Monday, April 28, 2008

A Hair Affair

I found all these old photos. Do you want to see them?

This was taken on the boardwalk in Odessa, right before I went to meet my new family in Texas. Just kidding, it was taken by Sabin in Santa Cruz in 2004. He said I looked like a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe with that shirt and hair. Sabin always takes the worst pictures of me on earth. Here is what has happened since then:

First, I had this job.

Then, I visited my mom in her office.

Then, there was a snowstorm.

Then I had this job.

Me and Charlie went to visit Debbie in Los Angeles. Iberians! We also saw Sabin and heard his housemate's electroclash band.

And then I went to visit Ned in London.

Then, there were all these red cars parked in a row across the street from my apartment.

Everyone got Brokebacked.
And then I moved, and some other stuff happened, and I got a new camera.

We had our high school reunion, and I forgot to turn the date thingy off on the camera, but I took lots of pictures.

And then I had surgery on my FACE and I took lots of drugs and sat around taking pictures of myself and drinking Vitamin Water for a week. You can't see the stitches because they were on the inside. The inside of my FACE.

Then I had this job.

And then got another new camera. And then I partied pretty hard with Olivia and I thought this picture was going to be purely amazing, and also that the top of her face would not be cut off. Wrong.

And then I took this picture of Eddie where most of his face was cut off but all of mine was there.

And you probably all know some more stuff that happened after that.

This has been the story of my hair and the world events that shaped it. Did you make some memories? If you want, you can tell me.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Plus

I totally forgot to mention that I'm on the wagon. I decided it on Sunday morning, but then I had some margaritas on Sunday night, so today it's official. Here's what I'll need for my new lifestyle:
  • kombucha
  • new sneakers
  • yogurt maker
  • Nalgene bottle
  • nutritional yeast
  • screen-printing set-up
Don't worry, I already have some of those things -- all I really need is the new sneaks.

Could this be the time

It's hard to believe that 2008 is nearly halfway over. I finally just bought a date book last week, and at the store, they already had 2009 ones. This has been my worst year ever, but most of it has just been days and weeks of waiting for something to happen or for my brain to be less sad and more into doing stuff. There's hardly been anything that I would have needed to write down in a date book to remember.

I went to a passover seder on Saturday night and the weirdest thing that happened was that to some people, the bitter herbs tasted like cilantro, while to others it tasted like Italian parsley. Traditionally it is supposed to be parsley, just FYI. Then after the seder I recreated Exodus and walked all the way from tribeca to the east village. It was very epic. I fell asleep in my passover garb two seconds after I got home.

As I was getting ready to go to the gym on Sunday morning, I realized my sneakers weren't in my gym bag! I had left my gym bag at a friend's house on Thursday night, and then I had picked it up on Saturday night. I called my friend to ask if the sneaks were at her house, but no. I called my gym to see if they were in the lost & found, but no. They were white New Balances that I bought in 2002 in an effort to jump-start the economy post-9/11, and I was two seconds away from buying new ones anyway. Do you know what this means? My gym sneakers got stop-lossed.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Our pineapple siestas

Do you sometimes wake up in the morning wondering why fake meat sometimes tastes like bad breath?

Let me distract your mind.

Monday, April 14, 2008

My apricot complaints

All the time I was growing up, we had mice in our house, and they would live in the oven during the summer so that the first time my mom turned the oven on in the fall, the smell of burnt mouse pee would fill the apartment. And I would be like "I told you guys that there were mice in the oven." And then we'd clean it out, but it would take weeks to stop associating mouse pee with the normal smell of the oven.

My housemate's cooking smells exactly like mouse pee. And the worst thing is, she is using my wok!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

My strawberry afternoons

You may know that I enjoy Rosie O'Donnell's poetry. Here is a new one from her:

back to long island
a stand alone borders
next 2 the california pizza kitchen
i love the hawaiian

Liza made me watch the trailer for Stepbrothers and it was totally worth it. In case you watch it and then feel sad that you can't actually see the whole movie til July, you are invited to come with us to Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo and that Sarah Marshall movie. According to both Liza and Charlie, people who are actually named Sarah Marshall are bummed about this movie, but I think they're full of beans! Take yourself too seriously much?

My tangerine priorities

Sometimes in life we have a time-out where we spend many days in a row being really into a TV show or mad about the issues or "processing" our feelings, as people say in Northern California.

But sometimes life is like being one of those guys who simultaneously has investments in: a pony up in Saratoga, a modeling agency in Queens, a pet store in Yonkers, those vitamins that people sell in their offices, a "cash now for your home" situation, and a company that pays people to put advertisements on their family cars or lawns.

Do you know what I'm saying? You know, that feeling of having way too much going on and every single thing seeming weird and hard to explain. Such as:

Charging $2500 for a cremation onto the credit card of the person who got cremated, and hoping they will not notice that someone just paid to get themselves cremated, because I'll be screwed if the credit card gets canceled.

I guess that's actually kind of awesome. But still.

Oh, that reminds me (this story is kind of graphic so you can skip it if you want): when I was in New Orleans, I went to get a bikini wax at the same place my sister and I had gotten massages. Very unusually, I hadn't gotten one since late December, on account of family responsibility. Normally I go every six weeks. Not that I'm caught in some Beauty Myth situation, but I do like to keep things together, and I was at the point where all I wanted out of my vacation was some new clothes, a tan, and a bikini wax.

Annnnyways, I got a kind of weird vibe from the waxing lady right from the start when she was like, "you can put the paper underpants on over your real panties." In case you don't know, that's like wearing undies under your bikini. Pointless! How can you be a bikini waxer if you are embarrassed about seeing the private area? And then she was obsessed with talking about how she's from New York and how there's no good shopping in New Orleans, especially since the hurricane, and how there's this really good Brazilian waxing place in NYC that I should go to (as if!). And then at the end, she was like, "you should really come more often than every three months." I was so mad! I was like, "I would have come sooner, but then my mom died and I got super busy!" I mean, first of all, it's true, and secondly, if she's going to get personal, I'm going to get personal. And thirdly, if you are a bikini waxer, you should not be talking about my area as if it is some hardship to you. Let's get serious: I am not the problem. The real problem is still out there.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to say another thing that happened, which is that I made friends with a new friend who lives on my old street! Her name is Lisa and we basically have the same haircut except with different bangs variations. We went to Lit and I took these pictures of her. Just kidding, everyone knows those are pictures of me! It's due to our similar haircuts that I'm getting confused.

Friday, April 11, 2008

All of them all of them, all lined up

You might wonder what I've been doing. Well, I will tell you.

Way back at the end of February, I went to a giant party called the Bouquat that happens every year. The theme was Nomadic Neuromancer. The decorations and food were really good. The jacket situation was not so good though, it was just a big pile of jackets, and somehow my keys fell out and I had to wake my dad up to let me in to his apartment to sleep on his couch at 3 in the morning. I called the number on the party invitation the next day, and the girl who answered had found my keys! I went back to Bushwick to get them and realized she was the dorm neighbor of my 1998 boyfriend. So, I stayed to help clean up, and we talked about how we were babies back then and how weird it is to imagine that we've had ten years worth of stuff since we hung out in that dorm (which is above the Blue Water Grill and which is probs luxury loft/condos now).

Then I went to Philadelphia to meet up with Erika and "drop in" on a film studies conference. Who knew about how nice Philadelphia is? Do people who live there really call it "Philly"? I'm skeptical. The conference made me really inspired about the future. (My future, I mean. Not the world's. Although maybe Philadelphia's.) The one minus was that one of my fave professors, who I always have lunch with when I go back to Santa Cruz, was at the conference somewhere, but I could never find her. Don't tell her I was there; she might be sad -- I know I was!

Then I had to come back to New York to go to my mom's memorial service. My dad showed up an hour late, which was especially fascinating given that he'd been super controlling about planning the whole thing. I had static cling on my dress, and I sat through the whole service worrying about what I was going to say when it was my turn to speak, because I had written my "remarks" on the subway and during the musical interlude at the beginning of the service. I ended up accidentally including some minor spoilers for season three of Veronica Mars in my speech, which Nora pointed out to me later, but mostly it went over well, and it made me feel good that people seemed to take comfort in what I was saying.

The next weekend was my birthday, and I cooked birthday dinner at my house with Charlie and Eddie for a bunch of people. It was fun. I realized the downside of hosting your own birthday dinner is that no one buys you dinner! But the upside is that people will just automatically start doing dishes for you! And then at the end of the night, you're already at home!

Then I went to New Orleans with my sister. It was good. I will say, my sister has a fancier system of traveling than me, and I felt like I had one too many $18 "vegetable plate" from a fancy restaurant. Also, I'm just going to tell you: my sister and I fought constantly and horribly. New Orleans is rad, though. I would not have thought to go there had Wendy not spoken so highly of it as a honeymoon destination. I think the best part for me was walking around by myself on Easter Sunday, watching an Easter Parade of fancy-looking southern families on floats dressed up and throwing beads and candy and saying "here you go, baby!" every time they threw something. I went to the Catholic church in the French Quarter and cried a lot about my mom, and then I went and sat next to the river and cried a lot more, and then I saw a tiny lizard, had a cute conversation with a cute anarcho-punk guy, and got iced coffee. Then it was time to go.

Then I came back to NYC and Erika visited for way too short of a time, and we ate some delicious food. And Karen visited, and we had a ladies night birthday dinner at Bonita that included a discussion about being popular in high school that, upon reflection, was sort of embarrassing and unproductive. And also, Nathan visited for many days and, among other things, helped me to dispose of the drug paraphernalia left in my old uptown apartment by my subletter who had announced, back on the day that I left for Philadelphia, that he was moving to London. Except now I'm wondering if "London" is code for "a crack den." It was sad for me to move out of that apartment once and for all, because decorating and organizing my apartment was one of the last major things my mom and I did together before she started getting sick. I kept the extra shelf paper, but I threw a lot of things away. Anyway, that apartment is history now, and I got my deposit back yesterday. And since I have class, which Luann from Real Housewives says is "a way of making other people feel comfortable," that is all I have to say about these matters.

So, now you know.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Everyone is trying to get to the bar

What I'm into right now:

Real Housewives of NYC. The problem is, every time I try to talk about the hilarity of this show, I sound like an even bigger snobby, middle-brow jerk than any of the housewives. But for what it's worth, my parents did get me into their first-choice pre-school, so I think I have some authority, if not critical distance.

Staying hydrated

Getting rid of things


What I miss about 1993:


"Pavement Boy"
Tacoctober at San Loco
Autoclave
the Gap on St. Marks Place
youthful innocence
wanting to go to Scotland and Olympia
Canard and Co.