Entries tagged with “personal”
Growing up in Manhattan means that you sometimes have to do things a little differently than, well, pretty much the rest of the country, and as Halloween approaches, and I compare stories of youth with colleagues and friends, I’m beginning to understand just how different Manhattan Halloweens are compared to others.
An atypical example of Manhattan Halloween decorations
I’ve heard about it from friends and seen references to it in movies, but since I’ve never seen it in person, it’s sort of like Bigfoot…I’m beginning to doubt it really exists. In Manhattan, there isn’t that one special house in the area that goes overboard with Halloween decorations; that one special house that everyone from several streets over comes to visit because everyone knows they have the best candy and obscene amounts of it; that one special house that truly embraces the spirit of Halloween and shames all the others around it for even trying to be festive. Unless you live in an area that has single-family townhouses (which is somewhat rare on this island) you really won’t see Halloween decorations, or any other holiday decorations, adorning the outside of a building. Multiple dwelling abodes must conform to the lowest common denominator wishes of its inhabitants, and it’s always safest to not display any decorations than risk offending someone who, for whatever reason, is offended by Halloween.
Due to the acquisition of some new entertainment equipment, I’ve decided it’s time to completely reconfigure and consolidate my entertainment center. While I’m doing that, I’m going to ask my good friend Cornelius to jot down some notes as they happen. I’ll return at the end to wrap things up. Cornelius, please introduce yourself…
Cornelius at computer
Hello everyone, that’s me on the right. Josh has asked me to keep a running log of what’s going on as he redoes his entertainment center, and I plan on documenting what I consider to be major events as part of this home project. It’s a dreary, rainy day here in NYC, so he’s under no pressure to get things done by a certain time. Let’s get started:
11:00 a.m. - Josh is taking his usual methodical approach by double-checking the equipment and connections map that he made a few days prior. He’s placed a glass of water near the sofa and has a pad and pen handy, as well as labels for tagging wires. I have a good feeling that this is going to go smoothly.
According to the Social Security Administration, below are the most popular names given to newborns in 2008, and once again, my name is the combination of the male and female names of the same rank.
This same thing happened in 2003, 2004, 2005, & 2006, although I was number three in those years.
Ever since I learned to tell time and wear a watch, I’ve done so on my right wrist. That may not seem that strange until you understand that I’m right-handed. The norm for a right-handed person, in civilized society, is to wear their watch on their left wrist, this way it is out of the way of writing and other right-handed activities.
The strange placement of my watch did bring about chuckles and ridicule from friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, and my response has always been something like, “That’s where I learned to wear it, and it’s too late to change now.” After all, it had been close to 30 years since I learned to tell time and wear a watch.
I knew it was weird, but there are a lot weirder things about me that are open to ridicule (see this entire web site for a few), so it wasn’t high on my list of things about myself to improve.
In early September, after enduring years of taunting and harassment about this odd behavior of mine, I decided to change. On a Monday, I put my watch on my left wrist and went about my day.
It was one of the strangest experiences of my life.
Answering today’s question from Quofda:
This is a good question, and one that I have a long and weird answer to. To understand the answer, you have to know that I’m an only child who grew up in an apartment in Manhattan. Because of this, I didn’t have a lot of friends that I could play with growing up. Sure there were friends at school, and I would see a few of them outside of school, but growing up in the city means that you can’t just go next door to see “Billy” whenever you want. The “pop-in” is generally discouraged, despite what you see on Seinfeld. Getting together with friends many times required multiple phone calls, consulting both parents, consulting parents date books, and sometimes consulting a shrink. Sometimes it just wasn’t worth all the hassle.
Because of the above, I spent a lot of time by myself, and I became very good at entertaining myself. I still am. I value my alone time more than just about anything. I socialize as much as I can these days, but every once in a while, I’ll tell a friend that I’m just not in the mood to go out and would rather go home and be with myself (mind out of gutter, please).
After seeing the phobias on this list of phobias, I noticed that my biggest fear was not on there. So, to unite and give identity to all those people out there like me, I propose the following new phobia:
Envelopophobia: Fear of getting a paper cut on your tongue from licking an envelope.
I personally can not lick an envelope from right to left, or vice versa, to seal it. I employ a method whereby I lick from the bottom of the glue strip to the top, then move to the next part of the glue strip, in tongue-width increments, rapidly.
I hope by bringing this fear to light, I will empower those that are with me to stand up and not feel put-down by society simply because we lick an envelope differently.
In the morning, when I get dressed for work, I leave the hangers that my pants and shirt were using on the bed so that when I get home, I don’t have to look for them to hang things back up. This practice has worked for me quite well for many years.
This morning, as I was shutting off the bedroom light before heading to work, I noticed that there were three hangers on the bed instead of the usual two. I did a quick “head count” of what I was wearing and confirmed that I was not wearing two pants or two shirts. I don’t think one of them was doubled-up on two hangers, so I have no idea why there was an extra hanger on my bed.
This will bother me for the rest of the day.
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