Unapologetically Mundane

Adventure Time with Kat and Kam: The New York Public Library’s Main Branch

Posted by katie ett on May 9, 2012 – 12:00 pm

Filed under adventure time, just pictures, living in new york is neat, readin' and writin'

The Main Library of the New York Public Library system is located approximately 3.5 steps from Kamran’s front door. A door that he has lived behind for approximately six years. And yet up until a couple of weeks ago, he’d never been there. Truth be told, I’d only been there once to pick something up, was confounded by the long empty marble hallways, ended up in the children’s section in the basement somewhere, ran away, and decided to go back to being illiterate.

But with Kamran in tow, I tried again, because I needed to renew my library card in order to be allowed to download ebooks from the library website so that I can not only continue being cheap and not buying books but also so I can continue being lazy and doing everything from my computer.

In short, Kamran was astounded at how beautiful and interesting the place was, and I was astounded that I don’t own a piece of artwork with a pooping donkey on it.

one of the long, empty, echoing, marble hallways

the map room, haunted by the reflection from my camera’s UV filter

eerily glowing LEGO lion

Kamran, the bronzed glamour boy

NERDS!

reminds me of something out of “Boardwalk Empire”

pooping donkey artwork!

Kamran, thinking he was really cheesing it up for the camera but basically looking like normal person

Kamran’s usual facial expression

Summers in NYC are so stifling (I know it’s bad wherever you are, but we don’t have air-conditioned cars, so can it) that we sometimes find ourselves just wanting to stay indoors for five solid months. Now that we know we love the library, we’re going to spend all of August with our cheeks pressed to the cold marble floor, copies of Don Juan and Dandelion Wine splayed out beside us.

At the Moment

Posted by katie ett on May 7, 2012 – 10:30 am

Filed under bigtime celebrity

My favourite things of the moment are featured in a beautiful layout by Lisa of Elembee today! Here’s a little taste:

See me talk about things I’m “crushing on” and what’s on my “bucket list” and other words only Lisa could coax me into using.

Do You See?

Posted by katie ett on May 2, 2012 – 12:00 pm

Filed under living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality

This morning, a woman ambled out of the bus and onto the sidewalk in front of me without checking to make sure she wasn’t cutting anyone off. I wasn’t in a hurry, but she was walking so-o-o-o-o-o slowly that I couldn’t bear to match her snailish pace. She walked in the middle of the sidewalk, though, not leaving room to pass her on either side. Just as I was stepping off the sidewalk and into the street to get around her, she decided to cross right in the middle of the street, cutting me off again. I was like, “Ohhhhh, no,” and excused myself as I sped around her, hoping she’d notice what a dick she was being but realizing she probably wouldn’t.

And I realized then that that’s the thing I really hate about New York. I can deal with tiny apartments that cost twice what whole houses do elsewhere, and it’s worth it to have to brave subway altercations to not have to drive anywhere, and I’ve learned to cope with having to shop at three different grocery stores because a single one isn’t big enough to carry everything I need.

But I can’t stand feeling like I’m invisible. When that woman stepped in front of me not once but twice, I wanted to yell at her, “DO YOU SEE ME?” When I’m crossing in front of someone and she’s crossing in front of me, and I hang back a second and let her go ahead because she’s wearing some five-inch heels and I realize that my life is much better than hers, and she doesn’t acknowledge me, I want to yell at her, “DO YOU SEE ME?” Or when everyone is waiting in a line to go up the stairs from the subway platform, and one guy comes from the back and cuts right in front of me, I want to tap him on the shoulder and yell at him, “DO YOU SEE ME?”

It’s like the episode of “South Park”, a riff on the movie Manhunter, where the killer ties Cartman to a chair, Clockwork Orange style, and shows the boy a projector slideshow so Cartman can see “all the things he has done”. You think the killer means all of the murders he’s committed, but the slides are all of the man at the Grand Canyon, at Niagara Falls. “DO YOU SEE?” the killer asks as each slide is displayed.

Because my being invisible has to be the reason for these crimes against humanity, right? The only other explanation is that these people somehow think they’re more important than I am, that they have somewhere more pressing to be. And maybe this is why people get mean living here. How many times can someone step in front of you just as the train arrives before you start doing it back?

Unused

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

Filed under 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

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!