On my way home tonight I walked past this man (the one in the middle), standing on the popular corner, where people in my neighborhood hang out for hours, sometimes. I often run into people I've photographed, and most of the time they don't recognize me, or at least they don't acknowledge me. I'm kind of glad they don't, although it makes me feel a hint of spy-guilt.
This man was no exception, but this time I did something different. I ran inside my apartment, printed two photos for him, and ran back out to where he'd been standing. Since I'd first spotted him, another man from the photo (the one to his left) had joined him (lucky!), and I held out the pictures for them to see.
Neither of them spoke English, so they spoke to me in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish, so I spoke to them in English. We had a brief conversation like that, talking nonsense and nodding and pointing a lot, and maybe I'm being optimistic, but I think we understood each other, thanks in part to the visual aides in my hand. Or I guess what I mean is, if we didn't understand each other, no one seemed to realize it.
It was my first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and it went pretty well, considering. It was just me and Todd (neither of us left town and plans with friends fell through), and the only real problem we had was that we made entirely too much food. It wasn't because our methods weren't scientific, though. The way we determined how many potatoes to cook was to halve the recipe, and then to guess at what five pounds of potatoes felt like by holding the bag in one hand and Todd's cooperative 13-pound cat in the other. "I guess that feels like about 35 percent of your cat in potatoes," I said, before making a giant pot so full that it could've fed all of Brooklyn.
Dinner itself was a little anticlimactic, because after working for so long on preparations, we only spent five minutes eating, just before running out the door. We finished the day at a fancy party, where we drank wine between an original Warhol painting and an expansive view of the Hudson. I never know how I score when in a fancy atmosphere, whether my sense of displacement shows through at all. It didn't feel much like Thanksgiving, or at least what I'm used to it feeling like, but it was nice regardless. Also, I like staying in town when it's nearly empty.
I thought I'd never do it, but I bought a Mac. I needed a new computer because my previous laptop never recovered from the glass of water I gave it. I could put up with the offensive beeping when I turned it on, but as its parts began to rust, it started behaving like an ignorant know-it-all, occasionally suggesting that rather than just typing one number 3, why not type forty-seven number 3s? Or when I typed the "f" in "forty," for example, didn't I really mean to use the "Find" command and look for "orty"? Let's do away with the "s" key altogether, it arrogantly suggested.
Also, sometimes the right-click menu didn't work, and often I could tell that the computer was working on a secret project in the background. It just knowingly hummed a lot and made the menu bar flash like a dying florescent bulb. Eventually I had to put it down.
In the past, I never liked working on a Mac, mostly because Macs made me feel kind of handicapped. I'd been working with PCs for so long that relatively simple (but different) functions on a Mac were mysterious to me, or as I liked to call them, "stupid." So when I'm asked why I bought a Mac, I don't really know how to answer.
The truth, in part, is that I am becoming more familiar with them because I've been forced to use them more regularly, and they're starting to make sense to me. Macs will also run Final Cut Pro, which is a pretty good thing.
Since that's not a very satisfying answer, sometimes people help me out, and suggest that Macs are better for designers. I don't really think the operating system makes much difference, though, in terms of design. I think I just like how the machine seems to perform with unity, as if the elements of the operating system are old pals.
It's been a couple weeks now, and I'm happier with it than I thought I'd be. I'm not swearing at it, for one, but am being patient as I figure out the differences, and in some cases, improvements. And I'm even starting to mess up the quick keys on my PC at work, a true sign that I've really crossed over. That said, here are some things that I miss:
the forward delete key (so much)
Windows Explorer (for a few specific reasons I won't bother to list)
being able to rename & trash files while in the 'Open' window
the way screen shots are taken (oh Mac, why PDFs?)
contextual (right-click) menu on internet images (I can't do the things I once could)
Homesite (BBEdit is so much worse)
the price
Vs. some things I like:
Dashboard (it's things like this that makes Macs "cute")
Safari
Final Cut Pro
eject (no more technical Windows jargon/triple-click processes for simple commands)
aesthetics, all the way around
more portable (my old laptop was a monster)
sense that the computer works together (that sounds dumb but I don't know how else to say it)
innovative solutions (that sounds dumb too but I don't know how else to say it)
organization of information
virus-free
That's it so far.
I'm afraid to know what my neighbors think of me. I've been sick, and have therefore had some time to sit in front of the TV. Since I don't have cable, and since I was recently given season two of 21 Jump Street, well, you know.
The theme song plays much louder than the rest of the DVD, and it plays not only at the beginning and end of each episode, but on top of the menu as well, over and over again, without end. ("so JUMP! down on JUMP STREET! JUMP! down on JUMP STREET!" ...)
For some reason I want my neighbors to know that I've only watched three episodes, as opposed to the 18 or so they must think I've seen. It occurred to me that perhaps I should have some sort of excuse for it (an ironic ring tone?). But instead of providing one, or better yet, not caring what they think of me, I've been muting the theme song and keeping the sound so low during the rest of the show that I have to sit closer to the TV just to hear Hanson and Ioki make a bust.
The first place we looked at was close to perfect. We didn't know that of course, because it was the first, but we both had a good feeling about it. It was enormous and old, on a street lined with brownstones, and near trains/friends/park/shops/nighttime. My initial reservations about it seem so dumb now: what will we do with all that space? the block is kind of quiet. the bathtub is an ugly color. it seems kind of adult to have a laundry room.
We did apply for it, and just as we were learning to fully appreciate it, we were passed over due to some last-minute broker/landlord politics. By that time I'd become so optimistic about the place that I'd already considered how to give directions to our housewarming party.
Weeks later, after inspecting a string of shrug-inspiring alternatives, we gave a broker $500 as a down payment on an apartment that had a pet cemetery in the backyard. (It also had a lone carousel horse propped up against the fence and a large disco ball tied to a tree.) The pet cemetery didn't even make my list of cons.
To be fair, the inside was almost exactly what we were looking for, and the landlord clearly loved his property. Also, his attachment to his many young dead pets is kind of endearing, I guess. Anyway, we were seduced by his intensity and developed an immediate crush on the apartment's built-in shelves and bay windows, momentarily forgetting that neither of us actually likes the location.
Our doubts cropped up in the form of uncertain questions to each other as soon as we walked out of the broker's office. Within five blocks of his place, our desperation for the apartment was replaced with secret dreams of self-defeat, which was the only way we could hope to get our $500 deposit back. (by the way, we did it. we lost!)
Every apartment we've seen since then has been attractive in some way but always lacks something important, like charm, or a nearby subway stop, or closets, and we find ourselves trying to talk ourselves into a place by making weird concessions. Each time it goes roughly the same way: I take photos of every corner, we verbally arrange furniture and discuss pros and cons, and we ultimately decide to hold out for the apartment that needs no discussion, and rather just announces itself.
I'm currently taking a video production class, and for homework I was asked to make something that shows action without really showing action...sort of like the shower scene from Psycho, in which you can tell that a lady's getting stabbed, but you don't actually see the knife meet her skin. My scene's a little lighter than that. And it's short! Have a look.
