An Open Letter to the Upper East Side After A Snowstorm

"Hardly dashing through the snow because I bundled up too tight." -- The Waitresses

Uggs are not snow boots. They are not waterproof and they have no traction. If you move unnaturally slowly and keep falling over yourself because you insist on wearing them, don't look insulted when I scoot past you on the sidewalk.

Rubber rain wellies are not snow boots, either. I thought this would be obvious, especially considering how loudly you were screeching "OMG my toes are COLD!" in the middle of the street. I know some companies make cold-weather inserts for them; perhaps you should invest.

I've ranted about this in the past, but I'll say it again: you do not need an umbrella in the snow. Snow is the solid form of water, so if it lands on you, brush it off. All an umbrella does is impede the visibility of the person standing behind you, i.e. me, and make already treacherous conditions more dangerous for everyone around you.

I understand you're young and in love. But walking side by side and hand in hand during rush hour after a blizzard isn't a good idea, especially when the shoveled path through the snowdrifts on most sidewalks is only a foot and a half wide.

Dogs do not need sweaters. They manufacture their own sweaters. However, if you insist on putting a sweater on your dog and said dog sits in the middle of the sidewalk trying to chew the sweater off instead of doing its business, "I wonder why he's doing that...?" isn't a bright observation.

Yes, I'm aware that you own a darling mom-and-pop establishment that, by some miracle, has stayed open for sixty years in a tough retail neighborhood. Good for you, and kudos on beating the odds! However, you have no excuse not to shovel your damn sidewalk. If the tiniest old woman I've ever seen has enough strength to sling snow around outside that deli on 74th St., you can certainly do the same.

If your awning collapses onto the sidewalk under the weight of all that snow, drag it to the curb so people can pass. Scaling the thing and vaulting myself over the top, mountaineer-style, isn't on my list of things I like doing at 7:30 in the morning. And circumnavigating your garbage involves walking in the street -- and puts me directly in the path of the oncoming M15.

And speaking of the M15, don't feel bad about taking photos of the three buses stuck in the snow in the middle of the 68th St. intersection. It's hilarious. One of the bus drivers chilled in his seat eating pizza and doughnuts for ten whole hours; I was watching from the window.

Lastly, stop blaming the Dept. of Sanitation for this mess. It's not their fault that a good chunk of their workforce was laid off and remaining staff members have to contend with restricted overtime.

Dinner With Friends

"I'm back with scars to show. Back to the streets I know. They never take me anywhere but here." -- The Weakerthans

I spent the weekend in DC, and to my surprise, the weather was mild and completely bearable. Of course, it was probably only bearable because it rained for most of Saturday. The rain didn't turn into a brilliant sunny day until late afternoon, so when that finally happened, I took a walk to the supermarket to grab some groceries for chicken cacciatore with farfalle, roasted broccoli, and bruschetta. Everything came together in an hour and I got a request to steal the recipes after we finished eating, so to make that process easier, I'm posting them here. Make the chicken first, then prepare the bruschetta topping, then make the broccoli, then finish preparing the bruschetta, then serve everything together.

Chicken Cacciatore with Farfalle

1 pound farfalle (bowtie) pasta

1 pound chicken cutlets

1 large (24 oz) can chopped tomatoes

Small basket of mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup marsala wine

Five large basil leaves, shredded

1/2 tsp oregano

5 cloves garlic minced

1/2 large white onion, chopped

Pinch of salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish with olive oil. Wash chicken and place in one layer in the bottom of the baking dish. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, oregano, and basil. Dump onion, garlic, and mushrooms on top of the chicken. Pour in the wine. Dump tomatoes on top of everything. Bake for one hour. Remove from oven and, using a knife and fork, shred the chicken into manageable pieces.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Prepare farfalle as you see fit, then drain pasta and mix with chicken cacciatore. Makes a formidable vat of pasta that can easily feed four hungry people.

Bruschetta

Half a loaf of Italian bread, sliced into 3/4" pieces

1 clove of garlic

1/4 white onion

2 plum tomatoes, diced

5 shredded basil leaves

Pinch of salt

1 tbsp olive oil

4 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese

Cut the clove of garlic in half -- reserve one piece and slice the other. Combine tomatoes, onion, basil, salt, olive oil, and sliced garlic in a small bowl and allow to marinate for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Lightly toast Italian bread slices, then rub one side of each slice with the half-clove of garlic. Top each slice with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. Toast slices in the oven or a toaster oven until the crusts brown and the cheese melts. Allow slices to cool, then spoon some tomato mixture atop each slice. Serves four as an appetizer.

Easy Roasted Broccoli

1 large head broccoli, washed, with stem removed

Salt, pepper, olive oil

Toss broccoli florets in salt, pepper, and olive oil. Place on a baking sheet and roast at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. Serves however many people are capable of eating a head of broccoli.

Fake Tales of San Francisco: Day Five

"Come back from San Francisco! It can't be all that pretty when all of New York City misses you." -- The Magnetic Fields

03.08.2010

I'm trying to fit three pounds of sourdough bread, my new dress, two new books, and my coat in my suitcase along with all the stuff that actually belongs there. I gasp. I pant. I pinch and pull. I throw myself face-down on the suitcase lid. I pull some more.

Yes! Optimal atomic packing factor achieved!

I take one last walk around Union Square, grab a croissant from Boudin Bakery for the road, and end up getting to the airport obscenely early. There's a line at the security gate despite the hour, though, and as I get closer, I realize why: SFO uses full-body scanners.

I step in and lift my arms. The beam sweeps across my field of vision. I lower my arms and step out of the scanner.

Security guard quote: "Looks like you've got about sixty cents in change in your front right pocket, a twenty dollar bill in your front left, and a driver's license in the back. Show them to me and you're good to go."

As any self-respecting engineer can understand, this amazing application of technology makes me really excited and I ask her if I can look at my scan. She inclines her head towards the scan's monitor and I peek at the image. It's hairless, high-contrast, and naked, but it's undeniably me.

How cool is that?! I laugh, give an excited little hop, and turn to retrieve my bags from the conveyor belt. The cute hipster is standing three feet away, staring at me.

I wonder if he saw my full-body scan image. Never mind; don't want to think about it.

He definitely saw the conference title emblazoned across my messenger bag, though.

Two long-haired skateboard-toting teens sit next to me on the airplane. They spend the entire flight watching Real Housewives reruns.

Once again, I'm awake for five and a half hours. I read a little, listen to some music, watch Alton Brown add soy sauce to caramels and take a kitchen torch to a grapefruit. I read, edit, and rewrite two sets of notes in my Moleskine. Half of the pages detail technical information learned at the conference and half of the pages will eventually become five blog posts outlining my trip. Cute hipster is seated directly behind me, and it doesn't seem like he's able to sleep much either.

Eventually, I can see the lighted streets of the Rockaways out the plane window. A few minutes later, we touch down at JFK.

Cute hipster helps me retrieve my suitcase from the overhead compartment. I thank him and offer a sweet smile before exiting the aircraft. I know I'll regret not giving him my name or my card in the upcoming weeks, but right now, a smile seems like enough of a promise.

Do I think I'm ready to fall in love? Nope. But I'm getting there.

Fake Tales of San Francisco: Day Four

"I wasn't born there. Perhaps I'll die there. There's no place left to go, San Francisco." -- The Animals

03.07.2010

I'm an author on two of the posters hanging in the exhibition hall today. I'm still not used to seeing my name in print, so I take lots of pictures of both posters. I wonder if my colleague ever gets used to the fact that an entire classification system is named after him.

I'd like to see data on the prevalence of performance status overestimation.

The conference is over! I'm walking out of the auditorium for the last time. Someone with an instantly recognizable smile crosses in front of me, suitcase in hand, and walks out the hotel's front door. Crap; I was looking forward to that conversation.

Homeless guy quote: "You have a lovely face and figure, ma'am."

It would make too much sense to sell Muni fare cards inside the Muni stations.

It would make too much sense to have a place to swipe or tap said card on each turnstile, instead of being forced to wander around in search of a station agent to let you in.

It would make too much sense to have complete maps of the Muni on the walls of the Muni.

The Muni trains would also make the G train feel well-endowed if they ever had to pull out the rulers and measure.

Zuni Cafe for lunch. I came for a chicken roasted over a wood fire, but I can't eat one by myself and all of my remaining colleagues are vegetarian. Thus, I order a tuna steak with grilled escarole, baby potatoes, and a hard-boiled egg crumbled on top. I should crumble hard-boiled eggs on my food more often.

A light fish course calls for white wine, so I order a glass of Santa Barbara pinot blanc even though I prefer my vino red.. I can't believe how fresh it tastes. I spend a few minutes swirling the wine over my tongue, exhaling, trying to recognize the finishing flavor before I finally place it: green grapes. I drank a wine that tasted like grapes. Unbelievable.

My dessert was an espresso granita. An espresso snowcone. Frozen, chopped-up coffee with whipped cream on top. I must try making one at home.

My waiter is muscular and very handsome. And he is being incredibly sweet and attentive. Maybe because I'm in a classy restaurant by myself, furiously scribbling in a Moleskine between bites?

A small girl keeps kicking the wall next to me. The heels of her sneakers keep lighting up on impact. The whole restaurant is shaking.

Taking the trolley up the godforsaken hill is a lot easier than walking up the godforsaken hill. I think walking might be faster, though.

A street musician near the Cannery is pretending to play the guitar along with a recording. I wonder if he's related to the guy in Grand Central who pretends to sing. At least this guy isn't selling CDs of "his" music.

Never mind. He is.

Having a Girl's Night In on my last evening in San Francisco, complete with ice cream, a romance novel, and the Oscars.

What happened to Barbara Walters' face?!

Fake Tales of San Francisco: Day Three

"A heart floats in the Bay. I hear it beating far away. There's no telling what I'll do if I don't return to you." -- Alkaline Trio

03.06.2010

Thank goodness for my red Tsubo pumps and their sneaker padding. I can't even feel my blisters while wearing them, which is a necessity considering that I'll be spending my entire day walking around at the conference.

My calves are on fire, though. And don't get me started on how my injured knee feels.

The chairman of my department -- all six and a half feet of him -- sits in front of me during the first lecture. It's like trying to see a projector screen through a brick wall.

MD quote: "This is why your hospital is so good. You come here while your PIs are away. My study coordinator goes skydiving while I'm away."

The dosing schedule for BCG therapy -- six cycles -- was originally determined because each shipment of the drug contained six treatments. Hahaha.

Among the few women here, the style of the moment seems to involve long denim skirts and Clarks. I feel very chic in my little black suit and red pumps.

One panel session includes audience polling! And question asking via Twitter and text message! Oh, I love technology -- and what a perfect forum for it!

MD quote: "You've been voted off the island."

The epigenome changes as a function of aging, so examining methylation patterns for cancer predictors may not yield accurate results in elderly patients.

A young man with long platinum hair just sat next to me. He's wearing a white suit. He looks fantastic, like Draco Malfoy's guardian angel.

One of the speakers presents a painting of Adam and Eve with a diseased kidney Photoshopped over the apple. His point? Don't be tempted into performing a radical nephrectomy when a partial will do the job just fine.

Quote from several MDs: "I love your red shoes. Can you click your heels three times to go home?"

Fake Tales of San Francisco: Day Two

"I was filled with so much hate until I saw the Golden Gate." -- Hello Saferide

03.05.2010

I've decided to avoid jet lag by refusing to change my sleeping habits. Thus, I'm awake at 5:30 in the morning, sitting at my desk with my Moleskine. The sun is rising over the Bay. What an inspiring way to start the weekend.

I skip the continental breakfast offered by the conference and go to Blue Bottle Cafe. It's located in an unmarked storefront at an intersection of two sidestreets that should really be called alleyways. I order a bowl of pecan granola -- super-fresh, very tender, makes the milk taste like honey and cinnamon -- and a coffee.

My coffee takes five minutes to prepare because each cup is drip-brewed to order. It's THE best cup of coffee I've ever had in my life. The smoothness, the depth of flavor. Words cannot describe either.

The two cute hipsters from the airplane walk into Blue Bottle when I have an inch of coffee left. The cuter one and I lock eyes a few times, but he offers no sign of familiarity. I'm not sure he recognizes me without my glasses.

I find a seat in the back of the massive conference hall, but I don't know anything about prostate cancer aside from the bare-bones basics and the stuff related to clinical trial design. The presenters could be speaking Greek and I wouldn't know any better.

Actually, I think I understand Greek better than I understand how androgen deprivation and Gleason scores work.

There are ridiculously few women at this conference. There are also ridiculously many handsome young men wearing wedding rings.

Traditional open radical prostatectomy and robotic radical prostatectomy result in very different pelvic anatomies after healing, but radiation fields are only optimized for the former. Interesting.

We break for lunch. I decide to take my PI's advice and spend the rest of the day walking the streets of San Francisco.

I didn't realize San Francisco has hills.

Yes, I've seen Full House.

Yes, I've seen pictures of Lombard Street.

I always thought the hills looked worse than they really are!

They're really worse than they look.

Fisherman's Wharf is my first stop. It feels like a tourist trap, and as a New Yorker, I'm trained to neither patronize nor linger in tourist traps. Plus, it was sad seeing so many lethargic-looking sea lions in one place.

It doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to swim to the mainland from Alcatraz.

From Pier 39, I walk west along the Barbary Coast Trail to Fort Mason. I enjoy a crab cake from a street stand and a Ghirardelli's hot chocolate along the way.

Seagulls : SF :: Pigeons : NY. They are FEARLESS. One male -- a male, might I add, so large that he could easily feed a family of six if roasted correctly -- stands in my way and caws at me when I try to make him move.

I try to kick him. He flaps a few feet to the right and gives me the stink-eye.

No, really:

The Golden Gate Bridge really is stunning. Maybe all those hills were worth it.

My return trip is strategically plotted to avoid as many hills as possible, so I end up walking the entire length of Grant Avenue. A few blocks in, a very elderly Asian man says "beautiful!" as I pass him. Aw.

A few blocks later, another very elderly Asian man says "beautiful!" as I pass him. I start to suspect that "beautiful" is Canto for "ha ha look at the stupid white girl who didn't realize San Francisco has hills."

My cheeks are slightly sunburned. I'll have freckles by next week.

Three new blisters. I treat my feet to a long soak and lots of bandaging before I dress for dinner.

Hana Zen for yakitori. I let the waiter order for me. He chooses well.

Fake Tales of San Francisco: Day One

"I've been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan. I'm going home to my city by the Bay." -- Tony Bennett

03.04.2010

I drain half of my iced coffee in one gulp. Part of me feels like I should lay off the caffeine if I want to stand any chance of sleeping on the airplane, but the rest of me fears being trapped on an airplane with a caffeine withdrawal headache. And besides, I drink coffee before bed at night. It won't keep me awake!

Two men stand behind me as I wait to board the plane. They talk about whether they'll be able to sleep through the flight, whether they'll get any work done, the general precariousness of the gangway underfoot. I glance backwards under the pretense of repositioning my suitcase. They're both hipsters. Attractive, bearded, intellectual-looking.

We all move a few inches closer to the plane. The cuter hipster -- the one who looks like the cute brother of a cute guy I once knew -- says, "You know, I think I'm ready to fall in love." I envy his certainty.

The hipsters are seated in my row. The cute one is across the aisle and his friend is next to me.

I don't sleep a wink in the five and a half hours it takes the damn plane to land.

I burst out laughing in the BART because I realize that San Francisco has no palm trees.

The staff at my hotel has been coached to call all guests "Doctor" for the duration of the weekend. After the third time it happens, I decide to stop correcting people.

Crap, my room is enormous. I could have easily brought two friends with me and we still would have had room to spare.

My hotel is located in the shopping district of San Francisco, so I decide to spend my first few hours visiting every store that I already visit in New York on a bimonthly basis. The styles featured here are drastically different than anything I'm used to purchasing, though. Punchy colors, crazy patterns, and dangerously short skirts are everywhere. Where is my limitless selection of nearly identical black dresses?

I walk into a fitting room to try on a dress. Without being asked for his help, the attendant brings me six other dresses, three belts, and a sweater to try on. He chooses the correct size in everything, too.

At an intersection. The woman standing next to me hails a cab. The driver gets out, walks around to the curbside passenger door, opens it for the woman, closes it behind her, walks back around, gets in, and drives away. The man on my other side says what I'm thinking: "Jesus. In New York, you're lucky if the cabs STOP."

Homeless man quote: "You seem like a woman of fine taste. Wanna buy my album?"

I decide to go to bed at 7:30 PM. My colleague -- my fifty-something year-old colleague -- calls me an old lady for it.

Changes

"Though we may not know it now, things are never gonna be the same. Here on Second Avenue, I tip my old top hat to you. I hope you find somebody who will love you like I do... and our time is running out and we still have to say goodbye. Goodbye Philadelphia." -- Peter Cincotti

I have so many things going on in my life that I feel deserve blog entries of their own, but between a massively increased workload, a sorrowful goodbye, a cautious hello that turned into an angry goodbye, and an anticipated hello that never actually materialized, I'm too physically and emotionally drained to put pen to paper with any semblance of heart. I'll try though, and if any of these half-assed snippets spark my desire to write more, I'll expand upon them another day.

Oddly enough, my hellish recent existence began with the most relaxing five days I've spent in recent memory. I went upstate for Fourth of July weekend -- far enough upstate that my cell phone barely worked, internet access was nonexistent, and my pager was as good as a paperweight. For five days, I let people cook for me and clean for me, amused myself by reading, crocheting, and taking ten-mile aimless hikes through the woods, and talked nonsense until three in the morning with two of my oldest friends. I felt closer to nature and more appreciative of the beauty of life than I have in a long time.

Then I had a very long workweek. And a very long half of the next workweek. After my Nth fourteen-hour workday in a row, I went out with my cousin and had my pedicurist paint my toenails blue. (The color is called Dating a Royal, actually.) I haven't had blue toenails since I was about eight years old, and I'm not entirely sure I had them then, either.

I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the film version of my favorite J.K. Rowling novel, on Friday and again on Saturday. Friday's viewing was a muted early-morning affair with Rutila and Saturday's viewing was a raucous all-day spectacle with thirty of my college classmates (including Q, Charles, and Wink). To kill some of the three hours we spent waiting on line outside the IMAX theater, we patronized a farmer's market and loaded up on quick breads and fresh fruit. I bought a carton of red currants, and when I got home around midnight, I pulled a recipe out of my ass and used them to make Sunday morning breakfast.

Red Currant Mini Muffins

3/4 stick salted butter, softened
2 tbsp citrus-infused olive oil (or 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil and 1 tsp citrus zest)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg + 1 egg white
1 tbsp baking powder
1 cup flour
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tbsp whole milk
1 cup red currants (or blueberries), stems removed

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat butter, olive oil, and sugar until fluffy, then beat in eggs and vanilla. Add baking powder and flour and mix until incorporated. Stir in red currants. Spoon into greased or lined miniature muffin trays; cups should be 3/4s full. Bake for 18 minutes or until muffin tops are browned. When muffins have cooled, remove from trays and arrange on a plate. Add milk to confectioner's sugar and stir until a thin glaze forms, adding more milk if necessary. Drizzle glaze over muffins and allow glaze to harden. Alternatively, you can dust the tops of the muffins with powdered sugar -- these are pretty tart so they'll need some sort of sugar on top.

Makes thirty miniature muffins. (This will also make a dozen regular muffins -- bake for about 25 minutes instead.)

Today, I went to New Yankee Stadium for my fourteenth Old Timers' Day, the once-a-year event where retired Yankees greats put on their old uniforms, line up on the field, reminisce about the good ol' days, then play a few innings for old time's sake. On Old Timers' Days back in the mid-1990s, my father used to point out the ballplayers of his youth -- Nettles and Gossage and Jackson and Dent -- and say to me, "Sooner than you realize, you'll be sitting here with your kid, Tino Martinez and Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are going to be playing in the Old Timers' Game, and you're going to know how I feel right now." I scoffed for a decade, then the first two players from Yankees teams I watched as a child, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, showed up on Old Timers' Day. Last year, David Wells, Paul O'Neill, and Tino Martinez took the field. This year, Chad Curtis, Charlie Hayes, and my precious, cherished, beloved Mike Mussina (who won 20 games for the Yankees just last year) joined the ranks of "old timers." I'm starting to realize what Dad meant more than a decade ago, though I can't pin down the emotion just yet. I have some time before Jeter and Rivera are up there, though, and I don't plan on facing my thoughts until that day comes.

Growth and Invasion

"It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me... and I'm feelin' good." -- Anthony Newley

Praise of the mundane will have to wait a while, since my past two weeks have been extraordinarily life-changing. Last Wednesday was my one-year anniversary at my job, and the following day, I left for my first-ever business trip. This was no run-of-the-mill jaunt, either: I got to spend six days at the largest cancer conference in the United States.

"For now there's life. For now there's love. For now there's work. For now there's happiness. For now there's comfort. For now there's friendship." -- from Avenue Q

Six other study coordinators were also selected to represent our department at the conference. We took turns driving, attended each other's poster sessions, stayed up until three in the morning confiding in each other, made each other breakfast, ironed each other's suits, sunscreened each other's backs, shared straws and clothing and bathrooms and beds, flirted and fought and compromised and laughed and took care of each other. Strangers often marked us as friends, relatives, or married couples... and we never made a correction or clarification.

"Anti-angiogenesis really works in TCC!!!!!" -- one of the presenting MDs

On the last day of the conference, I sat alone in the back of the biggest lecture hall I've ever seen and listened to three of our best discuss where our field is headed. A stupid grin was plastered on my face the entire time; two of the three speakers discussed my team's work as pivotal to the future of cancer care. My commute, my long hours, my diminishing knowledge of engineering... all of it became blindingly insignificant when I realized that the data flashing across the room's three projector screens was collected and abstracted by my hands.

"I'm finding who I am! And for the first time, I have no doubts! Yes, for the first time, I understand!" -- Phil Collins

The day before the lectures, I stood in the exhibition hall for four hours. Six feet to my right sat an MD from my team and between us stretched a poster representing her brainchild and my data. Doctors, scientists, statisticians, and pharmacists asked me dozens of probing questions about our work... and I was able to answer them, converse with them, share laughs and oncologic commentary and moments of enthusiasm with them. I've amassed more knowledge about this stuff over the past year than I ever thought possible, and when asked to put that knowledge to the test in front of the toughest crowd imaginable, I was able to deliver. Once my initial nervousness subsided, I began to operate with a confidence so genuine that, one week later, people can still see it in my eyes.

Better Than Ever

"I'm twenty-two for a moment. She feels better than ever... and we're on fire. We're making our way back from Mars." -- Five For Fighting

I became an engineer to put my talent for innovation to good use, to help people without having to directly interact with them, to satisfy my curiosity about the way things work, to play with fire and electricity and chemicals and really cool machines, to solve problems, to fix things that are broken, to "improve" things that aren't broken, to feel like a total geek and a total badass all at once, to live on the cutting edge.

Those are the basics. The specifics have changed a few dozen times during the last fifteen years and will undoubtedly change a few dozen more times before I retire, but last weekend, I was forcefully reminded of what started it all. I spent a few glorious days in DC with a few old friends, and despite meals, movies, Mythbusters, and many other fun experiences, we still found time to take a seven-mile walk around the city. We didn't stop for too long at any point along our stroll, but we did duck into the National Air and Space Museum for a few moments.

I walked through the doors. The security checkpoint was new, but the Gemini command module still loomed to my left, the moon rock still sat on my right, and The Spirit of St. Louis still hovered overhead. I was nine years old when I first set foot in that room and recognized my destiny in its contents. Biomedical engineering didn't really exist back then, so instead, I wanted to be a rocket scientist.

Specifically, I wanted to be John Aaron. Never heard of him? Not surprising, since he's the most perfect example of a true engineer that I know -- he made a career out of creatively fixing other people's messes from the sidelines. Aaron graduated from college in the early 1960s, and armed with nothing more than his physics degree, he took a job at NASA on a whim. Six months later, he was working for Mission Control handling flight operations for the Gemini missions. While nationally recognized heroes like Gus Grissom, Jim Lovell, and Neil Armstrong were out testing the limits of space, Aaron was one of the many faceless men keeping them alive from behind his computer screen.

I was obsessed with the NASA of the '60s and '70s during my childhood. How thrilling it must have been to explore space when space exploration was still so brand-new, and to actually have the ability to get your hands dirty in it! Troubleshooting efforts in those early days -- astronauts fixing broken lunar rovers with old maps and duct tape, flight controllers trying to make CO2 filters out of tube socks -- always sounded like so much fun to me. John Aaron was the unequivocal master of troubleshooting, and his common-sense cleverness saved the entire space program on more than one occasion. He was the guy who figured out how to bring the crew of Apollo 13 safely back to Earth using only 12 amps of power. He was also the only person able to teach the crew of Apollo 12 how to reboot their electrical systems after the spacecraft was struck by lightning, saving the mission from certain abortion. How? Years earlier, he had heard of a similar problem during an obscure test mission, researched it to satisfy his own curiosity, and consequently became the world's only expert on the issue.

John Aaron made himself superhuman using only his brain and his ingenuity, which has elevated him to Batman-esque status in my estimation. He was my hero for most of my childhood and adolescence, and he's one of the main reasons why I had my sights set on a career with NASA for so many years. Problem is, there's no place at NASA for Aaron's brand of quick-and-dirty, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants brand of engineering any more. Everything is planned, budgeted, methodical, and triple-checked nowadays. It's neater and probably more efficient, but it's not nearly as fun.

It's not exactly better, either. On my way home from DC, I read an article on Project Constellation, the new NASA missions that plan to return humans to the moon by 2019. I learned that NASA plans to phase out space shuttles during the next few years and begin using Orion spacecraft -- which bear an eerie resemblance to the Apollo command module I wandered past in the museum last weekend. Seems like Aaron and his fellow engineers were more right about things than any of us could have guessed.

The Price of Kindness

"Stores are never nice to people. They're nice to credit cards." -- Edward Lewis

I'm cautious by nature and I have New York sensibilities, so I'm instantly suspicious when strangers are kind to me for no apparent reason. What? I was raised to believe that a random person -- the type I meet once and will likely never meet again -- will never go out of his way to endear himself to me unless he can get something out of it, and with few exceptions, that has held true throughout my life. This intrinsic distrust of human intentions especially extends to two groups of people: gorgeous men and salespeople, and since the former can easily spawn half a dozen blog entries on its own, I'll only be discussing the latter today.

I've done a lot of shopping and worked a little retail in my time, and I've developed a few prejudices from my experiences:

• In an H&M or Old Navy, I don't expect the sales help to ever acknowledge my presence.
• In an Ann Taylor or Express, I expect one greeting and maybe one check-in if I'm not well-dressed. If I am well-dressed, I expect a couple of check-ins, a little help finding sizes, and minimal fitting room support.
• In a J. Crew or Banana Republic, I expect to be ignored if I'm not well-dressed. If I am well-dressed and I show genuine interest in full-price items, I expect a warm greeting, lots of check-ins, and lots of schlepping of items to and from the fitting room. If I am well-dressed and I show more interest in the clearance rack than the full-price items, I expect to be ignored after this becomes apparent.
• In an Abercrombie, Hollister, or Pac Sun, I expect to be treated as if I am not cool, trendy, and/or hip enough to set foot in the place. I do not shop in these stores by my own choice. If someone drags me to one and I am treated nicely by the sales help, there is no doubt in my mind that they're making fun of me while I'm not looking.

My expectations also vary based on location -- I generally expect non-Manhattan salespeople to be nicer to me than Manhattan salespeople. (Perpetually nasty Roosevelt Field Mall employees are the exception.)

Anyway, I've enjoyed two surprisingly pleasant shopping experiences lately and the events left me feeling so happy about life that I have to share them here. The weekend before last, I wandered around a J. Crew aimlessly for a while, collecting various items off the sale racks, when a very perky blonde lady approached me and asked if I needed any help. Before I knew it, the items in my hands were placed in a fitting room reserved for my use, she was suggesting jeans for my body shape and helping me choose sizes and colors, and she continued to help me and give me clothing advice and bring me new pieces despite the fact that a line of people now waited for fitting rooms. The lady working the cash register didn't ask me for the name of my attendant, but I gave it to her anyway along with a few words of praise.

I went shopping and was shocked by good service once again today -- only this time, I was in SoHo and decided to browse around Uniqlo after remembering that my cousin once got an enviable pair of jeans there. I found a style of dark denim I liked, pulled a 2, 4, 6, and 8 off the shelf (which I always do, and which usually pisses off salespeople immensely), and entered the fitting room. The attendant smiled, encouraged me to take as long as I needed, and told me to come out and let her examine the fit of the jeans once I determined my size. The second I pulled open the curtain, the attendant swooped over, checked that the waistband didn't gap, and dropped to one knee to pin my hems to the correct length. She then informed me that, should I choose to purchase the jeans, the store would alter them to fit my body... free of charge. "So bring these up front to the register, go get yourself some lunch, come back here with your receipt in about two hours, and they'll be ready for you."

I was stunned; this was a relatively inexpensive store and these were forty-dollar jeans, for heaven's sake! I asked more questions in search of a loophole or a catch -- and I found none. Turns out that the company believes that every single one of their customers should walk out of the store with clothing that fits their body as perfectly as possible. Thus, they offer free fitting and same-day tailoring on every pair of pants they sell.

Not only is it amazing customer service -- my jeans fit perfectly right out of the shopping bag, which NEVER happens to me -- but it's a fantastic business model. I'm sharing the news with anyone who will listen, and I'm planning on going back tomorrow morning for some colored denim that I can pass off as work pants!

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.