Monday, December 31, 2012

My end of year meme--woo hoo!






1. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?
I slept overnight in a museum, I tried a pickle martini, I visited Disneyland.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't actually think I made any this year. It is generally an act in futility since I almost invariably fail but (insert some vague phrases including "tattoo, 5k, 100 books and 100 films").

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes! Marianne went and had herself a baby boy with cheeks for the squeezing.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes. My Mima died after a long, beautiful, wonderful life. I miss her all the time.

5. What countries did you visit?
I did not leave the country at all this year. I did get to Chicago and California, however. 2013 is a travelling year.

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
I want to focus on the things I do have.

7. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
This was kind of a crappy year if I'm being honest. In the interest of not dwelling on the negative, I won't even record the two dates of this year that are etched upon my memory because they are too sad.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Um, I guess blogging everyday of the month of August?

9. What was your biggest failure?
i don't like to think about failure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
no thank goodness.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A frame for my Great Gatsby print. I look at it every single day as it hangs above my bed and I love it.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Almost everyone I know personally has come up against a personal trial or another and all have handled it beautifully and gracefully. That's all we can expect from ourselves and each other.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
85% of the drivers out on the road in ny state. most people's behavior appalls me.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Clothes. Pathetic. Live shows. Oh and booze probably.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The many, many concerts I was fortunate to attend this year.

16. What song will always remind you of 2013?
"The Night" by Exitmusic as I must have listened to that one track over 500 times.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
happier or sadder? a little sadder
thinner or fatter? thinner
richer or poorer? the same

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
travel. writing. exercise. being more at ease and less restless.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Complaining. Wasting time wishing I was elsewhere. I spent too much time this year doing that. As soon as I stopped, I felt so much better.

20. How did I spend Christmas?
eating, drinking being happy with the family.

22. Did you fall in love in 2012?
with a pair of glitter shoes.

23. How many one-night stands?
This is a dumb question.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
mad men, as it has been and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
no. hate is a waste of time.

26. What was the best book you read?
This is hard to narrow down but I'm going to have to say "This is How You Lose Her" by Junot Diaz.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
exitmusic

28. What did you want and get?
i wanted to be content. I mostly got it.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
This was a tie between "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Oslo, August 31"

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I saw a midnight screening of "The Room" and also had a dinner of fondue with friends. I turned 36. I'm an old ass bitch.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being satisfied with what I had already.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Sparkly, boots and Greta Garbo's hats.

34. What kept you sane?
honestly? wine. and whine. and the close friends and family i have...same as last year!

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Bill Murray, my imaginary husband.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Take your pick. It was an election year.

37. Who did you miss?
Mima

38. Who was the best new person you met?
i don't have an answer for this.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012:
You can, through the sheer power of your perception, be the happiest person you can if you choose it. Holding on to anger is the quickest way to a life of misery.


40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Since I spent a lot of time in 2012 working on altering my perception of things I think this lyric from Bright Eyes sums it up nicely:

And we'll keep working on the problem we know we'll never solve 
Of Love's uneven remainders, our lives are fractions of a whole.
But if the world could remain within a frame like a painting on a wall.
Then I think we would see the beauty there.
And stand staring in awe at our still lives posed like a bowl of oranges,
like a story told by the fault lines and the soil.

--from Bowl of Oranges




Sunday, December 30, 2012

A "C" List Christmas-- a Glog by Marianne R

Today my great friend and ever popular glogger, glogs yet again! Enjoy!

Well, it's nearly a new year, which means any minute the stores will be putting out Christmas products for Christmas 2013! I love the holidays mostly for the anticipation of what is to come....and what usually comes is more cookies, more cake, another glass of wine and more cheese!  I'm a sucker for anything Christmas related, and that goes for cheesy holiday movies. I don't mean "Christmas with the Kranks" or "Jingle All the Way". I'm talking about those made-for-tv Hallmark Channel, ABC Family and Lifetime movies. These movies, by the way, were made especially for me this year.

I challenged myself to two things in 2012: reading 100 books and eating all flavors of Ralph's Famous Ices.  Instead, my husband knocked me up and we had a baby in October. I was 75% through with both my challenges and for reasons including, but not limited to: lack of sleep, lack of time, lack of money, lack of sensibility, and a diet rich in hydrogenated oils, I was unable to complete my challenges and this really depressed me.

Being on Family Leave (apparently there is no such thing as Maternity time when you have a Master's degree) afforded me ample time to sit uncomfortably on my couch for 13 weeks straight with the cutest baby, Reid, ever born (seriously, I'm not biased, ask Allison how cute he is) and napping in my arms. I started my time "off" watching "Band of Brothers" and if Reid decides to become a Paratrooper, it is clearly my fault. As the holidays approached, I decided to instead watch every holiday movie I can squeeze in between changing diapers and goo-goo'ing and ga-ga'ing. Besides, I figure the sounds of holiday love and kissing under the mistletoe would have to be less traumatic to an infant then someone from Easy Company getting blown up in a foxhole. After watching nearly the entire "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Saved by the Bell" cast in several holiday movies, I would have to disagree with my original thought about which is more damaging to an infants' tender ears.

I didn't want to set myself up for another let down so instead of putting a number on these movies, I just decided to watch as many as I could. The only complaint came from my husband who watched his Tivo box go from 10% full to nearly 40% full...of holiday cheer, that is.

The thing about these movies is that they only have "C" List Actors. We're talking about actors that haven't been in anything since the 80s or the siblings of famous actors. Like Haylie Duff, Hilary's lesser known older sister, in "All About Christmas Eve".  Much like Gwyneth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors", we view Haylie's holiday in two separate scenarios: she misses her flight and she makes her flight. The catalyst to this separation is her breaking a heel as she is running through the airport. Who wears heels on a plane anyway? How about this guy? Do you recognize him?

I bet the folks in Germany do.
I actually sat through this movie, and by "sat" I mean, I fell asleep for the entire 2 hours. I wish I hadn't though. "The Christmas Consultant" is going to be a classic for years to come. Some might say that it is 'timeless'.

Most of these movies follow the same format as past movies that did really well. Much like a Nora Roberts or James Patterson novel. They know what works and what sells so why try anything new? Just change the character names and the location and BAM! Instant hit! The most popular format for a Christmas movie is the "relive the day until you get it right". This became classic in Bill Murray's "Groundhog Day". But on ABC Family, this classic becomes the "12 Dates of Christmas" and "The Christmas Do-Over" and "Christmas Everyday" and I'm sure countless others but this is all I was able to watch. I'm pleased to say that "12 Dates of Christmas" was actually a decent movie, a favorite, if you will. And yes, in case you are wondering, Amy Smart finally gets everything right on Christmas Eve, after like, the thousandth time of reliving it, and finds happiness with Mark-Paul Gosselaar. Actually, if he's starring in "Franklin & Bash" as either Franklin and/or Bash, does that make him a B or C list actor? Either way, kudos to them for really getting this formula, for making a classic made-for-tv-movie, right!

Another gem would be "The Dog Who Saved Christmas" starring Dean Cain and the voice of Mario Lopez, as Zeus, the frisky Labrador Retriever, who....well, who saves Christmas. Zeus is left home alone on Christmas Eve while his owners go off to Grandpa's house. A pair of burglars break into the house, and it is up to Macaulay Culkin  Zeus to set up booby traps around the house and save Christmas! Instant. Classic.


As part of Lifetime's, "It's a Wonderful Lifetime" of nonstop Holiday movies, I watched "12 Men of Christmas" with the starring role going to Kristin Chenoweth, someone who is not annoying at all. She plays EJ Baxter, a headstrong New York City Publicist who loses her job and has to move to Montana, apparently the only state where she is not blacklisted in her career! She needs to bring tourism to this small town. Guess who her assistant is? Anna Chlumsky, of the "My Girl" fame. Ok, now guess how they raise money for the town? Give up? They create a calendar of 12 real Montana-ian men in real life situations, like chopping wood, fishing, and having a picnic, but in half their clothes. Sounds a little like "Calendar Girls" with Helen Mirren, doesn't it? It also screams Christmas, right?

Ok, let's say I had a second favorite. If I had to choose, it would be "Holly's Holiday", which doesn't star anyone famous. However, it does follow the format of an 80's classic, "Mannequin." You see, Holly dreams of the perfect life with the perfect man. And apparently perfection only comes in a mannequin that she passes every day on her way to work that one day comes to life after she slips on the sidewalk and hits her head. Do they fall in love? You bet! But do you think he's really all that perfect? Do you think that love was right under her nose the whole time with one of her coworkers? I don't want to give those answers away, you will have to wait until 2013 to watch for yourself. But until then, enjoy this interlude:


I can't end this glog without having mentioned "Holiday in Handcuffs". Mario Lopez gets kidnapped by Melissa Joan Hart and is forced to pretend he is her boyfriend when they spend the holidays with her asshole parents. Do they fool them? Of course! And do they fall in love? Of course! What would an ABC family holiday movie be without a Patty Hearst spin. But once the police track them down at a cabin in the woods, Clarissa has to explain it all to her family and the comedy ensues.




Ok well, this was how I spent the last month of my Family Leave with my new son. Please don't think me a bad mother for subjecting him to these programs. We spent plenty of time singing Christmas carols, and dancing, and reading books. Besides, I think he especially enjoyed Tori Spelling's singing in "The Mistle-Tones" (soundtrack available on abcfamily.go.com).

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Chatting and eating and drinking and eating and eating

Apparently I'm not all that bothered by not blogging every single day in December since I've missed about three days. I learn a lot of things when I decide to force myself to write something everyday for any consecutive amount of time: forcing yourself to write has good and bad sides, the major bad side is that you often sacrifice quality for quantity. One of the annoying aspects of my personality (among many, many others) is that I often need to be forced to do things so that I can remember how much I enjoy them (see: writing, yoga, crossword puzzles, cardio exercise, whiskey) and it often just never takes to being a habit. Or it does, but only temporarily. I'd love to have the discipline of Jay Gatsby, say, and write down a list of all the things I want to accomplish and then just do them. Sometimes I can, most times I can't. I often feel that when I am perched on my oaken deathbed (I always wanted my deathbed to be made of oak for some reason, more dramatic that way) I'll regret my lack of discipline. But who can say in these matters? I'll never regret sleeping in, which is what kept me from blogging yesterday and the day before so it may end up all coming out in a wash.

Speaking of Jay Gatsby, I've decided to get a tattoo. And this tattoo will be Gatsby related, specifically involving the green light but I have yet to find an artistic rendition that will suffice for marking my body until such time as I take to my oaken deathbed. I have seen at least four photographs that would work, but for those of you have tattoos, can a tattoo artist accurately make a photo a tattoo? I don't know thing 1 about these things. Or thing 2 or 3 for that matter. And I haven't yet settled on an optimal place on my zaftig corpulence* for the tattoo yet either. I'm going to be getting it strictly for me so I'm not too bothered by it "showing", that is, I don't need to have it in a place where it needs to be exposed. However, I've always found shoulder and arm tattoos appealing. It is hard to make those feminine looking, and as all who know me in real life, I am girly but I have actually seen it pulled off. Ah, I don't know. There is a lot to think about. Or I could just get drunk the night before I ship out and get an anchor on my bicep. You know, either one.

Last night I had dinner at Kristen and Andrew's apartment with some of my family and some of my extended family. We all gathered around the kitchen island chatting and eating and eating and drinking and eating and eating. I remember at one point last night thinking "what a lovely way to spend an evening." And it truly was. It is such a lovely thing to do that I'm replicating the process tonight again at my own apartment. I have an annual "holiday" dinner with some high school friends and current friends and my sister. We all just hang around, say it with me now "chatting and eating and drinking and eating and eating." By the way, I fully expect any and all January blogs to be about how I hate diet and exercise because all of that is going to need to happen.

In other news, I got nothing else. For more information about tattoos, eating, and oaken deathbeds visit your local library. Or call 1-800-BLOGSUCKS. Or visit us on the web at blogeverydayindecemberisabust.edu.

*I did not consult a thesaurus for these words. I just happen to know several ways of describing fatness.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Half popped collars

I often fantasize about moving to Chicago. I check the Craigslist ads for apartments in the neighborhoods I know I'd want to live in, I scour the want ads on various websites for jobs in my field, just for shits and giggles. I can't quite put my finger on what appeals to me so much about that city, but it is what it is. However, it is apparently snowing like, what the kids today would say, "a mofo" and I remember that one of the MAJOR things that would be a deterrent to me actually moving there would be the weather. I still remember the first grey day I had in Chicago, cruising down the Chicago river, hungover and ill equipped to deal with the mid-March wind. I was trying hard to focus on everything the tour guide was saying but all I kept thinking was cold, cold, cold. As I type this now, I get a chill. Still, there was that moment when I went back the second time in July during an after dinner walk with my friend Marianne through Millennium Park, being goofy and full that charmed me again. And again this past spring when I returned a third time. I just can't help it, Chicago. I love you.

In other news, I just emptied out some draft emails from my gmail drafts folder which has been building slowly up for at least five years. In it, I found some useless and broken links alongside some blurbs and beginnings of stories and poems that I just never get around to finishing or exploring. I found a stanza about somebody I used to know (I also just wanted to get that song in your head, again, for shits and giggles) and I share it here because I'm bored and this amuses me:


You wore that shirt
I hated, the loose hem's
jagged, elongated
orbit around
your pasty waist.
It came straight
from your closet
of thrift store
remainders, dopey articles,
collars half popped
and holes.
I watched you dress
that morning and
thought of shaky,
newborn giraffes.

I also found a recipe for deviled eggs that I utterly forgot about that I'm going to make tomorrow.
Why bother searching the internet when I can just search my own email accounts?  I realize this makes me a flip-flopper, considering my complete abstinence of, and subsequent liberating feeling from, email a scant two days ago but I often like to think I'm like Juliet(of the one hit wonder duo "Romeo and Juliet")'s moon: I am inconstant. I monthly change in my circled orb. Or some crap.



Wednesday, December 19, 2012

I'd be alarmed if I was my friend.

Rapture

I want to be awake
when the world ends.
I want to be my friend

who rose to an empty 
house, even his grandmother
& her worn cross gone

& thought it was the rapture,
that he hadn't crossed over.
Let me rip my shirt

as he did & tear into the street
hollering. Let me hear
only my blood beat this morning

 in the rain before the dawn--- 
no one on the line.
Later, when they return,

let those I love who left
have only gone to the store,
running errands, this errant

unebbing life. After, 
let what I've torn---
the myself I mourn---

be mended & start
over, like a scar,
or star.

---Kevin Young


I read that poem in this week's New Yorker magazine and it echoed the fact that I've been thinking about/reading about/internally debunking the ending of the world interpreted by someone (does anyone know who?) to be foretold in the Mayan calendar. It has reached a level of frenzy seeing as the date everyone is so certain it will happen is the day after tomorrow. I never believe anyone who says they know for certain anything, much less when it comes to the ending of the world. Why? Because the fact that I can smell the fart from a library patron here at the reference desk clearly indicates that they were all very wrong. The world keeps turning....and people keep farting.  Of course the world will end eventually but just as you are never, ever going to win the lottery, you are not going to know ahead of time either. Also, why would you want to? I have friends and family members who have a plan of survival in mind. Maybe it is just the pessimist in me but I always assumed I'd be killed immediately. Like if a meteor hit earth somewhere near Australia or wherever is the furthest point on Earth from New York is, I'd somehow trip in the shower, bump my head and be cat fodder for a few weeks. Or I'd eat from a salmonella contaminated jar of peanut butter. Something along those lines. So I don't have a survival pack or a plan of where to go to hide should a natural or man made disaster happen. I know only this: I was living in NYC during the previous decade when both 9/11 and the blackout of 2003 happened and the entirety of Manhattan (basically) had to evacuate on foot to the outer boroughs. On BOTH days I wore very, very uncomfortable shoes, one pair of which ripped my ankles to hamburger meat resembling bloody stumps. So that might be the indicator that the end is nigh: I'll be wearing intensely uncomfortable shoes.

It is less than a week until Christmas and the holiday binging has begun in earnest. It started with a piece of coconut cake at the staff sweets party this morning. I mean honestly, cake at 10am? What am I? A 7 year old?? It all culminated just five short minutes ago when I crossed the line of one too many cookies. I fully expect the day long sugar high to send me crashing big time when I go home and perform my favorite ritual of the day: shutting down.

I've still got a little bit of time left during a painfully slow workday and my brain has already begun the process. I had planned on reading a bit but I think my brain has also put a moratorium on reading for the rest of 2012. That is the only way I can explain why I'm reading the same g'd book for the last three months. This is so unlike me. I'd be alarmed if I was my friend.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

From something I'm reading


My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time;
they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and
disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away.
Or again at something after it has given me up. It makes me
restless and that makes me unhappy, but I cannot keep them
still. If only i had grey, green, black, brown, yellow eyes; I
would stay at home and do something. It's not that I'm
curious. On the contrary, I am bored but it's my duty to be
attentive, I am needed by things as the sky must be above the
earth. And lately, so great has _their_ anxiety become, I can
spare myself little sleep. -- from "Meditations in an Emergency" by Frank O'Hara


Monday, December 17, 2012

I should go outside

Several years ago there was a very, very stupid and badly acted movie with Hillary Swank about setting off nuclear bombs in the Earth's core to restart something or the other or humanity would perish or some crap. Anyway, I mention that movie because I distinctly remember a scene wherein this computer whiz they hire to, I don't know, let's say program the drill that goes to the core or something reaches a point where he hasn't slept in about 6 days and his eyes are all red and he's sweating and entranced. Yeah, that is me right now. Except instead of programming a large drill to get to the core of the earth, I'm fighting on facebook about gun control. So I alternate between the sweaty, red eyed computer geek and this guy:

I should go outside.


 And I know it is all moot. I know people are going to believe what they believe as I believe what I believe and arguing online about issues is just like running headfirst into metal enforced safe's door over and over and over again, but I just have not been able to help myself. Fortunately, I'm taking tomorrow off from both of my jobs in order to decompress and actually I have vowed to not go on facebook or any news outlet website at all. I'm even debating whether or not to check my email. It will all be in an effort to feel like this on the inside:


It will be the first time I haven't checked my email since probably 1995, when I had to wait in line for the one computer in my entire college dorm. So I sincerely hope no one will try to email me anything of vital importance because I really think I'm going to stick to it. I have a million errands to run tomorrow and an apartment to clean so I'm hoping to keep my mind occupied. It may not even rain, for the first time in about seventeen weeks* so if I feel the urge to release the passwords to my (multiple) email accounts from where they reside at the forefront of my brain, I can maybe, I don't know, do as I used to do which was pretty much ANYTHING else. I'm afraid but this will be good for my soul, my brain, my sanity and my happiness. It may end up being a bit tricky to post the blog entry without being tempted to check the inbox...but I just might be able to do it.

Not that I'm keeping a public record of these things (though I likely should) but my eating habits of late, while not abysmal, are in large quantities. I fear the undoing of my 9 month yo yo dieting which has left me about 15-20 pounds lighter than this time last year. How do all you skinny bastards do it? I mean what? Are you saying you don't eat every piece of chocolate or potato chip that somehow replicates itself in front of you at work while you are not looking? Do you not toss back a few cocktails every weekend in the spirit of the holidays? Do you sandwich in workout times between your two jobs during your 13 hour days? Tell me your secrets!!

I only ever had one true migraine in my life. I count myself blessed, but when I had it, I saw the jagged lines behind my eyes and felt the left side of my face crinkle up like a piece of used wax paper. It is therefore probably not a good sign that I am feeling similarly at the moment. Also not good? I have two hours of work still left.


*timing is approximate

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Toss this one

I spent this Sunday doing maybe two productive things (one being shopping, one being writing) but the majority of the hours were spent avoiding the news and lying around on my couch like a damn wastrel.

I've been upset about the Connecticut shootings but especially so last night when, on my way to my drugstore to pick up a few things, I heard the radio broadcast reporting the new details that the police had uncovered. I don't know why, really, but I was completely overwhelmed and began to hysterically cry. I pulled over into a parking lot and called my sister. It was a strange thing for me to feel that strongly so suddenly. Like I said, I've been trying to avoid being immersed in the non stop news cycle about it so I won't talk about it here too much.

I just saw a commercial for the upcoming season of American Idol and I'm wondering when that shit is going to finally stop airing. It was never, ever relevant but especially so in the last five or so years when all the "winners" seem to be not even remotely "idols", not that we should idolize entertainers anyway. Again, this irritation, sudden and strong, is a little strange for me to experience. Perhaps I'm just overly emotional but I really would love to throw a high heel at my tv.

My brain is exhausted and addled. It is probably best if I end today's entry abruptly. I have nothing really to say yet again today.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Protection of the Innocent- A Glog by Dawn T.


I actually couldn't get it together yesterday to do a post. Apart from working and doing all the things I needed to do, I didn't have the wherewithal to process anything I felt about the school shooting in Connecticut which was on the forefront of everyone's minds. I just wanted to be around friends. So I'm going to forgive myself for missing a day in December. 
My friend Dawn graciously wrote this guest blog (glog) for me and I think it is pretty fantastic. Please read and I hope that wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you are doing everything you can to be happy because all we have is now.

“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

The most terrifying thing a human being can witness is the burial of a child. A reflection of mortality in such a small package. Now multiply this by 20. And there you have the town of Sandy Hook this weekend. Not to mention 8 adults who dedicated their lives to a profession of guiding and protecting innocence. All it took to was 2 nine-millimeter guns and a box of ammo. Oh, and a young man to simply pull the trigger.

The original purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to ensure that our government would not become corrupt and over-powering. It was also to prevent attacks from “thieves, bandits, Native Americans, and slave uprisings”. Somewhat archaic, obviously. Incidentally, when the first census was taken in 1790, the United States population was under 4 million people (not including the thieves, bandits, Native Americans, or slaves). In 2012, the population is over 312.8 million. Plus, Baby Reid Ramirez.

In a nation so hell-bent on protecting rights, I looked up the gun laws for Arizona, a notoriously “Wild West” state just celebrating its 100-year centennial. Here is what I surmised:

No state permit is required to possess a shotgun, rifle or handgun. It is unlawful for a "prohibited possessor" to possess a firearm.
A prohibited possessor includes a person found to constitute a danger to himself or others pursuant to a court order and whose court ordered treatment has not been terminated.
Who has been convicted of a felony involving violence or possession and use of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument and whose civil rights have not been restored.
Who is at the time of possession serving a term of imprisonment in any correctional or detention facility.
Who at the time of possession is serving a term of probation pursuant to a conviction for a domestic violence offense or a felony offense, parole, community supervision, work furlough, home arrest or release on any other basis or who is serving a term of probation or parole.
Who was previously adjudicated delinquent and who possesses, uses or carries a firearm within ten years from the date of adjudication or release for an offense that if committed as an adult would constitute first or second degree burglary, arson, murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault, sexual assault or any felony offense involving the use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.

The most pressing and applicable law for an educator like me:

It is unlawful to possess a deadly weapon on grade or high school grounds. This shall not apply to an unloaded firearm within a means of transportation under the control of an adult, provided, if the adult leaves the vehicle, it shall be locked and the unloaded firearm shall not be visible, or for a program approved by the school.
Source: National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action
Now, this all seems reasonable. But those “prohibited possessors” or sons of mothers with 2nd Amendment rights don’t obviously like to abide by laws. Anyone can carry a weapon into a school under their all-black wardrobe, and open fire. But a teacher, a principal, a secretary, or an aide cannot bring a weapon to school. Intelligent, law-abiding citizens cannot holster a gun at their place of work. Only a police officer can. Metal detectors, video cameras, etc. are deterrents, but they are not fool-proof. So, if you don’t have an officer on-site, you are basically a sitting duck.

Then what is the point of laws if not everyone chooses to respect them? Why can’t I have the CHOICE to protect myself and my students from “acts of tyranny”? And what would that look like if we could? Would I go out to Dick’s Sporting Goods and purchase a GLOCK? Probably not. In my opinion, EVERY weapon in the history of mankind was created with the purpose of controlling or destroying other living things. I HATE the fact that I might even CONSIDER wanting to possess anything with that lethal potential.

A school is a place of business that specializes in fostering and protecting the lives of children. There is a false sense of security that surrounds innocence, hence the term. But when it is shattered, like it already has been, we need to re-think our priorities. Guns do not provide freedom; they invite fear and ruin us as a human race.

Bottom line: If there is no ban on all weapons for all civilians, insane people will continue to participate in mass shootings. And we can do nothing about it. God Bless America.


Thursday, December 13, 2012

A Pacifier Made of Resignation

I've already solicited some people to do guest blogs (glogs) for me so everyone should calm the hell down. And by "everyone" I mean me. I should calm the hell down.

I finished up that coffee table book about Hollywood I mentioned a few posts back, the one with the Bette Davis advice letters. What happened is what usually happens when I read about old Hollywood, I get nostalgic. And it is a stupid kind of nostalgia, considering I have never been to Hollywood, much less lived there in ye olden golden days of the Chateau Marmont and the Chaplins of the world. Something about looking at metallic photographs of unbelievably elegant faces makes me pine for a different time. This might be past life regression. Or just stupidity. I'll leave that up to the pundits. (?)

My foul mood of yesterday has abated. As with most of my foul moods, I resign myself to whatever assyness is going on with work and become calmer in the resignation. I'm like a baby with a pacifier made of resignation; it isn't mother's milk but it will stem the desire to scream.

And speaking of the desire to scream, I just read an article about a teenaged girl who recently became a vegetarian and as such, she diligently reads the labels of everything she eats. She discovered that the energy drink she was about to have had brominated vegetable oil in it. I have never heard of this. Neither had she so she researched it (a girl after my own heart). She discovered it was an unnecessary additive found in a couple brands of soda and energy drinks to "prevent separation" of flavors. She also discovered that it has been tested and directly linked to neurological disorders and altered thyroid hormones. Um, what now?

Click here for the article. And if you are anything like me, you'll be outraged that legal loopholes allow companies to add this shit to your drinks, then you'll be sad that you can no longer entertain soda as a vice, then you'll say fuck it, at least alcohol is organic.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Coupons, snark and 12% off

It is getting to the point where I can't resist a coupon, at the very large expense of my wallet. I keep repeating to myself that I will give it the 10 or so days left until Christmas and then I shall go on the leanest of debt diets in order to sculpt my finances into a shapely hourglass figure as opposed to the malnourished yet inflated blob it is currently. But I get an email with a new coupon every. single.day. There is an episode of Mad Men, it may even be the first episode ever when Don Draper tries to convince Rachel Menken that her store should use coupons and she scoffs at the idea, saying it isn't the direction she wants to go in. I always think when I re-watch that episode that I would totally go into Menken's department store if they offered a coupon. I would likely go in there and shop for a few hours and make a pile of selections and bring them to the till only to be told that I could not use that coupon on any of the items, not even the knight headed cuff links. And then I'd buy all the stuff anyway. And I'd buy knight headed cuff links too. I did this recently when I bought an assload of stuff for other people (and ok, maybe one or two items for myself) from Modcloth.com for Christmas gifts. Since today is 12/12/12, they offered a 12% coupon. I just spent about an hour scouring the site for something else to buy JUST so I could use the coupon. I didn't find anything I'd be willing to pay shipping for so the coupon went to waste but still, the fact that I even considered it after the hemorrhaging of money I've been doing of late is telling, pathetic and not a little sad.

This week's New York magazine doesn't have many coupons. It is, however, a publication to which I subscribe and it does have their annual and always confounding "Reasons to Love New York Right Now" issue. I say it is confounding because I'd be comfortable estimating that 65% of it is stuff I don't get. And it isn't because I'm living on Long Island either. I didn't get the stuff they talked about or why any of it made New York so great even when I was living in Manhattan or Queens either. Here's an example that made the cut for this year's list:

#54: Because Scott Disick's restaurant didn't make it.

Firstly, I had to look up the name Scott Disick. Apparently he is in a relationship with a Kardashian. Putting aside the utter irrelevance in the grand scheme of things of the existence of this person or his relation to New York, why is his failure at opening a restaurant a reason to "love New York"? One thing that always bristled me about lists like these (and I'm not going to deny that this may be an attribute to the snarky culture we've come to lionize in this part of the country) is the confusion between "pride in one's city" and what really boils down to schadenfreude. I love New York and in particular New York City. However, the success or failure of some random reality television personality's venture has no bearing whatsoever on why or how much of that love happens. Also, it likely had little to do with the city itself because if we are talking about crappy restaurants, New York has just as many reasons to be hated. Also, again, who the f*ck is Scott Disick??

Having said that, I did like that they included a few heartwarming stories about the city in the wake of hurricane Sandy. They focused on some poignant stories that came out of Red Hook and the pretty stellar response from the city. Compared to the Long Island Power Authority, they should be freaking canonized.

I was having an ok day until I got to my second job, entered the door and everything suddenly annoyed the ever loving shit out of me. Also, I have two gaping holes in my tights, one of them hits right where my middle toe and "ring" toe are and are causing discomfort which is causing annoyance which is translating into a bunch of internal bitching and moaning. It is also translating into me visualizing throwing things out of a tall building window in the dark. Just random objects I can find lying around. Or maybe just doing this:




I don't know what's stopping me. I'm positive I could find a coupon to replace the dishes.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

From the archives

Ugh. I'm phoning it in again. I just had three beers, two at the new "brewtique" in town and that was followed by dinner and conversation and now  I'm just blobby and full. I went in search of something to write about and ended up at my previous journal. Here's one from the archives, December 11, 2003 to be exact:


 i don't wanna make it rain, i just wanna make it simple
the rigorous testing process at my job-to-be (maybe) has ended and it is now my duty to...wait. 

there is a cold rain in the city today that i simply don't mind in the least. 

i picked up tim o'brien's the things they carried again for the first time in years and so far i have wept openly three times. if you want to be left alone in new york city, start crying on a crosstown bus, or anywhere full of people with not a lot of room to move. people are afraid of solitary criers. me personally? i am afraid of solitary laughers (despite the fact that i have been one on more than one occasion). laughter can turn quite maniacal at the drop of a hat... but tears are usually melancholy, or angry. today mine were empathetic, as they always are with mr. o'brien. 

maybe i'm feeling a bit sissy-fied today. it is one of those days, unique to this life i'm living, where i don't actually feel i know anyone. perhaps i spent too much time walking around midtown this morning. i feel anonymous. i feel solitary. wholly without connection to another person. 
i am lacking and wanting connection, physical and otherwise to one other person. i am not wanting to name names; that would serve as admission. so i shall keep it on the d.l., as the kids say today.

of course this is all a product of reading about war. cold isolation is the partner of knowing about what can and did happen, i suppose. but it has to be told and it has to be read, doesn't it?

you know what i need right now? i need some ice cream.

I promise I will try to write a real entry tomorrow damnit.

Monday, December 10, 2012

She's Got Bette Davis' Adviiiice

The tank is empty today. However, I would like to share with you some letters of advice I just read in a book about old Hollywood that were penned by Bette Davis. Apparently in 1942 she wrote a "Dear Abby" sort of series for a fan magazine. Her responses are hilarious, smart, realistic and I can actually hear her voice when I read them. Among the ones about "going all the way" with a boyfriend being shipped off to fight a world war, a lot of single women seemed to seek out her advice on how to meet a husband (she DID marry four times). And she also used to look like this:

 Anyway, I hope you enjoy these as much as I did!

Dear Miss Davis:

I just saw The Man Who Came to Dinner for the third time. I liked the way you played Maggie Cutler very much, probably because I am a secretary myself.
     I am now doing my hair up high the way yours was done, but still I'm no prize package. A beautiful, famous, elegant lady like you probably has no idea what it means to be awkward and self-conscious. I just know, to look at your hands, that you've never bitten your fingernails. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I have an awful time keeping my nails above the quick.
     I might as well tell you all the things that are wrong with me in hopes you will be able to help me. Whenever a man pays attention to me--and that isn't very often-- I can't think of a thing to say. I feel all tied in knots and I just stand there sort of grinning and wishing the floor would open and drop me into a well.
     I'm not exactly a dumb bunny because I got good grades in school and my three older sisters nag at me and say I wouldn't be bad-looking if I weren't such a goof. 
     I'm twenty-two years old, 5'8" tall and I only weigh 115 pounds.
     I won't take up any more of your time, dear Miss Davis, but I thought you might be able to help me. I get so blue sometimes. This is what I want to know--how can I gain poise?
                                                                                                  Anxiously yours,
                                                                                                  Ruth Ann W.

Dear Miss W.:

In the first place, since you are working and are, therefore, financially independent, if I were in your place I'd take a room in a guest house, so moving away from those older sisters who, by their nagging, would probably give beauty Hedy Lamarr an inferiority complex.
     Paint your nails with the brightest red polish you can find and see if you aren't too pleased with the effect to spoil it by nibbling.
     You are tall. Do you stoop when you walk? Some of the loveliest girls in pictures are tall--Alexis Smith, Gail Patrick, and Rosalind Russell, for instance-- and each of them is as straight as a ramrod.
     Finally, the best way I know of gaining poise is to forget yourself entirely and to direct your attention at the person with whom you are talking. Wonder, if you can't divert yourself otherwise, how he or she would look in a bathing suit. Remember those celebrated lines:

         When pompous people squelch me with cold and snooty looks
         It makes me happy to conjecture how they'd look in bathing suits.

     Develop a system of controversial topics to put the other fellow at his ease and you'll be surprised at your resultant calm. Ask, "What picture could you bear to see once a week for the entire year?" or "What was the most frightening thing you ever saw?"
     Relax and you'll be all right.

                                                                                  Sincerely yours,
                                                                                  Bette Davis



Dear Miss Davis:

This is not the typical "fan" letter. I have never before written a stranger a letter, but I suppose there is a first time for everything. 
     I'm a widow, Miss Davis. I'm only twenty-seven, financially independent, and I have a rather good education. But I can't seem to meet the right sort of man. I try not to be too particular; I've done all the usual little stunts such as going out with a perfect bore of a man just on the chance that I might meet someone interesting. Alas, I meet only more bores.
     Worse, practically every man who takes an interest in me eventually works around to the old cliche--"Well, well, are you a merry widow." In the town in which I am now living only a girl who will try anything once is considered a good sport.
     I don't intend to sacrifice my ideals for cheap companionship. Yet I don't want to live my life alone. So my problem is this: How can I meet a "good" man?
     How does one attract a man one meets casually? And how does a girl who has been married keep a man interested while refusing to grant him certain taboo favors? I shall appreciate any advice you care to give me.
                                                                                              Most cordially yours,
                                                                                              Mary-Jo G.

Dear Mrs. G.:

In any woman's life, she meets only a few men who really appeal to her, so she must be careful not to drive those away. Life has a way of solving itself, if one doesn't push it too impatiently.
     Apparently you are trying too hard to find a man to marry. Men can sense this hunting quality instantly and are frightened away by it. A man friend of mine once said, "Why do women let that acquisitive gleam come into their eyes after they have known a man for an hour and learned that he has a decent job, has pleasant manners and is free?"
     Let that be a warning. If I were you, since you have a good education and are only twenty-seven and financially independent, I should travel about the country.
     For some reason, a newcomer to town has special charm. If I were you, I'd take advantage of that fact. I think the only way to secure and hold a man's respect is to be good spirited company, interested in everything he says, but to also keep him guessing.
                                                                                             The best of luck to you,
                                                                                              Bette Davis



Is it just me or could that second one have been written today, 70 years later? Also, I don't know who the "man friend" she refers to is, and maybe I've seen All About Eve so many times that the two are going to be linked forever in my brain, but I picture it being George Sanders.


"Why do women let that acquisitive gleam..."

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Blue Sunday

The Sunday post party blues have come to roost. I spent most of today...asleep. The grey day slowly unraveled outside Astoria as I slept in my sibling's apartment and had that moment I always have when I wake up in strange rooms (by strange I mean not mine, don't get ideas); the moment of panic when your brain snaps awake and you just kind of go "where the fuck am I??" It is immediately followed by an "oh riiight" and falling back to sleep. I didn't really get up until after 9 am which is unheard of in my present life. But getting home at 4 am will do that to a person.

The party was a lot of fun, just as I knew it would be. I was supposed to blog about something that was said at the party around the 2 am mark but I knew as I told Lauren that I'd blog it, I would forget. And forget I did. I do remember, however, the fantastically unforgettable ugly sweaters that were being sported last night. Two people wore homemade dickies, Lauren wore a sparkly red sweater with the shoulders cut out and on our way out of the party I have a vague yet hilarious recollection of making the shoulder holes talk. As always, always happens when I hang out with Lauren, I spend the next day laughing at something that happened.

We left the party at around 3:30, amazingly found a taxi back to Queens after what turned out to be a hilarious conversation with the taxi driver wherein he lamented that he had "just left Queens" and had spent the whole night "driving  back and forth" from one place to another. I voiced my impression that that is precisely his job. This then caused my brother, seated in the front passenger seat of the taxi to text me messages about how I should stop talking because he was on the verge of spiraling into hysterical laughter, not exactly a welcome action in an otherwise silent taxi cab. Despite the grumpy taxi driver (who later apologized for complaining after we left a generous tip) and the headache being suffered by my sister who sat and suffered in silence, it was a calm cab ride home; my life only flashed before my eyes once at the hands of a delivery truck in front of us.

Which brings me to today. I had a lovely brunch with my cousin Jessica and her son and the crew from last night and then I drove sleepily home in the rain, entered my apartment around 3 pm and have not left or done anything remotely productive for the past seven hours. Sundays were built for this. I had every intention of cleaning my apartment, going out to get the Sunday times, even making a cup of fucking tea but none of that happened. I just kind of sat here, falling in and out of sleep, spending my awake time feeling blue. Any deeper blue I'd be playing in my grave. It is a chemical/weather related thing though so I'm not terribly worried. The distortion that drizzles all over everything the morning after is sometimes best dealt with by burrowing under blankets, blinds drawn against the day.

I am so looking forward to sleeping. If only on the other side of tonight I was heading somewhere sunny. Blah blah I should just go to sleep.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Too soon?

My schedule this weekend necessitates me writing another blog entry so soon after my last tour de force. By tour de force, I mean I was half asleep with my cat walking across the keyboard. Creativity is painful. In any case, it feels too soon for another post. But whatever. You can stop reading now if you are so inclined.

I woke up late today, not having a chance to make or drink coffee, not having a chance to pack lunch and seeing as I'm headed straight to the city after work, this posed a problem. That was until I made the joyous discovery of mountains beyond mountains of leftover food from the staff holiday party last night! It's kind of like the universe is cradling me in its loving arms and saying "No, no. Sleep an extra hour today. I'll make sure you are caffeinated and fed later. Shhhh, that's right. Just sit still and let me do something totally underhanded later. Like fart on your dreams." Always the optimist.

Tonight after work I'm going to Lauren's annual Christmas party. I have been going to this party for five years now, with one brief interruption during an especially bad blizzard in 2009. This year it has the theme of ugly sweaters. I found an especially fetching green sweater VEST that I will be sporting and mayhaps photographing and sharing but only time can tell. I don't exactly know what it is about sweater vests that make them seem unfinished, extemporaneous almost. Like the intention was to BE a whole sweater but it got tired midway through. I don't know for certain.What I do know for certain is that I will enjoy this party no matter what I'm waring. I always enjoy the hell out of these parties with the one exception being the year I took my ex boyfriend as a guest and I felt like I was babysitting him the whole time. Mental note: never date anyone who can't function socially. It just isn't fun. However, now that I am single, which is really my natural state of existing, I have nothing but high hopes for this party and every other party that follows it.

Other than that, I got absolutely nothing. Nothing but two hours left until I hurdle myself onto the Southern State Parkway along the congested, traffic stalled path toward the city of my heart and soul. I hope your Saturday is fun, drunken, and or at least festive.



Friday, December 7, 2012

Friday with the Beeth

I spent this Friday evening volunteering at the movie theater up the street. It is a way I have a spent a few Fridays in this past year and a handful of Saturdays, doling out popcorn, talking film and seeing a new indie or foreign film for free. Not too shabby. Here are some observations about tonight:


  • I worked with a lovely older woman who looked decked out for the holidays with this beautiful bright red lipstick on. It also turns out that her son happens to own one of my favorite Mexican restaurants in a nearby town. I thought it was too soon but if I volunteer with her again, I'm going to request one of those cards that would allow me free buffalo vegetable quesadillas there for life. They have those cards right?
  • People are kinda pigs. Because it is a small, independent theater and pretty much a start up, the concessions are sold at a very cheap price. The popcorn is low budget but it is popped fresh for each showing and it costs exactly $1. That's it. The bag size is what I would call "snack size". For $1, one can't expect the large vats of popcorn available at the multiplex. However, I got complaints tonight. "Can't you find a bigger bag?" and "For a $1 I want more." Um, what? When was the last time you spent $1 on popcorn? I talked in a previous blog post about how much a trip to the movies costs. The last time I bought popcorn it was around $5. So, really? You want more for $1? Bite me. Also, after the screening, I had to go out into the theater to sweep up all the detritus left behind, which, objectively speaking, when you have a room full of sober adults, should be minimal. For some reason, tonight's group left a veritable garbage dump of various bits of crap. I mean, ok, I get that popcorn isn't always the easiest of foods to keep from falling on the floor in the dark. But when you get up and you have left behind three candy bar wrappers and a half empty bottle of water, you are just being fucking lazy.


  • The movie tonight was A Late Quartet starring Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Catherine Keener among others. I hadn't really heard anything about it before hand apart from an excerpt of an interview with Walken on Fresh Air. In this film, he is the most un-Christopher Walken I've ever seen, a cellist and a widow recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. There are a handful of actors I would have envisioned in a role like that. But I have to say I was able to separate him in this role from his persona and when you come to expect a handful of quirks from a person, it takes a good actor to help you forget it. 
  • A central part of the film is the music, in particular a piece by Beethoven Opus 131 String Quartet. I first heard that particular piece in college, when I still had aspirations to minor in music history. It was part of the textbook companion set of CASSETTE TAPES (now you know how old I am) for a class called "The History of Western Music". I would listen those tapes over and over and over again on my walkman while I shelved books in the college library. This piece always stood out for me because the first time I heard it I had to stop what I was doing to listen. After that, every time I heard it, my mind would wander wherever it wanted while keeping me tethered for fear of not being able to hear it from far away. I can't hear this without recalling the scent of that library, the memory of those endless stacks underground, even the feel of those books as I walked between the aisles and ran my hands along the bindings and all the things I felt at the time. Beethoven reminds me of being 20 which just makes me melancholy. What? I dare you to think of yourself at 20 and not sigh in the remembrance.  Listen to it here, I promise you will not spend a better nine minutes:





Ok I'm wrapping this up. I'm going to do a very un-Friday thing (for me anyway) and sit in my apartment sober, listening to the Beeth. Man, it is just like my wild, wild 20s!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Late and lame

I'm multitasking. Right now I am awaiting my nail varnish to dry and enjoying a gin and tonic. I'm doing some online Christmas shopping and in a moment I will be getting myself ready to go to sleep and there's nothing more multitasking in my life than sleeping what with REM cycles and the slowing of my breathing. It has taken my entire lifetime but I think I've got that down.

What fascinating part of my life should I share today? For dinner I got Indian at my local/only nearby Indian restaurant (side note: there is a dearth of Indian eateries on Long Island and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. I mean, Indian food is fucking delicious and Long Islanders love to eat. Does not compute.) Anyway, two things resulted from the fateful decision to get aloo gobi tonight: 1) the man on the phone who took my order somehow thought my name was "Anderson" and when I went to pick it up there were a few orders waiting. She asked if I was "Anderson" and I said no. Just as they were starting to berate the cook for being slow, I realized that Anderson is as close to my name as some other names and I figured out it was for me. Comedy! and 2) I neglected to tell the person who took my order to make it mild in spice. I"m not a big baby when it comes to spicy food, please don't mistake me. I love spicy food. I often add Tabasco sauce to many, many dishes. But this particular restaurant has different standards of heat and this was an intense culinary experience. By that I mean, I got snotty. Appetites!

I don't really have much else for today. My nails are dry and I have a few more things to do before falling fast asleep and boom it will Friday.

Possibly, the best blog I've ever written. And by best I mean, lamest.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Definitely not a New Year's resolution blog

Watching "The Dark Knight Rises" I'm reminded of my lifelong dream of being a standout extra in a major motion picture. I have always wanted to be the extra that has a line that stands out amidst all the action of a superhero movie or the funniest line in a comedy (think "I'll have what she's having" from "When Harry Met Sally"). What does it say about me that I never had aspirations to be the star, never wanted to be the quirky sidekick, never even wanted to be the first one to die in a horror movie. Just that one line delivery and I'd be done, forever committed to the annals of film history. Do extras with lines ever get invited to the premiere?

Today was a rather hum drum day. There wasn't much to do at work and it was just one of those days when I longed for even a small window in my office. I suppose that would qualify as a first world problem. Anyway, I'd likely be even more distracted than I normally am if there were a window for me to constantly stare out of. Ah, distraction. Did I mention I've been reading the same two books for about two months now? This has to be a record for me. I am almost entirely incapable of finishing books lately. I blame Michael Chabon. Not really, he's a fine writer. I blame myself. And my iPhone. And this day and age. Hold on while I shake my fist at society and go "ohhh youuuuu!"

I'm going to take some steps to alleviate this distraction. Blogging every day this month is one of those steps. Believe it or not (I wouldn't blame me if you didn't actually believe me) committing to myself out loud to write a blog entry every day in succession for a set amount of time actually works for me. And the main result is that I find myself actually concentrating on doing something every day. I know this is a bit elementary but for a brain as addled as mine has become, this is milestone territory.

Another step I'm going to take is yoga. I have an on/off again relationship with yoga but it is the classic story of me being actually in love with something but denying it so I don't have to do the work necessary or risk anything. (This is starting to sound like a blog about my love life.) But in all seriousness, I am going to get serious about yoga. This will necessitate me doing yet another step which is: being a little better about how and where and when I spend my  money. When I had my previous journal, one of the tags I had for my posts was entitled "Money aka the bane of my existence" and it was heavily used. I've never been "bad" with money. I'd prefer to use the term "frivolous". I really truly want to attempt to use my money on the betterment of my soul and my mind as opposed to the betterment of my wardrobe. This particular attempt will likely fail, but I don't say that because I'm a natural pessimist. I say it only because it has always failed in the past.

I'd also love to volunteer somewhere OTHER than an independent movie theater that really isn't volunteering since I get something out of it. I'm not entirely to blame for my lack of being a good citizen on this front. I work long hours and when I'm not working I'm drunk and there aren't many worthwhile organizations that would have me on my off hours anyway. Maybe I could "volunteer" at a bar??

Now today's entry is starting to sound like a New Year's resolution blog. And I don't make resolutions anymore, but that's only because I usually get too distracted to see them through....oh, I see what is happening.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

"She's my Rushmore, Max."

You know who I love effing crap out of? Bill Murray.

Yesterday I was reading an interview in the Sunday Times with one of my favorite comedians/actors of all time. (A recent addition to that list, probably right after I walked out of the theater after watching Rushmore, but an addition nonetheless). Here's an excerpt that stuck out for me:

Q: There seems to be so much serendipity in your life. Are you actively cultivating these moments or just hoping that they come to you?

A:  Well, you have to hope that they happen to you. That's Pandora's box, right? She opens up the box, and all the nightmares flyout. And slams the lid shut, like, "Oops," and opens it one more time, and hope pops out of the box. That's the only thing we really, surely have, is hope. You hope that you can be alive, that things will happen to you that you'll actually witness, that you'll participate in. Rather than life just rolling over you, and you wake up and it's Thursday, and what happened to Monday? Whatever the best part of my life has been, has been as a result of that remembering.

And anytime you can answer a question using a Greek myth, lauding the merits of hope and participating in life as opposed to letting it be a thing "rolling over you" and tying all that in to an appreciation of the serendipity of your long string of lucky breaks and well deserved chances, I just end up admiring and respecting you. It doesn't hurt in the least that often when I see his face, I can hear Sigur Ros.


Monday, December 3, 2012

Dirty stay out

Yeah, I'm not sure if it is because I work really long hours during the week (on average I work about 13 hours a day) or if it is just because I am getting more and more and more restless in my old age in general but lately I tend to pack a whole lot of stuff into my weekends. And by "pack a lot of stuff" I really just mean "I drink to excess and that has to stop."

One of the odder things that happened over the weekend was that, as I made my way into one of my local bars, I saw a guy that I had chatted with through an online dating site a long time ago. It was a chat that went nowhere of course but seeing him out, taking shots at 2am was both a little pathetic and also it was a little like seeing an E list celebrity. And it resulted in me wanting to go home immediately. Because I was out at 2am when at this stage in my life there are about a zillion other things I should be doing at 2am. I am too old to be out that late. I reminded myself of a story my friend Lauren told me awhile ago when a bouncer called her and her roommate "dirty stay outs" because they innocently asked him what time the bar closed. That's what I felt like. A dirty stay out. I had, earlier in the evening, had a lovely dinner with some lovely people. I had great conversation and good food and good company. Yet when I got home I just kept thinking in that compulsive way I get sometimes "go out go out go out." Nevermind that I had just been out. I had just spent time with other people after working all day.

 When I am sitting at home with nothing to do and I'm wired and awake and all I want to do is talk to someone, I feel too young to be at home at 2am on a Saturday night. It is really just the most ridiculous thing. I have always been a restless sort but in the past year, my restlessness has reached a pinnacle. I'm not going to suggest that the approaching big birthday on the horizon in four years and my equating said big birthday with the end of my youth and the thin borderline of wandering the streets of an early, early morning (or late, late night) being totally unacceptable and sad will be crossed right after that big birthday and I am certainly not suggesting that seeking out the company of a room of random drunk strangers is somehow fulfilling this vacant spot in my otherwise content life and that that fact acts a springboard when 11pm rolls around and I walk out into the uncertain dark night of small town nightlife. Nope, I'm not going to sit here and suggest that any of that is true. And you can't make me.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

I have exactly ten minutes to post this. I don't have anything to say. I spent today in bed mostly and then I spent some quality time with one of my oldest friends but unfortunately that resulted in me falling asleep at 8pm and not waking up until 11:50pm, fully clothed with unfed pets staring at me with accusation in their eyes.

But blog every day December, you know.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Dirty, like a movie theater sock

It is the first day of BEDD! This is a completely random thing I may or may not have made up or heard somewhere or I don't know what all else but I'm challenging myself to write a Blog post EveryDay in December AND to finish a few unfinished poems and stories and to finally start writing something totally new in the month of December. After a year of having both ass cheeks firmly planted on the huge (and I mean huge) stack of laurels, I need to challenge myself. Come along on the journey, won't you? It promises to be both banal and pointless!

Here's a thing that happened:

I had my bag searched at the movie theater, like a proper criminal. Unfortunately, I was not the only one. This is something that is done now apparently in the dirty, crooked world of the multiplex cinema. Let me back up a bit.

The day after Thanksgiving I made plans to meet up with Nancy to view the final installment of the Twilight franchise of craptastic "cinema". Ever since the books came out, Nancy and I have delighted, nay we have reveled in ridiculing the entire franchise from the extremely poor writing, the two dimensional characters to the horrible acting of the film versions and just the general awfulness of the anti-feminist, untenable and nonsensical universe created by Stephanie Meyer.

We agreed to meet in Astoria since I would be coming into the city for my sister's birthday drinks later that night anyway and we most certainly would need to close out the end of a stupid era with a commemorative drink. I've never, ever been a fan of multiplex cinemas due to their monopoly/price gouging/general unpleasantness but for many years now, that has really been the only game in town when it comes to most movies. The multiplex in Astoria is high volume due to the dense population and the fact that it is the last stop before Manhattan. When I got there, I didn't notice much except the mass of humanity waiting on the line to buy tickets. Also, about fifty people mispronounced the title of the Ang Lee movie "Life of Pi". They were saying "one for Life of Pee". I also happened to notice that when I asked for a ticket to Breaking Dawn the woman said "$13.50" to which I replied "I don't want the 3-D or the IMAX." to which she replied "That's the regular theater price" to which I replied by sighing in a defeat assuaged only by the knowledge that I would soon be poking fun at sparkling vampires.

Anyway, after Nancy and I got our refreshments (yes, I paid $5.50 for a bottle of water, nevermind that the bottle was roughly the size of Marianne's newborn baby, I felt dirty at parting from that $5.50) and we made our way to the ticket taker. As we approached, I noticed that she seemed to be in an argument with a man, his wife and their two children. All of them seemed to be arguing collectively. In between that arguing, the ticket taker looked at us and said "Can I see inside your bags?" I said "um what?" She said "I need to see inside your bags. There is no outside food allowed." I know outside food has not been allowed in theaters for a long time, a fact that I've been thumbing my nose at since I've been going to the movies which is basically my entire life. I usually bring my snacks (and if I'm being honest, I usually buy some candy at the theater too, but that's only because I'm a glutton and there is nothing like $30 candy) but still, I used to file that activity under  "tiny rebellions"and I loved every minute of it. Apparently this theater, after overcharging and arguing and doing everything in its power to make movie going thoroughly unpleasant, decided to pile it on by searching bags and confiscating any outside food. Even while being aware that they are likely in their legal rights in doing this....FUCK THAT NOISE. I was livid at this. I pretty much vowed at that moment to never see another movie at that theater or any theater that would search my bag. My resolve was hardened when, upon entering the screening room, we saw a dirty sock on the floor. It may or may not have been surrounded by a halo of old, half eaten popcorn, I can't say for certain. I tried to get everything straight in my mind: I paid almost $15 for entrance, $5.50 for WATER, you searched my bag, and now I have to sit inside a disgusting horrible theater to see this crap? Oh and let's not forget that I also have to sit through almost 25 minutes of commercials for everything from cars to television shows to sport drinks  before seeing the movie I paid for. The only thing that made any of this experience better was the company of Nancy (including her giving me an early Christmas gift, which I'll blog about later this month) and our endless laughter at the movie that did not disappoint at all in the utter ridiculous joy it gave us. Still, they searched my bag! Unclean!!

Dear multiplexes of the world, if bag searching is becoming de rigueur, I'll just create a home theater because I've, just now, had it. I'll use my $20 buying DVDs from the old ladies that come into my nail salon with their stacks of bootlegs. It used to be fun to see a movie at the theater. But that experience just left me feeling dirty, emotionally and physically, just like that used sock on the floor of the theater, which was still there when the movie was over and might very well still be there today. Love, Me.

Monday, November 26, 2012

62% of the time

I felt unmoored yesterday, a Sunday afternoon. I don't always dread that old locationless feeling; not all who wander are lost, after all. I certainly wouldn't mind it now. Days like yesterday allowed my mind to wander to those places I always want it to go, but I'm usually too distracted to fully surrender a whole day to just blobbing around, thinking. I have a rather steam punk-ish fantasy of collecting states of mind in small glass domed display cases for my collection and enjoyment at will. And for some reason I'm wearing a monocle. In this fantasy the states of mind resemble tiny mechanical devices made of copper or are pieced together from utterly random objects a la something by the Brothers Quay.

Maybe this little guy is there too.

I did warn you I felt unmoored.

Alas, such a room full of well preserved states of mind does not exist. I'll have to settle with enjoying them as they come. Otherwise it was a weekend full of food, drink, family and friends. Now THOSE are things at which I have achieved expert status. The end of the year always affords me plenty of opportunity to exercise those hard earned skills. Shall I tell you a bit about it all? I think I shall.

The weekend began in the  middle of the week when I decided at the last moment to take Wednesday as a vacation day. The plan was originally to just lie about like a damn sloth but, as usually does happen, I had a few appointments to tend to and the adult section of the abandoned warehouse that is my brain will not allow me to indulge in sloth when I have shit that has to get done. My first stop was the dentist. I haven't been in awhile and after listening to a conversation about dental nightmares at work the other day, I was prompted to make an appointment. Turns out I have a cavity somewhere between two of my teeth. I didn't even really understand that this was a possibility but frankly, I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner. Compared to some past dentist visits, however, this one was rather tame, even with the chastisement about my lack of flossing. I will have to change my ways to allow more dental floss in my life because knowing my history, I'm likely to next get a cavity in the center of my tongue.

Wednesday also found me in desperate need of a haircut and going to my hair stylist is a useful and fun way to kill several hours so I scheduled an appointment for that too. I showed up about 20 minutes early and whenever I am early for an appointment I feel this urgent need to do something and not just sit there, scrolling across the acreage of my phone. Suddenly I turn into Polly Mustdosomething when I know I only have a short amount of time in which to do it. (This may also be known as "Last Minute Larry" in some circles.) I decided to spend some time in the shop next door that sells every kind of girly makeup in girly containers by girly girls who are generally girlily giddy about how pretty life is inside that store. The girl in there on Wednesday had a very distinctive face with well put together features that I can only describe as looking like she was related to a model. Not a model herself but the relative of one. She was very open and friendly and during the course of the ten or fifteen minutes I was actually inside the store, she told me that she found out her step brother is her actual brother and that she had never met her mother until she was 21. Not exactly shop talk but I suppose you often have to let things out when they have to come out, regardless of who is around. She seemed a bit overwhelmed and I was falling prey to "the ovewhelms by being in such close proximity" so I decided to not buy anything and go sit in the waiting room and, inevitably, scroll through the acreage of my phone.

While was doing this, I overheard a phone conversation the woman seated next to me was having underneath a mountain of tin foil as she waited for the highlights in her hair to take. She was positively brimming with pre-Thanksgiving anger about some slight or another on the part of her mother in law. I couldn't really get the details but they had something to do with mashed potatoes. I thought a little about how and why so many people dread the holidays. If this red faced, shaking woman was an example of what otherwise innocuous side dishes can do to some families on holidays, I would be the kind of person who just feigned illness and stayed at home with a sandwich. Luckily I have never really had to deal with such nonsense. I hope that trend continues for the rest of my entire life.

The Wednesday night before Thanksgiving is always pretty much just a synonym for insanity at the bars. As such, I have avoided all pre-Thanksgiving nights out for a few years now but this year, one of the local concert venues in town was having a 90s concert and seeing as I just got my hair did and nothing to do, I decided to go. I miss the 90s on average, I'd say about 62% of the time. So why not gather together in a big room with a bunch of people who are more than likely exactly my age, who live in my neighborhood, get drunk and reminisce about what we were doing 20 something years ago when Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Alice in Chains were all heying the day? I was able to drag Dana along with me and we drank heavily and contemplated starting a mosh pit. We didn't but the whole evening felt like someone would at some point just throw their bodies into other bodies out of sheer angst. Just like the 90s.

Thanksgiving day began with both of my cats tenderizing the hungover flesh of my body in an attempt to get me to open the blinds so they could stare at the day, just in case a squirrel happened by or some such comparable event. It worked but I kinda resent them for it even now, a few days later. I headed to my mom's house eventually where I was greeted by all the warmth and family and laughter and booze and food that I have grown accustomed to at family gatherings. Along with trading war stories post hurricane Sandy, I seem to recall a few pilgrim jokes and sarcasm bandied about. Ah, home.

I just realized how damn long this blog entry is (maybe it just feels really long) and so I'll close it up here and begin writing a sequel to be published later. I'm also contemplating blogging every day in December (BEDD?) and I'll need something to talk about won't I? I know the four or five you will be absolutely riveted by 31 days of banal nonsense from me! I know I will.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

I, Who Dumped the Diaper

Yesterday I got to work to be told by two of my coworkers that they still, 11 days after the super storm, did not have power. In between the storm and now, we've had a winter storm and temperatures have dropped so no power = no heat for them. Each day they come in looking exhausted but putting on a cheerful front. I have put myself in their shoes and have come to suspect that the only thing surrounding my psyche is an eggshelled surface which might already have a few small cracks in it. I would have moved to Easter Island by now.

After work I went to return something at a clothing store and did not realize until after I parked my car that the parking spot had a neatly bundled used diaper right in the center of it. I often encounter objects left behind that make me wonder about what goes on inside the heads of my fellow humans. What would possess someone to leave a dirty diaper in a parking lot that is, actually, surrounded by garbage cans? Not wanting to move my car, I immediately started planning my exit strategy for when I had to leave, in case there were people standing around imagining that it was I who dumped the diaper. I tried to think of "childless" things to do. But none of the things I could come up with could be accomplished in the 30 seconds it would take for me to walk to my car and then leave. Also, I realized I didn't actually care that much. Also, I was distracted by two things upon entering the store.

First, the music. I don't know what exactly it is about clothing stores, I mean I'm positive someone, somewhere did market research and it thus became the norm to blast repetitive pop music for the shoppers. Much like pumping oxygen (or is it laughing gas?) into Las Vegas casinos, it seems to be the thing to do. However, I always, always notice it and every song that plays. It is rarely background music since it is so fucking loud I often want to stuff articles of clothing into my ear to not hear it. Yesterday was no exception. I noticed the lyrics to this one song that I have never heard before and I thought, "oh that's sweet". Turns out it was a song called "Collide" by Leona Lewis. It begins thusly:

I'm in tune with how you feel
Everything 'bout this is real
When you're in unfamiliar places
Count on me through life's changes

Ignoring the fact that places and changes do not in any way rhyme and the lyrics are lazy, it is kind of sweet right? So then the chorus goes thusly:

Crash into me 
at full speed
we can collide
we can collide

So of course I had to then write the song off as stupidity. Crash into me at full speed? No, no thanks. Yet another song equating romantic love with something that could cause a disfiguring accident. I'll be there for you always, just make sure you are going full speed when you crash into my face. Why can't I just shop??

The second thing that distracted me involved the fact that the store's inventory was being shifted and as a result everything was in disarray. Not a big deal, normally but this disarray also involved creepy child mannequins hiding within the clothing racks. I do not exaggerate when I was startled THREE times by armless, smiling child mannequins hiding in random places throughout the store. Between, the dirty diaper, the stupid music and the frightening children, all the purchasing desire I had within me was drained. I bought nothing. I went home to nap and sleep it all off and woke up when one of my cats knocked the Collected works of Frank O'Hara off my coffee table. It was a sign. I made myself a kir and read for a little while before going to a fundraiser/wine and cheese tasting at my favorite local wine shop.

That I still had cash in my wallet later in the night was fortunate for these two young men who approached me on the street on my way out. Get your minds out of the gutter, people. They approached me and one of them said "Do you mind if I sing you a song and if you like what you hear you can buy my cd for $3?" Since I don't regularly get a personal concert, I agreed. He sang. Beautifully actually. So of course I bought the cd. I haven't listened to it yet so for all I know it could be the sonic equivalent of a dirty diaper left in a parking lot. I'll let you know if it all works out.
 

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Two cherries and a lemon


The storm called Sandy came and went with loud, damaging winds wreaking havoc everywhere it touched including about two blocks from where I live. I feel like I've once again dodged the natural bullet of a hurricane, having just missed so many growing up in Louisiana. My life, it seems, is rife with situations just like this: I am aware that catastrophe looms but it misses me by a hair. Over and over I pull the lever and end up with three cherries (or maybe like two cherries and a lemon). I suppose this is why I believe that everything always works out: it always does. Won't stop me from worrying however. Worry 'til I die. The weather over the past two days however has been so beautiful, another strange fact of hurricanes and other destructive forces: the world could be falling apart but here comes the sun.

On Sunday night, before the storm hit, I went to the supermarket for some last minute items, which coincidentally consisted of my usual random four or five items (in case you were wondering: pasta sauce, paper towels, kaiser rolls, cinnamon graham crackers). When considering the words I wanted to use in describing the pervading attitude of my fellow Long Islanders, I'm leaning towards: panicked, anxiety ridden, and craving only refrigerated food. Cart after cart passed by filled to overflowing with PERISHABLE AND/OR FROZEN foods. I guess most people just don't understand anything. Even basic things like food spoilage. I overheard a mother and teen aged daughter arguing about what to buy and the teenager told her mother that frozen ice pops would not keep and her mother's response was "they are on sale." I sincerely hope they were some of the lucky ones that never lost power.

I've been off from work for the past three days. Thank fuck I have my power back as it had gone off for about 12 hours, most of that time I was asleep. While I'm relieved I didn't have to brave the downed branches and live wire ridden streets in order to get to work, a huge part of me dreaded being left alone with my own thoughts, without anything to distract me from slowly turning over them, like a pig on a spit. My thoughts will one day slowly roast me until I am a wrinkled, crispy, eyeless version of myself. I actually didn't realize I felt that way until just now. Probably even better that the world has been made with plenty of distraction. However, it also explains why I can never finish anything I start to write. I need to work on that.

Anyway, as of today, two days post storm, I am still not required at work (one of my jobs still has no power) and I still have a lack of will to finish anything. I've come to the coffee shop in the hopes of ridding myself of my home's distractions (cuddling kitties, a stack of DVDs that demand my attention, the best mattress ever (tm), a closet that is badly in need of organization) only to find that the place is packed. Likely most of these coffee patrons are electrically powerless refugees. Or perhaps they are also yearning to escape the silent cacophony of their own thoughts. Either way, they are a pretty good looking bunch. One of the guys here resembles someone you might imagine is a stock broker in the 80s would look like, on the weekends. You know, good looking in that cold, calculating way but wearing jeans. In addition to that, I never quite notice just how dirty my laptop is until I take it out of my house and sit in the glare of natural light, where my screen reveals the myriad thumb and fingerprints and tiny bits of cat hair embedded in the keyboard. I would be embarrassed if I had within me the will to do anything about it. However, the fact that it happens every single time I come here, I've lost desire to take care of it. Maybe when the damn thing breaks down and I get a raised eyebrow from some computer geek will I admit how much of damn dirty failure I am at keeping things clean. But I'll wait until then.

Ok, I'm going to attempt to finish something today. Anything. If i succeed, I will tell you. If not, I'll still probably tell you but I'll be drunk so ignore all the other stuff I'll say.