March 09, 2006
I Thought I Was Reading The Headline Wrong
"New York Asks Help From Poor in Housing Crisis." Shouldn't that be for poor? Apparently not. The NYT reports that the New York City Housing Authority "has proposed narrowing the gap by charging residents new fees and increasing old ones for everything from owning a dishwasher to getting a toilet unclogged."
That's insane. Subsidized housing is what makes it possible for non-wealthy people, and working-class families in particular, to live in the city. Now the housing authority is scrambling to cover make up for "'a steady divestment' in public housing at the federal level" by charging restupidulous fees. The fees are really steep:
So it has proposed charging tenants $5.75 a month to run a washing machine, $5 a month to operate a dishwasher, $10 a month for a separate freezer. Parking fees will rise to $75 from $5 a year on April 1.
Apparently, some fees for services "like fixing damage to apartments beyond normal wear and tear" actually have been on the books for a long time but, de facto, were never imposed except in "extreme cases where a door was bullet riddled or somebody kicked the front entrance door and it was not based on wear and tear." You hear that? Bullet holes. That's extreme, people. That's extreme. Not like today, when it's one bad enchilada and you're being charged an arm and a leg to have your toilet plunged. Or whatever they do to make the shit go away. 'Cause call me crazy, but if there's one thing I like to think I, as a tenant, should not have to pay extra for-- that I am, in fact, entitled to-- it's fecalmania all over my floor. I'm crazy that way.
Posted by hissycat at 10:37 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
February 22, 2006
Excerpt From Letter Recently Sent To Thesis Advisor In Which I Seek His Advice On A Number Of Topics, Including Grad School
. . . Since 'leaving' my job, I had a streak of astoundingly awful luck: my boyfriend broke up with me and then I crashed my car. It was really a pretty awful time. I expressed my feelings by not showering or washing dishes, which probably did not help me feel any better, either, but then, I suppose that was part of the point. However, I'm doing so much better now, although I still very much miss my car. I'm even seeing this new guy who likes Scrabble and Gravity's Rainbow! Just like I do! Brett, my old boyfriend, is my friend again, which is excellent, and we mean to start up a Finnegan's Wake reading group with our friends like we had been planning before we split, and also I can borrow his car to go driving since the insurance wouldn't pay to fix mine!
I really miss being a student. I have fantasies about grad school, but I feel like I'm just getting my bearings in SF, and I don't want to leave yet. I wouldn't know where to call for Chinese, and I'd have to make all new friends-- that's very stressful, you know, just the thought of it is making me tense. And where would I go? It's true I'm not really writing piles of fiction so much these days, but I still like to think that I could, if I wanted to, even though I really probably can't, but either way, the idea of attending an MFA program is entirely unappealing, and attending an MFA program seems like the one reasonable thing I can do to be serious about fiction writing. And its probably a bad thing that I'm so put off by MFA-y situations anyway. It probably means I hate myself or want to sabotage myself because I can't stand other people who do what I am or want to be doing, which is writing, but to be fair, I was unfairly encouraged to believe that half the appeal of writing was that it could be done totally away from other people.
I also had the thought: Master's of Library Science! I'd be such an awesome librarian! I love libraries! That was when I was working at my job that I hated and I was trying to think of some kind of job that would give me health insurance that wouldn't make me want to kill myself. I came up with librarian. Useful, interesting and I could totally make it work with my fantasy life as a writer by working part-time at a library, getting benefits, and writing my books on the side. Maybe I'd even have to shelve my own book, who knows? Crazier things have happened!
But now I'm back to my original grad school fantasy, which is a reg'lar old PhD program in lit. That's what I miss. That's what I see myself enjoying the most. It's also the hardest to justify, since I don't feel strongly committed to going into academia once it's over. I feel strongly committed to living in San Francisco or New York, which I don't see changing unless I undergo a radical transformation brought on by trauma to the skull, or something of that nature. So I'd be putting in this enormous investment and then end up, six years later, in pretty much the same position I'm in now: underemployed, sending out (or not, as the case may be) resumes for jobs that, if I think about them, make me want to mash out my eyes with some kind of eye-sized mashing implement.
But then, if I'm just going to end up in the same place, is grad school such a terrible place to spend six or seven years of my life? A lot of people say, Yes! But I wonder-- are those people really as nerdy as me? Really? Maybe. I just don't know. I feel like I shouldn't want to go back to school so soon: I felt really ready for college to be over by the time it ended. Of course, it really wasn't that I was sick of academics as much as I was sick of being on a suburban campus as an undergraduate in a group living situation, no pets allowed, when the only kind of life I've ever wanted involves being left to myself in a studio apartment with books and a cat in a big city with good delivery.
I also feel a little guilty because I am not so successful at the non-school world. Even aside from the first job incident. Maybe this sounds silly seeing as how it's only been eight months since graduation, but I imagine myself, not going back to grad school, trudging through kind of mediocre jobs, just being kind of loserish for the rest of my life and dashing the promise my high school teachers said I was full of. Just kidding. No, but the mediocre jobs bit is true. The work that is available to me is not interesting. Most work, it seems, isn't interesting. Or at least, I don't find it interesting. I have zero interest in getting a job in publishing or advertising or whatever other industry English majors end up working in. I don't see myself having that kind of job ever, frankly. Not for me. I love writing the book reviews. I mean, I love writing fiction, but I'm also reasonable enough to recognize that I'll never be writing fiction for money. But I'm not too shabby at the book reviews. I plan on submitting reviews to more publications. I think I might have a fighting chance of eventually eking out some of the moneys with the writing the nonfiction and the book reviews. And that would be swell.
But I don't know, maybe grad school isn't incompatible with that kind of writing career. In fact, I was wondering actually if it might not help-- or at least provide me with several years of funding with more spare time than I'd otherwise have. I'm just rattling this stuff off out of my ass now-- I have no idea how the world works-- but I'm thinking maybe there's some kind of para-academic life I could make for myself more easily with a PhD than without. Like, you know what I want to do? Read little essays I wrote on NPR. And, like, write the kind of book reviews they print in the NYRB where you read a bunch of books and then think about them. Thinkedy think think. And then write an essay about some topic that the books deal with but that doesn't even begin to review the books until, like, the penultimate column. And maybe there are teachy things I could do that aren't as limiting lifestyle/ location-wise as being, you know, a serious University professor. I don't know I'm just making this stuff up I could be totally wrong! I know about how insanely difficult it is for English PhDs to get jobs, etc. But what if what I want to get into is magazine writing with maybe a somewhat academicky background? And if I had to work work in addition to writing, would a PhD be helpful? Could I teach, like, community college classes or adult education, part time? I imagine you still need a degree to teach those classes. Are those jobs still so difficult to get?
I suspect that if I could get into grad school, that's that kind of thing that I could, potentially, maybe, if squeeze my brain really really hard, and re-read everything twice, actually be pretty good at. I don't know that that's really the best reason to pursue literary studies, but last week my biggest accomplishment, which made my mother "so proud" that I've "come so far" was that I learned how to clean the bathroom . . .
Posted by hissycat at 06:37 PM | Comments (7947)
February 21, 2006
Witnessed Oral Sex @ Ross Dress For Less
Please don't ask why, I was amusing myself with Rants & Raves on Craigslist when I came across this gem:
Witnessed Oral Sex @ Ross Dress for Less (laurel hts / presidio)
Reply to: pers-135780510@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-02-21, 11:08AM PST
in the men's dept. it was empty the other night. i went down stairs to look for some socks for my husband. i saw two men in where the sweaters section is. one of the men was sitting between the clothes and giving the other man a blowjob. i told an employee. i have nothing against gay people, but please, keep the sexual acts at home. then you say you're aren't obsessed with sex. give me a break.today i followed up with ross and they said they two guys got away before the cops showed up. oh well.
no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
135780510
Copyright © 2006 craigslist, inc. terms of use privacy policy feedback forum
It's clearly a filthy lie. Gay men do not go into these "Ross Dress For Less"'s. In Laurel Heights. Never. No.
Posted by hissycat at 09:11 PM | Comments (8)
January 04, 2006
I Was Having Karaoke Parties Before The Sunday Style Article, So There
Oh my god, that's exactly what my karaoke party was like!
p.s. party peoples-- would anyone with pictures please, please send me some? I didn't get a chance to take any, and I'm pretty sad about it.
Posted by hissycat at 06:11 PM | Comments (504)
My Experimental Year: Over Before It Began
Gerty the cat has been acting like a lunatic lately, yowling like a banshee at all hours of the night and biting at her fur with a wet smacking sound that makes it seems like she's going to gnaw her hide right off. My theory is that the fleas are driving her insane. The flea problem was a lot better when we were in New York (yes, the cat flew with me to New York), but since we've been back in SF, she's been itching with a vengence.
My point is that as I was walking South down Valencia this morning anyway to stop in at the vet to make an appointment for Gerty, I decided to mix things up a bit. No Katz's/ La Onda/ Petra for me, no sir! Dammit, this is a new year! I will go to new cafes! In new parts of the mission! And order organic sandwiches with new names!
I am, in fact, at a cafe on Valencia I have never before been to right now as I type these very words. I am sitting opposite gigantic pastels of voluptuos female nudes and the music playing is distinctly "folky." I think I have learned my lesson: no more "experimenting" for me! I just heard the lyric "I am an all-powerful Amazon"! In fact I'm pretty sure I'm not even leaving my house tomorrow. It's all a bit much.
Posted by hissycat at 02:34 PM | Comments (4)
November 29, 2005
For Weeks Now
I could not sleep at all last night. I was so anxious and punchy, it was painful to keep trying, so at 6:37 am, stir-crazy and too jittery to sit still and read, I decided to go for a walk. It was raining, and I had my eyes to the pavement to aid the brim of my hat in keeping water off my glasses and out of my eyes. On 16th and Dolores, just outside the Mission Dolores church, this was stenciled in white paint twice on the pavement. It is hard to make out in the crappy cell phone picture, but the words read:
EVERY TIME
THE PHONE
RINGS I HOPE
IT IS HER . . . .
FOR WEEKS
NOW
In both places, the letters had been covered over with grayish red spray paint in what I assume was a failed effort to make them blend with the pavement. It was pretty, seeing that there, on the pavement, outside the church, at an empty early hour with sky lightening into day, and the night rain quieting into a warm hush of fog.
Posted by hissycat at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2005
Finally, I'm A Missed Connection
I knew sooner or later, someone would post on craigslist about about a missed connection with me.
Posted by hissycat at 04:53 PM | Comments (15)
November 16, 2005
Not Acceptable
I should be working at La Onda, not this frat turd who's at the counter now. Damn, I should have applied. I didn't, only because last week, when the 'Help Wanted' sign was up I happened to be in the pits of depression and the same stinking clothes for seven days straight, which made me self-conscious and incapable of action. Maria must have been desperate to hire this blondie. I mean, I hope that was it. Because when she's here the music is fantastic: Buena Vista Social Club, the Clash, Cat Power, Mazzy Star, Neutral Milk Hotel, Bob Dylan (but not too much), Pavement, good things, you get the point. And what is playing now? The radio. John Couger Melloncamp, Kenny Rollins, Neil Diamond, and disco shit. And every ten minutes: commercials. For acne cream.
Not acceptable. Plus, I'm in a moral dilemma now. I feel I have an obligation to tell Maria about this shitty-ass music, as it's, like, hipster-repellant, and hipsters are, after all, her main customer base. On the other hand, so not my place to say anything. We're chummy, Maria and I. But it's not my store. I don't even work here. I just buy a lot of coffee and about 40% of my meals, pocketbook permitting.
Oh dear god. "Mr. Bojangles" is playing. Fuck the carrot cake. I am outta here.
Posted by hissycat at 08:40 PM | Comments (1)
November 15, 2005
Crazy!
It must be a sign that my life is returning to normal: I'm sitting in La Onda being annoyed/ horrified by the conversations going on around me.
Man: Sugar is one of the most intense addictions. He was saying that they noticed that in the community and it actually takes two full weeks of, like, intense sprirtual work to get past that. . . sugar. . . addiction.
Woman: I noticed. I think it's true. And I'm not addicted to anything else. But sugar is such a social addiction. That makes it really hard.
For many reasons, I would like to believe that they were speaking of cocaine. Judging by their loose-fitting linen pants, however, I do not think that they were.
Posted by hissycat at 05:16 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
November 04, 2005
Strangest Brunch Spread I Ever Heard Of
There was a young man with a cello ahead of me in line at Katz's this morning who ordered half a dozen bagels. Sure. That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Bringing some bagels to a meeting or for some musicians he was practicing with. Hey, in my high school, all the cool advisors would bring (or assign someone to bring) bagels and cream cheese to the long advisor group period on Thursdays. Totally normal!
Until you here what kind of bagels he was bringing.
Mind you, it would have been different if he'd come in with a list, or the mind-made-upness of a mental list, having taken people's requests or knowing what their preferences were. But that was not the case! His voice meandered like, oh, I guess I'll take, like he was just deciding on the spot what to grab, trying to figure out which bagels are generally well-received.
This is what he came up with:
"I'll have one jalapeno. . . One, uh, one dill cheddar. A garlic bagel. a rye bagel. And, oh, give me two blueberry bagels."
What was this man thinking? Who are these people that are going to eat a jalapeno bagel, a dill cheddar bagel, a garlic bagel, a rye bagel and two blueberry bagels. The garlic and the rye, I'll grant you, are not altogether heretical. At least the rye, if not the garlic, is, I believe, part of the standard H&H mix when one orders an unspecificied dozen or more. But you're kidding yourself if you think that the rye isn't the absolute last bagel to be eaten, overlooked like a loser kid picked last for teams in gym class. The rye bagel has to be offered to kids from less fortunate advisor groups. The rye bagel is the one that gets offered to the other teachers and then sits in the teachers' lounge next to the coffee machine until it hardens and grows things and finally the biology teacher takes it to show his class on the day he lectures about mold!
What happened to sesame? To poppy? To plain? To everything? To, yes, even, salt? Is nothing sacred anymore?
I'm not even going to get into the "dill cheddar" business.
I'm just going to assume that these were not Jew musicians and that none of them had ever been to New York. For shame!
Posted by hissycat at 06:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 27, 2005
I Have Always Relied On The Kindness Of Junkies
At three in the morning, not quite tired enough to pass out, but ready to get under the covers with a laptop or book, I went outside to call the cat back in. All I have to do to get the cat to come in is make that pst-pst-pst-pst sound and maybe call her name. She always comes running. The only time she did not come running turned out to be due to her being stuck in a shed. She mewed and I rescued her.
So last night, at 3:15, when she still had not returned, I knew something was wrong. I went outside and called some more. I checked the shed, but though faint mewing could be heard in the yard, it was not coming from the shed. I heard some rustling near the fence and called to where the noise was coming from.
"Mew. Mew. Meeeew," went the cat, who was on the other side of the fence.
"Oh, Gerty," I said, and poked my fingers through the chain-link to pet her sad, sniffling muzzle. I have never known the cat to go over there before. I suspect she managed to crawl under the fance, probably in hot pursuit of a rat, and then was unable to crawl back.
Knowing where she was and knowing I could not get her back through my yard, I went outside and over to the neighbor's locked driveway-front-yard-spacey. I crouched and called. Ten feet away, a drug deal was happening. No matter. Pst-pst-pst-pst. Come here, Cat.
She responded to my voice but was too spooked to cross the open space she'd have to traverse to get to me. For, I don't know, half an hour, I ran back and forth from my yard to the sidewalk trying to coax her home. When I called from my yard, she'd immedeately press against the fence, mewing with desperation to get through to me, but as soon as I came around to call her from the front, she'd become tentative and crouch behind the wheel of a car, blinking sadly at me but too scared to move.
I must have looked just the depth of patheticness-- a messy, unscrubbed girl, crouched on all fours in the street, calling to her lost cat. The drug dealer asked me for a cigarette with a look of protective concern on his face. "Lost your cat?" he said. I told him I could hear her, but I couldn't get her to come back. I didn't have a cigarette on me, so I told him to wait and I'd run in and get one.
"You're really looking for that cat," he said, as I held out the pack to him.
"Yes, I am," I said. "And if you could do me a favor--"
"Yuh," he said. He might have been almost laughing.
"--when you pull out," I said, nodding towards the tricked out pimpmobile he'd been leaning against, getting things out of, putting things in, "please just double-check that my cat isn't under your car."
He laughed a little. "Sure thing," he said. I saw that as he teetered off, doing the wobbly-legged pacing he'd been doing all night, he kept stopping and angling his head. He was checking under the bodies of all the parked cars. I know the cat wasn't under any of them, but I didn't tell him to stop. I didn't want to seem ungrateful.
I went back in to my yard to talk to and calm the cat. I came back out. An acrid-smelling junkie who'd been periodically coming over to talk to the dealer was now crouched down, calling "here kitty kitty kitty, here kitty. tnuck-tnuck-tnuck. here kitty," and rubbing his blackened fingers together as though suggesting to the cat that between his fingers he held something of interest. He seemed so genuinely concerned. "She's spooked," I said to the junkie, consolingly; he seemed to be taking the cat's indifference to heart.
The homeless man who sleeps on the stoop of the corner building had, by now, grumbled awake and come and tottered over to join the search party. I handed out cigarettes like a matron of the community handing out hot coacoa and doughnuts to a search party looking for a lost boy scout. At five in the morning, the junkie, the hobo and I crawled around on all fours calling to the now petrified cat while the drug dealer slowly paced the street, checking under cars.
The thing is, the cat, before the search party had gotten going, had come pretty close to the fence, and I knew that all the commotion was scaring her and that if everyone would just get quiet and go away, she'd probably back home in five minutes. But I was so moved and touched and grateful for their neighborly concern that I couldn't tell them that. Besides, it wasn't like these were neighbors from the building next door who I could thank and tell to go home to bed while I handled it. What else were they going to do? Where else were they going to go? I didn't want to be rude. The junkie, who I sometimes see panhandling on 16th street, was now extending charity to me. How could I turn that down?
By six, the search party, weary was breaking up and staggering off. The drug dealer was the first to leave, peeling out in the pimpmobile after checking underneath it first. Then the homeless man, then the junkie.
"When they" the junkie said, meaning the people in the house next door, "come out, you can get in."
I nodded.
"You'll get your cat, " he said saddly, and staggered off.
Ten minutes later, the street was empty. Apart from the lowing of the garbage trucks that had begun their morning creep down the avenues,it was quiet. I sat down and called to the cat with my eyes closed. She bulleted out from the neighbor's yard and through the front gate that leads to my own, as I expected she would, once the neighbors' well-meaning commotion had quieted down.
Posted by hissycat at 07:57 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 22, 2005
Real-Time Annoying
I'm in La Onda, which on the weekends turns into a vortex of annoying, collecting the shoppers and strollers and meeting-a-friend-for-coffee-ers that flood the Mission.
On my left--
Girl With Loud, Adenoidal Voice: "I don't like my parents. Not like most people hate their parents. I hate them in a non-psychological way."
On my right--
Loud Stout Man Who Is Causing His Companions Visible Embaressment: "That girl in Vegas was all arghgarargahgra. She'd be perfect for me. I'd like a girlfriend that's like her, but not her."
Traipsing in front of me--
Woman in green clown pants and a wool hat sprouting a rainbow-yarn mohawk that falls half-way down her back. She says nothing. Her wardrobe speaks volumes.
Posted by hissycat at 05:52 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
September 30, 2005
Critical Ass
Well, that was cute. The sitting sleep still in my car for fifteen minutes as a horde of Hipsters On Wheels swarmed around me. It had slipped my mind what day it was-- last friday of the month, i.e. Critical Mass-- and that, returning somewhat later than usual (I had to stop to get some Critical Gas, and also to put some air in my tires), I would be plum in the middle of it just as I started to turn left up 15th to look for a parking spot, always a Critical Task. Oh, I could see the glimmer of superiority in their horn-rimmed eyes. One man, cycling past to me, lowered his head and stuck out his tongue.
Apart from the irritatingly art-school-junk-store(-damn-I'll-never-look-that-cool) chic of the crowd, I don't have any strong feelings one way or another about the event. Yes, I know I'm "progressive," "a writer," and "infrequent taker of showers" who "has a blog" and "lives in San Francisco," in fact in "the Mission" that "bastion of hipster and Mexican." With a track record like that, you'd best bet on the side of my being a dedicated, community-loving, eco-aware, D.I.Y., proud rider of a '70s vintage Ladies Schwinn. But, in fact, no.
I did have such a bike-- hipper, in fact; an old white Peugot with a big wire basket. I'd ride around on that thing feeling like Odille, and then I'd fall. Oh, how I'd fall. Not in the serious-enough-to-legitmately-warrent-concern-and-doting-and-Vicoden style of the Tess (who if she hadn't already had my undying love and admiration would have won it on the drive back from the ER when she took a picture of arm in plaster and sling slung across her fantastic rack and sent it to her-- at the time new-- beau with the text message, "Ever done it with a gimp?"). No, no tragedies through which my Admirable Strength, Stoicism and Wit might shine. Bicycle, name of Rocinante, ever my noble steed, was a few inches too tall for me with howling, rusty breaks that never breaked. I'd fall at least once a week. With the exception of a few falls that left me with respectable bruises and one fall which busted my lip, requiring stitches, my mishaps happened slowly. I'd have just mounted or have just braked and ever so slowly, my bike would fall to one side and deposit me on the ground. They were the kind of falls that, rather than elicit the sympathy and concern from bystanders, caused onlookers to look away, embaressed for me, embaressed for themselves for witnessing such pathetictude, just all around embaressed. When I was finally rewarded with a flat tire, I never bothered to put air in. I just rolled my bike alongside my hip with all my books in the basket. It was, essentialy, wheeled luggage. When the basket was stolen, I abandoned it with the lock ajar. That was eight months ago. Last time I drove past that bike rack was about two months ago. Rocinante, poor thing, was still there.
But I digress; Critical Mass. I don't feel part of the cool-kid bike-gang that is Critical Mass, but I don't have anything against it, either. I'll even say it's kind of charming, in its way, so long as you are not trapped in your car during it feeling like a total ass. And I know part of the point is to choke up traffic to punish drivers for consuming gas (ok, they probably wouldn't phrase it quite like that), but, guys: it's a friday afternoon, I've just made an hour's commute from penninsula, and gas is more than three bucks a gallon. Now-- and here I am addressing you, Man Who Impudently Extended His Tongue In My Direction-- did you think I was out for a joy ride, because it is so much fun to cruise around on a Friday evening? Do you think I wanted to idle my engine for fifteen minutes and waste all that gas? I didn't
Posted by hissycat at 08:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
August 15, 2005
Gray As Pigeons
Oh, yucky morning. The sky is gray as pigeons, and the wholeworld wants to be in bed today. Brett's bed is so perfect foravoiding the world: it is big; with soft, soft sheets; and a puffycomforter that buffers me from the cold and noisy world. I didn'twake up to notice Brett leaving. I guess he forgot to re-set thealarm or something, because the first thing I remember from thismorning is Tamara standing over me and shaking me awake. I wasconfused from the dreams I was having, and it took me long seconds tofigure out where I was, who Tamara was, and why she was shaking meawake. In one of my dreams, I had been living in the studioapartment in my parents' house. I wanted to smoke a cigarette,but I didn't because I couldn't let my mother see me. I couldn'tfigure out how I'd gotten back to New York. I wondered whereBrett was and whether he could smoke there. I thought he probablycould, and I was angry at myself for renting a studio in my parents'home.
I've been dreaming a lot about New York recently. Yesterdayevening as I walked West on 16th Street, I had the thought, I don'tthink I will ever get used to how empty streets are in San Francisco.You can go whole blocks without passing anyone. There is none ofNew York's throbbing, chaotic density of lives. I miss that. And, I miss the heat, the Tasti-D-Lite, the warm fleshynights. I miss the Chinese food, green gyoza, and sushi fromEmpire Szechwan on Seventh Avenue. I miss yellow taxis, andevery time I ride the Bart or Muni, I think, "poor, thin substitute,"and have pangs of longing for the New York subway. I misscrowds. I miss thronged streets at night, and I miss thetightly-packed masses, sweating, and roasting, and rolling up pant legsto wet their calves in the fountain spray, in Washington SquarePark on the weekends. I miss delivery, and I miss the convenienceand niceness of partially-prepped ingredients from Citerella and FreshDirect. I miss the Jefferson Market Library; I miss stopping onits steps to tie a shoe or eat a melting cone of Tasti back under mycontrol; I miss the tower and clock. I miss the pace of NewYork, how easy it is to become anonymous, how nice it is to be part ofthe world and think about how if you stepped out of it, you wouldn't bemissed. It is comforting to be surrounded by so many lives, suchbusy creatures, scurrying and leading their lives. It's the rightkind of loneliness that I have then. I miss decent pedicures andwaxing. I miss good museums and abundant theater and book readings andpublic lectures; I miss knowing that they are there for me to go to ifthat is what I choose, and that if I fail to properly be intheworldthecity, the loss is felt only by me. I miss street fairsand Summer Stage, concerts in Prospect Park, the free open-air moviesin Bryant Park. I miss all the people, and kinds of people, Ihate: pointy-shoed girls; and crusty-haired boys; and hipsters withtrust funds; and all the ingenues and prodigal sons and authors withfamily in the industry; businessmen that yell into cell phones as theystep ahead of you to steal your taxi; people who think they areimportant, people who can't believe in a world beyond Manhattan, andthe entire population of the Upper East Side; yuppie vermin thatdescend on dowtown Friday and Saturday nights, in their expensive jeansand satiny, bias-cut halter tops, starched collar shirts with twobuttons open. I miss bars on Atlantic Avenue. Delis, all ofthem, I miss. And the way the best-dressed people dress. Imiss the beautiful, attractive, striking, well-groomed; I miss watchingpretty people, I miss staring at them. I miss looking overthe calender of events in Time Out New York or the Village Voice andthink about all the things that are going on in the world, how big andhow small theworldthiscity is; it feels like one could do anything solong as one goes places and does things and participates in the world.I miss the sheer amount of New York, how much of it there is.
I wanted to come into work brimming with purpose and drive andefficiency. I wanted to get right down to work, very focused, nodistractions.
Instead, there are these clouds. I feel slow and stupid and helpless today and soaked in confused, directionless desires.
--------
Posted by hissycat at 12:17 PM | Comments (36) | TrackBack