Tired

A shift, a job interview, an immigration meeting, and two classes, on two hours' sleep.  But I got four shirts for $20 and stole a bottle of white wine from an empty conference room.  Call it a draw, Wednesday.

Housebound

I am in love with my house. To the point where some city agoraphobia is kicking in, and I refuse to go out as emphatically as I relish staying in, and the fact that Manhattan has delivery-- I take turns taking care of myself and giving myself license to put off work some more, be anti-social, stay in bed.

Housewarming

Us gals broke it in with ginger sours and pop music and smack talk. And accidental kissing, right Katherine? I have chairs and stuff but of course in a studio everyone ends up partying on the bed.  I love having people over to mine.

1 1/2 oz. citron vodka
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
3-4 ginger slices

Muddle ginger. Shake with rest of ingredients with ice.

Thanksgiving

Christ, I am so weepy this week. I think the Americans got to me with the Thanksgiving stuff. It is, as Grace said, "equivalent to the superbowl multiplied by christmas." Everyone is home with their family, or here with their family. I went out to buy lightbulbs on Thursday and everything was closed. Y&R wasn't on. Everything stopped.

Of course, New York is very unfamily most of the time. Everyone is single and crazy and gay and trying to get an acting job and living four to an apartment. I think they've made a sitcom about this. Anyway, when my mom was here, she continued on being her mom self, but here. So every time I turned around she had washed the dishes and wiped the countertop, or put some fresh flowers in a vase, and instead of my apartment being the abused crash pad that it is, it was suddenly a home. Even when we went down to the garbage room, she made a point of turning the light off after us. Little stuff like that. It lingers, it's nice.

About time

I used to always notice these cups on Law and Order before I moved here. And then, after I did move here, I noticed that I never got them. So for a while I tried seeking them out - buying my coffee from different places, etc. They really are a NY institution, after all - the MoMA design store sells ceramic versions. Anyway, today for the first time I bought hot coffee instead of iced from my coffee guy. And look at that.

Content

If I go to prison or the hospital tonight, and they have to reconstruct my identity on the basis of what I am carrying around in my bag, they will have the following to work with:



1. a bunch of books on Kant.
2. a hammer.
3. tarts.

I have no problem with the picture that paints.

Okay, I won't spoil this with a sarcastic title. Okay, I will.

I took the 1 train first thing this morning. It was half-full, yet very quiet. Like a bad movie montage, I kept cutting out to flash back to moments of this past year that I am thinking about. I got off at 168th, which is definitely my new favourite station. It's very... underground. Seems older than it probably is. Then a bus along the parkway, to "Orangeburg" (allegedly), NY. I didn't know there was a county west of Westchester - that north of the Bronx, New York state swung left and annexed land west of the Hudson from New Jersey. Then a bus back nine hours later, stuck in weekend tollbooth commuter traffic, listening to a sweet friend of a friend go on but unable to engage. Over an unfamiliar bridge, down the island on the east side, and dropped off close to the East River. The whole day was canny/uncanny - in my city but in completely unfamiliar surroundings and streets, and all day I didn't see a face I recognized.

"Get your free Daily News!"

Or today: "Get your free goddam daily news!" Yeah, that's got to be one of the worst jobs, handing stuff out on the street.

Being poor

I've eaten for free every day this week. Leftovers from meetings and student events, vegan activists dishing out fake meat entrees, a disgruntled cashier who refuses to charge customers at the end of his shift. I've scoped it all out.

Bitches, look at what I am having for lunch today.

Lobster sandwich, crab bisque, prime rib on foccacia, waffle chips with chipotle mayonnaise, eggplant couscous, berry tartlets, chocolate truffles.

I know, shut up

My furniture arrived, and some of it was wrong, and I signed the waybill and tipped the bitchy delivery anyway because I am a suck. And my friend came over and helped me put it together and she laughed continuously at how ugly it is. Haha, okay that's kind of funny. Fuck.

Let's see... I'll call this one The unfamiliar familiarity of the quotidian

Every morning I buy coffee from this coffee truck near work, and the guy who runs it pretends to remember me. I figure it's an overenthusiasm he thinks is good for business, but he always gets my order wrong, and we have the same conversation every day (he's from Egypt; he got here only 7 months ago; he doesn't work weekends; he's looking for a girlfriend). Today he was away from his truck, talking to hotdog man across the street. He saw me from across 5th avenue, and yelled in recognition, "You want coffee?" And then he dodged through four lanes of cabs to make it back to his truck to pour me some, and got it right. Danger. Aw.

q w e r t and sometimes y

My friend Eric and I have discussed this: the only way to write a blog, one other people can read, and not die of exposure is to never say anything in it. And this is a guy who gets naked in public regularly.

Hence why I don't blog when things happen, because I have to find something else to talk about. Which begs the question why I blog at all, I guess, and the answer, besides the redoubled voyeurism, the narcissistic attention-seeking (no one has a blog and doesn't track visits to it), etc., is because it provides a little trail of breadcrumbs for my life. All those little evasions are great mnemonics.

That's a picture of my filthy keyboard at work.

Giuliani

People here hate Giuliani. I cannot overstate this. I didn't know that before I moved here, so I'm filling you Canadians in.

Take today. Sitting in the ER at St. Vincent's hospital, filling out someone else's forms I brought in but barely know because she's near-unconscious (it occurs to me that I have done this exact thing before with three different people), chatting with the little old lady ER docent, who a propos of nothing (well, the election) gets onto this tirade about him. She even repeatedly called him "evil". "Huh. Can I put a work address for this? So what was so evil about
him?" "Well you know he refused to meet with Virginia Fields, the borough president, because she was black, but even before it came out that he was a racist just the audacity that he would run for president..."

Food, flora, etc.

So the poverty. Yeah. Always looking to score free food. Jk - I did that when I wasn't poor. Anyway, Union Square is a good place to try. Always granola bars and cans of iced tea and random calories like that. But the other day, it was flowers. While friend and I sat on the steps and cried about boys, this kid came up and asked us if we wanted a flower. I accepted; friend declined but asked why they were handing them out. "Because it's cool."

And I carried that gerbera all over town and then home in a plastic bag, crushed between my new frying pan and air mattress, then abandoned it all Thursday night while partying at a friend's, then finally placed it in a cup of water on Friday. Five days later it's still looking good.

Apartment: decorated.