the one about snow

Facts:

1. I live in the City of New York.
2. I grew up in Western New York.

These two powers combined make me a Snow Authority. Meaning: I know snow, and I know mismanaged snow.

The first 12 years of my life were spent in the confines of a city in Western New York (think Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse). We had a lot of snow days. Because we could easily get 2 feet of snow in a day. And the city could certainly handle it. But let me paint you a picture:

Say you have an intersection. So you have 2 streets and 4 sidewalks combining. 2 feet of snow have fallen, and both streets and sidewalks are plowed. What do you get at the corner? A 10-foot mountain of snow.  Give or take. My math skills leave something to be desired, but it divides up like this:

Original 2 feet of snow + street 1's 2 feet of snow + street 2's 2 feet of snow + sidewalk 1's 2 feet of snow + sidewalk 2's 2 feet of snow = 10 feet of snow.

You know what's not 10 feet tall? An elementary school child walking to school. Roads and sidewalk could be clear, but school would be canceled so as not to endanger children walking to school, who would be invisible to drivers behind 10 foot piles of snow.

At the age of 12 I moved to a suburb on the shore of Lake Ontario. We got lake effect snow. White-outs, craziness, etc. School canceled less there than anywhere else because this township could open a university on snow removal. If they hadn't been so prepared, we may not have had class from December to April. No joke.

i moved to the City of New York after college. And in recent years we have been getting some serious blizzards. I have passed the point in my life where it snows 10 inches and I say, "That's not a blizzard! That's a dusting!" Because in New York, people see a flake and freak out. There is actually no place to put the snow. I recognize that. I would not want to have a car to dig out.  And some trains literally cower in fear. Me, I pull on my bear hat and trudge through, thankful for the property owners who have shoveled their sidewalks by the time I leave for work. 

I wasn't in the city for Snowpocalypse 2010. I got back 2 days later to semi-plowed streets. I live in an outer borough, and our mayor (or whoever was in charge) made it abundantly clear that the outer boroughs might as well be on Mars. We took a cab from the train station, and the cab driver--who said he lived one street over from us and his street hadn't been plowed yet--told us he had good news and bad news when he approached our block. Good news: Street was plowed. Bad news: Someone was moving so he couldn't get down the street. Caveat: There was one small side street prior to our building and the moving truck. Had this street been plowed, we could have been dropped off 1 block closer to home instead of using our rolling suitcases as snowplows in the middle of that intersection.

That night we were so excited to see the true toll the blizzard had taken--2 feet of snow, remember--that we went out for a walk at 11:00 at night. What did we find? On a main street--a commercial street--three enormous plows went by. The street didn't have a flake of snow on it, so the plows just made a lot of noise. To get to this street we passed at least 5 streets that were completely unplowed. We later learned that the City has no plan when it sends the plows out. They literally just plow wherever they want, and I'm positive it's easier to plow where there is no snow. And commercial streets are more important. Because people need to shop. And they can, when their streets aren't plowed and they can't get out.

Please allow me to hit my head on my desk now.

All weekend we heard about the blizzard ready to strike this week. I was so excited last night. I had Weather.com and MTA.info and my employer's web site all open. The radar said it was snowing. I looked out and saw snow on the ground but did not see snow in action. It was the tiniest, fastest-moving snow I'd ever seen. And by this morning we had about 8 inches of it. Let me be a Western New Yorker for a minute. Not. A. Blizzard.

But 8 inches of snow in New York is a lot like 2 feet in Rochester.

And under that snow is trash from before the first blizzard. Did I mention the sanitation department does the plowing?

Only in New York.

the one about fiction versus nonfiction

At approximately 7:30 this evening, I will submit my last and largest paper of the semester (a project referenced in this post) and thereby have completed all my work for the semester. This will also mean I only need to write a thesis to get my MA.

"Only" write a thesis. Ha.

Writing and revising this paper got me to thinking about how I write, especially with reference to the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction.

When I write fiction, I give entirely too much information up front. I've been writing a novel on and off since high school (aka: a long time ago), and when I workshopped the beginning of it last summer, my instructor informed me that I don't need to put every single fact in the opening chapter / paragraph /sentence / word. I am familiar with the concepts of allusion and foreshadowing, but apparently I don't use them in my writing. I basically say, "Hey! This is important! She is sad because of THIS. Think about that? Remember how she's sad? That's going to affect EVERYTHING. Pay attention!"

This is compared to my nonfiction, critical writing. In which I catch my speed and the paper goes ka-pow about two pages before it ends. And professors think perhaps it should start where it ends. And are kind of right. 

I can revise fiction until the end of time. In fact, sometimes I revise more than I write because writing fiction is hard. Plotting doesn't come easily, and narration sometimes drivels off into inanity. Not unlike my critical work. I'd rather do all manner of unpleasant things instead of revising critical work. But Husband is a no-holds-barred editor these days--since I have recently become able to handle his constructive, useful criticism without yelling at him that he has no idea what I'm trying to say so he should stop trying to tell me how to say it--and informed me that my most recent paper, although working better towards getting to the point earlier, still lagged in the beginning. 

You see, I finish a paper and I say, "WHEEE! I'm done! Where's the wine?" I revise for typos, things spell-check misses, and to clarify word choice. I am excellent at the sentence level. I have great difficulty distancing myself from the text and understanding that time spent getting to the point needs to, well, get to the point. This does not mean starting the paper from scratch. It means tightening language in earlier paragraphs and adding sentences that directly point to the thesis (and later, the conclusion). And generally realizing that not everything I think made it onto the page, even though I can read it between the lines.

For example, I wrote about disabled siblings in disability films serving as foils for their non-disabled siblings. And spent a good page defining the disability, which the film didn't name, without referencing how the unnaming related to the foiling. You follow? Without that referent, the entire section is rendered useless, however interesting it might sound.

Whereas if I were writing fiction, I'd have said a million times how important that was to the point the story intended to make. I'd beat you over the head with it. 

Thus, I need to switch my head-beating techniques between my fictional and non-fictional writing. I've got the skills, I'm just using them incorrectly, as per usual.

the one about holiday decorations

I must be getting old. Or turning into my mother. 

I don't mean this in a bad way. I simply mean that the period from college and a few years afterward--often called "my twenties"--is drawing to a close. And at the same time, so is my rebellion against Christmas decorations.

My dear mother is an amazing craftswoman. She quilts, she cross-stitches, and she has absolutely spoiled me with her ability to make curtains, throw pillows, and pillow shams. There was even an interlude during which we make a duvet cover without a pattern. Putting the duvet inside the cover involved me crawling inside it. Obviously.

And she loves the holidays. It starts in the fall when she gets out all her leaf-pattered paraphernalia and her 99 stuffed pumpkins. There are table runners, table toppers (note the different), place mats, wall hangings, and it's all very thematic. Autumn is her favorite.

And then there's Christmas. She's toned it down over the years--she says this and I believe her due to the lack of bows on the curtain rods when I get home--but my adolescent home is still where the holidays begin for me. I have never decorated as thoroughly as my mother, so I don't really feel it until I get there.  And I love it.  

This year, as it is my second and final year in graduate school, the lead-up to the holidays coincides with finals. Also, Husband and I don't live in the same apartment. For these reasons, buying and purchasing a Christmas tree seems idiotic. (We are also those people who have to throw away their tree on, say, December 17th because we leave town for the holidays and don't want the tree to turn into a pile of match sticks and burn.)

This year, my brain is thousands of miles away from grad school, and I have rebelled from writing papers, doing research, or otherwise being productive by decorating the apartment at very spontaneous intervals.

Examples:

• Last weekend, after getting back from Husband's parents' house for Thanksgiving, I came home and almost immediately hung up the needlepoint mitten garland my mom made for me in college. (Yep, I had decorations in college.) This was inspired by the overnight transformation from Thanksgiving to Christmas decorations in my in-laws' house. I was suitably impressed.
• Later last weekend, when Husband and I were dutifully writing papers across from each other at the kitchen table, I got out the Christmas place mats my mother made me (gingerbread-people fabric, of course), the gingerbread man salt-and-pepper shakers that have been sitting on the window sill all year, and put them on the table. I also insisted we plug in the multicolored lights that hang over the window all year long. We worked hard, but we were festive.
• Last Monday, I came home from a harrowing trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy a comforter (another adventure in putting a duvet in a cover--this time with 100% less of my body inside it), which involved people on stilts dressed as nutcrackers singing in Lincoln Center, and a general inability to walk on the sidewalk. Also featured: a distaste for holiday consumerism in New York. And when I got home, Husband had cracked and bought a wreath from a Christmas tree vendor, desperate for the smell of pine. As we have no over-the-door hanger for such an item, it sat on the floor for a week, but it did smell nice. Saturday night after a late dinner, I came home and said, "I am hanging that up." I looped the attached wire over the door and it proceeded to slide down the door. I said, "We need leverage. Give me my umbrella!" Yep, on the outside of our door, we have a pine wreath. On the inside, we have an umbrella. It's like decorating with Rhianna.  (Cue a chorus of "under my umbrella-ella-ella, ay-ay-ay-ay...")
• Sunday afternoon, I cracked. I wanted a tree. Lots of friends had posted pictures of their trees on Facebook, and I was sitting watching What's Eating Gilbert Grape for the second time in as many days (for research purposes). I popped open the hope-chest-of-holiday-decor and unwrapped my ceramic tree. Husband moved the bed to plug it in. We picked a few choice ornaments to lay around it like presents. And we counted down when we lit it.

This led me to realize one important thing: Although, when starting our collection of Christmas ornaments, I had a theme in mind, another theme has cropped up unintentionally. I intended gingerbread men. Food has supplanted this. Both my own mother and my mother-in-law gave me cupcake ornaments. Gingerbread men are food. There the traditional German glass pickle. A pop-up toaster, complete with bread.

So, as our other newlywed friends post pictures of their blended decorations, we realize our greatest compromise in decorating has been the same compromise we have in cooking: sweet versus savory. Husband and I love food, and gosh darn it our holiday decor should reflect this. Someday we'll have a tree covered in cupcakes. And it will be delectable.

Happy holidays, everyone!  Once finals are over, we'll be jetting* up to my parents' house and making edible holiday items. Aka: cookies. Mountains of cookies.

*By jetting, I mean, "train-ing"  A slow, decrepit, train that is only on time 44% of the time.  Or is late 44% of the time.  Either way, I'm glad husband and our headphone jack splitter will be there. 

the one about pie that's not really about pie

Earlier today, I informed Husband I bought him a present at the farmer's market. I can't say what it is, because then Husband will find out before he gets here. He is going to like it.

Husband informed me that he bought a gallon of apple cider. Husband really likes cider; however, he often buys more than he has a capacity to consume. For instance: today, when he bought a gallon of cider and is leaving it for a weekend. As it is not pasturized, it will be apple cider vinegar by the time he gets back.  [EDIT: Husband claims he bought the cider yesterday. This improves the situation by 0.97%, which is really small.]

Husband then started talking kind of crazy and hyper. I said, "Stop drinking cider." He informed me he'd had three glasses already. That's a lot of sugar. Good, natural sugar, but sugar all the same, and Husband complains enough about the state of his pancreas. I think his pancreas needs antidepressants or something.

One thing I bought for me at the farmer's market was two mini-pies. I'm talking two inches round, and for my snack prior to class tonight. One apple crumb, one pumpkin. I began to eat it when Husband came back from a walk, upon which he planned to buy cheese. I asked him if he had bought cheese in the following manner:

Edited for punctuation and capitalization.

Me: CHEESE is the question, and CHEESE is the answer. I think that requires question marks. Here are some: ????????????????

Husband: Um, stop drinking cider?

Me: I have no cider I have pie

Husband: Same thing?

Me: Um, one is liquid the other is solid

Husband: For craziness?

Me: Au contraire. One is pie and the other is ... not pie. Liquid goes to your brain faster. Because you swallow it and it goes directly into your blood. Pie / solid has to be broken down into molecules of co7 and stuff, and that takes longer, and there is some splitting of atoms.

Husband: Oh, co7

Bottom line: The sugar contained in apples--named co7 for our purposes, because my copious knowledge of science, molecules, and chemistry tells me that--makes you communicate via Gchat in run-on sentences, which are not really sentences, because you don't use punctuation.

co7 = punctuation depleter.

Watch out for it on the news. It's going to be all the rage.

the one about hair

Within the last three months, I went from having very long hair to a cute, sweet, easy, "reverse bob." My stylist named it that. I'm not sure if it means that my scalp appears backward.

Why did I have so much hair to cut off, you may ask? Well, I got married three months ago, and I belong to the strange group of women who consider it essential to have approximately seven yards of hair to pile on top of their heads for their weddings. Except whenever I wear a ponytail higher than say, the nape of my neck: insta-headache. And I didn't want my hair overly structured and teased and sprayed with twelve kinds of lacquer to make it stay up.

Obviously I wore it in a French twist. Requiring full-scalp teasing, root-to-tip hairspray, a combination of 30-something hair and/or bobby pins, and the feeling that I had bound my head. Like foot-binding. But a head.

I am nothing if not consistent.

Cut to after the wedding, pins out, but hairspray + teasing still very much present. And the fact that, even though I had a spreadsheet detailing the whowhatwherewhenwhyhow of my wedding, I had not packed a bag for the wedding night. I did not have a contact case, a change of shoes, or most importantly, a hairbrush. I respond to the title Idiot Bride, thank you very much.

I could not sleep without brushing my hair. I needed a shower more than I have ever needed a shower in my life. Seriously, I could need a shower less if I ran a marathon. But hairspray + teasing + water = dreadlocks. So at approximately four in the morning, I got up, used Husband's comb to painstakingly brush out every inch of my hair, watching flakes of hair spray fall like dandruff snow. I showered. I washed it as many times as the hotel sample shampoo would allow. I felt like a human.

Do you blame me for chopping off a foot of hair?

Here's the problem. Short, choppy hair requires more upkeep than long hair. This haircut goes from cute flippy-ness to side-mullet in exactly six weeks. I am deep in side-mullet territory.

Of course the person who created this hair cut, promptly forgot about it six weeks later, and then trimmed it, trimming my bangs to the wrong side, no longer works at the salon I go to. Not the first time this has happened to me. Nor the second. It is in fact the third time I have had to change stylists at the same salon. I know this happens. It's New York, stylists are always moving around, blah, blah, blah.

And now I want the side-mullet/reverse bob turned into a regular bob and I have to explain that to a new person.

Who is ironically the same person I went to the first time I ever went to that salon, although I immediately forgot her name afterward and never used her again. Obviously should have stuck with that one. I'm not even going for good haircuts any more. I'm going for the same person cutting my hair three times in a row.

I'm pretty sure the phone message I got from the salon is them yelling at me about changing stylists. Because I could have avoided that.

I'm about a mile from Flowbie territory.

the one about research

For my film genre class this semester, I have elected to write a paper on developmental disability films.

As excellent as the best examples of these films are, they never fail to make me sob like my pet just died. I plan to compare a list of to-be-determined characteristics and tropes used in the following films:

• Rain Man
• What's Eating Gilbert Grape
• I Am Sam

To do this, I will have to watch the films at least once. Probably twice, considering I ordered the special editions, which all feature commentary by various parties involved in the making of the films. I thought perhaps I could listen to the commentary and not watch the films. But the commentary likely references the specific scenes, and would be rendered useless by removal of such a referent. So two viewings of each film are necessary.

Ergo, I think I should throw a viewing party. Any number of my acquaintances would happily watch tear-jerking (melo)dramas with me, I presume. I could use it as research, to study the effect on such variables as:

• Tear production
• Laughter
• Popcorn consumption
• Level of physically manifested discomfort, including:
• Shifting positions
• Shielding eyes
• The fetal position
• Requests for alcohol
• Fleeing

I could also discuss the tropes and characteristics I plan to investigate with my test group. I mean, my friends. We could have a regaling discussion about disability, stereotyping, and Rain Man's capacity for one-liners repeated for decades.

Paper would write itself, and I would generally humiliate myself in front of people.

Fun fact: The cover of the special edition DVD of Rain Man features a terribly photoshopped picture of Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman walking down a highway. In this photograph, they each appear to be at least 20 feet tall. I just tried to find this picture on the internet. It does not exist outside the anomaly of my DVD. It is quite literally this picture on a highway backdrop, and it only serves to perplex me.

the one about my lunch: updated

I forgot my lunch today.

Really upsetting, because I went out to dinner last night specifically to purchase a meal that would also serve as lunch. I also specifically insisted upon Italian food thanks to large portions and the joy of carbohydrates.

That lunch now sits on the floor. In the hallway. Of my apartment.

Which is, according to Google Maps, 5.6 miles away from my current location: my office. 

Side note:

Reason #1,502 living in the New York metropolitan area depresses me:

I live 5.6 miles away from my office. It takes me 50 minutes to get from one place to the other. Google Maps says it is a 15 minute drive, via the exact route the bus takes. The bus takes at least 30 minutes.

Le sigh. Side note ended.

To make matters worse, my hallway is grossly under-refrigerated. We have complained about the problem, but apparently normal people do not use their entrance hallways as refrigerators. They're missing out.

Did I mention that my lunch is/was a container full of angel hair a la puttanesca? Yep. That's a bunch of anchovies sitting in my delightfully-heated apartment. Signs point to me not emptying this container, and simply throwing it out, lest I die of anchovy poisoning.

And yes, today of all days I did exchange the aluminum leftover container for a nice, shiny, clean GladWare container, so as not to explode my entire office building by microwaving metal.

Obviously I should explode things more frequently. Although I'd still have to buy lunch in that situation. Vicious cycle.

Related: Google informs me of the existence of a restaurant called Puttanesca in New York. In case you don't know such essential bits of Italian, "puttanesca" means prostitute. Your restaurant is called Prostitute, people. Based on their web site, they know that. And knowing is half the battle.

Also: "I have a container of puttanesca" has all kinds of meanings unrelated to left over pasta. And should not be refrigerated. And perhaps should be ventilated. Or humans should not be placed in leftover containers.

Somehow, this is all moot compared to what Husband forgot enroute to his weekday home today: power cord for laptop. My lunch will cost approximately $7. New power cord: a happy, round $79.

Still looking for the restart button for today.

Update: Leftover container leaked. Hallway smells like a fish infestation. And someone gave Husband a power cord. I am indeed the bigger loser. Too bad that's not the equivalent of winning.