Readin and writin and yakkin about it

June 15

Not much to report. Blame Matt, he's hogging the computer, because he thinks doing "work" on his "CD" is somehow "important" or something. Sheesh. But I did elbow him away from the keyboard long enough to put up a new Crab Apple and a new Tour de Testosterone review. Enjoy!

Oh, one note. Site renovations are going on in bits and pieces. Some links may be down, or mis-labeled.I hope to be done with all that by July at the latest. Thanks for your patience.

June 8

So here we are, escaped from motherless Brooklyn, firmly ensconsed in a studio in Manhattan. I don't know what neighborhood we're in...the guides don't have a name for it yet, which is probably why we can still afford it. Somewhere in the triangle between Hell's Kitchen, the Meatpacking District, and the Upper West Side. I like to think of it as the Battleship District, since the Intrepid is docked not a quarter-mile away in the gray waters of the Hudson River. Those red psuedo-English tour buses use our street as a throughway for schlepping tourists out to see it. Sometimes they idle in the illegal parking zones in front of our building while the drivers take a smoke break between tours.

Other than them, and the low bleating of ship horns every now and then, it's very quiet here. A nearby hotel disgorges clumps of tourists every weekend, walking like me towards the nearest subway station to take them downtown. Teenage girls dressed up for clubbing, moms and dads in sweatsuits that never saw a sweat. Sorority girls freshly blonde-bleached and fake-tanned, tugging at the low-rider jeans slipping off their behinds, teetering over the patched sidewalks in platform sandals. Gay guys in town for Pride Week, matching tattoos and arms around each other. Earnest-looking guys in button-down shirts who are probably with a church group of some sort, ready to hand out tracts or sing hymns in the devil's playground of Times Square.

The walk to work is too long, the grocery stores too far away, the rent is higher. My commute is much quicker. My shower is not as good (likes to scald or freeze me unexpectedly) but I don't have to share the chance to use it with anyone but Matt. The kitchen is definitely nicer. We have a door buzzer, which is cool, but I haven't figured out yet if when the Chinese delivery guy comes I'm supposed to meet him down there or buzz him in and make him search for my un-numbered apartment door. (Why is it unnumbered? I have no idea). I have the distinct feeling there's something semi-illegal about the apartment setup here (no credit check on us! very strange for New York), but then, that probably describes a good chunk of New York's apartments. In the meantime, the guy who lived here before us for two years just moved down the hall, so presumably he'd be gone if it was truly unpleasant. Hopefully.

In the cost-benefit analysis, there's no clear reason why we passed up possible cheaper Brooklyn apartments to live here. But still it seems right, somehow. I don't know if it's just the intangible benefit of having lived in actual Manhattan and survived it (though I guess we haven't proved that yet!) or if there will be some more obvious good thing that comes of it.

Time will tell.

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In other news, I am still working on my review of The Crying of Lot 49. Give me a break, I just got Internet access yesterday! And you know, the moving and all. It will be up this week, Girl Scout's Honor.*

*yes I was a Scout, thank you very much! But I couldn't take the pressure to sell all those cookies, so I only lasted a year. Plus, you had to sell a zillion boxes to get something lame like a $2.00 digital clock. Talk about your exploitative child labor! If I'd been a little more socially conscious, I would've formed a Cookie Sellers' Union and been the Norma Rae of school fundraiser slaves everywhere. Fight the power! But it was not to be, so my sash and ugly socks got sold in some garage sale, and my special GS pocket knife (with compass) rusted away and got thrown out finally. It's all very sad.