fake food

Have you been sent the link to Stuff White People Like yet? No? That seems impossible because at least three friends have told me about it today. Was there some kind of memo sent out? If you haven’t been there, definitely visit, it’s hilarious, but reading it and laughing feels pretty ‘meta’ because I am one of those white people. I do love expensive sandwiches, I do.

I was reading through some of the entries and came upon on for Whole Foods:
These stores are excellent for bringing children, as there is nothing that they actually want.

“Oh, mommy, look chocolate!”

“No Joshua, that’s carob.”

“I want it.”

“Ok.”

The child will then take a bite and realize that nothing in the store can be trusted.

This is how I feel about most diet food. I try it and then realize it can’t be trusted. (Although, in regards to carob, it doesn’t taste that bad. I had a neighbor whose parents were very into natural foods and they always had carob instead of chocolate.) What’s with putting sucralose in yogurt? I can’t eat Dannon Light and Fit anymore because it tastes so fake. I’m not one of those natural/whole foods people, I promise. I like my processed sugar just as much as the next guy. But some of these brands are getting a little out of hand. I feel like we’re all getting a lesson in moderation (if we had any, we wouldn’t need diet foods).

At a certain point, I have to question whether it’s worth it.

ssshhhh

It was too light to be 3:34 in the morning, and that’s how I knew it had snowed. The yellowish glow peeked in through the blinds in my bedroom.

New York is quiet when it snows. And for a little while, before the cars and plows come out, New York is clean. Fifth avenue (on the park side) is easier to walk on than usual; the uneven sidewalk tiles are smoothed over by tamped down snow. For once the over-privileged children don’t annoy me, because they are just too cute in their snow gear, ineffectually picking up snow balls in mittened hands.

Snow can’t be controlled if you throw money at it. The weather doesn’t care if you’re wearing suede boots. It won’t be swayed by your high-powered Wall Street job, and maybe that’s why I like it. It’s one of the great equalizers, in my opinion. Every car looks the same under a snowy blanket. And everyone looks silly in snow boots.

best. song. ever.

It was about a year and a half ago. I was on the 31 heading east to see an apartment. Despite having the entire CD on my iPod since it came out, I’d never heard Death Cab’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.” It was a like a revelation. Maybe it was the empty bus, or the warm indian summer night, or maybe I was just tired of looking at horrible apartments. I listened to it three times on that bus ride, worried that I’d lose that perfect feeling if I heard another song. Over the next few weeks I must have listened to that song a hundred times before it wore off. It always does, you know? And then maybe a year and a half later you hear it again and for a moment it comes back, that magic.

Those are the songs that do it for me, the ones that are the simplest of wishes, the simplest of words. Nothing fancy. Right now it’s Guster’s “Satellite.”

You’re my satellite
You’re riding with me tonight
Passenger side, lighting the sky
Always the first star that I find
You’re my satellite

Maybe you will always be
Just a little out of reach

soon to be added to the DSM

I suffer from wounded bird syndrome. It’s serious. I can barely take care of myself, yet show me some friend who is falling apart and suddenly I am the mother hen, all advice and shoulders. I always fall into the role of caregiver, despite the fact that all these wounded birds might end up giving me the avian flu (it’s a metaphor, stay with me). I just can’t resist it.

The fastest way to my heart is to need me.

I know that a lot of the time I have to remind myself that I can’t live anyone else’s life for them, or as my dad sagely puts it, “You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.” But don’t you sometimes which you could step into someone else’s shoes and be that person for a little while? Your outside perspective could really benefit them….but no. You can’t. To conclude the sappy metaphor, you can repair that wounded birds wing, but you can’t make it fly. Nor can you stop it from flying into a window again.

very superstitious

Don’t laugh. A black cat crossed my path. Or did I cross its path? Walking home the man in front of my suddenly veered into the street. Too late I noticed that he was avoiding the black cat making its way across the sidewalk. So I crossed behind it. After extensive googling ont he mater, I can’t seem to figure out whether its bad luck the cross in front of the cat or after it. But that cat has haunted me ever since, a nervous knot in my throat.

Surely, I thought, this superstition means nothing. Plenty of people own black cats, and must run into this situation all the time. But then things started happening. My very orange cat sunk her claws and teeth into my wrist for no reason. Then I slipped and fell down the stairs of my building. I was almost backed over by a mail truck on my way to work.

Maybe it’s not bad luck though, maybe it’s just the dangers of living in New York. We are always one step away from death by mail truck.