I'm re-acquainting myself with the world as it is at five a.m. It's been since design school all-nighters since we were at all familiar with eachother. It's like I'm being (unpleasantly) reborn into the early morning world, as a function of this foreign concept called insomnia, and the disorienting nightmares that accompany the associated restlessness.
We had our third round of layoffs at work today. I have been very head-in-the-sand until recently, about all of it, being very fatalistic and optimistic, as I had no control and little knowledge or understanding of our office situation. Our new leadership has now improved the lines of communication and brought us all into the know about why everything has hit our office so hard, and now I'm losing sleep.
It's early Saturday morning and I'm literally losing sleep- me, the girl who can easily sleep eleven hours a night and relishes her weekend mornings for this. Maybe thinking it through here will help me and I'll be able to take myself back up to the loft and get a few hours of sleep to enjoy what's supposed to be the nicest day yet (75 degrees!).
But for now, I'm stuck down here in front of the screen stressing about work. We lost a few more people today, which brings our total layoffs up to something like 26, and now we are down to the mid to low forties in our office. It's especially frustrating to see people who you'd consider to be highly valuable lost, while others you might not choose to keep working with still remain. I lost a coworker/friend I work with closely, and now I'll have to take her work on (I saw her cad files today, oy vey, there's a lot to do that was supposed to be done a week ago). We found out that with corporate restructuring, we're also losing our compensation pay (comp time) as of next month, which totally blows in a field where overworking is seemingly ingrained in the culture. I volunteered to participate in a design competition in the office, and that always proves to be difficult since it's generally a clash of egos and styles in competitions, especially as it's unpaid time. I'm not sure what I was thinking, volunteering for that. Stupid idealist/pleaser. On top of that I'll be out for a week beginning mid-week next week, and have to juggle project work and the conclusion to my participation in the competition.
I have been so looking forward to going back to Seattle, words cannot describe. Right now it's giving me a little heartburn as it adds a layer of complication, but I do need this break. I miss my friends and the culture there. I love it here, and New York is the right place for me now, but I need a breather, and a return to social familiarity (if only a brief one). At this point, I'm hoping that my trip back allows me a little peace of mind, and potentially a little raucous scandal.
New York's supposed to be the setting for scandal, right? What's all this talk of stress and work when you live one of the most fabulous places in the world? Good question. I'm working on it... and that's not to say there haven't been some fabulous and scandalous times- but I tend to be a deliberate and careful individual, which causes me to do more thinking and internalizing and doing things out of my perception of duty. This can serve me well at sometimes, sure. I still have a job; and my role there is actually looking very good despite everything. But I'm looking to inject a little balance in my life- a little time and state of mind for rest. The company policy formally supports this, but the office culture does not. It's a very New York thing to be a slave to professional success and duty, but it's unfortunately at its worst in the design/architecture arena.
The sun has risen; it's six thirty and I've been awake since at least four. I'm going to haul myself back up the ladder and see if I can get a few hours of sleep in before I get up to greet the beautiful day which I theoretically should be spending in the office making diagrams for a competition.
We'll see about that.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
design moment
2009 Pritzker Prize recipient, Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor-
'I work a little bit like a sculptor. When I start, my first idea for a building- it is already with the material. I believe architecture is about that- it's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material.'
...Me too. Sometimes I wish I worked in an environment where I was able to work more like a sculptor, and less like a lawyer or policymaker. Maybe someday, here...
'I work a little bit like a sculptor. When I start, my first idea for a building- it is already with the material. I believe architecture is about that- it's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material.'...Me too. Sometimes I wish I worked in an environment where I was able to work more like a sculptor, and less like a lawyer or policymaker. Maybe someday, here...
Monday, April 13, 2009
should I buy michael jackson's pants?
hard times, continued
the king of pop's even going under... 1500 of his things from Neverland are being sold at auction in an LA department store (and online; hey, much of this stuff is expected to fetch only a couple hundred bucks).
I might be able to pull these off in the East Village (but then again, who are we kidding; MJ and I clearly have differently proportioned figures):
and you, too, could take home this masterpiece for your mantle:
I mean, wow. WOW.
It's kind of bizzarre, though, everything's on sale... mtv awards, his signature single gloves, and military jackets... down to the creepy bronze statues of children in his yard. Such an odd, odd individual, with an odd, odd story.
I sense a landscape design niche rising in bronze statue children relics...
the king of pop's even going under... 1500 of his things from Neverland are being sold at auction in an LA department store (and online; hey, much of this stuff is expected to fetch only a couple hundred bucks).
I might be able to pull these off in the East Village (but then again, who are we kidding; MJ and I clearly have differently proportioned figures):
and you, too, could take home this masterpiece for your mantle:
I mean, wow. WOW.
It's kind of bizzarre, though, everything's on sale... mtv awards, his signature single gloves, and military jackets... down to the creepy bronze statues of children in his yard. Such an odd, odd individual, with an odd, odd story.
I sense a landscape design niche rising in bronze statue children relics...
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
blossoms of snow
Spring has finally awoken, moody rain and sunshine and all. Springtime, especially April here (god help us we don't get some freak Seattle-esque interminable rainy, 50-degree spring), is like a schizophrenic, or an adolescent: all sunshine and seventy degrees one afternoon and black clouds and rainstorm the next morning. We had upper sixties and glaring sunshine Sunday, lightening and thunder the next day, sunshine again, then black clouds spewing snow today. Go figure.
I will clearly state that any weather beats the winter here. The trees think so, too; they are starting to relax their defenses and bud. The ones in front of my building are flowering beautifully, dripping with tiny white pear-like flowers (it's killing me that this is another east coast plant I can't identify) before they leaf out. I walked out one morning late last night, and it was like waking up without remembering it was christmas day; sunny glistening with a recent rain, the little white flowers seemed to say, "surprise, erika! here we are! we all made it through winter!"
I absolutely adore my street. With the eighteenth-century St. Marks-in-the-Bowery at one end, and beautifully iron-worked brick townhomes along East Tenth, the block is really unique in that the homes are slightly upscale-seeming compared to its neighboring ones, and it also lacks the characteristic ground and first-floor commercial that the East Village is known for, making it quiet and homey. It's like a scene out of Brooklyn, or the West Village. Film crews are even drawn here; I've seen three so far.
But this is definitely still the East Village; at the border of NYU and as the mecca for young people looking to live it up; it's loud and eclectic. The building across the street has some scruffy characters lingering around that makes me think there's some sort of subsidy or rent-freeze; the neighboring building is clearly abandoned minus two-thirds of the top floor, which is occupied by an artist working odd hours and on looming, grim works. His and another few apartments on the block, as we all have very high ceilings, have decaying ceilings with exposed lath, peeling paint, and brickwork at the top of the wall where it's difficult to maintain. Then a few doors down from mine, a huge, beautiful old building with ornate ironwork has only four buzzers and beautiful stone and wood detailing inside- clearly these people are not so poorly off. Homeless people smelling and looking scary sleep on the benches down the block in front of St Mark's, but across the street and to the east of me is a really unique building, thin, with one giant bay of factory-like, small-paneled giant windows that must house someone successful as it appears to be one fabulous home. The pointy Flatiron-like brownstone that sits at the end of the triangular block looks fancy at first glance but is housing people who keep leggy plants in front of dusty windows and push the backs of their televisions and refrigerators up to the windows.
There is a lot of traffic through this block, as it sits between Cooper Union, NYU, and the School of Visual Arts (among others), and most of their watering holes and socializing locales and is on the path between anyone coming from the subway to the bars. I see and more hear a lot of drunken activity from my big picture window: loud groups having conversations outside the art school dormitory a few doors down; crazy people yelling at the corner near third; there was the large drunk woman that fell, in heels, into the stairwell of my super's basement apartment, directly below my window on a weeknight, and had to be strategically squeezed out of the space by paramedics and her date; there tend to be homeless-seeming lingerers across the street in front of a particular stoop; oftentimes, it's actually my cats that are causing a lot of stir.
When I come home, if I've left the blinds open in my first-floor apartment (even sometimes if I haven't I can see eyes peeking through the crack above the sill), one of my two black cats is always there, sitting next to the garden gnome I use as a bookend on my long, deep, windowsill. They have achieved superstar status with neighbors and passersby. More than once have I had the lights low in my apartment and witnessed flashes of light on the walls that turned out to be coming from people's cameras outside. Many more times have I heard strangely-toned voices, usually high and quiet (creepy!), that I was too weirded out to investigate, while my cat was calmly posing. The funny thing is that though they can be leery of strangers, there is enough distance with the iron railing in front of the gap before the sidewalk, that they are never made nervous enough to jump down. They just sit there, luxuriating in the attention like the attention-hungry beasts that they are.
It's like we're a zoo, here. We have the railing, the little trench, the large window, and the small cage that we live in... protecting us from the hordes of poorly-behaved people passing by daily. I could think of worse situations. I think this might be the kind of zoo where they design it so well that the captives believe they're in some endless paradise.
I will clearly state that any weather beats the winter here. The trees think so, too; they are starting to relax their defenses and bud. The ones in front of my building are flowering beautifully, dripping with tiny white pear-like flowers (it's killing me that this is another east coast plant I can't identify) before they leaf out. I walked out one morning late last night, and it was like waking up without remembering it was christmas day; sunny glistening with a recent rain, the little white flowers seemed to say, "surprise, erika! here we are! we all made it through winter!"
I absolutely adore my street. With the eighteenth-century St. Marks-in-the-Bowery at one end, and beautifully iron-worked brick townhomes along East Tenth, the block is really unique in that the homes are slightly upscale-seeming compared to its neighboring ones, and it also lacks the characteristic ground and first-floor commercial that the East Village is known for, making it quiet and homey. It's like a scene out of Brooklyn, or the West Village. Film crews are even drawn here; I've seen three so far.
But this is definitely still the East Village; at the border of NYU and as the mecca for young people looking to live it up; it's loud and eclectic. The building across the street has some scruffy characters lingering around that makes me think there's some sort of subsidy or rent-freeze; the neighboring building is clearly abandoned minus two-thirds of the top floor, which is occupied by an artist working odd hours and on looming, grim works. His and another few apartments on the block, as we all have very high ceilings, have decaying ceilings with exposed lath, peeling paint, and brickwork at the top of the wall where it's difficult to maintain. Then a few doors down from mine, a huge, beautiful old building with ornate ironwork has only four buzzers and beautiful stone and wood detailing inside- clearly these people are not so poorly off. Homeless people smelling and looking scary sleep on the benches down the block in front of St Mark's, but across the street and to the east of me is a really unique building, thin, with one giant bay of factory-like, small-paneled giant windows that must house someone successful as it appears to be one fabulous home. The pointy Flatiron-like brownstone that sits at the end of the triangular block looks fancy at first glance but is housing people who keep leggy plants in front of dusty windows and push the backs of their televisions and refrigerators up to the windows.
There is a lot of traffic through this block, as it sits between Cooper Union, NYU, and the School of Visual Arts (among others), and most of their watering holes and socializing locales and is on the path between anyone coming from the subway to the bars. I see and more hear a lot of drunken activity from my big picture window: loud groups having conversations outside the art school dormitory a few doors down; crazy people yelling at the corner near third; there was the large drunk woman that fell, in heels, into the stairwell of my super's basement apartment, directly below my window on a weeknight, and had to be strategically squeezed out of the space by paramedics and her date; there tend to be homeless-seeming lingerers across the street in front of a particular stoop; oftentimes, it's actually my cats that are causing a lot of stir.
When I come home, if I've left the blinds open in my first-floor apartment (even sometimes if I haven't I can see eyes peeking through the crack above the sill), one of my two black cats is always there, sitting next to the garden gnome I use as a bookend on my long, deep, windowsill. They have achieved superstar status with neighbors and passersby. More than once have I had the lights low in my apartment and witnessed flashes of light on the walls that turned out to be coming from people's cameras outside. Many more times have I heard strangely-toned voices, usually high and quiet (creepy!), that I was too weirded out to investigate, while my cat was calmly posing. The funny thing is that though they can be leery of strangers, there is enough distance with the iron railing in front of the gap before the sidewalk, that they are never made nervous enough to jump down. They just sit there, luxuriating in the attention like the attention-hungry beasts that they are.
It's like we're a zoo, here. We have the railing, the little trench, the large window, and the small cage that we live in... protecting us from the hordes of poorly-behaved people passing by daily. I could think of worse situations. I think this might be the kind of zoo where they design it so well that the captives believe they're in some endless paradise.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
hit the ground running
tired and wired, we ruin too easy
sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
Well, winter has left! -sunny and pleasant in my neck of the woods; I also heard that Seattle had it even better today after their recent cold streak.
Teeny and I are catching up on interweb-related activities (and listening to The National, damn I love them!) as we have played host and tour guide to my mother on her first-ever trip to new york city for the past five days. I didn't realize until after getting up early on the last day and screaming around midtown (mother had to get in her Letterman show Hello Deli fix in) before sending her off for her flight, just how completely exhausted I am. Emphasize completely. I literally watched her get in the airport shuttle from my stoop, walked eight steps back into the apartment, and fell asleep on the couch. The woman doesn't sleep.
I took two days off from work at the end of the week to spend more time tour-guiding, but of course they weren't for resting- the Met, Staten Island Ferry, Rockefeller Center and the observation deck, Times Square and a night at the theater, Fifth Ave and Central Park and a few brunches.... we got a good amount of stuff in. Of course you can't do it all in your first trip to a city, but we didn't do so bad in covering most of Manhattan, considering my mom is kinda slow. I love my mom, but she's the first one to admit she's kinda old and broken. ;) I kinda felt like I was dragging her along at times.
Below, a couple scenes from the Kristin and Erika show:
So I'm actually a little okay with going back to work tomorrow, it will be (initially) a little refreshing to do some sitting.
Give me your tired, your poor...
Mos' def poor after these past few days.
In honor of my mother, who is apparently in love with what Photobooth on my MacBook can do, here we are, blogging and rocking out. the lap was Teeny's idea, she likes to drive (and to rock out); Leo's not quite as fond as being in front of the screen. He's a low-tech boy.
sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
Well, winter has left! -sunny and pleasant in my neck of the woods; I also heard that Seattle had it even better today after their recent cold streak.
Teeny and I are catching up on interweb-related activities (and listening to The National, damn I love them!) as we have played host and tour guide to my mother on her first-ever trip to new york city for the past five days. I didn't realize until after getting up early on the last day and screaming around midtown (mother had to get in her Letterman show Hello Deli fix in) before sending her off for her flight, just how completely exhausted I am. Emphasize completely. I literally watched her get in the airport shuttle from my stoop, walked eight steps back into the apartment, and fell asleep on the couch. The woman doesn't sleep.
I took two days off from work at the end of the week to spend more time tour-guiding, but of course they weren't for resting- the Met, Staten Island Ferry, Rockefeller Center and the observation deck, Times Square and a night at the theater, Fifth Ave and Central Park and a few brunches.... we got a good amount of stuff in. Of course you can't do it all in your first trip to a city, but we didn't do so bad in covering most of Manhattan, considering my mom is kinda slow. I love my mom, but she's the first one to admit she's kinda old and broken. ;) I kinda felt like I was dragging her along at times.
Below, a couple scenes from the Kristin and Erika show:
So I'm actually a little okay with going back to work tomorrow, it will be (initially) a little refreshing to do some sitting.
Give me your tired, your poor...
Mos' def poor after these past few days.
In honor of my mother, who is apparently in love with what Photobooth on my MacBook can do, here we are, blogging and rocking out. the lap was Teeny's idea, she likes to drive (and to rock out); Leo's not quite as fond as being in front of the screen. He's a low-tech boy.
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