car talk

k. called me last night to see how i was doing. she and i are headed en espana later this year to eat some shrimp in garlic and oil and to see some sites and to drink some sangria and to swim in the sea. doing things that start with s are supreme.

and, we're hoping too for some ac-shun, as travelers do. anyway, k. said on the phone that she had 'car talk' for me.

'car talk' hails from the days when we were in school together and i had a car. a 1980 buick century with no radio, no heat, roof upholstery that had lost its ability to stay stuck to the roof and billowed on top of our heads. and the car's body was rusted and when i turned corners it screeched and another friend took to calling me starsky on that account and on account of i took corners too fast. and back in those days we would gossip in this car...like a confessional, really, except i'm not catholic and though k. is (right, k.?), i don't know how often she hits the church.

so anyways, k. calls and we're chatting and she has car talk. and i share some too. and it occurs to me that the blog format is the new car talk, since now i huff it or take the subway or, on rare occasion, a taxi. one time i took a taxi with a boy and we got busy in the backseat. (things that start with b are best). after my friend had departed the car and when we reached my destination, home, the cabbie hesitated and asked me to move into the front.

'um, no thanks' i said, fishing for my wallet. and he said:

'please miss, it is three years i have no sex.'

the doggone thing of it: he was pakistani, sept 11 had happened a couple of years before, and there was me in a revealing dress doing stuff in his car, him watching in the rearview. and then i refused him a similar favor. so i tipped him extra bucks cause that surely makes the hurt go away. no wonder, thought me, americans are not so well loved.

last night after k. called, i went to sleep. it was the first night i woke up a mere two times from illness (it is abating, praise allah), and i had a dream of ac-shun and someone kissing my toes. now, that would be swell.

alternative spellings

c.i.p.r.o.

and some other med whose name eludes moi cause it turns out that i have an infection and that's what's causing unbelievable pressure in my head. but as the ever-sage jc writes "your blog is becoming more medical and less romantical. We need to change the ratio somehow."

word. where were all my boyfriends when i got sick? nowheres. jerky undependables!

as soon as i'm right as rain i resume the dating life. which is better than the aches and pains life.

no doubt. no doubt.

how do i spell relief?

v.i.c.o.d.i.n.

how do you spell relief?

oooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeee.

that toothache pain is keeping me full throttle awake tonight when all i want is relief, sleep, rest and i can't get a wink. and i went to see a dentist and he could not discern a problem but the excruciating feeling tells me all is not well. it is far far from right. and i've taken tylenol a few hours ago and it did nothing. do i forgo the 4 hour wait and take advil now? how i long for valium or codeine or something to ease this unrest. i go to the dentist again monday, but can i survive the weekend? can i survive the night?

country, y'all

tonight i do my best imitation of britney. how's that you ask since i'm not hardly southern and ain't hardly a blonde and i'm not shacking up with a guy whose drawers peek out from the top of his capris, except on men they're called shorts.

here's how: so dang hot i got home after a cancelled date (he did the cancelling) and changed into a halter out of which i pop and a skirt so mini may as well walk around in my very own drawers. but i'm not chomping gum, cause unlike brit, my teeth hurt, or one does, and i am suddenly overwhelmed with paranoia about 'em, along with fear of falling arches (the pede-kind, not the corbelled ones), inertia, and any other number of intangibles.

tomorrow's the solstice, i think. does brit know that word? remember that song she sang once, 'i'm not that innocent.'

for a very long time, i was convinced the lyric was 'i'm not that cynical.'

isn't that ironical?

(in related cause it's southern news, cousin justin of greetings from new orleans fame was on npr: listen to the very awesome piece)

red cards, yellow cards

a and i decided to take in soccer this weekend, as much for the crowds as the game. first hit: a local bar to watch the u.s. on saturday. the spot quickly got packed with guys i would have thunk would be drinking long island ice teas by the pool and practicing gang signs though they hail from merrick or some such. every now and then, to show they knew the score, they yelled, 'vai!! vai! forza, italia!"

ahh, the motherland.

those italian players are smoking hot but also seem to feign a lot of injury.

then into soho on sunday to see brazil (after, watching japan-croatia at the gym, which was annoying because: a) closed-caption text suffers a time lag and therefore contains innaccuracy; b) it was fairly bad soccer playing). but the brazil game was packed in soho, every place we poked into was jammed. we passed one joint where we wanted to go but it turned out you needed reservations and a woman was arguing with the bouncer to let her in spite of her tardiness and she was on the brink of hysteria. so was he. we realized, less the reservations, not a chance to get in there and headed southwest, where 20 bucks a head got us two drinks a piece and many, many, many pro-brazil fans in their yellow and green. and we shimmied up to the last place you could stand before the reserved tables were set up and fans sat. sweat dripping all around. the table in front of us was full of brazil-gringo couples, but clarification is warranted cause the brazil girls (as opposed to the singing brazilian girls) were probably of the colonizing class themselves and had a vibe of entitlement that got them into a bit of a scrap with the italian waiter, likely overworked, after which they told him they wouldn't tip him. and it was hot, steamy in there and busy and he was busting his italian ass to get them their capareinas or mojitos or whatevs, and their vibe was plain ugly, so much so it made me start to root (but secretly) for australia.

for france and south korea we went to a french spot back in bklyn and there were plenty of q-t-s in in the joint. a noted that my taste often veers toward the horshack (horse-shack?) aesthetic. she may be right. horshack by way of that delight of a frog, matthieu koussevitz. i ain't ashamed to say it neither. somewhat droopy eyes. those things kill me just about.

sublime in evening, ridiculous come morning

went to see radiohead last night and it was just about as fantastic as you could hope or imagine or expect. in the iconology of m:

i <3 radiohead with all my <3.

then at the gym this morning they play music, as gyms unfortunately insist on doing, and what do i get as my 7 am lullaby?

meatloaf, overwrought and overweight, crooning 'i would do anything for love...but i won't do that...no, i won't do that'

and what, pray, is 'that' that he won't do? the coy bugger never does say so i started wondering: oral sex? condom use?

but before i started thinking too much about it the very next chanson horribilus came on...the theme to friends. is that even allowed on radio? good motherfucking god. that lot of drek should be outlawed.

what i seen at the wars

it warn't intentional, but i got home on monday evening, slightly tipstered from an evening benefit thing i went to with a friend. and once home, i turned on the telly cause what else could i do? i mean drunk dialing is so ten minutes ago. and what is on the telly after all this night but some new show (maybe it's a reality show? maybe it's fiction, not sure) called 'how to get a guy' or something like that, might be, 'how to date a guy.'

right. so, here's the tips i took in. 'break the touch barrier.' uh huh. really. put your arm on theirs and before long your daddy will be paying for doves to soar over the altar and you'll hyperventaliate because of the loves you feels. or, limit your evening out to a 2-drink minimum (a tip really some of us could adhere to). also, make sure to offer a compliment to the dude, a la "wow, you sure know how to order a bottle of wine" or "your wristwatch is simply magnificent" or "i'm sure when we get into bed, there will be lots for me to compliment you on but until then, i'm going to hold off on the complimentary facts of life cause your ego is already titanic and if it gets bigger there will be no air to breath." also, the show's dating coaches warned, quote: a good date without a kiss is an appointment. true sages, oui, but how to take seriously an advisor-lady who wears a cap with a tartan print? i had a date that ended once with no more or less than a high five. we did not go out a second time.

anyway, i had a coupla dates this wkend. a walk in the park date. and a beer date that was an odd one. it was quick, a fast drink. and the dude, though nice, was about as neurotic as i've ever met. told me a) it's always bad to socialize with more than one other person at a time, making dinner parties about as appealing for him as getting mugged in a humid summer alley alone in that languid time of night before dawn; b) vacations are about luxury so if you can't afford to stay in hotel for a while and are considering, as i do, swapping apartments, resist that urge. instead, make your vacation only a single night, so as to not have to take out the trash even once.

after that date, the fella hot for yours truly, a drorable girl, gave my cell a jing-a-ling, just to let me know that soon he'll be in new york and am i married yet and am i going on jay-dates (as if that's the only kind a jay might undertake) and he'll call before he gets here and when he gets here too and how much calling is too much and do i prefer to talk on the phone or just to meet and fall in.

very much more to say. but now sleep beckons.

strike!!!

my friend n is a'courtin online and got this note from a fella.

'enjoyed reading your profile, i am interested in learning more. when was the last time you been bowling??'

i found it enticing in a cut-to-the-chase hammy kind of way. she thought otherwise, that it demonstrated a decided 'lack of game.'

the lesson: bowling may not be the most appealing first date activity for n but it could be for s. also, mini-golf. also, rollerskating.

as for baseball: not so hot, since folks really care about that and their competitive innards spill out. went on a date last summer with a guy where we went to a minor-league game on coney island. en route en subway the dude asked me for a sip of my water. from my water bottle. he seemed kind of, um, unhygenic, but it seemed rude not to let him drink, it being summer and hot and humid and folks getting thirsty on account of those conditions. so, i passed him the bottle and insisted he keep it since he was parched-er than i. as for the game, he was invested to the point of not much conversation. and i was too since i like baseball mostly (going tomorrow, in fact, to a game unless it rains) and we didn't have much to talk about, so field action was an excuse not to conversate.

that's just one in a heap of excuses not to conversate.

vacationland

been down in new orleans for a few days, seeing friends, drinking beers, hearing music, getting a disaster tour. how old is too old to move to another city whose economy ain't great, whose environmental future is poorer than other places, whose job opps are slim, whose streets and houses, many of them, are decimated? what if, in spite of that discouraging litany, that city has an energy that is so zesty and resilient it makes you feel like your own hometown is predictable and hypercompetitive and altogether microcosmic?

take the music scene here—go to a bar around the corner, see world class jazz musicians play for free and the audience isn't a bunch of carbon-copied professional types, though that ilk's there too, but a mix ethnically, agewise, moneywise..and everyone smiles at each other and dances with each other and if folks have a cloak of cynicism or self-consciousness, they've left it at home cause anyhow it's too damn hot for extra garments, and life's short and have a second drink and all. sure, a city with probs, maybe more to come if this coming storm season is virulent. but it's a refreshing change from the narcissicism that works like an overheated engine in nyc and makes one (where one is me, anyway) lose perspective.

too heavy on the polly anna?

a 13 yr old i know emailed me. and she is not one for full sentences. and she signed off...with, check it, an emoticon...but it's okay if you're 13.

<3

it's a heart, but you got to turn your head to the right to get it. get it? and it sort of looks to me like a double scoop ice cream. which sounds tasty.