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phone home

6/27/00
If it seems like all I've been doing lately is driving around the outskirts of Manhattan and eating at chain restaurants and shopping at discount stores, that would be because that is exactly what I've been doing. This weekend I went over 20 miles into New Jersey to bask in the glory that is Trader Joe's. I bought a $16 purse at Marshall's, I browsed drug stores with entire aisles of travel-sized toiletries without even buying anything. I didn't go out to a single bar the entire weekend (and I like drinking). And it made me happy. It's creepy that I'm slowly becoming just what I predicted I might become back in 1998. I considered myself to be "secretly suburban," but that ain't much of a secret anymore. Being truly suburban is oppressive and dead-end, dabbling in the lifestyle is grounding and invigorating. Spending time in strip malls and getting excited over "stand-alone" Rite Aids and parking lots is only enjoyable when you have something to counter it with. I come home to a hot as Hades un-air conditioned apartment populated with a dirty, used mattress, cardboard boxes as tables, and furniture from the sidewalk. Living in squalor can really get to a person. So can spending two hours a day crammed in between pushing, beastly people on a subway. So can working long hours for ½-1/4 of the pay of everyone I know. I can't be blamed for immersing myself in the mundane during the weekends. My mind is overloaded. I've always been a high-strung person, but I fear one of these days (in the not too far off future) I'm going to snap. I just can't be bothered right now with all the things that I should be doing. I mean, I could garden, I could work-out, I could write a book, I could get obsessed with "The Zone" and stop eating carbs, I could get a dog and teach it tricks--there are so many coulds and shoulds, but right now I just don't feel like trying very hard. For me, the suburbs evoke a simpler time. Of course, in reality, I hated suburban life and couldn't wait for the day I could move someplace "cool" and do whatever I wanted without problems from anyone. Now, the cooler something is, the more it makes me want to barf. New York is supposed to be some cultural mecca, cutting-edge, full of attitude and all that nonsense. Give me soccer moms, buffalo wings and sports utility vehicles (not one of those Mercedes ones or a Range Rover), for crying out loud. I've had discussions with friends who didn't grow up in big cities and we all have come to the conclusion that suburban kids are more creative compared to those who were urban pipsqueaks. They have no choice. When there's nothing to do and you feel isolated, you create things, you become very resourceful and inventive. Maybe it's just run of the mill stuff like starting a band or doing a zine or writing lame poetry or whatever, but it's real and it's coming from someplace that truly wants to connect with others. I don't think that living in the country is quite the same because the suburbs by definition aren't the middle of nowhere, they border larger cities. You know there's something bigger out there and maybe you dabble in it from time to time, but it's not where you live, and where you live plays such a strong role in mindset and what you think you're capable of. The suburbs are genuine and bittersweet and those are two qualities I'll always admire.

6/23/00
Do you know who totally rocks? C.C. Deville. Yes, C.C. Deville from Poison. I always sort of suspected it. Even as a teen when Poison was popular, I semi-liked them. It was definitely not the kind of music I listened to, but it was so campy and catchy and hard to resist. Me and my sister would always get a kick out of C.C. because he was so over the top with his clothes and make-up. Totally the Nick Rhodes of the band. In fact, we started thinking that they may have been the same person. We bust ourselves up pretending it was really Nick, not C.C. who jumping around with a guitar and rolling down ramps like a maniac. They even had similarities like a short build large noses. I hadn't given much thought to C.C. until the week when I saw a Poison "Behind the Music" on VH1. He was amazing. He had this raspy 5 pack a day voice and a heavy east coast accent (New Jersey? Long Island?) and was spastic as ever. Everything that came out of his mouth was funny (especially with that voice). Merely one example of a C.C. quote, "Poison looked like women, talked like men and fucked like beasts!" They profiled the usual ups and downs, battles with drugs, women, etc. But C.C. really won me over when he started talking about finally kicking his cocaine habit and moving in with his mom. Not only did he move in with his mom, but he gained all this weight and they showed all these fat photos to prove it. He said he got up to 220--I'd say more like 320, though the guy's barely 5 foot so maybe he was right. I couldn't even deal. Seeing C.C. all portly and wearing a baseball cap with his arm around his mom was just too much. I decided he's a pretty good egg. I tried finding some of those photos, but haven't turned up anything other than some pretty bad websites. Not that this is a good website, but I mean sites where none of the links work or or there's no content at all, just one photo. I got super excited when I saw a link to one called C.C. Deville, The Brooklyln Axe Master, which was something else. Thank god I found out he's a Brooklynite, Bay Ridge, no less! He's even got a new band Samantha7 which probably isn't my thing, but I think I'll check them out anyway. 'Cause if it's good enough for C.C., then it's good enough for me.

6/19/00
I made a remarkable discovery this weekend. I accidentally stumbled upon the dead opposite of cool. In all aspects, even geographically. Saturday I decided to go out to Coney Island and it was hot out and packed and trashy and all that you'd expect from Coney Island. Then I thought it would be good to check out the lesser known beaches- Brighton Beach is the next one east, and then Manhattan Beach. Next thing I knew we were in this area I never knew existed, Sheepshead Bay. I mean, I knew it existed from seeing the neighborhood mentioned in apt. ads, but I had no idea what it was like. It's really a bay with fishing boats and a strip of restaurants and stores on the opposite side. Close to the beach are all these insane little shanty shack houses that are completely un-Brooklyn. If someone just dropped you off out of a car, you would have no idea where you were, maybe in the South? Appalachia? And to make it more confusing, the major ethnicity seemed to be Russian. It was cool. There was even a Loehman's on the bay, where I bought a pair of shoes, saw a young Russian couple harassing a sales clerk about a Prada bag (they wouldn't leave the poor guy alone. When I first got there they were bugging him about when it would go on sale and like 45 min. later when I was leaving they were still hounding him and insisting that he had to call them at home when it got marked down and being very aggressive about it), and saw some middle aged Eastern European woman get busted for shoplifting. Very entertaining in all. But the highlight of the excursion was For Goodness Steak, the restaurant I insisted on going to. Originally, we just wanted to get a drink and hang out somewhere, but there weren't any bars (though I did see a comedy club called Pip's, which scared the bejeezus out of me. You may or may not know about my issues with stand-up comedians. I couldn't stomach one in a "reputable" club, let alone in Sheepshead Bay…now that I think about it, it could've been highly entertaining, but I didn't want to take my chances). So, For Goodness Steak it was. They had the world's creepiest buffet and yet that did not deter me. It was wall to wall packed with families with a minimum of three kids each, they served neon pink and blue drinks in those "whalebones," you know, those tall goofy glasses that you get to take home. Everyone seemed to have one, I stuck with the watered-down Budweiser. We ordered steak and all you can eat shrimp. This included the busted salad bar. I should've known better, but the urge for bad food got the better of me. It was filled with chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, egg rolls, corn fritters, cut up wieners, creepy crab legs, shrimp that tasted like Clorox, mini pizzas…you get the idea. There was also a separate taco bar and dessert bar with rancid looking puddings, melted soft serve ice cream and a tub of jelly bellies (which we filled our pockets with). Needless to say, the food was not terribly good, the waitstaff not particularly pleasant, and the clientele…well, they were sort of atrocious too. While eating my third helping of salad bar morsels, I took stock of the situation, looked around and thought, "oh my god, how did this happen to me?!" How did I ever end up at For Goodness Steak in Sheepshead Bay on a Saturday night in New York. After the shock wore off, I felt pretty good about myself. This was living. It was then that I noticed the street sign outside. I couldn't believe my eyes. It said Bedford Ave. Beford Ave. stands for all that is wrong about New York, Brooklyn more specifically. Bedford Ave. is the main drag in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which somehow has become the epitome of cool. It's one of the few areas in Brooklyn where you can hear people discussing their screenplays and how they need "live/work space." They actually use the term live/work space. I could barf. I mean, I went to art school so I don't know why I'm so disgusted by artists (poets, singer/songwriters, playwrights, what have you). And it's not as if I don't hang out in Williamsburg, but it's all so wrong. How do people get such a sense of self-importance? How do grown women get the bodies of ten year old boys? How do you justify $1,000 studio apartments over chicken slaughtering facilities? It's all a mystery to me. I was so happy to realize we were literally at the opposing end of Beford Ave. You could get no further away, we were at the sea. James didn't believe it was the same Bedford Ave., so I made him drive back into the city along it and after passing through some obscenely opulent mobster neighborhoods, then some pretty scary ghetto-ish areas, then through the Hassidic parts, we ended up smack dab in the heart of Williamsburg. It only took about 30 minutes. That's what I love about New York. You can go 20 blocks and be in a different world. A 30 minute drive can take you to areas where the majority of the inhabitants rarely go to Manhattan. It's so freaky and insulated. He seemed sort of relieved to be sitting in a bar in Williamsburg. I understand. He lives in Manhattan. Most people think if you're going to move to n.y. then you should live in the city. That's the n.y. experience. I don't agree. I decided to move to n.y., yet I would be perfectly happy never setting foot in Manhattan (well, I would miss Chinatown). Maybe I've become warped from living in the middle of nowhere Queens, but I think you should learn to embrace your outer boroughs. Sunday I went to the only nyc Target in College Point, Queens, way out past La Guardia, past Shea Stadium, almost to the Bronx. It was good fun. I continued my new trend of eating at a random White Castle once a weekend and stopped in Corona, Queens. That was very satisfying, as well.

6/15/00
I just noticed that there wasn't a link to this June page from the Project Me main page. I suppose that means that I've been writing this nonesense all for myself the past few weeks. I'm in a fine enough mood today, but I was hopping mad for most of yesterday. I try not to let people get to me, but I got into a minor altercation with some stranger yesterday and she ended up shoving/smacking me. I couldn't believe it! I'm really not the kind of person who gets into fights with people and I've never had a physical confrontation. I was rushing to transfer from the M train to the A train at the Fulton st. station. I needed to go down a flight of stairs. An arriving train had just let a large crowd of people off and they were heading up the stairs at the same time I was going down. You are supposed to stay to the right. That is the unspoken (well, not that unspoken, the MTA suggests you stay to the right on their public service posters) rule. I don't care if there are 20 people going up and only 1 going down, you stay on your side. I got half way down the stairs when I came face to face with this woman gripping the rail, the rail on my right that I was holding onto because I have horrible balance and can't walk on stairs up or down without being against the side. The rail was on her left and she had no business being there. This situation happens every now and then and it's not the end of the world, one of the indivisuals moves around the other and it's a pain, but it's alright. I couldn't go around her because there was a wall of people next to her. She, however, could have easily walked around me. But instead she just stopped and wouldn't move. I wouldn't move either. It was a battle of wills. I stared her straight in the face for what seemed like an awfully long time, but in reality was probably a couple seconds. She finally pushed past me and while doing so gave me this smack, shove on my hip. It wasn't hard enough to be a hit, but was definitely more than a brush. I should've punched her. She was so not in the right (nor on the right, for that matter). I yelled and told her to fuck off because I'm mature that way. The whole incident really got me seething. Like I just don't get why people are so emotionally disturbed. I swear that 90% of the time, I'm not the disturbed one. My day didn't improve until after 8pm when I stopped in some Wall St. Irish Bar for a drink and I mellowed out. Later, I ate at some new Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown and was baffled by how the waiter said "yummy yummy" when he brought the food to the tables. The waitstaff was very overzealous and hovered around the tables like hawks. The best part was when the owner turned downt the lights and brought out a cake for a large group celebrating a birthday and made the restaurant sing "Happy Birthday" and was all spazzy and twitching his arms around like a mad conductor and then like 3 minutes later made everyone sing "Happy Birthday" again. There was also this freaky busboy? busman? whose age was impossible to determine. He could've been anywhere from 12 to 30. Later I went to an overpriced kareoke (I never spell that right) bar, but didn't sing. I never have. I decided that there must be a kareoke gene, much like the recently discovered "daredevil gene" that makes retards want to climb rocks and skydive and all that "extreme" stuff. I just don't know how else to explain certain people's compulsion to get up and dance and warble in front of strangers. Like last night there was this semi-hipster guy who thought was pretty cool doing a melodramatic rendition of, "I Just Called to Say I Love You." He was relentless. He also did duets with two different Asian guys--"Born to be Wild" and "Ebony and Ivory." He certainly thought he was the shit. I had thoughts of my own. But then, I always do.

6/13/00
Oh, I'm totally nauseous. I just made this Vietnamese salad with chicken and it was good 30 minutes ago, but now I feel ill. I love the combination of fish sauce, rice vinegar, chiles and sugar, but I think it's doing bad things to me. I made this new rule where I can't eat desserts or bread or pasta or excessive fat during the week...so I can eat like a white trash maniac on sat and sun. I've gotten on a huge outer burough chain restaurant kick. Now that I have access to a car, a new world of possibilities has opened. This is the second weekend in a row that I went to White Castle. The burgers and fries are kind of secondary--I just wanted to get another demented "craverscope" cup, but the White Castle in Williamsburg just gave us regular paper cups. It was kind of sad. What's even more sad is making a special trip to Staten Island just to visit Friendly's. I'd never even heard of Friendly's before I moved here, but they keep showing commercials with all these amazing candy-topped sundaes--Heath Bars, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers--you know the kind of frosty treat. They also keep showing Dairy Queen ads when I know there's no Dairy Queen anywhere near here. It's sadistic. I recently found out that the only Friendly's in all five buroughs is at the Staten Island Mall. Since it's the only burough I've never visited, it only seemed appropriate to check it out. Never mind that it was the hottest day of the year so far (96 degrees), that it was a little further than I'd expected and that nothing's open on Sundays. I got to the mall at 5:45, just in time to find out that Friendly's closed at 6! Who would've known. Suburbs are weird that way. But I was able to get in and quickly order a 3 scoop Heath Bar sundae with hot fudge and caramel. It was a senior citizens and children taking their parents in wheelchairs out for the evening kind of crowd. I was not disappointed. I only regret not being able to stop at Chevy's for margaritas and chile poppers. I will tell you one thing, don't try finding tahini in Staten Island. I got it in my head that making homemade hummus would be a good thing, but the requisite tahini is a lot harder to track down than I thought it would be. Anyway, Staten Island was good, they have woodsy real parks, large supermarkets that can't break $100 bills, detached houses with porches...and the Wu Tang store. Ok, I didn't really care about the Wu Tang store. I've always been fond of those 70's teen books by Paul Zindel like "The Pigman" and my absolute favorite in the world, "Confessions of a Teenage Baboon." That's one of the only books that will actually make me laugh out loud and cry no matter how many times I read it (which doesn't say much for my emotional stability, or taste in fine literature). Most of his stories take place in S.I. and it always seemed like it'd be a real dilapidated, depressing, isolated kind of environment. And it was sort of. New York City-style suburbs just aren't the crisp, clean, sterile versions that I'm accustomed to. Everything seems sort of old and rickety. I mean, the idea of having to take a ferry to get into the "big city" seems more primitive than quaint, if you ask me. Well, there's a bridge that costs 7 freakin' dollars to go over--just expensive enough to remind you that you're still in N.Y. O.k., my stomach has almost stopped churning. You can blame the incoherent nature of this entry on my bad eating habits.

6/9/00
Oh boy, I got my invite for my high school reunion yesterday. It's a thing of beauty. I liked how all 7 girls on the organizing committee made a point of using their married names in addition to their maiden ones. I mean, it's very important to let everyone know that you're married, right? And what I liked even better was that 2 of the 7 had the last name of their high school sweethearts. They want to know my spouse's name, my kids' ages and names, my favorite pastimes, my favorite high school memory, and the highlight of my life since high school. Oh, they also want a photo and make sure to mention in small print, "Classic Reunions, Inc. reserves the right to exclude photos that are not appropriate for family viewing." Obviously they've had a problem with this in the past. I got excited when I saw Eric Erickson listed with the people that couldn't be found. He was one of the handicapable kids who lived in the group home on my block, but you don't need to hear about him right now. He used to threaten to move to Las Vegas to become a singer. I only wish it were true and the real reason why they couldn't track him down. Did mention that the event takes place on Sept. 8th? Henry Thomas's 29th birthday. It ought to be a doozy.

6/7/00
Yesterday on the way to work I was thinking about people I went to college with and was trying to come up with anyone who'd actually moved away from Portland. The only person who came to mind was Chris Wright, that guy with my birthday, who went all mentally ill and who had just gotten his MFA and was now teaching at Pratt. He certainly wasn't part of the in-crowd (not that there was a serious in-crowd, considering there were only about 25 people in my graduating class) in college and his painting style was all out-dated and very realistic and still is. I mean, he can paint anything to look like what it is, but the ability to paint a penny that looks just like a penny is most decidedly uncool. Anyway, as the subway began approaching Penn Station, who do you think I saw waiting on the platform? Chris Wright, of course. I'm starting to think that he must represent something. He's certainly becoming a recurring character.

6/5/00
It's amazing how much a weekend can be brightened by a rental car. I remember in college I had a friend who would just rent a car every now and then. We both had our own, but they were pieces of junk and the feeling you get from speeding around in a new car that's not your own is pretty exhiliarating. I used to think this was pretty decadent, and that was at Portland prices. I know it's close to $100 a day here, but let's not dwell on that aspect. The first order of business was finding this Japanese mall in N.J. that I'd been hearing about. The Mitsuwa Marketplace lived up to all my expectations. Inside the grocery store was this amazing food court with things like fried dough shaped like fish with sweet bean paste inside, daifuku--ice cream covered in mochi, those unbelievable (and ridulously expensive) candies, wagashi, that I saw on "Martha Stewart Living" a few months ago, tons of sushi, tempura, oddly colored baked goods like bright green mugwort muffins, and this was just the restaurant area. The grocery store had whole aisles just for miso paste, I almost died when I saw the Hello Kitty waffle maker, even better was the Hello Kitty toaster that browns her face into each piece of bread. Now that's ingenious. Later we went to a regular grocery store just for the experience of pushing around a cart in huge aisles with no one in your way and finding specials like 68 cents for 2 liters of Coke (I don't even drink soda and I was excited). You would think that was a car at your disposal you should drive long distances, but it's not requisite. Later that night we went to Astoria, Queens just to see what it was like and first went to a sketchy White Castle. I don't know what it is about White Castles always being kind of scary at night and full of shady characters inside and loitering outside. Maybe it's because they're 24 hours. It's the only fast food joint I can think of off the top of my head with glass between the cashier and customer. The highlight of the White Castle experience was the giant plastic cup I got. At first I thought it was some run of the mill astrology thing that said Aries on it. I looked again and realized it said Cravies and had this cartoon beast with fries on its face and some blurb about Cravies being the "fry-bearded ram" and I almost lost my shit. I mean who comes up with this stuff?! They have this hilarious ad campaign where they must use the word crave in all 12 astrological signs. I didn't see how this was possible, not until I got a load of the craverscope, that is. Afterwards, we ended up at some bar called Bar, that was pretty gritty and full of regulars who sang to Journey songs on the jukebox. Earlier I heard Journey in the grocery store and later that night, back at home, I saw some little black kid from New Orleans doing, Steve Perry's "Don't Stop Believing" on "Kids at the Apollo." It was a definitely a long day's JOURNEY into night. Sunday I got to go to the Queens Mall in the car, which seems a little silly since it's like 25 min. bus ride from my house (or a little over an hour on foot), but it's more fun getting to use the parking garage and it was for a good reason because we needed to buy a car battery for James's real car that's mid-80's and on its last legs and completely unable to take us fun places like Queens and New Jersey. The only disappointment that afternoon came from not being able to eat at Sizzler. I kind of head my heart set on it. Oh, and I was also a little disappointed that both pairs of pants I bought at Old Navy were so tight on my freakin' ass that you could see my underwear. It struck me as I was eating the new Honey BBQ Crunch Melt and fries at the food court that it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to watch my fat and starch intake. I've also seriously realized that I need to stop smoking--all weekend I had a sore throat so severe that I couldn't swallow (I still have it) and I've been reading how smoking and cervical cancer is directly linked (as opposed to cancers like ovarian and breast which don't have strong ties to smoking) and that's what I'm having potential problems with so I'm being pretty stupid in persisting with my habit. Last night I even managed to get it together and make a blackberry cobbler. It was the perfect accompaniment for watching "Taxi Driver" on cable. Now it's monday and I'm so tired and it's 9 pm and I've only been home an hour and I'm ready to fall asleep. I don't know how you're ever supposed to catch up on sleep or get anything done. If you're up til 5 am on weekends and try to be up before noon that's almost a healthy 8 hours, but when the week hits, it kills you. I need to find a solution. Not too long ago I saw an ad for an "Oprah" where they were finding ways for "women who do too much" to gain extra time for themselves and it made me want to barf. Like shaping up their daily routine and becoming more efficient could give them an extra 45 min a day to do whatever lame things the wanted to do like read Maya Angelou, light candles, or take bubble baths. This can not happen to me.

6/2/00
Well, it's June, it's excruciatingly hot out, I sat through 3 hours of "Gladiator" last night, I got bad test results back from the dr. and am not sure what they're going to do now, but have a feeling it will involve cutting, cauterizing, and/or electrical current, I can't stop thinking about how good blackberry cobbler would be right now, I haven't been sleeping enough, my attention span is nil, and that's about it for friday afternoon. I don't know what it is about 4 day work weeks after a 3 day weekend, but they always drag. I guess I was supposed to give my 30 day notice yesterday but I didn't and now I'm not sure what happens. My lease is up July 1, but from what people tell me, they're supposed to give you a lease renewal 90 days before your lease is up so it's not as if I'm the only retarded one who isn't following the rules. I really think blackberry cobbler is the best thing on my mind right now.