finally back. drained. my stomach still has that strange ache. it's sort of warm and achy. i can live with it. my head, however, feels like it's underwater. i really didn't want to drive home. i should not operate heavy machinery. i successfully did not have beer with (second) dinner. i think this is a combination of actual side effects and mental distress. i think i'm going to go on the wagon for a while.

rehearsal was weird. that's about the only word there is to describe it. it's weird hearing people speak words you've written. it's weird seeing paper come half-alive. it's weird sitting there, wanting to run away and hide and not watch. it's weird hearing people laugh at something you intended to be funny. it's weird allowing myself to think i have achieved a small degree of success. it's weird thinking i have so much further to go and i need to get my shit together and get there. i can't just stagnate like i've been, humming a tuneless tune.

afterwards, pizza with the theatre people and mr fabulous, who, of course, is banging his english class reader. oh well, it was a nice pipe dream while it lasted. unfortunately por moi, his hotness continues unabated. and after that, over to jeremie and sheri's, attempted dinner at chez felix or whatever it's called, successful dinner at old town. burger and fries: grade a. coke: b-, too syrupy.

my stomach is wigging. it is dark and my room is hot. time to pass out.

"you feel the madness gaining
you know you just can't win"
posted at 11:47 PM

yup, missed the last 50.2 seconds. should have padded. oh well. sorry, mopete. next: shower, dress, vroom to a2.
posted at 1:26 PM

mr fabulous gb just called. swoon. i was going to have dinner with e and i after rehearsal this afternoon, but he said i should come eat with him and the actors and who am i to argue? unfortunately, no proposal of marriage was tendered. but i've got two weeks to rectify that.

i'm on my third day of meds. i think i'm noticing a weird ache around my upper stomach/ribcage area when i take them, but that might be psychosomatic. i'm not sure.

finally watching knicks-raptors game 3. i should really just shower and dress and get toothpaste and take my bike into the shop to get cleaned and tuned up, but it's now been two days since the game was on and i'm sick of avoiding all sports news and screaming "TURN IT OFF MAN TURN IT OFF" whenever the radio or tv starts talking about the game. so far, i've been successful, but why tempt fate?

i don't care that junkyard isn't on the pistons anymore. i just love his kneesocks and his infectious enthusiasm and his headband and his silly grin.

yesterday morning when i finally regained consciousness, gabe and i ditched out on dad to go to windsor for dim sum with e and i and t and a. this turned out to be a very wise choice, because the selection was fabulous, the food was fabulous, the woo cock (taro dumplings) was fabulous, and i didn't even see everything on the carts that i usually see/like. total cost per person: $5US. jesus fuck. better tasting, better pricing than nyc. i think a return trip next weekend is in order.

the drive home up i75 was a true freak show. first there was a minivan with the driver door falling off. then there was a large sedan weaving in and out of traffic, piloted by a woman who clearly had drank some jesus wine at church that morning. then the funniest thing i have ever seen in my life: this late-70s model sedan, pukey light tan/yellow in color with some rusting, is a few hundred yards ahead of us. suddenly - POOM! - what looks like a flat piece of cardboard whips up on his windshield. only it's not cardboard, it's the car's hood, flipped up, totally blocking his sight. now, normally you would think the driver would hit the brakes. uh-uh. this dude keeps driving at 80mph, and about five seconds later slowly pokes his head out of the window so he can see ahead, long flowing blond trash mullet blowing behind him, scraggly soul patch goat sprouting off his chin, and the untoppable: he lights a cigarette. and drives like this for two miles until the next exit, doesn't even bother with the shoulder. totally calm, like this happens every day. in fact, it probably does.

that is trueblue balls.

(after that we saw a car with a thunderboat or whatever they're called attached by a trailer. at first i thought it was a spaceshuttle ride from a carnival. still, pretty cool.)

junkyard just stuffed it. thanks, junk.

i just realized that it's possible tivo didn't record the end of the game, if it ran long. shit. i will cry so hard if that happened. will report.

oh, rad. my calling plan is covered in nh, so i will be able to use my cell without a problem. one less thing to worry about.

"have you heard the good news?"
posted at 12:06 PM

i'm sitting here watching some stupid cnn travel program on papua new guinea with my dad. the woman narrating is really obnoxious and peppy. i hate cnn, unless there's a war on, but there hasn't been for a while and anyway cnn was good then. then oj happened and they lost all respect self or otherwise and have never been quite the same. and now they're personality-driven, offensively so, andrea thompson and her nudie pics and greta van susteren and her holly hunter accent and wolf blitzer - oh wolf, we used to be such good friends, you and dad and me - and it's garbage.

today dad told me he thought my brother and i were contemptuous of him. i don't know where he gets that from and told him so, that it's not true. that he's made mistakes but he rectified them, and that's the best anyone can do. that he's a good dad. that he's a good person. that i wanted to fix things. that i wished i could.

there is just something so horrible about seeing your dad cry and knowing that part of it is because he thinks something about you that isn't true, that he thinks wrong things about you thinking wrong things and you can say that it's not true but he might never believe that it's not true because that's the way our minds work. that i can twist all this around and make it about me and my rampant paranoia about anything and everything, about what people think about me and, more importantly, about what people think i think about them. about how i'll never be good enough and i'll never be able to fix things, not entirely, not partially, not ever.
posted at 10:33 PM

dad and i found out that blue rodeo was playing at the majestic tonight, and that tickets were still available (no surprise there, given that the majestic is general admission and i doubt there's really a huge draw for what is basically canadian country with a spark to it in detroit), so we went. i hadn't been to the majestic in a long time. i can't remember when the last time was, in fact. was it seeing ben? hmm. too bad i just started journaling/blogging/whatever, or i would know these things more easily.

we grabbed dinner at union street. i realized in the car on the way there how horrifying a prospect this was, having to come up with two hours of conversation with dad to fill the void. daunting. especially when he started in with the pointed comments about getting a real job and me snapping back that he wasn't helping and i was doing fine. luckily he ordered a woodchuck with dinner so i was free to order a beer, which i did. newcastle, yum. also we ran into rabbi arnie, who is dad's gf's rabbi, and is flaming. i was amused. my burger was a b+ (patty c+, ordered medium, arrived too dry; topping a-, best bacon ever, carmelized onions). they lost our order ticket so we got a free round of drinks. see? it's really not my fault.

the concert was really good, except for the 1.5 hour delay between the opening act and the main event. by the fourth hour of standing, we were both giving out: dad because of his bad knee and the smoke, me because i was operating on three hours of sleep. blue rodeo does a great job of playing as a cohesive unit, and the pedal steeling was wonderful. i was also intrigued by the bass player. specifically, why he looked not just constipated but as if he were birthing a manatee every time he played. great setlist, played just about everything i'd hoped to hear - best of all, hasn't hit me yet. what didn't i expect? that the band is fucking old. and i mean fucking old. greg keelor looks like m. emmet walsh's ghost would if he were dead. it was creepy.

i was the youngest person there by a long ways, natch. mostly 30-50 year olds who don't know how to behave at a concert. a guy who looked like this guy i used to know who referred to his car as "the yellow banana" (was that it? hmm, not i'm unsure) dancing like seinfeld's elaine. a woman doing an overhead clap-in-time-to-the-music thing (she shook me alllllll niiiiiiiiight loooooooong). another woman holding up not a lighter (thank god) but a cellphone, i'm guessing to record the song on her answering machine, totally unaware that her answering machine probably cut it off at the 30 second mark. then her friend started doing the same thing. morons! oh, and the middle-aged mullethead who drank like ten beers and i wanted to say, "sir, are you aware that you have a mullet?" but i never did because i am a coward.

tim easton opened. i'd never heard of him. i liked him, though, sort of rough-around-the-edges, a little bit of paul simon, hard as it may be to believe. his only accompaniment on a lot of the songs was an upright bass player named chris, who is the cutest thing i have ever seen on two legs. he was about 6 feet tall and looks like he's five. i wanted to jump him right then and there.

now i am smoke stinky. shower. sleep.

"and out in the middle of lake ontario"
posted at 12:55 AM

mopete did not call. i sat in that bathroom for two hours waiting for him. not pretty.

okay, that's a lie. i sat in the den watching pacers-sixers, which was a pretty good game. i don't know what it is, but i can't help liking reggie miller. not to mention the fact that he's singlehandedly trying to bring the cut z's back into nba hairstyles. go, brotha, go.
posted at 6:19 PM

waiting for mopete to call. he's supposed to call at 1230p or maybe 130p or maybe 2p. i'm not sure. it was never really set in stone because he wanted to call at 1230p and i wasn't sure i'd be back from the airport in time. but i am, i was. the trip was frighteningly streamlined and perfect. this can only bode ill for the trip back, my travel karma all used up. door-to-door from my apt to the terminal: 15 minutes. seat assignment: exit row. plane departure: on time. exit row: all to myself. plane arrival: 30 minutes early, not on the ground but AT THE GATE - unprecedented at metro. luggage: first to appear on the carousel. unfuckingbelievable.

as for the mopete situation, i dug my phonetap and recorder out of my bag and set them up on the phone in my room. i tested, as i always do - i have been fucked way too many times by my recorder and tap not to. no dice, no recording. i went to the phone in the kitchen. same. phone in the den. same. phone in the second computer room: same. phone in dad's room: same. now, all of these phones are office-type phones with four incoming lines (when the stepvermin lived here, we had four lines; now we're down to one), and i don't know what's with them but they are obviously janked somehow to prevent tapping. we have one, count em one, normal, non-cordless phone in the house. so that's where my tap and recorder are connected to at this moment. where, you ask?

dad's bathroom. for some reason, dad has a phone in his bathroom. in fact, he has two, a cordless and a wall phone. i am not clear on why and i did not ask. i just hope it's not so he can call for pizza whilst on the crapper.
posted at 1:23 PM

it's things like this that keep me up late.

<Sync^Duke> i wnat to meet ego member...
<Sync^Duke> but just now met orpheus..
<oppsie> for great justice?
<Sync^Duke> sorry that may i ask once again...
<oppsie> WHAT YOU SAY !!
<Sync^Duke> are you ego member?
<Sync^Duke> i am looking for ego member...
<Sync^Duke> if not really sory...
<oppsie> YOU ARE ON THE WAY TO DESTRUCTION
<Sync^Duke> what so you mean?
<Sync^Duke> i though you are ego member..
<Sync^Duke> thought
<Sync^Duke> if not, really sorry again.,..
<oppsie> TAKE OFF EVERY 'ZIG'
<Sync^Duke> hmmm
<Sync^Duke> sorry pls disregards my query,,,
<oppsie> YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME
<Sync^Duke> ok.....good luck~~~~~~~
<oppsie> HA HA HA HA ....
<Sync^Duke> really sorry again...
<oppsie> yes i am in ego.

posted at 1:23 AM

dishes are done. fridge has been cleaned out. it is full of redbull still, i wonder if subletter will steal it. oh well. that's what deposits are for. i left the four-month-old macncheese in tupperware because i don't have the energy to deal with it right now, though, and i'm pretending to forget about the rotting lettuce in the vegetable drawer. i am so horrible. but i am better than usual, because fridge has been cleaned out. well, relatively. also i took out the trash, and got rid of a bunch of empties. i should clean off my desk a little. also i have to write up an instructional guide for tivo and computer. i am very considerate, even though i refuse to vacuum.

watching dawsons. sasha alexander is truly the worst actress on the face of the planet with the exception of james van der beek, who is the worst actress on the face of the planet. actually, alexander is worse. much worse. ooh, the leerys have a tivo! a sony, not a philips, i can tell by the remote. how rad.

broke down and ordered a car from carmel for the morning. 730a. i will get up at 630a. that allows for morning panic. and there will be much of that, i'm sure.

HE LOVES ME!

(he loves me not.)

From: erin podolsky
To: gabe burnstein
Subject: garner

if you do not chill with the homies (aka me) on monday, i'm going to
pitch a philly phil and start banging bats. you have been warned.

i'm flying in tomorrow, i am reachable at xxx.xxx.xxxx. you have been
warned.

-erin
***
From: gabriel burnstein
To: erin podolsky
Subject: Re: garner

can't wait. will call you tomorrow.

best,
el gaberino

posted at 11:41 PM

home, finally. watching sopranos, then i will do dishes and clean a little and pack. i have to figure out how i'm getting to the airport. spring for car, or take the bus? i have a suitcase, so i'm leaning towards car. hmm.

i've been joking and back and forth all week with a senior editor at work, max robins. we get along. he was much amused by shroomgate. we started talking about conspiracy theories and wondered if ebert gives preferential treatment to disney co films since touchstone produces his show. i looked into it tonight and it appears normal. emailed results to max. he wrote back saying we'd discuss more monday. i shot back that i'd be gone for two weeks to detroit. he comes over and says he too is from detroit. that alone is weird because that makes like three people i've met at tvg from dtown. then he asks what burb, logical question. i say the woods and his jaw just fucking drops. not only did he grow up in the woods, he lived not three blocks from my old house. small, small world. i'll do a driveby in a few days.
posted at 10:12 PM

jim labumbard just called. he's pr for the raptors. mopete wants to call me at 1230p tomorrow. i told him that'll never work, my plane doesn't land (if it's even on time, which i'm sure it won't be) until 1130a. so hopefully mo can call at 130p or 2p, else i'm fux0red. although i have faith that we can work something out; luckily this isn't due until 5/11. need to work on izzo, though. i should get something from him. hmm.

labumbard is a pretty funny surname. it's really fun to say. it's too bad jim doesn't play instead of public relate; it'd be killer to hear ken calvert or some other announcer yelling "jim laBUUUUUUMbarrrrrrrrrrd!" after he hits a j or stuffs it. (but not as cool as "joe DUUUUUUUUUUmars, from isiah thomas!")

jeez, i'm watching the hornets-heat game on tnt and the chick reporter whose name i do not know is wearing one of the hideous kinky white headbands. and she just distributed them to hubie brown and the rest of the gang. question: what happened to hubie brown's hair? didn't he used to have a perm? he has a bizarro roman thing going on now up top, and it is - and i didn't think this was possible - more ugly than the ron rothstein he used to have.

still at work. gah.
posted at 8:31 PM

dumped out on work for an hour or so to go to rinconcito with peter. it was good, and i have leftovers that i think i'm about to chow down on because i'm hungry again. on my walk back to work, i was dumbstruck by the sheer badness of the tag for a knight's tale: HE WILL ROCK YOU. oh my fucking lord, who came up with that gem? i hope the movie tanks just because of that asinine tagline. i hated the trailer when i saw it, which was in the same vein, all this rock music and blah blah blah boom, who needs it? metallica? in the 13th century? jesus. is this a modern tale or a medieval tale? it seems they're trying to mix both, and pin it all on wonderboy ledger, who should really sue the sony marketing department since a) his tagline sucks and b) he looks like an assface on the poster. not sexy, not cute, just a nondescript assface. which he is not, hence impending lawsuit for gross shittiness of marketing department. (doesn't help that the trailer and poster font make me think of driven, which also looks like total beef stew; what happened to stallone? is he still in the movie or did they cut him out? he ain't in the trailer..)
posted at 6:07 PM

i got mail from divito! i got mail from divito! oh, can this day possibly be any better. (well, yes it could, if this fucking shitty ass boxing fucking assmunch ali/frazier story would disappear and never come back.) divito divito divito.
posted at 12:53 PM

11 hours of work on a hangover==suck. i am lucky i survived, was pretty much useless the entire day and took all will-power not to crawl home and spend the day puking. i do not know the source of this hangover or last night's rarely-precedented inebriation or why i felt progressively worse all day long. i've hit it much harder out with morrow, and it's not like i didn't eat. so why did i feel like total ass after two pints and a bottle? did i get spiked? maybe it was nerdy jerry, cw's friend. maybe his social ineptitude was a ruse.

well, maybe not.

so i'm going to watch the rest of the raptors-knicks game, then survivor, then pass out. this seems a good plan to me. tomorrow night i will kill of another five hours from the tivo so it has room to record stuff while i'm gone. 48 hours. not even.
posted at 9:58 PM

last night was fun, this morning less so. i was stuck at work until 8p (free dinner, veal francese - not good, poor judgment call, next time i'll stick to what i know), then called up cw on his cell to tell him i was free from the bonds of society. i went to meet him and his coworkers/friends/whatever greg and jerry at the ginger man, which offers, among other things, a ton of beer. much was consumed. oy, headache.

meanwhile, i am a no-will-powered moron, because i just had five pages of spoiler space before a big west wing story and i could not help myself from paging down. gah!

wow, good thing i didn't take that job. (okay, so they didn't offer it "because of the hiring freeze" - picky picky.)
posted at 10:32 AM

oh my god why am i so drunk.
posted at 12:57 AM

falafel in my tummy, sister christian in my head. not a bad way to be.

what's your price for flight?
posted at 12:08 PM

library trip was moderately successful. the evil hags at the main branch yesterday told me to go to the special performing arts library on 43/10 to find the book i needed. that is a major pita because it is a long, long walk from any train. but i went on my way to work, only to be told by the snippy security guards that the performing arts library has moved to the mid-manhattan branch at 40/5. needless to say, i was not terribly pleased. i rode the m42 bus crosstown, went to the mid-man lib and found the book. good thing i did, i saved a couple of errors. i rule! then i walked back uptown to the office, attempting to get moshe's falafel but they weren't serving yet. i think i'm going to go down right now and get some, because if i wait til later the line will be down the block. moshe is very popular. i need yummy lunch after yesterday's soup dumpling disappointment. (hit john's shanghai after reading a mention of it because i had a yen for soup dumplings; i have newfound appreciation for the magic that is worked at new green bo, cockroaches or no. these were either a) subpar dumplings or b) how most places' dumplings are. either way, ngb is supreme. john's shanghai's dumplings were decent enough on the inside but the skins were slightly chewy and dry, not the thin, pale noodley goodness of ngb. also they overcharged me, which luckily i caught. lousy chinks. lousy ricers. oops, watching too much nypd again.)

speaking of ngb, the vast conspiracy against me is expanding once again. just when i'd found a job that was a hopskipjump uptown on the b/d line from chinatown, the mta goes and fucks me in the bumhole. why, why, why?

wearing contacts after not for four months is like learning all over again. no trouble putting them in - no more than usual, anyway - and that strange sense of discord, of being off, when the new vision takes hold. and the oddness of being able to see without visible assistance. (legs in the shower, nice to see you again.) feeling wind on my eyeballs as i walked to the subway this morning was pretty special, though. we'll see how long it lasts; of course the second i finally refresh my supply, my allergies go haywire. think spring, my ass. this is going to be a long, snuffly day.
posted at 11:42 AM

finally done (i'll write it tomorrow at work, i swear, can't do anymore now, it'll write itself, right?), and watched nypd blue as a reward. decent episode, but amazing final shot/music cue. minor chords, very twin peaks. very sinister. very perfect.

teneza took a job as a buyer for kenneth cole in the city. superrad. doesn't change my desire to leave for a few months, though.

in the midst of first listen to bjork/vespertine. so far.. not ready to commit yet. as always with bjork, the sound is very spatial. also acquired rem/reveal and weezer/the green album this evening. won't get to them until tomorrow, though.

watched the a.i. trailer again. the old heart-squeeze in effect again. my heart is trying to swallow itself, cram itself into my aorta and take that as a new skin, creating this pressure build situation that wants to explode in great pieces of joy and sadness all over everything. if i could just swallow. if i could just exhale. blinding light.

"his love is real
but he is not"
posted at 11:48 PM

sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r sux0r
everything everything everything everything everything everything everything

oh where to begin?

i am never going to be done transcribing. ever.

ever!

wedding factchecking misery today, ali/frazier factchecking misery tomorrow, and mikedaisey in between. but i have been closing my eyes and seeing green hills and clean air and blue sky and manchester, nh, and when that happens i know that it is true. i can do this. i can make this happen. i can will change upon myself if i so choose.

contacts in my grubby little hands. insertion tomorrow. set, clear.
posted at 8:12 PM

whew. mike finally called. in the interim i wrote naked news, because i am diligent and work-oriented. also i am wearing my fish shirt, finally, and got one (1) compliment on it today. however, i've decided my green carps are too short, and i need a new/longer pair. so perhaps shopping when i go home, i'd like to get some rad pants to go with my rad shoes and my rad fish shirt. anyway, mike was nice, and my paranoia that when i was talking to his brother it was just him giving me a litmus interviewer test and me failing was unfounded. could have been punchier, and now i have half an hour of transcription for 150 stupid words of gump ahead of me. i am falling asleep. i should take advantage of this stupor and pass out and just transcribe select portions tomorrow at work. except work is insane, too. arg! this week==suck. next week==vacate the mind.

tomas holmstrom just pulled a total laimbeer on stu grimson and wings SCORE on the power play. suh-weet.

best news ever (best news EVER):

The Pistons are abandoning their horse-head uniforms for their old red, white and blue uniforms next season, the Pistons' PR machine told certain members of the media Thursday after the team fired George Irvine.

EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER. you cannot respect yourself and you cannot gain the respect of others when you're forced to wear teal. you just cannot.

"i'm always hoping you'll be faithful
but you're not, i suppose
we've both given up smoking 'cause it's fatal
so whose matches are those?"
posted at 12:19 AM

i called mike daisey at 4p. mike daisey did not answer at 4p, or at 430p. at 5p i got his brother on the phone, who said he was out and would be back in a few hours. so i decided i must have screwed up and our interview was for 4p pacific, not eastern. i called back at 7p. no answer. 715p, i get his brother again. (his brother says "okeydokey" a lot. that kind of frightens me.) mike still hasn't come home, so i say i'm going home for the night and give him my number. i picked up happiness in the form of two warm egg bagels with creamcheese from columbia hot bagels, deposited the sublet check, and handed in my new contact lens prescription. (only two more days of glasses! w00t!) now i am home, where i have consumed my bagels and again called mr daisey. mr daisey is still not home. i left word with his wife. annoyed, especially since i looked at my notepad and our interview was indeed for 4p eastern.

i really want to go to sleep and deal with all of this tomorrow, but tomorrow is deadline. feh. i will watch basketball until 1030p, and then i will watch the red wings game. (shanny pulled an isiah saturday night. that takes major, major balls. i salute you, mr shanahan.) and, oh yeah, write my shit.
posted at 8:59 PM

today is going to suck. crud. two huge stories to check, plus a zero day, plus i'm supposed to interview mike daisey and i left my notepad with the interview time on it at home. i think it's 4p. we'll see. bah.

i wonder if inhabitants of manchester are called manchies. or munchies. or monchichis.
posted at 12:54 PM

that didn't go so well, i don't think. rather, it didn't go horribly, but it didn't go so well. i felt like a short, female, out-of-place incompetent boob(s?) the whole time and got next to nothing of what i need from mopete. but that can and will be rectified, hopefully by the end of the week; raptors pr knows what i'm up to and thinks we can sked a phoner for wednesday. and i got a killer quote from bill walton. but i missed getting something from lenny wilkens, which i think would have been really useful, and it's kind of dumb to try to get him on the phone for one minute for one quote. hmm. izzo? cleaves? blah. i'm such a feeb.

the experience of being media at a bigtime sporting event, however, was totally worth all the nerves involved. lockerrooms! food! press box! play-by-play stat breakdowns for ever quarter! all-access! a game geek's dream come true, for real. the game itself was decent, with a semi-heroic performance by the VCSP (vince carter supporting players) since vince just tanked the whole damn game. it wasn't even that he wasn't getting shots - he got plenty of good looks at the hole - but that he just couldn't convert. it's a miracle toronto managed keep the game as close as they did. it also appears that the majority of knicks fans are jewish, since charlie ward got booed nearly every time he touched the ball. (comparitively, allan houston got off easy.) in fact, ward actually got booed more than chris childs. crazy.

(the important stuff: no, no peen0r. yes, dinky towels, ripped torsos, and miniscule boxer shorts. yes, eye-level. yes, i want to do it again. mmm mmm good.)

bill walton has scary horse teeth.
posted at 4:43 PM

ten hours of josh==intense. intense but good and fun. i got to their apt at 9a - ran from the subway, actually, thinking i was late because i waited for the train for like fifteen minutes, but when i huffed and puffed my way up to the building it turned out that they weren't even ready to leave yet (can i refer to myself as out of shape, or does that imply you were at some point in shape?) - and was left alone with the monster until well after 6p. i wisely ripped him away from the tv at 10a and took him to the children's museum of manhattan, which is an embarrassingly subpar institution with a name that makes you think it is superpar. for a six year old, it's a place that has pretty much outlived its usefulness, especially what i assume is its main attraction, the "body odyssey," is closed for renovation. i did enjoy the peanuts exhibit in the basement, especially the part of it that has a hollowed out tv set where kids can crawl in and perform "on camera." josh told two very excellent jokes:

q: why did the banana cross the road?
a: because he wasn't peeling well!

q: why did the banana take off his clothes?
a: because he wasn't peeling well!

unfortunately, he didn't have a third joke, but he got pretty good mileage out of that punchline. i signed him up to do an invention class in the hp invention center, which is nicely tech-decked out even though half the machines were out of commission. he invented a robot to clean his room and take him on vacation. after that we ditched the museum and walked to his school, which was having some sort of international festival. he didn't really want to go, and when we got there it was full of kids and parents and i felt woefully out of place (how not unusual), so we left to go to the movies. we saw spy kids. he loved it. but i think i loved it more. what a fucking fantastic movie. after seeing ads i thought it was going to be mindless, krippendorf's tribe-esque drivel, but i was oh so wrong. thank you, robert rodriguez. thank you very much.

josh took his watch off during the movie (i made him wear it so we wouldn't be late) and i of course left it sitting on the armrest when we left. we were actually on the bus to go home when he asked me where it was, and i went "oh.. fudge" and screamed at the bus driver to not pull away yet (he had just closed the door) and we ran off the bus back to the theatre. it was already gone, but i found a theatre employee who had rescued it. she also asked if a wad of money she was holding was also mine; i checked my pockets and said no. noticed later that actually, yes, it was mine. (oh, fudge.) oh well. we walked back to the bus stop and the bus arrived and then josh announced he had to pee. thanks, i asked you if you had to go in the theatre and you said no! so he's dancing around and i decide barnes and noble might help us and dragged him in there and raced up to the bathroom and sent him into the little boys room. unfortunately, it was not little enough; after ten minutes i peeked in and asked if he was okay and he said no, he couldn't reach the urinal. i hauled him into the women's just in time. close, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, as the great ken barna once said. (he probably still says it, i suspect.) on our way through the store we passed the children's section and i asked if he wanted to read a book before we left. so we read two iterations of the magic school bus, and bought one to take home, about flight. i read it to him again on the bus, oblivious to my proclivity for carsickness. i am such a nice cousin.

back at home, we played sega. never ceases to amaze me how much better super mario is compared to sonic. there's really no contest. hit ollie's for a bad chinese food dinner, then awaited the return of the parents. they returned in due time, i took $10 to cover the cost of dinner, and hastily beat it next door to feldy's for dinner, part ii, and an evening with the joys of early 80s cable access shows. it's really a crime that there's no online presence (or even mention) of change yourself but not the world, truly one of the best tv programs - cable access or no - ever.

off to bed. must be up early tomorrow for adventures in msg.
posted at 12:01 AM

guess who isn't in bed trying/failing to sleep? if you guessed gwb, you are wrong. if you guessed ebp, you are right. i was about to go to bed when i was - am - overcome by a tempest of nausea. is this lunch rearing its ugly head? i'm inclined to think not. reaction to that should have been more immediate. but the only thing i've eaten since, earlier tonight, was mac'n'cheese. (okay, i cannot tell a lie: i washed it down with a rolling rock. my mistake.) and i didn't even make it with milk, because my milk is chunky and needs to be discarded. i'm such a bachelor that it's not even funny. anyway, i've been puking for the last hour or so. i don't know why, but i will say it's a lovely orange-hued lumpy liquid that i'm betting is the same inconsistent consistency as aforementioned milk. and to think i'm not even on drugs yet.
posted at 1:46 AM

this 28yo chick named kim came by my apartment soon after i got home from work. she's moving to the city from delaware to work at planned parenthood, but she's from tennessee originally and has a pudding-thick accent. she's going to sublet my place to use as a home base while she finds one of her own (haha, good fucking luck). she didn't seem like she was going to steal/destroy all my stuff while i'm in detroit. famous last words, i'm sure. either way, it's $700 in my pocket that i wouldn't have had if i let my apt stand empty. plus she's bringing her own sheets. can't complain about that. i showed her how to work my tivo while she was here, but i'll leave written instructions as well; maybe i'll be really mischievous and fill it with skinepr0n before i leave. or better yet, 30 hours of the robin byrd show. oh, that would be evilly entertaining. too bad tivo is full of xf and has no room to be creative.

i have absolutely no excuse for spending the evening listening to emmylou harris and watching tv (those dawsons fuckers bullshitted us again! dawson is the last american virgin, i swear) instead of transcribing naked news anchor. no excuse. i disgust me. truly.

on that note, i think i'll go to bed. i have to get up earlier than i usually do during the week tomorrow to go frolic with cousin josh. and right now i am tired. i should take advantage of that instead of surfing aimlessly until 230a like i usually do. i disgust me. truly.
posted at 11:59 PM

okay, things just got officially scary. inside stuff editor left me a message on my answering machine that i've been approved for press credentials for sunday's knicks/raptors game. i get to go to the lockerroom before the game and do interviews, and eat the press food after the lockerroom closes, and watch the game, and holy shit i am so out of my league (no pun intended). wtf am i going to ask mopete? this is unreal. maybe if i just keep pretending i have my shit together, i'll have my shit together. that's possible, right?

hello?

naturally friday is drawing to a close and i get two massive stories dumped on my head. gah. next week will suck severely.

oppsie1: i think ima get a new tape recorder this weekend
Twingo16: wow that sounds exciting
oppsie1: yes well
oppsie1: i don't want my recorder to miss capturing the sound of whistling nba dick as it swings by the mic

posted at 4:34 PM

today i feel good, because i have my shirts back from the abyss, and the weather is nice (maybe i have SAD; no, no, i like winter and early darkness too much for that), and i bought lunch from the illegal peruvian food vendor on 46th street and ate it and haven't died yet. and it's the weekend, and tomorrow i'm hanging out with my six-year-old cousin, and in a week i'm going home, and i'll see terry and matt and mr fabulous gb and joshva and my brother and everybody, and i'll drive a car, and i'll blast the stereo, and i'll sing madonna at the top of my lungs with joshva with the windows down, and everybody will see the mess that i have made except some hollywood fuckhead who could make me filthy rich and famous, and i will eat coneys and sushi and soup and bagels and creamcheese and lox and corned beef hash and veal piccata, and i will procrastinate some more, and i will go to many movies, and, oh, i will.

tony scott, you are fucking fired for referring to freddy got fingered in any way, shape or form as "brilliant". did you eat some sorkoshrooms? now you will be pull-quoted on its ads and dupe moviegoing innocents into giving tom green their money. i agree with you that a small portion of the bits in the film are entertaining and performance art-y (especially the sausage keyboard scene, which is just so bizarrely conceived that i cannot fault it), but that's PERFORMANCE ART and not FILM COMEDY. you are the weakest film critic link. goodbye. i exile you to tom green county, tx. (god, to think that place is from whence john grady cole came.)

oppsie1: i bought ceviche from this peruvian man who is illegally selling food on the street
oppsie1: like has no cart and no license. just three plastic bins from which he sells food, and a gym bag of pop.
Twingo16: you are a sketchball
oppsie1: so we'll see if i get a tapeworm or something
Twingo16: yeah, i have a recurring T-dub
oppsie1: it was really good ceviche. the shrimp were delicious. and i got an inca kola. huge portion i couldn't finish for $7.
oppsie1: i wish i did
oppsie1: then i would be svelte and lithe
Twingo16: not really, but sometimes i feel an incurable hunger for days on end
Twingo16: and sometimes i don't
oppsie1: and people would think "there goes that poor little anorexic girl" as i pass them on the street
oppsie1: "let's give her an acting job"
oppsie1: "on dawsons creek"
oppsie1: "she can be the skinny minx who tears pacey away from joey"
oppsie1: "the fans will love it!"
Twingo16: except now she has the baby to keep pace in line
oppsie1: rain on my parade why don't you

posted at 2:45 PM

it's a gorgeous day out, no clouds, perfect temp, it's friday, so i decide to finally dig out my cheeseball fish-print shirt. it's white and has small little colored fish on it. it's so street, i love it, throw on a wifebeater underneath, pull on my green carpenters, fabulous. i look, and i look, and i look, and i tear through both my closets and then my dirty laundry basket and then the pile of clothes that never made it to the basket from the floor and it is so very not there. okay, calm down. breathe. inhale. exhale. genius strikes - i have never taken it out of my suitcase since cancun! i grab for my suitcase, flip it on its back, unzip, grit my nostrils against the sure-to-come onslaught of cancun funk, and open it to discover.. nothing. a pair of shoes and a copy of l.a. confidential, which i had been meaning to read.

what the fuck.

about this time i realize that when my orange plaid flannel shirt disappeared at the laundromat, i had also taken in my fish shirt and my yellow old-puerto-rican-man shirt in for de-griming. and they hadn't come back. now i'm going to have to go shopping because i hardly have enough summer clothes as it is and i so don't want to do that and i hate the world because i loved that fish shirt and fuck fuck fuck. dammit, i am not going to take this lying down. i throw my dirty laundry in my laundry bag and lug it down the block to the 'mat, preparing a spanglish jihad in my head. i walk in, drop my bag on the scale (16 pounds of dirty deeds done dirt cheap), and unleash hell:

"estoy buscando por dos camisas, un de blanco con pescado, y un de, uh, yellow."

(a visit to babelfish reveals that i was actually about 90% on that sentence, which is pretty good considering i haven't taken spanish since high school. conjugation and participle and everything, y0.)

the 'mat girl ('matress?) calls to her coworker with the best english and she tells me that they should still have it after i explain it's been missing for quite a while. we go to the rack where shirts are hung, 500 deep, and start going through it one by one. 3/4 of the way through, i see it: the orange plaid flannel. and with it, my fish shirt, my yellow shirt, and my blue checked shortsleeve. euphoria sweeps over me, i grab them, mumble "gracias," grab my laundry chit and walk on air back to my apartment to drop off the treasure.

i head for the subway. all is right with the world, proven five minutes later when the laundry receipt so i can get my clothes back tomorrow when i pay falls out of my back pocket unbeknownst to me and a kind thug soul waiting for the train picks it up and walks it down to me. disaster, for the moment, averted; wardrobe, for the moment, expanded.
posted at 10:31 AM

long day at work, but free dinner of lamb kabobs was good. had a weird run-in with morrow on the streets of new york this morning after i hit the doctor. i was walking up e. 85th on my way to the bus and there was morrow walking towards me, getting some last-minute stuff for his trip to turkey. weird.

doctor was about five hundred million times better than that crackpot auster. he spent more then thirty seconds in the room with me and didn't rush out to see another patient which was so utterly fabulous i nearly cried great big crocodile tears of joy. gave me a scrip for minocycline, which, after doing a little research, scares the shit out of me. (yeast infections? oh god please no.) on the plus side, he doesn't think it will make me puke every time i take like auster's monodox did, and he's supposedly really, really good. i should just trust him. i should just trust. i should trust. hmm. i'm so 15 years old.

bar last night was good, except that morrow and i were accosted by this guy named rick petak who kept calling himself the "deli lama" because he owns some deli on the ues. he would not shut the fuck up and leave us alone. we learned many important things about the deli lama, such as he was a rare jew in the air force, and he has his own little plane that he once had to land on grosse pointe isle (huh?), and his brother is a modern orthodox who has a skybox at shea stadium and makes assloads of money in commodities trading and won't turn on the lights on shabbat. he talked our ears off for like two hours and didn't even buy us drinks. dick.

i'm getting more and more sold on nh. if i go i can cut off all my hair, and dye it all wacky, and take on this new identity and be able to go back to seminormal if it doesn't work out by the time i rejoin civilization. i can work in a bar and learn how to mix drinks and learn how to talk to people and, like, live.
posted at 10:06 PM

decided it was time for a second trip the soup nazi today. i walked over, hit the post office (nothing of interest), then went to soup kitchen international. happily, a very short line. i got the infamous crab bisque. no problems. the woman after me muffed it and got ignored. haha. (expensive, yes, but worth every penny - damn good soup.)

i'm interviewing the new male anchor for the naked news in a little while. i wonder if he will be naked on the phone with me. that would be pretty funny.

morrow. beer. mmm.
posted at 2:28 PM

went to ew to meet peter before going to freddy got fingered. i hadn't been back in a month or so and felt a little nervous about it, but i actually got a pretty warm welcome. people saying hi howareya, etc. i got there just in time to get free dinner (thai, yum yum) since it's tuesday, so that was a bonus.

freddy got fingered was odious. i have a pretty low tolerance for tom green as it is, but this was sheer pain from start to finish. the problem with green is that he's all payoff and no groundwork. the punchline is visible from the beginning, and where's the fun in that? that's not what jokes are. that's exploitation. (and let's not even get into being subjected to full view of rip torn's naked ass.)

the evening was redeemed by the dish, which peter and i snuck into after the disaster. it's the second film of rob sitch and the rest of the panel gang from down under, and is infused with much the same fairy tale sweetness and good humor as the castle. best of all, it's a lot more accessible and interesting than the more contained, niche-y first effort, telling the story of the dish at parkes that bounced the signal of neil armstrong walking on the moon that summer of 69. just.. just perfect.

things that are not perfect: opening up my bag to find a mr roachy crawling out. ugh.

"i'm a hustler baby, i just want you to know
it ain't where i been, but where i'm about to go
now i just wanna love you, but be who i am
and with all this cash, you'll forget your man"
posted at 12:46 AM

in my dream there was a long, complicated secret way to get at a huge treasure, kind of like winning super mario bros. a tripartite key was involved -- or wait, i think it was four -- and the boys and i had the first two stages done. they were buried in the basement for retrieval only when we got the next part of the key. except that i got it and didn't tell anybody. i took out the first two parts and found the last two parts and hid them in a secret zipper compartment in my suitcase/bag, which was black with purple piping. and i didn't tell anybody. but i had to put off fetching the treasure, or even a portion of it, because i had to get on a plane. seth almost caught me with the keys, though. i was stupid -- i left them sitting out in my room when i went to try to get some gold pieces, forgot to put them back in the secret zippered compartment. the plane was quite small and there was no door between the cabin and the cockpit. i had a rowmate, a woman. the plane ride was fine until there was a little turbulence and the captain got on the mic and said remember that seinfeld episode where they're on the plane and the plane almost goes down? well, get ready for that. but there wasn't too much turbulence, we were just heading towards the ground at a 45 degree angle, which was scary, everybody grabbing for the airfones. i saw a tree out my window and wondered how a tree could grow that tall, and we clipped it. then i realized we were now going in circles -- circling around/down a mountain that was incredibly lush, green. and we circled for half an hour until we landed in the parking lot of a gas station, and we all got off the plane and tried to figure out where we were. i saw a palm tree, and everything was hyperreal green, and thought maybe we were in florida or california. it turned out we were in washington state, and the palm tree was a random gas station palm tree. we all got back on the plane and had to taxi/drive to the airport, which involved this one-lane jungle road that was all curvy through the mountains and the plane wings kept taking out trees and going so fast and we almost ran over some people walking in the road. eventually we made it to the airport and had a long layover before the next flight, during which i went home and got the treasure through an elaborate subterfuge designed to prevent the boys from realizing i had gone ahead without them.

arr, matey. at least the plane didn't crash this time.

it usually does.

(still feel like pulling a hannibal on my head. annoying, yet tempting.)
posted at 9:22 AM

i was all set to have an evening with weakest link, rolling rock, and fellowship of the ring, but jill and i ended up going to see bridget jones's diary. hit two of three, though: just watched the show (snore, it was pretty bad), and snuck pizza and beer into the theatre. i'm so bad. miss jones, for her part, was not. cute, and a giggle actually escaped me at a moment or two. plus lust for colin firth ala pride and prejudice renewed with vengeance. i must dig out my tape.

i went to the eye doctor today, aka uncle morris. was not berated for anything, which was pleasant. eyes are in good shape, jumped .5 in my left eye, status quo in the right.. he put an anesthetic in them so he could work his opthamological magic. ever since, even though it's worn off, i feel like everything is all screwy. like i could perform a self-lobotomy, just lop everything off above the bridge of the nose, and it wouldn't hurt a bit and i'd feel so much better afterward. and like i really need to sleep. which is what i should be doing now, but i'm wasting time doing nothing and straining orbs of vision.

gabe is blogging. gabe is funny! gabe is not gabe burnstein. well, we can't all be perfect.

"i've got this store-bought way of saying i'm okay
and you've learned how to cry in total silence
we're talented and bright, we're lonely and uptight
we've found some lovely ways to disappoint"
posted at 12:34 AM

so much for that plan. jill and i tried two different theatres. sold out at both. we could have waited for the 930p show but i refuse to spend $10 on a movie and not sneak into a second one. walked uptown -- another nice night -- and ended up getting ice cream for dinner. thumbs up on the original oreo, thumbs down on the moose tracks and forgetting to ask for a cake cone. sugar cone==vom.

i can feel the big nothing starting to steal over me. i can see it off in the distance, like omar sharif materializing out of nothing in lawrence of arabia, like an out-of-focus speck of dust on my glasses. like the neverending story, like a nuclear holocaust. like when i wake up in the morning and try hard not to scream.

think i'll watch an xf. i need a little scully right now.
posted at 8:01 PM

another beautiful day, another beautiful meal. dim sum at the golden unicorn. dim sum venue of choice from now until i find someplace better. jill and i are watching trl at your house. carson just referred to nsync/tearing up my heart as "an oldie but a goodie." he smokes so much crack. rio bravo on tbs during the commercials -- conveniently, every time we flip it's a john t/feathers scene. swoon, thrice over.

off to bridget jones' diary and josie and the pussycats.

"i'm the quiet one."
posted at 5:36 PM

it is so beautiful outside that i let a large fly career into my apt and then zoom back out again without running after it with a rolled up magazine. i slept a full 9 hours, got up, showered and dressed in a timely manner, walked to the tamale lady in my new sneaks (sigh, i think they really are too big -- i am such an idiot), got a tamale and an umita. perfect combination. sat on a stoop and ate, walked over to broadway and got a pint of lemonade. deposited my misnomered paycheck in the atm, hopefully it won't be rejected; transferred 20% of the check to my savings acct for tax purposes. went to riteaid, bought water, fresh toiletries, beer. and now i'm home, catching up on once and again. an ad for quaker chewy granola bars was just on and there's a little girl in it who looks like me when i was little. weird.

peter came over last night and we watched happiness. it seems less great than when i first saw it, i'm not sure why; maybe the lack of an overall message of hope and wonder, which is something i'm craving lately. after we went to his friend cameron's apt. cameron lives literally around the block from me, which gives me vague optimism. i went under the assumption that we'd be barring in the area, but suddenly we were on a downtown train (will i see you tonight?) to the west village. tramped around for a couple hours because it was so nice out, dropped peter's stuff off at his sublet (i need a place like that), ended up at a non-bar place. i had a crostini with fresh mozzarella and sundried tomatoes. it was decent. then cameron and i hopped the 2/3 northward to our friendly ghetto. i showed him my apt. i mentioned that james was moving out eventually and that his apt would be available, and immediately regretted it -- i realized that i should take over his apt when it's renovated, because i bet the rent will be a lot lower than mine if landlord steve plays by the rules. and the rules say that as a third party beneficiary, and i quote the agreement i have from HUD:

"if you happen to move out of your apartment before 6-21-04, the owner must charge the new tenant the same rent as you are charged."

i'd still be in the ghetto, but a) james would no longer be in the immediate area and b) i'd probably be paying peanuts compared to what i'm paying now; i'm sure his rent is ass cheap, even if steve is able to raise it because of renovations.

sushi/sake/bankruptcy with morrow tonight, because he's leaving for turkey for a month next week. this means i'm missing chet and ben's impromptu steak-out with scott and potentially kenny. blah.

nh still on mind.
posted at 4:10 PM

i got new sneakers. they are excellent. i hope they fit okay after today because i can't return them. i'm still thinking about picking up a pair of etnies, though. red. red rum.

then i came home and checked my mail. the good news: i got a paycheck from tvguide. the bad news: it has the wrong fucking name on it. i am now eric! grr.
posted at 6:23 PM

i have nothing but hatred for the business goons at ew right now. plus the paycheck santa here at tvguide came around distributing his lovely presents and all i got was a lump of coal. maybe next week. sigh. bank account so sad.

motherfucker! they're coming out of the woodwork! now earthlink has double-billed me. i'm on hold with them now. these fucks are not getting away with this bullshit.

alissia got an internship with deka in manchester, nh. i keep thinking it would be really excellent to go live there for the summer, soak up the environment, the smallness of it all, get a shitty job at someplace ridiculous like this and get some real writing done. but then i feel like i'm tethered to my father's and family's expectations and that as much as i want to do something semi-crazy and impulsive like that, i'll never be able to because i'm too scared of ruining the future, even though i don't technically have one anyway. too scared of having to answer his questions, really. and of disappointing.
posted at 1:33 PM

dinner was entirely uneventful. i ate a meat knish, knowing full well that the terms 'meat' and 'knish' should never be used to synthesize a single foodstuff. we talked about nothing. and now i feel like shit. as usual. i don't know what i was expecting, other than dread, which is what i got. it was fine otherwise; i just worry too much. it's what i do. it's what i'm good at.

at least there's a useful job opening. let me just launder my tights and leotard and cape, i'll be right back.
posted at 10:52 PM

finished the hell that is/was lanier and sent it in last night. still no word back from editor; perhaps she knows, as i do, that i have moderately blown it. but i tried; i transcribed it, and i got good stuff. i really did. just not enough for this story format. it's so frustrating.

sitting around waiting for my story to close. it's a retread from yesterday so it just needs to close, no more work has to be done on it by me. i hope it goes soon. pauline, my mom's childhood best friend, called as per our email plan and invited me to carnegie deli for dinner. i'm vaguely freaked out, more than i'd like to be or anticipated; i think it's a function of last night's bossus interruptus conversation, which has me all screwed up, more than usual. so i have been taking my mind off it with catching up on the life of trevor. trevor lived around the hall corner from me in the burlodge freshman year. plus he went to high school with andrew, and, it occurs to me, the genius of the wide sardonic sea that is matthew barrett. i'd say we're acquaintances, although i always suspect that i remember people more than they remember me. trevor, however, is probably introspective and nutty enough that i would not be forgotten. i hope. or at least, we'd share something more than the ubiquitous universal nod of acknowledgement when passing each other on the diag or wherever. (now i'm having a weird deja vu where i think trevor actually discussed the universal nod in an entry that i read months ago. hmm.) so, hi, trevor, trevor boyer, now your name is in here and you'll find out that i've thought about emailing you for something like six months and haven't because then what, what's next, i am but a pretender to the passerby throne, and you can google for yourself like the vain persons the rest of us are and don't admit to, and stumble upon my dirge of pitiable complaining and boredom and self-doubt, and say, hi, stop stalking me, which i know is not what you are doing but is the closest term, love, trev.

what the hell do you ask a gamedev guy from croatia?

"will you call me a genius when i write down all my fears?
when i'm locked in my room all day trying to sound like it's been years?
and when i exaggerate to make the meaning count
will you count on me or will you count me out?"
posted at 3:47 PM

bravo nearly fucked me up the ass today but i eventually pried the necessary information out of their cold, gnarled hands. other than that, not much going - nailed the nfl on confirming shit they denied yesterday, spent the rest of the day avoiding lanier. i've pulled some things from my notes, but i just cannot bring myself to listen to the tape. current excuse is that the static dissonance is too high with the earbuds so i will transcribe when i get home tonight and can listen sans phones. won't be for a while; my story just closed, but i already ordered dinner with the group, which provides both free food and another procrastination technique. i did, however, look over onmag issues; it's going to be a tough hill to climb given that it's a monthly and not a weekly, so reporting on, say, the resurrection of icebox is going to be beyond stale by the time it gets to print. hmm.

my boss just tried to have a 'long term plans' talk with me, but we got interrupted. now i'm petrified all over again. i don't know what my long term plans are. i don't know where i am in ten years, don't even have an idea. an ideal, yes, but an idea, no. completely blank. completely scared.
posted at 6:46 PM

BODY I REJECT YOU.

seeing the world through smudged lenses.

"after years of waiting
nothing came
as your life flashed before your eyes
you realize
i'm a reasonable man
get off my case"

posted at 12:59 AM

new story came in, check check check. half-decent sushi for lunch that didn't cost arm and a leg. i think i forgot to eat dinner last night. not hungry, though. kim basinger moral court case was fucking priceless. the show just gets better and better each week.

free cake in 15 minutes! mmm cake. mmm sugar. other reasons today is not yet awful: i just found a nice sewing kit in my desk, which means i don't have to buy one to sew my inbound tigs and pistons patches to my bag. dtown love all around, all around.

adventures in cubicle land:

annoying cubicle guy: "why is it that people want to watch timothy mcveigh's execution on tv?"
me: "because after pearl harbor comes out, it's going to be a long time before the next jerry bruckheimer movie."
annoying cubicle guy: "..."
me: "uh, nevermind."

posted at 2:13 PM

boring day at work, didn't end up getting sneaks. just as well, since it is now raining cats and canines. now i have no food, no beer, no nothing. i should be transcribing lanier but it is particularly unappealing. i have water and i have red bull and i have cheese and i have frozen hamburger. i have macaroni but no milk and right now it doesn't seem appealing without milk, although i'm sure it would be fine. i think i will transcribe lanier tomorrow at work, because it will occupy the time, and i did all the legwork on the story i have closing.

okay, i'm totally fucking freaked out. my irc friend sinned turns out to know the same video game graphics chick i do - he went to high school with her soon-to-be-ex-husband. i've known her for years on MOOs, MUDs, MUSEs, etc. how fucked up is that?

Wainstead says, "pouring now..." [#359/w]
the buttermilk sucking oppsie [to Wainstead]: yeah here too
the counter of horse cocks oppsie [to Wainstead]: i find it peversely tempting to call for food delivery.
Wainstead [to oppsie]: most new yorkers do [#359/w]

"danny?"
"yeah?"
"you're gonna be fine."
"doesn't feel that way."
posted at 11:24 PM

morning redbull consumed, moral court watched (larry was feeling generous today, giving out two $2000 "outrageous" awards -- tomorrow looks even better, with a troll-looking guy demanding his asian girlfriend enact his kim basinger fantasy in bed), disheartening news taken under advisement.

sneaker lust strikes again.

best filepath ever.

and the song of the day is robert skoro/john muir. the production is sort of a low-fi elliott smith/la meets damien jurado, if i do say so myself. this is not a bad thing.

"rirruto?"
posted at 11:54 AM

my stomach hurts, my left arch hurts (this is a recurring thing that i'd like to explore sometime, like it gets pulled at least once a week - is that normal?), i am tired, i am back. i think that means it's french fry time. they're kosher for passover. not. and watch popstars, also not kosher for passover. heh.

36 hours of beantown was fine, if brief. much food consumed and cousin entertainment had. the ultimate, impossible-to-top moment, however, was when i was told to dispose of my bathroom garbage privately because "boys don't know how to deal with seeing tampons in the trash." i laughed my ass off heartily, then went to obey, and my aunt whose house it is caught me trying to spirit away the trash can and got all freaked out because she wasn't privy to the command from my other aunt. classic slapstick, truly.

if popstars was an nbc show instead of on the wb, would the song go, "you are the weakest link, goodbye / it must be hard to be you, yeah, living in your life / i was always the one to cry" ?
posted at 10:27 PM

you know what sucks? when you see the toilet gradually overflow and are powerless to stop it, or maybe not powerless but so nonplussed by the rising tide of bilge that you just stand there and gawk. it's a bit like that moment a second before you crash your car, and you can feel it coming, but you can't stop it, only let it wash over you, the crush and spark of metal against metal somehow satisfying and so right. and then the pain, and the ugly, ugly scars, and the secrets you never tell.

at least it was a clean bowl.

boston beckons.

<Ravan> we stole a breathalizer from the police
<Ravan> so we can check our BAC
<Ravan> it
<jason|> hahahah
<Ravan> 's tight
<Ravan> I blew a .086 2 nights ago
<Ravan> i'm going for an even .1

"you can't say that they didn't warn you
though you'd rather that they just ignore you
because your devices are not working for you
anymore"
posted at 12:05 AM

packet from onmag, as i will be calling it, arrived. five issues of fun, not to be confused with three floors of fun. i will read them this weekend hopefully, on my trip home from boston as long as i don't get car|bus|trainsick, and try to come up with many brilliant something somethings. one of the e-people pages states 'additional reporting by mirsky,' which makes me wonder if i could meet the man the myth the legend and die a happy camper. oh, mirsky. ohhhhh, mirsky.

today's trip to the post office revealed no ew paycheck. grr. grr. GRR. and they're out to get me twice over: my wonderful ew chapstick exploded in my coat pocket this morning, leaving everything tacky to the touch, except of course my lips. on the plus side, feldy just called and we are dining. stinky will also be there. and i get to fix feldy's vcr<->tv connection, which is futzed again, which probably means comped dinner. not a bad tradeoff for getting dusty.

as much as it often pains me to be a daily alum, i must give them props for putting together an outstanding series on the umich code of student conduct. it is robust, well-researched and insightful. it's something that actually matters. frankly, i'm shocked to see something of such high quality in the paper. and, secretly, pleased.
posted at 4:24 PM

the freeze hasn't been lifted but it apparently is circumventable, since i just signed on for another three weeks of research fun and games. that puts me here until the end of the month when i go home for two weeks, and then work a week after that. i'll probably reup for another tour of duty; the main problem is going to be deciding what to do when the freeze inevitably lifts. i want medical benefits - i feel bad sticking dad with the bill for shit that i suspect is going to cost a pretty penny, even though he told me to do it - and the security of a "job" job, but i also kind of like the idea of rolling in uninsured dough and being able to stop at any time and take a month off to write.

teneza showed up around 830p and pronounced my apartment/neighborhood excellent. bully for her. we went to new green bo for dinner and ate way too much as compensation for the liquor store being closed and no wine being had. soup dumplings and shanghai kau fu==yum. came back home, watched survivor, went to sleep. it was oh so quiet. she was gone by 830a, but will probably be back for another interview in a few weeks. should be fun.

truth really is stranger than fiction:

WASHINGTON, April 5 The Chinese pilot
whose F-8 collided with an American spy
plane six days ago had flown so close to
American aircraft in recent months that
he was photographed clearly. In one
picture, he was seen holding a white paper
with his e-mail address written on it.

(a non-subscription feed of the story is also available, and because i care i am including a link.)
posted at 1:09 PM

well, well, well. i ran into james on my walk home from the subway, as well as the guy who lives across the hall from me. james apologized profusely and laughed about how nice i was in my letter. so what's the reason the music was on for four fucking days? james was NOT HOME. that's right, NOT HOME. he was working round the clock (uh.. right) on the david copperfield special and such, where they had seven generators and one broke or something ridiculous like that. god, he kills me.
posted at 7:14 PM

call now for yer free co-pay.

lanier went okay, he's not a very talkative guy so i'm not sure if i pulled enough, but it went well enough. and he's a laffy man! (i gave him the choice between lafayette and american, and he, of course, chose correctly. whew.)

i foolishly didn't bring sneaks to change into (i still need a new pair, anyway, 'cause basketball courts in the summer got girls there) and now i'm stuck in my chunky shoes. bah. i also didn't wear my fabulous, new, orgasm-inducing spring ankle-length coat because i thought it would be too cold (no lining, basically a rain/coat). i should have. it's warmer than i thought it would be, although i'm cold in the office. can't win. gorgeous out today, though, second day in a row. cloudless sky, air cool but not too cool. it makes me feel really happy and sad at the same time. there's something about sixth avenue sunshine - delgados/american trilogy is on the shoutcast stream i'm listening to, and it's the same thing, the same feeling. weather, like everything else, tearing me apart.

annoying cubicle guy is eating chinese for lunch. it smells like dirty diapers. and not in a good way. (there is not often a good-smelling dirty diaper, but every once in a while you come across one that is a true classic.)

it was quiet last night. i slept. it was beautiful. i also had a weird nightmare about oversleeping and missing my interview with bob lanier, and i got there late and he had a heart attack or something and passed out and i had to perform cpr except somehow it involved squeezepump bottles of soap. hmm.
posted at 1:48 PM

i passed out for a couple of hours around 6a. when i woke up it was.. quiet. and when i left to go to work i saw that the note was gone from under his door (i'd left a part of it sticking out in the event that i panicked and wanted it back). hmm. tonight will be the true test.

somebody come eat my chocolate chip cake. it is excellent and there is far too much of it.
posted at 10:50 AM

[jameswatch2k]: fucking HELL.

i was going to put the note under his door tomorrow in true procrastinators anonymous style, but i am awake now and this is too much.

okay, it's now in his hands. i folded it in thirds and wrote his name in big block letters on the front and slid it under his door. i left a message for landlord steve tell him about it. now i'll print a copy for him to have. i am really really petrified.
posted at 4:18 AM

[jameswatch2k]: about to attempt sleep again with the earplug/headphone combo. i have my doubts. this is the note i have composed to put under his door tomorrow:

dear james,

i have rung your doorbell several times over the past few days but nobody has answered, so i am writing this note. can you please turn your stereo off when you are not home or it is after midnight, and especially don't leave it on all night, even at a low volume. you told me you wouldn't play your music late at night or early in the morning but lately i have been hearing it at both those times. i know you do not think it is loud but i can still hear it and it is keeping me awake and preventing me from sleeping. all i am asking for is a little respect and consideration, i know you like to listen to your music and i do not mean for you to keep it off all the time, only during the night. i think this is a fair request and i am trying to be respectful to you because we are neighbors and we should get along. we are both working people and need our night's rest. thank you.

sincerely,
erin in 2fw

i'm trying to keep the language simple, clean, and repetitive so that perhaps some of it will penetrate. i can't be sure of his reading comprehension. it's not easy to write down to somebody's level and get your point across effectively. i'm not sure that i've succeeded. i will also give a copy to landlord steve. the real trick will be keeping my horrible handwriting legible.
posted at 1:12 AM

ugh. i'm getting really, really sleepy. this after two redbulls (yeah, i gave in to temptation while at lunch (a suspect hamburger, never again) and picked up another). blah. on the plus side, i finished my boot camp piece, and not a moment too soon since simultaneously productive and coherent thought seems to be dwindling.

in other not-so-fabulous news, research chief michael just called me out for a one-on-one. i thought perhaps i was going to get slammed because i've given up all pretense of semi-nice clothing in my sleep-deprived state and have been showing up to work in schlubwear (not to be confused with wuwear). nope, not that. like every other company on the face of the earth right now, tvguide is now under a hiring freeze. that means that unless michael can finagle something, i'm out on my ass 4/13 - and it's the reason why i'm not filling out paperwork and getting taxes taken out, because they can't process any paperwork until the freeze is over. yup, so much for that fulltime offer from michael. he thinks the freeze might be over at the end of the month, but i'm not holding my breath. i'm just hoping he can rig it so i can continue after my alleged end date, and that i can come back after i go to detroit for sunday drive (i told him about being out of town, he said it was fine). the good part is that he does want to keep me. stupid economy, stupid timing.

good thing i just got an assignment from the witty, magnanimous brandon, which i say not because he actually admitted to reading this absurd circus of self-indulgence and self-flagellation but because he actually is. he also has the good fortune to share a name with my childhood friend brandon, with whom i used to watch thundercats. although i suspect the first brandon is now a crackhead somewhere in detroit now. or at least a dropout working at kmart, which iirc his mother said he was. sad. (ho-ooooooooooooooo.)

it's been a great day in boy band land.

You paged Andy with: yeah. this could almost be funny, if only it were true.
Andy pages: Write it as fiction. I'll split the movie rights... [#102/pp]
Andy pages: You could call it "Erin Podolsky". RL-based Erin * movies would be the next big thing, like American * movies were. [#102/pp]

posted at 5:21 PM

what a difference a redbull makes.. twenty-four little minutes.. brought the energy and consciousness.. where there used to be none.

i was not, contrary to popular belief, a songwriter in my former life. (the rumors of hitting for the cycle in little league, however, are true.)

(okay, they're not true, but i once caught a ben gitler foul tip. truly a monumental event, not to be confused with the time i got nailed in the hypothetical balls by a pitch. i wore a cup after that.)

You whisper, "i'm interviewing bob lanier on thursday in person. i am only slightly taller than his size 22 feet are long." to hearty meal bolt_steele.
bell peal bolt_steele whispers, "holy shit. that's *awesome*. :)" [#482/bs]
big wheel bolt_steele whispers, "it's awesome on so many levels. this should really be good for your foot fetish." [#482/bs]

posted at 12:20 PM

waiting for my redbull to chill so i can be marginally functional today. i don't even want to talk about it.
posted at 10:43 AM

jill caved and went to sweet-n-tart with me. turnip cakes, yam thread and dumpling soup, more. then i came back home and had what joel informs me was a panic attack. how fabulous.

[jameswatch2k]: music is on at low volume. i rang his doorbell. no answer. one of two things is happening, in my (very, very addled) mind: either he is not answering the door and is home and sick of my whining or something, or he is not home and has left his music on. either one is unacceptable and i am calling steve the landlord.
posted at 8:40 PM

it's interesting charting how my body deals with itself as i get further and further away from sleep. i developed a stress headache a few hours ago but managed to kill it off with a bunch of advil - my forehead still feels a little tight but no sharp pains. temperature control, meanwhile, isn't quite fever-like but somehow manages to be both cold and hot at the same time. (i was having that problem last night, too.) my right leg just started jitterbugging again. also i have a really convincing craving for the stirfried turnip cakes at sweet-n-tart, which i just might give into if i get out of here at a reasonable hour. or even if i don't. story is set to close if only editor would read it. bah.
posted at 5:09 PM

gave up on everything, showered and went to tom's for breakfast. consumed two (2) cups of coffee. got on the train at 110th; by 66th my knee was jackhammering. i noticed my bag on my lap shaking and then five seconds later realized my leg was independently motoring. still twitching now. have a red bull sitting here waiting for consumption but i think i'll save it til the afternoon. need some preemptive advil as well. on my way to work (barely 9a and i'm at work, vom) i went to my po box. guess what wasn't there? that's right, my massive freelance check that i am owed by ew. i am not a happy camper. emailed cable, we'll see what happens. i am just psychotic enough right now to pick up the phone and start screaming at people until they hand over my paycheck.

engrish email of the day:

Dear Ms. Erin Podolsky

I am sorry to reply you late.
I just left my massage on your voice mail.
I couldn't understand everything what you are saying in your email.

WHAT YOU SAY !!

(had i not received that priceless gem, engrish of the day for sure would have been "now the wok is boiling again.")
posted at 9:20 AM

timestamping seems screwy. below entry was at 4a, not 6a. it's not even 6a yet. i'm thinking about going to tom's for breakfast/coffee in a little while. might be a good way to start this bound-to-be-godawful day. bright spot: got the new ivy album. w00t.
posted at 7:20 AM

[jameswatch2k]: HATE HATE HATE.

i just went down there, rang his doorbell for five minutes, and of course he didn't answer. fucking radio stereo on all fucking night. there is absolutely no way i'm going to sleep. i need some soft drugs, some soft soft drugs.

np: depeche mode/exciter. lead-off track, dream on (first single i believe), is classic dm in all the right ways.

"paying debt to karma
you party for a living
what you take won't kill you
but careful what you're giving"
posted at 6:00 AM

[jameswatch2k]: hate hate hate hate HATE HATE HATE.

np: paul simon/you're the one

"and when they say that you're not good enough
well, the answer is: you're not"
posted at 1:41 AM

this is stupid, so fucking stupid. a crisis day in and day out.

am i asleep? have i slept?
posted at 2:38 PM