word addiction

Hi

2011-10-31T14:37:00.000-04:00

Oh hey there, ghosts. Glad to know you didn't go far.

just because

2008-08-14T15:48:00.001-04:00

i mean, is anybody really going to argue with me?

humanity, it is good

2008-07-16T15:38:00.003-04:00

so, today i wore stupid pinchy flats that are supposed to make walking and being chic easier, but really do not.

i haven't slept well in weeks.

my alarm went off at 5:45am, which is just stupid.

it is 90 degrees in new york city.

it is 1,290 degrees in new york city's subway system.

these factors alone are usually enough to make me want to give up on civilized life. but apparently the gods are testing me, because after walking from a meeting on ninth avenue this morning in a suit in the 90 degree heat in my stupid pinchy shoes and sleepy and cranky and limping down to the seventh circle of hell that is the subway platform, i swipe my card to get slapped with a beep and this kind message:

INSUFFICIENT FARE

now, mind you, this greeting is usually met with a sigh, a digging for $2 or, if i'm lucky, my next-month's card. today i had no spare card, and though i had a few bucks on me it didn't matter, because i was in one of those stupid metrocard-entry only entries with no kiosk, and after staring up at the heat-blurred staircase back up to the street i think i really might have been on the brink of grabbing the third rail had i actually GOTTEN onto the platform, when a generous soul came by to restore my faith in humanity.

me, looking around, helplessly svitzing all over the place and trying my card again as people exiting the station eye me suspiciously: "fuck!"

kind black woman in capris with blue leather purse (i won't forget you!): "you need a ride? here."

and she digs into her bag and swipes me in with her unlimited card. beep! GO.

kind woman in capris, thank you. i hope the spirits reward you with handsome young bucks feeding you bonbons and fanning you with peacock feathers. or, you know, whatever your heart desires. here's to paying it forward.

only in fucking brooklyn

2008-03-21T17:26:00.002-04:00

so, i notice earlier in the week that decorations are up, signs are posted, children are wearing cute little costumes and face paint. purim is here. okay. fine. after last year's purim -- who could top the old hasid dressed up as a freaking PUERTO RICAN, with baggy jeans, bomber jacket and a puerto rican flag as a do-rag -- oh wait, maybe it was the guy in the asian-in-a-rice-paddy costume leaving my apartment building -- i think, i'm ready for anything.

i step off the J to the blaring of a party bus driving down Broadway-- a huge souped up luxury bus blasting jewish music with lights flashing inside. ok, fine.

i then turn the corner on Rodney, where the hasidic social club is. an SUV blaring music lurches into a parking spot, with one wheel up on the curb, and the driver, dressed as a pimp -- i kid you fucking not, cane, bright neon trench coat, the whole bit -- stumbles out and runs into the club. ok, fine.

and THEN, as i'm crossing in front of the car, the guy in the passenger seat, a young guy, stumbles out. he is dressed head to toe in prison stripes and wearing a 2-foot black afro. he is saying something to me. i ignore him, as i would any stupid drunk man at 5pm. he follows me, stumbling across the street and halfway up the block to Division, calling something to me, pointing his finger at my face, and for a moment looking seriously as if he's asking a question.

i turn down my ipod to listen. i mean, it's rare that hasidic men don't hug the wall or otherwise pretend i don't exist (except my landlord. he's honestly great), so why not engage this once? even though my neighbors won't shake my hand -- "oh. my husband doesn't shake hands with women" -- this kid clearly has something he wants to get off his chest.

and you know what the motherfucker is saying, as he points to me face and chases me down the street?

"china? ching chong? ching chong! you ching chong!!!"

after three years in south williamsburg i thought nothing the neighbors could do could surprise me anymore. but a HASID wearing a TWO FOOT AFRO just CHASED ME DOWN THE STREET screaming and pointing "CHING CHONG!"

i'm baaaaaaaaaack

2008-01-09T17:12:00.001-05:00

and i must ask ... when was the last time YOU did the forbidden dance?

the environment. and pretty people.

2007-10-25T10:45:00.000-04:00

as C pointed out, we're screwed: screwed!

we've totally done it to ourselves, and we KEEP ON DOING IT.

and it's not just us. we've ruined so much natural habitat that now animals are taking on our bad habits, drinking and killing themselves violently.

why can't we learn our stupid lesson? it makes me sad.

but this isn't a thoroughly depressing day. chew on this:

in the past week i've had dreams of falling into a lake while waterskiing and landing in george clooney's arms, and swimming away with him, and then also of being at a snowy lodge and having chris martin follow me around telling me of course he was in love with me, that's why he wrote that song. and don't i remember that time in the hottub?

i don't. but i wish i did. so instead, i provide eye candy for you.

my number one. i know, he's japonesa, my father will not be happy.

G's number one. pffft. i *guess* i get it.

C's former number one. but he's a scumbag ... on the search for new candy!

i don't know anybody else's number one. but this is fun. north koreans and al qaeda!

and today, i eat

2007-06-13T10:33:00.000-04:00

lots of things have happened since i last posted on this blog. i turned 28. i went hiking in the catskills. i sprained my ankle. i camped for the first time. i canoed (17 miles!) for the first time. i ate mac 'n cheese from a box for the first time in two years. i clocked a year with gbang. i bought the most beautiful dress, EVAR! and oh, i changed jobs.

but today, something truly monumental is happening: i am finally, finally, FINALLY, going to bite into the (in)famous $32 daniel boulud burger at db bistro moderne. it's ground sirloin, packed with short ribs and goddamn foie gras, served on a parmesan bun with a heap of pomme frites. how do you get short ribs inside a burger? how do you get shortribs and foie gras inside a burger? will a lump of melty goose liver be wrapped in ribs then cloaked in sirloin? do i really need twice-fried potatoes to accompany my meal? is any hunk of ground cow really WORTH a meal for two at most of my favorite restaurants?

these are questions that shall be answered, my friends. thanks to RA for being one of my favorite gossipy, carniverous, healthy-appetite publicist friends ... if i don't have a heart attack on site, i will report back shortly.

grooming the heir apparent

2007-03-20T21:37:00.000-04:00

AB may have plans for golf lessons, little league and soccer. and maybe the little dood already has a steelers beanie and a USC jersey. but i gotta say ...
i think he likes poetry.

vitaminwater, my ass

2007-03-15T14:35:00.000-04:00

this revive thing is crap. i still feel like i'm walking underwater.

if anyone has a spare hypodermic of adrenaline laying around, i'd pay a pretty penny for it.

a real pretty one. shiny. coppery. full of brass, choi-loving goodness.

ok, so genetics is really for real

2007-02-28T11:30:00.000-05:00

i mean, could he look any more like his momma?

it seems so pretty ...

2007-02-27T11:35:00.000-05:00

did anybody else read the kite runner?

es muy fucked up.

you know what else is muy fucked up? the fact that i have slept 36 of the past 48 hours and i still can't feel rested.

stupid cold.

stupid groggyness.

stupid slushy snow.

stupid winter.

did you know that puppets sixty-nine?

2007-02-12T13:36:00.000-05:00

well, they do. you perv.

and i'll tell you how i know. saturday was the last frontier of indulgence for me and the Gbang, and it involved puppets and lots, and lots, and lots of food. it was a very long-awaited indulgence, actually. the evening had precisely 30 days of hunger-inducing foreplay, given that we had to make restaurant reservations a month ago. but, more on that another time.

sometime in january i decided that after a year of listening to G talk about how he'd love to see Avenue Q, it was time to take him to the show, with good seats that would allow for maximum scrutiny of those bad idea bears and dirty, boozing, porn-loving puppets. and in return, he made an 11pm reservation for Babbo, perhaps the most delicious and gluttonous of new york city italian restaurants.

sigh. Babbo.

anyways, the evening starts off beautifully, with both of us all dressed up and me with a beautiful fresh bouquet of red and yellow tulips in my apartment. aww. purty flowers. i think i may have admired the flowers too long, though, because we missed a J train at 7:28pm that was apparently the last train for.ev.er. but after last weekend's experience of sitting miserably in a cab on the williamsburg bridge while watching J after J zip by, we decide to stay on the train platform.

at 7:49pm another train pulls around. G is calm. he asks what time the show starts. uh, 8pm. ohhhhhhhhhh. calmness kinda disappears, and we strategize transportation options. screw you, broadway start times. at 7:55pm, we hit essex, pop up out of the train and almost immediately G hails a cab, who, after hearing our plea to get to times square in ten minutes, says, "impossible."

despite his pessimism, the cabbie of wonder makes a valiant effort and zips up First Avenue. First Avenue is the best avenue ever. screw you, Second, Broadway and Fifth. First Avenue is it. we're on 45th and broadway by 8:05pm. we are those people running to the theater. and, mind you, i'm wearing 4-inch stilettos. so maybe i am hop-skip-hopping through a bunch of fat gaping tourists, and G is using his normal stride. screw you, sexy heels and pasty people with 300-lb. toys-r-us bags. anyways, we get to the theater at 8:07pm, and we're not even the last ones there; we watch the first number from the side aisle and then are escorted to our seats. wheeeee!

puppets! porn! big, gay sesame street spoofs! it is a good time. the bush-is-almost-out jokes they made 3 years ago when i first saw the show are still funny.

and then onto dinner in the West Village ... the A, unlike the J, is very well-behaved. screw you, J.

so, i dunno. we've been excited about this meal for a month. i've been to Babbo six or seven times since moving to new york and still pee my pants every time i go. G had never been, but in his excitement read Heat in preparation. given the buildup, the restaurant was bound to miss expectations.

sigh. but it didn't. screw you, expectations.

a glimpse at the evening, in courses:

a cocktail to start: green apple puree bellinis. buzzzz. buzz buzzzzz.
a little amuse bouche while we browse the menu: spicy chick-pea bruschetta

antipasti: warm lamb’s tongue vinaigrette with chanterelles and a 3-minute egg. you split the egg over a pile of lamb's tongue and it kind of oozes in this gorgeous, yellow, creamy deliciousness, but the meat retains some hit of acidity. sigh. if i had drowned in the dish, it would have been a happy death.

antipasti #2: spicy 2-minute calamari, sicilian lifeguard style. i think i love those lifeguards, whoever they are. spicy, tender, also with high choi-drownage-potential. rescue me, lifeguards. or don't. just bring me another plate.

primi: mint love letters with spicy lamb sausage. this is one of Babbo's signature pasta dishes. it's oddly spicy and sweet and redolent of mint, but it has a savory cheesy meaty element, with a hard sheep's cheese grated on top. G didn't love the love letters, though after a bite he couldn't really stop eating them. i loved them. in fact, i hearted them. they loved me back, too. the server told me so.

primi #2: black pepper pappardelle with wild boar ragu. another signature dish. wide ribbons of pasta, with lumps of ragu, and i think, a classic parmigiano reggiano dusting the top. with much restraint, we stopped halfway through the dish so as to have room for the next two courses coming our way. screw you, limited stomach expansion capabilities. tie me up in pappardelle and spank me. sigh.

secondi: whole grilled branzino with roasted cardoons and lemon oregano jam, finished with a touch of extra virgin olive oil and half a lemon. this is my favorite Babbo entree, and the only one that allows me to be at least minorly mobile after the meal. it is a perfect example of a grilled fish, which the servers fillet and plate tableside. at the pinch of service, the maitre'd came out and started filleting my fish, because the servers were busy. overheard as man in very expensive suit peels fish bones from my dinner: "that brings you back, eh?" "yeah. to when i was 15 in jersey." G was quite enamored of the perfect cross-hatch grill marks on the branzino, something made much of in Heat. is it bad manners to suck fish bones in a destination restaurant?

secondi #2: a veal special ... veal chops wrapped in house-cured pancetta and served with some baby cauliflower florets and a delicious, intense fruity but acidic and not-too-sweet sauce on the plate. it was tender baby cow wrapped in premium pig fat. i think i lost G's affections to mario batali that night. he actually ate much of the dish with his eyes closed. screw you, mario batali.

just kidding! just kidding! i take that back, mario. hearts.

i order a chamomile tea to aid digestion, which is desperately needed at this point. G takes one look at a brown rock-sugar stick, meant to be swirled in an espresso or tea, and puts it in his mouth.

dolci: pistachio and chocolate semifreddo. delicious. rich. G said he liked mine better, but that didn't stop him from licking the plate.

dolci #2: saffron panna cotta with fresh and candied blood oranges and blood orange sorbet. this is the dessert to end all desserts. although i loved the thai basil panna cotta in mango soup at Slanted Door in san francisco, it just didn't compare. i think i could have taken the entire scoop of creamy rich deliciousness in one mouthful. as it was i almost resented G from eating some of it. MY panna cotta, damnit! screw you, G!

just kidding! just kidding! i take that back, G. hearts.

and in case that wasn't enough, we finished off the meal with a few mini biscotti and almond puffs. oh. and we also had two quartinos of wine, which were delicious and fantabulous and very reasonably priced, but i cannot for the life of me remember what we drank. i just know that the wines progressed with the meal, and they were good. i was too intoxicated by the food to notice much else ... except perhaps Kathryn Erbe sitting at the table next to us, for dessert and espressos with a PYT that must have been a niece or daughter. neither of them put sugar sticks in their mouth.

so that was that, perhaps the most decadent valentines day date i've ever had, and certainly the last indulgence for many many months. a frenzy of thriftiness seems to be sweeping across new york (really. everyone i know, across the income spectrum, is talking to me about a new budget or concern about dipping into savings or or borrowing against new investments or paying off credit cards or looking for a new job), and it is unfun but ultimately very wise. i'm proud of everyone that's re-examining their bottom line. i was on the bandwagon. i fell off this weekend, in a liquored-up-overly-well-fed-paying-too-much-to-the-theater-institution lump, but i'll climb back on as soon as i digest. one musn't be too active after a big meal, you know.

2007-02-08T09:15:00.000-05:00

but baby ... i *am* your love

my sister and AB got last-minute tickets to see my baby last night.

he performed "dick in a box" live.

i am so jealous i could cry. JT, honey, i can see us holding hands, walking on the beach with our toes in the sand, too.

2007-01-25T17:44:00.000-05:00

can't.stop.lis.ten.ing V2.0

and 20 years later ... he just gets better. riper. tasty. like a fine wine, that rick astley.

2007-01-24T14:24:00.000-05:00

can't.stop.lis.ten.ing.

um ... yeah.

what r kelly means to me

2007-01-11T13:20:00.000-05:00

shortly after stepping on the 4 train this morning, a big black dude burst through the car doors and erupted into song. song of choice: "i believe i can fly."

he had a pretty good voice, actually. soulful. rich. but i giggled. i couldn't help myself. over the din of the train and his deep vibrato, all i could really hear was this:

"pee pee"

"poo poo"

"i'm going to pee on you, pee on you ... drip all over you ..."

while images of dave chappelle dancing around with a bucket of urine kept repeating themselves in my head.

at the end of the song, mr. r kelly incarnate got a round of applause from the car, no small feat given that it was 9:45am and everyone was deep in grumpiness of their morning commute. and you know what he said?

"thank you for smiling. '07 is the year of the smile."

pee pee and smiles. only in new york.

aloha report v3.1

2006-12-20T00:40:00.000-05:00

here is the other heart of my hawaii trip: enzo

and i mean really ... what man doesn't heart boobies? here's an E and his moms, testing out some new beach gear.

E and his most favoritest eemoh. nobody loves you like i do, little dood.

hee. hehehehehehe.

and, here was today's groundbreaking beach trip, to hanelei bay. E shed the hat, put on his board shorts and hoodie, and after a little bit of coaxing, fell asleep. for 2.7 minutes. i guess he just wanted to play with the big kids.

more doting pictures to come, i'm sure. tomorrow C gets here. wheeeeee! then napali tours, snorkeling, hiking, ziplining ... many more adventures. but for now it's 8pm and i'm sleepy. only an hour til bedtime ... yawn. hmph. aloha.

aloha report v3.0

2006-12-17T13:10:00.000-05:00

life so far: a few days in hilo, aka, mars.
after landing on kauai on monday, i popped over to the big island early tuesday morning to meet up with SA. he took me up to mauna kea, where he does much of his research and where some of the world's largest telescopes live. this is a hawaii i'd never seen before.
here, the road to mauna kea.
at the top of mauna kea -- KH, this keck's for you.

the actual peak of mauna kea is holy ground for native hawaiians, who believe that their gods live on the peak, much like mount olympus was for the greeks. SA informs me that mauna kea is actually the biggest mountain on the world, mass-wise; it's apparently huge under sea level. and it's freaking cold at the top. freezing temperatures, 50-60 mph winds. i was unprepared.

the path to the summit, at 14,000 ft:

the view from the summit:

mauna loa, a sister mountain, from the summit. it is really pretty amazing to be above the cloud cover. i can understand why the hawaiians believe this is holy ground.

the summit of mauna kea, and a temple erected by the hawaiians. it's beautiful. but brrrrr ... it's cold in here. must be some toros in the at-mos-phere ...

on the way down from the mountain. it's so windy, they poke holes in all the signs. i thought that was wildly amusing.

SA and i were very, very tired by 5pm the day of mauna kea. after eating some tasty food in hilo, i was asleep in our very rustic cabin by 8:30pm, at the latest. it's the darkest dark i've ever experienced. i was smashing my hand up against my face and i couldn't see it. pretty cool.
by 5am on tuesday, we were on the road to volcano national park, and at sunrise found ourselves at halema'uma'u crater, the home of pele, the hawaiian goddess of fire. the ground steams where the lava flow is active underneath. goddess of fire. i get it.
the crater used to be home to a lake of lava at the heart of kilauea, an active volcano.
goddess of fire. totally.

on the other side of the crater, on the makai side, are the lava flows. this is pretty fucking crazy shit. CRAZY SHIT i tell you. there used to be a resort town here, nestled between the volcano and the ocean, which was completely destroyed in an eruption. you know, when hot lava flowed out of the very active volcano next to the resort town. nobody was hurt. i guess when you know that piping hot magma is coming in your direction, you get out of the way.
but i guess not everybody is that smart. apparently, many hikers are actually boiled alive when they get too close to the shelf of lava, because the shelf often breaks off into the ocean, where the lava flows are going. boiled alive. it took me awhile to understand the concept, but now i get it. boiled alive. CRAZY SHIT.

a view of the active lava hitting the ocean. it smells like rotten eggs all around this place. sulfur. lava. ocean. CRAZY SHIT.

me, in a lava field. the stuff is nutty. there are striations of different colors, and sometimes you can tell it just oozed over everything, like the lava you expect, and other times the lava looks roped and braided and is in little crinkles everywhere. CRAZY SHIT.

a parking sign from aforementioned resort town. SA and i both had the impulse to try to pull the sign out of the lava, as if we could just nudge it out of the way. it didn't work.

a bit of road that was spared in the flows.

the sulfur started getting to us, so we hiked back out and found our way to an older lava field, where there is the largest collection of hawaiian petroglyphs found anywhere on the islands. there are 14,000 rock carvings on this particular patch on kilauea. some are pretty familiar images -- these little circles, though, have their own mythology. early hawaiians used to carve them and then drop the umbilical cords of their newborns into them. if the cords were still there in the morning, it meant the baby would have a long life. a whole collection of the little holes represents a family or a clan.

after all that lava, we were both ready for some green. so we drove out of volcano national park and walked a bit to find akaka falls, a 1,000-ft waterfall just outside of hilo. it was gorgeous, and back to the hawaii i know. sigh.

and now ... back in kauai. the rest of the week has been spent mostly just vegging. i had a minor health concern, but a trip to a hippie doctor bought me some peace of mind. i got a massage. more peace of mind. eaten lots of food. more peace of mind. read 3 books. more, more, more peace of mind. had a face off with a gecko in the living room, and the gecko won. peace of mind.

it's weird. i feel an odd loneliness here, but it's kind of a content lonely? i guess that's what happens when you find yourself on an island 6,000 miles from home. although i feel at home here. but it is a little bit lonely, and contemplative. i guess every time i come to the islands i am usually in the midst of some sort of difficult period, or healing period, and it's a good kind of intentional disconnectedness. now i just feel a bit disconnected, and it is healing, but also odd. odd lonely content good. sigh. mmm. maybe this is just what quiet feels like.

has it really been so long since i've felt quiet? is it possible i've actually forgotten what it is?

i guess i have time to remember. 1 week down, 2 weeks to go before i have to return to new york ...

goodbye, 2006

2006-12-08T13:47:00.000-05:00

aloha!

almost there! well. i might be wearing the bottom to my bikini. emphasize, *might*. but anyways.

67 hours to go, and counting...

i know, i know. i haven't written in a loooong time. my blog is crusty and stale. and all three of you readers out there are wondering where i've been, except you already know, because the three of you are the only people i hang out with anyways. and here i am, saying aloha.

anyhoo. today is my last day of work in 2006, unless you consider taking a plane and flying to paradise, "work," and it is time yet again to take stock. all christmas presents have been bought, and some already distibuted. christmas tree has been ordered and sent to hawaii. all work projects minus a few minor editing jobs and some emails have been taken care of. manicure and pedicure appointment made. camera fixed. prescriptions picked up. sunscreen, bug repellant, board shorts and bikinis taken out of storage. extra chubs around stomach and hips sufficiently pinched, poked at, fretted over, and then ultimately shrugged off with a, "well ... that thai basil panna cotta in chilled mango soup sure was good."

lots of delicious, difficult, wonderful, fantabulous, challenging, inspiring things filled my 2006. here are just a few:

- my dearest, darlingest, poopiest, barfiest nephew, E
- my dearest, darlingest, poopiest, barfiest cosmic nephew, lil' G
- samusa soup at burma superstar
- williamsburg
- grande nonfat steamers with hazelnut
- ipod nanos
- pandora, particularly "para beats" and "salt 'n pepa"
- gmail chat
- benjamin moore paint samples
- kimchi chigae and dukkuk, at home
- nopales salad and raspberry mojitos, at mojito loco
- webMD
- arroz con pollo
- satmar hasids
- G
- "there's a sailor somewhere in the choi family" comments
- moving boxes
- 9 trips cross country
- penguins
- liquid lunches with my chosen few... those dirty, dirty bitches
- pervy discussions with the aforementioned chosen few
- a permanently changed view of the scent of curry
- bear naked granola
- tiffanys
- watercress salad with melon, toasted almonds and lime dressing

feel free to add to this list as you see fit. i love you, my dumplings! aloha!

seriously?

2006-10-31T11:48:00.000-05:00

me and cate blanchett man. me and cate blanchett.

but hey. i guess i can be an ethereal blonde white woman if C can be gabrielle union.

mi corazon

2006-10-30T13:38:00.000-05:00

me, too, little man. me too.
and no, that is not my rock. and no, i don't have anything else more exciting going on in my life.
weighing in at 8lbs, 3oz ...

enzo rockin' a fauxhawk

2006-10-24T14:59:00.000-04:00

have i mentioned, i adore this child?

i'm riiiiich, beyotch!

2006-10-23T16:56:00.000-04:00

one of my clients is super late on my payment and owes me $550. i know it's not a *huge* amount of money ... but come ON. that's exactly why i should be paid promptly! it's only $550!!!!!!!

of course, said client just lost the editorial director for its hoity-toity-supposedly-groundbreaking-wondrous new arts glossy. and the megalomaniacal owner of the media company that operates said client just spent a gazillion dollars on a new european compound for herself, but apparently does not think it important to pay her freelancers. i have two friends employed by said client, so there's more to worry about than just my money. i worry for their jobs. so, i know it's bigger than me and the several other freelancers that are missing their paychecks. said client has many issues.

but still. gimme mah money, bitches!

$550! that's half a month of rent! half my ticket to visit my family! more than a month's worth of groceries! 2 months worth of cell phone, cable, electric and gas bills! 7 metrocards! or even ... 3 pairs of overpriced jeans! 5 of those luscious tufi duek cashmere cardigans! 2 kitchenaid stand mixers! 4 necklaces from the frank gehry tiffany collection! one of those cute assymmetrical sporty marc jacobs jackets for winter! a sleek new theory suit! one-quarter of my way to my much-lusted after white leather valentino tote bag! a 5-piece le creuset cooking set! a year's worth of wine club membership to chelsea wines! or ... THIRTY lipglosses, balms, stains, plumpers, fillers, pencils!

not that i ever think about buying those items. not that i even think about, or even longingly would ever spend that money on anything so frivolous as lipgloss or a $2000 bag or a $250 sunshiney yellow stand mixer when i could feed myself for almost two goddamn months on that money. so seriously. PAY ME, YOU NUMNUTS!!!!! i've sliced people for less.

in other news, after an experience with a bosc pear at lunch, i've decided i only enjoy crunchy pears in salads, not as a main event. i have also re-confirmed that my family is certifiable and that i am going to be the only sane influence on my gorgeous nephew, that my nam-ja is wonderful and astonishing, and that any and all hurts can be healed with a 7-hour brunch with the three most phenomenal women in the world. yay, chosen few.

2006-10-20T11:15:00.000-04:00

definition of douchebag

this dood sent an 11-page resume and this video as an application to UBS. chump.

eemo! i'm an eemo!

2006-10-12T10:26:00.000-04:00

an EEMO!!!!!!!

lorenzo lino brigode came into the world at 5:31pm on oct. 11, weighing 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and purple as a grape. he's got curly black hair and blue-grey eyes and perfect little fingers and toes. he's perfect :) sometimes he looks really asian and sometimes not, and he's got A's eyes and my sister's lips. my big sis was in labor for nearly three days but the little bambino decided he didn't want to come out that way. so he's got a little marge simpson-thing going on with his head right now from where he was stuck, which the nurses say will even out in a day or two. the nurses also say he was been eyeing the girls in the nursery while they got their baths.

my sister's response: "like father, like son."

she is recovering beautifully after surgery and was even able to nurse enzo a little bit last night, which is fantastic and unusual after a c-section. she just gazes at him and murmers, "my baby. you're my baby." A is elated and exhausted and all he can say is "if i'm this tired, i can't imagine how she feels" and while feeding him, cracking up at the mess enzo was making and saying, "man, you eat like your dad." i held him for a bit and i swear to god little enzo knows my voice ... he kept falling asleep while trying to eat and crazily everytime i whispered "wake up" to him he opened his eyes ...

U & A will probably be in the hospital until sunday, the grandparents are flooding in, and i'm so overcome with just STUFF in my head and heart that i hardly know whether to laugh, cry, or run around and squeal and dance and roll around on the ground like a crazy person. and i'm not even the one who had the baby!!!

everything, absolutely everything, is different when a new human being joins your family. everything.

bizzay

2006-10-09T13:25:00.000-04:00

as in, off the hizzay.

my palms are bruised.

i broke my camera.

i am newly obsessed with benjamin moore's "roxbury caramel" HC-42.

my sister wants to take the subway from tribeca to columbia presbyterian when she goes into labor because it will be "more comfortable."

my parents are road tripping through the northeast.

shleepy. so shleepy. more to come later ... but one thing i must share: this weekend, in the quaint little town of Cold Spring in upstate new york, G and i sat down to dinner and i came face to face with a woman at a nearby table, wearing black spandex shorts, wool socks, tevas, a denim button down shirt, FLUFFING her MULLET before pulling on a baseball cap. fluff fluff. the restaurant lighting musta been too dim for her, because the next time i glance over she is also wearing a head lamp. strapped around her baseball capped-fluffy mullet.

sperlunking in your turkey burger, my love?

over and out.

assholes

2006-09-20T22:29:00.000-04:00

so i've been home for six hours, and i am slightly less enraged. it appears the longer i am away from douchebags, the happier i am.

you know, i was an overprivileged, petulant moron when i was younger. i like to think that because i was the child of immigrants, i was somehow more grounded than the other overprivileged, petulant morons i grew up with. but really, i wasn't. it took me moving to new york to really get it, and now i feel like i can kind of grasp the big picture of what's really important in our lives, and what kinds of sacrifices we should make for the greater good, and the people we love, etc etc. i guess it took awhile for me to get it, and i feel dumb about that. i knew i wasn't alone, though, after reading this passage in Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, in which Frank describes a big ass wake-up call he had during college:

"I finally learned about social class. Growing up in the Edenic preserves the local elite had fashioned for themselves had anesthetized me to the system that made them an elite in the first place. I honestly thought that Mission Hills, with its castellated palazzi, was normal and that other places were the aberration. I played with the tots of millionaires and convinced myself that America was a classless society, where all that mattered was ability and one's willingness to work."

substitute Glencoe for Mission Hills, and there was my life. he figured it out when he was 18. so, it took me until i was 22. i think figuring that out has pretty much shaped my entire worldview. it's not a huge thing, i guess, but it was my realization, and i worked to live my life accordingly. given that i no longer act like an overprivileged petulant moron, i'd like to think that most people, especially those that are older than me, would also at some point in their lives cease to act like overprivileged petulant morons.

apparently some people never figure out how fucking stupid and small their fucked up sense of ambition is. stupid motherfucking asshat nutsacks.

anyways. usually they don't bother me so much, but i guess i haven't completely let go of the douchebagginess that tainted my day. what is astounding to me is how contagious rage is. because it just started with the few douchebags. but then it spread ... and spread ... and i found myself surrounded by douchebags. they are everywhere. i can make lists, and lists, and lists of the douchebags i encountered in the past 24 hours. however, today, when fully enflamed by rage, and after having dealt with the douchebag suits running through grand central, the douchebag that really got my goat was the douchebag male sitting on 5 train that insisted on taking up the space of 3 people, during rush hour, when my goddamn feet were killing me and i'd already had to plow through 12 other douchebag standing in front of the goddamn subway door just to get on the train. really? put your legs together, slut. are your balls that sweaty that you need to keep your knees 36 inches apart? invest in some baby powder or i'll dig my 3-inch stiletto, invented by some other douchebag male, into your nutsack.

what a dick.

goodnight.

G comes home this week!

2006-09-18T13:53:00.000-04:00

yay! yay! yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayyayayayayayayayyayayayayayay!

net net net!

2006-09-12T21:40:00.000-04:00

screw the $20 lipgloss.

today, i spent $97,300 in the span of 45 minutes.

i bought 100 shares of google, 200 shares of whole foods, and 100 shares of lehman bros., among other stocks. so far, the most profitable purchase i made was Archer Daniels Midland, a huge agricultural company and, more important than them devastating small farms across America, an ethanol producer. i think they're going to explode — at least, they will as soon as the U.S. runs out of oil, which i'm sure will be soon, at which point we will be on the brink of fully, irreversibly screwing over ourselves and the environment — i think at that point ADM will prove to be a very wise investment. and it only cost me $3700.

okay so maybe i have reached new levels of geekdom but playing this investopedia game is, um, fun.

i also voted today.

i also ate kimchi chigae.

i also read about all the things that are wrong with kansas.

i am sleepy.

i think i may have a problem

2006-09-08T11:20:00.000-04:00

so, i was just trying to organize my bag. and if you know me, you know i'm a very low-maintenance girl. i like wearing sneakers and jeans. my favorite places to shop are cheapy stores. i don't own a blowdryer. i don't really wear anything on my face other than moisturizer. i carry a little cosmetics thingy around but really it just has my powder stick and eyeliner in it. and i pretty much never use those, either.

but... but. apparently i carry around an obscene amount of lip products on a regular basis. i got issues, man.

found in my purse this morning:

- Christian Dior Addict plastic gloss #434
- DuWop Lip Venom
- Ramy Rise & Shine! Lip Gloss, in Shut Up & Kiss Me
- Lancome Juicy Tube, in Berry Bold
- Wet & Wild MegaBrilliance Lip Gloss, in clear
- Blistex Herbal Answer lip balm

staring at me on my desk are these:
- Vaseline Lip Therapy Advanced Formula
- Kiehl's Lip Balm #1

and i just know at home i have stashes of several other shades of juicy tubes, a couple of pots of rosebud salve, about 12 different drugstore lip glosses, three or four more ramy glosses (but! i only bought some of them, thank god for fun free products), a spare lip venom, and maybe two or three or seven lip stains and those herbal tony & tiny glosses.

i guess it's a relatively inexpensive indulgence ... but seriously.

pledge to self: i am not buying another lip gloss until 2008.

and ... we're back!

2006-08-29T12:43:00.000-04:00

did you miss me?

the days have been too pretty lately to focus on blogging. but, as anyone in the tri-state area knows, today is not one of those days.

so, in a recap of the lovely month of august ... my life, in lists.

things i have eaten
- baked cheetos
- orecchiette with roasted garlic and shredded parmigiano reggiano
- momofuku's ramen soup
- caracas arepas bar's chorizo and chicken stuffed arepas
- korean curry
- massaman curry
- green curry
- rickshaw dumpling bar's dumplings, including the delicious chocolate soup dumpling
- taco chulo's fish burritos
- max's ricotta & spinach ravioli
- lots and lots of fage's greek yogurt

things i have seen
- outstanding performances by meryl streep and kevin kline in brecht's mother courage, on central park's summerstage
- a disappointing display of graffiti at the brooklyn museum of art
- a beautiful, moody piece of work by C
- questlove inspiring dirty hipsters to dance, drink lager and play dodgeball in mccarren park
- new mothers grooving in the wee hours of a monday night at deep space, with francois k
- a white girl having a bachlorette party at bembe (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), complete with a veil decorated with tiny rubber penises
- a cat diving into a kitchen sink in order to get wet
- little miss sunshine, twice
- motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane, once

things i have felt
- writing anxiety
- MTD
- joy
- insecurity
- exhaustion
- anger at getting sick
- stomach cramps
- hot
- bliss

things i have written
- a poem about boundaries
- a story about a japanese retailer overtaking the meatpacking district
- REIT earnings
- a story about the troubles of a major international developer
- a preview of design exhibits at the cooper-hewitt
- approximately 12 thousand one-line poems
- approximately 13 thousand emails

things i have learned
- all kinds of salsa steps
- how to replant and mulch potted plants and trees
- when to let go
- to never postpone taking antibiotics. ev.er.a.gain.
- how to plan a tea party
- how to shave a head
- that a titmouse is a small songbird

things i have bought
- food. lots and lots of food.
- plane tickets
- floor repairs
- 2 wedding presents
- 1 baby shower present

things i have listened to
- lots of cheesy trance. lots and lots of it.
- pandora internet radio, my miguel migs and bloc party stations
- salsa, samba, and cumbia
- an architect telling me about the "theory of global warming" that i "might" believe in if i "happen to believe" that people "might" contribute to global warming. because it's "just a theory."
- francois k
- rich medina
- earnings calls. lots and lots of earnings calls.
- workmen tearing up my parquet floors

there are lots of extraordinary things soon to come, too. maybe it's not so bad to be a grownup and to go back to school. er, work. i mean ... five-day work weeks. anyways.

here's to all the fun stuff to come!
- a booze cruise, featuring jamie lidell
- ps1's final party with carl craig
- a baby shower for my dearest nephew at lady mendl's
- dinner party with the steel family
- a visit from JH
- a visit from my parents
- my nephew!

and just a few months down the line, when winter is starting to look really, really, unavoidable ... A TRIP TO KAUAI WITH MY FAMILY, MY NEW BABY NEPHEW, AND C!!!! and then a trip to my beloved chicago for new year's with G. snorkeling, java kai, roosters, green zebra, and giordano's stuffed spinach here i come.

so ...

2006-08-14T10:35:00.000-04:00

i walked smack into a subway pole this morning while reading the kite runner.

yeah.

que hora son, mi corazon?

2006-08-04T08:57:00.000-04:00

me gusta sonar, me gustas tu.
me gusta la mar, me gustas tu.

newest addiction ... manu chao.

y me gustan los libros. here's a survey, lifted from CK, also known as hyungi:

0ne book that changed your life?
darkness visible by william styron. i think maybe it actually saved my life.

one book you have read more than once?
i've reread all my favorites a couple times ... the most dog-eared are probably the constructor by john koethe and a thousand acres by jane smiley.

one book you would want on a desert island?
the collected poems of kenneth koch by kenneth koch.

one book that made you laugh?
lies and the lying liars that tell them by al franken.

one book that made you cry?
i wept, wept, i mean wept, when i read les miserables by victor hugo. the amazing thing was that while i was weeping and reading, sitting in my parents' convenience store as an emotional, chubby 14-year-old, my dad came up to me and hugged me and said, "it's okay. i cried when i read it, too."

one book you wish had been written?
half pint: the dark side of laura ingalls wilder by almanzo wilder.

one book you wish had never been written?
a night without armor by jewel.

book you are currently reading?
what's the matter with kansas by thomas frank.

one book you have been meaning to read?
a year of magical thinking by joan didion.

me gusta la lluvia, me gustas tu.
me gusta volver, me gustas tu ...

swimming

2006-07-30T18:18:00.000-04:00

in my bloc party.

saturday's mccarren pool adventure with G, C, D, a surprise appearance by MU, and a killer performance by those funny little brits made me feel ... like i was home.

whoever ate all my sadness did a good job.

my belly

2006-07-26T12:51:00.000-04:00

is a creature unto its own.

it seems i never stop eating, yet i am always hungry. is this a curse? is this is what i get for having a good family, a nice job, and the best friends in the world? an insatiable, ever-present feeling of hunger. of desire. of needing to consume things, and make them mine. all.the.time.

okay so maybe my stomach is more honestly me than anything else.

anyways. it is 1:30pm and so far today i have had

1) 1 mango peach
2) 1 grilled chicken-avocado-provolone-tomatoes-sprouts on a roll sandwich
3) 1 2-serving bag of baked cheetos
4) 1 large arizona diet green tea with ginseng.
5) 1 multivitamin and 1 calcium chew

i have packed 1 white nectarine for my snack this afternoon and am going tonight with my big sis to either momofuku bar for noodles or, if i can sell her on coming to williamsburg, either bonita's for mexican, dumont burger for burgers, or marlow & sons for meats and cheeses. i'm hoping for a bridge crossing, since i don't imagine her coming over either nine months prego or with a baby in tow, but we shall see.

but back to my stomach. here's a sampling of a few choice meals from the past week:

1) anytime's avocado, gruyere, and tomato sandwich with tater tots
2) chipotle barbacoa burrito bowl
3) red flame diner's chicken souvlaki with salad and fries
4) G's arroz con pollo (y chorizo!) and watercress salad with watermelon, cantaloupe and almonds
5) peanut butter & jelly sandwiches
6) G's mushroom risotto
7) taco chulo's nachos chulos
8) hope & union's chicken caesar salad and turkey sandwich
9) joe ginger's pork soup dumplings, crab soup dumplings, shanghai noodle soup, crispy beef, pork & pickled cabbage, and some other beef and noodle dish
10) shilla's galbi, bulgogi, daeji bulgogi, bibim nengmyun, soondooboo chigae, kimchi chigae, dengjang chigae, and haemool pajeun
11) hummus place's hummus foul and mint lemonade

mind you, these are just SOME of the meals i've eaten. some of the things not included: multiple servings of cereal, granola, overpriced bottled tea, cantaloupe, cherries, peanut butter co's crunch time natural peanut butter, laughing cow cheese squares, frozen yogurt and any number of pieces of the random bulk candy available in the company cafeteria or in RT's candy bowl. most recently it was caramels and mini-mounds bars.

tomorrow night, PL is cooking chinese for us. friday morning i'd like to send the chicagoans off for brunch in williamsburg someplace perhaps at the egg, or maybe coco. saturday is beer & a few southern bites at enid's. monday C and CK and i are going for some delicious bite somewhere, with BYOB ivo & lulu's coming up as a strong contender. i've only been to ivo & lulu's once, but it feels familiar and cozy given that i used to spend so much time at A, which is owned by the same peeps. delicious, high-end, slightly caribbean-tinged food for cheap. yay. and i just got a dinner invite for sept. 10, at the steel family household. DS should really bottle his pasta sauces.

okay so maybe my world revolves around food.

so THERE!

happy belly.

hungry belly.

i think it's time for my peach.

unfortunate new addictions

2006-07-18T12:30:00.000-04:00

it's the nature of the beast. i can't help myself.

1) reggaeton

2) $2.25 14-oz bottles of jones organics red tea

3) reggaeton

4) repeated use of the adjectives "unga" and "brownie" and the phrase, "i'm riiiich, beyotch!"

5) reggaeton

6) duane reade's dollar rewards club

7) reggaeton

8) $15 cheapy store dresses

9) reggaeton

10) $5 bags of bear naked all natural banana nut granola

11) reggaeton

12) mederma

13) reggaeton

14) $42 dashing diva basic manicure & pedicure

15) reggaeton

2006-07-17T15:36:00.000-04:00

heat

it's 12,452 degrees outside. but i got da right temperature to shelter you from da storm ... oh lord!

2 things

2006-07-14T09:34:00.000-04:00

first, the best line of the week, from the film The Motel: "do i scare you? hunh. don't worry about it ... it's a korean thing."

second, i just dropped a drawer on my knee. ouch.

my friends are effin dope

2006-07-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

a small promotional item for my dearest compatriot ES: after months of laboring at the washington post, he has finally launched OFF/beat, a quirky news-based blog on all the strange things that happen in this great country. weird country. great country?

anyways. check it out for some wicked smart humor: OFF/beat by Emil Steiner

and for a giggle, find the one under 50-columnist on the post's roster here: Old white men opining for the post.

if the kid with the blonde mop looks familiar, you might remember him as the recipient of many happy amy kisses on the Second Annual One Year Closer to 30 Champagne Ball. and of course, if you have any interest in reading some of his more creative work, pick up a copy of Drunk Driving, ES's first novel, or check out some of his poetry on the website of yours truly, Words by Amy.

i'm proud of you, ES! big ups to philly and nine years of friendship. good luck with the launch.

i mean

2006-07-11T22:23:00.000-04:00

doesn't it just look ... right?

the tiara debuted on friday's first annual i heart williamsburg apartment crawl, where stops were made on a strict schedule. a park sloper, a bronx kid and even a manhattanite or two joined in on the fun.

7pm: Cuba Libre, AG & MB
8pm: Viva Mexico, C
9pm: Koreatown, yours truly
10pm: Opa!, AE & AP
11pm: White trash, Y & AB

i only made it to three stops and it was enough to do me in for the rest of the night. but i did get to wear a tiara, and i got everybody to shoot soju after they'd already had mojitos and margaritas, AND, i got to drink a natty light plucked from a bathtub, so i think the evening was a success.

fast forward to saturday night. i am in philly, and after a long lazy dinner, GT and i find ourselves in the square face to face with one of the many fashion disasters that wanders the streets of philadelphia. C, consider this your first submission. this nice young man was wearing a shiny satin shirt with some crazy ass disco paisley pink crap all over it, paired with kinda sheer white pants and brown leather mandals while sipping $9 martinis in rittenhouse square. mind you ... we are in the upper west side of philadelphia. the lincoln park of philadelphia. the brooklyn heights of philadelphia. i'm not sure that it's ever okay to wear this item of clothing, but it is especially not okay in such a conservative, wonderbread neighborhood. wait. i take that back. i am most definitely one hundred percent certain with a big fat pile of prize money on top that it is not okay for this shiny shirted man to be out in public, anywhere. go home and dance under your black light, you disaster of a throwback.

i seem to have a lot of opinions lately, hunh.

anyways, back to the tiara. i admit i have taken quite a shine to it. i was surrounded by princesses growing up, so much so that the term "jap" never even really seemed like an insult. my sister even took to calling me "kap" when i hit my particularly snotty puberty. now, of course, i understand that "korean american princess" is perhaps not the most affectionate of titles, but given my other nicknames at the time — "dheji" (korean for "pig") was my parents choice term of endearment, while my sister called me "pee-pee head" until i graduated from high school — "kap" didn't seem so bad.

i mean ... seriously. i have a friggin tiara! yeah really!

a long buncha days

2006-07-04T21:46:00.000-04:00

i just dropped a knife on my foot.

seriously.

it was like it went in slow motion. i am putting away dishes ... i accidentally knock my knife strip with the cabinet door ... i slowly, slowly see my 10-inch forschner loose itself from the strip ... it knocks against the counter ... bounces off the garbage can ... and there i find myself in my kitchen with a goddamn sliced open foot.

then my phone rings. it doesn't hurt yet, and it doesn't even seem to be bleeding, so i answer.

G: hey, i have a quick question.
me: i just dropped a knife on my foot.
G: what?
me: i just dropped a knife on my foot!
G: haha, are you kidding? you are a hazard.
me: G, i just dropped a goddamn knife on my foot!!!! ohmygod! i dropped a knife on my foot! (this is at which point blood started pouring from my toe and i began to panic, in case you couldn't tell.)
G: wait, really?
me: i dropped a knife on my foot! ah! i gotta go!

it makes me extremely grumpy when i do stupid shit like this. but because i am a klutz, i do stupid shit like this all the time, and i guess i should get used to it. the last time i battled a chef's knife was when slicing avocado when B and i were going through a chili-and-avocado phase, and in the process of halving an avocado i split my index finger clear open. my finger is still a little bumpy.

sigh.

anyways. despite my annoyance at this evening, i am glad that if it had to happen, it waited until today. because this weekend was off the hizzay, in the most chill way possible. it was wonderful.

it all started thursday, when AZ said "no need to come in tomorrow, guys." yippeeeeeeee! i had a few calls and emails to make but that's why cell phones and webmail were invented, right?

right.

so instead, friday afternoon, AB, Y and C and i lounged and sipped fruit smoothies on the sundeck at chelsea piers, overlooking the hudson. it's not quite like crashing surf and a white sand beach, but tugboats against the jersey city backdrop does have its own kind of charm. and i can't imagine better company. this is also when C brainstormed her brilliant "no you didn't" website idea, coming soon to a brower near you. camera phones just took on a whole new purpose ...

saturday found me, Y and G at PS1 in long island city, where AM, SS, and a whole buncha other kids were in waiting for us. the installation this year is beatfuse! by obra architects, a clever raw plywood and white mesh that has a kind of epcot-center quality to it. i kinda dig it, but it still doesn't hold up to the bamboo installation a few years back. but it is infinity more appealing then the red plastic silver crap last year. anyways, body & soul kicked off the first warm up party, and the splendiferous house was almost too much for me to take. here's a buncha happy people, going nuts in the ps1 courtyard: it's 300 degrees, my dress is wet with sweat and i'm still smiling. something must be good: perhaps it was AM, super mad about england's loss on saturday morning but still happy about body & soul. AM is buddies with the music curator at ps1 — a ludicrous subject for another time — and hooked us up in a big way with free drinks from the VIP section, so that increased the cheer level even more. oh, AM. the day kept getting hotter and better and crowdeder ... er. more crowded? it was time to seek relief. we found it in one of the beatfuse! wading pools. ignore the color of the water. we did. and how glad we were that we did! how relieved does he look? Y looks pretty thrilled too, methinks, minus the fact that she needs a refill. AM! where you at?
we left towards the end of the party, noshed on moroccan paella at black betty, and called it a night. but wait, there are still three more days left in the weekend.

sunday. time for strong island. i'm having fantasies of daisy and jay and drinks with crushed mint. in real life, all i want to do is hang with D and family. and hang with D we do. but first, there is the LIRR. and the LIRR seems to spur very thoughtful discussion, at least for boys. case in point: AB and G. baseball or basketball? brazil or italy? standing up or sitting down? so many things to think about: we girls were a bit more goofy. and soon, we arrive to heaven on earth for slightly homesick city kids ... a backyard barbecue in what may be the perfect picture of suburbia, aka great neck, new york. this could be any sunday in any backyard on the block where i grew up. sigh. sigh. sigh. i love this picture, and if somebody's bitchass cankles weren't in the way, you could see C sitting tucked in betwen V and a new favorite person, J. oh wait. did i say cankles?

why yes, yes i did. here's our hostess extraordinaire, smiling for a few before KILLING it in a game of pig. and i mean killing. i wasn't the first out in the game, thankfully, but i wasn't even near close to the last. AB, the ambidextrous jerk, started calling all kinds of left handed shots, while V refused to take anything other than a shot from directly below the basket. they knocked me, C and Y out ... but D represented for all of womankind on the pig court, with the pinnacle moment being when her daddy, RE, saw her go for a long shot from the edge of the driveway without calling it first.

RE: D, grow some balls! call the goddamn shot.
D: (without a moment's pause) fuck you, dad. fine. no glass, no rim.

*swish*

RE: (huge smile on his face and opening his arms up for a hug) that's my girl.

needless to say, we exploded. it was the hottest thing i'd ever seen. and i don't think anybody else made it. yay, D! AB couldn't let go the rest of the game. here he is, still wondering how D made it: i think G had given up at this point. this may have been his recovery from the shock of being handed a poop-sized pine cone from C, who literally did not stop laughing for a solid 9 minutes after giving it to him. heh. my lil bunny. she's so weird. anyways. after eat eat eating burgers, steaks, hot dogs, chicken, and every bbq-appropriate side imaginable ... corn salad, cole slaw, salad, marinated veggies ... it was back on the LIRR for us kids. arriving back at penn station around 10pm, ready for sleep.

but wait. there are two more days left in the weekend.

monday. central park. my first time so far this summer. sigh. i heart central park. i still remember when i first moved to new york, with no job and no money and no anything, and every day after spending hours on mediabistro and journalismjobs and monster and sending emails to random alums from my medill directory, i would go rollerblading in the park to try and clear my mind and decompress. it was free and it was beautiful and all the freaking humanity just reminded me there was a reason to be in new york, after all. have i mentioned i heart central park?
me, Y, and G camped out in our usual spot in sheep's meadow with food, speakers, and a frisbee and chitchatted about all sorts of nonsense. soon was the arrival of my crazy bunny C, accompanied by new favorites peeps V and J. even from this distance, you can see them smiling:
now, V completely charmed me this weekend. and part of it was his glee. he and J spent the afternoon doing completely ridiculous camera tricks and playing with perspective ... and this was my special trick. i was gossiping with C and wondering what the hell G was doing to my foot, when all of a sudden she starts cracking up, and V, waving his finger around a solid three feet from my foot goes, "wait! is my finger touching the cap! is it touching the cap? now? now? to the right? now?" heh.
AG and MB arrived after a few, with AG's cousin in tow. they just arrived in the neighborhood on friday night and are partaking in the first annual south williamsburg apartment crawl this coming weekend, which features stops at some bazillion of our neighborhood cronies' apartments. yay, more neighbors! sigh. neighbors. here's my littlest one, smiling away: and then it comes the end of monday. sigh. i don't know how much better it gets than ending a day at the park with a late night movie ... especially one like wordplay. if you haven't seen it, and you have the slightest affinity for geeks and anything geeky, you must. that and a game of futbol on my sister's massive plasma screen were a perfect pair for ending the loooooong weekend. and though i was deeply, deeply wounded by the germany-italy match, i think my deep, deep love for this movie makes up for it. it was hilarious and moving and did i mention, hilarious? i quite possibly haven't laughed that hard in ages. at least, i haven't laughed that hard since V last asked, "is my finger on the cap! C? to the right? is my finger on the cap?"

tee-hee. people are so funny.

dreams.get.weird.er.but.who.cares?

2006-06-30T09:01:00.000-04:00

last night, i had dreams of poetry and communes and N.

so, first, we were in williamsburg and had to get to n. 11th and bedford. which is where triple crown is. apparently i really wanted to show N where triple crown was? but anyways, so we're walking from my apartment through the neighborhood, and we come to a kind of T-shaped intersection, and at the "T" is a huge rambling house with a wraparound porch and all kinds of people hanging out outside at picnic tables and eating. and it looks good.

and suddenly, N and i are wearing trekking clothes, and carrying backpacks, and even though we only have to go to n. 11th and bedford, it seems like a fantastic idea that we stop at this big house, which turns out to be a commune. a big, friendly commune for weary travelers, and we figure we can stop and eat and rest until we need to make our way. there are subway stops everywhere on the street, too, which made the whole picnic-table-commune thing very odd.

anyways. so we plop all our stuff down at a picnic bench, and we're kinda waiting and hanging out and i get very sleepy so i curl up on the bench and fall asleep while N soaks up the scene. i wake up to learn that there are rules at the commune ... something about a lottery to get selected and all these strict things about what we can and can't do, and how many people we have to have camping together in order to stay there. strangers start approaching us about camping together so we can meet the requirements and stay at the commune.

to which we respond, wtf kind of commune is this? we're out of here.

and we leave. we're suddenly back on a completely urban street. and N says something about being swallowed, and i say something in response like, "by light?" and somehow we both understand that it is by the mouth of the subway, and then there are more words being tossed around, like "edge" and "entrance" and other ones that are popping up like bubbles over his head.

and that's it.

i guess ... i guess the weird thing about this dream is that it's not so weird. it would be so like me to insist that we see someplace and do something and then to fall asleep because N has this narcotic effect on me. it would be so like us to have strangers approach us and want to be near us, and for us in response to say fuck this place and these rules. it's like both of us to see poetry in public transportation. although, that's probably not exclusive to N. i think everybody that i love, or even those that i find merely interesting, would be able to find the poetry in public transportation.

yes, yes they would.

anyways. i think this dream is telling me i need to

1) get N to williamsburg, immediately asap right now
2) finish that poem about the subway
3) seriously revisit childhood fantasies of yaddo and other artist reservations
4) figure out how to get chat bubbles to appear above my head

in the interim, i am very excited for this weekend. this morning started off in the happiest way when i got a call from G, sitting in the airport in ohio and on his way back to new york suuuuper early. and it gets better ... C's boss has given us day passes to the pool at chelsea piers, so me, Y and AB are off in a few hours to scheme and break C out of this weekday prison called "work" ... then tonight there's poker and the arrival of AG and MB to the hood ... then tomorrow is the first warmup party at ps1 ... then sunday it's off to strong island for a bbq with R&R and the rest of the D clan ... and then there's TWO WHOLE MORE DAYS of playtime! yay! sometime before sunday night i have to finish a story for work and ship it off to NZ, who has been the ultimate in cool in my deadline and my strange experiences with sources who seem to be frightened of me. but that hardly even seems like work. yay for NZ. yay for long weekend. yay for life and summer and communes and chat bubbles.

yay.

birthday bonanza, part 3

2006-06-28T20:16:00.000-04:00

C's 27th: the final showdown. it all started innocently enough — indoor bbq and lots of girls at my place. and then some random slasher tried to make a horror movie. how did he get there? oh wait. that's V. maybe he brought the cake. and cooked all the burgers. and made C happy. okay. we'll keep him. in response to the attempted knifing, we decided it was a good idea to drink. and drink. and drink. we ended up with lots of burger and booze in our bellies and lounging on the fuzz master carpet ... and sleepyness was about to strike all ... ... when C had the wherewithal, somehow, to get us all out of the black hole of hangout and greenery that is my apartment. seriously. time somehow melts away in this place ... but anyways. she got us all motivated. i don't know how, especially since the last party i had in her honor went on for several hours while she slept in my bed. but she did it. she motivated 8 girls, 1 boy, and that crazy slasher dood out of the house. it was a magical feat of endurance and energy. i mean, it was nearly 11pm. it was LATE. but, RS was spinning at triple crown, our names were on a list, and goddamnit we were going to make it out. good thing we had this game called "doing the C" to keep us entertained. it's a game worth playing ... and a face worth practicing. perhaps momma H was onto something when she told C to always take pictures with the perfect face and angle? maybe excessive korean vanity DOES have a purpose? at any rate. once mastered, it is a near impossible force to stop.

for example, here are textbook examples of "the C" by my two gorgeous cubans. as Y and K demonstrate, the shoulder is a critical element of "the C." here are some variations on the theme. i offer the "frontal C," while K and C are both utilizing the "extended arm C." Y has opted for the "over the shoulder C." it's not just girls that can do "the C" either. here. see? G is getting good at it. this maneuver is called simply, the "boy C."omg. i can't make them stop. make them stop!yet here we are, doing it again. jesu christo, save us.
anyways. the evening was a smashing success, i say ... there were free drink hookups. there were shoutouts from the sweet RS. there was cypress hill. there was 50 cent and shortys and birthdays. all in all there was tons of fun people and lots of sweaty hip hop ... and there was C making it all the way to 2am, even if nobody can quite remember the end of the evening. but who needs memory when people are handing out pink sugary shots of liquor? who needs to remember what they said, as long as they're still standing? we made it out til 2am. even the non-neighborhoodies, like D and AS, made it out late, and they had more than five blocks to travel. that's like, extra credit, or something. i mean, we're not old! we stayed out sooooo late! we can party!

right?

anyways. so here's a final birthday wish to my cosmic sister and partner in crime. has it really only been 7 years we've known each other? because i think maybe we were born to be friends. and if your abnormally long fingers weren't blocking my face in this picture, you'd see a huge, unadulterated, unposed, no holds barred grin of happiness for you on your special birthday celebration. so until we're halmunees sitting in our rocking chairs, wearing our slip-pahs, tossing back spiked lemonade and talking shit about how hot we used to be: i love you, you cwazy wabbit.

heartbroken

2006-06-23T17:02:00.000-04:00

sigh.

i hate the fucking swiss.

wicked dreams

2006-06-23T10:31:00.000-04:00

i think it was the pomegranate martini. or ... maybe it was the third pomegranate martini?

but really. it was kind of awful.

i don't know how it turned out that way. the night started off beautifully. we had our first mini-birthday celebration for C last night after work, when C and i met for drinks at dressler, where capt. mcflirty bartender was serving up some frosty pomegranate-ness. he looks familiar. good-looking guy with a sharp wit behind a bar ... maybe one of the millions of underemployed, overintelligent northwestern grads in williamsburg? he must be an actor. and if he's an actor, he must've been on law & order. he MUST have.

so i ask. have you been on law & order?

why yes, yes he has. he was the skeevy jealous ex-boyfriend suspect on one of the original law & order shows. and now he makes a delicious pomegranate martini. so we had several. V showed up after a bit, all clean-shaven and preppy for C. then Y arrives, and we sip on pomegranate yummyness while C and V move on to dinner. i haven't seen Y in many moons and kind of can't stop fawning over her. we go for noodles and chill on my pretty new orange bar stools, and all is calm and pretty and wonderful and pomegratey. i feel really good and loving towards everyone and everything. and then i go to sleep.

the bad shit starts here.

i am in stadium, a huge, massive stadium with a thrust stage in the middle, and people are screaming, calling out, and waiting for a play to start. it's friday night, they have to wait until sunday for the play. and i'm the lead in the play, and i'm overcome with exhaustion, and all i want to do is sleep, but i suddenly realize ... i don't know my lines. any of them. a whole play's worth. a litany of lines. a hamlet of lines. and i can't sleep, i have to try to memorize my lines, but i know there's just no way i'll be able to do it, and i am going to ruin the play for everyone, the other performers, the audience, everyone. and it's paralyzing and awful, but all i can do is try try try even though i know i won't be able to live up to expectation.

um.

i woke up from that dream to fits of tossing and turning. my mouth was parched, so i reach for the water i always keep by bed, but i knock the whole glass over onto the floor, and i am just too defeated to get up and go to the kitchen for another. i try to think ... is there anything i've forgotten? in real life? what could i possibly ruin for EVERYBODY else i know, for all these people who are relying on me? where am i fucking up? what can i do to make sure i don't disappoint everyone?

i fall back asleep.

i am in my childhood home, sitting at the vanity in my parents' bathroom, which somehow magically has long benches and tables in it, and i'm frantically trying to make myself beautiful and clean up the tables and benches and make the room pretty before all these people show up. somebody has died. i think it's somebody close, but i don't know. crowds of people start pouring into the house, and i can see them and i go rush out to meet them, and somebody, i think my sister, asks, "do you think she was dead when she was alive? or do you think she is more alive now that she's gone?" and i look back into the bathroom which i for some reason have been trying to make perfect, and two old, haggard, dirty men wrapped in ratty clothes are sitting at the benches, and marring everything. and they look familiar, and i know, in my heart of hearts, that they are the same men that haunted me in my old recurring nightmare from when i was a teenager, when haggard old men's faces would suddenly appear in every window of my house, so that even when i was locked inside, in my safe space, i couldn't ever get away from their eyes.

now, how fucked up is that, that DURING a dream, i'm haunted by the ghosts of my dreams past? i haven't had that nightmare since college. and that now ... now they are just sitting down in a space i have tried so hard to make beautiful? as if they have access to it whenever they choose. as if it's not really mine.

i wake up. i'm still thirsty. and then i fall back asleep.

i'm in a bedroom, and it's all white. there are ropes of christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, and a mattress on the floor, and everything is pristine. there are sheer white curtains on the windows, and everything is floating and pretty and nice. and i'm sitting on the edge of the mattress, and i'm watching an old flame and his current love interest dance around the room, wrapping themselves in the lights, and smiling, and dancing, and they are all twinkly and happy and pristine and he smiles at me, as if to say, see? and i'm genuinely happy for them, but something about the lights and the smiles is totally heartbreaking, and i shrink away from the whole room and suddenly i'm sitting alone and watching the whole scene on a screen, as if it's a home movie that's been recorded before. just two people dancing and laughing, tangled up in lights.

i wake up. it's 6am and i don't let myself go back to sleep. the day starts as usual: i get in the shower, shave my legs, brush my teeth, make some tea. i sit down at my desk and DR dings me at 7am so i can start work. we finish up, i get dressed, make my way to the J and here i am in midtown. everyday ordinary morning. it's like last night never happened, except it did, and i'm still all twisted up about it. it's kind of hard to write about real estate strategies or downtown revitalization or a new architecture exhibit when i'm wondering where i'm fucking up or why the old ghosts are back or when i get to be the one in love, dancing in lights.

sigh. but time to focus it is. the work is good work, at least ... and i have korea vs. switzerland, a play with D, dinner with G, and C's big birthday bash to look forward to this weekend. dreams be damned. the real world is calling.

fair warning

2006-06-20T13:35:00.001-04:00

to you antiquated, unoriginal and stagnant black hole of careerism: get out of my way and don't fuck with my business again.

you have no idea who you are dealing with.

futbol fever. or maybe malaria.

2006-06-19T10:28:00.000-04:00

i am now officially the kind of girl that screams and jumps up and down and yells at the television.

i like it.

i missed korea's match against togo, but i was there for its spectacular tie against france. jumping. screaming. gesticulating. while alone. watching ABC in my apartment. totally sober. with all the lights off. because maybe it was cooler that way? because it was 1200 degrees and i was too lazy to set up my air conditioning.

but my point is, we TIED FRANCE in a game where we were supposed to get trounced. so, i think, if we at least tie switzerland on friday, then even if france beats togo, we will advance to the second round because we'll have scored enough goals to put is in the top 2 of our group. i think. the majority of my world cup education came from G during the brazil game, but i've been studying fifa.com and i think i got it now. so ... yay futbol! yay koreans! yay jung hwan ahn! yes — i've joined the legions of korean girls that want this man. good thing i'm bigger than all of them combined, because he's mine. so step off unless you want to get broken.

there was all kinds of futbol this weekend. there was all kinds of lots of things this weekend, actually. friday i had some much-needed solo C-time, in our own private italy, aka moto. then we wandered off for some wine at larry lawrence, then back home for puttering and nonsense and to exchange some pleasantries with RS, who was fresh off a plane from boston and stopped by before his gig. RS is on the mend from a broken heart (been there! understand that!) so it was good to repay the kindness everyone has given me, and give him a hug and cheer him up a little. and really, what sight could be more cheerful than a drunk C in a pretty pretty dress floating around my apartment with one — yes, just one — of my new rollerblades on her foot?

exactly.

saturday was off for some much-needed G-time and the first of the weekend's copa mundial fun. i caught the last bit of the U.S.-italy match at a bar full of him, NG, and NG's brownie friends. full of them. and one of them had their baby with them? in the bar? i found this disturbing. anyways. we ditched the throng and baby in favor of puttering and nonsense, then dinner at grape & grain. everytime i go to that restaurant i heart it more. delicious, inexpensive tapas and a vibe that's quirky-chic-laidback-smart-whatmeworry? all at the same time. eventually, we ended up with NG and his ladyfriend at the delancey for a drum and bass party. the music was fun, but note to the haole emcee: put down the mic. put DOWN the mic. i only wish i had remembered that the delancey has that cool rooftop garden bar ... next time.

sunday ... more futbol! brazil vs. australia at central bar was the perfect sunday morning venue for a futbol education. plus, they played the lambada and the macarena, repeatedly. HOWEVER, i give warning to all of my fellow sweet-blooded, carbon-dioxide and lactic-acid emitting sufferers of the same combination of chemoattractants as me: do not go to central bar without DEET in hand. i had noticed a few critters buzzing around the bar when we sat down, and against my better judgement i didn't run down the street for some some sort of chemical wash for my skin. by midway through the second half, i had 11 mosquito bites. E-L-E-V-E-N. some mosquito has a whole lot of my DNA in its system. and all the while, G was blissfully hooting and hollering at the game, with nary a mosquito near him.

the bite count doesn't stop there, however. i had one mosquito in my apartment, and sometime during the shouting and screaming in the dark during the korea vs. france game sunday afternoon, it somehow got me 4 times on my elbow. F-O-U-R. i killed that motherfucker, but it was too late. the damage was done.

so ... i now look a little bit like a leper. i'm a big, spotty, scratchy, skeeter buffet slathered in aveeno anti-itch and popping claritin to try and bring down the redness. i think this is some sort of exercise in vanity control, so i stop caring what my skin looks like. but i'm not vain! i'm not! i just think my skin needs to be perfect!

*sigh*

ok i'm telling myself to shut up. pardon my ranting. i can't help it. the itchyness and whatever form of west nile i probably contracted this weekend is starting to push me over the edge. good thing i have work to keep my mind occupied, right? ha! ha!

six months deep

2006-06-13T17:24:00.000-04:00

we've reached a mid-way point in 2006. i know. shhhh. i'm telling myself to shut up even as i write this. but taking stock seems like the appropriate thing to do. so let's see:

i had my golden birthday.

i learned i was about to become an aunt to my precious nephew.

i became a cosmic aunt to little G.

i logged 44,000 miles in the air.

i crossed the country 10 times.

i reunited with some significant people: E, J, KH.

i lost somebody significant.

i moved.

i ate vietnamese, colombian, and moroccan foods for the first time.

i acquired 5 pairs of shoes.

i acquired 6 dresses.

i acquired 3 pieces of orange furniture.

i body surfed, salsa danced, played $5 roulette and visited a northern california vineyard all for the first time.

i received 1 promotion.

i received 2 job offers.

i figured out not caring what other people think makes me significantly happier than pretty much anything else in the world.

i made 4 trips to the dentist.

i wrote many, many poems.

i wrote 3 good poems.

i used 5 metrocards.

i finally think i understand my parents.

and of course, i have developed several prominent new addictions: nabe-yaki udon, bloc party, jamie lidell, teany green tea, coco cafe, moto, locks, gmail chat, spf 30, chicken-avocado-sprouts-and-muenster, things that slant, wrap dresses, ecchinacea, china star, the J train.

i wonder what the second half of 2006 will bring?

why moving to brooklyn was the best idea ever reason #3

2006-06-13T11:18:00.000-04:00

puttering with neighbors.

i guess i didn't quite realize how important neighbors were, until i finally had them. i mean, have them. i mean ... yeah.

for example: last weekend.

all i really did was putter. i love to putter. and somehow, puttering with neighbors makes puttering 12 billion times better.

friday night, for example, i was puttering around my apartment. K shows up. we putter some more. C and V come to pick us up, for a birthday party at lolita, but after a few drinks we realize puttering in williamsburg seems like a better alternative. V needs to get up early, so he and C drop K and me back off at Y and AB's, where poker was in full swing. we puttered. the most wonderful thing was that as soon as i got sleepy, all i had to do was walk a few blocks home, partially accompanied by MU and K. brilliant evening of putter.

saturday, there was primetime puttering at brunch with the girls at coco cafe, which has actual grass in the backyard and is just blocks from our cluster of apartments. grass! it's unbelievable. then we puttered, and shopped, and puttered some more. Y and i argued for a bit over whether napping or manicures should be next, but naps won, and i puttered my way home. a nap was not mine to be had, though ... because as i rounded the corner to my apartment, AM jumped out from behind a car and before i knew what was happening, had somehow weasled his way into my apartment for a nap. HIS nap. not MY nap. but what can i say, i have a hard time saying no to that twitchy little dude. and besides, these are the kinds of joys one has when all of one's friends live within a 10-block radius, and when there is a world cup on, and when said friends have been drinking since 7am and need a place to crash because walking those 10 blocks seems too exhausting to bear.

sigh.

sunday, there was more primetime puttering at brunch with the girls at dumont, also just a few blocks from our cluster of apartments, which does not have actual grass but DOES have little tree seedlings that rained on us the whole afternoon. after brunch, there was some wandering ... and then some puttering. K and C landed back at my apartment, because Y was off being mysterious somewhere. after several hours lounging there, we then made the big big decision to walk two blocks to C's apartment. i learned that C can do a splendiferous cirque du soleil act, and if i had any idea how to get pictures off of my phone, i would show you. and then finally, finally, finally, i peeled myself off the couch to go home. and putter.

anyways. my point is, i'm in love with my neighborhood and my neighbors. everything feels safe and good, even when i'm having sympathy pains with C and wanting to either cry my eyes out or punch somebody's lights out, like last night. but i think maybe, maybe, too much empathy is much better than none? maybe it's a little impossible to be alone when there are so many loving people so close? K made the gorgeous point, in her blog, that she always thought she was living alone in new york without her family but it turns out she was living in brooklyn with her family all around her.

i like that.

the sky

2006-06-07T09:04:00.000-04:00

it won't stop crying.

stop crying, sky! there's no crying! there's no crying in baseball!

welcome to my bloc party

2006-06-05T22:38:00.000-04:00

i will be serving heartache washed down with a british accent.

C says she would like to eat all my sadness.

thanks, momma.

i've never known what's good for me. so please don't be offended if i seem absent-minded — i just don't know what i'm holding out for, or what's always in the way.

sigh

2006-06-05T13:25:00.000-04:00

my heart is tired.

before the burn

2006-05-31T09:49:00.000-04:00

sunday's jaunt to brighton beach turned dangerous for some. and it wasn't even just the haoles!

we started off all sunkissed and fabulous. here's me and Y, thrilled to be on the beach. brighton isn't the most beautiful beach in the world — the proportion of shredded glass to sand seemed just about 1:1 — but it did the trick for those of us jonesing for some ocean. look at how happy K is! she's off in miami now. don't get eaten by gators, little lady. i had no idea that AB was a full-on sun warrior, but he battled the sun on every front. sunscreen, umbrella, suncreen, umbrella ... and then more sunscreen. here he is, chilling in the shade. apparently, this is something that each of these kids should have done too. AG, D, and G all got wicked burns. protection, people! protection! here they are, slowly learning their lessons ...

i know it's not funny ... but maybe kind of it is a little bit? that D had to have the director of HR aloe her back while in the office? that G's head sizzles if you put an ice cube on it? the fact that G was so desperate to cool off his scalp that he put an ice cube on it? that AS never, EVER learns her lesson that girls with porcelain skin should NOT hang out all day in sunshine?

Y and i are trying to organize yet another day in the sun this weekend, to replace the elusive camping trip. damn HH and his fickle ways ... damn him! but anyways. not to fret. looks like we'll be in a trolley sipping wine in long island or lolling about a beach with sand creeping into inappropriate places. i'm excited, either way.

summer makes me happy.

choi-ing out

2006-05-30T11:13:00.000-04:00

i just completed my first morning commute of the season.

my thoughts:

"you fat, sloppy, sweaty beast, if you step on my foot or brush your sticky back against me one more time, i am going to whack you over your greasy head you dumbfuck bitch."

this is affectionately known in some circles as "choi-ing out." the show is sure to come soon to a subway car near you.

well ...

2006-05-24T11:33:00.000-04:00

the downside: i lost $200 at the roulette table. the upside (kinda): it wasn't my money.

thanks, GM, for sponsoring the evening's debauchery, and my ill-fated return to gambling. next time we go 33 black all night, my love. 33 black.

how does the desert make everyone white?

2006-05-23T23:31:00.000-04:00

i am on hour 51 in las vegas, and i am sleepy. talking all day makes me sleepy. haoles make me sleepy. haoles in business suits make me sleepy. creepy drunk haoles at networking parties with only one woman to every 28 men make me sleepy.

the thing is, talking all day to haoles in business suits that i saw the night before being creepy and drunk at networking parties where there was only one woman to every 28 men ... it really, really, really makes me sleepy.

still, because i am in las vegas, and because, well, i am in las vegas, i am refusing to succumb to the sleepiness. it won't win. i'm on my way out to the hard rock with some guys from my old job — haoles, of course — but nice guys nonetheless. a drink and some tunes would be nice. i can't wait to be back in new york. i want to see brown people! yellow people! black people! rainbow people! next time i have to travel for work, i'm packing some non-haoles in my bag for emergency purposes.

yes. really.

aloha report, v2.2

2006-05-15T03:05:00.000-04:00

i am totally blissed out.

7am friday found me at the blossoming lotus cafe in kapa'a, a historic town on the east side of the island, sipping on organic chai tea with S, freshly imported from the north shore of oahu for the weekend. there were little burning sticks of sage brush on the patio, which S informed me is used to cleanse people and places of negative energy, unhappy memories and unwelcome spirits. sounds good to me. once we were all cleansed, a strange thing began happening. everything started taking on this certain glowy sheen. i don't know ... maybe it's S and his whole surfer spiritual energy connection seek union with the cosmos and be one with the ocean and world thing, or maybe it's the aloha getting to my head, but i swear, this new age crap really works. after an hour or two hanging with the sage at the blossoming lotus, everything kind of just became its most perfect version of itself. i even have photo evidence to prove it. after breakfast, we found ourselves at the kilauea lighthouse, which is the northernmost point of all the hawaiian islands. now, tell me this view doesn't break your heart and then make you feel whole again, all in one breath? anyways. okay. i guess i don't need to tell you how it makes me feel.we arrived back in princeville for another fantastic vision. momma and poppa choi, off to go "practice" and hit golf balls. my parents literally worked every day of their lives until retiring last fall, and just took up golf in april. i honestly can't think of a sight more precious than this.more fortuitous things kept happening. at hanalei bay, the sun was just starting to scorch us when a runaway umbrella from the family a few hundred yards away came and bonked S on the head. the mom ran over to apologize, then said oh, we're leaving the island today, do you want the umbrella? why yes, yes we do. here's S assembling aforementioned runaway umbrella, which now lives in my parents garage. the umbrella. not S. java kai and delicious tropical fruit smoothies eventually called us back into hanalei. for those of you who remember the aloha reports of 2005, you know how i heart java kai. we returned there later in the weekend so i could have a papaya boat for breakfast — a hollowed out papaya filled with chunks of papaya, pineapple, banana and smothered with shredded coconut, and served with a dollop of yogurt and granola. sigh. have i mentioned i heart java kai? then again, after a few days in hawaii, i kind of start to heart everything. especially when cute boys do this:and i happen to be sitting across from them doing this. which is to say, doing nothing. except slurping down pineapple smoothie. back at home, sometime this weekend — friday? saturday? i honestly don't know — i became deeply obsessed with our neighbor's palm tree. this particular tree sits on the corner of kekuanao'a lane and honoiki street. if i were a giant, i'd pluck it right out of the ground and use it as a fan. as i am not a giant, however, i will just admire it. i like this tree best just before sunset. it gets all ringed with pink. S and i went to a beach i'd never been to before, at ha'ena beach park. there are some big surf breaks off of the shore that he'd surfed a couple years back, so he bonded with the lifeguards over cannons and tunnels and i think a break called dumptrucks? there was also a lot of conversation about shark attacks just offshore. sharks? from where i'm sitting it doesn't seem possible. sharks? really?despite some fairly involved conversations about hungry, carnivorous water animals, we still got in the ocean to play. S taught me how to body surf, but i was approximately as successful as when he taught me how to surf-surf. basically, i got ragdolled every time i attempted a big wave. but no matter. he made sure i a) didn't drown and b) didn't get rolled into the reef drop off, both of which were very good things. an even better thing was this perfect specimen of tourist that showed up at the beach that afternoon. classic: handheld camcorder. fisherman hat. white sneakers and tube socks to the knees. i heart this man. i hope he found whatever he was looking for. i found good things at the beach, too. i had wanted to find a new shade of yellow to paint my bedroom in my parents house. and an afternoon's worth of hard work at ha'ena yielded these lovely samples in the perfect buttery shade. sigh. i had fun. aloha, elmo. thank you for helping me make new memories, and reminding me that we have to love people for everything they are, and give them everything we have, always. til next time!
now it's sunday night, i am all cosmic peaceful sage-bushed out, full of my favorite soup, made for me by moms, and getting sleepy. tomorrow is my last day on island, then i'm on the red eye to phoenix tomorrow night. on tuesday morning i land in phoenix to get on a plane that will land me at good old newark sometime tuesday evening ... and then i begin the trek to sweet sweet brooklyn.

yay brooklyn. dare i say, i missed you, even in paradise?

aloha report, v2.1

2006-05-12T01:42:00.000-04:00

i have eight mosquito bites.

after nearly a week in tropical bug-land, this is a record low for me. i am one of those people you should always try to sit near at a picnic or while camping or in the forest or any other such place where biting insects are likely to be looking for a feast, because they will ignore you entirely in favor of chomping me to bits. i am like a bug lamp. but anyways. only eight bites! they are torturing me, but at least there are only eight of them. thank you, oh makers of DEET. how i love thee.

i still, however, have managed to get myself some funny blotches of redness on my shoulder and neck. sun poisoning, maybe? i dunno. i think it might be a reaction to the tropical plants that kept reaching out and touching me today. but it's not so bad. i think maybe, just maybe, it's worth it to have some skin irritation to be able to go on walks like this with my dad? this path is just off of ke'e beach, the northwesternmost point of the island and the furthest you can travel by car. ke'e is also the northern end of the na pali coast, which covers the entire west side of the island and is inaccessible except by boat, or your feet. the kalalau trail, the most famous hike in hawaii, and the only way to really see na pali, starts here. over christmas B and i did the first four miles of the kalalau, taking the two-mile side trip to swim in hanakapi'ai falls. and it was gorgeous. but today, i contented myself with chilling with my dad, and stopping for little breaks on the rocks. and for C, only for C, i made my dad take this picture. note the thumbs, please. after lunch at zelos — grilled mahi mahi tacos and beer battered mahi mahi burgers — and our walk at ke'e, me and the p's headed home to veg. i finished the secret life of bees, decided i wanted to live in a honeycomb, and delved into the source of trouble. it's good but the stories are getting a little heady for my sun-addled brain. i went for a walk at dusk and ended up at the neighborhood beach again. and there, i made the most amazing discovery. my elbow, when covered with sand, looks just like a toasted everything bagel. yes, these are the things that one discovers, and finds astounding, when one is wandering solo. things like mosquito bites. and elbows. at least i'm not taking pictures of my feet again. but really. such constant, slow solitude, after new york recently, just makes me want to — i don't know. just take these really big breaths to make sure i don't forget anything. actually finding room and space to breathe, alone, after everything that has erupted in my life in the past six months, i feel this mixture of total relief, and refreshment, and happiness, and wistfulness, and thoughtfulness, and acceptance, and just this need to stretch my arms out and somehow hug the whole world, and release it again. there's a line in the secret life of bees that describes dusk as the unknowing place between coming and going. dusk is the time of saying goodbye. and it kind of makes me ache on the inside. but i guess ... i guess if something is going to make me ache, it might as well be a dusk as pretty as this?

aloha report, v2.0

2006-05-10T02:57:00.000-04:00

aloha. today was spent with momma and poppa choi, snorkeling and then lounging at tunnels beach: yesterday was spent with my dad puttering in his garden like this: admiring the baby papaya tree and his pepper plants! then around sunset, i went for a walk: and ended up at the beach: happy like this:

thankfully, the rocky beginning of this trip was no indication of how the trip itself would go. Y's birthday party was splendiferous in every which way, except for in the morning after, which is when i overslept, didn't pack, ended up throwing flipflops and three bikinis into a rolling bag, and then got into a car for 15-plus hours of traveling while still unshowered and painfully hungover. and when i say painfully .... i mean painfully. i mean wondering how much tel aviv was going to charge me when i booted in the backseat of the lincoln town car hungover. i mean thinking i might cry if the security guys made me wait for one more second before i got to sit down hungover. i mean wishing i were dead hungover.

it was not very aloha.

but, upon landing, finally, in lihue, all icky feelings were washed away. my parents and a bunch of their friends whisked me away to kintaro, a fantastic sushi joint, so i ate all manner of delicious fish surrounded by happy korean people, all of whom were exclaiming just how BIG i was! for the record, i was the same height as all the men and had anywhere between 4 and 6 inches and up to 30 pounds on the women.

things have continued to get more aloha since then. i've spent my days putzing around the house, either reading or sunbathing out on the lanais—i actually chase the sun from the east side of the house, when i read on the lanai off of the downstairs kitchen, to the west side, when i read off of the upstairs living room—admiring my dad's garden, overeating my mom's food, and making little walks to the neighborhood store, neighborhood pool, or one of two neighborhood beaches. my second day here i had a deep tissue massage that was so relaxing, i swear i started hallucinating. since arriving on island, i've eaten approximately 12 tons of grapefruit, 6 tons of pineapple, 4 tons of kimchi, and today, 2 tons of kahlua pig from the mixed plate food stand in hanalei.

mmm. kahlua pig.

it's 9pm and time for me to go to bed. i'm sleepy and my skin's hot all over. i've been vigilant about the sunscreen but snorkeling today did me in — i'm a little pink on my arms and tummy and back. and i actually have a tan line on my back of the knot in my bikini! the knot! good lord. talk about a winner of a line. but. eh. this is what happens when one spends a morning on her stomach swimming in a reef with tropical fish. things could be worse.

status check, four days into vacation:
sunburn — medium
freckles — extremely high
tummy — full
mana — strong

until next time ... aloha!

birthday bonanza, part 2

2006-05-09T03:17:00.000-04:00

on may 5, Y did the deed.

another one bites the dust, and turned 27. here we are in the beginning of the evening, at a bar in chinatown. isn't the birthday girl just radiant? C and K and i are doing some kind of weird monochromatic thing in this picture. but why did i let C unzip my dress so far? why did i think it was a good idea to wear an item that many, many people would try to unzip, anyways? and as long as we're asking questions, who's the dood in the background? he looks mighty happy. AS arrived a bit later, pooped out from the opera. but she wouldn't miss phase two of birthday bonanza. look at how my ladies glow! of course, how could one NOT be happy? there was bel biv devoe. there was salt 'n pepa. there was arrested development. there was prince. there was michael jackson. there was even — and i mean really, does it get better than this? — boyz II men.

M got into the spirit of things, even though he didn't quite get all of our ecstasy when we imitated the monster dance from "thriller," or why we all started suddenly started screaming "push it, unh, push it GOOD!" in unison. of course, he has an excuse, having grown up in cuba and not the bloated, MTV-addicted american suburbs of the 1980s. anyways. here he is looking devilishly handsome on the dancefloor. M's confusion for the music was tempered, however, by AB's enthusiasm. inner monologue as he rolls up his sleeves: "yani, watch me! i'm gonna show them this white boy can DANCE!" i think MU shared AB's sentiments. at least, they both danced so much they ended up taking off their shirts. MU's clothed in this picture, but i do recall some serious flashing of marine corps tattoos throughout the evening. this angel face and battlefields in iraq don't really seem to jive, but he's got the ink to prove it, so it must be true ... i include this picture, because this picture is why i love this girl. LOVE her. C and i were both pretty happy about 2 minutes before we left Y's bonanza. then we both hit a wall. then we both climbed into a cab, assisted by AS and G. the cab booted us out because his meter didn't work, even though both of us had already taken off our shoes, and that seemed good enough reason to us that he should take us home, immediately. we then reluctantly climbed into another cab, whose driver was even more reluctant to take us to williamsburg, but took us home anyways ... and who we then made wait while i ran inside at 3am to retrieve a vacuum for Y, to give to C. (see "my heart was mended" for why i might possibly have Y's vacuum.) C obliged, willingly. yet another reason why i love this girl. of course, in our collective state, she may not have had a clue what she was agreeing to, but that is beside the point. this is what cosmic sisters do for each other.

why did i need to give C the vacuum at 3am? doesn't that seem like a weird exchange after, oh, six hours of drinking and celebrating our best friend's birthday?

because at 6:30am, a mere three and a half hours later, a car was coming to pick me up to start me on a journey that would include 2 hours of car travel, 3 hours of airport waiting and layovers, and 11.5 hours of flying before i arrived at my destination.

that was not fun.

but more on travel, and why one should never, ever do so after having drunk innumerable champagnes and jack and cokes, later. for now, a big big big happy birthday smush for Y, who i've been lucky enough to have in my life for nine years and whose friendship just gets more precious with every single one. love you, little rat.

seen in the subways ...

2006-05-03T23:09:00.000-04:00

10:48pm, wednesday night at the essex street J/M/Z platform.

a yellow emergency telephone box, covered in the typical graffiti and stickers, with these words printed in small capital letters on the side: DEVIOUS SEMANTICS

birthday bonanza, part 1

2006-05-01T09:22:00.000-04:00

oh, birthdays.

here we find ourselves, celebrating 27. and it’s the NINTH year i’ve celebrated a birthday weekend with my lovely dearest AS. happy birthday, steelie! here she is friday night, at bleu evolution up in washington heights, also known as The Other Side of the World. she had a tiramisu. with a candle. when we talked to the wait staff and asked them to hook us up for her birthday, he said, “oh! for the lady in red?” the next night, I had no such waiter clamoring to give me tiramisu. but I did have a case of champagne, 30 champagne glasses, a bunch of sliced strawberries and a couple of good friends to help me celebrate. due to much drama with a craptastic landlord and a whole lot of craptasticness, we had a change of venue from tribeca to a little hole in the wall in billyburg. this was actually an ingenious idea cooked up after midnight on thursday, when i had finally calmed down from the craptasticness and C, Y and i were sitting around Y's apartment deep into a bottle of rioja. actually, C and i were. Y was asleep in my lap. but C, who suddenly was overcome with a bout of brainstormingmommykickassness, took control and chatted up sweet tammy sue at boogaloo, an underground "bar" just under the J tracks, next door to a pumping latin club, and stumbling distance of my apartment.

i say “bar” with some skepticism, because i very, very, very much doubt that the main business of this “bar” is distributing alcoholic beverages. or any beverages. or anything dry of any kind, come to think of it. but no matter. the “bartenders” at this “bar” gave us free run of the place, let us bring in as much champagne as we wanted, set up all of our bottles and glasses as we wanted, let us play our own music for the first couple hours, and giggled a lot. they did want us to have a one-drink minimum to make sure the “bar” made money, but cared zero about how it was implemented and didn’t seem to care very much at all about anything, even after they realized we gave away dozens of free drink tickets by the end of the night. eh. who cares. champagne — and the other substances that i believe the "bartenders" were floating around the "bar" — has that effect, i find... anyhoo. here i am: yay champagne!

now, there were all kinds of worlds mingling at the “bar.” but somehow, it seemed to work. here is the world of the newly Nastefied, the people who make work not unbearable, and dare i say — fun?here's the world of AM, the only ex I’ve ever managed to — come to think of it, ever wanted to — stay in touch with. i think it's that whole unbelievably-talented-thing he's got going. yay AM.and the world of out of town friends! here’s DR with DG, surprising me from the nation’s capitol. DR, by the way, completely forgot that he was responsible for me this morning. i sat numbly at my computer for 45 minutes, waiting forlornly for DD, my usual editor to find me, before i finally asked DR for work … can you believe that at 7:30am on Monday morning i was asking somebody to give me work to do?DR came with D — you sneaky girl, you are good at keeping secrets! — who had her fake boyfriend N in tow. i think she hearts him. but i think i do too. he gave me a cupcake. and my heart is easily bought by things such as cupcakes. here is the world of hearting:ES, writer extraordinaire, and of the world of my philly friends, was in town, also from the nation's capitol, for a meeting with newsweek. bless his stars, he hauled his ass out to brooklyn despite evidence of harsh flu-like symptoms. he and his new blonde mop deserved a kiss:

in fact, I think K, world of you know, world, deserved a kiss too. a big one. a big big one. K secretly wants to move into my apartment. it's okay. i kinda want her to, too. 22.okay. so speaking of kissing. i think maybe i gave AB a big fat smacker on the mouth? MAN. i was kissy on saturday night. but look at him! too precious. i think that maybe on my 24th birthday i maybe grabbed his butt? oy vey. if Y were not one of the most beautiful women in the world, and of the world of the chosen few, and of the world of incredibly patient people who can handle me when i'm freaking out over something like, oh, a venue change for my birthday party, and cool enough to take calls at 3am from "bartenders" ... she might have cared that i was smooching everyone in sight, including her boyfriend. however, she is, and is, and is, and is. here she is with C, the other half of Amy's Fantabulous Wonderful Party Planning Crew:and here’s G, also of the world of the chosen few. he makes me giggle. he also wins the prize for dealing with me at the end of the night, when i was approximately 4 bottles of champagne deep, and insisting that somebody, namely G, walk me down broadway so i could look for pizza at 3am. what i learned on this adventure: there is no pizza available on broadway at 3am. only fried chicken. and empanadas. and slightly scary neighborhood types. no pizza. i also learned that G can manage a verrrry tipsy, hungry girl in 4-inch wedge heels that is trying to lean over the bridge railing to take pictures of the cars on the BQE, and still carry a bag of 30 dirty champagne glasses for several blocks without breaking a single one. good job, G.here’s AS, fresh from her own 27th. what is that they say about opposites attracting? you're the light to my dark, AS ... and i couldn't think of a better person to share a birthday with. chosen few chosen few!
and of course, my lil C. i believe mischief was afoot. but we deserved a little mischief. maybe it was the thought of all those metal buckets. maybe the "thank you" offered to us by the "bartenders." maybe the pictures in the bathroom? oh wait. um. uh. anyways. sigh. what would i do without these girls?

here’s to year 27. thank you to everyone who came and for making my birthday splendid :)

splendid!

the birthday baton has been officially passed. next up: Y.

my heart was mended

2006-04-26T12:34:00.000-04:00

by a scottish man:

i heart you, jamie lidell. i heart your insanely rich soulful delicious not-even-in-the-least-bit-disappointing-live voice. i heart your angular shoulders and silly gold collar and white leather boots. i heart your goofy grin and jolty dances and total lack of pretension. i heart the totally sexy and complete way that beats occupy your body. and i heart heart heart the ease with which you move from heavy to soulful to light to violent to indulgent to sweet to aggressive to magical, as if all of those things inhabited you at the same time, all the time.

sigh.

thank you for making me happy last night, jamie lidell.

yesterday started out not so great. i woke up at my usual 6:45am, blurrily made myself a mug of earl gray and sat down at my laptop for my morning gig. my thumb and middle finger on my right hand are all ouchy and painful, and i notice i've developed a blister and a welt from burning myself cooking the night before, and my vanity wells up like an angry blowfish. but other than the ouchyness, all is well with me until about 8:05am, when while busily writing a summary about soft vs. rough toilet paper, or some such nonsense, i look down at my desk and notice an ant.

and then another.

and then, good lord, ANOTHER.

now, an ant problem in my bedroom would perhaps not be surprising if A) i was a slob B) i left candy out to rot or C) if i was a slob. i am, however, A) meticulous B) freakish about bugs and rarely leave food out C) meticulous.

so needless to say, i panic slightly. after noticing MORE ants, i tell DD i have to go, and promptly call my building manager (no answer, of course) and then frantically google "exterminator new york."

and i find my way to Absolute Death, exterminators extraordinnaire.

the nice fellow from Absolute Death calms me down, says he'll have two technicians out to me that afternoon, and in the meantime i should clean my rugs, get everything out of my bedroom, especially everything off the floor, and try to find the source of the ants.

so i do just that. in between my ant-vigilante-dom, i take C's keys and bolt to her apartment to borrow her vacuum. the top key lock doesn't work. d'oh! i bang on K's door, and yes! she has a vacuum. she looks for it, and d'oh! Y has taken it. since Y is at work, i manically call AB on both of his phones and leave panicked messages about my need for their vacuum. ten minutes later he sleepily calls me back and i rush over to their place to pick up the equipment. then i rush back home, and after removing everything out of my bedroom other than my bed and desk (this includes all the clothes out of my closet, the paintings, the stacks of books and papers and notes, my computer, my shoe racks ... EVERYTHING) i vacuum my little heart out, wipe everything down, dust, and then vacuum again. and i stake out the ants, which i think are coming from a little crack in my windowsill.

mind you, yesterday was also one of the busiest days i've had in weeks, work-wise; stupid freelance stuff to take care of, plus a million calls scheduled at WWD. so i vacuum, take call; kill ants, talk about the future of the fragrance industry; vacuum, make appointments for a vegas trip; kill ants, deal with crazed publicist.

Absolute Death shows up, and the very friendly techs seal and caulk up the source (i was right! some small cracks in my windowsill), spray down every inch of my bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, and regale me with stories of R.O.U.S.es roaming free in new york. apparently, rats really do go up into residential toilets. and they really are up to 2 feet long, including their tails. and yes -- they can recognize people that usually drop food or bring out garbage or otherwise feed them!!!

eep. ants no longer seem like such a big deal.

so after my ant extravaganza, i head into work, where i have a rushed couple hours of work -- but yay! my zappos showed up -- and decide i am too tired, cranky, and stressed about my disaster of an apartment and the general annoyance that has been my life lately to go see jamie lidell. besides, AM is being all iffy about it, and i wasn't up to going to a show by myself. not today. er, yesterday.

but back home, while scarfing down pork tenderloin leftovers -- which were definitely tasty but perhaps not worth the welts on my hands -- AM calls and says he's in. he doesn't have a ticket yet, but he's in. so he comes to pick me up, we hang out in my war zone of a home, get a little buzzed, and drive over to the bowery ballroom. at the door, evil of evils! the show is sold out. i debate going in solo, or going to queens with a very disappointed AM to his studio, or going back to williamsburg to have a drink, or just going home and calling an end to this very crappy ant-filled day. and then i start to hear beats ... lots and lots of beats.

i leave AM and am lured inside. jimmy edgar is on stage, pumping out some appealing, heavy and dark tracks. after a quick set change, my new husband, my heart of hearts, jamie lidell pops onstage. his 90-minute set included all the best tracks from multiply, the highlights being "what's the use" and "you got me up." he brought jimmy edgar out for a track or two, which was just ... hot. then he closed with a freaking killer mix of "when i come back around" and then encored with a singalong "multiply." the fact that this goofy-looking white boy had the moves of james brown AND the soul of a big black woman wrapped up in pipes of gold AND the hands of a badass producer AND the comedic timing of a vaudeville star AND could beat box AND could get a crowd of club rats, R&B fans, gay men and goth rock kids all blissed out and dancing together ... it was a beautiful thing.

and totally healing. i feel clearer and brighter. and to think, i almost skipped out on this night of happy anonymity and skin-tingling music. thank you, jamie! i heart you forever and ever.

oh zappos, how i love thee!

2006-04-23T14:15:00.000-04:00

for chic, comfortable city walking, i ordered these:

for chic, not-quite-as-comfortable city walking, i ordered these:

and for my chic, take-no-prisoners-who-cares-about-comfort birthday party, i've ordered these:

in another burst of consumerism, i have not ordered but continue to lust over these. how perfect would these be in my little retro kitchen? so perfect, i say. i want.

no i said YOUR mom

2006-04-13T09:27:00.000-04:00

no seriously. i said say hi to your mom! do it! eric elbogen is doing it, why not you?

Would you draw me with your pencils and your pen,
Make me much prettier than I really am?

sigh.

we may have been the oldest halmunees there, but we had fun last night. me, C, V, SK, and assorted others crashed the bowery ballroom for say hi to your mom, hail social, and mates of state for a healthy dose of pop rock and dance punk lite, and happy times were had. of course, C and i missed the entire hail social set because we got preoccupied at the bar, but it was a necessary reprieve. and a good one. see!

we did, at least, catch mates of state. here is somewhat obstructed view. i think i am fated for slightly obstructed views, these days ... but really, who gives two poops about obstructed views when the music is that fun?

i checked out from the show about halfway through, when i reached my cuteness saturation point. i love the poppy dance punk stuff, but there's a definite level at which my tolerance for the excessively happy is breached. or ... maybe not. because upon walking out of the ballroom, i was so overcome with excitement that jamie lidell was playing that i had to take a picture. he'll be in town on april 25. anybody in?

of course, it could have just been that i was just camera happy yesterday. because on the way home, i for some reason decided it would be a really, really good idea to document my whole way home. so here is my night of the most new york of experiences, the subway. first, the platform at the bowery on the lower east side. this is where we wait, and contemplate exiting the platform to spend $12 and just freakin take a cab home.

and after we wait patiently for a few minutes, we then begin to look into the tunnel. and wait some more. and look. and wait. and then we consider the stairs again, but we've invested so much time in waiting already ... so we look again into the tunnel.

we maybe just start getting a bit frustrated at the fact that the train going in the OPPOSITE direction has come twice already. maybe a bit. am i the only person that actually rolls their eyes at the trains? stupid trains.

and just when we are about to give up hope ... oh! but oh! oh glorious J train, how we love thee! we KNEW waiting would pay off! how we love public transportation!
the gust of subway air, the satisfaction of having beeen disciplined enough to wait for the train at 11:30 at night, the speeding blur of silver ... ooh. maybe we should step back a few. let's not lose our head.

once comfortably seated and on our way over the bridge, we find ourselves surrounded by the usual cast of characters. and this ... this is why i love the absence of personal space in this city:

a brown velour track suit. a pencil skirt and fryes. a pair of dirty timbs. and in the corner, the hipster's oxblood clogs. welcome to williamsburg.

it makes me want to throw up

2006-04-11T15:24:00.000-04:00

they fucking disgust me. some people fuck.ing.dis.gust.me.

DISGUST ME.

mortify me? horrify me? make me feel small and worthless and SO GODDAMN ANGRY?!

dis.gus.ting.

whew. okay. nausea slowly starting to pass ...

oh. and for the record, since there seemed to be some questions about who it was and i now feel compelled to clarify that it wasn't who everybody seemed to think it was ... that person i was missing? that i wrote about last week? it was J. not anybody else. i miss my running conversation with J.

ohhhh-kay. that's all.

i think my pulse is back to normal now.

poesy

2006-04-09T22:07:00.000-04:00

april is national poetry month.

yay april!

in honor of national poetry month, the academy of american poets launched a new section of their website called life lines. anyone with the inclination can post their favorite lines of poetry and write about why those poems are significant to them. the website breaks my heart, in all the good ways. the personal stories behind certain poems range from horrors in war to a father's cancer to a first pregnancy to falling in love to just gratitude for the poem's existence. these are the poems that people lean on just to get through their every day.

i understand that.

so ... i'm indulging myself. i know poetry is usually kept here. but i wanted to share a few of my own little life lines, in no particular order. or maybe these are actually the poems that drown me?

anyways. maybe you will find something in them, too:

These are merely instances
—Wallace Stevens, from "Theory"

I know the forms of care, and understand the grammar of desire.
I understand that life is an affair of words, and that the
Hope of duplicating it is a delusion.
— John Koethe, from "The Constructor"

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, from an untitled sonnet

I don't know what it was I wanted to hold onto.
I kept losing it and I didn't know what it was
Except I wanted to hold onto it. The drink kept it in,
So at least for awhile it felt as if I had it,
Whatever it was. But it was the drink that had it
And held it and had hold of me too. Asshole.
— David Ferry, from "Song of the Drunkard"

As if hands were enough
To hold an avalanche off.
— Thom Gunn, from "The Man with Night Sweats"

For an hour or two the evening has no limits
Or so it seems to you as you walk the pavements
Of this, your adoptive city.
— Stuart Dischell, from "Evening"

You were the perfection of my life
And I couldn't have you. That is, I didn't.
I couldn't think. I wrote, instead. I would have had
To think hard, to figure everything out
About how I could be with you,
Really, which I couldn't do
In those moments of permanence we had
As we walked along.
— Kenneth Koch, from "To Marina"

and finally, here's a longer excerpt of my favorite poem, which i've read almost daily since i moved to new york:

Sometimes I think that I can feel the outside world
Relax, and feel its weight become a part of me again.
The thoughts that linger in the mind, the sounds that
Filter through the trees—these things aren't merely
Signs of some imaginary life to be denied me while the
Heart of everything I used to have remains alive. It
Troubles me that time should make things sweeter, that
Instead of learning how to perceive things as they are I've
Learned to lose them, or to see them as they disappear
Into the insubstantial future. Everything here is mine,
Or lies within my power to accept. I want to find a way
To live inside each moment as it comes, then let it go
Before it breaks up in regret or disillusionment. I've
Constantly defined myself by difference, yet after all
These years I feel as far away as ever from the kind of
Strength I'd hoped the differences would bring. Where
Is that boundless life I know exists beyond the words?
When will the fear that makes me cling to them be gone
And leave me undivided? I can hear the transitory song
The birds sing, but what dominates my mind remains the
Faint, insistent one that draws me back into this dim
Interior where something waits for me, and waits alone.
— John Koethe, from "Between the Lines"

a thesis celebration

2006-04-09T18:16:00.000-04:00

let me present, master C:

this week, C handed in her thesis, completing a 3-year journey to attain her master's degree in visual arts administration.

my best friend master C. hee.

we had grand plans for saturday night's celebration. we really did. we were going to indulge in some intoxicants at my place with a few choice friends, then walk over to the brooklyn tuning party for an open bar and tech house all night. the party was only three blocks from our collective cluster of apartments. G knew the dj. AM knew the promoters. even Y — who will soon be have her masters in education! good lord i have a lot of masters in my life these days — was up for the challenge. a night of bass lines and dancing was fated to happen.

several bottles of champagne, a plateful of gouda, guava and mission figs, and a rapidly disappearing handle of jim beam later, and fate no longer seemed to carry too much weight with anybody. K and C hadn't stopped giggling in, oh, hours? Y and AC were deeply involved in conversation about ... something. V was taking pictures of his feet. and G was taking 12 hours to fill out the friend file book.

yes. the friend file book, perhaps the best idea ever. it's pink, plastic, and has hello kitty all over it. and thanks to K's brilliance, we got to finally answer those pressing questions like ... who has the best hair? who's the biggest flirt? who has the best smile? who has the best poker face? who is really your best friend?

so. busy as we all were filling out our friend file book, and stressing over which sticker best represented our true selves — i selected a daisy. i don't know about the daisy. G seemed to think it was appropriate; Y made a squinchy face at the choice — the clock slowly ticked past midnight, and moved rapidly towards 1am. the kids we were supposed to meet at the party were starting to rumble on the cell phones. they decide to come over, instead.

and suddenly, there are many, many more people in my apartment.

i remember talking to AB about what it was like growing up on a farm and then eating your pet cow. i remember C emerging from nowhere, then realizing that she had not gone home but actually had been asleep in my bedroom for the past three hours. i remember AE and JD drinking whiskey out of champagne classes. i remember Y looking at me intently, then asking me where i was.

i woke up this morning to find an empty 40 in my bathroom and a box of blueberry waffles and vodka slushee in my freezer.

hunh.

congratulations, C :)

and now, we hip hop

2006-04-07T12:43:00.000-04:00

unimpeded view my ass. one goes to see the gorillaz in order to SEE the gorillaz, don't they? and one pays up for "unimpeded view" tickets so they can, again, SEE the gorillaz.

nien. last night, i met G at the apollo theater. we expect a healthy dose of hiphop, rock, some harlem gospel choir and maybe a little dennis hopper. and animation, of course, we are looking for animation.

but our view? plenty impeded.

still, after some minor disgruntledness upon realizing that we could only see the stage, and not the screen — and the fact that the stupidest stupid stupid stupid girl in the world with the stupidest tattoo and the stupidest voice and the stupidest wannabe hiphop hand gestures was sitting in front of us — damon albarn kicked our butts into not caring so much. maybe it's just that G and i are exceptional at making the best of what we got. or maybe the music was just that good. possibly it was neneh cherry that did it? maybe de la soul? maybe dennis hopper? maybe the adorable little kids that tore up the stage?

or maybe ... just MAYBE ... it was ike turner playing piano in a sparkly white jumpsuit.

maybe.

perhaps the only unfortunate thing about the gorillaz last night was that i missed R spinning at symphony space. he's a sick kid right now, but he hauled ass from queens to play an event hosted by dj spooky that explored dj culture and compositional technique. if you're interested in more of R, check out this ooooooold school video of him.

he sent that to me today and it made me mad that i missed out on that part of his life. kind of like how i'm bummed that i never got to see the beasties in the 80s. or the pumpkins at the riv. or radiohead when the bends came out. or at the drive-in any of the millions of times i had tickets but had to miss them for one reason or another and then they had to go and freaking break up. anyways. i'm trying to get R to battle again. just once. just for kicks. just to school those young kids and show them what's up. c'mon ...

but i'll quit bugging him about it, because really, i just want to say thanks. he said the simplest thing to me today about my recent motivational/disciplinary/creative slump and for some reason it just made me feel so much better: "it's a scary feeling but i've always ended up coming out of it. all us creative beings go through that. it's natural!"

yay for comrades in arms! and yay for hip hop and poetry. i mean ... it's all the same thing in the end, isn't it?

stupid

2006-04-05T22:32:00.000-04:00

seriously?

(*&#(*#@&$(*#$&(*#@$&(@#*$&#@(*$&#$(@#*$(_#@$&#_(&*
@#(*_$&(#@_*$&@#_(*$&#(@*$&@()#*$&#(@*$&@#(*$&#@*(
)!@*(#&!@*($^!@*&(*#&$%(*#@)&%()#*@&%#(*%&#(*@)$&)#(@*

sigh.

i miss you.

wtf?

!!!!!!!!!

my elephant dream

2006-04-04T10:19:00.000-04:00

two weeks ago, i had a dream that i was eating an elephant.

devouring an elephant.

i was in the jungle, kneeling over a massive elephant carcass. the ground all around me was covered in huge green leaves, enormous wet palmetto fronds and huge shiny banana leaves. the elephant was laying on them, like it was being served to me. it was bright, but overhead i couldn't see sun or sky, just a lush, dripping jungle canopy.

the elephant was laying on its left side, and i was crouched between its front legs and its head. and i am just ripping chunks out of this elephant with my hands and consuming it. i look up for a moment from the meat in my hand, just before i am about to bite down again and look back at the elephant body.

and it's gone. it's just bones. picked clean. huge elephant ribs, elephant legs, some bits of elephant skin around the body. and in my dream, i think to myself, "good. good. keep going. go."

and i turn to the head.

i kneel over, lift up the huge elephant ear, and consider the massive, majestic head in front of me. i run my hand over the elephant's cheek, pause just below the eye, and tear out a fistful of elephant. and there is elephant blood running down my arm and on my face and elephant flesh everywhere, and i have something like a satisfied moment, and i keep eating.

and that's my elephant dream.

now, suffice to say i've been pretty obsessed with my elephant dream lately. after my initial revulsion, fascination set in ... and i've found that others are equally fascinated.

G's take on my elephant dream:
"damn. eviscerating the elephant. you are insatiable ... you just can't be satisfied. choi the huntress."

C's take on my elephant dream:
"WHHHAT? who/what is the big elephant in the room that you are consuming? B? the relationship? like you're eating and eating so that eventually it will be gone, not really eating, but maybe that's symbolic of all the distractions through dating. and then eventually, B and your relationship with him - poof. gone. digested."

Y's take on my elephant dream:
"memories ... you don't want them but you don't want to forget them. you are hungry, maybe to move on and to remember all at once."

AZ says that your friends' interpretations of your dreams are often more reflective of what is going on in your life than your own interpretation. in other words, the people that know you may have more insight into your subconscious than you yourself do. so if you're curious, you should ask other people for their thoughts. and he, like those before him, gave me his.

have i mentioned that AZ is the best editor ever?

AZ's take on my elephant dream:
"you are at a watershed moment in your life. you are wading through a literal jungle right now. everything that you are going through, all of the changes in your life, the magnitude of everything that is happening, is a jungle. and you are out for survival. an elephant never forgets — and your subconscious is telling you never to forget these moments in your life, never forget how you are feeling, never forget what you are thinking, take it all in and devour it and store it away because you are going to need it later, even if you don't know why now. never forget who you are. and when you dive into the ear and the head, it is because you are listening, and need to remember everything you've heard, and because you are thinking, and you need to remember all of your thoughts. and yes, it is violent. because even though you may want to protect this beautiful animal, your subconscious is highly vested in your survival. and you need to do whatever you need to do right now in order to survive."

a watershed moment in my life. insatiable. hungry. distracted. surviving. and never wanting to forget.

hunh.

maybe all i really needed was for him to say it. because this morning, i woke up. i really woke up. i haven't felt this way in months. i literally feel like i just woke up to my life today. and by some completely undeserving lucky accident, my life is ... my life is filled with people and poetry and movement and anger and love and new york and writing and stories and action and thank god i have FINALLY WOKEN UP!!!!!

safe and sound

2006-04-03T02:01:00.000-04:00

i'm home. i'm back in new york. i'm home.

it's 2am, i have to be up in 4.5 hours, and i didn't sleep a wink on the flight back. i think i'm supposed to be ready for sleep. i should be exhausted, cranky, and collapsing into bed trying to sort out the jumble in my head — which, thankfully, includes not just stupid things like feelings, and thoughts about feelings, but also things of some value, like poems.

poems! remember those?

but instead of being tired, i am wide awake and i feel ... i feel relieved. present. and wistful? maybe wistful, too.

flying over the city at night was healing. thank you for that.

i think

2006-03-28T12:15:00.000-05:00

i think i love him.

D crosses the threshold

2006-03-26T11:13:00.000-05:00

everybody, meet D. D, everybody.

yesterday was D's birthday celebration at luca lounge, kicking off the first of a series of entering-our-late-20s birthdays. as you can tell, she was already quite happy by the time i arrived, camera in hand.

those happy dudes drinking behind her are D's friends. D was allegedly afraid that "nobody was going to show up" to her birthday party.

puhleaze.

there were 10 gazillion people there to celebrate her birthday. which was not entirely surprising. although we knew that D was the most popular person at northwestern, she confirmed our suspicions that she actually knows everybody under the age of 30 in both manhattan and long island, and perhaps some parts of jersey city.

of course, because we are asocial and afraid of anybody that might actually want to be friendly and speak to us about anything of any substance — or even just say hello — AS, G and i cocooned ourselves into a little corner of the bar. which didn't necessarily protect us, though it did keep us from making conversation with anybody other than D. from across the bar, a dude in a turtleneck and flannel shirt sent a very, very drunken woman to inform AS that he was in love with her. this was frightening. but, like D having 12 million people coming up to say happy birthday, not surprising. i mean, look at her! look at my pretty pretty dumpling!

i'm feeling the love for AS because i got to have a whole afternoon with her, which was awesome, rare, and critical to kicking a minor bout of sadness. we met in the east village in mid-afternoon on saturday, with no real plan except for cocktails. we landed at anyway cafe for crepes and carafes of shiraz, and lots of conversation about important things like theater and fear and creativity and, you know, boys. anyways. late lunch date and wine was a brilliant idea. until i got home and realized i had a hangover at 7pm. sigh. i didn't even really know why i felt so cloudy and sleepy until J, while talking me through my red-wine crankiness, made the astute point that if one should choose to drink in the afternoon, one should power through and continue drinking well into the night, so as to avoid the early-evening hangover.

smart boy, that J.

anyways. because we never actually spoke to any other guests at the party, and spent most of our time there taking pictures of ourselves, i also got this pretty pretty picture of me & G. you wouldn't even think mr. yellow sunshine was all conked out on sudafed. except, you know, that with each sip of gin & tonic he sunk a little deeper into sleepydom land. but he's a trooper.

because, after all, this was D's official launch into the late 20s. and it was fun. but this whole business of turning 27 is rather horrifying, especially for those of us inflicted with MTD. 26 is nice. 26 is happy. 26 is still solidly mid-20s. 26 means it's okay i haven't made any major decisions. 26 means it's still charming, not a little sad, that i have a smurf sink and eat most my meals picnic style on the floor.

right?

anyways. thanks to D for paving the way. next up: amy's second annual one year closer to 30 champagne ball.

why my editor is so amazing

2006-03-22T14:11:00.000-05:00

so, i came into the office today and sitting in front of my G5 was an advance copy of Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher. the first graf from the back cover reads:

"Words are the most powerful tools at our disposal. With them, writers have saved lives and taken them, brought justice and confounded it, raised armies, started wars and ended them. Writers can change minds, alter the way people think, and transform our definitions of right and wrong."

AZ left the book for me last night. sigh. i think maybe (maybe?) he knows that writing about shopping is crushing my spirit. maybe.

i am going to try harder. i promise.

guido redux. and dots. lots and lots of dader dots.

2006-03-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

there are, in my estimation, an infinite number of guidos available for examination in new york city. saturday night's jaunt to crobar, aka Guidoland, offered magnificent vistas full of these interesting specimens, which i think merit some discussion. here are my favorites.

the beefcake guido
the Beefcake is approximately 5'10" and 280 pounds, most of which is concentrated in the lats, pecs and biceps. it is necessary to build such muscle mass because the Beefcake's closet staple is the wifebeater, which is most often tucked into pleated trousers and worn with shiny leather shoes.

the sunglasses guido
the Sunglasses is also often wearing a wifebeater. though he is generally not as built as the Beefcake, he accessorizes the wifey with sunglasses. the Sunglasses often choose glasses of the silvery, tinted purple and blue variety. occasionally they are yellow. the Sunglasses guido often rests the glasses around the back of his neck; hangs them from the back of his collar; or, if he's feeling especially saucy, from his big silver chain.

the flammable hair guido
the Flammable guido creates minor rifts in the ozone layer wherever he walks. Flammable's hair often recalls a bad exxon accident, but in some instances can also be used as a lethal weapon. beyond the environmental hazard, Flammable's hair is often so spiky and hard that it may actually pierce the flesh.

the dancing guido
oh, Dancer guido! my most favorite of guidos! you can find the Dancer either standing in place pumping his fist in the air, or, enacting an odd ritual in which he rocks side to side and raises arms in unison, but does not bend his elbows. there is a small subset of Dancer guidos, that likes to push guidettes (see more below) against poles and walls and faux-fuck them from behind (often while pumping their fists in the air). this is considered courtship in some parts of Guidoland, i think.

now, let us not forget the guidettes. they, too, may be broken into several categories. they are often found in large herds trying to look nonchalant on the dance floor, or emerging from bathroom stalls vigorously rubbing their noses. however, after seeing a few too many asscracks, intentionally visible thong straps, and acrylic nails, i had to separate myself from the fray of guidettes before properly categorizing them, lest i collapse from the clouds of knockoff perfume.

still, i had much fun in Guidoland. it was the first time out and about listening to dance tunes with G in a long, long time, which was just generally awesome. in addition to bouncing to sweet beats from deep dish, we got to jump around to a happy dose of madonna, too, usually something that i can only accomplish while in my pjs while alone in my apartment. wahoo! i knew there was a reason why leaving the house after midnight was a good idea for this halmunee.

Guidoland was also made safe by NG & co. in addition to G, i had the (lucky?) protection of lots of brown people, who diffused the state of guido alarm quite nicely. i haven't seen NG since thanksgiving, and it made me happy to know that he wanted to trip guidettes while walking down the stairs just like i did. see all the nice brownies below. they were fun. dot!

all in all, it was a fantastic weekend. JH graced us with his lovely southern presence, both out on friday night and at a 3-mimosa brunch saturday; C & Y were wise enough to make the executive decision to booze all saturday afternoon after our 3-mimosa brunch, which led us to stumble happily about the east village in search of bottles of prosecco and a bar that would accomodate us at 1pm; BS had a lovely sushi soiree saturday evening during which i made the prettiest tuna rolls, thankyouverymuch; G saved me a cupcake from magnolia, which i know required all the strength and will in his soul; and i had a great great great inspiring wonderful playwriting class on sunday afternoon, despite a measly 4 hours of sleep and some weird sort of twitchy red bull & vodka hangover.

sigh. and now it's monday. there are no guidos in the offices of WWD, unfortunately. although there is work to be done. i know. weird right? sometimes i work.

i want

2006-03-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

everything. right now. i want everything i want it all i want it now now now now nownownowNOW!

i want it so bad it actually hurts.

but ...

seriously?

ugh.

i'm bored. and stuck. time to leave.

step off.

why moving to brooklyn was the best idea ever reason #2

2006-03-14T16:42:00.000-05:00

purim!

there have been signs up in my neighborhood for weeks now, advertising ... something. a big community issue? something sinister? something happy? the signs were big and yellow and plastered on my front door, on the telephone poles, on the fences. hasidic women with their strollers would gather around them and discuss them in earnest. men were posting them wherever there was an empty space. clearly something was going to happen.

but i had no idea what the signs said. i am a good jew (what other korean girl can kick out a round braided challah for rosh hashanah? l'shanah tovah, kids) but my jewish education stopped short of reading and writing hebrew. i realized today i've forgotten all the prayers i learned back at good old beth el and am shalom, but eh, jews don't believe in hell anyways. isn't it punishment enough that i've been surrounded by the chosen people my whole life and always known i'm not one of them?

but back to purim.

i noticed sunday night that the signs had magically disappeared from the neighborhood. i figured the party was over.

oh, how wrong i was! purim! today is purim, and what a party! the signs, must, must, must have been advertising the bangbang hullabaloos going on all over south williamsburg today. or at least, on my side of the tracks. seriously. i live in israel; my friends across broadway live in puerto rico. so this afternoon i went out to grab a salad and run some errands and was greeted with jewish children decked out in crazy elaborate costumes, from pirates (no ninjas, unfortunately), cats, angels, ballerinas, cartoon characters, or just made up with crazy circus makeup. moms weren't dressed up, but walking with strollers and carrying huge platters of food, everything from roasts and meatballs to what looked like roasted vegetables and bread baskets. daddys were running around carrying food and trying to contain the kids, and all the men seemed to be wearing these huge, round, furry hats even though its pulling near 60 degrees outside. everybody was going somewhere. at around 2pm, celebratory jewish music started blasting in my backyard.

i want in! i want to play!

crap. i'm not jewish. sigh.

this is becoming a recurring theme in my life. but, more about that some other time.

so, i did a little research, and learned from one of my favorite websites, jewfaq.org, that purim is kinda like a jewish mardi gras, with all the fun costumes and pomp. it celebrates when jews in persia were saved from persecution and extermination. the book of esther tells the story of esther basically rocking and saving everyone's life from hamam. so after paying respects to esther by fasting for a couple days, jews get to ... party. there's even a huge purim party tonight at the puck building, which when i went there last with C, was filled with queens and trannies and beautiful, beautiful half-naked boys raising money for an HIV/AIDS charity. i love new york.

anyways. the best part of purim, as i see it: "Jews are commanded to eat, drink and be merry. According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai," though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is. A person certainly should not become so drunk that he might violate other commandments or get seriously ill. In addition, recovering alcoholics or others who might suffer serious harm from alcohol are exempt from this obligation."

i like when drinking is a duty to god. i can so get on board this thing. happy holidays.

alright

2006-03-12T16:35:00.000-05:00

okay, i get it. i get it. after many moons of not getting it, saturday night i finally i got it.

salsa is fun. and, i'm never wearing high heels again.

about salsa: i've always been a proponent of shaking my booty, to most any manner of music. i heart dancing and i heart watching other people dance. lucky for me, i spend most my time with C, AS, Y, and G, all people who can manipulate their bodies uniquely and kinda magnificently. but even chumps who can't tell their feet from their ass look a little beautiful when they get that blissed-out smile that comes from connecting your body and your head to music. still, i've resisted salsa, even as everybody and their mother seems to get more addicted. maybe because there are actual steps to learn? because there are actual names of steps? or maybe because i need a partner to do it and i know how amazing that kind of physical connection can be and it just seemed like a terrible idea to pick up an addiction that requires a man and i know B is taking classes and that's just weird?

um. okay yeah i just said that.

anyways.

saturday night's journey, which culminated in a 1 a.m. trip to copacabana, actually began early in the week, when G began the hard sell on salsa lessons & drinks at his place before the late night trip to copa. i am usually all for lessons & liquor of any sort, but G lives in that funny haunted building which makes my whole body twist and churn (see "why moving to brooklyn was the best idea ever reason #1"), and i am a weenie, so i was scared.

his pitch promised:
1) fun
2) friends
3) a B-free safe zone, which he went to great lengths to create
4) homemade soup
5) a newly rearranged apartment

a day later i got the sell from AS. her pitch promised:
1) fun
2) friends
3) discount cover price
4) a beatdown should B somehow appear despite G's promise of a B-free safe zone

then Y, always the closer, chimed in. her pitch promised:
1) fun
2) friends
3) protective services entering and exiting the haunted building
2) snarky jokes about "street" salsa

and C, i can't forget C. because being the perfect national guardsman, she provided me yet another safe zone outside the world of salsa. her pitch:
1) fun
2) friends
3) dinner and a 10pm viewing of tsotsi at the angelica, my favorite movie theater

anyways. i succumbed to the sales. saturday night, with much hesitation, i showered and met Y to make the journey into the heart of darkness, armored in skinny jeans, a piece of shiny black fabric that posed as a shirt, and a pair of heels to make men cry.

and make me cry, too. despite all my fears and worries and anxieties about going to the haunted apartment building and my first night out tearing it up as a single girl, my shoes ended up being the one painful thing about my night. my only regret after an evening of lots of sweaty glorious dancing, wine, bad prosecco, bean soup, marc anthony, hilarious lessons, being grabbed by lots of short latin men and stared down by girls with a whole lot of jelly on display, were the goddamn peep-toe burnt-copper 4-inch heels. the pros? they're hot. they make me feel crazy tall and powerful and sexy and make me the only girl that can stand up to G on the dance floor. the cons? they hurt. the poor little pinky toes! the poor arches! the poor balls of my feet that have to sustain all my weight for hours and hours!

so, i'm retiring the shoes. i am weaning my addiction to painfully impractical high heels with a methadone-like substance called salsa. wish me luck.

musical notes & nonsense

2006-03-07T18:08:00.000-05:00

my addiction for dandy warhols has been sated. kinda. i got my fix. i got a supplier. his name is J, and other than the fact that he lives 3,000 miles away, he is a very generous dealer.

it's not his fault i'm hooked. that fault lies with C, really, when she gave me my "welcome to williamsburg" cd back in early february. it's awesome. like, a lot awesome. however, it jump-started a need for dandys like i have never before experienced. i only had three tracks to devour, i was listening to "you were the last high" from welcome to the monkey house on repeat, and nothing was going to stop me. how could it? with lyrics like this?

so maybe you loved me
but now, maybe you don't
and maybe you'll call me
maybe you won't

um. okay. so maybe they are a little simple. maybe i just broke up with somebody. what-EV-er. it speaks to me. anyways, i was mourning the absence of more dandys in my life to anybody who would listen to me, and J, always one with an ear for addiction, responds one night with, "you've been listening to THOSE three songs over and over again?"

well, sure. i mean. yeah. somebody is going to put the padding up on the walls for me, right?

"you need more. which albums do you want? i have them all. whatever. you're getting them all."

i didn't think too much of it. conversations with J tend to approach pillow negotiation time, which means sometimes i can't always distinguish fantasy from reality, although i guess for me that's not something that's exclusive to nighttime discussions. anyways. i didn't think about it, because people say happy lovely things like that all the time, and when do they really follow through?

i clearly underestimated this one.

this weekend, i received "Tunes for Amy! V. 1 and V. 2," discs which were packed with a grand total of 1,043 songs, or a solid 3 days of music. in addition to a full dandys collection (thankyouthankyouthankyou) i got addiction starter kits for blonde redhead, snow patrol, the brian jonestown massacre, mineral, and tosca. the mega mix compilation also included some serious old-school addictions, from tortoise to smashing pumpkins to nada surf to the verve to one of my favoritist velvet underground songs ever, "i'll be your mirror."

call me a sucker. but try these on for size:

i find it hard
to believe you don't know
the beauty you are
but if you don't
let me be your eyes
into your darkness
so you won't be afraid

i think maybe i could be happy if nico sang me to sleep every night?

in other happy music news, G, Y, and AB and i are going to see the gorillaz at the apollo in a few weeks and soon after, C and i are going to check out say hi to your mom at bowery ballroom. i finally got AB's ryan adams cd back to him, but i am holding some music of G's hostage for a little while. i would share what it is but then everybody will want to borrow it, and that just wouldn't be fair to him. and i would like to be fair, if only because G has born the heavy, heavy, heavy brunt of most of my lunacy the past month or two, and yet he still somehow manages to find some redeeming quality about me and hang around, for which i can only be thankful and not ask any questions. maybe it's because i always let him eat half my food. hunh.

last thoughts, lifted from "equus" by blonde redhead, off of misery is a butterfly:

allow me to show you
the way in which i know you

i think you have just witnessed addiction being born ...

i wish i knew why ...

2006-03-06T18:08:00.000-05:00

every time i am happy, i start to say goodbye.

an angel with bloody teeth

2006-03-02T23:45:00.000-05:00

i heard several charming things today.

first, from K: "Because I would just keep the crazy bitches around so I could make fun of them to their faces without them realizing it."

second, from a cokehead filmmaker telling a cokehead reporter in the brazilian film carreiras: "You are an angel with bloody teeth."

third, from the wailing drummer and guitarist at Capone's: "Sex on the table is not very stable, so let's make dinner tonight."

maybe it says something about me that i find these phrases so delicious? hunh.

it's 12:08 am and i am about to turn into a pumpkin. i was reminded tonight of how AM's piano and C's laughter are among my most favoritist favoritist sounds in the whole world. both are therapeutic. lucky girl = me.

why moving to brooklyn was the best idea ever reason #1

2006-03-02T17:24:00.000-05:00

ghosts are afraid of water.

a step by step course of events that explains how i know:

- A meets B.
- A & B are happy.
- A makes a home with B in a little building called 66 pearl.
- A & B are happy.
- A & B become not so happy.
- A & B find themselves with a friendly neighbor, G.
- A eventually makes a home on her own, without B.
- A is looking for music to match her mood, and borrows an album from AB.
- A's computer likes the cd so much, it refuses to let it out.
- A takes the stubborn computer to the Apple store.
- A meets a nice genius who says he needs to take the computer for 1 week.
- A has no idea how she will work, and while discussing movie tickets with him, tells G about her computer predicament.
- G offers up an extra laptop.
- A is happy.
- A realizes she has to go back to that little building 66 pearl in order to retrieve the extra laptop.
- A feels a little bit like she has to throw up.
- A tells the panicky voice in the back of her head to shut up and get over it.
- A goes with G to 66 pearl.
- A starts to feel a lot more like she has to throw up.
- A retrieves computer. while leaving, ghosts of B emerge from the walls of 66 pearl.
- A tells the ghosts to go away.
- ghosts ignore A.
- A is chased by ghosts out of the building, past the landmark deli, past goldman sachs, past duane reade, past starbucks, and down into the JMZ station.
- A tells the ghosts to leave her the fuck alone.
- ghosts continue to ignore A. ghosts dance around the train, hang from the poles, crowd her space, step on her toes, block the windows.
- A stares down the ghosts from broad, to fulton, to chambers, to canal, to bowery, to essex.
- A senses the ghosts weakening.
- the JMZ emerges from essex onto the williamsburg bridge. and poof! there go the ghosts. gone!
- A looks around. she checks under her seat. she looks in her bag. she taps the glass. no ghosts.
- A exits the marcy stop. still no ghosts.
- A approaches 285 division. no ghosts!

end results? A no longer feels like she has to throw up. i mean, i no longer feel like i have to throw up. i mean ... anyways. that was a fun game.

pretty love machine

2006-02-26T16:50:00.000-05:00

i've been visiting with the nine inch nails a lot lately, which i didn't think was so much of a bad thing, but while listening to "terrible lie" on pretty hate machine for the sixth time on repeat on tuesday night and thinking seriously that trent reznor might be the only man that will ever understand me and the rest of the world can take it and shove it, it occurred to me that i think i have actually become a pretty hate machine. as anyone who has been either witness to or victim of one of my recent rages can attest, they are really a beautiful and terrifying thing. i have lost any and all ability to lie. any capacity i used to have for hiding scorn or distaste or aggravation has just disappeared. i have no screen. none! goodbye! bye! seeya soon, screen! later!

maybe the screen will come back after it's had a nice beach vacation. maybe the screen needs a little aloha. but for now, i am screenless. and very easily swayed into attack mode, whether it be towards the self-righteous chump who stands in front of the subway doors instead of moving into the car, the gossipmonger who dives into everyone else's drama because of her own insecurity issues, the clueless publicist who doesn't have her freakin shit together but still seems to think it's a good idea to call, and most of all, to the goddamn-stupid-fucking-lords-of-powerbook-g4s that have decided that my disc drive is not going to eject cds and is holding AB's ryan adams album hostage and thereby forcing me to visit the mac genius bar at some asinine hour in the morning next week.

sigh.

pretty.hate.machine.

anyways. after taking some sick joy in the clearly visible levels of discomfort and self-doubt that my vengeance has wreaked on these poor souls the past few weeks, i have decided that i am a horrible person and trent is really not that cool anyways. i have changed. example: at brunch this morning, i didn't even try to make the imbecilic girl sitting next to me at dumont feel like less of a human being despite her inability to keep her feet under her own goddamn table. i bet G didn't even know that i secretly wanted to punch her hipster-mullet-ratty-scarf lights out!

this is improvement, i think. anyways. in an effort to become more pretty love machine than vengeful, unloving pretty hate machine, i've taken trent reznor out of heavy rotation and begun cataloging the many many things that are evidence of the happy random wonderful sweet loving caring generous nonsense that surround me everyday. it helps. there are lots of happy things to think about. i am done being an ungrateful wench. and i haven't wanted to punch anybody since breakfast.

here are a few things i heart, in no particular order:

poker & pavlov
i think most people feel it: there is something contagious about the happiness between Y & AB. poker is just a farce for everyone to gather around them. plus, there is something priceless about the fact that friday night i completely blanked on the fact that playing poker requires money, and rolled up to our weekly game with two half-finished bottles of booze and only $5 in my pocket, and nobody even batted an eye, despite the fact that we played two $10 buy-in games and gorged on takeout. i also kind of love that i left with little pieces of green fuzz all over me from the new felt. sidebar: everytime i walk into Y & AB's apartment, i have an uncontrollable urge to eat burritos. a big carne asada burrito, from buffalo cantina, with extra red sauce on the side. weird?

tuesdays
i like tuesdays.

roasted garlic
it's good on everything. i should know. in addition to becoming a pretty love machine, i'm also growing garlic cloves out of my ears. cut the top off a head of garlic, wrap in tin foil, drizzle with a little olive oil and salt, stick in the oven for half an hour at 350 degrees and you end up with one of the most glorious treats known to man. toss with linguini and a bit more oil. spread on a toasted pita. slather onto chicken. mash it into a potato. let them cool for a bit and pop into your mouth whole and breathe all over your apartment and revel in the garlicky-ness of it all. not that i've done that. at all. ever.

my friends inscribed into my apartment
everytime i look around my home i get little squishes of love. i still can't thank people enough for the blood sweat and tears that virtually everybody who knows me poured into helping me make a home. just a few of the highlights, because the list really goes on forever ...
generally unpleasant labor - G, D, C, AS
pretty painted walls - U, D, C
sexy bamboo paper shades - Y
sleek leaning bookshelves - G, AS
futon - G
humidifier - G
ottoman - C
television - U & A
chiffon curtains - U
and on, and on, and on ...

gmail chat
here's to C changing her browser solely so she can haunt g-chat with me ... and yay to C for letting me be the only one who interrupts her on a constant basis. to talk about love and life and spirituality and, you know, how much everyone else fucking sucks.

frequent flyer miles & J
um, hellooooooo oakland. hello sunshine when new york is about to drive me crazy. hello wine country. hello chez panisse. hello to the best of the midwest, relocated to the bay area. hello to a new way of eradicating the many many states that live between new york and california. hello to some serious sweetness on J's part, and hel-LO to finding a friend in the most unexpected of moments.

my mommy & daddy
for somehow knowing the one true longing in my heart, and for granting a wish i didn't dare ask for: a ticket for 10 days in beautiful kauai.

fresh direct
really. fresh direct. groceries, like tuesdays, make me happy.

world of warcraft, oranges & and assorted other G-isms
what started out as tolerance of G's addiction to the crack-like W0W and his need to discuss the game with anybody who would listen to him has now become a vested personal interest. i admit it. it's true. i actually LIKE hearing about little gnomes in fantasy land! i want to KNOW what happens with the lava monsters! i WORRY when i hear V's boyfriend doesn't have enough tools for the next quest! god save me.

erasure
for being exactly who they are.

my editor
AZ wants us to shop more. so he's forcing our department to shop for two days over the next few weeks, before we go on a "retail field trip" to examine a few malls in long island. forcing us. his words: "i don't even want to see you in the office. don't come in. go shopping. eavesdrop. hang out in the stores. it'll be good for us to pick up story ideas. have fun."

speaking of my editor: i have promised to work on a draft of a story on fashion brands expanding into india before tomorrow. AZ has set up a cool co-mentoring thingymajig that plays to the strengths of both me and MD, and in order to make the thingymajig work ... well, i've actually got to work.

leaving with happy thoughts and a promise not to beat down on any assclowns on the way to work tomorrow. wish me luck.

stealing from cindy

2006-02-23T23:37:00.000-05:00

this seemed like a good idea. check out C's blog for the original.

10 years ago this month: february 1996
profoundly, profoundly in love with ARM. well, as profoundly as a 16-year-old can be. oh, first love, so beautiful and devastating ... wait. that's kind of a perfect description of him. beautiful and devastating. anyways. listening to a lot of velvet underground, nirvana, smashing pumpkins, and the kinks. smoking a pack a day and hiding a typical teenage stash of bad weed, joker rolling papers, parliament lights and trojans in my underwear drawer, where, you know, mom would never think to look. writing a lot of reeeeeeeally bad poems. reading A Tidewater Morning by william styron, which remains one of my favorite novels.

8 years ago this month: february 1998
living in a 12x12 box with AS in the south mid-quads at northwestern university. listening to tracy chapman, tori amos and sarah mclachlan. still smoking a pack a day, spending most of my free time smoking outside of smq with AS and YF, who conveniently lived upstairs, and watching repeats of "my so-called life." i identified with angela, i really did. i really, really did. and i could have loved jordan catalano. reading the AP stylebook.

6 years ago this month: february 2000
living in a 12x12 box with TI in delta gamma sorority house, the world's greatest experiment in low-carb dieting. no longer smoking, much to the dismay of everyone who knows me. spent much time — dare i say, all? — embracing a true sister, C, while falling even more in love with Y and AS, and exalting the joys of a bottle plus two glasses of wine and a cheese plate at my bar. liquor begins rapidly taking the place of parliament lights. listening to rage against the machine, beastie boys, and chemical brothers. starting to realize that searching for honesty in life as a journalist is maybe not a copout from writing, but a vocation in writing. reading Nausea by jean-paul sartre.

4 years ago this month: february 2002
living in a 12x12 studio on 105th street in new york city, writing for a trade magazine, ignoring poetry, and falling deeply, deeply, deeply off the wrong side of the mountain into a valley of liquor and sex. well on my way to complete physical and emotional system failure. still jumping everytime a firetruck or ambulance passes me on the street. it is dark. listening to fiona apple, nine inch nails, pj harvey and radiohead. reading nothing.

2 years ago this month: february 2004
still living in a 12x12 studio on 105th street, which has somehow become less suffocating and more charming. made a sad but necessary split from AM, who occupied me off and on for the better part of two years. fell rapidly in love with B, who was different from anybody i'd ever known, ever. wondered why C liked the sullivan room so much. put up Crown Heights, the first show i produced with youth onstage!, and opened my eyes to the concept of independent-party politics. listening to alicia keys, interpol, and a demo of jenny rivera. reading backissues of The New Yorker.

1 year ago this month: february 2005
living with B in a beautiful loft studio in lower manhattan, discovering the joys of baking, domestic life, and preparing for a week-long ski trip to telluride. blissfully, ridiculously, blindly, indulgently in love. gained 12 pounds. writing for women's wear daily. listening to random pop music that B likes. reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by milan kundera. not writing poetry.

6 months ago this month: september 2005
still recovering from the shock of hearing the words "you can always write on the side" leave B's mouth. clinging to our life together, but beginning to understand that he and i will not be forever. helping my parents prepare for retirement. start spending a significant amount of time trying to decipher people's poker faces. G re-enters my life with gusto, and without my knowing, hops on a ridiculously superaccelerated fast track to joining the ranks of the chosen few. watch Y turn a new leaf with her students, and her role as teacher and caregiver. listening to weezer, and a lot of radiohead. a lot. re-reading The Constructor by john koethe. writing a lot.

today:
living alone in a charming one-bedroom in williamsburg, brooklyn, blocks from Y and C and my new favorite restaurant, moto, and a few subway stops from U & A, G and most of the other important people in my life. a mere $36 gypsy cab ride from AS, but it's only $12 if C and Y and i split the fare. appreciating the joys of egyptian cotton, eating dinner in my underwear, having all the closets to myself, and writing all the time. lonely at times, but starting to appreciate solitude, too. no longer questioning why i have a dark side, but feeling free to explore it. listening to franz ferdinand, madonna, 10,000 maniacs, and more radiohead. reading Middlesex by jeffrey eugenides and my old journals. thankful.

saks, american express, oscar, and my ass

2006-02-23T12:02:00.000-05:00

saksex? amsaks? oscarass? amsexass?

anyways.

yesterday, despite all of my promises to myself that i was not going to buy clothes until either A) next season or B) my debt to the gods of bed bath & beyond, crate & barrel, the company store and williams-sonoma was paid off, i found myself needing to buy jeans. needing them. i had to have them. right then. i felt frumpy, my other pair of ass-hugging jeans fell apart (crappy sevens! bewarned!) and premium denim was the only thing that was going to make me feel better. i don't know why i thought that. shopping for jeans is something akin to trying on bikini after bikini under neon lights for your first beach vacation of the year, when you're pale and still holding onto a couple pounds of winter chub. it is not the most pleasant thing for a woman to do.

but, addiction, especially to dark washes and unique stitching, can drive us to do such things.

so, after doing the late-night check of the wires, i wind my way over from conde's offices to saks fifth avenue, where i usually have a lot of luck on their fifth floor denim collection. i arrive at 7pm. the doors are still open, but the store is officially closed. no matter. nothing is going to stop me at this point. i pull 3 darkly appealing, not-so-distressed pairs off the racks, in my usual size.

the chosen few:
- rock & republic's "skynard": $178
- paige premium's "laurel canyon": $179
- AG "angel": $130

and i buy them. all. american express: $527.79

american express loves me.

on the subway home, i'm feeling minor guilt but mostly euphoria. how i managed such glee without even having tried a single pair on, i don't know. but i'm happy anyways. i get home, and within minutes have stripped down into the skynards. hunh. they're kinda hot. but i can't breathe. must. take. off.

angel - eh. boooring.

laurel canyon - hunh. i like these. but ... do i like them enough? the front pockets wrinkle a bit. if i bend over, my undies stick out the back, which makes me crazy. i can breathe, but if my thighs had lungs, they certainly wouldn't be able to.

i sit in these jeans all night. i eat some eggplant, finish building some furniture, unpack my last box, and wait for C and V to show up with the BEST GIFT EVER, an adorable ottoman that feeds my addiction for things that are orange and clean and cute. C assures me they are not too tight. i am skeptical. i decide to sleep on it. i take them off. my legs take a deep sigh of relief.

this morning, i try them on again and am not satisfied. so after my morning gig, i head back to saks before going into the office (this is actually considered "work" in my life ... my job is absurd) and, i meet my savior. oscar.

oscar and i start a fitting room. and i select, oh, just a few more pairs. oscar says, "girl, you KNOW your body, don't you?"

*blush*

the chosen few:
- joe's jeans "honey": $158
- joe's jeans "socialite": $158
- rock & republic's "costello": $176
- rock & republic's "roth": $176

things i learned? i am not quite bootylicious enough to warrant honey status. socialite is very flattering, but mmm, a little too meatpackingdistrictwhitegirlwithcamisoleandblazer for my taste. costello was super hot, but i need something a teensy bit more versatile. but roth. oh, roth. they're hot? i think? oscar?

"oh girl. it's like a $200 pushup bra. look at how the pockets give you that nice butt cleave. these are it. your ass is really doing it for me in those jeans."

i love you, oscar.

oscar asks if i need hemming services. i say no, thanks, i have a tailor. he says, you won't have to get too much off. "i mean, you are definitely a girl that wears 3 inch heels."

*blush* i am now! i am SO that girl! i WILL be that girl!

back to the register. with memories of david lee roth's namesake jeans plastered onto my butt, i hand over the amex yet again. rock & republic's roth total? $190.74. credited back to my account: $337.05.

happiness gauge, 1.25 hours after purchase was complete? high.

still awake

2006-02-23T00:17:00.000-05:00

still awake, still awake. why am i doing this? i've resisted so long.

just because G and C did it? because i got hooked on J's? hunh. an idle imagination and a quiet apartment. talking to myself was getting old. writing alone is better than drinking alone. do i really want to share the minutiae in my head that badly?

apparently. here's to blogging, and a new varietal of addiction.

desperately seeking ...

2006-02-23T00:04:00.000-05:00

an alternate reality. diversion. maybe something approaching a state of grace?