2012 April — Unapologetically Mundane

Monthly Archives: April 2012

Unused

Posted by katie ett on April 27, 2012 – 12:00 pm

Filed under too much information
Tagged as too much information

I don’t use things. I collect them. Buy me a maple bacon lollipop, and I’ll display it on my bookcase for years, waiting for the right time to enjoy it. Buy me robot window clings, which are meant to be used and reused, and I’ll hang them with clear tape to avoid removing the backing until I find the perfect thing to put them on. Buy me a copy of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and I’ll get another copy from the library just so I don’t accidentally bend the spine of mine.

And the things I’m forced to use, I cover meticulously like so many old ladies with their plastic couches. My Kindle, which I’ve owned for more than two years, has nary a scratch thanks to its thick purple leather case. My iPod, which I’ve owned for more than five years, still had the original protective sheet over the front until I had a momentary lapse of reason late last year and pulled it off. I have fabric book covers for my hardcover books, filters to protect all of my lenses, bags for my not-expensive shoes. I buy new clothes but never wear them. I buy fancy lotions but never use them. I didn’t touch my new comforter for the first nine months I lived in my current apartment.

And I realize it doesn’t have to be this way! I see people with their Kindles case-free, one hand fitting neatly around the unencumbered devices, so easily able to hold them up without wanting to rest them on the crotches of the people standing in front of them on the subway. I see people who know that scratches don’t affect the function of their iPods and who don’t want to diiiiiiiiiie when they drop them on the ground. I know people who wear out clothes and comforters and shoes and just buy new ones. And I kind of want to be that way.

But I’ll tell you this. The one time I went crazy and bought a sticker headboard for my bed at my last apartment and actually used it . . .

. . . we moved out three months later, and I had to rip it off and throw it out.

The Passive-Aggressive Patron of Seats

Posted by katie ett on April 26, 2012 – 11:30 am

Filed under funner times on the bus
Tagged as funner times on the bus

The following is an except from today’s Examiner.com post, which I admittedly only wrote because they threatened to give my column to someone else if I didn’t produce. But all of the great things are born of desperation, right? Like Weezer’s “Pork and Beans”, Gwen Stefani’s “What You Waiting For?”, or Rilo Kiley’s “It’s a Hit”. Okay, I have no idea if those last two were actually born of desperation at all, but the lyrics semi seem like it. Anyway, I kind of ended up liking this article, anyway.

A girl standing in front of me accidentally slapped my magazine and apologized. A boy scooting past me accidentally hit my knee and apologized. The woman next to me jabbed me with her elbow and apologized. Everyone was trying to maintain civility in the face of potential meltdown. Except for the person who had the most to apologize for, of course. She had a suitcase with her, which is annoying on the slowest of transportation days and outright repugnant on the busiest. So she was lurching that thing around at every stop as people asked her to move through clenched teeth. She stepped on my toes. She smacked me in the face with her Longchamp knockoff bag. She fell into my lap. She didn’t apologize. And I’m completely understanding of the fact that a crowded bus sometimes force you to touch people in ways you’d really prefer not to, but even when it’s not your fault, you have to apologize. It’s the only thing that separates us from the animals, other than our desire for designer knockoff bags.

Read the rest here!

Winning Your Love with Puppy Pictures

Posted by katie ett on April 24, 2012 – 10:00 am

Filed under just pictures, super furry animals
Tagged as baby bulldog, bulldog puppy, japanese spitz, just pictures, super furry animals

Since Kamran spends all day sending me photos from the Aww subsection of Reddit, I decided to take some of my own puppy pictures while we were out walking this weekend.

Bulldogs (especially French bulldogs) are my absolute favourites, so we followed this waddling little fella for a few blocks before he stopped for a rest and I had a chance to ask him to pose. I swear his owners said he was named Rudy, but when I repeated that, they said, “No, Fruity.” But Kamran says they actually said Ruby. So maybe he is a she. I’m calling him or her a combination of all three names: Fruby.

We met Kodak outside of our grocery store on the way home, and though he looks adorable, Kodak was viciously barking at my camera like crazy, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to his owners much. He’s a Japanese dog, right? Maybe a Japanese Spitz?

Now go Like my Ettible Photography Facebook Page for many, many more!

j/k, there aren’t any more. I’m sorry I tricked you. But please go Like it anyway, thx.

My Weekend in Not-Pictures

Posted by katie ett on April 17, 2012 – 2:45 pm

Filed under living in new york is neat
Tagged as living in new york is neat

On Friday night, Kamran and I went to a restaurant that I spent all day maligning and all night half-maligning and half wanting-to-exclaim-openly-and-not-quietly-about. Only everyone around us was actually doing just that, and it seemed so ungainly to me. It’s funny to see your own awful qualities reflected in other people, right? A few years ago, I would’ve been the one calling out to the chef about how good the food was to earn his favor. I would’ve been trying to crack jokes to make all of the other diners like me like I used to in all of my college classes. I wouldn’t have loudly mistaken the green onion for bok choy, though.

Since the restaurant is across the street from my apartment, Kamran was practically forced to spend the night at my apartment for the first time since I moved in last January. We ate Cadbury Creme Eggs and one of my 1000-calorie Reese’s eggs while watching Boogie Nights, since my roommate had ordered HBO that day, and Kamran finally stopped mentioning the possibility of taking a cab back to his place around 2 a.m. The next morning, we ate banh mi and drank bubble tea and watched The Breakfast Club and played Call of Duty and had the kind of day that people all across Brooklyn were probably having at that exact moment.

That night, we met our friends Nik and Marko and my roommate, Jack, at Yuka for all-you-can-eat sushi on the Upper East Side and ate all we could. Including hand rolls with shiso and plum and fermented soybeans. We walked past the giant building-high white structures the MTA is constructing over 2nd Avenue as they complete the new 2nd Avenue subway line on our way to Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins, where I got a scoop of ice cream called Icing on the Cake that had sprinkles and the consistency and flavor of vanilla frosting. AMAZING. I also got a cream-filled, not custard-filled donut. Those things are hard to find, you know. Which is ridiculous, because cream is obviously superior. We took our treats to a platform over the East River and watched boats drive by without their lights on and then went home to do laundry, because we are responsible.

On Sunday, we went clothes shopping for Kamran and bought matching hoodies even though it’s now regularly 70 degrees or more. We brought Milky Ways and wasabi peas to our park to stare at the haunted house and the puppies and the homeless guy who was very conspicuously hiding a backpack under the stairs to the street overpass. But we didn’t call the cops. We bought French bread and a creamy Reblochon and covered them with honey and watched X-Files and Celebrity Apprentice and couldn’t fall asleep until after midnight.

non-Instagrammed photo by Jack

And then Kim came over last night for Game of Thrones and brought a Cadbury Twisted candy bar for me from the British candy store that of course exists in Manhattan. I found out about this bar when British Mel left me a comment about them but warned that she and all her SPOILED, ROTTEN, UNAPPRECIATIVE (j/k, j/k) friends agree that the creme-to-chocolate ratio is wrong. I can see what they’re saying, because yeah, there’s a LOT more chocolate in the bar than in a Cadbury Creme Egg, and unlike the thin shell on the Egg, the shell of the bar is really thick. And amazing. And I need more. But I could never replace the Eggs with the bar completely.

And if I didn’t have a BlackBerry, I would have Instagrammed all of this.