Wednesday, December 20, 2006

J Date jam for Jena

So this is an email I just sent in reply to a Fwd from a friend. She belongs to this list where people post concerns, questions et al... I included the original posting first for clarity. I guess...



Dear QFers,
This is a posting for amusement and interest.

It suddenly dawned on me the other day, that my boyfriend is called
Alfred, my three best girlfriends are called Annie, Antonia and
Aarona, my business partner is called Alex, my loyal web designer
Alegria, the architect of my up and coming center called Aya, my
administrative assistant Angie and one of the holistic health
counselors on my staff also called Angela. That's nine names
beginning with A within my closest personal and business circles.
That is quite an unusual occurrence. I can't say I've ever before
noticed such an example of alliteration of names of the important
people in my life. Have you?

So, here's my question, intended to elicit your imagination as I seek
a different kind of QF recommendation - not for where to find a great
meal or perfect pilates class, but how to analyze life at large.

What does it mean? Is there a meaning inferred by this case of the
reoccurring A's.

If you have any interpretations, I'd love to hear

thanks in advance,
Jena



Dear Qters,

As I was quietly sitting at my desk at work, reading personal emails and taking care of other unrelated work matters such as Holidays Greetings and the true meaning of calories in chocolate chips cookies, I opened Jena’s message and my breath started to shorten. No, I was not dying of a heart attack, but rather choking down my own singularity, painfully swallowing what was left of my identity.

While most of my friends are already highly amused by this, let me here explain: every single guy I have –attempted?- to date this year (it is NY after all, and finding a decent guy has proven slightly harder than applying for a job you seem eternally under qualified for…), every single date, I was saying, shared the strange similarity of bearing a first name starting with a ”J”.

All of them you might ask? Well, every time the disturbing sequence seemed to end, it was only to be broken by the letter “A”. First there was Justin the dancer, then Alexandre the UN activist testing his thick French accent against my newly adopted Brooklyn attitude, one vowel at the time. Then came Josh, Josh and Josh (I also have series of 3’s that engender letters + numbers, but that would call for another posting altogether.) Respectively the broker, writer and web designer. Jason the real estate extatic, Jan the Investment Fund Foreigner, Andrès the Argentinean artist turned into a JP Morgan sell out, Juan-ma the scientist measuring up the stress in NYorkers’ blood stream by quantifying the level of adrenaline in mice exposed to famished wild cats. Adam the way-too-young to be declared, Angelo the Italian mobster (no kidding), and again Alexandre (maybe I should stop hanging out in my ersatz of French community. But then again, I have one Alexandre to go and I don’t fly back home that often…) and Jeff, whatever that one was doing.
That’s about it for this year and that’s probably more than enough. Well, that’s counting without the friends in my close circle: Judith, Javi, Jesse, Joel, James, Jonathan, Jean-Philippe, and Jérémie, who just sent an invitation for his birthday party this morning although I am not even sure we have actually met.

So, Jena, what can I make out of all that, besides the fact that you also have an “A” recurrence and your name starts with a J? I really don’t know. Last year went by with a cycle of “D’s” and that only ended on New Years Eve with, well, you know, Justin. My take on this? I am on my way to Mexico this Sunday and 2006 has another good 10 days to go. Juan, José, Jaime, I’m ready.

Maïa

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Erratum

As per my conversation with the Imdb geek (Internet Movie Database,
for the non-geeks in the room), please note that I actually did "meet"
Mr. Crunch guy AFTER his encounter with "Sex and the City" Miranda. (the episode dates '01. I dated in '02)

Now, reflecting on it, is it better to lose a guy to fame or to be a celebrity's rebound?

Sunday, November 12, 2006

D.C. Heritage Week

I know I know. it is too late to still be up and too early to be up yet, but it seems that the demons of the past have decided to all knock at the same time.

So there I was, 1.5 weeks ago, contemplating the idea of actually working at work, when my email box clicked to announce a message untitled "what about maia's life?"
What about it, in fact? It was a reply to a note left years before to a Smithsonian Museum fellow, back in the day where I lived the unhappy life in Washington D.C. (that exact life I had spent the last 3 years to forget.) As it turned out, my Spanish friend Gilberto was inquiring about my health and whether or not I finally got kicked out of America. As good as it felt to hear from him, it also brought back feelings of war, anthrax, sniper, anti-French protests, death and a fair amount of anxiety. But I just figured the thoughts would vanish again with sunrise.
3 days later, another mail popped from the forgotten D.C life: Josh was on his way to visit the Big Apple and wanted to meet up. Sipping on my decaf last Wednesday, we both happily evoked our attempts to survive in the conservative museum setting, and how we almost got fired for showing up dressed as a fat French Q-Tip and a balding bureaucrat 2 weeks before Halloween. No matter how fun the catch up night had been -his name starts with a "J", after all,- memories of a broken engagement with some NYC actor were brought back to life with it. The D.C Heritage Week had to come to an end. Sure, but who was I to decide?
The next day, I received an invitation for Jesse's housewarming party. Not only Jesse - another Smithsonian fellow- still had my email address, but he was requesting my presence to celebrate his move to New York.

Tonight, after a couple of hours trying to recognize Jesse's features hidden under a wild beard, it finally hit me: the only way to escape D.C. memories was to fully immerse myself into NYC nightlife and create new ones. I was too exhausted to live it, so I would just go home, put on "Sex and the City" and call it a Saturday night.
It is now 3.50am, and I am still trying to grasp what happened. How is it that I just watched an episode I had never seen, terrified at the sight of a hot Crunch gym guy hooking up with Miranda? Half a second, that's all it took. I had kissed that guy too, long before Miranda, talking to him every day for 3 month until he moved out of the city. Washington D.C., that is.

Now, don't expect me to go to bed at normal hours and stop sending journal-like emails after this. You are the guardians of what's left of my sanity.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Agent de Change

Austrian Consulate, Wednesday October 18, 6.30pm.
3 strudels, 1 1/5 cappuccino. 2 blue eyes barely awake emerge from a sea of hyperventilating and over-perfumed hairdos. “You look like your brother” the blue eyes say. Someone else turns to me and probably recognizes a familiar smile: “you must be Maïa. Very nice to meet you. Please send your borther our warmest regards when you see him next.” Then, whispering in the loving ear nearby: “her brother is that amazing guy who helps run the Center from Vienna. The business man who speaks 5 languages and is a star in the city basketball team. A wonderful man.”

The Words linger in the air, holding their breath for a second so the sound travels faster than the meaning.

Are they talking about my brother? The one wearing faded promotional tee’s and run down 1990’s Michael Jordan basketball shoes? What business man? What tie and suit? I mean yes, he does speak 5 languages, comes to think of it. Yes, he’s always been very good at sports, gentle and smart and soft spoken and funny. I already knew that. But I never experienced him summed up with words, and strangers’ words at that. I am stunned by this new and yet accurate description. “It’s about time you realize” says the full page of the company’s annual report, bearing his picture and a laudatory note form its President. I am chocked, I am proud, I miss him. For the first time, I feel like a mother who did not see her child grow. That child just happens to be my older brother.

The blues eyes say it’s time to go home. They wave good bye and vanish around the corner at the bottom of the strairs, leaving behind a soothing smell of spring.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Decaf, caf, caf

We all have our moments when we know we crossed the line. My line gets pushed over by caffeine and white wine. And neither of them help me understand the world better; I just look with wider opened eyes. Last night I was sitting –vegetating- in front of the TV (sue me), and despite the high dosage of nothingness around, I was somewhat listening to what was going on. In the name of Almighty Commercials, is it OK for Fat Actress Kirstie Alley to feed diet chocolate bars to 6 year olds as a Halloween treat? Someone got paid (A LOT) to come up with ideas like this. Is it really worth all the Four Seasons meals, the hour long team debates, the business flight to LA so some A.D. (Artistic Director) can get approved by a board of half baked Romeo and Juliet cigars? Things are far from being perfect in Cheeseland (we do sell mashed goose liver macerated in fungus as one of the highest New Year's delicacy; a treat for your body that no Maalox or hand sanitizer will ever defeat. And I do support that.) But diet chocolate bars for kids?

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Small talk

I can't beleive I found this piece of text from over a year ago. I guess I entered the city love/hate relationship long before realizing it. I am a New Yorker now.


January 24th, 2005

Hey, how are you? –Good thanks. You? –Good. –Cold huh? –Yeah. Freezing. Can’t wait for summer. –Me too. –How’s work? –Good. You? –Still looking for a new job… –Cool. I have to go. Nice talking to you. –Yeah, bye. –Bye.

Small talk.
What exactly pushes us to be eternally dull, boring and dangerously persistent? You meet friends of friends, hoping for nothing but a nice conversation. It happens you’re happy; it doesn’t you get over it. So why do we keep re-enacting those uncomfortable simulacra of interest? What good does it do to engage a conversation that is indubitably heading towards a dead end?
Like anyone, I grew up meeting my neighbors and their families knowing these bribes of conversations would never digress into a late night at Jenny’s Coffee Shop. But those are people I did not choose, just like my own family -you love them unconditionally (as I do) or you spend your life figuring how to. So outside of the immediate surrounding, why do we authorize ourselves to deliver automated speeches?

I am tired of pretending, wasting my time on shallow acquaintances, tired of expecting a punch line for a joke that doesn’t exist. Live and let die. Time to move on, eradicate the plethora of individuals who are welcoming hosts only if you promise not to stay. Exit overrated ones that label you “clinging type” when you show interest, and that call you back once they understand the inferior being that you are was not mesmerized by their outstanding wits.

Random people vanish with the last call of the bar. Let those empty shells vanish with them.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Gradually Reduced Eskimo

Leaning against the 10th Edition of the GRE book, I am resolving the last equation of the day: if x= 0, √x= 0. When you're lame, you're lame, and that's easy math right there.

Today, my friends, I took my first GRE class and learned... how to make a division! Yeah, and let me tell you this was a painful experience. If I hadn't already had a brake down this afternoon because the Austrian Consultate left its doors shut despite my insistent knocking, paper invitation for tonight's cocktail in hand (the paper read: Sturdel party. I had brand new dentures on, ready to mingle with the 70 something years old nobility's finest veterans) I would have cried a river of embarrassment.

I can recognize Ghanaian Ashanti stools, Nias Lwölö Guardian Figures, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattvas from the Northern Qi era, or a fake Monet (by lifting the frame,) but I can't freaking divide. To that, add (not divide) the fact that I am slightly dyslexic (left/right, north/south, "b" and "p", are all the same to me.) Imagine my tutor's -and my- amazement when I struggled in the BASIC REVIEW section of the book. p.4, that is, right after the credits. Why is the remainder of a division put over the divisor? If it represents the left over, how come it comes first when you look at the whole thing? That might be a detail to you, but we, Ze French, learned it differently. The right way I believe, and I already sucked at it back then.

Why am I even taking the test, you might ask? Because I am applying to Grad school. Again. 1.5 Masters, 2 Art History theses, and I am going for another diploma (although here, in the US.) I want to feel the warm atmosphere of school again, discern the soft scratch of blue, green, purple and yellow fountain pens as they engrave on expensive paper that the "before the after-war" was a productive artistic era (did he mean "during the war" ??)
I want to rediscover the smell of rancid cold tobacco outside of the amphitheater as I leave the sweaty classroom to breathe some fresh air. I want to be transported to the Middle Ages Royal Courts again, cradled by the soft voice of a"Gothic art" tenured reciting the "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry" in Latin, to the beat of a badly tuned mandolin. (Education is free in France and the academic selection is made by endlessly failing the students until they forfeit. So try to spot the depressed 5th year freshman playing mandolin in a room of 500+, under the glow of slides showing antique ruins long turned into Disneyworld's attractions.)

And above all, I miss cheating on my neighbor’s mid-term paper, herself looking at an outdated and therefore erroneous book barely hidden on her lap. I want to feel my heart jump again, as the examiner unseals the final exam's question taken randomly over 4000 years of art History, (the one that will determinate if you are worthy of finally becoming a Sophomore) :"Define Opus Caementicium", "-you have 4 hours."

Yes, I miss all of that. So, what am I doing instead of practicing the GRE? Another blog entry. I guess I could also just watch re-runs of "Saved by the Bell" and call it a career.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Groundhog Day

Cynical is en vogue, my dear, and depression is in the air. Not in me, but my air is definitely polluted by depressed, depressing and aspartame sweetened people. How can I get away from this?

a/ Leave the job (but “love to hate themselves” people are everywhere; it’s not worth loosing the potential of the actual job. Plus, I feel I reached the highest level my current skills can get me.)

b/ Go to school. Apply now for next year x 2 ½ years enrolled x $80,000 x rent x food x reimburse school = raw pasta sans sauce nor personal life until I’m 42. Then menopause, then die. But die smarter than at 27.

c/ Move to a country where none of this matters. Eat grilled fish, mangos, guavas, freshly baked bread. Stare at colorful displays of strangely shaped veggies, wave at old man sipping on an exotic fruit blend under the neon like sun. Check out Whole Foods Market purchases through cashier n°21 and go back to work.

d/ Start a blog. Write a public diary no one will ever read (don’t we all only want to access what has been locked?) Close laptop. Start over as often as necessary.

One Way Ticket

So here I am sitting down with my insomnia. 2..30 am, watching Shannon Doherty ditching love partners on behalf of mall-singers groupies who thought they could conveniently humiliate their ex AND record application materials for the next "F*** me I'm single" MTV reality show . (Yes, since I have been on the same job for over 3 month, I though I would splurge on long term commitments such as cable TV.) What happened to the quarterly "I'm getting kicked out of the country" emails some of you asked? (sorry for the ones who didn't, maybe I secretly hate you and left you on the list for that exact reason) Well, I've had the same visa since last November. 10 month of administrative stability -a record that outlasted by far any relationship I've had since I moved to this city. Truth is, the level of distress hasn't changed much. TV is as dumb as ever and my attention span has shortened to the point where I cannot read the foreword of a book without hoping the commercial break will be on soon so I can see what's in the fridge.

On a positive note, the roommate who used to parade in sports bra-sponge shorts every time she would sense male pheromones in the hallway (sales rep, boyfriend –mine-, pizzaiolo, kids trick or treating et alii) finally left, leaving me to a sweeter misery and an empty apartment. I know there's something else in life than Work Permits and relationships, but I can't seem to care about fashion that much, so I'm sorry for always going back to the same topics. So, although the "Post Coitum, animal Triste" has been widely covered by Sarah-Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw and by Brigitte Rouan in her "disappointingly mediocre" 1997 feature film (says the Imdb review), claiming the talent of none I will simply ask this: what the hell is wrong with this city??

I am fascinated by how such an impersonal etiquette of love ever became the standard in this town breathing off of diversity. The Sex and the City years might be over for Carrie and friends, total strangers still come up to me in the most random places to complain about their sex life. A 50 something Lebanese male in Whole Foods last week, the 35 year old daughter of the couple who is subletting my friend's apartment this week, my boss, the Air France pilot on our way to Germany 10 days ago –that's another story all together-; even the late night cab driver: "too many girls, you know; too many girls and not enough guys. No good for people. I see bad things and I am ashamed for their families. They ask boys' name in cab, but they already all over them. Disgusting."
If I got it right, you meet Mr. STD –well yeah, you can't just multiply one type of fun- on a clear drunken night. You guys talk, dance, and let's say he's even funny. You see each other often, sometimes for a diner or a movie before going back to his place for the night... Life is good, and Mr. Considerate even offers more and more often to skip the diner-movie-talk-laugh part to directly go back to his place. In a word, you feel connected. One day, after many moving shared memories and half rent checks, he ceremoniously goes down on a knee, tears in his eyes, and pops the question: "my darling, would you like to be exclusive?"

As I sit in my first owned couch watching mind-numbing programs on my new TV and typing this stupid email on a PC I stole at work, I cannot help but wonder: now that I can finally stay, it is time to leave?

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Union Square Pillow Fight

















February 19, 2006