Dream last night

(choppily written due to fog-like dream state)

I was in an airport terminal. Terrorists took over and we were instructed to hide in a stairwell. After emerging several days later, we found everything in ashes. We were the last Americans. My first thought was, finally, my chance to make headlines, "Ali Jarvis, one of the last surviving Americans..." A fellow survivor defected to the terrorists and held us captive, as a chance to make news for himself. Suddenly we were all stuffed into black net dangling from the sky. We lived here for many years and had several children. We were the net-people. We had a great view of the ground-people. Europeans shelled out lots of money to view us from Pan Am hovercrafts.

Dear Chicago Parking Police

Dear Chicago Parking Police,

At 9:22am, you gave me a 50 dollar ticket. The approximate amount of money I would earn while working 5 hours at Trader Joe's. The equivalent of 1.6 restaurant ads or several hours of baby-sitting. The amount you'd give a church to give to a shelter to fund a thanksgiving dinner for a poor family. You'd take that away from them? What about Tiny Tim!? Tiny Tim.

You assholes with your street cleaning rules. You made us circle the block 5 times looking for a spot. We circled the surrounding blocks several more times with no luck. Not one spot to be found that was "legal". Legal.

I'll tell you what's not legal. Making people drive around at all hours of the night looking for a parking spot. You may think Wicker Park's a nice neighborhood during the day, what with all the shiny hipsters and dog walkers and pram pushers and lululemon-clad joggers and North Face wear-ers. But at night, you're in for something different. People get mugged. Robbed. Murdered like those kids on bikes not more than 10 blocks from here. We could have been next. Innocent people, tired from a long day at work. but we really just wanted to park.

Goddamn it all, we parked on the wrong side and pledged to wake up early to move the car.

I set my alarm for Thursday instead of Wednesday.

I got a ticket.

And I blame you, Parking Police. For bewildering me with your no parking signs. Driving in circles caused my mind to spin and incorrectly set my alarm. You took that money from me, you greedy fat bastards. The holidays are coming.

Hope you and the Scrooges have a great Thanksgiving.

Tiny Tim. TINY TIM!!!

You might be going insane.

You might be going insane.

You keep having these flashing images of a bobby pin plunging into your eye. You take a sip of water and take a bite out of the glass and chew it, shards piercing the insides of your cheek and mauling your esophagus. You secretly want to throw your backpack your purse all your belongings over the railing of the Millennium bridge. You see yourself jumping in front of a train. Your chest collides with dozens of flying knives. You’re scared of your own shadow. When you sleep you dream of your teeth and hair falling out.

All this could be an indication of moderate to severe anxiety produced by way too much schoolwork, work-work, or other productivity-related matters.

Or, you’re probably insane.

Possibly the worst supermarket

Congratulations, you have chosen to do your grocery shopping at possibly the worst supermarket that ever existed!

They will not have baskets at the door, so you will have to search around all the registers for an extra one. When you finally come across one, you pick it up but drop it immediately, because the handle is really really sticky, sticky with something horribly revolting. This forces you to resort to a shopping cart, pushing it around, like a person who needs to fill it for a family of five. But, you’re not going to spend that kind of money, thank goodness! You’re only shopping for yourself since you live alone! All alone!

You travel through the produce aisle, picking through the vine-ripened tomatoes that are all very much too ripe, spotted and bruised. Ahh, you find some nice ones, way in back, but your phone rings, it is your friend Susie, you drop the perfect tomatoes splat on the ground because it is too much to hold the phone and to push the cart while trying to bag up the perfect tomatoes, that are not so perfect anymore. After all the juggling the call just goes to voicemail and you're back picking up the tomatoes off the ground, look around to see if anyone has seen you. You don’t need tomatoes anyway, since when do you eat them?

You’ll push onward towards the bread aisle, finding that your favorite brand of sourdough bread is all out. In fact, there is no sourdough bread of any kind to be found. Ah, an opportunity to branch out and find another kind of bread to eat, expand your taste for other grains and seeds, why not? You settle on something called spelt bread, which sounds ancient and wholesome.

Onward towards the frozen dinner section, otherwise known as the aisle for people who have no time to cook! You are wearing shorts and a tee shirt, and are suddenly freezing and covered with goosebumps. While warming yourself by rubbing each of your arms vigorously, you see a girl that you used to date out of the corner of your eye. Sophie. This won’t be a good encounter. This girl simply stopped returning your phone calls with no warning or reason or anything. You received no closure for that “relationship.” She is still very cute. She is at the end of the dessert section, with a tall guy who's got tattoos on his bulging calves. He is probably an idiot (No, he's quite cool, actually) They are looking at Ben and Jerry’s flavors, giggling all over each other.

Heat is rising. Your palms are wet. You can’t let her see you, alone, with a cart that just has spelt bread in it.

You nervously toss the bread into a freezer full of frozen vegetables, and abandon the cart, pivot around and book towards the door. Pass the tombstone pizzas and pigs in blankets, you're running without looking and fail to notice that mother and her baby carriage rounding the corner! You smack right into them. Do a twirl sort of thing, I'm sorry Ma'am, So Sorry! And you're off again, pass the cart return and out the revolving doors into Franklin Avenue.

You've just acted like a child. You refuse to believe this. Like a little kid, with completely warped flight or flight responses. You freaked out! Sophie might have seen you (yes she did) and she and her boy with implants in his calves probably had a good laugh about it (they used it as foreplay at his place later) and you didn't even get any shopping done. and, you still have sticky fingers from that basket.

Catch your breath with an American Spirit on the side of the building.

Eh, shrug it off and put your cigarette out on the side of the building. Blame the supermarket. The worst that's ever existed!

i go home and talk to myself.

I am so tired.

I have some sugar (handful of m&ms, mostly blue ones, 6 Hershey's kisses, a sliver of coffee cake) and some tea. With milk. That's the British way). I notice there's a ripe avocado amongst the onions and red bell peppers so I eat that too. I am not unlike a vacuum cleaner. I wasn't hungry to begin with but there was the food and I was energy deficient. I go into my room. It is cold. I put on a sweatshirt and sit at the computer. I start safari. An odd name for a browser. It's sort of slow and sometimes stops responding. And it makes me think of giraffes and elephants and I've never been to Africa and I'd like to go before I get old. I'd just like to do something kickass before I die/croak/expire/decompose and I'm pretty sure the first step is to find a decent job so I can afford to have some kickass in my life. So I do the same thing I do every time I'm alone in my room after getting done with a 6am-2pm shift at Trader Joe's. I look for a new job.

I click on the compass and start at the beginning. Mediabistro.com. A position is open for Account Exec at the Wall Street Journal. My dad reads this newspaper every day but I don't. "3+ years of advertising sales experience. (nope) Articulate with strong communication and presentation skills. (I'm very good at presenting my special skills of twirling my hair into a knot with one hand and rousing hilarity with the 'fish face') Organized. (yes!) Focused. (indeed!) Creative thinker (and am quite creative and witty!) who can match marketers' goals with unique, affluent audiences available on our media properties. (I strive to be affluent!) College degree required. (of course, of course)" I have to complete a 60 minute survey and online application, which is way too much work for a job that I am three fifths qualified for. I don't apply.

Next I will go to monster.com, and craigslist is last, they have that missed connection section, It's like crack and my secret egotistical vain self that thinks that every stranger I chat up during the day will missconnect me on craig'slist. I search "Trader Joe's" but the only thing that pops up is a blurb about a fit bald man sought out by a blond with faded jeans & out-of state NFL jacket.

I will conclude after visiting several posts and ads for jobs that I just don't have what it takes to be employed and I would much rather go back to school and get another degree. Then I think back on how much headache and stress and unwinding and rewinding again was involved in the school process and then I will drop the whole thing, think about joining the Peace Corps or go on an extended artist's retreat. Instead, I will watch exactly 2 episodes of Lost, curled up on the coach with a blanket and probably some tea, but I'll really want one of those Tecates in the fridge but its not appropriate to drink alone or in the middle of the day.

I guess I'll wait till other people come over.

I should have gone on a bike ride.

Possible causes of my indigestion

1. I over-broiled the 9 dollar pork chops and the potatoes were dry
2. Devoured two slices of deep-dish caramelized-crust pizza from Burt's (so good) before arranging stressful birthday gathering
3. Received yet another letter from California Sec of State to renew my defunct registration or else pay $245
4. Instead of arriving at pumpkin patch in Hampshire, Illinois, (under my navigation) we ended up at an apple orchard in Malta (40 miles northwest)
5. Shower drain clogged with a massive quantity of unknown longish black hairs
6. Subconscious nervousness involved in meeting my boyfriend's family for the first time
7. Pizza and cake and wine inhaled during said family meeting
8. The season premiere of South Park didn't record past minute 1
9. I work at Trader Joe's
20. Mom told me I need a Life Coach

Idea

I'm going to start a side-blog, mostly related to the day-to-day of the average overeducated and underpaid employee of Trader Joe's. Launch to start within the next month. Hooray!!

To the person who stole my bike:

Pervert.

How long have you been watching our garage? Were you excited when, instead of walking it up to the apartment, I left my red 1982 Firenze in the garage, against the wall? You have some balls. Did you creep up and slide your foot under the door before it shut completely, crawl into the darkness, and squeal with delight at the presence of not one, but two bikes? An added bonus of ‘97 purple Schwinn?

My bike and I were having the best time. We just reached the ‘riding with no hands’ level. The day before you stole him, we took a trip to Belmont and Clark for new shoes. With yellow laces. To match the grip tape. We’ve been just about everywhere in Chicago. And everyone thought we were the cutest. I liked bragging about him, that even though he was worth no more than one hundred sixty dollars, he was the best bike there was. Our relationship was short lived. Just 7 weeks. 7 weeks of biking to and from everywhere I want to be.

And, on top of it, why WHY did you come back for Kasia’s car? You made a huge mess trying to find anything valuable. Didn’t your mother teach you how to clean up after yourself? Oh wait. You probably don’t have a mother. That’s why you think its ok to break into people’s houses and steal things. Cleaning up doesn’t register on your radar.

I just wanted to let you know that you suck. You’re a horrible excuse for a person, and I hope that something really bad happens to you so that you redeem yourself before its too late. Are you religious? I bet not. You’d probably be going to hell according to most of them.

Today. In my grocery line.

A girl with a white t-shirt inscribed "unfaithful." She didn't say much.

She purchased a bag of raw almonds, a can of mandarin oranges, some milk and a single potato.

A single potato.

I guess that's what happens when you own a t-shirt of that caliber.

Today. In my grocery line.

First came the prune people. 2 elderly folks. Probably married. Or very close nursing home friends. All they buy is one bag of prunes. The man demanded that I open them immediately. So I did. And he grabbed the bag and popped a prune in his mouth. Chews a few times and lights up, These are good! Better than the others! And he has a few more and his lady friend retreats to the fruit and nut aisle, presumably to get more. I mean, she was practically running. You stay here, she tells her buddy, I’ll be right back.

Constipation must be going around.

Next, there’s the bald guy. He comes in every day. Young dude, such a pity his head is reflective. This was our first conversation, so I was bold. Wow, you must live around here. He raised his eyebrows. I elaborated: you come here every day. Hah, he laughed, only on days when you work. It was my turn to raise the brow. He goes on: Yup, so I can slowly establish a report with you. Not knowing what to say, I rush: That’s crazy how know my schedule. I don’t even know my schedule. I mean, it changes every week, there's no way you'd be able to predict when I work. He goes to swipe his card. No, actually I just come here to borrow money I wont be able to pay back. Completely baffled, I decided to ignore him at this point.

Next guy in line cuts in while Baldy is packing up his things in his satchel. Cutter holds a bouquet of gladiolas in my face. He wore a dress shirt tucked in and probably black leather shoes. He had hair. He chirped: Isn’t it great to be alive? And excitedly looked back at Baldy: So, I’ll bet you thought he was cute. I shrugged. He said: Well, since I’m an old man now, I think everyone younger than I must be cute. He scoots more groceries towards me. Oh wow! Isn’t it great to be alive? At this point I wouldn’t have noticed if he popped open an umbrella and danced away.

I was happy to see the prune people were next in line, with 2 more bags of prunes, looking a bit frantic to run home and squeeze out some quality turds.

King Pacific Lodge wine-fueled journal entry

The night is calm and the water gently laps the dock. In the distance I can hear the waterfall. Soft outlines of hills of islands and light blue wisps of cloud traverse the sky.

This place is weird. Too luxurious and removed. The staff seems cool but they don’t chill. All we want to do is hang with them and discover what’s what and who's who but either they’re not allowed to fraternize with guests or they don’t want to. Maybe we’re too fancy for their nature-y asses. But we’re not! I’m fascinated with their lodge. It's right next to ours, they room 2 by 2 and I can imagine it's not unlike a youth hostel. They have their own cook and I saw a girl doing yoga in her window. But as cool as they are they have to serve people like us and they probably hate that.

The manager is a kook. He sat with us for dinner but directed most his attention to the journalist and the photographer discussing what adventure they were going to do tomorrow. He’s paying them to write some pretty good shit about this eco-lodge. I can’t tell if he’s Dutch or British or some sort of weird mixture of Scottish-Canadian his accent is subtle yet overbearing and his facial expressions are somewhat contortionist. He told a story tonight where he kept repeating the phrase “the gravel was embedded in my bottom, EMBEDDED IN MY BOTTOM!!"

Aside from Robert, dinner was awkward. Mom and Kristian got in a fight. I guess he told her to leave him alone and then she was offended and retreated to her room and the activity lady really wanted to know what we were going to do tomorrow and I couldn’t find Mom anywhere and Kristian was being stubborn about apologizing. The whole emotional well being of the Jarvis family was uprooted and off kilter. Except for Mike who was enjoying a 60 minute massage ala Robyn and had no idea what sort of compromise I had stumbled into.

The customary silence has engulfed us and I’m now going to take a shower.

Vertigo

There’s something a bit off about this place. I think it might be tilted. Not noticeable on the first floor but as I ascend, I find I’m walking at a slant. And when I get to the third floor I have to grab the railing to keep from running into the wall. Doors slam when left ajar, and the left side of my neck is sore from peering at things from the right. Living on a tilted barge hasn’t allowed me to gain my land legs or lose my sea legs. I can’t look at the chandelier in the Great Room because it constantly sways back and forth with the comings and goings of floatplanes or larger fishing boats. It’s a crying shame that I’ve lost my appetite indefinitely since the chef turns out dishes like seared halibut cheeks and roast goose beef tenderloin with red wine jus and shitake truffle salad. It might just be an easy fix like steadying a wobbly table with a folded menu or handful of napkins. Only in this case the remedy might be another log or a fifth buoy.

Tuna nicoise at 35,000 ft.

Styrofoam lunch boxes of dainty tuna nicoise and caramelized walnuts. A plum. Bread and butter. Snow capped mountains and the stewardess apologizes because she’s the only one here, I’ll be right back with your cutlery. Is this like New Zealand? Mom asks and I say No, I never saw it like this. The engine buzzes and my ears pop and the propellers drone on and on, above below and on my seat and my feet itch because of it. A family of nine Germans sits behind us. Mike ahead of Kristian. Kristian ahead of me and Mom is on the other side, holding her arms together in a protective sort of way. She must be cold. I think back to the a one sided margarita discussion at the bar with Mike but Kristian brings me out of it and demands if I can see this view, It’s spectacular. A massive serpent of water cuts between two mountains like a fjord. Gagged snow filled crevices and green water. Misty peaks and low and high fissures of cloud. Not quite reaching us in our tiny 20-person charter flight but just caressing the black jagged tips. The engine drones on and on. Are all our meals going to be like this? Tuna nicoise at 35,000 ft.

Where to take your…

Mistress

So you have a secret lover. Nowadays, who doesn’t? You want to enjoy the same things that non-clandestine folk do, but are afraid of exposing yourself. Play it safe and take her to the Violet Hour. With no advertising or signs of any kind, the Violet Hour transports you to a place filled with secrecy and seduction behind curtains of velvet. 19th century Georgian design increases Violet Hour’s other-worldly-ness, and high backed chairs transform the room into intimate pockets perfectly conducive to slipping bacon-whipped deviled eggs into one another’s mouths.

Future Chicagoan

Take our advice and take him to Avec. This wine and food bar is known to spur relocation to the Windy City. The space impresses with minimalist Danish style, clean lines and contrasting woods. Avec doesn’t take reservations so make sure to arrive early, and, since seating is communal, be prepared for conversing with fellow Chicagoans. What better way to get to know future neighbors? The menu boasts a decadent collection of specialty cheeses and sharable plates, and while the wine list is plentiful, it’s far from overpowering. With the advice from your server (or fellow diners), your friend will be sure to make the right choice.

Gadget obsessed younger brother

Kid brother lives in the burbs with Mom. He spends his days playing World of Warcraft and hardly gets out unless its to American Science and Surplus to buy new industrial grade magnets for the shoes he’s patenting. And he just turned 21, so there’s no better place to take him than Simone’s. Designed from vintage bowling lanes, old pinball decks, high-school chemistry lab tables and church pews he’ll be more than visually satisfied, especially with Young Frankenstein on repeat and no-frills pub-grub. And if you’re not drowning in nostalgia by now, the pop-rocks rimmed Double Bubble will definitely do the trick.

Blind date

After a few flirtatious emails via Chemistry.com, you arrange to meet her at Francesca’s Forno. Tell her to bring a single rose like in You’ve Got Mail. You like what you see, and after a slightly awkward hug, you peruse the expansive Italian menu. Extremely attentive service usually annoys, but in this case it’s a welcome distraction from the conversation you may (or may not) be having. Thank goodness for the floor-to-ceiling windows and the fantastic people watching in Wicker Park. Rendezvous took a nasty turn? Never fear. Francesca’s prime corner location boasts exits on each side, so you effortlessly excuse yourself (duty calls!) and discretely sneak away.



Super-hip older sister

She’s an art dealer by day, self-proclaimed food critic by night. Pick up a nice tempranillo and take her to Schwa, where food is art and vice versa, in the otherwise undecorated space. Chef Michael Carlson himself greets you at the door and escorts you inside: There are no waiters here. Skip the five-course meal – go for the nine courses and watch as the cooks parade each one to the table, armed with a detailed synopsis for every sculpted oeuvre. If you weren’t lucky enough to get reservation, Rodan’s city-slick space and eclectic pan-Asian cuisine will impress perhaps almost as well.

Beer loving cousin

Your cousin brews his own in the basement. He expertly discriminates between wheat and rye and never, ever drinks Coors or MDG. Take him to Hopleaf. With over 200 beers, mostly hailing from Belgium but with representatives from other European countries and North America, this old world tavern just the place. No guzzlers here. Patrons of this Andersonville sensation really like good beer and good company. Coz will feel right at home with his Metropolitan Flywheel and a big pile of white wine simmered mussels and frites.

Best Happy Hour (chicago Loop)

After a long day at the office, you might need a little something to ease the pain of the impending commute. Lure your co-workers to Monk’s Pub for $15 beer buckets and the Snack Attack platter, a crispy greasy combo of chicken wings, onion rings, chicken tenders, zucchini and mozzarella sticks, is perfectly sharable for $10.75. Head to Midtown Kitchen and Bar for Metro Monday, where you’ll find four dollar quesadillas, $10 Miller buckets, and 10% off with your CTA card. Spend thirsty Thursdays at Sidebar and order as many $2 sliders as you want, spend five bucks on 12 chicken wings, and you can even super-size any regular draft for no extra cash. The only trading you’ll be doing at Stocks and Blondes is swapping sobriety for a $15 deal on domestic buckets and for just seven bucks, finish the agreement with two hot dogs and a heap of fries.

Chicago’s Best Bloody Mary

Ah, the bloody Mary. This spicy trickster masquerades as a liquid vitamin salad. Its salty sinful perfection gives us a reason to get up on Sunday mornings. Dunlays On Clark’s heavily garnished version, served with a shot of Guinness, was voted Best Bloody Mary of ’08 by Citysearch.com. Twisted Spoke’s Road Rash Mary packs some heat and is dubbed “sandwich in a glass” with a salami garnish. In true pescatarian style, Handlebar serves one up using vegan “The Wizard” Worcestershire and seals the deal with a burst-in-your-mouth cherry pepper. Order yours “Snazzy” at Silver Cloud and get a grilled shrimp, veggie packed skewer and a seasonal shorty on the side. The Map Room gives you a Slim Jim with its house-mixed five-dollar Bloody, if you’re into that kind of thing.

My first missed connection

(oh come on, you know i'm proud of it. even though it's a bit...creepy)

You were at the check out counter. Friendly, energetic, cute smile and naughty eyes below those cool glasses. I am the Indian guy with my Asian girl roommate. I commented your name being different. You corrected my pronunciation and joked that it's your mother mistake. No sweetie, your name suits your persona. I would love to get together and know you more, of course if you happen to see this.
Well no harm in trying right?

social anxiety

Rumination. The serious kind.
When you Wish you said, wish you said.
Chest tightens. Vision tunnels.
You catch eyes with the person you most don't want to
and then you fail.
The others clap dutifully but you sink.
Fall to the chair and nervously laugh to the person sitting next to you.
Gulp some wine. Gulp some wine.
And head for the exit.
No more cigarettes so you
actually call you mother this time
instead of wasting another post-it.
She doesn't answer.
What to do.
Hesitant laughter.
Wasted intellect.

Best 24-Hour Eats in Chicago

Best ways to maximize summer’s abbreviated nights.

The Diner Grill’s “The Slinger” only makes sense at 4am, when all you want is breakfast, lunch, and dinner, grilled on a bun, covered in chili. Desert after midnight? You know Huck Finn's is the spot because the cops found it first. Gleaming donuts sold by the bag or the box, and endless coffee to boot in McKinley Park. Open 24-hours on the weekends, Pick Me Up Cafe is a veggie organic alternative to late night grease, with a Haight-Ashbury vibe and tummy-warming vegan French toast. La Puebla's homemade tortillas, giant burrito suizos and overly substantial margaritas will satisfy everyone, from red-eyed co-ed to nocturnal hipster in Logan Square. Nookies Too is truly a post-bar paradise: One bite of their “Hangover Helper” – chili-coated goodness over hashbrowns and poached eggs – and you’ll wish you watched the sunrise more often.

Cy Twombly is maladaptive

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the Art Institute of Chicago's free summer nights. Strolling through the slightly familiar corridoors and chambers of ancient artifacts, oil paintings, hovering installations and, of course, the ever present loud (incredulous) tourists brought back memories of juvenile field trips and awkward family adventures.

All in all, it was a really nice visit. My main purpose was to check out some Matta, some Seurat, and some Hopper. With a dabble of Lichtenstein, Picasso, and Matisse. Didn't mind passing through Monet or the Chagall chambers. Dali, yes yes.

And, of course, the new modern wing. A huge, Millenium Park facing structure, mainly composed of windows and Scandinavian-style word work. Glass partitions. Naked staircases. And a giant room deticated to Cy Twombly.

Cy Twombly. What an idiot. His collection entitled "The Natural World, Selected Works 2000-2007" was atrocious. 4 connected rooms housed numerous works that were aimed at reflecting the "natural world." Giant canvasses with huge splatterings of color degraded the very essence of the peony. Why peonies? Peonies and seascapes. With scribbles of leaden pencils. "Oh the peony" he wrote, over and over. In a drunken, possibly peyote induced scrawl. Jagged detatched letters and dripping paint covered every wall. Horrific "sculptures" and "intuitive" impressions of seascapes. He is supposed to be one of the best American artists of our time. Really? Really.

Maybe he is an artist. Possibly a great one. But he must have had some sense of form before he went crazy. I mean, he was a cryptologisit in the army before he became an "artist." Someone who studied patterns and codes and sequences, much like the main character of A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. Possibly schitzophrenic, I might hypothesize.

Art is supposed to evoke emotion. And normally, I'm in awe. Or enraptured. Humbled or mortified. And this Cy Twombly. Well, he takes the cake. Because I really unnecessarily loathe his work.

The funny thing is, if I puked on his peonies, no one would know the difference. Maybe he already did. It's hard to tell.

near at hand. (smoking popes)

The Smoking Popes reminds me of being 17 in Lombard after drinking 3 wine coolers and pretending to be drunk to impress some guy. Smoking Popes was also 8th grade when Clueless came out and we had to have the same short short mini skirt that Alicia Silverstone wore in like every scene. Need You Around was on the soundtrack. Maybe it was the first track, I don't remember, but it was Clueless that taught us about lipstick and staying out after curfew. With the Smoking Popes came Everclear and the Hippos, Lagwagon and that hot girl drummer for the Groovie Ghoulies, And the Fireside Bowl where we couldn't go bowling, we just waded through the tattoos and punks, trying not to seem like good suburban catholic school girls. That place was filthy, we were out of place but didn't care. And we didn't wash our jeans for days and days, wanting always to keep the memory of smoke and sweat near at hand.

life

The world turns around itself, and the sun. People. We move around in concentric circles and ovals and squares, making what we think is right. Doing what we know to be true, round and round we go. Our skin is dewey and tight and supple. Attractive and bright, with quick response times and correct pronunciation of foreign monikers. We don't know what we're doing, but really, we think we do. Our parents are old. Our grandparents are partially dead. We are alive.

And suddenly we are not. Life passes and dims, sometimes blown out by the wind. Most of us linger while others depart, we grieve and create rituals, they pass and are gone. Move on and on, we go. Future upon us, the present within us. Not knowing when or why, we suddenly are them. Life is so precious and short. And it can change in an instant.

A personal note to all of you: not a day passes when I don't think of you. My best friends. Know that every moment I've spent knowing you has been more than appreciated and loved, and I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life. My heart goes out to the families of those who have passed, and most recently to those who knew Matthew Wadleigh. Rest in peace.

Love love love.

a grocery aisle conversation in Trader Joe's

(three mid-twenties hipsters discuss peanut butter)

1. i was thinking, peanut butter

2. yeah

3. i've already got sunflower butter

2. almond butter is quite nice

1. yeah?

2. uh huh. its got an almond taste

3. but i've got that sunflower

1. we might need peanut

2. i think we should go almond

3. almonds don't agree with me, actually

1. maybe you're allergic

3. maybe. you think i should go to an allergist?

2. it's all psychological. almonds probably scared you when you were little

3. bullshit.

1. so which peanut butter?

3. well i've already got sunflower, so we don't really need it.

1. ok then.

2. where's the list?

1. next...cheese.

2. what kind?

3. i can't eat cheese.

2. ever tried cashew cheese?

you and the wall and the milk.

the problem with looking for movie qualities in life

pluck a moment when your breath rises and throat clenches
when you catch eyes from across a sea of people
and hold them
hold them steady just as long as the drink touches your lips
don't blink. there may be a sequel.

fast forward to the next day when you search for a blue mail box
the wind hits you sideways up and down and you turn and follow that leaf until it hits the ground

in movies
the light hits the wall just so
and just like life when candles flicker
that pale aura

a moment uniquely yours so you
put your ipod and give it a soundtrack
as you
ride your bike to work
ride your bike to the bar
you're riding your bike to the store to pick up milk for your roommate who's not home when you get there
so you sit cross-legged and stare at the wall

white noise

you switch legs

footsteps upstairs

a distant siren screams

a baby's laugh

you and the wall and the milk.

Dream last night

I had one of those never-ending dreams last night, where each chapter unfolded into a new one. I can only remember the last piece of it. I was a hit man patrolling Bed, Bath & Beyond. I had an FBI badge and two knives in my purse. My partner looked a lot like the adult H.W. in "There Will be Blood." He and I were scouting the store for this dude we were supposed to 'off' and suddenly I'm carrying a dozen eggs and H.W.'s wife and baby show up. Really cute baby. Like 4 months old with a full head of hair. I said: Oh my god what a cute baby! and the baby said: Thank you. Completely normal. We were in the poster section of the store and I thought about buying a vacuum. I woke up before I had to kill this person, which was good because I had never killed someone before and I was really nervous about doing it wrong.

what is lost

I waited four years to do what I did last night. That glamour thats tempted me, glittering from mirrors and the wide eyes and late nights of my very best friends. Its lured me from across the room and I could smell, taste, almost hear its existence but until now, I’ve been too scared to go near it, listening to the voices in my head warning me against it. My father, my mother. The others who mean well. “No, no. Don’t do it Ali. It’s not that great. It will never satisfy you, Ali. It will take tomorrow away from today, Ali.” But I’ve passed the threshold and now it’s different. I don’t know why, but it is. And I’m confused. Tomorrow is never today. Today is now. And it’s already too late for me, because the fake reality has already dusted my soul. I’ve already embraced it, danced with it, named it. This is the pinnacle of my existence, the taste is so singular, so sweet, and all I want is more.

Trial and error

Wake up to throbbing pain. It's your lower back, it burns and aches and you roll over to turn off your cell alarm. One foot two, out of bed and toes touch the floor. Stand up slowly, carefully, and wonder why? groan and reach for the maximum strength Motrin IB. 2 or 3 pills...you take 4.

Maybe it's because you've been practicing Bikram yoga for a month now. Your body is reacting revolting rejecting the idea of becoming more lithe and limber. Touch your toes? No never! your lower back screams. Maybe you pulled it while attempting cobra or rabbit or whatever, yadda-yadda asana-asanas. Perhaps while getting a better look at the person in the front row who's tree pose is oh so much better than yours. Can't even touch your toes but you're trying.

You like yoga but it is painful.

Or perhaps this back scream is from your new job that entails heavy lifting and pulling of precarious boxes and u-boats and two wheelers. Arugula. Brussell sprouts, organic carrots and regular ones. Egg crates and lugs and giant bins of bananas. Charles Shaw and simpler times. Reduced guilt chips and every kind of hummus known to man. Trader Joe's. A place where employes sing and dance and its just like Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory, happy little drones carrying out orders until one of them falls into the chocolate river. You think, at all times: lift with the knees, not from the back, but sometimes that's not possible, and you forget, distracted by a middle-aged woman's rant about how she's forcing her husband to eat broccoli slaw and butter lettuce, he owes it to her since she's been his for 34 years. Stock stock and restock, until the store closes and cardboard boxes need recycling and spoiled food needs registering. Until you get in the car and it hurts to sit down.

Maybe it's your kidneys. Maybe you should drink more water.

postulation

I think my blog needs a make-over. Stat!

T-Spot review

This BYOB sushi place is draped in chiffon and laden with cushions. Black outdoor lanterns hang from the ceiling and there's a flat screen TV tuned to the Blackhawks game over the bar. Monochromatic textured paintings adorn the walls. Nothing in the place gave the impression of being Japanese besides the ever-smily waiter and the hiragana inscribed chopsticks. Perched on our settees, we lined up our Sake, Saporro and Kirin and get straight to the business of ordering. All of us chose the miso soup because it was so cheap (2 dollars if I recall?) but too good to be true, it was slightly lukewarm and bland. Forewarned about the wonders of the Chicago Fire roll, we each got our own. Full of spicy shrimp, super white tuna (never heard of this before) and red tobiko. Pretty darn good for a roll named after a distantly recollectible soccer team. Deciding the evening was to be shrimp themed, I ordered Amaebi, served raw with the lightly toasted head and legs on the side. At first sight this can be quite cringeworthy, but once you take a crunch, it melts in your mouth. The ginger was dyed a fleshy pink, I would have preferred it in its natural state, but the leaf-shaped wasabi blob made up for it. We also got a standard futomaki roll, and a spicy tuna as well as some yellowtail. For dessert, mango and strawberry mochi - almost as good as Trader Joe's! Decent sushi and decent prices, T Spot would be best utilized for a cheap date. Maybe not a first date, but a date nonetheless. The sofas are quite comfy...

Handlebar review

Sometimes I wonder if I moved here to be closer to Handlebar, a bike-enthusiast beer drinker’s paradise. Its pescatarian food leaves me feeling fresh even after consuming 3 bottles of Mighty Arrow. I go so often that the bartenders and servers raise their eyebrows, Weren’t u here last night? And I seem to have a special table (the one in the corner near the windows). Lightly breaded and seasoned, theirs is the best tofu I’ve tasted during my 6 months in 60647. The Buffalo “Chicken” Wrap easily wows all my meat-eating friends, and the Everything Green Salad (edamame, avocado, spinach, green goddess dressing) is my mom’s favorite. Every day of the week they offer shots of tequila with Tecate for five dollars. Noted for their extensive beer collection, Handlebar has been listed in the Reader’s top 30 Chicago Restaurants.

CIA Greystone

I was completely unimpressed with the Culinary Institute of America’s Napa Valley location. Understandably, the Greystone had a hell of a lot to live up to, but it was impossible to over look their water-logged chicken entree, over-dressed tuna nicoise, and the inconsistently prepared fennel soup. Our waitress tag indicated she had worked there since 1995 and she had the attitude to prove it. After it became clear to her that we wouldn’t be ordering any wine, (I know, we were in Napa, how could we not order wine!) she became, cold and scarce, which made it impossible for our lunch to progress in any sort of chronological manner. My younger brother is severely allergic to all varieties of nuts, and when his ‘cookies and cream’ dessert arrived, it was covered in pistachios - something I think the restaurant should indicate on the menu. I left feeling like I had just eaten at the Cheesecake factory.

Café Claude review

Claude Lane discretely echoed of St-Germain-des-Pres. Ancient cigarette butts wedged between softly worn cobblestones. Casually dressed post-work drinkers leaned against the brick, conversing vehemently with their hands. A woman dwarfed in a navy trench speeds around the corridor, her wedge heels announcing her departure. I paused at a London style pub before entering Café Claude. The restaurant spilled onto the street with delicate tables and a generous billowed awning. The indoor dining area bathed in candlelight. The air thick with wine, butter and cream. Well coiffed business-like drinkers made room for us as we followed the zigzagging hostess to our table. The rest was a flurry of deliberation, exploration, and endorphic satisfaction.

We started with a few modest glasses of ’07 Cartlidge & Brown pinot noir, bread and butter, and a salad of red beets, snow peas, feta and pistou. For our entrees: a traditional vegetarian lasagne laden with roasted eggplant, zucchini, spinach, tomato, béchamel, herbes de provence; and steak tartare with cornichons, capers, egg yolk, mustard, parsley, croutons, and shallots. To our surprise, the tartare was crafted at our table. Our server cracked the quail egg and mixed the herbs and raw meat with dramatic flair and severe wrist movements, the grand finale was a pinch of pepper and garnish. The whole experience was fantastic and incredibly suspenseful because it seemed like he’d never be done (sort of like Rowan Atkinson’s shop character when he created the never-ending package for Bill Nighy’s extramarital necklace in “Love Actually”.) The dish was well worth the anticipation, especially when followed by their upside-down apple tart with caramel sauce and whipped cream. As a randomly chosen restaurant for a brief visit to San Francisco, I was thoroughly impressed.

Love to hear the robin goin' Tweet Tweet Tweet

Apologies for not writing lately or, really, at all. A new medium of self-expression has taken over my life. The name for it leads you to believe it is a sort of flying animal with wings, beak, claws, when in fact it is not even alive (But it is! Sans respiration.) It can be you, or me, or even an automated response system. It seems to be channeling its way across the world at lightning speed.

Twitter and microblogging have taken over both the left and right sides of my brain. From the time I drag myself from bed, I wonder about twitter updates. If the fact that there’s a cat hair on my toothbrush is tweetable. Have people heard my latest theory that swine flu was invented to boost the economy? Everyone should be aware that I’m currently reading “Love in the Time of Cholera” and that bowling is a lot more fun in Kentucky. I must look good on twitter. My tweets automatically update my facebook status. I grapple with words and in what order they should be displayed, how economical the phrase is, what to say, how exactly to type it. Hence, my online persona is seeping into my living breathing out in the world life. It doesn’t help that more and more companies have started recruiting from social networking sites like Twitter.

However, like Hulu, Twitter might be just a pass-thru to the next big thing. Only 8% of 18-34 year olds use Twitter, the numbers drop the older a person is. 74% of 18-34 year olds use Facebook or MySpace. Unless everyone my problem of complete mind-body takeover, Twitter won’t be getting any bigger. And that makes me nervous, with all the time I spend on it.

“He rocks in the tree-top all a day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singin' the song
All the little birds on J-Bird St.
Love to hear the robin goin' Tweet Tweet Tweet” -Bobby Day, "Rockin' Robin"

The Big Day

April 1st.The day I moved out of my mom’s house for the second time. The first time was for college, the big send off to the University of Spoiled Daughters with a splurged family mini-vacay to San Diego. I was 18, bright and shiny and new, with arms stretched open to the world. It's not that they're closed now, but my arms have developed a more retractive tendency.

Anyway, the big day. The new apartment. A quiet leafy Chicago avenue. Dog walkers, joggers, bikers. The W Grocer nearby. Handlebar. A 10-minute walk to the Map Room and Cleo’s and a bit of a trek to Bite and The Empty Bottle but it could happen. Nearest El Stops are Damen and Western. North Avenue littered with galleries and boutiques and actual litter. Potholes. Not much to do about that but here we are at our 2nd floor Claremont walk-up. Hardwood floors and 9-foot ceilings. A fireplace housed in black granite matches the kitchen counters. New appliances. Chrome GE Profile fridge with matching stove and microwave. Front balcony with empty planters meant to flush out green thumbs. A hallway spans the length of the apartment and terminates at the backdoor stairwell. There’s a garage parking spot with our name on it. The perfect place for two girls in their mid-twenties to reside in style. There’s no other way to describe it: Kasia and I were “pee in our pants excited.”

On the big day, I packed the car, not bothering to adhere to concepts of Tetris; I haphazardly stuffed it to the brim. Brown paper bagged plants in the front seat. Shoes all over the place. Papers, receipts, and old concert tickets remained tacked to the cork bulletin board, which teetered on my clothes mountain, supported by my vanity mirror and Williams Sonoma egg poacher. One rollerblade rocked back and forth on the floor and the other dug into my side as I solidly cruised south towards the Fullerton exit.

After I maneuvered into the garage I grabbed as much as I could and ascended the rusty stairs to our new backdoor. A crack of light illuminated my new hallway and opened up to the tiny world that was ours. Stepped inside and paused. I stood at the beginning of what was to come. My new downtown persona. The Wicker Park chapter had begun. Clean and new, I wanted to breathe it all in. Aaaa…Choo!

I sneezed, dropping my bags.

Sneezed again. And again and again.

I have been sneezing for a week now.

The place was filthy. Streaky windows and dustballed molding. An abandoned sock in the corner of Kasia’s closet. All kinds of hair plastered to the floors and the glass shower door. Nails protruded sporadically from every wall. Scuff marks abound. Fan blades frosted with black. A ripped curtain drooped from its dislodged rod, hanging by a single nail, clinging to soggy drywall. Water dripped down the inside the windows in both bedrooms. After several attempts, we found out that none of the bathroom outlets worked. To top it all off, People’s Gas had no record of my online application and we had to wait a whole week in our long underwear, sweaters and winter hats for a foul man named Kirk to turn it on. He scowled his way into the apartment and did some stuff with the heater but refused turn it on, citing “carbon monoxide poisoning." After calling an expert , we now have heat with a small chance toxic inhalation until we get a ‘cap’ on our chimney. And, to top it all off, I spent a whole afternoon with the Direct TV guy so we could figure out how to attached the HD dish to the top of the roof, which we had no access to so we downscaled our plan to non-HD but still have DVR, although the playback function isn’t currently operational and I seriously need to record The Office tonight.

Someone somewhere must have constructed a tiny model of the apartment and stuck pins all over it while chanting voodoo hoodoo nonsense with glassed over white eyes. Hmm. My mom is the only person I know who might resort to ritualistic chanting...perhaps I shall stage a search of my former residence.

Farmerie 58

Farmerie 58. It was the website that swayed my taste buds its direction. Phrases like “sustainably farmed produce” conjured up images of flaxen fields and dew covered vegetables. Happy cows, goats and sheep. Farmerie 58 was described as a raw food bar that both healthy and affordable, a great alternative to Spring and the Green Zebra, I was already there.

It was not what I expected.

I drove, and I was running late. No time to consider parking costs, I shelled out 12 bucks and gave my car to the valet. I watched the man climb into the drivers seat and start the engine. As always, I cringe when my car goes somewhere without me. After checking in with the hostess, I asked if she knew where I could buy cigarettes. A nonsmoker, she suggested next door. Trader Joes? I laughed. Yeah, maybe. American Spirits, perhaps? Perhaps.

Other patrons waited by the bar. Business-types in suits and shiny leather shoes, anxious couples probably on their first or second dates. A solo guy in the corner, talking on his phone and swirling a glass of red. A brimming vase of what seemed to be dead leaves was the focal point of the room, which was otherwise adorned with out-of-place impressionistic oil paintings. Slightly unsettling techno music was playing. When our table was ready, the hostess led us up to the second floor, to a bright room full of people, booths and tables. A sushi bar at its center. We were seated at a booth next to the window, overlooking Ontario Street and the florescent Four Points Sheriton sign glaring at us.

Our waitress took our order and we settled in for our Restaurant Week meal. My friend Stephanie had a glass of pinot noir, and for me: an extra dirty grey goose martini. It was one of those days. Our drinks arrived after the first course, which consisted of a chopped house salad drenched in garlic-parmesan vinaigrette. I had a generous bowl of butternut squash bisque, perfectly warm and just thick enough to keep the heat for about three minutes, when it got cold and developed an appetizing skin. I discovered that vodka doesn’t mesh well with winter squash. For the main, she had the cranberry stuffed pork chop with fingerling potatoes. The pork looked more like the bigger leg of a Cornish hen. The salmon turned out to be a tiny sliver of pink fish set on top of what looked to be risotto dusted with pine nuts. Both pieces of meat were prepared very well, cooked through and not overdone. The only thing that didn’t agree was the risotto, which tasted like salty porridge. Both of us chose the ginger crème brule for dessert. This also wasn’t perfect- the sugar wasn’t burned properly, you could see the individual sugar granules, but it was very sweet and satisfying as a palate cleanser.

All in all, it was a decent meal. But don’t be mislead by the flashy website, or the cute farm-y wind vane rooster logo. And don’t come with any expectations. Farmerie 58 is just another restaurant inside a hotel.

tagging game

My friend Amy wants me to join in on a 'tagging game.' I'm supposed to post three things about myself and tag some people. This is similar to Facebook's "25 Things About Myself" that has been whirling around in cyberspace for the last several weeks, which only proves how incredibly egotistical and needy our internet personalities are. See the article in Time Magazine for more info about this phenomenon.

25 Things I Didn't Want to Know About You

I, of course, easily and happily generated 25 awesome things about myself and posted them to my Facebook profile, with hopes that others would (a) be reminded of my existence (b) decorate my profile with all sorts of flattery (c) want to learn more about me myself and I, and (d) pass on my info to William Morris Agency, who'd read my short stories and screenplays, and make me into a Hollywood sensation. Unfortunately, I'm only a tiny sensation of the Park Ridge sect of the Jarvis family, but the other things came true. I am loved!

Amy, you win. I really enjoyed reading yours, and gosh darn it, it's fun to project myself to the masses. This is why I have a blog!

Three Things:

1. I've never owned any fuzzy creatures. except for a mouse and a baby squirrel I tried to rescue with oatmeal, carnation goodstart and a little nest in a shoebox(?), I've only had successful experiences owning newts, frogs, turtles, snakes and fish.

2. I'm a big analyst of people and their motivations for acting in certain ways, I think this prob goes back to my undergrad psych major and the fact that I'm a huge over-thinker. This also goes back to 7th grade when my girlfriends and I used to pass notes like: 'Omg he looked at me? Do u think he likes me? Maybe he called last night while I was on AOL and got a busy signal, Oh no oh no!! But, do u think he noticed the giant zit on my chin? Omg he did. Seriously, no wonder he didn't get out of the car. Oh there's his sister. Maybe she told him something about me. Oh god now he knows i'm in science club. OMG I'm going to kill myself.'

3. I enjoy long strolls on the beach at sunset.

10 girls and some raw meat

We had to have a bachelorette
So we went to the Gaslamp Strip Club
Looking forward to leotard fishnets and stretching pole cats but
There was no stage
No splits
no breast bulge or even a freshly hung banana hammock
Just steaks.
New York, filet mignon and strip steak.
Meat so naked I had to cook it myself.

So there we were: 10 girls and some raw meat.
A possible deleted scene from the L word?
No.
I didn’t know how to proceed.
The meat came wrapped in plastic.
Rolled, peeled, I had to coax it out and then
Flop
It singed on the 15-foot grill.
With a flourish of random spices, there it was:
Cooking.
But not fast enough!
so I left it for a while
And got out my camera
To take pictures my friends in skirts and fire tongs amongst curtains of beaded metal and walls upholstered in patent leather.

It was supposed to be medium rare
but negligence wanted it black.
My 30-dollar steak.
I couldn’t send back because it was my own damn fault
So I performed the opposite of a skin graft
And ate it anyway.

The Gaslamp Strip Club.
Don’t come for stripping.
But if you want your hair and clothes to smell like raw meat
(some say its an aphrodisiac)

This is the place.

Bake-ess

I thought I'd share the result of my recent foray into baking. These are pumpkin-flax muffins. I added some currents to spice them up a bit, along with nutmeg, cloves and a heaping scoop of cinnamon. Baked at 350, 25 minutes. Best served right out of the oven with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side. (not pictured) (cuz i ate it all)

Before

After

NEW SITE NAME : somewhatexactali.blogspot.com

What was previously alijarvis.blogspot.com is now somewhatexactali.blogspot.com.

Thank you.

a day in the life of Unemployed

7:30 alarm goes off.

7:31 disable alarm. float in and out of dreams that involve escaping cannibals with high school people you haven't spoken to in years.

8:37 kick off covers and slide out of bed. go to bathroom and look at face. grunt. smooth hair with wet comb. grunt. put on robe and shuffle downstairs. listen for 'mom' noises to confirm her whereabouts: kitchen. greet mom with mustered cheer and switch on kettle. create breakfast out of what-have-you in the fridge. drink tea. revive.

9:40 back to your room. make bed and switch on scanner. hop off and on monster.com, mediabistro, facebook and hulu while scanning photos. edit in photoshop if necessary. snack on almonds and half a banana. glass of milk.

2:30 change out of pajamas, fill water bottle and search for goggles and suit. yell 'bye mom' before walking out the door, getting in your car that will take you to the gym where u will swim exactly 22 laps and jog for an amount of time totaling 45 minutes.

4pm back in the car, check your email, respond to any missed text messages/emails/phone calls. stop at Trader Joes to pick up some pinot noir for later.

4:30 take long shower. shave legs etc. use special occasion bubbles. blow dry hair. put a new pair of pajamas on.

from 5pm you check email and think about making plans to go to the city or stay in and watch a movie. its too much to think about so you reorganize your closet. come across an old loom, find half of a scarf attached to it. you think, 'damn, this is a good scarf. perhaps i will become a weaver.' this reminds you of a recent Flight of the Concords skit and you laugh.

8pm you're still at home, in your pajamas so you open the wine and share it with mom.

11:47pm the wine is gone and you've watched 4 episodes of the L Word. you start to suspect that you're a lesbian.

12:05pm Tell Me You Love Me comes on and you're straight again.

1am you feel inspired so begin making lists. (1) purchase an easel, (2) paint using purchased easel and paints that you should probably buy too. brushes. canvasses or just some wood. cardboard. (3) ask dad about starting own baking company because of recent success at 'pumpkin spice muffins' (4) organize old receipts in blue egg crate (5) make outline of future speech entitled 'how to knock before entering' that you will recite to your mom and brother at a later date. (6) figure out how to make a trap that will force brother to lift toilet seat when he pees (7) move out of your mom's house. (8) get a chinchilla.

a zebra of a different color

It was 4 below. That’s 36 whole degrees away from the temperature where water actually solidifies. So cold that the snow on the ground was disappearing like old ice from your mom’s freezer. My nose hairs prickled and my shoulders tensed as soon as I stepped out the door. My breath billowed in front of me, condensed and crystallized into a million tiny pieces that shattered on the pavement.

I exaggerate. It wasn’t that bad.

After all, we were going on a very exciting culinary investigation, and that was enough to psychologically raise the mercury.

Destination: Green Zebra.
Location: Ukrainian Village, Chicago.

A study on the name. Let’s explore all the different facets of green that the Zebra encompasses.

Green is:

The color between Blue and Yellow. Also signifying earthy-ness or an embrace of all things natural, leading to the link between green and vegetarian. And zebras, of course. Zebras are black and white for a reason. Their stripy black and white nature helps them hide from predators by allowing them to easily blend into their arid desert climate. There’s no green in the desert. This green zebra doesn’t care to hide. It stands proud, a shock of fertility in the wasteland, tempting predators and flirting with death. In a vegetarian-vegan kind of way. I’ve gone too far.

Money. Cuz you’re going to need it to dine here. The portions are delicately meager but flavorful, and are most appropriate for sharing. Our waiter recommended we choose about three dishes per person, but we needed four to feel adequately satiated. The plates average at about 12 dollars each, when paired with wine you’re looking at a pretty steep bill.

Fresh. Overall, the food is incredible. The chef knows what he’s doing. There’s an abundance of seasonal oeuvres made with winter root vegetables such as carnival squash tortellini and sweet potato pot stickers, which are my personal favorite. (The second time I visited Green Zebra, I had the tasting menu, which concluded with a butternut squash tartlet, and that, my friends, was simply amazing.) Thai carrot soup like a spicy hug and the honey crisp apples and horseradish a welcome burst of fresh air. The food. Go for the food. (However, I'd advise against the polenta dish and the blackberry abalone concoction from the tasting menu)

Jealous. Us. Even though we had an 8:30 reservation, the hostess shrugged and confessed that we’d have to wait until 9:30 to be seated. We gazed out at the people who were happily devouring their entrees and engaging in pleasant conversation. People with color on their cheeks and drinks in hand. This place wasn’t constructed for people to wait around. No couches or perching areas to be found. Not even a stool at the bar. We were green with envy.

Inexperienced. The staff. When we asked our server what his favorite dishes were, he moved closer to me, peered at my menu and read verbatim a few of the more expensive dishes. It took 20 minutes for him to uncork and pour a glass of pinot noir. The fact that we had to wait an hour for our table shows that the hostesses have a poor concept of time management and a loose grasp on table-turning etiquette.

Gullible. The clientele. We’re suckers for fabulous food. So we will wait for a table even though we have a reservation. We will settle for poor service so that tastes can run to every corner of our mouths. We will allow our conversations to be replaced by chewing and savoring. Loosening up with each bite, we sank into our seats with the pleasure of it all. Yes. We are easily taken advantage of.

It is truly a zebra of different color.

Located in Chicago’s Ukranian Village.
1460 West Chicago Ave.

Slutty drunk girl music.

Destination Lincoln Park. Mad River.

It’s way too loud in here. There’s nowhere to put my jacket and why does everyone seem to be dressed like summer? It’s January 10. I need to use the bathroom.

I weave in and out of the crowd. A blond shouts in the ear of her brunette friend who has split ends and stands next to a dude in khakis, the others in jeans. There’s a freckled girl in a mini skirt with red lips, red hair, and black eyeliner. She raises her eyebrows and moves out of my way. In front of the bar, I duck through a sea of baseball capped corduroy, leather and suede arms reaching out for more and more drinks.

The bathroom's around the corner and there’re already six girls in front of me. Slowly inch forward as the girls peel off into stalls. An expressionless attendant squirts soap and distributes paper towels. There aren’t any tips in the jar. It’s my turn when the stall I’m waiting for opens and three identical girls scatter out.

I must be in violation of some sort of dress code with my snow boots and striped sweater.

It’s obvious only a certain type of girl frequents this bar. She teeters in heels and carries a coach knock-off under her armpit. Her breasts are no secret. She probably goes to the gym at 5am and grabs lunch at Au Bon Pain. And oh my god, she just dies for her Starbucks grandé non-fat sugar-free vanilla latté with caramel drizzle. I’m getting ahead of myself, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing else this cultured 27 year old would rather do come Thursday 9pm than slip into her favorite Forever 21, hop into her platform Uggs and jump into a cab to seize the night.

Girls like these: they’re ready, I mean, really itching to get their party on.

I leave the bathroom and zigzag back to my friends. We sip our jack and cokes; we wrinkle our noses at the dance floor.

Bodies vibrate around us as the DJ plays song after song. Oddly, I know all of them. It seems to be the Billboard top 100 from the 90s or something. Hit Me Baby One More Time. I Saw the Sign. Total Eclipse of the Heart. I become conscious that my hips are swaying.

Another Night by Real McCoy pours over us, bringing immediate squeals of delight: Oh my God it’s my favorite song! Bunches of girls throughout the bar begin prancing around, running their hands in their hair and laughing. Men watch with wide eyes like they’ve hit the jackpot. The waitress comes by with a tray of tequila shots that are gone in an instant, and the guys shell out money. Cameras flash, girls pose. Smiles and liquid fly in all directions. For these girls, everything is amazing and perfect. We are hot, we are out, and we will dance!

For this reason, the DJ in Mad River is a genius. He’s got the winning formula. He sees a bunch of scantily clad women surrounded by loads of hopeful fresh-faced North Shore bros. DJ wants to help a dude out. DJ knows what really makes girls really thirsty. DJ knows how these dudes are going to take the girls home. DJ’s tip jar? Full. All because of the slutty drunk girl music.

Duchamp

2118 N Damen
Chicago, IL 60647

So minimalist in its décor that I drove right by it. A lean-to sign for valet parking caught my eye in the rear view; I flipped around to investigate, yet cringed at the thought of entrusting Elsie, my ’01 Mazda Millenia, to strangers.

I found a spot just up the street from Danny’s (a nearby bar where I would later convert the female members of my party to perfection that is JD and Diet Coke). Held my breath and pulled my hood tight and as I walked through the cold.

Angular and encased in black, Duchamp has a XXX look, especially with the vertically stamped red lettering. I approached gingerly. I wanted to see if anyone I knew was there but the windows weren’t low enough. Too cold to wait outside, I mounted the three steps and grasped the doorknob, which swung open, propelled by a gust of wind, and I was forced off the stoop.

They are badly in need of a railing.

Made it inside after I was confronted with yet another awkward door, which I swear was made backwards. Checked my phone. Of course I was 15 minutes early. I instinctively headed to the bar but realized that its only occupants were couples nibbling appetizers and sipping conservative stemmed beverages so I stuck to the corner of the room and scanned the joint for familiar faces.

The next 20 minutes were spent arriving, issuing various greetings (Isn’t it cold outside? Can you believe how cold it is? Goddamnit it’s cold!), and worrying if it would snow or not. Soon we were seated, wide eyed with open menus. Duchamp…

Duchamp literally means ‘from the field’ in French. Slope of flaxen grains come to mind. Grazing bovine and a lone farmer carrying a spade. Johnny Cash echoes from an old Chevy under a gnarled walnut tree.

After a flurry of appetizer ordering, we realized that our meal was “d’une autre champ.”

There was shredded duck floating on pureed cauliflower. Salmon strudel awash with apple cider. The chef took the chickens of Amish farmers and paired them with buckwheat crepes. Chilean sea bass swam to Thailand with mussels and rock shrimp.
Maine Lobster skate to Italy on traditional white pizza. Hot wings glazed with lemongrass sauce makes you wonder: Wow. Is this what Hooters is like in Thailand?

We liked this otherfield food very much.

George, our waiter, hovered around us. He topped up our glasses and made sure the girl with the gluten allergy was avoiding the bread. He more than answered all of our detailed preparation-related questions and even made up a reason as to why the Malbec tasted as if it was dug out of a snowbank. (Don’t worry, our cellar’s temperature is quite accurate for the varieties that we store.) After a bit, the wine warmed up, as did our taste buds, because of George’s continuous hints about what to order next.

After attacking our third round of small plates, it was time for the check. We agreed that the food was excellent, the conversation scintillating, and the bill wasn’t at all overwhelming. A near-perfect dining experience.

And if they install a railing at the entrance, I am certain to return.

It's so interesting what my brain can do

(While in Rapidan, Virginia population 283)

11:52 pm.

I finally fell asleep.

A simple task for a daytime creature, but incredibly difficult for me because I was terrified. Nighttime in the middle of nowhere is deep deep black abyss of creepy shit.

From my blanket cocoon I could hear the house making noises. Ghost ones. Ghosts are everywhere. My ancestors on the wall, staring at me with their beady sepia eyeballs. All of them, they're buried in the cemetery across the street. For real. My grandma took me there, we tiptoed between the scattered eroded gravestones as she described the importance of remembering the deceased.

It's enough to give M Night Shyamalan chills.

The nearest neighbor is one mile away.

Earlier, I stepped outside for a I'm-going-to-face-my-fears cigarette. There were perhaps 20 deer in the yard. I couldn't see them but I heard them rustling through the grass. Angry, antlered, quite possibly rabid deer. Planning to seize the house with three disturbing faceless people carrying shot guns; they're stalking the house from all angles in the style of the movie 'Strangers.' Except that dude from Felicity isn't here and I'm not Liv Tyler.

I don't have a clue how I did it, but I was able to push all the boogymen out of my bed and I fell asleep. It was quite the trip.

DREAM: I went to a hippy commune style organic fruit tent party where a strange girl (Lauren Harrison? Do you read my blog?) from high school served me squash, canned pineapples, and shrimp (not canned) while I reclined on a rainbow colored mat. I was taking care of a toddler but he didn't belong to me. This was before I turned into a medium sized cartoon bird and tried to escape the party but my brother and his band (Iglu & Hartly) showed up so I was obliged to stay. Kasia, you were there, wearing blue and white star pajamas.

Wow wee...

a blur of buzzing cicadas

those days
with our toes curled in wet grass
sprinklers churned the air
we caught fireflies in empty pickle jars.
and kept pollywogs in white buckets on the patio.
mom would yell when it was time for dinner.

those days when you always wanted to play tag
i liked hide and seek better
but you could always run faster than me.
and i knew the best places to hide.
we'd fight over it and end up in cardboard box forts and caverns made from blankets.

those days life was simple
baby and puppy.
you and me.
hand in hand, side by side.
we'd never grow up. we'd always have popsicle mouths and grass stained knees.

each fresh pink morning grows more distant in my mind.
our childhood a blur of buzzing cicadas and fried bologna.

those pollywogs.
our big eyes watched them swim in tadpole circles.
and then they had legs
suddenly there were arms.
one by one they hopped out of the bucket and were gone.

the end of pork chop dinners.
macaroni and velveta
you broke your glasses because you thought they were stupid.
and i started to wear lipstick.

i never thought we'd turn into frogs and jump away.

Thanksgiving : Fact or Fable?

Every year, families gather around their tables to eat a bountiful meal of turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. Hasty bites are taken just before the mass exodus to the living room for the last minutes of the football game. Ah, Thanksgiving, the century-old tradition that helps us to gain those pounds that will protect us from the cold of the upcoming winter. It’s the highly anticipated day that kicks off the holiday shopping season when we find we've become obsessed with mini pumpkins, multi-colored corn husks, and decorative cornucopias filled with fruits and nuts. Visions of happy pilgrims and Native Americans dance through our heads as we go back for seconds.

No one will ever know what happened on that autumn day in 1621 when the first Thanksgiving meal took place. After many years of celebrating this hyped-up holiday, many myths have surfaced concerning its origin. In an attempt to separate fact from fable, I have outlined a few fictional ideas of the modern day Thanksgiving celebrator.

Myth: Thanksgiving Day has been celebrated every fourth Thursday in November since 1621.

The pilgrim’s first harvest was not repeated, although they did have a small fête two years later, when they celebrated the end of a long drought. Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday by President Lincoln in 1862, a little more than two centuries after the pilgrims celebrated their first harvest. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt set aside the fourth Thursday in November as the official Thanksgiving Day.

Myth: The pilgrims stole the land for their colony from the Native Americans.

When the pilgrims landed in Plymouth there was no one there. A plague had wiped out over 90% of the native population from 1616 – 1619. The legendary Squanto was in Europe while his comrades were devastated by sickness. He came back home to find that it had been inhabited by a small group of pilgrims who didn’t know a thing about farming on New England soil. Squanto befriended the pilgrims and helped them plant and fertilize their fields.

Myth: The first Thanksgiving meal was plentiful feast, fit for a king.

The pilgrim’s harvest in 1621 wasn’t as colossal as it may seem – all of their crops failed except for corn, which was very disappointing to the pilgrims since about half of their community had died the year before. Thank goodness Squanto came along to show off his corn-planting-skills.

Myth: The first Thanksgiving meal consisted of roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie.

The present day image of a thanksgiving meal doesn’t resemble the pilgrim’s feast in the slightest. Turkeys, as native birds of Mexico, were not available in seventeenth century New England, so the pilgrims could have eaten any of these sources of protein: venison, goose, duck, cod, eel and quite possibly, seal. The only vegetables that available were corn, beans, and radishes. Pies couldn’t have been eaten, since the pilgrims did not have any sugar or such modern conveniences as ovens. Food was eaten from communal pots, and no forks were used.

Myth: The pilgrims sported black and white outfits, complete with silver buckles on their hats, belts and shoes.

In reality, the pilgrims enjoyed wearing all sorts of colors. The women typically wore red, violet, brown, green, blue, or gray dresses while the men stuck to such basic colors as brown, white, green, black or gray. Buckles were not fashionable at the time and were not worn until the end of the seventeenth century.

Myth: The Native Americans wore festive feathered headdresses and loincloths.

The Wampanoag Indians who were present at the first Thanksgiving did not wear feathered headdresses. Only the Plains Indians of the Midwest wore such costuming. Since the meal is thought to have taken place sometime between Sept. 21 and Nov.11, it would have been too cold in New England for the Natives to wear loincloths. They most likely wore clothing similar to the pilgrims, since they were familiar with European tradesmen and explorers.

fragment four

I'm going to start posting my short story collections in pieces. I know this isn't a secure website; I'm opening myself up to the possibility that someone might steal my work, so I'm going to be very sneaky about it. Posting will go up. Posting will come down.

Closure

So there I was, squatting over the small hole I dug with a stick, toilet paper in my pocket, straining waiting for the relaxation that would come in just a moment’s time if I forget that I’m in the middle of nowhere exposing my bare ass to who knows what. Short blades of flaxen grasses tickled my ankles as I bobbed there, filling my tiny piss pit, making sure to keep the stream flowing straight so that I wouldn’t squirt all over my jeans. When I was finished, I took out the zip-lock bag that I kept in my pocket, opened it and sealed the used toilet paper inside. I put it away and stood up, zipped my jeans, and kicked some dirt into my hole. I didn’t need to do that. I was more than 100 yards away from the water, there wasn’t a chance that the pee would leak out, trickle down the trail and contaminate the lake. But kicking dirt was as close to flushing a toilet as I was going to get out here in the middle of nowhere. I needed closure.

Finally

The sacred day has come. It's finally cool to be American. Yay Obama! Huge loss on that Prop 8 in California, but Yay Obama all the same. I'm so glad to be part of this special time in our nation's history. We're raising the bar. An example for the world. Today, I am proud to be an American.

I felt the love as I passed through customs at OHare. Waited patiently in line for my turn to act cool and un-nervous for the officer who would be interrogating me. Fanned my face with my declaration form as the people ahead of me had their prints taken and their eyes scanned. Hmm. When did this start happening to residents? No matter. Could be interesting. Although, I would have to remove my glasses. I hate that.

My turn came. He was bald. Young. Army-like stature. He motioned me to come forward with his gloved hand.

Hello, Hi. Where are you coming from? London. How long were you there? A little more than a year. What are you bringing back? Clothes. Shoes. No plants? Nope, no plants. Ok, then.

And he stamped my passport and waved me through.

What, no eye scan? Well, if you want one. But I don't recommend it. Welcome home.

Welcome home indeed! I skipped along to the baggage claim, so pleased to have avoided the eye scan. My three too-heavy bags were nicely placed to the side of the carousel so I didn't have to go through the strain of searching the conveyor belt and reaching through the crowd to clumsily yank them off. Didn't have to have my bags checked again. Or sniffed by the beagle with the red cape that is always led around by a woman in her late 50s.

And now I'm sitting in arrivals, wondering if I'll ever get a 'Love Actually' airport welcome. Loved ones waiting outside the barrier, jumping up and down, crying, holding posters, balloons, flowers. Maybe one day, but not today. My mom calmly told me that she'd be circling outside the terminal in one hour. Ahh well. What's one more hour. I'm just so glad to be back in America USA.

Art + Language

Last week I found myself in the Art + Language room at the Tate Modern. I stood there. Radiohead 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm) streamed from my iPod into my brain. I was in front of a wall covered in a giant patchwork of poster sheets. Each sheet bore 100 words in 20 lines. Each a different tone. Different color. Day-glo and loud, each sheet screamed emotion. I was transfixed. Two of these Inflammatory Essays intrigued me so much I tore off a piece of my San Diego guide to voting in the '08 election so I could scrawl them on the back. They read:

Shriek when the pain hits during interrogation. Reach into the dark ages to find a sound that is liquid horror, the sound of the brink where man stops and the beast and the nameless cruel forces begin. Scream when your life is threatened. Form a noise so true that your tormentor recognizes it as a voice that lives in his own throat. The true sound tells him that he cuts his flesh when he cuts yours, that he cannot thrive after he tortures you. Scream that he destroys all kindness in you and blackens every vision you could have shown him.

Don't talk to me. Don't be polite to me. Don't try and make me feel nice. Don't relax. I'll cut the smile off your face. You think I don't know what's going on. You think I'm afraid to react. The joke's on you. I'm biding my time, looking for the spot. You think that no one can reach you, no one can have what you have. I've been planning while you're playing. I've been saving while you're spending. The game is almost over so it's time you acknowledge me. Do you want to fall knowing who took you?

Jenny Holzer's Inflammatory Essays were created in 1950 and fly posted across New York City.

a rogue visit in the night

I was getting a really amazing thai back massage, the kind that involves light tapping on the shoulders, when I woke to find that my masseuse was actually a mouse. I can't think of anything worse. Sleeping, all vulnerable-like, dreaming away with a mouse exploring the sheets. I shot straight up in bed. It scampered across my duvet and on the floor somewhere. Turned all the lights on and got out of bed, paced around the room, hitting things sporadically with my feet. It was 3am. Had no idea how I was going to sleep after that. I opened my window and door and got back into bed, lights still on, I laid there and listened for a tell tale scamper or whisker movements. My ears aren't built for that. Didn't hear a thing. So I just waited there. I think I fell asleep maybe but it was full of listening. Street noises, car alarms, toilets flushing, doors slamming, tea making on into the morning. No mouse. I secretly hoped it was a cute one or maybe it didn't have rabies so that if it attempt the thai back massage again it might be less gross.

Rebuttal required.

Harrods. The most popular haute-consumer destination in London succumbs to the nouveaux hippie ideals of pro-life animal lovers. Take a look at that skinned...what the heck did that use to be anyway? As if a measly peaceful demonstration is going to sway rich Egyptian tourists from buying lavish fur coats. What happens happens. People have been wearing fur and leather and even lizard skin for generations.

That aside, I'm sitting here with my absentee ballot in front of me. Obama and McCain and Nader's Peace and Freedom Party (wtf?) but what's really got me stumped is that I can't decided how to vote on Proposition 2: Standards for Confining Farm Animals. I'm no veggie. I like buying eggs for 99c a dozen and don't really care if cows, pigs, sheep and other non human animals are allowed to move around or not. They're on a farm for a reason; they are destined to be food. Rather not pay to enrich the lives of the doomed. So I suppose I'll vote NO on Prop 2. But there's one thing that still concerns me. There should be a limit on how smelly a cow-farm can be. That big one off I-5 in California is a doozy. No wonder people get so many speeding tickets in that area. Just wanna get away from the rank putrid methane gasses!

(I don't know why I rant. Just like to see my words on the net. Please reply with a good rebuttal)

Au revoir

My time in London has come to an end.

There are several reasons why I'm returning to the USA, most of which are too personal to mention, but most obvious one is that I used up all my allotted funds. And with the current economic situation, I don't think they will be easily replenished in the United Kingdom.

I will be returning to Chicago on the 10th of November. To the place where I spent my childhood and those few tumultuous teenage years where I was mostly sneaking around and doing things I dare to remember. I'm going to try and reconnect my past-selves and reconcile with the present. And I'm going to get rid of those old prom corsages and dried bundles of flowers and go through boxes of yellowed notes, journals, and magazines. I'll possibly finish those lonely art projects that are still all over my floor. My room is just the same as it was when I left it in 2001. Returning to the teenaged version of me will be interesting.

Savoring this City

LIST *
- go to Brighton and eat fish&chips with malt vinegar while watching surfers attempt to catch tiny waves (check)
- see brother's band Iglu & Hartly @ Cargo. Make a fool of myself while supporting band's efforts to fend off their many admirers. End up in Bungalow 8 and run someone a 200 ₤ bar tab (done. EPIC night!)
- Micah's visit from Paris, take her to Primrose hill and organic cafe on Camden Lock. Climb a tree. Cruise around W11. (check!)
- walk up Parliament Hill and marvel at the city
- sneak up top of Gherkin, run around in circles and procure free beverage from bartender using hidden "fish face" skill
- visit West Hampstead because apparently it is cute and I will love it (says Hannah) (I went and Belsize Park is possibly the most adorable place in London.)
- finally go to Kew Gardens. wander around aimlessly and lose myself among the changing leaves. ogle small puffer-fish and mudskippers. traverse 70 ft tall tree bridge.
- go to Devon to visit Hannah's family on weekend of Oct 10th
- visit long lost high school acquaintences in Oxford and surf around some pubs
- go to Paris and visit Micah. Linger in or around jazz cafes and contemplate the meaning of postmodernism. Oct 15.
- MY BIRTHDAY!!! tame dinner party followed by insane American-style Halloween bonanza
- fly to Ohio (Nicole and Andrew's wedding). Make sure to wear flight socks so cankles don't re-emerge (horrible)

*list may change according to fluctuation of mood and change of weather

what do YOU think?

[The] Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was held on the lawn of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage. Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. With over 1400 participants, this was the biggest political rally in the history of the state.

regret

my feelings bring me down
down to the basement where I don’t put them away
I take that box
I sit next to it
put a naked arm over it
and bury my head in devastation’s crook

Neato

I just danced with Mark Ronson at the Notting Hill Arts Club. Had no idea what he looked like until someone pointed him out. Cooooool! And, ALL of the bouncers said I looked like Cynthia Rock. Not sure if that's a good thing..

Conundrum

Sigh of relief. Done with my MA. Had a week to relax, catch up with friends, drink copiously and enjoy the brief glimpses of sun. Now, with the money dwindling, it's time to get a job.

One might think that acquiring an MA would open up new windows and doors and secret passageways into the world of money making and overall success. Not so when the person isn't a legal resident of the country she/me/I currently reside.

1. No one wants to hire someone who might leave in January
2. No one wants to hire someone whose references require a long distance phone call to contact
3. It costs less to hire someone from this country than to hire someone who needs sponsorship to stay in England.

Bah humbug.

All that aside, over the past week (not long, I know. but long enough to feel a sting of discouragement) I've sent out countless CVs with personalized cover letters to prominent and not so well known mags and book publishers, only to receive replies like this one:

Dear Alexandria,

Many thanks for your interest. I am afraid we have no vacancies available at present. However, if you’d like to put your name forward for a stint of unpaid work experience please do get in touch.

All best,
X

I've conceded to three internships in the past three years. When does "work experience" end? I just want the 9-5. Get some funds to trickle into my hsbc checking. If I agree to the "experience", I'll have to get a night job.

I vowed never to work in another cafe or restaurant ever again (unless I own it, but that's another story). I'm through serving others. I want to be able to serve myself. But in order to make the money necessary to pay the rent, the bills, and the occasional shopping spree, I might have to consider waitressing again.

The thought of it makes me cringe. It makes me crawl under a blanket on my couch and watch seasons 1-3 of The Office. My recycling bag has become heavy with empty cans and bottles. I've eaten a whole box of oreos. What exactly I'm doing here in England?

I'm suddenly jogging through Hyde Park. I run all the way to Hyde Park Corner and pass dogs and owners and couples on blankets. Children playing football with their fathers. Geese and swans and that man feeding the pigeons out of his hand. Other joggers. The London Eye is in the distance.

I love London. I don't want to leave. But I need a job. I want it to be simple. I want to keep living like I have. I want to have a quality life.

Conundrum.

1700 words to go

dissertation, you will not be the end of me!

How I exist in my lunacy.

Before leaving the house, since I’ve become a lunatic, I switch all the outlets off. I blow out my candle and fan the air out of the patio doors so that the smoke wont set off the detector, which is in the downstairs hallway. Yes, I know that smoke rises. I hide my computer in my closet under my winter boots. I hide my external hard drive under my pillow. My iPod goes under there as well. I check for my keys and wallet and travel card two times before exiting. I also sniff the air to see if the smoke had cleared. Before closing the door I check again. I descend the 70 stairs to the entrance of the building, the door locks on my way out, then I’m on the sidewalk, heading towards the tube, when I realize that I’m overdressed and I’ve forgotten the garbage. So I have to go up and do it all over again.

little bits of amazingness

I've been hard at work on my thesis. Tons of writing going on.

I split my time between writing at my kitchen table and venturing to the library. I've been self-sufficient with all my meals, only treating myself to coffee every now and again.

Tonight I made myself a curry. From scratch. Possibly the BEST curry I have ever eaten, in or out. Completely fresh, totally vegan. Involving sweet potatoes, one stick of lemon-grass, 1 large-ish chili pepper, 1 red onion, 1 tsp coriander, and 1 tsp turmeric. Also some coconut milk and water. Sauteed it up and served it over basmati rice.

Damn, that was some good food. Drank a bit of wine with it. Ate a square of chocolate after the wine. Ahhh, it's the little things that make my world go 'round.

lately

i've been having problems sleeping. it takes me 2 hours to fall asleep after lying awake staring at the ceiling, counting how many times the 23 bus goes by. when i do get to sleep, its interrupted by nightmares. i toss and turn and wake up sweating.

i'm worried i have no passion.

my family and i were on holiday in the british virgin islands. we stayed on an island called Guana and were the only guests amongst researchers and marine biologists. they were studying coral disease. everything about the ocean amused them. they were inspired by sponges and fascinated by algae and seaweed. they got excited when they found a coral that they had encountered in the past. they freaking love simple organisms and they were quite content going about their days with a notepad.

meanwhile, my family and i were kayaking or snorkeling or sitting by the pool drinking pina coladas we had made ourselves at the "honor bar."

as we drank and contemplated the scientists, my brother said something that made the back of my throat itch:

they care about fish, and you care about...

i had to get up from the table. my eyes stung like i was about to cry. might have been PMS, might have been the pina. might have been the breaking point that comes from family-time overload.

but seriously, and currently: i'm not passionate about anything in the way that those marine biologists are. and it makes me sad.

i can't sleep. tonight i'm going to try vodka.

I’m trying to pinpoint the time when you stopped living in the world and started taking it over.

There’s a spark in you. Other people see it, they stop and wonder: Wow. This guy’s going to something big. Nobel peace prize. Triple platinum albums. Known all over the world or something. He's going to do great things.

You do what you want. You always have. Running your life to your own rules. Not caring about the stop signs or the seating charts or the expired plates and registration on your Toyota Tacoma. You never stuck to the notes on the page. Treble clef bass clef made up your own clef, switching it all around never sticking to the tempo. You infuriated our piano teachers. If the rules cross you in some way, you cross them right back and have a better experience for it.

You're the ice-cream truck, cruising the streets to the Entertainer. The people. They flock to you like they've never seen an ice cream cone before. You win them over before they know what comes next.

This is why you will win. This is why I envy you.

guana island ramble

the littlest things excite her. up and down, blue fins yellow snorkel. mask too large on her face. she swims kicks bobs near the shore, water lapping at her body while she giggles as the fish swim by.

wind on the water, rippling slightly. the breeze bends back the cover of my book as i write on these back pages that are blank for a reason i hope. alone here on my floating island as my brothers socialize at the bar with all the rest on their honeymoons and researchers on a break from testing the health of the coral reefs.

i prefer it over here. just got over the seasickness that comes with floating on a wooden pelican-poo platform. swam here with my book camera and towel elevated above my head like an african mother's water jug, stroking forward with my left arm kicking kicking - thought i wouldn't make it. sputtering with a salt water mouth, body heavy heavier weighed down by the ocean's thick skin. i finally reached the ladder, threw up my bundle and grasped the rung, hand over hand arrived on the platform.

as soon as i stepped on the wooden slats i wanted to dive in again.

there's bird shit on my new $130 bathing suit.

another day, another airport

I always show up too early.

Heathrow makes me nervous. I'm terrified of missing my flight, losing my baggage, and becoming constipated from lack of decent food. I might catch a tropical flesh eating disease from the armrest on this vinyl green chair. There are thieves all over the place. I reach in my bag and touch my passport every 5 minutes. I check the flight board just as frequently. I wander in and out of the haute couture shops What to buy? What to buy? 40% off perfume? Cheap cartons of cigarettes? Absolut Vodka made to look like a liquor shaped disco ball?

7am in Terminal 3 and everyone is pacing around, restless like me, in a state of 'neither here nor there,' perpetual airport purgatory where we're tempted by everything and by nothing at all.

She lives on my counter

I have a plant. She lives on my counter. I don’t think she likes me. Multi colored hydrangea in a plastic brown pot, she started to wilt three days after I purchased her from the flower lady at Whole Foods. Hannah said it was a bad idea to put her on the fridge since it gets warm on top. So I moved her outside after feeding her some water. She revived quickly. So happy, I thought hey maybe the little lady likes it outside so I left her there. Overnight. It rained a bit and she fell over, I woke up the next day and there she was on her side, wilted as can be. Took her inside, left her on the mat to dry off in the sun that spilled into the living room. Left for the day. Came back later and she wasn’t any better. I moved her to the counter. Half of her is dead now. The other, wilted. Water? No water? Sun? Shade? What do you want from me?

Dream last night

Dreamt last night that Kristian and I were watching our family: Grandfather and his wife. Grandma. Aunts, uncle, Mom, Dad, Mike and I. We were looking at those people our family ourselves, the dream was like a giant matte photograph, except it was real.

As real as real can be in a dream.

But we were all children. Dad and mom, aunts and uncle were teenagers, Grandma and Grandfather were handsome 40 year olds. Mike and Little Me were tiny toddlers, sitting on the side, playing with a train set, toe headed brown eyes.

In the matte photo world someone else entered the room, it was Dad’s new wife, and Little Me and Mike were suddenly incredibly animated, With the most complex facial expressions, mouths turning eyes twitching. Like intricate cartoon characters. Skeptical of the new woman, not knowing the woman, but possibly thinking that that they/we’d know her in the future.

“Kristian,” I said, “look at that!”

He looked at Little Me, she turned around to reveal a full head of black curly hair tied up into a puff ball on the top of her/my head.

“Kristian! She/me has black person hair!”

“No, Ali,” he said, “you have to say African American. Ok? African American.”

and then I woke up. Usually I like my dreams and I can see the point to them, but this one. Political correctness surrounding thoughts of childhood? The mind is a strange thing.

aftermath of the Rock Werchter 2008

I knew the weekend would go to hell the moment I realized that I left my tent on the train.

4 days of camping in the mud with 80,000 other people. Eating drinking and shitting.

I can't recall individual moments, everything just blurs into one blasphemous catastrophe of drunkenness. My whole body is swollen from all the salt and beer and sleep deprivation. I witnessed vast degrees of nudity, public urination, beer baths, burning garbage, large scale consumption of waffles & chocolate, 3rd degree cigarette burns and destruction of public property.

however...

I had the best time that I've had in years. It was incredible. If I had the opportunity to do it over again, I would take it in a heartbeat. It was the community of people, amazing people, that made the weekend worth the depletion of my precious brain cells. We were all in it together and we saw each other to the bitter end.

some key phrases from the weekend:

Qu'est-ce que vous?!!!

Nuken in the Kuken, Nuken in the Kuken!!

I wanna put it IN YOU, IN YOU.

Oh, Baxter you are my little gentleman...(and all other quotes from Anchorman)

Naked Johnny, naked Johnny!

http://www.rockwerchter.be/RW2008/site/index.asp

check out my photos on facebook. they are worth more than 1000 words.

Snippet

Seat after seat covered in carpet, vertical blue grey red lines typical of United Airlines. Maneuver past elbows and feet with your backpack, row after row. Wait for the grey haired fanny packed woman to squish her bag into the overhead compartment until you find yours, it’s a middle seat, oh God, the middle seat but you sit down, wedged between a fat man and a serious woman, already with her computer open, squinting at the screen, conducting business. Fasten your seat belt. Odds are you won’t crash, never have before, so you can ignore the identical flight attendants moving their arms around, indicating the nearest emergency exits and demonstrating the correct way to inflate life jackets (which can be found in the seat pocket in front of you). After take off, order an apple juice. Listen to your headphones. Skim through one of the magazines that the flight comes with. You fall asleep, sweatshirt balled between shoulder and cheek for neck support. You’ve got an hour and a half but it feels like just a moment before stale air hits you in the face, open your eyes and everyone’s up, grabbing at things, overhead underhead and you’re in another city, a new place. You and all the rest get up and stand impatiently in the aisle until the doors open and you are all free to go.

But August, August was boring.

We grew tired of setting off M-80s in neighbor’s garbage cans and building forts out of stolen lumber from the house that was getting remodeled next door. Our mulberry-smoothie business had failed, either because of its location on a not-so-busy street corner, or because we could never figure out how to get the ants out of the berries we picked. We liked to think of it as extra protein. There was also that girl-scout lemonade stand a couple of blocks over that gave us some competition. We even tried training the neighborhood squirrels with the surplus of unsalted peanuts that our relatives from Virginia kept sending us for Christmas.
Anyway, we were bored, bored out of our minds.

Can't wait!

Trying to work on my thesis but I can't.

Concentration gone, mind drifting. By this time tomorrow I'll be in Belgium. I'll take the underwater route via Eurostar. Destination: Rock Werchter. Camping out for 4 days in a tiny tent with a girl I haven't seen in 4 years. 4 days without cell phone or computer. No make up or showers. Going to wear rain boots and waterproof jackets while galavanting from stage to stage, seeing all my favorite bands and meeting crazy cool new people. Might try to infiltrate the VIP area. Might roll in the mud.

Can't wait to leave my tendency for hyper-scheduling and my constant need for consistence and order behind. Open to new experience. I'll let you know how it goes : )

Every Saturday (excerpt)

That was the summer of Saturdays. Each one spent planning, a ritual of dressing, choosing the perfect outfit, something new something untainted, unsoiled by disappointment. Her bed a pile of white blue pink skirt dress sweater turtleneck jean multicolored mountain of maybe this, maybe that, and probably not.

I would be at the other side of the house, on my bed, reading, but not really. I needed to be alert, I would be listening, she needed me to be waiting for her. For the question.

Footsteps approached. The faint tapping of knuckles, door handle turned,

“Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I'd say.

On this occasion, she entered, I stopped reading, not lifting my eyes from the page, I don’t like to make a big deal. Every Saturday.

I didn’t move so she skated toward me, stocking feet on the hardwood floor.

"Do I look ok?"

Glanced up from the words I used as a distraction. Mom in an A-line, pleated, mid-calf floral carnival. She had to be kidding.

“See?” She wasn’t kidding.

Showing off the skirt’s twirl potential, she turned round and round for me, bold but hesitant, she should dress her age, but I didn’t say so. A lump rose in my throat, I pushed it down.

She stood in front of me, eyes open, darting, expecting a response. Which of course was:

“You look really nice Mom. Beautiful.”

She’d smile and dash back to her plethora of shoes and jewelry, and to the bathroom where she’d apply the three layers of mascara required to resurrect fading lashes. It was important to her to look nice, everything had to be perfect.

There was no end to the preparations for Vince’s arrival. Because he'd never show up.

Sorry Conall

The vids i posted below can only be viewed in the UK, sorry about that! it's something to do with copyrights involving Nokia and Channel 4, etc.

In the meantime, if you are craving some procrastination involving music and hilarious antics, check out my brother Mike's band:

www.myspace.com/igluandhartly

they have all the links to their YouTube vids.

something from last year at UCLA

Out of breath and drenched with sweat, he found himself on the edge of a rather large precipice. He looked over his shoulder to see if they were still chasing him. He could still hear them in the distance, faintly, shouting to each other. Maybe it was over, there was nowhere left to hide. He scanned the sides of the ravine, looking for any possibility of a route to the other side. He refused to believe that he was cornered, he would himself out of this one; a Red Bandit never loses.

Waiting until the enemy was out of range, he stepped back into the green, navigating the forest path, wide-eyed with caution and stepping like the Injuns do, toe-heel, toe-heel, just quietly, softly. Audibly undetectable. He saw where he had faltered on his escape; torn branches were everywhere, and his footprints were clearly visible in the soft dirt. He did his best to cover them up, even though his pursuers weren’t knowing for their tracking abilities. He went on, like this, back though the forest, tracing his steps back to the Giant Tree.

He’d been hiding in the trunk of that majestic oak tree what seemed to be days now, waiting until it was safe to proceed into enemy territory. The Blue Bandits knew where he was, he was certain, it was a well known hiding spot and it was just a matter of time before they got to him. He reached into his pocket and took out a shiny metal object. Long, silver, corroded with age. This was what they were looking for. The skeleton key that they both needed to unlock the chests. He had taken it from the squirrel that was guarding the entrance to the land of his rivals.

Guard squirrels are interesting creatures. The ones that become socialized are usually found injured and abandoned by their mothers. When nursed back to health by the right person, they can be useful security by hiding out in trees and making shrill clicking noises when anyone unfamiliar approaches. These piercing calls can be heard all through the woods, and they are often quite effective at causing intruders to wince and cover their ears, while running away wondering if the thing was rapid. To the Red Bandit’s knowledge, only black squirrels can be trained. They are the most rare of all squirrels in the County of Cook, and are thought to have a much larger mental capacity than that of the common brown squirrel.

Fortunately, the Red Bandit knew of the guard squirrel’s one weakness for peanuts. Unsalted peanuts. If you have a handful of unsalted peanuts, you can train a black squirrel to do almost anything. He and casually scattered peanuts, in a straight line, so that the squirrel, in the manner of Hansel and Gretel, was led right up to him. He swiftly moved behind the rodent and took the key with one quick stroke. He looked around to see if he had been detected, before racing back to the safety of the Giant Tree. It was here that he found himself now, in the tree, waiting, listening. All he needed to do was find where the chest was. The chest with the blue flag.

A voice cut through the silence.
Hey, time out!
Randy, where are you?
(The Red Bandit did not stir)
Seriously, man, Mom is calling us.
(Faintly in the distance…”Randy, Mike…dinner time”)
Come on, man, its meatloaf night. Come out!

Randy reluctantly emerges from the hole in the tree. They’d finish it up after dinner. It was meatloaf night, after all.

"Tricky, you sing. And I'll play guitar"

Iglu & Hartly pee in a chocolate fountain

flatmates

I need to type something out here, get it out of my head and be done with it.

Ok, I live with 3 other people, two girls and one of their boyfriends. The two girls are both in the same teaching program and have stopped talking to each other. We'll call them Sarah and Erin.

Erin's from Peckham. Sarah's from Yorkshire. Opposites. And then there's me, the Happy American, optimistic and non-confrontational. Yay London's the BEST etc.

And I'm in the middle. They talk to me, I come home and they come greet me separately but they don't speak to each other. They write cryptic messages citing grievances about the other's habits.

Today I wake up to find this note on the toilet: "Who ever "left" this here last night needs to clean it up right away!"

Sarah was talking about a turd. There was no turd, just a small skid mark. You'd think she'd never taken a shit in her life. Just clean it up and get over it. Who's to say it wasn't her? I knew it was Erin but I didn't give a "shit," so I cleaned it up and decided to leave a reply. I could have gone the safe route and just left the situation as is. But I'm sick of this behavior and people acting like they're two year olds, not knowing how to live with other people or clean shit out of the toilet. Sarah's past notes have been: "Don't stomp around the house" "Don't slam the door" "Clean the kitchen" "Pay this bill and give Ali 10 quid." Erin's written some notes too, in reply or otherwise, but geeze people, just talk it out and don't waste the paper!

Pretty sick of the notes...

I wrote:

"On that note, whoever clogged the hoover with hair please clean it out because I don't have time to sit and cut someone else's hair out of the machine. And I don't care whose shit it is so I cleaned it up, because leaving it there might stain."

Can't wait to move out. Notting Hill, what what!?

Letter to Iglu & Hartly

Dear Iglu & Hartly,

Hope this letter finds you well. I am happy for your newfound success and emminant proliferance and popularity, you're destined to be heard on radio stations around the world. Yes, I'm very happy for you.

Now is the matter of your first album, Endless Circles, where my voice is featured on 6 tracks, I think that I am entititled to some royalties now that the cd will be selling off the shelves. Me, starving writer in London, I need some way to pay for my expensive new flat. Those are some pretty sweet tracks, so yes, I need the money.

I will send you my registration number as soon as I get up on ASCAP.

Fondest wishes,

Ali (Siamese) Jarvis

PS tell my brother to call me.

Tiny Robot Sightings around London

JUST ADDED: 8-10 Neil's Yard, Covent Garden


1. Kensington Palace Gate 2005 - this one has been removed since then. Sad!


2. Restaurant front in Soho (11-13 Frith St.)


3. Also in Soho, near crossing of Broadwick St. and Dufour's Place

Konditor and Cook Girl

10:50am rush out of Monument Station, take the handicapped exit because it's quicker, quick left and watch for cars pedestrians bikers messengers motorcycles and walk towards the building that so many have told me looks like a pickle but it looks more like a spaceship or a giant vibrator.

The shop's on the first floor but the building is round so just go round round round it and then you'll get there. Door is to the left, take the Ipod off, wave to the people you know and head to the back room, get an apron that fits, check yourself out in the mirror, I am a hot coffee bitch, then clock in upstairs in the kitchen. Don't listen to Lenny, he'll try and tease dirty words out of you when you insert your card into the reader.
It's best if you pull it out quickly, he'll say, laughing.
Smirk, gag, and walk away, past the dishwasher past Jessica who's decorating cakes, she gets paid a lot for this but has crazy hours so don't be envious.

Down the stairs and into your domain you go. The Line. Multitasking to the extreme. See a customer ask him what he wants, coffee black white latte cappa mocha decaf weak strong white black. Sometimes a long black but that's only for those from down-under or nearby. Make the drinks, give them to the people. Green light's on, so empty the dishwasher, then fill it. Walk around to see if any tables need wiping and beverages need topping up in the sandwich fridge.

There's a spill so clean it.

There's a lady looking angry so help her.

The phone is ringing so pick it up.

It's lunch time the line's out the door. Meat choice veg choice, jacket potatos overflow with the daily goo and then there's pizza, those are tartlets. What's the soup? Can I try? I'll have the curry. What's that, goulash? Potato for me. Sausage roll. Tap water? You'll grumble under your breath, having to step away from the line and fetch it for her. She's watching. She could be your grandmother, her glasses dangle from a string around her neck. One guy changes his mind and you'll give him something else.

You smile. You please. You thank you and goodbye, see you! Have a good day night morning weekend!

And on and on.

More forks more spoons more dishes and you're cleaning up, maybe get out of here early for the day, just about done sanitizing the coffee machine and then there's a man who wants a regular decaf soy extra hot no foam latte, but don't punch him. Be nice. He might marry you and take you away from here.

You're done sweeping. You're done mopping. You've got a bag of cakes and aubergine wraps and bananas ready to go and you're out the door, back to Monument, on the tube, and you're on the way home. Feet hurt. Back aches. iPod goes on. And on and on till the next day. 10:50am. Monument Station.

dance dance dance and help yourselves

Like Sienna Miller in Layer Cake, when she dances in the middle of a crowded room, wearing a simple black dress, Daniel Craig sits, legs apart mouth slightly open on a sofa opposite, can’t take his eyes off of her, ignoring the guy who's yelling in his ear, he stares, she smokes a cigarette, she dances, flashing teeth, tossing waves of gold, sending thoughts of sex lust desire, tiny glimpse of cleavage, naked arms back, the shimmer of sleek fabric, blue eye to blue eye, electric currents flashing between them. Everyone wants that.

Iglu & Hartly have that. Jarvis Sam Simon Luis and Bucher. All on stage, flashing the same cues, the energy the arms thrusting mics, pounding keys, guitars in the air, booming boom boom, and hair spins wildly. The lust the vibrance the women in the audience, their pupils dilate as the band’s shirts go off, muscles glisten with power strength of body and mind, the women, they move closer they want them, those women, their mouths opened slightly, I saw them, drinking up the boy men, boys as men, who were belting their masculinity with a hint of world domination as well as I’ll be your boyfriend, but you’ll have to come catch me. A flashy 70s disco party that screams sex, the cocaine’s in the back, dance dance dance and help yourselves. This is Studio 54, bitches.

Mindfulness

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. ~Alexander Graham Bell

I'm done walking around in a state of regret. What if this? What if that?

All we really have is this moment. When it's gone we'll never get it back.

This concept is very important to me. I've found that life can be much richer living for the moment, enjoying what I have right now, and not thinking about what I had in the past or what could happen in the future - the good, the bad, or otherwise.

It's just too much to think about.

I admire those people with the 5 year plans and the well outlined goals and things to achieve. It's comforting sometimes to know what's ahead.

To be honest, I'd rather be surprised.

There's a sort of thrill in the unknown, the unexpected, serendipitous occasions. Life should be an occasion for living. Every moment a party, a feast, a celebration. Especially the tiny ones where you're sitting at the table, scraping off the burn on your toast, and a flock of angle-white swans flies overhead, v-formation, honking, slowly flapping, drifting their shadows over the pavement; a tiny miracle moment of nature.

Every moment a miracle. Think about yesterday or tomorrow and you'll miss the party.

more spooky dreams

i had a dream where i went to get a tattoo, i have been really wanting one in real life, so the dream was a normal afterthought. ok, so i'm at this tattoo parlor, and i got this 6 pointed long angular symbol tattooed on the right side of my stomach, on the ribcage. it was horrible, so i complained, told them to fix it, and the next thing i knew, i had really shitty kiddy-drawn daisies and other flowers tattooed on every limb. both calfs, arms, stomach, upper and lower back. the works. i cried. i screamed. i got over it. i rationalized that i would just wear lots of clothes for the rest of my life, never revealing any skin again. i woke up and immediately checked for tats, none to be found!! i celebrated by eating a brownie for breakfast.

owie

so yesterday i was jogging, putney heath per usual, i was running along, addidas shorts, red headphones, yadda yadda. dodging dogs dads moms. saw some deer. a fox. i was deep in thought about something important. (not allowed to tell) some really deep shit, it was, i know it was. because i fell. the thought pushed me into the deep shit hole, splat. Scraped shin, thigh, hip, arm, blood, pebbles in my palm, embedded. i remember screaming FUCK and this guy heard me, biked over, You OK? i got up, quick as quick, v. embarrassed. told him: it must have been a tree root. Damn tree root! Turned around, I knew nothing was there. i ran away, pulled myself together like an adult, experienced jogger who, very embarassed, pretended like that never happened.

my shin stung all the way home. i was 10 all over again.

band-aid!

I’m scared of this man

I’m scared of this man, why doesn’t he go outside? Making us all nervous, slamming things down and rushing from the table, stomping and cursing the person on the phone, the incompetence of DHL or whatever, making incredible accusations, yanking his hair his beard kicking the railing, Fuck Fuck Goddamn! Other people and I look to each other with startled eyes and join in our nervous plea, what the hell is this guy’s problem, the only reason why I continue to sit here and absorb these bad vibes is because he’s volatile and alive, thrilling to watch, upset and fierce, and no one ever shows emotion in London besides that Japanese woman I saw with Emily when we were walking down the street and she was wailing, moaning, drifting like a zombie, tracing the curb of Regent Street on a Saturday with the busses buzzing wind in her hair, she didn’t care. And now this dude doesn’t care that there’s an elderly couple sitting close to him trying to read their FT and fill in the crossword, his craziness makes them jolt and wince. In a final act of disaster, he throws his phone and it cracks up into a million tiny nokias, he flourishes a pair of giant black headphones, covers his ears with them and walks away without an apology, he’s out the door and I realize I have been hunching over my computer the whole time, my shoulders burn, I stretch and finish my tea while rereading this story and it’s sort of ok don’t you think?

Close observation exercise

Close observation = listen to a piece of music very carefully. after the music is finished, write what you experienced.

Massive Attack: Protection

Images of a beach in Carmel California. Waves washing up on pebble-less shores, lapping, caressing, enveloping my naked ankles as I sit, legs splayed in front of my I am little I am toe-headed naked child digging a moat for my sand castle with my little brother we are tanned and freckled and share our toys easily, smiling laughing touching throwing sand at each other but not getting in our eyes. We get up and run to see who’s first to touch the water. He falls and I win, but the waves scare me and I retreat to my red shovel and yellow bucket.

Move to the living room where we’re nestled on the couch my dad plays the piano, his various pieces that he knows by heart, his repertoire that he impresses with when we have company over, the beautiful clear practiced sounds that comfort like the murmurs of my mother’s voice from when I was in the womb. It’s the music that brings my adult self to tears when I hear it on the radio as I spread butter on my granary bread in the mornings, I turn it up, it’s Beethoven and it’s my dad, my eyes blur, I cut my finger, on the serrated knife that I’m holding, because no one ever taught me how to cut things the right way.

anxiety dream

Woke up in a cold sweat at 6am from a dream where I was taking a shower. The drain was clogged, water pooling around my ankles and rising up to my calves. I peered down it to see what was the problem. (usually I let drains do the clogged thing, I can fix things, but I'm lazy) Cigarette butts bubbled to the surface. I don't smoke. It's common knowledge in my dream that when someone smokes in the yard, butts get sucked into the shower. So, I was like "Oh damn, not again." After clearing the butts away, a garbage bag emerged. I pulled it out, it was heavy and water logged, and I was shocked to see what was it's contents were: my MacBook, my iPod, and my cell phone. I yelled for my mother, "Mom! Mom! What the hell, Mom!" and she came running, my mom doesn't live in England, she appeared and starting talking to me through a cordless phone even though she was in the room. We drained all the water out of my electronics and miraculously they all functioned normally, except after the mishap, the MacBook started running on Linex.

Hm. Will be thinking about this. Interpretations welcome.

Meet my friend AJ

mis en scene

"Darling, how are you finding your steak?" She asks, cutting into her salmon bolognaise.

Frederick grunts. He peers closely at a thin slice of meat. He wrinkles his nose and adjusts his monacle.

"Dear, is it not to your liking?"

"I do believe this steak is undercooked." He sits up in his chair, and looks around the room. "We must alert the staff. This establishment is serving raw meat!"

Frederick pushes out from the table, causing the settings to teeter. The saltshaker topples to the floor. Alice leans over and picks it up.

His hand flies up.

"I wish you wouldn't draw attention, dear."

"Waiter! Waiter!" He waves frantically at a man dressed in black who crosses the restaurant.

"Darling," Alice whispers, "that's not our waiter."

"I don't care, he's coming over, now hush!"

"Sir." The man in black approaches the table, hands crossed behind his back. He wears a gold nameplate, inscribed Jeffrey. "What can I do for you?"

“Ah, yes. About time. I’ve come to the conclusion,” he draws attention to his plate with a sweep of his hand, “this here, this steak as you may call it, is raw.” He stabs it and waves it in Jeffrey’s face. Juices fly from the filet, splattering Jeff. He removes a serviette from his apron and dabs his face.

“Sir, I believe that you ordered your steak to be cooked medium-rare.”

“Yes, medium rare.” Frederick slams the filet back on the plate. His haricot verts roll onto the table. Again the saltshaker falls to the floor. Alice picks it up and places it in the middle of the table.

“I should hope that I wouldn’t be expected place myself at risk of catching salmonella?” Frederick sits back in his chair and eyes Jeff. Jeffrey stares right back at him.

“Sir, if the meat is not to your liking, we will re-fire it for you.”

“I should like a entirely new piece of meat,” he points to the dark red juice that pools on his plate, “one that isn’t bleeding.”

“Very well, sir.” Jeffrey takes Frederick’s plate, turns and walks away.

Alice shakes her head takes a sip of wine.

“Dearest, that wasn’t necessary.”

“On the contrary,” he undoes the top button of his shirt and loosens his tie; “these restaurant people need to be told when they are doing something wrong.”

She looks at him with silent disregard and returns to her meal. Frederick pulls out a Wall Street Journal from his briefcase and begins to flick through it, grumbling at the conclusion of each section, flipping noisily through the pages as Alice finished her meal. Jeffrey returns.

“Sir, here is your new steak, as requested.” Jeffrey places the steaming plate in front of Frederick, who quickly throws his paper aside. “Bon appetit.”

It takes him one minute to devour every last morsel on his plate. Between mouthfuls, he gulps wine and guzzles water, leaving nothing behind.

writer's block and alien invasions

I've been thinking all day.

Started out on my bed, then moved to the desk, back to the bed.

Then I took the operation to Putney Heath, Wimbledon Common, and then to Tesco, where I had to think even more because they didn't have the greek-style yogurt that I like. I walked home, still thinking. Pondering. Wondering what the hell to write a thesis on?

Now, back in front of the computer. My shoulders hurt. I've been going through journals and ramblings and archives of past assignments and papers, trying to find a glimmer of what might interest me to write a book about. I don't want to write just any old book. I want to write Kurt Vonnegut's answer to feminism. But how?

F.

That aside, I've taken to playing scrabble, via facebook. It's such a good, simple game. Along with Tetris, possibly one of the best games invented. Although, playing scrabble online means I might have to wait up to 2 days for my opponent to make a move. the anticipation kills me! I would buy a board and play with my flat-mates, but its against my nature to accumulate things since I am a self-proclaimed traveling nomad.

ok, something completely random that coincides with my hypochondriac-like nature:

There's something called the S.E.T.I program (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence).
SETI is broadcasting radio waves (wtf?) into space with information about our DNA and civilization and technology.

SO if and when ET and his friends show up, they'll have all our info, and it would be incredibly simple for them to destroy us.

Of my top 5 worst ways to die:

1. choking on a piece of chocolate
2. burning alive
3. injecting with poison
4. stabbing with rusty knife
5. bleeding to death after having to cut my arm off after being crushed by a small falling boulder

i think that alien abduction mass torture by unearthly beings would be the worst. only because i can't imagine what it would be like. visions of Alien vs. Predator comes to mind. Arnold better come to the rescue.

Meanwhile, while the aliens are decoding our DNA and mastering an override program for the mother board of all our computers or whatever, I'm sitting at my desk, casually playing scrabble and wondering how to create a compelling protagonist.

St. Ives

We sat in the sand and watched the ocean. Waves were rolling in, just like San Diego. Just like Malibu.

England. Who knew?

St. Ives is an adorable town. Windy roads and ancient brick houses. Little shops with beachy items, art, jewelry, incense and hemp, (hippies!) glass, paintings, watches, fudge, pasties all over the place. Moulles marniers served in every restaurant. Dramatic coastal vistas with massive sprays crashing against the salt ridden cliffs. Dads and moms and little kids chasing each other with plastic shovels on the beach. Older couples holding hands while walking the pavement in serene contemplation. Emily and I taking it all in from the warmth of a tea shop.

Ah, the sea. The sea!

Eugenius is my dad.

To my small audience:

This is an article, one of the best I've seen, that almost exactly describes the inner workings of my esteemed father, Eugene Peyton Jarvis. Yes, I am proud of him. And I love being his daughter. This Andy Seifert dude really did a nice job. Mad props!

of course, only nerds may apply:

my dad

Hi Mom

Hi Mom,

Now that you know how to use the internet and are "listening" to my blog, as you said, I have to outline some key points in my defense to the very concerned message you left earlier:

1. What exactly do you mean when you said "I am concerned by all the lesbian-ness"?
2. Yes, I'm OK and I had enough to eat.
3. I'm not sure why blogs are called blogs.
4. Loneliness is the human condition. So sometimes I think about it. Don't you?
5. Hmm. Weren't you terrified of becoming your mother?

I don't want you to worry, so maybe you shouldn't read my blog anymore.

I love you,

Ali

green strands of tepid putrid nastiness

I have a pair of shoes, black Sketchers from when I used to work at El Cid.

I wear them all the time. Really, I do. I can't take them off, because if I do, the odor that wafts from them is enough to kill a small bird or a chipmunk.

These are the shoes I wear to the tube. I have a pair of pumps in my bag that I change into once I'm done with most of the walking.

The switch is a huge ordeal. I've never tested the small bird/chipmunk theory, but I'm positive that when I take them off in public, green strands of tepid putrid nastiness would waft from them and people would back away from me with disgust, bringing it attention of others, "Oh, that smell!" and they'd look at me out of the corners of their eyes with disgust. "The nerve."

I retreat into a corner, any dark, un-populated area to do the switch. I have a plastic bag in my purse so I can wrap up the stinkers and bury them deep within my handbag. I do this 3 times a week, at least. I can't believe I'm revealing this horrible secret, but I must come to terms with the truth:

I must get some new shoes.

troublesome furniture

My desk finally arrived today, Tuesday, when that rude Argos lady promised that it would arrive on Monday. Faye said 'Yeah, it wouldn’t be too hard to assemble, just use a butter knife.' I thought, oh, ok, must not be difficult, I’ll just go down and fetch some different sizes of butter knives from the kitchen, and maybe a teaspoon as well. I set to work, trying to balance heavy pieces of particleboard on each other so that I could twist in the screws that were included in the package.

Umm, yeah, it didn’t really work. I ended up on the floor, in my underwear, sweating either from my flu-fever or from the energy my body was requiring to get the fucking screws to screw in while balancing the fucking precarious pieces of fake wood. The screws would rotate like 180 degrees and the knife would slip out, scraping off tiny bits of metal and ruining the heads of the screws. Have I said the word screw enough? None of the other knives seemed to work, I hated the idea of asking for help from my Faye’s boyfriend, who usually sleeps till 2pm, and it was 8:30 in the morning. No, I was going to do it all by myself.

Picked myself off the floor, grabbed my towel, got in the shower for a rinse-off, put on whatever clothes were on the floor, who cares what I look like when I go into Putney and back to the rude Argos lady and demand some sort of power drill system so that I can finally put the desk together and get some writing done.

Yeah. So I did all that, even managed to grab some milk at the store (someone keeps drinking mine?), a lamp, and a few light bulbs, and I walked back home, sweating again because it was a rather far walk and I was on the uphill section.
10 minutes later, I have a desk!

Jack Nicholson not a viable campaign supporter

The previous video was pulled off of my source site within the last 24 hours.

"There's nothing on this earth, believe me gentleman, than a woman that you have to salute in the morning."

No one wears pant suits day-in, day-out, and at even at the wee hours of 3a.m. to appear sexy. Hillary was offended by the overtly masochistic tone in that statement. She's trying to be serious here. How else is she going to lure in vulnerable Oval Office interns in order to carry out her revenge against Bill for his indiscretions of yore?

Hilary...Obama.... I will vote for any democrat that wins the nomination. Unless things get messy, then there's always Nader, who has the unflatering support of our good friend, Ali G:

Jack Nicholson for Hillary Clinton in 2008

Easy as.

They were beautiful.

Never as beautiful as they were that night. Naked. Vulnerable. Asleep.

No. I lie.

He was sleeping, she wasn’t. She was pretending. She just couldn’t allow herself to drift off. It was too good to be true. She had to stay awake. All night, listening to his soft, delicate breathing. She had to stay awake so she could relish in every sleepy caress, every time he turned over and clumsily pulled her closer to him with a sigh. He had such long sighs.

I saw her reach out and traced the freckles on his back. She named their children. Summer. Henry. Tristan. Julia. She imagined they’d have a dog. A little cottage north of the city. Or she’d move in with him. They’d make breakfast on Sundays, read together on Tuesday evenings, on the couch. She’d rest her feet on his lap. He’d be rubbing them. Beethoven’s 8th would be drifting from the speakers. Dinner is on the stove. Pancake, the cat, is sleeping on the windowsill. A picture of two of them is on the mantle. He’s making a funny face, squinting his eyes up and giving her bunny ears, while she sticks her tongue out at him.

It would be perfect.

But, no. It would not be so. He would think about calling her, the next day, after discussing it with his friends. Mentioned the sex was amazing. She wore a black lace thong. And then he told them he thought that she had used his toothbrush, to which they recoiled in horror: no telling how soon it would be before she would start leaving all her stuff around. Tampons, vibrators, dirty underwear. Embroidered pillows and blankets and embossed serviettes. No, no, this could not be. Not in his apartment.

He wouldn't call.

He didn't really like blondes, anyhow.

exercises in dialogue

1780s.
Virginia
Field
1. I say, Father? The plow is broken.
2. Pray tell me boy, how did this occur?
1. Esteemed father, the plow broke when it hit yonder rock
2. Ah, son. We must mend this plow. Hark! I will call the smith.
1. Father, I am grateful you don’t lash me.
2. Well, son. It could do.
1. Please, no. I will pay for my mistake with extra labor.
2. Very well son, so it shall be.
3. Aye, ‘ere I be. The smith, I am.
2. Hark! The smith has arrived. Dear fellow, my lazy son has broken this plow. Thinks you to fix it, straight away?
3. Aye, sir. This be a quick mend, it is.

-----

3052
London
House
Man: Offspring One. Dispatch yourself to the distillery.
One: Affirmative.
Man: Here, take £100,000. Adequate.
One: Affirmative.
Woman: Safety, Offspring One. Recall the protocol for navigating the Superpass.
One: Affirmative, computed. I will go.
Woman: Man.
Man: Over?
Woman: Without surveillance, we allow Offspring One to be dispatched to navigate the Superpass?
Man: Offspring One has passed the critical stage. He is well equipped.
Woman: We should not be concerned?
Man: No, Woman. No.
Woman: Ah, so it shall be. We concur.

-----

2008
Kitchen
Omaha
1. Hey, Mom?
2. Hmm?
3. Susan, could you please bring me a glass of warm milk?
2. No, not now Mother. One minute.
1. Mom?
2. Yes, dear. Spit it out!
1. Ok- well...
3. My bowels are acting up again, I really do require some warmed milk, Susan?
1. I, I was driving to school today-
2. Mother! Calm down, here. ok. One minute!
1. -and I hit a homeless guy riding a bike
3. I despise the homeless.
2. WHAT??
1. Please, don't be mad. He's ok. I gave him $100 so that he would go away.
3. $100? Well, I NEVER!
2. So he would 'go away'???
1. Well, I mean. I just did what dad would do when he gets into car accidents.
2. Which is?
3. Oh, they forced me off the road a long time ago. It's my cataracts, you see-
1. He pulls out a wad of cash and then everything's fine.

c'mon brits! this is a rock concert. loosen up!

I went to see Spoon last night, at Scala, near King's Cross.

It was packed to the knees with Indie-rockers, boys in black jeans and converse, chicks in black leggings and ballet slippers. Men and women in suits who'd just come from work. Briefcases. Backpacks. I-pods. Everyone's trying to find a corner to stash their bulky winter coats.

An interesting 6-man band opens the show; the lead sings in the style of a fish, making air bubbles into words. They garbled their way around their subtle sport-like anthems for 40 minutes. The guy in front of me played snake on his cell phone. The girl adjacent filed her nails. I made frequent trips to the bar.

They leave after amusing the crowd with a passionate, yet awkwardly-delivered accordion ballad. The customary 30 minutes of Sound check, Light check, Who-drank-my-beer? check, Damn-my-effing-feet-hurt check, and Where'd-my-friends-go? God-what's-the-time? check...

...and then Spoon took the stage.

Spoon is a band that's been around for a few years. You may remember their music from such movies as Stranger Than Fiction with Will Farrell.

Dancy, funky, pop-pop-rock.

(Remember Cornershop? Sorta like them.) (but less psychedelic)

They took the stage with a force that was bigger than the 4 of them. They were charismatic, well-dressed, skinny ties and dark trousers. Stroking their guitars with know-how. Dipping to the floor and back up, drum solos, lights pumping to the beat. Ethereal reverb on the mic while they played their hit 'Stay Don't Go.' They were on fire. It was hot hot stuff.

Heads were bopping, some people were doing the little hip-swaying thing, no one's feet really left the floor. Very tame. Songs ended, people clapped. Not really any screaming or whooping or Fuck yeah! just clapping. Very polite.

It could have been an all out dance party. It should have been! Britt (lead singer) pointed out a few crazies in the front row, 'You guys aren't from England...' Nope. A shout, 'USA!'

I silently wished I could have left Emily and gone into the crowd with my compatriots and joined in on their enthusiastic cluster. Instead, I dance next to her, hoping my vibes would rub off. I wasn't successful.

It was a great concert anyway. But, I must admit. In Los Angeles, the venue's foundation would have shifted a few inches to the left.

disappeared pension abusers

Lately there's been a massive amount of husbands and wives, once presumed dead from freak drowning accidents and sudden disappearances, found alive and well, sunning themselves on foreign beaches sipping pina coladas. Piles of money sit next to them and they celebrate how crafty they were. They're fat and happy, laughing it all up. Until their estranged sons and daughters discover them, in tears, "Mommy, Daddy, you're all right, thank God!"

Now they're in jail. Or waiting to go to jail.

You bet they hate their kids.

They almost made it!

I think these people are really smart. Wicked smart. I bet there's lots of them out there, the ones who M6 and the CIA haven't found yet. These ones informed their families what they were up to and are splitting the money between everyone. They cover their tracks. Untraceable. They're cashing in while they're still young. What's 100 grand when you're 87 and you're hopped up on meds and breathing machines, in a wheelchair, and other people have to change your diaper. DIAPER!

I just want to congratulate the ones who've made it. You're stealing money from loyal taxpayers, but, eh. Who cares?

We're only on this earth for a new max of 120 years. Live it up, I say.

About me...

1. I have small aspirations of becoming a hand model
2. There's nothing worse than people cracking their joints
3. I like smelling new things. Like books, paper, plastic shower curtains fresh out of the bag
4. Sometimes I totally feel the music at the gym and catch myself dancing on the treadmill.
5. I am the center of the universe
6. I had a newt named Fire who was eaten alive by a deadly newt parasite
7. I accidentally squished my tree frog, Petri, shortly after Fire was murdered
8. I wore hot pink headgear for the entire duration of 6th grade
9. I don't understand why people dwell on negativity
10. I love nakedness
11. I always sneeze in threes
12. I've jumped out of 2 airplanes and fell of one bridge with some nylon rope and an Irish girl strapped to me
13. I want a wigwam
14. And a teepee out back
15. I like when sad movies make me cry.
16. For brief spurts at a time I am a hopeless romantic
17. I've been in love one time
18. I'm obsessed with other people's tattoos, since I have none of my own.
19. I burned down my garage when I was 13, oops!
20. I have extremely long fingers for a girl of my height
21. INXS rules in the most amazing ways
22. The first thing I look at is teeth. Then ass.
23. I used to camp out in the Greek mythology section at the Park Ridge public library for hours on end.
24. I will write a bestseller by the time I die
25. I love my blackberry and I don't care what that says about me
26. I love banana-peanut butter sandwiches
27. My best friend Julia and I had a secret language when we were 11. the word "fizz" was a huge.
28. I read trashy novels. S & M. Erotica. The works.
29. I was voted "most flirtatious" on a Contiki tour when I was 18
30. I want to marry Daniel Craig and have all his babies.
31. I always wish I am somewhere else than where I am at any given moment
32. I was once told that I am devoid of emotion.
33. I used to smoke pot. I still do. maybe that's the reason for #32?
34. Usually unable to sleep through the night.
35. I'm fascinated by lesbians, in a non-participatory sense
36. I can tie a strand of my hair into a knot with only 1 hand.
37. My brain goes into dream-sequence mode a lot – me in a renaissance gown in a mossy forest in New Zealand, the star of a music video….
38. I write my best stuff at airports
39. I've been flashed 3 times in my life by old men.
40. I often imagine freak accidents, like, "see that helicopter? I wonder what would happen if it crashed"
41. I'm mostly mistaken for being slightly Asian. I'm not.
42. I hate whiners. Whining sucks.
43. I used to have my nose pierced, but the hole closed up and that's saddens me.
44. I shop at banana republic but I don't admit it. I mean, yes. I shop there. I'm now admitting it.
45. Don't be surprised if I pull out the family photos on our first date.
46. I used to have a spy kit and loved dusting for fingerprints and writing with lemon juice
47. I once almost blew away while crossing a 10,000 foot summit in the Grand Tetons.
48. I like myspace. It is what it is, eh?
49. my nostrils flare when I'm lying
50. I'm fascinated with the idea of being foreign
51. I believe in free love. sans STDs.
52. I don't know what I want in life.
53. I have the tendency to sleepwalk
54. I love my friends, they are the best. Ever.
55. Unpleasant dreams dominate my sleeps at night. Trying to figure out why...
56. We live in a beautiful world.
57. I've only been to 10% of the all the countries in this beautiful world. (yikes.) (that's hardly noteworthy)
58. My right breast is fuller than my left breast.
59. I am innately ditzy.
60. I want to be a child forever.
61. Terrified of rejection.
62. It is never appropriate to dot an "i" with a heart. Or a circle. Blech!
63. Polly Pockets once ruled my world.
64. I like, used to say like a lot, but like, I stopped that, like 8 years ago. Like.
65. Look up "libra woman." That's me. Plus a bit of scorpio, since I was born on the cusp.
66. I have "to-do" lists scattered all around my desk and over it and under it.
67. I wear leg warmers. What?
68. I love those cutesy little animals in pixar films. I want one in real life!
69. I'm terrified of becoming my mother.
70. and equally as frightened of marrying someone like my father.

Sorry I haven't written in a while

I've been writing lots for my MA course, including a 10pg short film about rape, a 10pg feature film treatment loosely based on my childhood, and a short story about a nightmare that goes haywire. After all the edits are done, I promise to post some excerpts!

In the meantime, enjoy yourselves by viewing this video of my brother Mike's band.

They're called Iglu & Hartly.

They are ridiculous. And they are coming to London in May. So, prepare yourselves...

I am every American in London

Hi.
I’m American.
I don’t own a gun.
But I’m positively terrified that I’m going to be abducted by aliens.
I’ve been trying to wake up from my American dream.
And since I can’t afford healthcare,
I moved to London.
Because
It’s the best city in the world.
And
I like tea.
However, I find your biscuits to be quite strange.
Using yeast extract as a condiment is absolutely gag-worthy.
Hot cross buns and mushy peas,
Kensington and Chelsea,
I am every American in London.

Dream Last Night

Signed up for Willows/Northridge ski trip.

On our way, Mike was driving from the backseat, everyone was laughing (Mom, Kristian, and I ), until he swerved out of control for what the police later say was 600,000 feet.

When we were pulled over, he and I climbed into the front, and I found myself in the driver’s seat. I claimed responsibility for the bad driving indirectly, hoping that Mike would jump in and take the blame. Nope.

Police asked me to step out of the vehicle. I couldn't find my CA drivers license, I had debit cards and a university ID, I was freaking out, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to return to California without my DL. Suddenly, my keys went missing. But I still had my oyster card, so I was calmed a bit. But what use is an oyster card in the USA? Ahk!

Later, I found a secret compartment in my purse that had all the things I’ve lost over the years, including some note books from junior high, the ones Jackie, Julia and I used to pass around class. But no ID.

Later, with my dad, on a trip to our family farm, I crossed paths with a swarm of bees and called for help, but the words couldn't come. I dragged myself out of danger and went to the house, where Mom had just put Kristian to sleep for a nap. Apparently he was a baby again and my mom was so tired from taking care of him that she didn’t acknowledge that I was being arrested for something Mike did. She kept repeating "It's good that Mike’s staying out of trouble."

At the end of it all, I’m all red and stung from the bees, and everyone in my family is getting a new bike but me.

An interesting artifact

Ok.

On a journey through Canary Wharf, my companions and I were crossing a busy carriageway, when we stopped. We saw THIS. We had to endanger our lives and walk down the on-ramp so that we could get a better look.

It's in the middle of very busy round-about, and cars are going this way and that, all the while this thing is hysterically blinking red, green, yellow; every-which-way, how the hell do you know when its your turn?

Or, maybe its purely for decoration's sake.

Possibly old display from the Tate Modern they didn't want to waste?

Nobel Peace Prize????

enough with the butterflies

I knew what that dance meant
You danced it all night
Dance dance dance
In circles around yourself
With a drink in your hand
That crazy look, that manic face
You were by yourself then.
Alone. And everyone’s staring at you. Or so you thought.
Oh well.
Now your reflection sits next to you and stares while you sit on your bed
And you’re
Crying
Sobbing, writhing, weeping
For the butterflies that grew up too soon
No longer fluttering against your stomach lining
Those ones that used to make you nervous and sweaty when she was around.
There’s no more vodka left, so
You curl into a cocoon
And have an uncontrollable urge to suck your thumb.
Do it! no one is around. Just stick it in your mouth and go wild.

Now that I have your attention we can extend this relationship further
Can I interest you in some ant-acid? Since you keep complaining about your stomach.
Tums are great. They sure do the trick.
They come in all colors, blue, pink, yellow, orange.
Like those butterflies you keep talking about.

Enough with the butterflies.

Poisoned

She told me not to buy those beans. Just get the ones in the can, right?
No...
Yeah, if have to boil the dry beans for a long while, and you never know when they're done, right?
Ok, yeah, boil them a lot-
If you don't boil them enough, they will poison you.
Poison me? Nonsense, I say.
I buy the beans in the bag, they're cheaper and more challenging than canned.
I go home, pour the beans into a bowl of water, la dee da, get into my jammies, brush my teeth, and go to bed.
Ahh, a new day. A new venture. Time to boil the beans.
After 2 hours, I figure they're done.
I drain. I mix with couscous. I eat with Tikka Masala curry sauce from Sainsbury's.
I go about my day.
Upon returning from Putney, I'm feeling achy. Hot. Clammy. Just plain unwell.
I was gifted all the pleasures of the various symptoms of food poisoning.

Fucking beans.

Fell in love with a girl.

While waiting for the bathroom in an overcrowded Starbucks near Embankment, I met a girl.

I was bored of dodging faces and counting the pieces of bubblegum stuck to the wall, so I turned to the window and watched the Londoners scurry to and fro, creating paths for themselves, dissecting the mayhem, when my eyes settled on a determined girl, walking into Starbucks.

She had a great haircut. And I’ve been in the market for a great haircut. Longish bangs/fringe and layers. Very trendy and tossled. She was wearing loose fitting tan boots and a shortish skirt, a little city-girl jacket and a huge handbag. Much bigger than her body. Adorable.

So the cute girl joins me in line for the toilet.
She speaks! “Excuse me, how many people are in front of you, exactly?”

She was referring to the group of foreign girls in front of me, who had dominated the front of the line. I was already pissed at them because they weren’t patrons of this mediocre establishment. Toilets are for customers only! (Not to mention the countless times I've ran into a coffee shop to use the bathroom...)

“I think there are four of them, they’re almost done, I think.”

“Ah, I see.” Pause. This is when a normal London Starbucks conversation would end. Oh well. I continue examining the wall. Then, amazingly, she goes on: “Well, you up to anything exciting today?” Woah. I'm amazed that in all of my 6 months of living here, she was the first person to randomly spark a conversation. This whole time! I had no idea how starved I was for human daytime interaction before this day.

I’ve majorly perked up now. “Yeah actually, I’m going to Greenwich on that boat, from Embankment.”

“Ooh! I went there last Sunday, such a nice place Greenwich is.”
She goes on to say there’s a market and cute little streets with adorable shops and ooh she couldn’t get enough of it. I loved the way her hair fell into her eyes. Cutest girl in London. Freckles. Hazel eyes. High cheekbones. Talking to me. The American.
I never got her name, but we’ll call her Josie. Looked like a Josie.

“So, what are you getting yourself into today?” I ask.

“Actually” she blushes. “I’m going on a date.”

“A blind date?” I say, stupidly.

“Third date. At the Southbank.” I express my fondness for the Southbank. I went there a few times, for whatever event, ladeedah, she's going to have fun.

“Well, you look great. Hope it’s a good one!”

It was my turn for the toilet, so that was it. I really had the urge to ask her for her number. Completely out of line, really. Kind of desperate. Picking up girls in a Starbucks? And then she might get the wrong idea, I’m not lesbian, I just think that cute girls should unite, that’s all. On my way out, I wished her luck, and then that was it. The last I saw of her was from the pier. I glimpsed her clumsy boots and oversized handbag flopping up the steps to Waterloo Bridge. And then she was gone

shamelessly pluggin' myself

"I like your introspective and outrospective balance of material" - Mike Jarvis

"Nice blog! I like your writing style, though I don't know that I can define it." C. Dempsey

"You are truly a genius." - Suzanna Kennedy

art from over the years...

I find one apple, it looks really good, it tastes good, but-wait! there must be another apple out there, a crisper, sweeter apple, better than the first apple-and I must search the globe in order to find this prodigal apple. Or orange, or whatever. I actually don't care much for oranges, but anyhow, I'm screwed. I'll never be satisfied with the apple I have.

I feel like a character in a Jane Austin novel, pining away instead of doing chores or needlepoint. Aye, me.

My Life Is Simple

Tearing the pieces, ripping them, the noise the sound of my fingers against the paper. The rip rip rip, the only thing I have. The only thing that makes sense. It keeps my life simple. It keeps me safe, my life, with all the little pieces. Safe. Safe in my corner, this coffee shop, with everyone else. Safe from everyone else.

I keep my secret safe, my secret savior, my tearing. I tell them its my art, this art, my life, I tell them, I sit here, in this coffee shop, on this cracked vinyl chair in this wooden room, I tell them, I sit here, for 60 hours a week, because it is what I do. It is what I can do, to keep me safe, safe from the world.

I talk to them, to make them think its ok. Its my art, don’t they know, they should know I sit here, right here, this is my chair this brown one, only this one, and I sit in it. I sit in it and I tear my pieces, because I have to. They are always looking, thinking those thoughts the bad thoughts, I know it. they stare at me, sitting in my chair, this brown one.

I tell them I donate, I donate lots and lots to charity and the environment like Griffith park, I told her, that cute one, with the red shoes and big purse, maybe she had food in there I don’t know. But I told her about Griffith Park and I donated millions to help replant it. I felt bad and it was such a pretty place and I want the world to know I care that it burned down and that I want it to be better, no one was listening to me and I wanted her to listen, to like me, to like the papers my little bits bits bits of paper that keep me safe.

Big Purse didn’t know the truth. She didn’t, but maybe she did. She looked at me funny, I saw her eyes, maybe she knew my secret, my secret I’d been hiding since forever, that day, that day in the park. Maybe she knew and maybe she would tell them, and they’d take me away, take me away from my life, my life in my place, this place, this corner, this shop that sells coffee and scones and judgment.

So I keep myself safe, safe from it all, safe with my tearing little bits of pieces, I tell them I’ve been making this for weeks and weeks it is my life but it has only been 11 days, 11 days of not thinking, just tearing tearing, creating my life, my new life in this chair, this vinyl, next to the table with my coffee, and crumbs. Crumbs from my life, the life I had last week.

Last week, in the park, I was walking, it was Tuesday. I was walking up, up, up, following that animal, looked like a fox, I wasn’t sure, maybe it was a wolf, I don’t know. So I followed it. but I lost sight of it and I was tired. It was hot, so hot outside, I sat down and decided to sleep. I had some smokes in my pocket, I lit one and puffed, puffed a few times, I was so relaxed, I was sitting up, against that tree, I puffed some more, and I drifted away, far away from the shade of the tree. So warm, so relaxed. I drifted away.

I woke up and I was running, running fast, running hard, I was so hot. I was on fire. Fire everywhere, smoke in my eyes, my ears, my eyes, my lungs, couldn’t see a thing, just running out of there. I couldn’t run faster, my legs, on fire, my clothes in tatters, smoke everywhere, the smoke of ten thousand cigarettes. I ran and ran until I got to the golf course, I ran straight into a group of men, I almost ran into them, I couldn’t see, the smoke was taking over. My skin was screaming and I left them behind, I didn’t wait for them to realize what I had done. What had I done.

Hours later, the park was no more. and it was me. 800 acres and it was me. I saw it on the news in that laundrmat on the corner. I had to hide, had to get away, had to, had to. They will judge me, I know, if they find out. Find out that it was me, me. I did it, I did. Now I just I tear the paper, to forget, to protect me from them who will take me to the place where they go, that place you don’t want to go to.

This is my art, it is be amazing and truth and all that is real. I’ll sell it and get lots and lots of money for it, money to get me out of here, money to buy back my life, the life I had before the crumbs and the bits of paper, paper I tear and tear up and place into piles and piles, piles equal amounts of paper, trying to make sense of it all. But its too much work to make sense of it all, all I can do is make sense of this, these bits, these little white things, feels so good to tear them.

Big Purse is across from me. Maybe she has some food in there, I don’t know.

Eartha Kitt's 1962 realization...

As a result of a heated pub debate from yesterday, I found this classic clip. Wonder if it rings true today?

no exit

Right. 30 minutes till I have to be at Notting Hill Tube.
Bathroom. Now. Face check, ugh, this mirror needs to get fixed. Damn, ok, right. Looks like a bit of powder, lip gloss, yup that's as good as it's going to get. If I didn't have the skin of an adolescent boy, I'd feel much better. Right, toilet, ok, no not this one. Pee all over the seat. Women! Learn how to sit and take a piss good and properly, in the toilet, not around it or on it. How hard is that? No penises in here!
Here’s a good one, toilet paper on the seat, 1 square, 2 squares, 4 squares should do it, sit. Sit. Pee. Relief. Face still blotchy but at least bladder is empty. Lots more drinking to be done. Right, coat on, wash hands, face check number 2. skinniness check, suck it in, ok yes, that will have to do. Not as thin as once was, but satisfactory. Ok. dab of perfume, right wrist, left wrist. All in order? Yes.

Door.

Door? There’s no handle on this door! It wont open! Locked in the ladies room! This can’t be, no, but yes, its true. Possibly after closing, the bathroom attendants take the handle off to trap women. Trap us in here to…kill us! People walking around outside the door, banging on the door now. Help! Help! Trapped in the shitter! Oh this is bad. I’ll be late! No one can hear. I’ll die in the bathroom. Scratch marks, here, on the door, from other women in peril! Damn my nails, breaking, ahk, but the door, its opening. Almost, got it…freedom! Relief!

What Ali didn’t know was that she scratched her way out of the entrance, and that a nicely labeled exit door was right next to it.
The security camera guys went through a case of beer while re-running clips of her escape for the remainder of the evening.

excerpt from "Mr. Morrison"

But August, August was boring.

We grew tired of setting off M-80s in neighbor’s garbage cans and building forts out of stolen lumber from the house that was getting remodeled next door. Our mulberry-smoothie business had failed, either because of its location on a not-so-busy street corner, or because we could never figure out how to get the ants out of the berries we picked. We liked to think of it as extra protein. There was also that girl-scout lemonade stand a couple of blocks over that gave us some competition. We even tried training the neighborhood squirrels with the surplus of unsalted peanuts that our relatives from Virginia kept sending us for Christmas.

Anyway, we were bored, bored out of our minds.

a short diatribe. Diatribe...diatribe...what a great word!

Spent some time in the rain looking for a better place to live. A pleasant Spanish woman named Linda showed me a few flats in Bayswater. For about $260/wk I can get a moldy kitchen, a decomposing common area and a bed smaller to the one I slept in as a 5 year old. I told her, Sorry, not what I had in mind, and that I Just wanted to get a look at what’s available, as I live in Putney right now, et cetera et cetera. Yes, well, she says, shaking her head. It is London, after all. Right…and I dwell on that.

I dwell on it all the way to Abbey Road and back; looking at other places similar to the ones Linda wasn’t embarrassed to show me. I’m thinking about Sweeney Todd’s brief song about London being a great hole filled with vermin and pigs spitting when I get a call from my mom. Ali, you might want to check up on your visa balance, they called today, wondering about some recent charges.

Ok, yeah, they’re probably just confused, I live in London, charges come from London. But I call, and I find out that my alter ego is having a blast in Barcelona buying expensive camera equipment and costume make-up from Sephora, perhaps I’m gearing up to shoot a low budget porn flick?

why you have to make sure your Skype privacy settings are on...

bulgarian: hi

Ali Jarvis: hi...who is this?

bulgarian: just a men

bulgarian: :)

bulgarian: my name is Aliriza

Ali Jarvis: ok, that's nice.

Ali Jarvis: what's up

bulgarian: i drink vodka

bulgarian: and you?

Ali Jarvis: are u russian?

bulgarian: no i am bulgarian

Ali Jarvis: interesting.

Ali Jarvis: how's it in bulgaria

bulgarian: this is my favorite drink

bulgarian: verry nice

bulgarian: you are verry beautifoll women

Ali Jarvis: vodka is good.

bulgarian: :)

bulgarian :D

bulgarian: vodka smirnoff

bulgarian: is verry betrer

Ali Jarvis: ah. you must swear by this stuff

bulgarian: alaska

bulgarian: sobiesky

bulgarian: wheare you leave

Ali Jarvis: alaska

bulgarian: alaska

bulgarian: ?

Ali Jarvis: yes, in the tundra

Ali Jarvis: USA?

bulgarian: hahahaha

bulgarian: you drink vodka?

Ali Jarvis: i love the vodka. i trade it for oil-skin coats in my family business

bulgarian: ooooooooooo

bulgarian: you are very rich

Ali Jarvis: are you rich?

bulgarian: yes veery much

Ali Jarvis: how very much rich are you?

bulgarian: i have club and discotecue

bulgarian: for vip persons

Ali Jarvis: ahh. very nice. these clubs have vodka?

bulgarian: yes verry much

Ali Jarvis:oh nice

bulgarian: weare you leave?

Ali Jarvis: alaska i tell you already. i have the best igloo

bulgarian: heave a indianas men

bulgarian: or eskimos

Ali Jarvis: eskimos. and men from indiana, yes

Ali Jarvis: i must go, there is a seal attack

oh Martin, almost there...

" In LA, you can't do anything unless you drive. Now I can't do anything unless I drink. And the drink-drive combination, it isn't really possible out there. If you so much as loosen your seatbelt or drop your ash or pick your nose, then it's an Alcatraz autopsy with the questions asked lated. Any indiscipline, you feel, any variation, there's a bullhorn, a set of scope sights, and a coptered pig drawing a bead on your rug.

So what can a poor boy do? You come out of the hotel, the Vraimont. Over boiling Watts the downtown skyline carries a smear of God's green snot. You walk left, you walk right, you are a bank rat on a busy river. This restaurant serves no drink, this one serves no meat, this one serves no heterosexuals. You can get your chimp shampooed, you can get your dick tattooed, 24-hour, but can you get lunch? And should you see a sign on the far side of the street flashing BEEF-BOOZE-NO STRINGS, then you can forget it.

The only way to get across the road is to be born there. All the ped-xing signs say DON'T WALK, all of them, all the time. That is the message, the content of Los Angeles: don't walk. Stay inside. Don't walk. Drive. Don't walk. Run! I tried the cabs. No use. The cabbies are all Saturnians who aren't even sure whether this is a right planet or a left planet. The first think you have to do, every trip, is to teach them how to drive."

-Martin Amis, Money

tequila.

Every night I go out, every night that I do, all I want is to find someone who’s going to just tuck me in at night. Just put the covers around me, make sure my feet are warm, and I have a nice comfy pillow…that’s all. All I’m really looking for. Its not too much to ask. Just make sure I’m wearing my polkadot pjs, ok?