Some Updates from NYC

It's a beautiful day in New York--someone said it's 81 degrees! It was hard to tear myself away from my lunch break, which was spent sitting on the Hudson River looking at yachts and the Statue of Liberty, sort of reading a magazine but really listening to the French tourists next to me and trying not to spill balsamic vinegar dressing on my newly dry-cleaned pants.

The pope is here. As Juliet pointed out, it's surprising that so many people in New York care about this. True, he has his own town/prinicpality, and true, there are lots of Catholics in New York. But, just like when I'm surprised at how many people wear ashes on Ash Wednesday, I forget these things.

Tomorrow I am traveling to Oceanside, Long Island, to go to a Passover seder at a good friend's parents' home. They are Orthodox--like I can't even call my friend on the walk from the station to his house because he can't pick up the phone (and I have to walk from his house because no one is allowed to drive). They are also rich. Because I went to a Godless university and have a father who likes to talk about how he thinks polytheism (I almost wrote polygamy) is the way to go, I tend to assume that people would only be really religious because they are struggling. I'm interested to see how it works. Where does the money stop and the faith begin? Or are they so mixed up with each other that it's not even worth asking?

I am working at a corporation for the first time in my life. Temporarily. There is a lingo to learn here, even in philanthropy. It is completely unavoidable and consists of words and phrases such as:
-moving forward
-reach out
-wordsmith
-language
-partners
To use these words in context: "Before we can move forward, I'd like Erica to reach out to our partners at the Met and ask them to wordsmith the language in their program description." I hear each of these words daily, without fail.

In other news, to echo a post of Sarah's back in the CWT days, corporations give you a lot of free shit. Like a lot.

I have been working on a post about how I am scared of teenagers for a while now, but instead I decided to ramble on about nothing. I need to leave this office immediately and start the weekend. I also need a tan.

PS, if you are looking for a good date, go see Shine a Light at an IMAX theater. It rocks.

apparently people who have the right to free speech should be content with just "having" it and not try to excercise it.

like we want to have our cake and it too? or does the new york times just think that if you live in a capitalist society your purchases come with fine print that then says, ok you can have this commodity on the cheap but in return, you give up any right to challenge the government of the country that produced said commodity.

and oh! the poor olympics. their suffering is so SO much worse than that of Tibetans. I mean, priorities people!

"Millions of people around the world are critical of China for its control of Tibet and Xinjiang as well as its identification with the tribal murders in Darfur. But should the Olympics pay the price for widespread governmental aggression and diplomatic failures? Should people who enjoy free speech put on their sneakers from China, their T-shirts and jeans from China, their ball caps from China, their sunglasses from China, in order to disrupt a runner carrying a torch through a free city?"
-http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/sports/othersports/10vecsey.html?_r=1&ref=othersports&oref=slogin