lie awake.

so i guess it's like some fucked up unfortunate fairy tale where the raven-haired maiden has the apple, or ten apples or ten thousand. it's like i've actually come to embody hermia, my poorly played part in a high school version of midsummer. or perhaps it's the manifestation of snow white...and i've been it--pure, actually and unbelievably pure--from the beginning. and as luck would have it [and luck, luck would ALWAYS have it], the first picture on google image search is of snow white... holding an apple. fuck.

i wish i could write better about this.

the stars are crossing, and so are our fingers tonight

the roar of the engine is calling to you...you'd better answer before it calls someone new... i can't even tell you how many times i've begun to write an entry between friday and now. i dunno what it is. sometimes when things are happening that are so maybe abstract, or intangible--or rather, so maybe utterly untouchable--when this, when that...words skimming life on the surface seem overly verbose, redundant, almost sterile. the radio is broken, she's singing the truth... and still now, i've been staring at the computer screen for minutes, just listening to the music, thinking about driving in the country and being afraid, being afraid of driving in the country in the dark and driving home in the snow. the stars are crossing as lovers' stars do...

to talk about skimming the surface...the betsey johnson dress i was selling on ebay went for 102$. !! so, so crazy...it really makes up for all the shit i sold for 1.99$. or even less. ...
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more staring at the screen. my stomach has been not so well for about a week now, so i'm on the BRATTY diet, something you're supposed to put your child on to ease, uhm, bowel symptoms.

Bananas
Rice
Applesauce
Toast
Tea
Yogurt

ok, i kinda think it's so funny that i love it. so far, i haven't eaten enough and i'm starving. but i did stuff down a banana today, which was previously on the "hated foods" list.

i'm still moving. in about a month. it's really quite soon.

still remember the way around you

i find out this weekend about a place in greenpoint, a place i'd be paid for through march. march. march is in only six days. less than a week. this is where my highly-inflamed sense of event kicks full force. i'd actually have two rooms...subletting in ny and having two rooms for a very reasonable price. two rooms...a room with a bed and a room with a computer. but paid for march, i wouldn't be able to move until about mid-march, but that's still less than a month.

sure, moving is imminent but there's still just talk of the past. we talk about taking off and squatting and old dreams and new dreams and if old dreams can become new dreams, or rather, if they should be. shining a flashlight again on all the little coincidences, all the stupid little things that link us over and over and over again, things equally fascinating and futile. taking x-rays of song lyrics and scratching away at them like fiendish animals. taking x-rays and negatives of every word, and flipping the future around, devouring it from angle after angle; concerned about regrets. if only i could could sing or strum..strum something, or bang on something over and over again or make some kind of sound, pleasing or unpleasing or even far too quiet...if that if any of that or just one tiny baby particle of that.

life with a thermos

sarah and i had both been eyeing the same thermos at starbucks, and to our luck it went on sale, and we scooped them up! life with a thermos is so much better than life without a thermos. it promotes many good things like way-warmer beverages for like 6 hours, saving money, less waste, &tc. and if you get a nice thermos, it's not at all reminiscent of the matching lunchbox + thermos set from grade school where the thermos almost always leaked at least a little.

i'm moving to brooklyn in a little more than a month but maybe earlier. i hope to have my car up for sale sometime next week. i know what i'm selling and not selling of my furniture that will likely be too much for any new york apartment. unless it's a loft, but i've never really been a fan of them, as they kinda lack coziness. i'm scratching every little surface to uncover money. there are so many unknowns right now...so many little leaps of faith i have to make: faith in life, faith in the future, faith that life in the future just "works out." you may or may not know that i worry about a lot of things way in the future that are presently uncontrollable or may even never be of my control. i'm trying to connect strongly with the little leaps of faith; i'm trying to hold onto them steadfast. it's hard to verbalize my excitement, but i do try to dote upon it because it helps cancel out the anger that i feel lately as my other most predominant emotion. but that said, i feel better about myself and who i am, what i want to do with my life and how i want to live it...i feel better than in maybe three years but probably more. it's probably more years. it feels so wonderful to have the insight of 26 years old as opposed to 16 or 20 or even 22. ok it's a little cliche but life's like this train whizzing by you...and if there's something you wanna do, you better run after the train and pull yourself on...because we're really not young forever. in 10 years, old ladies [like the one yesterday who kept saying "no...that's a little too jeune fille for me" about clothes i showed her {really cracked me up}] won't be able to say "yes, you are young."

but at 36, i bet life with a thermos will STILL be good. and by then i hope to fill it with homemade soup!

some things you just gotta be sober for

ok so i gotta tell you about this thing about how cat power played the chanel spring/summer fashion show. it's totally crazy. pitchfork explains it a bit here [i'm inept at reporting news or recounting anything, really] and gives the link to the video. totally crazy. it's still blowing my mind. if you ever saw cat power play pre-the greatest, then you know that her playing a focused, cohesive, comprehensible set is still nearly unbelievable. i guess she's sober now, and that's the thing. right? but like, if you watch at the end of the video here where the model is out with the wedding gown on, you can see chan cue the band according to where the model is. THAT blew my mind. even more than the truer-to-the-original/peppier version of "satisfaction" [if you ever wanted to know what it sounded like, now you know].

so valentine's day. i never care much about it. yesterday i remembered ones in the past: chocolates from the first kevin [i was 14], some of which i still have in the "kevin box," i having saved all items relating to him in a box, all nearly undisturbed now for 12 years [seriously, wtf], including even a hair of his [no joke]; i remembered receiving the crow on vhs from brian at 15, and perhaps that is also when i gave him my retainer to wear as a necklace; nutella and a baguette from kevin at 18; one valentine's day post-breakup with scott, going to the bar alone to drink and seeing him there, and i don't totally remember; indian food in e.lansing with michael at 22 [22? i dunno]. that's what i remember of valentines day. and this year michelle brought french pastries for us to devour. pink tulips and godiva from my mom. a steak with my dad. there's always some godiva, even if it's just a little bit.

not sure what else there is to talk about. i pour over craiglist excessively. i go through things at home, throwing away at least half of everything. i'm selling things on ebay. no one really wants my stuff, but it's ok. i look at tour schedules for april, and i think about going to shows in nyc and not here. finally seeing every stupid little band i want to see. if i want.

what i need to eat before i leave

i was going to just oscillate between arby's and taco bell for the rest of my time here, but since i did some research and discovered that there are in fact arby's and taco bell--albeit a very limited amount--in new york city, i now have time to focus on other food. all restaurants and food listed below are those absolutely necessary.

in no particular order with inclusion of must-eat dishes:

- priya [troy]: buffet - at least 1 trip

- fly trap [ferndale]: lemongrass pho bowl, chop chop salad, green eggs and ham - 3 trips

- club bart [brunch/ferndale]: something with veggie sausage, oat cakes - 1 trip

- thai café [royal oak]: drunken noodle, tom yum soup - minimum of 2 trips

- los galanes [mexicantown]: pollo ranchero - minimum of 2 trips [i hear good mexican is a scarcity out in nyc!]

- slow's bbq [detroit]: any sandwich, mac & cheese - 1 trip

- jerusalem gardens [ann arbor]: falafel sandwich - 1 trip

- little tree [royal oak]: seafood paella - 1 trip

- lafayette coney island [detroit]: the obvious - 1 trip

- buddy's pizza [wherever]: pizza, antipasto salad - 1 trip

- la shish [wherever]: anything and everything - 1 trip [this is imperative, as i KNOW there is no good middle eastern out there!]

*what i didn't include because i think i'll be able to get just as good versions in nyc [but if you think/know that i am incorrect, let me know!]: polish food, blue nile, noble fish

**bonus! current, pre-move favorite nyc places to eat: max brenner, clinton street bakery, hampton chutney company, momofuku

yes, i over-decorate and over-hyphenate

i brought a bottle of red hot with me to work today. i should already be one of those people who carries a bottle of red hot in her purse at all times, but when i move it will definitely be an addition to my extraneous character.

four. it's been four great new detroit bars in one week. centaur and buzz bar last weekend, and cliff bell's and the park bar last night. ok, everyone needs to understand how amazing cliff bell's is. it's a renovated old jazz club/bar, and it's a total timewarp in there. in a good way and not a stuffy way. there's live x-piece jazz band playing most nights. the drinks aren't ridiculously overpriced, and all different types/ages of people can feel comfortable there. it's classy, but not overly classy. you don't have to worry about what you're wearing or anything like that.

what is the phase that i'm in that i only want to listen to 80s kindasofthits bands? i have that church song "under the milky way" in my work ipod playlist, and everytime it ends i wanna run in the back and play it again. but then the pretenders comes on or something, and it makes up for it.

and all i can think about is moving and the city. it's at times like these that my highly-inflamed sense of event kicks in overdrive. so inflamed. there are so many things/concepts my head is wrapping and wrapping around, like taffy. one of the best thing is something michelle said about a month ago: "it feels like your stock goes up when you're in new york." and it's true; i feel so meritless here. like anything that's good about me or just maybe good about me doesn't much matter here. if i was half the person i am, i'd probably still be sitting right here. living the same life. that's pretty fucked up. i could be half everything--even half of the girlfriend i was [yeah i'm dealing with a breakup]--HALF everything i am and was and ever have been and will be, and would life be any different? i'd still be living in ferndale, comfortably making rent and dinner. i need to go somewhere where it matters how well-spoken i am [ok or am not!], and how interesting and how crazed and how intelligent and how good-looking and how stylish and how hard-working and determined...you know? because if you aren't a trust fund kid, you actually have to work there--and work beyond mere employment. it's the life-actual manifestation of my new year's resolution, which was something about understanding what i am capable of. i'm moving to push myself, to be a little fish in an overwhelmingly-huge ocean, to pull out of myself who i really am and what's great or brilliant or shitty about me, and i'm moving to figure out what's really important in life. it's just too easy, so much too easy here, you don't have to REALLY want or REALLY work for much. not that hard. the amount of resignation here..it's suffocating. unfortunate and suffocating. and it's been rubbing off on me. i've had the same "going-nowhere" job for 7 years. i even got an english degree in there. i've never made a resume because i haven't had to. the capital P peggy would wag her finger at that; anyone should. i haven't applied for the last three second jobs i've had either; i've just been offered them. so when i say that detroit just isn't working out for me anymore, reference that. i need to learn some fucking spirit as a groveling little fish. peeeeep!

sorry for the length, but i think this is gonna happen a lot lately.

your messed-up life still thrills me

it's been a couple weeks, but my eating habits are back to normal. far less indulgent, far less prepared than when i'm not single. right now it's a wheat pita with turkey, hummus and herb salad with homemade vinagrette [thanks dottie!]. with no one to cook for or eat with anymore, i won't waste the time on cooking anything. throw things together, yes, but nothing that would actually constitute cooking. i guess i won't be writing a comfort food cookbook anytime soon. it's ok, i had been missing myself for some time; it can be nice to have almost-too-much time alone.

i have a date with 1997 tonight. lately, it feels as though i had been clutching onto a raft at sea for some time, and i've washed up on shore gasping for breath, sucking in mouthfuls of the past. there's some past i thought would never catch up with me, and then there's the past i can't catch up with. it's like i'm a cop, kind of like in the movie se7ven, and i'm steps/months/miles behind what i'm after. and then very late last night, i was officially forgiven for something i had done wrong six or so years ago. it's all so weird. what's the present? what about the future? i think i actually do know the future better than the present.

valleys for our styluses

valleys for our styluses
i'm idle, fidgety today. i woke up a little earlier today, and i didn't know what to do with myself. i didn't even make coffee, i just left. no shower, nothing. wandered around trader joe's for a while, then target for about an hour. they have really cute stuff there right now. i picked up blue canvas wedges [i think i'm officially anti-heel and pro-wedge] that kinda work into that 70s/80s naturalizer sandal thing i'm really into. all i ever dream up are outfits in the dead-of-winter with light, dead-of-summer skirts with really thick tights and sandals. target also has really cute purses/bags right now. like WAY cute. the girls are like vultures on that shit too. bags in the best colors hung soley; brand new stock at target in troy nearly totally picked over. all i really lust after, however, are vintage clothes. i bought an old but impeccable green girl scout jumper the other day at lost and found, and it makes for the perfect outfit. the best thing about style and things coming back in style is that when old shapes/styles from the 50s/60s are backbackback, buying the original makes it even that much better. sometimes i feel so downtown d's are seeping out of my skin. and i even shop at ann taylor, in the petites even. officially.

last night we barhopped. first was centaur, the art-deco-throwback place across from the town pump. everything about that place was great, and we especially loved the music -- a mix of all our favorite old 80s remixed and ambient stuff. like i walked in, and they were playing tricky. they even played stuff off that first unkle album. we had drinks and snacks: martinis, old stand-bys, minty lamb chops, honey-y chicken skewers, crab-stuffed mushrooms, cheese plate. the presentation was great. centaur is like no other bar in detroit, and it's something we really needed. in my old age, i'm getting more accepting of sleekness in bars -- i don't feel the need to always be hanging out in the grungiest of places. maybe that's a little uptown of me. ehhh, no. then we went to the bronx for a bit, which was surprisingly not-packed at all and kinda too mellow. so we went to the buzz bar, which is totally different than anything in detroit, and i was really into it. electronic music, pizza...i don't even know how to explain it. i liked it. i feel like they might have different nights there, and i'd like to see if the vibe gets changed up there. it felt like chicago.

so it's sunday, i'm at work, and i don't know what to do with myself. it's sunday, and i'm reading newsweek and bust at work, and i guess i'm just waiting around. there's nothing planned for a couple months; nothing to punctuate time anymore. it's kind of numbing.

when good days turn bad

i have so much work that i won't be able to do anything with the day except sit here and type. blah.

i finished putting a keyhole in the shell scarf [super easy {even vertically}, it's just like a big buttonhole]. started the happy hooker violet beauregard [never noticed the translation of that name until now!] last night, which will be in cream and ecru butterfly mercerized cotton.

that's it. i have the blues. and a BAD attitude!

rabbit rabbit

this week i figured out it's cheaper to pay parking tickets in birmingham than to pay for parking if you work here. *knock on wood.* pretty rad.

i'm still working through the happy hooker lace gloves, and they are quite a doozy. the pattern has many mistakes in it, and even with the pdf of fix-its from the editor, it's still frustrating. i took my frustrations to the blogs/message boards last night, and to my delight, i found many similarly-frustrated crocheters across place and time. the pattern makes us all want to throw things at the wall. it's good to know i'm not alone. i figure winging it is better than following the pattern at this point, and i'm unsure if i will even make two. my mom said it's just not the kinda of thing you should be crocheting. i might not even finish one at all at this point, abandoning it instead to rip out half that sherbet shell scarf in attempts to put a big keyhole [vertical! it's gonna be hard] in it.

other things that are cool include my sister being on martha stewart soon. they went to tape it today, so i think it will be on within the next couple days. !! i'll keep you posted.