A Day in the Life

09:38 am

It's not all Friends-Only, but all of the juicy stuff is.

And admit it–you're only here for the juicy stuff.

Incidentally, I think juicy is one of the grossest words ever.

01:45 pm

So I know I made that disclaimer about not being offended if you don't read my new journal, but there are some of you who are clearly just not adding me out of spite.

Seriously, I'm never posting here again. And you're going to miss me and all of my Friends-Only entries sooner or later.

But mostly sooner.

evelynnash, fools.

07:50 pm

Okay. I've made a post on evelynnash. I think I'm going to start using it. For real.

Please add me if you like me. If you don't like me–if you find yourself filtering me out of your entries or skimming my journal 'cause I'm so mundane–feel free to pretend like you never saw this. I'd rather have a small Friends list full of people I love than a bloated one full of people I have no relationship with. I won't be offended.

And . . . GO.

11:04 am - The title of my mixtape, in case you're interested, is "You Wanna See My Peccadillos?" HOTT!

I'm right in the middle of hardcore making a mixtape of the best Bush songs for one of my friends who completely missed the 90s, and I can't believe I'd forgotten how much I love them. I mean, when people ask me about my favourite bands growing up, Bush is usually right behind silverchair on my list, but I always kind of laugh about how crazy-obsessed my best friend trrrracey and I were with them back then. Listening to their stuff again now, though, I've realised that no, they're actually the AWESOMEST FUCKING BAND ON EARTH, and I don't need to laugh.

Go ahead. Listen to "Testosterone" and try to tell me that these aren't the greatest lyrics ever:


I'm a man
I'm real proud of my manhood
I like to smoke
Ten thousand cigarillos

Eight ball
I could climb any fountains
I never cry
I only bawl when I'm losing

And I've never been wrong
Never been wrong
Never been wrong

And I'm looking so good
Looking so good
Looking so good

Got a big gold gun
Got a big gold gun
Got a big gold bullet

And I guess you could say
And I guess you could say
I'm real full of it
I'm real full of it
I'm real full of it

I'm real straight
You wanna see my peccadillos?
Hot dog 7:30 every morning

And I'm big into war
Big into war
Big into war

I am a whore
I am a whore
I am a whore

Got a big gold gun
Got a big gold gun
Got a big gold bullet

And I guess you could say
And I guess you could say
I'm real full of it
I'm real full of it
You're real full of it
We're real full of it

And I shave with Gillette
Shave with Gillette
Shave with Gillette

And I'm patting my back
Patting my back
Patting my back


Come on! There's a line about hot dogs, for God's sake.

11:44 am - Spread the News Far and Wide, Hummer-Haters and Meredith-Lovers

My friend Meredith left me alone in her apartment last week while she went home to Idaho and totally failed to bring me back a tie-dyed t-shirt covered in wolves howling at a full moon. Still, living in her apartment has taught me how to kill cockroaches with miscellaneous household items such as boxes of oatmeal and toilet seats, so I can't complain.

Her fifteen minutes of fame just began recently–I'm talking NPR interviews and New Yorker articles–and it's my intent to see that her brush with immense popularity is as rich and full an experience as possible. Hence:

01:25 pm

No one in New York City has an air conditioner. And they don't even realise how weird that is, despite the fact that the weather here is about ten thousand times worse than it is in Ohio. (Although to be fair, the heat in Ohio affects us more because we all weigh 9,000 pounds.)

When I call New Yorkers on it, they say, "I guess when you grow up without one, you just consider it an unnecessary luxury." And that's probably why everyone in New York City smells like body odor.

Which, by the way, is the title of my second book.

05:38 pm

Today was the day that had to happen to make me feel like I made the right decision about staying. I woke up at 10:30 and took a shower in a bathtub that I like a hundred times more than the one I just left in Chelsea, mostly because it looks like Meredith actually cleans hers. It also doesn't hurt that there's a window in the far wall of the shower, and I'm sort of an exhibitionist.

I e-mailed my friend Chax last night and asked if he could help me locate a new loofah in my new neighbourhood, since I threw mine out yesterday when I moved out of my apartment. In typical male fashion, he barely knows what a loofah is, so I decided just to go back to Chelsea and its strip of corporate familiarity.

When I left Meredith's apartment, I stopped at a little convenience store to buy some juice for my subway ride, and the cashier greeted me like he actually meant it. He put my bottle in a little brown bag, which no one has ever done in Manhattan. Then, when I took the juice out of the bag just outside the store, I saw that he'd stuck a straw and napkin inside for me. Cute!

When I finished my loofah-purchasing extravaganza at Bed, Bath & Beyond, I headed up to the bank to get more cash for my now-classic lesbian haircut, and on the stairs of a church-turned-nightclub, I spotted a girl who looked just like my little sister before my little sister started tanning and working out every day. When I got closer, I saw that she had her luggage beside her with a marker board on top that said, "Please help me get back to Columbus, Ohio," and had her driver's license taped next to it. I stopped and said, "Hey! I'm from Columbus, Ohio." I asked her how she got here, and she said that she came out to see her mom but that her mom doesn't want to see her and none of the women's shelters provides traveler's aid. As we talked, I became more and more aware of how stereotypically Ohio she was, from her fat blonde ponytail to her round face to her cutoff denim shorts to her gravelly white trash voice. I gave her all the cash I had and wished her good luck in getting home. Mostly because I don't want her here Ohioing up my city.

Kidding?

I also noticed that before I walked up to her, no one was paying her any attention. But as soon as I stopped to talk, three people gave her cash. So my plan, if I ever become homeless, is to pay really adorable girls with lesbian haircuts to hang around and attract people to me. Which is completely reasonable.

I walked across 23rd Street toward my old apartment and saw a blind guy headed straight for one of those giant blue post office boxes. He had his cane too far too his right for it to let him know that the box was in front of him, and I thought, Say something! Tell him to be careful! But my mouth is too far from my brain, and he smacked into it before I could say anything. The look of shock and sadness on his face broke my heart, and I wanted to say to him, "I'm sorry! I tried!" As he passed me, he muttered, "That's what I get for not paying attention."

After my haircut, I packed my peanut butter, bread pan, and pepper-plant-that's-too-young-to-have-any-peppers-growing-on-it in one of our wastebaskets and left my old apartment for the last time. On my way to the subway, I passed a little folding table with glasses and a pitcher on top. Two little blonde kids asked me in unison, "Would you like some lemonade?" It made me want to have, like, ten thousand babies.

And finally, as I stepped onto the subway platform, I passed a man with a French accent who asked, "Cannabis?" It took me a second to realise that he was talking about my trashcan plant, so I turned around and said, "Close. Ornamental peppers." He was disappointed but sweet, and I thought about how cool I'd be if I hauled my potted weed around with me everywhere I went.

Sigh of contentedness.

11:10 pm

The Boyfriend dropped me off at our friend Meredith's apartment this afternoon after a morning of cleaning and packing and sweating and stuffing an entire apartment's worth of accumulation into a rented gold minivan. He just wanted me to get rid of my plants, but I explained that growing things is like being in a relationship: you put in a little work, and it seems foolish not to fight for it.

Speaking of which, Todd sort of broke up with me last night, but he told me not to create my OkCupid profile or make out with any of my back-ups or anything until we have a chance to talk about it. So what I'm saying is–don't go breaking up with your girlfriends for me just yet.

I cried when we pulled away from our apartment and cried again when he said goodbye to me at Meredith's before driving back to Ohio to live in complete bliss without me while hanging out in all of the places we used to and eating all of our favourite foods.

I went on a two-hour walk around Prospect Heights, my neighbourhood for the next thirteen days, and was weirded out that I'm no longer surrounded only by gay white men. I had an hour-long phone conversation about boys with trrrracey on a bench in Prospect Park. I went to an Associated Supermarket with a sign that said something like SSO I T D, and the cashier was very proud of himself for looking at the name on my credit card and calling me Kathleen.

I went back to Meredith's apartment and made macaroni and cheese and watched, like, five hours of "The Hills". I'm really not good at being alone.

But I'm pretty pumped about the fact that I cooked something for the first time in a year.

06:27 pm

I finally gave up on my Maybe-Future-Roommate™ on Tuesday and got myself a sublet. Even before I saw it, I knew that I'd love it, because: a) it's in Park Slope, which is expensive and hip and filled with trees, b) it's with a writing major, and c) the writing major has a dog.

I packed my life up this morning and paid some smelly guys to move it all to Brooklyn, where I'll be living for at least the next two months until my Maybe-Future-Roommate™ and I find a place. The girl whose lease I'm taking over doesn't move out until the 11th, so my friend Meredith has graciously allowed me to have nightly sleepovers with her until then.

Everything works out in the end, right?



I'm still going to sob like an idiot, though, when The Boyfriend drives off to Ohio in his rented gold minivan tomorrow morning.

11:54 am

I have exactly five days until I have to be out of my apartment, and I still don't have a place to live. I'm the type of person who's always looking for signs–not to tell me what to do but to tell me that I'm making the right decision. I don't actually believe in signs or fate or any of that jazz, but I always want those little affirmations to assure myself that everything will work out. And it always does.

But for the first time, the signs aren't giving me the answers I want. My Maybe-Future-Roommate™ and I have contacted probably 20 brokers in the last few weeks and viewed as many apartments with absolutely no luck. We found THE place on Friday night in THE area we want to live in. It was in an old building that was being renovated, so it was a mix of brand new appliances and hardwood floors and hundred-year-old sliding doors. It had a backyard and was on the first floor. It had two bedrooms with a bathroom in each room, which is, like, unthinkable here. And to top it off, it had a wall made of those clear blocks that look like ice cubes–which I always imagined for myself when I moved to New York–and a bay window in the front–which I promised my roommate we'd have when we started talking about living together. It was out of our price range, but as soon as we saw it, we just smiled at each other and told the broker we'd take it. But in the middle of our signing the papers, the owner called our broker to tell her that he'd taken a deposit on the place himself just two hours earlier.

The very next day at an open house, we saw an apartment that was the entire floor of a building. Again, it was in the perfect spot in Brooklyn, and my bedroom there would have been bigger than my entire apartment is now. It had a backyard and roof access and those same sliding wooden doors leftover from a time when apartments were much less practical and much more beautiful. We asked the owner a bunch of obligatory questions, but it was clear to us that we were going to take it. At the end of the open house, he handed us his business card and said, "Just give me a call if you decide anything," and then began walking down the hall to the other group that was viewing it with us. I looked at my Maybe-Future-Roommate™ and he looked at me, and I began to follow the owner to say, "I think we're ready to sign right now." But as soon as he handed his card to the other group and said, "Just give me a call if you decide anything," they said, "I think we're ready to sign right now." And they did. And I think I cried a little.

Yesterday morning, we were on our way to meet with a broker about our dream apartment. It was different from THE Place in THE Area We Want to Live In™, because it was actually feasible for us to live in that one, while the Dream Apartment™ was this 1400-square-foot loft in a converted feather factory by the water for $2800 per month. It was just a big open room–no walls separating bedrooms. Which makes it pretty hard for people to share. But my Maybe-Future-Roommate™ was convinced that it was our apartment, that we could put up curtains or build our own walls, so after weeks of watching its listing, I finally made an appointment to see it. But ten blocks from the broker's office, she called to tell me that someone put in an offer for it the day before and that she wasn't allowed to show it to me.

It just feels like everything's working against us, you know?

Luckily, there are three things that are making my ignoring the signs possible. The first is that weeks ago, my friend Dominique offered to let me stay with her if I can't find a place for August. She lives in a studio in Jersey City, so it wouldn't be an ideal situation by any means, but her generosity kills me dead. The second is that my friend Meredith is going out of town next week and offered to let me room-sit for her under the pretense that she needs someone to check her mail. And the third is that my friend Mark offered to let me stow some of my furniture in his apartment in Park Slope since Dominique and Meredith won't have room for it.

So if I don't find a place in the next five days, at least I won't have to live on the streets amongst the rubble of my former life. This still sucks, though.

09:29 am

My co-worker Keri was explaining the finer points of Brooklyn to me as we hid between two tall bookshelves in the kids department of the store on Saturday morning when this 30-something guy in a black t-shirt and stylishly unkempt hair wandered past us, obviously lost. I said hey to him in a way that was supposed to let him know, "I'm friendly, but I've got my eye on you, Potential Child Molester." He said, "Hey!" and kept walking, but he made his way back to us a minute later and said, "I'm an author, and I'd like to sign a couple copies of my book." I said, "Oh, yeah? What's your name?", and he said, "Frank Portman." And that's when Saturday became the best day of my bookstore career.

Better than the day I met Carson from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy". Better than when I watched Colin Farrell discover that the bathroom was locked for cleaning. Better than when I helped one of the Olsen twins. Better, even, than when Michael Stipe looked at me over a table of photography books.

"I am so glad to meet you," I said, and led him over to the teen new release table where we had a stack of his book. It just so happened that I read King Dork a couple of weeks ago after grown men and women kept coming in and being surprised that this book that the Times gave such a great review wasn't written for adults at all. It turned out to be this totally clever, totally well-written story about a geek high school kid who sits around thinking up names for his nonexistent band and fixating on touching boobs. Just like me.

As I grabbed the stack for him, I said, "I want you to rewrite this book and leave out the plot." He asked, "You didn't like my plot?", and I said, "No, I loved the plot, but it totally didn't need one. Your characters were so great that they didn't need to be doing anything for me to like them." He said that there was actually a lot of talk about that at his publishing house. He also told me that I'm the first bookstore employee he's talked to who's actually read the book, which was of course completely awesome for me.

I told him, "I'm just so happy that you wrote a teen book that's smart enough for adults," and he said that his publisher wanted him to dumb it down, but he couldn't do it. I told him that I'm constantly making up band names despite the fact that I can't play a single chord, and he said, "I think that's the shared American youth experience."

I wanted to mention his band, The Mr. T Experience, but the truth is that I just don't listen to punk music, so I didn't bother trying to fake it. At the end of our conversation, he shook my hand and said, "Thanks for talking about this with me, Katie." He looked down at the nametag hanging from a lanyard on my neck and asked, "Katie, right?" I turned my nametag to the other side where I'd pasted the word docile cut out from the word-a-day calendar on our information desk, and he said, "You look like a Docile."

And that is why I live in New York.

12:45 am

Now that the funeral bizness is over and done with, I've had a day to enjoy Ohio with my Best Friend 4-Eva, trrrracey. We walked through the arts district in Columbus all afternoon, from the Arena District with all of its yuppie bars up to 5th Avenue in the Short North arts district, where we bought dresses at one of the overpriced vintage stores and heavily considered buying polka-dot shoes with ruffles on them at Legs Diamond, the most ridiculous name for a shoe store ever. We ate: the best gyros ever at Zeta's (along with very un-Greek cheddar fries), frozen hot chocolate at Dairy Queen, boneless buffalo wings at Applebee's, and black raspberry chip ice cream from Graeter's. Then we went to our friend samandsam04's new apartment to take pictures of ourselves on her balcony and watch Waiting . . ., because that's pretty much all there is to do in Ohio.

Now we want some boys to meaninglessly make out with. I'm serious about this. I'm going to be here for three more days without The Boyfriend, and Tracey and I both have really nice boobs.

You know how to reach me.

11:12 am - In the immortal words of Keane, is it any wonder I'm tired?

Every time this happens, I swear I'm going to do a better job of getting to know my family. When my mom's mom died of brain cancer, I said, "I'm going to make my mom tell me all of the stories she can about my grandmother." And then my mom died of brain cancer, too. Then I said I'd ask my mom's dad to tell me all of the stories he could about both of them. And then he died of the same thing. My mom's sister is the only one left to tell the stories, and I'm still not asking her. Which I know I'll regret later.

My dad's dad found out he had extremely late-stage brain cancer a couple of months ago, and my whole family went to Mexico to be with him for three weeks while he received a type of radiation that's only available in forward-thinking countries. Which rules the U.S. out, of course. Our treatments here yield something like 5% success, while this other treatment is more like 50% effective. But it didn't work for my grandfather, and he died in his sleep on Saturday night before I got a chance to see him. All I can think, of course, is, "That wouldn't have happened if I lived in Ohio."

And with that, I'm going home until Sunday night.

11:57 am

comix08 has finished grad school and doesn't need a job thanks to his uber-rich parents and their total contentedness in supporting him while he lollygags about, deciding what to do with his life. Therefore, he doesn't leave our apartment until I come home from work and force him to.

But yesterday, he got a little hungry, and I wasn't there to drop worms in his mouth like the bad mama bird I am, so he had to venture across the street to the drug store, where chaos ensued.

I don't want to spoil the brilliance of the story, but I can tell you that the phrase "fuck you, you fucking whore" was employed.

01:14 pm

You guys.

I have to have this apartment.

. . . and the moment you’ve all been waiting for:



Like, I can’t imagine a world where I don’t live in this apartment. It's a studio! With tracklights! And skylights!

Can you believe the number of sleeping bags I could fit on that floor? And the number of boys who’d make out with me once they saw my place? If this isn’t reason to move back to Columbus, I don’t know what is.

Now, do any of you have any tips on talking down a real estate agent something like $300 a month?

10:03 am

Last night, comix08 and I went to see one of my professors from THE Ohio State University, Michelle Herman, give a reading at the Barnes & Noble down in Greenwich Village. And I cried in front of her. I don't know why.

She did a reading from her most recent book–Dog, which has just come out in paperback–with Peter Rock, who's maybe my new favourite short storyist. He read a story about a guy whose job it is to remove the mold blooms from old library books, and it was funny and sad, and I loved the way he described the purple mold eating the fibres of the pages until entire words would disapear, though the ending was sort of abrupt and therefore sucky. I read Michelle's book a year ago when it came out in hardcover and loved it, though when she started reading last night, I couldn't remember why. But then I realised that her character is so subtly well-developed that it crushes my will to write.

I waited until most of the crowd had left to talk to her, because she's originally from NYC and is always talking about how she misses it so much it hurts. I wanted to sit down with her for hours, to ask, "What's wrong with me that I want to leave here?" I wanted her to tell me that I just need to let The Boyfriend leave and to try to make it on my own, that I'll grow attached to it if I force myself, that it'll only take a few more months before I start feeling like this is home.

But I approached her, and she hugged me and said, "You look great. New York must really suit you." I thought for a second and said, "Some days." And then I started crying. A man nearby stepped in and started talking to us about the cost of living in the city, and Michelle told him about how she never made more than $10,000 a year when she was living in The Village in the 80s. And how she used to go to the same bar on Christopher Street every night because they had a bowl of chili for $1. And it sounded so romantic, but I just don't think it's for me.

I tell myself that Michelle feels differently about the city because she was born here. This is home for her, just like Ohio's home for me. It's not that she misses NYC specifically, just the feeling of familiarity. I was just unfortunate to be born in a city that most people make fun of, while she was born in a city that most people want to move to.

But I still think it means something that I cried when I saw her. Was it just that she reminds me of home? Or is it that I feel like I'm a disappointment because I don't want to give this place more of a chance?

11:07 am

I don't know if I've ever told you this, but saraide is sort of my secret girlfriend.

Not only is she all about the Mo Willems, but she's currently documenting the building of a Foldin' Art Pony. And she made her first-ever animated GIF a tribute to that new Honda Element commercial. And I knew her in real life back in Ohio. And she's my extremely lucrative clothing label venture partner. And she's about as cute as they come.

What I'm saying is–add her.

12:00 pm - Note That My Feelings About This Situation Will Flip Entirely in Exactly 27 Minutes

A year and a half ago, when my Best Friend 4 Eva™, trrrracey, realized that her first year of teaching junior high was actually sucking pretty hardcore, she started talking to other teachers about how she was feeling. They tried to console her by saying things like, "It'll take you about five years to get used to it, but after that, you'll be fine." And she kept thinking, "Why would I spend five years just trying to get used to something when I could be doing something I like right now?" And so she quit.

I’ve decided that’s how I feel about New York. Don’t get me wrong–I’m happy here. Some days, I’m happier here than I ever was back in Ohio. But for the most part, it seems like most of the people I’ve met here moved to NYC because they wanted to escape their old lives. They didn’t know anyone who thought like they did or all of their friends had grown up and gotten married or they’re introverts who want to be nameless and blend in. And that’s not me.

This year hasn’t been wasted for me at all. I got to experience a million things I wouldn’t have in Ohio, and some days I felt so alive that I thought I might burst. But it drives me crazy the things I've missed at home. Now that Tracey’s only working part-time, she has free time like she hasn’t had since we were in high school. And since she’s doing things that she loves, she’s a completely different person. She’s not dating her boyfriend-who-didn’t-like-me, so she’s going out and talking to boys, and I’m missing it. My friend-since-we-were-born Katie just got married to a boy I set her up with, and I missed her bridal shower and bachelorette party because I had to save my money to make it home for the wedding itself. My grandfather found out he has cancer last month and despite getting treatment in Mexico will probably die before I'm able to see him.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the number of people I've gotten to know here and will miss if I leave. On Friday, when I was 1000% percent sure I was moving back home, two of my co-workers came into the kitchen where I was making a warm beverage with the ridiculously awesome tea/coffee/hot chocolate machine and started talking to me about all of the reasons it’d suck to be blind when using the subway. I said, "Hey, guys, let’s agree not to become blind, okay?", and one of the girls said faux-enthusiastically, "That’s a great idea!" And I loved her. And I thought, "If I leave, I’ll never have the chance to get to know this girl." But it's very obvious to me that I'll never replace Tracey.

And as much as I like my new job, its not the library, and I don't want to be a receptionist for the rest of my life. I know that eventually, all of my friends from home are going to be all settled in with real jobs and spouses and babies, and then they’ll be dead to me. That's when I'll make my escape to NYC. That’s when I’ll be ready to make new friends and sit in jazz clubs alone and spend two bazillion dollars on a one-room apartment.

People keep trying to console me by saying things like, "It'll take you about five years to get used to it, but after that, you'll be fine." But I’m not sure that I’m willing to spend five years trying to build a life for myself here when I’ve already got a great one back home.

10:22 am

A simple poll, so I can worry about reading your journals:


Poll #731335 It's Time for My Once-Yearly Feeling of Unsatisfactoryness with My Username
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18

What is the best possible new username/pen name for me?

If you chose "something else entirely" and knew that I wasn't actually suggesting that my name literally be Something Else Entirely, what would you have me be?

01:42 pm

This morning, I was cunningly attempting to prove to moths that he looks exactly like the lead vocalist for The Fray. Damion asserts that he and this Isaac Slade fellow are not twins separated at birth, but I think you’ll agree that he’s clearly just in denial about his receding hairline:

Damion.


Dude from The Fray in the lower-right-hand corner, obviously.

The Verdict:

Poll #730788 Which one is Arnold Schwarzenegger and which one is Danny DeVito?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

Damion and the dude from The Fray:

View Answers

Merely twins
4 (36.4%)

THE EXACT SAME PERSON
1 (9.1%)

Faggots
6 (54.5%)

Anyway, the point of this entry is that while cunningly attempting to prove to Damion that he looks exactly like the lead vocalist for The Fray, I plugged the band’s name into the Google image search and got some guy named David Fray as a result. And I’m pretty sure now that he’s my future husband.


Sure, he sort of looks like he’s in a cheesy dandruff shampoo ad here, but . . .


. . . umm, I don’t care.


I also found this, which I will probably not marry but is no less neat: