Amy Middleton Loves New York

I’ve been trying to grow an apartment garden for the better part of 2008–partly for fun, mostly to provide a foundation for my hopes of eventually cultivating a sustainable garden. The basil grows steadily, the noble attempt to rescue dying strawberries never stood much of a chance. Potted lemon and lime trees (mutant leaves jetting from awkward branches) fight for sunlight with a tomato plant tied to the window, towering above them. None of them bear fruit. For a while it served as a disturbing metaphor for my life; in spite of my desire, attention, diligence, and labors, my garden was barren. My personal law of the harvest was a broken one.

What do you do when all you want to do in life is to produce fruit, and you are not in the position to do so, and you have no evidence that suggests you will ever be capable of doing so? For as frustrating as it is, you become humbled and grateful for the littlest of wins, the tenderest of mercies. Had it not been for the desperateness of the situation, I may have been disappointed in my meager harvest of one small tomato. Instead, it serves as a small miracle, proving that there is cause to hope and even rejoice, and reminding me that life finds a way.

I’ve been listening to Les Mis a lot lately, and one song always feels odd to me. It’s “Every Day,” in which Marius is preoccupied with discovering who rescued him, and Cosette tells him, “Don’t think about it, Marius, with all the years ahead of us. I will never go away, and we will be together every day,” and then recounts the details of their meeting and commitment to each other. These lines used in any contemporary setting would be the context of a gag in which Marius would tug at his collar, look around anxiously, and perhaps nervously smile if Cosette were suspicious of how trapped he felt and how unappealing that scenario seemed. In popular culture, women declare devotion only to their detriment. When I listen to this song, these words don’t sound romantic but desperate and embarrassing.

I realize that I’ve bought into the idea that men only care for “the chase;” they fear commitment and prefer to move on to the next conquest. This is how I have been taught to view men. “Like it or not, it’s a biological fact,” we’re told, followed by instructions on how to not seem too eager, available, or in love. I wonder if Cosette’s song of commitment and togetherness once seemed more idyllic than it does today. If so, then shame on society for promoting a cheap caricature of men as a timeless, universal truism. Granted that commitments may be feared or even fled, that doesn’t weaken their importance. Either way, shame on me for having become a person who believes that it’s unbecoming for a woman to express her feelings for her beloved, lest he then choose to pursue freedom over her companionship. Love must necessarily be strong enough to withstand mutual adoration and profession of such.

Last night being John Lennon’s birthday, I went to the Imagine Circle for four and a half hours of peace and music. True to precedent, it was inspiring and sentimental and perfect.

When we sang “In My Life,” I looked around the circle and saw mostly unfamiliar faces who had gathered for the same reasons I had. But that’s not all I saw. I saw Mitch dressed up in honor of the boys, dancing around the circle with Amber and Ashley. I saw Jo stalking Kato and repeatedly yelling her request for “I’ll Be Back.” I saw Corina become emotional, fixated on a peaceful young child while the group sang “Beautiful Boy.” I saw Jenny Hsu Ringosizing, and felt the magic of singing Abbey Road with strangers and friends who knew the importance of playing it all the way through. I saw Ashley singing “In My Life” in Portuguese in our apartment drenched in christmas lights as Nathan played guitar and I wondered how we would survive New York City without Jo Thomas.

All these memories flooded my head and my heart in that moment. And though I know I’ll never lose affection for people and things that went before, in my life, I love these more.

This week, I started working part time at Razorfish. My three month contract is up, and I don’t want to hire on doing SEM because, although I enjoy it, these days I am much more interested in User Experience and web design. So we worked out an agreement where I’ll continue to stay with the company on a part time basis. Mentally I had committed my free hours to a wonderful spread of projects; getting a solid start on my business (including, among other things, choosing a name and building a site), working on our client projects, reading, getting in shape, and traveling. The downside to all this is that I don’t do well managing my time when I have too much of it. The upside is that I have so many things I would rather be doing than trafficking keywords, and here is the chance to get started.

Turns out, this is also the last week I’ll be working part time. My former employer called me and offered a salary I couldn’t refuse to work part time for that company too. Combining the SEM hours and my side client work, I’m looking at 9 - 11 hours of work on weekdays, plus 5 hours on Saturdays. That number won’t impress many city folk, but having been anticipating a 20 hour work week for a while, I’m feeling newly overwhelmed with everything I’ll have to do and the amount of time I’ll have to accomplish it.

I was chatting with Tamara today about employment goals and fulfillment, trying to figure out how to find work that is rewarding:

Tamara: i’m looking for a change of schedule
i’d like to work three days a week at the network and then teach a few more days
mostly i’m just hoping that i can have a job that will provide me: a life, some creative juices, some inspiration, and something that i can get excited about
i don’t get excited at my job

me: one thing i’m kind of learning is that inspiring jobs don’t present themselves, they are the product of their creators
i get jealous of people who seem like they have sweet jobs doing what they love
until i realize that a) i kind of do too
b) sometimes the perks are good, but the work is only fulfilling if you have a sense of control and fulfillment, and that only happens when you create it

I then changed my status message to “do you love your job?” and here’s what I heard back:

Brook says yes she does. She likes her coworkers, there’s little stress and good hours, she can wear what she wants, she laughs a lot, and has awesome summers. She then contrasts it with the sick feeling she had about going to her old job, and says she feels grateful and humble for having been led to where she is now.

Megan says “no I hate it” and changes her status message to reflect that as well. Megan wants to have her own business, because it turns out she likes working, just not for someone else. She does photography and is generally artistic and I think she already sells some of her stuff on etsy.

Randall says yes he does. He’s too busy to give me reasons, but he sends me the link to his new site Obsessable that he just launched today. Randall happens to be brilliant and extremely driven. I don’t even know how many jobs he’s had in the 2.5 years I’ve known him, but every time I check in with him he’s doing something more ambitious and usually has a more impressive title.

Ashley doesn’t have a job at the moment, but she says she likes her “career choice” (graphic design) so if she had a job she might like it.

Jessica says she does not. Having many friends who were teachers, she knew what she was getting into when she signed up, and she did it anyway. Now in her second year, she still of her own volition takes her kids on field trips to see the waterfalls, wind mills, and wonders of NYC. She always complains afterward, and that has never stopped her from doing it again.

I was going to draw a conclusion here from my statistically insignificant poll, but I’ll let you draw your own. Please feel free to comment, too. Do you love your job?

A few weeks ago I patronized the “Potato King” street vendor, and soon after was craving food that wasn’t starchy and burned (so sad…such potential). I saw people with Jamba Juice and tried to follow their trails, but never found anyone who wasn’t on a cell phone that I could safely ask the location of their purchase. I wandered around several square blocks before finally returning to my office empty handed (yes I know there’s one on 42 and 5th but the line there is TOO long and there was clearly one closer than that).

Once back at work, I went to the Jamba Juice store locator. I typed in my address. It returned my address. No, not “where am I starting,” I want “where is Jamba Juice.” It happened again. So… it turned out that my employment shares an address with Jamba Juice. That’s right. Same building. Um, I knew it was closer than 42nd.

Yesterday Becca effectively grounded our Space Travel discussion when she astutely pointed out that:
“Dyson sphere” rhymes with “mice in here” which is the sign that should be on our front door.

I want no such sign posted, but I’m starting to suspect that the rodential tenants in this apartment outnumber the tenants who have a serious problem with this arrangement.

You may recall that this is not the first mouse incident we’ve had here. There was the mouse we accidentally caught in January, and the mouse that ate my granola bars in May. Then a few weeks ago I saw a mouse climbing my bookshelf. Maybe it’s reading my cookbooks, but if I’m going to have a “little chef” as a roommate, it’ll have to be Aaron Brown.

Following that, I plugged up some wall gaps my closet with this foam thing which was effective for a short time, until I woke up to the sound of a mouse (ok I’m just going to say mice now because really…). I thought, “wow, I can hear it through the walls,” but no, it turns out they chewed through the hardened foam and were back in business.

If the story stopped there, it would be a non-story. I started seeing the mouse in the kitchen. I got some traps. Menos eficaz. Becca scrubbed the floors cleaner than when we moved in. Next morning they had eaten food from the top shelf of the baker’s rack. We also saw some evidence of some different entry paths, including crumbled plaster/ sheet rock around a pipe floor gap. Sunday night, Becca emailed Seth:

Today Amy saw the mouse run down out of the kitchen and down the hallway. After scouting out the hallway and seeing that all the doors were closed, we came to the conclusion that the mouse must have slipped underneath some door. The gap between the front door and the floor is actually the biggest one so we deduced that most reasonably the mouse had left the apartment. Later Amy was laying on the couch because she was planning on sleeping out there on account of her growing fear that the mouse is in her room. As I was talking to her, I saw a mouse pop up over the back of the couch and peek its head over the back of it. So, it’s still in our apartment and at large.

Following the email, she saw a mouse in the bathroom go through a pipe gap to inner wall frontier. Monday night, Seth and Marcus helped us set up 10 more traps. The result? Fur in one of the glue traps and this the next morning:

As they get more aggressive, I feel more violated. They are creating holes in our apartment where there were no holes. They’re busting through our walls like disease-laden koolaid men–without the free beverages or cuteness. This morning I couldn’t find my wallet and my first thought was that the mice took it to use my credit card. Clearly I’m going crazy, but I’d say I’m the victim here.

take it away Jeff…

When I was living in Northern California, my coworker Khendria told me that I looked like Sita, the girl who sings Happy. This is the same coworker who thought I was from Egypt and that my name was Xzonnia, so I had no reason to believe her, but I googled Sita and discovered some photos on a Swedish(?) website that proved her right. The site was taken down years ago, but a few weeks ago I looked on youtube to see if Sita had any videos posted. This is only weird if you know me, but it’s weird enough that I’m posting it. Maybe Sita is from Egypt too?

Can’t blog. Can’t twitter. Can’t facebook. Fail to “reply” on a regular basis. Still heavily addicted to gchat. Anyway, here goes. Dear Internet, please see my actual analog to-do list and note its completion:

I spent less than 24 glorious hours of this last weekend in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Given our lack of readily available transportation and the pitiful shoe graveyard I carried on my back, I don’t know that I needed any more time than that, but I was completely enchanted by the unique blend of French aesthetic and Voodoo swampy marsh. It reminded me of… that’s right, New Orlean’s Square at Disneyland, just outside the Blue Bayou and Pirates of the Caribbean. It is one of the most lovely areas in the most magical place on earth, and I would go to there just to enjoy the atmosphere.  I loved the French Quarter for similar and possibly equally unauthentic reasons, but either way it was amazing.

Now for the travelogue portion:

Stayed:  Historic French Market Inn (”the nicest place I’ve stayed that didn’t have soap”)

Visited: most streets in French Quarter, Robert E. Lee Memorial (it was an accident!), New Orleans Cooking School, Cemetery on St. Louis, a few parks, a few shoe stores, a thrift store, Mississippi River.

Saw: man walking down by the river with a talking parrot on his shoulder; lizard catching little ants.

New Foods: Fried Green Tomatoes

Next Time: Swamp Tour, visit the Garden District