President's Day was a much-needed day to catch up on everything I have to and would like to do in my spare time - I woke up, did laundry and cleaned the apartment, read some theory, met Emma for lunch at Lupa (which was pretty good, and where I restrained myself from insisting that they put on Shakira's "She-Wolf") and coffee by NYU, went to a meeting, got a haircut, picked up groceries to make kick-ass salads all week, quickly threw together dinner, called my grandparents, and went to Latitude with Brady, where I've somehow been absent for like two months now.
After all of this, when our favorite bartender was like, "so, how was your day?" the best I could come up with was "I got a haircut!" And then he laughed at me. But that really was one of the most important parts, because for the next week, every time I catch myself in a mirror I will jump in terror because I forget that that person is me and not an extra from a Riefenstahl film hiding in my bathroom. I think we rebounded when we told him that we had done 43 shots before coming to the bar in honor of our nation's presidents and didn't fall down until Gerald Ford.
And this is totally unrelated, but my grandparents celebrated Valentine's Day by driving into town for a cheeseburger and a sundae from the Dollar Menu at McDonald's. My grandparents are actually the best people alive.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Monday, 15 February 2010
V-Day
David and I both had semi-grandiose plans for Valentine's Day (bake a cookie cake from scratch! go to the Newseum and then for a romantic dinner!) that were then dashed by the fact that my bus was cancelled and we ended up with approximately 36 hours together in DC. We did buy all of the ingredients for cookie cake, but ended up not having time to bake it on Saturday. And then today, we ended up hanging out at the Newseum for two and a half hours and having approximately thirty minutes to get salads before putting me on a bus.
It was like New Year's, though - everything about the weekend illustrated that the best laid plans can't hold a candle to the quirky, spur of the moment things that turn romantic by virtue of doing them together. (I initially wrote "can't hold a cankle," which is also true.) We did reading for school together over vegan cinnamon buns at Sticky Fingers, grocery shopped and made tofu and grilled vegetables over quinoa with sweet potato fries, went to a Valentine's Day/Mardi Gras/Chinese New Year party with a bunch of David's friends out in Tenleytown, had french toast and hot chocolate in bed, and then went halvsies on two salads before I scooted back to New York for the week.
And I don't know if this was because I forgot how garbage can salads used to be a staple of my diet or whether the salad at Chop't was just that good, but I totally stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and bought tofu, blue cheese, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, and eggs in preparation for some DIY salad-making this week. (It cannot turn out weirder than my chili, which tastes excellent but is a sickly shade of purple. Like, slightly lighter than Grimace.) Whatever, it will be healthier than the phase where I discovered bagels.
It was like New Year's, though - everything about the weekend illustrated that the best laid plans can't hold a candle to the quirky, spur of the moment things that turn romantic by virtue of doing them together. (I initially wrote "can't hold a cankle," which is also true.) We did reading for school together over vegan cinnamon buns at Sticky Fingers, grocery shopped and made tofu and grilled vegetables over quinoa with sweet potato fries, went to a Valentine's Day/Mardi Gras/Chinese New Year party with a bunch of David's friends out in Tenleytown, had french toast and hot chocolate in bed, and then went halvsies on two salads before I scooted back to New York for the week.
And I don't know if this was because I forgot how garbage can salads used to be a staple of my diet or whether the salad at Chop't was just that good, but I totally stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and bought tofu, blue cheese, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, and eggs in preparation for some DIY salad-making this week. (It cannot turn out weirder than my chili, which tastes excellent but is a sickly shade of purple. Like, slightly lighter than Grimace.) Whatever, it will be healthier than the phase where I discovered bagels.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Snow Day!
I got to work from home after 4pm today because of the "blizzard," and remembered what I miss most about being a student. (Like the Canadian who sits next to me, I'm using the term "blizzard" very sarcastically. It is basically drizzling here, but fluffier.) The last couple of weeks have been among the most high-intensity weeks of my life, and having this whole evening to myself reminds me of the days when my to-do list featured items like "wake up" and "soup o'clock." Luckily, the panel that I was organizing on Monday fell just between the Snowpocalypse in DC and the "blizzard" (read: hysteria over mild rain) in New York, so everyone was able to make it to the panel and it went off without a hitch. This is the first hitchless thing that has happened to me in the 2010 calendar year.
Regrettably, this may be the last time I ever have free time, as we apparently still have bedbugs in the building and our superintendent has decided to approach the situation by killing everyone and letting God sort us out. While we were at work, he appears to have a) repaired some cracks in the baseboards and b) liberally coated every flat surface in the apartment with poison. While I enjoy having a night in with nothing better to do than grill some fish and watch the ABC Wednesday lineup, I'm slightly concerned that it is not good to be doing these activities in a cloud of insecticide, especially when I may or may not have health insurance. As a gay man, this is probably the first time that overexposure to DDT has been at the top of my list of most threatening public health crises from the 1980s.
Regrettably, this may be the last time I ever have free time, as we apparently still have bedbugs in the building and our superintendent has decided to approach the situation by killing everyone and letting God sort us out. While we were at work, he appears to have a) repaired some cracks in the baseboards and b) liberally coated every flat surface in the apartment with poison. While I enjoy having a night in with nothing better to do than grill some fish and watch the ABC Wednesday lineup, I'm slightly concerned that it is not good to be doing these activities in a cloud of insecticide, especially when I may or may not have health insurance. As a gay man, this is probably the first time that overexposure to DDT has been at the top of my list of most threatening public health crises from the 1980s.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Working 5 to 9. Frown!
Blurg, today was a twelve hour work day. I decided to do activism and not i-banking to avoid these kinds of hours. (Also, because I am very bad at math, and because I cannot be in a long sleeved shirt and tie for more than eight hours without unbuttoning it down to the cleavage and rolling up the sleeves as though I am involved in some kind of bourgeois form of manual labor. Starting a bootleg winery on the roof of my building, perhaps.)
It helped that I ducked out of the office for an hour to grab coffee with a colleague in Park Slope, and fantasized about how someday I will live in Park Slope and probably start a bootleg winery on the roof of my building. I ate a giant cookie and had two cups of coffee, which meant that a) I got a second wind when I returned to work from 5 to 9, and b) I was so jazzed on caffeine and simple carbohydrates that I kind of felt like I might throw up.
As if that weren't enough, I got home and found out that when our superintendent came up and said that he was going to put cocaine around our apartment to keep out any bugs, he actually said he was going to put caulking around our apartment. That was moderately disappointing.
It helped that I ducked out of the office for an hour to grab coffee with a colleague in Park Slope, and fantasized about how someday I will live in Park Slope and probably start a bootleg winery on the roof of my building. I ate a giant cookie and had two cups of coffee, which meant that a) I got a second wind when I returned to work from 5 to 9, and b) I was so jazzed on caffeine and simple carbohydrates that I kind of felt like I might throw up.
As if that weren't enough, I got home and found out that when our superintendent came up and said that he was going to put cocaine around our apartment to keep out any bugs, he actually said he was going to put caulking around our apartment. That was moderately disappointing.
Racism Lives on 56th and 9th
"We've dated for over a year and I've managed to hide that I only make sweeping generalizations about Austrians."
"And then I smiled at them, shyly, like a Japanese figure skater."
"Eh. Mo'Nique him with a frying pan."
"And then I smiled at them, shyly, like a Japanese figure skater."
"Eh. Mo'Nique him with a frying pan."
Thursday, 28 January 2010
RIP, JDS
As if losing Howard Zinn wasn't enough, J.D. Salinger died today. J.D. Salinger is probably my favorite American author, ever. Franny and Zooey has been my favorite book since high school, to the point that Lee bought me a first edition copy for our first Christmas together. When Amy told me she had a rare collection of his short stories when I was staying with her and Duck this summer, I stayed in all night and read them in one sitting. My brother and I spent about twenty minutes this afternoon texting back and forth with oblique references to the Glass family. (He said I was a Buddy and not a Seymour, which is one of the nicest compliments I've received lately because I've always kind of worried that I'm most like Boo Boo. Also, it reassures me that he does not want me to shoot myself in the head.) I feel like it shouldn't be as sad when your favorite author hasn't been writing for decades, but this was a total bummer. RIP, JDS.
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
"An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's."
- J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
Monday, 25 January 2010
Ow, Eating Sand Hurts
Because I was gone for Emma's birthday on Saturday, we did a makeup birthday date tonight at Cafe Gitane in the Jane Hotel. (If you're ever looking to dodge a birthday fail, I highly recommend it - it's really quiet and kind of beautiful inside, and the food was tremendous.) I wasn't super hungry, so I ordered the couscous, which turned out to be made in kind of the same way that children make sandcastles with buckets - like, a giant mound of couscous with vegetables mortared inside, with like two cups of hummus lumped on top and a sprig of something jammed into it and a moat of pesto and oil around it. It wasn't until the last quarter of it collapsed and filled my plate that I was like, oh, God, this is like four dinners worth of couscous, and right about then it expanded in my stomach and I was so full I could barely move.
Obviously, this did not stop me from splitting a piece of Monkey Cake with Emma at Amy's Bread. She hadn't had cake for her birthday yet! I would have been a terrible friend for saying no.
Obviously, this did not stop me from splitting a piece of Monkey Cake with Emma at Amy's Bread. She hadn't had cake for her birthday yet! I would have been a terrible friend for saying no.
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