i croon, therefore i am.

i am a slow learner.

it’s been sometime since i’ve been up for posting on the internet. but i’m up for it now!

i’ve spent the last year not keeping a blog but instead keeping a job! and building a home with one hell of a boy. it’s been time well spent; i’d like to tell you more, and i will! i seriously hope you’re up for hearing it because i want to understand why that lady yelled at me for walking up the subway steps too slowly even though there was someone in front of me and i couldn’t walk any faster. i can’t understand that unless you tell me why that happened. i am a slow learner.

Straight?, Late…, Great!

Part One: Straight?

Of course I’ll admit that I’m a little gay. I mean, everyone is a little gay, but I, in particular, am more than a little gay. That’s not to say I don’t love dudes. I do. I love dudes! Smother me in dudes, I’d die a happy girl. After, of course, I yell at all the dudes I’m being smothered in for their inability to communicate. But this is not the point. And the point is neither that I date ladies sometimes, nor that I love the gays, but all these things do qualify the following story:
I’ve had a pretty sizeable thing for this one fella for a substantial chunk of time. He’s ace, and to make what could be a seriously long story somewhat shorter I will start Friday before last when he finally (!) decided to kiss me. As my friend DC put it in his amazing novel, “Here’s the thing about making out: it’s awesome.”
So, there we were, kissing in some bar, sitting next to the blonde girl from ‘Heros’ who isn’t Hayden Panettiere, and there I was feeling all kinds of victorious and melty, thinking thoughts like, “Oof, what a babe!” and “He likes me!” and “Fucking finally!” and “I’m not a crazy person!”
So, we leave the bar and walk to the subway. I am sure there is a river of awesome propelling us down the street and not just the muscles in our legs.
We are standing on the corner of 14th and 6th kissing goodnight. I am lost in a cloud of dude when I hear a loud and slurry voice yell,
“DYKE!”, I jerk my face away from my fella’s to see an obviously gay man and his boyfriend, both clearly drunk, looking at us.
The yeller’s boyfriend starts to shush him,
“Honey, stop… stop… you‘re drunk, shhhhh….” and I’m actually just baffled.
“Really?!” I say,
“Reaaaally?”, to which the yeller responds,
“Your haircut is gay, so gay. You’re clearly gay. I thought maybe he was a girl, but noooo, he‘s definitely not a girl, but your hair is SOOO gay.”
I am caught in a vortex of wanting to laugh, cry, and throw a punch. I decide to comment on the power dynamic of the (and I use this word with much love) fag’s relationship,
“What are you?! A bottom trying to assert power? What are you, a malicious fag?” And we continue to sass each other while our respective dudes try to calm us down.
The interaction ends on a friendly note, but, really? Did I really get gay-bashed by some fags WHILE making out with a frankly pretty manly-looking dude?
I hope the fella still likes me, I’m pretty sure he does. But, really? Seriously? REALLY?

Part Two: Late…

The morning after I was hilariously gay-bashed I had plans to go see a lovely friend of mine named Heidi Vanderlee play cello with her mom. They were playing near my house during a service at the most gorgeous and enormous cathedral in the world, St. John the Divine. I am not very good at mornings. I’m getting better, but mostly, I’ll kill you and kill you again if you wake me up. I had planned to have coffee at the Hungarian Pastry Shop with my best friend Kate and then go to see Heidi shred in the middle of some nice people’s ordination, but instead I woke up an hour late to many missed calls and Kate saying that she was about to go up to the Cloisters and annul our friendship. I ran over to the cathedral and apologized to Kate who was kind enough to continue to love me. We went in and took a seat in the back. We were at the processional of people-walking-in-crazy-hats-while-swinging-metal-balls-leaking-smoke-on-chains part of the service.
My religious upbringing was more about being Jewish, singing folk songs, and reading passages of ‘Grapes of Wrath’ aloud. So, the whole thing cathedral thing was a little confusing to me, but it was all very beautiful. I slowly came to terms with the fact that I had missed Heidi and her mom perform. I was bummed. Kate decided to bid me adieu and head up to the Cloisters. The many amazing organs played ‘Ode to Joy’. I got a little weepy and then my Grandma called me so I walked out of the cathedral to take the call. She was calling to ask if I was taking the copious vitamin pills that she had given me the week before. I told her that yes, I was taking them, and then she starting telling me, in great detail, about an article she had read about re-paying college loans. Heidi texted to ask where I was, I responded that I was on the steps talking to my grandma. She explained that I had just missed her. This is ridiculous. Only I could show up an hour late, sit through a half an hour of church only to miss my friend’s performance because I was getting nagged about my vitamin pill intake. Ugh. When I left the cathedral I went for a run. I went for a run after going to church. I am famously a chubby Jew. Some days are entirely about doing things I do not do.

Part Three: Great!

The other thing I did the day I did things I do not do was to read DC Pierson’s novel. I quoted a line from it earlier and I will now expound on his and it’s awesome-ness.

DC Pierson is a new old friend, who moved out of New York just in time for me to curse myself for not taking advantage of his physical presence in the preceding years. He is in a comedy group called Derrick and they have a movie called Mystery Team that is coming out pretty much as we speak - you should DEMAND it comes to your town HERE. As if all that wasn’t enough he wrote a novel called, “The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep And Never Had To”, which is coming out in early 2010. He was sweet enough to send me one of promotional galleys which is plastered with his face and charming factoids about his existence. The factoids allowed me not to forget that DC Pierson is actually the grindstone that people put their noses to, and that that grindstone is hilarious.

His book is about nerd boys who change the world and that is putting it lightly. He wrote this amazing sex scene that made me do one of those laugh-cries where your emotions bubble up like a homemade volcano because the vinegar of growing up has been added to the baking soda of well-written sweetness. Anyways, go read his blog and follow him around the internet like a puppy dog, you won’t regret it: DCPierson.com
I saved the last twenty pages of his book for a week at least because that’s how much I wanted it to go on indefinitely. I finished it a few days ago sitting in a car eating a bagel. I cried a little and fell asleep and woke up with the sun on my face in love with cool crisp air.


I had forgotten that I am in love with the autumn. Everything feels new and jackets are nice, and food is delicious, and leaves are gorgeous, and more things are great. Including the fact that I just recorded a new song. I mentioned this in the mailer I just sent out. Did you know I have a mailing list? As this is the end of this tragically long blog and I’ve driven a good 90% of the readers away by now, I think it’s best to ask you to sign up for my mailing list now: MAILING LIST - Anyways, a refreshingly lovely fella named James Frazee offered to record one of my new songs at the staggeringly amazing studio he works at called Water Music. I was accompanied by some of my best friends: Anthony Da Costa on bass, wurlitzer, and backing vocals!, Emily Hope Price on cello, and Frazee played drums. If you want to know the truth I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.

Even When I Don’t Leave My House My Life Is Unfailingly Bizarre.

last night an asian guy, whose middle name is ludwig, came over to my house to pick up the van gogh brand, espresso-flavored vodka he had left there the night before.

i had met him for the first time the night he left the vodka, when my friend aelfie starr tuff (this is her real name) - whom i had run into in my grocery store a few hours earlier, after not having seen her in five years - brought him over.

asian ludwig showed up at one am last night wearing suspiciously clean white shorts and a polo shirt after having driven himself (who in new york has a car?) down to midtown and back to pick his wallet up (which he’d left at a bar the same night he left the vodka at my house).

he has a bachelor’s in mathematics from harvard and is now persuing his bachelor’s in philosophy at columbia. before he showed up at one am i believed ludwig to be gay, but after we polished off the vodka he got really stoned and he a) asked me if he thought aelfie would break up with her long-time boyfriend to be with him, b) called me a ‘macho woman’, and  c) asked me to ‘snuggle’ him because he ‘likes tactile feelings’.

Back To School: Yell, Be a Dick, Love Onions.

Truth be told, I love being a dick. I love calling people on bullshit, on real shit, on any kind of shit at all. So, while I’m about to complain at length, know that I take pleasure in walking around my neighborhood hating on Ivy Leaguers.

I live in and/or around Columbia University, and here it is, bona fide move-in-week, which magically and automatically (after five years of living here) morphs me into being a seriously bitchy old person. In the weeks preceding this one there have been: the early birds, the worms, the RA’s, the transfers, and some other weirdos who move in early. But here I am, in the present, living, frankly, in hell, as the plucked, tan, and, most importantly, wealthy masses all wheel their unworldly possessions down the street yelling “MOM, MOM, WHERE ARE MY SWEATPANTS? I TOLD YOU TO TAKE THEM OUT OF THE WASHING MACHINEEEEEEEEE”, and then some nice woman who I can only assume to be the MOM says, “Kelly, they’re your sweatpants, you told me not to get involved… Kevin, didn’t you hear her say, ‘Don’t get involved, Mom?!’” and the Dad says “Judy, I don’t want to be involved in this…” and it’s all so much of a stereotype that I have to take a nap or have a drink or call someone I barely know and make an ass of myself - or BLOG.

ANYWAYS, I’ve been cooking recently because I love food, and because I love cooking food, and because I love being broke… wait, that last part was a lie, but being broke has forced me into cooking more - one of the nice pluses of the recession! So tonight I was making some French onion soup, because my mom, knowing how seriously broke I am right now, laid three to five pounds of thinly sliced onions on me, because there was just a massive BBQ at my parents house. Politics, Three-Hundred Pounds of Meat, You know, I can’t Stop Capitalizing. Long Story Long, I ended up with onions and was making them into soup. And I was doing well; I salted, I sautéed, I fucking simmered. And then there they were, the seething collegiate masses; taking shots, dancing to shitty music, squealing, and yes, you’re right, I should have had more patience. BUT I DIDN’T. I DON’T HAVE PATIENCE. BECAUSE THEY’RE THE WORST KIND OF STUPID. THEY’RE IVY LEAGUE STUPID. Anyways, I decided that before I narc’d on the crowd (because I love having Columbia Security in my cell phone, and I love calling and complaining and the whole thing is kind of awful but wonderful…) I would yell at them out of the window.

I could have used my nice lady voice, and said, (please imagine me saying this with a slight southern drawl, even though I don’t have one) “Hey guys, could you please use your inside voices because some of your neighbors are professionals and it’s slightly after midnight on a Monday?…” But that’s not me because I’m a New Yorker, a pushy New Yorker even, and one who has lived in between frat houses for, as I’ve mentioned, five years now. So instead I yell,

“KEEP IT DOWN YOU FUCKS, REAL PEOPLE LIVE HERE” I’d like to pause for an aside - anyone who has had a real life interaction with me knows how much I love to interrupt both myself and everyone around me, anyways! - I’m not sure I’m a part of the ‘real people’ group that I was representing in that aggressive moment, but I know that ‘real people’ do surround my/the frats’ backyard because I had a loud party this summer and I got too wasted and a (somewhat) nice man showed up asking us to quiet down cause he is a ‘real person’ and after I failed to obey his orders the cops showed up. Surprisingly, it didn’t turn out badly. Aside finished, after I yelled “…REAL PEOPLE LIVE HERE” one of the frat boys responded, “SHUT UP BITCH” And I couldn’t help but yell, “BUDDY, I’LL CALL YOUR MOTHER ” And then he, because he felt compelled by his gender?, yelled, “I‘LL WHIP IT OUT” and I yelled “AND I’LL CUT IT OFF.” And then they all went inside. Not only did I feel victorious but I checked on the French onion soup I’d been making, and it was coming along nicely so I was as close to on top of the world as I get without making brilliant art, or having someone tell me that they’re in love with me.

So pretty much, I just wanted you to know that even though people have been telling me to lay off onions and yelling for years, everyone is wrong and I am victorious in my (for twenty-seven more days) twenty-three-year-old-narc-who smells-weird (the French onion soup is still simmering, motherfucker) and-drives-people-off-with-her-tone-of-voice-self. OOF. Goodnight America, you are such a pleasure.