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05.31.03 everybody's out tonight. seems appropriate, since they weren't last night. suddenly there are cute boys at every turn. is it summer time already? # 05.30.03 so, like, where's the place to be on a friday night in san francisco? i should know this kind of thing. # 05.28.03 tonight is, by far, one of the top two most beautiful nights i've seen in san francisco. wish i was out there enjoying it. # 05.27.03 i was going to post about this but it looks like someone beat me to it. regardless, admirable though the show may be, the many "hooks" remind us that, yes, nbc did buy bravo not so terribly long ago. # 05.26.03 according to a fansite posting, the field day mega-festival featuring radiohead in long island next month is currently in danger of cancelation, thanks to some poor political management on the part of the host city. # 05.24.03 oddly, over the last week or two, i've had a surprisingly flagging desire to eat. i'm just not hungry. i mean, not all the time, but more than usual. i've been eating later and eating less. i don't quite know what it is, but i'm beginning to suspect this has something to do with all those amphetamines i've been sugaring my coffee with. who knew? # confront and distort. a quick list of insightful, overlooked fashion tips for men. # did i mention that i got to meet mark last week? yeah, he's cool. i'm gonna marry him, have his babies and stuff. serious. # 05.21.03 i saw a homeless man this morning, at union square, lying on the grass, surrounded by his belongings, dirty backpack stuffed with clothes, plastic bag straining at its seams. he's lying there, legs stretched out, hands behind his head, eyes closed. and he has headphones on. and he' smiling. and i thought for just a moment about all of those incidental things that we have, those non-essential possessions and experiences that we live every day with, that tell us that we're alive, that we're more than just here, that we can think and feel and enjoy. i thought, for just a moment, how powerful a thing like music must be, to make this man with nothing seem so very, very happy. and i think we should all be a little happier. i think i should be a little happier. # 05.19.03 new mp3! it's a leaked radiohead track, a b-side from the there there single and it's called paperbag writer. i like it more than many parts of the album, the same way i felt about the amnesiac b-side cuttooth. it's got a great meandering fuzz bass line and some interesting mellow rhythm. [download] # brought to you by a hardworking team of lovely direct mail people: technology gone awry. because i often wish i could leave that meat on the grill and go play with the kids with the comfort and ease that only comes from knowing that i am aware of the exact temperature of my meat, any time, anywhere. # i forgot that it's possible to get a sunburn here. # living with a mac, i've learned to let my virus guard down a bit. we almost never have to worry about opening unsafe attachments and that kind of prol monotony. but at work it's a different story. so imagine my shock when i saw an email from microsoft support. double-good because microsoft is a client. not being a PC user, i'm not really used to this kind of thing. it's a bit like that feeling you get when you barely miss an accident. # 05.17.03 first of all, does anyone really use those little entry-calendars that live in the sidebar? i mean, they sure look cute, but do you find them to be of any use to you as a reader? next, i want to know what you think about blogrolls. i have, since the beginning, used a separate page to manage my links. i always thought it was more aesthetically pleasing. but there are problems with that set up. less people click through and follow links. blog-mining sites like blogdex and technorati don't know who i link to regularly. i can't use applications like blogrolling but neither am i a fan of the mega-huge links list running down the side of the page. for a lot of reasons. i need to structure my links into some kind of non-alphabetical hierarchy. i have my own thoughts on these matters, but i want to get some input from some of you before i make any hard and fast decisions. # 05.14.03 i've got a golden ticket! new york in june — who knew? maybe i'll see you there. # happy birthday boy! hope it's the best new jersey birthday ever. # 05.13.03 from boing boing, a search for public libraries' with amazon wishlists. what a great idea. # 05.12.03 i ignored it, i mocked it, i hid behind my ignorance; but for the last two hours, i've been obsessing over friendster. and it's not without good reason. the astute reader will recall that i have a bit of a fetish for online profile websites, and this one is a notch above. because in the case of friendster, i actually know someone who knows these people. at least that's the idea. at some point in my people-surfing adventures, i began to feel that i'd swam too far from the shore, venturing four, five degrees into this tiny sea of people who know people. so it's not a completely accessible social network. still, it's a pretty interesting one. longevity, of course, remains to be seen, but if you're on and want to connect, let me know. # what i like most, i think, about reading a used book is that moment when i reach up to dog-ear the page and find it already creased. i like knowning that someone has been here before me. # 05.09.03 the car horn is what made me look up. from my seat aboard the crowded bus, stuck in traffic, i watched as the cabbie pulled over, blocking traffic, and climbed out of the drivers side. he sneered, flipping off the blaring horn behind him as he walked around the back of the parked cab, climbing up onto the curb and opening the door for his passenger. taking the woman by the elbow, he leads her through the bustling, crowded five o'clock sidewalk, weaving in and out of the throngs of people, stopping as he comes to the subway entrance. i watch, six, now eight cars trapped behind his stopped yellowcab, as his charge turns, exchanging words of thanks. she starts off down the stairs, a white cane peeking out ahead of her as the cabbie runs back to his waiting car. # i stop, standing still, my eyes closed, breath deep. the smell of grass, cut. green as if it were dyed, green like it might bleed. it's a smell like childhood, familiar but distant. i stand, for just a moment, as if i were somewhere else. the rush of traffic and the thick stink of exhaust pull me back to reality, to the street where i'm still standing. # 05.08.03 i'll be on the road this weekend (anyone gonna be in fresno?) so posts will be light-or-none for a few days. as if you're not used to that by now. send your mother flowers! # a new mp3! this one is a track from autour de lucie and it's called immobile and it's off a french-pop mix i got from someone at work. lovely. (track name correction brought to you by the number 5) # work late = drink late = eat late = sleep early. # 05.06.03 the house i grew up in sat on a busy road, next to a busy intersection. never mind that these were old, poorly paved country roads, surrounded by vineyard and empty lots full of barren, turned soil. across the street was the nearest hub of commerce, the market/laundromat/bar, run by mr. pardini, the friendly italian immigrant butcher. mr. pardini would give my sister and i little treats, candies and cookies his wife had baked when we went over to pick up a gallon of milk or an ice-cream bar. when mrs. pardini fell ill, he sold the whole thing to a very sweet yemeni family and moved her back to italy. growing up like this, on the side of a busy country road, across the street from a busy country bar, added a particular color to my childhood. my earliest incidents of insomnia stem from the ruckus caused by the all-night parties that would carry on in the parking lot, long after the bar had closed, mariachi music blaring, bottles crashing together. my mother forbade us from going near this makeshift after-hours club, ("there's broken glass over there, stay out!" she'd yell at us) but that never stopped my friends and i from wasting our youthful enthusiasm. we'd run around, admiring the way the stooped over tree had been converted into a living bench, the logs and rocks scavenged, pulled together to form a campfire-round, weathered shards of green glass scattered about, tiny worn treasures for us to discover. we would scamper home, dusty and happy, wondering what exactly clamato juice was or why these revelers didn't just go to their houses to drink. but living on a busy country road, across from a busy country store and a busy country bar, wasn't all fun and games. on weekends, my sister and i would be made to go outside and pick up trash along the fence. ("don't touch anything sharp!" my mother would yell at us.) giant black trashbags in hand, we would dutifully pick up litter of all kinds. candybar wrappers, fastfood bags, empty beer cans, giant prickly tumbleweeds — anything that might present an unsightly disruption to the clean fence line was our charge to remove. i hated picking up that line of fence. these were the days of the crying indian when litter was at it's highest mid-80s peak and public awareness was little more than a shimmering mirage on the dusty road ahead of us. picking up that trash was a terrible, dirty job and i hated every sweaty moment of it. which is why i'm screaming mad to find yet another damned spam comment on this website. really. fuckers. # holy shit! # it's just too strange to believe. and too good to quote from. i couldn't find one quote to pull, mostly because they were all so histerical. ladies and gents, the MSN iLoo. update: nope, it's a joke. # 05.05.03 joy falls, folds over everything, cast out into supple orange twilight, the breeze gentle, cool, salty, wrapping over, around sun-warmed buildings, concrete, metal, glass, everywhere people moving about these streets, gray interstices, as waves of skin, floating voices, each delicate, dancing amid the thickening daylight, streets sun-soaked as we glide through the twining hours of this day. # 05.04.03 i do believe that, someday, i will have forearms that are larger than the elbow to which they are attached. only then will i be able to push up the sleeves of my shirt and trust that they will stay. # i was talking to kevin last night and he happened to mention the relative thinness of those few posts to emerge over the last week. it's true. i've been less than enthusiastic. last week, and the week before it really, just plain sucked. but they will, i hope, serve as vivid examples for myself in my continued pursuit of a more zen-like approach to many of my daily stresses. i really need to learn to calm the fuck down about things. and to that end, i'm happy to report a number of life-accomplishments that have been recently achieved. a new game, a good movie, the end of one (excellent) book and the start of a new one — all this and a shiny new battery for my laptop mean i'm feeling rested, refreshed, and recharged. so happy weekend to you all. # 05.02.03 and even worse. # oh wow. but where are the little boy-dolls? # what? how stupid. # « April 2003 | archive index | June 2003 » built with movabletype |
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