Every friend starts out as a stranger, and every home starts out as raw materials - steel, concrete, plaster, and wood you have nothing to do with. By the time you've moved your furniture from one backdrop to another, it's likely you'll still stumble as you recite the address to a deliveryman or a cabdriver. You won't know a face on the sidewalk - never mind the names, for you almost never know the names - but you won't know if the guy on the stoop lives there or not or if the weeping woman at the curb is something out of the ordinary.

By some fluke, I forgot to record my move to the new apartment on my calendar. I could figure it out with a little work, but I already know I will find out that I've lived here too long to still feel this foreign. I suppose I don't need dates for that sort of revelation, because I feel it enough when I tiptoe into the kitchen at night alone. Or I close the bedroom door tight behind me, sealing myself into the air-conditioned shell, and I think of all the space beyond it - the neighboring bathroom next to a deep closet, the long hallway shiny with varnish, the peekaboo pocket of kitchen, and echoing box of living room.

I've never had so much space to myself anywhere I've lived. The girl next door recently introduced herself and complained about the noise I've made since moving in rather in what I thought was a pretty reasonable way. "My boyfriend and I thought it was coming from upstairs, but then we realized it was you," she said in a grim smile. I was wondering if she stomped on my doormat when I wasn't home. Then I wondered if she thought it was strange that I lived alone in the same space she shares. "Just you," she could have been thinking. It was a weird encounter. Neighbor was in a bathrobe at 9 pm, and she's under the age of 70.

Everyone in this building, really in this area, is either an older black person who's been here since the neighborhood was dangerous and cheap or a working professional comfortable with being a kind of colonist. I think most people live with someone else. I'm by no means alone as a single white woman on this side of Central Park, but I'm one of the youngest. I work late almost every weekday, save for tutoring cancellations and illness, so I've seen the living room bathed in sunlight only a handful of times and exchange pleasantries with passing neighbors maybe twice a week. We're on different schedules and in different places. A cab driver dropped me off once, and asked how I found anything to eat in my mostly residential area. I told him I never needed to. "I work late, so I pick up something on the way, or I eat fruit or cereal at home," I said. Popcorn, which I ate so much at one point that I'm now impervious to the smell, wasn't mentioned.

I'm living a very stereotypical "Jack's wasted life" kind of existence. I love the space, but can't seem to fill it with enough time and energy to make it feel like mine. Materialism can't be the answer. I don't want more stuff. Same with a roommate or a cat. What I need is time, and that doesn't come easily. Maybe when the seasons change, maybe when something more is figured out, maybe when I finally buy a couch these walls - as in "If these walls.." - will talk. I'd like them to say, "Oh, hey. You're back. We missed you."

A junkie walked into the bodega with a cheap bracelet muttering, "Bracelet. Real gold. Wanna buy a bracelet? Gen-u-ine."

The old man at the counter who'd been talking the ear off the cashier got annoyed.

"Look here, boy! Do you got boundary issues? Get outta my face or I'ma get you outta my face! What do you have to say about that?"

The junkie blinked and backed off a step. Then he held up his hand and asked, "Bracelet?"

The timing was impeccable. I left before I saw the old man react.

The pictures I took this weekend were worth millions of words, and most of them were expletives. I exaggerate, but wow, is my transition to an SLR ever more challenging than I thought. Because I was so happy with my first set of pictures, I figured I would go to Fort Tryon Park in uptown Manhattan this weekend and make like Ansel Adams.

I was wrong.

It was overcast and then dark, not to mention rain-splattered. My rudimentary manipulation of the settings turned out as well as Heidi Montag's music career. The camera manual will be one of my reads of the week. Until then, here are more pictures from my first outing.

I planned on going to a Barbara Ehrenreich reading/signing tonight, but changed my mind when I heard her latest book is a political satire. I'm feeling especially down about our country right now - normal ills + side effects of election mudslinging. I don't need to hear any more about all the problems facing America. Yes, we're all screwed. I got that memo.

So I was sitting at my desk and watching sunlight come through the blinds. "Whoa," I thought. "It's evening and I'm home. The sun is still out and..." I ran to my bedroom to 1) put my jeans back on and 2) retrieve the new camera.

*I wear gauchos at home. They are the official sponsor of Amanda Relaxing At Home 2008. (Also 2005, 2006, and 2007).

Camera around my neck, I walked around the neighborhood. I hit up Central and Morningside Parks. Three older people on the sidewalk asked if I'd take a picture of them. Of course, I agreed. One kid on Frederick Douglass and 112th yelled, "Take that camera away from here, white ho!" before I got out of earshot. It took everything in me not to saunter back over to him and "Oh snap!" with my camera.

The manual focus is pretty intuitive. I didn't view each shot after taking it, like I normally do on my point and shoot. The consequence? A few beautiful shots lost in blur. Oh, well. There will be other jaunts, even if I have to stop spending so much time in bookstores to go on them.

Cade's mom sent me this column a few years ago. It inspired me then and it inspires me now. Excerpt below:

The truth, young people, is that writing is no more difficult than building a house, and the only good reason to complain is to discourage younger and more talented writers from climbing on the gravy train and pushing you off.

Young people are pessimistic enough these days without their elders complaining about things. Shut up. Life is pretty good when you grow up. You own your own car, you go where you like, and you sing along with the radio or talk to yourself or chat on your cell phone. You pull into the drive-up window and order the Oreo Blizzard. What's not to like?

Speaking of Michelle Obama, this Salon.com article also rallies on her side. I second all of it.

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning to the trills of my iPhone alarm is check my email in bed. O, luxury of luxuries! Despite having a laptop, I don't think I ever did that until recently. Also, I was running an errand in Brooklyn with TBID the other night, and I actually opened up a Google map for him while he was driving. He looked at it; we got there. Another triumph of technology!

Clearly, I'm still smitten with the iPhone, and I think I'm set up for the rest of my days, or at least until the next radical tide of innovation comes and I am lucky enough to have it bequeathed unto me. I even have computer speakers now, instead of the ones that came built into my Powerbook. Ever hear a song playing on your computer from a room away? Until recently, I hadn't. I didn't really have enough space to call something "a room away" then, but I digress.

Here are some iPhone pictures from last week:

Looking down at my feet, waiting for an IT guy at work to fix everything. (He still hasn't gotten to the problem of greenhouse gases. I'll give him until next week).

I saw this couple arguing at Diner in Williamsburg. My heart went out to the sulky one with his head down. I hate fighting in public.

The side of the building is not actually covered in windows. It's a painted facade. You can see it for yourself from the entrance to the Soho Apple store.

Zipping to TBID's apartment in a cab. I got motion sickness.

It has rained almost every day in the last week. This is what I often see from the window of my office building.

Somewhere deep inside of me is the desire to blog. I know there is. There's also the natural ability to float on water, and let's just say I have been sinking like a rock since 1983.

I really don't want to write at this very moment. Instead, I'd prefer to read, talk to myself in the bath, and sleep. In that order. But I feel really guilty when I don't blog, just like some people feel guilty when they skip yoga class weeks on end (read: me) or eat fast food (read: almost never me - living to see 60 is overrated).

Thus, this entry. I have two things I've been thinking about in the last few days that I want to share in as non-preachy a way as possible. And then I'm going to recline and not get back up for a very long time. Don't worry, no extra value meals will be involved in this indulgent proneness.

1) A few friends of mine are in transition stages right now. One has just finished graduate school with a degree in something he is passionate about, a course of study that is not favored in a crappy job market. Nonetheless, I know he will find a position with benefits doing something.

Well, he will if he looks for one. The guy is so busy going out that I don't think he's really come up with a solid job search plan. I know it's scary, because I've been through it, but I'm getting really tired of being regaled with stories of his nights on the town when he's started worrying about scraping rent money together.

In conversation with another completely different friend last night, I started thinking about how other people I know are holding themselves back. Why do we - and I include myself here - sometimes shirk what we owe ourselves? We cling to this idea that denying ourselves what we so desperately need is okay, because maybe that means things are less messy, not as lonely, and more comfortable.

Stop it already. Do what you know you need to do for yourself, whether it involves going to bed earlier, asking for help, or sitting on your ass and perusing Monster.com.

You will thank yourself later.

2) I will preface this second thought by confessing that I haven't been following the election as closely as I could have, but I have a crush on Obama, and I don't mean Barack. The surge of Michelle-bashing - from Fox News referring to her as "Obama's baby mama" to people calling her "uppity" - really bothers me.

For all America's recent exploits in sexism regarding Hillary Clinton, the Michelle Obama comments aren't just about her being a strong woman. Many of them are mired in racism. Who calls white women "uppity"? "Bitchy," yes. But "uppity"?

Sure, Michelle can put her foot in her mouth. But I'd rather have a first lady who does that, instead of the glassy-eyed Laura Bush variety. That woman always looks like she's under general anesthesia.

The whole "image softening" blitz bothers me, too. Why does the potential first lady have to sugar it up and go on The View and the cover of US Weekly to convince people that she's not intimidating? Why do the potential first ladies still do that lame cookie bake-off? (Cindy McCain allegedly plagiarized her recipe, by the way). Why do we even call them "ladies"?

Michelle Obama is smart and opinionated. I personally like that she worked hard to get where she is, unlike the other first lady option out there. And also, not that I care, but she looks great in a sheath. Leave her alone.

Rest in peace, Mr. Carlin.

"Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that."

I'm voting Republican.

*I wrote this for a long ago ex-boyfriend. Well, it seems so long ago. I found it scrawled on a tattered piece of notebook paper in the old apartment.


It appears I've sent this parcel to myself. My own penmanship staring back at me from the manila envelope, cool to the touch.

But you sent it.

I self-addressed weeks ago, because I suspected you wanted to forget my name, where I live, what we had.

Still, you placed that piece of cardboard in there. It was the one accessory not included and designed to keep the pictures you didn't want from bending.

That means something to me.

Though you threatened to throw it all away, claimed you didn't care, you know it was beautiful and special and too important to be carelessly warped. Even as you tried your hardest to lose it.

Before you're home, you're in the building, which may or may not be where your heart is. Sometimes the paint in the hallway is peeling, or the unseen lives of your neighbors produce unsavory smells. The door is heavy steel with smudged glass and a surly lock.

The mailboxes may shine your own face back to you, capturing the very moment you receive an unpayable bill or the mail of strangers who used to live where you do now. Occasionally, mailbox doors rust shut or drunkenly lurch on hinges.

You realize that you are a transient, like every other person contained within the building. You all make up its smell, its sounds, the litter - visible and invisible - that swims on every stair and threshold.

You will never know any of these people, yet this is home. Almost.

My first serious boyfriend often ended long spiels with "...and a big ape jumped out and killed everybody." He liked to catch me not listening very closely to what he was saying. It was a wise move, because my mind has a tendency to wander into the jungles of to-do lists and books I've read instead of staying on the manicured lawn of the present conversation.

TBID is a marvel to me in a Howard Gardner kind of way (among other ways). He develops software and all sorts of other things I use but cannot fathom and can also strum any stringed instrument into submissive beauty. Plus, he's quick on the wordplay and can lift heavy stuff.

One occasional benefit of said marvelous boy is that he also experiences those mental meanderings. We were eating lunch once, and I was saying something particularly compelling. His eyes lit up in recognition. "You know, last time we were here I got the lemonade," he said.

I had not been talking about lemonade.

But one thing I'll give TBID - he doesn't talk on the phone while proofing an article, cooking soup, and grooming his eyebrows all at the same time. For that, he is better than I.

Last week, we realized that technology might be able to help us work through our tendencies to tune each other out while also giving us the chance to live a television commercial. We got off the phone and set up a video chat. This way, I got to witness the very moment when TBID spaced out, imagining what it would be like to be the teacher of a student named Vajayjay Franklin. (Meanwhile, I explained my interior design goals for the apartment). He got to watch me avoid eye contact via computer monitor while pretending to pay attention to him: "Uh huh. Hmmm... Really?" He even played bass for me following requests via Post-It note and some iTunes accompaniment.

It was simultaneously the cheesiest and sweetest way to spend an evening without him.

Back on the dark side, my cellphone camera mostly took pictures of the bottom of my bag, because the capture button had been idiotically placed on the side of the device. This was something I hadn't noticed when I bought the phone in cheap haste before I went home for Christmas two years ago. (I'd lost another cellphone the previous evening at a holiday party, and worked myself into a conniption predicated on disconnection and the loss of all those phone numbers of people I didn't really call anyway).

I'm still digging the iPhone. How else can I check email, listen to music, and compose a grocery list while waiting for the subway? I even find myself taking pictures of things beside the bottom of my bag, which is a good thing - the wallet and tiny bottle of hand sanitizer never seemed to do anything interesting.

Ahh, technology. Below are some pictures I snapped in the last week:

Walking quickly from work to the subway uptown. Those red shoes brighten the city.

One of my adorable little tutees who's a fellow lefty. He was so focused on his work that he didn't notice I snapped the picture.

Friday night drinks on the rooftop deck of Hotel Gansevoort.

Humphrey, an Old English Sheepdog on the Upper East Side. He was a hot dog, hold the mustard.

A watermelon limeade I juiced for TBID accompanied by a frosty tumbler of water. He installed an air conditioner in my bedroom - the least I could do was keep him hydrated.

For a number of reasons, I haven't done laundry - rather, had laundry done - in over a month. Also, I donated most of my summer wardrobe staples before moving in an effort to cut down on crap to carry up three new flights of stairs. Yesterday I had to make a choice: I could either take my laundry to the new cleaner across the street, or I could buy new clothes with short sleeves and breathable fabric.

I decided to just buy new clothes.

Yep, Mama, you raised that kind of daughter. I also once washed my dishes in the shower. Yes, while I was showering. Uh huh, I was naked and washing the cereal bowls at the same time. That is the image you should have.

Today I wore a new shirt, because it's really hot outside and nothing else weather-appropriate was clean, well, besides the other new shirts I just bought. The jeans I wore are definitely not clean, but denim isn't supposed to be washed often. I wear my bottoms until they're as saggy as diapers. Then I ask the cleaners to wash them in cold water about thirty times before I leave the laundromat. Following that, I light a candle at a Catholic church.

Here's today's outfit. It's equally parts farmer girl/second grade teacher. That, my friends, is a winning combination if I ever knew one:

I know I look stumpy in this iPhone picture. I blame the mirror, the camera, and the fact that my mom's 4'10". (I'm 5'6" in real non-stumpy life).

I love these red shoes. I bought them for $10. It is extremely difficult to be in a bad mood if you are wearing red shoes. Unless you are wearing them and you look stumpy. That makes things easier.

My hair is actually as short as it looks. I got it cut today. It feels five pounds lighter and three Fritos bags greasier. Washing my clothes is hard enough. I can't imagine keeping this much gunk in my hair on a daily basis.

From When You Are Engulfed By Flames by David Sedaris:

"Me too," her husband said. "It's cold as shit in here." Shit is the tofu of cursing and can be molded to whichever condition the speaker desires. Hot as shit. Windy as shit. I myself was confounded as shit, for how had I so misjudged these people?

I have gone out with enough guys. I wouldn't say a lot, because I certainly could have dated more.

And I am easy to become smitten with.

And sometimes it's reciprocated.

And always, it's died in ways both gradual and abrupt.

But when you first get to know someone and feel so good about it - whatever it is that's being embarked upon - it's just evolutionary. People were made to make each other happy, to make each other better. It reminds me of how things are supposed to be.

I took the day off to spend some time with my dad before he takes off tomorrow afternoon. Having helped him install track lighting and bookshelves last weekend just doesn't seem to be ideal quality time.

So today we walked around Central Park for hours in the blazing heat. Our final destination was the Apple store on 5th Avenue. My dad was so sun-stricken by the end, that he thought the shiny cube was a mirage.

I used our outing to try out the new camera my dad gave me. It's a big, fancy one that bangs into my chest with every step. I figure it's a good reminder to take pictures. Here are some of the ones from today's trek:







I asked my dad to try to capture one of my Mario Brothers jumps in order to verify that we could capture movement. It worked out.

One of the strangest turns my life has recently taken is that one of my new job duties includes interviewing CEOs and other top executives about the latest in business, technology, and marketing.

This is expected of someone who just one year ago, spent a significant portion of her weekdays supervising recess.

Even more unusual than that, someone who just sent her first text message yesterday.

On the cusp of the Apple keynote unveiling the new iPhone, I got the original. I've felt this weird feeling before - either I'm suffering from heat exhaustion or I'm giddy with infatuation. (Actually, both. The temperature has been in the 90s for the past three days).

Texting is cool. The iPhone is cool. We'll call this my Summer Awakening.

I tried to employ Real Simple's best practices.

Finally having my books out of boxes makes me feel at home.

As of this afternoon, my dad is visiting for about a week. He'll be helping me set up the apartment, doing all those things that are beyond my skill set, like hanging up my danglies and building a special shelf for the microwave. We'll also be hitting up his favorite eateries, every computer store in Manhattan, and I hope, the musical "In the Heights."

I'm scrambling around to get my apartment ready and have secured some lemonade and clean towels. The "Daddy do" list has been up for a few days. Now I just need some time to do everything else, including finding cans of Dr. Pepper, the beverage of apartment decorating/furniture assembling champions. I haven't seen my dad since Christmas! I'm excited.

If I weren't so busy with houseguest preparations, I'd be reading. Here are some books of late worth mentioning:

1) When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris: The latest essay collection dropped Wednesday and within hours, was a bestseller. I went to a reading and barely snagged a seat. Hundreds of people were there, and Sedaris was charming as always. Maybe it's because he was so late to fame - he got his first piece published at 36 - but Sedaris still seems genuinely humble and surprised that so many people love his writing. I've started the book and chuckled at this one recollection of when Sedaris was passively propositioned by a hitchhiker-friendly truck driver. Overall, though, I don't think this is going to be as hilarious as his early work. How could it?

2) Play With Your Food by Joost Elffers and Saxon Freymann: The woman beside me and I started reading this glossy picture book on the subway. It showcases a zoo of fruit and vegetable animals and includes sections teaching people how to see fruits and vegetables in a creative way and how to transform say, a potato into a mouse. Some of the creations are amazing. Too bad you should eat them after, because I love fruit but am not a vegetable fan. When I visit home, I'm making a point of creating some critters with my mom and sister.

3) Subwayland by Randy Kennedy: I saw this on TBID's bookshelf and had to borrow it. Kennedy writes a regular column for The New York Times, and I was up for digesting nuggets on subway life during my daily commutes. I hated when I reached my stops each day. I wanted to keep reading about the art, people, and stories of NYC transit. The book is highly entertaining and informative. Two subway poles up.

I work on Wall Street, which is always abuzz with tourists and office workers. Now that the weather's heating up, street vendors are coming out in droves to peddle sunglasses, jewelry, and fruit.

One man sitting behind a low table covered in perfume bottles made me laugh today when he called out, "Five dollar perfume and cologne stolen straight outta the factory in Indonesia! The elephants nearly killed me! Get some five dollar perfume right here, folks!"

*Spoiler Alert: This post is about the Broadway musical "Spring Awakening," which I don't think you should see. If you plan on seeing it anyway, you might not want to read on.

"Spring Awakening" may be the worst musical I've ever seen.

Mind you, I don't know enough show tunes to last a night at Marie's Crisis, but I can give a stereotypical gay man of my generation a run for his money. I filled in my bra listening to "Rent," "West Side Story," "A Chorus Line," and "Cabaret." At the end of high school, I realized I might have missed out: "Exile in Guyville? What is this? Who's Liz Phair?"

I'm occasionally open to seeing new musicals, because everything amazing has to start as a seed. I'm not into spectacles, though. I have no desire to see "Hairspray" or "Wicked," and I'm waiting to see the film version of "Mamma Mia."

But I thought "Spring Awakening" would be different. It won a lot of Tonys, so it couldn't be cloying and preposterous, right? Wrong! I knew it was hyped, but I thought, "Ooh, Duncan Sheik did the music and it's about adolescence. It's got a lot of people talking, due to some risque scenes." A friend had access to some discount tickets, courtesy of NYU, and I was in. I was excited to take TBID, who hasn't seen a Broadway musical since he had to write a report on it in middle school, because I wanted to show him that musical theater can rock.

And "Spring Awakening" does rock, if you like All-American Rejects rejects. Consider the fact that not a year ago, you couldn't shop at a major retailer without hearing such lyrical gems as, "I'm hot because I'm fly. You ain't cause you not. This is why, this is why I'm hot..." The poppy soundtrack of this musical was so uncatchy, with some lyrics that were so incomprehensible, that even mainstream radio wouldn't want it.

Not to mention that the show is completely implausible. All adults are played by the same two actors, because adults in the show are caricatures. They are all ignorant, with the exception of Melchior's mother, who succumbs to her husband's rule and plays dumb in the end. The teenage characters are undeveloped and just as unsympathetic. To tell you the story in a busted nutshell: Adults in "Spring Awakening" don't want to talk to their children about sex, and then the world ends.

I'm an advocate of sex education, and I don't mean the abstinence-only kind. But I know that sexual urges are not so all-consuming that they make teenagers explode and civilizations crumble. The writers of "Spring Awakening" would have audiences believe that one character commits suicide as a result of feeling sexually constrained. (There are other factors to this plot point, of course, but the sexual factor is the most apparent). I could understand if the play were about how adults can be unfair, but that was overshadowed by the themes of sexual taboos and exploration.

It was like watching something some high schoolers cooked up when the power went out one day when they'd been in the middle of a Real World marathon - the acting was that self-conscious and hackneyed. In a romantic scene between two gay characters, the actors got cheeky and made weird faces while singing about sex. The audience laughed; homophobia scored one more point.

I couldn't bring myself to applaud anything I saw or heard. The musical numbers, like I said, were very poppy, but not in a good way. One in which a girl sings about incest had the audience bopping their heads, and I don't know about you, but that weirds me out.

It was all shock, not to be confused with shock value. The shocking thing wasn't a bare breast or butt or the song wherein a character simulates masturbation the entire time. It was that some critics have lauded "Spring Awakening."

At the curtain call, TBID and I stayed in our seats. He looked at me, nervous about what to say. "I thought it was awful," I finally spat out. He sighed. "Oh, I'm so glad."

Faces of the Dead: A haunting collection of pictures, names, and information about American service members who have died in Iraq and been identified by the Defense Department.

I'm listening to some people in the building next door cheer at the Obama news.

They erupt into sporadic applause every few minutes.

"Finally! Yes! O-bam-a! It's about time."

It reminds me just how significant this election is.

A moving poem for TBID:

Man, I have too much stuff. But I may need this single scrap of gift wrap.
Oh, if I threw it out, I'd be sure to regret it. I might give someone a
Very small gift sometime soon. You know, like a contact lens case or any
Infinite number of crappy gifts one could potentially give someone.
Non-denominational gift wrap like this is perfect for the holiday party! So
Go ahead, carry it up three flights in that big box of sundries. Please.

Q: When are you going to post pictures of the new apartment?

A: When the living floor isn't completely covered by boxes, which is to say, in 2009. Seriously, I'm planning on getting the place set up when my dad comes up for a visit at the end of the week.


Q: Why don't you post pictures much anymore?

A: I'm just not feeling like it. Also, the settings on my handy point and shoot were funked up by someone who shall not be named. I don't care enough to remedy the situation, as I am getting a fancy camera as a belated birthday present.


Q: What's with that announcement about changes being made to the blog? Are you ending the blog?

A: No, I'm hoping to keep the blog kicking until it randomly vanishes one day when I press the wrong button. Then, after years of therapy, I might try to resurrect it. I did have plans to change the blog, but those plans have been put on the back burners' back burners now that almost everything I own lives in a cardboard box.


Q: Do you have more gender-neutral grocery items to share?

A: This idea seems to intrigue a lot of people. Here's what others have come up with since reading my post: Rahuman noodles, humanicotti, Theirshey's Kisses (or should it be Theirthey's Kisses?), and theyro sandwich.

If you have more, please share.

I broke up with Central Park West.

It's over once and for all. Goodbye to insufficient maintenance, shoddy management, and the neighbors' visiting roaches.

Hello to...boxes upon boxes on the floor of the new place.

I'm more broke than heartbroken right now. And very, very tired.