Month: January 2000

Chow Mine

So I’m at work in Connecticut, eating some chow mein noodles. You know, the crunchy kind that you get for free when you order Chinese take-out. I glance down at the package and see the big steaming-bowl logo that’s on the noodle factory kitty-corner from where I live. I look at the address on the cellophane and — sure enough — I’ve been eating snacks made in my neighborhood for weeks now. Kooky.

Speaking of my neighborhood, lovely East Williamsburg, I noticed a listing in Paper today (the issue with sinfully delicious Jude Law on the cover) that there’s a club near my house called Cima that does a big Body-&-Soul-esque house party on saturday nights. In East Williamsburg!

Jeez, maybe we’ll get a decent place to eat sometime soon. If there were one good café or diner in my area, I would be there ALL THE TIME.

Scholarly Data

Overachiever fails out of grad school! Yes, it’s true. I got my report card from Pratt today, the one with all the classes I decided to blow off as a means of effectively quitting grad school. In a way, it was very cathartic to just let those grades go. I’ve never failed a class before — I’ve never allowed myself to fail a class before. (Considering where I am today, it’s a little funny that my only low grades in high school were for Computer science and Algebra II. so much for my nerd credentials.) It was a good feeling when I realized that a bad transcript wasn’t going to haunt me the rest of my life, not when I’m actually more than capable of learning and doing well on my own. What a revelation: Grades actually ARE just numbers!

For the record:

spring 1999 Courses

Grade

Credits

Typography II

A

3.0

Visual Communications I

F

3.0

Communications Technology I

F

3.0

Corporate Image Planning

A

3.0

Fall 1999 Courses

Grade

Credits

Communications seminar

A

3.0

History of Communications Design

Incomplete

2.0

Cumulative Grade Point Average: 2.0

If you’re familiar with the GradCommD program at Pratt, you’ll notice that I failed my basic requirements but aced all my upper-level courses. Basically, this is because when push came to shove and I still had to work full-time while going to school, I devoted my energy to the more challenging, more interesting stuff and blew off the irritating stuff they made me take. Oops, my bad.

I think I may take a stab at finishing the work for the history class. The professor was a fun old queen who I liked a lot, and who wants me to submit the one paper I finished (on Piet Zwart) to the Pratt library since they don’t have any good reference materials on him. I wouldn’t kill me to write a couple of other small papers over the course of the next few months. After all, I certainly like reading up on designers and whatnot. Maybe I’ll finally write that essay about Art Chantry that I’ve been meaning to for years now. Art Chantry totally saved my life as a designer, but that’s a story for another day…

Subsisting on Snacks

“Lots of snacking does not make a satisfying meal.” Every once in a while I manage to phrase a little pearl of wisdom just right. If only I were as good at paying attention to the good advice I dole out. That pithy little bit came up in the midst of an e-mail exchange in which I was talking about how disappointing it is to live someplace where sex is easy enough to find, but more substantial company is not. In the words of another pundit, “A little experimenting here and there can be fun, but mothafucka! I don’t think it’s fun no mo’.” I agree totally.

I’ll admit that I go through periods of carnal self-indulgence (usually fueled by frustration or boredom), but in the end I’m a big ol’ softie whose primary goal is not short-term adventure. Not only do random hook-ups rarely give me the boost of sexual self-confidence I’m craving, but they tend to undermine the things about myself that I really am confident about, ‘cuz those qualities just don’t matter in that particular game.

Romeo, Romeo, where the fuck art thou?

Hmmm, you’d think it was a year or so ago that the long, slow, excruciatingly painful process of me getting dumped began. Or something. Granted, that was an inevitable result, considering how ill-suited he and I were for each other. We would have realized sooner or later that we’d managed to confuse one another for the idealized, fictionalized memories we had of each other from the first time around. But damn, what a gruesome way for it to have happened.

Can you tell what kind of mood Sparky’s in today?

By Grabthar’s Hammer

Never give up, never surrenderGalaxy Quest. Brilliant. Hilarious. Who knew? This was the shocker of the weekend for me. This movie was so good, and I had totally dismissed it beforehand because the trailer looked so bad, and because… Well, because Tim Allen is so Tim Allen. (Although including the Toy story movies, this now makes three flicks of his that I really like. Eeeek!) But he holds his own alongside longtime faves like Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Tony Shalhoub. (I never hear anyone else talk about Tony Shalhoub, but he’s always really good.) And talk about special effects! Go see it, especially if you’ve ever enjoyed a moment of star Trek in any capacity whatsoever. Adam, his cool friend Laura, and I laughed our asses off, and the film even drew applause at the end, which, for a movie being viewed by a jaded NYC audience, is like getting an Oscar.

Although after geeking out by seeing science fiction and hanging out at Forbidden Planet, we were forced to retreat to Diner for a dose of the obscenely good-looking crowd and the world’s most succulent burgers.

The bummer to the weekend was discovering that I’ve almost completely forgotten how to drive since I last got behind the wheel at Thanksgiving. I’ll be the first to admit that I react really badly when I have to do things that I don’t know how to do well, and this driving thing is throwing all those issues right into my face. Hopefully, I’ll get the hang of it a little better before my road test in two weeks. Clear the roads! At least I understand why people don’t want to drive in Manhattan, though. At one point this morning I had to dodge a speeding cab, a clueless bicycist, a jay-walking pedestrian, and a freaking pigeon as I turned onto a “quiet” side street. Fuck that! I can’t wait to drive through the desert or something.

That is all.

No More Pontificating

As of last night, I am no longer a college teacher. Technically, of course, I was an instructor of a basic computer skills class at Pratt’s school of Professional studies, but it was basically teaching college. I loved teaching, and I’m glad that I’ll be doing a lot of training as part of the new job at Miles 33, so I’ll still be able to scratch the itch.

One nice thing about teaching a class in basic Mac skills is that I get a chance to start people off on the right foot, and explain to them early on my whole philosophy about how computers are still just tools, not creative solutions. And that once you get the idea of how a system works basically, you’re armed with the ability to make educated guesses and teach yourself more, rather than just operating like some kind of trained monkey doomed to a lifetime of crappy production jobs.

Having never taken a computer class in my life, and just figured all this crap out for myself over the years, it’s nice to try and save someone else from wasting just as much time as I did being mystified by the glowing box with keyboard in front of it.

Staten Island Boy Goes Home

Poingnant exchange of the day:

Adam: Wow, it’d nice to be in love.

Me: Yeah, those were the days.

So I spent most of the weekend in Staten Island, my old stomping grounds. Friday night I went to see my folks at Aunt Lee and Uncle John’s house before Mom and Dad took off for Florida again. All my dad’s brothers were in town with my aunts, which was a nice bonus. It was very satisfying to sit around gabbing with the folks and my aunts and uncles. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy spending time with my family.

Saturday I went over to Adam‘s swanky Staten Island loft to hang out for the day. We met up with two totally fun friends of his — Eva and Sally — and drove around for a while, visitng an amazing little old-school luncheonette and a great used furniture store. Later that night the ladies came back over to Adam’s and we goofed around while salsa dancing, playing with Adam’s didgeridoo and bull-roarer, Watching The Matrix (which I manage to like more and more every time I see it) and Aliens, and playing Bust A Groove, a totally nutty Playstation game where you win by dancier funkier than your opponents.

It’s always very trippy for me to drive around Staten Island, especially if I’m having fun. I hated living there so much when I was growing up, and I went to such efforts to make sure I never had to move back once I left for college, that it’s kind of a mind-fuck for me to go back and find all these fun places to go and cool people ot hang out with there. I actually get these rushes of nostalgia about my adolescence there, suggesting that I did a better job of making the most of it than I always think I did.

Dragging My Heels

I’ve been in a bit of a fog this week. Dragging my heels, yawning at work, and sitting slack-jawed around the playhouse just watching movies (Singing in the Rain, Poison, Muppets from Space) or goofing around on the website. As soon as all my houseguests left sunday, my spirits just came crashing to the ground. I always get like that after I’ve had a good time with company around. I guess I’m still not fully recovered from being such an anti-social loser all this Fall — I still feel like it’ll be weeks between chances to see friends.

Until there’s something worth mentioning….

Life in the Future

The future is now. But I don’t have a flying car, and I don’t seem to be living in a pod-home on the moon with cool, minimalist, Eames-like furniture. I think I would be laughed at if I went out in a silver unitard. Thankfully, though, I am not taking my meals in pill form.

I think 2000 will be most notable for all the crushed expectations that people will abandon. A lot of people are going to have to get used to the unexciting reality that this is just another damn year, not the dawn of something new and fabulous, or new and apocalyptic. sure, I would love to see some massive transformation take place in global society during the new year, but I’m not holding my breath.

I want to find all those people who promised Li’l Danny his moon-pod, though, and give them a piece of my mind.

As far as news goes, not much. It was great having guests all weekend, although my plumbing problems (my friend Jen dropped a bar of soap into my toilet while flushing last week) detracted from the urbane sophistication of it all. I doubt Noel Coward ever had to snake the potty in front of his guests.