when you think about what hasnt been betrayed. oh - whoops - rather brief.

tempus fugit.

oh my god there is no time. i am sick of being responsible and having no money and googling the location of everything. and trying to iron things when i dont have hangers to put them on because they at least have to wrinkle nicely. and letting things like eggs dated from may in the fridge bother me, and feeling utterly compelled to go buy new ones. in the damn city grocery store that does not in fact meet the qualifications of a grocery store (produce? produce, anyone? how about some fucking fruit in this neighborhood? guys?). getting home at a damn reasonable hour every day, or sleeping on someone elses futon - nice futons, no doubt, but waking up more or less in a kitchen, and a strange one at that. or GOD FORBID i get drunk, because coming from 10k' i cant get tipsy for under a bottle of hard liquor, and if i even think about eating anything after 2pm im just rock solid sober for the rest of the day. and what if i tried to sit down and, say, listen to music for a solid priceless hour that would later wrack me with guilt? how about trying to leave the apartment without it being a production, either of "do i at least not smell funny, and feel that i can sit on the subway without feeling inadequate, or maybe at least inadequate with mascara" or of "i think id better take off the pumps and pinstripes to go to the bank, seeing as its in bed-sty and im white enough as is." god, and could i please stop bleaching the shit out of everything in sight? or, say, shut the fuck up because there are clearly things i feel i should be doing, and this isnt exactly on the short list?

i am very happy about being unbearably self-sufficient, but at some point id like to keep the self but drop the so fucking sufficient. JUST SUFFICIENT WILL DO, THANK YOU. ID LIKE TO CHILL. faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

fey, adj.

dictionary.com's etymology of fey begins thus: "The history of the words fey and fay illustrates a rather fey coincidence."

OW. OW, STOPIT. i miss the oed.

this city is all riffs, all electrics.

echoes and funny acoustics today at mccarren park pool for 'That Grandaddy Guy' (jason lytle by all technically correct accounts, but i didnt once hear him referred to that way) and pretty girls make graves. which effects on sound of an ex-abandoned empty pool/failed public works project/wait is this clearchannel in our neighborhood, goddammit?/"oh good, a heroically random concrete something, lets leave the chipping turquoise paint, throw in a slip'n'slide and the hipsters will come a-runnin" im positive havent been studied, but i sat in front of the speakers for a while (for pictures which probably wont get developed for at least another week; oh digital, you elusive) and thought it was fine (is that normal?) while everyone else was wincing at the high notes in the back. given that im tone-deaf and rhythm-negligent i really havent the faintest what was going on, but there are apparently some questions about an abandoned (and creepily shallow) pool's value as a venue (really? im glad someone saw that coming and promptly proceeded to neglect it, given that whats important here has nothing to do with sound, and more to do with [private] "access to prime market segments" and [public] "better than an abandoned shithole collecting broken glass and standing water, not that we really care, so long as it doesnt cost us anything").

which to clarify, the free shows are put together by jellyNYC, and proceeds benefit further restoration. The money shows ($30 and up?) are put on by Live Nation, which although independent is a stepchild of the big CC (via gothamist).

--although they keep on saying "donate! keep free shows free!" and the blatant failure of logic to apply here is infuriating and makes me wonder if theyre all standing over a wormhole to a more-dimensional universe than mine. i dont mind donating, but do lets please acknowledge how money's existence applies to my personal four-dimensional land in which money given means 'not free', nor 'keeping something free' by paying for it. its also a guilty cry, and pretty much any catcall that tries to justify itself is a little wussy, and, finally, 'donate! keep mccarren park public/help renovate williamsburg's best space/more slip'n'slides for everyone!' would be way more interesting.

[wicked belated sidenote: of course i think this is funny, its me. and emily, craning to the right, with glasses.]

so anyhow, pretty girls did a really nice show, i think knowing full well that stuff off the first album was going to get the most attention and love from the crowd. their second encore (speakers push the air) - which they very nicely pretended the crowd had enthusiastically demanded; showing up being about as excited as anyone gets, unless youre in a small venue and feel like youre being made love to, and other than lone girl embarassing her boyfriend (we all know her), there wasnt a sway to be seen - was my high point, for a number of really obvious reasons. mostly something about the way the lead singer (andrea...?) finally sounded like she was enjoying performing live, not just putting on a show, instead of kind of messing around with pronunciation, coming in late, or just trying not to bore herself.

as for lytle, i only caught the end of his set (beer fiasco...anyway), so i cant say much other than acoustic shows are probably better in this venue, but the high energy needs to stay, because otherwise everyone starts watching the dodgeball game.

(of montreal is next sunday at mccarren, also free, 2-8pm. wicked totally.)

oh, tired. im going to start keeping track of how many times ive read emma so i start feeling guilty about it.

dracula!

wicked, almighty exciting : i am planning my week around this : COME :

showing of dracula at the prospect park bandshell (celebrate brooklyn! strikes again), with the kronos quartet performing philip glass's sountrack, thurs., july 27, 7.30pm; i assume the "suggested" "donation" for the "free cough up your three bucks, asshole" concert applies again.


http://www.brooklynx.org/celebrate/2006_popups/dracula.asp


really sick of being tired & crabby. ugh. lets (royal) try not to fall off the bed tonight, eh. idiot.

none.such.

i am all peeves, nothing but pissy.

boy: youre a little nasty, you know.
girl: pot calling the kettle black, dont you think.
boy: uh. what? i put tea in that kettle this morning.
girl: [pause] i dont think were talking about the same kettle.
boy: what difference does the kettle make?
girl: idiomatic tea?
boy: yeah, that stuff that smells good, right? i know what youre talking about.
girl: well, you got the pot part right.

i live in an existential cartoon.

one more thing.

the fact that im a temp, and that its only been two days, and that ive met all of three people who actually work for brune & richard, aside: in reading the cv-bios of their lawyers on the website, ive gleaned that the firm was (in all namesake probability) founded by two ladies who got their JDs from harvard and have unabashedly scalding academic reps (its a par-three of mcl, a fellowship/scholarship, and an award per phase of study - undergrad, a casual masters because you really do love academia, or at least one seriously badass internship [recalling a planned parenthood and some whitehouse action here], and law school). and then their chosen comrades, all listed proudly name space space space where they got their latest degree from. the heartening, and intriguing, part being this: theres a lot of women, and a lot of youth, and a lot - despite the overwhelming knowledge that half of working there is networking, and half is being an incredible overachiever, and that these two must coexist, each one supporting the other (the networking part balancing a possible lack of experience for the ubertalented youth, and the ubertalented youth bringing value to the concept of networking, which in all too many instances is just the easiest way to decide or do a favor) - of wholesale balls-to-the-wall-ness to it (which if youre minus networking maybe isnt so good, but im running with this for now). so maybe law school. which is going to require some almost stupidly intense planning on my part (still better than trying to do a JD/PhD ahem), but at the very least its something to get inspired about, and seriously consider, and yes i know i need a job for the immediate, pressing, bill-paying future, and ive hardly gotten over the fact that im not in AK, but im not about to toss some well-missed, ill-used ambition out the window now that its decided to show up again.

in, out.

group text messages? am i seriously supposed to spend my dignity points punching the 7 over and over again to respond to something about as heartfelt and sincere as a goldfish? oh what, since were being sarcastic anyway, and then im going to go even a skim little mile out of my way to see you, precious precious child with a deficient (but precious!) little thumb? put a "j," and a comma, at the beginning of the message and ill be forever convinced that youre a rapunzel whose hair is worth climbing. see? see how i easy i am to assuage? i am flexible! versatile! low-maintenance (ok, well.)!

i have no idea if my standards somewhere along the line changed radically without my knowing, or if it became really ok to be blase about things you actually do genuinely want to do, or if people decided that it was worth going out of their way to perform these perfunctory actions of passive aggression (god i need to get off this theme) that wouldve been better left undone (eg, id rather be ignored than get a group text, much like a group email [dont do it! dont! why! you just come off as too big for your own damn popularity britches!], unless it contains serious, far-reaching and therefore catholic revelations about your existence, or strict functionality). i am wicked frustrated with people - otherwise diligent, attentive, charismatic, generous people - who are just dropping the personal-touch ball all over the place. pickup.thedamn.phone.


also: considering the necessary lie. oh, no, not with other people - that necessity is i think pretty obvious, and if not obvious then so damn convenient dont lets even pretend its debatable - and not really lying to yourself, either, but the idea that sometime we must fantasize - we must think things that are, fundamentally/logically/realistically, just plain untrue, we must fabricate! it is our essence! - that to understand you must imagine, you must apply a real-world tenet to a hypothetical, and in some ways must live it, say it, let the idea bubble out of your mouth and, purple and swollen, drift around for as long as it cares to, -- that in some circumstances the only way to understand what were experiencing is to let the lies slip, let those little essences of what we wish were true unfold (akin, i think, to disbelief). you have to be able to wish, long, miss, lust, hesitate, relive, what isnt there; and what do you fall asleep to? neverending waking nightmares of all the stupid things youve done this week, or the color red? or maybe your lies, because thats my favorite. i love the lies. wed be so impure without them - no idealism, no craving.

parenthetically, k, im really wicked sorry i couldnt help you move sunday. ill help paint! really! i promise! and then well go out and buy paintball guns so we can shoot at all the baby carriages from your window (and maybe a stray shot or two going toward a dog, but thats an accident, really).

settling in in a way only real routine (courtesy the having-a-job bit - a block from the stock exchange, incidentally, and i love that i can wear pumps without being One Of Those Brooklyn Girls there) can bring - i had a scrubbing fit last night and bleached the fuck out of everything, and the War Against Uninvited Inhabitants (both plant and animal) has totally begun. watchout, mildew.

other things to do. have mother send songlist. theres this song called 'heartbeat' that hl & k have, but its a different cover than the one i know (and love), but i dont know what band it is, and there are a million that do - of course - a song called 'heartbeat', and my pos computer wont play the damn cd the songs on, and im never going to find the right one, ever, unless i magically remember where i put that damn list (though yeah i can probably rule out ice t). in the atlas, at New Hampshire or at least New England Region, is my guess, actually, but somehow i dont feel like explaining that.

my peripheral vision is going insane with the bugs. soda cant bubble without me whipping my head around and starting to whack at it. moving currents of air make me want to cry, fluttering, twittering. flashing lights are out of the question.

drinks, dinner tomorrow, movie-in-the-park thursday, chance to see some more PoCo kids on friday, and im assuming a serious crash this weekend - sleep, my demanding mistress, my lover, i am so sorry for the way ive been treating you - but i think everyone can agree that a beer and tapes 'n tapes and glorious, glorious a/c will do for now.

up up

happy bastille day!

im going to go celebrate with (nominally) wine and (really) tequila.

also, my three weeks of temp Document Reviewing with Brune & Richard starts monday (thanks amy). i think tomorrow may be ladysuit-shopping day, because i get the feeling that ill be doing that sort of do. gainful (albeit brief) employment, what.

finally, celibacy in the city is really a wicked lot of fun, and so long as i keep away from the - god forbid - charm'n'charisma set, should last.

i think i might even wear a skirt.

no more tequila. this is like the ass-prints in the sauna: i fucking know better, man.

ive been dusting off a few long-lost experiences of late - reminding myself of things my mother probably wouldnt let me forget, anyway - but delineating, like armando's architecture critic i forget his name's diagrams of lines hes loved, one from a glacier, one from a stick, these drawn out on the pages of one of his books, really, printed there; spiderwebs and vortices of dying loves. it feels good to know so much, finally - though im sure im imposing it grossly on others - about something you can really know about; what youve done and not forgetting the way your bones felt, way back when, jealous and narrow; going to write like "im going to go hang out in the word processor," as if it were a breakfast nook.

i did have occasion to see a couple of pomona co-grads at a houseparty of alices the other night - all doing wonderful, happy things with their lives (TforA, working at a law firm, recruiting for TforA, publishing, marketing), youth and health and wealth.

as for violence, ive given up (pretty much) on wanting to hit things that its actually physically possible to hit (mostly now its concepts) and have basically decided that im peeved and dont care. simulataneously, of course. im just so over people who dont have time for me - which is basically passive aggression, because its almost impossible to not have time, like what, i know calling me when you know i wont answer and leaving a message is so fucking hard. ive never exactly had high standards.

seriously, i dont think i can stay sane and listen to the damn ice-cream trucks any more.

oh! - and night watch (watching netflix with c & armando because thirdwheeling with cuddlers is a hobby) is a fabulous movie - in fact, almost as fabulous as blade (i or ii). luckily, its very russian, so what there is of "plot" tends to get lost in "dubbed in english with russian accents intentionally made thicker at times so you dont really worry about whats going on and watch the pretty colors. theyre pretty, dammit. ooh, bleeding."

although in all seriousness i loved the first twenty or so minutes; its actually a very narrative-intense movie, absurdist-lovely images, the ideas behind them continuously half-explained so you understand the story, their relevance to it, and their standalone value all at once. if i were to take it too far, id argue that the beginning is a gorgeous merging of media - simultaneous storytellings half-merged so you see how they work together and how they could, so easily, subsume each other, get lost, or maybe even just come together fully - and maybe they do that, successfully, im not sure. id love to argue against dialogue (ick) but thats a literary argument and might just turn dumb if i tried to apply it elsewhere.

im going back to writing emails, which is about, at this rate, to become a sport.

thanks to ka, i still get my occasional bit of juneau gossip, which despite being utterly unjustifiable i indulge in; so, a holdover from days of yore. rory-palooza (conjures a montage of a stoop, a few flyers, and a lot of looks between me & alison saying "my their tea was very nice but now theyre getting a little creepy, i wish theyd shut up about the K-Y, although [me: he does look rather pretty in that towel]/[alison: i cant decide which of the other two i like more..although...maybe i dont have to decide]") apparently has (had?) an '06 sequel, bubba-palooza.

i miss being overwhelmed by how comic - how happy-absurdist, happy-drunk, comic that town is.

though i wish shed spend more time at the alaskan, we all know how its my favorite, and of course has my favorite barkeep - though it is quite a toss-up between "i like polka dots" (best. postit. ever.) and "i cant believe wait an email address? was i that drunk?" - and i, being not at all dissatisfied in NY but feeling that, perhaps, there are other places id rather be, need to live vicariously.

mmmft. lame.

allez les bleus!

you know it: the coup de boule de m. zidane, who is now my favorite, ever. of course you want to see it again! (and in french! commentator: "et pour quoi? et pour QUOI???")

we watched at the bar tabac, french HQ in brooklyn (packed! with mostly native french speakers), which leads me to the following question:
why is it sometimes necessary to cheer ALLEZ LES BLEUS! but then sometimes necessary to cheer ALLEZ-Y BLEU(S)?

im really fuzzy on the (im sure very necessary) distinction here.
is it that sometimes you only want one bleu to go, instead of all the individual bleus? is the -Y without the LES a little more emphatic, or is it like GO TEAM vs GO TO IT, GET TO IT, GO GET EM, GO HEADBUTT THAT ASSHOLE OF A DEFENDER? im confused.

god, looking forward to sleeping at home tonight.

phot.

w/h at the portland waterfront in may; a mere pause in the frolic, of course.

briefly

cliterati, n. the feminist intelligentsia;

oh wow, i cant believe ive been missing this;

back to those funky sleeping patterns - and sadly, im not referring to my weird hours, but rather choice alignments of body, bed, & pillows. yeah, flamingo-style. yum.

final thoughts for the night.

and i wont, wont believe its bad to rest on some laurels; ones that reassure, that arent really here or there for your ego but just shower you with potentialities,

the laurels of fruition - both picked & dropped figs, if you will, the ones you chose & the ones you chose to let fall, because what matters is that they were there;

its not about the choices youve made, the accomplishments youve alphabetized, the whos-who of your life, but rather the true judges of worth, the acquaintances you secretly loved, the lovers you never really did, the ones you never had to say anything to, is really what i mean, the ones who know ex officio what they need to, and ignore (in the pointed sense, as in ignorant) what they dont, and it was - ha, i hate this phrase, and im glad at least that if i must use it im trying to break its context - what it was; the doors you opened, or found unlocked, or pried at long enough with stiff enough a crowbar, or enough of that awful metaphor.

the laurels that exist in maybe the surest, purest sense of laurels, the ones that exist almost strictly because their nature is mutable, because they could have been so many other things, that each action was only one among many, chosen maybe for a reason and maybe not, /it was what it was/, and could have been both more or less, and just because it wasnt doesnt mean you cant see its possibilities, see what it could be in different contexts, now, today, soon, even, if youre lucky, then;

and those, i think, are the only laurels i need right now, not the positive i-was-this, -did-this, -had-this, because translating them is always a gamble - /not the same river, not the same man/ - can i really recreate that, something like that? am i that person, would i ever, could i ever,...? so what i need is the malleable laurels of mistakes, things not perfectly executed, whose potential hasnt been used and beaten and drank and sweated through, yellowed;

and the rest is good, clean, whole-bought-paid-for and im pretty proud of it, sometimes, even if i see its face everywhere these days, moving in khakis and a yankees cap - ok, probably not that - but in what i seek, in others and myself, i believe its possibility; - faith! fucking faith! how precious, dire! -; as i said to ka:

some sort of sacrosanct integrity, worthiness, and utter love-ability that i feel like a lesser human being for not being able to cope with let alone act upon

this is what im after, this is what im thinking when the sweaty, striped kids around me sway to whatever it is theyre swaying to these days, this is what doesnt just follow me around but pulls me, thanks mr beer oh-physics i mean pushes me, everything from getting orange juice to seeing h move in with boy to everything im jealous of to every graffiti'd wall to everything i have to say and no one to say it to, the laurels, my laurels :

can i have you?
can i keep you?

and of course the corollary, can i become what i respect and keep the differences, the reserve, the reason i maybe hesitate, because that, too, is integrally me? that i dont trust, because these are all possibilities, unknowns, unassureds, and isnt it silly to rely on a maybe for assurance?, for reassurance, but how i must! how i trust in possibility, how i trust in the things i hope for, how i trust in the wishes i hesitate, rationally, to believe, how i trust in some other perception that grants me the positivity it is impossible to gain on ones own, how i trust that...that...that even if its not for me, i can be happy for it, for its being, that i have a god of sorts, that its not me, but it is and its great and there are things deserving of faith and honor and maybe theyre hidden under well-fitted jeans and a too-small t-shirt and the occasional more or less silly aspiration god, isnt it beautiful, isnt this capacity, these capacities, these loves, beautiful?

hell, i like thinking about the things ive done that dont give me knots.

can i have you, can i keep you? i can live like this.

middling around.

so as it turns out it was the dude from Voxtrot who played between sets at the Land of Talk show, which k & i realized when we went to CelebrateBrooklyn! (love the exclamation point, guys) for the aforementioned TV on the Radio, where V.Trot opened for them. thanks to this total coincidence we got a double-take of a couple songs, one night perf'd by just the frontman (Ramesh, thatd be him in the photo, from brooklyn vegan), the next by the full band.

(god damn does my head hurt. also, im wondering why the hudson only got two sets of fireworks, and the east river three. although last year i guess they were all on the east, so maybe i shouldnt wonder, but threes are really satisfying.)

one of which was raised by wolves (right-click-save-target, goes a little nutty if you dont, too lazy to fix so im typing all this out instead). this is the V.Trot version, but it was really way better done by ramesh when he was just rockin out, less smooth-poppy & more as if it (rah!) had meaning ; it was a little dave-matthews-y at the bandshell (venue-appropriate, arguably), very like "go ahead! love me! sure ill never love like you do, who the fuck cares, i love great! i LOVE my love!" (uh, you need to listen to the song for that to make sense) whereas when he went it alone it was pretty clear where the song came from, and why. which of course isnt always easy to convey! --but that was the glory of the first rendition, and the possible lost-in-translation consequences of huge-venue, huge-crowd, song-maybe-not-best-adapted-to-band-play. and i mean wed just walked in on the guy in the middle of a mini-sized set and didnt know who in hell he was but we could both remember the song the next day, and knew what was what. oh hell, its still a good song, whatever.


so anyway i love my friends but man hitch a boyfriend onto them and its like, friends? what friends? did i have friends? did i mistakenly think they wanted to hang out with me, ever, and when they did, that they didnt want to be on the phone with the boyfriends, with exemptions only for something dramatic and important and life-changing like buying tomatoes? god, plum or hothouse?

also, there are silverfish in my room and i have no idea why, unless they can sustain themselves on cigarette ashes and water and styrofoam alone. its really elegant, sitting here staring at three of their smushed corpses on the wall. i kind of keep hoping theyll remove themselves, as things often do.

(we watched from this rooftop just off the jefferson stop, which is funny because its so damn far inland its only a single stop closer to manhattan than mine, but the view was actually wicked nice, we could see the f'works on the east & the hudson, & some from i assume LI, & some rogue but impressive ones from brooklyn itself. a was dj'ing & k knew this other guy but that was the long & short of everyone i knew there, which turned out to be good since, good samaritan that i am, the night ended up involving the humanitarian project of Dancing So That Girl Can Dance With The Person She Wants to Take Home Tonight, Which Wouldnt Happen Otherwise Because Theres Actually Not A Single Other Soul Dancing For Three Square Miles. though im a perfect incarnation of grace & elegance so doesnt really matter.)

also: why are there no ballet competitions? dance-offs? meets, challenges? its got to be adaptable to competition one way or another, right? its infinitely more a sport than, say, cheerleading, and surely there are ways of distinguishing such talent (yeah time to stop being unemployed, i know, i know).

still, its hard to beat tired & happy, very much working on entirely self-sufficient, honest, still coming up with new uses for duct tape.

maybe in large part because im utterly so not cut out for this, its so low-key, low-pressure, at-will, easy -
my roommates are never here -
and im so free to miss, to long, to absorb and wish and indulge everything, every martyrdom and saintlihood and hedonism, every impulse and every impulse restrained.

it is all good, great, ok, if i can put up with this surely i can put up, reciprocally, anything.

superpowered, thats what.

locked out & hungry.

"im having none of this," last fall, courtesy n.

"fuck i love whisky, and whisky makes me love you too," june, courtesy kat (on r).

after spending embarassingly large chunks of saturday locked out (hanging out in the kitchen in pjs, considering the so-close-yet-so-far-ness of my keys, mobile, and wallet, any one of which would have allowed me an alternative method of entering my room, but alas). luckily, with a little duct tape, copper wire, and battery-less drill, i managed to re-insert myself into one VERY unwilling bedroom. --very luckily, since neither of my roommates seems to have returned home at any point between then & now, so thats at least 48 hours of milling in the hallway, bonding with the roaches. god damn, the roaches.

new york is hungry, endlessly hungry, the already superhumid air sucking up ever more (im used to saturation, the air already smug & satisfied, dishes and laundry and sweat dripping for hours, but it seems not even the turbocharged fire hydrants can give enough, tires sitting in running pools well into the hubcaps), the risks take-able, the capacity - whats a few hundreds? - liquid, and the AC is amazing. just amazing.

ta

girl gets pissy when she has to seek her way vaguely, pokingly and by smell, as she imagines homing pigeons do (only they probably have a better sense of "home"), because the damn train isnt stopping at her damn stop, because apparently they only run the locals in one direction.

but she does have a mirror (free!).

unabashed self-examination ensues.