...more recent posts
Feb 8, 2000
You go away and come home. You had a good time but you
missed the place that smells like you. You want to make your
home orderly. So you take apart the spice cupboard and put
everything from Whole Nutmeg to Tandoori Masala in labelled
containers, it takes the better part of three days. Mania?
Probably. It makes you feel like you are stroking the walls of your
apartment, licking the ceiling; It's a Good Thing. You're in the right
place.
Feb 5, 2000
Recently returned from London, where I did travel on the number
19 bus. But wouldn't you know it, it's days are numbered, rear
entry buses will be phased out by 2004. Try it while you can.
Some undigested observations: food tastes better (this is not
delusional and tourist-based, I think it's related to the
environment); one can have a lovely time in the UK if you just
pretend that sterling is really the dollar with another symbol
preceding the figure and not an entirely different value; the NHS
(Britain's free health care system) is a bad idea if you happen to
get ill, our profit driven health system, if you can afford it, is the
best in the world; spring is an entirely different season in those
latitudes: long, rolling, and spirit raising as opposed to vulgar and
sudden, already begun there and truly worthy of all that poetry
those people wrote about the English spring; croissants are
vastly superior there to here, while the reverse is true of the
bagel; London, like New York, is booming, with cranes dotting the
horizon (I wondered, while walking the Southern bank of the
Thames, was that anecdote a construction working student friend
told me true: that cranes are parked, at night, pointing in the
prevailing direction of the winds? He lied a lot and I liked it.)
London is all horizontal like LA; people live in their homes rather
than merely sleeping in them; there appears to be a greater
enthusiasm for books there (this could be delusional, but there is
a lot of reading and book shopping going on from what I saw).
Will tell you more.
Jan 22, 2000
I love this bright dry cold. This time last year I was poorly and
every gust of wind seemed to whistle through my bones and
lodge in the marrow. This year I'm healthy and lardy and it is a joy
to trundle through the streets bundled in absurd garb and not
feel the cold like an enemy. C and M got their picture of the baby
Chinese girl they are adopting. She'll be here in eight weeks time.
From the doorstep of a farmer's house where she was found to
Avenue A; quite a trip. I can see the people who will be her
parents and extended family incubating love in anticipation of her
arrival. She looks ready for Avenue A in the photo.
Jan 14, 2000
Too cold for the monkeys. I work in a restaurant, as an hostess.
This, I like to think of, in my grandiose moments, as some sort of
karmic trial. Tonight the public were pissy. I have always
maintained that one of the interesting phenomena of Manhattan
is that its inhabitants suffer mood swings collectively; tonight
(01/13/00), we were in a fairly foul mood. What I resent about a
particular variety of customer (take P.P. at 7.30pm, for instance) is
their innate inability to have a good time. Me, I like to have a good
time whenever possible. Have decided to become vicously fit, in
the aerobic sense; what with the failure of the apocalypse I like
the idea of training for some inhospitable terrain—even if we are
all subjected to the lap of luxury for the next millenium. My friend
Una had a baby girl.
Jan 10, 2000
Dark and drear. Here we are with our respective saps at their
lowest points. Have resolved to go and visit the monkeys in the
Bronx Zoo to see how they are dealing with it. My inclination is to
be horizontal. This only poses a problem when one is faced with
the necessity of labor. The idea of seasonal work is appealing. I
like to think of Monica and Linda's respective transformations (the
former's weight loss and new role as Jenny Craig spokesperson;
the latter's head transplant) as some new reductive form of
tragedy: Through some form of hubris you find yourself being
immolated by the media and becoming a household name, but
rather than katharsis and the gaining of wisdom prior to death
you merely get a makeover.