divorced single mother with a smart, sassy, four-year old daughter. if you met her four years ago, you wouldn't know how she did it... she spent her nights doing acrobatics at a show on the strip, and during the day she worked furiously toward her BA in education, all the while caring ceaselessly for her young daughter. meanwhile in nyc, moosk was living the carefree life, working in theatre during the day, going out to drinks with friends in the evenings, and cozying up with mil in a parent-subsidized apartment in the west village (that i miss sooo much) on the weekends. now, once again, showgirl and i find ourselves in similar points in our lives. she was remarried this spring, and mil and i married the summer before. she is now gestating baby #2, as mil and i try to figure out when baby #1 will come into the picture. though still thousands of miles apart, it is interesting how our lives have come back together.

new york in fall

Pears & apples
Originally uploaded by vermilionink.

one of the things i love most about living in new york city is the prevalence of fresh fruit. surprised? seriously, every morning i walk by a stand that sells fresh fruit on the street corner... bananas for $.25, pears for $.50, and the apples... don't get me started on the apples... the harbinger of fall... they are amazing. this year, i am a big jona gold fan. a month and a half ago, i wouldn't have had a clue what jona gold was... one of austin powers lady friends? seriously, it's good stuff.
**
so... yeah... i'm brain dead. i've lost it. remember back when i could type a complete sentence and it would make sense? yeah. that doesn't happen anymore. i miss my brain. it was fun while it lasted. oh, yeah, i remember what i wanted to tell ya'll. a fun little tidbit from class courtesy of the world health organization. in a quick and dirty comparison of healthcare in france, israel, and the us, the us fares particularly poorly... for example, in israel, the life expectancy at birth is 80 years; in france, 79 years; in the us, 77 years. in israel, child mortality is 7 boys or 6 girls per 1000; in france, 5 boys or 4 girls per 1000; in the us, our child mortality rate is 9 boys or 7 girls per 1000. israel and france both have universal health coverage, and they spend $1890 and $2736 per capita on health respectively. in the us, we spend $5274 per capita on health -- that's 14.6% of our GDP as compared to israel's 9.1% and france's 9.7% -- all for a system that's ranked 37th in the world. that means that much poorer countries are keeping their citizens healthier than our expensive, elitist system in the united states. sad, eh? do with it what you will...

you don't have to be freud...

yellow & black
Originally uploaded by atb20.

...to figure out this dream.

mil and i are getting ready to leave for a conference in atlanta, when i realize that i don't know exactly what time the flight is. i look at the clock, and it's 12:30pm, and our flight is at 2pm... uh-oh, when's the next flight, maybe we can book that one? wait... i haven't booked any flights yet. i haven't booked a hotel either. i don't have a bird-sitter for izzy, and we should have left a half an hour ago! at which point the alarm goes off, and i wake up in a panic to start packing. it takes me a moment to realize that there was, in fact, no flight, no conference, no hotel... but, oh yeah, there was...

freud would probably tell me this was about some fears about my sexual performance, but i'll take it at face value: i'm still a little eeked-out by that darn hotel cancellation.