the smack factor

I am sitting at Cafe Brama, my old unemployment haunt, sort of sweating in my jeans. I chose jeans because I was expecting typical NYC over-air conditioned ness, but discovered that they’ve blown the doors open and, while it’s hot out, there is a lovely breeze blowing up, either from the passing cars or the actual wind itself. I’d be so comfy in my dress (that Factor said he’s going to start calling my muumuu because I wear it every day), but i’ll power through. I am happy because I don’t have an event to go to tonight, work is still really good (except for a view minor deals, which are still funny in their own way), the weather is hot but delightful, and I get to work on my own photos for once AND write in the smackfactor!! See, I am so happy. I can’t help it, I’m nerdy, and I miss you guys. So what’s going on? doyou really want to know?

I’ve been all over this town, from 135th to Orchard and Grand. Let’s give you some bullets — do you miss my bullets? I miss my bullets!

• I found a new waxer! I used to go to Eve, but I’m not so much into the conversation, just get me back to my 12 year old crotchy self. So I saw an ad for Valley on the Lower East Side. I wandered there one day after work - before heading to Redbank in anticipation of vacation nook nook - and it was the best walk. I had to wade through the sideroads of China town, which also means I got to see all those crazy fishes on display. I walked right into a green milky road puddle and my toe was submerged in what could only be fish innards mixed with rat barf and toddler honk. Am I right? Probably. Have you ever had your eyebrows threaded? Yeah, it’s weird. It’s weirder when your waxer says “wow, you have very stubborn hair, I will use the thread.” I actually became blind and sweaty with anger pain and swatted her away and said “I THINK WE’RE DONE WITH THAT!” She’s amazing, and sweet, and I will be back for more pain. Also, I waxed my entire face - and if any of you are shy about your stupid fuzz - to the point of being too shy to even ask the lady to get rid of it — just do it, I’m sooooo much more confident of keeping my head up and knowing no one is looking at my fuzzies.
• Technology is a funny thing. Small companies are funny things. I caught myself saying today that “If this happened at IBM, the shit would hit the fan” and “this would never fly at IBM”. I mean, i used to work in a small group. We had a website. We hosted other internal facing projects on the site. We were NOT customer facing. NO ONE outside IBM saw the site - but if it went down for even 20 minutes it was like someone caught us clubbing a bag of babies. we would get our asses handed to us and our dedication to the team, to the org, to LIFE AS HUMANS would be called into question. Where I work now, we had a major outage yesterday and like 20 minutes today… and I lost my shit. I went IBM all over the place. How could they let this… a revenue generating site… columns that go out to people who actually use the word “love” when they describe the site and company… how is this acceptable. I lost my shit. It was so dumb. And then now, as I sit here typing this, I realize how overdramatic the OTHER place was — and how I totally reverted to that panic today. It was a really weird day and way for me to be overall.
• The other day Factor and I ate at Kampuchea, and it was delicious. I said to him, “All I want is for one day for you and I to be eating outside and have someone come up to me and say ‘aren’t you [chauncey mckracken] who writes [The McKracken Chronicles]?”. The next day I got an email that said “hey, I don’t mean to sound like a stalker, but were you eating at Kampuchea last night?” Yeah. Life is really fucking weird right now.

Anyway — thanks to my buddy over at Penis in a rowboat, Factor and I went to Redbank, NJ. Which deserves its own post. And PIAR - do NOT feel guilty at all for anything that happened while we were there.

Curious now?