Less Wordless in Washington

"We've gotta get out while we're young, cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run." -- Bruce Springsteen

So I made ten Moleskine doodles to commemorate my trip to DC last weekend and was too lazy to ink more than six of them last night. I was going to ink and post the remaining four tonight but, once again, I was too lazy to pull out the brush pen. Though it pains my rusty old wannabe artist heart to do so, I'm posting the unfinished versions anyway for the sake of finishing the story. Again, click here to enlarge.

And by the way, I'm seriously impressed with the select few of you who noticed the alt text on the image in the last post! Major nerd points to you -- and coming from me, that's the highest of compliments!

Wordless in Washington

"You dropped me off at the train station and put a kiss on top of my head. You watched me wave, you watched me wait. Then I went on home to my skyscrapers, neon lights and waiting papers that I call home. I call it home?" -- Brandi Carlile




Click here to enlarge.

Black Armbands

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Yankee Stadium." -- Bob Sheppard

Whenever a Yankees legend dies, the team -- and its diehard fans -- wear black armbands to commemorate the loss. This would certainly be a black armband occasion if I still practiced the tradition, since the greatest legend of them all passed into eternal rest just a few minutes ago.

Baseball history was my religion for years, and rightly so, Yankee Stadium was my cathedral. However, unlike my attitude towards normal cathedrals, I'm more interested in the spirituality than the structure in this case. Sure, I'm attached to the architecture of the Stadium and the dimensions of the playing field and the quirks of the design, but the atmosphere, the uncanny sense of years past... they mean more to me than I can possibly describe. Every time I entered the Stadium and moved through one of the tunnels into daylight, into the open expanse of the field, I was always keenly aware that I'd happened upon something majestic.

You could say that I grew up on 161st Street and River Avenue in the South Bronx, in a blue plastic seat in Section 9 with so little leg room that I had to stand every time someone tried to walk past me. I first sat there on a warm day thirteen years ago; I was fitted for braces a few days beforehand and requested blue and white rubber bands to mark the occasion. I first realized that I needed glasses in that seat, when all of a sudden I had to squint to see the scoreboard. I experienced my very first PMS cramps while sitting there -- during the World Series, no less. A man hit on me for the first time in my life as I sat in that seat, and I tasted my first beer in that seat. I spent no fewer than ten birthdays there. I celebrated getting into my chosen high school there, wrote half of my college essay there, celebrated getting into my chosen college there, celebrated getting my first full-time job there.

And because I'd always arrive at the Stadium a good two hours before the first pitch to beat the traffic, I always had time to sit quietly, think about the great game, and enjoy the ambiance. Section 9 was my home for about fifteen games a season for thirteen years, and I've been lucky enough to witness a few pretty great moments from the last row -- Tino Martinez's grand slam in Game 1 of the '98 World Series, the clincher in the '99 Series when my favorite player, Mariano Rivera, was named MVP, ten consecutive Old Timer's Day ceremonies, the ceremonies to retire Don Mattingly's and Ron Guidry's numbers, Roger Clemens' 300th win, others I'm ashamed to have forgotten.

Thus, I am -- and always have been -- fiercely protective of Yankee Stadium. Sure, it's one thing to watch Paul O'Neill, Bernie Williams, and Johnny Damon prowl around the outfield, but to watch them with the knowledge that they're standing exactly where Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle once stood is something else entirely. (I've always maintained that the only way I'd ever agree with plans for a new Yankee Stadium is if the builders carted every square inch of dirt from the old field to the new one, just so the ghosts of yesteryear wouldn't feel misplaced.)

When rumors flew about moving the team to the West Side railyards back in '97, I took Mayor Giuliani's efforts as a personal affront and wrote a protest song to convey my feelings. (Yes, I was a peculiar eleven year-old.) My song borrowed the sentiments, the tune, and more than a few lyrics from Billy Joel's "Miami 2017," and because I wasn't an especially talented lyricist in the fifth grade, I'll spare you the first two-thirds of the song. I'll share the ending though, because, more than a decade later, I still feel the same sadness that sparked me to originally put these words to paper.

They made a tribute to the Legends and named the park for players past.
I knew it would not pay. Their home was blown away.
The magic ran out pretty fast.

You know those lights were bright in the Bronx, but that was so many years ago.
Before the game was ruled by money, before the death of Joe DiMaggio.

There are not many who remember; only a few of us survive
Who have the nerve to tell 'bout the way the rafters fell
And keep the history alive...

Best Foot Forward

"Ah, I do not wear ze shoes because... zey make-a me fall down." -- Agador Spartacus, from The Birdcage

I fell asleep on the living room (read: uncomfortable) couch at about 9PM last night, and, as a result, I didn't get to accomplish any of the necessary tasks to ensure a smooth morning routine. Thus, I woke up with a chill and a sore back on said couch at 7AM, swore, then scrambled to get ready for work. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, pulled my curls up into a bun. A little eyeliner, a lot of red lipstick, eyeglasses, undergarments, deodorant, a spritz of Lanvin Rumeur. Breakfast, coffee, and earrings could wait until I got to work, but clothing couldn't.

I never got around to ironing before I dozed off, so I pulled my one un-creased pair of dress pants off the drying rack and ran back to my bedroom to put them on. I was halfway there when I felt it: a scrape at first, then a jolt of pain radiating up my leg. I sat on the edge of my bed and lifted my foot, revealing a massive splinter buried deep in the dancer's callus on my big toe. Since I wasn't about to perform foot surgery on myself in my frantic, underwear-clad state, I slapped a bunion pad over the splinter, pulled on a pair of dress socks, and decided to hope for the best.

I slipped into my pants and my favorite pair of flats, but I didn't even have to move to realize that my cuffs would clean the sidewalks with every step. Wearing a skirt was out of the question owing to my socks, so I instead opted to stick to the pants and wear most comfortable pair of high heels with them.

However, because of the socks, my most comfortable pair of high heels didn't fit. I tried on pair after pair -- and trust me, I have a LOT -- and they all felt uncomfortably snug. Finally, I tried on my super-soft, super-comfortable pointy-toed black pumps, which I only wear on my water-retention days because the leather has stretched so much that they tend to fall off when I walk, and they fit beautifully.

My choice of footwear functioned perfectly in the house, but when I tried to ease into my usual speedwalk en route to the subway, I knew I was in for a disatrous day. I had to walk slowly and hold my feet very stiffly to avoid falling head-first out of my shoes, and if I let my guard down for even a second, one or both shoes would fly off my feet. Despite the added bulk of the bunion pad, I lost my right shoe approximately once every hundred feet and my left shoe half as frequently. The walk to work from the subway was even worse; little old men and massively pregnant women moved faster than I could. I thought I'd be okay, though -- I had a day of desk work ahead of me, and as anyone who has ever taken Fluid Biomechanics with Dr. Kevin Costa knows, a desk-bound woman's feet swell massively over the course of eight hours.

Wishful thinking, yeah. The morning passed into afternoon and I still couldn't move correctly. Aside from the fact that my shoes felt strange, I felt like crap without the ability to bounce and sway my way around the city. I was still moving slowly and stiffly when I arrived home at 6:15 -- far later than usual because I was walking so damned slowly. Dad was outside smoking a cigar when I approached.

"Why are you walking like Frankenstein?" he asked. I told him. Ten minutes later, I had my foot up on the kitchen table as Dad squinted at it through his magnifying glasses. I glanced away for a moment, and when I focused on my father again, he was raising a very pointy pair of scissors to my toe with a manic glint in his eye. I don't remember much about the following half-hour, but I no longer have a splinter in my toe.

F. Murray Abraham?!

"You want an answer? The answer is, it doesn't make any difference. Because the old saying happens to be true: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence, on this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out amongst the stars." -- Rod Serling

Courtesy of MyHeritage's celebrity face recognition applet:


Not entirely accurate, but it was better than my first try a few nights ago -- my top two matches were Daddy Yankee and Anna Kournikova!

College Confidential

"Progress and changing, growing then giving up. Somehow, we're never quite prepared, but I understand it. When you need a friend, you could count on anyone. But you know I'll defend the tragedy that we knew as the end." -- Brandi Carlile

Classes are back in full-swing at the metropolitan arm of the Ivy League, and for the first time ever, my days of attending them (or dreaming about attending them) are behind me. It's a surreal enough feeling that all of my friends seem to be blogging about it, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring as well.

In terms of academics, I was damn proud to call myself a biomedical engineer when I started college and I'm damn proud to call myself a biomedical engineer today. I loved nearly every aspect of what I studied, my courses spoiled The Mad Scientist part of my personality rotten for years, and I can't wait to return to my roots to truly work as a BME someday. Yeah, it would have been nice to have some time to take some art classes or finish my English minor or actually breathe during college, but I can't even entertain the thought of studying something else now that I know what I'm capable of surviving. I'm a BME now and forever... I'm just doing something else for a living until the world catches up with me.

My college extracurriculars followed the same pattern as they did in high school: I started off with a few carefully chosen organizations, then all of a sudden and with no recollection of how it happened, I found myself involved in everything. I loved being involved in as much as humanly possible, though -- I'd rather not sleep than see something pass without my input -- so no hard feelings there.

I dreaded living on my own before college -- after all, no one in my family ever has -- but now I can't wait to get back out there and reclaim my life again. I learned how to cook, how to iron, how to balance a checkbook, how to hold down a job and classes and still find time for play, how to eat for a week on twenty bucks, how to manage my time and a household. I started college a scared kid and left college a completely independent woman with a perfect sense of who I am and how I like to live. I never thought in a million years that I would ever make a good wife or a good roommate, but now I'm sure I would.

I'd like to say that I graduated with no regrets, but there are certainly a few things I would change if I could do it all over again. I wish I had made friends during my first two years of college; maybe I would have spent more nights out having fun and fewer nights alone and miserable in my dorm room. I wish I had formed study groups early on instead of trying to do every problem of every homework assignment by myself for three semesters; maybe my GPA would have been high enough to actually get into a Ph.D program right away. I wish I had the courage to act on my feelings when I found someone attractive; a few lives would certainly be different today. I try to tell myself that everything happens for a reason -- if life didn't play out the way it did, maybe I would have turned out less self-reliant, less respectable, less well-rounded, possibly pregnant. However, considering that the friends, coursework teams, and personal relationships I eventually made were all directly responsible for the awesomeness of the second half of my college experience, it's pretty easy to silence that voice of reason.

However, the fact remains: the second half of college, especially senior year, was AMAZING. The time since has been amazing as well (albeit in entirely different ways), mainly because the people I met and things I learned in school have carried over into my post-college existence. If college did nothing for me aside from decorating the set and populating the cast of characters of the sitcom of my life, that's more than enough to make it all worthwhile.

Overtime!!!

"To think that a man as famous as you are could love a poor little nothing like me!" -- from Evita

So the National Cancer Institute screwed up and asked my institution to fix it. The screw-up can only be fixed by someone who knows a lot about chart review, genetics, data management, the informed consent process, and a certain rare type of cancer, and apparently, only one person at my institution fits that description.

Made For Walkin'

"New York City is the place where they said, 'Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side...'" -- Lou Reed

I love walking, which is a good thing because it's a major part of my daily commute. And thanks to a coworker who introduced me to Gmaps Pedometer, a nifty Google Maps hack that calculates the length of any plotted route to the thousandth of a mile, I can now report EXACTLY how much walking I do.

On an average day, I walk...

0.7572 miles from home to the subway
0.4203 miles from the subway to work
0.8152 miles from work to the subway (because the 6 is too crowded)
+ 0.7572 miles from the subway to home
---------
2.7499 miles, total


This really amuses me, since it means that my most ridiculous method of walking distance estimation is far more accurate than I ever thought possible. I've always described my black pumps with the built-in Nike sneaker technology as having "a two-mile limit" before they start to make my feet hurt. Sure enough, those shoes inevitably start to kill me when I start my final walk home at the end of the day, and if I can't catch a ride on any leg of the journey, I have to pack a pair of flats.

I'm having a lot of fun playing with the Gmaps application -- calculating the distances across random cornfields in Kansas, along my old Riverside Park jogging route, around the entire island of Manhattan -- but, like the true geek I am, I'm thinking scientifically about the possibilities it offers. It may take a few weeks to test-drive my entire collection, but I now possess the technology to put a mileage limit on every pair of high heels I own!

Graffiti

"And it's just another story caught up in another photograph I found. And it seems like another person lived that life a great many years ago from now." -- Jamie Cullum

I'm in the process of cleaning out my closet as I type this and I feel like an archaeologist who, with every layer of soil removed, finds himself deeper into the past. My work shirts covered my 40s on 40 shirt, which covered a Viva La Zvi t-shirt, which covered the first BME Department t-shirt, which covered several Glass House Rocks Staff shirts, which covered my little brown RUSH ESC tee, which covered my Freshman Engineer shirt with the big hideous target on the back, which covered the blue-and-grey school logo tee I purchased the day after I got my Early Decision acceptance letter, which covered four years of high school Walkathon shirts.

Somewhere between Freshman Engineer and RUSH ESC, I found a plain white Hanes t-shirt completely desecrated in marker. This is a relic from Graffiti Night, an event hosted by my Student Council for the sole purpose of allowing students to draw on each other. As I turned the fabric over in my hands, I recognized handwritings, recalled awkward laughs and faulty markers, realized that some of the scribblings belonged to people I would eventually come to call my closest college friends.

Here's a roadmap:

FRONT

Over my stomach: "HOTTIE I want ur babies" with a downward pointed arrow, lovingly drawn by Q
Over my chest: A large black box with the word "Boobs" in the center, drawn by AW "to keep it off-limits to all the creeps in here."
Below my left shoulder: "SEXY!" courtesy of EC.
Below my right shoulder: A large black university crown with "CU Rules" written underneath it in dwong's handwriting.


BACK

Lower back: "I Heart Jesus" Artist unknown.
Below my left shoulder: "Hello!" in what might be PMB's handwriting.
Below my right shoulder: "I want YOU!" and "butt" with two lines under it. Artists unknown.
Left upper back: "You and Eash are so effin hott!" courtesy of Meet.
Right upper back: "Hello friend." Artist unknown.

Needless to say, this isn't one of the items being sent to Goodwill next week.

Paging Doc Brown...

"Why is my reflection someone I don't know?" -- from Mulan

One of Mom's coworkers got this in the mail, took one look at it, and got horrifically freaked out by what he saw. He sent it home with Mom and now my entire family is freaked out by it as well.



That's the Notre Dame High School newsletter. This is the Notre Dame Class of 1947:


That's the Class of 1947. This is the person on the end of the line:

Those who know me -- especially those who knew what I looked like when I was a high school senior -- will understand.

Ode to the Barneys Warehouse Sale

"But when all the world says yes, then who am I to say no? Don't ask a mutt to strut like a showgirl! No, girl, you need a pro." -- Barry Manilow, from Oliver and Company


I think I dress quite well and I take pride in my appearance,
So most are shocked to learn that what I wear I buy on clearance!
I have an eye for style but not the cash couture entails,
So on a research salary, I have to hunt for sales.

Twice a year, Barneys tries to unload last year's stock,
And opens wide its warehouse doors to cheapskates half in hock.
This blest event is fondly called the Barneys Warehouse Sale,
And for discerning shoppers, it's the retail Holy Grail.

But be warned, dear friends, the Barney's sale isn't quite the scene
For shoppers who can only thrive in places more serene.
It's not made for the faint of heart or temperament or wit --
You mustn't be afraid to fight through crowds and racks of shit.

Thus I'm sure you all can understand my thoughts of woe
When I told Mom about the sale and she said she'd like to go.
I warned her off, I told her that the mob was sure to shock,
But she didn't quite believe me till the line stretched round the block.

The women's floor defies description; clothes, though seldom cheap,
Are thrown in bins and on the floor, oftentimes waist-deep.
There's barely room to walk, the air is thick with fibrous dust,
Into the racks you're often pushed by clientele robust.

And since there are no changing rooms, the aisles, to Mom's surprise,
Are strewn with naked women trying items on for size.
I came prepared – I wore a flowing skirt instead of pants,
But ladies wandered round in thongs while strange men stood entranced.

By the time I got on line, my hem trailed on the floor,
My hands looked gross, three nails were cracked, and my feet were sore.
My lungs were filled with so much dust I couldn't heave a sigh.
My hair was mussed, my face bruised from a hanger to the eye.

I paid then paused, straightened my hem and swept my hair back neat,
And with two awesome pairs of jeans, exited to the street.
One pair are black Aristocrats -- the high-waist, wide-leg line.
The others are plain blues, but damn they make my ass look fine.

Yeah, you need no shame, but that's the price of being thrifty--
I chose jeans worth five hundred bucks but paid thirty-four fifty.
Mom has said she shan't return; one trip's enough for her.
But I look forward to the spring. You think they discount fur?