"I'm Chevy Chase, and you.. you are nothing."

The ideal mate.

My sister got lucky, married a yuppie

It seems that, if I'm not sitting at home feeling solitary this summer, I'm bound to be found driving around New Jersey trying to think of something to do. We drove around for hours yesterday, making pit stops every now and then for peach pie or non-dairy ice cream sandwiches, to be consumed on site, on a couple of crates out behind a farm, or a bench outside of the supermarket amongst the sea of pink flip-flops and mesh athletic shorts that is New Jersey in July. And it was really hot. I forgot about how hot New Jersey gets in the summer, as it is indisputably cooler down here, next to the bay. The summers up north are thick and drowsy. Other highlights of my twenty-four hour excursion up the east coast to clear my sludge-like thoughts: lots of deer, Lisa Greco, cold pizza, and an aged Jeff Koons puzzle on a dusty ping-pong table.

Now I'm back south. Thinking fondly about the deeper south, the Spanish moss, the breezy nights, and how I long to plunge deeper into this country. Entranced by the hollow glow of C-SPAN. Rolling joints on top of the Arts & Leisure section. Thinking, maybe I'll write today, maybe I won't, and who knows what's wrong with my ex boyfriend, my maniacally neurotic ex boyfriend, who calls me, urgently, at 5:30 in the morning, to insist he cannot be my friend. This weekend will be fishing and soft shell crab feasting, and next week, humid Singapore.

There oughta be a law against you comin' around

Anyone have any advice about how to make this ugly thing heal faster?

young fashioned ways

Bay Area Blues

What have I done today, you ask? I'll tell you. I've been watching The Real World: San Francisco, plucked from the antiquated heart of the surprisingly abundant MTV vault! This is some old school shit we're talking about, so the episodes are perfectly bite sized at a little under a half hour each, plus, more denim cut-offs in one vicinity than I bet you remembered could exist. One girl even went to Harvard. Sigh. The early '90s. When people could still communicate with each other, if only remotely.


Oh. And there's also Puck.

Winos throwing frisbees at the sun

Is it completely obnoxious to declare that I was somewhat disappointed with the recent Beck/Tom Waits interview? Both of them ended up sounding like embittered old crooners, yarning about nothing at all. Obviously they're both cool dudes. I just.. I was so excited to read it.. and it was just so boring.

But as long as we're talking misconceptions, who knew Daphne Guinness was a real person?

Athletics made cynical

"We started, as usual, with breakfast at Wimbledon. Then we had brunch at Wimbledon. Then we had lunch -- a cold chicken sandwich at Wimbledon. Our house guests had cocktails at Wimbledon. Then more cocktails at Wimbledon. We debated marinating a steak at Wimbledon. Then we grew terrified: was this all-time classic sporting event going to preempt NBC's "Merlin"?" The Wall Street Journal's Jason Gay recounts Wimbledon in a manner most satisfying, plus some quips about Lance Armstrong.

"Into the void."

Day 2 of life among the physically impaired. Everyone Says I Love You is on tv. I forgot Billy Crudup is in this; boy is he dreamy. Also, Vincent Gallo extends his presence a few times as Julia Roberts' husband. Honestly, I consider this to be one of Woody Allen's most entertaining movies. Anyway, onto more important things.

Apparently there's a clusterfuck of a Michael Jackson memorial service going down in the city of angels now. I didn't really keep track of any of the hullaballoo post hearing about his death from the guy who works in the toll booth right before you get on the Bay Bridge, and I think we can all agree that the whole thing has erupted in a fashion most tasteless. But, as long as we're gripped to the topic, might I (better late than never) take a moment and give a nod to Michael Thomas' piece in the NY Times regarding the star's death? I don't know. Maybe, for me, who inevitably bears some kind of displacement whenever something like this--some national tragedy--occurs, it's easier to find comfort when the events are stripped of their newscast format and translated into something more familiar. Like prose. A slice out of one pretty good writer's memoir. The anecdotes about his brother, I found so appropriately included.

Alas, a seemingly most fitting conclusion to this post. This movie is so quintessentially, ridiculously Woody Allen:

"Why can't we have frankfurters?"

..."Because, this is the Russian Tea Room, you wanna have a blintz or something. Besides, frankfurters give you cancer."

Can't really type. Burned my hand, steaming some milk at the bakery. Endowed with a bottle of some dangerously fun painkillers. Off work for a couple days. My job is becoming more and more surreal. Slowly trashing the empty house. Watching lots of Jacques Tati and Woody Allen. Reading.. uh.. Virginia Woolf. Yeah. Booking my flight to Singapore in a couple weeks. Both of my dogs are snoring in my bed. That is all.


::Edit::
Allow me, now that typing is a task slightly less cumbersome, to extend my props to Turner Classic Movies. Apparently every Sunday night is "Silent Sunday," on which they only play, you guessed it, silent films. Which is great! As I mentioned earlier, last night they played two or three Jacques Tati films, including Mr. Hulot's Holiday, and tonight, funnily enough, is Meryl Streep night, which after the day I've had and the amount of medication I've consumed, feels strangely perfect. Sophie's Choice is on just now and I'm pretty stoked to be watching Kevin Kline, but sort of wish I was watching A Fish Called Wanda instead. So thanks, TCM, for placating me. I really like the way you arrange nights by theme, and am usually on board in terms of considering most of your choices to be good, interesting ones. You're definitely the realest thing out there, as far as movie channels go.

Today, I feel abandoned

Phew. This week has been a whirlwind. I retract back to reality feeling a bit shaken, but kind of, in a good way. Embracing solitude. Gobbling up books and then lying around thinking about them, letting them sink in. Realizing that my boss could be certifiably insane; honestly, I could fill an entire blog about this woman, and the time I am forced to spend with her, and people would read it, more people than read this, and then, perhaps, one day, this entire charade will be adapted into a Meryl Streep film, in which Anne Hathaway will play me. I fucking hate Anne Hathaway. No, this isn't true. She is just, so loud.

Today is my ex boyfriend's birthday. I didn't think it would bother me, but then I remembered what day it was, and thought about where he is, how and with whom he is possibly celebrating, and it depressed me to have come up empty handed. I don't know what his life is like now, and he is bitter and cold when he sees me, and there is nothing I can do. Yesterday I didn't care, and I'd like to go back to that.

Like I said, it is the summer of Solitude. I'm looking forward to going back to school, getting away from all of this. Thinking back to this time last summer, I'm fairly certain I was obsessively preoccupied with the fact that things might turn out the way they indeed have. I don't really know what to do with that. And I'm sorry if all of this seems like unhappy overkill, it's just that getting it off my chest makes it easier to get off my ass and go to my shitty job. Then getting worked to the bone, leaving covered in hot water and every kind of sticky filth imaginable, rolling a joint in the parking lot, smoking it on the way home, then settling into the big, empty house and talking knowledgeably and at length to my cat, who is very dumb and really has no grasp on how to form and maintain any sort of being/being relationship. Had the idea of putting a bookshelf in the bathroom. Had the idea of invading my mom's paints while she's gone. Oh, whatever. This summer kind of sucks so far, and I'm fucking bored and fucking lonely and fucking sick of no one else bringing anything to the table.