skylarking (or, secret lives redux)

mike o's a guy i knew from high school. he was (hopefully still is) tall, lanky, brown hair, and he wore an XTC t-shirt. in my memory of mike o, he is wearing that logo-ed shirt. wouldn't be surprised were i to see him today, that he'd still be in it. after he graduated, i don't think i ever saw him again, though i heard he was a writer for some comedy thing, a show, a magazine or some such.

it's possible, though, that i dreamed that bit up, the comedy part, just as i appear to have dreamed up a movie or television show about some boy, an elementary school kid, who has this secret life his parents know nothing about in which he's the most famous, most powerful, most-uber-most ninja in the world and hangs in his undercover ninja life with a mentor/fixer sidekick.

here's the puzzle: i cannot recall precisely what this story is or where i saw it or why i would have, since ninja-related stuff ain't my bag. so i called my sister late last night to ask her if she knew the answer, since she often knows them, and she had no idea what i was talking about, since ninjas aren't really her bag either, and she was on half-a-tank of margaritas.

the ninja thing was the first thing i thought of when i woke this morning. it seemed, in an odd reversal, foggier in the light of day. but i still feel this brain itch about it, trying to identify what it is, where it came from, if i'll solve it. if i don't, how's that 'splained on the neurological tip? i'm not going to trouble little sis for the answer.

the whole ninja bit gets play cause at dinner some folks told me that this guy i know from my office is a ninja. i had no idea. they were so matter of fact about it, nearly non-plussed, as if ninjas are as common as napkins. (i thought they were more on the order of wizards). i was left with questions.

are ninjas stealth? does he use nunchucks? is there a fixer/mentor in the picture? and, how do i weave ninja prowess into casual conversation with this office maximus? i don't know that i'll be able to resist finding out more next time i see him. he is foxy, after all, which i guess is exactly what you'd expect from a ninja.

meantime, i got a copy of the new yorker, strange in its own little way since it's saturday and my copy usually gets here midweek. stranger still, the issue date is july 11 & 18, 2005. double the fun, belatedly.

it put the day in a warp and i have yet to right it.

the secret lives of spitballs

an article in today's times (new york) tells of a new film from saudi arabia. in it there's a scene where:

"a character sends his phone number in a spitball to a woman, a common Saudi dating technique."

these are adult characters, not fourth or sixth graders, which either means we americans are damn precocious (not that elementary school spitballs or even high school ones had sexy messages tucked in 'em, but even without a number, their message...i love, ergo i tease...was clear). the or part of that either: an imminent run on straw wrappers cause tricks aren't just for kids (and thanks, riyadh, for that lesson).

o mio solo

is that like...o, my soul mate? or is it supposed to be sole mate? either way, i don't cotton to that hoo-ha. but i got a "you've got mail message" today and read the profile of the sender who wrote, most elliptically, in his note "." swear to g-dash-dee, that was the entire message. it's a burden to find just the write response.

"!" or maybe ";" or simply "?"

wwjd? and you?

but beyond that (and his use of that lol baloney) he's looking for his soul mate. he said so in his profile. maybe everyone else knew this already but to me it's a relatively recent revelation that men are more romantic...have more fantasies and ideals of what they want love to be like exactly...than women. soul mate? you think that on the entire earth and in outer space too there's a single, solitary individual person you could fall in love with and fantasize about spending rainy afternoons with?

my instinct says irrational. limiting. and ultimately depressing. reminds me of how folks say, "oh, well everything happens for a reason"...i gots to disagree. most stuff that happens is random...sure, you take a certain job, it leads to other opportunities; you go to a certain party, you meet a certain joe, you mess around in a certain corner. but that mackin' is not destiny.

maybe too late in the day for this philo-mush.

i'm going to get me a tall glass of water. literally.

i don't like the working*

a couple of months ago i did something that edged me further into adulthood. ten years ago, that meant owning a toaster oven, my fav appliance. since then, i've come to see it means wearing certain kinds of clothes, a la, 'if you wear it, it will come' and 'it' is the decline of youth.

i got myself a real raincoat. bona fide. lapels. two sets of buttons. hoodless. i still have the gortex pseudo-i'm-outdoorsy one from college. but after a while, say 25, it looks silly to wear to work, since i don't make my living as an outward bound counselor or rafting instructor or granola maker.

the new one is sharp. designy. so blue it's black. trench-style, with a belt. unquestionably fashion forward and it cost at least one limb at an overpriced boutique in the borough of brooklyn in the county of kings.

today i wore it. on the subway home, i had my newspaper folded lengthwise reading the business section, a briefcase (another decidedly adult accoutrement; mine a gift, too infrequently used, for graduation) slung over my left shoulder. and the train stopped and a middle-aged man got on. he wore a trench coat with a belt and he was reading the newspaper, folded lengthwise to minimize fuss. suddenly i felt like i should go home not to an apartment in the city where spanish music pours out of the building at the top of the block and kids deal pot from its doorway, but to some leafy burg on the 5:43 from grand central, where i could pour myself a highball and fall deep into a cheever reverie.

some time ago, on a sunday evening, i was surfing a dating site. a guy instant messaged me (a minus, and he used unseemly shorthands, which get you stuck in those negative numbers). his handle? "your future husband." the conversation went like this:

guy: how are u?
me: okay. kind of down.
guy: why? cause you hate being on the internet and you hate the city?
me: mostly cause it's sunday night. and i got sunday night blues.
guy: oh, me cause i hate being on the internet and i hate living in the city. can't wait to move to the suburbs. let's meet. i'll convince you to move to the suburbs with me. lol.
me: hmnn. not sure. i prefer public transportation to driving. i grew up in a suburb. it was nice but you often have to drive. and i'm not one for lawnwork either. though i could imagine gardening.
guy: let's meet. when?
me: i'll check ya later.

at which point i adiosed him and poured myself a scotch with rocks.

*this post's title is a shout out to my pal, philippa who's in
a band that sings 'i don't like the working' and, as it happens, i'm listening to them now. get this: the name of the designer of my grown up raincoat is filippa.

coincidence???????

euphemistically yours

in today's nyt, there's an article about a van gogh painting that's going to auction. but it's not really about that because in mere column inches the story veers from the painting into the far juicier world of love and its sweatier consigliere to discuss various artists whom the original collector had known (not in the biblical sense, gutterhead, but in the friendship/patron sense) and specifically of one woman who bore un enfant exactly nine months after she "modeled" for both degas and renoir. not at the same time, alas.

would love to know the euphemism used for a threesome.

cabin fever

nauseous-making paint fumes waft in my window from next door where they're turning brownstones into whitestones. stanky. did a whole lot of nothing today though great intentions loomed and dashed. instead my haircut dude got some dye on my forehead and we talked about the genre of film of single mom sacrifices herself so child (usually girl) can be brought back from evil's clutch. dark water; panic room; sequel to panic room that took place on a plane but also starring jodie foster; now silent hill which looks hilarious. OH MY GOD...WHERE DID HER MOUTH GO??? he was getting (he the haircutter) mythological—dropping eurydice and such—and i wondered why they keep making the same movie over and over and if it would be as funny as cabin boy (the one about the kids in the woods and the hillies who git 'em).

there's a guy who emailed me to ask me out. supposedly he owns a software company and runs marathons. but he doesn't have a digital photo of himself or access to one. now, i'm no miss google but seems to me that's akin to a baseball player not having a glove; or a rock and roller not having an electronic tuning fork on hand. i don't own a digital camera but i have a digital picture. and he's not one for chat and emailed simply, 'let's go out' which, if there's an email vibe, i can get behind. we've never spoken live and the email wit is not what i groove on, by which i mean, there isn't any. still, i said, sure, because i'm trying to be open minded and open hearted, but maybe you want to talk first, see if we have what all to dance around in the twostep they call flirt.

and i ain't heard from him since.

then there's munch

go to the munch show at moma in nyc and gage the reaction of your companion. what a good idea for a date. i went solo but perhaps it's just as well, since i was on the brink of falling tears walking through it. his abiding companion—death, finity—in his work, the despair, the colors, the linear perspective: glorious. glory be. i'd be somewhat suspicious of someone who didn't have at least a little bit of a similar rxn.

the port chas local

once upon a time i worked, or didn't enough frankly, as a freelancer and that meant i'd rise at 3 pm every weekday from my desk to watch general hospital. i developed this habit (all together now: "you say habit, we say addiction") as a child even before christopher cross breath-sang, 'hey laura, where are you now, are you fa-ar away from here? i don't think so, i think you're near...' and now laura's off the show, in some loony bin, but luke's still knocking around port charles, rockin that small hoop earring (bad idea, bro), and sonny 'the hunk' corinthos has replaced the cassidines as the local greek mafioso. and that's a peculiarity of soaps that is goddamn fascinating: in movies, the mafia are sicilian, or, in indies now, russian by way of brighton beach. but on daytime tv greeks are the supreme gangsters and in the two-restaurant town of port chas, where girls profess love even before they learn how to use tampons and steely-eyed glaring is art above all others, there are, count 'em, five mafia families. we rarely get to see them, but sonny always seems to be arranging meetings with them, that's how i know it's true and real.

i just don't know why the bad guys are always greek in soapworld. and i wonder and i wonder and i wonder.

funnyville

steve almond has a love advice column that rocks it like don dokken and like a hurricane.

we want a pitcher (no bellyitchers)

i once wrote a story loosely (and not so loosely too) based on my life as it was then when i wrote that story some years ago. in it, i recounted a version of this episode:

i sat on a barstool next to a redheaded guy and said to him, 'are you here to watch march madness?' cause it was march and there was madness on the televisions above the bartender's head. and this guy, tommy, was watching tv but not too avidly, because he was also simply killing time since he worked as a federal marshall and i guess HQ was nearby that bar. it was after Sept. 11 and his job was to look inside car trunks going into manhattan.

and we got to talking and got to flirting and got to getting busy in a nearby doorway. and he had a boston accent which, apparently, can melt my heart. and we went out a few more times. and then like all good federalos--poof.

so, one night i called and asked him about it since he seemed to dig me.

and tommy said, "you don't want to go out with me, i'm like a middle reliever."

return to tenenbaum mountain

today i saw two, that's right two, different young men with terrycloth headbands around their moppish heads. are you kidding? bjorn borg was retired before these turks were even born. i very vaguely want to go to some hipster concert, say the next clap your hands say yeah yeah yeahs fiery franz ferndinands killing the shins or whatever the hell and see all the kids with all that terrycloth around all those stylishly unruly heads. good lordy. how i will feel at once old, cynical, jealous of their, check it, insouciance, or their stretch toward it.

and kids, it's not summer yet, so put away those damn flip flops and wear shoes for cryin' out loud. i think this is a scourge of the modern era particularly in the usa -- everyone's so damn informal but the sound of that flip flop tick tock shuffle shuffle makes me want to take a toothbrush and scrap it along the pavement until the sound is deafening and you become ravenous for silence.

in the dating realm: had one friday night, where the fellow, a lawyer suggested meeting in a bar in the w hotel. in times square. i hate times square. the neon is overwhelming and the tourists are too and i can only wonder, have they never seen neon before? is neon really fantastic and worth taking pictures of? and big ads, do those make for priceless photographic backdrops? have i grown too jaded to know these things? the w hotel in times square seems like an upscale tgifridays, which honestly, i think would be a fun place to go on a date with the right company. maybe the w hotel everywhere seems that way, sort of a houlihans/red lobster/olive garden/banana republic mix. i don't go typically to w hotel bars. as for the guy, nice person, wish he had looked somewhat less frequently below the neck. or at least, friend, practice subtlety.

mmmm, tastes good

on the subway i saw a young couple coupling. he was wearing sunglasses (vaguely irksome as there is no sun glare underground but i'm trying to get rid of the hate) and sorted through his messenger bag (what else?) and pulled out a big bottle to drink from. then, boyfriend, offered his lady some of it. nice that he shares. they were swigging a bright blue liquid. and then they kiss some more. little pecks on the mouth. gatorade kisses...yummers.

girl walks into a bar

at the end of day. monday. earlier she got an email from someone she asked a work favor from. he declined,

"a pox upon you and yours."

for reals #1.

so the girl goes to the bar after work for a date. she's a few minutes late. but he's late too. the bar's in downtown manhattan, not a dive, not too swank. when it opened several years ago, all you could drink there was beer and wine. now they've got scotch. once the girl saw a dog pee on the floor. it smelled. the waitress working there flaunts a rack that looks odder than a cartoon. it's hard not to stare and harder to explain. ask in person and i'll draw a picture. the girl walks around the joint, tin ceilings, candle-lit, two rooms, glass facade. everyone there is in pairs. on bar stools, at tables. girl takes a seat against the wall. two seats away is a couple; he's wearing a white button down shirt tucked into jeans, has a blazer or sport coat, whatever they're called. she's blonde, hair in a bun which eventually unravels.

he's got a gravel voice. smiles a lot. forehead seems short. he's hard to ignore, loud. hearty laugher. they're art people. girls hears them say "andrea rosen" and "collecting" and "lfl."

he tells her about his sister and her architect husband. they wanted to break away from the family who live in lincoln and cambridge so they bought a place in southie. unschooled in the nuances of suburban boston? here, friend: his family's got some bucks. lincoln is way swell. lots of cambridge is too, but not all of it. sis didn't want to live there. she wanted across the charles.

'what's southie?' the art girl asks.

'irish ghetto. that's all you need to know,' replies the overconfident boy.

for reals #2.

whitey's on the run and gentrification's come to southie. just like other nabes. alphabet city was kinda sorta rough once. so was 5th ave in bklyn.

non sequiter time:

in soho and the east village and clinton hill girls are rockin the chuck taylor look this season. makes me think of joan jett. fondly. peg legs and chuck taylors, hold the socks. but when lithe models wear them with skirts and oversized sunglasses...it won't be long til sunday styles puts them on the cover.