well i partied like a fat baby

it's a beautiful day in new york today!

i got back from a quick trip down home and worried as the plane started it's landing turn that i'd sink into some pretty massive Seasonal Affected Disorder [my favorite disorder to suffer from because it's a fairly self-explanatory affliction. namely "this gloomy weather makes me feel sad. because i have SAD."] but today's super sunny clear skies and crisp weather makes me happy i moved above the mason dixon line.

ok granted the entire time i was home and on the beach [and i did some surfing even though the water was pretty chilly] i kept saying to my friends who were smart enough to settle for life in small town florida in order to keep surfing, "man, you guys did it right!" and i meant it. for those of us who aren't necessarily big city kids, it's a tough fence to straddle; do i want to stay here for this goal i'm not sure i want? will moving back to small beach town florida [aka giving up] make me happier or is it just different yet comforting?

ech. enough esoteric self-indulgent babbling on only one coffee!

last night we saw a fabulous band play and you should check them out. folks receiving these postcards, i'd like to introduce you to lt marscapone



they're fun, they're rockin' and they're all cute, which is, we all know, very important. as my mother kindly pointed out at one point "we all thought mick jagger was hot, you know. i mean super hot. i didn't care that he made out with david bowie. david bowie's hot, too. who wants to watch ugly people?"

thank you, mom. words of wisdom, right there.

so yeah, in the bottom floor of fat baby, we rocked out while these guys sang their hearts out [and, um, good use of tambourine and pianica, there!] check them out at their next show. we got pins! we signed up for the mailing list! we screamed like teenagers at a matchbox 20 show.

i promise you won't be disappointed.

and lest you think i've forgotten your forbidden love for bret michaels:


VH1.com Blog

you're welcome.

how clean is your valley?

i've become obsessed with vacuuming.

ok, with cleaning in general.

ok, more obsessed that usual.

because of R2D2 over here. my adorable little wunderkind of a vacuum, the Kenmore Magic Blue.

he was a birthday present from my parents, and i'll admit that when i got him, i didn't open him up right away. my vacuum was doing alright, and i was pretty obsessed with the Swiffer, so i didn't feel a need to introduce myself to little R2 over here.

but last week, the old vacuum cleaner broke in an unholy way. i won't rehash the details, i'll just throw a few words at you: burnt cord, power surge, burnt motor, dust explosion.

i think you get the idea.

well R2 saved the day when Old Faithful [my vacuum cleaner who outlasted 8 boyfriends and their filth] finally went to that big showroom in the sky. and dammit if this thing isn't light and easy to use. my downstairs neighbors must HATE ME. i know stavros does. if there's one thing that cats really can't stand, it's vacuum cleaners. now, many will argue that the one thing cats can't stand is water or dogs or tape on their backs or loud noises or mice or birds or their owners. but believe me when i tell you that a cat would rather cozy up for eternity with any of those things rather than face a vacuum. so when i turned this puppy on this morning, stavros vanished with a rather bleating little noise and i haven't seen him all day.

which is fine, because that means he'll keep his hair contained to one area and not all over the damn place [including the upper corners of the apartment near the ceiling?!?!?!?].

it's amazing what a good vacuum can do for you. my allergies are better. the place feels nicer to come home to. i'm not spending an arm and a leg on swiffer sheets every week to clear up the dust that's all over the place.

riddle me this, new york: why in sam hill are you so dusty? i don't understand. i don't understand how i can dust and vacuum [and when i dust, i use the allergen free spray stuff and i do a for-real vacuum job, not just a once-over] on a sunday and by tuesday everything is covered in a layer of filth.

i grew up on the beach. i grew up with two brothers. we all surfed. we all played school sports. we were all teenagers at the same time. on the beach. in florida. where there is sand, dirt, grass, pine needles, shells, and various pieces of debris. our house was cleaner than my tiny little apartment is and my mom didn't vacuum nearly as much as i do now. it's become the national pastime here at bexhq. in fact, when i go home for visits, i love lying on the floor and playing with the dogs because the house is SO CLEAN.

is my mother that much better a cleaner than i am? i dunno, she taught me all i know plus she doesn't clean as often.

are there less people in her house, you ask? not really; between her and my dad and the two dogs, plus their random friends and the fact that they live ON THE BEACH, i don't see how that's less dirt than me, my roommate and her boyfriend [who are never here] and stavros, who hasn't left the house since february when i took him forcibly to the vet [my arm has just stopped looking like a prop from hellraiser 9].

so my only conclusion is: this city is DIRTY.

fact: after 1 full day of wandering around in my flip flops in new york, the soles of my feet are black. compare this to 1 full day of wandering around in my flip flops in new smyrna beach [my hometown] where the soles of my feet look like the soles of my feet. sort of khaki colored.

fact: the oscillating fan in my apartment has to be dusted once a week, otherwise the cage and the fan parts are covered in black furry dust. compare this to the oscillating fan in my apartment in college [same fan, same brand] that i never dusted. because it didn't need it.

fact: when my friend came to new york and rode around in the back of a truck for 8 hours [it was for work, don't ask] he blew his nose and his snot was BLACK. compare this to when he was in colorado and blowing his nose and his snot was, well, snotty colored.

is it the condensed nature of the city? all this exhaust, soot, fumes, dirt and grit has a finite amount of space to expand to, thus it expands onto us and then into our homes? is the same amount of exhaust, soot, fumes, dirt and grit in every city in the country but because those cities have more geographical room we don't notice the dirt as much?

it's something to think about. honestly, when you sit down and make a list of all the grody things about new york, all the things that make it a not-so-great-place-to-live, the list gets a little long and depressing. so why do we do it? why do millions of people cram themselves onto this tiny island so desperately?

it's not for our health, i'll tell you that. i don't care what the ratio of good doctors to patients here is: black snot ain't good for you. plus with the cost of health care and the amount of uninsured people...

oh i'm not getting up on my soap box. i'm going to go vacuum the crevice between the stove and the wall. at the very least i'll retrieve the knife my roommate dropped back there last night.

cube dwelling

so listen. it's hard to be in a cubicle. it's hard to live in new york city and go from your box of an apartment to your cubicle via the subway [a moving series of boxes].

no wonder so much of our vernacular has the term box in it:

boxed in
think outside of the box
boxcar betty
box your ears
boxing match
etc.

what's also interesting is that my cubicle is an odd greyish brownish color, which, according to wikipedia [which i am unsure that i should trust] is a color:

Box was identified by British scholars as an official color to be considered part of the color wheel or color spectrum. The color ranges from mild sage to burnt sienna. Many are adopting this color as a political thinking or "Thinking Outside the Box" in current presidential campaigns.

'bex,' you might say, 'are you going to make a point anytime soon?'

my answer is a forthright 'probably not.'

to be honest, i had a long flight with screaming children yesterday afternoon [why are there always screaming children on flights from florida?] and then 3 mojitos at a new cuban place on 10th street when i got home since my roommate was fighting with her boyfriend.

i know that this is considered bad, but alcohol does make things better.

not everything.

but many things.

for instance, being in this cubicle might be considerably more fun if i were allowed to drink alcohol within it. would i be as productive? that really calls into examination just how productive i am hopped up on iced coffees and cheese danishes from the deli down the street.

i'm not condoning alcoholism. i'm just saying: hemingway, fitzgerald, george burns...you tell me.

postcard #5

so you might, and rightly so, wonder "bex, if you love going home so much, why don't you just stay home?" because, dear mysterious reader [and little voice in my head], then it wouldn't be so fun to go home.

granted, my frequent flier miles are building up, and granted, since x and i broke up i've been heading home much more frequently, but i think that there's no other place like nsb to lick one's wounds.

have i been licking my wounds too much?

eh. maybe.

but you know what? i was with the man for 4 f'ing years. 4 f'ing years and he hasn't had the decency to email me back [i emailed and snail mailed him a birthday card] and let me remind you - it was his idea to break up. so it's not like he hates me because i'm evil and all sorts of terrible and i've ruined his manhood or anything. no, he still looks like the big bad boy who ditched the girl who was "holding him back" and oh...lord. i really am having a problem letting this go.

and i think i'm not supposed to be so open with the fact that i was pretty much dumped.

audrey and i ate way too much fried seafood because that's what we do and my grandmother took us to bells because that's what she does and then audrey and i went to the mall because it was literally 4000 degrees outside.

if you've never been to the volusia county mall, i can only tell you that you're missing out on some serious insight into the psyche of today's american teenager. granted, part of audrey and my love of going to the mall is the fact that we go by the speedway and the reason the speedway is so meaningful is because when audrey was 12 she swore that she would be married there during the daytona 500.

she did. i don't really remember when her love of the daytona 500 started, but it probably began as abruptly as it ended, so that i only remember that one day when she told me that my bridesmaid gown would have racing stripes on it and that the reception would feature slushees [cherry] and popcorn [cheddar flavored] and it all seemed very logical to me at the time and now that we look back on that neither one of us can remember what in god's name she was thinking.

because she's neither a fan of cherry slushees or cheddar flavored popcorn. i, though, am still a fan of a bridesmaid dress with racing stripes. though at audrey's elegant wedding, i wore a navy blue strapless gown and these beautiful earrings i bought myself at the union square holiday market the christmas before and she looked stunning and we all danced for about 4 hours to a wonderful wonderful band. that's the only wedding i've ever cried at.

anyway, i had a wonderful time at home but it's wonderful to be back here though stavros is acting like i'm the worst cat parent ever [i am] and has been shunning me for approximately 3 hours now. which might be disturbing were it not so funny.

now that my cubicle has been moved [well, the cubicle wasn't moved, i was moved to a new cubicle] and i am no longer in a direct foot traffic path, i think i'll be able to blog more effectively from the office. i'm also trying to teach myself html, remembering that w once told me that html was handy to have, especially since i've got a lovely 'eye' for design [oh what men will tell you when they're trying to get your pants off], and i think perhaps he was right.

sadly, though, kim and i no longer sit near each other, and she can't im me because her new manager is over-the-top-controlling and we have to meet in the bathroom for tryst-like gossip sessions.

honestly, when you think about it, the workplace in all its modern wonder and facist tendencies is forcing us to act like we're back in high school.

at least where i work. but i bet it's no different where you work.

postcard #2

maybe it's just me, but running into one's ex is traumatic.

i spent four years with the man. i spent four years sharing a coffee pot. four years eating off of someone else's place. mixing my laundry. these are the things that get me. it's the little things; the realizing that you don't need to fill the coffee maker up so much in the morning. if i had a coffee maker. i don't. he kept it. which is FINE, the coffee maker is obviously not the point. i've lived without the coffee maker for seven months, it's fine. i'm re-learning this whole thing.

so i went home for a long weekend for some decompression, some home cooking [nobody makes burgers on the grill like my dad. nobody.] and liz's bridal shower. so i'm back in the city, a little shell-shocked that i have to go back to that soul-sucking cubicle that we all work in, that i do have to battle the morning subway commute [amazing how easily we get used to not being in the city, right?] and i walk out of the coffee shop with my morning coffee, thinking 'this sunburn's not THAT bad' [it is] and i hear the voice. that's what got me four years ago and lord have mercy it apparently gets me now.

honestly? i felt like i was going to throw up. i'm 31 years old. i've broken up with people before. i've seen them afterwards. i've not thrown up. i shudder to think that i'll spend my entire life fearing hearing his voice because it makes my stomach do triple gainers.

so, because i'm super suave, i started routing around in my bag for my cell phone. which wasn't ringing. but i thought that maybe it'd look like someone incredibly important was calling me. and i was necessary on this planet. my self worth is definately not tied up in the disintegration of this relationship, no sir. so while i'm balancing my very hot coffee, squinting through my sunglasses which were all cockeyed on my head, and fruitlessly digging through my vortex of a bag, i walked right into a ups guy. my coffee got on him. and on my feet. which are a bit sunburned because i'm no longer used to that florida sun. i don't know if my ex saw any of this. i'm pretending he didn't even notice me in the first place because i like to pretend that i blend into brick really really well.

the ups guy noticed me. good for him his uniform's brown, right? because everyone shouldn't necessarily get used to their clothes having brown splotches all over them due to intense clutziness, like i have.

so i staggered to the train. tried to drink what was left of my coffee. spent most of the day at work writing out to do lists for liz's wedding [ah, the life of a maid of honor] and wishing i was outside reading a book.

i'm ok with making my coffee one cup at a time. i just really wish the coffee maker didn't still seem so great.

postcard #1

i had this dream where i received postcards one after the other, numbered, from different places all over the world. because it was a dream, i couldn't quite read who they were from, but each one thrilled me and calmed me at the same time. i kept each one in a wooden box that i knew was a cigar box, but couldn't have been since it was a little bit larger than a shoe box. when i woke up i felt both lost and excited. i became fascinated with postcards that day. i was twelve.

so much can be said on a postcard. it's a small space, but with the picture on the one side, so much can be said with just a few words. i once made this grand statement, and i'm paraphrasing here, that if you need more than a postcard, then you need a phone call.

i've been known to send multiple postcards, never numbered. i'm annoying that way.

i recently went home to visit family and to see audrey. we went to deleon state park and ate at the little restaurant there. we made banana pancakes at our table [it's like a fondue place, or a shabu shabu place, except you get a pitcher of pancake batter, the extra of your choice - think fruit, chocolate chips - and you cook the pancakes on your table top hot griddle]. i had four cups of coffee and only burned myself mildly, which is a record for me. in the gift shop there were delightful gee gaws and tacky overpriced t-shirts, but i bought eight postcards. i sent a few to audrey [of course] and have kept the rest in the box i keep under my bed. it's not wooden and it doesn't smell like cigars like the one in my dream. it's plastic and i got it at bed, bath and beyond for $4.99. it was on sale and i couldn't resist. i bought four of them.

you never know when you need a plastic box. if the east village ever floods and is under water [as meteorologists keep theorizing will happen should there be a particularly strong nor'easter or a hurricane in these parts], i will be able to save many things by shoving them into these boxes and pretending that they're water tight and buoyant.

buoyancy. i guess we've all got to have some sort of buoyancy in this world, right? we get dumped, laid off, lost, confused and if we can't bob to the surface each time, then we sink. and then we're sunk.

i am attempting buoyancy.