stuff

So I think I've become obsessed with Rushmore, which is a brilliant movie. I noticed something about the plot that wasn't quite right. Thanks to my time at a library I know that info like who checked out a book isn't available once the books been returned. Which is the pretext that enables Max Fisher to meet Rosemary Cross. And one other thing, when he's getting his hair cut by his dad he asks to see the back and we see it. It was a shot choice, he isn't facing a mirror so he won't see the back. "You just made my list of things to do today" best line in the movie. Great music too.

I realized that if I want to have a clean tub, sink, floor, etc I should do those things now while I don't have work. Because once I start working full time I won't have the energy for any of that stuff I'm betting. I'm not making great progress on the brick wall. I did a bit today, but didn't amount to doodle squat. I think I'll biff up the ladder and do some more peeling before bed. Tough call because it means nasty fingers and I'll have to wash them and I'm lazy.

I saw the end of The Heathers today. Made me think of Barry, since that was one of his favorite movies. The ending's pretty cool. Wynona Ryder standing on the steps, blood and dirt on her face and in her clothes and he asks her what's the last thing she's gonna do before she dies and she pulls a cigarette out of her pocket and shows it to him. Plus walking down the school hall after the explosion looking totally piss take and snatching the red bow out of Heather's hair. Fuck yeah.

feeling off

I went up on the roof today, brought my computer thinking I'd do some blogging, but I didn't have any reception. So instead I read a Kipling short story about a croc called mugger who eats people. I was already feeling a tad queezy from watching the South Park movie Imagination land and that did not help. I feel poopy. In part because John invited me to go to the park with him and _Rick_ and when we got down stairs a whole host of other boys showed up on bikes, including Eddie who is very bosy in my not so humble opinion and he decided he would rather bike around. Which ended up meaning biking into the city. Which I am not about to put myself through, these are a bunch of big boys and I haven't been back on my bike long. I wouldn't be able to keep up. So I feel baited and ditched. :( I know that is how things go with John. I just have to find my own friends and accept that nothing, nothing, is a guarantee with my brother. I'm also irritated because I hauled my fucking bike down three flights. He threw out the potential of park later, in reality I'll just be trucking it back down to haul my bike up again. (don't worry, mom, it's locked to a post. I think I'll do some grocery shopping and then take myself to the park. Screw the boys.)

I've encountered a complication with peeling the paint off the brick. There is a section that seems normal, all I have to do is get my fingers under a bit of the latex, which has separated from the brick, and pull and it comes off in long strips. Being the odd person that I am I do in fact enjoy this. But my finger tips are extremely sore. The complication is there is suddenly this nice straight line going top to bottom where the paint just stops peeling off. I think something must have been applied to the brick in that section that causes the stripper to be less effective. If I feel like it I can scrape that whole section. But I don't, that is hard, slow, ungratifying work (and it's labor intensive). Must find other way...I still have stripper left, I'm going to test out a section by a second generous application. See how that goes. Fingers crossed it works.

I changed out the brita filter, and also hand washed the water pitcher. My guess is it doesn't get washed, and I know that water on plastic creates bacteria and that is nasty. Why totally defeat the point of the filter by not having a clean container? It sucks that I am in fact washing everything with cold water. Gives me a dubious sense of hygiene.

I think I'll go make that grocery run now.

closing thoughts

I spent part of my evening at a bar called the Levee. Which was opened by a couple apparently from Texas. It has interesting things like bologna sandwiches and cheese buff bowls and pbj's. It's like a bar for kids at heart. Then they have this game called buck hunter (well it's the safari version) which I thought sounded fun in concept but it is kind of sad to see all these safari animals crumbling after being shot, even if they are digital. I ate so many cheese puffs tonight. John was incredulous that I was determined to leave at eleven. Since the bars are open til 4. Him and Scotti were up til 6 in the morning yesterday (or is it more accurate to say today?) Maybe they're going for that again? I can't get away with that anymore. Body hates me passionately if I stay up between 3 and later. I get a sleep deprivation hang over.

Some unknown neighbors are having a roof top bbq and I want so badly to mingle. But I wouldn't know the strangers from the people who live here, plus I'm totally shy. Even with a buzz. So I think I'll go to bed instead and just wake up and start stripping paint off brick in the morning again.

oh illusive work! I need you...

I have probably applied to eight plus places today. It's a little maddening. I rode out to the really cute art supply store in my neighborhood and handed over my resume and then pretty much bolted. Not the right move, bugger. I'm maybe a tad on the shy side, just a little. Arg, would have been better if the girl I'd talked to the last time had been there. They all seem super friendly, though. They're the kind of people I want to work with.

This is just going to be quick because I really just wanted to send off into cyber space the fact that in one day I had applied to so many places. Tops the record really. Had a few epiphanies, like, hell, I'd love to work for a museum! Rather a lot. I need to do something else for a while. Veg? John's dvd player either needs a good clean or to be tossed. It skips no matter what disk is in. I don't think his dvd habits help. Stacks of them outside their cases just getting all scratched and gunked up so they can screw up the player too.

I'm also a tad embarrassed right now by how I'm totally obsessed with two shows, Vicar and Black Adder. I only ever want to watch the two of them, and at that over and over again. I need to expand my library...

Finding Home

I feel so proud of myself! All the things that I've been doing, being independent and taking care of myself. Waiting in the longest lines I've ever seen in my life. But they mean business in Manhattan and those lines move! So it may rap the full length around Whole Foods, but don't get cozy and set your basket down because the line doesn't sit still. They've got something like thirty plus checkouts just for express and everyone of those registers is manned. What a difference from Maryland. I washed my laundry for the first time, in the building. Those are some hardcore machines down there. I was worried the dryer would be some dinky wimpy thing that I'd have to pay for two cycles to get my stuff dried. Everything came out toasty hot and super dry. Two bucks for a full load, washed and dried, isn't bad, and those machines can handle more. I could get two loads in the dryer, but not the washer. Oh well, I only really produce the one load. I also washed dishes yesterday, cold wash unfortunately because we still have a broken water heater. I need to ask John to call Soto as soon as he's up. He wants hot water too. My room is nearly done, all the yellow has been painted. I've got pretty much everything in here now and I've hung all my art on the walls, including the three mirrors I own. I really didn't set out to have so many, I just kept falling in love with all these pretty little mirrors. They're all hung so high I can't really look in them anyway. The one official mirror I wanted hasn't been made yet, I've got the mirror glass in my closet and the frame hanging empty on the wall. I kind of like it like that. The trouble is I also created a painting for that frame, and still don't know what will win... Ooh, I just had an idea, I have another fun, empty frame that I want to make a portrait for. But that frame needs to be stripped or repainted or something. The colors are appalling. I have a rather incredible resource only two blocks away, a place called Junk. They have this entire section that is all empty old frames. I can make a whole slew of pieces designed for special frames.

So the other thing I'm totally excited about is I have an interview today. I just hope they pay between $11 and $13 an hour, because I've worked out I can survive on that amount, but anything less would mean staying in perpetual debt. At 11 an hour after tax and rent I'd have about 600 to go to other expenses. It's 80 for the unlimited pass for a month, then groceries, and initially I'll be putting what ever I can towards my credit card to knock out that debt. The place is American Apparel on Housten st, which is a pretty cool location and not too complicated to get to via subway. I do have to transfer once.

I biked over the Williamsburg Bridge yesterday which was more of a work out than I've had in a very very long time, but it was great! The view was, is there anything like it? amazing. They have special completely separated lanes for bikers and pedestrians which made my day. Man that bridge arches high, I had the bike on the easiest gear by the time I got to the top and just took my time getting there. Pretty much as soon as the incline began John was out of sight. He is significantly stronger than me to begin with and he's been doing this for a couple years. He was sweet, though, before we reached the bridge he would periodically look behind and ask if I was doing okay. Also ate at Momofuku (which for some inexplicable reason is pronounced momofuko) for the first time. The food is more than a bit weird, but good. It has a heavy Korean influence which covers all the weirdness on the menu. Kimchi, sweat meats, and things like little octopus salad. I liked everything but the octopus. Which kind of surprised me. Usually like that sort of thing.

My room is nearly complete, and that feels so good! Next goal is to get the rest of the apartment looking livable. And a piano... I ache for a piano. I am also looking forward to getting my jewelry out of a box. I miss it. The last stuff to be unpacked is all my decorative room junk. I haven't done it yet because all of the surfaces that that stuff belongs on are currently covered in things like tools and lights that haven't been hung. The lights are because I really don't know what to do about them. After all I have ceilings that are at _least_ twelve feet tall. There are a couple pipes and wood beams that I can drape them through, but just not settled in my own mind how I want to handle them.

Let me just add as my closer that dragging my bike back up three flights of stairs blows. The down bit, not so bad, up is awkward and hard.

NYC

I've now been living in NY for 6 days. My feelings have been all over the place and right now I'm feeling lost and lonely. Certain things just shouldn't be thought about. I don't have a job yet, though I continue to apply to places, and will not stop until I do. But that is why I feel lost. I still have plenty to do get ready, but then what? I'm a bit intimidated by the prospect of finishing everything I _wanted_ to do in the apartment and then not knowing what to do with myself. (There is no end of things to do here, I'm in NYC!) It's more about having purpose and I'm scared of coming to the end of that. Getting my room ready, cleaning up, that's all purpose. But if I'm not working when those things are completed, I'll feel like I've extended beyond purpose into uselessness.

Some fun facts, the most significant one is the water heater is broken, which makes me feel like I'm camping in my own apt. Cold showers and hand washing dishes in cold water. I have only taken one cold shower and that was before the air conditioning units were up and running and it couldn't of gotten much hotter in the apt, the cold shower bordered on being refreshing. I'm thinking I'm going to moxy up the courage to take a real shower today. After all, the bathroom stays hotter than every other room in this place. It's the furthest from the air conditioners. Another fun fact is we have no silver ware. Well, there seem to be a total of three forks and two spoons. So I've been hand washing the same damn fork every time I eat. John is waiting til his budget improves then plans on buying silver ware. For the time being I bought us plastic stuff.

I woke up around five in the morning (after going to bed at two, that was when I finally decided to quit painting) and I felt unrealistically hot and spent the next thirty minutes convinced I was going to throw up. I really felt like it, but nothing happened, aside from the most burping I've ever done in the night, that was weird and unpleasant. I think my body was just remarkably upset because I pushed myself so very hard yesterday and in general I've been going like a battery. There is a zone on my right arm, just below my wrist traveling in a straight line down the side that has been radiating pain since I began painting. It's the tension point when I hold the brush and the roller. Closing my hand activates the pain. I almost finished. The last wall just needs one more rolled coat. The trim is done. I worked so hard to prepare that wall, it was the worst one, and they've all been bad. Dirty, covered in black dings, smudgy hand prints, oddly enough rouge marks here and there too. The worst wall had two oddly placed shelves (that may have been here before John and Mike first moved in, who knows) and one of the shelves had been sealed against the wall and I'd just like to know what line of thinking was going through the fuckers head who decided to do that. I man handled it off the wall, but only thought to score the area after I'd begun pulling the top layer off the dry wall. Found out from Scotti that I could use something called painters compound to fill in the missing areas. I fell in love with the stuff, it's great! I didn't do a perfect job, but it looks pretty darn good. Compared to how it looked before. I'm not crazy about the curtains that came with the room, but the size format of the window isn't the easiest (or perhaps cheapest either) to replace. Oh, the dust in this room, One of the draw backs of 12 foot ceilings. Maybe they're higher? I realized last night that I really should have been wearing a mask for most of this process. Oy.

I watched the 4th of July from the roof, like everyone else in the building. It was lightly raining, not enough to need an umbrella, but a lot of people were using them anyway. I'd been watching 27 dresses when I started to register this repetitive booming and it dawned on me that the noise was fireworks and I was being a doofus and sitting in front of the tube. It was kind of lonely watching them by myself. For some reason I've gotten it into my head (because of new years) that all fireworks take place at midnight which was part of the shocker of recognizing them at 8ish. (Probably in conjunction with sunset.) I've got some really goofy presets. So on a smaller but higher building just ahead of my Roebling apt a lady had perched herself on the edge legs dangling off to watch. This attracted a lot of attention from the people on our roof and a muttering of marvel periodically traveled around as new people noticed her. Some wanker from our building apparently thought it would be funny to yell "at least take your hat off you look ridiculous" after other idiots had yelled things like "don't fall" or "jump". Mister ridiculous got a good snicker out of the crowd and I had two conflicting reactions, first it didn't seem funny and the people in my building may be idiots, and second that maybe it was funny and something was askew in me? I thought he deserved a punch in the face. That's the kind of shit high school and college jocks say to impress people when it just underscores exactly what they are, vacant assholes.

There may be some one sleeping on our couch... I don't know, but I want to have breakfast.