Work work work

Today at work I accidentally added my boss to the "spammer" database. Also, my neighbor's CPU caught on fire. No, true story.

Man, I love my job and I love the people I work with even more, but I swear to god it's going to kill me one day. I wonder if the company's health insurance covers a prescription for Xanax.

April is National Poetry Month

And because I suck, I have not posted a single poem this month.

Thus, I present:

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(Please to read aloud as:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.)

Fred Bremmer and Steve Kroese

Happy National Poetry Month.

Edited 4/25: I neglected to credit the creators of this poem, who are noooooooot me because I am not nearly this clever. The internet tells me it was first published in Infocus magazine in 1990. I'm pretty sure it was forwarded to me by a friend at some point, but I have since forgotten who it was - I saved it to my computer because I loved it so much. Whoever you are, thank you.

Crazy eyes, indeed

The trouble with writing fiction is that it builds on itself.

Not in a good way, most of the time, if you're me. I've reached right now what I call the "fractal" stage of writing, in which each train of thought spirals off into three more thoughts, all of which need fleshing out, and then once you go down that road you have to deal with all the spirals that come off the first spirals, and then there are exponentially yet more spirals until oh my god you're telling a completely different story than you were a couple thousand words ago, and in the meantime it's four AM and you're really supposed to be writing a paper about Irish emigration in the 1980's, except nothing is more interesting than the shit going on in your head, and also now there are all these thoughts that came from the spirals, so you might as well just keep writing since you'll be thinking about them anyway, and then Jesus Christ the birds are chirping, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GO TO BED, APPARENTLY SLEEP IS IMPORTANT.

The fractal stage of writing is actually fun, really, if you're neurotic and into masochism, and don't have, like, other things to do, or friends, or a job, or a social life - all of which (I like to think) I have. Of course, the fractal stage of writing is immediately followed by the crazy eyes stage of writing, which then leads directly into the I HATE EVERYTHING stage of writing, at which point you're pretty much fucked and you should go have a glass of wine and write something else.

The point is this: right now, there are so, so many things I should be doing instead of what I am doing (see aforementioned paper, PS it has to be twenty pages and is due on Wednesday, I dare you to guess how many I have). I'm not doing them.

Crazy eyes, indeed.

I like open letters, what can I say

Dear World,

Putting Holy Week and Passover in the same week has made my job really, really hard. Nobody is taking any of the stuff I send out for the weekend, and all our translators want the week off. Even the Canadians. Particularly the Canadians. I have a 10k job into French for Canada and NOBODY will take it. They're all making quiche, or something. Silly Canadians.

Of course, this would be the perfect week for a big Arabic job, but no, I haven't had one of those since Mubarak resigned and none of my favorite Egyptians (all our best people are Egyptian, I have no idea why) had internet access.

Stop messing with me and current events! Argh.

Oh god please no

AHHHHHHHHH.

So I am in the process of putting together a powerpoint for this research conference I am required to attend on Friday in which I present my thesis. Because I have basically given up caring about anything related to the thesis at all, "putting together a powerpoint" now equates with "screenshotting parts of my .pdf to copy-paste into a powerpoint in lieu of doing actual work, because I honestly could not care less, and yes, I am this lazy."

EXCEPT FOR THE FACT MY SCREENSHOTS HAVE TYPOS. EFF MY LIFE TIMES INFINITY.

Exhibit 1. Note the last sentence.



I normally would just fix it, except I have already submitted this to the department. This version. With the typos. Also, I seriously care so little and am so blasé about the whole thing that I am just keeping this incorrect version in my powerpoint. What the hell ever, man. The day I willingly ignore typos has arrived.

Good god.

I'm too young for this

Today I bought a French baguette at the Union Square Greenmarket. I wish now I had paid more attention to the stand where I bought it, because - and this is a small miracle - this baguette actually tastes like the French baguettes I remember. I want to go back for more, forever, now that the taste is stuck in my mouth and my brain. There's something very particular about the texture of the crust of a baguette, the slightly dry dusting of flour on the bottom half of the bread, the way it crumbles when you tear off pieces (and, if you're me, the way the breadcrumbs then rain down all over the floor, your shirt, and everything else nearby). It's glorious.

When I was fourteen and then again when I was sixteen, my summers in Paris tasted exactly like this baguette - smeared with nutella, jam or butter for the morning tartine, accompanied by a nice chèvre or fromage bleu at lunch, alongside some bad Beaujolais or cheap rosé in the long light of the evening, or even just plain whenever I got hungry, standing in that sunny Paris kitchen that was even smaller than my Manhattan kitchen is now. I ate bread that tasted like this bread every day during those summers - it's absurd that such a small, daily and unremarkable thing has triggered such a bizarre reaction in me now, years later and an ocean away.

I wish I knew where I could get more bread that tastes like this.

Tu veux du pain? Moi j'en veux.

To the asshole riding the 6 today

Dear sir,

I know riding the subway is hard. The trains, you know - they move, they stop and start and sometimes the cars move side to side too, sometimes there are lots of people and strollers and grocery bags and crazy people and all sorts of entertaining and distracting things to look at. Welcome to the snapshot of New York, etc. etc., whatever, we've all heard it all. It's always an adventure: it starts the minute you swipe your card and push through the turnstiles, when the artificially-stale air blows your hair back to signal an approaching train, when people lean dangerously out over the tracks to look for the express. I know I know, the subway is awesome, and for a lot of people it's a daily trek.

You want to know what makes my day and my commute even better? Assholes like you. The kind who pretend to be drunk as an excuse to "fall" on me when the car jerks suddenly. I know you're larger and heavier and stronger than I am, I don't need an actual physical reminder of the fact, thanks though. And then you squish yourself next to me, closer than you should - the kind of closeness that's really only permissible on really, really packed trains, and then etiquette dictates that you keep your hands to yourself and your eyes down. You? You did neither of these things, on a half-empty train, and I'm sorry, but your feigned drunkenness fools no one, especially not me. You ignore my cues - I shrink in on myself, pull my purse onto my lap like it'll keep you away from my body, curl in my shoulders and bow my head until the position is almost fetal - all in an effort to move myself away from you, and then I start counting how many stops until I can get off the train. It's a pretty goddamn clear message, I think, but do you get it? No, of course not.

You know what you do instead, of course. You start talking, loudly, to your friend - who's still standing and looking around the car with an embarrassed half-sheepish expression, an unspoken apology for your behavior that does nothing for me - about how much you like women. About how many, you know, fucking hot girls (your words) there are on this train, you know, man? And how you're going to get fucked up tonight (again, your words), and how much you just wanna get some chicks, you get me? (also your words), and several other choice phrases I don't care to repeat, all while you're pressed right up against my side. I don't know what's worse, honestly: either you think I'm stupid enough to have my iPod turned up so loud it blocks the ambient noise around me (of course not, do I look dumb? no, I look fucking hot, in my black pants and black jacket, thanks ever so), or you want me to hear what you're saying. Either way it makes you an asshole, a predator, and it makes you the reason for my pissy mood on an otherwise-alright Friday.

People like you remind me why I appreciate New York in the winter, the fall and the spring. Because for all you rubbed up on me this evening, you never touched my skin - for which I am eternally grateful, because if you had I'd be in the shower right now scrubbing off your touch with steel wool and bleach. You don't even win the award for the biggest pig I've ever encountered on the subway - but you do win the award for the person who most ruined my day today, and that would mean a lot more if you had seen what I was dealing with at work this afternoon. I'm really glad I was permitted to pay $2.25 for the pleasure of being something pretty for you to look at. You asshole.

I always wonder what exactly is the point - do you do it just because you can? Am I supposed to feel flattered, to feel special? Am I supposed to treat it like a come-on and give you my number? Is it supposed to make me feel insignificant and unimportant and downtrodden? It makes me feel none of those things, you realize - it just makes me mad, because this is 2011, I am not a thing, I am in charge of my own body and you can just fuck right off, please. The worst part, of course, is that this encounter is filed under the "not so bad" incidents of my life and the overall female experience. It's truly lovely.

To everyone else on the train - thanks for lowering your eyes and thinking, At least he isn't bothering me. To myself - way to stand up for yourself, maybe one day you'll grow a pair large enough to do something besides make yourself smaller and to not lower your eyes when it happens to someone else; I have no illusions about my hypocrisy here. To American society - what the fuck makes us think something like this is okay?

Love,
me

So I submitted my thesis

This is the last post I will make on the subject. I promise.

So... yeah. It's done, it's over, lah-dee-fucking-dah. I am moving on with my life. I am still not sure it was worth it, all the angst and sleepless nights and whining and the fact that by all rights I should have no friends. I'm really glad you guys still answer my calls, let's just say. Anyway, so I dedicate it to you all, and even though most of you will never read the actual thesis I want you all to read this. Because I wrote it for all of you. Mostly the last bit.

(If there are typos in here, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HOLD YOUR PEACE I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THEM, no I am serious, don't even think about it.)

Anyway. Thank you guys. I truly love you all.

Acknowledgments

I would first and foremost like to extend all my thanks to Dr. [name], who has been my advisor in this project and an invaluable resource and mentor throughout the course of my research. I would further like to recognize Drs. [name] and [name], who served two years each as Director of Undergraduate Studies during my time in the [university] Linguistics Department, for all their sound advice and academic guidance over the past four years.

I am also very grateful for the support, both academic and financial, of [name] and the members of the [scholarship] panel, and I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude for the grant they awarded me to conduct this research. I owe many thanks and much recognition also to my five anonymous speakers for lending me their voices and their time in this unpaid experiment. Without them, after all, this work would not exist.

And of course, all my love and greatest thanks go to my friends and family for the continuous aid and encouragement they provided throughout this project. I have been blessed with the immeasurable patience and unfailing support of my parents and my brother, who endured my jargon-filled discussions of grand linguistic themes and phonetic minutiae with laudable tolerance and humor. And to all my friends, both linguists and others, who encouraged, nagged, praised and berated me - you know who you are - I would be considerably less sane without you. Finally I extend my particular thanks and much love to my mother, who has been and always will be my first and most trusted editor and who is always willing to read my writing, even when it is over fifty pages long and about vowels.

FUCK YEAH I WROTE A THESIS. I am going to go get drunk now.**

**Obviously I leave the determination of whether this last line is included in my Acknowledgments to your imagination.