His Gal Friday

Tale of the T.P.

2009-04-03T23:15:00.003-04:00

Ladies and gents: New York baseball has gone totally bougie.

I had the privilege of visiting BOTH the Mets' new Citi Field Stadium in Queens and the new Yankees Stadium in the Bronx for their opening day exhibition games tonight, with the daunting assignment of sampling the swanky new food offerings at each, not to mention comparing the overall ambiance of the extravagant (and intimidating) new structures.

That's a lot for one person to cover (by subway), especially one distracted by a family emergency, but I put on my game face and wore my loose jeans. Not quite pie pants, but good enough. I had to consider my apparel, after all, as I was to be on camera. Stuffing my face. Which is just want the Pulitzer panel is looking for.

I'm about to pass out now from a food-induced coma, but just want to say that the food options are remarkable and disturbing. Most of the fans I spoke with agreed that the New York ball parks were often behind the curve when it came to the snacks and food service. Seattle has HAD sushi. Milwaukee offers bratwurst. But the Yanks and Mets (esp the Yanks) just whipped up the same-old, same-old b/c they had no trouble drawing fans into their stadiums.

Did they overcompensate? You be the judge.

Now, I'm a fan of variety. Why wouldn't you nosh on a pair of chicken mole pipian taquitos at a Mets game, or a piping hot Boars Head pastrami on rye while watching the Yanks? Both seem to suit stadium seating.

But the Mets Stadium's $17 lobster roll? Delicious, but is it ball park? Or the Yankees' "premium" sushi rolls for $15?? Not to mention the fact that both boast swanky restaurants and clubs that you have to have high-end tickets to enter. Why do you have to divvy the masses like that, especially during a recession that's already hurting everyone enough?

Granted, the little guys and bleacher creatures DO have more vendors and concessions stands than ever on every level of both stadiums (which means much, much shorter lines!) hawking fan favorites (peanuts and cracker jacks still DO exist, plus hot dogs, burgers, hot pretzels, ice cream, pop corn, candied apples, and cold cold beer) but why make the class divide ever-more obvious with so many exclusive areas?

Overlong (ineloquent) story short -- the new food options at both ball parks are very exciting, but the Danny Meyer roundup (Blue Smoke, The Shake Shack and Box Frites,etc.) at the Mets spanks the Yankees Food Court -- though the Yanks can also boast their own Hard Rock Cafe, Johnny Rockets and Brother Jimmy's BBQ.

But the Yankees bathroom attendants have *much* snazzier uniforms. We're talking pin stripes, bow ties and vests, oh my! And their sinks and soap dispensers are automatic.

Although the Mets toilets have an automatic flush function. Just in case your lobster doesn't agree with you.

Holi Daze

2009-03-14T22:41:00.003-04:00

What better way to release stress and embrace your inner child than by pelting your friends and family with Crayola-colored powder?

I had the privilege of participating in Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, today as part of a reporting assignment. And for an overtime job, you couldn't ask for anything better: sunny skies, great Bollywood music (and dancing!), pleasant temperatures, and a riotous party aboard the docked Peking ship at South Street Seaport. Men and women of all ages and backgrounds chased each other with youthful exuberance around the deck, squealing and smearing each other with dry gulal powders in vibrant hues of hot pink, ultra violet, electric blue ...

I was a vision in lime green, ha, and am still picking it out from beneath my fingernails and the roots of my hair (despite 2 showers) 7 hours later.

The best assignments, like the best books, are the ones that completely immerse you in a whole new world.

Happy Holi, folks, and may your lives be rich in love, life and color throughout 2009!

"VW" bug

2008-09-14T14:56:00.010-04:00

Everyone gets earworms -- you hear a snippet of song wafting out of somebody's passing car, or at a party, or occasionally during a TV spot -- and just like that, you're downloading and repeating it ad nauseum until your roommate screams "Enough already!" and starts punishing you by blaring the Pussycat Dolls.

But if you're like me, every now and then a song or a sound strikes you during a definitive moment in your life, and it resonates with you ... has the power to perhaps even change you ... oh balls, does that sound really, really terrible. Let me try to explain why I'm now (belatedly) obsessed with Vampire Weekend.

So I can remember the first time I really *heard* Nirvana's "Nevermind." My parents had actually owned the album for years, but as a preteen and then later an adolescent, I was on automatic autopilot to ignore any recommendations that they gave me, whether it was music, or reading Dosteovsky, or wearing brighter colors (to this day, I still stick to a bruised palette of gray, black and blue.) So while I definitely heard "Lithium" and "On a Plain" in the back of my subconscious, I largely ignored them -- until one day, when I was about to settle down and do my bio homework during my sophomore year of high school, I picked up a "Nevermind" cassette tape (yep!) that had been lying around in the living room, and I went up to my bedroom, popped that baby in, and sprawled on my stomach to start learning the sexual organs of flowers ...

... and was completely lost. From the opening riff of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" straight through to the moody hums of "Something in the Way," I was transported. I was an angry, insecure teenager (like everyone else) who was dealing with starting my fourth (FOURTH!) new high school -- this is just in 10th grade, mind you -- and feeling like the loneliest of losers ... and here was this brooding sound, these incoherent mumbled lyrics that echoed the emotions that I was feeling, but could also hardly articulate or fully understand within myself ... and I just lay there, slack-jawed, and listened to the tape all the way through, again and again.

I had a similar experience when I found Weezer. Yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes. I know it's nothing as quote-unquote profound as Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, but I've never pretended to be that pretentious, or even that hip.

"The Sweater Song" -- I was in college, hanging out in Sal's room in the Dowling dorms (what we dubbed "The Blair Witch Projects" because it was a lone, granite building with a mini airport parked in the middle of the woods in bumblefuck Shirley, L.I.) and listening to Rivers' nonsensical "I'm me/Me be/Goddamn/I am" summed up how we defined ourselves in our band t-shirts drinking Bud Lights that we'd smuggled in past the security guard downstairs instead of studying for our psych exams.

The Dismemberment Plan's "The City" -- I was riding in Jeff Tobias' car, and it was one of those boring, Long Island summer nights where a group of us drove to Jones Beach and parked and stared at the water before going to the Empress Diner and sipping coffee and eating cheese fries (extra crispy, please) and then watching a crappy horror movie in his parents' basement.

"Rock Star" by Hole -- My mom and I would wait til the men were out of the house before blasting this and releasing our respective pent-up frustrations by screaming the numerous "Fuck Yous!" along with Courtney Love.

"El Scorcho" -- The night Ron and I *really* became friends was when we sat in my dorm at Stony Brook and listened to "Pinkerton" all the way through. He later got me an autographed copy of the CD for Christmas, and has since introduced me to my boyfriend, Justin.

Justin, in turn, introduced me to The Randy Bandits, and that group gleefully banging out "Sexual Postman" in a cramped, sweaty little joint in East Village remains one of my favorite, definitive dates with The Boy to this day, while "Give It Up" is so vividly my head resting against his shoulder while he traces "I <3 You" down my back with his finger.

Anyone else have these moments where by virtue of memory, music becomes magic? Ladies and gents, tunes have been the real time machine all along.

So on Friday night I hit happy hour(s) with a group of new and old friends on the UES, and after dollar drafts and eclectic conversations ranging from anthropology to dead walruses, the group inevitably began to fracture into smaller factions that wandered into various other bars. So I stepped out with rugby-pal Ginessa and her roommate, Anna, and we began walking south in search of a quieter bar with an open kitchen at 1 a.m. And it had been pouring all day but finally stopped, and there was a slight chill in the air, but it being September, we were prepped with sweaters, and so as we sloshed through puddles Gin said, "Pesch, you've gotta listen to this song" and popped her iPod buds into my ears.

And so I heard "M79" by Vampire Weekend, a band I'd been meaning to check out for a couple of months now, but got swept up with the humdrum hopes and hassles of everyday life.

So as we're walking cheerfully along, the opening harpsichord notes of this song tickle my ears, and I'm completely swept away. It's dark, but everything is slick and shiny from the rain, and the streetlights and subway beacons each have a soft corona glimmering around them, and I'm bouncing past other revelers and feeling a bit buzzed, and it just fits. It's just the right song at just the right moment ... and overlong story short, I have been listening to Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut album all weekend, and have even picked up a pair of tix to their show in Hell's Kitchen on the day before my birthday. (In my defense, I had to pick them up with the quickness because their first show already sold out.)

And I'm giddy with excitement -- it's so much fun! -- like embarking on a new relationship when you can't get enough of each other. I'm listening to the album on repeat, and reading VW's past interviews and skimming their website, talking to my friends about them, belting "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" while washing the dishes and completely immersing myself in my new musical crush.

So cheesy. So sad. But this song ("M79" posted below) and this album are just so fresh. It's like being 16 and lying on my back with my headphones on after plastering a dozen posters of the flavor-of-the-month to my bedroom wall.

Except this is one of those flavors that I'll be able to savor years from now and relive with precious, painful detail -- bobbing and weaving down a damp city street while the air changes from swelter to sweater, and my life changes from late 20s to early 30s, with harpsichords and violins singing bittersweetly in my ears.

Ever So Humble

2008-08-13T16:30:00.002-04:00

When I RSVP'd to my cousin's wedding in Abilene, Texas, put in for my vacation time and laid out the airfare, I envisioned eight arid days of sunnin', swiggin' and square dancin' before stumbling back to work wearing a battered cowboy hat from God know's where and dealing out amusing anecdotes of moonshine and hijinx that rolled off the tongue as smoothly as the finest sweet tea.

Granted, my long-overdue visit with the southwestern branch of the Doyle family was very different -- to my surprise, I found myself rolling up my sleeves and working as hard putting this wedding together in the few days I was there as any of the bridesmaids -- but the trip was all the more satisfying and unforgettable because of it.

If it takes a village to raise a child, I learned it can take an entire Texas town to marry one off. I've straddled the fence with the whole matrimony thing -- depending on which side of the bed I wake up on, I either want nothing to do with it, or I want it extremely low-key, or I want to be a princess for a day like any five-year-old practicing on her Barbie and Ken dolls. But I was genuinely smitten with how familiar and friendly - and FUN - my cousin Amanda's wedding to Tanner was, easily rivaling any overdone affair I've been to up here in NYC. They picked a beautiful space for the reception hall, but the ambiance was all the more gorgeous because friends, family and the wedding party spent a good four hours sweating to decorate it ourselves the day before. Instead of a professional caterer, all the food was homemade. An uncle slow-roasted almost two dozen Texas beef briskets himself for 24 hours beforehand, and believe me -- as a lover of red meat, these babies tasted as fine as any five-star restaurant steak -- and then the leftovers were actually auctioned off during the wedding by a professional Texan auctioneer, with proceeds lining the newlyweds' pockets just in time for their honeymoon in Jamaica. Everyone pitched in, in their own way, and the end result was a truly memorable day.

However, it made the first leg of the vacation very, very exhausting, haha. In the immediate days following the wedding, I swore up and down that I'm eloping in lieu of this nonsense.

I flew into Texas with my grandparents on a Wednesday evening, switching from a Boeing 767 in Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to a smaller, "American Eagle" flier for the 45-minute jaunt from Dallas to historic Abilene. Granted, the latter flight was delayed 20 minutes after the bridge became STUCK to the airplane door. And thus, we were reintroduced to the quirks of small-town life.

Picking up baggage at the Abilene airport took five seconds, because there's only one gate, heh. Driving to Amanda and Tanner's new house (to my grandmother's chagrin, they've been living in sin) was about a 15-minute ride, and I looked out the window of uncle's pickup truck as we rushed past brown rolling fields dotted with windmills and stubby mesquite trees. We weren't in the car two minutes before my uncle began bitching about the 'goddamn Mexicans.'

Amanda and Tanner's house is adorable, and exemplifies how the standard of living in the countryside is a thousand times better than in NYC. Their three-bedroom house is spacious; there's a large fenced-in backyard perfectly suited for their two boxers, and the kitchen and dining room bask in plenty of natural light.

The mortgage on their house each month is less than my share of the rent in a fifth-floor walkup apartment in East Harlem that I share with two other girls.

Anyway, on that first night the family had a nice little visit; we ate cold cuts and drank Coors Light and caught up. Everyone left, and I stayed with Amanda and Tanner, since they offered to put me up for the week -- in fact, I remained in their house after they jetted to Jamaica, leaving me to feed the dogs and enjoy the air conditioning and the cable and imagine what it would be like to own my own house.

The next morning we had to get up bright and early; it was two days before the wedding, and there was plenty to do. The happy couple and I got lunch at Abilene's best Mexican restaurant (and it was GOOOD) but then Amanda and I got mani/pedis for the wedding; picked up some lights for the reception hall; did a final wedding dress fitting (and oh goodness, it was so beautiful; even I was welling up looking at her in it!) then brought the dress back to my aunt's house for safekeeping; at some point we organized wedding materials; then we showered and went to the area's best steak house; where for reasons unknown, I chose to order the fried catfish rather than their legendary steak. The family won't let me hear the end of it. We washed the meal down with some beers at a local bar with friends, and then we came home.

Friday dawned with us yawning our heads off at the reception hall as we proceeded to decorate -- setting up tables and chairs, laying out tablecloths, decorating with Christmas lights, carrying boxes of supplies up the stairs, filling up the fish bowls with water and Beta fish on some tables (as favors) and vases of flowers or votive candles on the others -- and then realizing there's too many flowers on this side, too many fish on that one ... Then we're wrapping gifts for the wedding party, parents and grandparents (I burned my knee with the iron while ironing handkerchiefs ... yeah ...) and going to the wedding rehearsal -- which my perfectionist cousin made them run through like three times :P
Then the rehearsal dinner with some homemade Tex Mex. Mmmmm-hmmmm.
Then passing out!

Wedding day went by in a blur, but it was beautiful. I did end up borrowing someone's cowboy hat, as well as learning the Texas half-step (and here, I never usually dance at weddings ...)
Actually, EVERYONE dances in a Texas wedding; young and old alike, and it's really refreshing. Granted, it's country music, but everyone is having a blast, and the Cha-Cha Slide and the Chicken Dance get sprinkled in there, too. Auctioning off the leftovers is apparently NOT a wedding staple down there, but I think it should be. Besides being hilarious, some of those briskets went for almost $400 apiece! Talk about putting your money where your mouth is ...

I went out with my cousin Ray (Amanda's brother) and some of his friends afterward, and was amused to see that the line-dancing continues in many of the bars/dance halls. Mechanical bulls are also the norm. The beer is under $3, and the cover for most of these places is $3 as well. I can certainly get behind that ...

However, my cousin was in his Marine blues and on the prowl, so I was feeling a little neglected and a little bored, and was more than happy to retire after last call ... which is at 1 a.m. How sad. That's one place where NYC has Tejas spanked.

Sunday (day after the nuptials) was a day of recovery, and so I looked forward to Monday and Tuesday to soak up some of what I'd been looking forward to as far as "Texas Culture" --- tanning in the sun, this alleged moonshine, cowboy hat stores, etc. But it gets SO hot out there -- it was over 100 degrees every single day, and at least 103 degrees on the day of the wedding -- that there is no sitting outside. You go out in the early a.m. and then after sunset unless you absolutely have to run errands, and even then, you're just hopping from one air conditioned oasis to another. The dogs don't get fed until 9, 10, 11 at night, because they won't eat until after it cools down. Oh, and with my cousins, the "raw diet" for their dogs is all the rage --- putting raw chicken/liver on top of high-end kibble. Keeps 'em healthy and their hair shiny. Handling the raw meat is also pretty gross, though.

There were enough quiet moments in between the madness, however: sipping a beer on the porch swing at my Aunt Mo's and seeing a shooting star arch across the sky, or all the fabulous (fattening) food I tasted, the beer I knocked back and the bellyful of laughs with the family (and political debates, seeing how my liberal views on most topics defy the norm down there) and hanging out with Amanda and Tanner's boxers, which I dog-sat for the remainder of my stay.

Flying back to New York today was relatively uneventful. While the bridge didn't stick to the plane at LaGuardia, we did have to wait over 20 minutes to claim our baggage, and I hit traffic on the 20-minute cab ride back to Manhattan. There's some bittersweet feelings to seeing the windmills being replaced by skyscrapers, but there was a jaunt in my step as I flip-flopped my way to the supermercado after checking back into SpaHa. It's my home, you know? As stressed as I am about going back to work (all the news I missed out on this week -- Russia and Georgia, the Olympics, Edwards' affair and a couple of celebrity deaths) there's something reassuring about laying my head on my own pillow and rooting around for my MetroCard.

Yet--

I'm back in my room now, dissatisfied with my living arrangements on the one hand (living out of boxes does not an adult make) but relieved to be back where I understand things, nonetheless. NYC is home, you know? Getting drinks with Ginessa on Friday, seeing Justin again soon, nuzzling with small cat and being able to party til (at least) 4 a.m.

But I also look forward to keeping some of the Abilene dust on my heels a little bit longer; holding on to that sense of security and restfulness I felt down there (even when elbow-deep in wedding work) as well as the civility -- everything is "yes sir" and "yes ma'am," please and thank you. When my cousin's plumbing backed up, we called another cuz (who's a professional plumber) and he dropped everything and was over in five minutes with his truck, and had everything in working order within a matter of minutes, sipping a Corona while he worked. That's the way things work down there -- if you need help, whether it's an overflowing toilet or a wedding, just hollar and someone will be over in a jiffy. And then you crack open a couple of cold ones and jaw about life, the universe, everything.

It's something to aspire to.

The Softer Side

2008-07-17T21:09:00.003-04:00

I've never presumed to be the coolest kid (nerdy fetishes include not-so-distant-past obsessions with dinosaurs, "The X Files" and Jordan Catalano) but for a beer-swigging rugby player who twice won the coveted "Widow Maker" award for best tackles, my latest dalliance is simply mortifying.

I can't get enough of "So You Think You Can Dance."

So, the boyfriend has officially branded me a dork. In honor of this new title, there are a number of people that I'd like to thank for the three hours I now lose each Wednesday and Thursday (not to mention countless minutes that slip away replaying certain dance numbers on YouTube):

My roommate, Monica, who showed me this clip of contestants Joshua and Katee performing a simply mind-blowing contemporary routine:

Not only did I have to immediately buy Adele's heartbreaking "Hometown Glory" off iTunes, but I've actually voted for Katee (TWICE!!) to keep her on the show.

Egads! I have never voted for a reality show. ever. Let the record show that I hold every other reality competition (except "Project Runway" naturally) in complete contempt. But as these conniving producers intended, I'm now emotionally invested in Katee and Joshua, and simply must check in each week to see what they dance, whether they're still "safe" and what incredible tricks I can expect this time around.

Watching dance, in my defense, is so much more fun that listening to off-key wannabe singers or imagining what the "Hell's Kitchen" entrees taste like.

Leading me to also thanking ... Katee and Joshua! They're just amazing. I love them. Check them out on YouTube or catch the show; they are just incredibly talented, and so modest and unassuming. No muss, no fuss, no drama -- just riveting performances and beautiful dancing.

And of course, Mia -- one of the choreographers and judges on the show. She's just great. I love her short peroxide pixie cut and angry words, and she choreographed the stunning steps in the clip above.

My newfound love for SYTYCD is just the most recent example of a deeply repressed love of "pretty" things. Take flowers, for instance. The Stony Brook ruggers will recall the alumni weekend where, after practice, we were driving past "the hill with the crooked yellow swing" on our way to the bar, and I noticed the hill was blanketed with daffodils.

I think I had been in the middle of regaling the guys with yet another dead baby joke or something equally gross, when I suddenly looked out the window, clasped my hands together and gasped "Oh! Look at the pretty flowers!"

Five years later, I have yet to live that down.

I adore flowers in general, actually. Every paycheck I consider picking up a bouquet for myself to brighten up the SpaHa surroundings. I always seem to find something better to spend it on (like rent and/or beer) but every week or so, I'm strongly, strongly tempted.

I also like (certain) scented candles, and silk, and getting caught in the rain and a plethora of other charming cliches. As much as I love band t-shirts, bruises and beer pong, let us not forget that I am, in fact, a lady. (Just don't tell my former teammates, ha.)

Which brings us to the Summer Olympics. We've been kicking around ideas and story pitches in meetings for how to cover the Games, and when someone mentioned "the more popular sports" I alone was the one who squeaked "gymnastics!!!"

They were referring to soccer and swimming. Silly me! I have to stop wearing my love for anything rhythmic on my sleeve.

I don't know what it is, but something about dance, gymnastics and figure skating just sweeps my imagination. I can't get enough. It probably has something to do with the fact that I don't have rhythm to save my life, and we always covet what we can't have, etc.

So you can bet your ass I'm watching SYTYCD right now, and am relieved that Joshua and Katee (a.k.a. Jotee) are safe for another week -- even if they are dancing with other partners now (what a cruel, cruel program.)

I am saving face by swilling my second Blue Moon, however.

Sentimental Woman

2008-06-20T22:35:00.005-04:00

I miss writing for fun.

Not that I don't enjoy my job; since I last deigned to lay down any words in this poor excuse for a blog, I've managed to get promoted, so I'm finally getting paid to write for a living. I'm doing what I could only vaguely imagine pursuing back when I was in college and waking up hungover on a fucking Tuesday. I may not be married, renowned or attractive when I make an appearance at my 10-year reunion all-too-soon, but I can proudly swirl my dirty martini and brag that I'm actually doing what I went to school for, and I love it. So that's something.

Anyway, the assignments are interesting and hilarious. In the past week alone I've learned the immediate steps to take if I suddenly get canned, just what a woman scorned is actually capable of, and that male walruses can eat 70,000 calories a DAY and *love* bivalves. Really, it's great.

But when you spend the day writing for other people, it's hard to find the energy to write anything for yourself. And that's one of those things you don't realize that you really, truly miss until it's been taken away for awhile.

I've always been a little hot-headed and prideful, but we're creeping into mythic proportions lately. An unintentional shove on the subway can send me into a rage, and really, that's a bit much. This is the city; jostling is just part of the job description if you want to call yourself a New Yorker. (I've lived here barely four years, and think I have another decade and a half to go before I can even consider myself a true one.) What I'm trying to say so weakly, here, is that I'm not releasing the stress the way I used to. I don't come home and write every day, or burn through the bad vibrations with a healthy round of consensual violence at rugby. I tried picking up rugby again, but my heart wasn't in it this time around. Same as how when I look at my laptop lately, so often the words just aren't there anymore.

In finding my career trajectory at last, I managed to lose my focus, if that makes any sense. A lot of my close friendships have grown fragile or simply fallen away out of neglect on my part, and I hardly seem to talk to my family. The boyfriend is still a high point in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes I worry. I worry that in dividing all my passion between work and a relationship, I'm losing my grip on the simple things that define who I am. Kayaking on the Hudson and inadvertently knocking a couple of tourists into the river. Slamming 25-cent beers at POBs. Sneaking into movies on Long Island or simply picking up a couple of 40-ouncers and sitting on the roof until the sun rises. Completely losing myself in a book.

I'm not at all implying that something's gotta give with the job or with the boy; I love them both dearly, and am extremely lucky to have found them both. I just need to get the other stuff on the same page. The stuff that makes me the person that drew the job and the boy to me in the first place.

I'm losing my muse here, so I'm going to hide behind the Dismemberment Plan:

I'm an old testament type of guy
I like my coffee black, and my parole denied
even as I flake on every deal I ever made with myself
before the ink could dry...

It's a small pitch after all ...

2008-01-05T12:27:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a three-day work week following a holiday stretches out longer than a regular, 40-hour nine-to-five. I felt like I worked through the past few days following my four-day New Year's weekend with my head down and a chronic "Case of the Mondays" on my back. Thus, when Jackie cheerfully invited me to hit a bar with her and the Village Lions rugby club last night, I was uncharacteristically close to declining. I was saddled with a couple of features that I needed to write over the weekend, had just been handed a fashion assignment that I needed to research, plus my purse strings were in need of some serious tightening after the recent Christmas spendfest. All I really wanted to do was curl up at home with a cup of Ovaltine and sleep through a random DVD.

But then Ginessa called me. I was still at the office, scowling at the computer, but in our two-minute chat she cracked me up, which lightened my mood considerably. I decided to join her for a beer or a cocktail, as she and her roommate were only 10 blocks away. Besides, I didn't want to leave Jackie hanging; this would inspire me to at least stay out long enough to meet up with her and the Lions at 9 or 10. THEN I could go home.

So I socialized with Gin and Anna at Valhalla in Hell's Kitchen, which boasts an impressive array of beers, and we swapped anthropology antics (them) and reporting exploits (me) and marveled over Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee's Iowa upsets.

Back story: Gin and I played rugby together during my undergrad years at Stony Brook University. She was my veteran; I was her psshh-shit rookie. That's a bond that doesn't fade away as time slips by. When I told her I was meeting up with Jackie and the Lions down in the Village, it understandably piqued her interest. It's always worthwhile to check out another team, and to compare how they stack up to your own current or former team - especially while bellying up to the bar.

So we met up downtown at the Blind Pig, and this place was jumpin'. Valhalla had been rather quiet and pleasant; we'd had our own table, and you didn't have to spend more than a minute flagging down a bartender. The Pig was a whole new ballgame - wall-to-wall misfits ramming into you and spilling beer, your feet sticking to the floor, bodies 10-deep to the bar, and every Prince or Smashing Pumpkins song that blared over the speakers was accompanied by its actual music video on an array of flat screen TVs, which was endlessly entertaining.

In other words, an archetype rugby bar if I ever saw one.

And the ruggers were easy to pick out in the crowd; if you've played, you just know. True, some were wearing jerseys, but mostly it was the smattering of arms in slings, bruises, casts, not to mention the sheer size of the players. As Gin pointed out, the only time you see a ripped oafish character hobnobbing with a short and surly one without pounding on each other is if they're rugby teammates. Rugby love transcends all sizes, baby.

So I know a handful of Lions because Jackie has dragged me along to drink-ups with them, and I've caught a few of their matches. Despite the fact that for years, they were the arch-nemesis of my Long Island team, I've harbored a growing, grudging affection for them, and even plan to start practicing with them and playing in a couple of B-side games this spring. I haven't played full-time for almost two years, so I'm cautious about heading back into the fray. I sincerely miss the camaraderie, though, and being in such good shape. Besides, day-to-day life -- work, bills, public transit -- gets extremely stressful, and rugby is an unbeatable way to vent your frustrations ...

So some Lions ladies patted my back, and one immediately handed me a beer (these girls know how to court new members, all right -- give a hesitant player enough free beer, and she'll not only come to practice -- you can probably convince her to wash the jerseys) and after wading through ruggers, we found Jackie, and I re-introduced her to Gin.

Now, I easily recall the first time or two I hung out with the Lions. They were courteous and curious, wanting to know whom I'd played for, what positions I'd played, and whether I'd consider playing for them. And I remember the internal conflict: I don't have time; I'm too old, now is not the time to go breaking anything; besides, I'm not supposed to like you guys, you're the enemy! And it was funny to see the same emotions flitting across Gin's face as she surveyed the room. Especially when, in remembering one of her best friends at Stony Brook, Alli, who had been her veteran, we learned that Alli now actually plays FOR the Lions. Gin couldn't recall when she'd last seen or spoken to Alli, but realizing that this vital piece of her past was actually playing locally gave her butterflies. "Oh my god, I can't believe this," she said. And on the tail end of that, her eyes suddenly widened, and she exclaimed, "Is that Lisa?!" and lo and behold, another Lion was a gal that Gin had played with on L.I. for a whole summer about five years ago, and the two of them hugged and ended up shooting the breeze for a lengthy stretch of time.

The coincidences continued to add up. A couple of the girls currently playing in NYC had been members of the New Paltz team when Gin and I were in college, and New Paltz and Stony Brook had been very tight -- sister teams, even -- because our coach at SBU had played for the New Paltz team when HE was in college.

So long story short, even after years away from rugby, it was surprising and reassuring to see what a small world the rugby community really is. Even Justin's cousin used to play for the team that our friend Ron plays for now -- in Montana! It's a refreshing and comforting find. A lot of rugby's charm lies in the fact that it's still something of a cult favorite, so when you do run into another rugger, you automatically share a kinship that those outside the sport don't understand.

After last night, I become more convinced than ever that hitting a few practices next month is a great idea.

Better yet,

Jackie and I recognized that familiar gleam in Gin's eyes, and saw that she was pretty tempted to lace up her cleats again, too.

SBU Rugby Alumni Weekend, 2004: I'm in the smashing blue socks down front; Gin is hiding in the back row, fourth from the left.

Noel

2007-12-24T21:12:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, kids.

My loving mother graced me with a new laptop as a b'day/X-mas spectactular, so I sincerely resolve to blog again much more frequently (all three of my readers are cheering.) My old computer kicked the bucket months ago, so I've been unable to hit the Web for pleasure as opposed to business for some time, now. Looking forward to "wasting" more time in cyberspace in the new year.

But seriously - peace be with everyone, and enjoy your holidays, whichever you celebrate.

Cheers!

Soft Serve

2007-11-16T20:24:00.000-05:00

We've been putting together Thanksgiving-themed story packages at the newspaper, from survival guides on what to wear to how to handle those inevitable family faux pas with amazing grace. Yet, the one scenario none of us really covered was how to react when your separated parents announce that the immediate family is all reuniting for this most traditional of feasts for the first time in two years ... in a restaurant ... in the Village ... literally called, "The Village Restaurant."

So many questions, so many concerns ... and what to wear is the least of them.

1 - Will Mom and Dad behave? Fortunately, we're all more or less on good terms again, but Dad does have a tendency to act like "The Office's" Michael Scott, hahaha. Famous "Dad Moments" do include choice phrases such as, "Listen kids: Drinking to get drunk, is NOT where it's at," and "Nobody makes rice like the Chinese." With booze involved, things could get interesting.

2 - More importantly, will the kids behave? Granted, said-kids (my siblings, natch) are now 17, 20 and 21 years old. But still. The one previous instance where we did Thanksgiving in a restaurant, we discovered on the way out that one brother had been swiping silverware the entire time. The exchange went something like this:
As we exit the eatery feeling sated and exhausted, the first brother says, "Hey, look what I got!" and pulls out a couple of silver spoons from up his sleeve.
We gasp, someone smacks him upside the head, and mom sarcastically says, "Well, the least you could have done was grab some forks, too-"
when on cue, the second brother pulls out two forks and says, "Don't worry, I've got it covered."

3 - Concerns over the fallout with the REST of the fam after striking off on our own. I'm already envisioning conversations for the next 12 months running something like this:
"It's a shame you weren't at your uncle's" ...
"You missed so-and-so, who came down from Massachusetts, and you should have seen the baby" ...
"Come look at the pictures from Thanksgiving! We all really missed your family" ...
... annnnd so on. True, I know the words aren't all that harsh; but you should hear the delivery. Nobody guilt-trips like Grams.

On the bright side:

Downtown dining is easy as hell for me; all I have to do is hop a subway, while everyone else is stuck driving or training it in.
Bonus: I don't even have to clean my apartment, because there's no WAY the family is going to trek up to Spanish Harlem and then brave four flights of stairs to see where I live, hahaha. My big task is to figure out where to take everyone after the meal, as one brother and sister are too young to hit any bars. It's a tough decision between the Port Authority Bus Terminal or the Rockefeller Tree. I suspect the bus terminal is more entertaining.

Clip!

2007-08-17T10:51:00.000-04:00

Yey - the piece wasn't killed after all (though it had to be pretty severely cut.)

This is going to be a good Friday, indeed.

Duo Takes Plunge - For Real!

A Queens couple got hitched on the Cyclone yesterday, exchanging vows on the iconic coaster’s first ascent before screaming “I do!” as they plunged 85 feet into holy matrimony.

Teri Alyse Muroff, 38, an artist and business manager, and Robert George Meyer, 39, fellow artist and motorcycle builder, met almost 20 years ago while students at Clinton Hill’s Pratt Institute, although sparks didn’t fly until well after graduation.

“I’m glad that I waited for the right guy,” said Muroff in an antique lace gown that belonged to her grandmother. “We love Coney Island; we’ll ride the Cyclone like 10 times in a summer and we like the symbolism. The roller coaster has ups and downs, like life. Like marriage.”

--Nicole Lyn Pesce

Roller Coaster of Love

2007-08-16T19:38:00.000-04:00

This summer I’ve had Coney Island on my mind – whether because Astroland Amusement Park is shutting down (major bummer) or perhaps because I haven’t hit the surf once all summer long (even worse) – so I’ve jumped at any and every possible opportunity to visit that blessed boardwalk for various (tastefully ridiculous) writing assignments.

Exhibit A: Summer Jobs
When we few (we happy few) features writers were asked to perform iconic NYC summer jobs for a lifestyle package, I immediately threw myself on the chopping block, begging to be allowed to sell hot dogs at a Cyclones baseball game.
Great idea, great anecdote; the job was wicked hard. The day was hot, my customers crabby, and I forgot just how badly I’ve gotten at math since promptly forgetting everything about it following the GREs in 2004. But still – totally worth it. My Cyclones baseball cap is perched proudly on my coat hook, and I got yet another ridiculous picture of myself printed in the paper to be added to grandma’s growing scrapbook.

Exhibit B: Octogenarian Daredevils
When the famed Cyclone coaster turned 80 in June, the park hosted a publicity stunt/gala event where not only the descendants of the coaster’s original builders popped out of the woodwork, but two 81-year-old roller coaster enthusiasts gamely strapped themselves in and took a spin on the Granddaddy of Good Times.
The moment I read the press release, I was hooked. A mere 2 days after braving the +hour subway ride from the cheap seats of Manhattan down to the southern tip of Brooklyn, I rushed back to catch these two characters in the act. And the gentlemen in question? Hilarious! I immediately bonded with Ed and Lou, who both served in the South Pacific during World War II (Lou: “The Marines are a department of the Navy – the men’s department!”) and were full of an amazing array of anecdotes. Plus, Lou dancing with the comely Miss Cyclone? Priceless! Especially when she left a vivid fuchsia lipstick mark on his cheek, and his daughter promptly took a photo and threatened to show it to his wife.

Exhibit C: AVP Beach Volleyball Tour
Who’s gonna be there next Thursday morning watching local lovelies trying out to get seeded (hopefully) against the best of the best in beach volleyball? I’ll give you a hint: She has two thumbs pointed at herself right now and LOVES Guinness.

Which brings us to this morning: I cruised down to Coney Island to catch a Queens couple getting hitched on the famed Cyclone. I knew it was going to be a great time the minute the groom rolled up on a Harley Davidson and begin sipping a suspiciously pungent beverage (SEE: Beer) from a red plastic cup, and it only proceeded to get better and better. The happy couple was a lot of fun – the bride referred to her maid of honor as either her “Hench Wench” or, my personal favorite, the “Hitch Bitch.” Everything was laid-back and beachy – from the beautiful golden bouquets of sunflowers and yellow daisies (to the bride’s chagrin, however, the florist had doused the posies with glitter) to the wedding favors – airy white parasols to keep the sun off (the irony being that fellow-assistant Nicole C. and I had spent two days chasing women around Manhattan, trying to find some who were carrying parasols to shade themselves, with limited success … and here on Coney Island I was suddenly surrounded by over a hundred. D’oh.) The groom sported three silver hoops in his ear and a matching one in his nose. The “Hench Wench” flaunted a tattoo, and the bride absently puffed Marlboros in between interviews and dress adjustments. For their honeymoon, the pair is gunning their Harley and going “wherever the bike takes us.” My kind of people.

Then the ceremony itself was very charming. We promenaded up to the loading area, where the couple took the first car, the minister the second, and various members of the family and wedding party also filled up the ride. The flower girl tossed red and orange rose petals at completely random intervals while the photographers from different media outlets elbowed each other out of the way, fighting for the best shot – and completely overwhelming the actual wedding photographer, who threw a hissy fit in the middle of the exchange of vows. Classic!

The ride took off to whoops and cheers from the 100 friends and family remaining on the ground (plus the media, roller coaster operators and curious bystanders.) On the ascent to the top of that first, 85-foot drop, the minister (a coaster connoisseur himself – he’s been a member of the American Coaster Enthusiasts since the 70s) repeated the vows, and on the screaming ride down the couple shouted “I do!” and rolled back to the loading platform at the end of the ride to a round of applause, the air filled with bird seed and bubbles.

It was really something special.

Then they exchanged rings, kissed as husband and wife, and the groom popped out of the car to stomp on the glass (a touch of Judaism to the nondenominational festivities) before they piled back on with different riders and took another spin.

On their return, the newlyweds decided to take one more turn … and suddenly I found their family and friends waving at me and insisting I go for a ride.

No. Way.

I’m not afraid of roller coasters per se, but the Cyclone is intimidating. It’s so loud! And rickety. Besides, I reasoned, I was on the clock. No time for such shenanigans.

Although …

*This is Astroland Amusement Park’s last summer … the Cyclone supposedly will remain untouched, but it won’t be the same … I’ve been intending to come here all summer long, but even while working jobs here previously, I just hadn’t found the time. The Cyclone closes for the season on September 9. It’s already August 16. No time like the present?

*Professor Blood always told us, “You can’t write about the supper unless you eat the meal.” How could I, in good faith, recount the experience accurately unless I took a turn myself?

*I believe it’s $6 to ride the Cyclone. Here, I’d be getting the experience for free. That $6 can now buy 24 beers during Pat O’Brien’s Friday night happy hour, six cups of coffee from my favorite street vendor, or a matinee movie ticket (almost).

Then one of the bride’s relatives, an elderly gent from Florida, called me, quote, “a chickenshit.”

So that settled that.

I clambered on board, my heart pounding as I was locked & loaded into the car. With a jerk, the train started moving forward, and we pulled out of the loading hutch and climbed oh, so, excruciatingly, slowly up that first ascent. As we climbed, I could see all of Coney Island spread out before me – the greasy concession stands and the free fall and the ferris wheel and the boardwalk with the above ground subway tracks behind and the sun trying to peer from between the hazy clouds. It was glorious. It was a view I had never seen before, a view every New Yorker should glimpse at least once this summer before it’s gone for good.

I inhaled that tangy salty air, closed my eyes …

And then opened them as we suddenly plunged 85 feet, and my stomach completely dropped and for a moment, as we went almost completely vertically downward, I was convinced I’d made a grave mistake and so endeth the short yet amusing life of Nicole Lyn Pesce.

Then we raced back up and around and up and down again, and I found myself pumping my fists in the air and screaming and laughing and having the time of my life.

Disembarked on weak knees and merrily shook the bride and groom’s hands once again. “Thank you!” I told them. “That was great! Thanks so much for sharing your special day!”

They grinned and rode off on their Harley, and I climbed happily back to the subway and spent the 40-minute ride to the newsroom composing my story and reliving the 90-second ride that I’ll never forget.

Sometimes, seriously, I’m convinced I have the greatest job ever. Even though the story got killed because of breaking news, the experience was 100% worth it.

And you can believe I’ll be back on Coney Island again before September 9th.

Summer Lovin'

2007-08-05T15:30:00.000-04:00

My buddy Beth and I were strolling through Central Park this past Memorial Day, equipped with a couple of books and beach towels, trying to find some shelter from the sweltering heat.

While looking for That Perfect Shady Spot, we passed a vacationing family of about a dozen or so chattering loudly with broad, Midwestern accents, and unfortunately donned in matching "I <3 New York" t-shirts. Blah.

If their appearance wasn't enough to clue you in to the fact that they were outsiders, one cheerful lass ignorantly bellowed, "I just love summer in the city!"

I scowled.

Ridiculous.

I love Manhattan; I tend to hate it during the summer months. It's not just hot, it's sickeningly humid. Therefore, those charming city smells that we take for granted the rest of the year are now stewing and more pungent than ever. You get dripped on from air conditioning units jutting out of windows and from pipes ripe with condensation when you're underground. The subway platforms are merciless; all the hard work you put into applying your makeup, straightening your hair or ironing your blouse in the morning dissolves into a sweaty, wrinkled mess. And people on the street get even grumpier, if possible. Not to mention the place is packed with tourists pontificating on how SWELL everything is while they're massing in the middle of the sidewalk, during rush hour, and getting in my way. Which normally I can shrug off, but seeing as how it's so hot, now even my fuse is as short as a Jersey girl's skirt.

Cut to two months later, however, and I have to admit: I'm having an absolute ball here, this summer. Maybe it's because this year I'm blessed with relative job security, and I happen to have finally come to a plateau where I actually like my apartment and my roommates (though I will forever desire better digs) and my family seems to be doing well. I haven't been running, I'm afraid, but I've been outdoors as much as I can, and it feels really good. I've started reading again, I've started writing again, and things just seem to be falling into place. And whereas I'm always the type of person who is going to be stressed, this summer I have actually relented enough to allow myself to take a deep breath and look around at all the opportunities available to me:

--Jackie, Beth and I discovered the free kayaking sessions in Riverside Park on the Hudson, and have passed a couple of very pleasant Saturdays paddling out on the water, racing each other, or just drifting and chatting while surveying the Upper West Side away from the din of traffic. Bonus: getting completely drenched and having to run into the Gap, still dripping and smelling of the Hudson, and pulling clean clothes off the clearance rack, buying them and then wearing them out of the store so that we're "presentable" when we go to brunch. Class!

--I'm completely enamored with Central Park - it's so easy to wander through there every weekend, and discover something new each time: A rocky outcropping you never noticed before that's perfect for perching on with a good book; an empty stretch of grass where you can sunbathe without feeling self conscious; a sandy, fishbowl-shaped depression where local clubs play ultimate frisbee and pickup soccer matches. Just, greatness. And it's free.

--Jackie, Beth and I (again, ha - that's the Tri-Borough Trio for you) ducked out of work early last Wednesday, hit up Whole Foods (a.k.a. "Whole Paycheck") for supplies, and had an impromptu picnic on the park's Great Lawn while the sun set. We smuggled in a couple bottles of Chimay, which we swilled out of paper cups, and dined on an olive loaf with with spinach asparagus dip, cheese and salami, grapes and sushi, while dishing on Life, The Universe, Everything, and it was glorious. We topped off with soft-serve cones with sprinkles from Mister Softee. Hello, summer.

--Roommate Monica and I have frequently sliced up a lime for our Coronas and gone out on our roof, where we likewise watch the sun set over Spanish Harlem and enjoy a fresh-air respite from our muggy apartment. And from on-high, SpaHa actually looks rather pretty.

--Walking home from the park a few weeks ago, I came across a neighborhood softball game playing out on the asphalt surface of a local elementary school basketball court. Spectators were crowded around the perimeter, their fingers poking through the chain link fence, screaming at the players in different Spanish dialects while families barbecued on hibachis and merengue blared from the speakers of parked cars. I loved it. I stayed there watching for a good 20 minutes by myself, marveling at the community spirit and wishing I was a part of it, too. Even after I got home and curled up with a book on the couch, I could still hear faint echoes of the shouting and the music wafting over from three blocks away.

--Better yet, I dubbed around East Village with a very pleasant new friend (I've ganked his description, but it's a good one). I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed Village bar crawls until last night, and fortunately, the company I was keeping made the experience even more enjoyable than I'd remembered. There's plenty of Irish pubs for the picking, including McSorley's (my favorite) and Lilly Coogan's (a hidden gem). I now harbor a double-desire to run again (I'm really not sure why) and to revisit my favorite watering holes that I took for granted two years ago when I was living in the Village but too miserable to enjoy it because I was freaking out about finding an apartment, finding a job, and finishing grad school (in that order.)

Also, I look forward to retracing some of those routes with said-new friend. It's nice to have an excuse to dab on some mascara again.

So here we are, August 5th, with just about a month to go before Fall's frenetic pace picks up again. At the risk of sounding like a tourist cheeseball myself, here's to stripping off my pride and soaking up what the city has to offer while I still can.

To save face, however, I will avoid wearing any "I <3 New York" shirts or straw hats.

(Note: Please disregard my Profile pic. Clearly, I put the "hip" in "hypocrite.")

Dog Day Afternoon

2007-07-13T07:54:00.000-04:00

Who says you can't laugh at yourself? Heartily.

BARKING DOGS

I'm not usually shy, but facing a set of bleachers crammed with cranky baseball fans can give the bravest barker reason to pause.

It was a hot and sunny Sunday at Coney Island's KeySpan Park, and the Brooklyn Cyclones were gearing up for another home game. Decked out in a painfully yellow shirt and a blue apron stuffed with my cash roll and extra napkins, I squared my shoulders, adjusted my hold on the steaming metal bin of dogs and took a deep breath.

"Hot dawgs!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "Get yer hot dawgs!"

I have no idea where the accent came from. I blame the uniform.

But with hot dogs at $3.25 apiece, not everyone was buying - especially since there'd been a 25-cent special on the Nathan's famous franks I was hawking in the hour before the first pitch.

"I got your hot dogs right here, honey!" yelled one wise guy as his buddies laughed. But as five-year veteran vendor Denis Shiman advised, you just let it roll off your back, along with the sweat.

My own dog day afternoon started out well - my first customer flagged me down for 10 franks. That was more than half of the 19 dogs I was looking to sell!

Alas, I couldn't figure out the change from $40 when the order cost $32.50. The woman glared at me as she passed the dogs to her sons. Her husband was more upfront. "Is this your first day, or what?" Yes, actually. I considered telling them I have a master's degree.

I dropped quarters. My napkins flew everywhere. I forgot how much the hot dogs cost - even though I was wearing the price on my shirt. I didn't have enough change for one customer and actually left him - with unpaid product - while I begged for smaller bills off another vendor.

After half an hour selling 19 hot dogs at 10% commission, I walked out with $6.18 (plus an additional $8 in sympathetic tips). With my hard-earned clams, I finally snagged a hot dog for myself. My manic afternoon was worth every savory bite.
- Nicole Lyn Pesce

A.C., or not A.C.

2007-07-10T20:35:00.001-04:00

At about this time each summer, I start turning a more interested eye towards those P.C. Richards and Circuit City fliers that I normally toss out. You know, the ones advertising air conditioning units.

The battle in my mind goes something like this:

Nic, you're either at work or out with friends for at least two-thirds of each day. You don't need A.C. in your room. You're only in there to sleep. The fan is good enough for the likes of you, and look, it's already almost August. You'll be pulling out the down comforter again in no time.

And while I'm at work actually wrapping myself up in a cardigan because the cooling system is cranked full-throttle, it's easy to chide myself for whining about sweating a little before I fall asleep each night.

But then I get home. And I drag myself up the stairs in my fifth-floor walk up. And I turn the key and walk in a wall of stale, hot air in my apartment that's actually worse than the stuffy stairwell. Stripping out of my work duds and into shorts and planting myself in front of a fan gives no relief. And don't even get me started about trying to fall asleep. The only positive, I suppose, is that I don't oversleep anymore. I don't even have to set the alarm. The past two days of this mini-heatwave (a harbinger of good times to come) I've been up at a quarter after six because it's just too hot to sleep anymore.

That's when the counter-arguments start racing around my head.

Dammit, Nicole. You deserve to be able to sleep peacefully. You shouldn't need to stop for a water break after simply making the bed or hanging a shirt. You could probably pick up an A.C. unit for the same amount of dough you happily spend at Starbucks in a given month. Or surely you can beg/borrow/steal one from one of your relatives or friends. Why put up with this year after year after year? Even if it is a great excuse not to cook?

So the mid-July debate continues. A.C., or not A.C?

It really shouldn't even be a question. My roommates each have a unit in their rooms and sleep much better. Then again, I get a kick out of being the smug asshole who chips in the least when we divvy up the electric bill, since I'm using less energy.

I go all cheap on the absolute stupidest things.

Growing Pangs

2007-07-09T21:44:00.000-04:00

I called the Momster just a few days before July 4th to announce I was coming home for a few days. As I tend to avoid Long Island for weeks at a time (if I can help it) I considered this to be A Big Deal.

"I'm going out on the Fourth," Mom apologized. "And I'm working Thursday and Friday."

Rats. My family drives me absolutely bugshit most of the time, but I do like hanging out with my Mom. I'd looked forward to her whipping up another batch of those raspberry margaritas and vegging on the couch with me watching "Weeds."

Thwarted, I attempted to make small talk, asking her how the kids are. If you weren't aware, dear reader, (because I literally have ONE friend who still reads my blog, at this point, due to negligence) I am the oldest of four siblings. My brothers are 20 and 21. The sister is newly-17, going on six.

There was some idle chatter about Chelsea's haircut and Kevin pulling extra shifts at the ice cream parlor. "Sean's in Boston," she added offhand, referring to the 21-year-old aspiring musician brother.

"Oh, for how long?" I asked.

"He lives there," Mom said.

So this is how I learn that my brother has moved to Boston, and no one in my family, including said-brother, felt the need to tell me.

This is what we call putting the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional.'

So I spluttered and got indignant, and asked how long he'd been there, how he'd gotten there, did he have a j-o-b there, etc. I think I received answers to those questions ... but if you offered me money, I probably couldn't answer any of them for you, because even a week later, it still boggles the mind that my brother allegedly grew up. Although I do know he's working in a recording studio. So that's nice.

So! If that was any foreshadowing, my three-day visit home was equally frustrating and confusing. I hit up the annual Kimler Fourth of July BBQ at my best friend Andrew's house -- conveniently around the block from my Mom's -- and that was a hoot, but a middle-aged neighbor actually heckled me while I was playing beer pong, and I guess I got inebriated because everyone was calling me "Drunkie" the next day. Which really isn't fair, because I managed to neither hit nor hit ON anyone, and can clearly remember the evening's events with crystal-clear accuracy (if only I'd been as similarly sharp during beer pong. Alas.) Obviously, suburban and urban partying are very distant cousins. And what seems normal in Manhattan, on Long Island seems insane.

Cut to my ending up working from home the next day because of some last-minute newser-snafu which left me stuck in the house juggling the phone and the computer with the dogs ... followed by a similarly claustrophobic Friday because no one else on Long Island wanted to go to the beach on the beautiful, beautiful July afternoon ... and with only a smattering of words with the two remaining sibs and maybe 20 minutes all-told with my Mom ... it was just a confusing sojourn. I wonder if this is some post quarter-life crisis that all 20-somethings hit at some point: You go back to your parents' house, and not only is your room gone, but rather than roll out the red carpet for your triumphant return, you're lucky if the fridge is even stocked or your sister kisses you good-bye before she scurries off to the mall (she didn't even mooch money off me, as she usually does.)

The hometown had become like some alternate universe. They even tore down the house across the street!

To my amusement, it was rather a relief to escape from the two-story Long Island abode to my cramped and rather sweltering Spanish Harlem pad later Friday night and collapse safely into my own bed. (I'd been even too disgruntled and self-absorbed earlier that day to properly enjoy "Ratatouille.")

But then again, despite the fact that my DVDs are still in milk crates (said-crates smuggled from behind an actual deli, not plucked overpriced from Ikea) and the furniture doesn't match (yet), it's *my* apartment (yes, with two roommates, I haven't forgotten.) My room is set my way, I have food *I* like in the kitchen (as in plenty of Raisin Bran and no mayonnaise in sight), I don't have to fight (much) over the remote or the tunes ... it's where I hang my hat. It's my own space, that I pay for with my own hard-earned bucks, few and far between as those may be.

Years ago, the city shone with that transient, temporary charm that college had always offered. A fun place to visit, and while I was here I could get into all the trouble I wanted, and mom & pops never needed to find out ... and at the end of each semester, I'd return to East Meadow and chafe under the parentals' rules and roof, and that was that. But I've been in NYC for three years now, and somewhere along the line, *this* became my permanent address. "Home" is now really just the place I visit.

Ugh.

Even almost three bottles of wine with Jackie, Kim and Rosemary in Central Park on Saturday night couldn't quite wash away the unsettling taste of pseudo-adulthood in my mouth. Emphasis on the "pseudo."

But then again, maybe when I visit next time, I can commandeer Sean's room. And Mom can whip up margaritas (or her famous mojitos) and I can smuggle some more of Chelsea's perfume in between doing frantic loads of laundry for free.

I guess I'll always return, because at the end of the day, it's family, and we really can't help ourselves.

Hell, even Sean is bound to come back, some time.

Out of the "Grey" and into the black

2007-05-03T21:48:00.000-04:00

This may sound redundant to many people, BUT -

I am watching the worst episode of "Grey's Anatomy" ever.

Tonight's hyped two-hour root canal is nothing more than a painful and poorly disguised vehicle to promote the spin-off Addison series that few "Grey's" fans asked for or even support. I'm watching Kate Walsh's Addison - whose character I generally enjoy - prance around a gaggle of cookie-cutter two-dimensional characters in some California clinic obviously being set up to be her new confidants and coworkers in a seperate series, and I'm mortified for Walsh and writer Shondra Wilson and the plethora of other people behind this rather pathetic maneuver.

Addison is sobbing in an elevator because it may be too late for her to ever bear a child - and I don't even care. I'm actually channel surfing during commercials, and the only reason I keep clicking back to ABC is out of some misguided sense of loyalty to check in on the other characters - Meredith and McDreamy, Cristina, George, Alex and Izzie.

I mean, seriously.

What happened to the magic behind the first two seasons? My roommate and I kicked around some theories: Maybe it was just better drama when Meredith couldn't have Derek; maybe we're missing Denny Duquette; maybe Wilson and her writers got swept up in all the good press and have just gotten sloppy. I just don't know.

I've watched this third season limp along like an exhausted surgical intern during a 48-hour shift after a night of inappropriate sex with a superior, rooting for it to pick up its feet and PLEASE get better, and tonight's doubleheader (or double-headache) may just be the straw that gets this particular viewer turning her attention elsewhere on Thursday nights.

Seriously.

Bottles to the Ground

2007-03-19T23:12:00.000-04:00

Glorifying my sometimes (and formerly all-too-frequent) alcoholic adventures is as Nicole Pesce as laughing at my own jokes and talking incessantly about rugby, so this rant will clearly come across as hypocritical.

I will be the first to admit I've made many an inebriated mistake in my youth, and most of those were via my rugby team.

But when Jackie texted me this morning with "There goes the Stony Brook rugby team," I was mortified to discover that my college team had their St. Patrick's Day party busted
by local police this weekend. I haven't managed to get in direct contact with my sources still playing for the Seawolves & the Black Widows, but one of my college mates was definitely arrested for serving alcohol to minors, and from my prior experience as captain of the women's team, I guarantee the teams will probably face severe consequences from the university -- especially if university funding paid for that Paddy's Day soiree in any way. The team will likely either be disbanded or suspended, their funding cut off, and -- with the 26th anniversary of the men's club and our annual spring rugby alumni weekend just around the bend -- this seriously blows.

I will freely confess that when I was an underage rugger, I got into plenty of mischief with my teammates. We held keggers on campus, both indoors and out, and were masters either of hiding the evidence when we heard campus police rapping on the door, or taking off running through the woods in a flash when we saw official flashlights bobbing between the trees. But we were rarely stupid enough to get caught. And never at this magnitude. And nothing that seriously threatened the livelihood of the team.

The kicker is that a FLIER for this party distributed on campus got the Suffolk police's attention: "The ad boasted of three bars, eight kegs and 'more liquor than you can handle.'"

One of my work colleagues sardonically commented: "More liquor than you can handle" = so ragey.

Right. Who ADVERTISES a party like that??? Word of mouth! Email! A little discretion goes a long way. Good thing they didn't include, "More marijuana than you can smoke!" on the handout as well.

Argh. I mean no disrespect to teammates, and I hope my misguided colleagues who were picked up on misdemeanor charges get home without too much fallout on their permanent records ... but seriously, there's a fine line between cheerfully thumbing your nose at authority and recklessly flipping the bird, and this time they fell flat on their faces.

I'm getting so old, ha.

But if 26 years of rugby tradition, of sweat and sacrifice, is wiped out from one stupid party ... the contempt and disappointment emanating from the athletes who paved the way for these kids will be indescribable.

But watch: this'll probably end up being the most talked-about event of the year at SBU, similar to the 2003 AXP party where a kid fell off a balcony and broke his arm. Dude! That was so extreme!!

Oscar Wrap Up - for now

2007-02-25T22:56:00.000-05:00

A "world premiere" Celine Dion song? --- BAD! Bad bad bad!

"The Departed" winning best picture??? --- FANTASTIC! -but not as fantastic as if "Little Miss Sunshine" would have won. BUT "The Departed" was my favorite movie yesterday. Or, at this point, Saturday, as the Oscars (typical) ran overlong.

Ellen Degeneres, I think, was a very funny, understated host. Will Ferrell and Jack Black performing onstage = a million times better than the "Dreamgirls." Sorry, but I was not impressed, although all three ladies have a great set. Of pipes.

So! These Oscars seriously celebrated Al Gore and Martin Scorsese. In that order. And Leonardo DiCaprio was at the center of both. Cheers!

Stream of Oscar-Consciousness

2007-02-25T18:58:00.000-05:00

I was originally disappointed not to be working the Oscars in the newsroom tonight, but I have to admit: After a run through the Park, punchin' out a few loads of wash and taking a languid shower, then a bite to eat - I'm enjoying sitting here curled up on the couch with a beer and the cat, watching the Red Carpet from the sanctuary of my plaid PJs.

My thoughts so far on the early arrivals:

-Cameron Diaz' dress is puzzling - an asymmetrical stiff, tight white mess. It really looks like someone started making a paper airplane, got frustrated and quit. She still looks more gorgeous than I ever could, but I wish she would have worn a better dress ... especially being newly-single and all.

-She can take comfort in the fact that I don't think Jessica Biel's red halter gown does anything for her, either - although I do like the black belt. It adds some shape to an otherwise formless ensemble.

-I'm waiting for a third leading lady to arrive in a jeweled dress: I really like Jennifer Lopez and Rachel Weiss' gowns (Marchesa and Vera Wang, respectively) which both have built-in gems along the neckline (Weiss' has jewels in the train as well - ooh la la!) They both also kept to silvery champagne colors - pretty, pretty! If we get a third gal in a gem-lined gown, my sources say we can officially call this an Oscar "trend."

-Will Smith's family is adorable, and notice Jada Pinkett-Smith is in a gold-colored gown. "He's taking home a gold statue tonight!" she says of her hubby - who will always be The Fresh Prince in my heart. "He might be taking home a Jada, or he might be taking home two statues - a Jada and an Oscar." Oooo-Kay!

-Penelope Cruz' dress is feathery. Verrrry feathery. If feathers were wishes were Academy votes, perhaps she'd have a chance beating Helen Mirren for Best Actress. Ha, right.

Speaking of winning/losing, the only lackluster detail about catching the Oscars on your couch in lieu of a party is the lack of drinking games. I have a bottle of tequila that's just been sitting here - unrealized potential - so I asked my roommate, why not have the two of us make our Oscar picks, then take a shot whenever one of "our" nominees wins? She doesn't want to play, though. And my life isn't currently *that* stressed where I'm going to drink alone, haha. I do have a Budweiser tallboy to savor once the festivities really begin, though.

-Ack! The Red Carpet arrivals have been cut off while Barbara Walters runs through a flurry of interviews with host Ellen Degeneres (for the record, I predicted last year she'd be an Oscar host soon enough - score!) as well as Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson and Helen Mirren. Very interesting ... but I want to see the pretty clothes, fashion cues and don'ts, etc. Arg, what's happened to me?

-Fellow Blogger & Blooddite Mike joined me at the AMC Empire Theater in Times Square for a movie marathon that reeled on for almost 13 hours, showing all five Best Picture nominees back to back - with unlimited soft drinks and popcorn - for a mere 30 clams. In a city where movie tickets average $11 and a box of Junior Mints (in the theater) goes for $4, this was quite a deal! Add in the NIFTY lanyard with holograms of the Best Pic nominees on the front and the movie sked on the back ("This is better than swag!") which allowed us to come in and out of the theater as much as we pleased, plus the bathroom/lunch breaks and the trivia games -- a fun day! And they clearly planned out the order of flicks verrry carefully, hitting you over the head with "Babel" first before lightening things up with "The Queen" and then really waking the crowd with "The Departed" before turning more serious with "Letters From Iwo Jima" and ending on a pleasing note with "Little Miss Sunshine." I think Mike and I were pretty much in step with our opinions on each movie: "Babel" was well-done and beautiful to look at, but it was trying too hard to be this year's artsy "Crash" (and the Japanese story-line really felt disjointed from the Moroccan and Mexican ones.) "The Queen" was delightful, but it was a film where you loved the actors and chuckled at its wit - not sure I would select it to win Best Picture. "The Departed" was probably my favorite of the day - besides bulging with eye candy (and when Matt Damon played rugby within the first 15 minutes of the movie, I nearly swooned) it was outright hilarious, suspenseful, and kept the crowd on the edge of their seats - and Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg? Hilarious! Then "Letters From Iwo Jima" was simply beautiful, heart-wrenching and thought-provoking - but no fear, "Little Miss Sunshine" was a belly full of laughs; I left the theater with a pleasantly aching stomach. I'm pulling for "Sunshine" to steal Best Picture away from "Babel," but we'll see. I'm thinking of making the AMC's Best Picture Showcase an annual tradition - especially since I never seem to find the time or the dough to go to the movies anymore.

-I really butchered those mini-reviews; you'd be better off checking out my former NYU classmate The Reeler who knows movies the way I know domestic beers. But better.

-This just in: Helen Mirren doesn't understand why American women wear those "horrible" shorts all the time. She, personally, never wears trousers or shorts because she insists she has a large bottom and rather short legs. Only skirts for this dignified dame. No wonder she's The Queen!

I'm now going to try and catch clips from the Red Carpet online, as alas, I'm the only tabloid writer in the city without cable, and Barbara Walters is monopolizing ABC. This should be exciting, as my Internet connection is also wavering in and out. Damned wireless Internet.

Third Time's the Charm ...

2007-02-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

So on the way home from dinner with the girls last night, trying to recover from another classic week of barely-controlled chaos (which basically defines the newspaper biz, ha) the 6 train stalled on the tracks at 68th Street for half an hour.

I just slouched in my seat and laughed. The other folks seated in my car looked at me curiously, not sharing my amusement -- but this wasn't the third time the train had grinded to a screaming halt for them in a week, I gather. OR they had no sense of humor. It was 10 p.m.

As the minutes ticked by, passengers began to stomp off the train in scattered groups of twos and threes. I just sat patiently, sipping my coffee and flipping through my paper. I'd spent all my cash on dinner and this Starbucks-drip, and didn't relish having to hit an ATM before hailing a cab and then spending another 10 bucks or so. I wasn't keen on walking, either -- not only was it now 10:10, but I was still almost 40 blocks from home.

Jackie, Beth and I - founders of a little brunch club that so far includes just the three of us (or, as my tabloid-teased mind has already christened it, the Brunch Bunch) - stumbled upon the fact that it's actually Restaurant Week in the city, and so various eating establishments are offering prix fixe fancy meals for $35. Jackie picked Lure Fishbar in Soho, so there we headed last night, and I certainly needed the cheery respite. It had been a rough couple of days, and you could literally almost see the steam blowing out my ears as I stomped down Mercer looking for this place. Then again, that might also have been from the extreme cold that's blanketed us belatedly.

We had a really nice time - the food was tasty, and the atmosphere was part nautical (the round windows and sparse wood decorating) and part Soho chic (the buttery yellow lighting and hipster coat-check girl.) What was most amusing, however, was that despite its air of pretentiousness (the wine-pouring guy, for example, who nearly had an aneurysm when he walked by our table and noticed Jackie was REFILLING HER OWN GLASS) they managed to serve Jackie the wrong appetizer and Beth the wrong dessert. I doubt any of us will come back anytime soon unless someone else is paying.

We parted ways, planning to TRY and do cheap drinks at POB's tomorrow, followed by brunch and thrift-store shopping Saturday morning before I head to L.I. to see Katt, and I decided to splurge on a cup of "designer" coffee to keep my eyes open on the half-hour ride home. Which was good foresight on my part, as it soon turned into an hour ride home. I got back in my apartment just in time to catch the end of "Men in Trees" and to eat the remaining three cookies in the bag my roommate and her friend were sharing. They taped "Grey's Anatomy" for me - score - so I plan on catching that tomorrow morning while doing my laundry, before going to brunch. It's going to be tricky -- I've got a packed weekend planned, including Super Bowl Sunday -- but really, it just serves to perfectly compliment my overloaded workweek.

6 Pains

2007-01-24T22:56:00.000-05:00

Quick rant before I curl up with a book and pass out:

What's going on with the 6 train???

I'm largely a fan of the Lexington Avenue line - more from lack of any other subway lines to compare it to, as there IS no other system on the Upper East Side - but I have to admit: The trains are new, so they're relatively clean and well-lit, and announcements from the train conductors come through loud and clear. The 4 and 5 express trains are handy to get down to Grand Central or the Village in a snap, and the local 6 gets you where you need to go. Eventually.

With no transportation alternatives (besides buses, blech - I avoid street traffic as much as I can) any disruptions to the local 6 throws a complete wrench in everyone's morning and evening commutes. When the trains all run express, for example, and there are no stops between 86th and 125th Streets, that's about 40 blocks' worth of stranded citizens who will now overflow already-crammed buses and bicker over cabs.

This past Monday I was riding downtown amicably enough when the 6 got stuck pulling away from 77th Street.

It started, then immediately jerked to a halt. Coffee sloshed in cups, newspapers rattled, purses (and some people) tumbled to the floor.

A pause, and the conductor tried again - there was the hum of the train starting up, a whoosh of air through the vents, a sudden spasm, and the train fell still again.

There was a longer pause, and people began muttering the shared thought under their breaths: Don't EVEN tell me this train is out of service and we're going to have to get off!

Luckily, the train buzzed to life once more, and we rolled slowly and steadily on our way ...

... until we got to 59th Street, and the conductor announced that, since we were now behind schedule, this train was going to have to run express. The next stop would be 42nd Street. I, of course, needed to get off at 51st - the one stop we were skipping.
The train was then going to continue express down the rest of the line, bypassing 33rd, 28th and 23rd.

A sporatic burst off obscenities peppered the traincar as we took off -- it wasn't OUR fault the train was late, so why did WE have to suffer for it? What about our schedules? What about New Yorkers at those stops waiting for this train? And people on this train who need to get off at those stations? Does skipping stops altogether make up for delayed arrivals? Maybe the MTA should make their new slogan "Better never than late!"

Maybe we should have trains that run properly; spend some of those taxpayer-dollars on maintenance instead of overbloated bonuses for MTA officials who can't tell their asses from their MetroCards - if they even use the public transit system they oversee.

So my "case of the Mondays" was inflamed by having to get off at Grand Central, take the Shuttle to Times Square, and then ride the 1 train downtown to 34th Street. Four trains to get from the Upper East Side to West Midtown? Argggghhh.

These things come in threes, however, and so of course we have today's misadventure:

I overslept and was already running late, so I ducked in and out of the shower, dressed, and flew out the door as quick as I could, hopped on a train, prepared to sit back and read the paper until it was time to transfer at 51st Street ...

Just before reaching 86th Street, the train grinds to a sudden halt. No one thinks much of this; there's probably just a train at the station in front of us.

We sit. We sit for a long minute. Two long minutes. Too many long minutes.

There's a "ding!" on the speakers overhead, and we're all told that this train is no longer in service and we are going to have to walk through the cars all the way up to the front of the train to exit onto the station platform.

There's a chorus of curses, for my car is stuck smack in the middle, it's rush hour, and because the train is packed like the proverbial can of sardines, it's going to be forever and a day before we finally make our way up to the first car.

I time us with my phone, and it takes almost 10 minutes to crawl through six train cars before I finally emerge on the platform. Lovely. I imagine it could only run more smoothly if the train was actually on fire or something. And in these troubled times, ha, who knows or really dares to imagine?

So once again, I had to take an express train downtown and do the three-train-shuffle to get to Penn Station. Added bonus: I was 45 minutes late to work. Brilliant!

Granted, no one was hurt; this is nothing compared to the London bombings, thank goodness; it was just an inconvenient morning that made for a sub-par blog post.
Regardless, morning commutes shouldn't grind to a halt over one subway line having technical difficulties or ongoing police investigations that are never fully explained.

We. Need. A. Second. Avenue. Line.

Seriously.
Well, hopefully tomorrow's trip to the ole salt mill will be completely uneventful - although I'm still one mishap shy of the Rule of Three.

Jack Bauer vs Super Powers

2007-01-22T23:30:00.000-05:00

Forget Clinton versus Obama – in the never-ending quest for the American public's love and devotion, there's an even hotter match-up this spring on Monday nights: "24" and "Heroes" now share the same 9 p.m. timeslot!

Egads! For those of us without TiVo or DVR, what to do?

Like a similar Democratic pair making headlines, here we have the popular, well-known powerhouse versus the inspiring, feel-good first-timer. Fox's "24" has been around the block for several years now with million-dollar name recognition you can't beat, and that name is Sutherland. As in Kiefer. As in badass blond with the steel blue eyes who wielded a switchblade like it was nobody's business back in the balmy days of "Stand By Me" and who can now pull a man from a burning helicopter lodged in a suburban Los Angeles roof before beating the shit out of his own brother!

However, hearts are also won over by the earnestness of "Heroes," the fresh-faced sitcom that pulled ahead of the pack in a stunning performance last season amid a sea of mediocre wannabes. Besides, who doesn't love scene-stealing supporting character Hiro, who can freeze time and teleport while cheerfully bumbling the English language in 2007's take on the stereotype immortalized by Data in "Goonies"? He's one of those characters that you don't WANT to like, because he's so cute and EVERYONE loves him, but who wins you over just the same because he's great! If only the show was, too. I think "Heroes" has a lot of potential, but it needs to run a few seasons before it reaches its peak performance.

Even "24" had its dud-moments early on (Kim vs. the mountain lion anyone? I rest my case.)

Clearly I’m a devoted "24" addict – to quote my roommate, "It's like crack." A show that you KNOW is ridiculous and yet really makes you believe, wholeheartedly, that Jack Bauer can actually run across roofs, fake his own death, survive torture for 2 years (without saying a word!) by the Chinese, bring down presidents and take out a roomful of men BY HIMSELF is truly a charismatic bit of television. Plus, the suspenseful plot twists and the almost-callous ease in which the show kills off its main characters really keep pulses racing (as does Jack himself, especially in this season's very sexy long-sleeved crewneck shirt.) Roommate-Monica and I actually screamed out loud when the identity of Jack's brother was revealed tonight. Alas, we only chuckled once during "Heroes," over a horrible bit of writing I can't even remember. Something like, "Should I keep looking over my shoulder?" "Only if you wanna see where you've been." What?!

That's "Heroes'" biggest weakness: the writing. It's terrible. Maybe I'm just a word-snob, but with lines like these, who needs enemies?

Power-absorbing Peter: "Did I save the world???"
Spontaneously-regenerating Claire: "I don't know - I'm just a cheerleader!"

D'oh!

Versus Jack Bauer growling on "24":

Jack to a sniveling teenager in Season 5: "The only reason you're still conscious is I don't want to carry you."

Or tonight:

Jack: "I'm going to have to start hurting you."
His brother: "You're hurting me now!"
Jack: "Trust me – I'm not."

Ouch!

But there IS something about "Heroes" that keeps inspiring us to tune back in – the characters, for one thing. A couple are duds (the Cheerleader) but I'm a fan of Peter (speaking of Peter, who else noticed that his brother's wife on "Heroes" – the one in the wheelchair – is also Jack Bauer's brother's wife in "24"? You seriously can't make this shit up, guys; television is almost as incestuous as its shows' own plotlines.) The writing is riddled in clichés, and Monica and I can easily guess what each character is going to say before they say it. But, we DO care about these "ordinary people with extraordinary abilities " and sincerely want to see what happens next. So we're hanging in there. I opt for "24" over "Heroes" in a heartbeat, but tonight at least we were able to tape one while watching the other, so we ended up seeing both after all.

For today, anyway, I got to have my cake and eat it, too, so to speak. But parts of it were just a little too sweet, and it was finished far too soon.

Holy Hillary!

2007-01-21T12:35:00.000-05:00

Due to yesterday's 8-hour pub crawl (which ended up being a surprisingly good time, and left me wrestling with whether or not to attempt a couple of practices with the dreaded "sworn enemy" team this upcoming February ... ) I swaddled myself up in my PJs and was out like a light at the unseasonably early hour of 11 p.m. Thus, I was up bright and early at 7:30 a.m. today, sans-alarm. So when I ran downstairs to buy a cup of joe (as I finally had to toss out the coffee pot Mom had bought me on my first day of college – more than six years ago, now; how time flies!) I was pleasantly surprised to see that my New York Times was actually THERE, on the stoop, where it's SUPPOSED to be every morning, but which inevitably gets swiped four days out of seven before I can get to it. Looks like I got a head start on those thieving little fuckers this morning. Nice!

So I saw no reason to buy a copy of the News today, as wading through the Times would keep me busy enough, and I planned on picking up a free copy at work tomorrow.

Until I saw the headline on a stack of 'em inside the corner bodega:

"I'M IN!"

– beneath a pic of a radiant Hillary Clinton.

"Hillary launches historic bid for presidency, pages 2-8"

Holy shit.

So I grabbed a copy of the News as well, and read through the eight pages detailing her officially entering the presidential race – and assuring she's in it to win it – after years of speculation.

I guess I never really took her too-too seriously in the past, and even when I did, I always scoffed her off as too polarizing and burdened with too much baggage. She would make an interesting candidate, and lord knows she has the name recognition and the money to pose a threat – but at the end of the day, it would be a heartbreaker when she inevitably lost.

Yet I dunno; call me naïve or a gushing girly, but the headlines have gotten my hibernating feminist riled up. I'm really EXCITED. I still hold reservations, since no Democratic candidate can unite the Republicans together with the passion and hatred that Hillary can, and for the record, I am not even positive I would necessarily vote for her; I can be as hesitant in my voting practices as many of Mrs. Clinton's critics claim her to be. But Hillary's first shot across the general election bow definitely struck a chord within me that harks back to that little girl who briefly dreamed about America's highest office, herself, when she was elected student council president in seventh grade in Atlanta. The guys in my Georgia history class used to dance around me chanting, "Women's rights! Cha-cha-cha!" but the hell with them. Now that we're all sexually active, I'm sure they're less inclined to taunt and picket fab femmes and more ready to wine and dine 'em.

Love her or hate her, who isn't intrigued by the thought of ovaries in the Oval Office? Ovaries with interns of their own, that is.

Weekend Buzz

2007-01-20T10:56:00.000-05:00

I slept until 10 this morning, which was absolutely delicious after the manic week of sometimes working til 2 a.m. (damn you, Golden Globes!) but, it would have been even better if I could have stayed in bed until noon. Yesterday, however, I promised Rugby-Jackie I'd meet her for a rugby fundraiser/bar crawl today at noon-thirty. Since I'm always running late, I wanted to give myself a couple of hours headstart to languidly shower and make an egg sandwich. Of course, I'm online instead.

Pros of the upcoming crawl:

-I like beer.
-We're starting at Off The Wagon, one of my favorite Village bars.
-This means we'll probably be sticking to the Village, which I've missed terribly since moving out of it a year and a half ago.
-It's a nice day.
-Jackie is fun.
-I love beer.

Cons of said-crawl:

-It's a fundraiser to benefit a rival team that I've fostered serious animosity toward off and on for the past three years.
-Rugby Jackie is joining said-team, and I'm jealous they are taking my friend.
-I would rather shop for necessities today: new flats & professional duds for work, groceries for the fridge, perhaps a pair of jeans WITHOUT tears in them.
-The team we're bar-hopping with doesn't sing rugby songs, drink spilt beer off the floor or do anything fun.

Silver linings:

-We're meeting up with this team's male counterparts later, and meeting new rugby men is generally a positive experience.
-I could make new friends and grow as a person.
-Jackie just called, and we may duck away from the crawl early to do some shopping.

***

Now I am prospecting through my closet, picking out a flattering pair of jeans and snazzy t-shirt that will look good, but won't look like I'm TRYING to look good (I usually succeed at not looking like I'm trying, ha) and my stomach is grumbling about those eggs.

To be continued ...

Resumption

2007-01-19T00:02:00.000-05:00

Forgive me reader, for I have sinned. It’s been more than three months since my last confession.

Somewhere along the line, I lost my muse.

Once my fingers sailed easily across the keyboard leaving a stream of words in their wake; now most nights I sprawl across my bed, staring at my laptop blankly before hiding behind another episode of “24” or “Grey’s Anatomy.” I lose myself in other people’s stories instead of creating my own.

I’m not sure where or when I strayed, exactly. I still love writing – at last, I’m doing it for a living, and although the long hours and frenetic pace of the newsroom are probably partly to blame for draining my energy, I still get that itch in my fingers all the time. I’ve had plenty of amusing anecdotes to share – nights out with the rugby gals, near-misses with potential “soulmates” and plenty of quintessential “Only in New York” moments, from losing myself in the Picasso exhibit at the Guggenheim to dining over the Rockefeller Tree or soaking up sun on the steps of the Met. I went to Miami for a travel story, have reserved tickets to the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France, turned 26 in Atlantic City and celebrated Christmas. My career is steadily taking off, I’ve made new friends and fallen out of touch with old ones, and decided to remain in my El Barrio apartment despite my love/hate relationship with it. In other words, I have plenty of fodder to work with, plenty of tales I’ve already told orally over pints at POB’s or Scratchers that have left my listeners laughing … yet when I sit down to write it all out, the words just escape me. It always came so easily to me before; now it’s such an effort – like lacing my sneakers and trying to run 3 miles when I haven’t worked out in months.

But here it is. This post (though admittedly self-absorbed) is Me making an Effort. This is Step One of a half-grasped New Year’s resolution I never officially made. Writing is what I do, and somewhere along the line I stopped pursuing it. Even at work, despite fits and spurts of good clips – including one that made the front page a couple of weeks ago – for the most part I’ve been bogged down compiling listings, calling in photos and interviewing and hiring new interns – valid reasons for falling behind in pitching and churning out stories, but all the same, there was no excuse not to maybe stay a little later one night, or come in on a Saturday when no one was around, to really come up with something that pops. In life, in work, with my bills, with my friends, I feel like I gave up the fight months ago and allowed myself to get so swamped that I pass each day doing just enough to get by – like paying merely the minimum balance owed on my credit card instead of tightening my purse strings and making a real dent in my debt.

So! Even if it comes out boring, lame or inarticulate, I’m forcing myself to blog for 20 minutes every night after work. You’ve got to rub two sticks together and break some eggs if you want to get cookin’, right? It’ll hopefully get easier as I go along – and who knows? If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll regain my regular readers when I finally hit my stride.

Caps Off to Drinking Accessories

2006-10-04T00:06:00.000-04:00

So I worked TWELVE hours today, not leaving the newsroom until 10 p.m. I'm tired, grumpy and starving (no time for dinner, and now it's too late to eat anything) but I'm also very happy.

Tah-dah!

I snagged a new ring. It's a sterling silver bottle opener, which perfectly compliments my Reef Fanning flip-flops (I have the olive & lavender pair.)

The Reefs have a bottle opener, too - on the bottom, as seen below. I love them. I mean, I *love* them. Problem is, flip-flops are seasonal. My new ring, however, works year-round.

See the church key on the bottom to crack open your Killians? Hottt

Now I'm just waiting for the underwear line.

Haute Shot

2006-09-15T00:13:00.000-04:00

A journalist’s job is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.

I remember Professor Serrin feeding us that mantra all throughout our Reporting Social Justice seminar. “No one goes into journalism for the money,” he laughed. “For that, you go on to write books.”

No, in all seriousness – he had a good point when he said all of us (I hope) got into journalism because we wanted to make a difference in some way – to tell the untold story; to bring down corrupt politicians; to bring about social change; to uphold our basic rights of freedom of speech and expression; or, more succinctly, to right wrongs.

That’s why I am still so enamored with print newspapers. That’s where the action is. In New York City, anyway, the daily tabloids are what real, blue-collar people read. The New York Times may have national and international news down pat, but the Daily News and (sigh) the Post cover stories about real people and what’s really going on in the five boroughs (or at least, some of us try to) and that’s what your average Joe-subway-rider turns to when he wants to stay informed. When I wrote for The New York Observer, no one noticed if I had a clip; my big coups of being RIGHT THERE when the lights fell down on the von Furstenberg show, or sneaking backstage at the Gwen Stefani L.A.M.B. runway and interviewing Gwen, Gavin and Lenny Kravitz, went largely unnoticed. Writing where I write now, however, I get emails and text messages from friends and family all the time, because this paper is so much more relevant and accessible to them.

Yet, for all my red-blooded good intentions (with a healthy mix of ambition) I *do* write for features, and therefore, many of my stories *are* very, very fluffy.

And what eternally amuses/exasperates me is that the fluffier subject matter gets so much more play than the projects I take so seriously.

Cases-in-point:

My first news feature that I actually found worth framin’ was on the Catholic schools and parishes closing in Manhattan and the Bronx last spring – only a year after another slew of closings across Brooklyn. I put my heart and soul into that piece, and found myself running around the Bronx in the freezing cold at 8 a.m. trying to get parents, kids and teachers on the record – and while it was a well-done story with a great photo, it was tucked into the parenting section in the back of the paper. My parents and friends were proud; I was ecstatic – I was destined for great things!

Fortunately, my 19- and 20-year-old brothers kept my ego in check.

“Wow, Page 45,” they said. “WOW! It’s not even a whole page.”

And from there on out, whenever I say ANYTHING, from a comment on the weather to something funny I saw on the train, one of them will always say, “Oh wow, that’s GREAT, Nic – why don’t you write a STORY about it? Maybe it’ll get on Page 60!”
Right.

HOWEVER-

I was handed a real crowd-pleaser: the Meow Mix cat food company produced a reality show based on MTV’s “The Real World” called “The Meow Mix House” on Animal Planet. Yes, 10 cats were picked to live in a house, and had to compete in a flurry of events such as purring, chasing mice and falling asleep. Each week (in 10, 3-minute TV segments that can also be viewed online) one puss was given the boot until only the pick of the litter remained.

So I wrote about THAT little number, trying to refrain from using too many puns (“THIS cathouse welcomes peeping toms!”) and, lo and behold – not only was it on page SIX, up at the TOP of the paper, but fucking REGIS on “Regis and Kelly” held it up on his morning show and gushed about it, nearly giving my grandmother a heart attack (“OH MY GOD! Nikki’s on TV! Or well, her article!!!”)

It was so popular that I wrote three follow-ups on it. THREE! My editor joked that this was my Pulitzer-winning series.

Or, on a whim in a meeting one day, I started harping about WHAT was the BIG DEAL with Oprah and Gayle King always hanging out together? Why did they HAVE to be lesbians? Can’t two gals just be FRIENDS anymore?

Yeah – a full page came out of that. A classmate emailed me to say THAT little number had been picked up and linked everywhere. Well, “everywhere” might be a minor exaggeration, but nothing else that I wrote got linked! Except for the Meow Mix House. Sigh.

Then we have my audition to be a dancer on the New Jersey Nets Squad. Let me preface this by saying that I am a rugby player, a jock, a stereotypical tomboy (though I do enjoy skirts and bouquets of flowers for no reason, as well as softly falling snow and movies about toys.) I had never danced a lick in my life, and I felt like an asshole during the entire audition. Picture the worst of the rejects that you see on “So You Think You Can Dance” and “American Idol” – and then SQUARE it. Sigh.

Not that it wasn’t a very broadening experience, and I left with a much greater respect for dancers – the girls are much more athletic and dedicated than I had originally written them off to be. And I’m very glad I did it …

… but this was all starting to look more Bridget Jones than Woodward & Bernstein.

Now we come to the 9/11 anniversary. All the stories that I pitched up front were good ideas, I was told, but they just had SO MANY stories and angles to work with, that they couldn’t include everything. This is understood – I was really disappointed that I couldn’t be a part of the respectful, reflective package, though.

Then, however, I got my moment to shine –

This past Monday, Sept. 11, I was sent to the Fashion Week tents at Bryant Park to look for people in ridiculously high, stacked platform shoes.

I buried my face in my hands and laughed.

How should I approach the models, I asked my editor with an evil sense of (not “ha-ha” funny, but darkly funny) sense of humor – “On this day five years ago, the twin towers collapsed. But how are YOU still standing in those shoes?!” She snorted, but we both realize that this is what features are here for – sometimes, there is just so much dark and ugly stuff happening all over New York City – people hurting each other, or people just dying for no reason in freakish accidents, or people who are suffering or in need – that you need to be able to turn to a section of the paper that is fun and colorful, that shows the side of New York that keeps people coming back for more – the beautiful parks and buildings; the restaurants and clubs and bars and galleries and events that are here and only here and nowhere else; the extremely eclectic and diverse 8 million people that make up this great city; what they do; and … what kind of shoes they wear.

So I put away my pretentiousness and gamely dug a notebook into my back pocket, slung my press badge around my neck and made my way to Bryant Park. It was a beautiful day for a stakeout.

Of course, on this day of all days I’d left my cell phone at home, so I had no way of finding the photographer that I was meeting up with. I cleverly thought I would be able to pick her out in the crowd, but alas – this was Fashion Week, and the paparazzi were in full bloom. EVERYBODY had a fucking camera. So I had to resort to getting change from Pax across the street and calling the photo desk from a payphone. Although that was an adventure in itself; the first two payphones I found were out of order. I had to go around the block. The fotog met me at Starbucks, and I promised her a cup of joe later to make up for the miscommunication (we’d been looking for each other for 15 minutes already; it was getting really annoying, and it was all my fault.)

I knew she was a good egg, however, the moment she hissed, “Is that not the hottest photographer you have ever seen?” and I turned my head and came face-to-face with a blond-haired, blue-eyed Adonis.

“Oh man, do you think he’s straight?”

She shrugged. “Who cares?” And true THAT – just LOOKING at him was enough. But it was good to know that at least she and I would be having fun. We may have been staking out the best of the best-dressed in their cumbersome shoes, but she and I were in slacks and sneakers. Natch.

So we got to work. You had to go up a flight of steps to enter the Oscar de la Renta show that was starting in 10 minutes, and watching designers, publicists, models, celebs and fashionistas oh-so-carefully mince their way up the steps in their 4-inch heels was endlessly funny. We managed to convince the security at the top of the steps that we didn’t NEED to stay behind the rope with the REST of the brass, and really, we promised to be very unobtrusive if they let us just stand at the top of the rise – right before the doors – and just innocently photograph people’s feet. So, after scoring this prime real estate, we easily collected shots of over 30 pairs of shoes – including Barbara Walters and the Trumps, and Toccara from season 2 of “America’s Next Top Model.”

Oh – let me backtrack – the reason I find covering this soft news so exasperating is that aside from my failure as a professional dancer, I ALSO have no sense of style at all, so I was entirely in over my head. Every fashionista who told me she was wearing Christian Louboutin had to SPELL “Louboutin” for me, because I’d never heard of him. (To my delight, half of *them* couldn’t spell the name of the designer they were wearing, either.)

[Ha, funny story - Once, on a red carpet I was covering for the Observer last year, I stopped designer Jill Stuart (having no idea who she was) and asked her what her name was. “Jill Stuart,” she said. I asked her what she did for a living. “I’m a designer,” she said. I then asked her what she was wearing. Exasperated, she replied, “JILL STUART!”]

My Moment of Zen on Monday was when Nina Garcia approached in a stunning black 4-inch-heeled number.

I had a complete brain fart, I guess, because I had no idea who she was. And I mean, I don’t have cable, but I HAVE SEEN “Project Runway.”

After asking her if she’d mind if we shot her shoes (she was in a hurry, but pursed her lips and posed for us for a moment) I asked her what she was wearing … then asked her to spell the designer’s name (she looked at me like I was an idiot) and she spelled it out for me. Then … sigh … I asked her what her name was.

She looked at me. Hard. And then said, slowly, “Nina Garcia.”

“OK,” I said – and then, horrors:

“Can you spell that for me?”

Ten loooong seconds went by, before she said, irritably, “N. I. N. A. … “

And so on.

Not knowing who Nina Garcia is, in New York City, is like … well … it would be like me asking Angelina Jolie what her name was, and if she could please spell it for me.

Back in the newsroom later on, I was transcribing my notes from my pad onto my computer, and double-checking the spellings of the designers’ names (many were wrong) and then Googling the different women I had spoken to, making sure I got their names and titles right. Since many of them were socialites, publicists or writers, they were pretty easy to find …

So I punch in Nina Garcia’s name …

Ooof …

Not only is she on “Project Runway” … but she’s the fashion editor of ELLE MAGAZINE!

I shrieked.

Nearby reporters turned and stared. I explained (or should I say, exclaimed) “I INTERVIEWED NINA GARCIA AND HAD NO IDEA WHO SHE WAS?!”

They burst out laughing. “She’s the editor of ELLE,” said the reporter next to me.

I slapped my hand to my forehead. “Well, NOW I KNOW!”

The editor who had given me the assignment walked by just then, and I flagged her down. “You won’t believe what I did!” I said, somehow thinking that ratting myself out would contain the damage. “I stopped Nina Garcia and had no idea who she was!”

“HAHAHA” – editor laughed. “PLEASE, tell me – did you have her spell you her name????”

“Yes!”

“A HAHAHAHA – that’s perfect! I love it!” She then confided that when she was reporting for a magazine once, she’d done something similar to a designer. A nearby fashion reporter told me that once, while she worked in PR, she was working the list at the door for a party and wouldn’t let some hot-shot celeb inside because she wasn’t on the list.

So, OK – it’s NOT just me …

Over beers with Mike and Raj at McSorley’s last night, the general consensus was that these sorts of people need to be taken down a peg every now and then. Especially by an idiot.

So, there you have it – I still have a looooong way to go before I become the journalist that I want to be –

but I guess I’ve already gotten a handle on afflicting the comfortable.

Camping's for the 'Burbs

2006-07-25T23:33:00.000-04:00

As I lay in the stickerbush, my head buzzing with beer, it occurred to me that I probably wouldn't have fallen into a ditch if I had only remained in New York City.

Alas, I was at a camp site in Cape Cod, Massachusetts for the weekend, roughing it on AND off the pitch with my teammates for the annual Cape Cod women's 7s rugby tournament.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Before my detour into the brush, last Friday started off ridiculously enough with my rushing to do laundry and pack at the absolute last minute. I needed to snag a train from Penn Station to L.I. to meet up with teammates, and we were carpooling up to Cape Cod. The train was at a quarter to one, and I'd taken off from my job (I have wisely decided not to boldly state what paper I work for in my blog, seeing as how that violates company policy. From here on, it will be referred to as "Paper X" as Mike suggested, even though everyone knows where I write, as is. Alas, I digress ...)

So I'd taken off from the paper -- my first adult vacation day ever (A Dear Diary Moment) and was cramming my cleats, shorts, mouthguard, PJS, makeup, earrings and a plethora of inappropriate camping items -- neglecting a pillow and blanket, of course -- and whining at how much I hate packing and how I'll NEVER make the train in time ...

Call Kim up to commisserate over how hard my life is, only to learn that Kim had left her trunk unlocked while packing the night before, and while she was snug in her bed, some local misfits (probably intoxicated) stole all the food and the beer that was packed, her dufflebag of clothes, and her new digital camera.

How do we know it was drunk hooligans? Because the little scamps emptied the trunk, but left behind the oranges Kim had packed for Vegetarian Jenny. They also ignored the Coach sunglasses and the iPod. Strangely.

So the trip was off to a great start -- that combined with a tropical storm due to hit southern Mass. that weekend, and I was positively thrilled that I was going to be sleeping on the ground in inclement weather, without cookies. On the bright side, the robbery provided plenty of fodder for jokes all weekend. Example:

Kim, every time anyone did anything remotely pretty or funny: "I'd take a picture, but my camera was stolen."

Kim: "I'd wash up for bed, but my face wash was stolen."

Kim: "We'd have cookies, but my cookies were stolen."

Me: "HA HA HA -- I live in SPANISH HARLEM, and no one touches me. You live in the ritziest nabe in Farmingville, Long Island, and you get robbed. HAHA!"

No surprise, Kim made me ride in the back seat.

All in all, it was a delightful weekend in learning how un-equipped for nature I have become, despite the Childhood Growing Up In Various States, Climbing Trees In Florida and Catching Crawdads in Georgia that I brag so much about. Clearly, two years in the city have made me soft. Three days at the Cape, and I could still not figure out how to get in and out of the tent without tripping. I learned I have the amazing power to Attract All Mosquitos, seeing as how myself and Regina (the other urban rat) were bitten more than anyone else. And, of course, on Saturday night when we were drinking around the campfire, telling stories and playing Kings and Never Have I Ever, I cleverly tried to walk to the bathroom without a flashlight in the dark, got lost, and on the way back to the campfire ended up falling into a ditch and becoming entwined in a stickerbush.

I sat there a moment, pondering my situation, when I saw flashlights bobbing past. "HEY!" I yelled. "I FELL IN A PRICKERBUSH AND I CAN'T GET OUT!"

"Oh no!" one of them yelled, and it turns out that the girls running past were ruggers from a nearby campsite. A couple helped pull me out of the bushes, but on climbing back up to the path, my flip flop fell off.

"Dammit!" I yelled. "I lost my shoe!" We opted to find it by daylight.

So I hobbled back to the campfire, in one shoe, covered in scratches and mosquito bites, and immediately began yelling "HEY I JUST FELL IN A DITCH!"

"Pesce. Shut. Up." said Kim and Hamilton, quietly. That's when I finally noticed the cop.

Well, by cop I mean a young buck in a golf cart and wearing a cardboard badge that he'd probably scored out of the back pages of a Mad magazine. Everyone fidgeted very quietly and respectfully as he told us we were disruptive and had to go RIGHT NOW.

"OK, OK, we're all going to bed," said our coach/teammate Karen.

"No, I mean GO, get out of this camp," said Officer Skippy.

Karen, who is not known for her calm demeanor (refs HATE her) admirably kept her temper. "None of us is in any condition to drive," she said. "We're checking out and leaving first thing in the morning."

"I want you out NOW," he told us.

Regina piped up, "We've all been drinking, none of us can drive. You can't make us drive. That's a DWI."

"Oh, I CAN'T?" he snapped - I kid you not. "Where did you get that badge-" Jackie starts to chime, but someone shushes her.

"No," said Karen. "No one is driving."

He left, telling us he was going to keep his eye on us, and at the ripe hour of 1:30 a.m. we grudgingly doused the fire and went to sleep. We made sure to fly like bats out of hell the next morning. We made it back to the city within a couple of hours. I promptly took a nap in a real bed, and ordered good Chinese.

Other fun details:

*We pitched the tent I was crashing in on the side of a hill, so it was on a slant, and the six ladies sleeping inside all kept rolling on top of each other and squishing each other every night (calm down, fellas.) Jenny, I'm sure, hates me -- especially since I stole her pillow.

*We ladies of the Bull Moose Women's Team may have lost on the pitch (between the two sides we entered into the tourny, we had only one win in six games) but we sure as hell won the drink up (no one could touch us in flip cup or in dancing.)

*Jackie lost her wallet for 12 hours, but we found it in the car.

*I found a four-leaf clover --- and my shoe!

I'm not even supposed to BE here today!

2006-07-15T22:27:00.000-04:00

It always cracks me up when I catch myself actually living out a cliche.

This afternoon, I was pacing the platform at the Rutherford train station in New Jersey, squawking into my cell and waving my arms around - when I wasn't stopping to yell at someone standing on the other side of the tracks to ask, "WHICH SIDE IS THE TRAIN TO NEW YORK COMING ON????"

Yes, there I was - a Manhattan know-it-all in the Garden State's court. You could cut the contempt in the air from both sides - NJ vs NY - with a SPOON.

I kid, of course - well, I *was* the annoying New Yorker at the train station, but I really don't hate Jersey -- Long Islanders make fun of Jersey the way those in Manhattan mock Staten Island. It's just the way it goes.

Pardon me -- I'm distracted; "Goodfellas" is on TNT. It's hilarious how many creative ways they have for substituting the F-word. "Freak." "Jerk." "Screw." "Flip." I gotta say, though -- Ray Liotta is pretty smokin'. And Lorraine Bracco is breakin' my heart, here. Alas, I digress.

So I got to Rutherford this morning and immediately called a cab.

"An hour wait," the operator tells me.

"An hour?!" I flip. My interview, of course, is in 30 minutes.

"Yes," he says, and hangs up.

I'm flabbergasted - am I getting the cab or not? Where's the good business practice here?

I punch in the number of the cab company, again, and get the operator, again.

"An hour," he tells me. Again.

"OK," I say. "I have no other choice. That's fine. So, it's coming?"

"It's coming."

"OK, because you hung up on me last time-"

"It's coming," he says - and hangs up.

And NYC is the rude city???

So I'm walking back and forth on the platform, fretting about being late to this interview -- being a journo is definitely tricky when you don't have a license -- when a cab pulls up, and a man and his daughter hop in. Dammit! Pride keeps me from begging to share -

When the cabbie rolls down his window. Where am I going?

Turns out, the same place as the fella and his kid! So I hop in, and to my delight, unlike on Long Island, in Jersey each passenger isn't charged a separate fare - we all get to share. So, on arriving, the fare is $7, and I kick in $5 - big spender. The other guy goes "Woah that's almost the whole tab" and I wave it off -- but the cabbie asks me to hold on. The other guy only has a $20, so we all wait while the cabbie gives him change. Then the guy gives the cabbie $2 - leaving out the tip (tsk tsk ... I'm looking for another dollar or something) but at least the fare is covered-

"OK that's two," says the cabbie, "you still owe five."

This guy and I look at each other, and then I politely tell the cabbie, "I just gave you $5."

"And I gave you change."

"No," I say calmly. "You gave him change-"

"You gave me change," the other guy interjects. Thanks, buddy.

"You gave him change," I continue. "I gave you my fiver."

Yes, I said "fiver." For that alone, I should be shot.

"Oh, I don't like this at all," the cabbie says, so I do the only thing that seems rational - I just get out of the cab and go into the building. My conscious is clear in this matter -- I paid, and more than I shoulda.

Of course, karma has a sense of humor, and so when I call for a ride back to the train station hours later, I'm stuck with a half-hour wait this time - and who pulls up but the same damn cabbie.

"Ah, you again," he says. The feeling is mutual, skippy.

He then turns civil, "So how did the audition go?" (I was covering an audition for a kids' dance squad.)

"Oh, I didn't try out," I explain. "I'm a reporter; I was covering it."

This perks his interest. "A reporter?? What paper?" I tell him, and he whistles. "Oooo, the big leagues."

"Eh, I'm trying," I say. "I'm still just a little guy, there." I ask him if he reads my paper. He snorts, and informs me he reads our biggest competitor instead. Of COURSE he does.

Hence my pacing on the train platform and snapping over my cellphone to buddy-Grant, "This place drives me crazy!"

I manage to get back to Manhattan without further mishap, but I'm wiped from working all day on a Saturday, so I pick up a cup of Starbucks and slump into a seat on an uptown E train.

Here is where Manhattan sucks worse than Jersey:

Impatient mother-s.

There are certain tenets we follow in civilized society. You tend to walk on the right side of a staircase, road, hallway or sidewalk. You hold the door open for the person behind you so it doesn't slam in their face. If someone sneezes, you say "god bless you" or just "bless you" if you're not a religious man. When the elevator door opens, you let those in the car out before you go in - and that same exact rule applies to the subway.

Capice?

I don't care how much of a hurry you're in - there's always time enough to act like a decent human being.

So the train pulls into the station, and I stand by the door, waiting for it to open so I can make my transfer, come home and take a nap.

The door opens, and before the guy in front of me can even take a step out of the car - before he, I or the crowd behind me, actually, can attempt to vacate the car so that it empties out and those waiting on the platform can actually have space to come in -

this woman SHOVES her way in, yelling at the five kids she's dragging behind her "HURRY COME ON"

rams into the guy in front of me

who stumbles backward, into me

my full cup of coffee pours all down my blouse, burning my chest and my neck, and splashing into my FACE and in my hair!

"HEY!" I actually screamed at the top of my lungs. "HEY! WHAT THE FUCK!?"

The guy in front of me, abashed, runs out of the car and turns around, apologizing profusely. But it's not his fault, it's the WOMAN - and the people behind HER, pouring into the car -- AND WE HAVEN'T EXITED IT YET!

I stumble out, roaring for a fight with this woman but biting my tongue because frankly, I'm better than that, and frankly, she had five kids with her and it wouldn't be appropriate to say the things I want to say.

I stomp up the steps to my transfer, come home, and here I watch "Goodfellas."

Hm.

Hm.

Our main character, Henry (Liotta), is in court and preparing to enter the witness protection program. Ray Liotta was much hotter *before* he began ratting out the goodfellas to save his own tail.

And muggy Saturday nights in Manhattan blow when you're cranky and watching TNT with the cat.

I never said it was perfect ....

2006-07-06T21:40:00.000-04:00

Oh, Manhattan.

My Uncle Ray forwarded this hilarious Craigslist posting that brings tears of laughter and loathing to my eyes:

Dear Pigeons Eating Puke on the Sidewalk
Date: 2006-06-01, 11:31AM EDT

OK, look. Living in NY gives you a pretty thick skin. I've seen some pretty nasty stuff. I'm not a queasy person.

But as I'm strolling to work this morning I accidentally look to my right to see a big puddle of puke and you two bastards hopping around in it like two fatties at an all you can eat buffet.

It took me a moment to register what I was looking at. And I wish, I WISH, I could go back in time and erase the details my brain unfortunately absorbed.

This was nasty, nasty puke. And fresh. Food bits undigested. I noted some peas and carrots in there. But it was not only food. There was an oatmeal like ooze that the bits were floating in. And with this heat, no odor escapes a passerby.

As if the puke weren't enough to turn my stomach, you motherfucking pigeons sealed the deal. In the 4 brief seconds I happened to look at you I witnessed you pick out the pukey food bits and ingest them with imcomparable eagerness.

Then it happened. The horror of what I just saw registered. The smell of it registered. Mouth watered. Ears tingled. Throat clenched.

I fucking puked on the street! In front of people! At 8:30 in the morning. ON myself!

Do you know how humiliating that is???? I'm at work with fucking puke on me because when you suddenly projectile vommit on the street you don't think to aim! I had to lie about taking a taxi and getting motion sickness. And let me tell you pigeons something. YOU are going to pay the dry cleaning bill to get the stomach acid and latte off of my silk blouse!

Oh, and stay the hell out of MY puke!

Rotten birds

Copyright © 2006 craigslist, inc.

On the other hand -

I rediscovered Central Park for myself this weekend. When the sun finally emerged after days of unceasing rain, I grabbed a cup of coffee and a copy of the News and vegged out on a park bench to soak up some vitamin D and relax. My entrance to the park is in the upper East 90s, and I realized that there is this lovely, grassy bowl-shaped depression that is a hidden treasure for the shy sunbather. There were about a dozen people with their blankets spread on the bowl's rim and sides, and then at the bottom of the depression was a soccer pitch where a handful of kids were dribbling a ball around while a radio blasted dance music behind them. There were just enough people so that one wouldn't feel conspicuous laying out in a bikini, but not so many that everyone was breathing down each other's necks, able to pick out everyone else's tummy rolls, varicose veins and other imperfections. I ran home to get my own blanket, and soaked up the rays Saturday AND Sunday, laying the base foundation for a summer tan at last. Better late than never.

THEN, Sunday at dusk, I was trying to read on the couch, when I realized the light outside had gone a garish burnt-orange color. I poked my head out the window and noticed we were having a thunder shower on my block - black clouds, driving rain, lightning - yet the sky was clear and the sun was setting in Central Park just an avenue and a half away. It was absolutely beautiful, and quite eerie. I climbed outside and sat on the fire escape, ignoring the rain, and watched the show until the sun finally sunk below the skyline.

It's tricky -- the city can be gross, then gorgeous, in the blink of an eye. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else, though.

Added bonus, however -- Though I'm far from rich (I'm not leaving SpaHa anytime soon, I'll tell you that!) I didn't have to think twice before writing the rent check this month. It's nice. The job. Security. Very nice.

Pay It Forward

2006-06-27T08:56:00.000-04:00

My roommate and I were vegging on the couch Saturday night when this life insurance commercial came on -- surely you've seen it; it shows a dozen or so instances of strangers on the street "paying it forward." They see someone do something nice for someone else, and then return the favor to another complete stranger later on. I'll admit, without shame, that it was really inspiring. Monica and I found ourselves tearing up, and at the end of the commercial we turned to each other in awe. What a shame this beautiful TV spot was SELLING something, besides kindness.

So Sunday afternoon found me downtown in the Village with my rugby teammates, absorbing the Gay Pride Parade. My teammates told me I could be "gay for a day," so I gamely wore a rainbow leia and clapped enthusiastically at the passing floats, trannies and half nekked individuals that were also braving the rain. At some point, as we were leaving Bar #2 for Bar #3, I split from the group and ducked into a Starbucks looking for a latte and a clean bathroom. I was pleased to see only one young man waiting in line, so I hurriedly paid for my drink and took my place behind him.

And waited.

And waited.

From within the bathroom, we hear the high-pitched twittering of two girls sharing the bathroom. Then the occasional flush, splash of water, and more laughter.

Sidenote: I HATE HATE HATE when women tie up the bathroom in this way. We can only drop the excuse "it takes us longer to go because we have to sit" for so long - some women just inexcusably take their sweet time, and then remain in the bathroom primping. I'm sorry, but when there is limited bathroom space, YOU CAN NOT DO THAT! Do your business and leave. PLEASE. Endnote.

The poor guy in front of me is hopping from one leg to the other and literally shaking in his need to go. Unable to help myself, I turn on The Pesce Charm.

"Gotta go?" I ask him, brilliantly.

He nods his head.

"There's two people in there?"

Nod.

"Girls?"

A grimace, and a nod.

I shake my head. "I'd just like to apologize on behalf of my gender," I say, and he cracks up.

"You'd be even sorrier if you knew how long I've been waiting here!" he adds. I DO feel sorry - I've been waiting here 10 minutes as is. He was here before I arrived.

A little old lady shuffles in line behind me, and two men and a woman behind her. So there's soon a queue of seven waiting for the two girls talking and laughing and having a jolly old time in the bathroom. The atmosphere OUTSIDE of the bathroom is murderous.

Finally the door swings open, and these two girls come out laughing - and then eye all of us glaring at them.

"Sorry!" they squeak as the boy in front of me shoves past them and dives through the bathroom door. I just scowl as they slink past. They're not even DRUNK, I think irritably.

So I turn to the old lady behind me, and see that she is shifting impatiently from one leg to the other. I don't actually have to go THAT badly.

I look at this little old lady ... and I remember the commercial.

"You can go ahead of me," I tell her. "I don't have to go that bad."

Her face positively beams. "OH!" she exclaims. "THAT'S SO NICE!" I'm blushing, surprised at the outpouring of emotion. "I'm just worried," she says, "because my dog is waiting for me outside."

"Oh, then go ahead!" I tell her, and her face is all pink and happy. She roots around in her purse and pulls out ... a treat. "Here!" she says. "Take a strawberry candy!" Bemused, I find myself accepting a wrapped piece of sucking candy and tucking it inside my purse. Behind me the door opens, and out steps the boy, looking seriously relieved. All that waiting, and he was in there maybe 20 seconds.

"You're fast!" the old broad tells him. "And YOU'RE nice!" she says, pointing at me. She goes into the bathroom, and I'm left to survey the line of people still waiting behind me. They look just as amused.

The biddy pops out of the bathroom a short time later. Ironically, in the interim I'd suddenly realized I really DID need to go to the bathroom, so when my new older friend re-emerges, I'm doing the Pee Pee Dance with the rest of the line.

"Here!" she says, and gives me another candy. I can't help but laugh as I take it. She grabs ahold of my arm and asks for my name. When I tell her it's "Nicole" she gushes that it's beautiful. "Do you live around here?" she asks. "I'd sure love to see you again!"

"I'm sorry," I tell her. "I wish I did! But I'm up-uptown."

"Well it was very lovely to meet you. You have a wonderful personality," she tells me, and then shows me a picture of Frank Sinatra she has clipped to her wallet (she once saw him on the street in Times Square and snapped a photo) and then goes on her merry way.

It's funny how something so small can completely change somebody's mood. It was still raining outside when I left Starbucks, but the day had never seemed brighter.

My Beefcake Week

2006-06-08T23:31:00.000-04:00

Professor Blood had this to say:

Yes, I read your male bottoms story. Although I am not crazy about some of the subject matter you have been dealing with, you are getting a lot of exposure, so to speak, and that's good. I am proud of you, Nicole, hang in there. But I do want you to move up the ladder and into more challenging assignments. It will happen. You are a smart young lady. Some day when you are all scrubbed up and looking feminine, in a skirt, etc., I'll take you to lunch and lecture you about morals, proper behavior on a date, and so on.. I don't buy lunch for tom boys. I have a reputation to maintain.
Fondly, Blood

Did I tell you that I retired from NYU? It's over for me, kid.

So ... yeah. Blood's finally retired NYU ... no more eager cub reporters will find themselves held up to his particular, loving brand of ridicule and scorn. No future Times Square Wednesdays or MMRs. And strangely -- Blood retired the same day I got hired at last.

Kids ... kids. I MADE IT! I MADE IT! A reporting job at a HUGE daily newspaper in one of the greatest cities in the world! Regarding these buff men stories, I just *may* be getting typecast ... but at least I'm writing a lot, I have health insurance again at last, and I'm having so much fun.

I'm going to sleep in my bug-infested Spanish Harlem apartment, now. I'm livin' the dream!

And Now For Something Completely Obvious ...

2006-05-20T10:15:00.000-04:00

College kids do stupid things when drunk. Some even take pictures.

And with the advent of the Internet, they are posting these pictures online.

[Photo from BadJocks.com]

USA Today has the scoop: Colleges Investigating Possible Hazing Situations

And this wins Quote of the Week:

"I don't know when partying and behavior got connected to cameras," former Syracuse quarterback Don McPherson, now director of the sports leadership institute at Adelphi University (N.Y.), said at the time. "But kids are taking pictures of everything they are doing."

PS -- did you know that WOMEN HAZE TOO?

The stupidity of the mainsteam media boggles the mind. I mean, they didn't even MENTION "MySpace" ...

modest mouse.

2006-05-15T21:59:00.000-04:00

Speaking of clips, Blooddite and Blogger Michael J. de la Merced was on the cover of The New York Times business section on Friday.

The system WORKS!

That's me.

2006-04-12T20:57:00.000-04:00

Last Friday night out was one of "those" nights. I fell asleep in at least two of the four bars that we hit, so the night reads like a series of snapshots – not because I was blacking out, but because I was passing out. It had been a very long week. So long, in fact, that I'm posting this up almost a week late.

Flash!

I get out of work later than I'd planned, which has me frazzled because Jackie's cell phone is switched off, she's sitting alone at Pat O'Brien's on the Upper East Side, and Marta is also running late. Jackie's gonna think we ditched her, I fret.

I'm so worried that I actually decide to throw my money away on a cab, so I'll be fifteen minutes late as opposed to thirty. Waiting in line for one in front of Penn Station, however, things go irritatingly awry when a man and a cabbie get into a fight in the street over two f*cking dollars. That backs everyone up, and of course, tourists in New York are like cattle, and instead of just walking past the cop (who had previously been placing people into cars and who was now breaking up the fight) and just getting into cabs themselves, they stand there stupidly waiting for someone to help them. I politely suggest that they move on down and grab one of the half-dozen cabs idling curbside, but they blink at me, clutching their suitcases, and explain they want to be told what to do. It's people like this who keep Bush in the White House.

Finally, an irritated handful of seasoned pros and I walk past the luggage-clutchers and file into cars ourselves. However, I make the grave mistake of cheerfully conversing with my cab driver, who is also part of a small-time art museum in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When he learns I'm in the press, he excitedly tells me all about this exhibit he does with his friends, where they collect rocks and "pieces" from famous landmarks around Manhattan; like a rock from the Flatiron Building. He gets so into the conversation that he takes his sweet time driving me uptown. He drives through Times Square. During rush hour. It takes me half an hour to get to POBs, after all, and when I do the hits just keep coming.

I get to the door the same time as some gawky-lookin kid. I'm fishing for my ID and some money, when the bouncer takes the kid's ID, looks at it, and stares the kid down. "This is a fake Jersey license," he tells him. Sucks to be you, I think, finding my own ID and a twenty. I hand the twenty to the bouncer, who takes it, but he's still looking at the kid.

"Er, oh. It is?" the kid asks. Idiot.

"Yeah, it is," the bouncer says, and hands me back five dollars.

Um, the cover is five bucks; I'd handed him a twenty.

"I gave you a twenty," I tell him.

"Oh! Sorry!" he says, and hands me back the twenty.

I'm puzzled.

"Um, isn't the cover five?"

"Yeah, but your friend can't come in."

I look at the Stridex-ad with the fake ID and (mean, I know, and I'm really sorry) say "What?! I don't know him!" The bouncer, embarrassed, goes, "Oh, oh, sorry. I thought you were together," and takes my twenty back and hands me three fives. Glaring at them both, I go inside. Incompetence comes in threes, it seems, whenever you're late for something.

Once I finally get inside, I see Jackie's face, which, having waited alone for almost 45 minutes, is indescribable. I immediately buy a round.

Flash!

I'm a mite drunk at Jake's Dilemma on the Upper West Side, now, after having pre-gamed with friends at POB's a few hours prior. By friends, of course, I mean my rugby teammates, because my NYU crew has apparently decided to cut me out, lately. I know that thinking such things is ridiculous; we're all adjusting to new work schedules, some of us are moving, etc – but it does seem that any gatherings planned lately just don't garner the same enthusiastic response they once did. Or, I'm not invited. Except for dear Erin Coe chummily downing a couple of pints, and a few very nice congratulatory emails and text messages, no one from NYU came out to celebrate the publication of my first real story in the paper. Pity.

POB's was a lot of fun, and definitely greased the wheels for the rest of the night's debauchery.

Flash!

As I'd started saying, I'm a mite drunk at Jake's Dilemma on the UWS after having pre-gamed with friends at POB's for a few hours prior. I'm starving; the News was so busy today that I didn't eat lunch (as has been the case most of the week.) My body is running on three cups of coffee and a bagel. And beer. Lots of beer. I tell Marta, Gin, and Maria, ruggers all, that I'm just getting a slice up the street. I end up disappearing for 45 minutes. I get an elaborate piece of pizza with chicken on top, as well as garlic knots. My mouth will retain a slightly nauseating taste of garlic for the rest of the night and well into the next day. When I return to Jake's, we're leaving. Everyone wants to know where the hell I've been.

Flash!

The next bar is nameless. We're sitting at a wooden table sharing a giant margarita. It's in a huge goblet, and a rubber toy alligator is floating in it. We sit around this thing like a foursome around a hookah, and each take a straw and suck it down. It's definitely after midnight, and I definitely haven't been up this late all week; my big breakout story for the News was covering the possible closing of 14 Catholic schools across the city and northern suburbs. As former-Blooddite, current-fellow-intern Jenny Clevstrom pointed out, I worked harder on this story than I ever did on anything at NYU. I was up at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday to hop on a subway at 6:30 to be up in the Bronx at 7:30 to stand in the cold for two hours trying to get parents to go on the record about how they feel about possibly losing their cherished parishes and elementary schools before returning downtown for a full eight-hour workday. After two hours in the frigid, damp air, only one mother would go on the record. On returning back down to HQ by 10:15 a.m., I'm told, of course, that this is not enough, so I have to go back out. I punch out an interview for our wedding column over the phone first, try to work on the daily calendar, get slapped with a second assignment to work on while I'm back out covering Catholic schools, still need to work on the weekend hot list as well as train to assist one of the columnists all next week while his assistant is on vacation, am ready to cry because I cannot get all of this DONE, until I meet the photographer that I'm working with this afternoon, and I'm happy because he's friendly (and cute.) and used to live in Atlanta, so that ends up working out well. I survive that day, and the day after, and the day after, as we're wont to do, but those days involve me getting up between five and five thirty and not getting home until after eight or so, eating lunch (a packed sandwich) at my desk when I do eat lunch at all, and practically main-lining coffee. Hence, I pass out at the bar with my alligator and empty margarita glass, and wake to see the bouncer is kicking us out. He points to me, "This one is Done," and also to Ginessa, who fell down while she was dancing. She tries to convince him that she "just slipped," but he cuts us off and sends us out. I keep the alligator, however; he's currently rocking out on my bookshelf.

Flash!

Bar Four. I promptly fall asleep at our table. Wake up to use the ladies' room, and come out to see blood on the floor. The blood is following Marta. I point to the tracks, and other people are staring at us like we're ... well ... weird. That's something I've learned about New York City – the longer you live here, the more you become one of those people that you used to be afraid of.

Gin gets some napkins and bandages Marta's feet; I go back to sleep. When I wake up, another bouncer is asking us to leave. The girls try to convince me to hop into the cab with them to Penn Station and take a train back to Long Island. I just want my own bed, though. Plus, LIRR tix are expensive, and spending money is a luxury that I can't afford ... if that makes any sense. I start walking toward the subway instead, already trying to remember whose foot was bleeding. Marta's? Ginessa's coworker? I'm grumpy about now having to take the subway – going from the Upper West Side to the Upper East Side, I'll have to ride allllll the way down to the end of the park, transfer to a subway going across town, then transfer again to a train going allll the way back north. This time of night, I'm going to be waiting on each of those three subway platforms forever. So -

I cleverly decide to walk through Central Park, instead. It's about 2:30 a.m.

Flash!

I'm lost in Central Park, and my feet are killing me.

Thank god, I do not meet a single soul. Nobody! Not a bum on a bench, or a stray cat, or a duck. (Roommate-Martha tells me this is because there is a curfew, and no one is supposed to be in the park after midnight.) I stick to a main thoroughfare at first, hoping to shave a half hour off my trip home by just heading crosstown through the Park. But my mind wanders – it's dark, it's damp, the streetlamps each have a glittering corona due to the moisture in the air, and I hear one or two birds chirping, but I don't hear a single car. I have never felt such silence in Manhattan, or so much at peace. So, in my reverie, I don't realize the path I'm on stops going west-east, and instead curves and starts taking me south. I don't realize I'm actually walking down the length of the park, rather than across it, until I see the twin peaks of whatever that famous hotel is on the west side, and learn I've just wasted 20 minutes walking even farther away from home than I was when I started. I put the hotel at my back and walk away from it, almost due East. Every time a path I'm on starts looping, I check to make sure the hotel is still behind me. Eventually I emerge from the Park, victorious, and find I'm all the way down in the East 60s. Dammit. I still have a ways to go. I walk home, afraid I’ll fall asleep if I sit in the subway station, and not having the cash to hail a cab. By the time I do make it home, the coffee vendor is already setting up on our corner, and the neighborhood is poised to come alive. I drag myself up the five flights of stars and collapse on my bed, exhausted. It's going on 4 a.m. I hear the first of the rain drops start to fall.

Flash!

Wake up, it's almost noon; have not slept this late in ... a month?
The first thing I do, before I even brush my teeth, is slip on my sneaks, run to the bodega on the corner, and buy two copies of the paper. It's pouring, the sky is gray, I wouldn’t go running in this even if my legs and feet weren't killing me from my adventure the evening before, but inclement weather and hangovers cannot quell my ego. There's my story on page 42. Almost an entire page, and in color, and with my full name in black caps right beneath the headline – a real, honest-to-god byline – in straight-up, bold-faced type as opposed to tiny script stamped at the story's end, lost in the grafs. This is the big league, kids. It looks great. I call Mom, I call Grandma.

The rain falls relentlessly all morning and early afternoon, but I duck out to Barnes & Noble to treat myself to two books (and a cookie) in celebration of being published. I spend the afternoon on the couch reading, dozing, waking and reading, with the cat purring against my stomach. Spend a good two hours catching up with Katt over the phone, and curl up on the couch with my book and a blanket, actually alone in the apartment for the first time all week, with a cup of warmed milk, the TV droning in the background, and my neighbors yelling at each other in Spanish through the thin, thin walls.

It's a satisfying sort of life, indeed.

Tagged

2006-02-28T22:28:00.000-05:00

Well ... yes, I've been blogging about as frequently as I've been paying my bills, which explains why Shae tagged me with this meme in tandem with T-Mobile shutting off my cell phone. I just paid my penance to the gods at "T-Mobes" so now I guess I'll make with the questions before filling in my six constant readers with a few tasty Daily News tidbits.

FOUR THINGS

Four jobs I've had: I'm going to cut out my recent turns in various internship positions: 1) putting up gutters, and bagging & delivering Newsdays with Uncle Ray 2) The Deli Master at the Union Deli at Stony Brook University -- nobody, and I mean nobody, made a sandwich with the same speed/accuracy/taste ratio. 3) Cashier at CVS. I wore a red smock. 4) Assistant manager/sales associate at Big&Tall Casual Male clothing. It was funny because I wasn't big, tall, nor a male. Which the customers reminded me, repeatedly.

Four movies I could watch over & over: (only four??) 1) Swingers 2) Billy Madison 3) Donnie Darko 4) the Kill Bills

Four places I’ve lived: 1) Long Island and NYC, New York 2) Orlando and Tampa, Florida 3) Atlanta, Georgia 4) Silver Springs and Takoma Park, Maryland

Four fiction books I can't live without: [to quote Shae, just four? these will be totally arbitrary] 1) 'The Lord of the Rings' by Tolkien 2) 'It' by Stephen King 3) 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee 4) 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding

Four non-fiction books I consider essential: [ditto, though I don't read so many of these, sadly.] 1) 'All the President's Men' by Woodward and Bernstein 2) Strunk and White 3) The New York Times 4) Webster's Dictionary

Four TV shows I love to watch: 1) The Simpsons 2) The Family Guy 3) Law & Order: SVU 4) 24

Four places you've been on vacation: 1) Niagara Falls, Ontario (Marineland is the place to go!) 2) Savannah, Georgia, and the whole East Coast from New York to Georgia (ah, rugby road trip 2001) 3) Myrtle Beach, S.C. many many many many times 4) my most exotic vacation -- the Bahamas, spring break senior year of college

Four websites I visit daily: [only four????? I feel like it's thousands...] 1) My three email accounts 2) My blog and the links my friends' blogs 3) )Mediabistro & )Romenesko and their links 4) Google and Craigslist

Four of my favorite foods: 1) Joe's Pizza 2) Chinese eggrolls 3) BBQ spare ribs 4) Mom's beef stew ***CHEATING 5) penne a la vodka, with the vodka sauce from Uncle Giusseppe's deli in East Meadow

Four places I'd rather be: 1) The Village 2) The Beach 3) Home 4) in college

Four albums I can't live without: 1) Pinkerton by Weezer 2) a Nirvana tie between Unplugged in New York and Nevermind 3) Sublime by Sublime 4) College Dropout by Kanye West

Four bloggers to pass it on to: 1)Mike 2)Angie 3)Hally 4)Kris

**************************************************

Just a Quickie -

2006-02-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

Cats: My roommate's cat (called Cat, Small Cat, Ticoon, or, more frequently, Puppy) has been driving us off the wall with a sudden resurgence of nocturnal activity. We're trying to sleep. He wants to play. Monica gets the worst of it because he's her cat, and so he wakes her nightly by nuzzling her, head-butting her, meowing at her, or just simply knocking stuff over (a bowl, coffee mug, and light fixture have all come to untimely demises thanks to Senor Puppy.) So in a similar vein to new parents attempting to teach their newborn to Sleep Through the Night, we have begun trying to train the cat to stick to a nighttime schedule. We don't let him nap after 7 or 8 p.m. -- or, at least, we try not to let him. We'll be watching the Olympics in the early evening, and then realize that Small Cat is nowhere to be seen. We'll catch him hiding behind the pillows on my bed, stealing 40 winks. As we approach, he yowls at us and streaks between our legs down the hall. We really don't care -- as long as he's running around now, at not at 3 a.m., he can make all the noise he wants -- but he inevitably passes out again. We give him catnip. We play with him. We do whatever we can to distract him, yet we've met with only limited success -- we end up wearing ourselves out rather than amusing the cat. Adding insult to injury for the poor fellow, we've also recently put him on a diet. Not allowed to eat or sleep, he now stalks around the living room by day with his ears flattened back, glaring at me while I sit here factchecking on my laptop. There's nothing I can do about it. As I tell him, "I don't make the rules, Puppy. You're not my cat."

The Paper Thief: I've intermittently complained about my New York Times getting stolen every couple of days since moving into this building about six months ago. I did briefly have an arrangement with the old super -- when he noticed my paper on the stoop each morning, he'd buzz my apartment and I'd run down and get it. I guess he tired of that, however, because he stopped buzzing me about the paper, and soon it was getting stolen almost daily. He must have also tired of a lot of other things, because he also stopped taking out the garbage (though, in his defense, many building residents insist on leaving their garbage bags in the main hall instead of taking it out themselves, which, frankly, is disgusting) and he stopped fixing things promptly when we called to complain (ie., our shower faucet stopped working -- and he ripped out the old one, put in a new one, and never finished caulking the tiles around it; there's exposed, spongy-looking wall in the shower where there were once tiles, and it looks horrible.) Well, he was fired. The new super -- a man we had christened the Silent Sweeper because he was the one who swept and mopped the stairwell of our walkup every morning with nary a hello or a smile -- has thus far shown a marked improvement over the old. The garbage is kept clear of the downstairs hall, so there have been noticeably less rats (charming, I know.) He comes up and fixes stuff (though our shower remains uncaulked.) He has even started smiling and saying hello in the halls. And, while he doesn't buzz me regarding my Times, he does bring the paper inside in the morning if I don't beat him to it. [Not having classes or an out-of-house job for the past month, picking up my paper in the morning has been the kickoff to my daily routine. I get up at seven every day, run downstairs and get the paper before it gets stolen, come up, get coffee, read the paper, start fact-checking, go for a run.] It's a good enough system. And on the odd day that I "sleep in" (wake up at 7:30) the new super pulls the paper off the stoop and leaves it inside the main building entrance by our mailboxes. I've only missed one paper in weeks and weeks.

Well, I overslept this morning in a big way -- woke up at 8:30, geez -- and hustled down the steps. At the base of the stairs, the new super was sweeping the floor.

"Good morning!" I said cheerfully.

"Good morning," he said. "Did you get your paper?"

I could see the blue protective plastic covering from down the hall. "I'm getting it now!"

Except, on getting to the door, what lay there pathetically like a discarded skin was merely the plastic -- no paper.

Dammit.

What this signifies is that today, anyway, the Paper Thief is someone inside my building. That's a shame. I'm going to start sneering in the stairwell.

I thanked the super for trying, anyway, and ran outside (I luckily had some change in my pocket) and picked up a Daily News and a cup of joe on the corner. I'll read the Times online later, I suppose, but it's not the same -- I've especially enjoyed the Olympic coverage. Alas.

News: Starting next week I will be spending Mondays through Thursdays working as an intern on a big New York daily from 10 a.m. until, theoretically, 6 p.m. (we all know how tempermental the end of a journalist's day can be -- "six" changes into "10" at a moment's notice.) Though an unpaid internship per se, you do get paid for what pieces you get into the paper; so, depending how hard one hustles, this can work out quite nicely - or not at all. I've christened it "print-waitressing."

I'm just terribly ecstatic because, though I know I'm still taking merely baby steps, I really am getting closer and closer to that coveted daily reporting job I dream of. I can't wait to start! Haha, I'm going to be the only person in the city this weekend stomping my feet in impatience for work to begin on Monday.

Four Days Watching Torino

2006-02-14T09:34:00.000-05:00

“These athletes are out there, playing the slot machines on skis and skates in God’s casino. We toast them for their daring, but after nearly strangling myself on the cord of my new iPod while stepping of a bus the other night, I have to admit that I hardly relate.” – The New York Times’ Harvey Araton

I may not relate, but I love them Olympians!

Torino Highlights (for me) thus far:

Friday – Opening Ceremony: Very beautiful, if, at times, bewildering [I understand the people dancing around dressed all in red and the skaters with live flames burning like torches on their heads were supposed to symbolize fire versus ice, as well as passion – but all that red, and the fire, combined with the scary music (namely, the drums) made the whole scene look like a demonic ritual, a la Dante’s Inferno.] The funniest moment for me, besides commenting on the outfits of each country (Mongolia always has great hats), was when the Americans made their entrance toward the end. Like the other teams, they waved and smiled – but when the cameras zoomed in on one female athlete talking on her cell phone the whole time, well ... all I could think of with resignation was, this is the epitome of an American. You’re at the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games and yet *still* glued to your cell. I wonder if Stephen King noticed ...

Saturday – Women’s Freestyle Skiing, Moguls: We come back from a commercial break, and the camera is focused on the moonlit sky over Torino (note – I prefer “Torino” to “Turin” – Go NBC!) Suddenly, the camera zooms in to the right of the moon, where a star materializes in the indigo blackness.

“Believe it or not, this is actually Saturn!” trills the announcer. I choked on my beer.

“Saturn is actually more than 750 million miles away!”

This was even funnier because the announcer had a lisp. And, segueing most professionally, “And this ... is Kari Traa.”

WHAT??? Saturn?? What did that have to do with ANYTHING???? It was seriously as if the camerman/woman had noticed the celestial body and wanted to brag that they’d caught it.

Luckily, Katt and Steve were recording the games on DVR, and so we were able to rewind and listen to this exchange three more times, laughing until we cried. We spent the weekend turning to each other at opportune moments to spit, “Believe it or not, thith ith actually Thaturn!!”

Sunday – Snowboarding, Men’s Halfpipe: Shaun White, now an American snowboarding gold medalist, was a thrill – especially since he almost fobbed his qualifying run, then came back to win. Watching the men’s halfpipe is fun as it is – the jumps and 1080s, the men themselves, yum yum – but there was just something wholesome and aesthetically pleasing about the young, blazing redhead nicknamed “The Flying Tomato.” Not exactly a posterboy/pinup like Bode Miller (my personal Pavlov’s bell at these games – and I wish the press would leave his nightlife OUT OF IT), but you can’t help and grin when White hugs his mom, beams at the camera, and states that the Olympics are “totally awesome.” When he was crying on the podium at the medal ceremony Sunday, I unabashedly welled up, too. It’s so great when a first-timer/newcomer wins at the Olympics, in my humble opinion, because it really seems to hit them – you can tell by the quivering chins, the way they whip out their cameras while walking in the Opening Ceremony and taking pictures of everything like they were one of *us* rather than Olympians. I just get smitten by that humility, and I was very happy to see White win the gold.

Speaking of humility; I have mixed feelings about Michelle Kwan, but I do feel bad about her having to bow out. I was skeptical when they granted her petition to skate in the Olympics in the first place (due to her recent groin injury keeping her out of qualifying competitions) but when I actually saw footage of her press conference, and how listless and disappointed she felt, well, I felt really disappointed, too. She’s my age, and after this year she’s too old to skate in the next Olympics? That blows. I really want to see her come back in 2010, anyway, and start a new precedent. But hey – it took a lot of guts for her to speak so composedly in front of everyone. Now, Long Island is whipped into an absolute frenzy because its own Emily Hughes is going to skate in Kwan’s stead (more drama – her sister, another LI Princess, Sarah Hughes, won the gold in 2002 – a lot of pressure riding on the younger sis.) We’ll see. I’m pulling for little Sasha Cohen – who Shaun White should *never* have admitted to having a thing for on television on Sunday, haha, because that of course is what every tabloid and newscaster is running with. When I used to play with the ruggers at Stony Brook, we called such athletic pairings between youngins “Rugby Love.” They rarely work out.

Monday – Pairs Figure Skating – And I typically turn away from the pairs to hold out for the singles skating toward the end of the Olympics! But last night, Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao of China completely blew me away. The last pair to skate, they attempted to throw a quadruple salchow (that’s four rotations in the air; her partner throws her, she spins and lands) – which has never been landed in an Olympic competition – within the first oh, minute of their 4.5 minute long routine – and she fell, HARD, whacking her knee against the ice, skidding into a kind of splayed split, and crashing into the boards ringing the rink. The music stopped, and she was practically carried off the ice, crying. Everyone watched with baited breath, but after a few minutes she signaled that she wanted to keep skating. After all, they had come this far. So, she shook it out, she and her partner resumed where they had left off, skating a really beautiful routine – even attempting a similar throw toward the end – and she must have been in so much pain. Well, it paid off – they came in second place, winning the silver! In a sense, overshadowing the Russian pair that won the gold (although their story was a heroic one as well – Maxim Marinin, the male, dropped Tatiana Totmianina on her head in a competition in 2004, and they have had an arduous recovery; after skating their routine last night, he dropped to his knee in the middle of the rink and clasped her hand like a man proposing, thanking her for trusting him again.) Once more, Pesce got teary-eyed watching the medal ceremony, haha. I can’t help it; it’s stories and hearts like *those* which make me so smitten by the Olympics.

Another highlight – Hannah Teter, U.S. snowboarder, won the women’s halfpipe. The Times ran a really fun feature on her last weekend, so I was happy to see her win. It is very interesting how the media can shape your opinion of an athlete (or, anyone) and turn them into this character that you feel like you really know [See: Bode Miller, Shaun White, Michelle Kwan].

By the way – Happy Valentine’s Day! I plan on hiding on the couch with some candles, either wine or tea, and a good book to read between Olympic events [See: Bode Miller] although I may actually splurge the four bucks on a trashy magazine, because it’s been a while since I read anything that wasn’t serious.

"RONKONKOMA?!"

2006-02-13T18:58:00.000-05:00

"Grandma" flashing on my cell's caller ID at 9 this morning came as no surprise -- I had an interview for an internship, and I'd apprised her of it with cautious optomism last Thursday afternoon. She's been praying fervently ever since. So has Pop-Pop, all of their friends, and Aunt Steph.

"Hey Nic!"

"Hey Grandma."

"I just wanted to call and wish you luck before you got on the subway!"

"Yeah about that ... " I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, and sipped my styrofoam cup of Dunkin Donuts' finest before looking out the grimy window of NOT a subway, but rather a Long Island Railroad car. Oh, Gram was not going to be happy about this. "Actually, I'm on the LIRR now ... I'm in Ronkonkoma."
[That's Long Island. Out east.]

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah ... I got snowed in - "
[Nor'easter this weekend.]

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN RONKONKOMA????"

"Well, I came out to visit Katt and Steve. I didn't think it would snow this bad ..."

"WELL, THERE WAS A BLIZZARD!"

Dammit. Why do older people have to be so all-knowing, all the time?

"I didn't think it would be this bad - " I repeated, lamely.

"It was all over the news all last week!"

"I know, but - "

"Young people! You think you're invincible!"

"I wasn't bar-hopping, I was safe inside, watching TV - "

"You don't worry about the future; it's all about having fun right now."

I just sighed. I *am* an idiot. I never should have come out this weekend when I knew I had an interview to prep for on Monday - but Grandma is right. I really thought that the snow wouldn't affect ME this badly.

Even as the flakes fell more and more thickly Saturday, and the "SERVICE ALERT!" and "SEVERE WEATHER ADVISORY" icons on the MTA webpage refused to disappear Sunday afternoon, I was still somehow convinced yesterday that I would manage to make it home. I played in the snow with Katt and her golden retriever, Lily, made hot cocoa and ate homemade cookies, and enjoyed the only *real* winter day we've had all season (three cheers for global warming!) And for that, I am not apologetic. The job hunt has gotten me down, lately, and it was nice to play in the fresh air, to make snow angels, to cannonball into 2 and 3 foot drifts, and to sneak up behind Steve as he was shoveling the driveway and brain him with a chunk of snow the size of a small anvil.

Besides, Katt and Steve are great stress-relievers; no matter how prepared or competent I know that I am for an interview, I always always get very nervous. As the run-of-the-mill nerves grew proportionally with panic as I realized that NO trains were running into the city as late as seven yesterday evening, my friends laid out a very rational contingency plan. So what if I *had* to spend another night on L.I.? I had copies of my resumes and clips saved online, so I could very well print those out on their computer. Katt had clothes I could borrow for the interview (unless they would be charmed by my jeans and N.Y.U. hoodie, of course) and Steve was off from work Monday so I had a lift to the train at whatever time I wished the next morning. I had to admit that spending an evening watching the 2006 Winter Olympics (I'm obsessed) with close friends and sipping brews was much more soothing than panicking over my upcoming interview in my Spanish Harlem apartment, alone.

Cut to this morning, however, and it took almost a half hour to get from the house to the Long Island Expressway, let alone out to the train station. Despite having woken before 6:30 a.m., I wasn't on a train until 8:30. I still had plenty of time to make the (normally) hour-and-a-half trip to Penn Station, but alas - a train stalled farther up one of the lines at Floral Park, delaying mine another 45 minutes until a quarter after nine. So when Grandma called, I had been sitting in the stationary train car for almost an hour, rereading my resume and trying to brush Lily's hairs off my coat while debating whether I should race the clock or call my potential editor now to let her know I would be late. I was still half-expecting an act of God to get me to the city on time.

Back to Grandma -

"I was going to have you come stay with us this weekend - I thought on Saturday we could go shopping for an outfit to wear to your interview-"

aw, that would have been nice -

"and we could feed you and have a nice visit, and get you back to the city in plenty of time. But then Pop told me we were getting a REAL nor'easter and that you wouldn't be able to get back."

Sigh. "He was right."

"Of COURSE he was right!"

Well, Grandma kept praying, I kept sipping my joe, and eventually the train took off and we managed to make it to Penn at 11 on the dot. I did call ahead of time, and the editor was really understanding. In the end, I was only 20 minutes late, and I feel our meeting went pretty well. Of course, in typical Pesce-form, I met my interviewer, was led inside, and had *just* sat down to begin the interview when I realized I'd left my notebook outside at the security guard's desk, resulting in our having to walk out together to get it, but otherwise things ran smoothly. I should hear from them by the end of the week. I celebrated with a tall drip from Starbucks when it was over.

What's nice about the internship is that you actually get paid for clips that you get in the paper. I am going to need to still continue freelancing, and to pick up a part-time job (IF I get this) but I know this could be a really great experience.

Not everyone sees it this way, however; on giving Gram the recap afterwards (I was walking through Central Park to clear my head, dodging the yellow snow and looking at the children building snowmen and creaming each other with snowballs) she asked me if I would get health insurance.

"Oh ... no. No Grandma. I get paid for what gets in the paper - and I do get to put together a lot of lists and to write up things - but it's an unpaid internship."

A pause.

"Oh ... oh I thought it was a real job ... that is why I was so upset this morning ... "

"No ... " I said, suddenly feeling deflated. "No, I thought I told you it was an internship."

She recovered, and told me of course she was very proud, she and Pop-Pop supported me with whatever I chose to do ... but she thought I was looking for more steady jobs. Of course I am! They are just not in New York City. The Catch-22 is, whereas I really can't afford to live in the city and would do better off moving to a local daily paper elsewhere in the country, I also cannot afford to LEAVE the city right now - to move, to put a deposit on a new apartment, to get a car, etc. Hence, I am going to be *just* getting by for quite some time -- the "romantic" lifestyle of the starving writer. Though, I won't starve if I keep spending weekends at Katt's, haha. She and Steverino were too good to me.

I've hesitated applying for the much more plentiful jobs in advertising, PR, administrative tasks or food service because I feel like, if I've just busted my hump a year and a half to earn a master's degree in journalism, then I should use it at a paper or a magazine. I would rather, temporarily, be eking by in spending a few days at a newspaper and a few at a part-time job (even sans health insurance) than I would if I was just taking home steady money in a field that won't advance my career anywhere. I dragged my feet too long in the past rather than taking a deep breath and plunging into the news business. It's going to be a hard few months or years earning my stripes, breaking in - but this internship could be a real first step after N.Y.U.

If this doesn't pan out, though, I guess I'll just keep truckin -- although I'll certainly pay more heed to weather forecasts the next time around.

Freaks and Sneaks

2006-02-07T17:04:00.000-05:00

Always, always, when you're at your most vulnerable ...

A hairbrush serving as a microphone in my hand, the living room lit with candles, and Fiona Apple blaring out of the speakers, my amateur alto was just building to a crescendo at the climax of "Tymps" - my favorite song on Apple's latest release "Extraordinary Machine" - when, of course, the doorbell rang.

My solo broke off with an embarrassed yelp as I dropped the hairbrush and hurriedly lowered the volume on the stereo. Sliding down the hall in my socks, I opened the door without looking through the peephole first (brilliance, I know.)

What greeted my eyes was a sight I had yet to see in my neck of Spanish Harlem - two extremely tall, extremely cute white boys. In suits. I began quietly fretting, because I had JUST gotten out of the shower, my hair was still wet, and I wasn't wearing any makeup. Goddammit, Nicole, I thought. This is why you'll *never* get married.

Then, in scoping my charming visitors out, my eyes dropped to their hands. And I realized one of them was holding a book looking suspiciously like a Bible.

Oh, #@!‡*%.

"Hello!" said the brown-haired one. He looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see he and his tow-headed partner. I'm on the fifth floor, so I suppose they'd hit many a non English-speaking door before getting moi, the bedraggled Fiona-Apple-wannabe.

"Hello!" I said, and tried to pull my shirt down. Not having expected company, I'd just thrown on low-rider pants and a short (and, unfortunately, tight) sweater. While The Brunette (and clearly the Alpha of the duo) was looking me in the eye purposefully, his buddy's eyes were transfixed by my navel. Which is a shame -- post-holidays, the Pesce Midriff isn't quite what it once was. They should come back in a few months when I finish my Half-Marathon Training (more on that later.)

"How are you today?" asked Brunette.

"Um, fine."

"Would you like to hear about the Book of Mormon?"

"Oh, I don't think so," I said politely, and ran my fingers through my tangled hair. Can't you see I just got out of the shower?! I have serious ... um ... *drying* to do.

"You don't think so?" he smiled. "So that's a maybe?" The miserable attempt at being coy was not working on me. I just ran three miles, showered off, and wanted nothing more than a nap. There was a cup of Irish coffee waiting for me inside, along with Fiona and the newspaper (my personal gospel the past few months, for better or for worse.)

"No, I don't," I said. "But thank you." And moved to close the door.

"Would you know anyone in the building who might?"

"No," I said. Pitying them, I added, "I am new to the building though." Actually, I've been here six months.

"Oh," he said.

"Well, good luck!" I chirped, shutting the door. I could hear them ring the bell to the apartment next door.

"Hola?"

"Hi! Would you like to hear about the Book of Mormon?"

"Que??"

Snickering, I took a sip of my joe and pet the cat.

I'm too tired for any conversions right now. Fitting perfectly into my constant questioning of what purpose my daily life has now that I'm out of school, and fact-checking rather than changing the world, the Reckson Long Island Marathon has enticed me as a challenge worthy of my suddenly boundless free time.

Oddly enough, although my family moved to East Meadow, Long Island almost 10 years ago, I never noticed the the annual Long Island Marathon begins and ends in Eisenhower Park - our town's backyard. High-school-friend Liz and I are planning on running half of it - 13.1 miles - around many of my favorite hometown landmarks, including the park, Hofstra University and Nassau Coliseum, as well as parts of residential East Meadow and Westbury.

I have 12 weeks to get in shape, but since I easily ran three miles today (and walked two) I'm already well on the right track, according to the novice training schedule Liz provided me. I'm really excited about this - I have until May 1st to register, so I'm going to see how my training goes over the next month. If I'm still this committed a month from now (and it isn't getting in the way of finding employment and paying the bills) I'll go ahead and register.

If anyone else is interested, more information can be found here. I've already begun recruiting a few of my rugby teammates to run with me.

I originally had a long-term goal to run a complete marathon before I turn 30. Running half of one at 25 wouldn't be too shabby, either.

And Now for Your Super Bowl Moment of Zen

2006-02-06T12:39:00.000-05:00

Though not a fan of American football, even an arrogant rugger can overlook her contempt for helmets, padding and time-outs to allow herself to get swept up in the spectacle, the commercials, and of course, the beer and the wings of Super Bowl Sunday.

The N.Y.U. crew, led by Lee and J.J. in a spectacular display of resourcefulness, bunkered down at the 1849 bar on Bleecker Street, where the beers were half-priced ($2.50 a pint), the wings were 20 cents apiece, and flat screened TVs covered every angle of the bar, so whether you were drinking, at the bar, or on your umpteenth trip to the bathroom after breaking the seal, you didn't have to miss a single play, penalty or down. We sank on the cushioned seats of velveteen couches and arm chairs, and left at the end of six hours having only spent an average of $20 bucks each for all we could eat and drink. Not. Too. Shabby. Alas, I was rooting for the Seattle Seahawks, who performed less than spectacularly against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but I screamed myself hoarse and had a great time all the same.

My Moment of Zen, however:

In discussing the attributes of each team, I mentioned I was rooting for the Hawks not out of any particular sense of loyalty, but because 1 - I tend to go for the underdog, 2 - I like Seattle (grunge, Starbucks and flannel - three of my favorite things) and 3 - I prefer mascots that are animals as opposed to, say, "Steelers."

Someone piped up the question, "What is a 'Steeler' supposed to be, anyway?"

To which I answered in a stunning moment of intelligence, "Oh, the guys who work in the steel mines."

The sentence was hardly out of my mouth when I turned to my 'mates in disbelief and asked, "Did I really just say that we mine steel????" to which they tactfully sipped their beers and replied, "We're afraid so."

Is it any surprise, then, that I was rooting for the losing team?

In other exciting news, electronic versions of my coverletter and resumes continue to flock the North East with no satisfying responses. I have, however, been given an unpaid investigative reporting assignment by a community newspaper in West Village, which will hopefully keep my mind sharp as I continue to fact-check and roll up my jar of nickels and dimes to take to the bank.

Also, is anyone else absolutely furious that The New York Times still has James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" on the NONFICTION best-seller list?

Oh Blogger, Where Art Thou?

2006-01-23T10:11:00.000-05:00

My grandmother called while I was curled up on the couch in last night’s pants watching “Pretty Woman”, and I realized that I had not spoken with her in almost two weeks; long enough for one uncle to pass kidney stones and a brother to return to college. I also realized that I had not blogged anything in ages, and the Monty Python calendar on my bedroom wall still shows November 2005. Time sure flies when you’re under 30 and unemployed.

Blooddite Erin Coe organized a Ladies’ Night a little over a week ago, and I found myself seated in a circle with a handful of other newly-graduated journalistas discussing What We Did for the Holidays, What We Are Up to Now, and, of course, the dreaded What is Our Next Step.

Whereas Anne and Rachel have managed to land honest-to-God writing jobs (Anne for a law newswire, Rach for her hometown paper in Massachusetts) the rest of us are mostly freelancing and choking the tri-state area with resumes and earnest cover letters. I took a step back (and a sip of my vodka cranberry) and realized just how scarily grown-up our socializing has become. Most of the girls had just gotten off of work, and so were dressed in an array of skirts and khakis (except for I, the fact-checking-from-home bum, who was decked out in a stunning display of Clearance-Rack Gap.) Rather than dishing about guys in the department, or groaning over an upcoming story due for such-and-such a professor, we were earnestly discussing current events, the job market and our short and mid-term goals. Though we are all still enamored with the quirk and dazzle of the city – where last call isn’t until four a.m., and even then you can STILL find a slice or some Chinese – the faintest grumblings of frustration are beginning to crack our youthful party-girl foundations. We want jobs. We want stability. We want a washer and dryer inside of our apartment buildings, and some even hinted at live-in significant others and backyards. At the same time, there is this definite need to flash and make a difference while we still can; to tell that untold story, to visit that exotic country, to continue dating and sharing misadventures, to make our way to that next whiskey bar ...

Before our quarter-life crises reached full throttle, however, the conversation moved on to the Fox hit “24”, which Rach dubbed “the nail-biting, armchair-gripping, don't-ask-questions-while-you're-watching show, starring your favorite hero and mine, Jack ‘Nerves of Steel’ Bauer,” as well as how much better Jennifer Aniston looked during the first three seasons of “Friends” when she still had curves. Another round of drinks was ordered, and the world shifted back to more familiar and cheerfully-flakey territory. For a little while, anyway. The prospect of having to get part-time jobs at Starbucks or temping as data entry clerks is becoming a more terrifying possibility as we hold out for our big breaks.

So I have lost the past couple of weeks trolling job websites when I haven’t been fact-checking for Sally Tusa, former wonder-editor of mine at iVillage. Well, she’s still an editor. Just not mine – until the recent freelance fact-checking she so marvelously gave me.

I did dust off some interviewing duds and applied for a full-time position at iVillage last week, but that is still up in the air. There is an opening for a production assistant on the web page, and while it may not exactly be the shoe-leather-burning, world-changing daily reporting job of my dreams, it would be a great opportunity to learn how to put together stories on the web page, to make contacts and to have health insurance. Unfortunately, I’m not sure whether I was actually able to convince the interviewers that I would be really happy working in production as opposed to editing and writing, but at least the interview was a good experience to learn and to grow from, so I can only do better on the next two or three hundred. Or so I told myself on Wednesday night as I sipped my Guinness in East Village and watched Rachel kick Saruk’s ass in Connect Four.

So, life for the recent N.Y.U grads has been an eclectic mix of relief and anxiety, success and temporary setbacks, moving on and moving out. Rach just recently left us for Mass., Vanessa is in D.C. working with NPR, Ashley is on her way to California, and the rest of us are conducting the cost-benefit-analyses of remaining in the city now that the grad school safety net has been unceremoniously yanked away. Every day, I’ve made sure to look around and appreciate just what I have had in living here; just to be prepared in the event that I have to leave. I skated with hometown buds Andrew and Will at the Bryant Park ice rink while it was still there last week, and it was absolutely beautiful. Bryant Park is just a few blocks away from Times Square, and it offers spectacular views of the Square, the New York Public Library and the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. While my Texan cousins were in town, I took them around Midtown, Broadway, the Village, and Soho. We went to the top of the Empire State Building and ate at Joe’s Pizza (my absolute favorite – best, best pizza in the city.) Rachel hosted a couple of “24” parties in her apartment before she moved out. Mike and I discovered an absolutely insane bar, The Blarney Cove, (thanks to Ashley) where the bartenders – upon learning we had just finished at N.Y.U. – made us pound two glasses of champagne and kept the shrimp and shots coming – for free – for the entire night. Katt came out to visit this weekend, and we had a great time celebrating Morgan’s birthday at Zum Schneider’s in the East Village, where you can order a liter of beer in a ginormous glass mug that makes a very satisfying CLUNK! when toasting. And finally, roommate-Monica and I have begun running the Reservoir (1.5 miles) in Central Park on a regular basis, and although my out-of-shape body groans and hurts and the wind off the water is freezing, I can’t help but take in the views around the park and marvel that I have actually had an opportunity to live here.

The goal for the next four weeks is to figure out how to stay here while keeping my career ambitions and integrity intact.

The Texans Take Manhattan

2006-01-10T18:40:00.000-05:00

The Doyle Cousins (Amanda, myself, and Raymond) reunited for the first time in eight years

I got the call during the middle of last week, and I knew the moment that I answered the phone that it had to be Amanda Cadjew. What other young woman with a Texan accent would be calling me from Grandma's cell phone?

We had a large, 50th Anniversary Party planned for Grandma and Pop-Pop this past weekend, and for the first time in almost a decade, the Doyles (some now renamed Qualls, Cadjew and, of course, Pesce) came out of the woodwork for some good times. Amanda brought her boyfriend, Tanner, with her, and she wanted to know if I would mind showing her and Tanner around the city on Friday. Of course not! I love this city, and any excuse to do the silly, tourist-y things that I am supposed to be "too cool" for is a welcome one.

And when I heard that Raymond would be joining us (he's a Marine; I haven't seen him since he came back from Iraq ... ) well, saying I was ecstatic is the understatement of all time.

We tried to keep the planning loose, because we all know what happens to those plans best-laid - and we actually managed to cover many hot-spots in Manhattan by day:

Ray, Tanner and Amanda

Looking downtown from atop the Empire State Building

Times Square

The boys abusing a fertility statue in Soho

The Washington Square Arch in the heart of NYU's sprawling campus

...but THEN we came to the bar...

and my evening plans were ultimately lost in a fog of beer pong and 25-cent drafts (not necessarily in that order) at Pat O'Brians on the Upper East Side ...

Mid-air shot

Me with Rugby-Jackie

More pictures to come
(or "TK" as we say in the journalism-biz)

For my next trick ...

2006-01-04T12:11:00.000-05:00

Of course, my last day at The Observer would be both manic and tedious, with a dash of anticlimactic.

We had three fact-checkers on board yesterday – two seasoned vets (Erin Coe and I) and one newbie (Willow, an N.Y.U. student on the Cultural Reporting and Criticism track) – but what we really could have used were 10 Über Fact-Checkers and a flamethrower. Alas.

Stories were backed up, and it seemed that as soon as I finished checking a piece, there were two other fact-checking drafts and an edit at my elbow that needed to be dealt with. There was just no keeping pace. Add to that the incessant rain and everyone ominously sneezing and coughing with oncoming colds, and you get a 12-hour last day that was less merry than mundane.

There was … one … silver lining.

I unabashedly took a few minutes out from doing what I was supposed to be doing and checked my email (scandalous, I know) and in my Inbox was a response from one of the editors of The Battery Park City Broadsheet. I didn’t really have time to read the email then, because another stack of stories was suddenly unloaded onto my desk (talk about going out with a bang … today my wrist is killing me from clutching-red-pen-too-long Carpal Tunnel’s) BUT I DID notice there were several paragraphs to this email, so this obviously was not a rejection. I checked my final hurdle of stories wearily but with a smile on the inside nevertheless, and Erin Coe and I did grab that beer. Funny side note: My soul mate just may be a stocky lad in a red Stanford sweatshirt. Moving right along …

Long story short – tonight I’m going to a meeting downtown of the Community Board 1's World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee with one of the Broadsheet’s editors, and will write a 400 – 500 word piece on a specific item on the agenda regarding the safe deconstruction of the Fiterman Hall Building, on Broadway between Barclay and Murray Streets, which was damaged on Sept. 11, 2001. Covering the Redevelopment Committee may go on to become my steady beat. More importantly, though, covering the Redevelopment Committee as a steady beat will also bring in steady money – not a lot, particulary since they expect one story a MONTH to come from this, but still - this will be the first time, ever, that I get paid directly for a freelance article. And that is a point of some pride for me.

This calls for a celebration! Or, for washing a clean pair of professional pants and a shirt for tonight’s meeting.

If New Years' Resolutions Aren’t Quite Your Cup of Tea ...

2006-01-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

I was invited to New Year’s dinner with Katt’s family on Sunday. (Katt is a roommate and best friend from college – in fact, she is the lass next to me in my profile-picture on this-here blog.)

Well – I had made an impromptu trip out to Eastern L.I. to Katt and Steve’s house Saturday night for New Year’s Eve (we did the city LAST year, see, and after a rather mellow and relaxing week at Home, I just did not feel like diving back into the metropolitan hustle and bustle just yet ... ) and Katt offered to drop me off in Manhattan on her way upstate to her parents’. Once in the car yesterday, however, she convinced me to just come along for dinner. I would be their excuse for leaving early – “We have to get Nicole home.”

We figured, upon arriving there at 3 p.m., that we’d stay four hours, tops.

Cut to 8 p.m., and we’re all getting our tea leaves read by her aunt.

Now, I’m not one who holds a lot of stock in psychics, horoscopes, or even religion(s). I had never really had my fortune told before (besides the occasional tarot reading in college) but tonight I decided I wanted someone to tell me what was going to happen in (what I am dubbing as) Double-Oh-Six. Let us just say that, what with the safety net of grad school suddenly pulled away, I have a growing concern for my future.

So –

I dumped a tablespoon of green tea leaves into a teacup (they looked like pencil shavings), added some hot water, and sipped the mixture slowly so as not to accidentally swallow any of the free-floating leaves. It tasted like Visine.

I drank until there was just a little bit of water left at the bottom of the porcelain cup, and then swirled it around a few times before turning said-cup upside-down on its saucer. While Katt’s aunt prayed, I turned the cup three times by its handle and made a wish. Then we picked up the cup. Most of the leaves fell out, obviously, and they piled into a garish green mound on my saucer. A few leaves had stuck to the bottom of my teacup, however, forming a handful of images that could tell a story/predict the future if one’s imagination was so inclined.

Katt’s aunt read the leaves while I took notes. Despite my original skepticism, I was caught up in the moment, and found myself getting really excited.

The first thing she noticed was The Number Seven, which obviously means good luck. Next, she told me she saw a letter “V” which means that whatever wish I made is definitely going to come true. [I will refrain from sharing my wish because I am a firm believer in wishes only coming true if you keep them close to your chest.]

It only gets better:

*I am getting a Letter in the mail this week, from a woman.

*I will be taking a trip by Plane VERY SOON, and the trip is taking me to EUROPE. This, frankly, is amazing. I have been dying to go to Europe for years; the most exotic place I’ve been to, sadly, is the Bahamas, which not only takes American money, but everyone also speaks English. There was Canada that one time, but we all know that Canada is really just the 52nd state (after Puerto Rico – forget Guam.) I need adventure!
I find it somewhat hard to believe I am going to Europe, however, because A – I’m BROKE, B – I don’t even have a passport, and C – BROKE!

*The most prominent picture/symbol in my cup was a perfect, long-stemmed Rose. This rose will be given to me by a gentleman; I am going to find romance very soon.
Thank. God.
It’s been awhile, and I am getting very frustrated. Emotionally, that is.
::cough cough::

*She saw the letter “F” and it’s romantically-inclined. I know nobody whose name starts with F. So, perhaps, this is Romeo.

*A Fir Tree was also prominent. Fir trees are symbolic of strength, what with their evergreen-ness and their deep roots, and are very positive. “A symbol of good things to come.” Excellent.

*She then freaked me out by asking if anyone I know has a house in the country. The last few weeks of school, actually, Blooddite-Nynka had been mentioning having a group of us go to his cabin upstate for a weekend. Anyway, with Nynks-permitting, of course, it appears that I am, in fact, spending a weekend in the country, because she saw A Country House. Sweet.

*She saw Bottles, hahaha. I will be drinking and having good times. How did she know?

*She then asked if I know a man with kinda long hair and a square face. As far as I can recall, no, I do not. Anyway, this gentleman either is in a band, or is the kind of person who WOULD be – very into music, he is. He has been admiring me from afar (or WILL be admiring me from afar if I have yet to meet him), and something romantic is going to happen. She is convinced that this is Mr. F of The Rose. She asked me if I liked music (yes) and if I hung out around the Village (yes.) “Well, keep going wherever it is that you go!” she said. Yes, ma’am!

*She saw a Broom. “Obviously, this means you are sweeping the slate clean. Changes are coming your way.” No surprise – graduation and all. “New beginnings ... you may even be moving.” Oh? “This is a very good sign.” OK!

*She then saw a Man in Formal Attire – in particular, with a Top Hat. “He’s an emcee, he’s on stage ... maybe at a night club or something. Theatrical ... a speaker.” The only stage-person or theatrical person I can think of is Andrew.

*She then saw a Car. A rental car. I am going on a road trip! Yey! EXCEPT – right under the car was a Saw. So, apparently, whoever I go on the trip with, our relationship is going to be severed. Which she said was not necessarily a bad thing, but well – I dunno. Perhaps this is regarding the Blooddite trip to Nynka’s; this will be our last get-together before we all separate post-graduation.

*She then harped back on the Rose again. “It’s just so STRONG. From every angle.” Oh yes, she kept twirling the cup around and looking from different perspectives. “It is a PERFECT rose.” And it was! Even I could see it – a stem, a leaf, and a perfect rose-head.

*Now THIS was funny – she saw a Sneaker. Do I walk, do I run? Yes, I do both. I had JUST been talking to Katt earlier in the day about how, what with being out of school AND work, I was going to start exercising again to keep myself disciplined. In fact, I was going to start running in Central Park. “There is an Owl right next to the Sneaker,” warned her aunt. “That’s a warning.” A warning?! “Be careful where you run. Don’t run in any bad neighborhoods or bad places. Maybe don’t run alone ... ” The Central Park Jogger came to mind.
OK – note to self – join a Gym.

*To my utter amusement, she saw a Box of Popcorn and Two Movie Tickets. “Someone is going to ask you to the movies on a date.”
OK Mr. F – I wanna see “Brokeback Mountain.”

*She saw more Bottles. Haha. More inebriated fun!

*Back to the letter “F” again. This time she noticed Keys next to it, but in particular, Many Keys, and related to a house. Your guess is as good as mine. Or hers, ha!

*Then she saw two Cannons facing each other. One cannon means good luck. Two is better. And the two shooting toward each other – she harked back to the Romance again. The Rose, the letter F, two Cannons – “Romance is in the air, and it’s going to hit you all at once. A great convergence that will surprise you.” Oh, my.

*She saw a Second Man Performing on a Stage – this one thinner, without the top hat. Again, I’m in the audience, as I had been for the first guy.

*This one piqued my interest: she sees a Big Chair and a Desk. Like I’m being interviewed for a job or for an assignment (she may have been cheating slightly – she knows I’m a journalist ::wink::) Anyway, this desk is no ordinary desk, but a very big one with a big chair. “It’s very upscale,” she said. “It’s very significant. Whatever it is, don’t be intimidated – GO FOR IT!” Again – yes ma’am!

*This Desk/Chair/Interview was right by a Snowman. Of all the wacked-out things she was seeing, to her, THIS was the weirdest. She had never seen a snowman in someone’s cup before. “Do you know people who still do this sort of thing?” Oh yes, I told her. I’m rather playful, as are most of my friends – I could totally see us building a snowman. The more she looked at it, though, the more she decided the snowman was a time-keeper, and it was telling her this stuff was all happening in the Winter – as in, NOW. She surveyed the cup and nodded her head, as though seeing the big picture at last. The Snowman was by the Big Desk, and both were by yet ANOTHER Broom. Some change, some big change, is definitely coming, and it’s coming this winter. She saw another Letter next to the broom. Some Letter will come in the mail that will be the impetus to this change. “It is going to motivate you to move,” she said. “It is going to lead you to something else. The desk – this job or assignment – this letter is what seals the deal,” she said. “I see relocation, and I see change, and it is all good.”

*And, finally, (and anticlimactically) she saw a Covered Bridge. I am going on a quick daytrip with somebody by car.

I looked into my cup long after she had moved on to read Katt's future (looks like Katt is coming into some money - suuuweet - and she too is going on a daytrip, perhaps with me) and I watched as my soggy tea leaves dried up and curled into little gray curlicues. It would be pretty nice if some of these things came true. I have no real resolutions this year besides taking care of myself fiscally, emotionally and professionally ... but maybe Katt's aunt stumbled across my hidden desires/resolutions, after all. And for a woman who barely knows me, that's pretty impressive.

I'm looking forward to seeing whether I can make any of these predictions come true!

For now, I'm on to my second-to-last day at The Observer.

"No jobs! Freelance! Best thing in the world for a kid your age!" - Editor J. Jonah Jameson in "Spiderman"

2005-12-29T15:39:00.000-05:00

Re: Freelance Reporter for The Battery Park City Broadsheet

Hello Nicole,

Thanks for your email and resume.

We would love to see a clip or two.

Have you seen the Broadsheet?
I will attach the most recent issue.
We publish every two weeks on the new and full moon.

Thanks
Happy New Year.

*******
The Battery Park City Broadsheet

Ack!
Enter: a sudden onslaught of nerves. Which clips?! (The journalistic equivalent of "What shoes do I wear with this dress that will make me look sexy, not slutty?")

A Season of Thanks - this one's for you, Big Apple

2005-12-28T15:02:00.000-05:00

I pushed myself away from the plate full of leftover eggplant parm and let out a contented sigh as I relaxed in the broken chair at Katie Farmer's kitchen table. Rocking out on Long Island is not quite the same as rocking out in New York City, but I have to admit that leftovers from Christmas taste pretty good in either setting. Certainly better than ramen, at any rate.

Katie was also being generous with the leftover alcohol from Christmas Eve, and I was entertaining a green apple martini and an Irish coffee with equal enthusiasm.

High-school bud Katie had a handful of friends visiting from New Hampshire, where she is completing a master's at Dartmouth, and had invited the Long Island crew over to show them what Long Island girls were like. On hearing this, I shook hands around with the handsome, visiting friends, and apologized for what they were probably about to witness. They laughed, these friends. These German friends. Real Germans, that is, with honest-to-God accents that were just as funny as (some of our) Long Island ones, and who needed us to explain the occasional odd turn of American slang (such as why I kept saying everything was "hot.")

So, in sipping drinks, eating leftovers and diving into the cheesecake, Katie asked a handful of us Lawng-Guylanders what she and her visitors should do the rest of the week. Olivia and I tried to convince them that the new skating rink in Bryant Park would be much better than the one in Central Park, while Stacey listed some of LI's best bars for those nights when they didn't feel like going Manhattan-side.

One of the Germans said, "I want to go to, where do you say it ... ah, Harlem. "

Of course, my ears perked up - because, what with my four months of experience living in East Harlem, I considered myself qualified to be the table's reigning Harlem Expert.

"Oh, it's great!" I said.

One girl (who shall remain nameless) snorted, "Oh, Gawd. Stay away from there. In fact, stay away from the city. It's too scary."

Now, I stuck up for Harlem. It's not necessarily paradise, true, but it has been going through a great degree of gentrification. My advice was to visit East Harlem, Central Harlem, all that jazz, check out the museums, do what you like, but then head downtown for the drinking and dining before it got too late.

"Is it safe?" asked one German, and I said it was probably no more or less safe than any other urban area. You had to keep your wits about you wherever you went, I supposed. Especially as a visitor, I said, as I appraised them - I pictured one of these friendly fellows asking for directions in their heavy accents, and getting hit over the head with a lead pipe.

Yes, wits. Careful.

Again, the Girl spoke up, "I would never live there. I'd be like 'Daddy! Come get me!'"

I tactfully took a sip from my martini, and thought before I spoke, for a change (it had been on my lips to say, "Ladies and Gentlemen - Long Island in the flesh!"):

"Well, I mean, it's not perfect - my apartment is five flights of stairs up, but it's good exercise!" The Germans nodded approvingly. "And the subway is right nearby. And I mean, there are creatures and such on the STREETS but not inside the building." Uh-oh, I'm sure that wasn't winning me any points. Moving right along... "Or, not in our apartment, anyway. And anyway, it's funny!" I laughed. "Every day is like an adventure! Like hearing conversations in Spanish coming through the walls, or having to bang our broom against the ceiling when the kids upstairs run around too much. It's an experience."

"Well," the girl said. "I couldn't live in the city. It's disgusting."

"No way," I countered. "The city is fantastic."

"I don't want to offend anyone who lives there," she said, obviously referring to moi.

"Oh, of course not," I said, obviously offended. (Ladies and Gents, welcome to Girl World.)

"But it's crowded and it's expensive and it is dirty, and you can't even DRIVE - "

"Nah, you get up in the morning, grab your paper, and take the subway! So much better."

"How long does it take to get to your university by subway?" interjected a German.

"Oh 25 minutes - just enough time to sip my coffee, read the paper, do my homework at the last minute-"

Girl, interrupting: "Ew, the subways are GROSS and the people on them are horrible I would never ride them-"

Pesce, anger rising: "Nah! It's great, it's hilarious! All these different people - one trying to convert you to Islam, another dressed in feathers playing the drums for spare change, or the construction workers rubbing elbows with the girls in Fendi - such diversity!"

"Look, maybe it's for some people, but it's not for me." Closing argument.

"I think every woman should try living on her own in the city once-" I am quoting my grandmother verbatim, at this. Grandma used to work in the Chrysler Building.

But, some stones cannot be moved. And I'll easily admit that I can often be one of them.

Girl: "Well, I see no reason to go there. I have a job."

ouch! Sip of martini. Tactful silence.

"And a boyfriend."

ouch! Repeat.

"And I am perfectly happy living at home with my parents-"

I leaned back in my chair, relaxed. Point. Score.

It took every ounce of will that I had not to smirk.

I didn't even really listen to the rest of her argument, which listed the car and the insurance that daddy pays for, as well as the free use of a washer and dryer (as opposed to we plebians who hit the laundromat around the corner, where there are always at least four machines out of service and a couple of bored kids pushing each other around in the dented laundry carts and getting in everyone's way) and the fact that the fridge is ALWAYS FULL and the chores are already done and it is safe and comfortable to be in the same neighborhood where she has spent the past 15 years of her life. No paying rent either, by the way.

I drained the martini, smiled, and simply dropped it as "Agree to disagree." I don't know if she realized it, but after her last line of reasoning, I had nothing left to say.

Clearly, I win.

I have independence. (Now true, all I need is the job to back that up, haha)

I *have* lived at home, and there is nothing wrong with it at all - we've all fallen into circumstances where we needed help, and we are truly blessed if we have family more than willing to lend a hand.

But - there is more outside of that easy, little box where everything is handed to you. If you eventually get that opportunity to spread your wings, why wouldn't you take off?

New York City may be dirty sometimes, and a little lonely and rough around the edges, and yeah, it is a world where you have to learn to share. The rats - suck! Occasional bug - worse! Cab fares and transit strikes - pain in the ass! Other people - hilarious, but can grate on your nerves, for sure. Lugging groceries up a walkup or sometimes having to stand during the entire 25-minute morning commute to work - harsh!

But looking up at the Empire State Building looming RIGHT THERE, only 10 blocks away, as I'm ducking into The Observer in the morning -

Or the Coffee Cart Guys in the morning, both before the J-school on Washington Place and the entrance to Observer HQ, who know my order before I even give it -

Snow falling on Spanish Harlem -

St. Mark's Place -

The shopping out in the fresh air, so much more liberating than the Mall -

Or the fact that I can get Chinese food, pizza, sushi, falafel, coffee, booze AT ANY TIME OF THE NIGHT, that sometimes we don't even make PLANS until 11 p.m., that all the kitschy and alternative art shows and movies and festivals are RIGHT THERE, that you can easily bump into an Olsen or a DiCaprio (or Howard Dean!) if you manage to get into Crobar -

To quote my mother, who had to listen to the verbal twin of this rant earlier today -

I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world.

... Well except for, maybe, a job.

;)

Clooney Picture (courtesy of Andrew Nynka)

2005-12-23T11:41:00.000-05:00

Here he is shaking hands with students after the discussion. Check out the hot intrepid reporter standing behind them, trying not to smirk, heh heh.

as an added bonus, here's the Livewire article:

George Clooney Goes Back to J-School

George Clooney entered the hall of 19 University Place, stomped his feet, rubbed his hands together briskly, and barked, “What is it, 12 degrees out? How do you people live here?” with a mixture of humor and gravity that colored his discussion with a select assembly of New York University journalism students Dec. 15.

The actor, repeatedly voted one of People magazine’s sexiest men, was dressed impeccably in black dress pants and a matching blazer over a black mock-turtleneck. He was thinner than his onscreen personas in his recent films “Syriana” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” — the latter the subject of his visit to NYU. Along with surprise appearances by co-writer, Grant Heslov, and David Strathairn, the actor who played broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, Clooney spoke about his film that Salon.com praised for making “a passionate argument for a revitalized press.”

The university had originally requested permission to show “Good Night, and Good Luck” on campus as an educational tool. The studio declined, but offered a tantalizing consolation prize: What if Clooney spoke directly to students about Murrow, McCarthysim and his take on the issues facing journalism?

Clooney spoke from a solid background in journalism. His father, Nick Clooney, was a TV newscaster and frequently brought his son onto the set.

“I grew up on the floor of a newsroom in Cincinnati, Ohio,” he said. “My father wasn’t making a lot of money, and in the summer, we had no babysitter.” He hung around the studio into his adolescence, becoming a floor director and working on “Dialing for Dollars.” He also ran the teleprompter for his dad and watched as his father fought the endless struggle between reporting entertainment and reporting hard news.

“He used to say it was a battle that was waged. It was never ‘won,’” Clooney said.

“Everyone respected my father and always has. I was able very quickly to get a mic in my hand.”

He studied journalism at Northern Kentucky University and briefly hosted a cable-access show. “I only lacked the talent and the skill,” he joked, and the crowd of cub reporters laughed easily with him.

The intimate gathering was scheduled for a 120-seat auditorium at 19 University Place, with an overflow room that could house an extra 70. When the news broke last month that Clooney was speaking at the school, however, almost 300 e-mail requests flooded the graduate director’s inbox the first two days, with more streaming in over the next couple of weeks. Eager students name-dropped, pleaded and jokingly offered bribes. One even wrote a haiku. In the end, a lottery for tickets had to be conducted to assign students and faculty seating.

Clooney, Heslov and Strathairn sat with Marcia Rock, the university’s broadcast director responsible for the noteworthy event, in an auditorium where students and teachers filled the seats and lined the walls. Rock led the discussion, and the three guests bandied humorously with each other and the audience in between serious assertions on the current need for journalism, the fourth estate, to watchdog the government and ask the tough questions, even as their film features Murrow confronting Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954.

“Power unchecked corrupts,” said Clooney in an interview backstage. “That has historically been the responsibility of the fourth estate — whoever was in power at the time, you went after him because you have to.”

Clooney told his audience that as a young journalist, he was the sort of interviewer who would read robotically off his list of questions, whereas his father would actually listen to people, engage them and adjust the interview in kind.

Comfortable before the camera, however, Clooney took a small role a cousin got him in a feature film and moved to Los Angeles in 1982 to pursue a career in acting. He still remembers his journalism roots, however, which can be seen in “Syriana” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” — movies that encourage the audience to contemplate the issues at hand, from the war in Iraq to the state of the press.

In fact, Clooney and Heslov approached “Good Night, and Good Luck” as any reporter would approach a story. They conducted extensive research, calling people who were there for Murrow’s infamous broadcast against McCarthy, including Joseph and Shirley Wershba. “They knew all the players and all the little stories,” Clooney said. They watched archival footage of Murrow’s weekly newscast “See It Now” as well as the fluffier “Person to Person.”

“We double-sourced every scene in this film,” said Clooney. “There is a small but loud group of people out there who think Murrow was a traitor.” He scratched his eyebrow, and advised the young journalists to double-source their own research and reporting. “This is a good trick. My father used to say, ‘Take the gun out of the other guy’s hand.’”

They wanted to do an honest and accurate reproduction of those tense couple of weeks at CBS when Murrow’s team took on McCarthy, rather than a biopic or an interpretation.

“We weren’t doing the ‘Ray’ version of Murrow,” Clooney said to applause. “We wanted to talk about the issues and the questions.”

On set, the actors were given papers from the 1950s to read, and even practiced writing lede sentences. Many of Strathairn’s lines were taken directly from transcripts of Murrow’s speeches and broadcasts.

“When I first walked on the set, I didn’t know much at all about Murrow,” Strathairn said, “but the actor playing Joseph R. McCarthy was pretty well cast.” The audience laughed because Clooney and Heslov had chosen to use live footage of the infamous senator, even as Murrow did on that legendary broadcast, rather than cast an actor.

“If we had an actor play McCarthy ... his behavior was just so bizarre that no one would believe an actor was not making this up,” Strathairn said. “Murrow decided to use McCarthy’s own words against him, and that, I think, was a brilliant choice.”

When asked if he thought he had done Murrow justice, Strathairn turned decidedly more serious.

“I certainly hope so,” he said. “I was 5 years old when this event happened. I learned about him in school.” He studied archival footage and read biographies, speeches and transcripts to nail down the character and walked away with a deepened respect for a journalist that was once “the most trusted man in America.”

“I have this cockamamie image of him as the cigarette,” said Strathairn of the reporter’s most famous prop (Murrow often smoked onscreen). “People see him as this elegant thing, poised and straight, and at the tip of it, something is burning.” The room was dead silent, hanging upon his words. “Inside this man, something is burning, and it eventually burned him from the inside out.” Murrow later died of lung cancer.

“He was the package,” Strathairn said with reverence. “He was very, very amazing. Speaking with his words was quite a privilege.”

The three speakers worked well off one another, telling jokes and keeping the audience enthralled and amused.

On why this movie is performing so well: “The girls are showing up to see David,” said Clooney with a straight face, gesturing toward Strathairn.

“Also because of the black-and-white film,” Heslov laughed.

“And the car crashes,” Strathairn added.

When the floor was opened to questions and answers from students, the tone became more serious again.

“I like good entertainment as much as anybody,” Clooney said, explaining that he sees entertaining as his leverage for creating more serious pieces. He noted that Murrow had had to host “Person to Person” — which he abhorred — to continue his more serious subject matter on “See It Now.” “There are deals that you guys are going to have to make to get the stories you want out,” he said. “It’s going to make you sick sometimes. It’s what you have to do. That’s the deal everybody makes.”

Clooney brought up the Patriot Act and compared its threat to civil liberties to McCarthy’s manipulation of Americans’ fear after World War II.

“We lose our minds every 30 or 40 years,” he began before his microphone cut out with a squeak of static. “And we lose our speaker systems, ” he cracked, before continuing. “After Pearl Harbor, we had the detainment camps, but later we figure it out. ‘Oh, that wasn’t very sporting of us.’ Eventually, we get it right.”

But this temporary insanity “usually comes out of fear. McCarthy capitalized on fear.”

That is why it is the job of the press to keep the public’s head straight. Yet today’s press, he worried, is too hesitant to take the kind of risks and make the kind of stand that Murrow made in the 1950s. “They lack curiosity, and they lack the fortitude to go and ask the tough questions,” Clooney said. “It’s a dangerous plan. Power unchallenged corrupts. It is your job,” he addressed the students, “to challenge whoever is in power. At the very least, all of these issues ... since the 1950s, I realized, nothing is different. It’s cyclical.”

Strathairn said: “We throw it back to you. The front line you guys are packing up for, hedged on all sides by what? Competition from other people, money, the time you’re allowed to a story, and that’s just the surface.” It is becoming “A world of bytes, undigested. It’s really a very slippery slope.”

Clooney wrapped it up, “Journalists ask me, ‘Well, how do we fix it?’ I’m like, ‘Well, I’m an actor. It’s up to you. Fix it! Goddammit, help us!’”

At the conclusion of the talk, the three guests stood up as the room broke into applause. Camera phones flashed, to the chagrin of event planners who had specifically prohibited cameras and autographs. “Well, good night everybody!” said Clooney, waving cheerfully.

“And good luck?” cracked a student sitting in the front row. Clooney gave a little groan, shook his head and chuckled.

“Yeah,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “Good night, and good luck.”

Final Three Livewire Stories

2005-12-22T17:26:00.000-05:00

OK - so I didn't write the "eight" that I had scammed about all semester, but seriously, I'm grateful to have met the bare minimum of six and to have gotten out of this class - and the others - ALIVE.

So here we have:

George Clooney Goes Back to J-School
George Clooney, Grant Heslov and David Strathairn from their film "Good Night, and Good Luck" visited New York University's School of Journalism Dec. 15 for a discussion on Murrow, McCarthy and the state of the press.

Give That Dog a Bone! (Or a Cashmere Sweater)
New Yorkers open their hearts — and wallets — to their pets this holiday season.

Seasonal Smarts
Thieves love the holidays, too, so while doing that last-minute holiday shopping, beware those who may be picking your pockets.

Cheers :/

One Year Cheer

2005-12-22T16:26:00.000-05:00

Oh shucks, I *just* realized I've been blogging for a year and a week as of today. Happy Anniversary! This thing got a bit more addictive than I'd expected, ey?

My Clooney Story, at long last

2005-12-22T16:06:00.000-05:00

This made it into The Observer yesterday; I wrote a longer, funnier, more colorful piece for Livewire, which, alas, has not posted this week; infuriating me that I got in so much trouble for missing Sunday night's 6:00 p.m. deadline and was threatened with an incomplete.

Well, we live and we learn. Here's to graduating! Now I have to pack to go hooooommmmeee.

(If Livewire never publishes, then I will post up my other version. Cheers!)

Deals to Make

New York University had originally requested permission to show Good Night, and Good Luck to J-schoolers on campus, but the studio declined. Instead, they offered a tantalizing consolation prize: What if the film’s director, George Clooney, came on down to offer his take on the issues facing journalism himself?

So last Thursday, Dec. 15, Mr. Clooney entered the hall of 19 University Place, stomped his feet and rubbed his hands together briskly, then barked, “What is it, 12 degrees out? How do you people live here?”

He’d brought along company, too; his co-writer, Grant Heslov, and David Strathairn, the actor who played broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow in the film.

The intimate gathering was scheduled for a 120-seat auditorium, with an overflow room that could house an extra 70. When the news broke last month that Mr. Clooney was speaking at the school, however, almost 300 e-mail requests flooded the graduate director’s inbox in the first two days, with more streaming in over the next couple of weeks. Eager students name-dropped, pleaded and jokingly offered bribes. One even wrote a haiku. In the end, a lottery for tickets had to be conducted to assign students—and faculty—seating.

“I grew up on the floor of a newsroom in Cincinnati, Ohio,” Mr. Clooney said to the throng. “My father wasn’t making a lot of money, and in the summer we had no baby-sitter.” He hung around the studio into his adolescence, becoming a floor director and working on Dialing for Dollars. He also ran the teleprompter for his dad.

He studied journalism at Northern Kentucky University and briefly hosted a cable-access show. “I only lacked the talent and the skill,” Mr. Clooney said.

Mr. Strathairn talked about his preparations to play Murrow. “I have this cockamamie image of him as the cigarette,” said Mr. Strathairn of the reporter’s most famous prop. “People see him as this elegant thing, poised and straight, and at the tip of it, something is burning. Inside this man, something is burning, and it eventually burned him from the inside out.” Murrow later died of lung cancer.

Why, the moderator wondered, was the film doing so well? “The girls are showing up to see David,” said Mr. Clooney.

“Also because of the black-and-white film,” said Mr. Heslov.

“And the car crashes,” said Mr. Strathairn.

“I like good entertainment as much as anybody,” Mr. Clooney said, explaining that he sees entertaining as his own leverage for creating more serious pieces. He noted that Murrow had had to host the show "Person to Person" — which he abhorred—in order to continue his more serious subject matter on "See It Now." “There are deals that you guys are going to have to make to get the stories you want out,” he said. “It’s going to make you sick sometimes. It’s what you have to do. That’s the deal everybody makes.”

At the conclusion of the talk, the three guests stood up as the room broke into applause. Camera phones clicked and whirred, to the chagrin of the event planners, who had specifically prohibited cameras and autographs.

“Power, unchecked, corrupts,” said Mr. Clooney in an interview backstage. “That has historically been the responsibility of the fourth estate. Whoever was in power at the time, you went after him—because you have to.”

—Nicole Pesce

STRIKE!

2005-12-22T13:55:00.000-05:00

While New York City transit was grinding to a halt late Monday/early Tuesday, I was hunched over my keyboard in a panic, pounding out the final 2500-word story standing in my way to a master’s degree. Well, there's that, and these two overdue N.Y.U. library books. With their "fines."

The imminent strike had worried the back of my mind for the past week or so, but only on the periphery. Final papers needed to be written, various brave and boozy outings were to made with classmates before everyone left the city to pursue Christmas and their careers, and besides, this transit walk-out kept getting postponed ... first it was Friday, then it was Monday, then Tuesday in the early a.m. ... seriously, these guys were worse than my friends and I deciding what time we should meet at Lit.

I decided that by the time the subways stopped, I would either be home on Long Island already, or too drunk and celebratory about finishing grad school to care.

So step back to Monday-night-into-Tuesday-morning, and I'm a mite peeved that I'm forced to work in my room because Monica and Martha brought home one of their co-waiters from Outback. He lives in the Bronx, and feared he would be unable to get to work at Outback (in the East 50s) if there was a strike the next day. He ended up being correct, of course, and in retrospect I'm glad we could help the guy out, but he was getting on my last nerve at the time. I had my work station all set up: on the couch, with a pillow comfortable enough to prop my back (but not comfortable enough to fall asleep on), with a cup of joe at my elbow, a movie ("The Princess Bride") playing in the background for noise and the occasional laugh, and, best of all, I was in the GROOVE. I was pounding out words like The Spirit had filled me, and deciding I *could* pass grad school, after all. (I hadn't realized how behind The Observer and extracurriculars had actually made me.)

Then the roomies returned with our guest. Whether I'm just unnaturally charismatic (especially with that wild-eyed, all-night-paper-writing stare, combined with wrinkled pajamas) or he, like some cats, was just drawn to the one person at the party who DIDN'T want his attention - he plopped next to me on the couch and proceeded to talk my ear off. I politely mentioned I was writing a paper - big one - due in the a.m. He wished me luck, turned to "Princess Bride" ... and kept turning BACK and asking me if such-and-such part was my favorite, or had I seen Harry Potter (pfft - had I "seen" it, I read all the books FIRST before this craze swept everyone up, dammit), and then inevitably, what was I writing this paper for and when was it due (yesterday!) and where did I work - and finally, with a sigh, I pulled the plug on my operations and retired to my room - which HAS no room, is the problem. This is why I prefer working on the couch. I was struggling to remain upright on my full-size bed, which encompasses almost the entire space. Lord knows I have no desk or anything. Ah, New York tenements.

There was a knock on my door, and there was Nosey McGiggles.

"Hi!"

I very suavely refrained from tackling him.

"I have to smoke outside, right?"

Ug. Yes.

"Will you be able to let me back in?" Martha was sleeping and Monica was just finishing up her packing. She was taking a very early flight in the morning, and, fearing the strike making most cabs unattainable, was leaving at 4:30 a.m.

It was now 2 a.m.

I let the boy out, and was now hit with writer's block. Dammit! Where had that train of thought gone ...

Found it, type THREE WORDS, and I hear him knocking at the door. Gritting my teeth, I get up, let him in ... aw, he bought chips. I *needed* fuel. That was nice. I take the chips, escort him back to the couch, go in my room, and shut the door.

A knock two hours later ushers in Monica, on her way out.

"It happened!" she said, referring to the strike. I get no wireless Internet signal in my room (another reason I'd been pissed about being relocated) so I had had no idea. Monica very generously offered up her computer (a desktop, with a desk, AND unwavering Internet) and I wished her good-bye and a merry Christmas, tip-toed past the sleeping chatterbox on our couch (he still had his shoes on ... and his shoes were ON the couch ... blech) and sat before Mon's computer and actually got my work done ... ish. I still wanted to read over one paper and add an intro and a conclusion to another, but otherwise ...

Oh - it was 7 a.m. already. Geez!

Ducked in and out of the shower, emailed my professor about the papers - and, due to the strike, he told me to hold off on handing them in that day. He was swamped as is.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted. This gave me an opp to read over the last-minute papers; because who writes their *best* at the last minute? I'm sure there were glaring errors.

But, with the schoolwork done at last, I decided to tackle my next big venture: getting downtown sans subways. Getting to Observer HQ on 20th and Broadway from East 103rd is not exactly a hop, skip and a jump.

I had no idea what a tangled snarl traffic would be because I never journey by car around this fair city. I know it's generally about a $15, 15-to-20-minute cab ride from here to the Village, so I figured a twenty in my pocket and leaving 45 minutes early would suffice just fine. I didn't even wear a hat or gloves, figuring I'd be cruising in a cab. A leather jacket, a sweater, some sneakers (because it was an Observer Tuesday) and some slacks, and I was set-

Stepped outside, and saw a sight I had never seen this far north of Times Square - traffic was completely gridlocked.

Wow.

Once the frenzy of finishing school and my own selfish problems dissipated, it suddenly occurred to me that this strike could be A Big Deal.

I stood uncertainly on the corner of Lexington Avenue. Manager-Jake had mentioned The Observer would reimburse our cab fare, and that was nice; the last thing I was psyched about doing was PAYING an arm and a leg to get to and from my UNPAID internship that technically ENDED last week. Problem was, finding a cab with vacant seats.

Then, I saw one.

"Oh!" I said, teeth chattering, and waved my New York Times enthusiastically at it. The driver waved me over, and I found myself sinking into the smelly and cracked leather seat with relief. He already had two fares, and there was just enough room for me as his third. I rubbed my hands together, restoring the circulation.

"Where you going?" the cabbie asked me.

"Twentieth and Broadway," I said with a smile. There was no way I was getting to work on time at this rate, but at least I would be warm.

He cleared his throat, and looked at me in his rearview mirror. "You are aware how this works?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know what the deal is today?"

Sadly, I did not. I listened as he explained that it cost $10 just to sit in the cab, and then another $5 for each zone after the first. I was four zones away from where I needed to go, so my ride was going to cost me $30. According to his reasoning, which I would later find suspect.

I stiffly opened the door, thanked him, and got out of the cab. This took all of five minutes, and in that five, we hadn't moved a centimeter.

I returned to my corner, unsure of what to do, and then decided to walk partway, at least until I got to a less expensive fare zone. Damn, I didn't even HAVE $30 on me. I decided to make for the 86th Street and Lexington ATM. It was 17 blocks away - so I'd get some exercise, get some money, and maybe get a cheaper cab. I called The Observer and warned them I was walking partway, and might be a little late, and then I set off on my Adventure To Work with my pink messenger bag bouncing on my hip, my frost-bitten fingers shoved into my unsatisfying leather-jacket-pockets, and a steady stream of steam coming from my mouth and nostrils as I puffed along. The temperature was in the 20s.

A stereotypically-kind city cop stopped me. "Whatsamatter, miss? The cab wouldn't take you?"

"It was going to cost $30!" I exclaimed. "I'm walking until my legs get tired, and then I'll get a cab. Cheaper."

"Well take care, dear," he said, and I kept on my way. I was not the only one who had chosen to walk, by far. A mass of folks in suits and skirts were swaddled in their warmest clothes and hurrying along Lexington to make their way to their Upper East Side and Midtown offices - or so I suspected, gaging from their clothes. I shuffled along with them, taking in the fresh air and the sunshine. I hadn't been outside during daylight for DAYS, so I actually enjoyed the experience. I was definitely tired, from not having gotten a wink of sleep since 9 a.m. the day before, but the brisk air and the exercise were even more refreshing than a hot cup of coffee. I reached the ATM all-too-soon, withdrew my money, and went back outside. The traffic was much lighter here - there must have been a turnoff somewhere along the line while I wasn't paying attention. I saw plenty of cabs with their lights on ... but thought, ah, the hell with it. Let's see how far I can walk.

So I set off down Lexington, with a myriad of others on bikes and skates. One young man zipped by on a skateboard (hotttt) and another jovial fellow walked past singing "New York, New York" in a cheery baritone. I loved it! This was great. Another 10 blocks slipped easily by. The more I walked, the warmer I got. I had fortunately worn comfortable sneakers. Similar to Dave Barry's brilliant column yesterday, I saw all sorts of wonderful sights. And, best of all, I was making good time. Here I was already passing Hunter College at 68th Street, and I'd only been on the road less than half an hour. That was already 35 blocks!

That's when I decided that I was walking the whole way - 82 blocks, and two avenues; about five miles. I could totally do this. I was in no *huge* rush to get to work, anyway - I was going to be in a dark cubicle fact-checking all day. Here, I was outside, in the sun, watching history.

I called my grandmother.

"I'm walking to work! I'm just passing 53rd Street! Fifty blocks down, 30 more to go!"

"It's all over the news."

"Yeah, it's craz--" I suddenly cut off to swear at a woman who pushed me. Yes, 50 blocks in, and the novelty was already wearing off. My feet were getting tired, my back hurt, and remember, I hadn't slept in over 24 hours - I was very tired.

"What's the matter Nikki? You bump into someone?"

"She pushed ME, Grandma! And I apologized and she gave me lip!" I swear again, and realize this is my grandmother I'm talking to. "Oh Jesus, I'm sorry-"

She keeps me company for most of the remainder of the walk, and I redeem myself (somewhat) for not having called her since my birthday, which was a good two weeks and change, ago.

Now at last I'm down to the East 30s. I realize I had also forgotten to eat breakfast, and I'm thirsty. I opt to wait until I get by Observer HQ before grabbing a bagel and some joe.

No longer looking up at the sunlight glinting off the skyscrapers, or the wreaths and Christmas lights in store windows and strung on traffic lights, I now just stare at my feet as I plod along the last couple of blocks. I think about "The Long Walk," a short story written by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. In the future (or maybe our own troubled present) Americans watch this athletic competition called The Long Walk, where 100 strapping young lads start out in Maine, and they walk along the Interstate ... and if they fall below a certain speed, they get a warning. And after three warnings, they get shot. It's the top-ranked show in the nation. It's really sick.

I couldn't help wondering whether I was keeping pace or not.

Oh, by Jove! I look up, and I'm at 23rd Street. I turn, pass Madison, and three cheers! I'm at Broadway. I start texting people in jubilation. I buy a cup of joe and a bagel. It's only slightly after ten. Taking into account my dawdling with the cab, hitting the ATM, and then stopping for breakfast, and it only took me an hour to walk down here. And I'm actually only half an hour late for work, which, all things considered, is brilliant.

I plop down in my cube with my face flushed with exercise, my appetite for my bagel well-earned, and I'm the first intern in, and it's pretty great. As reporters and editors trickle in for the next few hours, we all compare How I Got Here stories, and hold pissing contests on who walked the farthest, who met the strangest people, yadda yadda yadda ... and it's the last Tuesday before Christmas, and everyone gets a bottle of wine and Godiva chocolates from The Big Cheese, and the atmosphere is very festive.

Two hours later, I wake up. I literally fell asleep at my desk while fact-checking but, similar to the time I got sick in the bathroom, I don't think that anybody noticed. I find myself nodding off and on all day. This is better than the hangover after my birthday, but still - no more all-nighters before Observer Tuesdays! Though I only have one such Tuesday left, after New Year's, which I'm really doing as a favor. And I won't have any more school assignments, ever, unless I someday go for my Ph.D.

The day dragged on, and as the hours slipped by, it occurred to me - to all of us - that getting here by foot and skate and bike by daylight was one thing, but what about the return home? In the dark, when temperatures were dipping below the 20s, and even more people were going to be competing for cabs?

Suddenly, the strike wasn't so funny anymore. And, it wasn't. Getting home was rough, but I did manage to hail a cab, and got home relatively quickly, all things considered.

At least my papers are pretty much done.

Now I just have to figure out how the hell I'm getting to Penn Station today - which is not only downtown, but ACROSS town - so that I can get home to the fam for Christmas.

WAIT: BREAKING NEWS!

The Transit Peeps are going back to work. Like, tomorrow.

Well thanks fellas, this certainly helps me out today! Me and the #$%@#$% million others. Ah well - Adventure! Fresh air! Blisters! The five-mile walk downtown to meet with Morgan, Nynka and Professor Serrin for a drink will only help keep off the holiday pounds I intend to gain when I go home and EAT AGAIN! BWA HA HA.

2005-12-14T18:54:00.000-05:00

A word to the wise:

During Finals Week of your Final Semester of Grad School, do not put yourself in charge of creating the List of students to get tickets to George Clooney gracing your school with an intimate, under-the-radar visit.

Whereas NYU has had speakers come to campus all semester, attendance by the student body has often been sporatic, at best. Part of this has been because these speakers orate during from noon until 1 p.m. weekdays at the J-school (they're called Brown Bag speakers, as in you should bring a brown bag lunch and listen tight) and many students miss out due to class or work/internships. But there certainly have been plenty who did not show up due to hangovers, lack of interest, etc., and this has frustrated department planners struggling to host such events to build a sense of community in our sometimes estranged department. You know - print kids stick with print, broadcast sticks with broadcast, that sort of thing.

But hey now -

Word gets out that George Clooney is coming to campus, and BAM! - 200 emails hit Professor Serrin's mailbox lickety-split, surprise surprise.

He needed help sorting through them; I needed to ensure that I could attend this "intimate gathering" with extremely limited seating so that I could cover it for Livewire and The Observer ... and so, cut to today, and I'm hunched over his computer upstairs, clutching a thermos of coffee and staring at the screen with bloodshot eyes, trying to make sure that broadcast student attendees do not overwhelm print, and that undergrads do not overwhelm grads, and vice versa, and screening The Ridiculous from The Sincere.

At first it was funny. Last week, fellow Social-Justice-Leaguer Vanessa made the tickets, I started making a spreadsheet/contact list, and together we pored over Serrin's emails. There were only 80. ...?

Then we realized half the emails had been inadvertantly dumped by Serrin's AOL account, so I had to email the undergrad and grad listservs (out of a sense of duty and fairness) and request that everyone re-send their requests so that I was sure I wasn't forgetting anybody. And this time, I had them sent directly to ME.

Less than 24 hours later - 130 emails. Ah, popularity!

And some of them were HILARIOUS - I've never seen a celebrity; once I thought I saw Samuel L. Jackson posing for pictures, but it was actually a wax figure in a window - some were borderline pathetic - please, I could use a jolt of Clooney - and some just scary. We were offered half-kidding monetary bribes, sob stories - and one Crazy wrote me a HAIKU. A dreadful one, at that.

So yes, the past week of handling this has been utterly ridiculous, and I spent five hours at Serrin's office or downstairs in the computer lab today creating a FINAL list of who was definitely set to come, and then physically drawing a bunch of other names out of a hat to dole out the (few) remaining tickets. Then I emailed the 200 or so people who are coming, to set up where they can pick up the tickets before Clooney's visit, which is TOMORROW already. And I have to hurry down very early in the AM tomorrow to give Serrin the tickets so he can hand them to students and teachers, and also because I forgot to mark on his Master List who gets what tickets to which sections.

Insanity.

Recognize, I have crazy-work to still do this week, and yet have very unwisely made Clooney a priority.

What am I getting out of it, though, you ask?

*A reserved seat up front (HELL yeah.)

*As well as a 10-minute exclusive interview with him (along with five other reporters, alas) backstage before he goes on.

*And, hopefully, some added respect and appreciation from Serrin, who has become one of my endeared professors/mentors.

But Jesus-God. I am WIPED.

..............

I came home, whipped up some quick French toast, and put up my feet,thinking the worst was over - I mean, the lottery is done, the list is set, the tickets are made, the 'winners' have been contacted - I can do some HW and go to bed. Right?

Wrong.

Now my inbox is being absolutely flooded with ridiculous questions.

Here's the email I had originally sent out:

Hey everyone -

I *just* finished the raffle, and you guys have been picked for seats at the Clooney shindig.

Professor Serrin will be in his office on the FIFTH FLOOR after 10 a.m. TOMORROW, THURSDAY. In the afternoon, however, he will be either in his office or in ROOM 101 of the J-School. You are receiving YELLOW[in some cases, blue]TICKETS. If there is some problem, email me at nlp226@nyu.edu or for some emergency tomorrow call *** *** ****.

We are starting at 5 PM SHARP on Thursday, so make sure you get there early. You will need to bring your TICKET and your STUDENT ID to check off the list of people who have been drawn to attend. I'm sorry, but friends husbands and moms cannot be scootched in with you; there is extremely limited space.

Thanks for your patience, guys. I repeat Serrin's plea that we've done the best we could.

Sincerely,

Nicole Pesce

Pretty clear, I thought. Yet I get these:

"Do I have to pick up my ticket before the event?"

"Can I get there late?"

"How late can I get mine?"

And my personal favorite, after all of the hullabaloo -

"So, do we each only get one ticket?"

Sigh.

Sigh.

On the brightside, tonight is Midnight Breakfast. I need to have some bacon and some laughs, I think.

Snow Falls on Spanish Harlem - Add 2

2005-12-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

Crossing Lexington

Subway Stop

106th Street

Some comforting bar lights

Park Avenue

Snow Falls on Spanish Harlem - Add 1

2005-12-09T11:03:00.000-05:00

Schoolyard basketball court on 106th

Playground on Park Avenue

"Our Barrio" on a wall on 104th

Heavy snowfall under one of the trains
(one of my favorites)

106th and Park

Snow Falls on Spanish Harlem

2005-12-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

Upon the alarm going off early this morning, Nicole Pesce yawns, stretches, looks out the window, and realizes that the city is blanketed in "eyeball-sized" snowflakes.

Without even pausing to change out of her PJs or brew a cup of joe, the intrepid journalist grabs her camera and runs around Spanish Harlem to catch the snow before it stops.

Welcome to El Barrio - There is a rose - STILL

103rd Street, with the Metro North train rushing past in the distance

Early 20s ... those lives are very difficult to make interesting, even when they seemed interesting to those living them at the time. - Dave Eggers

2005-12-03T13:28:00.000-05:00

I rent a room and I fill the spaces with
Wood in places to make it feel like home
But all I feel's alone
It might be a quarter life crisis
Or just the stirring in my soul

Either way I wonder sometimes
About the outcome
Of a still verdictless life

Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?

For a change, I was getting ahead of the game, sitting in my cube yesterday, a stack of stories fully fact-checked at my elbow with no other assignments in sight. I delved into an article for Livewire. My draft isn't due to Professor Ogintz until Sunday, but I have a lot to do this weekend. Veering from my haphazard work ethic of this semester, I actually did most of the research and wrote a draft for my piece on shoplifting during the holidays yesterday afternoon, as opposed to the last-minute Sunday, and emailed it in to her. All I need are some quotes from the cops, some stats from the NYC Criminal Justice Department, and, of course, personal anecdotes - which I intend to get and fill in today.

I felt productive, I felt good, until I looked up and realized the managing editor was standing by and wanted me to follow him to talk for a few minutes.

And I realized that, finally, he was giving me the State of the Internship Address.

Gulp.

I stood up, leaving my pen and notebook behind, and followed him into P. Stevenson's office completely unarmed.

It went really well.

In fact, I left feeling more comfortable and at ease with my internship than I have in the three months since I started there on September 2nd. Which leads me to my one, really huge complaint about the internship - that I had never really felt comfortable enough to talk with anybody, and that I had never been quite sure where I stood; was I doing a good job, a horrible job, and did the other reporters and editors like me and my work?

The bitter irony is of course, now that I *am* getting much more comfortable there, and I feel much more at ease talking with and joking with the other staffers - alas, it is time to go.

I was informed - but with sincere apology - that they are in no position to hire anybody. I had no complaint with this - one thing I will definitely give to these guys cred for is they were honest from the get-go. Getting a job straight out of the internship relies on a opportunistic cocktail composed of a number of factors - none of which really fell into place. They've got a solid newsroom now, with no glaring holes to fill. Therefore, the interns will go on their way. We've already spied them interviewing our replacements, which is ever-disconcerting. But hey, such is life.

I was told I do good work, that I put in the hours and I always look for extra work, and that I received a good review to be sent to NYU(so I *should* get an "A" in this internship-course, so HEY - that's ONE A in my grad school career, bully!) and that I can always use them as a reference. I sincerely appreciate that.

Furthermore, we are all encouraged to keep in touch and to pitch and freelance to them - which is an opportunity that I relish taking. One of my top five goals for the next few months, now, is pitching and putting a "real" story into The Observer on my own - and for money, no less, haha. Although even just the exposure is appreciated.

And I was given a chance to vent my own critique of the internship, so finally, I spoke up about having taken on too many hours and falling behind in school, and about really feeling out-of-place in the newsroom and not sure whom I could communicate with, and about always feeling uncertain with whether or not I was performing well, and about being broke.

To my surprise, this was no surprise to Jake, haha. In fact, his biggest critique toward me had been that there were times when I was obviously frustrated or unhappy with things, and that I didn't just speak up. In the future, I need to be more assertive about my needs and concerns. If I need time off to do my schoolwork the next few weeks, I can have it. In fact, I *always* could have had it.

I felt like such an idiot.

It's just so easy to subvert myself in an environment where I'm trying to be as amicable as possible. On the street, I will elbow my way around enough to make J. Miller blush, but in the newsroom, in front of superiors and seasoned vets, I just want to "get along" - which is a dangerous mindset in some ways, because it leads complacency and to young staffers being taken advantage of - but alas, I'm getting ahead of myself; that's my story for Serrin, ha.

So I walked out of the room feeling really - BUMMED. About leaving the internship I had had so many mixed feelings about. This is an invaluable lesson learned though - because I know future jobs are going to be even more harried; daily newsrooms are going to be even less homey and inviting; and I now know it takes a few months to get comfortable and to get into a groove, so I need to give each place a grace period before making up my mind. I wish I had a few more months with The Observer, now that I have more time since school is wrapping up, where I could really get to know people, and sit in on meetings and pitch ideas, and to stay late until the paper actually closes at 11 p.m. or midnight or 1 on a Tuesday night.

TIME. I just wish I had more TIME.

As we all wish. Because ye gods, school is done in a handful of weeks, and none of us is quite sure what is going to happen next.

Along the lines of things getting comfortable just as soon as it's time to leave them -

my apartment.

Last Sunday, Monica pulled a dusty cardboard box down from the top of her wardrobe, opened it, and lo and behold, inside was a miniature faux Christmas tree and a bunch of her family's old decorations.

So, for a good half hour, Monica and Martha and I, as well as Martha's visiting friend, strung white lights on the little tree, and placed Monica's eclectic array of Ohio-made ornaments - angels from Sunday School, crazy little sleds and even an ornamental pig. Then we wrapped one of our red fleece blankets around the base - very "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown" (see: Linus' blankie) and turned off all the lights and stood back to check it out.

This is my first Christmas tree that is all mine, as a young adult, separate from my family's tree. I took a dozen pictures to send to my grandmother.

Then the girls and I sat around and talked. And we've been doing this a lot lately. Which sounds typical of girls that live together, but see, I've always been out of the loop. I came into this apartment late, and I missed the bonding experience that was dealing with the roommate whose shoes I filled, who was on coke and didn't pay bills. And my schedule is completely contradictory to theirs - these two mostly work afternoons and nights; I'm gone all day and am home at night. I only saw my roommates in the evenings over the kitchen sink, as we wove a complicated dance around each other in the small space as I made coffee, Martha made chicken, and Monica brewed some tea.

The last few weeks, however, Martha and I have talked a lot more; Monica and I are obsessed with watching 24 when it gets delivered by Netflix, and I have suddenly realized that, despite the rats in the alley, the ever-present sound of the Metro North rushing by our window, the shrieks and pounding feet of the family upstairs, my newspaper always being stolen off the stoop and the water that is always either too hot or too cold in the shower - I am liking living in Spanish Harlem, I am liking living with these girls, AND they like me back. I'm welcome to stay on after February, when they renew their lease, and since I've proven myself a competent roommate (note - not a crackhead) my rent will actually be knocked down a hundred bucks.

If I don't find a job, though, I have to leave.

So now here's the dilemma, again - now that I sincerely like and am comfortable in my pad, I may very well have to pull up my roots and move on; as I am doing with my internship; as I may be doing with "life, the universe, everything" in general.

I turn 25 on Monday and am hoping to have a low-key yet grand gathering with my J-school friends and a select few rugby teammates and sorority sisters who live in the nearby area. I figure on a fun night at McSorley's and some wandering around before going to bed and pulling a long day at work on Tuesday.

But tonight I am meeting up with LI friends Katt and Steve, Ron and Grant, because 1 - they cannot come out on Monday, and 2 - not only is it my bday, but Grant is moving to Buffalo this week. This has Katt, Ron and I devestated.

Ron and Grant were my two absolute best buds in college, outside Katy. Katy has already moved to Albany (and gotten married!), Chris has gone MIA, Katt and Steve have bought a house, and I've moved to New York City. Grant's going upstate seems like the final piece in the Breaking of the Fellowship, and it has us all really reflective. Tonight proves to be a lot of fun, but insantly bittersweet. I'm sure there will be plenty of those moments of tears brimming, glasses clinking, and reminescing. I need batteries for my camera.

I know this is a rather personal bit of nonsense to spew on my Journalism Blog, but this stage of life is pretty interesting, I know it's shared experience. I have no idea what is going to happen over the next few weeks, and how these weeks will define the next few months and the next few years. Friendships moving on, and leases coming to a close and internships wrapping up all need to be readjusted, reviewed and, sometimes, replaced. It's a heavy bundle of thoughts to have while there are still papers to write and assignments to complete, so these reflections will largely go on the backburner. But they're still there. And I am looking at some of the choices I've made this semester, and those things that I have achieved and failed at, and it makes me really thoughtful about the choices I have yet to make. I want I do a good job, and I want to do the smart thing(s), and want to succeed. I just hope I will still have a lot of these crazy characters by my side when the time is up and the ink has dried.

Til then - the Birthday, I suppose. And finishing grad school. Cheers!

So what, so I've got a smile on
But it's hiding the quiet superstitions in my head
Don't believe me
When I say I've got it down

Everybody is just a stranger but
That's the danger in going my own way
I guess it's the price I have to pay
Still "everything happens for a reason"
Is no reason not to ask myself-

If I am living it right
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?

lyrics by the delectable John Mayer

Twofer Tuesdays

2005-11-29T23:31:00.000-05:00

After publishing nothing on Livewire for over a month, I posted two articles this issue - making for a whopping total of three, if you've been keeping up with the maths.

We need six stories to pass the News Bureau class that creates Livewire; my personal goal all along, however, has been to have eight. The clock is ticking! Let's see if I can pull the journalism-version of a hat trick in the next three weeks. Make that two and change, now.

In other news, Jake and all the other editors at the other for-credit internships have been asked to write EVALUATIONS about the N.Y.U. students slaving away across this fair city. We're on the edges of our seats.

Forget about finding a job at this point - I just want to "pass" my internship and my classes so that I get this master's degree that all the kids are talking about. If I can just manage to make it through the next few weeks alive - and to possibly enjoy myself on my birthday next week to boot - I'll be a grateful lady.

Happy Reading!

The Cheap Date New Yorkers Love to Hate
By Nicole Lyn Pesce

Cheesy. I know.

This one, obviously, was much closer to my heart:

Has "Elegant Violence" Gotten Too Elegant? Rugby Grows Up.
By Nicole Lyn Pesce

Happy reading!

Observer Tuesdays

2005-11-23T08:40:00.000-05:00

I woke up at 8:50 yesterday morning - 10 minutes before I had to be *on* the subway if I wanted to make it to work on-time. Which I did want to, but which proved exceedingly more complicated than I expected. Not-quite-concious, I stumbled in and out of the shower, put one leg then the other into a pair of green cotton pants from Old Navy, rugby knee socks, a tank top under a t-shirt under a rugby hoodie, and flew out the door -

- to find it was drizzling, and I was wearing 100 percent water-absorbant clothing. Oh well - it's not like I had long to walk in the rain. My subway is right on my corner. I managed to board a train quickly and painlessly (for a rush-hour-Tuesday) and without getting too wet.

Stepped out at Union Square ...

and it was pouring.

I dashed the six blocks to work, but alas - arrived at Observer HQ completely drenched. And 10 minutes late. But I was still the first intern to arrive, and I looked quite pathetic, so I hoped this would be all well and kosher.

I was given a few minutes to "compose myself" so I ducked into the ladies' room and tried to wring the water out of my hair and dry myself as best I could with paper towels. Alas. My pants would remain damp as late as my 1:30 lunch break.

So, sitting at my cube after such a manic morning, I fully expected to have a horrendous day - especially seeing as how it was a Tuesday, and I would be working til nine or so that night.

I couldn't have been more wrong, to my pleasant surprise.

Oh, it was certainly busy enough - but for a Tuesday, it wasn't half bad. Most of the stories were filed early this week, so we had already fact-checked them Friday and Monday (MONDAY was indeed hellishly-busy.) Brad had been asked by two of the reporters to help them do research on a story, and even with his absence, Raegan and Erin and I scratched our red pens through a stack of stories yesterday at a comfortably productive pace. And, best best best of all, after being told just before six that there was *nothing* else to check for the rest of the day, and we few, we happy few, only needed to sit and wait-out the edits for the preliminary drafts we'd checked - Raegs and I got to help Brad research the article which ended up being today's cover story. Basically, it involved doing a NexisLexis search and tallying up the numbers of articles major U.S. papers devoted to Iraq war coverage over the past three years, as well as noting where in the paper these stories appeared. Whereas one *could* find the work tedious, I absolutely loved the break from fact-checking and red-carpet-stampeding. This was fun, interesting research, and I was disappointed to finish it so "soon" (after about two hours.)

To add to the delight, Brad and Raeg's and I got an "additional reporting" credit on today's cover story. I know such cred doesn't hold near as much water as a byline as far as my clip portfolio is concerned, but I'm pretty proud, nevertheless. It's exciting to be a part of something real.

I'm not letting it get to my head though - first-off, Brad did do most of the work, and a great deal of the reporting credit goes to him. Second - I'm covering another party or celebrity fracas on Monday night, haha, so not too much has changed.

Upon leaving the Observer last night, though, I was giddy as hell with my upcoming "success" and the night was beautiful - frigid, to be true, but the sky was clear except for shreds of clouds racing in the brisk wind - and I met up with a handful of classmates at Chumley's and had a merry-old, journalistic time. I fear my visit home for the next two days will be less carefree, but I have work on Friday morning and a rugby tournament on Saturday that should be able to soothe any lasting familial wounds from this most dreaded of holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving!

While We Were Sleeping
Where Was the Media Between Invasion and Murtha? Networks Gave Vietnam War Twice the Minutes Iraq Gets; Baghdad Bureaus Cut Back; Amanpour: ‘Patronizing’

By Rebecca Dana, Lizzy Ratner

On the morning of Aug. 3, 1965, a 33-year-old CBS correspondent named Morley Safer, in fatigues and with a bulky recording contraption on his hip, stood in Cam Ne, Vietnam, before a backdrop of burning thatch-roof huts. He clutched a battered metal microphone. Moments earlier, a unit of baby-faced American soldiers had set the huts on fire. Young women ran wailing, cradling babies; an elderly man hobbled toward Mr. Safer, pleading in Vietnamese.

“This is what the war in Vietnam is all about, the old and the very young,” Mr. Safer said, turning to face the camera.

Forty years later, the United States is in a desert war, transmitted instantly by satellite and broadband. There are no boundaries on our
technical capabilities to cover events.

But there are other limits—commercial, political, editorial. And they have kept the war in Iraq marginal in the American media, from soon after the initial invasion in the spring of 2003 till last week, when Representative John Murtha hurled it back into the spotlight.

While Vietnam is remembered as the television war, Iraq has been the television-crawl war: a scrolling feed of bad-news bits,pushed to the margins by Brad and Jen, Robert Blake, Jacko and two and a half years of other anesthetizing fare. Americans could go days on end without engaging with the war, on TV or in print.

“There’s a dearth of seriousness in the coverage of news,” said veteran war correspondent Christiane Amanpour, “at a time when, in my view, it couldn’t be more serious.”

• Dead troops are invisible. The Bush administration’s ban on capturing flag-draped coffins is echoed in the press’ overall treatment of American war dead. A May 2005 survey by the Los Angeles Times found that over a six-month span, a set of leading United States newspapers and magazines ran “almost no pictures” of Americans killed in action, and they ran only 44 photos of wounded Westerners.

• Average monthly war coverage on the ABC, NBC and CBS evening newscasts, combined, has been cut in half—from 388 minutes
in 2003, to 274 in 2004, to 166 in 2005.

• Major newspapers have cut back on the size of their Baghdad bureaus, with some closing them or allowing them to go unstaffed for stretches.

• Government regulation has spread over the battlefield, limiting mobility and access. Where Vietnam correspondents could hop a chopper to combat zones at will, Iraq reporters need to sign eight-page sheaves of rules and are pinned to single units. Health-care privacy law is invoked to keep reporters away from the wounded.

• Corporate security restrictions likewise stifle reporting. At CNN, reporters need clearance from the bureau chief to leave the network compound; similar rules apply at other networks.
The danger “really impedes our ability to get around the country to talk to average Iraqis, to get a really good sense of what’s going on on a daily basis,” said Paul Slavin, a senior vice president for ABC.

Many reporters have done heroic work in Iraq despite the obstacles. But it has failed to add up. There have been no moments like Cam Ne—in which Mr. Safer, a single Marianas-deep furrow between his brows, summarized the news and, in the process, signaled the birth of a bracing and immediate breed of war coverage: “The day’s operation burned down 150 homes, wounded three women, killed one baby, wounded one Marine, and netted … four old men who could not answer questions put to them in English.”

That nightly jungle drama, bringing a futile war to American televisions, has no counterpart in today’s coverage.

“The problem is that people aren’t publishing the work,” said Stefan Zaklin of the European Pressphoto agency. Mr. Zaklin recalled taking a picture of a fallen U.S. Army captain during the November 2004 assault on Falluja. The soldiers, he said, “were O.K. with me taking that picture,” and it ran in Paris Match, the Bangkok Post, and on page 1 of Germany’s Bild-Zeitung, Europe’s highest-circulation newspaper. Its only exposure in the U.S., he said, was a two-hour spin on MSNBC.

“The U.S. press is even worse in terms of not publishing the complete story,” Mr. Zaklin said, “and I think it’s because of the perceived taste or tolerance levels of their audience.”

“Corporations don’t want and don’t feel particularly a responsibility to aggressively rock the boat,” said Michael Kirk, a documentary producer working for PBS’s Frontline. “I think that’s certainly true. Why would Viacom want to rock the boat?”

At the networks, Mr. Kirk said, “the imperative is not to let somebody spend the time and the energy and the resources to really know it.

“We just did this huge film about torture,” Mr. Kirk continued. “We called all the people who worked at Abu Ghraib—the military police, military-intelligence people, officers. Many, many of them said no reporter had ever contacted them. This was a public list; this was not a secret list. It’s basic journalism—I call one guy and say, ‘Who else can I talk to?’ He gives me two more names. And that person gives me four more names. They also said they had not been contacted by anyone
in journalism.”

So the war, in its bloodless version, fails to disturb the national media mind.
“I don’t think the networks have been able to create a narrative or mythology for the war,” said Ron Simon, the television curator for the Museum of Television and Radio. “For a narrative, you have to have an answer to Norman Mailer’s famous question, ‘Why are we here?’ Two years later, they’re still struggling to ask that question.”

Without that overarching narrative, news organizations are left to report inconclusive results under dangerous and unhelpful conditions. “I have to say, from where I sit—and this is from being on the ground—it’s really hard to do much more than figure out what the narrative over the past 24 hours was,” said New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins, on the phone from the paper’s Baghdad bureau.

Thus, in an entertainment-saturated media business, the Iraq feed has faded to an unattractive option—an option that even tends to be, with its distant and indistinct and repetitive strife, boring.

“News is news,” said John Paxson, CBS’s London bureau chief, who provides Iraq coverage to the network’s news programs. “A certain level of violence in Iraq, if it stays at that level for a period of weeks or months, it isn’t news. If it spikes upward, it’s news, and the amount of coverage on the air goes up.”

Asked if CBS is satisfying the American audience’s appetite for news from Iraq, he said, “I don’t know, because I’m not a consumer. I don’t watch American TV.”

The American news consumer is seeing far less of the war on television than Vietnam-era viewers did. In 1972, Ernest W. Lefever, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and senior fellow at the Ethics and public Policy Center, tabulated the CBS Evening News’ coverage of the Vietnam War, for a book meant to demonstrate that the network was excessively hostile to the Nixon administration. Mr. Lefever tallied 1,092 minutes of war coverage on the network that year, an average of 91 minutes a month.
Andrew Tyndall, a media analyst who tracks broadcast network news, reports that ABC, NBC and CBS combined have averaged 166 minutes a month on Iraq this year—which works out, per network, to roughly 55 minutes a month.

In 2003, after the invasion, media companies were warned not to feed the American news consumer too much material on the downside of war. The media-consulting firm Frank Magid Associates advised broadcast outlets that its survey results suggested that viewers had very little appetite for stories about casualties, prisoners of war and anti-war protests.

“There’s this kind of general, industry-wide view that Americans don’t like anything tough, don’t like anything complicated, don’t give a shit, don’t know how to spell the country much less care what’s going on there,” Ms. Amanpour said. “I find that a very patronizing attitude.”

Since the early days of round-the-clock shock and awe, as the war news has grown more ambiguous and dispiriting, Iraq’s share of broadcast time has diminished. According to Mr. Tyndall’s figures, coverage of combat in Iraq on the three top networks dropped from 133 minutes a month in 2003 to 113 minutes in 2004, then to 70 minutes in 2005.

“At the time, this looked like it was gonna have a happy ending,” Mr. Tyndall said. “There was the drama of the drive to Baghdad. The networks had time to plan for the invasion, to allocate all the resources, to get all the embeds organized. It was orchestrated as a spectacle.”

It’s not only combat that’s lost its share of TV time as the post-invasion era drags on. When Iraq’s interim government was formed in June 2004, the top three broadcast networks devoted 139 minutes that week to coverage, according to Mr. Tyndall. During the week of the January 2005 Constitutional Assembly elections, the networks spent 146 minutes, as Iraqis happily gathered around cameras waving their purple-tipped fingers.

But last month’s constitutional referendum got only 36 minutes of air time in the week it happened, Mr. Tyndall reported.

Reporters are still working the war zone, if not in the same waves as during the initial invasion. The broadcast networks and CNN are spending millions of dollars on Iraq newsgathering operations each year, and executives from the networks said that the financial commitment hasn’t dropped off.

“These are now fixed costs,” said Chris Cramer, the managing director of CNN International, who oversees Iraq coverage for the network. “They’re the price of doing business there, if you want to run a meaningful operation. We’re now spending several millions of dollars in security alone, and that’s before we get to staffing costs and accommodations.”

Print outlets, meanwhile, have gradually reduced their presence and expenses—with some withdrawing their foreign correspondents altogether. The Boston Globe no longer keeps a full-time staff journalist in Iraq; an Iraqi stringer maintains its offices in the Al Hamra hotel. Several weeks can pass between visits by Globe correspondents, said James Smith, the paper’s foreign editor.

“All bureaus are constricting to a degree,” said Rajiv Chandrasekaran, an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post who was the paper’s Baghdad bureau chief from April 2003 to August 2004. In the early days, he said, The Post maintained four or five permanent reporters, with three or four additional reporters rotating through at any given time. Now, the number of permanent reporters is down to two, with two or three more dropping in.

All of the American media have come to rely more and more on Iraqi staff. Of the roughly 40 people in CNN’s Baghdad bureau, about 30 are Iraqis. ABC has 30 Iraqi staffers in a bureau of 55; CBS has about two dozen in a similarly sized bureau. Approximately half of Reuters’ 60-person crew is either Arab or Iraqi. Of the 11 Associated Press journalists awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking-news photography earlier this year, five were Iraqi photographers.

The increased role of Iraqi staff comes as reporters are less able to move freely about the country. The Iraq war has become the deadliest conflict for journalists in well over half a century. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 58 reporters and 22 media-support workers (such as translators and drivers) have already been killed covering the conflict.

“I do believe that our human-interest storytelling has been hurt by the fact that we are not free to roam the neighborhoods and spend as much time as we would want to with the average Iraqi family or businessperson or child,” said David Verdi, the vice president of world newsgathering for NBC News. “We don’t freely go to the schools and the hospitals and the mosques because of the safety issues. That part of the
storytelling has been hurt.”

In Vietnam, only 66 reporters were killed in 20 years of warfare. Both sides tended to respect the neutrality of the press, and the Viet Cong would go so far as to court reporters, said veteran correspondent Peter Arnett, who won a Pulitzer for his Vietnam coverage and is now writing a book about Saddam’s last years before the invasion. (Mr. Arnett was fired from NBC in 2003 after saying on Iraqi television that the American war plan had “failed.”)

Back then, “you had the impression that the Western media was not specifically targeted,” Mr. Arnett recalled.

Now, Mr. Arnett said, when he goes out, he often hides under a blanket in the back seat of a car.

For some reporters, leaving their security-patrolled, double-barricaded hotels requires permission from their employers. Last year, CNN instituted a rule limiting its Baghdad staff to correspondents and producers who have already reported from the area. When they want to leave CNN’s compound, they must get permission from the bureau chief.

Reporting teams from the three broadcast networks must also get clearance and must be accompanied by a security detail. “There is not a movement that we take outside of our hotel that is not carefully planned,” said NBC’s Mr. Verdi.

The Iraqis who have taken up the most dangerous legwork are not safe either. Five Iraqi journalists are currently being held without charges by U.S. and Iraqi government troops. Since April 2003, between 10 and 13 have been killed by American gunfire.

“It really comes from all sides,” said Reuters global managing editor David Schlesinger, who has lost three Iraqi reporters to U.S. gunfire and three more to detention facilities. “Certainly there’s a huge risk from insurgents, either to be hurt or killed accidentally … but unfortunately, there’s also been an issue with U.S. troops.”

And agoraphobic reporting, unavoidable though it is, means that the war is less compelling for readers and viewers back home.

“I think certainly you could get out in the jungles in Vietnam and prowl around and show the landscape,” said NBC correspondent George Lewis, who began his career in 1970 as a 27-year-old Vietnam correspondent. “Reporters today don’t have that freedom to roam. That makes it less visually compelling, perhaps.”

The insurgents aren’t the only ones behind the demise of the roving Vietnam-style reporter. The military, which at first reacted to the Vietnam experience by stonewalling the press, eventually discovered how to incorporate roving into the official agenda, through the embedding process.

Much was written at the outset of the invasion about the perils of embedding: how it could breed over-reliance on the official message, how it could lull reporters into uncritical camaraderie with the troops, how it could force reporters to trade accuracy for access.

A number of reporters now downplay some of those theoretical concerns. But some conceded that embedding does impede reporting.

“There’s commanders out there who, if you do an embed and they see your coverage or a particular story is too critical, they won’t invite you back for an embed,” said Ellen Knickmeyer, The Washington Post’s Baghdad bureau chief. “There’s parts of the country you won’t be able to go to. There’s a lot of good commanders out in the field, but sometimes their view of how you should be reporting doesn’t always get with how we’re used to covering things.”

“The military hasn’t stopped us,” said Alan Chin, a freelance photojournalist who covered the invasion in 2003, then returned for three months this past spring. “But they have made it hard at times.”

And as the war has devolved into a shapeless battle with insurgent forces, the role of embedment has shifted. It’s not an ethical calculation anymore, but a practical one.
“If you’re a [Western] print reporter,” Mr. Chandrasekaran said, “you’re pretty much confined to Baghdad. And if you want to go anywhere else, you basically have to be embedded.”

This also keeps the press working within an official, bureaucratic context.
Jon Alpert, a filmmaker working on a documentary for HBO about military medicine, said that the MedEvac unit he embedded with for the project was surprisingly accommodating. But when injured troops reached the field hospital, officials invoked the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the same privacy law that has come to thwart stateside reporters.

“When we were in the hospital,” Mr. Alpert said, “I had to have a public-affairs officer with me all the time. Because it was a hospital, they were applying the HIPAA laws.”

The combination of structured access to U.S. forces and open hostility from insurgents has left reporters with lopsided sources.
“Who are the insurgents?” said freelance photojournalist Kael Alford, who covered the invasion and the first three months of the occupation. “Who are these people and why are they fighting? That’s a really valuable perspective …. It’s the story we have all been trying to do all along, and very few journalists have been able to get it.”

Another advantage that Vietnam reporters have is that their performance already belongs to history. Through the early part of that war, voices like Mr. Safer’s were in the minority, as overall coverage echoed the tales of smashing success coming from the Pentagon’s Saigon press bureau. Hindsight has a way of seeing highlights, not the years and months of ineffectual reporting that may have surrounded those moments.

Still, those moments were there—as when Walter Cronkite addressed his CBS audience at the end of his Feb. 27, 1968, broadcast. An anti-war movement was gaining strength and volume at home, and the North Vietnamese had swept into the streets of Saigon with the shocking Tet offensive. Mr. Cronkite himself was just home from a trip to Vietnam.

“To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion,” Mr. Cronkite said. “It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”

The declaration shook the press and the nation. “If I’ve lost Cronkite,” President Lyndon Johnson told his aides, “I’ve lost Middle America.”

The current President has long since made it clear that he doesn’t care what the media have to say. Even if he did, there is no Walter Cronkite to say it.

On Monday, ABC announced that it will send an anchor to Baghdad: former chief White House correspondent Terry Moran, one of three rookie anchors replacing Ted Koppel on Nightline.

“The press is going through a very difficult time,” said Vietnam correspondent David Halberstam, “because the technology is changing under our feet …. You go from three or four channels to cable and the fragmentation of the audience. So that has tended to change the dynamic. First print is in decline, then the networks are in decline. The networks are utterly corporatized, not interested in news in the way the networks in the 60’s still cared …. Now you have these giant corporations that don’t really care that much about news. It is a tiny tail on a very large dog.”

If the public mood about the war is turning, it is turning less on the work of the press and more on the outrage if Mr. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and combat veteran who called for the troops to be withdrawn as soon as practicable. The Bush administration, which never hesitates to lash back at critical stories in the media, was left praising Mr. Murtha’s credentials while trying to counter his complaint.

“I think this is a very important increment,” said Mr. Halberstam. “Murtha is a guy who is really speaking for the military. So if you lose someone like Murtha, that may be the equivalent, in this new kind of war, of 500,000 people outside the Pentagon.”

While Mr. Murtha is bidding to write history, what has the press been doing?
New York Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns said, “Considering the impediments that there are here to travel and access … the American media in Iraq has done a pretty damned good job.”

But Mr. Burns acknowledged that he worries how posterity will judge his and his colleagues’ work.

“I spend some time, as one who has some responsibility for shaping our coverage here, asking myself what are they going to be saying in the journalism classes of 2025, 2030, about the New York Times coverage here, against whatever the outcome is? … Were we too Pollyanna-ish and too optimistic? Or were we too pessimistic?” Mr. Burns said. “I think one thing we would all have to plead guilty to is having perhaps underestimated the degree of difficulty accomplishing what the United States set out to do here.”

—Additional reporting by Brad Tytel, Nicole Pesce,
Raegan Johnson and Anna Lindow

It's amusing but, is it NEWS?

2005-11-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

After meeting with reporters in Beijing, Mr. Bush tried to exit through a locked door. Realizing the mistake, he made a mock grimace, and an aide pointed the way. He joked: "I was trying to escape. It didn't work."

... This was on Page A1 of The Times.

Journalism 101 -- A.K.A. Infotainment is taking its toll on me

2005-11-16T07:05:00.000-05:00

Let me preface this by saying, I'm a newbie in the reporting biz, and I appreciate that, as a newbie, I will often face frustrating assignments that appear to be beneath my full potential. This is part of growing up and fitting into my shoes as a journalist; master the silly "little" things so that I have the skills necessary to do adequate justice to the "big" things.

I really do understand that. And I'm grateful to have seven clips, four of them credited solely to me, under my belt after two months and change at The Observer. Really, that is better than I had been led to expect, and there is still room for more.

But, I couldn't help grit my teeth while standing on the red carpet at this cancer fundraiser on Monday night. True, I was exhausted from having spent a very busy weekend tag-teaming between catching up on school work that I have fallen spectacularly behind on, and also socializing like I was never going to see some of my friends again (though, with the approach of graduation, I've suddenly been fearing just that, and have gone out of my way to try to live each day in NYC like it may be the last. Because hey, it could be, for several years at least.)

So I came into work pretty drained on Monday, to find that only Erin and I were able to work all day. Monday was extremely busy, Erin and I were extremely harried from doing the work of four interns by ourselves, and I was really looking forward to bouncin' at six to go home and finish plowing through a book for Serrin. I also needed bread and to wash some laundry in the worst way.

Alas, was handed an assignment to cover this event at the last minute.

Shit.

Though I knew, once I got there and got to work, I'd step into my groove and enjoy myself, like I have on the other assignments, and then of course, getting into the paper on Wednesday would assuage any residual feelings of, "Damn, I could have been doing HW on Monday."

I *was* concerned that this red carpet event would be tres fancy, and I had chosen to go to work Monday in jeans, battered sneakers, and an NYU hoodie *covered* in cat hair. I also didn't have an empty notebook. Yes, I was Ms. On Top Of The World.

Borrowed a notebook, tied the hoodie around my waist and hoped the polo shirt underneath was casual-classy enough, and pulled my hair back into a ponytail ... I looked seven years old ... and couldn't help feeling amused by the well-heeled lads and lasses crowding outside the velvet rope unable to get in who gawked at me in shock as I dropped my name and strolled the carpet in my college-freshman-outfit and rubbed elbows with soap stars, Sopranos stars, and even a few hip-hop artists.

All well and good, except ...

this. wasn't. news.

The von Furstenberg debacle has probably been the clip I am most proud of. It required a lot of hard work - sneaking in. And, though I'm sorry the lights fell and there were people injured, the mini-disaster turned a mundane fashion show into an actual hard news story. I had been *lost* covering that show until the lights fell, and then it was like I was able to breathe because I thought, "Now I know what to do." Got the crowd reaction, got detailed measurements and the weight of the structure that fell from the production workers (this was subsequently cut from the story, alas) spoke to police and to the ambulance crew, and, the coup de grace, chased down Ms. von Furstenberg herself in the ER of the hospital.

That was hard work!

The Gwen Stefani show is another pride point because Erin and I had to work so hard to 1 - get in, and 2 - be sneaky in slipping backstage.

My other works, though, from art galleries, to a movie set across the street, to a handful of parties ... they've been fun, I've met MANY of my favorite celebrities and have finally gotten over being star-struck, and could now approach Keanu without butterflies (unlike the first time I saw him, where my tongue glued to the top of my mouth ... now I'd be like, "Hey man. Wassup?") and of course, any writing and reporting experience is great experience ...

But it's not news! It's not helping anybody! It's not doing anything! ESPECIALLY working red carpets! I can reconcile with the art gallery or the movie set - slices of New York life, insights into art and its creation ... but I wasn't able to go INSIDE Monday night's charity event, and just getting quotes from celebs on the carpet offered nothing new or insightful for anybody! I felt so completely used and frustrated - NOT by The Observer, not by my editors, but just this system, this goddamn culture, where any sixth grader can list the cast of The O.C., but if you ask them to list the Presidential Cabinet will probably think you want something out of the kitchen.

In short - I'm proud to have clips, but they aren't clips I'd necessarily be proud to show to Professor Blood. After two semesters of chasing the police and banging on doors, sneaking into high schools and waiting in the bitter cold outside City Hall ... I'm waving my notebook Monday night and TRYING to get Natalie Cole to speak seriously about cancer, not her new album, and really, who's being silly here, her or myself? Cancer was not really why we were there, was it?

Here's what I wrote in my personal diary (oo la la, hold on to your socks) and let me preface again, it's not The Observer (who may or may not read this, ha) it's ... "society"? I dunno:

At my event, I was fuming because I had NO story. I had nothing to say! The same-old same-old. How was each and every celeb being asked the same three questions that had nothing to do with the event remotely enough to construct a narrative?

...

Then I realized, that IS my angle. That IS my narrative. Not the celebs, not the event, but the idiocy of the press lining the carpet.

But still ...

Erin and I are Blooddites. Blood terrorized us, and those days and afternoons spent in the snow or the pouring rain or the blistering heat chasing down school children or cops or waiting outside buildings ... it was SATISFYING. It was real, honest-to-god journalism. It was, dare I say, NEWS.

Lining up with a hundred other reporters and photographers just for a photo-op or a soundbyte with Natalie Cole is NOT news.

Our editor knew we wouldn't get much. But he told us today just to go out, get like, 200 words apiece; look for something funny.

Just like every other story, whether it was von Furstenberg or Gwen Stefani. Go get the vibe, get something funny.

And I always do.

I always manage to find some little quirk, some little twist, that makes an extremely mundane fashion show or art gallery opening into a really funny, snarky bit of reading.

This is not necessarily a good thing.

I thought it was before. I was proud of myself - oh god, I went to a party last week where NOTHING HAPPENED but look, I managed to make it into a clip in the paper. I must be a better writer and reporter than I thought.

No.

No.

I realized today I'm just perpetuating this entertainment-driven-piece-of-shit media system that is passing itself off as news. Tonight I'm a turning something that is NOT news and SHOULD not be news into news because I was assigned to do so.

And the thing is, I HAVE to. I can't help myself. It's not just because this is an internship, and I need to earn my stripes here now so I can move up and do a better job. It's because, if I'm given a job to do - find a story - well ... I can't help it. I can't just *not* try my best. I sincerely want to do a good job, and so I do, and I'm *proud* when I do ... but doing a good job means putting these sound bytes into the paper Wednesday morning, and they really don't need to be there, and it's hard to reconcile.

Then again, I don't WANT to be sitting on my hands in the bullpen, doing nothing - I want to go out, I want to report, I want to write ... I just feel like I'm doing the devil's work or something. I tried to ease my frustration by using my words this week, but what happens next week? Only time will tell, I suppose.

Professor Montel

For Monday night's Angel Ball at the Marriott Marquis, Denise Rich's fourth biennial cancer fund-raiser, the red carpet was clogged; Patti LaBelle and Natalie Cole were expected to perform.

But who wants to talk about cancer on the red carpet?

"WHAT IS THE MOST EMBARRASSING SONG ON YOUR iPOD?" a People magazine reporter asked every single guest.

"The theme from Jaws, by John Williams," said Kelly Ripa with a laugh.

"Show tunes," said a radiant Jamie-Lynn Sigler, looking resplendent in a gold empire-waist gown. "When I'm out with my friends, I have to skip those."

"HOW DO YOU PLAN TO KEEP OFF THOSE HOLIDAY POUNDS?" asked Star magazine. Repeatedly.

"Pffft! Are you kidding?" said Natalie Cole, who could eat all she wants and still be gorgeous, as far as The Transom is concerned. "Don't eat," she offered with a shrug.

No wonder Star Jones blew wordlessly past reporters after mugging for photographers.

A few celebs, including Nelly and TLC's Chilli, appeared willing to actually touch upon the evening's original purpose.

"I lost someone very dear to me," Nelly said, shoving his diamond-studded hands into his pockets and speaking of his late sister. He continues to be inspired by "her fight. And her smile."

"I know we are gonna cure cancer someday," said Chilli optimistically. "I think there's a cure for the common cold."

Such gravity didn't last long. "BESIDES WORLD PEACE, OF COURSE, WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR CHRISTMAS?"

"Just to be home and enjoy everybody," Nelly said, rather endearingly.

"I don't know," said Chilli.

Montel Williams showed stamina in making one of the slowest crawls ever witnessed through the press gauntlet, posing for every photographer and stopping to speak with every broadcast and print reporter. He even took the time to educate a Kingsborough Community College student on working the red carpet.

"Oh, no!" Mr. Williams admonished cheerfully after the eager cub opened his mouth and came out with, "Hi, I'm a journalism student!"

"You gotta come out BIG!" said Mr. Williams. "Come with something that digs DEEP. Go for the exclusive!"

Mr. Williams walked away and looked over his shoulder.

"O.K., now I'm gonna come back, and we're gonna start this again!"

Go, Montel! If only every interview could have been a do-over ...

— Nicole Pesce

#@!‡*% Puppies

2005-11-09T07:49:00.000-05:00

I managed to slip into The Transom this week as well, after attending a fancy-pants award dinner for Broadway-insiders at Tavern on the Green Monday night. Talk about out-of-place! I was much more suited for Heidi Klum and von Furstenberg than this gathering of blue-haireds and cane-grippers. But that, as well as the Heidi experience (including my one-on-one exclusive with Ms. Klum, which last a total of five glorious seconds) will come as soon as I meet with Kate G. and Professor Serrin about our graduation "ceremony"; do some interviews; do laundry; write three papers; and continue to run around like a chicken without its head, feeling largely unhappy except for those brief respites with friends and ruggers.

Cheers.

#@!‡*% Puppies

Susan Stroman was thrilled to have completed her duties as director of the film version of The Producers just the day before, she said on Monday night, after a long year and a half’s work. "I can no longer change it," she said, and laughed. "It's done."

The elegant ladies, who had gathered in the decadent Crystal Room at Tavern on the Green for a fête in honor of Ms. Stroman by Primary Stages, may have looked deceptively sweet in their brooches, shawls and pearls, but their tongues belied a darker wit.

"Who do you have to fuck to get out of this?" cracked a bawdy old lass as a photographer dallied too long in setting up a shot.

"I made chili for Elizabeth Taylor, you know," said Diane Judge, a Broadway press agent for more than 40 years. "We were in France. And she couldn’t wear her engagement ring on the set, so she asked me to wear it. So there I was, making chili with this giant ring on, and her fucking puppies were jumping all over me."

Fucking puppies! Nathan Lane honored Ms. Stroman, 51, in a heartfelt speech, his trademark showmanship and broad vowels front and center.

"You may not have noticed during dinner, but three people were mugged outside," he said, gesturing to the wall of windows behind him, "and two waiters consummated their relationship."

"Not funny!" barked Ms. Judge, though the rest of the room laughed. She was a little miffed from an earlier conversation with Mr. Lane.

"He’s a diva," she said. "A diva! He was very dismissive of me." She shook her head and took another sip of wine.

Mr. Lane was spotted draining his own glass after the festivities.
The Transom congratulated him on wrapping up The Producers. "Annnnnnnd?" he responded impatiently.

How had the evening gone? Had he enjoyed himself? "Yes."

He thawed slightly when speaking of Ms. Stroman. "I love her," he said. "I just think she’s so talented." He then turned to reveal the back of his head, and took another sip of his wine.

—Nicole Pesce

Saturday was the Rugby Day

2005-11-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

The remaining members of the Suffolk Bull Moose Women that could still stand after an at-times vicious match with the Village Lions.

The icy sense of animosity and aloofness between teams, alas, seemed to transfer to the bar afterward for a less-than-raucous drink up. Overall, it was a good rugby day that I look forward to chronicling for my Personal Essay which should be posted on Livewire this week. Today, however, as the marathon kicks off, I'm in my own little world of pain. At least my soul is at peace. Thanks, ladies!

Game Highlights:

* One player from the Lion's team charging at Dana, and as Dana runs up to her, this girl BOUNCED off her and flew to the ground. Classic.

* My jaw dislocating in the first 30 seconds of the game after my first hit. I could tell, from thereforth, that it was going to be a long day. It popped back in, but has felt funny ever since ... today it takes conscious thought to open my mouth. Ha! I had some hits I'm very proud of, some mistakes that I am not, but considering I haven't played rugby since June - and that was sevens - and yesterday I played 15s, well, I'm pretty happy to be able to walk today let alone brag about it.

* Props to Mike D. and Jon Morgan for coming out, although due to miscommunication and bad luck, they missed the game.

* Jess tearing her rotator cuff and having to go to the hospital. We had actually thought she'd broken her collar bone, so I guess things are more positive than they had seemed. She had to be taken care of, though, and Ryan went with her, so we were down two players. At the same time that Jess ... broke, for lack of a better word (we had no idea, at the time, what had happened - just she was in a lot of pain and pretty upset) Kim Z. broke her nose.

And the hits just kept on comin, though, all things considered, and down three players, we held them at 10 - 0, which is pretty impressive. Alas, we had the goose egg.

We may have lost the game, but we won the drinkup, dammit, and that's all that matters.

Down in one, Kim!

This week's Observer clip

2005-11-02T07:54:00.000-05:00

Erin Coe and I hit up Heidi Klum's Halloween Party on Monday night (Halloween, if you will.) Despite our teasing in the Observer article, it was such a great time. Not the star-studded event the press release had promised exactly (not one to follow Page Six, I could care less about B-list celebs and NYC Socialites - show me Ice T and Leonardo DiCaprio, dammit, or at least have me cover hard news!) but the music spun by the DJ was awesome and the normally wall-flowerish Nicole Pesce found herself dancing up a storm, the drinks were free and the beers were cold, the costumes were "truly outrageous" and extremely creative (I went dressed as a reporter. har!) and, best of all, this was all for a work assignment, so it was guilt-free.

Alas, it was also a weeknight, so my 11 hours at the paper Tuesday were spent in a state of minor-agony, especially since I ducked into the bullpen almost an hour early to quickly write up my half of the story. I blame the vodka and three hours of sleep beforehand, but the day dragged on, and everything seemed too loud, too bright and too slow. It all resolved to goodness, as you can see (the interns were even cut loose by 8 p.m. as opposed to 9 or 10), but I crashed as soon as I got home last night, resulting in my needing to hunker down today and handle the Homework Fallout from having spent the past two days with the paper.

... it was so much fun, though.

Heidi Klum's Hidden Candy

For most of the night, Heidi Klum's Sixth Annual Halloween Bash resembled nothing more extraordinary than your sixth-grade Harvest Ball. Debutantes in elaborate feathered hats, a tuxedoed man on stilts and a giant yellow M&M dressed as Darth Vader (complete with light saber), among others, lined either side of the dance floor, sipping their drinks and staring at one another, dancing within their own little spheres of personal space. Everyone was waiting for the celebrities.

And wait they did. A smattering of celebs didn't begin walking the abrupt red carpet (a span of five steps at most from the curb to the door, nearly resulting in a photog bloodbath) until 10:30 p.m.

Ice T breezed past the crowd in a black leather coat.

"What are you dressed as?" he was asked.

"'Sup," he said.

Jason Biggs crossed the threshold dressed as Dorothy Gale, with his girlfriend a cute metallic tin woodsman on his arm.

"We decided on Dorothy and Tin Man!" he said, nodding his braided brown wig and brandishing his checkered jumper. "My girlfriend was the Tin Man, so I was stuck wearing the skirt!"

But the real showstopper was Ms. Klum herself, sans baby. She arrived at a quarter to 10 (the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" blaring overhead) in an outrageous black wig that towered three feet above her head, a tight black dress with a blinking red heart over her left breast and thigh-high leather boots. What was at first taken to be a black gossamer cape revealed itself as wings when she bum-rushed the row of cameras, baring her garish faux fangs. Only Ms. Klum somehow managed to make it sexy, not creepy.

"I'm Draculette!" she said. Obviously.

"Seal is in L.A.," she pouted. "That's why my heart is bleeding." Indeed, the glowing red heart on her chest leaked plastic streams of blood across her bodice.

Benji Madden from Good Charlotte cruised in, wearing his usual uniform of black. Black sweatshirt, black hat, black eye makeup.

"I'm not dressed up as anything—no wait," he said. "I'm dressed up as Benji from Good Charlotte."

A flurry of activity broke by the door with the whispered rumor that Seal was coming to surprise Ms. Klum. Somehow the news leaked to her—or it was all a clever P.R. stunt—because as Mr. "Kiss from a Rose" himself arrived dressed as a traffic cop, Draculette rushed out the door and embraced him before the cameras outside. His grand entrance was interrupted, however, by a drunk guest passing out inside. She was lifted by a handful of suited security guards and carried outside. No one could see what she was wearing.

Ms. Klum gave Seal's ass a nice rubdown. They moved their public displays upstairs and started dancing.

A Nancy Drew told The Transom that while Seal was outside, the bodyguards were telling people to clear out of the way—and for a moment, even Valentino was brushed aside. Until he spoke up.

"He was really cool about it" she said.

—Nicole Pesce and Erin Coe

"There she is, the beautiful lady! Personality-plus, every time I come in here!"

2005-10-19T15:10:00.000-04:00

This title comes from an inebriated Vince Vaughn in Swingers, one of my favorite movies of all time. In the scene, Vaughn's character, Trent, is referring to the waitress, who stoically serves him a plate of post-club-hopping diner food with an admirable level of physical restraint; you're well-aware she wants to kill him, but she gives him his grub and gracefully walks away. I've felt something like that waitress, lately; things are now beginning to look up, but the last week and a half has been something of a wringer, and I feel like I just barely managed to escape with a smile.

First there was the incessant rain that buffeted the city for almost eight days, a gray curtain that served as the backdrop to everything else that seemed to be going horribly wrong. Granted, I was not as badly off as the working poor that we've been reading about in my Social Justice class, but I was feeling the strains of being overworked and unpaid, with T-Mobile texting me that my phone was going to be turned off, and my roommates gently asking if I was going to have the rent money. Piled on top of that were overdue freelance and class assignments, and it was hard to go to class or to work with quite the same zest that I'm generally known for.

Last Wednesday I received some TLC in getting lunch with Editor-Sally and visiting with Bernice. At long last, I picked up the breastpump tear pad I had written my very first day on the internship back in June, and it looks great. I came home, drenched, and put on my PJs and panicked over my finances. Whether the good wishes of the iVillage crew had spilled over or what, I don't know, but to make a long and overly-complicated story short, I learned Wednesday afternoon that NYU had ironed out my financial aid package at long last. I had originally been denied a private loan by Citibank, which had thrown me into a panic - At the ripe old age of 24, I have horrible credit, I fretted. Now I'll never be able to buy a house.

Turns out, NYU either thought outside the box or just made some sort of mistake that I cannot be held responsible for, and opted to double my Stafford loan to cover my loan package rather than seeking a private lendor. Hence, they had told Citibank I was ineligible for money because I was already receiving plenty, and I was denied a CitiAssist loan. It would have been nice if *I* would have been contacted about this by NYU, but I live and I learn. Frankly, I'm just relieved to have money again. Thus, everything is now paid for, my loan check is in my bank account clearing even as we speak, and I have already gone grocery shopping, paid my phone bill, and enjoyed two beers.

Second, not to get any more personal than the dirty-laundry that is my financial situation has already been, but regarding the gentleman I was sorta-dating this past spring; that blew up in my face. Turns out that the distance between us this summer was greater than the mere four time zones between Manhattan and Alaska; he took the opportunity to pursue other relationships and then some, I did not. This was all ironed out in an extremely mature two-hour conversation on Friday that eerily coincided with the rain, finally, stopping after an unrelenting week-long downpour. I did some soul searching, and woke up a new woman free of the dual, crushing weight of bankruptcy and a long-distance relationship, which is not such a bad thing. The sun has continued to flicker in and out of the clouds as I've caught up with schoolwork, put in long hours at The Observer, and watched former-hero Judy Miller crash and burn in light of the Times' "in-depth" piece covering the situation this past Sunday. I dunno.

This blanket-personal-update is really one-part procrastination, one-part excuse for why I haven't blogged anything of note lately. I have a lot of great stories to tell, including the Cuddle Party a week ago, but that will have to come in due time. I have a story to write for Serrin, as well as a meeting to cover for Livewire tonight. But I promise I will keep things posted, now that the other aspects of my life have been straightened out.

Knife to the HEART man...

2005-10-14T01:42:00.000-04:00

I am one who has always trumpeted Poynteronline, but this column from The Plain Dealer made me absolutely livid at the end of class today. I feel it is a completely under-researched and broad generalization that certainly does not hold true for many of the spectacular men and women that I have met over the past year and a half.

"For future journalists, it's cash, not causes"
by Connie Schultz
Plain Dealer Columnist

Lately, I've spent a lot of time with journalism students whose hand- wringing professors still believe something other than salary should be the divining rod for choosing a career.

They are professors who've dedicated their lives to training future journalists. They are increasingly alarmed by what they see and don't want to become targets for saying so.

"We're losing so many hard-news students to public relations, advertising and marketing," one professor told me. "They just want to make money."

His concern echoes through the hallways of other colleges I've visited.

"They want to keep the baby-boomer lifestyle to which they've become accustomed," said a professor at a school that boasts a boatload of Pulitzer Prize winners among its alumni. "The thought of starting out at $25,000 or $30,000 to expose corruption and champion the underdog just doesn't do it for them. They have no interest."

One journalism professor told me that hordes of women are opting for the softer -- and more lucrative -- career in public relations.

"A lot of them want to be event planners,' " she said. She nodded at my raised eyebrows.

"Seriously," she said. "They want to plan parties."

These are professors at large and not-so-large schools who care deeply about the mission of journalism at a time when our critics far outnumber our champions. Too many of their students neither love newspapers nor even read them. They worry that the values we old poops hold dear in this profession hold little appeal for the many budding journalists who'd rather shill than grill.

"I don't mean to overstate this, but I worry about the future of democracy," one retired professor told me. "If our journalists don't challenge the abuse of power, who will?"

It was in the wake of these college visits that I read New York Times columnist John Tierney's complaint this week that too many journalism professors are liberals. While Tierney and I both set our clocks to Eastern Daylight Time, we clearly aren't living in the same time zone.

Tierney cites a recent so-called study from fellow conservative David Horowitz that examined the voter registrations of faculty at a few "elite" journalism schools and concluded that their students' minds are being polluted by lefties.

First, a bit of a primer on Horowitz: He's the guy who tried to place ads in dozens of college newspapers a few years ago denouncing anti-slavery reparations. One of his arguments is that blacks have shown far too little appreciation for the whites who got them out of slavery in the first place.

Horowitz also is the force behind the proposed "Academic Bill of Rights," designed to counter what he believes is rampant liberalism on campuses.

He's allowed his politics, but we're allowed to know what they are, too.

If the left has a "lock on journalism," as Horowitz and Tierney argue, then why is the enrollment in newspaper journalism declining while the number steadily soars for those in marketing, advertising and public relations? If these profs have a liberal agenda, they're failing miserably.

And define "liberal," please.

"When did outing the corrupt and crusading for those who get crushed in our society become synonymous with liberalism," a long-time professor asked me. "Well, if that's how we define journalism now, then guilty as charged."

Tierney and Horowitz are right, however, that we should worry about what's happening in today's journalism schools.

Here's one journalism student's description of what goes on in her classroom:

"Nearly every day in my [beginning journalism] class the issue of money is raised," she wrote to me. "It seems everyone in the class wants to make more money by being a journalist. Almost every subject we talk about, whether it be PR or advertising or news writing and broadcasting are all about money. And it really sickens me. In fact, I am reluctant to go to class, it unnerves me so much."

Journalism professors are liberal?

One can only hope.

To reach this Plain Dealer columnist:

cschultz@plaind.com

So. I did email her at her address, and Romenesko at Poynter.org:

Connie Schultz
Plain Dealer Columnist

"These are professors at large and not-so-large schools who care deeply about the mission of journalism at a time when our critics far outnumber our champions. Too many of their students neither love newspapers nor even read them. They worry that the values we old poops hold dear in this profession hold little appeal for the many budding journalists who'd rather shill than grill."

Connie Schultz,

As a J-school student "thisclose" to completing her master's at NYU this winter, frankly I was shocked upon reading your article. It's no surprise to me that journalists have been lured into the lucrative arms of PR, and I do find that trend distressing, but I feel it's a matter of being able to eat, to pay rent, and to pay the bills rather than these individuals not caring enough about journalism.

Figure this: When I graduate NYU with my master's degree this January, I am going to be approximately $60,000 in debt. I have precious little money saved because I'm currently working as a full time student AND an intern at an internship that doesn't pay (unpaid internships are not helping to encourage young journalists, by the way.) I lie awake at night worrying over 1) finding a job in this troubled economy and 2) being able to live off the starting salary that an entry-level reporter
makes.

My classmates share the same fears.

We DO read newspapers. AND news magazines. AND online publications. In fact, perhaps my school is just elitist, but I feel we are very well-informed.

We ARE in this business because we are curious and inquisitive, we are interested in people and in their stories, and because we want to edit and to write.

We're NOT here to make a quick buck.

We want to protect democracy and make a difference. You don't shell out money in the tens of thousands to go to journalism school because you expect to make it rich. Or, you don't bypass journalism school and freelance your way up the ladder because you expect to make money. Most journalists and journalism students that I know have gotten started because they sincerely want to make a difference. However, as fulfilling as clips are, they alone do not pay the bills. Of course journalism students today are concerned about money; we are in greater debt now than students have been in the past, even taking inflation into consideration.

It's not necessarily about wanting a "baby-boomer" lifestyle, as one of your sources so flippantly stated. As a cub reporter, I've been living on ramen noodles, I have given up having cable, and I have relocated from trendy East Village to a much cheaper apartment far uptown in order to pursue my career on a very limited budget that looks to get worse, not better, after I graduate. This is a very scary time for incoming journalists; papers are cutting back, not hiring. The New York Times
recently laid off 500 people. So, when professors and veteran journalists hear the younguns complaining about money: rather than assume that "kids today" are soft, or greedy, or less passionate and dedicated than journalists in "the old days" - maybe consider that we have financial burdens and fears that temper our decisions, where we
have to abandon our original desire to change the world and instead, first, find a way to afford to live in it.

I, for one, am determined to be a damn good newspaper writer. So before sweeping generalizations are made about journalism students, keep in mind that my classmates and I are not veering off on the wayside, and frankly, it's offensive - and discouraging - that the Old Guard has so little faith in us.

Sincerely,
Nicole Pesce
Journalist
nlp226@nyu.edu

I hope I managed to convey my anger without sounding too childish or immature ...

Job & Subway Security

2005-10-07T18:22:00.000-04:00

So, Livewire had its debut today, and with it my story - "Are Internships a Racket?" - which I feel hot-and-cold about, depending on the minute. I've already suffered one dire mortification; I had spelled the middle name of one of my subjects wrong. He emailed me within minutes of the story's posting, and I corrected it in a heartbeat ... but frankly, I'm ashamed. I'm a fact-checker. How did this happen? I was already become fastidious to an anal-degree in my writing thanks to working at The Observer, but now it's going to increase tenfold.

Back to the Wire - I recommend everyone's stories - including Blooddites Rachel and Jenny, with "No More Cinder Blocks: College Kids Raise the Bar on Dorm Rooms" and "Blogs and Advertisers: A Perfect Match?", respectively.

In other news -

*I had a *really* good Fact-Checking Day. How cheesy is that? It is something to see how far I've come from when I used to roll into the internship with a sense of unease and spend hours poring over one piece. Not only did I fly through four pieces today, but I also laughed - a lot. So ... that was nice.

*I was getting ready to post up a rant complaining that despite the heightened security precautions regarding NYC subways no one seems to give a damn about Upper Manhattan - what I lovingly refer to as "The Cheap Seats" - because I had yet to see a cop checking anybody out at 103rd on the 6 line. True, NYC resources can only span so much, and the biggest transportation hubs are at such hotspots as Penn Station and Grand Central ... but still, it was disconcerting how many baby strollers I saw getting onto 103rd today - all full of seemingly-genuine babies, true - but there was nary a bored-looking cop in sight. Worse, I didn't see anybody at Union Square when I was exiting to head to The Observer. SO - not that I would ever do such a thing - but I could very easily have walked onto the subway at 103rd with a bomb, ridden to Union Square, gotten off the train and detonated it. This is my problem with subway security - these random bag searches are completely pointless unless you are going to search *every* bag, and likewise, you need more security at subway stations in The Cheap Seats.

However, I will insert my foot into my mouth because, on leaving work today, not only were there *three* police cars and a gaggle of boys-in-blue at the Union Square station, but there was an honest-to-God police officer standing on the platform when I got off the train at 103rd.

Huh. This must be serious.

Correction

2005-10-06T20:08:00.000-04:00

I posted excitedly about my clip in this week's Observer in my last post, and neglected to actually put in a link. Here's the text, a little slice of New York life:

The Devil Wears What?

Henry Novelo was on Broadway, barking instructions into a wireless headset, when a film technician suddenly materialized and asked him to move out of the shot.

What shot?

The Devil Wears Prada was filming across the street and the crew wasted no time in disrupting the daily routine of the poor suckers working much more unglamorously in the Flatiron district on a Monday afternoon. Unconcerned, the delectable Adrian Grenier and princess Anne Hathaway were seated inside the Mayrose café, doing their scene.

The technician asked pedestrians gawking at the flashing lights and equipment to look away from the flashing lights and equipment. Office-drone smokers were acceptable, but could not look at the cameras.

"What movie is it?" demanded Mr. Novelo.

"The Devil Wears Prada."

"Who's in it?"

"Meryl-Streep-but-she's-not-here-today," said the P.A.

"You shut down two or three blocks just to film the extras?" Mr. Novelo asked in disbelief.

"Don't yell at me!" countered the crewman, intercepting more unsuspecting pedestrians.

"This is bullshit," Mr. Novelo said. "This morning I was going to this power meeting— with Verizon Wireless—and one of those guys walked up to me and pushed me back to stop me!"

It was now 5 p.m., almost rush hour.

"Forget about me smoking—whaddya gonna do, stop New York City at rush hour?" he growled.

Nearby, a small crowd of smokers passed the time in speculation about the self-presentation of Mr. Grenier's sexuality. "It's the T-shirt," said one.

A line of extras next to Mayrose had waited patiently since 8:30 a.m. to mindlessly walk back and forth in front of the café’s glossy windows. Tobin Tyler reclined outside, dressed in a white button-down shirt and jeans. "That's a tough job," he said, gesturing to another crewmember trying to divert city traffic away from the shooting site. "I mean, you gotta tell New Yorkers they cant go down their street?" He shook his head.

Nearby, Carol, an up-and-coming actress in jeans and a striped blazer, rolled her eyes. "I can't believe it's after 4 and we're still shooting this same scene." Her feet were clad in gleaming black Nikes.

"I paid $100 for these sneakers on my break," she said. "I couldn't stand in those heels anymore. None of the shots are gonna show my feet, so what do they care?"

Robbie Bryan and Tim Miller, both dressed N.Y.C.-casual in slacks and jackets, were called to walk in front of the window where the characters are sitting and drinking coffee.

"CUT!" yelled the frumpy woman wearing a production badge. "RESET!"

Messrs. Bryan and Miller came back, and walked behind Carol around the corner again. And again. And again.

"Your mind's a little jellylike," said Bryan after the umpteenth take, "doing the same thing over and over all day."

"It could be worse. We could be digging ditches."

A teenage girl with curly black hair wrapped in a pink bandana stood on the corner, dressed in baggy orange cords and a denim jacket. "Are they filming a commercial?"

It's a movie. The Devil Wears Prada.

"What? The devil wears what?"

Prada.

"Who's in it?"

Meryl Streep, but she's not here. And that guy from Entourage.

She lost interest and ran off.

Another young New Yorker with shades perched in his black spiked hair paused to watch the action.

"What movie is this?"

The Devil Wears Prada.

"Who's acting in it?"

Meryl Streep.

"Is she here?"

No, she's not here today.

"Who’re they?" he motioned to the actor and actress barely visible inside through the glare of the spotlights reflecting off the glass.

The guy from Entourage and the girl from The Princess Diaries.

He craftily sidled up to the window and snapped a couple of quick shots of the actors with his camera. He tipped a wink before running off to show his girlfriend. "I told her they were filming a movie here. She's excited."

Mr. Bryan came over and shook his head.

"Those are the stand-ins," he said, nodding toward the terribly normal couple inside the coffee shop. "The actors are in their trailers, around the corner."

—Nicole Pesce

Not tooting my own horn, but between the freelancing and The Observer, I'm averaging a clip a week - a far cry from the doldrums of my first two semesters. Now I need to figure out how to set them up on a separate page a la classmate Tara.

NYU Students: Look for Blooddites Rach', Lady Lee, Jenny-from-far-away-Sweden and I to be published on Livewire with the rest of our News Bureau class tomorrow. Livewire is NYU's take on The AP News Wire, basically. We're all a little nervous, because several prestigious editors are subscribed to our service and, fingers crossed, can pick up our stories to be published in their own publications. I for one spent an hour alone trying to get my Author Bio and Byline *justright* last night.

Fluff (not to be confused with Huffington) Post

2005-10-06T00:55:00.000-04:00

A Cat, A Clip, and some Spanish-Harlem-Apartment Pics

This is why I cannot do any more homework tonight:

Seriously - who can do homework under such adorable circumstances?

This week's ridiculous (I say that with love) Observer clip: The Devil Wears What??

As far as our infamous Barrio apartment (that has yet to have any j-school visitors, sadly) check out the following:

Our Kitchen! (clean, no less, after today's Autumnal Cleaning)

Kitchen segues into my private space -

My room - too tiny for my camera to do it justice, alas. Check out the vibrant (crazy!) bedspread courtesy of Grandma:

Last but not least, my favorite room, our Living Room:

And I'm SPENT. There's a lot to say - I'll have a more substantial post shortly; David Denby, financial aid woes, and Cuddle Parties, oh my!

Miller Time

2005-09-30T12:52:00.000-04:00

TIMES REPORTER FREE FROM JAIL; SHE WILL TESTIFY shouted at me from the front of my Times this morning even louder than the Senate confirming Roberts as the 17th Chief Justice.

I recalled that when the headlines announcing Judy was entering the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia hit the stands the same time that four bombs were exploding in London last July, I was furious about her predicament then even as I was horrified by the bombings. She was being persecuted for protecting a confidential source, and she hadn’t even WRITTEN anything. How am I ever going to do my job as a journalist if my peers were being treated like common street trash? I fumed as I waded into my first internship and tried my best to emulate Good Journalism and work my way to the top.

So, you would think that her release last night would be something of a silver lining. She was given the go-ahead by her source, now confirmed to be I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, our Vice President’s Chief of Staff, to spill the beans. The investigation into the leaking of Mrs. Valerie Plame's CIA identity will go forward, and we'll see what happens with Rove and Libby and the whole Scooby Gang. Judy can eat her steaks and get her hair did. All should be well, right? I mean, listen to these words:

“I went to jail to preserve the time-honored principle that a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source,” she said in a statement to The Times. “I chose to take the consequences, 85 days in prison, rather than violate that promise. The principle was more important to uphold than my personal freedom.”

How grandiose and inspiring!

So why, on reading this, did I become nauseated with bitter disappointment?

Because in the end, she DID give up her confidential source. The government investigation DID get its way. And there will STILL be a chilling effect on investigative journalism. From a very simple and basic viewpoint, my brain is shrieking, “It took 2 months in prison to break her and she gave them what they wanted!” And now there are all sorts of implications out there that maybe one of the reasons why this caged bird is singin is because she could have been the very source that gave up Plame to Libby in the first place, which cycled out to Rove and then to Matt Cooper of Time - who was forced to give up his notes by his own magazine.

I don't mean to be horribly insensitive – I cannot even imagine what two months in prison must be like, and I would really prefer to never have to find out. I'm not her. I don't know what she went through, and what she saw and what she smelt. I don't know what kind of pressure she must have been under as she walked around the NYU Law School building last spring, The First Amendment Martyr On Legs. I cannot say that I wouldn't have acted better or worse in her position. I've never worked on a daily paper, sure as hell haven't come closer to touching The Times than I do when I pick up my copy on the stoop each morning, and the hardest story I've ever had to tackle was investigating the Staten Island Ferry a year after its tragic 2003 accident, and as an extremely wet reporter at the time, I feel like I totally botched that. So, I recognize that I may not have a leg to stand on, and I may be acting incredibly unfair to this woman ...

Just ...

I met Judy Miller when she spoke last spring, and in shaking her hand and taking in her knee-high black boots and her skirt and brown hair and this tired-yet-determined expression on her face, I grew totally inspired. She was very friendly to Erin Coe and I, and cracked a couple of jokes with us and wished us luck in the field, and I really found myself pulling for her. Give 'em hell, Judy! Stand your ground! Journalism is in so much trouble these days, and I absolutely love that we have a female journalist sticking to her principles and spitting into the opposition’s eyes.

And now ... eh.

I read that she was given permission to come clean … but I do feel a bit swayed by some analytical blogs out there as well as a close reading of The Times' own words. This sudden permission to expose her source came after “intense negotiations” from discussions that were “at times strained” ? That doesn't at all sound so neat and clean as Libby saying, “Judy! I really want you to tell them it was me and to get out of jail!” Not at all.

Some more great questions by Editor & Publisher writer Greg Mitchell:

So who blinked first in the Pat and Judy Show -- the federal prosecutor or the jailed journalist? This is among a host of questions raised by Judith Miller's sudden prison release after cutting a deal with prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Did Miller cave, close to the end of the Plame grand jury's current term, because she feared that Fitzgerald would extend the term for many months? Or did the prosecutor cave (agreeing to limit Miller's testimony) because he was already being criticized for taking so long to produce indictments and needed to at least nail one bad guy?

Other bits of intrigue:

-- First, The Washington Post got scooped on naming Deep Throat. Now The New York Times is just about last to report on its own star reporter (who it has championed in numerous editorials) getting sprung from jail. Even E&P, following The Philadelphia Inquirer's scoop, beat the Times on it last night. What's up with that?

-- Buried in all the accounts of Miller's agreeing to testify is the little matter of also deciding to turn over her written "edited" notes (apparently jotted down after the fact) on her chats with "Scooter" Libby. What does "edited" mean? While not quite parallel to Time Inc. yielding Matt Cooper's electronic notes, which were in his magazine's system, why is so little being made of this? The Times has long said it had no notes, but that may be because they never got beyond Miller's notepad.

-- Why wasn't Libby's personal waiver allowing her to testify (granted a year ago, he says) not good enough for Miller when it was good enough for numerous other embattled journos in this case? Why the sudden change of heart on her part?

-- What exactly is going on with the Miller legal team? Is Floyd Abrams really the fall guy for letting this drag on so long? Or has Miller changed her own tune under the influence of Bob Bennett, one of her other lawyers?

-- What does it mean that Libby claims to be shocked that Miller was protecting him and that he presumed she was shielding others?

-- Will we ever know who, in the words of the Times' Executive Editor Bill Keller last night, Miller feared she might "implicate" if questioned freely by Fitzgerald?

More to come, surely.

So I am going to keep reading, and to keep thinking, and to keep trying to give her the benefit of the doubt because I don’t want to be rash …

but I’m also afraid
that I’m going to keep feeling really let down.

Huh.

2005-09-30T09:01:00.000-04:00

Looks like Judith Miller is blowin' this popsicle stand.

A more proper analysis will ensue after I get some coffee and read some more.

The Bullet or The Chapstick?

2005-09-27T00:49:00.000-04:00

Grant (a member of the Stony Brook Thursday Night Crew): enjoy your reading.... get ahead of the game

Me: you're never ahead of the game in grad school. sometimes, you manage to *just* keep from drowning

Grant: hot
Grant: well stay afloat, baby

I'm going to kick myself in the morning - or, more likely, at about 4 p.m. tomorrow when the copy is hitting the fan at The Observer before presstime, and I'm starting to crash and burn - but I'm in the mood to pull an all-nighter tonight. Really. I'm just going to research and write until the sun comes up. I already have my lunch and dinner packed for a likely ten- to eleven-hour stint at the paper tomorrow, so what do I have to lose?

Of course, this could merely be the pot of coffee I just consumed talking.

Tonight I dug out my dry-erase board and tried to lay out what I have due in the next two weeks. This is what I get for being assertive:

1 - the Bullpen "backgrounder" on The New Yorker film critic David Denby and the Rugby magazine piece are both due this Wednesday
2 - I have a profile for Serrin due Thursday, and the earliest I can meet with and interview my subject is, of course, this Wednesday
3 - I have dinner plans with my mother, again, on Wednesday night (I'm really excited though, Mom, no fear) so I need to try to write as much of Serrin's profile before said-meal, and then punch out the rest afterward. I also have plans to go to the gym. Ha.
4 - A rewrite/semi-final draft of my first story for Ogintz's LiveWire, which is about the NYC journalism 'internship racket' is due Thursday, the same day as Serrin's profile
5 - My first Internship Log regarding the last month at The Observer is due Monday, October 3. I also have a draft of a second story for Ogintz due that same day. I have a couple of ideas, but nothing fully researched or written, yet. Hence, another 'lost' weekend.
6 - David Denby, the Bullpen speaker I'm writing about, is speaking at NYU Wednesday October 5, so I have to cover his dialog next Wednesday, transcribe it, and write another piece
7 - I've promised a story on Spanish Harlem to About.com, but have yet to be given a deadline. Anyone want to place bets they'll want it Monday, October 3rd?
8 - I have to keep myself relatively open for possible Observer assignments, of course

At the same time, I absolutely love this. I just need to figure out exactly how I'm going to do it.

Imagine if all of these were paying? That would be pretty sweet.

Ah! Speaking of clips! This is belated, but I got a package in the mail from iVillage a little over a week ago, and lo and behold, it was the Fall/Winter 2005 issue of Lamaze Parents magazine. And who is listed in the masthead of this esteemed publication but: Nicole Pesce, Editorial Intern. And there's my small clip in there on cord blood banking, which is always an exercise in success.

I do miss iVillage. I need to get everything in line so I can pop in for a visit with Sally and Bernice.

Sooo I'm going to finish sipping my coffee laced with cinnamon, go over my Denby and Rugby notes, largely draft the two of those so I can polish them in my rare down-minutes at the paper tomorrow, and then get my notes in order for Thursday's Ogintz's rewrite and Serrin's profile, which I will work on tomorrow and Wednesday nights.

I wonder - is it a singularly writer-thing, this joy of insomnia? Sometimes I'm sincerely at my complete happiest jamming to The Offspring while pounding on my keyboard at 60 wpm while the rational population is fast asleep.

Let's give a head's up to Washington Square News

2005-09-26T08:37:00.000-04:00

Check out my latest attempt at freelancing with this bit on the new Ralph Lauren Rugby store for NYU's own Washington Square News.

Unfortunately, I could not go as in depth with this piece as I had wanted, but fortunately I still have a second chance (and apparently an infinite word count) with Rugby magazine; plus, with Rugby mag, I can get a little more snarky, a la The Observer.

Case in point, Chris Stahl of the New York Gotham Knights and I ran throughout the store yesterday squealing, "Would you wear this to a drink-up?" "No way! I'd get my ASS kicked!"

Pure. Gold. - that has to go in the essay I'm working on for the magazine. I just need to get into contact with Jackie to pin down when it's due.

Anyway, I originally had a completely horrendous lede, and no one from Ralph Lauren had really gotten back to me, and the men-and-women-on-the-street would not give me their names, so I was punching this out in less than two hours last night and moaning that WSN would never accept any of my submissions again. Ever.

SO - I give the staff a lot of cred for tidying the piece up so well. I did write it, but they did re-do the intro and streamline the rest, as good editors should, and for a change I'm more grateful than indignant. I expect big things from these ladies and gents some day, my friends, but what do you expect - they'll be NYU grads, and we're all busting our humps to be the cream of the crop, here.

So, here's The Good, The Bad and The Rugby. Pick up the print version around campus today:

by Nicole Pesce
Contributing Writer

New Yorkers usually don't let rationality get in the way of fashion.

While students may not surf or drive semis, both Uggs and trucker hats have been omnipresent on campus for months. Polo shirts have also been popular, though one would be hard-pressed to find a student that actually plays the archaic sport. And now, though NYU is several time zones away from Cambridge, students may be tackling a new trend - rugby.

With the opening of Rugby on University Place, Ralph Lauren is attempting to take the rugged English sport where it took polo in the 1960s. Plenty of stores selling vaguely athletic clothing already exist - both American Eagle and Abercrombie and Fitch have opened stores throughout the city. But Rugby has something these other stores do not: location.

Lauren has directly targeted the 18 to 25 year-old age bracket by placing the stores near schools. The first Rugby store opened a year ago in Boston, and was followed by stores in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Charlottesville, Va., both locations of large universities. The New York store follows this pattern - it is only a stone's throw away from campus.

While Ralph Lauren public relations agents would not supply numbers, they said that the other stores had been very successful, and the opening of the New York store was a big event.

"This is kind of a fun one for us," Ralph Lauren marketing manager Katie Rieg said. "This one is in our own backyard."

The store is employing a number of methods to woo college-age customers, including a counter set up at the front entrance with a DJ playing old-school favorites like The Clash and De La Soul. There will also be a series of live performances inside the store throughout October.

"Music is a big part of the kids' lifestyle," Rieg said. "We're trying to appeal to the Polo customer, but specifically toward the younger generation. The store is set up really informally so you can walk around and talk while you shop. We're really improving on the shopping experience."

The store has certainly strived for a convincing look. A vintage foosball table in the men's section, an array of striped button-down dress shirts and ties on a pool table covered in rich red felt, and framed pictures of rugby players in sepia tones give the store the feel of what Christopher Stahl, a cultural studies professor at NYU, referred to as "a British prep school fantasy."

"It's not so much rugby per se, as it is an ethos of sportiness," said Stahl, who is also a member of the New York Gotham Knights rugby team.

Although the looks are obviously researched, and the patches and emblems appear authentic, the store showcases the scant knowledge of rugby that Americans have, Stahl said. For example, for all of the careful decoration, there is not one authentic rugby ball showcased in clear view in the store. Neither are there any pictures of female rugby players, he said.

This did not deter the opening weekend shoppers.

Jessica and Kim, two Tisch juniors, walked out of the Rugby store swinging a pair of the eye-catching blue and gold striped bags that are sure to become a familiar sight around campus. Both agreed that they would shop there again.

"I think [the store] will do pretty well," Kim, who refused to give her last name, said, holding a new sweater, a T-shirt and a tank top. "It's something kind of new, kind of different."

Jessica, who also refused to give her last name, thought the store might be too expensive for some students, but not for her.

"I don't have a problem spending money on clothes," she said. She had purchased a pair of jeans, a sweater dress and a beanie cap. "It's like an investment for me."

Local residents also recognize the store's appeal for the young.

"This store will obviously attract lots of college kids whose parents have lots of money," said Michelle Nicole Wesley, a long time Village resident.

She pointed to a blue-and-gold-striped blazer and recounted a conversation she overheard a few minutes before in the store.

"I heard two young guys talking inside," she said. "One was trying on one of those jackets, and his friend said, 'It's too Harry Potter-ish. You gotta take that off.' And the other kid said, 'Oh, I was just gonna charge it to my parents.' " •

The new Rugby store is located on 99 University Pl. at E. 12th St.

When J-Schoolers Cut Loose!

2005-09-23T19:30:00.000-04:00

Photograph courtesy of "Michael J.F.C. de la Merced III" or whatever

The detritus of the NYU J-School's first 'Beer and Pizza' night.

It was a raging success, with only one casuality - my dropping a full can of beer on the floor (after promising Professor Serrin I'd be responsible for keeping the party clean, ha) which exploded, dowsing several innocent bystanders in a fine spray of Budweiser.

Graduate Students,

I wanted to write and thank all those who came to our beer and pizza party last night. It was probably the best attended gathering in the department in years.
I also wanted to thank those students who picked up at the end. I went over this morning thinking I might have some work to do and the place was spotless.

[cough cough, hold on to your hearts, fellas - she drinks, she cleans!]

May I also say that if any of you seems to have a problem during the semester, come see me and I will see what I can do to solve it.

Also, it's not to early to mark on your calendars this date:
Saturday, December 3, six p.m. the Ireland House.
A resumption of the Gala Graduate Christmas Party.

This will feature, among other items, home-cooked turkeys.

Thanks again.
Prof. Serrin
Graduate Director

Home. Cooked. Turkeys.

I've come to the right school.

That's all I have to say.

Clips with Quips

2005-09-21T09:13:00.000-04:00

It's all here in today's Observer ... yaawwwwn I just completely overslept (yes I'm aware it's only 9 a.m.) so now I have to jump back on track. Looks like I won't have time for the gym today. Damn. ;)

Actually, the ole Subway Leg is a little tender yet, so it's probably just as well.

This Is It

“Everyone abandoned us and moved to Chelsea!” said Taki Wise, co-owner of the Staley-Wise gallery, at Amanda De Cadenet’s Soho opening last week. Her thumb was wrapped in gauze from a manicure gone awry earlier last week. “People who go gallery-hopping Thursday nights, gallery-hopping and drinking for free from gallery to gallery—they’re mostly in Chelsea now.”

Ms. De Cadenet gamely greeted the guests, despite having had back surgery only the week before. “Every piece I chose is an image that I love,” she said, her blond hair pulled away from her face with butterfly barrettes. “I’m just enjoying that people are enjoying the work—”

She was interrupted by a shattering crash—not the overhead lights à la Diane von Furstenberg, thankfully, but rather fallen stemware.

“Uh-oh,” said Ms. De Cadenet. “The first broken glass.”

The photographs of her A-list friends were mingled with family pictures. In a shot of a shaven-headed Tobey Maguire, he sat at a table with a can of Mug Root Beer at his elbow, his eyes, through dorky glasses, looking off in the distance, as if he were eyeing a pretty girl. Or something.

Photographer Stephen Klein kissed Ms. Wise. “This is it! This is IT!” he said. “You called it. There’s nothing else going on in this town. Compared to a marching band at Marc Jacobs? Anyone could get a band!”

Keanu Reeves walked in, his beard even shaggier in person than in his De Cadenet portrait.

“That’s a good one,” Mr. Klein said. “That’s who you pulled in!”

The Strokes’ Nick Valensi, Ms. De Cadenet’s beau, looked ever the rock star with his long and luscious brown locks, a blue bandana loosely draped around his neck, and a pack of Camel Lights squashed into the left pocket of his jeans.

“I am just so fucking proud of Amanda,” he said, taking it in. Mr. Valensi said they were going to have a quiet night at home because of her back.

“She’s supposed to be on bed rest, and I’ve been charged with keeping an eye on her,” he said, watching as she got out of her chair—again—to hug and kiss another friend.

“We’ll probably order in some dinner, rent some movies,” he said.

—Nicole Pesce

The Secret of Gwen

Barred from Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. show, which kissed off the end of Fashion Week last Friday, The Transom waited outside Roseland Ballroom with heaps of fashion victims and disgruntled journalists.

Just when the only option seemed to be drinking Fashion Week into oblivion across the way at Gallagher’s bar, it was noticed that the L.A.M.B. standing-room tickets were merely three-by-five-inch index cards with the word “Standing” scrawled on them in black pen.

With a quick trip to Duane Reade on 50th Street and Broadway, The Transom returned to the line holding its “official” key into the L.A.M.B. show. To see Ms. Stefani, $1.29 ain’t too shabby.

Madness! Snakeskin fleece pants, yellow track pants, cashmere hoodies, Chevrolet Cadillacs, scalloped blazers, diagonal zip-front jackets, silk chiffon Rasta gowns and mesh street glam!

At the end, the Orange County girl herself came skipping down the walk in drawstring pants and a black see-through tank layered over a gold bikini top. On her way offstage, she kissed Anna Wintour, her husband Gavin Rossdale and, of course, her mom.

Afterward, backstage at the Roseland Ballroom, the slim, platinum-blond beauty gushed in front of a crowd of reporters. “It couldn’t have gone any better than that,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m saying right now! I’m so thankful.”

Some Gilmore Girls stopped by to shower Ms. Stefani with compliments. When asked about her next show, she smiled. “Who knows?” she said.

The Transom tried to score some fashion swag: a haunting pair of alligator-green sequined high heels, which had been worn by one of Gwen’s lanky models. But a production freelancer named Mike stood in the way.

“You don’t want to wear these,” Mike said. “They’re five inches.”

But just before a brawl over shoes began, Lenny Kravitz walked by. With raw instinct, The Transom grabbed his upper arm—his buttery-smooth bicep—and asked him about the show.

“I loved the show,” he said. Why? “It’s Gwen.” Mr. Kravitz also liked the familiar aura of the models. “They’ve all got Gwen’s vibe,” he said.

Of course Gavin Rossdale was publicly smitten by his wife’s show. “I’m 50 million out of 10 proud,” he said. “Her flavor was everywhere. Fashion should be about … fun. The line is quite rare.”

But he admitted that Ms. Stefani’s inspiration may have at least a little something to do with him.

“She likes to sketch on me,” Mr. Rossdale said, breaking out with a rakish smile. “She jams on it. It’s a great process.”

—Erin Coe and Nicole Pesce

Mind The Gap

2005-09-20T20:04:00.000-04:00

After a long day of fact-checkin' and phone-answerin' yesterday, I hit the Palladium gym with Rach, came home and did some homework (albeit a few hours late - the email conversation went like this: Me - What exactly does Serrin want due tomorrow? A list of story ideas? Classmate - Um, I think it was a list of books. And it was due today, Pesce) and then I immediately passed out - still dressed, contact lenses in, Windows Media Player blasting my annoying "Dumped" mix starring Fiona Apple, Cake, Incubus, and, of course ... Bright Eyes ...

... woke up this morning to geese honking outside, a refreshing breeze coming through my window, and a first draft for an article due to Professor Ogintz still largely unwritten - all signs that it is Fall, and school is back in full swing!

I took a shower, made some coffee, and miraculously threw down 800 words for class - only about 200 of them were TKs, ha - and even found some time to eat breakfast and grab my copy of The Times before those rascals in my neighborhood stole it. (My paper has been missing for five out of the last seven days; I was planning on murdering my paper carrier until my super caught some local fellas gankin it off the stoop on Saturday. Now he brings it inside the building in the morning and buzzes me so I know to come down and get it.) I was having a terrifically productive morning, and stepped outside at nine, hoping to get to The Observer by 9:30 to get a jump-start on the day's fact-checking. The paper goes to bed on Tuesday nights, so Tuesdays have become the new "Hump Day."

I watched two 6 trains speed by, completely packed, before I was finally able to shove my way into a third. Jesus! What was going on?

Not relishing riding half an hour - more - on the local, packed like a sardine (or a college freshman in a SUNY dorm triple) I switched at 86th Street for the express train; however, the 86th Street platform was more packed than mine had been for the 6. Dammit!

When the train finally arrived after a 10-minute wait, the crowd went into a frenzy and lunged through the doors despite the 5 train being completely jammed.

Caught up in the mob, I found myself swept toward the nearest door. I tried to push my way in as well, but quickly saw that there was no room - not even for the 5'4" chick who had been starving all summer - and so was considering backing away. I was pushed from behind, however -

and rather than stepping onto the train

my left foot fell into empty space

and I fell in the gap between the subway platform and the train, up to my left knee.

What can I say? Adventure seems to be my middle name.

The two men who had pushed me into this predicament only seconds before came to their senses and each grabbed one of my arms and hoisted me up. Before I could even wrap my head around what had just happened, my two pushers/saviors boarded the train, the doors slid shut, and off it went - without my being caught inbetween, luckily, but also without my being ON the train. Dammit!

Someone asked me if I was OK, and I laughed it off. "Now I have a good excuse for being late for work."

Then the adrenaline from my near-miss rushed through me - heart pounding, heavy breathing, reminding me of that time I fainted on the 6 train (the Lexington Avenue line is obviously not my lucky line) - and I had to lean against the wall to calm down. My left pantleg was streaked with grime, and it was starting to throb, but otherwise I was all in one piece.

I then waited 20 minutes until another train arrived. Twenty minutes! So much for an early start!

Turns out a police investigation at Bowling Green was holding up the Lexington Avenue line, which was why the trains were so crowded - leading to the irritable GroupThink that almost got me killed. But c'est la vie, I suppose. I walked into work at 10 with an amusing story (the scare had worn off by then, and it was funny) and a complimentary bruise on my leg, and I will have two bylines in tomorrow's Observer, which is always satisfying.

Speaking of bylines and near-death experiences, I think I am trying to kill myself -

*I am freelancing a humorous piece for Rugby Magazine this week (three cheers for having teammates on the editorial staff) on the new Ralph Lauren rugby store opening on University Place (shudder - it's ridiculous)

*Trying to cover the same story, but from a harder news angle/and more consumer-ish bent for The Washington Square News

*I've submitted a query to NYU's Manhattan South magazine about profiling a rugby team (hopefully the Lions)

*I've recently been accepted on Professor Mark Dery's Bullpen webzine, so I have to research a "backgrounder" on New Yorker film critic David Denby and then cover his visit to NYU in two weeks.

This is a strategy I like to call, GET AS MANY CLIPS AS YOU CAN BEFORE GRADUATION SO THAT YOU HAVE A J-O-B COME DECEMBER.

It's all picking up so fast! That's why I'm now listening to Elvis Costello and eating a cheese sandwich. I need to clear my head; make a nice, reassuring list; and just take care of things one at a time.

And tomorrow, I'm taking the train well after rush hour.