i want some of what the author is smoking

If you have any response to this Local Paper article to end all Local Paper articles other than "What the living hell?!?!" do let my sister and me know. We are so confused.

new york cares

Well I've been all ambivalent about moving back to New York ever since my laziness decided that that's what I am going to do, but after my recent 18-hour whirlwind tour of Sides Upper West and Lower East, I'm getting warm and fuzzy just changing my address online with the USPS, Verizon, and Shitibank and finally signing up for Netflix. (If you get the 3-at-a-time MOST POPULAR!! plan for $17.79, do you have to return them all at once to get the next ones, or can you just return one and have one new one sent? I know I'm the last person on earth to know the answer to this question.) So yeah, my little trip to the city to see Fat Asian Baby before she leaves to rock Bosnia proved more than worth the expense, the 12 hours on a bus, and being really quite fucked up at work the next day, which I knew was going to be the busiest day in the history of the restaurant. (Sorry for spilling that hot coffee on your arm and nicely pressed khakis, Sir.)

The travel gods were on my side from the very beginning. Despite numerous stops to pickup additional passengers, I was the sole person on the bus that did not have to share the neighboring seat. Good to know that my oft-practiced bus riding technique works like a charm. (For those daring enough to try this at home, this method involves piling lots of crap on the neighboring seat, contorting yourself in such a way that it appears your legs have to be on said seat, wearing headphones, appearing to be asleep and/or surly thus making eye contact with no one, and, in the unfortunate event that someone wants to assume their rightful place on the bus, acting extremely confused as to why they might be tapping you on the shoulder. Good luck.) So anywho, I spent the afternoon up and down the Upper West running errands in my old/new neighborhood, catching up with friends R (who has just moved to the city, yay!) and Z in their newly painted apartment, and watching TV with Drone before dinner. Dinner was at one of my favorite hole in the wall Mexican restaurants with friends E and A (who just moved into a place on the East Village/Lower East divide, yay again!). Then Drone and I met a couple of his friends for a couple drinks, after which I parted solo to meet FAB at Mercury Lounge. And thus began the absurdity.

As FAB has a knack for knowing an inordinate amount of people wherever she lives, she of course had befriended the members of Atlanta band Snowden. After their set, we decided to groupie it up and hang out with them. So the band, the lead singer’s electric wheelchair bound brother, a girl in awesomely gold and very high heels, a Heretofore Unidentified Dude, and FAB and I went on a tour of all the stair-free bars in a three block radius (I realized that the Lower East Side is not at all wheelchair friendly, but we made it work, and people totally got out of our way on the crowded sidewalks.) At bar number one, I identified Heretofore Unidentified Dude as a prominent music blogger and my Missed Connection from long ago. (He either didn’t recognize me or didn’t say anything, I guess.) At bar number two, we huddled into a booth and drank our something-and-tonics while a lady in pink polka-dotted lingerie danced suggestively in the window while eating a bag of Doritos. At bar number three, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Ultragrrrl and Karenplusone were DJing. Despite what anyone says about the legitimacy of iPod Djing, they can shuffle my iPod anytime. Err, what I mean is that they play good songs by bands you’ve heard of that are fun and make people want to dance. As a rule, I do not and cannot dance, but they (ok and a few drinks) make me dance and I love them for it. In my drunken dancing haze I decided to talk to a couple bloggers I recognized and make an ass of myself. Having not made quite a big enough ass of myself yet, I decided to talk to a boy who I knew went to Columbia, was on the crew team briefly, and went out with Julia Stiles. Our conversation went as follows:

“Hey! Did you go to Columbia?”
“Yes.”
“Were you on the crew team?”
“Yes, I remember you.”
“Oh really? Did you go out with Julia Stiles?”
[awkwardly] “Yes.”
“People say I look like her all the time.”
“You don’t look like her.”
“Ok cool.”
“I’m going over there now.” [or something to that effect]

I am so awesome. Anyway, it was getting late/early, and the band had to catch a bus to their hotel and I had to hunt down Drone so that I could sleep in his extremely comfortable bed. Conveniently, Drone and the bus were in Union Square, so we walked and wheeled a mile or so up there. Of course, FAB and I could not make it that far without having to pee, and, unfortunately, the bars were all closing. So we did what any classy girls would do and peed in tandem in front of an apartment somewhere on 6th street, while smoking and without missing a drag! (For experienced public urinators only.) Then it came time to say goodbye to FAB. I hugged her about five times and told her never to leave her residence in Bosnia. Drone and I cabbed it back to his place, and in true New York style, I opened my wallet and wondered what on earth happened to all those twenties I took out at the ATM earlier.

So three more days in Ithaca and then it's time for my little life to change. I'm finally excited about stuff (take that, Cute Canadian...yeah I forgot to mention he ended things a few weeks ago because I was too unhappy and not excited about life...sweet,) including having good friends in close proximity, having new friends from these parts moving to the city soon, getting Netflix, running in the park, getting takeout from Burritoville, walking around naked in my apartment, traveling to Wisconsin and Texas, and dating up a storm (it's Nerve time again...more on this later...much more, I'm sure.) Oh yeah, and finding a job. Or two. Damn financial black hole of a city.

copycat copycat!

Because nothing exciting is going on with me and because I am lazy as hell these days, I'm going to quite literally take a page from Zulkey. The following is a list of all the famous people whom I have either met or been in close proximity to, in detail where remotely interesting (or not.) Given that I lived in New York City for almost six years, this list is rather pathetic, though, for the record, I'm sure I'm forgetting some biggies. I would love to see Drone's list, but his Blogger is totally kaput until he decides to pay for internet access like the rest of us. Ahem. Without further ado:

*Elizabeth Berkeley from Saved By the Bell (looking scary and running back and forth across the street in front of Balthazar, seriously, like six times)
*Sean Penn (my friend Chef Steph was drunk enough to be coerced into buying him a drink)
*Adam Sandler
*Moby x 2
*Bono x 2 (he was performing both times but I was really very close, really)
*Whoopie Goldberg
*That Dude From Dashboard Confessional
*Members of The Hives, Interpol, and The Arcade Fire
*Alex Rodriquez (he signed my baseball in 1993!)
*Sarah Jessica and Matthew Broderick
*Kate Moss
*Liam Neeson (sat next to him at the bar at Cafe Lux, he drinks red wine with ice in it)
*Willem Dafoe (at 6 a.m. on my way to crew practice)
*David Bowie (after sneaking into the VIP section at Roseland with Perplexa)
*Christopher Reeves (in a wheelchair while his daughter visited Columbia...sad)
*The Columbia Gang: Julia Stiles/Anna Paquin/Joseph Gordon Levitt/Rider Strong (TGIF!!!)
*The editor of Lucky Magazine (biatch cut the line at Westville and was wearing an ugly ass skirt)
*Several America's Next Top Models (Go Shandi!)
*Several Real Worlders (most notably, Lars Schliechting from Real World London who lived nextdoor to friends E and S and whom I met in the elevator while helping move them in and said, "You were on the Real World London! That was seriously my favorite season ever!")
*Sanford from Sex in the City
*Nicky Hilton
*Josh Hartnett
*Ray Liotta
*Lots of sub-super models
*Johnny Knoxville
*Bachelor Bob
*Chloe Sefugny X 2
*Howard Stern
*J. Lo's television reporter sister, Linda Lopez
*P Diddy's Dog, Honey Combs

speedbumps

Just two years out of college and I'm already a clueless old fogie. Perhaps you are too: define a "speedbump."

As I learned after being derided mercilessly, a speedbump is a shot of Jaegermeister dropped into a half-pint of Redbull and chugged, ala my beloved Irish Carbombs, only instead of delicious dessert it tastes like cough medicine. FAB called tonight from Chicago (an hour earlier time zone, I just now realized...was wondering why she would call at 3:00 a.m...) with me being two speedbumps into a Collegetown/work afterhours party. I asked if she knew what a speedbump was. "Of course!" she said. "I'm officially an idiot," I thought. "They're those raised areas in a highway to get people to slow down," she said.

Awesome.

In other news, I will be joining the FABmeister in New York on Friday before finishing my waitressing stint up in these parts. It is completely financially irresponsible of me to do so, but you can't put a price on seeing the FAB before she leaves for several months to one of those Eastern European countries that didn't exist 15 years ago.

[Yes, this post was constructed under the influence of some speedbumps, some Keystone Lights (if you have to ask, you'll never know,) and some pot. And yes, the fact that I am on the computer right now and not getting laid is very telling. Though, for the record, I could very well be getting laid if I wanted to, as Mr. Best Date Ever came by the restaurant around 11 tonight and lingered while I hid in the neighboring coffee shop, asking, upon my return, if I "wanted to hang out after work," to which I replied "I can't I'm sick," which he thought was a lie, but which was not at all a lie, though I would've said the same thing even if it were.]

*sniffle*

I have never been allergic to anything in my life, except for disposable diapers (to the delight of my environmentally friendly mother.) Now, all of a sudden, I am allergic to both Tater and the air in Ithaca. I had started noticing a little itching in my nose while sitting on the living room (i.e., Tate's) couch, and then the other day at work my eyes and nose started itching and running like crazy, and the sniffling manager noted that his allergies were flaring up because of all the pollen, and that they only started when he was 23 or 24, and now I am too sick to even think about going to work tonight, even though I'll probably have to. I'm sure my customers will appreciate their snot-tinis. So I guess I am now allergic to dogs (shedding ones that haven't been bathed in years, at least) and fresh air. Grrreat. On the upside, I've been rather ambivalent about moving back to New York in a couple weeks (excited to live near my friends, dreading just about everything else,) and I certainly can't live with a dog in the city, nor is there an abundance of fresh air. I guess this is just a sign from God or something. Praise Jesus.

tick tock

When I was a youngun', I remember hearing that there were some adults in the world that didn't like kids. I became obsessed with this notion and was simply appalled. But they were kids once too! It doesn't make sense! Well, now I am officially an ad...adul...whatever, and I don't really like kids. They scream, they cry, they need constant attention, I can't seem to connect with them the way other adults can and it makes me feel inadequate, and anyway puppies are cuter. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll have some someday and I will love them, but they simply will not be allowed to have more than one friend over at a time. Unless I'm rich and have a very large house with soundproof walls. Anyway, I must be ovulating because I thought this story about Mimi Smartypants' 2-year-old daughter was just the cutest thing ever, and a concise illustration of the neat way kids learn to think.

NUGGETS OF NORA

Harold, my beloved "transitional object" from childhood, the stuffed panda bear that I slept with for an embarrassingly long time, is so old that his fabric skin began to disintegrate like the Shroud of Turin around the time I went to college. It was no longer a matter of patching or sewing up holes; Harold was simply wearing out. At that point, my mother and I discussed how best to preserve him. We thought about unstuffing Harold and pressing his empty skin into a picture frame, but frankly I wasn't ready for something that drastic. Eventually, Harold was put into a large Mason jar like a laboratory specimen, with the hope that a lessened exposure to oxygen would decrease the rate of his crumbling demise.

Nora is fascinated with Harold, who resides in his glass-walled world on top of a living-room bookshelf. She likes to talk about how that's Mommy's bear, and how he's analogous to her Purple Dog, and how Mommy used to be a little baby. Sometimes I take Harold down and let her look closer, and occasionally I even open the jar, with the constant caveat that we have to be careful with Harold because "he's very old."

The other thing in the house that gets called "old" is our cat. We use this concept to explain why the cat sleeps nearly all the time, why she get crabby and bites when Nora just wants to play, and so forth.

I think you can see where this is going.

Nora: Our cat is old.
Me: Yes, our cat is very old.
Nora: Cat...go in jar?

LT and I think that this is a perfect excuse to not have to explain death to our child. When the cat does expire, we will just get her preserved in formaldehyde and put her on display. You get too old, you end up in a jar! Problem solved! Now we just have to convince all of our family members to be cremated, and we'll be all set.

it's MY damn coffee shop! alternatively titled: scumbag 101

I went on a date last night. It was weird and completely out of the blue.

Shortly after waking up yesterday morning (i.e., 2:30 p.m.) I sat down at a table outside my friendly neighborhood coffee shop with a full cup of iced coffee, an unlit cigarette, and an empty crossword puzzle (I can finish New York Times Tuesdays now!). Before I could begin any of those wonderful things, some dude commented on my t-shirt, which was a tattered old rag from my alma mater that has become my pyjamas (where on earth did that word come from?). Anyway, he proceeded to ask me all sorts of questions about my background, what I was doing in Ithaca, blah blah blah. Normally in such a situation I would answer a few questions, smile, and say something only slightly more tactful than "I have to go over there now." But as I was clearly not going anywhere anytime soon, I decided it wouldn't hurt to, like, be nice and friendly. Turns out he's finishing up his MBA at Cornell and will be moving to New York soon to become an i-banker. Fascinating.

He introduced himself, we shook hands, and he re-entered the coffee shop. I breathed a big old sigh of relief. Unfortunately, not two solved crossword clues later he returned and asked when I wasn't working and if I wanted to get a drink sometime. He was not at all my type (not that I have a type, mind you, but I most definitely have not-my-types,) and I knew fat ladies would be singing to flying monkeys on an iceberg in hell before the two of us would be having sex. However, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed before I've had my coffee, and I completely forgot the trusty "sorry, I have a boyfriend here/in Canada/in my imagination" line. So we met up at the coffee shop six hours later to go to a bar.

I'd decided from the beginning that this "date" would be purely for entertainment purposes, and in that regard I was not disappointed. Over the course of the evening, Mr. Wonderful managed to flirt with the waitress, whom he mentioned he sees frequently at the gym and who has a really amazing body, talk incessantly about "his friends," two chicks he'd dated, one of whom he picked up in a coffee shop (neat!) and with both of whom he isn't really on speaking terms but he could totally have them hook me up with a psychology or magazine job, and mention on many occasions the insane amount of money he owed for taxes this year, which I am 99% sure was a big fat lie. Speaking of lies, he told lots of other neat ones, such as "I design for Cosabella lingerie" and "I know Marc Jacobs." Through some deft drunk dude manipulation on my part it was revealed that his friend maybe wore a Marc Jacobs shirt once or something. (Well my friend got her picture taken with Marc Jacobs when he was wearing a polar bear suit, so there!) He also forgot pretty much any detail about myself that I'd told him, and only became legitimately interested when he found out where my sister goes to school (he'd recently been rejected for a job by someone who went there) and my SAT score (he asked.) He also stared at my boobs constantly, and, well, there ain't much to stare at, especially when I'm assuming the "insecure, uncomfortable, and hunched over my beer" position.

Needless to say, I wasn't really feelin' it, but I was feeling the wheat beer. Against my better judgment I let him kiss and grope me a little too much, but I was about as standoffish about it all as a drunk girl can be. When we returned to the coffee shop to part ways, him in his car (he doesn't actually live near the coffee shop, and there are many where he does live) and me on foot just for two blocks, he quite literally begged me to go home with him and had the nerve to get angry/surprised/offended when I instantly declined--three times. I got home and ate half a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk to rid myself of the ickiness and somehow managed to get to sleep. Now guess who I saw at the coffee shop this morning (i.e., 1:30 p.m.)!!

badass beagle

Here are some pictures of my fifth housemate, Tate (AKA, Tater, Tater Tot, Faefa, and Mister B.) Last night we drank too much Coors Light and decided to give him tattoos (with a Crayola washable marker safe for little kids to chew on, don't worry.)

Wu-tang doggie


Goth doggie


He is fat, stinky, and allergic to dust mites. He enjoys sleeping, eating trash, pooping in the basement, and sitting on your stomach while you're trying to watch TV. I love him.

ebay chronicles part II

While Ebay has been known to exacerbate certain psychological conditions, it can help alleviate others. A few days ago (or I guess it was over a week, heh,) I was feeling bored and depressed (shocker!) and wanted to buy something fun but cheap. The song "Children of the Revolution" came on as I shuffled through my iTunes, and I said to myself, "Self, I would like to buy a vintage T.Rex t-shirt with a simple design featuring Marc Bolan, the letters 'TREX,' a little color and perhaps some glitter if possible." Lo and behold, less than 12 hours later I beat out a bidder from Denmark and was the winner of precisely what I'd wanted. And it was only $20something with tax and shipping. Eat my shorts, Trunk Ltd! It came in the mail today and fits perfectly, and I don't know if it's that or the sunny weather or the prospect of returning to New York but I'm not feeling so incredibly shitty anymore. I've even commenced studying for the GRE and am reading a book. (The Corrections, because since I was, until recently, a born-again reading for pleasure virgin, I need to gear up with something relatively painless.)

texas, anyone?

So who wants to "come down with a 72-hour stomache virus" on September 23-25? The Austin City Limits Music Festival is like Coachella, SXSW, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and the misguided Field Day rolled into one. It's been so long since I've been to a concert my vagina is about to explode just reading this lineup:

Coldplay
Oasis
Wilco
Lucinda Williams
Arcade Fire
Death Cab for Cutie
Built to Spill
Bloc Party
Franz Ferdinand
Sleater-Kinney
Keane
The Doves
The Walkmen
Rilo Kiley
Spoon
The Secret Machines
The Decemberists
The Bravery
The Fiery Furnaces
The Futureheads
Rachael Yamagata
Ambulance Ltd

And those are just the ones I know and like. There are about 10 times that many, making it easy to overlook Lyle Lovett and Jason Mraz. Thanks, Thighswide.

at least i'm not quite this crazy

Crazy Ebay Lady. [via Catherine's Pita]

pseudotherapy

Ithaca is known for making people a little crazy, and before I moved here I thought it would be oh so hilarious if, in an attempt to take a break from the craziness of New York and chill out and reevaluate my goals and plans and all that nonsense, it made me even crazier. Well score one for Ithaca, because, though I'm not about to jump into a gorge just yet, it is presently 5:23 a.m., I am neither drunk nor high on anything, I have no intention of going to bed any time soon, and I just housed two bowls of Raisin Bran Crunch (that shit is almost as dangerous as Nutella.) For once in my adult life I have the physical ability and the time to sleep, but I just don't feel like it. Kinda like how in high school and college when I was constantly busy and always had a million things hanging over my head and just wished it would all go away so I could watch more Ricki Lake, well, now it really has and I'm fucking sad and confused and Dr. Phil isn't cutting it. Of course, I have done absolutely nothing to change any of this, like get a real job or take the GRE or get a hobby other than writing about myself on the internet and illegally downloading music, because procrastination has been my specialty since first grade. I'm even too lazy to get therapy or medication to help with my debilitating laziness (AKA, clinical depression, but I prefer to blame myself and just say "lazy," because I'm depressed...neat how it's all so circular.) But alas, if I could make it through the unibrowed, acned, overly Pringled junior high years, high school supergeekdom, and four years of Division I collegiate rowing, I should be able to find a shred of happiness now somehow. I just need to stop thinking it'll happen without a lot of kicking and screaming and crying, because, before the procrastination, my specialty was the temper tantrum (sorry, Mom.) Okay, the birds have started chirping, and I have to draw a line somewhere. Nightie night.