FU, Fall-izing

Ooooooobviously you all know my disdain for fall. And winter, for that matter. I don’t really enjoy dead leaves on the ground, no leaves on the trees, everything brown, nothing green, days getting dark so early, days that are freezing and windy and rainy and grey.

What I like even less, though, is the prep work that goes into getting ready for these depression-inducing months. Serotones is slipping! Seriously, bears have it MADE. I wish I wish I wish I could hibernate the fall and winter and early spring away!

Alas, we humans have no such luxury. Life is just so unfair! We must slip and fall on stupid slick leaves and plod through dirty, icy, sloppy slush. And to do so, we need to be somewhat prepared.

I have held off for as long as I possibly could. But it’s been in the back of my mind: I had to succumb to fallizing sooner or later. So I sucked it up and ripped that band aid off. Major ouch.

For some people, fallizing is “fun”. It’s “enjoyable”. Something they “look forward too”. These people are the reason serial killers exist. (Hence why Ocean State Job Lot is still in business). For them it’s all excitement all the time. They just cannot WAIT to break out the red and orange table cloths, the apple and cinnamon candles, the faux pumpkins, the goose-neck gourds. Me oh me oh my!

If only “fallizing” was that easy pour moi.

But no. You see, unfortunately my rabbit hutch can only accommodate two seasons at a time. Fall/winter and spring/summer. In other words, my entire closet, shoe rack, dresser, and all of my under-the-bed storage bins much be switched out.

Thankfully I have Tim and Trissi for parents and they dutifully bring in all my winter clothes, or summer clothes, to be swapped with the opposite season’s goods. (Hmm...I wonder how old I have to be for that super-duper-favor to stop...)

My horrific-cold-weather clothes have been trickling in since last month. But, ever the dreader, those freshly dry cleaned sweaters have been forming a formidable mountain on the floor in my one available corner.

So last night, after bickering back and forth with myself, I made a compromise. IF I didn’t go to the gym, THEN I had to change over the ole wardrobe and clean.

An hour and a half into it, I surely wished I had chosen the stupid elliptical. Dust bunnies GALORE. I’m telling you, there was enough furry grey particles full of hair to cover a giant rabbit. It was deeee-sgust-ing. So disgusting I can’t even bring myself to read what else dust is comprised of - hair and dead skin particles are enough to induce vomit.

I packed up strappy sandal after strappy sandal (thinking, perhaps, that I have too many strappy sandals), open-toe flats, flip flops. I tearfully unhung flowy, flowery frocks and replaced them with drab, sweltering sweater dresses. I neatly removed the mountain-o-sweaters from my floor and piled them on the top shelf in my closet. I sadly pulled out heap after heap of tank tops and short-sleeved shirts and put turtlenecks - TURTLENECKS - in their place.

Then I attacked the bunnies. Boy were they crazy, hyped up bunnies. Flying all sorts of everywhere, sticking to my legs, dashing just out of reach the second I tried to scoop them into the dustpan. It took a very, very long time. I swept my floor for fifteen minutes straight - that’s practically a minute per square foot. Nuts! And I washed it. Twice.

Then I dusted. But again, I’s not gonna go into details cause I don’t want to think what’s in the dust.

I tackled the bathroom, the “kitchen”, I Windex-ed the mirrors, the hanging pictures, cleaned the surface of my TV, the top of my fridge, my microwave, my stove. Then I thought, wow. I’m not just fallizing. Oh no. It’s much worse than that. I’m spring cleaning. But it’s fall.
I’M SORRY, THERE’S FALL CLEANING, TOO?????? Omg.

Sure, the bunnies wouldn’t be so bountiful if I kept after their grey, furry little asses. Fine. All I can say is I’m soooooo happy that switching out seasonal wardrobes is something that only comes but twice a year.

All Hail, the Dummies!

One can’t conjure up New York City without thoughts of the Empire State Building. Or the Statue of Liberty. Or steaming, delicious pizza (folded in half, of course).
Or bright yellow taxi cabs.

Now I know that I’ve No Dankes-ed cabs who creep up in crosswalks when the light is red. And those who zoom around corners so fast that we pedestrians have to pause and let them by even though it’s our turn to cross. And those who just don’t know where they’re GOING.

So yeah, I kinda hate them.

Alas, the rare occasion does indeed present itself when I must - gasp - take a cab. These instances are fairly few and far between - seeing as how I pay my life away to my landlord and thus have little cash for anything else - but yeah, I take cabs if necessary.

A whole lotta New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers do too. But let us focus on the latter. The Faux Yorkers, if you will. Out-of-towners. Tourists. Stupid. Idiots.

I know, I know. The subway system is pretty intimidating if you’re unfamiliar. If you don’t know uptown from downtown, local from express, orange line from blue line. If, in short, you don’t know the rules - then the subway can be positively terrifying.
But believe it or not, there are also guidelines when it comes to cabs. Yes, yes, hard to believe but this super classy mode of transportation has protocols, people. And it drives me positively bonkers when I see Flaky McFlakerson from Flakeston, FK flailing his or her arms all sorts of ways, trying to hail a taxi that is off duty.

Look. At. The. Light.

You know, that beaming little bulb on display atop the cab. From this battery operated gleam of illumination, one can deduce anything and everything they need to know.
 
There are but a few simple rules and this light explains them all.

Rule #1: If the cabbie is passengerless, the light will be ON. A lighthouse beam guiding you to your destination! A nightlight guiding you back to bed! Come hither!

No light? No ride.

Rule #2: If the cab is in use, if there are people in the cab being driven to a hood of their choosing, then the light will be OFF. Blackness. Do not enter. You are not welcome.

Rule #3: Now pay attention peeps, this is where things get complicated. This “rule” is neither here nor there. Sometimes, sometimes, a cabbie will be driving home after a long shift (4 a.m. to 4 p.m. or vice versa, YIKES!) and their little light will say OFF DUTY.

This can be quite arbitrary. Off Duties will either blow right by you, or, if they are feeling magnanimous, will stop and ask you where you’re going. If it tickles their convenience fancy, they’ll bring you. All aboard!

But if they’re not headed in your destination’s direction, or if they don’t feel like it, you’re on your own.

(Unless you’re rolling with my crowd of my spectacular lady friends. A few weeks ago a cabbie picked up FIVE of us - more than the “legal limit” and drove us all the way uptown, telling us we “Brought him happiness” - how wonderful!) 

Sorry, I digress. Per usual.

The point of all this nonsense is to berate those nonsensical people who attempt to hail cabs that are full or cabs that are off duty.
These extremely annoying people are like mini-Hermione’s. Like little annoying middle schoolers that insist on waving their hands about, screeching, “Oooh, oooh, I know, call on me, ME, Teacher, ME, right here, MEMEMEME!!”

I know - we all know - I am judgmental. So FINE, I’m sure a whole lotta these wannabe hailers don’t know the rules. Lit from unlit. On duty from off duty. Heads from asses. Fine.

But why must they torture me so? They’re everywhere! Every single day I see people with their arms raised high, jabbing and stabbing the air, restless, impatient, trying to flag down cabs that just aren’t available. Then they get pissed and swear and swat the nothingness with heightened frustration.
 
I want to shake these fools and explain to them, like a parent telling a child why you cannot hit, that taxi’s without lights on will not pick you up. So stop, stop, STOP trying to get their attention. They will ignore you. They do not care about you. They’re full or they’re off duty.

If they’re not picking you up, then stop trying. THEY’RE JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU.

But I do not scold. I keep calm. Stay cool and collected. And I laugh a little on the inside.

Christmas in July?

Is anyone else super confused and ridiculously thrown off by the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been enjoying?

And yes, I am fully aware that I said enjoying. Cause I, for one, have been enjoying it.

Even though it’s dark at 5 o’clock, any extra day outta 365 (well, really it’s more like 120) that I can wear flip flops, that my nose isn’t dripping with snot the second I step outside, that my hands relinquish their dryness for 24 hours - well, my friends. That is just pure gold.

El problema? - because there must be one, obvi: T-shirt wearing weather, on top of the outrageous holiday onslaught, reaaaally riles up my disdain for the holiday season.


I mean, we’re talking onslaught. Is it just me or does anyone else feel like summer isn’t over yet???



Sure, the über early descending darkness is a huge indicator. But I feel it’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s really simply unfathomable that Christmastime is once more upon us.

Can. Not. Believe. It. Thanksgiving in less than two weeks! Then only four weeks till Christmas! Then one week until 2013 hits! Omg. I’m dizzy.

I really hate how goddamn early they Christmas-ize. (And Halloween-ize and Easter-ize and Valentine-ize, OKOKOK.) But The Holiday Season is a never-ending barrage of baked goods and candy canes and decorations out the wazoo. Come ON people! Hold your jolly horses (as K. Cobb would say).

Just two weeks ago the denizens of this city were slutting it up as naughty nurses and skanky sailors. But that feels like two months given this Christmastime overhaul we’re experiencing! It’s sick!!


(Miss Shannon Burke, Queen of Halloween, had the briiiiiilliant idea to dress as a Rockette - amazing costume, and extremely timely to boot! Christmas rolled out the very next day! GAH!)

Whole Foods with their holiday bags, Starbucks with their red cups, white lights wrapped around trees and shop windows, glitzy gaudy frippery hanging from street lamps - and (gasp) - perhaps worst of all, those three ginormous bags of decorations chilling on my apartment floor (the ‘rents had to bring them down last week and I’s got no where to store ‘em). Talk about hitting close to home!

Stop the insanity, people! Quell that mad-dash urge. We’s got time. Christmas isn’t going anywhere - take a pile-o-chill pills, would you?


Let it be said that I tried...really I did. I made a concerted effort not to be so Grinchy McGrincherson this past weekend. I pulled some decorations out of those bags - a super cute silvery reindeer - and posed him on my mantle. I plugged in my white, pearl lights and lit my Holiday Bayberry candle.

I went to CVS and took in all the tinsel and bows and lights and cards (but my blood was boiling so badly, being so keyed up on gaudiness, that I had to buy some Raisinets to mollify myself).


I EVEN went SO FAR as to listen to BING CROSBY. Sure, this might have had something to do with the fact that I’d just finished watching The Country Girl and wanted to hear some more of his sultry voice...but still.

No matter how hard I tried to put myself in a holiday state of mind, I just could not. I cannot change who I innately am. I have not been, nor will ever be, one of those people that gets excited when stores roll out their fall clothes before the 4th of July.

No, nein, non. Not I.

So could you puh-lease just QUIT it, retailers? And grocers? And coffee shops and cafés and restaurants and drugstores and offices and streets? Stop acting like overeager, annoying, excited little puppies. Cause we the people are over it. Ov-aaaah iiiiiiit.

Down with the silver reindeer, down with the Bing singin’, off with the lights, out with the candle - nevermore, nevermore!!

At least not for another two weeks. And even then it’s a crapshoot. Cause like I said, it really is quite impossible to get into any sort of spirit at all when your AC is pumping and the window’s open and people are wearing tanks and shorts and sandals.

Well actually, that’s a lie. I am in a summertime spirit. So it looks like, if nothing else, we might at least enjoy a little Christmas in July this year (er, “enjoy”).

Daylight Savings Depression

As if the dead leaves are not enough. As if the cold weather, the necessity of wearing coats and scarves and boots is not enough! Oh no. Now it has to start getting dark early.

Spring ahead, fall behind. Fall behind - so depressing! So depressing.

I don’t understand why people like autumn. Sure, I did enjoy the long weekend in lovely East Bridgewater, MA (I love you, New England). There was apple picking and Ivy League football game watching and fire pits and partying in plaid with the Cobb family (thanks again!!) - and fine, I did enjoy it.

And I guess I’ll admit: I do enjoy Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Mellowcreme Pumpkins and Candy Corn (even if they all make my tum hurt).

But seriously, autumn is such a dead season. Everything coming to an end - Indian summer, twilit evenings, green leaves.

Why fall is anyone’s favorite season is beyond me.
(But yikes - so back and forth! Kelly’s family put forth such a concerted effort in convincing me to cross over to the dark side - what with their mulled cider and Oktoberfest and yard full of pretty red and yellow leaves. Fine. So maybe I like fall after all. But it is not, I repeat NOT my favorite season.)

Anyway, this is all besides the point. My most dreaded, most abhorred fact about the commencement of these never-ending, abysmal months is that - drumroll please - the days are shorter. That darkness creeps up and rears its ugly, ugly head before it’s even struck 5 o’clock.

Daylight Savings is one of the worst inventions ever. Arizona and Hawaii have the right idea - no need to set back the clock, to move the clock ahead. TO MESS WITH TIME!!!!!!
Sure, I get that there is a method to the madness. I understand the principle behind it. The need to add an extra hour for the farmers. But it’s the 21st cenutry and peeps aren’t really bringin in the ole harvest. And there is such a thing as electricity. So why do the rest of us have to suffer through the falling behind?

(And come on people - Daylight Savings doesn’t save electricity! People turn their lights on earlier in the evening! It wastes!)

There is nothing worse - nothing in the world worse than seeing the sun creep below the steel and glass horizon of Jersey City before the work day is over.

Nothing, I tell you.

It makes me not want to cook or clean or gym or TV or move. I want to just snuggle up under the covers and go to sleep. When the sun goes down, the day is ova.

Believe it or not, I was quite the athlete in high school. One day I came home after field hockey practice and, understandably, passed out. My mom called up to me around 7:00 and I JUMPED out of bed, tumbled down the stairs, and fell into the shower. I was going to be late, late, LATE for school!
After three minutes of scrubbing, I sped back upstairs and got dressed, panicked, cursing myself that I hadn’t done my homework - OMFG! The horror of not having an assignment completed.

But - oh, wait - it was actually 7pm, not 7am and I was not, in fact, late for school. Dinner yes, school no. Silly me.

It was the stupid, stupid Daylight Savings. Out to get us, I tell you. Messing up our internal clocks. Screwing with our heads. Precipitating seasonal depression en masse.

Let the countdown begin till spring. Fingers crossed we can make it till then.