Thursday, May 31, 2007
Meme
Meme--according to 1oth Ed. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary-- n. an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture
Tag n. 1 : a game in which the player who is it chases others and tries to touch one of them who then becomes it
In no particular order...
6. It's a tough call to say which is worse, my short- or long-term memory. I leak data like a sieve. I was electrocuted once: 110 volts to the top of head, bolt of steel from the sky to earth threaded through my bones and boots, black out, wordlessness, wake up, whoa. Any relation to my poor memory? Can't remember if my memory was any better previous to this incident. See what I mean?!
2. I get really tense chanting Om on the yoga mat in a yoga class. Why??? Maybe it's because I've always been told I'm a horrible singer and am loathe to loft my voice in front of such placid strangers. In sixth grade, I was asked by the director to lyp-sycnh during a full-ensemble chorus number because I was standing relatively near the front of the stage. To boot: he [the director] was good friends with my mom and probably was gentler with me than he would've been otherwise. Ow!
3. I often forget to brush my teeth at night. Which means, many days I only get one brush in. I don't floss. Last time I was at a dentist: approximately 2002. Dr. Carnevale told me to come back in six months and that I would probably need a couple of cavities filled: my first. When I eat something dry and crunchy (pretzels, crackers, cookies, etc.), my molars fill up with crumbs like a squirrel's cheeks with nuts. I use my tongue to scrape the teeth-caves clean. It's a serious pain-in-the-ass. And entirely my fault.
7. I'm an unrepentant people-watcher. On the train, on the street, in a restaurant...I pretend to read a book, to be listening to the person I'm talking to, to be staring just to the left of you...but really, I'm looking striaght AT you, studying you, imagining you, scanning your face for a window to your thoughts. Mom and I used to sit on a bench in the middle of Paramus Park Mall, quietly munching on funnel cake, and never saying a word, just staring into the human throng. (BTW-when reading number 7, kindly pronounce it Paramus Park Mawl to feel the full-flavor of this memory, all confectionary sugar and deep-fry, in your mouth...)
1. I almost never use sun-block.
5. I am in the bad habit of eating latelatelate at night to ward off sleep. Long after Carson Daly is in bed and the infomerical reigns supreme. Sometimes, I fall asleep before finishing what I'm eating. One time, I fell asleep in bed with a bowl of rammen and woke up on a soupy pillow. I am, on occassion, completely ferral, undomesticated, and disgusting.
8. I once wrote a poem-series that started off with the lines: Heineken deuce-deuce and five-dollar sashimi at the laundromat / I am so ghetto. It was around the time that 8-Mile came out and I was disproportionately passionate about the working-class experience. I made friends with the local ilegales while washing our clothes and we would buy lots of cheap beer at the deli next door, get drunk, arm wrestle, and attempt to explain the world in slurry spanglish hybridizations of truths. Armando, if you are out there reading this somewhere, I'm sorry. I was telling you the truth when I said the only reason you couldn't move in with me and work-for-rent was because my mom never would've allowed it. Had I been living on my own, I would've gladly given you a bedroll in the basement. But mom didn't like 8-Mile road an no matter how many bills I paid or mortgage payments I made, it was still her casa. Lo siento, pobrecito amigo mio.
4. I have hairy feet and toes. They are my pride and joy. And Jesse can tell you what punishment awaits if you attempt to pluck, pull, shave or otherwise shear the source of Samson's strength.
Okay, so I am tagging Fred and Jackie, as they are the only other bloggers that I know. Hear that kiddos? As if we didn't know enough stupid facts about each other, now I want 8 more. 8...as in 8 Mile road, 8 O'Clock coffee,8 maids a-milking, 8-ball corner pocket and 8 players on a baseball team if you don't count the catcher cuz' what does he do besides sit there?
Rules:
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their 8 random things and post the rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and post their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
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Tag n. 1 : a game in which the player who is it chases others and tries to touch one of them who then becomes it
In no particular order...
6. It's a tough call to say which is worse, my short- or long-term memory. I leak data like a sieve. I was electrocuted once: 110 volts to the top of head, bolt of steel from the sky to earth threaded through my bones and boots, black out, wordlessness, wake up, whoa. Any relation to my poor memory? Can't remember if my memory was any better previous to this incident. See what I mean?!
2. I get really tense chanting Om on the yoga mat in a yoga class. Why??? Maybe it's because I've always been told I'm a horrible singer and am loathe to loft my voice in front of such placid strangers. In sixth grade, I was asked by the director to lyp-sycnh during a full-ensemble chorus number because I was standing relatively near the front of the stage. To boot: he [the director] was good friends with my mom and probably was gentler with me than he would've been otherwise. Ow!
3. I often forget to brush my teeth at night. Which means, many days I only get one brush in. I don't floss. Last time I was at a dentist: approximately 2002. Dr. Carnevale told me to come back in six months and that I would probably need a couple of cavities filled: my first. When I eat something dry and crunchy (pretzels, crackers, cookies, etc.), my molars fill up with crumbs like a squirrel's cheeks with nuts. I use my tongue to scrape the teeth-caves clean. It's a serious pain-in-the-ass. And entirely my fault.
7. I'm an unrepentant people-watcher. On the train, on the street, in a restaurant...I pretend to read a book, to be listening to the person I'm talking to, to be staring just to the left of you...but really, I'm looking striaght AT you, studying you, imagining you, scanning your face for a window to your thoughts. Mom and I used to sit on a bench in the middle of Paramus Park Mall, quietly munching on funnel cake, and never saying a word, just staring into the human throng. (BTW-when reading number 7, kindly pronounce it Paramus Park Mawl to feel the full-flavor of this memory, all confectionary sugar and deep-fry, in your mouth...)
1. I almost never use sun-block.
5. I am in the bad habit of eating latelatelate at night to ward off sleep. Long after Carson Daly is in bed and the infomerical reigns supreme. Sometimes, I fall asleep before finishing what I'm eating. One time, I fell asleep in bed with a bowl of rammen and woke up on a soupy pillow. I am, on occassion, completely ferral, undomesticated, and disgusting.
8. I once wrote a poem-series that started off with the lines: Heineken deuce-deuce and five-dollar sashimi at the laundromat / I am so ghetto. It was around the time that 8-Mile came out and I was disproportionately passionate about the working-class experience. I made friends with the local ilegales while washing our clothes and we would buy lots of cheap beer at the deli next door, get drunk, arm wrestle, and attempt to explain the world in slurry spanglish hybridizations of truths. Armando, if you are out there reading this somewhere, I'm sorry. I was telling you the truth when I said the only reason you couldn't move in with me and work-for-rent was because my mom never would've allowed it. Had I been living on my own, I would've gladly given you a bedroll in the basement. But mom didn't like 8-Mile road an no matter how many bills I paid or mortgage payments I made, it was still her casa. Lo siento, pobrecito amigo mio.
4. I have hairy feet and toes. They are my pride and joy. And Jesse can tell you what punishment awaits if you attempt to pluck, pull, shave or otherwise shear the source of Samson's strength.
Okay, so I am tagging Fred and Jackie, as they are the only other bloggers that I know. Hear that kiddos? As if we didn't know enough stupid facts about each other, now I want 8 more. 8...as in 8 Mile road, 8 O'Clock coffee,8 maids a-milking, 8-ball corner pocket and 8 players on a baseball team if you don't count the catcher cuz' what does he do besides sit there?
Rules:
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their 8 random things and post the rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and post their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Monday, May 28, 2007
You Are Tagged!!!
Jesse and John, you are each tagged! Check out Soggy Peanut Shells to see what I mean - and then check out Faithy's blog post entitled "They Like Me, They Really Like Me!" because she's got a better handle on it than I do! Maybe you'll know more peops to send it along to . . . .
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Monday, May 14, 2007
Mexican Mother's Day
As everyone knows, Mother's Day is the most popular day to dine out in America. At least, according to the National Restaurant Association (according to Wikipedia.) This being the case, I wasn't able to spend Sunday with the Momster as I deemed it more important to make lots of money by getting other people's mothers drunk.
(One mom looked like she was going to pass out on the bench outside after she left! An ex- bartender herself, she tipped rather generously, so naturally, I poured the same.)
However, good fortune always being around the corner wearing a sombrero, Friday was the officially recognized Mother's Day of Mexico. So,
I took Friday night off from work to take my mother out with my sister and brother-n-law (the renowned jimmymaker.) We went to Banana's Comedy Club on Rt. 17 in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. Situated in a lovely Holiday Inn, fumigated by the lovely Turnpike corridor breeze, Banana's is a fantastic place to spend Mexican Mother's Day, or any other day really, with the ones you love. Ticket prices are $12 for the show alone, and $31.50 for the show plus three-course (one-star) meal at the restaurant beforehand. Dirt cheap! And the talent is good. In the past, before they were quite so well-known, Banana's has hosted the likes of Seinfeld, Chris Rock and many others.
The club is located off the main lobby, next to the hotel restaurant, in an unadorned banquet hall with a futon-sized stage where the comedians perform, literally, with their backs against the wall. Patrons are sat communally at long, narrow tables-- if you are unlucky enough to be seated facing away from center, you have to crane your neck awkwardly to see the action. Neck-aches withstanding, we had a wonderful evening full of belly-deep laughter, mediocre food and so-so drinks (coffee for the madre.)
The headliner, Greg Vacarolle, had great observational humor but really shined in his ability to work the crowd. A tall man, the very first line of his set as he walked to the front of the tiny stage
and looked down at a heavy-set woman in full Jersey regalia (hairspray, makeup, diamonds), was: Wow, you're at ball-level... that's kind of awkward. He picked on her for being ball-level periodically throughout the night, at one point referring to her as 'ball-lady'-- right before introducing himself to her son beside her! He made fun of another table as being slow by explaining his jokes to them after the punch-lines. He referred all of his Italian jokes to Steve, a Sopranos-looking fellow seated at the table next to us, and whenever he needed a friend during an awkward silence, again Steve was his go-to.
The opening comedian's name was Chips Something-or-Other. (Not really Something-or-Other,
I just can't remember. Is this a dense crowd or what, Steve?) Wearing a black cape and top-hat, he began his act with a mock magician's routine. To the tune of cheesy elevator music, never speaking a single abra or cadabra, he took a series of objects out of a trunk and created amazing illusions with them. For instance, two plastic cups inserted one inside the other go under his handkerchief. He waves his hand over the hanky, wisps away the hanky revealing the two-cups-in-one, and then, for all to see, magically removes one cup from the other, making two! Que increible! He also made a cow-bell disappear from underneath his hanky by slapping it with his other hand, sending it crashing and clanking to the back of the stage. Voila! After the mock magic and idiotic illusions, Chips did a quick set of observations mostly centered on the aging body and its infirmities.
I definitely recommend the Banana's Comedy Club. All of us had our share of disappointment at UCB, but in my two visits to BCC there's been nothing but knee-slapping and tears shooting from eyeballs. Also, I tip my sombrero to Mothers everywhere. Keep on doing that strange drive-me-crazy/love-me-like-a-rock thing that noone can accomplish quite like yous.
Mom, Heather and I (goofy, but not drunk.)
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(One mom looked like she was going to pass out on the bench outside after she left! An ex- bartender herself, she tipped rather generously, so naturally, I poured the same.)However, good fortune always being around the corner wearing a sombrero, Friday was the officially recognized Mother's Day of Mexico. So,
I took Friday night off from work to take my mother out with my sister and brother-n-law (the renowned jimmymaker.) We went to Banana's Comedy Club on Rt. 17 in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ. Situated in a lovely Holiday Inn, fumigated by the lovely Turnpike corridor breeze, Banana's is a fantastic place to spend Mexican Mother's Day, or any other day really, with the ones you love. Ticket prices are $12 for the show alone, and $31.50 for the show plus three-course (one-star) meal at the restaurant beforehand. Dirt cheap! And the talent is good. In the past, before they were quite so well-known, Banana's has hosted the likes of Seinfeld, Chris Rock and many others.The club is located off the main lobby, next to the hotel restaurant, in an unadorned banquet hall with a futon-sized stage where the comedians perform, literally, with their backs against the wall. Patrons are sat communally at long, narrow tables-- if you are unlucky enough to be seated facing away from center, you have to crane your neck awkwardly to see the action. Neck-aches withstanding, we had a wonderful evening full of belly-deep laughter, mediocre food and so-so drinks (coffee for the madre.)
The headliner, Greg Vacarolle, had great observational humor but really shined in his ability to work the crowd. A tall man, the very first line of his set as he walked to the front of the tiny stage
and looked down at a heavy-set woman in full Jersey regalia (hairspray, makeup, diamonds), was: Wow, you're at ball-level... that's kind of awkward. He picked on her for being ball-level periodically throughout the night, at one point referring to her as 'ball-lady'-- right before introducing himself to her son beside her! He made fun of another table as being slow by explaining his jokes to them after the punch-lines. He referred all of his Italian jokes to Steve, a Sopranos-looking fellow seated at the table next to us, and whenever he needed a friend during an awkward silence, again Steve was his go-to.The opening comedian's name was Chips Something-or-Other. (Not really Something-or-Other,
I just can't remember. Is this a dense crowd or what, Steve?) Wearing a black cape and top-hat, he began his act with a mock magician's routine. To the tune of cheesy elevator music, never speaking a single abra or cadabra, he took a series of objects out of a trunk and created amazing illusions with them. For instance, two plastic cups inserted one inside the other go under his handkerchief. He waves his hand over the hanky, wisps away the hanky revealing the two-cups-in-one, and then, for all to see, magically removes one cup from the other, making two! Que increible! He also made a cow-bell disappear from underneath his hanky by slapping it with his other hand, sending it crashing and clanking to the back of the stage. Voila! After the mock magic and idiotic illusions, Chips did a quick set of observations mostly centered on the aging body and its infirmities.I definitely recommend the Banana's Comedy Club. All of us had our share of disappointment at UCB, but in my two visits to BCC there's been nothing but knee-slapping and tears shooting from eyeballs. Also, I tip my sombrero to Mothers everywhere. Keep on doing that strange drive-me-crazy/love-me-like-a-rock thing that noone can accomplish quite like yous.
Mom, Heather and I (goofy, but not drunk.) Friday, May 11, 2007
Overheard in Brooklyn
A couple is on the train, filling out some kind of application.
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Dude: Okay, what's it say here? Race? Why the fuck I gotta put down that I have a race? I'm not black.
Chick: That's just stupid. Why would they want you to put that?
Dude: Yeah! This is some stupid shit. They want me to put down that I'm black, and I'm not. What the fuck?
Chick: You know what? Leave it blank. And if they ask you, tell them that you don't have any race in you. They can't ask about that kind of shit anyway.
from unfurnished brooklyn
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Estudiando Espanol
I rode the B train to 104th St this evening to attend my first-of-eight Spanish classes at the Taller Latino Americano, a non-profit arts and education organization that offers conversationally-modelled Spanish classes, hosts live music and dance performances and readings, and boasts a gallery space displaying arts of all cultures and varieties. The train ride was pleasant, except for a brief eruption of ignorance from a raving, despicable anti-semite who thanked George W Bush aloud for promising to veto the expansion of existing hate-crime law to include
sexual orientations, which he mistook as a threat against his being hideously cursed with diarrhea-stained teeth. After his exit, I scanned through a Spanish dictionary with nervous, sweaty hands (a la Caitie) and felt the flicking of butterfly wings in my stomach. Realize, it's been 3-plus years since I sat in a classroom where omnipotent teachers riddled me with quixotic questions while my Darwinian peers drooled at any sign of weakness...
Okay, I'll admit, I was a little unduly anxious about a Beginner-II Spanish class at a hip non-profit with a bunch of other hacks who turned out, of course, to be as friendly and fumbling-over-their-phrasing as I. I began to relax and smile immediately upon entering the narrow stairwell to the third-floor school; the risers were painted bright pinks, yellows, greens and blues, and every square inch of bright-blue walls was covered in lush assemblage art, multi-colored, figural swirlings...the stuff on the cover of Santana's Abraxas or from imagined
Ahayuasca fevered visions, only softer, friendlier. A big metal door opened into a large, well-lit gallery with white walls covered in the artwork of Otto Franz Krone and a small office with a window and three visible classrooms (one with an older gentleman inside softly strumming a guitar, all plush with artwork) plus some hidden rooms down hallways blocked off from the gallery with draping fabrics.
The teachers were riddlers of a sort, but only in the sense of being playful with words, which is their stated teaching method. The three-hour class was divided into two halves, with a break in the middle, each half taught by a different teacher. The first half was taught by Bernado, a pony-tailed Argentinian with a wooden-bead bracelet, a shirt unbuttoned half-way to his navel, and an awesome sense of humor. ("I don't get your English language," he said. "You guys say I am sitting, never I am seated. As if to sit in a chair was active. In English, I am always laying, laying laying...but I never get laid!") He waxed poetic about the differences between Spanish and English, told us to learn with our ears and our tongues first, simply repeating everything like children, and to worry about our brains later. The second half was taught by a Dominican woman who introduced herself as Yolanda Loca. She directed a lively conversation, wrote feverishly on the dry-erase board, danced and mimed out the scenes we were attempting to describe in Spanish. At the end of class, she brought in a 12 or 13 year-old who taught us to sing (with an amazing operatic voice!) a silly child's song called El Cuerpo that melodically, more than methodically, traversed the parts of the body (En la cabeza tengo la boca / Tengo los ojos y la nariz , etc.)
My fellow classmates were a goofy, lovable bunch. There was a comfortable nervousness and a genuine kindness about everyone. (Maybe because we all had sweaty hands on the train beforehand. ..or because we had all witnessed something hateful on the way...or maybe the hypnotic artwork of the Taller was casting a spell over us, who knows?) There was a psychiatrist from New City, orginally Montreal, who was there because he was traveling soon to Argentina to study tango. There was a young Jamaican-Chinese woman in real-estate. A social worker, a costume designer, and a young IBM manager deaf in one ear. A young assistant teacher, originally from the Catskills, wearing a dress straight out of Little House on the Prarie. There was Shakira, Crystal, Gladys, Paul, Sam, Elizabeth, Meaghan y yo: eight in total. Not to toot my own horn, but of all the students, I was the most Spanglish-ally versed and may, we'll see after a class or two, say adios to these cool characters and move into the Intermediate I session.
Which brings us to the theory of relativity. Ego is lighter than matter; ergo sum total, when I came home I sounded good in front of Jackie and Jesse, but Caitie stumped me on some first-grader vocabulary, and Sigi on the stoop stupefied me with heir rapid-fire tongue which, I later learned, semper fi, is not faster than the speed of light because Sigi, who yesterday chatted it up on my behalf at a Mexican birthday party, is too slow for her Castillian roomate whose sophisticated grammar and lispy lips elude even her, so...Einstein fled Germany and helped us complete the Manhattan Project, the end.
You know what I really, really loved about the Taller, besides the killer artwork and wide wooden floors and high ceilings and shiny, happy people all around? The playful attitude towards language-learning. Bernado told us that we were to let down our guards and become as children...that with ten to fifteen verbs, all connected to the body (start with the body, he said), we could dance with anybody, for he described conversation as a dance, throwing the same words back and forth at each other like a rhythm, parroting-- he said our previous classrooms had been classical music, his classroom was going to be a jam session, and that you could not make mistakes with sounds, the only mistake was silence.
Que padre!
I can't wait for Wednesday's class. Hopefully, the Nets won't end up having any playoff games on a school-night. Unlike college, secondary, primary, kindergarten, and even pre-school which, if you don't believe me ask my mother, I dropped out of--I won't be skipping a jam session with Bernado y Yolanda y estes companeros chistosos. I can't wait to return to El Taller!
(This photo must be dated because those walls were peppered with much more art!)
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sexual orientations, which he mistook as a threat against his being hideously cursed with diarrhea-stained teeth. After his exit, I scanned through a Spanish dictionary with nervous, sweaty hands (a la Caitie) and felt the flicking of butterfly wings in my stomach. Realize, it's been 3-plus years since I sat in a classroom where omnipotent teachers riddled me with quixotic questions while my Darwinian peers drooled at any sign of weakness...Okay, I'll admit, I was a little unduly anxious about a Beginner-II Spanish class at a hip non-profit with a bunch of other hacks who turned out, of course, to be as friendly and fumbling-over-their-phrasing as I. I began to relax and smile immediately upon entering the narrow stairwell to the third-floor school; the risers were painted bright pinks, yellows, greens and blues, and every square inch of bright-blue walls was covered in lush assemblage art, multi-colored, figural swirlings...the stuff on the cover of Santana's Abraxas or from imagined
Ahayuasca fevered visions, only softer, friendlier. A big metal door opened into a large, well-lit gallery with white walls covered in the artwork of Otto Franz Krone and a small office with a window and three visible classrooms (one with an older gentleman inside softly strumming a guitar, all plush with artwork) plus some hidden rooms down hallways blocked off from the gallery with draping fabrics.The teachers were riddlers of a sort, but only in the sense of being playful with words, which is their stated teaching method. The three-hour class was divided into two halves, with a break in the middle, each half taught by a different teacher. The first half was taught by Bernado, a pony-tailed Argentinian with a wooden-bead bracelet, a shirt unbuttoned half-way to his navel, and an awesome sense of humor. ("I don't get your English language," he said. "You guys say I am sitting, never I am seated. As if to sit in a chair was active. In English, I am always laying, laying laying...but I never get laid!") He waxed poetic about the differences between Spanish and English, told us to learn with our ears and our tongues first, simply repeating everything like children, and to worry about our brains later. The second half was taught by a Dominican woman who introduced herself as Yolanda Loca. She directed a lively conversation, wrote feverishly on the dry-erase board, danced and mimed out the scenes we were attempting to describe in Spanish. At the end of class, she brought in a 12 or 13 year-old who taught us to sing (with an amazing operatic voice!) a silly child's song called El Cuerpo that melodically, more than methodically, traversed the parts of the body (En la cabeza tengo la boca / Tengo los ojos y la nariz , etc.)
My fellow classmates were a goofy, lovable bunch. There was a comfortable nervousness and a genuine kindness about everyone. (Maybe because we all had sweaty hands on the train beforehand. ..or because we had all witnessed something hateful on the way...or maybe the hypnotic artwork of the Taller was casting a spell over us, who knows?) There was a psychiatrist from New City, orginally Montreal, who was there because he was traveling soon to Argentina to study tango. There was a young Jamaican-Chinese woman in real-estate. A social worker, a costume designer, and a young IBM manager deaf in one ear. A young assistant teacher, originally from the Catskills, wearing a dress straight out of Little House on the Prarie. There was Shakira, Crystal, Gladys, Paul, Sam, Elizabeth, Meaghan y yo: eight in total. Not to toot my own horn, but of all the students, I was the most Spanglish-ally versed and may, we'll see after a class or two, say adios to these cool characters and move into the Intermediate I session.
Which brings us to the theory of relativity. Ego is lighter than matter; ergo sum total, when I came home I sounded good in front of Jackie and Jesse, but Caitie stumped me on some first-grader vocabulary, and Sigi on the stoop stupefied me with heir rapid-fire tongue which, I later learned, semper fi, is not faster than the speed of light because Sigi, who yesterday chatted it up on my behalf at a Mexican birthday party, is too slow for her Castillian roomate whose sophisticated grammar and lispy lips elude even her, so...Einstein fled Germany and helped us complete the Manhattan Project, the end.
You know what I really, really loved about the Taller, besides the killer artwork and wide wooden floors and high ceilings and shiny, happy people all around? The playful attitude towards language-learning. Bernado told us that we were to let down our guards and become as children...that with ten to fifteen verbs, all connected to the body (start with the body, he said), we could dance with anybody, for he described conversation as a dance, throwing the same words back and forth at each other like a rhythm, parroting-- he said our previous classrooms had been classical music, his classroom was going to be a jam session, and that you could not make mistakes with sounds, the only mistake was silence.
Que padre!
I can't wait for Wednesday's class. Hopefully, the Nets won't end up having any playoff games on a school-night. Unlike college, secondary, primary, kindergarten, and even pre-school which, if you don't believe me ask my mother, I dropped out of--I won't be skipping a jam session with Bernado y Yolanda y estes companeros chistosos. I can't wait to return to El Taller!
(This photo must be dated because those walls were peppered with much more art!)
Saturday, May 05, 2007
The Lonely Pole
Conversation that happens only in my head:"Wow, man, those are some nasty blisters on your hands."
"Yeah . . you know, the pole dancing."
Yes! I attended my first pole dancing lesson this past friday - courtesy of the first of my two (almost free) passes to the 4th Ave Crunch Fitness in Manhattan. Jess and I had been joking about an episode of King of Queens where Doug encourages his wife Carrie to take pole dancing lessons and is appalled when she turns out to be - though enthusiastic - really, really bad. So I sauntered into that class, ready to flex my carefully cultivated dancer moves on a - surely - entirely surmountable pole.
My first clue should have been when I walked into the class wearing a baggy baseball T and an old pair of Jesse's gym shorts - everyone else (guys and girls included) were sporting tight tank tops and cute teeny weeny shorts.
So . . . I was bad.
Really, really bad.
Be it nerves, the hand lotion I'd applied earlier that day, whatever - the instant my hands touched the pole, they'd sweat, slipping right off. I was one of three beginners placed at the back left pole, and while the other two could at the very least pull themselves up and cling to the pole for long enough to distinguish between their mount and dismount, I was flopping, flailing, jumping with humiliatingly earnest little hops and lunges, attempting to restrain my extremely unsexy grunts as each go around sweatied up the pole even more.
Really, really, really bad.
And there were some pros in that class! We're talkin, girls AND guys twirling, whirling, climbing ten feet above the hard wood floor to flip themselves upside down and descend, backward, head-first, with only the strength of their clenched thighs slowing their foxy fall. Many were sassy, tattooed mamas who looked like pole dancing might be only one of a long list of sassy weeknight activities, but one or two totally looked like only moments before entering class they'd carefully tucked away their horned rimmed marian librarian glasses and let down their hair from their sensible tightly-pinned 'do's. It was these couple of gals who really rocked the 'tude, bringing much more to the table than merely the fancy tricks. I was inspired, truly.
The class was fun enough in itself that frustration was kept at bay, and actually, by the end, I had made progress. I got to the point where I could actually hold myself up off the ground, no slippage, long enough to do the required leg spread, leg cross, sexy slide down to the floor, and sinuous reverse backbend to stand up. The first time I did it I actually jumped up and down, trying to get the instructor's attention by waving both hands. I even managed to brave one of the backwards spins around the pole! True, my spine lacked the sultry arch, and it probably looked more like I had leaned and jumped backwards in an imitation of a slow, painful death swoon, but I did it!
So, practice will be required; upper arm strength will need to be cultivated; proper pole dancing attire is an obvious must.
Clear plastic platform shoes anyone?
Friday, May 04, 2007
Bringing Sexy Back
Got to give it up to the groundfloor at 12 Parkside Court!
In these days of unkempt hairdos and vintage fashion, we are a well-kempt vintage.
C'mon now, we clean on schedule and run a flatbush garden of flowers, bamboo, herbs, vines, vegetables.
Are we not the coolest kids gentrifying Brooklyn without pants that look like they were painted onto an eating disorder? (As to the latter, there have been many an instantly emptied Haggan-Daez to prove my point.)
It reminds me of other places I have lived.
Not 12 St. John--though the coincidence of numbers and names would have been nice--
but 222 St. Charles: Our classmates' houses came packed with pizza boxes and beer cans. We had crepes, creme brule and cooking wine
and a tiny little tv with a vast muppet-movie collection and lots of little guppies and snails in an aquarium, and a mouse and a guniea pig and a tire-swing and a rabbit.
But I digress.
My point is simply, we're bringing sexy back.
Those other hipsters don't know how to act.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Gettysburg Spring Fest 07
So I entered back into the mystical world of the college bound this past weekend, however, as a full-blown smithie during my undergrad, I was wholly uneducated to the ways of comingling, coed, and co-drinking that goes on at most US colleges, but most notably for this post's purposes, at Gettysburg College in - you guessed it - Gettysburg, PA.
Gettysburg Spring Fest 07! The very title suggests a drunken aura, a debaucherous hint at what kind of weekend it was to be . . .
Nals and I were visiting Liz mere weeks before her scheduled graduation as a PolySci major from Gettysburg College (concentration in international relations??). Nally braved the bus; I, a far more comfortable 3 1/2 hour train ride from Penn Station. My arrival in Harrisburg began our adventure, and the next 45 minutes consisted of Nally driving the Honda through the blank byways of Gettysburg (Liz having forgotten her license) with Liz forgetting that Nally was driving, and thus, causing more than one occasion for turning the car around to reclaim a missed turn, an ignored stop sign.
We had barely thrown down our travel bags in Liz's cozy, messy apartment when it was off to our first "mixer." A mixer is a function co-hosted by two or more social groups - aka a frat party, with a good measure of sorority sisters thrown in. There were boobs, beer, boys, and baaaaaaaad music - the steeves sisters danced the night away!
Morning brought an AM mixer - and no, there was no diminishment of alcohol given the early hour - who doesn't want to be choking down cough-syrup flavored koolaid and everclear? I didn't, apparently *good grief*
After a smattering of Spring Fest (cookout food, face-painting, cotton candy, and musical guest Black Violin), it was off to Liz's stage appearance as Zanthar, an 11-yr-old's multi-hued figment of imagination. Liz was brilliant, eloquent, colorful (what else would you expect from a steeves?)
The unfortunately named World War 3 (generations of smith alums rolled their eyes) was the highlight of our late afternoon. After much preparation involving camouflage, rum and cokes, black eyeliner turned face paint, and ready-to-be-trashed-clothing, we headed to our third alcohol-soaked event in less than 24 hours. WW3 turned out to be a big water fight, students grabbing anything with which to chuck, hurl, splash, careen, and dash water on guys and girls alike. It was literally hours we spent doing this in the frat's conveniently pool-shaped basement.
And then my tooth fell out.
No joke. A piece of my periodontic equipment fell into 4 inches of brown, rum soaked, sudsy (did i mention laundry detergent had been thrown into the mess? to make the floor slippery enough for sliding of course!) water. With drink, soap, and tears blurring my eyes, I attempted to serruptitiously search the abyss.
"Nally!"
"Nally! Get over here!"
"!!!!"
"Did you swallow it?!!!"
'NO!"
Within seconds our frantic parting of the non-partable waters attracted the attention of the few remaining fraternity brothers.
"What are you looking for?"
"Nothing. It's a contact. Don't worry about it"
"Are you seriously looking for a contact in this?"
The truth was soon revealed and I found myself squatting with my two sisters and four burly fraternity alums, peering into the murky depths that was their basement floor, surrounded by bass and tenor choruses of 'don't worry,' 'don't be embarrassed,' "come on, give us a smile," casting about for the fattest pearl, the biggest oyster, the gayest of rainbow trout, that heart of the ocean flung from the deck of the titanic: my tooth.
Suddenly, the biggest, burliest, sleaziest frat boy of them all paused, held out his hand to me; the tooth gleaming, soapy in his outstretched fingers. Shouts of "you saved the wedding! you saved the wedding!" filled the air as the steeves girls threw themselves upon this beast, hugs abounded, giving me an opportunity to slip off to the destroyed bathroom, rinse off my prodigal tooth, and place it back in my mouth.
Yes, I put it in my mouth. Deal with it.
the end.
