Last night I dreamt...about bowling??

Here's what Dream Moods has to say about that:

"To dream that you are bowling, refers to the strikes, hits, and misses in your life. Perhaps you are expressing some regrets if you are bowling a bad game. And if you are bowling strike after strike, then it suggests that you are on your way toward a successful future. It may also be a pun on your striking performance and/or stellar ability.

To dream that you bowl a gutter ball, suggests that you are stuck in a rut and need to make some changes of where your life is headed.

Alternatively, bowling and bowling alleys may also be a metaphor for sexual conquest. Consider all the sexual innuendos that are at play in the bowling alley. The pin deck is symbolic of the womb or vagina (as is with with any dark receptacle like caves, bowls, containers, etc.) The pins and bowling balls, can be viewed as masculine symbols."

All I can remember is that at first the balls were made of foam, like Nerf balls. There were finger holes and different sized balls and everything, just like real bowling balls, except they were Nerfy. I bowled with them for a while, probably not doing very well, before I decided I needed a real, shiny, heavy bowling ball. I think the one I chose was yellow. Very shiny. Very heavy. Very real.

Little known fact: I was on the bowling team in 11th grade. Very briefly. Just long enough to learn that there's a method to bowling, but not quite long enough to "get" the method.

I do not want your cheap jewelry or fake handbags

Maybe it's my fault for working in Soho, so-ho close to Canal Street and it's fakies. Those guys just wanna sell their wares. Their cheaply made, trashy looking, sometimes illegal wares.

Do I look like I want your fake gold chains? Do I look like I want to buy a knock-off Coach bag for $50 when the the real ones are only $250?? Do I look like those orange complexioned, badly highlighted Jersey broads that come to the city strictly to hit Canal Street? Like, that's all New York has to offer, fake hand bags? I admit I have champagne taste and a beer budget, but I'm not going to use my beer budget to buy street refuse. I'll let the Jersey girls do that so they can save their money for the "tanning" salon and Fantastic Sam's "salon".

#1 Crush

I hated Garbage when I was in high school. They were too trendy for my tastes. But I just couldn't resist "#1 Crush". They played it at the Castle, Tampa's finest goth club, every weekend. I was out there with the rest of the goths, prancing and flitting about the dance floor while Shirley Manson cooed about her obsession. I still pretty much love the song, though I'm less likely to be found prancing to it in a goth club. Just less likely, mind you, not entirely impossible.

A lot of the goth girls at the Castle look like this one:

In some ways I do pity tourists

I usually hate them. They are the slow walkers that I must elbow through to walk at even a normal human pace, or to get into my apartment building, or into a store. Never mind trying my usual breakneck speed on Broadway. People'd be getting whiplash left and right. There are some moments that I feel for them, a bit. Such as when they try so hard to do things that only regular New Yorkers can pull off successfully, like public transportation. Cabs, particularly. They don't know how to hail cabs. They can't tell which ones are open, and even if they could they wouldn't know how to get it to pick them up.

I walk by a couple of hotels on my work walk. There's one on Broome at the corner of Bowery where I constantly see tourists coming and going. Many seem to be European, though there are the odd Midwesterners here and there. Such as the ones I saw last night, standing on the corner, trying in vain to hail a cab. There was about eight of them, all adults. The first I noticed of them as I approached the crossing at Bowery was the bearded one with his hand out in the air yelling "Taxayyyy!". Ah, bless. He was trying so hard. But honest to god, when have you ever been in a moving car, probably with the radio on, not to mention the sounds of the road outside, and heard someone outside yelling? Where does this ever work? And the whistling? Do they get this from television? That's the only place I've ever seen it work. Why do they do this on television and mis-lead the poor tourists?

Every cab that drove by they were sure it was "the one", or "ones", rather, as they were a large group that would require splitting up. "You guys take that one", they said to each other, as if anyone was going to get into the cab with the off duty lights on, or no lights on at all. They had so much faith that each of these off duty or full cabs would stop for them, and seemed so surprised and hurt when they just kept driving by.

I wanted to help them, but knew it would never stick. In their few days in the big city they would never get that "Off Duty" lights mean that the cab is off duty, that no lights mean the cab has a fare in it, that the numbered lights mean the cab is available. How did I learn these things? Trial and error? Watching friends do it? Sometimes I feel bad when I successfully, easily hail a cab when I see someone else struggling, but then I feel like a superior, evil New Yorker. Hey, someone's gotta embody the stereotype, might as well be me.

Soulja Boy vs. Church Boy

Godtube is my new favorite website.

Killer Klown v. Marcia Wallace

Does anyone else see the resemblance? My advice: Don't accept candy from Marcia Wallace.

Stretchy

I'd like to think that people can change for the better. That they want to change. Not just little self improvement things like, oh I'm going to take a class to learn Chinese and become more cultured, or hey I'm going to try not to elbow slow walkers on the sidewalk so much, or, ya know, maybe I'll try not to snap at my mother all the time. Those are like, small potato resolutions. They're not nothing, but they aren't such a stretch for basically decent people.

It's the stretch I'm interested in. The ones that need to make a massive change in lifestyle in order to even touch the bottom rung of the healthy social interaction ladder. I would like to have faith in the stretchy kind of change. Conscious, effortful, meaningful change. The kind where you realize, gee, I'm a shitty person, I treat people pretty badly, even the ones that care about me! And then you decide you don't want to be a shit anymore. And you don't just say, yeah I know I'm an asshole. You actually STOP BEING AN ASSHOLE. You stop manipulating and threatening and generally torturing those around you. Simply saying you're a better person, well those words certainly sound pretty, but it doesn't really mean anything when your actions are speaking the opposite loud and clear.

It's so hard for me to believe in the stretchy change. There's just so much ugly in the world. Domestic violence, gangs, world wars. Those people need to stretch themselves. And those assholes, the ones who say they've changed while they sharpen their talons behind their backs (yet still in plain sight), well, they don't so much bolster my faith.

Obvious, but oh so apt

I took down my previous post in an act of basic human kindness. Here is something good to entertain you in its place.



If you, like me, can't listen, then please enjoy these lyrics:

You walked into the party
Like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror
As you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner
They'd be your partner, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

You had me several years ago
When I was still quite naive
Well, you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved
And one of them was me
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

Well, I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well, you're where you should be all the time
And when you're not, you're with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and

You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?

Nomadic Homebody

I've just spent two weeks cat sitting for Josh and Andrea while they embarked on a cross country trip to deposit their car with Andrea's parents in Pasadena. They have a splendid two bedroom(ish) apartment in Little Italy, deliciously decorated by Andrea. It gets completely dark in the bedroom at night that way that I love; well not country dark, but damn dark for New York, and certainly darker than my room, into which shines the resplendence of various street lamps and decorations. On top of that, there's a delightful generator of some kind outside the bedroom window which provides the best white noise that money can't buy. I've been known to run my air conditioner and/or space heater specifically for the white noise. AND their apartment is that much closer to my office, so I got to sleep later!

Nevertheless, I got homesick. I always get homesick when I'm away from my home. My home, with my bed and my rug and my books and my loud noises and bright lights intruding on my sleep. Not just my city of residence, or country. I've been in New York this whole time, but I was still homesick. I even get homesick at sleepovers. Always have, and I guess always will. Not just like, man I wish I was in my own cozy bed, but more like, man I feel like an alien when I don't rest my head on my own pillow. I remember sometimes calling my mother to pick me up early from sleepovers when I was a kid, occasionally I made something up to refuse the sleepover invite altogether, I hated spending the weekend at my father's house in a foreign bed.

I stopped by my apartment a few times over the past couple of weeks to say hello, sit on my bed, look around and be comforted by it all. I came over to the LES on the weekend just to have coffee at my cafe. Little Italy is close in proximity, but a far cry from the LES that I've come to quite love.

At the same time, though, I feel like a bit of a nomad. I like living in different places, setting up shop and making new friends and seeing what's out there; visiting is fun, but there's always that heart tugging feeling after a few days. The beginning of a new place is always painful, that newness of a new city or apartment, but that place, eventually, becomes my home. Home is where the heart is, and I carry my heart with me wherever I go. Silly to leave it behind somewhere.

Same Day Hangover

Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? Getting a hangover the very same day, rather than the next day? This would assume that you had been drinking rather early in the day, say, starting at 3:30 or so, having cocktails at Soho Grand. Not that this is something I do often. But I did it today, and my god almighty do I ever have a splitting goddamn headache. And I've gotten same day hangovers before, days when we have a happy hour of sorts at work. Fuck I think I am even nauseous. Fucking hangovers. Demon alcohol. And I only had three drinks!

Nietzsche's Will to Power - Who'da thought?

This is the song that we practiced to in my ballet class, to do our little ballet girl stretches and things. Plies, arabesques, positions one through five. I think that's pretty much it. I never made it to the en pointe level. Our instructor's name was Dina, a frightfully skinny girl, and the Mayor's daughter, Moira I think her name was, was in our class. She wasn't very good, as I recall. Nor was my younger sister, who, during the recital, kept her eyes on me because she didn't remember the moves. There's still a recital video somewhere in the world.



I wanna tell that lady singer I lover her white onesie.

I'm a Selfish Bitch

The weather is pretty lovely, isn't it? I think it is. A bit windy right now, gusty in fact; I was nearly blown over just now when I went for coffee (last night when I checked accuweather.com it had this little swirly graphic and I wasn't sure what it was, but now I certainly know). If it was cold out, as cold as it should be in mid January during which the average high is 38 degrees, my little nose and mouth and ears and fingertips would be like little popsicles. Instead, I carried an iced latte in each hand, no prob.

So as I was saying, it's pretty lovely out. And I'm enjoying it. It makes me smile for no reason in particular. I only realize how depressed harsh winter weather makes me when spring rolls around and I turn into Miss Happy Pants, totally out of character for my usually surly self. The selfish part is, I'm enjoying this lovely spring weather in the winter, even though I know it spells doom for the environment. Such drastic changes in the weather seriously screw with local ecosystems (e.g., birds and their migration patterns), and the ripple effect is worldwide. This NASA article complete with map of the meltation, paints a pretty scary picture, though this National Geographic article on climate change on Mars implies it's not just humanity's nasty habits causing the warm-up.

Having a Stevie Wonder Day

This morning when I stopped into Kitchen Commune for a disgusting, watery iced coffee to get me through the morning, Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" was playing overhead. How lovely to start the day with a little Stevie, I thought, as I poured bucketsful of cream and sugar into the mess in my cup. I requested more Stevie when I got to the office, and received the incomparable Innervisions. THEN, get this, when I went into ol' Jubilee across the street on my lunch break, "Part Time Lover", like the best song EVER which will surely be included on my final Love Jam playlist, was playing! In fact, they played a few Love Jam kinda songs while I was there, which made me happy since I'm hella excited about Love Jam, but I will not reveal any further songs from my setlist. Unless you are Ross or Laura, who might accidentally play the same songs.

Gone, But Not Forgotten

My lip piercing closed up. It was an accident, I wasn't actually ready to let it go yet. How apt for it to close up with the beginning of a new year. My lip seemed to be forcing it out; for a few days surrounding New Year's it felt tight and wouldn't move around like it usually does. So I took it out, for a little rest, see? I've had it out for days at a time before and it only took a little pop to get it back in. Not so this time. I took it out last Wednesday night and when I tried to put it in last night, no deal. No popping through. I met a wall of fleshly resistance. I tried and tried and started to get light headed from the thought of pushing through the flesh with that dull ring edge so then I gave up. Auf wiedersehen, lip piercing. You turned heads in my direction for a solid eight years.

A New York State of Mind

New York has a funny little way of bringing people together. Not in that "the city is a melting pot" kind of way, but more in a "Jesus, I never imagined/dreamed/feared I would ever see that one again". At the deli, on the corner, in your subway car, coming out of the bathroom; you name it, my ex boyfriend/high school acquaintance/old customer from a store I worked at in Florida, has been there.

A couple of months ago when I was eating a veggie wrap at the deli across from my office, I looked outside and saw Mike Herrero standing on the sidewalk getting ready to cross the street. Mike was a senior when I was a junior. That was the one year I went to Gibbs, a magnet school with an arts program. I was not in the program, by the way. I had been warned against Mike before beginning there, warned that he was a tool. I don't think we used the "tool" in quite that sense back in those days, but it perfectly fits the image of Mike that I was presented. Though he was a senior, we shared two out of six classes: Anatomy & Physiology, and Twentieth Century American History. Eric Gehring was also in that history class, but we'll get to him later. I liked Mike. I didn't think he was a tool at all. He and Eric made me an amazing mixed tape a few weeks after school started; sadly, I've lost it. They were both in the visual arts program, so they decorated it up all nice. It had a lot of songs from the Basquiat soundtrack, and some other stuff. I think I left it behind on a visit to Massachusetts that summer. Once, after I asked him if his father's name was Luis (which it was; he was a therapist who had an office on the main road that I drove on every day, "Luis Herrero" the sign said), he drew me a picture showing me being s sneaky spy, driving by his dad's office in my mom's mini-van. It was pretty amazing.

One day Mike and I contrived to switch shirts in our science class. My poor brain cannot recall how we pulled this stunt off, but we did (he was a small, skinny boy; still is, actually). I believe it went something like this: We hid behind a lab table at the back of the class. Mike took his shirt off and put a jacket on. I took his shirt to the bathroom, changed into it, and brought him my shirt to put on. Mine was a brown thin sweater kind of thing I'd gotten at a thrift store (I'd gotten everything I owned at a thrift store); his I believe was a navy blue shirt of a similar bent. When I came back my teacher gave us this very...confused look. But I was his pet, as I was with most of my teachers. Mike moved to Chicago to go to art school after he graduated. I saw him and some of the other seniors a couple of times when they visited the following year, but then lost touch with most everyone. None of that email exchanging the kids are doing these days!

So anyway, when I saw him I shoved the remainder of my wrap in my bag and ran outside. "Mike? Mike Hererro?" He was struggling. Not even a glimmer. "We went to school together?" "Ohhhh yeahhhhhhh!" Fake recollection. Like, oh yeah, I totally remember when we met that one time on a street corner seventeen years ago. Then again, he was a pretty massive stoner. "We went to Gibbs? Carina?" "Oh shit! Yeah! Whoa!" Seemed genuine, but I've played the fool before. "So uh, yeah." "Yeah." And that was pretty much it. I gave him Eric Gehring's number, as they'd been out of touch for some time, and went back to work.

Eric Gehring is a magician in New York. He goes by the name "Stuart Palm". I discovered this when one day I walked by the 4th Ave. entrance to Halloween Adventure and saw a flier. I knew that he lived in New York before I came here. He'd gone to art school in Maryland, but moved here after that. We'd reconnected via Friendster, but not any any deep level, and pretty much lost touch again. I had a major crush on Eric in high school. He was just the coolest art fag EVER. But he was dating this horribly vapid, soulless girl, Sarah Dennis. I think she went to Reed, maybe Sarah Lawrence. No, Reed.

I was grounded once for spending the night at Eric's house after poker night. Little does my mom know that I slept on the couch and Ashley slept with Eric. Little does my mom know what a good girl I was, and how her insane paranoia turned me into a slutty pre-marital sex having, birth control popping, drug experimenting god hater. Pardon the tangent. I probably kept in touch with Eric the most his first year away. I would send him envelopes full of random magazine and newspaper clippings, words, stories, pictures. It was fun, and he loved them.

I can't recall where I first randomly ran into Eric, but it was not long after I moved here since his number was in my old phone. I do recall that once, maybe last summer, I went into Halloween Adventure and discovered that he actually works in the magic department there. The last time I ran into him was a few months ago in front of Arlene's Grocery. I was doing laundry across the street and he was on his way to Piano's for karaoke.

John McCord is another one from Gibbs that I run into. He was a year below me in school. I may have had a crush on Eric, but John made me swoon. So dreamy. And, I thought, the best artist. He went to Cooper Union, and is some kind of art dealer now. I learned that the last time I ran into him a few months ago (fall was a popular time for running into Gibbers, I guess) just outside of 88 with Eric Sosnoff, who apparently also lives in New York. This Eric went to the university I dreamed of going to, and even thought about transferring to after my freshman year, St. John's in Maryland. Eric was a bit arrogant in an annoying and completely not sexy way. I mean, arrogance can be sexy, but he was just a prick. The time before that that I saw John was about a year ad a half ago, on Houston, outside of that sushi restaurant between Ludlow and Essex. James was on the phone and I was looking around, and there was John, leaning up against the wall and smoking. He had left a date inside the restaurant.

Not long after I moved here I ran into Aaron Schultz somewhere in the East Village. I don't recall where, because I was thoroughly unfamiliar at that point. We exchanged numbers, but I haven't spoken with him since. He's on my AIM list, and I must be on his, but we never chat. Aaron was in the writing program at Gibbs. He was one of the foursome that also included myself, my friend Renee Horner, and my sort of first boyfriend Joe Burnett, who went to get our tongues pierced at the same time. Me, Renee, and Aaron were 15, Joe was 16. I nearly passed out when they pierced me with the 10 gauge; that size actually takes a chunk of tongue out rather than just making a hole. Me and Aaron switched tongue bars once; his was much longer than mine so it was hard to even close my mouth properly. He played around with his so much that he enlarged his hole enough to just slide the whole barbell through, no need to unscrew one side. I wonder if he still has his in.

I'm sure there are more Gibbers that I've run into that I'm not thinking of, but maybe it's time to move on to my alma mater, Largo High. I'm pretty sure there's definitely only been one, everyone else stayed in the Largo area to get pregnant or get someone pregnant. It was Shane E. I only give an initial for him because I do not want him to find my blog. I don't care if anyone else does. But not him. I didn't run into Shane, I ran AWAY from Shane. This was quite a while ago, when I was still working at Borders on Park Ave. I was sick so went to Duane Reade on my break to get some medicine. I got in line behind someone. Who looked so familiar from behind...I'm eerily good at recognizing people from behind. He was a bit pudgier than before, had some muffin top over the jeans, but it was surely him. I inched away, ninja-like, and then booked to the furthest corner of the store until I was sure he'd be gone. He didn't do me wrong, Shane. Not so much. He was just so annoying. We were friends for a time, sure, but it was him and Caca that were close, not him and me. And apparently he'd done some ill to Ca in the recent enough past to really justify the dislike.

Now, some of you may qualify the following as him having done me wrong, but I don't. There was this boy my freshman year of college, Clark. He was dating a girl named Elaine. But he liked me. I did that thing that I do sometimes, where I know a boyfriend likes me, so I become really close with his girlfriend, I become close to them as a couple. It's a weird thing. I haven't done that in a while. Don't you ladies get scared of me! I'm a good girl! Anyway, Clark broke up with Elaine. She was pretty nuts, and it was a pretty stupid casual relationship anyway. But then he set his sights on moi. That was back when I was still completely terrified of boys. Now I'm only moderately afraid. But then, I wasn't having it, no sir, not one bit. Long story short, he told me he liked me, asked if I liked him, I told him no, and he was cool with it. Ok, cool. Thennn, he starts to hang out with Shane, who I'd introduced him to. Yep, they started dating. And like, kept it hidden from me. One day I was walking to my dorm from the dining hall and lo, there was Shane and Clark in Shane's car, me crossing in front of them in the crosswalk, pretending not to see them, seeing me. I think I had a banana in my hand.

So, speaking of Borders, HERE'S a crazy one, maybe the craziest. When I worked at the store in Tampa there was this really aggro man that would come in and sort of storm around, looking scary. He seemed a very Type A, alpha make kind of guy, late 30s, business professional. Matt once caught him with a little brown bag, drinking a bottle of beer in the store. The guy was not small, but Matt was bigger, and he made him pour it out and leave. So I move to New York, and I'm working at Borders, and I keep seeing someone that looks exactly, no I mean exactly like this guy. I see him eyeing me too, so one day I ask him if he used to live in Tampa, and duh, of course, it's the same fucking guy. We had a little laugh, and didn't speak again after that.

This blog post is getting too hella long. To be continued...

Obligatory Resolutions

Some goals for aught 8.

1. Continue to avoid stepping in Chinatown loogies (this is an especially challenging one at the moment, as I am cat sitting for Andrea and Josh who live in Little Italy where it meets Chinatown, and there's absolutely NO WAY to avoid the loogie laden streets via detour.)

2. Continue to not do drugs frequently, and also be more alert so as to make sure friends do not drug my beverages.

3. Participate in more Jams with the family.

4. Attempt to halt the continuing growth of my booty.

5. Become a rock star, or a rock star's girlfriend.

6. Get married and have a baby. Oh wait, that's the resolution of the other 99.3% of women in New York, sorry.

7. Write the next Great American Novel.

8. Try to get into grad school, or whatever.

The end