fuzzy sweater.

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Oh, kitties!

the words spilled out effortlessly at 15:22

I had a post ready to go up yesterday about my despondence over hating my job and having no real career goals at present, but at the last minute decided not to post it. Today, while not feeling exactly envigorated, I do feel more inspired to not just sit here and surf Friendster all day. Work will be slow today. Tomorrow, busy, today, slow.

So I took a job aptitude test. It took me forever, I was furtive for fear of being caught, and it asked dumb questions like, would you rather be a musical entertainer at a retirement home, plan events for a retirement home, or be a highway planner? And in the end it gave me five free chances to pick jobs from a list that I thought I might want to do, and then it told me if I was cut out for them or not. Guess what, I could be a writer! Of course, why didn't I think of that?

No. What I want is a test that will tell me exactly what it is that I'm cut out for. None of this "what do YOU think the answer to that question should be?" not-a-real-answer bull. What if there's something out there that I haven't thought of yet? There had better be, and I want it cut and dried for me. If it tells me I should be a tax auditor or a botanist, well then, I'll go and be a tax auditor or a botanist. Although I was struck with the thought of maybe being a flight attendant, which I might ask Dan's sister about. They get paid a lot, and they have long breaks between trips. Of course, they have to dress in those awful outfits and deal with awful people, and all the stewardess and mile high club jokes, so I don't know how well I'd do with those things. I sort of have a low tolerance for annoying situations, go figure.

Anyway. If you know of any decent, free career tests, let me know. I'm up for another one.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 12:10

Tuesday, July 29, 2003

In the interest of promoting excellent causes, and in the more pressing interest of gently nudging the fuzzy sweater readership toward cool local culture stuff and awesome writings, I post this email sent to me by my friend Ryan, who co-edits the loveliest and most readable literary journal you've never read, called The American Journal of Print:

"Hi, all:

We’ve just published the third issue, AJoP:3, “Everyone is Beautiful,” and we’re having a release party to (a) celebrate its arrival, and (b) sell it to you, if you haven’t already bought it.

I’ll keep this short: we’re going to have readings, music, gratitude, and drinking. In order to make it a success, we need you there. This party not only brings joy to the world, it helps us pay for the journal, and starts us on the road to publishing another one. It’s pretty amazing, eh, that one party could do so much.

Here’s the information:

AJoP HIATUS GALA EVENT

WHERE: Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, just north of Delancey, in New York's Lower East Side
(www.tonicnyc.com).

WHEN: Wednesday, July 30. Doors: 7pm. Activities: 7:30pm.

HOW MUCH: $10, which includes the new issue, “Everyone is beautiful.” (A limited number of earlier issues will be available for sale at a reduced price, as well).

WHAT: Readings by AJoP writers [ Peter Markus, Kevin Canfield, Dan Kois, Amie Barrodale, Whitney Pastorek]. Music by musicians [Porteous]. Gratitude by AJoP editors. Fun by all.

Spread the word.

Take care,

rp."

So you should, like, go.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 16:28

Monday, July 28, 2003

2 Fast, 2 Spurious

For those of you who have never attended a truck rally, Nascar event, or demolition derby, I have decided to write a glossary based on the knowledge I absorbed this weekend at the Riverhead Raceway.

ROLL-OVER: On our way to the racetrack, we passed this gnarly looking dude in a truck, pulling behind him a green car with the windows banged out and graffiti scrawled all over the body. Cool, we all said. A junker. And a redneck! And when the roll-over competition started, there was that same green car, and that same redneck, queued to go.

What they do is, they take a bunch of guys and put them into shitty European cars. Then these guys putter around the track, the crowd chanting "roll! roll! roll!" all the while. When the car gets to the ramp, he runs one wheel up the ramp and guns it, thereby (the crowd hopes) propelling the car into a gigantic flippy roll. They get different points for landing on the driver's side, roof, one rotation, two rotations, etc. The winner got something like 28 points in four rolls. It was wicked awesome.

TRAIN RACE: Oh, man. I think this was my favorite part. Try to picture it, if you can: three jalopies are chained together at the bumpers. The first car has a driver who steers but has no breaks. The middle car is empty. The third car has breaks, but no steering. Can you imagine the madness!! I really don't think you can!!! So they pit six or eight of these trains against each other. Oh, and on a figure 8 racetrack! Which means that they're all weaving in and out and around each other, tail cars flailing wildly into each other... there was a NINE CAR PILE-UP at one point.

MINI-BUS DEMOLITION DERBY: This was something of a let-down, in the end. It was the last event of the night as well as the reason we went to the track in the first place... out came the minibuses, and the crowd hooted and hollered. We were riled up. Buses went to the corners of the track, engines facing out, and then began zooming into each other backwards. Kind of butting into each other. But three of the minibuses tanked out right away, leaving only three others to duke it out. It wasn't exactly intense. And in the end, the winner wasn't even a minibus at all, but a large van. Probably also used to transport students, but still. Makes you wonder about the durability of schoolbuses in general.

MODIFIED CAR: I'm not really sure what makes it a modified car. Or if this is the only way a car can look when modified. I think it can apply to other kinds of cars, too, like stock cars or Endero cars. But whatever kind of cars these were, I don't really know. This race was superfast, and made me feel like I was riding on a roller coaster just watching it. In the first few laps, there were about six crashes, and they kept having to re-align themselves which took fucking forever... finally, the officials decided to race them single-file, and it got going and was over in about five minutes. So fast. Wicked awesome.

FUNNEL CAKE: Usually a delicious treat, greasy and sometimes covered with hot cherry pie filling (although it's been suggested that this is strictly a Midwestern touch). At Riverhead, it was rather more like an expired powdered donut. I still ate it.

FUMES: I totally got high off the gas and burning rubber fumes. Mmm.

Oh shit, and in one of the early races, a qualifying race for something, this one car's hood flew OFF the car and OVER the fence and INTO the bleachers! The hood of a car! And it didn't hit anybody! So rad. I'm totally going back.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:01

Friday, July 25, 2003

Bad:

1. I made some poor choices when dressing myself today. Everybody can see my stomach and underwear whenever I stand up. My shirt is too small and my pants are in dire need of a belt.

2. My coworkers are planning a dreadful-sounding drinks night, and when I tried to get out of it by saying I could only go on their least favored day, they curled their lips but changed the plan to "accomodate" me. So now I have to go, and already my chest is constricted over the thought of it.

3. I just tussled with the bank over an allegedly late payment to AT&T Wireless... why is it that I have such bad luck in paying bills online? It seems no one else ever has any trouble. Me, I get late fees and threats to mar my credit report, even when I do try to pay online, and promptly. Maybe it's me.

Good:

1. Half day Friday. Margarita after work. Probably some tortilla chips, too!

2. TOMORROW NIGHT: MINIBUS DEMOLITION DERBY!!!! Eeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr!!! Pwwwwwfffhhhhhh!!!!! Kablooey!!!! Hey, do people bet at derbys? Maybe I will, if people do. Because I can't deal with being perpetually broke any longer, but there seem to be no other means of escape short of selling my effects on eBay or becoming a junkmail-monger. I'm really considering it actually, after reading a little article in Jane about how to become an e-junkmailer. You make lots of money doing that. I'd like to have lots of money, and my scruples are pretty flimsy when it comes to these matters. Being broke makes me miserable... I don't even own anything fancy or have any really expensive habits, so where does it go? I don't buy anything that costs more than $50, and my friends are beyond sick of my tallying, my hedging over dessert or one more beer, etc. etc. etc. ... I didn't mean to turn this "good" into a "bad".

3. My brother's coming next weekend!! He's hiking through Vermont right now, apparently going into week two of not showering... I'm excited. I'm sure we'll annoy each other within hours of being together, but I don't care. That's our way.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 11:51

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

What's with me and the recent / current rash of blatant displays of good mood?

the words spilled out effortlessly at 15:30

Okay! This day has gotten even better!

Moments after my last post, my boss called: she forgot something for the presentation, and could I bring it downtown in a cab? So like a person with an important errand to run, I jumped into a cab with the projector and rode down to the Flatiron area, dropped off the projector, and, deciding I deserved a long lunch, I called Kat and asked her to meet me. She would be delighted, she said.

On our way to the City Bakery we were pulled into Gap Body where by the grace of it being a good day, there was a hoodie sale! How fortuitous, we exclaimed! So I bought myself a nice new hoodie, made of thin cotton, for $20. It's black.

Lunch was overpriced and not all that tasty, but the company was more important and I was glad to have some Kat time. Afterward, we bought cookies. And these cookies, from the City Bakery on 18th and 5th Avenue, turned out to be the most outstanding cookies in this city, bar none. Never mind that they're $2 apiece - they're worth so much more! I wish I'd known, I would've gotten cookies for lunch instead of crappy carrot salad and overpriced, cold breaded catfish.

Anyway, it's been good. I'm wondering if I want to ruin the goodness of the day by going to this schmoozy industry party tonight, or if my mood would sustain itself through the haze of cocktails and my company / your company banter / blather. Mary's going to be there... I should go, and just hang out with her and the other people I already know. Why waste a good mood sitting at home watching Who Wants to Marry My Dad?

the words spilled out effortlessly at 14:26

Oh, am I ever enjoying this day.

First thing this morning, my boss swept through my cubicle, collecting the laptop which contains the Powerpoint presentation I've been slaving over for days, weeks, all eternity, and took it away to the Big Meeting downtown, where she and it will be for the next several hours. !!! Naturally, as soon as I ensured that she had entered the elevator and that the doors had closed behind her, I came back to my desk, attached the headphones to my computer, and it was all systems go for me and Episode 241 of This American Life, "20 Acts in 60 Minutes". Currently making me smirk: a two minute story about two kids naming their dog Pasta-Batman Lowitz. Because one kid was fond of pasta and the other kid really liked Batman. Of course!

Simultaneously, I went to, and began to devour, the contents of the last several weeks' worth of news on The Morning News. This is where I found a most appealing essay written by Sarah Hepola about being a freelancer. After surfing around The Morning News for awhile, I then went to The Onion where I snorted over this article about the discovery of a third Olsen sister.

After "20 Acts" finishes up, I think I'll take a look at this collection of 80's commercials, sent to me by Jackie-O (which, I just noticed, she found on The Morning News).

It's so good to be back! Doing nothing, I mean. More later?

the words spilled out effortlessly at 11:41

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Somebody, anybody, buy me a lake house? Or a hammock, at least?

The benevolent Jackie-O took me up to her friend's lake house up at the Finger Lakes (which I think is hilarious, although no upstate New Yorkers seem to share my delight in saying "Finger Lakes". Finger Lakes. Heh.) this weekend for a little escapism therapy, and we had the best time ever! I mean we really did.

We took the Greyhound up early on Friday morning and got into town just as the sun started coming out from behind the clouds. I had a delicious vegeterian Reuben at the co-op in Ithaca. Then we went to some wineries with her friend Beth, and I got a little tipsy. Then we went back to Beth's lake house and then we played Spades for a little while and then we cooked dinner and then we played some more Spades and we listened to this awesome band called the Drive-by Truckers and I got tipsier all the while. Then we went down to the dock where Beth made a fire and s'mores were compiled. We stared at the sky and watched for shooting stars and satellites and told cat stories.

Then on Saturday, J-O's friends went to a wedding so we hung around by ourselves on the dock all day. And all we ate all day were cheese and crackers and chips and salsa, and Newman-Oh's. I took a nap in a hammock. Then we decided to walk down the highway to this restaurant we had seen, and we did, and it was a long haul and we got honked at by a rubbernecked semi driver and nearly stepped on a dead house parrot along the hard shoulder but the journey was well worth it and beautiful weather for highway walking. There was a bluegrass band playing at the Stonecat and we both ordered Maple Juniper Sausages and Strawberry Goat Cheese Pierogis(!) and custard for dessert, and then we walked back and played Scrabble and I came to within about fifty points of beating her for the second time that day which in itself is a feat and worthy of self-congratulations, because she is a master, and then we drank some more wine and then we passed out.

And then... on Sunday we got to go on the boat and we had seitan sandwiches and there were more ducks and we saw a cloud that was actually green and an otter and then Beth made Ethiopian food for dinner and then we got a ride to the bus station but on the way we stopped at a gas station and I took a picture of J-O by a live bait machine which was something I had never seen before and she told me I was weird, which I am, but I think the picture will turn out splendidly.

It was just about the nicest weekend ever. I always hesitate to leave the city for weekend trips because I fear I might miss something great, but in all honesty, every weekend here could virtually be the one before or after it, so what's to fear in missing one every now and then? Especially when the alternative is lazing around a beautiful lake with no trace of the patented New York smell of hot garbage spilling into the streets?

the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:34

Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Guess who I just saw on the street?

Pete From Pete and Pete! No lie! Big Pete, I mean. And no, Alissa and Liz, this is not like how last night at that hipster movie party I swore I saw Original Becky from Roseanne, whose name I can now confirm is Alicia Goranson. That might have been the whiskey talking (and I'm still not sure I wasn't right on the money, because I really did see her at Max Court one time, but she was looking fairly preppy then and it was only a few months ago so I doubt she would just change like that, and also the credits in the film that she was allegedly in (for about a second) listed an Alicia, and Becky's real name is Alicia, and also it just looked like her, and I would know because I watched way too much TV as a child. [By the way, I also once saw Michael Showalter at Max Court, and almost fell over.]) Big Pete doesn't have dredded up bike messenger hair anymore, like he did when I saw him in some bit part awhile back, but I think he might actually be a bike messenger now because he was dressed like one and also he had a bike.

Anyway, score. Sort of.

You know, I don't think I'd care at all if I saw some mondo celebrity, like Jennifer Aniston or one of the other trashy mag cover faces. I don't get all excited about the concept of celebrity. I just notice details, and faces especially. People from TV shows past or parties I went to years back, it's the same to me. I just like to work out where I recognize them from. And it's really not easy to see a Pete. You haven't done it, have you?

the words spilled out effortlessly at 14:45

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Ten Things I Would Rather Do Full-Time, And Would Do Better Than I Do My Current Job, if I Didn't Have to Make Money, E.G. if This Were a Barter Society, Which it is Unfortunately Not at This Point.

1. Find jobs, pets and apartments to suit all of my friends.
2. Dispense grrrl power-ish advice to you or all your female friends about how that guy is an asshole and not worth your time.
3. Drink beer.
4. Cut the necks and arm seams off of t-shirts so as to make them more "fresh" looking.
5. Write funny (?) emails, blogs, and Friendster testimonials.
6. Organize your birthday party for you.
7. Make really tasty tofu sandwiches.
8. Make out.
9. Talk passably in fake accents, most notably Irish, English, Scottish, Canadian, Wisconsin-ian, some hick dialects, and sometimes a Latin blend. (Be a freelance sleuth / spy?)
10. Burn mix cd's designed to make you frothy with enthusiasm.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 17:23

Being that I love postcards, and that I love radio stories, and that I love this radio story about postcards, I'd like to direct you to this Transom.org story about a father who sent his daughter a postcard for every day she was in college.

It's just a nice little story. That's all.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 10:23

Monday, July 14, 2003

So many things to say, and they're all about me... me, me, me! I'm feeling blathery. So here you go, enumerated-style.

1. My new haircut makes me feel very twee and cute. It's chin-length, a bob they call it... I'm pretty pleased, all told.

2. On Friday night, I went to a film festival on a rooftop in Williamsburg, aptly called Rooftop Films. Last week's short films were all Midwestern in origin, as was the opening musician who went to my high school and played in the orchestra with me. Unfortunately he was pretty awful, and nobody signed his mailing list sheet and I felt badly for him. Still, the films were awesome, the idea is awesome, the view is awesome. You should go. Oh, and the sandwiches: also awesome. After the show, we went to Pete's and got drunk and had an animal-impression-off, but I didn't compete as I don't really have any animal impressions. I did do my Sean Connery later on, but it was poorly received.

3. On Saturday night, I went to Bowery to see The New Pornographers. Now, I'm not a 35-year-old balding guy with no rhythm and a penchant for dressing like Frank Black, but I sure did have a good time at this show anyway. Even live, I couldn't understand a damn word they said, but they really perked me up. So much so that after the show, when I spied Erica coming out the door and went bounding up to her, I wasn't sure if it was the whiskey nip I'd smuggled in or just a good, old-fashioned cheerful mood that made me beam so. Maybe it was just Erica. She's lovely.

4. I also saw Jonathan Ames walking hand-in-hand with a nubile young co-ed in my subway station!

5. I just quit my MediaBistro class. I sent in the email just now, no going back. Five hundred dollars down the toilet. I came to this decision on Sunday morning at 5 a.m. after drinking a lot, but I think it's really quite sound. What's the point of taking a journalism class if I don't have a computer at home right now and can't write at work? Why bother putting myself through the stress of that for another three weeks, when I could use my Wednesdays some other way which doesn't involve being berated by the touch-and-go teacher of a not-for-credit class for not doing the work? Like drinking?

6. Work sucks less this week. I'm happy about that.

7. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be responsible, or will ever want to be responsible. Right now, I think about that word and it just doesn't seem to fit into my lexicon. It means changing too many things, and why would I want to do that?

8. THE BOOK I'M READING RIGHT NOW: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It's really enjoyable. I recommend it.

9. You know what really bugs me? People who drag their feet. I think it's because my boss drags her feet. Scuff, scuff, scuff, like that. I just think, what are you, five years old and not aware of how to not drag your feet? That's what I think sometimes, really.

10. Last night I had dinner at Katie's house because her mom was visiting, and it was delightful. What's more, she gave me loads of Lush products that she got for free at work and didn't need, so today I smell yummy. I want to eat myself.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 14:20

Thursday, July 10, 2003

I have no time for doing this today, but I just remembered a few things that I wanted to point out as I consume my yogurt and my tofu sandwich in record time, concurrently typing as I chew and swallow.

1. Sarah B..... a pleasure. Just a flat-out, goddamn pleasure. Come back now, y'hear?

2. Many thanks to Markand, for he is, although a stranger, GIVING ME tickets to see the New Pornographers this weekend. Just giving them to me. Pretty neat, eh?

3. Who Wants To Marry My Dad? Um, what? Did I just say, Who Wants to Marry My Dad???? Well, NBC did. It's their new reality program. And I think it's terribly, unforgiveably sad. To be sure, there are sadder things going on in reality reality... but still. You should have seen the commercial.

Do I have a minute to skim The Onion while I eat my cookie? I'm going to try.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:39

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

Yesterday was the worst day. The Worst. It culminated in a two hour meeting throughout which people critiqued and criticized this big thing I'm working on, as if they didn't have any idea that I'm human and I do sometimes make teeny, tiny, practically irrelevant mistakes and that I do know that I've made spelling errors but that I, unlike they, recognize that my spelling errors are not spelling out the end of the goddamn world.

And then last night was the Best Night! My roommate cooked a vegeterian Indian feast, three dishes with sides, and invited Jeremy and I to eat with she and her friend... so while she cooked, we drank red wine and smoked on the stoop, and talked about ourselves but not obnoxiously so, and then my friend Mermie called from Texas and I talked to her for a little while, and then my roommate called us in and we ate panir and something with cauliflour and some spicy chick peas stuff, and then we took a walk, and then we drank some more, and then Jeremy and I started watching This Is Spinal Tap, but before long I was half asleep, and then there were shoulder rubs and stuff and then we fell deep asleep. And when we woke up, we were lying on a bed of tiny magical mushrooms and fairies were braiding shafts of light into my hair, and then they invited us to a party they were throwing in their secret palace inside the base of a big, old tree, and....

Okay, all that stuff at the end was a lie. Up to the bed of tiny magical mushrooms was all truth, though.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:42

Monday, July 07, 2003

There was once this bunny. She was the nice sort of bunny, always looking for fun, sarcastic in humor but optimistic at heart and she was known, she hoped, for being not unkind. She worked in book publishing by day, and when night came she would usually take the train back to her hole, where she would eat carrots and watch tv as she drifted off to sleep, gearing up for another day of more of the same. Sometimes she would go out with her friends, a conglomerate of mammals and birds and reptiles, or her boyfriend, a wolf. He wasn't the sort of wolf who ate bunnies, of course. Actually, he was a vegeterian, which took care of the typical carnivorous issues pretty neatly. She almost always liked going out.

At work, though, the bunny was quite miserable. She had been in the same place for a long time, and her boss (a mink)'s passive-aggressive tendencies had rubbed off on her and made her afraid to assert herself to her boss. Her mink boss then believed that the bunny had no potential, and the bunny was so sick to her stomach with apathy that she didn't even care.

The bunny used to think she was going to be some sort of writer. At some point in the past few years, though, she had lost her voice. Now all she could remember how to write were quippy blog entries and emails. She sometimes wondered often if there was any way to capitalize on these talents of hers, but so far had come up with no grand ideas. She wanted somebody to give her a hint of an idea, and then throw away her television for her (because she hadn't the will to do so herself). Sometimes she felt she really could find her style again... but had not yet followed through on the inkling.

She also frequently got really, really tired of thinking about her blown potential, and talking about it with others whose potentials also seemed blown. It just made her feel more and more sick. It was a little tiny circle, the path she was walking herself along.

On one particular recent day, she was frustrated for a variety of reasons. Her assistant was leaving for good in the middle of a hellish part of the season, she didn't sleep well at all the previous night, and she got an email first thing from a distant, not-highly-favored ex-boyfriend, a bat whose band was now really taking off and who just moved in with his girlfriend and whose parents were paying for him to do nothing and take classes at Parsons, and she simply couldn't make herself be happy for him. It has nothing to do with his being an ex... it just reminded her further that she was not pulling it together, didn't know what she was doing, was just not getting it.

The bunny stared at the wall by her desk where a window would be if she had a window, if she sat by an outside wall, and thought about slipping out of that window and shimmying down the wall to the street, where she would scurry away. She would go to the docks and hop onto a boat, and wherever that boat was going was where the bunny would go. Bunnies don't get to travel as much as you'd think. She hasn't seen much, or rather hasn't done much, in her 25 years. If she had, she might have written about it. She wanted to, though. She'd had ideas of going to Iceland, Vancouver, Japan, India, the Dakotas. Although I guess you can't take a boat to the Dakotas. Still. It's an idea she had.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 15:15

Thursday, July 03, 2003

Okay... now I know I'm really in serious creative doldrums when I find myself writing "BRAINSTORM" into my day planner. Just "brainstorm", nothing too specific. Right next to "Aisler Set $10" and "picnic 2 pm". Because if it ain't in the planner, I just won't do it? Probably not, no. Not that it matters very much... I probably won't brainstorm even though it is written in ink in the day planner.

I have ideas... really, I do. I'm not washed up. I'm not washed up. I'm not washed up.

Not helping the mood today is the fact that I cut my bangs last night and am now sporting a boxy, face-framing style not unlike that of Moe from the Three Stooges.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 10:20

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

From time to time, when I'm feeling stressed or deserving of a treat but have no money or other means of barter with which to purchase a cookie or cigarettes, I just watch this. I know I've posted it before... but it really needs reiteration, don't you think? It comes to me in the shower some mornings, too. YATTA!

the words spilled out effortlessly at 14:04

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

I suspect you will want to be me, if you don't already, as soon as it sinks in that I, Sarah, have been extended the offer of a seat in a car travelling to Long Island to attend this glorious event! Yep, that's right, it's a mini-bus demolition derby. On LONG ISLAND. The testosterone level will probably be akin to that of the professional wrestling match at the Elks Lodge in Queens which I attended in February, but with even more acid wash jeans and handlebar mustaches and gut overhangs and spitting and $1.50 cups of beer! !!!!!!!!

Perhaps I'm revealing too much about my roots.

the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:28