Kitty Power

It's been a crazed, bittersweet, and beautiful summer.

Without any warning, a lot of things transitioned naturally on their own. Some sad (another relationship spectacularly bit the dust, my lovely kitty of the past 7 years is on her last legs), some brilliant (the perfect present for an alkie: my own signature drink, the great new friends I've met this summer, new apartment). And in two weeks is school, the biggest change of all. I'm excited, terrified, and best of all: hopeful. And for once, moving forward with my eyes straight ahead instead of over my shoulder.

Wish me luck.

Arthur Russell - In The Light Of The Miracle

Sometimes life just feels better enjoyed and tossed about instead of documenting in precise detail every happening. I'm a neglectful blog mother, but I know the thrill of the word will come back sooner or later.

Life has been coming at me 150 mph and I've been doing my best to bob and weave. I turned 28, got into grad school, and found a freelance job all within a few weeks. Also my bathroom flooded for the third time due to my shitty upstairs neighbor (lease up in June! yes!), was in my first serious fist fight in over 10 years, and I'm trying to get past the sticker shock of taking out loans for 1 year of schooling that are more than what I owe for 4 of undergrad plus interest. I'm struggling with those extra pounds and trying to stay healthy. Also finally at a place where I can wrestle with wondering if I'm in love with a boy or in love with love while not being haunted by all those that came before. And I am so looking forward to Saturday when it's 70. In other words, I'm up to the same old shit...but generally happier. That's gotta count for something.

Circlesquare - Dancers from Bienvenido Cruz on Vimeo.

I spent this year's Hallmark holiday with my friend Banana at the movies. We sidestepped the ridiculous line to see He's Just Not That Into You to see Taken. It was sufficiently fun and badass (though lacking the wonderful scene with the nails in the commercials) and that was almost enough to ease the bitterness of movie tickets being $12 nowadays. Now I remember why I go to the movie theater like once a year. Perhaps almost 28 is long enough to finally experience this movie date thing that other people seem to do. Obviously I'm doing something wrong. Afterwards, we successfully sidestepped couples grabbing burgers at a diner, then drinking at semi-divey Gramercy area bar. Good night overall.

I meant to go upstate for the day, keeping with my new getting out of town more often mantra, but that didn't work out so well. Instead of cleaned out my fridge and danced around the house to reggae. Life is so exciting right now!

Skeletons - The Masks

I've been strangely keeping myself busy as unemployment has rolled on. It'll be a month tomorrow and I've limped past previous record of having a new job in 3 weeks' time. The going is a little slower this time around, but then again, I haven't been trying as hard either. A nice money cushion will do that to you. Plus I was dying for some time off. I've got bad robot workaholic tendencies.

I went to the grad school interview last week and the results are inconclusive. In about a month, I should find out if I'm in or not, so I'm trying to push it out of my mind. It was a trip having to fill out all the financial aid forms this time around since I'm an independent student or whatever. I definitely wanted to be magically transported back to high school since the government is under the impression I can devote a 1/3 of last year's salary to paying for school (they're nuts!).

DC and all the inauguration madness was great. I kinda miss that town and it was fun to stroll around as an actual adult. One of the first thing I saw in city limits was my old AU program dorm and I let myself go down memory lane a bit. A was my gracious host and we dragged each other all over. Being on the mall, though way far from the action and watching on the Jumbotron in the freezing cold, was pretty epic and I got to live out of my 02 fantasy of going to the Eighteenth Street Lounge (as awesome as I knew it would be). Getting out of town was surprisingly nice and painless. I'm that much more excited to go to WMC in March now because I've broken the streak of out of town disasters (I hope).

One of my resolutions for the year is to update here more. Once or twice a month is really lame compared to what it used to be like. It's kinda tough though because I just lack that oversharing compulsion of the old days, but I still think I can do interesting stuff here. We shall see. Meanwhile, I've got a newish blog I've been playing around with. It's all about bizarro ads that I've run into. It's a fun little distraction besides cyber window shopping (want!).

Skeletons - Eleven (It'll Rain)
Roy Ayers - We Live In Brooklyn, Baby
Rae and Christian - Get A Life
New Birth - Dream Merchant
Herbert - You Saw It All

The flip side of being a random magnet is accepting that life rarely will ever proceed without some sort of monkey wrench. I enter mid-January 2009 laid off my full-time corporate job with a college interview scheduled for 2 weeks from now. The name of the game right now is ambivalence. I feel like I'm in the midst of a time where I can do whatever I want, but instead I sit at home in some sort of existential crisis limbo. You can lead a horse to water, but drinking it is another story.

I am going to DC on Monday though to congregate in the masses and hopefully gain some inspiration to bring back to frigid NYC with me. I started a new blog to document the WTF reaction I have to so many commercials nowadays. I am extracting myself from romantic limbo to wait for the person who can make me giddy and can embrace falling for me too. (That's the one area I'm tired of aiming low in.) I'm trying to remember that there's about 11.5 months ahead of me and this is just the start. This year hasn't quite played out the way I want and I can still change it for the better.

One of the most important things I've taken from '08 is despite the best intentions (and wishes, hopes, and dreams), sometimes shit just doesn't work and you've got to pick up and move on. I've always been horrible with that kind of thing. I play tough, but occasionally I let things slip out of the marshmallow core and it's hard to repack shit once you've let it out. When I'm in emo mode, I let that crap drive me to distraction without fail. And eventually I accept the shipwreck and let melancholy set in. In dark days, I wonder if it's ever worth it since it always ends the same way. But, I know the answer is always yes. Sue me, I'm a closet romantic.

New Year's was predictably insane. I flew around town like a comet and had a hard come down that's taken all weekend to recover from. I'm trying to balance between waiting for things to happen (the app result, whether I'll even have a job at the end of the week) and taking care of business (the neverending apartment decoration project, building a better me). I'm just trying to scale down the fuckups this year and make it to 2010 without too much dumb shit happening. I'm aiming low this year. It's better that way.

Just over 6 weeks left in the year and it's got some potential to trail off in an interesting way. Finally.

I'm channeling my employment fears into a grad school application due December 1st. Since I haven't had to do this type of thing in going on 10 years, the procrastinator in me really appreciates that I can submit my forms online...at 3am in my pajamas. The only thing I have to mail in is my transcript. I don't remember fondly trekking to the big post office on 8th Avenue in the middle of the night trying to get that crucial postmark before midnight. Gotta love modern technological advances.

The weeks leading up to the election were predictably insane and I spent just over an hour standing on line in the old neighborhood on the day itself. I was exhausted and finally getting around to a late dinner at the Raccoon when the official call came in. I only smiled and felt like I took the first deep breath of the whole day. The neighborhoods I passed through had fireworks and kids all over in the streets, but I just happily bypassed through the crowds to go home and sleep.

The weather is strange and wonderfully bipolar. At least I think so until the steam heat makes my apartment temperature unbearable and I dress like it's beach time instead of mid-November, then go outside and freeze in the cold. Not sick yet, but knock on wood. Then again, that's why I drink so much whiskey. Definitely for the germ killing properties.

Skeletons - The Things

After all this time, I've decided to get a tattoo. It's an idea I've been kicking around for a few years, trying to figure out what's a spot on my body that won't be too prone to expanding and contracting. I've decided on the inner wrist (once it's back to full motion range) and Excelsior as a bit of a tribute to 5 years of Latin, also the NYS motto, and generally good phrase.

The last couple of weeks have been a blur and at this moment, I'm just trying to make it through the next 10 weeks without financial/employment meltdown. Some random highlights: I finally got to Ikea to buy some much needed apartment gear, but don't really have the motivation to put that shit together. I got myself a shiny new cell phone. I have some ideas of starting a band fiercely gathering steam. I also went to Anthony's fun birthday party. And if dancing and glowing in the dark (thanks to paint) at a gay sex orgy ever comes up in an "I Never" game, got that covered.

There's been some annoying lowlights springing off the last wordy post. That random who spent too much time talking about his thwarted sex life and I ended up being chatty for a while. I found out that he was garbage picking freegan and the ick response overwhelmed the typical "that's random enough to intrigue me" train of thought. But, what really deaded him was the utter lack of a sense of humor. Some of the Raccoon folks had a house party and he was so spazzy about chatting with me that he spilled a whole cup of beer all over my clothes, the horror I tried to downplay with some jokes. But, he was so twitchy that he couldn't even laugh about it. One night a bit later, I dragged Alafairnadia to bingo night and introduced them. Her first words were "so I hear you eat food from the trash..." and he bolted. And hasn't spoken to me since.

I overheard him the other day at the bar ranting and raving to that same friend from that night somehow getting onto the topic of a long ago incident that occurred outside of another local bar. The scene he was setting started to sound vaguely familiar and I had a memory flashack to the night I met Trigger, he was aggravated by this local kid who he lent money and was being weaselly about paying it back. I didn't meet the object of his wrath at the time so it took until this Sunday for the connection to be made. Beef with Trigger aside (because he's volatile at best and that situation is none of my business), that kid referred to me as a fat girl that was preyed on at the bar in the story, so he can eat a dick. Let's chalk up that whole convoluted saga to the brain keeping me out of trouble for once.