50,000th visitor!

cue: streamers and confetti.

hostess enters to deliver speech:

"hello folks, so glad you could make it! i just want to thank you all for making 50,000 hits possible. i really couldn't have done it without you! or sandra, from whom i steal my internet regularly. thank you very much. really, thank you all!"

hostess exits, stage right.

i'm proud to announce...

that my sweet little hometown has reached a level of celebrity as never before! the lovely place i spent the majority of my childhood was notably the number one place looking for "sex" last year (as seen on google trends).

see this Chicago Sun-Times article or this SFGate Chronicle. (thanks goes to keith, a fellow elmhurstian, for the links!)

elmhurst is white, suburban, rich and apparently, very sexually frustrated (it's just been edged out of the #2 spot for anal sex and is #1 in porn). it's also and not very good at web browsing. i mean, who actually googles "sex" to find anything interesting? could you get any more broad and less useful? same with a search for "porn." i mean, they'd do better with "men eating cock" or "girls licking girls" or just something a little more focused. agreed?

unless, of course, the people of elmhurst were just all being philosophical looking for the meaning of sex, as in combinations of X and/or Y chromosomes. maybe they're all just a bunch of critical gender theorists perhaps? yeah. sure.

unfortunately, norfolk not only beat us out of the "anal sex" category (see above) but also takes "penis" with a clear lead. but the mormons sure like being naked. seattle is full of metrosexuals and new york, of course, will always be the most cosmopolitan.

hell kids, i could play here all day....

not afraid

i'm not afraid to say it.

Gray's Anatomy is the best show on television.

period.

did ya miss me?!

the last couple weeks (or has it been months?) have been filled with work, man trauma, housing dilemmas and other real life events.

re: work boyfriend. we've been up and down (mostly down) for weeks. he's all fucked up and it's fucking me up in the process. i found myself picking fights with him all the time, realizing that it was easier that way than letting myself get close enough to him to get hurt again. not good. his ex won't get out of the picture (and he won't get rid of her) and it's just a mess. and so we're doing what we should have done all along. going our separate ways so he can fix himself up on his own, without having to deal with fighting with or worrying about yours truly. he'll have quality time with the doctor. i'll have quality time with the blog. we'll stay friends and maybe later we can start with a clean slate...but boy, does he have some work to do first...

i'm looking for other jobs just because i'm tired of the monotany. i have a friend who is off to work for a very powerful politician-who-shall-not-be-named soon and in my wildest dreams, he calls to say, "hey jasmine, they need someone to work in the press secretary's office! come now!" but i think the chances of that are just about as good as me winning the lottery. the best i can do for now is send the resume out to a billion people and hope something bites. in which case i'll pack up and have to leave the sorority house...um...i mean my cubicle.

and because i'm never home, i've missed some severe roommate goings-on. my roommate melissa, a few months ago, married a korean guy so he could get papers. she then proceeded to feel so guilty about the whole thing (she comes from a pretty religious part of PA) that she panics, files for divorce, and becomes a born-again christian. she started a blog about god (i'm not linking it, lest you go there and offend her), watches sermons on tape and commutes way the hell out to coney island to go to some special church near there...FOUR DAYS A WEEK. i hardly have bowel movements that often. seriously. so it was no surprise that she decided to move out to brooklyn to be closer to church, god and all the glory that coney island has to offer...? in her place will be a chef at a starred restaurant in the city. cross your fingers for free meals for me in the near future. my other roommate emily i haven't seen in months because she practically lives at her boyfriend's place in williamsburg (which, i won't lie, is about a million times cooler than living amongst the chimmichurry trucks in washington heights). she and i still go out though and spend most our time explaining to the rest of our friends that melissa doesn't go out anymore because she's too busy spending time with god.

last weekend was a kentucky derby party with big hats and mint juleps which, by the way, are pretty gross. it's bourbon with a tiny bit of sugar thrown in for good measure. ick. and even though the race lasted all of a minute and a half, we managed to make several hours worth of drinking out of it. we're prepping for belmont which is just a free-for-all for most new york young people. everyone and their brother goes to this thing and just spends the ENTIRE day getting wasted. not a pretty sight.

tonight i had an alvin ailey gala where i met john legend, who is very very short. i mean, he's one tiny man. but an impeccable dresser nonetheless. but the most exciting part about these galas is the amazingly good looking catering staff. this particular company is known throughout the city for the hotness of these people and we ladies are never disappointed. it feels so grecian. beautiful men feeding you ceviche and bringing you wine. life is so good sometimes.

and so i fully plan on blogging more, not just promising to blog more. and i'm gonna try to get back to the HNT but i'm not nearly creative enough to be doing this every week. we'll see.

some work observations

i haven't posted about work really. partly because everything i do is confidential. mostly because the only thing i do is click on a mouse all day and it's so mind numbing that i keep a quiet count of all the brain cells i lose every hour. so here are some observations on things related to work, unrelated to my actual job...

the worst thing i've had to get used to is the cost/utility functions i'm constantly doing in my own head because i'm paid by the hour. i won't take days off, i won't take long lunches, i hate to leave the office because i'm making so much darn money. for example: i'm working on a saturday and want to stop at banana republic and pick up a shirt i saw for $60. right away i add $45 to the cost of the shirt because that's what it costs me to leave the office for the hour. so is that shirt worth $105? no. vacations are the same way. they are too costly once you add in the amount of money i won't be making while i'm gone. basically, i'm a slave to the hourly wage. it's freaky. i don't know how to cut myself loose from it.

i sit in a corner of the office with several black women who all listen to Wendy Williams and i'm so hooked. this lady his hilarious. we sit and listen to Shayna from brooklyn call into the radio show to talk about how her sugar daddy wants her to fuck him with a strap-on. there are always choruses of "oh, HELL no!" or "this trick's out of her mind!" or other phrases being hollered out from within the cubicles. even though i'm a little half-asian girl, for the hour, i can feel my inner urban diva.

i've also found some excellent fellow stalkers in the office. a girl who'd seen a guy on jdate who she thought was cute, pulled up his profile (which contained only his college, his profession, his interests, and his screenname i.e. "KMan76'"). within minutes a co-worker was able to find out his full name, his law school, his place of employment and what kind of law he practiced. damn. he's good. we all collectively drafted a letter for this girl to send to him over the dating service but we never heard back. i think we're just starting to recover from the rejection.

and honestly, this job isn't a real job. it's a couple college fraternities and sororities who don business casual and show up at the office for a few hours to bide their time until the work-organized binge drinking fests. it can't get more unprofessional than this. for example: we just had a work sponsored (i.e. paid for) open bar and karaoke to bid adieu to a departing boss. this included boss lady getting so drunk that she was: 1.) literally falling down all over the place (whether walking down the stairs or standing on solid ground), 2.) shoving one guy on a table splashing several drinks upon a co-workers lap and 3.) throwing some wayward fists. one landing on the side of work boyfriend's head. one landing squarely in drunk departing boss' face (ouch!) who then proceeded to pour his beer on boss lady's head. boss lady gets upset that she's wet (conveniently forgetting poor guy with a lap full of vodka) and storms out. *boss lady exits stage left. end scene* i wish i were kidding about this. i really do. but i am not. tuesday is an organized outing for beer pong.

yes, BEER PONG. boss lady's name is on the list of people to play. *shaking head* no comment.

i am a document reviewer, which is exactly what it sounds like. firms all over the country pay pay tens of thousands of these underlings to do nothing but search for information in documents. documents from people's files, from their computers, everything down to their day planners...and so i'm telling you, take this advice and carry it with you always:

NEVER USE YOUR WORK E-MAIL ADDRESS FOR PERSONAL MESSAGES.

seriously. it's amazing. pathetic break-up e-mails, e-mails displaying adulterous relationships, porn, e-mails from suzy confessing she slept with her boyfriend's brother joey, stupid forwards, lots and lots of baby pictures.* so really, if you don't want 40 people openly mocking the fact that you got dumped by that guy you met at club med...don't e-mail the stories out on your work account. even though we're thoroughly entertained, we feel bad for you.

*disclaimer: none of these are actual findings, names, etc. this is the range of possible findings. just to be certain that i'm NOT writing about my actual job, bitches.

and there was peace

i climb into a cab and a familiar, soothing sound reached my ears. john coltrane. and all of a sudden, at 3am, there was nowhere else i'd rather be. i've often thought i'd like to die listening to coltrane. and i briefly imagined myself dying in a mangled crash moments later, just so my wish could be granted.

shaking my attention from the images of my own beautiful death was a sound usually unfamiliar in cab drivers, an american accent. we chatted about gas prices. i apologized to him for making him take me to the subway (a $5 ride) instead of up to my house way uptown (a $27 ride) where he would have gotten a bigger tip. he explained that, because he probably wouldn't have gotten a fare back downtown and would have to spend more money on gas, that it was actually cheaper for him to only take me the few blocks i asked to be driven and get the lesser tip. as i opened the door the soft sound of saxophone gave way to the bustling noises on west 4th, still in my coltrane euphoria, i gave him a $6 tip before i hopped out. just because.

and sometimes i wake up and things feel grim, gray and gross. but i take myself back to coltrane and realize things will be just fine. great, in fact.