Tag Archives: new york

How to get what you want

‘I’ve decided that I’m going to be better at naming my files,’ I texted my little sister. ‘I’ve already named the one I’m doing with the new naming convention. It’s incredibly satisfying.’ ‘I’m in NY,’ my little sister texted back. ‘And even over here I can tell how boring you have become.’

Ignoring my little sister’s unattractive jealousy, I spent several minutes yesterday staring with pleasure at my new, organized word document. (In the future, of course, there will be documentS, but I only created a single article yesterday, so it’s currently alone in My Documents, bravely explaining to the other, haphazardly titled old documents what the future holds).

Seeing how much pleasure this elegantly-named file gave me, I looked around for other opportunities for nomenclature. ‘Have you watered my plants?’ my little sister texted. ‘I’m looking for new nomenclature opportunities,’ I texted back. ‘I’ll see if I can change my flights and get home a bit earlier,’ she replied.

Panicking in case my sister returned from NY before I could really, you know, ‘get things in order’, I realized that I should have made better use of the rare pleasure of having the flat completely to myself. (Our flatmate has popped over to Holland, where he seems to be doing precisely what he does at home- sleeping endlessly and eating as though he was on a commission-based contract with our microwave).

Time was of the essence, so my plan to carefully swap several of my own, broken possessions, for my sister’s identical, yet still functioning ones had to be curtailed. (Aged 7 and 5 years, we were given matching child-size teddy bears for Christmas. I thoughtfully gave my bear a haircut. I then quietly swapped my alopecia-bear for my sister’s glossy one. It was the perfect crime).

‘I don’t have time,’ I thought to myself, panicked. ‘I’ve wasted it all creating elegant naming conventions and graceful taxonomies.’

Which is when I realized exactly what I needed to do. ‘When are you home?’ I texted them both. And then I simply spent all of yesterday putting my name onto all of their things.

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News of idiocy from New York (you know who you are)

I have two friends. They both currently live in NY, so I spend much of my day chatting to them over the internet (sorry I had to explain Gchat for my Mother, who is a loyal percentage* of my reading audience). On Friday, I realised that it is time for both of them to come home.

My first NY based friend told me excitedly that she was going to The Inauguration Ball. ‘Whaaaat?’ I replied, madly over-excited and filled with jealousy.

‘How? What? How? Why? Why you? Why not me? I really think Obama and I could be such good friends,’ I typed incoherently.
‘My friend has a spare ticket, and I’ve bought it off her,’ She replied calmly. ‘Oh my god,’ I typed back excitedly. ‘And do you get to talk to him? Are you going to ask Obama to dance? Do you think Michelle will mind? I love you, but there’s no way you could take Michelle. Have you seen her? She will beat you down. And then help you to eat better.’

‘You don’t get to talk to the President,’ My friend said sadly. ‘Oh,’ I replied. ‘Well, at least try and get a photo with him.’ ‘Yes,’ My friend continued. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen. I don’t think you get to see the President.’ It seems, and I’m not sure because it was fairly hard to read the Gchat window through my tears of laughter, that my friend has spent hundreds of dollars to stand, with strangers, in a room in the same building as the President.

Weeping with laughter, I noticed that my other friend had logged on. ‘Hello!’ I said cheerily. ‘How’s things your end?’ She nattered away about this and that, mentioning a new friend she had made. I logged onto Facebook to check she was making appropriate friends. ‘Why are there no new photos of you?’ I asked her. ‘Have you been mostly sitting weeping alone in New York?’ ‘Oh no,’ My friend explained cheerily. ‘I’m trying to convince people I still look how I did 10 years ago. So I’m not putting any new photos up.’

‘That’s the second most idiotic thing I’ve heard today,’ I told her robustly. ‘It is imperative that we post recent photos- or people who are expecting us to look as we did at 16 years old will get a terrible shock. Speaking of terrible shocks, let me tell you about what really happens at the Inaugural Ball….’

*half

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Starbucks, USA

‘Hello!’ The employee said cheerfully as I entered Starbucks. ‘We were just talking about you.’ I was a little confused, but assumed it was a new American ‘thing’, like wishing everyone a ‘nice day’ and irrepressible cheerfulness.

‘Oh,’ I replied politely. ‘What were you saying?’ (I was secretly quite worried. I had been in this particular Starbucks several times already, using their free wi-fi and never buying a thing. I wondered if I was about to be told off). ‘We were just saying how much more fun things would be once you arrived,’ The chap continued. I smiled happily. Perhaps all the Starbucks employees wanted was a slightly disheveled English girl loitering around their café, sneakily avoiding data roaming charges and wondering how New Yorkers stayed so slim when the portions were so enormous.

‘So, come and start your shift, silly,’ The Starbucks employee told me firmly. ‘Um,’ I said cautiously. Oddly, the first thing I thought was that I was wearing running kit. ‘I don’t think I’m appropriately dressed,’ I said quietly. At this point a girl walked past me, laughing at her colleagues. ‘Give me a minute’, She yelled as she walked through the café. ‘I’ll be with you for the next 5 hours.’ What I like most about this Starbucks is their discretion. Not only do they let one use wi-fi without buying a single item, they politely ignore you when you hold entire conversations with yourself. Perhaps they assume both are a highly respectable British ‘thing’. Which, if I were in charge, they certainly would be.

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