Nothing says Christmas like a White Stripes Christmas 7″ and a box of candy canes. And exam week, that too. By this time tomorrow, my little buckeroos and buckerettes, I’ll be knee deep in post-finals festivities, and then on Sunday: off to Massachusetts to do the family thing. Hurray!
These are trying times for smokers in New York City. It began over the summer with that monumental tax increase that left crappy-ass regular cigarettes at upwards of $7 a pack, and my ridiculous lung-searing cloves started going for $8 or $8.50. I wriggled out of that one in August by ordering a carton from esmokes.com, which has served me rather well - I was concerned that having an enormous quantity of cancer sticks readily available would lead to a dramatic increase in my smoking, but that hasn’t proven to be the case (I’ve still got three packs left, five months later), and at $29 for the box I’m paying less than $3 a pack.
Then came word that this summer, a new restriction will be imposed: only self-extinguishing cigarettes can be sold in New York, in an attempt to reduce the number of cigarette-related fires. The major tobacco companies have already stated that they don’t expect to get their products up to code by the deadline, meaning that for an undetermined length of time it’s entirely possible that it won’t be possible to buy cigarettes here at all. Again, this one doesn’t affect me personally since I’m now ordering my lung disease directly from suppliers on the web, but I imagine it’s a bit rough on anyone who actually enjoys the privilege of buying a pack of cigarettes, you know, at the store.
Now, however, things are going even further. Next week, legislators will vote on Bloomberg’s plan to ban smoking in clubs and bars in New York City. Smoking hasn’t been permitted in restaurants above a certain seating capacity for quite a while, but this new law will include nearly all other indoor environments. Exceptions include separate smoking rooms meeting strict ventilation requirements, although it eliminates existing smoking rooms in places like school staff lounges and sports venues.
This baby’s probably going to deal the death blow to my Djarum indulgence. Bars and clubs are almost the only places I do smoke - it’s some weird social side effect, I’m sure, but I rarely smoke when I’m at my apartment, which seems to be the only place I’ll be allowed to light up come March. People whose smoking habits aren’t as tenuous as mine will probably be forced to choose between their nicotine and their nightlife - not to mention all the poor stoner kids who will no longer be able to pretend that’s not pot they’re smoking at Batcave.
I managed fairly successfully to avoid thinking about the threatened transit strike until yesterday afternoon. I didn’t dwell on the fact that either of the two places I would normally spend a Sunday night required a good forty minutes to an hour on at least one train in order to deposit me safely at my first final exam the following morning, but as Crispy and I watched the same footage of determined commuters and ecstatic, troll-like hoteliers looping over and over on NY1, I began to be a little concerned. The city’s contingency plans seemed awfully sketchy - livery cabs running along bus routes sounds nice until you actually start thinking about what time you’ll need to get up in order to wait for one of these things, and don’t even bother picturing an entire city’s worth of bus commuters trying to make do with cabs that can’t hold more than four people because seriously, no good can come of it.
NYU’s plan seemed just as tenuous - since Metro North and the LIRR would still be running, they explained to us, commuters would have no problem getting to Penn Station or Grand Central (apparently there are no NYU students who reside in outer boroughs). From there we were to simply hop an NYU shuttle bus to the village. Putting aside for the moment the fact that if I were in a position to get to Penn Station or Grand Central I wouldn’t need a shuttle bus, as neither one of them is too far from campus to walk, that didn’t seem to offer any new solutions.
As a last resort, NYU decided to open to commuters the Palladium Sports Center for contingency housing. As dismal as the picture of a god damned gym full of unhappy pre-finals college kids undoubtedly was, it started to seem like the safest available option as calculations for what time I’d have to get up in order to catch a cab pretending to be a bus or a bus pretending to be a subway started to result in me getting up before I’d actually go to sleep. So at around 11pm last night, I made my melancholy way back to the village while the trains were still running normally. As I walked through the Union Square station to get to the 14th St exit at around 11:30 pm, I passed an exuberant transit worker. Oblivious of or perhaps in response to my lethal stare, he stopped me, all smiles, and announced: ONLY HALF AN HOUR LEFT UNTIL WE DITCH THIS MOTHERFUCKING HOLE. The subject of my final exam this morning not withstanding, my Linguistic capabilities deserted me and I presented him with an uncouth gesture before moving on.
Eventually I got signed in and checked in and settled in at Palladium and although I’d pictured something between a snowbound airport and a homeless shelter, it really wasn’t so bad. One of the gyms had been set up as a study area with desks and chairs and that weird gym-floor smell, while the other was well removed from the rest of the facility and housed shadowy rows of really rather comfortable little beds, complete with pillows and blankets and all of the things I’d found myself wondering on the way over if I should have brought. As midnight rolled around, perhaps a dozen of us were still awake and sprawled in pajamas or reasonable facsimiles thereof around the couches in the lobby, watching the news. The whole thing was blessedly more like a slumber party than a homeless shelter, and there was juice!
Of course there wasn’t a strike, but you know if I’d decided to take my chances that there would have been.
Fuck action movies, there is no greater source of nervous tension and seat-gripping excitement than watching a Capri-panted commuter do her makeup on a Manhattan-bound Q train going over the bridge. It’s not like that irresistable car-crash-fascination phenomenon because while it’s true that you can’t stop looking even though you might have been caught staring twice already and had to immediately pretend you were just reading the map behind this chick’s head and not waiting with bated breath for the death and destruction that will inevitably occur - while there’s all that, the death and destruction haven’t occured yet, which is why it’s so fascinating. No determined Ed Norton or enthusiastic Keanu could summon such anticipation from their audiences, even poised over a relentlessly ticking timer as they try to decide whether it’s the green wire or the fucking red one. I’m not the only one gaping - everyone else on the train is just dying for this brave girl to stab herself right in the tear duct with the liquid eyeliner brush she’s holding so impossibly close to her face. Not a soul so much as blinks until the entire horrific process is completed, and all her supplies safely capped and back in her Prada purse. Safe, that is - until next time.
Anyhow, I missed you all too. I’d explain why I wasn’t here for three days but while detailing the curious and fantastical chain of events that led to my building being without phone or net access since Thursday would be terribly entertaining, I’m going to resist the temptation because I’d just end up describing various anatomical impossibilities involving Verizon customer service staff members.
I was going to write something insightful and perhaps mildly nostalgic about how this semester is more or less over, if you don’t count the exams next week, and I seriously wish more people would get in the habit of not counting the exams next week because boy howdy, there’s a lot of them. But I mean, that’s the gist of it right there.
Also, I generally don’t mind living in Brooklyn. It’s cheap, and although I have to get up at ass o’clock in the morning during the week, I’ve been here long enough that the commute doesn’t bother me much. Plus it’s cheap. However, there are times - times like when people are talking about a transit strike during finals week - that I wouldn’t mind being walking distance from campus again. But it’s cheap!
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From now on, when I’m on the train home, and it stops on the bridge so long that entire galaxies die out and their replacements are spawned anew, and I’m hungry and my stomach is making weird yeti noises and the train is seriously not moving at all ever, I will remember the guy who survived for a week on Taco Bell sauce packets. Thank you, Morning News!
1. Okay, so, I’m not really a huge fan of egg nog - I prefer my beverages and eggs to exist in peaceful segregation, thank you - but the egg nog candles at the Illuminations store were too tempting. They smell like egg nog but require no actual nog consumption of any kind. I mean, there’s less rum, but more burning!
2. Incidentally, don’t buy the evergreen candles from Illuminations because that shit is nasty, yo. But that’s not the second factor. Let me start over.
2. It doesn’t matter how tired and irritable and cranky I might be after a long and Linguisticsful day - walking around the Greenmarket in Union Square and sniffing their Christmas trees is like this instant December contact high that makes something like buying nog-scented candles seem completely worthwhile and a valuable Monday afternoon pursuit in and of itself.
3. I’m, like, almost done with my Christmas shopping. Or if not almost done I’ve at least seriously made a dent in it. A sizeable dent. Like the kind of dent you’d get if you were Gun Jack fighting Panda, and Gun Jack were constructed in the same way as my old Volvo and Panda were being played by me. Because I rule with Panda, as my unfortunate defeated opponents could tell you if they weren’t too ashamed of getting beaten up by a big, cuddly bear.
4. The XMas Lights from gooddoug.com.
5. My yeti finger puppet may look friendly in a wintery sort of way, but I assure you - he’ll rip your digit clean off if he detects any sort of insertion attempt. He may be a finger puppet, but he’s not easy.
I’ll admit I was a little wary walking into Equilibrium - the NYT review called it “a movie that could be stupider only if it were longer” - but at least it turned out to be stupid in a so-bad-you-have-to-laugh kind of way (which is somewhat worse than so-bad-it’s-good and somewhat better than so-bad-you-have-to-leave). I wasn’t even that fond of Brave New World when it was a book, and didn’t star Christian Bale trying to be Keanu Reeves and Chow Yun Fat at the same time. Then mix in a little Farenheit 451 (which I liked) with some Anthem (which I didn’t) and it’s all just plain goofy. If you have a couple of PVC bullfrogs to mock the one-liners with, go for it - but if not, just re-read 1984 with some microwave popcorn and consider yourself lucky.
We also caught the mysterious Rich spinning at Decay after the movie, and dug his set. Although the band upstairs left us feeling insufficiently punk rock, and we slipped out relatively early to hide the shame of our complete absence of plaid and/or mohawkage.
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I realize I’m going to get beaten for punking out last night - I know I generally find it irritating when someone tells me “Oh, you should come to the bar, I’m definitely going to be there,” and then they don’t show - but. I mean. The weather outside was frightful, and the snow in my socks was really not so delightful. When the friendly weather man told me there would be five to eight inches of snow, I admit I just sort of ignored him, because they always say there’s going to be a lot of snow and there never is. Except for yesterday, which is how I ended up trudging around in a God Damned Blizzard wearing clogs of all things.
But apart from the wet socks part, I loved the snowstorm. Chris and I got an early dinner at this Thai place near NYU, and got a table near the floor-to-ceiling windows. There are worse things than watching it get dark during a snowstorm while you’re warm and stuffing yourself with Black Noodle in an almost entirely empty restaurant.
So when it came time to stagger outside, full of tofu and rice noodles and green tea, and we were faced with the prospect of getting all cold and wet again, a quick stop at Blockbuster and the train home seemed infinitely more appealing. I can’t deny that I probably deserve a sound beating, though. I promise I’ll be there next week!
