Blarg, Snarge, and Phooey

Things in hospitals that look like faces (and not happy ones, at that)

2012-01-30T23:04:00.000-05:00

I spent five days in the surgical intensive care unit at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in Miami, two weeks ago. Hours seemed to melt into each other. At first it was easy to keep the melting at bay, with the ativan dose routinely coming every four hours and the morphine every eight. But then the morphine dosages kept increasing, so the time kept changing. Then they added respiratory therapy every four hours, but they weren't the same four hours as the ativan. Then came the elevating of one side of his body or the other every two hours, to keep bed wounds from forming on his back, because an infection would have been epically bad.

The first night I didn't sleep. I took a cat nap on a chair in the waiting room, using my winter coat as a blanket, draping my scarf over my face to keep the light out. I had my boots on, the ones that I wore on the 6 am flight to Tampa and on the drive from there to Miami, for 48 hours (the same clothes, too, naturally). The second night, my brother brought sleeping bags, so I slept in the corner for a couple of hours. The third night, they brought a cot.

It seemed like they never re-stocked the salad bar, while we were there. We arrived Wednesday afternoon in time for lunch, and had eaten them out of spinach and broccoli by Friday. After that it was burnt pizza and cold sweet potato fries.

Mostly I sat by his bed, which is how I noticed the bedside TV controller that looks like a face. After that, it seemed like everything had a face. But I didn't always have my phone to photograph everything. They all had the same face, you'll notice. A sort of stern face. Not frownie, unhappy, sad. Stern. "Man up," said they. "This ain't the first one and it won't be the last one. Deal."

Bedside TV Controller, With Mysterious Music Button That I Could Not Figure Out How To Get Music From

Otis Elevonic Group Control

Rich-ish People Donation Plaques + Metal Cover Probably Covering Wires + Wall Rail Thingie, Probably For Patients Who Are Able To Get Up From Their Beds To Hold Onto

A Smile is Just a Frown Turned Upside Down

2012-01-07T22:15:00.000-05:00

Some things I saw today:

Sunlight on my bare arms
Smiling faces
A man jogging, topless, on Kent
Two lads tossing around the ol' pigskin at East River Park

A three headed beast

Three dogs on a corner

Three white sheets hanging out to dry

A sneering dolphin

The moon over a jet stream

Goals, Or Whatever

2012-01-01T14:13:00.000-05:00

I was inspired to make this 2012 goals list while preparing my "new year's" brunch.

Learn to crack an egg one-handedly
Always put my range fan on when cooking
Never use the front right burner
Find another place for spice rack that's not on or near the oven
Always have ketchup on hand
Always have frozen pizza on hand
Always have ice cubes on hand
Never keep those refrigerated bake-at-home cinnamon rolls on-hand, "just in case"
Get curtains for kitchen windows
Get a toaster oven to make pizza bagels in
Stop turning goals lists into shopping lists
Finish watching Dune
Finish that bag of tangerines I bought last week
Continue having unfiltered internal monologue, externally, via blog

Bitch As a Relative Term

2011-12-29T15:55:00.000-05:00

Friends often (yes, often) used to tell me that they used to think I was a bitch. "God, I used to think you were such a bitch!" That, or the equally telling comment "I used to think you hated me." Before we were friends, natch. Something in my way, or in my naturally down-turned mouth, signaled "hatred/bitch" to them, after which time I managed to win them over with my WINNING personality. But I didn't know that I had to win them over, see? Because I only ever found out about the "bitch" thing after, usually way after, the fact.

I haven't heard these lines in a long time. I don't think the sentiment on the Other's part has changed, I just think that with age comes tact. Scratch that - tactfulness is on something like a bell curve. It increases up to a certain point, oh, say, 52 years of age, and then begins a decline equal to its previous ascent. But that's beside the point.

The absence of these words falling upon my eardrums could be due to something else altogether. Perhaps it's that I've come to associate with people who love (my flavor of) bitchiness. In this scenario, there's no realization that I'm not in fact a bitch/hateful; rather, that's precisely what they love about me from the beginning. There's no winning them over with my true charms, because that is my charm. I had them at "Leave me the fuck alone," accompanied by a withering look.

Fighting Evil By Moonlight, Winning Love By Daylight

2011-12-24T17:10:00.008-05:00

I always stay with my sister when I visit Florida. She's like a real grown-up - married, owns a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer and a three bedroom house. And is a year younger than me. Enough to make any older sibling feel inadequate. She never has house guests besides me, but she has a very cozily appointed guest room. A real, live bed (nunna that fold-out business), a loveseat, a closet for dress hanging, a bookcase containing all the Clive Barker one could desire (that's a lotta Clive Barker). And the prized cheetahs-on-mirror "art" piece I gave her for her birthday a couple of years ago.

My сестренка has plenty of extra linens and such, but always lays out my old Sailor Moon blanket for me (don't judge). It's one of those sort of scratchy, woolly blankets with silky soft material on the top and bottom edges. I'm not sure if she holds onto it for any reason other than to have it on hand for my visits. It's so faded now that you can hardly tell that the print on it is Sailor Moon. It's not a very cozy blanket; you really need to put something between it and your soft flesh, and in Florida, you never really need more than one layer of blanket (and this winter, you hardly need a blanket at all - night time temps didn't seem to drop below 69, dudes [and did I mention my sister's nickname is Dude? Not as in this dude, but more like short for this doo-dah]), but seeing as I'm 90 years old, I always need a blanket, so I tortured myself by sandwiching Sailor Moon between a sheet and a fleece throw. A little excessive, perhaps, BUT I LIKE TO GO HARD.

There's Something About The Sunshine State; It Just Makes Me Wanna SMOKE

2011-12-20T17:40:00.000-05:00

One of the first things I do when I hit the ground in FLA (pronounced eff-ell-ay) is buy a pack of cigarettes. The 7-11 near my sister's house keeps them under the counter - hidden. You have to ask for them. I always think they don't have them, that maybe they've just got the sale packs of Pall Malls ($4.75!) or Marlboro Lights (2fer1!), but I ask anyway and they respond, as do the bodega dudes in New York, "What color?" Yellow, natch.

Maybe the air here is too fresh. My lungs, filled with BQE particulate debris, truck exhaust, and the second hand smoke of some million or so addicts, yearn for the polluted New York City air. I'm like a fish out of murky water. In other words, a fish out of the East River.

Maybe it's habit; all's we ever used to do when I lived here was go to the cafe, sit outside, and smoke. Très bohemian. Of course, it's a different cafe now, and no one else is here. Kyle's married and studying Comp Lit in Buffalo, Jason's married and studying something in Chicago, Mindy is pregnant, Jonny Cafe is god-knows-where. Incidentally, the cafe where I'm now smoking and drinking coffee and typing is called Cafe Bohemia, bestowed upon the 'burg some eight years ago by my buddy Matt Neal, one of the last left standing in this city.

Maybe it's the anxiety of unhomeliness, in this place I used to call home, that calls for a self-destructive puff or twenty. All's I know is, when I'm here, I sure smoke.

"What Do You Want From Me?"

2011-12-18T23:30:00.000-05:00

"I wanna take you in that bedroom
lock the door
take your clothes off with my teeth
throw you on the bed
and give you a go round like you've never had."

Come on. I love the morning.

It's 1 A.M.; Do You Know Where Your Mental Faculties Are?

2011-12-17T14:32:00.000-05:00

Have I talked about this before? I'm going to talk about it again, because it never fails to shock me just how obliterated, sloppy, raving drunk people can be by 1 am. Falling over, babbling incoherently, droopy-faced drunk. I was on my way home on the L, minding my own biznaz, standing by the door, playing sudoku on my iPhone, when this man, who appeared to be alone, and also appeared to be not a hobo, but a youngish regular guy, started harassing a woman as she was getting ready to get off at the next stop. I watched it all unfold out of the corner of my eye, thankful that I wasn't listening to my iPod so that I could enjoy this live entertainment instead. The lady, also youngish and regularish, had been sitting beside him but had gotten up in anticipation of disembarking at the next stop. When she got up and stood in front of the door, which happened to be where I was leaning, he started calling her, sort of half heartedly, well, I guess more just weakly from drunkenness, a mess. "You're a mess," he babble-whispered, fish-out-of-water flapping his hand in her (our) direction. (She wasn't a mess at all, of course - he was.) "Look at you. God, what a mess. Get outta here." And she did, with nary a glance in his direction.

I make light of it in telling the tale but really, in the moment, it makes me feel what I imagine to be something like motherly concern. Is he going to make it home tonight, alive? Will he stumble in front of an oncoming garbage truck or subway car? Will he choke on his own vomit (RIP Mama Cass)? Will he lose his keys in the gutter and pass out in the street and freeze to death? I guess that level of obliteration is par for the course, for some people, but how they manage to make it to the next morning, body intact, is beyond the capacity of my mental faculties.

Movies Netflix Suggests For Me, And Their Unlikely Inspirations

2011-12-10T00:47:00.000-05:00

Suggestion: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Because I enjoyed: The Kids in the Hall Pilot Episode

Suggestion: Nutcracker The Motion Picture
Because I enjoyed: Parks and Recreation

Suggestion: Marwencol (a documentary about a man brain damaged by a severe beating, and his art)
Because I enjoyed: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure

Starting to see a pattern here - serious, thought-provoking films suggested in response to mindless, hilarious comedies. What are you trying to tell me, Netflix?

Suggestion: Yellowstone - Battle For Life
Because I enjoyed: Party Down

Suggestion: In Search of Beethoven
Because I enjoyed: Party Down

Suggestion: Eternal Enemies - Lions and Hyenas
Because I enjoyed: Party Down

Considering Party Down was only on for two seasons, I'm surprised it's getting so much Netflix action here. Seriously now, suggest something based on the nine seasons of X-Files I enjoyed!

Suggestion: PBS - The Buddha
Because I enjoyed: Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
(I guess I kind of get this one - the profundity of life, blah blah blah)

Suggestion: Ken Burns - The War
Because I enjoyed: Mad Men
Uhh, because Don Draper was a veteran?

Suggestion: Romeo & Juliet
Because I enjoyed: The Wizard of Oz
Dorothy and The Wizard - star-crossed lovers?

Suggestion: Law & Order ("cerebral, dark, gritty, suspenseful")
Because I enjoyed: Little House on the Prairie ("sentimental, feel-good")
I...got nothin'. Seriously, help me out here. They both start with the letter L? They're both ripped from the headlines?

2011-12-08T18:59:00.002-05:00

There's an electrical outlet next to my kitchen table, directly underneath my large and glorious black panthers painting (not to be confused with these Black Panthers - the ones in my kitchen are of the feline variety). Outlets are usually close to the floor, out of sight. You don't see them, and more importantly, they don't see you. See, I do a lot of sitting at my kitchen table, facing that wall. That's where I study, where I page through Harper's while I drink my home-made sludgey coffee on the weekend, where I eat my Domino's pizza while catching up on Parks and Rec, where I write words in my notebook and type them on my laptop. I, like many people, look off into some distance in search of words, or of an understanding of some words that we've read, or heard spoken to us. My eyes settle on things, things that come in between them and the horizon where understanding is to be found. My eyes settle on The Outlet.

The Outlet, as you can see, has all the basics required to be anthropomorphised into a face: two slits for eyes and a hole for a mouth; no nose required. It's not just any old face, though. It has a mood. A feeling. It speaks, this face. It's shocked and horrified. Disappointed, repulsed. This is not the face you want to be staring at you when you seek understanding. It is not an affirming face.

It reminds me of Twin Peaks, when Josie becomes trapped in the drawer knob of a wooden nightstand next to the bed where she has just shot and killed herself. It's a disturbing image. BOB is there and presumably he has something to do with Josie's being trapped in the wood. Wood/the woods are a big theme in Twin Peaks; the Log Lady wasn't crazy - her husband, who died in a fire on their wedding night, was trapped in the log she carried around, and he was able to communicate with her.

"Fear and love open the doors," (the doors to the white and the black lodges) Major Briggs says in one of the last episodes. But is it fear that opens the black lodge and love, the white? Or is it fear AND love? The acknowledgment, the owning, even, of the fear involved in loving and being loved? Josie had both, but her fear was stronger. And I suppose, hence her being trapped.

When I was a kid, we had fake wood paneling in many rooms in our house. Very seventies. The paneling mimicked the look of real wood down to the knots. Those panels were just lousy with the appearance of the cross-sections of knots. Those knots, I used to think, looked like monster faces. No, they didn't just look like monster faces, they were monsters. In the wood. I was sure of it. Faces all jaggedy, yet melty, yet woody. Melting, jagged, wooden monster faces. I hated being alone in the bathroom, behind closed doors, with these wood monsters. I don't recall when I got past it, when I was able to look at those knots and not think they were going to possess me. This, too comes to mind when faced with The Outlet. Can't sleep, The Outlet's gonna get me! And then I watch an Alec Baldwin or Christopher Walken sketch from SNL, and everything is fine.

Words Have Meaning(s)

2011-12-07T01:03:00.003-05:00

When we (I) think of consume, we (I) think: ingest, take in, absorb. That's the definition, basically. Consume comes from the Latin word "consumo," which means to take altogether, to spend, to use up, to finish. The derived noun, "consumptio," means a consuming, destroying. A "consumptor" is a destroyer. "Consummo" means to form a whole, complete. The Latin prefix "con" means with. "Sum" is the present singular of "to be." Con+sum = "to be whole." When we (I) want someone, we want to consume them (metaphorically of course, right?). So, do we (I) want to destroy them, or be whole with them? Is there a difference?

The Age-Old Question

2011-12-05T21:20:00.000-05:00

When I think, "What would I like to rot my insides with tonight?", nine times out of twelve the answer is "Pizza!" It's got just the right combination of complex carbs, sugary tomato sauce, and rennety cheese, hitting every point on any reasonably healthy person's "DO NOT CONSUME" list. But I like to take it up a notch; or down 83 notches, to the lowest of the low, based on your perspective. In the race among Brooklyn pizza delivery joints, for me it always comes down to two: Domino's and Papa John's (Singa's, apparently the truly lowest, based on this yelp review, has disqualified itself based on this other yelp review; Pizza Hut would be the sure winner, if there were any nearby). Sure, I'll look at the menu for Carmine's and Sal's, and even the newer, hipper Best Pizza. But those are my slice places. I go there for slices. For a whole pie, plus breadsticks, without which I feel my pizza delivery meal is incomplete, it must be Domino's or Papa John's.

The first time I had Domino's was in high school. There was a Domino's outpost attached to the on-campus 7-11. That Domino's was truly abominable. Never before, and never since, have I tasted that unique combination of cardboard + process cheese food + generic ketchup. Even the time that I got the mostly raw Little Caesar's pie was better than this Domino’s. If I consumed it on more than one occasion, it was out of truly desperate hunger. Pretty much all that the 7-11 stocked was Sun Chips, mortal enemy to my taste buds. I didn't touch it again until I moved to the Lower East Side in 2005. There was a Domino's nearby. My favorite neighborhood pizza place, Rosario's, didn't deliver. A cold/stormy night + epic hungers = me ordering Domino's delivery. It's been me n' D ever since.

Papa John's was my jam in high school. I knew a guy that worked there who would hook me up with pizza if I hooked him up with a gigantic milkshake from the ice cream shop where I worked. But that ish was worth its weight in gold to me (see, pizza doesn't weigh that much, so it's fine). What Papa John's was then is much what Domino's seems to be now. The sauce so sugary/tangy, the crust so doughy, the breadsticks pillow-esque. Perfection! (Not to say I didn't indulge in the occasional Hungry Howie's pie with butter cheese crust). Whenever PJ's wins out over Dom's, it's this flavor nostalgia that tips the scales.

Here are the things that weigh on my mind each time I decide on pizza over rice & steamed veggies:

Dom's Pros
- Consistent. Domino's may not be "the best," but it always arrives hot, melty, and saucy, the flavor is actually respectable, it's always exactly what I expect it to be, and I've certainly had worse.
- Cheap. They have all these great online coupons! Yes, I am secretly your coupon cutting grandma. DEAL WITH IT.
- Order tracking. Like UPS, and just as reliable! Before it goes out the door they do a "perfection check"! And you get to pick the background theme for the tracker! I always pick the bodice ripper theme. Not that I order often enough to describe my frequency as "always," or anything. Just sayin'.

Dom's Cons
- GUT BOMB. Do not go on a date after consuming. Actually, don't go anywhere after consuming. You'll probably be balls deep into When Harry Met Sally anyway.

PJ's pros
- Ehhhh, pretty much the same as Dom's, except NO tracking. Get with the future, PJ's! I represent the people and the people want pizza tracking!

PJ's cons
- As previously mentioned, the no tracking blows. Even if the Dom's tracker is a fake-out, it's very comforting to see progress.
- And obviously, the GUT BOMB factor.

I began this quandary knowing it would lead me to one of two ends. Gut Bomb + When Harry Met Sally, or Gut Bomb + Dirty Dancing. The Domino's pizza tracker just informed me that Ramon has left the store with my order. Could it have been any other way?

I'm a Neurotic 90 Year Old Jewish Man

2010-12-03T00:44:00.000-05:00

I try not to be crotchety old lady about the loud music my neighbors play. Hey it's New York! We love music! At 2 am! On a Tuesday night! As much as I hem and haw about having to hear it, it takes kind of a lot for me to get it up to say something to the offender. And of course by that time, I'm fit to cause serious injury (emotionally, with my laser eyes). Since I've moved into my new place, it's mostly been the girl across the hall. She was entertaining a gentleman friend one weeknight evening, and by evening I mean late at night. They were watching a movie in what sounded like surround sound. It was an action movie! I could tell from all the explosions n' stuff. So midnight rolls around, as I'm trying to get some studying done, and of course, the volume diminishes not. Soooooo I go and knock. She must be expecting this, right? She takes a moment to come to the door (they were probably making out, as I heard the throes of love-makings not long after). She calls through the door "Who is it?" Seriously? "Your neighbor across the hall" I says. She opens the door. "Hey uh, can you turn that down? It's pretty loud and I'm trying to sleep." Her mouth says "Really? Oh sorry." Her face says "I'm not going to turn it down, because I am a bitch." As it turns out, it's her face that's telling the truth.

My upstairs neighbor plays music often, but not ragingly loud. Until tonight. The sound seems to come from the area furthest from where my bed is, so as long as it's not really interfering with that whole sleep thing, I suck it up. What's weird about this guy (I assumed it was a guy, and it is - maybe it was the heavy step) is that it always seems to be the same album. The same song even? Over and over. And he'll play it late, yet be getting up in the morning, when I'm getting ready for work.

Tonight this fella comes home around 11:45ish. Puts the music on right away, but real loud like, not like he usually does. I didn't wanna go up there. I hate confrontation. I have a violent bodily response to the faintest idea of confrontation. I get so pumped full of adrenaline I can hardly speak, and I probably look and sound like an idiot to the person I'm trying to all coolly ask to turn the music/movie/sex down. But I didn't want to let it go on, let him think it was acceptable, and then start doing it all the time, because then I would have to unleash the kraken. So up I went. Knocked. He turned off the music right away and came to the door - took him a bit too long to unlock it. It seemed like he must have a dozen deadbolts to unlatch in there. Finally he pulled the door open. Some blonde hipster boy. He had a look on his face, some sad look, and reeked of booze - can you get contact drunk from sharing air space? His look drained him of any power I might have awarded him, so I wasn't so nervous when I told him I live below him and it's pretty loud, can he turn it down please. "Really?" he said in this shaky voice - drunk voice or sad voice? Or maybe even drugged up voice? "Really??" I thought, I mean c'mon, it is OBVIOUSLY too loud, too late. "Thanks" I said and walked back downstairs.

He waited a few minutes before turning it back on, much, much lower. But he has some of my sympathies now. That music he plays over and over, it's sadtown. Music a broken heart might listen to. Poor drunk hipster boy.

A Story I Think You'll Enjoy

2010-11-23T00:28:00.001-05:00

So I get to my psychoanalysis class tonight, sit in my usual seat up front, the better to admire my sensei. I sit off to the side, not right in the middle, so as not to be blinded by the brilliance. You know what "they" say: look ye not into the eyes of God, etc. I have all my shit (purse, laptop bag, grocery bag full of rutabagas and five varieties of apples and cardamom and plastic wrap) leaned up against the chair next to me that no one is sitting in, that no one ever sits in, because few are brave enough to be in such close proximity to the sun - my forty or so classmates are dispersed throughout the large-ish room all the way to the back, though they could easily sit closer (if they had the balls to do so).

We started Derrida's "To Speculate on Freud" tonight - I'm sure I need not remind you of the density of that one (if you know Derrida, you know that much and if you don't know Derrida - don't it just sound real hard?). I only read a few pages, and that was enough for me to know that it's par for the course Derrida (as in, purposefully unintelligible), and I'm gonna need to pay close attention to the crumbs of knowledge tumbling from my liege's mouth into my earballs, and flowing out through my fingers onto my mystic writing pad. There I am tippity typing away, it's about ten minutes in and I already have a full page of notes. Then this girl comes in. I don't recognize her - but I don't really recognize anyone in the class that I didn't know already when the school year started. They're all newbies, and annoying ones at that. Anyway, she comes in ten minutes late. My deft master is easily distracted by late arrivals, early departures, trips to the bathroom, slight coughs, running of one's hands through one's hair, irregular blinking, etc. He stopped the lecture to make sure she signed the attendance sheet. She took it from him, and then sat down next to me, in the chair at the foot of which my shit was piled. I mean like, whatever, but goddammit there's a lot of empty seats in that big room, why you gotta pick that one?

She asks to borrow one of my pens - I have a blue one and a black one to satisfy my moderately anal underlining needs - I pause a split-end too long - she says "just for a second" and gestures toward the attendance sheet. "Sure" I whisper-grunt. (Translation: my pen! you've got my pen!).

She pulls out her laptop. She let's it sit there for a moment. She leans back in her chair, all cozily. She opens the laptop. She types a text message on her phone - on a low setting, not silent - which is on the desk next to her laptop. She starts typing aggressively. Occasionally she stops, shuts her laptop, sits back comfortably. I assume she's low on juice, as I burn rubber on my plugged up machine. A couple of times her phone rings, she looks at it, doesn't stop it. About ten minutes before the end of class, she stops typing and makes a sound - shock, dismay, annoyance, some such sound. It's hot n' heavy at this point - my wrist is hurting from typing so much so hard so fast - after a full day of typing at work. She tries to get my attention, she's trying to tell me something, what is it? What is it girl? Is there a fire at the old barn? Oh your laptop died? You didn't bring your plug, and also didn't bring a notebook or a pen to your graduate philosophy class? Oh wait a second, I don't give a fuck! And I just fucking missed the last seven words spilled from the mouthbox of mine guru goddamn you! Never mind, she said, closed her laptop, and sat back again. Would that that were the end. WOULD! 82 or so seconds later, and I swear she does this just to piss me off, she digs around in her bag for what will eventually come to smell like a eucalyptus cough drop. She moves it around in her mouth, slurps on it loudly, clacks it against her teeth. An eternity goes by in those last few minutes - I envision epic intergalactic wars, natural disasters, the dying of the sun - all the while she is sucking and clacking. And then it's 9:50. Fin.

This is Your Brain On...the Third Floor of the Natural History Museum

2010-11-08T18:23:00.002-05:00

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Brain: The Inside Story

Memory Tapes Christmas Tour

2010-11-08T18:19:00.000-05:00

Lullabies at Bedsides

OUT OF LIGHT / CASES

2010-11-05T00:15:00.000-04:00

I went to this place tonight, and saw these photographs, and it was lovely. You didn't have to meet the artist (I did - she was wearing a strapless red sequined dress and a heavy [HEAVY] Roman soldier-y helmet) to get an idea of the absurd kind of life she leads - these are for real suitcases from her travels. 1 hot pair of shoes (heels, sparkly ones), 1 hot dress, 1 bottle of Veuve Clicquot (presumably not hot), and a souvenir mug from wherever she's traveled. This lady I admire. And the bathrooms at the Gawker office are pretty ok, if you're looking for a place to make out (I didn't).

Grooming Habits of the Young and in Love

2010-09-14T22:42:00.000-04:00

The best things seem to happen on the subway. I have frequent internal debates with myself - listen to my ipod, or eavesdrop on whatever totally banal or insane conversation might be happening within earshot. I didn't need my ears tonight - there was this young-ish couple, see? Maybe 20 or so. They seemed to be grooming each other, a la monkey grooming. Maybe not quite picking for lice/gnats/what have you (bed bugs, perhaps?) but somehow... cleaning each other, picking/wiping dirt off, in such a beastly way, in a way I've never seen humans engage with one another. Is this where we're headed?

Johnny, don't point that gun at me

2010-08-31T23:30:00.002-04:00

This morning I listened to an old Fresh Air podcast that featured John Mellencamp. When I'm choosing what to listen to on my commute I don't pay much attention to detail - just that it's the latest episode that I haven't listened to yet. When I heard Terry Gross introduce John Mellencamp, I almost turned it off. I figured, having no real interest (read: admiration for/respect) in his music, why would I be interested in his personal life? But that's exactly the argument I used to convince myself to keep listening, and I'm glad I did. I mean, I never hated John Mellencamp, but his music was always just kind of not entirely unpleasant background filler.

During the interview, he played bits from some songs off his latest album, which came out in 2008, as well as some of his old stuff, the popular (pop) stuff, but note, not poppy stuff. At least not now. He kept insistently reiterating to Terry, who was harping on the old John Mellencamp, that he is now, and has always been, a folk musician. The "old" John, he of "Pink Houses" and "Small Town," he was made, puppet-like, to craft his songs for the general public. He made his folk songs with an anthemic twist, because that's what the people (and the record labels) wanted. When he played them in the studio on his acoustic guitar, they sounded vastly different - the entire mood changed. He refers to Bob Dylan as the greatest songwriter, ever, citing him as one of his biggest influences - and you can hear it on the 2008 album. The first song he learned to play on guitar was the ollllld folk song "Railroad Bill." So there's a little street cred, if you needed it.

After all this talk about Mellencamp, it's not so much he the person, the musician, the interviewee that, ahem, struck a chord, if you will. It's what he said about anthems - the way he seemed, well, almost revolted by them, as if they're a sub-par musical form. This sentiment resounded so deeply with me because we, the generation that had John Mellencamp and like tunes fed into our earballs at knee-high to a grasshopper type ages, seem to love us some anthems. But also it seems like Mellencamp's revulsion is justified - those anthems, back then, were cookie cutter stadium rock anthems, one hit wonder types (with a few worthy exceptions, notably U2). Our primal musical inspiration comes from those catchy, danceable, sing-along-able anthems, but we've done something to the form - we took that tired old cookie cutter and molded into a a thing of beauty - sweeping, orchestral, uplifting songs - thoughtful and well-crafted but equally (or more?) catchy, danceable, and sing-along-able as the old anthems, the ones John Mellencamp finds so unbearable. Of Montreal, Arcade Fire, Muse, Temper Trap, to name a few obvious one. How about this new Deerhunter one (a particularly epic performance of), or this Hot Chip cut? Bangers count, by the way (think summer 2k7, when MGMT, MSTRKRFT, Peter Bjorn and John, and J.U.S.T.I.C.E. were blowing the fug up). So, somehow, predictable, and yet complex enough to satisfy the aural cravings of even the most cynical music critic. Actually I guess that's a kind of redundant statement. DId ever there live a remotely un-cynical muisc critic?

To call it primal musical inspiration brings to bear two instances of primality - ontogenetic and phylogenetic. There's the individual's relationship with music - I grew up listening to Beastie Boys, Rick Astley, and Depeche Mode. That's me, in a nutshell. Then there's the species - humans are musical creatures. There's something about the anthem, something visceral that communicates with the collective unconscious - the anthem is not about being alone in your room chillaxing at the end of a long day - it's about being-with, it's about experiencing musicality, with others, in a pre-verbal way; sure, songs have lyrics, and sure lyrics matter (for me, they matter a lot), but it's not really about the lyrics - it's about the feeling of singing them together - even when you're singing alone.

Morning Surprise

2010-08-27T11:28:00.006-04:00

I have one of those little Bialetti stove top coffee makers. It supposedly serves three, i.e., it makes three shots of "espresso," but it's not really espresso, and it's not really enough for me (and it's not even the smallest one they have!). So sometimes in the morning when I'm making my iced coffee, if my room-mate has left coffee in the French press from the day before, I pilfer a tad to round out my cup. I justify my pilfering of day old counter top coffee by saying, that's MY French press she's using, and she never even cleans it! That's the Jewish half of me, being guilty for taking day old coffee, and making ridiculous excuses to lessen the guilt, and then feeling ridiculous for making ridiculous excuses.

I haven't done this in a while, because my room-mate will often come home at night and finish the coffee - but last night, she did not, and that half full pot was staring me in the eyeballs this morning. To my delightful surprise, upon my first sip I tasted a hint of cinnamoniness; when I returned the ice cube tray to the freezer I noticed the can of Trader Joe's gingerbread coffee. Off season: maybe. Magically delicious: a thousand times yes.

9 Out of 10 Dentists Agree

2010-08-20T09:56:00.005-04:00

Two of my lady pals are dating younger mans. The hot Spanish girl I used to work with, 34 year old Maria del Mar, just married a 27 year old. Not like any of us are very old so it's not a robbing of cradle, but also because none of us are very old, the younger mans are kind of quite young. I seem to keep meeting/dating young ones too. This is the (kiddie) pool we've been thrown into, in the city of New York, in the year of our lord 2010 - a pool of young mans who are neither too (old and) jaded with (bad) relationships, nor too (young and) slutty and in need of wild oats sowing. A pool of twenty-five-ish year olds who seem legitimately interested in, or at least not terrified of/fetishizingly fascinated with older women. Not just the whole "older women are so grateful" thing (and by the way I thought that whole "grateful" bit was a new-ish thing - but I just saw this old French comedy at MoMA, The Story of a Cheat, released in 1937, wherein the young protagonist referred to his "grateful" countess lover).

Nobody blinks when a twenty-five year old woman says she's dating a thirty-year old man. Or a twenty-three year old woman dates a thirty-three year old man (as another [young] friend of mine is doing). Blah blah blah, right? The other way around, you're a cougar. A desperate woman. A Demi. Or so it's been. The more I come across this with my friends, and the more I come across it in my own experiences, the less blinking my eyes seem to do. Maybe my eyeballs just don't need as much moistening anymore.

Subway Etiquette, or, Stop Blocking the Fucking Door You Asshole

2010-08-17T23:48:00.001-04:00

If you're someone who reads this, then you probably already know I got me a shiny new job. I'm happy I have this job. I can pay my rent, and my bills, and buy food and pretty dresses and cheap Forever 21 costume jewels and the fancy burritos from Papacito's (not just Taco Bell [even though I do love Taco Bell and still eat there all the time - ALL THE TIME]). Probably my favorite part of my new 9-5er is the commute. The G to the L to Union Square in no time flat. I drink my coffee, catch up on my podcasts, maybe have a tiny cat nap on the way home, and PRACTICE MY FINELY HONED RAGE skills.

These people on the subway, you'd think they never rode the subway. You'd think that they think New Yorkers aren't typically poised to go postal. You'd think that they, being human, might have a sliver of humanity. No, indeed. Their favorite thing, I've noticed, is to get onto a not-necessarily-very-crowded subway car, from a crowded rush hour Union Square platform (you know, a hypothetical kind of commuting situation) and stop as soon as they step into it. Like, "Phew! I made it on. My work here is done." It's funny because even the people behind them who have to push their way on, they do the same thing. "Yes! I got on! Right here at the door seems cozy."

Sometimes, it's a crowded car emptying out onto a crowded platform. You hear the announcer say "Let them off let them off!" And yet there the platformers are, standing directly in front of the doors when the train pulls into the station, as if this is the last train that will ever come, EVER, and it's going to the promised land, and if you don't get on it now you'll be stuck at the Metropolitan L station FOREVER! I, embodying a charming combination of politeness, knowledge of basic physical laws, and non-cutthroatness, stand aside enough to let people off first. Of course, that then leaves a vast swath of empty platform area (the area where those disembarking should disembark onto) for the less polite, less wise to physics, more, shall we say, savage of our species to step in, and fuck shit up. Clearly we need some kind of regulation beyond the "Let them off" communique and the scolding that follows thereafter - and by regulation, I mean regulator.

I also really like it when people treat that one pole in the middle, that ONE that pretty much EVERYONE in the middle of the car needs to hold onto, like it was placed in that position for them to lean their nasty ass crack on, or to hug their arm around while they fuck with their phone/iPod/New Yorker. Hey DUDES - that pole is for the thirty-seven of us to wrap our outstretched pinkies around so we don't stumble at every start, stop and turn, thereby stabbing unsuspecting strangers in the feet with our stilettos (I have a scar on each foot).

Who ARE these people? Do they have ANY sense of the world that exists beyond a millimeter outside of them? It makes me dream of a time when I might be brave enough to ride a bike over the bridge. But then again, who ever will I silently rage over? I guess I'll always have sidewalk-blockers for that.

Bebe Cooper

2010-07-25T03:28:00.003-04:00

According to the man who held the door open for me on my way out of 7-11, the man who caught up to me on his bike about fifteen minutes later, the bus driver was hitting on me. To be clear, I wasn't on the bus, nor was I waiting for the bus - I was walking on the side of the street with traffic heading the opposite of my direction. I thought it was a little odd for the bus to be stopping where it was, just after Huron rather than just before India, but I didn't think much about its oddness - until this man on the bike, passing me just as I was walking past this oddly stopped bus, slowed down to say "That bus driver is hitting on you," in a sort of haha tone. Close to home, and just wanting to get there to have my egg salad sandwich, I replied in an equally haha tone "Really? I'm just trying to get home!" I didn't even look to see if the bus driver was watching.

I reminded him of Bebe Cooper, a girl he went to school with in the 70s. Me, in my white romper and gold chains and 4-inch heels. "I wasn't even born in the 70s" I said. He didn't look as old as he was, he replied, then told me to get home safe and rode off.

The Latest Trends

2010-06-23T22:15:00.003-04:00

Spotted on the streets and subways cars of NYC: Girls who are NOT under 18, are NOT superfit, are NOT at all tan, wearing no-joke midriff baring shirts. Hello. This is reserved for supermodels.

Also of note, a man at the Apple store on 14th looking very Less Than Zero in a blazer over a t-shirt, jeans, and bright yellow loafers. And of course, wearing a visage of privilege under his blonde 'do. On second thought, maybe he was more Spencer Pratt than Less Than Zero.

And to further tickle your fancy, a totally normal looking guy who I would never have noticed if I hadn't caught a glimpse of his t-shirt that said "Keep looking, I might do a trick." As if he's the kind of freak people stare at. This is the kind of shirt that oversized 14 year olds with badly dyed pink hair buy at Hot Topic - you know, like Perez Hilton back in the 90s. I only say that because I used to have beautifully dyed pink hair, and worked at Hot Topic.

Dear People Who Can't Hold It In: Stop Peeing on Strangers' Cars!

2010-06-11T21:05:00.002-04:00

Twice in as many days I've had the pleasure of having my eyes alight upon a fellow publicly urinating near/on a parked car. Not tucked away in an alley or a corner, not on a tree in a secluded area, and not off any kind of beaten path, ho no, not for these cocky fellows, both of whom undertook this act of what can only be called civil disobedience at ungodly hours and in ungodly places - that is to say, not quite broad daylight, but not far off, given these long, nearly summer days; hours during which children still abound in the streets, during which the respectable young men and women of Williamsburg are taking their visiting parents to dinner. 9 pm-ish, the both of them; N. 7th near Bedford the one, N. 6th near Wythe the other - directly in front of the Lovin' Cup, he was. 9 pm! Have you really been drinking so excessively in a restroom-less venue that you're forced to the streets, nay, to the cars parked on the streets, the cars of unwitting strangers?? For shame!

Whyyyyyyyyy?????

2010-04-27T11:37:00.003-04:00

I was just having a nice bowl of oatmeal and reading my emails, when all of the sudden Clumso-Carina took over - I reached for the bowl, perched precariously atop a book with a pen inside of it, and basically just shoved the bowl right off. Inside of the one second it took for the bowl to fall off the ottoman and onto the floor, I made a sad attempt to grab at it, sad because my neck is sore so when I made the lightning fast gesture to save the bowl, I just hurt myself more. In the end, the bowl landed right side up on the floor, half filled with oatmeal. The other half of the oatmeal had spilled neatly onto a napkin directly next to the bowl. The spoon landed on the book, with no oatmeal spillage onto said book. So I picked up the bowl and finished eating my oatmeal.

The lesson I am taking is this: when watching a catastrophe unfold, do not interfere, because it will probably turn out just fine, and you will get your oatmeal, and if you do try to interfere you will probably just pull a muscle.

If I'm Going To Continue to Consume Garbage, I Should Probably Stop Reading the Ingredients

2010-04-18T13:01:00.007-04:00

If you know me, you know my love for the finer things: Olive Garden, Little Debbies, Mister Softee (with orange magic shell). This love, surely, was cultivated by my mother, father, and grandmother since, I'd wager, my birth (more likely starting while in utero). Included in my grandma-packed lunch every day in grade school was a Little Debbie snack - most often the Swiss Cake Roll, but also of course Zebra Cakes and the standard chocolate and vanilla cakes; occasionally the Oatmeal Creme Pie and that rare treat, the Strawberry Shortcake roll. Mr. B's was a soft-serve joint a few blocks from my childhood home where we would frequently go with my father on "dad visit" days. I'd always get the BLT, and of course vanilla soft serve with rainbow sprinkles for dessert. Olive Garden was where we'd go for post-Church dinner when I was a bit older - middle and high school. Some great reward for sitting through Church, maybe a bribe, I don't know, but I do know it was and is so-delicious.

I have somehow become, against all odds, something of a healthy-eater kind of person. Whole grains, raw or barely steamed veggies, organic tofu, beans and rice. My favorite snack is hummus and pita. Gone are the days of fake meat products for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Gone are the days of Banana Nut Crunch or Quaker Oats oatmeal squares (packed full of vitamins and protein, but also packed full of sugar and corn starch - you could lay bricks with that stuff) for breakfast (or, let's face it, and lunch and dinner). Gone are the days of V8 Splash - a delicious and sugary vehicle for "vitamins." BUT, I still engage in trashy foodery. I know they are disgusting, literally one step above garbage, occasionally tantamount to flavored plastic food items, but I allow myself these guilty pleasures on not entirely rare occasions.

I always loved those individual serving Hostess pies; not in the shape of a little pie, but like a Hot Pocket, but not hot. They had various fruit fillings, but also chocolate pudding. Mmmmm that was my favorite. Whenever I see these pocket pies, I look for chocolate pudding; alas they are never found. I recently re-ignited my love affair with pocket pies, by way of Entenmann's lemon pie. There's a 24-hour bodega a block away from my apartment, with a very limited selection of snacks, this being one of them. So I picked one up last night, needing a pick-me-up whilst working on this seemingly never-ending paper. It's so delicious on the way into my belly, but I always detect a strange aftertaste that I can't put my finger on. After a chips/lard fiasco a few weeks ago (I would tell you about it but the thought makes me wretch), I decided to check the lemon pie ingredients, certain I would not find any animal by-products therein. And indeed, no (obvious) animal by-products jumped off the loooong ingredients list into my eyeballs, but here's what did : PARABENS. Inside of food! This is the stuff that I refuse to even let touch my skin, scouring skin-care product ingredients lists to make sure they are not included, and here it is GOING INSIDE OF MY BODY. Parabens which, among other ghastly things, in their estrogen-mimicking has been linked to BREAST CANCER. Thanks, Entenmann's!

Bear Market

2010-04-13T22:30:00.000-04:00

I may know nothing, and I mean nothing, about how the economy "works" (or rather, doesn't - zing!), but it seems to me like Beanie Babies are a good example of the artificiality of the market. Like, cheaply constructed by baby hands in China, tiny stuffed animals functioning as some kind of high-value commodity? Wha?

I know this is like, ten years after the fact, but I was just thinking about how the local ice cream shop that I worked at in high school was sold by the Beanie-obsessed owner about a year after I left, because the business was foundering. This was an ice cream shop STEPS from a heavily trafficked beach, with no nearby ice cream shops with which to compete. In other words, that business shoulda pretty much run itself. But George and his Beanie Babies, meeting in the shop with his Beanie friends, paying top dollar for the prized and rare (scarcity of commodity!) Libearty, always on the lookout for that unique Beanie that, perhaps, one of the sweatshop children had sewn inside out, or with an extra nipple on its forehead, George ran that self-running business into the ground.

What Will Be, Will Be

2010-04-12T22:35:00.003-04:00

When I'm working under a deadline to get a paper in, I tend to regress to something like my early college days - but in what feels like a more controlled manner. I was famous for all nighters back then, drinking coffee into the wee hours, taking an hour nap around 4 or 5 am, which always lasted longer than an hour and then I really had to scramble to finish whatever paper or lab assignment in the morning before class. I was fueled not just by caffeine, but by the most repulsive junk food - what I consider now to be guilty pleasures, not oft indulged in. Maybe not infrequently indulged in either, but not as oft as the good ol' school days. Hostess cupcakes, donuts, Soft Batch cookies, sour cream n' onion chips, bottled, sugary iced tea. It's all here, right in front of me. The thing is, now I do it on purpose. I have found the intense sugar high to be inspirational - it doesn't just keep me awake, it SPEAKS through my FINGERS. Pre-cupcake/chips/iced tea cocktail, I had nothin'. And now voila! Pure philosophy GOLD.

Conversations Kill

2010-04-04T02:12:00.002-04:00

Do you ever get the feeling that things are like, choreographed? Like, you walk down into the subway at 2 am, and right away this guy starts playing the ukelele and whistling “Dream a Little Dream” and then he finishes and the train pulls in and these two men usher/drag in a third, very drunk man, is it their friend or just some guy that passed out in the station that they’re helping out because the train only comes once a millennium at that hour?, and this guy and girl sit across from you and the girl, with this pretty smile and a long stemmed electric orange sunflower in her hand just lifts her feet on up and sets them on top of the front wheel of the boy’s bike and then the girl sitting directly across from you sneezes and then it breaks.

Grossery Store

2010-04-03T15:54:00.003-04:00

Oh thank heaven! A 7-Eleven recently opened on 14th Street west of 6th Ave (too new even for google maps, it seems), and boy do they have a wretched selection of food-products - and by wretched I mean, inducing of wretching. I went in the other day, in need of some doritos, and took in the prepared foods cases on my way to the pre-packaged gut bomb section. Two slices of (slightly warmed over, gelatinously cheesy) pizza for $3.33! Two heart-stopping breakfast taquitos for $2! Nachos, with free chili and cheese (From a machine! That was broken! Even though they just opened?). They even do a waffle sandwich, a la the back-by-popular-demand-for-a-limited-time-only Dunkin D Waffle Breakfast Sandwich. If you know me at all, you know I'm a girl who likes gross things. But wow 7-Eleven. Wow. You have been the cause of a feeling of repulsion arising in me. Thank you for making me feel alive.

Moonshine in Mine Eyes

2010-01-29T23:22:00.003-05:00

Have you ever been so cold that your eyeballs froze? That's how cold out it is, right now. I mean technically your eyes can't freeze, solid, in your head (while you're alive), but they do like, y'know, freeze. It affects my vision!

Meanwhile, as the liquid inside of my eyes grows sluggish, the night sky with the wolf moon is so bright it looks like summer twilight. I missed the moonrise, so I guess I missed the biggest and bestest part.

Guess Who's Coming To Stab You In Your Sleep

2010-01-17T18:33:00.001-05:00

I get so offended/put off by the strangest of things. Target has this new ad campaign for a line of cookware, bakeware and yes even FOOD by this TV "chef" lady, moon-faced Giada de Laurentiis. I was disturbed when I saw the subject of the marketing email from Target, and I had the most visceral reaction to the content once I opened it and was slapped in the face/punched in the gut with the visual of Giada grimacingly smiling over a spoon of something or other (paste made to look like something delicious, I imagine), and the campaign catchphrase floating beside her mug: "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Come on, Target! Appropriating the title of an important Civil Rights era race relations romantic dramedy? Said email delivered to my inbox ONE DAY prior to the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday?!? So so wrong! Granted, it's a phrase that's come into common enough usage, but using it in a marketing campaign for a line of (low-quality) Target cookware reallllly grinds my gears. I'm tempted to write Target a strongly worded letter to this effect. Sidney Poitier, where are you!

Uncle Fester Comes for a Visit

2010-01-13T01:12:00.004-05:00

For the last couple of weeks I've been talking about my festering ankle wound to anyone and everyone who would listen. About a month ago I took a little stumble on some subway stairs and got home to discover a bit of a bloody mess. Poured some hydrogen peroxide on that bad boy, slapped a band-aid on, and assumed it would fix itself, like all those scrapes I got back in the day when I roller skated outside with indoor skates. Alas, how wrong have I turned out to be! The festering wound has, as I mentioned, festered. I'm not exactly helping the recovery along, what with my no antibiotic ointment applying and my stuffy boots wearing. But I think this wound would fester regardless, considering the probably high likelihood of necrotizing fasciitis living on subway stairs.

Sometimes I go without a band-aid, thinking the contact with air will do it some good. It gets scabby in the middle when left uncovered (though still slightly gooey 'round the edges), so I've been known to throw some socks or tights on over it and go about my day with an unband-aided, scabbily festering wound. Today, the wound took its vengeance for this most unhealthy and unwise practice of mine. As I slowly removed my tights, I had a flashback to the moment of tights-removal on that cruel night, the one where I tried to rush past that bum on the steps and was rewarded by fate with a tumble and a scrape. I felt this slight pain on my ankle, this shiny freshness that I hadn't felt since that woeful beginning. I looked down in a crystal clear fog - there was no scab resting atop the goo. THERE WAS JUST GOO. Some demon possessed me to search inside my tights for the missing scab - I turned them inside out, and there it was, dried scab side stuck the the tights, GOO side laughing in my face (and there it sits, for I haven't managed to bring myself to remove it). I sat down and breathed deeply. I rested my head in between my legs, like I was taught in grade school so as to ward off nausea. I looked at the wound again. So festeringly gooey. It has a lip like a crater. No, a volcano. Yesss, a volcano. With an oozing lake of slimey goo instead of lava.

Rawr!

2010-01-04T16:18:00.004-05:00

Thinking about transferring to Syracuse based purely on what is surely the most incredible CFP I have ever and will ever see(n).

A Visual Caress

2010-01-04T15:30:00.003-05:00

This is a thing of beauty.

A Light Falls in Brooklyn

2009-12-06T14:52:00.004-05:00

The 2:38 pm fall/winter sunlight coming in through my south facing window hits on my block mirrored wall at the corner where it meets unmirrored wall. No light is actually falling on the unmirrored wall; just the reflection of the light from the mirrors. As it’s not one large mirror, but many smaller squares of mirror with “beveled” edges, the effect is mirrored light reflecting on mirrored light reflecting on white wall, the reflection of the light from the mirror in turn being reflected in the mirror. It appears as a sort of moth-like, symmetrical rorschach of light on white - some of the slivers of light allude to the colors of the rainbow, and jut out in this icon-like crown of heavenly splendor. 2:45 pm and the reflective/ed dazzlement is gone; the white wall catching now only the shadows cast by my sheer white curtains, and me at my desk.

Future Philosophers of America

2009-12-05T17:08:00.002-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I was studying in my living room when I heard a little girl who was walking by ask her mother: "Mommy, how is it that Jesus is God's son?" So cute! Sadly I did not get to hear what must have been a very colorful "explanation" from Mommy.

You Know You're Getting Old When...

2009-11-17T13:44:00.004-05:00

Facebook just brought to my attention that someone I dated just three short years ago is MARRIED. In three years he has met, fallen in love with, proposed to and married someone. If we had dated when we were more like twenty, this surely would not have happened.

Facebook has also enabled one of my cousins to see the grown-up me, and I the grown-up he, which is like, whoa. Last time I saw him he was a scrawny ten year old, now he's a beefy twenty year old. Beefy twenty year old college guy! And "in a relationship"! I did not even know what a relationship was when I was twenty!

Stupid Facebook!

Ohio Made Pretty

2009-10-24T01:01:00.002-04:00

This smart and creative fellow made an interactive map that maps the 88 piano keys onto Ohio's 88 counties. I had much fun just mousing over the counties at random to produce an unmelodious melody, but charting a route also seems to be an excellent way to procrastinate.

That's a Cute Top

2009-10-22T01:03:00.003-04:00

I used to "hate" yogurt, but as with many food items, I've come around to it in my more "mature" years. By "hate" I mean, never tried except maybe once and always assumed it was really gross and that one time confirmed it, and by "mature" I mean that my taste buds and my mood have evolved to a much more open minded (or open mouthed) place. I love a good pile of unhealthy but delicious crap, but when I'm at home I tend to eat healthy, read: boring and not necessarily known for being of wondrous flavor.

So I decided to give this Fage Greek yogurt a whirl. Looks healthy, and who needs all those added fruit purees to fancy up the flavor when it just exists for the benefit of your gastrointestinal health?

Fage is real thick. REAL thick. Not your run of the mill Yoplait custard style this-yogurt-is-for-pussies yogurt. Not for the faint of heart, or mouth. This is man yogurt. Like that Hungry Man frozen meal (I was wondering if they still sell those and apparently, they do), except it's yogurt. You know how at Dairy Queen when you get a Blizzard, they stick the spoon in and turn it upside down before handing it to you? I bet you could do that with Fage. Eating Fage (pronounced "Fa-yeh!" as they helpfully indicate on the container) is like eating a mighty thick sour cream. It's like that time I made pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon yogurt topping, and the cinnamon yogurt recipe called for "strained" yogurt, that is, real thick-like yogurt. I had to strain it myself. It tasted like sour cream.

Now, I'm a big fan of sour cream. I like to lick the spoon when I prepare something that involves sour cream. Heck, sometimes I will just have a whole spoonful of sour cream, because I am such a fan. What can I say, dad indulged me as a child when he spooned sour cream into my borscht (cold in the summer, hot in the winter) or onto my Russian style French toast (why/how Russion style? May simply have been the substitution of sour cream for syrup), and that was just about every weekend.

Anywho, Fage. Try to eat a serving of that, boy. Whoa! Gag me with a spoon! Literally. Well maybe not literally, I mean I'm using a spoon to eat it, and maybe gagging a little but not perpetrating the act of gagging myself. It's just sort of agonizing to eat a whole cup in one sitting. A WHOLE CUP of THICK SOUR CREAM. I think I'll head back to that Stonyfield Farm YoBaby meal yogurt-for-pussies. I mean babies.

Can't.Stop.Watching.

2009-10-21T01:05:00.002-04:00

Jay-Z I Love You But You're KILLIN' Me

2009-10-13T23:32:00.003-04:00

The first time I heard this song I thought it was pretty catchy, as Jay-Z often is. The next few times I heard it, in quick order, I thought dang this song is blowin' up hardcore styles. The next 10,000 times I heard it blasting from every car that drove by, in every coffee shop I went into, from windows of people's apartments, in the space of like 8 days, I thought that I'd like to have some earplugs now, please. When I heard it tonight, as a ring-tone, I prayed that was the signal for the end. Either of it's life, or that of my eardrums.

had good time. not good match =(

2009-10-04T19:25:00.002-04:00

Pay special attention to the kiss that begins at the 3 minute mark.

A Comedy of Errors

2009-10-03T14:14:00.002-04:00

It all began with the bacon on the sandwich. Actually, maybe it started with waking up on my friend's couch wearing his guitar-print PJ pants, changing back into the prior day's clothes, and hitting the semi-questionable bodega/deli next door. With two minutes to go before they stopped serving breakfast, I starvingly/gleefully ordered an egg and cheese sandwich. "Two eggs?" asked Deli Guy. "Two eggs." said I. I turned around to chat with my friend who'd also spent the night (she got Chinese takeout container print boxers to sleep in), so it was she who caught Deli Guy putting bacon on my sandwich. As he handed the heavy feeling sandwich to me (see, the sandwiches with meat always feel really heavy. That's usually what tips me off to check before taking a bite) my pal was like whoa wait a second here, that has BACON on it.

Me to Deli Guy: "Does this have bacon on it?"
Deli Guy to me (glare. glare.): "Yes."
Me: "I did not ask for bacon."
Deli Guy: (glare.)
Me: "You know what? I don't need a sandwich."

But you know what, really? Then I went and got an egg and cheese sandwich at the new Dunkin Donuts. I spoke very clearly so as to not get accidental sausage.

That's not even the half of it though. I had to shop for ingredients for three items I was planning on bringing to a party that evening, AND decorations for said party, AND pots and soil for some herb plants I picked up at the green market. You know that game where there's a bar at the bottom that you move from side to side to bounce a ball? The dot matrix video game version of table tennis, for one? That was kind of like me, a little. I was the ball, pinging here, then there, then back over here, oh then back over there, look now it's back over to the first place! This place doesn't have that thing, that place doesn't have this thing, sorry lady cash only, credit card machine down, that banged up planter is the last one, oops forgot I needed oil for the cake, crap I still have to go to the liquor store.

After all the shopping was done, all the dishes prepared, I got all cleaned and prettied up in my Dirty Dancing dress, loaded my arms with bags full o' goodies, and set out on the short walking journey to the party, cup of sangria somehow magically in hand. And then I realized I had NO hands to hold down my dress in the wild wind. Probably not a few people got a peek at some pink polka dot panties.

PSA

2009-09-19T12:45:00.002-04:00

"Ladies and Gentleman, a crowded subway is NO PLACE for unlawful sexual conduct."

So what place is? A crowded bar? Outside a street vendor on St. Marks? In line at Starbucks?

Bonus round: which of the above places have I not been inappropriately touched? This answer, and more, next time!

Purgatorio

2009-09-09T00:02:00.000-04:00

The late night slow-down on the L train between 1st and Bedford is, for me, purgatorial. The frustrating agony is so great that I feel that I'm atoning for some atrocious sin I've committed in the course of the day, probably something in the vein of judging an innocent for "crimes" against fashion, body mass index, and/or common sense. I liken the feeling to that shuddering, teeth-clenching grating sensation you suffer when finger-nails are dragged across a chalkboard.

Occasionally, in the midst of one of these self-flagellating reveries, I'll catch sight of an MTA worker in the tunnel pressed up against the wall as the train dribbles by, and I'll snap out of it. Every time a train goes by they have to stop their work, press up against a wall and hope not to get hit or fall on the dreaded, fatal third rail. Their experience, if I may be so bold as to impose, is more like a hell than a purgatory, or rather should I say Hades, with a hint of Sisyphusness?

"My sandal broke in half. This is the most disgusting moment of my life."

2009-09-06T13:30:00.001-04:00

Overheard round 2 am on a Saturday night, outside a pizza shop on 9th and 1st, spoken slurredly, angrily, defensively by a barefoot woman to a trio at the outside pizza counter.

DD and Me

2009-09-05T14:04:00.003-04:00

My relationship with Dunkin' Donuts is a multi-faceted one. My first job was at a Dunkin' Donuts at Sand Key Beach. I was 16. I came to love iced coffee at that place. At the end of the night I would take home some of the leftover donuts, which would otherwise get trashed (not drunk trashed, but thrown in the trash trashed). I would share them with the fam, or take them to school to share with my pals. Sometimes I would sell them to non-pals for a nominal fee.

When I first moved to New York and lived in Brighton Beach, I had only two food sources: Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. They kept me alive for almost a year, those guys. Ok them and that knish lady under the subway. She had a delish knish, believe you me.

When I first moved to the LES, I frequented the Dunkin' Donuts on Delancey, because it felt like home. I would walk past several lovely little cafes en route to DD, but on to that chain store I went. Didn't hurt that the breakfast sandwiches there were only $.99. Still are! After a few months I started going to 88 and DD became back-up.

I have, of late, been having a run of bad luck at my local Williamsburg Dunkin' Donuts. I went a couple of weeks ago and decided to experiment with an iced latte. I am frequently burned when I experiment with new things that have not been personally recommended to me. Like, "Hey you should try this Dunkin' Donuts iced latte! So tasty!" There was none of that. I was feeling like a lot of caffeine was in order, so I asked for a large, which translates into gigantic at DD. What I received was 32 ounces (p.s. that's a quart) of iced cream, with a hint of coffee flavor. You can imagine my dismay; if you cannot, then let me tell you that it was great. As a lead-in to asking for an improved version of my beverage, I inquired as to the number of shots included in this size. Two, said she. Wellllll, said I, it's a little light. Can I have another in there? She bustled about behind the counter, purportedly preparing another shot for my drink. She handed it back to me, the color approximating Michael Jackson's later complexion. I smiled, and took it away. I later went to a proper cafe for a coffee with...coffee in it.

I went back a couple of days later, as they take credit cards when no one else will. I decided to play it safe with a regular ol' iced coffee. All seemed to be going well. The young lady handed me my coffee and turned around to get something. I think I got a glazed donut that day. While she was getting the donut, I was embroiled in a battle with the lid of my cup, trying to get the straw in. Aaaaand then there was 24 ounces of iced coffee all over the counter. Slowly, slowly the girl made her way to the counter to collect my cup and make me a new coffee. Slowly, as a condemned man on his way to the chair, as the liquid spread across the counter, she took the few short steps to the iced coffee preparation station. Slowly, leisurely, she poured, as I watched, frantically, napkinless, helpless, as the coffee approached the cash register. She handed back to me a cup filled with liquid much the same hue as the unfortunate latte. I took it dutifully, shame-facedly. A man came out and started to wipe up my mess. I apologized profusely and left thinking I could never show my face there again.

Yesterday I went back, again cashless, starving, in great need of coffee. Things went off without a hitch. I asked for a little bit of cream, and that's what I got. I thought the tide had turned in my favor. Back again today, I realized yesterday was a fluke. Same cashier, same "little bit o' cream" request, but coffee delivered very nearly white. I had to ask for more. It was, quite frankly, ridiculously lacking in coffee. She poured fully half of the cup out, but see, they put the cream in the bottom, so most of what was left was just cream, no coffee. She re-filled it with coffee. It seemed to gain about .05% more coffee. I smiled, and took it away. I made tea when I got home.

I Dream of Home

2009-08-25T12:49:00.012-04:00

This video, and Bat for Lashes generally, makes me think of the movie and the music from Legend - The Dance sequence, especially, is called to mind here, when Lily is seduced by and becomes dark Lily.

Then at the end when Natasha runs into his arms I think of...A-ha! The "Take on Me" video, which was absolutely without doubt my favorite video when I was a child.

I saw Natasha once when I was reading at Gimme! It was winter, and she was trapped in New York because of a massive snowstorm in London. She was pretty.

Smells of Summer: The Good Ones

2009-08-24T14:06:00.002-04:00

Pavement, after a brief shower and the sun is shining.
Grilling – not the grill, but grilling.
Fried chicken – I know, I’m a vegetarian, sorry chickens! It’s more about the breading.
Vine-ripe tomaters.
Wet grass.
Fresh dill.
Friends who just came back from the beach.
The towel you took to the beach a couple of days ago.
Union Square Greenmarket.
Flowers, on an unflowery street.

Further Tales from the Reading Room

2009-08-20T18:36:00.002-04:00

Two girls just walked into the Reading Room. Seeing only me in here, they asked if it would be ok for them to talk, or is it a quiet kind of place? Aghast, as I looked at the huge "QUIET" sign on the wall, I replied, "It's a quiet kind of place." The girl who had done the asking gave me a stricken look, a guilt inducing look, and yet I felt none. I turned my head back to return to my dense philosophy reading which requires silence, and the girl said "We were just looking for a quiet place to have a meeting, those people are being so loud out there." Again, aghast, wondering if she comprehended the irony of her statement, I advised them to go to another floor. Before I stab them in the eyeballs. I didn't say that part out loud.

Is it Strange to Dance so Soon?

2009-08-16T17:58:00.000-04:00

The other night I found myself at a table full of people who registered nary a glimmer of recognition when I dropped a quote from T-Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer”: “I danced myself out of the womb.” Shock was followed by anger, anger by disappointment, disappointment by shame. Who are these people that I call my friends?? Just kidding, I love them, but nevertheless I was deeply grieved by this musical ignorance, and what’s more, they took to discussing just how painful it would be for a mother to birth a dancing baby. I believe I chimed in with a remark about how a very brave and strong friend of mine recently gave birth sans drugs, and it probably felt like the baby danced itself out of the womb. But I digress. T-Rex was a seminal glam rock band of the early 70s. You guys ever hear of David Bowie, Roxy Music, Gary Glitter? This was no small movement, glam-rock, and T-Rex was no one-hit wonder. Now, I’m hardly a T-Rex superfan, not by a longshot. But come on people, “Cosmic Dancer”???? You wouldn’t have to be a fan to know that song. You’d just have to have functioning aural cavities. For those of you who do not know “Cosmic Dancer,” acquaint yourself with it now and avoid my shaming eyeballs. I can’t force you to love it, but at least know it. Or at least, know what I’m talking about when I tell you that I danced myself out of the womb.

Flashing Lights

2009-08-12T15:42:00.002-04:00

I’m cat-sitting for my pals Wills and Sarah. They’ve got a sweet kitty, Gladys, and a sweet pad in the ‘burg, though all I ever really want from any apartment, at this point, is a tub rather than a miniscule shower stall that I can barely turn around in. I’ve never stayed over with them before, so Sarah gave me a little crash course in how the apartment works. The various TV remotes (one for the tv – “power” to turn on/off, “source” to switch between the other two remotes: iTunes and Roku), the skylight that must stay open or the apartment will explode (close in the case of rain), the air conditioners (set to medium in the bedroom), the coffee maker (fill the water up to the tit). The plants on the deck need watering daily, the ones inside don’t need watering at all, least not while I’m here.

After the tour I left to continue my day, Sarah had to pack, etc. I’d be coming back later that night, after they were gone. And so I did. Night time is a dark time. Especially when you’re going up a staircase that has a light which needs to be switched on by the resident who knows where the light switch is. Darkness is also especially pressing when you first enter an apartment that you’ve never entered in the dark, at night, alone, when a cat might come dashing through the door the moment you open it. You fumble around for a switch in the most logical place it could be; you feel something jutting out from a wall, from within what feels to be a switch-plate. But this switch is no average switch. On the left is one of those big switchy things, sleekly designed so as not to interfere with the smoothness of the wall – slightly raised on one side so you can just caress it on or off (image research reveals that it's called a "rocker"). This turns on the staircase light. On the right side is something you’ve never felt before, in the context of light switches, but you can guess what it is – a dimmer. It’s got this thing you can slide up and down and a horizontal (also sleek) switch beneath it. So like, that’s the main light, right? Wrong!

You’ve no idea what you were turning on and off and dimming and undimming. You recall from more well-lit times there is no main light in the living room, really, so you slowly, carefully make your way to a very small, and what turns out to be very dim, lamp. You look to the kitchen and with this minimal illumination guiding your vision you realize there’s really no light fixture in there either, but you do spot some track lighting in the living area. There MUST be a way to turn on those lights! you think. Your eyeballs search for the kind of wall space that would allow for a light switch, and they light upon the hallway light switch. You turn it on with a feeling of resignation – this may very well be the only light you find during your four day Gladys-sitting stint. Despite your despondence, you persevere in searching open wall space at torso height for more light switches. Aha! You spot another dimmer/switch combo half hidden behind the entertainment center and seize upon it – at last, lights from above!

But your trials are not yet over; the bedroom has yet to be mastered. Through the well lit hall, into the unlit painting studio, to the door of the bedroom. You push it open and feel along the wall beside the door. After finding the buried switch in the living room you’re feeling pretty good about yourself, so you’re pretty sure that when your fingers fondle the familiar dimmer switch, you’re home free. But switching it on and upping the dimmer only leads to a nice breeze on your face: alas, it is but the overhead fan. Your hand continues to work the switch-plate, seeking the other half which must MUST control the light. You feel and feel but all’s it is on that other side is flat, like it’s just filler. Hold on a minute, wait, what’s that tiny not-quite-protrusion at the bottom? Is that a switch?? It is! And voila – now you don’t have to test the breeze to find your way to bed!

Unwronged

2009-08-04T15:14:00.002-04:00

Ever since I first saw this commercial, I always ALWAYS think of it when I see people riding their bikes in a leisurely, upright manner. This commercial will haunt me for the rest of my life.

JFK v. TPA

2009-08-04T14:39:00.002-04:00

I had an early-ish morning flight from JFK to Tampa last Thursday. Even in the morning JFK is a madhouse - there was already a line at the security checkpoint when me and Dars got there at 6:30. One of the TSA ladies was bellowing at us travelers to MOVE DOWN. There were a lot of joints in the line, and an equal number of places for the line to become disjointed. The bellower was not happy about this particular disjointing, so close to the front of the line. Thing is, the ticketing and security area is vast; the ceilings endlessly high, the acoustics endlessly bad. Her bellows, while impressively resonant to those beside her, just barely reached the people thirty feet away that she was urging to move.

Once we reached the front we encountered another friendly lady yelling at her colleague further out in the line for apparently not appropriately informing travelers of the jacket and shoe removal requirements.

When I laid my things on the belt there was a bored looking gal moving the tubs and bags along - but she disappeared after my things went through and the people behind me got reamed by yet another angry woman for not shoving their belongings into the maw of the x-ray machine.

Dars was wearing un-removable metal bangles that set off the metal detector. We waited a good several minutes before someone showed up to run the detector rod over his body. And boy did the TSA guy run that rod over his body. I got to watch the whole thing from a distance and that guy had a smile on his face the whole time, but Dars is kind of a hot piece so who can blame him for enjoying the rod-fondling?

Things were a little different on the reverse trip. In fact, I have nothing to relay except this: every single person at TPA, from the lady at the check-in counter to the gate attendants, had what appeared to be a genuine smile on their faces and in their voices. Fin.

Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

2009-08-02T23:30:00.004-04:00

This gemtastic tune is #17 On Blender's 50 worst songs EVER list. It seems that a lot of songs that Blender hates, I love. How anyone could consider Color Me Badd's "I Wanna Sex You Up," Gerardo's "Rico Suave" and The Beach Boys' "Kokomo" to be among the worst is beyond me.

Hammer - Pumps In A Bump
Uploaded by klmbaby. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Paco's Travel Bureau

2009-07-29T14:05:00.002-04:00

I was thinking about this clip recently but never got around to finding and posting it. Now I can't even remember why I thought of it in the first place, but I was thinking about it AGAIN because tomorrow I am off to Florida where it is sure to be just as sticky as the tropics. My GOD I loved "3-2-1 Contact." "And Reading Rainbow." Holy crap what a nerd.

Rejection Lines That Don't Work

2009-07-29T13:51:00.003-04:00

Some fellas (the desperate, the ill dressed, the unwashed) can be pretty persistent. In the midst of a good hounding, I find often find myself wondering, aside from what rejection line I might effectively use, how these men came to this unflagging pick-up persistence. There’s obviously some intermittent reinforcement going on here – meaning there are gals out there who respond in a manner indicating approval and desire for further attentions. We must find these women, and eradicate them.

1 – I have a boyfriend
- This just whets his appetite: “Your boyfriend doesn’t have to know!”
2 – I have a girlfriend
- When you say this, he hears an invitation to a three-way
3 – I’m leaving town tomorrow – forever
- Guess who wants to give you a very special bon voyage?
4 – I’m really not feeling well; I think I may vomit
- “I know what will make you feel better.”
5 – I have an STD
- “Me too!”

Ok I admit I’ve never used the last one, but I’m sort of dying to. I do wonder about the response. Maybe that’s the ONE that works?

Polishing By Subtraction

2009-07-22T21:08:00.000-04:00

So many amazing things happen on the subway: people sing, dance, perform acrobatic leaps. They eat lettuce from cookie tins, go pants-free, projectile vomit. I’ve seen mariachi bands, acapella doo-wop groups, black gothic cowboy guitar players. But nothing had prepared me for…a woman laying the perfectest coat of lilac nail polish. When I sit in the stillness of my home and attempt to polish my nails, the best I can hope for is to cover the entire tips of my fingers in polish (as if I had just dipped them in a bucket of paint) and then take away the excess with polish remover.

2009-07-17T13:09:00.000-04:00

There’s a shirtless man pacing on the roof of a building on the opposite side of Metropolitan. It's the building that Todd P's Sweat Shop is in. For all I know he could be pantsless too, but alls I can see is from the waist up. He’s slender and fit; from here I can tell he has a beard and some chest and belly hair (dark brown), though his back appears bare. He’s tan, as if he’s been making good use of the beach (or maybe just that roof) this summer. The pacing has a deliberative tone. He keeps raising his hand up to his beard and I imagine he is stroking it thoughtfully. Every so often he mixes it up with a hair tousle. He’ll come to a stop at the edge, put his hands on it and lean for a moment, then continue the pacing. A few times he came to a stop facing my direction, and I wondered if he could see me, in my kitchen, seeing him. I can’t guess how long he was up there before I noticed his presence, but now he’s gone back down to face whatever demon he’s been contemplating.

Put THIS word in your pipe and smoke it

2009-07-16T14:03:00.000-04:00

I make frequent use of dictionaries and thesauruses – paper ones, online ones, the one on my laptop. The one on my laptop is big on using words in sentences to establish the different contexts of these frequently ambiguous words I’m looking up. Here’s one such word, its definition and its sentence:

Trump (verb): figurative – beat (someone or something) by doing or saying something better: if the fetus is human life, that trumps any argument about the freedom of the mother.

What. The. Fuuuuuuuck??????? When did the Oxford American dictionary go biblical?

My Destiny

2009-07-09T00:11:00.001-04:00

I just realized, just now, 11:52 pm on July 8th, 2009, that I am going to be the mean old lady at the end of the block when I grow up (the mean old ladies and men always live at the end of the block, and I just realized why, it’s so they have nothing on one side of them, instead of another house like the one next to them filled with noisy neighbors and kids and dogs). I’ve always been kind of crotchety about noise – I moved from the LES, from the tiniest and most adorable studio apartment, because of Tuesday night party-goers, the Thursday night recyclable glass bottle goer-throughers, the every night, all night garbage trucks.

The back of my apartment, as I may have mentioned, faces out onto the Metropolitan’s outdoor seating area, and from the noise coming from there you’d think no one has a day job anymore (and they probably don’t). But usually that’s kind of ambient noise – the sounds of a large crowd, chattering. There’s the occasional shriek, sometimes a loud talker I’d like to elbow in the teeth, but I can usually focus on my fancy book-learnin’ just fine.

But just now, there were sounds coming from the street onto which the front of my apartment faces. Actually, it had been going on for a little while and I was starting to wonder what the fuck was all that racket about, so I went to have a look-see. A group of what could only have been “teenagers” was gathered in the tiny front “yard” area of a house across the street. The house where, if memory serves, I often see a 167 year old woman sitting outside, chillaxing in the sun, letting her dogs yap yap yap to their hearts content (and of course, to my hearts discontent). They were just being the loud obnoxious teenager types; like, are they even capable of talking at less than a yell? I wondered about that old lady. Did they know her? Were any of them related to her? Was she in bed right now? Does she have trouble sleeping? Does she have a craft-matic adjustable bed? They went in there so there must be some connection. All I have to say is, if those little bastards come back out, I’m getting my stick!

Nothing says "summer" like Sir Mix-a-lot

2009-07-06T19:10:00.003-04:00

I bet the first thing you think of when you think Sir Mix-a-lot is "I Like Big Butts," but how many of us remember this gem?

The memory of this quality tune was buried in the depths of the long-term, unassociated memory portion of my brain. But the other day, just after my visiting pal bought some ajax from a man selling on the street whom I figured would end up being a cop, said pal asked me, "If I got arrested, would you come visit and put 'em on the glass?" Naturally.

The whole concept of eye contact? HUGELY important.

2009-07-06T17:07:00.006-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to an art opening for Googly Eye Cru. I came to know the googly eyes when I lived on the LES and often walked past a little curvy pipe that just looked so adorable with its googly eyes. I felt like I knew where I stood with that curvy pipe. Little did I know there was a serious movement behind it - but then again in New York, there always is.

Here's Christopher Walken expounding on the importance of eye contact with your plants.

Groped on St. Marks

2009-06-28T13:17:00.002-04:00

Yesterday after brunch at Orlin (one of my favoritist brunch spots) with Natalie, Laura and Laura's pal from LA, we strolled over to those cheesy street vendors near that Gem spa news stand/egg cream place on the corner of St. Marks - Natalie wanted to look at the sunglasses. She tried a few pairs on; us gals gave thumbs up or thumbs down, the booth proprietors told her she looked great in every single pair she put on. They were Indian, these proprietors. There were two of them at the first booth we stopped by: a middle aged fellow and a younger one, maybe early twenties.

Now, I know I have a provocative tattoo. I expect some staring, cat-calling, perhaps direct questions as to the provenance. What I don't expect, and can't allow, is for a fucking strange sunglasses-selling St. Marks street vendor to TOUCH it. Oh yes, I got a little too close to where the younger one was standing as I helped Natalie find styles to try on. He caressed my Valentina, and marveled at her. I made a bit of a face and inched away. He stood nearby, then disappeared, presumably to help some other folks. BUT NO. He disappeared from beside me and then came up behind me to once again caress Valentina, on the sly! This time I was actually startled since I didn't see it coming. I made whatever kind of noise one makes when thoroughly startled by inappropriate touching, turned around, said "That's enough," and walked away.

Natalie didn't find any sunglasses, and thank god - they had slapped "UVA protection 400" on each and every lens, including the clear ones...

I long for the simple days when girls wore their be-gemmed thongs above the jeans line

2009-06-26T13:17:00.006-04:00

I went to Shopsin's for brunch today with Josh and Andrea and Zee and Aimee. Something was a little off today - they forgot the avocado and tortilla in Andrea's avocado tortilla soup, and only filled Josh's coffee cup halfway. My meal wasn't lacking in anything, including deliciousness, but I almost lost it when I saw these waiting in line to be seated:

It reminded me of my new favorite website that I recently happened upon, Look at th is fucking hipster. It also reminded me of this, except for toe crack instead of ass crack.

Obsessed

2009-06-26T13:06:00.003-04:00

Ever since Tom and Francey serenaded me with "The Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" song on the streets of the Lower East Side a couple of weeks ago, I have been obsessing over it. The obsession with the song matches my obsession with the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell - a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned, surpassed only by the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and KFC. The latter is usually only to be found at highway pit stops. Anyone up for a road trip??

I particularly enjoy this Larry David rendition, and I hope you will too.

Someone you went on one bad date with three years ago and who unfortunately still has your email address has added you as a friend on Facebook

2009-06-23T15:58:00.001-04:00

I know it’s exciting and fun to use the email friend finder on Facebook – I know! I’ve done it a few times myself. A good 50-60% of the email addresses in the address book of the account I've been using for about five years belong to people I don’t actually know. People I’ve bought things from or sold things to on ebay or craigslist or amazon. People I've talked about subletting to or from. People I've gone on one bad date with and hoped to never hear from again after not returning their last call/text/email because of the crushing dullitude I'd suffered in their company . Why bad date guy? Why have you added me as a friend on Facebook? I couldn’t hit ignore fast enough.

Library Shenanigans

2009-06-19T13:56:00.003-04:00

Here I am again at the library - no Daisy today, but I'm not exaggerating when I say there is no lack of characters to be had at the Leonard Branch. When I first came in and sat down there was a lady looking at books in the aisle next to the table that has one of the two outlets in the building. Adult paperbacks - mystery and such. She was talking obnoxiously loud on her cell phone. It's a library people! (Of course it's ok if Daisy talks on her cell. She is VIP 'round these parts). So the lady is blah blah blah-ing, and then she says shit I dropped my library card. BEHIND the bookshelf as in, irretrievable.

She remained on the phone, partially continuing whatever conversation, partially complaining (dropping not infrequent cursewords into the mix) about not being able to get at her card, and about how now she won't be able to get any books now. She was still on the phone when she tried to yell across the library to a librarian to, presumably, help her get her card from its burial place inside the unmoveable shelving unit. None of them paid her any mind. She got off the phone and continued to feel the bookcase up and down, almost as if trying to pull off a seduction; like, if I caress it just the right way, it will open up so I can reach in for my card. That's right, when all else fails, treat it like a lady.

The scene just ended with less than a flourish. Annoying Lady finally approached a librarian to get some help, and of course the answer was: "There is no way to get your card out." She was thinking maybe they would disassemble the whole diggity-dang shelf for her measly little card???

Compare and Contrast

2009-06-17T17:00:00.002-04:00

Began airing spring 2009

Aired in spring 2008

Daisy on the phone!

2009-06-16T14:25:00.002-04:00

It sounds like she proctors exams - but of what sort I know not. It's enough for me to have heard her voice. I think she's a native New Yorker. She doesn't have one of those heavy New Yawk accents, but something more subtle; her intonation matches her apparel. Daisy did live on Long Island, after all.

Gift Idea

2009-06-15T14:33:00.001-04:00

Only for a very special person in your life.

Pick-up Strategies of the Moment

2009-06-11T19:01:00.002-04:00

So here are three pick-up strategies that were attempted on me last Saturday at (gulp) the Dark Room. I found them alternately surprising, appalling, and so far off the mark as to indicate the shooter was blindfolded.

The first happened soon after my arrival – which was pretty early in the night so the bar was hardly crowded. My friend Laura and I were at the bar, I leaning over on the counter, and I felt a backside brush(ing) against my own. I would hardly have noticed if it was a regular, fleeting brush against, but it was a lingering brush against, so after a few seconds I turned around to see what the fuss was about. And then he pounced! “Hi! I’m James, what’s your name?” I mumbled mine and turned back toward the bar to pay for my drink. Wallet in hand (three year old, faded ass, beat to hell, literally falling apart wallet), James took the opportunity to compliment me on it. “Nice wallet. What’s it say on there?” It being in an Oriental character, I had (and have) no idea. Sorry bro. Strike one.

Back to the corner by the DJ booth where my friend Alex was Djing. This poor guy has to play music for Dark Room assholes every other Saturday; at one point in the night he played “What About Your Friends” by TLC, during which a young “lady” came over to the DJ booth to request…another TLC song. Me and Laura thought we were safe over there. We’ve known the Dark Room to be full of sexual predators for a long while now, so keeping a low profile there is key to having a reasonably ok time. But alas, the corner was not safe for us, twice over.

The first one to venture into our space came over and asked us why we weren’t dancing, and proceeded to try to pull first Laura, then myself, onto the dance floor with him. Laura wrangled herself out of his grip pretty quickly, but he managed to clamp his paws on both of my wrists in a death grip. If not for Laura karate chopping and verbally eviscerating him, I might be in tiny, chopped up pieces in this guy’s freezer. Strike two, fellas.

The second to venture into our corner was far more clever than James and far less creepy than wrist-grabber. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” If ever there was a line to get me out of a corner and onto a dance floor and into a stranger’s bed, that’s probably it, but I’m a bit of an odd bird. Alas though, in my mind I already had one foot out the door, and no amount of Dirty Dancing quoting could tether me. Strike three.

I first wonder if these strategies ever work – and then I realize that they must have at some point in the past, otherwise the dudes wouldn’t still be using them, right? You find something that works, stick to it? Forever and ever? Then I begin to weep for all of ladyhood, that they would ever reward such poor efforts.

Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

2009-06-10T23:01:00.002-04:00

I'm struck by the number of rageful blogs I've been posting - but I'm just going to blame that on the plentiful existence of douchebags. Of which there were two tonight in the reading room. Now, even if you are not in school, or in my school, or never go to the reading room, you can probably imagine what it is. A room in which one reads. Ideally, a quiet room in which one reads. And in fact, that's just what it is. What's more, there are instructions painted on the wall that indicate "No Loud Talking" and "No Cell Phones."

I come to the reading room because let's face it, given the chance to either read and take notes on Schelling, or eavesdrop on the many banal conversation going on around me in such places as the local public library, or a cafe, I'd choose eavesdropping hands down. But when I have made the decision to spend some dollars on public transit so I can study in a safe haven, well, I expect a goddamn safe have.

When I first got here, there was only one other girl sitting, reading, studying. Moments after I came in and set up, a fella came in to join her. They started chatting. Not whisper chatting, but like, real live chatting. I figured I'd give them some time to catch up, get it out of the old system if you know what I mean. But they kept going. And kept getting louder. The stories they told! Apparently so hilarious as to inspire guffaws. After some guffawing, they looked over and asked if they were being too loud, to which I heartily replied "YES, please keep it down," after which they continued, almost uninterrupted, for another 2 or so hours.

They left together, laughing on their way out about how I must be so happy they were leaving, and in fact I was.

And then the guy came back - I was deep into Schelling, finally - and this ASSHOLE has the nerve to INTERRUPT me to ask if I had noticed an umbrella where they had been sitting. A spot that he could easily clearly see himself. No indeed, I did not see it. And if I had, I would have destroyed it.

My Hero

2009-06-09T18:52:00.000-04:00

This morning, round about 10:30 am, some asshole took to honking his horn just outside my apartment. I hate when people honk their horns to no reasonable/good end. Why do they do it? What are they trying to accomplish? As far as I'm concerned, there are only three reasons to honk a horn: 1 - when you are about to hit someone, or they you; 2 - when you drive by a hot broad, or when she walks by your car; 3 - in solidarity with the protesters who have gathered to fight against/for [insert meaningful cause here]. A light tap to alert a driver who isn't paying attention to the formerly red, recently turned green light is acceptable, but I do not support honking for the purposes of getting people out of the way, whatever that may mean (making them go faster, rerouting traffic, hurrying them into or out of a parking spot).

So like I was saying, when I was still in bed late this morning, I was roused from light slumber by the horns. Followed in quick order by the voice of a young lady yelling out her window, "Jesus people are trying to sleep!", which I certainly appreciated, but nevertheless wondered over. Like, really? 10:30 am? Where was she when that goddamn jack hammering started at 7:30 am, an hour at which even normal people, ones with jobs, are still trying to sleep? How very ballsy of her to yell at the honker for that particular reason.

Excuse me, or in other words, get the fuck out of the way of the subway entrance

2009-06-08T22:06:00.000-04:00

I mean, seriously. RIGHT at the top of the stairs, just STANDING there chatting. Like blah blah blah, not like we're on 14th Street or anything, let's just shoot the fucking shit right here, and never mind all those people rushing at us to get to the subway at rush hour!

Crazy Over Daisy

2009-06-05T11:58:00.004-04:00

Donald Duck - Crazy Over Daisy

"I wanna be with you"

2009-06-01T14:13:00.002-04:00

I have this pal that meets and dates people via interweb. I have a few pals that do that and ok maybe I've done it too, but this is not about me, this is about her. She's been chatting with a fellow, a 40ish or so neuroscience researcher fellow that sounds like quite a catch, and by chatting I mean texting. They've yet to actually meet, but the texts are being exchanged by the dozen. She and I were at a party Saturday night, and there was the texting. It seemed a bit much to me, all those sugary sweet one liners, but I'm an awful cynic. We reconvened for brunch on Sunday, and she relayed the following tale: He sent her a text 'round 11:30, and she didn't text him back until she was off to bed around 2 - he replied immediately in a textual tone that implied that thoughts were being thunk. She was determined to go to sleep and told him as much. The last text she received that night, from that man she has not met, has not spoken to on the phone, has exchanged but a few emails with, was: "I wanna be with you". No punctuation. Those words in that context make me feel like a 50 year old greasy haired cologned up skeezbag is breathing heavily on my neck and looking down my shirt. But hey, maybe he meant in in the most wholesome way?

Bic

2009-05-28T14:25:00.003-04:00

Daisy is here at the library today. She seems to be filling something out, some kind of application, maybe way overdue tax forms? She's using one of those pens that my grandmother always uses, the ones that have all kinds of colors available - change from red to black to green with a mere click! I think she's on to me being on to her. I'm not a very sneaky peeker. I imagine her coming over and rapping my knuckles with that pen of hers. I know I wouldn't stand for some hooligan young lady staring at me - if I had a dime for every time I said "take a picture it lasts longer" when I was in high school I'd be RICH. Then again I guess going into Burger King with a gown on is sort of asking for it a little. In conclusion, when I'm 80 and have purple hair and fuchsia lipstick and blue eyeshadow and one of those turban things and gems on each and every finger, I will still be handing out the stink-eye to the starers.

Slime

2009-05-26T15:19:00.000-04:00

I know I've talked about this before - I know I have. But doesn't it sometimes feel like Ghostbusters II when the evil slime is flowing beneath the city and increasing in volume proportional to the evilness of the New Yorkers who are evil because of the slime and so on in cyclical fashion? Like, evil upon evil perpetuated by evil? For example: I was at the library, as usual (no Daisy today), when I heard a man spewing profanities at someone in the corner. In the LIBRARY. Where there are children, and other sensitive ears. Apparently this man was not happy with the person under verbal attack, for not having covered his mouth (properly, or at all?) when coughing/sneezing. The yeller kept yelling, the cougher/sneezer kept quietly defending his germ spreading ways - I didn't understand how it could be carrying on for so long. The mean guy giving his verbal mauling, the other guy making excuses for not covering his mouth, on and on. Finally the cougher/sneezer got up and left. I don't know what became of the yeller.

Guy in Sling Watches Film at Cafe

2009-05-22T13:25:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting next to a fellow at Gimme!, and he is just obsessively wiping down his laptop. Like there's no tomorrow. I've considered that maybe there was a mis-hap before I arrived, a spill, maybe a really juicy sneze, but something about him just screams "I must obsessively wipe down the keyboard and screen of my laptop because dust is EVIL and I must DEFEAT it!". And I think he's just watching a movie. Why come to a cafe and watch a movie on your laptop?? I'm doing exactly what one should be doing on a laptop at a cafe - checking my email, checking facebook, checking Gawker.

In other news, the sunburn on my back is peeling quite grossly. Reminds me of the days back in Florida when I would set myself to roast in the sun and could later peel my skin like when you let glue dry on your fingers.

Daisy Spotted Outside of Kellogg's Diner

2009-05-19T16:50:00.003-04:00

I guess that's where she has lunch. I wonder if she loves the grilled cheese there like me.

Daisy

2009-05-14T14:54:00.002-04:00

I don't have the internet at home, since I'm a poor student, so I come to the library to satisfy any interweb needs I have. Lately there's been an older woman coming in and sitting near where I sit. She's always coughing a very phlegmy cough, and every time she coughs she seems surprised that she just can't shake it. I hadn't really gotten a look at her until a few minutes ago when she got up to get a book - she's looking pretty hip in boots, a black pencil skirt, and a paisley print shirt. Just now I looked up and noticed that she has her nose buried in an old copy of The Great Gatsby and I thought "this lady with this crazy makeup and frizzy/mussy short hair looks old enough to have LIVED The Great Gatsby." This is the kind of old lady I want to be one day - crazy makeup, crazy hair, crazy outfit, sitting in the local library reading something that totally makes sense with all the craziness.

There really is no good time to shop at Trader Joe's

2009-03-04T16:44:00.002-05:00

And by “good” I mean “aisles not packed to the rafters/lines that can be got through in a human lifetime”. This became clear today, around 2 pm, when I thought, nay assumed, many people would be at work or at least, not grocery shopping. I guess they all thought the same thing that I did.

On a side note, there was a Patagonia geared up gent who seemed to have the Trader Joe’s shopping trip down to a science – it looked like he was stocking up for winter. And the bags and bags of frozen fruits! I think he single-handedly cleared out their frozen fruit section. But he’s smart, see. He won’t have to come back to spend his whole afternoon in line until the spring thaw.

A Day in the Life

2009-02-20T15:25:00.003-05:00

I have a new-ish temp-ish job that takes me out Jersey way one or more times per week. Edison, or thereabouts – it’s a twenty minute or so cab ride from the train station so who knows what actual township this warehouse district/wasteland is in. And what a scenic ride it is! I hardly notice on the way from the train station to the warehouse (and indeed it’s to a warehouse I am going), but on the way back from the warehouse it seems like Edison is nothing but winding residential roads. We might pop onto an arterial avenue every now and again, but only to get into another maze-like neighborhood. And such residences! They are, generally speaking, a sight to behold in one way or another. I passed a house with a wire fence in the front yard – one of those industrial wire fences that’s cross hatched, the ones that are usually kind of high rather than the standard front yard fence height. But the proud residents beautified it; alternating green and white plastic (I assume) strips were weaved into it. Another house also had an interesting “fence”. It looked like the iron barricades that are put along a sidewalk when there’s a parade. These ones were shiny and white though.

But the cherry on top of the glorious Edison landscape, for me, is the houses that don’t have any kind of awning over the front door, not even a tiny spit of wood. A completely flat faced house. A house without a front door awning is like a person without eyebrows; not someone who shaves their eyebrows, but someone whose had them burned off in a freak accident. Yes, that’s what they look like. And it’s not just one. Or two. Or a handful. It’s many. Most? It will be a sad day indeed when at last everything has been cleared out of the warehouse.

How Tim Gunn Saved My Life

2008-12-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe he hasn't exactly saved my life - YET. But with his classic "Don't bore Nina!" nugget of wisdom a-joggin' through my head (it's too full right now for anything to run through), he'll at least be saving me from writing (and hopefully by extension, my professors from reading) some godawfully boring philosophy papers. Thanks, Tim! I think.

Vindication for the Haters

2008-10-28T23:41:00.000-04:00

Pretty much everyone I've shared my packing woes with has said to me "You're getting rid of stuff, right?" Another version of that would be "Your wardrobe could use a culling." I like my stuff, dammit. Every last worthless bit of it. But especially my pretty dresses.

Nevertheless, I did some wardrobe culling about a month ago in anticipation of the big day, the day of moving. Some stuff I hadn't worn in a while, some stuff I'd never worn, some stuff was too well worn. I thought I was done with the wardrobe culling. But as Doomsday approaches and I start to pull bags and boxes out from under/behind/within/on top of things, I find items that make me say "What the fuck was I thinking?" Not in the sense that these items could never have had any fashion value for me (or others), but in the sense of, why the fuck have I toted this thing around from Tampa to Philly back to Tampa then to Brighton Beach to the LES? WHY?

Maybe it's because of the late hour. Maybe it's because I'm starving. Maybe it's because all these boxes seem to be closing in on me. Or maybe the heady cocktail of these ingredients has lead me to a mystical epiphany that these items MUST GO. So go they will. There will be no regrets.

Civil Disobedience?

2008-10-28T09:50:00.000-04:00

I usually avoid newspapers and gossip rags like the Post and the Daily News, as I prefer to avoid the sensationalistic "news" contained therein, but I had a copy of the Post in my apartment purely for box stuffing purposes, and the headline "Gotham-to-Ohio Vote Scam Eyed" caught my attention. It seems that several New York City livin' Democrats rented a house in Ohio and registered to vote there. Some would call this illegal. I call it brilliant! We all know New York is gonna go Obama, and fools in Ohio don't know what they're doing, as they've given evidence for in the past, so why not go help them out a bit, y'know, give them a push in the right direction? And with the potential disenfranchisement of recently registered Ohio voters, they may really NEED those extra voters.

See You Next Tuesday

2008-10-23T11:12:00.000-04:00

"C" is a great letter. It's situated at the beginning of many important and fun words: Cassandra, Complex, Carina; and here's a classic:

Look at the way Cindy cocks her head. There's another "c" word!

Wordsmith

2008-10-19T20:07:00.000-04:00

I made up a new word just now; I was inspired by what I was eating. It's not brand spanking new; technically it's already in the lexicon (according to a google search), but it's new to ME. It's like when scientists independently but concurrently discover amazing new things - that's like me and this word: DISGUSTINGLICIOUS. I thought of it as I ate my American cheese (of the orange, pasteurized process variety), mustard, and ketchup sandwich. It was sooooo goooood. Yet, the concept repulsed me even as my taste buds were savoring.

Recently I had a memory of a "sandwich" I used to eat for dinner regularly (when I wasn't trading heaping ice cream cones for pizza) when I worked at an ice cream shop on the beach in 11th grade. We also sold hot dogs and little bags of chips (and Beanie Babies??). Being a vegetarian, I had to improvise (and I know in this I am not original; I'm sure nearly any vegetarian can vouch for this "desperation sandwich"). Hot dog bun + doritos + ketchup + mustard = disgustinglicious. I've found myself reliving this sandwich of my youth even now; sometimes at a BBQ, though in New York, in this day and age, there are always veggie burgers to be had, I will opt to have a disgustinglicious chip sandwich. If I'm feeling adventurous, I might throw a pickle on there (though the pickle/american cheese/mustard sandwich on wonder bread is another matter entirely).

When I walked by the refrigerated goods section of my local supermarket, I could not resist the soft cry of the 12oz. package of Kraft cheese singles (on sale for only $2.99!). I now feel shame. A disgustinglicious shame.

I'm a Single Lady

2008-10-16T12:32:00.000-04:00

My friend Amy, who lives in an apartment three blocks from where my shiny new apartment is situated, suggested that after I move there, me and her and her sis should start doing a workout routine together. She suggested dance routines. She suggested THIS dance routine. I suggested we do this in McCarren Park, in bodysuits. Consider yourselves warned!

Litter Lament

2008-10-14T09:37:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't it be nice if shopkeepers, rather than sweeping refuse from the sidewalk in front of their establishments onto the street, instead swept it into a trash container? I mean, if they're going to the trouble to take out a broom and actively sweep? Couldn't they sweep it into the trash?

This can be filed in a category alongside "why do shopkeepers waste water by hosing down the sidewalk?" and "why do residents of Little Diomede throw their trash bags directly into the ocean?"; that category being a very wide umbrella encompassing items of the "why do people hate the environment/earth?" variety.

I'm no saint; I sometimes take long, hot showers. I don't bring a reusable mug to the cafe every day. Occasionally I forget to bring my own shopping bag to the grocery store. But come on now, sweeping trash into the street?? Hosing the sidewalk down every day (maybe twice a day, or more if you're Congee Village and have a very greasy, filthy sidewalk)?? For shame!

Pretty Please With Sugar on Top?

2008-10-10T14:10:00.000-04:00

My half birthday was nearly a month ago and everyone forgot!! In order to make it up to me, I recommend you all chip in the get me this item from Topco Sales:

New Item
0231-7 - Now Available For Order
TLC®
This Is not Sarah Palin Inflatable Love Doll

• Sarah Palin makes sexism sexy
• Cross party lines with your own inflatable running mate
• Three ways to do this doll: mouth, pussy or ass
• Give her a mouthful
• Blow her up and show her how you’re going to vote
• Let her pound your gavel over and over
• Bypass the Bush and have some MILF
• It’s time some male interns caused a scandal in the Capitol
• She’s the hottest thing to come out of Alaska in years

Loud Sex Guy: Bringing Loud Sex to a Whole New Level (decibel level, that is)

2008-10-09T00:19:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I walked by LSG's apartment and heard him being Loud Break-up Guy. A girl crying, asking "But why?", LSG, presumably, telling her why (perhaps she wasn't loud enough or worse - competed with his loudness). I wondered if the crying lady was LSG's LSPIC (loud sex partner in crime). Not long after that I saw him cozied up with some gal pal at 88, but as I'd never seen him with a chick before I had no idea if she was new.

I just came home from seeing a play with Merlo. As soon as I entered the building I heard panting and wailing. The other day I'd heard a dog barking from inside one of the apartments (we aren't allowed pets here), so I thought it might be the dog. I was hearing this, mind you, on the ground level. When I got up to the second floor, where the actual apartments begin, I realized the sounds were emanating from LSG's apartment. Now, obviously he's loud if I'm calling him LSG, but this was OFF THE CHAIN. There was definitely spanking, wailing, panting, groaning, oh godding, the "lady" may have been gagged or otherwise had her mouth covered as some of her cries seemed muffled. I paused on the landing for a moment to take it in, wondering if it was the old loud sex lady or a new one, wondering what the poor neighbors were doing, wondering if it was all a show. The noises followed me all the way up, I kid you not, to my fifth floor apartment, echoing through the hallways. I will miss you, LSG, when I move to a building occupied only by an elderly Italian couple who, I believe, sleep on separate floors.

Notes on a Town Hall Meeting

2008-10-07T22:52:00.000-04:00

Coupla things. First: I can't be the only one who noticed that Michelle Obama wore red (a tastefully bedazzled number) and Cindy McCain wore blue (an electric blue suit to match the intensity, though not necessarily the hideosity, of the red pant suit atrocity she wore to the first debate). Of course, Barack wore a blue tie and John wore a red one. Did the ladies' stylists coordinate on this one? They obviously didn't last time, when Michelle wore a gorgeous floral print dress and Cindy, as I mentioned, the hot red mess.

Phew, now that that pesky detail is out of the way. Did anyone else notice how most of the questions seemed to go to McCain first? I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that in the last debate, when following Obama's response to a question, all McCain would do would be to attack Obama's response without giving much of his own response. But then tonight, when he was given first crack at question after question (after question), he was stumbling over his lack of words; shock! He really infuses the tired old phrase "blowing hot air" with new life. Not once but TWICE he filled up space saying that he would solve the social security problem by doing what Ronald Reagan (his hero! Not to mention the mastermind of "trickle down economics" also lovingly referred to as "Reaganomics"; this is what I remember from my 11th grade US government class) and Tip O'Neil did in the 80s: sit at a table and talk. I've sat at a table and talked for much of my life, beginning in kindergarten (well if you want to count the dining table then - as soon as I could sit and speak), and I've yet to solve any major political issues. Perhaps my lack of monochromatic, ill fitting pantsuits is to blame.

The thing that makes me feel real pity for McCain, though, that makes me think, aw you poor, sad sap, as I watch him feebly attempt to engage in a lively political discussion, which is what these debates should be (I guess this is where some pity, ok it's sympathy, for Obama comes in - because he's obligated to engage in a debate with someone who is incapable of intelligent political discourse), is that he is just chock FULL of rhetoric, yet he has no clue as to the art of rhetoric. Not only is he a bombastic megalomaniac, spouting off (or rather, spitting out?) misinformation by the ton while patting himself on the back for some great "accomplishment" or another that he's cobbled together from little initiatives, programs, laws here and there that he may have, by some twist of fate (probably they directly benefited him) supported, but he is a TERRIBLE orator with NO TALENT for sharing his delusions of grandeur! What's sadder than a psychopath who can't even articulate his own delusions? Probably nothing, but maybe puppies in the window at the pet store who just want to be taken home and cuddled forever. Awwwww.

Abandonment Issues

2008-09-30T22:51:00.000-04:00

Another sad LES good-bye on the horizon: Johnson, a ladies' clothing boutique:
I don't love it the way I loved the Gemstore (nothing could really compare to the Gemstore), but I often stopped in to ogle the lovely clothes, and I don't stop in to just any boutique to ogle just anyone's designs. This note made me sad.

Tomorrow I'm signing a lease on an apartment in Williamsburg; increasing rent has driven me, too, from my Orchard Street home (ok, that, and the ever diminishing size of my studio apartment as it continues to be filled with things). When I see that good little shops, restaurants, bars are closing down (RIP Ronald's pizza cafe, former Orchard St. resident serving some tasty Italian, and soon to be RIP Good World, to make way for a hotel on Orchard south of Canal), I find myself wondering if I'm getting out of the sinking ship just in time, or if my abandoning the nabe (well, me and others like me) is contributing to the blandification of it. Then again, maybe it will go on with out me, just as interesting and full of vitality as before. As long as Sugar Sweet Sunshine survives, the neighborhood is safe.

Waxing Philosophic

2008-09-29T21:29:00.000-04:00

This isn't really the place for philosophy, and this isn't really on philosophy, but rather on the translators of philosophy, more specifically those who translate works by or about Baruch Spinoza. Shirley's translated the Ethics and other works brilliantly from the Latin, but Curley supposedly has a superior translation as far as the actual philosophy goes. Stirling's translation isn't much on the radar. Hurley translated Deleuze's Practical Philosophy - a Spinoza dictionary of sorts - from the French (Hurley relied on Curley's translation, but mentions Shirley's as an inexpensive alternative). Moe's translation is slated to come out next spring.

Do Not Abuse the Magic 8 Ball

2008-09-23T00:22:00.000-04:00

Oh seductive magic 8 ball, how cruelly you wield your power! One could lose hours, days, WEEKS of ones life in the grip of this omniscient mistress - the roller coaster ride of instantaneous fortune telling.

I was told once, warned, really, that one should only use the 8 ball in very particular circumstances: those being times when one is divided equally in half about a decision. This decision should not be of great import, but rather of the "should I wear this super slutty outfit?" variety.

One should not interrogate the 8 ball. "Is he gay?" (My sources say no - YES!) "Does he have a girlfriend?" (Very doubtful - Ok looking good) "Does he have a boyfriend?" (Signs point to yes - What?!?) "Does he have a crush on me?" (Don't count on it - Drat!) "Will he ask me out on a date?" (My reply is no - Shit two negatories in a row!). Things start to go downhill, fast. Before you know it, you're curled up in a fetal position on the floor wondering where your relationship with the he in question went awry - when all you really wanted to know was which way he swings.

A typical morning on the LES

2008-09-18T11:30:00.000-04:00

This morning, in the intersection of Broome and Orchard, a yellow (school) bus driver and a (delivery?) van driver nearly got into a brawl. I say "in" the intersection rather than "at" because they were, in fact, in the intersection. Which is why they almost served each other knuckle breakfast sandwiches.

Some of those streets on the LES are so confusing. Most of them have 4-way stop signs, but some tricky intersections only have a stop on one street, and the traffic on the other side just plows on through. Kind of dangerous for those tipsy UES ladies teetering around on their stilettos, not stopping before crossing because they assume a stop sign. As they should! There should be stop signs on all of those corners. But this is not the time to get into the nitty gritty of the many mis-steps of the NYCDOT with regard to the LES, no, not now.

I was in the midst of my coffee order when I heard yelling outside; I turned around and at first I thought the van was actually lodged in the bus, but nay, the front of the van was fully 16-24 inches from the side of the bus. Well, it was far enough away that the bus driver was able to open the doors and come out in a rage. Obscenities were tossed around like so many sailors on a stormy sea - there was pointing, there was yelling, there was raw male aggression. There was no brawl. I think Mr. Van backed down once he realized that, on top of him not coming to an appropriate stop at his stop sign, there was also NO stop sign for the bus driver. I bet he gobbled up those curse words and accusations in no time flat.