What's your dating average?

Recently I was talking with a friend who has had some dating drama in her life. It seems that she can never get past the 2nd date with anyone. They simply stop calling after date 2. I have another friend whose...shall we call it shelf life?...is one month. Guys are nuts about her for a month and then disappear. The more I talk to people, the more I realize how consistent people are in relationships. We really all do have specific patterns and somehow that translates to an average shelf life. 2 dates, 2 weeks, a month - it seems everyone knows when to expect trouble. Maybe it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe it's dysfunctional patterns. Maybe it's coincidence....

please weigh in. What is your shelf life? Why?

Baby Blues

Last night, I was taking the train home at about 1am after hanging with a certain very cool person. Now, trains are REALLY annoying after midnight because NOTHING runs express and the trains only come like once every half hour. So if the waiting for the train doesn't kill you, all the extra stops certainly do. A trip that normally takes me between 30-45 minutes (Manhattan to home) takes probably 2 hours. And that's a normal night.

They've been doing track work at night on my line. Which basically means that to protect the track worker people, the trains travel at about 2 miles an hour. It's a very good excuse to stay in most nights, but not on a Friday. However, last night, in addition to the usual annoying drunk people, there was also one very loud screaming baby. And he did NOT quit. Every once in a while, he lost a bit of volume and everyone on the train held their breaths in anticipation that the baby would actually stop crying. He did not.

Passengers were giving the mother all sorts of stuff - flashy keychains, cheese puffs, peppermints, etc. They all began discussing what might be wrong - was he hungry? Teething? Did he want to be rocked? Did he have gas? The mother is insisting that it must be his stomach - he spit up earlier. Yes. Babies never spit up. It must be his stomach. Or, it could definitely be the teeth that are fully formed inside his mouth. And, yeah, the gas thing could be totes possible.

OR MAYBE THE BABY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN BED HOURS AGO AND IS VERY MAD THAT HE IS BEING KEPT AWAKE BY THE LOUD, OBNOXIOUS DRUNK PEOPLE ON THE VERY SLOW MOVING TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if I were a baby, that is why I would be fussing. Heck, I'm not a baby and I was still fussing about it. And I actually made the choice to go out...and had a dern good time ;)

wtf is wrong with people? Why is that baby on a train at 1am? WHY? I actually have a high tolerance for baby screaming. Normally, if I'm on the train with a screaming baby, I don't care. Actually, truthfully, that doesn't happen very much because most mothers are too concerned about germs to allow their little precious on the train.

NEVER have a seen a baby on a late-night train. I've seen a few children and that was weird and awful to me but you can always give the parents the benefit of the doubt and credit jet-lag/different time zones with it. I can assume they are tourists and move on.

This baby was not a tourist baby. His mama was born and raised in Brooklyn. I know this because she gave her life story in an attempt to elicit sympathy from the train passengers.

Where's CPS when you need them? I wish they were on that damn train with me.

My Psychopharmacologist and I....

Don't worry - this has nothing to do with how awesome the Next to Normal song is. It's awesome. But I won't comment on it.

So recently I decided to take up the free counseling offered by my oh-so-expensive school. For starters, if I'm paying $40,000 a year, I want to take advantage of EVERYTHING that money goes toward! And, naturally, counseling could only be helpful in dealing with my...how shall we say...DRAMATIC life situation? So i call to set up an appointment.

The deal is, the first thing they do is set you up with a same-day, 15-minute PHONE appointment. I guess this is to determine a couple of things. Firstly, are you suicidal? If so, they will rescue you immediately or something. I guess. Second, they want to know if you actually need counseling or simply think it will be fun. They will not counsel you for fun.

This phone appointment seems easy. It is not. Some strange guy calls my phone and asks what's been going on in my life that prompted me to call. SERIOUSLY? You've only got 15 minutes and you expect me to catch you up on my life? Those of you who know the drama (and you only know the half of it!) know that 15 minutes could cover maybe 1 day of this 6-month saga. But i try to give the nut-shell version. And it is a NUTshell version because trying to sum up the situation makes me sound crazier than explaining it full out.

Then come the questions: how much/how often do you drink? (I'm Irish...and I'm 22...) have you had harmful thoughts towards anyone? (ummm...did you HEAR my story? who wouldnt have harmful thoughts?) have you experienced any weight loss or gain recently and his this been the result of bingeing and/or purging (dude - girls and their food...what can I say?) have there been changes to your living situation (again...did you listen to my story???) do you have a history of mental illness? Are you on medication? Have you ever cut yourself? When was the last time you cried? and on and on and on.....

As I'm telling this total stranger on the phone just how crazy I am, he's typing all of this. And it's probably going into some crazy permanent record. And I'll tell you - after coming through the school system, public records scare the SHIT outta me.

And I didn't even think i was that crazy!! I just thought it might be nice to talk to someone who isn't allowed to judge me or talk about me when I leave. But by the end of the phone conversation, I started asking myself whether or not I should be committed. Man! Why couldn't he have asked me a greater variety of questions? I would have liked to seem sane on some level...

so yeah. Way to go therapy. I feel so much crazier than I did before.

My non-specific comments on an unspecified production.

OMG. omg. omg. I recently saw the absolute worst piece of theater I've ever experienced in my life. Now, due to certain contractual stipulations (very seriously), I am not at liberty to discuss any real details about this production. But I cannot let this one go. So I will talk around it.

The truth is, there wasn't a single GOOD element in the entire production. From the leading actor (who has many Broadway credits, strangely) to the lighting design, the whole thing was a disaster. I had to leave. I was physically nausiated and had a headache. When I left, there were MANY others who walked out as well (and this was after 30 minutes - i couldn't even wait until intermission) and they were all just laughing at how pathetic it was.

This "staged reading" couldn't have been less staged - the actors were simply wandering around like lost children. They were waving their arms noncommitedly and constantly throwing lines away. High school actors have better instincts than these people.

The harmonies were DISGUSTING when they were actually attempted, which wasn't very often. Cut-offs were sloppy and there was no semblance of balance. This is spoken by a musical IDIOT. if I can tell there is a problem with the music, there is a HUGE problem. My ears are not very sensitive and I have virtually no music education. The role that is the soprano ingenue was sung by a girl who BELTED her part with a crazy vibratto and had an almost country twang to her vowels. it was AWFUL. The supporting role who is an operatic soprano was sung TWO full octaves down from what is written. YUCk. pointless.

The lights. OMG. the lights. If the facility you are using doesn't have a workable light grid, just bathe everyone in white light. We, the audience, don't mind. I assure you. As long as we can see them, we are not that picky. Instead, whoever designed the light decided to "blanket" every scene in a ridiculous color. A romantic engagement party was bathed in yellow. YELLOW. Everyone looked ill. A street scene was bathed in green. Everyone looks evil in green. I just don't get it! You should really never bathe the stage in any one color. I don't design lights and I know this.

Ultimately, I have no idea how much rehearsal or production time this show had. I don't really care. At the end of the day, if I had handed the libretti to my friends, they could have SIGHT READ the entire show much better than the actors and musicians on stage. Give me ONE HOUR and I could have directed the show better. It's totally inexcusable to charge people $50 for absolute crap.

Oh, and let's talk about the box office for one second before I lose my steam - I bought the tickets online. The e-ticket said to come to the box office an hour before show time to exchange it for a "real" ticket. Ok? fine, I guess. I show up and they said they would not open the doors until 30 minutes before show time. Then why put on the ticket to show up an hour early? no biggie. I went for drinks. The doors didn't open until 5 minutes AFTER the scheduled start time. Then everyone had to wait in line to exchange what should have been a perfectly valid e-ticket (had a barcode and everything) for a paper ticket. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? I cannot even tell you how annoying it is to deal with absolute idiots who aren't even qualified to work at McDonalds. How could you not open the box office until AFTER the show is supposed to start??? Again, high school theaters are run better than that.

I've never in my life had such a bad experience at the theater. Disgusting.

Beach on Broadway

Ok, for those of you not from NYC, let me give you the exposition: Idiot Mayor Mike Bloomberg decided it would be a great idea to shut down traffic on Broadway in Herald Sq and Times Sq. He gave some bogus explanation about it improving the experience for tourists and "helping" to ease traffic, though no one understands the logic behind that. So now a 6 lane street is covered in cheap beach chairs with tourists sitting and sunning themselves like they are at the beach.

WHAT?!

WTF?!

Are you really serious? Like seriously serious?!

let me explain what is wrong with this picture, the obvious and the not-so-obvious

FIRST - dude, seriously, you are not improving the tourist experience at all! You have not improved foot traffic with this move as the road, instead of being covered with cars, is now covered with sitting people. So it's still only the sidewalks that can be used for walking. You have also not improved the view. I would rather stare at 1000 cabs than gross people eating and sunbathing when there is NO OCEAN in sight. It's just a testament to laziness. Or something.

SECOND - dude, seriously, you have not improved traffic elsewhere. What would make you think that you have? The same amount of cars have to travel to the same places, but now they have fewer avenues to do it on. Yeah, good plan. ALSO, the trucks that used to make deliveries on Broadway now have to park around the block and walk deliveries which is inconvenient, inefficient, and OH YEAH makes traffic worse.

THIRD - dude, seriously, this is costing the city - which is at the EPICENTER of the world's recession - a ton of money. The tourists are TRASHING Times Square so you have hired a bazillion extra sanitation workers. Also, traffic cops to redirect the motor traffic that SHOULD be on Broadway. Also, regular cops because of a reason I don't quite comprehend...
And, also, guess what? If people are sitting in the middle of the street, it means they are NOT shopping, eating, or seeing shows. So they are not spending money. They are COSTING you money.

Is this smart? REALLY? JESUS. Every time I walk in that area of town, I am filled with such a rage that I cannot even describe it. I moved here for that area! The hustle and bustle of the "crossroads of the world" is what draws people here. And now, instead of a fast-paced, high-stakes, uber-cultured area, they might as well be in Myrtle Beach. It's tacky, it's pointless, it's expensive, and it's counter-intuitive.

Good work, Mayor. REALLY.

Umbrellas and Egos

So as I worked outside today in the rain, I realized something that is very true that I had never known before: a person's ego is entirely obvious by the size and type of their umbrella. Good people have plain, simple, compact umbrellas. The ones that fit neatly inside a purse, for instance. These are the most practical, especially for new yorkers. If you have one of these, it shows foresight (you likely carry it around every day just in case), consideration (it's too small to inconvenience others on the street), and self-confidence (no need to showcase how cool you are by the wacky designs). Everyone else falls into one of the following categories:

1. the DOME umbrella: conformist. These umbrellas were only cool for a day because of some ad or movie or something. Anyone who has one is a hopeless follower. See, as cute as they may be, they are TOTALLY impractical. Sure, your head stays dry but the umbrella is dome shaped. Any idiot can see that it simply drips all the water onto your lower half. So while you think you are trendy, the world can see that your pants and shoes are soaked through. And you will be out of work sick the rest of the week.

2. the SPORTS umbrella: boring and wasteful. Now, i don't like sports but I respect people who do. Sweatshirts and caps are ok. A coat is a bit far, but acceptable. When your RAIN gear also advertises your fave team, you really have no personality. At all. AND you have no idea how to handle money, because let's face it, we all know that an umbrella with a sports logo costs 3x as much. And for what?

3. the umbrella that MATCHES the boots and/or the coat: incredibly self-involved! Omg. If you spend that much time contemplating your RAIN appearance - when generally everyone looks soggy and gross - you are also the type of person who hogs the bathroom and has never heard the word compromise.

4. the GIANT umbrella: asshole. this joker thinks that the dryness of his shoes is so important that it doesnt matter that his umbrella takes up the entire sidewalk. He doesn't care that it drips water onto everyone else and almost, if not totally, jabs many people in the eyes. He is well protected under his ROOF that he calls an umbrella. He is also the one who will shake it out right on your feet without noticing.

5. the guy who carries around the umbrella with the curved handle crooked over his arm: thinks he's cool. Very old Hollywood. He is not. He's so busy trying to LOOK cool that he has completely ignored his actual personal development.

If I'm wrong, prove it. But I think I'm right.

BAD BUNNY!

So I have a house bunny. And what that means is that he is potty trained so he can run about as he pleases. Like a cat. Only, here's the thing: rabbits are a lot dumber than cats. You can't train them to do very much at all. And when you do get them trained, they forget a week later.

Bunny is not allowed in the bedroom. It is a cat-only zone. It's what keeps my cat sane, knowing she has a place she can be the Queen. Lately, the Bunny has been trying more and more to go in there. I let the cat run at him when he gets close because I think that is a good training tool. However, the Bunny discovered that if he gets under my bed, the cat cant get him because she is too fat to fit.

So the other night, I go to plug my cellphone in, and wouldn't you know it: the DAMN BUNNY ATE MY CELLPHONE CORD! I have bunny-proofed the rest of the house because the bunny insists on eating electrical cords. Despite this, the Bunny still ate my bookcase. JESUS. how much damage can a tiny animal do?

So I buy a new charger. It worked for 3 seconds and then stopped. $25 down the drain. Ugh. I bought ANOTHER one for $25 and it actually works.

so now the bunny is now caged.