Someone's Gotta Help Me Dig

(image taken from Earphoria)

(image taken from Interview)

(image taken from Brooklyn Vegan)

Not one to succumb to oblivion or blissful ignorance, I knew that moving to New York, while definitely a welcome and arguably overdue adventure, would not be the ultimate antidote to my various life struggles, big and small. Very aware, I knew I would continue to work long hours, would continue to combat constant exasperation from inane or incompetent clients, would continue to irrationally fear those creepily crawling brown water bugs that invariably live in apartment sinks, for a moment, before remembering I can triumph with a deluge of cleaning spray, accurately aimed. But, obviously, I did have some typical expectations of being able to indulge in the rich experiences the city has to offer. Music, art, literature. Margaritas. And the like.

After several days of incessant fretting and frittering over inconsequential details, there is a beautiful tension between the excitement and the calm experienced, engulfed in a crowd of strangers, old and young and delightfully diverse, listening to the creation of sound that, through the inevitable mysteries of time, can only happen once.

Last Wednesday, after a long day in the office, I saw Father John Misty perform, sing his poetry and gyrate, mostly ironically, on stage. His presence is an amalgamation, a hybrid of gods before him, part satire and part honest veneration, or at least respect: Joe Strummer, Freddie Mercury, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, with a splash of buxom lounge singer, anonymous, ubiquitous. He struts. He feigns slamming his guitar, his microphone stand, hard onto the stage, holding them aloft precariously, dipping low. He parades into the crowd, poses for photographs, smiles for the various likes and shares on some digital plane. He jokes and talks between songs, sharing stories that may be truth or lies, which it does not matter. And none of these things compromise the integrity of his lyrics, humorous and mocking but also gritty and provocative. Nor the integrity of his voice. As a wonderful cherry atop, his band is, unsurprisingly, equally talented; they do not merely support, but perform and entertain alongside him.

Rarely am I hugely disappointed after live music, though, naturally, some shows are notably better and worth it than others I have attended. While Father John Misty is certainly worthy of a gander, for me, last week, it was an evening of wiping my eyes of the computer glow and remembering why I moved, and why I should never forget to seek to live.

Red Wicker Bag and Blurred Patriotism

Memories of Fourth of July festivities are nearly as blurred as this amateur phone-photograph, a result of haphazard frozen concoctions imbibed on the day and a whirlwind of amorphous time-space since. At once furiously frenzied fast and molasses long, this work week has left me exhausted; I blame my project pile, the lack of natural sunlight in our crouched building office, and the general solid city heat.

Last week, as an accompaniment to a cook-out with some friends and an unpolished roof top with some other friends, for some illicit fireworking, I carried this sugar cherry red vintage wicker bag, a find from my weekend last summer up in Great Barrington.  The past few seasons have seen a return to the classic, quintessential wicker bag of earlier generations, imbuing me with effortless and on-trend style based on my collection. Tightly woven, natural or dyed some bold blinding color, the sharp structure of the wicker bag lends elegance without stifling a casual, capricious summer style. For me, the wicker texture and this simple red are synonymous with lush gardens, croquet, sweating summer drinks in tall Collins glasses, and patio parties.

Hearts of Glass

(image taken from Kitten)

(image taken from Lehigh Valley Live)

(image taken from Ribbon Around Da Bomb)

(image taken from Listal)  

Yesterday, Debbie Harry turned sixty-eight, an age at once laughably arcane and painfully close. Time has been strange and elusive to me lately; since moving, new city and new tastes and new smells, old friends, new friends, I never seem to stop moving, even when I wake, a comfortable sweat collates from a night of speeding dreams, eerie and horrifying and beautiful. A friend of mine from high school came the other weekend, for a brief but delightful visit; she is well, different but also the same, as I hope that I, too, am, someone familiar but someone also new and exciting to explore and continue to cultivate these relationships. This past weekend, another friend, from university, similarly, we are both new yet the same, I can still see a trance of mischief in her smile. It seems to be a success to say we both are happier now, happier than then, without forgetting that which first led us to find such friendship. Commiseration. I am proud, of us both.

Singing karaoke for the first time in a public space, somewhere loud and open and with strangers, we selected a tried and true Blondie song, simultaneously safe and rebellious, like us. Mostly giddy but fueled by alcohol as well, we ran to the train, nervous, not wanting to spend the early hours of a dark morning wandering the streets, but also not caring if we were forever trapped here, atonal, dancing the same rhythmic discombobulation of hips and open smiles.

When we were all younger, the whole group, a dance competition: Madonna against those familiarly simple subversive post-disco beats. My earrings broke from the effort of dancing. The floor warped beneath our shaking bodies, convulsing wood in sinoidal waves. We laughed and laughed, knowing and yet, not knowing, years from then, we would still hold such a place for one another in our hearts. 

Corso Como Lusting

My sister, Elizabeth, introduced me to the affordable beauty and elegance of Corso Como pumps last winter, during an evening out at Gramercy Tavern celebrating my birthday. She wore this pair of classic suede pumps in black, the slight hint of gold in the tip of the toe the perfect accent against her monochrome look. Earlier week, I discovered that the bold velvety red variety are on final sale at Piperlime. I will espouse the many versatile qualities of a great pair of red shoes dogmatically, my consumerist sartorial mantra. For someone who has been bemoaning the lack of organizational space in my new apartment, especially when it comes to handbags and arguably impractical shoes, indulging in this steal may be laughable. Even more so, considering the chaos and destruction of my recent closet woes, which, ashamedly, I am still in the throes of. Moderation has honestly never been a trait of mine, anyway; go hard or go home.

(image taken from Piperlime)

Closet Crash

Sunday late afternoon is spent reveling in a cool, languid heat, sipping Sazeracs and stouts. Then we gorge on Cajun spiced food, the soft flesh of white catfish, bloodied tomatoes, rich mayonnaise sauce. We speak slowly and laugh. Tattoos, given to ourselves, or bestowed upon us by friends. Ventriloquism. Documentaries. We sit on wooden picnic table benches, prime real estate, as cigar and marijuana smoke mingle and permeate, a couple of local of caricatures smacking on rolled joints of different flavors, stretched taut denim, stretched taut braids. Reading conspicuously from some red leather journal as they puff.

Earlier that day, zealous, I arrange fastidiously various limp cascades of fabric in my two new closets, harnessing spacial analysis and brute force. A wooden dowel, long and supported by cheap plastic, I ignore all tenets of physics that I know to be true and cruel. Snap, like a cracking bone. Collapse. Inevitable entropy, sprawled and crumpled on the floor. 

I cry for a moment, overwhelmed and hot, then decide this is a manifestation of the proverbial growing pains.

Pink Elephants, or, Not in New Jersey Anymore, Toto

To liken the past few weeks to a whirlwind would be on the equivalent dampening plane as calling the recent emotional turmoils surrounding child star Amanda Bynes, and its accompanied frenzied media diarrhea, simply stress. Perhaps it is just my own stress of feeling constantly under the proverbial gun, inciting this hyperbole, but packing up my life, throwing out old parts of my life, and moving to a new city and a new job have been taxing. Naturally, with the actual apartment hunt having gone, all things considered, smoothly and successfully, I discover, to my dismay, last Tuesday that my telephone land-line has been cut, making my self-installation internet service impossible. A stroke of genius in business cruelty and revenue generation, Verizon has revived the land-line from the realm of unnecessary and novel oddities from centuries passed, by using the land-line, as opposed to the cable line, for their high-speed service. While, for a brief moment, I was ecstatic and relieved that I could potentially make local telephone calls during now infamous east coast super-storms, to other suckers with Verizon land-line service, the realization that an additional week without connectivity was harsh. Thankfully, I still indulge in yet another antiquated novelty, books, so, survival and entertainment were never actually in question.

But I digress. 

My first two weeks on the new job have revealed some wonderful and welcome lessons. Even the most minor modicum of process in place feels like an entirely new and foreign planet when you have been professionally raised, so to speak, in that entrepreneurial milieu of utter and complete chaos at a tiny company. Never, ever second-guess that immediate friendship with the geeky technology liaison; his insights and attentiveness are worth more than the entire arsenal of MacBooks at the agency. Although decidedly not as intimate as those forged between Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, bond with the executive director and creative partner of your entire agency over your safari adventures in Africa. Because, obviously, everyone loves elephants and is awe-struck by their magnificence. Also, after collecting copious piles of costume jewelry and cocktail accoutrement and other riffraff generally discarded by those with a less cultivated sense of nostalgia for years, there is a monumental professional pay off; bond with that same executive director over this as well. Over this insatiable love for bakelite and for art deco furniture and for glass cocktail shakers, decorated with none other than cartoonish elephants. Finally, do not be surprised when said director, of a different and distant generation, admonishes you for not being an active Pinterest member. 

(image taken from Pinterest)

Packed Rat and Pinotage

Things have been quiet around these, normally, opulently verbose parts; changes of the magnitude that would make our favorite Thin White Duke call for more milk, more milk. Or something. Bucking the surprisingly potent shackles of stagnation, I abandoned the suburbs of the polarized, adored and abhorred, Garden State, now find myself a mere block from Prospect Park in Brooklyn. While it pained me to bid a teary farewell to some truly incredible colleagues, friends, I have survived my first few days at my new and exciting position, strong and assured and unscathed. The level of meticulous process and attention to project routing is a bit daunting, to say the least, for one with my enterpreneurially chaotic background, but, acclimating to new environments is a welcome challenge after the initial shock of discomfort and change.

With the overwhelmingly generous and dedicated help of my filmmaker, I have very nearly packed my entire apartment and moved into the new space. As even a brief perusal of some of these random ramblings and visual accompaniments will indicate, I am a violent pack rat. Armed with a suburban pad with enormous closets, I much needed a gleaning of my belongings, particular in the clothing department. Although it had been long postponed, the process was less painful than I anticipated; it was, tritely, a therapeutic cleansing. As we shed old garments, we also shed former skins; decisions, moments, relationships, emotions, we regret, or we harbor pride for, and can reflect briefly, again. Simultaneously building anew, building stronger, and a sort of homage rite, to the past. Sentimentality is, depending on perspective, a strength and a weakness; to search for greater meaning in these mundane quotidian.  

In an effort to avoid using my kitchen and dirtying my dishes, which needed to be gingerly wrapped and placed in boxes, the filmmaker and I went to our favorite local sushi joint one last time. Combating that hoarding tendency once more, I spontaneously brought this bottle of pinotage rose, one of four stowaways from my trip to South Africa last October, one trip, of many, in which I am still delinquent on sharing photographs and waxing nostalgic about the glories and beauties and challenges of travel. The wine had an incredible flavor to it, light, as a rose generally promises, but with that titillating hint of unbridled wilderness associated with a pinotage. Pairing well with fish, and with a day of exhausted packing, I am delighted that I resisted the urge to save it for some more appropriate occasion. Celebrating life, the new, the now, is occasion enough.