Adlai, Adlai, what did you say?

Lonny Price emailed me!


Nothing too exciting to report. This new year is a strange one already. There's no food in the house (curse of the starving class and all that), I blow my money on yoga and coffee, and I can't seem to do anything creative, no matter how hard I try.


But Lonny Price emailed me! And thanked me for my hard work! So that's something.


Work is fine. Uneventful. Pretty easy, though I manage to mess something up at least once a day.


Ach, this blog isn't worth writing right now. Send me bottles of champagne and crates of books to bolster my spirits.

Apartment House Blues

In an interesting turn of events, my Polish neighbors keep pounding on my door and saying "Close water! Close water!" when the sink is on.

Huh.

You're the leader of the galaxy! Show a little taste!

Despite an okay morning of doing nothing and cuddling in bed with Lucifer (I don't mean the cat, either), today quickly turned into the kind of day that only Elvis Costello can make worth it. I think about the following quote on days like this-- this is from a piece by Patton Oswalt about doing yoga and shooting guns in the same day:

"[It] was the biggest “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!” moment I’ve had so far in my life. Guns and yoga are French fries dipped in a milkshake. Scotch and ginger ale. Elvis Costello’s “This Year’s Model” after a bad breakup. Reruns of “Law and Order” and having no life: they’re good together."

It made me laugh when I read it (bus to showcase, incidentally....very, VERY incidentally), and now whenever I'm in a mood and turn to E.C. for help, I think about it. Anyway, some of the aforementioned album and I was pretty okay again. It's so angry and when I listen to it, I think I feel worse about whatever I'm upset about for a little...but then feel wholly better. As if I needed to get really pissed to be okay. I don't know. All I know is that happiness is Elvis shrieking in my ear at a too-high volume.

Last night on the way home from work I had a silly encounter with these two slighty-drunk guys. I was walking to the train and I yawned, and as I was doing so I made accidental eye contact with this guy in a very Slavs! outfit. He wove his way over to me and said "You've got four cavities. I could see them when you yawned." I told him "I've only got two" and they apparently took this as feistiness, which they liked. This guy sort of shook my hand and laughed and then kissed me on the cheek, saying "A kiss because you're beatiful. You're really beautiful. You look like Nicole Kidman, did anyone ever tell you that?" I said that yes, people had. Who knew there were so many people who don't actually know what Nicole Kidman looks like? Right. Anyway, things got sillier from here with his friend trying to get in on the action but not being half as stupidly charming. Cossack-chic (yeah, he can't really be a Cossack AND from Slavs! but I don't give a shit) told me "You've got knockout beauty. I bet guys are going crazy for you." On my negative, he said "Okay, maybe you just don't know it."

Now, call me anything you want, but...I am told I am pretty almost exclusively by drunks or crazies on the street. Do I worry? Nah. I've always liked it, and I always will. Probably.

Anyway, this went on for some time, him asking me if I like "Those guys with the tight jeans and the stringy hair, those hipsters" or if I was more into "Guidos. Or brothers." (His friend was black.)

I came away from the encounter with a momentary lift in self-whatever, AND, best of all....two wrinkled photocopies of this joker's headshot and resume. Don't get me started. This life.

Work is work. I read and sit around. What do I have to complain about? I talked astrology and cards and whatnot with Valois and watched SVU. Please.

New Presidential obsession: Franklin Pierce in general. Second New Presidential Obsession: Zachary Taylor's death. Third: James Buchanan's bachelor status and the way that Bunny Breckinridge is distantly involved with him.

Ain't that peculiar.

far from the 192 i love!

Alright.

So my life has taken a turn for the better in that I seem to be working sort-of steadily at La MaMa.  Which is good. Though of course I resent having to work, especially on the weekend. Who do I think I am? I'm not sure what I think I'm entitled to or where that entitlement came from, but JESUS.  I think I actually just resent myself because if I work during the day, I will go out at night. But if I know I'm working at night, I seem to be prone to laying around in the daytime, feeling dread and reluctance in regards to the work I know I'll eventually have to be doing.

Anyway, fun things have been happening, too.  Apparently Time magazine is doing some sort of story on shape-note singing and a reporter came to our home sing on New Year's Eve.  Maybe I wrote about that before.  God knows, all I do is repeat myself. Loudly.  The Lower East Side sing was a bit of a zoo today-- the bartender forgot his keys or something so we couldn't get into the space for about 45 minutes.  And, of course, the turnout was massive compared to what it's been recently.  So to the horror of everyone on Ludlow street (well, just between Stanton and Rivington), we sang outside. And the reporter, David, was there, and so was a photographer. As much as I didn't want to....I was posing. A little. Oh, please. Please, Anna.  Evenutally we got inside and there were just SO many people and everyone was really in a great mood, pitching in to help set up, rig the lights, etc.  A nice feeling of camaraderie.  A lovely time, all-around. Really nice. 

In his despair over Aldo not being here for a week, Lucifer has taken to sleeping on my bed.  Which is pretty cute.  (Though of course....he's no Slinky.)


Story to Illustrate the Answer to the Question "Who Am I Becoming?", # 174:
Looking for a place to have coffee this morning, in my neighborhood, I heard myself reject a place with the following:
"No...they have sports on TV."

 I think that speaks for itself.



Pretentiotron....reporting for duty.

do i worry?

you can bet your life i do!

Task: Look up "resistentialism."

A good source tipped me off to the above word. It's a gem. Look it up.

The second day of the new year was more productive than the first for me. I slept at Rinnz's last night, where I binged on The Office and Arrested Development and Scrabulous and finally reclaimed my stolen beer garden stein. And battled the cat, of course.

This morning I finally went to the bank, became a member of the Metropolitan Pool and Rec. Center (ID card and everything), and volunteered (for a measly half-an-hour) at an animal shelter. I thought I was just going to sign up to be a "cat-petter" in the future but they put me to work right away. Basically I was cleaning out cages and refilling water and food dishes with a funny guy named Oscar. My heart was a little bit in tatters at the sight of all those cats in their cages, but they seemed sort of content and at least they are well cared-for. There was one guy who only had one eye-the other socket was just empty. One cat arrived at the shelter with four kittens- none of them her own! She's nursing them and everything....and she's pregnant herself. Call me a crazy cat lady, but....that gets me. I'll go back in a week or so, probably. I got the sense that they can use all the help they can get.

Then I took a stroll around Greenpoint, found an errant apostrophe on a statue, passed a lovely hour or so at the charmingly contrived or contrivedly charming Roebling Tea Room (I'll be going back), and then fought the good fight to stay warm in this meat locker I call an apartment. Today, I won. Tomorrow? You might find me frozen solid.

Tomorrow, really.....back to work. Finally. About time, too-- I'm jesssssssst about to have no money. (The skin of my teeth, the skin of my teeth.)

Goodbye, blue Monday!

So after moping a little last night, I decided I'd had my fill and that I wasn't going to do that any more.

This morning I had a wonderful breakfast of grapefruit, banana bread with peanut butter, hot chocolate, orange juice...certainly the nicest morning meal I've had since moving here. (If this seems an insignificant conversational jaunt to you, just imagine how delicious all of those things are. Really think about it. Then, wonder if it was worth mentioning. Right?)

Then I took what turned into a three-hour walk-- over the W-burg bridge, through the Lower East Side (excuse me, the "bargain district"), into Chinatown to make some frivolous purchases (orange pear earings? new wallet? wastes of money? hello!), then back over the bridge and to home. It was lovely because on the way over, it was light, and on the way back, all the lights had come on- including a "SAVE DOMINO" on a building on this side of the river. I got a really good look at all of the Domino complex on the way over, including the famous sign. Ever since reading "Sweet and Low," I've been obsessed. I think Megs is the only one who is as enthusiastic as I am. :)

No work tomorrow, so Erin and I are having a lazy night tonight, including sleepover in Queens, and then I might do something fun like go to the Nat'l History Museum tomorrow afternoon. I also have to go to the animal shelter a few blocks down to sign up to be a CAT PETTER. Yes. That is actually what they call it. Too. Good. To. Be. True.