The perks.

As previously mentioned, I am enjoying my job. For those who may not know (I had to explain it in detail to my mom so she could tell her friends about it), I work for EMI Music Publishing in the licensing department, specifically in the TV group. Basically, I help with the licensing of songs for TV shows (researching copyright information, getting approval from the artists, confirming with the studios or music supervision firms, etc). So any time a studio wants to use an EMI song in, say American Idol or Grey's Anatomy or something, they have to come through us.

I have now graduated from being an intern to the marginally more promising status of "long-term temp." Before, I had been sitting back in a sort of alcove desk area by the copy room, with two other interns. In the office, this area is known as The Icebox. By some bizarro glitch in the laws of physics and/or the ventilation system, the Icebox is always like 10 degrees colder than everywhere else in the office. You may think I'm exaggerating. I'm not. I had taken to wearing a long sleeve shirt and a sweater every day, with knee socks under my slacks, and still I was cold. Another intern often wears gloves. Sometimes I would just give up and wear my coat all day. So you can imagine my delight when last week I was moved to my very own cubicle in a more temperate zone (and it's by the window, so I have a view!). Unfortunately, the other day I discovered that there are three vents nearby, so there is a periodic breeze that wafts through our little area. Great. Still much warmer than the Icebox, though. Or so I thought. On Wednesday I was passing through to get to the copy room, and I suddenly stopped and backed up slowly, a puzzled look on my face. "I know, it's totally warm in here now!" said one of my intern friends. And it was. Warmer, even, than it is at my new desk. Foiled again!

But I do like my work, and my co-workers are all really nice. And of course, the job comes with other perks. For example, whenever an EMI-published artist has a show in the area, we can get free tickets through the company. That's how I ended up in the fourth row of the Spice Girls concert last week. May is going to be a smorgasbord of sweet shows, including Panic! At The Disco (my roommate is obsessed with them, though I'm more looking forward to the opening acts - Phantom Planet and Motion City Soundtrack), Jay-Z, and Kanye West/Rihanna (oh yeah, that's how I roll). I may be seeing Billy Joel at Shea Stadium in July. And tomorrow, James Blunt will be performing in our lobby in the evening. He has a concert that night (which I'm going to, again more for the opening act - Sara Bareilles) and is stopping in to play a private showcase for us. Now, even though I'm not really a big fan of his, it can't be denied that this is pretty dang cool. So I'm looking forward to sitting approximately 6 feet from the piano as James serenades me after work.

Good.

I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day, and he asked me how it felt to be here in New York, living on my own, etc. I've thought about this question a lot over the last month or so, and really the only answer I can come up with is that it's good. When I was growing up, my mom would make fun of me for always answering with "good" whenever my piano teacher asked how my practicing had gone that week. But that was the honest answer! Not fabulous, not terrible, just good. And that's how it is now. Not fabulous, not terrible, just good. The truth is, that word encompasses a lot that is maybe too hard to explain.

This is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I don't know why, I just got it into my head one day that I would move to New York, and after that I couldn't imagine doing anything else. And it's all worked out surprisingly well so far. I have a job that, while not always glamorous, is one that I really enjoy and is actually in my desired field, which is more than a lot of people can say. I have great, fun roommates and a nice apartment. I'm slowly meeting and getting to know more people at church. And I love feeling like an actual real adult now (even if it does still feel a little bit like playing house).

But it's definitely different, as I knew it would be. I miss being able to walk down the hall to do laundry. I miss jumping in my car to run a quick errand or stop by at a friend's house. I miss having my "people" nearby - family and close friends. I don't really have people here yet. But I know it just takes time, so for now I'm okay with feeling a little lonely every now and then, or wanting to just look at pictures or watch the Hills' Christmas video and maybe cry a little bit sometimes. Because that's kind of the way I feel whenever a big change happens - I take some time to feel overwhelmed, and then continue settling in to my new environment. Because every morning when I walk out my front door I feel really, really glad I'm here, and I can honestly say that I know this is where I'm supposed to be.

So he asked, "How does it feel to be in New York?" And I just said, "Good."

I'm just resting my eyes.

Jerry Seinfeld has a bit where he talks about how people will stay up late even when they're ridiculously tired, just to continue seeking entertainment. As he says, "The finger that hits the button on the remote control is the last part of the human body to fall asleep." This phenomenon seems to happen to me quite frequently. Sometimes it's with the TV - I'm too tired to actually GET UP and go to bed, so I will just sit there and see what else I have on TiVo. Most of the time, though, it's with the internet. I've finished checking my email, I've stalked everyone I can possibly think of on Facebook, nobody has updated their blog in the last 5 minutes, and yet for some reason I can't bring myself to just close my laptop and go to sleep. (Very often I am actually in bed while using my laptop, which makes the whole situation even more ludicrous.)

Anyway, as a result of this, I usually come across a lot of entertaining ways to waste time, usually in the form of hilarious blogs and/or YouTube videos. I figure Jerry and I are not the only people with this late-night-entertainment predicament, so if you run out of things to do, here's my new favorite thing: Stuff White People Like. I don't think it really needs any further description. (A side effect of doing this sort of thing late at night is that everything seems ten times funnier when you're insanely tired. Something to keep in mind.)

Some highlights:

Kitchen Gadgets - "If you end up buying one of these for a white person, your card should make reference to them using it a lot to make beautiful food that you hope you can eat one day. This kind of stuff goes over like gang busters." [Side note: I think Sarah has almost every gadget mentioned in that entry.]

Study Abroad - "If you need to make up your own study abroad experience, they all pretty much work the same way... [talk about how] you acquired a taste for something (local food, beer, fruit). This latter point is important because you will need to be able to tell everyone how it is unavailable in your current country."

Recycling - "Though for many white people, this simply means putting plastic bags into a special drawer where they will accumulate until they are eventually used to carry some gym clothes or bathing suit. Ultimately this drawer will get full and only be emptied when the person moves to a new house. Advanced white recyclers will uses these grocery bags as garbage bags."

Enjoy. I hope that I have been able to contribute, even in some small way, to your insomnia.

"OMG SPICE GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRLS!!!!!"

That exclamation from a young lady as we entered the arena pretty much sums up my night. It was jam-packed with sparkly costumes, supergay backup dancers, and about 10,000 14-year-old girls dressed like prostitutes. It was amazing. (Did I mention we were in the fourth row? We were in the fourth row. Our tickets were worth $150 EACH.)

If you want to see pictures (and I know you do, Dad), I posted some on Facebook. I say "some" because I actually took about 60. I figured it would be best to just go with a sampling.

Greatest. Night. EVER!

A very public bathroom.

This month, the Manhattan singles wards decided to band together and have a month-long ping pong tournament, with men's and women's brackets and single elimination and all kinds of elaborate stuff. I signed up, thinking that I might be able to do fairly well. After all, when I was living in Colorado, I would often play ping pong with Joel down in the basement. And while I may not have done a lot of "winning" per se, I was competent enough. If nothing else, you would think the fact that I had played frequently and recently would give me an advantage over most girls. You would think that, but you would be wrong. Of course, my opponent turned out to be a girl who was in a ping pong club for much of her college career, and was pretty much the star player. Needless to say, I will not be advancing to the next round. I suppose it was just a pipe dream anyway.

In other news, my roommate Jenny and I were coming home the other night, and as we approached the stairs to exit the subway, we noticed some suspicious brown lumps nearby. I was like, "Are dogs even allowed on the subway?" all the while thinking that it did seem a tad on the... large side. As if reading my mind, Jenny said, "Um, I don't think that's dog poop..." That's right, I am talking about HUMAN FECES, people. Apparently her friend saw a homeless guy take a dump in a subway station one time, so this isn't an entirely rare occurrence. I probably should have been horrified, but instead we spent the majority of the walk home laughing hysterically and wondering what we would have done if we'd seen the event in progress. What can I say? We are classy ladies.

Personal space.

So my friend Liz posted on her blog about subway-induced anxiety, which reminded me of a strange encounter I had yesterday.

I took the A (express train) home from work - I usually take the C (local train, meaning it makes more stops and therefore takes a bit longer) because it's far less crowded and I'm not in much of a hurry, but I was in an express-train kind of mood yesterday. (Or maybe the express train was running on the local track, and I had missed the announcements to that effect because I was listening to my iPod. But these are the types of train shenanigans I am talking about.) Anyway, it was so crowded that people had to force their way onto the train, and the doors tried to close several times before everyone had squished in - including twice on a guy's shoulder because he couldn't seem to fit his entire body inside. There was literally no space left. After the doors closed for good, the guy who had shimmied his way in after me looked at me and said something. Unable to hear him over the strains Ingrid Michaelson's "Overboard", I took my headphones out and politely requested that he repeat himself. Which he did, with an air of great annoyance: "Can you please move?"

And to be quite honest, I really had no idea how to respond to that. So I settled on staring at him blankly for a good 4 seconds before I said, "WHERE?" and stuck my headphones back in.

Slam your body down and wind it all around.

You guys, my seventh grade dream just came true. I have two free tickets to the Spice Girls show next Monday. I am so excited I cannot even tell you.

I love my job.

Public Service Announcement.

Let's just get this out in the open once and for all, because I feel like it's something everyone should be aware of:

Recounting a dream you had in detail is interesting to approximately no one in the universe, unless a) the dream is at least 60% about the person to whom you are relating it (and even then, it's debatable), or b) you are Martin Luther King, Jr.

There I said it.

The little things.

Yesterday was the Best Day Ever. I mean, that may be overstating things a bit, but I am easily amused. Some of the things that amused me:

- It snowed on my way to work. Sometimes this would be annoying, but I enjoyed it. First, it was actually a warmer morning than we've had lately. Plus, it was just a nice light snow, so it looked pretty without flying in my face and making me angry.

- I drafted a letter to Stevie Wonder at work. He goes by "Steveland Morris" in case you were wondering.

- The refrigerator in the kitchen at work is always well-stocked with: bottled water, Sprite/Diet Sprite, Coke/Diet Coke, Pepsi/Diet Pepsi, and milk (?). Yesterday A&W Root Beer made its debut as well. I've actually developed quite a cordial relationship with Diet Coke recently (I never used to like Coke or Pepsi), but RB is my all-time favorite. So for lunch I had a can with my leftovers from the delicious pasta I made this weekend (more on that later). It was awesome.

- Bradley Whitford called to inform me that as a registered Independent, I was eligible to vote in the Democratic primary by filling out some form or other. Too bad I'm registered in California, Bradley. Good effort though!

I decided recently that I want to be more creative with my cooking. In college, unless I was cooking for other people, I usually just relied on a couple of staples (as former roommates can attest): tortellini with sauce, chicken and vegetables, or the ever-popular quesadilla. I was usually too lazy to bother with anything else. But here, since I have to shop often anyway (sadly, I can't just load up my trunk with groceries every two weeks like I did in Provo), I can vary what I buy and try out new recipes. I made a pasta recipe this weekend that turned out quite well, with bacon, spinach, and tomatoes (and really, what recipe can go wrong if it includes bacon?). Tonight I'll be making curry couscous, one of my new favorite dinners that Sarah would make when I was living there. Basically, the point of telling you all of this is to say that if you have any really good recipes that aren't terribly complex (even with the progress I've made, I'm still not about to spend a ton of time on dinner for just myself), send them on over.