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Stalking
Lone Star Thomas
Goodies

phone home

2/27/02
I can't believe I locked myself out yesterday. As a teen I was constantly getting myself locked out. I have no idea why, I just used to be really careless about carrying my keys I guess. As long as I was driving I was safe since my car and house keys were on the same ring. But buses, and now subways, cause trouble from time to time. I got back into town early Mon. but didn't come home till yesterday afternoon. I schlepped all my crap back here to Brooklyn only to realize I'd left my keys in a purse in a suitcase back at James'. So annoying, partly for the travel time involved, but also because I'm a penny-pincher and at $1.50 a pop for the subway, it'd take $6 to go back into Manhattan, get James' keys from him at work, go to his apt., then come back here. I get worked up over the stupidest things sometimes. So, I was really only in New Orleans for two full days, but I tried to cram as much in as possible. Not surprisingly, most of it revolved around eating and drinking. I drank a ubiquitous (and icky, but you have to do it) Hurricane, a White Russian daiquiri from those machines that are everywhere, many Cajun Bloody Marys, Barq's root beer in a bottle, chicory coffee, ate turtle soup, oyster, shrimp and "debris" po boys, pralines, crawfish etouffee, seafood gumbo, peanut butter chocolate chip pie, massive amounts of Tabasco, beignets and a muffelettas. I regret not having time for Mint Juleps, Sazeracs, alligator meat, Bananas Foster, Pecan Pie and whiskey bread pudding. Everything is rich, fatty, spicy, fried or tooth-achingly sweet--my kind of food. As far as sights go, I didn't see much. No swamp tours, graveyard tours or riverboat cruises. But I did get to ride a streetcar out to the Audubon Zoo (remind me never to have children. I've never seen so many loud, portly, chain-smoking parents with severe southern drawls in such a concentrated space) and got all huffy (at James, not the girl behind the counter) because we didn't make it out there till 4pm and the animals get put away at 4:30pm and I didn't want to pay $9 for 1/2 hour of looking (I go crazy showing up at places just before closing, I'll throw a fit before walking into some restaurant at 10:30pm with an 11pm closing time. All my friends, including James, are P's while I'm a J and it makes me insane sometimes, though I'm learning to relax.) I always note hours before planning any excursion, but what can you do. It ended up alright because we were able to sneak in for free. We also ended up at Harrah's casino unexpectedly Sunday night. I didn't even know there was gambling in NOLA (oh look, I'm using an acronym--why are people so fond of condensing locales into four letters?) I rapidly burned through the $20 James lent me to play with then started maniacally dipping into the remaining $20 from some money my mom had sent me last week. That stuff is dangerous. At one point, I was $25 ahead of where I started, but got greedy and lost it all. Big spender, that's me. But $30 poorer and a couple free gin and tonics richer, it could be much worse. The one thing I notice when I get outside of NYC is how standards immediately go down. This is not a criticism, nor a bad thing. It's nice. Everyone here's always trying to one-up each other, be the first to own some bag or get into some party, or know some celebrity or have the better apt., better job, make more money and so on. It's gross, and I've become so used to it that I don't even notice all the bitchy competitiveness anymore. Well, it's not just competitiveness, but getting off on acting jaded, condescending or above it all. Not silly, not fun, totally concerned about presentation and image. This struck me in Boston while I was waiting in line at Buzzy's for a roast beef sandwich and some whatever girl complimented my tattoo and started talking about Hello Kitty. People just don't do that sort of thing here. You stay in your own space, own circle of friends and you don't tell someone you like something about them unless you're trying to ingratiate yourself. After going apeshit over the handwritten dessert board at Le Peniche (everything was out-of-control sweet and homey, dead opposite to trendy NYC desserts with ingredients like pepper, thyme Guinness. This place had unsophisticated classics like turtle cheesecake [not the animal, duh], sweet potato pecan pie, oreo pie, peanut butter pie and more) the first place we ate at, we stopped at Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop. It's on Bourbon, but a few blocks beyond the boob-flashing hubbub, and enticing in a dark, bricky, dilapidated New Orleans kind of way. What struck me was the crowd surrounding the piano player. Well, what struck me first about the city was all the bad (bad, in that I don't care for the style of music. It could be the best renditions in the world and I wouldn't appreciate them) blues and zydeco blasting from every possible crevice. In my short weekend, I couldn't tell you how many times I heard that "don't mess with my toot toot" song. Ack, it's in my head right now--I swear, if I lived there I'd go cuckoo. So, all these people are mobbing this guy in the back with a casio, crooning cover tunes like "Georgia" and "Iko Iko" and the crowd's totally going wild, and I'm completely stumped, like have they never heard good music before? But it was all so earnest, and so what if they weren't his songs and that he was banging on a keyboard with programmed beats. He seemed happy, the tourists (I'm assuming they were tourists. I mean, we were too. I think 90% of the French Quarter are.) seemed happy, and dammit if I wasn't happy too. I only regret not picking up a cd of Johnny Gordan's music (if you read the 15 user comments on citysearch.com, many, if not most remark on how much they enjoyed his musical stylings). We ended up at various bars like Molly's at the Market, The Hideout, Coop's and even goth club, Crowbar (James has a weird holdover goth fetish that simultaneously baffles and amuses me), but the only place we went twice was Lafitte's (oh, and Cafe Du Monde--am I sucker for those beignets, or what? fried dough doused in powdered sugar 24-hours a day is just too much).

2/21/02
I think it's weird how magazines run such similar stuff sometimes. In the past two months or so I've read three women's magazines articles that talk about the French concept of jolie laide, like pretty-ugly, someone who depending on the angle you see them can be homely or beautiful. Anjelica Huston was mentioned in at least two of these pieces, possibly all three, they blur, I couldn't even tell you what the magazines were (I skim them while on the treadmill). Today's was Allure, one might have been Vogue and another might have been Harper's Bazaar, but I couldn't say for sure. I understand how trends get written about all over at the same time, but things like this are odd--why the sudden interest in jolie laide? Er, this is weird, but I just got the feeling that I already wrote about this, in a strong deja vu way, but I don't think that's right because it was just this afternoon when I read my third article on this subject that it got into my head. I notice green make up seems to be in all of March's women's mags, maybe due to St. Patrick's Day, who knows. I've seen Lancome's Tra la la eye shadow (it's sold out on their site, and I wonder why) and Mac's Lipglass in Digital Jade and Squirt mentioned twice in two days. But I love green make-up, it's my favorite color so it's OK. I just hope that when I'm still wearing green eye shadow next year that I'm not dismissed for being so 2002 passe. Oh jeez, I just started getting the feeling that I'd written about green make-up recently too. I know, I could just read past entries and clear this up, but I'm on a roll right now and can't be bothered. This is a very creepy feeling. Other things I've noticed used an awful lot lately: the word redolent, the phrase holding court and that Looper song Mondo '77. Is it spring break? God, I hope not. I leave for New Orleans tomorrow and will be glad to have just missed Mardi Gras, but if it's spring break there's going to be plenty of collegiate riff raff. I ask because I've noticed the neighborhood kids out in full force (of course not up and down the block, just in front of my apt.). At first I thought it was because it was sunny this week, but then I realized I was hearing yelling and screaming around 1pm and that's too early for kids to be home. I forgot how much they drive me up the freakin' wall. And because the woman upstairs is a stay at home mom, the space in front of my door is home base for the entire neighborhood apparently. And I'm retarded because I have this basketball in my room that's been there since the kid next door moved out months ago and it's just clutter so in a fit of kindness I asked the kids out front if they wanted it, and they did and within five minutes my front window was knocked into hard enough to almost bust it and the front door smacked more times than I can count on one hand. It dawned on me why I'd hid that ball in my room all winter. Oh my goodness, I just took a break to take a shower (and realized I was out of razor blades so I scrounged up this bottle of hair remover and that stuff does not work at all. My left leg down by my ankle is not bright red, puffy and on fire and it's still hairy. It makes me insane how on movies or in urban legend someone will replace shampoo with Nair the victim's hair instantly falls out. That is so not true) and make dinner, and found that new Fox show, "Glutton Bowl" where they highlight competitive eating. What I found interesting was how like 95% of the contestants were from the NYC area. What does that say about this city? I never realized how squeamish I was until they started the how many sticks of butter can you eat in blank minutes contest. All that butter stuck in moustaches and beards and my stomach started turning for real (but that could've been due to the messed-up concoction I'd just created. I really wanted kim chee, but you can't find it in my immediate neighborhood so I bought red cabbage salad from the Polish market, picked out the cloves and stir-fried it with garlic, fish sauce, lime juice and Thai chiles. It didn't taste a thing like kim chee, but it wasn't as bad as I expected either). I hear they're going to eat bowls of mayonnaise soon--that's just too much. Uh oh, I need to pack.

2/20/02
Tonight they used the phrase having such-and-such by the short hairs on the news. I know what this means, but I'm unclear on what short hairs they're referring to. I'm assuming it's akin to having whomever by the short and curlies which to me would implies pubic hair. Am I wrong? I've always thought this was sort of a crass saying, not completely vulgar, but not the sort of thing they'd use in a news report. You'd think I was obsessed with hair phrases or something (a few weeks ago it was the wild hare vs. wild hair in the ol' up your ass colloquialism) but that's not really true. Speaking of the news, I noticed Sunday on NY1 that there was a protest in my neighborhood (which they referred to as Greenwood Heights--I've become obsessed with the nebulous name of my 'hood) over detained terrorism suspects. I've lived here nine months now and never knew I lived two blocks from a federal prison. I never have any reason to walk along 3rd Ave., but as I missed my mom's Valentine package last week, I was forced to pick it up at the local P.O. on 3rd Ave. and so I did some exploring. I always walk on 5th whenever I go anywhere, and for good reason, it's relatively peaceful, maybe due to the cemetery. 4th is noisy and six-laned. 3rd is noisy, dirty, six-laned and is bisected by the raised Gowanus Expressway/BQE. There's nothing pedestrian-friendly about it, but I did get to see countless 24 hour adult video stores (from the sidewalk all I could see were tacky teddies and flimsy panties for sale) and three very smelly live poultry (there was a painted goat on the sign too) stores (one boasted free delivery, which made me wonder--do they deliver the killed carcass of meat or the live animal? I'm guessing the meat, but you never know). There isn't a 2nd or 1st Ave, just an industrial park and a shipyard/harbor in the block west of 3rd to the East River. I thought maybe you could take a peek at the river, but it's not one of those revitalized waterfront areas where people rollerblade and have picnics. Everything was fenced off and guards manned booths allowing access. I was glad for the change of scenery, but I'll probably stick to my daily routine up 5th Ave. Unless I get the urge for freshly killed chicken and/or gross strawberry-scented massage oil (which reminds me--have you seen those new commercials for Climatique? Funny and freaky all at once), that is.

2/18/02
I feel like such a goof-off and I don't even know why. I haven't been home since Thurs. and for some reason that's distracting. I have all this stuff I need to do (like writing a short, piece of regional interest. I have a bunch of ideas, but can't settle down and write anything down coherently) but when I'm not home it's like I'm vacation or something; I watch a lot of TV, don't exercise, snack too much, eat out too often (Thai food, White Castle, giant $2.50 rice krispie treats and dim sum), go drinking, see movies ("I am Sam": horrible yet hilarious, "Storytelling": more likeable than anticipated), hang out in Chinatown arcades playing fighting games and don't generally concern myself with looking for a job. Maybe that's why I'm reluctant to go home (I'll go back tomorrow), I'll have to deal like un-fun stuff like doing dishes and paying bills. Well, for Valentine's Day I went to a restaurant that I've been wanting to go to since it opened last year, Artisanal, known for being some cheese mecca. I've been on a most unhealthy fondue kick lately, so this was a good choice. I was also given the gift of a trip to New Orleans this coming up weekend. I've never been to New Orleans, let alone anywhere in the South, so it should be fun. And now I'm wasting time looking up things to do and places to eat in N.O. rather than calling up the Hagstrom Map Company and finding out how they decide on neighborhood names and boundaries (I'm all obsessed with the fact that they call my neighborhood Greenwood Heights, but no one else seems to recognize this name) so I can write my little NYC story for class. Speaking of, James made the trip short, just fri. night till mon. morning because he didn't think I'd want to miss my class mon. night. And I guess you do want to get your money's worth, and there's a good guest speaker next mon. but I wouldn't have minded missing one class if it meant staying away longer.

2/14/02
My phone is back (obviously, of I wouldn't be able to upload this crap). The final word last night was that James was going to call Verizon and have them come out here. Of course I wouldn't know the time since I couldn't be called. So I had trouble falling asleep, nervous that they'd arrive first thing in the morning. I set my alarm for 10am, and of course my doorbell starts ringing at 9:30am. I'm not complaining because I'm glad to have things working again, but I was all groggy and in a horrible mismatched sweatshirt and flannel bottom combo, my hair was plastered to my head and my eyes caked shut. I almost ignored the bell till I became semi-conscious and realized it could be the phone company. I'm not good at dealing with service repairs. Like what are you supposed to do when the guys are in the house? I'd just jumped out of bed and the place was a mess. The problem appeared to be in the backyard, which is a total scary, disaster zone. I'm sure they thought I was a total nut, and I'm not sure why I care so much.

2/13/02
It's only today that I sort of see the usefulness of a cell phone. I'm being driven nuts by my phone line. Last night it came back on, triggered by a phone call around 1am. It seems like if someone calls me, when I hang up the dial tone is back. It was still good this morning when I woke up, but after doing things in the neighborhood and getting back around 5:30pm, it was dead again and has been ever since. But now apparently it's worse because I can't get incoming calls either. I called James from the laundromat to tell him to call me at 10pm (and he said he'd called me four times already, which made me suspicious), my mom also usually calls at 10pm on Wed. Around 10:30pm I realized the phone hadn't rang. This irritated me. I just went to On the Run, the convenience store around the block to use the pay phone and try to get change. This is vexing in two ways: 1. It's freezing outside (24° last time I checked). Too freezing to hang out at pay phones. 2. I had no change, just a five dollar bill. I wanted to call James to tell him my phone was still out, call and check my voicemail, and possibly call Verizon, though I didn't want to because as I just stated, it's too cold to be on hold for like 20 minutes, and my quarter would run out long before that. I bought a 25¢ pack of gum for optimal change, got outside and realized the guy had given me two quarters, two dimes and three pennies--that is not 75¢, and eliminated the possibility of a third phone call. What's really irritating is that I had 50¢ this afternoon that I wasted. Instead of walking the 22 blocks to the Post Office I decided to take the bus because it was cold and I was mailing a package I didn't feel like lugging around. But my Metrocard was empty. I had a dollar bill and 50¢ so I thought it'd be OK. I got on, dumped in my change and then realized they don't take bills. I searched through my change purse and only managed to come up with 40¢. I probably could've just stayed on the bus, but I had a weird guilty conscience and got off, at what was this point eight blocks from where I'd started. Why didn't I attempt to use my bill before my change?! I'd wasted 50¢ on an eight block journey, which wasn't the end of the world at the time, but I'm now suffering the repercussions. I'm supposed to go back out to the pay phone in a couple minutes to see what Verizon told James (I had him call them), but now I only have the two dimes and three pennies the retard clerk gave me. I have dollar bills, but honestly I don't feel like dealing with the guy again. I'm going to have to turn this apt. upside down looking for stray nickel somewhere. It's so infuriating. OK, I'm not sure what to do now. I just got off the phone (around the corner--I scrounged up a dime after digging through all my bags and purses) and James said Verizon said to unplug everything from the jacks for 15 minutes because something is shorting out the line. This is what they told me over a week ago, and as soon as I plugged things back in the line went dead again so I don't see how this advice is very helpful. And anyway, I got irate with James, and my quarter ran out and I hung up on him and now I'm not sure what to do about my phone or him. And of course it's Valentine's Day tomorrow and I know we have reservations somewhere nice, but I don't know where because it's supposed to be a surprise and now who knows if I'll ever know because I can't call him back. He said I should just come over there and for some reason this annoyed me because it's midnight and I don't feel like sitting on the subway for half an hour and I have things I need to do here, but can't. I feel like I'm having anger management issues at the moment. It's now about 12:45am and I'm steaming. I did the unplug for 15 minutes, plug back in thing and my phone is still dead. Ooh, I just realized I left a nickel in the pay phone. I'm going to go back out and try to get change for a dollar.

2/12/02
Did I complain about my phone being dead last Tuesday? Probably. I'm not sure, but it's doing it again. I'm never home on weekends, and then last Tuesday when I did come home my phone line was dead, no dial tone. It came back for like 15 minutes, then went out, then was back around midnight. It has seemed OK ever since, and I did call Verizon and supposedly nothing is wrong with my line. The thing is, I can get phone calls, I just can't call out or dial up to the internet. It was fine today when I came home after being out this weekend. Then about an hour ago, I realized it was dead again. It's really irritating. Not so much the phone part, but I can't stand not being able to get online. Maybe I'm feeling snippy because I'm afraid I'm getting the flu. Last night James got sick out of nowhere and today his coworkers were sick and I woke up with my bones hurting (it hurts just to type), my head aching, all nauseous (I have to keep running to the bathroom, and not to throw up, if you get my drift) and I can't seem to get warm. Blech, I guess I should go to bed, but it feels weird since it's only 11:33pm. I just heard that Ore-Ida has come up with Kool Blue french fries?! Also, that Parkay has electric blue and pink margarine?! Where have I been? Oh yeah, and that there are maroon carrots now too? What's going on? I guess I've been spending too much time in ghetto grocery stores. These colorful inventions have suburbs written all over them...and I'm jealous! Argh, and I can't do a thing about looking these goodies up (well, I already tried ore-ida.com this morning, but they didn't seem to have the sky blue fries on it yet). No internet, my fingers ache too much to type anymore, TV's rotting my brain--maybe I'll have to resort to reading.

2/8/02
Do you know what's creepy? When beauty products create chemical reactions. I've always thought it was sort of weird how when you mix hair dye, the bottle gets all warm. That's not too disturbing I suppose, but yesterday I got really weirded out by Biore's Self Heating Mask. I have hideous, dry, old lady skin. I don't know why. I swear to god, I could rub Crisco all over my face and it'd still be dry and flaky. But I re-found this box of Biore masks that I'd received for my birthday and never used, and it claimed to be good for dry skin so I gave it a try. You crack open these little packets and thick, pink, putty oozes out. You're supposed to massage it on to your face for 60 seconds, until it turns blue. Color change? Instant hotness? Now that's creepy. I rinsed the mask away "to reveal smooth, radiant, fabulous skin" and it did feel different--sort of prickly and burning. Not inordinately so, but it didn't feel particularly good. This morning when I woke up, I swear my face looked different in the mirror. I can't quite pin point it, but it has something to do with my nose. It's definitely pinker (so are my cheeks), but the shape almost seems askew like it's pointier and there's a definite crease at the bridge where there never was one before. I think that Biore mask aged me like five years and gave me a new nose. I wonder if I should be alarmed?

2/6/02
This is crazy. I have this assignment to write a "humiliation essay," basically the kind of crap I write about on a consistent basis anyway. My whole life is a series of humiliations, and yet I'm having the hardest time in the world coughing up my 900 words. I have a serious self-discipline problem (it even said so on my grade school report cards--I don't make good use of class time or work well with others either), not to mention a procrastination problem. This is such an easy assignment to crank out, yet I've been messing around all night on the internet (I'm bingeing because yesterday I came home to no dial tone and totally freaked. To not be able to dial up, call friends or even check my voicemail is near panic-inducing. The phone line seems to be OK today, however). I have to pay someone $465 to make me write on a scheduled basis. I guess that's why people have personal trainers and chefs--you feel obligated to stay healthy if you're paying dearly for the privilege. That's why I've never understood how anyone with money could be fat, ugly or poorly dressed, there's no excuse. If you're rich and have your aforementioned trainer and chef in addition to your stylist and life strategist, there shouldn't be a problem. You'd actually have to try hard to not be a success. This reminds me of one of my favorite "Oprahs" from a few years back when she had lost a lot of weight and had received a lot of flack from former fans. The audience was filled with women who'd written nasty letters telling Oprah how she wasn't so great, that anyone with her money could get in shape, or how they used to think Oprah was the kind of person they could have over for dinner and now they wouldn't even want her in their house. I don't know, it was funny and right on. There aren't any accolades to be had for the advantaged.