A small update - finally

Phew! Is it over? Are the t's crossed, the i's dotted - has the fun been had? Have we trotted gaily through the night enough? Have we reached a high enough score on Erotic Photo Hunt?

It's been quite a week. Anthony V. and Josh S. were both in town, visiting. FZ was calling regularly, asking about the decline of war since 1991. An editor demanded a draft of my proto-cover story by Friday. Workdays were long, nights were well-hydrated.

On Wednesday, a smarmy bar manager quizzed us all on palindromes. A "water craft?" That's a kayak (thanks Anthony). An alien soy product? UFO tofu, to be sure. We scored perfectly, ran the tables. Then plummeted to the bottom of the ranks in subsequent rounds. A tiny Alpine country strong in the Winter Olympics? Damn you, Liechtenstein! A long chain of islands off southwest India? Maldives, my dive trips are going elsewhere.

On Thursday Josh and I visited his sister at the new New York Times building. Visiting the architectural manifestations of major media outlets, to me, is like Jacko at a preschool.

Here you can just make out the small ceramic rods that cover the exterior of the building and make it shimmer, according to Paul G'berger.

Josh at the strangely colored entrance. Josh called his sister then approached the security guard. "Um, I'm visiting my sister," he said. "Who's that?" "Gabrielle S.," Josh told him. "Oh yeah, and what'd she say?" "She said to come on up." "So be it then." Don't judge - security has a few kinks to work out.

Notice how level the blinds are in Gab's office? That's because they're computer-controlled to ascend and descend with the sun, always blocking the harshest light.

This doesn't have anything to do with the Times or our visit there, but I thought it was a great little graffito, and also something of a mantra for Anthony.

It was sad to see both Josh and Anthony go on Friday. I had to make my goodbyes separately, since Josh had a 3:00 bus and Anthony didn't wake up until 2:30.

As for work, in three busy days I wrote a five-page memo and a 2,500-w0rd draft of my article. God bless New York.

The Logic of a Salesman

I'm most likely moving (again) into an apartment with a high school friend. I was with the sales agent this morning, viewing the place. I called Brad to let him know it looked fine to me; he said to make sure to get the third-floor apartment, even though I had been shown the second-floor one.

Me: "Yeah, I think we'd like to take the third-floor apartment."
Salesman: "Yeah? You sure? That's an extra two flights of stairs. Six flights instead of four."
Me: "I'm fine with that."
Salesman: "Okay. Have fun with those stairs."

I might have been more susceptible to his not-so-subtle pressure had Brad not warned me that he'd try to get rid of the second-floor apartment first, since they were priced the same even though the higher apartment is clearly more valuable.

That's my problem: I'm too trusting. If Brad hadn't warned me, I would have just thought the salesman was looking out for my well-being, trying to alert me to an issue I hadn't considered. But in reality, he was trying to dump a less attractive apartment, knowing it'd be easier to sell the other.

I learned something today: Don't trust a salesperson. Always look for the motivations behind their advice. An important lesson for a consumer society.

In other news, JP Smith has a blog. Visit it.

New Words


I came up with a new word: hipstorian. Defined as either a history professor that listens to Yo La Tengo and Le Tigre or a chronicler of the history of hip, a Chuck Klosterman with a bit more of a backward perspective.

I coined the word while trying to come up with a way to describe Ecuadorian hipsters, a bipedal subspecies that Sarah discovered in the Andes. I eventually decided on ecua-hipsters, shortened to and pronounced like equipsters.

And, under the heading of "conversations with Josh" (kind of like "Travels with Charlie"):

josh: so i shamelessly used your joke last night at a bar following my improv practice, telling the assembled improvisers that my new favorite noun was "twatwaffle." red-headed courtney laughed so hard that she was this close to having beer shoot out her nose.

me: congrats on beer-nostrillating the poor young thing. she's a redhead, she deserves it.

Which is funny, because Alisa is now a redhead too. Sorta.