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14 september 2002
last night i was dreaming about something, and i can't remember what it was, but i do remember that i was saying "i'm just happier when everything is clean," and s/he was nodding because s/he knew i am. today i went to the newish apple store in soho to buy an ipod (i ordered one online, but when fedex delivered it, they accidentally delivered it to the hasidic jew-run photo store on the next block, and they signed for it and won't return it to fedex. only in... ), and as i was leaving, there was a middle-aged woman walking in while saying on her cell phone, "i'm just tired of dell's deteriorating customer support..." (emphasis not added by editor)
11 september 2002
11:40pm
if you live in columbus or chicago or some nearby midwestern hamlet, you might lucky enough to see and you will know us by the trail of dead onstage. unzip, then peep this if you haven't heard them yet.
11:15pm
i forgot two things that stuck with me when i read the sunday times, both from the money and business section:
"exasperation is frequently a sign of opportunity."
- robert d. hershey, jr., "opposite paths, no middle ground,"
". . . the end of an awesome innocence"
- gretchen morgenson, "rebound from ruin, if not from distrust"
new york times 8 september 2002
7:45pm
way too crunchy for my 2 friends when we got there, and after about 45 minutes i admit for me too. we really need a sexier category term than "people of color," i mean, really.
6:00pm
still've managed to not turn on the tv today. enough coverage already. getting ready to go to a benefit/protesty thing at cooper union sponsored by a bunch of organizations of color.
4:00pm
another walk on the east river, but there's cops everywhere, even zooming over the pedestrian bridge, so no sneaking through the hole in the fence this time.
1:30pm
one of the reasons i work out (besides wanting to not be ignored at bars, have a ghost of a chance at sleeping my way to the top if need be, get all the health and self-esteem stuff, and not die alone in a gay nursing home) is to feel safer. not just looking less muggable but being physically abler to withstand pain and tension. last year i remembered going to my desk after the first tower was hit and pressing against the back of my chair. at the time i was working at a company where everyone had those now-bubble-economy-memoribiliac aeron chairs, so the back extended all the way to the top of my head. i remember appreciating that for the first time then, because my neck felt unusually vulnerable. my neck and my temples are areas of anxiety for me—i daydream all the time about something striking me from a passing car, through a window, who knows, in one of those spots.
1:00pm
as you may've guessed, i'm "working at home" today. somehow the thought of my cubicle on the top (16th) floor of a building right on the water in midtown manhattan made my stomach turn. i emailed some folks that are there today and it's all quiet and somber, they said, and everyone is watching tv in the dotcommy gameroom. a friend of mine died last year—he was on the 97th floor of 1 wtc. it was his second day of work there. we weren't super close, but he was a good guy.
12:00n
the wind is blowing all the tarps and stands around at the union square greenmarket. last night when i was walking down 4th street, which is particularly wide and open and airy, at midnight or 1:00 or so, there was a young guy and girl walking down the street, kind of clutching each other, and the girl kept hiccuping and then saying "shit."
11:05am
can't that nigerian spammer lay off one day outta the year?
10:30am
run down the street to get something to eat. it's a sunny, mild, beautiful-looking day in the neighborhood, just like last year. it's also windy, which is perfect. read the dining & wine section of the paper that someone left at their table and give the nice french girl a 50% tip.
8:50am
i wake up with a hangover (a red stripe and 3/4 of a corona. why do i have to be such a puss?), but the world is still standing.
9 september 2002
working on my 100 things list is a good distraction in general.
7 september 2002
i'm in jersey this weekend babysitting my niece and nephew. i like them but i want another semi-wild weekend like last, and they're being so well behaved that this is either their style when their parents aren't around, or they're scared of me. they didn't want a story read to them, and they themselves suggested getting ready for bed. that ain't right.
today i took my niece to the pool since it was so nice outside and all we'd done in the morning was get through two cooking shows and the saturday times. it was closed for the season despite the awesome, perfect swimming weather. we went to the adjacent playground instead; she swinged while i sat on the bench, read lolita, and tried to ignore any disturbing misinterpretations of how all this would sound in an entry. i debated climbing the pool fence, but while i want my niece to grow up thinking "do what you want until someone complains," her parents want her to grow up thinking "law-abiding citizen," so relented.
now it's 10:18pm and all is quiet on the jersey front. i am surfing—the kind i haven't done in ages, where you check out your friends' blogs and actually click the links in their links pages/columns—and realizing how much fun it still is when you have the time and wherewithal to do it. this is what got lots of us excited about the web, right? that i can give you this this and this and you might be into it or something else linked off of it?
4 september 2002
tonight when i got home my apartment was pitch black. the power had gone out. my landlord came over and shined the flashlight right on the magazine photo of a guy's bare ass, which happened to be stuck on top of the fuse box. no comment. he called his electrician and they spent hours speaking in croatian tongues to each other. it turns out that when con-ed came to disconnect a non-paying tenant's power, they accidentally did me in instead. i had a cafe au lait at the creperie next door and read my book while the nice asian french waitress with a tattoo on her right shoulder blade hung out with her biker boyfriend behind the counter. then i tried in vain to find a movie to see (this is freaking downtown manhattan and all the theaters are closed at 11. what's up wif dat?). finally i get home to find my landlord stringing an extension cord out my back window to the garden three floors down. a lamp, the fridge, and my alarm clock are soon plugged in and i'm off to my third world bed.
3 september 2002
yesterday i couldn't stand being cooped up inside any longer and decided to go for a walk even though it was drizzling. it actually felt great once i got out there. i walked down 6th street to avenue d (i love how when you get there, the billboards turn into spanish and chinese), then past it to the f.d.r., then over the pedestrian bridge. the walk along the east river has been fenced off for over a year now, because they say that the concrete isn't stable and they need to reinforce it. today i saw a tear in the fence that had been mended with a sheet of fence, but the sheet was loose. i looked around for cops and then crawled through. you hardly get anything all to yourself in the city—it pretty much starts and stops with your shitty studio—so this was kind of a treat for me, to walk up and down the east river with nobody around and an unadulterated view of the domino sugar factory sign and the smokestacks and williamsburg bridge and the wind blowing the river southward. i saw some people pointing at me but no biggie. for a second i imagined the sidewalk crumbling underneath me and falling into the river, but i guess the stairmistress time earlier that day saved me from weighing things down too much.
today i had my little consultation and showed anil some of my grid ideas: five, six, and eighteen. five and eighteen are now on my right and left shoulders, respectively, in magic marker. for now i'm leaning towards 18 with slightly thicker lines and maybe one or two boxes shaded. i was nervous. i talked about working with architects and liking things that are beautiful and emotional but that also had some precision to them. he showed me some klimt paintings that he thought had a similar idea as what i'm going for:
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eighty-seven members of the university . . . accused klimt of presenting 'unclear ideas through unclear forms' . . . a puzzle which seemed to suggest that the mysteries of life were ultimately impenetrable and that human existence consisted of nothing more than the infinitely repeated cycle of birth, copulation and death . . . klimt's painting annoyed virtually every ideological faction in vienna: the academics found the symbolism too vague, and the catholics took exception to the nudity."
2 september 2002
tomorrow i have my tattoo consultation with anil. i'm excited and a little nervous. what if i get it right then and there? what if everyone thinks it's stupid? (i think it'll be one of the things i drew on grid)
