Category Archives: As It Happened

Back to school again. Again.

September 1, 2011 – 7:43 pm
Filed under As It Happened, School
10 Comments

I started graduate school, or at least the orientation part of graduate school two weeks ago. Let me tell you, classes haven’t even started yet and I feel like I’m going to have a total mental and physical breakdown.

I’m attending The Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. For anybody who is wondering what the hell that means, it is, as far as I can tell, a fancy way of saying “design history.” In other words: the poor man’s art history. Why, you might ask, have I decided to go back to school? Aren’t I tired of academia, especially after five years and four different academic institutions? Don’t I want a break? Isn’t my body about to disintegrate like a stack of Jenga bricks from sheer exhaustion? Yes, yes, and yes. And to answer the first question: I’m insane.

The only concrete reason that I can give for my decision to jump right back into school is that, despite all of the hair-tearing anxiety-driven meltdowns it causes, I kind of like it. I love to let my brain act like the sponge that it is and soak up new facts, images, and beautiful things. I like an excuse to buy new books. I like feeling like I know what I’m talking about. Also— having a master’s degree can’t hurt.

Anyhow— the school I’m attending seems great so far and, aside from being absolutely scared shitless, I’m pretty excited about it. Not only is it the head bitch when it comes to design history, it’s also located in a sickeningly gorgeous townhouse on the upper west side. It’s kind of like Hogwarts. If Hogwarts was in Manhattan and populated with midcentury furniture, iMacs, and anthropologists.

But, anyway– back to the mental and physical breakdown bit.

Orientation started two weeks ago and I feel like I have spent two weeks battling a pack of horny grizzly bears after taking a bottle of ambien. For the first week, it was 9-6 every day, with each hour fully accounted for in our schedule. These people want us to be seriously orientated. If I didn’t know my orientation before last week, this week I am a rock-solid butch lesbian with a rainbow tattoo.

On the first day of orientation I was nervous to the point of nearly defecating myself. I got up at the crack of dawn, determined to be the first to arrive, just so that people would be forced to introduce themselves to me and not vice versa. Once people did start arriving and the obligatory introductions began, I became even more nervous. As a person coming into a humanities graduate program after getting a BFA from an art school, I felt a little bit like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. These were serious people. These were people who knew how to write a bibliography without the aid of Citation Machine. They had jobs at The Met and degrees from Harvard and Oxford. And then there was me.

On top of all of the anxiety that comes along with meeting new [and obscenely smart] people, I had a language exam hanging over my head. Bard, like many arts-related graduate schools, requires all incoming students to take (and pass) a language exam in either French, Italian, or German. I decided on French, based solely on the fact that I had taken French I two years ago. I was absolutely certain I would fail and my fears came to fruition in the grade I received the next day:

They really don’t beat around the bush.

So, in addition to a seemingly endless stream of orientation meetings and shenanigans, I had a language class to take every evening. A long, hard, grueling language class.

Still, I don’t want it to sound like orientation has been nothing but waterboarding and torture for two weeks. I have met some very lovely, interesting people so far. Despite my first impressions, I have found that people at this school actually have kind-hearted souls beneath their intimidating experience and far-reaching intellects.

I am incredibly exhausted from these two weeks, but I’m also BEYOND EXCITED for classes to start. I’m sure they will seem like a cake walk compared to the boot camp that orientation has been. My course list is as follows: Survey of Decorative Arts, Colonial Revival, The Arts of The Baroque, and Craft and Design In The USA. Sounds like a pretty kick-ass semester!

Working Through Your Decorating Differences

August 12, 2011 – 4:39 pm
Filed under As It Happened, Decorating
5 Comments

This morning, when I probably should have been doing something work-related, I was instead browsing Amazon.com. I was doing a general perusal of design books when I stumbled upon one entitled Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of A Misspent Life: How to live creatively with collections, clutter, work, kids, pets, art, etc… and stop worrying about everything being perfectly in its place. The book’s title is nearly as long-winded and cluttered as many of the spaces depicted within it. Written and photographed by Ralph Lauren’s vice president for advertising, Mary Randolph Carter, the book appears to brim over with her self-professed “junker” style. Now, I might not define myself as a “junker” per se— many of the images depicted in the book show a level of disarray that my obsession-riddled brain would simply not tolerate— but I have been sympathetic to the junker cause as of late. This is mostly because I have moved in with my significant other and his style veers toward the opposite end of the clutter-lover spectrum. While clutter irks me just as much as any other uptight gay with a so-called “eye for design,” perfectly curated clutter (to quote Anna Dorfman) does not. I love collections. I love mismatched art hung in a jumbled grid on a wallpapered surface. I love “pops” and even retina-assaulting explosions of color. I’ll be the first to admit that my personal style seems like it’s been ripped out of a hipster’s wet dream (or an Urban Outfitters catalogue, but those are one and the same). And guess what? I love it!

Still, Daniel does not. And I respect that. Daniel’s style is cultured, modern, and refined. He likes neatly tucked edges, sober white walls, and furniture that looks like it’s been curated from a design history textbook. If I were to encapsulate Daniel’s design sense into a tiny pixelated circle, it would look like this:

On the other hand, if my design sense were similarly condensed, it would probably resemble something like this:

There’s loud color! There’s turquoise! There’s a bird on it! It looks like Pier 1 ate too much wicker and shit all over fifth avenue! My style tends to follow a no-rules approach (for examples, see my old living room and bedroom). I blame this aesthetic preference on my sheer inability to wait for anything. You know that expression that it’s like waiting for paint to dry? That’s how EVERYTHING is for me (even waiting for paint to dry). Although I like a sensibly decorated, perfectly feng shuied, zen living space as much as everybody else, my total lack of patience has led me to adapt this somewhat zany approach which, in an attempt to rationalize it, I labeled as some kind of mutant hybrid between shabby chic and postmodern/retro/throwback. It worked for me.

Not everybody can tolerate a drug-free acid trip every time they step over the threshold of a room, though, and that is perfectly understandable. Luckily for Daniel, I have been more than cooperative with eradicating most of my so-called “twee” knickknacks from our new apartment. (You know, aside from my vintage bottle collection, an abnormal amount of non-functioning clocks, a few paintings of animals, and a giant metal letter “X.”) I’ve always tried to be somebody who can adapt easily and Daniel, with his impeccable (albeit obsessively stubborn) tastes, has made the transition especially easy. I’ve been officially banned from helping to paint the new place (Daniel did not like my no-rules approach when it came to painting my last apartment), but this has so far not been a problem.

The only problem that I foresee is losing my sense of self, something that Apartment Therapy’s guide to moving in together warned strongly against. This is why, despite my kind, loving, wonderful, and unparalleled level of tolerance for Daniel’s dictatorial design approach, I tried to keep at least a part of my foot in the door. When I saw Mary Randolph Carter’s book on Amazon, I immediately placed it in my cart and pressed purchase.

Thrifting madness

March 5, 2011 – 11:49 am
Filed under As It Happened
3 Comments

IMG_1015

So, I really like the idea of thrifting and buying cute vintage stuff for my apartment, but up until recently, I did not know that such a thing was possible in New York City. Things like flea markets exist in New York, but they’re usually just overpriced yuppie craft fairs masquerading as flea markets. This is why I was beyond excited when Daniel from Manhattan Nest agreed to be my new thrifting buddy and take me to the elusive and magical junk shops that I had only read about in fairy tales but never knew existed. Daniel is pretty much a thrifting master. Just last month, he purchased a Bertoia Diamond chair for $60 and a pair of Eames shell chairs for $50. NUTS, right? I knew I would be in good hands.

For our first thrifting excursion, Daniel suggested that we go to this place in Bushwick called Green Village. Don’t let the website fool you. That place is a hot disgusting mess of AMAZINGNESS. A junk store with a capital J. “Don’t be offended when I start climbing mounds of furniture like an ape,” Daniel warned in an e-mail. He wasn’t kidding:

IMG_1010

IMG_1008

IMG_1016

After spending a heavenly two hours trolling through the beautifully cluttered isles of Green Village, I narrowed my purchases down to a few amazing items: a delightfully shabby-chic red tin bread box, a miniature metal card catalogue, a white industrial school chair, and a few vintage photographs. All for under $50. Yay!

Here’s the bread box. Look at that amazing handle!

_DSC0156

_DSC0164

And the card catalogue which I turned into a mini tool box:

_DSC0140

_DSC0170

_DSC0143

I put both items on the lower shelf of my coffee table. They look pretty cute there!

_DSC0179

As for the white industrial school chair, I used it to replace the boring IKEA folding chair I had at the desk in my room. I’ve always had a thing for school furniture, so I was especially psyched about this find.

_DSC0205

Here’s one of the vintage photographs I purchased. It’s a second grade class photograph from 1952.

_DSC0200

The back:

_DSC0201

The next weekend, Daniel and I hung out again. In addition to seeing the epic and thought provoking Justin Bieber Movie, Never Say Never, we also visited another junk shop in his neighborhood. This one was aptly named “The Mystery Shop.” After digging around for a little bit, I unearthed a set of gorgeous vintage plates ($1 each) and this amazing set of books published by Time Life in 1969:

_DSC0186

Each book cost $2 and features Life Magazine photographs for each decade of the twentieth century. On top of the incredible photographs they house, the books also feature absolutely stunning cloth-bound covers, each in a different pattern.

_DSC0190

_DSC0191

_DSC0192

_DSC0195

_DSC0199

Amazing, right?

I still have my ball.

March 3, 2011 – 11:54 am
Filed under As It Happened
3 Comments

IMG_1054

Okay, I know that you all have been on the EDGE OF YOUR SEATS waiting to hear about whether or not I still have my left testicle. Before I go any further, you can all breathe a sigh of relief. All of my balls are totally intact. Sorry for spoiling the ending.

Anyway. Last time we left, off I had just been informed that I would be needing surgery on the aforementioned left ball. As soon as I found this out, the hospital wasted no time in getting me into the operating room. I was immediately asked to jump onto another stretcher which was then whisked off to the OR. As I was carted along the halls and finally into place along the wall of the dimly lit waiting/recovery room, Shannon and Rachel trailed behind. As soon as I was in place, I was seen by several residents, surgeons, and anesthesiologists who all asked me more or less the same health-related questions.

The anesthesiologist wanted to know if I had any loose or chipped teeth, because the breathing tube that they would be sticking down my throat might break them off. Another woman asked me if I had any tongue or body piercings. A cluster of urology residents then came over and asked me to drop trou so that they could inspect my testicular region. All of this would under normal circumstances be incredibly humiliating, but the combination of the pain and the excitement from all the attention I was getting actually made it quite exhilarating. Despite being in an overwhelming state of discomfort, my mood could not possibly have been better. I smiled brightly as doctor after doctor came to visit me and even cracked a few jokes. My gallows humor seemed to worry some of the nurses though, especially when I asked one resident if there were any papers I would need to sign, “in case I, you know, die or something.” Even when one of the urology residents told me that I could potentially lose my testicle during surgery, I shrugged it off. It’s not like I’m planning on having my own children anyway! My attitude towards the entire experience by this point was one of LET’S DO THIS.

Soon, a very short man with a loud, extremely thick Brooklyn accent came up to my bed to join the already large crowd of doctors. He would be my surgeon. Everything from that point on was kind of a blur, but I do recall him saying something along the lines of, “this is easy-peasy! We’ll just cut you open, sew you up and then we’ll go home!” A little bit surprised, because I was under the impression that I would at least be staying the night, I asked, “you’ll go home? Or I’ll go home?” He laughed heartily and told me that we both would be going home that night.

After this brief conversation, I was once again whisked away, this time to a brightly lit operating room filled with roughly ten doctors and residents. This is when things began to get really hard core. I was disrobed and brought onto a thin, cruciform operating table where my legs and arms were strapped down. A nurse came over and put a few heated blankets on top of me and removed my socks. A resident behind me put an oxygen mask over my face while the anesthesiologist attached something to the IV in my arm. Somebody turned on a radio and some wretched Dave Matthews/Jack Johnson/Jason Mraz kind of music began playing. That’s the last thing I remember.

I woke up around an hour later back in the recovery room. Shannon and Rachel were once again by my side and, although my speech was slurred and my face was contorted into a freaky wide-eyed frown, I had Shannon start taking photographs of me. My hospital robes had been put back on me along with a hair net, some new grey socks, and a jockstrap filled with gauze. My crotch was also covered in ice packs.

A nurse came up to us and instructed Shannon and Rachel to go to the waiting room while she got me prepared to leave. She handed me several drinks (a water, an apple juice, and a ginger ale) and told me that I would not be able to leave the hospital until I peed. Just to make sure they didn’t seriously scew up down there. Still a little bit drugged out from the anesthesia, I sipped leisurely at my drinks and observed the comings and goings of the doctors in the recovery room with bemused interest. When I felt that I had drunk enough to go to the bathroom, I signaled for the nurse who helped me out of bed and walked me and my IV into the bathroom.

The nurse placed the IV bag on top of the paper towel dispenser and left me alone. I opened my hospital gowns and lowered by underwear apprehensively. The small bit of scrotum that wasn’t concealed by the jockstrap was dark purple and highly swollen. After this momentary inspection, I commenced with peeing, which went perfectly well considering the circumstances. I then left the bathroom and walked back to my bed. The nurse removed my IV, took some tape off of my body and allowed me to get dressed before bringing me out to the waiting room to greet Shannon and Rachel.

What these surgeons did is nothing short of miraculous. Within a span of exactly twelve hours, I began to experience a mind-blowing amount of pain, went to the hospital in an ambulance, spoke with what seemed like a billion doctors, had surgery, and was able to go home fully intact and in not much pain at all. Aside from walking a little bit funny for the first day or two, I hardly experienced any pain or discomfort. For about a week, my testicles looked as though they had been beaten with a sledgehammer and then eaten by a rabid dog, but they seem almost normal now. The scabs are nearly gone and whatever’s left of the stitches is barely noticeable. I really have a new respect for doctors in general after this entire experience.

After leaving the hospital that night, Shannon and I took a car back to my apartment while Rachel biked there to meet us. After regaling my roommates with the crazy events of the day, Shannon, Rachel, and I walked down the street for a much needed and much deserved dinner.

Thank you so much to everybody who helped me through this painful and exciting ordeal. It was actually much more fun and entertaining than I would have thought possible.

In which I almost lose a ball. Part One.

February 16, 2011 – 1:51 pm
Filed under As It Happened
2 Comments

IMG_1019

Okay. Yesterday was probably the most random, insane, epic, weird-ass day of my life. It all started like any other day. I woke up, fought my roommates for possession of the shower, and got dressed. In the middle of this, however, I started feeling a fair amount of discomfort in my — get ready for this– left testicle. Over the course of an hour or so, the discomfort escalated to pretty intense pain. I texted my work and informed them that I would probably not be able to be in on time. This was around 9am.

I crawled into my bed and found that laying flat on my back helped to ease the pain a little bit. Unfortunately, neither Shannon or I had any pain killers, so I was left to try and wait the pain out. This did not work. When I left my bed, I found the pain to be so intense that I could barely walk. I texted my neighbor Nicole in the hope that she might have some ibuprofen lying around. She was at work, but directed me to go downstairs to her apartment to see if her roommate was there. I went down, knocked, and nobody answered. I hunched back upstairs and, upon entering my apartment, collapsed onto the floor. At this point, I didn’t know if I was overreacting or if there was something seriously wrong. I decided to consult the internet.

I know that it’s often a bad idea to look online for any sort of medical information, but what can I say? I’m a victim of my time. I googled things like “intense testicular pain” and came to the conclusion that it was either an extreme case of blue balls or something called “testicular torsion,” a problem that often arises from extreme shifts in room temperature. If it was the latter (which is what it ultimately turned out to be), it meant that one of my testicles was essentially being strangled to death by a spermatic cord and would die within a few hours if I did not get medical attention.

I decided to text my doctor friend Rachel for some unsolicited medical advice.

Me: Hey…. Are you working today?

Rachel: Nope! I just got up like an hour ago. I feel like a college student! What are you doing?

Me: Um…. DYING. I called off from work because I am in severe pain in my…. boy region. I’m trying to decide right now if I need medical attention, actually. It’s helping to lie flat, but I can hardly walk.

Rachel: Really? Pain since when? And where exactly? Peen or balls? If balls, one or both?

Me: Balllllllllllssssssss. Left one. Since around 8:30am.

At this point I decided to just call her and she instructed me to call my school clinic immediately. After battling with my embarrassment over having to call the clinic for this issue and discussing it with my roommates who were thoroughly involved at this point, I decided to just suck it up and call. This was at around 1pm.

Me: When are your walk-in hours?

Receptionist: Starting at 2pm.

Me: Can I see a doctor RIGHT NOW?

Receptionist: You’re going to have to come at 2. What seems to be the problem?

Me: I’m in severe pain.

Receptionist: Where?

Me: Uh…. the testicle region.

Receptionist: [Pause.] You should come in right now.

After I hung up, I waited for Shannon to get ready so she could take me in a car over to the school clinic. I hunched around my living room a bit, clutching my abdomen which was also severely effected by the pain radiating up and down my body. I ultimately got into a crawling position and clutched my head in my arms on the floor. The pain was so intense that I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. As Shannon and my other roommate Angela helped me get up to go out to the car, I grabbed a plastic bag in case such an event occurred.

As we waited outside for the car to arrive, I clutched Shannon’s body for support as I hyperventilated from the pain. I suddenly started losing sensation in both my arms and legs and couldn’t even hold onto my phone or my bag. “I CAN’T FEEL MY ARMS OR LEGS!” I shouted at my roommates. I felt like I was on an episode of House.

The car eventually arrived and I shouted at the driver to take us to the Willoughby dorm at Pratt (the location of the clinic). I then turned to Shannon and instructed her to keep Rachel informed of everything that was going down. We got to the dorm in no time and Angela and Shannon helped shuttle me in to the clinic. Once there, we walked to the receptionist desk and I said, “Hi. I called a a little bit earlier. I need to see a doctor.” Not quite grasping the severity of the situation, the receptionist asked me to fill out a few forms about my visit.

I was unable to even hold a pen at this point, so I had Shannon fill out all of my information. “For symptoms,” I instructed, “put SEVERE TESTICULAR PAIN.”

As I sat down rather uncomfortably in the waiting room, tears began to stream out of my eyes. Angela and Shannon sat down on either side of me and tried to console me as best they could.

A doctor finally came out to get me. Once in the examination room, she took one look at my junk and told me that I would need to go to the hospital. She helped me walk back out to the waiting room and had the receptionist call a car service. She, Angela, Shannon, and I then walked out to the dorm lobby to wait for the car. As I sat down and the doctor explained what exactly was going on to my roommates, I suddenly felt extremely nauseous. “I’m going to throw up,” I said. Angela quickly handed me the plastic bag I had brought and I started heaving into it.

The doctor, determining that my case was too severe for a car service, immediately called for an ambulance and brought me back into the examination room to lie down. As we waited for the ambulance to arrive, a nurse came in to the room to try to comfort me. “It’s alright, she said. You’re going to be fine. It’s okay to cry if you want to.” As she took both of my hands and clutched them dramatically against her chest, I thought, Who the hell is this woman and please get her away from me! My roommates looked awkwardly at her in silence.

The paramedics finally arrived. The doctor pleaded with them to bring me to Long Island College Hospital because they apparently have the best surgeons in the area. After a bit of haggling with the paramedics, they finally agreed and lifted me into a wheel chair. As I was wheeled out of the examination room and out through the dorm, I suddenly felt extremely awkward as everybody’s attention turned towards me. At that point, my embarrassment overpowered my pain and I managed to smile meekly as I was brought out to the ambulance.

Once inside, I handed Shannon my phone and told her to start taking pictures of me. In between throwing up and clutching my nether-region in agony, I managed to strike a few heroic poses. As I tried to position myself more comfortably and started to lean off of the stretcher, one of the paramedics asked if I was alright. “It’s okay,” I told her. “If I start to have a seizure, I’ll let you know.”

My phone started ringing. It was my father. The doctor from Pratt had called my parents to inform them that I was headed to the hospital and would most likely need surgery. I had Shannon put my father on speaker phone, but I could hardly speak. I suddenly felt a shooting pain and shouted, “Oh balls!! …. Literally!”

….To be continued….

IMG_1021

IMG_1026

IMG_1018

I’m not dead

May 21, 2010 – 9:19 am
Filed under As It Happened
3 Comments

For the one person that actually reads this blog (AKA my mom), you can sleep soundly. I have not died. I have just not really had the time/interest/patience for blogging over the past few months. For a while, I had this sort of superstitious/OCD thing where I would have to update my blog at least once a month. This year, I couldn’t even do that. I’m embarrassed to say that my New Year’s resolutions are still completely visible on the main page of this blog. So, because people have had to stare at those for the last five months, let’s just start with those.

I’ve actually done amazingly well with my resolutions so far, at least with the ones that matter most to me. First off, I did get my bike fixed and I did ride it! In fact, I’ve been riding it to and from work every day. Check that off my list of things to do! I also purchased a point-and-shoot camera, something I’ve been wanting to do ever since my old one broke nearly three years ago. I used to take SO many photographs, but that’s just so difficult to do when you have to carry around an enormous DSLR with you everywhere you go. My new Canon G11 is much better for that.

I’ve been making much more conscious attempts to give myself some relaxation time. Sometimes, this can hinder at my ability to do school work, because any time I relax is also simultaneously procrastination time. But still. It’s progress.

I’ve been cooking! A little bit. I am sadly not gifted at all in the kitchen, but fortunately for me, I live with somebody who is (Shannon!). From time to time, I will buy food for both Shannon and myself and she will cook it for both of us. Through this process, I’ve been able to learn to cook. Like one thing. But, still. Again, progress.

Out of all of my resolutions for this year, though, the most important thing to me has been changing my problem with focusing and paying attention. And so far, I’ve been extremely active in trying to change this. At the beginning of the year, I started seeing a therapist, something I’ve continued to do on a weekly basis. I’ve also started to see a psychiatrist. Up until this point, I’d been a bit hesitant about taking medication. First off, because drugs in general just terrify me. Secondly, I’m terrified of doctors and getting the labwork required for medication would require me to see one. Thirdly, I just wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to change. Luckily, I got over all of these things.

Through working with both my therapist and psychiatrist, I (we) have come to the conclusion that a lot of my difficulty focusing stems from my obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety problems. Trust me, it’s really difficult to sit down and read a book when you have the nagging urge to reread the same page over and over again. Or clean your entire apartment instead.

I’m not going to say that I’m one-hundred percent better, but since I started taking the medication and working with my therapist, I’ve been feeling a lot more calm. I’m also worrying a lot less. I still have anxiety, but it has overall been significantly diminished. I’m still having trouble focusing and being completely lucid, but I feel like I’ve at least started to make a change. And that’s important.

My summer break started last week and it’s been kind of bitter sweet. I’m so happy that I am finally done with all of the projects and papers that had been piling up the entire semester. Still, I really enjoyed all of my classes this year and I’m sad that I won’t be able to continue going to them. Right now, I’m just letting my mind and body unwind a bit before I go home for June to take a French course to prepare for grad school. The entire grad school process (including applying and taking the GRE) has sort of been at the back of my mind until now. What with that and the six (OMG) classes I’m taking this fall, I’m really happy to have a break right now. Let’s hope I can keep up on this blogging thing now that I have (some) free time.

Snow Day!

February 15, 2010 – 9:48 pm
Filed under As It Happened, Photos
2 Comments

Had my first New York snow day last Wednesday. I was at the Met with Shannon on Tuesday when the closings were announced. The sky was clear and the air wasn’t too cold, not exactly the perfect weather for snow. All of the weathermen seemed pretty sure that this SNOWPOCALYPSE was going to happen, though, even when there was hardly a sprinkling on the ground at midnight.

As a fun snow day surprise, Angela signed out a projector from school and we spent the night in the living room watching movies projected onto a big white sheet.

When we woke up, there still wasn’t all that much snow. Maybe two or three inches at most. As the day progressed however, the flakes got bigger and the snow got heavier until, when I stepped outside in the afternoon, the entire neighborhood looked like a magical fairy snow forest. The Brooklyn Winter Wonderland was so beautiful that I immediately rushed back in and got my camera and my three roommates and went on a little adventure around the block.

Read More »

So, I got glasses.

November 25, 2009 – 5:38 pm
Filed under As It Happened, Photos
11 Comments

I’ve been wanting glasses for a super long time and recently, my eyesight got just slightly bad enough for me to get them! While I was at school this semester, I had my eye doctor order the glasses that I wanted so that they’d be ready for me when I came home for Thanksgiving. My mother, of course, loved them, but she’s my mother. I like them, too, but over the past few days, I’ve been getting some weird reactions to my new glasses and it’s making me kind of nervous.

When I walked into the room with my new glasses on, my father laughed and then told me that I looked like Clark Kent. And then he told me that they were kind of “mannerist.”

When my sister saw my glasses she rolled her eyes and said, “uggh. You’re such an artsy hipster” and then refused to talk to me while I was wearing them because “I can’t take you seriously with those on. They’re so queer.”

When my sister’s friend Lena stopped by her house, she asked me if they were real and when I told her that they indeed were, she responded, “You look like a rapist.”

A little bit later, my sister and Lena continued discussing my glasses and came to the conclusion that I not only look like a rapist, but an un-fun rapist that is trying way too hard to look smart but is actually really stupid.

My self esteem somewhat shattered from these reactions, I sent Shannon a camera phone picture of my new glasses to get her opinion. She said something along the lines of “I don’t know, you just look different. I’d have to get used to it. It’s not like you look BAD or anything.” Which, of course, is secret code for “you look butt ugly but I’m just too nice to say it.”

So basically, I’m a mannerist, Clark Kent, queer, artsy, hipster rapist who is not fun and thinks he looks really smart but is secretly retarded.

I really don’t think they’re that bad! I mean, I know that they look sliiiiightly pretentious and the whole Ray Ban wayfarer thing is both incredibly ubiquitous and kind of on its way out right now, but seriously. Are they really that bad? Let’s find out….

Read More »

An addition to my endless list of phobias.

November 24, 2009 – 6:19 pm
Filed under As It Happened
2 Comments

Ever since 2009 became The Year For Planes To Crash, I have become more and more terrified of flying. When I went home in February for my grandfather’s funeral, it was just days after the plane had gone down over Buffalo. When that flight landed, everybody on the plane started clapping, probably thankful that we didn’t meet the same fate.

After the Air France plane disappeared over the ocean a little later in the year, my paranoia regarding being in an airplane only escalated. Because, really, think about it. You are in a tiny little tube hurtling through the air at a million miles a second. There is no way you can get out and no way at all that you could possibly survive if you crashed. You are putting all of your trust into the experience of the pilot and the safety of the aircraft. That’s just terrifying.

When I went home again in June, I got so nervous every time the plane experienced any turbulence that I started praying in my head and bracing my body for impact. There was one moment, when the plane hit a particularly nasty bump and dipped quickly down for a moment, that I was almost certain that I was going to die.

Since then, I’ve been completely put off by flying. Prior to this year, flying was my transportation of choice. It’s quick, simple, and you get free food. Somebody once told me that the chances of dying in a car accident or a train collision are much higher than dying in a plane crash. Still, I feel that with the former two options, you at least have some chance of survival. This is why, when I booked my flight home for Thanksgiving, I started experiencing this dread, a feeling of impending doom, as if by clicking the “purchase” button for my flight, I had somehow sealed my fate: The Day That I Will Die.

My brain obviously needs a lot of help. I’m a worry wort to the extreme and I have a huge tendency to psyche myself out and blow things way out of proportion by obsessively thinking about them. This is why, when I only had a week left until my flight home, I had the sudden urge to look up things like lists of celebrities that have died in plane crashes.

On the way to the airport yesterday night, my nerves started freaking out even more. When I checked the time on my phone to make sure I was on time, it read “9:11.” A normal person would not think twice about this. I, on the other hand, was like, “OH HELL SHIT. THIS IS A SIGN. I’M TOTALLY GOING TO DIE.”

Read More »

Mr. Transfer McGee

November 3, 2009 – 5:41 pm
Filed under As It Happened, College, School
0 Comments

So, remember when I decided that Pratt wasn’t really the right school for me and I transferred to Brooklyn College and then to FIT for Photography? And remember when I figured out that FIT wasn’t all that great either so I transferred back to Brooklyn College for Art History? And then when I changed my major to Art? Well! Mr. Indecisive Tielman is at it again!

I’m back at Pratt. The school I was at to begin with. But it doesn’t stop there. When I transferred back to Pratt, I went back as a Photography major. This seemed to make the most sense, because that’s my ultimate career goal. I’d like to be a photographer. However, once I started taking Photography classes again, I decided that, hmmmm, maybe this isn’t quite for me and, I don’t know, maybe I should change majors again. So, I changed my major to Art History, something that, despite my career goals, I enjoy studying much more. I’m weird like that.

Alright. Let’s get this straight. This is my fourth transfer. I’ve been at a different school for the past five semesters. And. On top of all of this, this is the fourth time that I’ve switched my major. Really. Count it.

First school: Pratt. Major: Photography.

Transfer one: Brooklyn College. Major: Undeclared.

Transfer two: FIT. Major: Photography.

Transfer three: Brooklyn College again! Major: Art History. Then Art!

Transfer four: Pratt! Major: Photography. Then Art History!

What, you may ask, is wrong with me? I don’t know, I will respond, but I think this is all the evidence you need to see that I’m absolutely insane.

My reasoning behind switching majors makes sense to me, given that I plan on going to grad school for some form of Art History, but that still doesn’t explain my Sarah Palin-esque inability to stay in one place. I know that I’ve made the right decision with all of this, because as soon as I left Pratt, I immediately wanted to go back. The fact that I hadn’t tried out anything else, like the significantly less expensive tuitions at FIT and Brooklyn College, was what forced me to consider other options.

I think that I am finally in a place where I can finally just sit back and relax. And I mean that in strictly the transferring sense. [We'll see how long that lasts.] I’ve been so out of my mind busy with schoolwork this entire semester that I have not had a single second to be calm. And I’m pretty sure my body gave itself the flu just to have a few days off.