I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Work is there when love is gone, Smell of coffee, break of dawn.
Hey blog, remember me? Sorry i'm a terrible contributor. I've been carrying on an elicit affair with my e-mail account, but i'm trying to avoid that right now because there's an email that I need to send that I really don't want to. Too much has happened since last we spoke, I can't possibly summarize it all, but I promise i'll try to be more diligent. That picture was taken at Columbia University, over Morningside Park at 7:25am.
The preceeding 18 hours sum up my entire summer; nee, my entire life.
So last night, after perusing reddit and seeing a million posts about dudes needing help dating and getting girlfriends, I decided I need to start a business where I am a practice date. I'll go out with these sad sacks and give them tips on not being so creepy and let them practice actually talking to girls. Because, let's face it, i'm the nicest girl ever, a fabulous conversationalist, and I can discuss nerdy things like Magic and Star Wars, and it's high time someone else starts financing my drinking habit. But anyway, that's another post in and of itself. So i'm perusing the "strictly platonic" section of CraigsList looking to see if there's a market for my services, when suddenly this post catches my eye:
m4w28: Since the US Open men's final was rescheduled for Monday, my original friend cannot attend, I'm looking for someone who likes tennis who would like to accompany me
Now, after hemming and hawing for a while, I decided, (while talking it through ad naseum with Meg- thanks Meg!) to suck it up and message this guy. It's the men's final for fucks sake! So after a million correspondences through e-mail, gchat, and text, we both come to the conclusion that the other one isn't a serial killer or a prostitute, and agree to meet up. Now, the forecast for today called for rain, so this morning my new Indian financial consultant bff from Boston starts stressing about whether or not he should bother taking the train down if it's just going to get rescheduled again. So around 10am he apologizes and says he's just going to try and sell the tickets, because he can't take off work tomorrow if they get rescheduled again, and he doesn't want to risk coming down for naught.
I'm a bit bummed, but it's understandable. I mean the fact that he was going to just donate one ticket to a random stranger was some above and beyond kindness. So, no big deal, i'm over it. Then at like 3:10pm he gchats me and says he was unable to sell the tickets and it's a shame for them to go unused, so here they are, I should use them. So after freaking out and jumping around for five minutes, and profusely thanking this guy, and accepting his friendship on facebook, and promising to buy him several beers or a reasonably priced meal (hope he likes tacky Russian lunch specials) if he's ever in NYC, my dad and I shag ass to the Billie Jean National (not regional) Tennis Arena. So then at 3:45 (we're 10 min away) I get a call from the kid. Basically he goes "I'm really really sorry, please don't use my tickets, I was able to sell them at the very last minute, i'm so so so sorry yadda yadda yadda"
this was how i felt
So then I get home, and this kid continues to text me apologies that get progressively creepy and just unnecessary. Things like: "you're really beautiful, and I hope one day I get the chance to make this up to you" "if I were there... I would have given you a stick to beat me... I promise, If I am given the opportunity, I will make this up to you" Because that's exactly what I want to hear. Please, bother me for 12 straight hours, pull the rug out from under me (crushing my US Open dreams) and then awkwardly compliment and hit on me. Obviously that is the quickest way to a woman's heart.
So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go repeatedly run straight into a brick wall, because that will ultimately be more successful than anything else I've endeavored to do this summer.
My first US Open! You'd think being a tennis fan for my entire life, and living 20 minutes away, I'd be an Open regular, but no. Thanks mobs and beans for coming up to visit and watch some quality stuff white people like.
Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier. I'd post the picture of Kim, Roman, and I but 5 nights of drinking has rendered me hideous and bloated. Time to detox. But I still had to commemorate your visit.
Obligatory? As an Art Historian, I've studied a fuck-ton of memorials and monuments and I think these lights are always really tasteful and appropriate.
Tomorrow is September 1st. I don't know what i'll do if I don't hear from Pratt this week. It's so close I can taste it. I can visualize my Brooklyn apartment and my tree wallpaper and cranberry and lemon color scheme. I can visualize my Queen size bed and you snuggling in it. Gahhhhh. Okay, tomorrow I stop reading old diary entries because I'm seriously driving myself crazy.
It needs to be fall. Or at least Sam Adams needs to come out with their Octoberfest already. And Brooklyn Brewery their pumpkin beer.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Let me preface this by saying I just re-read the entirety of my livejournal (2002-2006) and am a firm believer that my depressed and mostly drunk ramblings tell a more captivating story than any of the 23 short stories that make up "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk. This is a book review, skip it if you want to, I could really care less. I miss school and being forced to analyze everything I digest, so deal with it, bitches.
As previously mentioned, I was really resistant to reading this guy, and now I know exactly why. The premise sounded so promising! I had such high hopes of being terrified and repulsed as 17 aspiring writers trapped in an abandoned theater became more desperate in their attempts to get out; what actually happened was much in the same vein of the novel itself. I WANTED to enjoy it, but instead I just ended up wanting to cut off my fingers and toes hoping it would make things more interesting. Palahniuk (aside from having one of the most annoying last names possible) is a really bad writer. Like head scratchingly bad. I suppose I could get used to his "staccato" style which everyone seems to praise (because they can't follow sentences with more than 10 words in them?) if it were a cohesive novel with one voice and one plot line. But this was a book with (let me repeat myself) TWENTY THREE short stories supposedly written by SEVENTEEN separate voices. I don't think Palahniuk realized this, and therefore wrote all seventeen stories with the same voice and the same style. Really? I mean at least TRY to make the seventy year old lady, the thirteen year old kid, and the forty year old man sound like seperate people. Or, if you can't do that, DON'T WRITE A BOOK WITH TWENTY THREE SHORT STORIES THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY SEVENTEEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE. I'm all the more annoyed at this, because in the book I'm reading now, (Snow, Orhan Pamuk) the author will occasionally have things written from different perspectives and he does it so effortlessly. The young nervous radical sounds like a young nervous radical, and the tired university president sounds like a tired university president, and the resigned poet- well you get the idea.
Next gripe. This book was touted in the title, on the back cover, in the review snippets, and even by the author himself as a ghost/horror story. Palahniuk even goes so far as to have the audacity to include an epilogue and "warning" (i kid you not, he included a warning) boasting how many people fainted when he was reading one of these cookie cutter short stories. Again, REALLY? How self obsessed do you have to be to include an epilogue where you're bragging about how good a writer you are, and how good you are at taking mundane objects and making them "horrifying". Godddd I wish I didn't spend fifteen bucks on that.
Alright, now that i'm done chiding that windbag for being so self-obsessed, lets get back to me. Re-reading my old livejournals made me realize that I should be a lot more specific in my blog. No one reads this, and the few who do, i'd probably tell you any of these stories anyway. So I'm going to start writing this knowing that in five years from now, i'm going to want to remember what's been going on.
So fear not, good readers! Tomorrow I'll get back to talking about boys and unemployment.
Atlantic City is a strange place. I wish I could take pictures of the casinos because they just blow my mind. What a random random mix of people. I've never seen so much Denim and Co. by QVC in one place at one time. Nor have I ever seen so many serious looking guys who were under the impression their shit does not stink. And everything blinking and beeping and flashing constantly! Even though Harrah's seemed to be one of the most tasteful of the lot, I still would surely have a nervous breakdown if I spent more than 2 nights there. Too much neon, too many patterns, and all the noise, noise, noise, noise. So here are some pictures of our killer view. 30th floor waterside. BAM.
One thing that amazes me in casinos is how easy they make everything for you. Credit cards, cabs, and drinks are everywhere. If i bought a pack of gum, I could use my credit card and they'd smile and whisk it through instantly. If I wanted to bring my gin and tonic with me to the pool, bathroom, room, store, or all you can eat buffet, no one would bat an eyelash. Really really crazy these casinos. I'm quite glad I got to experience my first (and presumably last) Jersey Club. Here's Murmur(?) at the Borgota (in the best possible light):
In junior high and high school I would read non-stop. I would go to the library weekly and devoured all the classics. Even in college, when my time was spent reading endless amounts of scholarly writing, I still occasionally found the time to read for pleasure. Once I graduated, I stopped reading. At the time I didn't really think anything of it. I made excuses of not knowing what to read, not having money to buy books, not knowing where my library card was (or even if it was still valid) etc. It's really crazy how complacent you can get with life and how easy it is to stop learning and just check out. It's also crazy how easy it is not to realize when that's happening. I know I talk about this all the time, but my 22nd year was pretty much spent in a complete fog. And this is just another instance of how grateful I am to have snapped out of it and started to fucking live again.
This summer I've been reading tons, and am currently in the middle of "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk. You can't tell here, but the cover glows in the dark! Definitely never got into him, because he's always struck me as one of those authors (like Dan Brown) that people who don't read, read. And since I'm an elitist book snob, I didn't want to lower my standards and join the ranks of the people who live for "Fight Club" and "Choke". That being said, "Haunted" was recommended to me, and being 150 pages in, I can definitely say that I love it. Creepy creepy concept and really uniquely organized. Go read it, babies!
I'm also a glutton for punishment and just started "The Romantics" because i need a fluffy easy read about unrequited love and an incestuous group of friends reuniting for a wedding, that I can translate into my own incestuous and unrequited life and then mope about. They're also turning it into a hipster looking movie starring Katie Holmes, Elijah Wood, and Anna Paquin. And you know what, I don't care what anyone says, I love Katie Holmes. No matter how ragged she may look or what terrible movies she may star in, she will always be Joey Potter to me and therefore can do no wrong.
