I've been blogging about NASCAR and boy am I exhausted!

I don't want to brag, but I'm a really great gift-giver. As those Yoplait commercial idiots would say, like "Shoe shopping while eating chocolate good." (Ad guy 1: "My ex-wife likes shoes a lot. Let's add that in." Ad guy 2: "I see a lot of girls eating candy bars when they have their periods. Gotta rep that too." Ad guy 1: "Great, we're done here. Time to bash stuff with football helmets.")

For my birthday last month, my friend Becca got me the novelization of "Snakes on a Plane," which weighed in at a logic-defying 400 pages. Single spaced.

It was a direct nod—some might say a thanks—for a summer filled with my Snakes on a Plane song-and-dance routine. ("Song and dance" could be overstating it. It was more of a musical chant "Snakes on a Plane, Snakes on a Plane, I'm so excited to see Snakes on a Plane!" combined with a mix of the running man and The Carlton. I'm telling you, it did not get old.)

Because those wacky Internets told us it was the cool thing to do, it was my summer's exclamation. There were many uses:
"Snakes on a plane that bowl is hot!"

"Snakes on a plane I'’m tired!"

"I can't worry about that deadline. Who has time when there are snakes on a plane above us right now?"

Now of course, that sounds lame, but during summer 2006 it was hot, hot, hot! Ah, it was a simpler time. Sadly, the movies out right now don't work as well: "Running with scissors I need a drink!" "Flags of our fathers did I just stub my toe." No, not cool. I'm trying out random celebrities now: "Tina Yothers that music is loud!"

So Becca gave me 400 pages of snakey goodness. The only thing I had to worry about was finding a gift to match the brilliance. Enter the NASCAR Harlequin romance book "In the Groove," the heartwarming/sexy story of a simple kindergarten teacher who has an ex Photoshop her face onto a nude body and distribute them on the Internet. After she loses her job, she gets hit by a car driven by a NASCAR heartthrob, and well, you know the rest. Story old as time.

Please, please, if you do nothing else for yourself today, treat yourself to the description:

"She wouldn't know a NASCAR star if he hit her with his car...and he just did. Sarah was a kindergarten teacher until a sleazy ex-boyfriend got her fired. Now the only job she can find is driving the motor coach for racing star Lance Cooper. She doesn't know a thing about NASCAR - and she's off to a rocky start when she doesn't recognize her ultra-famous boss. Lance can't help but notice Sarah's sweet smile - and how seriously unimpressed she is with his fame. Her reaction piques his interest - and he's convinced she's a good-luck charm. But Sarah has no interest in Lance's jet-setting life; she'd rather deal with spitballs than one supersexy race car driver. Too bad whenever he comes near her she turns hot as race fuel. Soon things begin to heat up on the track, and Sarah begins to wonder if she might be able to teach one famous race car driver a few lessons about love. "

It's not just the awkwardly shoe-horned in racing imagery, like "her checkered past might distract him from the checkered flag," or the pandering moments like "she had a plain face but there was something pretty about her." And "I think being a kindergarten teacher is a noble profession." But just the puzzling sentences like "His stomach felt like he'd just eaten 12 monster tacos." First of all, who would eat 12 not just tacos but monster tacos? And why would this be used to describe being nervous before The Big Race instead of being about to be sick?

This book should get a Pulitzer. It's funnier than Dave Barry. But in the words of Reading Rainbow, you don't have to take my word for it. Here are two actual reviews from Amazon: (all spellings are sic)

"In The Groove is a blast! It's funny, sexy and romantic. My daddy has always been a huge NASCAR fan so all of the quips and explanations about sponsors, teams and fans had me smiling in remembrance. Lance is sexy and handsome and he's a really sweet guy too. Sarah is the kind of girl you want to see happy. She is such a nice person and her kindness and positive attitude are infectious. In The Groove is a story that I just raced through. It's so entertaining I couldn't put it down. I finished the last page with a satisfied sigh. Read In The Groove. It will take you on a fast, fun and romantic ride!

I took ITG down with me on the loooong drive to the Daytona 500 this past Feb and it was the best thing I could have done! It got me psyched for the race, it made me laugh, made me cry...UNREAL!

The character of Sarah is so loveable as the every-girl you could totally see yourself in her. The driver Lance just oooozes the kind of swaggering sexuality that you would imagine your favorite driver to have. Pamela makes it EASY for you to tack the face of your Jeff Gordons, Carl Edwards or Kevin Harvicks out there onto Lance Cooper and that was more than enough for me!

The story was so hot that I must admit, at parts I found myself reading so fast I had to go back over it all and soak it in! LOL. Trust me, you will NOT be disappointed by this book in the least!!! I cant WAIT for Pam's next book "On the Edge" to come out!! Thanks Pam for writing these deliciously wonderful books that tantalize the need for NASCAR and some goood lovin!
-Chrissy

Congrats "Chrissy," you're the first person who's ever combined a NASCAR event and reading something that wasn't printed on the back of the Cheetos bag. And really? It made you cry? I guess it makes sense, what with the shocking ending of them ending up happy and all. And don't "LOL" yourself, makes you seem desperate.

Another take:

"The chemestry between them is great and real, but I'll tell you this is a squeeky clean romance novel. There are NO sex scenes in this book. It completely skips over all the physical romance. Even the language is vague and tame. No dirty or highly suggestive words. There is a hot kiss or two, but that is it. I only mention it because I know I like my romance novels steamy, but besides that I still found this book great."

Cause I like my NASCAR romances, but I'll be damned if they're gonna make me read between the lines (or lanes. Har.)

You can keep the party going with the author over at Myspace.com/Pamela_britton.

Monday Morning Dance Party Vol. 6: "Here, take this pill" edition

Just because you're stuck with your family for the Armenian holidays doesn't mean you can't wave your hands in the air like you just don't care. Holla!

Summary: There's a lot of hair in my office garbage can

I was putting the final touches on my Halloween costume (maternal Angelina Jolie) and realized I've probably already scared more people than your average hobgoblin this year.

(The only thing scarier than a gnarled-up goblin mask is one of those machines with a motion sensor that starts cackling when trick-or-treaters come to the door. I mean, scare kids, don’t scar them for life. Sidenote: Do you think the people who put those by their door are trying to help with America’s obesity epidemic by giving kids negative associations with candy?)

At lunch today I ran to a Jack's 99 Cent Store, where the sign says "Everything 99 cents…and up." I felt like pointing out to Jack that that is kind of true for most stores, but there was no time. I was on a mission. I had to get three little dolls to duct tape to myself.

Early on the plan got derailed when I realized that they only had black princess dolls left. Whatever, I thought, I'm Angelina. I don't see color. So, no doubt crushing a small girl's dream to own a small black princess doll, I scooped up the last three.

I've now spent the last half hour printing off faces of Maddox, Zahara and Shilo Pitt-Namibia-Jolie and giving the Maddox doll a faux-hawk. Then I stopped to write this. Yes, my boss is out of town today, why do you ask?

In total, I've worried, or at the very least puzzled, the following people:

The store clerk who rang up a professionally dressed woman in her 20s casually buying three identical black dolls in the middle of the day.

The coworker waiting for something to print as I came over and got the random assortment of pictures of someone else’s babies.

The coworker who walked by as I was cutting a doll’s hair and glue-sticking it straight up.

The coworker who just did a double-take at the six tiny feet poking out of my purse.

And tonight:

The janitor tonight who will no doubt quiver when he looks in my garbage can and sees piles of hair and wadded up faces of babies, wondering if it’s a voodoo ritual.

Employee of the month, right here.

Wherein I say 'lapels' four times in 45 seconds. (Subtitle: Winter coat of my discontent)

If I'm remembering what my 12th grade English teacher taught us, there are only three conflicts that are the basis of all literature: Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man and Man vs. Self. Finding a coat covers all three. Kate vs. Winter, Kate vs. Other Shoppers, Kate vs. Kate's Doubts About Said Coat. I'd also like to throw in Kate vs. Bank Account, but I'm not sure which category that would be. (Sidenote: I had to delay buying Q-Tips the other day until I checked my balance.)

It's almost the end of October, and like the swallows of Capistrano, I return to the coat section of a major department store near you. It's an annual battle of wits. And every year I lose; I'm on my third coat in three years.

The grey pea coat was in shambles, so last year I got an almost identical tan one, a coat that managed to be simultaneously bulky and without a modicum of protection from the merest draft. Not one modicum. They had the heat cranked up really high in the store, lulling my Spidy senses into complacency.

I realized my mistake the instant I stepped out from the revolving door but I walked around all winter, shaking like a Chihuahua on an ice floe. I'm stubborn like that.

But this year, oh this year my friends, it would be different. Part of my plight is that there is such choice out there. Do I go formally woolen? Puffed up and casual? I fell in love with a red one, but that would clash with a lot of my clothes. Ditto apple green. I really wanted a white one, but I knew I wasn't a talented enough laundress to battle that city grime out. Nobody is.

So after trying on—and this is not an estimate—19,000 coats, I found a semi-puffy one. It's grey-green with gold undertones. (Looks better than it sounds. Or maybe not.) I like that it's long, and warm, and has a cool belt, but here's where it gets tricky: It has a wide collar, like one that goes out to the shoulders, which could be either extremely fashionable, or extremely clownish. After so many attempts, I'd given up the ability, and the will, to care.

I assume I'll be seeing a solid 80% of my readers in Boston this weekend, so feel free to let me know how "wicked queeah" it looks.

Still riding high on my baby-Halloween-costume-designing brilliance, I came up with my dream coat in my head while shopping, which led to this conversation the next day:

Me: "OK, here's what I would do on Project Runway."
A Certain Someone: "Go."
Me: "I would make a puff coat that's not too puffy that looks just like a trench coat, with like the lapels and stuff."
ACS: "I've seen that before."
Me: "No you haven't. I mean like not just a big collar, but lapels. Lapels!"
ACS: "I'm pretty sure I could take you to a store and find one just like that."
Me: "No way, I looked in every store in Manhattan. The brilliance of that coat would make Nina Garcia say, ‘It's a witty interpretation on a classic.' Michael Kors would weep openly."
ACS: "Hmmmm…"
Me: "I'm telling you. So cool. With toggles. And lapels!"
ACS: "Did you just learn the word 'lapel' or something?"

A cry for help

My boss' phone rang a minute ago when she had someone in her office and before I picked it up for her, I felt the need to yell "I'm on it!" like it was a matter of national security.

I think I drink too much coffee.

You would too though if you had my office's coffee machine. It's from the future! You put in a little pod of grounds and hit a button, and stand back and watch science (? Eh.) in action. I haven’t been so entranced by a piece of equipment since the 6-foot gumball machine at the mall.

Plus, there are like 20 flavor choices. Because I have high standards, I exclusively drink the Colombian Dark Magic Roast, which sounds like the sequel to "How Stella Got Her Groove Back."

Plus, it's just sexy. A big cup of a.m. sexy.

I may not get a "pension plan" or "health care," but that's nothing that my job can't make up to me by letting me drink my body weight in free coffee every day.

Part of the problem is that I don’t sleep. Not a fan of passing out for a third of my time on the planet. To hear my mom tell it, I was some crackhead baby awake at all hours. (Actually, I'm pretty sure that's true. Even then I knew napping was for suckers.)

Yes, I'm aware that just going to sleep after The Daily Show might be the "mature" thing to do in the situation, but long about midnight, I'm ready to do a jigsaw puzzle, do a jig, drink a jigger of gin, play gin rummy, write a letter to Rummy about Iraq, rack up pool balls, swim laps in a pool, pool my money with friends to drive cross country, listen to David Cross do stand up, stand up and pace until I fall asleep. (See what my mind does when it's tired?)

What's a girl got to do to get some Lunesta up in here?

Monday Morning Dance Party Vol. 5: "Every girl deserves to feel like a princess" edition

So let me understand. Each of those loyal subjects looked at this woman and thought, "Yes, I'll do what she tells me."

Tokyo Kate

I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm a really big deal in Japan, more popular than Hello Kitty, vending machine beer and rice combined. Bitch, I'm bigger than Nicky Hilton's handbag line

It all started about a year ago when I first moved to New York and went to the Plaza for their pre-renovation sale. Because I'm fancy.

Although I don't think I was stocked up on toilet paper at the time, I'm pretty sure I thought it was necessary to buy monogrammed Plaza towels. Add to that I had several friends getting married that summer and that there was also talk of an eBay venture with my sister. So all in all I was excited to be there for such a historic moment to run amuck and literally unscrew doorknobs from the rooms.

Next stop swankyville.

While waiting in line to buy get in, I was interviewed by four different media outlets. Maybe it was my charming all-American demeanor. It was probably the fact that I'd brought along a rolling suitcase. (It's called thinking ahead.)

Of the reporters, two were from competing Japanese TV stations. Did they sense my masterful use of chopsticks and my longstanding love of "Big Bird Goes to Japan"? Probably. I gave them my A game, really stellar soundbites about the Plaza, its cultural place in our imaginations, and my excitement to buy $7 towels that have a big P on them. Heartfelt sentiments I never knew I thought until I shared it with all of Japan. All in English, of course. I would have loved to have been a Japanese person watching the news that night and seen the same American girl on two channels, giving the same dubbed quote.

Japanese viewer 1: "But I don'’t understand, there are so many other people there."

Japanese viewer 2: "She must be a celebrity."

Japanese viewer 1: "We should see if we can get her to design purses."

Since then, I've been on NHK and other Japanese stations literally every eight weeks or so. Not always interviewed, sometimes I'm just in the background, but I'm definitely getting my facetime. It happened again this morning, as I blithely sashayed in the path of some cameramen in Midtown. I assume I have my own show by now. Maybe it's a national obsession.

Note: To any Japanese readers who may stumble across this site, finding me on the news would be an awesome drinking game.

If you Google "Saddam" and "sheep" I wonder what comes up?

My brother and I once got in a fight—honest-to-God backyard fisticuffs—about whether or not he invented the joke "Where do sheep go to get their fleece cut? The baa-baa shop."

I'd read it in a joke book and couldn't believe someone three years younger than me could possibly have the genius to spontaneously generate such comedy gold. Sorry, Kevin.

I've known a lot of jokey people, in the vein of "How's the weather up there?" (Get it? Get it? Cause I'm tall.) But nobody over the age of 6 seems to tell a joke with a setup/punchline format anymore. I can't tell you the last time a request was put out for a joke, so much so that the one and only one I can produce on command has expired.

This one is also from my brother, but there's no way his wordplay is sparkling enough to make it up:

What do Saddam Hussein and Little Miss Muffet have in common?
They both have Kurds in their way.

Ba-dum-dum-CHING! Also, ethnic cleansing? Always appropriate. Always hilarious.

I can just picture myself trying to tell this joke to my grandkids someday and being pelted with nursing-home Jell-O before they teleport themselves out of there.

Kate in 2052: "Well, there used to be this dictator of that country, Iraq, that we'’ve been liberating for three generations now..."
Grandkid of the future: "Shut it, Grandma. I have to go clean my silver jumpsuit."

It kinda cuts down on the humor if you have to give historical context.

It's almost like:

What's a Cypriot's least favorite food?
Turkey!

(Seriously, I'm available for weddings and bar mitvahs.)

Links!

After three nights of working on it, I've finally figured out this whole "links" business. If anyone wants me to link to them, just let me know (e-mail, or just in the comments)

30 seconds worth of questions for the Gap.

My first attempt at liveblogging:

• Whaaaaa….?

• Who is this tiny flailing person? Was there some sort of hire-the-handicapped contest?

• Oh no, oh God no, please, is that Audrey?

• Don’t you just hate when you’re elegance personified for a few decades then some greedy offspring goes and ruins your hard-won image in literally 30 seconds?

• Seriously, how bad a mother was she? Are we talking wire hangers?

• How hard did the ad agency work to make her look batshit crazy? Was it late nights with Chinese takeout in the editing booth to defile the memory of the style icon to every chirpy nip-slipping actress in Hollywood?

• “Back in Black"? Oh I get it, because the pants are black, and the song says black, right in the title. Takes out the guesswork so I don’t go into the store, panic and buy green pants. Because that would be lame.

• Remember that great “Jump, Jive and Wail” commercial a few years ago? You still sell those same khakis, so let’s bring that one back. We could all pretend to be interested in swing dancing again (retro!) and be enthralled with at stop-action 360-degree shots (edgy!) like the Matrix had never happened.

• Should Bellview study this?

• Can I say that a person who’s been dead since 1993 is dead to me, or is that redundant?


And finally, a haiku:

No, I won’t wear those
pants. You made her look crazy.
So stop asking, Gap.

Operation "Honk if you love 'House of Carters'"

I myself have a Metrocard instead of a drivers license (keeps me in touch with the common man) but I understand it must be hard to drive in this city. I appreciate the brilliant absurdity of 4.2 million cars trying to get to the same place at the same time.

That does not, I repeat NOT, give you the right to try to hit me for sport. I was inside the lines, I had the light, I'm a human being dammit. If you plow into me and knock me down, do I not bleed from the ears? If you cut a corner sharply, does my foot not flatten?

I'm generally a good pedestrian. I'll at least glance around before I dart between cars. If you have a siren on your vehicle, I won't stroll lackadaisically licking a lolly. But when you decide you have to cross the intersection to squeeze into the line of stopped traffic even though the light is red, well you sir deserve to get caught with your bumper sticking into the oncoming traffic. You got greedy and you got caught. People like you deserve society's scorn.

I know you're important. That's a given with your late-model Honda and flashy Rochester Big & Tall suit (no, seriously two for $350 is the steal of the century) but unless there's blood or a woman in labor in the car, you don't get to make the rules. I know you want to be like your heroes, but if Mad Max or someone from Grand Theft Auto jumped off a bridge, would you do it too? Cause I seriously wish you would. (Zing!)

Next time this happens, you're not getting off with just my withering glare and angry blog (which I'm sure is like a knife in your heart now). The next step involves me slapping an "Honk if you love 'House of Carters' " bumper sticker on your car. That's my right as an American. A pedestrian American.

Where art thou Courteney Cox?

When I was a kid, one of my brilliant inventions was a long stick I could use to reach across the room and turn out my light. (Apparently in the ‘80s ‘’nightstand lamps’’ hadn’t been invented yet. Or maybe my parents thought I shouldn’t be trusted with glass so near my precious self. By the way, three of my other early inventions were: the mailbox with doors at both ends so you didn’t have to go into traffic for your bills and birthday cards (this was later invented), raisin juice, and the peanutbutter-and-jelly knife with a blade at either end. Admittedly, this had the limited buying audience of people who loved PB&J enough to invest in a special utensil but also had a small number of knives in their possession.)

Regardless.

I have now been able to realize that early dream of turning off my light from across the room, even without the aid of a long stick. Thanks new roommate!

I live in a three-bedroom apartment, with two normal-sized bedrooms and one sort of storage nook. I was formerly sitting pretty in the biggest bedroom, just pointing and laughing at everyone who complained about Manhattan cramping their style. I had one Great Roommate at the other end of a long hallway, and she was never home. It was a simpler time.

Enter new roommate. A final parting gift from my boyfriend came in the form of a girl who was going to rent out my room when I moved in with him.

Within the hour of 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. one random Monday I’d been broken up with and my Wee Little Landlord (4’10”?) called to tell me she’d found someone to take over my lease.

She took pity on me and let me move into the nook instead of putting me out on the street, which was merciful considering I barely had the $35 to get the cable transferred to my room, let alone funds to rent a moving truck. It would have been a happy ending snatched from the claws of defeat, if not for Bad Roommate.

“Friends” led me astray. It is not awesome to have a roommate named Monica. She doesn’t make me laugh or lend me her boots or date the boy across the hall. She does clean a lot though. Well, that’s not actually true. She does, uh, encourage us to clean.

Within her first day, this transpired:

HER: Hey Kate.
ME: Hi Monica. Welcome to the apartment.
HER: Uh yeah.
ME: We’re really casual so help yourself to stuff in the kitchen or whatever.
HER: OK. Hey that stuff in the living room (points to my laundry bag on a chair) you’re going to move that, right?
ME: (In my head “OH MY GOD YOU BETTER SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN. I WILL COME AT YOU LIKE A SPIDER MONKEY!”) Uh, sure.

(Editor’s note: I had dismantled and remantled my bed that morning and moved every possession I owned into the nook because she said she wanted the bigger bedroom instead of a discount on the rent.)

After that I avoided her at all costs, but when I returned from my hospital interlude with my dad, I was greeted with a note on the door saying:

“Hey Roomies! (Editor’s note: Ugh)
There have been dishes in the sink for over a week and that’s really gross. Let’s try to be better about that.”

The sink was empty when I left town + Great Roommate has never left a dish in the sink X I did her dishes the last time they piled up / several times a week she has large groups of her family over to eat what I assume is rotting flesh judging by the smell = she is crazy.

Monday Morning Dance Party Vol. 4: "Black glasses" edition

Bertha: "Well sometimes you need to stop doing the mashed potato and have some punch with your best fella."
Cathy: "Plus, these glasses are heavy."
Bertha: "I'm glad we all decided to match."

Foods that can go to hell

In the magazine world, we like to combine two words to make completely new ones, like charticles (chart + article), magalog (magazine + catalog) and listicles (delicious with sprinkles).

Listicles appeal to both your ever-shortening attention span and journalists seeing how little work they can get away with. It's win-win. So you not only get People's 50 most beautiful, but also Marie Claire's "117 hot fall looks" and, for the hot-pink-wearing sorority slut in you, Cosmo's "40 ways to light his thighs on fire!!!" (and other headlines that have to be covered up at Wal-Mart.)

Listicles have also become the bulk of VH1's non-Flavor-Flav-related programming. 50 hottest bodies, 100 richest useless people, 25 ways to become a snarky talking head. (None of those are apparently "Be funny." Seriously VH1, holla at your girl. I promise I'll be funnier than the nasally hooker with that star necklace).

Because I'm nothing if not trendy, here's my listicle for the day.

Foods that can go to hell:

1. White chocolate. I hate you, imposter. You're unfit to carry the name chocolate.
2. Jelly Beans. Nobody is happy to see you in an Easter basket. You take up prime Cadbury Egg real estate. You ruin Easter.
3. Licorice. Satan's snack food.
4. Tea. Know what I could really go for right now? Some scalding water that's had a bag of herbs dipped in it.
5. Bananas. Too bananay.
6. Diet Coke with Lemon. I'm enjoying my soda, but I think I'd like it even more if I could add Windex to it.
7. Baked beans. Protein? Yes. Remotely tasty? Mais non.
8. Raisins. Grape warts.
9. Cooked green pepper. You were meant to be cold. Don't fight nature.
10. Extra-spicy daal. You know what you did. I hold a grudge.

And the blog was free, free, free!

I tend to take things the extra mile. Whereas you will be content with merely eating one green apple, I'll eat three. You will check Gawker twice a day, I'll compulsively refresh it until my fingertips bleed. And when a co-worker compliments you on your hair clip, you'll say "Thanks" or maybe even "That's so sweet. I like your skirt." I will blurt out the price.

"Thanks! It was only $2.50!" I'll chirp in your face. And you'll back away slowly, because there's nothing to add to the conversation.

Nobody likes it when people brag about something being expensive, but announcing how little you paid is just annoying and weird. I mean, it's like I'm living during a World War II sugar ration, bragging about sweetening my cake with applesauce.

It's part of my overall problem controlling my mouth, not in a bitchy or gossipy way (editor's note: that's not true), but in a literally-don't-know-what-I'll-say-until-it-comes-out way.

On the first day of class one semester in college the teacher was calling roll and although everyone else had seemed to master raising their hand or saying "here" the teacher called out my name and I randomly made my hands into the "here's looking at you, kid" finger guns and did that side-of-the-mouth "click click" sound. I promptly skipped the next week of classes, and looking back, probably should have dropped the class entirely.

But the price thing? There's just no explaining it. I like a bargain – everyone who knows me knows that – but I seriously doubt that proclaiming I got a deal on my sweater will make anyone rush out and buy one just like it. (If you do, let me know and we'll like totally wear them on the same day. Sweater twins!)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to tend my victory garden.

UPDATE: On the way home, I remembered I also said "no problemo" to a coworker today. Why am I allowed to talk? I should be fined.

I want Alopecia

Know that disease where all your hair falls out? Since 5th grade I have prayed to catch a case of that. I've done the math, and it would be worth it to wear a wig and draw on my eyebrows like one of those permanently surprised-looking old ladies. Wearing a wig vs. 180,746 hours of plucking over the next seven or so decades. It's a no-brainer. Seriously, I could have solved that whole Mideast kerfluffle by now and still had time to finish my screenplay.

My eyebrows are star-crossed lovers who only want to be reunited, and my tweezers are a Montague (or Capulet).

The year was 1991 and life at Grant Wood Elementary was progressing smoothly for a young Kate, as witnessed by my third grade picture. Seeing the photo of that little girl in a pink dress, I just want to go back in time and warn her of what the next 12 months would bring. It would bring eyebrow. Singular.

I know I had two eyebrows when I went into the fourth grade, but I somehow came out with only one. Here's an artist's rendering of my 5th grade school picture.






Do you see what it's like out there for a unibrowed person? We make babies cry.

We may not get handicapped parking tags or extra time to complete our SATs, but make no mistake, we are disabled. People tell me I look angry a lot, which makes me angry since chances were I was doing something like happily blowing bubbles or thinking of my favorite Calvin & Hobbes before they said that.


On the plus side, there are many successful people who share my affliction:



























Of course, a monobrow is no guarantee of success:





(Editor's note: Yes, I did think of all this as I watched my sedated father in a hospital. My first thought was, "Please don't die" followed quickly by "Thank God I made my sister sign a pact that she'll be on eyebrow duty if I'm ever in a coma.")

An open letter to Steinbrenner

Dear Georgie Boy,

May I call you that? I don't especially care. I'll be brief. Please hire me to play next season.

Fact: I own a Yankees cap.
Fact: I am willing to buy a bat, and find my old soccer cleats from my parents' garage. If those are not appropriate, I will consider buying new shoes.
Fact: My record is unblemished. I've never lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Fact: I will motivate my team the way my parents motivated 4-year-old me to run faster to first base in tee-ball. "Pretend a dog is chasing you," they said. "Pay my therapist," I said. "Help me get over my newfound fear of dogs."
Fact: I will not demand my own locker room. I'll share. I'm a team player like that.
Fact: I enjoy money and would be willing to make millions of dollars.
Fact: I'm a good leaper. Stick me in the outfield.
Fact: I live reasonably close to the D train.
Fact: I will point A-Rod to first base, if by chance he gets a hit next season. If he's there next season.
Fact: Pinstripes are slimming.
Fact: I can do the YMCA between innings.
Fact: I can write "Hideki Matsui" in hiragana. That will make him feel at home.
Fact: I have an incriminating picture of Derek Jeter with a mullet. This is true. I interned in Michigan and found it in the archives. It's ugly and will cost him millions in endorsements and his hot bachelor status. Trust me, after this curly monstrosity is unleashed on the world, even a crazed Mariah Carey wouldn't call him back.

I will await word from your people. I trust the contracts are being drawn up even as we speak.

See you for spring training!

Kate

Monday Morning Dance Party Vol. 3: "Even she can't look" edition

Did you have to wear this to work this morning? No? Then stop complaining. She had to and she's smiling. Although she does have her eyes closed, which probably helps the whole experience go down easier.

My Dad Part 2

Aaaaand exhale.

After a few days in intensive care, my dad is OK! Well, he has Legionnaire's disease, which has killed several people in New York this week. But he's out of the woods, no longer under sedation (or, as I randomly decided to tell someone "under seduction." It was a long week.) He's confused about where Friday through Wednesday went and is surprised every time we tell him about someone asking about how he's doing. Dad's not one for a fuss being made.

He no longer has a feeding tube, and is now delighting in hospital pork chops and canned peaches--"delicious!" (If I were my mom I'd be seriously calling into question years of compliments about her cooking.)

Within hours of being taken off his respirator, he was cracking jokes. One of his nurses was named Pam, and after she left the room he was calling out "Pam! Pam!" like Kramer when he liked Jerry's girlfriend and said her name was like a bell. Best sound ever.

We watched the Yankees game the other night while he was still hooked up to his heart monitor and every time a Yankee stuck out or bobbled the ball-or whenever the camera cut to A-Rod, even in the dugout-his heart rate would creep up.

So thanks to cutting-edge science or prayers (take your pick)he's on the mend. I'm actually going with mystery door C. My friend used her birthday wish for him to get better. You can pray all year, but you only get one birthday wish. I'm forming a new religion around the church of the birthday wish. Our idol is the candle, communion is cake and milk. Follow me to salvation. Or diabetes.

Monday Morning Dance Party Vol. 2: Domo arigato edition

I'm not sure what the stereotype is about Asian people dancing, but I'm going to go ahead and guess there's karaoke involved.

My dad

My dad is dying.

My dad is dying. My dad is dying. My dad is dying. My dad is dying.

I've been practicing saying that in front of the mirror the way you'd practice your "hellos" before a first date. But it doesn't sound right. Or natural. Or possible.

"My dad died when I was 26." "My dad died last year." "My dad died ten years ago." "I wish dad were here."

It's not possible.

Maybe he won't die. Maybe medicine, and a respirator, and a team of doctors, and many dozen Catholics can work their magic. Today was better than yesterday. His lungs are clearer, and the MRI didn't show the spots on his brain that were there yesterday. So maybe it's not a stroke. But I feel like I should be prepared. Just in case.

But people have already started dropping off pies, and casseroles, and soups. In case. In case my mom has to go home to an empty house when my brother, sister and I leave again. It's only when I see her hunched over the sink washing one lonely cup that it really hits me.

"Have you ever met a man who loved Thanksgiving more?" she asks. And I shake my head. He's so joyful when all his kids are home. He mugs for the camera, and dances jigs. He makes a big deal of tending to the turkey, hopping up when the timer beeps, and basting it with pride.

He cries at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" and every year writes note tags on our Christmas presents from Santa. Each one gets a different hokey rhyme or little sketch. And if he dies, Christmas will die too.

He always said that if he were in the hospital for the holidays we should drape him in Christmas lights. I bought some. Just in case.

I wrote his eulogy on the plane. In case. I hope I never have to open up that piece of notebook paper.

My sister said the last time she talked to him, he fell asleep in the middle of the conversation. We laughed, because even healthy we're pretty sure my dad has low-grade narcolepsy. I don't think he's still ever seen the musical act perform on Letterman. He worked late when we were kids, and usually drifted off when he read us bedtime stories. We all read at a young age, I'm sure in no small part because our stories were always suspended, Care Bears yet to rescue the kid scared of the doctor, puppies left missing.

Long after we learned to read, we'd cuddle in the crook of his arms to have him read us the comics on Sunday nights. Per our pleading, he'd "do all the voices" of Calvin, and Snoopy and those damn Family Circus kids. I don't think any of us were ever amused at the comic itself, but giggled when my dad made his patented "tickatickaticka" sound tracing Billy's path around the neighborhood.

On Sunday afternoons we'd eat our sandwiches while we watched the Three Stooges. None of us kids got the comedy and he'd turn around and have three sets of eyes watching him closely to laugh when he did.

I spent last night in the hospital by his side, watching all the machines, praying they wouldn't beep, or would keep beeping, or whatever the hell they're all supposed to do. We watched the premiere of Saturday Night Live together too, him completely sedated and me curled in the chair. We both laughed the same amount. I told my mom that this morning and she said, "He has to get better, he'd love that."

I tried to keep myself from being the obnoxious family member, but kept pulling the overnight nurses into his room when things dinged and hissed. I winced every time they moved him. If I were rich I would hire a doctor to sit next to him and just stare at the numbers like we do. That would be their only job, because he shouldn't be another patient on their rounds, he's my dad. They should be there. Just in case.

The doctor told us yesterday that he was the patient in the worst shape on the floor. "Dad did always do things all the way," my brother said proudly. There was an odd twinge of pride too that it took three nurses to hold him down before he was sedated. A feisty one.

My dad fell off his idol pedestal for me a long time ago, but he never stopped being my favorite person. We share an outlook, and a sense of humor, and react the same way to things.

He can come up with names and details that nobody else remembers. There have been times when he wins Trivial Pursuit without other teams getting a roll. He and my mom have been banned from playing with some people. We were finishing a game one night and he fell asleep in a chair (see above) and we woke him up. He answered the question correctly and went back to sleep.

I keep thinking of what I'll tell him when he's better, but we don't leave things unsaid. He knows how beloved he is, so I don't worry about that. I just want more time with him, many selfish more years of peace and holidays and boredom and petty squabbles. Years to know him as an adult, to walk me down the aisle, to see grandkids. He'll be the best grandfather.

"I think Heaven," he told me when I was a kid "will be getting to meet anyone you ever wanted and sitting and saying 'Want to sit and talk for, oh, six years?' "

My father is a journalist through and through.

Maybe all the worry will be moot in the morning. But I know that there are a lot of authors and world leaders in Heaven who should be preparing to be chatted with for a good long while.

Just in case.

Cómo hace dice la tortuga?

I've dropped a few pounds lately, thanks to a diet more effective than partying with Bobby Brown, bulimia or black-market Mexican fen-phen. In a word: turtles.

I'll start by saying I heart my building and my neighborhood. I can't lug a suitcase up stairs without someone leaping to help me. My parents were in town last week and saw my place for the first time. There was a strategically placed young child on the stoop who chatted with and enchanted my mom.

I'm thankful they weren't here for the sign taped to the window in the lobby the next day:
"You lucky I don't have a gun, or I kill you. Come here again, and I call police."

Sounds like I missed a good party.

So there's the small detail of my neighbors completely forgoing English, even when speaking to me and my whitey-white roommates. There's some sign in Spanish in our trash area that may or may not say ''Don't put your trash here, or i kill you." One of the supers was trying to explain something along that line when I set my bag down there a few weeks ago. Between his no English, and my ascertaining that he was not asking directions to the library or stating his age or number of siblings, the conversation quickly devolved into pointing.

Some young hoodlum in the next building rounded up a half dozen big turtles from the park next door and abandoned them in a plastic wading pool in the next courtyard over. I think they were dead when I spotted them from the stairway window, drowned in rainwater. It was awful. And I don’t know if it was subconscious or just to toy with me, but I got home that night and my roommate had Turtle Soup ice cream in the freezer.

I wanted to Google a picture of turtles to add to this post, but I still can't relive it. So I'll tell my tale with this photo. This sums up mi barrio:




I caught up with the other super sweeping the lobby and tried to plead for the turtles.

ME: Hi there, I think there are some turtles in the courtyard that are in trouble.
HIM: Yes, there are two courtyards.
ME: It’s the one I don’t have a key for…
HIM: Courtyard there (points) and there (points)
ME: Right, and in that one there are some turtles in a little pool. Could someone help them?
HIM: Yes, me, you, someone can do it.
ME: I don’t have a key to get in there. Can you help?
HIM: Turtle. (Goes back to sweeping.)

Heh, he said ''duty''

Once again, it's time to play "What's going on with this e-mail?"

I wish I could add some context for you, but this is all I have to work with.


To: Kate
From: Bewildering coworker


Subject: "When duty calls"

Message: "electrons. thank you. speaking of duty, can you tell me how many vacation days i've taken this year?"

Also, I realized from writing this, that ''duty'' is one of those words that looks bizarre if you look at it enough. Although that's not my biggest concern with this e-mail.

Monday Morning Dance Party Vol. 1: The "Guys, you're making it too easy for Def Comedy Jam" edition

Know what's always funny? White people dancing. Inspiring comedians since 1974 and inspiring me to launch the first installment of Monday Morning Dance Party.

Pretty much every "White people dance like this _______" joke ends with stand-up artists to do justice to this vision. The soulless eyes, the awkward jerking, the hapless half-hearted flailing of limbs, the one guy who is waaaay too into it, and the one who is about to collapse under the weight of his own embarrassment.

See you for installment two next week, kids

A Post-It less yellow. A story in pictures.

I was sitting at my desk the other day, haplessly shrugging at all the work I had to do when...




a big important man in the office walked by...(not really him)
























with a pad of yellow Post-It notes.

"Kate," he bellowed, "next time you order Post-It notes, can you get some that are less yellow? These are too bright."




First I did this......






















Then I thought about doing this...



or this...
































Followed, of course, by hiding under my desk with a dog for protection...























But instead I just screamed on the inside...

An open letter to H&M

Dear H&M,

I love you.

When I realized I only wore solid-colored shirts ("dressed like a Rothko" if you want to be all freshman fall semester art history about it) you were there for me, offering a tempting array of stripes, polka-dots, and belts. Gap has been selling me the same black turtleneck/grey hoodie/green T-shirt combo since middle school, but you have more than picked up the slack.

You have supplied my work wardrobe in a variety of pleasing textures and colors. Thanks to you sweatpants are not on that list. When I need a T-shirt and wouldn't like to spend more than the reasonable sum of $5 for it, you are there for me. Sometimes it feels as though you've put your items in a box marked ''Free to a good home" or that you would be willing to barter for some zucchini bread.

Where else will I find a $14 purse that people have run down the street to ask me about? I even saw Beyonce at your store once, and stood next to her in line as she bought $600 worth of clothes. That buys a lot, because you are so generous with your pricing. Some jackass took a picture of her in line and got yelled at by her bodyguard, no doubt called ''Tiny." I would post that picture if I could figure out how.

Walking in your stores, I could almost be convinced that your mannequins are on to something. If they had their wiley Swedish way, we'd all dress like hobo clowns and live in a happy world. A Cosby sweater over a purple unitard and velour pants? Well, um, I don't know how that can look good...OH! add patent leather suspenders, a flapper hat and a scarf...no two scarves... now we're on to something. All for $32.95? Have it gift wrapped, I'll pull the car around.

However, I have one tiny complaint. Like a squirrel storing acorns for the winter, I sense that I should be gathering supplies for the cold months ahead. When I turned to you for tights, nice thick ones, I felt betrayed. I was faced with a wall of leggings. Trendy, sure, but the tops of my feet don't want to be trendy. They want to be warm.

Don't worry, I'm not leaving you, but this is a red flag. Don't make me cheat on you with Target.

Love,

Kate

Is this a threat?

OhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygod.

Is this a threat? Is someone going to hurt that baby?

I was googling my own name (what, like you're so cool) and this popped up.

Who has two thumbs and finally learned how to post pictures?

And a hearty congratulations to you, little buddy.

Office eve!

Do you know what tonight is????

It's Office eve, the blessed night before Dunder Mifflin returns to sell us paper products. The paper products of life. I think it's a metaphor.

My office ficus is decorated with Post-its and my in box is hung by the chimney with care. Will Michael cook his foot again on his George Foreman grill? Will Ryan dodge Kelly again? Will Dwight become a Lakawana County volunteer sheriff again? And Pam and Jim, OHMIGAH! PAM AND JIM!

It was a long summer of yelling at the TV and punching the wall whenever CSI: Flurbenville or Deal or No Deal came on. ("But you don't even have to answer a question!?!?" "Pick number 6!" "No deal, Wanda, no deal!!!")

I've been brushing up with the release of the Season 2 DVD last week. As my friend Jacob put it "...the second season of The Office DVD is the funniest thing in history, funnier than that bear falling out of a tree onto a trampoline." Until now, that bear had been the best thing of the year. He bounces so high.

DVD extras make life worth living. God help me, I love a good blooper real. I'm not sure why it's so appealing to watch actors crack themselves up, but it just doesn't get old. And commentaries! The Office is full of "it was so funny, because it was actually really hot that day but we had to pretend to be cold" and "the girl who plays Angela is nothing like that in real life." I was enraptured. I took notes.

And the fake PSAs are insanely funny, expounding on jellybeans and weddings with all the seriousness that the Law & Order and Scrubs casts talk about literacy and building racial tolerance.

It's almost enough to ease the pain of my dearly departed Arrested Development. (RIP, gone too soon). But that's just my brain playing tricks on me. Sorry, illusions.

You're with me, leather

(This is probably why I can't find a kid to borrow.)

Halloween rocks.

Allow me to elaborate on my argument: Halloween rocks so much.

We eat candy! We dress up! We go to parties! It's not even October 1st and I'm plotting and scheming my way to disguise greatness. I'm going to be, ahem, Angelina Jolie (the mother version). I'm getting a fake ponytail of lustrous hair, drawing on giant lips and tying three multi-cultural dolls to my back. (One with fauxhawk).

It was going to be two dolls and a real 5-month-old but apparently this friend of a friend isn't comfortable lending out her infant to a stranger. She "got a babysitter" and won't let me ''fauxhawk (her) daughter's hair" and is a "more responsible mother than (I'll) be someday."

I've actually got a few great baby costumes in mind for any future children smart enough to be born to this Halloween genius. These are public domain, so help yourself:

* Baby Donald Trump: Little baby suit and a hat with an impressive golden swoop of hair attached.
* Baby Pope: A little pope hat and robe. (comfy too!)
* Baby Charlie Brown: Yellow shirt with zig-zag and curly-cue drawn on the head with eyeliner pencil.
* Baby strongman: Flesh-colored long sleeve shirt under a red-and-white-striped old timey bathing suit. Handlebar moustache. Tuck socks in the shirt to make muscles. A dumbbell-shaped rattle.

Halloween allows me one day a year to wear my leather pants. Two years ago I wore them with a purple wig and was Jennifer Garner on Alias. Last year I was Newscaster Barbie. (They only had blonde bob wigs, so I gave Barbie a backstory. She and Ken had split, and she sold the Malibu mansion (her dreamhouse, so sad) and she moved to Minneapolis to join the 6 o'clock newsteam. (Bob Roberts and Barbie, with Chip Donaldson's Doppler weathercast and Mike Thomas with sports). She's happy. She says hi.

Last year I went down to the Halloween parade (I meant to write a recap at the time. I never said I was Kate McPromptBlogger) and there were two standout costumes: Tons of people rounded up groups of their friends and went as The Gates. Not Bill and Melinda (I'm hilarious) but those orange curtain things. I've laughed all year picturing how crushed they all must've been to realize that at least a half-dozen other groups had the same thought. They should have all teamed up like a giant, winding, "don't tread on me'' snake.

The best costume I saw among the political satire ("Heckufa job Brownie!" was their rallying cry) and bedazzled costumes of various sluttiness was a guy in street clothes and a box of M&M packs. When people heckled him from the sidelines (and they did) he started in with his spiel like the teenagers on the subway, "My name is Jamal and I'm raising money for my basketball team!"

Brillig.

Hoagie of rage

There are those things we all agree are horrible: ethnic cleansing, puppies being kicked, Two-and-a-Half Men. Then there are those things that are only truly appreciated in all their horrific glory by the person it happens to. Yes, your friends will be empathetic when you tell them about someone shoving you out of the way on the subway, or about a dirty look from your coworker, but they'll never feel that rush of rage you get when you relive the story for their benefit. So yes, I understand you may never feel the wrath inside me, but I must share.

In this vein I present to you my work fridge. It's a solid 75% milk containers, as apparently there might be a Y2K7 we need to prepare for. Or a huge, thirsty, dairy-craving mob descending on the second floor.

In the name of not buying a $9 sandwich everyday, I bring in my humble spread of hoagie rolls, tofu "meat", cheese and mustard. I've learned to tune out the coos of "Oh what a cute idea" and "A little picnic!" from people wandering in the breakroom.

I stuff the remainders in the grocery bag and wad it on the bottom shelf. It's gone on like this for weeks. I don't bother them and they don't bother me. Until last week.

I put off lunch as long as possible so the afternoon seems shorter. So around 1:30 I go to assemble said sandwich and discover there has been a pillaging. Someone has helped himself to an entire packet of "meat" and a hoagie roll, and he ripped the bag open so the rest of the pack went stale.

Oh hells no.

I couldn't have felt more violated if I had been slipped a roofie in a frat house. I stomped off to my desk and composed my thoughts, then taped the following on the fridge:

"Dear Sir who took my lunch:

I just wanted to commend you for fitting and entire pack of my sandwich meat on a single roll. Kudos. I don't know how you did it, but that's not for me to understand.

I'm doubly excited that you ripped open the bag of bread, without regard to the twist-tie a mere inch away, thereby ruining the rest of the bread. I understand. When there's a free sandwich on the line, there's no time to lose with formalities.

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed my mustard sandwich."

Remember Wigurski? I think after I refused to clean out the fridge, he's taking matters into his own hands, one sandwich at a time.

Now with 20% less crying in public

My friend Becca came in this weekend from Boston, which was a welcome change from the abyss of coffee and crying that has become my weekend since TBTEAB (The Breakup To End All Breakups).

Thankfully, breaking up with someone you're so close to has its advantages. The boy has seen my weepyness in action (Hallmark ads, the Olympics, et al.) so he knew to handle it with the utmost respect for my feelings. By breaking up with me by email. At work. On a Monday morning.

It's been an ugly few weeks. The first week there was open weeping at work, in the bathroom stall, at Starbuckses citywide, on the subway. And one case of hives.

Now I have a cold and sound like Patty and Selma (more like Selma), which I discovered in the middle of the night with a test of my scratchy "hello? hello?" into the darkness (existential!).

Despite all this, it was a great weekend, beginning with this witty repartee:

Becca: So we're still on for this weekend?
Me: Oh yeah, we're on like a lighswitch. No wait, I can do better. We're on like....like...Lohan's on crack.
Becca: We're on like my TV when "Flavor of Love" is on.

Becca came to town (on an old people tour bus!) just to root for her Red Sox. Unfortunately for them, it got rained out. That's also the only way they weren't going to lose. (Snap!) Or not, since they won the other game. Whatevs. So Becca and her Red Sox cap and me in my Yankees cap go hunting for a bar in midtown and people are openly gawking and pointing. They cheer us on like we're at Camp David working on a Mideast peace deal. I was waiting for a slow clap from the people around us, or an ovation like Mighty Ducks 2 ("Quack attack is back!") when they all proudly stand up and say their names and where they're from. Ooh, 11-year-old me just got chills.

Alas, there was no ovation for our "ebony & ivory" outing. However, we were asked the score by two guys at Macy's getting facials at the Bliss counter. I tried and failed to tell if they were genuinely curious about the score or just trying to overcompensate that they were covered in blue mud while a girl rubbed lotion on their hands.

Either way, even with all the weeping lately, I felt more manly than them.

If you sprinkle...

Lately I can't step into the office bathroom without working myself up with an internal rants.

They start with "Y'all some grown-ass women..." then I freestyle a bit in the middle, and end with "I don't want to sit in your nasty pee sprinkle."

It reminds me of my old newspaper job, where a yellowed (ew) old sign hung on the back of the stall door since probably before I knew the alphabet:

"If you sprinkle/when you tinkle/be a sweetie/and wipe the seatie."

Oh, how I loathed that sign. It came to represent all the stuck-in-the-past ways and means of the newspaper. I was staring at that cutesy little poem-like creation on Monday morning when I should have been asleep like any self-respecting college student. I stared at it on Friday and Saturday nights instead of getting drunk, well, like, you know.

I stared at it for two and a half years and vowed to rip it down when I left. But on my last day I was so overcome with relief about escaping that I gave it a pardon from the govenor.

I think it's time for some big-city girls to learn the sprinkle/tinkle poem.

Belated comebacks

A while ago BWWTNBBA and I decided that at airports, along with maps of the tri-state area, tourists should be required to pick up a little guidebook:

1. Don't stop your whole family on the sidewalk to read the map or debate lunch options.
2. Stay to the right on escalator so people can get past you.
3. Don't go to one side of a photo opportunity, then have the camera person stand on the other side of the sidewalk and get upset when people keep walking through the frame.
4. Don't you dare eat at Olive Garden, TGI Friday's or Sabarros. If you can have it at the strip mall back home, do not consume it while you're in the nation's food capital.
5. Number five is still being disputed, but Magnolia cupcakes either do or don't suck.

And so forth...

With all this chaos-itude swirling around while they try to get to work, I understand why New Yorkers get a little peeved from time to time. That said, some are taking big time artistic license with the 'tudes.

Case in point...

Two (2) people got smart with me yesterday: I was dragging a rolling suitcase (long story) down the street, walking in a straight line, not taking up much space, when out of the corner of my eye I see a woman speed up beside me. She got right behind me and started yelling at me for my big bag. The two guys behind her did the dirty work for me and told her she was crazy. Then as I was crossing in the crosswalk, with the light, a horse-drawn carriage guy is trying to turn and yells "Yeah, walk slower stupid." That must be a romantic ride through the park with ol' silver tongue at the helm.

I apologized in the first instance and burst out laughing in the second one, since I didn't want to a.) get in a street brawl or b.) get run over by a horse. Mature? Coward? Slow-witted? The world may never know.

However, I hereby present my following comebacks: a.) "Yeah, well my bag is smaller than the steamer trunk you call a caboose." and b.) "Yeah, well you have to stare at a horse's ass all day."

Feels good to get that off my chest.

Screw you, Juan Wigurski

I finally realized the other day: I am a huge corporate geek. I love getting dressed for work, raiding the supply closet, affixing Post-it brand post-it notes to my computer monitor, and beginning emails with "Re:"

I love my cup for my editing pens, making copies in triplicate, being on deadline. I love drinking coffee and turning in my timesheet.

Yes, life is good.

But I need help understanding a coworker of mine -- a middle aged guy with a ponytail and a weirdly soft voice. I can only imagine what is under this man's bed. My boss is an awesome woman who is always getting other people to give me cool things to do (in this alternate world, "cool" means "hyphenating"). One day Creepykins stops by as I'm editing and asks me to go clean out the office fridge. I decided then and there that my autobiography would be called "Screw You ---------" (For Google's sake I'll just say it rhymes with Juan Wigurski). My twist would be that I'd at no point make a mention of who Juan Wigurski is. He would simply represent all the creepy people in my life who ask me to clean out the office fridge of life.

Anywho, Juan strolls by my desk the other day on his cellphone, and I grab a pen immediately, because I know it's gonna be gold.

This is what he said, word for word:

"She's 18, 19, really cute. She's like crying, sobbing...." at this point, just to spite me, the bastard walks away, only to emerge about 20 seconds later "...all of a sudden, she punches herself in the face and is immediately replaced by another one, and it starts all over again."

What does it mean? What's the middle of that story? Is this a porn thing I don't know about? There is money* involved for someone who can help me figure all this out.

* a Susan B. Anthony dollar

To sum up, I was carrying dog crap

Know how sometimes you have to take the dog out in the middle of the night so you put on shoes with your jammies and head off into the anonymous darkness? Not so much when you're living in midtown.

Now that I'm with Boy Who Wishes To Not Be Blogged About (BWWTNBBA) I share custody of a dog - DWWTNBBA. He's a very sweet and outgoing mutt who is happiest when in playing his favorite games: Bone, Rope or squeaky Football.

DWWTNBBA is on a very New York dinner schedule, between 8 and 10 p.m., just like us. He goes out for his last walk after 10 but before The Daily Show. He barrels down the stairs and leans against the door until we open it. From then on, it's his self-imposed duty to protect us from pigeons, horse-drawn carriages and the odd woman yelling at nobody while she adjusts her wig and spits. Actually, I'm glad he's on guard for the last one.

So I went out for the all-important final walk last week in BWWTNBBA's boxers, an oversize white T shirt and flip flops. Yes, I was looking fly. We stroll around the block and he does his business on the back 9. From then on - yay curb laws! - I get to stroll around the city with a bag of dog crap until we come to the garbage can.

We're almost home when I see actual paparazzi next to our apartment. Oh. Dear. God. This takes the naked dream to new levels.

Believe it or not, they weren't there for me. Out of a car steps a woman in a gold sparkly number. Joan Rivers. Joan Rivers! JOAN RIVERS! The woman who made a career of eviscerating professionally beautiful people on the red carpet. Good thing I was wearing my best penguin boxers. Who am I wearing? Gap men's department.

She ignored the photographers' yelling "Looking good, Joan!" and focused on DWWTNBBA, who, it should be known, is a bit of a ham for attention.

"What a fabulous dog!" she cooed as DWWTNBBA wagged his tail in a full circle like a propeller. I hid the bag of crap behind my back. She didn't mock me, but I guess sometimes you just want to leave work at the office.

Then she was ushered into the restaurant next door and I have my go-to story when I'm on Conan someday.

Kate Tyler Moore

I would have been a really good soccer mom; I would have made soccer ball shaped cookies for bake sales and ornate season scrapbooks. I was offered a job in the small Michigan town I interned in a few summers ago and I knew I would have a wonderful quiet life. Until the day I left my family to live in New York.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. According to family lore, I turned to my mom when I was 4 and announced my plans to live in Manhattan. And so I did, a scant 20 years later, I packed up a rental car and drove through the night. I kissed my family goodbye, gave up my then-boyfriend, missed my graduation to live in an apartment I'd never laid eyes on with a roommate I'd never met. I had tucked in my pocket the New York state quarter I'd had propped at my work computer monitor for inspiration.

I knew I wanted to work at a magazine. Magazines are a contact-based business. I knew a single person who worked at one. I'd met her once. I'm wasn't a math major, but those aren't good odds.

The trip was smooth for the first 12 hours of driving, until somewhere across the George Washington Bridge when all hell broke loose, I missed an exit and wound up 13 miles into New Jersey. Ten minutes later, I got a flat tire. Cut to me crying on the side of a major highway with a 911 operator yelling at me because I don't know where I am.

When the tow truck driver and I limp into the city, neither of us know where my unfortunately named street is located.

He comes up with the terrible approach of yelling it to random strangers on streetcorners.

"Seaman? Do you know where Seaman Ave is?" Laughter ensues. "Seaman? Seaman???" Women scoot their strollers away from the large, sweaty man in the truck who appears to have taken one shaken girl hostage already.

Despite this approach, we eventually found it and I shamelessly sweet-talked him into changing my tire while I tried to haul all my worldly possessions from my illegally parked car to my un-doormanned lobby to prepare it for its journey up five flights of stairs. I fell asleep that night, too tired too blow up my air mattress, on a thin sheet of plastic.

That was 4-24-05. On 4-24-06 I got the call to set up the interview for my new job. At a magazine.

When I tell people (and believe me, I make damn well sure to work it into as many conversations as possible) most have said some form of "you're gonna make it after all." Without ever seeing an episode of Mary Tyler Moore, I fantasized about the day I'd get to throw my beret in the air. The only thing that ruins like song for me is that bank commercial with Roxy, the spunky little gal getting her first paycheck.

Roxy will not hack it in the big city for the following reasons:

1. She gets her paycheck and runs - literally runs - out of the office, rubbing it in her coworkers' faces. Nobody likes a braggart, Roxy. Also, they all get paid too. Probably more than you.

2. She buys a puppy. These things are money-suckers. You've got to budget for food, vet bills, horrible little sweaters and rain boots so he can be like his idol, Tinkerbelle.

3. You take all your friends' cash at the restaurant and pay with your debit card, which is fine, but you look like you're giving them a lesson in fiscal responsibility when you wave the card at them like that. Again with the waving things at people. Plus, I'd put money on them all having debit cards too. They're not really a novelty at this point.

4. Your boyfriend is about to break up with you. You're kissing outside the movie and you stop to take the text message from your bank?!?!? Guys tend to frown on that. He looks pissed. He didn't look all that excited about getting Mr. Woofers either.

So my hopes are high that I'll be slighly more responsible than Roxy, but there are no guarantees.

I would have been a great soccer mom though.

"There's vomit on his sweater already, Mom's spaghetti."

A few years ago, Today show history was made when a young woman flashed her breasts on the courtyard at Rockerfeller Plaza. Today, I almost made Today show history of a different kind when I very nearly yammied in a trashcan outside the Dean & Deluca that you can see behind the "Hi Mom!" signs and Roker.

Yes, the interview that shall not be named happened today. (Google "Nadine Haobsh" if you need to know why I won't say). Convinced that the train would break down and leave me stranded in Harlem, I got there an hour and 12 minutes early. HR people frown on that, so I went to Dean & Deluca to contemplate how 15 years of desire to work at a magazine can come down to a half hour interview and hitting it off with a stranger. Also - reading the Today show posters - contemplating how people can live in Omaha.

The three weeks' lead time gave me ample days, hours, minutes and seconds to bring a new level of obsession to my job quest. Among the steps I took: I re-read the entire AP style book, went to eight stores to find black pants, visited message boards to ask about white vs. cream resume paper, Googled compulsively and called old teachers and employers.

I focus-grouped things to the point I couldn't make my own choices about wearing nylons under my pants. I spent a disconcerting percentage of an afternoon debating eyeshadow choices. I can't wear suits, they make me look like an East German swimmer, so I went with a black-and-white striped shirt, the aforementioned black pants, a formerly $350 purse that I got for an amazing deal, and the green shoes that you know from such hits as every other job interview I've been on.

So how did it go? I have no freakin idea. The HR lady seemed like someone I'd be friends with. She was extremely sweet and pretty much just asked about my experience. I didn't make her laugh as much as I'd hoped, but I didn't accidentally call her fat or anything horrible like that. (Not that she was of course, but things can spiral out of control fast in an interview.)

She said she'd call when something opened up, and it didn't sound like an empty "I'll call you" line at the end of a date. We'll see.

I expected to walk out feeling elated, but I felt deflated. I didn't give her my story ideas, didn't get to point out the specific things I loved about the magazine. And the biggest no-no of all, when she asked if I had questions I drew a blank. I had an Empire State Building worth of questions, but they were about specifics in editing and at particular magazines, not companywide issues.

Some other questions in general:

1. Can I sleep in the lobby until someone hires me?
2. a.) If I kill someone, can I legally have their job?
b.) What if it looks like an accident?
3. Can I pay someone off to work here?
4. Seriously, what about if I just don't tell them they're about to step in an open manhole?

Prelude to a bigot

I have dated guys who:

* Thought watermelons grew underground. (Also pumpkins. Even after we went to a pumpkin patch.)
* Filled his pockets at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
* Wore earmuffs on a date, and - wait for it - pretended to get a signal from space on them.
* Over my protests, tried to guess my weight, and guessed a full 35 pounds over my actual weight.
* Interrupted my story to (mis)correct my pronunciation of "red herring", saying the H was silent. When I looked it up, he said the dictionary was wrong.
* Literally could not go through a conversation without working his height into it. We almost made it through 15 minutes on the phone, but the last thing he said was, "Well, it should be crowded at Macy's today with all the tourists. Good thing I'm 6'2" and can see over them."

Awesome dudes all. (O.K. the last three were all from one guy.) But I can't help feeling like something is missing. What happens when you throw a little light racism into the mix, Kate?

Let's find out this week.

I agreed to out with a guy for dinner tonight (before blizzard '06 came to town) and it's going to be awesome. We've spoken once and this is a sample exchange: (keep in mind he sounds like a very demanding sports agent)

"You work as a nanny? Where do you work?"
"For a family..." before I could say "with two little girls in Chelsea" he jumps in with "Well I assume for a family. Of course you do. Where are you right now?"

He later told me that my neighborhood was ''full of dirty Mexicans'' and I tried to laugh it off saying "Oh no, it's all Dominicans and Puetro Ricans, don't mix it up" hahaha, he says "Same thing, they all smell. Do you smell like Mexican food all the time?"

The kicker: He teaches English as a second language.

I can't not go! I'm taking a pen with me to write down all the bon mots that pour out.

More to follow...

A leak Judith Miller would go to jail for

I'm actually under house arrest for the moment, awaiting the sure-to-be photo-finish between the bed delivery guys and the mattress delivery guys. The reign of the air mattress is officially coming to a close, which is great because it all but abdicated its throne two weeks ago, acquiring a leak so big Times reporters would go to jail to protect it. So I've felt very much like a starving artist in the big city, without the art.

I was flipping around, partly watching BET last night (no apologies. I keeps it real.) and at a certain point their programming changes from the most vile uncut videos to gospel hour. There's no sort of segueway (although how could there be, really? "That was good work with the pole Laquanna, now we're going to pray for your soul.") In honor of that, here are some random segueway-free stories that don't really merit their own entries:

* I lied, they aren't totally segueway-free. Most days on my way to work I see a guy about my age riding a Segway Human Douchebag Scooter. He looks normal enough in his NYU cap. He doesn't look handicapped or like a massive muscle-atrophied nerd, which are he only two reasons to own one. I tried to find out how much one of those suckers would set you back, but the Segway has further offended my sensibilities by listing the prices part by part (motor, handles etc.) and I'll be damned if I'm doing math voluntarily. I did learn that it can get up to 12.5 miles per hour.

* Speaking of transportation (crap. I'm still transitioning. It's too ingrained) I was almost run over by a guy on a unicycle the other day. The baby I babysit for and I were waiting for the light to turn and this muchacho on a unicycle comes dangerously close to us, trying to zip between the stroller and the lightpost. I wanted to smack him for many reasons, but topping the list was the look of "Hum dee dum, I'm just a guy going to work. What are you guys all looking at? You need to open your mind a little more. I can't help it that I'm more evolved than the rest of you."

* Second only to The Unicycler was the man who plowed into me coming around the corner. This happens many times a day and it's generally unavoidable. However, I can't help but thinking that he could have taken a step around me if he hadn't been SHAVING WITH AN ELECTRIC NORELCO on his way to work. It's times like this that I give up asking questions and just start looking for the hidden camera.

* I had Mentos for the first time in years the other day. Why Mentos? Why not just go completely obscure and get a Symphony bar or something else that nobody ever eats? I'll tell you. I got some White Out on my black shirt and it wouldn't come off. So - a ha - I got a Sharpie and colored over the spot. I felt pretty clever; I felt fresh and full of life. That set off a minty craving and a citywide search (limited to 22-26th streets). The freshmaker indeed!

New lows in blog narcissism. Subtitle: Groundhog's Day

In honor of Groundhog's Day, a look at my mornings:

I am nothing if not a creature of habit. Out the door at 7:45, insert iPod buds, dig for $1.25 on the way down the street, give $1.25 to Ahmed at Optimo Cigars for the Times and the Post, swipe MetroCard at 7:53.

From here I snag a seat and open the paper (The Post. Eat dessert first.) I make it through everything in the Post except the TV page (skipping sports). I get to Penn Station at 8:22 - I don't know how that happens, but it's always the same time. About once a week, I'll get a bagel (everything, plain, not toasted) at Zarro's (motto: "Send a challa to walla-walla"). There's an escalator to the street, but I take the stairs with pride in the training from my fifth floor walk-up (penthouse).

I emerge Punxsutawney-Phil-like on 34th Street and walk to my magic Starbucks (no lines! always seating!) where they begin to prepare my drink (medium-I-mean-Grande-skim-no-whip-peppermint-mocha-thanks) before I reach the counter. My breakfast companions are Guy with Buzz Cut and Besuitted Man with Laptop. Everyday. I feel like it'll be weird if I don't send Christmas cards next year, or at least saying "hi" soon. I read the Times through the page 2 corrections (the best part of the paper besides metropolitan Diary and Alessandra Stanley's articles. Most of the latter end up being referred to on the next day's page 2 anyway.)

I leave Starbucks at 8:45, heading due south. In the eight or so blocks I walk, I'm offered two other chances to refill my Starbucks cup, three shots to buy a halal kebab from vendors, no less than three opportunities to rent a porno/and or inappropriate outfit to nanny in and seven chances to buy flowers wholesale. I love the flower shops because every morning they pile their trees, plants and flowers on either side of the sidewalk and it's a nice way to mark the seasons: orange and white pumpkins, mums, ivy, pine wreaths and trees, 8-foot branches sprayed white and silver. Up next, roses. During New York's two-week winter 2005-06 the wind was blowing hard enough to make my eyes water, and one of the flower guys thought I was crying and slipped me a flower from a bouquet he was loading in a van.

I love Chelsea.

An open letter to Eugene Levy

Dear Eugene,

May I have a moment of your time? Thanks.

We've never been best friends. Your Tiger Beat likeness never graced my walls like Elijah Wood, but I always respected the Second City TV group. "A Mighty Wind" was brilliant. Ditto for "Best in Show." So it pains me to walk past bus stops and open the Times' Art section and see your mug popping up trying to sell me both "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" and that direct-to-video American Pie Band Camp garbage. The expression on your face on the CBTD2 is especially painful. It's a shot of Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, all 12 kids, and then sad little you craning your neck into the picture like "Hey guys! Can I play too?"

Maybe you have gambling debts I don't know about. Perhaps Steve has nude photos of you. It's unclear what's going on in your life.

I have a simple request for you: Hire an accountant. You surely have made a little money from your lengthy career. Invest that money now. Here's a good web site: motleyfool.com. They'll tell you everything you need to know.

I'd like you to emulate Ben Stein. He's been a Nixon speech writer, a gameshow host, and even turned a bit part - essentially consisting of the word Bueller - into a quoteable masterpiece. Maybe you could corner him at a dinner party or something and talk shop. He's probably a guy you'd be competing with for a lot of roles - uptight older white male needed for goofy straightman father-figure spots.

But you don't see him shilling for his supper in movies that even Jason Biggs, the boy who fucked a pie, turned down. Was Tara Reid too busy falling off nightclub tables to stop in for a cameo at ol' bandcamp? Not you though, your schedule was wide open. I know many of your better movies are minimally scripted to allow for improvising. And while the outcome is great, it does leave you with one fewer thing to take care of. Perhaps you could take up another hobby of some sort.

If I could leave you with a closing thought: Remember, you were nominated a Razzie - but lost - for your role as a goofball truant officer in "New York Minute". You can't even lose at losing. It's been the Olsen twins' only unsuccessful project to date. (Mary-Kate's rehab and NYU attempts notwithstanding.)

Best of luck in the new year, and if I see you on a poster for "Snow Dogs 2: The ride of your life" I'm going to be forced to call Ben Stein myself for an intervention.

Kate

Mass appeal

Hey! Kate's back!

On this Christmas Eve, I'd like to rock it old school and give you an account of last Christmas, when my family signed my grandmom out of the nursing home for the night and went to church. Watch the magic unfold...

My mother has always struggled with parking lots. She can be walking across an otherwise smoothly paved, perfectly dry surface and trip over an errant piece of gravel. Taking into consideration her record v. parking lots in the best of conditions, my dad thought it best to escort her into church over the slippery ice.

He parked grandma with us in the church lobby to double back for Mom. Being that Grandmom couldn’t look up too well, she commented on our shoes. My brother and I mocked the pictures of the lumpy and misshapen youths who constitute the youth group. Everything was out of proportion – bulbous noses, flat hair and the odd 15-year-old with jowls.

We paraded in to the dimly lit church and, although surveying uncharted terrain, realized we needed to figure out where to sit – too far in the front and we’d block the other congregants, too far in the back and we’d miss out on the choicest communion wafers.

It was a tough call, one made tougher by me being weighed down with a family’s worth of coats. We huddled under the fifth station of the cross, and I caught Jesus’ eye. We surveyed each other’s loads, and maybe it was just the pain of Grandma’s wheelchair
that had rolled on my toe, but I swear He gave me a “Good work little buddy” and a wink.

We decided on the back of the church, and filed in, with grandma as the bookend. The church is a cathedral style, with large white pillars so that a good 10 percent of the faithful have their view blocked — a blank canvas to better contemplate our Savior. The choir began to warm up in the 150-year-old loft condemned by the fire department for all days of the year but this. On this holy occasion, the fire department looks the other way, and 10 or so smiling singers and musicians make their way up the thickly carpeted stairs like the crew of the Challenger.

Dad and I know our role, and it’s not in the choir loft. Over the years my musical contribution has dwindled from singing to mouthing words to humming to staring beatifically and tapping my fingers.

Generally out of rhythm.

The night’s song sheet settled a debate about the choir leader’s last name. Unbeknownst to him, Tom Georgio had caused a family fight earlier in the evening about whether his last name was Georgio or Di Georgio. Dad wasn’t going to admit defeat that easily, though, and summoned a pencil to add “Di”
to his sheet to show Mom.

Tom Georgio – just Georgio, thanks – began to over-sing a duet with one of his possibly 11 daughters. Grandma whipped her head around as though someone had hurled a spitball at her. Many of the members – probably most of the non-Georgios – hadn’t been to that week’s practice.

Grandma noticed.

What she did not notice was when they would stop the song. They finished and the church reflected in the holy silence.

“Well they tried,” the small woman next to me in the wheelchair said.

Mass began.

All went well during the processional, at which point the lack of practice caught up with the choir, as some plowed straight into verse two, while others diverted into verse three. Grandma let that pass without comment. She was either adjusting her earrings or plugging her ears. I know which I choose.

Father’s mic sounded alarmingly bullhorn-like, as though at any moments he would yell “Who do we want?” at which point we’d shout “Jesus!”

A family slipped in to the row ahead of us. The older daughter rocked a star-spangled look, while her younger sister was decked out in her poofiest purple meringue dress. The father muttered, “Can’t see a damn thing” and with that they were settled.

Ahead of them was a group of mentally challenged adults. One sported a Santa hat. Many probably had fun at the church’s annual – and tragically named – Mentally Retarded Fun Night, a name that never fails to win a suppressed snort from my brother.

The faithful were packed shoulder to shoulder, but I realized we’d found a loophole. Not wanting to run the Grandma obstacle course, people had left us a full third of a pew. We had made her into a human shield.

The little girl in front of us started to tip taffeta over velveteen and I put my hand out “Stop in the name of love” style, as though I was going to pull her back magnetically. Her father got to her first, and smiled a thanks. It probably looked more like I pushed her than tried to help.

The choir crechendoed to a trilling “aammmmEEENNNN!!” and the rusty Catholics and heathen Protestants begin to rise prematurely, while pious eyes darted around, playing Holy Whack-a-mole as their heads popped up.

An elfin-height squatty woman tried to peer around one of the poles – to no avail.

Just like the choir, the collection-basket passer was a volunteer position, a point made painfully obvious when one hit the little girl in front of us.

Apologies were issued. In the Christmas spirit, lawsuits were dropped.

The woman issuing the communion wine sported a “Merry fitness!” complete with a reindeer doing a stomach crunch. I nearly spit it in her face.

The choir laughed in the face of death again this year, descending from their condemned perch. Although if Di Georgio – wait, no, just Georgio – doesn’t lay off the sugar plums, this year may be their last.

P.S. There was talk among some in the choir that my mom had replaced the word “heart” with “fart,” in a moment of distraction. She denies the allegation.

iPod, youPod

I have a long history of computer retardedness and general behind-the-curveness. My sister can rattle off RAM and gigabyte info effortlessly while I'm more about knowing why Lindsay Lohan and Ashlee Simpson were feuding. How is it that I know celebrity gossip? Osmosis? I don't even have cable, but I can somehow tell you that Courteney Cox has an extra 'e' in her name, and that she went to the same high school as Natalee Holloway. Not quite as useful as computer knowledge.

By the way, Gigabites would be an awesome computer cafe name. Is it taken?

I have overcome my handicap admirably recently by buying both a laptop and an iPod. It's been like the Kate Special Olympics this week.

When we first got a cellphone, my sister would pretend to talk on it and I'd laugh at her 6th grade excitement. Now I have no songs on my iPod, but that hasn't stopped me from walking down the street with my white earbuds dangling, a signal to all that I've joined the 21st century. I'm just that cool. It's nice to be so excited about something.

I have my discman too, and when I do need real music I listen to my new Kanye West CD, which has some songs I just put on 'repeat'. Kanye bookended my day with performances on Ellen and Oprah. He was on there doing "Golddigger" with the modified lean back move from Fat Joe, and all was going well until he got to the line that culminated with "he'll leave your ass for a white girl." The audiences -- full of white girls -- had been trying to bop along with their suburban friends and didn't quite know what to do with that.


"Late Registration" is not quite as deliciously clever as his debut, which I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for, mostly because it let me drown out so many disfunctional coworkers. There were days when I'd literally not take off my headphones while they fought with each other and talked in baby talk to their husbands.

He's probably the reason I'm not in jail for murder right now.

Urban outfitters

I saw a woman today dressed in a Big-Bird yellow fuzzy fleece unitard. (Can't spell "unitard" without "tard." Remember that the next time you want to wear your unitard out of the house.) It was embellished with black leather trim and pockets. She was pulling a little dog in a rolling suitcase.

Upon further inspection, "she" might have been a dude.

This was the second most notable outfit I saw today. The top honor goes to a young woman sporting a left torso wrapped in gauze, as though she had been stabbed within the fortnight. The great part was, she was still rocking her Puerto Rico halter top. Her boyfriend/common law husband escorting her overcompensated on fabric and coordinated on the national pride issue. He took to the street in a knee-length homemade T-shirt that said in marker "Kiss my Spanish ass."

As a person who struggles with low-rise jeans, I admire the people of all nationalities in this city who look in the mirror every morning and think, "I'm not going to let this extra 30 pounds/baby in a stroller/recent stab wound stop me from showing all my business to the world."

I salute you ladies, if for no other reason than you make the rest of us look better.

Frontin'

As I'm writing this, I'm next door to Madame Taussaud's wax museum. It's a hassle to get here, fighting past the tourists on the sidewalk who stop IN THE MIDDLE to gawk and point. To lure people inside, the museum has wheeled Samuel (L.) Jackson out to the sidewalk, where people happily snap photos, as gleefully as they'd be next to the real man. I can't imagine how many poor innocents back home, from Tulsa to Timbuktu, think their friends and family members went to New York and spotted a real live celebrity.

As happy as they are about Sammy being available for photos, most do catch on that he's not the real thing. Not so for this girl in front of me the other day who - ignoring the sign saying "Wax Museum" in neon above her head - started full-on freaking out and had to be calmed down by her friends.

I think a wax museum is a great metaphor for New York's image obsession. They say people make up their mind about you in, what?, a minute? In New York, with the sheer volume of people around you, that time has got to be a tenth of that.

This leads to all-too-neat stereotypes that most people assign themselves. Punk, hippy, chic mom, professionally thin woman, rumpled student, young businessman on the go. Rather than fight these stereotypes, I think most people tend to embrace them, to buy whole hog into the lifestyle of their choice.

Because New Yorkers walk everywhere, it's necessary to carry around possessions that would normally be tossed into the backseat of a car - gym clothes, snack, books, etc.

Tourists wear their backpacks backwards on their chests, just like the guidebook and Aunt Sally recommends. Fashionistas have their oversized Mary-Kate-approved slouchy bags (probably without snacks). The homeless have Duane Reed bags. Punks have ripped messenger bags.

My favorite example of fronting in New York is the phenomena of keeping bags from a store you'd like people to think you shop at. I can't tell you how many wrinkled up orange Hermes shopping bags, or tiny, grungy Tiffany bags, or ripped up Prada shopping bags go by daily.

I'm not sure if that's a step up from the Chinatown special, the Louis Vuitton "inspired" bag. While many are direct copies, the sadder ones are altered to have different initials in the pattern, or are overlaid with smiling daisies or cherries. They are generally on the arm of a teenage girl with her mom, or a middle-aged woman sporting a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.

Either way, it sends a weird message and raises many questions: Do they think it's real? Do they think it's fooling anyone? Did they just buy it because they thought it was cute?

Easy there, Little Red Riding Hood

Since I've been here, the main focus of my exploration has been downtown, Chinatown, SoHo, all the usual suspects that would pop up on a TV show or a sleek ad for vodka. My usual routine in my neighborhood has been the bank, Blockbuster, McDonald's for my McFlurry habit.


These destinations can all be reached by walking out the door and going straight ahead, then turning right.

So last week, feeling a little like Lewis and Clark (more like Clark, really) I decided to wander over to the little playground outside my door to the left. Turns out it's a huge park,that kept going, like a magician's scarf trick, or clowns in a clown car.

There are 165 acres of Inwood Hill Park, which includes the rock where the shiny-beads-for-Manhattan trade supposedly took place in the early 1600s. I was sitting there, on the rock, trying to comprehend how long ago that was, when I realized the plaque about it was from the 1930s and I can't even wrap my head around that.

Plus, with so many acres, it makes the murders-per-acre rate look really low.

The park warranted calls to no less than six people in my phone book - "That's right, I'm in a giant woods IN MANHATTAN!" "Guess what I'm sitting on?" "Did you know I live near water? There's apparently some bridge right outside my door."

Not one, but two friends recommended I live there if something happens with my lease. I'm not sure what to make of that vote of confidence, but I've started pricing tents.