1-6-08 Destroy all Cockroaches

Though my roommates and I do our level best to keep the kitchen mostly clean, the silverware drawer has, despite our efforts, become infested with roaches, probably because we live in New York City, and, well, that's just what happens.

One of my former roommates, Dave, was a complete neat-freak, and insomniac to boot, so I have the sneaking suspicion that he was the one who kept us roach-free. As an example of his dedication to the eradication of vermin, one week he stayed up till dawn three nights in a row in order to catch (and later release out into its natural habitat - the garbage cans behind our building) a single mouse that had moved in with us.

I threw open the drawer, can of Raid in my hand, and sprayed down the skittering little critters with deadly nerve gas, all the while thinking to myself, "We'll retreat to the ship and nuke the site from orbit - it's the only way to be sure."

1-5-08 out and about

Hang out at the bar after the show and Katie, Pete and I get clocked by these two hipster douchebags (one wearing a fedora!) who apparently didn't approve of our Williamsburg credentials. Katie offers to beat the shit out of them, but Pete kindly declines her generous offer.

We leave the bar at 12:30 to catch a bus back to Queens (unfortunately, it take you back to Queens, but on the plus side, if you've gotta go to Queens, at least it's direct), and the 12:37 almost roars past the bus stop where we stand huddled in the cold and rain, stopping only when I step directly into the road waving my hands and holding up my metrocard in the universal sign for "stop the fucking bus, I have to go back to Queens."

"What, you think I need a seeing eye dog or something?" says the bus driver as we clamber on board, and I successfully restrain myself from replying "Yes, actually, I think you do."

1-4-08 Asian Pub rules

Went out with some of Katie's new friends from her tour at a place near Cooper Union called Asian Pub, where the drinks and the food were ridiculously cheap, and the pop music cheesy. We talked about music and gossiped about people they knew that I didn't really know but felt like I knew since I'd heard so much about them over the last two months. As the night progressed and the drinks flowed more freely so did our words, and the conversation ranged over religion and politics to the time I used to be a muslim, and I wondered if these neat new people I met would remember in the morning how well we connected.

Katie and I roared back to Brooklyn on the Q, listening to the theme-song from "Snakes on a Plane" and amusing our fellow passengers with our interpretive dance moves and lip-syncing prowess.

1-3-08 Dream a little dream

A small, older Asian woman with a boyish haircut poking out from under her square hat sits on the the train while I stand, reading over her shoulder. She is very carefully examining a typewritten plot synopsis for a fantasy movie that (judging from the copyright at the bottom of the page) she or a friend of hers has written. The language is awkward and earnest, the punctuation excessive (with lots of extra exclamation points!!!), and there are pages and pages of it, each exhaustively recounting the tale of her heroine's struggle from obscurity to power and love in a land of sorcery, magical creatures, and swordplay.

A strange affection wells in me as I watch her, knowing exactly how she feels: the giddiness she feels as she reads and re-reads the pages she has worked so hard on, her certainty that this, this idea, this story, is important and worthy of attention, the way she lovingly replaces the first page on top and gently places it back into it's folder for the rest of the ride home.

1-2-08 - On Why I Am Well Suited for an Artistic Life

I have been making my lunch to take to work for several months now, and as I am both lazy and poor, I have stuck with the old impoverished standby, rice and beans. I use Goya canned black beans, along with powdered garlic, bay leaf, basil, rosemary, oregano, balsamic vinegar, Angostura bitters, and a seasoning packet that you can buy from Goya that's kind of like Tony Chachere's spicy, salty seasoning (which I have yet to be able to find in my neighborhood), but not quite.

I make this meal at least once a week, either for dinner or for lunch, and I am sort of in love with it. The seasonings and substantial heartiness of it warm my heart, and every time I put it in the microwave to heat it up at work, I find myself singing a little song: "Rice and beans, rice and beans, rice and beeeaanns".

1-1-08 - A Tiger, A Jacket

An older woman gets on the Q train to Brooklyn. She's wearing red, thick framed glasses with purple tinted lenses, plaid pants, and a fake fur jacket that alternates gray and mustard yellow, like a day-glo tiger stripe. She is tall and self-possessed in that way that only older, outrageously dressed women have, in that she knows every one of us is watching her, and yet she pretends she is alone in the world.

I think of the tiger they just killed in San Francisco (Katrina? is that her name?) and wonder who will wear that tiger's coat.

12-31-07 - So this is the new year...

Katie says she needs to eat meat, so we stop at a Mexican restaurant/bar in Astoria on the way home from a New Year's party at a friend's. After looking at the menu for a bit she decides on a chicken quesadilla, and we munch on chips and incredibly fresh, very hot salsa while we wait for the soft-spoken man behind the yellow-with-age counter to fill her order.

Towards the back of the bar, away from the street, short, dark men dressed in button down work shirts and jeans dance to accordion music in the red glow from a neon Budweiser sign with women in black skirts and high heels. A large black man by the door pats down every person who walks in (except us, the only white folks in the place), checking for weapons, and as we leave with our order, he gives a friendly "Happy New Year!", but he doesn't smile at all.