Eat Less

I stole the title from an Urban Outfitters T-shirt that was recently in the news - or rather, New York Magazine's website, which is kitschy news, but I'll save the kitsch bitch for Clement Greenberg (someone needs to slap me for committing the worst art history non-joke ever by the end of the day). I guess that Urban was selling this American Apparel-style tee with "Eat Less" written in some ugly, tacky font that completely destroys the power of the message. Someone decided that an insecure person would see this shirt on someone walking toward them, think that said shirt's message is directed at them, and run to the fastest New York Sports Club to cry their way through an elliptical work-out. (I guess the T-shirt would have to read "Exercise More" in that particular scenario but the sentiment is still there.) But the shirt is still being sold in stores - just not online - which is a relief because it could very well be the new slogan for Avery Library. (I decided that the old slogan was "We put the fine in Fine Arts!")

Every day the exact same people come to Avery - Girl With Braces, the Married Couple, My Favorite Older Gay Man, The Smirk (he always smirks at me when he walks in, but it's a cute smirk, like a head-nod) - and they don't leave until 9pm when the library closes and wolves howl, etc. So unless they are secretly middle-of-the-night dancers with the New York City Ballet, I don't know how these people stay so thin and sit for so many hours at a time. It's like they are training to be airline pilots or something. This cannot be good for one's blood circulation. Or one's vitamin D levels. Or anything, really, because, as Broseph tells his dissertation students, "Everything that you are writing about and researching and discovering at this very moment, someone else in the world is already publishing that information."

(Brief interruption - IT'S AN AUTOMATIC DOOR. IT WILL CLOSE ON ITS OWN. DO NOT TRY TO PULL IT SHUT.)

So these people come in and sit all day and read and induce migraines and seem to never conclude their studies. Then when they "venture out" for pseudo-breaks during the day, they do so at Brownies, the café that is below Avery and accessed through the building's lobby. So, essentially, they never leave Avery. (Smoking does NOT count as leaving.) I understand that Brownies has the best food and cheapest coffee on campus. But commuting from the library to Brownies to the smoking deck is almost as bad as hanging out in Butler 209 all day, and night. The difference is that at least in Butler there are empty chip bags and Starbucks cups strewn about, evidence that people have actually been consuming food and caffeine because both are important to learning and success. When the perma-sitters go down to Brownies, they never order anything. They just sit more. And talk about their theses. And try to make new breakthroughs. They never stop! There is never a moment when it is just them, a bagel, a heavily Splenda'd hazelnut coffee, and a copy of the NYT and nothing else in between. Food decidedly interrupts the learning process and they would rather just "power through" twelve straight hours of hypothesizing and then tuck in to a head of cabbage or whatever. You know, energy for their all-night NYCB training (I insist it's ballet because it is a muscle-lengthening form of exercise that keeps one trim and lean, not bulk-inducing, and I insist it's the NYCB because that's the Balanchine company and Balanchine dancers are not allowed to have an ounce of body fat).

There is something great about this please-don't-feed-the-grad-students show: while picking up books around the 300-level (the one with windows) last week, I passed Girl With Braces and a glimmer of turquoise next to her laptop caught my eye. Behold, it was a pack of gum - and not just any flavor, but specifically Orbit Wintermint. As everyone who comes to Avery or knows me even a little bit would know, I have a quite serious gum addiction. My smoker friends say that there is no such thing as a gum addiction but it is a very real habit: it is expensive, it is gross, it comes with it's own slew of health problems (TMJ, digestive issues, etc) and there is nothing you can do to quit like cigarettes because the so-called cure for nicotine addiction is CHEWING GUM. Fuck.

In any case, I started the habit - I won't tell you how many packs I chew a day but yes, packs, plural - as a way of staying awake to study without eating crap or drinking coffee throughout the night. Girl With Braces has caught on (with braces, even!) and I like to think that I was the bad influence that brought her here. Let's just hope that she doesn't have to spend more than $1.50 every couple of days. God damnit.

On that note, time for me to deposit paychecks so that I can pay rent and gum.

GA.