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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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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'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.