As if packing up my summer dresses wasn’t hard enough, I actually had to break out my boots last weekend.
(Which begs another point - why the hell were overeager city-dwellers donning boots months ago? Like, August? When it was still summer? Does no one else mourn the loss of the shortest, bestest season like I do?)
I tried. I held off for as long as I could. I am still trying to hold off. Still wearing strappy sandals to work while I sheepishly avoid the eyes of the judgy fashionista.
Sadly, though, I had to cave last Thursday. Had to break out the boots. (But, a slightly redeeming factor: it was more for the sake of my outfit - not because it was too cold. Flats simply didn’t look as good with my Betty Draper-esque vintage threads!)
Perfect ensemble aside, you can only imagine my dual dismay. Not only had I been surreptitiously confronted by the confines of boots (outfit had not been planned!), said boots were in shambles. Shambles I say!
Yes, yes. We all know I’m a huge brat who walks to work (a fact which, I must say, has been kind of a relief lately - what with all these mass transportation terrorist threats. Scary!)
But pedestrianism is hard on the ole clodhoppers. This concrete jungle is unbiasedly unsympathetic toward even the toughest, most resilient of soles.
It’s really pretty unbelievable how expendable shoes are. Yesterday I said how I wished clothes were disposable so we wouldn’t have to wash them. But when it comes time to toss shoes or an undershirt, I must say that I have a more difficult time throwing out a pair of shiny metallic flats than a grubby white tank.
Damn you streets of NYC for making me part with my filthy, stinky, holed up, worn out shoes! I hate you! Parting is such sad sorrow - because, for them, there is no tomorrow!
We sullen city folk don’t have the liberty of driving everywhere like you lazy country bumpkins do. No, no. We must walk which means our shoes last but one season. So even though I don’t like trashing my cute shoesies, there is a time for everything. A time to buy and a time to toss.
And then there are boots. Boots are a different story.
It’s not like you can go around dropping $175 every year on a whim. Or at least I can’t. Shouldn’t. Can’t. Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t.
Should not.
Didn’t!
Such a good kid. However, last winter was a loooong time ago and I am very forgetful. So you can picture my puzzlement when I pulled out my fave black boots - not yet one year old - and saw a sizable hole in the heel. Toe worn nearly through. Soles rubbed thin.
I dug around for my only pair of brown boots and - surprise, surprise - heels were also worn down. How could I forget the state of my boots??
NYC! You ruiner of one-season-new boots! Of flats! Of flip flops! How I loathe you and your stupid, unyielding sidewalks!
But because I am very cents-ible these days (as we all should be! Hellooooooo horrible economy!), and because I do love both pairs of said, scuffed-up boots. And, well, seriously - because boots should not have a single-season-shelf-life (!!!!) - I did the responsible thing
Just call me recessionista! I brought both my boots to the cobbler across the street.
I managed to conjur up a timid, embarrassed grin while he judged the shit out of my boots, shaking his head, muttering some unintelligible Eastern European curses under his breath. He scolded me with his eyes. Schooled me. I felt like a child, like I had drawn all over my brand new Trapper Keeper and Mom was pissed.
But hey, $40 and four spanking new heels later, I’m in business.
Apparently you don’t have to be one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses to wear out the soles of your shoes...you just have to be one of Eight Million Prancing Pedestrians.
What is it about kids disobeying their dentist? I mean, I suppose there is that 3% of the goody-two-shoes population that follows every rule ever to a T.
And then there’s the rest of us.
Did we think we were being badass? Rebellious? Was it because we disliked authority - via dentist and parents? Were we just plain lazy?
Whatever the cause, the time for not listening to our dentist (and parents) has come and gone.
No more excuses.
Floss. Your. Teeth.
I was one of the lazies. Super laze, in fact. I didn’t want to floss my teeth every night.
I feel kinda gross admitting it now, but I’d only break out the Glide (mint flavored, floss of choice), once a month - if that. Or if there was something stuck. Which pretty much only happened anytime I ate anything corn-related (what is it about that stupid kernel??)
Actually I feel disgusting admitting that. Boy oh boy.
But I’m telling you - from one former non-flosser to another: You just gotta own it. Own that laziness, that abhorrence of authority. Shake, shake, shake that feeling of not wanting to do something because someone told you to.
Get over it. Totes O.I. por favor. Cause there be creatures living up in there. For reals (to the left, to the left).
Now, don’t worry - I’m not getting ahead of myself here or anything. I’m not ready to say “Yes” to Oral-ffice hygiene.
But I shall henceforth be an ardent advocate for flossing.
I daresay I’d shout, “YES, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!” to le flosse.
It’s not because I’m an “adult” now. Nor is it because I want to prevent cavities (I’ll eat a bag-o-Sour Patches before I go to sleep...after I floss).
No. These petty excuses pale in comparison.
What really gets me in a flossing state of mind is the knowledge that I’ll be excavating those white mountains of shit.
Seriously, they accumulate at an alarmingly accelerative speed! Unstoppable. And unacceptable.
G-ROSS.
The human mouth is 98 degrees. There are over 600 types of bacteria (I love you Wiki!). Add to that mix cigarette smoke, alcohol, pickle juice. New (and old) bits of chewed food. Throw in some dental plaque. And voilà! You have a steaming cauldron of hearty halitosis.
Ugh. That stuff’s toxic man. Like, refuse pile stinky. Sewage plant stinky. Rotting meat stinky. And that’s your mouth! Your pretty little kisser! Why don’t we all feel the need to treat it with the utmost respect?
Fewer than 12% of Americanos floss on a daily basis. I know, I know. It does tack on a few more minutes to the nightly routine. But just think about all the snowy piles of gook you’re clearing out of there.
Do yourself a favor. And all the rest of us: Jump on that gingivitis-preventing bandwagon.
Floss. Your. Teeth.
Get your head outta the gutter, yo! ‘Tain’t those kind of vibrations.
Oh no. ‘Tis a far, far more loathsome kind: The vibrating alarm.
Never did I ever think this would be a No Dankes! topic. Who would?
I suppose I am partly to blame. Shame on me for getting too familiar with a vibrating wake up call. But you see, a few months ago my regular radio alarm failed to go off. And I failed to wake up. Hence, failed to make it to work by 9 o’clock.
Unacceptable!
Enter: iPhone. Each and every night since that most fateful morn, I’ve set myself two alarms. Clock radio and iPhone.
Now. I abhor phones dinging every time a text arrives. To abate any contribution of text-arrival-noise-pollution, I set my cell exclusively to vibrate. Same thing for phone calls. And so that sadly translates into alarm clocks, too.
When my very own Apple brand Bell Tower starts chiming at 8:12 a.m., it also starts vibrating (such a multitasker, that iPhone!) This vibrating buzz-iness can be pretty goddamn loud, especially when your ears (like mine) are super sensitive.
You know how those perfumery peeps are called “Noses”? Well if I were known by a sense, my spectacular nickname would be “Ears”.
Whew, that was a long-winded introduction – alas I suppose you’ve grown to expect that from me…otherwise why are you reading this?
day, I didn’t go out boozing Friday night. Thus I was enjoying a superpower-sober-sleep Saturday morning – not passed the hell out as usual while my body worked through its surplus of barley and hops.
Because of this, my sleep was a far cry from any sort of R.E.M. My snooze was so light, I daresay even a quiet breath could have awoken me.
But there were no breaths. No loud music. No car alarms, even. Nope. What did, in fact, wake me up was nothing other than someone else’s phone alarm vibrating. Yup.
At 6 a.m. on the dot, I was awakened by a nasty bout of incessant, repetitive, alarmingly loud (well, to my sensitive ears at least) alarm clock vibrations. Like the phone was just chillin on the floor next door and it wanted to send its signals through the wooden floorboards to torture me. The worst part is, I don’t even know if it was on the floor. It was somewhere. I heard its buzz through walls, through concrete, through brick – I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where it was coming from.There I was, tossing and turning, with a phantom vibration annoying the bejesus out of me. 6:16, :26, :36, :46. I was sleepily wide awake.
For an HOUR it went off. And worst of all, the vibrations weren
’t even. They suffered from some sort of arrhythmia. No joke! They were all over the place. Sure, they occurred every other second or so, but to my sleep-addled-perfectionist mind they were unbearably unsymmetrical.
I walked down in the hall in my nightgown and sleep mask. I stomped on the floor and banged on the walls and ceiling. I ate canned frosting with my finger out of sheer frustration.
I was beyond stressed and depressed and tired and pissed. I felt like Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, like people were slowly and methodically trying to drive me mad. Except I’m no actress and my sober Saturday morning was no movie.
I sandwiched my head between two pillows, turned my air conditioner on high. I screamed as loud as I possibly good to TURN THE ALARM OFF. I cried. I was actually happy when I heard the garbage trucks rolling down the street. Anything to distract my ears from the interminable whirring that was occurring somewhere thisclose. But where, I did not know.
The arrhythmia confused me, tricked me into thinking it was finished. I got pumped when the vibrations skipped a few beats, I could drift peacefully off to sleep for an hour before my movie marathon! But no. Then they started up again.
One. Full. Hour. Later. They stopped completely. My sanity was barely salvaged. If these cruel and unusual vibrations find their way to my ears anytime soon, I don’t know what will happen.
Everyone always jokes about how forgetful I am - and have always been. But of course I can’t remember funny examples of things I can’t remember.
My friend Sarah is the antithesis of me. She remembers what we were wearing at a restaurant we went to three years ago. And what we ate. Sick.
I’ve learned to just smile and nod. Smile and nod.
My memory is so bad I can’t recall what I wore to work last week. What I did this past weekend (well I guess that can be construed as legit).
Growing up, my mother was constantly yelling at me to do things before I forgot - to put something near the door so I’d remember it in the morning, to pack my bag while I was thinking about it.
After twenty-six years of nagging, you would think I’d of learned to follow her advice.
But noooooooooo.
My lossage is snowballing out of control. For reals. And this little deteriorating memory-o-mine came to an ugly climax last week.
I, bad kid that I am, have been to the gym about three times the past three weeks. (Hey, I was on summer vaca!)
But September 1st, the second New Year, marked a necessary revisit to some resolutions. Like: Work out! And so...I dragged myself to the gym. Ugh.
After ellipticizing (a girl’s workout of choice, obvi), I booked it back to the locker room to grab my bags and go. I had somewhere to be!
I don’t know what happened next. I think I might have blocked it from my mind because it was so scarring (or perhaps I just forgot!) You see, when I threw down my book, towel, iPod, water bottle, and tried to open my locker, I couldn’t for the life of me remember my combination.
38-10-22. No. 36-22-10. No. 22-10-38. No. I started to panic.
I knew there was a 30-something, a 20-something and a 10 in there but could not, could NOT seem to conjure up that all-important but extremely trivial little combo. All I wanted was to free my belongings from their smelly locker cell!
Tears brimmed my eyes, threatening further embarrassment. First I couldn’t remember my combination, then I was going cry about it? Really Katie? Really?
I decided to take a breather. I went out back to the stretching area, sat on a mat, put on some Beethoven, and tried to relax. Tried to coax those stupid, insignificant numbers of great significance back into my brain.
Unfortunately I, like my mother before me, am incapable of relaxing. My brain is a goddamn pinball machine, constantly darting and pinging around from one incoherent thought to the next no matter how hard I try to quiet it.
Ten minutes later, I moped back to the locker room, having failed to extract the combo from the swamp that was is my anxious-memory-loss-Alzheimer’s-onset-ridden mind.
But this only made matters worse! Those elusive numbers would not present themselves. And so, finally, I called the front desk. And they brought in the clippers.
I hid my face in shame as a girl a foot shorter than me wrestled with ginormous, twenty-four-inch long lock-clipping shears.
Miraculously, my stupid lock survived its thrashing. It lived to lock another day! And, always one for that poignant, ironic moment - I remembered the combination an hour later.
38-21-10. So close yet so far!
Needless to say, my confidence in my non-existent memory has officially been reduced to a not-so-healthy zilch. Zippo. Zero. Nada.
This week I shall invest in the fancier line of locks - the kind you can program.
At least I don’t think I can forget my birthday...
Sadly, though, I had to cave last Thursday. Had to break out the boots. (But, a slightly redeeming factor: it was more for the sake of my outfit - not because it was too cold. Flats simply didn’t look as good with my Betty Draper-esque vintage threads!) 
It’s really pretty unbelievable how expendable shoes are. Yesterday I said how I wished clothes were disposable so we wouldn’t have to wash them. But when it comes time to toss shoes or an undershirt, I must say that I have a more difficult time throwing out a pair of shiny metallic flats than a grubby white tank. 
Such a good kid. However, last winter was a loooong time ago and I am very forgetful. So you can picture my puzzlement when I pulled out my fave black boots - not yet one year old - and saw a sizable hole in the heel. Toe worn nearly through. Soles rubbed thin. 
I managed to conjur up a timid, embarrassed grin while he judged the shit out of my boots, shaking his head, muttering some unintelligible Eastern European curses under his breath. He scolded me with his eyes. Schooled me. I felt like a child, like I had drawn all over my brand new Trapper Keeper and Mom was pissed. 
