i am daylights

i have searched for all your fragrance in the silent dark. is that okay?

2007-08-07T08:35:00.000-04:00

a trip roundtrip by train, and everything's changed.

this weekend was the best i've had yet since my arrival. saturday my partner-in-crime was in town, and we + others hopped from bar to bar after 3pm. drunk in daylight is one of my favorite past times. best friends need to visit every weekend. we danced unaccompanied, and dances were made up and performed. we don't really dance for real anymore, it's more like making fun of dancing for the entertainment of ourselves and others. mock dancing, it's our new wave.

i threw up vodka and tequila and salad sunday before i left. i could barely rise from the cold of the bathroom floor. on the way to the flatbush station, the driver asked me if i smoked REEFER [imagine indian accent]. i sat on the high story of the double-decker, reflecting on the narrative i'm cooking up about reflections off objects that pose as mirrors and what it's like when you're so familiar with a living space that you know all its sounds, its growth and sinking, footsteps in the stairwell, in the hallway, in the kitchen. and what you may have learned from all of these. what have you learned? in the reflection off the train window, i saw a hippie woman's nipple after her not-feeding-just-sucking daughter removed her mouth. i visited long island for the first time. after sushi, my fortune read something like today will be better than yesterday. i regret not keeping it. the early commuters couldn't have been more dissimilar from me, from me that at that very moment. i wanted to let them know. i was scolded for talking on the phone, but i could barely keep my mouth shut.

my friends are the best in the world, and i'm falling somewhere. severely.

i'd only yell at our kids if they acted like you

2007-07-30T21:47:00.000-04:00

to boston and back after $30 and nine hours total travel time on the fung wah. the fung wah's a funny thing, you know...only in new york city are we afforded such luxuries as $30 roundtrip tickets on the chinatown [gang?] bus [meth addict bus driver?]. boston was great...just the kind of good company [great company] and relaxation [air conditioning] that city kids like us needed.

now that i've been sick for one and a half weeks, i finally broke down and bought oregano oil tonight. whole foods in union square...it was the guitarist from the yeah yeah yeahs and i shopping for herbal remedies together. only in new york. so yes, oregano oil is SO disgusting that i did in fact have to administer one spoonful of sugar to cut the aftertaste. jesus, how disgusting. i'll never be able to season with oregano again. jesus. this better work.

an affair for sixty years

2007-07-23T18:36:00.000-04:00

i'll pretend you're in the war. we all have to move on sometime, don't we?

it's a first; i'm cold. it's white outside, and i wish it was snow, or september. if it were september there'd nearly be snow on the ground, and there'd be no more waiting.

what's right isn't always what happens.
don't i know.

it rained for hours and hours today. i heard many cars sliding and crashing into each other on the brooklyn bridge above me today. there's a camaraderie that comes with living in the city when it rains...everyone's wet together.

let's celebrate in october by running through town in the rain. you can hold the umbrella.
you know i'd hate that.

it's been nearly three months here, and i've finally fully internalized living here. i think it came when i started wanting to get away for little bits. it's not less magical, per se, just...it's routine. and i work so so much that routine really is all i'm privy to. the most excitement i have lately is when they serve something yummy at family meal at work.

and bring all the songs you've ruined for me.
or i could just sing them.

so it's boston this weekend, and i couldn't be looking forward to it with any more excitement. i haven't seen my partner-in-crime in nearly three months. am i different person already?

i'll see you again, i know i will, and soon. whether it's in memories played back again and again, or while watching geese cross the road, i'll know you by your eyes welling up, the nervousness in your step, the anticipation of your fingers across mine.
yes, and you will know me.

what's more permanent: a wedding ring or a wedding ring tan?

2007-07-14T10:56:00.000-04:00

the weather's making life just fine once again. i'm missing so many cancer birthdays, and it really stings. worked a double yesterday, and the restaurant was crazy just like a friday the 13th touts itself. i'm eating oreos, but i need fruit. last night i was offered the impressive sum of 5$ to move back to detroit, but i think i'll have to decline. restaurant week begins monday, and everyone's dreading it. today is fort greene market, the beach and another sibling up in the lofts. i can't stop thinking about boston at the end of the month, that thai place in queens, curry tuna, my new homemade mustard-lemon salad dressing, one of my best friends here permanently in three weeks and wishing shows didn't get so gigantically out-of-hand huge in the city [read: what les savy fav will be like tonight]. life couldn't get any more new york, really. as my father would say, i'm "living the dream!"

and i'll be in detroit in exactly two months. there'll nearly be snow on the ground, and i will have probably forgotten nearly everything.

pray for rain

2007-07-11T17:56:00.000-04:00

that's all you can do really, pray for rain. pray for clouds to hover and shroud the sun. pray for the humidity to rise to the breaking point. it's the moment that it's 6pm, looks like sunset, and the sky has burst. the air pushed in by the fan is cooling, slowly slowly, finally rendering the fan not a moot point anymore. in the city on the sixth floor in a loft with windows lining only one wall. cross-breeze is a joke, and in the city, central air is a joke. and my room has no windows. it took only two minutes of laying in the bedroom last night until i retired to the couch in retreat. even then with a fan pushing in the night air and another right in front of it [in hopes of fanning exponentially], i wondered how many people in defeat have taken their lives because of the heat in the city.

live where?

2007-07-10T16:20:00.000-04:00

it's so insanely hot out, all you can do is go to the new floating pool:

a promise scratched into the liner notes

2007-06-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

everything's different now that i take the bus. it's better. not alienated on the g train anymore. the b goes over the manhattan bridge; it's amazing. i can even see where i work from the train. i live a 10-minute bus ride from forever 21. now that's truly amazing. i want to move to brighton beach and live among the russians. it's the perfect jankiness. i really love it. received the worst sunburn of my life on monday at the beach, and i'm still not recovered. not even half-recovered. the beach is only a 30-minute train ride away. did i mention you can surf there? did i? my roommate recently started, and no shark sighting as of yet! yesterday was amazing homemade lasagna and salad picked from the garden under the bqe. there's something funny about moving to the city and eating straight out of a garden. gardens are extra coveted here. today was the craziest japanese bookstore in rockefeller center, then purl soho, then a big score! on a much-needed pair of shoes. cafe habana tonight in fort greene...the place is totally solar-powered. surprisingly great shrimp burrito and unsurprisingly great grilled corn mexican-style. it's a pretty great place. i plan on enjoying many many frozen mojitos there. tomorrow's summer solstice, and oxford collapse is playing on bedford avenue, on the street. pretty crazy! and yes i wish i was at that ryan adams show tonight.

i've been cheating on slowdive

2007-06-14T14:46:00.000-04:00

it's been ten years of "slowdive is my favorite band," and it was about time their reign would come to an end. the national muscled themselves in some time ago. i saw feist at town hall on tuesday. it was pretty weird to walk out of a show right into times square. this is where i live. thinking about movies in the park this summer and all the free shows. superchunk in little more than a week. found an armoire in the hallway the other day, and now i'm not living out of bins anymore. makes you feel like a real person. a real live-r-somewhere-r. ordering a bed this weekend. if only i had a window over which to hang curtains. someday. thinking about walking over the brooklyn bridge, pizza in dumbo and picnics. been working full-time hours at my part-time job, so i guess i now am a full-time reservationist and a part-time transcriptionist. applying today for a job that would allow me to quit both, just quit everything that generates too few dollars per hour/per line, in lieu of 9-5 new york worklife. got drunk on a free vodka hour at the "vibe music awards" bar directly across the street last night, then indulged in a fried chicken bedtime snack. i'm dating tom yum quite exclusively now that i found the superlative at thai 101 on myrtle nearby. i wish i could see tom everyday, but you know...it's difficult to visit daily. deleted phone numbers without prior memorization. plans for the weekend fitting together like puzzle pieces...the beach weather allowing, a bar with hot dogs, a bus ride to new jersey. and back. living in new york city is overwhelming, lonely and inspiring.

we're creatures of the wind

2007-06-04T18:56:00.000-04:00

i know i haven't really mentioned it, but i'm having quite a bit of trouble keeping in touch with everyone in my life. and now i have a second job at which i'll be working 25-30 hours a week, so i suspect i perhaps will get even worse at it. there's not a day that goes by that i don't mention missing someone. it's usually the same someone[s]. so, even if we don't talk or won't talk for a indefinite period, don't think that i don't think of you. often.

so the job is good and pretty easy. it seems that i'm a pretty "good fit" for the restaurant and the job of a reservationist. i'm glad to be working in the food industry. it seems like a "new york" thing to do. the neighborhood is getting better, or rather, my perception/opinion of the neighborhood is getting better. the c-town [grocery store] here isn't so bad, and i've already fallen in love with a few of the restaurants. i just had amazing vegan carrot cake down the street. the apartment is in some bit of shambles, and i desperately want something in which to house my clothes other than plastic blue bins on the floor. and a bed. a bed in which to dream about the happiness of the money a second job brings. the ring i've been wearing is worn and bent to the point of being endearing, which i find quite fitting. the commute to work is surprisingly easy, and life with this new hole [gaping] is both sobering and sad. and anticipatory. i dreamt last night about that song "wild is the wind," nina simone's version. i never dreamt about a song like that. in the dream i was trying to convince people that it was a fitting, if not perfect, song for the "first dance" at a wedding. hmm.

i still want you to visit.

as you have to say the password twice

2007-06-02T21:57:00.000-04:00

one of those kind of days.

notwist
one with the freaks

you'll no longer be kissed and kind
as you long for intuition
as you have to learn the lesson twice
you'll no longer be kissed and kind
as you long for intuition
as you have to say the password twice

have you ever been all messed up?

you're the pin card
you're the lifeguard
you're the information guide
but things look much bigger on your knees

lose the signal
lose the sign post
lose the access to it all
and all of a sudden you are one with the freaks

have you ever been all messed up?
have you ever?

i miss you; i hate this

2007-06-01T00:58:00.000-04:00

i move tomorrow. bigger bedroom [x2/2.5], nervous about the location, living with friends, off the g train that i hate. i have a lot of anxiety about it for an unknown reason, which is probably because i have anxiety about most anything different, changing, altered, &tc. i've been here exactly two months. i got a job this week at a restaurant in dumbo. it's fancy-fancy and really nice. i'm glad to be getting out and making some more money. i feel so full right now after a couple tacos. had 1/2 vegan cheesesteak earlier. the national were amazing. my head is a mess. i might have separation anxiety. maybe i stole someone's abandonment issues.

i wish that all of my dreams would come true.

with love and squalor

2007-05-20T11:39:00.000-04:00

saturday was a lazy, wasted day spent in front of the television. watched entire season four of curb your enthusiasm and started on big love. after almost two months of living here, i just now realized that we have hbo on demand. i'm smart like that, ya know. i'm having a capricorn day today. worrying about money. you see, since i'm on the cusp of capricorn and sagittarius, i'm not as concerned with money as the next cap, but some days, man, it really consumes me. and living in nyc, the reasons are tenfold! it's like a see-saw where the amount of things you WANT increases and the amount of things you can afford decreases. the see-saw's on an angle much closer to vertical than ever before. it's pretty frustrating, but it is worth it, absolutely. since i'm only subletting here, i don't have a pantry full of backup food like shitty soups you bought because they were on sale, pasta, weird frozen things, &tc. so when i just have raw cashews and tortilla chips left, that's it! great meal. this whole thing makes me get obsessed with cheap foods, cheap good foods, cheap but good meat [nonexistent category], cheap veggies. i have come up with canned tuna and celery. and kinda potatoes; they're pretty cheap. now that i've given up dairy for digestion's sake, i have to get creative with my tuna. my sister bought me a jar of harissa last week, which is a moroccan chili sauce/paste, and i've found that goes well with tuna.

i fly home on thursday, and i'm way more excited about it than i thought i would be [admittedly!]. lots of unfinished business and loose ends over in detroit, and i plan to tie them all up in nice pretty bows! then the national is on tuesday at the bowery! then i move to clinton hill. so much excitement outright and between the lines.

but i'm still not sure that i've totally internalized my living here yet. i live in new york city? i live in new york city. right? for how long? two months? for forever? and not in michigan? pretty weird. but i can say with full internalization that--barring any tragic/dramatic unforseen circumstance--i won't return to michigan for residency again. i'm sorry.

maybe i should scratch off that tattoo on my wrist.

2007-05-18T14:05:00.000-04:00

[why the garbage bag?]

do yourself a favor:

eleven days until we see them! god i seriously cannot wait. i hope they play this.

insane.

i have so much anticipation, i swear my blood's flowing five times faster.

printemps dans la ville

2007-05-14T17:47:00.000-04:00

"that's where the whale was that DIED"
[i.e., gowanus canal, sludgy the whale, 4/19/07]

dyker heights park, consisting mostly of athletic fields

same field, with olympic-style seating
verrazano-narrows bridge to stanton island in background

belt parkway

you can smell the salt in the air

looking east, coney island

cutest kids ever, cab, poughkeepsie, ny

fish market, chinatown, ny

the shellfish are my favorite

fresh tofu on the street in chinatown, $1

off a greenpoint rooftop, mccarren park and pool,
ominous new williamsburg developments

in the shadow of the city

greenpoint, brooklyn

let nothing hang you down...now let it go

2007-05-13T23:47:00.000-04:00

i received a most unconventional gift for a most unconventional mother today [on account of me not exactly being a mother!].

been busy and happy lately, as is always the reason for such absence. i have a lot of pictures to post, but i don't have much to say except that i live in the best place on earth.

til tomorrow..

without reproach

2007-05-01T20:40:00.000-04:00

washington square park, ny, ny, 30 april 2007
odawas -->alleluia

it was a new year and a new time, and there was a new hallelujah. the kind of song for both active and inactive listening...so effected, so effective if you paid attention and turned it up loud, but set very low, it's a mix of rumbles and whistles and something quite unrelenting. it was february, and i waited, sucking down almost an entire whiskey&coke waiting for him at the bar. it was february, fat tuesday to be exact, and at 7pm the place was filled with drunk middle-agers, necks strewn with plastic colored beads, toasting the commencement of lent with shot after shot. i sat at a booth, luckily--it was one of those rare times to find a booth empty at this bar--reading and rereading an advertising booklet for southern comfort specifically for mardi gras, which included recipes with the liquor that i read and reread, finding them both repulsive and nearly unintelligible in my present state. it was february, and it was the very first "warm" day of the year. i remember exactly what i wore, which enthusiastically included on account of the favorable weather shoes without socks and a three-quarter length vintage jacket. all day i wouldn't admit i was nervous, but it was one of those days where nothing would satiate the edginess. i left my house to run errands three hours early, stopping at my mother's to pass some time. conversation nor television served as successful diversions, and i was quick to change the subject when she tried to point to the source of my agitation. i left for the post office, wasted time in the thrift store, used the bathroom at the coffee shop, tried on clothes at the vintage store, and the entire time--despite my very real skittishness--i did not believe that he would actually come. i sat, purposefully, with my back to the door, the drink quickly disappearing and my stomach turning from the soco recipes. he did come. at first, i didn't rise to greet him, and he gave me a look nearing insult. i got pretty drunk and can confidently say that i can't recall anything we talked about. he came in for a bit, and i turned up "alleluia" over and again. "how many times are you going to play that?" i heard new songs that would soon become my favorites, and with each one i was conscious of the increased weight attached, as it always had been with him. they were all indelibly burned into memory like tattoos you couldn't think twice about. i kept my distance. and no sooner than three days later after having not met for hundreds, he confessed at the brink of a shot of whiskey, "i'm going to miss you so much."

can we talk about this later?

2007-04-29T11:08:00.000-04:00

we're living in a secret world, the kind that's exposed by only the tip bit of the edge of a broken mirror...a tiny grassy, wooded island--suburbanites' vacation escape from life's tedium [join the resistance, fall in love etched nightly in the sandy shores]--only the top of which is clear to the naked eye. submerged and extending for miles deep and wide, a whole life with a speckled, colored, uneven past, with bottles broken against walls and whispers in the 4am darkness and stories told in the mere expression of eyes. a whole world surrounded by water, so it's hard to pin down the constant, the reality. a whole world made up of memories of rooms and songs and those moments you both love and hate to recount; a place both so muddied and so totally bright that all words, coincidences, disappointments, consequences, decisions, spans of eye contact, all absences, all hopes and every single labored goodbye have 500-lb. weights attached to them, plunging us deeper and deeper. we're the brilliant glow of candlelight in darkness, we're those final hums of a person on the brink of death, we're the tattoo you just found out you had.

"dear baby"

2007-04-22T11:13:00.000-04:00

be just as good as you can be
love,
papa

the truth is coming out. the screen is lifting, reality is coming into focus. blindingly. it's like the brightest sun, the richest colors, the sharpest edges--everything i've been dazed by, nearly paralyzed by for so so long. like years. it's wearying to pass all these days out of the shade. and still. what's happened and what i want to happen entreat and tug and yank me by the nose or the heart or whatever can be pulled, and really it's so hard to live right within it for so long. it really is so wearying and at times downright suffocating, but when the truth comes out in morsels after midnight, and when the rope i'm pulling starts to give way--some baby little morsels--it's then that i know i'd rather scorch like this in the light.

it's three weeks today that i've lived here, and the transition has been easy, really quite easy. i've etched out already a fair amount of a life, and i haven't been bored or lonely since week one. the weather's better now [in an insane way], and with a bike, a second job, and a bit more money [and yes glue and a bed and maybe even other furniture one day], days and nights will be sweet and easy and will pass with contentment [more than contentment], tenderness, fascination and you know...everything else good and nice and light [but to be burdened?], and you know.

hold me like you never held me before, like if you knew for sure

2007-04-20T09:20:00.000-04:00

dude. seriously. first there was easter, then there was the nor'easter and then there was the best weekend of weather in the history of new york city [ok, my being in new york city]. seriously. dude. i could see just blue, just blue through the skylight over my bed when i opened my eyes this morning. it's going to be so nice! i'm going to every park! just watch me! crocheting at every park in new york city! maybe it'll be a project! maybe i'll blog about it! [ok, maybe that's dumb.]

finally finally finally! got that other loney dear record, finally. fuck, it is seriously SO good. i'm sorry but like,,,,,,,i listened to the newest one, loney, noir a lot, and it is good, butbut but i'm sorry but this record should really have been the one released on sub pop. this record, though, goddamn, it's like...listening to it's like breaking a fucking leveé. a memory leveé! it makes me think of the rain.

also! i found a sublet for june! woo!

AND i'm not hungover today!

reality?

2007-04-18T17:23:00.000-04:00

last night i finished my ántonia by willa cather, my first finished book here. washing out a long, long reading dry spell. i liked it a lot, but i'm not sure that cather "created one of the most winning heroines in american fiction" [or that "'no romantic novel ever written in america, by man or woman, is one half so beautiful as my ántonia.'"] nonetheless, there were a couple great lines toward the end.

"'Do you know, Ántonia, since I've been away, I think of you more often than of anyone else in this part of the world. I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister--anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me.'"

"She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things."

i need suggestions for something else now. fiction, please.

can you still ruin music?

2007-04-17T17:54:00.000-04:00

i didn't say it yet, my building is salmon-colored. my mother had said it was pink, google earth colored it red, but it is in reality salmon. a strange color for bricks i think. i had meant to mention this.

i'm slowly [or is it quickly?] accepting that i live here. it took about ten days to break down and buy the monthly train pass. "you just keep putting money on the card?" "yeah..uhm...i don't know what i'm waiting for." it took one trip carrying my dirty clothes to the laundromat to break down and buy the "neighborhood cart." i had had my heart set on one of those with the plastic flowery material, but perhaps those just exist in the movies because they don't seem to in my neighborhood. it's totally worth it.

i feel so in-between, over some edge or fissure, and my toes keep falling in. in the middle of the night, during certain songs, on certain notes...i'm transported elsewhere. to places that don't really exist, or maybe only in that 50% past. smells and the lighting and notes and how it all felt.. but none of that's here, and only somewhat in spirit. i'm willing it away. but there are new plans and times and people and delights. i have so much hope.

i danced you across the wooden floor and you signed the lease

2007-04-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

a dearth of words can only means good things: old friends, new faces, things to do, bar hopping, yummy french food, making split pea soup, afternoon in the park, coincidences, big surprises, brunch, making plans, staying up late, &tc.; the first days i've been really glad to be here. and the same continues throughout the week, and then 6s and sunny starting on the weekend and going on and on..

[ohyeah and then there was that nor'easter: equal parts tempestuous and angelic; one whole part persistent; brought cold wet feet and may have hit sick at my throat; unknown quantity of parts metaphoric.]

serenading

2007-04-13T09:11:00.000-04:00

the forecast here is exhausting. every morning i check, and then throughout the day i check semi-compulsively the 10-day forecast, and then i sigh audibly each time when not a 6 appears. no 6. 4s and 5s and even 3s in the nights. no 6s. just low 5s. not even between a 5 and a 6. it's friday and if there'd just be a little 6 on weather.com, we could all lay in the park and do something frivolous. and be pretty damn happy.

the last day of 6s [and 7s!] i remember clearly, on that very good bad day. i didn't want to face it, but the weather was so so gorgeous it was quite a helping hand. the sheets were red with the imprint of my tattoo. you went out onto the balcony, and until i joined you, i didn't know the weather was so perfect. i stood beside you for a while, but the warmth--or the something, something like warmth--was too much to handle. it felt like standing on the edge a cliff and peering downward. my stomach hurt. we did everything slowly; i doted upon every moment. i remember all the music we listened to that day. i remember lunch: how i took too long to decide, the way my soup tasted, the old man you wanted to become, the cartoon character t-shirt, the dr. seuss lady, the temperature of the drinking water, the clink of the silverware, the sound of the espresso machine and the juicer, where i put my purse under the table, the way you barely looked at me; how we ignored the inevitable, pretending that the day was just another. i remember driving east, and slowly, and finally stopping in that baby little town; you making me stand outside of the car. i remember everything about the dog chained up there and how many clouds were in the sky and exactly what the gravel felt like under my feet. i remember the "watch your step!" all the time, the button lady, the cast-iron banks, the photos, the old baking supplies. i remember standing close, how long i took to decide on a button and stopping for moments in that side room. the drive further east was even slower. my stomach dropped when we turned down the street. i remember how the grass felt under my feet and exactly how the sun shone into the front room, the cats, the couch, your things piled up in the corner. we moved slowly, and i left quickly. i didn't look back to see if you were watching.

well not in the surf of course

2007-04-12T17:38:00.000-04:00

things i'll never hear of. old ears hear better anyway.

listening to that decemberists ep. wonder whatever came of that little mouse.

the sound of silence

2007-04-10T21:23:00.000-04:00

the city is inspiring, but the loneliness is deafening, but sometimes the loneliness--or, more like the lonesomeness--is sort of inspiring. it'll inspire me soon enough to make art -- out of inspiration or out of boredom, does it matter? i went out alone this evening, and i wish i had a dictaphone hooked up to my thoughts. upon moving, i've suddenly become a devourer of media once again. i went to the record store today...err, make that TWO record stores. proud? looking for the same old things from lately, no odawas, no early loney dear record. i instead got that new adem used. i heard it on the listening station, but i think i remember its recommendation? something, maybe in some past life. next was really blah tom yum noodle soup. i think i'm going to become a connoisseur on tom yum soup. i spent quite some time today studying various recipes for it. i also found a recipe that combined canned tuna with tom yum paste. hmmm. hmmmmmmmmmm. not sure really what to think of that. walking up and down bedford with the coffees, the juices, the health foods, the organic and local produces, the record stores, the places to drink whiskey, the dogs, the studios, the labels...you could have everything for a full life here within a mile radius. you wouldn't even need a bike. and the beach is here! in brooklyn! that really always excites me the most.

this entry didn't go as planned. it felt good to get out, so i couldn't keep up my solemn tone. smile. it's so quiet now; it feels so strange. like the loss of an arm or a pet or a favorite crazy lady standing on the corner every morning who always makes you laugh. but in the quiet, there's still this din, it's so faint, the faint tink of a metal connector in the mind. a soup can on one side of a string. it always baffled me how those worked.