Category: ultrapersonal

Where does the time go? Another one of those anxious e-mails from Mom reminded me that my posting has slacked off once again, and the question of whether or not I’m still alive has once more come up. Yes, I live. Life is a seemingly endless cycle of work, dentist appointments, and errands, but I live nevertheless.

As much as I adore Teen Dentist and hate the idea that I’ll be passed onto another DDS-in-training when he graduates in a couple of weeks, I am sick to fucking death of going to the dentist once or twice a week after work. The clinic at NYU only doles out appointments in two-hour blocks, so something complicated like root canal can’t be done in one marathon sitting. That means that not only do I get drilled and filled over and over again, but then I also lose a couple of days afterward feeling crummy from all the lingering discomfort. Zero fun. (Plus, I’m pretty sure I won’t be passed on to the other super-cute dental student so I won’t even have that small bright spot to cheer me up.)

Work is work, of course. Work is also any and all of my assorted part-time jobs and freelance obligations, so I lose giant chunks of time just hauling ass from one end of the city to another when I’d rather sit in one place and concentrate for an effective amount of time on each of my projects.

Not everything sucks, though. Special Agent Josh continues to keep me from descending into full-on workaholic hermit mode, and that’s good for both my overall morale and the relative cleanliness of my apartment, which would surely become a full-on pit of filth if I didn’t have someone over to keep me company and shame me into tidying up once or twice a week. (He doesn’t nag, I just can’t bear the thought of having him see how truly sloppy I can be when no one is around.)

The last couple of weekends I’ve also had the pleasure of spending time with my old pal Dave and his girlfriend, who have recently returned from an ill-conceived year in L.A. that made them realize how much they love living in Boston after all. I was able to offer them last-minute accomodations one week, and then they were able to repay the favor this past weekend, which means that I got to see more of Dave in the last two weeks than I have in about the last five or six years. Seeing as he’s my bestest pal, that’s a really good thing.

I wish I could say the rest of my far-flung social network was in such good shape. It used to be a mild technique for avoiding stress and finding time to work, but my tendency to fall out of touch with people I care about has blossomed into a full-on shame spiral that I can’t quite fix, and that makes me feel shittier and shittier all the time. A mild aversion to spending time on the phone has become an almost pathological avoidance of telecommunication. I stopped socializing much as a concession to the Rooster’s aversion to crowds and bars, but it eventually became my own bad habit of never getting out that much and then never wanting to talk about how unhappy I was becoming. My irregular, hectic work schedule has sucked up most of my time, leaving me clinging to the restful solitude of the occasional hours I get to myself, and pretty much totally unable to make plans for any actual leisure time.

As a result of all this (and varying amounts of guilt, embarrassmant, exhaustion, self-consciousness, etc.), I am surrounded by the rotting corpses of many a dear friendship. People I love and long to see assume I hate them and have stopped keeping after me. My neglect has become so shameful that I can’t really blame them, and I don’t know how to repair all the damage without a whiney fistful of excuses and explanations that sound lame even to me. Feeling lonely has become a bit of a guil-inducing crutch. It’s a sucky feeling to carry around, but at least it’s safe, familiar territory by now. After all, why should anyone bother when I’m such a wet noodle so much of the time? The truth is, though, I’m better company when I hate myself less, and I hate myself less when I have good company. I just wish I’d done a better job of remembering that during the last few years.

Bleah. Sorry for all the crabbiness, but it’s the mood of the day.

I’ve only been able to glean a few details about the private life of Teen Dentist, who’s seen more of me lately than almost anyone else, but they all fascinate me:

• He likes Led Zeppelin more than he likes contemporary music. “They have some really great songs that most people don’t know about.”
• He graduates this May, but is going to do a residency at a hospital for a while because stuff like that helps younger guys get into orthodontics programs more easily.
• So all signs point to an aspiration to have a cushy orthodontics practice back on Long Island some day.
• His father is a dentist, but he doesn’t seem really excited about going into practice as the “and Son”. When asked what his father is like, he kinda frowns and says, “like most fathers, I guess.”
• Is Dad Dentist an orthodontist, or is Teen Dentist hoping to strike out on his own?
• Teen Dentist has a bit of an awkward way about him. (Adorable.) He knows he ought to crack more jokes, for instance, but he can’t seem to think of them quickly enough to use them when you give him an opening. He knows it’s a good idea to use your name when talking to you, but he kinda forgets until it’s a little too late, so there’s usually an odd pause before he inserts your name into a phrase.
• He seems to be a little intimidated by more gregarious people, like the frat-boy assistant he had that one time, or by the sassy lady professor that worked with him last night. Everyone seems to love him, but it’s like he gets social performance anxiety.
• He’s cute and very well-groomed, but hasn’t quite figured out a personal style that works. One day his hair was gelled into a fauxhawk, but that didn’t last. He tends to wear sweatsocks and brown dress shoes with his scrubs.

I swear, you just want to give him a makeover and a hug and send him off on his drillin’, fillin’ way. He makes me feel very paternal, even though I’ve only got ten or twelve years on him.

Apparently yesterday’s snowstorm was accompanied by lightning, which sounds like a pretty incredible sight that I seem to have missed altogether. It could have been cool enough to make me forget my ovarall aversion to snowy weather. I was holed-up in the Cracker Factory, staying true to my vow to remain locked indoors for at least 36 hours while the worst of the snowfall went about its business.

I did seem some amazing lightshows, though. The Long Island Railroad tracks emerge from their underground tunnel right acrosss from me, and the ice and snow did a phenomenal job of reflecting the sparks that the train cars make on the tracks. All night long I would see the brilliant flashes of blue coming up from street level, lighting up the dreary sky with some much-needed zing.

I wish those flashes could be harnessed as a source of heat, though, seeing as how my heater stopped turning itself on yesterday at about 2 in the afternoon. Lcukily there was enough ambient heat seeping in from elsewhere inthe building, but things still felt pretty frosty, especially by this morning. It’s really one of my all-time biggest beefs about this particular piece of equipment: it generally works just fine until things get really cold, and then it seems to suffer from performance anxiety and it stops altogether until the pressure’s off. It makes for a very Bohemian vibe, I assure you.

It’s my last night here in the UK, and I am definitely not going out in style. I spent the day checking out the type-design gang in Reading today, sitting in on some seminars which nearly fried my fragile brain with information overload. Completely awesome information overload, mind you, but an overload all the same. Cat-related complications have been making it pretty hard to sleep, so it was a bit of a challenge to sit still and absorb too much new information at one time. My original plan was to hang out in London one last night with my old pal Tim, but he had to cancel, so I’m biding my time in Reading, sitting around glassy-eyed and tired until it’s a reasonable hour for me to go to sleep once and for all. I’m booked into a drab little guest room on campus for the evening, but at least it’s cat-free so I’ll be able to pass out more efficiently than the last few nights.

I’m a little sad to be leaving, a little disappointed that I didn’t have time to do much or see enough people while I was here, a little intimidated to think about taking out some huge-ass loans, a lot excited about living here for a while, and — in case it wasn’t obvious enough — entirely too delirious with fatigue to make much of a coherent point about anything at the moment.

Happy New Year! Or at least it goddamn better be. Since the thumpa thumpa coming through my apartment walls has resumed and I can no longer nap in peace, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on the year that’s past and consider the year ahead. See, that way it shows that I’m deep and thoughtful and sensitive, right? (Perhaps I’m just wallowing in sulkiness, though.)

Major Events of 2005:

• • I touched a New Kid’s butt: Much less exciting or tawdry than it sounds, but it makes a good story.
  • My oldest friend almost won an Oscar: I can’t take personal credit, of course, but it was a very big deal and I was exploding with pride.
  • Acute appendicitis: As I often say, nothing is quite as slimming as organ removal. Also, it hurts like a bitch. For weeks. But I’ve got a cool scar. Apparently, I could have died if I hadn’t gotten to my doctor on time.
  • Typecon 2005: My favorite conference came to New York this year, and I loved it again. I count it as an event not just because it was awesome, but because it clarified some things for me and set me down a path that might lead to grad school once and for all.
  • Big, messy break-up: It really did, and continues to, hurt like hell to admit that it was a bad situation, and it was worse to do something about it. Life is a lot better in lots of ways, but I also can’t hide from the fact that I’m still reeling from the giant piles of pain caused by the whole situation.
  • I moved back to Brooklyn: It’s been really nice to have a home of my own again, especially one that actually feels like home. I can’t say exactly why Brooklyn has such a hold on me, but it does. People keep saying that my new place really suits me, which is something that I never heard in Astoria.

Major Accomplishments of 2005:

• WYSIWYG: We’ve put on damn fine shows this year, and I’m very proud of all the design stuff I’ve done, my two performances this year, and the fact that Chris, Andy, and I have kept this awesome thing going for so long.
• Design: Much to my surprise, this latest attempt at self-employment has gone pretty well. In fact, I’ve had more work than I can generally handle, which is certainly better than having less than I need. I’ve also managed to do a lot of great work, especially all the stuff for P.S. 122 this past Fall, when they gave me a pretty free hand to art-direct the hell out of all their marketing and promo stuff. It turns out I’m not that bad.
• Photography: I started taking pictures more seriously this year, and using my own photography in a lot of my design work (and stuff). As a result, I got a bunch of good credits, and I may be branching off into a side business in photography, in case you need anything.
• Teaching: It also turned out that I’m a pretty good teacher, too, which is great since I’ve wanted to get back to that. I started teaching design and type classes at City College last year, but it became obvious during the last couple of semesters that the students are eager to take my classes, and the administration thinks I’m doing a good job. And, most importantly to me, my students have all been doing good work, and I’ve been able to see really incredible improvement in the ones I’ve had in more than once class, in ways that seem to tie in directly to the things I taught them.
• The break-up: It was really hard to finally admit how unhappy I was in that situation. It was bad judgement for me to avoid that reality for so long, but ultimately good to deal with it once and for all.

Major Failures of 2005:

• The break-up: There’s no way for that stuff to go well, especially when you have to choose your own well-being over someone else’s. I failed to make that situation work, and then I failed to convince him to stay my friend.
• Social life: In fact, I failed to convince just about anyone to stay my friend this year, as near as I can tell. I spent so much time paralyzed by depression, unwilling to admit I was unhappy, and buried in work or lethargy that I pretty much lost touch with most people I know. I feel shitty enough about that, but even shittier about not knowing how to repair the rifts. It’s a big conundrum that being around people I love always makes me feel better overall, but it’s the first thing I stop doing when I feel overwhelmed.
• Running my own business: Would someone please, please, please be my business manager and accountant? I’m a total idiot when it comes to managing myself. I can do good work, but I overextend myself, underpay myself, drop deadlines, and generally go mental trying to organize it all.
• Hair: I never got a haircut I really liked when I had a full head of hair, and I can no longer hide the fact that it’s swiftly disappearing. Shaving it off seems to be as much of a cuteness disaster as working with what’s left.

Now here’s the rough part. What am I likely to change in the year ahead? Resolutions are all fine and good, but I think they’re like birthday wishes — better left as secrets until they happen. So what do I think the year will bring me?

Goals for 2006:

• Grad school: I’m crossing every finger and every toe that it will work out, because I think I’ve found the right place to be, a program where I can go type-crazy without all the other stuff I’d have to deal with in other design programs. I’m off to Reading, England, in a couple of weeks to check it out. If they like me, I like them, and Sallie Mae has some money for me, I’m hoping to be an expat student living abroad before the year is out.
• Health: As long as I can avoid any other emergency surgeries, I look forward to another year of robust well-being. Hell, now that my bike isn’t hidden in a basement anymore, I may find myself a becoming little trim in addition to the skinny thing I’ve managed to rediscover already.
• Travel: So far I know I’ll be in England in January and Boston in August. I’d like to spread my wings a little farther than that if I can.
• Friends: If you’ll all bear with me and kick me in the ass from time to time if there’s too much radio silence, I would really like to reconstruct the tattered remains of my circle of friends. It wasn’t you, it was me, and I’m a lot better with you than without you.

[Editor’s note: I realize this whole entry has been long and badly written. I wince when I look at all those repetitive conjunctions and clauses. Fuck it, though, I’m tired and need another nap.]

Oh my god, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. Via Gawker comes this revolting article about how gosh-darn warm, friendly, and civilized Brooklyn is. The whole essay is unctuous enough, but it really goes for the gold with this money (literally) quote at the end:

“You know in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, when, at the end, the hobbits have been up in this fantastic place, and they’ve been hanging out with Gandalf and Liv Tyler and all of these people, right?” said Edward Wilson, 36, a banker at Goldman Sachs who moved with his wife, Hesu (Suzy) Coue, 39, from the West Village to a brownstone in Park Slope. “And then suddenly they’re back in the Shire, and they’re all kind of in the pub. And when we were watching the film, and it’s all over, we just looked at each other and both said, ‘Brooklyn.'”

Now I love, love, love Brooklyn, and I only hold a little bit of a grudge that I can’t really afford to live in the prettier neighborhoods of it, but I can still only handle so much rhapsodizing about its innocent pleasures. Brooklyn’s charm isn’t really it’s casual attitudes toward its celebrities (which is bull) or its suburban feel (which is also bull). It’s always been hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I love about Brooklyn so much, but it sure ain’t nuthin’ that feels validated just because Heath Ledger lives in an expensive pad there.

Update!: And this ludicrously late-to-the party puff piece from the Washington Post also made my eyes roll back far enough to read the inside of my head. Gosh! Who knew Williamsburg was so trendy! (Remember thos sarcasm marks I mentioned yesterday. I needed one right there.) The most delicious part about the WP story is the subtext anyone around here understands: it’s an article promoting the neighborhood in a way that will only encourage further invasion by people no one in Williamsburg would actually want there. Well, the real estate developers want them, but that’s about it. And everyone else basically wants their money, but not the people actually spending it. That my friends, is the snotty hypocrisy about gentrification that makes me so giggly when I hear people talking — still — about how much Williamsburg has changed since they first got there [insert absurdly small number] years ago.

And even though my current neighborhood is in the crosshairs, I figure I’ve still got a couple of years of affordable space there before I get squeezed out again.

I was a teenage groupie. Which isn’t so unusual, really. Music is one of the easiest ways to forge, or at least latch onto, an identity when you’re young. (Or even when you’re not so young). It’s a way to connect to a ready-made tribe. Being a groupie gives you a sense of belonging, and a sense that if you just try a little harder, or make a better impression, you can become part of that group you’re so obsessed with.

By my junior year of college, I had already done New Wave and Industrial. I was maturing out of my ska phase and developing an appreciation for a wider array of microscopic subgenres, but for a while there wasn’t much that hit the spot. I wasn’t angry enough to be all that punk, and the exploding grunge scene just didn’t do it for me. I wasn’t clubbing enough to care about dance music yet, and I was still too self-conscious to accept how much I really liked ’70s music. I was yearning for something to grab me.

One night my best friend Dave and I went to a show at the student union. It was a decidedly unhip venue for a city with a music scene like Boston’s, but it was cheap and we were poor. The band hit the stage, and I saw an 8-piece sideshow of fun. The singer/trumpet player wore Muppet-fur pants. The keyboard player wore a stuffed bear’s head for a hat. The horn section was awesome, and everyone in the band was a natural showman. They were silly, they had the funk, and I was dancing my ass off within seconds.

“These are my people,” I thought.

Continue reading “Mix It Up and Do the Do”

It’s finally time to put up curtains in the windows of my new pad. Up until now, I’ve been enjoying the luxury of facing a row of empty buildings across the street, so there was no worry about peeping neighbors. Which is great, because I haven’t felt like attaching curtain rods to the masonry in the front of my place.

Once again, though, my penchant for low-ish rents in uncool neighborhoods has found me at the crest of yet another wave of hipster migration. (I haven’t dubbed my building “the Cracker Factory” for nothing, you know.) Last week I saw them loading some sheet rock into one of the empty buildings across the street. Last night, I saw all the lights on in there, and the front door standing open. That, my friends, is what an open house looks like.

So Special Agent Josh and I ran over to inspect what they’ve built, and check out whether or not the new tenants would be able to see into my apartment. Sure enough, the factory has been carved into a bunch of modestly sized lofts, with one floor ready to go in a couple of weeks, and two more floors ready in the next couple of months. A decent conversion job, in case you’re interested, and the rents aren’t all that bad. Of course, the street-facing units all have an outstanding view of my desk at the moment, in case you own binoculars and want to see what’s on my screen. The angle would make it hard for my eventual new neighbors (who seemed to be racing to submit their applications last night, even for the units that haven’t been built yet) to see anything else in my place, but this new development would only make me feel weird about people watching over my shoulder when I work.

But the other bloggers are already starting to follow me to the neighborhood, so I figure that if people are coming to the area, I may as well at least try to give any interested friends and readers a heads-up on any opportunities to stalk me.