Also:

Why do I read things that contain quotes like this? Who IS this woman? Where is her soul?!

"This is an absolutely huge, huge story for us," said Sarah Ivens, editor in chief of OK! magazine. "Essentially you have two of the most beautiful, famous people in the world. We've all seen they've had one baby, Shiloh, and it is the coolest, most adorable baby on the planet. And this time they're having two? It can't get any better."

Someone just came into work and I introduced myself to her. She said back "Ayana?"

empanada, turnover!

These days have been good. The weather is starting to oppress me. I need a fan on me at all times. (Can you send some fans up to me?)

Saturday afternoon was everything I wanted it to be. It's nice when things work out that way.

Saturday night found me at the Beer Garden at Bohemian Hall in Astoria to celebrate Jimmy's 24th birthday. It was a collection of his friends that I'd mostly never met, as well as Erin, of course. Try as I might, I drank more than I wanted to....they make it too easy there! Whatever. It was way less drunken than the last time I was there, no one was injured, I crashed on their couch, and all was well. We made a stop at the Neptune Diner on our way back to the apartment-- last time we were at the B.G., we tried to go into the Neptune but they wouldn't let us. Now I know why-- in Erin's words, there's something weirdly wholesome and family-y about it, even at 2:00 am. Our waiter was bizarre and had a talon. He mocked Jimmy's decaf coffee and seated us as far away from civilization as possible. Jimmy ordered the "Neptune Banana Royale" which only now is making me think of "Battle Royale"....and as far as dessert items go, if anything could remind me of Japanese school-child carnage, it MIGHT be that. Anyway, I had a lot of coffee and some pie and Erin and I wound each other up about Twin Peaks and I posed for a million pictures and a million more on the stumble home, where we proudly showcased the fruits of our petty larceny at the Garden. Someone said "Why would you steal those glasses?" and we couldn't really understand the question.

What else have I been doing? Ah. The other night, I met up with Nitzan and Katy in the W.V., we were joined by Craig, and then we went to see Harmony Korine's deranged "Mr. Lonely" at the IFC Center. It was bizarre and over-long, but amusing and engaging for almost the entire thing. Werner Herzog played this insane priest in it and that was really almost worth it by itself. Diego Luna dancing like Wacko Jacko and yelling "YOU CAN LIVE FOREVER!" in the faces of old people was pretty good, too. Then I bought circus peanuts, Craig and I went to a record store where neither of us bought anything. That didn't matter, though, as soon as Craig said "Did you know that there is a really fat cat in this store?" It was super-fat. I petted it. It bit me. Another comrade makes the excellent point-- "Well, how do you think he got so fat?!"

The night before, I took a short walk across McCarren Park to see The All-For-Nots at Matchless. It was my first time in Matchless, and I liked it. Nitz accompanied me, and Craig met us a little later. As neither of them have *really* watched more than two or three episodes of the show, they didn't really know what to expect...but we had a good good time. And they signed the mailing list. :) It was fun to see the AFN in Brooklyn...close to home is nice, of course. And also cool.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that in an effort to expand our crafting empire, Erin and I have branched out into making things from shrink plastic...something that apparently everyone else in the world did as children, but we never got around to doing. Slinky Calhoun will soon be full of the fruits of our labors.

I'm going home this weekend for the Albany Area All-Day Singing. It's supposed to be 90 degrees. I know that I want to be in an old building in Voorheesville in that kind of heat!

ZACH BRAFF = DO NOT POVERTY

I went out for coffee this morning a few blocks from my apt., to a place I've been a handful of times before. It's super hip, but it's dark and cool, has a pressed-tin ceiling and a light fixture that looks like a huge version of Rosemary's tannis root pendant (geeeeek). It's quiet in the morning and there are nice windows through which to people-watch. Whatever. The point is: what was playing at this cafe this morning?

The GARDEN STATE SOUNDTRACK.

I heard "The Only Living Boy in New York" and said "I used to really love this song, but then it was in Garden State and that wrecked it for me." Then I silently gnashed my teeth about Garden State for a minute. Conversation resumed, and then, oh yeah, here come The Shins, oooh-ooooh-ooooh-ing away. What?! Hipsters willing to admit that they saw Garden State?! My head exploded. Also because it made me feel like I was back in freshman year of school. And the fact that that feels like a long time ago is making my head explode again, right now. (I can't really articulate my rage about Garden State....the only thing I can say is that it makes as much sense for me to hate Garden State the way I do and for the reasons I do as it does for Erin and me to think that us seeing Paul Rudd on the day of Heath Ledger's death somehow contributed to that event. NO SENSE AT ALL, and yet....the feelings exist!)

I think this blog has 5 readers, and I know that I've already told this story to 3 of them, but I'll share it again, because it's funny. I have a Google alert set up for The All-For-Nots, and a vast majority of the hits are links to the episodes posted on various sharing sites-- YouTube, Revver, Truveo, whatever. And it always comes up with a link, the title of the ep, and a one-line quote from the ep., in lieu of a summary or anything. The line for this week's ep "The Shtop" is "I want a muffin."

I got an alert a few days ago that had a link to "The Shtop" on some foreign site. It had obviously been through a few rough translations from English and back again, and the resulting tagline was: "I poverty a muffin."

Zing!

I'm gonna go bike to Fort Greene. Yikes!

wtf

is up with my fonts? blog, cooperate!

Yell's bells. Writing angst. Other assorted normalcies

Two times in as many days I have had to assert myself to someone (the same person) for two different reasons. I am not a passive person, and certainly I have very strong opinions-- but I do not consider myself to be aggressive. I do not like confronting people and sometimes have a hard time speaking super-directly to people that I'm not close to. But when someone messes with me? Or my friends? Or, I mean, just pisses me the hell off? Whooooo, boy. Sometimes things happen that surprise me. Both times, I feel my breath get caught, tight, up in chest. My heart starts POUNDING and I lose most of my awareness of how loudly I am speaking.

(Historically, I don't yell at people. But there WAS that one time I yelled at Smooth L (riDICulous band "teacher") in high school-- I don't remember much about it, except that we screamed at each other, she essentially kicked me out of class, I flounced down the hall the to administrator's office, and then the next morning I had to go in for a parent-teacher-administrator conference. To add insult to injury, it was the morning after Clay lost American Idol and I was, justifiably, very upset. A bad day for all. I think only Akil can confirm this incident.)

Anyway, anyway. This week has been silly and I think next week will be the same. I have a million days off next week and am already fearing them. When did that happen? When did free time become a bad thing?

I saw people this week, though, which was excellent. The nightlife highlight of the week was definitely Friday, which saw me boozing in two boroughs with Nitz, Julie, Craig, and special (underage) guest star from Boston Chris Bannow. We started at Alligator, where I ate too much free pizza, then skipped the light whatever over to Via Della P. to see Heather and Stephan, though no Tara, sadly, and in a remarkable coincidence, Ian M. I think I just need to come to terms with the fact that when ever I get settled, something weird, some strange coincidence, will happen to keep me on my toes. Those things will still happen, but maybe I won't be so stunned if I try to pre-emptively make peace? WTF knows.

And tomorrow is Memorial Day. I don't know what I'm going to do. I think perhaps I will bike to and then around Prospect Park. I got two beach invites, but I don't know....I don't know. Lord knows that the only two errands I've had to run for the past week cannot be completed tomorrow, since they involve the library and the post office. Double-whammy! I'll invent a bank errand and then it'll be a triple-play.

Maybe because I can't do any less, I have been thinking about writing. I feel like I want to want to want to write but that I have no no no ideas. I guess writers feel like this. I guess it is fair to refer to myself as a writer. I'm sure Lydia would say that. It does feel silly, though. (My former celebrity charge (har har) told me that when he moved to London to be a professional actor, he didn't work for 18 months and he started telling people he was a novelist bc he couldn't tell them he was an actor any longer. I liked that story.) Anyway, my "point" is that I feel funny thinking of myself as a writer when all I think about is how I "have no ideas." I do, but I judge them immediately-- which I know is the kiss of death. I wonder how I managed to wring WTTAN out of myself. I wonder if I had a compelling story again, if I'd be able to write. I feel like if someone told me "Write about this," and gave me something good, or even something specific that I felt I understood, I'd be able to do it. I just feel like I have no place to come from. All of the ideas that have been rotting in my notebooks for 4 years seem so old and tired or goofy or frivolous....oh dear, oh dear. I don't know.

Also, I don't know if he's found his way here yet, but if you have-- welcome to the new blog, and to Facebook, Uncle SCOTT. T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

No more being serious! Thanks to a well-timed text, thoughts of never writing again/fighting with coworkers/the state of my life have been replaced with thoughts of "slavic dancing." I am also comforted by the fact that it's lovely out, last night the moon was gorgeous (so there's hope for tonight), I had a text convo with my brother about Clifford Odets today. In short: all is now well. At least for now.

Thank you, and good day!

I said good DAY, sir!

Checkmate in three moves in your heyday.

AGHHHHHHHHHHHH DAVID LYNCH HAS DESTROYED ME YET AGAIN!!!

This time in a good way AND a bad way.

The history behind these statements: last year, I got my dear sweet tolerant generous friend Meghan to go to Coolidge Corner for a midnight showing of "Blue Velvet." I had never seen it before and honestly didn't have any idea of what to expect. I knew it was "weird," but that was it. Suffice it to say...two hours later, I had ruined Meghan's life and wreaked havoc on my own sanity. That was a scary walk home to Kenmore Square. (The famous story which comes out of this is: Meghan got home and was so scared that she woke up our friend Karl and made him watch "Roseanne" re-runs on TV until she had chased the Lynchian demons out of her brain. Karl went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and then burst back into the room screaming 'I LOVE YOU! LOVE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!' a la Isabella Rosselini in the movie. Another hour of 'Roseanne' was the only cure for the relapse which resulted. :P )

Anyway, then I went the next weekend at midnight to see "Wild At Heart" and walked home in the rain, again at 2 in the morning, totally wired and freaked out.

Cut to me on any given night of the past month....laying in bed binging (shouldn't there be an "e" in that?) on "Twin Peaks." It had always been something I knew about, and vaguely thought I might want to watch, though honestly I had some difficulty keeping it straight from "Northern Exposure" (Nitz and Erin have the same issue...anyone?)--but on the strong recommendation of someone whose taste I trust, I Netflixed it and then all of a sudden, my life was gone. Gone, gone, GONE to the charming smile of Agent Dale Cooper, the coffee and cherry pie at the Double R, and the wisdom of the Log Lady. But it was good.

So I was understandably upset when, last night, I found myself at the last episode in the series. And even MORE upset at the ending. No spoilers here, folks.....just that I felt the same way at the end of TP as I did at the end of Carnivale. But I was 100x more terrified this time. I couldn't go to sleep because I was so jazzed, AND because my apartment was super cold...which I couldn't fix because I was too scared to get out of bed (some part of me recognized how stupid that was, but a BIG part of me thought 'better safe than sorry' was a good motto to operate under, at least until the light of day). So I woke up every hour on the half hour, shivering, excited, nervous...what a way to spend a night!

As a result, I seemed to be a little on edge when I woke up. After an uncommonly nice beginning-of-morning, I swooped down into the ugly depths of a non-specific sadness, complete with tears-in-eyes and inexplicable morbid outlook. Luckily, when I got outside, the sun was shining, I had someone to cheer me up, I drank coffee, and when I got to work I ate a piece from a La Mama-shaped cake.

And now the sun is not shining. But I feel okay. It's better to remember: maybe if I don't encourage myself to feel sad, I won't feel sad. Allowing myself to feel sad and encouraging myself to do it are two different things. It is important for me to differentiate between them.

DiaBEETis!

Gorgeous holiday?

The 'lusty month of May' is turning out to be the 'tired, stressed, rainy, dismal month of May' in my book. Ugh. This weather. My boss just looked out the door and said "Freezing. Freezing and pouring." That's exactly what I want to hear.

To make things worse, I have only one episode of Twin Peaks left until the end of the series. THE END OF THE SERIES. Sure, I can watch the prequel, but it won't be the same. This is just like when I was coming to the end of Carnivale. I know these people! I love them! I want them in my life! (Yes, even the psycho killers and the slimy businessmen and the drug dealers...)

Slinky Calhoun enjoyed a banner day yesterday-- two sales in the course of a few hours! Booyah. Erin and I also indulged ourselves and ordered cheapass--but cute--business cards. Come on. We have to amuse ourselves somehow! (And now that obviously necessitates buying cases for the cards. Which means we get to shop on Etsy. Everyone wins. [I'm considering this one.])

This rain, this rain, this RAIN! Craig Lucas was the CFA commencement speaker this year-- horribly unfair, imho, as we were stuck with an incoherent artist asshole. Here's a link to his speech on the Huffington Post (?)--rife with typos and at least one inaccuracy (Schiele!), it is nonetheless a lovely, funny, and hopeful speech that I would have been glad to hear while sitting on the stage of the Hunt, wringing my hands ceaselessly.

The dictionary.com word of the day is "Potemkin village."
Potemkin village \puh-TEM(P)-kin\, noun:
An impressive facade or display that hides an undesirable fact or state; a false front.

I have never heard this term in my life.


I want to curl up in bed with Slinky and a cup of tea.