Boys Are Stupid...

I am just saying, if you were a boy and you hypothetically went out on a first date with a girl. And it was pretty clear to both of you that probably this isn't going to work out. The correct thing to do, still, is to call her and have that awkward conversation where you both agree you don't really care if you never see each other again. It is not OK to friend that girl on Facebook and not call and give no indication of the fact that, well, you don't really care if you never see her again. It doesn't matter if you are as sure as she is that this is the case. The phone call is necessary. I'm just saying.

End rant.

Four-Inch Heels Do Not a Ditz Make, Right?

I bought a beautiful pair of brown heels yesterday. This after I decided I was going to try to really not spend money. But I've been looking for brown heels for forever because I don't buy brown Shabbos clothing because I don't have brown heels, and clearly that situation needed to be remedied. (Now, why you might ask, was I in a shoe store if I wasn't buying things I don't need...) And now I need to buy brown Shabbos clothing to go with the brown heels.

Now that you've gained a disturbing look into my ridiculous brain...

A lot of posts on my blog are about shoes and clothing. And, indeed, I spend a decent amount of time talking about these things. Which sort of bothers me. I mean, I care what I look like. I feel better about myself when I know I look good. Getting new clothing makes me happy. (It made me happier when my mother used to pay for said new clothing, but this is what I get for being a working girl.)

I'm not a ditz. I'm intellectual and academic. I read books that my friend says sound like history textbooks. ("All the Presiden's Men" is not like a history book. It is amazing.) My sister calls me, excited, to tell me who won the primaries. I like having conversations about philosophy, in which I like to name-drop famous philosophers.

All this you presumably know, but it is all to say I am not a ditz. Even if I sort of feel like one when I get all worked up about my new brown heels. I mean, I'm not a ditz, right? Right?

Things You Might Not Want to Hear on a 1st Date

Just FYI.

• "Oh yeah, I hang out in bars with friends all the time. [disbelief] You wouldn't?"
  

• In response to my mentioning that McCain's daughter graduated from Columbia my year: "Is she pretty? Because McCain's wife is really pretty."

• Something you might not want to hear if you're a journalist: "The media is just awful. They just shouldn't exist. I've just had it with The New York Times."

• "Tell me what you got on your LSATs. And your GPA."

Also, a girl might not want to see a guy in jeans on a first date. Just sayin'. If I spent somewhere between one and two hours on hair and makeup, you could at least pay me the courtesy of wearing a nice pair of pants and a button-down shirt.

Caffeinated Thoughts (Are There Any Other Type?)

"I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee. "

• I like my coffee as much as the next person, probably more. But a $20,000 coffee machine?

• One of the copy editors in my office drinks a cup of coffee and about four cans of soda in an eight-hour workday. That is just not healthy. She's about 60 years old, I'd say, and she told me she doesn't have any social life, so I can't imagine why she would be that tired. I mean, I worked with college students who lived on almost no sleep and I never saw anyone consume that much caffeine on a regular basis.

• Uh. Oh. Apparently, cola can cause kidney problems. This is bad news for my Diet Coke addiction, but even worse news for the copy editor mentioned above. Perhaps I should send her the article.

"For I have known them all already, known them all:--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"

Elegy For The Post-Watergate Journalist

"Isn't the news itself still valuable to anyone? In any format, through any medium -- isn't an understanding of the events of the day still a salable commodity? Or were we kidding ourselves? Was a newspaper a viable entity only so long as it had classifieds, comics and the latest sports scores?"

When asking what I want to do with my life, someone recently suggested an obituary writer of the newsroom. Which was sad but somewhat humorous coming in a long list of other journalism-related professions.

But this article, well, is essentially an obituary of the newsroom or journalism or starry-eyed post-Watergate journalists. (Money quote above.) It almost brought tears to my eyes. Seriously.

(Though I would note that I did my share by subscribing to The Times today. This poor journalist is doing her share to save newspapers.)

כל התחלות קשות

A new apartment with girls I really like. It's something I've been waiting months for. To be out of my house, on my own.

My room is decorated -- pink and orange everywhere, Columbia pennant on the wall, American Girl doll sitting next to my desk. My books, including quite a few Core hits, are on my bookshelf. My Ikea furniture is put together, thanks to a lot of help from my new roommates.

And yet. It hardly feels like home.

I spent four years at Columbia and it became my home--by walking across College Walk at 4 a.m. through the Christmas (um, holiday)-lighted trees or through the sprinklers, staring at the lit Butler; getting my heels stuck in the cobblestones that line the campus; recognizing and waving to people as I walked to class. I don't have that here yet.

And I'm sure I will. I will stay in for Shabbos. I will meet new people. I will make new friends. I will be happy here. But it's just so hard, so daunting and scary, to have to start that all over again. (And I've never been good at the big social scenes, making new friends sort of thing.)

I feel like I've been in transition ever since graduation. A summer internship that I kept on hoping would turn into a job I didn't actually want. A job I like but am not passionate about. An application pending for a graduate school with a minuscule acceptance rate.

I just want to settle down. I want to know what I want. I want to know what the future holds. I want it to be that easy. To know what I need to do and just be able to do it. To know where I want to be 10 years from now. To know where I want to be now.

Thank Goodness

Saturday night found me gluing hard-won glitter (you would not believe how hard it is to find glitter in this city) onto oaktag to make shtick for a friend's wedding, when I get a call from the bride herself. Now, I love this bride a lot, but we are not best friends. I definitely did not expect to hear from her the night before her wedding.

I had asked her a few weeks ago if she knew anyone else coming to her wedding from The Heights (to me, this still sounds like the bar near Columbia not the neighborhood in which I live). She said she'd get back to me. When she didn't, I figured there was no one coming and I made other arrangements.

But the night before her wedding, she called just to let me know she had tried but couldn't find a ride for me. She then went on to let me know that someone who was conceivably from the same group of friends as me but who wasn't really close with anyone would be at the wedding and she just wanted to be sure that this girl would be included in the shtick.

Sometimes, I'm in awe of people's goodness.

Can I Use My Vote To Prove My Sister Wrong?

So, my sister is interning for McCain's campaign (along with many, many other people, I'm sure), and she is convinced that if McCain wins, she will get a job in the White House. Now, I am pretty sure that is absolutely false. So, is it wrong if a little part of me (not the part of me that will vote) wants McCain to win just so I can say "I told you so"? 

Sympathy Pangs?

Today, the editor-in-chief and managing editor of the publication where I work fired a reporter.

Now, she is a reporter who I specifically disliked (and it takes a lot to make me dislike someone). She was a reporter who gave me a hard time, who sent letters to my editors saying I messed up. But she also graduated my year at Columbia. And she just got fired from her first job.

And that's sort of scary--to watch someone my age, someone straight out of school with hopes and dreams and an Ivy League degree of her own get fired just like that.

My boss, who was feeling pretty badly about the whole thing afterward, said, "You don't get fired from the job you're meant to have." I think she's right, but I'm still feeling sorry for the reporter who gave me such a hard time.

Reason #581 I Miss College

If you are in New York, or possibly anywhere between here and Washington or further, you know that the weather is AMAZING today. And I don't say that easily because I generally prefer mid-70s to mid-80s. But it is gorgeous out. 

 

And if this were college, I would be begging my professor to let us hold class outside on the lil bits of grass and trees, and it might even work. But, alas, I am pretty sure that won't work with my boss.

This Article Makes Me Want to Kill Myself

An article about how spelling is, um, discretionary.

 

"Spelling is a hard skill for many people to learn, and one in which few can hope for complete mastery. The English language, which is rich in homonyms, silent letters and hybrid roots, often seems to be a giant conspiracy against accurate spelling."

 

Pardon?

 

"Some die-hard purists will greet this show of flexibility with horror, regarding it as a symptom of sloth, debased standards, national decline, moral relativism and looming anarchy."

 

That would be me.

And Now I Wait

...

Give me distracting things to do. For the next few months.

Words of Wisdom

Trying really hard to remember all this as I panic....

"Now for the warning I give the best candidates: remember that four spots for over 100 applications means that if do you get in, it's probably a statistical mistake. ...

If you don't get in, you can't be disheartened because it doesn't mean anything. ...

This also means that if you do get in (here's hoping!), it also means that you can't take it to heart either."