well, i did it. i called the shrink. i left a message. i sounded like an idiot, so we'll she if she calls back. i'm already imagining how i will never have time to go because of my erratic hours at work, how i can get away, or how i can go early in the morning when i am a wreck from a long night of james.

here's the scoop on dsl: my boy john at elms says they might not be able to fix it. huh? it was working fine before i left for detroit. so what the fuck? what. the. fuck? i don't know. i don't know. but here's the genius happy fabulous news: DIGITAL CABLE AND CABLE MODEM ARE FINALLY AVAILABLE IN MY BUILDING. yes, the 1990s have finally come to harlem. this means so many wonderful things i don't even know where to begin. a million premium channels. a lower bill than dsl/analog cable. and and AND i can get nba league pass and expense it to inside stuff! that's right! detroit pistons basketball IN MY LIVING ROOM!

(i am a wee bit excited.)

i discovered this exciting news while on hold with elms yet again. i decided i would make my monthly call to twc to bitch at them for not offering digital in my area. they always tell me it will be available "soon." it's been available "soon" for 12 months now. so i call, expecting to hear the same bullshit, and the woman i get tells me it's ready! it's ready now! in fact, it's been ready since 10/26! do i have timing or what? i placed an order immediately, and i'll pick the stuff up at the twc office downtown on saturday. or i might hold off and try to scam them with dad's directv satellite dish, it depends what the sticky rules of the great deal they have are. also, the problem with this plan is that i would lack broadband until after thanksgiving, which is when i would pick up the satellite dish from dad. can i wait that long? am i that strong?

i think i could be.

"i'm so excited! i'm so excited! i'm! so! SCARED!"
posted at 11:20 AM

went to dinner at new green bo with jeremie and sheri and then jill joined us later. it was perfection: soup dumplings, lions head, and what just might have been a boy band in the making at another table. five boys who looked oh so trendy, plus a record exec-ish woman. i offered jill $50 to ask for their autograph but she refused. i so would have paid to experience that priceless ($50?) moment. so would have.
posted at 12:03 AM

you know what's cool? when you look at the clock on your phone and it says it's 70 minutes later than the clock on your computer, and you realize you only have to be at work for another two hours. hurrah!
posted at 3:58 PM

work! work work work! tvguide work work work! it's good to be back in the office. everybody is welcoming and chatty. max told me he'd been reading me in metropolis, which made me feel really good. i like it here. i'll hate it in a few days, but right now it's all good.

however, i've been shoved in the library, which is like the inner inner inner core room of the floor, where nobody ever goes except to look up random facts or check out tapes of tv shows we record (ie all of them). and i have no voxmail password or email or server access.

lemonade i shall make.

my elms boyfriend john called at 820a in response to the message i left him last night about the dsl debacle. he is so sweet and nice. too bad he's in atlanta. anyway, i was about to leave for work, like literally had my hand on the doorknob about to turn it, bag strapped on to go, when the doorbell rang. "who's there?" "verizon." "okay, come on up." how did they know to get here so fast? john told me they would come tomorrow, not today. but when verizon comes a-knockin', you don't send them away because god only knows when they might return. so they did their thing and i ran off to work. and maybe it'll be working by the time i get home.

riiiiiight.
posted at 10:52 AM

had dinner with jill and allison, deelish vietnamese. then we watched cruel intentions at their apartment. movie==bliss. but you know what sucks? standing on the 96th street subway platform watching four 1 trains go by in a row, 30 minutes tick by, while waiting for the 2/3. grumble.
posted at 12:53 AM

well whaddayafuckingknow, dsl is down. surprise surfuckingprise. i'm on hold with them now but i know what the response is going to be: "verizon needs to come check it out." too bad i start work tomorrow and can't spend my life sitting around waiting for the fuckheads.

dialup sucks. HATE HATE HATE.

the flight in was amazing. i mean, amazing. i only adrenaline-rushed a few times, it was so smooth and clean. and i had a window seat for the first time in i don't know how long. and the ride was not bumpy.

and we approached new york from the south over the statue of liberty looking like the green miniatures they sell in souvenir shops, rushing towards manhattan, and i wondered if i would be able to see things i didn't want to see but wanted so very much to see or if i was seated on the wrong side, but i was on the left side, the west side, the right side, and we floated up the east river, and the sky was crystalline, and there was the world financial center standing above the rest along the west coast, newly crowned in their ownership of the southern skyline, and there was a giant crane stretching towards heaven, and there were the tendrils of smoke still rising like partygoers who don't know the keg is empty and it's time to go home.

there was the gaping hole of how things are supposed to be, and the remaining evidence that buildings still stand when others fall.

and then there was the city stretching northward, the empire state and the chrysler and the park and even the plaza at the end of my block that i could see from 10000 feet up. and we flew over queens and circled back over the long island sound.

and then we touched down, and i was home.

sort of.

"and crash into queens all skittering."
posted at 7:49 PM

it's airport time. bags are packed, etc, etc. shutdown.
posted at 10:37 AM

and even though it's daylight savings time, i still can't sleep. so here's more stuff from the past. this is from a "book" entitled collection of storys by moi. my name is written in cursive so it looks like it's from second or third grade. i'm leaning towards second grade given just how geniusly awful the content is. the stories are typed. i'm not sure if i typed them or if somebody else did. possibly me, given the grammar.

THE WORLD'S GREATEST JOKES
by
Erin Podolsky

How to Make Jokes
First, you think up something silly. Then you think up something else. Put it together and you get a joke.

A Knock Knock Joke
Q. Knock knock
Whose there?
Banana
Banana who?
Knock Knock
Whose there?
Banana who?
Knock Knock
Whose there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn't say banana again.

Knock Knock Jokes
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
I will.
I will who?
I will knock your brains.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Pie.
Pie who?
Pie face.

JOKES
Q. What do you do when a policeman gets you?
You call another policeman.

Knock knock.
Who's there?
I am.
I am who?
I am stupid.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Dumb Dumb
Dumb Dumb who?
Dumb Dumb.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Ah.
Ah Who?
Ah Ah Choo!

Q. What do you get when you put a duck and a cow together?
A. You get milk and quakers.

i'll just interrupt here to say [sic] regarding the spelling of "quackers." i slay me.

Knock Knock
Who's there?
Boo
Boo who.

Good by. This is the end of the book.

posted at 2:03 AM

found detroit art:

- written in soap on the back of a bright yellow new vw beetle: "p diddy take your shirt off!!!", in parking lot of strip mall at lahser and 15 mile rd

- on marquee sign for strip mall at woodward and 13 mile rd: "GOD BLESS MERICANS" (erin's translation as she drives by at 50mph: "GOD BLESS MEXICANS")
posted at 1:45 AM

i feel really nervous. i'm not sure why. maybe it's because i'm going back to nyc tomorrow. maybe it's because i'm going back and not staying indefinitely, or, staying indefinitely with an eye toward leaving. maybe it's because tonight dad got bitchy because i didn't think to return a dvd to the video store near where his birthday party was, forcing me to borrow his car to return the dvd - two miles away. why does this matter? "wear and tear on the car." whatever.

i do not need to be 16 again.

perhaps i need to rethink this. because right now i feel very nervous, and my heart is racing, and i need to throw up.

i think the main problem with my father, and with telling him things, is that everything feels like an interrogation. so many details requested and demanded, things that do not matter. no room for inefficiency, for mistakes and for not thinking. before the party last night he wanted to know where i was going, with whom, who was giving the party, what the address was, what the phone number was, how i knew this person, etc.

this would not happen had i gone to a party in nyc.

i would be on my own and in control.

do i really need to give up my independence to acquire mental health and stability?

fuck.
posted at 12:51 AM

i had weird dreams involving being in nyc but it wasn't nyc, it was a far more crowded metropolis, almost william gibson-like in its density and design, and i met a girl while getting coffee named wise but i kept forgetting and calling her nina, and she was a grad student at nyu. also i had to pack my apartment up to move, into duffel bags, but i kept putting it off plus it wasn't my apartment. there was another dream involving camp and a bicycle and a big strong guy who had to rescue my bike for me, and i could never remember where i left my car and my bike, and i rode away from camp to the little town down the road a few miles and stopped at the video store to get a dvd but they were all $14.99 which was too much money except for a dvd about anthrax that was $3.50. and there was a girl in my bunk named schilling that i did not like. which is weird since i didn't listen to the radio before bed, which would have reminded me of curt schilling. hmm.

dad stormed into my room at 740a to inform me that i had left the candy i was using as a costume prop at the party last night on the floor and the dog had eaten it. including the wrappers. i hope this doesn't trigger diabetes in her or something, because that would be bad. i cleaned up the leftovers and went back to sleep.

next up: noble!
posted at 11:56 AM

daylight savings? apparently won't kick in on blogger until 2a pacific. in the meantime, enjoy these treasured homes.

also enjoy my description of last night's dinner: around 730p dad realizes that we have no food and we are all vaguely hungry, so what does he do? he goes to the freezer and gets out "country style" "boneless" "pork shoulder" "ribs", which are from costco and come in plastic with bbq sauce already drenching them. he dumps these pieces of reconstituted meat on the grill, and when they are done puts them on a plate from which we all pick at around the table. no other food for consumption, just this bizarre meat. it was comical.

(dad did not see the humor when i started making fun of the meal.)
posted at 1:24 AM

dave dragged me to this party in pontiac. it was pretty boring, although decent to chat with members of the jew crew and meet dave's new romantic prey. stayed for a couple hours, sucked down a couple of rum and cokes, paid $3 for parking, drove home with warmth and stopped at spanga's for a coney. mmm. coney. the entire operation at spanga's from pull in to pull out took five minutes and $2.30, including tax and tip.

i dressed as a vendor. i was going to be a popcorn vendor, but i was too lazy to make popcorn. so i threw a bunch of candy in a box and was a candy vendor. my shirt was red and white striped and eventually i was informed i was actually a candy striper. hurrah.

the party was in a loft on one of pontiac's hoppin' main drag streets, just down the block from all the shitty nightclubs that some people mistake for cool. the loft was awesome, though. there was a sign on the door advertising a 1300' loft for $1000/mo. jayzuz.
posted at 1:56 AM

in my dream i am on an airplane going over nyc and the plane is listing back and forth as if it is making banking curves and then there is a knocking sound from down below and we fall out of the sky, straight down, and i close my eyes and hold on and say goodbye and the falling is faster and faster as gravity pulls us toward the city below and then there is a noise so loud it sounds like silence and everything goes white, even with my eyes closed. and i woke up with my heart racing so fast i thought maybe i was having a heart attack.

then i fell back asleep and dreamed of being on a bus, or a train laid out like a bus, with my brother. cell phones were not supposed to work. i got off the bus and ran into lepler in the street and following him into a building elevator that went up very fast as well as sideways and we talked about things and he asked how my father was and also in the elevator was the actress twink caplan with red hair like she had in look who's talking and then the elevator lurched sideways very fast and we were at our destination, and i stepped out and the hall was teeming with people, and i spotted shoshi and fetz and went to talk to them and fetz did not remember me but shoshi did, and i showed them my finger which had burst open and started bleeding profusely, and i was supposed to be looking for my dad but i turned around and in a crowd not far away i saw danny kellerman, which confused me for a moment until i realized that everyone there was dead. and so was i.
posted at 10:55 AM

my bathroom has been completely ajaxed. wish i could say the same for the carpets. sigh. 13 year olds. they completely ignored the large signs on my bedroom and bathroom door and entered anyway. GRR. hopefully this evening has cured sarah of party-hosting syndrome for a long, long time. parties are much better to attend than to give.

had dinner with chef josh and amy, at wong's. new place on woodward run by wong, who used to run wong's in windsor. it was quite good, lots of good little dishes. still, i long for real chinese food. i miss chinatown already and i haven't even moved.
posted at 1:47 AM

finally ready to try sleeping after sitting in bed for five hours rotting my brain with the online. woohoo.

terry called and left a message this afternoon basically saying he's too busy to leave a message. this kind of bums me. i wonder if i'll be able to see him in december. or if he'll be able to see me. if i'll get to see him with any regularity if i move back. if he wants to see me at all.

here's another journal entry.

10-16-86

Yesterday our class got to go to the D.I.A. It was fun. I liked best the "Black X." It is made of metel and bolts. We also saw a painting of a fourteen year old boy having his leg eaten by a shark. If the shark had taken another bite it would of bitten his head off. Just think of it, the man without a brain but a head.

The End.

posted at 2:37 AM

btw, i'm over it now. i'm not over it, but i'm over it. but i'm not.

this probably makes sense only to me.
posted at 1:17 AM

i'm just not going to say anything about today except it's a good thing there are people that love me and that i find it impossible to forget that because otherwise i might do something really bad.

i.

want.

out.
posted at 1:09 AM

so this is a day i would kill to have again: drop the dog at the groomer for a haircut, pick up sarah and her two friends at norup, shuttle them to my house and then shelly's, go to noble for lunch, come back with a cali roll for the kids and spend the rest of the afternoon watching them cook goodies for the halloween party they're having at my house, endlessly amused by the genius of 13 year old girls, spend the evening at the levinson's, talk with elise about what the fuck i'm doing, which is i have no idea.

i think i need to move home.
posted at 11:08 PM

blast, jnews, jarc, obits, cake, dtv, hate.

someday i might elaborate on this but right now i am too tired to do anything even mildly explicatory.
posted at 11:51 PM

my teeth are strong, y0. no cavities as always, dentals in good shape. i celebrated by purchasing some bras with my grandmother. exciting, i'm sure.

so dad got directv installed today. it's sort of cool - five espns can't be all bad - but i discovered to my horror that directv means no upn or wb. what. the. fuck. the cable is still connected but i would have to reconnect it to the tivo, so i will either have to do that or figure out the vcr/cable sitch downstairs for buffy.

pain in the assola.

i have a huge massive nukebomb of a headache. i took 600mg ibu around 2p which did nothing, so i just took another 400mg. better help. if it's not gone by the time dad gets home, i will beg him for real drugs. except he probably doesn't have any. fuck. i feel like a mack truck bulldozed the entire right side of my head.
posted at 4:50 PM

instead of going to sleep i searched for old stuff more, and i found a secret box that was not marked as mine but was mine and was full of old papers and journals and yearbooks. so here's an entry from right after halloween in 1986, when i was in third grade and seven years old.

Halloween was fun. I got seventy-eight pieces of candy. My mom is being nice. She is letting me have any kind of candy that I want, even with my braces on.

there is an accompanying drawing of a brown sack of candy with a list of candy types: sugar daddy, sugar babies, 3 musketeers, tootsie rolls, snicker, milky way, m+ms, bubble yum gum, milk duds.

(and yes, i had braces when i was seven. shall i count the ways my childhood was a swampy soup of humiliation?)

and you can all stop sending me spoilers about mulholland drive, darby, because i haven't seen it yet, darby, and i might see it this week, darby, but then again i might not. darby. my darling darby.

here's another 11/86 journal entry.

Yesterday we went to the science center. We saw the movie "On the Wing." I almost barfed and got sick. Then we went to the exibhit hall. They had lots of neat stuff. At the gift shop, I got a pencil that said, "Michigan somthing." We also went to the Demonstration Room.

P.S. Picture on next page.

i love me some proper punctuation.

there are three drawings on the following page. one is of the outside of the detroit science center, one is something weird that looks like it might be a rocket on wheels, or maybe a tricolored empire state building on wheels (i'm betting on the former), and the last is of a butterfly in some sort of circular encloser that might be a slide or petri dish.

and now i must sleep, because i have to go to the dentist tomorrow, who will tell me to floss more and take better care of my teeth. but hopefully he won't recommend braces, especially since he is a dentist and not an orthodontist.

i don't go to the orthodontist anymore, and i haven't worn my retainer for a little over a year. cold turkey is a beautiful thing. i stopped wearing it when i moved into my apartment. new apartment, new leaf. no more metal mouth.

my teeth are crooked again anyway.
posted at 2:43 AM

okay, so since i'm home, i've decided to dig up my journals from elementary school. so far all i've been able to unearth is fifth grade, half of which i spent drawing pictures of ducks from foreign countries. i will reproduce some of the better entries in the coming weeks. hopefully i will find earlier journals, but i haven't seen them as of yet. they better not have been disappeared, or people will be maimed.

Sept 8, 1988

I have 3 computers. Two are Apples. The IIE and IIGS. The other is a Commodore 64.

The GS has a color monitor and a color printer. The printer model is Imagwriter II.

The IIE has green and black on the moniter and black and white on the printer. It's a Panasonic.

The 64 has a color moniter, too. My dad can hook up his video camera to it and get a picture.

the cake turned out well. now the house smells like cake.

ps gabe's quasiroommate evan is cute. dayum, college.

okay, here's another journal entry.

Oct. 13, 1988

Boring. That's what school in a.m. was like. Just plain boring.

Boring was what we did in math today. Page 61 was what we had to do. Easy subtraction. Borrrring!

Boring was what we did in S.S. We did political posters. Booorrriiinnnggg!

Boring was what we did in science. We watched a boring movie about acid rain and our environment. Boring!

What does boring mean? Here's my opinion: 1. uninterested in whatever is going on around you (bored) 2. having nothing to do whatsoever.

The End

posted at 12:34 AM

metropolis is on hiatus, according to the other white meat. this comes as an enormous relief: no more tv column every week, at least for a while. i read the email and exhaled and felt a great burden lift.

i am so tired.
posted at 11:33 PM

stunning, as usual, shiny and stunning, like a diamond winking out from a pile of topsoil. i can't even bring myself to open up word documents because i'm afraid of what i'm going to find inside: incompetence. words that aren't what i'm looking for. garbage. evidence.

christ, i suck.

i will make a cake and ignore everything else, like always.
posted at 2:09 PM

i should go try to sleep. i slept four hours last night because i sat up doing nothing until 430a. unfortunately, i'm not tired. i almost fell asleep around 7p but it didn't happen.

i don't like the way i am pressured to do things. it is my prerogative to do things at my own pace, and if other people don't like the way i run things that is their problem. not mine. i have my own pace. the point of it being that it is mine.

i also don't like when people say they are going to call me and then don't. although i suspect i do that to other people. but i hate myself for it, so i am absolved.

went to my first mister this afternoon with grandma. first half was great, then they introduced the big c and it was kind of like "why'd you have to go and ruin such a good thing?" i remember when the script sold, while i was in la.

when i grow up, i want to be ron silver's diction.
posted at 12:23 AM

few evenings can be better than bowling with the fam and then watching five episodes of mscl with (future) stepsister sarah, who was smitten by the second act of the pilot. unfortunately, the rest of my tapes are in nyc. so the remainder will have to wait until december.

i scored a 105 and a 115. i could have done way better the first game but i was wearing a finger condom for the first five frames and it screwed me up until i took it off, after which i was cash money.

job anxiety beginning anew.

why is evita in my head? and why is madonna so fabulous?
posted at 1:52 AM

and btw more fun with anthrax: somebody at nypost has it. guess where nypost is? that's right, same building as tvguide. in fact, i've been up to their office to use their microfiche reader.

blah.

hahaha.

Unexpressed anger can create other problems. It can lead to pathological expressions of anger, such as passive-aggressive behavior (getting back at people indirectly, without telling them why, rather than confronting them head-on) or a personality that seems perpetually cynical and hostile. People who are constantly putting others down, criticizing everything, and making cynical comments haven't learned how to constructively express their anger. Not surprisingly, they aren't likely to have many successful relationships.

posted at 5:56 PM

sushi so good.

on the way there, i saw two old men walking. i assume they were both old oak park jews. one had on a yarmulke. the other had on a kangol hat.

wonder boys so good.

i now type three fingered on my right hand without even thinking about it. how bout that?

i need a nap, but i said i'd bake a cake.

oppsie1: you've seen primary colors right?
MtLionInCT: yes.
oppsie1: and west wing?
oppsie1: my dad does not regularly watch west wing.
MtLionInCT: semi-regular here
oppsie1: we're sitting tonight watching it
oppsie1: and charlie is in the shot and my dad goes "hey, isn't that the guy that was in primary colors?"
oppsie1: and i just give him this look.
MtLionInCT: HA!
oppsie1: and say "no, that was adrian lester, who is BRITISH."
oppsie1: "you are looking at dule hill, who is not."
MtLionInCT: wonderful.
oppsie1: dad: "you don't think they look alike?"
oppsie1: me: "well, i think they both look BLACK, but other than that, no."
oppsie1: dad: "oh."
oppsie1: me: "stop talking."
oppsie1: dad: "why?"
oppsie1: me: "just don't say anything else. really."
oppsie1: meanwhile future stepmom and i are staring at him and laughing.
MtLionInCT: man i wish i was there.
oppsie1: i was very amused.

posted at 5:49 PM

my head hurts from banging against the door while i clutched the knob like it could save me, and i don't know why i get so angry and why i can't stop hyperventilating and if that has anything to do with my eyes watering the carpet enough to help the lint trees grow big and strong.
posted at 12:53 PM

the fro bros are no more - corliss williamson baby-bottomed his head this afternoon. you could tell he had the afro for a fair amount of time, because his head looked a little pale. it did help him get off the bench and into the game for a very nice performance helping the pistons dismantle the heat. zo is a force, but he's all they got (at least with grant and jones in street clothes). the pistons, meanwhile, are looking like they might actually have some depth.

and jon barry RULES. still.

gabe donated his bed to me last night so i was able to sleep a bit. very considerate and generous. we hit greene's on the way home for some good eats. i have consumed nothing but nitrates and fats in the past 24 hours. stomach not happy.
posted at 11:27 PM

my scab came off this morning on the way to the train. dad dropped me, i waited, i watched the backwaters of royal oak and ferndale and hamtramck and detroit as the train crept towards ann arbor. it's like running around in alleys without worrying that somebody will come shiv me. fell asleep between ann arbor and albion because i got about four hours the night before - i know how wrong it is, but i keep reading until 3a. even though i know how it destroys me. but i finished my book, so that's good.

the train was way late to kzoo so gabe was there when i arrived. we got coneys at a place in town. the chili was very odd, more like loose burger than coney chili. the establishment, named "coney island," was the most dingy, dim-lit, no frills, ambience-free place i have ever been in. no music on the juke, no customers at the counter.

then we went bowling. mmm bowling. wmich's bowling alley is gorgeous. it's analog and done in beige and orange creme. i forgot to bandaid my finger before we went, so i rolled the first game with no protection. that turned out to be a bad idea: the finger got aggravated and started oozing, so gabe ran to get bandaids at the bookstore upstairs in between games. i used a 10lb ball, and it fit perfect and didn't seem any heavier than the 8lb ball i used in nh. i convinced gabe to roll a third game even though he didn't want to. how can you stop at just one, or two? not possible.

jj's for dinner. mmm jimmyjohns. then vroom to grand rapids, pick up tix at will-call, discover that our seats are fucking awesome, as are the gentlemen around us who spent the evening heckling christian laettner. i joined in.

"you're a woman, laettner!"
"wuss!"
"nice box out, laettner!"
"way to hustle, laettner!"
"LAETTNER YOU SUCK!!!"
"YOU SUCK LAETTNER!!!"
"GO HOME LAETTNER!!!"
"WE WANT JOE D!!!"
"JOE DUUUUUUUMARS!!!"
"D HIM UP JOE!!!"
"THAT SHOT WAS AS UGLY AS YOU ARE LAETTNER!!!"
"WE WANT LAETTNER!!!"
"QUIT RIDING THE PINE LAETTNER!!!"
"WHERE'S LAETTNER???"
and so on and so forth.

i was peeing out my nose.

big ben has tamed the fro into rows, but corliss williamson has picked up the slack and joined mikki moore as the gorgeous ladies of hairs. and i am in love with jon barry, who is probably thanking his nba stars right about now that he got traded because while he has to leave sacto, in detroit he's going to get boucoup minutes. and when he got fouled, before he went to the line he bounced the basketball off his head once, twice, three times in a row, like a soccer player. like he was having fun.

we had fun.

i forgot everything for two hours, and it was beautiful.

good to know this. dim sum? i think so.

------------------text pasted by the 82% biased campgod to Emrys' Tavern------------------
>This is to let you know that the white powder found in Building 14 on
>Tuesday tested negative for anthrax. Could you please pass the word to
>people in your areas, and please remind them to check the MIT homepage
>regularly for updates on matters such as this. The address is
>http://web.mit.edu/, and today's spotlight has more details on this and
>related matters.
--------------end of text pasted by the fruhead campgod to Emrys' Tavern---------------
the rollerblade hockey playing campgod says, "that's good."
tiResias . o O ( hostess to cease production of powdered donuts )

posted at 11:19 PM

but really what i'm thinking is that i should run run away run home because really what i want is a family and noise and people around and that would be nice. to have that.

make a list of all the anxieties and the worries and start trying to cross things out.

regression bad. fuckity fuck.

oh, so i drove andrew home after the dvd was over and we got out of the car in his driveway and hugged and he lifted me up off the ground and i watched him walk into his house and i will not see him again until 2004.

that's a long time.

we could all be dead by then.

hmm.

andrew has the highest arches i have ever seen. his feet are like deformed. hopefully that will prevent him from acquiring a scary ukrainian wife. i told him to beware cigarettes and the russian hausfrau. who knows if he heard. the peace corps makes you carry around a space heater, and you can take 102lbs of stuff. that's a lot of dumplings.

i'm watching an episode of vintage nba that is showing a finals game from like fifty years ago, knicks vs lakers, and the men all look so large in their tiny uniforms and the play-by-play audio is a splitsecond ahead of the video/film so the announcer says "mikan misses" and the ball clanks off the rim slightly afterward. the lakers ran a sweet fast break where they didn't dribble, just passed back and forth. then the knicks alleyooped the ball downcourt for another break. rad.

"and coming along is some razzledazzle."
posted at 12:00 AM

hearts in atlantis was okay, fair to middling. not as good as the book. lacking a certain resonance that echoes through other of king's softer works. dad and i had popcorn for dinner, then dropped grandma's car off at her house. he drove home. i could smell the questions coming - the dripping silence, the boring songs on the radio. he asks me what i want to do with my life for the twentieth time, and i answer that i don't know for the twentyfirst. that i don't know. that i guess i want to be a writer but feel it's impossible. that i don't have the motivation to do anything, or know where to get it. so he asks how long i've felt this way, and i answer a year or two, but really i'm just picking an arbitrary number. really, i have no idea. really, it feels like forever. longer than that. really.

really.

the scab on my finger is threatening to come off. i might be sad if my finger grows back, if the ridges return. i want the scar. i want the story.

andrew came over again this afternoon and ate pie. then we watched wonder boys. much better the second time around. and it allowed me not to completely want to kill katie holmes tonight on dawsons because i could remember that sometimes she can act. or at least not be utterly unbearable.
posted at 11:21 PM

dave the working stiff overslept his alarm, so it was just andrew and i for lunch. we went to noble. mmm. noble. we listened to cannibal ox, which continues to be sheer genius. mmm. cannibal ox.

oppsie1: oh man
MtLionInCT: ...
oppsie1: they just had a commercial for "walmart jewelry"
MtLionInCT: question:
MtLionInCT: as a woman, if a man ever bought you wal-mart jewelry, you'd run like hell, no?
oppsie1: after i boxed his ears and kicked him in the balls, yes.

"his hairballs are real. but he is not."
posted at 2:09 PM

watched the news all afternoon. made a dermo appt for when i get back to nyc. made a dentist appt for next week. tried calling a shrink on my list but his number has been disco'd. so, now what? i could call another name, i guess. i've got three others. one of them isn't in manhattan, so that's no good.

i'm switching from the news to broadcast news. the girl who plays young holly hunter was in the hallmark hall of fame production of the secret garden. i am a dork.

the remote control for dad's new dvd player, a pioneer, is crappy. no jog dial, separate buttons instead. it looks like it's from 1990.
posted at 3:19 PM

they did not have dr zhivago at the video store so i came home with wonder boys and broadcast news, neither of which dad really wanted to see and i had no phone to call him. so we watched leap of faith, which i liked.

caprese salad and grilled salmon for dinner. we eat in silence and i wait for the next bullet to be shot so i can hang my head and say "i don't know."

there's still something off with the apple pie. i'm going to have to keep making it and experimenting.
posted at 11:33 PM

i saw two movies today. i hadn't seen a movie in two months. symptom of depression? i don't know. didn't feel like going. nothing appealed to me. everything sucked.

but today i saw two movies, press screenings for free. found out through the grapevine that terry is on vacay. not cool. maybe i'll email him again. but sitting in the theatre - home.

home.

waking life==sleeping erin.

but high heels, low lifes was quite entertaining and fun, even if it was a bit of fluff. a bit of thelma and louise, a bit of vegemite. logic problems in the end, but does it matter? not really. not really.

home.

"we know how much toilet paper he uses to wipe his khyber pass."
posted at 4:26 PM

in my dream i knocked on somebody's door and the people that lived inside were steven weber and brooke shields, except their names were david and valerie margolin. and we talked and they gave me a glass of water and a grilled cheese and i did the dishes and brooke/valerie showed me a book of basketball photos she took. i don't remember much else, but it might have involved drugs. and a child.

movies? movies. terry? terry?
posted at 10:08 AM

wrote almost enough for column, all of it bad. i just don't care. i'm tired and unmotivated (what else is new?) and have nothing amusing to say and nothing intelligent to say and i want to go to a movie at 11a so i will read for half an hour and sleep for 7 or so.

i'm in bed with my laptop in my pajamas, but i need to wash up and ingest meds. i don't want to get up, but i'm going to, because i have to stick with it all or everything goes to shit.

"i'm the president of dana should get undressed."
posted at 2:01 AM

DIE JAMIE FOXX DIE.

andrew and david came over today and we made apple pie. two apple pies, in fact. we ate half of one and i sent the other half home with david. there remains an entire, uncracked pie to be consumed. hooray. in the middle of cooking grandma came over and we drove out to her friend's house so they could go to the airport and i could have grandma's car for the rest of the week. i'm ridin' in style. hells yes, lexus lexus 1-9.

there is a bottle of cipro in the kitchen, prescribed to dad from last year. coincidence?

the writing of the tv column has now been put off for four days. i am going to watch the rest of the practice and then go write in bed. i swear.
posted at 10:22 PM

this guy just did a killer dick vitale imitation on 2 minute drill, and then rick barry started talking about his christian clothing business in which the threads are blessed and fiber takes the moral high road.

dad and i watched finding graceland last night, which is a crappy movie that features harvey keitel impersonating elvis. how does he sleep at night? (harvey, not elvis.)

trying to write metropolis tv. barferoo.

bad news for all those expecting more pictures of my finger. i left my digicam in new york and my heart in san fran, so there will be no furthering of the finger photodocumentation project until i return at the end of the month. unless dad has a digicam that i don't know about. anyway, it is healing and has scabbed. it is numb and tingly. still don't know if the nerve endings, flesh, and/or fingerprint ridges will be returning. what i do know is that this officially sucks because i can't go bowling. unless i do it left-handed, which i just might try. we shall see.

dad has a beard.
posted at 12:18 PM

i went to dinner at noble with joshva, which was yummy. he informs me that the infestation is not ladybugs but japanese beetles. they bite. (no word as to whether they also carry anthrax.)
posted at 8:03 PM

okay, so i'm not taking her to the vet. i'm going to observe her a few more days and then take her to the vet. she seemed to be drinking and peeing a lot but now i'm not sure.

shelly was maybe going to take me to eastern market this morning but didn't call, so i slept in and then my grandmother called and we went to somerset and lunch, which was nice, and i got her to tell me a bunch of family history which basically boils down to that all my relatives on my dad's side are related to each other. like my grandpa's parents were first cousins, and my grandma's first cousin and my grandpa's sister were married, and my grandma's mother's brother and father's sister were married, etc. SCARY.

i got some cookies at hudsons marketplace, which are the best chocolate chip cookies on the planet. or at least they used to be, they're not so perfect anymore. and we browsed williamssonoma because i have a $100 giftcert to get rid of. and we did it all during the football game, which i recorded and am now watching. hooray for tivo.

there is a ladybug infestation in the backyard. when i let the dog out and watch her, i keep seeing ladybugs flying everywhere. i've never seen so many. it's bizarre.

somebody please, please, please destroy jamie foxx.
posted at 5:19 PM

detroit in the house, y'all.

i'm worried about the dog.

very worried.

i'm letting her sleep in my room tonight and we'll see how that goes for both of us.

and tomorrow i am taking her to the vet.

but right now i'm going to sleep, and dream of chasing cars and mailmen and tails.
posted at 12:37 AM

things are moving right along. i am doing a new experiment in airport transport and ordered the supershuttle! to take me to lga. it's about half the price of a car service and still door-to-door and the van is blue. so i'm going to finish watching er, take a shower, unpack my suitcase, repack it with dirty laundry to do when i get home, coddle the tivo, and pick a good book to bring with me because i'm going to be sitting at the airport for a longass time.
posted at 10:10 AM

white russians are of the gods.

survivor could be good, what with riki rachtman in the cast and an entire tribe named after richie sambora.

also i have now watched enough first season 90 to determine that brenda walsh might be the only person on the planet to be on the rag 24/7 instead of once a month.

[jameswatch2k]: passed out for a couple of hours then woke around 3a and couched it the rest of the night.
posted at 9:26 AM

bush is going on at 8p for a press conference. how fabulous. i wonder how nbc et al will deal with this; primetime thursday is killer, 8p is friends, so wtf? and survivor? this will end badly, i fear.

morrow and jill are on their way over. we are watching survivor (if it's on..) and the big lebowski. caucasians? i think so.

there's a bootleg table set up at the end of my block. i've seen a couple nights in a row now, so tonight i stopped by. they had bandits and training day and a bunch of other videos, and a bunch of pirated cds like dmx and jayz. five dolla per. yowza.
posted at 7:27 PM

can somebody please tell martin sheen to get a better hair colorist if he wants to keep on being the president? thanks.
posted at 2:42 PM

so after moping over my gross incompetence and the evils of snack food companies yesterday afternoon, i ran away to greenwich where things are happy and the people are good, or at least the two people i know. caught the 633p train at grand central, arrived at 717p and jeremie was waiting. at his house i took a quick shower since my water was still brown and grody, and when i got out sheri had arrived and we went to dinner at a place with good food and poor service. then we watched buffy and ate pie. mmm. pie.

i was going to catch a late train back but it was late late and the train didn't get me in until 130ish so i stayed overnight in ct. sheri's bed is happy, and their house is quiet and james-free. slept like baby, dreamed of playing the piano.

took another shower this morning before i left. mmm. clean water. then jeremie took me to the train. i walked across town to check my po box. the geniuses at the usps are still forwarding my mail to nh even though the tab on my box says to only do it until 9/30/01. idiots. i informed the po box matron of this grievous error and she said eventually my mail might arrive. yeah, right.

then i took the train down to chambers street and spent two hours wandering around ground zero. or, really, ground two or three - you can't get close, not even. i wanted to go before i leave for detroit tomorrow - i'll be gone for a few weeks, and who knows what will happen between now and then. so i walked around the parts of the perimeter that are open to the public. police and national guardsmen/army everywhere. it's quiet. people are quiet. you can't see much, just glimpses in between buildings. there's a point on rector street where you can see the remainder of the south tower facade, and behind it, the north tower facade, which is taller. it's different seeing it in person, instead of compressed through a video camera. but it's hard to explain how. when you walk around the area, it's like there's a haze over everything you look at, because there is dirt everywhere. on buildings. on windows. on awnings. inside a few stores that are still cleaning up. on the tissue you blow your nose on when you get home because you have inhaled the ash of buildings and paper and people without noticing. there is dirt where you did not think dirt could go. there is dirt everywhere.

but the sky is still blue, and the sun is still bright, and the breeze is blowing so it does not smell and you do not know why people are still wearing masks. until you get home.

i took one picture. i wouldn't have even had a camera if i hadn't gone to ct and brought it to document the finger developments. most of the viewing points on the south end had no photo signs posted; i didn't see any where i took this, but right after i snapped it some other people were trying to take photos aimed directly at the site (it was the clearest view) and a cop came over and told them no photos. i was covert, i guess.

new pictures of my finger are available! sheri took them. they're better than the ones i took. i am letting it air out this afternoon. when i leave it open, i get some pain, but hopefully that means it's healing and not that it's about to turn gangrenous.
posted at 12:25 PM

dsl died. rebooted computer, rebooted modem, no good, no good, called elms, sat on hold. while sitting on hold i decided to query for redback servers with raspppoe to see if modem was talking to the outside world or what the problem was, and it came back with a new redback. hooray! used it, it worked. i am no longer being routed through cleveland. they got the nyc router back up, it seems. my speeds have doubled, but they are still nowhere near what they once were. we shall see.

somebody down in the street is bumping jayz with a vengeance.

bert is evil.

"The tape clearly shows that Alex caught the ball," Ted Rowlands, the KNTV reporter who was in the middle of the pile, told ESPN.com. "The question is, are there any rules in the middle of a scrum? If there are rules of possession, what are they? If all bets are off until Major League Baseball comes along, then it's Hayashi's ball. If you can't steal from a scrum, it's Alex's."

SCRUM.

SCRUM.

SCRUM.

(is scrum a shortened form of scrotum? hmm.)

and in other good news, the pistons creamed the cavs last night. dare i hold out hope for a good game against mj on the 18th? i dare.
posted at 12:35 PM

why must they show every single devastating episode of nypd in a row? huh? anybody? i am tired of crying on my couch every morning at 11a.

but not tired enough to turn it off! swoon. milch. (chech.)
posted at 11:07 AM

perhaps i should be running the building. after some searching around nyc.gov, i figured out that the place to call was the department of environmental protection. so i called, sat on hold for 30 seconds, talked to a rep who was aware of the problem and verified what landlord steve said, and told me that the city was working on it and it would be fixed by tonight (yeahright). she also said i could shower in it but not drink it.

i think i shall not be showering today.
posted at 10:23 AM

the water is still brown. i'm still afraid to put my body in it, so i shall not be showering today. there was a bit of sediment in the toilet. landlord steve just called to say he didn't know what was up with it but it's apparently affecting buildings on the east side between 110 and 125 street. great. this is all retribution for thinking during my shower yesterday that the water pressure was much improved, either by a tweak i did to my shower head or some other mysterious occurrence. anyway, landlord steve also said he didn't have a number to call to find out what's up, which i find dubious at best. (AT BEST.)

better than ever!
posted at 10:08 AM

the metropolis party tonight was okay, mostly because i dragged jill and her roommate allison with me. i ate a lot of hotdogs in blankets to take the edge off. we were accosted by this girl who had not one but two monica lewinsky-made bags with her and wrote about phone sex and told us all about everything we didn't want to know about her and punctuated all sentences with "i mean, HELLO." it was comical. morrow did not show up because he is a punkass bitch. we left after a while and ended up at yama for dinner, which is just so subpar and outre after jewel bako. i am ruined.

good news! my snail mail seems to finally be working. i wonder how many paychecks disappeared into the ether.

why why why.

the water in my sink and toilet is distinctly brown. i left a message for landlord steve. i'm afraid to wash my face in it.
posted at 12:36 AM

letterman last night was pretty funny. first marv albert's toupee, then farrah fawcett being distinctly farrah fawcett, then garbage showing up as musical guest and shirley manson becoming, uh, ugly. or at least not so attractive. apparently she now believes it is 1982 and has cut her hair accordingly. eek!

also monday night jill and i stopped at starbucks on the way back from the green grocer because i needed caffeine. so i order a mocha, and go to wait for it, and the barista puts out a cup the size i ordered and i didn't see anyone else around so i grabbed it and walked off and started drinking it and realized that it was.. fruity. eh? then this girl comes running up to me and i realize i have taken her chai and she is holding my mocha and the idiot barista did nothing to stop me from this horrible transgression and i tell her i've already sipped from it and she says that's okay i'll drink it anyway and i say i'm sure they will exchange it and she says no that's okay and i say i don't have any diseases and she runs off wit h her potentially herpes-laden beverage and i am just flabbergasted that somebody would take a drink from a stranger that could be full of germs, no matter how innocent and clean i look. because i would never, ever do that, ever. gross.

for some reason, it amuses me that cwebb and tmac are shilling for code red. and also that my supermarket carries it in 2litres.
posted at 4:21 PM

got my hair cut this morning and feel a good deal lighter about the head. this is good. i do need to shower all the gunk out of my hair, though. the columbia corridor has improved upon itself yet again: a fabulous new branch of the new york public library has opened up, and kim's video right next door. maybe i should just go work at one of those fine establishments.

i spent the rest of the afternoon dealing with my finger. sigh. it is not easy to undress and redress wounds, especially when they are on your right hand and you are right-handed. the bandaid scabbed itself to my finger (or the other way around) and i soaked it for an hour in a saltwater mixture, then cut off the ends with scissors, then soaked the remaining postage stamp-sized piece another half hour or so, then grit my teeth and said 'oh holy hell.' and it came off. at the drugstore after my haircut i purchased triple layer non-stick pads that "won't stick to healing wounds," which sounded right up my alley, cloth medical tape, and a package of finger condoms. so my current setup is much better than the bandaid i'd been using: pad, taped on with copious amounts of cloth tape, all covered with a digital trojan. we'll see how it holds up in the shower. all the stress of it has exhausted me. is that pathetic? i don't know. but i need a nap. feh.

new pictures are available!
posted at 3:56 PM

my finger still hurts. a lot. especially when it touches anything, or water gets on it. then there is searing and yelping.

my typing is at a pretty good pace, because i am a good typist. although not using the finger puts more burden on the middle and index fingers, and my tendons are getting strained. annoy. more pictures are up. hooray.

[jameswatch2k]: i'm sitting here watching monday night football when my butt recognizes a familiar bassline and i go into the hall to verify with treble and, yes, he is listening to c+c music factory/gonna make ya sweat.

MtLionInCT: don't get pregnant, erin.
MtLionInCT: i just watched them use a vacuum cleaner to pull a baby through a woman's cha-cha.
oppsie1: i just sprayed cheerios all over the screen
oppsie1: but thanks for the tip
oppsie1: if you hadn't said anything, who knows what i might have done.
MtLionInCT: not even if it's jeremy irons.

"is that dope enough? indeed"
posted at 11:45 PM

so here's what happened:

i got a glass of orange juice, and then i noted my knife block and decided i would put my nice knives in it. CHICKENFRIED had put them on top of my cabinets. so i got up on the stepstool and got them down, and took the chef's knife out of its cardboard sheath and it looked a little water-spotted so i decided to wash it.

and then there was a bit of pain, and i said "ouch!" and then there was blood everywhere, and i ran it under the water that was already running since i was washing the knife, and i grumbled and it hurt and i grabbed the dishtowel and spillled blood all over the floor and wrapped it and came to the cpu and told morrow to call me and then we sat on the phone for an hour until it stopped bleeding, and i took off the paper towel i had exchanged the dishtowel for and discovered that, no, it was not a gash that required stitches, it was a lopping-off. i lopped off the tip of my finger. i measured the now-shriveling remainder (it's drying out - it's the tip, with ridges and prints, and a bit of flesh as well, white-bellied and fishy) and it's about 8mm in diameter. what, that doesn't sound like a lot? get out a ruler, chech.

so i took some pictures, which was hard to do with just my left hand (they don't really do it justice), and put neosporin on a bandaid and covered it up loosely and went to take a picture of the knife and found the tip of my finger lying innocently on the side of the sink. i wasn't expecting to find it, so that's cool. and now i am trying hard to type without my right ring finger, which is hard, though not as hard as using a fork or showering. sigh. exhausted. need to fall asleep in pool of dried blood.

i called dad just to make sure i didn't need to see a doctor or anything and he wasn't too worried, and he also told me about the joys of the finger condom. and next on the list of words you don't want to hear your father say..

so, i will live. it'll be interesting to see how this heals. will it regenerate, or will i forever be tipless and scarred? this finger is just a bad luck magnet. i fractured it years ago tripping over a crack in the sidewalk as i walked to my next door neighbor's; i jammed it playing basketball; i got it slammed in a car door by my cousin, which left some wicked pinpoint bruising and burst capillaries. fear not! i shall document the developments like the photojournalist that i am.

warning: my knives are sharp.

also: i make good pie.

additionally: the tip of my finger is now planed instead of rounded.

oppsie1: thanks for your help.
MtLionInCT: don't mention it.
oppsie1: i'll put the fingertip in a baggie for you
MtLionInCT: thanks.
MtLionInCT: i'm gonna start calling you "mohel podolsky"
oppsie1: hahaha
MtLionInCT: you can do the briss if it's a boy
oppsie1: cool
oppsie1: i've got nine fingers left to practice on

posted at 3:39 PM

oppsie1 (12:41:09 PM): f/ucxk
oppsie1 (12:41:27 PM): shiut
oppsie1 (12:41:30 PM): call nmne
MtLionInCT (12:41:51 PM): what's up?
MtLionInCT signed off at 12:41:52 PM.

posted at 2:27 PM

things you shouldn't be subjected to before 10a:
-- ananda lewis screeching "i LOVE that song, i LOVE that song"
-- ananda lewis, period
-- justin timberlake appearing with a line shaved in his eyebrow, apparently attempting to emulate johnny gill circa 1991
-- ananda lewis
posted at 9:59 AM

[jameswatch2k]: yeah, so. sigh.

seth green is on weakest link tonight. eh? yes, i concur. i'm recording it anyway. swoon.
posted at 9:39 AM

the cartoon network after hours is so awesome. they're showing black and whites now, and they're playing one of my favorite cartoons ever: an old warners toon set to shuffle off to buffalo, which i watched in film class in conjunction with 42nd street, which is nasty and has babies in blackface and shit. it is GENIUS. i love old warners cartoons. what's weird is when they started the halfhour with b/w i was vaguely hoping they'd show this one. god, it is good.
posted at 1:57 AM

despite the emmylessness of the telly, jill and i had a grand time. we made pad thai, and apple pie, and played scrabble, and laughed way too much. i'm pleased with the way the pie turned out, given that i have never made it by myself and not in collaboration since high school. i am a good cook. jill is also not bad.

on my way there i picked up a rolling pin at lechters. it is marble. they did not have wood rolling pins. it is very heavy. it was $10. it worked well, rolling the pie crust.

my first scrabble word was 'jones', which was very strange because before i put it down i asked jill if we could use slang and she said 'like jones?' and i was quite freaked and so was she. more giggles ensue. anyway, i kicked her ass, because i rule. and i explained unmount as a word in relation to mount/umount. i'm so leet.
posted at 1:18 AM

high comedy on e!: they're in the midst of their "live countdown to the primetime emmy awards" (winner predictions! last-minute preparations!) and suddenly it's mass chaos as the emmys are (HORRORS! HORRORS!) cancelled. i'm recording it for posterity. high comedy. high comedy.

zeppe . o O ( your emmy may now be mailed to your home. or maybe not, loser. )

posted at 4:02 PM

great, i go to the supermarket and we start bombing afghanistan. i always miss the good stuff. hope this doesn't hinder me getting to detroit on friday.

(however, i now have bread and mayonnaise. long live capitalist society.)
posted at 2:14 PM

people are not calling me back, i continue to agree to do things i do not want to do for not enough recompense, and it is driving me to an early grave.

on the plus side, it was quiet last night, and i slept well and dreamt of watching a soccer game and trading nicole blackman lyrics with somebody anonymous.

on my way to the subway last night, i caught the tail-end of the harlem renaissance farmers market. yes! there is now a farmers market at the end of my block, just started in july. i talked to a woolly-bearded guy who told me it was doing well (i asked) and that he had great organic yogurt (i said i'd get some next week). unfortunately, the market will only be open through october, and i have no october saturdays left here. figures.

then as i was walking down the stairs to the station, an old hispanic man was coming up the stairs and our eyes met and he asked if i wanted his metrocard daypass because he was on his way home. i didn't need it, but i took it anyway, and later passed it on to morrow.
posted at 12:17 PM

the igea electrosage creeps the fuck out of me.

[jameswatch2k]: i slept on the couch from 130a-830a without fully waking up other than to replace earplugs. this is good, although i should dig out my fleece miniblanket since it's getting cold today (yay!) and i've been using my hooded sweatshirt as a cover on my legs simply because i deposited it on the couch when i last wore it. when i woke up i went and slept in my bed for a couple of hours, although the bass was prevalent.

there's a really cool show on pandas on the discovery channel right now. i like the discovery channel.
posted at 10:56 AM

on the couch, la la la, on the couch, la la la.
posted at 1:01 AM

i'm 60 words away from being done with this week's tv column. this is good, and i owe steve hugely for lending me enterprise. i watched the west wing yesterday, and aside from my nonplussedness at janel moloney's boyfriend non sequitur in the show intro, tom shales does a pretty good job being as nasty as i wanna be. i am voluntarily drinking orange juice. scary, i know. and i ate the remainder of yesterday's bagel. dinner at uncle morris and aunt laurie's tonight. i remembered to ask if they had train monopoly. they do not. must get for cousin josh. wonder if i can find it today. nah, i'll mail order it.

good news! daisy fuentes has joined the march of dimes! there was just an ad about it on tv. ill. i watch too much tv. double ill. it doesn't help me write well. triple ill.
posted at 2:21 PM

this is the saddest episode of television ever. why does everyone in sipowicz's life have to die? it's enough to drive you to drink.

(he and i are on the wagon, though.)

also, my ears keep filling.

"i told him 'she's visiting'."
posted at 10:57 AM

[jameswatch2k]: i fell asleep on the couch at 630a after trying the bed, listening to coast to coast, listening to the news, reading, panicking. on the couch, the fan blocks out the noise. almost. i heard it again at 10a, and now i am up.
posted at 10:20 AM

[jameswatch2k]: we're having a little chat tomorrow. trust me. i don't understand or fathom or anything. we've talked twice. TWICE. since i've been back, both times which i said please keep it off at night. i just went down there and it is on. it is low, but it is on, and i can hear it, and i can't sleep, and i am tired.

this is a bad reason to move home.
posted at 3:36 AM

i went out to meet steve and his friend rae at monster sushi for dinner. that's the third time i've had sushi since saturday. that's not a bad thing. rae works for bedford, my four-day job. yuck. but she's okay other than that. we went to red rock, and i made steve leave early so i could borrow the premiere episode of enterprise from him. a little after we got there, a brigade of nypd and fdny bagpipers marched in and gave an impromptu concert. it was wonderful, even if all bagpipe songs sound like amazing grace to me, or maybe they just played that particular song several times over. i think they must have come from a funeral, or a memorial, or something. sigh. later, they got on the bar and danced. in their kilts. and they played on the bar. in their kilts.

enterprise was silly, like all iterations of star trek. the obligatory hot chick looks like the lovechild of angelina and famke. now i have to write about it. in the morning. sigh.
posted at 1:09 AM

why it took me two hours to purchase five items at the grocery store: i narrowly missed the xtown bus on my way west, so i walked and stopped off at my insurance office to pay off my renter's insurance for the next year; i got a bagel and stood around eating half until i felt like puking; i went to the bank and deposited my buy.com litigation chequequeque; i went to the grocery store; i waited 30+ minutes for the eastbound xtown bus, during which five or six westbound m4's went by; the bus was packed and hotter than an auschwitz gas chamber because the a/c was out; we went 1.25 blocks before the bus driver inexplicably sped up way more than he should, then jammed on the brakes, and because the bus was packed people were standing and suddenly everybody in the back of the bus with me heard a rolling and a thump! and an OOOOH, and then the bus didn't move and people were screaming and somebody was calling for somebody who speaks spanish and rumors started flying including one in which a baby had gone airborne when the driver punched the brakes, and then another m4 appeared behind us and we all got off and got on that bus. and it turned out that some old lady in front had fallen down and slid and bumped her head, and the cops came, and the new bus let us on without swiping our mcards and had air conditioning and a few blocks later i was home.

also, i stopped to get a mocha frappucino at starbuck$. also, i saw my aunt's brother paul walking on 110th street but i didn't feel like dealing with anybody i know, plus i don't really know him, so i turned away.

yep, i'm back in nyc.
posted at 2:12 PM

[jameswatch2k]: ..and so i did. except for 5-630a, when i heard noise through my earplugs that i'm pretty sure was sourced from james, who i've run into several times since i've been back, including yesterday when he asked if the noise level was okay and i asked him to turn off the tv/radio/whatever at night. grr.

i have developed a killer croupy cough! hooray!

and i need to go purchase food. i hope sleeping for 12 hours doesn't fuck up my new sked of waking up at 8a.
posted at 10:57 AM

oh christ. the other white meat wants a tv column tomorrow.

how the fuck can i get all this done? i don't even know what to write about. i just want to sleep for a really long time. fuck.
posted at 7:41 PM

misery. i feel like crap, i can't eat (okay, i had a twix, but i have no other food), and pr hooers have been refusing to return my calls, i'm going to get fired from my onmag gig because i can't get people to call me back, and basically, i suck.

on the plus side, verizon tony showed up this morning at 930a and was done 11ish. he eventually determined that the problem was not a bridge tap, but something called a "bp" that verizon had done on my particular copper pair in the box down the block that he likened to cops writing out bogus tickets at the end of the month just to make their quota. i wasn't too sure what he meant, but after much back and forth between his van and my apt, everything was fixed. hooray! dsl owns. high speed owns. although i'm worried my speeds have been compromised. but i think it's all in my head.

there's a fly in my apartment. but at least i have 90210.
posted at 5:45 PM

i took a 12-hour cold pill last night before i went out with morrow, and then i chugged a redbull to counteract any sleep-inducing side effects. except i only thought i took the pill but i didn't, as usual, so i took nose drops, as usual, so, as usual. gah. i need an intern.

i go pass out now.
posted at 12:55 AM

morrow and i had the most amazing sushi dinner ever tonight. we went to jewel bako, which opened in july. better than yama, better than kurumazushi (he's been, i haven't), better than FISH CAMP, better than anything. BETTER THAN ANYTHING. we got the omakase and it was sublime. i have no words to describe it. just.. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

when we got out of the subway at astor place, it smelled like burning, but it might have been non-wtc or entirely in my head. but it might not have been. i looked down the street and there was a big empty space in the sky.

my locks are changed. and i asked landlord steve about window screens for the umpteenth time, and he told me the shit was still pending but i could buy those portable frames hardware stores carry and just take the money off my rent. hooray.

CHICKENFRIED left a new showerhead on the shower and told me he bought it because the one that was on there wasn't giving enough water. the one he put on had no flow restrictor. um, okay. the one i had on there had no flow restrictor either, and i put it back on this morning after trying out his showerhead. mine is way, way better.

my tivo is back. ah, phil, my one and only. he had to download a shitload of info so i was unable to program him before we left for dinner. so i fucked up my whole tuesday tv viewing, pretty much. feh.

xian emailed. beware, o blog readers who must deal conmigo irl. you have been warned. (may contain acts of gord.)
posted at 10:20 PM

officer spaminator (or something like that, i should have paid more attention to his nameplate) just rang my doorbell and talked to me. when landlord steve and i were talking earlier, he asked me if i'd heard/seen anybody go in and out of the apt next door, which is empty. i said no. he said there'd been a tv and stuff in there that the tenant had left and the guys downstairs (building super, etc) wanted for themselves. we agreed that maybe the tenant's family had come to pick it up or something, the girl apparently moved to taiwan or some shit like that. i said i knew nothing. same spiel with officer spaminator. landlord steve apparently reported it as a burglary. eek!
posted at 1:29 PM

oh my GOD kurt loder has become alex trebek, with the crazyaccurate pronounciations of foreign names. eek.

landlord steve dropped by with a potential new nextdoor neighbor. i told her the area wasn't as bad at seemed. then i told him i was changing my locks in the wake of CHICKENFRIED and he was like 'yes, good idea' and then offered to install them if i just bring him the new cylinders. even though he charges me ridiculous rent, i'm grateful that landlord steve is so nice and hands-on.

i burned the roof of my mouth on pizza yesterday. ouch.

also, a good guy on tvbarn2@ just sent a hilarious parody of the religious nut.

From:tvbarn2@ jason
Subject: [tvbarn2] hey everybody!!!!!!!!

Hey what does everybody think of Buffy,the season premiere is tonight on UPN(home of Star Trek),and I
think its a cool show.It is about a girl who kills vampires,and other villains too,and I was wondering if you were all going to watch it,or watch something like Undeclared instead.I dont know what I'm going to do,but I'm not going to watch Gilmore Girls(with the girl who was in a few episodes of NewsRadio,as
the efficiency expert)because it's lame!!

Also I was wondering,if anyone could visit my website I made,as a fan of PAX TV:

www.ilovepaxtv.com

And I was thinking,how many of you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior,because I have and I
think the media hasn't and they're all liberal and biased,because they never ask anyone if they
have taken Jesus as their personal savior,I mean come on that's an important question,dont you think??

And what does everyone think of all the letterbox(black bars) shows on TV this fall,I think its a bad Idea because it cuts off too much of the picture and I want to see the whole picture.

What do you THINK??? LET ME KNOW!!!!! TV BARN PEOPLE, TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!!!

Or,visit my website.

www.ilovepaxtv.com

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!

--John Bunco

"ooh, enrique."
posted at 1:02 PM

earthlink john is my new best friend. i called this morning and left him a message, and he called me back and we tried a bunch of things and were on the phone for an hour or so and he was on and off with covad and it turns out that this is not stricly 9/11-related. apparently it's a result of the idiot regime at verizon placing a bridge tap on the bundle of copper that contains my line, which grounds the dsl-specific line and kills it. but! verizon is contractually obligated to remove the bridge tap and place it behind 4200 feet (currently it is somewhere between 0 and 4200, with 0 being my apt) because my line was originally provisioned with a 4200 foot length from the CO. this was all determined after covad tested the line and first reported a distance of 4200, then 12000, then 7000. huh? yeah, oops. john and i also had a nice chat about movies and IT and books and what i do while we were waiting for stuff. john is super, and even emailed me the file notes.

From: earthlink/mindspring john
To: erin podolsky
Subject: Covad notes.

Problem: Digital subscriber line access Mulltiplexer shows loss of signal Harris test shows CP E plugged and unplugged loop is open At 11,100ft The Acceptance distance is at 4,250ft Next steps/actions: I am sending this Trouble Ticket to Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier For removal of bridge taps End User availability is Monday Friday 8:00-12:00Pm thanks. Estimated time of next update: 10/02/2001 11:27 Tech Support

10/2/01 7:28 AM PDT Department changed from TAC to ILEC Repair Assignee changed from Further Troubleshooting to TAC ILEC Verizon (BA) Status changed from OPEN-Pending Partner Action to ASSIGNED Partner/ John called for coop testing with End User on line Digital subscriber line access Mulltiplexer shows loss of signal Harris test shows CP E plugged and unplugged loop is open At 11,100ft The Acceptance distance is at 4,250ft I am sending this Trouble Ticket to Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier For removal of bridge taps End User availability is Monday Friday 8:00-12:00Pm thanks. Tech Support

10/2/01 7:15 AM PDT Client Circuit Number: 100-559-087 Client Name: Erin Podolski Company Name: Podolski, Erin Partner Name: EarthLink Service Brand: TeleSurfer Pro ADSL Port Provisioning: DSLAM Trunk Status: OK Technology: DMT4F Card Status: OK Port Status: Down Actual Port Rates: 0 kbps Downstream / 0 kbps Upstream Margin: 0.0 dB Downstream / 0.0 dB Upstream Upstream Cells Received from CPE: 0 ( 64307562 ) Downstream Cells Transmitted to CPE: 0 ( 123638975 ) ATM HEC Errors: 0 ( 65 ) Upstream Line Errors: 0 ( 4990 ) Downstream Line Errors: 0 ( 3051 ) Training Starts: 0 ( 46 )

too bad my name is still spelled wrong. i think that's on covad's end, though; supposedly the misspelling has been resolved with elms, as of a year ago or so.

i really hate people who don't space after periods or commas. there is a guy who has been recently posting often on tvbarn2@ who does that. and now he's gotten even worse, and is posting weird religious stuff. so this makes me laugh:

From: tvbarn2@ john
Subject: [tvbarn2] Re: Liberal Media Bias/(RAPTUREREADY.COM)

--- In tvbarn2@y..., tvbarn2@ mark wrote:
>
> Good God, we've got a religious nut posting on the group!

Please don't blame God for this guy.

and then the religious nut replies:

From: the religious nut
Subject: Re: [tvbarn2] Re: Liberal Media Bias/(RAPTUREREADY.COM)

I perfer the term Christian,not religious nut,thank you.

i feel a little better today. not sure if it's residuals from the two benadryl i took last night before bed, or what. we'll see.
posted at 12:15 PM

brendan haywood did not call. what a surprise. i'm shocked, truly.

i ran into landlord steve downstairs today and we agreed to split the difference of the raise in my rent, so i'm saving $27/mo. hooray.

CHICKENFRIED was just here. he told me that the dsl has only been down since last tuesday or wednesday, which i find very, very strange. maybe they need to send someone out after all.

grr.

also, i feel like crap.

double grr.

from the department of hmm: um, okay. that's nice. and ralph macchio is turning 40 in a month.
posted at 4:30 PM

dsl is still down. after last night's absurdity, i called again this morning to set up the so-called covad appt. they must have all the crackheads working the sunday night shift, because this morning i sat on hold for less than an hour, talked to a tier 1 rep who after a while told me a tier 2 rep named john would call me back within an hour. i scoffed.

he called back around 30 minutes after my initial call. and told me exactly what i wanted to hear: that nobody had to come to my building, that last night's guy was an idiot, that 61,000 earthlink customer's lost service after wtc, that earthlink's order to covad for me to be rerouted through cleveland had been placed yesterday at 3p and they don't work on sundays (he said it was just coincidence that the order was placed yesterday and i had called, but i'm skeptical), and that i should be up and running by tomorrow and if i'm not, call back. he gave me his extension. so, crossing fingers.

i'm currently getting tmc and showtime on my cable. this is bizarre. i thought perhaps it was a free preview weekend, but i'm still getting them today. as long as they don't show up on my bill, i'm a happy camper.

and now, work.
posted at 10:03 AM