Commercial Free

when you're out of work you have lots of time to watch t.v.

(no more filing for me, at least for now. see previous post)

today i was able to watch the season finale of FOX's "GLEE". such a fun show:) a real pick-me-up mid week. an uplifting way to spend your Wednesday night.

i was watching this episode on the popular website Hulu.com. a wonderful invention. and as i began to upload the episode i was given two options:

i could either 1.) watch the extended 2min 17sec commercial then proceed to the video commercial free. or 2.) start the video but be interrupted with commercial breaks.

and i immediately thought, "oh, i can sit through 2min and 17sec of a commercial to get through GLEE commercial free."

and it was a no-brainer decision.

so obvious that it made me wonder why it's always so hard for me to realize this when it comes to other issues in life.

most things worth having, most goals worth attaining, take time. there is always a period of time be it brief or not so brief, where we have to stick it out.

wait it out.

and when you do so in the future you are rewarded. and everyone knows this. again it's obvious. i can't tell you how much i enjoyed watching "Glee" with no commercials! it was wonderful!

and i'm sure that i would have been kicking myself if i had chosen, in haste, to have commercial interruptions. i would have enjoyed it so much less.

so i would highly advise going to Hulu.com

if for nothing else, but a lesson in patience.

Being Filed

being filed

so i do a lot of filing at work. that's all i do. i know the alphabet forwards and backwards. technically i'm a file clerk.
realistically i'm a glorified ABC's know-er.

when i'm finished organizing a group of forms i head to the file room to file them. in case anyone should be searching for them during that time i took it upon my self to make a note for them (okay, a post-it) that i place in the empty in-box that says "Being Filed".

being filed. in the process of being put away.

"don't worry HR office. i have them. i know exactly where they belong. and that is where i am putting them."

at least that i what i hope the note implies.

as you can probably guess that when one is being a file clerk there is much time to think. alphabetizing, recognizing letters, doesn't take up nearly as much thought as it would ifyou were, say, a preschooler. and in the three months that i've worked in this office i've been having what i call a 'parallel moment'.

i have these quite often. it's a moment where my physical life imitates something very close what i'm dealing with internally. one day weeks ago i looked at the note and i thought to myself:
being filed? i'm the one that's being filed...

but being filed as what?

when i'm at work and someone hands me something to file the first thing i need to know is what it is. if it's something that needs to be filed right away, like a person's entire file. or if it's something that can wait. like random screen print out of some changed information. i have a bit of a system i'll have you know.

so let's say for instance that someone brings in a student status verification. that is piece of paper from the college or university proving that someone is a registered full time student. when i look at this i need to know who this student is. and who their mom or dad are. because it is their parents file that this will go in. is this person a current employee? or a retiree? does it need to be attached to anything else before i file it? (i don't claim that this work is involved. i just claim that it is sort of a process.) so, once i've figured out what it is, who it belongs to, and what the priority of it is, i can find out where to put it. most times this goes smoothly.

other times it does not.

what if i can't find where it goes? what happens when there are 16,000 files in the file room and the one you need isn't there? what if you're looking for Myra Lewis? you go to the L section. then the LE's. then the LEW's. you seen Adam Lewis, Billy Lewis, Frank Lewis, Jackie Lewis, Louis Lewis, Mark Lewis, Mitch Lewis and then...

Norman Lewis. no Myra.

here's what you do. you bring it back to your desk and it sits there. with a pile of a few others that you can't find. you put a post-it on it. a different one this time. and it says "FILE NOT FOUND".

and there it sets. and sets. the good news is that after a while some executive assistant will just look up the person's information, create a label, then put it on a file folder and stick it back there. (cozy, right between Mitch and Norman)

wouldn't that be great? if the thing you were looking for was just created for you. and you didn't have to spend time looking. seeking and not finding.

here's how this parallels my own life. (aren't you glad i'm not above spelling it out?) most every day i wake up and i ask myself the questions. who am i? where do i belong? what are my priorities? where should i put myself? and throughout the day these questions are unanswered. and if i don't have the answers then i can't find the file. i can't even begin to.

this is more difficult because i am both the questions and the file. so i don't quite sit on the desk with the "FILE NOT FOUND" post-it.

i never make it out of the in-box.

Deliberate

i looked up the word deliberate in the dictionary which i think is a really cliche 'writer' thing to do. and i'm sorry. but i had to start somewhere.

this is what it said:
(1) to consider a matter carefully and often slowly
synonym: ponder

(2) done with or marked by full consciousness of the nature and effects.
synonym: purposeful

to deliberate over say, and idea, means to consider that idea with great thought.
to act deliberately means to have an understanding of that action and also of its consequences.

i have a friend who gives me books. and she always has. since quite possibly the day we met. and the last one she gave me had an essay in it by actress Phylicia Rashad whom i love (she's the mom from The Cosby Show). and in this essay Phylicia Rashad has to write a letter to her past self. an idea that i think is beyond emotionally healthy. in her letter she writes to herself as a young actress just out of college and living in New York City in a rented room at the YMCA. she writes,

Dear Phylicia,
You are experiencing a time that won't come again - not like this. This is time to spend carefully and deliberately . . .You don't even know yourself yet. You think you do - but you don't. What is in front of you is a whole world of experiences beyond your imagination. Put yourself, and your growth and develpment, first.

the friend who gave this book may not know this, but this book, and the passages in it, and specifically this one from Phylicia Rashad, are what i have been trying to live by, and live on, since it was given to me one year ago.

i must say that i didn't quite understand how one could be both careful and deliberate. i didn't know how the two definitions of deliberate fit together. i thought that when you did something deliberately you didn't care about what happened next. but that's not true. it's the opposite. when you do something deliberately you have to know what is going to happen next. you have to know why you did it. on purpose and for what purpose.

first, you must ponder. then, comes your purpose.

this time in my life, this crazy mixed up time, this recent graduate with little direction time is very uncomfortable. and it has caused me to do many things. everything from cutting off my hair to cutting across the country. weigh-loss to worship. i feel like i have run the gammet. and for all the nutty things i have done i have pondered doing much nuttier.

and all of these nutty things are just me finding out what is the right nutty thing. and so far i haven't had much luck. i mean i like my hair, but i think i can do better. i cut across the country, then i cut back.

i have to understand that now is the time to ponder. and when i've pondered over something long enough i can't be afraid to try it. even if people don't 'get it'. it's just me putting my development and growth first. right Phylicia?

and eventhough i'm uncomfortable most of the time and i feel like a selfish person because i'm thinking of me all the time, i have to know that this is all about getting to know myself. whoever i am. whatever my hair looks like. wherever i live.

when i think about deliberateness i cannot help but think of my youngest nehpew.
Deven.
age 2.

he is the most deliberate person i know. he does anything he wants. most 2 year olds do. he doesn't get away with everything, but he tries it all. if he wants to play with something that is not a toy, like the vacum cleaner or my perfume, he's going to try and play with it. and if you have a cookie, or an ice cream cone, or a piece of candy, or anything that looks like it may taste sweet and he wants it he's going to try and take it from you and he most likely will.

deliberately.

but at 2 years old he doesn't have a good grasp of consequences. at 2 years old he can't exactly think things through (although he does know all of his colors). and that is the difference between him at 2 and myself at 22. he doesn't see why the vacum cleaner or the bottle of perfume are not toys. but i can, theoreticaly, think through the nuttiness of that idea.

i know that i don't have to try everything. i can't. i have to be careful with who i am and what i do with myself.

but when the right thing, or opportunity, or job, or school, or even cookie, comes along and i've thought enough about it, i owe it to myself to try and get it.

deliberatly.

(exerpt from the book, "What I Know Now, Letters to My Younger Self" by: Ellyn Spragins)

beyond

"beyond".
i say that a lot these days. and if you've had a conversation with me recently you probably know that. but since i have the majority of my conversations with myself these days perhaps you haven't.

i usually use it before an adjective to make the declarative statement stronger.

"Ma, you are beyond ridiculous."
"This job is beyond boring."
"Daniele (my sister), your children are beyond outrageous."

it also works in the positive.

"Granny, this dinner is beyond delicious."
"Oh my gosh, you look beyond amazing. Beyond!"

while i was at the beyond boring job today i was thinking about how i would describe my life in one of these statements. and i came up with this:

"My life is beyond...recognition."

isn't that something? everyday i get up before sunrise and go to work. and i file. and i file. and i file a bit more. i have approximately four cups of coffee and take what seems like twice as many bathroom breaks. then i leave. and i maybe run an errand after work. and then i come home. eat a little something (or a lot of something if i'm being truly honest). and i maybe can stay awake long enough to talk to a friend on the phone, maybe i can't. and then i go to bed.

and the next day is the exact same.

and this i don't recognize. this is not me.

Turn, Turn, Turn

you know that song by The Byrds?
it's from the 70's or something, and while i'm really more of a 1950's-60's enthusiast i've always liked that song. it goes like this:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

okay so maybe it's also from Ecclesiastes in the bible. it is quite honestly a blatant rip off but that's beside the point.


The point is this: on March 8th,2009 i got on a plane and ended up in New York City. On March 21st it was the very first day of spring. it snowed like it was winter.
Yesterday (June 21st) was the first day of summer. it rained like it was spring.

and i think that this perfectly sums up my time in the city. unexpected. there are things that you expect from the season of spring. you expect sun, and rain, and birds, and flowers in bloom, and Easter Sunday and graduation. you don't think of snow. or at least i don't.

it's the same for summer. beach, swimming, bbq, hot hot long long days. not rain. thunder and lighting. summer storm excitement. but not regular old rain that won't stop.

and that's the thing about these seasons i guess. they surprise you. new york surprised me. i was surprised by the parts of new york that i liked. the street food, and the street performances, people being out and about all the time. the parts of new york that i didn't like, the stress of being in the city all the time, how difficult it is to get to know people in the midst of all of that stress. but what has surprised me most about my time here is that i'm glad it's almost over.

i was partially prepared to come to new york and adore every second of it and want to stay. and when that didn't happen i was genuinely shocked. there was a time a few weeks ago when i thought, "when this is over in a few weeks i'll be glad to go home" and it's not that there aren't things that i'll miss because there are! i will miss the people that i intern with, and i'll miss my roomate and her family, i'll miss times square, and the Manhattan skyline, and the view of the Hudson.

i remember i used to always talk to a dear friend of mine about turns. how it always seemed like it was everyone else's turn to do something amazing but never mine. lame i know. but it's how i felt. it was always someone else who was having some life changing experience, going off on some grand exploration, enjoying some stroke of good luck, blah, blah, blah. and this friend would tell me that you have to wait your turn. that everyone always has to wait their turn.

and i knew this. i went to kindergarden. my mother teaches preschool i know all about turn- taking.

and eventhough this same friend will tell you that i was scared out of my mind about moving to New York, i am beyond excited to say that when this turn came in new york i was sane enough to take. and i do mean take, i practically had to steal this internship but that too is beside the point. but i also know that it's time to leave. and i am also beyond excited for what my next turn will bring.

I am leaving New York on Saturday June 27th 2009. exactly 111 days after i got here. 1-1-1, that has to be lucky right? when people find out that i'm leaving in a week they say, "OH NO! Why don't you stay?" and my answer is this:

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

I took my turn in New York City, and my season has ended...

I Have A Degree

i have a degree.

a B.S.

in psychology.

from Missouri State University.

and i would describe said degree, along with a host of other professional experiences, as very broad. and at another time in American History I would have had no trouble finding work.

this however is not that time in American History.

i have managed to find a job in New York, finally. and before i tell you what it is i want to tell you that i have had more jobs than possibly anyone my age.

-Marshall's (Sales Associate, which is code for cashier)
-Deliah's (Sales Assistant, which is code for t-shirt folder)
-Southwest Missouri State Phone Campaign (Asking alumni for money)
-Campus Information ( glorified greeter)
-Telemarketer (1 day. aweful)
- United Home Craft Demonstrator (Saying: "Free Estimate? Windows? Siding? Cabinetry? Sunrooms?" To roughly 200 people a day. I lasted 3 weeks on that job, 1 person said yes.)
-Temp. (Receptionist, Data Entry, Administrative Aid, all of these are code for "copy girl".) I worked as a Temp off and on for about 4 years and the pay was great and i worked in approximately 12 different offices throughout the st.louis area.
- Waitress (and i use the term loosely. 4 whole days. i couldn't take it.)
-Intern for WHY Hunger in New York City (I intern on the National Hunger Hotline, and research different avenues for the Hotlines expansion. they pay me in peanuts.)
-Box office worker for and off-off-off Broadway Production (give people tickets, take their money)
-Research Participant for the John Jay School of Law in Manhattan (i pretended to be a juror. this wasn't so much a job, but they paid me.

and to be honest i'm probably forgetting a couple. the last 3 are all jobs that i was able to find after i had attained my degree. now of course i've heard that sometimes your degree is useless. but i thought for sure that somehow mine would mean something. to somebody.

but alas, here i am in New York City working as a petitioner for Gerry Esposito. He's running for City Council in the 34th District of Brooklyn. And he has to get about 1000 signatures to get his name on the ballot for the primaries in September. so yours truly is knocking on doors in Brooklyn collecting signatures to make a living. With all of that Bachelors level psychology in tow.

i was talking on the phone yesterday to a friend and she said to me,
"well it's kind of cool isn't it?"
she went on to say that this was life, and that we were all in the same boat. all of us recent graduates and young adults in the "real" world of work. she told me that it was a difficult time for everyone and we were all in it together. that this would be the time in our lives that we all sat around and talked about in 30 years. she said,
"it's like our own version of the '60's."

i hope that she's right. i hope that in 30 years i look back on this time fondly and with appreciation for humbling me and shaping my future.

and also hope that i still have a blog then.

I am a Rude New Yorker

First i want to let you know that you should never tell a New Yorker that they are rude. for two reasons.

1.) they don't like it, it offends them
2.) they are in denial

now anyone who knows me knows that i hate rudeness. it is one thing that gets me truly angry. of course being in New York has taught me that something like rudeness is relative. i never knew that. i think i always thought it was one of those things that was the same across the board. but not so. if you are from a place, the Midwest for instance, where the people in your opinion are nice. not as hospitable as the south, but still in your area of the Midwest people try. try to be nice. try to be polite. try not to be rude.

in New York it's different. New Yorkers don't have time...to try. They are very busy. They walk very fast. and they don't have time to try not to be rude.

so instead of categorizing them as rude, i'll call them "direct". even the way they say 'excuse me' (if they say "excuse me") is done in such a hurried and semi-annoyed way that it makes you question whether or not they even really mean it. but what i realized on the subway is that the way i would say "excuse me" to someone i was trying to get past is altogether different than how a New Yorker would say it. I would take time to make sure that i was nice about it.

or at least i would have 3 months ago.

What I've realized during this the beginning of my 13th week in New York is that it takes approximately 8 weeks to adopt this "directness" as we'll call it. i'll give a few examples:

1.) My first week here when i would here people speaking different languages i would think it was so interesting and cool and i loved being able to witness such vast diversity in one place.
- Now when ever i hear people speaking a different language (which is all the time) i think, I wish they'd shut the hell up.

2.) The same thing goes for the first time i saw a group of rabbis walking down the street. i thought it was so funny, it looked like the beginning of a joke. but it was great because you don't see that everyday where i'm from.
-Now recently when i saw a group of about 14 rabbis walking around midtown at lunchtime i thought, Why don't you fucking rabbis walk a little faster so that i can cross the fucking street!

3.) Which brings me to this: New Yorkers use the f-word. a lot. and now suddenly so do i . i used to think that only on shows like Sex&The City did characters like Samantha say it all the time. not so. Everyone in New York says it in real life like it's going out of style.

4.) Before i came to New York i never had a problem with people looking at me. you know what i mean? like when you're in a public place and there are plenty of people around and your eyes just wander. i mean, i have eyes, i look at people all the time. so when someone looks at me i'm never offended by it.
-Now this is when i knew i was becoming a New Yorker. I was leaving for work one morning a few weeks ago and as i walked up the steps to the platform to get the train i disticntly saw a woman look me up and down. i don't know why, but the thought that instantly entered my head was, What the FUCK is she LOOKING at?! I don't know where this came from. I'm not that person. that person who cops an attitude at all, let alone just because someone looked at me. Missouri Myra just thinks, oh, perhaps she likes my outfit. or maybe i look familiar to her. i should smile. but for whatever reason New York Myra gets pissed.

5.) Finally this example is very recent. as recent as about 9am this morning. When i got off the train in midtown to go to my internship i decided to buy myself an "everything" bagel with cream cheese (my new favorite) from a street vendor before heading into the building. my usual bagel guy is on 33rd street in his cart between the fruit guy and the post office. he's very nice and polite. he always smiles and i always tip him. but because i was already running late (imagine that) i decided to stop at the one a block closer on 34th st (yes, where the miracle happened). The bagel always cost me $1 (and i tip my usual nice bagle guy a quarter) thinking that certainly there would be no difference within only one block i asked 34th st bagel guy: "Can I have an everything bagel with cream cheese please?"
he goes to grab it and i say, "$1 right?" and he says to me, "$1.25" I give him a dirty look and reached in my pocket for change and then he says,

"it's okay, if you don't have the quarter it's fine." he says it in that New York direct half-annoyed way that make me feel like he's not really doing me a favor.

I hope that you know that the bagel most likely did NOT cost $1.25. he was going to charge me extra because i asked him so he assumed i didn't know. as i took my bagel (i only paid $1) i walked away thinking,
I'll bet it is okay, because it's only one fucking dollar anyway. you goddamned asshole.

i don't know what's happening to me.

The New York City Paradox

The New York City Paradox is this:

1 city. 8 million people. no one to talk to.

so i didn't want to say this. didn't want start out with what's wrong with New York. didn't want to crush anybody's dreams about life in the big city. but after i had been here for a month i started to think that if only...

if only someone had told me about this. if only someone had told me how lonely it can be when you're in a new place an all alone. especially a place like New York. you know it doesn't say that on any of the post cards. you never read in any travel magazine, "Come to New York City! Be lonely!" but perhaps you should. at least you'd have a heads up.

my theory for why this is true would have to just be the New York State of Mind. The NYSM is all about speed. go go go. now now now. fast fast fast. get there get there get there. everyone here walks about as fast as i can jog. a friend of mine told me once that New Yorkers weren't mean. they just needed more time to "thaw" than what i would be used to. my friend was so right. in New York people are a little wrapped up in doing their own thing. and in the city you see so many different people everyday that it is hard to even notice when you are introduced to someone new.

even it does happen to be an exceptionally chatty and inquisitive someone from the midwest.

so for the first couple of months in New York i was on my own. on my own in the big apple. or something cliche. and while it was amazing part of the time. half the time i was a bit miserable.

i will say that slowly i've started to meet people. nice people. i have friends here and it's nice. i've been to museums with friends, to dinner parties in manhattan. to nightclubs in the Meatpacking district and Soho!! being in New York finally got to be as glam as i always knew it could be.

but it took a while. much longer than i'v e been used to in the past. the last time i was new somewhere it was college. but everyone was new and that made it easier to meet people. and to go from being in a place where it felt like i was friends with or had at least met absolutly everyone on campus and in the city, to the largest city in the northern himispere and not knowing a soul was, well, shocking. i wouldn't completely call it culture shock because i'm still in my country of origin. speaking, for the most part, my native language. i would however call it culture shock on more of an intimate level.

a personal culture shock.
the difference is that culture shock happens to you as a result of everything that is happening around you. people wearing different clothes, speaking a different language, worshiping a different God. all things that happen to you on the outside. but a personal culture shock is shocking to yourself at your core. whoever i am at my core was pretty freaked out by this transition to a new place.

and while i would never trade that experience. still,

i could've used a heads up. that's all i'm saying.

consider yourself fairly warned.

Myra, what are you doing in New York?

i get that question a couple times a week on facebook.

"Myra! you're in New York City?! Since when? What are you doing there?"

people kind of can't believe it. and if i can let you in on a little secret, neither can i.
here's what happened:

i graduated from Missouri State University on December 19th, 2008. and i really only had my life planned up until that day. after that i didn't really know what would happen. i knew that i would take the spring semester off to do...you know... whatever. i had applied the month earlier for a post graduate internship in Denver, Colorado. that however did not end up happening. a separate story for a separate post.

now if i can take you even further back in time to my childhood i will. as anyone who knows me will tell you i grew up watching tv. i literally grew. up. watching. t. v. my mother tells the story of how when i was a baby she would sit me up on the couch and i would start watching the television. and how if someone changed the channel, i would cry. sick. but true. and the one thing i always remembered when watching t.v. as i got older was that all the big shows were set in New York City.

Friends. Will&Grace. The Nanny. Sienfeld. The Cosby Show.Sex and The City.The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Today Show. Lettermen. All the Woody Allen movies. everything was New York. I made up in my mind a long long long time ago that one day i would live there. where all the great t.v. lived.

So after graduation i went home for Christmas. and the rest of my life. and i distinctly remember thinking that if i was going to go off and live somewhere else for a little while that now was probably the time. and December 27 i applied for two internships in New York City. 1 of which i got.

Patricia Rojas from WHY Hunger (a hunger and poverty outreach non-for-profit) in New York City called me and asked me if i would be able to interview for the internship with her organization. she only had one question. "do you live in New York?" well needless to say at the time i did not.

she didn't want to give me the internship. for several reasons. 1.) the internship pays, but not well. definitely not enough for one person to live off of in new york city. 2.) i would have to find a place to live, also difficult. 3.) i would need a part time job in the city. hard to come by in the economy. and 4.) they have never had an intern come from so far away (Missouri is apparently far far away). Patricia pretty much told me that i could not have the internship and that i could apply again in the summer if i really thought i could handle taking care of all those things.

we got off the phone. and i remember thinking "this can't be the end." i proceeded to send Patricia emails and call her on the phone and "wear her down" as she says, until i persuaded her to give me a chance. just a chance to see if i could find a place to live and a job and get there and make this happen.

and i did. i currently live in the Bronx with my roommate Yareniz Nunez and her dog Shooby (the dachshund). as far as a job that has been a little harder to come by. i've done a series of odd things. i worked in an off off Broadway Theater working the box office, i was a political canvasser for a couple of days in Long Island, i took part in a jury selection research study at a law school, and i most currently accepted a position to do some petitioning for a city council race.

and since new york is just as expensive as everyone has always said it was i have enjoyed everything free the city has to offer. such as central park, beautiful. subway performances, indescribable. and just walking around and exploring the city i see things that i know i wouldn't see anywhere else.

so that's what i'm doing in New York. interning. and looking around.

i'm thinking

i'm thinking about going public with this.

i'm thinking.