somebody in new york loves you

(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

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

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

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

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

did I shave my legs for this?

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.

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

"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