Leap Year

i'd like to propose that leap year day be recognized as a national holiday in which EVERYONE (not just postal workers) get the day off... or even better than that...

i propose that february 29 be a "day of jubilee" in which every four years all student loan debt is forgiven

Missing Me

Yesterday upon returning to my apartment building, I stepped out of the elevator, and gazed at myself in the hallway mirror, wondering who I've be come, and feeling distant from who I am - or at least who I once was. 
I tried to tell my roommate that I didn't feel like me, but I didn't really have the words to provide an adequate explanation.  I attempted, stating, "I'm just not New York." 
But I think it's more than that - or maybe it's that I've been trying to be someone I'm not.  But at this point, it's not really pretending - it is.  I am the me of New York City. 

While my feet crave chacos, I wear boots.  While my heart craves outdoor adventure, my adventures now consist of subways, cement, and pubs in the Lower East Side.

And I do like beer - but not that much. 

I miss climbing.
I miss surfing.
I miss snowboarding.
But most of all, I miss me.

February 1

After entering the New Year being plagued by sickness, I gave myself a break, granting permission to take the month off January "off" before I started writing again.

But who am I kidding?  I haven't been writing at all - unless we are talking about my grad school papers, e-mails, occasional text messages to cute boyz - gosh, I can't call them that can I?  Let me rephrase - text messages to handsome men.  Men.  Hmmm... that sounds sooooooo old, and full of connotations that aren't attached to most of the members of the opposite sex that I interact with on a semi-regular basis.  It's not that I'm saying that they are immature - which they probably are - it's just, well, I'd like to still be considered a girl.  And if they're men, then I'm no longer a girl.

But it's true, as my 2nd hottest friend (who is no longer officially my 2nd hottest friend) told me last year.  "Katrina, you're a woman."   

I'm not sure when that happened.  Or how, either - but it did.  Perhaps it's simply the age thing - or getting really good with my parenting adult voice that I occasionally have to use with students when they either make less than smart choices, or are amidst some sort of something that needs addressing.  Sorry, can't tell you what that might be - as, well, it's all confidential.  Which, is actually highly unfortunate that so much of my life is confidential, because I have some fabulous student stories that I'll never be able to write about for the world to read.  Like the one involving - oooooooooh wow - like I said, it's confidential.

But what's not confidential is that I'm not pregnant.  Not that I thought that I was - or even suspected possibility, but just in case anyone thought the 4 pounds I've gained since December was due to pregnancy weight - it's not.  I blame THAT on Jillian Michael's work out video.  The video is no good - it advertises itself as a weight loss workout, but I had to learn the hard way that her video is a muscle building weight gainer. 

For clarification, I'm still a virgin.  So is my friend Kate.  She's a nun friend of mine that also lives in city.  Growing up we also lived within a few miles of each other.   

Day 3

Somehow I missed day 2 of the year.  I also missed the memo that the Rose Bowl had been changed to January 2^nd.  Who does that?!?!  That’s like moving Christmas Day to the December 26.  It just isn't right.  And to not properly inform your tax paying citizens who purchase the crap that is advertised on the commercial breaks?  What kind of country do we live in?

On the first of the year I kept flipping through my 8 TV stations hoping that I would eventually catch a glimpse of the Rose Bowl.  But sometime around 10 pm, I had convinced myself that I had missed the game altogether.

I went into work the next day, disappointed that I didn’t have the knowledge to intelligently talk about the game with my coworker Nick.  But Nick hadn’t returned from vacation yet, and no one else seemed to have football on their minds, so as the day progressed my disappointment eased up and finally felt okay by the fact that I had missed the one football game that I make a priority to see every year. 

Later in the afternoon – on the 2^nd - I was confused why my friend Kim, who lives in Lithuania, posted on her facebook that she was up watching the Rose Bowl game late at night.  I thought that was foolish for her to stay up and watch the replay of the game, and to cheer on the ducks (who had already won or lost), when she could watch the replay during a more reasonable hour of the day.

I refrained from commenting with such a tip, and instead decided that it was time to overcome my sickness by heading to Rockwood Music Hall to hear my friend Adjoa Skinner play her first show in New York.  Adjoa, who also goes by Emily (and probably a few other names that I don’t know about), and I met several years ago in LA – in a restroom.  We became near best friends in one conversation, but then I never saw her again – except on facebook.  She added me as a friend, and to her e-mail list, and that’s why I knew she was in New York.

And so I went, and heard her sing about being tall, and men being too short, and as I drank my overpriced margarita – I wondered why e-harmony keeps trying to set me up with men that are shorter than me, when clearly we are not a match.  I haven’t officially signed up from e-harmony, but I’m nearing the day – I’m not sure how near, but nearer now that I have grad school out of the way (or so I hope; I’m still crossing my fingers that I pass my last class.  I could fail – and I’m not joking.)

When I got home from the show my roommate informed me of some horrific news.  Not only had I missed the Rose Bowl on January 1 – the one that didn’t happen – I also missed the 2012 Rose Bowl that had been played on January 2 – the one I COULD have watched, but was misinformed by bad newsfeed in my facebook updates. 

I cried. Okay, not really.  But I did console my football viewing loss with a cookie and diet coke.

But today – January 3^rd – was a new day!!!  And I knew today would be a good day, because I knew for a fact that Michigan would be playing a football game – and I knew I wasn’t going to miss it.

And so after work… and after my first nondate, date of the year at a nearby pub, with a near stranger from LA, I was off to watch some football with some U of M fans that go to my church.

After watching the game, I decided that it is time for me to start tap dancing again.

But not tonight – for now I need to get to bed and ponder all the funny things that I could have written in the past half hour, but didn’t because the thought didn’t occur to me until it was too late.

New Beginnings

I started the year standing at the corner of 38th Street and Broadway - too far from the heart of Times Square to experience the real thing, yet close enough to see the fireworks, and to stand among the crowds of people hoping to catch a glimpse of something.

We caught a glimpse of nothing - except people climbing up street poles and on top of telephone booths in hopes to get a better view.  They didn't, but I'm convinced they felt a tad more special by their elevated status and the fact that they could look down on us and shake the ashes from their cigarettes on top of innocent bystanders below.

I was one of the innocent bystanders.

Then again, the people I sat beside on my two legs into the city earlier in the day were also innocent bystanders, except they were bysitters rather than by standers.  The poor woman on my flight to Philly, and the handsome man I sat beside the rest of the way into New York were both exposed to my germs and my incessant sneezing.

I start this year sick, and confused by the man on Broadway dressed up as Santa Claus.  He must have missed the memo that Santacon was weeks ago. 

On the Precipice of a New Year

So Long 2011

You were a decent year.

Top 10 favorite moments:

11:11

11:11 has stood out to me for quite some time.  Maybe because it's a palindrome - I like the symmetry, or perhaps it's because I have a weird obsession with Gimetria.  (SP?)

I do!  (I just spoke this aloud; my roommate turned from the book she is  reading, confused by my outburst.)

But yes, this is an epiphianic moment for me.  It's true, I have a strange obsession with numbers. 

But then again, so did the writers of the Bible.

The writer of Matthew even went as far as fibbing some of the genealogy line to Jesus, so that there could be 3 nice sets of 14.  He skipped a few people, just for the sake of presentation, or because the number 14 is the number that represents King David.

And then there is the symbolism of 12.  And the symbolism of 7 - a number of wholeness and completion.  I was hoping that the 7th guy I kissed would be "the one" but then 8 and 9, came along and now I'm hoping for 10 to be the final.

As I explained to number 5, pre kiss, if I kiss you, then I have to start counting on my other hand the number of guys I've kissed.  For some reason I was hesitant, but the summer air in Hollywood convinced me otherwise.  Or maybe it was his motorcycle or pausing to dance in the middle of street, well after cars had ceased to parade through the neighborhood.

That night he suggested we get married.

I laughed.  And perhaps in doing so, hurt his feelings and confidence.

He recovered, by stating, "I just thought it sounded romantic."

The fling lasted no more than a month after that night.

He explained to me over an e-mail that he was moving to New York.

Funny how I also live in New York, yet it doesn't matter anymore.  Time has taken us our separate directions.

But 11:11, well that's a time that still stands out in my mind.

Because it is a wishing time.  Or so my friend Emily from California once told me.



And funny, that I never got to to what this post intended to be about - the night of 11.11.11... a birthday party in the Lower East Side at the Mercury Lounge...

But perhaps it's best that I skip the events of that evening, because although it started well, it didn't end well.  There was no dance that evening, yet the dance must somehow find a way to continue on.

I think I need a new time.  Perhaps 10:10 is better suited for me.