Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The crappest HR Bod ever

Yesterday, I was on the phone with one of our employees, discussing a rather difficult issue. And then he started crying.

You think that's bad? I was perfectly calm pacifying him on the phone. But then when I hung up the phone, and our conversation just made me so sad, that I started crying. THE HR BOD STARTED CRYING.

Talk about the most unconstructive response ever.

Richie Rich came into the office at just that rather inconvenient moment. He had quickly ducked into my office to avoid bumping into another colleage in the corridor who talks too much, we have gradually entered a co-complicity in mutual office-ducking strategies.
"What's up with you?!" he looked at my teary face in horror.

Do you know that moment, when you're about to cry, but you're fighting to gain control of your emotions, and at just that moment someone extends a kind word, and that just opens the floodgates to the tears? That's what I was like. If Richie Rich hadn't come into my office at exactly that moment, I would have been fine. But what with him coming in and being all kind, I suddenly realised I had started to bawl.

When I had finally explained everything to him, about half a box of tissues later, he gave me a comforting pat on my shoulder. "Well, you wouldn't be human if this didn't upset you."

But boy, doesn't that make me about the crappest HR bod ever?

Monday, October 29, 2007

A feelgood haircut

So I'm a ridiculous cheapskate about some things in life. Like a absolutely refuse to drop $65 on a haircut. If you knew how fast and furiously my hair grew, you'd understand why as well.

I suppose it's a disproportionately adamant stance, given that I'd gladly drop $100 on a dinner out, but then again, I guess I can't really compare a haircut to dinner, given the amount of time I spend dreaming, speculating and fantasizing about food.

It was only last week when I finally capitulated, and decided to go to the salon below Delta's building for a haircut. It had been 9 months since my previous haircut, so I was a bit nervous. I hate it when hair dressers tsk tsk about the condition of your hair, it makes me angsty. Same as I get angsty when I take too long packing my own groceries in the super market and there's a lengthening queue behind me, but let's not get off track here.

Anyways, so there I was sitting in the chair feeling slightly uncomfortable, my hair had been shampoed and conditioned and wrapped into an enormous towelled pile which was balancing precariously on my head.

The hairdresser snuck up on me from behind.
"So, what do we want to do with our hair today?!" she exclaimed, and I, who had been lost in thought, nearly fell out of the chair.
"I'm not fussy about the style, but I just want it much shorter," I said firmly. "Three to four inches off at least." There. Now I wouldn't have to worry about another haircut for another 9 months.

"What?! Your hair short?! No no no!" she exclaimed.
I stopped short. Eh?

"No, no, your hair look so nice and straight and healthy! You can't make it short! Other girls, they have dry hair and I tell them cut. But not you, your hair must be long. I tell you what. I cut it one inch, and I give you some layers. Okay?"
"Okay," I said meekly. I mean, who was I to know anything about my own hair anyway.

So a quick snip snip in the back, and then she was asking me what I wanted in the front. I get somewhat anxious when they ask me what I want, because to be honest, I never know. I envy the girls who can come in with a picture of Jennifer Aniston, or Scarlett Johanson, or whoever, and be like - I want my hair to look like that. Jeez, how do they know!

"Okay, how you want your front?"
"Can you give me something that slims my face?" I asked. "It doesn't matter what style, but it just needs to make these cheeks of mine look narrower."

"What?! Your cute baby face?! Oh no no no! We can't do that!"
Eh?

"I tell you what I cut some layers to frame your face and blend in with the back. Is look good. Okay?"
"Okay," I agreed.

When I left the store an hour later, to be honest my hair looked more or less the same. Infinitesimally shorter, perhaps, and with a couple of layers. But boy, she had complimented my hair, and my face shape, I was on top of the moon!

When you spend $65 on a haircut, who cares what the hair looks like if you come out walking on clouds, eh.

Self-perpetuating exponence

In the beginning ... there was life.

Then ... there was this blog, about the life.

Even more recently ... there was that blog, about this blog, about the life.

And now... there is this entry, about that blog, which is about this blog, which is about the life.

Talk about the circular nature of life, eh.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Today I'm Hera, the Tempestuous One

Last year, despite much planning and excited gibbering about halloween, we ultimately didn't end up getting in costume after all. This year, in typical fashion, we decided to compensate for this by an exceptional amount of over-enthusiasm.

And in our excitement, we ended up getting dressed on entirely the wrong day.

Thus is came to be that yesterday found us all dressed up and heading out to paint the town red, albeit a whole day early. Does it matter anyways? Is there any dignity in the whole event anyways?

We trundled out together, a motley crew of Bob Marley, 80s chick Rita (allegedly Bob's girl), a devil, an angel, Lady Godiva, and yours truly. For what would life be, eh, if we couldn't adopt fantasy existences every once in a while?

Friday, October 26, 2007

A house finding tip

Earlier this week, I had to fly to Houston for work. (I wasn't particularly impressed by the city, although I will admit I didn't get the chance to do a thorough evaluation.) All the same, when I found to my dismay that my return flight was delayed due to thunderstorms, my heart sank like a pebble in water. However, far be it from me to get thwarted by life's petty ways. With a mad dash to the opposite end of the terminal, along with an element of hair-pulling (my own) and cajoling (the ground staff), I managed to wrangle myself a seat on an earlier plane. So I was in a pretty self-satisfied mood when I boarded this flight, which probably was what caused me to lean over and greet the passenger next to me.

Usually, I just leave co-passengers on their own, although I'm bursting to have someone to yak with, just because I assume they're bursting for quite the opposite. But this time, I was filled with an air of such jubilance and general joie de vivre, and that's not the moment for strangers to remain strangers. So I leaned over and said "hello!". Not a tentative hello. The kind of hello that precipitates further conversation.

Turned out the chap was in the real estate field. So immediately I told him about wanting to buy an apartment next year. "Will the market correct itself?!" I asked. I wasn't asking for honesty. I just wanted to hear that I'd be able to afford something in the city. But he told me about Williamsburg, and described the area, and somehow, during the course of the conversation, convinced me that that's where we should be looking to buy.

Why listen to a stranger? Perhaps because he was in the real estate business? Perhaps I trusted him implicitly precisely because, as a stranger, he had nothing invested in our future? In either case, the thought of Williamsburg started playing on my mind. So I looked it up.

And here's a tip for anyone looking to buy an apartment in this area. Start looking in Manhattan first. Look diligently and tenaciously enough, for long enough, to get sufficiently disillusioned. Then look wherever else you want - and suddenly, the world seems so much a more welcoming and luxuriant place. Seriously.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

A closet-cleaning pride

In line with the sudden burst of volunteering we've been doing recently, we decided to all participate as a team in NY Cares Day this weekend past. It started off as a company team, but I sent out the email to the gang at home, and suddenly there were more friends than colleagues - but with such situs, the more the merrier!

And so we all donned our grubbies and headed over to Queens early Saturday morning, to help decorate school PS222Q. Of course we'd each secretly harboured romanticised visions of painting murals on the school wall. Or arts and crafts with coloured paper and Elmers glue, just like the old days.

Of course the truth was as far as it could be from that. "Who will help me organise this closet?!"
Our jaws collectively dropped, and there was a visible shriking into our seats, hoping we wouldn't be picked on to volunteer for the task. Not us, we had come to do finger painting and the like.

But as with any time in my childhood when I shrank back in my seats to avoid getting attention, I was immediately picked upon. "Would you guys please do it?" the principal looked at our team. What could we say? No, we want to volunteer, but for fun stuff only? Of course we had to be the troopers we were supposed to be.

And so it came to be that Saturday found us dragging boxes, dusting shelves, creating systems of organisation and reorganisation from the largest (and messiest) stationary closet I had ever seen. Delta was hauling boxes to and fro (Benny also helped but she was only given the little boxes). Bobbis was quickly drawing the organisation plans ("red boxes will go here, crayons on that shelf, blue folders next to the green folders at the bottom..."). Doobs and Ilajna were sorting craft papers outside. Neat little piles of red, blue and green papers spread across every visible surface, with a confused looking Doobs and Ilajna in the middle. For my part, I was hanging (and I mean it quite literally) from the top shelves of the room closet, while others passed up boxes that I could place up there for storage.

In short, it was mayhem.

Everywhere we looked, there were files, papers, crayons, staplers, and lots of other which somehow or the other evidently qualifies as children's stationary. It was a truly colossal chaos, and it took our breath away. But we slowly started chipping away at it. One crayon box here, one pile of art paper there. And gradually, this seemingly futile task slowly started ordering itself.

We picked away at it, piece by piece, and suddenly, without our realising it, the time had come to wrap up. So we took a step back and looked at the room, and it truly had been transformed.
"I wish we'd gotten to paint," someone said. And we all agreed.

But also, we were suddenly hit by the enormity of what we had accomplished. And what a difference it would make to the teachers going forward. And suddenly, we were all pretty proud.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Casino night at the nursing home

So one of the main reasons I joined New York Cares , as you may already know, was so that I could work with old people. I love how they're always teeming with memories and anecdotes, and how they candidly express grumpiness when they feel it. I love how all they want is someone to listen to them or hold their hand.


So you can imagine my excitement this Tuesday when I registered to volunteer at the Village Nursing Home, nestled in a perfect little location in the West Village. Did I have a romanticised image of what it would be like? Was I going to be let down? Weekly bingo with a group of golden oldies. I mean, how could one go wrong with that?! It sounded like my life calling, if you ask me.

("Remember not to get too competitive about the bingo!" Doobs smirked before I went. Don't you hate it when people know you that well.)


As it turned out, the evening was even better than I had imagined.


Maybe it was Olga, the little old lady who sat in the corner, who insisted on wearing her red headband with macrame flowers stuck all over it, just because she had been a flamenco dancer in her youth. Maybe it was Julio, the old man who wanted to play his favourite song on the harmonica. Quite possibly it was Annabeth, the lady who kept squirrelling away her chips with a anticipatory glint in her eye. I can't put my finger on it exactly, like you never can with anything truly emotional and heartwarming.

Needless to say though, I'll certainly be going back there on Tuesdays...

The bike ride success

On Sunday, Jeet and I finally did the MS bike ride that we had been training for (and living in dread of) all this time. Delta would have come too, except he fell terribly ill just the day before, and smartly opted to stay home and be pampered instead.

And so it came to be that in the pre-dawn hours on a Sunday, unbelievable though it seem, I dragged myself out of bed, donned myself in multiple layers of clothing, and adorned ol' Blue Lightening with multiple tags and reflectors. As I set off from home, the wind bit into my arms like icy needles, for autumn had fallen (or fall had autumned?) with a whimsical chill.

I had forgotten what it was like to be out and about in the city at dawn - all soothingly quiet and velvety grey. As I breezed through the streets, I let the feeling sink in to me with a welcome calm.

By the time I reached the starting line-up there were already thousands of bikers congregated. I walked to the spot where I was supposed to meet my team, and could not locate them in the crowds. I poked and prodded and peeked and peered, but could not identify anyone with our "Miles for Myelin" team t-shirt. Before giving in to a surge of panic however, I decided to call Jeet.
"Where are you?!" I gasped.
"Just a few feet from you," she said, "write by the lampost. I fought my way through the crowds towards the lampost, and there they all were. I just hadn't been able to see them, for such is the nature of a short person in a tall crowd.

And as I stood there, nestled into the security of our team, I noticed that the sun had risen to unveil one of the most beautiful days this autumn could have possibly granted us. Jeet and I set off then, chattering away the whole way through.

Like tourists experiencing this for the first time, we paused on the FDR to take pictures of ourselves by Brooklyn Bridge. Like rookies biking for the first time, we panted our way up each flyover and let our legs hang limp as we coasted on the way down. Like a child without impulse control, I had to pull over at the side of the FDR to use the bathroom BEHIND A CONSTRUCTION SHEET. Let it be noted, that at this point, Jeet, fairweather friend that she be, almost disowned me. Not that I blame her, I'm just saying is all.

In the end, despite our initial dawdling, Jeet and I stuck to our plodding pace, and ended up finishing the race one of the first in our team. Like the hare and the tortoise, we pulled it off by the end - and - other than our resentment for not actually being the first, we were pretty excited about how easy it was.

Now I can't wait for the 5-Borough Bike ride in May!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

All growns up

I was walking to work this morning, when I suddenly found myself navigating through a swarm of teenagers. You'd think this an innocuous activity, but something about this lot sent a trill up my spine. Something about the way they stood in small huddled groups which resembled gangs. Something about the soggy cigarette ends drooping from the corners of their mouths. About their sullen expressions and muted subversive movements. I thought for a moment I was passing by some kind of juvenile delinquency centre.


So I paused and read the sign outside the building. But I was wrong. It was just a normal highschool. Those were just normal teenagers, pimply faces and all.


How weird, I thought, and moved on. And then suddenly it occured to me: I had just seen a whole bunch of perfectly normal, modern-day teenagers, and found them weird. I had just alienated myself from this entire subsection of society.


That's when I realised it - I couldn't even relate to adolescents anymore. For I was all growns up.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Gloria

This past weekend, I made a connection.

I was volunteering with the cat shelter in New York.

"Don't come back with cats," Delta told me as I left for the shelter that morning. There was a note of pleading in his voice, as though he'd already resigned himself to the possibility.
"of course not," I'd said, knowing fully well that there was a fifty-fifty chance that I might.

I mean, how can one look at those round innocent eyes, hear the pleading mews, feel the soft purr as you cuddle them, and not want to take them all home?! I was actually astounded by my own resilience, when I returned home that afternoon sans mewer.

There was one cat, Gloria, with whom I made a special connection. The first time, as I walked past her cage, she suddenly stuck both her arms out through the bars. "Miaow!" she barked at me, and so I stopped short. I stretched my hand out towards the bars, and instantly she was upon it, rubbing her face against my fingers and purring loudly. So what could I do? I crouched beside the cage to give her a thorough petting. I guess that's all she was looking for, really, because instantly her mew changed to a rumbling purr. And that was the moment which sealed our special friendship. As I continued on to feeding the other cats and cleaning out their cages, Gloria kept an eye out for me the entire time. Each time I'd pass her cage, even if from a few feet away, she'd hurl herself at the front of the cage, stick her arms out through the bars, and call "miaow!!" loud enough to grab my attention. And of course, each time my heart would melt, and I would simply have to stop to pet her.

So there we were, Gloria and me, in our uncanny, albeit momentary, friendship. Just now as I was writing the blog, I went to the NYACC website to look for a picture of her, and I couldn't find her anymore on the 'for adoption' list. I wish I could have shown her, she was a beautiful grey tabby with mischievous eyes.

But I hope this means a loving family took her home. I hope they realise how she likes her head stroked and belly rubbed, and how she likes to be cuddled in your arms just so.

A happy gut

Richie Rich came into my office the other day.

"I have a bad feeling about this situation," he said, referring to a conversation we'd been having earlier that morning.

"What?! What!" I exclaimed, looking up at him in wide-eyed panic. Every time I feel like I have my job under control, he throws another bender at me to set everything askew again.

"I don't know, but my gut tells me things are going to go wrong. I dont' know what. I just feel it in my gut."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I don't like your gut," I grumbled, "it never tells us anything nice. Come to me when your gut's in a good mood, please."

Complacency

Over the last two years, I've adopted New York as my home. I've grown to love her, like I did London, and Kodi before that. I've gotten to know her soul, so that the other day when a taxi cab nudged too close to me as I crossed the road, I actually raised my arms in a gesture of WTF, rather than scuttling hastily away as I would have otherwise done. Unconsciously, I've learnt her unspoken rules. About having to us public laundromats. And being efficient in supermarket queues. And weaving briskly through pedestrianised sidewalks. I've fallen in love with the vibrance and adventure she offers to life. Over the last two years, we have gotten to know each other, the city and me, and adopted each other into the folds of our lives.

And just as I was slipping into a warm and familial feeling of complacency, this weekend sent me a jolt or two to set me upright.

Doobs and I had gone over to visit Queen Noor. It was a balmy evening, and we decided to buy a bottle of wine and set up picnic on her rooftop, from where we could enjoy a view of the city. The night was dark. There was nobody else around, and the roof top was ours for the having. A gentle breeze blew through our hair. We could see the Empire State Building not far away, looking down at us with its diamond brilliance. Queen Noor had brought up her iPod and sounddock, and beautiful french lounge music filled the air. A perfect evening for relaxed banter and a glass of wine. Then at one point, a couple of hours in, we decided to go down for a quick toilet break. Must have been gone for less than 10 minutes - and yet, when we came back, the iPod and sounddock were gone.

At first, we were creeped: if the iPod had been stolen in exactly the ten minutes we were gone, it figured that someone might have actually been watching us while we sat there. But mostly, we were saddened. Not only was the iPod gone - but it was even more than that. The rose-tinted mood had been shattered by the sudden harshness with which life can deal swift blows. It was a rude awakening from the idealistic and romanticised view of the city we had developed.

The very next morning, Delta and I were to go for a bike ride around the city. I stood there with my bike waiting for Delta in front of my building, as the time ticked by. Ten minutes late, then fifteen - which was entirely uncharacteristic for him. Finally he approached, pedalling towards me furiously. "You're not going to believe what happened!" he exclaimed.

Delta had witnessed the final stages of an incident which shook the neighborhood that weekend. A rampant man randomly stabbing (to critical condition) two innocent passersby.
"They had four cops on the guy just to hold him down! And the ambulance was just pulling away as I reached there," he described in horror.
I shuddered. This was, after all, only a few blocks from my building.

Something about the weekend jolted me upright. As much as I love my life in the city, it wasn't the dream I had come to see it as. There was a sinister side to it, always lurking, but around the corner, out of sight. It was as though New York was reaching out to me through her murky depths. Don't get complacent, she said.