Still here

No, I didn't forget I have a blog. I haven't even forgotten to post, not exactly. I've thought about posting numerous times in the last two weeks:

• About how President Obama's motorcade made me late to yoga but it was worth it to see our national leader('s car)

• About how I wish we still had travel agents instead of 1,000 websites for booking flights

• About hearing (or not, because everybody talked during) the symphony in Central Park

• About how awesome Susan's latest mixes are

• About The Onion's bizarre communist homepage this week

• About how even though it's not that hot outside, the air conditioning in my office is so intense my hands are numb

• About how I visited a public swimming pool near my apartment and it wasn't gross

Obviously, despite all that thinking, I didn't post a damn thing. But, hey, I never said I'd be good at blogging. I see it kind of how I see cell phones...there for me to use, not necessarily to answer. That is, primarily existing for my personal convenience.

Nonetheless, I'll try and be better...otherwise what will happen to my readership? They'll stop checking this site every hour, and no one wants that. It's just that posting is way more difficult when I'm actually busy at work and/or living my life. But I'll be sure and write something soon...just as soon as I feel like it.

Oh, dear.

I know President Obama is human. But I don't always want proof.

Now you and I know this is exactly what it looks like: two men checking out a young woman's ass. But Fox news must be loving this opportunity to flaunt the mortality of our leader. A conservative Facebook friend who recently expressed her opinion that she strongly disapproves of Obama linked to the above photo on her Facebook status, which is how I found it. Here is the Reuters caption:

U.S. President Barack Obama (C) and

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy

(R) take their places with junior G8

delegates for a family photo at the G8

summit in L'Aquila, Italy, July 9.

Leaders of the Group of Eight major

industrial nations and the main

developing economies are meeting in

the central Italian city of L'Aquila until

Friday to discuss issues ranging from

global economic stimulus to climate

change and oil prices. REUTERS/Jason

Reed (ITALY POLITICS IMAGES OF THE DAY)

I don't think there is anything wrong with a couple of guys checking out an attractive woman—it's natural, almost reassuring. Sexuality exists; it's okay to acknowledge it. Nonetheless, I'd still prefer this photo have not been taken, or that it had remained private. As a journalist I know it was too good not to publish, but I can't help but cringe just a little. I wonder if the administration will comment.

The feedback you've been waiting for...

I know I have left my readership in nearly unbearable suspense, and for that I hereby apologize.

Please pardon the delay, but my recent post about the impending arrival of a certain pillow garnered such a massive response that I have only just finished going through and responding to all the emails...I think it was the infographic that drew the crowd.

At any rate, here I am making excuses instead of giving you the information you've been longing for, and so I won't draw it out any further...

My pillow arrived, and it is overrated.
There! I admitted it. I was hoping that in the last six nights my opinion would change and I could write a post about how glorious my life is now that I have a Tempupedic pillow to rest my head on at night. But that's just not the case.

It's not a bad pillow, but I sure am glad I didn't pay $100 for it. The Symphony pillow is specially designed for people who sleep both on their backs and on their sides. This means the pillow is dual-sided, and the "back" side has an extra hump that is supposed to provide neck support. I was entranced by the description and envisioned somnatic harmony, but at the end of the day, the Symphony pillow is little more than a brick of expensive foam.

It's really good foam, of course. I won't deny that. And since I was so excited to finally have my own piece of Tempurpedic property, I was even willing to overlook the unpleasant smell that accompanies new Tempupedic products. (The smell reminds me of a chocolate scratch-and-sniff sticker: mildly medicinal and musky.) The odor is finally beginning to fade—but so is my enthusiasm for my new pillow.

The biggest issue is that the super-special foam retains heat exceptionally well, which I had heard before regarding the mattresses. However, I failed to realize that a PILLOW could cause my body heat to rise so much that I wake up in a full sweat. Perhaps this feature will serve me well come winter, but right now? Right now it's summer, and the last thing I need is to insulate my head so much that my body functions as an internal suana.

Of course, despite my disappointment, I will not stop using the pillow. I can now easily fall asleep on my back, and the support it provides is certainly superb. I have even noticed that the quality of my sleep has improved (until I wake up sweating, that is). The positive aspects do outweigh the negative. At least, I will convince myself of that fact, because I am really stubborn, and when I spend this much money on a pillow, you better believe I'm going to sleep on it.

MJ madness and memories

All the hype about Michael Jackson's death makes me feel like an outsider of society: I just don't get it. I mean, of course I get that he was super-talented and super-famous and thereby his death is a super-big-deal. But the media coverage is perplexingly abundant, and last night on the news I heard a woman say she couldn't bear to be alone at home, that she instead needed to gather near the Apollo Theater with fellow MJ mourners in order to feel comforted and understood in the depths of her grief.

More than a million people wanted to be in Los Angeles today to observe a memorial service that is being held in a concert arena. Me? I'd love to be in L.A., but I'd have better things to do than stalk the Staples Center.

However, even if I can't relate to the hype and have warranted doubts about his moral character, Michael Jackson has nonetheless occupied two points of significance in my life:

1. When I was in second grade I was visiting a friend's house and her older sister was watching MTV. I had never seen MTV before, thus, the first music video I ever glimpsed was Michael Jackson's "Black or White."

2. When I was living alone in Washington Heights—a rather rough NYC neighborhood for the uninitiated—I often listened to The Jackson 5 in the morning before work. So "ABC" will forever remind me of crooning into my hairbrush and bopping around my fifth-floor walk-up, gearing up for another day of city living.

This concludes my acknowledgment of Michael Jackson's influence on the world. Here's hoping he's now at peace.

NYC independence

It was four years ago today that my dear friend Ally and I formally declared our NYC independence. We had each spent months living in the city before, but never without the cushion of college to return to. This was different—permanent, or at least temporarily so.

Our immigration to Manhattan was uncomfortable and full of uncertainty but we were determined to follow through with our plan to conquer New York, a plan that began as an idealistic "what-if" some months previous but had blossomed into an unwavering commitment.

We flew into LaGuardia a day or two before July 1 and reunited with our third roommate, a Teach for America corp member who had already been living in the city for a year. Mel had stoically borne the brunt of the tortuous burden that is apartment hunting in Manhattan and against all odds secured us a three-bedroom apartment within our meager budgets. Ally and I signed the lease before we saw the place, and soon after giving us a tour, Mel departed for a much-needed summer vacation in her home state of Rhode Island. Since the movers were far from arriving we had no furniture, and Mel said Ally and I could stay at her current apartment as long as we wanted.

But the evening of July 3, Mel's current roommate returned from a trip, and we no longer felt at ease crashing on borrowed futons. We decided that, furniture or no, it was time to lay claim to the apartment we were paying for. The next day, we piled our luggage into a cab we couldn't really afford and unloaded everything onto the curb in front of our new building. Neighbors gave us second glances outside in the oppressive heat—probably due to the oversized teddy bear perched on my hip like a stuffed toddler—but no one offered to help us get our cargo indoors.

Around sunset we took a long subway ride to Battery Park and watched fireworks explode above the Statue of Liberty. After we got home it was past midnight and we resigned ourselves to the lack of mattresses and air conditioning and did our best to breathe in the sticky air and fall asleep on the wooden floor of what would be Ally's bedroom. Her room faced the street, which meant we heard every one of the fireworks the neighborhood teens saw fit to set off.

The first time we heard a bang we thought it might be a gunshot—I had once mistaken a gunshot for a car backfiring in a different Manhattan neighborhood and didn't put anything past anyone anymore. But when the cracks continued we remembered the holiday, and our fear was replaced with frustration.

We didn't sleep much that night. The floor was hard, the room was hot, and the firecrackers continued until well past 3 a.m. But it was our own floor, in our own apartment, and the noise of our own neighborhood. We were independent, God bless America. We were home.

Revolutionary Road is worth watching

There. I said it. I don't want this blog to be full of personal endorsements, but I do want every interested American to watch Revolutionary Road. If you liked American Beauty or Titanic you should do yourself a favor and give this movie a chance. My respect for the acting talent of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio has skyrocketed, and if you liked the cinematography and/or score of American Beauty then you are in for a treat.

I am going to read the book for sure, and am surprised I had never heard of it before this film. Apparently it has been a literary favorite for half a century. As a former English major, you would think a book like that would have been mentioned in at least one of my courses or conversations—but it is never too late to discover a new love. I'm going to get the book from the library if there is not a long wait, but if there is I am lucky to have a B&N gift card. A new store just opened up on 86 and Lex and it is massive and elegant. One and then two stories below ground, it is a palace for books. And since this store is so luxurious and big, there is also a DVD and CD section. (Sidenote: I wonder when stores will stop selling CDs. Ten years? Less? I haven't purchased a CD since 2004.)

Maybe I'll use my B&N gift card to buy the DVD instead of the book, and then I can just watch the movie every day until the book is available from the library.

Because, yeah, it's that good. I watched it four times (once with director commentary) before returning it to Netflix. It is beautiful and delightful and haunting and tragic. Which is to say, it brims with humanity and authenticity.

If you can't tell, the movie had a big impact on me. It is definitely worth watching because even if you dislike it you will get something from it. This concludes my endorsement of the film Revolutionary Road.

Pillow talk

So, I have been excitedly anticipating the arrival of my new Tempurpedic pillow for more than a week now, and it is scheduled to arrive today. I have been looking forward to this pillow delivery with an eagerness that is perhaps mockable, but hey, it's the small things in life that can make a big difference.

Last Tuesday after I won the eBay auction I had this grand notion of taking my devoted blog followers on a visual journey of my pillow's travel from California to New York. I decided I would make use of my UPS tracking number and create a map pinpointing the stops on the cross-country trip.

However, UPS let me down. After telling me the package originated in Oakland and letting me know it traveled fewer than twenty miles to San Pablo the next day, there were no updates for five days, until it suddenly appeared in Parsippany, New Jersey. Such limited info makes for a pretty lame visual:


But despite the lack of details, UPS did its job, and assuming they can actually deliver to my no-doorman building, my head is going to be pleasantly supported come tonight.

I became suddenly obsessed with having a luxury pillow after testing out a few during a recent trip to Bed Bath & Beyond . I've lusted after Tempurpedic mattresses ever since I first stretched out on one in a store several years ago, so I wasn't surprised to discover their pillows were equally seductive. However, the one I wanted was $100. Not quite as prohibitively expensive as the mattress, but still, a lot for a pillow. Nonetheless, it was love at first touch and I am good at justifying my desires. And after a show of patience and persistence via eBay auction-stalking, my high-end deluxe comfort object only cost me $60.

I'm really enjoying being awake today, but I can't wait to go to sleep.

An industry riddle

Q: When is a raise not a raise?
A: When you work in publishing.