Thursday, June 26, 2008

Not so glad to be moving

Oh my God I suck at packing. I seriously really cannot deal with this at all. I'm still packing for a move that is happening on Friday. I think I got...a small amount of it done tonight, but I think there's a chance I will have to pull an all-nighter tomorrow night to be ready for the movers. I just patched my doorframe that the super took a damn chunk out of and I need to spackle a tile back on in the bathroom (nope, not my fault, fell off on its own. I suspect it was a shoddy grout job and on top of that it was a tile placed directly over a pipe so there was probably some expanding/contracting that loosened it). I want as much of that deposit back as possible.

But Astoria here I come. Another neighborhood for me to conquer.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Glad to be moving pt. 2

So I come home today to flyers plastered all over the building. The lobby, in the elevator, in the halls, even had one shoved underneath my door.

What about? Basically warning us to be careful who we let in through the front doors because there's been a rash of thefts committed by trespassers. Especially on weekends and Sundays.

OK. This means that it's happened more than once for management to notice a pattern. On weekends. Which means there have been thefts happening in this building for at least two weeks now. Wow.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Another musical walk down memory lane

Listening to "Tarzan Boy" made me reminesce about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

But I didn't stop there.

Now, for the songs that reminds me of being a kid in Korea during the late 80s-mid 90s. This also is the song that reminds me that Koreans had/have some fuckin' cornyass musical tastes when it comes to pop music. Really. We're talking about a country that practically orgasmed in unison over Richard Marx. The Scorpions are worshipped. Nuno effin' Bettencourt performed in the country...OK, Nuno's pretty awesome though, but I'm just saying...Koreans fuckin' love Extreme. Then there was the summer I could not get away from Colin Blunstone's "Tiger in the Night." And like, I actually like that song, but it got used in EVERYTHING. That's more late 90s I suppose. But goddamn. That's another thing. Some songs just get used to death. I'm just saying, you know how they have those weird Japan-only releases of CDs? Because it's shit that only sells in Europe and Asia, man. Yea.

London Boys "Harlem Desire"? Fuck yes.


Oh, this was my favorite. And also a corollary to the Koreans love cheesy pop music. They also SUPER love power ballads by metal bands. Every dramatically poignant moment got treated to this Stratovarius pleasure. There used to be this chocolate chip cookie ad on TV and it was like a Romeo and Juliet themed thing. Like the girl was dressed up like Olivia Hussey in Romeo and Juliet (Topic for next time...actors/actresses that Koreans fixate on and my childhood in the 90s. Possible topics of discussion. Olivia Hussey, Sophie Marceau...)

Thursday, June 12, 2008

My subconscious decides to give me a birthday gift

My birthday came and went. I didn't really do anything about it because a) I was at the office until 9:30 and b) well, I was at the office until 9:30. If I don't feel so lazy on the weekend maybe I'll do something, but quite honestly the whole b-day momentum has lost its hoopla. Also, I haven't really had/done birthday parties since I was like 12 so I feel weird trying to plan something out and get people together to hang out and whatever in birthday-related situations.

So I guess my brain decides I need to have a weird insane dream about what I'd like to do in lieu of actually getting to go out and do something on my birthday. Even weirder is you can totally tell what's been on my brain or what I've been reading or paying attention to the past couple of days from this dream.

In my dream I'm hanging out with a friend (I can't remember if it was a specific friend from real life or just a stand-in my brain created. I feel like it was someone I know and it was touching on a conversation I had with someone recently, but anyway...) who introduced me to two of her friends. And they ask me what I'd like to do and have fun doing. So over the course of convo I find out their really into food and stuff and we start talking about reservation policies and we head on down to a Jean-Georges Vongrichten restaurant ("Ha, you know you gotta give them your credit card number and if you don't show up for your table they make you pay for it?"). Yea, I know.

So we're chowin' down and the chef decides to let us try some specials on the house and we're having a good time talking about the menu items asking questions and stuff. So afterwards we decide to go to the museum/gallery to check out some artwork and it's like all my favorite artist up in that piece. So we're browsing and stuff when all of the sudden fuckin' Gary Busey comes into the store and me and my group are looking over in his direction all "No way! That's Gary Busey!" and dream me totally had met Gary Busey before and we'd chilled and stuff but I wasn't sure if he'd remember me so I didn't want to bring it up to my friends that I once hung out with Gary Busey, but was thinking how cool would it be if he recognized me, then my friend and my new friends would think I was so awesome. At that moment Gary Busey looks at me and says, "Hey! Long time no see!" And comes over and we start chatting and I can totally tell by the looks on my friends' faces that now they think I'm absolutely the shit.

So Gary has this dude with him and calls him over and introduces us and Gary's all, "Guys, I'd like you to meet...Yves Saint Laurent." Dream me is all "NO FUCKING WAY!" and Yves Saint Laurent is all "YES WAY!"

So he and I start walking around the museum and we talk about French literature. He likes talking about Proust, but I'm interested to hear about his childhood in Algeria. And I ask how what he's doing at the gallery that day, and Yves Saint Laurent was talking about how he likes to get inspired from artwork and I was all "Yea, dude. Like I really like Mondrian's flowers." And then I feel really dumb because I remember he did a bunch of dresses based on those Mondrian rectangles? But like Yves Saint Laurent in the dream wasn't a douche by sniffily pointing that out, he actually seemed delighted I liked Mondrian's flowers.

Right then the gallery owner/museum curator guy came out and was all, "Monsieur, do we have a treat for you today!" in such an excited way like he was about to pee his pants and pulled out this humongoid Mondrian piece. And dream Yves Saint Laurent put his hand to his mouth and gasped and right then Gary Busey came up behind us put his arms on our shoulders, hugged us close and said, "Saint Laurent, man...I'm gonna BUY you that kooky ass painting!"

AND HE DID.

Monday, June 09, 2008

You can take the girl away from the hair dye but you can't....take the hair dye away......er, what?

So after three successful years of not having any sort of hair dye/bleach/tint/what have you come near my hair, I'm suddenly consumed by the desire to have silver hair.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Too hot. Can't sleep.

Underboob sweat is my nemesis. Not to mention that there's a mouse slowly nibbling away at a wall somewhere in my apartment that's driving me nuts with the sound.

Anyhow, I'm moving. Er, trying to move at least. I don't know why I didn't move last year. Wait, I know, I was broke. Well, I was initially sad about the prospect of moving from the Heights because I really do like the area I live in, at the same time, my decision to try and move out is making more and more sense.

So to feel better about moving from a neighborhood I actually enjoy and have come to love and call home, here's a list of adorable "quirks" about my apartment that won't make me miss it:

1. Mice. Effin' mice. Then again, it's New York, and it's not that surprising I suppose. The last apartment was the worse. It was a very old rickety building so there were tons of mice. Here, I haven't really had a huge mice problem with, just sporadic incidents. Though there were some harrowing times. I'm just sick and tired of them. Thankfully, future roommate comes packaged with a stepkitty.

2. No water (IN THE SUMMER). What do I mean by this? Well, when the mercury starts climbing the fire hydrants start going off. "Oh, how so New York," you might coo, but guess what. The water pressure already sucks in my apartment, so whenever someone decides to fire off a hydrant to cool off guess who is practically squeezing water out of there faucet? Let me help you out. It's the same person writing up this blog entry.

3. Awkward. My place is just...awkward. Awkward layout, awkward materials. For example, my non-closet closet. The really short and narrow bathroom. Also, this is the second apartment I've been in that has had the showerhead in a weird place. It's not up against the wall along the short part of the tub so you'd have the whole length for the water, but it's against the wall that's against the long side of the tub. It's just weird. Also I'm supremely annoyed my bedroom window is against the fire escape. It's just mad creepy. The partitioning of the entire place is just awkward. Though I like one awkward part of my apartment. When you open the door it literally opens right into the bathroom. The bathroom's between the bedroom and the living room/kitchen area so there's a little 4"x5" "hallway". One side's the bathroom, the other's the door. It's weird trying to come into the house with more than one person, but let me just say that when you have to pee really bad, it's awesome.

Overall, it wasn't a terrible place to live, but I'm kind of getting tired of it's shit I suppose. There's probably some other things I'm just not remembering at the moment, but the water thing really ticked me off today because I was thinking, "WTF, the hottest day...oh, wait. It's hot, that's why there's no water."

On top of that I'm being attacked by mosquitoes. Dammit. Anyhow, I'm trying to get started with my packing. Just so that once everything's settled I'm not up all night packing my shit in a huge panic.

I'm still sweating. I could kill for another Paloma or Pisco Sour right about now.

I'm gonna be in New Orleans in July. I know, hot hot hot. Oh, dear. On a mildly related note, I'm still trying to see what this year's vacation trip is going to be if I even do go. The "cheap" option would be to visit my cousin up in Canada, the expensive route is to go volunteer with Hard Working Class Heroes in Dublin. We'll figure this out later. I also still need to make it down to DC to check out the Newseum. I'll try to do it sooner than later.

Besides the heat I've had a cough that's been bothering me for...about a week and a half now. Someone told me I should check in with a doctor and my reaction was "A doctor for a cough? I feel fine it's just a cough." However, then someone else informed me, "Yea, you usually feel fine, up until you feel worse and die." Which is true. Either way, I'm coughing a bit less frequently and with less force so I'm going to give it another week until I diagnose myself with consumption and die wasting away a most lady-like and romantic death.

And to close, a random observation. Even with the pedostache he's been sporting lately, Rivers Cuomo is still adorable. How does he do it?