Välkommen, brah.

The scene:

It is 4:15 AM. You are dancing in a disco with a large crew of your european co-workers, at a conference center in the boondocks of northern Scandinavia.

The CEO of your company has just bribed the DJ to continue playing euro-club jams for another two hours, despite the fact that the DJ's contract had him ending at 2:30 AM.

Also: your "mentor" may have fallen down the spiral staircase leading to this disco a few moments earlier, and therefore has asked you many times if the giant gash on his head "will be okay if [he] keep[s] dancing like a fool."

Aaaand the HR guy who recruited and hired you for your job—who, by the way, actively aims to resemble the Norsk God of Thunder Thor, complete with two-foot-long blonde hair that he wears in a top knot—has begun doing cartwheels in the middle of the dance floor.

Swedez.

It is at this moment—this key moment of time, mind you, in the middle of the FOURTH run of t.A.t.U's "Not Gonna Get Us," for the evening—that your 6'5", blacked-out drunk Swedish manager turns to you, looks you in the eye, and shrieks:

Swedish Wormhole

Though the company I work for is based in Stockholm, this year’s corporate retreat is in some truly and deeply rural-ass part of Sweden.

And yet, despite the conference center's distance from any urban area, the center that hosts us has apparently eschewed homey rustic charms.

Instead:  the center clearly recently had a “hip re-design” in which those shrewd-ass Swedes decided that the best way to update their 60s-era conference center would be to create a theme around leather, guitars, and rock’n’roll music. 

Because, I mean, what’s more hip than the totally-not-SwEnglish-sounding “Country & Western” wing that is entirely painted neon green and yellow?

A brief (but by no means complete) list of things creepy about this hotel, after the jump!

Evening Elevator Encounter, or also: Channing Tatum Just Killed Me

Last week, I moved to Morningside Heights, the 'hood around Columbia University in NYC.

Now, one central thing about NYC livin': elevators are a big deal.

In fact, no matter where you live/work/eat, at some point each day as an NYC-dweller you will likely spend 3-5 minutes of your life awkwardly avoiding eye contact with a group of also-avoiding-eye-contact humans in a rapidly ascending steel box.

99% of the time, your rapidly-ascending-box-mates will get the memo and srsly avoid interacting with you, because they are, like you, normal people.

But every once in a while, you have to share the eerie metallic elevator space with someone who has just straight up forgotten how to be.

Tonight was such a night.

(more after the jump!)

KEEPIN' THE FAITH: Graduation-related Bitch pleasin' from the archives

I attended a super-WASPY private school for K-8 that is known as "The Academy." Mostly inhabited by the children of car executives who enjoyed wearing tennis outfits in everyday life, the Academy was indeed a place from which one like myself escapes gleefully.

I graduated from the Academy in 2004 after 10 years of studying with the same 30-or-so people. To commemorate our 8th grade graduation ceremony in 2004, they had us all write blurbs on the UnIqUe topic: "Where will you be in 20 years?"


Of course, my future-execs-at-Chrysler-or-GM-etc-etc peers all wrote lovely blurbs about how they would one day discover the cure for cancer and/or be an astronaut and/or maybe maybe maybe work at Ford.


And yet(!) my original, "I will be the greatest of crazy cat ladies" entry was unjustly rejected, and they made me re-write my entry at the last second. (Keep in mind, at the Academy my beautiful flower of self was not really in bloom, but rather in a state of bitter bitter bitter remission.) 

House of haters a.k.a. "The Academy"

Being angsty and 13 I penned what I thought was the perfect rebuttal!!!!!!!!!!!! 


Typed on my Windows 97 PC around three hours before the ceremony, my submission (props BTW to mah grrl since Age 3 Alexis for digging this up) read:

"Name: Liza D.

Years at the Academy- 10

Thinking about the future is a tedious task. If I were sure exactly where I will be and what I will be doing in 20 years, it would be a serious letdown. The mystery of the future is what makes it so interesting. Ignorance is bliss, and I would hate to wreck the surprise and know how my life will turn out. However, predicting the future is an even more mind-numbing mission. No one knows what life will randomly throw at you from out of nowhere, and it is impossible to be sure about what will happen later on in life. I have faith that eventually things will work out the best for everyone."

Looking back on this, I think the most comforting aspect of this blurb is that it reminded me that the future is da bomb! and that life being chaotic and prone towards entropy is secretly fantastic! and, best of all, not knowing what comes next is, in itself, exciting!!!!!! (?!?!??!?!?!)


Indeed, somewhere in the past four years I guess I forgot that the future is something to look forward to, and not just a thing which we all stare at blankly in fear and self-doubt.

But best of all: this snippet reminded me that indeed I have been a sassafras from a young age and yet I am still proud2beme! 


And so on my graduation day I say: wherever you're going, go out with sass.

Earthquake in Soho and Other Musings on Urban Mortality

If ever there was proof that Soho is Jesus' special Manhattan version of the Inferno, today there was an earthquake in my 'hood.

This was not what it was like, and this is not Soho. This IS the first Google Image result for "earthquake," though.

More specifically, there was an earthquake in Washington D.C.  that reverberated across the Eastern seaboard, including NYC.

More after the jump, just sayin'.

The Stupidest People in NYC: Alternative Means of Transport Edition

For all of the fashionable, beautiful, and/or rich people in NYC, there is also a contingent of the population composed solely of dumb fools—and dumb fools with a death wish, at that.

Walking to work in the 4^th Ring O’ Hell (= intersection of Houston and Broadway in Soho) I see endless throngs of the stupidest people attempt the dumbest forms of transport imaginable on a daily basis.

An overview of Manhattanites with the least-thought-out Death Wish, after the jump.

I Am Melting And It Is Delicious: Navigating the NYC Heatwave through Dessert

On Friday it was 106 degrees in NYC. Saturday, 102 degrees.

Now, I know it was probably slightly hotter in other places—like, say, the core of the sun—however, other places do not have a kajllion people and a ridiculously large amount of tarmac and construction vehicles and subways radiating heat back at them! Truth.

In order to beat the NYC radiating flames o’ death (aka “Soho”) this weekend, I very much so ate my feelings—my cold, tasty, sugary feelings.

So: which products merely served as hapless coolant to the flames of my rage? 
Which ones melted my cold, cold heart? 
And which products are hiring Emily H. as their dessert model? (hint: all of them)


Learn more after the jump!