Friday, October 28, 2005

Friday blues

Even though its Friday - I've got a medium-sized case of the work blues this afternoon - mostly because this afternoon is going by sooooooooo slooooooooow. I'm sure that there's a few of you out there that will agree with me. So Jenn's decided that she's going to rant a little.

I know that the best way to make this day go by fast is to work - work like a demon and look up at the clock and go "Oh, it's six already? I didn't even notice." But the truth is, I've never been one of those people. Now that's not to say that I'm not a hard worker. I like doing a job well and I like other people acknowledging that I do a job well. But what about the days when you have the blues? When you're so tired you can't keep your eyes open? Is it okay to not be as productive?

Some will say yes, just don't let any managers see you. Some will say no - maybe these are the folks who never watch the clock. I'm not sure. I think somewhere in the back of my head I can always see my father - frowning at the thought of me daydreaming or emailing friends or sufring the web at work.

They say that people should take a walk around the office when they get into a rut, but I never do that. It may have something to do with the fact that my office isn't much bigger than a railroad apartment in Queens. We have no vending machine. Most days it's fine - today, I sort of wish there was something to distract me.

I overheard this conversation once between two people around my age on the bus. The one guy was saying how he quit smoking. The girl was telling him how great it was. And he said, "Yeah, but..." and then made the single best arguement for smoking that I've ever heard. He said that when he used to smoke, he used to stop working every couple of hours and take a cigarette break. The time allowed him to cool out a bit, and his head felt clear when he returned to his desk. Now that he doesn't go out for smokes, he finds that he doesn't stop - because when is it a good time to stop working? There really isn't - just lunch time and leaving at the end of the day. And I have to say - this kind of sucks. It's one more thing in corporate America - we can't even find five seconds to get a cup of coffee.

Maybe I should just stop whining and take a walk to Dunkin Donuts or the deli across the street. Maybe the fresh air will do me good. But either way, I guess I just felt like seeing if anyone else was as bored as I am on this very looonnng Friday afternoon. At least I killed ten minutes writing this.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Another Blast from the Past



I've been catching a lot of movies on TV and HBO lately that I remember well. This week it was "The Neverending Story" - which some of you have already guessed from the photo on the right. FALCOR! I had forgotten about fifty percent of the places Atreyu ends up - and still thought it was creepy that Bastian stayed up in that school attic all night during a thunderstorm. And - I actually managed to find out the name that he screams out at the end - the empresses' new name! It was Moonchild! Weird.

Monday, October 24, 2005

What Should I Be Reading?

I was in the bookstore on Saturday, roaming around, looking for my next read. I very much enjoy the table of new paperbacks and summer reading that they often have out in Barnes & Noble - but I'm not afraid to roll up my sleeves and plunge into the huge fiction section either. But of course - it can be difficult to find something you're going to enjoy in such a large haystack. So today, my question to you is: What should I be reading?

I recently asked Karen to loan me a Valerie Martin book based on the New Orleans quote that she sent me back around the hurricane from one of her novels. So I'll be trying that - but if anybody else has suggestions of authors that I haven't gotten to yet - let me know!

Kim, you'll be happy to know that I ended up purchasing the O'Henry Prize Stories Anthology from 2003 - the 2005 version was where I found "A Brief History of the Dead".

Friday, October 21, 2005

Insane news story of the day

So this morning I read that a 93 year old man was stopped at a toll booth for having a body sticking out of his windshield. Apparently the man struck the pedestrian, killing him, and was suffering from dementia, and really didn't realize that this had transpired. The victim's leg was severed in this incident, and the report said that the man drove approximately three miles with the body on the car. Geez.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Vows


This is the latest book I read: "Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun and Their Son". Yes, you heard right. A priest and a nun left the church, got married and had a family. Now I was especially interested to read this book because I was raised Catholic and when you are raised Catholic you know that there are consequences for pretty much every single thing you do in a given day. So it was interesting to see what the church had to say about this exodus.

I ended up enjoying the book more that I thought I would though - because it is the story of these people as well as one of the church. We are told why and how these two people were called to their vocations, and what kind of work they saw themselves doing through the chuch. Later, we are treated to the author's own spiritual exploration.

It is so interesting to come across a book like this now when I am an adult, caught somewhere between my Catholic childhood and my (?) adulthood.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Somehow, Jenn gets to go to the coolest concert happening - U2!



So as luck would have it - my awesome friends deemed me worthy to attend the U2 concert at the Garden on Friday night. Onnik "had a guy" and was able to get his hands on some extra tickets. Sweet. Matt and I were up in the second tier - but just east of the stage, and all in all, we had a great view. The lights go down, the music starts, and the concert begins.

The lighting was great for this show - they had these huge curtains of big bulbs (think the strings of Christmas lights in National Lampoon's Christmas vacation) and they rolled them down and lit them up rainbow for the first song "The City of Blinding Lights". Everyone was on their feet of course, and it didn't stop for the next two hours. Favorite parts of the show - Bono was talking about how U2 had been on Conan O'Brien the night before. Apparently the Edge had been dressed as a spaceman for part of that, so Bono then said,

"You know, the Edge looks good in a spacesuit, and that's because the Edge really is a Spaceman. Years and years ago me, Adam and Larry were hanging out on the North side of Dublin, when all of a sudden this space ship came down. The hatch opened, and out walked the Edge, and he looked so good. And Larry said, 'Who are you?' and the Edge said, 'I am the Edge'. Then Adam said, 'Where do you come from?' and the Edge said, 'I come from the future.' and we couldn't believe we were standing in the midst of a spaceman from the future, so then I said, 'What's it like there?" and the Edge said 'It's better.'

At that they went into "Miracle Drug" and we loved it. Later Bono asks us to take out our cell phones. "Let's turn this place into the Milky Way," he said. And with the Garden dark and thousands of cell phones lit up - the place really did look like the night sky. It was awesome. Then Bono asked us to put in our names for a petition to end poverty by entering in some number. Everybody did it happily - and it occurred to me that Bono is probably the only musician today who can push a political agenda at his show and not only get away with it, but be praised for it.

Special thanks to Matt and Onnik for thinking of me and getting me tickets. I had a great time guys! ;-)

Friday, October 07, 2005

The Next Big Thing


So now terrorists are thinking of bombing the New York City subways. Quick, where's the Jaws music? Just when you thought it was safe to commute to your job - DUH DUH DUHN! It's Al Queda!

Listen you fuckers. We don't have time for this shit. We're in debt up to our ears from these hurricanes and we're still depressed about it. Enough Americans have died this year - please stop trying to make it more. I understand that we are being the big swinging jock on campus and you are annoyed about it. You know what? The ordinary Americans - the ones who are riding the subway - most of them are annoyed about that too. So please don't blow us up. We don't technically deserve it.

Seriously, its time to find another hobby. Blowing people up - and yourself in the process - is just counterproductive.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Remember this movie?


Guess what movie was on this weekend that I haven't seen since I was a kid - Flight of the Navigator! Do you guys remember this one? I caught about twenty minutes of it while I was housecleaning, and it was pretty funny to see it again. I had forgotten that Sarah Jessica Parker was in this one - before she become the worst writer ever - in terms of reading the writing of others and thinking about writing something else besides her column and the spokesperson for Manolo Blahniks. I don't have a problem with Sarah Jessica Parker - but Carrie Bradshaw annoyed the crap out of me. She's pretty likable in this movie though. Anyway, it was fun to see it again- well the twenty minutes that I caught anyway. What's really interesting about seeing movies that you liked as a kids twenty years later - is that you actually understand them competely this time around.