9/23/09 - "the night i lost my 'happy tree friends' virginity"

hello, blog. it's been awhile. almost four months to be exact. time flies when you're living in bushwick. the neighborhood is swell. i mean, i could lie to you by saying that i'm become really entrenched in bushwick's d.i.y. art/music scene and that i have made hundreds of new hipster (or should i say, 'yipster') friends and thus alternate my evenings by attending todd p. shows at market hotel or scoring some coke and uber rare soul vinyls at starr space, but i'll spare you the bullshit. truth be told, i don't even own a fixed-gear bike! (shame). and believe it or not, i am tattoo-free and i shower on a daily basis (gasp!). truth, i'm a bona fide bushwick dud. in fact, it was only LAST week that i became a patron of tandem (the bar/brunch hot spot on troutman that is literally RIGHT NEXT DOOR to my apartment). i'd like to say that it was worth the four months of anticipation (er, foreplay to imbibing), but it too was sort of a dud. mad props to their ipod, though, for playing "s.o.s" by abba, an eternal pop gem that has since been reintroduced to my itunes (on heavy rotation). additional props for serving me a blue point in this delightfully kitsch ceramic mug.

"he's somewhat of a celebrity now in the 'blogosphere'...it's really gone to his head."

list of things i cannot stop thinking about:

1. buenos aires.
2. alexander wang's donna hobo (or rather, when it will go on sale)
3. whether or not it is possible to sodomize someone with a mozzarella stick and/or sheathed string cheese (in reference to corey's earlier decree that his rapist name would be "the mozza-raper").
4. personal development (or my present lack thereof).
5. jewelry and/or handbag entrepreneurship.
6. my perfect trail mix (raw cashews, white chocolate chips, dried cranberries, almonds, chocolate covered sunflower seeds).

the chelsea hotel oral sex song

lately i've been experiencing a reoccurring dream in which i'm sporting a rather large tattoo just above my chest. try as i might, i can't make out what the actual design of the tattoo is, but it definitely presents something ominous. dreams are a funny thing to me because i claim to never have them. i mean, i'm well-versed in oneirology, rem cycles, and what not, but on a personal level i'm only impacted by dreams every couple of months (if that), so it's only natural that i doubt their actuality.

ah, tattoos. the older i get, the more outnumbered i feel for being "un-inked"...and i'm okay with that. not that i don't appreciate tattoo art as an expressive medium (yeah, sure), however, there is something so alien about it that it leaves me feeling ill as ease (similarly to how i feel when i think about pregnancy, diaphragms, and mayonnaise). i'm sorry but there are certain things that the human body should not be a host to, and in my opinion, this includes a growing human attached to a feeding cord, rubber domes that rest in your vagina to "catch" sperm, whipped oil/egg combos that not only feed upon your arteries but also ruin a good sandwich, and last but not least, injected pigment into one's epidermis.

i think back to the tattooed guys that i've dated and the majority are now in their mid-twenties and left with icons of shitty bands that they liked (or played in) as teenagers or memories of ex-girlfriends which whom they broke up with once they went clinically insane. very few have something that they are still proud to don. but whatever, now i'm just being an asshole. everyone is entitled to self-expression and who am i to judge? i know i had a point to this when i started writing, but it currently escapes me. oh well.

in other news, i broke down and got a twitter account. can't be left behind in the digital dust.

“remember, if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast.”

i am not a smoker (nor have i even been), but there are three specific scenarios in which i find myself craving a cigarette.

1) when i'm more than just slightly buzzed and hanging out in and around detroit. preferably it should be cooler or slightly brisk outside (great, so the stale smell of smoke can linger on me), and it can occur at any of the following locations: the elbow room, the blind pig, the old miami, cadieux cafe, the magic stick, and/or brett's old kitchen in ferndale. i repeat, those are the only locations in which there have been just the right ingredients: good friends (smokers), cool air, a specific element of trash that one can only find in detroit, and (in past years) the addition of a couple of sparks (RIP). i repeat, i do not condone smoking, but there are some moments in which the slow burn and decay of one's lungs is just too hard to pass up.

2) lying in bed with a book, preferably after sex. okay, i think i gravitate towards this scenario because there is that bit of cinematic quality attached (à la "breathless", "annie hall", 99.9% of film noir...minus the reading, of course). for the record, i've only done this once. i was eighteen and somewhat of an asshole (more so than i am now, believe it or not). the guy i was dating at the time was equally as pompous, so of course it seemed like a good idea. to be honest, the scenario didn't play out as well as i'd hoped, for all i can remember now is blankly staring at his copy of "the tao of pooh" and wondering if i'll ever have an apartment with a claw foot bathtub.

3) wandering around the village in the rain (i guess this could apply to paris too, but i've only been to paris once so it's far less likely to occur). this is how i felt today, and i cannot describe what the motivation is. the wet factor? the grittiness that already exists in new york, so it only seems natural that we all should be smoking and tossing the buts all over our city's sidewalks? or the simple fact that i'm walking alone and would appear less vulnerable with a cigarette in hard? i do not know. now, i've never actually done this (truth: i've also never bought a pack of cigarettes for myself), but maybe one day it will happen. or maybe it won't. actually, i think that by writing this down i may have just kicked any urge that i had to make this scenario come to fruition. good for me.

"beer, scotch, juice box...whatever"

all things considered, i am one of the luckiest people i know. this is in reference to the fact that my three best friends (childhood girl friend since age 11, gay life partner/current roommate that i met in college, and a long-term ex-boyfriend from three years ago) have all migrated from the midwest to brooklyn over the course of the past year. it is sufficed to say that seldom to never do i feel alone or even (gasp) lonely.

one or two nights a week holly comes over and the three of us convene in our disaster of a living room to watch hours of (often shitty) netflix movies, binge eat on junk food, and occasionally smoke some pot (welcome to the "real world"). mind you, our apartment is not the most comfortable place in the world to lounge (what with the incessant sirens/car alarms from outside and the mysterious odor that creeps in from our neighbors' down the hall at the most inopportune times. oh, and not to mention the irremediable mouse infestation). but regardless, there is a silent agreement that 495 dekalb is the best place for us to "relax". in fact, we often joke that hanging out with us is like the sitcom cliché of parents going out of town for the weekend and leaving the house to the kids. antics will ensue.

at one point tonight, in between our double-feature of "honey i shrunk the kids" and "pretty in pink" (of which none of us were really able to devote our full attention to, vis-à-vis area distractions such as the 1000 piece Charles Wysocki jigsaw puzzle sprawled out across the floor and the fleeting wireless we were able to pick up on our macbooks), i remarked that Iona (Molly Ringwald's zany boss at the record store) should not have to change her image to be with Terrance, the clean-cut pet shop owner that she falls for. i argue that if he fell in love with the crazy, often costume-clad Iona in the first place, then why should she change? my roommate disagrees. he defends her choice by stating that that if it's true love then you should be more then willing to change your style (and if need be, your personality) to be with that person. whoa, whoa, WHOA (and what is to follow may be driving the point home as to why i'm single). my immediate reaction is "so, this means that if your boyfriend insists on you wearing JNCO jeans from here on out while you're in public, then you would?! think about it. JNCO JEANS. or worse yet, Lee Pipes!"

"absolutely," he replies, "if it will get me laid." holly defends his position and I'm left tossing out more hypothetical questions of how one would alter themselves for a relationship (or for the truly pathetic, just sex). eventually our stream of consciousness conversation segways into a rather immature discussion involving fecal matter and testing the sexual limits of one's relationship. again, my opinion is outnumbered. we never reach a resolution to the matter (nor do we ever, really), but one thing can be said for sure. brett pheifer, if you're reading this, i'd give my left kidney to see corey in a pair of JNCO Jeans, so please let's make this happen. i'll starting scouring ebay for a "vintage" pair with at least a 30" leg opening, and you start withholding sex. i see the makings of a beautiful photo shoot. as for you, holly, check back with me the next time you "test the limits of your love" by waking up with a big turd on your chest. it's good to know that our collective maturity is only regressing with age.

karl marx probably wouldn't drink vodka gimlets either.

i am a mad men fanatic. the obsession started a little over six months ago after three pseudo-dates with one of new york's most notorious "pick-up artists" (okay, hustlers). i met him in a coffee shop down on houston one day while i was desperately applying to anonymous e-mail addresses on craigslist under the "art/media/design" section of "jobs". it was raining out, so i opted to sit by the window (there is something very romantic about people watching New Yorkers in the rain). so there i was, no make-up on, unwashed hair (still long at the time), and struck with with an overall look of annoyance on my face (one: due to my lack of unemployment catapulting me further into debt, and two: due to an unwelcome houseguest who had been crashing on our couch for over a week). so in walks this dude who had breezed by the window no less than two seconds prior. i remember checking him out on the street because he was tall, slim, and attractive (apparently my only three stipulations for being on "hottie patrol"), however, my immediate reaction was still 'he's wearing a baseball hat and walks kind of like a douche bag. no thanks.' so he walks into the coffee shop and makes a b-line for desperate little me sitting in the back corner. i try to ignore him at first, but then he starts making conversation with me, so i oblige. i can't remember the exact details of the chat, but i do remember something about democracy in the czech republic and a joking reference to freud (all in about two and half minutes, mind you). okay, i thought. this guy can't be too bad. he's educated, looks you in the eye when he's speaking, appears to have all limbs in tact, maybe he's for real? so i gave my number (my real number). off he goes (because he's in a rush, naturally) and i'm left sitting there contemplating what his inherent flaw could be (because i'm a cynic and when things are too good to be true, they usually are).

it takes about a month before we actually go out, mainly due to the fact that i'm incredibly flaky when it comes to these things and also that i was relatively preoccupied with starting a new (shitty) job and getting over an ex-lover (also shitty). oh, and also it was summertime, so soon lest we forget my pension for rooftop binge drinking and amphetamine-fueled nights of dancing on the lower east side. trust me, i'm an exemplary adult. so i meet him after work for some moderately-priced seafood fare on 23rd street. i arrive fifteen minutes late because truth be told, i was contemplating hopping on the l train and going back to brooklyn (ah, the old "slip away"), but i do show up. he's there, he already ordered (what?), he's still wearing a baseball hat (turn off), and he starts in on what could be dubbed "20 questions on speed" (including personal topics like past and present sexual encounters). after about ten minutes, any normal girl would be freaked out, but having my fair share of creepy friends and being a bit of a creep myself at times, i decide to level with him. within minutes he lets down his testosterone-charged exterior and begins to open up about what he's all about. writing instruction manuals and hosting seminars on how to fuck girls in the city on the cheap. awesome! he also dabbles in erotica. even better! did i also mention that he's in his thirties...and a harvard grad? top notch! so there i was, trapped in a booth with one of new york's most notorious public perverts. sexual deviance aside, he makes good conversation (and hey, at least he's upfront about his motives), so we end up chatting for about two hours (moving beyond the realm of sexual politics at this point). eventually he starts talking about the amc original series "mad men" (which i had only heard of, but had never seen at this time). having only known me approximately two and a half hours at this point, he deduces that i would be attracted to don draper (the show's male ego-driven, emotionally unavailable, chauvinistic protagonist). me? no way. i am immediately offended by this comment. this is wendy dorer he's talking to. he doesn't know me. i date artists and intellectuals with social problems, guys who respect women only because they've had such few encounters with them in the past, liberal extremists who themselves have read "the feminine mystique". never, and i mean, never would i be attracted to a "'bro." so he hears me out and challenges this notion by suggesting we go back to his place (off madison avenue, ironically) to watch a few episodes of season one. my sane mind (which parted ways with me around age 17) doesn't even factor in and within minutes i'm on a bus uptown (god forbid he front for cab fare) to watch mad men in what has the potential be a sex dungeon.

so his apartment is not a sex dungeon, but comparable in size. just barely larger than my college dorm room, his studio consists of a bed (lofted - seriously? dude, you're 33), built-in bookshelves (complete with a copy of the book of mormon and a box set of looney tunes dvds), a desk with a PC (turn off, but i do commend his response to my Mac snobbery with "what would marx use?"), a leather chair (pretty nondescript), and a beautiful white sony lcd flatscreen (i have the utmost appreciation for aesthetically pleasing technology and this certainly fit the mold. bravo!) so we hang out, fool around for a bit (because hey, he was attractive sans baseball hat, and i had made a sober conscious decision based upon the fact that i knew his story), and finally pop in the dvd's. sadly, he was right. i immediately fell in love with don draper. maybe it was because he had conditioned me to like him, or maybe it was my inner submissive female who wants nothing more out of life than to settle down in westchester with a man's man who cheats on her, but is okay with this fact because his career affords you a live-in housekeeper (slave) to watch the children while you and your girlfriends smoke and drink and ride english horses at the country club all day. is that too much to ask for? while in real life, i find myself more likened to the character of midge daniels, (the bohemian illustration-artist from the village that don has a brief affair with in season on), the series itself transports me to a world where i want to be betty draper. thank you, january jones, for your mediocre acting abilities and outstanding wardrobe stylist. you inspire me to be less of a modern woman.