In which I’m still crushin’ on NYC.

Here I am (on the right) waiting for the C train at 42nd street in my cheapo $5 Chanel knock-off sunglasses, which I bought on the street from a guy who insisted on cleaning them and removing the sticker for me:

And that’s Aimee on the left, looking totally fucking hot. (I only posted this because she looks so hot. I look like a mafia bride, but since I’m cool I’m posting it anyway so you can see how hot Aimee, The Easiest Woman In The World To Travel With, looks.)

And before I forget, a few more New York impressions:

• Pregnant women walking around wearing high heels.
• Highschool girls with more cleavage than, well, a lot of cleavage.
• The subway platforms are one hundred and five degrees in September.
• Tiny, tiny dogs. Little tiny small tiny dogs. Everywhere.
• You can always smell food when you’re outside, no matter where you are or what time it is.
• It’s never quiet, and it’s never dark. Ever.

God I wanna go back.
——–

In which I come home and ache for NYC.

Oh, sweet Manhattan, my love. I miss you so already.

I misted up getting on the train to Jersey at Penn Station. I know you’ve already forgotten me, you fickle bitch, but oh how I miss you.

~+~+~

I have never responded to any location the way I did to New York. The place totally resonates with me. Everything I’ve ever wanted is there. And holy shit, I could sing there all the time.

Waking up in Manhattan and going to sleep in Iowa will fuck your head right up, let me tell you. I’m currently alone in my house, on twenty-seven acres in the middle of nowhere, in the utter solitude and silence of rural Iowa. I can’t hear a single noise beside the fan in my computer and one of the dogs licking herself.

Talk about culture shock.

I think I’m depressed.

~+~+~

Mr. Brett called me and said, “Baby! How’s New York?!”

“I LOVE NEW YORK!” I said.

“Where you at?”

“I’m outside of Agency.”

“Oh, you’re home already?”

“Yeah, we left Manhattan this morning. I fucking LOVE New York, oh my God. I can’t even tell you. How’s Telluride?”

“We’re in Denver. We’re going up to Ron’s for the night, maybe two.”

“We?”

“Me and Ron and Jeff and Miko.”

“Oh, give those dudes a big, wet, sloppy kiss on the mouth with tongue for me!”

“Normally I would,” he said, “but Miko got hit by a car yesterday and his face is all fucked up. Thirty stitches in his mouth, and his skull is fractured.”

“Oh no, that poor bastard, he has the most consistently horrible luck. How was the very Reverend Al Green?”

“Oh. My God.”

“Oh your God?” I asked.

“OH. MY. GOD.,” he intoned. “He was amazing. Joan Osbourne sang a duet with him, and Maceo Parker was incredible, and so were the Black Crows!”

“You’re so lucky! I’m so jealous!”

So he probably won’t be home until Thursday. But why hurry back? I told him to take all the time he wants. I miss him, but neither of us really wants to be here anyway.

~+~+~

When I went to pick up Bindu I told Barb that I want to sell my house and move to New York. Immediately.

“How would Mr. Brett fit in there?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I could just lock him in the apartment. All he needs is a couch and a television!”

~+~+~

Yes, I’m definitely depressed.

I want to go back to New York. I think I’ll start making plans tomorrow for my next trip. Deb said I could stay with her! I need to check out Brooklyn anyway.

I have to go to bed so I can work tomorrow.

Sigh.
——–

This is my second attempt at today’s blog post. It will not be as cool as the one I just lost. God damn it.

~+~+~

Aimee and I walked to Little India and had amazing Indian food at a kosher, vegetarian Indian restaurant. It was fantastic and delicious.

After that, we shopped a little – didn’t buy anything – and then navigated the New York subway system sans guide to Central Park where she hit the deli she’d wanted to go to, Cafe La Fortuna, where she bought Kevin a t-shirt and a couple of cannolis. We did not end up in Queens, which is an accomplishment in itself considering how little attention we’d paid to any of our previous guided forays into the world of public transportation here.

We made it back to Penn Station and from there walked to Steven’s apartment. Steven had to work from two until eight, the poor dear, so we hung out here with JoLynn a little bit, then I walked ten blocks to 8th and 21st to meet up with Deb and Jimmy at Bright’s Food. They ate dinner and I had a pomegranite juice-based cocktail.

~+~+~

The gay boys in Chelsea are so fucking cute, you would not believe it.

Gay boy-watching is a totally different sport than straight boy-watching; it has a whole different set of criteria. It’s sort of like the kind of looking you might do at high school kids. You look because they’re eye candy, but you don’t mean it because, well, they’re kids. With the gay boys you don’t mean it because they’re gay. You look because they’re pretty, not because you want to fuck them.

Gay boys have their own aesthetic, and around here they’re so pretty and stylish, walking around smiling and holding hands, with their little outfits and their high-end hair products and their obviously too-obsessive workout and diet routines and their own highly specific and stylized expression of masculine beauty and sex appeal. The cult-of-the-body problem is tragically overrepresented in this population, sad to say, but they’re astonishingly easy to look at.

I lived in San Francisco once. The boys here are way cuter.

Steven has told me twice since I’ve been here that I have the fag hag gene. “Gay men love you, and you love them. You have the gene.” I’ve always associated the phrase ‘fag hag’ with those sad fat chicks who fall tragically in love with homosexual men and try fruitlessly to ‘convert’ them, but I think he meant it in a nice way. The men around here are just really open and sweet, and it’s a nice trait to see in a male population. It’s not that I think straight men should act like women, but it’s nice to see certain quasi-feminine qualities so overtly expressed in males.

“Stanley asked me once on my blog when I’d ‘turned into such a fag hag’,” I replied to Steven.

“Yeah, when did you?”

“I guess I’ve always been one. Even my roommate in junior college was queer. But there are only two out fags in Fairfield so I guess my membership expired from lack of proximity. You can call me and whine on my voice mail every so often to keep me in the loop.”

He laughed.

~+~+~

After dinner, Debbie & Jimmy and I walked up to and around the Village. I saw The Blue Note, I saw a tattoo parlour I wanted to give money to, I saw cute hippy skirts I wanted to buy. It’s a cute area, but the locals aren’t kidding when they say the grid system breaks down there – the streets are all curvy and some intersections boast three or more roads all trying to cross each other.

We found a bar and sat and had a couple of cocktails and socialized. I told them to join us in Telluride next year; I think Jimmy’s considering it. I complained about wanting to stay longer, and they offered me their couch. I seriously considered it until I realized that changing my ticket would take up much of my remaining cash and that I wouldn’t be able to stay and eat too. Plus I should probably return to work on Tuesday so I can, you know, like, keep my job and stuff.

We walked through Washington Park and Jimmy hailed me a cab and I came back to Steven and JoLynn’s.

Now I’m sitting on the balcony with a bottle of water and an ashtray, and New York is being New York and it’s loud and wonderful and I can’t believe I’ll be back in my old farmhouse tomorrow afternoon. We’re leaving here at nine, taking the subway and the skytrain to Newark, then flying to Chicago, then flying to Des Moines (woe are my ears with all those pressure changes), and then putting oil in the jeep and driving back to Faifield where I will drop of Aimee, pick up Shiva and Stella (and probably something to eat), then a side trip through Libertyville to pick up Miss Bindu, and then home… where I will probably sleep for twenty hours.
——–

I’ve been taking pictures with my camera phone, but since I’m roaming here I can’t send them to an email account – “network connection denied”.

I’ll add images to the preceeding posts when I get home. And then I’ll get all the pics off of Aimee’s camera and post them in the gallery. As soon as I install the gallery software, that is.

~+~+~

Steven has to work today, so Aimee and I are going to Little India and then over to some restaurant so she can buy some food she wants. A chocolatier, maybe? Anyway, we’ll be navigating New York subways alone and with no native guide. Eeek!

Tonight I’m going to try to have dinner with Debbie and her husband Jimmy, but I don’t know when and where yet.

~+~+~

We’re leaving tomorrow. Tomorrow night I’ll be home with my dogs in my own house (Brett won’t get back until Wednesday). I’m going to be honest and say that I’m not particularly excited by the prospect. I’ve wanted every vacation I’ve been on in the last decade to be over; I was always ready to get home among my own stuff. Not this time. I don’t want to go home!

Maybe I’ll just go live on Debbie’s couch and not go home at all.

Yeah, that’d go over like a lead brick. *chortle*
——–

In which I prove I will go anywhere with my husband because I’m totally fucking superior.

Saturday I went to Davenport with Mr. Brett to a motorcycle swap meet. He had money burning a hole in his pocket and wanted to, and I quote, “Buy something cool to drag home in the back of my truck.”

When I asked him what he was looking for, he didn’t have anything in mind. He just wanted to shop.

I was wearing my cool dress from Amy, and if you’ve ever been to a bike swap meet you know I wasn’t dressed appropriately. Biker bitches wear tight jeans and black tanks or bustiers, boots, braids, and they try to have all their ink hanging out so it can be seen. But I’d arrived in a pick-up and not on the back of a bike, so screw ’em.

We wandered around in the hot sun and I listened to my husband make sex noises like, “Ooh, baby, look at that!” and “Now that’s sexy,” as he looked at things made out of metal that were dripping oil.

At one point, he found a bike he liked so much he said, “I’d trade you for one of those!” and it took me a moment before I realized that what he’d said was actually a compliment.

After awhile I got overheated and since I still had cramps I dropped out and sat under a pavillion drinking lemonade and reading an Honorverse novel on my PPC. Brett came back and collected me eventually, and from there we wandered truck-ward and then drove home. He never did find anything to buy, and it turns out the board track races had been run the night before.
——–

OMG, we went to Iowa City today!

Brett rolled in around 2:30 from somewhere… I’d heard him drive off around ten this morning but hadn’t spoken to him so I didn’t know where he was going. Since it was Sunday, I assumed Bo’s and football on the telly.

He said, “Do you still want to go to Iowa City?” and I squeaked “YES!” and ran and got in the truck. We stopped to get Bo and hit the road.

An hour later we were at Paul’s Discount, where Mr. Brett bought himself three pairs of jeans and I got a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and this tunic/dress thing out of printed Indian cotton. Yay!

We went to the Ped Mall and Brett & Bo got iced mochas at the Tobacco Bowl. We went to a head shop, where I laughed out loud at a UPS-brown t-shirt that read: ‘my package will fit perfectly in your box’. Another read ‘I’m a carpenter – let’s get hammered and then I’ll nail you,’ but Brett didn’t buy it for some reason, even though it’s totally his kind of utterly crass, dirty banner tee.

After that adventure, we went to the Hell Mall. I got money from Brett and he and Bo went to Sheels. I went to Bath & Body works and got shower gel and lotion and toiletries of that ilk. I hate Sheels. All the stuffed, mounted dead animals. Gag.

We stopped in at the bar for a cocktail. I buffed my nails. Brett found the bar’s little specialty drink menu and ordered himself something that contained ice cream, Baileys, Buttershots, and caramel. It was basically a Slippery Nipple shake – unbelievably delicious. You’d die if you tasted it. It’s the girliest thing I’ve ever seen him drink.

I had my usual and Bo had a margerita. Then the bartender gave us two more margeritas that had been made by accident. Yay! Free cocktails!

After that, Best Buy. After that, Sushi Popo.

I love sushi so, so much. Miso soup! Edamame! Sake! Yellowtail! Salmon! California roll! Avocado roll! WASABI. The whole thing: brilliant. So delicious. My GOD it was so good.

Then we drove home. Brett played his new video game for about five minutes, then we ravished each other, then we passed out. Then I woke up, because one of the dogs breathed or something and everything wakes me up these days, and that’s how I came to be updating my blog at 1:26 AM. The end.

Tahmi whisked me away to Des Moines yesterday. Our mission was two-fold:

• drop off some of her jewelry for entry in the Iowa State Fair
• eat lunch at a Granite City Brew Pub.

Rough, huh? Hah! I love being on Tahmi’s ‘I need to run an errand and want a passenger’ list! Especially when she buys me lunch sometimes to sweeten the deal.

Having never before seen the state fairgrounds, I was impressed. The entrance looks like Main Street, U.S.A. with its giant iron gate, paved streets, and jumble of brightly painted restaurants. The rest of the grounds we saw were lovely with old brick buildings, pavement and sidewalks, water features, gardens, landscaping, ski lifts, and benches.

I sat on a bench while Tahmi filled out a bunch of paperwork and submitted her work for judging. From what little I overheard, it sounds like competiton in Fine Arts is fierce and a great deal of the articles submitted don’t even get displayed due to a lack of space, which is astounding considering how gigantic the buildings are.

I think I might actually want to go check out the Iowa State Fair this year… for the first time ever in the fifteen years I’ve lived here! (Aside: I once lived two blocks away from the Washington State Fairgrounds. I was six. It was totally cool to ride my bike around over there.)

We left the fairgrounds and drove 20+ minutes to Granite City, got out of the car, and were walking toward the restaurant when Tahmi realized she’d left her purse at the fairgrounds. Shit! We hopped back in her late model black car and she Speed Racer X-ed us back across Des Moines to the building we’d vacated —

— and her purse was right where she’d left it, on a table at sign-in! Can you believe it? Chalk one thing up to love about Iowa: shit doesn’t get stolen very much. Which totally makes up for the weather, har-har-har.

An hour plus change after leaving the fairgrounds the first time, we were sitting in a booth in the target restaurant. (We were told to eat there because her man is doing research because he’s thinking of investing in the chain or its parent company or something or other, I’m not really clear because I don’t listen when people say things about finance, and really the point is that we were told to eat there and report back about whether or not it totally sucked. I guess we were Secret Shopping, more or less. So we interviewed the waitress like total dorks, which is why we happen to know their average serve time is twelve minutes even during peak. Otherwise, we would have eaten in the Italian restaurant across the street.) She and I split an artichoke & spinach dip appetizer and I took a picture of Tahmi eating it. She told me I couldn’t put it on the blog, so you can’t see it, neener neener neener.

She did, however, say I could post this picture:

That’s a “statue” in front of an Asian restaurant at Jordan Creek Mall, a new major shrine to consumerism we decided to eyeball. IT’S SO HUGE I CAN’T EVEN COMPASS IT. The place has a man-made lake with three fountains in it, at least a dozen stand-alone restaurants jumbled around, and that doesn’t even count the mall itself that we didn’t even enter. It’s fucking massive.

Oh: I had three-cheese ravioli in pink sauce, and Miss T had a deluxe BLT with garlic mashed potatoes. We left the research restaurant stuffed to the gills.

But all of that’s really secondary to the shopping I did. (Y’all read this blog mainly to find out what I buy, right? That’s what I thought.) I had some old gift cards from last Christmas, and bought (at Best Buy) a new set of earphones for my iPod, a specially remastered extended version of Grace with a DVD of the Grace videos, a 15-foot phone cord, and (at Borders) three books. I also bought Miss T and myself some frosty beverages at the Borders coffee shop; mine ended up having espresso in it but I drank it anyway and man oh man was it devastatingly delicious, considering it was the first coffee I’ve had in months. God, I love coffee.

Caffeine still gives me panic attacks, btw. Sigh.

We didn’t get home until after dark, probably toward the ten o’clock area. I had a totally fun, great, fabulous day. You’re all so, so jealous you’re not on Tahmi’s ‘I need to run an errand and want a passenger’ list. Believe me. You so totally are.

And this, of course, is for Joe:

I forgot to tell you we went to Pella last Sunday to celebrate Brett’s mom’s birthday.

Krista served surf ‘n’ turf: steaks and shrimp off the grill, and broiled salmon, along with a Caesar salad and corn on the cob. Yum!

Then, oh man. Then: the pièce de résistance – she served an ice cream cake from hell. The woman smashed up a whole package of Oreos and lined an 8×12″ Pyrex dish with it, then smeared a half gallon of vanilla chocolate chip ice cream over it, and then added crushed Butterfinger candybars, more Oreos, and chocolate syrup.

She’s totally insane.

Naturally, I had two pieces. I have to check my insulin three times a day now.

We gave mom a group gift – a digital camera and a picture printer. I think she liked it. Kris did all the shopping because she’s superior. And now Parker will have even more pictures taken of her!

Brett’s truck got a flat while parked in front of Krista & Andy’s, so we had to leave early to get to the Walmart in Osky to get the tire fixed before five. I checked out the yarn in the crafts section, but didn’t buy anything.

It was hot as hell outside on Sunday.
——–

I got home from Mt. Pleasant around eight or nine in the morning after being up all night for Devi Bhava. I brought my shit in from the car and promptly crashed.

I slept all day, waking just before Brett got home from work.

Amma was awesome, in the literal sense of the word. (I realize I say that every time I see Her, but it’s true.) It can’t possibly make any sense if you’ve never met Her, but She truly is the embodiment of pure Love. Seeing Her is balm for the soul. The love that pours out of Her to all who come to Her is uplifting, humbling, renewing, and awe-inspiring. I love Her so much that I cry every year when She leaves.

In past years I’ve found myself face down in the parking lot after Her car drives off, weeping. This year I merely stood mute while She left for Chicago, then turned to go back in and start cleaning up the hall.

Here’s an illegal photo I took with my phone. The person in white is Amma. Yes, I realize it’s terribly out of focus:

The program went well. Tahmi and Christina worked their butts off and spent massive amounts of time at the Seva Desk coordinating the insanely huge mass of volunteer details that make up one of Mother’s programs. Their discipline and sticktoitiveness amazed me last year, and amazed me again this year. They’re so dedicated and work-oriented… I usually feel like things will work out and rarely rush to get back to the desk from a meal or a break, but they’re both incredibly on top of things.

I ran into Anna. She’s three months pregnant. (Brett totally called it. He announced a few weeks after she ran off with her new boyfriend that she’d breed.) She sobbed and apologized profusely for not bothering to call me for nearly a year. I was blunt, and told her that she was stupid for not bothering to contact me after breaking up with Bo and that it had both hurt me and pissed me off. I mean, what else was I supposed to say? That it was all right to just abandon our friendship because her relationship status had changed? I wasn’t about to give her a simple “there, there” because it wasn’t true. She should know that’s not how people act. I also hugged the shit out of her and we ate together and hung out between programs on Thursday. She’s a sweet girl, and it’s because of her that I learned to knit, and we’ve been friends for years. And she looks pretty cute knocked up, I have to admit.

I also reconnected with Cat. She’s also knitting these days. Her physical problems seem to be somewhat abated, in the sense that she can get out and about, but her body’s still a wreck and I guess she has a lot of chronic pain. She’s still funny as hell, though – she’s mistress of the comedic pause. For example, she ordered a tiny Kali doll from the doll table, and I asked her if she had been excited to receive it. “Yes…” she said, slowly. Then, a moment later, she continued, giggling, “I jumped up and down until my boobs hurt!”

Tahmi and Cat and I spent the break between programs both days sitting in the gazebo, knitting and smoking my cigarettes. I hadn’t realized it, but Tahmi and Cat had been friends once too, so it was really comfortable and fun to catch up. We all marvelled at how stupid we were to live in the same town and not hang out together when we all made each other laugh so easily, and I see some lovely stitch ‘n’ bitch sessions in the future. We’re all of an age and temperment, and we all have less of a female network than we’d like these days.

During Devi Bhava, Dave got a mantra. He really seemed stoked about it, and had even purchased a mala by the last time I saw him. He was there with Steve & Misty, who always come to see Mother in Mt. Pleasant. I saw Chris the computer guy and met his brother. I saw several other old school, random people there as well, including Rodney (who has simply got to be older than he looks, and he looks fantastic), John Huff, Chuckie, and others.

I got to spend half an hour on stage next to Mother, doing a lap seva. That, next to my first darshan, was the highlight of the whole two days of Her visit. It’s amazing to watch Her. She never tires, She never misses anything. She’s so incredibly amazing.

All in all, seeing Amma was renewing and wonderful, and my connections with people were deepened as always, and I’m abjectly grateful that God bothered to incarnate in such a form during my lifetime.

Friday night I went to Kevin & Aimee’s for dinner to meet with Barbara about a recording gig in September. We discussed dates, and if all goes well Aimee and I will go to NYC around the middle of September to record a few songs of Barbara’s acapella music. I was given CDs with old recordings we’d done in the early 90’s (when Barbara was still Ilana Iguana and was living here), and I was given strict instructions to learn my own scat solo on Sweet True Love note for note because apparently it’s considered to be perfect. *grin* The project will probably feature one or both of the Roach Sisters, Patti Smythe, and a few other friends of Barbara’s, along with people I haven’t seen in over a decade like Tane. Over dinner, Barbara told us that she’d been contacted by someone who was writing a book about Jimi Hendrix but that she “probably won’t be interviewed, because I never actually slept with him.” Snort!

Having never been to NYC, I’m competely stoked about the prospect. How fun! To go for five days and record a few songs! Derby (Steven) also wants me to record a track he emailed me called Womanhood for some project he’s working on; the client likes the track but wants a woman’s vocal on it. So now I’ve got all this stuff on my iPod to learn or re-learn. Whee!

It’s so weird how things come and go. I didn’t sing for a really long time, and now it keeps popping up and I’m actually interested in it again. I used to hate recording, but now I’m all about it. People I haven’t connected with in years are inviting me in on projects and inviting me to New York to sing. How cool is that?
——–