The beginning of the end.

As much as I like to use this blog as a way to write about things I see in New York, I should mention that after three years in this great city, I'm trading up. As of January 5th, I will be the newest immigrant to Sydney, Australia. My company is transferring me, and for the foreseeable future, I will be acclimating to a lifestyle of 300 days of sunshine. But don't worry New York: If I ever move back to America, you are the place I'm coming back to.

So, the beginning of the end has begun. In other words, I've started packing. I'm going to document this experience as much as possible (depending more or less on my laziness at any given moment). I'm officially moving out of my Williamsburg, Brooklyn apartment on December 14th, but most of my stuff will be sold/shipped/thrown out before then. I've decided to post some photos of the de-evolution of my bedroom from a place I love to just another address I used to live at. This is where the hard part, emotionally speaking, of moving starts to kick in. Three weeks from today, I will no longer live in New York. That's proving to be more difficult to rationalize than I originally thought.

I know exciting things are waiting for me in Sydney, but New York is addictive and only people that have lived here for a significant portion of time know this. Right when you think you're ready to leave, this place sucks you back in with something amazing. In the end, you catch yourself digging your claws in trying to hold on as tight as possible to a place you love because it's home.

Cosmic Truth.

It is a cosmic truth that if you buy four bottles of salad dressing that you don't like (but bought because Ranch and Italian seem to be favorites for everyone else) for the company Thanksgiving potluck lunch, no one will open any of them. Then you will be left with four unopened bottles of shitty salad dressing. For all of time.

I waited almost one month on purpose...

It's been almost one month since I last posted. I did it on purpose...if you can call being tired, lazy, unmotivated and generally lacksidasical "on purpose."

There is something that caught my attention this morning, so the motivation is back...

Why do foreign men (i.e. not from the United States since that's where I live) use an inordinate amount of exclamation points when writing messages either via e-mail, message boards or text messages? I thought at first that this was a singular phenomenon wholly owned by my close friend's exboyfriend, Eamonn. The man could write a paragraph containing only three sentences but manage to use no fewer than 15 exclamation points. Below is an example of what I'm talking about (this was not actually written by him, but let's pretend that he was writing to me):

Him: "Hello Mary Ann!!!!!!!!!!! How are you?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: "What in the Hell..."
Him: "LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and so on and so on.....)."

Imagine if he actually spoke like that? Are there such people that can't control the excited tone in their voice regardless of what they are talking about? If there are folks like that, I would like to meet them. I think I could appreciate how utterly ridiculous they must look every second of every day.

But back to my point of thinking this was singular mishap, that poor Eamonn was doomed to come across as the excited asshole at every social gathering or via every electronically-based correspondence he will or has ever sent. I recently came across a Facebook "Wall" comment posted on a good friend's page. He had actually posted the comment himself (perhaps he's not bright enough to learn the function of properly posting on a friend's page and not one's own, or perhaps I should stop calling him a retard because he is, in fact, a retard****). The context of the comment was not bothersome - just a typical fragmented sentence written by someone who I know for a fact is alot smarter than poorly formed sentences. It was the punctuation. As if wanting to take the exact opposite approach of say, a William Faulkner book, he used no fewer than three exclamation points at the end of every sentence. To help show how absurd this is, I have taken a passage from William Faulkner's classic novel The Sound and the Fury and changed all the punctuation (periods, question marks, etc.) to exclamation points. It helps give the situation some perspective:

"When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight o' clock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch!!! It was Grandfather's and when Father gave it to me he said I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it's rather excruciating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father's!!!!!!!!!!! I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it!!!!!!!! Because no battle is ever won he said!!!!!!! They are not even fought!!!!!!!!!!!! The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools!!!!!!!!!! LOL!!!"

Fair enough, Faulkner's work did not include the "LOL" at the end, but I thought it was appropriate, given the situation.

So what's the deal? What's with the excited tone when I know for a fact that they don't actually speak that way. I know both these men aren't a jittery bunch of school girls laughing at everything and overstating every word that comes out of their mouths...well...at least Eamonn isn't...

*** I explicity told the person I am referencing here to NOT read my blog. Something feels weird about it. So if he is reading this, it servesr you right. Pig.

The Ear Muff Odyssey

One conclusion I came to at an early age was that I can not wear ear muffs. Let me rephrase: I SHOULD NOT wear ear muffs. I can physically wear them. It's not like I have some sort of deformed ear or head issue. It's just that when I put on a pair, I look like a retarded snow bunny. A retarded snow bunny that can only be seen in the midwest. Oddly enough, I am from the midwest and I don't acclimate well to extremely cold temperatures. I find this odd because I spend the greater part (and by "greater part" I mean the entire) summer bitching about the heat and how I love cold weather.

Despite the knowledge that two puffy pieces of fabric attached to the sides of my head is a horrible fashion mistake on my part, what did I do? I went out and dropped $50 on a pair of ear muffs, of course!

On the upside, I don't look as retarded as I did back in 2003 when I last tried on a pair of auditory muffs (that's what I'm calling them now). Plus, these auditory muffs are in a posh plaid pattern, so if worse comes to worse, I can fake my best Scottish accent and pretend that whomever just made fun of my auditory muffs is a total jerk because they not only made fun of what I was wearing but poked fun at my ancestral tartan. After typing that last sentence out and reading it out loud, I have since burned said auditory muffs and invested in a nice hat that can not be described by using a slang term for female parts.

Rooster = Jokes about Cock

I was just reading my little Blogger.com bio, and since I entered in my birthday the site automatically lists my Chinese calendar animal. As such, I was just reminded of how my sense of humor really hasn't changed since 1990.

I think I was in the third grade the first time my family took me to a Chinese restaurant. I distinctly remember the paper place mats that list out the animals that represent your birth year. I'd like to think that at the age of 8 years old, I wouldn't have spouted off some cock joke after learning that 1981 was the year of the Rooster. I'm sure I didn't make any comment on this level until at least high school (possibly middle school) (possibly the fourth grade). This blog doesn't really have a point except that according to the Chinese, I'm a cock. Enough said. I also have a long history of getting crappy/boring fortunes inside my fortune cookies. So apparently the Chinese hate me on multiple levels.

I'm infamous. Or was that un-famous. You be the judge.

This past weekend, I was referred to as the infamous Mary Ann. Apparently, my best friend is obsessed with me and has brought me up enough in conversations with her ner roommates enough to warrant this title. I would be creeped out, but I've known since the second grade that she's had a mega crush on me, so whatevs.

I've been called lots of things in my 26 years, but this is the first time "infamous" has been used. This got me to thinking: what have I done that would be considered worthy to include on my infamous resume? Well, I'm glad you're curious too because this is the list I've come up with:

1. In the fifth grade, at the age of 10, I raised the most money (I think it was around $700 or so) in my school's "Jump Rope for Heart" charity event. My secret? While all those sad bastard classmates of mine went around the neighborhood collecting pledges of measley coins, I went straight to the top. My elementary business savvy took me to all the local area banks, restaurants, and various local shops where people had corporate checking accounts. Overall, I probably put in about a tenth of the effort as the rest of my classmates, but guess who walked home with the grand prize of a Nintendo? Me. That's who. It should also be noted that I don't actually remember doing any jump roping at the event. I'm more of an ideas person really...annnnnnnnnnnd I was a fat kid. So sue me.

2. I once beat Emily A. in a farting contest in June 1999. It was the eve of my Germany/Austria trip, and we wanted a unique way to say goodbye. Suck it Ambruso! Victory was mine!

3. During my junior year of college, I successfully lobbed an egg out of a moving vehicle to hit my target of a second story apartment computer. You heard me right folks. Imagine this:
It's a cold, windy night in Lawrence, Kansas. I've got one thing on my mind, and that thing is revenge. I know my chances are slim, but I've never been one to back down from a challenge that involves petty vandalism and a sincere lack of maturity. As I'm driving, I lob an egg out of my driver's side window, over the car, and through the window of a second story apartment building. And where did this egg land? Right on the desktop keyboard. Now I'm not saying that I'm gifted in the skill of trajectory, but I am gifted in the skill of trajectory.

4. I can make up a five stanza song on cue. Seriously, tell me to sing and I'll give you a song you'll never forget. Some of my classics include "7up Up Up and Away with My Heart" and "Jeans, Jeans the Music Fruit."

5. I say "This is just like that Seinfeld episode" about 11 times a day, even when I know a situation is nothing like an episode of Seinfeld.

6. I use italics in my speech. It's a trick I do with my face. Ask me to show you the next time I see you.

7. I have never won a food eating contest, but yet I keep entering them. I'm not talking about the professional kind where some jack ass eats 394 hot dogs. I just dare my friends that I can eat, for example, more pancakes than them, even though I KNOW they can beat me. But I always THINK I'll win. It's called confidence folks. Completely mind blowing, retarded confidence.

8. In the summer of 2006, I made fleeting eye contact with James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins while watching the band the Office at the Mercury Lounge. Two days later, I was walking down 2nd Avenue, and as I passsed the extremely over-rated Mexican food restaurant named Mary Ann's, who did I see eating a fajita on the patio of my namesake el restaurante? A Mr. James Iha! And what band was playing on my iPod as all this happened? The Office! This is totally like that scene in the animated version of The Lion King where the bear or lion or whatever it is holds thes baby bear/lion/donkey over its head and all the animals are singing some Elton John song. It was either "Benny and the Jets" or "Circle of Life." Either way, both are appropriate.

9. Even though I'm not a homosexual, I once out-gayed a gay man. You might think it's impossible, but let me tell you something: Reach for the stars.

10. During the summer of 2005, I ate no fewer than 12 Baskin Robbins ice cream cakes from the months of May to September. Not only did I not gain any weight, I managed to lose 7 pounds. Damn. Straight.

11. I once went as the Virgin Mary post birth to a costume party and was too lazy to wash the fake blood off my legs for two days. As a result, I completely avoid the church on 14th Street as its called the Church of Immaculate Conception. Now I don't really know what my religious views are, but I'm confident that someone somewhere would love to pull that little joke on me. I think the universal fear that I will produce the next Rosemary's Baby has prevented it thus far.

There are a few more things I could add to this list, but I feel this is sufficient. I don't even know if any of these topics came up in conversation and earned me the title of "infamous," but I'd like to think they played a small part.

Stay tuned for my next blog where I'll explore the mysteries of back fat and the Food Network's Paula Dean.

Update to first post!

This didn't happen on the subway, but this is related to people whispering about retarded stuff. I just went to Starbucks (shut up - I like a nice pumpkin spice latte every now and again - shut up again), and speaking of pumpkin spice lattes, I notice that people order them in a hushed tone. You would think they were ordering a jug of moonshine with a side of kiddie porn based on the way they quietly give their order to the cashier.

To sum up, Starbucks is like a porno shop - people are afraid to let anyone see what they are ACTUALLY buying.

Coffee + Cold Medicine / Lack of Motivation = First blog post.

I've been "blogging" on and off for about the past two years. These have taken various forms, mainly on my MySpace page*, but I figure I would make it official and dedicate an entire forum.

Welcome.

I would start off with something that I actually saw on the subway today, but I've got a cold. As such, the trip into work today was spent concentrating on trying NOT to barf on the passengers around me. So I guess my observation would be that fellow subway riders are pretty observant and seem to know when someone is trying to not puke on them. The looks I received were a fine blend of pity, "oh my god if she yacks, I'm going to yack" and "Why does this always happen to me?". Well, I didn't barf, but I managed to work up a healthy pre-vomit sweat.


* I've noticed that a lot of people have begun to whisper the name "MySpace," as if they are embarrassed to admit that they have a MySpace page. I guess this goes for all sorts of social networking sites. For example, please read the following script:

Me: So I heard your ex was dating that fat chick at TGI Friday's?
Anonymous friend: I know! I saw it (whispering) on his MySpace page.
Me: On his what?
Anonymous: (whispering) On his MySpace page.
Me: Why are you whispering? It's just MySpace.
Anonymous: (nods in a disgraced manner).

I can understand that checking out an exboyfriend's/exgirlfriend's MySpace page could be seen as the cyber equivalent of driving past their house to see if someone else's car is parked in their drive way (not that I've ever done that...shut up), but c'mon. The whole world is either on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. Also, I work in technology public relations, so I can fall back on the standard excuse of "I do it for work. Seriously, they make me."