3/31/05
People writing about food frequently makes me want to barf. I guess I blog and I write about food (though not exclusively) but I get kind of bored by most "food blogging", like people cooking or eating out and taking pictures of it and discussing it and posting comments online. I feel like I should have something in common with these people because I like to cook and write about food, but there’s totally no affinity. Dull. (Maybe I’m just jealous because my site isn’t all tidy and RSS feed XML syndicated and no one will link to me because really where would they link? My stuff is all over the place. Maybe my website is a metaphor for my thought processes—totally scattered. Everyone now has a clean, templated blog for each topic, like I’d have a Henry Thomas blog, a restaurant review blog, a scaredy-cat stalker blog, a shopping blog, and so on. But it’s way too late for that lameness. The only section that’s really blog-like is this Project Me business. Heck, I’m not scatterbrained, I’m a multitasker.) As a super aside, there’s some woman, I’m completely blanking on her name, but I mentioned it in full way back when I first started this site because the girls I was staying with when I first moved here knew she needed a roommate, but gave me warnings, something about her liking Liz Phair. Anyway, not too long ago this woman found my site and wanted to clarify that this wasn’t her. Whatever, now she does that celebrity baby blog, (nah, you wouldn’t want to be associated with Liz Phair...but famous babies! Yes.) Her husband does The Food Section which is all acclaimed in the food blog world, but looking at it makes me realize how that’s so not my scene. Like he recently did a roundtable with French girls via The Morning News on the French paradox and that horrible new French women not getting fat book and that’s gross. Then there was a big travelogue a while ago and he raved about eating at a restaurant in Montreal twice that James and I had serious bad vibes with. I mean, there was a huge screw in his food, not funny and not flavorful. Tony Bourdain, whom I used to have peculiar sex dreams about while taking Effexor, also hypes up Au Pied du Cochon in this month’s Gourmet. My former coworker who lives in my neighborhood (and recommended crappy restaurants in the recent NY Times piece on local take out joints where their food writers wrote about places they get delivery from in their own necks of the woods) also wrote a Montreal article and gave this restaurant the thumbs up. Once again, I guess I’m the freak because I found the place beyond irritating. Food writing is so un-fun and contrary to most of experiences. Back to foodie blogs--I’m just kind of indifferent to snapshot culture (only made easier by prevalence of camera phones and tiny digital cams) where everyone must capture every gathering in pixels for…I’m not sure, proof they have friends? Proof they are fun and vibrant people with many varied interests? I’m no better by typing the mundane, but it’s a little more obtuse. But it wasn’t food blogging that got me on this tangent, it was this fucked up editorial(?) in today’s NY Times entitled “Of Memories and Mole.” I’m tired, it’s 9:33am and this isn’t the kind of shit I want to read first thing in the morning. There was a Kids in the Hall skit I can only vaguely remember the gist of (god bless the internet, of course someone has transcribed the bit and posted it online where it doesn’t quite translate as humorously) where an elderly rich man was in bed writing superfluous crap/memoirs (likely with a quill pen but I can’t say for sure), but there was a scene where he wrote “dear yogurt container, thank you for being so full of yogurt.” And me and my sister would totally bust up over that line and use it to torment my boyfriend at the time because that’s practically the kind of inane thing he’d say. Like: oh, sweet mysterious mole, what memories you conjure—uh, to be precise “…when I was little and the town oiled the gravel road in front of our house. Workers laid the new oil and set out kerosene warning lamps - dark metal globes with a guttering, smoky flame on top, which were somehow beautiful in the night.” He’s completely captured how I too am transported with each and every precious bite of mole...oh my god, shut the hell up. (Big shocker—Verlyn Klinkenborg has also written for The New Yorker). Now it’s 10:19am and I’m completely riled up (that’s good, now I have enough bile-filled energy to actually start doing work).

3/30/05
Not to go completely batshit bloggy (that is to say commenting and linking on articles) on you but this is the kind of thing I so don’t understand. As I think I’ve made clear before, I rarely read The New Yorker of my own free will. This was no exception, but for some inexplicable reason I was compelled to click on this Talk of the Town piece that was linked to from Gawker because it uses one of their interns as a subject. So, recent Yale grads whose parents help pay for their 4-bedroom East Village apartment have been having problems with bedbugs. Luckily, all four roommates’ parents also live in Manhattan, but they’re reluctant to let their offspring stay with them out of fear of infestation and trouble with the co-op boards. This is serious business, folks. Literally the talk of the town. Ye Olde Hamlet of Manhattan is abuzz with talk. I recall numerous considerable less cutesy/more newsy articles about bedbugs and Greenpoint in like 2003. Sometimes it takes a while for reverse trends to made their way into The City. Small stories, slices of life, I like that let’s sweat the small stuff, of course. But The New Yorker isn’t small and when small stuff is published in such revered forums it becomes irritating stuff. Start a fucking blog if you want to write about bedbugs (oh right, that was the girls’ first inclination, but it had already been done). Seriously. Though I’m clearly a lone dissenter because Mark Singer has been a New Yorker staff writer for over 20 years and has published numerous essay collections. Maybe I just don’t get The New Yorker (I’ve never met a person who doesn’t like it. I’ve known otherwise fine individuals who actually pay good money to subscribe to it. Haters please contact me because I feel very alone, though that probably has little to do with windbag periodicals).

3/29/05
Urgh, I took the day off and I still haven’t managed to write or do anything web-ish. I felt so sweaty, nauseous, headachy and potentially pants-shitting last night that I took a nap from 6-8pm (I almost never nap, too babyish) then went to bed at midnight and slept till 1pm this afternoon. That’s a lot of sleeping and I still feel gross. I could’ve sworn I’d pooped out ten pounds in the last couple days, but unfortunately the scale reads at the exact same figure it has since last July. Crapping like crazy won’t even make it budge, so much for the laxative weight loss concept (ok, I hate Kirstie Alley and I swear I don’t really watch “Fat Actress” but there was a mildly amusing scene a few episodes ago where she had diarrhea in public and had to get a diaper). Despite drinking too much Friday and Saturday nights (I had to turn down a Sunday get together due to feeling out of sorts) I know this isn’t a hangover, besides a hangover that lasts 48 hours is insane. I’m pretty sure I didn’t food poison myself with the dishes I made Saturday evening. I’m just hoping I pep up by tomorrow because I can’t really call in sick again despite the temptation of sleeping till noon and doing absolutely nothing all day. One of my party guests mentioned how he’d started a bowel movement blog (I’d link but there’s only one entry so far and I don’t know if it’s a charming family and friends only type project), primarily because his girlfriend was sick of hearing about his poop patterns. I’m like so headed down that path, I’m completely convinced that I don’t really have a stomach pooch, it’s just years of backed up shit bloating me up, I.B.S. blog is only a matter of time.

3/25/05
Yay, Good Friday. Well, it’s really only good because it’s a half day at work. I love these semi holidays (My parents were Sunday school teachers when I was a grade-schooler, but I couldn’t tell you what things like Passover, Lent, and Ash Wednesday are really about) because the streets and subways are tolerably less crowded. I don’t recall ever getting Good Friday off in Portland, but it’s always been a holiday here. The more I live the more I realize that Portland is a weird place (that’s why I’m inappropriate and don’t know right from wrong). Yesterday the NY Times had an eye-catching article Vibrant Cities Find One Thing Missing: Children and I was like where are these cities and got excited until I realized the story was focused on Portland (though San Francisco and Seattle made the top two spots—there is something to be said for the west coast, I suppose). New Yorkers just love to breed, I guess. To be honest, I just skimmed the piece, but I’m assuming this has something to do with affluence and education level, though I don’t quite get why poor dumb people would enjoy being knocked up so much. Actually, what I don’t get is why poor people would live in NYC (maybe I should look inward) because that’s the crux of this article. People who start families and those with lower incomes tend to move to suburbs and more affordable outlying communities leaving the cities to the affluent and retired. I guess in NYC terms Carroll Gardens is the more affordable outlying community. Gross. I really need to rest up because it seems like birthday party season is underway. Everyone I know is Aries and getting older in the next few weeks. Tonight is a double party, and I’ve resolved to not drink like a fish and to go home early (which is very hard for me) because tomorrow is James’s party, which I’m going to need to be in top form for because there’s lots of food to prep. Though I don’t know how much of it is going to get eaten because it seems like everyone I encounter has a food issue of sorts, very fussy and I’m going completely traditional Spanish with the menu, which is unaccommodating to vegetarians, fish-haters and the generally squeamish. There will be anchovies and morcilla (blood sausage) and lamb and strong sheep’s milk cheese and it’s going to be too bad for culinary spoilsports.

3/22/05
I’m in one of those stupid ruts/phases where it seems like every idea I have is showing up in print, either annoying me because it’s something I could’ve written but for some reason didn’t, or because the subject is something I’m interested in and don’t want it made into a trend. I know, I know, there are no new ideas and anything you can think of it’s certain there are tens, hundreds, heck thousands or others who’ve had the same thoughts. I keep a running list of story ideas I intend to pitch, but rarely do, mostly because I don’t think they’re good enough, there isn’t a compelling angle, not timely, I’m not an expert on the topic, etc. I’m not talking New Yorker caliber or 5,000 word investigative journalism stuff, just short lifestyle pieces for local publications. But then I’m so, so irritated when I see these ideas being used. Indian snacks is the only idea I was actually ok with and ready to pitch, then that week the main story in the NY Times dining section was about Indian chaat (snacks). It wasn’t like I was going to approach the Times myself, but who would want it now that the biggie did it? I’ve been wondering why there haven’t been any recent bits on Steve Keene, especially now that he has an online store, perfect for the freelancer friendly City section of the NY Times. Well, that subject made in into that very section a few Sundays ago. Every “foodie” (gross word) seems fixated on banh mi recently, but there’s not much of a story there, I wouldn’t pitch on article on the sandwiches unless I could think of an interesting twist, which I haven’t been able to, but then the NY Daily News had a straightforward piece on them a few weeks ago (which oddly seems to be missing from their stie). And whenever I do get motivated enough to pitch a story, if it’s not rejected I’m told they’re already doing it or something similar and using a regular contributor, which is the ultimate annoyance. This is why I’ve given up on Time Out NY, even though it seems like a fluff rag they’re damn picky about articles in the Eat Out section (plus, I haven't received my last two issues. Even though I'm tormented by the stupid rag, I'd still like to get my subscription fulfilled). It was very irksome to pitch about restaurants making it big elsewhere then moving to Manhattan instead of the traditional opposite, then seeing it in print (written by someone else) a few weeks later (though to be fair, my idea was about restaurants from other cities setting up Manhattan branches and the published article was about outerborough restaurants coming to Manhattan). Whatever. So, if I were smart I would send out some ideas I’ve had sitting stagnant in a word document a.s.a.p. before I see them elsewhere and have shit fits, but I’m not, I’m just sitting here. Now I’m annoying myself. And yesterday I mentioned how I was fond of the Gowanus no man’s land between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope. It’s hardly a secret neighborhood, nothing that close to Manhattan is, but behold the birth of “G-Slope”, a predicted hot new section of the city. Nothing is sacred. At least Sunset Park is still for losers (and lesbians?), it’s going to take a lot to hip that area up (though I noticed a Time Out NY bar review for a new place on 21st and Fifth Ave., Koze Lounge, which is unquestionably Sunset Park, despite their reference to Park Slope. Nice try.) For variety’s sake, here’s an article (nevermind, it’s not available for free anymore. It’s about how NYC girls are tucking their pants into their boots.) it would never occur to me to pitch (I rarely touch the NY Observer so it’s unlikely I would even attempt to grace their highbrow yet gossipy pink pages or that they’d want anything to with a nobody) but was amused by. These trend observation pieces simultaneously irritate and intrigue me. They’re fun to read, but why/how on earth do they get written? Look, I have some opinions on style and someone’s going to pay me to write them down. Maybe I’m just jealous because I secretly want to write about ponchos and Dodgeball users (Amy Sohn makes me queasy. Even with headphones on, I was still grossed out by her mute talking head on VH1 at the gym last night). Ok, I predict you’re going to see a piece on Home Depot as singles scene any day now. Oh right, that’s been done. Ok, the Union Square Whole Foods is the hottest, newest chain store to open, I can’t quite come up with a trendy twist because I’m not clever that way, but in mere seconds stories using the place as a focal point will appear. I guarantee it.

3/21/05
I guess it’s human nature, or at least my nature, that the more time I have the more I squander it. I wouldn’t say I waste time, but I never end up doing the lofty things I plan. James was out of town this weekend and might not be back until later this week, partly because it was just his dad’s birthday and will be his tomorrow and partly because his dad (it’s funny to say dad in this context because that’s the term I grew up using, never father, and certainly not “papa,” which is the world always used for James’s paternal figure) is having a kidney removed. I think that’s a big deal but that whole family is nuts and is hysterical about things that don’t matter and blasé about biggies. I suspect there’s more to the story than simply having a kidney removed, but whatever, that’s their deal. Now that I’ve spent a year getting lazy in a cohabitation scenario I do like having days alone (the apt. is big enough and James is workaholic enough that even when home at the same time it’s not like we’re in each other’s presence, but I can’t fuss around with his things and throw out grimy potholders and old bottles of teriyaki and spices [we have four canisters of nutmeg] and not flush the toilet or put the lid down. That’s weird—I always hear about women making big deals over men putting the seat down, but I’ve never known a guy so anal about the position of the toilet lid.) One of the bizarre things I never thought I’d miss about living alone and isolated is walking long distances and taking weirdo buses in Brooklyn. I’m so car spoiled, it’s borderline suburban the distances we’ll drive, like eight blocks, seriously, very un-NYC. Saturday I went all nuts and worked out for two hours (I love it now that the New Year’s resolution people have stopped clogging up the gym and that the weather is improving a bit—all the outdoorsy dog and baby loving freaks in the neighborhood are back out jogging and biking and freeing up the elliptical trainers for controlled environment exercisers like me) and then felt justified to eat like a ravenous animal. First, I caught the not so horrible B75 in front of the gym and headed to S. Slope. I need to find piquillo peppers and I don’t want to patronize obnoxious Manhattan stores, and had heard that Eagle Provisions had them. I’ve also been pricing Serrano ham, and while “foodies” love Carroll Gardens for all the old school Italian butchers and delis I hate them (well, not vehemently, they do make good sandwiches and if you’ve never had a prosciutto ball you’re missing out) because they never have anything I want. Piquillo peppers, chorizo and Serrano ham, at the moment. Eagle is great because even though it’s a Polish institution, unlike in my neighborhood, they sell all sorts of foodstuffs not just items from their neck of the European woods. They had every bottled pepper you could think of, but no piquillos. It was ok, I picked up a loaf of French bread, a chocolate croissant (their baked goods are impossible to resist) and ¼ lb. of both Serrano and prosciutto for a taste test (yeah, the $19.99/lb Spanish is tastier than the $6.99/lb domestic Italian version). Then I got the heinous slowest of all Brooklyn buses, my former neighborhood (actually, it’s near my new neighborhood too—I can’t escape. It’s kind of like how the M train haunted me in my last two apts. even though they were nowhere near each other) B63, just for traumatic old time’s sake. I hit Mexican Sunset Park and picked up two tamales in a bakery and considered ordering James’s birthday cake, but the language barrier made me nervous about what I’d actually end up with. Then I walked to the Asian part of Sunset Park and got two banh mi, one fried spring roll and three fresh ones (I’m not a total beast—I saved the fresh rolls for lunch today and one of the sandwiches for tonight’s dinner). Then I backtracked five avenues to icky Third Ave. and waited for the B37 because I’d never ridden it before (mainly because it never seems to come and also because Third Ave. is yuck and filled with porn shops and teenagers who try to mug you for $12). I could’ve and should’ve taken the Fourth Ave. R to Park Slope and transferred to the F, my train, but that’s my least favorite transfer in the universe, there are like fifty flights of stairs, so I nixed it in favor of the bus. I was starting to feel a little run down by this point and it was chilly that close to the East River and then remembered that buses don’t take paper money and that I’d already used a ride and transfer on my metrocard and I was 95% sure that was the last on my card (though I also had some idea in my head that you could transfer as much as you’d like in a two hour frame). As it turned out my card was out and I had to scrape together $2 in nickels and dimes, that was fine, but then I realized that the Third Ave. bus stays on Third Ave. all the way to downtown Brooklyn, duh. I was thinking like a car passenger and how the natural flow of Third Ave. makes it turn into Hamilton Ave. which is super, super close to my apt. But of course the bus doesn’t follow the curve and shoots off to continue up Third. I got off at the Third and Third nexus where they’re going to build a Whole Foods in like 2009 (I’ve also been hearing about the Red Hook Fairway and Ikea for what feels like years. I don’t know what takes so long. All that crap in Union Square sprung up in no time.) So, I had a nice unexpected stroll through Gowanus, which is a pocket of the city I like. It’s kind of ratty and in the middle of nowhere even though it’s right between two gentrified neighborhoods. I swear, it’s just a matter of time before luxury lofts swoop in and muck it all up. And then I spent the rest of Sat. night and all of yesterday cleaning the apt. which is so not like me. I’m not sure what to think. I was even scrubbing cabinets, walls and doors when normally I’m cursory and don’t get that caught up in surfaces. I couldn’t stop all afternoon, then began organizing and ruthlessly tossing every piece of stray paper, jewelry, shoes, clothing and make up in my room. When left to my own devices I usually start drinking, break down and buy cigarettes, then type all sorts of blathering and post it. I just drank water, ate like monster and cleaned (well, I did break down and buy cigarettes). So dull. But the house looks really fucking good. Maybe my brain is messed up a little, I’ve been spacey and off kilter, and I’d like to blame it on lowering my effexor dosage, but I’m probably just spacey and off kilter (though reading this stuff can freak a person out about antidepressant withdrawal) because I woke up late Sat. night (I rarely wake up in the middle of the night) all disturbed about Sheba, the stepdude’s cat being put to sleep last week. I wasn’t even close to Sheba, she was just this kind of personality-less cat that looked like a possum. Even though my mom has had my cat Lil Smokey for nearly seven years now, the two cats never got along. I don’t know why I was so bummed out about Sheba, she was 16, not a pipsqueak. My mind was churning and I got fixated on what I was doing 16 years ago and how that would’ve made me a junior in high school and how long ago that was and how Sheba must’ve only been two when my mom and the dude got together and how old and sick everyone gets and how taking a person off life support is horrible enough, but euthanizing animals is completely upsetting too and that Lil Smokey will be 11 this year and she’ll be the next to go and I won’t even be in Portland and my mom will have to do it and that I should’ve brought her to NYC somehow and now she’s a senior and it’s too late. I guess people with children get reality jolts every now and then when they see them age, like I think my mom had a freak out about my sister turning 30 last month. Me, I just have pets to gauge my aging and eventual demise by. I couldn’t sleep and felt like bawling, it was ridiculous. And that Schiavo case all over TV all weekend didn’t help. Brain damaged strangers, stroke ridden cats, rotten kidneys—it’s too much to take. I hate it when I get all irrational and sensitive. I need to go out and find white thumbtacks now.

3/17/05
Ok, I’m getting crazy OCD here, and need to distract myself. All morning I’ve been looking at stupid electronics on the internet that I don’t really need. I’m convinced I need speakers so I can play mp3s when I’m not in my room, like I can’t play anything I’ve downloaded off iTunes or anywhere else in the living room, which seems dumb because it’s just a few feet from my bedroom. I’m technologically retarded so maybe there’s an easy solution that I’m not getting. And I’ve found portable speakers that aren’t super expensive, but when it comes down to it my mp3 player only holds about 60 songs so what’s the point? What I really need is a way to get every digital song I posses into the living room or elsewhere. I’m pretty anti-iPod, but then I saw 4G minis for $168, which is like 1,000 songs and I can’t find anything else with that capacity for less than that price. So, I’m sitting here having an iPod dilemma. I so don’t need one and am supposed to be finding a way to save $1,110 by August, but now this bee is completely in my bonnet and I feel like my life won’t be complete unless I buy a mini and portable speakers. Possessing gadgets I can’t afford will change my life, right? Oh, I’m feeling sick inside. Here’s a distraction—check out a drunken subway tale I contributed to Black Table. It’s from the halcyon days before iPods were even a glimmer in L train riders’ eyes. Maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh on the ‘90s, it was a simpler time.

3/15/04
Just as I impulsively decided to start taking effexor a few months ago, I’ve now irrationally decided I should stop. I have mixed feelings about antidepressants and the people who take them. I don’t think I’m one of those people. It seems very crutchy and pathethic (I know, I know, for some it’s the difference between life and death, but I don’t think that most people on prescription drugs are that hopeless), not to mention incredibly ‘90s. But the main reason I think I should stop is pure vanity. I could deal with the insane sweating (and even the way it makes me want to compulsively shop, I’m totally serious. I’m obsessed with buying a new digital camera even though there’s nothing wrong with mine except that it’s a tad bulky, and I want a new mp3 player even though mine is only a couple months old and ended up buying weirdo blackberry basil incense during lunch. I also stopped in Sephora and became convinced that I needed a new perfume even though the two I already own are 2/3 full, but I know Hypnotic Poison is really meant for me because when I clicked on see more woody: oriental fragrances the two perfumes I own came up in the top spots. Then I really lost my mind and spent over an hour looking at MAC eyeshadow on ebay. There are people out there who sell ¼ tsp samples from their shadows and nuts actually buy them. I’m becoming one of those nuts because I was just outbid on a bunch of blue shimmers and pigments.) but I’m convinced effexor is making me even fatter than I am naturally, which is pretty fat (I fear I’m going to get an eating disorder from working in an office where everyone is a size small, even the guy. These aren’t like fashionista skinny folks--we’re talking about librarians—they’re just small. [And apparently, we all also salt-of-the-earth working class according the New York Times. Sunday’s paper had an article about who in NYC can actually pay the $1,222 rent that has somehow been determined as affordable, yet impossible to find anywhere in the city. They go down the list starting with the financial industry, then work down to this: “Among those who theoretically cannot afford $1,222 a month are police detectives, bus drivers, librarians and construction workers, who make $45,000 to $48,000 a year. They can afford about $1,125 in rent. “ Well, I and most librarians I know don’t even make that much, but it is nice to see that a profession that requires a graduate degree is lumped together with jobs that only require high school education or GED.] But the one girl just came back from the dr. and is all depressed about how much she weighed, and now I’m completely convinced she has body dysmorphic disorder because she runs marathons, is up at 5am running, works out after work, only eats lettuce and fruit. At the most she’s probably a size 4. It’s freaking me out. I was just joking with her that she might as well give up now that the dr. told her she’s fat—I’m afraid I’m going to find her curled under her desk with the basket of pralines and turtles that has been sitting out, but everyone has been too self-conscious to touch.) Since the second week of Jan. I’ve been watching what I eat and exercising more (four times a week instead of three and 50 minutes of cardio instead of 30). Even by a conservative estimate, I should be losing at least a half pound/week (though ideally more), five by now, and no matter what I stay exactly the same. It’s starting to piss me off, and I’d like to blame effexor for messing up my metabolism. Um, but if it’s the same in another few months then I’ll have to face the fact that I’m a perpetual lardass. And no, just because I’m fixated on weight this afternoon doesn’t mean I enjoy the Kirstie Alley’s new fat comedy. 120…220…the woman is a beast at any weight. Just because she’s fat and making fun of fat doesn’t make her funny. Robin Williams making fun of washed up hairy men still wouldn’t make me laugh. It’s the messenger, not the message.