Kudos from "Films in Review" columnist

Films in Review - David Del Valle blog

In the midst of a shitty week emotionally, I was pleased and proud to get an e-mail saying that the film critic David Del Valle had nominated my Joan Crawford website as one of his favorites online! Below is what he had to say in his "Films in Review" column (though, I must note--"The Best of Everything" is a regular website, not a blog!):


4] THE BEST OF EVERYTHING

The ultimate Joan Crawford blog…even to call it a blog is to deny the full force of what this site does to keep the memory and career of Joan Crawford alive in a positive way. The book MOMMY DEAREST did this great star severe damage when her daughter made public what may or may not be the true picture of Crawford as a mother. However as a star there can be no question, she was one of the greatest and this site proves it over and over again. One of my favorite sites online.

-----------------------------------------------

It was really an honor, and a relief, to get an acknowledgment like that, especially at this difficult personal time. I may be inept at personal relations, but, by golly, I DO know how to convey the Spirit o' Joan to the world. Friends and lovers come and go, but in the grand scheme of things, it is the purity of the WORK that matters, that lasts, what you've given your heart and mind and soul directly to (as opposed to editing with your loved one in mind)...

I really have poured myself into "The Best of Everything" completely for the past 5 years, spending more than 30 hours a week (in addition to my full-time job) working on it. Why? Because a 27-year-old actress in a 1932 film once gave me goosebumps when I was 22... And ever since then, I've wanted the world to know exactly why she was so goosebump-raising. I thank god for the Internet, which gave me the means to channel my love and admiration for her into a forum that her admirers worldwide can share with me.

When national film historians (and Joan fans) like David Del Valle also take notice, it's delicious icing on the cake. Thank you, David!

The Late Arrival

My travel to work every day involves hopping over from Jersey to Manhattan's Port Authority (42nd and 8th) to catch a company bus, which then takes me back into Jersey for my job. This all goes on around 7am every weekday morn.

Despite my usual bleariness at that hour, I almost always get a thrill when I first step onto the streets of NYC: the neon, the steam, the jackhammers, all at full blast...And I'm usually running late, and running to catch the company bus 8 blocks away, and trying to pick up a tabloid or two on the way... It's all very hectic, but exhilarating at the same time. So here's a ditty to my early-morning Manhattan.

---------------------------------------

The Late Arrival
(Port Authority, 7 a.m.)

Jumped a white-knuckle jitney through the tunnel of lerv
Spewed out where neon duels with dawn--the balls, the gall, the nerve!

Gave Ralph Kramden's ass a squeeze, one "To the moon!" before I dashed
Grabbing tabloids, jazzed to see what star, or plane, or market crashed

Slurping down each sluice of sunrise spilling toward me as I ran,
Smeared my greedy mouth with juices from the street's jackhammer jam

(How I'm starving, how I missed you---
Manhattan, here I am!)


----------------------------------------------

Some things in the poem that New Yorkers might know, but others might not:

"jitneys" -- crappy little run-down buses, often driven by cursing, swerving Middle Eastern men, that run between Manhattan and cities in Jersey along the Hudson shore. Since the regular Port Authority buses often are too few and far between during rush hour, if you're late, you catch a jitney bus...at your own risk! :)

"lerv" -- from Woody Allen's "Annie Hall": "I don't LOVE you, I LERV you..."

"Ralph Kramden's ass" -- there's a statue of "The Honeymooner"'s Ralph Kramden outside the Port Authority that I pass every day. (Gleason's occupation on the show was a Port Authority bus driver.)

"sluice of sunrise" -- in the morning on clear days, if you're walking down an avenue and looking east, you see the sun flowing down the building canyons/sluices as you cross each numbered street.

---------------------------------------------------

No More "I Love You"s...Please!

-----------------------------------------------------

I used to be a lunatic from the gracious days
I used to feel woebegone and so restless nights
My aching heart would bleed for you to see

Oh, but now

I don't find myself bouncing home
Whistling buttonhole tunes to make me cry

No more I love you's
The language is leaving me
No more i love you's changes are shifting
Outside the words

No one ever speaks about the monsters

I used to have demons in my room at night
Desire, despair, desire
So many monsters

No more i love you's
The language is leaving me
No more i love you's
The language is leaving me in silence
No more i love you's
Changes are shifting outside the words

And people are being real crazy
And you know what mommy?
Everybody was being real crazy
And the monsters are crazy.
There are monsters outside

Do be do be do do do oh
Outside the words

My Slumdog Valentine!

My Valentine's Day ended up not sucking after all, thanks to seeing this beautiful, heart/gut-wrenching movie.(IMDB page)

Wow, what a ride!

I spent the whole movie either laughing so hard I was crying, or swallowing hard to keep from crying, or giving up and just crying, or muttering "oh shit!" or "oh my god!" under my breath from the plot tension...All the while marvelling wide-eyed at the thrilling visuals and tapping my foot to the catchy soundtrack (which I'm ordering tonight).

Here're the end credits to the movie, accompanied by its Oscar-nominated song "Jai Ho." I just teared up again while watching the video, just as I did watching it at the end of the movie...so grateful for the experience that I'd just had, and the gift of yet one more thing!

The Bus Long Snake

I'm completely knocked out by this profound poem (with accompanying art by the writer). The creator's a complete shit personally (no Valentine of mine since she's got a "building engineer" to see at a race tomorrow), but her work is, nonetheless, stunningly layered and beautiful and, as yet, ridiculously unacknowledged. I really dislike her personally right now, but...I can't stop reading this poem! :) (Damn...if I weren't such a prideful Leo, I'd love to just lie back and enjoy her. Alas.)


The Bus Long Snake

They found a fossil of a snake as long as a bus.
Don’t you wonder if Eve put her children on him,
to ride around on.
Or maybe she charmed him into her,
telling him it was just for fun,
just for the ride.
Just for the wisdom she gained of the knowledge
of how it could be used,
for the ride of good and evil,
like going to school,
having a teacher,
for the knowledge of good and evil,
for the knowledge that men are not Gods.
Since then she knew the power of love
to heal broken things
since then she knew the power of cutting off the devil’s head
since then she knew the strength of pain
when the bus long snake
came around to make love.

My Funny Valentine

Julie London's last recording, 1981.

Amarillo By Morning

And why I miss Texas.

Manhattan, I missed you!

I started my current full-time job in mid-November. In the 3 months since then, nearly every cent has gone to catching up on bills that got behind while I was only semi-employed the previous 6 months, paying the rent, and buying groceries and bus passes. Aside from a couple of haircuts and a bit of clothes shopping for cheap GAP sweaters over Christmas, I've been unable to purchase anything for myself, really. And in the meantime, my good makeup was running out, my underwear had gone all to hell, etc. etc. There's such a thing as UPKEEP! And I wasn't upkeeping. And felt a bit decrepit as a result.(There's nothing worse than not being able to wear a new sweater because all of your current bras are dilapidated and will therefore make said sweater, and YOU, look a bit, oh...droopy.)

My saggy, draggy days are over, my friends! (Well, until it's UPKEEP-time again...) This Friday's paycheck was the first in 3 months that I didn't have to mainly save, that I could just SPEND, SPEND, SPEND! And I bought BRAS, BRAS, BRAS! OK, only 3... And one was the same cheap Bali-brand that I bought when I first arrived in NYC 2 years ago, the kind that too-quickly went downhill (so to speak)--- but that one's a generic white work-bra (as in "I don't really care if it's cute; no one's gonna see it"). The other two are gorgeous and cost over $60 each... That is, until I got to the register and discovered that, because I had on a red sweater, Macy's was giving me a 20% discount! (It was a weekend-long promotion for the American Heart Association: If you had on red, you got the discount; if not, you could buy a charity pin for $2 and still get the discount.)

Aside from my dilapidated-bra situation, I also had a serious dilapidated-panty situation. Now, lest you think I'm just negligent, let me explain: For the past, oh, probably 10 years, I've worn the same brand of underwear: "Adonna," sold by JCPenney. I swear to god, I've tried other panties in the past 10 years, and there was nothing like Adonna for not showing panty lines. They were cheap as hell, but underwear that cost 3 or 4 times as much just did not do the no-panty-line trick at all. As my current batch started to show signs of fray last year, I started searching for new Adonnas only desultorily online and in both NYC and San Antonio. Back then, the various stores just didn't seem to have any in stock every time I looked. I wasn't too worried; I thought for sure the next time I checked, I could find them... Nope. And this Christmas, after a year of looking, I got the official word: They're discontinued!

In the grand scheme of things, that's minor. In my habitual world, though... catastrophe! "No other panties fit right!" "Whatever shall I do!"

Well, what I discovered today at Macy's... In the past few years, while I was in my secluded little Adonna-world...there have been advances in panty-engineering. It's true. And the saleswomen knew all about said advances and shared their knowledge with me. I walked out of Macy's today with not only expensive/cheap-sale bras, but also expensive/cheap-sale panties...that don't hike up my ass! It was a good day in Manhattan.

And speaking of good days in Manhattan... It was about 40 degrees today, positively balmy after all of the lower-20s weather we've been having for over the past month. And it's been so long since I've been able to spend a whole day there just wandering around. After I got my "official shopping tasks" done (seriously, I woke up at 8am Saturday thinking only: "Bras/panties/makeup---GO!"), I made a beeline for the Union Square area, which I've loved ever since I worked there for 8 months last year... All the street vendors were out in the fine weather. One young woman was selling her small paintings of various classic movie stars (Marilyn, James Dean, Bogie). I stopped at her table to ask if she had any Joan Crawford... "No," she said... "But that's a great idea!" : ) : ) She was a hip-chick, so she wasn't trying to "suck up to the customer" or anything. It made me feel happy for Joan that I might've planted an idea in this artist's head...And it'll make me yet happier the day I walk by street vendors and actually see Joan in her rightful place among Marilyn and James!

Other Union Square delights: Popping in the Virgin record store, in the Strand bookstore, in a little off-the-beaten-path stationery/doo-dad shop that I always liked called "Kate's Paperie"... Window-shopping for shoes... (Today was not a buying-shoe-day. I was already worn out from the lingerie. Like lingerie, shoes warrant a whole day unto themselves.) And just leaning against a railing in the Square, having a smoke, turning my face up to the sun amid all the hustle-and-bustle (but also amid others doing the same thing as me---just sitting and soaking up/in). Enjoying a tiny kid in a stroller whose corduroy cap matched his dad's. Overhearing two 40-something women discuss beauty regimens. (One was bragging that everyone always told her she looked 10 years younger, claiming it was due to all of her own hard work at UPKEEP. Her friend was apologetic that she herself hadn't been trying over the years, and so was now paying the price... I was sunning and my eyes were closed when I first began hearing this, but I had to sneak a peak so I could judge for myself... The two women looked about the same age! The "10-years-younger"-one just had big chipmunk cheeks that OF COURSE made her, upon first glance, look more youthful... But what was her friend gonna say!)

As of this coming Wednesday, February 11, I will have been living in this area for 2 years. The first year in Manhattan, the second in Joisey, in a town just across the Hudson, overlooking the city. When I first moved here, Manhattan gave me goosebumps, as it had when I'd visited 2 or 3 times before. I thought maybe it was just me being dazzled because I was new... Nope. I got goosebumps all day today.

And, when I was on the subway, I actually got teary: A trio of buskers stepped into the car, 60-something-year-old black guys singing a doo-wop song from the '50s... When performers do stuff on the subway, you're supposed to look away, expressionless. ("Don't encourage them!") This time, though, I had to keep stifling a big, happy, goofy grin and keep my eyes from welling up at how pretty they sounded, how lucky I was to be able to hear them for free...

Manhattan's like that: So many neat, magical things for free, snatched off the subway or out of thin air; commonplace there, perhaps, but actually rare.

Bill and Hillary

Here's a clip from Hillary's recent swearing in as Secretary of State: "...to my husband...I am so grateful to him for a lifetime of, uh...all kinds of experiences..."! :) These two are cute.

I remember arguing with my mom back during Clinton's impeachment trial---she predicted that the two would be divorced as soon as he was out of office, that they were just together for political reasons. I thought, "No way. He gives her the warmth that her cold father didn't (while still having the same intelligence); she gives him the structure and discipline that his wild mother didn't (while still having humor and intensity). No one's leaving anybody!" :)

"A penny, not a dime! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Speaking of the polite job conversations mentioned earlier...

Today my lunch cost something-and-33 cents. Instead of handing the lunch-lady a quarter and a dime for change, I accidentally handed her a quarter and a penny. Oooops! Much forced hilarity ensued, which tired me out tremendously.

I had a discussion once with a co-worker back at my corporation in Austin. Did we like the polite elevator conversations, or did we not? Sometimes, such simple things can be pleasant, making you feel "connected to humanity" for a second... My co-worker fell mostly on this side of the line, whereas such conversations tended, maybe 75% of the time, to make me feel a bit existentially ill at the utter blank triteness of it all... And I'm not being snotty when I say that. I don't feel "nausea" because Sartre told me 45 years ago that I should---that kind of thing actually does usually wear me out mentally.

On the same topic: Today at work I was talking with a co-worker about how much I miss working in Manhattan. She's from Long Island, lives with her mother, has worked both in the city and in the suburbs. To her, driving to the suburbs and taking a train to Manhattan is about the same, and she wondered what I liked so much about working in Manhattan...

Oh, I dunno. Not having to eat in a company cafeteria every day. Being able to step outside during your lunch-hour to go to the post office, or to buy a pair of shoes, or a candle, or a book, or a Christmas gift. Being able to grab a hot-dog from a street-vendor and sit on a bench in Union Square for lunch, watching passers-by. Hopping on the speedy, to-the-point subway instead of trolling along on the bus for an extra hour. Looking at the beautiful buildings. Spotting Elvis Costello walking by. Talking with co-workers about their encounters with Marilyn Monroe back in the day as opposed to talking about what your mom made for dinner last night. You know, little things...

Across the Universe

Great opening lines:

Words are flowing out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe...

--------------------------------------
And then there's:

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---

--------------------------------------

And oh, OK, Old-Timers, I'll grant you:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both...

Universal, Remote

I have an hour-45-minute commute to and from work every day. Initially, I somewhat enjoyed staring out the window, learning the New Jersey country/town-side. That "excitement" got expended after a couple of weeks.

Then I bought a little notebook to carry with me, thinking, "Hey! I'm a writer! I'll make notes!" Yeah. No.

I ain't gonna write about the utterly stilted polite conversation we bus-mates have daily on our company-sponsored bus that takes us to the suburbs of Jersey. The trek and the conversations are killin' me, but... I AM GRATEFUL FOR WORK SO I SHALL NOT COMPLAIN. There.

I will say, however, that a title and first line of a poem came to me last week while on the bus (thinking about a present that I was going to buy Miss Sandra and about our distance, both physically and mentally, from each other):

UNIVERSAL, REMOTE
We were flippant through channels

-----------------------------------------

I started mentally going on from there, but was coming up with trite cable stuff related to the "Discovery" channel et al., so I quit.

Did, though, think of something I jotted down years ago, after reading that the static that we now see on our TVs in between channels is actually left over from THE Big Bang that created THE universe...

Here was a blank thing, black thing, blanker
than the static remnants of the Big Bang
hovering in TV fuzz---ancient radiation
caught between our stations

-------------------------------
It KILLS me that I can't sustain the above thoughts... The fact that the Big Bang remnants are now static on our television stations... That is extremely profound...

How do you sleep?

Somebody help me. I'm going crazy here.

How?

Just wondering...

Hera hurling Zeus-borrowed bolts

Death dodging in Weehawken this week.

The "Miracle on the Hudson"... !!! What a beautiful thing...

The plane landed around Midtown Manhattan, in the Hudson across from Weehawken, where I live. The plane's pilot, "Sully," grew up in Denison, Texas, where I was born...

------------------------

In other death-averted news:

My cat Gracie has been sick all week. All of a sudden unable to walk straight. Not eating. She's only 10.

When she was a kid, she used to hunt birds and lizards for me, eating every bit of them except for their hearts, which she would leave on my balcony for me to admire.

When I moved to a small house from the apartment with the balcony, she was a real porch kitty. Sitting there, and then...able to leap from the porch rail up onto the roof in a single bound... That was at least 6 fucking feet! I can't think of any little beast that could ever even dream about doing that!

And then there was the time that I was taking some boxes out to the dumpster that sat catty-cornered across the street from my house... I dumped the boxes off, then started back home... Only to have a maniac-cat leap out at me from a drainage-ditch! SURPRISE! (There was a drain off the street... Gracie had, for some reason, jumped right down into it---hopefully she saw the platform below-ground before she jumped... And she waited on that subterranean platform for me to walk back... When she saw me, she SPRANG!)

Before I moved to NYC, I used to talk to her: "Are you a New York Kitty? You ARE a New York Kitty, I know you are..." In Austin, she'd always been an indoor/outdoor cat, always had her freedom. In moving to New York, there was the scary plane ride, then the first apartment with 6 other cats, several of them vicious; then the second apartment, with the basset hound; then the third apartment, with the manic roommate always trying to grab under my bed for her... She put up with all of it.

It's been peacefully just me and her in this current apartment since last February... I thought she was OK, I thought I had her with me until she was at least 16 or 17... I'd always promised her a ground-floor apartment, where I could let her outside when she wanted...I'd always promised her a little brother for company...

If she dies now... Not Gracie. Not at only 10... She's always been a wild, healthy cat... I keep nuzzling her, saying, "You have got to get to at least 17, honey; please be with me until I'm 50, when I'm old and you're old..."

Solitary Man

Courage (i.e., "the art of losing")

For years now, I've made a living copy-editing literature textbooks for grades 6 through 12. While I've sometimes gotten annoyed with and been dismissive of the pedagogy I have to look at, here are three poems that I came across over the past week at work that made my heart happy, even while making me cry.

I was an English major, and I hardly ever read any more. (Kind of like Mrs. Robinson, the former art major, who tells Benjamin she's not interested in art.) Seeing these poems reminded me of how stunning and heartbreaking poetry can be, how it can strengthen your spirit and give you hope even in (especially in) the face of the utter waste and sadness that life can sometimes be.

I'm so glad someone (some wise and tender spirit) chose these for the kids to be able to read! For all the little "fatties" and "crybabies" and queers out there, the kids who feel "crazy"...


COURAGE
by Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

ONE ART
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAKING A FIST
by Naomi Shihab Nye

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.

"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."

Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

Dusty Springfield: How she moves!

I love watching her!

Move Over Darling

When I first heard this song back in Austin, I sat in my living room and played it over and over and over... And made a Doris tape... and then played the song constantly in my car (until I once got stuck at a stoplight with frat boys next to me while Doris warbled "Make love to me" over and over and over...)

A Very Good Year

My Leo horoscope from astrocenter.com:

Your horoscope - Week of January 5, 2009
This is going to be an excellent year for partnership and romantic issues. Jupiter moves into Aquarius and your partnership zone on Monday, where it will stay until 2010. Despite the issues and problems you've had to deal with in past relationships, you may decide to get married, engaged, or perhaps commit to your lover on a long-term basis this year. You're also going to be doing a lot of socializing and this is going to bring many new friends into your life. You're going to have a lot of fun.

Oh, all this as of Monday, huh? OK, astrocenter! Bring on my ENTIRE YEAR o' bliss! ;0

GACOYA (Part 4): House of Cards

The Shakespearean nephews.

GACOYA (Part 3): Bastet

My favorite, most meaningful Christmas present this year was a small Egyptian "Bastet" cat sculpture that my mom brought home from Germany, from the house of her sister, who just passed away.

I didn't know anything about this mythological creature, but my mom had printed out some online information to go along with the sculpture:

Bast is the daughter and/or wife of Ra, the God of the Sun.
Bast was responsible for joy, music, and dancing, also health and healing. She also protected humans against contagious diseases and evil spirits.
Her cult can be traced back to about 3200 BC, and she became a national deity when Bubastis became the capital of Egypt in about 950 BC.
Bast expressed the qualities of the lion or cat family, beauty of movement, agility, strength, caution, fidelity to the pride, all of which could equally be interpreted at the spiritual level.
During the New Kingdom (1539 - 1075 BC) she became equated with Sekhmet, the lioness deity of war.
Into the Greek period, she would be equated with the virgin huntress Artemis and considered the protectress of children and pregnant mothers, musicians, and a goddess of all sorts of excess, especially sexual excess.

GACOYA (Part 2): Country

On my way home to San Antone from Newark, there was a stopover at the Charlotte airport, where I saw these kindly rocking chairs in a waiting area! How friendly and rustic is that!

Speaking of "rustic": When we "Newarkians" deplaned in Charlotte, there was no "tunnel" for us to walk through to get into the airport; we all simply climbed down the stairs of the plane onto the tarmac and then, if we had carry-ons that had been stowed, we waited outside for those to be unloaded.

Another woman and I both grabbed our luggage as soon as it appeared, headed toward the building, and then stopped short in the same spot, puzzled. Neither of us could figure out how to actually get INSIDE the airport! The woman looked at me, shook her head, and said, "We in the country."

Going All Christmasy On Your Ass! (Part 1)

This isn't actually very Christmasy at all, but I noticed it on my mom's back porch while I was in San Antone for Christmas. (That counts!) A mutantly large rubber-tree plant! The pictures don't adequately capture how kind-of-creepy this thing is. Here's what happened...

Years ago, during one of my moves, I gave my mom my little rubber-tree plant to keep. It was about 1-1/2-feet tall at the time. She put the plant, in its planter, on her porch, where it grew normally for a while... And then, about a year ago, it decided it didn't like just being in its planter any more... It snuck a tendril outside of the pot and burrowed into the actual ground between the planter and the cement of the porch... And now look at the friggin' monster-of-a-thing! Its "tendrils" are now more than an inch thick, and the plant itself towers about 13 feet high!

(Gee, the symbolism... Like, you know, a daughter leaving her home, er, POT of Texas and sneaking a tendril out into the Great Big World... Ha! I can only dream of being as mighty as this guy!)

Chelsea Styles/Frank O'Hara

http://thiswomanisdangerous.blogspot.com/2007/04/chelsea-styles-part-2.html

Some of you might remember my first forays into "Chelsea Styles," the tiny "Blue Velvet"-esque beauty shop I discovered by accident when I first moved to NYC. (See above link, from 4/28/07, an account of my second visit there. My first, equally odd, visit was in March of that year; there's also a blog entry for that, if you want to look it up.)

After nearly 2 years, despite my initial befuddlement at the lack of hair gel and blow-drying, and at the bevy of 80-year-olds who frequented the place... I've been coming back, with only one exception, ever since!

Only now, my friends... I am a regular.

And the formerly-known-as-"Robert Goulet-man" (Vincent) who runs the place now says "Hiya, Stephanie" when I arrive, and asks me if I want a drink, and how's Weehawken, and how's my new job; my regular stylist Mayra knows to put gel on my hair while it's wet; AND, best of all, I now get my blow-drys for free! (Unlike the $30 they charged a newbie way back when.) And, for Christmas, today Vincent gave me a 2009 address book, embossed in gold with "A World of Thanks" and the shop's address/phone...It's 225 West 23rd (just across from the Chelsea Hotel), for anyone who wants to visit.

I still, though, have yet to see any customer under 70 in there...

Today the ladies were really acting up, on account of the Christmas music playing on the radio. The "Noel" song came on. So one lady started shrieking "Noel, Noel" at the top of her lungs to be funny. It was indeed humorous.

But then another lady got jealous of the attention the first lady was getting. I happened to be sitting there in the pedicure chair, completely defenseless, when this second lady decided to serenade me. Personally. I have no idea what the song was, but she said it had been in her head all day...I smiled politely, trying not to crack up, a la what I'd done to the singing guy at the Christmas party.

Luckily, Vincent saw what was happening and called over to her to come RIGHT NOW to get her shampoo. She went immediately, but then started in on him about the Christmas songs on the radio: "Are they trying to compete with me? They can't compete with me! [la-la-la] Is this a contest? I'm gonna win this one! [la-la-la]"

She eventually quieted down. And I was left with my thoughts in the pedicure chair while I waited for the polish to dry, staring out the window at the passersby and at the famous Chelsea Hotel directly across the street: "Here I am at Christmastime in New York City, getting a pedicure, looking out at the snow and the people and the Chelsea Hotel..."

Wow. It wasn't exactly an epiphany, but it was a moment of contentment. I was so full of LIKE for everything: for the ladies in the shop, for Vincent, for my getting a pedicure in the winter (which I'd never even gotten before until this past summer---getting one in winter just seems, oh, decadent!), for the people who stared in the window while they walked by, for my view of the Chelsea Hotel out the shop window...

It reminded me of this Frank O'Hara poem that I first came across in David Wevill's class at UT-Austin in the '80s when I was a kid:

Autobiographia Literaria

When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.

If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan."

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!


I don't feel like a freak now. Thank you, New York. I am so grateful.

Stephanie Rule: One Word For Snow

And that word is... "snow." At least in America. I don't care what the TV anchor- and weather-people tell you: It is now verboten to call it "powder" and, worse, "the white stuff"! (I know, I know...the Eskimo have, what is it, 50 words? That's very creative. But until we in America can come up with some equally creative alternatives, I hereby declare that only "snow" is permissible!) :)

Anyway, Friday was the first snowstorm of the season here in Joisey/NYC. We got about 4 inches in Weehawken. Our office had word that a storm was coming, so we all got work to take home and didn't have to come in on Friday. It was really relaxing to be all warm and cozy and leisurely doing editing while watching all the slipping-and-sliding and snow-plowing and car-scraping and sidewalk-shoveling/salting outside my window. People were busy out there!

I looooooove this weather! Being from Texas, seeing maybe an inch or two of snow every 2 or 3 years, if that, it's all still very ghostly and exotic to me. (And I've always loved winter clothes more than summer clothes---the hats, the boots, the gloves, the sweaters... I love shopping for them and getting all bundled up.)

These first two shots are from my front window, the second two from the back kitchen window, and the last, just my plants enjoying the white light.

WET

In late October of this year, someone I knew from my college years 20 years ago came back into my life, briefly. Here's a poem I wrote for her last October:

The kid in her, at 46
Still smoking "wet"
Still screaming at the stars, coating the walls
with quotes from Ted Hughes
Bemoaning lost love and the god
she'd never given up

There was a walk we never took
A swim we never had
We never got wet, despite my wanting

And now we are not kids, I am so glad.

A Christmas Memory: Rinder-Rouladen

The most succulent, tender, best-tasting beef meal ever, a Christmas staple in the Jones family, thanks to my mom's German recipe. The name translates to "Beef Roll-ups." And I cannot wait to eat it when I go home this Christmas!!

The below is the best alternative recipe I could find online, though the inclusion of dill pickles (!) is ridiculous! (It's just extremely tender, red-wine-marinated steak rolled up with chopped onions and bacon, dammit---no freaky pickles! Though, one time, just for a test, our family ordered this dish at a San Antonio restaurant... It came with pickles, the meat was tough...It was nasty! The test proved that it wasn't the dish that was so good, it was my mom's cooking!)

When my mom first came to America as a new bride in the early '60s, her own recipe for this dish was featured in a local Texas paper. We still have the clipping in a scrapbook. I don't have that with me now, but here's the pickly online recipe I just found to give you a general idea of what it is:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977424871

I will always remember my mother's rinder-rouladen, pot-roast, and home-made pizza. (And I will always hope to forget those godforsaken stuffed bell peppers that kept showing up on the dinner table! To this day, when I taste bell peppers, it reminds me of what "cramps" and "evil" must taste like!) :)

Guess Who

You'll never guess who this is (aside from my Dream Girl, that is)... (Hint: Very famous, posing as 20s vamp Theda Bara.)

My most favorite goosebump-raising Christmas songs

1984/1969

"Tonight thank god it's them instead of you..."

Fruitiest Christmas Songs Ever

While driving to the company Christmas party this afternoon, my boss thought she'd get us in the mood by tuning in to her Sirius radio's Christmas station. Unfortunately, this was the first song we heard:



We were all listening, aghast: WHAT is this "ba-noing-a-noing"?! How fruity is this?!

Psychic that I am, I said, while the Jewel song was still on, "I've only heard ONE Christmas song that's fruitier than this..." Famous last words, because as soon as the Jewel song ended, what should come on but...

Baby, it's bad out there!

I love Dean. How smooth is he! (At a Christmas party a couple of years ago, this song came on. I was sitting on a couch next to an Irish guy, who commented wryly, "It's not like Mr. Martin would ever try to bust a move or anything.") :)

"Get over that hold-out,
Baby, it's cold outside..."

Kiki Meets Kervorkian: A Christmas Songbird

The company I work for had a huge Christmas luncheon today, and for entertainment while we ate was an ancient 80-something Dr. Kervorkian-lookalike in an undertaker's suit hunched over a tiny keyboard and belting out the Christmas tunes! The man was so into it that I constantly had to stop eating and just watch him in action! (All the while ecstatically fearful that he'd jump up and start singing to individual tables.) Occasionally, he'd even pick up a trumpet and play that, while still playing the keyboard with his other hand! The best part was his vocals, though, which sounded an awful lot like Kiki's (of "Kiki and Herb"---see video below). And his interpretation of some of the Christmas songs...A sample lyric of his from "Winter Wonderland":

We'll walk unabashed
while we get smashed
walkin' in a winter wonderland!

I'm sorry, but at that, I started laughing so hard that people at other tables were staring at me. I laughed so hard that I cried and had to cover my face. Every time I thought I'd calmed down some, he'd toss something else like that into the mix, and I'd start all over again. (By this time he'd noticed me and my reaction---since I was sitting at the table closest to him!---and started grinning and winking at me, which of course set me off even more.)

Then my boss and I noticed a wedding-ring on his finger, so my boss launches into a spiel, pretending to be his wife at home while he's practicing his act: "Edgar! Enough with the Christmas songs!! Yer driving me crazeeeee!!! Would ya come eat your dinner!!!!" (When I mused aloud about how I wished I'd worn a red-velvet prom dress to lunch so I could lie across his keyboard, an earnest co-worker said, "Do you really still have your prom dress?")

Oh...my...god. Now I'm obsessed with him. I'm going to the Human Resources Dept. tomorrow to find out who he is and where the hell they found him. I wonder: Did he used to play Atlantic City 50 years ago? Does he spend all year practicing his Christmas tunes? Does he get other gigs? Does he have a CD out that I can buy? Any publicity photos available? I'll let you know what I find out!

Poor Rhett

This song's for Rhett, always having to listen to Scarlett's stupid pining for Ashley.

Hardwired/Water Signs

With age, I see how my sexual preferences cross-reference over the years:

In 1986, I was madly in love with a woman: Scorpio, painter/poet, dark.

In 1989, my first girlfriend was a Scorpio, painter/poet, dark, with hands exactly like the 1986-woman.

In 2000, my first "Internet love" was a Pisces (aka, watered-down Scorpio), whose INVENTED back-story was almost exactly like the REAL life story of the 1986-woman (that's pretty uncanny), and whose communicating with me online was/is eerily similar to the other, recently-in-touch-with---mostly nuance and image and maddening-ness...but extremely, subtly sexy at the same time, and prone to burst out with the most odd/interesting/profound thoughts that make you think and laugh for days and ever...

I went to lunch today with my boss and a co-worker, and we were discussing their kids and genetics---my boss's little 2-year-old girl hangs her foot outside her bedcovers every night, just like her dad; my co-worker's now-grown daughter has always stuck her tongue out of her mouth when she's concentrating, just like her dad...

I didn't mention for their lunch-time consideration: "Well, Little Steffie always seems to like these psychologically complex women who get her off in a myriad of ways..." Nah. I think, instead, I just said I thought the salad was really good.

p.s. The above Water Signs were/are also hardwired---unfortunately, not one of them for ME! 1986 likes old rich men; 1989 likes teenaged punk girls; 2000 likes teenaged gay boys.

Goddammit! ;p

I miss my furniture!

I used to be a girl who owned red velvet furniture.

"The Girl From Hateville"

As soon as I saw this postcard on my soon-to-be-boss's wall back in October, I just knew she'd hire me! ;p

Today we had fun trying to figure out what to contribute from our small, poor copy editing group for the Silent Christmas Auction coming up at work. She'd already bought a big basket, and had a bottle of champagne, so we were trying to go from there. Voila! A girly "movie-night" theme for the basket, based on Marilyn's "How to Marry a Millionaire": a copy of the DVD, the champagne plus 2 glasses, popcorn, bubble-bath, a toy-store tiara and bracelets and boa and evening gloves...

Christmas is a kick! That is... when you're from... HATEVILLE!

Travel Time/mighty fine copy editing

OK, nobody out there cares about this (aw, SHUR ya do! thanks to the 25 or so regulars who keep coming back for more trivial crap about ME-ME-ME!), but for me it's a great big deal! :) I finally whittled down my travel time to work by another 15 minutes. So now, sans car, I'm able to make it in an hour-and-a-half each way, rather than the initial 3 hours, and then hour-and-45-minutes, when I first started attempting it 2 weeks ago.

What USED TO happen when I tried to get further upstate in Jersey from Weehawken, NJ, and then go home again: Mornings: Catch a bus to Manhattan, walk 8 blocks, catch the company shuttle to work, which travelled back through the Lincoln Tunnel that I'd just come through, BACK to Jersey... Afternoons: Catch the company shuttle to the GW Bridge. Get off shuttle, pay a "gypsy bus" $1.25 to get me to the A Train on the Manhattan side of the bridge, take the A Train to the Port Authority (42nd and 8th in Manhattan), then a bus home to Weehawken..... WHEW!!!!

The secret to my newfound success: I finally figgered out that there's a damn bus that takes me from Weehawken to the GW Bridge, where I can then take the company shuttle on into work. In short, I'm saving myself 15 minutes and $5 a day ($100 a month)in bus/subway fare.

What's crazy is, if I had a car, I'd be at work in about a half-hour. But nooooooooo, when I left Texas for, ostensibly, Manhattan, I sold the car thinking I wouldn't ever need one again!

In other work news: When I arrived today, I found a print-out of an e-mail on my desk from an editor that I've never been introduced to. (That's one difference between Texas and NY/NJ---at new jobs in Texas, you spend an hour being dragged around from office to office meeting everyone in the whole company. Here, nuthin'!)

The mail read: "I don't know who 'SJ' is, but please tell her/him that the job she/he did on [whatever it was] was excellent" etc. etc. The editor had sent it to my boss and CC'd his own boss and several other editors. Funnily, my boss had been a tad bit worried last week that I'd been flagging so many pages of MS as having errors. She was thinking that I was querying dumb stuff, but I promised her that 98% of what I was flagging really was outright incorrect, and that the editors would be happy since the next round would be a lot cleaner and faster since we were catching everything at the beginning... TOLD YA SO! ;p

It's nice to be appreciated. It's nice to get to work faster.

Burn Your Playhouse Down

George Jones and Keith Richard. Lord knows how these two got together, but I like the sentiment.

George!

A good bra is hard to find

Back in the olden days, I'd buy bras that would last for 3 years or more. New York-bought bras, however, seem to go bad much sooner---in just a year! It's disturbing.

And now that I mention it, years ago I found the best panties in the world---Adonna. I loved them because they never, ever showed panty lines. And now, they're nowhere to be found here (or in San Antonio, for that matter---last Christmas, I led my mom on a wild goose-chase to some local malls for ADONNA PANTIES, to no avail).

And then there's the matter of Nivea face cream... Also not available in NYC for some godforsakenly unknown reason.

Jesus. Life is hard here in the Big, Saggy Apple.

Grief

My mom just sent me this e-mail today, which I just now read, about her recent trip to Germany to bury her sister Barbel. I only met Tante Barbel three times, when I was 4, and 12, and 18. I can't explain how nice she was, not just on the surface, but the kind look in her eyes, and how kindly she treated everyone, how at-home she seemed to be in the world, even after the tragedy of her husband's suicide and her only daughter's early death. When I was around her, she had many close friends, she radiated peacefulness and kindness. And then now I read this, my mom's report:

"She died as she had lived these past ten years - alone. I did not realize the full extent of her depression until I read her notes (a diary, of sorts). When we had talked in the past, she would always emphasize how content she was living by herself and being independent. And I believed her. I was aware of the physical pain, but unaware of the extent of her mental suffering. She never opened herself up to anyone."

My heart is just broken for her, just broken in general. I can't stop crying............

Here's more of my mom's e-mail after coming back from Germany yesterday:

"My journey to the homeland was a hellish experience. Well, what else can one expect when the last link to one's past has died? I was totally overwhelmed by everything - the sad death, the burial preparations, the bureaucracy.... A three-week nightmare. Tante Baerbel apparently died in her sleep, but was not found until three days later. In a heated house. Due to decomposition having set in, I was unable to see her one last time. She died as she had lived these past ten years - alone. I did not realize the full extent of her depression until I read her notes (a diary, of sorts). When we had talked in the past, she would always emphasize how content she was living by herself and being independent. And I believed her. I was aware of the physical pain, but unaware of the extent of her mental suffering. She never opened herself up to anyone.

The funeral home assisted me in arranging a small memorial service with a wonderful speaker, who brought almost everyone to tears. Afterwards a small catered get-together for friends and family at the house. A few days later burying of the urn in pouring rain at the cemetery - with only me and the professional bereavement speaker present. And that's it. 82 years gone, 51 in the same house. Furniture being sold, photos in the dumpster...."

Life Cycles

In astrology and in many religions (and in movies like "The Seven-Year Itch"!), "7 years" seems to be the accepted cycle for changes in one's life course. Lying in bed last night, I started going back over my life to see if that bit of "accepted wisdom" was true for me... For the most part it was, though I seem to be on more of an every-6-year cycle.

1965-1970. (Born to age 5.) Lived in Denison (TX), Portugal, Charleston, Iowa Park (TX). Despite all the moving, I don't remember feeling any emotional upheavals. OVERALL VIBE: Good.

1971-1976. (Age 6 to age 11.) Brother born in '71 (no real jealousy). Still lived in Iowa Park, then College Station (TX), Robbins Air Force Base (GA), then Iowa Park again. Parents fighting, Dad transfers to GA by himself (where we then follow him for just 9 months after he promises to act right; he doesn't) and then to the Philippines while the rest of us live back in Iowa Park. OVERALL VIBE: Mixed. Mostly bad when Dad is around, mostly good otherwise.

1977-1983. (Age 12 to age 18.) The Azle Years. Moved to Azle (TX) in '77. Parents divorced that year. Lots of drama/trauma before and after. Puberty. Plus I was always popular in school up until I moved here, but not after. I start getting crushes on girls around age 14 (start writing poetry around the same time), fall seriously in love, both sexually and mentally, with a girl (Ginny) my senior year of high school, leave her to go to college. OVERALL VIBE: Bad.

1983-1988. (Age 18 to age 23.) The UT-Austin Years. Bemoan the loss of Ginny during this whole time. (We see each other a few awkward times, but she has already found a new "best friend." Which doesn't stop me from missing her every single day.) Am knocked out by my poetry classes, but otherwise find the UT atmosphere emotionally harsh (mean, shallow frat boys and their women rule; overly crowded and impersonal classes; futile crushes on various girls (I'm not yet out of the closet); shallow personal friends until the very end of this period. I start partying heavily, neglecting school. OVERALL VIBE: Lost.

1988-1993. (Age 23 to age 28.) 1988---FINALLY, I meet some great friends in Austin, people that I actually love, Kathy and Kris. When they go home from school for the summer of '88 because their mother is dying of cancer, they invite me to come live with them. I drop out of UT, move back to the Ft. Worth area to be with them. Their mother dies, I fall in love with Kris, unreciprocated. I then find out that Ginny has just died. Move back to Austin, come out officially, meet my first girlfriend in '89. Bad, chaotic relationship. Break up in '91. Get my outward act together and finally graduate from UT in '93. Have serious affair with an older, married man, my boss. OVERALL VIBE: Complete chaos. Great highs and great lows.

1994-2000. (Age 29 to age 35). To shake myself up and try to get back on track and stabilized emotionally, move to San Francisco for grad school in 1994-1995. Get my grad degree, but absolutely hate the vibe of the town, don't make any friends. (Continue to call both my ex-girlfriend and the married guy.) Move back to Austin. From '96 to 2000, I go back to my old dead-end library job, get completely wasted at clubs 4 or more nights a week out of pure boredom. Chase after my ex-girlfriend and sleep with her one last time in 2000. ("Answered prayers"--ha!) OVERALL VIBE: More than lost.

2001-2006. (Age 35 to age 41). My mom buys me a computer for Christmas 2000, which opens up a whole new world of communication! I love the Internet! I don't feel the need to get wasted at clubs just to be around people...I really get off intellectually on talking to people who share my interests online. I also, in "real life," get a job I like at a publishing company, and make good friends there. And I settle down in a house that I rent from 2000-2007. (The longest I've ever lived in one place.) I finally feel "normal" after so many years in the desert! Plus, I start my Joan Crawford website in 2004, which has remained constantly stimulating. The only thing is... I'm still dreadfully restless. Could picture myself dying in that same house in Austin, having never done anything else with my life, wanted to at least TRY something else before I died... My Austin job gives me the opportunity to travel to NYC---I fall in love. OVERALL VIBE: Relatively good and healthy, thank you! Finally!

2007-the present. (Age 42 to ?). Moved to New York City in early 2007, just to be somewhere that I've always read about and admired from afar... I really do love the place, its energy. And trying to figure out how everything works here has been so stimulating for me! We'll see what happens! OVERALL VIBE: Anticipatory!

----------------------------------


I'd always read that a person's psyche was formed before the age of 5... Looking back at my own experiences, I'd have to disagree. I was fine up until age 5! It was age 12 through age 35 that was so horrible! :)

Thanksgiving '08

Let's see...what do I have to be thankful for over the past year...

BAD NEWS FIRST: Well, not to be mean to '08, but the year kind of sucked, frankly. January was spent sneaking around trying to find a place of my own without my roommate finding out. Feb/March/April were fine. (New apartment/good-paying job.)From late April 'til early November, though, I had no regular employment, was primarily on-call for crappy legal proofing jobs that paid somewhere around $13 an hour after taxes! (I probably could have made more as an overnight produce stocker at the Pathmark!) I did have a regular part-time job at a NYC newspaper for a few months (the bustle of the newsroom was pretty interesting), but the whole paper went bankrupt in late September and shut down completely. I had savings, but as they dwindled, I was too fearful of spending any money, so during those 6-odd months, I didn't see a movie, only bought one shirt, hardly ate out, couldn't buy anything for my sparsely furnished apartment... MIZ-RUH-BULL. (Geez, a lot of the fun in being ALIVE is being able to buy stuff! Just little spur-of-the-moment things like a book, a DVD, a pair of shoes, a candle, a cheap hat from a street vendor...)

NOW, WHAT I'M THANKFUL FOR: New job! New job! New job! New job! Whew! I just started 2 weeks ago. Like my job last year, it's only a project position (which means they may have nothing for me to do when the time period for the project is over next year, and I may be let go then), but... at least it's many months of breathing space and not worrying about rent and having the ability to buy clothes again AND, #1 on my list---a new computer!! God bless the 2000 model I have now---it survived being mailed from Austin to NYC, it survived being repaired after a mover tumped it over off of a dolly... It's been a good friend to me, but... oh, lordy, I can't wait to play with the speedy new models (and look at a humongous flat screen monitor and do PhotoShop!!).

#2 on my list---a new couch. I don't EVER want to sit on my saggy, draggy, stained futon again! I'm moving that thing to the guest-room, dammit, so any guests can have the saggy, draggy, stained thing all to themselves! :)

I also need a better TV, rugs, a dinette set for the kitchen, a chair/ottoman/coffee table for the living-room, neat eBay lamps for all rooms of the house...but most of those can all wait 'til after I get hired permanently somewhere. For the time being, just the computer and the sofa, please!

I'm also thankful for being able to get in touch with some old acquaintances this year, putting a few old memories to rest (plus putting a couple of more recent "memories" to rest). Believe it or not, I don't think there's anyone left out there from my past that I haven't somehow resolved things with one way or another, at least in MY mind. THAT is the biggest, most valuable blessing of all---a cleansed emotional palate. Geez, the years I've spent bemoaning this, that, or the other... And I'm sure I'll be bemoaning a few things in years to come. But for right here, right now... The past is settled, the future awaits.

(p.s. THANK YOU, GOD, FOR EVERYTHING!! You keep pulling stuff out of your bag o' tricks at the last second, just to keep things interesting!) :)

Sarah Palin fans

In the "Blogger Profiles" on this site, you can add a list of things to your "Interests" section. Just recently I added "Sarah Palin." And then went and clicked on "Sarah Palin" to find others who have also listed her, and what THEIR other interests were... Oh lordy. Most of the "Interests" that I saw included stuff like:

conservative views
Jesus
fair tax
GOP
Ann Coulter
being a wife
pro-life
family
TJMaxx
real estate

(OK, there were occasionally also the much more interesting "interracial porn," "public toilets," and "love bites"... but those were by far in the minority.)

Needless to say, it's somewhat disturbing to me to be lumped in with fans of "being a wife" and "TJMaxx"! (While I'm not an aficionado of public toilets, somehow that seems much less bizarre!)

So why do I like Palin?

I think I first hooked into her when I heard her say at her convention speech, re Obama, that "where I come from, people don't talk one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco." Referring to Obama's attempts at being folksy in PA and subsequent mocking, while appearing in SF, of people who owned guns and believed in god. I'd been a Hillary fan in the primaries and couldn't quite put a finger on why I didn't exactly loooooove Obama like everyone else seemed to... Palin got it down. (Congrats to the guy for being so smooth and having such a wonderful speaking style, and I actually do think he'll be a good, smart, very competent president. But I don't necessarily like "smooth"---much prefer Bill Clinton's weirdness.)

Secondly, as with my idol Joan Crawford, I, as a feminist, greatly admire Palin for making something of herself while coming from humble beginnings. Her advances in public life were based on merit...up until the VP pick, that is! (She, admittedly, was out of her element, but only because she had not spent years studying the intricacies of national issues in preparation for a national run for office, as Obama had. His experience was actually less than hers, yet he'd prepped himself thoroughly since being elected to the Senate in 2004, expressly for a presidential run. Palin's knocked for being "dumb," but in areas that she was responsible for while governor, she was extremely well-versed.)

The New York media gave her so much shit for attending "5 public universities"---gasp! While my own undergrad career was spent at only one of the dread "public universities," I didn't think twice about Palin trying out various schools in Idaho and Hawaii, just to experiment.

And, coming from Texas, I'm also comfortable with people who hunt, are pro-life, and are religious. I don't like people who hunt for sport, who are anti-female in their abortion views, who use religion to discriminate against gay people or anyone else... I personally am anti-hunting-for-sport, pro-choice, and anti-organized religion (while being somewhat spiritual). Yet I think of Palin like I think of Mike Huckabee---honest folks who stick to their beliefs, regardless of the political winds. (Unlike, say, the completely phony Mitt Romney.) And who don't let their own personal views interfere with their governing. Contrary to popular belief, Palin never attempted to ban a single book at the Wasilla library or attempted to limit abortion rights in Alaska. And if she and her family hunt for food, to me that's a lot better than the rest of us cowards who just buy our meat in the supermarket without working for it.

Working for the weekend (finally!)

No, I'm not going to post the cheesy Loverboy video! :)

After a week at my new job, I finally got the commute to and from whittled down to a manageable 1-1/2 hours each way (down from a numbing 3 hours!). Still rather insane, and tiring, but at least...manageable.

As soon as I got home from work on Friday afternoon, rather than celebrating the fact that I didn't have to get up at 6am the next day by staying up late and drinking, I instead immediately crashed on my couch at about 8pm. I woke up for a couple of hours around 5am (and watched a teen movie "Drive Me Crazy" on HBO---they only gave it one star, but I ended up getting into it; I'd give it 2-1/2! HBO also gave LiLo's "Georgia Rule" one star---again, I liked that: another 2-1/2), then went back to sleep and didn't wake up again until 11am...

It felt so good for a Saturday to finally MEAN something again!

My last full-time job ended last April and since then I'd been temping, working random hours (or else working nights for a few months at a NY newspaper that went out of business soon after I was hired!). I was always lying around the house for at least 3 or 4 or 5 random days a week, sometimes staying up 'til 9am or later, bored out of my head, unable to really go anywhere or do anything (or buy anything) for fear of draining my savings before I found a new job... The uncertainty of it was horrible! And all the days blended into each other; there was no distinction between a "work-day" and a "weekend," since I was always on call for the temp jobs.

So, after a full week of real work-days and lengthy commuting...the joy of the contrast of sleeping in 'til 11am on a Saturday and then jumping up filled with energy and the excitement of going into Manhattan for a haircut and some clothes-shopping!

I didn't even think a thing of walking the Chelsea streets in the 26-degree weather today---very brisk winter weather (unusual in November for NYC)...I love it! I've always felt sluggish in warm weather, was always depressed in Austin when it was 80 degrees at Thanksgiving (a time for earth-toned sweaters and corduroys, definitely NOT for T-shirts and shorts!). Not to mention the solid 4 months in Austin of 90-degree-plus temperatures (June through September). With another 2 months of 80-plus thrown in for good measure (May + October/into November). I'll definitely grant Austin March and April for being gorgeous and sweet, but that's it! My own nature is definitely much more atuned to the four definite seasons of the Northeast. Said nature is also much more atuned to working a full-time job!

"I just hate when the girl says wait, wait, wait..."

I hadn't thought of this 1976 KISS song, "Makin' Love," in ages, at least since I was in junior high and bought their "Rock and Roll Over" album.

Last night, though, I had a long, convoluted dream with dozens of segments. In one of them, this song was loudly, vividly playing (though I can't remember what visual went with it...). Whatever the subconscious meaning, one thing is clear: KISS fuckin' rocks!! I was getting pumped up just re-listening to it right now!

In a sidenote, at the very end of the dream, just before my alarm went off, I was watching Joan Crawford dramatically pull a purple bedsheet off the bed, to the protests of several onlookers. (Joan defiantly told them, with that stubborn look on her face, "It's MY goddamn sheet and I'll take it if I want to." THIS song wasn't playing then, but the correlation seems apropos!) :)

All Play and No Work

I started a new job on Monday, sharing a large room with 3 other women, all from Joisey. Today, I laughed harder than I've laughed in ages...

Someone in the hall outside of our room said loudly to someone else, "You scared the crap out of me!" At which one office-mate yelled, "Should we call the janitor?"

And this started off the other office-mate telling us about the time she taught a small group of 5-year-olds... One was sick and started to throw up...which made the kid next to that kid start to gag, which made the kid next to him start to gag, in a chain reaction all around the circle they were sitting in! And then the woman said they all started complaining loudly, "It smells!" The woman said she was trying to be comforting and rub their backs, etc., when what she really wanted to do was throw up herself and yell, "It smells!" ;p

And then someone made the mistake of opening up the MSNBC website... The main headline was about a boyfriend who was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend with a sandwich... The sub-head read, "Police Won't Reveal If It Was a Club Sandwich."

Gawd, we must have been cackling for a half-hour! ;p

So anyway, I like my job and the people, but the commute is ungodly---last night it took me 3 HOURS to get home!!! Not 'cause it's so far away, but just because of all the traffic. It was nightmarish.

I do prefer working in Manhattan, not just because of the far shorter commute, but because of being able to step outside...and just being on the streets of Manhattan! Grabbing a bite for lunch, doing some lunchtime shoe-shopping, running to the post office. My place now is a huge corporate building (called "The Compound") out in the suburbs. 3000 people work there! (My whole hometown of Azle had 5000 people!) The building has its own humongous cafeteria, vendors set up in a huge lobby selling gew-gaws, a convenience/card/candy shop... All very nice, but for me, having no car, I'm trapped there all day, unable to do anything but stay in the building (or step outside for a smoke---but at my last job in Manhattan, when I stepped outside for a smoke, I'd see Elvis Costello and Diana Krall walking by! No danger of that here!)

Part of me is definitely grumbling, "Goddammit, I didn't move to NYC to not be in NYC!" But this job is pleasant and pays well...and it's a JOB! So I'm not grumbling too much. At some point, though, I'm going to have to find something back in Manhattan. The suburbs depress me, which is mainly why I left Austin. (Yes, it's a CITY of 500,000, but most of it feels suburban.) It sounds cliche, but I really do get a huge jolt of energy whenever I'm walking around Manhattan. There's a constant buzz on the streets there. I can be in a completely shitty mood and immediately get lifted out of it by all of the activity and lights and smells. ("It smells!") ;p

Girl & Icebox, etc.

RIP: Tante Barbel

My German aunt Barbel died last week. She was 82. The very first female dentist in her town of Braunschweig in the 1950s (there was controversy at the time between her and the one other, male, dentist in their town). The last time I saw her was in 1983. She spoke primarily German, so I couldn't communicate with her very well, but I remember her friendly eyes and expression and manner, and her group of friends that I was too scared to interact with.

Her house was beautiful. Back in the '50s, she'd married an architect, and he'd designed their home that she lived in for the rest of her life. (The stairs upwards were wooden, and separated. My aunt's beloved collie-dog Harris once slipped on them...after that, he would never attempt to go upstairs to sleep with her in her bedroom.)

I never knew the architect-uncle. At some point in the early '60s, he had an affair and, torn between his wife and his lover, parked his car out in a field and shot himself.

My aunt's daughter, Susie, also died young, in her early 20s, from severe complications from asthma. She was always nice to me, and, funnily, the last time I was there with my six-year-old brother, her boyfriend got jealous of the attention she paid my six-year-old brother! He sulked every time she'd play with him!

The husband and Susie are already buried next to each other. My aunt didn't leave any burial instructions, but they'll all three now be reunited.

Election Day in Weehawken

Congratulations to our new President, Barack Obama! I didn't vote for him, but...I'm extremely happy for our country---what a thrilling, goosebump-raising moment in history! (And an end to 8 long, depressing years of utter incompetence.)

Here are a few shots I took while walking around my Weehawken 'hood on election day. (Click to enlarge. If only to see the head in the back of the neighbor's car!)
(1) View from my porch.
(2) My polling place. I voted around 3pm, and there was no line at all.
(3) and (4) Some of my neighbors' exhortations to VOTE! :)
(5) Union house.
Plus a few campaign stickers.