Kate, Charlotte

Hm - didn't know about the Carnegie Deli. Katz's is good too (the place where Meg Ryan faked her orgasm - it's still there, and a rather down-to-earth, real place). You also need to:

- get your nails done at some quintessential Asian lady nails place (there are $7 places in the village and many places in my hood)
- go clothes shopping in SoHo
- walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and have pizza at Grimaldi's at the other end
- have dinner or drinks at some ridonculously cute bistro on Bleecker in the West Village
- rifle through the vintage clothing stores in uber-hipster Williamsburg
- get lost in Central Park, or maybe take a carriage ride through it
- eat at at least one celebrity hangout/celebrity chef restaurant (Nobu in Tribeca, the Spotted Pig in the W Village, Les Halles in Grammercy, Bar Americain in Midtown) - do this at lunch because it's cheaper and you're more likely to get a table
- stroll through Chinatown and Little Italy (basically, just walk up Mulberry street)
- go clubbing in the meatpacking district (dress sexy)
- walk down Park/Madison on the UES and look in the windows of Gucci, Prada, etc. and then have a cappucino and people-watch the rich weirdos
- have dinner in Tribeca (we can all go to the nice Belgor-ian place Mom and I went to when she was here)
- have soul food in Harlem (chicken and waffles MMM!)
- do a walking tour of the Lower East Side or Harlem
- get drunk on the Lower East Side, or at secret bar PDT in the E Village (behind a fake wall in a phone booth inside a hot dog place)
- go up to 34th and see the Empire State Building (from the outside) and Macy's (from the inside)
- go to a museum party night (art! booze!) - generally Friday nights - and flirt with the hot artsy types.

Holy shit. That is a good list, both for what it leaves in, and what it leaves out.


I won't be seeing much of you guys since my schedule is pretty wall-to-wall, but when I get home every night at 11:00 I expect there to be Trader Joe's 3-buck-chuck in the fridge (I prefer the Sauvignon Blanc). I will give you a set of keys, and you can buy a walking map and a 1-week metro card. Bring your cellamaphones and chargers so that you can text each other when you get lost, or me when you need to be bailed out of jail.

Don't forget you're going to need a bag big enough to fit claussen's pickles and cheeze whiz on the way down, and fabulous shoes on the way back.

SMS highlight reel, vol. 9

Hey do you think that guy I like is gay or no?

It's not too exciting. Just me and my chicken sandwich.

What the eff?! Im drunk and wanna talk!

I found something that will make you laugh and scream and cringe all at once.

Where are you living out your present confusion?

oh please come! Didnt you already write that paper? Come! I am baking!

Just so you know you're still looking like a big ol WHORE!

football super game bowl at toms tonight. Bring snacks & drinks & violent enthusiasm.

Nope! you know i dont do haters of the vag and neither do you! i mean that in any way you may interpret it. ok so lets shoot for friday- any preferences?

Which activity is it possible to fail more profoundly: cooking or life?

Since I rarely pass up (a longshot at) romance, I propose you bring wine, I make dinner. I promise nothing else, but dress sexy.

Im so excited that i made the reel. I think this is my first appearance.

And for a brief moment, the impostor syndrome relinquished her brain

I nevvvver sleep. Today this fact hit me like a brick at about one o'clock. I was at work, and I just initialed my timesheet and left. I still hadn't finished preparing my lecture, so I went across the hall to the computer lab. I scraped together some examples and made a handout, and then my conscience gave me permission to just leave it at that, and I called Grace and went for a coffee instead.

I have to tell you, I have sat through a lot of lectures in my life. And I am really very good at what I do. Every one of my students looks me in the face for two whole hours, even the shiftless attitudinal ones. When I ask a question, more than half of them offer an answer. And when the clock hits 5:50 (or :54, as it did today), no one even gestures at packing up until I stop talking.

I've done a shitty job at lecturing in the past, and there are always ups and downs, but I need to underprepare more often, because I can do this.

Ticker tape parade

This morning I went and watched the ticker tape parade for the Giants (Kate, Mom, k-star, they are a "football team" and on Sunday they won the "Superbowl"). Actually, that game was pretty exciting, even though I watched it with a bunch of philosophers.

Anyway, my strip of Broadway - I just told you about this - packed with Giants fans and blizzarding with paper - not ticker tape, mind you. Confetti collected and donated by the city, and then the contents of the office recycling bins, followed by toilet paper, 8 1/2 x 11 printer paper, then whatever the suits could get their hands on. I picked up one of these. I think it's for buying stock.

I was standing next to a bunch of guidos and a bunch of black dudes. They didn't know each other, but they were basically the exact same group of people. The black dudes smoked a blunt, while the guidos killed 2-litre a bottle of port. Here are some excerpts from their conversation:

BDs: "Brookyn represent! Yaaaa! What's the matter, you guys don't like Brooklyn? Where you from?"
Gs: "Valley Stream."
BDs: "Valley Stream represent! Yaaaa!"
Gs: "Go Giants!"
BDs: "Yaaa!"
Gs: "Yaaa!"
BDs: "New York yaaa!"
Gs: "Yaaa!"
BDs: "Yaaa!"
Gs: "Terrorists yaaa!"
BDs: "Yaaa! Haha!"
Gs: "Giuliani yaaa!"
BDs: "Boo."
Gs: "Haha. Boo."

I had to go and pay my rent, on Fulton, but all the streets were closed down, so I got a cop to escort me to the landlord's office.

Breakfast

Last night we was drunk with an o, so this morning called for breakfast out, what I haven't done in ages, at Kitchenette in Tribeca. It's the kind of cramped place where you may end up seated inappropriately close to some other party, which we were, and so you know your entire conversation is being absorbed. Which just makes you want to be funny, which you think you are, because you are still drunk. Friend says he used to have the body of a heavy lifter, now he has the body of a heavy reader. When he started telling me what movies to see, the guy next to us finally interrupted (the charade) and asked whether There Will Be Blood felt too claustrophobic.

Theater e r

So I saw Beckett's Happy Days yesterday at BAM in Brooklyn. I'll admit, it was hard. During intermission I debated going into the ladies' to cry but composed myself and went downstairs for a coffee instead. I could go on and on just about the set, about Fiona Shaw and how incredibly funny she is, about the theatre itself... but Winnie. She is so heartbreakingly beautiful. I searched for reviews to commiserate with others about this. You can tell the misogynists, the untrustworthy types, by how they receive her character. She is so easily dismissable as a hysteric, "babbling away" to the man "compelled to remain in her presence," but that precisely misses the point. It's disingenuous anyway - the kind of thing that could only be said behind her back - because for an hour and a half we were all fixed on her words and on her face just like she was fixed in the earth.

Neighbors sans u

I've told you about the constant talkety talk talk talk. People talk to you, you talk to people (except your neighbours you don't talk to those fucking strangers). Sometimes people turn out to be crazy and all you can do is keep smiling and nodding until it is your stop. Yesterday I was standing on E 16th St with a carton of half and half (yes, I was) and this passing delivery guy informed me "Milk - it does the body good!" Today I tried to leave my umbrella on the 4 train and two huge dudes started yelling "Miss!" "Ma'am!" "Miss!" until it broke through my consciousness and I turned around.

That's not true - I did actually talk to one of my neighbours today. I was walking slowly up the stairs, scrutinizing my paycheque and reading the deductions out loud, and he said

"Hi"
"Hi"
"[something] scary [something]"
"What's that? You're scary?"
"No, I said I didn't want to scare you."
"Oh. Thanks."
[beep]
"Can you figure out where that beeping is coming from?"
...
...
[beep]
"I'd say definitely the second floor and not the third. Can you hear it in your apartment?"
"Yes. I mean, it's not terrible, but... I just wanted to locate it before I call the landlord or the fire department."
...
...
[beep]
"Yes, it's a smoke detector whose batteries are dying."
...
...
[beep]
"I'm so-and-so, by the way. I live in 5."
"I'm Marianne. I live in [nb]."

He was hot.

When I was younger my mom always made me go to the neighbours' and borrow a cup of sugar/ egg/ teaspoon of paprika and I hated doing it because I felt self-conscious or something. Not any more. But when I have tried to do this with neighbours in my adult life it doesn't work because nobody cooks. Now I only borrow objects. Last night it was my neighbour's corkscrew. He took about 20 seconds (count it out that's a long time) to shift a bunch of things, stare through the peephole and finally answer the door.

One time my other neighbour witnessed a pretty messy altercation I had with someone while my door was open. And the night I was assembling all my furniture and needed a hammer he was the only neigbour home for me to borrow one from. He was pretty hesitant to hand it over.