Headstones by the Highway

I was driving along Rt. 23 in NJ towards the lakehouse where my mom now lives when I pulled over to capture this set of headstones beside the highway.
I'm not clear if they are for sale or serve as a memorial--no signs were visible. It was near a Fedex and UPS drop off box--no strip mall.

Pothole on E. 28th @ Park

Dogs of Summer

Vicious on Vespa

Traveling Pups

Whatever You Like (T.I)

I said you can have whatever you like
I said you can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex, so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

[Verse 1]
Anytime you want to
Pick and telephone, you
Know it ain't nothing,
Drop a couple stacks on you
Want it you can get it, my dear
Five million dollar homes
Drop Bentley's, I swear - yeahh
I want your body, need your body
Long as you got me, you won't need nobody
You want it I got it, go get it I buy it
Tell them other broke niggas be quiet

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

[Verse 2]
Shawty you the hottest
Love the way you drop it
Brain so good, coulda sworn you went to college
100K deposits
Vacations in the tropics
Everybody know it ain't trickin' if you got it
And you ain't never ever gotta go in your wallet
Long as I got rubberband banks in my pocket
Five, six rides with rims and a body kit
You ain't gotta downgrade
You can get what I get
My chick can have she want
Can go to any store, buy any bag she want
I know you ain't never had a man like that
To buy you anything your heart desire's like that
I want your body, need your body
Long as you got me you won't need nobody
You want it, I got it
Go get it, I buy it
Tell them other broke niggas bequiet

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

I'm talkin' big boy rides
And big boy ice
Let me put this big boy in your life
The thing get so wet, and hit so right
Let me put this big boy in your life, that's right
I want your body, need your body
Long as you got me you won't need nobody
You want it, I got it
Go get it, I buy it
Tell them other broke niggas bequiet

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex, so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

Miss Independent (NeYo)

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah

Ooh is something about
Just something about the way she move
I can't figure it out
It's something about her

Say, ooh is something about
Kinda woman that want you but don't need you
Hey, I can't figure it out
It's something about her

'Cause she walk like a boss
Talk like a boss
Manicure nails just set the pedicure off
She's fly effortlessly

And she move like a boss
Do what a boss
Do, she got me thinking about getting involved
That's the kinda girl I need (oh)

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Won't you come and spend a little time

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Ooh, the way you shine
Miss independent

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah (ohh)

Ooh there's something about
Kinda woman that can do for herself
I look at her and it makes me proud
There's something about her

Something, ooh, so sexy about
Kinda woman that don't even need my help
She said she got it, she got it (she said she got it, she got it)
No doubt, there's something about her (there's something about her)

'Cause she work like a boss
Play like a boss
Car and the crib she 'bout to pay 'em both off
And her bills are payed on time, yeah

She made for a boss
Only a boss
Anything less she telling them to get lost
That's the girl that's on my mind

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Won't you come and spend a little time

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Ooh, the way you shine
Miss independent

Her favorite thing to say, don't worry I got it
And everything she got best believe she bought it
She gon' steal my heart ain't no doubt about it, girl
You're everything I need, said you're everything I need

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah

She's got her own thing (ooohooohhoh)
That's why I love her (that's why I love her, oh ohh)
Miss independent (independent)
Won't you come and spend a little time (ohh)
She's got her own thing (she got, she got)
That's why I love her (that's why I love that girl)
Miss independent (ohh ohh)
Ooh, the way you shine
Miss independent

Miss independent

Saturday Night Fever

Since my triumphant return from the Hamptons, I haven't done much on the weekends due to my abject poverty and the need to settle into city life firmly.

Yesterday I drove out to NJ to get Judy's tires rotated, had lunch with my mom and her husband at Rt. 23 Buffet--don't even ask--, stopped for a timed 1-hour date in JC, and parked in front of Lolita on the LES for LitQuake with Z and the Levar Channel minion (and his photographer wife) he bosses. I missed the actual reading due to my pitstop in Newport but made up for it by imbibing enough $3 G&Ts to catch up to the slow-drinking crew.

We ambled over to Congee Village for dinner--the wait gave us a chance to drink a few Lychee Martinis and sit on lacquered, hand-shaped seats carved out of tree stumps. Over a steaming table of Soup dumplings, Singapore Mei Fun, Chicken in black bean sauce, Shrimp with Salt & Garlic, and Mushroom Tofu-ness we learned about the couple's Music Club (I was invited to join given my brilliant music category: songs with girls names). The way the club works is that each month a category is chosen (i.e. break-up, president names, cheese, etc.) and each member sends the curator (this couple) their song which is burned on a CD and distributed to all members of the club. Cool, right?

Then we walked up 1st Ave. to International Bar. The wife brought down their brown, 25lb, Boston Terrier--Jack--Z and I pet, cooed at, and generally fawned over him. Dogs in bars on Saturday nights: another reason I love the East Village. We called it an early night at 1am but the evening was terrific.

Met new people, checked out new food all the while eating good food and drinking cheap, yummy drinks. I really really needed it.

Sweet Schedule

An overdue update!

I have settled on the pseudo-celeb assistantship (PCA)on the UES in addition to the test prep center job (TPC) in Chelsea. In addition to my free labor at the social psych lab at Columbia's Public Health spot in Washington Heights, I've been accepted as a mentor with the REACH program on the UWS. My fingers are crossed for an amazing clinical research opportunity (CRO)* coding and interviewing at Bellevue--hoping to hear back this week. I'm training with the SAVI program at Mt. Sinai and hope to work on shift a week once I complete my 40 hours.

Due to this new schedule I'm hoping the ladies of Tea (LoT) will allow me to move our weekly meetings to the end of the week.

So my weekly schedule looks pretty much like this:
M 11-4 PCA 5-10 TPC
T 11-5 Lab 6-7:30 REACH
W 11-4 PCA 5-10 TPC
H 10-4 Lab 5-10 TPC
F 11-4 PCA 4:30-6 CRO* 7-10 Tea
6pm-8am SAVI
S 11-4 CRO* or Lab or TPC

Vegas is 1

Today is Vegas's 1st birthday.

To Vegas:

So much has happened in my life this past year--most of it hasn't been that great--but the addition of you has been the highlight. You barked, chewed, clawed, and whined your way into my heart.
Your crazy escape artist stunts constantly make me wonder if we should have waited to name you--we would have gone with Houdini. You give new meaning to the question, "What's in a name?"
Unlike Luckey, you never nipped at my toes but you can't bear to be left alone and bark non-stop in my absence. You also damage everything you can sink your puppy teeth into. That irksome behavior however doesn't compare to the fact that you will mark (aka pee) on anything that is newly added to pre-existing space: this includes laundry bags, grocery bags, trash bags, and travel bags.
You always throw up in th car. I don't know if it's just the way I drive of it you just suffer from motion sickness, but it truly hampers Luckey and my vagabond nature--so you get left behind for the greater good more often than not. But I always regret leaving you when I come home to the havoc you've wrecked.
Just when I am at my wit's end with you, you sense it, so you climb tamely into my lap and vigorously lick my face. It's the kind of apology even a hardass like me can't resist. Your eyes are always curious, your face forever upturned, if not for your devil antics you'd be an angel.

I've learned a lot about the kind of person I am through you. Unlike Luckey you try my patience and I've learned that I have it in me to wait it out and handle these annoyances with grace and poise. You've shown me a patient side of myself I would never have believed existed.
I miss you when you are gone. I notice your absence when I'm alone with Luckey. I think he revels in that time without you but I feel a void which your unpredictable behavior unfalteringly fulfills without fail.

You're the Ying to our Yang. In your difference from us, you complete this family that we've become. I love you.

Happy Birthday, Vaygee!
Love,
Mama

Job Shopping

Since I've job hopped my entire adult life, I am seriously job shopping this final go around. I intend to hold onto whatever job I get through the next academic year. That's right, I'm settling down--well my version of it, anyway.

Here is the part-time line-up as it currently stands:

1. Assistant to a legit TV B-lister (as per IMDB)in her UES home office primarily focused on her non-profit venture. Cleared the interview--my trial day is Thursday.

2. Corporate Short-Term Rental Manager at Furnished Quarters serving as a point person to corporate relocators. Interview Thursday.

3. SURF Progam Coordinator at Columbia University--managing the Science Undergrad Research Fellowship in the Biology department under Dr. Alice Heicklen. Interviewed on Friday, but I have a feeling I didn't make the cut.

4. Columbia Business School Executive Education Conference Planner. Phone interview in 15 minutes, followed by an official interview on Friday at Columbia. This job involves 3 weeks on-site in CT facilitating a conference and only runs through November 2008.

5. Real Estate Assistant at an UES boutique: showing properties, returning phone calls and e-mails as well as assisting brokers. Interview Friday.

6. SCORES (not the strip club) Poetry Teacher for an after-school program in Harlem for 3-5 graders. Interview Friday.

7. Manhattan Review Academic Program Coordinator: Liaising with international students and professors with Ivy PhDs in developing tailored classes for GMAT prep. No interview yet, but I'm hopeful!

Vicious Waterlilies

Crouching Street Cat

GWB from the Lab

Photo Taker-Outer

I just got home from a photo taking frolic in Central Park with A. He looks a lot like V and he laughs at everything I say--I haven't decided if that's endearing or annoying.

While we were walking and snapping pictures of everything from trees to ducks to lovers in Strawberry Fields, I fell silent and he sidled up to me and said, "What are you thinking?"

I almost burst into tears....it's been so long since anyone asked me what I was thinking--too long. This perfect stranger not only cared to know what I was thinking but in our brief time together sensed that my silence was a sign that something was amiss.

Thankfully I didn't weep but sighed and continued chirping about the green water and light in the trees...he let it go, but I'm still thinking about that.

Not once in my time with D'Souza did he EVER ask me what I was thinking...it doesn't really matter whether if it was because he didn't care of because he thought he knew...but not once...in over a year...not once.

An Academic Love Story

I'm at the lab and it's my first time here by myself. The "lab" is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom former medical/dental student dormitory. Some floors still function as dorm apartments.

It's VERY spacious for a dorm apartment but essentially that's what it is. The kitchen has been converted into a study with metallic filing cabinets and an arcane, academic desk and non-ergonomic chairs. The living room is now an airy conference room with mismatched conference chairs and wooden dining chairs drenched in the western sun with a view of the GW bridge. Within the long school table that serves at the conference table, I discovered a yellowed dissertation typed on a word processor dating back to 1989. The master bedroom is the professor's office: it is filled with psych manuals, journals, graduate textbooks, and assorted other literature. He has no photos in his office except a piece of paper celebrating the life and work of Dr. BD in a clear plastic frame--a lovely bushy browed, slim, academic seated in her office with her salt and pepper hair frizzing at the ends and a her hands clasped in her pencil-skirted lap atop legs crossed at the ankles.

The invitation reads: "You are invited to attend the celebration of 40 years of Sociomedical Research at Columbia University. Please join us on Wednesday, January 31, 2008 to honor our second Department Chair, Dr. BD who served from 1978-1982. Her husband and co-author will speak briefly."

Drs. D published much of their research jointly and it appears that he tirelessly carried on their work after her passing--I speculate it was sometime in 1982. He still wears a plain wedding band loosely on his left hand. A soft-spoken man who goes to the Columbia pool every afternoon from 12:30-1:30pm, it's hard to imagine him living a life outside this dorm-lab yet he led one. Undoubtedly one filled with love, a love perhaps even deeper than his love of learning and research. I don't think he ever remarried.

I doubt he has children or grandchildren but I'm not sure. In my version of his story, he has neither, just his research and us, his lowly assistants.

This story is real. This happens in real life. Real people fall so completely in love with each others shared interests, values, and life goals that their two lives really do converge into one full life.

Not that you need another to complete you (a la Jerry McGuire) but it is possible to achieve this romantic steeple albeit for a pair of academics. It happens.

Enemy of the Day: Con Ed

This morning I awoke not to the pitter patter of rain but the banging on my door. Alright, there was also the pitter patter of rain. I decided to ignore it in the hopes it would go away but then my fan went off and I realized my power was out.

The boarder had awakened thanks to my barking babies and the banging on the door continued.

Con Ed men in uniform stood before me, clipboard in hand, informing me that I did not have a valid account with them. Wiping the sleep out of my eye, fear gripped me, had I not paid my bill. As consciousness seeped in, I realized that I had set up my Con Ed bill to auto-pay and the company dutifully removed funds from my account on a monthly basis. Of course, the conservationist that I am, I had gone paperless so I had no bills to show for any of this and in the name of e-organization I always deleted my paid bills. Clearly the 16-digit account number was hardly at the tip of my tongue.

Thankfully, the Con Edders contacted the mothership who informed them that I did indeed have an account and dutifully paid my bills but for the wrong apartment.

Wait just one cotton-picking minute, so for the last 15 months I've been paying somone ELSE's electric BILL. WTF?

I'm not ordinarily a litigious person but let's back up a minute: instant replay!
Men come banging on my door at 11am on a weekday.
They turn off my electricity.
They accuse me of not having an account which gives them the right to deprive me of light, air, and sound.
Then upon realizing that I have an account in good standing, they inform me that this account did not pertain to MY abode but someone else's.
Are we in America? Can I sue them?

Doggie Handshake

Desi Chick Lit

The newly popular fiction genre--chick lit--has a sub-section filled with emerging south-asian authors. These women span the spectrum from ultra-conservative to crunchy hippies in their musings on life and love.

I had two such books thrust upon me by a former colleauge from my law firm recruitment days (just a year ago but feels like a lifetime). We had lunch at Chipotle on friday and afterwards I escorted her back to her office where she pilfered an academic desk calendar for me from supplies and handed me a stack of paperbacks. She sure reads a fair amount of chick-lit given the five books she unloaded on me. For a Peruvian immigrant who attended Columbia University, she has a penchant for south-asian fiction or perhaps she is just a voracious reader given her hour-long daily commute from Forrest Hills to Grand Central.

I sped read through the first entitled "Invisible Lives" belittling the rudimentary writing style and bemoaning the sari metaphor but devouring the plot. I'm looking forward to an evening of "Goddess for Hire" which I can only hope swings some style into the typically overdone topography. Like Bollywood films, south-asian authors tend to overflow with wordy interludes instead of creating snarky dialogue.

Part of my gripe lies in my inability to create such a convoluted yet formulaic tale of my own. It seems that despite my basic writing style, I could easily craft a piece that would match the level of fetishized easterness required to get such a novel published. Yet my ideas never make their way to paper and I sit here sans manuscript complaining about women who, if nothing else, had the dedication to write a whole damn story out of the ideas rattling in their heads.

New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University

I secured a coveted research project at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbua University that begins on Monday.

My volunteer position as a rater involves watching pre-recorded narratives of people who recently suffered from stressful life events in an effort to develop a more economical measure than the one that currently exists. Basically providing inter-rater reliability for the research being done.

My hope is to secure a stellar letter of recommendation for graduate school from this position which will more than make up for the fact that I will be spending 18hrs/wk in an unpaid work setting. What better practice for my future life as a doctoral student in clinical psychology?

Boarder

Upon my return from the Hamptons, I realized that despite the relative inexpense my rent imposes (as opposed to the greater Manhattan population) the figure remains oppressive to the officially unemployed.

So the lemonade I've made with these life's lemons involves a boarder. A person who lives in my living room on a paid, weekly basis.

His name is Rahul Karahi. He's very international but Pakistani by upbringing. As an internet starter-upper he is working on building capital for his website that caters to litigants seeking litigators in class action suits. Currently he is also working on another site that will enable indie film-makers to secure brand marketing and sponsorship from Fortune 500 retailers.

The diminutive nature of my abode combined with the reality that south-asians have a lower expectation of privacy has led to a fairly amenable living arrangement. He sleeps on the couch in my 17x6, fully furnished living room and I get help with the rent. Beats working but puts a damper on socializing...just as well since I need to focus full force on my Ph.D applications.

Not to mention, my lazy ass needs motivation to get out of bed and into the world. Having a constant home presence pushed me to actually get out of the apartment and into the many city activities I procrastinate on participating in.

Hindi Conversation Partner

I met Lila mid-day yesterday.

I had responded to her post on CL for a Hindi conversation partner. She married her radiology resident husband last year and moved from Chicago to Long Island via Manhattan and needed to polish up her Hindi before embarking on a journey to India this Christmas to meet his extended family on the outskirts of Aurangabad.

In my desire to keep a firm hold on my Hindi, I thought it would be great for us to work together towards polishing the language of our people. She's Gujurati so her struggles were that of a native Italian learning Spanish--a fight to realize that the similarities in grammar don't extend to vocubulary.

We were supposed to meet at Cafe Cluny but felt it too fancy and walked over to a quaint coffee shop on Jane St. where she had the coconut lime sorbet and I enojoyed a mango cardommon sorbet.

She was impeccably dressed in grey, lightweight pants, a black, lace camisole carefully hidden under a sharp black vest with deep, faux-croc, purple heels and chandelier earrings. Her make-up was smoky for day with the kohl lining smudged at the edges of her large, almond eyes. Her grey-green colored contacts glinted as she gesticulated gracefully telling me her life story. She had that generic Gujurati bone structure: slight in height, light in weight, and the propensity for thickness in the middle.

I felt dowdy beside her in my careless white tee atop a black skirt lined in sweatpant material with a cursory ruffle to dress it up. Even Anthropologie flip flops on gold-painted toes felt uber casual. My thick rimmed, I'm-a-grad-student glasses perched high on my nose, void of earrrings or jewlery I easily doubled her in size but halved her in style. I don't often find myself drawing these superficial comparisions but something in the humid air made me realize that where I sweat buckets she doesn't so much as perspire. Ah the curse of my south-indian heritage. My people didn't crunch numbers but worked in the fields and filled their bellies with the rice that grows in the paddies.

She was my age. She worked in finance. She was married. She wanted children. She lived in Long Island. She missed her mid-western family and elements of her single life. She was unlike me in almost every way but our tangible Indian hue and desire to communicate in the tongue of our ancestors.

Sweet SAVI

Today, I had my interview for the Sexual Assuault and Violence Intervention program at Mt. Sinai. I spent three hours filling out forms, watching the HIPAA video, and participating in a group interview which focused on role playing as well as posing uncomfortable personal questions. The 40 hours of training to follow over several full day weekends will prepare us for monthly 8-hour on-call shifts at 10 hospitals in Manhattan and Queens to serve as advocates for the survivors of intimate sexual violence and assault.

One of my former colleagues at Pfizer Animal Health recognized me and I surprised myself by not fully recognizing her. Even now, I know I knew her but my trusty name/face recognition are faulty in pinpointing past interactions. How can this be?

After the interview, I stepped into the pouring rain. The kind of rain that they create for Bollywood films where heroines in white saris run through the hills bemoaning the loss of their lovers to death, family dissent, and outright theivery. I walked slowly sans umbrella letting the pulse of the storm drip into my bones.

I felt my ornate flip flops sliding and clutched my large, white tote bag closer to my chest. I wondered if this was the Lord's way of bemoaning my loss of control over the good life he'd given me. I was borm with many blessings; I've squandered them. Perhaps it's not all irrevocable but time has been lost and in the accelerated pace of the frenetic desi life I'm behind. Oh so far behind schedule (pronounce it shed-duel for increased Indian effect)--

Vicious with the Elderly

Last night, I was at the Village Nursing Home with a group of like-minded New Yorkers who volunteer with NYCares. I give props to the organization and kudos to all the volunteers who devote precious man hours serving in soup kitchens, visiting the elderly, teaching children to do things, preparing ex-convicts for jobs, working with animals, and planting flowers.

I have been involved for a year or so now, but this September I've signed up for four unique events, the first of which was spending two hours on a Friday evening with the geriatric residents suffering from dementia who live on W. 12th on Hudson.

Once you get over the clinical surroundings and sterile smell mixed with bedpan refuse post Jell-O enjoyment, it hits you hard that these wheelchair bound people have few visitors. The lucky few who can form sentences are still fairly incoherent, the others just sit and stare off into space.

My visit was with Beatrice--a grey-haired fashionista toting a black and white purse featuring Heidi Klum--she had no idea who was on her bag. She wore clips in her wispy hair and bright green earrings. She approached me to help her re-affix one of these lovely green stones that had fallen off her right ear. I did so and for the rest of the evening she kept telling everyone who passed how much I had helped her. It made me wonder if anyone had been kind to her in recent days.

In addition to the elderly, the volunteers were a hodge-podge. I was particuarly moved by a young, unmarried Indian couple who'd moved to NJ 6 months ago from India. Their joint volunteerism touched me. It affected me more than being there with these people whose lives had wittled down to this.

It made me marvel at how far I had fallen in my romantic leanings when I had dreamed of a life with D'Souza--a man who scoffs at the notion of volunteerism and prefers to write a check or ten to any organization named after a Saint. But here, just before me were two FOBS in love, showing love for drooling old people in a smelly home in the West Village.

End of Summer

Labor day is the unofficial end of summer. School's back in session and even if you don't live life on an academic calendar there is an element of ending harkened by Fall.

As a child of the Fall (Oct. b'day and such), I've always looked fondly on the season post heat...dig the colors, enjoy the back-to-school frenzy, and above all look forward to a little bit of new routine establishment but this year I'm less than enthused.

My Hamptons entreprenuerial effort has ended. There were some events but I wouldn't term it eventful in the grand scheme of summer. I didn't make any money but I did get to spend a whole summer unemployed and living in the Hamptons--so can that really be measured in $?