Tangled up in Blonde

Saturday Night Palin

2008-10-19T15:35:00.002-04:00

Am I comfortable with the idea of Sarah Palin as my vice president? Another question for another day. But, after watching this, do I want her to show me how to raise the roof? Duh.

Never have I ever

2008-10-18T19:41:00.004-04:00

It was maybe about a dozen of us last night, ages ranging from early 20s to late 30s, digging into vegetarian burritos and salads and such and nursing Coke Zeros and ginger tea in the Village. We were a happy, raucous group with all the energy of people who really enjoy each other's company. Usually in group settings, I feel the need to facilitate interactions and make sure conversation goes smoothly -- especially with people who don't know each other well. But not last night. Last night I just got to sit back and revel in all the lovely buzzing chatter.

I was the one who brought it up, but when I said it, I was met with so many wry smiles of recognition I feel like any number of the girls must have mulled it over at some point.

"You know that drinking game, "Never have I ever", where someone says something they've never done and everyone who's done it drinks?"

Everyone nodded.

"I hated playing that game because I was always out first and felt like a slutty weirdo."

"Let's play it now," someone said.

"Here?"

"Yeah, let's just do it."

So we went through the ones that had always nailed me in the past: kissed a girl, sex with two different guys in the same night, pregnancy scares, public sex, nights in jail.

When I'd played this game in the past, I'd often been the only one copping to the serious stuff while everyone else looked on wide-eyed, but this time every inquiry was greeted with a number of knowing groans and calls of "Ohhhhh yeah!" Two of the girls at the table had literally slipped off the federal radar and had gone off the grid. No social security numbers, no addresses, nothing to link them to society at all.

When one of my favorite friends admitted to having knowingly taken GHB, I had to fess up. I'd done it too. It's one of those things I never tell anyone because I'd always been certain that saying aloud that you'd willingly consumed the date rape drug meant that you'd be fitted with a straight jacket and hauled away upon opening your mouth. Maybe it's a little overdramatic, but it's something that I'd been ashamed of to the core. But once it was out in the open in such a light-hearted atmosphere, I knew I'd never be sick about that particular secret again.

I played Never have I ever about a million times in college, and the two-fold goal was always to (1) get drunk (2) embarrass people. People would start saying really specific shit like "Never have I ever propositioned the campus policeman and been rejected" and stare at me pointedly. And I'll have to admit, it was sort of fun.

But this was better.

Stranger in a strange land

2008-10-16T03:29:00.004-04:00

Usually, when I get on a plane, I have all kinds of thoughts and feelings. I think that I'm going to throw up and I feel that if I get too involved in listening to my iPod that the plane will not stay in the air, and I will somehow end up on the island from "Lost"*. I usually wear a hoodie so that I can hide the fact that I am, in fact, listening to the aforementioned iPod even at times when you're not supposed to. But, on the plane ride back to New York after my recent trip home, I just felt one thing -- relief.

*unlike the hale and hearty individuals in that crash, I would die of an anxiety attack roughly two hours after plummeting into the forest.

I average at least one soul-crushing fight with some member of my family per visit home, but I avoided that this time around. In fact, nothing bad happened at all. I had fun paling around with my older brother and sipping freshly brewed sweet tea with my mom and swapping books with my dad. But the longer I was there, the more lucid the feelings of displacement became. Before going away to college, I'd lived in the same town since I was six and the same house since I was ten. One whole wall of my room is plastered with notes and cards people wrote me in high school with clever declarations like "You kick ass" and "Please, no more drunken shenanigans in my boat!" staring back at me when I wake up.

This past visit in particular, I was struck with the reality that my room is a veritable time capsule of August 2007. Brightly colored ruffle skirts are strewn on the floor and a wayward bottles of pills still lurk in seldom-used drawers. Being there was like going on an archaeological dig through the life of a forgotten friend. I was transfixed by the girl I saw in the pictures posted about -- tanned and grinning at 16 hugging my best friend from high school, dripping wet in a long-buried mesh hat and Polo bikini, wasted with too much eyeliner on my 20th birthday, smirking in a red dress standing back-to-back with a long-time confidant in Oxford. That girl looks happy, or happily occupied at least.

I realized I have almost no pictures from the past year, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't make me sad. But I refuse to be memorized the myth of who I used to be.

I love the girl in the pictures like one would a delinquent little sister, but she's not me. I still talk about her, and in a way, I still admire her, but her memory is starting to wear on me. Which is exactly why I belong in New York and why home isn't really home anymore.

Decision 2008: Choose or Snooze

2008-10-03T00:35:00.003-04:00

My dad isn't really a sports fan. He doesn't really get fired up when my mom watches college football, nor does he engage in the mastabatory practice of having any sort of fantasy sports team. He will watch big things -- the Super Bowl, the baseball playoffs, any Florida football game his wife drags him to, baseball games that are really fundraisers -- but for the most part, he doesn't really care all that much.

That's sort of the way I feel about politics. It may be a silly analogy, but I, like my dad, don't really have a team to root for in the political sphere, so all the analysis of policies and voting records is, to me, about as interesting as the Sunday morning stats sheet is to my dad.

I'm a registered Republican, and I make no apologies for that. I have pragmatic reasons for having that as my party affiliation, the most important of which is that my county in Florida has closed primaries, and if I wasn't a Republican, I wouldn't be able to vote for my dad in what is always his most important race. Generally, I also support Republican fiscal policy as it concerns taxation and am more aligned with the GOP's foreign policy than with the Democrat's.

But I'm also an atheist and strongly pro-choice and for gay marriage, so really, aside from voting for my dad, I evaluate candidates on an individual basis which, call me crazy, is what I think everyone should do. The party system gives people a default candidate before the candidates are even named. I'm criticized by everyone from my mom to my friends for saying this, but I think your default choice, until you've been convinced that a particular candidate, not party, is right for the job, should be to abstain. Just don't vote. Isn't that better than making an uninformed decision?

I can feel the collective head shake as I write this.

"There are ways to get informed!" you say. "There are...the DEBATES!"

Ah yes. The debates. Let's clear something up, shall we? Presidential and vice-presidential debates aren't for the undecideds. They're an excuse for people like Joe Scarborough and my dad to use boxing metaphors while analyzing people standing behind podiums. No one could glean anything from a debate as an uninformed potential besides, "She sounds assertive!" or "He looks funny doing that with his hands", which are the exact kinds of things you don't want people basing their decisions on.

So, in 2008, I'm begging you. If you can't come up with a concrete reason to vote for a candidate -- in any race, of any party -- just...don't.

The greatest music video of our time

2008-09-25T03:08:00.003-04:00

Or maybe not, but the coolest one I've focused in on in a while. It sort of makes me pine for the days where I could see cool music videos -- a lost art form! -- some place other than Nocturnal State on VH1 starting at 3 a.m. And to be honest, those aren't even that cool.

Enjoy "Girls Who Play Guitars" by Maximo Park.

The rock, the hard place and how unsatisfying friendships put you squarely between them

2008-09-22T16:09:00.003-04:00

"The three of us had formed a group based on something erroneous, some basic misunderstanding that hadn't yet come to light, and so we kept on in each other's company, going to bars and having conversations. Generally one of these false coalitions died after a day or a day and a half, but this one had lasted more than a year." -- Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son

If breakups have one uniquely appealing feature (and believe me, having just recently been broken up with, this was a tough track to take), it is that they can be completely unilateral. Sure, there's the conversation that actually cements the dissolution of the relationship in which the breaker has to be somewhat accountable to the breakee, but even then, the rationale can be something as simple as "It's not working" or "I'm not happy". And the other person, for all his or her arguments to the contrary, is basically left powerless because, at the end of the day, it only takes one person to enact a breakup.

I can't speak to friendships between men, but such is not the case concerning friendships of the female persuasion. One person cannot decide to end the friendship, no matter how unhappy she is, without a particular instance to point to. For example, it is acceptable to say, "We can't be friends anymore because you fucked my boyfriend", but just saying, "I really think we don't have a lot in common anymore" isn't considered valid. And sometimes, unless you are Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag, even being able to point out the specific moment that the friendship went bad isn't enough.

I have never successfully ended a friendship without the aid of distance or a fight over a guy in my entire life. I've heard the argument made that women constantly talk shit about their "friends" while men don't because women are naturally catty or lack assertiveness or something, but in reality, it's the assertiveness of some women, to a degree, that locks women into these friendships. That is to say, when I've tried to break off friendships in the past, I've been prodded, hassled and confronted by the other chick to the point that it's actually easier for me to remain in some sort of "friendship". And as a result, I'm stuck. Literally, when I talk to some of the girls I'm in these forceships (ha! see how I did that! I combined "force" and "friendship") with, I repeat the word "jab" -- as in the punch that boxers use to keep their opponents away from them and off balance -- in my head throughout the conversation.

That sounds fucked up, and believe me, I would rather just be out of it altogether, but with female friendships, you don't get that chance. You just have to gut it out, I guess, until someone moves or fucks your boyfriend.

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

2008-09-18T04:07:00.003-04:00

Seriously, I watch like two TV shows on a regular basis, so please just trust me when I tell you this one is amazing. Oddly, the only thing people ever seem to know about it is that Danny DeVito is in it, which, if you're anything like me, sort of makes you nervous. It premieres tonight, and you would be remiss not to see it. See the trailer below, and after watching, I dare you to disagree with me.

Nancy Reagan was probably right about drugs

2008-09-11T21:53:00.004-04:00

My apologies. A brutal combination of life circumstances and my cat eating my laptop chord (which I realize sounds more than a little like "my dog ate my homework")have kept me away from writing. My apartment is being renovated, which is more disruptive than it sounds, what with men named Jesus and Ramon clambering about my apartment starting at 9 a.m. using things like brick-sanders and power saws. When they come, I am usually sleeping completely naked. They use the spare key to get in, and I used to find this whole naked-around-construction-guys thing troubling, but now it's as part of my routine as Diet Coke and hippie headbands.

It's complicated to explain the other things going on with me without giving quite a bit of backstory, so I'll go through this as quick as possible.

I think I'm missing some sort of coping chip in my anatomy, because when upsetting things happen to me, I go from flip and dismissive to completely spun out and unable to physically or mentally still myself in about ten minutes flat. So, when I got into a fight with my boyfriend, I was completely fine all during the conversation, and I was fine afterwards when I had a postmortem with my friend about it. But then my brain started to pulsate with possibility, and I convinced myself that he was going to break up with me, and compulsion hit me like a sandbag.

I got up and put on white v-neck and jeans; no, a denim skirt and a blazer; no, a thin cotton dress with no underwear. I put on makeup but didn't straighten my hair, because after all, I was just going for a walk. A walk at 1 a.m., but still, just a walk. I started down West 4th but turned south down to the bars of Bleeker. Walking alone in a see-through dress past midnight on a Monday night is an easy way for a girl to get noticed, so it took all of five seconds for a guy to wrap his arms around my waist unsolicited and to slur in a British accent that would have been hotter if he'd been less drunk, "Just who are you, girlie?"

I followed him and his two friends into a bar and demurely ordered a Diet Coke. I was two days away from having a year of sobriety. I didn't want to blow it really, I just wanted to fill up the hole inside of myself with a considerable shot of adrenaline.

"I want to get drugs," said the Brit. "You are a New Yorker. You live around here. You should know how."

I didn't, but I wanted the Brit to think I was cool and in the know, so I told him to ask the homeless guy who had just serenaded me with "My Girl" and pressed a bag of pot in to my palm. I smoked a hand-rolled cigarette and leaned against the stoop feeling dizzied by my own impulsiveness. The homeless guy -- whose name, I would later learn, was Rodney -- finished his song and my British companion turned to him.

"Hey, do you know where we could score some crack?"

My chin dropped to my chest. I have been in many a strange drug situation before, but I had never even seen crack.

Rodney said he could oblige and disappeared around the corner. While he procured the crack, the Brit and I fooled around in the street. We said the stoop we were sitting on was the Honesty Stoop, and we each got to ask each other a question that had to be answered truthfully. I asked him if he'd been to jail. He asked me how many guys I'd slept with.

Rodney returned and told us to get up.

"We gotta walk...gotta walk. Girl's gotta walk by me. Here, baby, I'ma put my arm right around you, see? We're just friends takin' a walk. Maybe you an' me morein' friends, Blondie. But we're just walkin'. 'Cuz this place is hot 'round here. Right or wrong, Blondie?"

"Right," I answered softly as we descended into a dark passageway between two buildings. This is going to end in some sort of mugging-murder combo, I thought. Or maybe an arrest two days before I celebrate a goddamn year sober. Run, you idiot, I thought. Run. Run. Who cares what this homeless guy or this faceless Brit think of you? Why do you care? Just run home. Call him. Tell him you care about him. Run, stupid.

But I didn't run. I followed Rodney and the Brit below Houston and watched them sit on the sidewalk like children while Rodney loaded his pipe with rocks and set them ablaze. Rodney kept shoving his glass pipe in my face.

"Pull, baby, just take a big pull." But I wouldn't and I couldn't just as sure as I couldn't move or leave.

When the stash was gone, my Brit told me he wanted to go home with me. I said ok, since I guess that's what I wanted all along.

"Don't grope me in front of my doorman, ok? I really like him. I don't want him to think I'm a slut."

"Ok."

By the time we got to my apartment, the Brit was in bad shape. He was oily and hot and smelled chalky and raw. I put on a Smith's record and got undressed sort of indifferently.

Afterwards, I made sure I didn't have a hickey and told him to please leave. On his way out, he cut his head on the corner of my picture frame and yelled at my cat. I cleaned off his bloody forehead and said goodbye.

The next morning, I couldn't have felt worse if I had done the crack myself. My eyes were swollen shut as if I had been crying in my sleep. My stomach was sour, and my breathing was shallow. A suffocating guilt settled over me like a stagnant storm cloud.

Normal people cope. They talk about their feeling and how hurt they are, but I can't do that. I don't know how. So I run out into the night like a feral cat and replace the pain that I have no control over with some that I created.

Why aren't you listening to: The Editors

2008-09-04T15:28:00.002-04:00

Whenever I see the blurb-ish bio of a band like The Replacements that says the band, "garnered critical acclaim but little commercial success" (thanks, Rolling Stone), I can't help but wonder why. Sure, there's the appeal divide for a band like the Jonas Brothers, whose floppy-haired faux rocking is gobbled up by pre-teens and people who search "most popular" on iTunes, but who rock critics understandably give a collective eye roll to. And there's artists like Bjork, who critics salivate over, but who, try as people like me might to understand them, are only embraced by a small sector of the populous.

But that's understandable, I suppose, as the Jo Bros were never supposed to play to the critics, and Bjork, who I always mentally see in that swan dress, doesn't care if you like her anyway.

I don't get, though, how a band like the Editors isn't huge. With as many people as have been hovering around the likes of Interpol, Bloc Party, She Wants Revenge and their ilk for years waiting for them to morph into the next Joy Division or The Smiths, you'd think the Editors would be fighting off droves of melancholy fans at every turn. How underrated are they? Hell, even as I write this, I am thinking about the many times that I spurned my Editors albums in favor of Maximo Park.

They have the British-gloom aesthetic that we Americans only recently recognized as pure genius when done correctly. Lead singer Tom Smith's voice is positively Curtisian only with, dare I say, more range and vulnerability. And let me tell you, it's pretty hard to be more vulnerable than the man who penned "Love Will Tear Us Apart" before hanging himself. The guitar work is positively trenchant. The Editors' two albums have been almost equally brilliant, which is a difficult feat. Sophomore albums, as a rule, suck. I should know, as I seem to interview a lot of bands making their second record.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMKEHQqREMo (They've disabled embedding for their videos, but seriously, go here and watch this.)

Just take my word (rant?) for it. If you're shaking your head right now wondering why you thought The Replacements were "just average" and are too busy lapping up the Kaiser Cheifs and Kasabian to see what else is out there, in 10 years, you'll be wondering why you didn't pay attention to the Editors.

I got served

2008-08-26T11:12:00.002-04:00

Last night, I got absolutely served in the way you can only be served -- I keep using the word "served" because it's the only way to describe the interaction -- by a 50-year-old gay man who is vaguely pretentious and arty and, apparently, completely perceptive.

I was in bed, ready to succumb to the waves of exhaustion-induced nausea I had been staving off all day, when I received a text from a friend:

Wanna hang out? Good crowd, Cafe Dante

Though I had been averaging three hours of sleep a night for the past week and was, by definition, the walking dead, I headed out.

When I got there, it was, as promised, a good crowd. One of the characters present was the aforementioned man, who I have been intensely jealous of since recently hearing that he has met Elizabeth Wurtzel on more than one occasion. We talked and drank bottled water and cafe lattes, and my friend prompted me to bring up an issue I've been having with my sponsor.

"Well, the thing is," I began, "She doesn't let me talk. When I start explaining something to her, she just interrupts me with 'Stop. Stop. I'm not going to let you keep rambling.' It's so frustrating. She should probably just listen to me."

I could see that I had most people at the table convinced of my righteousness, but the guy was nodding in the negative at me.

"You can't listen if you're talking," he said. "You know, all that charm, all that glibness, it's all your shtick. I remember you saying once that you always felt like you had to be a certain thing. Well, this, this always having to be 'on', it's part of that."

I was utterly speechless. Imagine! Using something I'd said in a moment of rigorous honesty against me.

"You know," he said, taking a measured sip of coffee, "Not everyone needs to be entertained by you."

Julia Allison vs. Moe Tkacik

2008-08-19T03:15:00.008-04:00

Is it just me, or has Julia Allison started taking cheap shots at Jezebel-turned-Gawker editor Moe Tkacik.

Just in case this cutesy jab from the Pink Lady escalates into a full-scale feud, I'll run down a quick tale of the tape:

Literary skillz
JA's got the Time Out dating column, but Moe snagged a primo Gawker gig after momentarily defecting to Radar. If Julia was still the star of Star, this would be close, but sorry, JA, Nonsociety < Gawker.
Advantage: Moe

Sex appeal

Moe's (right) definitely got something going on (after all, she was treated to a pawing by Paul Janka), but Julia probably has her beat on the grounds of conventional attractiveness. Moe earns my respect for never appearing in public in a Lara Flynn Boyle-esque tutu, but my man tells me it's Allison who gets him going.

Of course, he's never heard her speak.
Advantage: Julia

Name confusion
Moe seems to have this one in the bag, because, good God, who the fuck knows how to pronounce Tkacik? I will also unquestionably spell it wrong a minimum of three times by the end of this post. However, lest you forget, Julia's real last name, Baugher, is a little clunky to say the least. But, wait, isn't Moe's name Maureen? Who the hell can keep track.
Wash

Self-promotion
Moe can't even be the water boy in Julia's league on this one.
Advantage: Julia

Public embarrassments
JA was (allegedly) fired from her editor-at-large gig at Star and suffered a mortifying public break up, all available for public consumption via blog, with Jakob Ludwig. She's also been named one of the most hated people on the internet -- beating out the soldier that threw a puppy off a cliff in a stunning upset. Moe, on the other hand, took a lot of flack(ik) for showing up to Lizz Winstead's "Thinking and Drinking" show incoherent and shitfaced. But really, the thing that puts Moe over the top here, besides the fact that JA seemingly courts negative press and is thus immune to it, is the YouTube gem made by Gawker videographer Richard Blakely in which he calls her "fish frog" and intones -- er, outright says, complete with motions -- that he boned her. Have you seen Blakely?
Advantage: Moe

Best case scenario career path
Julia: Carrie Bradshaw-Paris Hilton hybrid
Moe: Emily Gould
Advantage: Julia

So there you have it, Julia edges out Moe for fameball supremacy -- at least for now. But fear not, Moe, tomorrow's another day. So ladies, let's keep it clean and try not to get too scrappy.

New Video: Black Kids

2008-08-18T16:07:00.003-04:00

Do yourself a huge, huge favor and watch the Black Kids' new video for my favorite song off Partie Traumatic, Look at Me (When I Rock Wichoo). The video currently on YouTube has terrible sound quality, but Spin has a great version of it.

Seriously, this video looks like it could easily induce an acid flashback.

Rainy Day Woman

2008-08-18T00:12:00.004-04:00

Typically, my head is in a constant state of fog with nascent thought bubbles colliding at warp speed. This is why I can't sleep and probably explains why I've developed such an abbreviated attention span.

But on Friday, it was raining, so I was forced to concentrate on the elements pelting me from the sky. See, here's the problem with me and precipitation. I hate it enough that if I possibly can, I'll avoid it altogether. This was easy in previous stages in my life, like college, when the slightest sound of sprinkling against my window would elicit my declaration of an impromptu personal holiday. I called them "Mental Health Days", and I don't think I ever once felt guilty about spending those dark days in the cozy embrace of my previously discussed fleece blanket. The quandary appears if I am ever obligated to leave my apartment on a soupy day, because though I care enough about my dryness and relative comfort to avoid rain when I can, once I'm out in the elements, I still can't get it together to buy an umbrella or, God forbid, run. So, as a result, I find myself in the most miserable possible circumstance -- walking through the rain hating it just enough such that I am irreconcilably angry, but still devoid of incentive to take any sort of reasonable action.

Suffice it to say, Friday, slogging through the lake that was formerly the West Village, I had but one, very clear thought carouseling around my brain:

I wish I had a car.

I love walking around the city, but if I had the means to rescue my car from its sad current home in my parents' garage, I would do so in just under 13 seconds -- and not just to save me from rainy predicaments.

I've had two cars in my lifetime that I were truly "mine", and I would consider both vehicles critical pieces of iconography in my coming of age. The first was a 1995 white Jeep Cherokee. Don't mistake it for a Grand Cherokee -- there was nothing particularly "grand" about this car except that it was mine. After three tear-stained attempts, I got my driver's license in that car. Far cooler than the uniform gray Accords and dorky station wagons my friends drove, it was my own personal chariot to freedom I thought I so desperately needed at 16. I got a CD player installed in it, and proceeded to burn roughly 600 CDs -- containing the sweet croonings of Avril Lavigne, Ja Rule, Alanis Morissette, Ludacris -- that I would blast at maximum volume on my town's main drag. The first time -- and hardly the last time -- I got pulled over, I was playing my stereo so loud, the cop followed me for a mile before I noticed, and, thinking I was trying to flee, he called in reinforcements. I was so stunned when I saw the fleet of police cars behind me, I swerved my precious chariot into a ditch after which three officers combined to finger print me and give me a $300 ticket.

The floorboards of my Jeep were constantly caked with sand from my jaunts to bonfires and weekends at the beach, and the windows were generally smeared with shoe polish messages friends and foes would leave on them in the high school parking lot. I ran that car into no less than four trees.

My current vehicle was a 19th birthday present my mom and I bought off eBay while my dad was away. He called us Lucy and Ethel, but seemed pleased with it nonetheless. It was a beautiful gold BMW X5 that I quickly dubbed "Goldilocks"*, and when it was delivered right on time on a flatbed truck to the local KMart parking lot, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It had tight, pinpoint steering the likes of which I'd never handled before. My music had shifted to Interpol and The Killers by then, but my penchant for cranking up the volume has never wained. Chuck Klosterman describes the phenomenon of "Car Rock" as having the ability to tint your windows somehow, and I couldn't agree more. Nothing makes me happier than listening to a well-crafted playlist in my car.

*my parents thought this was so cute that they bought me floor mats with this emblazoned on them, which i ended up puking on while i was locked in my car mid-blackout

I had my fair share of adventures in that car, too. There was the ill-fated parking attempt that found me colliding with an obnoxious black Mustang and footing a $600 bill and the day my tire blew out on the way back from the beach, forcing me to stand on the highway in my bikini and signal for help. I was also driving Goldilocks when a creepy local cop stopped me on a dark, beachside road and forced me to "assume the position"* while a huge drug dog searched my car, and I quietly had a heart attack. Recently, my friends and I were talking about enduring images from college, and sure enough, more than one person brought up the visual of me cruising around campus with the windows rolled down, shielded by giant sunglasses and clutching a Diet Coke, offering rides to my pedestrian friends.

I think the most important thing about that car is, at the time, it made me feel incredibly special and maybe even a little bit superior. Now, when I hope in the driver's seat, it just fills me with a sense of happy comfort.

*they actually say that

One day, maybe I'll be a really big deal, enough so where I could conceivably pay someone to drive me around the city in a shiny black SUV when it rains. But I'd really rather not. I'd rather it be me behind the wheel, rain spreading on my windshield while Car Rock crushes my head.

Today...

2008-08-12T01:51:00.001-04:00

I get to see my own personal Jesus, Bob Dylan, in concert. Finally, a chance to show off my "tangled up in blue" tattoo in an arena where it will be adequately appreciated...

"At least": Not as comforting as you think

2008-08-10T23:37:00.006-04:00

If it's not already evident, I will go ahead and fess up -- I complain more than I should. Whether this be because I encounter more than your average number of stultifying situations or because my coping mechanisms are borderline ineffectual* isn't really relevant, I guess. The fact of the matter is, I talk about myself and my problems a lot, and I'm perfectly aware of it.

*or both

I try to spare people from being buried under a constant barrage of my baggage, however, by spreading the wealth and only talking to a given friend about one specific issue at any particular time. It's not like I sit around deciding which friend I will talk to about what, but it becomes pretty clear after a while that this friend is great at working through relationship issues, and that friend is better to go to with job problems. I think that's why I get a little squirrelly when, for example, the currently designated Money Quandary Friend prods me about my family circumstances. I want to shake the individual and say, "No! You don't want to go there! You're already saddled with money quandaries!" Because Lord knows once I get going about something that's wrong, you're in for the long haul.

Most of my friends have proven themselves stalwarts at working through crises with me, but lately, I've noticed an increasingly prevalent and alarming trend among not just my friends, but people the world over. I call it "At Least-ing", as in:

Friend: So, how are things going with your guy?
Me: Eh, not so good. We're not getting along and the quality of the sex is decreasing steadily.
Friend: Well, at least you're having sex!

OR

Me: Man, I am really getting overworked lately. I'm way behind on all the articles I'm supposed to be getting to my editor.
Friend: Hmm. At least you're getting work!

Perhaps these people are trying to help, trying to make me aware of all the things I have to be grateful for, despite my petty difficulties. But the thing is, "At Least-ing" is minimally a subtle way of bringing the conversation to its conclusion and, at worst, a pretty transparent message that you couldn't care less. Now, I get it if you don't want to talk. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I'm a big girl, and I can take it -- so long as you don't mind me doing the same thing to you the next time you need me.

But please, don't spit in my face and tell me it's raining. The "At Least-ing" has got to stop. If you're going to undermine me, you might want to find a more creative way to do it. Because I'm on to this tactic.

I awoke one morning and found myself famous

2008-08-07T21:17:00.005-04:00

Last night, I stood on the same street corner as Julia Allison, and I couldn't wait to tell people. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that approximately two people I knew would be equally excited to hear about this, and the biggest question most would have about my encounter would be, "Who the hell is Julia Allison?"

Julia Allison, for the record, is a sort of New York faux-lebrity, but not in the same way that the actors who star in movies on the Hallmark Channel are, because she has the benefit of being intensely interesting to a certain subset of people who follow media-centric goings on in the city. She vaguely resembles a young Kristen Davis from "Sex and the City", and, ostensibly, she is a dating columnist for Time Out New York. She also used to have a sweet gig as the editor-at-large* of Star magazine, and she and her friends -- Mary Rambin and Meghan Asha -- recently launched the website NonSociety*.

*i have no idea why anyone would ever give up a job this easy, so she had to have been forced out
*if you gave me five days and a team of highly trained behaviorists, i still probably couldn't tell you what the point of this website is, but that doesn't mean i don't frequent it

But Julia Allison's real talent -- and the reason people like me actually care about her and why she is practically the patron saint of Gawker -- is courting attention. And that, by my estimation, is why some people hate her.

I myself am sort of value-neutral on her. She's an above-average writer and actually, if the 5 million videos of her lip-syncing are any indication, seems nice, if a little corny and desperate. In this regard, she almost reminds me of Paris Hilton, who served as my first lesson that nothing draws the ire of the populous like consciously and meticulously putting yourself in the public eye*.

*i am a complete Paris Hilton apologist. people don't hate her because she had sex on tape, because she has millions of superfluous dollars or even because she has a penchant for driving a little buzzed. they hate her because, when she still needed to, she wasn't afraid to completely unabashedly invite attention.

Much like Paris used catch phrase, a sex tape and a pink-clad chihuahua to rocket out of the smalltime, Julia Allison has developed a brilliant strategy to force herself into our collective consciousness. She took the Sex and the City movie and used it as an opportunity to market herself as "Carrie Bradshaw 2.0". Along with the Lauren Conrads and, hell, even Kathy Griffins, of the world, she is raising her profile by ushering out the age of exclusivity and compensating for her lack of universal appeal by making herself extremely accessible.

Of course, this strategy isn't without its pitfalls. Almost no one who choses this path comes out of the process unscathed, and I'm sure there are nights when Julia Allison bawls her big Labrador retriever eyes out and wonders why she didn't take her Georgetown degree, meet a nice man on Capitol Hill and settle down in the Northern Virginia suburbs for a life of baking cookies and driving the little ones to soccer practice.

If ever there was a contemporary example of the fallout that can come with pursuing the limelight, it's Emily Gould, who incidentally, was on the other side of the Gawker phenomenon as an editor. She parlayed a killer blog into said Gawker job, then, after an up-and-down tenure that included more than a few overshares and a throwdown with Jimmy Kimmel, quit to focus on further exposing the details of her private life to the masses*. She wrote an epic piece somewhere between a memoir and mea culpa in New York Times Magazine. And, man, did it cause a shitstorm because it was "self-centered".

*in the best possible way

What I don't get, I guess, is why it's such a big deal to want to be noticed. I mean, the idea certainly isn't revolutionary, and I hardly think Americans should be scandalized by something so innate to our makeup. Clearly, I'm in a position to be a little bit biased, but honestly? I think some of the outrage that people express about the Goulds and Allisons of the world is really just a convenient cover for "why didn't I think of that?" After all, everyone wants to be famous.

The Subways -- more than mass transportation!

2008-08-04T19:09:00.003-04:00

Did a phone interview today with Charlotte Cooper of the British rock band The Subways, and she might be my new favorite person in the world. In addition to having a totally rad accent, she complimented my name and was delightfully sweet and forthcoming, even when I asked her a really obnoxious question about her break-up with her bandmate, Billy Lunn.

Details of the interview will be on the way, but for now, let's just go ahead and establish that I have a giant girlcrush on this individual and may or may not learn to play the bass guitar just to be more like her.

Rooftops and regret

2008-08-03T19:48:00.005-04:00

Last night, I went to party on my friend's rooftop, which she had spruced up in quite the impressive manner for the festivities. Though the social situations I chose to put myself in are usually fun, they don't always look fun to the naked eye. So, I was pretty wowed by the job my friend was able to do on her heretofore unremarkable rooftop.

Then it hit me -- I had seen this set up before. For a second, I couldn't put my finger on it, but it soon became glaringly apparent just where this familiarity came from. I turned to my friend with purpose.

"Hey, doesn't this sort of remind you of that commercial where the girls are standing around talking about birth control really casually -- like talking about the side effects in these jovial, joking tones?"

She looked around, wide-eyed.

"Oh. My. God. Yes. We are totally living in the Yaz commercial right now."

So, if you want to know what my night last night looked like, here you go.

We spent of the rest of the night poking each other and saying, "I didn't go to medical school for nothing!" and talking about our imaginary friend Karen who couldn't come to the party due to her raging cramps.

The night was great, but it would have been even better if I hadn't felt so damn regretful about something I'd done a couple nights earlier.

I was at the We Are Scientists show in Williamsburg and met up with a guy I had tentatively invited to take my extra ticket. I was freaked out because I didn't know him that well, and I hated the idea of waiting around for some guy that may or may not show. But he did, right on time and smelling like Dove soap. He kissed me hello on the cheek, and I thought about telling him that I wasn't exactly available, but that seemed premature and obnoxious, so I held off.

We got to the concert way too early, and things started teetering on the edge of uncomfortable as we tried to trade not-too-personal information over the cacophony of bad opening-act music. As is customary when I get nervous around a new guy, I started speaking in bizarre non-sequiturs, responding to questions like "Can you see ok?" with "My hair is getting kind of sweaty."

The band came on and immediately started playing one of my favorite songs, "The Scene is Dead", which I always used to listen to before I went out at night. My skin got inexplicably itchy and tight. I debated whether or not doing the indie-rock head nod would be considered over the top by my pseudo-date. The fleeting thought of "I want a drink" flitted through my head. You'd think that'd be really alarming, but I sort of view it as the same thing as thinking "I'd like a flying car" when you're stuck in traffic. Sure, it would be nice, but it's not going to happen.

The guy put his arm around me when a slow song, "Textbook", began to play. The lead singer jumped into the crowd and began, against his will I think, intimately serenading a big dude who grabbed him in an adoring headlock. This is the time, I thought, to tell him about My Guy, who, faulted as he is, is still the one I want to be with at the end of the day. I could feel my concert partner start to like me, or at least want to put his face near mine.

A gnawing anger worked its way into my jaw, because I hated it that My Guy isn't My Boyfriend. The irritation and doubt that I had been feeling for months -- about his inability to commit and the complete unlikelihood of him altering his hard-partying lifestyle for me -- pumped through me like a fast-acting toxin. And, mid-head nod, I turned toward my concert companion and made myself available for the top-notch makeout that ensued.

After the concert, I let the guy buy me a cool band t-shirt that I've worn around my apartment every day since, and we had fun pulling a poster off the wall as a keepsake. He kissed me goodnight and got me in a cab, and I felt bad -- not for My Guy or even for myself, but for the guy who was decent enough to show up on time and smile at my frazzled attempts at conversation. He probably believed he'd just had a great night with a nice girl, but I know better.

A porny predicament

2008-07-30T21:35:00.005-04:00

As far as turn-ons go, porn has never really done it for me. Actually, watching porn always manages to make me a little queasy. I'd like to chalk this up to feminist sensibilities or the unattractive men these films tend to feature, but really, it has nothing to do with any of that.

In actuality, the reason I shy away from it stems from an experience I had when I was a naive 18-year-old kid who got picked up at -- of all places -- the pump at a gas station on my way home from a party. I was at home for the summer and with my best friend, and when a great-looking older guy came up to me as I was filling my new BMW X5 with premium unleaded, I was giddy and stoked. He said he and his friend wanted us to come over and have a drink with them. The other guy, no less attractive, smiled encouragingly from the passenger's seat of the car. There was little hesitation before my friend and I enthusiastically agreed.

As we followed their car to their condo on the beach, my friend and I laid down some ground rules.

"We'll just go and make out with them," I said.

"And have some drinks," she said, agreeing.

"We won't get separated. We'll stay together."

"Absolutely."

Their condo was surprisingly elegantly appointed, but there was something off about it. It almost didn't look lived in. We drank strong cranberry and vodkas that one of the guys mixed up. He handed me the cocktail and pulled me close to him, letting his hand rest lazily but possessively against my thigh. The other guy was cozied up against my friend.

We probably should have left around the time that my guy turned on the TV, and previously cued-up porn was playing. My friend and I tried to act flip and cool when the guys made comments about the action on-screen.

"This is kind of weird," I finally said. The guy, whose hand was now clamped assertively under my skirt, grinned. He was and still is one of the best-looking guys I've ever seen, with even, tanned skin, bright green eyes and jet black hair. He could've easily been a young Elvis impersonator.

"Yeah, this stuff isn't very good," he said. "I have better stuff upstairs if you want to come check it out." I looked at my friend, hoping she would talk me out of it somehow. But she was happily engaged in a cutesy conversation with the other guy, so all of our well-laid plans went out the window, and I followed him upstairs.

He undressed immediately after we entered the bedroom and haphazardly flicked on some "quality porn". He had a stomach that looked like it had been laid with marble. I had never had sex with anyone but my boyfriend -- my first real boyfriend -- that I had broken up with a couple of months earlier. And now, this beautiful stranger was urging me to relax, lay down, let him take care of me. I still remember exactly what I was wearing -- a pink, collared Polo shirt and a short blue skirt. They didn't stay on much longer. I had never done anything like this. I couldn't breathe. The porn kept playing as we had sex that confused me. Afterwards, I asked for his phone number because it seemed like the right thing to do. I collected my friend, got in my car and cried all the way home.

I guess that's why I'm not crazy about porn.

So, imagine my reaction when I found myself in a decidedly porn-y situation today. I had Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II cranked up on my record player and was still in my bikini from laying out when I heard a knock on the door. I wasn't expecting anyone, but figured maybe it was a delivery the doorman hadn't called up to announce. When I opened the door, a guy I'd never seen before was there looking slightly annoyed.

"Hey, could you turn down your music?" he asked.

"Uh, sure. Sorry. Didn't realize it was up that loud," I said, bristling. I expected him to nod and walk away, but his face broke into a sly smile.

"Well, you've been doing other things, I see," he responded as his eyes sort of wandered down my half-naked frame. I have pretty great boobs, so this wasn't altogether surprising. He was cute, so I extended an invite.

"Well, how about I turn down my music, and you come in for a Diet Coke." Damn. I wished I had something sexier to offer him in the drink department.

"Sure, would love to." He entered and complimented my place. I went to the fridge and returned with the sodas. I didn't know what to say, so I just handed his to him, wordlessly. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I used to be so awesome at conversing with strange guys.

Apparently, though, I was doing something right because he took his soda and touched it against my neck.

"Cold," he said and looked at me one more time before walking out the door.

I have no idea who this individual is, where he lives in the building, or why our first encounter roughly resembled a soft-core porn intro, but I will keep you posted...

What boys don't know

2008-07-28T00:10:00.005-04:00

I don't want to cuddle.

Every boy I meet thinks the way to my heart is to be really romantic and thoughtful. He believes that if he suggests a morning spoon-fest and tells me he loves me, I will be rendered completely powerless because, after all, he's offering me what every girl wants, right? I mean, every girl wants to be constantly admired and told sweet things. Every girl wants an attentive, considerate fellow.

Wrong. What every girl I know, myself included, wants is to be able to tell her friends that her guy is these things. In reality, if a guy is this way, I am suspicious. I guess my prior experience with men has lead me to believe that very few of them are actually like this, so if I get a string of sweet text messages or thoughtful compliments that take into account the long hours I spend looking good for him, I never think it's nice. I start looking for holes, looking for the angle he is taking to try to screw me over. It's a sad commentary, really, but not just on me. Most of the conversations I have with friends about their new love interests go something like this.

Me: Hey, so, you've been hanging out with Steve a lot lately. What's going on there. Do you like him?

Her: Well -- I don't know. I mean, he's really great and all. He always calls when he says he will, and we have fun when we're together.

Me: So...what's the problem?

Her: I don't know, it's just kind of bland. And I mean, what's with the flattery. Seems a little like bullshit to me.

Me: Yeah, probably is.

This neurosis isn't all our fault, however, because it wasn't manufactured out of thin air. Let me take you back, for a moment, to the last guy who treated me in this seemingly caring manner.

Well, actually, first let me tell you that I have a finely honed sense about guys when I meet them -- not whether they're good people or not, nothing like that. But I do know upon being introduced to a new guy whether or not I will eventually sleep with him. When I met the guy in question at a work mixer, a six-alarm fire went off in my head, and I knew instantly that'd we'd be having sex sometime in the future. It wasn't that I thought he was that great, I just recognized the inevitable.

Now, in these cases, since I know that the Physical Contact Gods have already set their plans in motion, I don't try very hard with the guy. I let him make the first move and every move thereafter, really. And, boy, did this guy have moves. In addition to being universally attractive, he was charming, reliable and generally did all the things the anointed perfect guy in a romantic comedy would. He took me to nice restaurants and sent me funny emails. He was nice to my friends and made a big deal out of my birthday. Though I didn't consider him more than my eventual coital partner at first, I soon grew really attached to him. I was smitten. And why not? This wasn't a needy girl deciphering signals, this was me acting on what was being clearly displayed right in front of me.

So I did the things a girl in serious "like" does. I described to all my friends our swoon-worthy dates and even told my mom about my burgeoning relationship. I tied up a lot of feelings in this guy. And, after six weeks of "taking it slow", we finally slept together -- once that night and twice in the morning before work. He got dressed, kissed me and made plans to meet me for Mexican food that afternoon once our hangovers wore off. I spent my morning beaming and dreaming of guacamole and new love.

But I never got that Mexican food. In fact, I never got so much as an email explaining his absence. Everything -- the calls, the dates, the sex -- halted abruptly.

The whole situation made me sad and furious. If all he wanted was sex, I would have gladly consented. I was already well-versed at the one night stand and had successfully navigated several fuck buddy situations. But instead, he built up this whole illusion of a relationship and crushed my heart quite unnecessarily.

It's not that I need the illusion of peril for me to be interested in a guy. I hate stupid hard-to-get games, and unavailability is not a turn on. But when a guy lays it on too thick -- no matter how sincere his intentions -- it immediately puts me on alert that I might be blithely cruising toward a crash.

I don't need to cuddle. I don't even like it. I don't need fancy dinners or love poems or stuffed bears holding heart pillows. All I want is someone to put his arm around me while we flip through record bins on a Saturday afternoon -- and to toss me on the bed once in a while for a quality throwdown.

Tangled up in Mom

2008-07-20T16:03:00.003-04:00

To: Tangled up in Blonde
From: Mother
RE: Dad's fundraiser

I don't know how you hair is doing, but if it needs color prior to that event, I'll be happy to pay for it. I know it is expensive and probably not in your budget. I think I would not go back to the girl you used before. It seems she left some orange in it initially. Give it some thought and let me know if you want to have it done and go ahead and schedule it if you want to do it.

Hope you and Dad had an entertaining birthday weekend. You certainly had it planned out expertly and thoughtfully.

Love and miss you, see you in a month,

Mom

P.S. Seems the Jolie-Pitt twins were born either on you birthday or the day after, unclear by the news I read. One said Saturday night and the other said Sunday morning.

Friendly fire

2008-07-15T21:44:00.004-04:00

I heard someone say a really rad thing once.

"My one rule about friends is that all friends are, in fact, friends forever."

I thought that was so provocative, and I wished like hell I could believe it. But the truth -- for me at least -- is that things change, and people who you once considered your chosen family can become completely foreign. And that's to be expected, I guess. It would be sort of strange if you stayed extremely close with the people you called your best friends when you were 14.

The weird thing is, some people do remain friends with the same people all their lives.

Are these friendships preserved by coincidence? Would those people have been friends no matter when they met? Or do some people's personalities remain so inherently the same that it's easy to maintain the same kind of relationship for a number of years?

Recently, I started wondering if perhaps I was some sort of mild sociopath, because I have noticed that I have the ability to completely move on from people in a big way. Sometimes, this happens as a natural consequence over time, but more often, I just wake up one day and it sort of hits me that I don't want to be associated with a certain person anymore. Once I've come to this conclusion, any interaction with the person gives me a sort of chemical burn in the back of my brain, and I want nothing more than to get away from the situation. I become so adamant about these feelings, in fact, that I become retroactively embarrassed that I was ever associated with the person in the first place.

Another thing that keeps me from maintaining friendships over a long period of years, I think, is that I have something of a steel-trap mind when it comes to friends' transgressions -- no matter how small. Sometimes, when something happens between a friend and me -- even something major -- I don't even really process it. I just put it in my vast mental filing cabinet and wait to deal with it until the person's file in my cerebral rolodex gets so big that I remove them from my head altogher. It's really fucked up, I know, but I guess I sort of think to myself that it would be more trouble for me to deal with the little stuff than to store away it until it's convenient to revisit the issue.

The one brand of friend I do feel quite strongly about, however, is the best friend. Admittedly, I'm not a big "best friend" person. I think this stems from when I was younger and always seemed to be in a group of three where I was sort of taking the scraps of someone else's partnership. But, in the event that someone actually becomes my best friend, I have an extremely hard time disentangling from them, even if it's extremely apparent that that's exactly what needs to occur.

To me, best friends are like guys I've slept with; I might not speak to you or even really like you anymore, but we'll always be a part of each other's history -- for better or for worse.

Happy Birthday to me

2008-07-10T20:20:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, I get to change the number in the one's place of my age. In the colloquial, this is called a birthday. It's not a particularly big one as far as ages go -- I'm turning 23, which, to me, is just part of the slow ascent to 30 -- but I guess this birthday has been weighing significantly on my mind for other reasons.

Before I continue, I feel the need to give a little birthday background. When I was a kid, my parents used to throw my brother and I parties that were extremely extravagant. I'm talking about ponies in the backyard, baseball stadiums being rented out, fire breathers -- you name it, we had it. Perhaps more impressive than all the pricey accoutrements was the hours my mom spent hand-making the invitations to said parties. To try to describe them would be to not come close to doing them justice, but these invitations included different textures and fabrics and, often, a gift for whoever was lucky enough to receive one. Yes, my brother and I were very lucky. The only catch to these gathering was that my parents insisted we invited everyone in our class, because they thought the other kids would feel left out if they weren't invited. So, when I turned 12, I decided I no longer wanted to celebrate my birthday with a party, and I steadfastly stuck to this self-imposed edict until I turned 18.

Then, the birthdays got out of hand. The night I turned 19, I went out for drinks with some of the girls at the restaurant where I was working at the time. One of the girls brought her 26-year-old brother along, and I ended up having sex with him. The condom broke, and I took many shaky pregnancy tests before concluding I was not, in fact, with child. My mom found the discarded pee sticks, however, and was horrified.

I turned 20 when I was studying abroad at Oxford. I went out dancing with a bunch of my friends and ended up grinding against a stripper pole half-conscious. I left the club with two Brits and was a hot mess by the time they dropped me off at the gates of University College in the wee hours of the morning. The next day, I threw up on a bus crowded with my peers on the way to visit some stately palace.

I will omit the details of my 21st birthday, because frankly, I have little recollection of the celebration other than that it started with a lovely cocktail tree at Sushi Samba and ended in tears and vomit.

My past birthday mishaps, however, pale in comparison to last year's fiasco. The night started well, at a club in the Meatpacking District. I wore a tight black dress that said "Rock Royalty" in red Gothic Letters diagonally across the front. I horned in on some bottle service and was thus drinking for free. I remember downing glass upon glass of top-shelf vodka before meeting a guy I wanted to leave with. He was a friend of a friend, and no one was too concerned that I was interested in him -- even in my sloppy state. My last lucid memory of the night was standing outside smoking a cigarette and trying to find a cab for myself and my paramour.

When I awoke the next morning, I looked out the window of the strange residence I found myself in and was alarmed to see not a single tall building. If you are supposed to be in Manhattan and don't see a skyline, there is a problem. From the next room, I heard people yammering away in Spanish. I was naked and soaking wet from my head to my feet. There was vomit in my tangled, sopping hair. My stirring must have aroused the interest of someone in the house, because a man came in, not at all shocked by my shaking, naked state, and greeted me with a fairly relieved, "Good, you're up."

"Where. The fuck. Am I?" I asked in a panic.

The man grinned broadly.

"Queens, baby."

He lifted me up and carried me to his bed. I was in no position to object, as I had apparently spent the last several hours curled up in someone's pint-sized Disney princesses bed.

We had sex because I was too disoriented and lethargic to care. Knock yourself out, I thought as I tried to keep the bile in my stomach from forcing its way to my mouth. It wasn't me with the guy anyway, I surmised, it's just the shell of some girl. It has nothing to do with me.

I looked at my phone. I had 17 missed calls. Nobody knew my whereabouts.

My dad is coming to the city tomorrow, and with any luck, on the night of July 12th, I will be sitting at a beautiful restaurant eating delicious food in a pretty dress. We have box tickets to the Mets' game during the day and impressive reservations at night. The night will be expressly void of vodka and blackout-induced intrigue, and though a part of me misses that brand of chaos, I couldn't be happier.

So here's to 23. And many more after after it.

She ain't no role model

2008-07-06T13:16:00.004-04:00

One of my favorite sites to peruse on the entire interweb is Jezebel, and hands down, my favorite editor on that particular site is Tracie Egan (who also authors One D at a Time). But let's be clear about something -- I like Tracie because she's a funny, interesting writer, not because I see her as some sort of role model.

I guess that's why I'm so confused about the controversies that keep erupting over posts like this one or events like this one from last Monday, where Tracie and her Jezebel associate, Moe, were goaded by pretentious older woman Lizz Winstead into talking about intense feminist topics like abortion and rape in a segment entitled -- wait for it -- Thinking and Drinking.

Granted, there may have been more drinking going on than thinking, but if you watch the full interview, I think you'll agree that from the moment Winstead asks them how old they are and responds with a bunch of "aw its so cute that you're young-ish, but I'm older and wiser" quips, this interview is doomed by a disconnect between what Tracie and Moe are expecting and what Winstead is trying to get out of them. The results, to say the least, are awkward, and Tracie and Moe have taken most of the heat for the debacle.

I guess you can criticize Tracie for being wasted in a forum where people paid to see her, but isn't that kind of what the audience -- at least those familiar with her -- signed up for? She's known for inciting dialog by being a shit kicker, an instigator, an outrageous personality. This the chick that pioneered Pot Psychology and who goes by the handle "Slut Machine". Clearly, this is not a woman who makes her living taking herself seriously. And actually? That's completely cool. She's a fun, rad girl, not a women's studies professor. And what's more, Tracie is proof that you can voice opinions about feminism without being rigid and tweedy or condescending and superior (see: Winstead, Lizz).

There have been more than a few times where I have disagreed with Tracie or rolled my eyes at her knee-jerk reactions to valid criticism. But, ultimately, I don't fault her for not living up to expectations that never should have been in place to begin with.

Black Kids -- no, I'm not being racially insensitive

2008-07-03T16:12:00.003-04:00

I am way behind the curve on this apparently, but I am completely ass-over-elbows for Black Kids right now. I listened to their debut album all day for three days straight, and it is, to quote Chuck Klosterman, so good it makes me want to drive into an active volcano.

For your own edification and to avoid embarrassment at hipster functions near and far, please see below.

That's P-U-R-D-Y Girl

2008-07-02T13:48:00.003-04:00

Recently, a friend and I were in the midst of recollections about terrible jobs when she said, sort of off-handedly, "You know, I worked in this clothing store called Purdy Girl once. I had to take a lot of Oxys to get through it. Everyone who worked there was so -- pink There was one girl who brought rum to work who was pretty cool. But she didn't share."

I was stopped cold in my verbal tracks.

"Purdy Girl? Purdy Girl in SoHo?"

"That's the one."

I had no choice but to reveal my own experiences regarding the boutique with the cringe-worthy name.

It was nearing the end of my senior year of college, and I was equal parts contentedness and dissatisfaction. My everyday life was a never-ending parade of socializing and drinking, late nights and shaky mornings. But when I looked to the future, I saw nothing to get excited about. It was April, and I still didn't have a job lined up, which meant that more than likely, at the end of the school year, I would be shoving all my accumulated shit into my car and making the 15-hour drive home to Florida. As a trumped-up failure with a prestigious degree and no prospects.

I might have been more concerned had I not been blessed with constant distractions. One well-timed diversion came when my friend asked if I'd like to come to Manhattan with her for a long weekend. She had some function to attend for her already-procured investment banking job, and it would give me the opportunity to set up some interviews of my own. Ever wanting to get out of the moment I was currently in, I said yes.

We arrived in New York and went through the motions of our obligations, but it wasn't long before we set about our preferred purpose for being there. After seeing her still-in-construction but already gorgeous apartment in the heart of SoHo in the afternoon, we ducked into a restaurant with the sole intention of getting fucked up. We ordered several of our drinks of choice before hitting the streets again to shop. We went into Diesel where I accidentally stumbled into the employees-only merchandise room. My friend would have noticed, had she not been doing a strange hip-thrusting dance next to the dark washed jeans.

We went to True Religion, where I toppled over while trying to squeeze into a pair of too-tight jeans. This drinking, I thought, is apparently not doing wonders for my waistline.

After hitting the liquor store, our last stop was Purdy Girl, because the dresses in the window looked colorful and soft. I grabbed a fistful of summery frocks and headed for the dressing room. When I got there, I did an immediate about face. The "dressing room" was nothing more than a flimsy curtain and one large room for everyone to change in. There was overhead lighting and funhouse-sized mirrors. Even in my wasted state, this was cause for pause.

"Hey," I hissed at my friend. "Are you ready to try stuff on?" She gave me an odd look. I am not the kind of girl who needs accompaniment to the dressing room.

"Not yet, I'll meet you in there."

"It's communal."

"Huh? What is?"

"The dressing room."*

*Dressing rooms bother me in any scenario usually. If it's a cheap store, the room is hot and cramped, and the size of the small room makes you look larger, I think, by comparison. Nice stores are even worse, because the salespeople are so attentive that the slightest sign of a struggle in the dressing room -- in my case, muffled cursing as I claw desperately to get out of the dress I am trapped in, with my torso and legs completely bare and the hated garment suffocating me and snagging my hair -- elicits three gentle taps and an "Is everything ok in there?" No, it's certainly not.

She reluctantly stopped her perusal and ventured with me to the dressing room. She immediately stripped down to a neon thong and began talking to other patrons. Some girl approached me and asked if her dress looked better with or without a belt. I gave her a dazed look, which prompted her to self-consciously add, "Sorry if my breath smells, I had tuna for lunch."

"It's ok," I responded. "I had vodka for lunch." She gave me a look one normally reserves for a junkyard dog -- fearful, careful and ready to bolt.

After alienating the dressing room, my friend and I paid and got in a cab to head back to the W hotel in Midtown. It was then that I realized I had left my sunglasses -- Armani aviators with anchors on each frame -- in the goddamn Purdy Girl dressing room. I freaked out. I refused to be calmed, even though we had left the store less than 10 minutes ago. It had been a trick, I thought, by those other girls. They had distracted me so I would leave them.

"Just call them!" my friend advised.

"No, fuck it. I don't care."

Knowing that she could either call or hear about this for the next two days, she picked up the phone and dialed information.

"Manhattan. A listing for," she grimaced, "Purdy Girl. No, not Pretty Girl. Purdy Girl. That's P-U-R-D-Y Girl."

It reminded me of any time I'd ever ordered a smoothie and, instead of being allowed to say, "I want the one with the blueberries and mango", was forced instead to ask for the Toucan Delight.

We sped back and got the sunglasses. But it probably wasn't worth the trip.

I'll take the Death Cab

2008-06-28T01:51:00.004-04:00

Previously, I wrote about my trepidation regarding an upcoming interview I was doing with Death Cab for Cutie. Honestly, the experience was a little awkward. I was starstruck and trying desperately not to seem like a pitiful poser, and I primarily interviewed their drummer, Jason McGerr, while the band was parked in an underground parking garage in Chicago. Combine that with the cell phone wasteland that is my apartment, and there was a lot of "Could you repeat that?" and "I didn't quite catch you there". But Jason was great and engaged me in a lengthy conversation on topics ranging from indie rock as a genre to my mom's musical proclivities. Below are the fruits of said conversation.

"It seems like indie rock is the new pop.”

In a musical climate where the term “indie rock” still conjures images of asymmetrical haircuts and a members-only vibe, this is a bold statement. That this particular sentiment comes from Jason McGerr of Death Cab for Cutie, a band that has become nearly synonymous with indie rock in this decade, makes it all the more bold.

But the Death Cab drummer certainly has a case in this regard. Once a genre that was largely underground and commercially marginalized, indie rock has become in an increasingly prevalent presence in mainstream popular culture. “It’s what got licensed in movies and television and commercials. The jingles you’re hearing for car commercials are indie rock songs, so to me it is the new pop, the new popular music,” says McGerr.

Add to this practice of commercial co-opting the fact that Death Cab just notched their first No. 1 album with the recently released Narrow Stairs, and it would seem that indie rock, in the traditional sense of the word, has now been fully embraced by the arms of the masses. Admittedly, when this subject is broached, I expect a particular kind of reaction from McGerr –- one that voices his displeasure with his band’s music being proliferated past hipster music halls into the arms of soccer moms and their suburban children. His actual take on the situation, however, is quite the opposite.

“Our demographic is really, really broad, and I’m very thankful for that. There are very intelligent lyrics, which a lot of adults can relate to. The music is a little intense and crazy at times, which a lot of youth can relate to, and then just the subject material, you know, questioning relationships, of course that’s a youth topic,” McGerr responds.

After I tell him that my mother enjoys his band’s music almost as much as I do, he laughs affably. “We totally go for the moms!” McGerr says. “I think it’s a testament to the fact that hopefully we’re playing good music in general.”

Much has been made of the potential challenge Narrow Stairs might present to the broad demographic McGerr refers to. Critics have pointed to this latest album as being darker and more complex than the band’s previous records. The first single, “I Will Possess Your Heart,” a gorgeously unsettling, nine-minute-long track that focuses on the obsession of unrequited love, has been cited as a prime example of the disconnect between Narrow Stairs and the band’s first major-label release, Plans, which was recently certified platinum.

But McGerr emphatically dismisses the notion that the band has discarded its past influences in favor of a completely new sound. “People are talking about [Narrow Stairs] as challenging, but I don’t think it’s that challenging. If you really listen to where we were coming from in the past from record one -– you know, anyone who buys this record who only has Plans might be challenged. Especially if you’re coming from ‘I Will Follow You Into the Dark’ as the only song you ever listened to from the last record and you went out and bought this record and you heard the very first track, you might be a little bit challenged or upset. But if you’re really digging back through the catalogue, this should all make sense.”

McGerr goes on to poke a little fun at the somewhat pretentious idea that any band can completely change their identity for the sake of one record. “Whenever I read articles or interviews with bands, they’re always like, ‘Man, we totally went off the rails with this one. We isolated ourselves for 18 months and did something we never thought we could do, and it’s crazy, and I don’t know how people are going to like it, and it’s going to be galvanizing, and people are going to be having debates. And I go and listen to that record, and I’m like, ‘You know, it sounds like your band, guys.’”

As for McGerr and his bandmates, they still pride themselves in making their music in a particular way, one that emphasizes a production that is, in McGerr’s words, “organic in its approach and nature.”

“I think there’s an approach when it comes to recording music where if you’re in L.A. with a big slick producer and you’re recording a picture perfect, glassy, wet, big, heavy-duty record, it’s a different thing,” he explains.

He is kind enough not to cite any examples at this juncture, but his description certainly brings to mind a bevy of ultra-glossy smashes from attractive young singers and faux-brooding, eyeliner-caked boy bands, who seemingly crank out a new radio-ready single at every change of the tide.

Such is not the case with Death Cab, notes McGerr. “You can hear our looseness. You can hear the fact that we’re just in a room. You can hear the squeak of our bass pedal. You can hear people getting the switches on their guitars right before and after the song starts. All of those little imperfections make for that sort of homegrown sound.”

But for all discussions people on the outside looking in may have of genre and growth, of production and paydays, it is clear that Death Cab’s central musical aim remains the same as it was from long before they unwittingly found themselves at the apex of commercial viability. “People like Death Cab because Death Cab is really good at saying the things that most people are afraid to say,” says McGerr.

And that crucial element of their repertoire isn’t one that is likely to change any time soon.

The Naked Truth

2008-06-26T22:21:00.004-04:00

When I moved to my new apartment, I realized I had gone through over two decades of my life and had failed to accumulate a single dish, spoon, or dish towel. This made me slightly sad, but I was heartened by the fact that some relics of my past had, in fact, remained with me through all the changes. From subtle highlights to a full head of flaxen locks, from my tramp stamp to my Bob Dylan ink, from blackouts to discarding all the naughty nights for niceness -- some things had remained constant.

Among these articles is the one object in my that makes me smile without fail every time I see it. It doesn't belong to me -- it still belongs to a friend, technically. But, I'm fairly certain she won't be asking for it back any time in the foreseeable future.

I can't remember definitively the exact series of events that lead to my possession of this item, because all the nights from this particular period of my life tend to blur together into one chaotic cornucopia of experience. I do know, however, that the night started with vodka. Nights during that era always started that way, and if I had to guess, I would say it was probably Smirnoff cranberry twist. I had sworn off berry and citrus liquor long before, but I found the cranberry variety so tasty I acquired the ability to drink it by the fifth. I was drinking with a friend who liked her vodka almost as much as I did and drank it with about as much enthusiasm. We dubbed her apartment the Vodka Commune in honor of the constant supply present there and the presumed willingness of everyone to share their stash.

We probably went out, me and my friend, maybe sake bombing or to our favorite bar with the rest of our ilk to hold court, spilling drinks and spilling out of booths all the while.

But at some point, my friend and I blacked out. I sort of remember stumbling back to her apartment and passing out on the couch. James Taylor was singing "Copperline" on repeat as I dozed off and, after the seventh or eighth consecutive listening, I started thinking, "Man, I am really getting this song."

I was alarmed upon awakening the next morning circa 9 a.m. to find myself naked* in my own bed covered by a foreign, fleecy blanket the color of a grizzly bear.

*as per usual

I figured that at some point during the wee hours, I had weaved my way the several blocks home. I shook off the spooky feeling I always had when significant chunks of my memory were lost to the abyss and looked on my floor to find the jeans I had worn the night before. They were somewhat clean, after all, and the rest of my jeans had passed the point of filthy and now hovered at the point of unhygienic. I scoured my room, but couldn't find the damn things. Suddenly, an eerie possibility entered my thoughts.

I called my partner in crime. I did not offer a greeting when she answered the phone.

"Confirm or deny. My jeans are in your apartment."

She paused to walk into the living room for a visual.

"Confirm -- along with your jacket, your shirt, your bra -- jesus, what did you walk home in?"

"I -- I don't know."

"Well, at least you had your underwear."

"I don't wear underwear. You know that."

"Fuck."

"Fuck."

"Girl, I've got to go. Someone is beeping in. People have been calling all morning to say what a good time they had over here last night."

"Fuck."

"We'll talk later and -- where's the blanket from our couch?"

I eyed my rumpled bed guiltily.

"It's. With me. Here."

"So you walked home -- naked, in 40-degree weather -- swathed in my roommate's blanket?"

"Is it bad that that's the best possible scenario at this point?"

We hung up. My phone rang again. It was my friend, the blanket's proprietor, who treated the situation with courtesy and understanding.

"I heard you got ass on my blanket. For Christ's sake, don't bring it back here. It's yours."

And so it was. It is, at the time of this writing, wrapped around me snugly, as is customary. It moves with me from the living room to my bed at night. It moved with me from Virginia to Florida to New York. I can't imagine sleeping without it.

And despite its sordid past, it just might be my favorite thing in my apartment.

"or should I just get along with myself"

2008-06-22T00:13:00.003-04:00

I used to believe that self-awareness was one of my greatest qualities. By that, I mean that I felt like I knew the stuff that other people thought about me before they knew it. When I would do something to disappoint, confuse, or otherwise vex people, I had no problem talking about it.

"Gosh," I would say, "I mean, I'm sorry that happened, but you know about my [fill in character trait here]. I mean, I'm obviously that way because [fill in life event here], but that's still no excuse. I will totally have to work on my [enter flaw] so that I won't [fill in -- no, the verb is definitely fuck] you over again."

Yeah, I was pretty great at apologizing. But I was even better at analyzing.

The thing is, I am self-aware in the truest sense of the word, which is to say that I think about myself all the time. I'm serious, I can't think of one single activity I devote as much time to as evaluating my own thoughts and predilections*. This explains my love for things like Morrissey records and Elizabeth Wurtzel books. It's not so much that I relate to the subject matter (although, Wurtzel, I've got your back) as the fact that I get the need to constantly revel in your own assumed importance.

*you are reading the product of said thoughts and predilections currently -- how meta

My personal opinion is that it's ok to be this way (this is a convenient theory since, you know, I am this way) so long as you don't take to using it as a cover. You can act your way into thinking in a particular manner, but I've never been able to think myself into acting a certain way. Guessing the things that people may or may not be thinking about you and beating them to the punch by voicing them doesn't make you considerate or sensitive or particularly thoughtful. Neither does focusing on why you do things. It makes you unaccountable. And probably means you need to get out more and get a hobby that isn't yourself.

Music to your ears?

2008-06-17T21:15:00.003-04:00

I hope you have noticed the new music player that has been added to the right-hand side of this blog as a result of my technological genius.*

*though i did once have to withdraw from a computer coding class in college

What do you think of the songs? Like? Dislike? Something you want to see added? Let me know with a comment, and I, in my reasonable and infinite wisdom, might take heed.

Drugs really got a hold of me

2008-06-17T15:17:00.003-04:00

I have never been very good at doing drugs.

I guess this is sort of a strange revelation since technically, my former tenuous relationship with pain killers would qualify me as some kind of minor drug addict, but it's true. For most people, the pageantry of it all -- the passing of the joint, the cutting the lines, whatever -- has as much appeal as the actual drugs. But for me, these processes were just opportunities for me to get anxious and fuck the experience up for everyone else. I suppose that's why, for as much as drinking was a social practice for me, I would have preferred it to be just me and the drugs without any outside interference. I completely missed the spirit of things.

Smoking pot has got to be one of the most overrated activities in the history of mankind. Don't get me wrong, I enthusiastically partook in it every time it was offered, but my heart was never really in it. I hated the way everyone would sit in a circle as if for kindergarten story time, and the weed would make it around to me slower than the wrath of God. Sometimes, whoever's turn it was to smoke would forget altogether that they were holding and would launch into some inane 20-minute story before remembering to fucking inhale and keep the ball rolling.

I also never fully knew how to smoke weed in any form except a joint. This is another reason why I think smoking pot is such a waste of time. When I wanted to get fucked up, I didn't want to have to figure out where to put my finger and when to light it and when to release my hand from your goddamn "super bong". In the time it took me to get walked through the necessary steps needed to actually inhale from your precious apparatus, I could have already downed ten shots and been done with it.

On Oxy and Vicodin, I felt ethereal and floaty, like some ancient, serene water goddess. On coke, I felt like a super hero rockstar, able to win friends and influence the loving hordes of people in a single bound. But after smoking weed, I felt drained and exhausted. And hungry. The best thing that ever happened to me while smoking pot was that, one time, my hands went numb.

The only drug whose effects I dislike more than pot would be shrooms. My first and only time doing them, I was seemingly fine until someone put on some song about hobbits, sung by William Shatner, and I started to sob because I was so touched by his lyrics. I cried for probably two hours, and even after water wasn't running down my face anymore, I still felt like I was squirting tears. That marked one of the only times I felt embarrassed about my reaction to a given drug. I made everyone in the room swear never to mention it to anyone. I have described, in detail, my sexual encounters to relative strangers, but that was one event I was certain I would take to my grave.

Maybe some people do drugs for fun. I did them as a winner-take-all sport. And what better way to play than alone, with no competition?

"collapsed in the act of just being here"

2008-06-14T16:24:00.004-04:00

There have been several periods in my life where I thought the things I was doing were incredibly -- almost maniacally -- important*.

*i may be in such a stage currently

I felt that way when I was 14 and started high school and would agonize for hours over which pair of brightly colored flip flops to wear each day. Generally, this was made all the more difficult by the fact that I had the inclination to match my shoes to my outfit every day. The pursuit of this was incredibly important to me.

This same feeling of overwhelming importance had me in its grips again in college, particularly in my last year of college, when I was sure that every person I ever met or would meet knew all about me because I was just that big a deal. I bordered on delusional, once asking a girl who had the nerve to prevent me from mistakenly taking her Northface jacket with me out of a bar, if she knew just who I was.

The girl looked up at me with curious eyes and a baffled look.

"No, I have no idea."

I didn't merely think that my world -- my sphere of friends and influence and incidents -- was the most important. I thought it was the only one, case closed.

I bring this up because nothing fucks with this feeling in people quite like moving to Manhattan, and as it is currently post-graduation summertime, a whole new influx of bright-eyed 20-somethings have already made their sojourn to the city with this mindset. They have spent the last four years cloistered in a comfort zone -- and I'm not just talking about in the traditional sense because truthfully, some of the things associated with the "real world" of generations past -- like your parents cutting you off financially -- simply aren't an automatic for the current crop of grads.

I'm talking about the shock of going from being somewhat justified in your feelings of relevance and importance to realizing you're just another overworked, under-financed, outclassed ant on the hill.

Just think of things in terms of percentages. Lets say when you went to a school of 10,000 and mattered to a varying degree to roughly 200 people there. Great, so an already meager 2% of the population cared about things that happened to you, even though it probably felt like more. So now you're in the city. Suppose you're lucky and still have 200 friends and acquaintances in the here. But now, there's 6 million people, and your relevance quotient is drastically decreased.

This is why getting together and talking about the glory days is so appealing. It will make you feel like you matter on a significant scale again.

But seriously, resist. Because obviously if that's the limit of your social interactions as you go forward, you'll end up the sad "peaked in school" type that never moves on, never evolves. And if that's the case, you might as well hang it up and move to Idaho.

I need to live vicariously

2008-06-11T00:52:00.004-04:00

I have two tickets to see the Futureheads on Tuesday, June 17th at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, but can't go. If you're in New York and you can, email me at tangledupinblonde@gmail.com, and I'll send them to you (they're e-tickets).

If you like Bloc Party or the Arctic Monkeys or similar, you'll have a great time at this show. Below, one of my favorite Futureheads songs. Seriously, don't let these tickets be confined to the same miserable hermitdom that me and my fucked up ankle are.

My apologies if the video doesn't work. YouTube and I are having minor relationship issues at present.

Stuck in the middle school

2008-06-07T16:50:00.002-04:00

True story: behind every successful, sexy, brilliant person you meet, there is a kid who no one asked to the middle school dance. In retrospect, I think the worst thing that can happen to you is to be cool in middle school, because (a) it robs you of the heinous -- but ultimately character-enhancing -- experience of having to really scrap to socially survive and (b) without exception, every single person I thought I wanted to be like in middle school is now imprisoned, impregnated, or impoverished.

Most people have a miserable time in middle school. In fact, my father recently told me that is the point of middle school -- to be a foul holding pen of awkwardness and cruelty until its inhabitants are ready advance to the semi-civilized world of high school.

I believe, however, that I had a particularly difficult time in middle school. For some reason, at ages 11-13, I was extremely confrontational and never backed down from anyone.* My wardrobe was in sharp contrast to my attitude, as I was obsessed with looking like Cher from Clueless and wore a lot of ill-advised plaid, pleated skirts and knee highs. Luckily, because I'm not Jewish, very few pictures from this era remain intact. On the nubile, in-her-prime Alicia Silverstone, this was a great look. On my gawky, freckled form, they made me look like the type of person Lindsay Lohan would use for a human shield in dodge ball.

*for better or worse, these are not qualities i possess in the present day

This is probably why a horde of eighth grade girls in babydoll t-shirts** and Wet 'n Wild nail polish jumped me in the bathroom at a basketball game one night. Since that night more than a decade ago, I have been in car crashes and in jail and have gotten tattoos at places that probably didn't meet required standards of sanitation, but I don't recall a time where I was ever as scared as I was at that moment. There is an insurmountable physical difference between an 11 year old and a 14 year old, and I felt every ounce of those differences as three girls pounded me in to the tile floor.

**grammar school rule: the more ridiculous the shirt, the more dangerous the girl (see: girls who wore Looney Tunes attire)

At some point, long after the terrors of middle school were behind me, I suppose I came into my own. But I've never really stopped being the girl in the knee socks who was secretly dying for one of the barely pubescent football players to give me his jersey to wear on game day. Every social snub, every interaction with a guy who I like more than he likes me, takes me right back to the grim, gray halls of middle school.

People tend to think of neurosis as being an extremely grown-up condition, a result of the pressures people start to face in their adult lives. But it was Valentines dances and sleepaway camp, not Vicodin binges and sexual escapades, that first cursed me with the need to self-reflect constantly.

What won't I do for Jack K.?

2008-06-03T03:06:00.004-04:00

I'm moved in, but not really, to my new apartment. What this means in practical terms is that I can't find anything and there are large boxes strewn about my living room waiting to be unpacked, which contain the various parts of my old desk. I love my desk, so this should excite me, but so far, it has failed to provide ample incentive to crack the boxes open.

But tonight circa 2am, I craved Jack Kerouac. I crave authors like other people crave chocolate and running and sex. Once the craving sets in, the compulsion to fulfill it is so deep, so gnawing, that, like most addicts, I will do anything to quell it.

But where was Jack? Not in my bookcase, of course. That would be too easy. Not any of my six closets either. I eyed the giant boxes suspiciously. Maybe I had left a book or two in my massive desk? Never mind the fact that each box is the approximate equal to my body weight or that my ankle throbs so constantly that verbs like "unpack", "haul" and "lug" had dropped from my lexicon -- I had to free my Jack in a box.

After twenty minutes of searching, I found scissors. I took off my clothes because I can't perform any serious endeavor in my apartment past 9pm without being naked, and gleefully tore into one of the boxes -- the one I arbitrarily deemed most likely to contain On the Road. This is easy, I thought. I should have done this weeks ago, when they arrived. The first thing I saw when I opened the box was the wooden top to my desk drawers. The next, roughly forty tons of packing peanuts. Never one for foresight, I tipped the cardboard container over in an attempt to slide the drawers out. It worked -- the wooden piece of desk came out. So did the forty million packing peanuts.

Jack was not, in fact, in the box. And now I had Styrofoam snowbanks in my living room. My floor was completely obscured by white. My cat fled.

Be clear -- I am not a neat freak. I tend markedly toward the other end of the clean spectrum, in fact. My college roommate almost transferred schools because of my filth. But what I am is an extremist. Knowing this about myself is what prompted me to action. I knew that I could either clean the peanut mounds now or in nine months when the health inspector came to evict me and take custody of my cat.

At first, I settled for grabbing handfuls of the peanuts and shoving them back into the still-overturned box. But the process reminded me of being at the beach and holding the sugary white sand too tight, only to see it slide out of my fingers the harder I held.

There was a box in my closet that held a tiny, cute vacuum I had bought because it was yellow and bore no resemblance to the tatter-bagged monstrosity of my childhood that doled out electric shocks to anyone fool enough to, in a moment of charity, attempt to use it.

The cute vacuum was nearly useless but my minimal progress spurred me on. My ankle hurt so bad I was attempting to use the glorified yellow dustbuster while hopping on one foot.

An hour and three complaining neighbors later*, my vacuuming was done and my apartment no longer looked like the Matterhorn.

*my cute vacuum, while completely inept at picking up the peanuts, was surprisingly great at making noise

Just as I started to relax, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror -- naked and hopping with foam particles in my hair, wielding a toy vacuum at 3am -- and delicately surmised that they lock people up for more normative behavior than this.

It's all political

2008-05-30T04:23:00.002-04:00

One day, I picked up my ringing cell phone and, upon answering it, was greeted with a California area code and hysterical laughter. My first thought was that one of my friends had misplaced his or her phone in some dubious location, and the lucky psychopath who had happened upon it was now gleefully dialing any and all numbers he could locate.

But before I could further investigate this theory, the laughter reluctantly subsided and a very familiar voice choked out the word, "Billboard".

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"My mom. She called me because she's driving around at home and she saw the billboard."

"Seriously, I don't know the billboard that you're talking about."

"The one with you on it."

"I'm going to need you to talk very quickly now."

"The one -- the one with you and your family on it with the slogan 'Strong Conservative Values.' The one for your dad's campaign. With the grinning family photo on it."

I hung up the phone and quickly weighed my options. I could forget this conversation ever happened and ignore the fact that a giant billboard of my face was looming over and terrifying people in an effort to get my dad elected. Or I could find a tall building and leap off of it. The former won out -- by a whisker.

Idealistic types always want to harangue me about why I'm not into politics. I am lectured at length about how every election is important, that I should educate myself on the issues, make sure I fill out my absentee ballot, make a difference. They wave petitions in my face and demand that I make my Decision 2008.

But I have different associations with all things political than do most people, because I have seen them from a very intimate angle for so long. My first memorable exposure to the electoral process came when I was nine, the first time my dad ran for any office, and his opponent passed out cartoons of him striding away from a mansion labeled "The Plantation", happily throwing piles of money as he walked toward a voting booth. The rest of my family, my dad included, found this highly amusing. I think my mom might still have it in a drawer somewhere.

"Where is that mansion?" my mom asked, looking around our house. "I like the columns in the front."

I cared, though. His opponent was making fun of him, and I didn't like it. When he saw I was upset, my dad hugged me and assured me, "Don't worry, honey. It's just part of the process." So, then and there in my nine-year-old mind, I resolved never to be a part of that process.

Experiences I had in my adult life did nothing to change this already cemented perception. While my older brother preened and shined at fund raisers and speaking engagements, I looked for the nearest exit and/or the bar. Eventually, I just stopped going altogether, which I think must have made my dad feel a little disappointed.

I did go to events occasionally. My mom begged me to come to a fund raiser for my dad's latest campaign at the house of an 80-year-old real estate mogul and his 30-something wife, a former flight attendant, who once pulled me aside and confided that she really loved hanging out with my mother, because she didn't have to feel uncomfortable about wealth around her. This, along with the time the same woman inadvertently doused my mother with red wine at a party, became the stuff of family lore.

I agreed to go to the party because the trophy wife had a cute son from a previous marriage who I had always liked who would be lurking around the grounds in flip flops, smelling of salt and surf wax, who I could pass time flirting with and doing the black sheep handshake.

I donned a black and white strapless cocktail dress and swapped my Rainbows for too-high heels and rode with the rest of my family to the party. I'd been to the house a couple of times -- with the black sheep son -- but I always forgot how gorgeous it was. I could almost forgive the fact that the property bore some pretentious foreign name. It practically begged for it.

I made my rounds when we arrived, avoiding my former middle school drama teacher whose husband was serving a sizable prison sentence for child molestation. The lady of the house, resplendent in diamonds, grabbed my arm and steered me around to her husband, the old the tycoon himself, who was regaling a group with ~~lies~~ stories of how he still swims a mile a day at 80. All I could think about was the stories I'd heard about he and his wife going on naked cruises. My stomach turned. I looked for a bathroom.

The house was huge, so finding a bathroom amidst the sumptuous tables of baby shrimp, hot organic artichoke dip and well-garnished mini-crab cakes was no easy task. I was in an otherwise empty hallway when I bumped into the old man. He sort of nodded at me.

"Oh, hi sir. The party is so great, thanks a million. I was just on my way to a restroom, but I can't seem to find an open one." He must have gotten the wrong message or inferred something about my usual bathroom activity at parties because he came toward me with arms outstretched toward my bare chest.

"Oh, wow, um, just looking for the bathroom, sir." But he just sort of kept coming. He of the mile swims and social-climbing wife put his hands all over my pushed-up cleavage. Somehow though, it just didn't register.

"The bathroom?" I repeated.

He responded, "Your parents are in the other room." I genuinely didn't know if he was being suggestive or if his hearing loss was starting to play a roll. The whole thing was so awkward, I just sort of slid away along the wall without saying anything else.

When the party ended and we were all back in the car, I told my family a glib version of what had happened.

"Shit," my brother said, loosening his tie, "For the amount of money he raised us, he could fondle me if he wanted to." Nobody seemed overly concerned with what had happened, so the next day, I decided to tell our housekeeper and see what she thought. She agreed it was out of line, and to me, the issue was now dead.

But it wasn't a dead issue to my housekeeper, who apparently lent her services to other households as well and loved to chat. A week later, I received a phone call from one very irate former stewardess.

"Just tell me what happened!" she bellowed. "We're getting a divorce now." I could tell she'd been crying. My mom made frantic hand motions from across the room and mouthed, "Don't say anything" while rubbing her thumb and forefinger together in the universal "she wants money" sign.

My mouth turned chalky as I swallowed down the righteous indignation I thought the situation so clearly warranted. Slowly and distinctly, I said into the phone receiver, "You know, the whole situation was a gray area, really. I don't think you need to worry about it."

And to think, they say I know nothing about political maneuvering.

Obsessed with obsessing

2008-05-29T17:22:00.006-04:00

Listen to the acoustic, live version of Carolina Liar's "Last Night". Then, I highly recommend you go about procuring this song by whatever means you deem necessary. I think Rollingstone reviewed Carolina Liar's recently released debut album by comparing it to the girls on The Hills ("pretty, but a little confused") but then, we've learned we can't always trust Rollingstone. I will live with the song's mention of MySpace* because the rest of it is so, so slick.

*mentioning online social networking in your songs is guaranteed to make them sound archaic in T-minus a year -- just saying

Mr. Midtown

2008-05-27T03:42:00.002-04:00

I have flashbacks more than I care to talk about. I’ll be lazing around, feeling clean and comfortable in my apartment in the middle of the day, or drinking Diet Coke and having dinner with a friend, when something will set off a chain reaction in my synapses to call forth a memory I would have just as soon forgotten. Sometimes, it’s something unavoidable, like warm, windy weather or an airport terminal. But mostly, it’s the subtle stuff that serves as the trigger. The opening chords of a song or the smell of charcoal on the grill can take me back to places my consciousness has long buried.

Tonight, I was stretched out on my brand-new, pillow-top queen bed reading, when I got to a line of dialogue in my book about someone living on the 42nd floor of a particular building in Midtown. Immediately, a gnawing thought surfaced in my head, begging to be acknowledged. It’s funny – if I had been offered a thousand dollars to recall this particular instance minutes before, I couldn’t have done it. But all of a sudden, I remembered everything about this decidedly unremarkable night.

It was summertime, and I had just taken up temporary residence in Manhattan. I’d been here maybe two weeks, and already, I was bored with my routine, my apartment, my internship at a prestigious magazine that my father subscribed to. I hadn’t wanted any of this. Many of my friends had desperately desired an excuse to move to the city for the summer. I had wanted to be a bartender in Key West and had already made plans to do so before, despite putting forth the most modest of modicums of effort, I had landed this internship and took it because I thought it would make me impressive.

I wasn’t overly wowed by Manhattan at the time -- probably because, in retrospect I was doing all the wrong things with all the wrong people – but I did like going out and getting shitfaced, and I enjoyed the ample opportunities for doing so that living here provided. I had decided, on the night in question, to go out with one friend I knew very well and her roommate, who I hardly knew. We drank extensively before leaving my friend’s apartment and snorted some lines of Aderall, which I was afraid would turn my nostrils visibly blue – I had been known, on occasion, to have this happen.

We stumbled into a cab and headed to Union Bar*, where we drank more. There was music playing – I think something obnoxious that made me feel deceptively sexy, like Beyonce or Jennifer Lopez. I started dancing with some guys, which is the first sign that I was already done for the night. I am not someone who likes to go out and “dance with the girls”. I dance barely well enough to avoid mockery, and only to get guys to notice me. On this night, two guys did – one black with light-ish eyes and one white with dark hair who was probably slightly too old for me.

*this is a prime example of not knowing where to go

I lost my friends in the process of trying to keep track of both of my paramours – grinding against one for a bit, then switching to the other and dipping it low. I decided to go home with the black guy, but couldn’t find him, so I went home with the white guy instead. He smelled good and steered me toward a taxi, so I had no complaints. I successfully pushed, as I did every time I went home with a stranger, any and all episodes of Law and Order from my head.

We got to his place – a monstrosity of a building in Midtown – and went what seemed like a million floors up to get to his place. As he opened the door to his spacious apartment, he whispered, “Be quiet, ok? My mom is sleeping.” My blood stopped pumping until I realized he was kidding.

I tried to be sexy – this is what he had brought me home for, after all – but I was having a really hard time mustering up any appeal. I fell as I was trying to take off my clothes and gashed my elbow on the corner of his bureau. I made a game attempt to have sex with him, but he had started to feel uncomfortable, I think, because he started asking me a lot of questions instead.

“How old are you?”

I slurred back that I was twenty.

“Twenty?! Jesus. How long have you been in the city for?”

Less than a month, I told him.

He gripped my bare shoulders, not like a guy about to pounce, but like a friend’s safe older brother.

“Let’s just go to sleep, ok? I’ll get you some pajama pants to sleep in.” I acted disappointed, but I was secretly relieved and pulled on his soft flannels and tried to pass out as the Aderall and vodka fought for supremacy in my system.

I left hastily the next morning still wearing his pants. I scribbled my number on a napkin, feeling very cliché, and avoided what I feared was the knowing look of the doorman on my way out. I hailed a cab home and fielded phone calls about my night. I told people, sparing no imagined detail, about the amazing sex I didn’t have with Mr. Midtown.

A week later, I got a text from an unknown number.

“Please take care of my pj pants. And yourself.”

I love Knoxville (but not Tennessee)

2008-05-26T00:48:00.005-04:00

I have never particularly liked Scarlett Johansson, and I like her even less so after this Tom Waits-covering debacle of an album she just released. But I'll give her this: I've always thought she did a pretty great job giving civilians a glimpse into the psyche of the insomniac in Lost in Translation -- even though I guess technically, she was just jet-lagged. She sings bad karaoke in multi-colored wigs and develops a strange, old-man crush on Bill Murray, which is to say that her inability to sleep when everyone else is sleeping lead her to do some things that she probably wouldn't have normally considered.

Unlike Scarlett, my sleep troubles evolved over time, allowing me to develop ways to battle the undefinable feelings of trepidation and loneliness you can feel when you end up unintentionally spending a good portion of your waking hours alone in absence of the sun. I read a lot. I listen to a lot of music and I try to do productive things I never think to do when I'm busy, like clean out the cat box or unload my dishwasher (not in that order, usually).

But I would be lying if I said my insomnia hasn't also facilitated the watching of a lot of TV. And since the late-night viewing options aren't always as choice as they are in primetime, sometimes I end up watching the Lifetime Movie Channel or hypothetical disaster programming on the Weather Channel.*

*these specials always feature Manhattan

I also, predictably, watch a lot of MTV. And at night, this means taking in a lot of Jackass. The first time I watched Jackass, I was appalled. Not because Steve-O was piercing his ass cheeks closed or Ryan Dunn was getting whaled on by an ultimate fighter of some sort. No, I was appalled because I thought the show was great. It's gross, I know, and it's juvenile. But for me, there's nothing sexier than boys being boys, and Jackass embodies the best of male bonding as pertains to the guys I've always been into -- the ones that are eager to please in bed and will show up for your mother's birthday dinner if you ask, but will also spray paint your feet black if you fall asleep before they do.

Which brings me to Johnny Knoxville aka Philip John Clapp aka Big Number Three on my list of celebrity guys I'd like to have sex with. When I tell people this, they always seem surprised, but the dude is undeniably hot.

He's a great dresser, he's exciting and he never picks on girls. His friends obviously love him, which should count for something, particularly when he's generally encouraging them to fill their pants with live lobsters or similar. Plus, if you've ever been lucky enough to see the episode where he turns bullrider, you should have no doubt that he can throw down in the bedroom. Johnny will probably never make a move to occupy Number Two or Number One on my List, but he has been firmly entrenched in the three hole since I became a serious insomniac, and he isn't likely to drop anytime soon.

Being an insomniac has done a lot of shitty things to me. It has left me with what I believe to be permanent dark circles under my eyes and a decided distaste for sharing a room or bed with (almost) anyone. It forces me to eat at hours that are neither ideal nor healthy, and robs me of the prospect of ever showering in the morning in the event that I actually go to my office for work.

But it's also opened my eyes to the masculine wiles of Mr. Johnny Knoxville. And that, if anything, is worth staying up for.

By the skin of my teeth

2008-05-22T00:52:00.004-04:00

I dream about my teeth all the time. I dream that they crumble in my hands or inexplicably come loose or fall out of my head. Apparently, these dreams are quite common -- mentioning them can elicit a spectrum of reactions from total commiseration to utter misunderstanding. At this point, I can almost predict the people who also have them and the people who are likely to look at me like I just offered to perform a séance to contact a deceased great aunt.

Obviously, I was curious about what these dreams revealed about the inner-workings of my incredibly complex psyche. I asked around and performed Google searches and read some Freud, but didn't find anything incredibly interesting or palatable in those offerings, so I began to formulate a revolutionary idea of my own. Maybe my teeth dreams were about my teeth.

It seems logical enough to me -- what's more frightening, really, than having something happen to such a visible part of your body? I have had a particularly contentious relationship with my own teeth since I was nine years old and had to get braces for the first time. I wore them for about a year before I saw them replaced with a horrifying device fittingly named "The Frankel" (see below). I wish I were kidding.

This monstrosity was used to bring my bottom jaw forward, and it had weird lip bumpers (see above) that made me shower friends and enemies alike with saliva whenever I spoke. Fifth grade was a very quiet year.

Eventually, my Frankel gave way to more braces, considered far more acceptable by my peers. I got them off shortly before ninth grade, but refused to wear the unobtrusive clear retainer my orthodontist gave me for nighttime. I was still sufficiently scarred by the Frankel.

In adulthood, my teeth have continued to supply me with unexpected horrors. I have no rationale for this, but I have a tendency to believe that all dentists are quacks who earn their holiday bonuses by plucking perfectly content teeth out of whatever mouths they can get their hands in. So when, during a recent dentist visit -- my first to this particular guy -- the dentist informed me I'd need my wisdom teeth out, I did not stay silent. I told him that was ridiculous, all three of my wisdom teeth (I just don't have a fourth*) had come in just fine. My mouth wasn't crowded, they weren't affecting other teeth, I could brush them perfectly. Why on earth should I consent to oral surgery?

*this explains a lot

I stormed out of the office, brushing past the faux plants and the smiling, dancing molars on the wall. I didn't give the quack's advice any further credence until one day, I ran my tongue along my teeth, all the way to the back right, and noticed my top wisdom tooth (the one with no matching tooth under it) had grown. Long. Like a fang. It hung down markedly past my 12-year molars. It had burgeoned into Super Tooth. I racked my brain for the forgotten advice from the quack. Had he said something about the dangers of an -- "unopposed tooth"? Maybe. Christ, why had he not been clearer? If he had just told me about the possibility of a Super Tooth, I would have gladly opened wide.

I worried and waited and did nothing. I mentioned it only to my family -- I had learned my lesson about letting my peers share in my dental health (see: Frankel). Months past, and Super Tooth continued its growth spurt. Before long, it was poking sharply into my tender gums. I called my brother. I rarely speak to him, but no one else knew about S.T.

"Hello. I -- I really think the other shoe is about to drop on this Super Tooth issue," I told him.

He hung up.

I still can't bring myself to go back to the dentist. That wisdom tooth may eventually conquer my entire mouth, but I'm willing to chance it. Until then, it'll be Listerine wishes and bi-cuspid dreams.

Scared to Death Cab

2008-05-20T21:10:00.005-04:00

Predictably, Death Cab's latest album "Narrow Stairs" is huge. And why wouldn't it be? Thanks to in part Seth Cohen, the little group that could from Washington state provided the soundtrack for members of a generation that cringe at the overt earnestness of suicide icons like Kurt Cobain and prefer their musical sincerity subtle, clever and identifiable -- no easy feat.

Some bands are great because they are so consciously complex. Radiohead is like this, and they are really all the better for being so. The very construction of complexity that Radiohead embodies is why Chuck Klosterman can postulate so effectively that their album "Kid A" somehow mirrored the events of 9/11 even though the album was released in October of 2000 -- because they are exactly the kind of band who could function as an inadvertent Nostradamus.

But Death Cab is great because they can accomplish everything they want to so simply. Look, for example, at my favorite track from the new album, "Your New Twin Sized Bed". No ten-minute guitar solo. No wailing emotional pleas. Just the idea that sometimes the most banal stuff, like having to downsize beds, can be the most powerful.

I am an obvious Death Cab aficionado. This is why the prospect of interviewing them, which I am scheduled to do in the very near future, terrifies me. What to ask? Obviously, I want to dupe them into thinking that I am credible and qualified to interview them, but revealing how much I know about the band would certainly cast me as some sort of slobbering, obsessed fan.*

*which, to be fair, i am

I hate asking about the meaning of songs, because the last time I offered my well-thought out, highly informed opinion that a certain band's track was about war and the coming apocalypse, I was kindly told that he band was about two of the singer's friends who were in a rocky (but not apocalyptic) relationship. Oh. To make that same sort of ninth-grader-analyzing-sonnets brand mistake with Death Cab just can't be in the cards.

I'll provide a postmortem on the interview after the fact. For now, check out the aforementioned track, "Your New Twin Sized Bed".

Do not be fooled by Usher

2008-05-19T11:36:00.005-04:00

Though it is easily the most vertebrae-rattlingly perfect hip-hop song since Kanye joined forces with Daft Punk, I have a couple of issues with Usher's "Love in this Club" -- mainly that it sends something of a paradoxical message.

Let's take a quick look at the chorus refrain.

I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)
I wanna make love in this club (in this club, in this club, in this club)

If the song was called "Sex in this Club", I would have no issue, but as someone who has participated in her fair share of bar hookups, I can tell you with absolute confidence that no one "makes love" in this, or any, club. You make love in the middle of a field in the rain or on 900 count sheets. In the club, you're basically relegated to some quick and dirty fucking -- which can be satisfying on some level, but it's rarely as hot as you might imagine. In my experience, it's usually difficult and begins trying my patience after the fourth time I have to mumble huffily, "Nope. Stop. You're not in me. You're out."

Your options for bar sex are fairly limited. You're pretty much always going to have to stand up, which can be a recipe for disaster depending on relative heights/experience/levels of intoxication. And, unless there is some sufficiently empty outdoor area or extremely dark corner, you're probably going to end up in the bathroom.* Oddly, I have never had sex in a women's bathroom. I always end up getting drug into the men's room which is, by definition, disgusting.

*Young Jeezy apparently recognizes this truth:
You meet me in the bathroom yeah you know I’m trying go

In movies, bathrooms are always empty when a couple is trying to have sex in them. In real life, there are a bunch of loud guys using the urinals and guffawing when they see a pair of high-heeled feet in the stall. Often, they'll stick around to see if they can catch a glimpse or a listen of the action. This can make things a little awkward when you finally emerge from doing the deed. Maybe not for Usher, who clearly states:

Keep it up girl and I swear
I'ma give it to you non-stop
And I don't care who's watchin
watchin, watchin (watchin, watchin)

But, being apparently slightly more self-conscious then Usher, I get a little unnerved.

So, please friends, enjoy the sweet croonings of Usher. Enjoy the seamlessly integrated techno beats in the background of the song. Get an eyeful of his vaunted dancing.

But do not, DO NOT, expect to go to make love in the club. Because it's just not happening.

she get it from her mama

2008-05-16T23:36:00.007-04:00

I got a preview of the kind of mother I might be the other night. It was around 7am, and from downstairs, there was an incessant rolling, rumbling racket. Four feet -- attached to my newly acquired little man of a tabby cat -- were in constant motion, causing the jingling of what I knew to be a plastic, neon, bell-encompassing ball.

"Cut it out, pal!" I hollered from my loft. But he wouldn't. Jingle. Clatter. Rumble. In succession, over and over again.

"Dude, seriously! Get real!" I yelled, increasingly more annoyed. But the kitty ignored my pleas for sleep. I began bargaining with him -- offering all-he-could-eat sardines if he'd just let me get my usual 4 hours of sleep. But it was to no avail. The noise continued.

So, I did what any rational adult in my situation would do. I screamed profanity at my kitty and stole his toys. I threw his playthings in my closet, closing the door with a satisfied click while kitty sulked. Eventually, he decided he still loved me and joined his unfit mother in bed.

Some little girls spend hours in their rooms combing the faux hair of their baby dolls and dreaming of the day they will have children of their own. My mom was certainly one of these little girls. She always wanted a boy and a girl, and that's exactly what she got.*

*whether she envisioned raising the actual girl she got is debatable

My baby doll was a little yellow boom box adorned with a sticker depicting a surfing penguin (my addition) that played my Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan tapes. I spent hours in my room alone with it and my Sweet Valley Twins books, laying on a boogie board covered in a soft blanket placed carefully on the floor. It's not that I didn't like the baby dolls I sometimes received for Christmas and on birthdays, it was just that even as a kid, I would rather rock out than rock a cradle.

But lately, I find myself thinking it would be kind of neat to have a little person to raise and mold. Maybe a shaggy-haired boy I could dress in seersucker or a precocious blue-eyed girl I could read books to at night. If I really try, I can picture myself bringing cupcakes to soccer practice or chaperoning a class field trip.* But every time I am on an airplane and some loud-talking toddler is bellowing straight through the sweet sounds of my iPod at his exhausted mother and everyone else within a 7 mile radius, spittle and chewed-up Fruit Rollups flying from his puckered mouth, I rethink my motherhood plans.

*but never wearing mom jeans

Also, a friend of mine once wrote a captivating, graphic short story about her niece's birth -- sparing no detail -- that makes me seriously consider celibacy and completely abandon the idea of pregnancy, without fail, every time I read it.

What I really worry about, though, is receiving my just desserts by being saddled with a kid exactly like me. As a kid, I would run off in crowded malls in metropolitan areas or wander away into the woods, obviously not heeding the lessons of Hansel and Gretel, only to eventually wander up to a stranger's house and attempt to make friends with whoever was inside.* My parents are, for all intents and purposes, rather perfect, and they could barely wrangle me. I am not nearly as tough as my mom, so for me, trying to raise a child like myself would likely prove lethal.

*i sort of did this as an adult too

But, at the very least, my having a child would help proliferate the spread of some kickass genetic material.

"heaven knows i'm miserable now"

2008-05-15T00:57:00.005-04:00

My cat hates my newly acquired hospital bracelet. He snarls at it and bats it with his paws and bolts in the other direction when it gets too close to him. I can't blame him -- I hate it too. Nothing great ever happens at hospitals, regardless of what Grey's Anatomy would have you think.

Let me start out by saying I have a very high tolerance for most types of pain. I separated my shoulder when I was 11 and barely batted an eyelash because thought arm slings were lame. I fractured my wrist in two places in college and went against doctor's orders almost immediately, taking off the apparatus they outfitted me with because it didn't really match my going-out attire. I got a tattoo across the bone of my foot, and felt way worse post-inking than during the process. Once, my top teeth found their way through my bottom lip, and I just sat there, holding an ice cube to the gaping hole because I didn't want stitches in my face.

That's the other thing -- I am absolutely willing to ignore the obvious, sane course of action in favor of what I'd rather do. Probably why I once decided to do a keg stand after I had just had a CAT scan for a concussion. I just wanted to.

So, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that even today, when the ankle I knew I had snapped was swollen to the size of a large gourd and had turned the color of marbled blackberries, I simply imposed my will on the situation and convinced myself that buying an ACE bandage at Duane Reade would make everything better.

It didn't. After hobbling around the city for the better part of the day, my pain was hitting at least an 8 on the Hurt Scale, and even though I hate receiving any sort of medical attention, no matter how minor, I knew I had to do something.

It's funny how physical and emotional pain feed off of each other. Earlier in the day, I got into an unresolvable fight with my mother*, and it should be noted that my emotional pain tolerance is far weaker than its physical counterpart. When I am in a disagreement with someone I love, it consumes me utterly. Quickly, a pain channel seemingly developed between my ankle and my heart, and it was as if the two were locked in an effort to one-up each other at all costs. The pain in both places grew steadily and exponentially.

*my relationship with my family has a tendency to read like a bad country song -- unfortunately, I have lied to, stolen from, and worried the shit out of them. i've put that in the past now, but that doesn't necessarily mean they've had that luxury.

So, as I sat shaking and fighting tears at the Fast Track section of the emergency room at St. Vincent's, it was difficult to discern what hurt the most. Several X-Rays and some wince-inducing prodding later, I was told that I likely had ligament damage, but no broken bones. A lady with an accent lectured me that if I had taken care of this when it first happened, I could have saved myself a lot of suffering and damage.** I was given a soft cast, a pair of crutches ill-suited for my long torso and a sizable bill. Because of my tumultuous history with painkillers, I was handed a bottle of Motrin and told best of luck toughing it out, kid. I felt like screaming.

**not advice i am unfamiliar with.

When I got home, I -- for the first time -- despised my apartment for having two levels. I collapsed on the floor and collapsed into tears. I was in real pain. Not the type of pain Coldplay warbles about in radio-friendly ballads -- the type Morrissey and Ian Curtis of Joy Division indulged. My ankle hurt bad, but my heart hurt worse.

For tonight, "Tranquilize" by The Killers ft. Lou Reed -- because ideally, that is what someone would do to me at present.

The Replacements and Alex Chilton

2008-05-14T03:15:00.004-04:00

You probably owe a debt of gratitude to The Replacements already, you just aren't aware of it. You see, The Replacements penned a song called "Can't Hardly Wait" that, if you came of age when I did, should be important to you if nothing else because it was the inspiration for the title of a certain Jennifer Love Hewitt classic. The Replacements weren't exactly stadium fillers. Oddly, they are one of the only bands I can think of that both over and underachieved. They made totally weird videos (example to follow) and gave performances so shitfaced they made Amy Winehouse look like Miley Cyrus (they got banned from SNL, in fact) -- but they made killer, transcendent music (there is a reason Elizabeth Wurtzel chose to take their "Let it Be" album with her to rehab).

They also did one of the coolest things I think a band can do, which is to write a song about another artist. They did this on "Alex Chilton", which is a great song in any context, but made even better when you know a little something about the song's namesake. Again, you're indebted to Chilton and don't even know it, because he wrote the song "In the Street" (Wurtzel liked this one too) which is the theme for That 70's Show and has one of the most plaintive lines about drugs (Wish we had/A joint sooo bad) I've heard this side of the Velvet Underground. He also had a number one hit at 16 and an affinity for wandering around the country for prolonged periods. Paul Westerberg, the lead singer for The Replacements, fucking loved Alex Chilton and wrote a song sort of about Chilton, but more about the way Chilton's music made people feel.

The video, as mentioned before, is super strange -- unless the torso featured in the video IS Alex Chilton. Then I rescind that completely.

The alpha female

2008-05-13T14:43:00.003-04:00

I have a question I like to ask my girlfriends from time to time.

"Would you rather be significantly better-looking or significantly worse-looking than your group of friends?"

Obviously, both of these choices have their drawbacks and advantages, but you'd be surprised how adamant the girls I ask are about their choice. No one is ever undecided -- people definitely have a pointed opinion on the matter, one way or the other.

Female friendships are complicated things. I will spare you the use of words like "fremenies" etc, because at this point, I almost take for granted the fact that in a group of, say, four females you think are friends, at least two of them are constantly at each other's throats in extremely subtle ways. That's the thing about fights between women -- they're almost never overt. They don't end in blows -- they end in blowjobs to the other girl's crush.

The worst of these clashes occurs when two alpha females find themselves in the same social group, whether by happenstance or mistake. The very nature of the alpha female is to lead and thus, to have others follow.* So, if you're the friend of an alpha female and you're not down for playing follow-the-leader, there are going to be problems.** This is why in girl social groups, things get weird if someone starts to vary from her established friend role.

*once, i had a friend who told me, regarding another friend's take-charge attitude, "i don't want to be the leader, but i certainly don't want her to be the leader", -- one of the more astute observations i've ever heard about the female friend dynamic.

**a far less dangerous, but equally annoying problem arises if too many beta females end up in one group. it is a logistical nightmare, and everyone ends up frustrated.

In the not-so-distant past, I had a friend -- my very best friend in fact -- who was clearly the alpha to my beta. She was gorgeous and older and confident and magnetic and I wanted to be just like her. Actually, she would have been the alpha just about anyone's beta -- not necessarily because she wanted it to be so, but because these things are predicated as much by how you act as how those around you act -- but since I was her best friend, it was all the more glaring with us. She was a very good friend to me, and I to her, but throughout most of our friendship, people (very vocally) assumed that I was, for lack of a better word, her bitch. She and I both thought this to be untrue, and brushed the talk off.

But as the years passed, something happened -- I turned into, well, not an alpha necessarily, but definitely not a beta anymore. I didn't want to be perceived by others as her second, and I started to resent her terribly. She, in turn, likely had no idea what was going on and was confused and hurt by my constant (and often unwarranted) acting out. We let this drag on for months, both refusing to acknowledge the shift that was taking place, before the whole situation exploded into a horrible, nearly friendship-crushing fight.

We patched things up, eventually, but we have never really fit together as seamlessly as we did before we were forced to talk about all of this. The point was never that she didn't think of me as her equal -- she did -- it was that somewhere along the way, I started seeing her as mine. It was a problem of perception more than reality.

A tricky business, the female hierarchy.

So, the question remains: "Would you rather be significantly better-looking or significantly worse-looking than your group of friends?"

My time in creole hell

2008-05-12T00:26:00.003-04:00

Everyone I know -- myself included -- complains from time to time about the way they make their living. From Wall St. types and freelancers to punk rockers and models, no one has a completely positive outlook about their work. I guess that's because each occupation offers its own special case of the mindfucks.

For the most part, I like what I do for work. It does not require me to wake up early or to dress up when I don't feel like it, and I can take care of the vast majority of my responsibilities from home. So really, though I bitch about my work from time to time, I really don't have a major quarrel with it.

Perhaps this is because whenever I get tired or frustrated or feel that something is unfair, I compare my current gig with the lost summer I spent waitressing at a creole restaurant at a resort. I took the job in part because I was bored, but mostly because my mom hated me loafing around all the time tanning, and my dad was getting tired of me stealing his Coronas to take with me out to the dock while engaging in said tanning. I had never waitressed before and figured it wouldn't be very hard, and low and behold, it wasn't.

But what it was was taxing. And tedious. And a little degrading. Every day, I drove my BMW -- pasted indecorously with an employee parking sticker -- past the guard at the security gate to a little dirty parking lot and waited for a little dirty bus to take me the rest of the way to work. The air was nauseatingly hot and heavy, and the thick black pants I was forced to purchase from Wal-Mart morphed my legs into cheaply-clothed chimneys. The managers of the restaurant -- my bosses, if you will -- were a oozing pasty man with owl glasses who fancied himself some sort of Machiavellian dictator and a wiry girl with a Julia Roberts smile who had graduated two years ahead of me at my high school. She would have been very pretty had she not been so rough around the edges*.

*a week after i ended my commitment at the restaurant, this girl and i got into an argument that escalated into a fist fight at a bar, where she mopped the floor with me. i cried the whole way home in the car.

My co-workers were an odd assembly of burnt-out locals and Eastern Europeans who spoke limited English that the resort must have recruited for the summer. Once, I used the term "canoodling" around one of my foreign colleagues, and she informed me that it "sounds dirty, like-a animals fucking". The idea of tourists coming to the restaurant for a "genuine" Southern experience and being waited on by someone from the old Soviet Bloc never failed to make me smile.

One of the more colorful locals was a girl named Cara, a single mother twice over whose sage philosophy on men was "same shit, different toliet". She downed chewed up Midols to cure her hangovers. She always seemed to get stuck with the particularly distasteful side-work job of cleaning the tea and coffee dispensers and, upon seeing her name listed for this task yet again, bellowed out, "Stick me with teas and coffees just one more time, and I'm gonna stab someone with a prime rib knife".

At first, I made a conscious effort to separate myself from the rest of the employees. I spent the summer wearing 2 karat diamond earrings and a disdainful scowl. Once, after a particularly heinous disagreement with my amorphous blob of a manager, I threw my wadded up tip money at him, claiming I didn't need it anyway.*

*certainly not my finest hour.

But as time passed, I began to acclimate, and my fellow co-workers and the parolees who worked in the kitchen began to take a shine to me. My last day of work, two of them invited me to their house between my morning and night shifts. Between the three of us, we killed all the beer in the fridge, and I was just getting started on a bottle of Aristocrat vodka when I noticed a giant, coiled up snake in a cage. I am unequivocally terrified of snakes.

"Is that a real snake there?" I slurred.

"Yep. Sure is. Haw haw. Once, our friend JoAnne passed out here, and we threw it on her."

I eyed the vodka bottle in my hand, turned back to the snake and wordlessly rose and stumbled out the door to walk the two miles back to the restaurant.

My last shift as a waitress passed largely without incident, until the Food Network's Emril came in and was promptly sat in my section. Thank God my hard-scrabble manager noticed I was wasted and assigned someone else to wait on him while I downed black coffee in the kitchen and avoided her piercing stares.

At the end of the night, two of my co-workers doused me with an economy-sized bag of flour and gave me a bottle of whiskey, a last-day ritual which I guess was a weird show of affection. They also tried to pour a vat of an unspeakable mix of tartar sauce, mayo, eggs and ketchup on me, but instead hit another girl with long, blonde hair -- who started bawling when it happened -- by mistake. Which I thought was nothing short of fantastic.

I'd like to say that my time in creole hell, spending every day smelling like crayfish and shame, made me stronger or better or, at the least, more humble.

But all it really made me was sure that I never want to have to work in a restaurant again.

What kind of fuckery is this?

2008-05-08T22:26:00.003-04:00

Ok, Boy, you win.

We had a little misunderstanding about you coming over, and I, aiming for the elusive upper hand in our seesaw of an entanglement, refused you the pleasure of my company. Even though I knew it would piss you off and that your monstrosity of an ego would be crushed. Even though I wanted you to come over and listen to records with me and have a romp sesh on my air mattress.

So you didn't come over and I didn't sleep and two days later, you still weren't talking to me even though I tried every method of communication short of a carrier pigeon and smoke signals. I know I said you live too far away for me to ever come to your place, but at this point, I'd hop there on a goddman pogo stick if it meant you'd stop ignoring me.

I gave up on you, Boy, but the thing is I'm not really moving past you. I have a whole bag full of tricks I usually employ when a fellow like you stops cold, but lately, it's like I lost my whole damn playbook. So, I've stopped washing my hair and have commenced moping around my apartment to Amy Winehouse.

I am currently re-thinking my policy on hair-washing, though, because low and behold, I saw you today. You were clean-cut for once and smelled like Dove soap and I had greasy hair and an unflattering skirt that made me look like a frump-monster. You were civil and I was civil, and I was pretty sure things had come to their official conclusion with us until you surprised me with your great crooked grin that made me want to grab you and smack you and kill you and kiss you.

So what is it going to be, Boy. Game on? Or game over?

We Are Scientists

2008-05-08T01:07:00.004-04:00

This album, "Brain Thrust Mastery" will be released stateside (it's already out in Europe) on May 13th, and if you're not familiar with We Are Scientists, here is your chance. With Love and Squalor, their last album, was fantastic and is an album I can listen to all the way through and enjoy at nearly any time -- really, if you dig stuff that's synthy and exuberant (think the Shout Out Louds with the lyrical deftness of early Killers) you'll like this a lot.

The new album goes in a slightly different direction, but this single, "After Hours", kills. And the video is pretty sweet too.

my skinny jeans aren't that skinny

2008-05-07T23:16:00.005-04:00

Confession: I would love to ~~dress like~~ be a hipster. I would love to rock a wrist cuff and some high-top Chucks and an asymmetrical haircut. The problem is, to be a good hipster, it helps to be super skinny -- not model skinny, but just the kind of collar-bone bearing skinny that denotes that you might spend a lot of time at concerts burning calories with the indie-rock head nod. And unfortunately, I don't have the body to pull off the hipster's glam incarnation and would instead just end up looking like an aberrantly bad dresser.

I used to think there was no leeway to the skinny hipster rule, but when I moved, I unwittingly ran across the exception that proves the rule: the NYU student. Apparently, when you combine the influence of NYC's creative underclass with the inevitable freshman 15 (which, by the end of things, becomes the senior 30), you get the elusive large hipster. And I've got to tell you, the final product just doesn't inspire the imitation that Lohan and her leggings do in me.

So for now at least, I'll be avoiding skinny gray Levis, iridescent leg warmers from American Apparel and tight v-necks -- but not headbands. I love those.

a place clean and bright

2008-05-07T00:37:00.006-04:00

There's something about my new apartment that makes me want to be a better person. Be clear, I'm not talking about sweeping changes of personality. My new apartment isn't going to make me nicer. It probably won't make me thiner either.

But it has made me more responsible. It has made me want to alphabetize my CD collection and pick my wet towels up and hang them instead of letting them mildew on the floor. The space -- a place clean and bright -- is different than anywhere else I've lived in New York.

My first apartment here was a sublet studio on Waverly Place that was dank and dungeon-like with bars on the windows and a futon that was roughly the size of a Monopoly board that no one could actually sleep on. I lived there just for the summer, but by the day I moved out, I had caused such significant damage that the tenant asked for the $2,000 dollar security deposit back. And I can't blame her. I had intended to have the place cleaned, but I had spent the last of my money on double Ketel Ones on the rocks the night before and as a result, didn't have enough money left to pay the cleaning lady (who arrived with a woman who acted as a cross between a translator and a pimp) for the full time allotted. So, by the time I left, there where still bottles strewn around the apartment and grime caked to the bathroom tile. Half the light bulbs were burnt out and the sheets the boy who eventually broke my heart and I first had sex on had yet to be washed*.

*That whole summer is best summed up by the song "Things I Don't Remember" by the Modest Mouse offshoot project Ugly Casanova.

Needless to say, when asked about the condition of the apartment by the broker, I lied my ass off.

For the last eight months, I lived in a one-bedroom on idyllic Horatio Street, but the place was haunted from day one of my arrival. Plagued by the specters of procured pills and blackouts. By fear and hopelessness and a life that had slid off its axis and begun a dizzying downward spiral. By The Bottom. Even after day one and day two and month six and on, that apartment was cloaked in shadows. Every bump and creek terrified me, as if I was worried that it was my very past ascending the stairs to suffocate me in my sleep.

Nothing bad has ever happened to me in my new apartment. My shower curtain is hung (no small feat since I went all of last year without one) and my clothes are folded. I have high ceilings and a yellow wall and a kitty who I rescued from the pound. I'm invincible here. It's true -- I jumped from my loft the other day and barely sustained a minor ankle sprain, a minor miracle.

When people first starting describing me as "responsible" and "reliable" instead of "wild" and "reckless" and "crazy", I hated it (and listened to the Arctic Monkeys "Fluorescent Adolescent") . I thought of those words as synonymous with "boring". But responsibility has gotten me a happy home and a kitty cat. And recklessness? Got me a year's worth of sloppy showers.

This Is Ivy League

2008-05-04T20:00:00.003-04:00

Two months or so ago, I accidentally met this guy who manages a band called This Is Ivy League. When he hyped the album by saying it would be one of the best I would hear all year, I sort of blew it off as the stuff that managers and publicists and record label types are required to tell you and let it go at that.

A couple weeks after that though, he sent me a copy of the band's debut album, and I'll be damned if I'm not totally into it. At first, I barely played the CD because I was subconsciously associating This Is Ivy League with the highly overrated* (this is why I can't work for Spin, I guess) Vampire Weekend because of the whole Ivy League connection and the fact that they also dress like the indie interpretation of prep school guys, etc.

* my problems with Vampire Weekend stem from something besides their music. i can't put my finger on exactly what it is -- maybe the hype? or that they were bad on SNL? maybe because the lead singer bears a strong resemblance to a boy who spurned my over-the-top advances? -- but, it should noted that i definitively dislike them.

Once I started playing this CD though, it was all I listened to for maybe nine days straight. My usual companions -- Dylan, the Smiths, Maximo Park -- stayed on the shelf in favor of these Brooklyn upstarts. Also, if someone from the 1940's teleported into my apartment and I had to explain to them what indie rock was conceptually and what it sounded like, I would probably play them this album first.

So, check them out. See below.

"good girls gotta get down with the gangstas"

2008-05-03T02:40:00.003-04:00

People are always asking me what my "type" is in terms of guys, which I find funny because a brief demographic survey of the guys I've been with will reveal a veritable sampler's delight of guys in every respect imaginable.

You see, I don't believe in types really. I feel like when people tell you their type, what they are really telling you is the type of person they aspire to be with. This is even (and perhaps particularly) true with girls who tell you, loudly and with a laugh that is anything that is guilty, that they "seem to go for the asshole guys". That's that girl trying to seem either like (a) a vulnerable victim who always gets shanghaied into hooking up with a jerk (sometimes somewhat true); (b) a tough, ballbuster type who gets with those guys because she feels she can whip them into shape (rarely the case); or (c) the type of girl who is too cool to care because she is like totally over it anyway (never true -- usually evidenced by copious bitching and tears).

P.S. If you say you're over something or someone, it is probably the sun around which your earth revolves.

P.P.S. I have been accused on more than one occasion for being a type c girl.

Anyway, what I was really trying to get to is that even though I don't really believe in types, there was a period in time -- say, between spring of 2004 and fall of 2006 -- where I predominantly seemed to be hooking up with or linked to black guys. I have no idea why this is. I've never had any conscious affinity for black guys over white guys. Black guys and white guys seem about equally attracted to me. While this phase was happening, in fact, I really had no awareness of it. And the weirdest thing is, it stopped as suddenly as it started. After the fall of 2006, I was back to the white boys without any rhyme or reason.

I'll tell you this: in large part, I loved hooking up with black guys, and here's why. It's the shit that they say to you. When they can muster up any conversation, white guys tell you you're hot. That you have nice boobs. That you're a good kisser. But the black guys I've been with are much more inventive in their descriptions.

Case and point, when I was in college, I spent many a drunken night during the aforementioned time period with a 30-year-old Rastafarian who I called Sway based on his resemblance to the MTV veejay by that name. He called himself Storm for reasons unknown. One night, we smoked something he called "Sheesha" from a crazy-looking pipe, and it kept me in a mental fog for half a week. Another night, I threw up chocolate cake in his bed, and he carried me into the bathroom and fed me a Hot Pocket.

It was the morning after that particular night that he told me fondly, upon my waking up a splayed out, fair-haired mess:

"Girl, you're making me crazy laying there. You look like a fucked up dandelion. C'mere."

It was one of the nicest things he could have said, given that just hours before he had been washing my vomit from his sheets, poor Sway.

So, if you want to be the beneficiary of this brand of verbal dexterity, you should probably hook up with a black dude. Preferably one with dreadlocks and a good supply of Sheesha.

The Rolling Hills

2008-04-30T04:15:00.005-04:00

I can't lie -- the Hills girls on the cover of RollingStone freaks me out a little bit. Sure, I like the show. I get that it's zeitgeisty and mock-post-counter ironic (or whatever excuse hipster types are using as an excuse to watch these days) and that it reveals how shallow and mindless us 20-somethings are. But really? RollingStone? Granted, Creed was once on the cover of the RollingStone. So was Dennis Rodman. When you are trying to forecast trends, it's easy to misstep. That's the risk that goes with examining phenomena. But when you hit, you get iconic covers like the ones below, and it makes it all worthwhile.

The cover story on our favorite glazed-eyed, extension-ladden pseudo celebs seems alright, but I have the sneaking suspicion that in two years or so, this Hills cover might endure a mountain of mockery.

OMFG -- how Blake Lively ruined my credit

2008-04-28T17:22:00.002-04:00

Conventional wisdom says that I am to blame for the fact that no credit card company except Discover (which is conveniently rejected, mocked, or scorned at 9 of 10 establishments in the city) will have me.

But I'm not. Blake Lively is. Along with with Rory Gilmore, Ugly Betty, and some other girl who will undoubtedly find fame on the small screen.

You see, I have a minor confession to make. One boring summer not so many years ago, I stumbled those "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" books. And you know what? I unabashedly fucking loved them. I read the first one and promptly bought the next three or four in the series (like most sequels, they left something to be desired, but whatever).

So imagine my delight when the Sisterhood was optioned to the silver screen. I sort of couldn't bring myself to see it in theaters -- not that I have really high standards there. I have seen probably every Amanda Bynes movie ever created in theaters a minimum of two times. I contented myself with renting it one lazy night. It sucked, and Rory Gilmore has always annoyed me more than a little, but I did like the girl who played faux soccer slut Bridget -- a young, extension-free Blake Lively.

It was a pretty forgettable experience though altogether. So forgettable, in fact, that I forgot to return the stupid DVD to Hollywood Video and lost the damn thing under my roommate's ample denim couch.

The whole incident would have gone unnoticed, except I tried to buy groceries one day almost a year later, and my credit card was refused and I incurred the wrath of the eight patrons behind me. I had no idea why my credit card was declined and indignantly called up my credit card company, who told me that my account had been frozen because of an outstanding charge that had now gone to a collections agency that was threatening legal action. When I asked, pray tell, what that outstanding charge was, I was mortifyingly informed that it had something to do with a little movie called -- well, you know.

I payed the several-hundred dollar fee eventually, but afterwards, Visa wanted nothing to do with me. I had already burned bridges with Master Card during my British binge, and AmEx is clearly too classy for my kind, considering Visa had probably sent out a notice to all reputable credit companies listing my wrongs and terrible taste in movies.

So I am left with a stupid Discover card, thanks to Blake Lively and her minions.

And every time I watch her on Gossip Girl, I hate her created-to-be-endearing character a little bit more for it.

"sun threw roses at your feet and watched you pass out on the street"

2008-04-27T20:32:00.003-04:00

"Jeez," I told you, "I'm so glad we met."

I say that to a lot of people, but this time I meant it. You're one of the most interesting people I've met in a long time, and we have so much fun doing nothing together. You're captivating -- and not just because you're one of the best looking people I've ever seen up close. Even in your fragile state, I love being around you. I was so excited thinking how our friendship would progress. We could start working together, combining our expertises. You could come with me on visits down to the beach in Florida. We could confide in each other. It would be great.

But when you responded, you didn't didn't respond how all the other people I give my stock line of gratitude to do. You said that if we hadn't met, you might have gone through with your fleeting notions of ending your life.

That took me aback more than a little, friend. You're the kind of girl other people aspire to be. You've got so much to gain, and I told you so even though I figured you should already know that.

But having a lot to gain means having a lot to lose, and that I'm not sure you get. Maybe you do, but your actions say otherwise. You're reckless -- not the way I used to be wreckless, rushing headlong into tumult because I needed the adrenaline rush to fill me up. You sort of toddle into danger like a deer creeping too close to the edge of a dark, country road even though it sees the headlights moving closer and closer.

I have to tell you, friend, all that recklessness hasn't drained out of me completely yet. Part of me has spent almost eight months dying for an excuse to really fuck up, and I know you could be just that. But I want you to be more. And you should want that, too.

"you're gonna make me lonesome when you go"

2008-04-26T11:48:00.006-04:00

Hi Boy,

I know that sometimes I seem like I'm not into it, but let me clear something up -- I like like you. I mean, when we hang out, there's a playlist that goes through my head that starts with upbeat stuff like "What I'm Trying to Say" by the Stars and ends with something sweet like the Perishers' "There's Nothing Like You and I" or maybe Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning". I sort of wish we could have hooked up to my mental playlist, but everything was so frantic, it was almost fitting that a random song by the Replacements was playing. It wasn't a mood-killer -- actually, it was really hot.

The first time I saw you, there was a sort of inevitability about what you'd come to mean to me. You were cool and bored, but your big goofy grin betrayed you, and when you flashed it my way, my limbs went watery. You're great, and we're both aware of it.

But, Boy, you've got to make your intentions clear. You see, I might seem unflappable when we're together, but when we're apart, I'm missing a little something. And I've got to be honest with you, the last time I was in a situation like this, I got absolutely obliterated by a fellow not unlike yourself.

So, let me know.

h's & k's.

Mama drama

2008-04-25T14:07:00.000-04:00

When I was younger, I used to watch movies like "Home for the Holidays" and other movies in the "adult child returns home/sees family" genre and had absolutely no understanding of what was occurring. Who were these annoying adults? Why weren't they stoked to see their parents and siblings? I was completely perplexed.

Now, I get it. My very own mother -- not to mention my insane grandmother (heretofore known as Gran Gran) -- is coming to help me move next week. I don't mean "help" in the physical sense, either. What I mean is she is going to occupy the very attractive and glamorous "overseer" position. To be fair, she also may wait for the cable guy to come hook up my high speed internet. Mostly, though, I suspect we will argue over my taste in linens, plates, towels and men.

The thing is, I love my mom. She is funny and cool and I love talking to her. When I am away from her, we talk several times a day on the phone. But the problem lies in the fact that since I'm not really a legit adult -- I'm more of an adult/adolescent hybrid, really -- I still rely on my mom for annoying things like occasional money, and I sometimes ask her where I may have left my shoes even though she's never seen my apartment.

Because of this, my mom cannot take me seriously. It's ok. I don't really take me seriously either.

"the greatest Smiths fan ever"

2008-04-25T04:48:00.000-04:00

I dare you to dislike this song. Or this video.

I saw Casiotone play a week or so ago at the Knitting Factory, and watching one-man band Owen Ashworth up there singing and working his giant, mutant keyboard like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain was one of the more impressive things I've ever seen.

A well-timed Smiths reference never hurts in my mind, either.

Moving on in

2008-04-25T03:47:00.000-04:00

I don't know if you recall, but Marissa Cooper lived in at least six (by my count) residences during her three-year stint on The O.C. -- which is probably why she felt so fucked up all the time and was compelled to launch pool furniture into the drink and take weak pulls from her flask all the time. But I feel her, really, as I myself have moved seven times in the past five years.

Moving is the fucking worst, and I always seem to be doing it in some sort of hell heat. I knew intuitively, in fact, as soon as I scheduled this latest move that the weather was going to turn in NYC. I've been praying at the alter of mid-70's temps for the last six weeks to no avail, but now that I'll be schlepping boxes from the far West Village to Wash Sq Park, I'm starting to see the truth in Chuck Klosterman's description of the city as a "hipster kiln".

I'm stoked to get out of the apartment I've been subletting. It's chock-full of Indian artifacts and theoretical math texts, leaving no room for my Amy Winehouse and Bob Dylan posters. A sprightly painting of a Navajo Indian chief oversees my every move, and I have neon, glow-in-the-dark stars affixed to my bedroom ceiling. I feel like I am subletting nerdy Peter Pan's secret hideaway.

Seven months before this, I was holed up at the Chelsea Hotel drinking Ketel One by the bottle and gobbling up a veritable Skittles platter of prescription drugs, and two weeks before that, I was living in my parents' house in Florida surrounded by the same purple-flowered wall paper I've had since I was ten.

There are metaphors to be spun here about distance and time and moving and moving on and whatever. Right now though, I just need to get my fucking cable installed and electricity turned on in my new place in time for what I hope is my last move for a hot minute.