Can't send it, part 2

I wrote this one yesterday while distracting myself from not eating and cleaning the house.

Mister,

Part 2 of Blank Realization Day is well under way. It's past 1 and I have only had seltzer. Been able to fend off the restlessness of not eating for this long, hope I make it to midnight.

I have created a huge pile of junk to get rid of. I am listening to old mix tapes. The one on right now is from Mario Hernandez. I am on a couple of his records, clapping and shoo-be-do-wopping. Those were fun times. He turned out to be a lecherous creep in real life but I still liked singing on his recordings. I love visiting the 90s.

There is so much to do, so much to clean. I can't believe I am not allowed to eat. Every few minutes I think,"Hmmm, what should I eat?" Then I remember I am not doing that, in part so I don't get distracted from today's purpose. Getting rid of things is so useful. I like to look at the things and think about who I think I am and why I got the things, why I still have them and if I still need them. Sometimes I keep things.

It's like all day therapy. Awes.

Miss

Again,

Suddenly, my day has shape. The mix tape cleaning has ended, for now. It's not finished but it's over. We took a very large pile of stuff away. Shelf, sweaters, Marc Jacobs jacket, green lamps. Some duds, some gems. Gifts for the pickers.

I was getting so hungry, couldn't think of anything else. Perilously close to caving in. Called DZ. She's still in it. No food, only water. Gave me more resolve. 5:30 is not so bad when I know how I'll spend the next six and a half hours.

I'll type this.
I'll buy pasta.
I'll run.
I'll shower.
I'll catch the bus.
Then it'll be 9.
Movie.
Dinner!

Better get started, or I'll be late.

Can't send it, part 1

I wrote this last night when I got home. I know better than to send it out to the intended recipient, but I have to send it somewhere, so you get it.

Mr.,

Late tonight I dined on Bergen Street for the Feast of the Fatted Salmon. Raw salmon. It was ordered when I showed up at 10:55 pm. I felt cool. We talked about 2006. I didn't finish. After, we went to Freddy's. It was such a watershed moment for me; the beginning of my real friendship with DZ, Tom G., the precursor to me and Tim, the never ending video art from which I could not tear my gaze. All of it was still there, waiting for me since March 1999, the last time I was in that bar.

Earlier today, after my internet burger, cyberwandering and hipster scriptwriting, I admitted the place had bad service and walked up to the counter myself. Asked for a coffee (devil-may-care attitude in tact) and noticed a postcard laying casually on the bar. As I turned it over, 2 things blew my eyes open. 1) Friday, December 29th, 7 pm (TODAY!) 2) Tara Foley (friend from the woods, as she puts it). I went, we exchanged stories, numbers and jokes. Her mom has cancer. I am friend number 5 in NY. She is moving back. Her hot boyfriend from before turned out to be a dud. She's here until the end of January. Her mom's gonna beat it. I hope so.

Yesterday was long. I finished up in the 161 living room eating Thai food and drinking seltzer and the iced tea my favorite cook from there sported me for free, no asking. I spent 4 hours on 125 waiting to see the chocolate dead man, hoping he could breathe some life into my crushed up heart. It turns out I didn't need him or his body. My heart can resuscitate itself, given enough space, time and love. Or no space. I was smashed in with all those black people and it felt great. There have been times in my life I have been a white girl around a lot of black people and now isn't one of those times. I miss it sometimes; I am from Oakland, remember. Being up there made me feel good and happy. I kept my mouth shut. I listened, I smiled. I thought about James Brown. I thought about you.

The day began at 8:30 on my corner in Greenpoint, at the doctor. For $20, I could get my toe fixed up. I could also re-activate my quest for free health insurance provided by the city. Three hours in, a hissy-fit forced its way out and I saw the doctor. She couldn't do anything for me without a liver test. The nice asian guy drew my blood. He must have seen the small tears in the corners of my eyes because he asked me if I was OK. I thought about you, shooting drugs. I thought about the words courage and bravery. I wanted nothing to do with them, the words. I wanted a hug.

I got a call from Jessica at Bellevue. She wanted me to come in and sign more papers. I kinda yelled at her. I was frustrated. No one was listening to me. I am out of practice with bureaucracies. I went to the L train. No service. I took the bus to LIC. Made it to Bellevue, more hissy-fitting. Finally, Norma told me she'd look into my case personally, as if that is supposed to make me feel better. I have enough experience with bureaucratic BS to know that is fairly meaningless. But I was glad for the kindness. I left and went to my office, did one stitch of work.

I should have gone much earlier, because by the time I got up there, it was too late. But we didn't know that yet. I looked for the chaos and stood next to it until they put up the metal barriers next to me; I was in. I emailed and texted from the line. It was fun. They all laughed at the hobo asking for a steak sandwich. He didn't want no muffin. I laughed and smiled at the guy selling dried fruit and bottles of water for a dollar. No one was interested. We all laughed at the guy selling a McDonald's hamburger. It was fun.

Now it is now and I am listening to my soundtrack. Tomorrow is the fast and I clean my house to get ready for 2007. The computer will fun out of juice any minute now. I'll read Madame Bovary until I fall asleep. Salacious!

Ms.

chew off

would chew off a limb for a mcdonald's cheeseburger right now. I'm standing next to it. pray I get in people. pray.

closer

I am getting closer. now I'm on 125 across from pricemart. I see the apollo sign. still doesn't feel like a guarantee but I'm getting very excited.

omgomgomgomg

right now I am in line waiting to see james brown's dead body. it is amazing. I had a long thing all typed out and I just lost it so i'll try to recreate. today was a blur of medic&l bureaucracy, starting at 8:30 this morning on my corner in 6reenpoint and not quite ending in a tiny dingy office at Bellevue with a large woman named Norma telling me she'd personally look into my case because "if you're stressed, I'm stressed." ok so around noon amy's watching NY1 and asks me if I w&nt to go see james brown. I say of course. she promptly backs out but think it's something that is a good idea.

Bigger fan than we thought

You know how you'd be hard pressed to find someone who isn't a James Brown fan? Well, I guess Gerald Ford just didn't want to live in this world without him...

I have an appointment today with the Texas 4-BR dudes. $7000 EV apartment. Wish me luck!

What I think about when I am alone

Urban gymnastics? Wow. This is effing inspirational.

I don't usually think about urban gymnastics, per se, but I do think about extreme exuberance and physical effort and moving with the hand of God supporting you.

I think about being watched. A lot. I should say I think about being admired. For all the little things, like how I hold a teacup, how I move through the crowded subway station, how my eyes betray when I am working things out in my mind. I think about someone noticing that I get my metrocard out before I need it so I can sail through the turnstile without a fuss, and then that I carefully put it back in its place in the front of my little red coin purse. I think about being watched and appreciated as I perform economical yet graceful choreography in the kitchen, one of the only places I can enjoy an almost total lack of self-consciousness.

I think about math, fractions, percentages, graphs. Mostly when I am jogging. The quantifiable effort that goes along with this particular form of exercise is immensely gratifying to me. Measurable accomplishment, quantifiable effort, whatever you want to call it. When you're done, you're done. That's why I always liked math; it's so reliable. This lady is into math too, but hers could be called emotional math. Satisfying, nonetheless.

I have a lot of conversations in my head, where I get to say everything right and whomever I am talking to has all the right reactions, says all the right stuff and sets me up beautifully to show them how awesome and smart I am. Sometimes I forget that these conversations aren't actually happening and I'll say something out loud and/or gesture wildly (to make my point). On the street. Oops. Then I wonder if that guy sitting in the idling van just saw my lips move or my hand move erratically just now. Yikes!

I think about being famous and celebrated. For anything. I guess this goes along with being watched and noticed and admired. I think about being a famous artist or singer or writer or even real estate mogul which, ironically, is probably what will happen first. I think about being on a stage with a room full of people cheering me on while I do whatever awesome thing it is that I do to make them all love me so.

I can almost reach out and touch this feeling sometimes. Living in New York certainly puts you closer to this feeling on a daily basis, I think anyway. It seems so easy, so attainable to become famous here. Aside from the business and the money potential I hope to generate from Home Buying for Hipsters 2, I want this feeling, the stage-cheering one. I really think it's going to work.

Holy Moly!

I don't really feel better but I am more confused and amazed than I was five minutes ago, because of this.

Still learning. But not today.

Learning is all about repetition. For me it is, anyway. I can get it right once, which creates the possibility for the confidence to continue, but then proceed to get it wrong a hundred times after that. The theory here is that eventually, this wrong/right process leads to learning. The wrong/right ratio starts to get more angled toward right: learned.

Today is all wrong.

This is a cool heart.

This was an old post from a week ago. I must have had an idea I wanted to get down but didn't have time to complete. Oh well, now it is gone.

I'll tell you what else is gone: my positive attitude. Today anyway. After several straight nights of fitful, horrible sleep, a best/worst date on Friday night and a lame/defensive Christmas e-mail from my ex-boyfriend, I just feel ready to throw in the effing towel today. So many awesome and not-so-awesome things have happened (and not happened) lately. It would seem writing about them in this blog would be a good way to exorcise them from my (sorry, California coming up) space, but I can't seem to get the words organized into a witty, tender and insightful couple of paragraphs.

Is it because it is Christmas? Will things be OK in 2 days? Isn't the same thing going to happen next week for New Years? That's another holiday specially designed to make me feel lame and inferior. Hot stuff, right?

It always seems like a good idea to deal with pain by "throwing yourself into work" and right now I have plenty of both, along with an uncharacteristic flair for the dramatic. Is this going to be a moment for me to actually do this work-distraction thing? Or will I just choose instead to suffer and beat myself up with all my effing "feelings"?

I do have a lot to do, work-wise. Learning is also about seeing the new way to do something and choosing it, like right now choosing the work-distraction instead of the wallow. That's how I broke up with my ex-boyfriend, that's how I quit smoking, that's how I started working in real estate, the weirdest and most unstable job I've ever had. So maybe that's how I deal with right now, what's in front of me, which is a big ugly mess of feelings and real possibility.

I love lists!

I guess that's a common thing, loving lists. A year ago, when I was working with the healer, she had me stop making lists. Try to stop making lists. We worked on my letting go of the feelings tied to accomplishing the things on the lists. This is how things would go down: I'd make a to-do list in the AM, bursting at the seams with promise and optimism. By midday I'd feel lazy and lousy. Anything I did from this point on was always tainted with the failure of not getting everything done. This is also common, I imagine.

Pnina had me do energy work where I'd stop beating myself for not doing all the things I wasn't doing, basically working to be OK whether I did all this stuff on the list or not. I worked to see then clear the blocks that were in the way of easily doing all this work on my list. For a brief time, I was freed from making lists. I found myself actually doing some of the things I would have put on my lists, and juts not worrying about the other things.

For now, I am back to the lists. There is something immensely comforting about committing tasks, wants, and needs to paper. I continue to work to let go of the perceived failure of not crossing everything off. It's midday now and I can feel a list coming on, I can feel the lazy and lousy encroaching, but this year I have tools to get free of those feelings and get my stuff done!

The Fruitvale of Greenpoint

I went running on Thanksgiving. Abbreviated because of the rain, only about 2 miles. It was my first time not running on the track; instead I went down by the waterfront, by the warehouse that burned.

Some people see all that desolate, crumbling, abandoned city industrial architecture and get disgusted, think it's an ugly part of town, imagine it's all a sign of a depressed or failing economy.

Developers see the possibility of an invented neighborhood, like the one fake street that sprang up by the IKEA in Emeryville, CA: cleanly paved streets, million-dollar condos with stainless/granite/marble bullshit, city views, J.Crew, Sunglasses Hut, Pizzeria Uno, that type of thing. I think that's what is supposed to happen over there.

Don't get me wrong, I am not into hating on now only to love on yesterday. And I am a real estate agent, so I have to find some way to love what is going to happen in my neighborhood. After all, I am teaching a class about how awesome progress is.

Maybe it's too many years living by the railroad tracks in Fruitvale, staring out my bedroom window at the field, the freeway, feeling my bed rattle and shake when the train went by. I just think all that decrepit falling down building stuff is beautiful.

This just proves it

Yesterday was my birthday. For the first time EVER, I kinda freaked out the week before about the age I was turning. Not a good sign. But I reigned it in by the end of the week. Very me to tamp it down.

My best/worst birthday was 16. It was very popular that year for friends to kidnap one another before school take the celebrated one out to breakfast in pajamas. They also painted my face, but were a little disappointed that I has already woken up and showered by the time they got there. What can I say, grandma called early. We went to Biff's, which is no longer there. Fun.

A week later, I got a surprise party. Also fun. Looking back not too long later, I think everyone must have felt sorry for me because my dad had JUST died two weeks before. I had this dream on my actual birthday that he and I were sitting by a window talking. That was it. My mom said it was him giving me a present. I buy that.

As of late, I have been engaging in some mental mutilations and self-flagellation (doin' the beat-up) where it concerns the dude I was dating. Haven't seen him in forever and making decisions about what it all means. Talking myself out of things, talking myself into things, talk talk talk talk talk. Think think think think think. I am always so effing sure of myself and what I think about something that I often miss the point completely. This can happen in my drawings as well.

Thursday night I decided to text him since I was going to pass through his neighborhood on my way home from drawing class. I looked really cute but felt kind of sweaty from the long day and balmy weather. He texted right back, so I called and went over there when I got out of the train. We enjoyed a nice conversation for an hour or so and then at some point I screwed up my courage and decided to kiss him, which turned out to be a well-received idea.

We had a good time. He said a lot of nice things to me, I started to get a more well-rounded picture of who he is and how he feels about things in general and me in specific. I realized (again) that all the negative shit I think of when we are not hanging out is mostly made up. This whatever it is may not be everything I want right now, but my experience the other night just proves that when I make shit up, I am usually wrong and that really, everything is just fine.

And he's still RAD!