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.