Oh wait, what?

Hi, remember me? Is there anyone out there? Have you given up on me? It's only been 11 months, that's not too long to go between posts is it? I could just start a new blog but what fun would that be?

The TV is on. The State Farm falcon commercial on. I met the guy who bought the falcon in the commercial when I was in LA. I assumed that he was losing his hair because he was wearing a fedora. Then I realized that guys in LA just like wearing hats, like a lot. I don't get it. When I see a guy in a hat in NYC I automatically assume he is balding and about 90% of the time I'm correct.

Yeah, LA, that's something that happened. I flew out there to meet up with Cult of Youth on the second leg of their US tour. They were out with Danish teen sensations and dance party enthusiasts and aka the somehow over-hyped yet under-appreciated Iceage. I got back two weeks ago.

Omar's all grown up and is currently chasing a fly. Heaven Street and Fox & Fawn a thriving. It's now just Sean and myself in our apartment over the Greenpoint oil spill. I was diagnosed with endometriosis and as a result I had to stop eating wheat and dairy. I stopped writing for Vice and am just about to start again (and by just about I mean I'm submitting my first piece in ages tomorrow.) My mother moved to California. I went to Mexico and climbed pyramids. Bad Girls Club Season 7 started. Sean told me it's a bad idea to get a third cat. I baked a loaf of bread for the first time yesterday.

Oh and Pam and I started a band.

That's me, that's my life, spastically, sporadically domesticated.

And so I leave you with some pictures from the road with Cult of Youth and Iceage:


Jacob, Elias, and Dan backstage in Portland


Sean immediately after COY's set in Portland


Nu Sensae in Vancouver (new favorite)


White Lung in Vancouver (so much love for this band)


Vancouver, but I coulda sworn for a minute we were in Montreal


Cult of Youth plays to the on-coming storm


Iceage in Vancouver


Post show tiki bar dance-party in Vancouver


Danes dancing hard while Sean DJed


Things got vaguely homoerotic, par for the course with Iceage


Tour manager/everybody's favorite guy Logan got loose


King Dude in Seattle!


Christiana in Seattle


Iceage in Seattle

I was booked to fly back early the next morning post-Seattle show. The boys/bands were so bummed to leave each other as it was the end of their joint leg of their respective tours. I was just along for the ride, but I was crushed when a plan developed to go to Aurora, WA aka the site of Twin Peaks filming later in the day. I tried to change my flight but it didn't make sense geographically and I had to miss out while the others went. Such is life, but I gotta say there were some Facebook uploads from Aurora that were totally crushing. Also crushing was the show's schedule didn't permit for the boys to get tattooed together. Elias was set to get a Cult of Youth tattoo and Sean was set to get an Iceage one. I contemplated a Cult of Youth one on my left hand, another crescent moon to match the one I have on my right palm. I guess there is always New York. I hear that someone in the Midwest gave Iceage a tattoo machine and they've been tattooing each other. So far every tattoo Elias has given has gotten infected.

And that's that. I'm sweating in my apartment writing about sweating on the West Coast. Omar is lying on his back with his legs sprawled. We've got an AC unit in here, but it's not turned out, it's more loud than effective. I'm watching Bad Girls Club while Sean packs up copies of the new Cult of Youth 7" to ship. I numbered and assembled almost all 500 of them.

I miss writing on this thing and hopefully this won't be a passing visit and I'll be back for good.

Now Out

So for the first time in the history of me, I had my writing published in print. I was privileged to be a contributor to the first issue of The Dirty Durty Diary. I have three stories in the first issue, an interview with Eric Foss of Lit, a group story on the artist collective Fortoul Presents, and a feature on All Saints' landing on US soil.

I'll also be writing a weekly column for their blog, more on that soon.

I can't tell you how jazzed I was to see this though, not gonna lie, I was stoked.

Good deeds gone bad gone back good again

I rescued my first animal today. I usually let strays be strays. Feral cat colonies are a fact of Brooklyn life but last night I met a little fella that made me unable to stand by and not do something.

It all started when I went to visit Sean at Vacation Island where he was recording an EP with Love as Laughter. We met at the Food Bazaar (Bushwick grocery/dreamland) and on the walk back to the studio he pointed out a community garden that he said was full of cats. At that moment a little tuxedo kitty came strutting out of the gate and walked right up to me and starting rubbing against my legs. I was all ready to go with it until I noticed what, in the darkness, looked like a big patch of mangey hairless skin on his tail. Fearing bringing some serious cat scabies back to the three who live at the house I pulled away from him, but he was intent on hanging out with me. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the lower half of his tail was withered and bent in a few places. This little guy had something wrong with him more than just some missing hair. I put a sad face on and sighed and walked into the studio with Sean.

I started talking about the friendly kitty with the fucked up tail and the other guys said they noticed him too. Matt, the proprietor of Vacation Island told me a story about befriending one of the strays who lived in the feral cat colony. He said a cat showed up with a bleeding head. He took it in and put a hot compress on it and named him Bill. Bill would come into the studio on the regular through a hole in some window somewhere. The one day Matt came to the studio and Bill was outside dead. He told me this story as a warning not to get too attached to any of the neighborhood strays because, well, they die.

Of course this had the opposite effect on me and it made me want to help the little kitty more. I texted a vet friend asking for advice on where I could take him. Sean and I left for a dinner break and as I walked by the kitty for the second time it ran up to me, rubbing against my legs, and I got a closer look at it's tail. There was an open sore, it looked like some of the skin was just plain missing.

I debated over dinner what to do. There was nothing I could do then and there, it was too big of a risk to take an untested street cat into our home who obviously was injured. I didn't want a flea outbreak or even worse, to expose our cats to the potential of Feline AIDS. To help him meant waking up early and going to Bushwick to try and track the kitty down and try and lure it into a carrier.

When we got home I looked up the websites and opening times of the places Dr. Jenn the vet had suggested. A final text from her offering to help in the morning if BARC couldn't take the kitty solidified my decision. I set my alarm for 9 am, got up and hopped on the B48 bus armed with a cat carrier, a bag of treats, and a can of wet food.



After about 20 minutes of poking around that block and the next without a kitty in sight I got discouraged, but at Sean's suggestion I put out the can of wet food trying to lure them out of hiding. I then took a little walk down the block to make myself scarce and lo and behold, when I returned three tiny kittens emerged from a trash pile. They must have been about 5 or 6 weeks old max. There were two little black ones and one grey one. The tiniest of the three, a black one, started gorging full force on the food swatting at any of his siblings that tried to get near. Occasionally he'd lift his head and survey the scene, his face and whiskers covered in food. Cute yes, but my injured friend, no. Eventually a fourth kitten appeared, this one a teeny tiny twin to my missing tuxedo.

It was almost 11 am and I had to be at the store a noon. At that point I knew I had to give up. All wasn't totally lost, I got to hang out with cute kittens at least. I called Sean to tell him I was done and while I was on the phone with him the injured tuxedo kitty finally emerged! It marched right up to me and as soon as I hung up the phone he crawled on my lap. It was at this point I saw the full damage that had been done to his tail. The bottom half was dead and dry, there was a place in the middle where the flesh underneath the skin was bright pink and visible. However the presence of this kitty mingling with 4 kittens threw me for a loop. Was this their young mother? Fuck! I couldn't very well separate them, could I? The wound looked severe enough where if I didn't do something death would separate them anyway. Thankfully I got ahold of my vet friend and she told me that as long as the kittens were eating wet food and had teeth that they could be separated. I lured the tuxedo very easily into the cat carrier with treats, but I couldn't take the sad stares of the tiny tuxedo twin kitten. The vet said it would be okay to try and round up the kittens too if I could fit any of them in the carrier, but as soon as the injured cat started trying to escape the teeny tiny kitten ran off scared.

I stood up, carrier in hand and prepared to bring the injured kitty to the shelter. I called ahead to make sure BARC could take the cat. The woman who answered the phone told me they were full. I figured since I'd already gotten the cat in the carrier that I should just bring it to the vet in the city and see what we could do shelter-wise from there. I had second thoughts though, everything was getting complicated and my workday was looming. Then, standing at the entrance to the Lorimer M train stop, I looked down into the cat carrier. The cat's tail had fallen off.

A little less than half of the cat's tail remained, and the final two inches of what remained was a bright pink bloody stump with a sickeningly white tip of bone at the end. The skin had slid off of it along with the dead remnants of the rest of the tail, now laying motionless and unattached in the carrier, a dead black thing, visibly hollow at the topmost portion.

Decision made, I climbed the stairs to the platform. While I was waiting I called Sean and told him what happened. My hands were shaking. When I got on the train a girl saw the carrier and her eyes lit up. "Ooh, kitty!" she excitedly cooed. "You don't want to look in there," I mumbled trying to shield the carrier's screen top from view. I think she caught a glimpse or maybe she was just weirded out. Either way she moved to the other end of the train.

From there the story pretty much mellows. I finally got to the vet and received some amazing help from Dr Jenn and the rest of the awesome staff at the Heart of Chelsea Animal Hospital. They wrapped up his bloody stump. Yeah, that's right, it turned out not to be anyone's mother,just a friendly little male of about 8-10 months who kept the company of an adorable tribe of kittens. His tail injury was termed a "degloving" injury where the skin get separated from the flesh. Apparently this type of injury is not uncommon in strays thanks to their unfortunately habit of hiding in the underbelly of parked cars only to be seriously injured when the owner starts the vehicle. That is what most likely happened to little guy. The vets gave him some shots and after several refusals from many full animal shelters, they finally found a spot for him at Bideawee, a place where he could be surgically treated and sheltered for adoption all in one roof. I repacked him in his carrier and took him from Chelsea to 38th and 1st.



During the shelter intake they told me most of the scratches and scabs on him weren't from fleas but from fights with other cats. They said it looked like he got beat up pretty regularly by other cats in the colony. During intake they asked me if I wanted to name him so I dubbed him Wee-Bey, one of my favorite character names from The Wire, plus a nice play on the name of the only no-kill shelter that would open it's doors to him.

Then, in true asshole form, I didn't realize that they asked for a $40 donations for strays and having just checked my bank account and balance I couldn't afford to give (mama's got her own medical bills.) But I promise that I will write these good people a check as soon as my next pay period rolls around. I owe them.

His tail is going to be amputated on Monday and he'll probably be up on Petfinder by Tuesday, that is if my friends who are in the market for a tuxedo don't get him first. That's the story of little Wee-Bey's rescue, a good deed that turned scary but ended great.

Internal Strife

Been stuck on a downer train for the past couple of weeks. It started with a pain in the lower right side of my abdomen. After two days I made an appointment with another doctor who shared my primary physicians office as my own doc was out for the day. She gave me a pelvic examination. She sent me to Beth Israel, a hospital I've dictated previous experiences at here and here. She said she had to rule out appendicitis. She called ahead, I didn't have to wait long to get a bed. I changed into a robe and waited to be seen. The doctor's smugness didn't match the cartoon whales on his tie. He took one look at me and told me I didn't have appendicitis. Yeah, I coulda told him that, but the pain in my right side was there, it was real, and it was right where my appendix was. I asked him if the scan would show another cause, be it ovarian or otherwise and he said it probably would. In the meantime I pissed in my second cup of the day and got an ultrasound on my belly. The doctor told me it pretty boring inside of my uterus. That's the word he used, not "routine" or "normal" but boring. He got gel all over my panties. It could have been prevented. They gave me a pitcher of liquid to drink over the next hour. I drank. I waited. Two hours. The IV in my arm started hurting. They kept it in just in case they needed to take more blood. They didn't. Finally my blood tests came back, my second pregnancy test of the day was negative, everything else looked normal. Time for the CAT scan. I was escorted into a room. The technician was on the phone. I sat and I waited. She finally noticed me after about four minutes. She went to find the radiologist. She couldn't find the radiologist. She tried to call the radiologist, the radiologist didn't answer. She paged the radiologist, the radiologist didn't answer. A line started to form with patients waiting for their CAT scans. Finally another radiologist came down. They told me they were going to put something in my veins that may make my mouth feel warm. It did. It also made my pelvis feel like it was on fire. It passed and I passed through the machine. Back into my bed, an elderly hypochondriac was talking about gout. Her husband was humoring her. The smug doctor was friendly with her. He was ignoring me. She started whimpering. I laid there still in pain. The doctor came back. He told me he didn't have appendicitis. I told him I figured. I asked him if anything else showed up. He said I had two small cysts on my ovaries. I asked him if that's why it hurt. He said maybe. He gave me a prescription for Percocet for my troubles and discharged me.

I called my doctor on the telephone. She said that I should go see a gynecologist. I went to see the one at Beth Israel's Union Square medical building. It was on the second floor. There was a piano in the center of the open space between offices. No one was playing it when I went in. I signed in. Everyone else was pregnant. I waited. The gynecologist saw me. She was friendly until she stuck two fingers up my ass without me expecting it. She said the two cysts were small and normal and probably not the problem. With her hand inside me she pressed on two spots on my abdomen and asked me if they hurt. I said no. She said, "I just had your ovaries in my hand and you didn't have a flicker of pain. I was watching your face, nothing changed." I agreed. I asked her what now. She said, "It could be a hernia, irritable bowel syndrome, a bone fragment, a slipped disc in your back, it could be any number of things." That didn't make me feel better. She said a word I didn't understand and don't remember. I asked her what it meant, she said it meant I was essentially a mystery at this point but I should come back for a sonogram next week. That was all she told me. I waited for the woman at the desk to stop talking about cooking. She was busy convincing her co-workers that she could indeed cook. She was talking about meat. How she rinsed it before cooking it and then doused it in rum so it wouldn't taste fresh. I asked for an appointment next week. She said they were full for the next three weeks and gave me a number to call somewhere else. I walked back out to the mezzanine to make the call. A red-headed woman sat down at the piano, made eye-contact with me and started playing. I couldn't hear well enough to make the call so I walked away. The other doctor didn't have any openings for three weeks and one day. I went back to the office and scheduled my sonogram for August.

I called my doctor. She said I should come in. I'd been in pain for a few weeks and nothing had changed. I told her about the gynecologist. She felt my belly. Said something about my intestines. Told me I needed to see a gastrointestinologist. Maybe they needed to do a colonoscopy. Maybe they needed to do plenty of things, but it was beyond her medical reach. I sighed. I told her I just wanted to know, be it good or bad. I started thinking about everything I did, my posture when I sat, the position in which I slept, everything I ate and drank. All the seemingly harmless things that could be making my phantom condition worse. She asked me if I noticed any situations that seemed to make things worse. Walking, having sex, eating, and going to doctors. She said she thought it might be a hernia. Or a muscle strain. Or an injury from having sex. That's when I felt the pain for the first time, during sex. She gave me another prescription for Percocet, as I was nearly out. My mom was in town visiting. She was in the waiting room waiting for me. I had to rephrase what doctor told me. Didn't want to lay it straight out, that maybe I had hurt myself getting railed too hard by my boyfriend.

I am seeing the gastrointestinologist on Wednesday. I was told to keep my appointment for the sonogram and the follow-up appointment with the gynecologist. I keep telling people I hope it's not irritable bowel syndrome (which it's not, my bowels are working like champs) or a hernia because those two things seem embarrassing.

Public Celibacy

Note: I understand how ridiculous it is that I'm actually writing about something in the Post annoying me. Almost everything in the NY Post annoys me, I read it for the crossword puzzle more than anything else. Still, this who celibacy thing really hit a nerve.

I was reading yet another article in the NY Post today about NY women opting for celibacy. First of all, in it's digging for famous representatives of the "new celibacy" it handed us the misinformation that Courtney Love is currently celibate. Love stated on Howard Stern that she didn't have sex for four years while working on the new Hole record, but that she's back on the banging wagon since she finished recording (if you haven't watched the interview and you have access of Howard OnDemand you should, it's captivating as Love generally is when she's somewhat lucid.) So in typical Post fashion it tries to convince us this is a "trend" by smattering in a few famous gals with stories of "regular" New Yorkers. Too bad their regular New Yorkers consist of Julia Allison and a former Miss Teen Alabama.

Honestly, none of this bothered me as much as how tacky I really think going public with your vow of celibacy really is. Religiously motivated virginity is one thing, but a "sex break" is a whole other. It's no one business who you are having sex with so why is it anyone's business who you aren't? There was a time in my life when I wasn't really having sex. I was newly sober and figuring my shit out. I didn't write a book about it, I didn't feel the need to call it a lifestyle change. It was, simply, being responsible and taking care of myself. Sometimes sex is a good thing, sometimes it isn't. It depends on the individual and where she is at. But honestly, if you need to not have sex to be able to record an album, you probably don't have a healthy enough relationship with sex to be having it when that album is done.

Also, in the Post's reference to Gaga's celibacy, it takes her quote out of context. Her stance is pro-relationship and anti-promiscuity. No sex without commitment. That's hardly celibacy. And while I do appreciate the punny headline, "They're Havin' a Celibation" crowing over a ragged photo of Courtney Love, I'm so sick of this shit.

I have no problem with celibacy, your pussy and whatever you want to do with it is your perogative, but this isn't even celibacy. It's just not promiscuity. These women aren't in relationships and I can bet you if they were in committed relationships they would be having sex. If they were saying they were avoiding relationships for the sake of productivity they wouldn't be in a sexy pictorial in the Post.

Furthermore, I think this is bad for women in general. We're once again returning to this notion that we are the gatekeepers to sex. We are the ones who are the decision makers, the naysayers. Aside from Lenny Kravitz, men don't make the news by saying they are off sex. But again, celibacy is far different from just "not putting out." It's great to avoid hyper-sexualizing oneself but come on. There is nothing abnormal about not having promiscuous sex. And really Julia Allison? Is it worth a fucking press release because you decided not to have sex for a month?!?! I mean that's what humans do after a bad breakup, they take either dive in deep or take a breather.

I am having difficulty vocalizing what exactly is bothering me here. I guess it's partially this notion that women can't be productive creative individuals when they are involved with men, sexually or romantically. Instead of casting off the notion of relationships, sexual or not, maybe we should be more focused on casting off the roles we take in these relationships and the relationship we have with not just our sexuality but our partners. If you need to not have sex with people right away in order to find the proper partner, that makes sense, but don't call it celibacy for fuck's sake.

Full effectiveish

Okay. Fuck. I'm back from tour and have no idea where to begin. I guess saying that I'm back is enough of a start. It was my first time spending any serious time in the south. Aside from my solo vacation to the Hostel in the Forest/Cumberland Island the December before last and a childhood family trip to North Carolina's Outer Banks, I hadn't been to the offical "South" before. The tour began and ended in North Carolina. We learned some lessons, maybe spring break isn't the best time to tour, especially in Florida. Then again, I experienced the singular horror of Ybor City/Tampa on a Friday night during the height of spring break season. Ever been to Tampa? Everyone looks like either Pete Wentz or Travis Barker. They take their architectural hair seriously down there. If it is still the home of death metal, the death metal was in hiding. Understandably so.

I have hundreds of pictures and nearly as many stories. From Charlotte strip clubs to Tampa General Hospital to getting robbed twice in one day (and puking twice in the same day) in Orlando. There were ups and downs like any tour but overall it was fun. We had the essentials: rad folks, great tunes, and more food than I care to even think about. We hit up every roadside essential except for Sheetz and Krystal. I got food poisoning from a turkey sandwich at 7/11 while everyone else digested their tacquitos just fine. Live and learn, go with the tried and true on the road. Sometimes trying to eat healthy will fuck up your stomach ten times worse than the deep-fried standards. I got my beloved Cheese 'N Eggs with raisin toast at Waffle House (smothered, chunked, and peppered) and spread apple butter on my Cracker Barrel biscuits. Despite my attempts at ordering the grilled chicken sandwich at all the fast food joints I was foiled by my milkshake obsession (Hardees has a fine one, so does Chick-Fil-A.)

The weather wasn't as warm as I'd hoped and I didn't get to spend too much time by the water. However we had a beautiful river-view in Wilmington where Sean and I got a hotel room to celebrate our anniversary (4 months...we're that kind of couple...I know) and we had some lazy beach time in St. Augustine. And I guess we relaxed poolside at the Sea World Hilton (cheapest hotel in Orlando, $42/night for four) but our relaxation was cut short when we found out we'd been robbed of all our luggage/clothing while we were sunning ourselves. But more on that story later, I'm trying to talk about how awesome everything was first before we go into the inevitable disasters that every tour seems to have. In fact my friend Glen said that "no tour is complete without someone going to the emergency room." I never did on the Battletorn tour but I also broke out in hives so badly that I thought I was going to have to. At least none of the damage was permanent and everyone walked away fine, albeit a little bit broker and with a lighter luggage load.

So I'm back, but only sort of. I've been avoiding dealing with my bedroom and both of my pillows and blanket went on tour with me so I don't want to sleep in my bed until I have a chance to do laundry. Plus Sean bought Mario Kart for his Wii, so I've been keeping busy playing video games, listening to all the rad records we bought, and plotting to practice my flute so I can accompany Sean while he toys around with the autoharp he bought in a pawn shop on our way out of Asheville.

Much much more to come in this upcoming week. And I'll be responding to comments/keeping up correspondence with all of you once this weekend is over and I'm back in the swing of life. Although the weather is getting nice finally, it's going to be hard to keep focused. Finally, weather worth being unemployed during! I've been waiting since September for this.

Black velvet if you please

A new religion that'll bring you to your knees

Another post up on the Vice Blog, this one about my black velvet cloak obsession.



Check it out and once again, show me love. So far the comments are awesome!

Barbados!!!

So, you may be wondering why I haven't posted about my vacation yet, or you may just not care. But, here is a vacation rundown I did for Vice, Barbados - You Should Go on a Tropical Budget Vacation. It's a vacation Top Ten. Again show your love and leave me comments...I'm the new kid on the blog, totally fagged and slightly insecure.



I wish it were always bikini time. I like being as naked as possible but only when contextually appropriate and not actually around real naked people. I guess I'll test that when we go to Burning Man...wait, I didn't tell you about that? Oh, that's another story...just you wait.

The grumpy beast has been sedated

All is well again in Beverly world. Despite a sore arm/back/ankle/head/knee, I was able to sort out my pain med debacle with a phone call to my doctor who called in a prescription for Vicodin for me. No, I am not sharing, I don't think my pain will run out before my little prescription will. So now that I am sufficiently relaxed, I am ready to tell the second part of my story.

I was dropped off in triage by my friendly EMTs and my vitals were taken. I went through the same run-through as I had with the EMTs, medications I was on, age, date of birth, allergies, blah blah blah. The triage nurse handwrote the info on my bracelet and got my birthdate wrong. After about an hour of waiting in the waiting room (where I got chastised by security for using my cell phone) I was given a bed in trauma next to a pregnant woman suffering from terrible back spasms and a woman who was in a gnarly car accident. A truck had made a wide right turn while she was trying to make a sharp left and pinned her car to a light post. I got to pee in a cup and change into a hospital gown which led to a very awkward conversation with the orderly where I had to explain to him that I was wearing a bodysuit in lieu of underwear. He blushed and said, "So no underwear at all?" So much for wearing clean underwear in case you have to go to the hospital. Thankfully they let me wear my bodysuit under my gown.

A nurse came to give me a shot of Tramadol in my ass, she said my arms were too skinny, and I dozed off for about an hour until my boyfriend woke me up by calling to check on me. He was stuck working on a jobsite upstate and couldn't come visit me until the job was done and his ride left for the city. Eventually I was taken to the Radiology waiting room where blessedly there was a tv and I got to watch the Family Guy. Unfortunately partway through the episode (the first part of the Stewie Kills Lois storyline) they moved my stretcher and I couldn't see it anymore and instead got to listen to a waiting room conversation about how terrible the show was and how it was the downfall of society. A few other semi-concious individuals lay around bitching but somehow my wait wasn't that long. A half-blind white-haired x-ray tech wheeled me into the room, told me my yellow toenails were cute, tried to talk to me about college and inquired about the Cult of Youth record in my tote bag. I unsuccessfully tried to avoid having to explain neofolk to him as he took x-rays of my foot.

He tried to wheel me back to trauma but I stopped him saying I was also there for a facial x-ray and a CT scan. Phew...and after about ten more minutes I was wheeled in for my first CT scan. It was weird to say the least. Laying there strapped down with my head taped to a neck rest knowing my brain was being scanned, it's super creepy. They also took an x-ray of my facial bones because my jaw was incredibly sore. I was wheeled back into a hallway and the slow hell of waiting really began. Two hours with no word on a stretcher in the hallway behind trauma. My neighbors were the car crash victim and a Puerto Rican grandma who was missing a shoe and kept cursing at everyone about her foot. She proceeded to eat an apple by taking little bites around the skin and spitting it out into a plastic bag until it was skinless and then munched everything through the core. Gross.

Behind me a man in police custody was handcuffed to his stretcher and another was wheeled by. Later on there was a hubbub of gossip coming down the hall that the second man in police custody had gotten violent and needed restraining. Still no sign of my doctor. I lay there waiting for it to be 8:30 so Sean could come in from the waiting area and keep me company, he'd finally made it in from upstate only to be told he couldn't see me for another half hour. I'd been in the hospital since 2:30. Someone finally checked on me and gave me some juice and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My pain was back but I decided to tough it out, not like anyone would listen anyway.

Finally my doctor reappeared, apparently there'd been some emergency that was life or death. Ergh, can't bitch about that. He told me everything was fine, no broken bones, no internal bleeding, gave me a diagnosis of multiple contusions (aka bruises) and told me that they weren't even that impressive. Fuck you bro, I'm hobbling around and can barely lift my arm today, feel twice as gnarly as yesterday...ugh. ANYWAY, he gave me a prescription for Ultracet and a note excusing me from work for three days.

So anyway, yeah, after telling the EMT, the triage nurse, and the orderly what medications I was one I was prescribed something that had a potentially life-threatening interaction with a drug I was taking. And it was the same drug they'd shot into my ass earlier in the day:

traMADOL (Ingredient of Ultracet) and Celexa (citalopram) (Major Drug-Drug)

GENERALLY AVOID: The coadministration of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) with tramadol, which has weak serotonin reuptake inhibiting effect, may potentiate the risk of serotonin syndrome, which is a rare but serious and potentially fatal condition thought to result from hyperstimulation of brainstem 5HT1A receptors. Patients receiving this combination may also have an increased risk of seizures. Pharmacokinetically, coadministration with certain SSRIs, namely fluoxetine, paroxetine and possibly sertraline, may result in decreased plasma concentrations of the active O-demethylated (M1) metabolite of tramadol due to inhibition of CYP450 2D6, the isoenyzme responsible for the formation of the metabolite. The clinical significance of this potential interaction is unknown. However, M1 is thought to possess up to 6 times the analgesic effect of tramadol, thus diminished therapeutic response to tramadol should be considered.

MANAGEMENT: In general, the concomitant use of SSRIs and tramadol should be avoided if possible, or otherwise approached with caution if potential benefit is deemed to outweigh the risk. Patients treated with the combination should be closely monitored for signs and symptoms of excessive serotonergic activity such as CNS irritability, altered consciousness, confusion, myoclonus, ataxia, abdominal cramping, hyperpyrexia, shivering, pupillary dilation, diaphoresis, hypertension, and tachycardia.

Sounds like fun, don't it? Good god.

Doored and Floored

Well fuck. And all I wanted was a donut.

One block after a delicious donut stop at Peter Pan in Greenpoint I hit the pavement, and I hit it hard. Nine years of bike riding in NYC and I had never been car doored. I'd narrowly avoided it many a time and it has happened to just about everyone I know, but I've been pretty lucky. Guess my luck ran out. Out of nowhere a car door opened directly in my path on Manhattan Avenue. I had no time to stop or swerve and hit the door full speed. Bike first then head. I fell into the middle of the thankfully traffic-free street, a twisted mess of bicycle and Beverly. And while I am on the ground, what does the concerned citizen who doored me say? "Why the hell weren't you wearing a helmet?" No, "Are you okay?" or "Oh my god, I'm sorry!" Just blame blame blame.

Listen bitch, even if I was wearing a helmet my ankle would still be fucked and so would your car. Turns out her boyfriend was a trained paramedic who insisted on calling an ambulance. As soon as she realized she couldn't close the door to her SUV (score one for me!) she called the cops to file a report. While he was on the phone with 911 an onlooker from across the street was also calling, apparently it looked as gnarly as it felt. The ambulance came and no one was sure if I should go to the hospital or not. I had the biggest bump on my head in the history of me and my foot was throbbing though not swollen. I thankfully still have COBRA from my old job so I decided peace of mind was worth the suffering of an ER trip.

They loaded me into the back of the ambulance while we waited for the cops to come. The boyfriend knocked on the window and asked if we needed them anymore and we said yes, to file the report. He said their insurance company told them it wasn't necessary so they wanted to leave and I said, hell no, a report was getting filed. You see, if you open the driver's side door onto the street in New York City you are liable for any accident it causes. Having nightmares about a broken bicycle and an insurance company refusing to pay for my hospital visit, I wasn't about to let them just drive off into the sunset. So the cops came and the woman did all she could to blame me, including yelling about how I wasn't wearing a helmet and making the cops go up to me and tell me I should wear one.

It was ridiculous and one of the EMTs laughed when he heard me mutter "fucking bitch" under my breath. The two lady cops made fun of her, one Latina, one Muslim. While the Latina one was waiting for the Muslim one to finish getting the woman's statement she hung out in the ambulance flirting with the EMT about motorcycle riding (apparently almost everyone involved from the woman who doored me to the cop to the EMTs all rode) and made fun of me for riding my bike in a dress. She also rolled her eyes at the boyfriend who was pounding fists with some passing firefighters. "White fireman, coming in from Manhattan, you know he marched in the parade." Fuck it was St. Patricks day too.

Finally we were off and I had a great conversation with my EMT about drunk driving. I realized I hadn't specified a hospital and they were taking me to the nearest one...Woodhull aka Deathkill aka The Death Star aka the hospital I never ever wanted to go to...

I'm going to take a break and continue this post in a second part...

You know what?

I post shit like the post below and then realize that what it's really about is giving a fuck about what you look like. I thought for a long time that people who said they didn't care what they looked like were full of shit, but I realized that's wrong. It's just hard to realize that it's not important to some when you've been embedded in the fashion industry in this damn city for too long.

As far as fashion and fantasy go, price points aren't the point, it's style. But true style can't be purchased and I think that's what really got my goat when I worked at Barneys. People would purchase pre-determinded head-to-toe looks. They'd wear whatever we told them to wear, and if it wasn't us telling them it was the runway or a photoshoot or our catalogue. Meeting the reps from each line and seeing them wearing a full look from their bosses line made me admire their professionalism but balk at how boring it must be for them to get dressed for work. Then again, when I managed The Good, The Bad & The Ugly I wore Judi's clothes daily and never minded, though I did overconsume at the shop (do I really need three snap-front denim skirts or five pairs of the spring denim? or two pairs of each style of short?) because they fit me like a dream. Still, stepping out in, say, a bustier, a pair of shorts, and pollys all designed by one person made me feel like an uncreative douchebag, completely reliant on someone else's vision of what style should be. Even if that vision is reasonably genius like Judi Rosen's, it still felt wrong. I just gotta be me, I guess.

But maybe that's problematic. I've learned to represent myself via my outfits. In a city where visual stimulation is constant, it's hard to stand out. Being single for years definitely made it necessary to do so, half of dressing for me was for men, the other half for women whose style and opinions I respected. It was slightly competitive for a period but that lessened as I got older and more confident. Everyone I knew came into her own around the same time and it was a graceful transition from peacocks to swans, equally lovely but the latter far more refined.

Or maybe I am just becoming an old fart. Now I dress up when I see my boyfriend and look like a wall flower when he's not around. Funny, but I get a different type of attention from men than I did before, probably because I don't give a fuck, but possibly because I'm not putting myself on display. A girl in jeans and a tshirt (though it's tight jeans and a cool tshirt, I'll never be a total shlub) is far more approachable than one in a mini dress. I see no reason to go out looking like a total babe without him. I settle for a comfortable sorta-babe status. Call me old fashioned but I'm a one man gal, and I don't welcome come-ons because rejecting dudes takes effort and is frankly kind of a drag. Of course I don't just dress for my man. I mean hell, I always want to look good, that's natural, and since I see him almost every day my habits haven't changed that much. I just don't necessarily believe when people say that women dress for other women. It's a straight combo, we dress for ourselves and for those we want to attract.

I hope I actually do look good most days, since I am one of those people who does genuinely care and probably who cares more than she should. But if you think I look like an asshole, do me a favor and keep it to yourself. Fashion is a fantasy, and I like my little vanity bubble.

I give up

Why do people listen to Karl Lagerfeld? Seriously. I will never get that man's allure. Sure, he's a German robot skeletor who has the ability to devastate anyone in the fashion world with a snide remark, but as far as I can tell all he does is sit around all day and call people fat while taking sole credit for everything his design team does. Chanel and most other high fashion branding is nothing but iconography for something I never aspired to be a part of; its the logo for the international WASP conspiracy. I see the crossed C's on grandmother's hairclips and jacket buttons more frequently than on a young fashionista's handbag. It's all a ruse, and Chanel is the most visable and powerful perpetrator.

My friends and I had a joke crew a long while ago call Closet Crust. And I created a logo for us riffing on the crossed Chanel C's, writing them in metal script instead of the prudish easily symmetrical font. It was for those of us who had grown up punk rock and had discovered a love of fashion and style that was actualized when we moved to New York. Even though we didn't look the part anymore, we still cherished our old 7"s and LPs. And yeah, I went to see DSB at ABC No Rio wearing vintage Dior and no one was the wiser. What of it? This was a time period where everything I owned was second hand from working as a buyer at Beacons Closet. So I could pull off some astounding looks on a scumbag's budget. I followed every collection on Style.com and my LiveJournal (ah yes, I blogged before there were blogs to blog on) was peppered with wish lists and dream looks from current runway collections. I dreamed of high fashion, but was content with it being unattainable.

But then something changed. I graduated from college, quit my job at Beacons, and started working at Barneys. Suddenly the labels and the price points were within reach. Spending several hundred dollars on a pair of Ann Demeulemeester boots seemed like a totally okay idea and finally a few of those Dries Van Noten knits could be mine, first hand. When you are surrounded by three hundred dollar jeans every day at work, you concept of reasonable price points becomes perverted and suddenly you've spent nearly 1/6 of your annual income buying clothes at your workplace. And when I say 1/6 of my income, understand that during that period I made more money than you probably do, and more money than I probably will again, at least for quite a long time. Commission retail is a heady profitable game, although ultimately soul-crushing. So I quit.

After I walked away I realized how hard I'd fallen for it. Fell for the hype, the manufactured sense of specialness and rarity. But it also was irreparably tarnished for me. For every beautiful overlooked piece that would go on sale, there would be 20 items ruined for me by sixteen-year-old trophy wives in training begging mommy to buy them for them. Nothing was special. After seeing the mindless upper class mindlessly spend money on beautiful pieces they didn't appreciate in the same gesture as countless overpriced disposable pieces of crap, it made me realize that it was all targeted toward the same consumer base.

$1200 dresses are not made for people like me, whether they are cheesy Versace monstrosities or glorious Proenza pieces. In both I look and feel terribly out of place. I feel too young, too constrained, and too self-conscious. And I've learned to be okay with that. I get dirty, I spill food, I get snagged, I ruin things, and I don't mind holes in my dresses or grease stains on my jeans. Delicate artifacts that can only be worn with caution by pampered misses are not for me. Silk makes me sweat and a bias cut puckers around my prominent ass. The only things worth spending real money on seem to be good lingerie, a serious coat, and few pairs of well-made gorgeous shoes. But as for that other stuff, please keep producing is so when it's threadbare and charming the next generation can buy it 20 years later.

What sucks is that I'm finding it hard and harder to avoid becoming one of those curmudgeonly "vintage is better" snobs the older I get. Blah blah blah, it's all been done before, there is no more real innovation, just theme and variation. The only thing that keeps progressing is textiles. Everything else is just a riff on something else. It's all "inspiration pieces" from closets that I'll never get to raid. Plus I'll always be more comfortable in a lycra blend than silk. Faded black cotton 90s mall dresses make me feel at home. Cheap and easy, built for damage and speed, that's what the true Closet Crust afficiando feel most comfortable in. But I'll still happily pair them with a pair of expensive boots, because what's more punk rock than black leather? It's the only thing available at Barneys that goes with my motto for fashion and life: better once slightly damaged.

New years, old jeers

So 2009 is over. I feel like I mark my years by age not by the calendar. I don't remember things as having happened in 2006, I remember them as having happened when I was 24. So the calendar changing over doesn't impact me that much. But suffice to say, 2008/26 was a rough year. 27 is so far more hopefully and with it, so is 2009.

My blog has been quite ruminative lately. It's been a big year, slowly letting go of girlhood and replacing it with an unfamiliar idea of womanhood I am still learning how to embrace. Yet I get more confident residing in this skin every day. Part of this slow, but necessary embrace started this summer when a lot of my walls started breaking down. I've always been one to keep my struggles secret, preferring to be stoic. For someone who professes to be such an open individual, I am really fiercely private about certain things. Anyone can know the mundane or tacky detail about my life, but in many ways I am quite guarded. My major struggle this past year was learning to let go of a persona I depended on to guard myself against the threat of intimacies and focus on developing and opening up my personality.

The difference between persona and personality is something that has always fascinated me. In fact it was a major topic of my senior thesis, Raging Against Intimacy in which I explored concepts of persona development in the club scene. I spent a good number of years dwelling in the confines of what I wrote, a persona complete with nickname, full of reference points that only referred to my interests not to me as an actual person.

While rave culture made some claims about the parties being about unity and transcendence through dancing bodies further enabled by drug usage, downtown makes no such claims. Instead, it is about annihilation and mayhem. Not that the scene is always tinged with dark undertones—it manages to be both nihilistic and naïve. Deep down there is the recognition amongst many participants that while punk rock may not have saved their lives, it definitely made them bearable. Friendships are formed quickly within this commonality of history, some are surface and some much deeper, but when recreation turns into required maintenance, these associations become fractured. The bonds that are formed are formed between the “out” personas of the nightlife participants. One person can refer to another as one of their closest friends and not know their last name and possibly seen them sober only on a few occasions. There is a staggering lack of intimacy within this scene whose anthems speak of loyalty and living and dying for one’s friends.

I wrote the above as part of my thesis in the spring of 2005. Three and a half years later not enough has changed. But my life isn't a dependent on that downtown rush as it once was. A few faces from the old days have faded away, left town, or passed onto their own oblivions. The rest of us awoke startled and confused in the aftermath. Realizing that while still quite young, we were becoming too old for relevance, the real world started interfering with our highs and the personas began to crumble. Jobs and the potential for success beckoned. Our art or our careers became priorities and punk rock a distant memory. We sobered up, looked around, and realized we didn't know a thing about those who we'd partied with for years. It was a sad state of affairs. Yet for some of us, the persona persisted.

Such as with myself, Beverly Battletits...former Battletorn-er, that chick who knows more about metal than most other chicks. Sobriety may have mellowed out perceptions of who I am, but a lot of the associations remained intact. Instead of relying on actually getting to know people I'd simply protest dumbly to the running commentaries as to who people thought I was. Until finally, one day, I learned not to worry. Anyone who thinks all I am is a metal record collection and a pair of expensive heels doesn't know me. And either they are or aren't worth getting to know. I shouldn't have to prove that I am a whole person, it should be obvious upon meeting me. I can't complain about people latching onto conceptions of who I am if I have done nothing but encourage them for years. And in turn if I have not showed them anything but that persona in the meantime.

This is all coming straight from my brain through my fingers onto this blog so pardon if its a little muddled. I have been in serious rant mode for a while lately and since this is my blog I'll use it as I please, and presently it has become a place for catharsis. However I hope my personal rumination also has somewhat of a world view and you can find my musing relevant or at least somewhat relatable. If not, then who knows, maybe I am alone here and the rest of you are a little more together and balanced naturally. But I for one have had to work on it, and thankfully I can proudly say I am just about there.

Where evil grows

I've had darkness and evil on my mind due to a story I've been working on. Someone asked me what it was about the other night and I couldn't really say. I guess the topic is good and evil. It's all based on one of the best things a man has ever said to me (and I've written this before,) "You may pride yourself in evil girl, but you've got too much good."

The southern gothic notion of being a bad seed is something I've flirted with in my writing but never a position I could accurately claim to occupy. It's the stuff of myths and songs, "You'll never stop doing bad things because you'll never stop being a bad seed/You don't grow up from evil and you don't grow out of sin." Tagging along with my manhood post I think about the man who told me I wasn't evil and claimed to be that mythic bad seen himself. Both conditions, evil and darkness, are difficult to navigate within the identity of a woman. They contradict the earth mother nurturer ideal I hold somewhat dear to my future dream incarnation. Perhaps my flirtations with darkness play a part in my hesitation to call myself a woman just yet. I am not quite sure how to negotiate anger.

I'm not launching into a tirade about gender oppression here, but I feel that anger is an emotion that woman have been robbed of until recently. And our anger so often only gets attention when it is politicized. I am more interested in the primal response, the emotion of anger. It has been one of the hardest emotions for me to show. While I am a reasonably emotional person, I'd often pride myself on my ability to control my temper. I'd push myself into a state of non-caring enough to never feel true anger. It resulted in me being overly tolerant of the way certain others treated me and somehow transformed me into a woman who both self-identified and was recognized by others as "strong" but had a severe hesitance and perhaps even inability to stand up for myself.

Not that I want to embrace the identity of the "angry woman." Lord knows we saw enough of that in the 90s. Instead of classifying my identity along one primary taboo emotion I'd rather be able to freely express a breadth of them, from anger to fear to love to nurturing. Of course it's only fair for me to be able to do the same. But I can't help feel a sense of jealousy about men being trained to express anger as a woman who was raised to suppress it. What is often mistaken as an unflappable quality, is really an inability to confront the things that really, honestly, just piss me off.

I am not championing unadulterated wrath in all directions. But just an occasional expression. When life presents you with a series of indignities it's okay to call bullshit. That's all.

I have no idea how I got from the difference between evil and darkness to gendered expressions of anger. It's 5:25 am and I am on a sleep schedule that is totally fucked. Tired and hungry is the equivalent of drunk for me, so pardon my posting, I'm both tired and hungry and can't handle a picture post right now. But at least currently I am not angry about much of anything, not that I'm repressed, just that life is okay for the time being.

And on this note, I'll leave you with my current theme song. The video is pretty anti-climactic, but the song shines.

Woman? Whoa man.

This is something that has been tempting me for a long while...

To all the men in my life who can:
Change a tire
Put up a shelf
Win a fight
Play a mean hand of poker
Stand up for a lady
Catch a fish
Sharpen a knife
Throw a punch
Start a fire
Grill
Stay loyal
Toss a football
Fight a bear

Etc, etc (okay, maybe not the bear part...)
Thank you.

To the rest of you, please take off your flannel shirts and retire your cowboy boots. Just because you can grow a beard and throw on some plaid doesn't make you a man.

Okay, so this is the beginning of a long-standing rant about gender in my neck of the woods. We're at that age where we we aren't quite ready to be men and women yet but we can't be boys and girls anymore. We occupy that special middle-ground of chicks and dudes. It's functional, at least temporarily until we settle down. Lord knows I'm still trying to figure out what being a woman means after so many years hiding in bro-dom. So many city-dwelling ladies I know have the same end of raging days fantasy. Meet a fella, fall in love move outta town but still within reach of the city, get a house on a piece of land, get a big ole dog, and settle down with or without the eventual babies.

Surprisingly traditional, no? The older I get the more comfortable I become with traditional gender roles. When I was younger I would think my current behavior was selling out. I went seven years without shaving my legs or armpits, about four of those years not wearing deodorant (that's total, it went in phases.) Now I'm well groomed, my eyebrows are tweezed, my hair is long, and my nails finally painted and unbitten. The realities of aging have begun to set in. My body has started to change and so has my energy level. My wants and needs have metamorphosised and it's a scary prospect. Is this what growing up feels like?

Living here a lot of us fall into a prolonged state of adolescence. Thirties are the new twenties, so all the magazines say, but are we really just so youth oriented that we need to redefine what's young and what's old now? Are we lifting the standards for the age of accomplishment because we are afraid of not accomplishing things in time? Surely it's a good thing not to be expected to be married with kids before the age of thirty. Lord knows I doubt I will be, I'm 27 and don't have a boyfriend much less a prospective mate. But when do we start thinking of ourselves as men and women?

I told a friend the list I had in my head about the ideal man and he jokingly replied, "Who are you looking for, Tim Allen?" Home Improvement jokes aside, I sincerely hope the fact that I snuck in many an episode of Married with Children didn't somehow warp my brain into an attraction to the mythical men and their manly exploits. I doubt it. There is a distinction when gender is used as a tool to marginalize and when it is used as a form of expression. I would like to think I use my femininity as a mode of self-expression. My womanly ways are an essential part of my being and I don't want to be punished for them. I am not drawn to the No Ma'am mentality, where manhood is a boy's club, no girls allowed.

My parents raised me to be independent and to fend for myself, but at the same point, my mom did the cooking (except for taco night and grilling or smoking meats which was dad's role) and my dad did the eating. He watched sports and the History Channel while my mom played bridge and watched ER. He wrote academic articles and she painted Christmas ornaments. Had our family's financial situation been different she would have been a stay-at-home mom which was her dream when she first got married. That is not the life for me. However, growing up in Nebraska my childhood male friends became men who can re-tile a bathroom floor, rewire a light fixture, and drive trucks, they play in country or metal bands, are loyal to a fault drink hard, work harder, battle douchebags with MBAs on the weekends, and are artists at the same time. That's my model for manhood.

Here I feel like so many of us are floundering. The concept of drink hard, work harder has been switched. Or maybe it's just drink hard, work whenever. In a city where creativity is an industry it affords us the liberty of using our creative skills as a means to make a living but in the same manner it also enables us to spend most of the work day reading blogs or looking at videos on YouTube. And after 8 hours of semi-creative work too many of us come home and just want to drink instead of pursuing the passions that brought us here hopeful in the first place. We don't have the energy to be humans much less men and women. All we become are bodies on bar stools looking for other bodies with the desired set of holes or appendages.

People ask me why I don't try to write for fashion blogs or magazines and it's because, while I like clothing and dressing myself, ultimately I don't care about the magazines or the blogs. My heart wouldn't be in it and I don't want to compromise the one thing holy to me. And as a woman, is that what I'm supposed to have to write about? Fashion? I guess it has a broader appeal than just writing about myself, and I am sure you all are aware that this blog is primarily an exercise in self-indulgence. Thank you for reading by the way, I never thought anyone would.

I hate to think that adulthood is necessarily a negotiation of passion and reality. Maybe it is for some, but I hope that I can become an adult or rightfully call myself a woman (and I think I am almost there) without compromising my desires. Maybe that is what makes a woman and a man, not compromising desires. Reality isn't necessarily a buzz-kill. Sometimes reality can be everything you wanted it to be, or everything you needed without even realizing it. Or maybe I'm an optimist. Strangely I do have faith, something lacking around these parts. I can't think of the world as an entirely cold cruel place where you have to lie, cheat, and steal to survive. Maybe it's the Midwestern gal in me. Maybe I'm right and I'll get that house outside of the city with the big dog and a man who can do a few of the things on that list. Or maybe I'm wrong and life will give me a big old slap in the face. Do reality checks inherently have to be harsh?

Then again, I call this blog Reality No Show so who am I to talk.

Been slacking on this front

But my blog has seen some action (shh...it's a secret...I'm shy about this)

Serious Works

Half-blind homeland

Less than one hour in Nebraska and I've already lost a contact. In my weaker eye nonetheless. Driving's gonna be a blast.

I haven't been home for some time. It's been almost a year since I've seen my parents. Little seems to have changed in the good ole hometown aside from a bumper crop of condos sprouted up all around. That and I don't recall the word "loft" being relevant in Lincoln 5 years ago. Then again I'm not around much.

I am learning to live with separated parents. It makes the holidays slightly awkward. I am new at this, so all you old pros with long-divorced folks bear with me. I try to avoid getting to personal on this blog, but it's the most present thing on my mind aside from the lost contact and I am sure you don't want me to go on bitching about that. But more than my family, my hometown is on my mind.

After being gone a certain number of years one is forced to realize that life goes on without them. And life in my hometown is no different. People get together, people break up, people have kids, get jobs, move away, get married, it all goes on and has nothing to do with you. You are just a part of the town's memory, and not a present memory at that. Your childhood haunts get torn down or revamped, places get renamed, and the food doesn't taste the same. It is hard not to feel sad because even if things have changed for the better, you are no longer a part of the story. Your body is not in the motion of the town and you are at odds with it's ebbs and flows.

Restructuring memory isn't an option, but when the tangible structures change it's hard to know what to go on. To trust in your memories of things when confronted with a new reality, be it the inevitable reality of adulthood where your contemporary eyes show things in a different light than your child's, or the more concrete reality of change. The things you looked at for the first eighteen years of your life are gone or different. It's not your perspective that has changed but the world itself.

Maybe I've just lost focus since my eyesight is down to one eye.

Invoking the Spirits

Last night my roommate Sam Jayne held what he dubbed a Postivie American Ambience Ritual in the baseball diamond of McCarren park at precisely 11:11 pm. According to his email: Well, basically, based on some tiny magical knowledge and belief and some help from some friends, I will be holding a ritual that will contain two basic spells: a binding and banishment of the qualities of the icon we will refer to as NIACM, and an invocation and giving of power to the icon we will refer to as AMABO. These icons are of course representative of the two candidates in the election on Nov 4 and their parties and belief systems. However, it is my belief that our voting system is partially ineffective and that magical action should take place, both now and constantly, to positively influence the American Socio-Political environment and ambience. We met beforehand at Enid's to work on the script. Andy, Sam spiritual advisor guided him through his personal magical practices. I helped with some phrasing (ever the editor I complained when it got too wordy.) Caroline wore a magical hat she made. I didn't take any pictures during the ceremony as I was participating. I got to hold the pentagram (upright, white magic, not inverted) that was used to banish Niaccm and planted it in the ground next to Amabo. Fingers crossed the spirits were pleased. The scene as how we left it. From afar Goodnight. And yes I voted today.

Funemployment Update

Last week I received a letter in the mail from the NY Department of Labor ordering me to appear at an appointment at 250 Schermerhorn Street on October 17 at 1 pm for a mandatory job search seminar. If I missed the meeting it stated I would potentially lose my benefits. So I schlepped my ass onto the G train and slunk over to the Hoyt-Schermerhorn stop. I got there ridiculously early, having left at the same time my friend who I'd crashed with in Bed-Stuy had to go to work so trolled Livingston Street, one of my favorite degenerate strips of Brooklyn right by the Fulton Mall.

Livingston Street is home to a Dallas BBQ, Papa Johns, Popeyes, Taco Bell/Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins combo, countless perfume and pattie shops, a gargantuan GoodWill and New York's only IHOP. Trying to find something healthy to eat that that fufills my new dietary restrictions in this mecca of bad taste is like trying to find a Chanel store in Nebraska aka impossible. Despite my love of IHOP, I didn't really feel like spending $11 on pancakes, so I settled on a steam table joint on Flatbush Ave that looked like it at least had some vegetable matter. I ordered the salmon, sweet potatoes, and greens. Bad choice. The salmon was full of bones and the scene inside was a total starch fest. After watching a mother feed her daughter fried chicken and mashed potatoes and orange soda I looked at my depressing vegetable matter and realized there is a reason that most people eat like shit. It tastes way better. Especially if you are on a budget. A $3 salad is gonona be far grosser than a $3 chicken sandwich at your neighborhood fried chicken joint. Disheartened and heart-burnt I moseyed over to the GoodWill store back on Livingston.

To those who haven't been there, you should go. The only reason I am sharing this spot with you is because I go there about two or three times a year and I doubt any readers are in that hood too often so there isn't going to be much competition. If you are looking for 90s gear it's amazing. If you are looking for fabric it's even better. The dress racks are full of traditional African dress which, while may not be the right cut or appropriate style for a lot of us out there, are made up of the most wonderful prints and colors. The vintage rack is useless, but expect brilliant colored knits and ridiculous leathers. I scored two dresses on my way to my appointment, both perfection.

Time running short, I dashed down the street to the ugly behemoth of a building that is the New York State Department of Labor Kings County headquarters. I waiting in the security line and showed the guard my letter of appointment, half ripped to shreds from the house party we'd had the Friday prior. Seriously, the only thing that got damaged in my entire bedroom (which was filled with headbanging dudes) was my appointment letter and employment history form. Sweet. He laughed at said, "Dog ate it?" I smiled and got on the elevator. The 3rd floor was where I was required to report for my appointment. The room was full, every seat taken. I waited in line to check in dodging uncouth individuals trying to brazenly cut in front of me (ahh...social services draw the best crowd.) The woman behind the desk took one look at my letter and laughed and said, "Dog ate it?"

Once all checked in, I was given another form to fill out and followed a group into room #3. There were about 40 of us grouped together and the instructor warned us we could be there for up to 2 hours. There were 300 people called in to report at 1:00. He listed several numbered categories we could fall into. 1: Union, 2: Temporary Layoff, 3: Seasonal Unemployement, 4: Highly skilled, creative, and technical fields, 5: Everyone else. I put a 4 on the top right corner of my supplemental paperwork and hoped for the best.

My name was called third. The instructor told me that because of my field there was nothing they could do for me as far as job placement, "but I'm sure you already knew that." Thanks, indeed I did. All told, I spent more time roaming around in preparation for my appointment than I did in the federal building. I was out of there by 1:30.

And so, still unemployed, still getting benefits. Trying to figure my shit out. Applying for editorial jobs but so is everyone else. No one wants to be freelance right now so when a permanent position turns up, everyone applies for it. I am trying to change fields which makes it all the more difficult. Oy...

FID Round 2

After writing about a long while ago about how a job wasn't something I minded doing then ending up in the position of not working for a period I feel at a loss as to my next step. I don't want to end up working a job that takes my energy away from my passions, but welcome to the real world. If I only were strong enough to pause my consumption and live more minimally I'd be able to survive on very little, but I've been spoiled by the type of paychecks that come from hustling and working myself to the bone. Gone are the days when I make my rent in a single week's pay. And as I get older I feel myself financially regressing. I'm nearly 27, unemployed, and don't know where to go next. But strangely, being broke is somewhat of a relief. It sets boundaries for me that I've previously been unable to set myself.

At some point I have to swallow my pride and remember no one cares what I do for a living. This is a different generation, careers don't necessarily define us, nearly everyone I know has a different agenda from their job. I have to be okay with that. I just can't get buried in a career path again, unless it's one I actually care about. I'm a hard-working, loyal, and dedicated employee, but at the end of the day, none of that matters if deep down I don't give a fuck. I've got a case of the recession blues as much as the next person, but that isn't what's crushing me. It's the overwhelming uncertainty I've felt long before the stock market went into free fall. But the emergent financial crisis leaves me even more fearful and doubtful.

And perhaps I could weather part of this storm in graduate school. Bury myself in academia. But you can't get a doctorate in creative writing, so I'll only be able to hide so long. But maybe a MFA will buy me time and space to work, but then again, unemployment should do the trick and thus far it hasn't. I haven't been writing the way I've expect to. I've got a mental block and the timing couldn't be worse. Fiction isn't flowing and the non-fiction as most of you have noticed has fallen time and again into the "bitching is my birthright" category, the only thing I seem to excell at these days is lamentation.

My position in life has always been tenuous. I think of myself as an artist without the passion or the balls to really go for it, similar to my art major mother who decided she wasn't going to be a painter because she didn't have the drive to really go for it and feared the risks. And despite my reckless lifestyle, ultimately I am not a risk taker. I won't put myself out there, the fear of failure is too great. To fail would be to negate what I've put lip-service to my entire life and to admit that it's been nothing but lip service aside from this goddamn blog.

So what do I do? What do I write? Songs for a band that doesn't exist, or at least that's what I call them...because lord knows I don't want the fate of a poet. A frustrated poet is even worse than a frustrated actress. And at one time I was a somewhat legitimized song-writer, lyrics printed in the album insert and everything. And what humiliation I suffered when I heard our label's staff spent at evening on the front porch of their headquarters doing a mock poetry reading of my Battletorn lyrics. Even though such a gesture wasn't necessarily negative in intent, the thought of being potentially mocked was enough to awaken the hibernation instinct. I've always been hyper-defensive and when given a reason, the mechanisms really fly.

So what is the solution here? I guess just to say, productively this time, "Fuck it dude," and try. Let my creation of what real world is and the fears it holds slip away and dive into an alternate reality where failure doesn't matter and attempts are more valuable than results. I hope I can do that, because right now my mechanisms are so intricate that I am not even creating. Because if you don't have any results to put out there you can't get rejected. It's a default way of living that's pretty pathetic. But if you have nothing to submit the fear of rejection is nil. You really can't argue with that.

It's hard to put the pressure on when you've got no one to be accountable to but yourself. But maybe I need to matter more.