Linsanity.

Oops, it's been quite a bit since I've posted.

Let's play a little catch up - I heard back from that interview and now the crazy nightmares have stopped.

A certain Harvard grad has been reigniting New Yorkers' love for basketball.  Ooh, yea let's just stay on that because that's fun and relevant and also, there are sweet pun-ny t-shirts involved.

This is my official favorite t-shirt:

Buy here!

If you prefer something with somehow both a little less and a little more emphasis:

Here

But THEN, there's this awesome one.  It's not the most original or clever but the tone is so obnoxious.  How can I not love it?

Here

And the last of my favorites.  Because I can't NOT sing/say "Everyday I'm husss-sell-lin" in my head as I read it.

Here

Lawyer humor, even on Vday.

Sent to me by my friend over at . b0103 . who I assume got it via Abovethelaw (and WHY a non-lawyer reads it, I have no idea).

Personalize it and send it over here.

Another dream ghost.

Role reversal, though.

But this time I was the ghost.

As I've been mentioning, I've been having a larger than usual occurrence of rather negative and terrifying dreams.  About a week ago, I dreamt that one of my goddaughters had died.  This was tragic for so many reasons.  But as her mother told me how my goddaughter had felt about me I just felt this empty wrenching hole in my stomach.  It was this intense tightening of the stomach - I'm not sure I'm explaining this well but that's how it felt.  Like a black hole of ridiculous gravity-power was in the middle of my torso and wrenching everything I could feel into it.

A few nights ago I had another dream.  This time I was the one who died.  Not only did I die, but I was a ghost, and able to interact with the world I'd left behind.  I have no idea how I died or how much time had passed (but not too much) between my death and my realizing I was a ghost in my dream-world.  But I had a significant other (SO).  I've heard/read that the human brain can NOT create faces, so clearly the face was someone I'd encountered somewhere, but I didn't recognize him then, and I don't recollect it now.  I was an invisible ghost trying to tell this significant other that I was still here, that I could still see him, that I could still hear him. 

This sounds creepy now, but since I started, I might as well finish.  So, in my dream world (in which, nothing else was different from our real world), if a ghost concentrated super hard and focused super intensely, we could take some physical form and affect things in the real world.  So for me, I had to focus really hard on holding a pen and writing (really, it was scrawling because it was so difficult) "I'm here" on a piece of paper in the same room as the SO.

I had been trying to reach out to him already, and maybe this is something I picked up from Casper (the movie with Devon Sawa) or perhaps Harry Potter, but if I came into "contact" with a human they felt a chill.  Not everywhere, but just where the contact was.  So I had been trying to touch him, hold his hand, his shoulder, and he just kept looking for an open window or other source of the chill.  After he saw the "I'm here" he froze.  And somehow he knew.  He knew that the chills had been me trying to touch him and let him know I was here.

And I knew he was waiting for me now.  So I took both his hands - and by "took" I mean somehow my hands were going THROUGH his but in the same space so he felt a chill there.  And then we kissed.  And by "kissed" I mean his lips felt a chill from mine being there. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  This is so embarrassing to share.  It's like a ridiculous Nicholas Sparks novel but usually/slash/ALWAYS the girl is the SO (because let's face it, this is a story/movie that only works and that we could only enjoy if the girl were left behind and grieving and the GUY were a ghost who was staying behind to comfort her) and Gerard Butler or some other B-list actor with soulful eyes were the ghost-lover.

Anyway, the POINT is that I felt that same feeling again.  That same black hole of gravity in my stomach feeling.  Like missing and wanting something so badly that I've missed out on and can never have again.

I have had a rather stress-inducing past 3 weeks, in a very passive sense, waiting to hear on something.  And perhaps these dreams have only occurred in that span of time.  I wasn't paying close enough attention to be sure.  But hopefully this is just a symptom of that feeling, of being powerless and just waiting for an outcome that is, at this point, wholly out of my control.

I sure hope so.

Men in caps: A post-Super Bowl observation.

Super fitting image, no? (I'm so proud of myself!)

So, post the Giants' Super Bowl win, I've seen a number of men and boys my age-ish looking (and older) wearing their normal work gear of full business suit and dress shoes with a Giants baseball cap. 

There's something I can't quite put my finger on about it that is super appealing to me.  Maybe the combination of a serious business side plus the boyish affinity for a sports team?  Perhaps the reminder of the athletes all dressed up on draft day and wearing their new team's hat with the eagerness of a girl who got asked to dance at prom?  Not sure what it is exactly but it sure is cute. 

And makes me think I need a GTHC cap. =D  And yes, almost every "sports" post on here does always come back to that.

Dreams and ghosts.

Tried finding the ghost from the Mickey Mouse version but this is the best runner-up

My dreams lately have all involved lengthy cameos by the ghosts of boyfriends past. Starting in high school and this latest one is from college. Leave me alone, boys. Pretty please :)

Grammar fetish update.

An update to this earlier post.

I would do this.

Is that really too much to ask?

Overheard in the Museum of the City of New York.

"It's amazing that you guys can be so cool like that.  I mean after he tried to kiss you and everything.  But you're still friends with a guy you were sleeping with but not dating, so."

- Two girls in line for The Greatest Grid exhibit.

Still trying to figure out if that was a compliment.

Beautiful libraries.

If you remember from an earlier post, I TOTALLY LOVE LIBRARIES!!! Like, head-over-heels LOVE LOVE LURRRV libraries.  I think they are so beautiful and I love walking through them and reading in them.

So when I saw a facebook friend link to one of the articles below, I just had to share.

First, the publication's choice of the 25 most beautiful college libraries in the world.  And then they knew I couldn't get enough and published a reader's choice of 20 more beautiful college libraries from around the world.

I'm not even sure where I collected all these pictures, but I do in fact just hoard pictures I find on the internet of BEAUTIFUL libraries and now I'm sharing a few:

My first favorite/dream library

Look at the spiral staircase!

In case you couldn't tell

HILARIOUS.

So beautiful

Books up to the sky!

Doesn't this look a lot like the 3rd floor of Butler?

Biblioteca do Palacio e Convento de Mafra I

Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra IV

Queen's College Library, Oxford

Beautiful ceilings

Skyscrapers of books!

Le DROOL!!! Seriously, I would fall madly in love with any guy who took me on a tour of libraries.  (I did have a wonderful date going through the Morgan Library once). I would be ECSTATIC if I could go on a tour of beautiful libraries for my honeymoon... ~~SWOON~~

Fetish? Proper grammar, please.

So ridiculous, but true (for me).

Total turnoffs?

• People who say "would of"/"could of"/"should of"
• People who don't know "their/there/they're"
• People who don't know "it's/its"
• People who don't know "your/you're/yore"
• People who can't spell
• People who use incorrect grammar
• AND OMG WHERE DID THIS ONE EVEN COME FROM: People who say "WAH-LA" or some such bastardization of "voilà"

True confession: One of the reasons I've never dated a "native," an "organic," or FOB guy: I don't think I could fight the urge to correct every little linguistic mistake...

EEK.  Am I a horrible, anal person?

What is wrong with these men?

Image source

So a guy friend brought this to my attention a few years ago: the two voicemails left by "Dmitri" for Olga.

But this other crazy guy via the Internet is new to me (via intern in my office): i-banker's email about being led on.

Seriously, where do these guys come from?  What is their deal?

Their neuroses are not actually what I have a problem with.  To be honest, it sounds exactly like the post-incident super-analysis a (normal) girl would do.  WITH HER GIRLFRIENDS.  IN PRIVATE.  WITHOUT EVER SHARING THESE THOUGHTS WITH THE GUY.

The truly notable thing about these two incidents, other than the fact that they were made public and viral via the Interweb, is the amount of time and energy that the guy put into their response (to the girl's in/action).  Most guys are either "into" a girl or not.  And when a girl dismisses a guy she's NOT into, it usually gets brushed off.

You don't see a whole film genre or subset of TV shows revolving around men getting together and discussing/analyzing their love lives (HIMYM might seem like an exception but it's about one guy telling his kids about his dating life - not sitting around with his guy friends at brunch dishing about his weekend escapades a la Sex and the City).  Although I'll admit I'm seeing a lot more of "sensitive guy dealing with girl issues" in the past few years, it's usually just one part of the guy's character - the show or movie itself is not about the sensitive guy sitting around over-analyzing his girl problems with his bro-sephs (movies like "(500) Days of Summer" - albeit still at the rate of perhaps 1 or 2 films a year).

I'm not gonna get all sexist and generalize and say that men shouldn't have feelings or thoughts.  But you see things like the voicemails and email above and you just wanna say, YOU'RE A GUY.  SHE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU.  GET OVER IT.

So, here's my PSA: Dudes everywhere, please don't be a creepster.  I'm not gonna lie, sometimes ladies can be confusing: some girls are shy and we're told to deflect attention or play hard-to-get.  So if you must, then please push GENTLY, ask her out once again BUT NICELY.  If she still says NO, or nothing at all, let it go.  You are not going to convince me/us/her to date you with your horribly offensive overanalysis of my mental state and childhood experiences based on our chance encounter in the street (in the case of Dmitri) or your crazy overanalysis of our one dinner date (iBanker).  Trust me, there's enough of that overanalysis going on over here from the lady's POV.

Edit: This latter example of a "crazy guy" in the form of a "JPMorgan Don Juan" was just brought to my attention - although I must say this is a quite different context, it still merits a mention (the 1st two being overcritical "Why don't you like me?" pleas after an initial contact that resulted in no followup and this JPMorgan guy being someone who is taking a breakup UBER-badly - in a lying crazy stalker way).

What does this say about me?

Last night I received the two following videos from friends via email:

From college guy friend: "this reminds me of your fighting skills"



From college girl friend: "THIS is how you meet your new husband...."

Silver Fox.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!

So so SO excited for tomorrow!

Source: http://www.nndb.com/people/482/000047341/cooper.jpg

Food on Friday 5: Pasta Carbonara. (A Quest!).

So, there was a boy who was terrified of my cooking and the only American food he claimed to like was pasta carbonara.  Naturally, I had to learn to make the BEST! PASTA! CARBONARA! EVARRR!!!

This was quite an experiment - because I had to learn to make it on my own first, before I could dish it up and "WOW!" the boy.

Naturally, my first instinct was to check it out on Wikipedia to see the "roots" of the dish.

And as per my usual recipe "method," I then looked up all the carbonara recipes on Food Network and AllRecipes.com to check ratios and common ingredients.

Here are some of my attempts.  This was probably my first attempt - SPAM was the only pork-meat I had and I grated my parmigiano-reggiano using a KNIFE and scraping the block of cheese against the side of a bowl.

A little watery and not "mixed/melted" enough.

A little watery still and still not quite enough CHEESE.

I think I made this one for a visiting friend with lunch meat and edamame and still pretty watery.

Back to SPAM but adding broccoli - doesn't the green really dress it up?
This is also when I started getting my working ratios down.

 

The recipe:

Serves 2

1. Cook 2 servings of your choice of pasta according to directions on box (it's traditionally done with long noodles but I like shapes and ridges b/c I find it "holds" the sauce better) - here it's 1 1/2 cups of medium shells
2. While pasta is cooking, whisk 1 egg, then stir in 1 cup grated parmigiano reggiano and a few pinches of truffle salt.
3. I cut up 1/2 a broccoli head here and browned it with a single-serving SPAM slice
4. Drain the pasta, leaving maybe a 1/4 cup or less of pasta water.
5. Add HOT pasta into egg/cheese mixture and stir vigorously! (the heat from the pasta melds/cooks/melts the egg and cheese into a sauce)
6. Mix in meat/veggie and keep stirring.
7. Add 7 cracks of black pepper (or to taste) and split into 2 servings!
8. VOILA!

With fish roe (I just love the bright colors!)

Used marinated chicken instead of pork - tasted great but not as pretty

The Process:

Cheese and egg mixture

Thick-cut bacon (closer to the traditional guanciale) and tomato bits

Hot pasta (gemelli) and egg/cheese being stirred together

Add the meat/veggies

And enjoy!

So as you can see, I think the traditional recipe is great as a base to work off of.  I try to use whatever pork-meat I have but chicken and shrimp have worked just as well.  I also try to mix in a(ny) veggie in b/c I feel a little indulgent eating just cheese and meat and pasta.

As it turns out, I never ended up making it for the boy but have an impressive yet quick, easy, and versatile pasta dish!

Freak.

Source.

Just got out of the elevator.  I was in there with 3 adult men.  I was heads and shoulders above all 3.

I felt awkward - like I was offending the other 3 men by being taller than them and should apologize...

Is there something wrong with me???

Am I a GINORMOUS freak?!?!

Or is there something going on with men, where it's like, somehow genetically beneficial for them to be smaller?

The/An other.

 An unlikely source?

Never underestimate the power of another. Of one person you can call no matter what. No matter anything else. Having one person you can always count on who is there for you.  Maybe that's why ppl get married.  You really shouldn't take it for granted. Having a kinda guaranteed ear to listen and shoulder to cry on. But you and your other have to be better together. Support each other. Can't drag each other down. If one person feels better as a single than a whole. Then there's a problem. You need someone who won't judge you but who will just listen. Because sometimes parents have expectations. And friends are busy with their own lives. That's why having the unconditional love of another is so amazing. Not even love. Just one other who is willing to listen is so amazing. Someone who cares for you and is patient. When you find that, count yourself lucky.  And Never. Ever. take that for granted.

Not so light.

I usually (recently) like to keep my posts pretty light.  But sexual assault has been an issue my SO and I have been discussing quite a bit in the past few weeks stemming from the Julian Assange debacle over on the other side of the Pacific.

One time J asked me if it was "normal" or "typical" to make such a big deal over extradition of an alleged sex criminal.  I couldn't really think of any examples - mostly drug or Mafia lords or mass murderers who sought shelter in South American countries.

Another time J said he hadn't quite believed the sexual assault charges until he read about Assange's OkCupid profile.  He said he couldn't believe that the WikiLeaks founder (someone so influential and smart) could be capable of sexual assault.  I took a breath and chalked this up to J's own gentle nature and inherent trust that all people are good.

I then started in on my whole rant on how nearly ANY man is capable of sexual assault.  All it takes is a "miscommunication" of consent.  I started going on how men RARELY take sexual assault seriously enough and one of the reasons it's treated so lightly in society is because it is, in fact, MEN who are usually in the positions of authority that could DO something about sexual violence (police, doctors, investigators, prosecutors, legislators, etc.).  I don't mean to say there are NO good men out there doing their part against sexual violence and to help but that, in general, it seems that the individuals who are in positions to "do something" about sexual violence are men, themselves.  Would it really be different if women were in charge?  If women were the authority figures who could take charge of crimes of sexual violence?

I'm not calling for a rogue band of justice-wielding women going around cutting off penises left and right.  But I am saying, that men (in general) don't seem to take sexual violence as seriously as I think they should.  I think that very few men can ever really understand the terror that accompanies sexual violence.  Men don't seem to get what years of "be careful after dark," "never be alone after dark," "don't trust strange men," and "call me when you get there" from concerned mothers and fathers does to a woman.

Men don't seem to feel that same powerlessness and fear of being controlled.  This is not just the physical aspect, although that's a huge part of it.  Admittedly I am overly paranoid, but I am a huge ball of nerves when walking alone at night or taking the subway after 11pm.  I have my fingers wrapped around my keys in one hand (sharp objects to scratch an assailant's face) and the other flexed around my phone or iPod - anything to make my fist harder than it is.

Anyway, the catalyst for this post was J sending me a link that led me to this piece by Naomi Wolf in the Huffington Post (highly recommended).  She has worked with battered women and victims of sexual violence for many years and goes over what a travesty the current Julian Assange case is.  The fact that it has become SO high-profile and that the authorities are suddenly taking a sexual assault allegation so seriously is, in Wolf's own words, "a slap in the face."

In my own quick search for information and links for this post, I came across some headlines and stories that the sexual assault allegations are part of a conspiracy backed by the US government - revenge for leaking confidential US documents.  If conspiracy theorists knew ANYTHING about sexual assault, they would know that is possibly the WEAKEST allegation to bring Assange down.  There is a ridiculously sad history of sexual violence going un-prosecuted and given a virtual blind eye.

"Keep Assange in prison without bail until he is questioned, by all means, if we are suddenly in a real feminist worldwide epiphany about the seriousness of the issue of sex crime: but Interpol, Britain and Sweden must, if they are not to be guilty of hateful manipulation of a serious women's issue for cynical political purposes, imprison as well -- at once -- the hundreds of thousands of men in Britain, Sweden and around the world world who are accused in far less ambiguous terms of far graver forms of assault.

Anyone who works in supporting women who have been raped knows from this grossly disproportionate response that Britain and Sweden, surely under pressure from the US, are cynically using the serious issue of rape as a fig leaf to cover the shameful issue of mafioso-like global collusion in silencing dissent. That is not the State embracing feminism. That is the State pimping feminism."  J'Accuse: Sweden, Britain, and Interpol Insult Rape Victims Worldwide

I just totally agree with Ms. Wolf that the powers that be are using the sexual assault allegations as the main prongs for some other retributive motives.  And I find that completely repulsive.  Sexual assault deserves to stand on its own as a truly serious and repugnant offense against humanity.

Jake Gyllenhaal

So honestly, I always thought he was uber-dorky looking ...

Where did THIS guy come from? 0.0

Source

Love at first sight.

Believe in it?  Yes/no?

Photo source

 In any case, now it's backed up by science.  Science that says that "first sight" only takes up only ONE FIFTH (that's 1/5! 0.2!) of a second.  (Read here).

I'm so lucky!

So the boy is at Chelsea Market and amazingly remembered I had mentioned the new Jacques Torres chocolate store opening in DUMBO.  He called to say he was at the Chelsea Market Jacques Torres and what did I want to eat.  I got all flustered and excited and he responds,

"Oh, I shouldn't have called you.  I should've just surprised you with a random assortment of chocolates."

This is me now:

Credit