Miss Hag.

You Fall Apart Again. . .

2008-01-23T17:14:00.000-05:00

de·ni·al [di-nahy-uhl] –noun

1. an assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false: Despite his denials, we knew he had taken the purse. The politician issued a denial of his opponent's charges.
2. refusal to believe a doctrine, theory, or the like.
3. disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing.
4. the refusal to satisfy a claim, request, desire, etc., or the refusal of a person making it.
5. refusal to recognize or acknowledge; a disowning or disavowal: the traitor's denial of his country; Peter's denial of Christ.
6. Law. refusal to acknowledge the validity of a claim, suit, or the like; a plea that denies allegations of fact in an adversary's plea: Although she sued for libel, he entered a general denial.
7. sacrifice of one's own wants or needs; self-denial.
8. Psychology. an unconscious defense mechanism used to reduce anxiety by denying thoughts, feelings, or facts that are consciously intolerable

Say two names to anyone who has been in a room with a television, computer or newspaper in the last year and you will certainly get some sort of reaction. Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears. "Train wreck." "Out of control." "Wild child."

I bring these examples up because I have found myself similarly distinguished in my own world. My m.o. for the past couple of years has been "The Girl Who Will Always Do One More Shot of Jameson Even When It Is Clearly Evident That She Doesn't Need Anymore."

For me, hanging out with the crowd that I run with, turning down another drink is never an option. Competitive drinking has become a way of life, and my competition is typically taller, bigger and younger than me. And male. That's right. I graduated from college ten years ago, but my liver has not.

I spend my Sundays playing beer pong. Twenty percent of my monthly income is spent on whiskey. My drinking partners have been Merchant Marines and West Point Cadets. I have found myself the only female at the after hours party that goes until it is full on morning. And wondering where the after after hours will be.

Now mind you, until recently, my rabblerousing has been great fodder for conversation. I have great stories about all nighters and fisticuffs. Ballyhoo. Mayhem.

People love to hear about my excessive behavior. Marvel at my Energize Bunny ability to keep on keeping on.

It seems though, that the party does indeed come to an end. And that end has come.

Everybody is worried about me. Suddenly. Something has changed.

I have reached the point in life when people are so concerned for me that they are no longer approaching me with compassionate concern; they are vigorously upset with me. Apparently, what once was fun and amusing is sincere cause for concern.

I have been lectured and scolded more times in the past few days then since I was a defiantly rebellious teenager. A friend called me because he received over a half dozen voice mail messages from different people inquiring about my well being.

People are talking.

"You need to do some serious self examination."

"You got yourself in this position. This is your fault."

"Do you really want to be this girl? Can't you see there is something wrong with you right now?"

"Most people go through what you are going through and learn a lesson and it seems you haven't been learning anything."

"Your friends need to have an intervention. I'm telling you this as a friend who cares." (Voiced in a manner that can only be described as "yelling.")

I get it. I'm not unconscious of who I am and what I do. I realize that I drink excessively and frequently and I am not blaming anyone for making me into this. It is part of who I am. I understand that it is not healthy and, now that I have reached a certain point (age) in my life, it's just not as cute. It may be, in fact, a little sad.

I understand that I have been making frivolous and irresponsible choices for the sake of enjoyment and pleasure. My decisions could be interpreted as juvenile. I'm not taking life seriously. I am being excessive in my unreality. I'm not taking personal responsibility.

The perception is that I have hit a place one might call "Rock Bottom." It is a place that I have visited enough times that I may as well have a time share there. It is the way I exist - plummeting to extreme depths and ascending pinnacle summits. I have often felt that my ability to achieve such extremes is not only a hallmark of my personality, but a reason for my existence. It is fuel for the inspiration that created these words that you are reading.

I know someday I will look back at these days and understand the purpose of this shit storm. There is a reason to this madness. I can only hope it will be clear to the rest of the world.

It seems that most people have given up on me and I hold no malice towards them for that. The last guest at the party needs to know when to say goodbye.

Everyone has their own problems and I am significantly better off than a lot of people. Perhaps I have taken that for granted.

I can offer no reason for why I have gotten here. Again. There is no valid rationalization for why I am toeing the line of appropriate intoxication. I can only apologize to anyone I have disappointed or caused concern. Perhaps I am not what everyone hopes/wants me to be, but I am not trying to plunge to the depths because I have given up. I am not a lost cause and I am not spiraling out of control.

That said, I can't help but wonder what changed.

When did Britney and Amy and all the other party girls out there become people to pity and fear for? When did I stop being someone who could party like no other and turn into someone who should not party ever? At all.

I often refer to Augusten Burroughs memoir, "Dry," in which he writes about how he thought he would go to rehab to learn how to drink like a normal person. He was promptly made to understand that he could never drink like a normal person. That some people just cannot do such a thing.

Although I know my way around a drink, I don't know if there is a simple formula for determining an alcoholic. If you ask a majority of people in my world right now, they will tell you that I am One Of Those That Cannot Drink. I wouldn't argue that I have exhibited behavior that is certainly worrisome, but I think there is more to it than a list of mistakes and behaviors. I don't think it's something that a person cannot change.

I don't know if this is true. I know that I shouldn't continue the way that I have. I also know that I do not always go off the deep end when I drink, but that I have chosen inappropriate times to go to that extreme. And that is my biggest regret from all of these recent events in my life. What I consider to be my private life is now cause for public concern. I cannot believe I am writing these words, but I think I understand a little what Britney and Ms. Winehouse must feel.

We all go through periods where darkness seems more distinguishing than light. We all have times when it seems we can do no right by anyone and when it seems the more we try to be happy, the unhappier we become or seem. I am not contesting any of that. I am not thrilled with where life is now.

But, I don't think my problem is one of substance, but of circumstance. I am putting myself in situations that aren't right. The drinking is a byproduct not a cause.

But, I also know that there is something to intoxication that can be enlightening and, dare I say, productive. That some of my best writing has come from the experiences of excess that someone like me is privy to access. I do not think I am a hopeless cause, but I do think I have a lot of work to do to regulate my life. To regain control of what I thought I had.

I do think I can drink like a normal person, but I don't think I should tempt fate for a while because it seems that I haven't been in the favor of the universe and I cannot afford for things the get much worse.

The end of the party is most certainly not the end of the living. And the end of the trying will never be the end of the failing, but the ride can be exquisite.

I Can't See. How Blind Can He Be?

2007-03-03T17:48:00.000-05:00

Day 60.365 - I Can't See. How Blind Can He Be?
Originally uploaded by Miss Hag.

Anjalee visited Mister g8s and I while we were bartending last Saturday. She commented to me that I looked so serious and sad in my Flickr photos which is basically the opposite of how I appear in reality.

At least, that is true for when I am working. I have read interviews with various pop performers in which they describe how they feel like they become someone else on stage. So much so that they have different names for their onstage personae. (Beyonce's is Sascha. Janet Jackson's is Strawberry or something) (I hate that I know these things.)

Click to read more. . .

To Know Him is To Love Him

2007-03-02T01:36:00.001-05:00

To Know Him is To Love Him
Originally uploaded by Miss Hag.

There is a Post-It on the wall by my desk that reads, "Give him a chance to miss you."
I am leaving Manhattan soon to go on a journey and I plan to miss this city while I am gone. I always do. It is the only place I have ever felt is my home.
Click above to read more . . .

Congratulations Amanda B.!

2007-02-22T20:11:00.000-05:00

Congratulations Amanda B.!
Originally uploaded by Miss Hag.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo to you, Miss Amanda!

Princess without a kingdom. . .

2007-02-18T17:13:00.000-05:00

There is nothing sadder than a princess without a kingdom. Most people think you need to have the latter before you can be considered the former. But, I politely disagree.

This city is my body.

2007-02-08T15:34:00.000-05:00

Day 36.365
Originally uploaded by Miss Hag.

I found an empty bottle of Laphroig Scotch outside the door to my building. Later that day, I read this ad on a subway platform -- "This city is my body. This body is the city."

What more can I say?

Almost

2007-02-06T00:43:00.000-05:00

My BFF is deft at playing cheesy, Diane Warrenesque R&B songs that perfectly fit whatever emotional dramas are encompassing my world at the time. Currently, his contribution to my aural reality is Tamia's "Almost."

Click on the above photo for a more detailed account of said melancholia.

I don't miss you at all.

I'm glad I didn't die before I met you. . .

2007-01-29T17:25:00.000-05:00

A friend recently gave me a copy of "Love is a Mixtape" by Rob Sheffield. . . you know when you're choosing the songs for a mixtape, how you listen for that lyric that is almost like a note to that person? Like, "This is it. This is why I picked this song? Get it?"

Click here to read more. . .

Day 26.365 - I'm glad I didn't die before I met you. . .
Originally uploaded by Miss Hag.

godspeed, baby. . .

2007-01-15T09:40:00.000-05:00

you still reading this?

2007-01-03T06:36:00.000-05:00

I am 5'1" and I weigh 112 pounds. This is the smallest I have been since...shit...I don't even know. High school? Junior high?

I lost a solid 50 pounds in just over a year. For real. Without TrimSpa or crystal meth or vomiting. Just by burning more than I consume. And I consume a lot of whiskey.

People's reactions vary. Some people are genuinely excited for me. Most people say something like, "Well, you were always beautiful. Now? Well. Shit. I can't even explain it."

Some people try to feed me. "Eat a sandwich, girl."

They don't know.

Red Hot gave me an award for 2006 Sexiest Blog and while I appreciate that, I feel as though I really don't deserve it. I've posted, like, 5 times in the past year. I am not bringing the sexy back here, that's for sure.

This is the year that I become the world shortest supermodel. Supermodels don't blog. We Flickr.

Please, if you really want to know what's up with me, and I love you so fucking much if you do, come see me here. It's a party over there.

This space will self-destruct periodically.

Hot Lips, My Ass

2006-12-07T13:58:00.000-05:00

One of you nominated me for a Reddie Award for Red Hot Lips 2006.

You got me into this...now go vote.

There are some fine young men in Manhattan that might agree with this title. Tee-hee.

my name is not susan.

2006-11-20T22:43:00.000-05:00

Or Luka.

But, I do live on the second floor. . .

For all the naysayers, I am pleased to announce that I have still not had a drop of liquor since my decision to give my liver a one month break. The other thing? Yeah. Well. I tried.
My boss (otherwise known on these Internets as "the hot owner of Gstaad) said to me, "Could you do us a favor and not tell the customers that you're not having sex for a month? We don't sell liquor here. We sell dreams."

Well, I have dreams too. Ain't nothin' wrong with that. Anyway, let's focus on the big picture here. I haven't had a drink in almost three weeks. This is big. I work around liquor. I live a lifestyle fueled by the drink. I am one to be intoxicated. I'm through the Lookingglass! That's what grownups in New York do. We meet over drinks and tell stories. It's primal.

I've still been going out until 7 in the morning, mind you. I just drink a club soda instead and listen more than talk.

However, some would call my victory Pyrrhic. I haven't had a drink, but I haven't been completely sober. One of my favorite barflys commented to me, "There is something so bourgeoisie about abstinence." I agree. Give me muddled perception. The world is too much with us late and soon.

So, in this voluntary dry spell, I have. . .gulp. . .yes. . .started smoking again. If anything, it gets me out of the bar for a bit and away from my drunk friends. Drunk people, by the way, aren't nearly as interesting when you are stone cold sober.

Let's stay focused on the big pic, though. Some good has come of this. I felt as though I should come forth with this info, because I have a new favorite thing to do. One of my lovely windows opens up to a fire escape. At any given moment, you may see me in boxer shorts and a pink rabbit fur coat, sitting in my window and smoking an American Spirit menthol. Thinking.

My apartment is directly above the gaudiest orange and yellow burger joint you can picture in your mind's eye. It's called "Lucky's Famous Burgers" where they claim to have the best burgers in the galaxy. At night, I am underlit by the warm glow of the saffron lights of Lucky's. I gaze at the tops of people heads as the bop along to their individual rhythms. My find is full of poetry.

I hate to admit it, but I secretly hope to be serenaded by someone from below. Maybe even a Lloyd Dobbler boombox homage, but instead of Peter Gabriel, he will play Otis Redding.

Which brings me to the wagon that I didn't stay on.

I told my friend, Drew, that I felt that I was being distracted by artificial satisfaction which is why I am taking a break. He nodded and said, "Yup. Booze and boys."

Booze and boys indeed. I love boys. I love the way the smell. The way they move. The way they are distant and close at the same time. They are maddening and addictive. And I choose all the wrong ones because they destroy me and make me want more.

I disagree politely with Carmen McCrae. My romance does need a dance to a constantly surprising refrain.

Cute Doesn't Cut It At All

2006-11-03T01:07:00.000-05:00

Marisol (Cute doesn't cut it in this city.)
Originally uploaded by misterg8s.

(fyi: g8s is my favorite photographer in the universe.)

I have a problem.

Remember in high school when your hormones were raging and all you thought about was sex and you got these insanely obsessive crushes? Well, imagine the same ridiculous behavior, only now you are 30 not 13.

It's not nearly as cute.

I think about sex all the time. All. The. Time. It's a problem.

Recently, g8s and I went to see Dennis in Indiana. He took us to Metropolis, a lovely gay bar in Indianapolis with various levels, one of which led to a sex shop full of the usual fare: dildos and lubricants and butt plugs. Oh my! It was lovely fun for Miss Hag. Standing around with a cocktail, examining sex toys and talking shop with the cute boys working the counter.

As we regaled the staff with the story of my first experience with poppers, I realized that I needed to tell Dennis my fear. He would know what to do.

Clone-A-Willy
Originally uploaded by Miss Hag.

I told him that I thought perhaps I have a problem. I have been officially single for six months now and I haven't actually gone on a date. I have had lots of sex with quite a few lovely lads, but no one has actually bought me a dinner I didn't feel like eating or taken me to a movie I didn't really want to see.

I'm not dating; I have friends that I have sex with once in a while. I don't know much about them and none of them know very much about me. I've only let one sleep in my bed with me and that's only because he smells so damn good. I do, however, have fantasies about building a fort of men and crawling inside so I can be surrounded by boys. I imagine it to be a peaceful and lovely place. My man fort.

"That's fine, sweetheart."

"It is? "

"Of course! Honey. Listen. I love you. Absolutely. But, what you and I have is only one strand of DNA away from real romantic love because I don't put my penis in you."

(Seriously. This is how we talk.)

"Besides, " Dennis continued, "If you meet a guy and fuck him and you don't enjoy it, then you'll probably not enjoy eating Pad Thai with him either, so why bother pursuing it any further? You know it won't go anywhere if he doesn't satisfy you. That's just the way we are. Accept it."

"Well, I might just give him one more chance, but that's it."

"That's the difference between you and I, baby. Anyway, what are you worried about? You're young. You're beautiful. And you're single for the first time in seven years. You're having fun right?"

Yes. I am. Having fun, that is.

Purple Rain
Originally uploaded by Miss Hag.

But, today, I spent the greater part of the morning at the free clinic pondering my sex life. (Sex is all they talk about there. Really.) After getting a clean bill of health from a wonderful doctor named Tom, we sat and chatted for a while.

"I feel like every time I come here it's like coming to confession."

Tom chuckled. "Look, I don't judge anyone that comes through here. You're making choices for yourself. You are an intelligent woman. You aren't stupid even if you think you make foolish decisions once in a while."

"That's true."

"But, the way I see it, there are certain things you can control. The things you do that bring you here are actions you have some control over."

"Yeah."

"So, why not make things simpler in the now so they don't get complicated in the future? You know?"

I took Tom's advice and I walked home. It was dreary when I left my apartment, but by midday the sun chose to make an appearance, enlivening the meager foliage of Manhattan. My favorite season is almost over and I'm facing my first winter alone. And, in the spirit of my singularity, I have decided to keep it really simple for a while.

I'm challenging myself to not have sex or alcohol for a month. Just to see.

It's been 48 hours without a drop of drink and about 137 hours without sex.

Place your bets, kids.

Happy Halloween. . .

2006-11-01T17:09:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween...
Originally uploaded by misterg8s.

From the hottest new Electroclash-emo-bluegrass band from Japan:
"Someone Stole My Casio."

I Love You, Dennis

2006-10-22T20:42:00.000-04:00

Dennis is on the short list of people I plan to love forever. On Friday I received this text message.

He's gone.

For the past few months, Dennis has been enduring something most people hope to avoid -- watching his father slowly deteriorate and pass away.

I received this text message while I was watching a dear friend's band perform. He had just dedicated a song to me and my Ex because the song was about a dear friend of ours who passed away earlier this year.

Halloween is coming. Last Halloween, my brother went into the hospital. He died three months later.

I have never been unaware of mortality. And yet, for some crazy reason, all I feel right now is grateful. And I'm not even a fucking optimist.

Hold on, D. I'm coming to hug you.

too intimate.

2006-10-13T17:54:00.000-04:00

The Ex recently experienced his first little break-up after our momentous break-up. In my very mature way, I let him vent his frustrations to me about her. It felt good to be a friend to a man I have loved for over half of my life. It didn't even hurt as I thought it might. I was pleasantly surprised at how unpainful it was for me to advise The Ex to learn how to keep things casual with girls. I told him to just have fun and get laid and enjoy being a young, single man.

However, I feel perhaps we might have reached a new level of intimacy that may or may not be a good thing. As we sat and had an early afternoon cocktail, The Ex turns to me and says, "It's a sad thing it's over with her, though. It's hard to find a girl who doesn't have a gag reflex."

To which, I could do nothing more than roll my eyes and sigh.

"When I Say Hello. . ."

2006-10-02T13:42:00.000-04:00

". . .it means bite my heart." -- Alex Lemon

One of the perks of my bizarre job is that I have a boss who encourages idiosyncracies. I have been trying out new personas at work; it's amazing how much a wig can change your personality.

I am so desperate for life to be different, but I am terrified of all this change. Perhaps, I think, I can hide from this fear if I pretend to be someone else. If only for a night.

Choose Your Own Adventure

2006-09-28T15:31:00.000-04:00

I read the end of the book first. I skip ahead chapters while watching DVDs of suspense movies. I don't enjoy surprises.

I read the end of the book first because the journey, to me, is more enjoyable if I know where it's going to end. That is not to say that I am not spontaneous. I would gladly go to the airport and jump on the first flight I could afford. Charge a pair of shoes without the finances to cover it.

I like to know how the story ends because it's easier to appreciate the details. You can revel in the subtle twists and turns of the road if you know where the sojourn leads you. Even if you know the car drives off a cliff at the end.

Perhaps it is only my heart that I do not choose to gamble with. Life is full of pain. If you know you can find a way to avoid some of the anguish, sidestep unforseen ambush, why not try? Or, if you know what will hurt is unavoidable, you can avoid the shock if not the injury.

I told The Ex today that if I knew, in the end, when I am slow and old and undesirable, that he would be there again, holding my hand. Then, none of this time would hurt as much. I could let it all go. None of this would matter. I would enjoy my singular bacchanalia even more. Ever the practicalist, he would not indulge my delusion.

Besides, I'm not sure my assesment is true. I'm not sure of anything anymore. And now, although I live dangerously, perhaps foolishly at times, it is not because I have the comfort of certitude. I don't take risks with my body and my life because I know the last chapter. But, if I'm going to some unknown destination and if I'm going it alone, I'm going there in flames.

File under: Risky Business, Suspense, Probability.

Meet Cherry.

2006-09-24T17:47:00.000-04:00

I have to hate you, she said. You know too much about me to be trusted.

69% of this is a cliche

2006-09-15T18:29:00.000-04:00

It is my understanding that all people in couples eventually find something that they want to change about their partners. I wish he'd do the dishes more often. I wish she would go down on me more often. Some change is more demanding: wishing for their most meaningful mate to look different, smell different, talk different. Be a different person. No matter the degree of reasonableness of the desired change, what becomes more important is how much the something is worth compromising for. How much the love is worth, in the end.

I wanted The Ex to change things that I shouldn't have asked for. And I wanted things to change for him in ways that he willingly wanted to change within himself. And he did the same for me. He wanted me to admit I could be in love, to soften my heart. To admit that I could want things that others willingly spend their lives seeking: commitment, partnership, comfort.

Eventually, sadly, we reached a point where we couldn't change our individual selves for the better for as long as we were together.

What's shocking to me is that I still expect him/things to change even after we have parted ways. I want him to be something he cannot/will not be even in the death of our relationship. We wanted to try to be friends post breakup, to prove the world wrong. You can love someone for over half of your life and part ways and still be friends. Maybe you can still even have sex. Occasionally.

But, I'm starting to doubt that can be. Because I still want him to be something that he simply cannot be. I want him to be the friend he cannot be. I want for me to be more open-minded and self-assured than I am.

I want things to change and not hurt so damn much.

I am sad that whatever it is I want or need will probably never be. I am sad because despite my years of outward cynicism, I always wanted to believe and that's what stopped me from being a bitter folk singer in a coffehouse. Or a hermit in a log cabin in the woods.

And I'm sad because I just don't believe anymore.

Autumn in New York . . .

2006-09-12T10:51:00.000-04:00

. . .is often mingled with pain.

One day, at the Loaf, I went to the bookstore.

There, I encountered my friend, Adam, in the process of a wonderful project. He wanted to make a harmonica holder out of found objects in the bookstore -- pencils, binder clips, shelf brackets. In that moment, I dubbed my adroit friend, Harmonicaguyver.

Recently, he posted this lovely essay on his site about that sense of loss and emptiness one experiences when a good thing ends. I'm missing a lot of things right now, not the least of which is my mind.

Summer is over. The weather is cooling and everywhere I look people are binding themselves together like molecules. My best friend reminded me the other night that Autumn is my favorite season, a time of year when I thrive. And he is right. In undergrad, every fall I got a 4.0. I am great at fashionable layering. "I'll dispose of my rose-colored chattels and prepare for my share of adventures and battles." Billie sang that for me.

People who love fall are masochists because it's a season that is as much about beginnings as ends. It's a time when change creates great things and hurts like hell. And we revel in it.

File under: Bread Loaf, Autumn, Harmonica.

.0001% of my future is certain

2006-09-02T20:46:00.000-04:00

I read a story about a lesbian woman who went on foreign study and had an intimate relationship with a straight man. Others who read the story expressed confusion about the logistics of such a relationship. "But she's gay!" they insisted. "She can't do that!"

A particularly wise woman made a comment that clarified an issue which has caused me some heartache. She said, "It's very possible to have an intense moment of passion with someone while still affirming the opposite emotion."

She meant, naturally, that kissing a boy would not un-gay this lesbian woman. If anything, because she felt relatively unmoved by the act, it only offered further proof that she is, in fact, homosexual.

Recently, I have ventured into the world of casual sex and found it to be anything but. It can actually be quite stressful, or at least the obtaining of it can be. Sex is a fantastic and exciting thing. It's wonderful to get to know a new body. Engaging the senses to consume someone previously unknown. Living a life without passion, one might as well be dead.

And yet, the further the territory I choose to explore, the more I am sure of what I know is my home. I only hope, when we get to the end of this road, that he will still feel the same about me.

49% of my heart is broken

2006-08-29T13:37:00.000-04:00

Conversations With The Ex:
In Which We Discuss Each Other's Respective Sex Lives With New Partners

Polemic --
Ex to Miss Hag: "I know you are having sex because you can't be near someone you are attracted to without trying to have sex with them."
(Note: The machine picked "Sexy," as in what I am bringing back.)

I've returned from the Loaf, drunk on Inspiration's orgiastic intoxication. Only to learn that The Ex now has a sex life that includes other people. As do I. We are making ballsy attempts to keep open lines of conversation throughout this new phase of our relationship. Talk about verbal landmines.

Polemic #2 (A Metaphor) --
Ex to Miss Hag:"Don't be afraid, baby. Relationships are like cable connections, transference of information between two people separated by distance. What we have with other people? Dial-up. What you and I have? Broadband."

Denouement --
Those of us familiar with self-destructive behavior will note that the problem is not just wanting what feels good and also what feels bad. The problem is also not discerning the difference.

85% of this blog is true

2006-08-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

If Robert Frost were alive today, making reality television shows, it would be called Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.

For two weeks, I have been living amongst writers. New writers, established writers, famous writers, people who publish/edit/promote writers. Everywhere you turn on this mountain, people are having conversations about literature. Fiction, Poetry, NonFiction, NonPoetry. Clever contests abound, clustered into ochre colored buildings in the Vermont evergreens. We try to outwit each other, fondle each other's minds.

What interests me is the fact that these are people who write stories. Even the nonfiction people are weaving tales. Someone said to me last night, "We are a seekers of truth in a colony of liars."

It makes me understand how much my own persona is a product of my own creation. I am a woman who can survive on 2 hours of sleep a night and still manage to live as hard as possible.

And yet I am not.

good to know.

2006-08-23T14:36:00.000-04:00

I've been learning so much at this conference, I will not be able to process all of it until I come back to the real world. I mean "real world" so unironically.

Anyway, to my emigos y emigas, new and important information was brought to my attention by a wonderful woman I met here. She is a fantastic poet and literary consultant, and perhaps some/all/a few/most/none of you know what I am about to share. I did not know and it will certainly be informing a planned format change to this site.

Anything you publish on your blog, unless sufficiently revised to be an obviously original and new piece, will not be published in print because it is already accessible to the public online. Even if you remove it now, it has been out there and will not be something that a print establishment will want to use since it is not new to the public. Why would they pay for something that you are giving for free?

To that end, you will be seeing this phrase at the end of all my posts. "Interested in learning more? Look out for more in the ____ issue of ______ magazine/literary journal/newspaper."

That last line mostly untrue.

loaf note

2006-08-18T14:12:00.000-04:00

From David Shields's workshop this morning:

"Play to your strengths. Disguise your weaknesses. Move on."

Being surrounded by a couple hundred amazing writers in reality is a lot like how I imagine being surrounded by my favorite bloggers would be in real life: Would any of us even exist without the constant affirmation of our endearing companions, blindly stumbling through the same wasteland?

the way we were.

2006-08-13T18:39:00.000-04:00

Earlier this summer, I learned that I got accepted to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College in Vermont. When I learned of this wonderful opportunity, I decided I would make a vacation of it and take an extra week before the conference to hang out in Maine.

My Ex also happened to be taking some vacation time in our old home state, so we decided to do all of the things that reminded me of my childhood summers in Maine. We would go to the restaurant where I got my first summer job and eat maple doughnuts. We would make out in his mom's car on a dirt road while watching the meteor shower. Pick blueberries. Walk in the woods. Take naps.

The other day, while eating fried dough at Palace Playland in Old Orchard Beach I remarked, "Wow. We actually did it. We've done all the things I wanted."

The Ex said, "Why are you surprised about that?"

I thought, "Well, because my memories of childhood are idealized. I know I didn't actually enjoy all these things. At least, not completely."

I never actually had steamers and Geary's Pale Ale on the pier or went running with my boyfriend along the shore of Ogunquit Beach. I never pleasantly strolled the shops in Perkins Cove and ate fresh lobster rolls and sweet corn at a clam shack. Even the fun I did manage to have is distantly unremarkable, as anyone with a predominantly sad childhood knows.

Returning back to our hometown dredges up countless insecurites for me. It's a world of car people and I am a girl with her own cabbie. Maine is khakis and sweatshirts. I packed miniskirts and backless shirts.

It's especially uncomfortable when the Ex and I make appearances together. He is the Prodigal Son Returning Home. I am the exotic girl that wore too much lipstick and flirted with everyone. People fawn over him and his rugged Maine charm. Everyone is polite and nice to me, but I always get the sense that I am just something they have to accept in order to enjoy his infrequent visits. They look at me like the horrible dark girl that took him away and never even had the decency to bear him some rugrats.

Perhaps I have finally grown up a bit, but none of this bothered me this time around. Not the nagging, joyless nostalgia or the lingering, judgmental stares. None of it. Because I know that I get to go back to a world full of dirt and passion and abundance and grace. A world where it's always appropriate to be in heels and glitter.

Manhattan.

For once, I can relax and enjoy this place. I can reconcile my daydreams of a happy past with the reality of a satisfying today because it's finally mine to make of as I wish. And, ultimately, to leave, when I am ready.

Welcome to Maine, I think as we hurtle along dark backroads in a red pickup truck, the way life might have been, but thankfully, is not. At least for now.

I have this friend, see. . .

2006-08-07T17:56:00.000-04:00

I have this friend. Uh. Jane.

This morning, Jane called me because she had a thought that she needed to share with someone and she thought I would understand.

Now, mind you, Jane just recently got out of long relationship and she's sort of new to the musings of the single folk, so be patient with her. Jane recently acquired a lover that she really enjoys. He's a nice guy and a great lover, but she doesn't want a relationship with him. He is in the middle of a divorce and certainly does not want a relationship, though she's never actually talked to him about that sort of thing.

Anyway, Jane has never been on a date with. . .uh. . .Guy and she doesn't really think she wants to go on a date with him, but she would like to continue having sex with him whenever the occasion arises.

So. This morning, after kissing Guy Lover goodbye and walking away, she turned for a moment and watched him walk in the other direction. She had a most visceral feeling at that moment that wasn't sadness or anger or anything she could specifically name. But the feeling was so strong, she could not help but believe in its truth.

Jane is leaving town for a few weeks and this would be the last time she would see Guy Lover before she goes. And as she stood on the sidewalk inhaling the fumes of August in New York that exact a Hezbollah assault on the nostrils, she realized she would probably not be enjoying this lover again. She felt what she could only ascertain to be the end. The end of the affair.

She called me because she wondered if all affairs have to end. If you know someone that you truly enjoy and like to have sex with but don't ever really need to have a meal with or talk on the phone with. Someone you don't expect anything from except sex whenever it is convenient and available. Does the affair have to end? Beyond scheduling trysts, how do you make it known that you want to maintain a sexual relationship with someone that you don't have any real investment in or know at all without salaciously misrepresenting onesself? And if you feel disappointment that you don't get to have sex with this lover whenever you want, does that mean you care about that person?

Jane, I said, I don't know the answers to these questions. But I'm sure someone in the anonymous internet public would like to comment.

Gag Me With a Spoon

2006-08-04T14:10:00.000-04:00

I took my 13-year old niece to what I anticipated to be a feckless child's movie, Monster House.

Dialogue from the movie about a house that is, in fact, a human eating monster.

Little Girl: That's the uvula!

Little Boy: You mean, it's a girl house?

Little Girl: No, it's the uvula. It stimulates the gag reflex. Everyone has one.

Little Boy: I don't!

Wha-aah-aht?

Pause.

2006-07-30T21:49:00.000-04:00

Every weekend, I dress up as a version of myself. I douse myself in glitter and do shots of Cuervo and shake my ass up and down a narrow aisle, delivering burgers and escargot to drunk people. I flirt with people whose names I never remember and fight with strangers I hope to never see again.

In the morning, I sit around with friends and drink tall glasses of vodka and bitch about the rest of the world. I fold myself into a cab and thumb through a pile of cash, wondering when it will ever be enough.

For six years, I have been a small player in the big game of late night Manhattan, and today, I realized, that someday, my role will be retired. My contract will not be renewed. And as much as this life that I lead breaks my heart and drives me crazy, I do not wish for the ride to stop too soon. I feel as though I can still squeeze a few more drops of the fantastic elixir and quench my thirst for more.

Someone is parked out in the street below my window. They have their car doors open and Thelonious Monk is pouring out of their speakers in heady throbs. The music will be gone by the time I leave for work. The music always stops. But the melancholy lingers. The longing doesn't end, even when the heart is fooled into satisfaction.

"Things in New York City sparkle a lot longer than you'd expect before they burn out."

. . . and the winner is . . .

2006-07-19T14:57:00.000-04:00

Apparently, I am a sucker for a sarcastic wise ass.

The winners of the bacon contest have been contacted. I will share their witty responses post haste.

Delayed Bacon Delivery

2006-07-16T21:03:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. I'm supposed to announce the winner of this, today at a minute before midnight.

Regretfully, I won't be posting said announcement until, um, maybe. . .tomorrow. For reasons so unoriginal they are hardly worth writing about yet so pressing I hardly have time to describe, I must apologize for my tardiness in even perusing the entries. I don't even know if I can pluralize that subject, actually.

Though, I would like to initially thank the gentleman in California who offered to fly me out to that other coast since he cannot make it to New York for this Wednesday. If you are not an ax murder, I appreciate the offer. If you are an ax muderer, I am actually an obese 83-year-old Klan member with herpes.

I would also like to thank the darling man who, instead of answering question number two, made me a wonderful mix CD. The aptly titled, "Bacon Bits."

Also, to all the men who told me, "I don't want to fill out an entry, I just want to take you out," I thank you for your honest sweetness and lack of initiative.

Finally, a huge apology to all the people within earshot of me during the last two hours of my 16 hour shift at Florent on Friday night. Too many hours in four inch heels + unlimited access to magnums of Veuve Clicquot = One Loud and Obnoxious Miss Hag.

Sorry. Free bacon for you, too.

Want Bacon?

2006-07-12T21:54:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking of calling this off and just giving everyone free bacon. Maybe I didn't think this through. It's silly, anyway. No one likes bacon that much.

Convince me I'm wrong.

Side Of Bacon Contest

2006-06-30T13:13:00.000-04:00

An issue that causes me mild anxiety -- one of us will have to be first.

During our breakup, my ex and I had a very candid discussion about our fears. Most of my concerns had to do with scenarios that involve my running into him on the street canoodling with some bimbo. I realized recently that one of us would have to be the first to go on a date with someone else. To take that first step towards moving on.

To that end, I broached the idea with my ex that perhaps we should both try to go out on a date on the same day. That way, we could both get it out of the way at the same time. Theoretically, this seemed like a good idea. Logistically, I realized, this plan would require a skill I have not practiced in seven years -- asking someone on a date.

Just writing the phrase makes me break out in hives.

So, for my part, I have decided to run a contest, heretofore referred to as:

THE SIDE OF BACON CONTEST

Please encourage your friends to enter. I'll feel like such a loser otherwise.

It Smells Like Me

2006-06-18T23:25:00.000-04:00

Twice this week I have found myself in a bizarre, yet comfortable position. I hugged my ex-boyfriend and a good friend on two separate occasions and on each of these occasions, the person I was hugging smelled my head.

I'm short. Most normal sized people who get to hug me, get to see something I will never see save for maybe random photographs: the top of my head. And for some reason, these two people whom I adore, chose to smell this territory of my body that I can never explore in the same manner. Something about this gesture made me feel very safe. I remember smelling my nephew's head when he was a baby and wishing he would never grow up.

I like smell. It's my favorite sense. When I first moved into my new apartment, I told my friend, Ande, that I wanted my apartment to smell like me. I wanted to invite people over and have them say things like, "Gosh, I love the way this place smells."

Unfortunately, that is not to be right now. A week ago, I stayed out until the wee hours of the morning with my cousin and some friends drinking. In my drunken need to eat and sleep at the same time, I put some bread in the oven to toast and woke up a couple of hours later to an apartment full of smoke. Now, my place still smells faintly of charred carbohydrates. Perhaps my head smells like it, too.

You Can't Fart In My Apartment

2006-06-09T12:30:00.000-04:00

"My shrink thinks we're doing a good thing."

"It must be Friday."

"What do you mean?"

"You always quote your therapist on the first and third Fridays of every month."

"Yeah, well he told me he thinks it's good what we're doing."

"What does he think we're doing?"

"You know. . .we have lunch and we hang out for an hour or so and we talk. Then we go our separate ways and live separately. It's great."

"It is. It. Is. Great."

Pause.

"I don't tell him about the freaky, hot sex though."

"Good call. It would probably just confuse him."

Do You See What I See? Click to find out.

First Day Of My Life

2006-06-01T17:34:00.000-04:00

It's here, for those of you keeping track.

The first day of my life alone. (On a side note, did you know that the origin of the word "alone" comes from the combination of the words "all one"? Sit on that for a minute.) The first day in an apartment leased only in my name.

He is gone. All of his stuff is gone. Even the cat is gone.

All that is left is what is mine and what I have claimed from seven years of buying and acquiring together. It is hot out, though there is no sun. My hair is dirty, but it smells like me. Like burnt coffee and night blooming lilies.

A view of my own. . .

Normal.

2006-05-28T19:24:00.000-04:00

INT. - RESTAURANT FLORENT - MIDNIGHT

WAITRESS MISS MARISOL, 30, dark hair and smudgy eyeshadow. She wears black short shorts and a white mesh shirt that reveals a lacy bra with pink bows. Around her neck is a black studded collar purchased from a pet store and on her feet are 4 inch, red patent leather platform heels. Marisol stands before a table with six women in their mid-twenties. They all have sadly coiffed do's and carefully filed fingernails.

One woman, MISS INFORMED, grasps her menu and furrows her brow.

MISS INFORMED
I'll have a grilled cheese.

MARISOL
What kind of cheese would you like?

MISS INFORMED
What kind? Whatever's normal.

MARISOL
I guess that depends on what you find normal. What do you like?

MISS INFORMED
I don't know. I want what's normal. What do you normally put on a grilled cheese?

Miss Informed, clearly flustered, turns to her tablemates to urge their assistance.

MISS INFORMED
(CON'T)
What do they do at Denny's?

Marisol walks away from the table, grasping her sides and laughing uncontrollably. She regains composure slightly and returns to the table.

MARISOL
I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. (NOTE: SHE'S LYING.) It's just that, I don't
really consider Denny's normal.

MISS INFORMED
You don't?

MARISOL
Honey. Look at where I work. Look at what I'm wearing! My boss is a drag queen. . .

MISS INFORMED
I don't get it.

MARISOL
No one expects you to. Look. Life is hard, sweetie. But I know what kind of cheese I like.

SCENE.

i love you as you're walking out my door. . .

2006-05-03T13:30:00.000-04:00

"Can I have the Thailand collage?"

"Yeah, sure."

More empty walls. More empty hooks.

"You're taking the red photo?"

"Well, I'm the one that took it from the Belmont."

"That's true."

More empty walls. More empty hooks.

"You're taking those photos, too?"

"I don't have to. Do you want them?"

"No. I want to not cry while I'm brushing my teeth."

she dreamed of a life, everyday of her life

2006-04-24T15:18:00.000-04:00

g8s' profile comment is, "I love being me. Just ask anyone."

I concur.

I have come to understand that despite all the shit that can rain down in life, sometimes, all you can do is take off your clothes and dance on the roof. To quote another good friend, "Life is hard, but I know what I like to drink."

Click on photo to see more dancin', less prancin'.

Oh, and lucky girl that I am--I got to meet this guy. And let me tell you. He's even cuter in person. And he let me grope him. I like groping people.

Rock My World, e*migos

2006-04-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

Sigh.

Yes, I am all Pandora'd out. No, I don't feel like checking out those newfangled sites that apparently analyze your music libraries and make you playlists that you will love.

Remember the good old days? Someone really liked you and put together a mixtape of carefully selected songs and hoped that you might glean some pertinent information about how they felt about you from the lyrics. And if they like liked you, they would make a collage for the cover of the tape. I miss that shit. I'd be lucky to get an emailed iMix from someone now.

So, dear Hagees, tell me a lovely tune to change my life. I need some aural lovin'.

Here's what I have been listening to most lately, according to my data gathering boyfriend, Mr. iPod:

1.) I Just Want It To Be Over - Keyshia Cole
2.) Weary - Amel Larrieux
3.) Better Half - The Get Up Kids
4.) Ex Factor (A Simple Breakdown) - Lauryn Hill
5.) The District Sleeps Alone - The Postal Service
6.) Waiting - Green Day
7.) Wave of Mutilation -Pixies
8.) Goodbye - Alicia Keys
9.) Glamorous Life (Club Edit) - Sheila E.
10.) Drinking Again - Aretha Franklin
11.) How She Lied By Living - Posies
12.) Loveless - Uncut
13.) The Morning After - Deborah Cox
14.) Gone - Esthero
15.) Everybody Knows - Concrete Blonde
16.) Oh. And this. (Click on Anneliese. Rock out.)

Be my Pandora, y'all.

no, really.

2006-04-14T19:27:00.000-04:00

I'm mostly Norwegian.

Good Friday, indeed.

it's my pity party and i'll force myself to cry if i want to. . .

2006-04-11T15:04:00.000-04:00

. . . or something like that.

To Do List:

1. Get lightheaded inhaling bleach whilst scrubbing the bathroom.
a.) Rue the gods that made Ninth Avenue just before the Lincoln Tunnel the dustiest place on earth.

2. Sing "Sophisticated Lady" 27 times in a row and force onesself to cry.

3. Contemplate having just one little cocktail whilst on antibiotics.

4. Rue. Rinse. Repeat.

The Skinny Club

2006-04-06T13:23:00.000-04:00

My pattern of work behavior involves following g8s around and working wherever he works. I was generously offered a guest bartending spot at his new place of employ and now have a whole new place to have weird encounters with drunk people.

Last night was a pleasantly quiet evening and I got a chance to chat with some of the clientele. One particularly irritating man with virtually no concept of conversational protocol consumed the last couple of hours at the bar. He also thought it was perfectly normal to show us that he was wearing colorful flannel pajama bottoms underneath his pants.

Yesterday, as punishment for an unplanned night of debauchery, I forced myself in a hungover stupor to endure a painful spinning class early in the day. By midnight, my leg muscles were very weary and I stood behind the bar doing quad stretches when I found myself in this conversation with Mr. Pajamas.

"Why are you doing that?"

"My legs hurt from spinning class today."

"Why do you work out?"

"Uh. You know. To stay in shape. Stay healthy. Whatever."

I wasn't busy enough to end the conversation there so I indulged Mr. Pajamas and explained that I recently lost almost 40 pounds. It's not something I am wont to discuss unless I feel some sort of connection to a person. But, as I said, I was bored. So, why not?

I don't explain to people the real reason I lost so much weight. I don't explain that my brother got sick and went into the hospital and that I promised him I would get in shape again and that I would help him be healthy when he got out of the hospital. I certainly don't explain that my brother never got better. That he died. And that I plan to keep that weight off and work out and stay in shape for the rest of my life because it was the last promise I made to my brother whom I will never see again.

No. My explanation now is that I just ended a seven year relationship and I realized I am going to be naked in front of strange men again. So, I might as well try to look my best. It always gets a laugh.

Mr. Pajamas inappropriately asked me why I put on so much weight to begin with. I deflected that question and started to walk away but he persisted.

"Isn't it great?" he gushed. "Isn't it great to be skinny? I'm so glad to be skinny." As though we were both members of some exclusive club for people with the correct Body Mass Index.

I gave him a look that I hope he interpreted as, "You are a moron."

I have never been thin. I have never been a waif. I was thinnest when I first moved to the city. I put on weight and now I have lost it again, but I will never be mistaken for Nicole Richie. (Thank Freakin' God!) My closest friends have been wonderfully supportive and encouraging to me. I am happy that they are so happy for me. And, it really doesn't bother me that some people are so shocked when they see me now.

However, the comments I get from people that I have only known peripherally certainly give me pause. Things like, "Holy shit! How much weight have you lost?" And, "You look fantastic! I mean, you were always beautiful, but now. . ." Or, "Wow! I didn't even recognize you!" While these statements are certainly thrilling, I can't help but feel a little troubled. Not because I am offended but only because I am acutely aware now more than ever of how much we focus on body image and weight.

I am certainly grateful to have my membership to The Skinny Club reconsidered, but I am quite sure that the dues to be paid for admittance are probably not worth the price. Especially if the benefits of inclusion are mere delusions of self worth.

A Good Read.

Life is a Four Letter Word

2006-03-28T11:47:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't been blogging. Thanks for asking.

What have you been doing, little Hagette?

I have been living very hard lately. I've been going commando and jaywalking and running around my apartment with a fistful of scissors. I swear in front of small children and take two advanced Pilates classes a day. I'm thinking about shaving my head or moving to India. Or both. I drink. A lot. I'm not trying to forget, though. I'm aching to remember. I'm restless and insatiable. I want and want.

Everyone around me seems to be throwing caution into moving traffic as well. Perhaps it's the weather.

So, forgive me if I seem distracted. I can't even finish this sentence. . .

Capital F Yoo See Kay

2006-03-14T13:09:00.000-05:00

Miss Hag's request to the Universe:

"Okay, so perhaps what I just did was a little stupid, but I realize it was a little stupid and I learned my lesson, so puh-leeze don't feel the need to teach me a lesson that I promise you I have most certainly learned. 'Kay? Thanks."

Getting To The Heart of the Fuck

2006-03-01T14:41:00.000-05:00

Eleven years ago, I went through the same fucking thing that I am going through right now. Which leads me to believe that, yes, we really are destined to make the same fucking mistakes over and over until we actually learn something.

Eleven years ago, I was going through a break-up with...wait for it...the same fucking person that I am going through a break-up with right now. Some people date the same kind of person until they learn from their past mistakes. But I was too lazy to go through the toil of getting to know another person, so I decided to just fuck things up with the same guy again. You know, really get in there and smash each other's hearts into tiny bits of mush.

Now, the last time we went through this shitty shittiness, I was a supple little 19-year old Lolita. Manboy and I decided to finally end things while I was home from college on winter break. The problem was, I was living with him when we decided this and had nowhere else to go. We had three weeks of emotional limbo in which we had horrible break-up sex and I did a lot of acid.

Back then, I really needed a friend to help me through the break-up and all of my friends were a thousand miles away. My best friend was the Manboy with tears in his eyes grasping me by the shoulders and saying, "It's over."

By the time I made it through the muck and mire of the separation, I realized that it was the unabashed wastefulness of youth that made me so pathetic and spineless. That's right. I did all the classic break-up bullshit. I cried a lot, wrote really bad poetry and listened to Ani Difranco.

See, I thought we could still be friends and care for each other to get us through the ordeal of separating our hearts. But, obviously, that behavior is counter-productive.

No longer a soldier of teenage naivete, but I am still trying to lean on a partner that is falling away. What's my fucking excuse?

I am a grizzled, embittered 30-year old woman on the verge of being single in Manhattan. Again. I'm terrified and confused and the one person who was beholden to fuck me no longer wants me. Yet, we're not at the point where we are allowed (allowed? allowed???) to have meaningless sex with strangers.

The problem is, again I am still living with the man that I will be leaving. We are a lot smarter about things this time around, but every once in a while, like last night for instance, I lose my cool. I found myself at a bar at three in the morning, drinking a martini I didn't want because I wanted to prove (to whom? to whom?) that I, too, could stay out all night and not call. Because...say it with me...We are not obligated to each other anymore.

I am still maintaining the values of monogamy and loyalty to a relationship that has an expiration date. Why? Why? Not just because we are living together still, though, yes, mainly because of that. But, also because...because...because my heart is fiercely incapable of admitting defeat.

The other parts of my body? Well. That's another story. Maybe.

Oh, and anyone who has a time machine that can transport me to the middle of this spring will have my undying devotion for all of eternity.

Thank You, Mr. Fuck.

2006-02-27T11:48:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Mr. Man Who First Used The Word Fuck, heretofore referred to as one, Mr. Fuck.

I just spent the last hour dancing around in my fucking apartment wearing short-shorts and a suggestively ripped tank top that reads: "The Only Bush I Trust is My Own." It is colder than cocksuckers outside and I have my oven door wide open and turned up to 500 degrees. I will probably kill myself with carbon monoxide.

"Fuck," I said to myself, "Self, Life is just so fucked up right now. I am completely fucked up in so many lovely and horrible ways. Fuck! Motherfuck-a-fuck. Fuck-along-a-ding-dong."

I have been unbearably incapable of writing.

But, I was absolutely compelled to write this.

So, thank you, Mr. Fuck, for giving me a word that so satisfies everything I feel right now and has motivated me to write something, albeit insiginficant.

Fuck.

Ahhh.

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

2006-02-24T03:37:00.000-05:00

Give me one moment in time. When I'm more than I thought I could be.

-- Whitney.

Yeah, fuck you. You love that song.

I OVERHEARD THIS CONVERSATION IN THE GYM LOCKER ROOM THE OTHER DAY. I SHOULD HAVE RESPONDED WITH WHAT I WAS THINKING, BUT I'M TRYING TO BE A NICE PERSON.

Skinny Girl # 1 -- Ohmigosh. Those pants are so cee-yuuute. What size are they? Can I borrow them?

Skinny Girl # 2 -- Oh. They're, like, a 1 or a 2.

S. G. # 1 -- Awww.

S. G. # 2 -- What?

S. G. -- Well, I wear, like, a zero.

WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID --

Miss Hag. -- How's that working out?
(To S.G. # 1)

S. G. # 1 -- How's what working out?

M.H. -- Being anti-matter.

Soundtrack: Roaring, raucous laughter.

End scene.

We Interrupt This Silence To Bring You Random Nonsense.

2006-02-13T18:55:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night that my head had swollen to ginormous proportions. It was so large that I could barely balance it atop my neck. So, me and my exceedingly large head were at a party with lots of beautiful people and we were all sitting around a big pile of cocaine. But, the cocaine was not white. It was rusty brown. My friend, Anne, and I were the only ones with razor blades, so we furtively pounded the little blocks of coke into snortable piles.

The whole time we reveled at this party, I wasn't particularly worried that I could be dying because my head had swollen to a dangerous size; I was worried about trying to appear attractive to the others at the party.

I kept trying to pose so my big head wouldn't seem so big. And smoothing down the skin on my big head so it wouldn't look stretchy and shiny.

***************************************************

It occurred to me the other day when I was watching "Just Like Heaven," (shut up, I happen to really like Mark Ruffalo) that whenever a film has a tough/unconventional female lead who has to "learn a lesson about life," you can always tell when she has "softened" because her hair suddenly has these wispy natural looking curls.

***************************************************

Two things I never want to do again:

-- Buy and wear black nylons because I have to be tasteful at a funeral.
-- Make a playlist for a loved one's viewing because the funeral home only has weird traditional Indian music to play. I let them keep my CD mix of John Mayer/Jimi Hendrix and Bright Eyes.

***************************************************

This snowman has a snow penis. (Insert obvious blowjob joke.)

***************************************************

Say Anything.

2006-02-02T15:17:00.000-05:00

The floor is open, emigos. Make me laugh.

fly on, my sweet angel. . .

2006-01-19T12:30:00.000-05:00

Daniel T. de la Rosa

April 11, 1971 - January 17, 2006

The thing that makes grief so painful is the regret. We feel shame for all those moments that could have, should have been. We regret what we never said, what we always thought -- "Oh, someday, we'll get together and do that." Take a trip. make a phone call. Write a letter.

At the end of someone's life, we try to think of all the great things that were. We smile and remember what we had. But, then, a suffocation of sorrow invades and we think of all those moments that never will be. Because we have come to the end and there are no more moments.

Life ends. That's all there is to it. You can bargain with god as much as you want, but it will do you no good. And, I'm not sure exactly what I believe, but I am quite sure that god doesn't care much for our desperate wagering. Begging for a little more time.

I am not an optimist. I have tried to make that clear here. The glass is not just half empty, it doesn't exist. It got smashed against the wall during a freak storm.

But, that will not stop me from asking you to try and do yourselves a bit of good. Try your hardest, do whatever you can so as not to experience this horrible regret that I now feel. Sitting and wishing I would have, should have, could have had a little more time with someone I love very much.

Best New What Now?

2006-01-12T21:38:00.000-05:00

How could someone who hasn't posted in over two weeks be nominated for Best New Blog? How about Best Newly Neglected Blog? Best New Flash In The Pan? Best New Ten Minutes Ago Blog?

No, no . . . Hard working bloggers like Not a Ham Sandwich and Wave of Modulation and Last Girl on Earth are deserving of such an honor. And, of course, they were nominated as well in their respectively fantastic categories. Go see, go see!

But, if by chance you have stopped by here because of my undeserved nod (from g8s, of course), please note that despite the rumors being spread on the internets I didn't sleep with any of the judges.

Yet.

And if you are sorely disappointed by your visit to my site, here's some girl on girl action to make you feel like it hasn't been a complete waste of time.

Cheers.

One Hand Clapping

2006-01-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

How do you people do it?

How do you have jobs, raise children, make dinners, fix cars, pay bills, run for the Senate, fall in love, be there for your family, run marathons and maintain your blogs?

Every time I sit down to write something, to share something, I end up curled up in a ball on the floor. The world is too much with us, late and soon. . .

But, I miss you. I miss your thoughts. I miss being able to deal with my thoughts.

I find it insurmountable, the task of blogging and daily musings. But, I do not wish to sever my connection to you all. To this end, for the next little while, I have decided to stop writing about what is going on today.

Instead, I have decided to post things I wrote before life became too much for me to describe. I have selected excerpts from my past writings to post here -- old essays and journal entries, etc. I hope you will still be here with me.

**************************************************
From "Copious"
July 5th, 2003

I am currently living on what I believe is the most conflicted corner of the tiny two by four mile isle of Key West. The 1100 block of Whitehead and Virigina Streets. On the southeast corner of this intersection is a squat, yellow, open-aired establishment that bears a worn wooden sign which reads "Anchors Aweigh." At first glance, it appears to be a bar, but it is really a cleverly acronym-nommed meeting place for Alcoholics Anonymous.

Not fifty feet away from the entrance to this building is a neglected corner store that the locals call "The Arab's Store" because the owner is a Palestinian immigrant. He is a kind, older gentleman who always takes a moment to say something nice to me when I shuffle in to buy the newspaper or a can of cat food for the stray that I have named Senor Gato Blanco y Negro.
The corner in front of the Arab's store is the hottest drug-dealing spot on the island. The mayor imports undercover cops from Miami to patrol this block and set up the witless potheads who end up getting busted for crack.

In this little crossroads of gay, straight, black, white, alcoholic and crackhead is a juicy slice of real Americana. It is inordinately loud at any time of day in this little hot spot. Teenagers in their booming cars. Old Cuban men hollering and laughing on their porches. Hookers arguing with johns. Police briefly blaring their obligatory sirens in hopes of showing some semblance of authority. Drunks arguing with the nagging voices in their own minds. The Costa Rican pedicab drivers serenading no one on their guitars. It annoys me when I sleep, but it's never boring.

Some of the older men in the neighborhood call me "Songbird" because I sit on my steps with a bottle of wine and sing to the cilantro and basil plants thriving in our little garden. It is not a perfect life by any stretch, but it is perfectly mine for the moment.
I try to not take it for granted because I know what life I could be leading in the place that I call my true home: New York City. Having 80 degree weather in February when the rest of the country is muffled by snowbanks, I should not complain. For every moment of serving annoying tourists, I get two moments of charmed life.

I get to swim in an Olympic sized pool in the middle of winter while gazing at the ocean. I get to ride my bike to a pink library and borrow stacks of magazines to read while lounging in my garden underneath a papaya tree. The air is clean and warm and fills my lungs every days that I wake. My skin is brown and I am never cold. Although it pains me to be far from friends and family, I sleep at night knowing I am never without love.

And, I get to sit on my porch with a nice bottle of wine and sing Ella Fitzgerald songs to an appreciative audience of weathered ears that have heard enough to know the blues when they hear them.

The Way We Weren't

2005-12-31T16:44:00.000-05:00

"All day long she fills me up with dogma
She's all magazines and benzedrine and vodka
There was one man she truly loved
He took everything but her bear-skin rug
And now and then it's clear to me
That need is love and love is need. . ."

Here's to your own benzedrine dreams and vodka wishes.

Keep your heads up. And float, my friends. Not everyone wants to need or needs to want. Or can. Or should. Or will.

Cheers.

Make a wish.

2005-12-19T12:21:00.000-05:00

Birthdays for me have always been rife with disappointment. This can be a disappointing time of year. Sure, it is merriment and holidays. Celebrations of family and exchange of presents and well-wishes.

However, it is also a time to ponder our regrets. Time when we are forced to reconcile with our demons. Face the music. Remember missed opportunities. It is the end of another year. People are reminded of their imminent demise, the quickly falling sands of time.

It has always been difficult for me to gather people together to celebrate my birthday because there are so many other festivities around this time of year. People are overstretched. So, I usually end up doing something quiet and low-key. Which is fine for me. I don't really care.

I'd be lying, though, if I said I didn't have some small expectations. I have always secretly hoped for something miraculous to happen to me on this one day of the year.

This year, I told LIL S'BEB* that I wanted to go away for my birthday. He misinterpreted this as I wanted us to go away together. I really wanted to just take a train somewhere by myself and spend a night in a lovely hotel. Alone.

I am not disappointed that he has joined me on my day trip for my birthday, mind you. Please don't think I am being ungrateful to have his company. He is a good friend who just wants me to be happy. He is someone I will always care for. And, because of his connections, I am sitting in a plush terrycloth robe in the most astounding luxury hotel with all the liquor and food I could ever hope to consume. For free.

But, his presence inevitably sets up expectations. We have to celebrate. It's my birthday. Not only that, but we have to celebrate like a couple. Which, my heart and mind are quickly practicing not to be. Although we still walk near each other, I no longer want his arm on my back. I don't want his kiss to build a dream on. I'm all out of love. Love don't live here anymore.

A week before his heart transplant, my brother told me something that has left me unsettled. He told me that it doesn't really matter to him if he lives or dies. He said he is not afraid of dying. That he feels like life is just a series of waiting patterns before we pass on.

Naturally, I said that there must be things he looks forward to, longs for, hopes to achieve. But he said all that is just stuff. That none of that really imbued him with a passion for this world. He said he was going through all of this for us now, to protect us from sadness. He was so matter-of-fact about it. Not ungrateful or pessimistic. Just realistic.

Since our conversation I have been troubled with the prospect of how to convince someone that life is worth living. How do you give a reason to live to someone whose life's signature key will always be sharp with sadness and lacking real romantic love?

It's been a week since his transplant operation and the recovery process is slow and full of potential pitfalls. But, he is getting there. Very, very slowly. He hasn't been able to speak yet because he is on a ventilator, and I am anxious to ask him about how he feels now.

Also, I want to tell him that I understand why he may find it so easy to feel unmoved by the reality of living. But, perhaps, I am hoping, there is something miraculous and wonderful about life that neither of us has yet begun to truly understand, or stopped dreaming to expect.

* LIL S'BEB (Live-In, Long-term, Soon to Be Ex Boyfriend.)

30.

2005-12-18T20:38:00.000-05:00

When I was 8 years old, I slept over at my best friend, Racquel's, house. I walked into her house that day and met her mother for the first time. She was an eccentric woman fascinated with the occult and things of that nature. She greeted me warmly and said, "Hmmm. You know. You're not going to live to see past age 30."

I have no idea why she would say that to a child, but I have always kept that message tucked somewhere in my brain. Sort of assuming that it was true.

December 19th, I turn 30. It is with the vastly tenuous luxury of humanity that I assume I will wake up in the morning.

I don't think I will actually cease breathing tomorrow. But, I do believe there is a certain truth to Raquel's mother's bizarrely inappropriate prophecy. I need to do some living before I die.

Photo by g8s. Coney Island, 1999.

Thank You. . .

2005-12-09T08:58:00.000-05:00

I got the call last night.

They found a suitable donor for my brother and at one in the morning, he went into surgery to replace his heart.

Thank you, whoever you are. . .for giving my brother another chance at living.

Thank you to all of you for sending good thoughts and prayers this way.

Thank you, whoever has been listening to my prayers. I'm turning 30 in ten days, and this is all I have hoped for. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

No More Cartoon. . .?

2005-12-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

"I live in the most expensive city in the country because I have long believed, and had many people convinced, that my career was dependent upon it. I spend money on martinis and expensive dinners because, as is typical among my species of debtor, I tell myself that martinis and expensive dinners are the entire point--the point of being young, the point of living in New York City, the point of living."
-- Meghan Daum, "My Misspent Youth"

Over breakfast this morning, I read this, spit out my coffee and screamed.

Noooooooooooo!

For the unititiated, Cartoon Network has long (six years) been the safest, most efficient marijuana delivery service in New York City. Or . . .ummm, like, so I've heard.

One easy phone call and within an hour you could have a friendly, hardworking person come right to your door with little plastic boxes of cannabis goodness. And for every plastic box you buy, you get a free lottery scratch ticket. A free lottery scratch ticket, for Chrissakes! How generous! How good natured!

Well, apparently, they got pinched.

My sadness is palpable. (But, Miss Hag., you quit smoking the wacky tobacky, right?)

Well, that's not the point.

It's New York Freakin' City, dammit!

That's the whole point of living here, y'all. To drink $15 martinis at 4 in the morning. To wait three months to get a chance to have a thousand dollar dinner and to peruse $30 knockoff Hermes bags for sale on the street. To buy batteries for a dollar on the subway.

And, ultimately, to have everything brought to your doorstep for a certain amount of money: your perfectly cleaned and folded laundry, beers from the corner store at five in the morning, a weeks worth of groceries, and yes. . .a relatively harmless plant to stick in a pipe and smoke so you can sit around with your friends giggling and analyzing meaningful music lyrics.

Here's to you: Cartoon Network. Here's hoping we'll be together again. Someday.

File Under: Norml

harmless afflictions, painful addictions.

2005-12-04T21:53:00.000-05:00

"I walk into an empty room,
And suddenly my heart goes boom.
It´s an orchestra of angels,
And they are playing with my heart." -- Eurythmics

I have always loved the idea of love more than the act of it.

As a teenager, I consumed a steady diet of intense, ridiculous crushes. Obsessions that bordered on unhealthy, in restrospect, seem like harmless symptoms of surging hormones. By sheer luck, I missed out on acne and braces, but I was afflicted with infatuation.

I realized recently that I miss having crushes. Certainly, there was a large amount of pain involved in the gamble of unreturned desire. But, I miss the longing of potential. I miss the electricity of space between two bodies as they near each other and wonder if the other wants to kiss them back.

It annoys me how faithful I can and have been in my relationship. It doesn't seem like me to not have had an affair. Aren't I still that girl that once wrote long, rambling dissertations on the draconian scourge of puritan monogamy?

Despite the overwhelming circumstance of my immediate family crisis, my vision is keenly focused on the path leading towards my future. I still have an eye trained on early spring -- a future in which I will be standing alone in this world again. No longer half of a couple.

Yes, yes, long term love is wonderful. There's comfort and security. There is warmth and easiness. But, if I have learned anything these past few weeks, it is that security is an illusion of the mind, not the heart. Knowing something is certain will surely sustain you in times of doubt, but hoping for something unexpected will drive you beyond the pallor of mere existence.

And although I'm sure I will miss the solid floor beneath my feet that has sustained me for six years, I look forward to stumbling through the passion of a crush again. And, perhaps, actually acting on it -- recklessly.

File under:Crush

Tai Chi. Chai Tea.

2005-11-30T17:46:00.000-05:00

Since my brother's recent hospitalization, it has been all about Project Healthier Living here in my little world. I have quit smoking . . .uh . . . y'know. . .everything. I have stopped being a faux vegetarian and recommitted to a vida sin carne. Except sushi. Come on. I quit smoking doobies, you gotta at least give me the spicy tuna hand roll. No more fried foods. No junk food. No more handfuls of lard scooped into my greedy open jaw.

Additionally, I have stopped donating $60 a month to Mr. Total Bally Fitness and started actually going to the gym. Again. Yippee.

Last night the LIL S'BEB* and I agreed that we would wake up early and try the new Tai Chi class together. We had the best of intentions, really.

In the span of two blocks that we traverse between our apartment and the Total Fitness Club, we managed to get pissed off with no less than three pedestrians and two vehicles. We grumbled. We mumbled. Not very Tai Chi. But, the class succeeded in alleviating our mutual grumpiness. But, not because we opened our chakras or anything.

The class consisted of four other people, a spry middle aged man, two senior citizens named "Charlotte" and "Lily" and Charlotte's nurse, "Fabiane." The moment our instructor greeted us, I knew there was no possibility of my being able to take this woman seriously. She is one of those exercise instructors who insists on speaking in some bizarre voice appropriate only for kindergarten teachers and tour guides at Disney World.

She somehow managed to cram extra syllables into every word that came out of her mouth:

Normal Person: "One" Crazy Tai Chi Instructor: "Huh-wuh-uh-uh-uh-unn-nn-ah"
Normal Person: "Intestine" Crazy Tai Chi Instructor: "Insansianstlknatnelainelenatonatin"

Both LIL S'BEB and I lost it, though, when we went ahead and greeted all of our body parts, thanking them and telling them we love them while vigorously patting them down.

"Hello, knees. Thank you, knees. I love you, knees."

I have always been a poor fit for spiritual, low impact group exercise. Yoga makes me tense because it just proves to me how inflexible I am. And, now, I see I am far too immature for Tai Chi. I guess I'll stick to the Stairmaster.

Happy Wednesday to you all. Ohm Shanti in the panty.

*Live-In Longterm, Soon to Be Ex-Boyfriend. (LIL S'BEB)

Desperately In Need of Comic Relief. . .

2005-11-27T20:12:00.000-05:00

Click on the above for a wonderful video from Safe Kids, Strong Kids. Not entirely safe for work. Unless you work at a preschool.

Huh? You'll see.

File under: Virginia

Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin' . . .

2005-11-21T16:13:00.000-05:00

Me and Dan, 1978.

(Notice we have the same haircut.)

Almost every day for the past three weeks, I have been riding the same bus from New York to a hospital just outside the city to be with my brother, Dan. Not since I lived in Coney Island with The Boys have I spent so much time on public transportation.

Then, I spent several hours a day riding the subway from the last stop in Brooklyn to various points in Manhattan. My hour or so morning commute afforded me enough time to create exciting and different looks every day. I could apply a full face of makeup that often included gluing fake jewels around my eyes and a bindi on my forehead. I could twist my hair into tiny bundles and bind them with multi-colored elastic bands. I was 23. I could get away with it.

The long subway ride also gave me the chance to do a variety of luxurious activities. I could read whole chapters at a time. I could eat a full meal in one sitting or listen to an entire mixtape. It was donated time. Free time. I had no choice but to do interesting things to pass that great span of traveling time.

The bus ride I take now takes about a half hour, but it gives me something I haven't since the days of Coney -- designated free time. Sometimes I read a bit or listen to my iPod.

But usually, I just look out the window and think.

Also during this new quiet time, I get to scan a vastly different vista from my normal reality. There is a span of northern New Jersey thrown up from the dark void that snakes from the middle belly of Manhattan -- the Lincoln Tunnel. One of the most exhilirating views of the city is just beyond the first bend out of the tunnel. And every time, I point to a spot between the new Hearst Building and the Worldwide Plaza and gleefully say to myself, "That's where I live!"

The landscape just beyond the tunnel is generally industrial and rundown. A place where T.S. Eliot would be orgasmically inspired. I get to see hints of places that before, were only names on a map: Secaucus, Hoboken, Newark.

The skyline of New York City rests comfortably just out of reach, assuring me of my home. A home that, in the event of severe disaster, I could walk to if need be.

Me and Dan, 1979
(Note: We will have the same haircut for another four years.)

My brother, Dan, is a pilot and one of the bus stops before we get to the hospital is Newark International Airport. The first few days that I rode out to see him, I closed my eyes as we drove through the airport. It hurt too much to consider that I might never again get to sit in a cockpit next to my brother as he confidently negotiates the magic of flight. I thought I would never be able to look at a plane again without wanting to weep.

It is three weeks later and Dan has cleared some seriously scary hurdles. His health has improved enough that he has been put on the list for a heart transplant. We are holding on to the outside hope that his heart will continue to strengthen enough that this won't have to be the route to go. However, even if it is, I have learned to hope for the best because the best is always possible.

We will be having a low sodium, low cholesterol Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital this year and I am thankful for that. I am thankful, in fact, for every moment of donated time.

Breaking The Girl

2005-11-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

"I am a man
Cut from the know,
Rarely do friends
Come and then go.
She was a girl
Soft but estranged.
We were the two
Our lives rearranged
Feeling so good that day
A feeling of love that day . . ." -- RHCP"

Thank you to all of you who have reached out to me in this uncertain time of my life. My brother's health changes from moment to moment and my family waits through this holding pattern. He has generally improved over the last two weeks, but there are still many hurdles to cross as we all face the reality of the situation--that he will probably need to receive a heart transplant. I appreciate any good thoughts you can send this way as we can use all the positive energy you can spare.

*************************************************************************************

In my late tween years, I met this amazing girl who told me that she liked my handwriting. She didn't know it at the time, but this admiration was the highest of compliments to me. I used to spend hours squirreled away in my bedroom, practicing different types of penmanship. Trying out different capital "E's" and lower case "J's" in cursive and print. This was on the cusp of the personal computer age and my obsession would eventually evolve into a love of fonts.

When we reached driving age, she and I spent a lot of time tooling around in her cream colored Saab listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers, They Might Be Giants and the Beastie Boys. Fueling ourselves with Mountain Dew and Oreo cookies, we drove aimlessly along the back roads of Maine. Going nowhere. They are some of the best memories of my early life.

Well, this amazing girl is now an amazing woman and she has a newfangled blog designed by the beautiful Miss Maddie from Girlie Bits. I cannot promise that I will be involved in blogland so much over the next while. However, I can vouche for LL Coolbeans and I highly recommend you check her out here.

Fermata

2005-11-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

"Fer·ma·ta: The prolongation of a tone, chord, or rest beyond its indicated time value."

I hate hospitals. For all the reasons that people usually give -- the smell, the lights, the constant threat of misery. There are, or course, other things -- things that are specific to human existence, things that unite us all in our inevitability.

I hate the impotence of watching someone I love suffer. I hate being surrounded by machines and gadgets that I cannot control. I hate the constant reminders of our mortality, and the fact that it forces me to consider capital L, Life. And this forces me to think about God.

My relationship with God, like most of my long term relationships, is predictably dysfunctional. I am the once fiercely loyal girlfriend who never broke up officially but gradually lost contact and still feels strong regard, who always gets wasted on tequila when crisis strikes and makes sobbing drunk and dial phone calls to God begging for mercy and undeserved miracles.

Basically, you know, a Catholic.

Lately, almost all of my internal conversations turn into desperate prayers.

I feel as though I have been living a half life. Wandering through the motions of my usual life, I cannot help but feel sadness because of the ever present knowledge that my brother is fighting to recover in a hospital. My own life seems to be presenting me with evidence to the contrary that goodness and God are prevailing. (See here for one blatant example.)

And even in those moments of ease that I try to maintain, the lightness seems dulled.

Even the small pleasure of sharing my thoughts and reading your thoughts seems to offer me only shame right now. For, I feel like I cannot truly be happy during this time of uncertainty. And, I find it hard to think of anything beyond the immediate needs of my brother's life.

So, I bid you all well as I take a pause from this blog. As I muddle through this unplanned fermata.

Masterful pieces of music reveal true greatness, not just in the sheer force of melody, but in the disparate divinity of silence.

File under: Fermata.

Dear Brother. . .

2005-11-02T06:01:00.000-05:00

Be careful with your heart. . .

From what I have seen tonight, there are machines that can operate on behalf of the heart. Pumps and tubes and beeping screens that can move the blood through the muscle of any heart -- even a damaged heart. A weakened heart.

From what I have felt these past two days, there is little you can do to make a heart unhurt. Nothing that will fix the heart's makeup, make it look as though it has not been crying. Convince it not to break under the weight of such sorrow.

Be careful with your hearts, my friends. . .

Let not grief, sorrow, neglect, or worse, regret temper the steady beat of hope.

A Woman Left to Her Own Devices

2005-10-27T14:43:00.000-04:00

Day One of my vacation in my own apartment.

My Live In Long-term Soon to Be Ex-Boyfriend, heretofore known as LIL S'BEB left at four a.m. to fly out to San Francisco where he will be for a week. I helped him into a yellow cab and stumbled up the three flights of stairs to my very quiet apartment and fell asleep alone. And in silence.

What does a woman do alone in her own apartment for the first few hours that her LIL S'BEB is gone?

If she is me, she dances around in her underwear for a few minutes. Turns on NPR in the living room and David Bowie in the bedroom. She drinks a whole pot of coffee brewed with cinnamon which her LIL S'BEB hates. Makes herself scrambled egg whites and eats half of them. She then goes out and rents a large stack of horrible movies to watch as she falls asleep alone later tonight. (Classics like "Four Weddings and a Funeral" which would make LIL S'BEB dry heave in boredom.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to put on some heels, smoke a joint and do some sit-ups while listening to Janet Jackson's Control.

Is This Thing On?

2005-10-26T13:02:00.000-04:00

"If you don't post, I don't know what's going on in your life."
-- A Friend of Mine

About one thousand times over the last week or so, I have sat down to write something and ended up grinding my teeth together and staring out the window counting the yellow cabs that whiz down Ninth Avenue.

I started this blog as a means to express myself a little bit each day, but now that someone besides g8s reads these words, I feel some pressure to produce something beautiful and meaningful and funny every day.

I'm not going to sit down and make a laundry list of my every day life. I could tell you that my live-in-long-term-soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend is going on vacation to San Francisco for a week tomorrow and that I am ecstatic to have the apartment to myself. I could tell you that I have broken down in tears twice in the last week at work because I am losing my mind. But, really, who hasn't? I could tell you about toxic relationships and reaching my limit of compassion.

I have started many many times to write about every little thing that has popped up in my brain lately: why we haven't impeached Bush over the Valerie Plame case, how many glasses of champagne I can drink in an hour, the themes and motifs of the screenplay I am writing, my opinion on chestnut cream crepes.

But, the only thing I can seem to feel or hear right now is static. The sun is shining, but it looks like rain to me. And as much as I want to write something beautiful for you all, the only thing I can seem to grasp is silence.

View From The Top

2005-10-24T16:25:00.000-04:00

If I were a painter, I would live in a world of rain.
I would never choose the sun.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

2005-10-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

I don't have a television in my home for many wonderful reasons. But because of this fact, I often miss things from our televised Zeitgeist.

That's why I have you guys! Kirsten alerted me to this bit that was aired on CNN. In it, a reporter goes around the streets of America and asks folks what country we should invade after Iraq. No, wait. It gets worse. He also asks some of these folks to mark the country on a map of the world. We've secretly switched Australia with another country. . .let's see what happens. . .

Go here and see it for yourselves.

** Bradley Egel pointed out, it's actually CNNN (Chaser Non-Stop News Network), an Australian satire network. Thanks, Brad!

File under:
Geography Lesson.

Fatty Boombalatti

2005-10-18T15:38:00.000-04:00

Veronica Sawyer: Heather, why can't you just be a friend? Why do you have to be such a mega-bitch?
Heather Duke: Because I can be.

-- "Heathers," 1989

This has been too frequent of a topic here at Miss Hag., but I write about what's going on. So. Blame the universe.

I have a request to women of the world. A request and a theory.

Last Friday night, I had a very bad experience with a woman. It angered me and then it made me very sad. It, in fact, made me cry. I am writing about this simply to set up my train of thought on this topic. I am not throwing a pity party. And, I sincerely appreciate how wonderfully kind and supportive you all can be when I am feeling down on myself. However, I must emphasize that I am not writing about this topic because I want you to tell me you love me just the way I am (though I thank the heavens that you do). It is not necessary to comment on this aspect of my post.

I am writing this because I want to make a request.

I had been running around the restaurant last Friday. Being a waitress. Dropping off food, filling water glasses, etc. The restaurant is small. When it is busy, there is very little space between people and tables and chairs.

As I passed through a set of tables, I brushed up against a woman's chair and she announced, loudly and pointedly to the people at her table, "Eww. That girl is too fat to get through."

Now, any sensible person (male or female) would and should be angry about this. I certainly was. But that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is simply this: Ladies, stop. Let's just stop.

My theory? I don't know who or how or why such behavior has perpetuated, but we still inhabit a society in which women consistently view each other as enemies. As competition. As The Evil Other Woman. And we treat each other viciously.

It starts in school and it continues in business and life. Have you ever noticed that so many successful women always insist that they were "tomboys" and that normally only have "guy friends." That is because these women view other women as a liability to their own trajectory.

Women get dirty. We tear each other apart. And to a degree, such competitiveness can be motivational. Maybe even inspirational.

My only request is, let's agree that certain punches are simply unnecessary. If you want to challenge another woman's work because you disagree with her viewpoints or if you want to motivate another woman to expand her intellectual horizons. . . Fine.

But, let's drop the catty, petty blows about each other's appearance. If we continue to sum each other up by the value of our visual worth, than we will continue to lose opportunities to be more than just pretty faces. Or thin bodies. We will perpetuate ridiculous standards of beauty.

And if you must be so judgmental, then continue to think what you want about another woman's appearance. But, keep it to your damn selves, will you?

Thanks.

File under: Catty, Heathers.

Welcome to a New Hag.

2005-10-17T19:33:00.000-04:00

"The difference between us and the animals is our ability to accessorize." Steel Magnolias

Chicago Jackie introduced me to the fabulous Miss Maddie and her wonderful design business Girlie Bits.

Thanks to her, the Hag. has this fabulous new outfit. Me likey. It's fall, darlings, go find yourselves a nice new template to match your new autumnal malaise.

File under: Template

Bad Girl...Uh...Beep Beep!

2005-10-13T21:33:00.000-04:00

"Subjects of God's government must avoid activities condemned by God."*

So, I'm all for condemning shooting up heroin, but, apparently God also condemns:

-- Standing alone in a corner
-- Any sort of disco revival
-- Kissing a wax statue of Elton John whilst wearing white pants and a cowboy hat.

Sheesh. So many rules.

*From "You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth" (1982).

File under: The Watchtower.

I Know You Little Libertine

2005-10-11T00:21:00.000-04:00

"Spitting in a wishing well
Blown to hell
Crash
I'm the last splash" == The Breeders, "Cannonball"

The other night, I went up to Six Six, our security guard, who is so named because he is six feet, six inches tall, and said, "People are such assholes to me."

He said, "Damn, girl, you come at them hard! Someone gets out of line and, BOOM!, you're like a cannonball."

I laughed and walked away, but the comment came back to me tonight as Jason and I were crossing the street. We walk, as New Yorkers do, with purpose. Weaving through moving traffic and walking with the lights (not necessarily with the "Walk" lights, natch). As we crossed between two cars parked at a red light, I looked up to see the bumper of a tiny sedan catch Jason in the legs, pushing him slightly off balance, but not knocking him over.

Still, I glared into the windshield of the car at a little smudge of a boy, barely out of his teens. He smirked and nudged the car up another inch to try and hit me, too.

This went over poorly with me, as you can imagine. Jason later said he was just going to keep walking. But, he heard me start cursing and yelling, so he turned around thinking, "Uh-oh, I better get involved in this."

You can imagine it I'm sure.

Bitchy Filipina girl stands in city street, calling out young man to step out of his car and take it like a man. Much taller, white boyfriend tries to keep her from breaking a young man's nose. Of course, the light changed and the moment passed. The boy's girlfriend leaned out the window and pleaded, "No one said anything to you, we didn't do anything."

A couple that looked like they just left a Broadway show stood on the corner beaming about their fortune to witness the interaction. What a story for the folks back home.

As we headed for the subway, laughing, I told Jason about the comment from Six Six and he said, "You sound proud of that fact."

And, in a way, I am. Sure, a quick temper is not always an attractive quality in a person, man or woman. But, every time I ponder confrontations I have with people, I always come to the same conclusion. At least I stood up for myself. Afterwards, I always retreat back into the coolness of reason. But not without first releasing a little rage.

Jason just laughed and said, "You're such a guy sometimes."

It's something he has intoned to me before, but usually he is referring to my approach to relationships. I am the one who hates public displays of affection. I am the one who insisted that we have an apartment with two bedrooms so we don't always have to sleep together. I was the one who called him my "roommate" for almost a year before I gave in to the word "boyfriend." I was the one who whined to my friends that my partner expected me to have emotions and talk about them. Aloud. To each other. Shudder.

The role reversal is quite common as far as I can tell. We are the daughters of the women who first benefited from the feminist movement. We watched our mothers get fed up. They donned suits with shoulder pads. They bought us mace and Erica Jong novels and aerobicized with Jane Fonda. They voted for Mondale because of Ferraro. These were the women who bore the very first latchkey generation.

Their daughters are cannonballs.

"It is undeniable that regardless of their physical impact, early cannons, with their noise, smoke, and flames, had a terrifying psychological impact on horses or soldiers who had never encountered the weapons before." -- From Wikipedia

File under: Cannonball.

Laugh, dammit.

2005-10-07T12:36:00.000-04:00

Me to self: "Write something funny. People want to read something funny on Friday."

Self to Me: "Fuck you. You write something funny."

M: "You're funnier when you've had a cocktail. Go get a cocktail."

S: "It's just after noon, I am not drinking yet."

M: "You're drinking coffee, just put some Kaluha in it and write something funny or people won't want to read your blog."

S: "That's stupid. I'm not going to develop a drinking problem just so people will read my blog."

Me to self starts laughing maniacally.

S: "What? What's so funny."

M: "Oh, yes, that precious. Develop. Develop a drinking problem. Yes, that's good. Write that."

Will I Be Pretty? Will I Be Rich?

2005-10-06T03:47:00.000-04:00

In grade school, I rode the bus. I was shy, but brave and would often sit near the back where the cool, older kids always sat.

One day, I was sitting by a rebellious boy that I found to be very cute who was two years older than me, Michael Zuk. Mike noticed me peeling off a Band-Aid that was wrapped around my forefinger. It had been on so tight and so long that the skin underneath was wrinkled and white. It smelled wet.

I will never forget how Michael Zuk pointed at the small patch of my finger that was temporarily so white it was almost translucent. I will never forget it because he pointed to this tiny bit of skin and said, "See...you'd be so much prettier if you were white."

That's not the sad part of this memory. The saddest part is that I actually agreed with him. I even laughed along with his friend who chimed in with the offer to punch me in the nose so it might swell up and thus not be so flat.

This was before Bennetton ads and multiculti Madison Avenue. We were still enthralled with Cheryl Tiegs and Christie Brinkley. The hallways of my school were filled with blonde girls named Kristen who had Romanesque proboces and hair so shimmery it can only be recalled as flaxen. Girls who turned golden in the sun, not dirt brown.

Oh, how I longed to be a Kristen.

Of course, I shed most of those ridiculous insecurities not long after I walked away from that little hick town. My image concerns have shifted from the color of my surface to the amount and placement of fat in the layers below skin level.

Can't win for losing...or, however the saying goes.

Thanks to the internet, though, and this bizarrely entrancing Face Transformer tool I can now see what might have been if there had been a fairy godmother to grant my ridiculous epidermal wishes so many years ago. Thank god/buddha/allah/jeremiah the bullfrog there wasn't.

(Click this scary photo for versions of me in Afro-Caribbean, East Asian, Manga Cartoon and Mucha Painting)

Tune in tomorrow . . .

2005-10-03T16:16:00.000-04:00

Citizen of the Month, Neil, featured a particularly controversial post several months ago about the alarming trend of emaciated celebrities. Lauren at Mindful Things wrote about the potentially damaging influence on the cultural psyche because of the absurd extremism in photo retouching.

I'm having a low body image day. Let's revisit a post I wrote in April on this very topic, shall we?

"American women, I believe actually feel the same as Hispanic women about weight. A desire for the comfort of fullness. And when that desire is suppressed for style and deprivation allowed to rule, dieting, exercising American women become afraid of everything associated with being curvaceous such as wantonness, lustfulness, sex, food, motherhood. All that is best in life." -- from Spanglish.

Recently, I viewed the movie, Spanglish ,in which the young Mexican-American girl narrating the film describes this particularly succinct observation of the female body image. This voiceover related a theme in the storyline of a Mexican immigrant, Flor Morena, and her relationship with the women in the white American family for which she is a nanny and housekeeper. Flor is shown secretly altering clothes purchased for the slightly overweight daughter in the family, Bernice. The young girl's mother, Deborah Clasky, buys clothes for her daughter in a size she knows Bernice cannot fit. Her hope is that the clothes will motivate the girl to lose weight. She tells her daughter encouragingly, "You are gonna do it and you are gonna look beautiful!"

Understandably, Deborah's "support" is not viewed so innocuously and is exposed as the ruse that it is. In an attempt to boost Bernice's self esteem, Flor takes out the seams of the clothes and encourages the girl to, "Just try it on!"

This act endears Flor to the daughter and sets her in the role of the mirror that the young girl needs to see -- one that reflects her beauty as it is, not as it might be.

Physically, Deborah Clasky is a typical portrait of the New American Mother. A successful and prestigious mother of two whose body is toned to a sculpted perfection by intensive yoga and morning jogs that involve a competitive screaming of "Left!" as she passes her fellow joggers.

Deborah represents the image of what we have recently become familiar with as the image of mother via the trend of Hollywood's mothers. Tabloid magazines splay photos of American celebrities in svelte gowns and tailored pants just weeks after they have given birth. The headlines tantalize readers with secrets for how they, too, can have postpartum perfection.

They display these women as proof that they can have their cake, eat it, and look like they have not.

It seems to me that now, it is not just that women suppress their desires for "everything associated with being curvaceous." Now, women indulge in their objects of desire, but maintain the physicality of one who denies indulgent pleasures. Notedly, certain shapeliness has entered into the modern image of womanhood due to the influence of the famous rear ends of Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce. And, of course, large breasts have always been de rigueur. However, these curves are always balanced by the omnipresent taut belly -- a potent symbol of discipline and denial.

There will always be unnecessary demands on women to obtain certain body representations. Certainly, it is healthier for the body and mind to be fit and trim. However, it is a sad state when what women are working to achieve is not a healthy body to accomplish their work as mothers, but as a means to represent a woman who looks like she never gave birth.

I promise, I'll lighten up soon...it's so Sturm und Drang around here lately...

File under: Zaftig

Stop

2005-10-03T13:57:00.000-04:00

Stop. Stop. Stop.

I cannot go any further without saying this.

I have been so fuckin' lucky. I have real friends. Moreover, I have real friendships. Real, solid, impervious, all-encompassing friendships. Unconditional. Unfaltering.

Thriving in New York is impossible without love. And I have the best love of all. Real friends. People I have known for almost half my life.

For a few years now, I have been able to enjoy my friends at whim. Hop on a subway, Jump in a cab, walk down the street. They are there. Post haste.

And now, life is changing again. As it does. As it has. I, too, have left this city that I love. For months at a time, I have chased other horizons. Our paths are diverging again. In the space of physics. In the span of time.

My little chosen family is dispersed again. He is in Indiana. She is going to work in India.

And I feel my heart stretch again -- the muscle is surpisingly facile, boundless in its reach. As she strides forward.

File under: Vodka, Friendship, Spuyten Duyvil.

Who's Afraid of Vagina Wolves?

2005-09-29T14:19:00.000-04:00

I cannot recall when and where I was when I first read Virginia Woolf's consummately wise words, "A woman must have money and a room of her own [if she is to write fiction]." But, the sentiment of this oft-quoted statement has informed my being ever since.

I know you know how it gets. Creative people need a space to get a little crazy. That's why you have a blog, right?

Last night, we had dinner with Patrick -- perhaps one of the most creative and craziest people in the world. People who are familiar with his art and get the privilege to visit his home quickly come to understand the truth of Ms. Woolf's statement.

Visiting Patrick's apartment is like inhabiting one of his paintings. It's colorful and a little scary, but it's like returning to the womb. Being there is like being in the act of creation. He is proof that a true artist lives in the Artist's Way. Lest we forget what it means to live the Writer's Life, I invite you to see for yourselves how one man has truly committed himself (without getting committed himself).

Click the picture for a sneak peek. . .

File under: Dolls, Virgina Woolf

No More Kelly Clarkson Shame

2005-09-27T22:17:00.000-04:00

I realized today that there will be a time in the future when I will be living alone. Can you believe I am almost 30 years old and I have never lived alone?

Sure, I had a dorm room to myself, but a dormitory is not exactly singular living. And there were a few times when I lived abroad for months at a time, but then I was just freeloading in foreign countries.

After college, I lived with my two best friends. After that, I lived with my three homosexual life partners. After that, I became half of a live-in couple.

Tonight, I wandered around the 450 square feet of apartment and looked at all the material things we've obtained together. Once we made the decision to move to separate living spaces, I started waxing sentimental about all the things I like about J. and living with him.

But, then I also realized, there are a lot of things that I will not miss. That I will, in fact, celebrate the disappearance of like a munchkin dancing around crushed ruby slippered feet.

Here are a few things I look forward to:

1.) Never cleaning up after a boy's mess and feeling like less of a woman for it. It should be noted that I do not think cleaning up after a man makes a woman less...uh...womanly. I just. You know. Hate picking up after a grown man.

2.) Never having to clarify my foolhearty opinions.

3.) Never having to figure out if I really find kung-fu movies entertaining.

I also look forward to seeing what an apartment filled with only my things will look like.

Will I still buy the same toothpaste?

I've been living as a half a couple for so long that I cannot tell where my opinions end and his begin. Which one of us chose sea foam green for the living room? Do I really love that color or is it just one of the things from the shaded subset of where our tastes overlap?

But most of all, I look forward to not blaming someone else for my life's shortcomings. Too often in a couple, I have found myself longing for the choices I never made because I no longer live for just myself. And resentment, just like joy and fear and content, is an emotion that feels doubled when it is halved.

File under: Renaissance, Sea Foam

Alphabetical

2005-09-24T15:17:00.000-04:00

Roof view after rain. NYC - Spring 2005.

I am testing the bounds of my will today. For the better part of an hour, I watch a simple poof of white cloud slowly extend from one side of my window to the other. I am puzzling over a jumble of real and created moments from the reserves of my mind. Time weighs heavily on my heart, tearing me into directions of past and future simultaneously.

I desire equally to make peace with sadness and its injurious claims on my past as well as to woo the future in a delicate seduction of bright linens and austere sailboat rides. At times, it is painful to contemplate, worse when the deliberation affords only handfuls of sand. What I yearn for are the baubles that will buy my bejeweled future. I dig through the wreckage of my past, searching for whatever it is that will be a moment to afford such riches. Unbury the unexamined life. The rabbit hole leading into a future that encompasses all the desires which were poured into the instant of my existence.

And yet, like a fool or a poet, I am moved to just sit with my reverie of a cloud inching imperceptibly across a path of view that encompasses less than two feet.

It is a defense mechanism that children utilize, often without consciousness. They create fantasy lives to escape the reality of the moment. Children have a rough time of it because they have little control over their destinies.

I often wonder why I never just left my family behind and moved to New York earlier, when I was eight or nine. Surely, I could have found an apartment and job with a little bit of patience. It seems realistic to me since that is what I have now, but I know it would have been impossible. Instead, I had my window and my bedroom. I would shut my door and stare out the window as I do now.

Then, my greatest fantasy was to get a cheap clunker car and cover it in raunchy bumper stickers. My plan was to drive to see every state in the country and I would do it in alphabetical order.

From my dark blue encyclopedia, I learned the order of the states by heart. Whenever grief settled in threatening silence over my house, I would plan my escape. I would would lie in my bed and trace the route across the bumpy white expanse of my ceiling.

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas . . . I imagined the breeze through the window and the radio, all mine for the choosing. California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware. . . I would hold my hand out and let it surf the crests and waves of air eddying around my car as I followed each alphabetically decided horizon. Waving hello to a present that belonged only to me.

One day, I realized that I could never make a drive from Georgia to Hawaii, so I decided I would save The Aloha State for last. I would leave Wyoming and head west for the Pacific. When I got there, I would find a boat and sail towards Hawaii, to see the place where the details of my life were first imagined. Wearing stickers on my cheeks and flowers in my hair.

File under: Alphabet, Aloha, Landslide

End at the Beginning

2005-09-20T21:02:00.000-04:00

Boy meets girl. Girl doesn't like Boy. Later, Girl decides she likes Boy. Girl seduces Boy. Boy and Girl discover sex. Boy and Girl discover love. Girl moves away. Boy desires freedom. Boy breaks Girl's heart. Girl and Boy separate for five years. Boy and Girl never speak. Girl denounces love, though succumbs to one Magician. Boy denounces relationships, but finds Another Love. Boy becomes engaged. Girl falls in love with Gay Male Best Friend. Girl realizes she may have some thinking to do. Girl gets cold. Girl becomes sad. Girl writes to Boy. Boy calls Girl. Boy leaves Fiancee. Boy and Girl move to an island. Boy and Girl become "Roommates." Boy and Girl fall in love again. Boy and Girl move around together for six years.

Boy and Girl try.

Boy and Girl try.

Boy and Girl try and try and try again.

Boy and Girl become sad. Together. Again.

Boy and Girl think of a new plan.

Plan W: (Yes, they've already exhausted Plans A through V)

For the next six to eight months, Boy and Girl will begin the process of separation. Separating finances. Separating living spaces. Separating lives. Because Boy and Girl know that the love will always be there, but the life will not.

File Under: Sempiternal

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

2005-09-19T09:36:00.000-04:00

Before my shift last night, I chatted with the dinner staff about their night. Anyone who is familiar with people in the service industry will know that we spend a lot of time bitching about people's horrible manners and the generally terrible nature of most humans.

However, last night, we discussed a few of the really nice people that we have encountered. We traded anecdotes about customers who, even when they were absolutely within their rights to complain about something (food cooked improperly, cockroach visitations), chose not to threaten with lawsuits. These same people proceeded with their meals and paid their checks and left generous tips.
"Yes, I had ordered my steak rare and it came out well done, but it was delicious anyway." "Yes, I saw a cockroach, but, hey...it's New York. They're everywhere! Oh well!"

We all remarked about how refreshing it is to encounter such easygoing natures. It's touching, really. And, these are the people who get cocktails or dessert or even a whole meal on the house. I said, "People don't get it. If you are nice, you get free stuff. Why be an asshole?" One of my coworkers said, "I don't understand it. It's so easy to just be nice."

I realized that it made me really sad. We are so surprised to encounter good manners and non-combative customers that we feel moved to shower the really kind people with rewards. It's like laying an offering before the gods, hoping it will encourage future visits from equally sympathetic people.

"Oh my goodness...you said 'Please' and 'Thank you'?!?! Please, let me buy you your meal."

Saturday night was full moon night. I'm not sure if it was actually a full moon, but it felt like it by the way people were acting. It was g8s' birthday and I felt particularly protective of him. His patience with the creepiest of lowlifes is boundless. So, when I noticed a man getting in his face and acting threatening, I had to react. I stepped up to the jerk, mustered up all five feet, one and a half inches of myself and told him, "If you don't get the fuck out of here now, you're gonna get hit by a girl."

I understand that alcohol is a big factor in most of my violent encounters with people. But, I have a feeling that a lot of these people would be assholes even when they are sober. I also realize that these same people feel particularly justified in mistreating waiters and other people in service positions. Absent an official caste system, some people adhere to the misconception that servers are the equivalent of servants. These people operate under the unsafe assumption that anyone in a service position must be uneducated.

The buffoon that I threatened screamed at us, "You can't talk to me this way! I have a college education!"

So do I, buddy. However, it wasn't in college where I learned that kindness knows no shame. I learned that one from Stevie Wonder.*

(From the song, "As" by Mr. Wonder. For those of you non-Stevie fans. Do those exist?)

File Under: Braggadocio

Matzo Ball Soup.

2005-09-15T11:52:00.000-04:00

Tonight she made soup.

This morning, he left in anger after she picked a fight with him. She was feeling suffocated by the predictable conclusions of their every day existence. Rewind one year, two, even five years, and the view seemed just the same. Life had become an old film strip, continuously whirring and flipping around the same reel.

She needed to know that it wouldn’t always be like this, that they wouldn’t always live to pay rent and never lose those extra pounds achieved by endless nights of swilling vodka. Although she had followed an exciting and vastly different path, she felt she had come up with the same conclusions reached by those silly girls with poofball bangs who had dictated her life in high school.

She thought by making soup she would fill their apartment with the smell of cooked food and thus inspire comfort to both their souls. She could apologize without actually admitting any responsibility for the situation. The rest of her day had been spent cleaning the wreckage laid waste by the tumult of their early squabble. She called friends and wrote in her journal.

An hour of yoga in the afternoon had not given her any respite, but only reminded her of her inadequacies, her inflexibility.

Earlier, she stood inside Duane Reade looking for Post-It’s when she decided to call him at work.

“I was thinking of making dinner if you’re hungry.”

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

“What do you want?”

“Steak.”

She pondered for a moment, wondering how she would cook steak and how many hours she would spend on the elliptical machine burning off steak. He laughed and interrupted her pondering.

“Just kidding. Whatever you make is fine.”

“Okay.”

“I gotta finish up here.”

“All right. I’ll see you later.”

It took her half an hour to figure out something to make. She wandered the aisles of the twenty-four hour Gristedes looking for something different to make for dinner. Her cooking skills were fine, but her immediate repertoire was limited.

It was almost eleven o’clock at night, so she didn’t want to make anything too rich that would make her feel worse about herself. The store was in violent disarray, crates of juice boxes sat in piles awaiting unpacking, the shelves were stocked but mismatched. Briefly, she pondered hunks of sad pink meat peering out of the deli case. She wandered down the Pasta-Sauce-Soup aisle hoping for inspiration when she came upon the Jewish food section.

Previously in the day, she found herself desiring matzo ball soup and suddenly she wondered if she could make it herself. She picked up a Manischewitz package for instant soup and fingered the picture of fluffy white dumplings. There was a sticky film on the box that made her recoil. She placed the instant soup box down and stepped back.

As she stared at the gefilte fish and potato pancake mix, she inhaled deeply. The smell of this grocery store reminded her of the musty sweetness of the Associated Supermarket she used to frequent in Bushwick, Brooklyn, when they had moved into their first apartment together in New York.

He found a huge industrial loft space that they couldn’t afford, but also couldn’t afford to turn down. She had asked him to come to New York with her, and having no apartment of her own to offer, they lived for two months in a two bedroom apartment with her three best friends, all gay men. It was not the healthiest living situation for a couple in emotional limbo.

The Bushwick apartment was on the first floor of what used to be a sewing factory. They had to lie to the utility companies and say they were starting a business since the space was leased to them as a commercial loft. The lease was for 1700 square feet of empty room with just a refrigerator and a bathroom.

They had to build walls and rooms and purchase a stove. Before they could afford a stove, they had a toaster oven and a coffee maker. She cooked soup in the coffee pot and roasted vegetables in aluminum foil in the toaster oven.

She would shop in that grocery store that smelled like a basement. The aisles were stocked with every imaginable type of bean canned by Goya Foods: pinto, red kidney, chick peas, black-eyed peas. The music piped into the store was merengue and salsa. The checkout girls called her, "Mami."

There had been a quiet desperation to their life in Brooklyn. They were too old to be casually open about their relationship, but too young to stop hoping to be consumed by passion. For each other or for someone as yet unknown.

When he called to tell her that he was on his way home, she told him that dinner was ready. As he hung up, she sensed that anxiety that signaled the end of her freedom, the end of her solitude.

She valued the time she got to spend alone. She would sit in silence and not listen to his breathing or his movements. It was in those moments that she felt free, her soul pushed lightly out of her body and extended towards an internal horizon. Her mind was not muddled with impertinent questions about whether their love for each other would every be enough. The anxieties taunting her today came from her fear of the solidness of the future.

She sat at their dining room table in their smaller, but more established Manhattan apartment and inhaled the smell of coconut chicken soup. She waited.

File under: Matzo, Kosher, Godot.

Grrr. Part Deux.

2005-09-13T19:58:00.000-04:00

Associated Press -- WASHINGTON - Chief Justice nominee John Roberts repeatedly refused to answer questions about abortion and other contentious issues at his confirmation hearing Tuesday, telling frustrated Democrats he would not discuss matters that could come before the Supreme Court. More . . .

Now, granted, I have not been interviewed for a job lately. However, refusing to discuss your potential contribution to the work of said job seems like something not to do if one does not want to appear evasive and untrustworthy.

Grr.

2005-09-13T14:38:00.000-04:00

"It was the worst of times. . ."

The calendar tells me it is September 13th, but the thermometer spews "Middle of August." It is 92 degrees out and the city is seething. Everything happens in New York City, and sometimes, everything happens all at once.

This week is the 60th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Bill Clinton's Global Initiative Summit, the local Democratic primaries and the end of Fashion Week. That means a few important people and a lot of people convinced of their own self-importance are coming together all at once within a few blocks of each other.

That also means calvacades of black SUV's. Sirens. Car horns that blare for minutes at a time in a long wailing chorus. Police directing traffic and yelling at pedestrians at every intersection in Midtown. The Police Commissioner described driving this week as "gridlock squared."

I went out to vote and run some errands this morning. My district's voting center is directly across the street at P.S. 58. However, what should have been a short walk turned into an arduous march. Within the span of just a few blocks, I encountered three heavyweight shouting matches between various groups of people and one fender bender.

A husband and wife in front of my apartment building stood nose to nose and screamed at each other while gesturing wildly to the open hood of their car. The engine sizzled and sighed as their eyeballs yellowed and teared with rage.

I thought about going to Central Park and reading today. But, there are times living in this city when you realize it is better not to be near your fellow human being. There are over eight million people living within 300 square miles of land. When the population swells with tourists and businessmen, it is impossible not to feel the prickle of energy that is ignited by such a convergence.

On days like this, the misery is not only palpable, it is contagious.

Twelve Hours In The Life

2005-09-12T09:54:00.000-04:00

The Idea:

Take 13 minutes of every hour to take a few snapshots of what's going on at the moment. At thirteen minutes to the hour every hour from 10:47 p.m. to 10:47 a.m., Mr. g8s and I took photos depicting a night in the life of the Sunday overnight shift at Florent.

The Execution:

We stuck to the plan for the most part. Some photos simply could not wait for their appointed hour. However, we did take the time to capture every hour. So it is in fact a night. In the life.

(And for all you sticklers for details, my clock is set to the wrong date in the first pic. This series began at 10:47 p.m. on September 11, 2005. Sheesh.)

World Trade Center Memorial Light as seen from Florent's front window at approximately 3:47 a.m. Click on the image for slideshow of the night.

Cave Dwellers

2005-09-08T13:30:00.000-04:00

It started with kissing. The mouths she had encountered before his were thin, like slits cut through sheets of white paper. His lips, by contrast, was insurmountable and vast. His mouth, a cave. It turned out, they both had spaces and crevasses. They spelunked.

Their conversations were brief and pointless. They were sixteen. Her life's reach could be measured with one hand stretched across a map of the Northeastern states.

It is fourteen years later and they have no stories that do not somehow include the other. Their kisses are sharp and requisite, like immunizations. They have reached a summit that is neither thrilling or dangerous, but the vista is commodious.

When she closes her eyes to sleep, she knows that some women spend all their lives looking for what she has. In those moments, she curses the sentimental movie makers. She rues the poets and the songwriters for perpetuating the pangs of despised love.

Still, she can't help but long for vertigo.

It is in her nature to yearn.

She looks at him and remembers that she got what she asked for. It was winter when she went looking for him last. Her winter was oppressive. They had been separated for five years, but she still had a map to him. She had been longing for his stalactites.

For One Thing.

2005-09-07T19:00:00.000-04:00

I cannot be consumed by love.

I cannot fall in perfect step with you as we dodge pedestrians on the sidewalk. I am disappointed when you are unmoved by perfect prose. I sigh too loudly when you look away.

When we talk of the future, I see myself alone in a room with a typewriter looking at a glass vase on the windowsill as it tries to stem the wilt of a single gerber daisy. You are there, too -- idealized in metaphor. That is how I hope to love you, at least.

Besides, I've always believed that the thrill of sex does not come from yielding to the touch, but in the sting of release.

Missing: Words == Have You Seen This, Child?

2005-09-05T20:14:00.000-04:00

She hovered between thin pages,
Deliciously fingering leaves as thin
As corneas.

Lacking the grasp to
Contain the disparate suffering
Of dusk in the bayou,
She returned to a memory.

The universe progresses forth
Through minute details -- moments
That may or may not be absorbed into language;
A single finger tracing a line
Down the diaphanous length of wrist's flesh;
Unplanned darkness;
The space between the slender curve of question mark
To the barren bloom of period's diameter.

With coarse desperation, she paused between
The syllables of words that curled her into a palm:

Inosculate.

Solipsist.

Blight.

An unseen arm beat her Gatsby boats on
And she smiled guilessly, engorged
With each dispatch possibility.

You have words, she sounded,
For longing.

Sheepsmeadow, Central Park, Labor Day 2005

The Bad News Continues . . .

2005-09-04T01:00:00.000-04:00

Chief Justice Rehnquist dies of cancer creating a rare second vacancy on the nation's highest court.

Inappropos of Everything

2005-09-01T04:36:00.000-04:00

I realize that this blog does not always reflect my state of mind. I don't think it could. Life is too unwieldy and imprecise to condense into small blurbs of computer digestibles.

And although, this forum affords me a manner of expression that is fulfilling and challenging all at once, it doesn't always accurately reflect exactly the state of my life. Just random moments.

To this end, I feel I must at least say that although I do not necessarily choose to write about it all, my heart and mind are heavy with the contemplations of world circumstances (and personal happenstances).

Homo du Mois Deux

2005-09-01T00:01:00.000-04:00

It's that time.

Time for a new Homo du Mois. Time to honor yet another of Miss Hag.'s fabulous friends.

This month, I have chosen a man I met when I first moved to New York. Then, he was a waiter at one of my favorite old haunts, a restaurant that turned into Amsterdam late at night. That's right, back when you could smoke in NYC restaurants, this progressive spot also allowed patrons to discreetly smoke the wacky tobacky. You could sit at a table munching on foods from a hemp-based menu, sipping a cocktail and passing a joint to the table next to you. But, those were the 90's. Simpler times.

September's Homo du Mois was easy to notice. Tall with chiseled cheekbones and flawless skin. The first day I met him I told him, "You are bee-yoo-tiful!" He didn't blink an eye when Dennis and I would meet at his restaurant for cocktail and cocaine lunch hours. It was love at first sight.

Now, he is the man who prefers to remain nameless at Mister g8s' blog. The man responsible for this.

George.

(Photo by g8s.)

Recently, I asked George the same questions I ask all my Homo du Mois. Here are his responses . . .

1.) Who would you cast to play you in a movie of your life?

"Who would I cast to play me? Brazilian superstar, Rodrigo Santoro, of course! Most Americans don't know him but he was the sexy man in the Chanel ads with Nicole Kidman. He was also the badboy surfer in Charlies Angels 2."

2.) What is one thing you believed as a child?

"The one thing I believed as a child was that I would be famous by now and that everything would be better as soon as I left home."

3.) What would we find if we looked in your refrigerator right now?

"I don't like the refrigerator question. How about 3 favorite likes and dislikes?"

3.a) All right, Miss Hag. certainly encourages her Homos to be themselves. So, then. Tell me three of your likes and dislikes . . .

"My three likes are:

** Metallic colored shoes.
** Tanning. Have you heard that tanning is addictive in some people?
** The taste of cilantro!

My three dislikes are:

** People who spit in the street

** The smell of rain
** The fact that Helmut Lang is no longer designing his own clothes!"

4.) How would people who knew you in high school describe you? How would people describe you who know you now? How would you describe yourself?

"I don't care what people thought of me in high school. Elementary school was a nightmare. Though the kids didn't have a name for it, they could all sense that I was 'different/special.' That would be a cool logo. I was tormented by them. People I meet now probably take my shyness for snobbiness."

5.)What do you think about the word "love"?
"I think love is hard to define. The feelings you have when you start seeing someone are so GREAT that it's almost worth getting your heart broken just to experience that "high." I wish that feeling would last longer but, there's a definite comfort in being in a long-term relationship only after your both willing to work hard at it. My opinion is that there are a lot of people who have never really truly been in love because they don't know how to be in a relationship. It's really hard work and you're never taught in school or on the job training how to love.

I'm a Scorpio and I say I love intensely but g8s probably thinks I love too rough!"

Yikes! Bonus question for George: Brad or Angelina?

"I would choose Angelina! She would be up for keeping Brad around to satisfy us sexually! Seriously, I think Angelina is an amazing person. Oh, and she has better lips than me!"

Thanks, George. I love any reason to post a picture of Miss Jolie.

So, there you have it. September's Homo du Mois. If you see George out on the town (probably with Mister g8s), buy him/them a drink and tell 'em the Hag. sent you.

The Slow Tragic Demise of Pollyanna

2005-08-29T08:40:00.000-04:00

Letter Sent to the Restaurant Where I am Painstakingly Employed

August 20, 2005

To Whom It May Concern:

As I'm sure you are aware, your establishment is a wonderful diner and has excellent food. It is also however, quite a "late night haunt." Needless to say I tend to frequent your diner at rather uncivilized hours after a long night of severe alcohol consumption. In any case I found myself at your diner late last night and to say the least a little inebriated. Unfortunately I woke up this morning with a distinct feeling that I was a little bit short on the bill, I think about dollar. Leaving my lovely young waitress without a tip and perhaps even your establishment one dollar short. Please accept my most sincere apologies. Enclosed is what I hope will cover the dollar short and if you could see that the rest goes to an excellent waitress who was working late on Friday the nineteenth. I believe she was Asian, that is all I can remember.

Your loyal patron,

Kathy

(She sent me $10.00 with this letter!)

*************************************************************************************
A Conversation Between Two Voices In My Head:

Cocaine Girl: "Remember when you first moved to New York and every day was full of adventure? Every person you met filled you with inspiration and hope?"

Quaalude Lady: "Vaguely."

C.G.: "Whatever happened to that girl? She was so excited about life and people and the future. Now, you are just so sullen and cynical."

Q.L.: "I really don't want to hear this Pollyanna bullshit right now."

C.G.: "But, it's true. You used to call g8s every day and tell him about all the synchronicity you encountered. It seemed like fortune smiled on you everywhere you went. You were leading such a charmed life."

Q.L.: "I was 23 years old and 30 pounds skinnier. I was desperate. I ran around the city screwing bartenders and trying to become a star. Of course every day seemed charmed. I was delusional."

C.G.: "No, you were optimistic. Good things happened for you because you looked at the glass as half full. You believed in goodness and the universe delivered."

Q.L.: "So, what, now I'm just mired in a misery of my own doing because I don't believe in the potential for goodness everywhere I look?"

C.G.: "Well, it couldn't hurt you to at least try and smile a bit more."

Q.L.: "Seriously, I'm seconds away from stabbing you right now."

C.G.: "Look, all I'm saying is there was a time that you, somehow, managed to find the good in people. You wanted to believe. And because you believed, it was true."

Q.L.: "So, basically, you are saying that what I perceived was true."

C.G.: "Ummm...yes."

Q.L.: "But, it may have just been my perception of the world that was positive and not the reality."

Silence.

C.G.: "Yes, but, how we exist is defined by how we view our life, so. . . "

Q.L.: "So, what? I think I'm happy, therefore I am happy? Or, should I say, I convince myself I am happy, therefore I am happy?"

C.G.: "Being happy is an active verb. Happiness doesn't happen, you have to be happy."

Q.L.: "But, I am happy. I am pessimistically happy. Or am I joyfully contemptuous?"

C.G.: "Yes. No. Shit. Now you've got me all confused. You know what? Fuck you. If you want to be miserable, be that way. I need a fucking drink."

Q.L.: "Come on. I'll buy you one. I'm sure we can find a happy hour somewhere."

C.G. smiles brightly: "Fuck you very much."
************************************************************************************
Dear Kathy --

Thank you. Really. You restored my faith in people, if only for a moment.

Seriously. Thanks.

Marisol
*************************************************************************************

Blog-a-log-a-ding-dongs. . .

2005-08-25T09:57:00.000-04:00

Everybody loves Brando at One Child Left Behind.

Yesterday, I challenged this man who loves Journey to come up with a word that could be used to describe someone met and befriended through blogging.

When I talk about you with my flesh-and-blood friends, I call you "_____, this girl/guy whose blog I read who reads my blog . . ." and, frankly, I just don't have enough time in life to keep calling you people that.

So, Brandon, in turn, has thrown down the gauntlet to the blogosphere to find just the right word. Hopefully, it could become part of the national lexicon (like "bootylicious"), so when you're at a party telling your friends about Tequila Mockingbird or Dooce or Hot Librarian, they won't give you that look like you're discussing cartoon characters or porn stars.

Head over here and offer your suggestion. . .I hear there's a prize.

Card I received from this girl Summer who reads my blog whose blog I read whom I really like . . .

Cool Change Indeed!

2005-08-23T20:06:00.000-04:00

Amanda B. at VeryZen posted this wonderful story about her father's evolution from Christian homophobe to outspoken advocate for gay rights. As we approach the annointing of a new Miss Hag. Homo du Mois, I have been thinking about the idea of acceptance and coming out.

Surely, a woman who proudly wears the moniker of "Fag Hag," must have always been an open-minded gal. Sadly, this is not so. I, too, grew up under the hypocritically judgmental eye of the Catholic church. And in a tiny blip of a parochial town in the deep Maine woods. A dislike of gays was like fluoride in the toothpaste. That's just the way things were.

In honor of all the gays I've loved before, I offer you pieces of early homophobia and my very own coming out. Of the dark closet of ignorance.
**************************************************************************************

Junior High, 1988.
The force of the popular girl clique is singularly overwhelming. We don't breathe without conferring with each other.

Is it inhale, exhale or exhale, inhale?

One of our own, K., has been chosen as this week's target. Every week, one of us is the least loved. It is how adolescent girls learn to suffer and to punish. By picking off one of our own. K. has imperfect skin. Her clothes are a minute too late. Her potential wanes.

Plus, we have all learned a new word. A word we collectively whisper in every double-pierced earlobe in town. Lesbian. Worse than slut or burnout.

K. catches me in a moment. Away from the group.

Why? Why are people saying such a thing about me?

Her perfect nails tremble as they delicately pick at her wrist.
************************************************************************************

Freshmen Fall at Quirky Midwestern Private Liberal Arts College, 1993.

The campus is colorful today. I do not look up at the primordial trees or the white dome of the chapel tower that obviously sits in the center of campus, at the pinnacle of the quadrangle. I look down. At the shuffling shell toes of my Chuck Taylors.

The ground is covered in smears of pastel chalk. Every inch of sidewalk is covered like a horde of toddlers snorted an eight ball and tried to create the biggest hopscotch game in the universe overnight. Except, the chalkings are not simple squares and numbers. They are phrases and quotations. Slogans.

God made me gay! Gay is good! Silence=Death.

And of course, the rainbows. The pink triangles. Later, I would learn that this is a tradition. The GLBSGQT (LMNOP . . .) group on campus chalks the sidewalks every year on the eve of
Gay Pride Week.

As I wind my way through ivy-covered red brick edifices, I think little of what I am seeing. And then it happens. One bright pink statistic stops me in my tracks. Literally.

One-third of this campus is gay.

One-third? Like, 33.3%? That's . . .like . . .400 people!

I rush back to my dorm room, to confer with my very straight roommate. A. is my antithesis in so many ways: effortlessly blonde hair, clear blue eyes, a Biology major. An athlete on two sports teams with long, lean legs. I swoop through the door and tell her what I learned from the sidewalk.

A. nods, wide-eyed.

"I know. One of the girls on the basketball team is."

"The one with the mullet?"

I curl up on my thin mattress and stare up at the black and white Guess? ads that cover my wall. One-third.
************************************************************************************

Freshmen Spring at Same College, 1994

I have finally met him. My soul mate. His name is Patrick and his love is the end of my loneliness. It is the most uncomplicated relationship I have ever had with a man. Our hands fit together perfectly.

"I have to talk to you," he hands me a Basic Light 100.

"What's up?"

"Not now. Later. Tonight. We'll get some wine, sit on the roof."

We are standing in the middle of the Fine Arts Building parking lot. A group of tennis players bounce by on their way to practice. A muddle of black clad theatre kids lounge on a low wall smoking.

I speak. Too loudly. "Are you coming out?"

It echoes through the perfect storm of brick wall.

. . .coming out, coming out, coming out . . .

The record skips. The needle screeches. Everyone stares.

"You're lucky I love you. Why don't we just call my dad while you're making announcements?"

"Sorry."
*************************************************************************************
Since then, homophobia has faded into my distant mind. It's something people used to do, I think. Like communicating with carrier pigeons or listening to 8-track tapes. No one does homophobia anymore. Right?

At least for me, the transition was painless. It was, in fact, wondrous.

Somewhere between fear of the unknown and unabashed desire for a grander life, I learned to love. And the lesson came from a gay man.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. . .

2005-08-22T09:33:00.000-04:00

You will never run into me in the Self-Help aisle at Borders. My mother, on the other hand, will read every tome in the joint. And, with very little provocation, she will share with you her theories about why you are so screwed up and what titles you can read to help change your life today. Something like Get Out of Your Own Way or Stop Blaming Mommy.

This is a woman who, when I fell ill to normal childhood ailings like the common cold, would realign my chakras and perform Reiki on me before succumbing to the far more successful over-the-counter medicines like Robitussin.

"Mind over matter, sweetie. A positive attitude makes the strep throat go away."

Her persistent metaphysical beliefs did not necessarily mold me into a pious woman.
Although I believe in a Higher Being and pray and meditate and think about the afterlife, I am not a sancitified guru. I like cynicism and pessimism. I like to scoff. Sometimes, you will hear me mutter, "Bah."

Recently, however, I have read a book that someone might place on a Self-Help shelf. That same someone might call it a guide to changing your life. It could, in different hands, even be used to start some flaky commune cult.

Although I have read it and found it immensely inspirational, I am recommending it to Miss Hag. readers based solely on its entertaining merits. It's gut bustingly funny. If you learn something or gain something in the process, well, more power to you. I simply endorse it as a great read.

The book, by Danny Wallace, is a true account of a year in his life. It is called Yes Man. Danny begins his story with a moment of epiphany, a moment that changed his life. After going through a breakup and losing a girl he liked, Danny found himself staying home a lot. Turning down invitations for beers at the pub. His friends came to expect him to come up with any excuse not to hang out.

One evening, London's Tube breaks down and Danny finds himself riding a bus home. On the bus, he has a conversation with a bearded stranger who gives him some advice that he takes very seriously. He takes it literally even.

The stranger says, "Say yes more."

And so, Mr. Danny Wallace decides that for the next 6 months (until midnight of New Year's Eve), he will say "yes" to every invitation and request made to him. Anything that is asked in the form of a request, Danny will do it. Danny says, "Yes."

This one change brings him all over the world. He gets a promotion and wins a large amount of money. He buys a car he doesn't need and becomes a minister over the internet. He also purchases penis patches from his email spam and gatecrashes his ex-girlfriend's first date with another man.

Danny has hilarious and enlightening adventures because he says "yes" to everything the universe serves up.

I really wanted to try this for a short period before posting about the book. I wanted to try to say "yes" for a whole day. Just to share my funny and exciting adventures saying "yes" to every invitation put forth to me.

But, I couldn't do it. I'd say to myself, "Maybe tomorrow."

It's not that I don't believe that the way of "Yes" has much to offer. The basis of the idea is one that I firmly believe will change one's life: opening yourself up to the universe. However, it's not something I could just choose to do. It's sort of like losing weight or saving money. I know that if I do either (or both), my life will change for the better. But, still I put it off.

I read the book, but it didn't change my self at the last turn of page, although I certainly talk and think about it with everyone. No, I'm not a "Yes Woman." Not because I'm afraid to accept everything offered to me. I guess I'm just more of a "Yes, But Maybe Later Gal" for now.

You're Nobody Till Somebody . . .

2005-08-22T07:06:00.000-04:00

. . . memes you.

I awoke today to find that my favorite mean_girl used me as her "naughty little example" for a meme today. I feel so violated.

And to answer your question, mg, I am working at becoming a professional writer (aren't we all?). But, nobody seems to want to pay me just yet.

Excuses, excuses . . .

2005-08-19T19:23:00.000-04:00

I recently wrote about how there is a lot of this in my life:

This week was no exception. With visitors in town, this behavior seems to increase exponentially with the number of guests:

So, I spent a lot of time this week doing this:

And looking at the world like this:

and this:

But all I seem to remember is things looking like this:

And at the end, I had to do some of this:

Because hangovers seem to hit harder now that I am closer to this:

than this:

And, that's why I did very little of this:

So, all I ask is you do this:

And I'll try harder next week.

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

2005-08-17T12:21:00.000-04:00

My dearest, Betsey, is a single gal in New York. Thusly, she always has such fascinating tales to share about the men who pass through her social life. For instance, there was the guy who couldn't stand the sound of metal on plates and brought plastic utensils for her to eat with when they went to dinner. There was the gentlemen who thought that because Betsey bought a popsicle, she was secretly signaling to him that she wanted to have sex with him. And, who could forget the young man we referred to as The Undergrad?

Betsey had a conversation with The Undergrad one day in which she referred to the phenomenon from the early 80's called "New Coke."

While telling her story, Betsey noticed the young scholar looked a bit puzzled when she referred to the time when Coca-Cola reformulated the recipe of its signature soda in an attempt to broaden the beverage's repertoire.

Betsey said, "You do know what I'm talking about, right?"

Undergrad, "Of course." Pause. "I mean, I was too young to remember that happening, but we discussed New Coke in my Economics class once," he added.

In my mind's eye, I picture him saying this to Betsey with the endearingly wide eyes of an unsullied young man.

"God," Betsey replied, "How much do I feel like Mrs. Robinson right now?" She laughed.

Silence.

Undergrad, "Who's Mrs. Robinson?"

Naturally, Miss Betsey immediately brought the boy to her home to watch The Graduate.

Being out of the dating scene for so long, I appreciate her lively tales. Often, I feel the slightest pang of jealousy for her daily excitements. When I first moved to New York, years ago, I dated. And, I had a fair share of weird encounters with the opposite sex. But, five years into a relationship, my stories of yore are distant and old.

That's why, last Tuesday morning when I got home from work at 8 a.m. and took my boyfriend to breakfast, I felt excited to tell him the following story. I felt I finally had something odd and funny to add to my repertoire of freaky experiences with men. But, judging from his reaction, I guess I should have been more frightened than amused by this bizarre anecdote.

Last Monday night, at midnight, my shift started at little Flo-town. It wasn't a busy night, but the transition from Dinnertime to Late Night Time at the restaurant is always a bit unwieldy. It's like changing dance partners in the middle of the Lambada.

On this particular eve, I had a lot of little things to get done all at once and I was running from the back to the front of the restaurant: answering the phone, making change, running food, bussing a table. A middle-aged man with an awkard mini-fro and a scruffy beard sat at the counter with a piece of paper in his hand.

Same counter, different guy.

He looked familiar. If he is who I think he is, he is a homeless man that used to come into the restaurant about a year ago. In Manhattan, there is an group that prints a newspaper filled with stories and poems by and about New York's homeless. In an effort to help the city's displaced population have a chance to earn some money; they give stacks of this paper to them to sell on subways and street corners in return for any amount of donation.

The man I am remembering used to come to the restaurant and I would buy a paper from him and give him a cup of water. He was always polite and unthreatening, so it didn't bother me to do this for him. I think this is the same man that came in to chat with me last Monday night.

I didn't have time to stop and talk to him for long because I had several small tasks to accomplish. However, finally, he stopped me and asked for just a moment of my time.

He showed me the papers that he was holding and explained to me that he was just released from a local correctional facility a week ago. He showed me a small white plastic identification card and said, "This is my parole identification card. I got parole for life."

"Wow," I replied unsurely. "That's...ummmm...nice?"

"See, look here," he pointed excitedly at the information on the top of the paper, "I spent one year in jail for burglary. Now, see, I didn't steal nothin' from your house or anybody's house that you know. Do you know, I got arrested for stealing something from my own house?"

I looked blankly at him unsure of how to properly respond to this.

"Well. Yeah. That's a. . .a bum deal."

He nodded solemnly. "But look, that's not what I came here to tell you. I came here to tell you that I always remembered that you were so nice to me."

"Oh, well, yeah, you're welcome."

"Yeah, and I been thinkin' 'bout you every day for the past year I been in jail."

At this time, the restaurant security guard entered the restaurant. We call him Six Six because he is a little over 6 feet 6 inches tall with forearms as big as my calves. I smiled at him and looked over at my recently jailbird friend with eyes that I hoped conveyed that this dude was a wee bit wacky.

Naturally, my parolee friend mumbled a good-bye as my building-size doorman saddled up to the bar next to him.

"I seen that dude around here before," he told me as I relayed what just happened.

Hmmmmm.

Don't fret Miss Hag. readers. I'm sure he's harmless. I prefer to think of it my very own fun story to share with my embattled single gal pals. Or, you know, here's hoping!