The mystery of Business Casual

Business casual attire is required for my job. What the hell IS business casual? For guys I can imagine the uniform: the khaki pants and those blue button-down shirts. Add some obsequiousness and you've got the perfect entry level I-banker or undergrad interviewee. But for women, it seems like a god-damn free-for-all. It's the kind of thing that you'll only know when you walk into the office and become painfully aware that you are inappropriately dressed and it's too late to save your dignity and salvage all those precious first impressions.

Oh Lord, I'm angsting again.

I'll see you tomorrow and let you know what I discover. Goodnight

The Professor's Daughter - Emily Raboteau

I guess I have a lot to say tonight. So for your reading ease, I present the subsections:

Liteature:
...reading this book I found on my grandma's bed-side table. While I was riding the Q one line really stuck with me.

"That's a bullshit word. 'Shy.' That just a pretty word for selfish."

Interesting. Is that true? I always thought that the a shy person was just secretly wracked with fear. What if they are just secretly hoarding all the beautiful insightful things they could be giving us. Everything going in, nothing coming out.

Friends:
A guy friend of mine just admitted something he has been struggling with alone. I don't want to write about him, but I just wanted to say that if he had told us, we would have taken care of him. Some people would say he was dumb for letting it go so long, when it was an easy fix. But he's not dumb, he's proud. I would have done the same in his situation. I wouldn't have liked him any less for caving. I like him all the more for not.

Family:
Anyway, It turns out that my cousin in actually going to have her wedding at my house in Jamaica. Imagine that.

Here in NYC, my grandma is having her operation on Wednesday. She is removing her gallstones. Somehow, it's not going to be an invasive procedure. We prepare for the Hospital stay tomorrow.

Next time I'll try and write a little about The Fountainhead. Today I went to a dance class at the New Dance Group place on 38th and 8th. I love getting sweaty, don't you? I really don't care how unattractive it is. Those endorphines do crazy things to me.

I...

I straightened my hair. My grandma is pleased; after all, I'm going to start real work now.

I might cry.

Church Bells

I think my dad and grandma are trying to get my cousin to get married in a church.

Today I retire this confession: "I am restless. I am looking for something I cannot name. It this unhappiness?"

compromising your morals... mmm, delicious

I was talking to a friend about a friend of hers whose father happens to be something like a rich government official type person in China. My friend was telling me that her friend's father was one of those people who ate panda.

Let's think about that for a second. Even if you don't know much about pandas, you know that they are pretty cute and pretty rare. I personally have beef with pandas but let's put that aside for now. The point is that they are very close to extinction and everybody knows that.

You may be wondering 'does panda taste good?', which exactly what I asked. But this is besides the point also. How good does panda have to taste for you to eat an animal so publicly in danger? I thought about it and figured there are three possible reasons.

1. Panda tastes really good

2. Some people are just douches who eat panda as a delicacy simply because it is rare

3. This guy must be around the kind of people who want to know if he would compromise his morals for them. 

Whether it is true or not, this third is the most interesting to me. Maybe eating panda is a signal that he is willing to follow the crowd no matter how distasteful the activity.He will keep their secret because they  are keeping his... This seems like the kind of bond that would come in handy as a business man or  Chinese government official.

There are many things people try to get you to do, not because the activity itself is intrinsically fun or meaningful, but because it signals the kind of person you are. Most people are more comfortable knowing that you are like them. So you can't judge them, perhaps. Like when drinkers feel uncomfortable around non-drinkers. They love getting that person to take a drink. Or streakers wanting other people streak... or anything really. It's interesting. 

He's really not that into you...

I was hanging out with some people who's names are not important right now. Either way, there was a particularly entertaining part of the discussion that I enjoyed listening to even if I couldn't fully take part. The two boys were talking about relationship self help type books and how they are  woman's domain. The thing to read right now apparently is "He's really not that into to you", but there is no equivalent for guys because guys just don't read shit like that.

One fellow proposed, a dvd series where a guy and a girl act out a  potentially romantic scenario and at some point the viewer has to choose the next move - whether it is to do a certain action or say a particular sequence of words. Depending on their choice, the guy would either reach fourth base - Bow Chika Wow Wow! -  while the viewer watches,  or would only go so far and end up with various forms of rejection.  This is a perverted goose-bumps choose-your-own-ending type of thing where the key to success/victory/scoring is to learn not to be a douchebag. 

They said that it is interactive, helpful, fun and combines the two things that appeal most to men - video games and porn. But, would it  sell?

Ha! This cracks me up!

Getting married in the morning

My cousin is getting married and moving back to Jamaica ( in that order). Congratulations my darling!

At one point she told him (she was telling me) that he was not going to find a better woman than her - prettier maybe, younger possibly, but as a whole woman, not a chance! This was at the mild hinting from grandma that she should tell the man that if he wasn't going to marry her he should go about his business so she could go about hers. I didn't know these kinds of ultimatums worked in real life.

She is 28 and my grandmother had a good talk with me yesterday about how worried she had been about her grandniece. Grandma then had a good talk with the husband-to-be and when she passed off the phone the first thing out of her mouth was, "So, when are you getting married?" I believe, she was talking to me.

My dad had a talk at me along the same theme the day before my graduation.

Is it that time of my life or is my family just bat-shit-crazy? I do not hear the premonitory ticking of any biological clock.

Anyway, if "Fomerly Known As" would aswer his damn phone I could tell him the good news...

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

So I picked up a copy of the Fountainhead at the Barnes and Noble at Union Square. I was sitting in my friends room keeping her company, reading and eating cheesecake (delicious). She saw what I was reading and asked why I decided to pick it up.

I said something like "I heard it was really good - and it is- and I'm interested in her philosophy." It was perfectly true, but not even half of the real reason. It was a side reason, incidental, icing on the cake when I saw that book in the store and snatched it up.

When I was 16 or 17 I asked my guy friend how you could ever sleep with someone you hated. I was naive at the time and confused at the torrid love affair that was happening between two overly artistic, philosophically and appropriately angsty acquaintances who ostensibly hated each other. My friend turned to me, took me to a bookshelf - we were in the library - pulled down The Fountainhead and said that I should read this and I would understand. Years later I found the book in that bookstore and decided it was time.

I'll let you know if the book enlightens me. Either way, that was the real reason I was reading it. I have no idea why I didn't tell my girl friend that. Was it too personal? Maybe we just arne't that close and I didn't know it until then. Was I sounding the other answer off her? Did I not want to get into it? Is this caught up with me pretending to be other than I am - because I am now sure that I have been doing that?

I have a way of not telling a lie but not saying the thing that is most true. There are so many true things. No reason is ever the full reason. I am large, I contain multitudes. But why did I feel like I was cheating this time when I gave her that harmless answer?

She said that she thought that Ayn Rand's philosophy was impractical and selfish. "Well ... yes. "

Just more angsty food for thought.

P.S. Im going to the premiere of Hancock!

i like your body

I discovered one of my old paper journals and it reminded me to look
up this poem.  It is honest. It is almost obscene. It is beautiful,
and  reading Ayn Rand's Fountainhead I feel in a particular mood
to appreciate it. So... for your reading pleasure:

i like my body when it is with your - E.E. Cummings

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you quite so new

No longer a College Student

I am here in NYC waiting for it to hit. I'm here in limbo, waiting until I can legally work in august, waiting to do things and meet people, waiting to feel the true weight of what it means to graduate. I am an adult I suppose. Should I bemoan my wasted college years? The guys I didn't jump, the classes I didn't take, the time I filled with nothing much this last year. I was ready to graduate, but I don't think I'm ready for life. Maybe I can become a new person in two months.