what they're really trying to say is...

okay, forget fan mail to sean nelson (film editor and writer for the stranger). try love letter.

check this out.

now.

countdown of the ridiculous.

i have a date with mystery boy tonight. i'm several shades of apprehensive about it, all stupid.

the disappointment center goes into overdrive. i really hope i live up to a better expectation than he's got, but i fear it's more likely that i somehow won't measure up.

arg.

grumble.

where is my self-esteem today? where is my confidence? goddamnit, i am a firece and fabulous female, i know this, so why am i so out of my tree about this?

actually, i know why. it's the same reason it always is. god, what i wouldn't give to silence that particular train of thought.

i want a cigarette. but i've got stick dancing at 1. and it's sufficiently hardcore that if you don't go in with clean lungs, you will, in fact, die.

come on, people, i know a few of you read this thing. i need a pep talk here! i've got six hours and fifteen minutes to psych myself up for this event. i need all the help i can get.

100 things about me (part 2)

welcome to installment number two of "100 things about shivery!" before i continue, i must clarify something: seastreet, i was being literal when i said i was afraid of flying. i'm far too egotistical and self-important to mean it metaphorically! and it's true, i do kind of fly a lot. i just sedate myself heavily, pray, and know that whatever awaits me on the other end is going to be completely worth the hell of the travel experience.

but, if i had my druthers, i'd go all over the bloody planet by train.

and now, back to the show...

51. i think that this is my favorite song lyric in the world today: don't compare me to the other ones, your oh-so-perfect lovers, they're so civilized, civilized, civilized, they are MORONS la de da de da de da de da da, i'm so la de da. that's by echobelly. isn't it brilliantly bitchy?

52. i don't drink enough water.

53. i am incredibly indecisive.

54. if i had to pick one genre of food to take to the desert island with me, it would definitely be sushi.

55. i would be thoroughly content if rachael leigh cook dropped off the face of the planet completely.

56. i wonder if the tom robbins who writes for the village voice is the same tom robbins who wrote skinny legs and all.

57. i am a pisces.

58. i have a theory that the infamous they are using the imperceptible pulses of fluorescent lights to impart subliminal messages.

59. i have severe and terrible issues with my appearance. ridiculously so.

60. i have never been in therapy, though more than one person has suggested i seek it.

61. i worry that the real world is beating the wacky out of me.

62. i suck at keeping up with correspondence.

63. i have an overdeveloped guilt center.

64. i am frequently lonely.

65. i am easily pleased.

66. i have a great fear of abandonment.

67. i think that early morning light is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

67a. i also think that the light in winter is completely different than the light in summer and i love them both.

68. i hate packing.

69. i like my new passport photo.

70. i have seriously contemplated writing a fan letter to sean nelson (a columnist for the stranger). love him.

71. i am slowly becoming an expert in walking in high heels.

72. i have a huge head. literally. buying hats is a futile endeavor for me.

73. my head is also completely flat.

74. i'm one of those people who's convinced they'll get a nosebleed if they venture about 23rd st.

75. the greatest thing you'll ever learn is how to love and be loved in return. yep.

76. i am frequently tempted to cut off all my hair.

77. i wonder what's going to happen to me.

78. i think that if i were a man, i'd be the best boyfriend ever.

79. i am occasionally very aware of my breasts.

80. i don't really want to be at work today.

81. i hope that the roommate remembered to turn the coffeemaker off.

82. i don't have a favorite color, though i am not particularly fond of the color yellow.

83. i smoke too much.

84. i worry a lot about disappointing people.

85. my favorite names are: sebastian, violet, ruby, jack, nigel (shut up), katrina. if i changed my name, though, i'd probably change it to bridget. i don't think i could carry off ruby, quite.

86. i think my liver may have stopped working.

87. if i were an animal, i would be a cat. or possibly a lemur.

88. i love chinese embroidered silks.

89. if i were going to save three objects from my burning apartment, they would be my guitar (the old one), my cel phone (my life is in there), and the box of magazine photos under my bed.

90. i am very paranoid about the prospect of my apartment burning down.

91. my favorite flowers are lilies.

92. i'm left-handed.

93. i had a little tumor cut out of my arm last year, and the remaining scar looks exactly like a cigarette burn.

94. i'm terribly uncoordinated and fall over a lot.

95. i like to walk. i hate to run.

96. if i were a superhero, i'd want to be jean grey.

97. i would really like to own a vespa.

98. i know that there's a difference between being by yourself and being alone. i don't ever want to be alone.

99. i would be really pleased if someone someday somewhere wrote a song about me.

100. i wish i could stop disappointing myself.

-and, a bonus, for all you good little boys and girls who've made it this far-

101. very little makes me happier than making other people happy.

and there you go.

questions? comments? you know what to do.

100 things about me (part 1)

i'm currently enraptured by this diary. so, i am stealing a concept from it, entitled "100 things about myself." it will come in a series of installments.

so, ms. claiborne bluering girly girl, thank you for the idea.

1. i think that nature made a grave mistake by not making me a natural redhead.

2. i love bad teen movies.

3. i want to be a rock star.

4. i have relationship issues with sleep.

5. i have friends that are worthy of lying down in traffic for.

6. i have former friends and enemies for whom traffic is too good. even boston traffic.

7. i pride myself on being the pedestrian from hell.

8. i have seven pairs of black boots.

9. my underwear drawer is the most colorful part of my room right now.

10. i think that the new york subway is one of the best things ever.

11. i want to learn about wine.

12. i sometimes wish i could grow sideburns, just so i could show those boys how it's done.

13. i had the biggest crush on luke skywalker for years.

14. i am prone to obsession.

15. i have no qualms about completely rearranging my life to help out someone that i really love.

16. i wish i had the eye to be a graphic designer.

17. i want to be a singer.

18. i frequently don't like myself very much.

19. i frequently wonder what people are saying about me when i'm not around.

20. i have at least twenty photographs of me and roos making funny faces. we're really big on funny faces.

21. i think about the friends i had in high school at least once a week, wonder if they're happy and okay.

22. i think about people i knew in college at least once a week and wonder if they've burned through their trust funds yet.

23. i have many pairs of argyle socks.

24. i live for anarchy days at the office.

25. i outran tower two in four-inch heels. hurdled a park bench in the proceess.

26. i miss my kimmy.

27. i want to learn how to arc weld and play the violin.

28. i like comic books.

29. i'm scared to fly.

30. i'm a real sucker for an english accent.

31. i have the same photo on my driver's license as i've had since the age of sixteen.

32. my favorite drink right now is a raspberry vodka tonic.

33. sunday brunch is my favorite part of the week.

33a. with the possible exception of the thursday night session at swift's with the boys.

34. i love that the bartender at swift's knows my name and my drink as soon as i walk in the door.

35. i check my email compulsively.

36. i have an unhealthy fascination with britney spears.

37. i think my friend mica is one of the most beautiful girls in the world.

38. i sometimes worry that my emotional armor is getting too thick, and that when things make it in through the cracks they can't find their way out.

39. i hog the bed (but not the covers!)

40. i make fabulous risotto.

41. i also make pretty damn good carrot cake.

42. i like serving these items at dinner parties (move over, martha stewart!)

43. i don't like tea very much.

44. i tend to take showers that only require the use of the hot faucet.

45. i aspire to smelling like baked goods.

46. i hate being condescended to.

47. i am going to destroy the ice cream truck this summer.

48. i think reese witherspoon is absolutely brilliant.

49. i aspire to one day wallpaper a whole house with pages i've ripped out of magazines.

50. i want to go to prague.

there's fifty for you. tune in later for the next installment of....

100 things about shivery!

bullseye/15

so, there was indeed encountering with the boy last night. though i remained disgruntled for his irritating behavior several nights before, i believe in redemption and so gave him a call. i figured i'd give him an hour or so to redeem himself before giving up entirely.

and imagine my surprise when it turned out to be...a largely functional interaction. sure, it was a little weird at first. we hadn't seen each other in nigh on a week, and it had not been the cheeriest of partings. there was much in the way of tentative maneuverings, conversationally and otherwise.

then he suggested that we play darts.

the whole mood of the evening shifted at that point. if we didn't know what to do with each other for the first drink, it all suddenly became clear as soon as we started throwing down. conversation flowed more easily, cigarettes were shared, horrible shots giggled at (have i mentioned that i suck at darts?), jukebox strategies thoroughly discussed...it was suddenly comfortable again. i think we had a longer conversation than we'd ever had previously.

but wait, there's more! there was another turning point to be had. this is where the game got interesting, because the stake of the game was the last word in where we were going to spend the night.winner would get to choose. i was rooting for my apartment because, well, it's terribly close to my shower and i had to work today. he was rooting for his because it's two blocks away from the bar we were at. all valid reasons, across the board.

ah, but i won the game.

even so, though, we ended up at his apartment: he won me over by promising to drag his ass out of bed at 6 am and make me breakfast before i went home to get ready for work.

call me old-fashioned, but i'm easily charmed by a boy who offers to cook for me.

so, while i can't say that i currently understand this relationship quasi weirdness thing that's going on here, at least i think it's starting to find its own peculiar balance.

that doesn't mean it's going to cease to piss me off, though.

pornography. (no, not really)

don't you want to touch me there/don't you want to make me purr/want to see how far you'll get on charm and wit and on all fours/i want you to be my whim i want to hear your breath change shape/i'm not quite sure who's using who/but i think i know who'll be on top/i have no illusions about where we stand/i know we're different people by the light of day/so turn out the lights i know you know/what you're getting into in the dark with me/i want you to melt my bones/i want to make you forget your name/pin my hands against the wall/whisper bad things in my ear/i'll show you what i can do/i know what i can do to you/you'd never believe to look at me/but you've never seen me try/you tell me i'm good at what i do/ you should see what else i'm good at.

geek love.

i ran into someone yesterday who i really think i rather would not have. it happened in midtown (as so many unfortunate encounters do), just before the roommate's play (which, incidentally, was very good). there had been rumors of her lurking around the area, living for free in her grandmother's rent-controlled apartment on the upper west side. i figured that since i try really hard not to ever venture above 23rd st, i wouldn't have to worry.

and, of course, i was wrong.

i didn't notice her at first--i was wrestling a chunk out of this cookie i was mangling, a task which truly required herculean amounts of concentration, but she called my name and i had no choice. for a few fleeting seconds, i thought that maybe, just maybe, she would have somehow miraculously reverted to being human since college. not so, oh fleeting hope.

the true tragedy of this girl (to whom we shall refer as sashimi) is that once upon a time, she was fabulous. she knew a lot about art and dance and drugs and sex and when i first met her, i thought she was amazing. and then as time dragged on, she became vapid and superficial. everything was about one-upsmanship and how she was going to score drugs and that she was totally going to hook up with this boy because he was, like, so hot.

it got old fast.

lordy mama, i hate it when friendships just kind of stop. though i recognize that change and evolution are necessary steps in individual fulfillment, why is it that for so many people, that step basically involves the stripping of those things that make them so wonderful and the affectation of that which makes them "cool?"

perhaps this is why i'm so fond of geekers, be they closet or overt. they don't allow the social dictums of what constitutes "cool" to prevent their pursuit of the interesting, fun, esoteric and just plain truly "cool."

the play's the thing

it seems that the gods of building maintenance have finally seen fit to replace the fluorescent horrors that illuminate this office o' mine. it's quite exciting, as they've been half burnt out since i arrived in this job. of course, it's also kind of...odd. it makes the office seem suddenly very..tangy. and bright. and false. it feels as though i'm on a movie set. odd, definitely odd.

made odder by the fact that i just worked out with my boss--she has decided that the kickboxing thing works for her, so she came along with me.

let me tell you, your entire sense of right and wrong gets repolarized once you've seen your boss naked.

anyhoo.

tonight is the night where, in theory, i will get to see the payoff for coaching the roommate through several hours of disney evil purgatory. that's right, his play is tonight and i'm going to go, whistle, stomp my feet, cheer and just make a good show of proper roommate solidarity. i expect to see some serious return on the pain he and i have suffered with the great satan for the last few weeks.

i think i'll get him a bottle of vodka (he's pretty much allergic to flowers).

i have also invited a cavalcade of characters to go with me--the boyfriends (roos and biscuit) and the potential boy friend (the bass player in disgrace). we shall see, we shall see what happens indeed.

be your own patriot

the funny thing about the rest of the world is that once you've spent some quality time in new york, everything just looks so small. not wanting to malign the rest of the world, or anything, but it's true. i've been noticing it a lot since i've been here. in boston, even the skyscrapers seem modest, demure and just plain...well...short. it's very odd. because the whole world seems like that sometimes. i've noticed that it takes me a good two days to get used to the normalcy (relative) that is the rest of the world.

anyhoo.

my brother graduated from college on a bright but crisp (read: sunny but freezing) may day. that's today, actually. i'm very proud of him, which is the only reason that i and the rest of my family stuck around for the entirety of the ridiculous ceremony. i now have a new respect for the families that show up and sit through these things. i can't imagine what it's like for those parents who have children at institutions such as the university of california berkeley, where the graduating class is invariably something along the lines of 4,000 people. curry college had about 300 graduating, and it absolutely did my head in. after the class orator, the tripartisan and horrendously dull commencement speech and the mangled star spangled banner, it was all i could do to stick around until my brother's name was called.

upon which i grabbed my family and we ran for the lowlands in search of coffee and brownies. far, far away from the maddening hordes.

and now i sit in the "business center" of the quincy marriott, writing this entry and preparing myself for what will be the first furitive cigarette of the entire excursion.

mmmm, delicious.

i have no shoes on, i'l probably end up with pneumonia. whatever. bring on my nicotine!

oh, and this particular family excursion brought me face to face with my brother's girlfriend for the first time. she's lovely. more about her later.

kisses, petunias. off for some self pollution and frigid feet. more later.

it looks just like any other misty monkey valley.

so, here i am in boston, and thoroughly reassured that some things never change. in particular, mes parents. the redux?

zero to anguish in forty seven seconds.

i love my parents, but if i never have to drive anywhere with them ever again, it will be just fine with me. ever. it's absolutely amazing: take two rational (relatively) normal human beings, put them in a car. make one drive, one navigate, and don't forget that no one knows the local terrain nor has a map, and let the hilarity ensue. forty five minutes of driving back and forth on the goddamn 93 (or whatever it was)is enough to try anyone's patience, particularly when it's the same mistake getting made over

and over

and over again...

well, it's enough to try anyone's patience.

but whatever. patience is not the point of a family vacation. the point of a family vacation is to make you realize how calm and relaxing the rest of your life is by comparison.

oh, and for those of you who are wondering what boy did to disgrace himself? well, he made the cardinal blunder that people make when they interact with me. the dialogue went a little something like this:

boy: yeah, i have this mysterious bruise on my elbow. i'm getting so fragile in my old age! note: he's 29

me: come now. don't be so dramatic--you're really not that old.

boy: i'm older than you.

once he says this, i'm so dumbfounded i don't know what to say. what, am i too young? that doesn't seem to bother you when we...well. i'm sure you can imagine. and i'm fairly certain i've already discussed the fact that people commenting on my age (22) is just about the most offensive thing that can be done to me.

anyway. after that, raski jumped to the rescue with "everybody in this bar is older than she is. everybody in the world is older than she is!" that made me giggle.

anyway. after that, boy basically dropped out of our conversation to chat with some people at the next table.

disgraced, i tell you. disgraced.

it's funny--this particular development has pulled me out of boy-obsess mode just enough that i am currently regarding this all as a choose-your-own-adventure kind of novel.

what will happen next?

will he redeem himself?

will he disappear from the scene?

tune in later for the answers to these and other questions.

who would have thought.

boy has been disgraced, i daresay.

more on this later.

for now, i have to go pack (mmm, delicious)

kisses!

HEY, I'M TALKING ON A CELLULAR TELEPHONE!

just an aside:

i truly fear those hands-free mobile phone attachment thingies.

now there's just no way to differentiate the crazy from the conversational.

i mean, to the casual eye they're all just talking to themselves.

yeek!

fizzing like a pixie, take 2

i love photographs.

i just got back a roll of film that i've been working on since...oh...october. it's been very exciting. a tangible pile of my life in my hands.

it encompasses: office christmas party, kimmy's going away party, christmas in cali, biscuit's office christmas party, my birthday and raski's going-away party.

i guess i record only use images to record those moments i'm happy.

i use words and music to deal with everything else.

i'm really quite pleased about these photos. i like having evidence that, all evidence to the contrary, i have a life.

maybe i'll post some, if y'all are good little monkeys.

photographs fall firmly into that category of things that will make my brain implode if i stop to think about them too much. it's not so much that they, as many cultures believe, steal your soul. personally, i think of it less as stealing than crystallizing. like a bug stuck in amber. no, it's just that when you get right down to it, when you look at a photograph, you're looking at something that is, essentially, a sliced up piece of trapped light. because the way we see, we're never actually looking at something. we're looking at the light that reflects off of it. so, when you hold a picture in your hands, you're looking at the sunbeam (or flashbeam or lampshine) that never got away. and never will.

does that bake anyone's noodle the way it does mine?

crystallized light, people!

crystallized light!

and you may ask yourself, "how did i get here?"

i just had to give a presentation to big scary mucky-muck executive vp guy about one of the websites i've been working on.

he didn't like it.

it may need to be completely redone.

the back of my left eye is marching to its own joyous thud.

i really don't want to be here.

ghosts of the tilt-o-whirl

some conversations are just destined to chase themselves around in loops, i think. and this is fine. sometimes you don't actually want to get to the end of the path, because you have the distinct feeling that you don't want to find that particular pot of gold.

i had one of those conversations last night.

it was a very standard "this is what you should do in this situation" vs. "yeah, but this is what i will do in this situation because i'm utterly puss."

it's all a question of doubt and clarification. i cannot classify this mystery i experience, i don't even know if or what i want it to be. but i want it. at least for now. and i have no problem with it being a "for now" situation, even if that's all it ever is. but i want to know if that's what it is. i want to know what fizzles beneath the alien cranium. but i don't know quite how to get that information without levelling the card house. but i want it. i need it. partially because i'm nosy, partially because i need the validation.

ah, bollocks.

i think that the rest of this particular ramble is going to have to wait. y'all have been subjected to quite enough of this particular obsession for the time.

you're a grand old...

okay. this deserves some attention, simply because it really does push the limits of absurdity.

right. so, the background: there is a law on long island that states that a flagpole cannot be any taller than its distance to the street. this is to prevent it falling into the street and on to a car and causing chaos (apparently there was a real problem with this back in the day).

a man named kevin shine has a 25-foot flagpole in his front yard. the authorities are giving him trauma. here's what he has to say on the subject:

"The flag represents freedom and democracy," he said. "My father was an Iwo Jima survivor. I can't believe their priorities are so bent."

totally. what are traffic accidents in the face of symbolism? yeah. you tell 'em, kevin shine! tell those driver-loving' yanks that they can take their "safety" and stuff it!

the all seeing "i"

i now have in my possession a scary white kubrick pod phone.

i just feasted on west indian curry and magnolia cupcakes.

i fear that the rest of the day is going to be glacial in its pace.

i have roos' cd walkman with me. suddenly, my commute seems much less horrible.

i have a roll of film to drop off and several provisions to pick up.

i remain so tired that i feel drunk. though i've definitely sobered up since this morning.

i wonder what i'm going to do with myself this evening (or someone else, for that matter. hm!)

i can't wait to go to boston this weekend.

i just received my very own copy of breakfast at tiffany's. (v. excited!)

i think that your rising sign says more about you than your sun sign.

i believe that a nap will cure just about everything (and wouldn't i like one right now)

i think that people at large need to relax a little bit (that goes double for myself.working on it).

i think that this is definitely the quote of the day:

i miss alterna-pop music from the early nineties, particularly music from the summers of 1996 and 97 (my first driving summer and my last summer as a true resident of california)

i would like to throttle the voices in my head sometimes.

i want the world to hear what i have to say but i don't.

i want to finish this blasted song i've been writing.

i wonder just what it is i've turned into in the last year...

...because it sure as hell isn't anything i would have recognized before.

and i kind of like it.

who's that in that nasty car?

i will be the first to admit that the walt disney corporation is, indeed, a stalwart member of satan's legions. i will stand by that opinion until i die. what masquerades as good, wholesome family entertainment is little more than a series of extended commercials for products that are probably just going to splinter and kill little muffy anyway. or for the afflicted adults, trap them somewhere in a strange warp, where they are neither adult nor child nor grounded--adults with disney products (i'm talking about those with the fantasia collectors plates, the little mermaid statues or the embroidered donald duck shirts) strike me as hopelessly....well...middle america (and you know what i mean when i say middle america--the way i think about it, it's less a place than a state of mind)

BUT...

i have been reminded, rather painfully, of the fact that once upon a time disney was the cutting edge of entertainment. and it almost even delivered what it promised. i am thinking this because i have spent the last few days getting subjected to an endless loop of the opening sequence to cinderella. not by choice, mind you. this particular form of water torture comes courtesy of my roommate, who's in a play right now where he needs to spontaneously bust out into "a dream is a wish your heart makes." he doesn't know the song, and since he has no background in singing, he's asked me to help him.

weird, right? i'm someone's voice teacher.

anyway. having not been indoctrinated with this song since birth, he's having a little bit of trouble learning it. yes, ladies and gentlemen! once upon a time, before elton john became the patron saint of the uberbland, disney films actually featured songs that required effort! thought! some semblance of...something.

a far cry from the creamed rice they feed us today.

anyway. i don't really know where that rant went, exactly. i'm just feeling a little punchy because i'm so tired that i feel like i'm drunk.

ever have those mornings?

plus, there's a tiny little voice in the back of my head (i call it "evil psyche." you might have read my letter to it) that is rather worried that i'm about to lose my status as favorite redhead. which distresses me, because i'm really excited that other redhead is staying in new york, but i'm not ready to become favorite brunette or anything. or second favorite redhead. or third or fifth or whatever.

two more things:
1. this is my fiftieth entry.
2. read this now. fucking brilliant. this man knows how to Write with a capital Whoozieweehauken.

dear john (not jon, john)

dear evil psyche,

i've been giving this a great deal of thought, so don't think you're going to be able to change my mind with your sweet talking and your wily ways.

i don't think we should see each other anymore. i know you say you love me, i know you say you're a part of me and i'll never live without you. but, to that i say bullshit. i do just fine when i can't hear your horrible voice, when i ignore you long enough to see, if for just a second, whatever it is that the people who love me see.

you don't love me.

you never did.

love is not about making me feel the way you do.

so, evil psyche, the line gets drawn here. if i hear from you again i'm going to find me a shaman and get a restraining order on your ass.

so fuck off, evil psyche.

so leave me alone, evil psyche.

i've much better things to do than cry over you anymore.

arrevaderci!

no love lost,

shivery

a little less each day.

so, the consolation prize for this horrible weather and the mere horrible fact that it's monday is that it is, in fact, anarchy monday. it is anarchic with a vengeance. we had no anarchy day last week, so we're bubbling it all into today. joy!

topics of conversation include:

1.voltron

2.hart to hart (that 70's tv show with stefanie powers and the kickin' discotastic theme song. we downloaded it)

3. transformers

4. columbo

5. columbo's mom

6. unibrows

7. sailor moon (specifically, sailor aluminum siren)

8. filesharing software

9. victorian murder mysteries (the alienist comes highly recommended)

10. work. sort of.

11. my friend rafie. love, love love him, haven't seen him in forever.

miss him to pieces.

mmm...anarchy monday.

later evening sees me shirking my dance class and running home to begin partaking in the celebration that is welcoming the other redhead to the neighborhood.

pleased to have a groovy lady back around.

meanwhile...i was reminded today of an old, old boyfriend i had. you know, the one who went crazy. literally. horrifying as the whole situation was, it was nice to have a little bit of touchstone action to the girl i once was. i hate her much less now than i did at the time.

and isn't that what we all really aspire to?

i'm lost and then i'm found

monday again. already. christ in a sidecar.

slow ascent back into the half-court-press of normalcy, so to speak. drifting out of the shadow moodland as a pace not nearly so rapid as i would like, but such is life. ascending nonetheless.

so, castle in the sky (laputa) was absolutely mind-blowingly wonderful. even with james van de beek providing the voice of pazu. even all the tiny creatures around us fell silent during the film--entranced, indeed.proof that you don't need CGI to build a better mousetrap. or elton john or whitney houston or any of those horrible tricks to which we've so recently been subjected by the powers that be. i don't wish to malign computer animation at all--it's a mystifying and beautiful art form...but it shouldn't be used to phase out and obsolesce traditional animation.

*whew.* rant over.

afterwards, i sadly slid back into my mood of evil, much to my chagrin and roos'. fortunately for me, roos rocks my world, and saw that what i really needed was a subway-free night of alcohol and showtunes. "booze! my only true friend!" i, apparently, repaid this favor by hogging the bed.

didn't mean to.

i had my little fiesta for raski last night. i like to think it was a raging success! biscuit came over and cooked up a storm (yummy), the roommate prepared the lasagne that's been lurking in our freezer for ages, i did asparagus and my traditional sushi.

for being a meal assembled by a committee, i think we did pretty damn well. and now i have terrifying quantities of leftovers to dispose of. (we should all have such problems, right)

and--best part? i finally got to show off the boy. i was starting to worry that everyone thought he was just a figment of my imagination, as nobody had seen hide nor hair of him save my roommate.

so, all things considered, not a bad weekend. definitely excellent strides to shaking off this horrendous mood i've been in. with any luck, it will be gone by the time i get on the train to boston. if i feel this volatile (or, at least as volatile as i was this past weekend) when i'm around my family, things are bound to get ugly.

hm. that reminds me. boston. packing. must find a bag. a bag big enough to accomodate my hairdryer. (it's very important, you know.)

and i reach for you

i just baked a cake. a rather exciting looking carrot cake.

whether it actually tastes as exciting as it looks remains to be seen. i am concerned for its welfare only because my oven and i are at odds--i have yet to come to the mathematical equation that will transform the numbers on the temperature dial into the actual temperature inside the beast. this is why the cake was in for nigh on 2 1/2 hours and only just now ceased to be thoroughly liquescent.

i hope it tastes okay. i sort of feel i've got something to prove here.

a totally different point to prove than the one i'm making by wearing one of my finest ho-bag tops.

...i went out last night with some of my friends. and while i enjoyed it (as i always enjoy their company), i felt so detached from it. virtually everyone asked me if i was okay, which is new. "what's up," or "how YOU doin'" are standard greetings. "hey shivvy, is everything okay?" is not. after blagging it all off as just being incredibly tired, i asked raski if i looked as caned as i felt. her response?

"no. you look sad. is everything okay."

is everything okay? how do you genuinely answer that question? of course everything's not okay. if it were, i would have achieved enlightenment and transcendence and gone to a higher plane of consciousness. everything is, however, at an acceptable level of fuckwittery. i can cope. but, i guess i am also kind of sad. not in any tangible way, just in that "hey, let's shut off all our emotions and wow am i tired and really really bored all the time" kind of way.

eh whatever.

god, am i glad i'm skipping town next weekend. i need a big smack of perspective and fast. yeah.

sigh.

okay. off to storm the tribeca ff. laputa, here i come. without my date.

star light, star bright.

here is what rob breszny, horoscopist extraordinaire has to say about me today:

PISCES (Feb 19-March 20)

Week of May 9, 2002

On an episode of the kids' TV show "Even Stevens," overachieving teenager Ren decides she needs to display more school spirit by joining the pep squad. It'll look good on her rÈsumÈ when it comes time to apply for college. Unfortunately, peppiness doesn't come naturally to Ren. The head cheerleader has to lecture her on improving her attitude, admonishing her to "reach deep down inside and find your Perky Place." There are far more profound reasons for you to follow this same advice right now, Pisces. You can't imagine how important it is for you to practice being devoutly cheerful, sublimely upbeat, and fiercely optimistic.

the man is brilliant. totally the advice i needed right now.

i am seeking my perky place as we speak.

of course, if anyone's got some words of encouragement, they'd be much appreciated. miss delicious is a bit down, and search and destroy is not always effective when half your search is spent navel-gazing in shame.

god, i write a lot of entries.

oh well. there's no shame in being a total fucking loudmouth.

squishy, like moldy wood.

i feel as though somewhere along the line this week, someone opened up my head and removed a fair chunk of my memory circuits.

honestly. this week has just been a big, weebly blur. and while that's kind of nice, because it means that it's going by quickly, it mostly just makes me feel strange and lost. like i've lost my anchor to reality. i feel very small and vulnerable without my ability to account for myself at all times.

for god's sake, some of what i did yesterday is a certifiable blur. i didn't do anything illicit yesterday! i didn't even go to the thursday session, which is normally one of the highlights of my week, because i felt so awful, strange and nebulous! i went home and fell asleep during a french film. and watched a little bit of star wars:episode one (quivering in fear and disbelief the whole time at its rank and skeeving awfulness). i know i had some conversations in there, fuck if i know about what.

i know i called boy as i was leaving work, to apologize for leaving such an asshole message. i don't know what i said, exactly, though.

ugh. hey biscuit, you know how i said i was going to try and shy away from assuming the worst in this little endeavor? well, i'm failing miserably right now. i feel like badness is just around the corner.

alas.

oh well. he was never going to call me kitten, anyway.

demonic

dammit, dammit dammit!

according to my friendly neighborhood call log, i called the boy sometime on my way home last night.

bugger.

i realllllly hope i didn't say anything utterly ridiculous.

bugger bugger bugger!

hm. reparations may well need to be made. alert damage control!

maybe if i'm lucky, he'll just think it was really endearing that i called him while entirely sloshed.

yeah.

totally.

arse.

guess who

Which Member of the Endless Are You?

to say i knew it would be a bit redundant, don't you think?
oh, and i found out what i was doing last night that was getting me weird looks. no, virginia. nothing scandalous, you can put down the mustard pot.
apparently i was just one of those frightening and slurring creatures that you frequently see staggering home in the evening.
i am a true and genteel lady of the night! itsh tru, yesh yesh. hurrah!
that's much less horrifying than what my tired mind was able to come up with.

paging betty ford

i've got that scary feeling that you get after a big night and the next morning everyone's asking "so, did you get home alright?" "you actually made it in?" "how are you feeling this morning?"

what the hell did i do last night?

i don't think it was anything particularly scandalous. as far as i know, i arrived home with all of my clothes on, no sick in my hair, nothing too out of the ordinary, though i was probably blinking funny (my contacts get dry when i drink) and not walking in a straight line. but, i don't think i did anything too mortifying.

at least i hope not.

i was out with co-workers. (hence the uber-intoxication--nothing like having a go at it on the company tab)

i was also out with the executive VP.

whoops.

ah well. that just means i must be utterly industrious and productive today, a model little worker bee, prove that i'm a professional in more ways than one.

which would be much, much easier if i weren't stilll slightly drunk and feeling utterly alien within my own skin.

time to go learn about leeds, "cultural capital of northern england."

wheeeeee! beep.

like the corners

memory is a funny thing, and i find it chooses to assert itself at the most inconvenient times. this is why we wake up screaming in the middle of the night in recollection at long last of where we left our housekeys.

but memory is also strange for its very nature...the technicolor surround sound dream movies that play out so clearly, so swiftly that you can actually hear the song that was playing in the bar, feel the touch of the lover, smell the acrid exhaust of the train as it rumbled away...all of this good stuff.

ah, me.

oh, the um the oh the ah of this, the secret escape where in retrospect you can change the ending of the story to suit you, zoom in, replay, freeze frame however you choose, where your secrets remain safe and no one will ever know what you were dreaming about at the moment of clarity. where you can smell the photograph and know how it felt to be there.

i think about this as i sit in the suddenly and mysteriously air conditioned cubicle (where was this two weeks ago, when it was 105 degrees in this ridiculous excuse for a human drone habitrail?!) i share with young mister longacre and do my best to ride away from this horrid monotony on my own recollections of events not so long past.

let me tell you. i would much rather be there than here right now.

but, anyone who's been following the story would know that goes without saying.

yes indeedy.

mmmmmm. yep.

here's to the ladies who...

and now, five seconds later, a distinctly less angsty moment, my petunias.

yesterday was one of those days that just kind of happens without warning, flowing luxuriously into itself without a moment's notice or a moment to catch your breath.

work.

drinks.

boy.

i had the joyous fortune of being introduced to the mysterious girl biscuit found sleeping on his klaus. she's quite the charmer! i do so enjoy the way festive people can fall into your life. i only lament that she lives in a completely different time zone, as i feel she would be a fabulous addition to our klatch.

mysterious, cool girls are a rarity in my life. as i'm sure i ranted in my remembrance of kimmy, i have not had the fortune of meeting many. far too many of the ladies in my life are insipid (most of my graduating class), leaving (raski, kimmy), irritating (co-worker from texas, aka sally sue...more on her later, perhaps when i'm not actually at the office), dull...or any host of other things.

this is why i hold onto my lady friends tooth and nail. they are absolutely worth their weight in platinum.

such a wonder

i'm not exactly sure why it is that i am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. i can just feel it, teetering on the brink of a shelf i'll never see, knocked and bandied about carelessly, perhaps by someone with a football...

even when someone says all the right things, makes all the right moves, i remain utterly convinced that it's a ruse of some sort, a vast lie undertaken to get something from me. something other than sex, something stranger and deeper and darker.

i, of course, have absolutely no evidence to support this belief, at least not right now.

i suppose that i am simply afraid to let myself relax into something that seems so easy, when it's been so difficult for so long. i'm afraid that if i get to comfortable, the universe will point its long finger of doom at me and dole out punishment in ways unimaginable. and though spring has brought a major renewal of my energies, i don't have the energy for that.

but he's making it so damn easy...

god. i'm such a champion at falling for assholes, why should this one be different? i suppose that's what i'm really bothered by. damn my track record!(though i genuinely believe he may be a break from that norm.)

you're such a wonder that i think i'll stay in bed

in a matter

okay, so i heard this song last week that had a line that i swear went a little something like this:

"i could cut myself up in a matter of minutes, leave this all far behind."

morbid, yes. but i thought it was kind of interesting. first overt suicide reference i'd heard in a pop song in ages. dark. intriguing.

so, imagine my disillusionment when i discovered that the lyric was actually:

"i could pack myself up in a matter of minutes, leave you so far behind."

hmph.

that's not edgy at all! that's not profound, or interesting, or risk taking! that's pabulum!pabulum, i say.

well, what did i expect, really. it was a shawn colvin song (shut up).

BUT i now have tickets to go see castle in the sky. no date confirmed, yet, though. so, biscuit, if you're free on saturday at 7, it may be all about you and me, baby.

rock!

pazu! sheeta!

phhbliillll!

'castle in the sky' is getting shown on saturday at the tribeca film festival! dah!

bliss!

joy!

thrill!

for those of you not in the know, 'castle in the sky' (also known as 'laputa'), is an amazing, amazing animated film done up by the same director as did princess mononoke, kiki's delivery service and spirited away. it rocks. hands down one of the best films i've ever seen.

i'm a bit apprehensive about seeing it dubbed (like a good little purist, i've only ever seen it with subtitles), but not terribly so.

oh, so excited so excited!

oh, how i love this city sometimes.

oh, how i wonder if the boy would like to be my date.

hm.

let's find out, shall we?

diane, i'm holding in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies

i think that the time has come to brush the dust off those old twin peaks tapes and have another go. a nice safe quanitity of time has elapsed since the last viewing, i think.

yes, definitely time. david patrick kelly was the sign, i must heed.

for those of us playing along at home, david patrick kelly played jerry horne on twin peaks, slightly deranged and cheese-loving brother to the slightly deranged mogul ben horne, father of audrey (you know, the one who can tie a cherry stem with her teeth). he also had a role in the crow, which i saw on sunday. he also had a role in the warriors, which i've been instructed to watch by several people in the last few weeks. he also had a role in crooklyn, whose soundtrack i've been listening to a lot of late.

see? if three is to be taken as the magic number, which historically it has, i'd say that that list qualifies as a bona fide omen and sign.

jump back, get ready, get set, let the games begin.

who's with me?

coop, you remind me today of a small mexican chi-wow-wow...

i need a vacation

sometimes there come flashes of recognition that remind you twinging of where you're supposed to be.

and those moments are beautiful.

until you step back and realize that you're probably not going to be happy anywhere else.

not really.

the revolution is inside.

i'm feeling seriously disjointed this morning.

no, that's not true. i'm very aware of my joints (particularly my bloody right shoulder. grrr.), we're inseparable and there is no "dis" about it.

but i am feeling a bit out of sorts. it's a bit mysterious, as for once, it cannot be blamed on the demon drink or some other somesuch vice. all i know is that i left the house without earrings and i feel as though someone has driven a railroad spike through my abdomen. it's really not comfortable.

and i am apparently frightening my boss. which is new. i'm long renowned for being the office eccentric, but it's rare that i actually delve into frightening. but then, it's rare that i encounter myself in the morning with a stony face and a mouth full of obscenities for this, my joyous computer-thing. at least, not without preparation. this particular joy is reserved for those people who don't look out at the world from the inside of my head.

and ray is coming in today. i'm wearing bloody high ass heels (my 3 1/2 inch september 11 shoes) to commemorate the occasion. the time has come to get the mood out of my soul so i can behave like a human being when he comes in.

thank god for joan jett.

i'm going to listen to her VERY LOUDLY right now.

wish me luck.

bulletin

it seems that deep throat's daughter lives in the same town where i grew up.

hm.

not to be confused with...

and another sunday draws slowly and langurously to a close, with a smile and a nod, a sleepy giggle and an afternoon movie, a crimson flush or two along the way.

i am, marvelously and miraculously, content.

i had the marvelous opportunity today to spend a nice chunk of time sunbathing on biscuit's roof. i must say that i never had a full appreciation of the joys and potential of a roof before i moved to new york. but, when you've no green space of your own to which you can lay claim, you take your sunshine landing pad where you can. for many new yorkers, that's the roof. the promised land of sunshine, vantage point, and, if you're lucky, epiphany. our epiphanies today:

the default smell of my skin is noodles.

the default smell of his right armpit is a taco bell taco.

my sister needs to get call waiting.

the sun cures all. except for my shoulder which is being a right bitch today. i think i'm going to have to leave that particular patch job to ice, rest and aspirin. that, i think is the silver lining to my enforced two-week vacation from kickboxing.

yeah, another lovely lazy sunday. the brunch ritual shows every sign of growing to a neighborhood institution, which is going to be very exciting, considering just about every one of our nearest and dearest is moving or has moved into the hood. it started with four, today it was seven, who knows what it shall be next.

on a slightly sadder note, last night was the last show of the letdowns in their current incarnation. scott (head beatbox) is vacating the naked city for less prohibitive climes, at least temporarily. needless to say, it was a fabulous show. i hope they find a new drummer soon. actually, i'd prefer it if they weren't going to have to go through that, if someone would just buy scott's book so he would have an excuse to stay. ah well. such is life. the pain of impending separation is the price one must pay to have an endless cavalcade of the lovely and dynamic in her life. sucks, but ultimately entirely worth it.

"shivvybugfacehuggylove." not to be confused with "shivvybuttfacebunnyfucker." don't ask, don't confuse.

gone but not forgotten

i was just graced with a phone call from one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. my kimbo, possum extraordinaire.

she left us in february to seek adventure, excitement, and orgasms on the rainy shores of merry olde england. i've missed her terribly ever since.

thus, hearing from her has brought a nice ray of light into an otherwise nondescript day. oh, how i'd missed being mocked mercilessly for my accent! having a good squeaky girly conversation!

ah, squeaky girly conversations. i haven't had one of those in ages. mainly because i haven't got that many female friends, and those few that i do are really all too hard core to have the kind of relationship that kimbo and i had, which was very squeaky and fun and alcohol-soaked and cigarette-stained and mischevious girls out on the town leaving bewilderment and broken hearts in our wake. we were truly fabulous, we were.

god, i miss her.

windowlicious.

is there anyone else out there who shares my pathological fear of looking people in the eye?

the wild animals know that sustained eye contact is a sign of aggression.

perhaps that's why it makes me so uncomfortable.

no, that's not it. i know why it makes me uncomfortable. it's because i am a believer in the adage and phrase that paints the eyes as the windows to the soul. and i suspect that my curtains are awfully sheer.

i'm afraid to look most people in the eye because i'm afraid they will find something there that i've gone to great lengths to pack away in the attic of my brain. i'm scared to let something slip, to lose this (admittedly probably pretty false) sense of control i like to have over myself and my world. because if someone knows something i don't want them to, they've got something over me.

i ponder this as i fret about the date i've got tonight. same boy, i've safely moved out of liz phair territory (i think)...but i had this fear last week, when we were having a right old snog and paused for a breather...nose to nose, passing a breath back and forth, looking into each other's eyes...and i think i kind of killed the moment because the eye contact just did my head in. i made some silly face, and to his credit, he responded in kind, but...i don't know. weird.

i mean, it could all be less deep-seated and weird and psychological than i'm considering here. it might just be that the last person i had a run in with where there was prolonged eye contact could only respond with "what? what? no, c'mon, what is it?"

that is the question to which there is no coherent answer. "i'm ...ah...checking for cataracts. searching your soul. having a romantic moment with you, you big lummox. stoppit. anything." i hate being in that position. maybe that's why i break first. hm.

anyway. bigger things to worry about. what to wear (particularly the ever-important question of shoes--pointy and sexy as hell, flat and fierce...tis a quandary), what to do when we inevitably run into the last great groaning crush of mine (we're going to see a band, by the way), what to do in general.

i like this boy but i'm not totally ready to have him look into my eyes for that long. we're not yet that close.

which means i need to do a little conversational prepwork.

arg!

eep!

bibble!

squeak!

how's that for you, biscuit?

in remembrance of things past.

sometimes i think that i create the circumstances that complicate my life simply by willing them into being. case in point: i received an email today from the english ex, announcing that he had finished writing his book and might be about to go into negotiations with granada television for his own science show and how am i?

this ties into my theory of creating my life through the power of my mind because only yesterday i'd started feeling okay about breaking it off in september, if for no other reason than that i am finally understanding the annoyance factor of so many little personality quirks that i found so charming (or at least tolerable) at the time. a few of which i'm going to list here, because it will do me good to remember these things lest i get charmed by his writerly british charm.

his tendency to stop mid-snog to let out long, terrifying, whispery farts.

his habit of fidgeting with this tiny green wheel while plying me with terrifying science questions (i went to sarah lawrence exclusively to avoid ever acknowledging science as more than the mysterious force behind the scenes) every morning while i was still trying to muster up enough consciousness to chew my cereal.

his constant nasal congestion and tendency to shout "nasal hell!" after blowing his nose.

his need to clean his glasses following every kiss.

his multicolored bikini briefs.

his afternoon "crashes," when his tea would wear off and he would be functionally catatonic for about an hour.

the fact that i could drink him under the table without even trying. now i can do that several times over.

and other things. don't get me wrong--he's wonderful, and i had a great time while it lasted. i really loved him, in as much as i'm capable of loving another human being in that way...but i'm glad it's over. and i now finally understand why my family hated him (though i didn't, and still don't, agree)

even if i have little else to show for myself since that time but a prodigious capacity for drink, a few one-night stands and a whole lot of late (but fun!) nights. and my friends. and my slow emergence into the nyc music scene (emphasis on slow).

so, okay. not doing to bad. and i stick by my guns that it was the right thing to do. yeah.

and if that doesn't all just make me sound like a heartless bitch, remember that sometimes in this diary come the bilious stewings of myown personal wrath and self-disappointment/loathing. i ain't no mary poppins in there, sweetie.

but i'm very pleased that he finished his book and am on my way to tell him so.

oh, and for the record, i seem to be doing swimmingly, despite all appearances to the contrary.

weeble.

i find that my power of cognitive thought is leaving me ever quickly at this particular time. i've had such difficulty writing, reading, listening...speaking, holding a conversation. it's like my mind won't hold on to a thought long enough to even translate it into the synaptical firings i need to process.

it's really rather worrying.

writing, at least when i'm writing about my innermost thoughts, proves to be the least difficult (as you may have guessed). though it's an entirely different kettle of fish when i'm writing about...oh, anything else. it took me about three hours yesterday to adapt this article (not write, just adapt) for a newsletter we're about to produce because i simply couldn't concentrate on it.

i would love to believe that all this is simply because the inside of my head is a deeply fascinating place, marvelous to the exclusion of all else. and while that's partially true, it's not like the rest of my life is all that boring.

at least not to me.

personally, i think that some of the stuff i've got going on is pretty exciting. perhaps i need to light a fire under certain activities...i don't know...

oh for heaven's sake, i'm doing it again.

i'm just going on directionless because i cannot concentrate on finding a path for this fucking entry.

christ in a sidecar.

i'm boring myself.

you're excused without penalty.

argh.

no, i'm not feeling bleak. it's just pretty.

the absence

of your presence

is everywhere.

--edna st. vincent millay.

i read that in the stranger ( the weekly periodical, not the camus tale), in a feature about where the wtc was present in the cinematic landscape.

i hear that nbc has already planned its memorial extravaganza for this coming september 11.

forgive me if that doesn't fill me tip to toe with the warm fuzzies.

the quotable cough

quote of the day:

"quantifying my love got me a mercy fuck."

--soul coughing.

disjointed.

thoughts spinning around today:

1. i fear that my life is degenerating into a liz phair song. (which actually is a bad thing, considering which song i suspect it is).

2. circumstances in my job are giving me "the fear." it's upon me, it's on its way and will be here from the sixth to the sixteenth.

3. part and parcel of the fear means two weeks of no kickboxing for the shivvy until it's gone. no good at all.

4. i wonder if i have asthma (as today is national asthma awareness day, i choose to become aware of the possibility that i have it). i refuse to ask my doctor, though, because i hate my doctor.

5. i wonder if he's going to call. (not my doctor. someone else)

6. i think that stinabunny is coming back to the naked city today, after five months in recovery from being run over.

7. though i may be losing my mind, i'm fairly certain i've not lost my sense of whimsy. though i have exhausted my reading list.