get behind me satan

good title.

what does it mean when friendster says i'm incompatible with every single one of my friends?

i'm stuck again. the observer never called me back except to thank me for my interest and tell me the position had been filled. i have to go pick up tema now. i hate all my jobs but two. and they are the two that pay next to nothing. *sigh*

championing idealism, one disastrous occurence after the other.

new york, new york

last entry i guess....this is being written half in the morning still at graham's and half in the airport, reminiscing.

so yesterday i made it to MOMA in carol-time (which has backslid into half an hour behind normal time...used to be only about fifteen minutes....i am either getting better at being myself or getting worse). michael was with her, they were spending the weekend together before michael had some work thing early tuesday and my mom had to go back to work on monday. it was actually quite pleasant. i felt very independent and superbly superfluous, but it was all right. i think i may have had the most delicious salad of my life while in the restaurant: bacon-wrapped goat cheese and balsamic dressing. oh my god. fucking excellent.

the museum was great, all these fantastic picassos and warhols and cezannes...they had this one by gustav klimt that made me think i'd finally gotten a picture of what heaven should look like. it was this tree, and all you could see were the leaves and below them, in maybe the bottom three inches of the 3 square foot canvas, the sunlight peeked through the trunks and the grass was short and bright. it was amazing. and if you looked close up these gorgeous blue-green leaves had colors like yellow and pink and white that you just didn't see from far away. it was like seurat but graceful. there was a lot of scultpure that i didn't like, and this great photography exhibition by this guy (thomas demand) who creates sort of models of rooms or situations out of construction paper, photographs them, and then destroys the models. convincingly real and strangely artificial, kind of like this modern world. he had this one....he constructed an entire forest out of green construction paper--actually it looked very similar to the klimt--he must have made like 200,000 leaves. and it looked so real. it was cool.

i actually spent most of the time sitting on a bench and looking at the sculpture garden. very calming. i did a lot of thinking about things i've needed to think about and haven't had the time to. that's pretty much what this whole journey has been about.

after the museum i walked around rockefeller center and got stopped by a guy trying to find models for a contest. it was flattering but probably a lie. he gave me his card but i think i lost it. as if i could ever be a model anything. the whole afternoon was bright and warm and i almost went into H&M and bought a floaty dress but i had promised myself i wouldn't shop at all. but of course i did go into the Gap...just to look! i swear. and this guy goes, hey, how are you, welcome blah blah and i'm like, hi. and he goes, oh you're definitely not from new york, the way you say hi. he's like, are you from the midwest? (do i have an accent or don't i?) and i go, yes. and then he starts talking about this conga band he started in detroit and how many african people there are there and how he feels a real kinship with that city being african and all and i was like, yeah. detroit is cool. and we smiled understandingly and parted ways. i miss detroit, i realized, and walked out of the store.

new york can be so ridiculous, like you're on a movie set and everyone is an extra but they think the next corner they walk around someone is going to say, ok, we're shooting the big action scene and we need a blond, you're perfect, let's go! everyone is just, like, exploding with potential. it's all about believing in yourself, no matter how delusional. on the subway there i listened to the first lcd soundsystem cd (plus yr. city's a sucker) and on the way back i listened to beck's new album. that record gets pretty thoughtful towards the end. when i got back to the apartment andrew and graham had tried to fix the window and poor graham had this deep cut across the bridge of his nose from andrew trying to "help". we ordered chinese food and finished off the last of the pie on the roof, and i saw the sun set over the manhattan skyline from the rooftop of a brooklyn apartment. andrew and graham were their usual charming host-selves, pointing out things and cracking jokes. i spit from the roof and hit a trash can spot on. we went back dowstairs and watched the good parts of willy wonka (the parts with gene wilder) and fiddled with music for a while (get OurTunes now, you will not regret it) and made a beer run and played The Game (with tarot cards) all night. it was so much fun! "when is a bicycle not like a bicycle?" "when...graham." andrew tried to convince me to move in when jim moves out. i wish. if i could ever be lucky enough to be in close contact with people like graham and andrew i would be one lucky girl.

bedtime came after three pale ales and a conversation with max, and i was dead to the world for nine hours. mmm. finally started packing half an hour before i had to leave, after i made one final brooklyn mix for my iPod (oh god i am such a metrosexual), and caught a cab to the airport.

graham, it was one of the best weekends of my life, thank you. i can never thank you enough. you are magnificent.

so long, new york. for a weekend i was a part of it. yr city's a sucker, my city's a creep. i'm out.

a hell of a town

ok next installment. i'm exhausted this morning and i only have about a half an hour to write this, wash up, get dressed, and figure out how to get to the MOMA which is where i'm meeting my MOMMA. hah. so you better listen carefully or you might miss something.

yesterday was gorgeous and andrew was home all day, and we all had work to do, so we woke up, had some cereal (graham), pop tarts (me) and hot dogs (andrew) and watched silly online videos while we shook off sleep. i showed them the gi joe videos and we laughed a lot. then we all packed up and walked to prospect park, sort of brooklyn's equivalent to central park. it reminded me a lot of the englischer garten--big open areas, lakes, lots of little paths, lots of families, lots of frisbees, everyone calm. no biergartens unfortunately but you can't have everything. so we left the house at maybe a quarter to one and we walked around the entire park, just made one big loop. we stopped at the Audobon Society Cafe for a coke and some potato chips, where you can look through giant plastic animals' heads and see things from their point of view. it was wacky. we made it back to the beginning of our loop by 2:30 and i bought 2 hot dogs and a toasted almond bar from a stand and then we flopped down on the side of a hill and spent about 20 minutes doing work. then we remembered we had brought a frisbee and so we said fuck work and played frisbee until 5:30 pm. i am the world's worst frisbee player. i singlehandedly brought about the discomfort and annoyance of at least three unlucky individuals who suffered at my slow hands. i guess in brooklyn people down't mind being hit in the head though because no one was mad at me. or maybe i just didn't notice because i was laughing too hard. i seriously have to stop doing that. whenever something is terribly wrong i laugh uncontrollably. there were also these three year olds that kept wanting to play the game and would like stare us down until we sheepishly handed them the frisbee and then they'd toddle over to whoever was next in the rotation and slap it on the ground. it was hilarious. oh, also: graham and andrew are involved in a prank war with this woman who works with andrew's sister. somehow she acquired the name chocolate bobbins, and so their thing is they call her and pretend to be, i don't know, someone responding to an ad or something and at the end of the message they somehow work in the words chocolate bobbins and then she knows it's them. and they were getting EVERYONE to call. i called a few people myself but i doubt they actually did it. anyway you had to be there, but it was hi-larious.

so we wandered around the neighborhood after that looking for pie because andrew had a craving. i suppose we all did. their neighborhood is adorable, just filled with cute little stores and families. we decided to have dinner at this amazing restaurant that made guacamole fresh right there at the table for you. it was served in this giant lava rock bowl shaped like a pig. delicious. then we had the special which was lots of meats like beef, shrimp, chicken, and fish and then oaxaca cheese and peppers and it's all served in a big lava rock bowl of spicy gumbo that you dip the stuff in and then lots of delicious fresh corn tortillas....delicious delicious. i also had a strawberry margarita for the first time ever. very very strong. then we were going to watch the sunset from the roof but the window was broken. so then we watched the end of nausicaa valley of the wind and i had another brooklyn lager (so good! local brew) and we flipped through the pages of the village voice. and lo and behold, lcd soundsystem is playing a tsunami relief benefit in the village, with four other bands, one of whom was the rapture! so we called up jason and met down at movido, a tiny unmarked hipster club on a busy street. they weren't letting us in unless we were female though, and because i was "saddled" with three guys, it was no dice. we waited in line for about 45 minutes. when we finally got in, we were surprised to find that the club was very small, way too small to fit five bands. we were confused until we asked a bouncer and apparently the bands were just going to DJ....not actually perform. hilarious. we danced for a while. the rapture were excellent djs...lcd soundsystem not so much. but it was fun making eyes at famous people and flirting with the rapture. and i wore my sunglasses all night. we got bored and sleepy about 2 am which meant it was time to go to ANOTHER bar because the-bars-in-new-york-don't-close-till-4-am what! we moseyed down the street through a few frat-tastic bars (one of which was called "the slaughtered lamb" and was playing creed...is that ironic?) until we found a sweet bar called Apple that was playing the entire white stripes album "elephant" and they had $6 pints of sierra nevada on tap. holy cow. it was awesome.

i stumbled home at 4:15 and passed out. have to go meet mom. ain't no love in the heart of the city, but i still got love for the streets.

the bronx is up and the battery's down

i'm in brooklyn! stayed up all night and caught a flight at 6:55 am to lagurearerardia (how the hell do you spell that). slept most of the way. was entertained mildly by the stewardesses' comments over the loudspeaker--"thank you for flying spirit. if you have comments or questions about your journey with us, please visit our website. we also love to hear critical feedback--if you were dissatisfied with your trip, contact us at www.northwest.com." hilarious. hopped in a taxi driven by an old black man who sang along to louis armstrong's "what a wonderful world" very loudly and cute-ly. i was charmed. he drove me to brooklyn for $27. at this point i am drunk with sleep, maybe just drunk, though i couldn't tell you why. i staggered up the steps to graham's apartment (four flights! good lord) and after hugs and lauds and smiles and greetings i dumped my stuff in the living room and proceeded to play Katamari Damacy, which was very clearly created while the makers were extremely high on mushrooms and/or paint. by about 11 am i was fading fast so graham deposited me in bed and went off to take a shower. i thudded into sleep like so many bowling balls through clouds, and was lost to the world until graham nobly woke me at 1:30 and we decided to get some food. walked to the 2nd street cafe which is wallpapered in tablecloth drawings done by children/grandpas and snarfed a goat cheese omelet and bottled coca cola. off to sightseeing then, which in my book essentially means aimless wandering, which is what we did (and oh my god--weirdest/coolest thing ever--i bumped into jason saltiel, good friend of mine from high school--just proves i can't go anywhere without bumping into someone i know) until about 5:30 when we sauntered into the teacher's college at Coblumbia where graham's friend's boyfriend was having an exhibition of his paintings/photographs/music videos/modern sculpture. some tasty cheese and ridiculous conversation with a woman who thought i was 30. afterwards graham and i discovered we both found grown-up conversation to be laughable and i remembered (actually, i've been constantly reminded since i got here) why i like graham so much. i do have to mention one piece of art, it was hilarious. this guy (the artist's name was jerry james) had told a group of first graders that they had one minute to draw him, and started counting "one elephant, two elephant, three elephant..." well, the end result was that he got a lot of really cute abstract drawings, and pasted them all onto a piece of cardboard and framed them. and the centerpiece was done by one little kid who may have not totally understood the instructions, and had expertly drawn a little elephant with its trunk sticking straight up. i almost died and then wasn't sure if i was supposed to be howling with laughter at a gallery opening so we left.

so then we decided we would wander some more and walked along the river for the sunset. i bought a softserve vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles from a truck. we saw gangs of kids playing basketball, ten year olds brandishing cell phones, and the coolest shoes ever. everyone has cool shoes in new york. then went turned left at 106th and hit central park west and took that till about 96th and gave up and hit the subway. we had dinner at a trendy, very loud bar/restaurant called "coffee" whose walls were studded with broken coffee mugs and saucers. we got invited to a male model's perfume party (or something, i wasn't really sure what was going on but one of the guys he was hanging out with was botsford in 30 years). after we finally got seated i had a delicious salad with seared rare sesame-encrusted yellowfin tuna and miso-ginger dressing, yum. then we were both pretty exhausted so we thought a movie might be in order, but by this point it was about 10:30 and Sin City was sold out, and Millions didn't start till 12:30 so we hit up a mcdonalds for a flurry and took the subway home.

had a beer with andrew and the three of us watched about fifteen minutes of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, miyazaki's latest film (princess mononoke, spirited away, etc) but couldn't keep my eyes open. took a shower, called max, and sunk into the pillowy softness of graham's couch.

plans for today: shit, it's already 11:30! i think i'll walk out and get some coffee and explore a bit on my own. i hate that i have work to do. but graham does too so it's all gravy. there is a basquiat exhibit at a museum somewhere around here, we will probably hit that up. also my mom arrives today. not that i need to see her, beacuse really, who comes to new york on vacation to hang out with their mom? sheeeeeeeyat. it is a beautiful day.

currently spinning: lcd soundsystem, daft punk is playing at my house
current mood: intrepid