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behavioral science

so I’m sitting there in Research Design this morning, learning about, well, designs for, ya know, research, and suddenly I have this flashback.

My cousin Eddie is a few years older than I am, and he has a brother, Chris, who is about 5 years younger than me. One time, we were all on vacation together, and Eddie and I were probably, oh, I don’t know, 9, and 11, and Chris was, like, 4 or 5.

There had been a fight at the dinner table about Chris hating broccoli. He refused to eat it, screaming ensued every time it was on the menu, etc. Well, Eddie and I had heard somewhere that if you hear something in your sleep, it gets into your subconscious, and you learn it. So, natch, we decided that we could CONVINCE his brother Chris into liking broccoli WHILE HE’S SLEEPING. Like, we thought, we can make this kid LOVE broccoli, and then he’ll be all WTF, I can’t WAIT to eat my broccoli with dinner. ACTUALLY CAN I HAVE IT FOR LUCH? I FUCKING LOVE BROCCOLI SO FUCKING MUCH.

We pretended to go to bed on time ALL week, and then as soon as the house was quiet, we’d spend HOURS whispering and snickering into Chris’s ear – You LOOOVE broccoli. You want to MAARRRY broccoli. You can’t WAIT until the next time you eat it. You CRAVE it, you DREAM about it, IT CONSUMES YOU. He’d wake up and be all, Why are you guys leaning over me? And I remember actually convincing him it was a dream! You’re dreaming, Chris, just go back to sleep. Like we’d bother to lean over YOU. Then the next morning he’d be all, I had the CRAZIEST dream…

Well, sure enough, a few days later, someone made broccoli for dinner. I remember sitting there at the table wiggling in my chair trying not to erupt in hysterical laughter, joker grin pasted across my pudgy face. Every time Eddie and I would even make PERIPHERAL eye-contact we’d start giggling like idiots (which wasn’t all that abnormal, honestly), and the whole family tried patiently to ignore us. As the broccoli made it’s agonizingly slow round about the table, we practically came undone with anticipation.

But then, when it came to Chis? He wanted NOTHING to do with it. He immediately started complaining that he hated broccoli and wouldn’t eat it. Simultaneously, Eddie and I BUSRT out in thunderous disappointment: GOD, Christopher, what is WRONG with you! We spent ALL WEEK staying up ALL NIGHT to make you fucking like broccoli and you couldn’t even do it. Can you do ANYTHING right??

Of course, our parents were like, wait, what? You two did WHAT now?

But anyway, I can now see some problems with our design. First off, sample size. It really wasn’t representative of the broccoli-hating population.

Second, there were way too many confounding variables. Were we loud enough? Was a week long enough? Maybe he was just defiant!

And finally, we gave up! Disconfirming evidence does NOT a theory destroy. And yet we were devastated! Failed! Wasted nights, when we could have spent those perfectly good hours hiding our parents cigarette stashes, like we normally did (cruel kids, we were – I can remember many a morning being woken up by one or another of our red-faced parents cursing and demanding to know where we’d cached their cigs, every cabinet open, the contents of every closet strewn about the house… good times).

But really the take home message here is, I’ve ALWAYS been a behavioral scientist.

YOU GUYS GUESS WHO I MET TODAY

YOU GUYS

YOU GUYS

why am i like this?

you guys I set up a tumblr and I really like tumblr and I want to switch but as soon as i was all set up i got really attached to / nostalgic about my WP account.

Maybe i’ll just keep them both going for a while. Ya know, because of all that free time i have to do things like blogging..

giddy on up!

Here are a few of the 10,000 or so pictures I took between my photo booth and my iphone (reminder to self: order camera cord) to try and properly capture what my (AWESOME!) hair looks like right now. Also: note my rad rabbit/hat shirt I got at the thrift store for a couple bucks.

rabbit/hat shirt

i will punch the next person

i will punch the next person who asks me if I'm having more fun.

who asks me

cafe

if I'm having more fun.

oh, I guess you can’t really see my shirt. Here, I’ll add one more, quick:

mah shirt

rabbit / hat

my job is totally out of control.

Murray T Toilet - click for large

Murray T Toilet

Working at an indi bookstore is freaking awesome.

a bite of the big apple

air conditioners

A/Cs

Being in New York was such a whirlwind mindfuck, I can’t even begin to tell you.

When Alan and I first got married, he was absolutely terrified of The City. (If you’re from the island, you must A) be terrified of The City, and B) only call it, ‘The City’, never New York City, or by the name of the burrow you intend to visit. EVER. Everything from the border of Queens to Staten Island to Pelham Park is The City, plain and simple.) This was sad for me, because I can remember being 8 years old and laying on the living room floor with my cousin, talking about how someday we’d live in a penthouse in Manhattan together that had a hot tub filled with pudding and a helicopter pad on top and a recording studio so he could be a famous rapper. We were dreamers.

IMG_0060

Columbus Circle

And then life happened, and I realized that the only way I’d ever appreciate it fully was to get out there into the world. Manhattan is only 30-odd miles from the town I grew up in, and epicenter of the world or no, that’s too damned close. As soon as I hit 18 I had the urge to GTFO, and GTFO I did, with vigor. Now here I am, I’ve seen it all, and I miss it.

But so anyway, I’ve tried again and again in the intervening years to explain to Alan that The City is a magical place, and that he’d be absolutely enamored of the diversity, opportunity, and excitement of living there, but I was met with the kind of blind denial and disgust an 8-year-old reserves for brussel sprouts (unless it’s an 8-year-old raised on San Francisco’s local, organic, green, hormone-free, farm-fresh, free-range brussel sprouts, and then he’s all I LIKE HELLA LOVE VEGETABLES AND SHIT, and you want to punch him in the face, because, really, what 8-year-old likes vegetables??). So, I decided that I would just take him there, and let him see for himself.

exit

Subway

Every time we go home, we reserve a few days out of each visit to spend in Manhattan, tooling around. It’s like our mini-vacation. The first time, it snowed on our first night, and we walked around in Central Park in the flurries after a few hearty stouts. Alan was overcome with how unreal and romantic everything seemed (also he was on block leave from Iraq, so walking around NOT carrying 90lbs on his back covered in month-old sand and grime probably added to the magic). He was actually relaxed, despite weeks of worrying on our parts. We spent an entire day just doing museums. The second time, I went to a master class (flute thing) uptown and we stayed in this superfuckingawesome hotel and then saw a broadway show the next day. The point is, each time we go back, I can see him warming bit by bit, and it really has given me hope. He still a little slow on the public transportation uptake (”but, how did you know which track to stand by?” One door for downtown, one door for uptown, hubs.), but he’s warming. He’s less nervous.

alloon raceingSince we’ve been living in San Francisco, Alan’s been spewing a bunch of crap about how this is The Best City In The World, and it’s absolutely ideal, and he never wants to leave, and he can’t wait to raise kids here, &c, and then he smells his own farts. While I agree that San Francisco has it’s merits, and, let’s face it, beats the shit out of the east coast on several fronts (no winter is a major point in its favor), I wasn’t ready to commit to that. I still haven’t lived out my dream. I know where I want to end up.

Also because, I love New Yorkers! I fuckin’ love them. Watch any of the later seasons of Murder, She Wrote (I know), and you’ll get to watch the intrepid Jessica Fletcher move to Manhattan and solve mysteries with some of the greatest New York stereotypes ever conceived for the big screen or small. They quip things like ” ‘Ey! Jay Bee! I’d love ta help ya, but I gottan ulcer the size of Rhode Island, heah. I’m sayin’ you could drive a Buick through it, I mean, come AAAHHN.”

See, the magic of it all is, we went into this trip deciding that everyone around us would sound like those grizzled old detectives of yore, maybe because due to recent forays into the world of the inimitable JB Fletch, AND THEY WERE. And for the first time ever, my husband realized the absolute JOY of being surrounded by born-and-bred New Yorkers. One night, we went into Queens to see Ian and Cyn and Carolyn, my three absolute favorite East Coasters, and wound up at, I can’t make this shit up, the Second Annual Growing Up Astoria Reunion at the Beer Garden. I’m freakin’ serious.

And there they were, hundreds of glorious stereotypes, drunk since 3p.m. on a Saturday. We had our little picnic table, and our amazing beer (pitchers!), and our bacon/pickle sandwiches:
delicious

and we sat there at the table, laughing about New Yorker stereotypes while Ian banged on the pretend outside of his pretend taxi cab door (I’m drivin’ hea!). Then, one of us would get up to go use the bathroom, or buy another round, and we’d hear things like this (these are all true and as close to verbatim as I can remember):

  • Ey! Get ova hea! I’m takin’ pitchas, you want ya tits on Facebook or what?
  • [to me, while carrying a pitcher back to the table] Yo! Fuckin’ Saint Pawlie Girl ova hea!
  • God, I fuckin’ hate Astoria!
  • [after distributing a round of drinks to his cohorts] Guys, I just wanted to say, fuckin’ Salud. I fuckin’ love youse guys, I love fuckin’ Astoria, and I’m just glad we’re all hea, and I fuckin’ love you. Salud, okay?

Okay, so that last one skews a bit Jersey Shore. Quit bustin’ my bawlls! We laughed until it hurt, and I finally felt connected to my own roots. The next day, on the train to Manorville, all Alan could talk about was how much he loved The City, and could really see settling down in Manhattan, and other things I could have told him years ago. We’ll see, youse guyses. For now, I’m still pretty thrilled to be in San Francisco’s perpetual winter.

coney island

Coney Island