Poverexic in NYC

Poor roommate G is sick as a dog. It killed me when he ordered Chinese last night because I knew how dangerous it would be to take a bite of flu-infected food. But some things are worth the risk.

I kept a close eye on him the entire time we were watching American Idol. He offered me some of his fried calamari, and luckily I got to it first before he had touched any of it, so I scored a few bites (!!!). Half hour later, he put his fried calamari and Beef Kung Pow or whatever the fuck that was down, and he had barely finished half of each dish. It was killing me that he was contagiously sick. He had already gotten our other roommate L sick too.

An hour later, he still hadn’t even opened his small box of white rice. I waited until he finally got off the couch to yell CAN I HAVE YOUR WHITE RICE. Of course the answer was yes (99.5% success rate, especially because I was way over my usual “10-minute” rule).

Hours later after we had finished watching Idol, The Office and 30 Rock (good rerun) and some other random shit, G opens up the empty brown takeout bag and reaches for the only-half-empty container of fried calamari.

me (instinctively, arms flailing): DAHHHHHJAHSDJKFHAJKSHDFJKHAKJLSHJKFHAJKSHDF

G: What the fuck is your problem?!?!??!??!??!

me: What the fuck is YOUR problem were you going to throw all that away?!?!?!??!??!?!

G: okokok fine you can have it.

me: Oh shit… wait… you’re sick though.

G: I’m not contagious.

me: You got L sick.

G: I fucked my gf and she’s not sick.

me: Ok, good enough.

In conclusion, I’ve got some really great Chinese food to look forward to this weekend. TGIF!

12:41 pm

SO HUNGRY but just saw a food cart roll by going into a meeting, which means there will eventually be leftovers. I’m assuming the meeting will be out in a few hours, so just gotta hold on for a bit longer. To tide me over until then, I ate an alfajor that I still had from when I went to Argentina over Thanksgiving. Alfajores are delicious Argentine cookies that have dulce de leche in them, and they are like my fav things in the world, so I never give them out to friends… except for this one time when I stole some dude’s v card, I felt so bad that I offered him my last alfajor (meant a lot to me). But he didn’t appreciate it at all!!! He said he didn’t want it!!! What is up with that?!?!?!

1:54 pm

Oh no. Just checked the meeting room tracker, and looks like the meeting’s not over till 3pm. Shit.

4:06 pm

Meeting is out!!!  Coworker P stole half a leftover chicken caesar salad wrap for me  – YES!!!

2:15 pm

Coworker gave me her leftover box of mango passion cereal!!!!!!!!!!!  What the fuck is mango passion cereal who knows but I don’t care?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!  Apparently it was originally my other coworker’s cereal, and she thought it was disgusting, so she gave it to my other coworker, and she thought it was disgusting, so she gave it to me.  I love being at the bottom of the food chain.

8:55 pm

I love working late because I get to expense my dinner.  FREE DINNER!!!!!!!!!  Who would mind working an extra two hours every night if you get free dinner?!!??!?!  I should have become an i-banker.

Last night was – in the words of Michael Scott of Dunder Mifflin – bittersweet. I hate bittersweet.

The night started out sweet when roommate L cooked the most dericious dinner ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!! chicken doused in red wine, fettuccine with shrimp, olives, mushrooms and truffle oil SSSSSOOOOOOOOOOO DERICIOUSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! Now I’m good to go for a week without eating (though there are leftovers for tonight, yes!).

Then the night turned bitter. Was going to go to this charity thing, but got word that the party was dying down. And I absolutely hate charities for obvious reasons (that being, if I don’t even have enough money to feed myself, why would I give money to organizations I don’t give a shit about).

Then, I went to the Ivy League Football Association afterparty at Bull and Bear, which I was so excited about because I hadn’t juiced in exactly one week. (Stomach was stuffed at this point but more important thing was not.) Went there so excited like a kid walking into Dylan’s Candy Bar, only to find very few of the Kong football type and very many of the old grandparent type. I wanted to cry. It was so upsetting. The only good part to this night was when W graciously gave me a sip of her $18.50 dirty martini, and M generously gave me half of her $18.50 vodka soda because she was already wasted and a lightweight. Why a dirty martini and a vodka soda were the same price, none of us know. Needless to say, we only left a $1.50 tip on those drinks because by that point, all of us had become poverexic.

6:25 pm

I am so incredibly bloated.  I wasn’t kidding when I said L’s dinner would keep me full for a week.  I was bloated all morning, then I had my usual cup of coffee, then scored 4 cups of white cheddar popcorn from a meeting and some pringles, then had half of a leftover veggie sandwich that I found on the cafe table (not so great), then had 2 additional cups of coffee.  The greatest thing is, I’m so bloated that I’m not even hungry for dinner.  Yes!

10:42 am

OSCAR NOMINATIONS ARE UP!

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/and-the-nominees-are/

I sense another office contest win, and another $20 gift card to feed myself!!!

11:08 am

DONUTS AT THE OFFICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

11:10 am

IM from coworker:

1:36 pm

Just finished those leftover fried dumprings and white rice from Monday.  The only thing I ate yesterday were the duck shreds; I’m really good at spacing out all my leftovers so they last as long as possible.  Today, though, when I opened the takeout box, I realized one of the dumprings was half-eaten.  A little disappointing, but beggars really can’t be choosers.  That box of white rice really went surprisingly far, though – I am ridiculously full now.

11:15 pm

MY GOD LOST WAS SO GOOD THAT WHO EVEN GIVES A SHIT ABOUT FOOD ANYMORE?!?!??!??!?!??!??!?  I FORGOT ALL ABOUT DINNER AND DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE?!?!?!?!?!??!??!?!??!??!?!?!

9:21 am

I miss the days when I used to eat breakfast. I remember I used to buy a bagel every single morning from the bagel stand in front of my office. Those were the days. I became such great friends with the bagel guy – his name was Sean, or some foreign name that sounded like Sean, and he absolutely adored me. He even invited me out to Foxwoods on the weekends, and as much as my blackjack-loving self wanted to take him up on the offer, I thought it’d be a bit sketch. Anyway, I couldn’t do that any longer. I was spending $1/day = $5/week = $20/month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This had to stop. So I stopped eating breakfast when I switched jobs and never saw Sean or whatever again. Bye-bye free Foxwoods trip. So sad because I cherish free gifts in life. As they say, the best things in life are free – free food, free drinks, free gambling chips.

12:02 pm

gchat from L at 12:02 pm:

I’ve got a new term that is perfect for your Poverexia blog:  pauperemia – defined as living on financially stable people’s waste.

Example:

“L, I ate $30 worth of Chinese food today – do you want this leftover rotten lo mein?”

L: “Hells yes!!!”

MLK Day, yay cows!!!

S ordered yet another meal for mormons today from The Cottage.  I immediately spotted the takeout box of white rice that I just knew was going to go uneaten (poor thing <shaking head>).  Skip the boring details and fast forward to end of meal.  Of course S leaves shreds of peking duck, some of those mooshoo or whatever pancakes, and three fried dumprings uneaten.  He catches me staring.  “I’m just going to throw them away,” he says.  THROW THEM AWAY?!??!??!??@&^!&%^&!@  I just can’t believe S and the rest of the ibanking world who think they can just order out every night and not even finish everything they order and dump out the rest.  There are starving girls in Manhattan for god’s sake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Girls like me who can only afford to eat a cup of hot water with a chicken bone in it and a bowl of salted ice cubes every day.  Luckily S is my surrogate Jewish mother and likes to feed me and watch me grow fat.  Anyway, good news is, now I have duck and dumprings for breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow.  Success!

1:35 pm

Wrapping up brunch on the UWS.  Had a great spinach/feta omlette, 3 pieces of toast, greens, and delicious sundried-tomato mashed potatoes for $10.  As I always do, I’m carefully eyeing everyone else’s plate as I shove each bite into my mouth.  ML has left 3 pieces of toast, her greens, and parts of her omlette untouched; AP barely touched her mashed potatoes and left pieces of her omlette and toast; MC left a whole chunk of her egg-white omlette on her plate.

I don’t consider myself a moocher, per se.  I would never take something that someone would have normally eaten.  The drill is to carefully watch and observe when each person puts down their fork, and you wait 10 minutes.  If they haven’t picked up their fork and picked at their food for a good 10 minutes, then that’s a sure sign that they’re done with their plate.  That’s when I…

ARE YOU DONE WITH THAT CAN I HAVE THAT.

99.5% of the time – if you follow my above protocol – the answer is “yes, sure.”  In all my years of experience with this strategy, only twice have I been turned down.  And once was because MC was purposely trying to spite me by depriving me of her leftovers.  99.5% success rate.

Today, ML graciously gave me her leftover greens, and AP gave me her entire scoop of mashed potatoes.  I ate so well today.

9:33 pm

Had myself a plate of spaghetti when I woke up this morning around noon.  Then I watched this week’s 30 Rock and The Office, then fell asleep for literally the rest of the day.  I just woke up.  My lil trick for the weekends is to sleep all day in front of the TV so that I’m literally not hungry for dinner, slash, I sleep through it.  Luckily we’ve got some wine to fill my belly before I go out.