Wednesday, February 25, 2009

back to the future. or rather, the past.
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the skyline is smaller, and i aint taller. just different. no, maybe not different. just distanced. and seeing it from a distance - from the plane, from the ferry, and the cab - just brought it home to me that this isn't home anymore.

the guy at customs seemed to agree --

him : "so, have you been to canada before?"

me: 'yeah, i'm actually american and canadian"

him: "ah (holding up my US passport) but i see you've chosen sides."

well played mr. customs guy, well played. even though i'm pretty sure it's illegal to travel with both. at any rate, it's nice to be here for a little while. it's quiet and twinkly and calm.

and there are fun days stretched out ahead. tomorrow i'll be reprising the famous role of 'auntie maddy' and entertaining endlessly energetic nieces. and then onwards to see old friends for what promises to be an endlessly energetic string of evenings, culminating in a wedding. two old friends are officially becoming newlyweds, and i am officially becoming even more of a cliche-spewing hack.

some things stay the same, regardless of what town i'm in.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

sunny side down.
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it's beautiful out today, all smatterings of sunshine and blues. and for some reason, well, for a specific reason, i guess, i am thinking of another sunny time and place. one that exists in the distant past - seven years ago, to be exact. it was the fall of 2002, and my sister and her new husband had just started jobs as lawyers. she asked me if i could go out and spend time with her new puppy, as she felt bad for it, sitting alone all day. i was finishing my degree, and had significantly more time on my hands. and so, every day for a few weeks, i hopped on the streetcar for the long crawl across town to see zoe.

at the time, i had just discovered the magnetic fields, and made endless, enamored mixes composed of stephen merrit's clever melancholy. and so, i sat, on the long crawl, listening to the magnetic fields and gazing out at leaves, leaves everywhere. the songs went so well with fall, and with my rather youthful contemplation of life, of the future, of everything. it was an hour each way, to puppy and back. but i didn't mind. i liked the calming wheeze of the car on the tracks, the sound of '100,00 fireflies' over and over, and the chance to daydream.

growing up, i never minded going to church, or the opera or the symphony - things i was forced to do on a weekly basis - because they gave me the chance to daydream. to carefully construct conversations and scenarios between me and whomever was occupying my thoughts at the time. or to imagine myself in whatever successful job or situation i identified as successful at the time.

anyhow, that fall, i had hours of daydreaming, punctuated by visits with a little dog. a little friend, really. that little friend died this morning, and though i have always secretly scoffed at those who become devastated by the loss of things not human, i feel a tug. a nostalgic sniffle.

yeah, i know - a bit of a downer. not really meant to be one. she had a good seven years. and so have i. just another moment to reflect and think about life. and put on the magnetic fields for the first time in a long while. which isn't so bad at all.

Monday, February 16, 2009

valentine's day and president's day.
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what does that suggest - the power of love? i think huey lewis once waxed unpoetic about that very combination. but does being in love give you power or make you completely powerless? i'd argue both. which is why, i suppose, such an ambiguous phrase exists. at any rate, twas a weekend full of loving the place i am in, and in loving it, letting it take me wherever it wanted.

and that's the powwwwer of looove.

it started on friday, when i was coerced into going to a james bond tribute night. now, my interest in james bond could be described as minimal at best - but i allowed myself to be talked into this rather strange evening, after the orange glow of a great jones cafe pint and a terrifically bad, but mildly intoxicating bottle of chianti at dinner. so suddenly i found myself watching singers tear through all the famous bond theme songs. and it was delightful. i forget sometimes, that talent oozes out of every pore of this town - so even the no-names deliver name-brand performances.

saturday i agreed to go for tacos and bowling in sunset park. fitting valentines day activities, right? i mean, love is messier than cramming your gullet at a taco stand and can be as disappointing / exhilarating as rolling gutters and strikes. alright, so i just force fit all that - but it kind of works. and so we ate tacos and rolled more gutters than strikes at a divey old bowling alley called 'melody lanes'. the place was a fascinating cross section - hipsters, latinas, hasidic jews, you name it - they were all there, celebrating v-day to a soundtrack of gangsta rap and classic rock.

but the best part about bowling there had nothing to do with bowling. it was our bartender at the melody lanes bar - peter, an old italian guy in a bow tie and cummerbund, who offered up profanity-laced philosophical musings along with our 9 dollar pitcher of bud. this guy was at once kind of insane and kind of awesomely brilliant. which was an inarticulate way of saying we'll be going back to visit him, for sure.

after bowling, we wandered down into park slope, and did some bar hopping. the standout, commonwealth, had a jukebox full of eclectic loveliness, all handwritten mixes waiting to be discovered. there was something really odd about choosing from someone else's music - it felt like musical voyeurism - exciting yet a bit dirty. we weren't even there long enough to hear my careful selections, but the act of choosing was enough of a thrill.

and then it was off to williamsburg to go to a hipster party called 'eff valentines' - a bit predictable, really, but we were in the mood for silliness. there were hearts everywhere - heart balloons on the ceilings, cut-out hearts hanging on the wall, candy hearts in bowls. it occurred to me that this wasn't 'effing' valentines at all, but embracing it whole-heartedly.


sunday i went to see my friend's band vetiver perform stuff from their new record in the lovely little coach house behind frankie's in carrol gardens. my friend and i laughed that we stuck out like sore thumbs. or is that well-groomed thumbs. all the girls were in various shades of messy, fuzzy and flannel. which is not to say that they were unattractive - just the antithesis of our straight hair and bangs. i think i was the only girl there wearing a dress. we spent quite a bit of time outside by the open wood fire, which was delightful, but after we smelled like we'd been rolling around in a campfire. back in my neighborhood, we stopped in for a nightcap, and the guy sitting next to us at the bar could smell the campfire. of course, we weren't embarrassed, because he was the one sitting at the bar, alone, drinking a bud light on a sunday night.

we asked him what brought him to the bar, and suddenly found ourselves in a conversation with the most ordinary guy in the world. i didn't know that such a guy existed, but oh, he does. his name is mike, and he works as a trader at some big financial place. mike seemed kind of down on himself. he told us that 'he had no interests whatsoever, and that he was a boring guy'. i had never heard anyone admit to this, and i found it mind-blowingly sad. finding interests seems like such an easy thing to do. or at least pretend to do! this guy was openly aware of his failure to be interesting, and had no problem broadcasting it to anyone who was interested enough to listen. at least for a few minutes. i told him, jokingly, that the first thing he could do to change his damning status of 'uninteresting' was to pick a more interesting beer than bud light. he laughed, a little, but you could tell he'd keep on ordering bud light forever.

so all of this in a weekend. a weekend of meandering and musing and amusing encounters and thought-provoking conversations. can i bring it all back and neatly tie it in to the power of love? most likely, not. i let the city kind of wash over me this weekend, which is something akin to love. and i'm sure i felt its power. but mostly just a determination to write it all down, however poorly, so i have a record of all this funny.

to look back on and fall in love all over again.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

9:52.
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and the big bad question for the evening is - do i keep the evening going?

do i go out again into the admittedly gorgeous springy evening and meet up with friends, or do i sit here, lazily, and contemplate my way into sleepytime? the problem is, once you get into the cozy, into the warming lull of home, you aren't super keen on venturing out into the world again. especially when there are worlds of opportunity to socialize and frivolicize. not that frivolicize is even close to being a real word. but you understand.

and i understand that my mind has made up its mind, and i am not going anywhere. after all, it has been an hour since i started writing this, and here i sit, listening to dreamy music and dreaming of, well, dreaming.

it is only wednesday. and thursday has drinks in it. and friday has friday in it. and then, a three day weekend that includes valentine's day and presidents day. so love and power, all wrapped up with a bow. or maybe just a little bit of possibility and a whole lot of reflection. that's love and power too, just articulated differently.

and articulation is key.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

saturday night.
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and i have made the rather weak decision to stay in. though you could argue (and i will) that it is actually strong of me to have a quiet and productive evening in, rather than a money and time frittering night out.

i already had one of those last night anyway. it started at the divey bar across the street from my office. this bar makes no sense - it's a dirty bar in a fancy neighborhood. though i suppose even tribecans like to slum it occasionally. some sort of work party was going on - and overweight women and old men shimmied in the back to hits like, 'jump around' by house of pain. we agreed that 'jump around' could now be categorized as the kind of song you'd hear at a wedding. how the badass have fallen.

after guinnesses and a collective sigh of relief that this rather horrific week was over, we headed up to my local, the tile bar. yes, i think i can officially call it my local now. or at least, my go-to. and go to it, i do. it's just such a...bar. if your alien friend were to ask you to take them to a 'bar' you could take them to tile bar, and they'd understand. it's not a sports bar. it's not a pub. it's just...a bar. it has a tiled floor, a warm glow, a long bar, and a jukebox with about 20 mediocre albums. i think i've heard the police every time i've been in there. unfortunately it's usually 'roxanne' and not the far superior 'so lonely'. but it's a comforting sort of place. and sometimes comfort is all you want with your beer.

so that was last night.

and tonight is headphones and a bottle of brooklyn and writing.

nothing weak about that.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

and there's no leaving new york.
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well, of course there is, i'm sure, leaving, at some point - but i love that lyric, especially repeated over and over at the end of a wistful winter song. i've read a lot of literature lately that calls out the yearning that people feel once they leave this town. you can complain a lot while you're here, but i suppose once you're not, you realize just how magic it is. and i say that begrudgingly - not because i don't think it's wonderful - i do.

i just find the endless fawning leaves me yawning.

when people rabbit endlessly about eating magnolia cupcakes and shoe shopping and strolling down bleecker, they seem to be projecting a life for themselves that doesn't exist to me, or possibly even to them. it's sex and the city season 1-400 rehashed and regurgitated into sad little unglamorous vignettes. i don't want that city or the sex in it.

i'd rather have my own stumbling bumbling adventures.

and oh but i am.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

football.
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i actually have nothing to say about football, but it seemed an appropriate kickoff today. yes, kick off. as you can see, i am feeling extremely clever. and by clever, i mean hollow-minded and light headed and, well, dumb. i have been entertaining friends quite a bit over the last few days, and all that talking has left me with little to say.

but i shall soldier on, because i am a determined. or is that unable to shut up? possibly both.

evening is descending upon the city, which means everyone is rushing home to plunge their greedy mitts into giant bowls of 40 layer dip as they watch the big game. or is that the big ads? possibly both.

i notice that the sun set a little later today. spring may not have sprung yet, but it is certainly starting to twitch ever so slightly. i would love to give it a good swift kick in the pants to get it going faster. but i shall refrain, mostly because i don't know where to find good old spring, and even if i could, i don't really want to get into a fight with any of the seasons. especially not winter.

winter is a bitch.