the oh zone

i'm no longer a baby

2006-06-28T00:18:00.000-04:00

of course I couldn't do the hardcore actual installation, getting all confused with the public_html vs just putting that shit in there - but I did it via Support - for some reason the Wordpress auto-install was set up under the name "Fantastico". So fantastico, I I have my own blog/domain! Is that sort of like gaining a best friend? Do i love me, or what? I am psychotically tired, hardly any sleep, mad-crashing off the caffeine pills, it's 12:16am, i haven't mailed the proposals and my roomies have played a fab show which i didn't see because of this importing business (and i cleaned my room) ---

so you can now find me at www.theohzone.org --

i mean. there's something to be said for having your own domain, right? it's not like guys with small whatever's buying a nice car, right? there's some metaphysical, actual value in this glee -

so by bye. it's been lovely. i've loved and adored and caressed these pages. good lord, i'm a yuppie now. don't feel comfortable till i own....bye bye.......(sniff, snort, poof).

weekly speculator fix

2006-06-27T13:36:00.000-04:00

The Executive Director is in line view of where I'm sitting yet I bounce up and down in my seat (preparing big arsed proposal, a piddly penny however, in light of about 7 grants we've just received, which is bigger than any sugar daddy's pocket) -- 'cus I am listening to the brilliant, grating robot sounds of Speculator's weekly show , the archives which he handily posts on myspace after every Monday for us to hear and see. I don't know why I've taken to his show so well even though we seem to, if we ever are in the same room, only talk about swimming lessons, admidst wafts of nicotine...

Update on my day: The appendix to my proposal is not going well. No prospective budget for the next fiscal year, slash I'm fucked. I've taken caffeine pills to help. Now think I can go to my roomie's seasick show at cakeshop tonight. We saw a bunch of possible roomies last night during our open house (28 cans of tecate) and I got drunk and acted loud and lewd, one of them came in while i was shouting "Urinary infection!" (not mine) and proceeded to lie down on the couch and get repeatedly jumped on by the uncensorious Sam, 20 yr old bunny. I got an email from one of them today saying we were so amazing and positive. Interesting.

soundtrack to June 27 06:

dawn penn you don't love me (no,no,no)
art of noise moments in love
vangelis spiral
can oh yeah
the jackson 5 hum along and dance
chemise she can't love you
mahagoni salvador de bahia
giorgio moroder evolution
the parallax corporation slowflight/runner
salamandos c10
j.d. i ain't gonna wait
macho cat garage rubber run
jamie principle your love
new order everythings gone green
peter schilling major tom
tutti quanti tous en kimono
heaven 17 geisha boys and temple girls
YMO u t
visage the damned don;t cry
the actor wahlerisch
frankie goes to hollywood relax
mike mareen walking highway
carrara welcome to the sunshine (instrumental)
adal-scandy super band piranah
klaus doldinger sitar beat
john lennon plastic ono band i don;t want to be a soldier
echo and the bunny men bring on the dancing horses

Teeth and the Kos scandal which I don't care about

2006-06-27T10:47:00.000-04:00

Doc hit a muscle in my cheek with his novocaine wand. He was a genius by talking to me nonstop explaining everything he was doing and why he was doing it and saying "Sorry, so sorry" every time I yelped, while I watched blood pop out onto his mouth cover thing. I now have some sort of bizarre infection. Typical.

It hurts to eat - which I guess I don't mind so much, but not being able to sleep till 4am, gossip-ly reading the enthralling story of Daily Kos's scandal kind of blows. I don't even read Kos' blog, which I find un-funny, smarmy, and full of failed self-deprecations. If you look at the link to the alternet post some irate dude responded to my comment with: "Read a few liberal blogs."(what am I doing on alternet? But he has a point, I need to read more but I simply don't know who to read - am I lazy or bored?)"Mr Brooks should write for the Readers' Digest. There is no king pin of either the left or right." - Um. Ok. Strange - I made no mention of there being a right wing Kingpin, although perhaps he's referencing other articles that talk about Kos being nothing compared to right-wing paid political consultants?

Evan kindly answered back as well with a bit more of a clarification but it is still all a mystery to me. I don't even know why I care, it's weird. I'm going to stop caring right now. It's lame.

Katrina is bad

2006-06-27T10:44:00.000-04:00

I'm reading up on Katrina 'cus I'll be going there washing walls of mold and lifting heavy things for 8 days - will I wear my Converse or my fake Kangaroos? It is dubious that I will actually make much of a dent in the tremendous destruction but I guess I am falling victim to proverbs, believing "every little bit helps". Next thing you know I'll be trying to get along with children.

Katrina Facts:

67% of the New Orleans population consists of African Americans, and huge numbers of them fall below the poverty line (www.msnbc.msn.com).

300,000 homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina (Democracy Now).

3 quarters of a million people were displaced by the hurricane and still cannot return home (Democracy Now).

A team that consists of 5 volunteers can gut a house in 7 days and save a New Orleans resident $10,000 (www.commongroundrelief.org)

There are currently 9000 students in 17 re-opened schools out of 118 schools that previously existed before Hurricane Katrina (www.nola.com).

funny, isn't it

2006-06-26T17:42:00.000-04:00

i just realized the rythym in my jane blogs are really wierd and it bothers me. some of it just isn't funny. "very dismaying?" I would've normally wrote - "sort of dismaying" or "i was disconcerted" - i was trying to cut down on word count - it's a bitch, word counts.

the blog is kind of funny but not really. fucked up. how can i be funny again? what does this mean? do i have to go to school?

ARGH!!!! IT'S SO HARD TO BE FUNNY!!!!!

the reason why i was reading them was 'cus i was reading this guy's blogs and he's pretty funny, in an angry white boy sort of way. so, sort of curious to see how my jane blog would fare in comparison plus i thought i might've gotten a juicy little comment and feel good for about 5 minutes and horrifyingly realized i was not funny.

New Orleans Trip - call for skills

2006-06-26T12:18:00.000-04:00

haha i almost wrote "skillz" ---> cole speak.

so many businesses with the word "cole" in them ("Cole Hardware") Strange. Very strange. He is surreptitiously following me. X's do that.

Spent a horrifying evening with Alana yesterday not being able to talk properly saying red when black, stalking people on the internet including her facebook boys - she says the X is beautiful...khadijah got my back with promising to cut any girl's face orbiting X - who "belongs to me." Alana says she's never met anyone more jealous - i'm kind of flattered that I am imbued with this definite quality. No relativity in being "the most jealous person ever". I must work on that. Hard.

Things I need to get skills on this week or just get(Leave for New Orleans Rebuilding Mission Trip this Saturday)

learn how to interview somebody for New Orleans, decide on interview format for 8 days of documenting

get a tri-pod

get money

learn something about operating a video camera in a way that is not inept

get a firewire cable

6 mini-dv tapes

photo id

learn how to export Blogger posts into Wordpress, create a mySQL database and upload to kill

3 bottles of sunscreen, new contacts, OFF! Spray, and sunglasses

get a camera since i broke mine this weekend

All of this should take 3-4 nights of solid working - plus $300.00.

Doubling up, Open House, plus "Thumbsucker"

2006-06-26T12:07:00.000-04:00

Doubling the happiness: I have had my medication doubled as of last week. I'm super not tired. I also have a huge blog coming out of me but it's not ready yet - i tried to post it but lost my network connection, all for the better 'cus it just weren't done. so now i'm going to do work because it's 12:04.

Opening up: We're having an open house tonight for Alana's room and millions of people will come including somebody with "Von" in his name. I'm pretty excited to turn the tables and be interveiwing people for a position i was vying for months ago - apparently that night i hadn't tried to talk to anyone at all besides walking around with a knowing smirk on my face, but ended up making somewhat of a splash - i wore all white and had mary on my side, which helped.

The questions i will ask: "Do you have a therapist?" "Do you wash dishes RIGHT AFTER you use them?" "Do you flush the toilet after you use it?" "What do you read" And the questions I will not ask are my eyes checking out the cut of their jeans and their hair and their bag.

I'm going to work now. Yup, that's what i'm doing! That's me, a hard-core worker. Which reminds, me, i saw the movie Thumbsucker yesterday and it sucked. No pun intended. Like thumbsucking, who cares? I have bigger fish to fry. Which remninds me, I need to get Ritalin again.

2 dykes in the dyke march

2006-06-26T11:44:00.000-04:00

khadjijah and me at dyke march
Originally uploaded by sensandreference.

i am happy. happy with khadijah and her apple green shirt. mourning the X in front of date and it doesn't matter. talking about being dykes in from of date, don't matter. it begins to rain and we head over to tartine after buying wine from a frat boy.

fake nips ala sex $ the city

2006-06-24T03:45:00.000-04:00

apparently everyone who knows me reads my blog. "I'm interested in your thoughts" they say. however, i would like them to be interested in the human condition. are these mutually exclsuive?

it's the end of the week, friday, 3: 33 am. I have walked home in the rain from Capones and Fun. Completely witheringly hipper than thou from pure fact of having been there before everyone and being older. girls in black dresses asked me where supreme trading was and i told them. ordered three pizzas and destoyed ourselves. went to fun to commence destroying. watched as some handsome middle eastern bloke courted ian. danced in a way that i felt was more me than i have danced in a long time - very down and very silly. completely in my own realm since only gay boys wanted to dance with me to britney spears. kept thinking - i had emailed the X earlier yesterday - nothing of it - it was obvious that i was fairly doomed - and i was so tempted to do many things - to call and confess - that i hadn't stopped thinking - i hadn't stopped cultivating this feeling of love which i believe originated in his area - and kristina - who is so beautiful in a way that makes you believe everything is innocent and fresh - even when her eyes are distended with worry - the natural worry of new york -

oh god.

i woke up at 6 am for Fundraising Day - AFP - totebag - juice - seminars. Left feeling inadequate and like brain was slowly disintegrating. it was a painful feeling. went home and passed out, dreaming of things, with my glasses on my belly. a glass of wine drunk. upon waking up, another glass of wine. meet my parents - my beautiful parents - at Galapagos where Kristina Candalarie's play is - she is wearing a halter top dress - smiles widely - my parents are taken and sit down, although they were not planning too. somehow i had the desperate desire to claim them as my own, after Song had worked her magix on my mum's hair, turning her into a vixen i could hardly recognize, the beauty of which pained me because it had been buried all these years - (and i texted song to tell her so, but there is no response, presumably because i have destroyed ties -bygones) - everything is permissable when one is drunk - and what a sweet heady drunk wine is - a malbec at galapagos... and my father eventually puts his hand on my shoulder and murmurs "I am very tired." On the stage girls in aprons and black dresses are humping plain men and sucking on bananas - an interpretation of Artaud - my father has never heard of Artaud let alone been in a bar with his daughter whom he perceived to be sipping her wine too frequently and wearing a too - tight black dress. Later to Capones I jealoiusly ask the dj's whats up, thinking Pappawheelie should be there, Jeremy should be there, Cole should be there - Cousin Cole - this is family - Capones is suddenly strange - kristina buys us all melon shots and we take silly pictures and ian blacks out at Fun. "How did that happen to us?" He asks. I don't know.

It is late and I can hardly stay awake or go to sleep. "You have to get out of this spell" Ian tells me with such knowlesdge and experience although i ignore the nagging bit of knowledge that he himself is tipping over the edge with the taste of the Spell - the spell of an irrational love.

And i want to believe him. I want to shut it off, and i stopp myself so many times from feeding

oh i must go to sleep now. it's 3 44 and i have consumed too much. another day tomorrow that is bright and bleak. my camera is broken from the rain - my phone is broken - at least myself seems to be intact.

blinders are blinding

2006-06-22T17:10:00.000-04:00

Mr Tom regarding my post on suzie-done-bad:

Yeah I agree, this one rocks.

[Incidentally, I think you should put "note from last night" in a jane blog - it could be part of one of those ones that are bitty and immediate, like the very early pacman one. Could be a step sideways to take your next step up. (Minimise to maximise, in the title of a recent techno album, where Min2Max was the title of the second one.)]

as if we were NOT
in a deadened, jaded age

should be the beginning of a poem. Such beautiful poise. Reminds me of Lou Reed:

there's some evil mothers
gonna tell you that everything is just dirt
You know, that women never really faint
And that villains always blink their eyes
And that children are the only ones who blush
And that life is just to die

how to tell if you need a root canal

2006-06-22T14:16:00.000-04:00

Doc told me: if it hurts only while you eat or drink, you just need a cavity filled. if it hurts all the time, you need a root canal.

I need a root canal.

Also he's hot.

flagrant fowl's hot hens

2006-06-22T14:03:00.000-04:00

my X has started some sort of record label. I'd deleted him from my myspace friends because I couldn't bear the possibility of stalking, so I didn't know about this. He hasn't bothered to add me as this new internet persona's friend either. Nor has he hasn't posted anything about his release party on friendster - perhaps precisely for the purpose of keeping me out of the loop since i neglected to delete him on that account, although he emailed the damn invite to me last week. I don't understand where he got all the large, blousy graphics t,his tough grizzly language "Ruffle Yo Featherz" "Well-hung remix" "Killed Remix" - and his new profile says he doesn't want kids and he's a Capricorn and 22? What the hell? None of those are true as far as I know...who is this person? who talks like that - foreign tough white boys with scarred hands, not X-lovers from Missouri who ask me politely if he could apply lotion on my body..

With 132 friends, he's conspicuously remained deleted: Why do people who love each other hate each other eventually? I told Ilana that it wasn't so much the titillating arguments or similarity of views - it was the beauty of being looked at with love. With so many dead eyes, angry eyes, disapproving eyes - to be viewed with soft love - is an experience that is priceless and rare. And he somehow managed to endow that on me - this guy who's "Well-hung" and wants to meet "Hot hens"...

suzie done bad: highlights

2006-06-22T11:21:00.000-04:00

What I do with everything, if I have it: for months I've had half my foot in work - one half feverishly, obsessively working, the other half becoming submerged in a sense of failure and paranoia - it's almost as if I'm trying to mess up. I do this with everything. I talked with Ilana (my roommate) about relationships and she tells me she's a shitty girlfriend, and I realize that I am too - unusually so - clich-iac - when somebody decides to commit to me I take that opportunity to beat them to the chase of null and subsume them under the general shittiness that is my conception of my life - everything in my domain becoming me, rather than "other" - and I treat those close to me like I treat myself - a berating, condescending, cavilling tempremental angel - could it be my mother? Bygones. However I do manage by means of cackly humor and smidgens of kindness - the kindness is out of control these days, it seems that compassion has caught up with me, what with working in a non-profit and learning to love down-and-outs. So on the whole, being in a relationship with myself is not so terrible, has it's redeeming qualities which is why people stay with me until they've had their fill of being and nothingness - Ilana tells me she'd hate to go out with herself and I realize that I agree, in terms of myself, although if I were Ilana I think I'd love to go out with myself...

flights of mania: So I've been on this manic tip - my censors are disintegrating, as evidenced by my spiteful text messages back and forth with Song - spurred by a strange and wonderful coincidence I won't go into at the moment -anyway, this culminated in my stating that she does unintentional "damage" by eagerly highlighting the shortcomings of others - i had specific incidences in my mind which i filed away for the purposes of nonviolent communication which requires less evaluation and more facts - but since I can't text very well and I didn't go into it. Instead I wrote this, which I believe is a quite genius example of how spontaneously evil I could be if I wanted to: "u have an unusual talent for tactlessnes us pass off as honesty " and I would've written more except I had my dr's appointment with hotty blond doctor who slurred as if she were on painkillers - she felt me up in as pleasant a way as a dr could do a physical - and wrote out my scripts with a punkish alacrity...so later I go to my blind date and have a great bit of fun and drink about 100$ worth of wine and I learn what a "wine flight" and a "cheese flight" is even though initially, I was scared to go inside - white teeth and tanned skins everywhere dimmed by red velvet lights and model servers- scared - esp with life going so fast in nyc, one fears experiencing new things 'cus one has to shove aside what one has built for oneself -

Karma Chameleon - I barrell onto see Jeremiah Rifles, some darling earnest 70's rockers who bang away ala MC5 and Television and I really do adore them in a way that I didn't before when I first saw them at Cakeshop (with bad sound, arm in arm with Song across the room from Ian and his Bumble crew and Mary - watching them hatefully at the height of the war between me+Song vs them, the crux of which was the dreaded beacon of POSH: Alex, who dresses very Cape or Martha's Vineyard but once in the Adirondacks, lies down barely alive with the exception of the clock striking 12 when he comes alive to play card games and drink beer - insulting people for their choice of repetitive words since they aren't consumed by the compulsion to try out the breadth of their wordplay with the same easy violence as the cutting of balls in Soviet Russia)...

Last Night: So I left Tainted Lady - sadly - it is their last big night before they close - (I grew strangely attached to the tacky paintings of big-breasted woman)trailing big sounds and glittery lights and it was really quite beautiful. The 70's boys in Jeremiah Rifles touched me [nonphysically] through all of the evil/laziness I had committed throughout the day - in my unwillingness to touch upon the excitement of blind dates and not waiting around the 4th floor to make an emergency dental appointment - the throbbing in my mouth akin to the possibilities of bodily awakening - except a kind hipster dentist opportunistically put his hand in my mouth and felt around, deemin me a "case," 8PM doozily consuming fragrant wines to compensate for my evidenced bruteness...(don't get me wrong, the wine was damn good and the conversation fairly hilarious, even ending with an attempted kiss by the Commerce Bank ATM) and Song calling me at 11PM to tell me she had overreacted, congealing whatever i felt into collapse, whatnot - JR progressed with their walls of sound as if we were NOT in a deadened, jaded age...

And here I am about to hurl from my BLT, saddened greatly because Jane magazine hasn't put up my blog this morning - and i hear the echoes of people - Song - introducing me as "the girl who blogs for Jane" and I wonder what I will be if I don't blog for them - will I be this?
note from last night: Mozart look-alike was there, and I contemplated aloud whether I should go up to him and ask him to write my requiem.

bacon grease

2006-06-22T11:12:00.000-04:00

I start out my mid-mornings with a BLT these days. Since I drink alcohol every day - a moderate beer or wine after work - somehow the next day i need to line my stomach with some disgustingness. Working in East New York supports this habit - there is nothing resembling health or croissants bursting with different salads - when I worked in Chelsea I didn't know how good I had it - I ate at McDonalds every day, 'till my X taught me better ways of life.

I go to a certain store: "Hello Momma." "Do you have Bacon Lettuce Tomato." "Sure momma." "Thanks." "Of course, my Love."

To sleepy counter guy: "Do you have coffee?" Every day, the guy at the counter who is half-asleep, sometimes actually asleep, quizzically points to the small and large cups. Every day I say large. Before he understood "large," I settled for two small cups of coffee in the morning. Then I realized, when I asked the owner for a Large cup, he said to the sleepy guy: "Big coffee". Then I started saying "Big Coffee" and I got my big coffee. But now I'm taking some sort of generic Hydroxycut, because of my friend who flippantly asked me if I wanted one since she hates coffee. This cuts down on my back and forth to the kitchen dependence on coffee, this constant niggling fear that I will be tired...I only take half a bit but it helps.

cheep cheep cheap

2006-06-21T14:06:00.000-04:00

I have not written yet 'cus I am going to an early dr's appt and have been busy finishing a proposal (and writing my hilariously Jane-y Jane blog - although I am a bit sad because I am thinking I am a mediocre hack). I'm stuck on this proposal question: "How does your organization Work?". Like what does that mean? People show up to work at 9 and leave at 5. Sometimes 10 to 6. People drink tea and coffee and are stressed. The higher ups make decisions and the people lower follow them. Is that what they want to know? Perhaps.

I will go to the dr's appointment, get all my scripts, go to my blind date business at Metro Cafe, and then go see Jeremiah Rifles with my less wine-bar type peeps, at good ol sexist Tainted Lady in Williamsburg.

Speaking of tainted ladies, last night I went to see the shy and speculative Speculator at the rather cute K&M bar which I hadn't planned on going to, so showed up late, with nothing but keys and phone - Ian bought me a beer and we talked about the mountain trip. Hilar. Bummed a cig off Will (Speculator) and talked shop about swimming (he's a swim instructor at NYU) and how he throws people in the water and teaches them to swim. I was impressed how I said "Would you happen to have --" and he pulls out his pack of Marlboro Reds without skipping a beat. Then he went inside unexpectedly and I trudged home feeling pretty glum about everything involving potential sparks between me and anybody new - especially after a slightly drunk conversation with Song in which she unsuccessfully tried to convince me that I was not a rebound...oh, rebound. My life is a rebound.

music makes you lose...

2006-06-20T14:46:00.000-04:00

i listen to this as i lose breath/control; happily, his dj name is Speculator, I think is the perfect word for my every mood...

What am i doing here (at work)? I was supposed to get all these new funding prospects for CO and have veritably failed, just managing to scrape through the year with two tenuous proposals. The dept I have been assigned has been flattened into another dept (is that what mergers and acquisitions are?) for the purpose of funnelling cash-money into a more humorous direction - argh!

Mary - I haven't posted all the pics from the mountain but for now there are a few here.

cry for the adirondacks

2006-06-20T11:19:00.000-04:00

Mary - the naturalistic purveyor that she is - has already nonchalantly attacked the trip with the casual chopsticks of her mind.
Last night I downloaded all the photos at Atlas Cafe. I can't write about it. The pressure. From what? Who knows. I spent my train ride this morning reading "How to Pitch" articles from mediabistro. Makes me sad 'cus I don't want to pitch anything - I have nothing to pitch. My thoughts are fractured. Will I ever think in theme and form? I did with dirtypop when forced to - perhaps i just need to beat my mind into submission. My mum had the right idea with that, except she should've created some sort of schedule instead of a random instinct to quash, meddle and mold.

French Lessons: Song would help me do that - that goddess of hi-quality - Virgo - saw her and her french boy yesterday, P - clad in a crisp white shirt blasted with graffiti-esque labors, white sweatband, and cuffed jeans, he was a classic snarky expat - sneered at Henry Miller - I sat there during our "french lesson", taught at Z's blackboard, our pronunciation more like babies babbling than anything recognizably cool - his frenchy pursing of lips and sticking out of neck, name-dropping of political situations, casual drops of humor showing us what indeed, was recognizably cool - and Song sat next to me on schoolchair, fragrant, newly highlighted - embodying the teasing schoolgirl while I snarled and smiled, attempting to defuse my relative un-feminine monstrousness with a bit of humor and crassness of smile - tried to make it shy - so as to defuse myself in general, which is so ebullient and masculine next to Song's guzzling, buzzing death-knell of translatable femininity (stole "translatable" from Janna who was describing why HBO didn't immediately latch onto her, Mary and Kristina as a reality tv show possibility). "isn't he such a good teacher?" she gushed - and he was. Clever, funny - not like a real teacher at all. I was pleased with his patience. He made each of us say simple things like Je and Tu and taught me how to say "I can't find my _keys, parents" and "I want some water." I smoked two cigarettes during the lesson. Guiltily.

The two boys - Phillip and Z (cultured U.N. boy who snarks through everything with disarmingly kind eyes) escorted Song - who quickly became bored and tired - to the "fuckin' tasty" pizza place on Bedford Ave - I go home and finish uploading photos. I had glory in the mountains amongst the white fatties, the birds, the crackling fire, the racist kids, the mountainous dogs, the quiet conversations laced with Bud and Bloody Mary - i felt something and became tan with it...I am brown with the effect of something real - namely, UVA/UVB rays...

I'm going to Z's party on Saturday which I"m excited about. I had tried to shake his hand goodbye but he said "I give hugs". Is that something like "I breathe regularly?" I don't like being the recipient of habit - I received his hug grudgingly. "I'll see you on Saturday" he said. I had said earlier that evening that unless "extraordinary circumstances" prevent me, I shall be at his party (the theme of which, we determined, would be "It's definitely hot" party, meaning sunglasses and beach towels) - the E.C being the X who's email which wasn't exactly "mass" - it was "group" - personally inviting me to a certain release party...but otherwise I'll be at the party with the whities and Song Hees...gargling my way towards a classier horizon...

the fear of floating - or rather, flying, is an imminent feeling this morning. the guy who gives me my BLT and Green Tea energy drink is a little too happy to see me. A mixture of suspicion and nebulous worship.

re-mapping priorities and romantic responses

2006-06-19T15:40:00.000-04:00

Boss maps:

Unfortunately, shifts in priorities often happen in non profit organizations and as development professionals we need to learn to roll with the punches!

Hmm...I'm paranoid. Also my tooth is killing me. "Mapping priorities" currently means getting my teeth fixed at NYU Dental tonight. I have to do this or else I won't be able to roll with the punches or crunch the numbers. I find it hard to deal with shifts in my cat's behavior towards me - does that mean I won't be able to roll with the shifts in priorities for the coming fiscal year?

So I've been taken off the program area of C. Organizing and now focusing soley on Family Resource Center. I cared about FRC a lot anyway - what with all those damaged children - so that's good, but leads to the question: does the CO director hate me? I kept badgering the team to give me updated reports and to detail this and that for the proposal I was working on...I'm starting to smell a rat...

Logically, the shift resulted from the bosses' contingency plans for their respective maternity leaves for the summer - so it may not be because of my noxiousness. However, next time I brush past the director on my way to get my breakfast energy drink, I shall furrow my eyes in suspicion.

Cuter, sleazier maps: A hi-quality friend of mine found somebody on Nerve. I told her about it and now it's like her life - to think she was on that travesty lavalife before (i can't forgive their stylist). Congrats to her bevy of Nerve responses 'cus she's even better in the flesh and blood. One of those wierd circumstances where she was a catch in the first place, and driven to the web by a respectable dissatisfation with normal circlets of society. Can't say the same for me - I sort of refuse to take web people seriously, however, because of my blogging life it's become normal to form alliances by the transmission of computer data - hence, I have been provisionally asked out to enjoy a flesh and blood piece of wine in the city. Horrifying. Whether this will materialize into the inevitable discomfort and alienation that blind dates normally confer, is left up to the random jaws of fate...However this has only been initiated in response to a cackly boredom following my arrival from the beautiful mountains - what's real right now is that I have to research funding opportunities and bounce around realistically. Plus I have to write my Jane blog tonight...I am eager to see what comments it will elicit...God - Mary told me yesterday that I'm so much more positive and optimistic -now i have something to lose.

book clubs conceived in the mountains

2006-06-19T12:22:00.000-04:00

I forgot my camera cable so I have disabled my blogging mechanism for now...because meaningful blogging is not possible without the pictures. so i shall write about other things besides the mountain.

Like me and mary have decided that Amtrak is the new House Party and we are starting a book club. It's going to be based on social justice. We're trying to think of a catchier name for it. We will meet every few weeks and tlak about the book we read. Anybody want to join, please do.

My body has been fried by the sun. I am very empty-headed, without angst. Huge zit on the chin and I don't even care. May go to the Y today and work out - for the simple joy of repeating the physical labors of this weekend in the mountains.

Thanks for commenting,Bree! Warms the cockles of my heart, as an X used to say...

Monday mornings are inherently bad

2006-06-19T11:30:00.000-04:00

Help.

Love those mass emails!

2006-06-16T13:44:00.000-04:00

---From my X, whom I spoke to last in a sobbing voicemail...first acknowledgement from the X in months: watershed! I am left cold. Too bad he's not still going out with me, for I would bring a huge crew to his release party. Unfortunately I am dead inside. So I'll be sittin' at home watchin' "The Jerk."
"My record release party is coming up next saturday at Rififi (see below). I hope you all can make it. If you are in town, you better come and bring a
bunch of friends. If you can't make it, send the invitation along to anyone
you know who enjoys drinking and having super-fun. I want this party to be
packed.

If all goes well the record (with some remixes I made) will be available at
the party for about $10. You can hear some of the tracks at
http://www.myspace.com/cousincole

See you there

PS I believe here will be some sort of drink special but I don't know what
it is."

Avoiding "The Jerk", and amTrack.

2006-06-16T12:41:00.000-04:00

.
Everything one needs for the Adirondacks!. Nervous about being stuck in nature with city friends, but new therapist said it would be ok. Said it might be a little awkward when standing around the stove cooking something (oatmeal? grits? animals?) but that's natural. I thought of the last time I went out of NYC - to Poughkeepsie -hating everything and myself - under the outside shower with a girl, soaking in a stream of water - luckily i never got stuck by the stove talking to anyone but there were no lack of awkward moments. Put me off nature for a few. I asked Jana what to wear and she said hiking boots. Ha! Instead of hiking boots, I went to Chinatown and bought sachets of ready made cups of coffee, candy watermelons and Pocky. I was gonna buy GIANT POCKY but alas, couldn't fit it in my bag. I am set. Except now the beautiful Kristina Candelarie is not going because of a "godfather" - understandable, these family commitments, although i forgot about mine. She was gonna drive us back in John's car, but alas, Amtrak is in the future. Or I could stay home and watch "The Jerk" which I sadly put in my queue a long time ago to watch with Cole, and since then put so much shit in my queue I forgot about it, and then it came, and I couldn't do anything about it.

Bill and Phil

2006-06-16T10:44:00.000-04:00

are the names of the men we used to love, we decided. mary came up with "bill" which was as she said "the best thing she's ever thought of" and I didn't think I could equal that at all, but then came up with "phil!" It's hard to think up names ot adequately represent one's feelings and projections towardes one who'se embittered one through failed love.

Mary, let's image google bill and phil and see what we come up with...it would be good to have faces to match the names.

btw - i do have a life. At night.

2006-06-16T10:40:00.000-04:00

I went out yesterday to Niagara - not a place I normally go - but I had to be there to videotape Sir Dave's band (quite intense, actually - charismatic in a 70's rocker sort of way) and Michael Malinski's art (bewildering, purposefully evasive)- James Iha was there(bewildering, purposefully evasive) - and smoked and had two whiskies and met somebody that didn't totally repulse me right away although his eyes crinkled too much when he smiled - and took loads of pictures -

So I do have a life - at night. All I have to do is work on the "day" bit.

(I love my new therapist by the way. She said "This may sound cliche but we have to work on you. You being ok with you." She's wierd and looks like Punky Brewster - very cute and hopeful.)

working woman blues, non-sexual brutes

2006-06-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

I've erased all mention of my name in this blog. Things will be more secret from now on just to let you know. Because there are bigger fish to fry and they are easier to fry when the small anchovies (nothing against small fish - they are very valuable) fuck off to do their anchovy games, leaving more room in the pan.

So today is "working day". I get comments like "I'm photocopying this for __staff member__ and you'll probably end up having to do it!" "Things trickle down, down the chain!" Oh yes. LOVE being at the bottom of the food chain. love it. There's nothing like knowing that everyone around you thinks that what you do with your time is fairly worthless. Although I being in this position, am struggling to find meaning for myself - it is hard to motivate oneself when there is hardly anything one can do besides deliver a deliverable that equates to $$. It's that whole quandary of "working smarter, not harder" - a lesson I can't forget from the cartoon Duck Tales.

There is an uncertain condescension swirling on the stolid, absorbed faces around me - i can feel it. I am grateful for their "goodmornings". They work so damn hard, they have numbers to crunch and things to crap on - however, in my corner desk, overflowing with empty Vitamin Water bottles and BLAST!Energy Mints, I am battling existential doubt here, which deserves a bit of humanitarian consideration, right? Somebody has to do it! Somebody higher up decided there was a place and purpose for me here! I mean, look, I HAVE A DESK AND OFFICE SUPPLIES for fucks sake. I HAVE A PENCIL HOLDER - from staples - black wire mesh. And occasionally I produce a piece of paper with words on it. I've sent out two grants. That isn't so bad. I bug certain program officers to give me the latest list of accomplishments in detail so I can flesh out a persuasive proposal, but they don't say hi to me or really acknowledge me, for fear of getting swept into my intern status in a storm of contagious mediocrity...if i was actually "staff" it would be different, wouldn't it? Mediocrity then, is sanctioned. Which is what government and officiality is all about. It's wierd and difficult and uncertain.

On a sexier note, there's a great article on non-sexual men in alternet today. I love it because it sounds like me - even though i'm not a man, i do consider myself in league with these people - these men. Hurray for creating a "trend" out of deadened genitals! P.S. Mary just wrote me to tell me she blogged on this too!

{i'm a piece of shit - i have to leave early today to pack for the cabin - came late 'cus i couldn't find my bikini bottoms.

I have to start thinking about winning a prize of some sort- then people will sit up and take notice and i'll have bikini bottoms comin' out of my ass. The whole point of life is to look good on paper).

Bumble and branches

2006-06-15T11:47:00.001-04:00

Still not over this picture. Mary's "Funfetti" birthday cake with a mashed up, melted "Symphony bar". Note the horrible pan. Didn't occur to me to take it out of the pan. Is that normal?
check this description of the cabin i will be in this weekend. I will be there for three nights. Three nights with Mary, Ian, Alex, Kristina and John. John has orchestrated the whole thing for he is classy and comes from $$.
he called me "Friend". Made me happy.

I am very nervous about the prospect of being in the wilderness with these city and country savvy folk. I only know living rooms, basements, bathrooms and bars. I don't know nothing else. I can hardly navigate the subway. I told Ian that I was going to tie myself to a tree. What are big trees? Will there be bobcats there? Where are the Adirondacks? Will there be rivers? Are they clean? What do you wear in nature? There will be a game room, what will we do when not playing that? i hate games. Will there be regular meal times? Do we bring food, and if so what sort of thing do you eat in nature? Raisins and non-perishable? Will I have time to read books? Also, cigarettes. What happense to the cigarettes everyone smokes in New York? Do they die? Fall away from fingers?

The last time I left New York I felt wierd, hyperventilate-y, just wanted to stay inside, and was extremely relieved to enter the city in the havens I have created, however disgruntedly.

Reading the Tipping Point, I'm realizing that the reason why I have started smoking like my life depended on it is becomes I am low on noreprenephrine and dopamine. Since I started on Celexa, I am very tired during the day - so much that I just want to lie down all the time - and I need cigarettes. It's very strange. Must talk to my new psych about that.

Will be seeing my new therapist again this week. I like her. Last week we talked about my procrastination and what it represents. She had a bandaid on her face. In the beginning of the session she will look at me all over the place and then at the end she will be giving me good advice.

Ian will be getting me Bumble hairspray this week. I am excited and grateful about that. Jim from upstairs, saw me outside while I was about to cry 'cus some vandals vandalized my bike, and I was disgruntedly chaining it up, and he said he'd just been over to this girl's house who works for Bumble like Ian. Said somebody stole Bumble stuff from his shower at the 80's Bachelor party. He looked remarkably handsome. He proceeded to detail that they tapped out the keg and also bought 30 more beers. I couldn't resist bragging that i'd brought a bunch of people - quickly adding that they brought vodka. He said his socially retarded friends were like: Do you know these people? And getting scared. I realized there are at least two groups that aren't really meant to mesh. He is so clean. It's wierd. I'm also hyper now 'cus I ate some "blast energy suppleMINTS". I'm gonna start working now! NOW!

dreams of cats and children

2006-06-15T10:28:00.000-04:00

Been having dreams every night which is unusual.

Not like in my dream, I had a great dinner with Alyssa last night. We talked about narrative structure quite seamlessly after a lovely tofu and broccoli dinner. She said she was very intellectually stimulated although she was also energetically throwing around mouse toys for her smart cat Moses. She has this marble table held up by mini-columns.

But my dream last night had nothing to do with Alyssa or dinners or social awkwardness. I had just had moments of hilarity with my roommates and then was befallen with extreme tiredness as what happens (god i hate hearing sighs at work) these days due to the antidepressants, and fell asleep in a dark slumber. Was it the Budweiser, the tofu, the intellectually stimulating conversation? I don't know. Plus I walked for 20 minutes to home, and actually enjoyed it, the strides through nature - i'm getting older. I also found myself unavoidably taking the most familiar route home- past the X's house, although i kept my head down in shame.

Anyway, dreams of cats and children: I was in a house and all these people, including my mum and this fictitious family, were planning to burn it down... They had to make sure to leave my mum's child in her room, though, and my job was to get her out before the house burnt down. They also had to rig it so it would be hard for anyone to get out... (This may be related to the story of Greenpoint burning told to me by Alyssa on her firescape looking over the Manhattan skyline) (I am really depressed right now - my antidepressants have stopped working - yet I am also wierdly functional - by gones) Anyway I hate departures from narrative, or should hate them. Back to the story. So they started burning and they told me "Go!" I ran back inside to fetch the child. For some reason my mum had boarded up the entrances and exits too much, for it took me a scramble to get over pieces of wood and barricades. I finally got to the area where the kid was. I stood in between a large stone where I saw my two cats (in the dream) meowing below, and the dark cavelike hold where the child was. I realized that I may have to let them burn to death because i couldn't handle the cats and the child. Then i thought about them burning to death and couldn't bear it. in the crevice between the stone and the cave I looked down and there was the sick cat (in the dream) dead. I was relieved. I saw the flames licking so much faster than i expected. I was unsure of whether I could save them but I wouldn't be able to live with it if I didn't. I reached into the cave, planning to figure it out, and saw that my mum had put her child in a tupperware container! The child was scared and yelling. I was relieved. I found another tupperware container and put the two cats in it. I ran out just in time. "WHy did you board it up so well?" I asked mum. Then I woke up at 8:24am.

a lovely photo and anxiety on the side

2006-06-14T16:14:00.000-04:00

(Kristina (left) Janne (right) at Mary's Sock Hop on Friday. She really liked the limerick and the cake I gave her. Shouted "You actually baked that!" in front of everyone when I brought her cake out at midnight - with Ian's melting candles. I am obsessed with this photo. The color and form is haunting - old world, clashing eras. The blackberry is a lovely touch) Welcome back anxiety. For a few days i wasn't feeling anything, much like i was submerged in peanut butter. I had slept all afternoon on Sunday to recover from Friday--Mary's Sock Hop-- and Saturday --80's bachelor party. Grudgingly woke up and went to a New Orleans (going to go down there and pretend like i'm butch and good-hearted) prepping dinner at the Delta Grill and then promptly went back to sleep. Failed at being peppy at dinner despite "D" (the young hip minister of a certain huge and famous church in NYC)inquiring piercingly into my life as if he was not just being holy.

so now i'm feeling a foreboding slab of anxiety encroaching upon me which is pretty delightful. Yay! low self esteem once again, patched on my life and creating insurmountable stumbling blocks for the next few days. I mean, i've been pretty productive lately - some semblance of it anyway - went to a low-cost health clinic on Monday before they closed and registered and even went upstairs to make an appointment on top of that. Of course I must be dazed and befuddled throughout because to be present during this whole bureacratic "appropriate" experience would be painfully surreal. It is better to erect a plasticene veneer between me and propriety so i am not expected to perform as such ALL THE TIME. if you know what i mean.

Along with this loss of depression and anxiety I've been experiencing, I have also lost my sense of humor and ability to write. Nothing comes out! Jokes falter! my rhythym is FUCKED. Could it be that I told too many jokes on Saturday? Too many! It was bam bam bam, came out one after another, a couchful of attractive people over my house breaking into laughter - like when i described my "fucked up worthless dream" of Cole being a compulsive eater, shoveling food into his mouth from a bowl...that was funny! I am no longer funny!

I have a huge fear of never being funny again because once this smarmy Japanese bloke I was friends with before I hated the Japanese, told me i was so funny I should be a standup comic and put me in the middle of Trafalgar Square and made me perform comedy, instead I cried, and got my purse stolen in the process...and I wasn't funny again for years! I would get dry-mouthed and awkward! Fuck that! The solution is to be unconscious!

aplopleptic mail merge

2006-06-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

mail merge!! mail merge!! mail merge!!

I have a strange and unusual amount of energy from this frustrating mail merge tutorial i gave over the phone. i spent a day to figure this out when i was a wee young little VISTA - i want props!

i have no idea what to write in my jane blog. even though so much as happened. i don't feel intense. it's the antidepressants. i don't feel much of anything. not even hatred, which i've always been able to depend on to spur me on.

i'm stuck. and also very fearful because i am growing old and weekends like the last one are numbered. numbered, i tell you. MAIL MERGE!!

At least I can do that. Hundreds of labels would be nothing without me. LAMINATION! we have a laminator at work now. Imagine the possibilities.

I had a dream last night that I was bouncing around in upstairs cabinets. I missed a dinner meeting with Alyssa and she was pissed. I jumped into a pool and my glasses sunk to the bottom.

there's nothing like toxins in your system

2006-06-12T14:52:00.000-04:00

to severely derail you. my heart is beating almost out of control. i can't do anything except check my email - oh, ADD. Maybe i shouldn't go see "An Inconvenient Truth", which Ian called "The Inconceivable Truth". I'll watch the rest of Vera Drake. Clean my room. Hook up my videocamera to my computer. Drink Green Tea. Have nightmares about looking at old photos and discovering I've worn stretch pants in every single one of them and have awful camel toe.

Maybe I've done this to myself because - as my therapist put it, now that I'm feeling fairly "normal" and "functional" as opposed to "anxious" and "non-functioning", I have a great amount of fear as I have to set new standards for myself - standards which are just a little bit more than I can possibly handle, since I have, pre-depression, had outrageously high standards. She asked me to list all every time I can remember when I've held high standards for myself, and what came out of it. So as to understand why I - in response to being called "amazing" and a "shining star" on friday, continually mark myself as "underachieving fool" - in a sense to escape the hilarious expression of my overachievingness, which is really impossible, constantly stymied by ridiculous quirks.

fearful to remember friday

2006-06-12T12:19:00.000-04:00

all the vast details of this weekend. I shall only name facts for now because it's 12:16pm and i have to work.

Friday: Mad Mary party - i baked her a cake which i hid in her closet and brought out at 12am, composed a limerick out of 50's slang, danced to old dancy ipod music and the usual lovelorn activities drowned in a heady liquer. No presence of the X. Chased by pinstripe man whom i told : "You're too good looking. It's a problem." And then avoiding his eyes interacting with three people at the same time with efficacious pedestal-building. A certain tuxedo-d man put his hands up and down my body and said "What happened? How did you get so hot?" I said it was the contact lenses. (And hit him) Jana said she was obsessed with me because my makeup was so tasteful. The pictures are skanky and awful and are coming up as soon as I can round up the picture-taking masses. 3:30 am - In a car with Alex, Ian John and Ilana. Ilana made bird sounds on the toilet and ended up in Sam's bass drum kit. Alex begged me and Ian to go up to the "cabin" they rented and would pay us 100$ for our company. Ian said "I have to work for a living, actually - " Alex gets kicked out of union pool again for pissing in public, get's a ticket from the police, steals fruit from a fruitstand which Ian has to pay for...

Saturday: the word of the day being "cracked out" Drove to an auto place with John for a reluctant car wander to get his mirror replaced. Really not half band, wandering even though I felt a huge encroaching burden to write about the details of the previous night. Transition into lesbian barbecue in Park slope where i extolled, mistakenly, the theory that we were all really gay and brainwashed to be straight. Brought a pinneapple which they grilled. Everyone talked about getting married. Later after a shocking amount of phonecalls, averaging 1 an hour, the crew from night before banded together again in my living room to sip wine and laugh and watch me put on my whore outfit. Jana appeared in tight stripey shirt and constructed the watermelon me and Ilana were puzzled over what to do with, into a startburst shape utilizing the blue rapsberry twizzlers and jellybeans I have been rather desperate to get rid of - best 4$ I ever spent! Me and Ilana, motivated by watching Bachelor Party, appeared at the Bachelor-party themed party at 11:30PM dressed straight out of 80's bachelor party hookerdom, and I admit that we outdid ourselves, women flocking in droves to say "I am SO glad you dressed up," their skin remarkably covered by cloth while ours was exposed in a very hilarious, nonsexual sense - photos will come soon. Ian said as per my dance routine that seemed to be based on 20's mime: "I have never loved you so much. I died laughing" I saw fit to make up a few dances that involved stomping and putting my fingers in my mouth to form a vag V and snakily squeezing my leapard-print padded bra in a brash show to defuse what was implied in the costume. Then a bunch of ghosts of the past arrived in their mottled San Fran colors, wielding "dpmag" and memories I wish to forget. It was delightful and frightening to mesh the worlds of frat boys with no shirts, blazers, and ties around their head, and the ghosts of the past - the overlapping circle being my crazed splendor of joky sexuality and brambled optimism, liquered up and cracked out in the middle of the floor forcing misshapes-esque hits out of the laptop which the neighbors gave me permission to do. To wich Ian commented "You were having an out-of-body experience. Pure amazing. " The last two words I may be mistaken on. "I saw you collapse on your couch - busted!" I passed out on my couch at 4am. Any additional memories that people could submit to me here...please do, since I am seriously flawed as a blogger, what with not having internet at home and devoting only half of my day to blogging.

Additional notes:
Boy selling Adderall

tainted love vs super love

2006-06-12T10:31:00.000-04:00

ah, books!
Originally uploaded by tomdale.
In response to my question of failing at love...

MrTom said...
I don't think you really need me to answer this one for you. Having never actually seen the two of you together, I'm hardly in the best position to comment, although I draw some confidence in taking my cues from people who were there at the time:

Citation 1:She says she is miserable.
"He was miserable for a really long time, you know" [superskinny, Thursday May 11]

Citation 2:"You know it'll never work, this role-reversal style strategy you're using to try and get him back" [Khadijah, somewhere in yes-no- - crappy wireless internet today forces me to paraphrase rather than look this up properly]

Further citations* could come from all over you own more recent blog entries. Yes I agree with Geoff's admirably succinct deliverance that it was pretty crap for him to leave you with a certain amount of false hope in recent months, and you're probably also right that picturing you motivated solely by idealisation is overly simplistic. But what do all these successfully laid logical snares even achieve? Sometimes it feels that all you're throwing up right now is a list of feelings-as-evidence, or trying to start an argument about assorted matters of fact. But surely the way to get someone interested is partly by what you promise to do, how there might be a different and promising future.
Reading through the lines of your tea party blog - beautiful as it is in its lucid frankness – your current big thrusting victory is that you are right and he is wrong on the issue of whether you're still "psycho"(hardly a positive word, that) over him; there genuinely is something solid and worthy in the signs of his basic decency that originally won you over; but currently vivid lovesickness and some admirable underlying character traits don't add up to the promise of a happy future together - for all I can see you're still basically stuck in your irritation "that you were there, being living proof that I was committed to staying in this life of vague hope and ambition".
I'd really like to duck out of saying something as blunt as "depressed people can't find love" but I have a feeling something in that very wide area has to be true. It's something like what Rawls says Hume says about "the circumstances of justice": if hardly anyone has anything there's no injustice in ripping-off, raping, pilliaging and murdering just to get by from day to day, yet if just about everyone has just about everything then there's no injustice in even quite substantial differences in peoples situations. Justice only exists in the space between complete poverty and complete abundance. You might think love, and a viable relationship, requires a similarly delicate equilibrium. You can't have a relationship with someone who's struggling to commit themselves – let alone to you, but - to life itself. No matter how raw the feelings that cloud around you, how much you aestheticise individual moments in your shared history, or how genuinely worthy you might be in each other's ultra-discernining hipster judgement, still there has to be a futher thing that's dynamic, that's vital (in the sense of 'alive'), that's based around the intertwining of your plans as they stretch out into the future. If you can't take the step of offering that to someone, then they're probably justified in stepping away from binding themselves to you in a romantic relationship.
* I note that this is basically me "assembling reminders for a particular purpose" as described by Wittgenstein [Investigations, 127]. It's an interesting question whether you've yet managed to find time to re-read all your entries from the start - one of the great things you've done here is to capture so much of your life, right from the front line of its actually having been lived. That very immediacy, however, the totally unfiltered, unflexive nature, leaves space for a further achievement. As my own philosophy advisor, Richard Heck, says [www.amherst.edu/askphilosophers/question/1202 - great stuff here on the sexism of Hegel and Hume] in his usual simple but confident way, everyone has a duty to try and be self-critical. What might you think if you look back carefully at the actions, opinions and experiences you've recorded?

1:34 PM

what does not loving well enough look like?

2006-06-09T17:01:00.000-04:00

tell me, mrTom. Am I just a failure at love?

me and my mom make me want to cry

2006-06-09T16:33:00.000-04:00

She has never been in a salon.
look how much we don't look alike. this is the first time my mother has gotten her hair done. unwillingly, but she said to song who needed her as a model for aveda, "i'm in your hands! i'm powerless!" She doesn't like it when people touch her hair but I believed that because Song is Korean, and a nice gal, she looked at it as her virtuous duty. Touching.

it's mary's sleazy sock-hop!

2006-06-09T16:05:00.000-04:00

Mary's bday party (sock-hop) tonight: Here is a 50's pic to get you going:it's gonna be a ho-down, heal my heart. sniff a dart. I will write about hanging with the upstairs people yesterday - very strange and also wonderful. i will write that later though i have to work. actually. thank you very much.

this is not a tea party

2006-06-09T15:39:00.000-04:00

fucking tea.
fucking tea.
fucking homemade tea.
get my drift? only lovers make tea for each other. lovers who seek to soothe the insides of loins and stomachs with some nice, homemade tea. if you're reading this, X (you are now relegated to a letter) so what if i'm still psycho over you? So what? so i got a new loftbed, so i got hit on twice this week, so i got a cat that adores me even though she is evil, and i even got driven to work this week, bought donuts, what have you - all these great wonderful things that signify change and more - and i am still psycho over you. Are you convinced yet? still think i'm idealizing. good arguments could be made for either.

The way I am not idealizing: You're 5 foot 3. You're from the midwest. You talk monotonic. Sometimes you're not aware of what's going on around you, which didn't mesh well with my hyperawareness and tendency to cruelty. You have a paunch. (So i'm being cruel here - i'm feeling cruel). You have a really really messy room - even messier than mine. You tugged on me when we went out dancing and I actually didn't like dancing with you for some reason - it reminded me too much of home, of something private that I shouldn't display. You ate cheese late at night and it grossed me out, probably because of my own control issues with eating. When you went to walk to the bathroom on our first date I was dismayed by your high waisted jeans. I think your myspace profile is cheesy.

The way I am not idealizing part 2 (more positive): When we went out our first casual date to APT I had brought Mary along so you wouldn't think it was a date, expecting you to fall for her since she's pretty and all that - and you didn't. You liked that I looked like a dyke, liking the new faux hawk i sported. Telling me you were going to fall in love with me because I could sing along to GG Allin. I liked that we disagreed on the movie Sideways, and about most films in general. You refused to have sex with me even though I kept yelling "you can have sex with me now, I'm drunk". Pulling my hair back as I puked (still the #1 clincher) eight times after I had completely ignored you at Toys in Babeland because I was surrounded by dykes and you weren't one...
Riding a scooter with you in the country was fun. Asking me if you could touch me. Telling me i couldn't read your good copy of Lolita but giving me your crappy one - I respected that. Telling me about good salt and pepper and oil. Priority mailing me care bears socks for Christmas. Buying me a burrito on our 3 month anniversary when I was sick...

The lump of sorriness in my heart (or whatever) grows as I remember. For all the moments that I could've had fun with you holding hands and arguing and going for all our walks in which I was disgruntled and very frightened for the future - i was sort of irritated actually, that you were there, being living proof that I was committed to staying in this life of vague hope and ambition - you encouraged me to do things by telling me i could do them and you laughed at my jokes and told me i was beautiful - how anathemic to what i would've normally believed of myself.

tom says this is crap, i should've known, too poetic:So i'm gonna go out tonight to mary's party and soak up the rays of my single life. I'm gonna soak em up so hard I won't need any tea. Any of that homemade tea you created for me to ease and soothe my pain which you took seriously.

writing schedules

2006-06-08T10:46:00.000-04:00

mrTom's take. Why is Tom mrTom? I don't know. One of those names that happened I suppose.

MY writing schedule, dammit:

bonsai kittens

sperm

the one guy who hit on me in the park and how snobby and rude we were

the "b-date" that ended with me being insulting

boners

If anyone who experienced these things with me feels like helping me out, please do, because I can't remember why certain things were funny - like the boners bit. Ian had said something about boners and we kept referring to John's and then of course we went into Mary's vag bone...Can't remember the sequence of events. All i can remember is that it was a rolling, nuerotic ball that tumbled around ceaselessly.

work calls and karl moments

2006-06-08T10:21:00.000-04:00

are delightful. In the mist of her bored afternoons, song likes to call me up at work and chat. with a half of my mind, I am trying to think about statistics and what synonyms exist for "provided," "sustain," - words like "crucial" and "in effect" to convince a certain foundation to give us money. I must understand this hierarchical system of meaningful words that translate into a "critical mass" - while seasawing with Song and her candy, lazy tidbits floating through her head...reassuring her, reprimanding her, and my co-workers hear and I don't care...because I'm that corporate.

Song tells me: "Did you know the word 'facetiously' is the smallest word in the English language utilizing all the vowels, including Y, in alphabetical order?" - "Where did you read that?" "Marie Claire". "Why do you like Julia Stiles?" Ah, Julie. I think of her in 10 Things I hate about you and how much I love her lithe, little body - and anyone with a flat chest is already good in my book - but that pointy chin sharpening a round face, slices of glittery black for eyes, that surprisingly cheerleader hair harshly pulled back and that tomboyish drunken dance atop the table in the party after which she pukes on Heath Ledger's shoes...poetry. Plus Cole liked her so I'll have to like her.

Blogging responsibilities: I have many things to write about - Getting locked out of the apartment, Susie the cat being mistaken for a rodent, Karl coming back to NYC and driving me to work in East New York, stopping by Donut Connection, eating at Thai Cafe, finding out about Bonsai Kittens. At our morning conversation after he asks the usual probing Karl questions like "Why didn't you answer my calls yesterday?" I tell him the more embarassing details of my weekend and he informs me "this is what you should be blogging about" - I feel sorely lacking as a blogger. I say "shit, should I write this down?" and he says "Don't bother, you've told me about it and that's all I care about." Then he asks me for lotion. "Body lotion or face lotion?" "Body lotion - if you could call this a body." Priceless Karlesque moments.

But two days ago my blog was on the first page of Jane's blog and that is enough to ride on for awhile. Pathetically. My next step is to learn how to write.

This weekend ...is Mary's birthday party. It's a sock-hop. Enough said.

Furthermore the reason why I have not been blogging for two daysis because i have actually been doing work during work. However I am also actually starting to utilize my mediabistro account, reading heinously transcripted transcripts of writer's speak and I have also waited on the phone for Hunter to pick up - to no avail. They are lazy, I think. And probably also overworked. What else did I do? Call health insurance dude only to find out I have to recertify - again. I'm making progress though. I think.

mcCarren Park

2006-06-05T15:23:00.000-04:00

100_0434
Originally uploaded by sensandreference.

The best things are done spontaneously. Right? Or is that "drifter girl" talking (mrTom has dubbed me that before). This is me talking on the phone having time of hilarity in McCarren Park with good friends after a deadened brunch at Enids. We talked about boners and consistently, on every topic, analzyed it to death from all angles. John provided the willingness to do this, Mary provided snarky smart remarks and Ian provided the necessary encapsulating of the issue in death, drunkenness, or something to provide finality. I would record.

I had just given keys to Evan D. Then met a random bloke who was from Dallas - and John's from Dallas - both blokes invited us to barbecues. We attended both of them and they were both horrifying yet edifying experiences. The food was great at Evan's barbecue although everyone ignored us - hi quality - yet Ian (Pierre) charmed everyone eventually, as he challenged people to climb trees and used his technique of talking about "blacking out" and also declaring people their "lovers" or "boyfriends". Me and Mary holed up in our transcendent shame and examined our skin in the wierd bathroom that was sequestered in between the kitchen and the backyard. Song put her legs on me and that was nice. Mary ate two hot dogs. Song ate off my plate which I eventually piled up on, after smoking like a fiend. The two friendly moments were the lighting of a cigarette by a tall man who left me matches by a bowl of salsa, and as i left, I received a redemptive tug on my sleeve.

At the second barbecue somebody actually hit on me, the surprise of which was quite tragic, reverberating to this hungry self of mine that is blown away by amorous attention.

3 photos from the past 3 weeks

2006-06-02T11:01:00.000-04:00

Song and Jack at the "Terrorist Zombie" party. It was quite charming to see 2 boys with every accessory thought of. I like that kind of attention to detail. They went on stage with groucho marx masks and talked gibberish. The musclemen who sang onstage afterwards were a bit out of my scope of understanding although I appreciated this exhibition of unapologetic aggression. Some chicks with no bras went on and yelled and jumped ala "Go team". All in all, a tasteless event but I appreciate that for what it was. Plus me, Song and Melissa (from Aveda) crashed the party upstairs and danced hand in hand to the Smiths and Cure as if we were kids.

young buck eating cereal in apartment
Mary and Ian doing the Mary and Ian.

For descriptions n more photos you gotta go to flickr

pants vs shirts vs polite phone calls

2006-06-01T15:58:00.000-04:00

me and mary went to the Tainted Lady yesterday after a heady visit to Moto, only to discover that we were not going to escape the horrible claws of low-self-esteem and self-loathing, despite the fact that I was wearing all-white accessories, all-white top daringly paired with grey stretch pants, and she was wearing a really nice coral low-cut shirt with impossibly tight jeans.

I spent the night insulting myself after a bruising interaction with youth.

She is convinced that good things are happening to her because of her jeans. I tell her it's 'cus of her shirt. Plus good bone structure.

Things that should deem me cool, although my usage of the word "cool", as my pretty spankin' innocent new roommate says is highly suspect and he doesn't know what it means: Today I received a fat Spring Fling Patron check in the mail. I also discovered a Jane editor wrote about my blog, even though it took the mentioning of beer pong to achieve this status. Tonight I'm going to a fundraiser party about terrorist zombies at the Delancey. Before that I will be having dinner with a political blogger who works for the NY senate - a first. Tomorrow my friend Song will be conditioning my mother's hair for Aveda School so I get props from her and from my mum who gets a nice scalp massage and is surrounded by a bevy of sensual products. Afterwards I'll be going to see a self-proclaimed "avant-garde" play directed by friend Kristina Candelarie who is beautiful. Saturday morning I'll be putting a loft bed together with Matt K and I'll plug in my keyboard triumphantly and symphonies will trickle out like sweet milk. Then after a PBJ sandwich and milk I'll be going to something in Central Park involving Laurie Andersen and Phillip Glass (I may be asleep). Monday I'll be going to the Call it Democracy screening at BIFF. NONE of this makes me feel any cooler. NONE OF IT. Especially when I get a phone call from an elite person which is not a particularly unfriendly call but is a practical call demanding goods, and what I really want it to be is: "You are so goddamn cool. You're so cool it blows my mind! Be my writer, the stroker of my pet fish, be the person whom i most want to go on a rollercoaster with, I don't care if you have mismatching socks...

holla holla holla JANE

2006-05-31T13:26:00.000-04:00

When did i EVER use the word Holla. Why is the word HOLLA all of a sudden totally representative of every utterance I use?

So I emailed Jane my latest blog post and they literally put it up in 5 minutes. What's going on? Is it my pheromones?

But check it, 'cus I sorta edited a video that i made with my phone and it's really crap, 'but it's kind of funny.

Urban Dictionary definition of "Holla":

holla 32 up, 25 down

1. To show a romantic interest in an individual esp. with exchanging of one's personal information. Flirt.
2. An expression of joy or jubilation.
3. An affirmation to a question requiring "yes" or "no", usually in a positive context.

1. Can I holla at a girl?
2. Holla! I won the game!
3. Are you going to the club tonight? Holla!

holla 192 up, 86 down

1. A way for a brotha to say he wants to get in your pants
2. A pimp ass way of saying 'what up'
3. May be used to end a conversation

1. 'Ay, my boy right here wanna holla at cha'
2. 'Holla, what you be doin'
3. 'I gotta go, buh holla back.'

Lesbo for a reason

2006-05-31T12:50:00.001-04:00

hey, rape is good for something. I got this from feministing. They just hired this 23 yr old reviewer. She went to Journalism School. I should've done that. Whatevs.

Femme fat

2006-05-31T11:50:00.000-04:00

this is me at the feminist fashion show. Don't i look like I got a big ol' wedgie?

wet pain

2006-05-31T11:48:00.000-04:00

check it! this was on the side of Spring Street Natural.

the appropriate amount

2006-05-30T10:20:00.000-04:00

The cleanser I got from Missha yesterday, says to squeeze an appropriate amount for your body.

The Korean emphasis on propriety is a killer. What's the appropriate amount? I use like, a lot for my body. Probably too much. Missha says "To give the enjoyment for the skin". Hyperbolic yet honest. Those Koreans. Does not do much about the fact that this morning after hallucinogenically dreaming... that people were planning to cut my pet rats (I have no pet rats) apart and my boss was calling me saying : "I know you guys enjoy the pot, but that doesn't mean you can be late!" and being woken up at 7:30 in the morn 'cus my new roomie who looks like Lolita can't get in the house even though she "knows doors" - a fuckin' bummer to be alive. I was all regaling myself with : Self-Destruction is ova! over the weekend. Alas it tends to rear it's overly serious head on a Tuesday morning after memorial day - maybe it's all the cavorting and squeeling over meat barbecues in commemoration over the people's death that is fucking me today.

I have two proposals due, I look like trash because it's hot and i'm wearing little clothes, I just ate breakfast which I never do and vow never to do again, some Spring Fling guest got charged 3x accidentally by Network for Good and I just got peeled by the assistant exec - and face to face with the development department who's already busy photocopying stuff, i suddenly feel like i have to: cover my tracks, use appropriate amounts, modify myself, soothe my surroundings, lick down my hair, get everything into HAPPY DAY order The godlike satisfaction of yesterday in which I conversed with feminist law students who pored over my "funky style", who even said "You have a very sexual vibe" despite my protestations of bad posture, followed by grand ideas of world domination, has come crashing down to form a more than mediocre existence in which I'm just NOT PROPER. And I'm sick of it. It is quite sickening. Moreover, the blokes in the grocery store who look at me and say Momma, who stare at me as if they've never seen a woman before, really doesn't do much for my self esteem - I'm realizing they are not responding to anything in me or my body - it says more about them and their unfamiliarity with other forms of women who don't shout at them and order King Cobra's at 10 in the morn - whom they perceive as haughty and out of reach - because i am as stern as possible to deflect them yet I try to be kind since they're job is sorta thankless...I always say "Thanks, I don't need a plastic bag."

I thought the fact that I didn't know my health insurance covered my hospital stay back in February was responsible for this nagging, worrying feeling that I'm slipping through the cracks of sanctioned citizenry, but perhaps what it is, is spending much of my life howling through the cultural clash cracks of a schizm'ed ethnic violent household...maybe that necessarily sends you into a doubtful spiral where the simplest daily tasks call into question one's worth.

I flung Spring

2006-05-30T01:32:00.000-04:00

Why the hats?
I went to a barbecue full of law students with baseball caps, on Sunday. Playing beer pong no less. That and many other things taking me out of my comfort zone. I couldn't understand Beer Pong. When does the game end? Why the dipping the ball in the water?

I'm realizing that the pure fact that the things I am doing are different than what I've ever done, is a good thing. With the exception of murder/torture/rape, those typically bad things, I think doing anything different than what you normally do has to be good. I'm coming to grips with mortality.

Mortality has been horrifying to me for months. I've been fighting it. Hence, the need to subvert it by: doing drugs, flirting, breaking up with Cole, moving house, buying unnecessary beauty products, subscribing to magazines and joining the gym. Amongst myriad other obvious markers of mid-20's crises.

So what have I done that is different than normal? For one, I haven't been writing in this blog. Admittedly throughout my life, I have been using writing as the excuse of my life - justifying it, whatnot - doing everything for the sake of this blog or diary or future memoirs - how anais of me - how pathetic of me - so yes, I've taken a departure to my normal mode of depressive shit, and I've done stuff. Albeit not without a lot of anxiety, coffee, and crying jags - it's very difficult to grow a new skin - going through life as if you are normal, functional, and even productive. One stumble at a time.

Thing that I've done that's different from what I normally do #1:
I helped throw a legitimate non-profit fundraiser. Admittedly the mailing list was not my usual hipster incestuous enclave who have to be lured with vague promises of hotness and alcohol - but rather Goldman Sachs kids and their rich, probably sycophantic connections with good hearts who come with "It's for a good cause". More likely to network and get a good drink on - fundraisers are so the new - the new going out? Doesn't have quite a ring to it, but whatever.

The first fundraiser I ever threw had a zero budget, involved wholesale beer and liquor and garbage cans full of ice and volunteer people who tolerated my incompetent and crazed ill-informed commands: “Do you think we should make 500 flyers of 1,000? Pink or Green? Double-sided or single-sided? She’s on the bill! What do you mean we don't have a turntable table? Make one!" and made $1,000.00. 20 bucks to the bloke who let me hold the party in his loft and 20 bucks to each performer who even wanted it- Fxxxing Lion generously performed for free as it was their first show. Afterwards, the personal effect was a bunch of people hated me or admired me - but the tangible result was $1,000.00 in a shoebox in my hand which was pretty great. Money cancels out so many niggling thoughts. I didn't even undergo the anxiety of counting the money - the money was counted for me by three different people with truly good hearts inclined to whisper in my ear updates on cash flow. How good the hearts of the people who attended the posh fundraiser - I do not know - I assume that there is a plethora of goodness inherent in nonprofit fundraisers-that's good money that could go towards a yacht- but then again, like this guy said : "There's only so many yachts you can have".

A couple of party quotes:

"This party is jammin'!"
"I have nothing to say to him. What do we have to talk about? Nothing!" (Dad)
"S this is the best fundraiser we've ever had!" - "You’ve got to be kidding me."
"We're going to make so much goddamn money" (Me)
"Why don’t you just buy everything?"
"I'm known as Crooklyn in some circles".
"You're Korean? I love you!"
"What do you want me to do with the kitty litter box?” (mom)
"you’re mom left some sort of box for you."
"I want to spend money. What should I spend money on? Tell me."
"You need a wristband to drink? Give me two."

Highlights of the evening:

Meeting "H RBI" Exec director. I was drunk at that point and told him he looked uncannily like "Ev Dz". See how the conversation started, was me and the development associate created packages for the Spring Fling. We were the authors of the "Hipster Package" which included a years subscription to "The Nation" magazine, Poet's House, and dinner at Diner. So I went upstairs to the almost gaudily jungle-mania of the Delancey, and informed the stragglers that the Silent Auction was indeed ending. The director guy said "Oh I'm interested in the Hipster package, but I already have a subscription to the Nation..." Instant heart pitter patter on my part. So obviously his group and my group (me) start breaking out the insta-witty banter that is necessary for all those young-un progressive activists who hate Bush. I was smoking a Capri cigarette, as one does, and he told me - extra pitter points - that it looked like I was smoking a "Pixy Stick" and it would be cool if it actually was one. So I said lamely "Actually this is a Pixy Stick". But he turned to busily cultivate the company of the luscious women's around him so I fucked off to be drunk somewhere else.

Being in high heels and looking like a slut at a semi-corporate function in front of my parents, my boss, and the CEO of the corporation. Bumping and grinding to rap in the middle of the floor with the Evaluation Director and staff shouting "Go S, Go S" as I stuck my arse in the air while flanked by the ultra-cute VISTA in a Hawaiian Dress.

Getting ready in the unisex bathroom of the Delancey while the rich people began trickling in, and we transformed from office whores to nonprofit fundraiser whores. My boss powdering her nose next to me as I applied lition on my legs. The posh blond funder staring at us as we primped.

Being introduced to one of the Youth Benefactors, recognizing his name immediately and saying "You're the youth benefactor! Who did you come with?" Because YB's get 4 tickets as part of the YB package and he said "Just myself". We had created a bunch of gift bags for the YB's and as he was leaving I scrambled on the floor for one of the YB gift bags- he couldn't care less - "seriously it's ok" he said. And I said "NO- please -" and the irony of worrying so much about putting together proper gift bags and really it was mayhem - which underlined the relativity of the anxiety preceding the event...

Being introduced to a certain bloke who was on the Real World - I used to watch him on MTV as I grew up, and what a strange shift in memory as it dawned on me that the man whose hand I was shaking was indeed one that had been imbedded in my consciousness from the early 90's - and my mouth was open and I couldn't hide my semi- awe- he gave me his card, asked for my details - the big big Campus Director somehow saw fit to introduce me around - I suppose it was my high heels and my really short skirt and big arse hair (courtesy of Ian's Bumble and Bumble black powder spray which sort of changed my life) - and I said to the certain bloke who's certainly running for Senator soon: "What do you think of the vases and the flowers?" Because I was very proud of having blasted the branding of the corporation with the color scheme all throughout - glossy reminders of minion's work - and he said he did like them and we'll have to talk sometime.

The line for the barbecue being too damn long, hungry suited men and flowery dressed women who paid 80$ for a hamburger dinner, and the "Facilities Director" seething and foaming about the charcoal smoke and the seriously disgruntled patrons who at first was charmed by the "casualness" of the event but then were skipping out to get a slice from next door - shipped in 150$ worth of hot dogs from the fake Gray's Papaya next door and handed them out. What a scene to see these posh funders chomping down on dogs wrapped in foil handed out like Santa's toys from a large plastic bag.

The basement that doubled as the office and the solemnity at midnight as a sort of inebriated staff counted up the wristbands which went well over our anticipated turnout. The awkward interaction after the heady ecstasy of crowd adulation, crowd surfing and extreme surprise to see people easily parting with their money and loving it - these people who would have never ever noticed me in other circumstances, as I suppose I'm on the margins of society what with being poor and also having been a loser in high school. Many adult social situations do mimic the social strata that has been etched in people's brains in high school, you must admit. To be legitimately rubbing elbows with these healthy purveyors of American cuisine - nary an ill-judgement or a stray thought here - although of course I can't judge, it's just the convenient sticker we choose to categorize people with - is strange and bewildering - oddly kicking off this new adolescent defiance of norms and preconceptions - sparking in me this new willingness to try awakening my vag (this phrase is possible getting old) and to attend barbecues with an easy abandon - maybe even complete administrative tasks without undue horror.

feminist fashion show

2006-05-24T21:50:00.000-04:00

Tom says 'sup suz? No blogging action.'

I know, i've been taking a break from not living and masticating through words---i've been doing shit. Spring Fling Fundraiser - grand success - i actually felt manic and heady and successful and brilliant for once. i considered that the idea to die was a stupid one. So this is what I wrote after the feminist fashion show at AIR gallery last Saturday. It's a bit stylized if only 'cus i was quite morbid.

The Model is my favorite song
Why did they come to see me? Ridiculous - a farce. A tease. To see a mannequin. I had to ask myself, was I ever real? Two hours ago I was real. Two hours later I shall be real again. But I knew - there'd be a dinner party afterwards. There'd be hell to pay.

"Did you get paid?" Mum asked later. Maybe hopeful she was. This small lady was born in a far-away, inconceivable city. Very strict lady. Popped me out at 23. When I was 23 I was still promiscuous. You could find me in mid-fuck. That was how much I had to learn at 23.

But like I said... that was later. She didn't speak to me at first. Just looked at me quizzically after taking a turn around the room, going into another room where she wasn't supposed to be, technically. My father was stolidly leading the way. I looked at her in the face, in a stasis of emotion and the required emotionless-ness of being a "model."

She looked so skinny - her neck muscles spasming as she spoke craning to see me as well as she could - surrounded by red-lipped mannequins in an art gallery. What a creamy neck. Laced with a slight sheen of energetic sweat - she's been driving my father, enduring his big-suited calm, which can be exhausting. "How long are you going to be?" searching my face, not looking at my body. My body is a curse she will not look at. Forget about the body. She never noticed when men whistled at her on the street, calling out "Momma, beautiful momma". That's my momma they're talking about but I never feel possessive. She notices only proper outreaches - my father's fame preceded him. An extended hand, something to get mad at - because invariably it is not good enough. When it is proper there is room for complaint.

I struggled to not react in the warm egg-like room. I was in a womb. My legs were cramping up from standing stiff. My mother's arms were ripe for my possible collapse - but I hardly recognized her - these shiny new clothes, this draping necklace around her neck - I didn't understand who she was looking nice for - it couldn't have been me - she doesn't look at bodies. It was something else.

Later I stood in the shower washing, wishing the heat of the water was the same heat as the water my Mum bathed me in when she studied aromatherapy, using an experimental concoction of oils to extract the toxins from my body. The purpose of me was to have the toxic body to detail how effectively she could eradicate it. I was standing in the shower wishing somebody would be standing over me to force me to endure heat. It's torture to have choice. Whenever I turn the knob to make it hotter, just a little bit hotter, it gets too hot and I have to turn it back to a disappointing tepid. Maybe it's just my shower.

Brings to mind that big ol' slap on the face that one time from my father. In a similar sense it was him knowing I needed to be forced to endure certain things. My father's gift - "here's a bit of care"- I think he was trying to tell me. "I care enough with my eye - and incidentally my hand - later this hand can play badminton with you like a good Korean family and I will talk about my Rolex, how Nietszche's nihilism ends in absurdity." I think he was trying to tell me. A dangerous look in his face - only desiring to entertain the child in me - so glad of the child, so appreciative of innocence, like a game his pal God allowed him to play with humans, smaller-type humans. He was motivated to smile at other children with a more crazed indulgence. Hand on their head: "So pretty - so small". It hurt that one time! It's silly to ask, I know - but why didn't he smile at me in that indulgent way? Why was that slap saved for me?

Because there is no time - in Korea - it is best to swathe through the chaff -years ago his hand cut across the room to go straight to my face - a pale paddle - skin-shaped, skin-colored - my mother's face right behind his paddle - already swiftly preceding the additional ingredients she'd put into the frying pan planning the tempura batter encasing the chopped vegetables she'd been marinating all day - her days were long, but went by so quick and the guests would soon be there and the morning after that would be school. School when I'd be crying again in the morning and that was so much to go through before breakfast.

Something genetically confident in the formations her hands made around the battered balls of vegetables and shrimp - rolling, rolling - wonder what she thought about during that time, wonder if she was like me in crying whilst working - because that was her work.

She doesn't work now. She lives upstate and she gets out only to drive my father to work during the week and to go to this "Feminist Fashion" exhibition where I'm standing in underwear that says "Fuck it" sewn on in red thread. The underwear is a potentially cheap representation of the true blood and guts that could've inspired it. I sort of wished I could take my skin inside out to show what it could really mean. Of course that's not logistical and it would be very painful and it would cause Mum sadness. And I don't want that. So I watch my father traipse across the room blandly blocking from his view the vision of half-naked woman starkly standing against white walls - he is afraid the bell-like music will chime something primal in him - and so he walks quickly, semi-quizzically because it is Art. Keeps his trenchcoat on. I see he is wearing his special tailored suit for the occasion and I am so sad that he's taken the trouble because it's a Saturday and he could've been reading or something.

upping your real estate

2006-05-19T00:12:00.000-04:00

12: 10 am - Shouldn't you be asleep, young lady? : Fuck yeah. I'm still nauseous.

Admittedly this evening, i've reviewed all of Tom's emails dissecting the relative righteousness of my extreme feelings of good or not good compared with the "embeddedness" in reality, and have edited it together to form a jane blog post. i am petrified they will not post it. they have no need to post it. it's all me, really, in terms of making that blog still exist. i have no relevant connections, no hot bod to exploit. i can't even bowl. they are busy people. vaunted people. what am i doing? why don't i write about the events i go to, the mad socializing? why don't i detail bodies and gore? I mean, i do pretty cool things objectively - why don't i bulletpoint 'em and sort of use it as a cheatsheet?

i must become more appetizing.

Speaking of becoming more appetizing when it's pretty much written into your destiny that you won't ever be, because that's social darwinism for ya - but then again, I have a pretty rolling social life now, and i never did in high school so maybe people CAN change - or it just the nature of being the flava of the month? Bygones : Don't forget...this weekend I get fabulously (aka puke) naked at A.I.R. gallery. I will not shave. However, I will get my nails sprayed with designs. Where is the line drawn in terms of accoutrements or finery?

I wonder if people will get grossed out by my body. I may be all for feminism, but this doesn't rid me of the general automatic tendency to imbue oneself with the form of object in front of a crowd's gaze - especially men. Apparently this event has been hardcore promoted by BUST magazine. argh. What does it mean to be gazed upon for two hours? Is this an exercise of challenge for the participants - is this just enid fucking with us - the viewer and the viewee - how can it be that us "models" (ha ha - now i know what it is to be a normal-person model) will have to maintain objecthood while people scrutinize us? i am becoming afraid. to what extreme will i be allowed to feel the pressure to look ok? To cover up my scars, to stand in a non-fatty way - to a certain extent we all have that impulse to look good in front of strangers - like not drooling, not walking around with coffee stains on your shirt - although i do do those things, as i become more uncensored for some non-apparent reason - but in this context, it's almost like i'm not allowed, because it's a feminist fashion show, because i'll be wearing combat boots with hairy legs and a punk-rock hairdo - which is not mutually exclusive with obsessing about your body and being half-naked in front of hundreds of people!

Needless to say I have un-invited the parents.

mad socializing

2006-05-18T23:40:00.000-04:00

I'm listening to the Shangri-Las. I was dutifiully listening to eastvillageradio, to the shortbus podcast which i like very much but then the misshapes people came on and i got all annoyed because i'm feeling nauseous again and i wasn't in the mood for loud snarky young-uns who have guest stars described as 6 foot 7 Jews. I'm sick of Jewliciousness - like, I was fetishizing Jews way before these kids started wanking.

I'm pretending like i'm a regular smoker when in fact it only worked when I was in a deranged emotional state, aka getting over cole, and now that i'm semi getting back to normal thanks to a few essential conversations with friends - yes, i have those, and how remarkable they are, i'm finding - this whole drinking smoking thing is getting old. This nausea thing is getting old too.

Matters of mad socializing, oh yes - I have been embarking on this great regime of not thinking, which means calling anyone who will hang out with me and proceeding to hang out with them - fuck quality time with myself, developing my mind whatnot - i was afraid this week, of my mind - so Friday I see Art School Confidential with Ian, go on a drinking spree with Ian and John at that tame lame hideaway Union Pool where I run into a ridiculous amount of people I know.

Saturday - oh, i can't remember Saturday - I may have cried on Saturday -

Sunday I spent all day with Ian and Mary doing brunch and shopping,

Monday I went over Mary's and we ate popcorn and she told me some witty things and I admired her cats who are pure funniness and kindness,

Tuesday - I forget what happened Tuesday. If somebody remembers, please tell me.

Wednesday, I go to see my friend's photography opening at this India Society gallery and it's truly amazing, then later hop on over to my house where my roomies smoke me up and I feel young again, then head over to Tainted Lady to see Sir Dave spin and watch Mary and a certain bloke whose name starts with the letter "M" fancy each other, and some mysterious Clark Kent enters the arena with clear-rimmed glasses and a full-on suit so of course we obsess about him. His eyes are on Mary, who'se easy on the eyes with her low-cut turqoise shirt and skinniness. I wore my cat shirt and a billowing circle skirt hence felt like a twee idiot. A bunch of guys in 70's gear surrounded us but me and Ian determined we couldn't sit with them because it's high school and they're the cool crowd - which we tell them.

I kept using the word "non-plussed" or something. Oh yes, my new roomie Sam, a tall drummer, said he was happy. I said "Really?!" His friend agreed: "Yeah, I'm happy too, I don't know why. Just a generally happy person. I love people." "You're kidding me", I said. They think I'll get along with the girl who'se moving in. I said I didn't know, because she was "non-plussed". They think we'll get along because we're both "cynical" - but I believe she's just "non-plussed" - but I really don't trust anyone who has a good relationship with their dad - he came to help her move in - i mean, what is that?

I have photos detailing all of this but I left my camera at Tainted Lady so it'll have to wait till the weekend.

So work has been half a success and not a success. The not a success part is the fact that there are 4 proposals due on the 31st and I haven't really tailored any of them to the specific foundations. It's a globulous mess and I'm burying myself in the wonderful specifics of event -planning for what is seeming like a pretty glitzy event on Tuesday - the Spring Fling, on the roof of the Delancey where the riff raff (me and my friends) can hobnob with the Goldman Sachs people, or rather look at them with open mouths and wonder what they are, what they do, who they do...and of course they'll turn out to be human and that's that. I plan to show a lot of skin, if only for the sake of remembering that I have some.

Skin, that is.

So i've been meticulously updating and expanding the rsvp list, creating minute understandings of who's who and what's what and what arse to kiss and thanks to whom, sending updated rsvp lists with the exact time written on them - and we have achieved our target of 150 - and i was graced - not ungratefully, quite the contrary - by a late night email from my just-finished-giving-birth-to-her-first-baby boss, that had not 2, or 3, but many exclamation points: YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <---that's what it looked like.

The great success of my life is that my brother has agreed to donate 4 original posters (www.posteritati.com) which are actual posh, cool-looking artsy items, to make a great addition to any silent auction for young rich funders, which makes me feel really legitimate in terms of how he must see his sister at this moment - there's nothing like having the backing of a corporation to eliminate the historical appearance of emotional wankery. I get to give him a tax-determination letter and everything. It's almost like I'm a grownup despite the fact I am drinking whiskey while a cat's tail is slapping my fingers while I type. Seriously though, i felt proud. The gift bags are gonna be almost too good. The silent auction items are almost too good. Is this event gonna live up to it? Yellow and Blue Irisis from Chelsea Flower Market is about as posh as I'm gonna get. Oh yeah, and granite-feel stationery for the Silent Auction brochures. And blue bud vases. I guess those weren't terrible ideas - but the tables - the lack of nice napkins - napkins! the projectors! i have to sleep now before i start frothing at the mouth.

female geniuses, not an oxymoron

2006-05-18T12:36:00.000-04:00

i never use zit cream, but i'm using Oxy right now (just 'cus of the enticing new packaging) and it's actually making my skin clearer. what else may have made it clearer is not eating very much in the last week. the development associate told me i look "svelte". Not a word I would ordinarily think of myself as.

anyway, i'm delivering on the female geniuses subject line - Tom's recent post:

There’s an email I wrote to S' back last November or thereabouts saying that, while when I was a secondary school student, I couldn’t think of any female geniuses, I was now excited to be able to name three. My examples were: (1) Ruth Millikan (biologically-orientated philosopher of mind and other things), (2) Elfriede Jelinek (could have the spelling wrong there – 2004 Nobel Prize winner novelist), and (3) Kate Bush (child prodigy musician). There are all kinds of ways one could go on from here, but I will stop at one pretty superficial one. As a basically heterosexual male it’s it’s exciting to have super-intelligent females that one is aware of. Thinking of S' again, I am reminded of her university degree period (and probably more recent, too) drollings over, for example, Jerry Valberg, UCL’s elder statesman lecturer on Heidegger and other romantic and impenetrable topics. Us guys have been missing out on this experience for too long

who care's if you're romanticising? who cares if it's real?

2006-05-17T00:14:00.000-04:00

mary says. Good Point.

12:12am, third puke's a charm! I puked for a third time! Crazy! Ian says : it's prolly your subconscious cleaning itself out. Quite an obvious psychosomatic action, but it's happening. He called me late at night, unexpectedly. "I was reading your blog and I just wanted to make sure you weren't killing yourself. Crying during work and all that. And I was wondering if you wanted any hair products...." So he tells me this story that apparently reminded him of me: this actor dude used to publish a mag called "The Mask", purely for the purposes of getting his shit out. He used to think it was stupid but then again, all these actors lives damned of love affairs...he thought perhaps there was something to this whole being narcissistic thing. He flatters me by saying that my blog isn't that narcissistic. We talked about how we freak out about all the things we want to achieve. I'm jealous of everything and everyone, because I'm so aware of everything I could be doing, should be doing...and am not doing. I think of him and his energy and how it would kill me, confuse me - my misery alone has so much impetus, pushing me into the ground - and how his pushes him up into the air, and the ecstasy of it, reminds one too much of love - and love is always scary.

I asked him if he was trying to meet his need for intimacy by hanging around people all the time but he wasn't getting the intimacy he wanted in the "relevant sense" (Karl-ism) because a part of him needed to feel safe and ok. And other people were going to make that volatile, pretty much. That's the prob with other people: Volatility.

And about talking, blogging - he thought it was good i was reaching out to people when i needed to - and i felt the need to clarify that i don't usually --that i'm usually a guy about things and don't divulge, i repress - but in this case, which was new, i had to else wi oudln't have been able to function - a practical series of steps to achieve basic ffunctionality. and how he could do that to.

"there's like a million movies we have to see this weekend -- well like five or six..."

We also talked about mistakes - how i blamed myself for the things i did in my and cole's relationships that didn't reveal the love that i thought we had - my grand ol' schemes of avoiding true intimacy, because love and adoration is so disgusting - so untrue to what we know about ourselves - and ian said you know, that's how we go through life. And i think that's probably true - life being a series of mistakes, and how sometimes one has to lessen one's accountability for it and chalk it up to what actually comprised the relationship. In another sense however, it hink i just didn't do the thing right. and if i had another chance, if i hadn't convinced myself of the deadness of the situation and one fine winter day withdraw myself from him prompting him to ask me whetehr i was still in love with him and me averting my eyes feeling steely and wicked, that perhaps i would've stuck through the winter day and saw it through spring to the bloom of flowers.

which reminds me of what Clay said one time: there are no flowers that are born of rocky soil. He was always one for proverbs.

mr tom's advice

2006-05-16T23:23:00.000-04:00

> It's not oppressive - it's nice to be needed when it's
> within your power to be there for someone.
>
> When I said "anger as balm is interesting" I was
> thinking that you do seem to be after some kind of
> ritual via pestering Cole that I can see potential
> resolution through. I say interesting because I don't
> fully understand it - it depends on you and him and
> what you can expect from him by way of communcation
> etc given what you know if him etc, but, like you say,
> he texted you and you think that, or the content of
> his text is a good sign. So I hope from my distance
> and slight incomprehension of the details that you can
> get some closure at this point.
>
> I like how you went running - I was suggesting
> exercise, too. And the description of running is
> nice, too. Running and food and friends etc - you got
> everything I could have suggested for you!
>
>
>
> --- S wrote:
>
> > Tom I don't need time in the country side. i need
> > time with you. thank you
> > for this email, my broken soul needs this. is it
> > oppressive for me to tell
> > somebody how much i need them? i hope not. anyway i
> > feel healed somewhat by
> > this.
> > cole texted me. he said I won't see you right now.
> > it's too painful for me
> > and for you.

> > On 5/16/06, Tom Dale
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > hey S

> > > I've had a word file open on my desk top all day
> > with
> > > the text of your latest blog plus your last email
> > - I
> > > was going to try and analyse and comment etc. I
> > > failed to do this, however, partly because I'm
> > pretty
> > > sleep-deprived right now (up late drinking and
> > talking
> > > philosophy with my old flatmate) and also because
> > I'm
> > > not sure what to say to you.
> > >
> > > Why don't you take a couple of days off and get
> > out of
> > > the city somewhere peaceful? Is there somewhere
> > you
> > > can go where you will eat well and get some
> > exercise
> > > and tire yourself out so you sleep properly? - if
> > it
> > > was me I would visit my grandparents in the
> > > countryside - you got anywhere you can go? If you
> > do
> > > go, make sure you take your phone and make plenty
> > of
> > > calls: while that space is good it can be
> > isolating,
> > > too.
> > >
> > > This is only a suggestion. It's not the only
> > thing.
> > > But I think you need to try and break the routine
> > a
> > > bit so you can give yourself time to heal. Have a
> > > think if there's anything like that which your
> > could
> > > do.
> > >
> > > Don't call Cole. I think you are just humiliating
> > > yourself out of self hatred. You need to find a
> > way
> > > to take a stake in the world and have some pride.
> > >
> > > ...
> > >
> > > All the above was written before I'd read the two
> > > blogs after the broken heart one. And I see that,
> > as
> > > I thought, sometimes time makes more of a
> > difference
> > > than someone's analysis ever could.
> > >
> > > I laughed out loud at the salt/face comment - see,
> > how
> > > can you be so dejected when you have this amazing
> > > capacity for humour (even if it is the dejected,
> > self
> > > depreciating sort - but as you said yourself, the
> > > tragi-comic figure isn't actually/isn't entirely
> > you.)
> > >
> > > I was going to pick you up on this thing about all
> > > suffering being ok as it's gist for the artistic
> > mill.
> > > I see elements of that belief system coming back
> > in
> > > your broken heart blog, toward the end, the
> > "however I
> > > do believe" bit. And it makes me wonder if the
> > broken
> > > hearts revealing people idea applies to oneself:
> > can
> > > you use the windedness to wise up to yourself?
> > > Because I get the feeling some previously wounded
> > part
> > > of you is reveling in all this. And you have to
> > get
> > > over that if you're going to move on. Honour true
> > > love by learning something - don't just erect the
> > > usual bile spewn edifice (what am I doing with
> > these
> > > descriptions?!). Try and resist going down that
> > > defence mechanism path.
> > >
> > > Anger as balm is interesting.
> > >
> > > I will write more sometime soon probably - I need
> > to
> > > sleep now.
> > >
> > > Tom
> > >
> > > --- S wrote:
> > >
> > > > tom you're reading my blog. why aren't you
> > > > answering? god i'm about to call
> > > > cole again. i know i shouldn't but i can't keep
> > > > crying at work. this is too
> > > > much for me to bear. how can i control this?
> > > > is there a secret to handling your shit at work?
> > > >
> > > > --

der-untergeher

2006-05-16T22:31:00.000-04:00

the schafe, the roomie i'm ambivalent about - if only because i've never met such a mind bottled in a 6 foot whatever man, talked to me in a way I found very satisfying: in between his tasty mutterings over chinese food and brooklyn lager, while i sat on the floor soaking in imminent misery about to seep sexily into my soul divesting me of stark responsibility, he exercised my random sad what if's about cole through philosophical hamster wheels (while sitting in my fluffy cream-color stretch-chair) : "it seems to me not reasonable to think ___ this way, but it does seem reasonable to think___" "what seems to be happening is that you're making great emotional demands on him that he just might not..." "he may not love you in the relevant sense" "it seems unfair that he's keeping this connection open while telling you otherwise...it's reasonable for you to ask that he express things clearly--but what can he say that would satisfy you? Nothing, at this point" "....I think all you can do, is to..." (Karl can you help me out here, I can't remember)

Geoff gave his 2cents which are naturalized and more spontaneous: "Yes, that's a bit crap really" sitting properly on the couch whereas Karl delivers his statements with his eyes in his skull and crossed legs which lends a supremely informed air to the conversation. Outside getting ready to go to the spuyten devil he says, after looking at me strangely, after I blurt defensively "What/!" "You look nice, the glasses, the hair...I was just thinking I should compliment you...what?!"

Technicalities: I like how he says he's doing something tomorrow night and he doesn't really want to talk about it and then Geoff and I probe him about it whilst sitting around munching our food and we end up dissecting the whole thing...the wierd wierd phenomenon of being on what is not technically a date but the other person thinks it is and you know the other person thinks it is...at the spuyten devil Karl asked : "I wonder if anyone's done an analytical paper on What Counts as a Date..." And i explained the phenomenon of my first date with Cole which was fraught with the probable hypothesis that he thought it was a date and my reluctantly hoping it was not one, yet taunting the idea with my wearing of a short skirt and purple hoop earrings...

Body Rock: what's even more wierd is that i just puked. Not on purpose - and not metaphorically. I went over Mary's to kill the silence in me, which was exacerbated by cole's silence, and ate popcorn and had some wine and my customary (as of last week) Leffe beer - and i just puked it all up. The nausea became insurmountable as i was doing my situps while listening to Times Select podcasts. I shit I think i'm going to puke again! It seems strange that my body should defy me at a point like this, when everything in all corners of my mental and emotional life is in question. Like Mary said : S, we're existentialists. I can't remember what the context was though.

What's really strange is that Kiritin, the girl who photo assists for D-, my old boss, called me today to invite me to her photo opening tomorrow night. It's been awhile since i've seen art. I guess the last time was with Tom, in our Chelsea excursion. It was sweet and refreshing to hear her halting French accent. I used to be annoyed with her because she didn't know how to use photoshop, but now, to hear her, I am glad, I grasp at the opportunity to see her because she is a relic of a sweeter, more bumbling past, where I did contain a certain misery, but it was an indulgent misery, holding the promise of a reckless and full adulthood - but at this point now, that promise seems waning - i was on the subway on the way to Hunter College to hang in my application for summer courses, ending up too late & the offices were closed with only a bespectacled disgruntled dude with short blond hair to curtly inform me : "It's impossible to get anything done in this school" - all these tanned tall business men were on the subway, and a few i suppose, eyed me in my faux boho outfit of grey and white and a bit of chest showing (although what they can be seeing, i think is only the flash signifier of skin, because upon closer inspection, mys kin evaporates into something else less enticing in the short term vision of subway rides) , and they reminded me of the possibilities i used to entertain of being a jetsetting european socialite, bouncing around europe with light tripping feet and a bent back, only leaning forward to grab a light for my cigarette and lips pursed around a blonde beer. and i thought how, by the time i'd get there, i'd be old and decrepid, my body and mind in their habitual formations, and the only thing i could handle, or that society woudl allow me to do since its so ageist, would be to follow the easier routes of tourist buses and slinky forgotten towns. and i thought of how i had dreams that me and cole could share the rotten experience of being over 25 going around europe inhabiting lost trails and how it woild be ok, that we wouldn't be doing it in style, but we'd be doing it in full substance, as only substance could allow hand in hand saturated with a pithy peasant love.

crying at work is my new hobby

2006-05-16T13:06:00.000-04:00

i can't seem to compartmentalize myself. Get your shit together! Already! Emotional outpourings are not cool. You can't keep doing this. This is a public place. your face is going to dry out with all this salt. If i could meditate i would see the other things; the possibilities, the future, everything. Keep sight of yourself HR said. Keep sight of yourself. cigarettes are the only thing that keeps me intact right now - somehow consuming poison suffices enough to make sadness solid. i've had a cigarette, bought a vitamin water, texted cole; if he doesn't answer it's surely something to not fuck with. i'll have anger as my balm.

the new HR

2006-05-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

came up to me doing intro rounds and i couldn't answer her polite hello, my eyes blinded with tears. she touched my shoulder and the tears came out. she said soothingly in no different a tone then "Hello, I'm the new Human Resources Director, lovely to meet you: firmly, "You need to talk? We need to talk. " while i shook my head. No i couldn't possibly tell her what was wrong. She took my hand and led me into the ceo's office. We sat down and this older woman with a heart shaped face dispensed her wisdom upon me. I tried to not listen because i was busy plotting my destruction. However, she talked some sense into me and i was able to finish my RSVP spreadsheet for the Spring Fling fundraiser.

and then lo and behold, we got our first Patron Sponsor for the spring fling. that's $2,500.00 to you, mate. a lovely man had used the email form that i'd spent days creating, responded, and there was a "1" in the Patron checkbox. In form-language, that means a hell yes.

I go home to talk to my cat, whose pure evil right now. Me and Karl talk for a bit. More about that later. something about "emotional demands". Geoff comes home. We decide to go running. My body hurts but I run and it's so great to not be able to breathe, to grasp at air with the desperation of a drowning man. We ran and ran through the Hasidic Jewish neighborhood. We ended up at Sunny Garden where we sweatily ordered some takeaway. Bought some beers and discussed my love life at home with Karl. They take a philosophical stance on things, since they are philosophers, and everything they said appealed to the logical part of me that needs to be convinced, rather than soothed.

we went to spuyten devil. Karl bought me a half pint of Belgian beer. We walked about the connotations of attractiveness, how knee-jerk reactions to attractiveness involve both biological components and socialized preferences. It all started because Karl was mad at me because i called him a frat boy and always saying he liked blond girls which was actually not true - it was half a tease and half me and Geoff thinking he looked "All-American" which Karl found hard to believe. It was a relief to talk, to exchange and bandy about pointed points of view. Sensibilities somewhat dissected, thoughts unfolded.

then deepa came along and we had a laugh. it was a wonderful moment and i was grateful for the thorough company - nothing half arsed here. still no word from cole. the desperation is gone from my heart though, just a weary heartache simmering, and i wonder if there are tears left or can i throw myself into work now? The HR director said "You're a smart, good lookin woman and I have every faith in you". I looked at her in surprise. My entire face was splotched my nose was running and my hair was all over the place. It's always a shock to hear what others see you as. she said "Put your heart out - that's all you can do." And i thought to myself how it wouldn't be worth it to die; because this older woman said that it was possible to live. It takes something as simple as an earnest statement, a piercing look in the eyes, to prevent a slipping away of souls. I think acknowledgement is more important than most things.

there's nothing like a broken heart

2006-05-15T15:12:00.000-04:00

to teach you about people.

i chatted back and forth with khadijah. she says fuck it. she's thinking about me. this makes me think i'm not dead.

at work, somebody comes up to me to talk about my proposal. I start crying. "Can i help?" they ask. "No. I'm ok". I say not caring that it's obvious I'm completely not.

I go outside the second time this week and lean against a brick wall. This time i know to bring tissues. I call anyone who will listen, including Cole. I leave a desperate, idiotic barrage of a sentences. i know he will not answer. i know this yet i trust that there is a kernel of love left between us that will receive the barrage. just a bit. maybe he'll answer in a couple of years, when we can joke about it.

i sit against the building smoking cigarettes. Song tells me it'll get better. she tells me to put the energy into work. it's worse to have heartbreak and to not have a job. she tells me that whatever i've experienced with him i can experience with another. she tells me it's over. even if i'm the one who initiated it i can't look back on my mistakes. they were mistakes and i have to keep going. i think maybe that's what my flaw was - looking back.

She tells me I can talk to her anytime. I don't believe her.

she tells me i have to define what relationships are. she tells me its selfish to express - that is you hold in your thoughts and feelings you will become fuller. i know this isn't true for me; i know that i'm an expulsive type and i have to let them out otherwise it will kill me. i spent most of my life being quiet and that tactic is not one i can recommend to myself. however i do believe she's right in saying that i have to hold it in to do something good for myself. something good meaning i have to force the situation; grab it by the neck and squeeze it dry till there's nothing left.

i go back upstairs with a puffy face. disaster almost averted.

sequence of events on a sunday in brooklyn

2006-05-14T21:22:00.000-04:00

I woke up at 11 o'clock reluctantly and very slow. coffee did not help. i smoked two cigarettes which immediately suggested i wasn't feeling much better than yesterday. the cats cried even after i fed them. i felt they were trying to get therapized. i got mad at them for knocking things over and then felt bad so i petted them and talked to them in a friendly voice for a bit and let one of them sit right behind my laptop and curl his tail around it. i made more xtra strong coffee with grass-fed cow milk 1/2 and 1/2. john called to invite me to go to the natural history museum but i believed i did not have time because of brunch with mary and ian which was an impromptu thing - thought a bike ride would do me good. although i wanted to go to the natural history museum. "Well, you can't do everything S" John said.

I was late to brunch because i am always late and i had just popped a zit. I biked very determinedly and a woman in an SUV swerved out of her parking space screaming "If you keep going like that you're gonna get in an accident!" and i wanted to cry. Mary and ian laughed at me as i walked up to lock my bike, since i walk funny. i felt quilty that i had made mary and ian starve. they said "no one respects us now". I explained to them I was busy popping a zit and Mary said "I understand". i ordered a large bloody mary but was told they didn't have the mix. I said I didn't want it if it was a mix. Then the bloke said "It's a homemade mix". "Oh. But you don't have it right now, right? " "No." We drank a stella each. The server went through all the trouble to write down all the specials but they both ordered cheeseburgers. i shared mary's cheeseburger which was delicious although food tasted foreign. I was grateful for the generosit though which made it seem nourishing. That girl from telepathe was there looking skinny as usual and i tried to discern the exact quality that she had that would've made cole fancy her when they went to school together, perhaps hoping to glean some of it. our waiter had on vintage lee's that seemed to radically hug his particularly jouncy looking butt. Normally i never notice butts so this was an intriquing experience. the pockets were wide set, we determined that was the crux.

we talked about ian's brother and how he and ian had childbirthing hips, which i've never noticed. ian's brother has red hair. we took turns imagining what it would be like if we fancied him but concluded we never could because we both feel dead inside. my brother called to tell me he couldn't make it to mother's day dinner and wouldn't tell me why. after that i ordered the second beer. i never drink during the day. i never do a lot of things i'm doing these days after Thursday that shock of a day. i called my mother to find out where she was at and she said she was in Central Park and "let's do it next time". "What do you mean next time!" i resumed drinking my beer.

Mary and Ian laughed when i told them my family didn't want to meet me for mother's day dinner. "Typical" Mary said, making a sad face about when she looked through the bag of Missha prezzies i'd gotten for mum. "So expensive. " we left a ten$ tip and took turns biking on my bike down bedford ave. small coffee at the Verb and mary whispered "This is gonna fuck up my nerves". We went to the flea market where i would've bought mary a cupcake but she complained "you can get a whole box of cupcake mix for 2$ I'm not going to let you buy me one." I saw the Cars "candy-o" record on top of the record bins and bought it even though i don't have a record player. I remembered the times that i spend with Cole as he looked through records. But Cole wasn't there. The bloke with the curly hair was though, and asked me to sign his mailing list for his "parties". He looked healthy. Maybe he's getting some.

what the hell i wanted to buy something so me and Ian went to beacons which I normally hate. On the way I peeped inside Fixx and an old woman yelled "Go inside, they're playin' music! Anyone can go! It's free! Every week, they have musical events!" and i said enthusiastically "Really! I'm going to sign up right away!". Ian laughed and laughed.

i was mean to the normally bitchy salespeople at Beacon's so they were nice. bought 80$ worth of clothes on my credit card. On the way home I finally got a chain for my bike so I don't have to lug it upstairs every day. After all my doubt and questioning about the chain, the bike guy said charitably "Everyone's TuffStuffin' it these days." "What a relief" I said. "Although I don't really care if somebody steals my bike. It's a piece of shit" Outisde Ian put the chain 'round his neck and said "I feel like we're really charming people today, isn't it wierd?" We ran into Sir Dave who was holding a large painting of a naked lady. "Is that your new girlfriend?" I asked and he said "I wish." I suggested having an impromptu dinner and Ian later said "That was a really bad idea". Which is was, I agree. I biked home feeling lost and forlorn amongst the industrial buildings and then ate some 2 week old pasta. this is the first day I have eaten three meals in a long time.

I'm listening to chet baker: i'm going to love you like nobody's loved you. what sickness these past few days. i've been lucky for mary and ian; without them i'm unsure i would have laughed. deepa and song talked to me to and they said some wise things but its in the doc on my computer which i am hiding from god and you.

keep it real stupid: real heartbreak is as close to death as you can get although this isn't a theory i can prove. and it's probably not even true. but still. one can never have too many near death experiences. i try to tell myself that this is good. i stupidly texted him, after an inspired conversation with song, "you are my first great heartbreak." fuck, objectification again! Mary says: the reason why he thinks you haven't changed is because you're employing the same tactics as you would've before, to get back together with him. what you need to do is forget about it."

This is good, sound advice I'm getting over it, one tear by one tear. I just hope these wrinkles won't settle in. Although the not eating bit, is quite novel after a winter of gluttony.

old photos: i was on flickr uploading my recent photos and i realized i had an old account while i was going out with cole. these pictures almost made me cry but not quite. it was a stinking relief to see a picture of him and remember it all really happened and i really was happy sometimes and so was he. pictures are much better than memories because we have selective memories and we are cruel with them. i didn't remember that close moment in the cabin bathroom getting ready to go for a swim outside in the dirty pool where i was so scared to swim, and cole would help me by putting me on his shoulders and then we started playing, and before long we were doing somersaults and loving each other. then he taught me how to look at the stars...and i was so scared of the dark. we motored back in the freezing cold on long country roads...and it was bitter and wonderful. chokes me up, it does.

god. i told myself i wouldn't write about any of this shit but i wanted to mention the photos. i'm so happy about it. i told cole that if i could see him, it could help dispel the mystery and demonization - namely, my desperation that every one of those experiences would disappear and i would've had to question my ever knowing love - where else am i going to find it? not within myself, i'm not strong enough to house that. i guess the photo suffices for image. for the past few days i have had terrible mental images, a sinister, laughing moniker of a face, a question mark rather than an exclamation. this old flickr account replaces that nicely. but then i look at the more recent photos on my current account - the party photos when i rotated around him like a god - and those were the same moments that he - i can't even say it or think about it. there is emptiness where the present cole is. the last i talked to him he didn't have the time. and i don't blame him.

only a few more, just a few more. i told mary and ian there were only going to be a few more of these conversations where i hash and rehash, to get it out of me. and it will be over. clean. exorcised. they listen to me and help me draw it out, with little condescension, just a little that i would expect from being cynical people, but mostly identification. i am so relieved that i can cry. mary said something that was comforting:"cole is good at compartmentalization. you are not." i'm glad mary understands the various subtleties of de-sexualization. she yelled at me for objectifying the server based on his jeans. I was glad of that. objectification is a problem, it's something one does to inverse relationships of power. i like that mary is up on that shit. it's needed. yet it is humane. that is even more needed.

i had the thought, based on something cole said - i think it was about how many shitty times we had in our relationship - and i tried to argue - yes - that our relationship was shitty becasue of my lack of ability to deal with having a relationship - i can't get over that failure on my part - and i desperately want to right it - but could my wanting to right it be a function of my dysfunctionality? would a normal person put it behind them, let it go, search for new loves, a new ability to intertwine ones legs and body and heart around another wisp of human breath? do they "let it go"? a fantastic platitude, that falls on deaf ears. How can i let it go until i understand it rationally? Little by little, i understand, through the plaintive graspings through weaving the data that i get from his few statements, through my friend's advice, through even the empathy of love poems; and i am getting it, i'm getting it! but let me get back to what i was saying - those shitty times, i remember i was saying, weren't because of something "Fundamental" in us - it wasn't because of our true lack of ability to fit together - a crass deduction, i thought, for him to say "We weren't good together" - although i like to take the positive spin on it, that he meant we as we were back then, weren't good together - that perhaps future us's could be good to future togethers- but even this hope, is dysfunctional and must be trashed A.s.a.p, yes, ASAP, if i'm going to have a clear head about myself -

anyway the thought was, EVERYTHING in my life i could say, was not a result of what is fundamental about me, or my relationship to the world; it could be said to be a series of mistakes, a series of muffled desires and twisted intentions, well-meaning oedipal yearnings sublimated through wrong choices - like i didn't mean to treat him like shit those numerous times...which could explain why, cole doesn't really believe, doesn't really believe, it'll ever - if one equates the fundamental with series of events, its just a matter of semantics, and that it is fundamental that what we had between us is rigid and fixed, a stupid bit of ephemera that causes a quaking in our bodies now upon remembrance. More specifically, in him an unwillingness to turn, and in me, it is a turning inward, drying myself out, my mouth out, my mind - and i can't, walk or talk, pick my head up for a moment. the physical relief to this drying out process which occurs and drives me mad, would be to be back in time, to be able to contemplate a golden halo of hair and ripple it through my fingers as if there was no coloring of missed threads - and he is very practical to this request - No. We cannot see each other. something about how it would make him sad to see me sad. something that doesn't sound like something that makes me happy but makes him o.k.

there goes a tear again. god, why won't someone catch it for me?

i wasn't gonna go into this psycho stream of babble. but i did. it came out anyway. and i'm going to post it because i had to say something about it didn't i? if anything to cure myself. in making it public it takes on the tint of fiction.

four photos, two emails: life goes on.

2006-05-14T12:51:00.000-04:00

can you tell i haven't been writing? four scenes from the past four days.

1. Mr.Tom
not blogging - [because of cole]is the
stupidest thing I've ever heard. plus very possibly a
total rationalisation: not writing that damn thing is
a total suicide gesture in itself, the steady flow of
words the best symbol you have of your life still
continuing and being valuable. Plus you know you'd
have to write about him, so not doing it is also
avoidance and a chance to revel in despair.

Stop this. Get up. Get out of bed. Write more.
Write better than ever. Write WITH BOTH HANDS

2. XXX (i can't get rid of this stomachache)

hey boogie , moving out of nyc. soon , wish i could be your friend i know that a big pill to try and swallow any way , i just finished a show of newer works , trying to finish recordinG with this band i'm playing with then i'm out of here for a while i saw you the other day i did n't say anything , you did n't reconize me , i'm super thin and have a long beard , alittle different than you might remember , i hope you are good , and i hope your still writing for your zine ,

grammatical much?

I will publish my rants from the past few days that i haven't published after brunch with mary and ian at diner. i will go there for a form of salvation. so be it.

food gentrification and other issues of the day

2006-05-11T23:55:00.000-04:00

it seems strange that i'm commenting on news articles at this time. when a piece of innocence that i had left over, burrowed like a piece of lint, flew away into the East New York wind, along with much of my snot and dignity. What do i speak of, you ask. I don't think I can talk about it yet, i'm making every effort in the world to divert my attention from it; i fear for my sanity.

Anyway the news article i'm commenting on is the latest from Michael Pollan's food blog, which makes detailed points on the rich being able to afford healthy food, hence, yes, whole foods IS gentrified as fuck; prejudice is not emblazoned on the cute orange exterior, those nutty woodsy colors that remind one of the Gap except dotted with acceptable exoticisms - appropriations and approximations of every culture for the purpose of an exciting buffet table - but hey the food is good, whaddya gonna do? so the only people of color are the bakers. Song's point was, during a party months ago, that nobody is barring them out; but through the power of marketing and forming public opinion, Whole Foods has made it so, that with their faux homey boudoir, diversity in terms of income and attitude is going to be shoved out. just the looks one gets from alfalfa stuffed faces when one goes into the cafe...

well then there's trader joes. i haven't been there yet because i fear i will fall on my knees and praise the lord. and no one wants to see that.

speaking of food for white people...I said the wasabi dumplings wouldn't be hot 'cus they were made for white people and mary promptly said "good" and we laughed. towards the end of dinner we could be seen laughing uproarously. "I forgot to be miserable for a second" I said.
she treated me to dinner. I don't think we've ever done that. Part of our whole growing up, changing thing.

Talking points.
mary: stalking is over, P.S. Mysterious is in.
Me: that sounds frustrating. that sounds hard.
Mary. we've got to stop being tacky.
Me. We're so tacky.
Mary: pure tacky. but it's part of our charm.

I talk about my defense mechanisms. the theory that i focused on other's imperfections to prevent intimacy. "What do you think i do?" she said. Surprise registers in me. she listens some. she talks about somebody. I listen some. it's a good give and take. she looks patient. she gives me her spicy tuna. "Lying low this week". she says. "I haven't said anything off the cuff this week - i haven't been witty at all. I've just been saying - what i have to say. Maybe i should try thinking before i talk. But - i like, never do that!"

Just get over it. She says.

Would you be more fucked up if she were cooler, smarter or prettier? She asks.

Well she couldn't be smarter, come on. She flatters.

Thanks I say. We laugh. Are you being sarcastic? I ask.

he says i want something from him. Mary says the same thing about her own situation. We are in the same situatinon I say.

Dying wouldn't be worth it. Mary says. What would be the point?

The reason why I like talking to you is 'cus you're so nonplussed about everything.

even though i was selfish egocentric bitch, i still made him laugh.

hell. when you're being genius, you can't be asking him about himself - you gotta have genius time and then the other person's time!

smiling.

The winter. was miserable. We laugh. This is funny, to think of the winter.

I was a total bitch. But i realize that. Mary says.

How do you distinguish what you want from somebody and wanting them? I mean what does it mean to be liked for yourself? We wondered. The line is thin. i guess what's important is that you feel loved and heard and you try to fill each other's needs.

Don't you love being pure psycho?

Of course everyone's going to be into bodies. but it all goes away when you start being with them.

(back to my inner monologue)
I don't find it hard to listen to mary, it's wierd. usually i have trouble listening to people.

I was happy during the meal that i still haven't had the rest of my beer. I am becoming stoned off lovesickness. Mary puked and punched a girl's face when she first experiened it.

i guess i never have. i know i never have.

it's kind of exciting to go through a new experience.

in a gutwrenching kind of a way.

i don't know why the other pains that i've experienced rolled off my back so easily, into the crevices of my unconscious where i'm moved by them like a marionnette. why does this one hurt so bad?

because it involves loves, which is hope. it is hope that life is not a brutish nasty thing. the fact that i even hoped, makes me feel stupid.

there will be a lot lot more in the coming days. bear with me. it's going to be rough.

what's funny is how i broke down at work...and the exec assistant gathered me to her bosom. i felt like a little kangaroo, as if i would know how that felt. "Go home S. Just gather yourself and go home."

Strangely enough at home I lay on the couch and S-the cat came after much prancing about showing off, and sat on my stomach. she let me pet her for a long time. growing fluffier by the minute.

I listen to Elliott Smith on repeat, getting ideas in my head.

coffee spillage

2006-05-11T12:10:00.000-04:00

mimicks my brain spillage. I am getting fitted for the feminist fashion show today. I don't know if the girl who is producing the whole thing is very happy about my description of feminist fashion. Maybe it was bullshit.

I don't know if anybody's very happy with me at all.

9pm crying is rare: I reluctantly sobbed my eyes out watching "Bad Girls" that brilliant show that redeems teevee Hardly any skin yet completely erotic. I found myself a few times biting my fist and nothing makes me do that. Is it me or are british t.v. shows much more representative of "normal" people than the U.S. is? I mean, EastEnders, AbFab, every single British t.v. show is rife with uglies.

We don't tolerate that here.

(readings from Evan's countertop books): An Angela Davis quote that seems apt: "pornography is the objectification of the body, the privileging of the dismembered body". I guess that's part of the sickness of a non-intimate culture, the necessary sublimating of truth into objects - i.e. using lies/spies/stalking to achieve an approximation of love, which is what we all want in the end.

The crying was reluctant because-- oh because of everything. My therapist said "you've been experiencing a lot of loss these days. How are you coping with this when you don't have your usual coping mechanisms?" Meaning self-destruction. well, i talk to myself in my head. I sing. I imagine punching things. I overintellectualize. I hold in tears. But it came out and i couldn't remember the last time I cried. It happened the moment one of the "bad girls" turned around and smiled. Borne of disgust and hatred, an innocent smile. I wanted that for myself, that hopeful turning around, expecting the object of one's love. It seemed such a far-off, pixelated image to wish for - that disparity between my tought smile and the one on my laptop screen seemed a bitter, unknown loss.

I asked my therapist why, if i want to have deep and meaningful relationships, i haven't been able to achieve them. why them seem impossible. I'm a smart person, I said, you'd think if there was a way to achieve it i would've been able to by now. She said:

It's something we can work on. You can have meaningful relationships. Let's look at where the disconnect is. Every relationship that you've had - has been bad. Not very pleasant. A part of you doesn't want to get intimate with people - why would you?

Why would I indeed.

beige walls and a monochrome couch: Anyway Ian came over last night and we had a nice talk. "That couch in your house kills my soul". He argued "Why don't you live here? This is so much more you. I like you better here". I guess it would just involve more money. The peace of having a huge apt to myself besides two outrageously curious cats, is a beautiful, soothing thing. I spoke to him leaning back on the beigeness of the landscape, the conversation buoyed by such flatness.

I am inarticulate today because i am emotional.

the hairs speak. Ian saw Cole on the way to visit me. He'd gotten a haircut. It's hard to imagine him now--the face and hair is fading in my mind. I remember the smell. The slight warm, almost sweet, but clean smell. I always liked his smell. But the fact of his haircut--haircuts are legendarily cathartic, cleansing. Why else do I achieve new hairstyles daily? The fact that it was probably done by Song, adds some vague insult to the whole operation; like South Pacific he's washing me out of his hair, except with Aveda shampoo and a pair of cool hands...

spies, apparently

2006-05-10T20:32:00.000-04:00

i remember my XX was obsessed with the news. So scared was he. Always making plans to leave the country. i always wondered why he was scared. Then I actually felt actually scared when I read that this new military guy Michael Hayden is being hired to replace this other guy Porter Goss (sexy name) at the head of the CIA. This military guy spearheaded the NSA spying operation. Since I'm so confessional I don't really care what people discover about me, but I could understand how spying could be upsetting. I was upset when my XXX used to listen in on my phone calls. That's anotha story. According to the article, Donald Rumsfeld is also creating a spying thingy within the Pentagon. I'd read Dowd's article before this one but it was kinda retarded 'cus she always tries to be funny like calling Cheney "Darth Cheney". That's like, not that funny. Reminds me of me when I'm trying to be funny.

(picture from the site of a pingpong-er called Larry tt!)
Like, I can understand the need to stalk, 'cus you don't want the other person to know how obsessed you are, but in the case of spying, why not just ask people? I'll tell 'em everything they might want to know about me; but then again they're arseholes.
Mr Tom has alerted me to the fact that Tony Blair is not working class. Where did I get that idea? Fuck. I'm such a romanticiser. I just love those teeth.

cats on birds

2006-05-10T17:03:00.000-04:00

I'm reposting Mary's blog about my party 'cus i'm too lazy to go through it.

this blog sucks cause i 'm in a hurry and tyring to remember poignant moments.
like ian telling me ' what? you don't actually listen to your obsessions. duh.' i think that was the most comforting statement of the weekend.
at s's we theorize 'fake fun is more fun than real fun.' we dance all night, dave says 'you're a really good dancer.' i say 'join the fan club.' it was so ice to not give a fuck on saturday. one of the best nights i've had in a long time. i tell ian, the difference between S and j and k's party is like the difference between greenpoint and williamsburg.

here's a picture of me looking crazy dutch slash i've had work done, cinco de mayo

(refer to cinco de mayo post or here's a small rewind of it) and i reply

yo that picture is gonna be fA-MOUSE.

FA_MOUSE.

that should be the name of our band.

FEY-MOUSE.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

which just shows how crazy i am.
If we kept going with this circular referencing each other in blogs, would it become a congested mayhem, another world, a metaphysical space? Creating "separate spaces" is one thing on the landscape of identity politics, but this incest of culling each other's juicy bits for the sake of dynamic letters is kinda...worrisome. Who cares. just in case you're still interested, i've "Hit the nail on the head" for once, poppy, contrary to everything else in which i simply hit my thumb with a big fat hammer. Here's more of mary's blog which quotes an email I wrote her, how meta:

i think of s as i'm walking to work today, remember yvonne calling her 'winnie' and i can't stop laughing, then dave saying 'hey dave' to shernoff, and s and i both look up like we're named dave. i say 'whenever someone says his own name, i feel like it's my name.'
i emailed her about m yesterday, how i feel so bad for making him think that i don't want to hear what he has to say, she gives a lengthy response:

'dude, this is real growing up. why don't you think you listened to
him? do you think it's a general characteristic or was it just with
him? something to think about maybe.
thanks for sharing that with me (i sound like an idiot), i really
empathized. it sounds like it was gutwrenching but in a good way. i
think you guys being friends is a good idea - both of you will
grow---you guys are really different if you think about it. i guess
his acting idiotic was just a result of him being scared and wary,
because i guess you are really outgoing and party-ish and that can
intimidate people.
it really reminds me of my first lover, gregory, who was this good
looking skater dude who barely talked. when we broke up he said : you
never listen to me. I had no idea that i had that trait. because i was
so obsessed with him it never ocurred ot me that i wasn't giving him
what he wanted or needed, which was to be heard. and it was true that
i wasn't intererested in what he has to say---for what reasons, who
knows.'

i feel like this really hits the nail on the head. like, i kind of didn't care what michael had to say because i was too concerned w making him like me. which is ridiculous. and selfish. now, though, i'm feeling a lot differently about him. maybe i have more respect for him. as janna said last night, 'it takes a lot to penetrate our tiny circle. you have to have really thick skin.' why is that? it's not something i try to promote, such an exclusivity. i really need to spend more time alone. or just one-on-one. this group dynamic is not letting me grow

I'm simply in love with this whole referencing each other thing. How did it come that we became the insider kids, that we were intimidating or bitchy in any way? strange. surely a result of unstable minds and bodies. maybe we all just need to GET LAID.

I'm just happy because the C O Director is finally gonna get back to me about my mishmash of a proposal and i can finally submit my very first 10,000.00 proposal and maybe some kids can jump rope like i did in queens.

old mix cd's are just digital downward spirals

2006-05-10T15:44:00.000-04:00

you know you're sick in the head when you start poring over old mix cd's. Hey I couldn't keep listening to Happy Gift. I made this one over a year ago while at the Mckibben lofts. I hadn't met Cole yet at this point so the music is not inflected with tasteful obscurities. Not that he's super-tasteful, but he is.

Fight the Power (duh)

Who needs Love like that? (is that XTC?)

scissor sisters

Rock your Body (justin)

Can't do nuttin' for ya man (so I was going through a renewed love for clock necklaces)

girl from impanema (i had just seen Puttin' on the Ritz cover this at a party)

song sung by an ex roommate of mine who taught me how to write a song, and now i hate him. not for that reason though.

I walk, Oh honey, I talk...don't want you to need me(Jesus & Mary Chain, oh how they kill)

Jimmy Jimmy (Undertones)

Bicycles are Red Hot (TV on the Radio)

Music: Response (i'm embarassed of this)

The flowers and the trees are en-cap-su-la-ting me...(Another XTC)

Shooting from the hip (Chicks on Speed)

Personal jesus (fuck me I was too into DM)

And she'll walk all over you...I'm happy in my box(Another Jesus & Mary chain song)

...honey trippin...it's so good...walking back to you is the hardest thing i could doANOTHER fucking J&M song????? What kind of mix is this?

Teenage Kicks (Undertones)

Drink Fight & Fuck (gg allin)

You don't like me and I don't like you
You never wanted me so I say fuck you! (gg allin)

colbert

2006-05-10T14:35:00.000-04:00

even i know about the colbert thing. here's an article by alternet on it.

waking up to the screech of black cats

2006-05-10T12:57:00.000-04:00

is not a pleasant thing. like my dad would say : they can't say anything. What are they trying to say? Nothing! But I am not that cavalier. I hug the cats then throw them in the next room so I can sleep. I think they were hungry or something. Alas they are on a diet of half a can a day. Evan don't like fat cats. I can't actually remember their names but I call them freaks or cuties, depending. They are inordinately curious about me and my life. Always wanting to get in the bathroom, always poking about on my computer. Do they know something I don't?

So, Jane has posted up (creeping little by little into the fabric of my e-existence with no little wariness) a new blog post. Hella yes. I wonder what prompts them to put up one post rather than another...guilt? Lack of punchiness? I did say in my email : "Did the last post suck?" No anseh. I looked on their regular blog and there's all this family-fun stuff going on like mad bowling parties with Stuff and Comedy Central (Oh that HQ crowd Song hangs with) and it looked like something that would make me want to hibernate for a long time/slash i'm envious. The look of their site is radically different than their old site. Its interesting, maybe reflective of Brandon Holley's difference in attitude from the old Jane - I think BH is more obsessive or something - perky in a way that suggests something interestingly nuerotic - wonderful, in fact; the time me and Mary met her we walked away clasping our hands together declaring our love...with pepperoni pizza smells issuing from our mouths in climax.

Today on NPR which I can listen to through Evan's radio (I haven't had a radio since grade school) I heard about Tony Blair being ejected from the PM position? What?! No matter what happens, you gotta love those goofy teeth. Oh, those teeth!

I am a sucker for deformities. Even though TB supported a bunch of whack shit.

Actually I'm just a sucker for working class people in positions of power.

My hair is very large today and that is always a good sign. Today is much better than yesterday. I am wearing shades of black, two different kinds of polka dots in the form of a lacey tank and a tiny cardigan. The orbiting dudes in ENY took notice: more than the usual "hey mommy" as I walked to Lucky's grocery to get my turkey and cheese sandwich which is almost as large as my head. He murmured "oh, mommy, very sexy, oh mi gahd, look out for the lady"... I don't know how to feel about that. I write it off as my donning signifiers of typical feminity, in this case lace and big hair.

We had a "resource development team" meeting this morning which flew off enthusiastically admist a flurry of munchkins and coffee. Me and Corinne met early--an unheard of 9am--to go over the agenda and we achieved all the agenda items. I am fairly stressed but also am riding that nil wave where nothing real is hitting me - I am sure that deadlines cannot truly exist-- i mean people are people, who'se going to cut off our chance for money if i miss a deadlines. But i try to keep in the forefront of my mind the idea that yes, the outer world does exist in a real way, given that we've all agreed on a certain similar format of perception, and that i must make this stupid inquiry call to a foundation, no matter what my existential liberties may be...

i was in the shower

2006-05-09T23:34:00.000-04:00

when it occurred to me the only reason why i ever get really depressed is because of extreme tiredness. Tiredness makes me suicidal. I asked Song once if it ever had that effect on her and she said no.

Today I was so tired that after eating 3 bites of ice cream, I passed out on the couch. My cat lay next to me, on the Village Voice I had valiantly been attempting to read. I had been reading about cutbacks on welfare which was interesting.

I felt so reinvigorated after a nice shower and flossing my teeth, that all of a sudden people starting calling me. I was no longer in my tired bubble of self-loathing that I had been blowing up all day. Reading love poems by Sylvia Plath for fucks sake.

John and Ian called me separately. I was busy listening to a NYTimes podcast since I still have 95 articles left for this month which freaks me out. So much pressure. So I didn't answer. Plus I was unsure of my capacity for human dialogue. I called John back later after getting my head round the idea. They wanted me to come out to say goodbye to Nikhil who is from L.A and speaks like Alex or they speak like each other. Nikhil is the guy on the left : This is after the picnic Dave had in greenpoint in which I ate Mary's leftover hot dog she left on a plate long after she left. I ate it with a piece of Kraft cheese rolled up with mayonnaise. Nikhil looked at me and laughed and laughed. Which he does indiscriminately. And more when i complained about the impossibility of barbecuing and how much I hated barbecues, the quintessentially american institution that it is. Nikhil was very emphatic about the ease and enjoyability of barbecues which i found highly suspicious. Ian wore Dave's blue sweatshirt which made him look healthy. The last I'd seen of him was on the middle of my living floor doing interpretive dances mixed with a little dramatic 40's musical with utter bitter earnestness while Karl and Bogdan watched in fascination and horror. Apparently he woke up on my couch with a smile on his face. I sat on John's lap as he recounted whatever funny tales he likes to recount. Said something about my necklace and how it reminded him of those piano "gorges" or something and how he wished I was one. Then we began a word game where we used the same words in different contexts in the flow of conversation. I can't remember exactly how it went but it was hella funny. I left early making no emotional connection to anyone else at the party which was a pity since they were so kind to offer sweet and hot sausages. I went to Rachel's Garden with the crew and picked up a couple of pickles during which, outside, Nikhil and John did not stop talking. They had a practice of constant talk and entertainment, which sometimes got physical.

And then Nikhil insisted on saying goodbye to me on the phone: "I can't encourage you to come out?" I had wet hair, oxy on my face, and was naked. "No, sorry." "Well it was nice to meet you dude".

the word dude should be eliminated.

the way text messages go

2006-05-09T23:24:00.000-04:00

the star of south williamsburg texts me: "hey sweetie just wanted to remind ya I will be on As the world Turns Tomorrow on CBS! If ur are home check it out!"

She is legendarily beautiful in our circles. At our party on saturday, which I designated "Karl Day" since he was moving out (which meant I threw a Lindor Truffle at him and offered him my food) the standoffish semi-hipster philosopher (messy hair, upturned collared striped polo shirts, converse) who never speaks to me and immediately launched into serious discussion with Geoffrey, took notice as I, after hysterically rearranging things, jumped downstairs to retrieve two tall shining beacons of attractiveness, Mary and Kristina. "Are we the first ones here?" Mary laughed. Yes, they were. We took lodge in the corner by the alcohol and began our mile a minute repartee. Sir Dave wandered in, almost as if by accident. We welcome him loudly. The philosophers looked comparatively subdued, congregated on the couch. Then the snobby philosopher came over and stuck his hand out to Kristina, introducing himself. It would be logical that beauty would attract beauty.

the blonde

2006-05-09T22:21:00.000-04:00

Leffe. good beers remind me of past loves. through every one i discover a new way of enjoying alcohol or the preparation of.

Cole was the true mixologist.

Sour Water: What does it mean when your body craves sour? I just drank a glass of apple cider vinegar and water with relish. Convinced it will take out all the toxins i've garnered over the weekend. In addition I bought a bunch of pickles from Rachel’s Garden on Sunday. They have replaced the raisinets that I bought in faith that I would take a step towards health. alas they were gobbled up with surprising alacrity at our absolute hit of a house party on Saturday night. Along with a can of cashews.

People will eat anything.

My day was spent doing administrative bullshit involving money. Money is administrative. This whole Americorps identification with poverty thing is certainly working: I am becoming one with East New York. I welcome the opportunity to shift myself into the scarier realms of the marginalized - in that way i can tuck myself into a corner and brew what monstrosities i will. Perhaps there is only freedom in degradation.

While I waited in an interminable line in what seemed surely like the line for hell - and I am glad i've got it over with, although God invents fresh new hells for interested people- I read some Angela Davis, and parts of this book called Best Unrequired Reading edited by Dave Eggers, property of Evan. Trying to get some learnin' done in hell.

C the development associate said "I'm sorry." I asked "For what?" "On behalf of hell." She says clever things like that.

What's your I.P ? Reading identity politics analyses, which I’ve been interested in lately because I’d like to typify all my various questions, yearnings and biases into the lump sum of university discourses – typical, this liberal leaning towards sytems of thought – but could you call a deconstructionist and intuitive body of thought a "system" – hell yes.

My 8th grade teacher who was tremendously fat and had a huge mole on her cheek, called me a "slippery eel." That applied when I slipped off through the hallways when I said I was going to the bathroom and it applies now, when I try to escape the classist systemization of my thoughts and feelings, when in fact, in doing so, I am exercising that despised tendency already, before I could swallow my Leffe Blonde.

those landmarks, oh they mark. I biked through East Williamsburg today and got lost. I tried to be cool as my new bike squeeled and screamed from shoddy workmanship. Cars honked and citizens stared as I biked along in my unlikely white circle skirt. Through the labyrinthine concrete a bunch of landmarks gently prodded me into an incessant, large, fat tear.

o The desolate, distinctly rundown brick buildings of bushwick that me and mary forayed into on the night we got lost in John’s car and I sat holding myself together in fear because of Mary’s increasing hysterical anger.
o The super Laundromat where I once piled in my laundry late at night since it was the only 24 hour Laundromat around. I walked there with my then roommate, the Turkish Chloe, who walked me there and jabbered along matter-a-factly. She had a tendency of mothering with an offhand superciliousness. She was asking about my lovelife. That was when the love between me and Cole had first choked into existence. “He’s lucky I even agreed to dinner” I said bitchily. She said “Don’t say that. That’s mean”. No kidding. That was the point. There’s nothing like deferring the tainting of blank palettes with the smearing of slander.
o Graham ave, when I used to go to buy bacon and cheese when I used to eat that shite, when I lived on Boerum St.
o Deveboise st, where Cole, in the murderous winter, had priority mailed me a package so I could have it in time for Christmas. I was so excited to get it I navigated the uncharted territory of open-late post offices. I waited in line, talking shallowly on the phone with Ser whom I don't talk to anymore. I waited in line and received my very first priority mailed package. I walked home sopping wet, so cold, so tired—I had plans to go to the girls room later that night, I guess Rose was djing, and ripped open the package while on the phone with him—he was in Missouri at the time, we didn’t know each other except for one not-even-date and long, long phone calls in the hallways of my Mckibben apt – I beheld a beautifully crafted, tenderly packaged present of Care Bears socks, a yellow polo shirt, a ridiculous wrestlers shirt, a red shirt with some funny slogan on the back and a pink printout card with a drawing of Michael Jackson on it. "To S--" it said in a confident cursive. I wore the yellow shirt to the girls room with my jeans that had the gold cowgirls sewn onto the backpocket and I danced like a single dyke, happily morphing into the gay I wanted to be; Cole was out of my radar. I was just happy, so happy to be adored. But even then I don’t think it struck home- I couldn’t have taken it seriously because I had never been loved like that. I could only paraphrase what I perceived in him as an afterschool special, something approximating to a Hollywood mating dance. A romantic comedy. Hence my cavalier attitude.

The (boring, I promise you) details of a bad day and possible a bad life: After my day at administrative hell -during which I tried to learn stuff i should've learn in uni years ago, called numerous CUNY numbers to try to figure out which application to fill out given my nontransferrable ridiculous English education, called Medicaid who didn't answer about an unpaid bill from Beth Israel which I cannot pay unless I get a sugar mommy-daddy or win the lottery or die in which case my poor parents would have to pay it, called Corinne to attempt to salvage the day in terms of work which is actuallys tressing me out because of numerous deadlines for proposals which i've never tried to submit before and was snapped at, understandably given my cracked out, cutting-out disgusting excuse-for-work-phone call and she had actual work to do, coincidentally called her to apologize for snapping at her while she was calling me to apologize for snapping at me and we collapsed in a series of apologies and promises of meeting up at work earlier tomorrow and eating donuts and coffee hurrah, called Karl for his SS number since the only proof i had of a rent receipt was signed by him therefore I thought i needed it since the app very clearly said i needed to list all the damn household members details, except he was very irritated since he was busy climbing a mountain in maine and therefore was extremely put out that i'd asked for private information and didn't give it to me, hanging up with nary a pleasantry - i am uncertain as to why you would answer a phone whilst climbing a mountain - then again, climbing a mountain is almost inconceivable for me, although of course, i did it with cole , although i don't know if it really counted since i was clutching on a rope at the time, screaming.

got lost from Court St to the G train walking all the way to Bergen having the idea to surprise Song by popping in but realizing she was off on Tuesdays.

so I collapsed on my couch after my cat kindly clawed and bit at me more than usual, probably stressed because i haven't changed her litter since i've been scheming for awhile how to fit that into my schedule--i was gonna bring her over to evan's but then after i unceromoniously passed out on the couch with ice cream still in my mouth, i discovered i couldn't find her cat bag after ransacking my entire room. then i thought i lost my videocamera again since i always hide it in the same place and discovered while drunk on saturday, i had hidden it somewhere else. Finally i had all of my paraphenalia I wanted to bring over Evan's house, and embarked on my bike journey in which i had all these memories and i was tremendously sad until I got to the deli to pick up a Leffe or two which was significantly cheaper there than Brooklyn Natural and I informed the clerk so, and he was appropriately shocked and pleased. so i went to put my heavy bike away and two cute nice guys said I could put it on their floor so it wouldn't get stolen so it was good to have some nice interaction with somebody.

then spent the evening navigating the CUNY website, listening to fucking Nick Drake as if i needed tot orture myself any more (what I used to listen to with Clay - to this day i find it very hard to listen to Belle and Sebastien or Talk Talk) almost purposefully prodding myself, feeling the looming apparition of expectations oppress me. I began talking and hugging the black cats who were greatly interested in every action I underwent. And i was glad i was capable of love and enthusiasm. I had to remind my cat at home that i loved her because i can see that she is a bit on edge - almost murderous - because I'm not around. Who ever knew I'd become such a cat person. Then again I think it's indicative of my emotional growth in general. I was always afraid i was a sociopath; the fact that I can hang around with animals and love them is direct flouting of that theory. Now I realize I thought I was a sociopath because I had so little feeling towards the world and myself. I projected my feeling of hatred onto the world. Anyway. This is getting ridiculous this rambling. i should just go to sleep. however, I must say what brought on this rambling is my new therapist. she hopefully detailed, bouncing her shiny hair around, that I should just write out my feelings whenever I feel overwhelmed. I said "but i always censor myself, i'm going to be too worried about the articulation". and she said "Write something shitty". And giggled. What a gal.

train rides

2006-05-09T00:37:00.000-04:00

are exhausting me these days. the thought of train rides from one destination to another makes me need to take the evening off. i dropped home after itching to do something cathartic, perhaps write a few explosive things, but of course got bogged down into a distracting bunch of things like figuring out the difference between "margin" and "padding" in css and listening to maureen dowd's podcasts for the past month while doing sit-ups. it is difficult to feel crazed, unhappy, idiotic in an environemnt of the aforementioned wood and nuts, autumnal colors (which i usually despise for precisely its pastoral connotation) matching black cats running around as opposed to my one hairy nuerotic fluffball of meanngess after my own namesake - it has the same manufactured comfort of my mother's oatmeal- a certain wholeness steaming in a consumable bowl which manages to transmogrify one's insides to greater than its parts;

i went to my boss's house for a thank-you brunch in which the thank you was delightfully, middle classically, demarcated as a demilitarized zone of backyard barbecue. the meat was frankly, delicious--expertly grilled--and to the dismay of my body's cultural mash-up, it had another barbecue later that night, during which, in franker settings, i confessed my hatred and suspicion of barbecues. the tall indian-american looked at me in his one genuine moment of aghastness: "but barbecues are really easy! they're great! Why would you not like barbecues" and john echoes indignantly in his lawnchair, "i like barbecues" whereupon which i realized i was truly a freak, because even hyper over-witty men knee-deep in tales of regret adored barbecues, as much as i championed the forbidden junk foods of yore like raisinets and pop tarts.

john apparently remembers that i told him i only ate pop tarts.

which is not true and i have no memory of it.

what is scary is that i have no memory of most of my life. the new word i learned today: eidetic .i can remember a few visual peanuts to travel me by. otherwise it's a bit of a problem.

good names

2006-05-09T00:20:00.000-04:00

for things. the "tractatus" exhausted me so thoroughly, it taking a summer to read in bars with my sugary coffee to soothe aching bones, and scott smoking his damned rollies with his elbows on the wooden pub table, that i couldn't think about reading "philosophical investigations" for years. I'm thinking i should. to grasp the whole word as name thing.

i read this little ditty by nabakov called "the word". it was in the new yorker, which i never read--perhaps it is my penchant fo failing, for not quite reaching the mark, that could explain why i should deter myself from reading such a bastion of good culture--but i am catsitting at this posh house of wood and nuts. Appropriately arranged cleaning supplies fresh with the enthusiasm of a believer of organization; however i like to imagine, that all the neatness is simply a hibernating bursting at the seams, and the intelligence required for the required indie reading lining the shelves, the solid rampart of politicism that decorates the walls, the kindly dished cat food that is ladled with a designated fork--these are not accidents--suggest a life that has been--could i venture--painstakingly put together.

so i take this opportunity to almost mimic the pallor of the walls, and slide into the feared comfortable silver lining of higher reading; unlike the crassly swallowed bits of social/political/identity bilge i usually fare. I read the new yorker, skipping as i usually do, because i am used to entertainment--i have to go over, and read again. i have to go over and read again. and it's pretty good the second time.

i notice that the translation has made use of words like "resplendent, edenic" that seem to provide no other function than sounding lovely. there's a lot of hyperbole in the translation, perhaps nabokov at the time was hyperbolic--it seems much more permissable in the olden days. were people more innocent back then?

cinco de mayo

2006-05-07T22:09:00.000-04:00

somebody yelled "Merry Christmas" as i stepped up to Janna's house in black hotpants. Today I saw a pink dog. All of this I'm sure has to do with cinco de mayo. So do these: Mary in Ian's cat shirt. I almost cried. So beautiful. There's a picture somewhere of me licking her shirt. Or rather her boobs under her shirt. Ew. As ian would say: "I just puked". it was a unique, cushy feeling to have mary keeping me in her radar. she wove around the party with the determinedness of a cat. Look at Mary's face in the background, magnetizing the camera while Sir Dave looks nonplussed.

pure photobooth

2006-05-05T16:22:00.000-04:00

There was once a photobooth. It was like a cat. In no other way than I understand things in terms of cats. Anyway. It was like a cat. It sat in the corner of Enids. Two semi-inebriated, semi-happy girls piled into the flashing, disgusted cat. Which spat out photos.

They were shocked when the pictures came out how alike they seemed to look. The girl's male best friend made fun of her hair which he said looked as if it had purposefully maintained the specific shape it was intended to form. They proceeded to go outside and stand on a fire hydrant, performing martial arts stunts. Then they took pictures of themselves punching each other and spitting out tic tacs as if they were teeth. They loudly and obnoxiously piled onto the b48.

One of them had been really happy because she was with her best friend from from England and they'd had perogi's in the Warsaw served by a woman who's see-through black blouse revealed a bare breast. Furthermore, she had been the lucky recipient of two 25$ tickets from a man whose friend's didn't show up. The other one showed up after school, standing right outside the door waiting for her, exactly at 10PM, the designated meeting time. She was never late. It was the Orb they were waiting for. They found themselves surrounded by galvanized older hippies who danced ravestyle and made the appropriate disgusted faces, which melted into a happy acceptance. They danced intermittently while watching the best friend gyrate around with all the enthusiasm of a Londoner used to a life of clubbing. She kept swallowing sips from little flask of raspberry vodka and also drinking her friend's beer, as she was wont to do.

the korean contingent

2006-05-05T11:17:00.000-04:00

Did you know Wonder bread is going out of business? Or something. I haven't read the whole article.

Yesterday I met Lydia at Duvet after shopping for a present for my friend Sena at Bed Bath and Beyond where I went crazy buying organizers. Bought Sena a wonder bread container for sandwiches. Later Lydia said "That's such a great present, S, 'cus your sandiches won't get smushed". which I had told them in the beginning as they all politely marvelled over it while holding colored cocktail glasses and talking about Sting and Madonna at which I was somewhat aghast but Lydia is always outside of every preconception or prejudice I could possibly have because she is extremely honest and her motivations are pure. We used to call her "Lydia with no agenda".

Duvet was expectedly cheesy but I liked the constant slow trickle of changing opposite color lights. They were having some "softlips" modelling contest so there were a bunch of fatlipped people around which was annoying. The house wine was good. We wondered how often they changed the sheets. Sena and Lydia who are both Korean spoke a bit of Korean and I understood everything except the numbers. They'd say a time and I'd say hopefully "8:00?" or "11:00?" and it would always be wrong.

Lydia paid for my drink and I said I'd buy her dinner. We went to ennju and she refused to let me buy her the Dragon sushi. She was greatly impressed by the sushi. "I really like this place." she said. "this is so good S--!" she said wonderously. "I love ginger so much. Don't you? I love everything about ginger--the taste, the color, the word 'ginger-ly'". At that moment I realized how much I missed her. She details everything about everything. Fulfilling every nuerotic corner my brain could possibly occupy. Waiting for the A train I tell her something illicit. "Uh--TMI, S--, TMI!" I tell her she's so from LA. When I start talking about Cole she tells me to shutup --apparently they hung out after she hung out with Raphie that one night Raphie called me--and I don't shut up and she says "I"m not going to be your friend if you don't stop talking about Cole" putting her arm in my arm and I shut up. She grabs me and squeels "Let's go to your house! I'll come to your house with you!". "oh my goodness. GOD" she groans as some guys scream at us on the street.

I have a huge bag of BBB stuff with me which she offers to help carry and then doesn't. I try to buy cat litter at Petco but realize the smallest amount I could get was 28lbs which wouldn't have been possible. I offer her sugar-free jellybeans in the subway explaining that my dentist told me not to eat sugar. "Sure. why can't you eat sugar?" she asks. I tell her I have 7 cavities. She says "That's not alot". I pull them out of my bag and she says "Oh my god you have them with you?!" and she's so excited and takes about 7. I say "Don't you want anymore" and she opens her palm again to show me the remaining 3, shaking her head.

We went to my house and every minute Lydia said "Are we almost there? How much farther. The next block? How long is the block?" And it was wonderful. We got to my house and I almost cancelled on Ian because I was dead tired. She asked me about every food item in the house. Which is charming coming from her. "Who'se Juicy Twists? Is this mochi yours". "Oh my goodness, so much ice cream" as she opened the freezer, and then again as she opened the fridge. She had to know whose room was whose. I drank some tea and was able to go back out besides Lydia didn't want to walk alone. In the old days I wouldn't really have given a shit. I was always so tired. But when she did her usual plaintive "Walk with me" i did. She liked my honey lotion and I said Do you want it and she said "You're so nice". I realized it was nice to be told that I was nice. Somehow I've role-reversalled with her and I"m giving her things and doing things for her. Two years ago she was driving me around while I was totally intoxicated kissing strangers.

Waiting for the train back she shuts her ears when the train comes. "Doesn't the noise bother you!?" For the second time, she applies Stila lip gloss which I stare at. I say is a waste of money. And it's a waste of packing. "This is true, this is true" she concedes. She says it takes 3 minutes for the liquid to come out so she has to keep applying for 3 minutes. "But I like it. I like applying it that long." Later I notice her lips look beautiful. "You're right that lip gloss is great" i admit and she says "See. I think the color is--strawberry. It's some kind of berry". She smiles sweetly.

boy.s

2006-05-05T10:59:00.000-04:00

A huge line stood outside of the Tribeca's screening of "Boy Culture" last night. I told Ian we should sell our tickets. This better be good I said. It was 11PM. A rollings stones party rumbled across the street. "Why aren't we there" Ian complained. I said 'cus wherever there's a crowd, it's over. "you're right" he said although I myself wasn't convinced.

"Why do we always have such a wierd time together?" Ian laughed, as I took pictures of us sitting in the two middle seats. Just for us I said. He ate twizzlers. I ate nothing. We laughed aloud a bunch of time and lusted as I never do after heterosexual couples. We both felt removed, almost sad because we weren't part of that lovely, creamy, saturated world of wolf-eyed lovers. Q&A afterwards.

Do you want the ant, or the mammoth? I can't get you the armadillo. Ian ended up winning me a mammoth toy from the grabby machines. "I told you I always win!" He did tell me that he always won. Told me about a time in France when they had inflatable penises in the machine and he kept winning and everyone was screaming "Penis! Penis!" and he told me this as the gay boys milled downstairs after the movie. So sleepy on the L train but nice liesurely discussion of the movie which we admitted had editing problems but the dialogue was sharp and the soundtrack was tight. He said he has to hang out with people who inspire him. I looked at him. He said "Like you inspire me. Because you want to make something of yourself. You're always up for doing things like this" (random arty things i suppose). I was glad i was one of the nebulous inspiratory (not a word) impetii (again not a word). I was curious to see his positive perception of me because i always feel like a lazy loser. I was also somewhat surprised he'd referred to me in the conversation because i've become used to people talking in front of me about what they are missing, what they want - and it is obvious to me that I am not giving them what they want - usually a man, a lover, fame, fortune - but I am funny and convenient, and i suppose, sometimes a blast.

the same way i feel about myself.

But I guess in my scratching at the veneer of my potential that my third grade teachers harped upon, I'm getting somewhere.

a conversation with a landscapist on the b60

2006-05-05T10:33:00.000-04:00

she told me.
first she was telling the girl two seats away from her "wata stains, it's impossible with white or baje." pointing to her beige suit. she started talking to the boys that just sat down. "Boys and Girls club, yeah i know the boys and girls club. that's wonderful. " She found out one of the boys didn't go to school "- you don't go to school? that bad."

They were ready for her to criticize but she was practical. she began happily: "get your ged. it's easy!" They all listened.

it's easy. go to any city college, you can go to school at night-it's free--just get your parents to sign--so-sign it! all you gotta know is a circle is 360 degrees, divide that in half, 180 degrees, divide that in half, you gotta know parelllello lines--basically they take everything you learn throughout the year and put it into one test.

she turned to me.

I got my GED at city college, then I went to Monroe College! I got my degree in Accounting and Landscaping, and look at me--(points at self)I'm doing ok!

She shoved a pack of photos across the aisle to my scarred hands.

They be starting to charge now--they making it harder and harder every year. they need all that documentating, start making it hard.

the boys lost interest. "You do landscaping for a living?" I asked. The pictures showed her looking happy holding a shovel.

Yeah I do horticulture! I do that for a living! I be happy. It's not a bad job. I see people workin' in the parks--you see them? i be feelin' sad for them. It make me angry. Glad I don't have to be working in the park.

I gave the pictures back to her. I felt like I was intruding; happy photos with her and a handsome bloke. She looked much younger in the photos. I was late to work but i neglected to worry about it; i enjoyed her smile. She spat excitedly as she spoke.

The boys, bored now, began fighting. They slammed each other against the bus walls. The one being slammed had large eyes that were half closed. Mocking. The other one was taller and wiry with bright eyes. "Oh, Oh, Oh!" that boys around them yelled, goading them into a frenzy. "You lost your earring! Getch yur earring!" the lady yelled, pointing at the floor. That broke it up. "You be big--and weak." the skinny one said, sliding down in his seat. Everyone laughed. He repeated it for good measure, taking out his earrings.

It was nice talking to you i said as I left the bus. I walked down the street down the promenade of usual "hey momma, how you doin'?" and I smiled as usual 'cus i'm polite when i can afford to be.

the nation loves meh

2006-05-03T18:07:00.000-04:00

or not. Evan suggested that I approach the Nation for a Silent Auction item. So I did. So they donated a year's subscription. Hella yes.

I did ok today.

did you know there's a french huguenot church on 60th and park?

2006-05-03T17:06:00.000-04:00

I didn't, until two sundays ago when I went to meet the 'rents after church with Ian in towe. I told Ian to make sure he acted gay so the 'rents didn't think any funny stuff was goin' down between us. Luckily we determined that they prolly thought he was Cole since they don't notice anything--they waved us in and we stood in line watching them saucing it up with the Frenchies. My father was describing how, in the countries he recently visited, there was a black market for organs and they'd steal the organs as you slept. "Oh my god. That's awful. Simply awful" the French giggled.

So this church: With little proper teacups and saucers. A bloke pointed out the bowl of creamer: "This is creamer" and the bowl of sugar "And this is sugar". "Thank you. Thank you very much". Batty wonderful looking people with large hats. A full-on French lunch with pickles, cheese, homemade croissants, pate, jellybeans, and wine. This red nosed bloke goes around and gently pushes us to take wine. We had to refuse. We simply had to. Ian eyed it jealously though. We spent some time plotting how to get more pate after we went through the line once. I stole some devilled eggs. We spent some time getting chatted up by a properly french bloke in a pink shirt with whom Ian flexed his french conversational skills, talking about acting, theatre, philosophy--"Is aristotle really great?" He asked. I said "he's overrated. Although I've never read him." Even in their red pinched lips and hats and knee length skirts and blown up hair, they looked ironic. "From another world. We need to be in this world" Ian said.

I have asked him to email me a description of the event. since I cannot be trusted.

It's time to get religious y'all.

how many times can i listen to cole's mix cd?

2006-05-03T16:58:00.000-04:00

3x a day all the way through.

I need new music.

Tom i'm really getting into that new yeah yeah yeah's album. I heard one of their songs on at Relish and experienced that delightful feeling of recognizing a song when you're out in inhospitable lands.

I went to the men's bathroom, incidentally, while at Relish. A bloke came in to pee in the urinal and I stayed in the stall until he left. Isn't that awkward?

the french

2006-05-03T15:05:00.000-04:00

Parametres: i think i'm being told something: everything is french today on blogspot. Many signs say I should move to Paris. I told Evan yesterday (I talk like I always hang out with him but followers of this blog will know that I drag out descriptions of experiences over several blogposts) that one should do the opposite of gut instinct. He guffawed as we turned around the corner of that posh furniture store on the way back from Relish to my bike. "What would happen if you listened to your gut instinct?" He asked. We picked up my bike which he noted said "Kia" on it, immediately alienating me since I know nothing about cars or bikes; not knowing how to drive is retarded. Then we went to the pet store which was closed. I said "bye" awkwardly and rode off on my speedy yellow Kia (which I just bought from whom i now call "my bike guy" Peter)

Matching Pods: Mary said yesterday at Enid's that everyone matched each other perfectly in our group. And i was like great, who matches me, the fugly one? We joked around about various things which felt idyllically genius but I really can't remember. Me and Ian walked home and I can't remember what we talked about but it was funny.

When I wake up at 3:30pm in the afternoon, everything previous is an irritated blur. I really have to get my act together. We had a meeting about the Spring Fling and I can't say I feel motivated to do anything. I work well under fear and pressure. This whole autonomy thing is wierd and disgusting.

I'm seeing my psych tomorrow. I'm hoping she'll reinstate ritalin.

A conversation with Matt: I had a convo with this bloke Matt (who had a barbaque on his LES roof on Sunday where I got irreparably st... and ate veggie burgers, chips and hummus and beer despite my being completely fucked from the night before) at Enids. His eyes don't make contact - always looking off nonchalantly despite the black suit he always wears. I accused him of saying nothing. "When?" he asked. Mary said "Never" and I said "at the Orchard bar". "I must've been drunk" he said.

He was surprisingly articulate about his judgement of Harold & Kumar who I said was all about white-boy humor and he said "even though it was written by two Asian guys" which shut me up and then Sir Dave came along with his P.A. on a trolley-type thing and said "I'm black and i love that movie, it's fucking funny" and that almost shut me up but then i said "what're you racist?" or something stupid. Sir Dave came on a bus. It was true, the things we heard.

A little smarter than yesterday but my life is still kind of the same, maybe a little worse: but the personal-interest readings are good today:Blurby bloggedy things, super-skinny for my dose of uncertain, nervous apathy. but not so on target as yesterday where I was mad cataloguing the daily news.

I didn't sleep much. Feverish dreams including girls with braces strung tight so they couldn't suck dick--?--more teeth dreams! I also dreamt that me Mary Ian and Matt were playing a game and Matt from far off said: "She looks blown up like a balloon". And i made some sarcastic remark about his gut.

Before the dreams, everything else: Enids (the same bartender as was there four years ago when I first moved to Brooklyn! And puked Carbombs in the bathroom for 45 minutes...) Then home, helplessly lounging around with my roomies whom i love more all the time. We talked aesthetics. Somehow Geoff can talk about things to make them seem quirky, innocuous and funny - even aesthetics. Totally the English accent and the floppy blond hair. And perhaps innocence. I hugged Karl as he came in the room because he's going to change the water for my cat every day. He's so fucking tall. "Turn water into wine" Geoff said.

This is a pointless post. Admittedly. No news to be had here.

the encouraging voice

2006-05-03T11:56:00.000-04:00

what a bloke wrote me this morn:

If enough people link or read my blog, perhaps someday I will live in New York and wear clothes.

You certainly sound like you have an exciting life full of tasty treats. I enjoyed reading about it.

Acquaintance courtesy of Karl Schafer who has moved his blog and I can't google it. He could only handle having a blog for 3 days. Wuss.

What we talked about last night over the newly cleaned living room table: circumsicion, white christian guys, the general ease of having a circumsized, vs uncircumsized (sp is desperate)dick, london dicks. all in front of our new roomie, the innocent gangly jewish bloke who walked into the house just as we were analyzing my jewish fetish. Apparently, according to Evan, whom I had drinks with first at planet thai-who makes a generous makers on the rocks-and then an impromptu dinner at relish-which had excellent wine but the dinner was so-so- said that i was cleverly inverting the normal stereotype of the jewish guy and the asian female. I had no idea. My roomates didn't either. I described the asian fetish and Karl said he didn't know that the orientals had so much to offer.

why you gotta be political?

2006-05-03T11:05:00.000-04:00

could it be because i enjoy "championing the underdog?" as song once charmingly described me as habitually doing because i thought whole foods was homoegenously white?

could it be because i need to have a rocket in my pocket and keep it cool, boy?

(there's a fucking roach on my desk)

could it be because i need an emblem to commodify my myriad, vague, gray views?

maybe i'm just pissed 'cus of the arsehole dicks i've had to deal with in western civilization?

maybe i'm impotent?

maybe i need interesting stories to fill my backwashed head? the whole darfur thing has turned out to be a very interesting story.

maybe i'm intellectualizing the necessarily sensitive emotional sense of global politics and really what i need to do is whore myself, get down to business? (a skewed logic)

these are all valid reasons. they are also obviously flawed impetii (that's not a word, i don't think). however, i've begun to consider being political a negation of nihilism--it's an activity. it requires force and will. which i think is a step up from being drifter girl in university with only knee jerk forces to move me aka drugs, sex, running down escalators with open-toed high heels in my hand. right?

who am i trying to convince anyway?

i have so much work to do. i have two grants due and i still haven't stuffed the 20+ envelopes i need to stuff for the spring fling. i have much to describe, i need to eat, drink 2 more cups of coffee, reorder my bank card which i've lost at the baggotts inn, and apologize to a few people. i also need to acquire a lot of amphetamines to get me through the hell that is the string of parties this weekend. just kidding. i can't afford amphetamines plus i think i would die. sparks it is.

the colbert thing

2006-05-03T11:03:00.000-04:00

nice, almost overly analytical article on Salon:

Obviously, Colbert is not the first ironic warrior to train his sights on the powerful. What the insurgent culture jammers at Adbusters did for Madison Avenue, and the Barbie Liberation Organization did for children's toys, and Seinfeld did for the sitcom, and the Onion did for the small-town newspaper, Jon Stewart discovered he could do for television news. Now Colbert, Stewart's spawn, has taken on the right-wing message machine.

In the late 1960s, the Situationists in France called such ironic mockery "détournement," a word that roughly translates to "abduction" or "embezzlement." It was considered a revolutionary act, helping to channel the frustration of the Paris student riots of 1968. They co-opted and altered famous paintings, newspapers, books and documentary films, seeking subversive ideas in the found objects of popular culture. "Plagiarism is necessary," wrote Guy Debord, the famed Situationist, referring to his strategy of mockery and semiotic inversion. "Progress demands it. Staying close to an author's phrasing, plagiarism exploits his expressions, erases false ideas, replaces them with correct ideas."

Irony is dangerous and must be handled with care.

the food diary

2006-05-02T16:56:00.000-04:00

this is a stupid photo choice, admittedly.

Garbage bags toted across the world: Anyway reading about VB's food diary, made me remember regretfully the years I spent in England keeping garbage bags full of the wrappers of everything I consumed. "For the eventual art project that would change the world" I think Tom said. I labelled everything with the dates and how i felt. Then put them in smaller plastic bags to divide by week or day depending on how lazy i was. Those labels got expensive; i was living on 24pounds a week. I ate mostly Snickers bars, Weetabix, and cheese/spaghetti on toast. Cheese on toast with pickles when I was feeling luxurious. In the earlier days in Cambridge I was able to get chip butty's or chips and mayo, but in london I was so poor I had to steal most of my food. Oh, those were the days. Stark, rampant practicality; the cereal aisles were only half an aisle long, and there were no colors to be seen. Weetabix was in everyone's kitchen cabinets. No fruit flavored cereal at all.

Death by Apple : When I came back to the States the candy convenience store in the airport bewildered me. I felt sick. When I moved in with my XXXX in Maryland who used to be in a band called "Death by Apple", I bought Fruity Pebbles with frightening regularity with my newfound 7.25$ an hour wage. Oh the delights of retail! I worked full-time and was a whore to white male band dudes from University of Maryland. Not really a whore, persay. Then I got sick of Fruity Pebbles. I moved on to Sara Lee Brownies, 5 for 99cents. That's another fascinating story.

I need to go now. i'm leaving work. I actually did work in the last 3.5 hours. Yay! I feel good! Workplans!

shane on the street

2006-05-02T14:20:00.000-04:00

Nice quote from AfterEllen found when stalking Katherinne Moennig on the internet:

Female masculinity is frightening to most people because it does displace men from the center of the conversation, where we are all accustomed to having them.

So i was walking down the street with Song on the way to karoake on Friday, fairly out of it, when she grabbed me: "You won't believe who just passed us. Shane." I twirled around. Those shoulders. That walk. That hair. The sneakers. Shane with a hat and a long black coat and a yappy dog. Walking very fast. I followed. Watched her go off into the distance. Energized, I turned back around and hi-kicked Song. "My vag is reawakening" I said. "Parting like Moses parted the waters".

Disgusting, but true.

the things i do at work

2006-05-02T13:51:00.001-04:00

In two days the amount of nothing I am doing is gargantuan:

Printed out a booklet on Darfur

Stalked the people who were stalking me on friendster

planned out my workout schedule and promptly didn't follow it

bought levi's nouveau skinny jeans and white earl jeans off ebay

bought a 1 GB SD card for my camera

read many reviews on drugstore.com on natural sunscreens for my mother for mother's day 'cus i figure sun protection is a great gift to get someone. According to reviews the best sunscreen is full-spectrum, has melanin and squalene. Dubious but I blew 16$ on it (not real money) I also ordered spray-on body sunscreen for myself, for those beach days i hate.

read many reviews on eyelash curlers. I settled on a heated curler by Ardell.

read many reviews on energy drinks. I bought a super-energizing coffee that was on sale. It has guarana and vitamins.

The list of books I bought on Amazon:

1 of: The 48 Laws of Power (because of my XXX)
1 of: Reading The L Word : Outing Contemporary Television 1 of: Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste : A Lester Bangs Reader
1 of: Women's inhumanity towards Women

And more! Even more!

burned a copy of Cole's mix cd, Happy Gift.

read 5 Times Select articles

called the U.S. immigration services to find out how to replace my greencard. The man was very fucking rude.

compared discount dental plans: i'm probably going with Cigna but I have to figure out if my dentist is on it. He's often late getting back to me. I don't know why I have a loyalty to him--i just can't forget how he called me the morning after my first root canal to find out how i was doing. otherwise he's more expensive than other dentists and i'm not sure if he actually is better.

All of this is so crushingly boring when I list it.

So then my credit card got rejected. So crushingly boring. But my boss is on maternity leave as of yesterday and I'm floating in a sea of inefficacy. It feels worse than it should. I must..I must...update our website. Need IP addresses. Need to read at least one op-ed Times Select article--100 articles a month is a lot!

So I guess i'm doing work now. Oh wait, before I forget to relay this: I went to Spuyten Devil last night. Pretty much got stood up but unintentionally. I was somehow not crushed by it--normally i would've but maybe I really have made progress aaccording to my therapist. Reading this Current Psychotherapy book, I'm fascinated how they describe disparate strands of personality history converge to form a theory, a thing to analyze. Even though I can't see it, my therapist sees changes in my character and mode of being, because of the suggestions, and open reflectivity between us; it's kind of beautiful.

Tonight hould be more successful: will meet said stander-upper at Planet Thai for dinner, and then go to Enids with Mary and Sir Dave to get some music in. That sounds pretty nice. Maybe i'll try to fit in a workout sometime in there.

observation without evaluation is a drag

2006-05-01T13:30:00.000-04:00

one wants to retain the expressivity of being a cavilling, emptily-opinionated, heinous bitch but also achieve the zen-ness of observing people, bodies, thoughts, and actions with the detached cataloguing of the passage of time. It's a hard line to ride.

trans-fat

2006-05-01T13:09:00.000-04:00

it takes nerve to be fat. it takes some nerve to insult oneself. to have low self esteem and to deal with it. to have people giving you helpful advice as if you asked for it. to have your parents scan your body as if it were their own. to have people tell you what you need to do to change as if their words were universal appeal. to constantly compare yourself with other people as if it had relevance for you.

I don't want to pull a "Fat is a feminist issue", and I'm certainly not going to wield fat as a weapon of pseudo-strength--but hell, it takes time to get over the skinny jeans.

i was a size 0 2 months ago. I'm now a size 6. it's going to be a nuerotic ride. "we all have body issues," this skinny bloke Fred told me. Even skinny people. Even beautiful skinny people.

There's other wierd connotations to skinniness that have nothing to do with the typical American ideal; it is also attached to the hipster ideal of deadness, dryness, waif-ness, a non-needing jaded charm dangling on a thin tenuous link to life...i suppose all the life concentrated in a dead-on manifest of sexuality--since that is what all striving in civilization seeks--an excellent sexual act.

the skinny

2006-05-01T13:06:00.000-04:00

jeans thing.

the greatest revenge is to be anorexic.

pure death

2006-05-01T11:46:00.000-04:00

from medienkunstnetz.
this morning is a feeling of complete drop-out. i want to up and leave. eat some popcorn, watch bad girls the british tv show. i am simply not in the mood.

Fittingly, insofar I feel non-functional, I've achieved a few learned bits that catalogue states of certain deaths, one real, and the other psychic: historical overviews on Sudan, some feminist rigamarole on Vanessa Beecroft.

wierd thing 1. I find it wierd that Cole's brother was in the Sudan. He apparently made a bunch of friends there. He sounds like somebody i'd want to be friends with.

wierd thing 2. I find it wierd that I'm going to be in a Vanessa Beecroft installation. When I read about her in high school, I identified with it immediately although not well-versed in the ramifications of her work, but rather struck by the images as expressing something indefinable and real. Maybe art should have that effect. Especially work that is ostensibly "feminist art" which calls up erected boundaries. Now I understand the feeling I identified with as the relishing of watching women almost indiscernibly withstand the observers gaze over a crucially long period of time, and the fascination of manifesting oneself as object and observer through the catharsis of performance. Its feels like a coming around of the work as performance vehicle, that it should engage me as audience, into the performance as part of a wierd dialectic and interactive social commentary.

I hope she doesn't wrinkle her nose when she sees me. that would feel bad.

Here's a good bit by Tate Modernon VB:

Part director, part sculptress, she stages rigorous performances. Her VB39 and VB42 Intrepid: The Silent Service (both 2000) featured the American Navy SEALs, the most highly trained section of the US military. VB39 was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, where the SEALs occupied the main gallery, standing at attention for some two hours. For the second performance, VB42, the art audience was escorted at night on to the SS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier floating in New York’s harbour. Beecroft arranged the SEALs (30 sailors from the Undersea Warfare Community) on the flight deck, while the visitors milled around them. Uniformly dressed in blue and set in neat, even rows, they were like chess pieces of a single colour.
While in the first instance Beecroft was essentially just updating Duchamp’s operation from 83 years earlier by introducing the most inappropriate thing the artist can think of (in his case a urinal) into an art space, in VB42 she effectively took Duchamp one step further. Forcing an art crowd out of its cosy gallery environment on to a functioning navy ship is as if Duchamp had dragged the fusty art crowd of 1917 into the men’s toilets, to stand around and watch them in action – something that he never managed, or dared, to do.
VB42 has a perfect one-point perspective, and looking at the photographs of the event we occupy the central vantage point, like a conductor facing a marching band. Beecroft turns us, not the artist, into the defining observers. She, like Schorr, makes herself an invisible observer, but she is Big Brother rather than fluid, omnipresent ghost: the all-seeing, and never seen, observer. Although the SEALs period in Beecroft’s career is in some ways her least successful, it is her most revealing. Art historian Norman Bryson has likened her role here as that of a supreme commander. Certainly she was at ease with the navy (at one point she even considered joining) and managed to impose her will upon its men.
The picture of the United States as a tolerant shelter, welcoming a multiplicity of cultures, sexualities, lifestyles and religions, is at odds with an increasingly negative political view of the nation as an isolated, intolerant, cultural monolith. In this sense Nikki S Lee probably does the country a favour, portraying it as a diverse and accommodating collection of peacefully coexisting microcosms. And Catherine Opie has shown another version of the American dream: East, Middle and West (2000) depicted many distinctly American architectural phenomena: the LA freeway, shopping malls, Midwestern ice houses. Opie’s first London exhibition was aptly called ‘Altered States of America’, a sign of how she was keen to reveal to Americans their own diversity. “America is not straight, even though America would like to think of itself as straight,” she has said.
Beecroft, meanwhile, projects a sense of Americanness in her work. She said that her SEALs project could have taken place only in the US; presumably no other military authority in the world would entertain the notion of an artist – a woman, no less – borrowing the country’s most prepared armed forces for an evening. She sees the men as “Hollywood characters” and likens the performers’ discipline to Jackson Pollock or Donald Judd, two quintessentially American figures. And Collier Schorr’s subjects too are unmistakably American. Critic Helen Molesworth has pointed out their “casual ease and sense of entitlement that are markers of American boyhood”. Schorr herself has written on the allure of the young American alpha male, describing the US soldiers based in Germany as “dreamy guys… noticeable by their Cameros and Firebirds, their crew cuts and their dark skins”.

st.mark's street high

2006-04-30T10:38:00.000-04:00

and high school was hell. i think i can't identify with anyone who still has friends from high school. how could one have adapted to society that early? like this bloke michael said, at 27 he got more confident; like henry rollins said, in his late 20's he started to like himself.

in self-loathing, one cannot be truly oneself. therefore high school, is a shadow of reality.

maybe i should've not moved around so much.

Friday night: walked down st marks this weekend in a crappy search for a karaoke bar to replace the boarded up village karaoke in our quest to ironically overturn irony. to no avail. me and song sat on opposite sides of the stoop of sing sing. blokes in flannel shirts and shoulder-length hair loudly occupied the sidewalks. needless to say, i hated everything. this asian dude bounced down next to song. song who looked tragically hiply tragic with kohl-rimmed eyes, chin in hand. he started wooing her; his fat friend sat behind rooting him on, unwilling to come near me who had knives for eyes. somehow song, even in her sadness, can look innocuous. the dude said, one step above Song, "Is it better on that step?" I suppose being a radical. Later as they kept talking in my earshot, debating on what he should've done to get Song, I asked "Can you stop talking?" Sir Dave and Cassidy rolled up.

Then, Grassroots Tavern: I almost passed out. ian has the remarkable ability to talk despite the odds. the odds being my snarling and song being bored out of her mind and mary awkwardly relieved from the non-happening of karoake. "real dave" rolled up drunk as shit and asked me if I had any adderall. I looked at him quizzically. "I mean, on you". he clarified. "No" I said. I sipped Ian's cranberry vodka with the vague hope to obliterate the current situation of aimless rebounding.

Back to high school: So it's not just me:

In every high school there are students who are culturally and intellectually superior but socially aggrieved. These high school culturati have wit and sophisticated musical tastes but find that all prestige goes to jocks, cheerleaders and preps who possess the emotional depth of a cocker spaniel. The nerds continue to believe that the self-reflective life is the only life worth living (despite all evidence to the contrary) while the cool, good-looking, vapid people look down upon them with easy disdain on those rare occasions they are compelled to acknowledge their existence.

These sarcastic cultural types may grow up to be rich movie producers, but they will remember their adolescent opposites and become liberals.
They may grow up to be rich lawyers but will decorate their homes with interesting fabrics from the oppressed Peruvian peasantry to differentiate themselves from their jock opposites.
In adulthood, the former high school nerds will savor the sort of scandals that befall their formerly athletic and currently corporate adolescent enemies — the Duke lacrosse scandal, the Enron scandal, the various problems that have plagued the frat boy Bush. In the lifelong struggle for moral superiority, problems that bedevil your adolescent opposites send pleasure-inducing dopamine surging through your brain.

Similarly, in every high school there are jocks, cheerleaders and regular kids who vaguely sense that their natural enemies are the brooding poets who go off to become English majors. These prom kings and queens may leave their adolescent godhood and go off to work as underpaid sales reps despite their coldly gracious spouses and effortlessly slender kids, but they will still remember their adolescent opposites and become conservatives. They will experience surges of orgiastic triumphalism when Sean Hannity eviscerates the scuffed-shoed intellectuals who have as much personal courage as a French chipmunk in retreat.

Because these personal traits are so pervasive and constant, Republican administrations tend to be staffed by people who are well-balanced but dull, while Democratic administrations tend to be staffed by people who are interesting but neurotic. Because these rivalries are so permanent, nobody has ever voted for a presidential candidate they wouldn't have had lunch with in high school.

The only real shift between school and adult politics is that the jocks realize they need conservative intellectuals, who are geeks who have decided their fellow intellectuals should never be allowed to run anything and have learned to speak slowly so the jocks will understand them. Meanwhile, the geeks have learned they need to find popular kids like F.D.R. to head their tickets because the American people will never send a former geek to the White House. (Bill Clinton was unique in that he was a member of every clique at once.)

The central message, though, is that we never escape our high school selves...

and nothing makes me sadder

2006-04-28T13:08:00.000-04:00

than Mozart's Piano Concerto #21.
What the hell was he thinking? I imagine large rolling tears. A rolling pin. A rolling sock.

now i'm just avoiding work. I have to look up ADCO foundation and rewrite my Community Organizing proposal by the end of today. I don't have to tell you htat I have no idea what I'm doing.

the spelling of wack

2006-04-28T12:47:00.001-04:00

is not "whack" according to the urban dictionary. I am ashamed to say that I didn't know that.

What I do know is that the skinny bar last night was asianned out: involved a grinning fat white dj with a samurai headband on, paper-mache geisha dolls, videos of madonna in tokyo and a bunch of big haired japanese on the top floor. There was even a dude doing pretend karate chops (ironically enough, Gabe, the bloke we were with, had gotten kicked in the eye during his taekwondo lesson as was sporting a glistening eye-wound next to us) Fucking wack. What's even more wack is that this didn't bother anyone.

Do you need a cultural studies degree in order to even be remotely bothered by this? It's not like PC-ness is only in the realm of the studious elite. I used to find PC-ness annoying - once being a recipient of brandished Bard student's teeth - now i think it's necessary, even underrated. Much like straight-leg jeans. People have strict indices for their aesthetic and moral judgments - why not PC-ness? It is informed by different sets of beliefs, sure, but I don't think that makes it less superior. We do want to stay away from the oppressiveness of jumping to conclusions, to calling people racist or sexist without giving them a chance to elaborate or defend - such is the joy of debate - while at the same time highlighting things that seem to be the result of a casual way of thinking that offends you, personally - much like this pulled-out-of -the-arse unnecessarily dimwitte approximation of eastern culture- i don't think it could be harmful for wanting to and actually erecting modes of dialogue to express something that doesn't fulfill your need for articulation - namely me grimacing at the origami "swan" -we only run into harm when we try to define somebody or something wholly by our labelling them as one thing or another.

Anyway what's up with these hi-falutin' "we's?"

the backlash against PC seems to be motivated by a need to be transcend definition - par example (i'm going downhill)on the JMZ there were these fake-hipster blokes regaled in white-trash wear calling people mongoloids. "What is Social Studies?" they asked, wielding that popular inversion of smartness, this anti-specific school of nihilism. they waved their hands emphatically with one hip cocked, their jackets a little too small, their hair newly done and skin unmarked by blemish or scratch. "Like, history, cultural studies stuff like that. It's a bunch of stuff thrown together that doesn't really make sense. I'm like, so bad at grammar. I like, failed English".

i wear my acne like a proud working-class scar.

but i'm not a hero. luckily. maybe i'm a mongoloid. Two days ago i was saying i was bad at grammar. Maybe i'm just mad at being caught out.

i'm sick of sarcasm. and of backlashes. all backlashes are an attempt to be "post"--which is stupid because nobody can truly be "post"--one is necessarily caught in the flux of meaning, which means, that one can't run away from it.

notes from the underground

2006-04-28T11:52:00.000-04:00

This weekend is going to be so good, I can't even believe it.

Song just called me: "Can I read you my horoscope really quick?" Something about a project she should forego. A project meaning a man.

I told her: "I liked you yesterday, you were vulnerable". That was a hint. She didn't seem to mind.

It is 12pm. I've done nothing.

I was so nuerotic and negative during the workday yesterday I wanted to cry. I had too much energy and wierd up-in-the-air doubts that were eventually dispelled by mailing out all those invitations. Cole is still alive and well which makes me in-alive and not well. He's about to get a haircut from Song. Song said "don't be mad" but i don't know why I would be mad. I was just frantic. I am happy he is getting a haircut but I am unhappy because Lydia introduced this thought to me: he is trying to establish a platonic relationship by palling around.

But today I am not frantic. I am very good. I have already laughed a whole bunch and anticipate I will laugh even more. How can things not be good when I've made the whole office laugh when my recounting the dinner last night? How can things not be good with a vintage yellow Schwinn? (I am getting a bike) How can things not be good with a huge jug of vanilla soymilk (posh!)in the company fridge to replace the half and half i usually drink thereby representing a jug by jug shift into healthiness and poshness? How can things not be good when your friend calls you at work to tell you "I didn't sleep enough, I feel sick" or "I'll give you the weather report later?" How can things not be good.

Things are not good. Well there's the whole state of global affairs which is a bum-out.

A healthy exercise in awkwardness: Her friend Gabe won the L magazine upstart fiction contest. I texted Song while I pretended to listen to the contestants before Gabe. Song was at school: "Freaking out. Many people". I kept slipping in and out my phone into the handmade pockets of the short green skirt I was wearing, with the armadillo polo shirt I got from Missouri which of course made me sad. Song immediately called me, told me to sit tight, told me not to be annoying when i said that everyone hated me.

The whole situation was rowdy in the sense that the space was cramped and i was giddily attempting to be Song's sugar daddy and was still convinced, after my phone conversations with her that afternoon, that people mostly harbored a distaste for me but little things like being casual, smoking and commenting on Jamie's relationship in the context of his 800.00 jeans went over well.

Then did that touristy thing of trying to satisfy everyone's needs by trawling through possible bars around the entire east village and LES. After awhile my feet hurt. Me and Song commented on Andrew's improved hair about 5 times. Suspicious. Andrew had introduced me twice as the "girl who writes the jane blog" when in fact my state as a jane blogger is dubious and less such than the girl they know who blogs for them, Lindsay Robertson--on a high status too as "Guest Blogger". All in a day's failure. I took sips of his Maker's.

After skipping many recommendations such as "The Library" and "Mars Bar" we settled on "the skinny". Of course on the way we had to establish teams like the A-team and the B team, i suppose something that had to do with the speed in which we could cross the street.

At the dim-witted dim bar, I told Song "I realized I really like something about you". She bent over near the huge origami bird on the table at the Skinny. her lips were smiling and red. "You have a good nature. I don't mean you're a good person, but you have a good nature".

When his friend showed me his watch, which said "Fucking Time" on it with two people in the throes of cartoon fucking, I admitted I didn't like it. Gabe gave me the finger. I was not used to such things. He wore a denim jacket and looked angry. Angsty. His friend said "It's ironic!" and i said "Irony is so over". Which wasn't clever at all, but rather, sincere.

I'm getting a bike this weekend.

Waking up: Another thing that rounded out this morning nicely was waking up and being able to tell Karl, who is actually interested, about the sequence of events of the night before. I think we are codependently obsessive about the details of my life. I'd be obsessive about his life except he reveals nothing.

In the background a sleepy french girl was waking up without her glasses on.

Appreciation Dinner

2006-04-28T11:47:00.001-04:00

This morning's breakfast is PBJ and soy milk with instant coffee:
my pregnant boss brightly said to me this morning: "How was your dinner last night?!" I look up bewildered. "Dinner..." She laughs, chucking her head back. She is tan. "Dinner!" "Oh, yeah---the dinner..." "What did they serve?!" She's really interested. I'm smitten by this bright cheery blond polite string of utterances.

The dinner:
They tell me to get up. In front of a large auditorium full of people chomping on pork.

What do you do S--?

I work in communications and development. I...develop...communications...materials...for Groundwork. I work...in the...development...department...helping Sadie...with fundraising?

I was given a bracelet that said "Inspire by example" and a horrendous t-shirt.

The potato salad was really good and I learned, from the Parent Organizers, how to properly cook shoulder of pork. "You gotta get the ones with the thin skin. Plenty of meat on 'em" "MM-hm". I really did not know, that pigs had shoulders. The Assistant CEO watched me as I went behind the counter, took about 10 packets of ketchup, and proceeded one by one to drench the pork in it. I'm that classy. I'm that HQ.

what mr tom wrote

2006-04-28T11:47:00.000-04:00

MrTom said...

- It was Millie's Cookies.

- Alex's description of your compulsive documenting: I don't think it's "almost" neurotic. I can remember visiting you in the relationship you ran away to and being taken through a carrier bag that contained every single item one could possibly have kept to document the stages of your getting together with him. Or: in response to some random bus-top re-telling of a miscellaneous misery of mine, "I don't care what bad experiences I go through, because I know it'd would mean I'd have more material to make art about".

I think the right way to capture the undeniably positive side of your ongoing art-making isn't that it's not all the way to neurotic - it's something more complicated than that; something to do with the effectiveness of the filters you put it through afterwards, perhaps something to do with burgeoning artistry or wisdom, something I can't figure out how to express quite right just now.

while i was on the phone with song

2006-04-27T18:56:00.000-04:00

she bought me a necklace. I heard her negotiating with the man: "You give it to me for a dollar? For the whole thing or just that? A dollar for the whole thing?"

She said to me, in an aside "I can talk to anybody"

I asked "How do you function when you're nervous?"

and she said "I talk about things that I know about".

What do I know about?

I'm unsure.

I am meeting Evan from alternet on Monday.

What the hell am I going to talk about?

Perhaps I should set myself a goal of talking only about one thing: cheese sandwiches. Just pick a subject,a nd go with it. Tom says I'm really good at analyzing one thing in depth. He's good at seeing the broad picture, interconnections, webs. I'm really shit at that. Like with the fundraising thing--I can't juggle different administrative tasks so well but i'm super-dedicated in creating a dynamic-text .pdf for extra ease in emailing response cards back for the Spring Fling fundraiser. Takes me all day and I learn all about data. Stories I can tell my grandchildren.

I had really good brandy yesterday. It was fucking good.

crying and laughing about it all again

2006-04-26T12:16:00.000-04:00

Teenage kixck: When I looked at this picture while listening to "Chelsea Hotel" while reading Mary's postit seemed to come together in a beautiful frusion.

I'm on a leonard cohen cic. Also on a mispelling kick. Tom says I'm a bad speller. Which is true. I've never been a bad speller before. I was like 2nd place in the school spelling bee. I think it started because my mind is going faster than my fingers, also bits of memory are falling out of my head like over-bleached hair--which will happen when Song fucks my hair up royally (meaning fabulously) next week when I get my hair cut and died for the LadyFestEast feminist fashion show at AIR in which Vanessa Beecroft makes love to my size 6 body---with her mind (another leonard cohen reference)

Stuffing stuff: I've spent all day getting out the fundraiser invites to the host committee--about 200 of them, labelling, stuffing, licking over and over on a wooden table alone in a dark conference room except for an hour with the head of HR. my face and neck hurts. i tried listening to music but of course had to call song because i was all paranoid that she hadn't texted me back yesterday. So we bitched for about an hour about whether there were gradations of HQ and I accused her of creating in me a representation of the "id" which she should not do 'cus she should own her id. "What else can we talk about" she asked. "I don't know." I responded. This had no effect on whether we kept talking or not, because of course we did, occasionally interspersed with when a customer came into the salon and she had to deal with them. Of course I held on the phone. Stamping, labelling, licking.

Reading habits: Lydia gave me a book on "Current Psychotherapies". It's a very enjoyable read. So that's my train reading now--I've transferred my current train reading, that Alex Kotlowitz book, to my nighttime reading which is kinda bad 'cus it's so gripping that I don't get enough sleep.

Dreams are poop: I dreamt my temporary filling fell out. simply shocking. more so than when it happened in real life while i was on the bus with khadijah in boston.

I also dreamt that Cole died. There was a funeral and everything. I felt a disbelieving grief.

I also dreamt that my boss gave birth a week earlier than she was meant to.

Unexpected Plans: I am going to a poetry reading tonight. It's going to be populated, I imagine, with tight-jeaned fugidiots. Ha ha that's my new word for fugly (It don't make no sense). It's gonna be involving the L magazine, devolving in the Baggots inn and dissolving in one very sarcy dude. Not looking forward to it. With my ultra trying too-hard-outfit and head, you know I'm gonna fail at this whole "not being wierd" thing that somebody wants me to do to be acceptable to the HQ set. I'll report back later as to my relative success, failure, or unpalatable anonymity.

Tomorrow night however, will be a bit better--karoake with the ones i love--the real VIP, the real riff raff, possibly the real HQ--screaming, drunk, cavilling, cavorting--to celebrate Mary's new job with NARAL.

No witty jokes in hand. None at all. Only awkwardness. I didn't plan for tonight. I was already nervous about the VISTA appreciation dinner our company is putting on for us. They're preparing my performance report and apparently i look fab on paper. and more! so far we've got in several hundred dollars in tickets to our spring fling in the past two days. I'm high on coca-cola. coca-cola bad.

Promises, promises: I promised Song that for this evening, I wouldn't talk about how much I needed to fart in public or how I wanted to kill myself. I have to reserve myself, stitch myself into the propriety I manage to maintain all day at work. However, I have my blog to spillover into. In "public" like in the "real world" as my therapist calls it, I will have to learn to exercise the same feeling of safety and openness that I do in the "therapy world" in which I am a raggedy - ann of damnation and viability. At the same time. Whatever that means. I'm high on coca cola, remember?

impeaching bush is no longer a liberal white boy's porn

2006-04-26T10:39:00.000-04:00

if impeaching happens during my lifetime, i will be pretty happy. i always wanted to live through the nixon era. either that or the apocalypse. either one would be cool.

oh barack...

2006-04-26T10:19:00.000-04:00

watch the hand.

Karl Me and Geoff watch Charlie Rose. I was gonna take a shower but Kristof was on the telly. Looked surprisingly young and smiley.
I said 'he's hot' and Karl says 'he's Kenyan'. 'What are you racist?' I teased. Barack Obama was on the telly. What a superstar. We made fun of his hand movements. which varied whether he was saying "encourage" or "interchange" or "diplomatic." Typically open-handed movements with some clasping of fingers, occasionally swinging to express an enthusiasn. "It's bordering on sign language" Karl joked. He and I were on some sort of roll, punching each other and him making screwed up faces to represent a pretend innuendos. The next dude that came along was really old with
bowtie. Karl noticed there was no movement beyond the square area
around his lips. The opposite of Barack. Geoff covered up his lips. I
nervously, apopleptically laughed, thinking I'd have to write this
down later.

When I lived London I lived in a very very cold council house.
I'd have a
beaten up blue notebook right by my bedside. How I'd dread the moment
that inspiration would come to me because I'd have to furiously write
a bunch of shit down and drag out for hours in that tiny blue notbook.
I'd have to write illegibly just in case it was found. I was always so
sleepy and nervous about going to sleep. Have to get ready for bed and
not annoy the sleeping man. Getting ready to balm myself with body
lotion and sleeping next to somebody whom I was uncertain whether I
loved or who loved me, in the wake of having run away from my parents
house, and having no money besides what paltry earnings I made working
at Mrs Fields cookies.

When I met Greg, the dude that knew me from London, a few weeks ago at
the corner of 6th and 32nd, he looked the same after 5 years of a marriage and smoking; we smoked Parliament Lights outside of a silly Christopher St café later and he said "You look much more relaxed. Back then you always looked...stressed".

And so I felt that same stress tonight, that stress of having to write
down and remember everything. Like Alex described it: The almost
neurotic need to document my life". It's very strange indeed. One
could say indulgent—if it didn't make me so nervous, and I didn't
devote so much energy into it. Tom says he couldn't do this—which
makes me feel better knowing he's done an Mphil at a very difficult
university and reads Ruth Millikan on vacation at Cannes.