Archive for October 2007
Halloween, circa 1979(ish)
This…
…from my house on Elm Street in Wyoming. My sister always got to be Wonder Woman. Sigh.
Happy Halloween, everybody!
Fall is here
Friday and Saturday were sleepy gray rainy days in the city. On Friday, I learned the exhausting lesson of umbrella dodging in SoHo and had my first celebrity sighting. Pony up the merit badges, please. Halloween is here, and I got all giddy on Saturday night while working on a costume. And this morning I attended the annual Fort Greene great pup-kin affair, where 60+ dogs in ridiculous costumes competed for prizes. I was cheering on a certain husky dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.
In response to a few concerned emails I’ve received since my last post: don’t worry, I’m eating and everything is just fine.
My friend David has finally launched Culturegeeks. Please feel free to check it out, kick the tires a bit. I suspect I’ll be posting a heap of movie-related stuff over there.
I welcome the new season, but I always get a little nostalgic for the season just passed when the weather and the mood shift starts to settle. So it’s timely that a friend should send me this photo of me and Number Three from a kickball Sunday in August. This epitomizes so much of my summer.
It was a lovely summer, indeed.
Writer Declares She is Totally Broke
Brooklyn, NY – October 25, 2007
Freelance writer Tammy O. declared herself “officially fucking broke” today from her home in Brooklyn, NY. Tammy made the declaration after paying her monthly rent, health insurance premium, utilities, cell phone, credit cards, internet service and student loans. Tammy proceeded to transfer funds from her withering savings account to cover all of the monthly costs, whimpered a few times and then sighed. “Well,” she observed, “The party had to end sometime, I guess.”
In August, Tammy abandoned a stable, moderately-well salaried non-profit management position in Denver where she made real change in the lives of young people to chase her dreams to New York City, where she has doubled her cost of living and become a neurotic, self-employed freelance writer with zero reliable income. After a few moments of mulling this over, Tammy further declared herself a “complete fucking moron,” and sat down to a lonely dinner of instant fucking soup and string fucking cheese.
About Tammy O.
Tammy is a cheerfully despondent freelance wordslinger living in Brooklyn, NY. For more information on her street cred, please visit www.tammyoler.com.
Reflections on my first 54 days of New York residence and self-employment
If I were designing a set of ‘Welcome to New York’ greeting cards, my first one would read “Congratulations on being able to pay your rent!”
Fort Greene Park is generally the cure for what ails ya.
I really like the F train. It might be a fleeting thing.
Surfing the internet isn’t much fun when you’re self-employed. It feels a lot more joyless when it’s not on someone else’s dime.
I’ve passed up more good rock shows in the last 2 weeks than I’ve seen in the past 6 months.
PBR is hipster swill no matter where you go.
I only really have so many words in a day.
I am so very, very grateful for my corporate background, for it is currently saving my ass.
Verdana = consulting. Other fonts are awaiting their assignments.
My love handles are not that funny.
If my neuroses were to demand collective bargaining rights, I’d be screwed.
I am totally in the deep end. I think it’s totally okay. It wouldn’t be so okay if there weren’t so many people cheering me on every time I come up for air. Mad, mad love!
I heart the earth: blog action day
I’m no hemp-wearing hippy, but I sure do like and appreciate this fine planet we live on. So I’ll use Blog Action Day as a chance to recommit myself to doing what I can to help out: simplify, recycle, stay veggie, plant stuff. It breaks my heart that I have practically unlimited access to non-fat soy lattes in this city while other people don’t have access to clean drinking water or are trying to cobble together a living by scavenging in toxic piles of techno rubbish we’ve carted off to their “developing” country. Environment impact, social justice, saving the collective ass of our species: we’re all in this together.
I’m no treehugger (and I sure do hate jam bands) but I sure do like and appreciate the work of treehuggers. Especially the team at treehugger.com. Check out their substantial Green Guides if you’re looking for tips, suggestions or motivations.
