the thing is ...

The thing is I've stopped blogging here cause I'm blogging elsewhere. Sure, it's not paid. But it looks good.

Anyway, I've gone crazy. Today I brushed my teeth in the campus center bathroom. The smelly one. Never in my life did I picture myself as this person. It's just so hard to get up in the morning, and after stretch and coffee ...

Legitimately, though, I've started to go crazy. What with wanting to write my hip hop article (and facing the staunchest of critics!) and figuring out grad school and looking at the GRE (ack!) ... I'm just out of it. I love being stressed out and busy, but at the end of the day it's the same thing. I come home and read, and fall asleep. I feel like an infant. I just need someone to pet my head and rub my back and say "shhh ... go to sleep ... you'll grow up to be whatever you want someday."

The thing is, no one does this. No one does this because people expect us to be able to do it for ourselves. And after 21 years of telling myself "you're brilliant, you can do this, good things come to those who hustle, good things happen if you're a good person ..." It's god damned exhausting.

So, I believe I am going to go home for the weekend for rehabilitation. To have my dad cook for me and buy me a dress for Chris and Ellie's wedding. And to sit in bed and take a practice GRE. gah.

apologies to the chef

HEY! sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I haven't been keeping up with anything. I have been hiking, walking and climbing, which is just as good as the internet, right?

In any event, here's something else I've been doing. MAKING LISTS.

I haven't been able to write lately. I've been thinking, but mostly scattered thoughts. So, in an attempt to feel less psychotic, I've taken those thoughts and clumped them together:

"Things I like about myself."
"Things I like about living right now."
"Ways people probably think I'm annoying."
"Places I want to go."
"Options for the next six months."
"Things I want to do in the next six months."
"Things I DON'T want to be when I get old."

Any other good list ideas? Let me know! And I'll get back to posting links / etc soon.

jokes.

This is not a joke. The Beatles' "All You Need is Love" has turned into a commercial for "All You Need is LUVS." Diapers.

I don't know if you need any more information from me. Damn you, Michael Jackson. Even Thriller, The Free Willie Theme, and Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough, do not excuse this.

Good things happen to those who hustle.

I would take him back. I'd never have lost him, though. Damn, I love Pete Doherty.

And then I read this:
"I honestly feel that if I never had sex, I would still feel happy and fulfilled." Which could only be said by a 27 year old virgin. And I suppose, if you don't know what you're missing, you can't miss it. That logic seems kind of boring, though, but that article is reallyyyy something.

On a side note, today's my last day in New York. i'll miss it more than i ever expected. Been reading a lot of Anais Nin, lately, too. At lulls in the day. Clearly, this is not a good practice for those apt to strong location bonding.

big baby jesus.

the future of hip hop is white people. in cargo shorts. who bought wu-tang albums to feel cool way back when. and probably like to go off on how great phish is, too.

I personally suggest everyone read Miles Davis's autobiography. He talks about the same thing happening to jazz ... suddenly, when white people buy it, it becomes legit. The thing is, all that stuff was cool back in the 90s. Just everyone had their heads up their asses. Gentrification of genre.

pinot + piano

I have a lot of things to say today, but I think I'm gonna save them for a little later.

watch dave matthews and tim reynolds, instead, please. What do I think? Glad you asked. I think those lyrics are weak. I think the guitar playing was good, not as mind blowing as it could have been. Tim Reynolds, obviously, is always impressive. But Dave Matthews really needs to step it up. His voice, too. I need that soul, Dave. Give me soul? Where did it go? Maybe I didn't listen hard enough?

Oh and last night I saw Jean Michel Pilc. He was wonderful. Really, it was a sweet show, I couldn't take the smile off of my face. His playing went from "Sesame street" and charlie brown delight to really dark and stormy (does that make sense?). extremes. Just like what you get from living in New York. And I'll credit that thought to my new friend Anthony Ina, who gets MVP for best conversationalist I may know in the city.

santi moix is the man for me.

Stuff and things to fill your TIME (get it, like the magazine? which is where most of this shit came from because they were on a ROLL):

Time magazine thinks BOYS have it rough. I know a handful of feminists who would claw their faces off for that. Also, that opening photo made me feel weird.

Also thinks ... Fat people are contagious. And they're dumb. Seriously.

--I am convinced that it has less to do with fitting in and more to do with obesity's link to the lower income bracket. But what do I know?

Best headline ever. Also -- J.K. Rowling is really just J. Rowling? MIND FREAK!

and speaking of mind freaks ...
Am I gonna be a crazy cat lady? sitting at my window and applying makeup all day? wearing animal print and white gloves? all because I like to get high and watch criss angel on youtube? and laugh and laugh?

And laugh all the way to sant tropez or the french riviera with BONO AND HIS HONEYS?

and lastly, a word of good spirit to all of those who know what it's like to edit. I salute you. Actually, Gary Kamiya salutes you. I just agree with him!

"You must feel so good about yourself to have all these things!"

NYT tells me there's a witch of a girl who's ruining the grammar of privileged American children (I say privileged, because, face it, the NYT wouldn't cover the problem unless it had something to do with the richies. The only time we see anything about the poors and reading is when it's discovered that they're either really stupid and can't pass state tests, or are surprisingly passing those said state tests. but I digress) Considering I don't have a child, this may not seem relevant. But I loved this quote from this little girl:

“My dad doesn’t like the grammar,” said the Bartells’s youngest, Mollie, 9. “And I guess that’s important, because maybe when you grow up and you’re at work and you say, ‘I runned,’ people will get annoyed at you.”

Girl's got a point. I hate people with bad grammar. But I have a sneaking suspicion that a good dose of kiddie lit, even with bad grammar, doesn't hurt. As long as elsewhere, the kid hears the correct usage of the word. No?

The girl said something else funny, too.

“I’m also not allowed to watch R-rated movies, but nobody is these days.”

I love when kids use phrases like "these days." Phrases they no doubt get from their annoying parents who won't let them indulge. Let the kids see boobs! Let the kids hear swears! Cause face it, they're gonna see it anyway.

Side note: the title quote is taken from "La Dolce Musto" this week. Said by Chita Rivera.

fiji water ... better than evian

nobody fucks with zucks.

there's a BIRD in her HAIR!

I'm sick. So sick that I couldn't even really make it out of bed all day. Only to make tea and talk to my best friend on the phone. And my dad. He sent me a text message today, by the way. cute.

Anyway, I missed the documentary on Tom Zé that was playing at the MoMA today. Damn. Tom Zé is Brazilian. He's CRAZY and I love him and I'm bummed about missing it. He's on Luaka Bop, David Byrne's cute little side thing. I never really thought I was cool enough to be a full out Talking Heads, or David Byrne, afficionada. But everything I've heard on that label is great. Including Nouvelle Vague — ridiculous, yes, but good, that too. Luaka Bop has a free podcast, you should check it out.

put your hands up for detroit~!

The Wall Street Journal called out some BRATZ. And I didn't wear a bra to work today (FUN! WOmen's lib!). And for the second time this week, my internship included a bonus cupcake upon reaching the afternoon.

I wish it weren't pretentious to speak italian in an italian restaurant.

pleated shorts.

Take a few minutes to read this article on 'New-Vics' in the New York Oberver. It's a week old, but I just got wise to it now. Sadly.

Okay, so it's a little pretentious to dub a new trend with a catchy little moniker. But Lizzy Ratner made really great, interesting points that kept me talking and conversing with a friend all night. I know plenty of new-vics, but I was especially curious as to WHY they became this way, not just that they exist.

If you have any comments, send them my way. I'm curious.

and enjoy the sunny, pretty day.

peach iced tea. you're gonna hate it.

surely, if the NYT would just hire me already, I'd have been deployed (employed) to write this article.

FYI weekend roundup:
The best cure is less democracy. from the New Yorker, books.

I love Ungawa by San Francisco band, CHOWNASTY. KEXP gave me two songs by the band in the last few weeks, which probably indicates that I'm way behind in my decision that they should be rockin' everyone's faces off!!! (by the time KEXP gives it out, all indie music heads are already turning their noses down at it, all "MAYBE A FEW WEEKS AGO i liked those guys! paw shawwwwww"). Anyboo I think they're mighty fun, maybe you will too?

And, uh, you wouldn't want to miss this. At least not that opening photo.


ONE LAST QUESTION ... does anyone understand this?

swiffer and me and a bottle of pledge make 3

If this is true I will be very sad. I don't care if my friend Clair wrote a long essay criticizing Jane for being anti-femministe. Jane gave my apartment 69 great things about being in your 20's, plus 7 that really suck. RIP :(, my excuses for being a whore.

Last night I got too lazy to see Ben Greenman, so I saw Jerry Stahl in Union Square instead. I liked him mostly because he gave the interviewer, Katherine Lanpher, a hard time. I didn't like her much, she's the kind of woman whose jokes you'd laugh at out of pity. Big smile, well done make up. Short, no fuss, hair. With highlights. She'd make horrible jokes and he'd just look at her like she was a stupid idiot. I laughed out loud numerous times, just at the guy's facial expressions. Ran into him about an hour afterward and thanked him for making me laugh. Didn't buy any of his books, though. Young & poor.

Teddy Thompson played alongside him. He's got the voice of an angel. He's this charming brit, who wore flip flops with a nice suit and had an orange tie. He was cute and his voice could have lulled me all night. If you like old country, you should buy his new CD. I bet you'll love it.

kickin' ass and takin' names.

Two things.

First, check out this thang in the Voice about the re-release of Manhattan. I don't even really know why I read the Voice anymore. Usually it's at the bottom of my list of blogs/sites to read, cause I think it's boring and un-funny. But I liked reading this. For the record, I'm on the side that loves the stylized Manhattan. Actually hanging out here makes me realize it's stylized, but it's fun to dream that once, long ago, it was teeming with Woody Allens, sarcasm, ladies like Diane Keaton (or Mary, or Annie Hall). You know?

And Second, I tried to say in my last post that I don't much care for people who mock the people's republic of Harry Potter. Probably, those people are just lazy. Or out of touch with their inner child.

One thing I will admit to: the possibility that many people view the stuff as kiddie porn. ferreeeaaallzzz. Scroll down on that page to see Harry Potter in leather. With nothing under it. Suspicious, Details. Very suspicious.

bonus opinion: the word ginormous is stupid. And I hope this new change doesn't encourage its use.

Is there an ECO in here?

The new Harry Potter was FREAKING AWESOME. Shove off if you're going to try to convince me otherwise. There's a reason those books and movies are huge. It's because they're the best thing that happened to kids lit since Shel Silverstein. That's a fact.

I love those movies. I really do. The sets, the effects, the imagination! They're just about everything one can ask for in a movie. A big screen summer movie. Really!! When big V battles Dumbley-door at the end ... and the fire snake attacks! I was giggling like a kid. The villain in this one, UMBRIDGE, was extra hate-able. Especially since she looked like Laura Bush. WEIRD! Liberals! GAH!


Another thang. Seeing movies by yourself is fun. There were a lot of loners there, too. Including hot doctor guy in scrubs. He was probably just a resident of sorts, but it was charming to see a handful of twenty-somes, like myself, take the time out to see HP. I enjoyed the experience. And 11 year olds smell. The one sitting next to me had a nice enough disposition but smelled like stale.

iced coffee and hot sweat

So, what if every time you dropped the ball on the job, you were executed?! OKAY, so maybe he didn't just drop the ball. But still. Our government officials are quite lucky not to be in China, eh? Am I right? Yeah? NO? nothing? okay.

Also in the TIMES ... New Jersey is stealing your money.* tee hee.

But in lighter thoughts, I pose a predicament.
KMF: Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bob Iger.

Ben Greenman's reading excerpts from "A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both" at Barnes and Noble in Park Slope on July 12. It's about time I went down thattaway, but I feel very confused by all the neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Who knows.

lastly ... I lost my metrocard last night, I talk loudly on subways and really don't mean to, and the strap on my favorite dress broke on the way home today. I was on the A train, for reasons that are stupid and inconsequential, and there were two super-cute-button-down-business-casual (love affair with complex modified adjectives) guys right in front of me as I walked on. I couldn't even try to be flirty. One boob was basically exposed, the other covered in my pink ruffled dress, and as I searched frantically for somewhere to grab on, the men looked right at me. I looked back, thinking maybe I could pull off flashing a smile and they'd say something like "hot enough?" and I'd be like "haha, yeah, i know, right? it's rough out there" and then we'd laugh. Instead, I felt sweat pooling in my clavicle. and it wasn't sexy at all. ashamed, and defeated, I stepped between a Chinese couple and mopped it up with my hair.
the life i live.

*I read that article, by the way. I realize it's about the way technology changes our lives, obviously. but it's way funnier when you can blame it on DURTY JERZ.

andy was the DJ and sean was the limo driver

Okay, Steve Jobs, you win. I'm talking about the song "Perfect Timing (This Morning)" by Orba Squara.

Not ONLY do I own the computer, but now I have the iPhone song to play on it. And when I want to waltz down the street to its delightfulness, I can play it on my iPod.

LoLz all tha waze 2 tha bahnk.

whole milk.

I heard this guy today and I absolutely fell in love. 'Cinco de MoWo" came out the 26, which means this discovery is much behind other people who are better than I am. But today I was really dragging ass. It feels like it's 150 degrees outside. I walked a few blocks in search of icecream and found, instead, a couple dudes who asked me where happy hour was. Red-faced and menacing as ever. And another Chinese guy who was ranting about the M34 not coming. Seriously, he was bugging out over it, and I was just so damn tired that I reassured him it would come, and I apologized that he was late. People get so angry when they're hot and sweaty.

ANYWAY...

All songs considered this week played me the song 'tickle it', and you can stream 'shake your boogie' on his Web site. They're both just so groovy. Really. Lots of funk, puts me in a great mood. Nujazz? Is this something I was never formally introduced to? How come? Or is it some weird self-made buzz genre that forms a following but has a vague description of the music? ('indie'? what does that mean?!) annnddd according to his myspace, he's going to be in New York all of July. If only I could play the whole city this stuff. Maybe they wouldn't be so apt to go into siezures about the bus being late.

mitchum

people keep stealing my ideas.

I swear to G! Emily and I went to a weird picnic on Roosevelt Island and saw this ROCK island and said it would be so fun to live there for a little while. No one would know what you were doing! and now this guy stole our damn idea.

and this, too.

I found this story on the Gothamist, underneath the story about that guy who stole my idea. I just wanted to comment that New York is gross. Walking outside feels like being in an over-crowded club playing shitty techno music, where you come home covered in other people's sweat. It's like you can fucking feel the heat on your skin. Not only that ... the SMELL. I walk down 10 ave from 34 street to 27 street to get to the Gallery. On the way, I smell oil, frenchfries (thanks to a McDonalds), garbage and piss. And because the heat encapsulates the smell, it's almost as if I'm taking a putrid shower in the smells.

New York, I love you, but you're bringing me down.

$TINKY CHEESE NEWS PUMPS PIZZA PRICE.

this guy


he exists.

this got me thinking.


we were sitting on a rooftop tonight, a few buildings down from ANGELS AND KINGS. for the whole night i thought it was called angels and demons, because Dan Brown has contaminated my word association.

this got me thinking.


how funny would it be ... if we had a party at angels and demons and it was a collaboration between criss angel and dan brown and pete wentz?


and paul mccartney gave you a free starbucks latte when you entered.

mi dispiace, sono ubriago

So, I was sitting at my "internship" this morning, waiting to be told what to do, actually, when I stumbled upon this in the Times online. First thing's literally first: That photo is classic. Is that guy American, do you think? I don't know. But who cares. Do you think that photographer had to go out searching for drunks, or he found the drunk first, then the story emerged? Chicken or the egg. Only from the NY Times.

scott baio = home.

Well, Saturday night Edon took me out on the town. And by out on the town, I mean to a loft party of some uber hip hipster. Scenester. It was his birthday and by the time we got there I’d had enough wine to start talking Italian to a cab driver. Which means when we entered the party I acted like I owned the place (I didn’t) and everyone loved me (they didn’t). INCONSEQUENTIAL.

At one point I was underneath a candle-obra, which dripped wax all over my hair, and told a tall, semi- greasy, rock and roller type that his cigarette looked perfect dangling from his lips. He was Nick and 30 and his job, from my understanding, was to take advantage of scenesters’ shitty taste in music by selling them bands they might think it was cool to be associated with. He was the only straight guy I met at the party — and he might not even have been straight. He stared at my boobs though and told me I had a nice body, with no bump (meaning FUPA). I guess that’s a compliment but really I do have a significant bump, and it was just dark in there.

Then I talked to the most attractive guy, really under-the-radar, wearing a white tee shirt and jeans. Blonde hair dark enough to be approaching light brown. Almond shaped blue-green eyes. And he talked about books and was really clever with responses to my questions. By that time, though, I had stolen another bottle of red wine from the birthday boy and was slugging it and passing it around. I don’t remember much of what I asked him. I know I frowned when he told me he liked boys, and then I realized that must have been a horrible gesture. He understood, he said it must be hard to have a good conversation with someone who’s always thinking about sleeping with you, or staring at your chest. He was great, but wouldn’t you guess I forgot his name? damn.

Well birthday boy — who wore a black leather vest with nothing under it, and black pants — came over and interrupted us, and he gave me the video camera (cause apparently we’re good friends) and I taped my new friends, asked them questions. They turned the camera back on me, too. I bet that video footage is going to be worth its weight in gold. Nicky Digital took my picture, too. Now I can join the ranks with people like this. and this. and this.Wouldn’t it figure?

aztecs and incas.

So, I've been here in Manhattan for days, and I just can't get comfortable. I really noticed it the first night, when I was thrashing in my sleep. I woke up with a stiff neck from it. Maybe I should just sleep on the couch. Last night I finally lay there with A Lover's Discourse in my hands, and I fell asleep on the book. [I thought that was only something that happened in movies about stressed out college kids, normal people don't just fall asleep mid-sentence.] I woke up with it crammed between the edge of the bed and the night stand. Open to the passage called 'How Blue the Sky Was'. I had underlined one phrase. Historical hallucinations. Sometimes I feel like I'm hallucinating my life. Making it into what I want it to be. Like I walk around and see things and want to see what I want to see, so I do. I ignore what I don't want to acknowledge. That can't be right.

In any event, I talked to Jenny on the phone the other day and she told me a really funny story about this group of girls who really like Aug. Or maybe it was one girl. Anyway, she was a real piece of work and the way Jenny described her made me laugh really hard. I felt bad cause I couldn't think of any funny things to tell her — I let down my end of the deal. I told her about the girl in Union Square who told her mother about how she's in debt and she's breaking up with her boyfriend or husband (I couldn't tell if it was a divorce but there was definitely something big and wonderful for her that turned into something big and terrible for her.) "I want the rug. For my room. That's the one thing I really want." Later: "I just want that TV we had in our bedroom. He already has the big one. That was his thing and I don't care if he has that. I just want the little one."

The thing that strikes me the most about the way people work here is that it's best not to acknowledge the presence of a million other people. I don't feel any connection to strangers at all. It's like they won't even give me the courtesy of staring at me to make fun. It leaves you feeling kind of lonely, even though that's impossibly counter-intuitive.

Last night I went up on the rooftop again. It's better than the fabricated parks, which kind of feel like they're only there cause someone decided it was okay to PUT them there. Up on the roof, you get the feeling like the buildings are nature — a weird, man-made imposing nature, but the way things should be occurring, I guess —and you're alone up there to take it all in. There's ambient noise and everything.
One day, Emily, George and Jzana joined me up there. George and I talked about the buildings, we both liked the silhouette of the UN. I wondered if the city was built that way first, and then people acclimated to the way the architecture was (vast, enormous, impersonal, intimidating) or if the people had that quality already, and that's why the buildings were so designed. We also stared into people's windows for nearly an hour. One kid just sat on MySpace all night, and would randomly sit up and go to the window. It cracked me up, watching this person's routine. Someone joined him eventually. Everyone was kind of boring, but it was entertaining enough to leave us staring for a while. Maybe it's just cause we were stoned — we could have been staring at anything and using our imagination to make it fun. That's probably the trick of it.