the other night in art class, someone was painting with oils. and i'm not sure what it was, but something, some combination of items created a smell that was instantly recognizable. and i wish i knew what it was — what caused it, what the smell was. because i instantly and positively knew it was a smell i associate with hospitals now. its something i smelled a lot of when i was hospitalized.

but i have no idea what it is. i imagine it is disinfectant of some sort, but i dont know. i do know that simply smelling it bubbled up all sorts of weird anxious feelings that come with any memory of being sick.

i didn't like it.

and now, as i sit outside at starbucks, writing documents for work, surrounded by an ipod, a coffee, a moleskine and the gang of four's 'design patterns' book, i am smelling cloves. someone out here is smoking clove cigarettes.

and suddenly, i'm on the back porch of psi-u on a friday night. there must be some coffeeshop kids hanging out, smoking them. i can almost see julie hill holding one. (she is a post for another day, most certainly.) but my ipod plays 'bittersweet symphony' and i know, i know, its 2.30am and we are sitting out back, waiting for the cops to show and kill the party, waiting for the lights to get thrown on and everyone to stumble home, dropping the half empty can as we move. i'm leaning on the wall, foisy is within earshot. no one is watching the back door and we ran out of beer an hour ago and i'm drinking one of the last brother beers (the secret stash of beer at any given party saved for the people who actually paid for the entire thing). and i blink.

and its 9 years later and i'm on the other side of the country, living in silicon valley and i am missing everyone i have ever known.

it's one of those moments where i want to climb up on top of a huge mountain, a mountain so tall that everyone can hear me and i scream the names of all the people i love, i call them all out, i make every one of you raise your heads and know that you are missed, that you are still loved and that i want to be near every single one of you. always.

i haven't found that mountain yet. this site is the best i've been able to manage.

and no one is smoking cloves now.

on the train. my weekend was marred by a nice case of some kind of stomach flu/food poisoning. this was offset by the purchase of a new tv, scant hours before i was struck down. so i was miserable for 36 hours or so, but got to bask in the glow of new hd tv set.

the new tv is fah-bu-lous. it isn't huge, it isn't super nice. but considering we had been watching tv on a 17″ crt with the tube going (transforming everyone on the screen into wimpier versions of the incredible hulk), seeing colors again is a nice change.

so perhaps this explains my absence in posting the last couple of days.

i wish there were other, more exciting things to discuss. conversations on here i tried to spark have not sparked…no one wants to discuss parents' responsibilities in influencing their childrens beliefs? fine, let's talk about britney spears recent behavior. did you see the dress she wore to her mom's party? class-ee. (see? i can roll from high brow to low brow in the same paragraph.)

work, for me, has become a time-bomb. remember that feeling in college, in that one class, where you had a final that was 50% of your grade? the one where you knew you could study for weeks and still get thrown curveballs on the test? (i think, for me, the easiest example here is art history. though i can also think of several computer science classes that felt this way as well.)

anyway, work has become like that. i see the deadline looming. i see the work. but no matter how much work i do, the work does not decrease. but the deadline does.

i believe, now, this is normal with any type of software product launch. this is how projects turn out. this is also bad and what i have been trying to avoid for months. but things happen — scope changes, focus changes, people change their minds, bad decisions are made. this is natural; i'm cool with all of this. i just wish that deadlines were as flexible as everything else seems to be.

that or i wish that i didn't get so stressed out. i take my work, my product, very seriously. very personally. and when faced with a decision of missing a deadline and turning out inferior code, well, it's a decision i can't make easily. it's like having to decide which of two people you pull from a burning wreck. yuck.

so i am alternating now between stressing and thinking, all about work.

so let's move on.

i've been trying to catch up on music i missed out on the last couple of years. stuff like the walkmen, the shins, the killers…and really, none of it does anything for me. a pity. so i'm back to digging through the crates — and wanting to hear the ti album. and the new clipse album. so if britney spears isn't your bag — what have you listened to recently that really got you going? i'm not asking about year-end lists (though those are fine too)…i'm asking about recent stuff, the last month or two…

i've been wearing out the game's 'its ok' (both the original (sorry, this one is a youtube, i couldn't find an mp3…but its still dope — the rest are actual mp3s. whee!) and the epic 11 minute remix), mia's 'xr 2′, nas' 'hip hop is dead' and green velvet's 'genedefekt' (an oldie but goodie that i somehow missed out on the first time).

i finally finished the photoset from the tioga pass. take a look.

woohoo, my first cold of the season. ugh. i am at the stage where i can blow my nose approximately every 17 seconds. this will soon be followed by the stage in which i can not bring a kleenex within an inch of my nose without wincing.

my NY insurance has finally been straightened out and i am attempting to find a doctor, dentist, and womanly-issues doctor. it has been a mid-range pain in the ass so far. i'm not used to all this union stuff, and it has taken a bit to figure out who pays for what. like, insurance pays for visits to my PCP but prescriptions go through the union pharmacy. i have been using the provider search online and have some weird criteria. for example, i would prefer not to have a jewish doctor because jewish holidays are days off from work that would be convenient for me to make appointments. also, i want doctors to be within a 10 mile radius of my apt. also, i just don not think i can have a gynecologist named "dr bush." that might just be too much for me.

the village halloween parade last night was amazing. the event is even included in the book 100 things to do before you die, if that gives you any indication of its eminence. my favorite costume was a set of three people – one as pac-man and two as ghosts (pinky and blinky, maybe? and how come sometimes the last ghost is named clyde, and sometimes it is sue? or am i just making that up?* hm). anyway. the costumes alone were fantastic, but my favorite part is that within the parade, all of a sudden pac-man started booking it after one of the ghosts, and the other ghost started sprinting after him. everyone in the crowd went nuts. other good action included two priests who stopped to smooch every block or so. i also saw the burger king…king…whom i realized might frighten me more than clowns do.

i went to the parade with jill, and we ended up spectating with a fella by the name of frank. he was funny and kind and nice and a couple hours later as we said our goodbyes asked if we would be interested in hanging out some time. it was a little weird 'cause it wasn't clear if he was attempting to pick me up or pick jill up, so there was this awkward moment. jill has a boyfriend, too, which is further complicating, but i did not want to assume it was me he was after so i ended up giving him both our numbers. uncomfortable!

after the parade i am in such total feel-good new york mode – not that i haven't been most of the time!- where i just lovelovelove this city and know i made the right decision to move. for all the parts of my life that aren't quite perfect right now, my setting is just right. i can walk a block outside and have an amazing view of the statue of liberty, for goodness' sake.

i am really attracted to the image from jarhead of jake glyenhaal naked except for a santa
hat,
although i don't know that i find him superhot in general (military men aren't really my fetish). and i'm not quite sure how i'd react to seeing him get it on with my fantasy object heath ledger (who lives in brooklyn, by the way!) in the gay cowboy movie although i did hear that if any male-male coupling could do for women what it does for men to watch 2 chicks get it on, brokeback mountain has got it.

* in my dedicated research i discovered that the orange ghost was clyde in the original pac-man, but sue in the ms.pac-man game. you can read about that and about a million other obscure details here, if you'd like.

i am in a gift-giving frenzy. i honestly think this might me the activity that gives me the most joy in life. i stopped by target on the way home from school to pick up something for the parents that chaperoned our yearbook NY trip, and was thrilled to find the perfect thing, in their dollar section even. they are little white photo albums that hold 36 pics, that slip into a black cover with a city skyline cut out. i got one for each chaperone, then came home and printed out a picture of the whole group on the street in the city in front of NBC and i just love it all.

i also stopped to get these cute pink and yellow pails for eastery gifts for my school friends, with bath gel and marabou pens and cutesy things. there is something so inherently pleasing about handing out presents. i actually stockpile gitts in advance for people; tripp's birthday package (actual birthday still about a month away) has been in the making for at least 3 months now. although, to be entirely truthful, i usually lack the patience to wait for An Occasion and give Just Because. i used to have a drawer full of stuff, but now my booty (er) has taken over my closet. i was starting to think maybe i had a problem, but then i found out that my friend tracey at school has a whole gift room. i aspire to have this myself one day.

i had to leave a mean note for my roommates when i came home today. well, mostly for one roommate. in being home, sick as a dog for the past 3 days, i have still completed what i find to be rudimentary tasks like taking out the trash, etc. these are things one of my roommates seems to have great difficulty with. today when i came from school, there was a dirty plate, crumpled napkin, and greasy takeout container on the kitchen table, accompanied by three large tupperware containers of leftover food sitting on the counter next to the sink, where they had been taking root for approximately the last 18 hours. super double gross out.

i worry that the oxymoronic nature of my cleanliness is merely a mask for some kind of superiority complex.

i can finally drink orange gatorade without tearing up as the citric acid hits my raw throat. hurrah for small victories!

sickness at home day #3 has allowed me to finally get to doing some reserach -homework, if you will - on NY public schools. and damn, i'm overwhelmed. coming from a county in which all students are funneled into one high school and going top an area in which just one burough has these offerings is an entirely different league ballpark world. tripp thinks HS shouldn't be so specialized, but when i think about what a difference having these choices could make to any of my students this year…man. when you give an individual more choice and allow him to self his own challenges, isn't he automatically going to invest more into the experience? wouldn't it be more taking advantage of the opportunities he has selected and earned, and less of a countdown of how many days he has left to serve of his high school 'sentence'?

the fact that i will be living and teaching in NY in 6 months is still entirely surreal. i can't imagine that i'll be in one of these schools. i'm excited, but with butterflies and lots of question marks.

next week is my spring break, and i hope to get back up there to do some observing at different schools. i want to make everything feel less foreign. and i need to get over feeling like i am really lucky to be there and start realizing -in as ego-free a way as possible- that they are lucky to have me.

sneeze. cough. (try to) swallow. whimper.

repeat.

the sickness continues. i think i am getting a little better now because i am hungry. however, i have not found a food i can eat without in the very least, wincing to the point of tears. i feel as though someone has taken a straight razor to the inside of my throat.

not to be dramatic or anything.