my heart was mended

by a scottish man:

i heart you, jamie lidell. i heart your insanely rich soulful delicious not-even-in-the-least-bit-disappointing-live voice. i heart your angular shoulders and silly gold collar and white leather boots. i heart your goofy grin and jolty dances and total lack of pretension. i heart the totally sexy and complete way that beats occupy your body. and i heart heart heart the ease with which you move from heavy to soulful to light to violent to indulgent to sweet to aggressive to magical, as if all of those things inhabited you at the same time, all the time.

sigh.

thank you for making me happy last night, jamie lidell.

yesterday started out not so great. i woke up at my usual 6:45am, blurrily made myself a mug of earl gray and sat down at my laptop for my morning gig. my thumb and middle finger on my right hand are all ouchy and painful, and i notice i've developed a blister and a welt from burning myself cooking the night before, and my vanity wells up like an angry blowfish. but other than the ouchyness, all is well with me until about 8:05am, when while busily writing a summary about soft vs. rough toilet paper, or some such nonsense, i look down at my desk and notice an ant.

and then another.

and then, good lord, ANOTHER.

now, an ant problem in my bedroom would perhaps not be surprising if A) i was a slob B) i left candy out to rot or C) if i was a slob. i am, however, A) meticulous B) freakish about bugs and rarely leave food out C) meticulous.

so needless to say, i panic slightly. after noticing MORE ants, i tell DD i have to go, and promptly call my building manager (no answer, of course) and then frantically google "exterminator new york."

and i find my way to Absolute Death, exterminators extraordinnaire.

the nice fellow from Absolute Death calms me down, says he'll have two technicians out to me that afternoon, and in the meantime i should clean my rugs, get everything out of my bedroom, especially everything off the floor, and try to find the source of the ants.

so i do just that. in between my ant-vigilante-dom, i take C's keys and bolt to her apartment to borrow her vacuum. the top key lock doesn't work. d'oh! i bang on K's door, and yes! she has a vacuum. she looks for it, and d'oh! Y has taken it. since Y is at work, i manically call AB on both of his phones and leave panicked messages about my need for their vacuum. ten minutes later he sleepily calls me back and i rush over to their place to pick up the equipment. then i rush back home, and after removing everything out of my bedroom other than my bed and desk (this includes all the clothes out of my closet, the paintings, the stacks of books and papers and notes, my computer, my shoe racks ... EVERYTHING) i vacuum my little heart out, wipe everything down, dust, and then vacuum again. and i stake out the ants, which i think are coming from a little crack in my windowsill.

mind you, yesterday was also one of the busiest days i've had in weeks, work-wise; stupid freelance stuff to take care of, plus a million calls scheduled at WWD. so i vacuum, take call; kill ants, talk about the future of the fragrance industry; vacuum, make appointments for a vegas trip; kill ants, deal with crazed publicist.

Absolute Death shows up, and the very friendly techs seal and caulk up the source (i was right! some small cracks in my windowsill), spray down every inch of my bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, and regale me with stories of R.O.U.S.es roaming free in new york. apparently, rats really do go up into residential toilets. and they really are up to 2 feet long, including their tails. and yes -- they can recognize people that usually drop food or bring out garbage or otherwise feed them!!!

eep. ants no longer seem like such a big deal.

so after my ant extravaganza, i head into work, where i have a rushed couple hours of work -- but yay! my zappos showed up -- and decide i am too tired, cranky, and stressed about my disaster of an apartment and the general annoyance that has been my life lately to go see jamie lidell. besides, AM is being all iffy about it, and i wasn't up to going to a show by myself. not today. er, yesterday.

but back home, while scarfing down pork tenderloin leftovers -- which were definitely tasty but perhaps not worth the welts on my hands -- AM calls and says he's in. he doesn't have a ticket yet, but he's in. so he comes to pick me up, we hang out in my war zone of a home, get a little buzzed, and drive over to the bowery ballroom. at the door, evil of evils! the show is sold out. i debate going in solo, or going to queens with a very disappointed AM to his studio, or going back to williamsburg to have a drink, or just going home and calling an end to this very crappy ant-filled day. and then i start to hear beats ... lots and lots of beats.

i leave AM and am lured inside. jimmy edgar is on stage, pumping out some appealing, heavy and dark tracks. after a quick set change, my new husband, my heart of hearts, jamie lidell pops onstage. his 90-minute set included all the best tracks from multiply, the highlights being "what's the use" and "you got me up." he brought jimmy edgar out for a track or two, which was just ... hot. then he closed with a freaking killer mix of "when i come back around" and then encored with a singalong "multiply." the fact that this goofy-looking white boy had the moves of james brown AND the soul of a big black woman wrapped up in pipes of gold AND the hands of a badass producer AND the comedic timing of a vaudeville star AND could beat box AND could get a crowd of club rats, R&B fans, gay men and goth rock kids all blissed out and dancing together ... it was a beautiful thing.

and totally healing. i feel clearer and brighter. and to think, i almost skipped out on this night of happy anonymity and skin-tingling music. thank you, jamie! i heart you forever and ever.

oh zappos, how i love thee!

for chic, comfortable city walking, i ordered these:

for chic, not-quite-as-comfortable city walking, i ordered these:

and for my chic, take-no-prisoners-who-cares-about-comfort birthday party, i've ordered these:

in another burst of consumerism, i have not ordered but continue to lust over these. how perfect would these be in my little retro kitchen? so perfect, i say. i want.

no i said YOUR mom

no seriously. i said say hi to your mom! do it! eric elbogen is doing it, why not you?

Would you draw me with your pencils and your pen,
Make me much prettier than I really am?

sigh.

we may have been the oldest halmunees there, but we had fun last night. me, C, V, SK, and assorted others crashed the bowery ballroom for say hi to your mom, hail social, and mates of state for a healthy dose of pop rock and dance punk lite, and happy times were had. of course, C and i missed the entire hail social set because we got preoccupied at the bar, but it was a necessary reprieve. and a good one. see!

we did, at least, catch mates of state. here is somewhat obstructed view. i think i am fated for slightly obstructed views, these days ... but really, who gives two poops about obstructed views when the music is that fun?

i checked out from the show about halfway through, when i reached my cuteness saturation point. i love the poppy dance punk stuff, but there's a definite level at which my tolerance for the excessively happy is breached. or ... maybe not. because upon walking out of the ballroom, i was so overcome with excitement that jamie lidell was playing that i had to take a picture. he'll be in town on april 25. anybody in?

of course, it could have just been that i was just camera happy yesterday. because on the way home, i for some reason decided it would be a really, really good idea to document my whole way home. so here is my night of the most new york of experiences, the subway. first, the platform at the bowery on the lower east side. this is where we wait, and contemplate exiting the platform to spend $12 and just freakin take a cab home.

and after we wait patiently for a few minutes, we then begin to look into the tunnel. and wait some more. and look. and wait. and then we consider the stairs again, but we've invested so much time in waiting already ... so we look again into the tunnel.

we maybe just start getting a bit frustrated at the fact that the train going in the OPPOSITE direction has come twice already. maybe a bit. am i the only person that actually rolls their eyes at the trains? stupid trains.

and just when we are about to give up hope ... oh! but oh! oh glorious J train, how we love thee! we KNEW waiting would pay off! how we love public transportation!
the gust of subway air, the satisfaction of having beeen disciplined enough to wait for the train at 11:30 at night, the speeding blur of silver ... ooh. maybe we should step back a few. let's not lose our head.

once comfortably seated and on our way over the bridge, we find ourselves surrounded by the usual cast of characters. and this ... this is why i love the absence of personal space in this city:


a brown velour track suit. a pencil skirt and fryes. a pair of dirty timbs. and in the corner, the hipster's oxblood clogs. welcome to williamsburg.

it makes me want to throw up

they fucking disgust me. some people fuck.ing.dis.gust.me.

DISGUST ME.

mortify me? horrify me? make me feel small and worthless and SO GODDAMN ANGRY?!

dis.gus.ting.

whew. okay. nausea slowly starting to pass ...

oh. and for the record, since there seemed to be some questions about who it was and i now feel compelled to clarify that it wasn't who everybody seemed to think it was ... that person i was missing? that i wrote about last week? it was J. not anybody else. i miss my running conversation with J.

ohhhh-kay. that's all.

i think my pulse is back to normal now.

poesy

april is national poetry month.

yay april!

in honor of national poetry month, the academy of american poets launched a new section of their website called life lines. anyone with the inclination can post their favorite lines of poetry and write about why those poems are significant to them. the website breaks my heart, in all the good ways. the personal stories behind certain poems range from horrors in war to a father's cancer to a first pregnancy to falling in love to just gratitude for the poem's existence. these are the poems that people lean on just to get through their every day.

i understand that.

so ... i'm indulging myself. i know poetry is usually kept here. but i wanted to share a few of my own little life lines, in no particular order. or maybe these are actually the poems that drown me?

anyways. maybe you will find something in them, too:

These are merely instances
—Wallace Stevens, from "Theory"

I know the forms of care, and understand the grammar of desire.
I understand that life is an affair of words, and that the
Hope of duplicating it is a delusion.
— John Koethe, from "The Constructor"

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines
And keep him there
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, from an untitled sonnet

I don't know what it was I wanted to hold onto.
I kept losing it and I didn't know what it was
Except I wanted to hold onto it. The drink kept it in,
So at least for awhile it felt as if I had it,
Whatever it was. But it was the drink that had it
And held it and had hold of me too. Asshole.
— David Ferry, from "Song of the Drunkard"

As if hands were enough
To hold an avalanche off.
— Thom Gunn, from "The Man with Night Sweats"

For an hour or two the evening has no limits
Or so it seems to you as you walk the pavements
Of this, your adoptive city.
— Stuart Dischell, from "Evening"

You were the perfection of my life
And I couldn't have you. That is, I didn't.
I couldn't think. I wrote, instead. I would have had
To think hard, to figure everything out
About how I could be with you,
Really, which I couldn't do
In those moments of permanence we had
As we walked along.
— Kenneth Koch, from "To Marina"

and finally, here's a longer excerpt of my favorite poem, which i've read almost daily since i moved to new york:

Sometimes I think that I can feel the outside world
Relax, and feel its weight become a part of me again.
The thoughts that linger in the mind, the sounds that
Filter through the trees—these things aren't merely
Signs of some imaginary life to be denied me while the
Heart of everything I used to have remains alive. It
Troubles me that time should make things sweeter, that
Instead of learning how to perceive things as they are I've
Learned to lose them, or to see them as they disappear
Into the insubstantial future. Everything here is mine,
Or lies within my power to accept. I want to find a way
To live inside each moment as it comes, then let it go
Before it breaks up in regret or disillusionment. I've
Constantly defined myself by difference, yet after all
These years I feel as far away as ever from the kind of
Strength I'd hoped the differences would bring. Where
Is that boundless life I know exists beyond the words?
When will the fear that makes me cling to them be gone
And leave me undivided? I can hear the transitory song
The birds sing, but what dominates my mind remains the
Faint, insistent one that draws me back into this dim
Interior where something waits for me, and waits alone.
— John Koethe, from "Between the Lines"

a thesis celebration

let me present, master C:

this week, C handed in her thesis, completing a 3-year journey to attain her master's degree in visual arts administration.

my best friend master C. hee.

we had grand plans for saturday night's celebration. we really did. we were going to indulge in some intoxicants at my place with a few choice friends, then walk over to the brooklyn tuning party for an open bar and tech house all night. the party was only three blocks from our collective cluster of apartments. G knew the dj. AM knew the promoters. even Y — who will soon be have her masters in education! good lord i have a lot of masters in my life these days — was up for the challenge. a night of bass lines and dancing was fated to happen.

several bottles of champagne, a plateful of gouda, guava and mission figs, and a rapidly disappearing handle of jim beam later, and fate no longer seemed to carry too much weight with anybody. K and C hadn't stopped giggling in, oh, hours? Y and AC were deeply involved in conversation about ... something. V was taking pictures of his feet. and G was taking 12 hours to fill out the friend file book.

yes. the friend file book, perhaps the best idea ever. it's pink, plastic, and has hello kitty all over it. and thanks to K's brilliance, we got to finally answer those pressing questions like ... who has the best hair? who's the biggest flirt? who has the best smile? who has the best poker face? who is really your best friend?

so. busy as we all were filling out our friend file book, and stressing over which sticker best represented our true selves — i selected a daisy. i don't know about the daisy. G seemed to think it was appropriate; Y made a squinchy face at the choice — the clock slowly ticked past midnight, and moved rapidly towards 1am. the kids we were supposed to meet at the party were starting to rumble on the cell phones. they decide to come over, instead.

and suddenly, there are many, many more people in my apartment.

i remember talking to AB about what it was like growing up on a farm and then eating your pet cow. i remember C emerging from nowhere, then realizing that she had not gone home but actually had been asleep in my bedroom for the past three hours. i remember AE and JD drinking whiskey out of champagne classes. i remember Y looking at me intently, then asking me where i was.

i woke up this morning to find an empty 40 in my bathroom and a box of blueberry waffles and vodka slushee in my freezer.

hunh.

congratulations, C :)

and now, we hip hop

unimpeded view my ass. one goes to see the gorillaz in order to SEE the gorillaz, don't they? and one pays up for "unimpeded view" tickets so they can, again, SEE the gorillaz.

nien. last night, i met G at the apollo theater. we expect a healthy dose of hiphop, rock, some harlem gospel choir and maybe a little dennis hopper. and animation, of course, we are looking for animation.

but our view? plenty impeded.

still, after some minor disgruntledness upon realizing that we could only see the stage, and not the screen — and the fact that the stupidest stupid stupid stupid girl in the world with the stupidest tattoo and the stupidest voice and the stupidest wannabe hiphop hand gestures was sitting in front of us — damon albarn kicked our butts into not caring so much. maybe it's just that G and i are exceptional at making the best of what we got. or maybe the music was just that good. possibly it was neneh cherry that did it? maybe de la soul? maybe dennis hopper? maybe the adorable little kids that tore up the stage?

or maybe ... just MAYBE ... it was ike turner playing piano in a sparkly white jumpsuit.

maybe.

perhaps the only unfortunate thing about the gorillaz last night was that i missed R spinning at symphony space. he's a sick kid right now, but he hauled ass from queens to play an event hosted by dj spooky that explored dj culture and compositional technique. if you're interested in more of R, check out this ooooooold school video of him.

he sent that to me today and it made me mad that i missed out on that part of his life. kind of like how i'm bummed that i never got to see the beasties in the 80s. or the pumpkins at the riv. or radiohead when the bends came out. or at the drive-in any of the millions of times i had tickets but had to miss them for one reason or another and then they had to go and freaking break up. anyways. i'm trying to get R to battle again. just once. just for kicks. just to school those young kids and show them what's up. c'mon ...

but i'll quit bugging him about it, because really, i just want to say thanks. he said the simplest thing to me today about my recent motivational/disciplinary/creative slump and for some reason it just made me feel so much better: "it's a scary feeling but i've always ended up coming out of it. all us creative beings go through that. it's natural!"

yay for comrades in arms! and yay for hip hop and poetry. i mean ... it's all the same thing in the end, isn't it?

stupid

seriously?

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@#(*_$&(#@_*$&@#_(*$&#(@*$&@()#*$&#(@*$&@#(*$&#@*(
)!@*(#&!@*($^!@*&(*#&$%(*#@)&%()#*@&%#(*%&#(*@)$&)#(@*

sigh.

i miss you.

wtf?

!!!!!!!!!

my elephant dream

two weeks ago, i had a dream that i was eating an elephant.

devouring an elephant.

i was in the jungle, kneeling over a massive elephant carcass. the ground all around me was covered in huge green leaves, enormous wet palmetto fronds and huge shiny banana leaves. the elephant was laying on them, like it was being served to me. it was bright, but overhead i couldn't see sun or sky, just a lush, dripping jungle canopy.

the elephant was laying on its left side, and i was crouched between its front legs and its head. and i am just ripping chunks out of this elephant with my hands and consuming it. i look up for a moment from the meat in my hand, just before i am about to bite down again and look back at the elephant body.

and it's gone. it's just bones. picked clean. huge elephant ribs, elephant legs, some bits of elephant skin around the body. and in my dream, i think to myself, "good. good. keep going. go."

and i turn to the head.

i kneel over, lift up the huge elephant ear, and consider the massive, majestic head in front of me. i run my hand over the elephant's cheek, pause just below the eye, and tear out a fistful of elephant. and there is elephant blood running down my arm and on my face and elephant flesh everywhere, and i have something like a satisfied moment, and i keep eating.

and that's my elephant dream.

now, suffice to say i've been pretty obsessed with my elephant dream lately. after my initial revulsion, fascination set in ... and i've found that others are equally fascinated.

G's take on my elephant dream:
"damn. eviscerating the elephant. you are insatiable ... you just can't be satisfied. choi the huntress."

C's take on my elephant dream:
"WHHHAT? who/what is the big elephant in the room that you are consuming? B? the relationship? like you're eating and eating so that eventually it will be gone, not really eating, but maybe that's symbolic of all the distractions through dating. and then eventually, B and your relationship with him - poof. gone. digested."

Y's take on my elephant dream:
"memories ... you don't want them but you don't want to forget them. you are hungry, maybe to move on and to remember all at once."

AZ says that your friends' interpretations of your dreams are often more reflective of what is going on in your life than your own interpretation. in other words, the people that know you may have more insight into your subconscious than you yourself do. so if you're curious, you should ask other people for their thoughts. and he, like those before him, gave me his.

have i mentioned that AZ is the best editor ever?

AZ's take on my elephant dream:
"you are at a watershed moment in your life. you are wading through a literal jungle right now. everything that you are going through, all of the changes in your life, the magnitude of everything that is happening, is a jungle. and you are out for survival. an elephant never forgets — and your subconscious is telling you never to forget these moments in your life, never forget how you are feeling, never forget what you are thinking, take it all in and devour it and store it away because you are going to need it later, even if you don't know why now. never forget who you are. and when you dive into the ear and the head, it is because you are listening, and need to remember everything you've heard, and because you are thinking, and you need to remember all of your thoughts. and yes, it is violent. because even though you may want to protect this beautiful animal, your subconscious is highly vested in your survival. and you need to do whatever you need to do right now in order to survive."

a watershed moment in my life. insatiable. hungry. distracted. surviving. and never wanting to forget.

hunh.

maybe all i really needed was for him to say it. because this morning, i woke up. i really woke up. i haven't felt this way in months. i literally feel like i just woke up to my life today. and by some completely undeserving lucky accident, my life is ... my life is filled with people and poetry and movement and anger and love and new york and writing and stories and action and thank god i have FINALLY WOKEN UP!!!!!

safe and sound

i'm home. i'm back in new york. i'm home.

it's 2am, i have to be up in 4.5 hours, and i didn't sleep a wink on the flight back. i think i'm supposed to be ready for sleep. i should be exhausted, cranky, and collapsing into bed trying to sort out the jumble in my head — which, thankfully, includes not just stupid things like feelings, and thoughts about feelings, but also things of some value, like poems.

poems! remember those?

but instead of being tired, i am wide awake and i feel ... i feel relieved. present. and wistful? maybe wistful, too.

flying over the city at night was healing. thank you for that.