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Thursday, September 30, 2004 hey, lads and ladies... just another big exciting day here in my world. stuffing a sandwich in my face, trying to make the most of my lunch quarter-hour. so like many of you, i'm also thinking a lot about the election. my outlook is not exactly optimistic, because i feel like the media has some sort of sleeper hold on the democrats or something and there's just a dearth of energy in that whole party right now (barak obama, where are you? why aren't you out there speaking? why aren't any of you stars of the convention saying anything right now, letting kerry stand out there alone like a pole in a field?) but i'm also holding out hope... strange things happen all the time, and maybe the tables are gonna turn after all. so what i want to ask you, better late than never, is this: what can i do? what are you doing? do you need help? what things are you doing to feel like you're helping the cause? are you emailing your grandparents begging them to reconsider their votes, are you registering voters in your towns, are you making cute little handmade anti-bush pins, are you prank calling noted republicans, what? i DO want to do something, even now, especially now. my contributions to the cause so far have been limited to: registering in my new neighborhood to vote, marching in the protest, and applying a kerry pin to my bag which soon after fell off and got lost. not embarrassing, but not admirable either. so. i ask you: what can we do? for my part, here are a few good links to poli-stuff: the transcript of bill o'reilly interviewing jon stewart [courtesy of slatch ] connie rice: top 10 secrets they don't want you to know about the debates a really sad letter from a baghdad-stationed journalist about the state of things okay, crap. my lunch break was a lot longer than i thought. the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:55 Sunday, September 26, 2004 first: go now, don't hesitate, don't think, just go, and get yourself a ticket to see shaun of the dead. me, i'm going within the week to see it a second time. i don't know if i loved it so much because it was a zombie movie or because it was just the funniest movie i've seen in as long as i can remember... but i don't think i know, or would want to know, anyone who wouldn't want to make love to this movie. i went to the catskills yesterday with eleven other people in a big white van. we drove up a few hours and rented a cabin with an above-ground pool, a pool table, cable, leather couches, woods, a huge backyard... paradise lite. we got what amounted to about eight cases of beer and drank it all, and what amounted to roughly one barnyard animal's worth of meat and ate all of that, too. we played taboo, we played kubb, we went swimming, we played horse... and we did it all wasted. it was a trip. i didn't know if i was up for a big social thing, after feeling pretty antisocial lately, but it was good for me. and altogether the whole trip cost me about $40. then i got back tonight and my roommate tells me that the upstairs neighbor, the landlord's daughter-in-law, came down tonight to complain about the smell of cat litter in her bathroom wafting up from ours. i don't know what to think -- first of all, yes i've been bad about it and i do feel incredibly stupid for having become so complacent when i knew all along it could become a big deal... i'm lazy, and i have blinders when it comes to slovenly living. but i can't imagine how the smell could've reached her through the floor and ceiling... i mean, how? it really wasn't that bad... i don't think. and now of course, i'm terrified that the landlord will be knocking on the door to tell me i had my chance and i blew it, and out goes kitty. fuck, fuck, fuck. thank god at least i'm going to be busy this week, and very out of the landlord's way. i'll stay out of his way for as long as it takes for him to give up and wait for the next time... and then there won't be a next time. i hope. so that's the weekend. the words spilled out effortlessly at 23:36 Friday, September 24, 2004 fancy esquire parties are lame. i discovered this upon arrival last night at a club called "quo" which was just a big dumb club. they didn't even show george saunders' movie adaptation - apparently his was made by a west coast director, so therefore it was in the west coast contest, and i had the misfortune of being at the east coast party. unlike a west coast party, which don't stop, this party ended for me after my fourth free vodka sour sank in around 9:30 and i could no longer be placated by the bowls of free candy lying around. i should've known when i saw that it was in chelsea. but oh well. we had a little fun. i screwed up pretty badly at work yesterday. well, i should say that certain people considered it a big deal, even though if it was just me i'd brush it off and realize that the world didn't end and ultimately be okay about it. i was expecting to get screamed at for this mistake, but as it turned out i just got reprimanded, and not even that sternly. the sad part of the story is that the assistant, when i told her i was pretty sure i was about to get reemed, said to me, "just pretend like you're invisible, that's what i always do, and he'll blow right through you." every day she suffers so much more than i do. the reason i didn't get screamed at yesterday was because he wasted his breath screaming at her for five minutes for not setting the vcr properly. sometimes i do worry that i'm crossing lines by writing details about work on my website. everybody's heard the horror stories. but i guess after four years of never being discovered at the old job, i'm complacent. my boss is too busy to go snooping, and i can't say a bad thing about anyone else here, so i don't see what the big deal is. the words spilled out effortlessly at 10:55 Wednesday, September 22, 2004 after many months of anticipation, shaun of the dead is finally coming here this friday. woo! it promises to combine two of my favorite things - zombies inheriting the earth, and england. when i first saw the ads, i was in london, and i thought the posters featured that horrible graham norton. thankfully i was wrong. i sure hope they don't axe dan rather before the elections coverage. being dumbfounded by the things he says really takes the focus off of being dumbfounded at the state of our country, you know? ... i'm a little bummed that i won't have earned any days off by election time... i'd much rather spend the day after hung over at home than hung over here at work. but what can you do, really. tomorrow night, very exciting... i'm going to some fancy esquire party featuring george saunders. the exciting part being the george saunders bit, not the esquire bit. apparently someone has turned this story into a short film. as it happens, i'm reading civilwarland in bad decay right now and it's just exactly what i need to be reading. love george saunders. i bought a bunch of books off of abebooks.com last week when i was feeling a bit of brainrot, and they're starting to come in now. today i got my banana yoshimoto, amrita so that's next on the list. it's such a great site, you can get almost any book you desire for under $5 including shipping. that's cheap. the words spilled out effortlessly at 16:03 Monday, September 20, 2004 praise the lord, mary and i got cable this weekend... life is starting to feel more normal, after having watched the real world philadelphia and surreal life and a reno 911! marathon. i was starting to get hives-- withdrawl from frivolous televised garbage intake leaves me weak. and for those of you who don't know, flava flav is totally gonna tap brigitte nielsen on the surreal life, if he hasn't already. i didn't watch last night, being that i was at the movies watching before sunset, which was beautiful and thought-provoking and fantastic, apart from ethan hawke being in it. julie delpy is just so intoxicating, so magnificent, that i just can't in my mind fully allow her to be in love with a cocksure american who's being played by ethan hawke and who is not in the least bit sexually or personally attractive in anything except maybe reality bites. of course, i wouldn't have imagined flava flav and brigitte nielsen either, so what do i know about anything, really. tonight, did you know, there's a calvin johnson / microphones (mt. eerie) show going on at la nortena... good stuff. i'm feeling more like going to shows lately. i'm also already getting far too excited about the deerhoof double feature and the mountain goats at the knitting factory, and the decembrists at webster hall, all coming up within a few months. and since i haven't spent all of my paycheck yet, and have no budgeting abilities whatever, i can still dream of seeing them all. i'm starting to put some thought into halloween costume ideas. a few of us had discussed possibly being the warriors... but i'm inclined to say no to group costume ideas, especially those that involve going bareback under a leather vest and carrying a bat. now to do work. the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:24 Monday, September 13, 2004 call me impulsive: i just signed up for zipcar. bah! i just plunked down money i definitely don't have right now, but am hoping to have before the charge goes through, just because i wanted to. after this weekend of driving, i just feel like this is something i need, you know? the option of hopping in a car and driving it away somewhere, even if it's just for a few hours. like say, to an ihop on long island, or the drive-in movie place in westchester, or my aunt's house in new jersey, or coney island in november, or anywhere. i know a few people here with cars, but i wouldn't really feel right asking them if i could borrow them for a road trip... you know? but with zipcar, i put down $75 nonrefundable and a $100 deposit, and now at my own discretion i get to pick up a car at a moment's notice and drive it around for half a day, and the rates aren't too bad, and it's covered by insurance... and i don't really want to own a car so much as just have a car to use, really. there are too many cars in the world. most of them seem to have converged in front of me on the garden state expressway last night. the sight of all those cars around me clogging up the road, all with only one or two people in them... everyone in sight could've fit on two buses, easy, and we all would've gotten off the highway a lot faster. so if you need a ride, give me a call. the words spilled out effortlessly at 15:43 Friday, September 03, 2004 who here thinks our president is awesome?!?!?!? OMG so great. yeah, i watched the speech last night. creepsville. what i found most scary wasn't that he openly lied, bluffed, avoided, rehashed, jabbed kerry, thanked god, promised liberty to all (then swore to hold fast on gay marriage and abortion rights), or his smarmy little worm lips. it wasn't even that he declared this "liberty century" (and pronounced it "sentry"). it was that his speech wasn't bad. meaning that i suspect it's won a lot of heartland voters over. i mean i'm no pundit, but i know what i saw. he did what he was put up there to do, you know? he didn't (because he couldn't) give hard evidence (because it doesn't exist) on almost any of his declarations that he's made a difference for the better, and he even re-made some old, broken promises up to look like new promises. and what surprised me and frightened me was, watching him wasn't nearly as bad as listening to everybody else pump him up and refer to him as this great leader... because he couldn't possibly kiss his own ass as voraciously as they all did. kerry would be right to be scared, honestly. and i'm scared. i haven't read any coverage or poll figures yet, and i don't know if i want to right now. did anybody else notice that the only apparent non-white people in the room were parked in the front row, as if to say, see, we have black people! anyway. today's my last half day friday for the summer. i might go to p.s. 1. oh: does anybody want to buy u.s. open tix off of me? for this tuesday 9/7 during the day, i'm selling three tickets for a song... i just can't use them. email me, or call if you have my number. the words spilled out effortlessly at 10:06 Thursday, September 02, 2004 what an exciting day... an hour ago i was feeling glum and didn't want to do anything or think about doing anything, after a frustrating tet a tet with my boss. but then i found out that i'm going on a road trip to new jersey on saturday, and that's got me all excited! we're going to go to the mall and to the bowling alley, maybe, and possibly to some boyhood homes of famous americans if i can talk the others into it... i have a thing about boyhood homes and birth places, maybe i've written about it before. i'll spare you today though. and i'm going to the beach on monday! do you know, i haven't left new york, haven't been outside the boroughs of brooklyn and manhattan, since... i think since i got back from england in april. not counting a quick trip to my brother's office in the bronx. so strange how i do this every summer. i'm too afraid to miss anything here, so i never leave. although i think next weekend i'm going to the jersey shore to visit my grandparents, who are visiting my aunt there. so that's big. ...... i just got invited out to lunch by my new coworkers for the first time. this is cool - i like them, they're fun. they have no qualms about bitching openly about our boss. we all seem to agree that he's the only negative about working here. but one girl told me that she thinks he must like me, because he seems to actually listen when i talk. this is news to me, but if she thinks he doesn't hate me, i'd prefer that over him making my life more miserable. a few months ago i was back on a sweepstakes kick, having nothing to do all day at my old job. so every day i would enter this contest on the jelly belly website to win a mini ipod. they said they'd post the winners this week, and i just have this feeling i'm going to win one... so i go to the jelly belly website about six times a day, checking to see if they've posted it yet. some might say, how pathetic. me, i just want an ipod that badly. lastly, dan got arrested at a peaceful protest the other day, and was stuck in a shitty makeshift jail with cheese and whitebread sandwiches and no cigarettes and nothing to read for twenty four hours. he was there until last night. so i just wanted you to know that he's been out there speaking for us... i for one am really proud, really grateful. the words spilled out effortlessly at 13:59 |
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