The Amazing Spiderman

As most of you know, I love New York. I was born and raised in the city that never sleeps. If I were ever to leave, I don’t think I could truly ever leave the Big Apple.

One of the reasons I love NY is that it keeps me on my toes. You always have to be hyper alert and aware of your surroundings. It’s definitely honed my observations skills. I see things in the smallest instant and it gets lasered into my brain almost instantaneously.

For instance last night I walked by a woman who looked like she was talking to a tree. My friends and I thought perhaps she just happened to be facing the tree and might have had a Bluetooth phone thingamajig but when we looked more closely, she was just talking to herself. Seeing this made me realize that even when I think NY is getting better, it’s really still a little crazy.

As if this observation hadn’t been enough to convince me of NY’s quintessential craziness, as we turned the corner we were met by a man sauntering down the street with a cat perched on his head. That pretty much cemented it for me. Ahhhhh how I love NY.

But nothing could beat my walk around Battery Park today. My co-worker and I decided to kick some energy back into our day by taking an invigorating walk around the tip of Manhattan. Who should I spy on my walk? None other than the Amazing Spiderman! And he was nice enough to wave at some tourists, too!

With daily occurrences like this, can you see why I am so enamored of this city?

ADDENDUM
Not sure how I forgot this but before we even were graced with Peter Parker's presence, we noticed a wild turkey lurking in a field of tulips. A wild turkey in the midst of Manhattan, now don't tell me that isn't cool?

Mixed Messages

Along with my growing list of pet peeves is the ever popular of late –mixed messages. I deal with it a lot on a daily basis at work but I’ve seen it everywhere. For instance, this morning, I was at the gym and I was watching a morning talk show program. One of the anchors of this show was grilling a model who recently encountered a lot of controversy as being too skinny. (Now, the irony of this whole situation isn’t lost on me but neither here, nor there.) The anchor woman showed her a normal portion of food and asked her to point out how much of this normal portion the model ate. The woman pointed to half of the portion. I’m not surprised in the least.

But here’s what annoys the crud out of me. So, the media (same morning show for instance) is always saying how we should lose weight and not be obese because it’s bad for our health. And now, they are saying this woman is too skinny. How is a poor impressionable young person supposed to know which of these categories is correct if the messages are different from day-to-day? I know parents should be telling their children this kind of stuff. But I just have this feeling that kids don’t listen to their parents too much. They believe their friends and tv/movies more. What kinds of messages are friends/tvs/movies sending to children…don’t be fat, be skinny. People like skinny people because they are more likely to get hired. People find skinny people more attractive, etc.

Is it just me? Am I the only one that sees that this is a problem? There is a lot of stuff that could get my goat but this is the one I decided to focus on for today.

Positively Outlook

Does the title of this blog sound weird to you? It should! I’m sure some people might think it has to do with the Microsoft application and how much I love it. But it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with adjectives and adverbs.

Adjectives are modifiers - meaning they describe nouns. They tell us the colors, shapes, textures, etc. of nouns. And adverbs modify verbs – telling us how an action is completed. It drives me a little nutty when people use these very helpful tools incorrectly.

For instance, many years ago a big computer company had a slogan that said “Think Different” and it just made my butt boil!! What is wrong with this, you might add. To think is a verb. I know it seems weird because you aren’t doing any action, which is what verbs usually do. But it is! So if you need to describe a verb, what do you use? An adverb. That’s right! Very good! Different, my friends, is not an adverb. It’s an adjective so this phrase is grammatically incorrect. I really wanted to run around the country with a can of Krylon spray paint adding ‘ly’ to different to correct this travesty! Thank goodness they got rid of that campaign soon after. Otherwise, I would have gone insane or gotten a number of frequent flyer miles.

I was prompted to write this because the other day someone told me to think positive about a certain frustrating and unchanging situation (ahem work) and not only did I want to tell them to shove their malarkey down someone else’s throat. But I also felt the steam coming out of my ears from the horrible usage of an adjective to describe a verb. What the person should have said was ‘Think Positively”. Mind you, this person probably will never get this right in a million years but whatever. I need to get this off my chest. I wish people would just pay more attention to these things. It really makes them sound so crass and uneducated. I do suppose though that if there weren’t people out there making these mistakes, then I’d have no topics for my blog.

The Albatross

As many of my good friends know, I have spent a long time in graduate school. I pretty much started right out of college. I knew I wanted to continue my studying so I applied immediately after graduation while working at a full time job. I was accepted and then the problems started. I had to work; there was no way around it. But graduate school is a full time job in itself.

I somehow managed to get all my school work done even though I worked and I still have no idea how I did it. But then in 2001, I ended up in corporate America (long story for another blog). Then various events around September happened and my priorities changed. I worked insane hours because that was what was needed. Slowly but surely, only 1 course and a thesis away from graduating, I stopped going to graduate school.

For the longest time, the incompleteness gnawed on my soul. I was so worried about going back – what was I going to do with that Master’s degree in nothing practical? Certainly didn’t get me the jobs I had. I decided to pursue a certification in English Language Teaching along the way and I taught and I loved it. But once again, due to monetary constraints, I had to return to the financial world.

Finally last year, I decided to just finish my masters. I was more aware that my job was not fulfilling to me but that it provided me with the time and money to do the things I wanted to do. So I had to reapply to the original program that I started. And I had to retake my GREs and write another essay and see how many more classes I needed to take in order to finish. Luckily, I only had to take 2 classes and finish my thesis and I’d be done. It seemed easy enough.

But then the economy tanked and lay-offs happened and I got stuck working insane amounts of hours. Somehow, (yet again), not sure how, I got it all done. And officially on Wednesday at 9:47 am, my husband delivered my thesis to my department. I have removed the albatross from my neck!!

Or so I thought. In going over my thesis with my advisor, he suggested, actually he stated, that the concept of my thesis and the research were amazing but that the writing was not on the same level. I always knew my writing took a beating being in the business world but it never really sank in as much as his comments did. I feel like now I have a new albatross on my neck and how I plan to tackle that is yet to be decided. Stay tuned...

Shuffleboard

As I’ve grown older many things have really grown to annoy me. I didn’t think I would become a curmudgeon like this but it’s happening. And as hard as I try to break this horrible pattern, it just keeps happening.

I used to have maybe two pet peeves for the longest time. One of my current annoyances is people who can’t seem to lift their feet when they walk. It irritates me like nothing else lately. I’d rather that you scratch your nails down a chalk board or even eat aluminum foil (mind you I’m cringing thinking about those two beautiful disturbances) than shuffle your feet. PICK THEM UP! What the heck is wrong with you that you can’t just lift them off the ground? Perhaps you have an anemic condition, check it out. Go to the doctor, eat some more spinach. But for the love of pretty flowers, just get it fixed! It is insanely irritating! It suggests to me that you have no energy and obviously no consideration for others to make this totally controllable noise stop!

I can understand that years ago, foot binding was common so some things I can understand. But now-a-days medicine is fantastic and podiatrists have all kinds of tricks up their sleeve. For the love of humanity, please do something about this!

I’ve also found that a certain type of shoe makes this more common than necessary. So to those of you that wear certain shoes I call ugglies….stop wearing them. You are driving a whole lot of people up a walk. It’s not just me. I can almost guarantee it.

Daily Routine

Every weekday a great many of us get up and head to our place of work like programmed DVRs recording our daily trials and tribulations. There is no thought around this; it’s done. It is to some degree called ‘flow’ – we don’t think, we do.

There is something nice about this routine. The same person, who hands you your cup of coffee, says hello and asks you a question about your life. Or a common person that you see on your commute who nods at you to let you know that you are in it together. These little moments can mean a lot to some people. You count on them because there is so little out there to control or count on any more. The global markets are a mess and the job stress just gets worse. It’s these friendly faces that give you some hope/strength and reassurance that this too shall pass.

It’s not just these individuals that make you feel better. Occasionally you get the same support from a co-worker. You get a feeling of camaraderie with one or two people that you see every weekday. Most of you know how this is. You have an unspoken communication with them – they understand how you feel and vice versa. You talk to them about anything and everything and you get into a groove with them. You become each other’s cheerleader in some ways. You push each other to be better and to give the best possible example of their work in every situation. It’s really a lovely feeling when you achieve this with someone.

And as this grows, you come to see this person as the sunshine of your work day. They become the sounding board to your complaints, the confidant to whom you describe your doubts, your coach while you train to do something, a mentor while you learn something and you become that for them. In many ways, this person’s smile, voice or personality makes it worth going to work even if everything else absolutely goes wrong.

All this is wonderful and fantastic. Sadly like all good things, these relationships sometimes come to an end. Since change is a constant, you know it’s going to happen. However, when this moment does come, you go through a feeling of lose and grief almost as profound as if the person has passed away. The only comfort is the knowledge that you have had this connection with someone and to treasure the memories and discussions that you have had with them. In an ideal world, this connection never fades. So as long as the daily routine doesn’t drastically change, an ideal world is still a possibility.

Forgetfulness

Many years ago I was diagnosed with a disorder that I keep under control to some degree through medication. It’s very difficult because without the medication, I’m all over the place and I tend to forget things because I’m not fully engaged in that one thing, but on many things at once. It is mind-numbing for me but I imagine it’s hard for those around me to understand this problem.

Regardless, there are certain things that I cannot forget. The things people say to me…the things certain people say to me. And this has had me in a quandary for some time. A few months ago, a family member said some things to me that I just keep replaying in my head. However, I recently found out that they don’t remember having said these things to me. Actually, if it weren’t for one other person to be a witness, it almost could have happened in a vacuum. It would have been my word against theirs. The problem with this situation is that you could say I was the one who is forgetful but I’m not entirely so.

My problem is a chemical one and the said person’s problem is chemical as well. It’s called alcohol. I’ve had to deal with this all my life. People forgetting promises, stories, dates because they were under the influence. To some degree, I am the way I am because I had to live with this. It really makes me mad.

Many times I’ll get into a fight with one of the various people I know who have a substance problem and they blame my ‘lie’ on my disorder. But the truth is they conveniently forget a lot of stuff because they drink. And it’s easier to use my disorder as an excuse than for them to seek help for their issue.

The best part of all this forgetfulness is that I’ve repeatedly told these people how much I hate that they drink .Yet, when I get angry about seeing them that way, they conveniently forget how many times I’ve told them that their being drunk pisses me off. How there is no point talking to them in any positive way because they will just forget it the next day. I wish I could just forget how much this behavior annoys me but this is one area where I have the brain of an elephant.

The Eye of the Beholder

Being a woman is a supreme pain in the posterior for so many reasons. The list is so long that I’m not going to entertain it here. I’ll just talk about one aspect – hair.

I have the fabulous genetic blessing of being prematurely grey thanks to my parents. So from early in my teens, I’ve been struggling with covering my grey hairs. And as I grow older, the grey overtakes the chestnut more and more. My husband says I have a lot of stories to tell and that’s why I have all these grey hairs. It’s really sweet of him but no one else in this damn world sees it that way, I can assure you.

Now, I’m also blessed with hair that’s thick and grows inordinately fast. This is actually something I’m really happy about. Aside from my grey hairs, I’ve never complained about my hair. I have tons of it and I love the texture of it. The only problem is that with the kind of hair that I have and the speed with which it grows, means I have to visit the salon at least every 4 weeks to get the roots colored to hide the grey.

Ok, yes, so what’s the big deal? Well, one time I went to a different hairdresser than the one I’m used to visiting. And she kept telling me how lucky I was to have the hair I did because she had thin hair and had some bald spots and she had to get extensions to cover those patches. Now, normally I would feel bad but I kind of got annoyed because….as she’s complaining about her hair, I’m frustrated with my greys poking out from every angle. I just couldn’t see why I was blessed. I often have people stare at patches of my grey hair for moments that I have to wave my hand in front of their face!! What’s also annoying is that my face and my hair tell conflicting stories about my age, which is also annoying. I’m sure people look at her patches of baldness but I don’t think those go as noticed and grey. There is no way for me to comb or do my hair to hide them once the roots show! In the line of work that I’m in, grey hairs signify inability to handle stress and that’s not acceptable. But if a man has grey hair, he’s distinguished. How about you shove that in the garbage? That’s totally not fair! So if a guy has grey hair, he’s sexy…but if I have grey hair, I’m a basket case that can’t handle stress. Something is so rotten in that logic is smells like a backed-up sewer. Why am I not distinguished when I do twice or three times the stuff any man can do and I do it better and get paid less for it? I’ve never heard a bigger crock of poop in my life.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that no matter what…all women hate what they have. But I hate it more for how society makes me feel about my issue than I normally would with anything else. Stupid society!

Internal/External

The title of this piece is very near and dear to my heart for two reasons.
1) It’s a reference to some terminology I’ve been using on a constant basis at work
2) It works well for this essay.

Recently, a colleague of mine went on a job interview for which he was probably a perfect fit. However, he didn’t get the job because he’s considered ‘external’. What the heck am I talking about right? Well, my colleague is a contractor and as such, he’s considered external since he doesn’t directly work for this company as I do (that would make me internal). This game of semantics is obviously a load of poop to me for a lot of reasons.

One of which is the fact that he is a phenomenal worker. He’s intelligent, a team player and very motivated and responsible. I think anyone who would recommend him would say this. Another reason I think this is total crap is due to the fact that our economy stinks right now. And since he’s not a citizen, there’s no chance he’s going to get a job worthy of his skills. The reason for this is that a lot of the regulations because of the TARP money say you can’t give a job to someone who is not American. So, I’m upset about this because this person wants very much to be a citizen and he’s also an amazing worker who should have a job. So I don’t see him as external in any way. Especially because he’s been working in this corporation for close to 3 years as a contractor – he’s more internal than internal people!

Basically, I’m tired of this mentality because there are tons of ‘internal’ people who have jobs and are slackers. Why do they continue to have jobs? Because they are Americans? That doesn’t seem fair since they certainly don’t seem to be working as if they want a job. It all goes back to the immigration discussion which will get me going to hours but I don’t have the time to type all that stuff at this moment. I’m tired of this kind of thinking and it’s becoming more and more rampant.