cowboy underwear and new umbrellas

and now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast; the banalities and trivialities that only a blog warrants.

a) i got a new umbrella. it was pissing down on friday and my other one gave out as soon as i stepped out the building. crappy thing.

b) i got new underwear. one lot has MC5 emblazoned across the front, there's some with little basketballs and sneakers, one with monkeys and bananas and one with six-shooters and horse shoes that spoke to my inner cowgirl. even cowgirls need underwear - tom robbins' new book. ahem. anyway. they're all a little childish, but whatever. at least next time i walk over a subway grating and my skirt goes sky-high i'll at least entertain passersby

c) i didn't get new headphones yet 'cause when the hell did they get so expensive?

d) i got a really pretty (but expensive) dress today. it's so pretty. i probably can't afford to eat for a week, but meh, whatever.

e) i love that nightlife in NY starts late and goes on late. met cc and justin for a "quiet friday night drink" - back home this would mean a trip round to the bell and crown at about 9ish, leave by 11 or before. i met them last night at about midnight and we headed to orchard bar. i got home gone 3. that was my quiet friday night drink.

you're never gonna keep us down...

Letter to the Terrorists (yesterday, on the London News Review website)

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?

This is London. We've dealt with your sort before. You don't try and pull this on us.

Do you have any idea how many times our city has been attacked? Whatever you're trying to do, it's not going to work.

All you've done is end some of our lives, and ruin some more. How is that going to help you? You don't get rewarded for this kind of crap.

And if, as your MO indicates, you're an al-Qaeda group, then you're out of your tiny minds.

Because if this is a message to Tony Blair, we've got news for you. We don't much like our government ourselves, or what they do in our name. But, listen very clearly. We'll deal with that ourselves. We're London, and we've got our own way of doing things, and it doesn't involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives.

And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub.

So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our city."

as one london friend said, "brilliantly put - couldn't have said it better myself"

and it's true, london is used to bombs. i remember a bunch of them. i vividly remember the docklands bomb that broke the IRA ceasefire way back when. and the IRA bomb that went off in ealing in the summer of 2001, i heard that from my house. we're used to this shit. so we carry on as normal. as the NY Times called it, london is "oddly stoic" right now.

[my sister told me this morning that the most requested song on radio one was the one that goes "i get knocked down, i get back up again, you're never gonna keep me down" etc. she said it made her a bit tearful. i say - ugh, gross. seriously, british public. that's taking it too far. it's one thing to not let some idiots completely disrupt everything, maintaining that british reserve, but that song, apart from not being very good, is just indulgent. seriously.]

but then you ponder the meaning of the bombs, and come across these comments in another article:

"Why - if the bombs were primarily aimed at disrupting the G8 summit - were they detonated in London, and not Edinburgh? Scotland is where the leaders are. The anti-capitalist demonstrators know this. Are al-Qaeda too lazy to take the train north? Obviously not. These bombs were in London and about London.

One of the biggest reason why many Londoners were against the 2012 Olympics coming to their city is the fear that they will essentially turn London into the world's juiciest ever terror target. And who could argue today that this fear wasn't justifiable?

And this is the twisted genius of the bombings. The psychology is perfect: they let London be chosen to host the games, they let the celebrations begin, then they stamped on the celebrations with their bombs. They've slapped their brand on the whole enterprise. Instead of letting the Olympics be a fun thing, an opportunity for sports, communities and business, a positive thing for London and Britain, they have turned them into a curse.

We can look forward now to the 2012 London Olympics in the sure knowledge that terrorists will do their level best to disrupt them. This is what the July 7 bombings mean: al-Qaeda have started the stopwatch on an east end armageddon."

and that, my friends, is a fucking scary thought.

londoners will remember today

conversing with kids back in london:

Maria:
Fucking hell. We're having a scary, crazy day here. 6 explosions in total although it seems as though there are more. Edgware Road, King's Cross, Liverpool Street, Russell Square, Aldgate East and Moorgate tube stations and reports of 3 buses being blown up as well. London is locked off - no public transport indefinitely... they're telling us all to stay where we are until further notice. Tony Blair is being flown back down from Gleneagles and they have to continue the G8 summit without him. It's asbsolute madness. Cathy is in Tottenham Court Road and is shitting herself...they all have to stay in the buildings. She's going to have to walk home to Battersea once they let them leave - she said the streets are packed with people.

I almost got on the Piccadilly line before it all got shut off as well. But I got distracted by the sale in the Disney Store and bought a dressing gown then went to Tescos instead of just going straight to Putney which is what I normally do. I would probably just have got stuck on the tube in between barons court and earls court but I'm so so glad I avoided it all. Have to make spence pick me up later coz there is no way that I'm getting on public transport. No buses....don't think we'll have the option of the tube in a long while. stock market is buggered...

They just confirmed that it was a suicide bomber on the bus in russell square. Just got a report that Leicester Square was hit as well but have only heard it once so not sure if it's true. I'd really rather not be here. Scary shit...people are talking about having to walk through underground tunnels and step over bodies.

Shit shit shit. Two more have gone off in Hounslow, one in Greenford and one has been found in Richmond. I'm so scared it's silly. It was scary when it was in central London but now they're hitting the outskirts as well. I want to come and stay with you ;o(

Hounslow, Greenford and Richmond - not typical terrorist areas

Really can't believe it although we've all been expecting it for a while. Not the same as when it actually happens though.

yeah i know after all the fucking scare mongering by the press n shit

What's the vibe in NY at the mo?

i don't really know what the general vibe is. no one seemed to register it this morning. it hadn't made the morning papers or anything, that i saw.

and people keep expecting me to work. they put calls through or hand me something and i just want to scream at them to fuck off. but obviously i can't.

I feel completely crazy and messy and pretty much just want to walk out. shit.


and after Sam's jubilant retelling of being in trafalgar square for the olympic announcement yesterday, her email today:

"We are all being sent home and told not to come in tomorrow."

Fuck.

I've managed to check in with almost everyone, they're all safe. I burst into tears in front of a fit guy who works here when I read about Hounslow and Richmond (as yet unconfirmed, but that's my neck of the woods, yo). I tried not to cry on the subway on the way in. I think it was desperation at wanting to get into work to be able to contact people. Now I just want to get out this bloody office.

I think today is one of the first times I wish I was back in London. Not that there's anything I can do. But just because.

Sometimes I just hate this world, you know?

when the train, it left the staaaationnnn

song i've had stuck in my head today: love in vain - rolling stones.

thought of the day: there's something to be said for going commando.

note to self: buy a new umbrella, retardo. the other one is so defective it should have been binned about three weeks ago.

second note to self: buy some new earphones.

currently listening to: let it bleed - rolling stones

goddamn english kids

thought of the day, during class this evening and at the PATH station on the way home:

"oh dear. i think i'm ostracizing everyone on the MB course even more than before," as people who usually say hi to me don't really even bother. gosh, it's fun to be this popular with the english kids.

i can't help it if i'm not interested in hanging out in big groups of brits in cheesy fucking pubs when i'm in new york.

retards.

i had the worst craving for pizza on my way home. it was torture to make myself turn left back to the apartment instead right and to the food court, coming out the station. mmm, pizzaaa...

saturday night's alright (for rockin')

afternoon spent in williamsburg... beautiful weather... managed not to flash anyone this time... c-c came down and we wandered around, had the best lemonade at relish, got ice-cream and stood on the corner of bedford & north 7th people watching (fascinating in that area)... plans for misshapes in the evening... eventually get to misshapes about 10:45... waiting outside but it's a lovely night... chat to random girl also waiting outside on bench for her friends... at 11:10 we give up waiting and head inside to take advantage of the open vodka bar that only runs for an hour... c-c and her friend zach turn up about five minutes later anyway... dancing upstairs... taking the piss of people... taking photos... "let's get retarded"... abusing the open bar till they start wanting to see all the people we're ordering drinks for (yikes)... collar the misshapes photographer after he makes me and c-c pose for him... his name is scott. he was wearing schoolboy shorts... metrosexual but kinda cute... bump into a few kids i know/have met before (r., his buddy alex, lauren that girl whose boyfriend was living with annie's friend reed but they've now broken up yikes that r. intro'd me to)... talking to randoms here there and everywhere... a french boy who'd only been in the city a day and didn't really understand what i was saying... two gay guys with interesting haircuts upstairs who proffered drugs (i have no idea how i started talking to them at all)... a cute kid outside called jonah... some other kids from long island who might or might not be people r. knows, i have yet to figure out... i have a funny photo of them though... c-c and zach took off at one point but i was having fun talking to strangers so stayed a little longer... got back to newport as the sun was coming up and stumbled in to bed in a daze... good times... i love this city...

three feet high and rising

there's a three foot high styrofoam model of the empire state building in my office.


just thought you might like to know.

"allll by myysellffff" (sing along with me)

i've realised recently that one of the things i value above all others is honesty. even if it it's in the form of bluntness. i can't stand two-facedness (yes, i probably just made up a word) or sycophancy. it drives me nuts. so in the spirit of things i thought i'd get down to some bare bones honesty, raw emotion similar to some of last summer's postings.

that's not to say by any means that up till now i've been less than honest. it's just it's frequently taken on a "i got up, i had my cornflakes, i went to the darkroom" kind of tone (i have been there an awful lot recently) and anything omitted has been done so purely to protect the individuals involved. and possibly my parents, in case they ever happen to stumble across this. although let's hope not.

**
okay, i started writing this, and have come back to it a while later and have forgotten all the eloquent ramblings i was going to post, so i'll just sum it up, very briefly.

it can get kinda lonely over here.

i don't miss london or england. i love new york. Love it with a capital 'L'. no, wait, with a capital L O V and E. it's so my city.

but i miss the quality of friends i have back home. you know, where you can just call someone up and be like "i'm bored/blue/grumpy/want to celebrate, let's hang". when you have that complete safety net of people around that you don't realise how much you take for granted until you move 3000 miles away. i think it's especially because there's been a lot of stuff going on at home recently, and i've been a little bit sad that i haven't been there to help out (or crack open the champagne). but i can't imagine not being in this city, so it's a bit of a conundrum.

maybe this is just a hangover from L. being here and having a best friend on this side of the pond for a while. who knows.

the sun will come out tomorrow, and other chirpy american warblings...

(big shout outs to my imaginary friend-texting buddy for having someone to text in this timezone, and the NY crew/chinatown apt kids for all being super-welcoming and inviting me along places the whole time. much 'ppreciated, thank you. kisses)

mermaid parade

so we eventually made it to the mermaid parade out at coney island. it was hot out there, boy. i kept doing the little-kid trick of running off and losing who i was with because i was distracted by something in the parade. i found a good place to duck under the police cordon though, and got some wicked shots. the polaroids came out like fifty times better than any of the digital shots. i heart my polaroid.

bumped into eric at one point (there were so many people, i totally didn't think i'd find any of that lot at all) but we didn't stay too long, only a couple hrs or something 'cause the others all wanted to head back. i was a little sundazed and not minding too much.

but it was cool. kind of random. a very odd parade. but entertaining.

the dark room. again.

mooching around the house… make dinner… watch first half hour of ‘The Karate Kid’… tidy up… lie down on now clutter-free bed and doze off… make self get up as will never leave house otherwise… piss around trying to decide what to wear… put basketball on, game seven of the championships, baby… housemates get home and turn over to britney’s wedding special…talk with various ppl as lady of the hour, L, is running late… end up running super-late myself… have nice chat with L’s dad who calls me from Canada… eventually leave house… get down to the dark room and L is already there… along with Jason, Jeanie, Jeanie’s friend Rhiann, Aron, Stacie, Toby, Rebekkah… get drink… feel weird, can’t believe L is going back to London… what am I going to do??… time gets lost as drinks come in… Stacie and Toby leave, Jenny (Chewie) arrives with guy she’d been telling us about, Jenene and Jennie briefly turn up after 3 ½ hour movie marathon, Christy-Claire comes, L’s friend Jordan arrives with a couple of friends, Jeanie goes… lots of trips outside to smoke and talk and chat to the bouncer… turns out “House” (his name, apparently) has his kids nicknamed after all of the Thundercats, and instead of a family whistle (or something similar), when he wants to round ‘em all up, he just shouts “Thundercats, ho!!”… brilliant... jordan and christy-claire busting some serious moves on the dance floor… outside on a cigarette break, we convince them to show us a move they’ve been working on (vimeo footage to follow, obviously)… walk up Ludlow to find L food… hear stories of a weird mirror in one of the places nearby… we think it’s max fish but it’s actually the pink pony, so me and CC wait for the bathrooms in the wrong place to see it, get asked to play pool with some random… back to dark room… smoking in the basement… (would like to point out that most times i just accompany, not smoke. maybe the occasional drag here and there)… up to jason’s apt… realize it’s super late and it will take me forever to get home… try unsuccessfully many times to leave… finally manage to escape… 2nd ave station deserted, kind of creepy… people then turn up… watch the mice and rats crawling over the tracks… get off at W4th, walk to PATH at 9th, collapse on station floor waiting for train… finally turns up, can barely keep eyes open… incredibly over-tattooed guy opposite me on train keeps giving me funny looks… finally able to crawl into bed at fiveish… wake up at 6:07… alarm then goes off at 6:45… yawwwwn… for some reason still make it into work earlier than i have all this work… buy iced coffee on the way in… currently so tired can’t quite think straight though… ah well, i’m young, at least it’s friday…

open letter to the pistons

dear detroit

i'm sorry i doubted. tonight was a killer game. i'm glad after that brief heated moment in the second quarter y'all managed to keep your cool.

kick the spurs' collective ass on thursday.

thanks.

with best wishes,

h.

kegger

so we had class yesterday. some crappy architectural tour thing. met on fulton & bdway, then it just around that area, like round city hall and stuff. he showed us where five points (made famous in 'gangs of new york', a film i haven't seen) used to be, then we walked over the bklyn bridge, ending up in bklyn heights. it's beautiful there. spending time with my intake was not beautiful, however. knobs.

i didn't see the point in heading back to manhattan when frank/amy/sharif's "5 yrs in NY" bbq was in brooklyn, so mooched around the heights for a bit, walked up to jay st-borough hall to get the F up to smith. a bunch of peeps already at the bbq, got myself a beer - they had the red plastic cups and all, just like in the moooovies (!) - eventually tracked down some veggie burgers/dogs. didn't stay too late as meant to be meeting jas et. al. but they were still at home, so went back to newport and crashed, totally.

god the MB lot are idiots.

my first NY roof party

finish work, head to apple store (soho) for jenene & co's talk... free beer at the merc bar but the bar sucks... walk back to chinatown w/ jennie, eric & nathan... pick up takeout and whiskey on the way... 35% kentucky bourbon, drunk neat... between four of us, get through about two thirds before the others get back... everyone leaves at midnight and heads over to rooftop party on division... seventh floor walk-up, oof... my first NY roof party... more whiskey... vimeoing doesn't work, it's too dark... jennie & raul star-gazing (there were no stars)... good view of the manhattan bridge from that roof though... left to walk up to PATH station wayyy uptown... slight detour through LES, to dark room to use their bathrooms... randomly bump into jeanie so stay for a while... see jason but too shy to say hi... me and jeanie get hit on by these two strange austrian guys... i eventually leave, walk up to 14th & 6th, head back to JC... wake up with *slight* headache and some guy's number scribbled on my hand...

NYFF

well now. i was just asked to cover the NY Film Festival this autumn. full press accreditation 'n everything. that's nice.

class last night

So in class last night I sat in the middle of the back row where the cliquey kids sit, as I’d been talking to them in the elevator on the way up. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Obviously there was a lot of talk around and over me, and there were moments when I felt like a bit of a lemon sat there. I consoled myself with the thought I was doing it on purpose to disrupt their little giggling gang. I felt almost smug at times, the looks when one of them walked in and saw me sat in the middle of the row in between people who wanted to sit next to each other.

Then the lecture started and they started passing notes. Dear god, PASSING NOTES. How the hell old are we? This isn’t high school! For the love of…

where is my mind?

oh god. i just had to turn down pixies tickets because i have no money and i have class tonight.

it hurt.

it physically hurt to have to say thanks-but-no-thanks.

LCD Soundsystem
Interpol
The Pixies
Jones Beach, Long Island

tonight.

waaaaaahhh.

scott free & sake

The most heard phrase this evening: “So did you hear about Michael Jackson??”

for some reason, after some drinks, the plum stone ("pit", apparently) in L's plum wine sake was highly amusing

(photo thanks to mr chew)

up and down the east side

up to meet L. at the carlyle in the upper east side with my stuff - marvel at the splendour - ignore everything in the overpriced minibar and make drinks with vodka bought from duty free and soda from duane reade - order out pizza - a few drinks and slices later, leave and get the 6 downtown - head to the dark room - meet L's high school friend straight off, then Jason, the bar's owner and L's friend from london - free drinks all night, it would seem - CC turns up with roommate - drinks, talk, cigarettes outside (menthols) - everyone hanging in the street again - the LES on a summer night, yo - back inside, more free drinks (L. decides shots would be good, Jason gives us Jaegermeister), talking to strange employees - CC has to take off - L and I go hang upstairs in Jason's apt - a strange blond australian girl turns up at the apartment "i'm getting a plane tomorrowwww jayyyson and i just wanted to say byyyyeee" - odd chick - back downstairs, more drinks, more talk, more jukebox - back upstairs - get invaded by more of Jason's friends, a cool girl called Dagney and some others i don't remember - a really really stoned guy called harry who was sat opposite me trying to feel me up - even *more* people turned up once the bar shut, all the bartenders 'n shit - eventually wandering out of the apt when it was broad daylight - stumbling to the bowery and hailing a cab back up to 76th & madison that was surprisingly cheap although no traffic at that time of morning on a saturday - somehow getting into PJs and collapsing into the most beautiful comfortable bed - sleeping till about 2pm, the tv on all night, occasionally waking up to hear spongebob squarepants on in the background - falling asleep again about 3 for another hour or so - bubble bath, get dressed - head to barneys, air incredibly humid and oppressive - big thunderstorm while we're in barneys - walk past seal and heidi klum - have dinner in the restaurant on the top floor of barneys - stopped raining when we come out - walk back, find 'ever after' on tv, watch it in bed - make an executive decision to leave once movie is over as would be so easy to just stay in bed for the rest of the weekend - trek back to JC, am unimaginably depressed at returning to this apartment after the luxury of the carlyle...

so little to do, so much time...

holy mother of *crap* i'm bored

i mean, talk about understimulated and underchallenged

i know i shouldn't complain...

at least it gives me time to do my MB work/email peeps/promote my services as theoretical drummer (i just joined three new bands today)

maybe i've just had too much caffeine. ho hum.

excerpt from an email from m.

'I think you are already WAY too american...check out this sentence:

the cops busted them for selling liquor to a minor.

What you meant to say was: "the police officers arrested them for selling alcohol/intoxicating substances to an underage youth".'

so, can i get your number?

oh good lord, one of the doormen to my apartment building just asked me out.

i was coming back from duane reade with ratty wet hair in an ancient skirt because i need to do some laundry, and he asked for my number and if he could call me sometime.

it really freaked me out, i had no idea what to say. i looked around for his friends to see what the joke was about but there was only me and him there.

sheesh.

what's going on?

raining on orchard

1) it's june. it shouldn't still be raining.
2) feeling like an outsider, whatever the situation, sucks...
3) ...so that when someone makes an effort to talk to you, you practically hug them with gratitude
4) it's nice when people remember you from a quick five minute conversation the weekend before
5) being told you look like rod stewart (rod stewart?! wtf?!), even if they say they mean it as a compliment, is rarely taken as one. even if that 'and you think i'm sexy' song is playing. seriously.
6) hanging out with people in the "music industry" means you don't often get to talk with who you want as everyone else wants to talk with them too

so initially i was at some dive on essex with roommate and other MB peeps. then they all spent ages deciding where to go next so i "split that joint" (just for you, sbj) and went to meet some of the kids from last weekend up the road.

we were at orchard bar again last night, and the cops busted them for selling liquor to a minor. i saw them writing out the citation or whatever when i went to the bar, then when i was hanging outside i heard the bouncers talking. they had an underage undercover detective. although i don't quite understand how it happened as they were IDing everyone when we came in. unless that was after they'd been busted, and it just took a really long time for cops to come by and write up a ticket.

so it was, like, *all* music people there last night that we ran into. i was talking one guy, a manager, and asking if he managed anyone i know. "lindsay lohan?" umm, yes, know her. he also did junior senior, and we then had a huge argument about which year it was that they were first around, so to speak. i said '02, he said '03. i was trying to explain the difference between Europe and the US (a European band would most likely come out first in Europe), and how me and sam crashed the Dazed & Confused party and accidentally wandered on stage when Jr-Sr were playing, back in Dec. '02.

and there was also the girl who was ipod-DJing there last night and does the PR for the futureheads (i was talking with a music writer who told me this, i did of course tell him he had a spare free ticket going, call me...), and a guy in a band, who told me he was going to milton keynes in two weeks.

me: oh christ, poor you.
him: what? no, i love milton keynes!
me: huh? milton keynes is a shithole!
him: 60,000 people man! opening for green day in front of sixty thousand people..
me: oh. right. well.
him: although, yeah, from your point of view i guess it's a shithole....

i always feel kind of bad when they tell me the name/s of their band/s and i've never heard of them before. i guess it just depends which musical circles you move in. listen to. whatever.


the question i've been pondering most: is it extremely unfair to let a guy buy you shots when you know that he doesn't have a chance in hell, and you're leaving in five minutes anyway to go meet drummer boy and co. a few blocks away?

2am

so i took two lemsip capsules before i went to bed because i was still feeling crummy and wanted to feel better by the morning.

of course, it's only when i'm still wide awake and tossing and turning an hour and a half later i remember there's caffeine in the bloody things.

so now it's 2am, i'm completely awake, really need to sleep, cursing my stupidity and just getting sick in general. it'd be sooo nice to be able to pull a sickie tomorrow (later today), it really would... gah.

how d'ya like *them* apples

i know NY is called the big apple, but the apples here really are big. i mean, huge. i can never eat a whole one. and they're really sweet as well.

makes me pine for sainsburys' bags of little braeburns. they were cute, and the perfect size.

is this a slightly nonsensical posting about apples, or is it just me?

i feel so fluey today. going home to make soup and kneidl after work. there's some kind of MB party, but i have a valid excuse for not going, at least. blech.

coney island daze

man, coney island really kicked my ass yesterday. we were there for like seven hours. sun, sea, sand, skeeball, batting cages, bumper boats, beers, wonder wheel, cyclone, nathans, loads of people. could barely keep my eyes open on the way back to manhattan, but for some reason we decided to go out anyway, to this bar opening on la guardia... but of course i didn't have my ID (why would you need ID at coney? i should have thought ahead...) so the bouncer let me use the restroom (i practically had my legs crossed as he was telling me i couldn't come in) - the place looked like a total biker bar, lots of beards and bandanas - so we split that joint and headed to another bar in the village, where i had a sprite (hardcore), watched the red sox thrash the yankees *again* (yay) then me and annie left and stumbled, half asleep both of us, to 6th ave to get the PATH (me) and the subway (her). a good way to spend a sunday though.

the next night

drinking at home... PATH to christopher... go to Don Hill's, $10 cover, bar is empty and shit so leave... head up to Misshapes @ Luke & Leroy's again (where we went last saturday)... within about five minutes i spot alex a.k.a. austin powers from night before... about two minutes later i bump into the boy at the bar... weird b/c he was meant to be going to an after party somewhere else... brief chats... disappear to buy a coke and top it up from my hip-flask (yes, again)... bump into Dennis the DJ i met on friday before the boy, he recognises and remembers me which is impressive... talk to randoms outside that i'm introduced to by the boy... decide to split as feeling a little strange and very over-tired... a sweet girl that i've been talking to who knows the boy walks with me to the PATH, we swap numbers and she invites me to a bar opening the next night... another strange night in nyc...

about last night

so after the encouragement of an open bar, i told my roommate about our ally sheedy theory and she said she was honoured to be sharing a room with ally (*sob*)

and then i spent the rest of the night with this guy i met, making out at various locations over the east village and the lower east side. he was cute and he kept holding my hand and he was in a band he wouldn't tell me the name of, and we kept going back and forth from the dark room (ludlow and houston) to various other bars, and hanging with his friends (i got a few high fives and "i love your accent!"s). and at one point, when we were standing outside pianos on ludlow, there was a brown out, and everyone started whooping. and the homeboys on ludlow were calling this boy steve nash and his friend alex, austin powers (it kind of suited him at the time) and invited them to go hang out. and i was making him guess my surname and the only clue i could ever think of was the king in that scottish play, and he kept calling me othello. and he seemed to know everyone everywhere. and we kept seeing some turkish guys around who thought i was swedish. it was the perfect random evening, and it was so much fun.

it was one of those nights i wish i could remember always, regardless of the making out, just for the sense of adventure and being young and fancy-free in new york and that imminent sense of summer and all the new people and ... i know i seem to keep saying this, but i really do *love* this town.

hanalita-solo

so a year ago i'd never been to a gig

and last night i went to a gig by myself. i did miss my gig-going buddy when i got tired and had no one to lean on. but it's not like you can talk much when someone's playing anyway.

when the DJ at the beginning, trying to warm up the crowd, shouted 'what's up noo yorrrk!" i got a real jolt. it sounded so weird and out of place. and you could get to the bar really easily... as long as you were wearing a green wristband. similar prices to london gigs, just no queue.

so classy

i never thought i'd stoop this low...

buying three dollar cokes at the bar we're at last night, then sneaking in to the ladies' room and topping it with JD from the hipflask in my handbag because i'm that cheap (and broke)

i hear thunder

from my living room window across the hudson to the glowing buildings of manhattan.

there was the most amazing thunderstorm just now. i'd forgotten what NY thunderstorms were like.

extract from an email i sent:

"So, my impressions so far, 2 ½ weeks in:

I’ve found that the class seems to have already split into three: the slightly geeky, the outgoing and the ones who fall into neither group. Cliques have formed very quickly and there is a good degree of pretentiousness and arrogance; people looking down their noses or just being downright unfriendly (yes, I’m talking about the self-styled “cool” group).

Although I fall into that no-man’s land of associating with either group, I tend to know and associate with the Loud group better, and I find it strange that there has been such a split in the sexes. From my point of view – perhaps it is different within the groups – there’s the Loud girls group, and the Loud boys group, and although they socialize together, they also stick with their own sex a good deal of the time (thinking of the oh-so-girly-let’s-call-five-different-people-before-I-decide-what-to-wear-pyjama-party-having-ditzy-squealy-giggly exclusive girls group, and the boys with the obvious ringleaders who make juvenile jokes in lectures and do things just for the effect, as if we were still in high school. Yes, I really am this intolerant.)

To be honest, I find many of them to be fairly immature, regardless of age. I don’t know if this is due to having an older group of friends back home, or having grown up in a city of equal size to NY (London) I find myself being a little blasé about the whole city experience (especially having been here before), but I find their fear of escalators and inability to use the subway and lack of adventure somewhat tiresome.

I feel a lot of them don’t – and perhaps won’t – experience the proper New York which is surely part of the reason they are here. They seem to hang out in groups of Brits, always going to the same old places (Dorrians, Fat Blacks) – and if it’s not the same place then it’s the same location (“Let’s go to The Village!”) (you can hear them capitalize the T and the V when they say it).

Since I’ve been here I’ve been up and down Manhattan and Brooklyn. I’ve been to Soho, the East Village, the LES, Chinatown, Williamsburg, Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Brooklyn Heights… I’ve talked to strangers, joined art collectives on their hippy march celebrating the “First Warm Night” and followed a brass band onto a subway car. I’ve bought a bike off a stranger from craigslist. I’ve scrawled chalk tags over parts of Red Hook, sat on a stoop drinking from a hipflask whilst a police helicopter circled overhead, I’ve backed quietly away from a game of spin the bottle involving 100+ people. I’ve gone to Printed Matter and seen Aaron Rose and Terry Richardson. I’ve made plans to go shoot at Rucker this summer (photos, not balls). I talked to a girl I never met who works freelance for Paper magazine. I went down to the LES on my lunch break, walking through a film crew on Houston St, to get a ticket for a gig that I’ll go to by myself because I don’t know anyone else here to likes the music but I wanted to go. I’ve sat on a Chinatown fire escape after midnight, drinking and people watching. I’ve navigated my way from the middle of Jersey City to Battery Park up to 9th St on my bike with only one minor mistake (almost getting on to the West Side Highway… a quick swerve to the curb, almost knocking over a doorman, and heading down the nearest side road soon got me away from that). I’ve chatted to a taxi driver – a genuine born-and-bred New Yorker – and knew exactly where I was going. I’ve been taken for a meal at Balthazar and been to the Life Café; I’ve tried to economise at the A&P and some evenings been too tired to cook so had cereal or matzo for dinner. I’ve dawdled in a second-hand bookstore I discovered in the back streets of Soho, eavesdropping on the conversation of two gentlemen who were clearly heavily involved in the theatre world (playwrights or directors, at a guess). I’ve ridden along the Hudson pathway as it was nearing dusk, transfixed by Manhattan on the other side of the river and constantly thinking Oh my god, I get to live here for a year. What is it about New York that brings this out in me? I feel – just different here. A different kind of confidence that I lack in London, that I love having here.

And I resent the MB people for taking that away from me when I’m with them. I can walk down a street here and feel ten feet tall; I walk into that classroom and feel like the smallest person there is. You try and start a conversation and they don’t even try to continue it. One of the girls [...] she’s in the girly group I described above, and she’s always seemed fairly sweet. After class on Monday, I tried to make an effort and asked how their Saturday night had been. Her reply “Good”, with a smirk. Couldn’t have been more conversation-stopping or crushing if she’d tried."


i know we made all those ally-sheedy-in-the-breakfast-club jokes before i went, but they're verging on becoming a reality with the MB lot. yikes.

after the first week:

Things I have learnt this week:
- Chelsea has a large canine population, all of which seem to fall into two categories: as small as a hamster, or large
enough to swallow aforementioned hamster in one gulp
- In the flesh Terry Richardson and Brillo look less alike than we have been led to believe
- That US TV has far to many adverts
- That Seth Cohen actually is quite an irritating whiny character. Being six weeks behind in the UK this wasn’t quite as
evident.
- Free wi-fi is great
- Some of the other people on this course are completely retarded
- I should have brought an umbrella with me

thought processes

Last night when we went out – the boys headed straight over to Hoboken but the louder girls decided it would be nice to go to “The Village” for dinner – my thoughts could be classified as such:

From the subway to restaurant: oh my god, I forgot how irritating girls are en masse

At the restaurant: ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod shutup!

From PATH to bar: fucking idiots.

rate this

Reality Testing – How would you rate yourself in the following areas?
(From the MB Career Development booklet)

Attitude: badass
Awareness: huh? wha?
Competitive Differences: football has eleven men, a round ball and a goal with a net at the back, not big men, lots of padding, a retarded rugby ball and a gridiron
Discipline: whips and chains, preferably
Education: is key
Family: irritating but couldn’t live without ‘em
Goals: with a net at the back, as mentioned above
Interpersonal relations: I don’t understand the question
Opportunity: is on every corner

california

what the hell has happened to the OC? i leave the UK and Summer's just ditched Zack for Spiderman Seth, Lindsay is leaving town, Marissa is gay and going out with Alex, and Kirsten and Sandy seem to be getting back on track. The meeting at the bus station? yes, i shed a tear.

now i catch an episode here on tv, four days since i last watched it, in the US - and kirsten's a lush, sandy's turning bully, ryan and marissa are back together, ryan now has a brother, and seth has become one of the most irritating whiny characters currently on television. he needs a good slap.

seriously, what happened in those missing weeks? and why, leaving the ep on a doozy of a cliff-hanger, do they then spoil it with the "next week on the OC" segment? fools.

Dos and Don'ts of the American Workplace

In orientation today, in a “team building” kind of exercise, we had to get into groups and list Dos and Donts in the American Workplace, in order to get us into US working mindset.

The first three Don’ts to be shouted out:
• Don’t use irony
• Don’t photocopy your arse
• Don’t sleep with the boss


It’s nice to see the kind of wavelength these peeps are on.

other side of the pond

finally here stop so tired can't see straight stop others on course seem alright stop but haven't really talked to them much stop as as soon as i'd checked in and changed i met up with hf and ajay and spent the day with them stop this included chilling in soho, barneys, fao schwarz and rainstorms before dozing off on their bed then going to see 'hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy' at the ziegfield stop now aiming to head to bed but feel i should wait and meet my roommates stop

things i will most most #1

the one who gets hydrogen peroxide in her eye as a way to get out of going to suffolk. the one who can't look at white snow on TVs. the one who made me start watching The OC. the one who comandeers the remote controls and makes the rest of us watch multiple episodes of will & grace/friends/some crappy reality show probably set on an island, often involving people making out. the one who decided to paint her bedroom hot pink two hours before her swanky 21st birthday party was meant to be starting. the one who comes home from uni making non-stop peter kay and little britain references, and stupid in-jokes that no one else gets. the one who calls me at three in the morning because she's in a club and there's a song playing (busted, mcfly or queen/don't stop me now) that she wants me to hear. the one who, when she was 9 and obnoxious, introduced herself to my new secondary school friends as "chickenpox". the one who wishes she was a cheerleader. the one who got the bigger bedroom. the one who has more clothes than she knows what to do with. the one who ignores my elder-sisterly advice and attempts to influence in books (does she even know what a book is??) and music. the one and only younger sister, my fi.

love you, bub.

things i will miss most # 43 & 44

# 43: taking the post down to 105 and wasting time chatting to sam (the receptionist).

# 44: jaffa cakes.

things that have made me cry (or almost cry) this past week:

* the visa debacle with MB/the embassy
* getting home too late on thursday to do anything that i needed to. chalk this one up to complete overtiredness, lack of food (i sound like a toddler) and currently emotional instability
* the last ever episode of Buffy (man, that show rocks)
* more visa debacle with the courier company. and MB.
* Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
* thinking about having to leave my house forever
* Finding Neverland (again)
* Chocolat (which for some reason, i'm annoyed about)

Something of an emotional knapsack, as HF keeps calling me.

things i will miss most # 5

(l to r: alice, laura, me, al's little sister, amy. at the forefront, my fi)

childhood best friends who, now you're supposedly grown up, meet for a "quick drink" and three hours later still find yourselves in the pub

fuck them up their stupid asses

so i spent most of my day at the embassy today. i read a whole book and still had time over (incidentally, i should have re-thought my choice of book, as it kept making me choke up, and i was thinking how terrible it would be to start crying in the middle of the embassy, in that huge waiting room, because of a sodding book.) i had to buy overpriced food because, in a case of astounding wishful thinking, i thought it would take maybe an hr and a half, two hours at most and hadn't had lunch or anything.

and then i finally get called up there for my interview (one of the last up, natch), only to find out that i'm not on the correct database, that the "organisation" that's sorting out this internship hasn't entered me.

i got outside, called the company, managed to remain calm, then went round the corner and burst into tears on the phone to my mum. not my finest moment. there were three armed police guards staring at me. excellent. one of them even strolled really unsubtly right around me, brandishing his machine gun, checking i wasn't carrying a bomb or something i expect. no, no, just your run-of-the-mill public breakdown.

i'm so fucking fed up with the company; they seem so bloody disorganised. as if moving to another country for year wasn't stressful enough without all this other shit.

so today's f-u goes to them. fuck MB, fuck them up their stupid asses.

spoofalicious, baby

'american we stand as one'

i don't know whether to laugh or cry

what film are we talking about

"so you really thought it was a good film?"
"yes! how could you not?!"
"but - the story was so messy and weak! and-"
"it was brilliant! there was such great camaraderie and that bit when-"
"yeah, okay, there was a good sense-like, nice chemistry between them all, but otherwise it was rubbish-"
"no-"
"-the storyline was just messy and sooo predictable-"
"-yeah, whatever..."
"it was!"
"it was a good film-"
"rubbish"
"nope"
"yes"
"nope"
"your mum."

nice to see we can still have eloquent discussions about films.

cheap thrills

somehow there was still room in us after that huge meal at the restaurant so we made a late night trip to the supermarket for a £2 bottle of bucks fizz and sticky toffee pudding. one of our finer plans, i feel.

fun for all the family...

another family/religious holiday, another trip to A&E with my sister.

we`ve realised what her "thing" is. with some people it`s writing, some it`s music, some it`s kicking a ball around a pitch. my sister? her gift is putting the `special` in special occasion by throwing the big holidays (first christmas, now easter) into disarray with a variety of tricks. after the mystery seizure on christmas eve, her lastest trick is getting hydrogen peroxide in her eye just as we`re about to leave to go to suffolk for sunday lunch, necessitating a quick trip to casualty and then over to moorfields eye hospital in the east end (which was quite strange as it was all shut up and dead apart from the A&E part of the hospital.)

it`s a real gift, i think you`ll agree.

(she`s fine. i don`t have that inappropriate a sense of humour that i`d be laughing if she`d gone blind. they just irrigated it for what felt like ages, did a litmus test - on her eye, *shudder* - and gave her some ointment.)

i`m starting to wonder whether someplace with padded walls might be safer for her - and us...

tower bridge is falling down

best overheard conversation last night in london eye pod between two American ladies who were looking at one of those skyline guide things, trying to identify everything.

Woman #1: Where's Tower Bridge?
Woman #2: Ah don't know
Woman #1: Well Ah thought it would be really obvious. It's like bright blue isn't it?
Woman #2: Ah think so.
Woman #1: So where'd it go? That's Bucking-ham palace, that's Waterloo... Ah don't see Tower Bridge nowhere.
Woman #2: Well maybe they tore it down. They done tore London Bridge down, y'know.

I was snickering in the corner throughout this exchange then kindly informed them it was actually round the bend in the river; we were now too low down to see it as it was blocked by buildings along the south bank.

fried my little brains

okay, we went to see the kills last night. me and dig were both complete miseryguts, both completely preoccupied with psychotic housemates (him) and burglaries (me).

but cat claw and fried my little brains made me feel fractionally better.

fuckers

around the 20th of december last year, someone asked me what i`d like for christmas

i foolishly said "better luck for my family", `cause that`s pretty much all i *do* want

i jinxed it. ever since then, it`s all just going further and further downhill. it`s laughable.

we got back this evening to find out we`d been burgled. my dad`s antique clock (apparently worth about £1500. should`ve sold it ages ago, in my mind), mine and my ma`s jewellery boxes (including 4 birth certificates and 1 marriage certificate), the lovely pentax camera that was my fotolog staple before i got my digi, a gameboy, a minidisc player, and, most crushing of all, my fricking laptop. my fucking career.

so laugh with me, and cross your fingers that the duncan luck goes uphill from now on.

(the forensics dude took my fingerprints so they could compare and contrast etc. apparently scotland yard destroys them once they`re over, they don`t get put on a record or anything. apparently.)
**

on the plus side, i did return home to exciting packages from various ebayers, including a johnny cash lp that is now of course playing loudly. i need me some whiskey. strange they didn`t think to take them.

snow! real live snow!

so by the time it turned new year here in steamboat (colorado), it was the equivalent of like 7 or 8 in the morning back home. yesterday was a looooonnng day.

but now i'm here and there's no rest for the wicked so i had a ski lesson today which was wicked. and there's just so much snow everywhere! and it's sunny! hurrah!