{NYC}: Top 10 Anti-Valentine's Day Activities

bbook:

1. Not listen to NPR’s “Make-Out Mix”.

2. Jonathan Ames poetry reading @ Brooklyn’s PowerHouse Arena. Featuring selections from the newly published anthology “It’s Not You, It’s Me”.

3. “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable” speed-dating event, set to music by the Smiths and hosted by Brooklyn’s own comedian, Dave Hill.

4. “Salute to Singlehood” party @ Radegast Hall & Biergarten in Brooklyn, free bratwurst for the ladies, shots for the fellas.

5. “Valentine’s With Robots” presentation by Laura G. Duncan for, um, those of us who will be spending Valentine’s evening alone.

6. “Anti-Valentine’s Ex-orcism Party” hosted by the Village Pourhouse. Bring a picture of your ex to pin on the dartboard, bulls eye gets you an hour of open bar.

7. Bingo Night @ Black Rabbit Bar hosted by comedian Bobby Tisdale.

8. “Love, Loss, and What I Wore”, off-Broadway show about heartbreak and fashion. What more could a single girl want?

9. If you’re rrrreally desperate, the “Vampire Ball of New York”. Don’t expect Robert Pattinson.

10. And if all else fails, there’s always Chinese takeout.

Brilliant.

good morning!

yeah yeah yeah, it’s monday. why not make monday matter? let’s have an awesome day, okay?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!

things i wrote when i was in college... part quattro

this is when I moved to New York while I was still in college, techinically. so it counts. but man, i took/take myself too seriously. how amusing it is now to see it at this point. I wrote like ryan adams did on his tumblr!

Last night I walked out of a bar into the freezing cold air. The night wasnt harsh, it was just cold and lovely. I was by myself. I am always by myself. I walked and just kept walking. I stopped paying attention to street signs. I glanced at everyone I passed and thought of a story I would write about them. I looked at the Christmas lights and the window displays and kicked around bits of ice left over. I didnt want to go home. I just wanted to feel the bite of the cold and stomp through Chelsea in my boots, and then maybe slip into some cafe that could feel like home for a moment. So I did. I opened the door and the bell shook and in my arrival. I sat down in a booth and the waitress came by and clicked her tongue at me; “Tsk, tsk-all alone? What happened?” Nothing happened, I smiled. one day woke up and decided to be a nomad and live in cities I have never seen and do everything on my own. I make friends where ever I go without wishing to ask for much in return- nor do I cling to them out of loneliness. Someone told me not to ride the train alone, but I thought; just who else am I supposed to ride it with? I slip through everyone’s fingers and squirm through fake friends and I can’t sit still. New York is for me because I can play with the fakes, I can put on the jewels and look the part for dress up- but then I can just as soon go back to my backyard alone and be happy. And I am never alone.

things i wrote when i was in college... tre

From: Winter Wine

my back pressed against the hard sink, a world of air hanging between us. I’ll say it too. I’ll mean it. Then you’ll take your time, handling my face, breathing me in, kissing me as if you knew me. As if you know me.

things i wrote when i was in college...part due

the space

i want to curl up in this space.
there is a time before knowing a person. it hangs over you in a precious wonderment. you cannot remember what life was like before you suddenly woke up. what food do they like? what is their family like? where do they buy their underwear? then comes the warm moments. his laugh; unsure, preoccupied. Then the jumping while he is asleep. how he feels inside of you; how he comes. everything is fuzzy, it’s snow, it’s dead air, it’s completely ridiculous. but i love it. i want it to stretch on and on forever. so i push back. i do not consent to time. i keep things quiet. i ignore. i ignore him. i ignore myself. i am not ready for a warm neck, a laundry basket, a cup of espresso, a patch of sunlight, a finger hold, to stop meaning the world. I am not ready for things to slide. for me to fall and fall until i look up and realize that it’s become a gross disfigurement. It becomes an argument. a dirty secret. a dirty towel on the floor. . a lifetime in front of the computer. a drunken mess that has fallen asleep with dried puke at his nose. a disingenuous human being that takes and takes without giving back. ever. that keeps nothing important and let’s everything else collect in his life.  baggage.

things i wrote when i was in college...

just pouring over a deliciously angst-y private blog i kept in my early years of college. sort of amazing how insightful i was, even though i wish i could go back to that point in time and slap some light  hearted-ness into me. and my, did i love the serial comma…

who i think i am under pressure 2004 it’s an odd cycle. vicious yes; but now so normal i can nearly crawl up in it’s knit pattern.

me, always the do-gooder. the listener. the over-achiever. my earnest ways are nearly a target. a weakness. i love without thinking. i laugh a wide crooked smile. i work until i cannot get up from my chair. i drink it away later. some for me: mostly for other people.

i love without thinking until i finally stop. think. ask myself. and since i am not quite used to asking myself a logical question (outside of feeling or going through the motions of whatever I have gotten myself into) i freeze. i second guess my feelings. i second guess the answer to my own question. it always happens around the same time, the moment in which you realize, in one quiet, eye catching, slipping second, this person is not for you. my mind reels and i struggle with the idea of letting anyone go. without fixing them. without fixing this. the sweeping feeling of reality in a place you’d rather not invite reality to. and it. makes. me. dumb. i otherwise hang out with the boys. they laugh at me because they know i am too abrupt, too restless to be anchored to a relationship in the first place. “it’s always the same thing” they tell me, “you are just in it to fix broken things.” but not having the capacity to do this, or fully allow myself to fall for someone, is crushing. this has to stop.

i am the direct juxtaposition of those dark and brooding girls i find so very cool. i smile all of the time. i am nearly obnoxious, with the length of time, and with the width in inches of the said smile. there is no hidden motive here: i am generally a happy person, i happen to really like people. and since i am addicted to seeing people, i smile quite often. of course the down side of allowing the smile to usurp most of my physiognomy: the suppression of a variety of feelings and stresses. when the smile stops it is usually over the lesser of the evils i am keeping penned away. some hopeless distraction, perhaps a boy, or a bad haircut. frequent exorcisms must be performed to maintain order. demons: deal with former friends who have said the most awful things to me, deal with a boss that thinks negging a person is a good management skill, deal with a bank account that cant stay full,  deal with loss. deal with autonomy. deal with my career. all else deserves a smile: boys, books, and bad ideas.


All in all, compounded with the amount of work, the amount of booze, and the amount of stagnancy i feel at any given time, i am lead straight into a rut.

the only difference is, i have taken the time to know myself well enough, know my soul and my true desires, that i know why i am here. in the rut, or on a hill. and i know myself well enough to know how to get out of it. it hurts me so deeply to see these messes of lives wandering around. i am ok feeling a mess right now, simply because i can see right through myself.

wednesday mid-morning coffee break #2

nightgownsandcigarettes:

Sometimes I just don’t feel like using my words or my brain because sometimes it all just comes out the same way as it did yesterday and sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who knows what I mean.

Do you know what I mean?

Sometimes I don’t want to write I just want to look at pictures of Anita Pallenberg in 1968 and study the angular sharpness of her face and wear more fur smoke more cigarettes draw my eyes black and heavy and wake up at whatever hours I want.

Sometimes I just want to be horrible and not care and not bite my hands, not hate my arms every time I pass by a mirror.

Sometimes I don’t want to read about hope or love or see any more long-legged girls in beautiful outfits that I could never fit into or afford.

Sometimes I want no one inside my head but him and I take back everything I’ve done and…just, sometimes, oh.

Oh. Suck it back, stamp it out, oh.

oh my. if only i could still smoke cigarettes while wearing nightgowns.