Kitty Power

The Dog Days of Summer

I'm in a bit of denial that it's already August. Because if I acknowledge that, I have to accept that I've let most of my summer (and year) blow right past me. Not to say I haven't been busy. The so-called slow summer season at work has been anything but and I'm still half living out of bags and boxes in the new place. But, I definitely feel that lack of good old fashioned fun and abandon this year. I need a vacation.

I'm definitely feeling a drag to my year because of the lack of a WMC trip. Going to Miami in March is generally a good kick in the ass for my year, the first blast of warmth and a chance to get some ideas for the year's new soundtrack. I've been feeling burned out for 90% of 2008 and I need a recharge desperately. I'm kicking around the idea of going to Europe or finding some Caribbean island that won't get trampled during hurricane season. I need some blackberry and cell phone free time to stare off into space and love every second of it.

Everything seems to be in flux this year. Among my friends, there's breakups, job losses, existential crises, and general feeling of failing as an adult. Then again, what else is new?

Pack Light

Not so long ago, I was known as a pack rat. (And a slob.) It was one of those things that developed gradually over time. Cleaning in my room was always the chore I hated the most. I never had the attention span to sift through things I liked and weed out what was less worthy of being at a visible place to grab when the mood hit me...whenever that might be. In some dark days of my youth, the maelstrom look of my room was a secret organization method for me to see immediately what had changed when I had my back turned. Back then, things had the habit of mysteriously disappearing and it gave me a little piece of mind to be able to visually confirm what I still had or had to chalk up to my "faulty recollection" of having it in the first place.

In adulthood, the mess became attributed to sheer lack of time and attention. In the past few years, home is probably the place I spend the least amount of time. My desk isn't so neat, but it's contained in a way that my bedroom floor never could be said to be. It's easy to forget dishes in the sink or laundry on the floor when you only see it for a few hours between sleep and leaving. As this year has unfolded jaggedly, the mess has gotten worse. But finally, I found an interesting solution to the clutter problem: moving.

I've been working up my way to this for a long time. For many of the past six months, I've been stuck with my head in the sand as shit got insane around me. I've been the queen of bad decisions. (Or maybe it was perfectly logical to let a barely working ex-dealer and felon move in with me and coast for a month or two before I woke the fuck up? Yeah, I didn't so either.) After spending 3 and half years here, this apartment means a lot more to me than just a place I've kept all my shit. It's the longest place I've lived straight since I was 14. And it's also filled with a colossal amount of garbage. My M3 conference pass from '05? Trash. The piles and piles of magazines I've gotten in the mail and never read? On the curb. Random dinner receipts and old flyers to shows I didn't even attend? Out of here.

What surprises me the most is how good it feels to reduce the clutter so much. Not to say that largely moving myself doesn't have a bunch to do with it, but where in the past I would've held on to everything "just in case," I have to curb my instinct to pick up everything and toss it. The new place is a lot smaller and most of the garbage I've been spreading around 5 rooms just doesn't need to go there. And that is a very good thing. Streamlining FTW.

The Stars Should Lie Upon My Face

While I've been off bullshitting, I've been getting older. Starting my Saturn return and all that. 27 in itself doesn't really feel like much, even though I thought of it as this semi-magical age when I was younger. The age when you become a real adult. In reality, it's kinda...eh. I suspect it's because 26 was so fucking hectic. I'm all about closing the book on all that. A fun fact is that when I used to run around with Farmer and The Boy (separately, natch), they were 27 and I think that's when it first became crystal clear that it was just a number, not a particular badge of maturity. They're both over 30 now and Farmer's a daddy, which is scary and awesome at the same time. The Boy, on the other hand, is still running around like a jerkface. I had a hilarious and random encounter with him and his BMX near the Navy Yard a while ago. Time really does fly.

This year, I decided to sit out Miami and my annual tradition of going into debt to pay for that trip. Though the cosmos is toying with me: Robert Owens is doing a show here Sunday night and he was my highlight last year, but Erykah Badu is playing a free show down there Thursday. My plan for this year is go to Sonar and spend some time visiting P. Diddy and Alex. I've never been to Europe before and the best airfare I'm finding is about $800 (not to mention the dollar vs. the euro is pathetic at the moment), so I need to save my pennies. That might be easier to do if I ever got around to finding a roommate... Baby steps.

Lately, I've been struggling trying to get this Life vs. Work equilibrium thing right. I've spent a big chunk of the past five years being a party girl and it's an adjustment to realize now that I'm actually building a career (I sure wouldn't have said that this time last year), staying out all night most nights can't really mesh with that. I've been experimenting with ways to build up some self-control and still have fun. It still needs adjustment time for sure. Let's not even mention that whatever balance I build can potentially come tumbling down if I introduce a new boy into the mix. Then again, I'm so far out of that mode. I don't even remember what it's like to date at this point.

I was kicking around the idea of resolutions for this year, but what I want is pretty simple: staying healthy, even greater career success, traveling more, having fun and keeping good people around. And I guess blogging more, but I always say that whether I mean it or not.

Breathing Fire Doesn't Look Good On A Resume

Willie Williams - Armagideon Time

The decision for me not to move was actually an annoying one. I had been racing around scouring listings and checking out places for a good month and a half leading up to the end of the year. I'd only ended up with a handful of places I really liked and the one I got as far as picturing my stuff there and calling up my future takeout places was snatched away in the time it took me to fax fourteen pages of information to a stranger. The real estate market is a bummer. I'd designated my holiday off time between the 21st and the 2nd as do-or-die hardcore moving time and it was going pretty shitty.

And then there I was the day after Christmas, coming home from a long night out at the local. I got as far as the inside stairs (because the front door isn't always quite locked. A highlight of slumlord living!) before I looked in my bag to find no keys. And I had a crystal clear picture of putting my keys on the couch earlier and perhaps neglecting to put them in. I put out a 2am call to my mom (she was super thrilled with that, let me tell you) for the emergency spare set and surprise, she had neglected to keep them in a safe place because I hadn't bothered asking for them in the three years I'd lived there. Sonofabitch... I crashed at her place (thankful she'd moved back to Brooklyn, but not so much that she'd defeated the whole purpose of the spare set), went to look at another shitty apartment the next morning before trying the super (didn't have a pair) and Ant (who was in France unbeknownst to me) without luck.

The last resort was a local locksmith and I got quoted a $75 price (before tax) that I had to grin and bear. And natch, it wasn't quite as easy all that. The one lock was always a pain in the ass and it turned out to give the locksmith a load of trouble. So over the course of the next three hours when I got a new knob, lock, and faceplate for my door and was out $165, a thought bubbled up: fuck it, I'm not moving. And I weighed the pros and cons. The temporary poverty was about the same for either option, likewise for the aggravation. But instead of handing over an arm and a leg to someone new and still having to figure out a way to move all my shit, I'd deal with the slumlords and area I knew and could get a chance to live alone for a bit while I redecorated and all that. So I called the management company and got a new lease sent over and here I am. Broke as shit, but sorta happy, if unsure how to motivate myself to start over. I'm super lazy and poor, but moreso lazy, and riding the slumlords to get all those things we ignored too long fixed is a full time job. Also finding a new roommate is gonna be a bit of an adventure. Ah well, we'll see what happens.

Who Do You Belong To?

I had a bizarre run to close out the year. I've been mostly keeping my head down guy wise for a long while, especially when I had the cast on and self-deprecatingly noted that a girl with a hobble probably wasn't high on anyone's priority list. I couldn't even dance with that thing on...nor for a fair amount of months afterwards. It's only been the past month or so that I've really been feeling consistently close to my old self again and still I'm at about 85% with some fun physical therapy sessions to do. Exciting stuff I know.

Anyways, just before the ankle blew out, I adopted this bar I've alluded to in my spare posting as my non-local local where I can perch, drink, and pass the time in peace. That peace last a few months before strangely enough the randoms got used to my face and I became fair game. I was good about fending off advances and became this weird yet friendly untouchable barfly. I made friends and finally allowed myself to have crushes and it was all humming along until one night.

This past year, I've been disentangled by choice. The situation with the boy in itself didn't mess me up, just the fallout and a few years of self-directed bad feelings. It was important for me to focus on getting my shit together without dumb distractions and I did it. Besides it was tiring on the soul to basically date the same guy with a different skin over and over again with the results constantly ending up the same degree of suck. You begin to wonder if the problem isn't with you at a certain point and I think it was, so I (hopefully) fixed it. Still, I wasn't quite in the nunnery and there was a brief moment where I got genuinely geeked over this new kid I met over the summer. It was nice to be with someone unafraid to be smart and literary and the long buried English nerd in me rejoiced at the possibility of coming out of cold storage. Didn't quite pan out, but I was happy for the widening of the criteria besides the old vague template.

But, the one that boiled over was straight out of my typical mold. He reminds me especially now of this kid I liked for a few angsty months in high school: musical, wears too much black and punk attire, long hair, and masking the issues with manic behavior and wit. It built over months and I got drawn into this strange push and pull thing and soon it was visible from space that we liked each other. Still, I tried to resist it all because at this point in my life, I don't see the point in doing all the old habits over when the end result is always the same. I don't feel like being as careless with my feelings as I used to be.

Unfortunately for me, I'm a sucker for a major declaration. After a long night perched at the bar leading to an after party at some random's loft, he cornered me mid drink pour with "I like you. I know you like me. Don't you? So what are we dancing around this for? What are we going to do about it?" And I said "nothing because I don't think it's right for me." And he pressed me for reasons and I halfheartedly spoke of work, being busy, and just not being in the game and he smiled at my hollow words and ignored them. We woke up together the next morning in his freezing apartment with me fully clothed including hoodie, minus shoes. As the day was heading into the next one, he formally asked me out and I think I finally started to silence the little cynic in me.

That was a waste. We had talked briefly about getting together after work (for me) early in the week and I was in charge of planning. I threw some ideas out there and realized they'd fallen into the abyss soon enough. So, imagine my surprise to see him strolling in the bar and walk up to me nonchalantly after blowing me off. I asked him to explain himself and he said he'd been on a four day bender and didn't mean to let me down. I coldly responded that there had been a window open with me that was now closed and he slunk away. Only to return a few minutes later if I wanted to hang out and watch a movie. I gave him a funny look, but spontaneously agreed because I wanted to see if I could get a less ridiculous excuse out of him.

Not quite. But, I did get a load of emo and it turned me off him for good. It reminded me of what I'd taken the break for. I just don't really have it in me to play doormat for some vaguely self-destructive narcissist anymore. Especially since eating all the shit doesn't do much in terms of having a good relationship or an especially lasting one. I called him on his pity party and countered with my own set of problems and the fact that some days it took all my energy just to feel okay, so I didn't have it in me to prop someone else up also. "God...who hurt you?" he said as if I was the messed up one. Wouldn't be him, that's for sure.

Over the holidays without work or much to do, I was a professional barfly and all that crap made hanging out at the bar tense for a bit. It was water under the bridge as far as I was concerned, mission aborted before it got out of hand, but he was acting very funny for a while there. One night, I had way too much to drink and let my mouth run (poor blackout ruined the memory for me), but from what I gather, it wasn't very nice, but at least deflated some of the excess ridiculousness. An uneasy truce has been called, but the place is kinda ruined for me. I'm glad all that time off grew me some backbone at least. Not so long ago, I would've glossed over the blow off as him being sweetly misunderstood. Nowadays, it correctly pegged him as a jerkface and he got the cane. Life's really just too short for that crap.

You Can Be My Blazing Arrow

Happy New Year! I've basically been a sicky mess since then. I was on vacation for about a week and a half leading up to it and started the wild run early, so once it was time to go back to work, my body conked out on me.

New Year's Eve is a bit of a blur for me. 2007 was a pretty insane year and I was happy to see the tail end of it. I spent the early part of the day scrambling to finish off shopping and cleaning and getting things done and failing miserably. And just when I thought I had enough to preoccupy me, yet another bombshell. '07 was the year of "aww fuck, what's next?" I was never allowed to get too comfortable before a seismic shift came along to stir up everything. It sucked, but I think I'm a better person on the other side.

And there I was at 11:30 on New Year's Eve, surprising myself by wearing a party dress. I'd been wrangling with it since the dressing room the day before, still wondering if it wasn't just a bit too short. It was fine in the front and sorta in the back as long as I didn't bend over or sit down or something useful. And unlike some crazies I saw later in the night, I had tights to keep it all from being a little too drafty and indecent. To cap off a year I'd spent transforming away from minimalist and preferring to be unnoticed, I went with big hair and earrings and loved my reflection. I swilled cheap champagne and danced for the passively observing cat and waited for PrincessNella's call and just felt totally relieved. I had made it through the loss of the hell job, being so sick and weak for a while there that I could barely get out of bed, all the dumb entanglements, and the horrible potential move to something like happiness and (partial) stability for the first time in forever. I buckled down and suffered, but I did it. I earned my fucking adult tag.

Midnight was me and PN and champagne and fireworks from the park. We just listened to music and kicked it for a while before we rallied to go out. Studio B was the destination for the second year, but this time, we didn't kick around that long before she was off home and I was en route to the still patchy part of my night. But, I hear I was quite the dancer and I even made a friend to go off to another party with. Beforehand, I'd made an appointment to get cable installed on New Year's Day, so imagine how unamused the cable guy was to hear me pleading for him to come back later with a techno background since I still wasn't home at 11am. I stumbled out in the light feeling like a degenerate soon after, but still missed him because he called back while I was in the passed out part of my day. Good times. I even got a food delivery from Ms. Mommy with the affirmation that yes, my dress was too short. But hell, it looks different without tights is my final word on it.

I don't really have any formal resolutions this year. Besides maybe be as good to people as they are to me, do the right thing, and curb the dickheads in my life. And stay healthy, but that's more of a wish. I've already discovered that's not much under my control. Oh, and I guess to write more here too, but I can't make any promises.

It's Called Experience

Friday night, I had time to kill between rushing happily from work (oh what a long day that was!) and tentative plans I made with Banana. I wrestled with going home to grab dinner and drop stuff off, but I made a trip to Target for some cheap gloves and then wandered down to Dumbo for a nostalgia trip.

Strolling down hill from Sands, I got hit by a memory wave. The first time I'd gone there and I ended up on a very long walk from Hoyt because I didn't follow the boy's directions. How I made the trek from the bus every morning on the way to work. How the giant condo building went from a lot to scaffolding and glass to this lit up thing casting a wide shadow. I really gaped at the new drugstore at the base. The only one in the whole neighborhood. I was even tempted to buy something because I was so amazed. I passed one of the guys from the deli I used to buy my ham, egg, and cheese on a roll. He asked me where I'd been and I said I worked in Midtown now, but was popping in for old times' sake. We exchanged goodbyes and I said thank you, it's nice to be remembered and we shared a smile before walking in opposite directions.

I slid up to the bar to order. The bartender is newish, but I've seen her in there the past couple of random trips that way. I ordered a hot toddy and found myself in conversation with one of the old timers before sitting on the bench and letting my hands and body warm from the liquid. An after work crew had taken over most of the back and I smiled at the memories of being one of them. Later sitting at the bar, I met the owner for the first time and told him that the place meant a lot to me over the years. I had some weird flashback to drinking in there with the boy and having our knees touch sending all sorts of currents through me. It's funny that it's taken so long to actually allow myself to have good associations to him again. Maybe I am really putting that shit behind me.

I strolled out of there, 2 toddys down and happy. I wandered over to that place I go nowadays and chatted with the friends there for a while. It's changing before my eyes too: serving food, a party bar writeup in a local magazine, and now a wall knocked down to make it bigger. I'm trying to encourage myself to not be weird and emo because it's dumb to be nostalgic over...last week. I've been getting frustrated there because the last prospect to get me excited in a while has gone MIA and tracking him down through the connections is a bit overly complicated. It's making me a little wistful which annoys me. But it's just not as fun to drink hot toddys alone.

Saturday, I actually tried to change that and met a new friend over drinks in the Slope. I've been trying to hang out more this way lately. I guess I'm getting a little burned out on spending an hour trying to get home from the bar. We ended up making friends at the bar and helped compile the crazy/jerk scale for men and women. The worst for a woman's behavior were being Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, or Lorena Bobbitt. For guys, sleeping with your friend, sleeping with a relative and/or a man, and leaving a pregnant woman shit out of luck. The normal baseline for a person was a 2. The sociologist in me was interested that the woman's list was called crazy and every number after 5 had something to do with violent acts (a drink in the face, which I'm not familiar with at all, was a 3) and the rest with temper/jealous issues. The men's list all boiled down to cheating and/or majorly screwing you over. I got it posed to me earlier where would prolonged deception about paternity go on the women's list. I gave it 9, a 7 if the truth comes out early. It was an interesting way to pass the time.

This weekend I was very proud of myself for relaxing to the point of ridiculousness. Saturday until about 8pm was spent either in or very close to bed and today wasn't much better. I'm super well rested for a change. It was so worth it.

Could It Be

I've been letting my temper get the best of me lately. Right now is very tense. Moving is a very stressful situation and I'm finding it really hard to keep a peaceful equilibrium going, so a few people have gotten the bark lately.

Halloween Night, I was perched where I always seem to be lately and not feeling well around the whole thing. It's become an irritating holiday for me over the years. I always feel like I'm kinda scrambling to make something work and end up feeling harried. I overheard this girl that I've run into there a few times and wrote off as a jerk, saying to my friend that she was moving over to my area and what a horrible ordeal that would be (because god knows, loftland Bushwick is paradise on Earth!). Already hating her, I seethed for a second and told her not to bother because we already filled our asshole quota and really didn't need an ill-informed idiot dragging the neighborhood down. She tried to bark back before running outside to bitch to her friends and try to rally them to have her back if she fought me. They all begged off and I said to her on return: "you touch me, bitch, and you're fucking dead." All about the peace and love I was. She slinked off in a hurry strangely. The rest of the night was amusing enough. I was supposedly on a budget, so the logical thing to do was of course go to Studio B and blow shitloads of cash. I make so much sense, really.

The latest top blowing episode was yesterday when Alafairnadia and I were strolling down Vanderbilt on the way to brunch. This stumbling jerkface and friend were drunkenly (at noon!) weaving their way down the street, when us crossing them prompted catcalls. I had resigned myself to ignoring him as he said how much he loved a chunky girl and I/we should appreciate his attention since as a fat man, he was as good as it was gonna get, though I/we probably weren't smart enough to acknowledge how big we really were. And then getting called out for having annoyed expressions on our faces when he was just trying to be nice. "You need to go somewhere," I said angrily and he exploded at me, "this is my block, I don't have to do shit." And then it was on. My parting shot: the finger over my shoulder and "go to hell, you drunk motherfucker!" His parting shot: "And look at you, hanging out with a white girl!" as his friend dragged him across the street. Stay klassy, shitface.

You Can Start Over

Mea culpa. I'm always disappearing lately.

Nothing to report really. Life working with the mothership has its ebbs and flows. I'm gearing up to move at the end of the year to my first solo place and worrying about saving right and what I'll do with all the crap I've accumulated over the years. The cast/bandages are off and the ankles are a little crunchy, but at least I can dance again with only a bit of hobbling.

Over on my Facebook page, I've been building this photo album with some old pictures I unearthed when Helga was retired. Most of them are from senior year and the immediate time afterwards when everything was awesome and scary all at once. I'm constantly struck by how long ago it all seems. Sometimes I miss being filled with so much energy and piss and vinegar, but never feeling so awkward and unsure and hungry for any kind of experience that I could get. Looking back, I wasted a lot of time being passive and confused. Everything's not perfect now by far but there's something to be said for (mostly) feeling like my head's on straight.

It's kinda easy to ride the nostalgia train. It's been almost a year since the infamous drink episode and about six months since I crushed The Boy's ridiculous friends attempt. And I haven't seen him in a wonderfully long time which sometimes makes me smile at the thought that he ceased to exist or something like that. Farmer's my newish Facebook friend and I got floored at the news he's going to be someone's dad the other week. That's just...wow. I figure Mr. Sailor is probably married and/or with kids now too. I laugh at how stupidly intense I felt for most of the stupid shit I used to mistake for love. It's amusing the strange turns life can take sometimes.

At the moment, I'm just trying to have a good life and feel great. Sometimes a little solitary ambition does a girl good.

Talking Only Me And You

Andreas Kauffelt & Toby Izui - The People

Most exciting news of the week for me: Soft Circle is opening up for The Sea and Cake at Warsaw. Yes!

My site is still kinda broken. This post is dated from when I started scribbling in it, but is definitely not today. In case you care, the cast thing has become less devastating as time has passed. I'm less bandaged (even though both feet are in the act now) and am back to wearing regularish shoes. It's gonna be a while before I can slip on anything with some height, though if you see me semi-normally, you know that's about par for the course except I can't if I wanted to. Instead, my stupid knee is the hobbling culprit. Oh the good times! My mother wasn't kidding when she said you fall apart rapidly after 25.

Life at the new mothership is pretty rad so far. Minus my hideous ID photo in which I'm frozen for posterity as a bewildered 12-year old with a fat neck. I've been obsessing over that quite a bit.And also last.fm which I just got my shit together and joined. (Please ignore the random Goo Goo Dolls songs sprinkled in. Thanks.)

And now for a story: some weeks ago, I went to see the Battles show at the Seaport. It was one of the few summer early Fridays I had managed to take advantage of and I'd had a nice nap at home before coming back out. I spent most of the show squeezed against a storefront while random packs of tourists went back and forth from booze cruises and the Water Taxi, but I had a pretty good viewing angle and the sound was great. After the show, I wandered further downtown away from the mass hipster stampedes and had a nice burrito at Chipotle before grabbing the J.

Across the aisle were some drunkie girls that seemed like a bit clueless college girls and at Fulton, this random dude got on. From the start, he made me uncomfortable practically boring a hole into my head with his eyes. I was sure not to make eye contact and not squirm. But when he responded to the drunkies' goodbye at Bowery with "goodbye you stupid sluts!," dude got upgraded to crazy fast.

The teenager across from me eyed him nervously out of the corner of the eye. New York kids' reactions are always along the lines of "is this motherfucker gonna lose it or what?" and it reinforced my feelings of uneasiness. A pretty woman on a date sat next to me and chatted with her guy and the man across eyed us both like steaks on a plate. She got off at Marcy and he whispered something in her direction before sitting down next to me.

I dug up courage somewhere and eyed the side of his head icily as he made a production of removing his headphones to talk to me. He turned to me and said "are you going to keep looking at me like that?"

"Yes," I replied, in a stronger voice than I expected.
"Why's that?"
"Because I'm wondering why you're sitting next to me."
"It's a public transportation, sweetheart," oozed the bastard.
"Okay, that's fine. I'll move then." And I got up to wander halfway down the car. Sometimes I wonder what's the point of being in the conductor's car if it doesn't make you feel an ounce safer.

He eyed me the whole time I walked and stood in the doorway and then when I sat at Lorimer. I refused to look and when I rushed off at Flushing, my heart beating in my ears drowned out what he yelled after me. I walked to the newest non-local local eying the sidewalk behind me every other step. Sometimes people are crazy and you'll never know what they'll do. My night was ruined from there. I haven't taken that train since.

I Want To Kiss The Concrete

Skeletons and The Girl-Faced Boys, You'da Been Better Off

I haven't been having the best luck health wise this year, but I'm trying to avoid even thinking "worst body year ever!" The latest saga is my foot. I've been feeling pain in it for a while and my no insurance head in the sand fix was to get some arch support and stop wearing flat ass flip flops worked for a bit. But the other day, it became pretty unbearable and I got tired of hobbling along, so I used my 4-day old insurance (we heart The Freelancer's Union!) to stroll over to the podiatrist and get it checked out. I was hoping for a nice sturdy insert and some painkillers, but instead I got a soft cast and next week I go back for the real way. Yay me? I guess I'm gonna get my money's worth out of these months of insurance I just paid for. And amazingly, I woke up this morning finally not in pain for first time since I don't even remember. So, it's heading towards all good.

The drawbacks are: 1) strangely, a bandaged foot is a prime target for stepping on. Goddamned jerks. 2) It doesn't really get me a seat on public transportation. I just end up with funny looks really. 3) I'm showing up to my first day of the new job looking like an accident prone dumbass. Ah well. 4) This more or less ruined a really fun weekend I had planned. Hard to dance in a cast and boot. 5) The only places I'll probably be the next couple of weeks are work and my damned fourth floor walkup. I think my couch and I will develop a very special relationship.

In other life, this job transition is very nerve-wracking for me. I really liked the place I left today. Not only because it was a great port after feeling so adrift back in the spring and helped me gain a lot of confidence and pride in my abilities, but the people were awesome and taught me a lot and working for one of the motherships (even as a lowly freelancer) does have its advantages. Now, I'm transitioning across town and it's like Monday is my first day of school. I'm sure it'll turn out great, but it's very overwhelming at the moment.

Lately, I've been listening to the old Skeletons album, the new Battles, and Oui and the latest Sea and Cake. Considering those are the three groups I've been obsessively going to see this spring/summer, I'm sure that's not very surprising. Oui was unearthed when I was randomly browsing through CDs. That CD is very junior year of Wes, sitting on the porch of 68 High with Alex and Tino and the crew. I've been thinking a lot about random school times since my brand new Facebook obsession is putting me in touch with randoms I haven't seen in years and the reunion is looming. Five years! I was musing the other day that the current class going in there is Class of 2011 and I'll be 30 when they graduate. Then I thought how my brother will graduate high school in 2017 and I decided to stop playing that game. I need to learn how to live in the present more. Most of the summer I've been looking in the rearview or getting ahead of myself.

These Girls Are Smart

My blog has been stuck in breakdown limbo the past week and change. It figures that I don't actually have the urge to write until it was all fucked up. Hopefully everything's back to normal now. Here's a post that's been waiting impatiently for primetime:

A few months back, I went to the !!! show and the opening band was terrible. Actually, terrible is too nice of a word for their level of suckiness. It was a painful experience that I will always come to when I think of worst performances I've ever seen (up there with M.I.A. in Miami a year or two ago, but that had more to do with her crap songs than utter lack of everything). This group was basically made up of chicks dressed like Stephanie Tanner -- complete with side ponytails -- and their music was utter garbage. Listless atonal clamor with hipster posturing. No fucking thanks. So imagine my surprise when I got my weekly podcast download and song #2 sounded strangely familiar except, like, decent. I did some internets research and it was that same shit band shined into diamonds with a fucking good remix. And I've been listening to it all week…willingly! I hear there's a blizzard forecast in hell…

September is a good music month. On my radar, the free Battles show Friday (August 31st but close enough) at the Seaport (I even have the day off so I can avoid the working until shit late and missing the show predicament I usually find myself in trying to see something there.) (ETA: Went! And it ruled. More on that night to come later); GZA/Jamie Lidell @ McCarren Pool; The Sea and Cake (again) @ Warsaw; Fujiya & Miyagi @ Bowery Ballroom; and the old fan is considering checking out Underworld @ Central Park. It's fairly typical for me that I'm planning days to stay up late when I'm starting a new job in a couple of weeks. I'm moving from midtown to…midtown. Actually only going across town to the West Side where the food is at least 10x better. A girl can only eat so many sandwiches for lunch, Now I can eat hot food from the supermarket! Progress!

I Know You Need It, I Need It Too

I'm a terrible slacker, I know. My summer output has been pretty anemic. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

The highlight of the summer was the Daft Punk show at Keyspan. Trendvickster and I checked that out together. My souvenirs (besides an obsession I couldn't quench until I found a bootleg recording of the whole damned show and a desire to go to Vegas for that festival around Halloween) were pretty shitty photos and vids via my terrible cameraphone and some glowsticks that are looking pretty pathetic two weeks later. And I survived a forty minute wait on line at Nathan's and came out with a wine cooler in a big cup and some delicious mutant frog legs. It was fun jumping around at the show and being a part of the big roar of the crowd. My only nitpicks were the shafting of Face To Face and how irritated I was by the sound of Harder, Better, Faster, Song the third (and possibly not the last) time it got mixed in with some other song. But, that stands as #1 on my show of the year list so far. Maybe GZA/Jamie Lidell next month can come close, but won't top for sure.

Besides that, I've been chillin. This summer has been all about the lazy routine. Sunday evenings, one of my more recent neighbor friends and I meet for drinks, takeout, and Battlestar Galactica. Tuesdays after work, I splash around in the pool at the Y doing Aquacize. I've been making random pilgrimages to my new fave non-local local bar. Last Thursday, I was propped at the bar, wincing at a terrible sketch on that incredibly unfunny show on Comedy Central (cookie to you if you can take a wild guess on what show it was) and got into a conversation with this random next to me about the horribleness. Which led to talking about politics, work, travel, love, life, and all those things. And it felt nice in the way it can when you feel like you've beat the odds and actually made a connection in the most random of ways. But, I saw him off with a "have a nice night" and "maybe we'll see each other again." You never know how those things will play out.

Hey Mr. DJ, Let The Beat Play

My new fave commercial. I think the bemused British chuckle does it for me...and dude being like "I'd be happy with just one." I think I realized as I watched it that I had never heard Becks speak before. And damn, he sure is blond.

I'm about 95% free from this mega-project I've been devoted to for most of the past couple of weeks. It looks pretty dope if I must say so myself. (Ask me off-site if you're remotely curious about the link.) While I've been mucking through it, me being me, it's not like I totally stayed at home...at least not on the weekends. I might still be a little burned out from the out and about every night of the week thing from a month or so ago. I'm old and tired, I can't roll that (much) anymore.

The other weekend kicked off early Friday evening when I rolled from work (Summer Fridays never seem to work out as planned lately...) to the monthly happy hour of this downtown agency my old job collaborated with. TrendVickster came along and we chatted and drank and oohed and ahhed the company head's brand spanking new iPhone. He tried to front like he was nonchalant while fumbling through the controls and the whole spectacle got a meh. TV and I split a slice of cake (what a nutritious dinner!) and I was off to the wilds of Bushwick to party and get a fangirl thrill.

It might be the Brooklyn girl in me but I don't get why Bushwick is hip. I hear the name and I think nowhere worth going. Williamsburg is vaguely understandable being that it's super convenient from Manhattan, but Bushwick is just out there and it really hasn't changed much over the years. I got off the train at Morgan to find this place and turned a corner to feel like I was in a horror movie. One where the zombies come out from the empty lots and seemingly abandoned warehouse buildings to drag a poor unsuspecting girl in the wrong place at the wrong time away to feast on her brains. And then I walk down the street to see something or another filming and this converted factory building with a gourmet supermarket and cafe and little hipsters hanging out on the bench in front. And I walk another block and it's back to zombieland, with the faint sound of techno coming from a roof. I hobble my way up the stairs and the joint is packed with hipsters from god knows where, most looking fresh off the road from Bumblefuck, USA and some real neighborhood kids amusing themselves. I was feeling antisocial and wandered across the street to this random bar that I'm a little in love with now. I chilled with the bartender and randoms watching Saturday Night Fever (one of those movies that you realize is super fucked up when you actually really pay attention to it) on DVD. I went back to the roof to satisfy my thrill (oh so dirty sexy pretty!) and left just as I heard the sirens coming to shut the party down. Back at the bar, I ended up in this overlong conversation about work and the crazy admark industry and I kinda felt like a very fulfilled nerd. And then called a cab to drag my drunk ass home to my doorstep. Good times.

Saturday's vague highlights was marvelling at party locations nowadays. I'm just waiting for someone else to do a laundry party at this point. This one was in some random ass loft next to a gas station and I saw Abe and other folks I know. I had a spazzy moment with my current fave DJ from the party that I'm becoming diehard about where I told her how much I loved her podcasts mixes on the bathroom line. Ah well.

Last Friday got me back to 419. My knee hurt, so I perched myself on the back bar stool and was content to sip on something and people watch. But, noooo...whenever a woman is sitting alone somewhere, it obviously means that she's dying to get picked up, right? Wrong! First dude slid across within 5 minutes and he had sub-game and I was beyond monosyllabic and after some uncomfortable minutes, he finally went away. This other dude rolled in all fake thug in a hipster party and sideglanced me for a while. He was easy on the eyes and I may have noncommittally looked back once or twice. His big move was telling me to let him know when I wanted a drink because he could hook me up and then saying he'd be right back and SMACKING ME ON THE ASS as he walked past. I totally gasped and him booking it was the only thing that didn't have me getting up and hurting him, lame knee be damned. Who the fuck seriously does that? Jesus Christ. It's bad enough that being by yourself in the midst of people and stuff means you have to get damned every bullshit pass in the place, but the ass slap is beyond disrespectful. I was fuming. I even broadcasted it to my dodgeball list in fact. I was bitching about it later on to this random who amusingly looked on when guy #1 and the slapper tried one after another to kick it to me again upstairs on the patio. The slapper was really close to getting a drink thrown in his face (he doesn't know about me...I'll do it) when he was mewing that I'd gotten my own drink instead of letting him get it. Fucking lamer. He was pretty beat later on when I was chatting up the random too. So strange that ass slapping isn't much of deal sealer.

In the best of circumstances, I'm admittedly difficult to meet at a party. I loathe being hit on. If you try, you're deaded. In fact, you probably just wasted your time bothering with the walk over because I'm not trying to hear it. Where the random vaguely succeeded where the other two failed (though the slapper torpedoed his own chances) was that I'd given him "can you believe this crap?" exasperated glances during the loser parade and when they left me alone, we had something to chat and joke about. In a nutshell, I might minorly be a control freak and I hate feeling like a piece of meat. Not that I like doing all the work, but I don't respond well to the "you're my prey and I'm pouncing" methodology. YMMV I suppose.

If You Really Knew The Answers, You Wouldn't Brag About It So Much

There's not much I don't love about the summer. Away with the sweaters and coats, on with the lightweight clothes and flip flops. It's mostly all good as far as I'm concerned. I spent most of the spring hustling for work and all that related stuff, so now I'm trying to reap the rewards and have some fun. Health-wise, I haven't been feeling a 100% for a while, so I feel more determined to plow through it and try to feel as close to the old me as I can get nowadays. And how do I do that exactly? By doing a marathon week of events/shows/being out and about.

I've been out every night since Tuesday, after a Sunday and Monday of rest after a bit of a wild weekend.That night I went to 419 and stood in the corner of the patio drinking overpriced drinks until I made an escape to Brooklyn to see an awesome show by the Yohimbe Brothers at Zebulon. That's one of those venues that I'm always amazed that I don't spend just about all my time at. I've seen some kickass performances just stumbling in there randomly. Wednesday was going to Soundfix to catch The Sea and Cake's in-store and getting annoyed at the crowd and the shitty opening band who just droned on and on (same problem at the Webster Hall show except their set might have been 3x as long). At the store, most of the people left when that band finally released the stage which was incredible to me. Oh the power of indie hype. Both nights, TSAC ripped it. I've got a major soft spot for them. I was theorizing Thursday night that they all look like teachers I wish I would've had in high school. Sam is English, John's Calc, Eric is Drama, and Archer is the science teacher I would've spent a lot of time thinking inappropriately about. I have to get around to checking out the new album. Friends of friends I randomly came across in the audience Thursday said it ranks high up there with the older stuff. I was happy to hear Mr F, Parasol, and some others I've forgotten between now and then. Good times x2. I got the fun experience of the bartender remembering my drink on the first pass, so every time after that she was like "another gin and tonic?" with the unspoken drunkie on the end as the night wore on. If you had to endure 45 minutes of that middle band, it'd drive you to drink too.

Also Wednesday, I went down to Dumbo at this newish venue, a coffee shop that apparently turns into a big event space nightly now. The show was old school latin soul and it was a good time. The thorn in my side is this guy I keep seeing around. I used to have a bit of a crush on him and go out of my way a bit to set up the opportunities to interact with him, but now he just annoys me. His general reaction is to just look at me as if I'm supposed to run up and give the full court press. I don't even care enough anymore. He's not all that. There's just something about him that doesn't make me want to try. I take that as a bad sign.

Friday night, the recently back to NYC Trendvickster and I did up the hipster event in Greenpoint pretty big. Well, I did and she was along for the ride. As I'm getting older, I'm starting to finally distinguish between the good and bad (for me) liquors. The borderline out of control episodes of the not so recent past: fueled by rum. A good indication that the night is going to end with something rather inappropriate (though pretty fun): scotch. Left to my own devices, I chatted with former associates through my old job and confessed my slight crush on one of their coworkers to more than one person; played a lot of pinball; would have some pretty scandalous photos if the photo booth wasn't busted; and was part of traumatizing some random who just wanted to go to the bathroom. All before 1am. And it's not even the first time I've misbehaved in that space, despite the name change. I think I might have to avoid that spot for a while. Good thing I've never claimed to be especially angelic.

Saturday night had me at Studio B, mostly leaning and watching instead of dancing like I wanted because of a hurt foot. The funny thing about going out frequently again is that I see people I know a lot more often. Which can go either way in terms of bad or good. In Flagranti and G. Rizo were great, but I was pretty disappointed in Mr. Oizo. He really couldn't mix for shit and the space between the songs and/or the abrupt switch overs were really jarring. Ah well. Fun night regardless.

Rest Your Sad Head and Let That Shit Go

A moment of silence for Helga, my formerly indestructible HP that conked out on me. I had it about two months shy of 8 years, so I can't be mad and getting above and beyond my money's worth of it. I've been saving up for a shiny laptop for while and today I bought another HP tower that I'll pass along to my mom once I get my piggy bank ready for the laptop buy. A $400 computer was still lightyears away from what I've been working with all this time. Luckily, I've been slowly migrating my info to my external hard drive for a few months now, so no big info loss. I'm still vaguely confident that I can transfer settings, but it remains to be seen. That poor computer survived 8 years of moves, dust, good writing, bad writing, many IM conversations, angry emails, overlong blog posts, music downloads, and days and nights of overwork. The new computer clean slate feeling is kinda interesting. I feel like everything happening around/with me right now has something to do with salvaging the good pieces and/or rebuilding from the bottom. I don't mind really. Change is a very good thing.

The other week found me venturing into Midtown on a Saturday night. Very strange since the last thing I do when I leave it on Friday evening is clamor for more. I was off to check out this new to me band that I'd been digging for more info about. The show was in this art gallery, hidden in the shadows of office buildings and delis and theater row. The space was transformed into a maze with sculpture and writings decorating the walls. I wandered in, looking for the music that was promised to be at the end. I saw a band, not the one I was there looking for, sitting around and taking apart equipment. I looked at them, they looked at me, and wandered away. I came across this guy, looking like an antsy hipster complete with the shaggy hair, hoodie, and classic sneaks (shelltoes in this instance), and we struck up a stilted conversation as I asked where the refreshments were hiding. Our chatting would reoccur as the night passed. The place was on the miniature side. Three turns and you were either out the door or back where you started. I tried to wait patiently for everything (the set to start, the drink girl to replenish the supply, a lightning bolt to hit this girl who started some story with "not that I'm a racist, but..."), but mostly aimlessly walked around and around. That guy was from SC visiting for the week and one pass we talked about the upstate region and its little cities and towns. I felt a twang slip out and I missed my old summer trips for the quickest of seconds.

And then the band played, mostly acoustic with the music going low as the mike-less singer sang. I was mesmerized by the bass, all strings and neck. I stood in the corner on a bucket and tried to keep my balance and take a pic or two with my shitty camera phone. Almost at the end, there was competing noise from a sax player and drummer playing out front on the street. They wrapped up quick and suddenly and everyone ventured outside. The discordant noise brought down a tourist to complain about her lack of sleep. She walked about and fumed helplessly and everyone watched the showdown between her and the saxophonist amused. I used the lull to stroll off the next destination. There were no more fireworks to be had there that night.

I had a choice of parties to go to with one big possible drawback to them all. I was playing the shell game and trying not to be where The Boy could end up. But true to form, I paid my money and bought my first drink and looked to my left to see his friend and then him sitting there. Figures really. I kept to myself and this random I knew from the neighborhood where I used to work and he hovered around like the mosquito you can't quite kill and finally just ghost. I coped with the Long Island Iced Tea special and chugging to calm my nerves. Too bad my stomach wasn't so happy as time went on. I spent the next day at home lounging like Sheba and considered how fun it would be to live somewhere where my past wasn't always been thrown in my face.

Tuesday, I attempted to see a show by the old faves, but fatigue and the noxious crowd turned me back. Instead I went to the 2nd show of the week by Saturday's group. There again was that guy from SC. We had another strange conversation and he confessed that he was at the show for lack of a better option and stir crazy. I gave my condolences on that and perched myself by the bar hoping for a good watching angle. It was a good show again and I was happy that I got it together to see them. That guy had disappeared before the show was over. I hope he had a good trip.

Every Day Is Saturday Night

I'm annoyed. (A quick aside, I often think how fun it would be to have some Movable Type hack – yes, I am a blog nerd, And what? – where you could have mood displays a la Live Journal. And then I think, well first of all, my mood would usually be annoyed, so it'd just be redundant. And also, I can save that for my real LJ where I can go on and on and on in private and non-cryptically. So, this is a dumb aside basically. My prerogative. Whatevs.)

It's a shame I'm salty because things are really not bad. My new favorite pastime is podcasts by East Village Radio, Stones Throw, and XLR8R. New to me – or even, memory jogging – music is always good in my book. Hours and hours of fun that is. The weather is nice, really nice. I had a good weekend split between much needed rest and reconnecting with folks. Brunch and a nice stroll through the nabe even fit in there. I saw a fun show by Kenna
last week at the new Luna Lounge and had the loveliness that is an Iona cider. I ran into one of the few Wes kids who it isn't (that) painful to see and I had a funny text convo with Justin when I got fooled by hisdoppelganger. He said he was at PB&J and I was confused about that until...er, about 20 minutes ago. I'm so out of the loop with what the kids are listening to nowadays.

Anyway, I think it's just one of those states where the good is awesome and the bad fucking pisses me off. The problem (if it can even be called that) stems from being a little too focused right now. I had myself on overdrive and did what I had to do, so now it's like I'm in that mode and I don't know if it's worth it to slip out. I feel like my game has been elevated and now I don't want to go back. Still, I know there's a significant amount of fun missing. I just feel stiff or something. I guess that's to be expected. It's been a big two months for me. So, I'm just a bit restless and impatient. I don't have it in me to wait around and hope I make square pegs fit in round holes. I'm tired of settling
and being jerked around. That's how I spent most of the past three years at the wrong jobs and being with the wrong people and spending too much time feeling bad. I'm not exactly sure what I want, just that Ihaven't found it yet. Clear as mud, eh?

She Seems Happier At Night

Despite things still sorta swirling around strangely, I feel mostly good.

Going to midtown every work day and looking like an adult instead of a college kid in limbo is an interesting experiment. I nipped in the bud -- rewind, I crushed with my best stiletto heel -- the pseudofriendship thing the boy was trying to push for. Just thinking about having to talk to him again was making me crazy. It was like a rewind to all the shit I thought I worked through in all these months. Some wounds get infected when you pick at it. Proving that we're both mature and responsible people, I told him that I wanted him to go crawl back under the rock he was hiding under for the past six months with some cold East New York flavor I didn't know I had lurking in there and he crank called me like a bitch the past Friday night. We're both obviously winners. But who cares! It's really truly spring, so I'm happy.

I've been pretty much a homebody during the week again. I've got to get up damned early (for me) with the added bonus of not going only 15 minutes away anymore. Not that it's stopping me from staying up too late as usual, but it's hard for me to get motivated out before the weekend. Last Friday was a marathon day for me. Late at work, then off to meet up with C to repay my $60 from Miami and enjoy happy hour. Red was there with friends and I said hi for a bit then went back to my table. Faiks came in for a long overdue hangout session and we grabbed dinner. She turned into a pumpkin and then it was Red and I drinking and trying to rally...which ended up being eating at Unos (I swear I haven't been to one of those since high school) and sitting around in the park before rolling back to Brooklyn. Next day was Chinese delivery and watching Donnie Darko. Chill fun. I've kinda missed just aimlessly hanging out with someone cool a la Fizzie. Getting into trouble sometimes, but mostly bullshitting and chatting about real stuff. Low maintenance and non-dramatic is nice at this point. I'm still sorting a lot things out, so a distraction is good.

The most exciting things from Sunday were: 1) A really good energizing ride around the park. I took these interiors roads for once and that was cool. I also need to ride more because my stamina sucks. 2) Taking my awesome new shoes (yes, shoes not sneakers) on a test run. 3) I actually fit into the size I'm supposed to be in the fitting rooms with minimal "goddammit, I'm a fat cow!" trauma 4) After two years of cohabitation, the cat finally seems to be giving Ant some love. That was actually really cute.

Another reason why life is all good as far as I'm concerned:

Can't wait!

The Rolls and Waves

This past week, I've just been trying to keep my equilibrium going. I'm one of those people that need a neutral balance or else I'm going to fall into the hole. Last Thursday was a pretty shitty day, for instance. I got beyond drenched out in the rain, had some very not so good interviews, found out my insurance was cut off, and just felt super alone and loserish and overwhelmed most of that day. That great mood carried on to early Friday when I tried my best to just stay under the covers and cry before I got the call about some more interviews and then had some drinks and tried to perk myself up.

I ended up at a big party at 3rd Ward that night. I was determined to enjoy myself and succeeded. There was an annoying interlude with this random who latched onto me early and wouldn't leave me alone. He was too old, marginally funny, looked like a lost member of X-Clan (well, not that there's anything wrong with that part), and had this really irritating habit of singing in my ear. I had to break out some stealth moves to finally shake him. Good thing about huge warehouse parties is you can go hours withough running into a person again. I ran into Benny and Tim and ended up talking with Benny about their group and an upcoming show. He said that they were looking for singers to do background stuff and I (strange for me) volunteered. Er, haven't done more than entertain my cat in four years. That's going to be an adventure. And then I wandered around and around for hours before escaping at 8am into the insanely bright sun. It's always tough strolling in somewhere in the dead of the night and finally accepting that it's daytime and you need to go home. We party hard.

I made a new friend Sunday and I shall call him Red (for obvious real life reasons). We went to Floyd's and didn't play bocce (which is almost blasphemous) and then to see Disturbia. Which made me really hot for Shia LaBeouf, until I found out that's he's not even 21. You'd think I'd be on some what's good for the goose is good for gander since I'm hard pressed to think of the last guy I dated/liked/whatever that's not older than me, but yuck at younger guys. I'm sure I'll change my tune in 5 years or so.
Last night was another Battles show. Most of my time was spent wishing bodily harm on this group of jerks who decided that no matter what the song, a mosh pit was needed. The boy came over at the end all "you're here, cool, I was going to text you to see if you knew about it, but here you are." Blah. He should make himself useful and get me a damned Battles bag. I've talked so much about it this week that the crazed need is awakened.

This week was kinda tough. I've been worrying a lot about the job situation, natch. Good/bad effects: weight loss. The "so stressed that I'm despairing" diet works wonders. But I've been working my ass off the past couple of weeks and it paid off with mad interviews and finally today, a new job. I'll be freelancing as a PM/producer at an agency that could eat my old one for breakfast, so I'm really excited. And I even have nothing but goodwill (today at least) towards my old boss for forcing me onto the market to make a living wage. Yay for me!

Can It All Be So Simple

I still haven't learned how to relax and accept that being home during the day -- at least compared to never seeing the light hit this place except for on my way out in the morning -- kinda rules. The streets around here are interesting. Old people, people with babies, and the stray kid and/or unemployed person like me. It's fun being able to zip around so fast with hardly anyone in the lines and stuff. I almost feel like I have to retrain myself to stroll along leisurely and not let the four walls close in on me. I haven't been doing park stuff like I should, but exercise DVDs are my new guilty pleasure. Man, if I stay home another week or two, I'm going to be super buff.

The weekend was actually a strangely good one. Friday night, met up with Banana and we tried to do the artsy rounds before we settled on this bar in the western reaches of Soho with $6 well drinks in a pint glass. It was like heaven. They also had a gang of menus so we could order in stuff (wings and nachos, yum). It was just a fun kinda cheap night shooting the shit with randoms which is always good. We made a detour to visit Justin spinning at 419 before going home and passing out.

Imagine my surprise Saturday morning to get a query about brunch from the boy of all people. That was some interesting timing. Curiosity got the better of me and I agreed, which turned into a seven hour adventure of chatting and wandering around the nabe. I made it to a First Saturday for the second time in over two years. It was a little awkward for me, but we got along. He's (admittedly) been storing up things to tell/ask me about for the past six months, so I guess it was like Christmas for him. I'm still on the fence. I tried to hang with the ex-coworkers for a bit that night, but awkward feelings sent me running across Williamsburg to this other party the boy had told me about. I indifferently watched him with his new flavor of the night and lost myself dancing and trying to melt in the little room everyone was crammed in. I went home alone, feeling good, and got up earlyish the next day to plow through my room. (Three days later, it's still going.) I spent Easter with Alafairnadia and friends drinking bubbly and eating good food.

The boy kinda wants to be bffs or something and I'm going to decline to overthink something for once and just go with it until it becomes a bad situation. Knowing him, it won't take long. I might still hate him a little bit under the shiny surface. Still, we saw Grindhouse (oh man, it rules! But everyone rushed for the bathroom when it was over. You really have like a 2-second potty window in between the movies.) together Monday night and that was fun. And he even inspired me to reconnect with Farmer. So the grand experiment is already good for something.

Make Some Lemonade

T. S. Monk - Bon Bon Vie

That's my new favorite song. I've known it for years, but while I was browsing the goods I couldn't bring myself to drop tons of cash on in the Adidas store in Miami, the DJ put it on and I cornered him to get the name. I came back to NY and Soulseek wasn't being helpful and Bill thankfully gave it to me. It's such a strange song, very upbeat music with some really depressing ass lyrics. It fits what I'm going through right now.

I've been holding a post in draft all week because I couldn't find the right words/tone or encrypt things like I usually do. I'm going through a really bad time and I can't write cute around it. I just feel lately like every good thing that happens to me has some swift negative counter and it's bringing me down.

Miami was great, warm fun (minus the hotel losing my reservation, the fruitless lines at the Scion parties and getting shafted at hotel bars -- no matter how many times I go, $12 well drinks will never be okay). A highlight was making a friend at the Robert Owens show and geeking over the artist behind Strings of Life. Yay house and techno!

My doctor was harassing me while I was down there and I made an appointment with her for the Friday after I got back. I started seeing her over some random phantom pain in my knee that had been bothering me for a while. She did a complete physical (I'm fat and weigh a lot more than I used to, no shit) and took a heap of blood and got the results while I was away. It turns out that my joints are fucked and I have an appointment with a specialist to see if it's a bad disease or a worse one. Um yay? ETA: It's the mild version of bad. In case you were sitting on the edge of your seat or something.

Funny thing about Friday, I also got laid off that day. I was having a hellish week back at work and totally swamped with work. My boss walked up to me at 6:15 all "can I talk to you for a second?" and I said no because I had a shitload to finish by 7. Yet she was insistent and I went to find out to my surprise that I was out of a job. I don't even know how I felt. I was pretty relieved yet also frightened since being out of a job when you might potentially be really sick is no good. My work friends rallyed for me at the local bar and that was nice. Despite my evil boss and being overworked and grossly underpaid, I liked my job and most of the people there. It makes me sad to have that suddenly taken away from me, but I'm not really worried about landing on my feet. It's weird being home during the day. I've working more or less straight for the past 10 years, so I almost don't know what do with myself without a job, even if part of me just wants to fucking relax and write like I never have time for and collect unemployment for a minute. Instead, I've been applying and doing interviews and thinking about where to apply. I don't think I know how to relax sometimes.

Last night was the Battles/Prefuse/Soft Circle show at the Bowery. The show sold out last week (over the weekend? I dunno), something I didn't discover until I checked online to get the box office address to go buy a ticket. I made new friend off Craig's List (off the strictly platonic section, pervs) and got to go. (Thanks again, E!) I've heard a lot about Soft Circle, but never heard the music until yesterday. It was pretty rad, one man band drumming with droning vocals and electronics. Prefuse did a drum-less set with him and two dudes on the turntables/mixers/electronics. One of them was this DJ from LA called The Gaslamp Killer. Last year in Miami, he DJed this party I went to and dude's an experience. He's like a mixtape come to life or something. After/during/between a song, he starts with the hype man shouting business. It's half entertaining, half annoying. Battles was great also, but by the time they took the stage, I was already over the edge of drunkenness with no return. A fun result of that: I ran out of cash in my pocket, so I used to my credit card to buy a drink I didn't need. And to kill the tab, I bought drinks for Prefuse, Beans, and some of their friends. How random.

As I vaguely feared, I ran into the boy at the show. He rolled up on me when I was chatting with E before the show started and I eyed the drink in his hand really warily. He said that he read the email (actually MySpace message) that I had sent him, but he'd been busy and hadn't had time to respond (whatever, fuck him). I didn't really say anything in return and for once in his life, he took a hint at the awkwardness and went away. I ran into his friend (the one I've seen at Sputnik a few times and have a pretty good relationship with considering) and told him about the job situation, so when I ran into the boy again later, he said: "sorry to hear about your job, but you're one of the most resourceful people I know, so I'm sure it'll work out for you." Which was nice, but way to pass on my bad news, friend! We had a nice conversation which was strange and I said as much. He invited me over to hang out with him and his friends and I didn't. I feel good about the whole thing though. I wanted a nice postscript to the whole thing and now I have it. I'd rather look forward to something new than keep looking back.

The end of the show is a drunken blur. Somehow somewhere I fell and hurt my elbow and sorta broke my phone (thank god for cell insurance!). I cabbed it home and woke up in bed fully clothed. I've spent most of the day convinced that I lost my phone and was inconsolably hysterical for hours (missed two phone interviews also...yay me), but there it was randomly a few minutes ago when I bent down to get my fallen pen, off and taunting me. Meh. At least it's here. Sometimes shit just works out...sooner or later.

Come Around My Way

Two posts in as many days? I hear hell's getting a cold front.

I've finally succumbed to the plague that's felled everyone else in my office. After a slight bout with the chills yesterday, I'm left with the hacking cough. I've stocked up on Theraflu, EmergenC, fruits, and Hall's, so I'm gonna kill this fucker by Thursday. Or else I'm gonna be that annoying passenger that everyone hates since the canned air will make the hack worse. PrincessNella's gonna love me for that.

In honor of what I was talking about last post (letting shit be water under the bridge and all that), I sent a really nice note to the boy. Basically saying that I wish him the best in his life...far away from me. I don't actually expect a reply. It was just for brain dump's sake. That was my good deed for the month. Back to regularly scheduled piss and vinegar.

Did I mention how PSYCHED I am for Miami? I am, really. In case you didn't notice.

In the life can never be simple files, I swear NYC has only 300 people in it tops. No matter what the census says. This guy I think I could like (if he wasn't so shiny and kinda accomplished in his way and so high profile and put together with really nice hair and I wasn't in this weird phase where I'm shy and feel like flying under the radar and being a little self-hating) and I apparently overlap on every circle. If not him, someone that's about half a degree away from him. MySpace, real life friends, nabe life/the board, parties, and now the goddamned local deli by the job. The whole thing makes me want to run and hide. He sees me, I see him, no one's ever going to do anything about it. I get the distinct impression that I'm not the type of girl he would like. I'm too...everything (see, self-hating phase) and he's probably started wondering if I'm stalking him. I might have done some minor net detective work (damn, it's easy), but I can't put in the effort to really mount a chase. My post-trip life is focused on whipping the body into shape in time for Tino's hippie wedding to avoid total mortification. I'm a little over the phase where I run headfirst into rejection.

Let It Whip

So sick of that view. Miami in 4 days! In great news, I got my new ID early, so no worries about the TSA.

I've been on a bury the hatchet letter writing kick lately. As they say, those who anger you control you. Not all have been sent. Maybe I should burn what I've written to fully complete the dippy new age sentiment. I don't even think at the end of the day I expect a response to the ones I have sent. They're more of a symbolic door closer to some prickly memories. Now, let me go burn some incense and meditate on that. Gag.

My mp3 player is a thorn in my side at the moment. A few months ago, the headphone jack cut out and I shelved it out of frustration. I did some Googling and found a place in the city that would fix the audio thing, but now I've got a new problem: another defect is that the battery told discharges itself when it's underused, so now it's too dead to be revived. At least without opening the whole thing up and giving it a shock or some sort of shit I read about on the internet that would having me with a burned broken player if i tried it. Sonofabitch! So now my best hope is to take it to that repair shop and hope the bastards don't try to sucker me into getting a new battery. The best laid plans, I tell you.

Verse Number Two

I would say that I feel old, but I've felt that way for about 10 years now. I'm still cute, but rounder than I'd like to be. I could make more money and try to keep my room clean, but really I can't complain. I'm trying to be kinda zen this year. You can't make people do what you want, but you can also not succumb to the brief satisfaction of kicking their ass...no matter how good it might feel in the moment. I had vaguely designated some prospects and they're not panning out. Granted, my non-movement attention span is about a week. I've spoken to one a grand total of twice and the other has been in a holding pattern for months, though I recently learned that he can at least be funny. I wondered for a while there.

Honestly, I'm just trying to focus on the trip to Miami next week. My first vacation after a crazy stressful year. The sun break will be well appreciated -- unless some random TSA agent decides to make my life hell because of my temp DMV ID. I've been having nightmares about that all week.

The birthday day was spent at the churrascaria in the company of an assorted group of 12: friends from a couple of months to 13 years and Ms. Mommy and J. We all ate ourselves stupid for the first bit and then spent the rest of the time praying they'd stop coming around with the meat. I was embarassed (yet secretly pleased) by the balloons and the neverending sparkler on my cake and it was a good time. Though I wasn't able to eat again until almost 20 hours later. The party night didn't go off as well and I had to really struggle not to get annoyed, but it was good to see old/missed faces and I appreciated Aaron not playing a night of Tears For Fears like he threatened.

Viva 26!

Everybody Is Trying To Be His Friend

Birthday in less than 17 days! Despite my love of the countdown, this year feels like a non-event for me.

I'm marginally amused that I'm not doing much to uncomplicate my life, despite a nice little run of quiet I had there. Of all the boys in NYC that I could have a) a crush on and b) want me for...something besides my big, entertaining brain, it would have to be roommates. Ugh. Extracting myself from that situation with no one but me (and you, my delightful non-them readers) knowing about it is going to be interesting. Good thing I was playing Girl Scout for a while there because it'll be a lot easier since nothing's gone on all around. I don't really want to bother with either of them. A girl would like to be surprised and swept off her feet for a change. That's not happening with either of them.

In many ways, I'm pretty much mentally checked out of the city. As it stands, I'm either finding something new to do that's awesome and well-paying or staying where I'm at working up towards a move in the spring. Top 3 destinations: LA, DC, or SF with LA being the front runner. But I'm starting to downplay that since the idea is making (almost) everyone I know foam at the mouth. To answer the inevitable "why?!" I'm getting from everyone, I just want a change of scenery. It might be millions strong, but it seems like my little hometown more times than not and I'm at a place where I'd rather miss it. It's starting to feel clastrophobic. Either everything I remember comes rushing back when I go certain places or I end up feeling down because so much has changed. And there's the constant turning a corner and seeing a HS or college person, a failed date, a former coworker, some random I met once at 2am in a backroom. I want to go where I don't have such a layered history. Just for a little while. And if I hate it, the city will always take me back.

Like Back In The Day, Love

Winter '07 faves:
-- that damned song/video. I guess I wasn't watching VH1 Soul enough when that came out the first time. And I'll admit to a perverse pleasure in singing "no not any more!"
-- Dragons of Zynth. The trick is getting my shit together to get to one of this month's residency shows.
-- Nino Moschella
-- The Let's Mix Love mix with the greatest opening song I've heard in a while.
-- The stupid word blipster and the great site it has spawned.
-- Actually enjoying myself at parties again. It was bound to happen I guess.
-- How fun it is when the shoe is on the other foot. Gotta love the boys who didn't give a shit months ago suddenly having a change of heart. Tough shit, babes. You missed the bus.
-- Kings of Tomorrow "Finally" and its 10,000 all awesome remixes.
-- Jay's video entries
-- "Nothing says birthday like free shit and porn and open bars!" 4 weeks! And we're going to meat heaven this year. The countdown begins.

Same Old Trip It Was Back Then

I've been listening to a lot of 90s music. Tis strange. A kid at work has been blasting decade themed music every Friday lately and I requested grunge and C+C Music Factory for the other day. Listening to 90s stuff makes me feel like an angsty kid again. Strange how those songs just bring all the weirdness back. Good thing this was nostaglia week I suppose.

I'm kinda upset about work. I feel like the situation is getting worse and it frustrates me to feel like I'm basically in the same position as last year, except halfway in the poor house because of the paycut. Adulthood blows. PrincessNella and I are masterplanning a trip for March again. The main draw for Miami is lessened a bit this year, so maybe California this time around. I've got a little under six weeks to get my license -- I've decided that since my learner's permit (shut up, I grew up three blocks from the subway and they didn't do driver's ed in my Manhattan high school) is expiring, I'm going to get a damned license instead of being embarrassed by renewing the fucking thing -- so maybe we can even tool around in a rental. I promise to avoid crazy LA drivers and fire hydrants.

A rather bizarre thing in my world right now is modern technology (yes, as all encompassing and vague as that is). I feel like I'm getting more socially inept as I get more connected to things. Recently, I've been friended by these DJs I see a fair amount out and about since I'm on their mailing lists and they play the shit I like to hear and all. And they've been vaguely communicating with me via these technological things and for me it's like "well, now what?" I'm strangely too chickenshit to bridge the gap and being a known unknown freaks me out. Dilemma, dilemma.

In a fit of randomness, I ended up swept back into the Sapph scene tonight. Crazy C and her ragtag bunch of friends. Being around them makes me amazed at my lack of a drug addiction. The super blast from the past was The Brit and his brother. His brother is a nutter and he's so obsessed with my laugh. He makes me feel self-conscious, especially since he has a totally different picture of what went on with me and The Brit than what did (which I'm sure he didn't try to set straight). Speaking of him, we didn't speak at all. It's been a year and a half damned near and we barely know each other anymore at this point. The episode was fairly painless. How different my past year + would've been if I'd had some barely worth recording flirtation that never got off the ground with the boy. But, as I thought to myself bitterly one day, the wrongs are always the easy ones to catch and the hard ones to throw away.

Resolutions

I don't know if I can muster up the attention span to do mega-end/beginning of the year roundups like I used to. I've had shit sitting in draft for weeks with no end in sight, so I'm throwing in the towel on them. Last year was rough. I feel that much has been obvious around here. In some areas, I'm more distant and unfocused than ever and in others, stuff is/has come together in ways I wouldn't have imagined. Everything needs work though and I'm just trying to keep some sort of upward trajectory going.

I could list my regrets for days, but at least I really felt like an active participant in my story for the first time in too long. Everyone's annoyed at me for slowing the output here down to a crawl, but if it's a slight comfort, the less I'm writing here, the more I'm out there actually living. I need more of a balance this year.

Anyhoo, the resolutions:
01. Move
02. Ask for help
03. Rebuild my nest
04. Get the savings in better shape
05. Leave the past in the past
06. Stop neglecting my site
07. See one secret creative project to fruition
08. Go easier on myself
09. Kill the inner control freak
10. Have more fun

Everything Leads To The Big Bang

I was feeling pretty blah heading into the long weekend. I'd worked the dead week at a mostly empty office and all those things that I actually had to be getting done, just weren't happening. And I had a nice demoralizing convo with my boss. All in all, I could've comfortably laid in bed until New Year's Eve. But then I wouldn't be me, would I?

Friday was a miracle day: off work way early (not that it helped me in my fool's quest at Circuit City) and had an honest to goodness fake date that wasn't a disaster (well not from my perspective, but what do I know?). I was engaging, cracked jokes, made fun, made cute, and was unashamedly terrible at video games. We wandered around the greater downtown Brooklyn, chatting and laughing. It was...nice. I didn't think I had the capacity to be lighthearted and cool anymore. Occasionally, I surprise myself.

Way later that night, I ended up wandering around the Financial District after an ill-advised detour to Williamsburg. I was on my way to one of those parties I'd miss if (really, it's when about now) I leave NYC. And it was what I hoped it would be: good music, packed with people, more than a handful of those I knew and liked. I even got some blasts from the past: The DJ strolled in looking like death warmed over (drugs are bad, kids) and an old 68 High/Wes buddy (I was feeling inappropriately warm currents there. Let's try to pretend that didn't happen). I even ran into the boy gang from the building's 10th floor. I'm amused at how they travel in packs. The guy from 10 that I like sometimes despite myself rescued me from a confrontation with this random. I had been standing on the wall minding my business when this sweaty fool came in my face saying I had dissed him. I was gearing up to give him a good neck roll and stream of obscenities when 10 guy stepped in on the pretense of chatting with me. The weirdo kinda stood along there for a second before he went across the room to randomly spring up on the next girl. Again, drugs are bad.

Saturday night, Alafairnadia and I went to a party near the Gowanus. She left a little early and I made lemonade out of lemons by recruiting my nearby work friend Banana to the festivities. The whole place was a little bizarre: optional costumes with a table full of props to choose from (I passed), the planned bonfire with a wooden contraption, and the highlight had to be the giant stuffed Shrek packed with dry ice and then blown up. I would've hated to be a neighbor on that night. The two of us momentarily fell in with a pair of freaks. The ringleader of the two was flirting and at the same time saying "why do people think it's weird that I go out without my wife? Do you think that it is weird." Umm, perhaps a bit. And then the shy sidekick who wheeled around the backyard in a wheelchair and uncomfortably humped my leg. Good times...or something.

And then New Year's Eve at Alafairnadia's place. The early on crowd was packed with board people talking about the board and I thought my eyes would get stuck in the rolled position. Let's talk about the internet at a real life party! So fascinating! And let's use our board names because it's not like we're real people with real names! Super! Ugh. We hit the stroke of midnight on the roof watching the fireworks from Prospect Park. Another fun ringing in the new year with my friends. Let's hope '07 blows '06 out of the water. At this rate, it wouldn't take much really. A group of us wandered off to Studio B for minimal dancing but maximum chatter. I randomly found someone who had made the move from here to the West Coast some years ago and spent way too much time drunkenly talking about how I needed to just drop everything and go. Definitely not news to me. I'm not long for this town, but I plan to enjoy it while I still can.

I Can Feel It In The Beat

I'm holiday partied the fuck out. The whole week has been a blur of coworkers and I travelling in packs and imbibing and mingling and acting (a little bit) like fools. It's interesting actually working in a fun part of the media world for a switch, so I can actually be social me instead of always wearing the mask like the old place. The sad part is that our work party isn't even until next week, so I wonder if I'll even be able to do anything but whimper at the sight of alcohol by then. To avoid that, I've grounded myself through the weekend to stave off another bout of the 6am dry heaves. My liver was threatening to commit suicide.

Tuesday's party was in celebration of the passing of the 21st Amendment (which ended Prohibition and all that). Our lovely clients were the sponsors and all of us who slaved on it got to run around and drink ourselves stupid. My coworkers rule. It's always a pleasure being around them. Getting there was a big adventure with the meeting on a strange corner and then shady random (damned good actor) giving us directions. We ended up being the first bunch at the party...which wasn't that cool, but it evened out. We were mingling furiously. A few years back when I was newly returned to NYC and barely in my 20s running around with late 20 somethings/early 30 somethings, I wondered where the hell all the guys my age were. Now still running around with early 30 somethings, the guys my age have appeared from a secret mist or something. And they're some accomplished cool ass fuckers too. I can't bring myself to date or "date" any of them (yet), but seeing them makes me happy. Likewise, these random packs of 23 year olds everywhere. They're so earnest. It almost warms my cold bitch heart. Erm, sidetracked. So, to make a long story short, we heart media boys and the ad world and open bars. Amen.

Except when some of those media boys see you at parties and spazz on you. Wednesday's party was another company's holiday party that we all got the 11th hour invite to. Yes, I will be there with bells on to drink your top shelf spirits and stuff myself with hors d'œuvres and maybe even dance if i can be persuaded. Imagine my surprise when I came face to face with this random who lives near me that I've passed some meaningless time with. Well, I actually wasn't that surprised at all. It was established that we both worked doing the same type of shit, though his company is like 5x the size of mine. I was even amused when he visibly blanched when he saw me across the room. Kids nowadays aren't skillful enough at playing it cool in front of pseudogirlfriends and coworkers. So much for that one.

You're Going No Further

I'm supposedly looking like my old old self again. The reactions I'm getting are kinda amusing. Then again, I'm actually smiling nowadays and lost like 185 pounds of dead weight. Things like that do wonders for a girl. Even my mom was saying I needed some fun in my damned life, so I'm off having it. Viva rebounding! There's the danger of reversing the initial happy loss with the holiday season carousing I've been doing to excess. But who cares? Pass the ham and yams and egg nog and hot toddys. I'll exercise more...or not.

I've been trying to do something about all the stuff I've been complaining about. The shitty boy down, next is me being super kickass at the job. Wordlessly mewing never got anyone anything. We're heading into a massive busy time (ever wonder what I do? Here you go.) and I plan to give no doubt that I go above and beyond. I want a really happy new year on that front. Ant and I are on the mega apartment hunt. It's the pits really. Balcony, 1 big room, and a cave? Two equally sized big rooms and no living room? Awesome place near where I spend too much of my time but kitty corner from the projects? Dilemma, dilemma. We're still looking.

Most surprising thing about recently is that I've been writing a lot (not here obviously)...and believe it or not, songs. We'll see what happens to them. Once the initial excitement passed, I was very meh about it. I'm listening to too much A Cloud Mireya. It makes me think I can do it too. I suppose as long as I resist turning the saga of the rebound kid's cat turning me into human pincushion nightly, it'll be salvagable.

Bring It All Back

Left to my own devices, I brood and obsess and internalize. I lounge and overthink and become melancholy and wring my hands about what next steps to take. I usually decide to sit and wait for inspiration to hit and take things in and bite back my reactions. This year, I'm mostly about shaking that bad habit.

And it's hard. I think I've cried more since I have when I was a child. Fucking change is hard. Sometimes I don't feel tough enough and I slip and do what I'm trying not to. I've always been a person who does the "right" thing since it's the good thing to do and the mysterious they say if you work hard and rightly enough, you get nothing but good things back. But, what the fuck do they know? Do they have names and can their references be verified?

I've been precariously trying to keep equilibrium. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I want. Sometimes I just don't know. Other times it's clear: happiness, success, security, respect, and feeling appreciated. I've ripped up some of my foundations with jackhammers and tried to subvert everything I thought I was about. I've tried to kill the dead weight and be forceful and be me. I know I've been more self-absorbed than usual, but I don't get the same thrills in sharing that with others that I used to. I'm just trying to keep shit together a day at a time, even when it seems like things are falling apart all around me. I quit my old mostly comfortable, but extremely hated job and threw myself into a new scary place that makes me proud and cry and be upset and want to do the best I can and sometimes just want to throw in the towel and start again. It's hard for me to not be my job nowadays especially when it has me for 60 hours a week. The rents think that I am insane and alternately encourage me to walk away and stick it out. I don't know what I'll do. My mind changes daily.

I feel raw this year, all exposed nerves and shaky. Just when I'm putting one foot in front of the other to maintain, weird shit happens and I'm thrown again. There's been death and Mr. Daddy's medical crisis surprise (all better but still weirds me out) and getting a blast from my little girl past and the random thoughts of having screwed up and not being able to fix my trajectory. And the forceful expulsion of people from my life. Sometimes I have random dreams about Farmer and we're still friends or whatever. I miss him sometimes and wonder about him, but mostly think the break had to happen. Sometimes you just care more about people than they do about you and life is better when they're not around. Sad but true. I had the long overdue showdown with the boy the other week. I didn't realize I had so much anger simmering under the surface until I threw a drink in his face. It was a bad quick episode, but also on some slow motion movie shit. That was like the bow to a colossally shitty week. I'm sorry but not especially and I wrote him a vitriolic letter that I buried in my notebook and will never send. It's my nature to try to have a coda and make things tidy, but I'm starting to accept that sometimes endings are jagged and bad.

Thursday night, I revisited a place that had some appeal over the summer and the kid who introduced me to it. I was sitting alone, not really sure if I was waiting or not, feeling aimless and drinking a cider. I'm pretty sure I was frowning and ridiculously far into my head and the problems I'm sorting through. The bartender made minor small talk with me and I responded in monotone capped off with a weak smile. The kid came and we small talked and I resisted the urge to dump the bad at his feet. I killed the work and bad old relationship talk and focused on the moment. A nice little bar, a good cider, a DJ randomly playing the Metro Area album, colorful bar characters, the fun flirtation and the unspoken knowledge that it was leading to more, and a real smile on my face probably for the first time that day. It's just better sometimes to focus on the great little things.

Until The Dream Is Life and Life Becomes The Dream

I read once somewhere or another (more than a little skeptically) that my star sign is all about opposing duality. That's not especially news to me. I feel like I'm always fighting between doing the right thing and not making waves and saying "yeah, fuck that shit" with my ass-kicking boots on. Sometimes I'm a perfect Girl Scout and others angelic is least appropriate descriptor. Then again, can't that describe almost anyone? Such is life I suppose. I can't think of a time when I didn't have a reputation for being mercurial.

I'm trying to wrap up an overly extended delayed gratification period. All work and no play makes me a dull girl. I'm getting back out in the world with baby steps. I realized that the revisted boy trip was like aggravating a sprain. I'm itching to really get my shit together already. There's so many unicorns out there to catch.

Friday night started off with my bad habit of following 9-10 hours of work with a visit to the boy's studio downstairs. I dimmed as he tersely fumbled around on his computer and half-ignored me. I seethed as he brushed off my expertise and could barely feign interest at this design idea I need technical help to make a reality. I took pictures of the back of his head and contemplated making a desktop dartboard or at least a fun Photoshop defacing project. I spy him reading an email from my bizarro, the ex (we have the same initials, how freaky). I contemplate if he'd feel differently about me if I was a lying cheat or over the top in my self-obsession, and quickly shoot that down with the thought that I'd be stuck with him then. And I wondered when my stupid unromantic life began to resemble bad R&B song lyrics. I thought I outgrew all that shit years ago.

We traipse into town in search of open bar action and good music. I think to myself that it's the first time I've been to Manhattan in 2 weeks. If I didn't see it from the window at work, I'd forget the place exists sometimes. He constantly talks in half-baked bullshit and the dark hides my scowl. I am not entertained. At the place, it's a Sapph reunion with the people I saw weekly for years and I feel almost nostalgic. I'm forced to introduce him to one of those old friends and I wish I had resisted harder because it implies we're together. This terrible dancing shaggy-haired hipster fuck makes me look bad. I scowl some more until the music uplifts my mood. He leans down to whisper in my ear about the greatness of the song and I whisper in his during the next one about my awesome memory of that one. He leans away and cuts me off.

That night, like every night, I synthesize his every word and he loses interest in mine after the initial couple. I call him transparent and he calls me inscrutable, except he doesn't know that word. I call him shallow and he says that I am "the opposite of shallow, high like the Himalayas. You're always so above it all." I scowl at him and say, "you don't even know what the fuck you're talking about. The opposite of shallow is deep." And he says I'm wrong and we snap back and forth. I spit out: "every stupid episode with you is just a cheap imitation of bullshit I've already been through with someone else. I'm tired of it, it wears me out, and makes me feel like I'm 150 years old." And only glorious silence follows.

Saturday night was a big birthday blowout for one of my favorite coworkers. PrincessNella and I rolled through.To my surprise, there was one of my unicorns from yet another coworker's party. He's a friend of a guy I work with constantly and we had shared a night-long flirtation and a dance before I dropped the ball as usual. He came over and I got my formal introduction...and then dropped the ball again. I explained pathetically to my friends that I can't even interact right anymore. I convinced myself so that unicorns don't even exist that I don't even know what to do when confronted with one. I can do passive dysfunctional fine, but anything else is a challenge. Still, I'm trying my best to change. I deserve a unicorn.

Sing Your Memory Here

I found myself on the wrong side of 6am this morning. Not only do I feel like the only person still getting eaten alive by mosquitos (it's not even hot anymore, wtf?!), but I was tossing and turning all night about work and going in early to tackle a lot of shit and if I had links right for this major campaign that's torpedoed my life the past couple of weeks. And the only thing that stopped me from really obsessing about that all weekend was that my computer is too busted to do what I would've tried to do. That's just super weird. And because I'm still awake and can't go back to sleep, I'm probably going to be a zombie all day. Awesome.

Life's just kinda going. A lot of it just revolves around work which can be a good thing sometimes. I hung with the coworkers Friday night in a two borough hijinks fest and that was fun. I also gained a new bodily harm idea: choke slamming. I'd have to work out the logistics to actually do that, but it's a good threat. I saw a cool new-to-me band the other week on my first ever trip to Red Hook and I also got a random voicemail from one of my old faves. I spend an inexplicable amount of time just bullshitting with the boy. It's not making me rethink him in the least (yes, I do actually think that's true), but I love to hear him laugh for some reason. I want someone to say the same about me, but there's a certain amount of time for that I just don't have. I wish I was the type to meet people just going on the same circuit I do everyday. I've never been one with that kind of luck.

They Got The Steely Dan T-Shirt

I'm such a lady, but I'm dressing like a ho....aurgh! Shoot me. No more VMA clips. I'm a little amused by the resurrection of Timbersnake. It only makes me feel worse for my real 'Nsync fave, JC. Dude doesn't stand a chance in the pop world at the moment. He'd be better off doing some random ass XLR8R-approved techno/electro collabo and trying to recast himself as hipster avant garde.

Banksy v. Paris: video | flickr set | news article. Maybe it just makes an asshole but I think you almost deserve to get a doctored version with "That's Hot" on a megaloop if you actually purposely go out to buy a Paris CD. [via Abe]

Interview snippet:

10. What do you think of laptop DJs?

Its whatever, I dont think anyone likes seeing someone checking their Myspace profiles for new messages from hot girls during a set.

If youre gonna act like a performer, then do something magical.

Laptop DJs should be hidden in a black box because its distracting and very unflattering what they are trying to do.

Ouch.

I've been having more than a few moments lately (especially when I start to think about the upcoming new apartment hunt) when I think it might be fun to pick up and go somewhere new. And then I remember I can't drive and/or speak more than the basics of a foreign language and that I'm broke and then that nips itself in the bud. And then I had one of those "it can only happen here!" couple of days and I really forget about that.

Thursday night, I left work and went downstairs to the boy's lair. We're friends it seems..at the moment...I guess. I'm just the type of person prone to silly entanglements, but I'm trying to get better. (In an aside, I've decided to blame my guy friends for that. Besides them giving me mostly ineffectual advice, I must be the only girl in NY with a horde of attached guy friends who know nothing but...other attached guys. What are the fucking odds for fuck's sake?! Since I'm left to my own devices, all I've got is recycling and the internet. le sigh.) We palled around about dumbo, then went to the birthday party for this band guy I used to harass the hell out of. The boy intro'd me with a "you remember Candice..." and I got the unsure blink of recognition, but at least he didn't say "you're the bitch who used to get on my nerves!" I might have if the situation was reversed.

Everyone at the party besides me and a handful of people were giants. I'm about average height, so it's very strange to be somewhere that 95% of the crowd is 5'10"+. It makes me wish I had a spare pair of heels stashed in my bag to at least be in the same atmosphere as everyone else. One of the other shorties was this random who was very weird. She and the boy are friends of friends and they were chattering away. She looked at me once like "are you lost?" and then again after some time had passed like "hmm..you're not going away..." What did I do? Well...nothing. I was drinking and passing the time, I didn't really feel any way about her besides amusement. When he wandered away for some reason, she gave me the grilling (why do they do that?!) and I was pretty blase. She perked up when I said I lived in the Heights and she dropped that her boyfriend lived a block over from me on Lincoln. Well...bully for him. Soon after, she poofed and I'll admit I got a slight thrill dropping to the boy about her bf living in my hood. He kinda visibly deflated. I might have hid a snicker. Good times. But, some good advice: let's just avoid the hero at 3am, even if someone else is paying. It'll just make you feel bad the next day. Seriously.

Saturday night, I was representing for the office at a coworker's DJ gig. Also there was this guy we work with that I had a crush on until I realized a) we'll always be working together, so it's to my best interest not to be that into him b) he resembles a young Tom Cruise circa Risky Business and reminds me of how much I always hated that guy with his dead eyes and chicklet teeth. Poof! Crush gone. Biggest thrill of the night was hearing "Sweet Freedom" and then spazzing with the DJ partner about how much we love Michael McDonald and how a yacht rock mix would be the sweetest thing ever. Yacht Rock...bringing people together. Also, being at a party in Williamsburg with the '06 crowd of FOA hipsters made me feel like I was 40 years old. Deliverance now!

Alafairnadia and I took in a show at the shores of the Gowanus Sunday afternoon. I love shows in random ass places. We heard good music, got a new DJ hero, and even got to see Justin...though saying hi almost got me a broken foot. Ouch. Amusement was making a bathroom line friend by talking shit about how slow the people in front of us were and running down how we and others reacted in other lines. Kids gotta get their kicks where they can I guess.

So Does Everybody Else

First, the quotables:

"What ruins polka for me is that it's all guys from Minnesota singing about milk and cookies"
I laugh. "Or cheese and bread!"
"Or the Mall of America!"

"Okay, I've figured it out. They're either gay or German or gay and German."
"I can see them being all those possibilites."
"Yeah, they totally seem like they're gonna make out. They need to just get it on already."

"That's the cute girl? She's not even that cute!"
"I. Know!"

More TK.

I'm On It

Er, so I really fixed the comments this time. Sorry to Alafairnadia and the creatively named theglow@shonuffizabeeatch.com for the rejection. Re-comment away!

It's a fucking scorcher in the city. 110 heat index for today and Wednesday. Utterly brutal! Needless to say, the bike is staying at home until it has passed. I'm really not trying to pass out from heat stroke in the middle of Fulton St or something.

To all those who've expressed their concern over the past post: eh, you know me. It's usually all doom and gloom cryptic-cakes, but not for the reasons you'd think or as bad as I made it out to be. It's mostly all good. Minus the fact August is going to be a really financially tight month for me. No Chicago trip. Sorry, Trendvickster and David! But, guess who's getting lean and mean? Try the girl who lives on the top of a hill and has to carry her bike up four flights of stairs!

Weirdness of the week: I inadvertantly got the urge to check up on Farmer and I found out that he's like buddies (at least photographically) with my favorite Soda waitress. No way! Why he can't be friends with the bitch we all hate who almost got her ass handed to her last week? Ugh. He's tainting everything!

We're very much on Ghostly's jock right now (and so is XLR8R!) ...and in a parallel aside, if you can identify this DJ (we suspect Bodycode cause that's what we think we heard at that party), you might be my new best friend. ETA: It's Adam X. Music critics are good for something after all! We should've known better to listen to an idiot tripping off Sparks. He did play Bodycode though, if I'm not mistaken. Speaking of that party, it was fun as hell and kids were even dancing. But the obscene amounts of alcohol might have helped with that. I even quipped: "since when do fucking hipsters like techno?" That is the question of the summer.

Believe it or not, someone called me "Candizzle" yesterday and my head didn't explode. I only made a half-hearted threat of bodily harm even. While smiling. Ugh. I'm getting soft in my old age. I'm such a sucker for a pretty face.

She's Pretty And I Like Her, But She's Too W