January 29, 1999
I lead a dual life.
Most of my days and nights are spent in New York City, but I am a born-and-bred suburbanite, and I occasionally revert to my old haunts and social circles.
This weekend I'm leaving Manhattan for sunny Essex County, where I'm running errands all day Saturday. I am driving back to New York for Saturday evening, and sleeping in my apartment before crossing the Hudson once more for a Super Bowl party in Morristown Sunday evening.
Sunday night I'm sleeping in New Jersey -- bless Mom and Dad for leaving my old bedroom alone -- and resorting to a 90-minute commute to work Monday morning.
Living in the city is great, but man! what a shlep it is sometimes.
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And on another note, a great quote from Jim Romenesko on The Obscure Store re the Yahoo/Geocities deal:
"Annoying pop-up ads, the dumb watermark, millions of terrible Web pages that aren't maintained and get about a visitor a year. That's GeoCities -- oh, what a deal!"
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January 28, 1999
Some things are too personal to post. (Sorry, Michelle.)
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January 24, 1999
I saw my long-lost friend Sara this weekend.
This is only the third time I've seen her in, oh, eleven years, so it was a little strange, a little awkward, and a lot wonderful.
She asked me why I insist on getting together from time to time, since we're pen pals more than anything else. To me, the meeting -- sharing a smile, hugging hello -- is everything. The physical reality is what a pen pal is about, isn't it? We're not talking about a senior citizen in Cincinnati who I wrote to when I was in third grade; this is an old friend, a connection to beautiful, faded memories.
Whatever the reasons, I had a great time. Maintaining my friendship with Sara after all these years makes me feel good. It's nice to know that hundreds of miles away, far from our daily consciousness, someone remembers, someone cares.
Don't you have someone like that?
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January 19, 1999
My phrase of the month -- I tend to find a word, or a term, or a phrase, that gets stuck in my vocabulary for a while -- is "fortuitous timing."
As I look at the ol' Webster's (I know, a good writer never relies on definitions, sorry), I see that fortuitous means "lucky : fortunate," with the following usage note: "Fortuitous in the sense of 'happening by chance' occurs commonly in context carrying an implication of lucky rather than unlucky chance, as in 'a fortuitous meeting that led to a renewal of our friendship.'"
Hence, fortuitous timing, like when I was looking for a parking spot Saturday and came upon a man climbing into his Jeep not far from my apartment.
I have no idea how I got stuck saying this all the time, or how I first heard it. What I am noticing is how often I can use the phrase.
What I'm trying to figure out now is the statute of limitations on fortuitous timing. I wonder whether things that happened to me this weekend are a sign of things to come, if there really is something behind their occurrences, as things have gone for me lately.
Then again, maybe it's all just chance.
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January 13, 1999
I'm bored.
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January 8, 1999
From the It's The Little Things In Life That Amuse Me Dept.:
I work on the 15th floor of a high-rise in Manhattan with huge, wonderful plate glass windows behind my desk. We get to see great sunsets, ships in the Hudson, and all the assorted changes in the weather.
It's snowing today, and thanks to the swirling midtown winds, snowflakes are actually rising past my windows. They go left, right, down, and around, but I derive significant amusement from watching it snow up.
Call me observant, call me shallow. I just think it's cool.
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January 4, 1999
Watching bits and pieces of the Fiesta Bowl on TV, mainly to savor the last live broadcast by the great Keith Jackson.
I'm looking at the field, and man, that's a big logo at midfield. TOSTITOS FIESTA BOWL. The logo is 21 yards long! The tips of the left and right sides pass either 40 yard line on what is supposed to be an image at midfield.
I noticed a similarly huge logo for "Wild Card Weekend" during the New England-Jacksonville NFL playoff game Sunday. At this rate, in five years players are going to have a hard time figuring out what yard they're on.
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