UPDATE

February 28, 2012

As many of you will remember, a few weeks ago my roommate LB (otherwise known as RG) received a very sad and creepy note from a fellow who has apparently been harboring feelings for her for about eight years.  And today –– lucky for us, but not so much for him –– he gave the correspondence, as of yet unrequited, a second shot!  Important to note before reading that she doesn’t now nor has ever spoken Spanish, and also that yes, this communication is taking place via the messenging system on Last.fm.

“I am so sorry if I didn’t write you long ago.  If you expected an email from me for years after we exchanged addresses, I’m really sorry about that.  I didn’t even notice how many years had gone by.  I thought I would write you when something worked out in my life and things were good for me, and that didn’t happen so I just kept working.

I think you told me you made jewelry then, so I’m glad that’s going well for you.  =)

Anyway, I saw that picture of you with the bulldog drawing when I looked for you and… I remember the way you looked and the way you saw me.  And I don’t… I mean it was so many years ago and we talked so little that, well, you probably think its silly that I remember you and maybe it is.  But if its not, I hope you’ll write me or find me some day, even if I change my name.  Maybe if I lose myself you could remind me of the person I used to be.  If you knew then. You’re kind of my last memory. 😉

That’s what I’d like to say anyway.  But its been so long.

I remember you were pretty and you were good with languages.  And I liked your eyes.  That’s why I liked you.  I thought maybe we could understand each other. Spanish isn’t my favorite language, but I could see it as beautiful if you did, at the time.  😉  But you were seeing someone and so I thought I’d write you later or some day.

Now, so much has passed and I’m starting to figure out that for normal people, 8 years or whatever is a really long time and nobody remembers anything, too busy taking what they can get while the getting is good.  I don’t think anyone thinks that there’s something that’s right, I don’t even know if I do anymore.

Anyway, we didn’t really talk that much so I don’t know what kind of person you are or whether we’d get along or anything, it was just that one conversation really in whatever that castle dorm place was called.  Manor… I guess and that other conversation earlier but…

So yeah.  If you remember me, write me.  Don’t wait years like I did, thinking there’s a right time.  You should write me now, JUST in case, and we should talk, so maybe we might get to know each other and keep in touch before things are too different for us.”

Ha!

February 27, 2012

I’m on an e-mailing list for a Catholic Church in the East Village (don’t ask) and their newsletter last week begins: LENT IS ON!  Don’t I know it, Jesus! What are you giving up?  I’m giving up socializing.

This Weekend

February 25, 2012

Not just a CLASS on squatting, but a SYMPOSIUM on it!  My brother once told me about these people he’d heard of who were squatting in a mansion in Paris.  I’d rather squat than rent.  My other house is a tenement.

XXXXX FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24 XXXXX

Squatting Europe Collective

For the first time ever, a group of activist researchers from the European squatting movement are gathering in New York City. They will make public appearances to speak about the decades-old movement of squatting and building occupations in their respective countries. The tradition of political squatting is moving from the shadows into the light. With the world-wide rise of the Occupy movement, the deep reservoir of experience within the movements of political squatting have become suddenly significant.

 

Generations of activists have participated in occupations of vacant buildings in Europe, beginning in the 1970s. The best known early success was the famous free city of Christiania in Copenhagen. But every major city in Europe has experienced some version of politicized squatting, most recently in the form of social centers.

Various times, locations, and events. Check website for complete listings.

Continues through MONDAY

sites.google.com/site/housemagicbfc/sqek-nyc-feb-12-schedule

New Trends

February 24, 2012

Aside from “writing about people who live alone,” “kids wax existential about love” seems to be another big one.

I think the best is the last one. How does this kid know that sometimes wives look like trucks!?

Spotted

February 24, 2012

Anything?

I dare someone to call, strike up a convo and report back to itinerantdaughterandson@gmail.com.  (In case you can’t see it, it reads: If anyone wants to talk about anything, call me, 347-469-3173.)

Why Women Are Better Than Men

February 23, 2012

Reason #779:

” ‘Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes,’ though Levin about his wife, as he talked to her that night.

“Levin thought of the Gospel text not because he considered himself wise and prudent.  He did not, but he could not help knowing that he was more intelligent than his wife and Agafya, and he could not help knowing that when he thought about death he thought with all his heart and soul.  He knew, too, that many men of great intellect, whose thoughts on death he had read, had pondered deeply about it and did not know a hundredth part of what his wife and Agafya knew.  Different as those two women were, Agafya and Katya, as his brother Nikolai called Kitty and as Levin particularly liked to call her now, were absolutely alike in this.  Both knew without any doubt whatever what was life and what was death, and though they could not possibly have answered or even have understood the questions that presented themselves to Levin, neither of them had any doubts about the significance of these phenomena and both looked upon them in the same way, sharing this view with millions of other people.  The proof that they knew firmly what death was lay in the fact that they never doubted for a moment how to deal with the dying and had no fear of death.  Levin, however, and others like him, though they could say a great deal about death, quite obviously did not know, because they were afraid of death and had not the faintest idea what to do when people were dying.  Had Levin now been alone with his brother Nikolai, he would have looked at him with terror and would have sat waiting there in still greater terror, and that would have been all he could do.”

~Guess

Me, Wishing I Were Dooce

February 22, 2012

Ew, as IF!

But still:

Thinking…

Does the printed “New York’s Boldest” on the side of NYPD Correctional Facilities vans refer to the policemen or the convicts?

Another PEN Obsession

February 22, 2012

Another thing I found in PEN America that I love:

IN THE BATHTUB WITH GERTRUDE STEIN

by Angelica Freitas

gertrude stein has a big ass slide over gertrude

stein and when she slides it makes a great noise

as though someone dragged a wet cloth across

the huge glass window of a public building

gertrude stein from here to there it’s you the washcloth

behind your ear’s all yours from here to there it’s me the rubber

duckie’s mine gertrude stein and thusly we’re pleased

but gertrude stein is a charlatan thinks it’s fine to let one

loose under the water not i gertrude stein? it’s impossible

that anyone could so enjoy making bubbles

and because it’s her tub she pulls the plug and steals

my towel

and runs out stark naked huge ass descending the

staircase onto the streets of saint-germain-des-pres

One-Liner Sunday

February 20, 2012

“[Medieval sex] totally turns me on.”

Fuck You, Universe

February 18, 2012

Instead of finishing Tolstoy, I’ve been watching old SVU’s, and TWICE in the past THREE episodes I’ve watched, someone has quoted Anna Karenina.  Really?  This is Xanadu all over again.