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.