Sample Rack Ruckus

This little gem of a topic can swing both ways – NO and DO. But because I have already exhausted my weekly optimism allotment, the door has swung into NO territory.

After all, I cannot allow too much sunshine and ponies and rainbows and funfetti into one week. Need to keep my negative energy levels up! Boy is it exhausting.

Northwestern Connecticut is a considerably large bubble. Or maybe my high school years simply missed the big fashionista boom up there. Regardless, I didn’t even know what 7 For All Mankind jeans were until I pledged a sorority my sophomore year in college.

Me and my pledge sistas were sneaking drinks before a Closed (party with a frat) and one girl was saying how her favorite jeans were Sevens – to which silly blonde little me replied, “You’re A SIZE SEVEN??” (She was super skinny). Everyone laughed.

Yikes did I feel dumb!

Alas, as I’ve aged in years, so too has the breadth of my fashion knowledge. It’s become a fine kinda wine. (Working at Bloomingdale’s had a huge hand in brand recognition and favoritism for suuure. It’s been tough to go back to H&M and Forever 26 after discounted Vince and DVF and Rock & Republic – but somehow, I’ve managed.)

A big part of my survival in fashion-obsessed New York City is thanks to sample sales.

After Bloom’s, I worked at a young men’s clothing company. Our designers would send color swatches, specs, pattern designs – the whole kit and caboodle – over to India. Then wham bam thank you ma’am, our Indian factories would send back shirts. Magic! Said shirts were called “samples” and the salespeople used them to sell to stores (say that five times fast).

Bigger, better companies than my previous employer (which shall remain unnamed) have so so so many samples that they sell them at a completely more reasonable price. And I buy them.


Enter: Clothing Line. This gem of a warehouse in the madness that is Midtown has some of the best sample sales I’ve ever been to. Theory, J. Crew, Tori Burch, Kooba, Theory, Milly, Alice + Olivia, Theory, Theory, Theory!

How I wish my wardrobe consisted entirely of Theory. Their designs just fit me so well. So flattering. So classic. Love, love, love.

But this is a no dankes and so I shall no dankes.

Sample sales can be pretty gruesome. And pretty goddamn overwhelming.

There’s the line around the block – undoubtedly full of bitchy people bitching about bitches cutting them. Bitch slaps all around.
There’s the messy, disheveled racks. No organization what-so-ever. Not by size, or color, or sample vs. damage, or shirt vs. sweater vs. dress. (Well that last one is a slight exaggeration – some racks had but a few dresses mixed in with the tops and slacks.)

Your arm goes dead with the weight of 25 items (dresses in my case) as you feverishly flip through hanger after hanger, rack after rack, hurriedly browsing through the madness, hoping something will catch your eye.

Oh but then a big burly man walks by shouting “10 ITEM LIMIT, TENNNN ITEMS!!” No.no.no, say it ain’t so!!! I always ignore him.

Finally, when your arms can no longer bear their colorful, deadweight burden, you head to the “fitting room”. There you encounter yet another line. GAH, your arms are going to FALL OFF. But shit you have more than TEN ITEMS. But I DON’T WANT TO PUT THEM BACK!!!!!!!! But you must.

Sometimes you can get away with armfuls if it’s not super busy. More often than not, though, the fitting room man cracks his superpower whip. Ever so reluctantly, you pick through each piece, deeming whether or not it’s worthy of a try-on. Believe me, it’s rough.

You grudgingly place more than half your booty on the put-back rack, hoping and wishing and praying it will be there when you’re done with the chosen group. And then, oh yeah, you wait in line. And you wait. And you wait.

I think I had several heart attacks the first time I visited a sample sale’s fitting room. It’s like my encounters with a naked gym-goer nightmare x 5,000. Row after row of naked ladies stripping and standing and strutting around in front of flimsy mirrors (above is a super classy photo I found...I didn’t want to subject you readers to the real madness).

My modest mouse self needed a few sample sale trips under my belt before I could feel comfortable. And now I’m addicted.

Lines and crowds and messy racks and naked ladies aside, sample sales are definitely well worth it. Especially the Theory ones.

Do Dankes: To the Beach House

There is no where in the world I would rather not be than in New York City on a snowy, rainy, windy, freezing cold day. 


Much like today. Oh, and yesterday. Annnd the day before that.

What was Punxsutawney Phil’s prognosis, anyway? I have a mind to go down to Pennsylvania and drag him out of his cozy little hole in the dark so he doesn’t see his shadow. I want winter to be O-V-E-R. Yes – yes those are capital letters.

I am ready for sunshine and sand (and, fine, SPF) and popsicles and pools and piñas and ice cold brewskies and burgers and bathing suits – eh, OK maybe not that last one (I have a few more months to get ready, right? RIGHT?)...nevertheless, you get the point.

Helloooooo spring fever.

So I thought, what better way to spend a disgustingly soaking wet day than daydreaming about the beach? Boy oh boy do I love the beach. It is without a doubt my most favorite place to be.

I know I talked smack about sand last summer – and I do stand by that. Super fine sand is super sticky, hence super annoying. But truthfully I don’t think anywhere, anyplace, or anything in the world beats the beach.

At the risk of sounding mega-cheesy, I think the ocean is truly magical.

True, the big blue sea does kinda scare the shit out of me. Seaweed and sharks and skeletons and murkiness and monsters.

But when there’s a shore involved, the ocean becomes more controlled, more reasonable (well, kind of...if you can’t swim you’re screwed).

Waves lapping and crashing and roaring and foaming; cooling your sun-soaked body off in the surf; squishing the slurpy, racing sand beneath your toes; catching glimpses of myriad white shells and quietly vibrant sea glass. That incomparable feeling of being on the edge, on the precipice, overlooking something so incomprehensibly vast and mysterious.

The beach is simply sensational. (Michelle agrees – she was so tickled at Nauset, in fact, that she broke into cartwheels!)

I understand that, like everything, the beach is not without its drawbacks – few as they may be. Screaming, crying, shrieking children can grate on the ole nerves. Combat gulls swooping in for the turkey-sandwich-kill, flying away with your lunch in their talons. And of course the seemingly harmless snooze that results in a wicked, streaky sunburn.

And, well, that’s about it. Oh how I love, love, LOVE the beach.

Yet another thing I adore is how, like thumbprints, no two beaches are the same. Fine sand, coarse sand, black sand, rocks instead of sand. It truly is quite amazing.

Here are my five most favorite beaches – all vastly different, but all beloved:

5. South Beach, FL: Only one visit and this beauty made it into my top five! Fake boobs and far too much PDA aside (there was pretty much everything but the deed happening right before my prudish, averted eyes), this truly was a sight to see. I didn’t think it was possible for Florida to have such tealy blue water. Gorg!

4. Horseshoe Bay, Bermuda: While I didn’t find the pink sand quiiite pink enough, I very much enjoyed the warm, seaweed-free, unbelievably clear water. The Treasure Island cove-like landscape added to my delight.

3. Capri, Italy: This small island (pictured) off the coast of Italy is simply breathtaking. I found it hard to believe that such a place exists in this world. And though the “beach” is sans sand and riddled with rocks (I do not tell a lie, it was impossible to get comfortable), the turquoise water was mesmerizing. So mesmerizing, in fact, that while I was floating on my back, enjoying the super salty sea, I didn’t even notice that my top had gone askew. Yep, I flashed friends and strangers alike.

2. Nice, France: Ahhhh, the French Riviera. Such a glamorous scene. What I wouldn’t give to have lived there in the 50s, be wooed by Cary Grant, and don boatloads of diamonds! I visited long after To Catch a Thief hit theaters, but the scene was just as spectacular. The sand, the ocean, the architecture – it’s another package deal.

1. Cape Cod, MA: I debated where to put this on my list. After all, the water isn’t as clear at Bermuda, nor as stunning as Capri, or as warm as Nice. No, no. There are kids and killer gulls. The ocean is ice cold; freezing, actually, even on the warmest of days. And my most abhorred, most feared enemy of the watery world is usually omnipresent: Seaweed. But Cape Cod has held a special place in my heart since I was a kid and I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon.

There’s something so endearing about preppy boat shoes and Vineyard Vines. Drinking beers in line at our favorite byob restaurant, Moby Dick’s. The Three Sisters Lighthouses at Nauset. The peerless New England-esque history and charm that cannot be duplicated anywhere else: Old drive-in movie theaters and candlestick bowling alleys and flea markets.

Coast Guard and Craigville and Sandy Neck and Nauset Light. Four Seas Ice Cream and Cape Cod chips and sour cream donuts from the Hole-in-One Donut Shop.

I suppose it’s memories that make a beach so special, not all the glitz and glamor. I just hope that one day I own a Cape house of my own.

Until then, I am most grateful to the Schopp family, the Whieldon family, and the Chandler family for letting me stay at theirs...sandy feet and all.

Meditations in an Eye-mergency

A disclaimer: I contemplated deleting this post when I read it with un-blurry eyes this morning. It’s pretty ridiculous. But as you’ll soon discover, I was not (in fact) drunk or high or drugged. My eyes were dilated and I couldn’t see a thing. I thought it would be a funny experiment to blog and here is the so-so result. Grammar Police: Do Not Enter – or at least leave your badges at the door. It’s rough.

I have been slacking with my Do Dankes. Today was supposed to be a Do Dankes day.

Alas, it is not. I You see, yesterday I had an eye exam. Time to get new glasses for me. The old astigmatism has gotten worse. I told the nice doctor that I was on my lunch break so i didn’t have too much time an sshe said I had to come back after work to do the dilation cause I'd be blurry.

(How awful does thata sound, by the way - dilation? I’m sorry, am I about to give birth? Ick!)

So I went back last night to have my pupilss dilated And on my walk home I realized what a ginormous no dankormous bTHAT was! (The initial drops stinging the shiiiiiiit out of my sockets aside!)

ITo put it in Alanis’s words, I feel drunk but I’m sober. And boy do I feel D-RUNK. Like I just had about 32 beers. And 14 glasses of champagne. And 8 shots of tequila.

So in a deviattion from my much too normal norm, I thought it would be funny for the control freak to lose control. For my inner anti-spellcheck rebel to let her freak flag fly. And here is the result: a masssively mistake and grammatical error-ridden masterpice.

I'm Writing a blog blin d and not going back to correct ANYTHING> cause it’s funnier that way, right? right? AND - hold the phone - there shan’t be any italics. And barely any perfectly placed pictures.

I am verrry luckly Mrs. McCleod taught me how to type so well -and while I don’tt really give myself much credit for many of my shining, shimmering qualities (taco eating, blog writing), I will say that I am an excellent tyist. Typer? Typist. I woulda made Joanie girl proud! (For those of youwho don’t watch Mad Men, get WITH THE PROGRAM, would you?? that means i have twice hoodwinked you - the title of this entry AND theJoan reference. don’t yo feel left out??)

Good lord doI feel sleepy. I look like a drug addict. I am dizzy and narcileptic and trying to make dinner while my head lols backward against my couch and my fingers zoom across the keys writing gibberish. Nonsense. Sorry! Is this what it’s like to do shrooms? That’s the only drug i can think of that affects your vision.

I wasn’t hungry before the appointment but now my tum is a rumbling. I think my beer goggled vision has tricked the ole estomago into belieeving it was gonna enjoy some drunk food . Boy is it in for a huge upset when it gets fed broccoli and cicken and undoubtedly either over cooked or undercooked couscous (cause i cannNOOOT read the directions!!)


I mean no but seriously. The screen is a massive blur of black and grey - it doesn’t even look black. I can’t read my emails!I can’t see my texts! I can’t check my FACEBOOK PAGE! It’s the end of the world.

Do dilation drops have drugs in them? I think imma go pass out now. Please oh please let my vision be back before figure hating - I mean skating - comes on!! Hmm perhaps I should give myself a manicure...now that might be funny. This entry, unfortunately - not so much. Sowweeeee. I can’t help it, i’m dilated!

Figure Hating

Does anyone else feel unprepared for the Olympics this year? Like they came out of nowhere?

I don’t know why but I’m really just not that into them. And the winter ones are my fave!

Nevertheless, I have managed squeeze in my main squeeze – figure skating! I’ve watched both pairs programs (Shen and Zhao are so goddamn cute, SO happy for them!), and the men’s short program (free skate is tonight).

Flying through the air and falling on your ass aside, there is one aspect of figure skating that I deem positively terrifying. One quintessential characteristic that always makes my skin crawl with disdain.

What, you may ask, is that flamboyant little facet?

Why, can’t you guess?

The costumes. Good LORD, the costumes! I thought the 80s were over. Through. Finished. Finito. But much to my chagrin and sheer horror, that dreadful decade is destined to live forever on ice. The 80s have immortalized classless, tacky, bedazzled outfits.

The vicious, vision-violating monstrosities that men and women – especially the men, what is WITH all the GLOVES?? MJ tributes all around? – don are downright blasphemous.

Dear, sweet boys: This isn’t the Ice Capades. It’s the Olympics. Could you try a decent costume on for good measure? Could you live your life to a 21st century tune?

I did love Brian Boitano (well to be fair, I think my mom loved him enough for both of us...I must have watched the program that went with that outfit a million times); I liked Elvis Stojko; Brian Orser was OK. But they were no dashing divos. The skaters of this century should take a design hint from the debonair Douglas Dorsey in The Cutting Edge.

Oh how I LOVE the scene where he and Kate are getting fitted in those outrageously contemptible costumes. The seamstress contemplates where to place a piece of flair and our main man Doug says something like, “I know…how about here,” and rips the god awful costume apart. Go Doug! Boy after my own heart.

So you missed Tuesday’s short program performances? No worries. Here are my Kings of Costume No-No-No’s straight from the Vancouver dragway:

Johnny Weir(d)

Evgeni-lociraptor Plushenko

Artem-the-Riveter Borodulin

Kevin van der Halloween (?)

I get it. I understand the need to be over-the-top. To exaggerate the “look”. To stand out.

But really. Seriously buddies. I do not tell a lie: To the viewers and fans, you end up a big, fat farce. And that’s the ugly truth.

Grocery Shopping Showdown

I know, you hear me? I know. I know that living in New York City, that being one tiny ant in this overflowing hellish hill has its downs along with its ups.

But one of those downs is, unfortunately, a cruel and unusual punishment necessity: Grocery shopping.

It’s one of the most cringe-inducing activities we Manhattanites must endure. (Yes I’ve tried Fresh Direct but I prefer seeing expiration dates and picking out my own produce, thank you very much.)

Now I don’t mean cringe in a holy SHIT, that’s expensive! kind of way - although believe you me, paying double for the same product as our suburban counterparts do can be grating. Especially when we’re strong-armed into paying such exorbitant amounts (I have learned that, unfortunately, one cannot subsist on Oodles of Noodles alone…no matter how we may wish it were so).

Utterly shell-shocking costs aside, there’s another aspect to food shopping that makes me dread Sunday afternoons.

The crowds.

People have no r-e-s-p-e-c-t. LISTEN to Aretha, yo!

They claw their way in front of you, smashing into your heels with their stupid little shopping suitcase - and they don’t apologize. They reach for that last pint of tomatoes, that single Stonyfield Farms blueberry yogurt, practically snatching if from your bewildered hands.

Oh, and if you’re in their way, they scream at you. Unfortunately I’m always oblivious and usually listening to tunes - therefore I often get the ole tap-tap-tap/push-push-push in addition to the ole shriek.

You can’t peruse NYC grocery aisles in a leisurely manner. In fact, I don’t think our sad excuses for stores even deserve the term “aisle”. Aisle implies walkway - not catwalk.

Gristedes and D’Agostino’s, Gourmet Garage and Morton Williams - even CVS and Duane Reade are all sans aisles. In their place are single cart lanes. Alleys. Dingy floors whose square footage can barely accommodate two parallel people let alone outrageously rude shoppers bedecked with produce and pasta, milk and meats, cookies and candies and cakes!

Alas, the torment does not end there. After fighting the masses, after lugging around a basket that makes your arm ache with its heaviness, after maneuvering your way through the maze and back again (and again because, at least in my case, I always forget something) - then it’s time to face the lines.

Omfg the lines.

There’s nothing, and I mean nothing like the Union Square Whole Foods on a Sunday afternoon. The serpentine procession of peeps weaving in and out of the bread and dessert section, the cold food bar, the prepared dinner station.

And there’s always 30+ registers open!

It’s madness I tell you, complete and utter madness. You’re corralled like cattle into 5, 6, 7 different queues while a brightly lit television screen calls out your line number - in a slightly British accent, of course. They take their civilized, humanizing little nuances where they can get them.

And don’t you dare steal someone’s register by accident. This happens often - not always on purpose - and can be quite amusing. But as someone with experience on both ends - the stealing and the stolen - pay attention to that television screen. Otherwise you’ll find yourself being whacked on the head like you just cut the old lady in the deli line - 50 pound purses are not pretty.

As if this last legal form of human torture, this sadistic food shopping routine isn’t bad enough - oh no. Then you have to carry your groceries home.

People who complain about bringing their purchased perishables in from the car - to you I say: Shut the hell up. Try lugging those reusable bags on your shoulders (I byob) for a mile, up and up, flight after flight, to your 4th floor apartment.

Heavy as can be bags with taut straps dig into your shoulders, cutting off your circulation. You arms up and die in a hellish fit of pins and needles. Your feet drag with the excess poundage. Your knees hurt from climbing all those satanic stairs. ‘Tisn’t fun.

The crowds, the expense, the teeny tiny aisles and filthy floors, the lugging! - all these trials and tribulations are enough to make me contemplate anorexia. Well, at least until Sunday afternoon rolls around and my bare cabinets and empty tum beg to be fed.

How I miss the days of grocery shopping in the real world. Of strolling through the aesthetically pleasing promenades (aka aisles), gleaming under shiny fluorescent lights. How I long for the comfort of my old Volvo and a Super Stop and Shop. How I yearn to leisurely meander, to get lost in the dozens of aisles. Sigh.

I think it’s pretty ridiculous that I look forward to food shopping when I’m in Connecticut. But, hey. ‘Tis the little things in life.

Spread the Love. Hate the Day.

Not that I’m necessarily in a fight with Valentine’s Day. Puh-lease - t’ain’t one of those woe-is-me single ladies (faaar from it, in fact). And while my diet this weekend has consisted almost solely of white, red, and pink Peanut M&M’s, it’s not because I’m eating my feelings - my cabinets are, unfortunately, sans food.

I just don’t get what the big deal is about Valentine’s Day. Girls get pissed at boys for not buying them candy and stuffed animals. They stomp their feet and throw pissy hissy fits if they’re not taken out to dinner - “YOU DIDN’T MAKE RESERVATIONS??”

OMG and it is the END of the WORLD if baby don’t get her flowers! So gross - they’re probably ordered from 1-800-FLOWERS and are, undoubtedly, red roses with disgusting baby’s breath - say it with me now: ewwwwwwww. (Note to boys: a little imagination never hurt anyone.)

I’m happy to report that none of my co’s received flowers last Friday (was that the cheaper way to go or something? there were lots of unfortunate status updates happening) - so thankfully there was no flaunting in my office.

Instead, my cynical cell cube-mate sent me a lovely list detailing why Valentine’s Day is simply the stage name for Slit-Your-Wrists Day:

1. In the two week period leading up to Valentine’s Day, American sales of gold jewelry lead to 34 million metric tons of waste.

2. The vast majority of roses sold for Valentine’s Day in the U.S. are imported from South America, wasting fossil fuels.

3. Valentine’s Day traces its roots to an ancient pagan holiday called Lupercalia, in which men stripped naked, grabbed whips, and spanked young women in hopes of increasing their fertility.

4. The Christian martyr St. Valentine was beheaded on February 14 for performing marriages in secret.

5. Research suggests that 75 percent of suicide attempts are attributable to relationship problems.

6. 46 percent of Americans will exchange Valentine’s Day candy.

7. 67 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.

8. The first Valentine’s Day card was sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He remained a prisoner of war for the next twenty-four years.

9. A recent poll found that one in ten young adults admitted to feeling lonely, insecure, depressed, or unwanted on Valentine’s Day. And that’s just the ones that admitted it.

10. Forty percent of people have negative feelings towards Valentine’s Day.

11. The famous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in which seven Chicago gangsters were gunned down on February 14, 1929, was one of the bloodiest in mob history.

12. 64 percent of American men do not make Valentine’s Day plans in advance.

13. Candy hearts taste like shit.

14. Even if you’re really, really in love right now, you’re still going to die eventually.

Yizzikes.

Now let it be understood that my fabulous group of solo lady friends and I are not single bitter bitches. No, no. We simply see Valentine’s Day as a big, fat, commercialization - and really, who doesn’t?

But once we don our rose-colored glasses (unfortunate coincidence), this schmoliday is magically transformed into a far more fun holiday called Galentine’s Day (thanks Ri and Amy!)

Tonight is nada but a ridiculously welcome and super fun excuse to get decked to the nines, drink lots of champagne, and spend time with girlfriends. And of course there will be funfetti and tons-o-belly laughs - way better than pouting your way through an overpriced dinner.

I don’t have a ginormous problem with Feb 14th. For me, this measly mid-month, mid-winter day has always been halfway decent. Maybe it’s cause my parents give me a few presents (and some moolah). Or because I’ve always received anything but roses (thank GOD - red ones?...I would die). I’ve even had a few delicious dinners cooked for me.

* Unconventional is the way to be, boys. *

I just think Valentine’s Day is like your birthday - all the buildup, all the excitement, all the anticipation - then the actual moment comes, the main event - and it never, evvvver lives up to your expectations.

And why would it? Who in their right mind would be satisfied with a cheesy poem in the shape of a heart, an ugly white teddy bear from CVS, and a dozen horrifically horrifying red roses that will die the next day?

Not I.

Romance makes me awkward and squirmy. My idea of ardor is waking up on February 14th to find a cute, simple note on my iPod wishing me a lovely day, saying there’s a new Valentine’s Day playlist - and no, not a mushy one, a sentimental one. (Yes that did happen once, so sweet!)

Come on people. Stop making such a big deal out of February 14th. Stop putting all your hopes and dreams of romance into one itty bitty day - there are 364 OTHERS in the year.

Spread the love. Hate the day.

That is, of course, unless you’re spending it with your lady friends - then I must say, LONG LIVE GALENTINE’S DAY!

hugs and kisses and rainbows and ponies,

kpizzle

Living in a Digital World, and I am NOT a Digital Girl

I got my first digital camera three years ago* and am ashamed to admit that I have never, ever, not once, printed an actual picture.

(*Actually, that’s a lie. My parents got me a digital camera for Christmas in 2002, complete with all accessories - printer, dock, shiny picture paper! - I used it perhaps once. Maybe twice. Never did like it much.)

While I have - at last - toed my way into the digital world, I think it’s outrageous that I’ve not printed a single picture, that I have nothing to show except 55 albums on Facebook, that I have but one framed picture in my apartment (a bridesmaid gift from my friend Becky).

For some reason I’ve been über bothered by my lack of photos lately. I keep thinking how unfortunate this digital era is. How impersonal. How hapless and forlorn our lives are without bonafide snapshots.

This disdain has forced flashbacks of my first encounter with the world of digital. I was my sophomore year in high school (can NOT believe that was over a decade ago), and my teacher Mr. DeMazza had one. It looked scary. And fragile. But he ended up being quite the trendsetter with this fancy camera! The first of the firsts.

I, however, didn’t really take to these odd clodhoppers - neither as a sophomore in high school or a sophomore in college. (I still don’t think I fully have. I just don’t understand their zillion different settings, their options, their color schemes.)

I thought digital cameras were pointless and a royal pain in the ass. You have to charge a battery? You have to plug it in to upload? What the hell is a memory card??

I preferred my good old Kodak with a flip-up-flash n’ revolutionary Advantix drop-in film thankyouverymuch. (That panoramic option? Coolest thing ever!)

I don’t rightly remember what happened after my little flip-up-flash cam closed for business - sigh. I think I probably replaced it with my mom’s Elph (which I totes swiped from her). Then I switched over to trusty, reliable, super simple disposables - my medium of choice for quite a few years (I still have a handful kicking around that I’ve failed to develop).

That is, until Christmas 2007. That’s the year I revolutionized my digital photography philosophy. Funny that it coincided with the birth of my Facebook career. I don’t think it was a coincidence, embarrassingly.

I am grateful for advances in technology. I appreciate computers. Our lives have been made infinitesimally simpler by the advent of certain smarty-pants machines.

But while I fully admit I am Dark-Digital-Side convert who would never, ever in a million revert back to the paper era (BOOKS ASIDE), I must say: I miss printed pics mucho.

Now it’s like we’re friends with the computer. Our pictures aren’t tangible - we can’t touch them, flip through them, make piles of them. We just click through next, next, next. (Seriously, this simplicity has make stalkers of us all.)

And what’s more is that these computerific portraits are oftentimes pixel-fied. Blurry. Smeary. Boxy. Like when your cable loses its signal and comes in blocky. That’s not what we look like! (Is it?)

So many personal artifacts now reside in the digital world. Planners are practically extinct. Handwritten letters - yeah right. Poems, stories, blogs. Everything is digitized. And while I live my life to a Macbook beat, I still give credence to the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words.

The dearth of physical photos disturbs me.

When I was younger, I painstakingly pieced albums together. I spent hour after hour doing such. Pictures from my travels, from high school, from college. Memories.

I feel like people just don’t do that anymore (perhaps that’s why I can’t seem to remember any meaningful event ever). Facebook “albums” are a poor excuse for the real thing.

The Garbage Man Always Rings Twice

Garbage is a helluva pain in the ole ass. The overflowingness. The stench. The littering about. The bugs it breeds. The coons that cluster! There’s so much of it. It’s a bottomless, never-ending monster that just doesn’t go away.

And unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about it.

What stinks the most about garbage, though, is the removal of it. I honestly don’t know which method is the worst. But here are my top (er, bottom) three.

1. To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump! If you live in the boonies (aka Sharon Mountain), then there is no such thing as a garbage man. (Well, I suppose there is...and his name is Tim Parry.) You have to toss your trash at the transfer station with your own two hands. Hopefully you own a truck (thankfully Papa P does...one for that purpose alone).

2. Yes you can, can, can drag it out to the street. Big Rubbermaid bins house your refuse in your backyard (where nasty ass little hornets prowl, waiting to sting the shit out of you), until the garbage man himself comes. I’ve never experienced this so I don’t quite know how it works. But I believe you leave your garbage out front on a certain day at a certain hour.

3. Hands OFF. This is the most convenient option for we waste-producers (formally known as humans). Luckily it’s also the one I abide by. When you live in New York City, all you’s gotta do is toss your garbage in the proper bin on your way out: trash, bottles and cans, paper products. Easy, peasy, Japanesey. (Well I suppose we’re owed that simplicity in a big way – we do pay our lives away, after all.)

Alas, there is a slight problemo with this last alternativo. Something that irks me, paints scowl wrinkles on my face, contaminates my vision, makes me trip, wakes me up (!!!!). That something is the overreaching, all-encompassing inconvenience of trash being left on our sidewalks, awaiting an a.m. pickup.

When I was Super Shuttling it from LaGuardia back to the Village last Wednesday, a fellow passenger chatted me up. He was born in Detroit, currently resides in D.C., and was visiting New York for the second time ever.

He amiably asked question upon question and I enlightened him – somewhat biasedly – explaining that uptown is where old married couples live, midtown is plain g-ross, and downtown is where it’s at.

I told him to get pizza at Bleecker Street and Joe’s. That there was a good Thai place on 18th and 8th he should try. I pointed out the NY Public Library and the Empire State building and I babbled on – unawkwardly for some strange reason (perhaps I was still in my traumatized trance from the boobs of Miami) – until I had nothing left to say. There was a lull.

He broke it by saying, “Oh yeah, I remember that.” I asked what he was talking about. “The trash all over the sidewalks.”

I was taken aback. I couldn’t help it. Don’t diss my city, dude! Not that I don’t notice the mountains of black bags, I just think I’m a little immune to our unsavory refuse-removal-routine.

Unfortunately he was right. Is right. Piles and piles of garbage on our sidewalks – unsightly indeed! I don’t know what’s to be done about it though. Too many tenants means two tons of trash and no where for it to go but out, out, OUTside. So bags amass and sidewalks topple with rubbish.

Let me acknowledge the fact that I do, indeed, have profound respect for garbage men. No one wants to do that job. No one grows up dreaming of one day working in waste management. In the rain, in the snow, in the bitter cold and the blistering heat. No dankes.

So I suppose I can’t blame them for being pissy. For throwing cans about and revving their engines and leaving the compactors grinding and grunting away. They dawdle down the street in the morning, savoring each noisy moment like a red velvet cupcake. They (probably) abhor picking up our city-folk trash and drag out the process, like have all the time in the world.

At least that’s what it feels like to my narcoleptic, delirious, wishing-for-more-sleep mind at 5:00 every morning.

I’m awake and dreading before the truck even makes its bombastic way down the street. I sense it, I feel it in my bones, like some people feel a storm coming. Then there it is. The squeaky starts and stalls, the boisterous air brakes, the smashing of glass (can’t they be careful with recycling??), the pulverizing jaws of the compactors, the noise, noise, noise!

Once per morning, fine. I understand the necessity of garbage removal. But then, THEN, a second truck comes by – you see, there’s one for recycling and one for regular ole refuse (yes, yes I did just figure that out last week...hence the blue vs. black trash bags).

I lay waiting with bated, über-annoyed breath, yearning for sleep – but cannot slip back into dreamland until truck numero dos barrels down Sullivan. And even then it’s a crapshoot. Couldn’t they at least do both at once? In the name of sanity? Ugh.