March 27
I. 1982
I went to the sweet sixteen anyway. We were only 17 in our junior class at my Jewish day school in the Five Towns section of Long Island and it was like pre-school--you had to invite everybody for fear of offending anybody. With so few students, the stereotypes were refined to where only one person was identified as each of the John Hughes movie devices--the brain, the beauty, the jock, the nerd, the sociopath.
Robin Bogin, whose sweet sixteen it was, was the brain. The smart girl who never watched tv, she hung out with the beauty, Shari Denmark, the girl who could never be as anything as she thought she was.
My parents wanted normalcy maintained and made sure I made the party. I had just made the December 31st cut-off for kindergarten at public school in Brooklyn and was always the youngest in each grade; the youngest and the tallest. I was 15 and my learner's permit was still nine months away.
My brother could have been a surgeon if he stayed in school, my parents would tell him more than once. My brother could not only drive any car, he could repair it, too. Our driveway looked like a combination car repair shop and auto show, with half-built vehicles awaiting parts on our blacktop. There was the Model A Ford with an engine needing rebuilding; the 1968 GTO awaiting its paint job (plum mist they would call the metallic purple color on "The Devil in Disguise," as my brother had dubbed the car on its trade show sign).
My brother would never see a doctor no matter what the infliction, some sort of misplaced brand of machismo in this scrawny 22-year-old. He had a growth spurt from his sophomore to junior years in Brooklyn Technical High School, TECH, as his varsity jacket I wore proudly at 10-years-old would say. He went from 5'4" to 6'2" in one year, but he was still the little kid who felt he had to knock you on your ass to gain your respect.
"Steve's been in a bad accident," Mikey Schmidt, one of my brother's partners at the garage told my parents on the phone that Friday night. "I don't know what's up, but they're tickling his toes."
In a rollover competition the object is to drive your car up a ramp and, when you are just about to fall off of the ramp and back to the track's infield, cut your wheels left and flip your car over as many times as possible. My brother had won the rollover once before at Freeport Speedway, the gold plated trophy with an upturned car sitting on the back of his desk, in the office he made his apartment when living at home became too much. A space heater sat nearby to keep him warm through the four-bay garage's unheated winters.
"I'm okay," I told everyone at the club. There wasn't anything I could do to help him, so I came to the party. I gave Robin a soft sculpture unicorn, similar to the other soft sculpture gifts I would give her friends when they came of age over the coming months.
My brother almost died, the reconstructive surgeon said. He had repaired Steven by grafting skin from his uninjured hip onto his elbows, reinserting the right eye into its fractured socket, and realigning his two light blue eyes as best he could. My brother's partner Mikey gave him a card that read, "Get well soon, A#1 muff-diver," and I remembered my brother at summer camp repeating dives over and over until his entry barely registered a splash.
II. 1989
My mother is an artist and art teacher, the person you want to go to the museum with to learn what's going on. We went to the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit on February 5, its last day at the Met before it went on the road.
During their time together, Georgia was Alfred Stieglitz' muse. Her photographer-husband documented their time together with pictures beautifying his flawed subject. Upon his death, she remembered him in oil with "A Black Bird With Snow-Covered Red Hills" 1946, where a black bird floats at the top of the canvas through now-white hills. The audiotape tour said that this symbolized Stieglitz' death, his soul the black bird floating through her, the once red, now-white, hills. My mother didn't like that this was the painting I chose to buy from the gift shop on our way out of the museum.
Beth Kehler was one hot tomato. Our school newspaper cartoonist had drawn that into one of the strips we only used to amuse the staff. She had graduated as part of my incoming class in 1988 and was living by the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights.
Easter Sunday traffic clogged my arteries on the way to the diner on Pierpont Street to meet Beth and Bruno. It was near midnight before I arrived, and I had database work awaiting me at a bank in the morning. My brother's wife was having a caesarean performed on her the next morning and I couldn't sleep.
Beth, Bruno, and I couldn't close the 24-hour diner, but we left when the sun was about to awaken, as I got in my parent's first new car--a white, 1986 Pontiac Sunbird--and headed back on the empty Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
I was half-asleep driving home, awakening when my head fell while swerving from lane-to-lane, escaping injury only 'cause of luck and the hour. It was 6 a.m., and I sat in the parking lot of the temple where I became a man. I was home when my parents were getting up, readying for the hour-long drive to the hospital on the east end of Long Island. I told them I wasn't going to temp today.
My father hates the Southern State Parkway and its congested, winding roads, so we took the Robert Moses Causeway, meditating along the ocean drive, until we grabbed the Sagtikos Parkway north to the Long Island Expressway east eight exits to Stony Brook Medical Center.
As my father entered the university's driveway--"Look for signs" he said--a black bird passed through the early spring sky.
Friday, March 26, 2004
Friday, March 19, 2004
The March Project, in progress
after a daily emailed correspondence with the poet Gina Myers for the month of February, I wanted to do something different in March. At first the plan was to lose all constraints, and just write something each night before bed.
But then my mom took ill, and the only thing on my mind each night was her.
As I write the pieces directly into the blog, look at this archival link to see the first 18 pieces (reading from bottom up):
http://themarchproject.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_themarchproject_archive.html
and then each succeeding morning, visit:
http://themarchproject.blogspot.com/
after a daily emailed correspondence with the poet Gina Myers for the month of February, I wanted to do something different in March. At first the plan was to lose all constraints, and just write something each night before bed.
But then my mom took ill, and the only thing on my mind each night was her.
As I write the pieces directly into the blog, look at this archival link to see the first 18 pieces (reading from bottom up):
http://themarchproject.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_themarchproject_archive.html
and then each succeeding morning, visit:
http://themarchproject.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Saturday, March 13, 2004
One of My Most Favorite Days
13 years ago this coming Wednesday, St. Patrick's Day, I had one of my most favorite days ever. A week or so earlier I picked up the new copy of the music mag Creem because it had Sting on the cover, and I'd been a huge Police fan and was still liking Sting's musical direction back then.
Inside was a full page photo story on this band called the Blake Babies, who had gotten their name by asking Allen Ginsberg at a reading of his in the Boston area what they should name their band. "The Blake Babies," he said.
And although I was in my master's program at SUNY-Albany, I thought it would be fun to interview the band as they, coincidentally, passed through Albany the following week. So I set it up with their label, North Carolina's Mammoth Records, wen to the radio station to dupe their first two albums, Earwig and Sunburn, before hooking up with them on St. Patty's Day, grabbing a bite to eat at this vegetarian restaurant that no longer exists in Albany, the Half Moon Cafe--"the Half-Ass Cafe" as lead vocalist and bassist Juliana Hatfield called it during the band's set--as a musician there covered a slew of John Denver songs, causing lead guitarist John Strohm to dip into Denver songs during lulls between songs. It was where drummer Freda Boner, now Freda Love, taught me that the best way to make coffee was with ice cold beans and i ce cold water.
Here are the two stories I wrote about that night for The Albany Student Press , one a feature the other a review of their concert. And I'm sending them out in memory of Sue Friedman, my arts editor there, who a month after these stories were published would die from meningitis.
Are the Blake Babies the Next Big Thing?
March 1991—Be it before the show munching on some vegetarian fare as a John Denver tribute band plays or backstage, chugging down spring water, while drinking Rolling Rocks and sharing smokes, the Blake Babies seem like they may just be the next big thing. Not that they want to be a part of the established music scene or have ever talked about being “the next big thing,” or that they’ll even put out another record after their upcoming EP. But if they do, just remember what I said when you hear their insatiable sounds flooding the airwaves: the Blake Babies are already the next big thing.
Now with their fourth Blake Baby, rhythm guitarist Michael Leahy, the band is not putting out the typical pop star prose, complaining about others problems while they jam another buck into their Armani pants. Instead, they’re hammering away at a question as old as time, one that even plagued Abraham and Sarah way back when—that of relationships. They’re not coming at it from the traditional love-me-do stance, however. They want to follow their lost loves, cut off their heads and get their attention through self-inflicted wounds—not the stuff from which top-40 dreams are made.
The band’s lineup features Freda Boner on drums, Juliana Hatfield on bass and vocals, John Strohm on guitar and vocals, and recent add-on Leahy. Boner and Strohm have known each other since they were 15 growing up in Bloomington, Indiana. Shortly after he came east to attend Boston’s Berklee School of Music, Boner followed, to live with him and try to start a band. There the two met Hatfield, a Beantown native who was studying voice.
“I didn’t start playing drums until the Blake Babies,” said Boner, legs crossed, her orange shirt full of sweat, its collar sloping. “‘I fooled around with a few instruments, and had played drums a little bit, but I didn’t get a drum set until, actually after, the Blake Babies were formed. The first half a year of the Blake Babies I just borrowed drums.
“I’m really into Mo Tucker [of the Velvet Underground],” says Boner. “She’s really hard hitting and simple, and that’s what I try to do. I try not to get in the way of the songs at all. I just want to be there, I don’t want anyone to really notice me.”
Coming straight from New York City where they played CBGBs the night before, the Blake Babies on a few hours sleep had some problems finding Bogie’s, where they would leave a bit exhausted and delirious, feeling they put on a better show than the previous night.
Names don’t mean much to the band—be it their own, which was bestowed on them by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg during a poetry reading Q&A, or their last album’s, which they had originally called Suntan, but their record company thought was Sunburn, which they liked better and kept. However, the lyrics are unmistakable.The Blakes are seemingly always leaving something, whether it’s bad relationships, old towns, or sanity. There’s Hatfield, soothing you to a state of tranquility with her melodious voice, as she thumbs a heavy bass, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, lets go with a screech or a hiccup pulled straight outta some Buddy Holly record, circa 1958.
“Do you like Allen Ginsberg?” asked Hatfield, as we discussed the origin of their name. “We’ve all been into and read a lot of Beat stuff,” chimed in Strohm, as Boner added that “obviously we were into him enough to ask him what to name our band …I wonder if he’s heard of us?”
As the Beats used found prose, the Blake Babies use found lyrics, taking in what the media feeds them and digesting. There’s snippets from the band Modern English, stories adapted from tabloid TV, and even a quote from everybody’s favorite famished cartoon character, Wimpy of Popeye fame, as Juliana chirps in that she’d “be glad to pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” in “I’ll Take Anything.” “I used to just write whenever I was inspired to write, but now I try to think about it a bit more,” said Hatfield. “We never write together. When we collaborate, John will give me the music and I’ll write words separately.”
The band’s influences range from the Dylan, Stones, and Leonard Cohen albums their parents played around the house while they were growing up, to Neil Young, whose new album Ragged Glory has found a permanent place in their ears.
Is the future open wide for the Blake Babies? Next week their tour grinds to a halt, and this coming May their new EP Rosy Jack World (Mammoth) will be finding a way to many CD players and disc jockey booths. After spending the past few months crammed with their equipment and an Australian roadie inside a red Ford van, the band’s taking a much needed break. A new Blake Babies album probably won’t hit the stores for at least another year-and-a-half, but by then the band may just be the next big thing—hell, the big thing. —David A. Kirschenbaum
Blake Babies Break In Bogies
As the new Bogies’ wrapped its opening weekend, you couldn’t have picked a better band to christen the place on St. Patty’s Day ’91 than the Blake Babies. The Boston trio—now quartet—took their record off the vinyl and mangled it a bit, sort of like a pleasant car crash, where your car forms an entirely different being, but one you like as much, if not more.
With three encores, the band played 25 songs in a crisp, yet raw 100-minute set, including tracks from their two Mammoth Records Earwig and Sunburn, a few covers, and a preview of a song from their upcoming EP, Rosy Jack World, due in May.
Since taking over Bogies’ lease on March 1, the new owners have changed the club from what many called a dive, to a great little joint in which to hear live music.
Although the air conditioning wasn’t running well, the sweat was bonding, as Juliana Hatfield, the band’s lead vocalist, bassist, and songstress (and she wears each of these hats effectively), removed her striped crew neck, and each member of the band sported T-shirts.
At times, the Blake Babies were like Simon and Garfunkel from hell, as Hatfield and guitarist John Strohm harmonized on such classic love sings as “Girl in a Box” (“she’ll be a slut or a dirty little whore or the girl next door, or my bride instead, or I’ll cut off her head, if I want to”). Drummer Freda Boner played some unobtrusive yet powerful drums, laying back from the rest of the band. A few times she was joined by Strohm, who turned away from the crowd and played his licks quite happily. The crowd was toe-tapping and head-nodding, with the Blakes pounding off song after song, and engaging in a natural banter about a John Denver tribute they’d just seen at the Half Moon Cafe. New addition Michael Leahy stayed on the side of the stage, sans spotlight, as the rest of the band mingled with one another.
They injected some adrenaline into their latest record, Sunburn, a rather pleasant release, but belying the power that is the Blake Babies live. Feedback reigned the night, as songs about leaving failed relationships and unsatisfying lives seemed a bit lost on the holiday revelers, content to have a beer in one hand and live music blaring through the speakers. Others, though, were practically orgiastic, as they spun to the danceable and undanceable tracks, moving just as fast as Boner’s drums and Strohm’s guitar. As the Blakes left the stage after their last encore, the crowd of some 100 was left wanting for more of the group’s harsh, love-twinged music.
No such luck. —DAK
Coda
Nirvana asked the Blake Babies to open for them on their upcoming tour, behind a little record called Nevermind, but the band broke up instead. Hatfield would do solo work, Boner, now Love, would play with Strohm in the band Antenna, where she would meet her husband Jake Smith. Love and Smith would for The Mysteries of Life. Strohm, would form Antenna, Velo-Deluxe, and then release a coupla of solo records. Eventually, just before the faux-millennium, the three would reunite for what was to be a one-off show on New Year's Eve show in Bloomington, Indiana, where Love and Strohm were from, recording some tracks in the days before the show, at the impetus of Love.
This led to a performance the night of Strohm's wedding in Birmingham, Ala., in August of 2000, which I flew in to see, it being perhaps their last show ever (and it featured opening sets from wedding guests Ben Lee and the Lemonheads, and one-time Blake Baby, Evan Dando). But they wound up releasing a new album God Bless the Blake Babies, and touring behind it. On the CBS Early Morning Show, the Saturday morning program they do, the Blake Babies were a guest, and Strohm mentioned how they broke up right when Indie rock was beginning to hit, and then they reunited once indie rock was over, chuckling. The tour was over in 2002 and now it seems the band has broken up for good.
Hatfield formed the band Some Girls, with Love and Heidi Gluck, and Hatfield also has a solo record out later this spring. Strohm is finishing his third year of law school, and working on a solo release.
For more on the Blake Babies and related BB's bands, visit Stacee Sledge's most excellent site,www.blakebabies.com .
There are also a bunch of my writings from my old zine ManAlive! (MA!) on that site on the BB's and their spin-off projects :
Blake Babies:
Best of Blake Babies Review
Juliana Hatifield:
Juliana Hatfield Interview
Juliana Hatfield Academy show reviewd
John Strohm:
Antenna live at Wetlands
and a bunch of my photographs from the August 2000 show in Birmingham:
Blake Babies in Birmingham photos .
13 years ago this coming Wednesday, St. Patrick's Day, I had one of my most favorite days ever. A week or so earlier I picked up the new copy of the music mag Creem because it had Sting on the cover, and I'd been a huge Police fan and was still liking Sting's musical direction back then.
Inside was a full page photo story on this band called the Blake Babies, who had gotten their name by asking Allen Ginsberg at a reading of his in the Boston area what they should name their band. "The Blake Babies," he said.
And although I was in my master's program at SUNY-Albany, I thought it would be fun to interview the band as they, coincidentally, passed through Albany the following week. So I set it up with their label, North Carolina's Mammoth Records, wen to the radio station to dupe their first two albums, Earwig and Sunburn, before hooking up with them on St. Patty's Day, grabbing a bite to eat at this vegetarian restaurant that no longer exists in Albany, the Half Moon Cafe--"the Half-Ass Cafe" as lead vocalist and bassist Juliana Hatfield called it during the band's set--as a musician there covered a slew of John Denver songs, causing lead guitarist John Strohm to dip into Denver songs during lulls between songs. It was where drummer Freda Boner, now Freda Love, taught me that the best way to make coffee was with ice cold beans and i ce cold water.
Here are the two stories I wrote about that night for The Albany Student Press , one a feature the other a review of their concert. And I'm sending them out in memory of Sue Friedman, my arts editor there, who a month after these stories were published would die from meningitis.
Are the Blake Babies the Next Big Thing?
March 1991—Be it before the show munching on some vegetarian fare as a John Denver tribute band plays or backstage, chugging down spring water, while drinking Rolling Rocks and sharing smokes, the Blake Babies seem like they may just be the next big thing. Not that they want to be a part of the established music scene or have ever talked about being “the next big thing,” or that they’ll even put out another record after their upcoming EP. But if they do, just remember what I said when you hear their insatiable sounds flooding the airwaves: the Blake Babies are already the next big thing.
Now with their fourth Blake Baby, rhythm guitarist Michael Leahy, the band is not putting out the typical pop star prose, complaining about others problems while they jam another buck into their Armani pants. Instead, they’re hammering away at a question as old as time, one that even plagued Abraham and Sarah way back when—that of relationships. They’re not coming at it from the traditional love-me-do stance, however. They want to follow their lost loves, cut off their heads and get their attention through self-inflicted wounds—not the stuff from which top-40 dreams are made.
The band’s lineup features Freda Boner on drums, Juliana Hatfield on bass and vocals, John Strohm on guitar and vocals, and recent add-on Leahy. Boner and Strohm have known each other since they were 15 growing up in Bloomington, Indiana. Shortly after he came east to attend Boston’s Berklee School of Music, Boner followed, to live with him and try to start a band. There the two met Hatfield, a Beantown native who was studying voice.
“I didn’t start playing drums until the Blake Babies,” said Boner, legs crossed, her orange shirt full of sweat, its collar sloping. “‘I fooled around with a few instruments, and had played drums a little bit, but I didn’t get a drum set until, actually after, the Blake Babies were formed. The first half a year of the Blake Babies I just borrowed drums.
“I’m really into Mo Tucker [of the Velvet Underground],” says Boner. “She’s really hard hitting and simple, and that’s what I try to do. I try not to get in the way of the songs at all. I just want to be there, I don’t want anyone to really notice me.”
Coming straight from New York City where they played CBGBs the night before, the Blake Babies on a few hours sleep had some problems finding Bogie’s, where they would leave a bit exhausted and delirious, feeling they put on a better show than the previous night.
Names don’t mean much to the band—be it their own, which was bestowed on them by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg during a poetry reading Q&A, or their last album’s, which they had originally called Suntan, but their record company thought was Sunburn, which they liked better and kept. However, the lyrics are unmistakable.The Blakes are seemingly always leaving something, whether it’s bad relationships, old towns, or sanity. There’s Hatfield, soothing you to a state of tranquility with her melodious voice, as she thumbs a heavy bass, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, lets go with a screech or a hiccup pulled straight outta some Buddy Holly record, circa 1958.
“Do you like Allen Ginsberg?” asked Hatfield, as we discussed the origin of their name. “We’ve all been into and read a lot of Beat stuff,” chimed in Strohm, as Boner added that “obviously we were into him enough to ask him what to name our band …I wonder if he’s heard of us?”
As the Beats used found prose, the Blake Babies use found lyrics, taking in what the media feeds them and digesting. There’s snippets from the band Modern English, stories adapted from tabloid TV, and even a quote from everybody’s favorite famished cartoon character, Wimpy of Popeye fame, as Juliana chirps in that she’d “be glad to pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” in “I’ll Take Anything.” “I used to just write whenever I was inspired to write, but now I try to think about it a bit more,” said Hatfield. “We never write together. When we collaborate, John will give me the music and I’ll write words separately.”
The band’s influences range from the Dylan, Stones, and Leonard Cohen albums their parents played around the house while they were growing up, to Neil Young, whose new album Ragged Glory has found a permanent place in their ears.
Is the future open wide for the Blake Babies? Next week their tour grinds to a halt, and this coming May their new EP Rosy Jack World (Mammoth) will be finding a way to many CD players and disc jockey booths. After spending the past few months crammed with their equipment and an Australian roadie inside a red Ford van, the band’s taking a much needed break. A new Blake Babies album probably won’t hit the stores for at least another year-and-a-half, but by then the band may just be the next big thing—hell, the big thing. —David A. Kirschenbaum
Blake Babies Break In Bogies
As the new Bogies’ wrapped its opening weekend, you couldn’t have picked a better band to christen the place on St. Patty’s Day ’91 than the Blake Babies. The Boston trio—now quartet—took their record off the vinyl and mangled it a bit, sort of like a pleasant car crash, where your car forms an entirely different being, but one you like as much, if not more.
With three encores, the band played 25 songs in a crisp, yet raw 100-minute set, including tracks from their two Mammoth Records Earwig and Sunburn, a few covers, and a preview of a song from their upcoming EP, Rosy Jack World, due in May.
Since taking over Bogies’ lease on March 1, the new owners have changed the club from what many called a dive, to a great little joint in which to hear live music.
Although the air conditioning wasn’t running well, the sweat was bonding, as Juliana Hatfield, the band’s lead vocalist, bassist, and songstress (and she wears each of these hats effectively), removed her striped crew neck, and each member of the band sported T-shirts.
At times, the Blake Babies were like Simon and Garfunkel from hell, as Hatfield and guitarist John Strohm harmonized on such classic love sings as “Girl in a Box” (“she’ll be a slut or a dirty little whore or the girl next door, or my bride instead, or I’ll cut off her head, if I want to”). Drummer Freda Boner played some unobtrusive yet powerful drums, laying back from the rest of the band. A few times she was joined by Strohm, who turned away from the crowd and played his licks quite happily. The crowd was toe-tapping and head-nodding, with the Blakes pounding off song after song, and engaging in a natural banter about a John Denver tribute they’d just seen at the Half Moon Cafe. New addition Michael Leahy stayed on the side of the stage, sans spotlight, as the rest of the band mingled with one another.
They injected some adrenaline into their latest record, Sunburn, a rather pleasant release, but belying the power that is the Blake Babies live. Feedback reigned the night, as songs about leaving failed relationships and unsatisfying lives seemed a bit lost on the holiday revelers, content to have a beer in one hand and live music blaring through the speakers. Others, though, were practically orgiastic, as they spun to the danceable and undanceable tracks, moving just as fast as Boner’s drums and Strohm’s guitar. As the Blakes left the stage after their last encore, the crowd of some 100 was left wanting for more of the group’s harsh, love-twinged music.
No such luck. —DAK
Coda
Nirvana asked the Blake Babies to open for them on their upcoming tour, behind a little record called Nevermind, but the band broke up instead. Hatfield would do solo work, Boner, now Love, would play with Strohm in the band Antenna, where she would meet her husband Jake Smith. Love and Smith would for The Mysteries of Life. Strohm, would form Antenna, Velo-Deluxe, and then release a coupla of solo records. Eventually, just before the faux-millennium, the three would reunite for what was to be a one-off show on New Year's Eve show in Bloomington, Indiana, where Love and Strohm were from, recording some tracks in the days before the show, at the impetus of Love.
This led to a performance the night of Strohm's wedding in Birmingham, Ala., in August of 2000, which I flew in to see, it being perhaps their last show ever (and it featured opening sets from wedding guests Ben Lee and the Lemonheads, and one-time Blake Baby, Evan Dando). But they wound up releasing a new album God Bless the Blake Babies, and touring behind it. On the CBS Early Morning Show, the Saturday morning program they do, the Blake Babies were a guest, and Strohm mentioned how they broke up right when Indie rock was beginning to hit, and then they reunited once indie rock was over, chuckling. The tour was over in 2002 and now it seems the band has broken up for good.
Hatfield formed the band Some Girls, with Love and Heidi Gluck, and Hatfield also has a solo record out later this spring. Strohm is finishing his third year of law school, and working on a solo release.
For more on the Blake Babies and related BB's bands, visit Stacee Sledge's most excellent site,
There are also a bunch of my writings from my old zine ManAlive! (MA!) on that site on the BB's and their spin-off projects :
Blake Babies:
Juliana Hatifield:
John Strohm:
and a bunch of my photographs from the August 2000 show in Birmingham:
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
i'm not looking for love, but wanting love. or, really, like. but the thing is this: i'm a 37 yr old man, with an hourly wage job that pays nowhere near what i'm worth, planning on going back to school in the fall to finish my Ph.D., have a roommate so I can pay my bills, and am in a great deal of debt, mainly of the student loan variety. Women my age who aren't attached are looking for someone with a nice income, someone in their field and able to provide support, comfort. maybe not women in the arts as much, perhaps they can understand how my press is basically a fulltime job that simply feeds the soul.
the problem is, though, that all the women i've met who find me date-able have been youngins, because i'm in their state of flux and so they see nothing wrong with where i am. but the problem with youngins is that they're only in new york for now. see, you're not a new yorker until you've been here awhile, committed to it. if you're from out-of-state, there's always the possibility you're going to be headed back out-of-state to live near yr family. there's always the possibility you'll say, oh, i wanna do my Ph.D. at Berkeley. See, I'm a NYer, born and bred, i live in a great cheap complex, my nuclear family is all within one hour of me, and i live in the greatest city in the world. i'm not leaving, ever.
and so, this is where i am right now. not really looking for love, but wanting to be in love, or like. no crush even, right now, though some candidates. as the head heals, the heart is wanting.
the problem is, though, that all the women i've met who find me date-able have been youngins, because i'm in their state of flux and so they see nothing wrong with where i am. but the problem with youngins is that they're only in new york for now. see, you're not a new yorker until you've been here awhile, committed to it. if you're from out-of-state, there's always the possibility you're going to be headed back out-of-state to live near yr family. there's always the possibility you'll say, oh, i wanna do my Ph.D. at Berkeley. See, I'm a NYer, born and bred, i live in a great cheap complex, my nuclear family is all within one hour of me, and i live in the greatest city in the world. i'm not leaving, ever.
and so, this is where i am right now. not really looking for love, but wanting to be in love, or like. no crush even, right now, though some candidates. as the head heals, the heart is wanting.
Saturday, March 06, 2004
My mom's been in the hospital so I haven't been doing much of anything this week, other than visiting her, tending to her needs, and having my dad stay over my apartment, and tending to his, too. (read more about it at the march project link above.) i finally shipped boog city to the printer, and will distribute it later on this morning. i'll sleep when i'm dead.