NYC

30 Rock is filmed in Brooklyn. Sad face.

I just got back from New York!  For the first time in my whole life. Until this weekend, all I knew about New York came from movies and TV.  And in the case of a few of those (like How I Met Your Mother, Friends, Will & Grace, and Seinfeld) they aren't even filmed in New York. Or even on the East Coast.
So all I knew came from

• Jungle 2 Jungle
• Home Alone 2
• Big
• Kate and Leopold
• Someone Like You
• You've Got Mail
• Hitch
• ...I don't need to list these. Just think of pretty much every movie ever made. Except the ones by John Hughes.

Overall, this did not give me a very good idea of what the city is actually like and gave me a weird set of expectations going into this trip.  Mostly that the city of New York exists to be filmed: with wet streets to reflect lights at night and the streets perpetually bustling around a single person as he or she walks slowly, obliviously through them with a look that betrays the fact that their thoughts are far, far away.  Thinking about him. Or her. Or how to keep their superhero costume from bunching under their day clothes.

But surprise(to me)! New York is a real place. That exists. It exists when the cameras aren't there. It exists when the Glee kids aren't dancing around all over the place and the Gossip Girls aren't...gossiping.  So if I learned anything from this trip it's that New York is real and real people really live there.

There are lots of opportunities to take pictures of people taking pictures.

I also learned all those apartments in shows like Friends don't exist. Unless you have a trust fund. Or you're in Brooklyn.


My goals for this trip:

Eat real New York Pizza.

check.

Eat a real New York bagel. 
- Russ and Daughters - check.


Find Bret and Jemaine's apartment.

check.

See a famous person.
- BAM! Saw Brian Williams walking around NBC Studios wearing hipster glasses. - check.

Overall, a COMPLETELY successful trip that surpassed all my expectations and thoroughly exhausted me.

THANKS MALLORY!

running

This summer, I am fighting my inactive tendencies!

Kinda. A bit half-heartedly, to be honest.
I am running.
If you know anything about me, you know that I hate this. I hate running. I believe that it should be used only in emergency situations and as punishment for real sports.  But when a friend asks says "we should go running! At the park!" what else can you do but take a second to consider your slight jiggly-ness and say "definitely!"

On a good day, I can run for about eight or nine minutes. That's right. Minutes. 
On a bad day, I can run for 20-30 before succumbing to my doom and accepting death.  ...there's a story here. Allow me to explain:

Last week, Kala and I decided to run someplace different: a trail by our house that goes through the woods, under bridges, and past the movie theater. We parked and started off down the trail.
We ran, I stopped to walk after my lungs stopped working, and I walked until Kala turned around and we met in the middle.

As we started to walk back, the sky started getting unnaturally dark for 6PM and the air was heavy with imminent rainfall.  I looked up, and thick, dark clouds loomed overhead.  The trees swayed and I noticed a suspicious lack of bird noise.

Storm's comin'.

"Hopefully we'll make it back before the rain hits!" we said.
Hopefully.

The rain hit, hard. Trees thrashed violently. Lightning cracked and thunder boomed threateningly.
But that wasn't so bad. In fact, it was kinda fun to run in the rain. And then the trees started trying to kill us.
It was a bit like that moment in Pac Man: you're chasing a blue ghost and you've almost caught up to it- you feel powerful and like everything is going your way- then (blink) it's pink again and suddenly you're the hunter become the hunted.
The trees which were normally sought as shelter have become the scariest. things. in the world. Like the forest in Snow White, or the poor interpretation of the last Triwizard challenge in Goblet of Fire (where the maze tries to eat Cedric and Harry).

doesn't look so scary now, but just wait till the trees come to life

I would say I ran for my life, but if that were true, my life doesn't seem that important to me. I had already run more than normal that day, and when the storm hit and Kala shouted "let's just run back" over the rain, my reaction was "sure!"  Actually, I believe at first it was "well, the Mythbusters say you'll get wetter running through rain than walking" but this was no ordinary summer rain.  It was no delicate sprinkle, no short-lived shower.  This was a monsoon.  A monsoon that was hurling trees at me like a kid throws water balloons. Except tree limbs don't splash when they hit pavement, they block the trail or fall directly on top of you.

We managed to finally get out of the Death Woods, Kala running the whole way. I stopped twice to retie my shoes and a few times out of sheer exhaustion.  I escaped with only a scrape across my thigh, but I learned something about myself: In the case of a zombie apocalypse*, a visit to Jurassic Park, a mugging, an alien invasion, or a missing-identity spy thriller, I am going to die.  I will stop to rest my lungs or tie my shoes and I will get eaten, or beaten, or shot.
I was also reminded why I will never be Sydney Bristow.

not bad for a summer afternoon.


*the Zombieland kind, not the Shaun of the Dead kind.  Zombieland zombies can move pretty fast (Rule #1- Cardio). In the event of a SotD Z-day, I might be able to survive by hiding and/or using my sewing machine to bludgeon any that come close to me.

Middle-aged Adults Really Take Aim

I have made it through my first week of work! Cubicle life is cubicle life. I have a wicker cornucopia (damn hard word to spell) that was left by the previous occupant and I have decided to fill it with odds and ends. Right now I have a stress ball shaped like Freud's head and a tiny plush monkey wearing a tiny College of Charleston t-shirt. Other than a picture of Randolph Hall, this is my only decoration.

To travel to and from my downtown office (don't I sound grown-up?) I either ride with my dad or take MARTA.  Something about riding the train reminds me of Universal Studios. or Disney World. So even though it is a 40 minute commute, there is some majesty to it (to me). This makes me wonder if people who ride trains to work everyday go to Disney World and think "Oh no, this crap again," when they board the monorail. Or "It smells like trains. This can't be Amity Island" and the Jaws ride illusion is ruined. I, on the other hand, think "Oh, it smells like fun rides!" when I descend into the Peachtree Center Station.

Maybe the majesty is not lost on all.  I was standing around waiting for my train the other day when I saw an older man staring inquisitively at the train tracks.  He stared, took a few steps, and looked down.
I thought about how wonderful it is that we never really lose our sense of childlike wonder. This grey haired man still took the time to stop and wonder at mechanics and how things work, like every over-alled Thomas the Tank Engine kid.
And just as I made a mental note to tell someone this wonderful story, he leaned over the tracks.... and spit a foot long stream of tobacco spit into the crevasse.

So much for child-like wonder.

meta: birds are loud

I don't usually reference the title of my blog, because, well, for a while I forgot why I named it as such. Then I remembered that when I started this thing, it was mid-summer and I was annoyed at the birds outside my window waking me up. My first idea for a post was to complain about these stupid birds, and then I thought, well that's dumb, everyone knows birds are loud. But then that's how most of my writing here is anyway. Less-than keen observations.
So there you go.

ANYWAY, I was googling around and I found this story:

Quentin Tarantino sues neighbors over loud macaw birds

"Quentin Tarantino sued his neighbors whose outdoor aviary contains loud macaws that emit blood curdling screams at intermittent intervals for 7 to 8 hours a day."

"Courthouse News says the birds' squawks are a loud, grating call, and are particularly noisy at dawn and sunset. Bird publications claim that a macaw's call can, and does, reach the decibel level of a rock concert or a jumbo jet engine."

"Tarantino's complaint states that Macdissi and Ball are aware that their birds make "blood-curdling, prehistoric sounding screams, they do not maintain the macaws in their residence, but place them in an outdoor aviary.
Tarantino also stated in his complaint that "one would assume, that as a fellow writer,  Mr. Ball would understand and respect a writer's need for peace and quiet." Tarantino said that assumption would be wrong."

 So now you know. Birds are loud.

And whodathought Quentin and I would have similar problems. Go figure.

when God closes a door, he opens a beach house

It is my final night of spring break, and I am sitting at my computer. But oh, what a great week it has been.

I spent Sunday to Saturday morning at my friend Hannah's beach house on the Isle of Palms. Several things:

1. this was the first year I didn't just go home and veg out on the sofa. Which may have been a mistake because apparently we have a 3D TV now.
2. I was worried that because I wasn't getting a break from the people I see everyday, I would grow to hate them after a day or two of sharing a house with them.
3. The high all week was about 65 degrees. Every time I went out on the beach I had a sweater or a blanket.

don't you want to just dive right in?

BUT it turned out to be really fun.  There were always new people in the house bringing food and games and conversation. I accrued a whole library of new music and made some new friends. And although it sucked to be at the beach and be unable to apricate*, the chill doesn't change the look of the stars at night. 

and here is my latest favorite:




*Balderdash tells me this means "to sunbathe" but my spell check says it is not a word. Dictionary.com confirms it is, indeed, an English word, although the most popular usage was in the 1690s. Go figure.

flurries

I haven't written much because a lot has been happening this break. And when I say "a lot" I mean "a lot of knitting patterns." But I won't bore you. I have a story. A little snapshot of Christmas break in the DeBuys house.

In the afternoon of New Year's Eve, all is calm in the house. Mom and Dad are out shopping and returning heinous Christmas presents. Daniel is in the basement, playing Oblivion. Sean is downtown at Tech with his girlfriend. And Ryan and I are sitting, peaceably, in the living room watching the 4th season of The Office as I am knitting a scarf for my friend Mallory. All is calm. All is bright.
So of course you know some disturbance is coming.

Right as Michael Scott is threatening to throw himself off the roof of the building (onto a Moon Bounce castle) the lights flicker, the TV shuts off, and the refrigerator powers down.

The power is out. The afternoon is ruined.

 A quick call to Mom confirms that the electric bill has been paid, and then Ryan and I sit and look at each other, the question "Now what?" hanging unspoken on the air.

Daniel comes rushing up the stairs out of the dark basement. A surprisingly delayed reaction considering he was plugged into the Matrix and was most likely engulfed in darkness almost instantly.

Now we are all sitting in the living room, sadly at a loss for what to do. Then survival mode takes over.
"Daniel!" I scream, as he jumps off the couch, "whatever you do, DO NOT open the fridge! I mean it! Not even for a second! Ryan, check if the phone is working."
Ryan goes to the phone, and picks it up. "I think the batteries are low. Or it's out. It was probably an EMP. Your cell phone won't work either," (my brother is suggesting that the power is out due to an electromagnetic pulse, which he believes can be weaponized and used to "wipe out an entire city's powers of communication"). I remind him that I called mom on my cell phone already, and he looks a bit mollified.

Dad gets home and we discover that the power outage is most likely due to a car crash on the road by our house. Ryan and Daniel actually played outside. With a ball. Together. I even took the dog for a walk (while also observing the power outage around the neighborhood. I felt a bit like a spy. Because I am a nerd).

When Einstein and I got back to the house, Mom was home and we started lighting candles in preparation for the sun going down and what was reported to be a 4 hour outage. Awesome. I convinced Daniel to take a shower while light was still coming in the windows (score!) and Ryan told Dad about his EMP theory.

A few days before this, we all painted pottery with my aunt Colleen. Three of our family's pieces (that's an even 50%) had Saints colors or a fleur de lis. Or both. Anyway, they had finally been fired and picked up and we admired our pieces in the thin sunlight still streaming through the kitchen windows.

Daniel came downstairs, freshly clean, and Mom tells him to unwrap the other pieces carefully, so that we can take a picture to send to Colleen. I went upstairs to retrieve my (awesome pineapple) bowl from my room, and on the way back downstairs, I hear many things. Allow me to paint a word picture of this scene:

Mom: Careful, Daniel, careful-

Daniel: AHHHAHHGHHHH
Ryan: Daniel, WHAT? Ahhhahhhhh! Get it! AAHH!
Dad: WhAT! Daniel! NO DON'T TOUCH IT
[I am still coming down the stairs, faster now, and I see the dog chasing the cat out of the kitchen]
Mom: AH! OW Ow owowowow
(stomping, stomping)
Dad: Daniel! WHY did you do that?
Mom: I tried to warn him... OW, ooh, that was stupid. 
[Daniel, distraught, flees upstairs in a fit]

I finally round the corner to see white fluff suspended in the air, falling slowly like fat snow. My first thought, as I see Dad at the open sliding glass door, is that the cat has attacked some snowy white bird and let it into the house, and now its downy feathers are decorating our kitchen.

The actual story is even better:
Daniel, being careful to handle the potter delicately, and being instructed to "save the tissue paper" that wraps them, had cautiously peeled the paper away from the ceramic box he was unwrapping, and placed the large piece of tissue paper on the kitchen table, right next to the candles we had just lit. My mother, seeing this happen, tried to warn him, but was unable to stop the paper from catching on fire. Wanting to save the table, and our house, from going up in flames, she grabbed the flaming paper and threw it on the floor. This movement made the flame more intense, and ashes (like white fluffy snow flurries) floated around the clouds of stress as my parents stomped out the flames. They then turned on Daniel, who blamed himself for almost killing the family and ran upstairs in tears.

So, the results from this day: 

BAD- 

1. Daniel cried for a little bit until we assured him it wasn't really his fault
2. Mom burned her hand while saving the family (which she has shown me 47 times, because "you didn't believe me that I got burned but I did, look!")
3. and the power was out for a whopping 65 minutes.

GOOD- 

1. Daniel took a shower
2. Einstein took a walk
3. Ryan and Daniel played a game that didn't need controllers
4. the kitchen was swept (to clean up all the ash)
5. Mom got a battle scar, and...
6. I got another fun story to tell.

I think this one goes in the win column.

where's the cake?

My stumbleupon thinks I'm about to have a hipster wedding. Or that I eventually want to have a hipster wedding.The first of which is entirely untrue, but the more they show me, the more it grows on me. Damn.

First of all, stumbleupon is a site that allows perpetually lazy college students students people to simply press a button on their tool bar that will instantly hop them to a different interesting site. It's kind of like hitting shuffle on the internet. You can customize your stumble to present you with sites about things you are interested in. For instance, mine is set to direct me to sites about psychology, humor, and for some reason, hipster weddings like this one: Chris and Krystal: the soundtrack!

They're full of witty and interesting ideas like "use Polaroids instead of a photographer" and "use a band comprised entirely of 9 yr olds in sundresses" and "use garden weeds instead of flowers because flowers are so consumerist and passe"

Between this and TLC, I feel like weddings are being thrown at me from every direction. And without even giving me cake.

RLS: "Friend of Hookface"

Disclaimer: I want to make sure you know that I do, in fact, want a boyfriend. It may seem from this story and the hipster trilogy that I enjoy having boys chase me and then ruthlessly denying their attempts to date me. It just happens that the funniest stories I have to tell involve boys I have no interest in, for some reason or another. You could take from this that I am too picky. Or you could just sit back, read, and enjoy.

Before I can tell you what happened today, I have to take a trip back to a few months ago.

Setting: Mid-April, 2010. My roommate and I find ourselves alone; our friends have gone to the CofC baseball game and left us behind (no hard feelings- this story never would have happened). We decide to go for a walk and end up sitting on the pier at Waterfront Park.


As Marca and I are talking, I notice next to us two guys with BMX bikes. They look about our age, with tattoos and helmets and a general air about them that suggests they hurt themselves a lot doing stupid things (most 13-year-olds are like this- also, Jackass). Eventually, one of them leaves to get some water or to flip his bike into a public fountain. Marca and I sit silent for a bit during a lull in our conversation. The remaining BMX guy takes this as his cue to lean over and ask "So, do you go to school around here?" which means one of two things when you live in Charleston:

1. He's a tourist.
2. He's in the Navy.

It turns out it's the latter- he's in the nuclear power school in Goose Creek. He talks to us for a while and Marca and I are flattered at being "chatted up" even though it is soon obvious he is not extremely smart and he uses the F word way too much. I have no problem with swearing at all. Shit no. Except if the person in question doesn't know how. This guy used the F word like a 10-year-old who got it for Christmas.

After a while his friend comes back, and after a few minutes of talking we learn that they aren't actually friends, per se. They just found each other in town and some exchange like this happened:

Guy 1: Hey, I see you have a BMX bike! So do I!
Guy 2: We should totally ride together!
Guy 1: I'm in the Navy!
Guy 2: F***in' no way, me too. That's f***in crazy! F*** yeah we should ride together. F***IN' A!
-Three minutes later, they sat next to us on the pier.

So they start talking to each other about Navy stuff, every so often talking at us to say something about bad food or curfews. It's around this time I start thinking How am I gonna get us out of this? I'm starving! But if I say that, they'll invite themselves to dinner. Marca must be uncomfortable (I'm just projecting). I check my phone, but I can tell by the color of the sky that it's getting into later eating hours. When I look up, I see something miraculous flying through the sky to save us.

A woman at the end of the pier has been fishing with her two sons, in the background of this story. She caught a stingray early into our conversation with the first guy and we watched her husband nudge it off the pier with his boot.

Just as I'm thinking How are we going to get out of this? she casts her line parallel to the water instead of out into it and her bait and tackle comes flying through the air towards the second guy's HEAD. The triangle weight lands on top of his head and the hook grabs his left temple a bit above the hair line. A second or two of silence elapses. I don't know this man. I have no idea if he has anger issues or a rare, extra-squirty-blood disease. Finally, he says (quite gifted, this guy) "There is a hook. In my head." That seemed about the only thing he could say, and he said it several times.

Meanwhile, the woman responsible came running over, terrified, to survey the damage (it's barely in there- only a flesh wound). However, the guy (henceforth known as Hookface) insists we not take it out and instead "clip it and take the whole thing to the hospital." The woman's husband comes over to him. This man has already had to kick a stingray off a dock today, and who knows what else. He says "let me take a look" and midway through his last word, he plucks the offending hook out of Hookface's face, and all that is left is a tiny cut about the length of a pencil eraser.

Hookface still insists on the hospital, mumbling something about "paperwork." I gave him directions to the ER and helped them find Hookface's car because they had no clue where they were. On the way to finding his vehicle, the two boys unrelentingly invite us to the hospital with them. Um, no thanks. Not even if you were cute. OK, maybe if you were cute. And smarter. And stopped cursing like an old lady that's just remembered she knows how.

I saw that the only way we could leave without accompanying them to the hospital would be to jump on the phone grenade. I said "Here's my number- so you can let us know that everything's OK." And I wish I hadn't. I knew they were OK. I knew the ER doctors would give him a band-aid and some Midol and tell him to man up and get back to the Navy.

I knew he would text me that night, and maybe the next day (when I planned to have "dropped my phone in soup" so I couldn't read texts, darn). Just know that the story doesn't end here.

misc

Ok, I have a few things to say, but none of them are substantial enough for a full post. Here are some things I've been thinking about lately:

THE AIR CONDITIONING IS ON. It's a miracle. Not only can we bake things in the oven again without overheating the house and killing the dog, we also closed all the windows! And that means those stupid birds have shut up. Well, they're still annoying, I just can't hear them as well through a pane of glass. :) It was getting kinda ridiculous. They were talking to me. Their chirping and horny mating calls were starting to sound like real words: one of them always says Germannnyyyy, and one says "shiverme shiverme shiverme timbers" and another says "babysitter babysitter" and then there's one that just copies ALL OF THEM. Doing one call after another, in succession, like the most annoying type of car alarm.


I'm a little bit in love with Simon Pegg. OK, a lot. Watch the show Spaced. I finally did. (hint: it's all on Hulu)


My job is tiring and suckish and I know I complain about it too much. Friday is my first pay day!!! yay. I will make a real effort to not bitch about it anymore because I don't want to be that girl. It's like in high school when I was in orchestra and my friends and I all hated our conductor. We would find ourselves complaining about him on the weekends at sleepovers until we realized "oh no. he won. he's in our heads all the time!" So I will stop. Now.


I'm almost through a book called Name of the Wind, which I was reluctant to read simply because someone told me I'd like it. Which instantly turns me off to it. Except then that someone decided to harass me over facebook and bug me and bug me until I read it. Damn him.


I still have no idea what day of the week it is. When I was in church yesterday, I flipped through the missalette and found out that there are only 9ish more weeks of summer. Which is still a long time.

frogs are loud too

My mother does not believe in air conditioning. At least that's what I tell people. In fact, the resistance to air conditioning that my mother puts up until peak days of summer is more based in finances than any odd belief system. Anyway. This means the first month of summer vacation is spent with all the windows open, fans at breakneck speed (I mean that literally), and sheets kicked to the bottom of the bed.

Every morning through my open window I am berated by a cacophony of horny birds chirp-chirping to potential mates and whist-whistling about the glorious morning sun. Some of them even start to sound like they're saying something: one bird says "GERmaneee GERmaneee" and about ten more will join in like cats in an alleyway.

Now, in addition to the distant sound of cars driving along the road behind our house, I can hear a frog. A throaty, chirpy, froggy frog. Well hop on back to the creek, kid. I am not in the mood for your serenade.

not to harp on...

The anatomy of a summer bedroom is simple and yet incredibly messy. At the moment, I have two fans spinning perilously; one at my window (which, until noticed by my brother, was blowing air OUT), and one, of course, on the ceiling. The floor finds itself littered with sandals, a tool box, boxes full of unpacked dorm gear, unhelpfully warm blankets and a bathing suit or two. The bed lays unmade, a resting place for a book or the remote control. The comforter sits at the foot, folded and forgotten. Sheets are crumpled but clean. The fan in the window cancels out bird noise and wafts in smells from the grill outside. The air moving is hot. My keyboard is hot. My knee-pits (which do not have a medical name) are sweaty. How lovely.

On days like this, it is best to lie, inert, on the closest flat surface. Also helpful would be a drink, itself sweating with condensation and a paperback book about living in Alaska. Or the top of a mountain. Or the inside of a Coca Cola bottle. However, this immobility, no matter how comfortable, always comes with a side of guilt. At least in my family. My mother feels guilty pausing to watch something on TV, yet feels no qualms about farming* on Facebook, probably because it feels more "active." All joking aside, this is a popular rationalization within my family. My father believes he is going faster by taking a shortcut around traffic as long as the car is in motion. I feel it too. I have convinced myself that writing this is more productive than watching iCarly or another episode of Clean House, but is it really?

I know the answer is no, but it still feels like a yes. And now that I've accomplished something today, I'm going to take a well earned break and turn on the tube or read some Bill Bryson. The sad thing about summer is that it will be more than what I did yesterday.

*I love my mother and think fb farming is pretty cute, but also kind of ridiculous. right?