The end of 2007 tastes like princess tea cakes: all sweetness, prettiness, and love.

Last weekend, I baked said tea cakes and some date sweeties to give to our neighbors for a holiday treat. This was the first time I knocked on our neighbors doors – I was feeling too crazed with my own struggle for self preservation to be a good neighbor when we first moved in to the city. Holiday cookies seemed a good opportunity to do what I should have done from day one. “Hello. I’m Truly. Just moved in. It’s nice to meet you. Knock if you need anything. Feliz Navidad.”

I also made some fancy peanut butter cookies with dates and white chocolate love drizzled atop for a new friend’s birthday treat. We spent Saturday night with her eating her boyfriend’s yummy homemade tabuli and playing Scrabble. I love it when I luck out and meet people who like hearing and telling crazy stories as much as I do. There’s nothing better than spending an evening swapping weird true-life tales, complete with hilarious dysfunction, strange discoveries, and triumph over the mundane.

On Monday, I started work at the creative writing school. So far, it is a rockin’ job. The organization of the enterprise seems to be really well designed, streamlining everyone’s day-to-day tasks and eliminating undue stress from the workday. Basically, I will be responsible for the general maintenance of the office, assisting students with registration, and managing special events. The office has 9 people total, no burbaucratic crap, and a relaxed, human approach to everything. Plus, I have everything I ever could ever want from an employer: affordable healthcare, ample time off, a 401K, a livable wage, all the free writing classes I can handle, and non-crazy coworkers. Best of all, I am working for an organization that I believe in and can market in good conscious.

Thursday, Shaun and I were off to MI. We traveled back via a ride-share arranged on Craigslist. 5 passengers, three dogs, and someone’s bad book-on-tape later, we arrived at my mom’s house to have a Christmas gathering with my brothers and my mom’s husband’s parents. It was great to see my brothers. Anthony just turned 19 and was recently put on commission at work (he pimps out car audio systems for a living); its been a long time since I’ve seen him so utterly comfortable in his own skin. He was smily and laughing and just good. I love his girlfriend – this is the third time I’ve hung out with her in earnest and I pray that she’s here to stay. She’s hilarious and bizarre and smart and satirical and completely glamorous; it makes me smile that my brother has such good taste.

Yesterday while Shaun spent a leisurely afternoon writing in the local pub, my mom and I went on a long walk through a nearby park. The day was gorgeous. I love how peaceful snow looks when it simply slumbers in heavy drifts across the land. I like the color of a wintertime sky and the warm cool glow of a 3 pm dusk. I like thinking about the fuzzy snouts of reindeer and the happy whoosh of tobbogans. Wintertime smells good – clean, with undercurrents of fireplace and gingersnaps.

Fungus Among Us

Do the wave

Snow Uninterrupted (By piss, feet, or tire.)

In the evening, my best friend Bryan came over for some afternoon cocktails and silly banter. I gifted him Amy Sedaris’ book, Hospitality Under the Influence, and we made plans to make a hideous Baked Alaska. It feels so good to be surrounded by friends and family. Its been nice to hole up in my mom’s house, safe and warm and offered sweet tangerines and dark coffee.

Today, midway through this noontime hour, my beloved 15-year old brother is sleeping still, as teenage boys will do. When he wakes, I hope to make a pinata with him. Or see a movie. Or drive out to Cranbrook to walk the museum halls.

We head home via ride-share Wednesday morning. I’m happy that is days from now. I’m happy to be completely and totally unaware of time for a minute.
______________________________________________________________
What does December taste like to you?

A group of corporate advertising executives are meeting in the dark chambers of Charmin HQ. Their task: to come up with the marketing strategy that will close out 2007 with the highest sales record of toilet paper in history. The men, dressed in their most convincing suits, are flanked by posters of the current Charmin bear campaign. In the front two corners of the room, a mousy assistant has stacked neat pyramids of Charmin rolls for inspiration.

After a hearty round of handshakes, the meeting kicks off with unbridled enthusiasm from Kevin, the team’s youngest member. Fresh from Yale and with more bright-eyed charisma than an Osmond*, Kevin  launches into an infectious pitch, one that excites and engages the more seasoned executives, reminding them why they got into this advertising game in the first place. Kevin cares not about overstepping his bounds or about seniority. Because he feels this idea in his bones.

“Gentleman, before we begin this meeting as we usually do, with a sales report from Hank, I just wanted to get something off my chest, something that is of great concern to both me and you. Let me ask you gentleman this: since when did wiping your ass become such a chore?”

A collective, “huh?” rises from the table. Kevin continues, undaunted, “Lets make toilet paper fun again! Lets make shitting fun again! Picture this: an amusement park where the only ride is a toilet. A real, live toilet for all in Times Square to share and evacuate on!”

The men are hooked. A rumble of excitement bubbles up in the room. Johnson, a concave-chested man with a salt and pepper comb-over gets caught up in the excitement: “Yes! There will be sassy cha-cha-cha music!”

“Because wiping is SEXY!” Kevin encourages.

“No kidding! I wipe even when I don’t have to! Just for the sensation! Was that too much information?”

“Don’t worry about it, Hank,” Kevin says, “Be liberated! Be Charmin. BE the brand.”

Soon, the whole board room is talking at once, a clamor of unbridled enthusiasm.

“Lets have people dressed as toilets dancing in the street!”

“Lets have freshly wiped cheerleaders!”

“And out-of-work-dancers!”

“This is going to be incredible. You know, when I think of taking a massive dump in a public bathroom, I think: Photo Opp.”

“Yes! Lets have a whole station where you can take your picture, with a post-piss look of relief on your face!”

“Okay, okay. This is good, guys. This is good. Now lets talk merch,” Kevin says.

“When I think of baby soft tissue caressing my bare ass – which I can’t stop thinking of for the life of me – I think of t-shirts. Charmin t-shirts.”

“My daughter would love one.”

“My wife is already asking for one!”

Hank rips open his button down to reveal an undershirt with “I Love Charmin” scrawled across it in black marker. “I HAVE ONE!”

Hank pants, his Charmin t-shirted chest heaving. The other members of the board room mop their brows, where sweat gathers. The scent of man rises in the room.

“Sorry. I just get so over-stimulated thinking about ass wipes!”

“Over-stimulated. That’s exactly the feeling we want to convey at the Charmin Restrooms,” Kevin says. “Now lets get to work, boys!”

                                                                            ***

Yesterday afternoon, on our way to Virgin Megastore to covet DVDs, my friend Derek and I came across something that I can scarcely describe: The Charmin Restrooms. I can only say that it was horrifying and that, giddy from brunch-time mimosas and in an effort to awaken patrons from corporate brainwashing, we may or may not have scrambled onto the stage where the toilet paper cheerleaders danced and shouted, “I’M REALLY INTO SCAT!”

Click Here for a You-Tube video of the Charmin Rooms.

Capitalism has gotten gruesome, even by Times Square standards. Oh, America. Have you any idea how revolting you’ve become?

*An Osomnd.

5.59 EDIT:

YAY YAY YAAAAAAAAAY!

I was just offered the writers workshop job! Hot diggity! Work that utilizes my skills! A creative enviroment that I don’t feel like I’m drowning in! All the free writing classes I can handle! Best pay in U.S. Dollars that I’ve ever earned! WHOA!

During the job interview, I learned that the turnover rate at this small organization is really small. Why? They treat their employees like humans. No one ever wants to leave. It is all close knit and stuff. This is why they were really careful about the hiring process. Many are writers and artists; it is loose and creative and everything I could ever dream of for somewhere I’d feel good and comfy about working at.

I am the Office and Events Manager. I will be doing day-to-day admin stuffs as well as coordinating special events, readings, and publicity.

YAY YAY YAAAAAAY!

They want me to come in for a few days here and there before the new year, just so that when I start in earnest on January 2, I will be ready to hit the ground running with their new semester.

Also, has anyone ever used Craigslist for Rideshares? I’ve been trying to hook up with a ride back to MI for a few days now, but the thing I had thought was arranged this weekend fell through and I was bummed until I was contacted by an even cooler ride this afternoon. We’ll be riding round trip in a spacious 2004 Ford Excursion with another couple who lives only blocks away from us and also has family in the Detroit-metro area. For $200 and half the tolls, we’ll get some bargain holiday travel and a few more days to boot!

YAY!

Shaun’s off at a comic writers event tonight, doing his networking thang, so I’ve no one to be spastic with about my happy news! It makes me rabid and want to go out for drink somewhere that has a jukebox and a dance floor.

YAAAAAYYYY!

Finally, I’m settled here. No more crazy. Really this time. I have what I want. I never realized how restless and dramatic and persistant I am when I don’t get what I want. Perhaps this is why I like my life. I don’t settle.

I’ve made blog mention before about how much I like temping at the Sony Wonder Museum; I really dig spending a few hours of my Saturdays helping kids around the television studio, assisting them in the audio lab, and making sure they don’t kill each other in the video game suites. Plus, its been a real eye opener for me. Of all the troubles that I’ve had in the last handful of weekends I’ve spent temping at Sony Wonder, its not the kids that cause them. Its the parents.

Most of the trouble brews at wildly popular activities that require patrons to queue to participate – such as the music room where you get to learn all about instruments and play along with a cool ‘Lil Bow Wow video. You’d be surprised at how many parents think its okay to stand in line for their spawn while said spawn runs amok playing other video games and drooling sugar all over the controllers. Once at the front of the line, the parent calls out, “Jimmy! Come play!”

At this point, I quietly tell the parent that saving places in line is forbidden at Sony Wonder, as it is unfair to all the patient boys and girls who waited their turn; I gesture to their angelic, single-file little faces for empasis. I inform the parent if they want to play, they can. But if their little
Jimmy wants to play, he has to wait in line like everybody else. And I make sure to tell the parent this quietly, because I understand how mortifying it is to get yelled at by a museum invigilator and because I get that undermining the parent’s authority in front of their kid could make the parent have a very bad day.

Nevertheless, about 50% of these parents stomp their feet. They get red in the face (I hate to
pull racial/social stats here, but most of the angry space savers are
of the white, mock turtleneck and loafer wearing, suburban variety who
seem to redden with ease). They get sassy. They huff and flail. They
embarrass the kid that they were saving a space for. “It’s okay, mom,”
little Jimmy often says, “I didn’t want to play that one anyway.”

Its just shocking to me how people fail to see the ways in which they model behavior. I just want to shake these parents and say, “do you want your Jimmy to grow up into a road raging, bully with unfounded feelings of entitlement? Is that really how you prepare your child to make this world a better place?” Instead, I smile and say, “Sorry – rules are rules,” before letting the happy, patient kids through the door.
__________________________________________________________________________________
How about you? Got any helpful tips for those brave people trying to raise the next generation?

Need an escape this weekend? Crave a feeling of connectedness to a life that is not yours and people who you don’t even know and are made up anyway? Want nothing more than to slip into a matinee and let cozy darkness and story wash over you? My hot cinema tip? Juno.

Yes, I know there are a bizarre number of Unplanned Pregnancy Movies lately (Knocked Up, Waitress) and I am just as annoyed at the warm, fuzzy look at unplanned, young, single parenthood as any sane person. These movies tend to be more about how quirky, offbeat, and fun unplanned pregnancy is. With bonus scenes full of soul searching and hormonal emotion! And you thought young, unplanned, single motherhood was all about financial hardship, an unsupportive society, and social ostrasization.

Gag me.

On the bright side, at least our culture is finally acknowledging that, lots of times, hetero sex = babies. And roughly half of all American babies are unplanned. So Unplanned Pregnancy Movies are at very least telling stories about something that happens a lot in our county, stories that have never been given much time before. Why the sudden onslaught of such movies is beyond me. But if it has something to do with our obsession over celebrity baby bumps, I can only say it again: GAG ME!

Anyhow, even though Juno is falls into the Unplanned Pregnancy Movie category, it is not a movie about its genre. It is a movie about a fresh, likable, and (most unique to this genre) believable young woman named Juno MacGuff, played fantastically by Ellen Page. Juno is the kind of brave, fierce, whip-smart female protagonist that easily commands your attention. She is cool. She is smart. She is together, despite her belly ‘o’ accidental baby.

When disclosing her pregnancy to her father, played by J.K. Simmons, he remarks, “I thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when.” With acting that promises great things from Ellen Page, Juno replies, “I don’t really know what kind of girl I am.”

And that is the best part about this movie. Juno isn’t any kind of girl. And neither are any of the characters in this completely worth while film. Plus, the soundtrack is kick ass. That’s really something that you’re not likely to find in any other movie about unwanted fetuses.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
How about you? See anything good lately?

::Random Tangent::
The second interview at the writers workshop went really, really, really good. Today, I got an overwhelmingly positive call from them. I hear for shizzle on Monday, after my background check (which says nothing except what a law abiding, bill paying, very hard working, creative person I am) is complete. Fingers crossed!

Also, I crashed out at 1.17 am last night. So much for nightswimming.

Something really funny happened to me this afternoon. While walking down 8th, between 36th and 37th, a man bustled up to me and exuberantly asked for my autograph.
I laughed. “What for?”
“You’re in that show – that Broadway show.”
I gave him a quick glance, looking for signs of crazy. There were none. He was just a guy, genuinely confused. “Really. I’m not. Thanks, though!”
“What? You’re not? You look just like that one girl! Are you sure you’re not her?”
“Nope. Just on my way to a job interview.”
“You’re not in theater?”
I laughed again. “Nope. Are you?”
He shook his head. “Man, I couldda sworn…”
“Have a good day!” I called over my shoulder, smiling as I continued down the street.
____________________________________________________________________________
Have you ever experienced something that felt like a good omen? What was it?

::Random Tangent::
I just finished Haruki Murakami’s newest English translation, After Dark. Loved it. The book takes place over the course of a single night, from 11.55 pm – 6.55 am. I’ve only ever stayed up all night perhaps 3 times in my life: once dancing my heart out at a gay bar where my friend worked, once on New Years Eve playing surrealist parlor games with friends in LA, and once playing a never-ending game of Trivial Pursuit at a friends birthday party in Glasgow. While all three instances were completely unsuited to my regular schedule (I’ve always been more naturally suited to an early-ish bedtime, dreams, and waking before the sun to go running), I loved how time in those hours means something different than time in the day. Hours drip and drop; nothing is swift. After Dark reminded me of that, made me want to swim in it a bit. I have this idea in my head that if I stay awake tonight during the hours that the book takes place in, it will be lucky. If I fall asleep, it will be unlucky. Isn’t that weird?

Ever had a sort of day that you feel completely happy and at home in? Well, today was like that for me and I’m a little more than bummed that it is coming to a close. Not only am I dreading the start of the work week, in all its hokey office “Bagel Monday” glory, but today was just so…good. I could live inside just this one day for a while. It is the sort of day that if, upon my death, my soul can roam through time freely, I will rerun in an instant.

When I woke this morning, my bleary eyes blinked in the morning light streaming through the window. The light was the color of a dejected gym sock, the color of a snowy sky. I pulled up the blinds and smiled to see the first snowfall of the year.

With the crisp start of wintertime (weirdly punctual in its first weekend of December arrival) fueling me, I moved my tired bones to the shower and brewed some warm coffee. My body was achy from building this yesterday:

In the last few weeks, Shaun built this:

This:

A cute futon cover (black w/ colorful, swirly spots) is on its way in the mail to us. Yay!

This:

And this:

There are actually two desks in our home now; one for me (above) and one for Shaun (messy!). It’s like a Room of One’s Own, except we couldn’t splurge on a whole room – a desk seems suffice enough.

Not to mention a cute kitchen island that I forgot to take a picture of. So it was time for me to contribute a little manual labor. It was great to wake up this Sunday morning to an apartment that was no longer a sea of boxed books. We are unpacked at last. We are home.

After getting ready this morning, we were off to enjoy the reopening of the New Museum at its new location on Bowery St. The museum was incredible! And not just because they were celebrating their opening with free admission this weekend. Their current exhibition, Unmonumental, explored collage and mixed media in contemporary art. Collage has historically blossomed in times of cultural, political, and societal unrest; it is all abloom in today’s contemporary art.

I love how a good exhibition really engages me, reminds me of things in my own life, in the world at large. I like how a good exhibition encourages connections that might not otherwise have been made. I also like to listen to chit chat amongst patrons. I like to hold hands with my partner. I like to love new things that I’ve never seen before.

My favorite pieces were from Elliot Hundley. He created two large, intricate, sculptural collages entitled The Wreck (2005) and Proscenium (2006) that entranced me. The sculptures were so solid and defined, yet the construction of them, with bamboo and thin wood sticks, was made visible. Photographs and cocktail umbrellas and colorful papers collaborated to pull the eye in, arresting the viewer. The tangled mess of it all, the crazy bounty pleased me a great deal.

The New Museum also has an incredible space called “Museum as Hub,” a public space for special projects, research and public discourse. Exhibited in that space, was my other favorite work, The Last Tourist in Cairo (2006) by Jan Rothuizen. For the project, the artist spent some time in Cairo and documented her impressions of the city in poster-sized maps. The maps detail the location of interviews with people she met there, which are printed on the side, along with news-clippings of events that happened while she was there, and short scenes describing things she witnessed. The last Tourist in Cairo is actually a set of seven poster maps, but only three were on display. I liked The Emptiness of a Busy City and The Anonymous Impossibility of Social Coherence best.

Winding our way up to the top floor of the museum, we were happily surprised to find that the museum free weekend sponsor Target had also set up a free candy buffet for patrons to take some sweets away with them. We filled up bags with gummies and fancy M&M’s in crazy colors like mauve and lavender.

Feeling hungry for more than a sugar rush, we headed over to Cafe Habana for some cheap, delicious lunch. We talked about books, writing, and the weird things we did as little kids while sipping strong Cuban coffee and sharing heaping plates of molletes and chilaquiles.

With full bellies, we moseyed into  McNally Robinson, an independent bookseller, and found ourselves picking up some fun Christmas gifts. After that, we browsed the Young Designers Market, which happens every Saturday and Sunday and has some truly cool wares. We bought a few more Christmas items there and I coveted a cool $200 dress that looked more like a weird sculpture than clothes.

With full minds, full bellies, full bags, and a home to come home to, I smiled the whole subway ride home. I am a lucky, lucky girl. But I don’t want Monday to arrive.

About to sign off of Xanga-land for the evening, I was suddenly struck by a memory of my brother Anthony, 15 years ago. While being tucked into bed as an angel haired little boy, snuggled into his Thomas the Train footie pajamas, he used to declare with ripe enthusiasm, “tomorrow’s another day!” before trying to soothe himself into sleep (which, oddly enough, he did by bashing his head into his pillow repeatedly and humming to himself, earning him the family nickname, Hammer).

So instead of being sad that today is drawing to a close (well, its already past midnight, so any illusion of stopping time has already been shattered), I shall think about reliving it in my (hopefully far away) future as a ghost and adopt the philosophy that my brother used to espouse when he was four: tomorrow is another day. Might as well make the best of it.
_______________________________________________________________________

On a scale of 1 to 10, how was your Sunday?

::Random Tangent::
I’ve got a new post up at Naptime in the City that Never Sleeps, if anyone is interested in seeing pictures of the pretty buildings around my office neighborhood.