my giggle is my wiggle

last night i went to see an animated documentary about the massacre at sabra and shatila. it feels odd to say that it was amazing, so instead i'll say it was fantastic. the animation explosive. the story--it is something of a documentary, something of a search for memory, so things are not so neatly wrapped.

then i met a friend, a documentary film maker, at a singles event in chelsea, a neighborhood into which i rarely venture. it was her suggestion and a good one at that. across the street was a club called duvet.

oh. the heart breaks.

i await the opening of potpourri.

in this story i am going to call my friend, who is originally from another country, merika.

in the club where we went we were assaulted by a deejay playing hip hop that was popular when i was in college. omg, treach! frequently, the deejay would scream into his mic, 'is everybody drinkin?' or 'are my ladies in the house?' or 'throw your hands in the air.' it felt like a cartoon. a really loud one that you'd like to mute, but sadly, your remote has gone missing.

a guy came over to us to introduce himself. he was one of the promoters. he asked us if we were having a good time. we had just arrived. he introduced us to some other people, we all shook hands. not two minutes later, the same promoter came over to us again, beer still in hand, and asked merika and me the same questions, same intonation, same random introduction to people standing nearby.

there were a few attractive men there. there were a lot of attractive women. there was one particular man, not so attractive. to me he looked like a cross between rodney dangerfield and fred thompson. he was really tall and rather portly. he was at least 55. he was in a suit, no tie. i said something to merika about not particularly wanting to talk to him.

guess what happens next?

never put into the universe what you don't want to occur.

friend was a metronorth train operator, former stand up comedian. they asked us what we did professionally. then, fred/rodney asked us to guess what he did. he said,

'i'm going to give you a hint.'

we were rapt.

'i remove your shorts for a living.'

um. er. stumped.

'i'm an electrician.' ba da bing!

dopey. but also good-natured. almost funny it its stupidity. i laughed. but not with malice. i feel i am failing in conveying the ludicrousness of the evening. fred/rodney told merika she looked like a famous french actress. once he said it, i had to agree. he couldn't remember who. i suggested anouk aimee. he couldn't hear me over the howls of the deejay urging us to 'drink more and get freaky on the dance floor.' some people did.

the electrician offered to buy us another round. we had already had two glasses of wine. we accepted. by then the metronorth conductor left for other game. i think we were insufficiently blond. trouble with accepting another glass of wine was it then you got to span more time chatting. he asked us our names. merika told him. he couldn't really understand her. he called her medika. she let it go. every time. finally, we escaped to the wc. some girls were chatting there, drunken cats. i felt like i was at high school prom when liz chinian came into the bathroom to gussy herself up. i was never friends really with that girl.

anyway, we went back out. and fred/rodney came right over. there was a rare, good song. we all shimmied a little. i would rather fred/rodney had not tried to shimmy. he talked about pretending to carry a gun when he works in rough neighborhoods. he advised we do the same when we are walking alone late at night. he gave merika his number but then said, 'now medika, what's yours?' he asked for mine too. we both said it is not customary for a lady to give out her number. (don't call us, we'll call you). he asked merika, 'when are you going to call me?' and 'you're going to call me, right.'

i said he shouldn't ask that. it's a lot of pressure, especially when the likelihood is no call.

somewhere over the course of this thing merika told me about a book on dating that likened it to fishing. you got to use bait, you see. and then wiggle your bait. i thought she said giggle, that you got to giggle your bait.

'in your case, maybe your giggle is your wiggle,' she noted.

i grope you

last night i went to a party. it was crowded. some people had had quite a lot to drink. others don't drink. i was introduced to a gentleman.

wait! stop! that's no gentleman! that's my wife!

ted, lets call him that, was drunk. he was older, his head was shaved, he was a bit thin, not skinny, but somehow reminded me of a question mark even though he wasn't stooped. ted was swaying as he tried to talk to me. that's how i knew he was drunk. he was a literary agent. he said one of his clients had just won a big, exciting literary award. i said congratulations. that's wonderful news. who is your client. he told me. i said, didn't that fellow write a book about the holy roman empire, i think i read part of it, it was very good. ted smiled, kind of sloppily and made these eyes that were drunken attempts at seduction. i was not drunk (in spite of having drunk a respectable share of spirits). the other way i knew he was drunk was his client, the writer of the book about the holy romans, was not on the finalist list for the big awards that were bestowed. and the author's name doesn't even remotely resemble the name of the winner. that's how i knew also that ted was drunk.

every now and then, while we had this silly conversation that he might have wee-ly taken for hayroll preamble, he'd make those drunk eyes and smile but i was not taken in by it, and then he'd reach out his hands and put them on me, my hips, slide them a bit north, and then remove. ted did this once or thrice. i was not particularly enjoying it. had it been another gentleman i might have. so i excused myself and went to find my pals who were elsewhere in the room. and then i saw this mister go up to another woman and start his drunken grope again.

in related news. i was reminded of a quote from Madeline (that most excellent series of books about the orphaned gal in Paris; in later episodes, Pepito, the son of the Spanish ambassador, enters the fray)

Please do not molest us
Your menagerie does not interest us

Mais oui!

one i like

prideful. it's different from proud and i like it. terribly evocative.

wkend

i had a great one.

but now it's the week again. i have a queasy feeling about it. to kick it off, i assert another word i don't like:

innumerable.

i don't know why i don't like it. seems made up. why not just say numerous? i know why, rationally, so don't splain it to me. thank you so very much.

me is smart

best move i've made all week—bought an ipod dock. this will radically change my music listening habits at home. it pleases me. i am pleased. come over and lets listen. together!

wait, you need to know that i love music. i love it. L.O.V.E. i was in a bad mood the other day and happened to hear a song called 'is this love?' and i was transformed. like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. a life without music would be as bad as a life without buttered toast with raspberry jam. or without chicken soup with knedlach and noodles, coffee ice cream with hot fudge. without garlic.

the pity of it in the very utterance!

that's no life at all. i seek here to express my excitement! joy! happiness! at music. do you understand!!? do you??!!

my sister is even a musician! that's how much i like music! one time she and i were talking about our favorite things. her favorite instrument is cello...and coindentally, that is the instrument she plays professionally! what glorious serendipity! (on facebook, if you are my friend, you can actually see pictures of her, instrument in hand!)

when we were young, my cellist sister (as opposed to the viola-playing one), my brother (violin), and i (piano) formed a trio! that was not so joyous, really, because i am not a very good musician and didn't practice much and the pressure was great indeed! i don't keep time well, sharps and flats really trip me up. my sight reading leaves much to be desired. vraiment.

during lessons, my piano teacher would take off her shoes, have a glass of wine and we'd talk about high school. the teacher's daughter was in my class and we are friends still and guess what...she's a professional cellist too!

lordy! the completed circles!

anyway, professional cellists are not the mainstay of what will be playing on my new ipod dock on account of most of the music i have on there is pop and not that many indie bands have cellists. once, i had to talk to yo yo ma on the phone and i told him about my professional cellist sister and he said, 'that's wonderful. tell her hello.' and i did! another time, i was visiting my cellist sister and we went over to the home of a professional cellist friend whose grandfather was a famous cellist/composer and she had her mother's autograph book from childhood. and it was filled with notes from the likes of grandpa's pals—pablo casals and rostropovich and other classical titans. i was wayyyy impressed. sometimes i am like that.

soon i will go get something to eat and when i go i will listen to some music and if my spirit flags between now and then, it will, then, be buoyed once more. i cannot wait!

last nerve

my great aunt, may her memory be a blessing (and today i am missing her a lot), used an expression once or twice about being a 'grumpy gussie' or maybe it was 'grumpy gus.' i don't remember if she was talking about herself or someone else.

but that would be an accurate way to describe myself today. and not just me, i can tell by how everyone around me is acting that there is a collective feeling of slight aggrievement. wherefore? does it have to do with the lost mars probe which, having found ice on that yonder planet, is now going to orbit some universe for ever and ever or else come crashing down on top of somebody's head?

i have the urge to exhale the word motherfucker. over. and over. motherfucker. mothefucker. it's my rxn to the twitch in my eyelid that seems to have decided to hang its hat and stay a while. it's my rxn to the fact that it was 34 degrees this morning and the heat in my damn apartment isn't on and my new landlord's property mgr is, well, kind of a motherfucker and i don't want to call him cause he doesn't return the call for two weeks. it's my rxn to my neck feeling achey, to emails i don't want to answer, to the packed lunch i brought and now don't really want, to my new piece of crap cell phone which died last night even after having been maximally charged. it's my rxn to other things too. it's my rxn to reading a book whose topic seems interesting but whose prose is so dull i cannot stop yawning.

(i once saw an R rated movie on television and they dubbed the cursing. motherfucker became motherlover. to such unnimble translation there is but one clear response.)

the only recourse, right now, is to put on my ipod and listen to 'is this love?' by clap your hands say yeah. that is the only antidote. i adore that song today. makes me want to go into the middle of the street and twirl around and around and around until dizziness compels me to fall in a happy heap onto the hard, cold ground.

ten years

a friend wore a very nice pair of boots on election night. she said she bought them at varda, an expensive shop (or series of them, maybe) in nyc. most of the shoes there are handmade, i think. about 10 or more years ago i went into varda and fell in love with a pair of women's wingtips. usually in those days women's wingtips were too delicate looking for my taste (i don't really look for them anymore so i can't say how they look these days,if they are made at all).

the pair at that point were feminine but sturdy, beautiful workmanship, comfortable. my friend julia wore wingtips in college and she was the epitome of cool. but she is very tall and statuesque and wore men's shoes often and hers had a formidability women's shoes lacked. the varda shoes cost more than $300 (in fact, i think they were closer to $400.) at that point in my life (come to think, it was definitely more than 10 years ago that this here episode transpired) i had never spent more than $300 on a pair of shoes. and i was not making much dough in those days. also, such an expenditure seemed ostentatious, gluttonous.

i could not bring myself to splurge as i have sometimes since. instead, i would bring friends with me to the shop for verification that shoes were lovely beyond imagination. and i would, again, try them on and imagine buying them. i think i did this about 4 times over a year's span. on the last occasion that i brought a friend with me, a fellow named josh who i haven't seen in a long time, the price had come down. a sale! now they cost just below $300, which should have been encouraging. and yet, when i looked at them, my love had faded. now they looked clunky, ugly, not worth getting. i knew that after a few wears i'd shove them to the back of the closet where they'd gather dust.

friend, i walked out of that store empty-handed.

this has to do, actually, with courting, with infatuation. you meet someone, you think they are oh so interesting, oh so attractive, you think about how your life would be different if they were in it. and it would! how much more happy you'd be, how more self-assured, how much more attractive (beauty from within blah blah blah). life would be a peach (or a nectarine, which i prefer, really when it comes to fruit), but sometimes, during subsequent time spent with a person, you are less enchanted, just a little, but perceptibly to yourself. maybe you don't let on the small disappointment. maybe you can't help but do. on subsequent meetings even more charm of the interaction seems to have seeped away. even the zest of looking forward to a next meeting has lost some of the bubble. and then one day you stop caring altogether. you are disenchanted, annoyed, maybe repulsed.

10 years ago (really, it was exactly 10) i bought a pair of red boots in milan during thanksgiving. they were the most expensive shoes i ever bought (up to that point), and i loved them. and i wore them. and over the years, i have more or less continued to love them, though the affection has changed in kind. i am even today wearing them. they are scuffed, the leather is worn in places, the insole is a bit shredded, but i can't let them go. 10 years is a pretty good life span for a shoe.

it seems like it'd be a pretty good life span for a relationship. or at least the start of one.

according to the maths

a certain candidate should win today. i'm not talking about in terms of electoral votes and adding up pa plus nh plus wi plus nc and such. see, i can add, i can subtract, divide and multiply. what i cannot do is calculus.

anyway, that is off topic. i don't, praise be, have to take a calculus exam, except perhaps in my recurring stress dream.

that said, here's what i'm talking about. this is the sixth presidential election i have ever voted in (so, you can generally figure out my age). and according to how i've voted -- well the guy i voted for won twice out of the five times so far. that is, two times so far the fella i wanted to become president in fact became president (and really, it was the same guy in two elections, so does that count as one or two, are we getting now into fractions? or per cents? those decimals trip me up).

by the rule of 'evens' (you know, when you look over one shoulder and then have to look over the other, else you feel lopsided), my guy should win today, so that i will have won (oops, i had written one, not won, which is a math/language snafu or maybe inadvertent secret code) exactly half, so far, of the presidential elections i have voted in.

makes sense, oui?

another reason to love mos def

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2008/10/this-election-c.html

remember that stupid movie with demi moore and rbt redford, something about a night together, a proposal - i never saw it but i remember it, maybe they only had one night to get it on.

oh. i'd like one night to get it on with mos def. he is sexy. i heard he lives near me. there have been sightings. an acquaintance of a friend is one of his baby mamas (i think there is more than one of those). it's like our karmic connection is already intact.

did you see block party?

did you see that movie with kevin bacon as the pederast and mos def is his parole officer or something like that?

did you see be kind rewind?

have you heard black star?

the man is genius. sheer and utter genius. i hope tomorrow he and we all have the same reason to celebrate.