Things that are true:

Things that are true:

Pizza always makes my tummy hurt, but it is so so good.

It is important to think of difficulties as lessons.

My hair will never stop growing, no matter how much I wish it would just stay at that cute length forever.

In no way does my job description include the phrase, "stand there and look pretty."

Other people are works in progress too.

300 square feet is awfully small for two cats.

It takes effort to maintain a loving relationship, even if it is with a city.

The road to happiness is not necessarily paved with gold.

Following your dreams will pay off if you truly commit yourself.

There will always be faint strains of Mexican music on the subway unless there are loud strains of Mexican music on the subway.

In the pursuit of happiness, personal gain can only take you so far.

Sharing with and learning from other people are what really make life good.

The best way to be interesting is to be genuinely interested.

Making time for others isn't always easy, but it is nonetheless important.


(This list was blogged with my iPhone while waiting way too long for dailies at Technicolor.)

I promised myself I wouldn't write about dating anymore, but I gotta wonder.

Well, now you know the news! I'm beaming. Beaming! It's kind of weird that life is just moving right along in ignorance of the fact that I'm about to begin this new job... I almost wish I had no time to prepare so that I could just jump right in. Patience, as I'm sure you realize, is not my strong suit.

Anyway, I spent the earlier part of the day having an English brunch with Aunt J, who also showed me the best place in town to buy overpriced recycled goods and then gave me a really neat little table that fits into my apartment all perfect-like. She brought it (and me) to my apartment in her car, which is like a roller-coaster when she drives it down 7th Avenue at 40 miles per hour! It was shaping up to be a good day. I ran, I ate, I received furniture, things were going very well.

...and then I sort of went on a date. No, sorry, I did go on a date.

On paper everything looked good; a grad student, in pursuit of a MFA in Media Studies. By day a graphic designer. Likes a lot of the same music I do (which isn't a big deal, but it's something). Friend of a friend in Chicago, who told him to get in touch with me.

We talked on the phone yesterday and agreed to meet up for dinner. I told him to pick a spot and let me know, since I like to see what other people come up with. On the phone I was bored with the contents of my music library and he recommended a new band that I wound up really liking! Nice. It's not a date, I kept telling myself. I was just meeting a new friend. I ignored the fact that I told myself that the last couple of times I've met up with people.

We agreed on a street corner (what is it about people in New York meeting on street corners instead of at specified locations?) on the East side of Midtown, which is like no man's land for me...I don't know a damn thing over there. We did that thing on the phone where you're looking for someone in a crowd and can't quite find them, only to realize that the person was standing ten feet away from you the whole time. I turned around and smiled a smile that quickly became forced.

First of all, he immediately asked me, "where would you like to go?" I had already delegated the responsibility of finding a dinner location, and was a little irritated that he hadn't followed through. But it wasn't just that, it was more the way he asked the question. It was marked with a quality of tone that made me understand that, at least as far as he was concerned, this was indeed a date.

It shouldn't have been a problem for me, really. On some subconscious level underneath my denial, I had known it was going to be a date... I guess I just hoped it would be a better one, and for all intents and purposes it should have been. He was good looking and smart, successful in his endeavors and ambitious to learn more. He was interested in my work and was not shy about telling me I looked nice. He talked about art and music and film theory (hey!) and academia... He's a year older than me, we're both from Northeast Ohio, and we like a lot of the same books and movies...

But he was so... bland. There's some X factor that just wasn't there, and I couldn't place my finger on it. I put on my happy face anyway, chatted about our mutual friend, laughed at his jokes, had reasonably engaging conversation, told him my Katrina story, nodded when he suggested we check out a museum together.

If he calls, I'll go, I guess. It leaves me wondering though, what's the X factor? Is it intrinsic geekiness? Is it something about the sense of humor? Maybe I need someone to challenge me on many levels. Is there some physical chemistry factor that left me tingling on the subway a couple of weeks ago? What exactly is the thing that makes me click with someone? And why did this nice guy leave the sour taste of disdain in my mouth?

What is it about New York that makes hats and scarves look better?

Maybe it's the blustery, overcast spring day we had--I love overcast days--but New Yorkers were looking good from my vantage point. The wind blew scarves around behind necks under smiling, rosy-cheeked faces and the clouds diffused the sunlight so that the faces were bright, but not harsh. Curled up in the window seat at a certain tanning salon on 14th st. I watched this cross section of New York walking to and fro along the street and wondered what my place in it will be in a year or in two years or in ten. Will I even stay? Will I do work that is satisfying and rewarding? Will I have many friends, or just a few good ones like I have now?

Will I have loved someone again?

What will I have accomplished? What wisdom will I pass on to my little niece or nephew? Will I have more than one of those? Will I still feel afraid to open up the "real me" to my mother above everyone else?

Will I still be intimidated by beautiful people? Who of those who surround me now will still play large roles in my life? Will I write the book or make the film or will my story stay with me? Will I still feel overwhelmed by possibility? Will I still be able to stay in the moment, as I have now been doing for one precious week?

Where will I live? How will I spend my days? Will I be like Salty or one of the Aunts? Will people still tell me I'm just like my mom?

Will I always have a soft spot for awkwardness? Will I always be as awkward and fumbling as I am now? Will I be able to live up to my ideals or will my ideals change as I do?

Not that any of this truly matters now... My heart is just in a curious place today. I had a nice and busy day, spent with lots of nice people, and while sitting there with my cheek nestled against PDF's sleeve I was very glad for the freedom to ask.

Thoughts of a girl in a bed

I love how my cheek feels when it's all smooshed against a warm, white cotton t-shirt. I love the sound of torrential rain. I love lazy moments when nothing exists but what is within arm's length. I needed this. I needed a little time for quiet and unobtrusive joy. There are lots of questions about what happens next and what do I want, but now, in this moment, none of that stuff matters. I'm here and I'm content.

It takes two to tango. I've always seen life as me and the world in a delicate dance... I can do anything, can be anything, but only to the extent that the world will let me. I thought that's what it meant to be realistic. Today though, I have a quiet and unobtrusive nature, and I figured out that reality is malleable, and that I have built a reality of endless possibility. It's funny how a fortune cookie with a terrible excuse for a fortune can make you think about such a thing.

It's funny too how I always seem to get what I want, provided I believe in the possibility. I used to get so annoyed with people who tout all that new-age bullshit. I guess I still would, if anyone were touting it to me now... I don't believe in any of that stuff really, but I do think it's nice to believe in possibility, and I do notice and appreciate the correlation between belief and positive results.

I'm not a rich woman, but I am a happy woman. I spend my days working for positive change in the lives of other people, dreaming about my own possibilities and writing. And sometimes--lately more often than not--I get to bask in the glow of someone else being happy too. It feels nice, like being little shiny candle flames in the big, dark, endless-possibility Universe.

I was so quiet the other day, and at the time it made me a little nervous that I wasn't good company. I'm not worried about it anymore though. I feel lucky to have a friend so shiny that I can just shut up for once and passively enjoy the time spent together. Living in the moment doesn't usually come easy to me. It's rare that I let my guard down with others. Although it's easy to say in retrospect, knowing that no harm came from doing so, I'm glad I let go of my boundaries for a little while. It was surprising and I was worried about causing anxiety, but really, it's okay. I'm okay. I just let the wall down...maybe a bit too far.

I'm not dancing with the world today. I'm creating it with an autonomy I never knew I had before...and basking in my own little glow.

I told you I used to be cool. Here's how cool I was:

That said, I have a memory I'd like to share with the class.

April 9, 2002. The day I was cooler than cool ever cooled.

It was, weatherwise, the first real day of summery sunshine in Dayton, Ohio, and every bright, hot spring day since has made me think of this day. The brick-paved quad at my university, teeming with students in short sleeves and flip flops, looked just a little bit brighter through the red lenses of sunglasses I had stolen off someone's head a day earlier.

My own black flip-flops had little pyramid studs all up the straps and flopped in time to the beat of this song, which was blaring throughout the campus, courtesy of the dj booth that was randomly set up near one of the science buildings. Delicious and sultry, it was the perfect tune for that day and that moment. I remember feeling the warm sunshine on my bare arms and the breeze on my bare legs under my plaid miniskirt. On this day I was a rock star clutching a 3-subject notebook to the front of my black tank top. I was 21, feeling sassy, and about to break some poor little punk-rock wannabe's heart.

I sauntered up to him, pushed my sunglasses back over my black highlights and gave him a wink. I distinctly remember the wink because it was the first and only time in my life I have ever felt that good about a wink. I turned. He followed. He, three years younger than me, was my trained puppy. After discovering his crush on me I had spent well over a month shaping him like a fine hedge. I saw him every day and treated him like a lucky little fan boy, "allowing" him into my good graces and gleefully amusing myself with his continued descent toward worshiping the ground I walked on.

Half leaning, half sitting against a cream colored brick wall I reached out and put a finger on his lips. He knew instantly what was coming and I watched with reptilian detachment while he realized he had been a tool in my heavily orchestrated plan to ensnare someone else. "I'm sorry, honey," I told him. But I wasn't and he knew it.

After leaving his side I turned and immediately saw my new quarry, a new pair of red lenses shading his eyes. He looked good... He was tall and dark haired and had been as mean to me as I had just been a moment earlier. I remember grinning at him as if showing off what I'd done.

Cool? Sure. Nice? No way, Jose.

Late Night Thinkin' on the Q Train

Why do I like the subway so much? Nobody else seems to like the subway. Is it weird to like the subway?

Even at midnight I love being on the train. The gentle rocking motion, the ka-chunk! of the bumps, the screechy screechy of the wheels. I love watching the dingy tunnel walls go by, and especially passing other trains--I love how passing other trains looks like you're watching an 8mm time lapse film. I love riding the B train in certain spots when there's an F or V on the adjacent track, and suddenly the B dips down underneath....it looks like the F/V is climbing a mountain. I love how, after the last Manhattan stop, the black bricks and pillars suddenly give way to what used to be tenements on the Lower East Side. In hardly any time at all the buildings sink and pivot in view, and I can see red Chinese characters stacked on yellow squares...I imagine they say something like "No Vacancy." Lit up floors of cubicles and computers wink and blink in the night, then woosh! They're behind us and then we are soaring over the East River....soaring! It's a little cathartic for me.

Maybe it's the river thing... When I used to ride the ferry in New Orleans I fell in love with the Mississippi chugging away underneath my feet, splashing flecks of slippery silt (mud from Minneapolis or St. Louis? Memphis mud?) onto my waitress shoes.

It's the platform that bothers me. I don't like standing around with all those creeps and feeling like I can't escape without jumping and risking a third rail zap. They hover, those creeps. Tonight at the Union Square station there were some gutterpunk kids, complete with dingy dog and two flea-ridden pet store rats (so gross). They were pretty wrapped up in conversation with some thug wannabes, who were totally perplexed by the grimy gutterpunk style. Otherwise I would have been a little nervous, since one of the gaunt, slimy-dreadlocked guys kept eyeing my bag. As annoying as the gutterpunks are, it's not so much the homeless that get me, it's people who are drunk or mentally ill, or some combination of the two. They hover unpridictably. In my head I often play out a scenario in which a drunk accidentally bumps into me a little too hard and I fall onto the tracks. It's not the train that worries me; it's the idea of touching the grimy innards of the City mixed with trash and bugs and rodents.

This might sound weird, since I think it's gross to have pet rats, but I love watching the rats go. I keep imagining their lives like Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Like they have this whole society underneath New York that is holding the fabric of the world together or something... Goodness knows, it's very apparent to me that they're smart enough. I always catch them making and carrying out plans and using tools and helping each other with little projects. It's very fascinating.

And where was I coming from so late on a school night? Well, if you must know, I had just slipped away from the Producer's apartment. We went to see No Country for Old Men, which was...wow, weird. It's practically a crime that I haven't seen this movie yet, being such a big fan of the Coen Brothers, and for that same reason I feel a little put off that I just don't get it. Not yet, anyway. I'm sure the third or fourth time I see it it will all make sense.

The Producer didn't have any new profound insights for me tonight. Instead he was just his pleasant and sweet self...maybe a little too salacious, but it sure is flattering. He's a doll really, but--and this is kind of typical of guys (even when I was practically married) and it bothers me to no end--he seems to be so caught up with flirting and being suggestive that I'm having trouble accessing who he is. And since my attraction to men is far more cerebral than it is physical, well...I'm not sure if it's gelling. But it sure is flattering.

Now if he stepped on my shoe and pulled my hair...

Lady Galahad slays herself a dragon

This morning I woke up, bleary-eyed at 10:00. I decided not to go running...instead my plan was to drink water. Lots of water. I'm not hung over, but I went out last night with my Coworkers, Data Guy and Data Guy 2.0 and we stayed out pretty late. The wine flowed. DG2's wife's friend had a birthday some three weeks ago, and we were out in celebration of her turning 30 for the fourth time. It was a lovely evening! I love DG2; he's totally the kind of person I can relate to and his wife is really nice and funny. And she doesn't mind that her husband and I are becoming such fast friends, as some less-cool wives might. And the two of them are just too cute together. And their friends are great. Great! I particularly had a nice time talking to the Original Data Guy and Dave. ODG, I learned, moved here at about the same time I did. He comes from Northern California, and he likes camping and hiking and stuff! Hey, me too! Dave has a sardonic sense of humor and made me giggle throughout the evening. Fun was had. DG2 drank too much. Last time it was me, and the humor in that was not lost on either of us.

So. Back to this morning. I'm snuggling in my bed, checking email...because I'm supposed to have plans this afternoon...and I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Above my closet. Weird. But whatever.

So I write an email, putz around Facebook for a while SuperPoking some folks, and then suddenly, matter-of-factly, a two-inch-long cockroach FLEW out of my closet and landed on the end of my giant knitting needle, which is displayed just so with all my yarn in a series of milk crates in the corner. It was like looking at a normal sized bug on a normal sized knitting needle through a magnifying glass.

I knew roaches can fly. In the South, flying gigantic disgusting roaches are the status quo. They're everywhere and completely unavoidable. As I have said before, I'm not exactly sure how I lasted in New Orleans so long. But several people here in New York have expressed to me that the roaches here do not fly. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but I had believed them. Until now.

I screamed and leaped out of bed to armor up... I was wearing a little cotton nightgown and I knew I might have to leave the apartment, so first I grabbed a sweater from my closet and put it on over the nightie. Then I grabbed my dance pants and put them on under the whole getup. I didn't have time to notice until later, but this outfit is actually quite comfortable. Next I put on an aging black Kangol hat that Aunt J bought for Salty many years ago, because I didn't want the thing flying into my hair. Now that I had my helmet and armor, I shoved my feet into the best weapon I own: my brown leather knee-high boots. I zipped them up, and checked out the status of my prey.

It was on the move, crawling along the highest part of the wall toward my bed. Oh no!

Like a flash, I grabbed my sheet and spread it out over the lumpy comforter and my three zillion pillows. I gave it a cursory tuck around the sides to ensure that the demon creature wouldn't be able to access the dark crevices between billowing folds of cotton and down. Thinking twice, I shut the closet door too. If it got lost in there my laundry bill would be hell.

I turned to face my quarry. Standing by the foot of the bed, armored, booted, brandishing my sword at the dragon, I gave a battle cry (I did!). "Alright, you, get out of my house!"

Almost in response, the thing lifted its wings and made a beeline for my head. I tucked and rolled immediately, then wheeled around to face the direction in which it had flown. Somehow I managed to evade the creature, although I did have to take off my hat and shake it to double check.

Now where had it gone!? It had flown into my little foyer, which would be the perfect place to get lost among the scarves and coats and shoes. Cautiously, warily, I took a step toward the alcove and then, like on an episode of Gossip Girl.... Spotted: Giant Flying Cockroach waggling its antennae on the circuit breaker panel, behind the front door.

Perfect.

In a matter of moments, I jabbed at the thing with a broom and then stabbed it where it fell, pinning it to the floor. I opened the door and then, like a flash, and with many cries of "Out! Out of my house!" I managed to sweep it over the threshold and out into the hallway. It landed on its back. I swiftly scanned my clutter for a paper that I didn't need. Finding one, I threw it on top of the wiggly-legged monster, and then stepped on it with my cute boots. There was plenty of padding, so no crunch was heard....it was a brilliant plan, really, squishing the roach in the hallway. That way its guts aren't hanging out in my apartment.

Now this raises a question that has come up a few times in my brain. Do I move? I'm bored with my neighborhood, and I pretty much hate my building. So do I start looking around for something else? I've also considered the idea of roommates a lot. I mean...don't get me wrong, I love hanging out on my couch in my underwear or whatever, but it would be really nice to have someone else to help me kill roaches and to laugh at me when I put on bizarre clothes just to do it. It would be nice to have someone here to hold me accountable for all the time that I waste lounging around and Facebooking. It would be really nice to live with a friend and make friends with her friends and introduce her to mine.

Then again, my cats are coming soon. Maybe I'll feel better about it when they arrive. I'll have Lu to catch the roaches and Penny to eat them. I'll have someone to sing to and laugh at and snuggle while I'm blogging and Facebooking. It will be nice, the three of us. But still...nice to have another person around...

Alicia Silverstone

While taking a shower just now Alicia Silverstone crossed my mind for some reason... I was about to say 'randomly,' but it's really not that random.

Why is it that she fell off the planet after Clueless? Was it Batgirl that killed what should have been her rise to super-amazing-rule-the-world stardom? It's arguable, since that movie was just awful. So what exactly is she doing anyway? Yes yes, I imdb'd her. Yes, I know she's been on tv a little and yes, she was the lovable shampoo girl in Beauty Shop. But what the heck?

Clueless was a super mega hit, right? An instant classic! And she's gorgeous to boot! She should have been riding that fame train! So what happened?

I'm probably missing something since I don't pay attention to celebrity "news" ever. Did she sabotage her career with some ridiculous publicity stunt or with awesome Tara-Reid-like drunken antics? Or was it just all those slutty Maxim photos?

Well whatever I missed, whatever happened, I loved Alicia in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. And I think she's still pretty damn gorgeous.