long walks in bad weather

What would make you question a friendship?
Submitted by stueykins.

3 years of unspoken secrets.  and then some.

Every new "Today" seems more anxious than ever. Do you find more solace in "Yesterday" or "Tomorrow"? Why?
Submitted by Bee Whisperer.

The sun will come out tomorrow bet your bottom dollar that tomorroooooow there'll be sun....

*note of warning-  this is a long post.  I got nostalgic.*

So all of E's recent apartment considerations (congratulations!) and discussions with Phil have made me think back two years (!) to my own apartment hunt.  Phil and I were talking and he was saying how my apartment is the perfect size for one person and about my painting plans and how I keep saying I'm going to move back but haven't yet.  And I told him that the only dream I've ever had in my life was this:  To move to New York City and live in my own apartment by myself. 

I started out with brokers.  We agreed to meet on a street by my work and then he walked me to his car to show me some apartments.  (Freaky moment that gave me pause: Getting into a car with a complete stranger.)  Luckily he didn't kill me but showed me two beautiful NEW apartments but they just weren't right (I had many essential criteria for my apartment).  I tried another broker who met me on the street, walked me up and down the big hills of Inwood, rode a bus with me and took me to see about 6 apartments, and proceeded to yell and scream (literally) because all of the superintendents in that neighborhood only spoke spanish (as if yelling and screaming was going to facilitate communication).  So, yeah, it was a weird experience.

Finally I saw an ad on craigslist for an apartment that basically said it was a one bedroom in a historic neighborhood, it was in my price range and it was 30 feet from the subway.  So I made an appointment but went to the building the day before to see if I could get a feel for the place and see if the ad was lying.  (Everything in the ad was true.)  Anyway, I came by the next day and saw the apartment, fell in love with the windows and the double-doors to the bedroom, felt fine in the neighborhood, and charmed the porter with my talk of san diego comic con (he's made the trip out to cali for it a few times).  He gave me a tip: Another girl had just come by to see the place and was already on her way to the management office to put down a deposit, so I would have to race down to the office IMMEDIATELY and try to beat her there.  Luckily, the porter called the office and put in a good word for me and even though I got there a few sweaty minutes after the other girl, they ended up giving me the apartment anyway.  I moved most of my clothes and things by myself (via subway) in order to cut down on moving costs.  I resisted the temptation to respond to the "We move you for $10/hr!" flyers and arranged for some very expensive movers take my furniture to Sugar Hill.  I hired a locksmith to put in a very expensive windowgate and to change the locks on the door.  (Freaky moments again: Anytime I am alone in my apartment with men I don't know.)  After the movers left I shut the door and looked at my apartment in complete disarray and I cried.

Sobbed, really.  I'm a middle class, asian-american girl from laid back san diego who had only lived with family and roommates.  What the hell was a 5-ft-tall girl like me doing living alone in harlem, three thousand miles away from anyone who could really help her and anyone she truly cared about?!  And there were so many little things in this

apartment that were retarded (the weirdly sloping floor in the bathroom, the sloping sink, the jacked up bedroom/closet door, the ridiculously high cabinets/light fixtures, etc).  In that moment I couldn't understand what the hell I'd come all this way for and was beginning to think that my grand new york adventure was the biggest mistake I'd ever made in my life.  I'm a person who really likes her independence and "alone time"  but in the face of all of this I just felt completely in over my head.  I thought of that JM song "Why Georgia" and how he basically piggybacked on his friend's life, took a chance and moved his life to Georgia in pursuit of something, and I got pissed off!  Why the hell does he sound so chipper (or at least calm) in that song?  He's basically singing about a situation similar to what I was experiencing, and yet he's calm and I'm scared shitless?!  I snapped out of it right after that. 

By the time my sister arrived a month later I had given up the hysteria but held on to the bitterness over the horrible care that had been given to my building.  It could actually be a beautiful building.  It's part of the Sugar Hill Historic District.  It was built in 1904 and designed by an architect named Henri Fouchaux.  Ralph Ellison wrote his award-winning book "Invisible Man" in the basement of the building directly across the street.  Bailey's mansion (as in "Barnum & Bailey's Circus") is about 3 blocks north of here.  My sister snapped me out of it by saying that it's really all about how you deal with it.  In the words of the venerable Tim Gunn, you have to "make it work."  (I joked to her that considering the extra high cabinets and unreachable hallway light fixture, I would have to get myself a really tall boyfriend.  I ended up buying a ladder instead.)

Even though things haven't turned out exactly the way I thought they would (what ever does?), I told Phil that I was proud of what I've done.  Things aren't perfect (and at times it was hard) but I'm still thankful to be here and proud to say that I made my dream come true; it didn't just fall into my lap.  I earned this and I continue to earn it everyday.

I remember talking to my locksmith (who regaled me with stories of him being offered and accepting sex from clients and installing locks in the middle of an orgy) who told me that it takes awhile to get used to living alone but once you do it you may never want to have a roommate again (with the exception of your spouse).  Now that I've been doing it for 2 years I have to say that I really enjoy it 95% of the time.  I can't begin to name the myriad of things that I have learned about myself from living alone but it should be sufficient if I just describe it as one of the most important times of my life.  I wouldn't trade it or take it back.  It has derailed me financially (I won't get into details) but I really feel like this wasn't a mistake, it was a gift. 

For some reason the first thought that usually pops into peoples' heads when they think about living alone is the prospect of walking around naked, as if that's the only good thing about living alone!  Yes, that's great but so is doing shit like this without having to consult anyone else:

So it's LOUD.  Louder than I had expected but, then again, this didn't exactly go as planned.  Plus, I kind of wanted it to be bold since so many things in life are boring, safe, and inoffensive.  It's kind of "Autumnal Punky Brewster."  It's not done yet but the final details will take a little bit longer to get into place.  Also, I'm so sick of sponging flowers that I really need a break.  I was very surprised to discover that orange paint makes me happy but I am now jonesing to paint the bedroom blue just to balance out the energy of the living room.  The living room is so alive it makes me feel very energetic and AWAKE.  I need the bedroom to calm me back down. 

In other happy decorating news, I found fake grass at Home Depot.  In my 2.75 years here I've never seen a place that sells it.  I've always wanted to have a kitsh-devoted bathroom (fake grass, pink flamingos, velvet elvis painting, garden gnome/lawn jockey, dogs playing poker).  I was thinking about putting removable letters on the edge of my bathtub that say "no diving" and turning my bathroom into a "backyard with swimming pool" but who knows.  I could paint a fake picket fence along the wall, stick a lawn chair in there, and get a bbq/grill that would be used to store toiletries and towels.  Brilliant plan but it sounds like a lot of energy, energy I don't have after painting and re-painting...

So.  As mentioned previously, I was devastated over the departure of one of my favorite djs on my most favorite radio program on a san diego semi-independent radio station.

The myspace for that radio show is dead (the tagline is "R.I.P." and they wouldn't even post my comment asking what happened) but there is a note directing people to the djs personal myspace.  Well I sent a friendly little message to the dj on her myspace just to say that I was sad to see (hear) her go and wish her the best.  It went like this:

Hi! I don't really mean to be messaging you on your personal myspace but the one for [insert name of radio program here], um...

So anyway, I used to listen to you online (I'm in nyc) and all of a sudden you disappeared! I was devastated! Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for all your hard work, let you know that your show really added something lovely to my nights (or really early mornings, depending), and it's just not the same without you!

Wishing you the best of everything,
Christina

She replied:

You're so sweet, thanks for the LOVELY note, Christina!! No worries for messaging me here, I don't mind at all. What happened was the station decided not to re-sign my contract, not even negotiate a new one, and they let me go. I love radio too much to give it up just yet, so I'm sure when the time is right, I'll be back. Thanks for your support over the years, I really appreciate it! Feel free to pass your comments onto the station since they were the ones that let me go from the show. Thanks again for tracking me down on here, nice to know I made a difference for you all the way in NY (go Yankees) I was appreciated at least by some at what I did.

You take care!

I resisted the temptation to write back and say "Go Padres", surfing my way over to the radio station website and sent a VERY polite message using their automated comment form that basically said I'd tried getting used to dj M's departure but it was very difficult since she really had the perfect voice for that radio show and for late nights, and that I wish she would come back.  To my surprise, the programming director responded:

She quit, I can't make her do something she doesn't want to do.

Hmmmm.  One of the two parties involved is lying and I feel juicily in the middle (even though I know I'm not). 

Or it's probably more complicated than that and it's all a matter of perspective.  (Although, I really don't know how you can misinterpret the phrase "decided not to re-sign my contract, not even negotiate a new one.")

By the way, DJ M actually sounds very down to earth and we probably could have been friends with her.  She's a big football fan (used to host the radio station's Monday Night Football events at Moondoggies or wherever) and makes handmade items and sells them on online.  On top of that, when the radio station goes on autopilot for long holiday weekends (they program their ipods to play the songs while djs go on vay-cay) DJ M comes in anyway and does her show live.  On top of that she never makes pseudo-cool comments about "hookers and blow" like the dj that rebecca won grammy tickets from.

I'm tempted to write back to the dj and tell her what kind of response I got but that would probably just stir the pot.  I may write her just to tell her that I did voice my feelings about it.  I had been planning on writing to the radio station even before she suggested it, but didn't want to say anything in case it turned out that she left the radio station  voluntarily.  (Since it's apparent that she did no such thing I felt justified.)

I'm writing this in "blind item" style because I don't want to get in trouble for posting these personal emails, even though they are MY emails. 

Friday:  Found out that Midori is no longer the dj for fm 94/9's Big Sonic Chill.  I am DEVASTATED!

Friday:  Went to a play.  It was good, it took my mind off of the Midori madness.  The second I sat down on the subway (coming home) a Neil-Young-look-alike got up from his seat and sat right next to me.  Looks like trouble. 

This has happened before and normally I would just get up and move but I was really annoyed this time.  Who did he think he was, thinking he could just invade my mental space and bother me (and I KNEW he was going to bother me)?  I had my earbuds in and I was pretending to read my paper (the universal combination of signals that translates into "leave me alone") when he said, "CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

I kept my earbuds in but slowly looked up from my paper and shook my head.  No, I can't hear you.

Mwahahahahaa!  Funny for me but he didn't like it to much.  He proceeds to start yelling at me but I keep pretending to read my paper, my face betraying NOTHING.  This fucker is not going to win this one.  So he keeps yelling through the next stop, yelling so bad that he made some guy jump from shock.  My reaction?  Still nothing.  I finally reach my transfer and get out.  By this time the dude has stopped yelling, probably because he realizes it's totally not working.  Me = 1, Pseudo Neil Young = 0.

Monday:  I talk alot about my political activist priest and my parish that has martini mass every month and a jazz trio instead of a choir on Sunday nights.  He's the kind of priest who talks about abuse of tax dollars, Oscar Romero, and gay rights.  He supports other  groups in the area- Presbyterian churches, Jewish synagogues, etc- it doesn't matter.  He is distinctly, um, different from the school of thought that Pope Benedict subscribes to.  Which is why I don't really care that I missed the Pope's visit this week.  (He was in New York, I was in DC.  He was in DC, I was in New York.)  Anyway, I'm proud to say that the New York Times profiled my priest and parish last week!  On top of that, the next day my priest had a picture and a blurb in the free daily, AMNewYork.

Thursday:  I wanted to get a rush ticket to a certain play so I made a beeline to the theater right after work.  First in line was an older woman; second, a younger man; third an older man; and then me.  So the three of them were chitchatting and I was reading.  When we got our tickets there was still an hour left before the show so I decided to go get some food.  The older man starts talking to me as I'm walking, we chitchat, and he asks if I want to go grab a quick dinner.  I tell him I don't have any cash, he says he'll pay for it, I say ok.  We grab some russian food (at this place that I'd gone to before) and have some pleasant conversation.  Depending on the definition you use, I guess I went on a date with a 71-year-old, married photographer.

We get back to the theater just in time.  Turns out we're in the same row but there's one person in between us and it just happens to be the younger man who was in line earlier.  So introductions are made and me and the younger man (Andres) talk.  He's South American, runs theatre workshops for prisoners, and is working on a new play with some of the actors in that night's show.  What's his new play about?  Military personnel who have done more than one tour in Iraq/Afghanistan.  Where is the director doing research right now?  San Diego.  Where did most of the actors in that particular theatre company get their start?  UCSD.  So, yeah, we talk.

At the end of the show I moved seats because the creators of the show were doing a talkback.  Andres moved and sat next to me.  After the talkback Andres gets up and leaves, I'm taking my time with my coat and whatnot.  As I'm walking out the door I see Andres waiting for me at the door and we walk out together.  And chat.  We have to go opposite directions at the corner so we say goodbye AND I TOTALLY FAIL TO GET HIS CONTACT INFO.  My mind had gone totally blank!  It was like it had been too long and that part of my brain had atrophied.  Sucktastic.  I was so upset with myself I called rebecca right afterwards because I was mentally kicking myself.  And he was good-looking, too!

Friday:  The plan was to take the train to DC, arrive at 2pm, walk around for a bit until dinner at 7pm, and then maybe go find a music club somewhere just to grab a drink.  Well, that totally didn't happen because...

That night I didn't want to go out because I had to get up early the next morning for the meeting so instead I tried taking pics for bedjump.com but that didn't work out so well.

Saturday:  Meeting all day long.  8am-5pm.  I met a few nice people though but no prospects.  We got out a little bit early so I got my stuff and walked a block and a half to the other hotel (I booked myself a cheaper night at another hotel using priceline.com).  I went walking.  It was HOT that day.  The only thing I really wanted to see in DC (since I went to many, many, many of the Smithsonian collections when I was a kid) were the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin.  Unfortunately, they were already gone!  It's ok though, we have cherry blossoms in nyc.  I ended up hanging out in Dupont Circle after some walking.

Sunday:  Rain rain rain rain rain rain rain rain.  Thunder thunder thunder.  Rain rain rain.   Bad weather, surely.  So I took a walk in it.  (In Steve Madden stiletto boots.  It actually wasn't horrible!)

I also went to Chinatown and ate at a place called "New Big Wong" (I am not kidding.  There's also a place here in nyc that I've never been to- I think it's a barbershop- and it's called "Mei Dick.").  That night I hopped the train back to nyc, thankfully no delays otherwise I wouldn't have gotten back home until after midnight.  Lucky me!

I have stuff I wanted to blog but no time!!!  hopefully soon.  and hopefully I'll be able to read and reply to your blogs soon.  hope all is well!

being sick sucks.  took two days off of work, haven't returned calls, missed out on a bunch of stuff I had planned...

including buying tickets to see George Michael.  I got up today at 11am, an hour after tickets had gone on sale for the east coast.  which means they were all sold out.  ok, not ALL sold out.   I tried the top price and this is what I found (click to see larger):

 
Ok, so for almost $300 I don't want to be at the BACK of the floor, I want to be in the front or the middle.  I mean, I know George Michael probably has a big enough ego to fill MSG many times over and I've heard lots of people say it's virtually impossible to get good seats at MSG if you're a regular person but c'mon...

So I thought about this.  And I knew that GM was kicking off his tour in sunny San Diego.  And since I was 3 hours ahead of the west coast that meant that if tickets went on sale at 10am PST then that translated into 1pm EST.  Which means that I could log on to buy San Diego tickets at exactly the moment they went on sale!

So I almost did it.  I was thisclose to buying for the San Diego show.  The tickets in San Diego were about $100 cheaper, but then you factor in the airfare (and I don't know if my sister is still doing her bday in Vegas)...  So then I thought maybe I can get tickets in some other city that wasn't in an arena as big as MSG.  Atlanta seemed to be the best option because the venue is smaller and tickets were cheaper.  But still no.  (Especially considering I just paid for an extra night in DC.) 

My next plan of attack?  Radio station contests.  Which means I will have to find a radio and start listening to it.

"Friday Night Lights" is returning for a 3rd season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I normally wait until Saturday or Sunday to do pics for the week but it's been a little bit of a tough week.  I've also noticed that I haven't put up a bona fide blog in awhile because I've been lazy.  So today we have words and pictures.   Lots of words.

1)  Monday

This is a real picture from Monday.

I had a lot of good times when I was working with the Marines.  I am not being ironic or funny about this.  I really enjoyed it. 

Some recruits are freaked out on their first day in boot camp.  It's very chaotic because it starts in the middle of the night and they're not really allowed to sleep that first day.  The second the bus stops at Receiving there's someone yelling at them and then it's all a blur of haircuts, uniforms, searching and confiscation of contraband, MoT (Moment of Truth), and health exams.  Some of them would even faint from all the lack of sleep, vaccinations, etc.  One kid fainted outside of my office door, hitting his head on the wall and denting it (the wall, not his head).  If a kid realized that he didn't actually want to be in the military anymore (even though he'd only been there 1 day so far and everyone knows it doesn't actually get bad until the  black friday) he might cry or LITERALLY make a run for it.  And then whatever Hat was in charge of the kid would make it clear that there was no way the military was going to let that kid go* by saying something like, "Do you know what 'USMC' stands for?  DO YOU KNOW WHAT 'USMC' STANDS FOR?  'U SIGNED THE MOTHERFUCKIN' CONTRACT'!"

C'mon!  That shit's funny!  I seriously have a very special place in my heart for the Marines (although my dad was Navy). 

I could say a lot of things about this picture.  I could talk about the vets of both Gulf I&II that I worked with at MCRD, or the 18-year-old boys (and yes, at 18 they are still BOYS) that participated in my study, or I could talk about being a direct beneficiary of the military-industrial complex.  I could talk about Mike Johnson, who loved Howard Stern and was INCREDIBLY helpful whenever I got locked out of my office.  I could remind you that our own government basically told us that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th.  I could say that fighting terrorism with more terrorism is no way to stop terrorism.  =P

But nothing I say could be as significant as what was said at the Winter Soldier 2008, a conference that was practically ignored by mainstream media.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomksy

"I don’t have anywhere near enough time to tell you every related experience that I had in Iraq, but in general, the rules of engagement changed frequently, contradicted themselves, and when they were restrictive, they were either loosely enforced, or escalations of force, as shootings of civilians were known, were not reported because Marines did not want to send their brothers in arms to prison, when all they were trying to do was protect themselves in a situation they had been forced into, where there was a constant ambiguous and deadly threat, and any citizen of the country that they were supposedly liberating could have been wearing an explosive vest.

With no way to identify their attackers and no clear mission worth dying for, Marines viewed the rules of engagement as either a joke or a technicality to be worked around so that they could bring each other home alive. Not only are the misuse of rules of engagement in Iraq indicative of supreme strategic incompetence, they are also a moral disgrace. The people who have set them should be ashamed of ourselves, and they are just one of the many reasons why the troops should be withdrawn immediately from Iraq."

                               -Jason Lemieux, SGT, USMC

The mainstream media is failing us; the grunts are not.   Another quote from Winter Soldier:

There’s a term, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” But there’s also the term, “Eat the apple, Fuck the corps, I don’t work for you no more.”

                            - Jon Michael Turner, USMC

*some exceptions

2)  Tuesday

Dear Sinkful of Dirty Dishes,

Not tonight.  I have a headache.

Love,

Christina

3)  I can actually pinpoint some lifechanging musical moments that I've had.  One of them was when I discovered 92/5fm in college.  It was the first time I had ever heard a radio station play Tracy Chapman after Pearl Jam after Public Enemy.  92/5 introduced me to Angilique Kidjo and Ani DiFranco, and showed me that just because you love to booty-bump to MC Shy D doesn't mean you can't also enjoy Billy Bragg & Wilco.  Your own personal musical truth doesn't have to be limited by the playlist on your mega-corporate radio station. 

Another musical epiphany came when I was in 7th grade and my family took one of our post-church visits to the Navy Exchange.  I would usually hang out in the cd section and skim through everything they had loaded into the listening stations.  That was how I was introduced to a most incredible piece of music called "A Love Supreme: Acknowledgment".  Up until that point I had thought the term "jazz" only referred to freakin' kenny g (vomit-inducing for me mostly because my dad played it INCESSANTLY).  I was totally amazed.  Why hadn't I heard this before and where can I get more of it?  This guy must be, like, TOTALLY up-and-coming or something.  He's going to be sooo famous someday!  (This was before anyone really had the internet, so how the hell was I to know that John Coltrane was already dead?)

Having said that, I have some very important news to share with you.  News that could possibly lead to another incredible music moment for me:

GEORGE MICHAEL IS TOURING THE UNITED STATES THIS YEAR!!!!

I am not kidding when I say that "Freedom 90" is fantastic.  Have you actually listened to the lyrics and thought about what was going on in George Michael's career at that point in time?   Have you ever really thought about that music video?  It's a 6 and a half minute groovy pop mea culpa! 

4)  Working on the Upper East Side was nice for awhile but I'm happy to be back in the heights.  (Empanada!)  I'm not a fancy kind of girl.  My favorite diner in the city has Santa Claus stickers on the walls all year round.  So how funny was it when I discovered a pizza shop in the neighborhood that was decorated with pictures of disneyland from the 1970s?  Unfortunately, being back at the hospital means back in Cellmate Mo territory.  She tried to contact me today.  I didn't respond.

5)  It's a bit of a ride from the Heights to midtown, though, so it was no surprise that there was already a long line at the bookstore for Alton Brown's book-signing.  I thought he was going to do a Q&A but no such luck.  Still, I surprised myself at how happy I was when I heard his voice.  This is the man who taught me how to scramble eggs correctly!

6)  I had planned on catching a free instore appearance of Counting Crows in SoHo.  I went but didn't want to wait in line because I was cold and I feel like I'm getting sick.  I still remember when we saw them on tour with John Mayer...

7)  Speaking of JM, he posted this gem.  I laughed out loud multiple times but the incompetence displayed in the video might not be so amusing to sher. 

Thank you for posting that, you Jolly White Giant.  There's been bad news this week (see previous post) and I needed the laugh.

(And yes, emma, I saw his other blog post and I don't have any comment really.  He always hints that he's gonna go back to being "normal" and non-fame-whoring but I'm not buying it.  Yet.  Anyway, if things don't work out between you and Scotty (which would ONLY happen if he turned out to be gay, because how could he not love you?) I guess you can try workin' on Tha Mayer (The Mayor?) but I can tell you right now that he's got some best friends to convince of his worthiness first!)

And, yes, I just used parentheses inside of parentheses.  Twice.  Deal with it.

This has me thinking about this imaginary world we've discussed (the one with the non-existent kids and husbands) and I am hereby demanding that even if we are lucky enough to ever fall in love (again) I am DEMANDING that we have a few girls-only-baseball outings.  That last time we all went to a game together (before I moved!) was seriously one of my favorite memories, I had so much fun.  I was bragging about you guys the next day at work.  Getting buzzed on champagne, sher not finishing her martini, giggling so much we got lost and missed the beginning of the game, high energy because it was against the dodgers, Ms. G talking trash about the kid next to her because he was a dodge fan...