Duck for Cover
After reading this Times article about magical thinking, it’s clear that I’m an adherent, irrational as it is. Yesterday I was minding my business near the Seaport (no, I wasn’t checking out the Will Smith shoot—I was trying a restaurant) when something flicked out at me from the corner of my eye. I’m a jumpy person so it made me twitch. I looked around and realized that I’d been shit on. There was a warm (I could feel it through the Kleenex) olive green streak that looked like it’d been piped out of a tiny cake-decorating tip. I couldn’t help but think this was a bad omen that was bound to mess up something. But the only important (I use the word loosely) thing on my horizon was an online Jeopardy contestant test (I actually did an in-person test in like ’99 and was rapidly eliminated. I think now they screen people before that stage) scheduled for 8pm.
I’ve generally had middling to poor luck over the years (I’m not just being negative. My mom even told me ages ago “you were born under a rain cloud” or “you’re followed by a rain cloud.” I’m not sure which, and have never understood memoirists who write paragraphs of decades-old dialogue—can they possibly remember word for word every conversation they’ve had? They’re totally making that shit up. Anyway, I don’t think parents are supposed to say things like that, but it’s no biggie since I’ve been spared from clichés like when are you getting married, when will I get grandkids, you could stand to lose a few pounds) and yet I’ve never been literally shit on before (well, there was an accidental incident with an old boyfriend but the feces didn’t make skin contact) so logically a bird pooping on me and messing up a test should have nothing to do with each other. In fact, it should be the opposite. A rare occurrence should engender another rare occurrence, if anything. Avian crap=blessing from heaven.
After eating the meal that was the original reason for heading to the Seaport, I noticed that I had streaks of shit all over the collar of my coat and that a wad had caked strands of my hair together. I started feeling less blessed.
And yes, I pretty much bombed my Jeopardy test. They don’t give you instant results but I’d be surprised of I got more than 60% of the questions right. But I did feel good about knowing that Belize is name of former British Honduras, which I just randomly learned a couple nights ago when I cracked open a musty 1968 volume of Latin America from the Time-Life Foods of the World series. I was struck by the colorful map inside because I’d never even heard of British Honduras. (Very unrelated: every so often I get traffic coming here searching for Honduran Pussy. Foul as I can be, I'm pretty sure I've never written about such a subject.) So, that was one less wrong answer out of 50. Thank you Time-Life and thank you loose-bowled bird.
It was news to me that bird diapers exist, but duck clothing? And I thought dogs had all the fun.
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I really should’ve taken those Reader’s Digest Word Power quizzes (The New Yorker’s got nothing on RD when it comes to 
Last year around this time I was on a 
I don’t understand people who say beta-blockers work for anxiety (or migraines, for that matter). I have them for high blood pressure and half the time I feel like I’m going to bust a gasket, I’m perpetually un-calm. I’ve been taking halves for some time but the past few weeks I’ve upped my dosage to wholes because I’m convinced that swarms of humanity are going to give me a heart attack in my thirties. I wonder if I didn’t take high blood pressure medication at all if I’d simply keel over from life’s little annoyances.
In case anyone was wondering what I got for Christmas, my mom gave some cash, a Starbucks card and assorted doodads. My sister got me a subscription to 
On the up side, I do like leaving NYC if only so I don’t feel like the usual chunk than I am (there was a frightening middle aged male duo sitting across from us on the flight back. Both were the size and style of two Wilford Brimleys each and they had to get seatbelt extenders. Normally, I might feel bad but they were serious sons of bitches and about half way through the journey started making a stink, literally yelling about how HOT they were and had to be brought a pile of napkins to wipe their faces and heads with and then the whole plane got the heat turned off so that other passengers started complaining about being cold and this duo was still barking about how hot they were. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that being 350 pounds isn’t probably conducive for staying cool. Then they really started depressing me on the walk to the baggage claim when they couldn’t go more than 50 feet without having to take a break to catch their breath and rest their legs. Even weirder was the wiry female twosome sitting in front of us. They had that white trash style where they look like lesbians but are probably married [I know, because one married into my family]. One had a damaged permed mullet and the other had gray cropped hair with a rat-tail and they were all twitchy and giving everyone the evil eye, then practically cracking out their menthol cigarettes right in the baggage area. They also couldn’t walk more than few feet without having to gasp for air. I vowed to enact a strict health regimen the second I set foot back in Brooklyn). 
Most of my brief stay involved eating, window shopping (my only purchases were some L’Occitane items for my mom, a DKNY top on sale at Macy’s because I under packed, dried chiles and pastries at Mariana’s, an amazing Mexican mega grocery store of the ilk that just doesn’t exist around these parts, lime leaves at Ranch 99 which is of NYC ilk—we just don’t have the same access to produce like fresh galangal, Thai eggplants, ube and said leaves, and a $1.99 personalized magnet for my sister (even though it sounds common, it seems that Krista still hasn’t become standard enough to warrant off the rack products. Kris, Kristen and Kristy but never Krista. This used to bug me as a kid. The 
