D-U-K-E...

...who the fuck did you come to see? Yeah, that's right OK State, DUKE DUKE MOTHER FUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!! My alma mater's basketball games are the best in the world; I believe that. Coach K is a walking reality show. Who else can tear your gaze from J.J.'s inhuman shooting ability by sitting on the sidelines and cupping his chin? Who else gets his own building to house his thumbprint-access only office and makes twice as much as the university president by muttering to his assistants and making speeches littered with F-bombs? Coach K, you are not the handsomest of men, but you are my crush of the week.

Last night I kept leaving people so they could hook up. There was also a litany of awful nightlife: Katwalk? The Social Club? Dear Social Club: if you insist on having bathroom attendants, perhaps you could also manage toilet paper?

The highlight of the night was the Old Limerick Ale House or something, which played Britney Spears's Greatest Hits: My Perogative CD and then glared at you, daring you to ask why. The remains of the group sipped hot whiskey toddies and wondered what they were doing.

The Impossible.

I was pulled over in New York City.

TONY, Where Art Thou?

Last day at Time Out. Big Tone, as T. used to say. L. and I each completed one back-check and left at 1. How bittersweet! Later on, I met a somewhat annoying Georgetown Law guy who tried to impress me with his Time Out knowledge.

"I don't subscribe," he said. "I should!"

Good work, buddy.

Ahhh, The Life I Lead

Although my department at SYPNYM will be around until January, things have slowed to a glacial pace, and next week is therefore my last. Adieu, Time Out. I hope your research departments fare better at the London and Chicago outposts. Or at least that your minions have something to do.

Next up: crashing the office holiday party at S.O.B.'s tomorrow night. My mother used to go there in the 70s, so you know it must be cool.

Incidentally, what kind of magazine keeps its holiday party invitations from the interns? Aren't we supposed to entertain everyone by getting too drunk and hitting on the gay art director? I read about the party plans in the New York Observer via Gawker, although I can't take too much stock in a column that calls our office, which is out by the West Side impound lots, a "treat."


Last weekend was deliciously naughty, spent at Milk and Honey with a gaggle of Brits who made me feel self-conscious and then at Hi-Fi with Colby, my friend from writing camp.

Writing camp, incidentally, comprised likely the best and most enriching 11 weeks of my life. I received two marriage proposals that summer, and one was from Colby, on the basis that I was reading King Lear on the subway. I brought him a Krispy Kreme, and he penned me a sonnet.

Actually, it was a limerick. My name is hard to rhyme.

Milk and Honey has an unlisted phone number and address, no sign, requires reservations, and one must ring a buzzer and trip through several curtains before entering.

It has rules, such as "No starfucking."

I liked it there.

I was meeting a friend from work, Katrin, and some of her friends from London. Marie was just finishing a recap of her latest holiday to Greece, where she and her friend had tried very hard to find six men named Stavros, but instead went bar-hopping with Zeus.

Byrne would throw in the occasional comment, and Katrin mentioned that he lived in Paris. Oh, and had she told me this hilarious story from her childhood spent in Western Africa?

I took to using words like "brilliant" and "crap" while suppressing my desire to use a British accent with them to try and fit in.

Then Colby and I went to Hi-Fi and talked about Heidegger and Frank Rich and... things that friends from writing camp talk about. And the Hi-Fi jukebox, which is just like, so cool.

It was fun.

The Weather Is Linked Inexplicably To My Mood

Today is a gray day, so gray that it's almost black, like my little black heart. You can see about three blocks out of SYPNYM's floor-to-ceiling windows, and it's hazy. The Hudson looks green.

T. and I cut the last string last night, which is sad, and my whole mood rather matches the weather. Although I like feeling in sync with nature, I think I'd rather feel in sync with a sunny day and clear blue skies (but this is New York in December, so... yeah). I feel okay, though. Some things just have to happen. It was among the nicer conversations we've had lately.

Although it's gray, it isn't raining.

Urrrrgh it'd be nice to work my way out of this one, though. Perhaps the interim senior editor has some film dates he needs checked out...

He's rather cute, come to think of it.

Tyler Florence, Why Do I Love Thee?

Tyler Florence is a minor Food Network star and I guess some big chef who's like, just so fucking hot. He's a little beefy and will likely get really fat within the next decade, but for now he just looks like a good-natured Delta Sig--you want to think him an asshole by association, but then he goes on TV and cooks beans with little old ladies in the foothills of Tuscany. And he talks to them with respect and admiration, and it's all so goddamn genuine!

I need to know more about this man. Let us use Google. All I know now is what I've seen on Food 911/How to Boil Water (co-hosted with a not-so-bright blonde girl who knows nothing about food)/Tyler's Ultimate (during which he hangs out with aforementioned little old Italian ladies).

Ctrl-N, enter term.

Executive chef of Cafeteria! Wait. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I believe that that is a very gay restaurant in Chelsea once featured during season six: part one of Sex and the City. Could Tyler be a homo? Not good. (For me, I mean, because if he were straight, he would naturally want to be my boyfriend, or would just wait and worship me until I became available).

Ok, a... restaurant in Chelsea... I don't know if I can move on from this. I'll pretend it never happened. Next:

Tyler lives in Chinatown (we're on a first-name basis now).

Tyler describes the aroma of truffles as a "mixture of old socks and sex." Ha ha! It's true! Just ask the girls from the infamous Gianmarco Pinton pasta-with-excess-amounts-of-Ben-Yaffe's-dad's-white-truffle-oil dinner, who all shifted uncomfortably in their seats upon realizing they'd been served a large bowl of what tasted suspiciously like come! Also note that all males at said table wolfed down said come noodles with gusto.

Tyler likes the "meaty" taste of Spanish paprika. (Homo. Homo, homo, homo).

Tyler has an 8-year-old.

I could even handle having a crush on a gay boy (34-year-old man, whatever). But a dad? I'm just too young.

Sorry, Tyler. I guess I'm an Ina Garten girl at heart. Barefoot Contessa is my porn.

I Work For THE MAN

I applied for a barista job at Starbucks about a week ago. As I filled out the application, I realized that I was not afraid of working at Starbucks, with the green apron and endless smiles, but disturbed at the amount of effort I was putting into my answers. To work in the food-service industry is one thing, but to be declined from a job in the food-service industry...

It's Starbucks, by the by, because they offer health insurance to part-time employees. When I move to LA, I won't have to choose between rent and a flu shot.

Anyway, they hired me. I have an inflated GPA from a top-5 school, plus, probably more importantly, retail experience and a lack of anything in my schedule. I realized on my first day that the Madison, NJ Starbucks has likely the most educated food service staff in America. More or less everyone is from the area, back from college. Most of us never saw that our liberal arts education meant a green apron in our future, but we deal with it as best we can. At least we're not at Burger King.


The average coffee drink at Starbucks comes to $3.71, including tax, but can go as high as $5.47. $5.47. That's my sushi lunch from Whole Foods.

It's all part of The Master Plan.

Till then... room for milk?

Perfect Timing.

Now that I'm planning to move and know for certain that I won't be working full-time at SYPNYM, motivation has gone stone cold. Work is for updating my blog and checking e-mail, and, as everyone an excuse to wear miniskirts with legwarmers and not get second looks.

(Actually, I do get second looks. All along Ninth Avenue).

This was working only pretty well until today, when we found out that my department is disbanding and that by February everyone (except, of course, for the 25-year-old blonde and independently wealthy associate editor, who's getting promoted) will be looking for work.

Which means that now my ploy works even BETTER, because NO ONE is thinking about productivity!

Although the announcement is rather shocking and I am disappointed, yes I am.

Really!

I'm Done With Today's Backchecking.

Some elderly folks were chatting about Ken's defeat on the train this morning, but rather than expressing shock and outrage that he should lose to a real-estate broker, they were more confused that H&R Block has so many employees working only 4 months of the year. They would have guessed FedEx (as Ken did), they said, until their younger male companion chided them, "Which *white* collar company?" "Ahhhh!" they cried in delight.

After Ken lost, I watched the NBC tree-lighting special, hoping to see swing-dancing ice skaters and quietly pitying the total lack of talent that resides in Hilary Duff's vocal cords. Unfortunately, nothing more appealing was on beetween 7:30 and 9 (that's when Veronica Mars comes on), and I didn't really feel like doing anything more productive, so my dog and I sat through the whole thing, right up to Jessica Simpson and her smudgy lipstick. I kept in it mostly for the swing-dancing ice skaters, even though I think I knew, deep down, that it was futile.

Why does NBC so frequently and gleefully convert Rockefeller Center from the Heart of New York to the Epicenter of Cheez?

When NBC converted Rockefeller Center to "Democracy Plaza" for the election, my transplanted New Yorker friend Ben called to inform me of two things:

1. I should snicker every time "Democracy Plaza" came out of anyone's mouth (no need, Ben, no need for such a reminder).
2. That the nifty bar graph they'd constructed behind the ice rink was actually two window washing scaffolds that are always there anyway, with some fabric hanging off.


Such industry.

Now all they need are some swing-dancing ice skaters.