i'm a big girl now

since i last wrote, i was at long last offered an upgrade at work from freelance status to permanent employee; my highly anticipated passport arrived in the mail; and i got a notice that my IRS stimulus check is on its way. 

i've spent the last few days drowning in work, drooling over my perfect little passport, and plotting my first escape from the U.S. 

thus my lack of entries here. 

alas, it looks like i'll be drowning in work until the holiday next week (how, please tell me, is it nearly July already?) but i will update again as soon as humanly possible. 

in the meantime: tell me where i should go first with my little blue book. 

mb

i need a job in sports

seriously, i don't know what i'm doing working in fashion. 

i spent much of this afternoon following the U.S. Open playoff round online. per Father's Day tradition (especially if your father is my dad—which of course he's not since i'm an only child, but you know what i mean), the final found of the Open was on TV at my parents' house yesterday and i watched the last few holes last night with growing anticipation. when Tiger Woods sunk that putt on the 18th to tie Rocco Mediate, i jumped up and whooped and high-fived my dad. 

the 18-hole playoff round started at noon my time today, and i checked the leaderboard (and Jason Sobel's blog on ESPN.com) compulsively all afternoon. it was dramatic and nail-biting, and i was only looking at numbers, and quick descriptive updates on the blog. can't imagine what it was like to watch it live. 

i'm so happy Tiger gutted out a victory—i don't know why i always want him to win, except (like i told my dad last night) i'm a Yankees fan. i'm conditioned to expect championships and dynasties. 

and speaking of the Yankees, the other big story today is that Chien-Ming Wang is out at least six weeks with a sprained foot because of this stupid inter-league play baloney. you can't make an American League pitcher run the bases when he never, ever runs the bases. especially not when he's 8-2 and currently the ace of the staff. come on!

anyway, during all this hoopla today it crossed my mind that i'm really in the wrong field. i should look for a job in sports, so i can put this obsessive interest to good use. i mean, really. if someone offered me a pass for, say, a Vivienne Westwood or Christian Dior sample sale and nosebleed tickets for a Yankees game, i'd pick the Yankees game in a heartbeat. i'd pick almost any sporting event in a heartbeat. maybe even hockey. (maybe.)

so. anyone know anyone in sports who can get me a job?

mb

it's no wonder about lindsay

it was really just an accident the other night. i was flipping through channels, looking for baseball scores, when i came upon the E! network. Living Lohan was on, and i made the grave mistake of not changing the channel fast enough.

now... it's one of the shows on my DVR list. 

gaaaah! i need an intervention. the show is a train wreck and i can't look away. Dina Lohan is, i'm convinced, the devil incarnate. maybe she's not actually a terrible, selfish, vapid person, but she certainly presents herself as such. and it's not like she's being treated unfairly by the press. she has invited cameras into her mess of a life and just lays herself out there. i have no choice but to hate her. 

i was initially drawn in because a friend of mine teaches at Ali and Cody's school. the episode on the other night involved Ali being picked on by classmates. i told myself maybe i'd see my friend on the show somehow, i better keep watching. and then i just couldn't stop, as Dina threw Ali to the Access Hollywood wolves, but not before giving her a little lesson in Tabloid 101. she grilled the poor girl with questions celeb reporters typically ask—harsh, obnoxious, inappropriate questions. 

and i really believed, watching this scene go down, that she has no concept of what it means to be a mother. she looks at her kids and sees dollar signs. 

which apparently makes for riveting television. the episode i watched last night (sue me—it'd been a long day, my brain was satisfied with trashy TV) included Dina going to a really tacky party in the city held in honor of a really bad cover she shot for a magazine. her kids were home with their cousin/babysitter, and there was an electrical fire. the kids couldn't get through to Dina because her voicemail box was full. when they finally reached her—oh, no, i'm sorry, her bodyguard—she learned they were alive and stayed at the party. 

i'm sure i'll be sufficiently disgusted (either with the Lohans or myself) soon enough and will be over this ridiculous show. but the previews for the next episode showed Dina and Ali nearly coming to blows over a puppy Ali got without her mother's permission. don't hold it against me, but i have to watch. 

mb

be prepared indeed

i got to work later than i wanted to today, because i was riveted watching the Today show this morning. Ann Curry was interviewing two of the Boy Scouts who were caught in that tornado in Iowa last night. 

all i could think while watching these two boys—who couldn't have been older than 12 or 13—explain what they witnessed, how they reacted, what they're feeling now, was that if i ever have a son, he is becoming a Boy Scout. i have never seen more mature, well-spoken, sensitive adolescent boys. and this was a mere hours after a tornado destroyed their camp, killed four of their friends, changed their lives. 

i was a Brownie and a Junior Girl Scout back in the day, and i suppose i gained some important things from that experience—mad skills with popsicle sticks, for example, and that neat silver Frisbee i won for selling enough cookies—but i never learned how to apply a tourniquet or how to give CPR or what steps to take if a natural disaster descended and, say, ripped the roof off a building i happened to be in. 

i was amazed and humbled and heartened and heartbroken watching those boys this morning. their parents were standing behind them during the interview, and you could tell that they were still shell-shocked, having come thisclose to losing their babies, and, it seemed, as stunned as i was at their poise and eloquence. 

i have a feeling these boys are more prepared for life than most people my age. most people period. 

mb

guilt & avoidance

i had dinner with Kate last night, who mentioned that she hadn't seen any updates on my blog in a while, which apparently was a disappointment to her. i explained that i started the blog because i felt guilty for not having enough time to work on my fiction, and it was great for a while, but now i have twice the guilt — i'm still not working on my fiction and i'm letting my blog slide. the worse i feel about it, the more i avoid writing. probably not a good mindset for, you know, a writer.

anyway, at the very least, Kate said i had to update just so my most recent post isn't about that creepy American Idol baby daddy. i wholeheartedly agree. 

so here i am. 

life has been a little hectic, both at work and not at work. it's also been brutally, torturously hot in the city. today is a relief of sorts because it's only getting to eighty-six degrees. welcome to June. 

in other news, i saw the Sex and the City movie with Kate, Dolch and Lauren the weekend it came out, and loved it. related a little too much to the Carrie-and-Big story, but otherwise loved it. and was so glad i saw it with those girls. 

work is crazy and dramatic, but i'm hanging in. except my co-workers did an evil thing and forced me to join Facebook, so now i get less work done on any given day because jeezus that crap is addictive. 

i have all the pieces for my passport, all that's left is to actually go stand in line and submit all the pieces. i'm doing it soon, because i heard through the grapevine that someone wants to hire me to write stuff in London, and seriously, this morning, it sounds like a freaking fantastic option. 

the Yankees have me on another love-hate rollercoaster, but thankfully my cable box is defective and the one channel i don't get is the YES network, so by and large i'm spared the frustration. 

yeah, so. that's pretty much my life at the moment. guilt assuaged. for now. 

mb