No-Contact

Oh, Yeah.
And this

(Thanks to Peter for this one.)


These are way bigger than my elbow.
If I hugged a Hasid in this I would go to jail, huh?

Almost Nostalgia?

I'm in the car with Rachel.
We are driving to a show downtown.
We reminisced about the ear infection she had not too long ago.
She said that the doctor had blamed it on Q-tips.
She said she was so sick of the medical profession coming down so hard on Q-Tips all the time.

I agreed. I wish they would give it a rest. I have never had anything but success. Q-Tips rock. I will confess a more than minor Q-Tip addiction.

She said that they told her that you shouldn't put anything in your ear that is smaller than an elbow. She, much like me, had no idea when any such thing would ever be necessary. An elbow that is. I mean, really, who's doing that?

We were driving to a Chiptune show. A friend of ours, Bit Shifter was performing. He makes music using three Gameboys.

I have no idea how it happened, or why, but I really like the music. I have been to one other show and totally fell in love with the idea and the way it makes you want to move your head. Post Punk meets Tetris. Pretty cool.

Before the concert we grabbed dinner at a diner. The place made me feel like I was somewhere else. Maybe it was the pictures of Greece on the wall, but I think it was Something Else. Something less about ethnicity and more about time. We had some food and the owner/waiter/counter guy wanted us to guess the salad dressings he had and was pretty pissed that I didn't already know my cheese options. I liked him just the same.

At the show, which was all ages, which made me feel, at times that I was 74, Rachel bought us both earplugs. We were introduced to some of the other performers. I didn't drink and felt a little like the kids who were there with their moms. And I was thinking, how many of these kids ever had a Gameboy? I mean if they're 16 would they? Wasn't there already something cooler when they were "of the age?"

When I was an undergrad, 80's night was all the rage and we would go and dance at different clubs in Boston. The 80's thing seemed to be nostalgia for a time we were mostly too young to have fully enjoyed and understood.

Is my childhood already someone's Almost Nostalgia? I looked around the room. I spotted Rachel. She was dancing.

And then I realized something.

Earplugs are smaller than my elbow.

All I Can Say Is That I'm Sorry

Ok guys. I gotta confess. I rode the subway today. And not just today, I've been doing it. (Cringe.) I have been. I know, I know, I just went through this huge blaze of glory break up with it and everything, but you know how people can be with things like that. You don't always know if it's right. If it's you. If you just weren't communicating well enough. My friend Sam Fels said it was my fault. He's right a lot.


Well, on it today and sitting next to me was a woman reading The New Yorker.
The cartoon I was leering at over her shoulder had two therapists and a patient.
One of the shrinks was saying, via a bubble, "face your demons," the other one was saying "take your pills." I think the caption was Good Shrink/Bad Shrink.

Well, I thought it was apropos to my thoughts. My thoughts being, of course, that my demons wished they had some pills. Preferably pain killers.

I think about this still. I know it's borderline passe to think about "meds" these days and that Prozac was so 1990's, but as someone who has/had bouts with depression and have many friends who do/did, I think about it.

I think about what it means to work through your layers.
I think a lot about how we convince ourselves through the help of others and self help books and such that we can quietly get ourselves together. Self improve. Be a mellower us. Learn how to quiet our anger and not let it rule us and that there is a better us out there.

I have mixed feelings on all of this. As a woman on a spiritual quest. As a woman with a great deal of emotional activity.(That sounds nice doesn't it?)As a woman who, someone once said, must do a great dish smashing act. Heh. Well, I did throw a bagel once. He ducked.

Do you ever get better?

Even after you look at, face, name, color code, correlate, collapse, and combust your demons(Oh, I know mine. We've met before. Hello Sam. Hello George.). Then what?

What is the best that happens to us when we look at these demons?

I like telling my demons they look like they're putting on weight and that their old records were better than their new stuff.


So, I see you guys. You look lousy in track suits but you keep up with me very well. Where do we go from here?I mean I got these guys, what do I do, kill 'em?
Break up with them? We see how well that went with the Subway.

And anyway, if it weren't for my demons where would I come up with all the things I have to be sorry I say out loud?

No, but it's true. You gotta look 'em square in the eye. Then you can Tango. My demons look beautiful with roses between their teeth.

Sigh.

I look at my grandmother, a woman of what one might call a "Self Help-less" generation, and my grandmother would say there's nothing wrong with anybody. If you want to be happy you make yourself happy for as long as you are here on the planet. I have a strong feeling my grandmother read very little by the German Philosophers. And she takes a lot of vicodin. She is also not dealing well with the idea of her own death. Let's just say she didn't do a lot of "acknowledging impermanence" through out her the course of her youth. She doesn't think she has any demons.

What am I saying? Jesus, What the HELL am I saying?

I think what I'm saying is: that we're a bunch of beautiful children born to die who have to deal with that everyday. Us, with our pain and fear and ecstasy. And that the point of being here, as far as I can tell, today anyway, is to ease all the ugly with some love for ourselves, the people around us, and even those demons in their track suits. You and your demons are awesome.



Ok-ay. I will now take a break from reading books about Buddhism.

See, a riot, a total riot.

And One More Thing

I got one...


A:Knock. Knock.

B:Who's there?

A:Winter.

B:Oh, really, now stop it. Ha. Ha. Who is it really?

A:No, no really. It's me WINTER, open up, let me in they're after me!

B:No. Now, don't be silly, do go away. We don't have that here anymore. We wouldn't know what to do with you, anyway. Find someplace else. We're all filled up here.

A:But, wait! Remember snow?

B:Snow who?

A: Um...

B: Snow who?

A: Uh..

B: How are you going to end this joke if you don't know the answer?

A: Well..

B: Make me laugh and I'll let you in.

A: Ok...

B: So?

A: Um,orange... you glad I... didn't say Banana?

B: That's not funny.

A: Does that mean you won't sleep with me?

B: No. I won't sleep with you because you aren't good looking enough.

A: Whew!



See, I'm a riot.

Now, who's more desirable, me or Paris Hilton?

now that's funny.

Like for example, Hillary Rodham Clinton is Hilarious

This makes her more to attractive me.

(Yes. It's from the Post.)

Community Chest

Saturday.

I was walking along side a companion of mine in the East Village. It was chilly. I was starving and about to start work. It was just four.

On Second Avenue, at the corner of 4th street, we were just about to walk up on a Bum. He was Spare Changing. People used to call this money making ploy "Spangin'" in Boston, especially when it was punk kids who should have had jobs who were doing it. I really never liked the expression, it made it all sound too cute. Diminutive.

But anyway, there was this Bum and he had a Red Coffee Cup. It was a little tattered. The kind with the words in different languages written all over it. All the names for coffee? Words for hello? I forget.

Just as the Bum was being denied by someone, again, another guy walks up to him. This guy, maybe in his forties, maybe having hit the sauce a little early on a gray Saturday afternoon, had a wine glass in his hand. He responds to the Bum's plea for change by pointing the long stemmed glass back at him. Bum with some pennies in a cup, funny guy with a schmaltzy wine glass. How droll. It all happened very smoothly. What I would call Calculated Spontaneity on Doing Well In His Forties' part.

So clever, his little moment, so Trading Places, so ironic.

Thank you, Man Doing Well In His Forties for taking the opportunity to put this bum, with his cup that says hello who probably just wanted a drink as well, in his place. I rested easy that evening knowing that we are all capable of understanding each other so well. Worst part, Guy In His Forties was with a woman who he was undoubtedly trying to impress. And since, I have recently learned, that it is unimportant for a woman to be clever in order to attract a man, I am glad he was so invested in what society would deem his necessary mating call.

I forgot, until it was recently reintroduced to me, that we still live in a time where all a woman ultimately needs is looks to be desirable, and that men, however, are expected to have the sense of humor and success.(This is what 2007 looks like.) I don't remember if the woman was pretty or not. She must have been though. That's clearly what made her worth it.

My friend said the whole thing looked like a New Yorker Cartoon.

I said, yeah, from the 19fucking20's. Or that it was something the Monopoly guy, Mr. Pennybags would do.

My friend said that Mr. Pennybags wouldn't do that. He knew what it was like to be down on his luck.


Hey, oh yeah, Where's Mr. Pennybag's woman? Who's he fucking? How come he can't hang on to someone? Not funny enough, I guess.

State of

Was it just me, or was President Bush turning the State of Union into an infomercial for how great America is when he started introducing all those people last night?

Here's a big tall African guy. He plays Basketball. Who has him? We do!
Here's a rich woman with weird baby products. She's blond. What is she? An American!
Here's the guy who saved the kid on the subway. We got one of him here, too.
Red Rover, Red Rover.
Buy! Buy!

I really wish the democrats had had the balls to start chanting something like, "Who's- our- lame- duck?" like the fans used to do to Pedro in Yankee Stadium.

Just a side note: What kind of people become meter maids? I really hope they get paid well for the kind of horrifying work they do. How much do you pay someone to not have a heart? And to ruin someones morning? My plan, next time I get a ticket, is to just hand them the keys to my car and tell them it's their problem now.

Bush mentioned Darfur once. Never mentioned the death of Saddam as far as I heard.The state the union is in, Mr. President, is thinking about the election of 2008. The State of the Union, I would also like to add, followed American Idol. How many people do you think stayed on?

Do you think any part of the President is looking forward to handing off the keys?

Your problem now.