Project: Projects

Memorial Day brought Ex-IB and I back from beach to the city. In search of some new beach shorts we decided to take a walk along the east side of Manhattan down to the seaport. Being a west side girl who grew up on the water, I've walked down and enjoyed the west side many times before, and expected the same lovely vibe on the east side. And althought it does have that lovely outter skirt for some stretches, the vibe is a little less brand new, overpriced luxury apartments, a little more sweaty shirtless men, riding bicyles with boom boxes strapped to them.

While looking at the east side's apartment buildings ExIB and I had this conversation:

Ex IB: You never hear about anyone living in the projects..

Me: What do you mean, a zillion people live in the projects.

Ex-IB: No, people we know.

Me: Well ..I mean... I don't think our friends... are ... the type of people to live in the projects.....

ExIB: Yeah but those apartments are probably cheap.

Me: But they're the PROJECTS!

Ex IB: Who cares, look they have terraces that overlook the water! I'd live there! I wonder how much a 1 bedroom costs.

Me: You can't! You'd need to qualify, you couldn't make over a certain amount of money.

Ex IB: Oh... Really? I didn't know that........ Well then YOU should live there! I can't believe you haven't thought of this before!

I did not know what level of insult, if any of all I should take to this, so my reaction took pause.

Me: First of all...... I would not qualify to live in the projects.

Ex IB: Are you sure?

Me: I AM POSITIVE!

Ex IB: I don't know....

Me: I do!

Ex IB: I don't see how these people could make less than you!

Me: THESE PEOPLE WORK AT MCDONALDS!

Ex IB: Well let's say you could.. you should then...

Me: You'd reaaaaally be alright with sending me home to the projects tonight?

Ex IB: Sure! Why not!

Me: What? Do you want someone to harass me or rape me.

Ex IB: Helen, people aren't raped just because it's the projects..

Me: So, me, little 5'2 me is going to walk into the projects in my green JCrew coat and my headbands and the people who live there will just be cool with it?

Ex IB: I don't see why not.



Ex IB thinks that my current apartment's heating system is antiquated and that the apartment generally lacks conveniences and so he rarely comes to my place. He is currently looking for an apartment for himself and disgregards any that do not have a dishwasher.


He's never going to visit me in the projects.

Since I've Been Gone

* A relative got married.
* A friend got a puppy.
* A friend got a big promotion with a fancy new title and paycheck.
* A friend had a baby.
* A friend's song finished out the season finale of 'Grey's Anatomy.'
* A friend bought a house in the suburbs.
* I bought a dress from Anthropologie that I suspect was mistakenly marked from $128.00 to $29.99 since all of the other same dresses were not marked down that much!

In other me related news.....

*I went through the interviewing process. I got turned down by a very close to the 'job of my dreams' job. I got a few second interviews to a few extremely far from the 'job of my dreams' jobs and turned them down. I got a not 'job of my dreams' but job that could hopefully lead to the 'job of my dreams' job and took it.

*I made myself sick with nerves when faced with the need to give my boss 2 weeks notice. My friends called me nuts and told me my bosses would be happy that I was leaving that dead end job. I subsequently walked into my favorite bosses office, gave him the news and he turned away groaning, "UGH. This isn't good." He slammed a pen on his desk and returned to the stack papers he had been looking at, now shaking his head, grinding his teeth, and everyone once in a while grunting, "Uggggghhhh!" I tiptoed out of his office without any well wishes.

* My other boss threw a going away party for me- an abnormality for an administrative assistant, nevermind one with just a year at the company. A big wig in our company somehow found out and attended, which resulted in people believing they understood the abnormality and thus sending me off with a rumor that I wasn't as innocent as I looked.

*I started the new job only to realize that I am not dealing with the classiest of content. Several embarrasing meeting ensue, the last one being yesterday, when, after stuttering a bit and turning a red, a colleague of mine felt the need to help me out by offering, "the term is 'flacid.'"


Also....

...One rainy Sunday afternoon Ex-IB were in his apt watching a movie when the sounds of explosions interrupted us.... we didn't flinch until we realized that his apartment smelled like burning. A peek out the window led us to a trip outside which led us to the news that potholes were exploding in front of his building, one blowing up a car.

....Some sort of scaffolding fell from my work building crashing into windows, breaking the windows and falling to the ground on the side of my work building, mangling a telephone poll.

....A 26 year old woman in Midtown fell through the grating on the street, surprisingly it wasn't me.

In family news...

--My mom emailed me in regards to an expiring bond I had, asking if she should again tie it up for 5 years. Before mentioning the actual issue at hand though, my mom left me a message that went like this "Hey Hel, hope you're having a good week, if you could give me a call that'd be great, I just wanted to catch up with my favorite girl and see what's been up.. oh.. also do you think you're going to be getting married in the next 5 years, no rush, just tell me by Friday."

--My mom emailed me before my cousin's wedding, "Remember when I showed you what I was going to wear? I think it's too mother-of-the bridesy, but I LOVE it so if you could tell me before I return it if you are going to get married in the next 2 years that would be great. "

I actively ignored these two messages.

--I went to my cousin's wedding. I stood in the back with my brother's girlfriend as the bouquet was being tossed and was warned by another bridesmaid that she may "push [us] out of the way" if need be. We backed up further and struck up a conversation. The conversation came to a halt when a half dozen tightly packed stems of roses were hurled directly in my face. I put my hand up directly in front of my face promptly catching them. Due to her reaction at the time I suspect that my mom has taken this as a sign, and secretly taken the money out of the bond and thrown out the receipt for the outfit.

Sometimes I see homeless people hanging around delis, scrounging for food, waiting for a generous soul to grab an extra sandwich for them upon leaving the deli.

This morning upon opening the door leaving the gym, there was a homeless man feet away from me doing push ups rather rigorously on laid out newspaper.

And had I won last week's lottery- that guy would have had a brand new membership to NYSC this morning.

Midtown Mid Day Mid Seizure

I am a proud creative mind behind my lunch salads.

Lunch salads, I think, are SO important because if you do not have breakfast, they must satisfy your morning and afternoon hunger. They are also important because they must be exciting for me because otherwise I will fall asleep at my desk:

In the morning: Because I will not have something to brainstorm
At lunch: Because I need flavor! And variety!
Afterwards: Because I need to be full as not to snack or eat so early upon returning home that I regret the loss of an opportunity to cook.

Lunch salads are VERY different than Dinner salads, which, I have been trying to explain to Ex-IB, but he cannot deal with arugula lightly dressed with lemon, olive oil and sea salt sitting next to, waiting to compliment, his main course. I would understand his need for 'stuff' in his salad if I was trying to pass off that dressed arugula as a lunch salad, but for dinner the heartiness comes elsewhere.

With lunch salads there needs to be a combination. A complimentary combination. There are decisions to make and a level of hunger to consider and the genius often comes off the cuff- but so do the mistakes. When I threw water chestnuts in with mandarin oranges, I blundered. Asparagus/ bacon/ egg white/ artichoke and parmesan- I had to walk away from it at my desk and take a breather: what good fortune! I did not experiment with drugs growing up, so now I experiment with lettuce/vegetable/cheese combinations.

*There's of course the beet/ goat cheese/ sometimes mushrooms or hearts of palm in a balsamic
*The really good but over done spinach/ cranberries/ walnuts/ blue cheese
*The indulgent mandarin orange/wonton/ tofu or chicken in an oriental dressing
*The corn/ tomato/ steak/ blue cheese
*The mexicanish corn/ tomato/ avocado/ cheddar/ jalepeno/ lime
*The greekish chick pea/ feta/ cucumber with lemon juice/ vinegar/ Olive Oil
*The Pre- dinner at a restaurant heart of palm/ artichoke/portobello/ lemon herb vinaigrette

This morning I was feeling greekish. The woman in line in front of me was feeling, I hope, either pregnant or high.

She started with mesculan greens. Then announced, "tuna." (Which is my worst enemy- do not come near me with that shit. But I kept my cool. Some fools like it. And if she stopped there, or added scallions or tomato I wouldn't have scoffed too much. I wouldn't have kissed her or gone near her, but I would have accepted the situation.)

"Tomatoes"

Like I said...

"Do you have pickles?"

I perked up- WTF, for real? Please say on the side at least.
"Ok, then pickles and croutons....

(It was at this point I started taking notes.)

".....cheddar....in a..."

In a? You need a dressing now?!?!?!?! There isn't enough moisture from the tuna, tomatoes and the pickle juice?!?!?!? Please don't do anything increasingly dumb....

"Raspberry vinaigrette."

And then I died because I was breathing in too much canned fish and stupidity.

The Reason I Didn't Sleep in My Own Bed Friday Night: Because I was chased off the subway platform by a man chasing a rat with chicken.

I could tell you the story but that's the most important infomation. Except this question that my friend's boyfriend asked after coming home to their Brooklyn Heights apartment, where I stayed, and being given the above explanation.

He seemed unfased but curious--

"Wait, what kind of chicken?"

So for the record- it was takeout chicken.

Thank you for a little bit of a raise would you like to see a little bit of cleavage?

Today was my SURPRISE End of Year Review! Surprise because they accidentally scheduled this review with another Helen Green who works here, so I only found out about it immediately before. Needless to say- I did not come to work exactly review ready. NOT needless to say that although in some ways I disregard this job, I do in fact want to keep it till I get ANOTHER job AND I do NOT like to be ill prepared.

But I showed up ill prepared because I was not dressed in 'review wear'- I was instead wearing a very cute, although low cut jumper with a floppy bow above the waist, footless tights, heels and cardigan. Ponytail in hair. Honestly, I can't take credit for the adorable look- I saw Rachel Bilson wearing it on the cover of Teen Vogue a few months ago and thought, 'I gotta recreate it!' So here I am all (cross your fingers) Rachel Bilsonish sitting in my cube, Valentine's Day Roses to my left, jeans in a dry cleaning bag hanging behind me, illegal cubicle warmer at the bottom of my chair where my feet should be except I'm sitting sort of Indian style, Grande Skim Cap in hand, flipping through a journal looking book that says 'Lucky Duck' on the cover, gabbing on the phone having a conversation that may or may not have gone like this,

"Ohmigod so you just bailed on them?! (I swivel around in my chair) ........... yeah seriously, whatever, F them..........you should totally get wasted on their dime!"

I could have been in a dorm room. OK honestly, I could have been in my high school bedroom.

The older of the other two assistants came over and loudly whispered, "did you SEE her, she's ON THE FLOOR!" and if I had paid attention or asked for an explanation she would have told me that it was the HR woman perusing our work space before reviews, but instead, I was all,

"UGH I'm on the phone with my friend, who's having a crisis!" then I swung around on my chair and was like, "my roommate says that that was even worse than 'Because I Said So!'........... No! Seriously!"

(Exaggerating about my demeanor? Perhaps I am- but only because I am not a bitch, I was polite when the older admin came over. I was like "1 minute," pointed to phone, "upset friend" and then I made a sad face and THEN I was like "that movie is supposed to be TERRIBLE!")

So when I finally got off the phone and the younger of the admin assistants came over to inform me of the blunder with the other Helen Green recieving my meeting planner, I was all, "I didn't know! I wouldn’t have dressed like this!"

"Yeah...." she seemed to agree, "You should make sure to have REALLY good posture in this meeting."

I looked down. This morning while dressing I had thought, 'Why do I always wear this jumper with a shirt underneath it? That's silly... Rachel Bilson didn't do that!' But NOW I remember why! UGH. I am not used to having cleavage! I have gained a few pounds from having a boring desk job and they seem to have gone to mostly the right places. I am not impressed with boobs. I hope they go away now that I've decided not to continue to snack at my desk for boredoms sake.

Anyway, despite the fact that I am looking for a new job, that I could do this job with my eyes closed, the fact that my bosses regularly vocalize their appreciation of me, and the fact that I do not plan to make a career as an admin assistant, I was a little nervous going to the meeting. I had made a mockery of my cubicle! I like awkward situations but I do not like awkward situations when I'm the one feeling awkward and I was afraid she'd be screaming at me, "You look like your going to sorority rush!" and then maybe she'd bring up, "What's with this theme in your blog about not wanting to marry an investment banker- that is NOT team spirit! You should be proud to potential share a life with a member of this team!" Because 'Team Spirit' is BIG in these meetings!

I buttoned the top 3 buttons on my cardigan, which looked very silly with the floppy bow and walked into the room slipping into Interview-Mode Helen with every step. HR lady was VERY professional. (I bet she's never taken her dry cleaning to work!) Kept speaking about the standards we have here and how she was going to give me feedback from both my bosses AND from her liaison from the floor. (Sneaky- a liason!) This woman was thoroughly schooled in the art of Human Resource speak. Suddenly I felt like this job was the be all end all job. I apparently hold a VERY important position here- which.. I never even knew! But OMG! I am so 'vital' to the 'team' and my 'performance' is 'crucial' to 'ensure smooth goings on.'

Me!

Before giving me the feedback though, she looked from the papers to me and said, "Well, it seems we have quite a theme with your feedback, and that theme centers around your modicum of professionalism."

SHIT. I buttoned a fourth button.

She looked at the papers and read off, "Helen is the epitome of professionalism..... .. next one says: Multiple clients have commented on Helen's combination of friendliness without losing her professionalism... Helen is the most efficient and professional Administrative Assistant I have ever had." I blushed. Both because I do not take compliments very well and also because I felt like my bosses and I were having an inside joke where they lied about me because they like me.

But then, after the slew of lovely comments she said, "And now onto the areas where you could develop on." OH. Here we go. What was I gonna hear?:

• "Keep your boobs to yourself Green!"
• "Next year Helen should not get so drunk at the holiday party to the point where she trips and bites her lip, enflamming it."
• "I wish Helen hadn’t accused me of vague sexual harassment on her blog."
• "Helen has several inane phone conversations with her boyfriend a day where she just continually says, "No YOU shut up...." and then giggles."
• "Helen once wore a see through black skirt to the office with a thong. But in her defense she obviously realized this and went shopping for a new skirt at lunch."

She spoke "Actually there's really not much here... oh.. "Helen is much more intelligent than the other administrative assistants and could definitely do a job more difficult."* There was awkward pause after she read that.

The HR woman looked up and took off her glasses, "Well... I'm sure you can be proactive amongst your group of admins and take a position of leadership." Silence. Awkward. I was going to suggest perhaps a monthly birthday party, but I don't think that's what the writer of the comment meant.

I think one of my bosses was insuating that I should quit in an, 'if you were my daughter,' sort of way, "Move On, kiddo!" "Get a real job, sweetheart," "Hel, you're gaining weight and losing brain cells! Come on now!"

And I have to say, me and my cleavage agree.

* I am not a braggart. This is not a feat.

My Work Here is Done

Last Saturday afternoon I was sitting in Ex-IBs living room doing something on his computer and upon finishing, noticed he was no longer in the same room. I walked down the hallway to find him laying in his bed watching Giada on "Everyday Italian."