blogalogadingdong

blogalogadingdong's revenge

2011-04-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

riddle me this.

2011-02-21T21:07:00.000-08:00

if well-behaved women seldom make history, and good girls don't have time to keep diaries...

then who do these bitches think is writing this shit down??

I'm making a comeback, so prepare for some hot blogalogadingdong action.

in the meantime? CATPIZZA.

Frodo and His Many Rings

2010-04-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

This is an account of my experiences in the trenches of online dating, the Not OKcupid Chronicles, and you can read part one HERE!

Sean, 28, was a web designer for a startup in Manhattan and his profile clearly reflected his nerdy nature and sense of humor, but his photos especially piqued me. He had ten (the maximum amount allowed), which red flagged him as a potential egomaniac, but they were all different or unique in some way, most photoshopped in an artsy manner, and universally rendering him ridiculously good looking. Even with a Tom Selleck mustache. His response to my message was cute and quick, as well as engaging. Right as I was about to write back, he IMed me, so we got to chatting and when my battery life started running low and he still hadn’t asked for my number, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

“Would it be terribly presumptuous of me to suggest we meet for a drink this week?” I tapped onto the keys tentatively. I hit enter and bit my lip in anticipation.

His response beeped as it popped up on the screen, “If we’re going to be presumptuous here, I’m going to have to presume that you are one of my friends pulling a prank on me, because I never get messaged by cool, witty, mega babes on this site, and if that’s the case then fuck you, Randal, this isn’t funny!” followed by, “But if you are a real girl, then I’d love to get a drink with you.”

Strategizing my angle for virtual bachelor number three was a little different. First off, I had messaged him, then I asked him out, and now that he had my number, I felt it might be wise to let him move the next pawn. Two or three days went by and I’d not heard from Sean and had figured perhaps he was not that into me, and after attending a dinner party at a friend’s house I found myself the last one standing and curled up on their couch in a snuggie with their 30 lb Persian cat named GusGus and my computer. Boredom and insomnia got the best of me, and when 3 AM rolled around I found myself signing into my slightly shameful secret social network of lonely hearts, and immediately had an IM from Sean wondering why he hadn’t heard from me. I felt mildly incensed. As a postmodernist woman, I don’t mind exploring gender role reversal spooning, but I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about having to woo this guy, who I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he was on a dating website if he could walk into Union Pool on any given weeknight and easily have his pick of the lady litter. We ended up on the phone well into the wee hours, and made plans to meet for drinks at Pete’s in Greenpoint the next evening.

I woke up to this message in my email: “Just in case you were wondering, I am actually not mentally disabled despite they way I just sounded on the phone. Sleep deprivation just seems to have that effect on me occasionally. You however are pretty goddamn charming. I almost feel a little intimidated... which is why I've devised a foolproof plan to get completely shit-house drunk right before we meet. I promise it will be one of the top three best OKcupid dates you’ve ever been on.”

I wrote back: “That email made me laugh harder than I did when I woke up on Jen's couch wearing a zebra print snuggie to GusGus dropping his slobbery fetch toy (a scrunchie, I shit you not) on my face. I swear, that cat looks like an Urban Outfitters ottoman. You sounded just fine, and I'm totally hip to the ways of the folk who live in nearly-perpetual sleep dep. I'm just glad I didn't sound like a stoned, rambling weirdo! (Or, if I did, at least an entertaining one.)  I very much look forward to feeding you vitamin water through an eyedropper and carbs as you drool in my lap, tonight.”

The following evening I became terribly nervous after we exchanged texts throughout the day… I had developed a legitimate, sizeable crush on Sean without actually having met him. What if the tables turned and I ended up being his nightmare OKcupid story? I’d looked at the personality deciphering questions he’d filled out on his profile and one of them indicated he would never date someone who posted intimate details of their life online. When was a good time to drop the TMI blogger bomb on someone? And the Cancer bomb? He was sure to ask what kind of novel I’m writing—it’s not exactly a prudent situation to lie in, and to answer that question vaguely could be so much worse. What if he automatically assumed that I’m writing homoerotic fan fiction based on the Legend of Zelda? Or a young, hip guide to coping with living with herpes? Right as I was about to go cross eyed with irrational pre-date jitters, I beat him to Pete’s by about five minutes (even though I’d been strategically 5 minutes late) and sat fidgeting with the foam head on my pint of Magic Hat while I waited. When he arrived he revealed one of his most fetching traits of all, which was his gorgeous toothy grin, and followed that up with a big, warm hug. I could feel the butterflies moshing in my guts in a flurry of unbridled pheromones as I marveled at his pearly smile and disarming dimples. Maybe Cupid was OK, after all?

A couple of hours into our fun, effortless date, we discovered that we shared several friends in common… one of whom being a bartender I met 4 years ago on my first visit to Brooklyn who I’d gotten to know biblically a handful of times the summer before and then shifted gears back to the Friend Zone. This bartender was Sean’s best friend, and he and his brother had grown up with him since they were toddlers in Arizona. I felt a wave of panic welling up in me, not wanting to have poked holes in the bottom of my dreamboat by suffering a small world dating coincidence, and promptly changed the subject by complimenting him on a ring he was wearing, of the gumball variety. It was slightly chintzy looking and had a Celtic design grooved in the middle, and the edges’ copper stain was rubbing off to reveal the silver metal underneath. He reached out and grabbed my hand, manicured with chipping fuchsia nail polish as per usual, and slid the ring on my finger.

“I want you to have it.” He said. I leaned back, slightly incredulous and now on the verge of a potentially dangerous category five swoon.

“I couldn’t possibly.” My cheeks were getting hot. “Bad form to accept an heirloom on a first date.”

“It’s true, I’ve had it forever, and I wear it every day, but it’s yours now. You just have to promise not to lose it.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise.” He pulled me closer.

“I promise.” I said, and Sean leaned in and punctuated my vow with a sweet, long kiss that tasted faintly of whiskey and chapstick. I was completely done for.

“You wanna get outta here?”

“Like the wind,” I said breathily, trying not to reveal how hopelessly twitterpated I’d become. One short walk later that I’m sure felt more like a 6 block float, we’d gotten back to my place, and I threw Rufus off the bed who shot me a disgruntled look before slinking off to curl up on a pillow across the room.

The next morning, I woke up not wearing much more than my Cracker Jack prize of runaway romance. Sean hit the snooze button on his Blackberry alarm until he was an hour late for work, kissing me on the forehead while he exclaimed how amazing he’d slept, and that he hadn’t for days. For some reason, this didn’t alarm me in the slightest. He left for work saying he’d text me to make plans for the weekend and I laid there listening to Billie Holiday for about a half hour until my roommate plodded down the stairs into my room. Maren pulled a chair up to my bed and straddled it, with his twinkling hazel eyes hungry for gossip.

“How was it? Spill.” I flashed him a boob, and we both squealed. “I take it the date went well?”

“Indeed. You missed him by a bee’s ass.”

“Ha! I wasn’t sure, the fish was nowhere to be found.”

Maren was referring to the “Fuck Fish”, which was a large rubber koi that I’d permanently borrowed from Jay’s mantle in LA on a road trip I took years ago. When we first started sharing the apartment in February we devised a foolproof plan for his covert knowledge of when it was not safe to walk through my room to get to the shower. The fish was our BFF secret handshake of “do not disturb” signs. The Fuck Fish had actually not yet been utilized and in the heat of the moment it hadn’t occurred to me to get up, locate the fish, and attempt to stealthily place it on the stairwell. Stealthy was not a word that came to mind when the subject was a big rubber goldfish, and neither was sexy.

“It slipped my mind.”

Maren grunted a knowing harrumph, and I held up my hand, fanning out my spirit fingers like a blushing bride to be.

“Check this out. He put a ring on it.” I grinned like a jack o’lantern.

“Shut up.”

“I will not.”

“Jesus, this guy is good.” he said, leaning forward to inspect my new jewelry. “Look at you, you’re dickmatized!”

“You’ve got that right, my friend.” I said, collapsing back into a pile of pillows and pulling the covers over my head.

The following morning, Sean texted me, “Hey you. How’s things?” which sent me into a complete frenzy, bouncing up the stairs to Maren’s room in my pink Ikea slippers to report of the textual healing. I’d been terrified that perhaps I was a little too swift to relinquish the proverbial cookie to Sean, whose I’d nicknamed Frodo because of his bestowing me with the one ring with which to rule my spring fling. I hadn’t taken it off since he’d put it on, and it was starting to turn my finger green in addition to clashing with my outfits, but I didn’t care. I held up the cell phone to Maren, hopping from foot to foot.

“’Hey you, how’s things’? That’s so… bro-ish.”

“Right? What do I say?”

“Ask him if he has a box of gumball machine rings labeled “For Gullible Hoes” under his bed.”

“Maren! I’m serious.”

“Me too!”

“You’re useless. Dead to me.” I said, stretching out on his yoga mat in the sun, still clutching my clunky flip phone for dear life, which is how I would remain for good portions of the following three weeks. We’d made solid plans to hang out Saturday evening, and I spent half of Saturday afternoon in the shower shaving my entire body like an Olympic swimmer, exfoliating, and trying to make my winter-gnarled feet less frightening. I changed my outfit no less than ten times, accessorized with the ring, did my makeup perfectly, and curled my hair. I looked and felt amazing, filled with the burgeoning hope of the first blush of flirtation. And then, he stood me up.

Sunday morning came and I trudged to the bathroom to grudgingly wash the makeup off that I’d been too miserable to bother with the night before and the Fuck Fish sat atop the toilet tank, mocking my pain.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” I growled, fully realizing that I was talking to a rubber fish and not caring, as I knocked it onto the tile floor vengefully with the back of my hand, hearing Maren’s telltale gait down the stairs.

“What, no fish?” He called through the room.

“Yeah. No date, no fish.” I said, sitting back down on my bed.

“Wait, what happened?”

“A whole lotta nothing. He hadn’t called by ten, so I did, and there was no answer.”

“And still no word?”

“Nope.” I glanced woefully at my dormant phone.

“Baby, I’m sorry. Please tell me you’re not still wearing the ring.” I sat on my hand.

“God, no.” I lied.

Later that night Frodo surfaced and apologized profusely, promising to make it up to me, having excused his completely wack behavior by trying to convince me that he had accidentally slept for over 24 hours and hadn’t heard his phone. I thought it was a little weird, and potentially a total load of bullshit, but I really wanted to get to know him, and thought it’d be too hasty to kick him to the curb over one mistake, especially after the long lonely winter I’d just endured in a serious relationship with a heated blanket and Netflix streaming.

Joking graciously about the time released roofie I’d slipped him at Pete’s, I opted to give him another chance, and we met up later that night at our favorite bar and debuted our courtship where our mutual friend pours drinks. I finally triumphantly cast the fish out my front door for Maren. But a few days later, we’d made plans to meet up in Williamsburg in the early evening, and Frodo did not contact me to tell me the location until 4 in the morning. I was exceedingly nonplussed and considering sending him a bill for a can of Skintimate and a very fancy loofah. I decided (stupidly, I might add) to give him one more shot after our mutual friend assured me that I had hit the jackpot with Frodo, and he not only gave his blessing but insisted that I “couldn’t possibly find a better guy”. The third time he stood me up in a span of three weeks, I was distinctly hoping that said claim held no bearing. Another night was spent waiting for a phone call dressed for a black tie affair donning my finest tranny lashes, watching Glee with my roommate and his boyfriend. I was right back where I started. His excuse, which came some time around what would have been last call, was another epic nap, and Maren and I theorized he was either secretly married or a pill popper, and my last text to my own personal Van Winkle read, “Wow. Lame. Spare me the sorry this time, and lose my number.”

Two weeks passed and I was a little bummed that my spring fling hadn’t sprung very far, but I pressed on in my online dating field research. I met another OKcupid guy who was an independent filmmaker who made a very strong point of telling me he had a car, (an ’89 Hyundai) because his friend had told him girls would think it was sexy. Aside from mentioning his ex five times in the first five minutes, he ended up boring me to the brink of tears, as he detailed his current project, a musical short film that he described as “Requiem For a Dream meets The Little Mermaid”, and showed me several photos on his iPhone of the set design comprised of day-glo, blacklit paper mache forests of coral. I furtively eyeballed his bald spot, gleaming under the lamplight, which had been undetectable in any of his photos on his profile as I weighed my options for a swift escape. There was no second date, despite that he texted me after claiming to have had “so much fun”.

The night baseball season began was Easter Sunday, and I ended up at a sports bar with some friends after a day of lounging in the park and eating my weight in marshmallow peeps. Right as we walked in I ran into Frodo, sipping a PBR in a cozy with his knit cap pulled too far down his forehead, nearly causing his blonde curls to completely obstruct his vision. I braced myself for the crash dummy impact of awkwardness and eked out a forced smile and a greeting. There was no toothy grin or warm hug, this time, and he asked some obligatory socially graceful questions; how I’d been, if I was liking my new job, and whether or not I was rooting for the Yankees. As I looked down to grab my wallet from my purse to get a drink, a glimmer of metal caught my eye. Frodo was wearing a ring almost identical to the one that he had given me on our first date.

“Hey,” I said, gesturing to his pointer finger, “You got another ring…”

“Oh, yeah.” He said, shrugging nonchalantly. “They’re only a quarter.”

The NotOKcupid Chronicles

2010-04-16T15:03:00.001-07:00

Of all of the things Cupid has been to me, “OK” is not one of them. From the humble beginnings of a love life that was predestined to be tumultuous, gut wrenching, awkward, and often hilarious, to where I sit now, a little weary and worse for the wear, I’ve far from given up. I still believe in fairy tale love, the poetic and deep entwining of two souls who want to share their lives with each other, or at the very least the city equivalent: semi-regular, great sex with someone who has a clean bill of health and won’t fuck your friends. The closest I’ve come was to throwing in the towel on the hunt for a mate was to join an online dating website. Nevermind the fact that I’ve had no trouble meeting philanderers, drug addicts, schizophrenics and compulsive liars by other means with much more tactile introductions, one way or another the somewhat web chic explosion of OKcupid amongst my peers intrigued me. I had friends who were on it, who I considered to be normal (within reason) and dateable… so why wouldn’t there be like-minded fellows on there? Maybe I was being a luddite, not utilizing a whole new medium with which to entice someone into buying my proverbial cow.

The night in February that I joined OKcupid, there were 2 feet of snow on the ground, (the news had called it “the snowpocalypse”), and I’d been sitting on a couch with a gay man for seven hours, watching Bravo network television. Half a season of Shear Genius, three episodes into Millionaire Matchmaker, and one extra large meat combo pizza later, I had a revelation. Dying alone in the dead of winter was not at all an attractive prospect. I tentatively broached the subject to Brandon who flicked his wrist at me while still looking at the screen explaining that he loved this part, and then recited the following scene word for word. When the commercial came on and he turned back to me, my mouth was agape in an admittedly judgmental “o” shape, and he replied, “What?! I have DVR.”

“What do you think about OKcupid?” I asked.

“What’s there to think? That’s like, online dating, right?” Brandon closed the pizza box that was littered with abandoned crusts and chili pepper flakes with his big toe.

“Right.”

“What kind of lame retard has to join a site to meet people?”

“What kind of super cool retard knows the entire 3rd season of Shear Genius by heart?”

“Touché, bitch.”

“I think we’re past the point of being apologetic for real talk.” I replied ruefully.

Minutes later, I had pulled up the main page of the site, tentatively clicking around as if an alarm would sound and a mass email would be sent to everyone I’d ever met informing them of my inherent desperation. Though I initially clicked through the website as if it were a virtual minefield, it seemed not to be of sinister nature. The user interface was easy to navigate. I liked the cobalt blue background and the testimonials of its hipness and success rates in the sidebar… it didn’t seem so bad. Besides, there was an option in the search feature that allowed me to set a height requirement, and I was excited at the prospect of meeting someone who wouldn’t get emasculated when I felt like wearing heels. So, I bit the bullet, and began filling out my profile. The basics were easy: female, 5’10”, Caucasian, owns cats, some college, drinks often, smokes sometimes, speaks fluent English and some pig latin.

The details took me a little longer—what were you supposed to reveal in these fields with the expectantly blinking cursor to sell yourself to a prospective mate? This is obviously not the place I’d mention that I’d just been laid off (again) and that my snore sounds akin to the death rattle of the Rock Biter from Neverending Story. The music/movie/food interest section is a tricky one, too, because everyone knows how much it matters to at least share some similar predilections to recreational activities with a mate. Yet, if I rattle off 20 indie bands who are so far below the radar they don’t even register on it, I sounds like a pretentious record store brat. If I dare tell the truth and list Bright Eyes as one of my all time favorite bands, I sound like a suicidal teenager who is 7 years late to the pity party, and will probably cry about it. I almost closed the window and gave up right there, before I realized that I was taking my social experiment entirely too seriously.

After changing my self-summary from the tongue-in-cheek, “I’m spontaneous!!!!! I hate DRAMA!!!!! I love funnnnn!!!!!!!!11” to something a little more accurate (but still quirky), I set to surfing around for potential matches. Within moments of completing my profile, I had received several instant messages, some from underage broheims in New Jersey (actual quote: “dam ur sexy bitch gimme your #”), and one from a Bulgarian bodybuilder in Queens who requested “nudie pix” from me. So far, I wasn’t impressed. Though to be fair, the situation was that I was on a dating website at four in the morning on a Tuesday. The next IM came in from a certain “ColonelMustard”, a 25 year old Brooklynite who had a simple, basic icebreaker by saying “Hi! You seem very nice. I’m Alex.”

I stole Brendan away from Bravo to inspect his pictures and profile together. Alex’s photos were cute; he was bespectacled and scruffy, appeared adventurous, maybe a little outdoorsy (not my thing, but I don’t begrudge people their treehuggy moments). His profile claimed he was good at dancing, cooking, massages and sex. Getting dipped, fed, rubbed and loved down didn’t sound so bad… so I messaged him back. Our repartee was witty and we shared similar interests, and he even hearteningly addressed first that he was aware it probably seemed a little off color that he was on OKcupid at dawn. We agreed to meet for happy hour tacos the next day in Greenpoint and then go thrifting at my favorite spot on Manhattan Ave., The Thing.

The next day I primped a little in preparation and headed out to meet my very first online date, and Brendan sent me off with a pat on the back and reassured me that if I was found dead, bludgeoned to death with a candelabra in a thrift store, he’d avenge me. Trudging through the snow up to the taqueria, I recognized him on the sidewalk from his photos, though the proclaimed 6’2” on his profile was more like 5’8”. I’d worn flats, just in case. I wasn’t sure whether to hug or formally introduce myself, so I extended my hand to give a handshake that was a little more limp than I’d have liked due to my buzzing nerves and low blood sugar.

Once seated, we ordered the bargain tacos and engaged in a getting to know you chat where I realized several things. For one, he lived in a “renegade co-op” in Bushwick with [literally] starving artists and musicians who were “Freegans”. (For those unfamiliar, Freegans dumpster dive for trashed produce in the city, in a sort of Robin Hood-y lifestyle that better befits inhabitants of a 3rd world country than trust fund kids squatting in a unzoned commune in Brooklyn.) The questionable stains of unknown origin on his ill fitting Carhardts utility jacket seemed more appropriate, given the new information. Next, I discovered that his only employment was with himself, as he was a weed dealer. Moments later, when the bill was dropped that came to a whopping $5.45, he put down three dollars and excused himself to the restroom.

“He could at least have put a nug down for a tip,” I thought to myself.

Portrait of me as portrayed by my baby brother Jack, circa 2006

The conclusion of my first OKC to IRL meeting analysis was that my taco imbroglio wasn’t a scarring disaster, but it wasn’t exactly impressive or dazzling, either. I was discouraged, but I couldn’t cry over spilt Grey Poupon. I chose to approach bachelor number two a little differently. I searched through my “matches” for a while one afternoon and found two I thought were intriguing, and then formulated two thoughtful and and pithy personalized messages to each. Within 24 hours I had a reply from the Joel, the musician from Kensington, which sparked an email correspondence that lasted a week and eased my fear that I may meet him in person and have absolutely nothing in common, as was the case with bachelor number one. He was a lanky young lad in a band that played in a sort of circus folk style and dressed like Oliver Twist, so I opted to take him to my favorite eccentric spot for free music in Williamsburg. What I hadn’t anticipated was that I was about to meet up with the alter ego of the charming gent I’d been writing to: The Blacked Out Drunk Guy.

I beat him to the bar, which was more crowded than usual, so I was trying not to crane my neck around too conspicuously with eyes akimbo in search of my date. This time I didn’t have to worry about how to go about the introduction because as soon as we recognized each other, he had launched himself/fallen into my arms in an embrace that smelled equally of Old Spice and Jameson.

“Pleased to meetchew!” he exclaimed, slurring. “Sorry I got a head start on you… been drinking since 5 when I got off work.”

Less than charmed, I glanced at the coo-coo clock on the wall, which indicated 5 minutes to eleven. The only thing I’d had to drink that evening was Tropicana No Pulp, and my date was lurching side to side like a peg legged zombie adrift on a stormy sea of booze. For the first few seconds I’d been pleased that he turned out to be more attractive in person than his photos (which were already pretty handsome), but it was canceled out by the prospect of having to give him a piggyback ride to the subway later. Conversation proved impossible due to his uncontrollable nervous giggling and intermittent hiccupping, so I took the liberty of relocating us to the music venue in the back of the bar to take the pressure off, and hopefully deter his garbled chatter. My disaster aversion tactic only worked to a certain degree, as he had become significantly less interested in making conversation but not necessarily noise. There I was, on a date with an attractive, gainfully employed, talented musician with a suspender collection… who to everyone else in the cramped venue space was just the obnoxious drunk guy in the back making hooting noises and whistling at inappropriate intervals during an emotional singer-songwriter’s set.

When I returned home that night after an equally awkward goodbye, I was irritated, sober, and wielding my pepper spray willy nilly all down Richardson St. thinking to myself how pissed off I’d be if I was jumped again walking home from a date I wish I’d stayed home from. I’m fairly sure an assailant would have come out of a scrape with me that night one nutsack poorer. Back inside my studio, I changed into my flannel cat pajamas and grabbed my Macbook, heading for the stairway of my apartment building, which is the only place where the stolen internet connection comes in. I found myself back on OKcupid, where I had a few new messages; two were from random goober-y dudes wanting to know if Dr. Pepper chapstick really existed and if my carpet matched the drapes, and one from “dotcommiebastard”, who I had written a week before, forgotten about, and never heard back from.

... to be continued! Part Two: Frodo and His Many Rings.

ACK!!

2010-04-12T16:38:00.000-07:00

“two more hours should tell the story, one way or the other. either I’m right and a catastrophe will occur, or it won’t and I’m crazy. in either case the outlook is not so good.”

-walker percy

the past few months have been challenging, to put things lightly.

as much as I would like to pretend that my life has no semblance to a cathy comic, the unforgiving facts have other plans. It’s 3am on a saturday night and I’m stoned in my studio apartment, listening to rubber soul, trying to reason with myself so that the other half of the brick of extra sharp cheddar in the fridge will make it through the night. my ambitious goal to go from dark red to blonde turned out giving me a mop of hair that is several different colors (including but certainly not limited to) a hue I can only accurately describe as "cheeto dust". I took out the trash wearing a button down blouse, pink slippers, and a pair of spanx earlier-- in broad daylight. christ, I belong to an online dating website and carry around pictures of my cat. (cameraphone, but still.)

despite these discouraging admissions, I’m willing to cut myself some slack. cathy probably wouldn’t have spent the afternoon at an antique book expo in the upper east side, then to stroll alongside the horsedrawn carriages to watch the sunset in central park, scribbling in a moleskin to kill time between art shows. on the other hand, I did end up going to the plaza hotel just to pee, and was later humped by a flagrant hobo on a crowded f train.

luck has never been my strong suit, but I excel in steely resilience and hope, though I’m conditioned to be perpetually braced for impact from my crash course thus far. since I moved to brooklyn, I would describe my financial situation as “vaguely impoverished” or “fashionably starved”, but lately I’ve just been pathetically, depressingly, horrifyingly penniless. we’re talking mayonnaise sandwich broke. jumping turnstiles in heels busted. as bukowski would say, “without a pot to puke in”. being fond of the finer things in life, I’ve always had a propensity to hanker for a higher grade of material goods, but I don’t need them in order to be happy. further still, I have learned, is that it always helps to be able to buy a new york post and a coffee every day in order not to be miserable.

if the first two of my so-called quarter life crises were fakeouts, this one has been relentlessly difficult and feels quite official for two reasons; I’m legitimately confused and panicked about what the hell to do with my life, and I’m actually about to turn 25. my mom’s favorite new thing to remind me of is that I’m “not nineteen anymore”, right behind “don’t fuck on the first date”. she’s getting married to her longtime boyfriend/fiancée in about a week in maui and when she pondered aloud the peculiarity surrounding the whole name change phenomenon, also took the opportunity to confess that she never really liked the spelling of my name and that I should seriously consider losing my “h” to seem more european.

“wait, would that mean I could stop shaving my pits?” I asked.

“just think about it. woody allen’s cristina didn’t have an ‘h’.” she replied with a judicious tone, slightly perturbed at my lack of seriousness.

“this is true,” I countered, “but she wasn’t european either, she just balled a spaniard in the movie.”

I actually entertained the thought for a moment after we’d gotten off the phone. was it possible that my mother had just offered me the holy grail of ridiculous parental advice? would I be more responsible, without an h? would my life miraculously change? would I get a book deal easier without wasting precious ink on my silent consonant? is my inevitable destined metamorphosis riding on semantic aesthetics and alternate spellings?

probably not. I still suspect that "h" is not the problem. the problem remains frustratingly at large. what I do know for sure is that my slate is wiped clean for me to change my identity in a manner that doesn’t require the drawing up of legal documents, all over again.

the jack of hearts

2010-02-17T06:27:00.000-08:00

the night that I met owen felt distinctly like autumn though it was the first blush of spring, as the leaves had inexplicably begun to fall in late february of 2004. I was packed like a pubescent sardine into a jetta full of girls stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on a friday on telegraph avenue in berkeley, listening to a liz phair mixtape, when an audible gasp of a mentionable decibel erupted from the front seat. taylor, resident loudmouthed redhead of the crew who supplied everyone else with a hoard of endless adderall pills as well as pretentious anecdotes, had spotted a prime specimen.

"oh... my god," she said, "ohmygod."

the god she was referring to was about 6'2", lanky and lean, with tousled dark brown locks protruding in a curly mop from underneath the brim of a trucker cap, wearing an amoeba records bag slung haphazardly across his shoulder. he walked with his moon colored eyes to the ground in a shuffling gait, and the brooding affect he embodied made my heart skip several beats. he had the essence of a young bob dylan incarnate, save for the stupid hipster hat.

taylor continued, "would you look at that."

rose answered without skipping a beat, shifting the gears of the car while it idled, "homo."

"no way," I said, "he can't be..."

"totally gay." rose said.

taylor protested, "but why! he looks like he could be into chicks."

"it would be such a waste." I observed wistfully, noticing the curvature of his perfect behind in tight blue jeans.

"he's too pretty, and he knows it." rose said, and as if on cue, the boy turned his head to meet our lascivious stares. it was true.

"fuck." taylor muttered, as we all awkwardly turned our heads to look ahead to abruptly curtail our collective gawking. I couldn't resist to immediately look back, which he graciously met with a lopsided smile, and I turned beet red right as the light turned green.

"flamer." affirmed rose. and with that, we were off on our adventure seeking. we arrived at le chateau co-op shortly after, which was much more of a shanty motel than a dormitory, and was rumored to house the most elaborate meth lab in the greater bay area in its basement. every corridor was dark and lined with nubbly, cheap nylon carpet that is commonly found in dentists offices or mobile homes and littered with cigarette butts and empty beer cans. each sheetrock wall was covered from floor to ceiling in profane graffiti, obscure poetry, or splatters of paint. there was a vague yet omnipresent tincture of pee, and one of the squatters had brought home a runt pig named bella that ran amok, squealing and snorting amidst the constant melee.

the layout of this artfuck bomb shelter was comprised of 5 floors and resembled what might have been an ideal labyrinth for a mental institution if it hadn't been taken over by hippie stoner college students. the rooftop displayed a twinkling view of san francisco and the east bay, and at any given hour was giving airy respite to a tortured musician, be it a bongo soloist or an indie folk prodigy. the pool in the backyard was oft filled with random, floating pieces of furniture and gorgeous naked people who effortlessly embodied carefree, irreverent youth. everything about the co-ops was weird, gross, surreal, and made me feel drunk on puerility and freedom. it was a representation of what I thought might have happened if the babysitter gave up and left after the parents never returned home. these kids were wild and well versed in the alchemy of chaos and hedonism, but also maintained 4.0s. where had they been all my life? I wondered to myself, as I took another gravity bong hit.

le chateau

velkjo, me, mysterious hand on abe, abe

hanging out at the co-ops was my most "hands on" social experiment. each night there had the potential to end in a gory, savage lord of the flies showdown with some random RA's head on a stick carried by a pack of sociology majors donning togas. I learned how to shotgun beer, dumpster dive for produce, and accurately quote emmanuel kant. I did whipits in a bunk bed with a drug dealer named fliz who wore ski goggles and parachute pants and I meticulously managed a list of people who participated in my "makeout revolution" with a key in the margin to decode what kind of kisser they were and who I did "more" with. I got all of the animal house experience without any of the college, and it was some kind of incredible. on one bizarrely autumnal february night in the beginning of my epic berkeley ballad, I met owen, and his best friend rob.

cloyne was twice the size of chateau, home to over 200 cal students and the odd squatter, which was essentially what I became for a period of about 6 months. it wasn't quite as ghetto as chateau, and had a much more congenially aesthetic layout in addition to an outdoor hot tub that was really quite pleasant once you were drunk or high enough not to care what you might be swimming in. (real talk.) it was a sophisticated sort of squalor that made me feel grown up and edgy, existing in a glamorous indigence that I'd only dreamt of in my childhood bedroom as a sickly teenager.

rose had caught wind of a princess bride party across town at cloyne that promised free two buck chuck and choco tacos while supplies lasted, and her, taylor, myself, and several other usual suspects all piled on top of each other in the tiny car to jettison ourselves between co-ops. immediately upon walking in the front door, I peered into the darkened room where the movie was projected on the wall and the scene where wesley is rolling down the hill in the countryside yelling "aaaasss yoooou wiiiiiiiiiishhhhh" played out, and I saw a familiar face flickering in the light of the movie reel. it was the telegraph heartthrob from hours before... still wearing that abominable hat. I gasped and dug my pink glittery talons into rose's skinny thigh and hissed, "trucker cap. TRUCKER CAP! he can't be gay! do gay guys like the princess bride?" I thought better of it. "don't answer that."

rose observed the miracle that had occurred... we had manifested a face to face meeting with the mysterious street walking indie god of berkeley. we watched the rest of the movie and I bolstered my confidence with a choco taco, a drink, and a line of adderall, and as the credits rolled, the crowd dispersed and re-convened in the common area by the courtyard. someone had recently experienced an epic paper mache disaster, because in the middle of the floor there was a ruptured bag of plaster of paris that shot crusty white streams of powder ten feet in each direction, giving the ambience a coke-party-gone-awry feel. across from rose and I, on a different couch that was a veritable petri dish for scabies and other unsavory, itchy things, sat the boy in the trucker cap, and his friend who resembled a young robert smith with an unfortunate bleach job north of his ears. they were nursing PBRs and engaged in a conversation I desperately wanted to interrupt, but was at a loss for how to go about it. there was a moment where they both stopped talking and looked up at me at the very same time, so I did the only thing I could think of, in my split second of coquettish boldness and terror that I'd end up ridiculed. I looked at the object of my affection in the questionable hat, and stuck up my pointer finger to beckon him over to me. rose and I both stopped breathing, as we waited for a response. this playful mating dance was becoming more stressful than disarming an atom bomb.

the two boys continued to stare at me, now both wearing a bemused smirk, and then they looked at each other. trucker cap looked back first, and pointed to himself mouthing the word, "me?", and I finally exhaled as I nodded affirmatively. he shrugged to his friend, who was getting up to wander elsewhere, and rose took her leave back into the fray of the party.

now as he had come over to my side, I could see that he was blushing, and I felt sanguinely confident.

"hi, I'm owen." he said, sitting down next to me.

"christina. nice to meet you."

"that was impressive, what you just did right there. you're pretty ballsy, aren't you?" he asked, leaning back a little as if sizing me up.

"eh." I shrugged. "shy people are creepy. I had to meet you after serendipity set us up twice in one night."

"oh, that was you! in the car full of girls..."

"that were eyeballing you as if you were a fine christmas ham, yes. sorry about that." I laughed nervously.

"no, it made my night. until now."

"I'd have thought the princess bride to be a high point."

"but, you can see Rodents of Unusual Size on any given night here at cloyne."

"inconceivable!" I shrieked, and as we leaned back into the cushions, heard something in the frame crack underneath us making the couch sag in the middle, sliding our hips together. I fought the urge to faint.

"hey," he adjusted himself a little so as not to be sitting directly on me, "you remind me of a much more attractive helen hunt."

I stared at him and then furrowed my brow. he was lucky that his eyes were huge and grey blue enough to sail dreamboats.

"like, way more attractive." he continued.

"wrong answer." I pat his knee. he got up, grabbed my hand and helped me out of the busted la-z-boy, and we walked out into the moonlit garden. I was delirious from the endorphin rush, and I could hardly believe what was happening was real. suddenly, across the courtyard there was a great crash of broken glass and an anguished scream, and one of the palm trees shook and dropped cracked branches onto the pavement. owen dropped my hand and muttered, "oh, jesus, rob."

I looked up into the peculiarly animated tree and a hand shot out of the palm fronds clutching a half full bottle of charles shaw, followed by that brassy blonde afro that I recognized from my battle flirting just earlier.

"I'm okay!" he yelled, though no one had asked. "... but, I may have broken my ankle."

a herd of girls in dresses made from black glad bags tittered as they walked by, the last of which was pirouetting and singing "strawberry fields forever".

"that's my best friend." said owen, gesturing to the palm tree.

"well," I sighed, "this doesn't seem like the sort of place where anyone can survive without someone to help them undermine the spectacle."

to be continued...

play it again, sam

2010-02-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

when I was 18, I had my first love triangle in berkeley, california at a co-op called the cloyne court hotel. this is a piece of the puzzle from someone else's point of view.

"... and so it was that five years after our first encounter, i was best friends with someone who could be described as being the bay area's most infamous smooth drunk talking indie god. and so it was that I came to sit on a couch on a typical drunken cloyne night with my best friend. had I been anyone else, I wouldn't have been sitting on the couch when you gave the "come-hither finger". had I not lived in cloyne, owen would most likely have been drunk at anywhere-but-cloyne on that night. but, of course we were there. and i have to admit that it is a little more than odd knowing that we both saw you at the same time. with that, if pressed to relate our first introduction to christina, our stories would no doubt sound similar. there we were. talking about music, booze, and women. I don't actually know if that's what we were discussing, but then, knowing us, that's exactly what we were talking about.

when suddenly, this blonde creature from across the room; sitting on her own couch with her own friend in her own through the looking glass version of mine and owen's little world, pleasantly shattered our goings-on by coolly rolling her finger to beckon the attention of two boys that were so lost in their perfectly normal tipsy banter that someone yelling "fire" couldn't have had more of an effect. there was no crazy man yelling "fire", though. that would've been too easy, too expected, and all together too dull to catch them off guard. but a woman. that's an entirely different situation, isn't it? both owen and I were looking up at someone whose motionings were, up until then, wholly unheard of. she was like a fiery draught filled to the brim of its glass with equal parts self-confidence and self-mockery. holding our drinks, we looked on, trying to understand the method behind what must obviously be madness; for we had only seen such cartoonish gestures in the movies or on television. holding our drinks, we both wonder who it is she's looking and motioning at. "is it me, rob?" "is it me, owen?" "is it both of us? or is it some drunk retard behind us with an aerosmith t-shirt on?" it's a brief wondering. so brief that only owen and I will ever know it happened. because owen and I are friends, you understand. and with such a friendship comes a mutual understanding of some kind of perfect equality that exists beyond the outside perceptions of those around us. the moment for confusion quickly evaporates like cigarette smoke on a windy day as the precedence of our past experiences re-colors our questions. of course we both know who she is drawing her gaze upon. of course we boths know it's owen, because tall blonde creatures with legs that never learned how to stop, and who live mostly on opposite sides of the room, are never the kind to single rob seretti out of a crowded environment. it is a dance that me and owen know all too well as I quickly take my leave and disappear to a place I don't remember.

it is a random enough moment. it is an odd way to have been introduced to you and it is an odd thing that our friendship (mine and yours) has lasted as long as it has. like my friendship with owen, this is one of those things that I do not wish to ever question or fully understand. I am sure that there is, between us, an entire bucket of seething worms that is better left alone. heaven forbid that those seething worms get loose of their bucket because no more good or ill than there already is could come of their release. under more common circumstances, I would relish the idea of bringing the unseen, unthought of, and unanalyzed to glorious light, but, this is not a common circumstance. uncommon individuals, such as ourselves, rarely create common situations. and the only real thing staying my foot from tipping over the bucket of worms is that I know that if I did, I wouldn't get very far in doing so because you'd be kicking the opposite side of it at exactly the same time. unlike most of the people I've met, I can't tell you about the unseen and unthought of and unanalyzed. there is not much I can tell you about the curious nature of our friendship that you don't already know and think about.

I assume that I will see you much earlier than I expected to, yet much later that I had hoped to.

love,

robert"

truly madly deeply

2010-02-15T02:59:00.000-08:00

following is a short story I started writing tonight during a fit of insomnia... partially inspired from autobiographical tidbits, partially wishful thinking, and mostly because I bonded with ian earlier over pasta through a mutual love of "premo" music. title taken from the magnificent band, Savage Garden. hope this doesn't suuu-uuuuck!

TMD on youtube

lucy watched the fat, cartoonish snowflakes flittering past the window with a detached fascination as they made their descent to continuously coat all of brooklyn in a blanket of freezing white. it'd been weeks since she'd not worn long underwear, and if pressed for a guess, a month since she'd eked out a smile that wasn't vaguely pained. real winter has a way of complicating things beyond the reaches of what born and bred californians can grasp, especially those who are prone to chemical imbalances. 3500 miles away, in the middle of february, her mother was opening the windows of her home to combat the greenhouse effect, and dolores park was no doubt bustling with countless joyous champagne picnics underneath the unapologetically majestic palm trees. felix, on the other hand, was raised just a short LIRR ride away in ronkonkoma, a town that was delightfully kitschy in that fashions were a decade behind, the television sets were all ludicrously huge, and the accents were thick enough to make fran drescher sound like a recent alum from charm school. this was not his first hypothermic new york rodeo. he seemed genuinely unaffected and completely free of seasonal affective disorder's relentless and brutal clutches, which lucy couldn't bear to admit to anyone, much less herself, that she found heartening but equally irritating. felix bustled in the kitchen as he unwrapped a rump roast from emily's pork store and flung open the cabinet that contained the spice rack and snatched a vial with zeal that would better befit a mad scientist as he twisted off the cap and began sprinkling the meat. then he brought his hand down to spank it, and then gleefully started singing "I am cumin and I need to be ruuu-uubbed..." to the tune of the smiths as he caressed it on the counter.

lucy cocked an eyebrow and walked over to his side with her hand on her hip and pressed her nose to his neck as if on autopilot for a nuzzle. he smelled comforting and manly, sort of like waffles with syrup made from old spice aftershave.

"you know, the most charming part of watching you cook, is knowing that you'd be lampooning morrissey to a rump roast even if no one were around."

he went on, "just like everybody else dooooes...", and reached to turn on the broiler as he went for the whistle solo.

"I'm going to grab a coffee at cho's and some kibble for chewbacca. you want anything?" she asked. chewbacca meowed expectantly while flicking his tail by the empty bowl, though his fat roll extended well past his hindquarters when sitting in such a manner.

"no, thank you, darlin'. dinner's on in forty-five. don't be late!" he said, puckering his lips out sideways to steal a smooch. lucy obliged. then she suited up in her parka and marveled to herself how perfect he was, and how much she was undoubtedly going to sabotage it somehow.

domesticity was not something she thought she would soon attempt again after the both ill-conceived and ill-fated first venture into cohabitation on the opposite coast. at 22, she'd broken a cardinal rule that must be adhered to if one desires a functional and fulfilling life, and started dating one of her roommates that lived upstairs at a beautiful and drafty pepto bismol pink victorian on fell street in san francisco. as per usual, the beginning was enchanting and fit for a sitcom, as hormones came to a head one week when the other roommates were out of town for the holidays, and they were the only ones home because he was a jew, and she was a grinch. the start of it was full of heady, warm, fuzzy feelings, slumber parties, cooking eggs in robes, and hand holding in crosswalks. it progressed to birth control, peeing with the door open, sharing a cell phone plan, and renting zipcars to go to costco where he would buy her a bag of 500 low fat string cheeses because he knew exactly what she liked and needed. then, on valentine's day, she brought home an expensive bottle of sake from work at the sushi restaurant and found him watching dirty jobs on the discovery channel in his boxer briefs, which he defiantly refused to turn off. then after she'd drunk the bottle of sake to herself while watching a program graphically depict artificial bovine insemination, his ex-girlfriend showed up at midnight, drunk off of her skinny hindquarters, screaming into the mail slot of their front door that he had gotten her pregnant. that romantic holiday was the beginning of the end, and the end was mostly comprised of screaming matches, slaughtered trust, and panic attacks, and the relationship's death rattle lasted for a year. she felt personally attacked every time she came across bulk dairy products of all kinds or any woody allen movies.

this new union was unexpected and entirely uncomplicated, which likely would have made lucy nervous if she hadn't been gripped by the deliriously thrilling throes of new york's indian summer. she met felix at the coffee shop one utopian afternoon in late august, on a perfectly warm day with light humidity that made her short flaxen hair settle into soft ringlets that framed her heart shaped face. she wore a threadbare vintage jackson 5 baseball shirt she'd permanently borrowed from her brother with a cheetah print bra underneath, and was covered in bruises from kickball matches in mccarren and the general revelry that endless sunshine inspires. when she arrived at the coffee shop, amanda was playing her favorite neutral milk hotel album, kyle handed her a pink daisy on his way out while tipping his fedora winsomely, and catherine was opening a bag of salt and vinegar kettle chips by the espresso machine. lucy looked towards the front door to check for a publisher's clearing house crew with a camera to come crashing through, but instead, she saw an unfamiliar and intriguing young gentleman. he was deeply engrossed in a doodling session with a blue needle point marker on a cocktail napkin, and as though on cue when she noticed him, reached up to nudge his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger and then immediately nibbled the end of his thumb as he leaned back and inspected his handiwork as if entertaining a few last finishing touches. amanda noticed lucy's fixed gaze and leaned over the counter to mutter, "get it, girl." and she was halfway across the room while she replied, "watch me."

she sidled up to his table and put her hand on the empty chair across from him, gesturing to with the other to point to the drawing.

"der fuchs." she said.

"excuse me?" he replied, meeting her gaze inquisitively.

"'the fox', in german. he's cute. does he have a name?"

"nope."

"he needs one."

"no way."

"you're rather contradictory, aren't you?"

"get out of town." he jutted his chin out, which was dappled with a blonde 5 o'clock shadow.

lucy sat down. "then I'll help myself to the seat rather than risk an inquiry. hope you don't mind." she melted into the chair while sipping on the dregs of her iced coffee until the straw started to slurp and the sweat from the cup dribbled onto her knuckles. he signed the bottom of the napkin and slid it over to her.

"felix, huh?" lucy leaned forward and batted her lashes. "charmed, I'm sure. where are you from?"

"long island."

"I didn't think they had foxes there." she said, and felix overturned another napkin to reveal another picture of a whale with 17 eyeballs.

"you thought wrong!" he smiled, revealing a row of teeth so gleaming white that they resembled a row of porcelain chiclets, with a tiny chip in one of his two front teeth. "you should see our mutant sea mammals."

later that night when they were falling asleep in her bed for the first time together, he started singing savage garden lyrics into her ear and she playfully elbowed him while telling him to shut up.

he crooned, "... I wanna lay like this forever, until the sky falls down on meee."

"lies!" lucy cried.

"nuh uh." he insisted.

"what if you get hungry?"

"order pizza."

"what if you have to pee?"

"colostomy bag."

"I guess since you've thought of everything, I'll defer to your questionable judgement."

felix squeezed her tighter and sighed, "cuddling with you is like bathing in a jacuzzi tub of warm tapioca pudding.", and all of the sudden it was glaringly clear that she'd finally met someone that she could eat a few pounds of cheese with. it was just an added bonus that he loved her cat.

somebody in new york loves you

2009-12-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

(transcribed from cocktail napkins)

it's one am somewhere in the east village on a sunday night and I've been walking aimlessly since my movie let out in the upper west side, despite the screaming protests from my tender bunion addled feet. I've been on them since eight when I woke up for my brunch shift, scrunched in a quasi-fetal position on my midget sized couch that is too large to be a love seat but not quite sufficient to allow a normally sized adult human to convalesce in a comfortable fashion. less relaxing still was the realization that my blanket was actually my winter coat, in a final desperate act to keep from freezing to death in the basement a la the Little Match Girl after using my bedding to improvise a method for soaking up the flood from a freak plumbing disaster the night before.

I reluctantly lumbered to the doorframe of the bathroom and observed what I had earnestly hoped was a dream, which in unreality, would have been much more comical. around 5 hours earlier I had returned to my apartment from a successfully executed girl's night on the town at my favorite local watering hole and though the memory was vaguely shrouded in a jovial whiskey mist, I recall that I was guffawing at some crack that alida had made regarding the possibility of latent lesbianism. I tossed my red tresses back in gleeful abandon, carelessly allowing my butt trajectory to be thrown off course, which caused it to make contact with the lid rather than the seat, which clattered violently into the holding tank, which then proceeded to shatter. it only took me a moment to stop laughing (and peeing) as to my absolute horror, I watched as a tidal wave of water erupted from behind me that shot across the floor in an ominous unbridled overflow. I shrieked at a decibel that made rufus flatten his ears to his head and make a squeak of confusion and alida turned to see me aghast with my pants around my ankles, horrifiedly watching the domestic disaster unfolding before my eyes.

"what did you do?!"

"fuck! FUCK! the toilet... exploded!"

"I see that, but how in the hell did you manage--"

"FUCK!"

consumed by panic, I crouched by the tank as the water continued to rush forth, and I scanned my mental rolodex for any information that might be relevant to rescuing myself from drowning in the basement. lifting a bus off of a baby, sure. frying an egg in an orange rind in the woods, fine. I'd never anticipated the notion that I would ever have the need to employ plumbing expertise. alida was behind me propping up my soggy mattress and throwing bedding in front of the rapidly expanding flood like she was sandbagging in a hurricane, and a few moments later I found the valve behind the bowl that was my redemptory killswitch. I panted and sighed in disbelief as I pulled my jeans back up, and observed rufus sitting on a textbook for html tutorials that was floating in the kitchen, flicking his tail in the puddle disinterestedly.

admittedly, the whole ordeal seemed strangely apropos. I feel like I've been managing various shitsplosions just in the nick of time in more ways than the unlikely accidental smashing of my porcelain throne. sunday night found me in an introspective mood that would lend itself perfectly to a long walk followed by an even longer writing session, so I did just that. I toured the glistening gunmetal streets of the lower east side, lit by hanging christmas garlands on every block, each littered also with skeletons of busted umbrellas that rolled like metal tumbleweeds into garbage heaps, spokes poking obscenely through crumpled canopies like broken bones through skin. for a few minutes, I saw no one at all, and I mused to myself whether or not I'd possibly come across the one block in manhattan that sleeps when I noticed the dimly lit door of a speakeasy looking place in alphabet city. I'd found my spot.

naturally, I generally try and limit my activity in bars to revelry and shenanigans, but tonight was meant to be between a pen and I in a place where no one could ever find me. I picked the far end of the bar in a position where I could see most everything, but almost no one could see me, partially obscured by the jukebox in a shadowy corner of a village dive. when I was so deeply engrossed in my scribbles that I practically had my nose to the paper, a waifish wisp of a blonde girl slid unctuously onto the barstool next to me and asked in a husky, implacable thick accent, "have you ever written on an airplane puke bag?"

I was shaken from my trance and I looked at her, as her large caramel eyes peered at me inquisitively. she was disarming as she was tiny, and she focused her doe-like gaze on me as the folds of her long grey cashmere sweater settled around her in a notably elegant manner. her beauty was undeniable but subtle, with an almost elven quality to it that was accented by the tips of her ears poking slightly through her long golden hair.

"no, actually, I haven't." I smiled. "I've written on a lot of other weird shit, though."

"what are you writing?"

"honestly? it's nothing of terrible consequence."

"sure." she said, curling her lip coyly, unconvinced.

"I'm writing about how I broke my toilet."

"what are you really writing?"

"seriously."

she paused, unsatisfied with my answer, and then replied, "you're fucked up, aren't you?" I shrugged, bristling into slight self consciousness, unsure of how to respond to the query without having opened up with even the lightest conventional formalities.

"it's okay, you can tell me. I'm fucked up, too. how'd you break your toilet?"

"I'm a klutz."

"ah. you think you're fat, don't you?"

"no... that's not quite it."

"you can tell me. is it a boy? it's amazing, these things strangers can say to each other in bars. don't you think?" she had the effortless and soothing temperament of a traveling gypsy queen and her wiles were dangerously attuned. "your heart must be broken, I've seen that look in the eyes of others... let me tell you a story," she went on and I anticipated her confession, "once, I mailed a puke bag break up letter."

"oh? to whom?"

"an african man that I was in love with. it was written on the plane back to costa rica, and I hope that it never arrived. when I was twenty-two I'd gotten unexpectedly pregnant by him and we were going to get married, but I had a miscarriage when I was dancing at our wedding, and we just couldn't survive the strain. when I left him I moved to new york. it's funny, you see, the most tragic things in life always end up leading to shaping your life into what it was meant to be, and it's for the better."

"wow. that hardly compares to my toilet story, I don't know if I can follow up with that now."

"you're not fat." she said, putting her small, dainty hand on my thigh. it was childlike and genuine, and suddenly I wanted to hug her.

"thanks."

"listen," she went on, chewing on the straw of her vodka soda, "you can't take yourself too seriously. some people will say you're not sensitive enough. you know what I say to that?"

"what?"

"sometimes your clit's too big, and sometimes it's too small. you just have to have faith that someone out there has the right touch."

the bartender, a surly man in red with a mammoth goatee, had begun to eavesdrop and raised a pint glass to cheers to her whimsical meme.

"here here!" she said. "simpatico!" as she lowered her arm her sweater fell askew and exposed a small scripted tattoo below a rising sun on the top of her wrist.

"what's it mean?"

"funny you should ask about this; perfect example. I thought it would be so cool to get my tattoo in arabic, despite the fact that I don't speak the language and have no tie to the culture. I thought it would be thoughtful to have a saying on my wrist that everybody knows, in writing not many could understand. I thought it said, 'this too shall pass' for a year until a tunisian classmate of mine pointed to it and asked me what 'that too shall pass' meant. figures, no? forever in my skin is a grammatical error, the thanks I get for trying to be too cool."

"you could always get it covered up to say 'this clit shall pass'."

she laughed melodically and slipped me a cocktail napkin with her name and address on it in swirling script. "promise you'll send me a puke bag someday."

"next time I fly."

with that, she gracefully lowered herself off of the stool and left me to my stack of napkins in the shadows, and the scruffy bartender who looked on with piqued interest.

I raised the empty glass of melting ice I'd been absentmindedly clutching and spoke up again, "you know how natalie portman does this thing where her tongue hits the back of her front teeth when she smiles very sincerely?"

"course." he said.

"I fall in love with her a little bit, every time."

autumnal meditations in an emergency

2009-10-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

rufus & jack o'lantern

maren badeau once told me I was of a certain disposition that was abnormally excited by "seasonal treats". as it turns out, not much has changed. right now I'd enjoy a nice, seasonal xanax: spice packet gravy flavored, and time released to last until the new year. maybe with a side of benzo candied yams and leftover quaalude pot pie?

I've not been blogging or writing, really. a month has whipped by in a series of stop motion blinks, and I've been alternately hyper-tuned to and then frightfully disconnected from the unpredictable intricacies of mi vida brooklyn. I can't seem to find a sanctuary or an even-keeled routine, and I feel exposed and maddeningly lost. this particular phase I'm in currently is reminiscent of puberty, except that now my boobs are enormous, I don't have homework, and everything is inevitably ruined with or without the help of sex: the ultimate complicator.

october was manic. I had the time of my life on vacation in san francisco, reveling in my freedom from it and marveling at its ability to gloss anything over with impermanence, burritos and sunshine, and I returned to new york unexpectedly jobless and at the onset of seasonal affective disorder (my least favorite treat of all). things haven't all been bleak, and I've spent a ton of time kicking it with my lovely friends from both coasts, who are supportive and kind to me no matter what luck I've been dealt, and that's most heartening of all. I am just tired of my bank account being overdrawn and my fridge being empty and having to ration dimes to ride the subway. I'm tired of being a mooch. I need to manifest a more pleasant destiny to get me through the winter...

and I'll figure it out. I always do.

to be continued...

you're ugly and your mother dresses you funny

2009-09-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

september's cool, soporific lullaby colors and forgiving breezes haven't soothed my uppity moods at all so far, and I've almost reached it's end. can't say I'll miss it. the crepuscular glimmer of hope in the distance is enough to keep me going, but the motions are hard to go through with a head full of rust and a bank account full of mothballs. I'm not even pretending to know what I want, but I'm certainly discovering what I don't, which is much less glass-half-empty than it might sound.

my mom's maiden voyage to brooklyn is imminent, and the prospect of showing her everything that made me renounce california for the far coast that's wrought with rougher edges is exciting but slightly nerve wracking, too. she's only been to new york once during a weekend in 1983 when she was on her honeymoon with my father, and I'm in no part uncertain that she spent it being chauffeured around in a towncar from art gallery to designer boutique somewhere in or around the upper east side. it's going to be a culture shock, to be sure, and I'm charging up my little pink point and shoot to capture guaranteed precious moments, such as Mom's First Subway Rat. I really do think that she'll understand how my neighborhood has become my home, and perhaps let go of her outrageous notions of how brooklyn must be... wrought with rapists, gang bangers, vagrants and thieves, rather than grumpy poles, hasidic jews, and hipsters in nut hugger stretch pants. I think she finds it impossible to wrap her head around finding community within such a juggernaut of a city, and I'm about to set out to show her otherwise. she doesn't have to leave the comfort of sonoma, but perhaps will have a better understanding of why I can never go back unless it's christmas and there's a check for me under a tree. my cousin summed it up pretty well at my bon voyage gathering when he put a pragmatic, vaguely paternal hand on my shoulder and simply said, "well kid, you were never a country mouse."

@chuckklosterman

2009-09-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

today while I was walking down graham avenue, stoned on too much theraflu and snorgling my reluctant way to variety coffee to work on this freelance writing project on young adult's progressive values in modern society, I saw a toddler and his mom in front of the curious gravestone store that also sells fresh baked bread. though out of earshot, their body language indicated that she was instructing him to do something and he was barely obliging, the slight grudge in his consequent action evident by the way he pursed his lips in frustration and put his pudgy hands on his osh kosh b'gosh clad hips. the mother smiled at him warmly, reached into a sandwich bag and handed him a single, electric blue frosted froot loop, and the boy burst out into an wild fit of unbridled jubilation. he squealed and shoved it in his mouth ecstatically and started gumming it as he danced in a circles like a baby dervish. for a brief, sincerely triumphant moment, he was the happiest kid in brooklyn.

it made me long for the days when a froot loop was enough.

BLARF

2009-09-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

over it. this day is so... eeyore.

did I shave my legs for this?

2009-09-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

my first “boyfriend” (I use quotations because we were never in fact “official”) was during the period immediately following my remission when I was 18, rocking a bleached buzz cut, and REALLY stoked to be alive. his name was jeff, he was a musician, which I predictably swooned over, pontificating and romanticizing the potential of being an artist's muse, when really he was just getting stoned, taking acid, and hitting random buttons on a pc laptop and fancying himself the next thom yorke. jeff and I first made out on his best friend’s floor after I spent an entire summer lusting after his mysteriously tortured and permanently high hiney, listening to tenacious D and the mildly disturbing sounds of ashley losing her virginity in the next room. I was done for. the romance was unequivocal. 6 months after that, I ended up giving him my cherry on his grandmother’s bed after we had made it roughly 18 minutes into Lost in Translation and he turned to me and said, “so, uh, are we gonna do it or what?"

so, we did it. It was brief, and I remember being vaguely distracted by two things: my grandmother on her death bed having told me she was going to be watching from the ceiling with a bag of popcorn when I lost my V card, and also my little pink socks awkwardly bobbing in the air above us because I thought that you were supposed to stick your legs straight up during a missionary deed. [It didn’t seem to be working, but, give me a break. I didn’t watch a lot of porn.]

after it was over he had me check to make sure I hadn’t soiled his meemaw's linens, and he fell asleep. I laid half awake all night, naked on top of the covers and sometime around 4 am there was a knock on the sliding glass door that led out to the backyard, and and when I looked over, jeff was peering into the room with his hands cupped around his eyes to see. I was totally bewildered. I turned back to the other side of the bed to see that jeff was, in fact, still there and still very much in the buff and unconscious. this could mean one of two things: I had somehow absorbed some of the hallucinogenic drugs by sexual osmosis, or jeff’s twin sam was just perving out on us. I shrieked and tried to cover myself up, sam yelled “oh, shit.” and vaulted over the fence and ran back to the party down the street where he proceeded to share jeff and I’s intimate moment with a big group of dudes who practically owned the rumor mill.

shortly after, I put my clothes back on (I’d worn matching panties, just in case we were to participate in any of the “doing it”) and woke jeff up to tell him I was going home, but I didn’t, I just drove around watching the sunrise in the hilly vineyards in sonoma valley in my mercury sable luxury sedan listening to magnetic fields mixtapes and wondering if I should be feeling anything. all I was really feeling was sort of bummed out that I’d just given it up to a dude who, for all intensive purposes, really didn’t give two hoots about me, and also like I could go for a couple of advil liquigels.

the next day I called my mom into the room when I was doing my makeup out of my purple glitter caboodle case before going out to the shop, my small town’s only answer to a youth center, out in a warehouse in the boonies that was half of dowling magnet factory.

“mom, I’ve gotta talk to you about something.” I stated matter of factly, as I swiped on a second layer of blue wet 'n wild mascara.

“sure.”

“don’t freak out.”

“okay.” she put her hand on her hip.

“seriously, no freaking out.”

“honey, I hate it when you pull this shit.”

“you’re already freaking out…”

“just tell me!”

“I did it with jeff. we used a condom… it kind of sucked. don’t worry. everything’s fine. I just remembered that you’d ask me to tell you when I became “active”.” I punctuated my distaste for such an official term for this as of yet silly act by making a stink face. my mother took a deep breath and absorbed the info, and then spoke.

“really?? with jeff?”

“yes. It was just time. I was seriously the ONLY one. I’m about to turn 19. I was starting to feel like a eunuch.”

“and you were safe?”

“of course. sex ed. duh.”

“well..." she struggled a moment with the appropriate response to this unexpected news, "... thank you for telling me.”

“no prob. I’ll be home before two. bagels tomorrow?”

she shook her head at me. jeff worked at the bagel shop.

“love you!” I gave her a kiss on the cheek and bolted for the door.

a week passed with radio silence from jeff’s camp, and then I ran into him at the farmer’s market on the square and pulled him aside, where he unceremoniously dumped me over a corn dog from uncle bill’s. he told me we probably took things too far, seeing as he was moving to australia, indefinitely, after the following two weeks to work on a mango farm. he promised to write a song about me, sitting amongst the lush and vast fields of oz, and next I heard from him was in an email 8 months later saying he’d taken ill mid-harvest and caught something that the locals call “mango fever” that involved too many embarrassingly gross symptoms to share. my imagination ran wild with what delirium and oozing pustules must’ve befallen him. my V card had been avenged by tropical fruit!

these days (and after I might add, we attempted to date once more about 3 years ago that was just as ill-fated and entirely ridiculous) jeff and I are on friendly terms and he lives with his albino russian-israeli girlfriend in the east village. he’s apologized profusely for acting like a twat, and I can truly say that any residual hard feelings are null and void. being a teenager is hard enough as it is, and we had to deal with being teenagers in a tiny wine country town where the dating pool was occupied with a couple of tadpoles and the occasional slimy snake. c’est la vie. dwelling causes cancer. (I would know.)

I got a bug to write about the first time I really tried to “date” someone because I feel as if not much has changed, and I’m frustrated. some experiences have been more extreme than others, but my patterns remain. emotional unavailability (thanks, dad), instability, prevalence for infidelity, reach and withdrawal games, and sexual mediocrity have all been themes (and only one such experience offered them all at once!). the next dude after jeff was a manorexic bro from san diego who said he was “worried about my bod” when the condom broke and then refused to go to planned parenthood with me. I dated a male model from utah who drunkenly pissed in my laundry hamper after trying to surprise me with anal one night who ended up giving me scabies. my rebound after Jorge was impotent, shared a great deal of personality traits with george costanza, and lives with his boyfriend in oakland now. I once went on a dinner date that ended with me watching him get dragged off by several cops to the clink, bawling like a newborn, and getting charged with assault and battery because he lost his temper and kind of, sort of, tried-to-kill-his-roommate-with-a-bat. this most recent guy brought me to meet all of his friends one night, then took me back to his place for the first time after 6 weeks of dating, and in the morning upon inspecting his walls, found them practically wallpapered with photos of his ex like a break up mausoleum. what the fuck? am I doomed? would it be best to dip myself in honey and dive into a pile of lesbians? I came back after black.

are you there, god? it's me, christina.

2009-09-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

the season change was anything but smooth this year, and the bizarre, florida-esque hot rains segued quick and clumsily into overcast, breeze swept evenings that merit the first donnings of fall's scarves and sweaters. there's a bittersweetness as of late that seemed to be originally stirred up in unsettled dreams that quietly bled into my waking hours without warning, and I've tried to greet it with as much patience as I can muster. I've been in cruise control, but I have no idea where I'm headed, and every time I think I want stability, reliability, and responsibility, I balk. somehow I can't seem to wrap my head around the idea that a routine would behoove me immensely, even though I know it must be true... it's frustrating to have had the other shoe dangling perilously for so long, not knowing if the drop is an empty threat. how do you go about chasing a goal if you're not sure what it is? is it as simple as attempting to discern the difference between bravery and foolhardiness? and then either way, resolving not to care?

of all of my accomplishments, I am most proud and fiercely protective of my freedom and independence. I don't have to answer to anyone, I certainly don't want to, and I go where I want, when I want, why I want. I make my own deadlines and I break them accordingly. while this lifestyle has suited me in the past, I wonder how it fits into the ways I want to grow, and if it does at all? am I capable of allowing myself to rely on more the occasional kindness of strangers and the ineffable, whimsical wiles of chance? I am not faithless, but I have two dueling split sides to my personality, and that is my dreamer versus my realist; what I hope for, and what I know, my ideals battling my fears. so many major aspects of my life are on a knife's edge and I know that whichever way I fall, I have no guarantee of landing on my feet. in fact, given my track record with grace, it's likely that I'll end up with a deviated septum, a busted heart, a pride hematoma and a broken bank. but, being a pussy didn't get me where I am, and for the most part, I like where that is. today I'm trying to bear in mind that if the chips are down and the dealer always wins... it's probably time for me to learn how to play poker.

from west to east

2009-09-04T09:24:00.000-07:00

"What are the consequences of California? I have been thinking about this question because I am still young and rootless enough to feel that I might, in the future, move back there.

Having lived in California and on the East Coast for long stretches of time, it is viable (as well as romantic) to use these places as metaphors. California is ease, beauty, home and a certain surrendering of ambitions. The East is difficulty, stimulation, work and independence. The former seems more immediately appealing than the latter but then, in practice, it’s often not.

The West has better books and food and more space. The natural landscape can be sublime where the East is never sublime (it’s a matter of scale). One actually feels more deeply in California, and thinks less. Thinking is an indoor activity. It’s an East Coast thing.

Generalizations can be helpful and truthful in these matters. The important question appears to be: where do I feel most natural? Most unassailed? In spiritual terms, imaginative terms and digestive terms. And this is something that still seems to switch back and forth."

-Molly Young

as a born and raised california girl, I definitely feel as if I wear the scarlet C on my forehead quite prominently as I go traipsing about the city streets of new york. it's not terribly hard to discern my alien presence on the east coast as I indiscriminately smile at people on the subway while turning the page of my 7 x 7 magazine as I absentmindedly readjust my pink flip flops. as much as I enjoy the unique energy and insurmountable culture shock, 6 months apparently does not a new yorker make. just because neglecting to compost here is acceptable (and possibly encouraged) does not mean that there is not a law in my hometown that can get you arrested if you don't keep a pile of rotting food in your kitchen to 'save the environment'.

I have noticed that though I seem to have recaptured an elusive beatitude that went by way of a series of unfortunate events in san francisco, I'm not as of yet satisfied with my productivity here. new york is a entity of millions of hustlers, rat racing and beating deadlines and cut-throat swashbuckling their way to the top of the totem pole. there always seems to be someone better that you have to anticipate monkeywrenching your failsafe plan, or at the least, someone faster or with an extensive rolodex of who-you-knows. my laissez faire california coasting sensibility is regrettably intact and at times detrimental to keeping pace with everything. here, my "super stressed, so I'll get around to it tomorrow" is another man's "I pulled an all nighter and had it done by this morning".

it's a cliche new york-ism to complain of feeling a rock bottom lonely in an endless sea of this bustling metropolitan mecca. that cliche is one that I'm willing to defend as being (at times) indisputably true. from my outsider's view, I see the rough beauty and appreciate the extremity that new york lifestyle lends. if california is temperate sunshine, boundless ephemeral fairy tales, and a universal destination for young people to retire, new york is physically and proverbially as far opposite as you can get. here, you leave your mark, or you don't. it's a confederation of movers and a hegemony of shakers. you put out or you get out.

when I announced my coast swapping plan, my friend jeff confessed his concern about new york making kind, gentle people hard and bitter, and while I took it into account, I didn't necessarily agree. maybe I just haven't been here long enough. right now, it's teaching me independence and responsibility, benevolently providing endless writing material, and consciously molding me into who I want to be.

thanks to molly, for getting me thinking.

San Francisco's fine,
You sure get lots of sun.
San Francisco is fine.
You sure get lots of sun.
But I'm used to four seasons,
California's got but one.

-Bob Dylan

forever 21: friend or foe?

2009-09-02T18:32:00.001-07:00

let's get real here: we are in a recession. no bones about it. we're all broke, cranky, anxious, and if you're in new york, on the verge of combustion from the sun's incessant assailing rays. all this taken into account, us ladies, we still all want to look good. no one wants to go job hunting looking like a shabby wabby, but being monetarily stunted can put a damper on donning yves saint laurent's finest, and even the fendi bags on canal st. are suffering the effects of inflation. what's a girl to do?

instead of the clouds parting, harkening to the angel's choir, and rainbows shooting out of my ass as I'm lifted to the retail hosannah in the highest, I climb wearily out of the fetid, swampy subway, bust out my sweat rag for a satisfying wipe, and throw elbows on 14th street like a shadowboxing breakdancer to get to the front doors of the discount fashion mecca:

ah, made it. I always try and give a nod of recognition to the security guard in the doorway because I feel like not many people do, and they've got to just stand there all day bored out of their minds lamenting on how pointless and boring their job is. (it beats being a fluffer, but not by much more than a bee's ass. ) now, it's time to start the dig. you know where you are, and you know what you're facing: mediocrity, lycra and broken teenaged dreams. you're being assailed from every angle by offensive fluorescently colored halter tops and plaid overall shorts that only a mother could love. this isn't just about convenience and value anymore, it's about the thrill of the chase, the huntress on a mission, and how high your tolerance for psychic pain is.

somewhere, deep in the forever 21 jungle that is inhabited by long island chippies and bronx cholas alike, is the triple cherry jackpot of 19.99 sundresses. we all know it's there, and that's why we go. it's the fashion blood on the dancefloor, it's the holy grail of a date dress, it's the perfect hot pants that august has pined for so fruitlessly... and it's so close you can almost taste the chic, swirling floral print of a darling topshop knockoff.

about a half an hour into the search, I've got an armful of hopefuls. a couple of onesies, an article with way too much taffeta but perfectly placed sequins, and maybe a pair of jeans from the bargain bin that are a size too small to practice wishful thinking. now to face the dressing room. the line is 20 strong and seemingly stagnant, and I'm running out of patience and friends to text. at this point I have no choice but to pay attention to the music, and I've deemed forever 21 the only place on earth in which I don't feel guilty listening to lady gaga. the 8th grader in front of me knows the words and the dance from the video and the 35 year old woman behind me is reading twilight and fighting back tears.

once inside the room, I pull the curtain closed behind me and try to keep as covered as possible as I'm changing because of the frequency with which I've been walked in on at this particular establishment. I usually try on what I'm most hopeful about first, so that the rest of the outfits turning out horribly is less irksome in the end. the zipper is pulled up, a few buttons fastened, and voila! there it is. the one dress I was sure was the one... and now I'm staring in the funhouse style mirror that makes my skull look like a pinhead and coming to the realization that cap sleeves make me appear uncomfortably similar to a powderpuff linebacker listening to a song about "riding a disco stick". beacon's closet is starting to look pretty good, again.

I've decided after my 900th bout with trial and error that resulted in self esteem stock plummeting and 2.34 panic attacks, that I'm returning to my all-thrifting, all the time policy until I win the super lotto or find a better job. forever 21 is strictly a supplier of cheap sunglasses and frilly underpants from here on out.

RIP forevs + christina, forevs.

summer of love 2k9

2009-08-31T20:33:00.000-07:00

our lady of mt. st. carmel aftermath

chris bond's shitpowdersplosion extravaganza birthday party @ tortilla flats

big bingo winner, duh.

spankings a plenty

holly miranda at zebulon

playing unong on the LIRR

amanda & dad

sean, aka the Busiest Man In The World

my iDork

jen going apeshit on buck hunter

french miami at death by audio

FAME at mccarren park

edit in RE: to lydia white... alright. alright. FINE. behold the budkini.

dirty tit? clean it up.

2009-08-26T11:22:00.001-07:00

the night before last I went out on the town with my ladyfriend catharine, and we met up with peter and his sister in greenpoint, summer rain be damned. copious amounts had already been imbibed, and it's sufficient to say that by the end of the night my liver was "well done". on the walk/stumble home accompanied by my strapping date, I somehow managed to do a flying karate leap faceplant onto the freeway under the BQE to avoid getting hit by a semi with a giant lead pipe on the back. (white girl can jump, but apparently the problem lies in the "landing" aspect.) I was in immense amounts of pain but trying to brush it off to scrimp together what was left of my pride, and I thought it best to change the subject with the international language of love when we got back to my apartment.

my come-hither strip tease was brought to a screeching halt when I removed my brassiere and peter started cracking up uncontrollably. at first I was incensed. why was he laughing at my boobs? my sexy strip tease had been meant to illicit a slightly more libidinous reaction. then he reached over and peeled a sticky, sweaty piece of orbit gum off of my left breast.

"oh." I said. "I've been looking for that."

I'm not a writer, I just blog a lot.

2009-08-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

I've got some magnificent milestones coming up. tomorrow will mark my 6 months of glorious brooklyn life, october is my seven year anniversary of being in remission from ye olde 'Cer, and this month connotes eight years of being an "online diarist". I've literally been blogging since before blogging was blogging. nearly a decade (I'm rounding, here,) of leaving a trail of brain breadcrumbs, sharing fanciful musings, candid confessions and a surplus stockpile of weird cat photos with the world wide internet. in all this time I don't think I've ever blogged about blogging, and it's a topic worthy of a bit of dissection. my "blogs" (in their many incarnations) have been reliably rewarding and inspiring, and I've met some incredible people and experienced events that I may never have otherwise that deftly usurp the stranger-than-fiction cake, but it's also gotten me into some hot water over the years. blogging, my bitch goddess, as she giveth and taketh. am I crazy for putting so much of myself out there? or are people crazy for reading it?

as I've taken up blogging again on the regular recently, I've found myself faced with a question: how personal is too personal? at the onset of junior college, I had a site that was relatively popular with a regular and loyal 'readership', and it was mostly based upon my adventures in chemotherapy, the shit show of ptsd that followed, and my life readjusting to normalcy (relative term) and doing all of that gut wrenching, teenager pupa to young adult caterpillar metamorphosis just a few leaps behind all of my peers. I've never been one to censor myself, and at the time I wrote about people in my day to day life often, sharing our interactions form the mundane coffee shop sitting with cheap acoustic guitars, to the twisted webs of love and romance in our little population 4k town. I was never cruel, and any catty undertones were likely sarcasm, but I found out just how powerful a little misinterpretation could be when I told one of my close girlfriends about my diary where my pen name was "blondefox". [disclaimer: before you ridicule, please take a moment and recall what your screen name was when you were 15. it was probably sublime lyrics. or something including the words "babe", "vixen", "gurl" and/or the number "69".]

the artist formerly known as "blondefox", working the register at tower records

this supposed friend, one of many in a clique of sonoma kids, decided that she didn't like the idea of me writing about our lives, and perhaps, just didn't like me, and she sent out a massive email forward on aol to everyone in our school, and then for good measure, some of my coworkers. despite that more than half of names were changed to protect the innocent and guilty alike, it was fairly obvious to distinguish that there weren't more than one of jake's russian girlfriend's running around town and that my vegan coworker with a flatulence problem wasn't actually named "alexis". some people reacted angrily and felt like their privacy had been violated, and others wrote me and said they enjoyed the documentation of our little army of small town bon vivants. unfortunately, there were several more in the former category, and the blondefox chronicles ended up squashing a promising budding relationship like a cupcake under an army tank due to inability to dispel the spurious nasty rumors that were ruthlessly spread by the parties who would have rather I'd taken the Anais route and waited until we were all dead for me to publish what went on behind closed bathroom doors at co-op parties. I was shunned by people that I had hung out with every day for years, and the vegan girl at work was dropping bombs behind the counter double time. I'd already decided it was worth it to have came, saw, and blogged in the end, and it was part of the reason I decided to move to san francisco instead of berkeley with my sonoman friends, but it ultimately killed my site.

that year, I went back to paper journaling, which I've found to be more cathartic in certain ways, but at this juncture in my life I only really write non-fiction and I feel like blogging has been a great outlet for sharing my stories and also keeping in touch with my west coast friends. I've even been telling some folks in my new york life about a place to find some of my writings online, and I had something happen to me that has never happened before. a charming young man with a fantastic hat, let's call him Uzi VonBorfewitzovich, wandered into my restaurant after a softball game and sat at the bar chatting with aaron and I for a spell, and we somehow got to shooting the shit about being a nerd and embracing one's geekitude. I figured, hell, what better time to tell him (someone with sketch comedy and nerd experience) about my blog, to get some feedback and exchange some ideas. the next time I heard from him, he said if we were going to hang out, I'd have to sign a non-disclosure agreement or something. I laughed, thinking he was making a funny, and then he said, "no, I really don't want to be in your blog. seriously."

now, uzi, if you're reading this, I'm sorry. but I feel I need the point of reference, and I was really taken aback that someone would balk at getting to know me better because of being concerned that bits and pieces of our exchanges would end up on this silly little blog thing that hardly anyone reads, as it is. it's not like I'm trading stock tips, here. I haven't exposed any torrid affairs since I last had one. but it makes me wonder... should I shut my blog trap? should I just blog about other things to keep all of my personal affairs personally mine? I don't watch any reality TV, so I couldn't do celebrity gossip. I don't like sports unless I am close enough to the field to see the baseball butts (and there'd better be garlic fries involved). I am good at weaving a word tapestry of adventures; they just so happen to be mine. maybe they belong to you, too? but where did all of that ownership really get defined, anyway?

something to ponder. thanks uzi. this'll be your last appearance in blogalogadingdong.

the secret world of sweaty broads

2009-08-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

this is a sign outside a church on monitor street.

surviving new york city as a thoroughbred californian can be daunting, but most of the time I'm fairly calm about it while doing my best to mask how baffled I am. yesterday night jen came over and I offered to cook for her using the kitchen of my neighbor for whom I am catsitting rufus' new girlfriend, LK. (short for Little Kitty. don't look at me. I didn't name her.) I was completely jazzed at the opportunity to bust out my culinary prowess that often goes to waste as there's no kitchen in my basement studio, just a sink and a hot plate that can fry up a mean runny egg in a pinch.

I went upstairs with my produce to set up a little spread before jen biked over, and when I opened the door I was hit with a wall of heat, and the pungent smell of stale, nuked cat food. the apartment felt as if beelzebub had shown up for supper sans invitation. LK looked at me expectantly and then at the inedible pile of warm chicken 'n liver bits in her bowl and I obligingly opened a new can while holding my breath. I wouldn't even have to turn on the broiler to cook the damn salmon. it was well over 100 degrees in the kitchen already, so I decided it was time to finally bite the bullet and purchase myself a nice, practical oscillating fan. I huffed and puffed to the ABC dollar store by the train station and picked up their deluxe model for $28.99 (dollar my ass.) and jen and I lugged it back to home base. as it turned out, the fan made it just bearable to be in alex's apartment that I dubbed "the seventh level of hell", and ten minutes into its maiden ventilation, the engine burned out beyond any shadow of hope for repair. the broiler was on and the fish only halfway cooked. jen took off her pants and I pinned up my hair and we couldn't tell if we were getting drunk off of crane lake chardonnay or having a double heat stroke in our underwear.

as we were eating our delicious salmon, mother nature decided to spice up her already miserable feat of a climate by throwing a lightning storm into the mix. I watched out the window as the jagged white bolts slashed through the post-sunset sky over the BQE as the cats ran around pell mell, knocking anything over that wasn't bolted down. jen was totally unfazed having grown up in florida, but I was having a bonafide california attack. I was as freaked out as the felines when the sheets of rain started to fall and the booming thunder shook the walls. on the way out later to meet up with kimi, I caught my reflection and saw that my chest had broken out in a heat rash. cute. turns out that's not something that happens only in kenyan jungles.

today, I've decided to hide out in the cave for as long as I can and avoid having any other unfavorable reactions to the weather, like melting into a puddle of shimmery goo like alex mack. I'm going to start living solely off of popsicles and emergen-c packets and research bargain airfares to alaska. it's starting to look as if I were ever stranded on a desert island that I shouldn't even try to survive while awaiting rescue, and that I should just employ the nearest cliff as a jumping point. I'm a wuss. I'm also willing to compensate a willing party to fan me with palm fronds and feed me frozen seedless grapes with free giggles and ha-ha's and access to my closet. not a bad deal?

croc tears for the silver screen

2009-08-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

today's writing topic, via the modern sophist: stupid movies that make you cry.

when I was a kid my texan born and raised father would often reference a cold woman by quoting a confederate railroad song that went, "she never cried when old yeller died, and I ain't gonna cry when she's gone". now, I never saw old yeller, but it's likely that I skipped that cinematic experience out of fear that I wouldn't be emotionally affected in any sorrowful manner and be judged accordingly. I've never been a dog person.

I suppose it goes without saying that I don't particularly enjoy crying. as far as proper releases go, I much prefer a satisfying sneeze, a toe curling orgasm, or an aromatherapeutic bath with tea light candles and enya 'til I prune. I don't wear waterproof mascara, and I'm not particularly comfortable with anyone (acquaintance or close friend alike) seeing me in a blubbery state. I usually will not allow myself to shed a tear at any movie stupid or otherwise if I'm watching it with someone else. I think the last time I cried watching a movie with someone was during a bette midler flick (and no, it was not Beaches) when zoe starting laughing hysterically as we collectively realized at the same moment that I am doomed to end up exactly like her character in the remake of The Women, where she plays a platinum blonde, flamboyant LA agent in velour juicy sweats who is smuggling pot into an ashram retreat and very vocally damning mother nature and refusing to participate in the yoga classes.

there is one that gets me without fail, though. every time I am channel surfing and see that armageddon is on, I'm inevitably unable to tear my attention away, and every time, I weep like a little newborn bitch when bruce willis saves the world. that scene where he's struggling through the apocalyptic space storm and aerosmith fires up their 1998 power ballad magic and liv tyler is back on earth watching her dad as he's about to detonate the bomb and screams, "daddy, noooooooooooo!". COME ON. tell me the glands in your eyeballs aren't swelling uncontrollably just thinking about it. bruce willis is my old yeller.

"it takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man."
-jack handy

time of my life

2009-08-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

I can haz it.

picture by the lovely cassandra wages.

milking it for free

2009-08-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

this is a slightly belated response to my dear friend Thomas’s blog, “A Respectful Breast-Man”.

some say the universal language is love. some might argue that it is, indeed french. au contraire. the truth of the matter is that only breasts are of ubiquitous appeal.

thomas published a musing on his website about whether it was possible to respectfully (for all intensive purposes) ogle a nice pair of dirty pillows, and found himself bearing the brunt of the rage of 700 feminists. and to this, girls, I ask you, what's the big deal?

this is a photo of lindsay and I on valentine's day, completely unstaged. had a good guffaw upon uploading later.

I am not of modest mammary proportions. I wear a 36DD, and once spend a summer vacationing in 36E with the aid of having a nuvaring up in my proverbial "piece". my then-boyfriend certainly enjoyed that I ranneth over, but I found that E cup breasts were problematic in almost every sense, seeing as you have to go to specialty stores to buy lacy slings with which to strap them in, no article of clothing that goes on the top half of your body fits quite right, and people (mostly straight males) physically can't not look at them. it's a knee jerk eye impulse. large boobs are akin to kryptonite, and the world is their superman. I catch girls staring at my chest, straight and queer alike. honestly, most of the time, I don't mind.

while it's fair to argue that they are mine and no one else's to objectify or appreciate, it's also true that they're going to be located directly under my chin for the rest of my life and there's not a burlap sack on the planet that could conceal their sheer stupendousness. let's not beat around the breast: I have an amazing rack. I don't mind every once in a while if a friend (regardless of gender) every once in a while bestows an extended gaze upon my bosoms, or compliments my decolletage. my bodega guy gives them a nod of recognition from time to time. these instances do not bother me.

what does on occasion bother me is when someone is staring at them in a manner that befits rubbernecking a freeway pileup. the casual, respectful breast man glance isn't offensive to me. fixedly gawking makes me uncomfortable and at times I'll just come out and tell the visual assailant to get their eyes where I can see them. it comes with the territory of possessing such herculean wopbopaloobops.

thomas is not a "douche-bag", he is a breast man. take it from a pair of magnificent knockers who have known and adored him for upwards of 6 years. this man is not a crook for stealing tastefully timed glances:

ladies, handle yo tits. the plight of the gawked at boobs is age old. best just to embrace it, and melt into it's comforting, cushioned splendor.

where everybody knows your name

2009-08-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

yesterday night after I finished my last entry I went to a bar with my friend jen that is widely known in the neighborhood for being a shameless meat market for hopeful singles and lusty lotharios alike. it’s two-fer tuesdays at matchless, where you get a token for a free drink every time you buy one, and as it turns out when your mainly attracted audience is sweaty, horny, and broke tecate enthusiasts, you get a lot of people that come in alone and leave with a new friend or in rarer cases, two. and you can always depend on waking up with a hangover.

my reasons for visiting matchless were of a more innocent variety, though I can’t say that two-fer tuesdays isn’t a trusty barrel for the lascivious shooting of williamsburg hipster fish. but I had leftover drink tokens, and staying home and going to sleep like a normal person didn’t do me a lick of good the night before.

the smoking patio was completely packed, but instead of pheromones and well whiskey, the air smelled heavily of B.O. and desperation. I’d go so far as to say 97% of the two-fer goers could easily fall under the “busted” category, the dregs of summer lovin’, that last sip of the communal 40 oz. that you can only respect yourself after drinking if you’re browned out. To paint an accurate picture of how crowded the yard was, trying to navigate my way back to the bathroom to pee was akin to starting a mosh pit at a cat power show. when I was in the doorway a guy carrying a full pint glass was nudged by someone else and dumped it in its entirety down the front of my freshly washed, fabric softened dress and then proceeded to yell at me and tell me to “watch where I’m going”. I flipped a token at his feet and told him to shut up.

when I returned (disgruntled and drenched in beer) with my next round a new dude had joined our little circle in the corner and my fancy was unexpectedly tickled. the newcomer was tall-ish, dark hair, soulful brown eyes, broad shoulders, and from what I could tell after 5 minutes of banter, cocky, witty and new york to the bone. I announced that I wasn’t really digging the matchless scene and that I was going to hit up enid’s across the street if anyone cared to join me for a beer and mystery man (peter, as it were) and priscilla agreed that it was a much better prospect for not catching an airborne std and also having a conversation. the chat at enid's was warm, breezy, and wildly inappropriate, some belly laughs were had and beer consumed, and pris left to meet up with some friends on bedford. peter and I kissed for a second over a table and I knew that I had a call to make based upon ardent desire: a fuck and run notch for the bedpost, or invite him over for a glass of charles shaw chardonnay and some making out with pre-determined ground rules.

I went with the chaste decision. (mom, if you ever read this… read I bang the worst dudes before you judge me.) he was game for it. we ended up engaged in an extreme 3 hour makeout session that left his back looking like he’d been attacked by a wolverine, and gave me an epic beard burn and a mild bloody nose. when we were curling up to fall asleep he asked me if he could take me on a date the next day, and I agreed that would be nice. of course, in the morning, we never made it out of bed. another 5 hours of alternately sucking face like teenagers and engaging in a lively "getting to know you" tête-à-tête. it was actually agreed upon as one of the best first dates we'd ever had. we shared a strawberry kiwi capri sun and played with each other’s hair. argued about whether or not The Wire is a “dude show” and why the L word should be. mock pillow fights. it was criminally cute.

at 4 he regrettably re-robed and got ready to go play softball in jersey. he asked me for my phone number, and when he programmed it in he held up the screen of his blackberry and inquired, “is this how you spell it?”

The screen said “MELISSA”.

I burst out laughing. his face contorted with anxiety.

“my name is spelled C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-A. but, close.” I said. “best first date ever.”

a million little pieces

2009-08-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

I’ve been up for almost 30 hours save for the 20 minute cat nap I managed to squeeze in before my itunes skipped over my library of ryan adams and started blaring a santogold remix right as I drifted off. oh well. It wasn’t until I got home from a really darling miniature thai food dinner party that things got hairy and I embarked upon a less than fantastic voyage of sleeplessness. at a thrift store yesterday I happened across a book called “written on the body”, and though the cheesy erotic clip art on the cover originally deterred me, I knew I’d heard of it somewhere before. reading the flap, I realized that jorge had recommend that I read it many years ago. all I’d known of the plot was that it was a love story written from the point of view of a protagonist of unspecific gender. that sounded intriguing… worth a buck, at least, so I picked it up along with an e.e. cummings anthology and made for the register.

It was exciting in a way to have snatched back a little fleeting memory of us that was for all intensive purposes lost; it was a second chance at taking his advice, which was always top notch, that I’ll never be on the receiving end of again. maybe it wasn’t a sign, but perhaps just a small something that could be comforting, make it easier to pretend that he’s floating on foam pool noodles in the tropics instead of six feet under in florida. I deemed it my bedtime reading material and curled up in bed with rufus and started in on it, to discover that it bore more eerie similarities to Jorge and I’s doomed relationship than I was comfortable with, and stirred up some really unpleasant emotions that I have bottled up and shoved in the recesses of my psyche to save for when I can afford therapy for a REASON. It was like a brilliantly written british literary gumbo of true love, infidelity, cancer, death, terrible timing and abandonment. and I couldn’t put it down. so I read it cover to cover, and then laid staring at the wall until dawn with a tornado of hurt and confusion in my head, went to get coffee at 7:30 and spent the afternoon walking around manhattan in a daze. I couldn’t have just picked up “goodnight moon” or “authentic ethiopian cooking”? I had to pick the footlong dildo of mindfuck reading material and go to browntown with no lube?

here is an excerpt:

“’You’ll get over it…’ It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it’ is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?

I’ve thought a lot about death recently, the finality of it, the argument ending mid-air. One of us hadn’t finished, why did the other one go? And why without warning? Even death after long illness is without warning. The moment you had prepared for so carefully took you by storm. The troops broke through the window, snatched the body and the body is gone. The day before the Wednesday last, this time a year ago, you were here, and now you’re not. Why not? Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday than why not today? And where are you?

Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light years of silent space. Do the dead find peace beyond the rattle of the world? What peace is there for us whose best love cannot return them even for a day? I raise my head to the door and think I will see you in the frame. I know it is your voice in the corridor but when I run outside the corridor is empty. There is nothing I can do that will make any difference. The last word was yours.

The fluttering in my stomach goes away and the dull waking pain. Sometimes I think of you and feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone had said that this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.”

-Jeanette Winterson

I don’t have much more to offer on this right now (largely due to being braindead until I get some rest), other than I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of the book. it probably will not give you a nervous breakdown-lite, and there is some really unique prose between its covers. every time I think that I’m “over it”, there’s always something there to remind me otherwise. hope you’re resting peacefully, Jorge. thanks for the free membership to the book club beyond the grave. I’d like to see oprah top that shit.

“Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. Never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn’t know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.”

flying by the seat of my whimsy-pants

2009-07-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try and give this blog CPR this week. bust out that binaca and get ready to make out, internet!

here's an excerpt of a letter to b:

my trip back to the bay was short and sweet, but also made it evident that I'm mentally detached from sf in a pretty official sense. things in new york are magnificently and unbelievably lonely at times, but the frenetic energy of the city and the golden rat race that everyone is a participant in (willing or not) lends it a unique charm. it truly is the mecca. and the other day I stepped in dog shit on ludlow in the lower east side and when I looked up alan cumming was chuckling at me. where else could you poo your shoe in front of boris grishenko?

this newfound clarity hasn't come without a smattering of strifes, and the past 5 months were more of a growing charlie horse rather than just your average pain. there was nary a psychic banana to ease my mental cramps to be found anywhere, high or low. my parents might call the past five years 'directionless', but I read this article the other day that detailed a newly identified common life phase that I'm fairly sure I'm in the throes of. it's called "odyssey", the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood, where a "young adult" transitions in and out of school, cities, relationships and the like.

if the odyssey years are to be considered legit, then consider me to feel a hell of a lot better about my intemperate emotional flailing and hesitance to commit to anything, be it higher education, a person, a hair color, a brand of cola, etc. I suppose just the word "odyssey" resonates, as well, because I really look at my Big Picture as a grand experiment, a voyage, an epic that I write as I go. odysseys don't always go smoothly, they don't guarantee an ideal storybook ending, in fact the most famous one, ithaca is at peace in the conclusion, but not without some shit getting SERIOUSLY fucked up. so, maybe new york is my troy, and I've rolled myself in via a giant virgin america metal bird, and the war I wage is really one of personal growth and a righteous quest to find the best slice of pizza in all of the 5 boroughs. yes, odyssey is so much better than "quarter life crisis".

odyssey years: legit... or just a nice way to call someone a fuck up?

also, julia davis:

hearts they race

2009-05-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

I'm overloading.

uh, is this thing on?

2009-04-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

tap tap. bink bink?

so, I've been neglectful of ye olde blogalogadingdong... and every time I've thought to write an entry to announce an official hiatus, I've thought twice. there's absolutely everything to write about. each time I leave my apartment, I see the manhattan skyline, and I can not believe how lucky and brave I have been in the past month. I'm already toughened up... the other day I was walking to the train from work at 2 or 3 in the morning and when a bum asked me for a cigarette I immediately responded by barking, "go fuck yourself!" and got half a block away before even thinking twice to marvel at my finely attuned assholery.

this blog isn't on the chopping block just yet, but I am enjoying making my life slightly more private for the time being. perhaps a sort of a larvae-to-butterfly, thing. actually, the word larvae disturbs me on a fundamental level. "2nd puberty" isn't much better. suffice to say, all of this change has me love drunk on her lady humps and I'm raring to go for spring.

I'm going to consider posting up some paper journal entries in the few. even if only one, the planned parenthood brooklyn adventure was pretty fucking priceless. health insurance? pft. whatever. who needs it.

it's just a flesh wound

2009-03-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

for the past 5 days, I've been rocking a Sweet Black Eye. and when I capitalize, I just do so to emphasize the extremity of the black eye I am referring to. this is a shiner to end all shiners. the only way it could be worse is if I went blind, slipped into a coma, or sliced my face open and by the grace of allah, none of those happened.

whoops.

how'd I manage that? how, do you ask? not by a mugging in harlem, not by defending anyone's honor, not by throwing myself in front of a semi truck to save a child. I did this by falling down the stupid fucking stairs. the stairwell leading into my studio basement is unlit and thus extremely dangerous (I recall being warned by jay about it the day I moved in), and after coming home after getting drinks with some friends in the east village, I misstepped on the last one to the bottom and bashed my head into the overhang above the doorway. I remember peeling myself off the floor, shaking it off, getting my key in the door and being madder at my clumsiness than a hornet trapped in a maraca. I don't recall any moment where I felt acute pain or even holding my hand up to my face or anything to that effect, just being inconsolably pissed and letting loose a string of expletives that would have impressed george carlin. I went to bed, and I woke up in the morning with a mysterious ache in my head, rather than just a headache. I went to the mirror to investigate and met my gaze in the reflection to see my right eye swollen half shut and turning a variety of beautiful shades of blue and purple, like a sunset of violence setting on my lid.

not a good look. especially not a good look for the job interview I had yesterday. I am not going to discount the small grace that it had de-puffed enough that my makeup skills were en pointe enough to mask my best rihanna impression. I'm still experimenting with cover up and different gradients of shimmery violet eyeshadows.

I have no doubt that having being somewhat intoxicated when this went down had something to do with it, but I've tripped on those stairs several times before when I was stone sober. I think the kicker is that I didn't think to ice it, and that's how I ended up discovering that "eggplant explosion" is not just a color one might use for the molding in a bathroom. regardless, it hasn't improved my mood at all, having to curb my instinctual facial expressions for fear of the inevitable pain shooting down the side of my face, and not being able to leave my apartment building without wearing makeup of tranny caliber.

I really do love new york, but I am not loving being unemployed in new york. I love my eye, and I want to send it a 'get well now' card. instead, all I've got is unverified webMD-esque testimonials to what works best for making the bruising go away swiftly. hot compresses, vitamin c, rest, water, and pineapple, apparently. I've force fed myself so much tropical fruit that I've got acid burns on the roof of my mouth and the previously personally condemned starchy banana is starting to look pretty good. especially with peanut butter...

moral of the story? I am a dumbass. but if I wear this look out on the town you'd better believe no one will fuck with me on the train.

trouble

2009-03-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

new york... she's one tough bitch.

I knew that for a fact when I made the decision to join her massive army, and I stand firm on it. I'm just scrambling to get my bearings and the eye of the storm isn't in sight. the job leads seem only to lead into dead ends so far, and that's frustrating as hell but I'm not giving up. I have an interview at a sushi place on wednesday thanks to the graciousness of an old friend of sorts, and I hope that ends up panning out. after the job will come the apartment hunt for the end of my sublet from jay, and after that, I'm hitting mcsweeney's up again. my spirits are run down, today, and I really just want to go back to sleep even though my dear friend monica is in town visiting.

this is boring bullshit. I haven't been writing and I don't know why. this must be the three week hump scott referred to... it'll pass.

feathering the nest

2009-03-13T11:36:00.001-07:00

a little to the left...

2009-03-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

adjustments are being made, long sleeved thermal shirts are being bought, and everything seems to be exactly as it should for the first time in years. coming home to an empty house is bizarre, but I'm acclimating to it, however not without the first few nights alone riddled with weird nightmares of the type one might experience after drinking a bottle of tapatio before hitting the sack. I've been staying up reprehensibly late and sleeping in accordingly, which will have to end when I secure myself a job, and l've been out pounding the pavement. I don't mind being single and I don't even mind ceasing the endless search for finding a warm body to share a bed with for the time being. new york is my new significant other, and right now I don't want to share.

I've got 3 packs of polaroids coming to me from amazon and I am so excited to shoot my first brooklyn spring with them.

more is coming, I'm processing, it's a wonderful thing.

no sleep 'til

2009-03-04T14:19:00.000-08:00

I haven't written anything since I got here except subway directions on the backs of receipts-- and that seems very fitting, very appropriate for the speed at which everything in new york goes. the words sprawl through my mind at paces far too fast to capture all the time when I'm walking around the city, and before I get back home to my new apartment underground, safely shrouded by concrete walls from the freezing cold, they've been replaced by a barrage of sensory overloads. I'm scattered, but in a way I've dreamed of, a brand of lost that sings to my fears in lullabies and to my hopes in missives of blind faith.

the plane took off at 9:30am on the 24th and the one salty, fat tear that I shed rolled inconspicuously down my cheek to land behind my earlobe like a secret. during the five and a half hour flight, I consumed four bloody marys, one valium (in several chunks), and a bag of m&ms. upon landing I retrieved my bags and left jfk to catch a cab to brooklyn whose driver seemed not to know how to control his basic motor skills, let alone navigate the labyrinth of streets in brooklyn that are laid in a haphazard maze that appears slapped together at best. it'd be a lot easier to get around here without ending up astray from my desired route and talking to strangers (some friendlier than others, but all of them intuitively know I'm from california) if I had an iphone, but I feel like that's cheating. magellan didn't need an iphone. then again, magellan probably didn't need pepper spray or a metrocard, either.

the first two nights I was here with jay and he did his best to give me a head start on getting to know the neighborhood, and on what was to be my first night alone I went out to savala's in on bedford to see an old bartender fracquaintance who always greets me with warmth, a one liner, and a shot. every bar in this city has got considerable competition because of this guy; I'm considering starting a petition to get him a raise. the bar wasn't too crowded, it was an oldies night with a svelte lady dj whose boyfriend was keeping a very watchful eye on the creepy geezer that kept returning to her booth to "make requests". I struck up a conversation with the boy nearest to me at the bar who was engaged in a game of dice, and he had no interest in chatting about anything other than giving me some hard to follow, drunk directions on how to play the game.

"I may just spectate," I said, "my luck is shot."

"don't be silly, this has nothing to do with luck." he grabbed my hands and closed them over the dice, and even gave me a little shake to boot.

"so it's strategy?"

"not really." he replied. I furrowed my eyebrows.

"karma?" I asked, lifting a finger from my clasped hands to blow inside for luck. I'd seen this in gambling movies.

"someone else has to blow on them."

"you've got a gift for educating," I said, knowing he wasn't listening but rather intently anticipating my next roll, so I did. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, so I waited for reactions to prompt my next move. luckily my roll deferred to the next competitor, so I excused myself to the other end of the bar to try my luck over there. I struck up conversations with a few more friendly faces and decided that I ought to go home early (1:30 being the case, since every bar here stays open 'til four) and got lost on my way back to the subway station. upon asking a young man passing by for directions, he obliged willingly and as I turned to go in the opposite direction, offered to buy me a drink. this good samaritan, a good looking 2nd generation polish chap ended up later directing me to his bed after what I remember as a blur to be not a terrible amount of persuasion. I'd have ridden on a gargoyle into the bowels of hell if someone promised me a box of spicy cheez its and someone to spoon me would be waiting on the other side.

in the morning I woke up with a start and found myself staring at a swirling brown water stain on the ceiling, and every immediate following moment brought a new revelation. a, I was not at home. b, someone was sleeping behind me with an arm slung around my waist. and most importantly, c, that my cable knit sweater tights were still on. (three cheers for hosiery, the chastity belt of our time.) my fidgeting woke up my new friend, ironically enough sharing a namesake with my ex, and I asked him where we were, and he replied, "bushwick."

what the fuck is a bushwick? I thought. I sat up and started hastily putting on my clothes and brooklyn jon tried to convince me to stay, declaring unwarranted sweet nothings at a volume such things should delivered with an ear nibble to a receptive party, and not to a girl who is running for your door with one pant leg on. I noted the lord of the rings fan memorabilia and comic books littered throughout the room and couldn't help but chuckle to myself. I got picked by up a tolkien geek trying to find my subway stop. (oh, if only orlando could see me now.)

the following afternoon I spent feathering my nest back on the homestead and pounding pint glass after pint glass of tap water that I am suspect might eventually kill me faster than the booze will after watching some terrible "truth is out there" youtube someone sent me about brooklyn being a giant toxic waste dump. chris came by to check out my new apartment and we sat on my couch filing through old photographs and tickling each other's brains. after a dinner at bonita with the talented mr. kreuger that was mostly comprised of tequila and salsa (both delicious) we hopped a car back to chris' waterfront loft and stayed up late talking of the puzzle pieces that molded us into the hot messes destined for greatness that we are. I can't retrace every step that led me to the precipice from which I just leapt, but the freefall I'm in is exhilarating, and rewarded every time I catch a glimpse of the city skyline. that night I stayed up hours after him just staring at it over the hudson, watching the high rises jockeying for position.

after a week and a half, I've found that I now never leave home without mace, a flask of whiskey, gloves, maps, and my ipod. riding on the subway is still giving me miniature heart attacks from time to time, even if I study my impending route with the conviction of a princeton scholar at crunch time, I worry that I'll somehow end up in harlem at 3am wearing a "Mug Me" sandwich board. (if neuroses were like pokemon, I've undoubtedly caught them all.) also, for a rather klutzy gal, I've picked up the kill-or-be-killed attitude that you must have on the train to survive. even me, someone who has trouble standing still without tripping, has developed a startling matrix-esque ability to dodge obstacles hurtling towards you in the form of people that are moving either entirely too fast or maddeningly slow. getting out of union square station during rush hour, I become The One; my shoulders shift and weave out of the way in a fluid motion that would make a greased weasel jealous. I am a cog in the new york city wheel. I even have a bruise on my thigh from the turnstile bar.

escape to ny

2009-02-26T12:46:00.000-08:00

I've arrived in one piece! no time to write yet, but soon, soon,

auf wiedersehen

2009-02-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

another one bites the apple. 7am tomorrow... the coop is getting flown. brrrrrrookyn!

forget me nots

2009-02-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

uuuhggghhhgghh. so hungover, and with less than 48 hours to go in san francisco, and then I'm at my mom's for a day of decompression and last minute familial bonding. vacillating between being too nervous to form coherent sentences to being pretty apathetic about the impending massive change. I've spent so much time needlessly worrying over trivial things... I feel like I'm finally all worried out. either that, or I'm in some sort of homeostatic shock.

my final goodbye party was last night at the velvet cantina and had a heartening turnout. I certainly had a "you love me you really love me" moment or two, my favorite of which was randomly procuring a bloody nose that refused to coagulate which led to cassandra holding a paper towel in my nostril as I held my butt off of the toilet seat with both hands while I peed out a river of exorbitant amounts of tequila. that's some love right there. thanks homegirl.

it was weird that a few familiar faces were missing... scotty was sick, max was assaulted on muni (suuuure), and zoe is in mexico. jon was not invited, and I don't care to see him before I go. I spent a day pretty wrecked over our anti-climactic end, but I'm making peace with it. I'm sticking my metaphorical fork in it.

this is a seriously disjointed post, but my hangover is still clouding my head. I've got to peel myself off the couch and pack. I am so checked out already. I'm ready for what comes next. new york city. I'm really doing this...

big love

2009-02-18T09:48:00.001-08:00

in a not-at-all-surprising turn of events just before my departure, I managed to get myself involved in a demented love triangle with my ex-boyfriend and the girl he screwed around on me with when we lived together. am on the fence regarding if I hate myself more than I hate him, right now. we are not equally at fault, seeing as he is a self-indulgent, two timing liar with no conscience, but I have been duped by him more than a few times. my gluttony for the are-we-or-aren't-we tango is as despicable as his forced fits of depression that he uses as leverage to weasel his way back into good graces after acting like a giant baby.

woke up this morning with a mascara marred face not even a mother could love and entertained a brief lament on the f-bomb riddled text messages I shot off to him in a fit of blinding rage last night, and then was jarred back into reality by the sweet sounds of bathtub sex that my hot roommate was having with his new girlfriend in the next room. seriously? seriously?! fuck roommates, fuck san francisco, fuck it all. fuck it.

my blood is boiling for how stupid I've been, but my reasons for repeated entanglement are all based upon the urgent need to love and be loved. stupid on so many levels, especially because I forget to love myself, getting lost in the valiant yet entirely futile attempts at rescuing other people. he needs to save himself as much as I do, and you can't slap a bandaid on a bullet hole. bouncing from one co-dependent disaster disguised as a relationship to another is no way to grow.

I am so fucking frustrated and I don't have anywhere to put it. why is it so god damn impossible for me to let it die? is this symbolic for my break up with san francisco? is this just another example of my flawed personality that I keep battering my head against jon's brick wall like pavlov's relationship retard?

it's not love, it's a sick addiction. it's inertia, it's gangrene of the heart. it's a tug of war with no referee. I don't see how I could be any more finished... I'm leaving everything behind me. I've got to remember this time. I have to learn. I have to remember this fucked up hellhole of a road to misery and know never to take it again. if I am old enough to move across the country and start a new life, I am old enough to halt the cycle of getting into situations where my heart can be used as a hackey sack by an immature boy who gets off on having two girlfriends at once. this isn't fucking utah.

don't need legs to stand

2009-02-17T02:46:00.000-08:00

it was strange having a family get-together in my honor tonight back on ye olde farm... probably the first time such an occurrence has come to be since I was about 8 years old. it was a lot like a graduation party, only instead of school I was celebrating graduation from the state of san francisco. I felt loved, and that is really quite a comforting feeling to have surrounding this momentous move... seeing everyone show up was a valuable reminder that though I am leaving, I will have a home to return to. I've felt so displaced for such a long time.

these last california days are a blur... I have less than a week left. I've no idea where my blind faith for moving across the country came from, but I'm glad for it. I am looking forward to the peace I'll gain from living alone in a strange city. it's high time I cranked out that book, by now.

8 days

2009-02-16T01:03:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything up because I've hardly been writing, but rather fervently existing in this warmly warped vacuum of chaos and acceptance, although understanding has not yet taken place. I certainly don't know what I'm getting myself into, but I intend to find out. I've got a week left to tie up loose ends and to cauterize some emotional wounds that I will save to reopen for a rainy day when I can afford therapy.

I'm far too calm for what's about to go down...

in revue

2009-02-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

everything's bigger in tahoe

16th street bart on thursdays

me 'n maxie pad

civic center sunset

soon you'll be leaving your man

2009-02-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

there's this intrinsic and contradictory personality tic I've always possessed, that change makes me dreadfully uncomfortable, but stagnancy drives me (in a quite literal sense) insane. the fabled holy bovine of transformation has time and again proven that she doesn't give up the milk for free, and this time I already feel that I'll be paying in spades to receive what I know is priceless: opportunity. and of course, great pizza.

a strange calm has fallen over me with 13 days until I fly, despite that this is the most impulsive, debatably insane thing I've ever done. there's a lot to miss, but I'm through looking back. I adore san francisco for making me who I am, but I won't be leaving an empty nest here. it is feathered with my loves and my legacy, for better and often times worse, and someday I'll be back. I have no expectations but to experience all of the firsts that make the lasts I've been savoring worthwhile. sometimes it takes falling hard into an old lover's arms to feel ready to hold my own hand.

one way

2009-02-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, 2/24/2009
Depart: San Francisco, CA (SFO) 9:20 AM

Flight 22

Arrive: New York, NY (JFK) 5:55 PM

CHRISTINA: Seat 15A / Main Cabin

lasts

2009-02-04T01:07:00.000-08:00

as an individual who gets misty over visiting the corner store where I first ate a frozen piroshki, my nostalgia attacks have been frequent, uncontrollable, and many. now that I'm on the verge of blowing town, I have all of these "lasts" to ponder... how many more sardine can packed 22 line rides do I have left, how long before I camp out at dolores park movie night with my lady friends, how many more rooftop reveries before I take off for nyc? there's so much to be done before I fly away, and it's only 3 weeks off. I'm a little too scattered right now to really articulate sensical and cohesive thoughts...

"I'm sure back home they think I've lost my mind."
-ben folds

devil may care

2009-01-29T17:44:00.000-08:00

friday morning: discuss.

woke up to more passive aggressive post its on the fridge after drunkenly demolishing my roommate's leftover pizza last night when I got home from an evening about town that smacked of my trite and exorbitant first year in town as dj motley c. I suppose that's what I should expect from cruising around to hipster bars to flyer for a band called the downer party in a car full of barely legal dudes in leather jackets driven by a 19 year old girl with a sonic youth tattoo who I didn't care to ask how many sparks she'd had. nice kids, admittedly, one of them being max scoville, who has barely begun his excellent san francisco adventure... and it's fascinating to see that the kids are indeed alright, but they're still doing the same old shit. somehow I became the docent of my own milestone memory tour, passing the crunk station, the marrakesh joint in the tl, the old arrow (cum matador), the thursday night beat poet society at 16th bart, delirium, 330 ritch, and finally, the rickshaw. looking askance at its menacing orange door, I knew it was time for grandma to go home-- I don't play that game anymore. as much as some things never change, I'm no longer dolled up to get a photographer's attention for my 2 minutes of myspace bulletin fame, I don't have room for your glossy 4x6's in my purse, and the drug dealer is not invited to my afterparty. motley c and the girl gang formerly known as 3P is finally dead.

I'll never forget this blurry exchange from a couple of halloweens ago, spun out on god knows what and dressed up as an electro ladybug. sometime around 4 in the morning I passed stefan who was laying on the floor in a hallway of the warehouse with his head and shoulder propped up on the wall at an unnatural angle, drenched in sweat so that his dyed black bangs were slick and plastered across his furrowed forehead, wearing a dress shirt that could have benefitted from a proper wringing. I'd stopped and knelt down beside him, trying to heft his dead weight up into a posture that might do a double service in being more comfortable and also making him look less like a wasted burnout.

"what are you doing still here?" he asked.

"party goes 'til 6." I replied.

"getting your twenty bucks worth?"

"I was on the list."

"smart ass."

"what? I was!"

"no, I mean, what are you doing... still here." he widened his eyes dramatically as he asked. "because you need to get out."

"I am not sure I follow." I could feel my stomach lurching, full of pills and some acerbic alcoholic concoction.

"you know," stefan snorted, a signature character tic, "you know why I was such a dick to you when you first came around?"

"because you're an asshole?" I smiled sardonically.

"yeah, and also because I know you're too good for this. you're wasting yourself on this. take a look and tell me what you see." a rivulet of sweat streamed down his pallid cheek, his face stern. "I see the same old people doing the same shit. I'm 38, and I know, I know what they've already taken from you, but it's not too late. these people are vampires."

we sat there, locked in a stare that felt an eternity long with our dilated pupils boring into each other.

"I'll go when I'm ready." I said, incapable of mendacity.

"he's not coming back, and you won't either. look, I'm sorry. I don't want to see you around anymore, and I mean that in the best way possible."

"I know. but for a second there I thought you were just being a dick again."

I stood up, adjusting my wings. a group of people scuttled by, trying to find an inconspicuous place to do key bumps, stilettos glinting like switchblades with their faces bearing uniformly blank, unctuous expressions. later on when the warehouse was shutting down, lindsay, maren and I were standing in the middle of polk street and flagged a cab that was hotly pursued by a girl dressed as a zombie who was sobbing hysterically and banging on the trunk, wailing about how she'd been waiting longer than us. I turned back around, avoiding eye contact with her as I asked if my friends thought we should let her in.

"honey," maren said prudently, "good girls don't hang out in the tenderloin at 6 am."

limbo

2009-01-27T17:37:00.000-08:00

better today. actively squelching self-doubt, making progress, slow and steadily. I talked to jay in brooklyn this morning and firmed up plans, and the next paycheck I get, the first thing I'm buying is my one way ticket. I'm proud of myself for following through with this. I can't wait until I'm all set up and can say that I did it myself. my way. myyyyy waaaaaaaay!

deconstruction zone

2009-01-26T16:51:00.000-08:00

today, after much procrastination, I've begun to dissolve my belongings. the idea of getting rid of everything would seem like such an enlightening process, a certain freeing venture to simply trash the bits and pieces that help me remember who I've been, sell what I can and run. it's going to be a lot harder than I thought. the first drawer I opened I found dried roses from jorge's memorial service, an empty coke baggy, and a bunch of letters I wrote to jon but never sent. I've got a dresser full of skeletons, and I can't take them with me. if I've been in a cocoon for the past year, and now is my time to re-emerge as a different woman, I don't know how to manage the remembrance of my past. is it necessary? maybe I should just say fuck it and make a bonfire on the street corner full of duralogs and dog-eared pictures and movie stubs and incriminating journal entries written on cocktail napkins and stained shirts that my grandma darned for me and everything that will ever remind me to miss anything. I know this all sounds a bit melodramatic, but christ, isn't it? stuff, it's just stuff, bullshit stuff I've been dragging around with me. half of it I haven't touched in years, but having it safely jammed in the dark recesses of a cabinet makes me feel better. it's proof, it's evidence. it's morbid to think at all, but if I met some tragic and untimely end in a freak accident or even a rather ordinary one that you might skim in the obits and think to yourself, "thank god I didn't ride the n train that day", and someone were to excavate my living space, what would they think? what would they learn? what secrets and unturned rocks would they pore over? 5 years of important papers and pay stubs and unpaid bills in various heaps and a trunk full of diaries, half finished art projects and moldy coffee cups. sequined hot pants. complete discographic collections of bright eyes and britney spears, respectively.

without junk, I feel like I'd be nowhere girl. but then, say my house burned down? I would survive. I would survive without 700 dried up nail polishes in a purple caboodle I got in 7th grade and a stack of 40 photobooth strips. even rationalizing through all of these frenzied thoughts doesn't make sense to me. this must be why people get tattoos... no matter what transpires, it's marked forever.

I'm currently toying with the idea of a giant cursive "L" on my forehead. somebody shoot me with a xanax blowdart, please.

34 days

2009-01-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

having been sick for a month has really brought my quality of life down, and that's most likely the last thing I need right now as I'm bolstering my brass balls for a gallant move across the country and trying to work as much as possible to pad my modestly furnished (to say the least) bank account. this morning upon waking up I became excited that I'd regained some of my voice and triumphantly only woke up 3 times during the night. only 3! stop the presses! flush that bottle of tylenol pm and burn your eye pillow! that's practically a full 5 hours!

part of the melancholy mood is my faulty immune system, and the other part could be seasonal affective disorder, but as the dawns break and sundowns fall, each day feels shorter and I am coming to terms with leaving san francisco. my main focus is that I want to let it go, rather than run away. I have some preconceived notions of how living in brooklyn will be, and some are so heartening and fresh, and then there is the one that I'm sure of, and that is that I will be lonely. I am at this moment, surprisingly calm about it. my maiden voyage to a new city all by myself is a rite of passage that will help me grow into the woman that I want to be, no matter who stands opposing my decision. I've heard discouraging remarks from people close to me under a paper thin veiled guise of "concerned friend", and that is disturbingly puzzling. what could someone possibly get out of instilling doubt and discouraging another person you care for from pursuing their dreams? at any rate, as chris so succintly summed it up, "it's all part of the plan", and I'm more than prepared to play defense.

in other news, I'm undersexed. I found myself scraping smart balance on my english muffin this morning thinking of funny euphemisms for sex having to do with spreadable condiments. then I immediately realized that the sexiest thing to happen to me in weeks was watching my hot roommate mop the kitchen in his beavis and butthead boxer shorts from the dining room with my hair sticking askew in several directions while sipping on my morning coffee. I unconsciously slipped into a steamy pine sol reverie. "you missed a spot," I'd say, "right over there. lower. loooowerrr.... right there! yes! YES! YES! don't stop... mopping!!! my god, you could just eat off of it!"

come to think of it, it seems that the kitchen is making me hot. that sort of makes sense because food and sex are right up there with air and water, although it would seem that no one quite gets enough of the latter. and also, do roommate rules still apply if you're leaving the state in a month? would it really be so harmful to pass a note under his door demanding that he meet me in the laundry room with cool whip and a butt plug at midnight?

I'm going to have to steal the batteries out of the remote, again.

"I like to use 'I can't believe it's not butter' on my toast in the morning, because sometimes when I eat breakfast, I like to be incredulous. 'how was breakfast?' 'UNBELIEVABLE!'"

-demetri martin

best in show

2009-01-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

I'm dying my hair today... a special ritual that I reserve for times that I am legitimately doing something I like to call, "losing my shih-tsu".

we shall see!
edit: 3:51pm
3 dyes later...

welcome to the ginger zone.

ps. my second missed connection!

afraid not scared

2009-01-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

the freakout has commenced... I haven't felt like writing, but then I haven't sat still long enough to physically accomplish as much. yesterday night I went home early, but was drunk enough for it to have been 4am. lost my phone at my apartment after having lost my keys in my purse and then literally tore my room to shreds in true hurricane fashion, woke up this morning taken aback amidst an eruption of shit that resembled dorothy's house post-relocation to oz. the week had unforeseen hiccups that I tried to shove under the carpet instead of face head on, so the blow up was inevitable, and cleaning it up later is going to be appropriately symbolic. I'm going to throw most of it away.

I'm off at 4 today and I need to have some down time to really focus and think rationally about everything I need to get in order before I leave. thinking while specifically, sober and calm.

I have always wanted to do what I'm about to do, and I am lucky enough to have the love and support of my (cheeseballs coming) amazing friends and family. I think that is perhaps the most daunting part-- I've never been away from them. new york is going to teach me what I haven't been able to learn, and that is to be alone, and be okay.

is this for real?

2009-01-13T19:07:00.000-08:00

it's a good thing that the poop scare was just that-

I found out a couple of hours ago that I'm moving to new york march 1st. brooklyn, here I come! holy shit!

half baked

2009-01-13T12:23:00.000-08:00

this morning I became momentarily convinced that I was dying because there appeared to be blood in my stool. immediately thereafter I remembered that I ate two packages of red vines last night at 2 am after getting stoned out of my gourd with my roommate.

time to lay off the pot.

trapdoors

2009-01-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

I may have found a perfect escape route to brooklyn for march. that is only 7 weeks away, but then, fuck it. what the hell am I waiting for, anyway?

milking it for free

2009-01-06T07:39:00.001-08:00

2008's whirlwind end and 2009's beginning on wobbling bambi legs have left me bereft of a sense of assuredness of anything except that the time is ripe to get a firmer grip on the bull's balls. the winter doldrums still set in despite all of the overwhelmingly wondrous and unexpected adventures of the past few weeks, and I'm trying to claw my way out. as much as I appreciate the beauty in ephemerality, my nostalgic streak counteracts rationale; sometimes I forget that moments can be kept, but not held the way I want to. hedonism isn't about buying the cow.

it's a struggle to stay in stride, but today (even despite having woken up at 4am having gone to bed at 2) I'm meeting up with brent at mcsweeney's and will get some new projects to work on for wholphin, and next week I'm going to start job hunting for a restaurant gig to start saving money for le grand city swap.

the prospect of the wild blue yonder that is the world beyond the city by the bay is daunting, but it's imperative that I continue to learn to be self sufficient. by summer, a good portion of those that I call my closest friends will have scattered across the globe to embark on journeys of all kinds. some are merely running, some are searching, some are creating, but our common denominator is growth. I'm willing to show myself that I'm ready by taking some action.

as for the resolutions, I'm doing okay. the green phlegm goblins I've been hacking up have made it pretty easy to involuntarily quit smoking (day 3), but I'm going to have to throw on an addendum, which is to lose the weight I gained on birth control and didn't drop when I got off of it. this is probably do-able providing that I'm willing to give up delivery pizza, insomnia snacking, laziness, and beer. maybe I'll fill the voids with baby carrots, DIY pedicures, yoga and prozac.

here's a few snaps from the last week-ish.

mm & me (thanks cass!)

back to sf from christmas in the 707

rufus copping a cheap feel on NYE

pornament fiesta with the girls

disco ukulele dance at teatro zinzanni

life, as a cabaret

chris vick turns 28 @ the 811

my favorite room in all the land! my favorite goose!

the Womanizer Dance

lyds, ghostriding the basement

schleepy

me 'n tobs

ms. lindsay, my new year's kiss

keep on runnin'

2009-01-03T09:19:00.000-08:00

the next vacation I take is going to be permanent.

no time for resolutions, docta jones.

2008-12-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

1. move somewhere amazing.
2. quit smoking... maybe.
3. get paid for writing.

adios, two-thousand-and-great. I shant miss ye!

hello, 2k9. let's get it on, already.

happy new year!

maybe even you

2008-12-28T14:29:00.000-08:00

as it turns out, a handsomely scruffy midwestern snowshoeing musical prodigy has absconded with my heart to the pacific northwest.

I met mm on a friday night at a show that I grudgingly showed up to after having a day of shear madness at the salon that would make the faint of heart implode. the dragon lady was in full effect and the pre-holiday rush to get everyone's roots done before they see their judgmental mothers was imminently booming. the receptionist position at this salon is somewhat akin to being a cat show handler; all of the stylists are pristinely groomed, blue blooded, and camera ready for their close up at any given moment, and they expect to be doted upon and indulged in a weird hierarchy that I fail to appreciate. the break room for the salon is underground and I've nicknamed it the shit talk den as it is only really used for everyone that works there to bash each other while incessantly preening and watching curb your enthusiasm dvds. needless to say, by the end of the night I was covered in hair clippings, emotionally exhausted by the stylists and their equally difficult clients, and ready to crawl into my bed and curl up into the fetal position. instead, as I was counting the drawer out, I was somehow 300 dollars under the count in cash, so I ended up staying an hour and a half late trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong. when I finally escaped, I had to take a packed bus all the way out to potrero because of my entire fortune subsisting of 14 bucks in my bank account to last until christmas, where I got off two stops too soon and trudged the rest of the way listening to the new britney. I was ready to avoid human contact for fear of buzzkilling anyone who came within a 3 foot radius.

lydia was as always instantly cheering, with her mysterious ability to smooth any bristling almost instantly with her beguiling charm. (we call this "meowing it out".) after watching jay's set, I was feeling less like a social pariah and shear madness be damned, the stress started to melt away into being pleased with the realization that the bottom of the hill was swarming with a flock of people I adore. I sat at the bar although I was without beverage having not been able to justify spending any money on a cocktail considering that would be like trying to take down a wooly mammoth with a tylenol PM. lydia pointed out a boy across the room and identified him as matt j's hot drummer, of whom I've heard of from time to time when he occupies the attic room at her house when he's in town from portland for shows. he was up against the wall with a perfect james dean lean by the sound equipment in his pumpkin colored dress shirt, hair hanging in his eyes, stabbing the ice in the bottom of his drink appearing slightly bemused but still vaguely disinterested by the conversation around him. hot drummer, indeed.

I turned back to lydia as she punched me in the shoulder.

"quit staring at him!"

"ehh." I fibbed, "I don't really see it. we gonna afterparty at the 811 tonight?"

"we could go down to the basement with flashlights!"

"what, like a party spelunk?"

mm started making his way across the room to stand at the bar near us and craned his neck to see where a barkeep should be, but there was no one in sight. lyds spoke up.

"I think they've already shut the bar down."

"figures." he said. "I'm always the guy at the end of the night with the leftover drink tickets."

"drink faster." I shrugged.

"I guess so, huh!" he folded up the tickets that looked exactly like the ones you get at chuck e cheese that you can trade for kazoos or glowsticks and slid them in his breast pocket.

meanwhile, lydia was rounding up the troops for the post-show festivities and everyone agreed to meet up in the infamous attic of the 811 house, the quarters that house said fabled hot drummer. I've written about it before because it's most likely my favorite room in the history of every room I've known. it is the garden of eden of kitsch, from the life size zz top miller lite cardboard cutout to the giant plastic goose lamp in the corner, and from the jetsons-esque vintage record player that always has steely dan's "can't buy a thrill" loaded up, to the busted up mirrored coffee table that I wouldn't doubt was a prop from scarface. this room understands that nothing exceeds like excess. on top of all the fun goodies and inviting set up, the room is up on the fourth floor and leads out to a roof that boasts an absolutely gorgeous view of lower haight up to diamond heights beyond the castro. and then there was MM. I wasn't yet sold.

once the partygoers started amassing, mm started djing with his ipod, and if memory serves, his first choices were londonbeat, ace of base, hall and oates, la bouche, and the turtles. I was a goner. the way to my heart is through cheese or music, and this guy just served me up a piping hot selection of my favorite awesome cheesy tunes. I made my way across the room to properly introduce myself and lydia caught my eye when I was chatting with him to hiss at me. (meow!) soon thereafter I heard myself brazenly ask if he was spoken for by any ladies in portland like some wanton woman on a mission. he told me he did not, seemingly totally unfazed, and later on we exchanged numbers huddled in front of a radiator as I was about to leave, and right then it was decided that I shouldn't walk home wasted at 5am. we went to sleep spooning (and I'm sure I snored. ugh.) and I awoke to sunlight pouring into sharkey's room along with birds chirping cheerfully to the terrifying revelation that I was 45 minutes late for work on the busiest saturday of the entire year. I shot up like I had been unceremoniously surprised by anal rape and started yelling expletives, which I'm sure is what charmed him into what followed, which was a 5 day whirlwind winter romance.

we spent most of it together, and we got along famously. I'm still a little baffled... I slept through the night 4 nights in a row for the first time in 6 months in bed with him. and that's all we did! spooning, making out, rolling around in my orange sheets in my pink room. I invited him to be my date to zoe's holiday soiree and he graciously accepted, and even got all dressed up for the occasion, complete with cufflinks. he bought cat food for rufus. he's apparently a driven musical genius who is committed to his work. is there anything this guy can't do? who IS this guy? he's intelligent, disarmingly piquant, talented and not to mention, gut bustingly hilarious. but, and there's that dreaded but, the but that I want to spank away into nothingness... he lives in portland. and he loves it. of course he does! if my hair wasn't already breaking off, I'd pull it out.

our tryst ended as abruptly as it began when fate dealt him a plane ticket home after having been snowed out of flying home for a few days. (apparently my indian blizzard dance only works to a certain degree.) after engaging in a super cuddle three way spoon with lydia in which I was the baloney, our plan was to get bloody marys at the wild side and then return to the cupcake room to do illicit things to each other, which I was very much looking forward to after half a week of foreplay. then when I was getting ready to go, I got a text saying he had to run to the airport to catch the last seat home until after christmas. tragic was the word he used, and I was definitely in agreement of that assessment.

I am the victim of a drive by crushing, and it's admittedly pretty darling. I'm sure that my roommates have been tempted to knock my goo-goo eyes out of my head a few times this week. even if it never goes beyond our unimaginably cute quickie affair, I'm so glad to have met someone who restores a little bit of faith in people in general. the dude is cool. but I'm going to be very upset if I end up drunkenly naked video chatting with him before I get to do so in person.

I'm leaving it all up to zeus.

mixed nuts: xmas 2k8 pt. one

2008-12-25T05:25:00.000-08:00

fade in: it was december 24th at 5:45, pitch dark already as the wind whipped through the eucalyptus trees on the farm relentlessly and the fat raindrops assailing the house were drowned out by a cheerful perry como. I was on my hands and knees by the miniature tree decked with miami beach blue lights and iridescent fake snow, wrapping the last of the presents my mom hadn't had time to finish. they were travel coffee mugs for all of the men in the family, which is quite useful considering the average gift you might find under the tree, but easier said than done to actually get covered properly without it looking like someone handed it to a toddler with a ball of yarn, some scotch tape, and some shiny paper with "ho" print on it and told them to go to town. I stared at one of my finished products feeling vaguely unsatisfied with the shoddy outcome and shrugged to myself as I tossed it into a shopping bag with one hand while sipping a glass of pomegranate champagne with the other. we were running late, but that was to be expected.

all of the ruggeri clan were supposed to have arrived at the bromley compound by 6 o'clock sharp, so as to appease the reliably demanding whimsy of the smith family. pete is the eldest grandchild and he's married, in addition to being the proud parent of two young kids who apparently couldn't stand to stay up an extra hour like all of the rest of us had as wee barnes. this isn't the first time or the last that everyone else was given instructions on how to behave that translated to something akin to, "we're not playing favorites, we just like them better." in the suburban on route to the soiree my mom went off on a grumbling tirade, and I, on the one hand, was disinterestedly fiddling with the cap on my peppermint chapstick, as we slalomed our way through the pothole riddled puddle obstacle course that linden street turns into in the wet months.

"really," my mom continued, "who starts a christmas party at 6pm?! who?"

"apparently, we're related to them."

"it's just ridiculous! the sun is hardly down. I'm not even hungry. you know what? we should just keep driving."

"oh, okay, thelma." I laughed, patting her on a padded shoulder. my phone started to ring and I dug it out of my purse to answer it. it was my cousin scott.

"yo, dude. where are you guys? patty's freeee-eeaking out."

"I'm sure she is."

my mom interjected, "tell them we're on our way to vegas."

"scott, my mom says to tell everyone we're headed to vegas and they can all go fuck themselves."

"I'll be sure to pass on the message." he chuckled, "but seriously, where are you?"

"we're just going to do some rails of cat tranquilizer off of the dash here and we'll be there in five." I sighed. "we're on linden. see you in a minute." as I was hanging up my mom threatened to start a christmas revolt if all the champagne had been imbibed without us.

when we arrived on the scene moments later, I was showcasing my "I don't have to be good, I'm cute" cat sweatshirt to my mom when her boyfriend wordlessly slunk out of the shadows holding a fruit and cheese basket, unintentionally startling me witless. "sorry," he said to me and then turned to my mom, "but I'm not going in there without you."

"we don't blame you." I said, without a hint of irony.

"what's your neice's fiance's name? the monster truck driver guy?" he asked.

"phil." replied my mom.

"phil, phil, phil, phil. how am I going to remember that? phil, like punxatawney."

"that's perfectly fitting, actually." I said, reaching for the front door. "here we go!"

once inside we all began the rounds of pleasantries to all 15 of those who can proudly say we're from the same gregarious irish italian bloodline, plus a few strays that managed to weasel their ways in over the years. I'd been forewarned that my crazy aunt (who usually provides me with all the material I need for holiday entertainment) would be in attendance with her ex-con boyfriend that she had reconciled with after having him dragged out of her house by the cops during a "psychotic episode" just a week before. when I got there her absence was glaring, as she is usually quite loudly terrorizing the company with diatribes of all kinds of exceedingly inappropriate natures, so I asked where she was and peggy threw up her hands in exasperation.

"she's not coming!"

"what?!" I asked, incredulously. this would be the first family dinner sans crazy 'nee 'nee since I was a toddler.

"brian is sick, so she's staying home to take care of him."

"ohhh." I said.

"I can't believe I went to all the trouble to hide the good silver because he was coming over and now she just cancels!"

"you hid the silver, peg?"

"well, you know," she said, leaning in and lowering her voice as well as her eyebrows, "after thanksgiving, I was missing a spoon."

"you were missing a spoon? like a serving spoon?"

"no, it was a small soup spoon."

"how could you tell?"

"well I counted them before and after dinner and afterwards, one was missing."

"that's terrible." I said, backing away, trying to disengage from the cutlery conspiracy and get back to the baked brie. halfway across the kitchen I had absconded with a small plate of hors de oeuvres when my aunt patty stopped me in my tracks, picking up the lock of hair on the left side of my head that bears a pink streak that hadn't yet been debuted to the family members that skipped the turkey day festivites this year. patty has gained notoriety amongst family members for her strict family values that preaches but does not necessarily practice, and also for being the eldest sister of the four aunts with a textbook classic case of self martyrdom.

"what," she paused dramatically to look underneath the hair that she was holding with her thumb and pointer finger as if it was a rotten banana peel, "is this?"

"it's hair?" I replied, cringe smiling. she didn't respond, so I continued, "I'm working at a salon right now, it's just a different look I wanted to try. it washes out."

"that's nice." she said, placing the hair back in place gingerly. "that's nice, honey." I looked over her shoulder to see my little brother giving me an enthusiastic politician's double thumbs up and I crossed my eyes in a silent response.

soon after everyone piled in to the dining room and sat down for prayer that I apparently missed because I had committed my attention to getting the party popper from my plate to open. this year everyone had been served salad that was waiting for them when we got to the table. I pointed to the leafy greens in front of me.

"what's going on here?"

"they're vegetables, christina." said my mom.

"no, that is salad rape." I replied, looking askance at a baby carrot. scott laughed under his breath and patty shot me a look.

"just eat it." said my mom, nudging my knee under the table. I put the crown from my party popper on my head, and the other cousins followed suit. looking down the table to see who was indulging in the holiday headgear was a pretty accurate indicator of the "cool ruggeris" who all gather together after the stuffy ones have departed to participate in the traditional midnight graveyard run. every year we all pile into a van and go to the graveyard to sprinkle vodka and glitter on my dearly departed grandma's grave, and we leave a "bow-quet" of all of the ribbons from the opened christmas presents. arguably the coolest ruggeri of them all, my nana certainly would have approved.

dinner itself was relatively uneventful because of nee nee's absence and the fact that no one had had enough time to get drunk first and the raviolis were soaking everything up. after everyone was sufficiently stuffed (so much so that there was hardly a scrap left on the table) we all retreated to sit around the tree and wait for pete's two babies to hand out the presents, knocking over most of the beverages in the room as they toddled around. I made off with a couple of checks and a black thermal hoodie from patty that appeared to be wearable until I noticed that it had an airbrushed sacred heart surrounded by phantasmagoric floating crucifixes on it. scott was definitely spot on when he bestowed me with a flask that said "hot mess" in scrolling purple letters.

I held it up triumphantly, and scott, feigning a resigned apathy said that he was ready to be part of the problem.

"no, no, scott. this is merely a solution." I said, thanking him.

soon the great divide came about and the family sects began to break up and start planning their escapes, so jack and my mom and I piled into the car and headed home for our private swanson party before the graveyard run.

when we got back we opened another bottle of champagne and jack was on the couch playing with my mom's geriatric miniature weiner dog, mitzie. mitzie is a nervous creature, weighing in at about 7 lbs. and she was never properly house trained, so she (and the apartment) often quite literally smell like shit. this was not the case tonight.

jack smelled the dog and made a face but the following question wasn't what I had expected:

"why does mitzie smell like raid?"

"oh, I sprayed for ants earlier." replied my mom, matter of factly, "don't lick any surfaces in the apartment."

"or the dog, for that matter!" I said, casting a sympathetic gaze in mitzie's direction. she shivered before launching herself off of the couch and running to the sliding glass door to bark frantically.
---------------

to be continued...

one for my homies

2008-12-24T13:54:00.000-08:00

Sleigh Ride - The Ventures

I'm headed home o'er yonder to sonoma for a couple of days for what promises to be another twisted holiday gathering with my legitimately looney relatives. thinking about perhaps documenting the traditional midnight graveyard run on film for the first time... would that be sacrilegious? would it be more sacrilegious than pouring stoli and glitter on my grandma's grave on jesus' birthday?

here's a throwback to last year.

tuesday, december 25, 2007

"o, holy nite"

as much as I am prone to bitching of the familial kind, I really do look forward to each year's batshit insane christmas dinner antics. the evening was kicked off by my mother trying to teach me how to bake a proper cherry crunch casserole and nearly succeeding in burning the house to the ground. the moment I set foot in my grandfather's house my cousin katie, (outfitted in garden gnome pajamas,) offered me a breast to squeeze as she'd just acquired a new pair. my eldest cousin's infant was googly eyeing the scene in such a way that makes me suspect he's already got ulterior motives. my crazy aunt had called me twice during the day to let me know about the sale at longs on almond roca of which she bought 15 boxes, and then to ask me if I had use for a temperamental fondue pot that she found in the barn. her holiday icebreaker was to tell me that she'd been visited from beyond the grave by my deceased ex boyfriend, but she couldn't tell me what they've been talking about for fear of sounding-- you guessed it-- "crazy". she then handed me a coors light and demanded that I chug it, followed by a pint glass full of bourbon that she changed her mind about and took back after I'd held it for 20 seconds. she leaned in and batted her eyes and whispered, "your horns are showing." and I put my hands up around my head to play along, and she said, "no, the ones poking out of your ass."

my cousin scott recently had a spleenectomy and as a result has lost 25 percent of the use of his liver and thus is not allowed any party sauce. scott is a bigger man than I in more ways than one pertaining to general wherewithal, but to brave a ruggeri gathering without the aid of some sort of mind altering substance (namely anti-anxiety medication) is to have great big balls of the finest brass. I sat next to him at the dinner table and looked wistfully askance at his wine glass full of milk after tia loca was finished chasing me around the kitchen holding up a piece of slightly overdone fried abalone yelling, "it's a vagina lip! LABIA MAJORA!". I managed to successfully give my asshole of a little brother the silent treatment for most of the night because I haven't forgiven him for backing out on me for my move earlier in the week. the mongoloid baby drooled. racist jokes were told. questions regarding how I planned to conduct my reproductive future were asked. grandpa had no wisdom to impart on us this year, but he did stop to make eye contact and shake his head with almost every one of us to communicate his unexplained disgust that may very well be just an onset of senility. we all received those chalky lumps of emotional coal with a grain of yuletide salt.

after the presents were opened and everyone began to gather up their new toys and make a break for the door, there was a great divide. there are two kinds of ruggeris. the kind who get invited to the top secret afterparty at aunt peggy's, and the kind who don't. included in this exclusive crew is myself, my mom, jack, our honorary family member, max scoville, scott, peg and her husband, bruce. this is much like any other afterparty as it includes copious free flowing alcohol and shit talking, but there's guitar hero in the living room and not a key bump in sight. after a round of rock band on the xbox that we named Dickslap Bruises and the Unsolicited Squeege, and once everyone was sufficiently plastered (excepting Scott the Brave), we set sail for the after afterparty. at midnight, we all piled into a minivan, picked up crazy renee out of guilt/necessity, and floored it to the graveyard to sprinkle glitter, christmas bows, and a water bottle of vodka on my grandmother's grave.

the evening even wore on for an after after afterparty with my mother and max, as we passed a cuban cigar back and forth in the dining room, and at some point my mom wandered off to meet the sandman. I fell asleep, max took off, and I woke up at 6am to my kitty standing on my chest and looking at me expectantly. I ruffled his little scrappy head and sighed, "welcome to the fam."

um.

2008-12-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

I AM HAVING A WINTER FLING AND IT RULES.

if you lived here, you'd be home

2008-12-19T12:29:00.001-08:00

I always threatened to run away and join the circus when I was a kid. I never thought it would come to me.

B is for Baby Prostitute

2008-12-18T00:52:00.000-08:00

I just read over my last post and sheezus, am I gay for new york. I can't get enough.

I'm baby stepping, right now. instead of pounding the bottle of champagne in the fridge, I'm relaxing in my room with a cup of sleepytime tea.

onward, to the letter b of the cell phone prodge. (I'm going to finish it, someday. someday when I'm using a walker and have purple hair instead of pink.)

BAP- (801)

BAP is short for Brittney Ava Presley, and also for a bad 90's comedy starring halle berry called black american princesses about opening the world's first soul food restaurant/hair salon. (netflix, anyone?) born brittney stronge, the BAP, as I came to call her for short, mysteriously went by the name she chose for herself, ava, to all but her family, and when she was stripping, she called herself presley in homage to the king. the BAP was born to an unwed mother in '86 who gave her up for adoption and she was welcomed into a strict mormon home by a family of 3. she grew up in a small town in utah with a solid network of family ties whose strong values were prevalent in her rearing, even having her choice not to practice their faith met with respect and understanding. by the time she was 15 she was stripping and doing a combination of drugs that would make keith richards cringe, at 16 came the neck tattoo, at 17 she was lying about her age to be a suicide girl, and when she was 18 I crossed paths with her in san francisco by way of her high school best friend, lindsay.

the day I met her at a pizza place in the 'loin she looked like sex on a stick, with her painted on jeans slung obscenely low and her cropped black hair haphazardly pulled out of her eyes with plastic baby barrettes of the drug store variety. she had just woken up one morning and thought to herself, "oh, what the hell. I'll move to san francisco today." and hopped a bus to california, stopped into a hostel to shower and then performed at amateur night at the century club down the block to make enough money to pay for the next day's lodging. hearing this from anyone else may have horrified me, but somehow I was ensnared by the sordid tale of the exotic dancing ex-mormon lolita who blew into town with the intent of bringing her particular brand of unconventional teenaged sorcery to the city it had taken me two decades to get to from a farm 45 miles away.

the bap had an air of mysticism about her that she seemed to manifest for herself, as if simply believing that extraordinary things would present themselves to her in the path of least resistance on a day to day basis would make it a reality. it's the first time I've ever seen such an attitude prove so effective, and it really did seem that she was genuinely happy, truly unafraid of foraging into the unknown armed only with red lipstick, sequined pasties and bus fare. she was intriguing and fun to be around, and I silently admired her tattoos and lip rings and the fact that fate seemed perpetually in her favor despite her flippant approach to consequences. she found worrying to be innocuous and unnecessary, and used the adjectives "magical" and "amazing" at least one hundred times in a day. and that was part of her spell- as long as you could keep up with her, things usually were.

after a 6 month stint of nonstop adventure, it's hard to say whether BAP fled san francisco or if she was indeed the one who deemed the jig to be up. she is kind but not built for being part of reciprocal relationships, she is a fabled drifter, a nomad, a unicorn stripper. nowadays she is based out of utah but works for american airlines, and finally found the perfect employment for her insatiable wanderlust. now, the BAP gets to fly for real, every day.

last we spoke I asked her if she was still dancing in her downtime and she confessed that yes, much to her boyfriend's chagrin, she did a weekly drive up to wyoming to shimmy on a pole. I asked her why she still continued despite the fact that her salary is more than comfortable, and she said that she wants the extra money for cheap plane tickets that are available to her as part of her benefits.

"it's like, two booty claps and bam, I'm in france. it's magical."

"it's amazing, actually." I replied.

***

the night I met the BAP: 9-11-04

from left, BAP, lindsay, the joelercoaster, me

the object of my affection

2008-12-17T11:07:00.000-08:00

san francisco, while my first city love, is losing its luster. I've got this insatiable passion to woo new york, an urgent yearning to run away with her, in spite of millions of admirers she's had before. I long for it like a fiend after an impossibly perfect, ephemeral paramour, knowing that I'll never really be able to have her, but just to truly feel as if I'm a part of the unfathomably frenzied wonderment, even just for a little while. losing another piece of my heart to her would be instantly justified. I fantasize about exploring every neighborhood, memorizing the angles and curves of every brownstone in brooklyn, devouring the uncharted territory like a refugee cartographer. new york, such a formidable force, has always been a daunting possibility, but also a destination I've quietly had chosen for a decade. now that I've been voicing my desire for her, I'm meeting the opposition that kept me mum. it sounds cliche to say that every time someone tells me I can't, it makes me all the more determined, but it's true. I am young, but not naive. I am not the first runaway.

true, my roots have been ripped up before, but it's the first time that I've felt the urge to re-plant them somewhere far. it could be home.

someday my prince will come

2008-12-14T09:14:00.000-08:00

my boss: envision with blonde wig.

I've been back from new york for a couple of days now and it's been jarring. I was unfortunately scheduled for the opening shifts at work the two days following my return, and my first day back was an utter disaster. upon arriving at the salon, the owner turned to me and started picking me apart, from my exceedingly offensive choice to wear a sweatshirt with my skinny jeans and heels, to my hair which I had worn wavy instead of pin straight. in a scene that seemed to be tailor made for a textbook bad dream, in front of an audience of 6 stylists, she manhandled me into a chair and started furiously flat ironing my hair as she ended her tirade with, "maybe if you put on some lipstick it would detract from the fact that you're wearing a sweatshirt." now, if I had shown up in yoga gear in a pony tail with BO in last night's makeup, it'd be one thing... but this offensive sweatshirt in question is a 35 dollar black and grey cheetah print cowl neck zip up from H&M. it is admittedly not a fur coat, by any means, but it's not a questionable choice to wear to a salon job.

from the disconcerting first 5 minutes of work to the subsequent following 5 hours of disasters, including a scheduling error that occurred in my absence that made it so I have 4 shifts for the rest of december, I only managed to quell the tears for one block into my walk home. there is not much I wouldn't give to be back in brooklyn. I feel almost ridiculous for admitting how bummed out I've been since I got to JFK for the trek home. my dad used to call this "too much party syndrome", exhibited by those who've just had themselves an amazing time and then get jarred back into an unforgiving reality. mine right now is that I despise everything about san francisco and that I woke up at 5 am this morning because of having vivid nightmares about chemo. ugh.

the only solace I can find is in that if I work really hard to get what I want, which is to relocate, I can be truly proud of myself. no one can do this for me but me. so I guess that means that I have to get up and get ready to don my finest couture to my stinking job. I'm just a cog in the machine, today.

update:

surely you jest. I just went to work to find the salon is under construction and no one cared to mention that I wasn't supposed to come in 'til one. what. the. fuck.

at least I have 2 and a half more hours to do myself up like a hooker so my boss won't publicly humiliate me.

takeoffs and landings

2008-12-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

I hate flying. I’m not scared of landing gear malfunction or airplane tuna or any such expected potential traveling mishap- I’m just too fucking ADD for it. My legs are too long and bambi-esque to be cramped into such a space for 5 hours, and I have to resist the urge to annoy the surrounding passengers with inane chit chat and or queries regarding whether or not they are going to finish their roasted nuts. Not to mention, this particular journey was garnished with the proverbial cherry atop my shit sundae with the fact that I nearly missed my plane and then upon arriving to aisle 11 discovering a chick wearing NYU sweats had stolen my window seat. I didn’t say anything, which I know isn’t very New York, but I just didn’t have the energy to bother. I made sure to conspicuously crane my neck over her to see out the window as we were taking off and I’m considering feigning barfing into the complimentary bag later for a cheap laugh later on. God damn planes. I eagerly look forward to the day that teleportation is available to laypeople. We have a iPhone that can do everything but perform [a successful] open heart surgery, why can’t we fax me from coast to coast? This isn’t the warp five I was expecting by the end of the two-thousands.

Ow. Ear popping.

This trip has been a wild ride, to say the least. On the emotional side, as well. I knew as I was crossing the threshold of my front door before dawn with my ridiculously heavy land laughably over packed luggage in San Francisco 9 days ago, that there was no way that I would return the same. I felt like I was leaving San Francisco for home. And I brought enough clothing to fill a considerably good sized thrift store, and enough hair product to erect a three foot winehouse beehive. I don’t know how I’m ever going to manage to downsize the massive amounts of shit that I’ve accumulated over the past quarter decade… how am I going to give up the amazing vintage gumball machine that I found on Steiner street a few weeks ago? What will become of my golden unicorn lamp from a gypsy garage sale? How am I going to get Rufus on a plane? These are all bridges I suppose I’ll burn when I get to them.

Boston was impressively historical, with its ostentatious brick buildings sprawling as far as the eye can see. You can’t throw a baked bean there without hitting 3 plaques explaining the significance of a particular, average looking cobblestone. East coast men are different in general, but Boston men are particularly meaty. Meaty in the sense as though they’re just bred to be built like professional wrestlers and have only ever cried at Red Sox games in their entire lives. (And they’ll beat your ass into carpaccio if you bring it up.) The accent tickles my fancy but I would be hard pressed to try and imitate it with my west coast California drawl. I'd liken it to sound sort of like a valley girl with down syndrome.

The subway system in Boston is called the T and it’s the oldest railway system in the United States. It certainly shows in that as soon as it starts putting down the line you feel like a pebble in a the only maraca in the congo line at a quinceanera. If you prefer your brain to be shaken and not stirred, then the T is the transportation for you.

My first night in town, Stephanie showed me around to the local watering holes, one of them being the Burren in Somerville. Somerville is just outside city limits in Cambridge and very quaint, home to yuppies, fluffy dogs the color of snow, and those who enjoy living near a metropolis where Benjamin Franklin once partied but don’t want to deal with the hustle and bustle. The Burren reminded me an awful lot of a dingy dive in SF called Amnesia, only bigger and frequented by average joe Massachusetts-ites instead of art faggy vegans with sideways hair and nut hugger jeans. Needless to say I was instantly charmed, as an open mic unfolded before my very eyes and the progression of men took the stage to sing their hand penned folk songs inspired by femme fatales of Christmases past. Stephanie and I took a shine to a redhead named Noah with heartbreakingly kind eyes that implied that he may have actually been incapable of acting the least bit disingenuously. He came over the next evening at midnight and chatted with us over hot toddies and goldfish crackers, and then sang us to sleep.

Much of the trip to MA was spent discussing the grown up conundrum of home and whether hanging your hat means anything to the integrity of where it is. Stephanie and I have been friends for a decade, and seen each other through the gamut of young adulthood, both of us traversing through emotionally destructive territory and discovering ourselves. Ourselves without our parents, ourselves without school, ourselves as we now specifically define and design them. Since we were 13, Stephanie and I have been the ying and yang of a pair of young ladies. I was always the outlandish, gregarious, brash one, and she in turn was outgoing but much more shy and calculating, and wary of “real world” issues. When she was protesting environmentalist causes (one of them being the great Tuna Strike of 2000), I was concerned more with fantasizing about getting a big break as a movie star and running away to exotic locales with the cabana boy of one of the trophy wives I babysat for. Stephanie always had a boyfriend, and I was always single. Stephanie went to college when I dropped out to become a San Francisco DJ and proceeded to garner a drug habit and a relationship so undeniably doomed that it would’ve made a perfect premise for a black romantic comedy. Steph never went longer than a week without seeing her parents and I was spending months at a time consciously avoiding mine. We were two blondes from opposite broken molds.

None of this is to say that one road traveled was necessarily better than the other. 3 months ago after graduating from State, she threw all of her belongings into storage and high tailed it for Boston, knowing all of one person there, and having lived within 45 miles of her hometown her entire life. If someone familiar had to guess which one of us pulled such a stunt, they’d undoubtedly guess wrong. I’m in awe of the bravery it takes to uproot and explore, but I’m starting to realize that making huge changes may just be exactly the favor I owe to myself.

Last night we splashed through the torrential downpour in Soho, wool coats soaked to the quick and coasting on a fortuitous happy hour high. We feasted on cupcakes from the famous Magnolia Bakery and then meandered around, starry eyed and with wind burned faces. The west village was gleaming, awash with cold rain and old New York charm. I nearly lost my right arm to a subway car that slammed down on my hand over and over for at least a minute or two before a couple of good samaritans came to my rescue pried the doors open. (I wasn’t worried. If Beyonce can have a bionic arm, I can too.) Afterwards, we met up with Chris and his roommate for our last night huzzah, who took us to a mindblowingly scrumptious steak dinner in Green Point and showered us with champagne and affection. Again, east coast men (even the ones who are made and not born) seem to bear a chivalrous sensibility that I’ve not been privy to thus far.

I woke up this morning to the sound of Steph’s boots clacking around on the concrete floors of the loft on Kent St., and quickly started to remember some of the debauched moments from the previous night. The first of which was the sharpie wars whose red battle scars I still bear after not being able to exfoliate them away. I pondered what it would be like to be able to speak to pre-teen Stephanie and Christina and tell them of the adventures in New York city that we would someday have. Outlandish claims like black presidents, working several jobs to pay our astronomical rents, that my boobs (formerly nicknamed “mosquito bites” by a certain Zane Hawley) would be huge, someday. I’d have been incredulous, to be sure.

New York- what wonderful uncharted territory. I can’t wait to get back.

sleepless city

2008-12-09T18:34:00.000-08:00

the view from chris' rooftop in brooklyn...

I’m on day five of my east coast adventure, now safely boarded onto a rather fancy bus that’s rattling towards boston, massachusetts. my first day here I was completely useless because I hadn’t gone to bed before the plane for fear of oversleeping because of a cell phone alarm malfunction. turns out my irrational neuroses weren’t too far off of the map, because this morning my alarm, though meticulously set for 8:30 on the dot so as to have time to pack, clean, and take the subway into manhattan to get to penn station, didn’t go off at all. at 11:45 my eyes fluttered open of their own volition to the sounds of children playing down the block. “fuck!” I yelped. “recess!” and began rushing around trying to get everything done all the while being watched by the nefarious black cat , sattirius, that came with the apartment. the cat was made out by its owner to be one of the warmer-upper variety but in actuality spent the entire 5 days that I knew it biting, barfing and waking me up at odd intervals during the night by batting me in the face. so much for love.

shockingly, I managed to get out the door in an hour flat by skipping shower and primp time, and called a car to bring me to penn station. once there I went inside and looked for a place to buy tickets for the bus but could only see amtrak train kiosks. the last bus left at 1:30 and it was 1:17, and I was at a total loss so I hopped in line at the information station. 8 maddening minutes later behind an elderly canadian couple, I was face to face with a disinterested looking man in a silly hat who informed me that all of the buses picked up from the street and you bought tickets from the driver, but depending on what bus line and where you wanted to go, they had stops all over in a 6 block radius. I grabbed my bag and ran for the escalator, sweating in my winter layers. the first bus I saw was boston bound and I hopped it. lady luck, maybe?

before I go any further, it must be declared: I truly love new york city. it is so alive and rife with electric energy that invigorates and excites me more than anything ever has. it’s huge, it doesn’t apologize, and the promise of boredom being absolutely impossible is more of a challenge. new york dares you to go ahead and try not to love her. she’ll beat you down with bitter cold conditions and make you feel so insignificant with the passersby on the sidewalk withholding pleasantries that are nearly a requirement in california. then she’ll festoon your eyelashes with glittering snowflakes and dress the proud brownstones in white, and lead you to an abandoned matzoh ball factory with strapping lads in wool coats to bestow a panoramic view of the city and brooklyn. people in california are spoiled and lazy. people in new york seem less friendly because they are purposeful, they have agendas and careers, and pay more in rent. they don’t have time to waste, and they expect you to return the favor by not wasting theirs. this is such a novel idea!

I’ve always wanted to move, I’ve deemed 25 my “new york age” for years now, and now that I’m in approaching 24, I feel perhaps I’m already as ready as I’ll ever be. it’s less of an intimidating venture because I’ve realized in the past week that I’ve got plenty of friends out here on the east coast that are dependable and supportive. so, here’s my time to grow, to leave san francisco, who has been burdensome and enabling my stagnation for (let’s face it,) years now. my internship is the biggest commitment I have, and mcsweeney’s has offices in new york that I could likely transfer to, and my boss has been nothing short of a cheerleading life coach to me.

how am I going to pull this off? a second job, maybe a third even. chris told me last night that all I would need was 4 grand and a sturdy set of balls. the balls are mighty and intact, but they money, however, is lacking.

brooklyn is magnificent. every street corner offers hidden gems and the community is completely charming. the good (park slope), the bad (hipster hating machete gangs in williamsburg), the weird (hasidic jews), and the cold (everywhere). my first subway ride after landing lydia and I shared a train car with a burly man with headphones in that was blaring the new britney. down in the lower east side I ran into several old friends from the west coast in a sweaty dive bar and then later saw rats the size of golden retriever puppies tumbling into the gutter. I discovered what a difficult venture it is to buy liquor in new york from a grumpy little man behind several panes of bulletproof glass who gave me my change by pushing it through a peephole with a stick. that same night lydia opened my eyes to a whole new world of food by bringing me to one of the deliriously festive indian restaurants that have hundreds of strung up hanging lights and a waitstaff who don’t seem as if they would hesitate to sing, dance , or punch you in the face.

green point was an adventure that delivered gourmet sushi, creepy gas station nativities and a surplus of awesome polish people. a successful thrifting trip to beacon’s closet procured the only hat on the planet that doesn’t make me look completely idiotic, and it’s fur pom pom is sitting on my head. lydia and I were whisked off to a bizarre russian mafia bar in the city that only served vodka and had a top secret upstairs lounge that I got just drunk enough to sneak into and try to hustle a babushka for drugs. I visited an old friend with her new husband and puppy, and then went to a place I’d been to once before 2 years ago and was gleefully welcomed by the same old bartender who promptly served me a shot of makers declaring that “you don’t forget a hurricane”. rockefeller’s tree was disappointing and the center itself panic attack inducing, and shopping in soho was made impossible by a wind chill that made 22 degrees feel like 5. coney island was crisp and deserted, and I found myself inexplicably affected by seeing it had all been shut down. the waterfront was like a slushee and the sun went down at 4, just then shadows crept over the ferris wheel whose lights sat still and dormant. chelsea was full of young, beautiful, stylish people and I attended a screening of the new wholphin that I worked on. brent handed me a copy of the first time my name was in print of a major publication for the company that I’d only imagined being a part of in my wildest fantasies of actually making writing into a career. it was probably one of the most heartening moments I’ve had all year.

I have been stuck to things that aren’t good for me, places and people that only weighed me down. a very wise girl once imparted to me that sometimes the only way to learn how to fly is if you’re pushed off of a cliff. maybe you can do the same if you jump?

photos from lydia here, and more from me when I get home to upload them!

coney island

2008-12-06T15:20:00.000-08:00

if you don't get your hopes up, what have you got to look forward to?

new york, I love you, please freak me out

2008-12-04T21:19:00.000-08:00

insomnia was always a complaint whose credulity I had in question until I really suffered from it myself. insomnia was equated with being desperate for attention and simultaneously too uninteresting to earn it other than by ruffling any feathers within reach about a negligible, trifling condition... sort of like carpal tunnel, irritable bowel syndrome, or bisexuality.

I haven't slept save for a few fitful winks on virgin america flight 12 to jfk in two days. though I am exhausted and my muscles are slackened in such a way that my body is melting over the sides of an orange velour couch in brooklyn like a modern day dali painting, sleep is still vaguely out of reach. of course, I am fatigued beyond my wildest nightmare, but my brain's activity will not calm to anything less than the frenetic beating of hummingbird wings. am I nuts?

don't answer that.

this morning I was so nervous about the trip, and having trouble explaining myself. it wasn't the flight itself, or even the intimidating grids of new york streets that are not yet committed to memory. part of it is the excitement of all of the dear ones that I will get to see while I'm here, old and new. the largest part by far, I've realized, is that taking off to do something for me to feed my spirit and give me hope is the first major step towards independence for a long time. when I told lydia how much this trip meant to me she considerately warned me not to harbor too many expectations or I'd be disappointed. I'm already thrilled, just with getting away from san francisco. maybe I'll make it here, after all.

puritanical as f

2008-11-27T14:59:00.000-08:00

I'm thankful.

the disconnect

2008-11-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

my mom and I have an unconventionally open and honest relationship, and she has turned out to be my most dependable and loyal friend. sure, we went through the terrible teens together, riding out the speed bumps of regular angst and then in turn the subsequent and terrible chemo-angst. now, we talk nearly every day, and we're just as likely to compare notes on our boyfriend's penis size over cocktails and a joint as we are to discuss mortality and spirituality, the latter of which I tend to steer clear of due to my generally agnostic point of view. (naturally, phallic conversations are common fodder.)

I feel very lucky to have a mother who is and always has been more of a friend than a maternal influence, and I did get a different kind of nurturing from her mother, who was my nana. although she is no longer around, the time that she spent caring for me helped me become a more compassionate person, and helped me keep faith in hope without smothering me with the catholic evangelism that was so prevalent in my childhood education. nana was, in addition to being an impossibly loving and strong woman, absolutely fucking hilarious. she was herself a god fearing, church going, hibernian tea party curator who pin curled her hair every day and never, ever let anyone in the family see her without her dentures in. she also regularly coined catch phrases such as, "if you can't eat it, and you can't have sex with it, piss on it."

at least I know where I came from.

when I talked to my mom yesterday morning as I was frantically hoofing it to the salon, she brought up the spirit-body disconnect. when she gets all hippie-dippy on me I usually just let her talk until she exhausts herself on the subject, but this time I listened carefully to her speak about the toll it takes on our souls to disallow the two to remain in sync. it seemed abundantly clear all of the sudden, even though the dilemma has been right in my mixed up midst... I am so far away from myself, and so unbelievably distant from being present.

even as I move forward with my life after the disaster that was "two thousand-great", even as I wake up every morning and get dressed and try to feign productivity, this is not the life I want to lead. I don't want to wake up at 4 in the morning, hungover and with a smoker's cough, looking eagerly forward to my next distraction. one night stands are not a comfort, and having an affair with my ex is not fulfilling. haunting local bars and nightclubs is a pastime for a reason, yet I've gone right back to it as if I'd never left. the only difference is that a year on birth control ensured that none of my old party clothes fit quite right anymore. why am I denying my spirit what she deserves? there is only so much I can control, but I feel like I relinquished it all when I felt so defeated over the summer, sedentary in that familiar low that I that I hoped would stay far at bay. I'm missing even just the basics; a body that is healthy, a mind that is marginally sound, a dignity that I haven't honored in such a long time. I know that somewhere I lost my way, and it's hard not to dwell on discouraging thoughts that I have wasted another entire year. if this idea terrifies me so much, why is it so hard to get off of my ass and do something? why am I still loyally boomeranging back to the very things that I know break me down? if I can't save me, no one is going to.

though I only know of a couple of people that even read these ramblings, I feel naked posting these thoughts. I've even lied to myself recently about how well I am adjusting and moving ahead, just to keep momentum after being stuck for such a long time. it could be worse, and I know that well, but it could be so much better. there are changes that I want and need to make, not to get back where I was before I fell astray, but to the next destination. right now, for me, that is new york. I haven't left california for two years, and I'm ready to get feel good lost.

I'm coming to terms with my two steps forward turning out to merely be damage control rather than a solution. when I come back, I hope I'll be refreshed. I hope I'll be ready. I'm lucky to be here, and I need to start acting like it.

sleep tight tiger

2008-11-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

I am so restless. insomnia came back to visit uninvited, and some nights are rife with bad dreams. I thought I was done with that, at least for a while. I'm again beginning to see light in my old crusade against loneliness. it's getting cold, and the bed is too.

disenchantment and the full steam ahead

2008-11-14T10:18:00.000-08:00

I am both happy and weary, this fall. every day seems to hold bright new avenues and airy possibilities offering glittery olive branches my way, but my neuroses can't seem to rest long enough for me to believe that the sky might not fall on my head. the canvas of my life holds glorious smears of excitement, and I am starting to feel like myself again after having been down so long, up wasn't even on the radar anymore. my unwavering hope prevailed yet again, but I still feel a little bit stifled and directionless. I suppose that in a broad sense, I've been "now what"-ing ever since I went into remission. and then my mother would argue that I've been procrastinating since I was fetal, even refusing to come out of the womb on time. it's not just maybelline. I was born with that shit.

everything seems to be somewhat organized despite minor hickups, and my house is becoming a home to me and the kitty. I've finished training at the new salon job and re-pinked my hair, I've been pussyfooting around the dating pool again (avoiding the deep end, of course), and I'm still plugging away with mcsweeney's. I'm buying my tickets to new york for the first week of december, and I've bought 5 new coats. (the better to not freeze my ass off with.) and yet, I am still a bit dissatisfied. my honest educated guess is that I would feel much more fulfilled if I spent my free time creating instead of drinking and perpetuating my tramp-age. so much of my time is wasted purely because I feel pointlessly victorious for getting away with it.

and then there's jon, yes, I miss him. I wish I didn't. this breakup was technically my first, and I'm still bewildered by how strange and foreign it is to lose a best friend, although I know that everyone else on the planet has experienced the same and survived, and some even come out better for it. my best friend lives 4 blocks away, but hasn't been to my apartment. my best friend sleeps with his new/old girlfriend, and I sleep with rufus. is it odd that I consistently wrap my head around these things and have to pry and struggle to let go? it isn't as if we were remotely "working".

blarf.

at any rate, I am accentuating the positive. I am almost ready... but for what I don't know. hopefully it is to be the change I want to see.

here are some photos from the infamous election week, aka baracktoberfest:

some photos borrowed from lydia w.'s flickr.

yes we muthafuckin' CAN!

2008-11-05T10:31:00.001-08:00

last night was INSANE. I have never seen anything like it. I made out with a guy with a face tattoo. and I did it... for obama.

thank the fuck christ.

...

2008-11-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

my nailbeds are already bleeding and the polls are still open.

still waiting

2008-11-04T05:10:00.000-08:00

last night, I dreamt of jorge for the first time in over a year. I started awake before dawn and frantically tried to fall asleep again to chase him back to that ephemeral plane, and only succeeded in riling myself up beyond any shadow of an unconscious possibility. the dream was astonishingly vivid, two years seeming to reduce to a blip on a radar, suddenly my senses filled up with him like a hot air balloon, and I found myself bombarded by the simplest idiosyncrasies that I used to take for granted.

I wonder sometimes if I'll ever love as fiercely, as unconditionally, as purely and recklessly as with my first love. we were a force, and we were unstoppable. I still pore over the last night I saw him, the sharp white lines, bottomless drinks, seedy bars, mist underneath street lamps, and tear stained faces smearing in an alleyway in the tenderloin. when he left me there, I'd thrown my arms around his neck and squeezed my eyes shut tight, praying for a miracle, even a small one, a changed mind. I had no idea.

our friend passed us and flippantly asked why we were embracing as if we'd never see each other again. he told her to stop being so dramatic.

during the wake, I called aaron from a bathroom floor, mopping up my torrent of tears with a black skirt, holding my finger over a lit candle to make sure I could still feel. my skin bubbled. my voice was muffled and childlike, slow and cracking like an old recording, foreign even to myself. terrifyingly numb, I asked him, "how am I ever going to get through this?", and he'd said, "honestly, kid? you'll wake up every morning and lie to yourself. you will tell yourself you are alright. and one day, you'll wake up, and it will be true."

dead sexy? or just like, regular dead?

2008-10-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

did halloween sneak up and goose anyone else this year? was october on fast-forward?

I went to a spirit superstore to get some accoutrements for my sexy zombie george washington costume, and had a distinctly hard time getting the clerk to understand me. I explained to her that I needed a wig in a colonial styling, and she began trying to hard-sell me a bo peep wig.

"no, I need something in a colonial fashion, like george washington." I motioned with my hands around my head to illustrate a bouffant with rows of curls on the sides.

"oh..." she trailed off, twirling one pippi longstocking. "so, like a men's costume."

"yes, exactly." I smiled, strenuously pulling from my recently low reserves of affability. the woman held the bo peep wig out and pointed to the picture on the front of the package.

"it's sort of like a colonial wig." she said.

"sort of, but it's a woman's wig, and I'd like a men's hairstyle."

"is it for a boy?"

"no, it's for me, I'm dressing up as a boy."

the woman halfheartedly acquiesced and led me down the next aisle. she stopped and pointed to a long, white judge's wig and I shook my head, disappointed.

"it's just that it has to be washington hair. I'm thinking dollar-dollar bill, y'all, not order in the court."

she held up bo peep again and smiled quizzically.

I'm going on a mission today to find that hair, and I'll not rest until I'm a dead prez.

and now for... last 5 text messages.

-GOOD. THAT SHIT IS NAZZZZZTAY!!!!
-woke up at 9, couldn't deal, took two melatonins, just got up, feel like shit. hate life. you?
-ass raping poncho. I cut little pieces off and cram them down my manties.
-hollandaise sauce
-it's justin. monica's phone is dead. is her weed on the table? she can't find it.

oops

2008-10-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

sunday: satin marilyn robe and a pulpy mimosa. also pictured? party pinky.

I've slowed my blogging roll this week, and I'm fairly sure it's because I am pulling an ostrich. in past years, whenever I know I'm up to no good but derisively ne'er-do-welling nonetheless, I tend to stealthily avoid documentation. it's not as if it didn't happen, but it's sure as hell easier to pretend that it hasn't if it's not in writing.

what comes is better

2008-10-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

my floor is littered with pea green bus transfers, broken glass (damn cat), and unemployment paperwork, and I'm trying to stockpile serotonin for when the rains set in.

here's my top five for indian summer 2k8.

1. switch hitting blogs- wholphin vs. playboybacon

2. new britney

Britney Spears - New Music - More Music Videos

the bitch is back, and she's gotcho crazy.

3. coinstar machines. my inner bag lady rejoices.

4. happy hour at bean bag. fuck it. happy hour everywhere.

5. leotards. I want one in every color.

and now: mactards.

a is for amiability

2008-10-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

april - 510

when april and I ran around in the same crowd, she and I were constantly being mistaken for each other due to our only 2 shared traits: being tall with blonde hair. this may have been fine if it weren't for the fact that april had a hard time behaving herself. I couldn't help but feel slightly resentful, having to defend my own antics and then set several records straight about my doppleganger's never ending series of unfortunate events.

I dyed my hair red shortly after I was stopped on the street by a friend who had heard I'd been arrested in front of arrow bar the night before.

asian erin- 206

"asian erin" who programmed herself into my phone as such, insisted that everyone knew too many aarons and erins to begin with. I met her at a hoe-down themed bike race nestled in the recesses of golden gate park, and I noticed just behind her right ear she had a tattoo in swirling script that simply said, 'meh'. I asked her about it and she explained that it was her philosophy for life, a sort of self-designed MO.

"for instance," she said, gesturing to a bearded young man nearby, "I just up and moved here from portland for this guy that I've known for 3 weeks."

"wow..." I trailed, off, unsure of what to say next.

erin pointed to her neck and said, "meh."

aubrey - 310

aubrey and I met in 5th grade, and became immediately inseparable. we were both undeniably trouble makers, but she always seemed to be the seeker, fearlessly plowing ahead like the alexander the great of 10 year old girls. aubrey took no prisoners, abided by no rules, and seemed to get away with murder with her whipsmart intellect, persuasive reasoning, and strikingly beautiful looks. she saved me from no uncertain fate of social ridicule when I entered my awkward phase (which I'm not entirely sure I ever left) and no one dared say a disparaging word about my prized wet seal feathered glitter pencils. we remained friends after my move to sonoma in 8th grade, but the best friend hierarchy had shifted. nina b. took my place as her right hand woman, and by the end of sophomore year she and aubrey had gotten matching tribal BFF tattoos on the back of their hips with the number 96 worked into the design to commemorate the year they met. when I asked her how she was going to hide it from her parents she just shrugged and said that she was already planning her goldfish backpiece.

one afternoon aubrey, nina and rachel decided to ditch school and come pick me up from class in napa in a yellow land rover with the top down. I remember seeing them blocks off, screaming like lolita banshees in tube tops, blasting papa roaches' laughably bad hit song "last resort" as loud as the speakers would play. I jumped in the back, aware that everyone in the quad was slack jawed and staring, and rachel burned rubber that left marks on the asphalt that lasted for years. we got three blocks away and I realized I that in my excitement had forgotten my backpack on a bench. rumors circulated that I was friends with britney spears' backup dancers.

throughout high school we stayed close although had vastly different experiences. she had boyfriends and experimented with drugs and I rode the bus to catholic school in the back with the nerds, save for my one land rover joyride. around the time she spent the night in jail for her second DUI, I was having my third surgery for cancer treatment. she wasn't allowed to walk with her class at graduation, and I had gotten my GED. she and nina moved to san diego and had a falling out that was never really resolved over a mountain of petty grievances, and I moved to san francisco to embark on my excellent scene adventure. we share nothing in common anymore except for a decade and a half of history, and I will love that girl forever.

audcock - 415

chad (dj name audrock) and I used to spin records together at arrow bar, and he asked me out on a heavily referenced "coffee and caramels" date that never actually came to be.

a is for alexis bledel

2008-10-18T16:56:00.000-07:00

andrew lux- 415

I met andrew when he came to my apartment to be interviewed for an available room. right before he arrived, my quirky german roommate gruffly disclosed through a mouthful of half masticated ramen noodles that his reputation may have preceded him.

"oh?" I asked, "how?"

"he is roof jumper guy." she replied. I waited for further explanation but she just continued shoveling the soup into her face.

"why is he the roof jumper guy?"

"last year, he was wasted at a party and he fell off the roof." she said matter of factly, and stared up at me from under her eyelids that were heavy with black warpaint. "four stories."

"jesus, jona, is he in a wheelchair?"

"nope. he walks."

the doorbell rang and we brought him up for the grand tour, all the while I was fruitlessly trying to discern any visible deformities or noticeable limps. I was asking him the usual standard roommate questions, and after he finished telling me about his employment at ameoba, he added, "oh, and you've probably heard of me before. I'm that guy who fell off the roof." jona clapped her hands and grinned like a maniac.

"I was there!" she pointed out. andrew shrugged. I ignored her.

"are you alright, now?" I said, placing my hand gingerly on his shoulder as if I was afraid he might break.

"yeah, I'm alright. I've got a lot of good pills." jona's eyes lit up and I shot her a look that could dry up oktoberfest. he continued, "I've also got 6 seasons of gilmore girls."

"sign me up, dude. it's marathon time."

I borrowed this from his myspace:

do right

2008-10-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

my eyes are puffy but I have not been crying, and last night is a blur of murky whiskey scenes, from bar to bed. my decisions are in question, but I feel too delicate to dissect them. familiarity is both a comfort and a burden, and the walk home was with leaden feet and a head full of bad habits. I perpetually surround myself with friends and roommates and potential lovers, and I still feel solitary. I can't say that I am sorry to anyone for what I've done.

quarter life crisis, pt. 2

2008-10-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

auntie nancy

2008-10-13T13:44:00.000-07:00

yolanda is the classic typecast absentmindedly hyper crazy aunt, only the urban equivalent that includes a wardrobe that heavily features leather and studs, and some questionable botox. she's introduced herself to me on several (15+) occasions and when I casually mention that we've met, she just waves her hand about dismissively and either spills her drink or does a little dance move. yesterday when we met, (again), she stuck her arm out to touch my shoulder in a casual, scrappy manner, and asked, "hey sugar, what do you think about this?"

"think about what?" I asked.

"the anxious bloodsuckers!" she exclaimed.

"...."

"you know," she continued, "as a potential name for my band?"

"ahh. well, I don't know, it doesn't particularly--" yolanda cut me off.

"roll off the tongue. you're right. when you're right, you're right, catherine."

"christina."

"right, christina, whatever." she lit a cigarette and leaned in, the glowing tip bobbing up and down, precariously held between her lips as she talked. "a band name should be something short and memorable." and she paused for effect, "just like my ex-boyfriend's penis."

I mimed a drummer's rim shot for her joke and she slapped me on the back and added, "you know what I like about you, sugar? you've got some killer timing." and then she strutted off to the dancefloor in her combat boots.

warning: sappy bullshit may be closer than it appears

2008-10-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

alternating between chasing my tail and diligently sniffing around parlous territory begging for trouble, it seems to go without saying that I'm one mixed up bitch.

insomnia plagues some nights and others seem fine, and sharing a bed with someone now seems foreign... I am starved for affection but the price doesn't seem worth the trouble. my earliest single lifestyle was conducted differently from a perspective of inexperience, keeping loneliness at bay by never staying someplace too long, never kissing the same person twice, spending the night with someone just for the sake of not sleeping alone. as it turns out, sharing one bed with one person was even more dangerous than I'd ever imagined. what I began to like so much about it was the genuine comfort, rather than a false, fleeting sense of togetherness with a marionette that has no strings attached. now with my newfound freedom, I find myself nitpicking about the potential minor calamities... what if I snore, what if they're lousy at spooning, what if they have bad morning breath, what if I fart in my sleep? what if someone develops feelings? worse still, what if no one does?

I spoke to jon yesterday for the first time since my last uhaul box was picked up two weeks ago through an hour long string of of ping-ponged texts that he started up. he'd messaged, "I see you." when I was standing in a crowded dive bar in potrero at l.t.'s show, and my heart dropped like it had just crested on a rollercoaster while I started looking around frantically for tall, skinny redheads, cognizant of my failure to play it cool. right when I was about to make a break for the door, I got another text that said, "just kidding." my response was that it would've been way cooler/creepier if I'd received that message in the bathtub or on the pot.

the rest of the night we SMS warred and I eventually got sick of the impersonal medium and called, and we talked for a few minutes. we both had quiet admissions of the voids in our lives that used to be filled with each other. when I asked how his girlfriend was doing, he said he was not comfortable talking about it, and I added that it would probably be better to at least get that part out of the way over the phone. we had agreed to soon meet up in a nonthreatening public environment for coffee or a burrito, and I couldn't help but find the proposal ironic and disheartening. we can't guarantee that a private meeting won't start with fighting and end with fucking (or vice versa), so we conjured up a coffee shop date like strangers who met in an s&m chat room that need solid verification that the other party is not completely psycho. we lived together for almost a year. he knows I am not a 46 year old obese child molester with a closet full of severed heads who lives in his parent's basement in toledo. but, one thing I'll say of jon and I. we're really into emotional s&m. getting off the phone with him I'd told him I was going to watch a movie with my roommates, and I received 5 or 6 texts bearing hints of flirtation from him after that until two am, just like he'd used to do. we'd feud, we'd go to our separate corners/bedrooms, and the texts would start up until I gave in and went upstairs. only, this time, the only people who live upstairs from me are members of a burning man commune who hold bavarian dance troupe performances every sunday that make it sound as if there's a herd of mastodons doing potato sack races on my roof. and also this time, I didn't write back.

I stared at my pink walls for most of the night, tossing and turning. in the morning I said to him that the only thing that had changed between him and I was geography, and when he asked how so, I replied that he'll only miss me until I get there. he leapt to his own defense, saying that I had the choice whether I spoke to him or not, that it was impossible to miss someone who was there all the time. my point had been lost... he wants me when he can't have me, and I am still balking after pulling from all of my strength to get gone. and of course, I miss some things. those things that allow for me to detrimentally recall what attracted me in the first place, and kept me for a while, before his name became synonymous with infidelity and betrayal. there's just too must history, too many raw nerve endings exposed to get too close...

our To Catch a Predator coffee date has been postponed, at his suggestion. my foot is still an easier target than a fish a barrel.

train underwater

2008-10-10T00:53:00.000-07:00

every time I lose myself it is catalyzed by finding someone else.

idle hands

2008-10-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

infinite free time + no money = ?

it's time to get creative, and I'm feeling way too lazy to do so. the new york trip I've been planning can't be cancelled. it just can't. I've been trying to go for over a year. if the powers that be have led me into this painted corner, I beseech them to clue me in to the trapdoor. I've got to make it work. I want to stand on the subway platform with closed eyes, I want to finally kiss an old flame that never really went out, I want to walk across the brooklyn bridge with my chin up. I want new york to know that I'm halfway there to her, with one foot in the grave, two years after our second tryst.

it's funny, before I was always so anxious about all the things I had to do, and now I have anxiety about my complete lack of things to get done.

these days, I miss a lot of things. esoteric, maybe, but true.

canned goods

2008-10-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

yesterday was exceedingly low key and spent solely accompanied by rufus, who watched me touch up my pretty pretty princess walls with feline wonderment. later on I fast forwarded through someone's tivo-d mr. and mrs. smith to the sex scene while manging on some ramen, and then I planned to walk to see my favorite man, trader joe, to acquire some of his culinary wares. on the way, I stopped into cafe abir to get a jasmine tea for the road and also to write down my schedule. on sunday nights the sushi restaurant is eerily dark and deserted, and on this particular one, extra creepy due to the black tarps everywhere from the evident construction that had gone on earlier. in the back next to the miso heaters, I stood and scanned the new schedule for my name. it wasn't there. no shifts for two weeks, all of mine mysteriously replaced by this alleged "karyn" character. I blinked, started walking away, and then went back again to double check. "karyn?!" I shrieked to the unsympathetic miso heaters, as the familiar feeling of impending doom closed it's fingers around my neck.

is it even legal to fire someone that way?

the walls lurched in and I had to get out. I punched the swinging kitchen door open and rushed back through the gate without bothering to shut it, blindly plowing through customers at the cafe. just before I reached the door, the other host (not to be confused with fucking KARYN) jumped in my path. kelly is a cartoonish girl of about 20, boasting small stature and an unbelievable white girl afro, always outfitted in some burlap sack shaped goodwill find with perpetually smeared eyeliner. easily excitable, endlessly chatty, and with a naively sweet, poodle-esque disposition, it goes without saying that I could never particularly stand to be around her for longer than a few moments without activating my brain's built in white noise machine.

she waved her arms dramatically in front of me to stop me from bolting out.

"hey! hey christina! christina!" she yelled, even though at that point our faces were mere inches apart.

"yes, kelly." I growled, unable to disguise my begrudging tone, but at the same time knowing that she would not notice.

"did you see the schedule? because, because you're not on it! did you quit?!" she babbled some more of the same information although differently worded and then stared at me expectant and wide eyed, and I noted that the right side of her face had a large clump of mascara trailing down her cheek.

"yes, I saw. no, I did not quit."

"but I wonder what's going on! I mean, it's so weird, you're like, the head hostess and that karyn girl's only been working here two days! do you think you're fired?"

I blinked at her some more.

"I don't know, kelly. excuse me." I said calmly as I stepped around her to get to the door. "but let me know if you hear anything."

"I will, totally!" she called after me, waving vigorously as if swatting imaginary flies, "I'll text you!"

seconds later I was halfway down the block to broderick already. my mind raced, I pulled out my cell and started making frantic phone calls, lydia t., my three managers, my boss, trying to leave voicemails that didn't sound completely crazed. the only person who answered was lydia, and she knew nothing about it. I put in my one functioning earbud and turned my music all the way up and I started aimlessly walking, staving off the inevitable panic attack when I stopped at a light on divis caught a glimpse of the treehouse in the distance and realized that it doesn't matter. I had already thrown in the towel on my old "new life", anyway. I hated the management and worked my objectified ass off for shitty pay, and subsequently spent 68% of my time smelling very strongly of tempura fried shrimp, which is fine, if you want to attract domesticated mammals, hungry asian people, or flies. you can't fire me, you fascist fucks! I thought, I quit!

pressing on I made it down through the lower haight and into the mission, and I met up with zoe along the way. we did a three legged bar crawl ending at my favorite dive, the lone palm, after running out of whiskey funds. she asked, shaking her head, "does it ever end, with you?"

this morning when I woke up I still hadn't received any phonecalls back from my higher ups, and I waited until almost eleven to walk over. the construction on the dining room was in full swing, workers swarming like a shaken up ant colony, weilding two by fours and paintbrushes dripping with varnish. it still smelled like fish. I climbed the stairs to the office deliberately and when I reached the top I heard my russian manager, mikaela, bade me to come in and shut the door, although her voice sounded muffled and distorted. when I lifted my head to look at her, I saw that she was wearing a full on biological warfare gas mask.

I gawked at her in disbelief and she threw her arms up exclaiming something in her previously endearing bad english about her extreme sensitivity to dust, and then immediately started making awkward small talk that I interrupted.

"so, I think we both know why I'm here."

her beady eyes blinked from above the apparatus strapped to her face, and she nodded, but didn't speak.

I continued, "I'm here to talk about the schedule, specifically why I'm not on it."

"ahh yes." she sighed. "the schedule." and then pointed to the mask and asked, "do you mind if I leave this on?"

a helpless chuckle slipped out on my behalf when I answered, "actually, in spite of preferring to address a faceless firing squad, I do."

"very well." she said, removing it with great care as if her lungs would collapse immediately, and then coughed for effect. she went on, "you are no longer on the schedule because we can no longer employ you. as the economy is so bad, you see, we were forced to evaluate all employees and the collective decision has been made that you are the first to go." she folded her hands in her lap and coughed again.

I tried to remain emotionless but failed, my voice started to break and I went off like a spun top, ranting about the unprofessional, ill executed, and rather cruel way that I found out. I reminded her that I worked 6 days a week for them for months without complaint, that I hadn't called in sick one time over a year, and the constant grievances from the servers about the other hosts' incompetence compared to my performance in the workplace. I stood up, snatching my iced coffee and said, "this is fucked. you're right. the company is like a family. completely fucking dysfunctional. thanks a lot." and slammed her office door, blinded by my hot tears. I tore out of the cafe, this time uninterrupted, and coughed and wheezed back to my house, passing one of my new roommates in the hall who asked me how I was doing and I only managed to sputter some unintelligible gibberish.

it's real. everything is officially in flux.

right at that moment, my aunt peggy called to tell me she was outside, waiting to give me a ride back to sonoma for a dental appointment. back in the dentist's chair I closed my eyes tight and tried to think of anything other than the needle in my gums or the stinging burn of rejection from a place that I considered to be my home away from home for 14 months. the fact that it was both a thorn in my side and an important part of my identity made it even more of a home conundrum. the tragedies stewed in my mind, my divorce from the tsunami family, the treehouse circuit, and everything I felt was stable before having been ripped out from underneath me and the wild freefall when I'd rather be sitting pretty and getting my bearings. I was jarred back from my regretful reverie into the glaring fluorescent light overhead when my dentist brought up watching appallingly graphic sex scenes on TV.

I peered into her goggles and lolled my tongue around in my propped open mouth cavity to acknowledge my interest being piqued.

"wha shaw?" I said, drooling on myself. she wiped my cheek before answering.

"pretty much anything on HBO."

"wha bouw shawtime?"

"oh, showtime's not as racy."

"nuh uhhh!" I protested. "ca-fornicashun!"

"never seen it. but I swear, these days they'll just put porn on tv and it puts me to sleep."

I had to draw the line and I pulled her instruments away from my obstructed tongue and replied succinctly, "you're watching the wrong kind of porn if it puts you to sleep."

"about the time you're fifty, it just dries up you know, after your periods stop coming. there's something for you to look forward to. even great porn puts me to sleep." she stuffed more wads of cotton in my gums, and I closed my eyes again in protest.

"you know what, jenelle?" she said, adressing the dental tech. "at my funeral I want you to make sure that when they roll the casket out that everyone showers it with cotton rolls and floss. could you do that for me?"

jenelle agreed obligingly and suddenly everything was drowned out by the whine of the drill.

pinkerton

2008-10-05T15:24:00.001-07:00

before: butterscotch poop

after: royal cupcake

now, that's better.

off topic, but still relevant

2008-10-05T03:30:00.000-07:00

why is sam rockwell so blazing hot? is it the receding hairline, the questionable teeth, the inevitable abandonment of pruning tools for facial hair between roles, perhaps the fact that in real life he's likely no taller than a my-size barbie? maybe it's the voice. either way, I've got a serious celebutard boner for that man.

could you hit it with this guy?

alright, what about this guy?

PSYCH. they're the same guy.

see what I mean? who is the real sam rockwell? is he some crazy bag man that I would likely see in the back of a muni bus at 3am, casting peanut shells about like 7-11 runes while singing pussycat dolls karaoke, or is he madly debonaire hollywood who's who who looks quite good with his top off? I want to know this man's inner workings, such as his cereal of choice, whether he prefers chocolate to vanilla, and also find out if he always dressed to the left or if that is something that evolves over time, whether lefties are made and not born. I want this man to be on my christmas card list. fuck the duchie, please pass the sexy old guy?

tears in the typing pool

2008-10-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

my words won't suffice, but a song always does.

succumb to the line
the finishing time
the long distance runner
has stopped on the corner
but i won't give up
although i've stopped too

before the end of me and you
the patchwork explains
the land is unchanged

interpret the rooms
my tears in the typing pool
the letters are sighing
the ink is still drying
I told you the truth
and now i sigh too

the page turns on me and you
across that white plain
the land is unchanged

it's quiet. I'm wet from my first hot bath in over a year at a place I call home, tangled blonde hairs plastered to my forehead and swaddled in down comforter's comfort. the candles are extinguished and I'm surrounded by brown boxes whose contents seem to mean less and less. the places I've been have molded me into who I am, but they do not belong to me, nor do they hold me down. I have photographs and movie ticket stubs and stories scrawled across cocktail napkins from dive bars across the continental US, and I have memories that shine so brightly they have no choice but to burn out into ephemera. I've got bruises and scars and war stories. I've also got every reason not to take everything for granted.

alone again, I am feeling as if I've woken up from a yearlong dream. defeat gave way for release.

lawd have mercy, free at last

2008-10-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

the cat seems more comfortable here than I do, already. I know it's only that I am the finicky, suspicious one of the two of us, but it's going to take me a couple of days to get settled. (this plan entails several bubble baths in my fabulous new claw foot tub.) I woke up at 4am because of the absence of familiar street noise, and then at 6 when the sun began rising I padded around the house in a t-shirt and my underwear in the grey light, investigating my new amenities. all that's left of my belongings at treehouse are my wallstuffs which I plan on retrieving later, and then I'll be gone for good. gone for good to 5 blocks away, but gone nonetheless. it's a charming prospect that the likelihood of ever running into constance in my kitchen has been nearly obliterated (though I am not ignorant to the ways of the small world), and that I will hopefully soon regain knowledge of what it's like to sleep 8 hours, bathe, and go about my business in a productive manner. jon is toxic, and elvis has left the wasteland.

my first treehouse photo, morning after the housewarming

and the last... RIP treehouse.

half battles

2008-09-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

thank god I scored an attivan from my mother last week.

today I was supposed to make the move into the new place and when I arrived with the first truckload of my junk, including my mattress and bed frame, I was greeted by my new room with a surprise. my new room is still somebody's old room, and they have not started packing. ahhh ha. so, I schlepped half of my belongings over and they are all piled up in the living room, and I suppose the rest will go on tuesday after my predecessor has vacated the premises. it's not really that big of a problem, but it's a bit of an inconvenience not to have a bed for two nights, and using my room as a locker with a shower attached to it. I can't say I haven't dealt with tighter spots, namely my month and a half of couch surfing I did in 2006, but god damnit, I wish that things could be a little simpler to help me get through this already jarring experience of having to mourn a relationship and a household in the most sane fashion possible. (not to say that rational behavior is a characteristic I regularly exemplify, but, a girl can dream.)

there are parties all over the city today, zoe's new abode, sloshball in the park, adachi's barbeque, and then french miami tonight at the 'burgh. I just want to sleep until tuesday, and then sit in my new claw foot tub directly adjacent to a raging sage bonfire with aromatherapy bubbles up to my neck until I'm prunier than fucking yoda and there's not a bad vibe on the block.

hanging on, hanging in there, hanging out there... hanging.

let them eat cake.

2008-09-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

I was hoping not to have to leave angry, but I've just had it. the tipping point is nigh. I lived with the cheating, I spent a summer where my own house was equated with panic attacks and misery, and I will NOT be the other woman to the original other woman. no thanks. go sell ginger somewhere else. I have developed an allergy to beta carotine and being treated like crap.

october holds:

-painting project. I am going to paint my new room! as of yet, the idea is pink with gold trim, a la coppola's marie antoinette.

-cooking. I just packed up two giant boxes of kitchen shit that I have hardly touched the entire time I've lived here. it can't be that hard to chop suey some vegetables and bake a scrumptious casserole, and I have been eating out at least once a day for a year. that is a LOT of moolah to be frivolously dropping on designer paninis, and I want to travel this winter and next spring.

-housewarming party. it will be mid-month after I'm done with the painting and am all settled in... cupcake dresses encouraged, champagne recommended, devil-may-care attitude required.

-trip to LA with lyds and the wyfe/bad ass photoshoot at the madonna inn. zing!

-revival of the cell phone project. my goal is to have knocked out two letters a week.

-mcsweeney's. I am ending the brief hiatus on my internship. ready to rumble with the creative weirdos, again!

-digital camera. I am on the market for one, if anyone is looking to sell. otherwise I'm going to shake down on craigslist and see what I can rustle up. less hulu, more art. less bullshit, more positive thoughts.

ps. fuck mercury. does that shit EVER go out of retrograde?

you fucked with the wrong taurus.

2008-09-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

now, I'm pissed.

already gone

2008-09-26T01:39:00.000-07:00

why is this the hardest part?

there are no Ps and Qs for such a situation.

I've never anticipated an october more. I'm saying when.

chiquita

2008-09-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

"then there was this law of life, so cruel and just, that we must change, or else pay more to remain the same."
-norman mailer, the deer park

tonight is one of the last nights at my treehouse. the streetlamps from the arco station are illuminating the disco ball in my window, casting a swirling mirrored mosaic, and rufus is perched tentatively in the windowsill. after spending nearly a year consistently petrified that he will indulge in a curious catlike impulse to jump, I find myself at peace. I will be the only one who is jumping, right now. my window is open and I'm almost ready.

I bought ramen out of necessity for the first time in 4 years this week, and it feels both uncomfortable and cathartic. delinquent notices and creditors are the only folks I'm receiving mail from, and I'm strangely peaceful about it. I'm present and I'm hopeful. times are tough but I am trying... giving up is not an option nor a trait that I was born with.

I am peeling the layers of unrest down off of me and I'm feeling like an undressed banana. pale and yellow, embarrassed, about to be eaten, et al. I haven't started packing but it will happen soon, getting all of my earthly possessions wrapped in newspaper and set gingerly into boxes, all part of the cyclical nature of never settling down. as it turns out, I'm better at watching people go than leaving.

the summer of masochism is over, and I imagine that I'll lick my wounds and reconfigure again. I'll remember who I was before I lived in the treehouse, and I'll realize who I am going to be. this chapter is closing, and bittersweetly at that. 23 hasn't held any guarantees, but I have not given up on the graces.

preparedness... it's such a double edged notion. a year ago, two years, three. there is no way to know how things will turn out, even despite careful planning and educated guesses. my energies are never focused on sure bets because I know that they are a pipe dream conjured up by religious fanatics. I am both infallible and shaky, at the mercy of fate and at my own. here I go, again.

basking in the warmth of burning bridges

2008-09-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

I had the weirdest fucking nightmares last night. somehow, the tyrannical transgendered chef from the show it's always sunny in philidelphia drove me out of my new house that I'm about to move into by verbally abusing me and force feeding me msg powder from packages of ramen. (no more hulu before bed.) I woke up mildly disturbed at about 10 and watched political newscasts on cnn with rob while enjoying a giant bowl of honey bunches of oats, and my new landlord called to let me know my credit check had been approved, and also that my old landlord, leila, had nothing but kind and cheerful things to say about me in reference. I was mildly surprised to hear as such, as I've only actually met her once, but our only exchange was an evening spent downstairs at madrone that ended with me offering to spoon her. she politely declined, but it seems as if a little willingness to spoon goes a long way.

I still am waking up every morning feeling like I've been hit by a truck, but I've got hope. 9 days left. speaking of trucks, does anyone know someone who has one?

anything big enough to move a twin mattress would rule my world.

decisions, decisions

2008-09-21T12:47:00.000-07:00

bottle in front of me vs. frontal lobotomy?

I fell down the spiral staircase from the third floor on thursday night and busted the inside of my lower lip. on the bright side, it's like free collagen for a couple of days, and I can put my eucalyptus plumping gloss on the shelf. on the other hand, I have a busted lip and a sprained nose. (it feels that way.) I spoke to rob about it and inquired as to whether he'd heard the commotion, and he replied, "oh, the other night around 3 when it sounded like someone pushed a water heater down the stairs?"

"ahh-ha. that would have been--"

he pointed at my bruised arm.

"me. yes."

rob continued, "yeah, I wasn't sure if it was an intruder or something so I just leaned over and locked my door. as if that dinky little hardware store lock was going to deter an intruder. maybe just keep them busy long enough to get my rocket ship fired up."

"yes, erstwhile I could've been lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairwell with a broken neck."

"it could've been an intruder. but I'm glad you didn't break your neck."

"me too."

experiments and truth, and consequences

2008-09-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

okay. so this whole Spending Time With Me thing is progressing, and it seems to be grounding me a little. (no panic attacks today! huzzah!) I found out this morning that I got the room at the mcallister spot, so I gave my notice and I suppose that is just that. aside from having to worry about coming up with deposit money, of course. it's been too long a time coming for theatrics, but I will grieve the loss of my barbie dream house, this house that was in theory my very salvation from the last quarter life crisis. ironic that it only brought on another one rather prematurely. it's unbelievable... another era's end in less than a year.

in one of our countless hater's quarrels, jon had shouted that, "not everything had to be a god damn novel". I think that is where he's wrong. every day I write the book.

diamonds

2008-09-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

I went to bed at three and woke up just before six, chest tight, eyes wide, muscles tensed, heart pounding. my room looks cumbersomely huge and empty, and the traffic on fell street is just beginning to take on its frenetic pace that usually stands between me and slumber in the dawn hours these days. after the bar closed I departed from my friends and went to the corner store, picking up a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of champagne, but when I went home I set them on the bedside table unopened and draped myself across my freshly fabric softened duvet, turning away from them apathetically. I read an article in the new vanity fair that depicted marilyn's last days and mysterious remaining personal effects, including filing cabinets of love letters and the 15 bottles of prescription pills that they found with her. I suppose that my fascination with her was a seed planted by my parents, and as a child I would fantasize more about growing up to be like ms. monroe than other little girls were dreaming of picket fences and a prince charming. I don't own a single diamond and I'm already too long in the tooth to make it to hollywood, so it turns out all we have in common is blonde hair, epic boobs and insomnia.

I know that things will get better, (they have to), but being at peace with being alone is incredibly hard for me right now. I hate that this blanket of discontent has landed so squarely. I'm at a loss for ideas. my words are even backed up, writing feels strained and unnatural to me, as alien as voluntarily eating vegetables or wearing sneakers. I've got a hunger to get myself out of this hole but not enough energy to do it. I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired. and I can't sleep.

this photo of marilyn has been my favorite since I first saw it.

it was part of the reason that I became enamored with the vaguely out of reach fantasy of living in a big city. there's something so organically grand and simple about gazing off of rooftops surrounded by tall buildings at a city whom you love despite its trespasses who loves you back in spite of yours. that look that she has is like a freeze frame of falling in love, but resignedly so. I saw the same expression on jorge's face years ago on a different rooftop, 26 floors above sutter street, with his soft cuban tresses being tossed by the wind from the bay. it had unnerved and elated me to witness such childlike wonder overtake an old soul, to see a full grown man humbled and reverent to a skyline. I miss him terribly, and in times of such duress, I constantly wish that there was some way that I could pick up a phone and hear his voice on the other end, calming in such an unbelievable capacity, regardless of what was being said. the loss is heavy and palpable, and I'm frustrated with its seemingly vengeful flare up. it leads me to wonder, will it ever get better? two and a half years later and I'm still feeling like there's a gaping hole in my life, and nothing can fill it. is this the same gaping hole that killed him?

even if fate had dealt a different hand, we'd either have had a catastrophic supernova of a heart shattering break up, or have eloped to morocco. in any case, he'd have been my best friend for the rest of my life. so, I've had this band-aid on an exit wound. every time I feel this way I numb myself, either with substances or just by a calculated method of distraction. maybe it is time to sit with it. and then, this way, maybe it will be easier to get back up and keep going.

I love you, jorge. I still can't believe you're not here.