red wine all up in my limbic system

The feelings this little guy inspires in my heart! They're akin to an onrushing Klonopin fuzz. Wait, no, better than that. Something else. I've been in a terrible, hyper-analytical, obsessive, just sort of fucked-up state of mind the last week and all I want is to hold onto the rush of emotion that this little cat-thing's face gives me. Thank you Kyra! I miss this hair but I think it might be too futuristic if I attempt it with the platinum? What am I saying? "too futuristic" sounds awesome. Sadly, this will take me at least six-months to re-achieve:
Thought this was funny a long time ago:
I miss you guys so hard! Richard, I'm coming to you!
Oh but I had a mini-epiphany that may quite possibly save me. I still need to work it out and make sure I'm not hiding my emotions behind my emotions but I'm optimistic about this one.

How I Prefer a True Whore

It began with Lydia Davis and the consumption of 5 of her 8 published books. Along with Barthelme, Davis is a contemporary novelist whose innovative short-fiction stands apart from all the other shit still churning out of crumbling publishing houses. Well, she had translated a book called The Death Sentence by French author/philosopher Maurice Blanchot which I had the great satisfaction of finishing this morning on the train, the last sentence entering my head as I exited the car (I have great luck with timing!). Because I am a squirrel researcher of the highest level, I spent the better part of this morning learning about Blanchot (and revisiting Derrida, Foucault, deconstruction, author function- the pearls of modern critical theory) and found that Death Sentence was based on the terrible last days of a soon-to-be favorite person of mine: Colette Laure Peignot, a French author, poet and- from the accounts of her lovers and admirers- fiercely intelligent and conflicted woman.After reading this excerpt from Laure's Fragments of a Notebook (1937) (culled from the very informative blog http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com which I am now following), I am particularly excited to eat up her work and attempt to live the way in which she has preached:

Avoid contact with all people in whom there is no possible resonance with what touches you most deeply and toward whom you have obligations of "kindness," of politeness. Since these obligations engage me strongly as soon as I find myself in the presence of such people and engage me through an ill-fated habit of patience and good-will, which in fact becomes will for humiliation (sometimes abject). Imagine a musician in an orchestra playing off-key because his neighbor is doing so, to be nice.

Flee -- literally flee -- those with whom you can exchange only absurd remarks about others who are just like them and whom you have seen the previous night exchanging the same remarks, or equally vain gossip, about the very person you are talking to. There are certain people who end up frequenting and even calling friends those they denigrate constantly. I hate "goodness" and "kindness," which have only led me to humiliation.

Keep silent as before. It's better.

Contempt for those whose conversation boils down to all that I hate and flee: to a certain spirit of vulgarity and pettiness. Farce is what they feel comfortable with. I cringe before certain laughter and smiles drawn forth on this terrain. Sometimes a laugh is enough to cause me to have, not aversion toward, but distrust of a human being. There is a point at which polite distrust is worse than aversion because it is more reserved, but I can't confine myself to this, and everything in me shouts, screams aversion.

Lack of reserve and moral propriety shocks me all the time, due to certain nervous (physical) reactions I can neither hold back nor hide. Those who broaden the horizon, those who narrow it.

How I prefer a true whore.

Do not get stuck where the essential is lost, where everything turns vulgar, base, and petty. Through my own fault, through a will for humiliation. A feeling of abjection. "Defeated ahead of time." So from now on "dust to dust" resembles dust. At those moments it is physically impossible to be clear and frank. Shame and false shame.

Easy: to accuse others of being superficial = brilliant = alive.

Return to simple beings, to childlike reactions, a difficult return.

Weekend Warriors and Winos

ah yes house party little italy wine dance feminism smokes (i'm on the just-smoking-when-drinking kick and i already feel a million times healthier, ha) cameras cameraz flashbulbs cold breeze boozy computer keyboard face kiss-plants soul singing lipstick cupcakes BEAUTY:

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then, fun times past, the Wylie. I feel like I captured an image for some snowboarding magazine? LOVe love this picture:
Jukeboxes have the best light:
and Rob has the best camera:
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Walked over the Manhattan bridge for the first time with Jenny yesterday. That bridge is an 80's/90's ghetto-trip into a certain, oft-lamented NYC era. Beautiful roof-top tagging and the loud jangling of trains that interrupt conversations about coffee temperature and living for the moment and how fucking FREEZIng it is presently. Then we bargain shopped in Bed-stuy, dove into nachos in our hood and I fell into a coma around 8:30 PM. J'adore sleep oh my.

I heard the next morning that he was arrested somewhere..

Not that it really needs to be said but I love my Oma. Actually, it does need to be said. Just received this lovely email detailing her 70-something-th birthday party. I especially love the ease of her interweb-speak:

HI SWEETIE,

I'm ok thank you.We all met at the place where Karen works and had some tacos and a few drinks on the 21st for my Birthday.Larry was the only one that didn't show up because he was working a side job.We met at 6pm and I think we were all home after 8pm.We sat outside on the terrace but it was noisy.Some guy kept telling us that he was a relative of the Millers side and every second sentence was the big "F" word.After listening to that for about 30 min I had to stand up and finally told him to shut up. Patty told him that he was a pig lol.He was drunk tho and I heard the next morning that he was arrested somewhere..

Its raining here today and I love it wooohooo.Heard you went to Montreal.Did you enjoy it?
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And then, speaking of grannies, I met a nice gentleman in Canada who runs this swell little blog: http://nappingnannas.blogspot.com/
so good.
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Last night, after dumplings with the children, we headed to one of my favorite places in all of New York. This snapshot is probably the best visual representation of the most amazing sonic experience on the island. We drank tall boys, did cartwheels/back-bends then shimmied out into the lovely evening.
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This morning, BrB was giggling like a little kid in his sleep so I turned to look at him and he was grabbing one of his index fingers with his eyes closed so I says, I says "Hey, are you asleep?" and he keeps smiling and then he says "Yes, a goat just bit my finger."

6 hours later, I am still laughing.

The Tar Babies of Montrealabrea

Mochi is a brilliant friend of mine who is making art in the cold throbbing heart of Montreal. She designs jewelry and had me model some pieces with her (and her wealthy Russian bride hat) (www.lovechristine.com):Years ago, we got a lil rowdy at the La Brea Tar Pits and stuck our hands in a tar pocket. Then we did a sort of besties hand hold rub thing and spread the tar evenly over one hand each. Later, at a grocery store, we washed each other's tar stained hand with our one free, clean hand. We turned the bathroom into a truck stop massacre.I really really like the phrase "live in the present". IT'S A PRESENT!! Right now!

8 hours sleep in 2 days; 6 cigarettes in 6 days

If you're in New York, it would be my pleasure if you'd attend this lil event I'm putting on:I got a little nuts with the office supplies. EEck.

Oh, Montreal was a jam-out; post soon once I get some nekkers napping in.

You're No Housewife Mon Ami

Remembering how I moved to New York makes me think I'm losing my balls with age but I know that's not true and that the amount of time that grows between each lofty endeavor or move only serves to revive my one and a half year itch. I will always pack up and jet out when I've conquered a territory, when my heart has been smashed or I have gotten smashed too frequently and with no creative output. Moving to San Francisco from SoCal when I was 17 was no big deal, I guess it was the fact I was still in California and separated from the Great Fake by only 500 miles of pavement. I don't have to live by family but I don't think that says anything about the closeness of my family? Maybe it does or maybe I'm just happy with the level of involvement on all sides. So 17 in SF was all about a pierced nose, a black hoodie, some pepper spray and a lot of Aisler's Set, Nina Simone and instant message fighting with my boyfriend in the south (San Diego). I don't have 'bad' years; I'm not one of those people who can say "24 is better than 25" or whatever. Every year is my favorite and maybe I'm spreading my love too thin here. Then it was Fullerton, then Orange, then Yucaipa, then Long Beach........

But what I want to get at, what I want to cover is the period-of-time, let's say a month, when I first moved to New York and lived with my (brand new) great friend Rita (she has been upset that I didn't properly document it at the time but blogging seemed like a geeky past-time then and still does). Without getting too rag-time (in every sense), I think I'd actually just like to talk about our one perfect day.

Rita was expecting a new roommate to come by her two-bedroom apt., the same apt. where I was alternately sleeping on the couch or the floor; wherever I could pass-out as the varying bottles of cheap whiskey reached their end each night. Two friends from L.A. and Seattle had already tried to make a home in Brooklyn but neither lasted a month and jobless and penniless as I was, Rita opened her arms and her fire escape to me free-of-charge.

So it happened that on Rita's day off and just another one of my listless afternoons, we decided to begin a gnarly bender that would leave us semi-naked and covered in paint with a confused German man staring at us bewildered and attempting indifference.

Actually, I think I'll leave it at that. I think I'll remember making watercolors on the linoleum after stealing photos from the boy at the wine store. I think I'll just remember drinking sangria(?) until drops of it fell from our mouths onto our artwork. I think I'll remember forgetting that somewhere during the day, the light of the apartment dark and cold, our clothes began disappearing and a wrestling match ensued. It was at this proper junction, the denouement of a 12+ hour rampage that also contained whiskey, beards and balancing acts in front of the Irish bar, that the new roommate, the strapping German, waltzed into the apartment to find us laughing hysterically and poking heads attached to half-nekkers bodies out from behind the bedroom door.

He was delighted to stay of course.

Oh my, Rita this was all for you. I'm sorry about the Dominican, the cocaine, the abandonment issues, the cry fights in the bathroom at a few of our family events, not responding to that email last week and finally listening to your salty-teared voicemail today.

I love you so much shit-stain. Let's never get old.

Roth

oh, i forgot. this might be old, doesn't matter, it's fucking gold: http://thetyser.com/

72 More Years of This Yes Please

Sunday was one of the most glorious days I've had in a while. Waking up at 2:00 PM in an old tenement apartment with the sun streaming in and painting fire escape lines across the sheets, I came to with a fierce thirst (after an unfortunate run-in with a cockroach), opened a window and pulled in an ice cold Bud Light from outside. After yogurt and attempting to re-establish homeostasis, it was off to the Chinese bakery to get cake and tea. The cause for celebration: Fin-Fan's 98th birthday. Fin-Fan (I have no idea if this is the correct spelling) has lived in the same building in the lower east side for his entire life. The boys carried him upstairs into their apt. and Bjorn played a birthday recital:Probably the strangest family portrait I've taken in awhile, wait, in the last week, but this one takes the cake for representing a kind of ideal America or United Colors of Benetton Ad.
What kinds of things are funny when you're almost 100? Fin-Fan was all up on his caretaker! He tried to grab her breast once; it was amazing. Also, as he was staring at his birthday cake, the candles ablazin', a large white cotton pad fell out of his mouth narrowly missing the cake and splatting on his thigh. They hang out in his mouth to absorb drool. We have a video of it; one of those disturbingly cute moments.
The bodega by my work blessed me with this yesterday:
Mike and Rita faux-kissing through a pane of glass. They look downright lovely. After paella and releasing Lloyd back into the wild-world, we swirled into dive bar mode and real classy talk about anal sex.
Pretty fulfilling time all around.

Coming to Terms with my Role in Your Life

I hate taking a sick day when I'm actually ill preferring to use them for massive hangovers or last-minute getaways. In this photo, our newest family member, Steven, terrified by technology, and me, hiding the results of the bubonic plague. I think sepia is the best filter to record sickness and the terror of cats who just waltz in from the fire escape and never leave:I'm wearing the crazy glasses here while Frau delivers a kiss back in CA:New Years Eve, the PG version:
The coolest ad; constantly inspires me to listen to music alone and at an insane decibel:
Me and Mike in the bodega:Latest addition to the clan, Johnny, mixing the snickerdoodles:
Jenny wore her Bushwick apron find and I blathered on under a Nyquil/Wine stupor:
After showing us "one guy, one jar" (I didn't watch it and honestly, the sounds alone were appalling enough. Not nearly as light-hearted as 2g1c) Mike found a kitchen tool with a metal circular end that vibrates. It seemed to keep him entertained:
Rita talked to her friend Bruce, an eloquent writer who was just released from prison. I think it's disgusting that we have the cat's litter box in our kitchen.:
Everyday Riley says "Tomorrow I'm going to buy an iPod touch" or "I almost bought an iPod touch today" and everyday we laugh/die a little.

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I am going to drink coffee, watch Les Enfants Terribles and paint a Joan of Arc portrait for a friend's birthday present. BE WELL PUPS.

S.A.D. Sam Elliot's Inaugural Urine

My nose is starting to resemble a baboon's ass; calloused and made of the primary, secondary and tertiary shades of red. What do I put on it? I would use those lotion tissues but they're so greasy and will inevitably cause me to break out. Instead I just keep absentmindedly wiping with crumpled up Kleenex that are registering as sand-paper in the tactile department. Bleh. Oh, for a second I thought this Lubriderm smear would work but it just looks like I've had my face spit on by a vagina dentata.
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I'm wondering if one can have just a small case of S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder). I have been feeling particularly insane over the past week (I know, I know- a terrible cold coupled with the rag coupled with shitty weather does not a happy Erin make) and I wonder if the changing weather has anything to do with it.
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Why are people heading to Washington for the Inaugural address? Just hit it televised live or youtube it later. Just thinking of being sandwiched between billions of patriots gives me anxiety. It's like Times Square at New Years or something. What if you have to pee? Ha, that reminds me of the peeing cowboy's best friend, the bootsaver. I can't find a photo but it's basically one wooden crutch that reaches the height of the average ween area and has a little sort of draw-bridge, sluice thing (having been a gold rush re-enactor, I am at liberty to remind you a sluice is a water channel controlled by a gate often used in gold mines) that you pee into to navigate the urine away from your boots! I'm thinking this is for older cowboys who've lost their virility? I love old cowboys and I would do terrible things to my family to nab Sam Elliot:and for the truly environmentally conscious (see: annoying):********************************************************
I am planning on getting hypnotized in this woman's loft within the next two weeks to help eliminate my stage-fright/anxiety so I can better perform for all ya'll. Had a good talk with her on the way to the train last night and after hearing other people's tales of hypnosis, I'm feeling pretty positive about the whole thing.

Also, website to come within two weeks. Just finished drawing the menu/main page and uploaded some illustrations and writing. Not sure what the point of it is save having a convenient cache for all my shit.

And, whoa, everyone should be stoked on Odwalla's Chocolate Protein Shake and any flavor of Larabar. nom nom nom nom nom nom.

Everything Attracts

i am sick; not very exciting.
So Mike (http://magicfeathers.blogspot.com/) and I decided to write a checklist for potential mates titled "30 Things We'd Like in a Partner (But Will Most likely settle for 15)". This is not meant to be ironic or sarcastic. I guess the highest percentage wins the prize (I'm the prize!?). I was hungry so I decided to make myself some hot chocolate and as I was staring at the microwave (big no-no but I find it is the most comforting place to direct a blank gaze) I thought "no one will ever want to marry me." Just like that. One moment you're pouring powdered cocoa into a ceramic mug emblazoned with Christmas'd-out corporate logos and the next you're imagining yourself (oft-heralded in my case) as a wise, weird miser-woman who lovingly shares dolphin-safe tuna with her half-blind cat (god I love hyphens). I mean, what kind of shiz is that? I don't even care about marriage! I'm menstruating so that might have something to do with it. Anyway, things I would like in my swoon, xxxooo, totes amazing DREAMDUDER:

• As tall or taller than me (5'9" minimum)
• Competitive (with me, with others, while arm-wrestling his 5-year-old niece)
• Sarcastic (and good at it)
  
• Excellent cuddler (can form unique human pretzels that become static performance art)
• More/as intelligent as me (book/street/jungle smart- whatever)
• Soft skin (that does not mean smooth skin; the right amount of hair is highly regarded)
• Talented at two or infinite things
• Good breath
• Smokes weed, does drugs with deliberation/appreciation and enjoys liquor
• Travels (wants to travel; mind travels)
• Understands composition as related to the arts
• Likes or 'gets' children
• Lives (yearns to live) simply (often complains about life post-industrial revolution)
• Can spend hours doing nothing (youtubing, sleeping, stretching, staring into other people's apartments from a fire escape)
• Can spend entire days doing everything
• Loves live music and is capable of movement while enjoying said music
  
• Eats whatever the fuck they want
  
• Indulges when in/appropriate
• Has good BO and hair on da face
  
• Is slightly or more-than-slightly unkempt
• Likes post-modern fiction and the lost generation
• Loves the Kinks/Arthur Russel/Modern Lovers/Glenn Branca/Nina Simone
• Wants to tickle me
• Likes cats, hell, likes all animals (that are soft and nice and don't bite with malicious intent)
  
• Grabs my ass in public/private
• Hates text-messaging and talking on the phone and is maybe a little embarrassed by sky-writing or sand-writing
  
• Does not use a social networking site
• Is "one of the boys" assuming I think "the boys" are honorable people
  
• Understands the fine line between smothering and ignoring
• Kisses often.

That's like a million different boys or no? I want to do a craigslist experiment with it. The dude I'm presently into encompasses many of these traits so bravo for me!

ugh.....sneezing my way through hell.

Am I Binki Shapiro?

As some of you know, I helped a friend with a project for Flavorpill. I adore Sherman's original photo and detest mine (both below). I think the reasons are apparent (a good angle for her but not my best) and I'm definitely feeling the "quit smoking in 2009" vibe (wrinkles!!!!). Anyway, it was a fun experience as I got to shiver in a wife-beater at 7:30 AM in front of the Native American History museum while parka-people rushed to their office jobs.


You can see the rest of the slideshow here.
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I don't think elevators should stop on any floor below 4. I can't stand when someone gets on a crowded elevator only to push out after going up a single floor! Use the stairs! Use your legs! (Handicap people are exempt from this mini-rant).
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I am utterly exhausted and counting the minutes until I can go home, roll a joint, take a bath and listen to World of Echo while the cats bat at the shower curtain. This may have been my favorite New Year's ever but I haven't really slept or bathed in two days and am still wearing a backless blue full-body leotard and four caked on layers of eyeliner. I feel very optimistic about 2k9 I think. wooooooooooosh.