Civic Center

 After living 9 years across one park, I moved apartments this past March to a building that sits across another one. The last park I spent many mornings, days, and nights in. I felt for a long time a simple and natural ease of existing within it's cast-iron gates. Moving apartments to another park was frightening and exciting but after 5 months I haven't yet found the park so appealing. But I still spend time there. My laundromat is across from the park so in-between loads I go there and read waiting for my garments to be moved from the washer to the dryer or the dryer to my home. The park is nestled between Chinatown and Civic Center, so on the turf field one direction shows you lanterns and tenements and the opposite direction gives one a grand view of colossal limestone government buildings. The courthouse and the Frank Gehry building, Chatham Towers, and government office buildings. 

    While I did my laundry yesterday, a particularly dark and humid August morning, I was feeling disturbed by the park so I wandered over to the courthouse and called a friend. I paced around, in and out of areas I wasn't sure I was allowed to be in. The area is punctuated incessantly with NYPD vestibules, uniformed men and women standing in them one at a time, their eyes following me as I pass by, waiting for them to ask for identification, but they never do. Since I moved to New York, whenever I am in Civic Center, I have noted a relatively consistent calmness in my body. It feels as though the threat of a storm is perpetually down there. of course the sun shines there but more often than not I am pulled to this part of Lower Manhattan when the clouds are at their most dense. It is perpetually autumn there. The wind is always blowing it seems. 

    If you go to Civic Center on a Sunday, it is an empty, ghostly place. I don't mind it. Weekdays it is a spectacular circus of men and women in suits, lawyers whispering and speed walking to their colleagues, people on jury duty eating sandwiches and smoking on the myriad benches all over the place. Tourists taking photos of the Brooklyn Bridge and City Hall, a pristinely white, French Renaissance style building, completed in 1812. In July of 2003, Councilman James E. Davis was assassinated in the middle of the day by a political rival by the name Othniel Askew.  

    This morning it was raining and I was intrigued again by spending more time near City Hall. I wanted to exercise again my newfound proximity to this curious part of Manhattan. I stood and looked at the fountain outside City Hall, which was gushing water as the rain came down. Behind me was 8 Spruce, the Frank Gehry residential building that is also wet seeming. Watery by design, perhaps. I hate this building. Whenever I see it I feel a pang, a pang of rejection. A lover lived there who I embarrassingly crashed out on and the crash out ended promptly when he correctly stated where my anger came from. But that tall building, seen from so many angles of my life still disrupts my thoughts by my associative feelings regarding him and the building designed to look like watery waves. From his apartment he can see into mine though it's much harder for me to see into his. My building is 6 floors with 6 apartments facing his direction, 8 Spruce is 76 stories, with 899 apartments. The last thing he said to me was "You are mad at me because I don't like you anymore." He was terribly right and there was nothing I could say to counter him. So I didn't say anything. 

    So I avoided his building and turned back quickly towards the Court House and the Manhattan Municipal Building. If you cut through the Manhattan Municipal Building, you will pass under a large arch which has a tiled ceiling by Rafael Guastavino, a Spanish engineer who emigrated to New. York in 1881 and lived here until his death in 1908. His unique tiling work can be found around New York, notably in Grand Central, as well as in the Dakota. A friend of mine lived in an old tuberculosis hospital-turned-apartment building on the Upper East side that had his tiling work throughout.  Anywho, when you are in the arch, above and around you are 34 stories of offices with 2,000 employees. It is one of the largest municipal buildings in the world. Adorned on the very top is a 25 foot gilded copper statue titled, Civic Frame. 

    I sat for a while on a bench wondering why my body felt so relaxed whenever I am here. Maybe there is anonymity, I thought, but then remembered that so is midtown but I don't always feel so good there. Maybe I enjoy the secrecy and the supervision. Maybe it's the limestone, lots of it. In the crystal healing world, limestone is thought to bring grounding and emotional stability. Interesting. 

    

A Place Inside the Pines

     I went to a wedding last weekend in my native Ohio. I hardly know the newly-weds (I don't even have either of their phone numbers) but I was invited because the bride and I were childhood friends and our parents have remained very close. 

    I never feel comfortable in Ohio. Overly self-aware. Mainly because anyone I happened to know at this wedding knew me before I was a woman. When I am chatting with people I imagine they think I'm mentally ill and then like magic, I feel mentally ill. I imagine that when our interaction ends and we continue on our millings about, eventually they leave and in the utter most privacy of their home, they talk about that girl-thing. I only think this happens because my family does it, too. It's all anyone in Ohio does anyhow. Gossip, gossip, gossip...and then have a cry. 

    I used to wonder if only my mom did this. But during the reception I ran out of the dance floor area and found a massive pine tree with a sort of low canopy I could hide in. It became my safe haven. I basically spent the entire reception under that tree as girls from childhood came to bum cigarettes and we'd talk about the past. "Does everyone here's mom talk so much shit?" They do. "And then she starts crying," said one of the girls, "and then all the kids have to console her till she falls asleep." "Yep, exactly, mine too." 

    All of the girls who joined me under the pine tree were girls that I always wanted to be when I was younger. Some them have brothers, like I do, but I always wanted to be with the girls and the moms. Dads scared me. I was too attracted to the brothers. Interestingly, having become a woman, being around these girls in adulthood is not what I thought it would feel like. They are all incredibly kind, but I can't help but feel like there's something I'm not in on. Our histories are shared but our projections of who we are and who we have become are totally skewed. A closeness that is almost unbearable even though I have to remind myself their names and where they live every 5 minutes, losing the ability to listen to what they have to say. It feels like an Olympic sport, remembering everything. 

    The girls always treated me nice when we were kids, but I was always other. I was a boy. They were girls. Then I became a girl and I still feel other. Some things really can't change, I guess.

    I did my best to be outgoing, to ask many questions. I nervously went up to the bride at a cocktail party the night before the wedding. Even though I've known her since birth, I felt a bit intimidated. I felt like maybe I shouldn't say anything at all to her, but I knew it was the polite thing to do. "You know what's crazy," I said, "I haven't even met your fiancé yet!" "Uhm, yes you have. You met him last Christmas. He was actually asking this morning if you were still coming. You should go say hi, he's over there." I fell apart inside. I remembered him again once she told me that. I told her I was just drunk. (I wasn't.) 

    On the small airplane to Ohio from New York, I reminded myself in my diary to try and not say a word about myself unless somebody asks. Even then I reminded myself to lie a little, to not give too much away like I always do. 

    Nobody asked me anything about my life. I was relieved. People would ask me where I lived and then they'd move on or walk away entirely. I kept waiting for someone to ask me about my love life but nobody did, at least not till after midnight. By the time anyone asked me about my love life, I was gone. I was in another place. I was listening to music in my mind or something and thinking about him. 

    At one point, this small woman in a cheap dress came stumbling up to the tree. She must've been 35 or so. "Give me a cigarette." She was wasted. "You went to Oakwood right? I remember when you were like 2 years old I would babysit you." She went on and on. "My daughter goes to Oakwoood now. It's changed A LOT." Her drink kept teetering off the branch I was using to hold my cocktail and my belongings. "Do you have any weed? I want to get into this but I need weed." I don't smoke weed. "So, my daughter says that there are trans girls, teenagers, in the girls bathrooms. I got so mad so I called the principle and told him he was a little bitch for letting teenage boys dress up as girls so they can watch my daughter piss and shit." I was astonished but I let her keep going. "Oh! And then my daughter tells me the trans girl is going into the locker room and jacking off onto my daughter's clothes! Oakwood is so messed up now, man. You wouldn't understand it's crazy. Do not make the mistake of letting your kids go there. It's not the same as when we were there. It's awful."  

    The richest man in the world was at the wedding. He started dating someone at the wedding's mom recently. He danced. The small girl in the cheap dress tried to talk to him but she couldn't keep it together and I found her later on under my pine tree looking for cigarettes. 

    The only other real smoker at the wedding was Diane. She must've been 90. She would shuffle her way over to me, in her neon pink satin shaw and a voice as deep as the devil's. She went and found my mom to tell her that I was the only other smoker at the wedding and that she loved me. She became a safe face for me. Every time I felt shy I'd look for Diane across the dining area or from my pine tree. 

    There was a mom at the wedding who had a fixation with me. I noticed her at the ceremony. She was 4 rows ahead and she was rubbernecking every chance she could to look at me. It was a look of love and hatred. I couldn't tell. I avoided her the rest of the evening as best I could. During the first dance of the bride and groom, I snuck away up to the old cottage on the hill to use the bathroom. The scary mother was in there, fixing her makeup and texting someone. The tension was palpable, my palms instantly sweaty. In my memory I am looking at her through the mirror like in a movie but I think she turned around to look at me and didn't use the mirror. You could hear a pin drop. I don't know what it was. She was so stoic. The silence between lasted maybe 3 seconds but it felt like an eternity. I was face-to-face with my fear of the day. Suddenly, she smiled so fast. "I love your dress where's it from?" she asked. "Marc Jacobs. I got it on The RealReal for like $60." "Oh my god, I LOVE The RealReal. I need to get back on there." Then she walked out of the bathroom and I wanted to go wherever she went. I misinterpreted her stares. I went into a stall and sat down and smiled as I pissed.

    I got back to my pine tree and slowly all the girls from my childhood were approaching like a swarm. There were only 4 of them but it felt overwhelming because they were seemingly all coming from different directions, alone, at the same time, like I was being guerrilla'd. I gave everyone cigarettes one by one. I began to feel like a witch or something. Like they were all kids still and I somehow aged on to be this lady who hides in the tree and gives all the kids poisonous candies. Innocent yet scandalous at the same time.

    In the car on the way home, I felt very happy. I liked seeing those girls from my past. Being under a pine tree with them felt in many ways the same as when we were children, though this formation was not coherently organized. It was like this tree called for us to go in there and chit chat again. They were all very sweet, much more well-adjusted than I had suspected. I wanted to be friends with them again. Things didn't ever get very deep, we mainly talked about our parent's suffering and not our own. We talked about jobs and cities. Boyfriends. Boys boys boys. I met a girl named Crickett. She was a guest of one of my childhood friends. She would pop in and then leave the tree to go talk to the only single man at the reception. She deserves an entire blog entry of her own, but I'll get there later. 

    For the first time in my adult life, I felt a bit like maybe I wish I'd had an extra day or two to see all these kids from my childhood. I used to avoid them, I'd see them at the grocery store and I'd cover my face or turn around. I one time sprinted away in a parking lot and hid behind a car. They just wanted to say hi but I didn't have the stamina to withstand it because I am a coward when it comes to confronting my past. New York is my real life, I tell myself, and Ohio is a fictional, imagined, and completely hallucinatory part of my story, but that isn't true. It's all very real. Maybe New York is the fictional part. I can't really tell. Lala land. 

    

a weekend in the smallest world: 2 ballets

I've seen 3 ballets in my adult life. The first time was maybe 4 years ago at the Lincoln Center, and the other 2 times were this past weekend. 

    I'm not a connoisseur of ballet, nor am I a regular though by the second evening I felt like I was. The first evening was 4 short ballets with an intermission right in the middle, and I was only somewhat into the performances themselves. They were contemporary, experimental, and at times dull. The most exciting of the 4 acts was the final one. My friend having done the set design stage piece holds no weight in my bias, but the music did. Caroline Shaw's Partita, which won the Pulitzer Prize some years ago, has always snuck into my life in odd ways and finding something recognizable in a setting you don't find yourself in often is always a good way to be swayed. 

    The second evening was a much more classical lineup, also in 4 parts though this time with 2 intermissions. Debussy, Tchaikovsky, and some other heavy hitters that I can't recall off the top of my head. To be entirely honest I was not dreading the second evening but I felt a bit 'ballet-ed out'. I was hoping it would be quick but when we sat down in the Orchestra left seats, I noticed in the Playbill that it was going to be a long evening. The orchestra tuned and the curtain rose to unveil a large blue screen, facing the audience. It was a mystifyingly deep shade of royal blue, illuminated at just the most comfortable level for the human eyes. The second act had me crying, a riveting duet by two of the company's biggest stars, the stage set to look like a dance studio made of linens, with the blue screen still behind it. The two dancers were in love and for some reason that made me cry. Debussy blaring. It was pure magic! I was moved, you could say. 

    I got to the Whiskey Tavern down by the jail just 30 minutes after the performances had ended. It was a startling change of scenery after 3 hours of classical hypnosis. I ordered a gin and tonic that was served in a tall heavy pint glass. The Whiskey Tavern wasn't nice at all but somehow they have nicer glassware than The Met. I used to order champagne at intermission when I would go to opera with my best friend but the plastic champagne flute was too bruising to my vision of a glamorous night uptown. 

    I don't remember the first opera I saw at The Met but me and the man I loved most at the time left at intermission to have a drink somewhere else. On the way down the winding red steps, we saw Joan Didion inching her frail way down heading towards the ladies room.

    In December of 2019 me and my friend saw the final matinée performance of Phillip Glass' Akhnaten. It was horribly boring and tediously long, so we left at the 2nd intermission and got drunk at the diner behind Juilliard. We ate burgers and cursed that opera like it had personally done something deplorable to us. Later that week, on Christmas Eve, we ended up meeting the actor who played Akhnaten (the lead and pretty much only person in the 4 hour slo-motion string heavy bore). Ethan had told him we watched the whole thing and later on I told him we left at intermission and that it was boring, but that was an accident. 

    This past weekend though, on Friday, I did see Mikhail Baryshnikov in the lobby. He was stunningly old. I couldn't believe it! Most people know him as "the Russian" Carrie Bradshaw, of Sex and the City, dates in the series' final seasons. Weirdly, I met his ex-wife's daughter a month ago at a bar somewhere upstate. The world is so small. 

    As I sat through these performances, I was thinking so many things. I always drift off mentally at operas, symphonies, and ballets! It's a wonderful way to go about things. I always think about how lucky I am to not be anxious at a ballet, opera, or symphony. Nicole Kidman in Johnathan Glazer's Birth, cries in one scene while attending the symphony. Her character is so terribly anxious. Her dead husband is in the body of a 10 year old boy and she just came to terms with the fact that she wants to fuck him. It's crazy. 

Anywho, hope you all have a wonderful weekend and make sure to go to the ballet, but only if you are not anxious. 

sent from my desktop

 It is almost 7pm and I am at home. I don't know the last time I was home between the hours of 4-7pm. I am typing this on my brand new desktop. I got it at the apple store in soho 3 hours ago and I am incredibly obsessed with it. Everyone said to get a laptop so I can write at a coffee shop or something if need be but I can assure you I had a laptop for 6 years and it seldom left my apartment. its so cool to have a computer tethered to my desk which is tethered to my home. This man I know who is currently in Paris is going to give to me his MacBook Air so so I can write out of my home if I there is an emergency, or say, a job I have to do.

I've been hungover all day and buying this computer in such state was not the most sobering. I was out till 7 am and woke up at my friends house about 20 doors down from mine at around 11 am. I took a long shower and shaved my legs and remembered that today I had to buy a computer. So I went and I walked my broken self to soho and said "I'm buying that computer." I thought this would be easy but it wasn't. I paid with my phone and the transaction took roughly 15 minutes but I had to lie a whole lot. The guy selling me this beautiful piece of technology asked me if I'm a student. I lied and said I was. Then he asked "What are you studying?" I lied and told him I was an aspiring news journalist, studying political journalism. He asked me where I studied and I didn't know what to say, so we moved on and he told me about his brother's dream of making music for museum lobbies. I lied a third time and said that I would love to hear it one day. I told the guy I was really hungover. I told him about how I was at a bar till 7am. I told him about how I was going to faint if I don't get fresh air soon. I walked across the street with my huge box, scared I'd get murdered, jumped, robbed, and raped on my way to Fanelli. Aaron and Lucas were drinking beers and eating onion rings. I had a Coca Cola because I was still suffering. I hailed a cab on Broadway like a rockstar, with my giant desktop for everyone too see. I only had to pay $130.00! Now I will pay that every month for a year. 

Anywho, I hope that having this desktop will allow me to write more, as it is in front of my bed (my bed is my chair) unlike my laptop which lived under my couch or under a giant stack of photo albums. I forgot to mention that this computer is also for making music. So more writing and more music! This is great. I love this thing. I'ts so beautiful. 

Sincerely, 

Meetka. 

Sent from my iMac. 

Waiting for my Career

6 years ago this week, I walked in a Hood By Air show. I had just moved to New York to do whatever. I can't really recall why I had moved here or what ambitious idea I had for myself, though I do remember that after that show I thought I'd be the biggest thing in the world. That it was the beginning of a lifelong career in fashion...all because some guy named Walter had plucked me out of the instagram masses and asked me to do it. I thought I had found my calling. I started working for stylists, casting directors, and modeling once a month for magazines no one had heard of. I never got paid, and I never really had fun. The degree of broke I was led me to do bad things. I lived in a studio in Bushwick with 2 other girls. One of my roommates at the time was a grifter and taught me how to dine and dash the polite way. We would go to restaurants, get wasted, and then leave. I'd find some money and go back the next day and offer to pay. They never made me so I'd give them a $20 as a tip to the poor waitress who had to serve us. We would do this at the same restaurant almost weekly. It got to the point where they just stopped charging us in general and we didn't have to sneak out. I still feel bad especially because that restaurant closed. (R.I.P. Jules Jazz Bar)

Anywho, I started interning at Eckhaus Latta. I had no business being there. I asked for the job and when they asked what I wanted to do, I said, "I don't know. paperwork?" I couldn't sew, knit, clean, or even use Excel so for four whole months I would just sit at my computer and pretend to type things into a spreadsheet and call it research. They would give me meaningless errands such as washing one piece of cloth to see how it faired in a washing machine or get sheers sharpened just to keep me out of their hair. I one time fell asleep while smoking in the backyard and I'm still in awe that they didn't fire me after I decided that I'd drive to Maine to get a tattoo of a lobster. When they called asking where I was I said, "Vacation! I thought you had to pay people in order to implement rules. I'm so sorry I didn't know you needed me." Much to my surprise, I ended up walking in that season's show. I thought them asking me to be in the show was a good thing but it turned out it was a really nice way of letting me know I was too stupid to do anything useful. That was the very end of my internship so I walked across the street and asked for a job at Dimes. I loved it from the beginning but I genuinely felt worried that working in a restaurant would hinder my 'career' in fashion. I really thought that my life was falling apart because I wasn't typing gibberish into Excel for $0.00 an hour. I wanted to keep trying so I could one day get the free flights to Paris that all of my friends were enjoying. I kept up some of the modeling gigs and assisting jobs but I was losing steam on the opportunities due to my being insufferable. Getting booted from the fashion world was quick and painless however, out of the blue, I would get asked to do these big jobs and I would unconsciously destroy them. I was supposed to walk in Hood By Air again but I slept through it. I was supposed to interview with the casting directors at Gucci but when I arrived I showed them my diary and they asked me to leave. I was supposed to be on the cover of National Geographic but I slept through that, also. I decided in 2017 to stop saying yes to modeling. I then quit Dimes to try and do other things that felt more 'real'.

 I started assisting Amber Heard but by assisting I mean picking things up for her. It was the best job in the world. I would wake up, she'd tell me what she wanted, I'd go buy them and bring them to her hotel in Gramercy, and she would PayPal me $400. Or more. Sometimes the job involved more emotional things and I'd occasionally fill her in on my intensely delusional love life. She was always the sweetest to me. She was like a mom who didn't have to do much more than give me money and tell me I was pretty if I went to CVS and bought her falsies. :) Once upon a time she lived in the pink Schnabel building with her boyfriend, Vito Schnabel. I became quite close with the door men who would let me know all that was going on. I would go into the apartment and look through the junk drawers and imagine living there. I never found anything interesting because the man was never there. It was a sad sad place with horrible energy. It was all for nothing but doing coke and sitting on the toilet. I would imagine the incredible parties one could throw there but they didn't seem to happen. Everything was dusty and the apartment smelled like a college dorm. The dining table was an open air file cabinet. Everything was broken. Nothing worked as intended. The refrigerator was a crime scene and don't get me started on the bathrooms. I was very happy when Amber moved out and went back to the hotel life. I loved the bellhops at the Gramercy Park Hotel and writing this makes me want to go visit them but it just simply isn't the same if I don't have a case of wine and false eyelashes to deliver to Amber.

I ended up back at Dimes two years ago and I'm still there. My career as a waitress is the only constant in my life. I don't love it but I certainly don't hate it. I've travelled the world being a waitress. When I was 20, I took a month long trip to Tokyo by myself, for fun. I promised myself I'd do it again but in Europe. So when I was 23, I packed my bags and went to Paris and Berlin for a month to do some sightseeing. Everyone I knew had been to Paris. They all got flown out there and put up in hotels, went out to nice restaurants, and did the whole fashion week thing. I was always butthurt I was never invited or asked to work in Europe so I took it upon myself to go alone with my waitressing money. It was horrible. Paris sucked. I had gotten there at the bitter end of Fashion Week and kept running into all the people who had no money to pay me back when I was trying to make it in the fashion world 4 years prior. Everyone was mean but not in the nice way. They were mean in the dumb way. I walked into a bar one night and walked out being pointed and laughed at by the other patrons. I tried to buy a baguette one time and the lady wouldn't let me and she too could not stop laughing at me. Every time I'd ask for water they'd bring me an egg. I developed a weird, short-lived masturbation addiction. It was a horrible horrible trip. I would go back to the maid's quarters I was staying in and watch porn at 8pm and try to talk to people on the phone. After two weeks of this, it dawned on me that I didn't have to stay there so I prematurely went to Berlin via train. It was instantly better. Everyone was hot, nice, and the sky was gray. I made friends 20 minutes after being there and I even fell in love with a law student and we took care of a baby together. I cried when I had to go back to Paris. My flight was out of Charles De Gaulle and I thought maybe I'd regret it if I didn't try a little harder to like it. I took the train back and by the time I arrived, I had gotten an email saying that I was needed in Berlin to model for a German magazine. I swore off modeling but I needed out of Paris and was running out of money so I said yes. The shoot was excruciating. I cried 4 times in privacy because I simply hated being looked at. When I got back to New York, I was so relieved to not be living in Paris and will only go back if I am payed.

I was a host at Metrograph for 2 years. The private parties were ridiculous but deeply entertaining at times. Jennifer Lawrence was extremely nice and thought I was one of her friend's friends quietly stalking her but I was actually just her personal waitress and she had no idea. Michael Imperioli loved talking to me about whatever book I was reading at the host stand. He loves Rachel Cusk. The girls from Broad City are mean as all hell, Uma Thurman almost spit on my face when I asked her who the birthday cake she had in purse was for, Quentin Tarantino was nice but I felt bad for him because no one came to his party except for Harvey Keitel and Uma. Kristen Wiig's agent and his lawyer husband asked me to go upstate and work at their orgy, Greta Gerwig had a panic attack Christmas morning and asked if she could sit next to the host stand and stare at the wall. There are plenty more celebrity anecdotes but writing about it reminds me why I had no desire to go back after the pandemic.

After many years of staying out of the fashion orbit, I walked in a show again this past Monday. It was fun and I didn't feel ugly for once. I'm glad I did it but being back in that environment brought back many memories of sitting around waiting all day. When you model all you do is wait wait wait. Sit in foldable chairs and twiddle your thumbs. Maybe if you are lucky, a stock model from Russia will ask you a question. There is sometimes free bagels but usually they are old. When the food arrives, it is fun to go sift through the salad and pick out the sandwich no one wants because you want to seem greedy. You will wait for 4 hours doing absolutely nothing but if you get up to go smoke, you could be in trouble for potentially wasting time so you smoke it as quickly as you can and get back to the foldable chair and wait another hour or two. I definitely do not miss all that waiting and wasting the day away so for now I will keep my job waiting tables and having no obligations the second I clock out.

CD ?

I had to revert two entries to draft. I re-read them both the day after I had written them and realized they were not at all me. I was feeling weird when I wrote them. The entries were by no means displays of disingenuous writing or personality hopping, but they were written in a way that was uncontrollably unfamiliar to me and in turn made me ultimately uncomfortable. They may come back but I'm not so sure, so the numerical order of future entries is to be determined. For now it is a ?.



This past week was such a whirlwind. I read a book a day for 7 days. The first 4 days were nice and I was very much enjoying myself. I had no intention of stopping until I reached day 6 I was about losing my mind just sitting there reading reading reading. It led me to try and quit smoking which was also a failure. The morning I decided I'd quit, I told myself, "After this pack, no more cigarettes!" but by the end of the pack, I decided I'd cut down from 25 cigarettes a day to just 5. I have cut back quite a bit but I'm still in the teens. Yesterday was 13, the day before 14. Hopefully today I can achieve my new goal of 10. I watched a bunch of videos on youtube, vloggers primarily, who talked about quitting smoking. They weren't so good at convincing me but I did enjoy watching them for some reason.

Talking on the phone with Ethan last night, he told me about how his first cigarette was when he was 13 on Avenue A and he was drunk or something. He said he could remember how bad he thought it had tasted. This too was a trend with the Youtube vloggers...about how their first cigarettes were disgusting. I remember my first cigarette was outside the school in Hungary. I was sitting with a girl named Bárbörá who told me that I would have a difficult time making friends if I didn't smoke and of course my 15 year old self wanted so badly to have a few more friends then just being glued to Bárbie. Now as I write this I realize that maybe she wanted me to go make different friends, too. She gave me one of her Marlboro menthols and I have smoked a pack a day till now. Now I am trying for half a pack. I was telling Tess that I want to be able to not have them on me and feel fine...that instead of anxiously worrying about when I run out, I simply just wait till its most convenient for me to go buy some. I count my cigarettes like they are the last thing I have. I hate sharing them. I hate sharing them especially with people who don't smoke. The people you see every single night at the bar who ask you for cigarettes and all the while sitting there continue on about how they quit smoking two years ago. I am vowing now to not become one of those people but I wouldn't be surprised if I did.

I was looking out my stairwell window again but this time it was night and I could see directly into my friend Silvia's apartment. Well, it used to be her apartment up until December that is. Someone bought the building and kicked everyone out. It was the best building. It was like a mansion with a few friends living in it. For some reason though, looking out the stairwell window into what will always be to me, Silvia's kitchen, I didn't feel all that sad or mournful like I usually do about these kind of things. It was actually rather peaceful and those few minutes of staring gave me that painful feeling of wishing everyone could see what I was seeing. Of course it's mundane, two apartment windows, looking into a kitchen. The oven's green clock illegible from my distance but very much there, the round kitchen table by the window with a box of some kind sitting on it, the lamp on the countertop and it's light painting everything in the room gold and yellow...the outside of the building is an alcove of other buildings including mine and 2 others allowing it to resemble at times a sort of European gamut of architecture. Silvia's is Italian with its gray and yellow walls, the apartment between ours is British with it's deep red brick and shutters at each window, my building is more French, and the building across from the British one, between Silvia and I's, is much more Germanic.  And to top it all off, the post rain dewey smell was so refreshing, especially now. It was so calming it made me a bit sad, it was like I couldn't see it all well enough because it was so pleasant. It all looked like a Gail Albert Halaban photograph after post-production. I turned my back for maybe one minute and when I turned back around, the lights were off. It's not as sentimental as I'm making it seem to be but it was just something that I really enjoyed. Maybe the best part of my day. I've attached below some good Gail Albert Halaban photos below... :)

The sun is shining so bright this morning so I will try and get my groceries early rather than wait all day as I have been in the habit of postponing anything that requires labor of any kind...Warmth to u all!

-m.

big thanks

I'm quite sad the holidays are over. They always come and go so quickly and you can't live like that forever, doing so many festive things all the time. I'm not really into one particular holiday but I do enjoy all of the things surrounding them. Where people are going, who they are spending time with, who's in town, who's not in town, which friend's parents house you will drink too many drinks at. I love buying people things and I of course love being gifted things but my friends are not the gift-giving type. Two years ago, I got my friend Sabrina candlestick holders. A pair. Green glass, nearly clear and very tall and long and cylindrical. I kept one for myself. In part because I wished to buy the one of kind candlestick holders for myself but also as a way of expressing friendship or something. Coincidentally, Sabrina gave me a tapered candle that came originally as a pair. She kept one for herself as a way of noting friendship. I should've called her when I burned the candle but I believe I lit it while in bed with someone.

One year on Ethan's birthday, I tried to take him to the top of the World Trade Center but my card declined so he paid. Afterwards, we went to the mall and had Shake Shack. I tried to pay for that too but did not. So on Ethan's birthday he gave me a view and fast food. I got Ethan a photo book that year. It may have been his first but I don't know if I'm just making that up but I really do believe it was his first. Two years later, I got him another photo book and then a Calvin Trillin book that I am now reading. He read it in a day and told me to read it. It's funny reading the inscription I wrote on the title page as if it was something he returned to me because he hated it.

I got my friend Rewa The Year of Magical Thinking for Christmas this year. I tried to get her to read it for a long long time but she refused for the same reasons I did. There was something too fashionable about it especially with the Joan Didion documentary being so popular and all at the time. I read The Year of Magical Thinking en-route to Wisconsin two summers ago. I bought it in Chicago and read it outside of my old school on the steps of The Art Institute of Chicago. I couldn't stop reading it and I guess that's when I let go of judging books by the people who read them. I read it in the car to Wisconsin and then again on the plane back to New York. I've sold the book to many people but Rewa for so long would not budge! So I force fed it to her in the form of a gift right before she left for a long flight to Lebanon. She emailed me recently saying "I will now listen to your recommendations."

I got my close friend Tess an original Japanese poster for Rosemary's Baby last year. I gave it to her at the Jewish diner we often go to early in the mornings. Thats changed now because Tess has a full time job and I'm waking up later these days. That morning I gave her the poster, she gave me this beautiful tacky lamp I'd been eyeing at a thrift store in midtown. Its a porcelain little boy holding a basket of giant eggs and is standing on what looks like maybe a cupcake. The shade is yellow and blue tartan. It's a great conversation starter in my living room.
My friend Morgan always goes crazy with the gift giving. Morgan will give you a gift because its been 7 and a half weeks since your birthday, which I guess to her is a reason to celebrate. Morgan one year gave me a camera and a long letter singing my praises. She also gave me expensive hand cream that year. I barely considered her a friend as we were still getting to know each other. This year she got me my favorite hair oil and a beautiful silk shirt that looks and feels the opposite of cheap. Trying to give Morgan a gift is a difficult task. She'll love and adore whatever it is you give her but there is a natural desire to really impress her. Morgan is fair skinned and lithe and dainty. She has long naturally orange hair and bright baby blue eyes. Her cheeks blush the exact color of her lips especially after a wine. She talks at low whispered volumes sometimes but laughs louder than anyone else when she means it. Everyone who knows Morgan hopes that she likes them. Her taste is incredible and everything she owns seems to mean something to her..so with that being said, buying a gift for the orange-haired pale-skinned whispering little tastemaker is a job that takes more thought than it does to buy your guy friend who will basically appreciate anything you give him because he is not-so-sentimental about objects the way you are.

My friend Bella is the most difficult to buy gifts for. Her best friend once told me in secrecy, If you didn't make it, Bella won't like it. Luckily, I do in fact have some creative capabilities but I'm not so good at coming up with ways to use them. I thought long and hard and tried to paint something for her but it was shameful. I tried to make a sculpture that could be a nice tchotchke on a windowsill but it just looked stupid. So while in her apartment one day, I stole the hair out of her hairbrush and put it in my pocket and walked across the street back to mine. I took the hair out of my hairbrush and plugged in my flatiron and sat for a long long afternoon straightening each individual hair and then made a little braid. The braid fell apart too easily so I just wrote her a long letter and glued all the strands to it throughout. Her best friend told me it was too creepy but Bella seemed to like it. That same year, Bella gave me the best gift I've received in a long time. It was a video she compiled of all the most important people in my life saying happy birthday to me. It made me cry it was so sweet, this nice little non-confrontational surprise party compiled into a 4 minute video. I went a long time without watching it but recently found it on my computer. It did in fact make me a bit weepy but not because of how heartfelt it was but because some of the people in the video are rarely in my life like they used to be. That's how life goes, though. People come and go and so do their gifts.
I rarely throw anything away especially not a gift. I have a tendency to apply sentimental value to most everything. I have a bag that is filled with foreign receipts and subway tickets and pencils and pens and candy wrappers etc. The bag is gathering dust and I feel little to nothing upon looking through once in a blue moon, but I just can't get myself to get rid of it. My dad one time was helping me move out of my apartment in Chicago after I had dropped out of school. I was smoking in the alley and upon returning saw him throwing a dried up dusty rose into a trash bag. I screamed bloody murder, That's the rose that Grimes gave to me after her concert! My dad laughed and said, Okay what? and broke it in two and went on going through all my dusty little treasures. Of course I survived and can live without the dried up rose that Grimes gave to me when I was 17 but you see, I'm still writing about it.

I keep letters for as long as I can. They seem to always disappear after a few years and moving around. I recently found a stack of letters that all my classmates in Hungary gave to me prior to returning back to Ohio. It's unfortunate that I can no longer read them. I used to be able to read Hungarian with ease and near fluency. That was only 5 years ago but when I look at them now, I can hear the words and their meanings in my head but I simply can't comprehend them. Despite not being able to read these letters, I of course will never throw them away. All the Hallmark cards with not a single personal inscription, garbage. At least sign the thing!

I will always love giving gifts and it feels good to buy expensive things for other people. I always find myself so broke around the holidays; buying people stupidly expensive photo books and perfumes and hand creams. Though at least I get to experience the pleasure of watching someone open something you deliberately went out and bought for them. It's obvious you can't buy love but you can in some ways buy them a big thank you.

Conor, Bliss, and Kurosawa

My predictions were right: I'm an angel again. I for some reason was all giddy as a horse all day and night yesterday. I read a whole lot and got my headphones fixed in the daytime. I went nearly 5 days without music which drove me absolutely mad. I was worried that getting my over-the-ear headphones would cost a fortune to repair but when reaching for my wallet, the girl working said, Don't worry about it, it's on me. Her name tag said Bliss. Thank you, Bliss!!!

I skipped over to the bookstore which was quite a zoo. I guess everyone's a reader on sunny Sundays in Soho! I had no interest in buying anything but it felt nice to walk amongst all the eager people and touch every book cover even the ones I could care less about.

In the evening I met Ethan for a drink. I felt like a child, in a good way. For the first time in days I was happy to be around someone. I was essentially vibrating in my seat with joy, sitting on my feet and smiling a whole lot. Ethan left and I stuck around to read a bit. It was still relatively early and the bar was quiet and cozy. I ran into some friends of friends who are visiting from the West Coast. They invited me to go see Rashomon around the corner. I sat alone in the balcony and before I knew it, I had woken up with a slight trail of drool running down my neck. I was in a daze and ran out of the theater like a frightened little baby. I stepped outside and there was a particularly dreamy amount of snow falling. My west coast acquaintances met me outside and convinced me to have a little more wine. We talked about the idols we've met, our favorite places to travel, and all the fun things you get to talk about when you hardly know much about each other. God forbid Ethan or Tess or Rewa hear again and again and again my story of meeting Björk and how when I looked into her eyes I almost had a meltdownexistentialcrisismindblowntolittlepiecesfullofregretnevershouldhavedonethat moment.

Conor picked me up from work the other evening. He is the hottest person I know. I know hotter people or I mean I know people I'm actually much more attracted to, but Conor is so classically beautiful, anyone in his presence becomes a sack of roses and rainbows and wetness. Every person he comes into contact with has near heart attack. He is your quintessential heart throb Calvin Klein Ralph Lauren looking tall guy. He has puffy blond-ish hair and a smile designed by Norman Rockwell. His hands could crush a child in one little squeeze and his legs barely fit when sitting anywhere. Every time I bring him somewhere, some girl who has gone crosseyed grabs my arm and threateningly asks me who he is. His names Conor, he likes going to the movies and is very very kind. The single best part about tall tall Conor is that despite being a sexualized hunk of a man who may be perceived as some animal boy looking to cum on to anything, he could care less and winces if you say anything of the matter. He just wants to talk to you about everything and anything. He likes Chantal Ackerman, sitting in parks, eating soup, and going to Anthology film archives 20 thousand times a week. He's always there. He's always going there. He's always coming from there. The amount of times he has left me to go to Anthology is upsetting. We can't go near the place or I will lose him. He could be shot in the face but God forbid the ambulance go by Anthology or there will be a 90 minute pit stop to the movies. When he talks to you, he sucks the air in his teeth between words and sentences. It's very endearing to me for some reason. Ticks tell all! I've tried to distinguish when and when he does not suck the air in between his teeth out of curiosity as to what may turn off the tick. Conor makes me feel like a little baby but I at the same time feel older than him. We are the same age. I'm usually funny around him but also sometimes very serious and I reach into the weird deeper parts of my brain and he will sometimes just stare at me and I'll stare back and he will laugh at me and the stupid serious things I say and then he usually leaves me to go to Anthology.

nail biting in 2020

There are new people living in my building. They are maybe 30 years old or so. A group of girls. I've run into them twice now and they are always drunk acting like 12 year olds who accidentally ate toxic glue. I really can't handle them and their voices echoing 3 floors below mine. The other night I was sitting on my couch when I heard them all go on the roof. They went up and down and up and down and seemed to be having some sort of track and field event right above my peaceful abode. I looked through the peephole thing in the door and saw two go up and two go down the stairs. I heard the two who were on the roof were right over my room which is closer to the edge of the building. The two who went down were now inaudible and likely fetching more hard seltzer. I opened my door and ran up the stairs and locked the sad people on the roof. I felt much better. After their friends freed them the field day ended. 

Sleeping has been a rather strange experience as of lately. I've been rolling around a lot and sweating immensely. My dreams are so cryptic and forgettable but there remains an extracted energy long into the morning. Something scary began to happen in my dreams last night, I can't recall what was so frightening but on the bridge of waking I could feel that something bad was about to happen had I kept sleeping.

The movie theater I work at has been playing Uncut Gems which has been quite the talk of the town. Everyone asks each other if they've seen it and if they liked it. I personally felt it was just ok. I was entertained but my mind is still intact rather than blown as some have expressed. It's pretty, with Darius Khondji in charge of the imagery and camera and Adam Sandler is actually rather - Oh I just remembered one of my dreams...I was about to sleep with Adam Sandler ! - but yes Adam Sandler is very great to watch in the film. My friend Zoe has seen it twice and plans on a third viewing. 

Ethan and I saw Eyes Wide Shut on New Year's Day. I've seen it on the big screen 4 times now. I was madly exhausted and slightly hungover. I felt that maybe I was too tired and Ethan and I agreed as we sat down that we reserve the right to sleep, smoke and to maybe even leave. However, after nearly 3 hours, I hadn't taken my eyes off the screen. I did in fact pee during the orgy scene because I find that part irritating...but never the less, it is up there as one of my favorite films. While it's widely known that Eyes Wide Shut was shot in London on a soundstage, I did notice for the first time that the corner of St. Marks and 2nd Avenue are in a transitional scequence for 3 or so seconds. You can see Gem Spa and Dallas BBQ. I found that strange considering that none of the street names are actual New York street names and the New York you see on screen is fully artificial. Why that one shot of reality? Likely no real reason but I'm sure all of the Kubrickian conspiracy theorists would argue that there lie some thorough allegorical message behind the 3 seconds. At home, I texted Ethan, Maybe he just really loved Dallas BBQ. 

On my birthday last Saturday, I spent most the day just meandering about. I sat with Ethan in the park and we went to Essex Street Market to find some food. I do miss the old and more local Essex Market that felt more useful and less of a playground but I will say there are some new vendors that are a nice addition. That's merely it though and I would still opt for the past. The biggest thing that bothers me about the multi-million dollar renovation is the strange concept of memorializing all of the family owned businesses that have since shuttered due to the climbing rents and high-speed gentrification that the new Essex Street Market is too a product of. 

Afterwards, I walked up to the East Village and watched my friend Brett skateboard. He's 30-something and works on railroads in rural Canada. He's in town for a few weeks and we have been spending some time together. He has a nice scar on his face and one missing tooth. He would look worse without these little details. He can skate pretty well and smokes as much as I do so we can eat meals with ease together. We ate egg sandwiches one day last week and he recommended I read a book called The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yucknavitch. It's an impressive book and I rarely read anything people tell me to, but I am rather pleased! It's not often I say shit like "I can't put it down!" but the truth is, I can't. 

2020 looks sexy when written. 20 is already a nice number. I love when things cost exactly $20. I like when I've read 20 pages in a book or spent 20 minutes doing something. I like getting paid in twenties. I liked being 20. I like that 20 is two 10's and four 20's is 100. I like that 2020 is two twenties but it's not 40. There will be no more nail biting for me in 2020! 

Goodreads asked me if I'd like to set a goal this year. I said 75 books. That means I'd have to sometimes read two books a week but definitely always one. I feel confident I can do so. 

My biggest pet peeve lately is when men call me man. I don't mind when people say he or him but there is something really nauseating about a guy in a suit coming into the restaurant I work at and patting me on the back while saying "Thanks man." after I seat him. The period in that quote is incredibly necessary as these men say "Thanks man." as if I just saved him from getting in the wrong Uber. These kinds of guys are always waiting for their Tinder date to arrive and then lie to them. I come here all the time. No you don't. I've never seen you here. They are the kind of men who ask me where he can get a drink and meet someone around here. They are the kind of men who ask me as they are leaving if the theater thats downstairs plays artsy movies and stuff. The kind of men who when drunk enough, hit on me then get angry that I'm not full woman. I get angry when I hear their voices coming near me and I truly despise most every atom in their bodies. I didn't always and I don't think its because I'm some sort of raging liberal feminist looking for someone to hate, I think I just don't like them. I occasionally have these grand fantasies where I take the bottle of wine I'm opening for them and breaking it on their heads in front of their hostage of a date. The fantasy satisfies me enough to forget about my own rage and tend to the elderly couple struggling to chew their steak frites.

I tried to like everyone who walked into work last night. I had to actively remind myself to be incredibly kind. It was a nice feeling but towards the end I went to back to my usual self. These 6 name-dropping sickos tried to just sit wherever they pleased so I told them to leave and go to another bar 6 blocks away where there is more space for them. They left thinking I was being funny. I was, I guess, being funny. That's the nice thing about being small and mean. No one is scared of you so they just laugh and there is no can I speak to the manager please when arguing with me. They just leave.

Wow I sound like such a bitch. I guess I am this week but that's ok. Next week I'll be an angel, I'm sure.

white lotus, le voltiguer, and the best chicken in tokyo

Every Wednesday after school, my best friend Emma and I would drive downtown to the best Thai restaurant in Dayton, Ohio. My father preferred Thai9, watered down and adjusted fittingly for middle class white business men. Emma and I were White Lotus girls. White Lotus is a small, white tiled, bar seats-only little box. The owner is also the chef and she is her only employee. Emma and I were in love with her. She was in her 60's at the time and her eyes were just a few inches over the counter. She was incredibly mean and would kick people out if they didn't order quick enough. Emma  and I would always get a burger and pad thai and she would scold us for never being able to finish it all. One time we walked in and she sat at the bar, watching a soap opera, clipping her toe nails on the bar, and told us we had to wait till the episode was over before she would start cooking our food. One time, just as she had started cooking, a cop car went by and stopped just a block down with its sirens on. She turned the burners off and left the diner, locking the door as she left. She was gone for maybe 15 minutes and upon returning said, "Those stupid cops always pulling people over outside of my shop its annoying so I go tell them to stop doing it."

Emma and I found a dead rat in one of the potted plants at the bar. 

A lot of other customers complained about her funny yet usually time consuming antics. Emma and I didn't mind all the things she did because the food was always delicious, we found her genuinely entertaining, and once you started eating and she had no meals to cook, talking to her was always very pleasant. She grew to like us over time and would often times make us drinks on the house and would tell us stories about her friends in Thailand. The pad thai was good among many other dishes, but her cheeseburger was so simple and delicious. I miss her and her restaurant where I spent so many afternoons at. Beyond the food being good, I associate White Lotus with lots of laughter and joy. 

                                     

I've never been an adventurous eater on my own accord. If I'm presented with any food, I will likely eat it but I won't go hunting for it on my own. When traveling, choosing a place to eat for me is an incredible debate with myself. "Too expensive." "No one is in there." "Too crowded." "Too far." "What if there is a better place a block away." "I already ate there and shouldn't eat there again because I'm only here for so long but what if the place I go instead is really bad and I regret it." These are all thoughts I have while deciding on a restaurant in unfamiliar places. Paris was a personal hell because every brasserie is the same aside from the color of the chairs outside and the price of wine. I couldn't for the life of me choose between places to dine in Paris so I just stuck to one that I liked and stopped kicking myself for not trying other places. It was an hour away from the apartment I was staying at but I still went every morning and afternoon. I developed a relationship with a table outside that I felt attached to and was magically available even at the busiest hours. The waiters there grew to be more fond of me as my French improved. Upon returning from a two week excursion in Berlin, the sexy waiters gave me a croque-madame on the house which felt very triumphant compared to my other interactions with Parisians. The food there was okay, very mediocre and stereotypically French but there was just something about the place that resonated with me. In the many afternoons I had spent there, I sat next to Frances McDormand and watched her chain smoke and talk politely to excited pedestrians. I stopped by the cafe after an afternoon trip to Versailles and found myself sitting next to an old lover who I had met on the train in New York some 3 years prior. I ran into my friend Violet at that cafe and we spent 5 hours talking. There was a men's clothing store across the small street and one of the employees there would come outside from time-to-time and ask to borrow my lighter. He was handsome and cute but I only thought so because I was in Paris. This man otherwise would've gone unnoticed in other places. We developed a nice repertoire of borrowing cigarettes and lighters from each other and we seldom spoke to each other about anything other than, bonjour ca va? One morning I was walking in Montmartre and the man I barter with came running from behind me and playfully hit the back of my head. He got on the same train as me but in a different car and we sort of tango'd through multiple neighborhoods until we reached our obvious destinations; the cafe and clothing store. There was definitely something romantic between us but also something incestuous. My last day in Paris, I bid adieu to the cafe and ate escargot and had a glass of wine around noon. It was a beautiful morning and I remember feeling melancholy about something specific, but I am having a hard time remembering. 

Outside of Tokyo you can find the Miyazaki museum. It skirts a small forest with little shrines and paths all over. I stumbled blindly through the forest in the rain and reveled at how Miyazaki-esque the forest happened to look that day. When I finally came to a road, I went into a small tea shop with only two petite tables. I asked the woman working if she could point me in the direction of the popular museum. When I arrived at the museum, I waited in line for maybe an hour at most and when finally getting to the front, I was informed that since I am a tourist from out of the country, I had to make a reservation at least 90 days in advance online. They luckily have a Totoro statue outside for rejected guests like me to depressingly take photos with. The rain came down harder and I ran back into the tea shop that I had stopped in an hour before. The lady working sat me down and told me she was sorry for not warning me about the ticketing process for tourists. 

That evening, I went back to the apartment I was staying in which happened to be in a more residential area near Shibuya on the other side of the highway. There were hardly any places to eat near me and I was too tired to go all the way back to Shibuya for food. As I made my way to the 7/11 mart, I walked past an empty restaurant with a man and a woman sitting at the bar. I walked in and the two people got up enthusiastically with magnified smiles on their faces. I turned around and walked out before they could say anything. I browsed the food at the 7/11 and decided to go back to the small empty restaurant. I walked back in and the two people got up again and rekindled their smiles. They shook my hand and sat me down aggressively and began interviewing me and the foods I liked. The boy began putting an apron on and stepped behind the counter of raw meat and fish. They introduced themselves to me and asked me what kind of music I liked. I said Bjork and they put on Bjork. "Meetsika, please try everything." the girl said with a certain seriousness. The girl told me her brother was "the best chicken maker in Tokyo". The chicken was in fact incredible. It was salty and gingery with an almost fishy flavor. I could've eaten 100 of the little pieces of chicken over rice and pickles. Mind you, I didn't eat much chicken in Tokyo  but I will for the sake of it agree the girl. The chef, who I found out early on in my experience, was her brother. He made me all sorts of food and she made the drinks. I still to this day haven't been able to pinpoint what exactly I was eating but it mostly tasted good.

 An hour into my busy meal, a man covered in tattoos walked in, soaked from the rain. He looked at the brother, sister, and I as if we were dead and seemed to be in disbelief that there was a customer. He took off his coat and sat down right next to me and lightly nodded his head as his introduction. The 4 of us all sat at the bar eating different foods and drinking endlessly. The tattooed man seemed to be maybe the brother and sister's cousin and was very quiet and still. He would smile upon making eye contact but that was the peak of our interactions. I barely speak a lick of Japanese and they knew only basic English yet for some reason the girl was very insistent on the topic of politics. I maneuvered the conversation back towards more visual things. The brother pulled out a laptop and connected it to the speakers and asked me to show them my favorite music videos and they will show me theirs. We stayed up till 4 in the morning, drinking sake and wine and beer and eating ice cream and watching music videos. I left and never returned but I'm glad that it turned out that way. I'm glad I went in there instead of taking home the onigiri from 7/11 which mind you is also a great option when in Tokyo.