Bench Snack

Looking through my iPhoto, I found this. Taken three years ago maybe?

The Best Snack

Jumbo Snack Pack: Two Entries in One

There is smoke, or steam, or something just so, rising always from the building across the street from me. It is a self-proclaimed Ironworks, which recalls a time when all businesses were suffixed with the word "-works." Waterworks, Metalworks, Widgetworks, Cabinetworks. I am just kidding. There was no such time. There may have been, but I don't know enough about it to make such a generalization!

I have no curtains yet in my new apartment. Yes! I moved. To Brooklyn, land of Kings. And my apartment lies inside one Castle, and I could not be happier in it. These last few weeks have been some of my busiest, which is a loud a brash statement to make at 3:35 on a Monday, but as you can see, I've naried with my blog posts, and they've been like Tim & Eric movies so it's not even some writing. I have to pick out a paint yet, and get my dresser and wine crates, and the curtains, yes, but it's all coming together nicely and neatly.

I like having an above ground train; it usually propels me to read oftener than its below-ground counterparts. Below ground, all I can do is sit and stare or be with music. Reading underground makes me feel weary. I read faster and more productively in natural sunlight, perhaps.

I was in a reading over the weekend, at Fresh Ground Pepper's final event of the year. We did 6 plays in 2 days, all with different casts and directors and playwrights. It was a blast, and it was in Brooklyn, so I got to walk there and back and get a cheesesteak.

I have hosted Speeddating events on pretty much every Sunday night since early June of this year, and this past Sunday we had a very rough one. Everyone was out of sorts and taking it out on me; it escalated in intensity and ridiculousness to the point that some lady yelled "I'm a lawyer!" in my face in order to, I don't know, beat me into validating her fears about life and love? I survived the barrage of angry women hurling their condescension at me, holding their Real-Life Jobs and Real-World Experience over my head like it's my fault that they are even at this event--when all I'm doing is, you know, ringing a bell so guys can rotate and doling out spring rolls and just being really nice to everyone so that maybe they'll be really nice to each other and maybe get over the Hurdle that is Putting Yourself Out There In Order To Get To Know Someone, helping them maybe have the courage to sit with a stranger for a few minutes and maybe possibly find a connection--I survived it, sure, but by the end I was feeling really low.

Dejected and tired and very starving, I shuffled into a pizza place pre-train and I met a fellow from Dallas. He was a Cowboys fan (blech) but we sat with each other and ate our pizza, I told him about my horrible night and he told me about his pretty good one, and we exchanged conversation about hobbies and jobs and salsa dancing and sports and growing up in the Southwest. And he told me something I hear so often, something I have heard from quite a few people lately in various contexts and degrees: You can only have as good a time as the goodness you put forth. You can only find love if you give love to the world. If you go into a situation with a negative energy, you will partake in a negative outcome.

You know, blah blah, The Secret, blah Oprah blah. I think it's true, though, I really do. I could have been weirded out by this guy who approached me in a Ray's Pizza and not talked to him and left, and I would have gone home hungry, in a bad mood, without the reminder he so generously and warmly bestowed upon me.

It really lifted my spirits, making friends with this random guy. He's in my phone as "Adrian, pizza" and maybe I'll see him again, and maybe I won't, but either way, when I'm scrolling through my phone to text Amy or Andrew or Ashley, I will most definitely think of him, and our fearless non-missed connection, and his positive message.

Other Exciting and Happy Things of the Past Few Days!
- Hung out in Queenz with some dears and read a play and drank some wine/whiskey
- Ran into DC! In Union Square. He slipped his book in my bag and we caught up in seconds.
- Dad met Steven Gerrard and Michael Ballack, WHAAAA
- Swiped some dumplings at work today. Savory.
- I start rehearsals tomorrow for a production of Hamlet directed by my dear friend John that will be in February!
- A reading of a musical I am co-writing under the guise of lovely Rob Heller will happen on December 17th at The Cherry Pit!
- I asked for time off from work to go home for Christmas! Oh, and I'm handmaking my gifts this year, and they are baller.
- I have some inkling ideas for my Christmas card. Be ready for one, if I love you. I probably do.
- Tchotchkes

Halloweiner Snack

This Halloween, I went dressed as A GIANT DICK. Just kidding! I had to work coat check for a party at my job and I had to be on a plane for some hours earlier in the day, so my costume-fashioning time was limited. There was a baby on the plane who was wearing a little skeleton costume and shoes that said BOO. He often squealed but I was surprised to find it quite endearing! Maybe you're like, oh sheesh, she's a girl, blah blah Biological Clock. One thing I hate is when women talk about their "biological clock." Actually, I don't hate it so much as I think it's annoying that the phrase "biological clock" is often accompanied by a knowing nudge or roll of the eyes. "My biological clock sure is ticking. Am I right, ladies?" Chortle chortle emphatic eyebrow NOD! Seriously, Ladies, am I right or am I RIGHT?

So for Halloween I had a bouquet of grapes, which was fun, and a hat. Laura was a giant martini. I also had like white stockings and black lacey boots and a funny smocky dress, so in my mind I was if Wednesday Addams was the girl in The Secret Garden if The Secret Garden took place in Italy rather than the moors of weird England. But that took too long to explain to the girls who went as sexy blah blahs and needed me to check their coats for them.

While I was home, I hung out with my broseph, Boopsie, who has the same hair and general catalogue of stances that I do. We had wings with another set of siblings, the Petruseks, who should have a techno side thing called PetruSexxx, and who resemble each other in hair, gait, and demeanor. The four of us together make up a combination so potent that if we turn on each other it will be like some Hatfield v. McCoy type SHIT, but since we all dig each other's vibes and smell what we are collectively cooking, it's a pretty sweet set up like generally you know?

My friend Amy bought a dog that looks and acts a lot like me, so hopefully the Petruseks have a best friend who has a dog that looks and acts a lot like them, or else Boops and I are one-up on those guys. Game, set, MATCH.

On a harmonious note,
Some things happened on this trip home that really warmed my heart and brought me joy. The past month or so has been BUSY and stressful sometimes! But it also is a dream, just a dream. Everyone be safe and healthy and joyous. Yeah, I just got serious, seriouser than Dicks and PetruSexxx, in any case. But you may forget how lucky we are to live, and laugh, and love others, and tell others you love them, and taste cheese, and read a good sentence, and take a deep breath and let it out again, and giggle aloud at private thoughts, and shamelessly hit on your waiter, and do Cher impersonations, and drink refills of Pink Lemonade FOR FREE, and quote Casablanca with your mom inside Banana Republic while trying on a very trenchy trenchcoat, and feel your best friend's mom's boobs, and eat part of your balanced dorm breakfast, and sing, and read old yearbook quotes aloud only to realize that you've pretty sharply predicted the future. See people you haven't seen in five years. Play with their kids. See where you've all gone, know that you're all going so much farther. Wonder why you have more than two friends moving to Lincoln, Nebraska. Listen to Howard Stern with Dad, listen to Oma's stories about her Oma, fall asleep on the couch in the living room in clothes.

Train Snack

I arrived home this evening to cheese on my stairs. And broken balloons; these two things lead me to believe that I was not invited to a party someone threw for me.

On the train, I noticed a nebbish sort reading the Real Estate section of the Times next to a graying woman reading The New Yorker. Feeling inclined to join the club without making aware my infiltration, I stood over them and read each upside down. There was a gap between the two readers where the rest of the man's Sunday Times lay. I watched helplessly as the fat woman from the next stop sat upon it. The man ran his hands through his nebbish light brown hair; he was mourning the loss of five dollars and copious amounts of untapped knowledge. He never complained. The fat woman did not realize she was sitting on paper instead of a seat. The woman with the New Yorker was too busy reading the blurb about Madeleine Albright's fine brooch collection to notice the debacle, or even her incidental subway-intellectuals-club membership, or even that I was reading upside down over her.

I felt an affinity to the nebbish man. I felt it first when I noticed that he wore corduroys, and second when I saw he read about apartments he could never afford, and third when I empathized for his loss of five dollars and copious amounts if untapped knowledge. The fourth and most important moment was when, at the stop on 59th street, the woman with the tiny head and the gigantic puffy coat came on. The puffy coat, it was a Northface, it made her tiny head look even tinier. I had to stifle a laugh. I noticed him do the same.

He left the train, then, and I silently wished him well. He left without his paper, which was still underneath the fat woman. He is probably a writer, as he was equal parts nebbish and observant. I have noticed recently that one moment you realize you feel an affinity for someone is the moment when they walk out of a room and you feel you still have something left to say.

One of my Favorite Moments in Cinematic History Snack

Muriel Barbery's new book is out in the US and I am excited.

"Proust's infamous madeleine cannot hold a candle to the lush, winsome memories of meals past that you'll find in Muriel Barbery's Gourmet Rhapsody. M. Pierre Arthens is France's premier restaurant critic—so premier in fact that he's simply called the Maître—and we meet him as he lies in bed, waiting to die. Fervently he mines years of gastronomic delights and discoveries in search of one single flavor, one that he says is "the only true thing ever accomplished." What unfolds—in vignettes narrated by him and by a chorus of his familiars (most human, some quite comically not)—is a portrait of a man in thrall to the very ingredient that makes French cuisine so inescapably, ecstatically, seductive: It's not cream, nor cognac, but the cook who defines those glorious tastes. 'The only true work of art, in the end," he says, "is another person's feast.' " --Anne Bartholomew, Amazon.com

It reminds me of THIS. haha. spoiler alert? Who hasn't seen this movie?



Ratatouille is my favorite Pixar. I mean, I loved Wall-E, but something speaks to me in this particular movie. And by "something" I mean cute rodents talkin and french food.

09.09.09 Snack

something changed today. in the wind. i felt it.

Also: FRESH GROUND PEPPER GOT SOME PRESS

Song Snack

Break from Writing Snack

Here I Go, Again on My Own.

Snack Style

I always put sugar in my tea. Never in my coffee.

Jerk Snack

Truth Snack

And we don't notice any time pass
we don't notice anything
we sit side by side in every class
teacher thinks that I sound funny
but she likes the way you sing

Tonight I'll dream while I'm in bed
when silly thoughts go through my head
about the bugs and alphbet
and when I wake tommorow I'll bet
that you and I will walk together again
cause I can tell that we're going to be friends

Snack Wrap

One of many (E pluribus unum) reasons that I'm stoked for my new Macbook and Microsoft Office?



TEXTWRAPPING

Knick Snack

If there are two things I love in this world, they would be Fonts and Knick Knacks. I love collecting both. I also collect different words for "Knick Knacks."

Other Words for Knick Knacks
Oddities
Curios
Bric-a-brac
Antiquities
Baubles
Trinkets
Things
Snacks

Do you know any more? I would love to have them.

As far as fonts go, a job I would really dig is one that would involve professionally choosing fonts for various projects. Like a "Font Artiste." Like, working in an invitation factory, or starting my own letter-press, or working at the part of a publishing company that actually sets the words on the page.

(As you can see, I haven't actually looked into any real font-related jobs. But I enjoy making them up as I go.)

I also love other things, like cheese, and Twin Peaks. But they deserve posts for themselves.

Also, parading in the rain.

Chocolate Snacktory

Today I saw a bunch of shows as part of Target Margin's "Theater of Tomorrow" Festival at The Chocolate Factory in Queenz. It was a really awesome night of shows that made me laugh and cry and realize how much I, too, think about fonts. I have been to Queenz a total of like four not-including-LaGuardia times. I think I will go more often. They have a Biergieardien! I didn't go to that. But I did walk around and I happened upon a shop called "Just Things." And I LOVE Things!

I bought a blue bottle that looks like this:



Go See The Shows.

I saw A Family of Perhaps Three and The Stein/Wilder Night.

Button Snack

So Scoville wanted me to find out more about that Button Factory song because he was too lazy to do it himself. You know that song? It's like "Hello, my name is Joe and I work at a Button Factory." You probably learned it in like second grade during that weird art/music/p.e. period that may or may not have occurred before morning recess (Shout out to you, Booker T. Washington Elementary!! What up, Principal Hamilton?!?!). Or at Girl Scout camp, around a giant bonfire or in the mess hall right before each Troop showed their weird skits and probably after we all made those American Flags out of red, clear, and blue beads.

I guess some people named Peter and Ellen Allard wrote it. It's available on a website, to download! People, Teachers, and Summer Camps use it for teaching. I know this because it is listed on such dynamite databases as "ultimatecampresource.com" and "songsforteaching.com."

These Are The Lyrics

As you can see, the song conducts one singular revolution of the appendages. Its syncopated rhythm implies blah blah blah analysis blah.

Here is a link to listen to the song

I am a big fan of buttons. I used to collect them when I found them in the street, on the playground, on the floor at Fiesta Mall. I would buy weird ones at the craft store shaped like ducks or trains. Then I strung a bunch of them up on a string and hung it over the window in my room.

This was the beginning of my penchant for collecting odd knickknacks.

Some of the things I have found and kept recently
-A hologrammed Happy Feet bookmark (on the stairs of the subway)
-A weird old round-dial pay phone (cleaning out the Robert Moss nee Linhart Theater)
-An old watch I used to play with as a kid (a pouch under my bed during the neverending organization of the random shit in my room)

I think I would like to work in a Button Factory.

ElsewhereSnack

I might apply to this.

I love bric-a-brac!

Apu Snack

The World Of Apu is coming to New York next week!

The NY Times Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/movies/10ray.html?_r=1

Showtimes at Lincoln Center: http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/satyajit/program.html

Black Canyon Snackies

Things:

-an old tonic bottle
-a phonograph
-some twiney webs
-a rocking chair
-a cake
-a corncob pipe
-candles
-a lock box

A dream song: