pretty love machine

i've been visiting with the nine inch nails a lot lately, which i didn't think was so much of a bad thing, but while listening to "terrible lie" on pretty hate machine for the sixth time on repeat on tuesday night and thinking seriously that trent reznor might be the only man that will ever understand me and the rest of the world can take it and shove it, it occurred to me that i think i have actually become a pretty hate machine. as anyone who has been either witness to or victim of one of my recent rages can attest, they are really a beautiful and terrifying thing. i have lost any and all ability to lie. any capacity i used to have for hiding scorn or distaste or aggravation has just disappeared. i have no screen. none! goodbye! bye! seeya soon, screen! later!

maybe the screen will come back after it's had a nice beach vacation. maybe the screen needs a little aloha. but for now, i am screenless. and very easily swayed into attack mode, whether it be towards the self-righteous chump who stands in front of the subway doors instead of moving into the car, the gossipmonger who dives into everyone else's drama because of her own insecurity issues, the clueless publicist who doesn't have her freakin shit together but still seems to think it's a good idea to call, and most of all, to the goddamn-stupid-fucking-lords-of-powerbook-g4s that have decided that my disc drive is not going to eject cds and is holding AB's ryan adams album hostage and thereby forcing me to visit the mac genius bar at some asinine hour in the morning next week.

sigh.

pretty.hate.machine.

anyways. after taking some sick joy in the clearly visible levels of discomfort and self-doubt that my vengeance has wreaked on these poor souls the past few weeks, i have decided that i am a horrible person and trent is really not that cool anyways. i have changed. example: at brunch this morning, i didn't even try to make the imbecilic girl sitting next to me at dumont feel like less of a human being despite her inability to keep her feet under her own goddamn table. i bet G didn't even know that i secretly wanted to punch her hipster-mullet-ratty-scarf lights out!

this is improvement, i think. anyways. in an effort to become more pretty love machine than vengeful, unloving pretty hate machine, i've taken trent reznor out of heavy rotation and begun cataloging the many many things that are evidence of the happy random wonderful sweet loving caring generous nonsense that surround me everyday. it helps. there are lots of happy things to think about. i am done being an ungrateful wench. and i haven't wanted to punch anybody since breakfast.

here are a few things i heart, in no particular order:

poker & pavlov
i think most people feel it: there is something contagious about the happiness between Y & AB. poker is just a farce for everyone to gather around them. plus, there is something priceless about the fact that friday night i completely blanked on the fact that playing poker requires money, and rolled up to our weekly game with two half-finished bottles of booze and only $5 in my pocket, and nobody even batted an eye, despite the fact that we played two $10 buy-in games and gorged on takeout. i also kind of love that i left with little pieces of green fuzz all over me from the new felt. sidebar: everytime i walk into Y & AB's apartment, i have an uncontrollable urge to eat burritos. a big carne asada burrito, from buffalo cantina, with extra red sauce on the side. weird?

tuesdays
i like tuesdays.

roasted garlic
it's good on everything. i should know. in addition to becoming a pretty love machine, i'm also growing garlic cloves out of my ears. cut the top off a head of garlic, wrap in tin foil, drizzle with a little olive oil and salt, stick in the oven for half an hour at 350 degrees and you end up with one of the most glorious treats known to man. toss with linguini and a bit more oil. spread on a toasted pita. slather onto chicken. mash it into a potato. let them cool for a bit and pop into your mouth whole and breathe all over your apartment and revel in the garlicky-ness of it all. not that i've done that. at all. ever.

my friends inscribed into my apartment
everytime i look around my home i get little squishes of love. i still can't thank people enough for the blood sweat and tears that virtually everybody who knows me poured into helping me make a home. just a few of the highlights, because the list really goes on forever ...
generally unpleasant labor - G, D, C, AS
pretty painted walls - U, D, C
sexy bamboo paper shades - Y
sleek leaning bookshelves - G, AS
futon - G
humidifier - G
ottoman - C
television - U & A
chiffon curtains - U
and on, and on, and on ...

gmail chat
here's to C changing her browser solely so she can haunt g-chat with me ... and yay to C for letting me be the only one who interrupts her on a constant basis. to talk about love and life and spirituality and, you know, how much everyone else fucking sucks.

frequent flyer miles & J
um, hellooooooo oakland. hello sunshine when new york is about to drive me crazy. hello wine country. hello chez panisse. hello to the best of the midwest, relocated to the bay area. hello to a new way of eradicating the many many states that live between new york and california. hello to some serious sweetness on J's part, and hel-LO to finding a friend in the most unexpected of moments.

my mommy & daddy
for somehow knowing the one true longing in my heart, and for granting a wish i didn't dare ask for: a ticket for 10 days in beautiful kauai.

fresh direct
really. fresh direct. groceries, like tuesdays, make me happy.

world of warcraft, oranges & and assorted other G-isms
what started out as tolerance of G's addiction to the crack-like W0W and his need to discuss the game with anybody who would listen to him has now become a vested personal interest. i admit it. it's true. i actually LIKE hearing about little gnomes in fantasy land! i want to KNOW what happens with the lava monsters! i WORRY when i hear V's boyfriend doesn't have enough tools for the next quest! god save me.

erasure
for being exactly who they are.

my editor
AZ wants us to shop more. so he's forcing our department to shop for two days over the next few weeks, before we go on a "retail field trip" to examine a few malls in long island. forcing us. his words: "i don't even want to see you in the office. don't come in. go shopping. eavesdrop. hang out in the stores. it'll be good for us to pick up story ideas. have fun."

speaking of my editor: i have promised to work on a draft of a story on fashion brands expanding into india before tomorrow. AZ has set up a cool co-mentoring thingymajig that plays to the strengths of both me and MD, and in order to make the thingymajig work ... well, i've actually got to work.

leaving with happy thoughts and a promise not to beat down on any assclowns on the way to work tomorrow. wish me luck.

stealing from cindy

this seemed like a good idea. check out C's blog for the original.

10 years ago this month: february 1996
profoundly, profoundly in love with ARM. well, as profoundly as a 16-year-old can be. oh, first love, so beautiful and devastating ... wait. that's kind of a perfect description of him. beautiful and devastating. anyways. listening to a lot of velvet underground, nirvana, smashing pumpkins, and the kinks. smoking a pack a day and hiding a typical teenage stash of bad weed, joker rolling papers, parliament lights and trojans in my underwear drawer, where, you know, mom would never think to look. writing a lot of reeeeeeeally bad poems. reading A Tidewater Morning by william styron, which remains one of my favorite novels.

8 years ago this month: february 1998
living in a 12x12 box with AS in the south mid-quads at northwestern university. listening to tracy chapman, tori amos and sarah mclachlan. still smoking a pack a day, spending most of my free time smoking outside of smq with AS and YF, who conveniently lived upstairs, and watching repeats of "my so-called life." i identified with angela, i really did. i really, really did. and i could have loved jordan catalano. reading the AP stylebook.

6 years ago this month: february 2000
living in a 12x12 box with TI in delta gamma sorority house, the world's greatest experiment in low-carb dieting. no longer smoking, much to the dismay of everyone who knows me. spent much time — dare i say, all? — embracing a true sister, C, while falling even more in love with Y and AS, and exalting the joys of a bottle plus two glasses of wine and a cheese plate at my bar. liquor begins rapidly taking the place of parliament lights. listening to rage against the machine, beastie boys, and chemical brothers. starting to realize that searching for honesty in life as a journalist is maybe not a copout from writing, but a vocation in writing. reading Nausea by jean-paul sartre.

4 years ago this month: february 2002
living in a 12x12 studio on 105th street in new york city, writing for a trade magazine, ignoring poetry, and falling deeply, deeply, deeply off the wrong side of the mountain into a valley of liquor and sex. well on my way to complete physical and emotional system failure. still jumping everytime a firetruck or ambulance passes me on the street. it is dark. listening to fiona apple, nine inch nails, pj harvey and radiohead. reading nothing.

2 years ago this month: february 2004
still living in a 12x12 studio on 105th street, which has somehow become less suffocating and more charming. made a sad but necessary split from AM, who occupied me off and on for the better part of two years. fell rapidly in love with B, who was different from anybody i'd ever known, ever. wondered why C liked the sullivan room so much. put up Crown Heights, the first show i produced with youth onstage!, and opened my eyes to the concept of independent-party politics. listening to alicia keys, interpol, and a demo of jenny rivera. reading backissues of The New Yorker.

1 year ago this month: february 2005
living with B in a beautiful loft studio in lower manhattan, discovering the joys of baking, domestic life, and preparing for a week-long ski trip to telluride. blissfully, ridiculously, blindly, indulgently in love. gained 12 pounds. writing for women's wear daily. listening to random pop music that B likes. reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by milan kundera. not writing poetry.

6 months ago this month: september 2005
still recovering from the shock of hearing the words "you can always write on the side" leave B's mouth. clinging to our life together, but beginning to understand that he and i will not be forever. helping my parents prepare for retirement. start spending a significant amount of time trying to decipher people's poker faces. G re-enters my life with gusto, and without my knowing, hops on a ridiculously superaccelerated fast track to joining the ranks of the chosen few. watch Y turn a new leaf with her students, and her role as teacher and caregiver. listening to weezer, and a lot of radiohead. a lot. re-reading The Constructor by john koethe. writing a lot.

today:
living alone in a charming one-bedroom in williamsburg, brooklyn, blocks from Y and C and my new favorite restaurant, moto, and a few subway stops from U & A, G and most of the other important people in my life. a mere $36 gypsy cab ride from AS, but it's only $12 if C and Y and i split the fare. appreciating the joys of egyptian cotton, eating dinner in my underwear, having all the closets to myself, and writing all the time. lonely at times, but starting to appreciate solitude, too. no longer questioning why i have a dark side, but feeling free to explore it. listening to franz ferdinand, madonna, 10,000 maniacs, and more radiohead. reading Middlesex by jeffrey eugenides and my old journals. thankful.

saks, american express, oscar, and my ass

saksex? amsaks? oscarass? amsexass?

anyways.

yesterday, despite all of my promises to myself that i was not going to buy clothes until either A) next season or B) my debt to the gods of bed bath & beyond, crate & barrel, the company store and williams-sonoma was paid off, i found myself needing to buy jeans. needing them. i had to have them. right then. i felt frumpy, my other pair of ass-hugging jeans fell apart (crappy sevens! bewarned!) and premium denim was the only thing that was going to make me feel better. i don't know why i thought that. shopping for jeans is something akin to trying on bikini after bikini under neon lights for your first beach vacation of the year, when you're pale and still holding onto a couple pounds of winter chub. it is not the most pleasant thing for a woman to do.

but, addiction, especially to dark washes and unique stitching, can drive us to do such things.

so, after doing the late-night check of the wires, i wind my way over from conde's offices to saks fifth avenue, where i usually have a lot of luck on their fifth floor denim collection. i arrive at 7pm. the doors are still open, but the store is officially closed. no matter. nothing is going to stop me at this point. i pull 3 darkly appealing, not-so-distressed pairs off the racks, in my usual size.

the chosen few:
- rock & republic's "skynard": $178
- paige premium's "laurel canyon": $179
- AG "angel": $130

and i buy them. all. american express: $527.79

american express loves me.

on the subway home, i'm feeling minor guilt but mostly euphoria. how i managed such glee without even having tried a single pair on, i don't know. but i'm happy anyways. i get home, and within minutes have stripped down into the skynards. hunh. they're kinda hot. but i can't breathe. must. take. off.

angel - eh. boooring.

laurel canyon - hunh. i like these. but ... do i like them enough? the front pockets wrinkle a bit. if i bend over, my undies stick out the back, which makes me crazy. i can breathe, but if my thighs had lungs, they certainly wouldn't be able to.

i sit in these jeans all night. i eat some eggplant, finish building some furniture, unpack my last box, and wait for C and V to show up with the BEST GIFT EVER, an adorable ottoman that feeds my addiction for things that are orange and clean and cute. C assures me they are not too tight. i am skeptical. i decide to sleep on it. i take them off. my legs take a deep sigh of relief.

this morning, i try them on again and am not satisfied. so after my morning gig, i head back to saks before going into the office (this is actually considered "work" in my life ... my job is absurd) and, i meet my savior. oscar.

oscar and i start a fitting room. and i select, oh, just a few more pairs. oscar says, "girl, you KNOW your body, don't you?"

*blush*

the chosen few:
- joe's jeans "honey": $158
- joe's jeans "socialite": $158
- rock & republic's "costello": $176
- rock & republic's "roth": $176

things i learned? i am not quite bootylicious enough to warrant honey status. socialite is very flattering, but mmm, a little too meatpackingdistrictwhitegirlwithcamisoleandblazer for my taste. costello was super hot, but i need something a teensy bit more versatile. but roth. oh, roth. they're hot? i think? oscar?

"oh girl. it's like a $200 pushup bra. look at how the pockets give you that nice butt cleave. these are it. your ass is really doing it for me in those jeans."

i love you, oscar.

oscar asks if i need hemming services. i say no, thanks, i have a tailor. he says, you won't have to get too much off. "i mean, you are definitely a girl that wears 3 inch heels."

*blush* i am now! i am SO that girl! i WILL be that girl!

back to the register. with memories of david lee roth's namesake jeans plastered onto my butt, i hand over the amex yet again. rock & republic's roth total? $190.74. credited back to my account: $337.05.

happiness gauge, 1.25 hours after purchase was complete? high.

still awake

still awake, still awake. why am i doing this? i've resisted so long.

just because G and C did it? because i got hooked on J's? hunh. an idle imagination and a quiet apartment. talking to myself was getting old. writing alone is better than drinking alone. do i really want to share the minutiae in my head that badly?

apparently. here's to blogging, and a new varietal of addiction.

desperately seeking ...

an alternate reality. diversion. maybe something approaching a state of grace?