oh please.

but who will watch my tv?

2010-06-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

sigh. hell with this. i'ma run off to the desert. barter my way into possession of a horse. survive off the land. trip on the local flora. ultimately come into a greater understanding of myself.

life as a nomad sounds totally okay to me. if the world ends in two years, i like to think i'll be one of the ones who looks around at the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was society, shrugs, and goes "ok. at least now there's room for creativity and a clear path to improvement." i'll throw the bare essentials in a backpack, maybe find a couple like-minded companions and a large, aggressive dog, and take to the open road. the thought of the world as we know it ending used to terrify me, but now i really feel like i could go either way. i just hope there's still blue sky and green grass and whatnot. the only part of the traditional doomsday survival scenario that i couldn't get down with is the oppressive color pallet.

all i really want is adventure. doesn't everyone pretty much? we must, since adventure sells so well. escapism. we wanna be pirates. we wanna save middle earth. etc etc etc. but most of us don't get to do that stuff. we just watch videos about other people doing it. but if armageddon happens... i mean, whatever else, we all get to be adventurers.

i for one will not complain. i for one will make the most of it. i just hope the people i like survive too.

2010-05-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

first of all:

vote for me y'all.

it's that time of year again. the home stretch of the school year. i haven't really been in this headspace since high school and let me tell you it is killing me. two weeks left and suddenly every teacher decides to pile on the essays and projects and tests - not even counting finals - right when my motivation is at its absolute lowest and the thought of continuing to wake up and drive the thirty minutes to school is right up there next to chugging downy.

but it's also that time of year when i get to wander barefoot in the forest. so. that's nice.

i find myself unemployed, which is no funsies. the restaurant finally closed and i'm at loose ends. i've applied for a bunch of jobs, but even if one did call me i'd only be there for two months before i'm off to camp... so i'm leaning more towards trying to find a way to make little amounts of money here and there until july. thus far i have come up with the following.

pet psychic
busker
sell things on ebay
sell things at pawn shops
have a tag sale
have a bake sale
lemonade stand
topless lemonade stand
topless tag sale
topless pet psychic
ask one million people for one dollar each
caricatures
rob a bank

one or the other is bound to pan out.

also this:

webster hall 4/22. delightful show.

and they said nothing, could get a girl transferred

2010-03-01T13:18:00.001-08:00

ok a couple things.

number one:

this is what i remember about the neverending story as a kid:

1. falcor scared the SHIT out of me
2. the Nothing scared the SHIT out of me and i didn't even remember what it was, just the name. "the nothing." for a little girl with a crazy imagination, that is enough.

i finally watched the neverending story again the other night. and after viewing it as a 'young adult,' i can draw only one logical conclusion: i never made it all the way through the neverending story as a kid, because if i had, it would have disturbed me for life.

here's the thing. i believe that kids are tripping. all the time. if you've taken acid, think back to what that was like, and then think back to your perception of the world as a lil tyke. they are the same. the younger the child, the harder he/she is trippin' balllllzzzz.

i mean look at childrens' television. look at the toys that fascinate babies and toddlers. look at how teeny tots react to things like bright swirly colors and patterns, or people making goofy faces at them. personally, i recall being absolutely in love with the sight of city lights as viewed from a highway at night. i still enjoy the sight, but when i was little it used to just drive me wild. i ate that shit UP.

so my point is this. you wouldn't wanna watch the neverending story on acid. and i wouldn't wanna show the neverending story to a small child. because those puppets are just so unnerving. and for chrissakes the horse drowns in a swamp.

numba 2:

i like ke$ha better knowing she was an awkward, chunky middle schooler who listened to radiohead.

i think i dreamed about snood a couple times back then.

2010-02-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

i just downloaded snood for my mac. remember snood?

snood.

really takes me back, man. like back to when the interwebs were all shiny and new and exciting, and people went in "chatrooms" a lot because the novelty of being able to connect with strangers from around the world hadn't worn off yet.

(of course now we have chatroulette makin it shiny and new once more, which is nice for the time being. i wonder how long it will take before chatroulette devolves into a medium that is purely about cybering and absolutely nothing else, ala chatrooms.)

haven't played snood since the whole fam was sharing one single, long-suffering PC that lived in a high-traffic area in between the kitchen and living room. oh the memories. i burned my first mix CD on that computer. we had napster. my bro and i were like, this changes everything. such promise in the air. and then we'd all take turns playing snood and trying to beat each other's high scores.

quality family bonding circa 2001. a simpler time.

this is also a snood tho-

which is weird because i totally had one of those around the same era. for horse shows. clearly i rode english. only in english horseback riding would they require you to wear a hair accessory that pompous which also happens to be called a "snood." i felt pretty baller in mine, no lie.

snood the game totally holds up, let me just say. it is old school free demo fun to be sure.

86 the shepherd's pie

2010-02-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

i wait tables at this terrible restaurant which is run by very well-meaning people who should not be running a restaurant. i'm getting pretty good at going up to people whose orders i've just taken and saying "so it turns out we're out of such-and-such a thing that you ordered, would you like to try thus-and-so instead?" or sometimes i mix it up and say "did you have a second choice?" i should start composing haiku...

i asked the kitchen
they said you are SOL
something else look good?

this used to embarrass me horribly when i worked at a real restaurant. i used to get horribly embarrassed a lot when i worked at a real restaurant, actually, and more often than not over things that weren't my fault at all; i just felt so dreadful when something would go wrong, i mean who can afford to go out to dinner too often these days so if something gets messed up then i've ruined your nice special evening out etc etc etc... and of course most people are dicks about it anyway, which doesn't help.

if i ran a restaurant, i would empower my employees. i would allow, nay, encourage my servers to behave like the staff at urban outfitters. customers would have to chase them down to have their orders taken. any belligerence would be received with the cold stare of a young, attractive service industry employee who knows he or she is not going to lose his or her job, and also that he or she is young and attractive.

i imagine we'd be open for three months, tops, but oh what a liberating three months.

also large headphones would be perfectly acceptable work attire.

bitches gotta learn

2010-02-10T18:47:00.000-08:00

hey hey it's the blogosphere! what is going on.

if anyone but my mom read this blog, i would throw out some kind of "hey guys how is 2010 treating you." just to break the ice. because if a blog was a puddle, there would be ice on this one for sure. or possibly a layer of unidentifiable scum, and some mosquito larvae. this puddle don't get splashed through too often.

hey mom, how is 2010 treating you?

so far i like 2010. it's a lot less confusing than 2009. but you know what, i don't trust that shit anymore. just when you think "hey, i've got this life thing down! i'm maturing and growing as a person! everything's gonna be ok!" something else confusing happens and you realize you're still basically fourteen years old. (said the 20 year old.)

my communications teacher is a polish immigrant in her 30s who hates america, and americans, with a fiery burning passion. this was not immediately evident, but every class it becomes more apparent. the final thirty minutes or so of our last class session consisted of her making scathing remarks about american hypocrisy, greed, and brutality, all of which were prefaced by "i don't mean any offense, but" and accompanied by an ingratiating - and very fixed - smile.

now, i try not to be "that kid" who always has to have something to contribute, but i had to say something. i felt she was lumping our entire nation into a single ugly stereotype; possibly one of the less sympathetic side characters from "king of the hill." i tried to explain to her, respectfully, that while we are by no means a perfect people, one must take into account that there exists a distinct dichotomy in the american attitude. we are right or left; red or blue; conservative or liberal. rarely, if ever, shall the twain meet. and a lot of what she was attacking us for - our attitude towards immigrants, our tendency to get involved in countries that don't want our involvement - is, unfortunately, an image that our right-leaning citizens have cultivated.

she basically ignored me, and i would have shut up except that she then went on to ridicule us for watching the news. "it's so unreliable," she said. "it's so controlled. you have no idea if what you are watching is the truth, and you do not take the time to find out."

"okay," says i, "i'm not disagreeing with you, but in what country CAN they be certain that the news they're seeing hasn't been censored or edited in any way?"

again she basically ignores me. "it just amazes me; you americans trust your government so explicitly."

"no, we don't!" i say. i'm staring at her. i'm not smiling. (she still is.) "no we don't."

i shut up after that. but i mean like seriously you guys.

no we don't.

right?

that's what i thought.

turn around (every now and then i get a little bit...)

2009-04-26T20:43:00.000-07:00

there ought to be a disclaimer on the human mind: "subject to change without warning."

and as the mind is such a powerful and influential thing (haven't you heard THE SECRET?), when it makes one of those spontaneous 180-degree turnarounds and wanders off in a direction previously unexplored, it tends to drag with it the life of the human attached.

i'm not complaining though.

maybe it's not the mind that goes first. it's a real chicken vs. egg conundrum in which i'm tangling myself here, but bear with me. what's the inciting factor? obviously something has to happen to give the mind new information on which to base opinions and decisions; something outside the control of the individual. the mind receives new information, takes it into account, and makes judgements with consideration (one hopes) of every variable. stagnation occurs when the mind isn't receiving enough new information. then, the individual becomes restless and bored and frustrated and does things like move to new york city and live in basements with crazy women. because the individual is starving for mental stimulation.

so i guess we just go where the mental stimulation is. wherever that may be at any given moment. and i guess i always go back to nyc when things get slow because it's an easy way to make shit, any kinda shit, happen.

i'm a giant douchebag, or, why i'm blogging in starbucks

2009-04-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

yesterday my crazy roommate told me to be out within the month. she was pissed because i let my cousin sleep over rather than spend the night on a bench in tompkins square park. she claims it's an issue of privacy and went on and on about how she doesn't want strangers over because the place is such a mess. god forbid people think she's a slob! of course the real reason is that she's not supposed to be renting out the space, and i'm not sure she's even supposed to be living there herself; might be the super's dirty little secret. but still, is that not ridic? i mean he's not really my cousin and we could have just stayed at phil's, but she has no way of knowing that and still she read me the riot act. bitch. so i guess i'm transitory again. c'est la whatever. seems to be what i'm good at so what the hell.

so this morning i threw gideon in my backpack, dropped off my laundry at the place across the street, and went to whole foods. got some of the usual rabbit food and a snickerdoodle and went up to utilize what i thought was free wifi; turns out it's like 5 bucks an hour so gid went unused. but on the bright side, the snickerdoodle was delicious and this adorable little kid accidentally hit me with an umbrella. i've been all about kids lately and his babysitter/big brother/possible uncle was a cutie so whatevs.

big brother: you don't play with your umbrella in front of other people! you keep your umbrella to yourself!
me: words to live by.
big brother: (gets all shy and nervous) haha you have no idea.

then he made cute little kid apologize to me, which he did ("sowwy") and i was like "that's ok!" and all was happy.

i scooted shortly after they did because the wifi was kind of a big draw and the longer i stayed the more i wanted another cookie. plus this creepy dude was staring at me.

when i got back, crazy roomie was home. i've taken up speaking to her in one- to three-word sentences; not actually nasty but very very curt. i set up gideon and proceeded to try to get internet, always a big maybe in that place.

her: are you getting internet?
me: no.
her: no, huh? if it doesn't work there, you could go to starbucks. it's really close.
me: it's not free.

long silence.

eventually i gave up and packed up gideon again and headed wordlessly for the door.

her: (as i'm leaving) are you working tonight, kate? (she thinks my name is kate.)
me: yup.
her: oh, because i blah blah
(i leave.)

actually that one was a little harsher than i meant it to be, especially as i punctuated it with an unintentional slam of the front door (i was carrying a lot of shit).

i did go to starbucks. it's actually wicked cheap here so whatever. i'm glad i didn't cave at whole foods. crazy roomie keeps texting me. and that's where i'm at.

on the plus side, i slept great last night.

wow this was such a horrible update.

beware the end of march, or, how i learned to stop worrying and love the moment

2009-03-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

some things you go your whole life hearing about so often that you think you know all about them, but you don't really "know" them until you've experienced them firsthand - you know? like getting your heart broken, or having sex, or getting high, or (i'm assuming) childbirth. like overhearing a dirty joke when you're too young to know it's dirty and you ask your parents what it means and they don't really give you a straight answer and you all but forget about it until one day in middle school when you suddenly remember the joke and go "ohhh, NOW i get it."

saturday last, i packed up my worldy possessions for the umpteenth time and dashed off to new york city. i'm still here, i'm employed, and i'm not homeless, so it's going well. this morning i hopped a bus from phil's place on the ues and rode it downtown to this little cafe i've been in love with since september '07; successfully completed my first ever sudoku puzzle over coffee and a bagel. afterwards i walked up houston in the noontime sunlight and felt generally positive about life. for some reason walking up houston on a nice day always puts me in a good mood. i don't know why, it's not like there's anything that great about houston, but i can't seem to remember any time i've walked along it and not reached my destination all blissed out.

i think each generation ends up being retrospectively defined by its recreational drug use. which is why kids who do drugs always kind of look down on the straight edge kids. it's like, guys, you're missing out. i mean if i had grown up during, say, the whole 1950s reefer madness thing, i would be much happier today knowing that i was one of the kids who experimented despite the propaganda. that's all i'm saying.

did you know there's a whole subculture of new york city youth based on really intense burn rides? god, i need to start documenting my generation.

until next time: tune in fridays at 9 on the travel channel to watch a meathead in a muscle tee hunt for ghosts. it's AWESOME.

take my voice please do what you want with it

2009-03-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

my friend phil calls me early one morning to ask me how you can tell if you've overdosed. he sounds like shit so i tell him that if he has to ask, he should probably go to a hospital.

"what did you do?" i ask.

"coke."

"how much?"

"an eight ball. by myself."

a pause, then

"yeah, definitely go to the hospital."

another long pause. i know he doesn't want to deal with the hospital; the hospital means medical bills, it means his parents getting involved, and most importantly it means getting up and calling a cab, up for which he is definitely not at this time.

"phil?" just checking to make sure he's still with me.

"ugh, god, i don't know... i feel so shitty. what do you think i should do?"

and that's how i started making phil's decisions for him.

he was, thank goodness, fine. he did indeed go to the hospital, where he spent a day and a night of which he has basically no memory. i saw him a couple days later and we spent a great day wandering new york city trying to get free food. that was the same day we ended up sitting on a bench in a dog park in chelsea, next to idina menzel and taye diggs. but i digress.

phil is an actor and a singer. he's also a student, and a pothead, and not to sound sappy, but one of the kindest souls i've ever met. it's easy to miss, buried as it is under all of his bad habits, but i don't think the guy has a malevolent bone in his body.

i remember one time when we were at the arts academy we both attended throughout high school. class was out, but phil and myself and a handful of other kids were in the academy's yearly opera, and we had gone up the street to grab some food before rehearsal. we were all hanging out outside the theater when this older woman came up to us. the academy is sort of in the inner city and we were used to having an eye out for crazies, and this lady definitely fit the bill; dirty clothes, unstable expression. she asked us, half-pleading, if anyone had a dollar - she said she was lost, didn't have enough for the bus, wasn't sure which bus to take even if she had... she seemed on the edge of a breakdown. ourselves being little sheltered high school kids, we mostly looked away and muttered awkward excuses; except for phil.

"hang on one second," he said to her. "wait right there."

i watched as he went inside and quickly took up a collection. he returned with a few dollars, enough for the bus, and a teacher who was able to give the lady directions. she was so, so grateful and so obviously, incredibly relieved that someone had helped her. phil just told her not to worry about it and made sure she was okay before heading in to rehearsal. i think the rest of us, deservedly, all felt like assholes.

phil and i were friends at the academy, but we didn't really get close until a couple years after graduation. we both moved to new york city right away, but even then we rarely hung out; in fact, we'd seen each other maybe once or twice between high school and the OD incident. after that he kind of fell off the planet for a while and he told me later that he'd dropped everything and gone to florida without notice. and then one night, while i was living upstate, i called him from the bus on the way to the port authority, and he picked up. he was back in new york city and we had a lot of catching up to do.

after that visit, we started calling each other whenever we were bored. i came to hang out with him when i could, but usually he was a voice over the phone, talking about drugs and auditions and his dickish roommate. a lot of the time he was stoned, talking to me as he roamed the upper east side in search of food, and he could never decide what to get. it became a running gag that he always wanted me to decide for him. "ugh, i don't know... what do you think i should do?" and he'd just keep asking until i told him to get chinese, or mcdonalds, or subway. always something fast and cheap.

i don't really know where i'm going with this. i guess it's just a tribute to phil. i haven't even scratched the surface of half of the crazy shit he's been through, of course, but believe me when i say that the dude has lived. he's very talented and someday he'll get the fame and fortune he deserves, but when i think of him my first thought will always be of a groggy voice through a phone - "ugh, i don't know... what do you think i should do?"

it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two

2009-02-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

a couple weeks ago i went to visit a very good friend at college. she lives off-campus in a house she rents with four other girls. between them they have two dogs, a kitten and parties every weekend. they're all between the ages of 19 and 24. they all go to college full time. it's a big school. you've heard of it.

my friend gave me a tour of the campus. we hopped in her truck (she drives stick. that always impresses me) and she drove me around and pointed out everything worth seeing, with the kind of commentary you only get from an insider - personal anecdotes, local superstitions and urban legends, which dorms have the best parties, which dorms nobody wants to live in. all the stuff worth knowing. i enjoyed the hell out of the tour and listened with genuine interest as she talked about the place that is, for two and a half more years, her world. and i watched the kids milling around, hanging out, heading to their next classes... and i thought, wow, this actually isn't for me.

i'm the same age as my friend. had i made different choices my senior year of high school, i'd be right where she and most of my other friends are now. and of course i've always wondered if maybe i should have taken that route - it would be easier, for sure, to spend four more years worrying about homework and finals and who's hosting the next kegger. i even dipped my toes in last year. i took classes at a community college while living with a couple of girls who were doing their best to simulate a college environment out of our living room. but it wasn't until this visit that i finally realized that actually, i made the right choice for myself. i may have done it in a sort of clumsy, accidental, half-assed way, but i did the best thing i could do. had i gone to a four-year college, i suspect that i would have left after a semester and been in exactly the same position as i am today, only without the experience i gained from moving to new york city at age 18.

which is by no means to say that i know what i'm doing. i don't. i have no idea. especially right now. for the first time, well, ever, i am at a complete and utter loss. i don't have a job, i'm not in school, i'm living at home... i didn't mean to be here and the circumstances that put me here were out of my control, but here i am and i can't seem to figure out how to get started again.

but at least i can rule out one more option.

next time: i cut the self-discovery crap and tell a wacky story about this guy i know.

you don't have to live like a refugee

2009-01-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

transitional periods suck.

of course it also sucks that i'm so averse to transition, as my life since graduating high school has been one long series of transitional periods. mostly it's the moving from place to place that bothers me. especially seeing as i always seem to live up at least two flights of stairs.

i'm on the cusp of yet another move, though, and this time i'm determined to settle down. i tend to live like a refugee even if i've signed a one-year lease. i don't paint, don't put up shelves, don't really do anything that requires actual time and money - i'll slap up some christmas lights and the MTA subway map as decor and call it a day. but this time will be different. it has to be, considering the place is so small that if i leave it looking the way it does, it will be stifling. impeccable color choices are this apartment's only hope. i shall put down roots or go broke trying.

so anyway right now i'm living out a of a suitcase again. most of my stuff is at my dad's house in connecticut. i have two more work days in my current location, then i'm headed off to reunite with my worldly possessions. and then if all goes as planned, back to the city. i'm no closer to finding a job. this blog is the only step i've taken towards starting my career. so far... 2009 is looking delicious.

craigslist deer blind

2008-11-30T18:57:00.001-08:00

hunting! this is how vegetarians hunt. bellies full of our one free shift meal (tofu salad with brown rice and cucumber-feta dressing), we scour craigslist for apartments and jobs.

one never knows. or at least, i never know. when asked if i would one day want to return to new york city, i would invariably and with certainty reply: "yes, absolutely, but not right away. someday." and yet here i am, not even a year later, struggling to get my foot back in the door, delighted at the prospect of slaving away at a thankless waitressing job so i can pay my $900 a month to share an apartment with a stranger in park slope.

there will be time, i tell myself, to see the world. there will be time to backpack pointlessly across europe for the sake, if we are being honest with ourselves, of the bragging rights. hell, if i'm being honest with myself, most of what i do i do for the bragging rights.

it was in that spirit that i used to peruse the missed connections on craigslist. it began as innocent curiosity and snowballed to where i read each and every ad whose title mentioned someone of my hair color. i broke the habit when i left new york. every once in a while, though, out of boredom, i'll go back to the missed connections page. and even though i've been out of sight for months, i still can't help but click the ones that fit my description: hidden by the camouflage of internet anonymity, remaining motionless, rifle at the ready, in the hopes of bagging that rarest of game, validation.

oh snap.

now entering the blogosphere

2008-11-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

liftoff?