so, the Chinese super of my apartment building...

...doesn't speak English. And that's totally fine with me since I've hardly really needed him for anything crucial other than the two times I stupidly locked myself out of my apartment. In one case, he called the landlord, who translated, and then allowed me to climb out of his bedroom window, up the fire escape, into my bedroom window. (If anyone is reading this now and thinking it's easy to climb into my bedroom window, be warned--it's now locked.) In the second case, he wasn't home.

I run into him 3 or 4 times a week, and he always greets me with a "hello," and a nod, and I do the same. Then we share 15 to 30 seconds of awkward silence. If not for the language barrier, I'd say things like "So, how's it going?" and "Love the paint job in the hallway. The gray was a lovely choice." Or even, "What's with your love of boiled cabbage? You're a nice single guy--but the smell HAS to be just a little off-putting to the ladies." And I'm sure he'd say things like "Why do you keep locking yourself out of your apartment?" and "Why does your neighbor insist on smoking in the hallway even though there are 'no smoking' signs all over the walls?" Or maybe even, "Look, you seem like a nice, respectful girl. But would you and your lover mind toning it down at 3 in the morning? It sounds like you're gonna fall through my ceiling and I really need to get some rest."

But alas, those conversations will never happen. OR WILL THEY? Well, I have a mustard seed of hope.

On Saturday, I ran into him as I was walking up the stairs to my apartment, and he paused, as if calculating something life-altering in his head. And then, like a child with a slight--almost undetectable--speech impediment, but with remarkable eye contact--he blurts out "Hi. How are you?" I responded in my usual sweet manner, "I'm well, thank you." I didn't realize until I stuck the key in my front door that the super and I had just had a conversation. Yes, "Hi. How are you?" is a casual phrase that people pass around so frivolously that it's rather meaningless in most cases. And he could very well have had the ability to say it all along, and maybe felt that I hadn't yet--until now--earned the right to the "how are you" portion of his day-to-day greeting. I say all this to say, it was more verbal communication than I'd had with him in the whole year and change I've lived there--and a sign of respect, I suppose.

Anyway, it gave me great pleasure, so I figured I'd share. When I see him again, I'm going to stop him and say "lei ho ma?"--the Catonese version, of course. Let's hope he doesn't speak Mandarin...or get offended...or think i'm trying to flirt with him. Uh oh, I think, I mean...I hope, I mean I'm almost certain I locked my bedroom window...

a little reggae music...

makes for a lovely end to a steamy July weekend. this post is meant to honor reggae and dub legend Lee "Scratch" Perry. I prefer to avoid the overused phrase "the one and only" yet in Lee's case, the shoe fits. Anyway, this was my first time seeing him live (what a show!), and likely the only time in either of our lifetimes. He's 73...still horny (he has a song that uses the "P" word about 35 times *blushes*) and shamelessly eccentric--think bedazzled baseball cap, layers and layers of gold chains and rings, and a fuschia beard. Love it.

a lil bit o' good news.

I'm not Irish...but today I'm lucky. My company just voted to NOT do lay-offs. Just as I'd figured out how to make the most of being dirt poor in NYC while struggling to pay rent on an overpriced, tiny (err--cozy) apartment--I can now resolve to continue making the most of living as usual--and perhaps saving for what may come down the road.

In honor of no lay-offs, I'm grabbing a couple of my dearest girlfriends for an all-night dance-(and flirt)-a-thon.

Have a lovely weekend all!

p.s. And Nichole...if you're listening "CONGRATS" to you.

last night i dreamed...

...the wars ended
and strangers danced in the street
waving flags from trees

I made a feast to celebrate
but you never showed.

even in the best of times,
i have learned, though slowly
you are not there
and i do things i typically would not
like make a feast

now i have learned, to not do the things
i typically would not--to begin with

snow in july.

hello, global warming. If this isn't a sure sign that the climate is in distress, I don't know what is. Take a look at pics from my office's parking lot after last night's hail storm. Shocking, right? In case the photos don't give you a clear visual, those hail stones are the size of marbles. ouch! Of course, the whimsy-seeking kid in me thinks it's pretty darn cool to have a little ice on an 80-degree summer day :-)

waiting is hell.

when you're waiting for the lay-off list to land under your office door, you begin to consider how great life would be without the obligation and stress of a nine-to-five, and how dismal life would be without that stuff that makes the world go 'round. and how temporary everything is...jobs, income, layoffs, office doors, stuff (maybe even stress--if i so choose).

p.s. i whole has passed. yes, i'm a bad blogger. i know. i don't deserve the title "blogger." don't hate me (if you're at all even reading this).

at first glance, one might think...

...this hardly qualifies as art. but, everything on this earth deserves a second look--except for the toothy little man that yelled "hey sweetie" at me repeatedly from his truck as I was leaving my apartment this morning (though, at least i got an 8am giggle out of it).

art is "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." And might I add, if you can't stop staring at it, it's art. but who cares what I think. I love this piece here by Michael Bilsborough. His first NY solo exhibition opened last month. I'm moved to scribble my own psychosomatic maze.



from The Only Way Out is Through (if I had an exhibition, I think I'd name it this).

i wrote this on march 30.

and i found it in my "drafts" today.

i miss the bf sometimes. everyday. he's completely moved forward and let go, and right there in 2nd place, i've tried to do the same. but i miss the old us. the happy us...and isn't that what they all say...they "miss the good times"? but wouldn't it be a blessing to have someone to get through the bad times with as well?

I've still got his shower scrubby under my sink, and he might have my bath scrubby still in a bag in his hall closet. who knows. when we broke up, he gathered all my stuff, dropped it into a plastic bag, and put it in his closet. It seemed very cold. Though, I thought to myself, "why not just throw it away?" i still have all of his emails...over 200 of them. i don't know whether to delete them or not...seems cruel to keep them, and cruel to delete them. months ago when i asked him if he'd kept the emails, he said "yes"...and that he'd keep them, though he probably would not read them. I wonder...

6 am

dawn's light jumpstarts the day,
kicking the night frost from his branches
"go away darkness. go away cold"

the deafening silence becomes
the song of robins
the stillness--
the dance of winds
the flutter and the tempest

yes, you are ready, my love

as the first elm bloom undresses
the laying grass shakes itself to life
the air has a virgin's odor
new. warm. lucky.

for 100 days ahead
we are Spring.

Image: sudhamshu

calgon, take me away.

that phrase never gets old. There are days I really wish I could say "take this job and shove it," another cliched, but never-gets-old phrase. Today is one of those days. I love my job, and I'm lucky to have a gig that I like, pays me decently, gives me health benefits, and even sometimes fulfills me creatively (I know, I know). But more and more lately, and partly due to the economic crisis, I've considered whether I'm cut out for many more years of nine-to-fiving-it.

Freelancers always seem so relaxed, don't they. And they work from far-off places--like the hammock in their back yard--or some warm, sunny vacation spot. I'm not saying that's the road I'm taking anytime soon--because lord knows the market is too unpredictable right now. I guess, I'm just sayin'. Just venting.

And on top of the stacks of paper on my desk, and the to-do list that covers pages of my notebook and hardly has any cross-outs, there's the looming sadness that my writing is having to take a back seat. And it hurts. a lot. I wrote short prose-y things (I think you call them poems) last weekend. It fulfilled me more than several months of working my ass off and bringing home a decent paycheck. go figure.

this woman's work...

...hangs in one of my most beloved coffee shops in nyc (Hi Wendy!). Her mixed-media paintings have hung on the shop's brick walls for a little over a month (and I pray they stick around). Every morning, when I walk in to grab my coffee, a quiet inner voice says "You need one of her paintings in your apartment." But-I'm-afraid-to-spend-money-because-of-the-looming-possibility-of-layoffs-at-my-company, I say. "Oh fuck it," says the voice, a bit louder now.

I like this one here--the photo doesn't really show you how multi-layered her work is. If you could see this one up close, you'd see thin slices of paper with chinese writing...perhaps from menus, and other scraps of paper fitted neatly into a kaleidoscope of intentional blotches, drips, and lines. And this painting, i'm thinking, is of a man, not a woman. A lovely man raised by two lovely women. Take note, California.

Art by Loren Abbate

a friend told me some depressing news yesterday...

..."When you see the man you're gonna marry, you'll know it immediatlely. It will make you sick. You'll have absolutely no control over it." That made me feel dreadfully awful because:

1) I don't want to be made sick by love.
2) I fear giving up control of anything in my life.
3) It hasn't happened yet: the sickness. So does that mean i have not loved?
4) I truly believe I loved two men in my life, and her statement has me doubting that. I was made sick when we broke up, though not when we met/were together.

When I posed question #3 to her...she said, "That's right. You have not loved." I don't want to believe her theory, but she is amongst the happily married, so what do I know, you know? When I said to her "Well, I get what you're saying, but I'm not so sure I even want to get married," A little light glimmered in her eye (seriously) and she said, "Well, then dating around is what's working for you right now." And then I couldn't tell if she was insulting me or belittling me, or if I was just taking everything a little too personal b/c she's happily married with two beautiful kids and a beautiful husband, and I am not. So I said "OK" (rather pathetically) and walked away, thought about it all, felt crazy, obsessed on it, and decided to commit my obsessing to words here. I'd love to hear your thoughts, if you have any.

it's been a month...

...and I can no longer get by with the "my computer's dead" excuse. I'll just say, "Life has taken over" and there's been a lot of it. So much to say, so little time. Work has taken over as well--and it's kicking my butt.

Okay, enough rambling. This post was just to say "hello" "I've missed you," and I'll be back really soon, and more consistently, with peeps and winks from my life. Ooh, and there's love stuff, too! Hope I still remember how to blog...xo!

okay, baby is dead.

i cannot post enough sad faces here to describe my utter distress over the news that my lovely laptop has a dead hard drive. All the pictures. All the music. All the porn (he hee hee). All my writings and scribblings (thank god I write everything in notebooks). And no, I did not 'back up.' I feel like Carrie in that episode where her computer flashes a sad face and shuts down and everyone keeps asking "did you back your files up?" Except instead of a sad face, I got the Question Mark of Death.

p.s. Enjoy the weekend! Since I won't be trapped inside typing away on my laptop, I think I'll spend the weekend outdoors. Allegra--check! Patenol--check! Neti Pot--check!

baby's sick. again.

my lovely beautiful laptop is experiencing technical (or perhaps emotional) difficulties at the moment. no, that's not the main reason i haven't been blogging, but it's my story for now, and i'm sticking to it.

back soon. xo!
Chubbs

"40 plus and single?"

this was the subject line of an email that sneakily squirmed it's way past my spam filter today (gotta get that thing fixed). c'mon! times are not that hard that i have to be tagged "single" and 9 years older, are they? wait--i'll answer that. NO, THEY ARE NOT.

or perhaps the gods of dating are suggesting that i'm meant to take a lover in his or her 40s. how clairvoyant of them! but wait, i guess if they're gods--they'd have no use for psychic powers. anyway, don't know where i'm going with this, so I'll end here by saying, i have neither the need or want for the matchmaker emails. In fact, I made a match all by myself just half an hour ago with a chubby little black pug, with one good eye and a hankering for my ham sammich in a charming little hair salon on Broome--where jacqueline gave me a lover-ly bang trim (see below). He crawled onto my lap, enduringly planted himself there--and I fell madly in love with him. Oh, and then he fell asleep.

last night...

...i dreamed of writing a book of short stories.

don't move.

*sigh*
what?
it's just a lot.
what?
i dunno.
there's a lot you don't know.
i don't want to know yet.
do you want to tell me?
no, not yet.

you're smarter than i am.
am not.
but you know what i'm thinking
i don't.
but you read my mind.
no. okay--yes i do.
i'll stop.
i'll stop thinking now. i will
okay?
okay.

let's not think today.
today we will not think.
let's just lie here.
look at me. and lie here.
and be simple.
we are simple.
yes, we are.
simple is nice.
yes. it is.

this will not be cool to you.

but come with me anyway.

at the bookstore on bedford, the one with about a dozen shelves of the best books by the best authors--Wilde, Butler, Atwood, Boyle. You name it, it's there, or they can order it for you. "One week. That's all." So, I'm eyeing the social activism section, without knowing i'm eyeing the social activism section. Pick up the Eldridge Cleaver biography, and it hits me "Is this the social activism section?!" Wasn't he a traitor? I recall someone telling me that. But what do I know about social activism and being a traitor? "I should read this book." I could learn something about being a black radical in the 60s.

Anyway, I slide the book back into its slot, trading it for the last literary masterpiece by some French guy. Not Voltaire--i think Descartes. I skim the back copy--it says something about him being the "world's greatest philosopher." I dunno, this wall is a bit too heavy for a Monday evening. Where's fiction? Didn't I come here to look for a cheap copy of "The Road"? I pivot--a little too fast--bolting away from the social activists, and at my 180 is this guy. We lock eyes (really, we do) long enough for me to deduce that he is not in fact someone I "know from somewhere" like college, or my commute to work, or my neighborhood coffee shop or bar. but I do kinda know him from somewhere--like somewhere on a stage performing in front of thousands, and not standing less than a foot away from me in a Williamsburg bookstore waiting for me to scoot out of his way so that he can eye the social activism section!


He's my height. Lovely eyes beyond round specs. Cool afro and beard--perfectly messed up. He reminds me of a little brown bear--the friendly kind that share honey with you instead of biting off your arms and legs. I don't do anything brave like ask for concert tickets or say "hi-omigosh-it's-you." But before leaving empty-handed, I take an extra long time perusing the shelves, pausing to sneak peaks at him (hoping he hasn't noticed), and speculating on what book he ended up with. Soul on Ice?

photo: stereogum

natasha.

r.i.p.

from Asylum

i promise to be more pleasant.

i do, and i really have sweet, sappy things to say (though, i've just been busy busy). But I haven't been able to wipe this news from my brain...and how awfully grim it is. You hear the stories, you read the news headlines about the "epidemic" in DC, but seeing it here in this shocking visual gives it a entirely different, dare i say--horrifying--dimension. My jaw dropped when I saw this. My city *sigh*

p.s. and let's add another layer, shall we? DC is not a state :-(

soft spaces.

Our gray house has thin walls.
It smells old.
Firewood and ash.

He smells of firewood and ash.
Long black hair hides his eyes.
He is a nose and a beard.

You take him into your bedroom.
Our bedroom.
Mumbles. Squeaks. Cries. Sighs.
Your bed.
Our bed.

You scream
Are you crying now?
Are you sad now?
I hear you call him 'vile.'
What does 'vile' mean?
A liar!
I know what a liar is.

He stumbles out. Buckles his belt.
Nods at me. Wipes his brow.
No eyes.

He shuffles down our staircase.
Feet heavy.
Out of our house.
"Get out of our house!"
The screen door slams.

"Can I sleep with you now?"
You nod at me. Wipe your brow.
Brown eyes.

I squeeze my face into the soft spaces on you.
My nose into the place where your heart thumps.
Breathing in and out.
Taking in the fragrance of
sweat, him, and drugstore perfume.

i know that i complain often...

...about having to trek all the way out to the sticks to get to my job. Most days i waver between reminiscing on the easy non-commute of my old job in Midtown, and just plain ol' fantasizing about not having a job at all...though I've never had the luxury of the latter (and if I did, I'd likely not think it as grand as it seems). Yet, when it snows, what does one who trekketh out to the sticks to get to work get? A SNOW DAY!

Last night i said to my friend Harry, "I reaaaally hope it snows all night so i can have a snow day."
Says Harry: "Snow day? You don't get snow days. It's New York!!"
Says me: "Yes you do, if you work in [the sticks]."
And sure enough, I woke up to several inches of pillowy white goodness and a message on the company voice mail saying "Due to inclement weather, the office will be closed today." Oh, the utter joy of a Monday off...

To properly celebrate, Hannah and i packed up some grilled cheese sandwiches and strawberries, and took a stroll through Central Park. It amazes me how the snow muffles sound and makes the city feel slower and less frenzied. Two friends sat on a swing in Central Park, gliding and giggling like children, and watched the real children sled and giggle down a hill. Who says there's no such thing as perfect? Well, it was at least until my fingers and toes began to freeze b/c of the 20-degree temps...ouch...oh well...sledding...snow pose...swinging...i didn't see the set of steps on the side of this hill, until after i'd climbed up (and fallen down...TWICE)oh, and then i met a boy...

faithful.

painting by Chris McGraw

this makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

not that i need help in that department :-) but, no, seriously, this is my most favorite commercial. watch it. i promise you'll feel warm and fuzzy afterward. unless you don't want to. but that would be a shame, so just watch it anyway.

tell me how...

...to feel nothing.

There is a song I love this week.
You would love it too.
But you won't.

There is a store on Orchard.
You bought something there once.
It's closing.

There is my wooden chest.
I want it back.
I want to reupholster it.
I don't know how.

There is this ache in my stomach.
remember? what do you remember?
tell me how much.

are you laboring to forget,
the way that I am?
is it working?
tell me how.

do you cry silently in the blue night,
like i do?
do you hide your eyes, like me?
or are you fine?
tell me how.

p.s. she's a ghost

where is my automobile?

happy birthday john hughes. and thank you. the world would be a much sadder place for unpopular, acned, rejected, sweaty-palmed, geeky, fat, skinny, big-haired, flat-chested, gangly, acid-washed, metal-mouthed teenage boys and girls without you. (and thank you most of all for jake ryan.) xo.

thirty-one.

i had no real plans to celebrate..."I just wanna do something low key." well, it was anything but...*smiles* (thanks hans)

♥ din-din at Sticky Rice (I must have that giant blue chandelier!!)

♥ beers under the red lights of motor city (no, no doorguy yet. my long-lost brother, apparently, was there)

♥ delicious orange-flavored shots and Jimmy James at the magician (tom, what did u put in those shots???),

♥ impromptu lychee martinis, bourbon & ginger ales, and chit-chat at verlaine (stan, thanks for fixing my rosary)

♥ more beers at motor city. (uh oh)

♥ braided the doorguy's beard TWICE--added a little lip gloss and spit to help the braids stay put

♥ chatted with iraqi heavy metal band. told one I was a man. he believed me. asshole.

♥ chatted with New School students. lied about their ages (they're sooo much younger than we are). one is the spitting image of Carey Elwes.

♥ doorman wrestled a douchebag to the floor, and said douchebag was thrown out. trash talking ensued.

♥ tried to get a 20-year-old girl into bars, in vain. ahh youth.

♥ went to Iggys with New Schoolers. (i really want to break their camera)

♥ "[doorman], are you okay?"

♥ hannah won the scavenger hunt (damn you): a cigarette, a cough drop, change for a dollar. but i got the piece of gum.

♥ we didn't see a bulldog we could obnoxiously mistake for a collie nor a guy with a sports cap we could yell "go team" to...but we had a wonderful night!! (let's not even ruin it with talk of the hangover)

here are some silly pre- and post-birthday mac-pics.

it's been ages since...

...I've had a Gawker-worthy celeb siting. Last night, it was Mischa Barton, low and behold, at one of my LES brunch haunts. I noticed her because my date Liz kept ogling her feather skirt. Liz gave it the thumbs down--I gave it a thumbs-up, but did little birdies have to die to make it? :-( Liz and I had a loverly date, munching on beet and chicken salads, swooning over our hotter-than-Jude-Law waiter, swaying in the warm tawny light to what had to be a handpicked-by-me 80s mix. Liz giggled and said, "They've got your number." When "Africa" started playing, our jaws dropped and we sang along--not knowing or understanding the words. Here's the video--my first time seeing it, and not what I expected, though, in that predictable-8-member-80s-band-with-big-hair sort of way, maybe it is. There--I just referenced Mischa Barton, feather skirts, and the band Toto in one blog post. I just made your day, didn't I?

i never celebrate valentine's day...

...but i am an avid of love. Does that count?

In high school, it seemed every girl got roses and candy and bears (oh my) for Valentine's Day--and I got squat. So, I figured if I denounced Valentine's day, I'd be much less hurt about being slighted every year. That didn't work out as I'd planned. In college, I still felt the sting of rejection when I spied a girl dashing up to her bedroom with a batch of balloons, and a grin dripping with self-satisfaction that said "He loves me THIS much." And oh, let's not talk about the date stories, "He took you where?" "No way!" "Girrrrl, you're so lucky. He must really love you!"

Several years later, a sweetheart of a boyfriend gave me 9 dozen roses...yes, that's 9 multiplied by 12 equals 108 roses! holy moly! So, in his own way, he'd made up for all those high-school and college years of me getting nothing but tears and self-pity for Valentine's Day. But I wasn't as thrilled as I thought I'd be. I wasn't filled up with that "He must really love me" feeling. In fact, it didn't feel like love at all. It felt contrived, showy, boastful even--and much too easy. I pompously thought "now we're just like all the other couples who garishly feign their endless love for one day a year." I never told him that. It would have hurt him. Besides, his heart was in the right place, and it wasn't his fault he'd chosen to give roses to a complicated, over-thinking, wishy-washy woman. Instead I hugged him ever so tightly, and said "This is enough roses for a lifetime! *smile*"--and I meant it. After that day, I asked him to never buy me roses again--because I didn't need 108 roses to know he loved me. And besides, we didn't have 9 vases in our miniature basement apartment.

I asked a friend yesterday what she and her husband were doing for V-day. She said, "Well, nothing really...Feb. 13th is the day he proposed, so we don't really do anything for the 14th. Besides, if he'd proposed to me on the 14th...ugh...I doubt I'd have married him." There you have it, from one complicated woman to another.

And so it goes, I don't need one day of the year to know I am loved...tell me everyday, or tell me once every month or even once every six months...or really--just tell me when you feel it...don't squeeze it into February 14th. But, heck--bring on the dark chocolate!! These are my favorites :-) I'm in lurrve with the orange peel.