oct 03

++++++++++++

phone home

10/30/03
So far I’m doing pretty well in my contest to see how long I can last before turning my heat on. I was aiming for Nov. 1, and now I’m thinking I might make it well into the first week. I guess this isn’t a dilemma for all those lucky radiator people who have that law where their heat must be turned on by such and such date or if the temperature dips to a certain low (too lazy to look it up), but I’m an electric heat cheapskate. Despite a few chilly close calls last week, it’s been fine in here. That probably has something to do with living in a basement. Sometimes there are benefits to living like a mole. One of the few things I like about NYC is how the coffee cart guys know your order after visiting maybe two to three times. But this can also be a curse because you feel like can’t change your order or it’ll upset the balance. Like last summer when I temping I had no loyalty to the coffee guy so I’d mix things up and order iced coffee every so often instead of my usual large black coffee (arguably the easiest order for a coffee guy—people are very particular about their milk and sugar proportions). About a month ago my dept. at work bought a coffee maker and I felt really guilty so I’d still buy coffee before coming to work. At $1 a pop, three days a week, it’s not exactly breaking the bank, even poverty-stricken chumps like me can cough up $12 a month. I drink a lot of coffee anyway, so now I’ll just have the coffee cart coffee first thing, then brew a pot in the office (the coffee pot wasn’t my idea, but I seem to be the only one who uses it) around 11am. But last week I did my first Carroll Gardens sleepover at the new apt. and it’s all different and now I take the F and pop out on the west side instead of the east and walk the opposite direction, a direction that put me near Murray’s Bagels, and I’m a total sucker for bagels, seriously, I have to restrain myself every morning to avoid a nice starchy, fat-filled breakfast. But sometimes I have to give in, and Mondays I’m always blah and need something extra to get me going, so I stopped in, then hemmed and hawed over whether or not I should get coffee too. I decided I would walk around the block so the coffee guy wouldn’t see me. But being tired, I got the plan all wrong and ended up walking right down the coffee cart guy’s street, head on at him. From a distance I could see a line. This was good, I could quickly sneak past in the crowd. But as I drew nearer, the line had dispersed. It was just me, the cart on the corner, and about 100 ft. between us. I started getting panicky. He couldn’t see me, and have me not stop. I fiddled around with crap in my bag, trying to kill time before someone else got in line. No one did. All I needed was to get around the corner so I could get to work, which was a big deal because I open on Mondays. I decided to speed walk into the street and go behind the cart, even though that might not be any better because the back is open to the street and I could still totally be caught in the act. But I high tailed it anyway, no looking back. I think I made a clean getaway. Coffee is such a trauma. So I guess people can start to call be a hypochondriac for real because my MRI came back totally normal. But if you were me you’d be paranoid too. Everyone in my family has the world’s worst health. My dad’s side of the family rarely even makes it into their 50s before kicking the bucket. I’m also glad my “step-dude,” isn’t actually blood related because he’s only eight years older than me and also had high blood pressure (so does his brother who is my age) and his dad died of a heart attack a few years ago in his early 50s. I need to move to Okinawa or wherever it is that everyone only eats fish and rice and lives to be 125. I like fish and rice. The weekend before last my family (well, my mom’s side, which is what I mean when I say family because members of my dad’s family [that aren’t dead] don’t keep in touch, the last time I saw any of them was in the mid-‘80s) threw this big surprise party for my grandma’s 70th birthday. But being my family, and having no respect for logic or chronology, threw this party in Oct. (it was originally planned for July) despite the fact that my grandma’s birthday is in Dec. See, that’s the surprise. Anyway, they wanted me to come, but I couldn’t because I have responsibilities and commitments and this thing called grad school (no one could seem to understand that midterms are a serious thing, and not to be a brat, but not a single person in my family has a college degree, they don’t really care about stuff like that, so the importance of taking midterm or writing a research paper was lost on them), but my sister who has a million vacation days because she lives in England was able to come with her boyfriend and his parents (which I think is a little odd, but that’s probably just because I’ve always dated orphans [seriously] or guys with violent, mentally ill moms) for some extended West Coast vacation, spanning San Francisco to British Colombia. My point was that my sister briefly hung out with my dad (believe me, briefly is more than enough) and the word was that he needs to have another angioplasty (the man has already had two heart attacks, diabetes and cancer) but they can’t because his arteries are so hard, and can’t “open him up” because of the cancer. That’s just yuck and probably not a good thing, right? He was supposed to retire at the end of the year, but the dr. made him quit working immediately. So, fear of brain tumors and strokes aren’t totally related to cancer, heart disease and diabetes, but you can never be too vigilant. By the way, my grandma was surprised.

10/27/03
Am I the only one who thinks Amazon’s new Look Inside the Book Feature is really cool? I don’t care if it’s lame, I love it. Maybe I’m getting all into it because I’ve become immersed in drab library subjects like search techniques, information organization (I’d say information architecture because it’s really the same thing but that’s such horrid pretentious late ‘90s jargon) and digital collections. The interesting thing is how you could search a book you already own (assuming it has this functionality yet—I’m actually not having good luck with cookbooks) using the Amazon feature. If you search using food terms (I did kalamansi because I’m obsessed with it) you actually get full recipes using your search term. It’s kind of crazy. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. After work today I had a brain MRI, and no, I swear I’m not a hypochondriac even though James is starting to think I have problems being fixated on medical issues because despite my primary care physician telling me to have a cat scan, the neurologist I went to last week (that doesn’t make me a hypochondriac, I just wanted to see if I really did need a cat scan with dye injection because that’s absolutely creepy, I just said I have weird, annoying headaches and lose vision, which is true and not imagined) didn’t think I needed to have one. But that if I was concerned I should have an MRI and didn’t have to use the contrast dye if I didn’t want it (no fucking way). I don’t know, I was just curious about my brain because it feels damaged half the time. And since it wasn’t going to involve dye, and was only a few blocks from work, I thought it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s sort of like how I didn’t have to have braces as a teen, but thought I might as well and that it’d be cool, but it so wasn’t. (Well, it kind of was when I was 14 and first got them, but by 16 I wanted to be like 21 and they were holding me back from passing as older.) The MRI was actually surprisingly scary. I thought I’d just lie in the machine and relax and veg out and maybe have a meditative, out of the body experience like people pay good money for in sensory depravation tanks. But it was really scary. I think because you couldn’t move and it went on for what seemed like forever (20 minutes? 30?) and you have to wear earplugs because there are numerous loud banging and thumping sounds around your head. That’s what started making me feel panicky. Like there’d be a bang bang bang, then tap tap tap over and over, first it was kind of funny because it started sounding like music, but then it became relentless and I started thinking it might never stop and my chest got all tight and I wanted to scratch my eye, but I couldn’t, then realized I was holding my breath for a really long time and got scared I was going to pass out. After like five minutes the sound changed and it was high pitched alarm like noises, then silence, then loud clanks. It sounds totally harmless and I knew it wasn’t a big deal, but every so often I’d feel like I was on the verge of having a freak out. You start getting disoriented, there’s a mirror sort of above your face so you can see the window where the technician is, in the wall where my feet were pointing at, but he wasn’t ever really in view, and then I’d start to get confused and think he was behind me. I started becoming convinced someone was standing over me. When I first got in I amused myself by thinking how it’d be a good scene in a horror film, like the tech would immediately get killed as soon as I was in the machine and later in the scene after a bunch of popping and clanging, I would wheel out of the of the contraption and my head would be exploded or something gruesome. But no one would know who the villain was yet. I was coming up with all these scenes and then I started to actually get scared and wonder what if something really was wrong with the machine because it was jerking at one point and making distressing sounds. I kind of laughed when I finally got out of the damn thing unscathed and asked the tech guy if people freak out in there because it starts to play tricks on your mind and he said people have commotions in there all the time. It wasn’t at all how I expected, though I can’t even imagine how traumatized I would’ve been with an IV in my arm like they’d originally wanted (and still want for this kidney thing). Now that I know what it’s like I don’t care if my kidneys fail or rot out of my body, I’m not doing it.

10/23/03
When did it get so freaking cold out? I could probably get away with wearing a hat and gloves now without looking stupid. I almost just froze to death walking to the store to find turkey bacon (for half-assed healthy salad that mimics one of those wilted ones with bacon dressing. I fear I’m going to turn into one of those annoying people who makes horrible low-fat versions of things and starts thinking they actually taste like the original. As it stands, I will not eat egg white omelets or fat free cream cheese, but who’s to say what could happen to me in the future). I’m not usually home on Thursdays, but I swapped with my normal Friday off because I have this research paper due for a class this evening (I’ve decided I’m a bad, not very dedicated student and would like to graduate as soon as possible. I totally don’t academia and what allure it holds for people. Love of learning is one thing, but being so far out of touch with the real world is another. Like this weekend I was forced to meet up with this college friend of James’s and some friend of hers at a horrible hotel bar near Penn Station on a Sat. night. I don’t mean a swanky, trendy hotel bar, but like a cheesy, brass rail and fern sort of affair, and these people are so goddamn dull that it’s baffling. PhD’s are such an odd out of touch breed, like they don’t do anything interesting or have anything funny to say and are always bitter and think they’re undervalued, but the truth is that no one gives a darn about them and their specialized knowledge, you know? I don’t work with the public anymore, but faculty and like 85% of them are cut of this same miserable, boring cloth. I can’t wait to get the heck out of the academic work environment. The big trend now is PhD’s getting their MLS’s because they can’t get jobs and this was the case with Heather, James’s friend and she’s older than me and lives at home in some Boston suburb and appears to have very few friends and was excited about some new chain restaurant in her town that serves alcohol. Never mind that she was drinking water at the bars we were at. This depressed me. She actually seems like an ok person, but her friend was this atrocious beast who made the point three times that she’d lived in NYC for 18 years even though she didn’t know the name of her neighborhood [Boreum Hill] or where Sunset Park was [big surprise] and kept talking about doing her dissertation at some remote farmhouse and how she lived in Costa Rica and about her Fullbright Scholarship application and her cats and then made us go to some horrible theatre district bar that was closing at midnight when we showed up, where all these drama friends of hers hang out, and I almost barfed. All they can talk about is school and being miserable and they’re super out of touch with reality. I also work at a university and am pursuing my MLS, but similarity stops there. I totally had to think of a way to get rid of these people so I suggested we walk to the Bellevue, which isn’t exactly my scene either, but I knew it would work like a charm. The second we walked through the door, they said they had to go. My ditching plan was a success. I’m getting old, I don’t have time to entertain bad company.) and tomorrow night after work we’re having a staff dinner and I’d rather already be there than come from home. Now I just complained about PhD’s so I’ve probably used up my negative points for the day, but let me quickly state that even though this staff dinner is a free meal, I am less than enthusiastic about the dining choice. Suggestions were welcome and I contributed about eight choices that weren’t expensive and nearby in the East Village. Yet somehow the final two were none of mine and really yuck, some place called Tequila’s [the name says it all, right?] and another called Borgo Antico. They are both like a block from work so maybe that was the selling point? I don’t know why I should even care, this is not a serious matter and I should be worrying about important things like my midterm and the curtains on ebay that I just bid on and have only 53 seconds left. So it became clear that I really am turning into a food snob on Fri. night when against my better judgment I ate Thai food at new-ish Khao Sarn in Williamsburg. People were eating with chopsticks and this really annoyed me (see, I’m turning into a snob) and was given a green papaya salad made with green apple. I don’t have anything against this version, I’ve made it this way, but that was out of desperation and if a restaurant is going to do that they shouldn’t not tell you and think you won’t notice. I should’ve known better than to eat at a place called Khao Sarn, it’s like if you ate American food at a restaurant in Bangkok called Bedford. Ok, I just won and now must send $43 for curtains off of Ebay. That was really dumb because I have no money. These curtains were only $9.99 this morning, but I kept my eye on them until about 15 minutes ago, and apparently so did someone else because me and some stranger just got into a bidding war and knocked the price way up. Well, I will need curtains at the new apt. and it is three pairs, so that is less than $15 per window, and they are very cute and match the colors of things I already own. I’m getting excited about the new apt. though it’s still up in the air as to when I’ll actually move. James moved in Mon. I haven’t been over yet because it’s not as convenient as his old place even though it’s only four stops from me (but with that annoying N/R to F transfer at 4th and 9th where you almost keel over from all the stairs). I now realize how spoiled I was being able to walk to work and school from his old place. I always touted how great Brooklyn was, how it’s not that inconvenient and all that crap, but that was because I was only in Brooklyn half the week. Now it’ll become my life and I’m scared. I’ll probably just stay in more. Actually, I know I won’t be going out as much because the rent at this place is more than twice James’s old rent and he does tend to pay for my dining, drink and entertainment expenses, and now that disposable income is gone for good. Actually the most exciting thing about the new place is being able to laundry without leaving the apt. I don't think I've had access to a washer and dryer like that since I was a teenager. I’ll just watch a lot of TV, cook at home, wash and dry everything like crazy, and be a shut-in.

10/17/03
I swear I’m just not cut out for school (thank goodness I’m taking a low expectation/low standards major) because I don’t have the attention span to write even a semi-scholarly half-assed research paper. I’ve had two weeks to finish my brilliant “Television Chefs and Their Effect on Cookbook Publishing” missive, but I keep finding myself looking at cat shelter websites (I’m excited because once I move I’ll be able to have a cat for the first time here, but it’s adopting pets is a serious, so ridiculous it’s comical, trauma in NYC. You need references from landlords, your vet [who has a vet if you don’t already have a pet?]…who knows who else. But I shouldn’t be surprised since this is the only city I’ve lived in where a bank won’t even give you a basic checking account without a reference letter from someone who banks at that same institution [I didn’t have a utility bill in my name yet and a $4,000 check that I couldn’t deposit anywhere] It’d probably be easier to adopt a kid. I’m not joking, there was even a story about the absurd, anal Petco adoption ladies at the Union Square branch in Salon a while back). I was just about to start looking at woks online, but had to talk myself out of the diversion. Next thing I knew, I was typing here. I thought the Vicodin and Tylenol 3 I took earlier might mellow me out so I could focus (I’m totally not a pill-popper, I swear. If I start acting like Rush Limbaugh, please let me know. It’s just that James had all these meds left over from his wisdom tooth debacle, and I took a couple earlier because I had to have one of those heinous cervical biopsies and they seriously hurt and I’m not just being a baby because I have a pretty decent pain threshold. You’re supposed to stay lying down for a while and slowly get up to get dressed, but I was all spazzed out and kept trying to sit up and I hopped up as soon as the dr. left the room and immediately started passing out. You know where you get all woozy and your vision and hearing goes funny and you feel nauseous. I was like oh shit, I just need to find my underwear and put it back on before fainting because all I needed was the dr. to come back and find me sprawled out on the floor shirt and nothing else. Because top with no bottoms is an absurd, laughable look for anyone male or female. You should either be completely naked or topless, never just bottomless. Anyway, I got my bearings, got dressed, and got the heck out of there. As I’ve mentioned before, the weirdest part of the procedure [which isn’t major, even though I still think it’s traumatizing and painful] is how they squirt vinegar from a plastic spray bottle all over your crotch. Vinegar is not one of my favorite smells [though I love pickled anything—I’ve been planning to do a bunch of preserving in the new place: kim chee, hot and spicy turnips, sauerkraut] it always conjures up sulphur-y [why does Word not recognize sulphur as a correctly spelled word?] farty, hard boiled eggs being dyed for Easter. Bad combo. I totally smell like a gross three bean salad now. Oh shit, I’ve got to get back to writing this paper.

10/15/03
I just went out (meaning out of my room—I almost never use the living room or TV) to do dishes and saw the breaking news about that Staten Island ferry crash, and for some reason it just really depressed me. I guess dead people and severed limbs can do that. Whenever there’s a crazy freak accident, the correct details are always hazy (like CNN says the ferry named Andrew J. Barberi is for a former city councilman, but on TV they said it was named for a high school football coach, which I suppose could be the same person) but I swear at one point a reporter said the captain of the ferry had gone home and slit his wrists. That was not ever repeated as is not mentioned in the NY Times online. That’s just creepy. I don’t know if it was the wind or some fucked up crew, either way it just reinforces this feeling I have that the city is decaying and badness is always on the horizon. People worry about terrorists, but fires (I know I’ve ranted about this before, but why does NYC have so many goddamn apt. fires?! Those two kids were burned to death in Canarsie this weekend, and that was probably just one of many fire related tragedies in the past week), crazy drivers, thugs with weapons, and freak boating accidents are what people need to be watching out for. I was also really upset by those Mexican brothers on their way to janitorial jobs at Planet Hollywood, who were stabbed on the subway a few weeks ago. I think I’m getting overly sensitive in my old age. I’ve never been a big fan of people (maybe that’s why I went to the cat show at Madison Sq. Gardens Sunday. That was a crazy scene.) but lately everyone seems particularly shitty. Yesterday dead birds were in my path twice, this seemed like a bad sign. Then last night that violent wind storm started and got me all nervous that my window would shatter into my room (the whole thing didn’t shatter, it was a storm window so one pane broke all over, the other side is still intact) like it did last time there was server winds (it was never fixed, by the way, which makes me worry that it’ll take less for it to blow in a second time). This morning I had to go on that field trip to the book publishing company that I already went to last month, but got the time all wrong. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, but at least I got another free lunch and book. And it appears I’m going to have to be scrounging for all the freebies I can get since I got my student loan refund check today and it was seriously lower than expected. I was thinking something in the $8,000 range, and it was $750, so I’m am seriously screwed for real. And it’s my own fault because I didn’t understand how financial aid works, I’m very stupid in this realm, that the amount I got for spring would not be the same amount I would get for fall because it goes by school year 2003-04, for instance. Since I started in the middle of 2002-03 I got a school year’s worth of loan for only one semester. Now I get the full amount split in two to cover fall, now, and spring next year. Does that make sense? I didn’t understand that because financial aid won’t ever answer their phone and close the door and pretend like no one is in the office when I can hear people inside, no one explained it to me and I was too dumb to figure it out for myself. I was counting on working pt and using the extra loan money to live on like I did last semester. Now I have a check for $744.50 and $600 in the bank. This is a serious dilemma. I can’t quit school, as I’m at the half-way point for this semester and it’s paid for. I’m not adept enough to work full time and do school full time, though this will probably end up being the case (though the whole point of going to school at this juncture in my life was because I couldn’t get a full time job anywhere), and I will not be able to continue school full time. This makes me very angry, I’m totally at my wit’s end. I was tempted to kick a fat pigeon who wouldn't get out of my way earlier, but I don't want any more dead birds on the sidewalk.

10/10/03
Passions come and go, it’s a part of life, but I hadn’t realized just how far I’d strayed from sub-par child star obsession, Henry Thomas, until yesterday when it struck that when I move (if I move) my room will be facing Henry St. This would’ve been a serious omen only a few years ago. A good luck charm for sure. It saddens me to see a fixation fade, though I’m not totally ready to close that chapter yet. In Portland, the closest I could get was Eliot St. in Ladd’s Addition this leafy, stately part of town where I doubted I’d ever be able to live. Though my sister had a friend who was my age at the time, early 20s, with this weird older boyfriend in his 40s who had a hippy, monchichi type mullet, not a rocker one, and wore moccasin boots that are sort of like Uggs that are trendy now for no good reason (One Christmas, probably ’84 my grandma got some closeout deal on a shitload of Uggs slippers and the entire family got a pair of the nasty things. They were the butt of jokes for years, ugg, indeed, though I found them in a bag of junk in the mid-‘90s and wore them up until I moved to NYC. Speaking of bad fashion and the NW, supposedly grunge is back. Or grunge fashion to be more exact, which is retarded because it wasn’t very fashionable the first time around, and these East Coasters have it all wrong making the clothes all tiny, fitted and refined. Grunge was about ratty and baggy, duh. I’m really irked that the years I was actually pretty thin [mid-‘80s to early ‘90s] were all about bagginess and layers. Why couldn’t they have done the hideous low-rise and baby tee thing last decade and just got it over and done with. The NY Times and everyone else is talking about Marc Jacobs’s new collection, which isn’t grunge [I guess he originated grunge fashion in 1992? Maybe in NYC. So it’s only fitting that after ten years it should be back in style again, and wrong as ever, right?] and how kilts are back and I swear I don’t remember kilts being a real grunge thing.) .So, Ladd’s Addition was out of the question. When I first moved to NYC and lived in Queens and didn’t know anyone or have any money or air conditioning or my computer or anything productive to do, I would cheer myself up by walking 60 minutes to the mall (now they have that new Target complex over there, it’s a whole different scene) in Rego Park through random neighborhoods and cemeteries. Eliot Ave. cut through a graveyard in Middle Village, and walking through I pondered whether Middle Village would be any better a place to live than Ridgewood and decided definitely not. Henry St. in Brooklyn never even hit my radar. I don’t know and have never known anyone who lives in Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill or Carroll Gardens where Henry St. runs. Living on Henry St. (well, technically 4th Pl.) is certain to play into a charmed future. Lone Star Thomas will always be a part of me.

10/8/03
Last night I had my Tues. night class at the Brooklyn Public Library (which is getting taxing because it’s an awkward distance from my apt.—slightly too far to walk, but an annoying two subway ride) and like half the class didn’t show up. The teacher was trying to figure out why no one was there and I jokingly offered that maybe they were afraid of getting beaten or stabbed (I know Prospect Heights isn’t exactly the roughest neighborhood, but I still think it’s sketchy—there’s a seriously bad vibe on those streets). He replied that one of the librarians had been mugged that afternoon on Flatbush Ave., only proving my point that it’s a busted area. I swear I’m not paranoid, and I’m not skittish about walking around the city alone at night, but a bad feeling is a bad feeling. You don’t have to be a genius to pick up on the sense that you’re in the minority and perhaps the majority isn’t terribly fond of you. On the complete opposite side of the race spectrum is creepily peaceful Carroll Gardens/Coble Hill. Oh jeez, I discovered the grossest acronym ever for a neighborhood (well, perhaps not as yuck as BRUMBO for some Bronx enclave) BoCoCa, which stands for Boerum Hill/Cobble Hil/Carroll Gardens, my potential new nabe (I’m just joking, I would never use the disturbing term nabe in normal conversation). Sunday afternoon, James and I decided to check out the nearest chain grocery store, a Met, to the new apt. to get a sense for the area. Apparently, if you want to blend in you need to be jogging as a couple, holding hand, walking a dog or pushing a stroller…and be white, duh. It’s like the Upper West Side of Brooklyn. The Met did have vanilla beans, cheese other than cheddar and Monterey jack, and a wide variety of non-outrageously priced fresh herbs, three of my grocery store gauging criteria. The funniest part of the excursion was the Hispanic woman talking to the deli clerk, it seemed she wasn’t from the area either, and was asking about the environs. She then loudly commented that, “there sure are a lot of white people in this neighborhood” to which I had to agree. It’s a weird scene up there. Speaking of weird neighborhoods, Sat. a group of friends headed up to Glendale, Queens for German food at Zum Stammtisch. The food is actually pretty good, and perfect for the weather, but after last year’s excursion and encounters with nazis and white pride exclamations (I never thought I’d hear “sieg heil” uttered in seriousness in NYC. My theory has always been that neighborhoods without subways are breeding grounds for creepy crackpots), I was on my guard. But all was well.

10/3/03
Seeing people in scarves, hats, gloves and parkas the first week of Oct. makes my skin crawl. Yes, it did get unseasonably chilly this week, but it’s not winter yet. Last week a coworker was saying how she loves NYC so much because it has real seasons (she moved from L.A. like 20 years ago) and I was like are you crazy, there’s only two seasons: hot and cold. I said to give it two weeks and the pleasant fall weather would be blustery. Who knew it would only last two days. Wasn’t there that horrible Richard Gere/Winona Ryder movie “Autumn in New York?” (or was that “Sweet November? I have the tendency to blur together movies starring late 20s/early 30s actresses with short hair who are dying). People jumping the gun with winter wear makes me crazy. I also just realized another nuisance—when people say “I have a friend who lost 20 pounds by not putting cream in her coffee” or “I have a friend who lost 20 pounds because she stopped drinking soda.” That’s almost as bad as people who say they stay in shape because they walk. I’ve never been a soda drinker, I always have drank my coffee black and I walk like a fiend. It’s total lies. The thing is, it’s always a friend who’s done these things, never the teller of the tale. And it’s usually celebrities imparting this dietetic advice during an interview. So, I’ve been so caught up in my favorite past time (complaining, duh) that I forgot to mention a good thing—I think I’ll be moving soon. And just in time. I know I must seem duplicitous because at one point I’ll extol the virtues of Sunset Park (or Greenwood Heights, whatever it’s called) and the next I’ll be disgusted with the whole neighborhood. I swung back towards disgust a few weeks ago. I get irritated with loud white trash contingent (who all congregate in front of my window) and how there’s an alarming amount of adults home during the day doing nothing but sitting outside and smoking. I know the economy is bad, I’ve been unemployed practically half of my stint in NYC, but for the love of god, do something. Or at least sit inside and smoke and play with your remote control cars (there are these grown men who are a permanent fixture in front of a barber shop, more up in Park Slope, who do nothing except stand out front being loud and playing with remote controlled cars) so I don’t have to see you. Take a hint from me, and, have the decency to be a loser in the privacy of your own home. Anyway, after about a year of semi-seriously looking at apts. and getting discouraged by the skank to price ratio (the willingness to pay an outrageous $2,000+ for an apt. in the boroughs does not guarantee the place with tolerable, let alone nice. All these promising craigslist ads always end up being the weird, ratty apt. on the block or the fucked-up street in the neighborhood), James finally found an apt. and signed the lease Tues. If I have my way, I’ll be moving in in a few months (he says spring, but since apparently it’s now winter not fall, that should speed things up nicely). We’re doing separate rooms, phone lines and the like, which isn’t such a bad idea. The last time I lived with a boyfriend I was 22 (and had done it once before—both times the lease was in my name and I paid for everything because I was a retard) I said I would never, never do it again. But Jesus Christ, almost an entire decade has passed since I made that vow, so now I’ve got nine years of smarts under my belt. Other than realizing separate space is a key to functional relationships, the big reason we can’t share a room is because of his mom who is crazy, seriously scary verbally and physically abusive. I’m actually half-shocked that he’s even agreed to do the move-in thing at all. People think it’s nuts that a 33 year old should fear his mother or abide her wishes, but they have their own thing I don’t get. My mom can’t make me do anything, everyone’s coming out to Portland for a surprise party this month and I’m like I just can’t do it, too busy, end of subject. James mom calls him constantly and makes him come home (D.C. area) for any little reason, I would not be surprised if she forced him to go home for Groundhog’s Day or Yom Kippur (they’re not Jewish). She believes living together before marriage will have you rotting in hell “it’s wrong in the eyes of God” and ostracized his sister for doing so. There’s no use trying to understand it, all I know is it could be years before I move in, if I have to rely on James being able to bring the subject up with his mom. I’m shooting for a Dec. 1 move-in date, so he’d better get his act together. The apt. is a crazy, huge two-floored affair in Carroll Gardens. The bedrooms are large, there’s an entire finished basement that used to be a one-bedroom apt. The only downside is that the kitchen is tiny (his original criteria was a larger kitchen was more important that overall space, but you start to make concessions). It’s in an odd location, at the furthest S.W. point of Carroll Gardens, right near the BQE and Battery Park Tunnel entrance, just on the other side of Hamilton Ave. from Red Hook. It’s quiet though, and almost no traffic because of the way the streets go, there’s only outgoing cars, no incoming. But the best part, and for the omen that he should take this apt., is that on the corner is this huge billboard we always drive by on the way from my place to his for Sahara, this Turkish restaurant on Coney Island Ave. (which is nowhere near this billboard or along the east-bound BQE that it’s near). It always cracks me up because there’s this giant cut-out, photoshopped floating hunk of lamb on a spit like they use to make gyros, but from a distance it looks like a sundae. I thought it really was a sundae for the longest time because when you’re at this point on the street, you’re about to enter the BQE and you’re moving pretty fast. When I realized I might be living a block from the meat sundae I became very excited and took it as a sign (ha, literally). I don’t think it’s a very good restaurant, but now I want to go. The funny thing is that one of the other two sets of people who were in the running for the apt. was a chef at Craft (who according to the landlord “didn’t make the kind of money to pay for this kind of apt.” I like snobbery when it benefits me, but it really sucks when you’re a $900/month earning library student—no one will even let you rent a storage space) and I was thinking how Craft must hate us, that’s where we consistently made and cancelled anniversary dinner reservations, and now we were bumping out this guy and his wife because we had more money and came up with it faster (that’s the only criteria, which is sad. The other set who applied first, were three roommates, but they couldn’t come up with all three deposit checks fast enough). So, I’m excited, it’s fun figuring out new neighborhoods, the nightlife/bar quotient is going way up, but I’m not so sure about the food situation. Smith St. is “restaurant row” and all that crap, and there are some nice places along it, but Carroll Gardens is total old-school Italian and that red sauce genre makes me ill, totally my least favorite style of food. I’ll eat mediocre or even crappy overly-cheesed, hard-shell taco, Mexican or gloppy, cornstarch-laden, fried to hell Chinese, but things like spaghetti and meatballs and eggplant parm (argh, that abbreviation kills me) make me very unhappy. I won’t miss the Sunset Park people, but I’ll feel pangs for the little Vietnamese and Mexican places that dot the area (they were always long walks anyway, my immediate neighborhood had nothing going on food-wise. Some food critic defined a neighborhood restaurant as being what’s in the seven-block radius from your house and that section encompassing 38th St. to 24th St. and East River to the Green-Wood Cemetery. is pretty darn bleak). Not related, but it’s weird how the two recent attacks in Prospect Park have both occurred on Tuesdays, the day I have my class at the Brooklyn Public Library over there. The first night of class that woman was beaten and almost raped in broad daylight. This past Tues. around 9pm I actually was walking with two other students along the top of the park, joking about getting attacked if we stepped into the walkway (well, I was joking about it—they didn’t bring it up). Then on the news I see that right on that walkway, right near the top of the park where we were, someone had been slashed with a boxcutter and robbed just 15 minutes earlier at 8:45 (and another had his throat cut later, farther into the park). That’s lovely. I really think that park is creepy, but I can’t really avoid it on Tuesdays. I just hope if there’s any more random violence in the vicinity that they’ll pick a different day of the week for a change.

10/1/03
Well, I’m really glad that it’s finally gone into the 50s-60s (the weather). It’s like real fall, and it won’t last for long. Fall always makes me think of Ray Bradbury (not so much the space stuff), which in turn has been making me think of that new HBO show Carnivale. I guess it’s super David Lynch, but it gives me the Ray Bradbury vibe. There’s nothing like Dust Bowl era carnies, miracles and side show freaks, good and evil, God and who know’s what. It’s good stuff. It feels right for the season. My work is monotonous, I’m only there three days a week so I can’t complain much. But my mind wanders, my attention span shrinks, and I constantly find myself aimlessly poking around the web, I don't know what I hope to find. I’ll peek at NY Times and CNN for any obvious news I should know about, I’ll check out food forums like Chowhound and Egullet for some distraction, though I never post or contribute, I might skim Slate or Salon (but rarely now that you have to watch an ad to read it for free). Then I get caught up in NYC-centric media gossip like Gawker, start getting sucked into all sorts of NYC “blogs” (that word seriously, seriously makes me ill) that are popular and trendy, but I’m not sure why, not that I don’t enjoy looking at them, but it’s one of those things where it seems like everyone knows about them, they’re all like plugged in, in the know, have their finger on the pulse of the city--even though they come off critical and anti-hip, you know? Lockhart Steele and Manhattan User’s Guide are ones that immediately comes to mind. Oh, and I guess “foodblogging” and “photoblogging” are hot NYC Eats The Food Section and Walker New York: Eats are examples of the genre. And they’re always linking to each other and the same sites in this incestuous, Gotham-esque way. Don’t get me wrong, I do not dislike these sites, but for some reason I end up feeling overwhelmed, claustrophobic and depressed after looking at them. I think it’s all the links and references to media and, and…that doesn’t seem like a problem, does it? It’s just me, a sure sign that I’m old, so last century. All the little columns of links and comments and categories on one page that are in the template style of blogging (oh god, I said it) software, freak me out. So modern, information-laded and interactive. It did strike me recently that I’ve had this journal for five years now. That’s a long time, not that that makes me any authority, if anything it makes me a stunted hack. But it seems like all these “blogs” have popped up out of nowhere in maybe the last year or so, by upbeat, determined twenty-somethings that live in cool neighborhoods and probably have “real” jobs. I’d like to think I’m still relatively young and enthusiastic and mildly creative, but I’m afraid I’m just growing into a giant misanthopric Harvey Pekar. I’m probably weird because I don’t really have a space where I link to other people. For the record, this has always been more about an anti-social tendency than the mark of self-absorption. I’m probably just feeling unease and annoyance at these sites because I am not a part of this inter-linking inner circle, but this shouldn’t come as a surprise since feeling left out (even when I’m not) has always been a thing with me (people go to therapy to hit upon and work through issues like this). So, yesterday I started feeling sick, looking at all these blogs or journals or websites or whatever they’re calling them these days…until I found the most fucked-up funniest thing I’d seen in ages, Tard Blog. It’s not a joke (at least I hope not), the site is a series of true stories about a special ed. teacher's students. NYC is not mentioned once, there are no links to media outlets, no digital photos of what they ate, no denouncing of trucker hats, celebrity sightings, or bemoanings of the gentrification of the Lower East Side. Tards and the inexplicable things they do is the single-minded focus. Scroll down to story #18 or peek at a library-themed one. Now that’s what I call engaging internet content. I almost choked while looking at it at work. I totally busted a gut, which is pretty rare while cataloging and indexing slides (what I do all day). Clearly, what the world needs is more retard stories.