I had my first day of work today. Phew. I feel beaten. But I think it went pretty well. It's funny to feel so on the spot. And yet at the same time I'm the boss and they're on the spot.
I wish there was something more erudite, more profound, hell, even plain old coherent I could say. But I'm wiped. Slump.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Bagel quest!
It's a Sunday. What more could a person want than a bagel? (This also applies to other days of the week.)
I've been hunting around for the word about bagels. Here's what I've come up with.
Bialy's (as mentioned before):
Recommended by an ex-New Yorker, a law partner named Barbara.
Reviews
Map
Unger's:
Recommended by a historian of Eastern European Jewry.
Map
An apparently unrelated but cool Cleveland Unger
A place to poke about: Frum Cleveland. Maybe that'll turn up some pickles.
I've been hunting around for the word about bagels. Here's what I've come up with.
Bialy's (as mentioned before):
Recommended by an ex-New Yorker, a law partner named Barbara.
Reviews
Map
Unger's:
Recommended by a historian of Eastern European Jewry.
Map
An apparently unrelated but cool Cleveland Unger
A place to poke about: Frum Cleveland. Maybe that'll turn up some pickles.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Friends & a Fudgie
I have some kick-ass friends.
Plus today I was inadvertently reminded of how in college I went to a 99 cent store with a certain other party and bought frizzy weave hair in big bunches. We wore them around campus in only the finest of styles.
Also I have some leads on bagels in this town. Apparently there is an orthodox neighborhood and two recommended shops. One is called Bialy's. That's promising.
And I have a Fudgie! Fudgie the whale is the best whale ever.
Go Ohio Carvel! Much moreso, go awesome pals.
Plus today I was inadvertently reminded of how in college I went to a 99 cent store with a certain other party and bought frizzy weave hair in big bunches. We wore them around campus in only the finest of styles.
Also I have some leads on bagels in this town. Apparently there is an orthodox neighborhood and two recommended shops. One is called Bialy's. That's promising.
And I have a Fudgie! Fudgie the whale is the best whale ever.
Go Ohio Carvel! Much moreso, go awesome pals.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Observed around town
-By the side of a highway, I spotted a sign that advertised the Brooklyn Tractor Company. Eek! So absurdly wrong.
-An anti-abortion billboard that said "womb with a view." Set aside the fact that that is a heinous pun about a uterus. You can rest assured that the authors of said pun have never read E.M. Forster. To boil it down, "A Room with a View" is a story about how a girl goes on vacation and chucks propriety aside to get in the pants of a hot lower class dude. Someone named Honeychurch elopes to Florence to hump the wrong guy. Oops, anti-abortionists. Better work on that literacy.
-I saw someone attempting to parallel park. This person clearly had never done so before. This person was dropping her kid off at college. Jaysus.
On the good side:
-I heard "Passing Complexion" by Big Black on the radio.
-An anti-abortion billboard that said "womb with a view." Set aside the fact that that is a heinous pun about a uterus. You can rest assured that the authors of said pun have never read E.M. Forster. To boil it down, "A Room with a View" is a story about how a girl goes on vacation and chucks propriety aside to get in the pants of a hot lower class dude. Someone named Honeychurch elopes to Florence to hump the wrong guy. Oops, anti-abortionists. Better work on that literacy.
-I saw someone attempting to parallel park. This person clearly had never done so before. This person was dropping her kid off at college. Jaysus.
On the good side:
-I heard "Passing Complexion" by Big Black on the radio.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Clevelanding
I drove the moving truck into Cleveland this morning after midnight.
At best, the giant truck seemed unnavigable. I lurched down the highway, attempting not to sideswipe anybody (with success, although I did scrape the back tire rim on a toll booth. Classy.) In Cleveland, the streets got unruly too. They started to be either potholed or torn up to fix potholes.
I drove through some pretty profound ghetto the likes of which I haven't seen too many times. (For reference: outside my high school I saw tires on fire in the street. I regularly saw crack vials.) There were abundant boarded-up and decaying houses and storefront churches and check cashing places. There were bars surrounded by late-night smokers forced outside by a smoking ban. All the bar patrons were black. Sometimes the houses gave way to nothing. Just empty lots with tall grass. In Chicago this kind of empty lot used to be called a prairie, but now they've been pretty well gentrified out of existence. Not so in Cleveland. The city also seems to be as profoundly segregated as Chicago. Maybe moreso. That's really saying something.
All of a sudden, the torn up streets and burned-out houses gave way to spectacular parks, museums, monuments to wealth and its culture. That was the destination.
Dropping off the truck today, I drove an easy walking distance away from the new apartment. On one block, grand brick houses. The next, a yuppie-ish condo building renovated from a turn-of-the-century building. On that same block, though, boarded up buildings and the ruins of a corner store with hand-painted ads for popsicles and beer. You could see the sunlight straight through the drooping ceiling and broken glass windows.
The guy at the truck drop-off ran a tire repair shop. On the phone I heard him say his name was Jay. He was wearing a wife beater and a do-rag and his front tooth was missing. He was sucking down menthols. He also voiced his disgust with the inventory practices of the trucking company and made several phone calls in which he instructed the truck company people how to navigate their software. He seemed irritated that he had to be dealing with that instead of fixing some tires. He also yelled about how Herbert, his apparent coworker, had moved the boxes of oil. A toothless old dude called Pop came in and out.
Outside, a woman was playing a real piano and singing hymns on the street corner. A congregation of two young girls attended.
This town is going to be pretty fascinating, I'm guessing.
A meta note: I intend to post a lot of photos here, but I'm surrounded by an outlandish number of boxes and I have to find my camera. I'm also a little shy about taking pictures of people and of being a white social tourist. So what, though? Blog photos will be starting up soon.
At best, the giant truck seemed unnavigable. I lurched down the highway, attempting not to sideswipe anybody (with success, although I did scrape the back tire rim on a toll booth. Classy.) In Cleveland, the streets got unruly too. They started to be either potholed or torn up to fix potholes.
I drove through some pretty profound ghetto the likes of which I haven't seen too many times. (For reference: outside my high school I saw tires on fire in the street. I regularly saw crack vials.) There were abundant boarded-up and decaying houses and storefront churches and check cashing places. There were bars surrounded by late-night smokers forced outside by a smoking ban. All the bar patrons were black. Sometimes the houses gave way to nothing. Just empty lots with tall grass. In Chicago this kind of empty lot used to be called a prairie, but now they've been pretty well gentrified out of existence. Not so in Cleveland. The city also seems to be as profoundly segregated as Chicago. Maybe moreso. That's really saying something.
All of a sudden, the torn up streets and burned-out houses gave way to spectacular parks, museums, monuments to wealth and its culture. That was the destination.
Dropping off the truck today, I drove an easy walking distance away from the new apartment. On one block, grand brick houses. The next, a yuppie-ish condo building renovated from a turn-of-the-century building. On that same block, though, boarded up buildings and the ruins of a corner store with hand-painted ads for popsicles and beer. You could see the sunlight straight through the drooping ceiling and broken glass windows.
The guy at the truck drop-off ran a tire repair shop. On the phone I heard him say his name was Jay. He was wearing a wife beater and a do-rag and his front tooth was missing. He was sucking down menthols. He also voiced his disgust with the inventory practices of the trucking company and made several phone calls in which he instructed the truck company people how to navigate their software. He seemed irritated that he had to be dealing with that instead of fixing some tires. He also yelled about how Herbert, his apparent coworker, had moved the boxes of oil. A toothless old dude called Pop came in and out.
Outside, a woman was playing a real piano and singing hymns on the street corner. A congregation of two young girls attended.
This town is going to be pretty fascinating, I'm guessing.
A meta note: I intend to post a lot of photos here, but I'm surrounded by an outlandish number of boxes and I have to find my camera. I'm also a little shy about taking pictures of people and of being a white social tourist. So what, though? Blog photos will be starting up soon.
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