it's that time again

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1998
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++++++++++++

phone home

2/28/00
Everybody in Leather. The Gap wasn't kidding. It seems that in the past few weeks every man, woman and child in Manhattan got the bright idea to buy a pair of leather (or "pleather" if you're in Queens) pants. I don't hate leather. I don't hate pants. I don't even mind the two of them combined into one entity, but this is too much. Forget that pashmina hoopla of '99. This is a fashion conspiracy for the new millennium. For a while I was counting all the Tommy Hilfiger, but that got too easy. Then I started counting the cripples in my neighborhood, but that too, lost its challenge. Yesterday I started counting leather pants and I didn't even walk around all that much and I saw seven legitimate candidates. There were a handful of shiny synthetic lookalikes which I had to ignore. I wasn't even looking that hard so I'm sure that if I put my mind to it I could increase that number twofold. I thought it would be the ultimate score if I could find a cripple wearing leather pants, but so far no luck. All I saw was an older Asian woman in a wheelchair eating meat on a skewer (there aren't as many handicaps in Manhattan--survival of the fittest, you know). Saturday I coordinated a little get together at a bar and out of the 13 or so people who showed up, three were wearing leather pants and one had on a leather skirt. I'm not so good with ratios, but four out of 13 seems like a pretty skewed proportion.

2/24/00
The weather is freaking me out. Last fri. I got to leave work early due to a snowstorm and then today it was in the 60's and people were wearing shorts. There needs to be more consistency in the world.

2/22/00
If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all. That's really hard to abide by. I've just been feeling so inexplicably mean these days. Like I feel like kicking dogs and pigeons every time they get near my feet. I mean, usually I just get crabby and annoyed and want to assault other human beings, not animals. I rule the school. O.k., I don't. I have to decide within the next couple hours whether or not I want to be a grad school drop-out. I think I do. I haven't had the energy or the inclination to talk about my rotten job here, but let me just say that it sucks more than words can explain, it makes me mentally and physically ill, and if I have to stay here more than one second (o.k., one month may be more reasonable) someone's going to get hurt. I am so filled with loathing that I could lash out at anyone at any given moment. Coworkers, friends, defenseless animals--beware. So, the semester goes til the end of May and there's no way possible in hell in that I'm going to stay at this job til May so I've been asking myself why I should bother doing homework and write papers if I'm not even going to get any credit. It's a waste of my time and energy and I have better things to do (like scan pictures, bake treats, and sew felt stars on my winter coat). I got to leave work early fri. due to snow and of course yesterday was a holiday so I've been warped this weekend with time to breathe and think and be lazy. It's amazing how much my outlook changes when I'm not thinking about work a stinky library science degree. I never want to work in a freakin' library again. Ever. I said this in '98 and now in '00 I mean it. I'm putting my foot down. Yesterday I piddled around in Queens and it was very satisfying. I bought a new hairdryer, a cheap walkman (only 7 bucks--find that in Manhattan), a pair of queen-sized fishnets (the guy at the counter gave me an odd look and was all, "you know those are queen-size" and that was nice of him to not think I was obese, but I just don't trust one size fits all hosiery and would rather err on the side of too big rather than too small), scoured the local thrift store (and came up empty handed, which was rather disappointing. They got rid of their greeting cards and that was their allure, bought some felt and thread at a crafty fabric store, came home and made a Chinese Sausage Salad, which was pretty darn good. I'm a big fan of the low-key lifestyle, which I think is a crime here. I am in love with New York Noodle Town. I can't stop thinking about this place. I went on Chinese New Year and then I went back sat. and the exact same thing--roast pork noodle soup (only $3.50 and with huge shrimp wontons $4.50) and a plate of roast duck on rice (an amazing bargain at $3.25) to split. I am in love with Noodle Town. And it's open til 4 am, which get the mind thinking. Late Sat. night I was tempted to go back and get more duck, but decided against it. I don't know, that just seemed like something a crazy person would do. I'm trying to figure out why on City Search there is no review, just a lone photo. Since I'm going all hog-wild about food, I must mention Junior's. I'd been seeing this red and white striped cookbook all over the place latey. A book about a supposed Brooklyn institution that I'd never heard of. Since I was drinking at a bar, O'Connor's, one subway stop from Junior's on Fri., I thought it was appropriate to stop in for a late night treat. And what a treat it was. The place is huge, brightly lit, garish a la 1975, and at 1 am was filled with an er, interesting clientele. I still have yet to become completely accustomed to being the only white person in a room. This was the case with Junior's. I wasn't really all that wary, but the table full of '80's style gangstas with shiny track suits and bandanas caught my attention. I think the rowdy nature of the crowd had to do with the fact that I'd asked for the smoking section, which places you next to the bar. I was most impressed that when the waiter came round to empty the ashtray, he naturally assumed that I wanted to keep the half-smoked butt. That's right, I did. So I'm a scrounge, but at four bucks a pack you'd better believe that I'm not going to let him dump a perfectly good butt in the trash. A couple weeks ago at the new fancy Leshkos, I'd taken like two drags off my cigarette when the food arrived, put it out, and the waiter came over and emptied the ashtray. This miffed me. Junior's is all class. There was a high male (brandy with a Corona chaser appeard to be the drink of choice) to female (who all seemed to be underage and drinking strawberry margaritas) ratio and I saw more than a few numbers being exchanged. I had no idea Junior's was such the happening scene. Yeah, so the food was good and huge and I had a cheese steak sandwich with a ton of fries and split a beefy slice of cheesecake for dessert (I guess they're known for their cheesecake). It was all very satisfying. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't stop looking up every single freakin' restaurant and bar on City Search. It could be that I'm developing a mild form of OCD. There's nothing particularly special about them, it's just that they always seem to have a review where other sites are more hit and miss or selective. Now that it is 11:15 (I get here at 9) and I've not even attempted to start doing any work, I should try and motivate myself into semi-productive action.

2/16/00
I guess I'm supposed to talk about Valentine's Day. And though it pains me to be good natured and upbeat, I have to admit that it wasn't bad. It beat last year's hand over fist. There were no secret confessions, no yellow roses (do guys not know that yellow means friendship, for crying out loud?!), no dashed hopes, and no bawling on the subway. Now that I think about it, this is the first proper traditional version of the holiday that I've ever experienced. Call me old fashioned but being picked up in a car rented especially for the occasion (keep in mind that cars are more of a rare treat here), given red roses and chocolate, and being taken out to an expensive restaurant, is not a bad thing. I mean, the last V-Day I spent with someone I was dating, involved meeting up at some lame show, him doing a bunch of cocaine and subsequently trashing my apt. I ended up going to Mesa Grill because I'm addicted to the Food Network and it's Bobby Flay's restaurant from, "Hot off the Grill." If you've never seen this show, it's notable just for his hideous co-host Jacqui Malouf. She's a no-talent, tan, red-headed beast. I always wonder how these people get gigs on TV. Like who are they?! My only guess is that they're failed "real" actors and this is one step up from dinner theater. So, Monday was pretty alright and I was strong enough to go with the same boy to the same bar we went to last year: Tenth Street Lounge (I know, I'm linking to those lame City Search reviews again, but I get a kick out of them and this one caught my eye because it calls the place "perfect for dumping misguided lovers," then I realized that I know the person who wrote it). Visiting the scene of the crime is always good medicine. I took today off from my painful job so I could go on a couple interviews. I just can't talk about job stuff here because I know it would be an instant jinx. There's really a lot of stuff I can't talk about here because I only semi have a concept of who and how many people read this and I don't want trouble. I wish I was as gung ho about seeking out employment as I am about hunting down boys. My brain just doesn't work that way. My first interview this morning made me want to barf. It totally sucked. The other interview went well (at least in my mind) and is something I'd be into so I'm really crossing my fingers. Do a prayer for me. You know, how church congregations will all pray for a sick member and supposedly the power of so many prayers works wonders or something. That's what I need.

2/13/00
I'll admit that these crackers are pretty tasty and I do admire the dried shrimp heads tossed in, but they don't seem to be cheering me up like the package suggests they might. Truth in advertising, my ass. I have not been thrilled with much lately. A few things have made me smile a little though: Seeing a grown woman reading an Olsen Twins paperback mystery. I didn't catch the title, but the words "Trenchcoat Twins" largely placed on the back were enough. I have no idea whether or not she was a native English speaker--not that that would justify her choice of rading material. Either way it's funny. This will not be funny if you are unfamiliar with N.Y. neighborhoods and I didn't even see it first hand, but it's amusing to me, nonetheless. I will preface this with the statement that Williamsburg is a neighborhood in Brooklyn that has become this grotesquely overpriced foul area teeming with hipsters and trust funders and it gets written up like every other week in some paper or magazine because it's like so bohemian and cool and that's odd because I didn't realize that paying $1,000 for a crappy studio was cutting edge. The L train goes from Manhattan to Brooklyn and the first stop is Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg and like 75% of the train gets off there. 20% get off within the next two stops. The remaining 5% are mostly non-white, probably don't work for an internet company, and are not likely to be in a band or refer to themselves as artists. I get off at the ninth stop. People are always defacing the subway ads and it's usually pretty juvenille stuff like drawing a turd coming out of Hugh Grant's ass and a word balloon reading, "My wife is slammin' but I still like to get with the hos." Yeah, it's dumb, but it cracks me up late at night (and in the morning and in the afternoon). Well, my friend Jessica saw that someone had written some lame ass pretentious diatribe next to one of these defacings that went on for paragraphs about the unintelligence of the person who had done it. Now here's my candidate for the funniest graffiti of the year--right next to the diatribe was written, "You're so smart you must get off at the Bedford stop." Pardon my lapse into regional anecdotal humor, but it's all I have right now.

2/7/00
I'm supposed to be writing cover letters at the moment, but here I am scribbing away instead. I just can't seem to motivate myself. I've semi-told myself that I should send out two resumes a week just for the sake of doing it, but my fear is that one of these times I'll actually get one of the jobs and I'll just end up hating it. No one believes me, but I swear I'd be perfectly happy being a housewife. Not a stay-at-home mom, mind you. A housewife. I wouldn't get bored and I know I'd have a sweeter disposition. I don't get as much personal mail as I used to. I mean, I don't do a zine anymore and I don't write people like a fiend like in the old days. I haven't even been doing so well with email. I just don't have the patience and concentration that I used to. It's sad. But I was pleased to get a cd this weekend from Owen in San Francisco. He's a good egg as far as I can tell. He has this band Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and I like it, but I don't want to really describe it because that's tricky business and I hate saying the wrong thing. As you can imagine it involves a keyboard and some lyrics. If you want to know more you should drop Owen a line or something. I was happy to see a photo of myself on the inside cover. I'm a poster child for the painfully alone (literally). One could do worse. I guess I will attempt to work on my cover letters now. Maybe I'll eat a Cadbury Egg first. (Don't even get me started on the absurdity of Easter candy already being displayed when it's not yet Valentine's Day).

2/6/00
I fear sounding like some n.y. old-timer. Really, I have no right since I haven’t even been here quite two years yet, but so what. Leshko’s was this dirty little 24 hour Ukranian diner on Ave. A. I ended up there with Henry Thomas on our one and only fun-filled evening together. I can still see him all blood-shot eyes, swallowing down kielbasa, spinach and fries, and commenting on the young waitress’s hotness like it was yesterday. Some folks decided to to revamp Leshko’s and make it swank and I just don’t know if I approve of that. They’ve now got chairs designed by Eero Saarinen and a not-so-cheap faux home cooking menu with things like meatloaf and pot pie, perfectly catered to a city of upwardly mobile, dot.com, 20-somethings with money to burn. Of course this didn’t stop me from checking the place out fri. night. I had the chicken pot pie and mashed potatoes and it was perfectly fine, but dinner and drinks for 2 ended up being just shy of $60. I know that Henry and I had an under $10 experience even though I didn’t pay the bill personally (I’d run out of money and he had to pay for my french toast. What a stalker faux pas). Sometimes I wish things would just be left alone. There's no real need to upscale everything in this city. On the other extreme, sat. afternoon I headed down to New York Noodle Town and had a rocking good time. I'd been wanting to go there for a while and finally got it together this weekend. Little did I know that I picked the craziest day of the year to go, as it was the Chinese New Year. New York Noodle Town is the kind of place with roasted ducks and pigs hanging in the window, where meat cleavers and chopping blocks abound, and a nice bowl of noodle soup filled with all sorts of meaty delights will set you back a mere $3.50. They even had frog porridge. I say that's the mark of a good restaurant. Afterwards, I got a bag of green cotton candy, picked up some Asian pastries and got some photo stickers made, and all was great. Now, I’m here at work on a sun. I can’t say I’m too thrilled about that. It’s double pay so I often agree to it, but when it’s actually sun. morning and it’s all nice and toasty in bed and all blustery and snowy outside, I usually regret my choice.

2/4/00
What ever happened to Groundhog Day? Wasn't it the 2nd? I didn't hear a single thing about the groundhog seeing his shadow or not and it's really bugging me. Urgh, I've been feeling scattered and brain injured lately. I have abolutely no concentration skills. I fucked up the main Project Me page by deleting something minor and now I can't even remember how to put it back the right way. I wasn't all that fond of my photo, anyway, but it would be nice if I could figure out what I did to it. Oh, and I started school this week. I'm so-so on the whole idea. School, isn't the problem right now, it's my job. It's killing me. I mean, each day is excruciating. I'm not even going to detail why, it just is. It's one of those things where you don't love you job, you're inifferent, but then one day you just snap and from then on it's unbearable. You know, once you've realized/decided that you loathe something, there's just no going back. And when you spend 35 hours a week in a constant state of annoyance and anger, it's hard to find the energy to do anything exciting or worthwhile. For the past month I've been mad all day and tired all night. Finding the time and energy to even write a little blurb here has been difficult. I'm hoping something gives soon.

2/2/00
I am jinxed. This is the second time in my life that my friend Jessica has called me and mentioned something about thinking she has a bladder infection and I say something about how I'm prone to them, but haven't had one for a long time and wake up the next morning with one and she's fine. I feel the need to blame my poor urinary health luck on her somehow. Ow, ow, ow--I just od'd on generic Aleve and it's giving me severe back and kidney pains. If there's anyone else out there who gets intense back pains whenever they take more than the recommended dosage of over the counter painkillers, let me know because I'm starting to get alarmed. This always happens so I should know better by now. O.k., enough of my medical woes. It hasn't seemed appropriate or relevant to talk about my former crush/stalkee for a while since I suppose we're an item now and that's boring as heck to hear about. I just wanted to say one thing here. He doesn't read this stuff much, only bits and pieces, and usually out of context. I've said a million things about him (flattering and otherwise), but for some reason the big thing that gets his goat is the fact that someplace, I don't even remember where, I called him a "bad egg." (Obviously, he hasn't read much if that's the worst thing he could find.) So, for the record, James Robb (he also isn't so keen on my using his full name so freely), is no longer a bad egg and if he actually took the time to do his homework, he'd notice that back in the day (my birthday to be exact) even when I wasn't too thrilled with him I referred to him as a GOOD EGG. Er, then I also started pondering stuff that was too mushy and creepy to write at the time. There's still no time and place for that. I've got to keep some dignity, and besides, I've got a rancid bladder to occupy myself with at the moment.

2/1/00
Ah...Superbowl Sunday. Well, I suppose it was a couple days ago. I actually watched the darn thing and ate homemade buffalo wings and blue cheese dressing til I almost puked. It was all fine and dandy. Somehow I managed to leave for work fri. morning and didn't attempt to go home til late sun. night. I'd just polished off the last of the wings, "The Sopranos" were over and I was gathering my stuff up to leave when I realized that my keys were missing. I don't know what my problem is with losing keys. Actually, it's been about year since the last major key loss incident. For a while after that, I only put them in the little zipped up pocket of my bags, but lately I've been slacking and keeping them in my coat pockets again. Bad idea. I had a fit. I mean, since fri. I had been to four bars, one restaurant, and one party. At practically all of these places my coat was dropped, dragged and/or inadvertently tossed about. I just hate having to deal with this kind of crap. Luckily, I had someone else who was willing to call around for me, desecribing the poor lost set of keys with the E.T. chain. Unbelievably, they had been turned in at Teddy's, this restaurant/bar in Brooklyn. It was a miracle. The not so thrilling thing was that it was 11:30 and I was in Manhattan (though only 2 stops away) and they only stay open til 12 am on Sundays and the L train was running only every 20 minutes due to construction. I almost had an anxiety attack. Fortunately, I didn't. I've noticed lately that I only seem to have spazz outs when I'm alone. If someone else is around, I take annoying situations with a grain of salt. Now, the really annoying thing was that there was this guy, a friend of a friend, who was out with me and coworkers and whoever else on fri. night. He was driving me batty with his irritating personality. You couldn't help but want to slug him and I can't even begin to explain why. At one point I went to the bathroom and when I came back he'd totally taken my seat (this is extremely bad form--I know another guy who constantly does the same thing. He's been dubbed "the seat stealer" due to his bad behavior). I know this is petty, but it can make you crazy. Not only did he steal my seat, but he'd thrown my coat all willy-nilly. I couldn't even find it when we got up to leave. This is the place where my keys were found and I 100% blame their loss on this fellow. So, I got them back 5 minutes before midnight on Sunday and now all is well (relatively).