Friday, August 31, 2007
Seamy
I left work early today to take care of business. This involved a trip to Target (fruitless--though wait, I did pick up a box of fruit snacks) and a swing by the cave. The Swedes, only one of whom actually has a place lined up for Sept. (don't ask, it pains), work late, so I figured I'd have it to myself. Still, I did have the courtesy to ask beforehand if I might pay a visit. It's only right.
Well well, how to say... DUMP! I've been by a few times since July, but man have things gone to shit since I was last there. Defying all odds, that little shower of mine has accumulated a whole life's worth of mildew (black as a nightmare!) in a scant four weeks. Of course, this was one area that I neglected to clean prior to the Swedes' arrival, but still. Still. I think it must be the boy factor--times two. Two boys, both hilariously messy, dragging their boyness in and out of a shower that clearly had no choice but to revolt.
I tried to be sympathetic ("yes yes, boys are dirty, especially when you're used to a gentle flower like myself"), but in the end the whole scene just made me ill. I kept almost throwing up, down there on hands and knees, willing the black gunk down the drain. It looked like a monster--a slowly creeping monster. I'll tell you, and don't judge, halfway in I ran to the kitchen(ette) for a shot of whisky. I had to.
Why the frenzied cleaning session? Why not wait till the Swedes are done & gone? Well, because I'm hoping to, once (if?) the cave is vacant, sublet it out for the better part of the long w/e. (I'm in RH through Monday.) This could potentially fetch me a pretty penny, though I think my own ugly greed has me done-in.
See, a week ago I put an ad up on cl: $150 for two nights/three days. This is a fantaaastic deal, folks, considering comparable spaces were going for more than twice my asking price. Sure enough, I was bombarded w/ responses, but rather than just hand over the keys to the first interested party (and she was solid), I spontaneously launched one of those harebrained get-rich-quick schemes. "Are you asking $150 for the entire w/e, or for each night?" "Oh, sorry if that wasn't clear in the ad--it's $300 total." "Oh, okay. I totally want it, but just need to confirm w/ my people. I'll call you later tonight." I promptly rejected the first offer (and, oh god, some others, too). Befittingly, Mr. $300 didn't come through, nor did any of my other candidates, including that first, solid woman, who had since found an alternative. Good & fated.
Huh. Considering it's Friday evening and still nothing, looks like I've got me a sparkly-clean shower to return home to on... tomorrow. Ha, no chance.
I'll close w/ a list.
Things the Swedes like:
--Chaw
--Chips
--Coca-Cola
Labels: going to hell
Thursday, August 30, 2007
In today's NYT...
Dr. Wright, who holds running clinics for beginners and for those who want to compete, said women often get the impression that they should not put much effort into runs. That’s the message of some ads and magazine articles telling people to run easy, and that, Dr. Wright said, “can be negative information” for women who might like to compete.
I think there's probably something to this. As a health/fitness writer, it's frustrating to pitch a story and get something along the lines of 'good thought, but I'm afraid it's too hardcore for our [female] readers.' Ugh. If 'hardcore' (yet another word I'd like to deinvent) is feeling frustrated by a sports injury or training moderately for a local 10K, then I guess by market standards my experiences/ideas qualify. Kinda lame. Thing is, I doubt magazines like Men's Fitness and Men's Health turn down worthy pitches for the same reason.
--
See Jane Run. See Her Run Faster and Faster.
By GINA KOLATA
--
Thanks, E.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Fox News Seeks Fact Writer
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Sniff
Monday, August 27, 2007
Min mor
Meet my ma, c. 1977. I saw them (Camera Obscura) last Friday at the seaport, and I tell ya, spitting image. The eyes, the hair, the nose--especially the nose. Wild.
Good time to be westcoastal
Friday, August 24, 2007
Pretty cupcakes for pretty girls
Basic vanilla cupcake w/ vanilla buttercream frosting, per Birfday Girl's request. Liberties taken w/ the princess add-ons...
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Ooh, I wanna make brain cupcakes so bad, but I'm not sure how my birthday-celebrating coworker would feel about sinking her teeth into a fake parietal lobe. Maybe if I make the frosting a nice light blue, or lavender.
Ricochet
Like everyone, I sleep on the train. It's pretty much a given: sit down, take a quick survey around, pull out the reading material, get sleepy, doze off. Surrounded by strange people w/ their strange ticks/odors/staring problems, most riders don't actually sleep--I don't, at least. But today... MAN. By Grand Central I was out cold, my head rolling back and thumping, loudly, the plastic window behind it. Wait--wha? where? Arr, disorienting.
The passyouttyness was probably because I was still drunk off tiramisu. Upon rocketing out of bed at six this morning, polishing off the remains of last night's dessert was first on my list. An hour later I fell out the door for my speed workout, a 40-minute tempo run, which went swimmingly so long as you don't count the 'finding myself trapped momentarily in the cruise terminal' part. (I actually attempted to climb a chain-linked fence, barbed wire and all, for the first time in several months--kidding! it's been a year--before resigning myself to going back the way, the long way, I'd come.)
But the tiramisu--a reminder of last night's swell time. I met Lady McCormic and her husband dearest, in town the one night only, for dinner at Frank's, where we were joined by a longtime friend of theirs, an East Village guy (nice, loathsome) who pays nickels for 4,000 square, dazzling feet of apartment. We brought dessert back to his place, where I caught myself grounding soggy ladyfingers into his immaculate hardwood floors, wedging fried dough between perfectly weathered bricks, launching bits of cheesecake up toward a ceiling suitable for kite flying, this sort of thing. Sarah: "Kristen, that is no way to get a date. Oh, and quit stroking my pregnant belly. This is getting awkward." Pffft.
And the fun doesn't stop: a birthday cupcake baking session tonight (location: the cave! highjacking my kitchen from the Swedes for an hour or so), then free Camera Obscura tomorrow (last week's show was dynamite, no surprise), Pinkie on Saturday...
It's true what they say: This song never ever gets old, ever.
Ha!
Labels: maturity
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
p.s.
I almost forgot to mention Saturday's nasty run-in. I'm going along, pausing every few feet to snap a photo, when I hear sirens at my back. And then, the megaphone: "Lady, back slowly away from the mermaid. You are clearly a shady character. Just look at yourself--the pigtails, the sweet floral pattern of your tanktop, the blankie... You know, on second thought, get in the car--and be quick about it, or those Keds of yours are good as trash!"
So, after a night in the slammer, I was visibly shaken, which, come to think, might have had something to do w/ Sunday's crankiness. Still, that I can now call myself an ex-Riker, well, that's pretty cool.
Aw, alright, so there were neither bells nor whistles, just two doughy cops who, pulling up alongside me, inquired gently into my vigorous snapping. Then they left. We're friends.
Say, nice flickr pool. Much better depictions than my own.
Speaking of art, if you're a Seattle person (or any person), you should check this out, swing by that September Pratt event... (Little Noah Overby!) His Ballard watercolors are very pretty.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
I want to hide awhile, behind your smile...
Whoa. I'm in love w/ the young Donovan. Beautiful. (And w/ a nose to rival the #1 best nose of all time!)
Eighteen-year-olds can write like this?
Monday, August 20, 2007
Loopy
Last Saturday was pretty great. (Sunday, not so much, but that doesn't make for entertaining writing now, does it?) It was like I was high on drugs, you know, because this place is just so great. Great great greatness. The new & improved plan, in fact, is to take sublets in RH as often as I can (don't want to lease, still want my cave now and again), w/ no interest whatsoever in any other nabe (hate this word!) anywhere. Someday you'll find me melded into one of the maritime-themed mosaics--as a mermaid, or maybe a little fish.
Besides running and eating (see below), I wandered, of course, targeting streets south of Wolcott, still staying below Van Brunt. I wound up at Fairway, dragging my backpack onto a bench where I alternately read and slept for a couple of hours (sunburnt! burned?). The kids, the parents, the dogs were out, there were sandals and sundresses, the air was warm in an almost-September way, the breeze off the channel was briny and slight. Sold.
Much later in the day, S in tow, I hit the RH bars for the real story. It's so easy--anyone who's been a Hooker for more than ten or so years will happily ramble your ear off, you know? And I'll happily receive it. We got the history of the bar itself (longest continously operating one in Red Hook, managed by the Balzano family since the 1880s), some of it straight from the horse's (Sunny's) mouth. He's quite distinctive, w/ the warmest eyes, and he, an artist whose work lines the walls, lives right next door w/ his Norwegian wife, Tonne. Apparently the place--at one point a yacht club in the making, said Sunny ("problem was, there were no yachts")--didn't have a liquor license until relatively recently, and the process of acquiring one was drawn-out and bumpy. But these days the attorney who issued the summons stops by for the occasional whisky. The bar is only open three nights a week (used to just be one), and hosts musicians, authors, all that.
I don't know. It's such a poetic neighborhood, I feel like I'm disappearing into a story.
The (only) resident diner, Van Brunt/Wolcott. Good turkey burger.
Watch out, lady!
Dirty old stuff. Love.
Bowlegged.
I don'care what the others say: I think it's kindof pretty.
Creep.
Mine's best.
Anyone?
Life.
Louis Valentino, Jr. Park & Pier.
Again.
Studios east of park.
Buttermilk Channel.
National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia.
The world's finest gummed tape, turns out. Huh.
Spaz.
Furniture. (I missed Zipper. Phooey.)
Silicon Valley 2, Broadband Brooklyn... Dumb names, and to my knowledge, Liberty Warehouse was spared.
More studios (including my subletters', I believe), plus a museum, nursery, and Steve's! I finally bit into a chocolate-covered key lime pie on a stick, sadly bibless as I chatted w/ Mr. Pieman himself, chunks of chocolate melting all down the front of me. (You walk inside to the sounds of Woody Guthrie and a general impression of, I don't know, the islands. But you're in a warehouse. Then just outside is a sweet little fountain, a picnic table, some crocodiles...) Not an hour earlier I'd gorged myself on many pounds of Colombian goodness, served up over pleasant conversation w/ Eloy and Maria, who prepared my lunches (for sure more than one) and gave me their take on all the publicity. Needless to say, following the pie stint, walking was uncomfortable for several hours, but hell if I won't be back next w/e and the w/e after (my last there, boo). 
The Google tells me nothing of this company.
Ultimatum
While on the 5 this morning, books being read on each side of me: Confessions of a Housewife, My Boyfriend's Back, and Love Me Or I'll Kill You.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
P.O.V.
Just when I was gettin' all down on Sunday 'n' stuff, I read this email:
"Sunday morning: Aw, my fav time to run. Perfect conditions this morning, gray skies, cool 50’s, light sprinkle of rain. Decided to stay on my local roads this morning instead of one of the trails. I tend to run more relaxed in a light rain, not sure why. The earth seems quieter in a light summer rain, like it really enjoys the soaking, less people, less barking dogs, bring the smells out. And this morning also my favorite smells--freshly vined pea fields and cow shit abound."
Nice, Pops. (And you're famous, just like that!) Wish I could say my a.m. nine-miler was as pleasant. But no: tired, sticky, aimless, low blood sugar toward the end... Ah well, next time.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Tonight!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Free love
Oh no! Scared off by my confession of five minutes ago ("Defcon3 and coffee this morning, missy"), poet-coworker is refusing to take her seat next to me, cowering on the other end of the office. No fun.
It's okay, I don't need her. What I do need is another month surrounded by such sights as the ones you see below (Van Brunt to Ferris east-west, Sullivan to Wolcott north-south)...
Funny, I noticed this window (Van Brunt & King) the morning after the ginormous* boat sighting. That Hail Mary story is old--about the 2006 debut. Weird.
Red Hook Pentecostal Holiness Church, Wolcott/Van Brunt.
Reliable bus tours.
Half-naked men at work.
Not straight.
Founded in 1903, Le Compte & Co. was a family run firm employing four generations in the tin can business until 1993. 
Stuck.
They still make Jolt?? Hmm, good to know...
Juxtaposition.
Cacti.
Shrouded.
Lovin' the purple dumpster.
That's Pier 10/Buttermilk Channel in the distance.
Grand opening.
*Oh, Mendy. Take a gander at that list, about a quarter of the way down... (Yours made the cut!)
Labels: decrepitude, hardcore caffeine, liberty
My friends are funny
Another installment in the Ann Coulter neck series. (Ghastly!) Thanks Timoth--I mean, Japablum.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Shuffling down Pioneer St. this morning, I saw a large boat. Large enough to qualify as the world's second largest cruise ship, mind you. Weird, I can't find anything on the 'nets about its arrival, only references to last year's docking. I did find this, though.
The vibrating plant outside my window
In love w/ this image.
Iceberg, tip of the
I've been poopin' out pretty early these nights, nodding off at the creepy-early hour of ten-o-clock. While I probably need the z's, it's annoying, as I always have so much I want to get done post-work. No matter, 'cause I've got a new plan: Don't fight it--hit the hay early, but pop out of bed early, too. In addition to getting the morning's run in, this should allow me to fit in some additional activitays, stuff typically reserved for the evening hours. So like, maybe I'll sit outside and write or read something, pay a trip to the market, do laundry, watch a movie, make cupcakes or prank calls... I actually tried to start today, but the attempt was a thwarted one, the alarm function of my stupid broken phone failing to deliver. Tomorrow, though, tomorrow I'll shoot for a 5:00 a.m. wake-up, then after a short tempo run, maybe I'll hit the awesomely decrepit streets of RH for round two of the Get To Know Every Single Teensy Thing About Your Neighborhood series. Below are the fruits of round one--Van Brunt to Ferris St. east-west, Pioneer to King St. north-south--and at the rate I'm going, I'm afraid two more weeks just ain't gonna cut it. (Did someone say lease?)
http://redhookbaitandtackle.com/. Mermaids, dangling bobbers/fish, harpoons, stuffed vermin/goat and bear heads, some Extreme Hunting videogame... Says forgotten-ny.com, the actual bar is product of a tree that fell in a nearby church garden. 
Icons.
Sure.
Red Hook doughboy statue, memorial honoring Red Hookers who died while serving in WWI, dedicated in 1921.
Get divorce, drink. (Drink, get divorce?)
Cool deco numbers.
Seems that several of the Chinatown bus companies store their rigs in RH. I wandered into a couple of empty garages, which was oddly thrilling.
Collector.
Berries & bricks. Pretty.
End-all granola. Best breakfast in town.
Labels: almost 30, Magellan, OCD, old person
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Twice in one day!
Same holds true for anyone wishing to pick a bone w/ me. Not havin' it.
As a certain relative used to say, "[Insert guilty party] ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower."
Worst. expression. ever.
For the record, if anyone ever *picks my brain* for anything, I will make it so that this person is extremely uncomfortable.
'tis all.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Sunday sat in the Saturday sun
Forget the absent B61--I am one happy Red Hooker. Eleven o’clock on a sunny, non-sticky Saturday morning, I’m sitting cross-legged on my dollbed, surrounded by breakfast, books, magazines, archived news clippings (oh Pa, I fear I’ll never catch up)... Wrapped in the softest shirt, deck door flung open, Mr. Berninger crooning in the background... I haven’t felt this good in awhile. I’ve been in (roughly) this position since 9:00, when I opened my eyes to the delicate curve of the leafy plant outside my window, the one I could sit here and watch for many more minutes than I already have, as it alternately waves in the breeze and vibrates w/ the passing of heavy trucks on the street just east. (When it vibrates, it’s fast and minute, and pretty charming.) It’s funny, I’ve admired this small action a dozen times already today, beginning at 4:30 when I first awoke, content and acutely observant of what was going on outside at this hour. I woke up every hour after, almost on the hour, in this same pleasant state. There’s a chance it was part of a dream,* the continual waking-up, but I’m pretty sure it was actual.
Unlike some mornings/afternoons, I don’t feel at all lazy, guilty for wasting a perfectly lovely day hanging out in bed. Thing is, I'm paying as much attention to the great outdoors from this side of the window as I'd be if I were out running in it/them. (Incidentally, this is coming. Got my sights on an easy four-miler, probably head toward Columbia St. w/ a potential stop off at Freebird in search of a book that Dougie is disgusted I haven’t read.) Then, in hopes of getting a start on a story that’s been kicking around my head for weeks now, I’m considering frittering away the better portion of today in bed, actually. Basically, it’s that I’m running out of alternatives. I used to be such a coffee shop devotee, swearing by the noise--the low chatter, the grind of the espresso machine--that bred productivity, but anymore this doesn’t seem to do it for me. I’ll mess around online, maybe email, maybe blog, but I can’t otherwise write as I want to. Can’t do much at work, either, even when time allows for it. And at a desk at home, this has never proven very fruitful for me.
What I haven’t tried, though--perhaps the only setting I haven’t given much thought to--is bed. Mother Dearest mailed me a story clipped from the latest Poets & Writers, “A Writer’s Bed” by Tova Mirvis, which got me to thinking. Surprising, the number of famed writers who did the deed beneath the covers: Walker Percy, Proust, Descartes, Twain (he also insisted on receiving visitors in bed; to his wife: “if you want him to be as comfortable as I am, make him up a bed in the other corner of the room”), Wharton (some rooms are “made to sleep in, others are for dressing, eating, study, or conversation; but whatever the uses of a room, they are seriously interfered w/ if it be not preserved as a small world by itself”)... It makes a certain amount of sense, too, you know? Especially when it comes to fiction writing, stories often originating (or developing to some extent) in dreams. Toward the end of the article, Mirvis quotes John Gardner as saying, “The organized and intelligent fictional dream that will eventually fill the reader’s mind begins as a largely mysterious dream in the writer’s mind.” We’ll see.
Unrelated: I wasn’t feeling 100 percent last night, thus missed out on a fun little company event, a “Gangs of New York” walking tour followed by dinner (company card, ‘course) at Delmonico’s. If you know me, you know I’m all about the walking tours (er, was, anyway), so this was a letdown. Still, good to know I have coworkers so adept at summoning my presence regardless. That’s right: Toward evening’s end, I get a text from the poet/coworker letting me know that her and D had taken it upon themselves to sell me to the tourguide, going so far as to collect this dude’s contact specs (“you’d really like her; we’ll make sure she’s in touch w/ you”). Oh god.
*Besides, that I watched, um, Poltergeist last night seems contrary to breezy dreamin'.
Labels: granola, languor, vibrating plant
Friday, August 10, 2007
"This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."
And then there are those mornings when living in the outer reaches of the universe is about as appealing as eating throwup (most abhorrent candy ever), those mornings when a person's only means of public transportation fails to deliver, those mornings when the B61 bus, in the face of a few negligible showers, simply does not come. Pffft.
I hate raisins.
Labels: candy, Dorothy Parker, vomit
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Sell
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/06/chart_of_presidentia.html
http://weirdomatic.blogspot.com/2007/07/old-creepy-ads.html [also courtesy of BB]
Labels: um
Reel
As ya'll know, we got dumped on pretty hard yesterday morning. Due to flooding, most trains were down/rerouted for a good part of the day, people were caulking their wagons and paddling w/ their hands up Park Ave... (All that ruined Prada!) I, for one, was lucky enough to snag me a cab early on, before I drowned. Yeah, so like other routine-altering events, this one was good for a memorable episode, this time in the form of an especially chatty cabdriver. The dude, a 40-something lawyer/literary critic from Bangladesh, buried me in so much baggage that I almost died for the second time in a two-hour stretch. The wife who generally went bananas on him two years after they married at age 23, who went and had their youngest son circumcised w/o checking in w/ Hubby, who arranged marriages for two of their sons, again sans conferring w/ Pops. (They're still wed, inexplicably.) He was very nice and certainly entertaining, and I even got some suggested reading material out of the deal. So there ya have it.
The storm itself, the 10 minutes I saw/heard of it, safe and dry and wide-eyed behind deckdoors, was otherwordly. The sky flashed over and over, eerily violet, accompanied by the loudest thunder claps I've ever heard. It sounded like the whole world was breaking. Not two hours later, I was out running, the quiet (and relative dryness, somehow) of my neighborhood starkly opposing and hardly predicting the commotion that awaited me in Manhattan.
This morning was intervals: 7 x 400s. There's an actual track (not regulation size, but I figure as long as I hold myself to the outermost lane...) an easy half-mile from my apartment, a convenience I haven't enjoyed since the early EV days. It felt hard but good to zip along at the prescribed 5K pace, all turquoise and green overhead, an 85-year-old concrete silo massive and massively distracting over yonder. (Used to be a processing center for grains shipped from upstate/west and used by distilleries/breweries.) It's very pretty, so weathered and imperfect against the purity (going by looks alone, of course) of that sky.
Another distinctive building I end up passing by w/ incidental frequency is this one.* Wouldn'tcha know (I wouldn't), it was originally the storehouse of the Joseph K. Brick Company, founded in 1854. In 1995, thanks to one Greg O'Connell, it was Red Hook's first designated landmark building, and these days it houses a glass etching company, something I confirmed upon running past it, yet again, this morning.
*This site is ass-kickin', and will be to thank, I'm sure, for many of the RH images I end up posting. So exhaustive and full of thought.
Labels: flood, heaven, near-death, Oregon Trail
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
I'm reading this book, and, never having read her, I'm pretty impressed. (Some seem to take issue w/ her style, but so far I don't get it.) Case in point:
Annie drops the bear on its head and climbs onto Annawake's lap. Annawake laces her fingers together over the child's naked belly, which has the rubbery firmness of a hard-boiled egg.
Um, genius. How many times have I gone to describe a toddler's tummy and come up empty? Fine, n/a, but if I ever find myself in this predicament, shoot if I won't battle the temptation to copy. Seriously, does it get any more apt?
Speaking of tummies, I overhead some novel commentary the other day while walking from cave to gym. It went like this:
Man A: I like a woman w/ a belly on her.
Man B: Yeah?
Man A: Yeah. A nice big one that I can really bite into.
Ow.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Yo La Tengo, the perfect weekday morning soundtrack
Oh MAN. Alexander is NOT well-received here at work, turns out. Got hung up on not once but TWICE, poor guy. Where's the love, where's the love...
Anyway, this morning was positively deeelightful. Again, woke up sans alarm at, oh, six o'clock. That sun, those birds... Can't be real. Standing up for a nice luxurious stretch, stepping out onto the deck in my skivvies (I know! but I'm so used to not having to worry!), green all around... (Okay, not counting the Pizzatown across the street, but even this is partially obscured by the leafs.) One month: Ugh. No time at all.
Already, some RH fixtures observed: one, a group of three ladies, maybe in their late 60s, who routinely sit in lawn chairs outside their Van Brunt apartment, idly chatting. I've seen them on three separate occasions, and each time they're passing around one of those store-bought coffee cakes (Entenmann's, that sort), cutting it into portions w/ a plastic knife. They pause and look at me a little skeptically at first, then smile (well, except for one of them) and pick up where they left off. Next time I think I'll strike up a conversation.
Then, a not-so-pleasant observation the other night, tamer versions of which I've heard since: a mother scolding her daughter, using some really awful language. Let's just say it was the absolute worst swear term my little brother and I could've ever dreamed up as kids. We considered it so ugly and taboo that we reserved it for only those times when we were so overtaken by little-kid anger that we felt we had no choice but to whip out the hardcore ammo. Worse than the swiftest shin-kick, for sure. Overhearing this sort of thing makes me so sad, even hopeless. Kids are exposed to enough of that stuff throughout the day/at school; the last thing they need is to hear it from their own parents. Ick.
Continually rackin' up the mosquito bites...
Monday, August 06, 2007
This pink font has got to go
So in case it's not clear, below is my room in all its Red Hook glory. It's quite private, and I'm quite in love w/ it. Not too small, not too big. Unlike the cave, it's good & cozy--and light. Last night, my first night there, I curled up on the bed (Return of the Dollbed!) w/, first, a book, and second, a movie. The sheets were soft and cool beneath me, a faint breeze slipped through the window, and I slept hard--like a kid at camp, exhausted after a long day of, I don't know, archery. (In real life, I was all about the tie-dyeing. And the lanyards, and the friendship bracelets, and the sand candles.)
Speaking of camp, a twinge of something akin to homesickness came along w/ the package. Like a mild longing for Park Slope and the cave, and maybe even Seattle, just a little. There was also a melancholy associated w/ the age-old Sunday blues phenomenon, a bit of disorientation connected to the sudden shift in living arrangements, and a sense of isolation due to the fact that Red Hook, for all it offers, really does feel cut off from surrounding neighborhoods, mostly because the feel of it is just so different and public transportation options are pretty dismal (only the two buslines). Anyway, some of what I was experiencing definitely reminded me of that vague apprehension that would rise up w/in me at the start of each new camp session. (Of course, it was never long before earnest new alliances, which fueled the inevitable girlish pranks and bedtime giggle fits, obliterated all anxiety, but always, always the initial discomfort.)
It's interesting, something about my new neighborhood (the wide, quiet streets; the towering cranes that line the waterfront; the empty lots littered w/ beer cans and rusted machine parts; the faded advertisements, most barely legible, that flank its gutted warehouses) in combination w/ this particular time of year (stagnant summer days, sun beating down, radiating off cement) that makes me nostalgic for something I can't quite pinpoint. It doesn't feel completely personal, either. Jung on the brain, the concept of collective experience comes to mind, and I wonder if I'm not aligning RH's hints of an industrious past/crumbling reminders of lost vibrance w/ that general human tendency to use memory as a security blanket, retreating to the familiar/predictable (the past often glossier in memory) in times of uncertainty. I don't know.
I tackled yesterday's long run later than I would've liked--well into the evening. I did eight, my longest since December's injury. Struggled through the middle miles, but I was pleased w/ how I felt during the final couple. The unmoving air, while less than ideal, offered itself up as a sortof competitor toward the end, and I felt cool and defiant, racing through/against it and reaching the cave w/ an 8:25/mile average under my belt. I'd returned for my bike, which I proceeded to ride home to RH--literally, into the sunset, the sky turning from orange to pink, pink to mauve, as I coasted down West 9th. It made for the perfect cooldown.
Come along w/ me... to my little corner of the world...
Heaven has pretty flowers, 
a deck, 
points of contrast,
private access to the deck, 
a daybed/polka dotted carpet,
a houseplant/books/a just-for-looks TV,
and, of course, a bed w/ window overhead/running shoes...
Friday, August 03, 2007
"Meaning makes a great many things endurable--perhaps everything."
Took awhile, but I finally closed this book, my second attempt at reading it in the last six or so years. Definitely a more befitting read now than then. The part below, lifted from the final pages, is sublime. Reading it chokes me up, and since I'm obligated to post on most anything that makes me cry (my sake), here it is. What a gift.
I am satisfied w/ the course my life has taken. It has been bountiful, and has given me a great deal. How could I ever have expected so much? Nothing but unexpected things kept happening to me. Much might have been different if I myself had been different. But it was as it had to be; for all came about because I am as I am. Many things worked out as I planned them to, but that did not always prove of benefit to me. But almost everything developed naturally and by destiny. I regret many follies which sprang from my obstinancy; but w/o that trait I would not have reached my goal. And so I am disappointed and not disappointed. I am disappointed w/ people and disappointed w/ myself. I have learned amazing things from people, and have accomplished more than I expected of myself. I cannot form any final judgment because the phenomenon of life and phenomenon of man are too vast. The older I have become, the less I have understood or had insight into or known about myself.
I am astonished, disappointed, pleased w/ myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum. I am uncapable of determining ultimate worth or worthlessness; I have no judgment about myself and my life. There is nothing I am quite sure about. I have no definite convictions--not about anything, really. I know only that I was born and exist, and it seems to me that I have been carried along. I exist on the foundation of something I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties, I feel a solidarity underlying all existence and a continuity in my mode of being.
The world into which we are born is brutal and cruel, and at the same time of divine beauty. Which element we think outweighs the other, whether meaninglessness or meaning, is a matter of temperament. If meaninglessness were absolutely preponderant, the meaningfulness of life would vanish to an increasing degree w/ each step in our development. But that is--or seems to me--not the case. Probably, as in all metaphysical questions, both are true: Life is--or has--meaning and meaninglessness. I cherish the anxious hope that meaning will preponderate and win the battle.
When Lao-tzu says: "All are clear, I alone am clouded," he is expressing what I now feel in advanced old age. Lao-tzu is the example of a man w/ superior insight who has seen and experienced worth and worthlessness, and who at the end of his life desires to return into his own being, into the eternal unknowable meaning. The archetype of the old man who has seen enough is eternally true. At every level of intelligence this type appears, and its lineaments are always the same, whether it be an old peasant or a great philosopher like Lao-tzu. This is old age, and a limitation. Yet there is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship w/ all things. In fact it seems to me as if that alienation which so long separated me from the world has become transferred into my own inner world, and has revealed to me an unexpected unfamiliarity w/ myself.
,,,
Ugh. Sad fate, indeed. The hours I've blown agonizing over this very issue, especially when it comes to the introductory prepositional phrase. Me: "Do it! Rules, rules, rules!" Me, thinking as my editor: "Go ahead, leav'er in--but don't get attached, 'cause I'll only send'er packin'."
For the record, I always tip my hat to Ms. ,. Also, and anyone who receives texts from me will vouch for me here, I am one scrupulous texter. Save the occasional abbrev., I insert commas, even colons and em dashes, w/ the utmost diligence.
Ahem!
Not Red Hook
Fish & crustaceans.
Pidge resurfaces, one hundred pounds lighter. 
Hell. Hell hell hell.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Hooked
And the Swedes have it! Paid me in twenties, they did, causing me some wee anxiety this morning as I walked from cave to train, train to work, work to bank, purse spilling over, bills catching in the breeze* and trailing behind me in a deceptive show of wealth. They're nice kids, the Swedes, both interns at a Hell's Kitchen-based multimedia design firm where they'll remain for a seven-month stint. One's from Malmo, the other... can't remember. A teeny town not far from Malmo. Anyhow, after furtively stuffing my winnings into my handy wall safe, I took the kiddos out for a bite and a beer, over which I tricked them into gushing about their home country/region. Neat, talking all things Scandinavia, and, always welcome, I was able to score some new music recs.
So bam, that's that. And I only had to punch out three would-be tenants in the process, deadset as they were on occupying my glamorous digs. As for me, I move into my Red Hook abode Saturday afternoon, and it's looking like rather than two people w/ which to share the place (a spacious three-bdrm walkup), there'll be just one--a recent Princeton grad roughly my age. I've laid claim to the deck-accessible room, and shoot if I can't stop the images of tall iced teas, yet-unchristened journals, chilled white wine, and musty library books from flitting about my brain. And I cannot wait to scour my new neighborhood block by block by block. Beauty incognito...
Unrelated: I was overtaken by a crafy ring of mosquitos last night. There I was, wandering through the park, minding my own business, when a sweet little flower caught my eye (really). It was partially obscured by some brush, which I pushed to one side. Mistake! The little ruffians emerged in one crazy storm, staking out skin as if their lives depended on it (sorry). Once I came to and realized the dire nature of my situation, I yelled "go to hell" and I ran. They wanted me, though, badly, and so several minutes passed before I was able to put them behind me for good. Back home, it was clear: It was going to be a long, fitful night of sleep. Which it was. Beyond the obvious discomfort of so much itching, another consequence: In a few places (left calf, right tricep) I scratched** w/ such ferocity that some bone is visible. Sad.
Just an hour ago I picked up some of that 1% anti-itch cream, which is helping some, but not all the way.
*Oh wait, I forgot. The air doesn't move here.
**Per Wiki: "Aloe Vera gel is an effective natural remedy against itching, unlike many home treatments including calamine lotion, baking soda and scratching." Ha.