dreams.get.weird.er.but.who.cares?

last night, i had dreams of poetry and communes and N.

so, first, we were in williamsburg and had to get to n. 11th and bedford. which is where triple crown is. apparently i really wanted to show N where triple crown was? but anyways, so we're walking from my apartment through the neighborhood, and we come to a kind of T-shaped intersection, and at the "T" is a huge rambling house with a wraparound porch and all kinds of people hanging out outside at picnic tables and eating. and it looks good.

and suddenly, N and i are wearing trekking clothes, and carrying backpacks, and even though we only have to go to n. 11th and bedford, it seems like a fantastic idea that we stop at this big house, which turns out to be a commune. a big, friendly commune for weary travelers, and we figure we can stop and eat and rest until we need to make our way. there are subway stops everywhere on the street, too, which made the whole picnic-table-commune thing very odd.

anyways. so we plop all our stuff down at a picnic bench, and we're kinda waiting and hanging out and i get very sleepy so i curl up on the bench and fall asleep while N soaks up the scene. i wake up to learn that there are rules at the commune ... something about a lottery to get selected and all these strict things about what we can and can't do, and how many people we have to have camping together in order to stay there. strangers start approaching us about camping together so we can meet the requirements and stay at the commune.

to which we respond, wtf kind of commune is this? we're out of here.

and we leave. we're suddenly back on a completely urban street. and N says something about being swallowed, and i say something in response like, "by light?" and somehow we both understand that it is by the mouth of the subway, and then there are more words being tossed around, like "edge" and "entrance" and other ones that are popping up like bubbles over his head.

and that's it.

i guess ... i guess the weird thing about this dream is that it's not so weird. it would be so like me to insist that we see someplace and do something and then to fall asleep because N has this narcotic effect on me. it would be so like us to have strangers approach us and want to be near us, and for us in response to say fuck this place and these rules. it's like both of us to see poetry in public transportation. although, that's probably not exclusive to N. i think everybody that i love, or even those that i find merely interesting, would be able to find the poetry in public transportation.

yes, yes they would.

anyways. i think this dream is telling me i need to

1) get N to williamsburg, immediately asap right now
2) finish that poem about the subway
3) seriously revisit childhood fantasies of yaddo and other artist reservations
4) figure out how to get chat bubbles to appear above my head

in the interim, i am very excited for this weekend. this morning started off in the happiest way when i got a call from G, sitting in the airport in ohio and on his way back to new york suuuuper early. and it gets better ... C's boss has given us day passes to the pool at chelsea piers, so me, Y and AB are off in a few hours to scheme and break C out of this weekday prison called "work" ... then tonight there's poker and the arrival of AG and MB to the hood ... then tomorrow is the first warmup party at ps1 ... then sunday it's off to strong island for a bbq with R&R and the rest of the D clan ... and then there's TWO WHOLE MORE DAYS of playtime! yay! sometime before sunday night i have to finish a story for work and ship it off to NZ, who has been the ultimate in cool in my deadline and my strange experiences with sources who seem to be frightened of me. but that hardly even seems like work. yay for NZ. yay for long weekend. yay for life and summer and communes and chat bubbles.

yay.

birthday bonanza, part 3

C's 27th: the final showdown. it all started innocently enough — indoor bbq and lots of girls at my place. and then some random slasher tried to make a horror movie. how did he get there? oh wait. that's V. maybe he brought the cake. and cooked all the burgers. and made C happy. okay. we'll keep him. in response to the attempted knifing, we decided it was a good idea to drink. and drink. and drink. we ended up with lots of burger and booze in our bellies and lounging on the fuzz master carpet ... and sleepyness was about to strike all ... ... when C had the wherewithal, somehow, to get us all out of the black hole of hangout and greenery that is my apartment. seriously. time somehow melts away in this place ... but anyways. she got us all motivated. i don't know how, especially since the last party i had in her honor went on for several hours while she slept in my bed. but she did it. she motivated 8 girls, 1 boy, and that crazy slasher dood out of the house. it was a magical feat of endurance and energy. i mean, it was nearly 11pm. it was LATE. but, RS was spinning at triple crown, our names were on a list, and goddamnit we were going to make it out. good thing we had this game called "doing the C" to keep us entertained. it's a game worth playing ... and a face worth practicing. perhaps momma H was onto something when she told C to always take pictures with the perfect face and angle? maybe excessive korean vanity DOES have a purpose? at any rate. once mastered, it is a near impossible force to stop.

for example, here are textbook examples of "the C" by my two gorgeous cubans. as Y and K demonstrate, the shoulder is a critical element of "the C." here are some variations on the theme. i offer the "frontal C," while K and C are both utilizing the "extended arm C." Y has opted for the "over the shoulder C." it's not just girls that can do "the C" either. here. see? G is getting good at it. this maneuver is called simply, the "boy C."omg. i can't make them stop. make them stop!yet here we are, doing it again. jesu christo, save us.
anyways. the evening was a smashing success, i say ... there were free drink hookups. there were shoutouts from the sweet RS. there was cypress hill. there was 50 cent and shortys and birthdays. all in all there was tons of fun people and lots of sweaty hip hop ... and there was C making it all the way to 2am, even if nobody can quite remember the end of the evening. but who needs memory when people are handing out pink sugary shots of liquor? who needs to remember what they said, as long as they're still standing? we made it out til 2am. even the non-neighborhoodies, like D and AS, made it out late, and they had more than five blocks to travel. that's like, extra credit, or something. i mean, we're not old! we stayed out sooooo late! we can party!

right?

anyways. so here's a final birthday wish to my cosmic sister and partner in crime. has it really only been 7 years we've known each other? because i think maybe we were born to be friends. and if your abnormally long fingers weren't blocking my face in this picture, you'd see a huge, unadulterated, unposed, no holds barred grin of happiness for you on your special birthday celebration. so until we're halmunees sitting in our rocking chairs, wearing our slip-pahs, tossing back spiked lemonade and talking shit about how hot we used to be: i love you, you cwazy wabbit.

heartbroken

sigh.

i hate the fucking swiss.

wicked dreams

i think it was the pomegranate martini. or ... maybe it was the third pomegranate martini?

but really. it was kind of awful.

i don't know how it turned out that way. the night started off beautifully. we had our first mini-birthday celebration for C last night after work, when C and i met for drinks at dressler, where capt. mcflirty bartender was serving up some frosty pomegranate-ness. he looks familiar. good-looking guy with a sharp wit behind a bar ... maybe one of the millions of underemployed, overintelligent northwestern grads in williamsburg? he must be an actor. and if he's an actor, he must've been on law & order. he MUST have.

so i ask. have you been on law & order?

why yes, yes he has. he was the skeevy jealous ex-boyfriend suspect on one of the original law & order shows. and now he makes a delicious pomegranate martini. so we had several. V showed up after a bit, all clean-shaven and preppy for C. then Y arrives, and we sip on pomegranate yummyness while C and V move on to dinner. i haven't seen Y in many moons and kind of can't stop fawning over her. we go for noodles and chill on my pretty new orange bar stools, and all is calm and pretty and wonderful and pomegratey. i feel really good and loving towards everyone and everything. and then i go to sleep.

the bad shit starts here.

i am in stadium, a huge, massive stadium with a thrust stage in the middle, and people are screaming, calling out, and waiting for a play to start. it's friday night, they have to wait until sunday for the play. and i'm the lead in the play, and i'm overcome with exhaustion, and all i want to do is sleep, but i suddenly realize ... i don't know my lines. any of them. a whole play's worth. a litany of lines. a hamlet of lines. and i can't sleep, i have to try to memorize my lines, but i know there's just no way i'll be able to do it, and i am going to ruin the play for everyone, the other performers, the audience, everyone. and it's paralyzing and awful, but all i can do is try try try even though i know i won't be able to live up to expectation.

um.

i woke up from that dream to fits of tossing and turning. my mouth was parched, so i reach for the water i always keep by bed, but i knock the whole glass over onto the floor, and i am just too defeated to get up and go to the kitchen for another. i try to think ... is there anything i've forgotten? in real life? what could i possibly ruin for EVERYBODY else i know, for all these people who are relying on me? where am i fucking up? what can i do to make sure i don't disappoint everyone?

i fall back asleep.

i am in my childhood home, sitting at the vanity in my parents' bathroom, which somehow magically has long benches and tables in it, and i'm frantically trying to make myself beautiful and clean up the tables and benches and make the room pretty before all these people show up. somebody has died. i think it's somebody close, but i don't know. crowds of people start pouring into the house, and i can see them and i go rush out to meet them, and somebody, i think my sister, asks, "do you think she was dead when she was alive? or do you think she is more alive now that she's gone?" and i look back into the bathroom which i for some reason have been trying to make perfect, and two old, haggard, dirty men wrapped in ratty clothes are sitting at the benches, and marring everything. and they look familiar, and i know, in my heart of hearts, that they are the same men that haunted me in my old recurring nightmare from when i was a teenager, when haggard old men's faces would suddenly appear in every window of my house, so that even when i was locked inside, in my safe space, i couldn't ever get away from their eyes.

now, how fucked up is that, that DURING a dream, i'm haunted by the ghosts of my dreams past? i haven't had that nightmare since college. and that now ... now they are just sitting down in a space i have tried so hard to make beautiful? as if they have access to it whenever they choose. as if it's not really mine.

i wake up. i'm still thirsty. and then i fall back asleep.

i'm in a bedroom, and it's all white. there are ropes of christmas lights hanging from the ceiling, and a mattress on the floor, and everything is pristine. there are sheer white curtains on the windows, and everything is floating and pretty and nice. and i'm sitting on the edge of the mattress, and i'm watching an old flame and his current love interest dance around the room, wrapping themselves in the lights, and smiling, and dancing, and they are all twinkly and happy and pristine and he smiles at me, as if to say, see? and i'm genuinely happy for them, but something about the lights and the smiles is totally heartbreaking, and i shrink away from the whole room and suddenly i'm sitting alone and watching the whole scene on a screen, as if it's a home movie that's been recorded before. just two people dancing and laughing, tangled up in lights.

i wake up. it's 6am and i don't let myself go back to sleep. the day starts as usual: i get in the shower, shave my legs, brush my teeth, make some tea. i sit down at my desk and DR dings me at 7am so i can start work. we finish up, i get dressed, make my way to the J and here i am in midtown. everyday ordinary morning. it's like last night never happened, except it did, and i'm still all twisted up about it. it's kind of hard to write about real estate strategies or downtown revitalization or a new architecture exhibit when i'm wondering where i'm fucking up or why the old ghosts are back or when i get to be the one in love, dancing in lights.

sigh. but time to focus it is. the work is good work, at least ... and i have korea vs. switzerland, a play with D, dinner with G, and C's big birthday bash to look forward to this weekend. dreams be damned. the real world is calling.

fair warning

to you antiquated, unoriginal and stagnant black hole of careerism: get out of my way and don't fuck with my business again.

you have no idea who you are dealing with.

futbol fever. or maybe malaria.

i am now officially the kind of girl that screams and jumps up and down and yells at the television.

i like it.

i missed korea's match against togo, but i was there for its spectacular tie against france. jumping. screaming. gesticulating. while alone. watching ABC in my apartment. totally sober. with all the lights off. because maybe it was cooler that way? because it was 1200 degrees and i was too lazy to set up my air conditioning.

but my point is, we TIED FRANCE in a game where we were supposed to get trounced. so, i think, if we at least tie switzerland on friday, then even if france beats togo, we will advance to the second round because we'll have scored enough goals to put is in the top 2 of our group. i think. the majority of my world cup education came from G during the brazil game, but i've been studying fifa.com and i think i got it now. so ... yay futbol! yay koreans! yay jung hwan ahn! yes — i've joined the legions of korean girls that want this man. good thing i'm bigger than all of them combined, because he's mine. so step off unless you want to get broken.

there was all kinds of futbol this weekend. there was all kinds of lots of things this weekend, actually. friday i had some much-needed solo C-time, in our own private italy, aka moto. then we wandered off for some wine at larry lawrence, then back home for puttering and nonsense and to exchange some pleasantries with RS, who was fresh off a plane from boston and stopped by before his gig. RS is on the mend from a broken heart (been there! understand that!) so it was good to repay the kindness everyone has given me, and give him a hug and cheer him up a little. and really, what sight could be more cheerful than a drunk C in a pretty pretty dress floating around my apartment with one — yes, just one — of my new rollerblades on her foot?

exactly.

saturday was off for some much-needed G-time and the first of the weekend's copa mundial fun. i caught the last bit of the U.S.-italy match at a bar full of him, NG, and NG's brownie friends. full of them. and one of them had their baby with them? in the bar? i found this disturbing. anyways. we ditched the throng and baby in favor of puttering and nonsense, then dinner at grape & grain. everytime i go to that restaurant i heart it more. delicious, inexpensive tapas and a vibe that's quirky-chic-laidback-smart-whatmeworry? all at the same time. eventually, we ended up with NG and his ladyfriend at the delancey for a drum and bass party. the music was fun, but note to the haole emcee: put down the mic. put DOWN the mic. i only wish i had remembered that the delancey has that cool rooftop garden bar ... next time.

sunday ... more futbol! brazil vs. australia at central bar was the perfect sunday morning venue for a futbol education. plus, they played the lambada and the macarena, repeatedly. HOWEVER, i give warning to all of my fellow sweet-blooded, carbon-dioxide and lactic-acid emitting sufferers of the same combination of chemoattractants as me: do not go to central bar without DEET in hand. i had noticed a few critters buzzing around the bar when we sat down, and against my better judgement i didn't run down the street for some some sort of chemical wash for my skin. by midway through the second half, i had 11 mosquito bites. E-L-E-V-E-N. some mosquito has a whole lot of my DNA in its system. and all the while, G was blissfully hooting and hollering at the game, with nary a mosquito near him.

the bite count doesn't stop there, however. i had one mosquito in my apartment, and sometime during the shouting and screaming in the dark during the korea vs. france game sunday afternoon, it somehow got me 4 times on my elbow. F-O-U-R. i killed that motherfucker, but it was too late. the damage was done.

so ... i now look a little bit like a leper. i'm a big, spotty, scratchy, skeeter buffet slathered in aveeno anti-itch and popping claritin to try and bring down the redness. i think this is some sort of exercise in vanity control, so i stop caring what my skin looks like. but i'm not vain! i'm not! i just think my skin needs to be perfect!

*sigh*

ok i'm telling myself to shut up. pardon my ranting. i can't help it. the itchyness and whatever form of west nile i probably contracted this weekend is starting to push me over the edge. good thing i have work to keep my mind occupied, right? ha! ha!

six months deep

we've reached a mid-way point in 2006. i know. shhhh. i'm telling myself to shut up even as i write this. but taking stock seems like the appropriate thing to do. so let's see:

i had my golden birthday.

i learned i was about to become an aunt to my precious nephew.

i became a cosmic aunt to little G.

i logged 44,000 miles in the air.

i crossed the country 10 times.

i reunited with some significant people: E, J, KH.

i lost somebody significant.

i moved.

i ate vietnamese, colombian, and moroccan foods for the first time.

i acquired 5 pairs of shoes.

i acquired 6 dresses.

i acquired 3 pieces of orange furniture.

i body surfed, salsa danced, played $5 roulette and visited a northern california vineyard all for the first time.

i received 1 promotion.

i received 2 job offers.

i figured out not caring what other people think makes me significantly happier than pretty much anything else in the world.

i made 4 trips to the dentist.

i wrote many, many poems.

i wrote 3 good poems.

i used 5 metrocards.

i finally think i understand my parents.

and of course, i have developed several prominent new addictions: nabe-yaki udon, bloc party, jamie lidell, teany green tea, coco cafe, moto, locks, gmail chat, spf 30, chicken-avocado-sprouts-and-muenster, things that slant, wrap dresses, ecchinacea, china star, the J train.

i wonder what the second half of 2006 will bring?

why moving to brooklyn was the best idea ever reason #3

puttering with neighbors.

i guess i didn't quite realize how important neighbors were, until i finally had them. i mean, have them. i mean ... yeah.

for example: last weekend.

all i really did was putter. i love to putter. and somehow, puttering with neighbors makes puttering 12 billion times better.

friday night, for example, i was puttering around my apartment. K shows up. we putter some more. C and V come to pick us up, for a birthday party at lolita, but after a few drinks we realize puttering in williamsburg seems like a better alternative. V needs to get up early, so he and C drop K and me back off at Y and AB's, where poker was in full swing. we puttered. the most wonderful thing was that as soon as i got sleepy, all i had to do was walk a few blocks home, partially accompanied by MU and K. brilliant evening of putter.

saturday, there was primetime puttering at brunch with the girls at coco cafe, which has actual grass in the backyard and is just blocks from our cluster of apartments. grass! it's unbelievable. then we puttered, and shopped, and puttered some more. Y and i argued for a bit over whether napping or manicures should be next, but naps won, and i puttered my way home. a nap was not mine to be had, though ... because as i rounded the corner to my apartment, AM jumped out from behind a car and before i knew what was happening, had somehow weasled his way into my apartment for a nap. HIS nap. not MY nap. but what can i say, i have a hard time saying no to that twitchy little dude. and besides, these are the kinds of joys one has when all of one's friends live within a 10-block radius, and when there is a world cup on, and when said friends have been drinking since 7am and need a place to crash because walking those 10 blocks seems too exhausting to bear.

sigh.

sunday, there was more primetime puttering at brunch with the girls at dumont, also just a few blocks from our cluster of apartments, which does not have actual grass but DOES have little tree seedlings that rained on us the whole afternoon. after brunch, there was some wandering ... and then some puttering. K and C landed back at my apartment, because Y was off being mysterious somewhere. after several hours lounging there, we then made the big big decision to walk two blocks to C's apartment. i learned that C can do a splendiferous cirque du soleil act, and if i had any idea how to get pictures off of my phone, i would show you. and then finally, finally, finally, i peeled myself off the couch to go home. and putter.

anyways. my point is, i'm in love with my neighborhood and my neighbors. everything feels safe and good, even when i'm having sympathy pains with C and wanting to either cry my eyes out or punch somebody's lights out, like last night. but i think maybe, maybe, too much empathy is much better than none? maybe it's a little impossible to be alone when there are so many loving people so close? K made the gorgeous point, in her blog, that she always thought she was living alone in new york without her family but it turns out she was living in brooklyn with her family all around her.

i like that.

the sky

it won't stop crying.

stop crying, sky! there's no crying! there's no crying in baseball!

welcome to my bloc party

i will be serving heartache washed down with a british accent.

C says she would like to eat all my sadness.

thanks, momma.

i've never known what's good for me. so please don't be offended if i seem absent-minded — i just don't know what i'm holding out for, or what's always in the way.

sigh

my heart is tired.