Blog/Life Failure.

OH GOD I'M SO SORRY BLOGVERSE/MOM & DAD! I've been so busy being an overworked/underpaid twenty-something Brooklynite that I haven't had any time to blog! Well, theoretically, I've had some spare time, but most of it has been spent drinking away post-grad life and/or watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother online, also in an attempt to drown out the real world, but with canned laughter instead of whiskey.

I will return. I'll be cooking up something good tomorrow. It'll probably be Easy Mac.

Life is wonderful, isn't it.

Rejection Is A Beautiful Thing

I love you.

I'm scooting off to work in a sec, but I needed to post a link to this beautiful rejection letter written by the one-and-only Hunter S. Thompson in 1971 in response to a piece of satire submitted to Rolling Stone magazine. I saw it posted on my beloved bible, the Gothamist (!!please hire me!!), this morning and felt the need to share it with my blog readership/my parents, who may be the only members of my blog readership.

You worthless, acid-smoking piece of illiterate shit! Don't ever send this kind of brain-damaged swill in here again. If I had the time, I'd come out there and drive a fucking wooden stake into your forehead. Why don't you get a job, germ? Maybe delivering advertising handouts door to door, or taking tickets for a wax museum. You drab South Bend cocksuckers are all the same; like those dope-addled dingbats at the Rolling Stone offices. I'd like to kill those bastards for sending me your piece... and I'd just as soon kill you, too. Jam this morbid drivel up your ass where your readership will better appreciate it. P.S. Keep up the good work. Have a nice day.

If I get rejected from another job, which I most certainly will, I can only hope that Hunter's ghost will fly from the heavens and tell me to "jam [my] morbid drivel up [my] ass where [my] readership will better appreciate it."

And people wonder why I've read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas approx. 17 times...

Talkin' About Things. And Things.

I really should update more... in the span of time since I last wrote a post, the United States economy went way downhill (again) and I finally learned how to snap my fingers with my left hand. What a week.

Also, today I saw SEVEN rats at the 1st Ave L stop. SEVEN. That's almost as many mice as I had in my college apartment! I became a bit nostalgic as I watched them scurry about the tracks, carrying cardboard, cell phones and random bits of machinery into their lairs. I'm not sure why everyone's so concerned about robots taking over the earth. Those damn rats are huge and will totally wipe out humanity some day.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS! SCARY NUMBERS!!!

Speaking of wiping out humanity, as I'm sure you've all heard, the economy is tanking (again), China keeps chastising the US for living outside "its means," or whatever, and Obama is getting even grayer and sad looking. This is all nuts. Luckily, I now make slightly above minimum wage, so everything's dandy. I can totally afford to live in New York City, guys!

I'm still not really clear on how the stock market works, anyway, so I can't be too concerned. Money, schmoney. Living off Easy Mac and bar pretzels is nothing to be ashamed of, right?

I saw one of the L stop rats use its teeth to drag a huge silver watch into a hoarding hole. If there's one New Yorker who knows how to keep afloat when times are rough, it's a subway rat.

I've Never Felt So Close to You Before...

My commute.

Doesn't the New York subway system look glorious? I've always wondered what it felt like to snuggle up to strangers' armpits. Yummmm.

That being sad, nothing in life is more tragic than watching a throng of people exit a subway stop right as you're about to enter it. Especially if you take the L, because then you can look forward to at least 18 minutes of new wait time in the glorified sauna otherwise known as the station platform.

The DC Metro might not be as fast or as convenient, and that single-tracking system they have going on the weekends in absurdity, but man, those stations are nice and breezy.

Hrmph.

Summer in the city. Super fun times.

If I Can Make it There, I'll Make it Anywhere

After a brief, blessed stint as a fully-employed person, I will soon return to the land of the food stamp-eligible, which means I'll probably have more time to blog. True, it would be nicer to have less time to blog and more time to drum up some rent money, but hey, man, beggars can't be choosers. Though we can be bloggers.

And now, for a moment of seriousness.

I've been back in New York for two months now, shuffling from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back day after day. I've sent out job applications, though certainly not enough, signed up for unpaid/low-paid freelance gigs, and fact-checked countless magazine articles. I'm not really any closer to finding a job, but maybe some of that is because I'm still not even sure about what kind of job I want to get.

New York is the kind of place that beats the hell out of you and doesn't have any interest in letting you fight back, a quality I vaguely recognized growing up here. There's always someone better, brighter, prettier, more accomplished, more connected, and more talented than you are, digging their heels into your toes and reminding you that you really aren't anything special. I've been told time and again that I need to develop more of an ego, but sometimes I feel like it's better to be here without one. It's hard to survive if you're interested in going with the flow, because the flow in New York is more like a tsunami.

There's really nothing to do but latch on and hold tight. It's an adventure for sure, but an exhausting one nonetheless.

I miss Baltimore.

A Whole New World

Well, after a week-and-a-half long battle between the demon keepers of the InterWebz (Time Warner Cable) and ourselves, my new BK roommate and I can finally access all the glorious things the 'Net has to offer!

Of course, the instant we had Internet again, I watched an adorable YouTube video of an adorable sleepy baby bunny. I have posted it here so all three of my readers can soak themselves in the cuteness. It's two and a half minutes long. I watched it four times. Huzzah, Internet!

So, as you may have guessed, a great many changes happened in the few weeks I was off the Web. First and foremost, something called Google+ was invented. I have no idea what Google+ is. At first I was banned from it because I wasn't popular enough to be "invited" by some posh keyholder, but once I was, my computer was too old and cranky to access it. Looks like Baby MacBook and I will have to be satisfied with the old, boring Google.

Also, Facebook Chat has Skype on it now, so that's pretty weird too.

But aside from all the Internet updates (all of which were quite jarring at first), many life changes happened as well. I am now officially a Brooklyn resident, living in what I like to call The Lion's Den - right off the Bedford stop in Williamsburg. My new neighborhood looks like this:

Disneyland for history buffs.

JUST KIDDING, THAT'S COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG! I'm such a joker. But actually, those lobsterback outfits look pretty sweet, and if someone dressed like that in my 'hood, I would totally make them be my friend.

Disneyland for hipsters.

But anyhoo, my actual neighborhood looks more like this:








Ah, BK. The land of PBR-swigging, neon clothing, and tattoos. It's a little different from the hallowed halls of my alma mater, in which dressing up meant wearing jeans instead of sweatpants. I wore leggings a lot, so I was considered pretty avant-garde, if I do say so myself.

Now, of course, my roommate and I are in a perpetual search for see-thru baby crop tops and suspenders so we fit in with the rest of the BillyBurg clientele.

Life is such a struggle.

the Internet is a privilege, not a right

Blog World, I am so sorry that I've abandoned you! Brooklyn has temporarily banned me from the Internet. I am writing you this message from a hijacked iPad (thanks, Dad!) and will provide you with more ponderings as soon as I'm granted access to the wonderful world of wireless web.

Until then, live free and prosper.