"...sex the skies electric..."
-- a public service announcement --
everyone must read jonathan safran foer's everything is illuminated, quickly, before the movie comes and you lose your chance or ability to interpret it without any outside influence or preconceived image. i'm only a bit past the halfway point, but in the first 20 pages i got the feeling this might be my new favorite book. yes, there are parts that are annoying or trite or severely over-written, but every book has faults. half the reason these little things bother me so much is because i am so in love with all the rest that it hurts to see any stupid, small... misjudgment?... make it less than perfect. the language is so poetic and unique. it is full of beautiful truths, brilliant randomness, striking ideas, the most imaginative images. he weaves together the different voices and storylines so fluently. and this is his first novel. it makes the writer in me maybe want to grab a laptop, a journal, any scrap of paper, just write frantically, or maybe just give up now because how could i ever find that in me, curl up in a ball and never write again. it's inspiring and depressing. it enjoys its own sadness, makes it feel good to read it and feel bad. i can't put it down. (please note that this can result in long, detailed, rambling, unnecessary journaling of my own)
-- we apologize for the interruption. thank you for your time. you may now return to your regular lj voyeurism. --
is it bad that greg and i were so very proud of ourselves for rolling out of bed, even getting dressed and leaving the apartment, before 5 on (oh no, not one, but) *both* our days off? (i'm impressed enough when we're out of the bedroom by then, even if it's just to move to the couch.)
saturday was the typical debauchery, my regrettable mood the only damper on an otherwise good night. maybe i was just grumpy after working all day then not getting a nap. then again, i already felt a little off early that morning, listening to myself talk from some other place entirely. we joined missa and eileen in the north end for drinks and a game of apples to apples. braden even came to hang out for the first time in maybe a month, now with the added perk of having a car at his disposal. parking was a burden, but it was worth it to save the $40 for cabs there and back. we returned home for the usual all-nighter. somehow, i just couldn't deal with any of it. i just couldn't deal with being there, anywhere. i just couldn't deal with being. i was hardly tired when we crawled into bed that morning, but i fell asleep almost immediately just to get away from myself.
the feeling faded to a softer, almost pleasant melancholy by the time we began the slow process of waking. we mumbled and groaned and rolled in the sheets. we had sweet conversations that followed the wavering, broken rhythm of morning, wore us out quickly, ended simply and abruptly. we took turns closing our eyes, not awake but only pretending to sleep, lost in conscious dreams that scatter and disperse just like the real ones upon opening our eyes. we took turns finding brief fits of motivation, pockets of awake, to poke and pester each other, to try to lure each other from sleep with licks and kisses and bites, feeling devious, amused, as they were met with whimpers, brushed away. at 4:30 he rolled over, sighed decisively, and announced that he wanted to go to the thrift stores, thinking that by the time we got ready probably it would be too late. we wasted time debating with each other whether it was worth trying, debating with ourselves whether we were too lazy to try, and as he was giving up with the excuse that i would take too long getting ready i promised, just to prove him wrong, that in 15 minutes i could be out the door. he didn't believe me any more than i believed myself, so as i pinned up my hair and sat in the tub he pulled the covers back over his head. i washed my face, brushed my teeth, warned him that he should think about getting out of bed. i put on a little concealor and blush, shook sleep wrinkles out of my hair, stole the covers and flipped on the bedroom light. he groaned something about already being awake. i pulled on the same clothes from the night before, and presented myself, ready to walk out the door, and even a minute to spare. laughing at how proud i was, he rolled from the covers into his jeans and the first shirt he came across, zipped a sweatshirt overtop, and we left with pillow creases still marking his cheeks.
i found a small, slouchy, navy blue cardigan with the crest for some private school over the heart; a girl's polo long-sleeve, just like the one i had on only white, which was a lucky find as it had accidentally been put in with the little boys' shirts; and a navy tee-shirt with three white carousel horses across the front that stretched easily enough to accommodate my chest but then pulled short to show two or three inches my belly (which i'm not entirely comfortable with, although the way he smiled when i tried it on made me feel sweet and cute, making it worth all 99 pennies). he walked away with a shirt resembling a plain, skinny basketball jersey to wear under his plain dark tees so just an inch or two of red mesh shows at the bottom; and a red and white rugby-style polo that was just a little smaller than he would have liked but could work, and that reminded me of where's waldo (which i kept to myself, as it would certainly have discouraged him from buying it, and i liked the way it looked on him).
the second we'd made our purchases, we both came to the sudden and urgent realization that we were famished. the combination of not having really eaten since dinner the night before and not having a proper shower to wash away the haze of sleep left us grumpy, brain-dead, and incapable of even the simplest decision. we stood outside the store for maybe ten minutes trying to figure out what sounded good, where we could go, what exactly we were hungry for, but mostly just whining about how hungry we were and dismissing any obvious options because in our drowsy, moody, pickiness nothing sounded quite right. finally concluding that we should walk back toward the familiar area, as the only real option past that is the brazilian barbeque which was out of the question because all we know for sure is that they cook the meat right at the table and i was too hungry to take a risk on a place that didn't sound particularly vegetarian-friendly. we passed places that were not options because he'd already eaten asian twice this week or the last time we went they screwed up an order. we stopped at the corner for another ten minutes of whining and turning down any and all ideas. no point to walk any further that way, as it was all trashy take-out, which, if we wanted, we might as well get right next door to our place and not go out of the way. no point turning up that street, as it was really only the colombian place, and he wasn't sure he could eat so heavily so "early" in the day. we turned the other way, back toward the apartment, passing other not-options (what exactly is mexican greek international pizza?), making our last stop across the intersection from our place. this ten minutes was mostly just standing, whimpering, and groaning, finally realizing that by now the liquor store was about to close and he had to pick up and agreeing to just order pizza. (this idea was adjusted when, in our hunger, we feared the sometimes-long delivery wait and opted instead to pick up a large frozen pizza at the convenience store before returning home, where it was barely out of the oven when we devoured half each.)
the plan was to get to bed early sunday night. this never works. still, we were (somewhat) awake not long after noon the next day. to prevent the usual tug-of-war in and out of sleep, we put edward scissorhands on the tv in the bedroom. it kept us from closing our eyes again, still allowed the luxury of time to stretch and wake up gently, and left us, when we were fully awake, already seeing something whimsical in the day. we were starting out a bit later than we'd hoped, but all week we had planned our harvard square outing (a plan that had previously been unsuccessful week after week).
feeling ambitious, we took on a new challenge, facing our fears -- we decided to take the bus. it had to be done. the bus would carry us from our front door right into harvard square in 15 minutes. how long could we go on convincing ourselves that the 40 minutes inbound to park street, the indefinite wait for a red line train, the five or so stops back the opposite direction, really did make sense? my fear was more anxiety of trying something new. how would i know where to put my fare, which stop was which, how to request when i need to get off? not having to learn it alone was enough to ease my worries, though as it turns out the whole thing was much easier than i'd dreamed up in worst-case scenarios in my mind. greg, on the other hand... well, he never was a fan of public transportation -- the crowd, the talking, the noise, the smells, the shoving and shaking and bumping along -- he'd freak out on the train without his ipod. he grimaced and moved his eyes back and forth without blinking. i tried to keep talking and held his hand until the nervous tapping became squeezing became fingernails and i had to remind him he had my hand and it was starting to hurt. he made it through and, when we were off the bus and he'd had a minute to recover, even noted how it was so much friendlier, with people thanking the driver as he pulled to their stops.
the main point of the voyage was to visit an old friend of greg's who's now managing hootenanny, and to introduce me. sean was everything i expected from the stories greg told. the meeting was even just as awkward yet comfortable as greg had predicted. sean told us about his boyfriend's latest gallery showings in new york. greg talked about the salon. they gossiped about people they used to know. we talked about movies and restaurants, music, the good and bad shows we'd been to, upcoming shows. we made plans to get together when adult plays the paradise in october. we looked with him as he unpacked and stocked boxes for halloween. greg finally found a sweater that fit the way he liked, a black v-neck fred perry. realizing when he checked his balance that we had quite a bit more than we'd though, he picked out a cute shirt for me as well, along with the fingerless mittens i fell in love with the second we walked in. sean had mentioned that he'd give greg a discount, but he was even more generous than we'd expected, making greg wish he'd bought his sweater in gray as well.
i had offered the possibility of getting dinner at veggie planet, and sean also had brought it up as one of his favorite lunch spots, so we decided to give it a try. i'd been once before, a year or so ago, and i am disappointed to say i remembered it being much better. of course, i had also gone with a girl who was working there, so we'd eaten at real tables in the other room and she'd served us and prepared the food herself. now we had to sit on wobbly pre-school stools and stoop over one of the five or six extra small, low-to-the-ground tabletops that had been shoved together in an area that could comfortably have only fit one real table, maybe three of these. on a slow, sunny afternoon there may have been some novelty in all this, but now it was only cramped and awkward. and because there was no real separation between this "dining" area and the kitchen and storage, the waiters seemed to constantly be pushing by or hovering over us as they gossiped, having fairly pretentious conversations making fun of everyone and everything not within immediate earshot... which does not exactly put you at ease. greg, who hates crowds and cramped spaces, was now thrown in the middle of both. he looked scared to death the entire time. there was also no way to hold a natural conversation, since you couldn't help but be aware that everyone in the room would be listening, by choice or chance. we split a plate of black beans and cheese and salsa over rice, which was good in a very average sense.
we were both still a little hungry when we left, and ice cream seemed like a good idea. i wasn't in the mood for ben and jerry's, probably because of the rumors i'd heard of a wonderful ice cream place in harvard square. unfortunately, neither of us knew even the name of a place, much less our way around. i began walking with no particular direction, and within minutes had led us directly to herrell's. i called it luck, but greg is convinced i have a sixth sense for sweets that led me there. either way, it was just what i wanted.
by the time we had finished our shopping it was rainy and dark, and greg wasn't much in the mood to brave the bus again. we grabbed a cab home for a quiet night watching american psycho, which we'd just picked up at newbury comics.
there's not much worth saying about the past day or two (although there wasn't much worth saying about the weekend either, but that didn't stop me from writing pages). yesterday i spent the day cleaning, the evening reading, the night not much able to sleep. today i've tried to clean a little more, but mostly i was lazy from not sleeping. i spent an hour trying to figure out how to record a show for greg, only to find that i couldn't even get the vcr to play. i'm sure it's broken, although i have a feeling as soon as he's home it will miraculously work perfectly. i'm waiting for groceries from peapod.
everyone must read jonathan safran foer's everything is illuminated, quickly, before the movie comes and you lose your chance or ability to interpret it without any outside influence or preconceived image. i'm only a bit past the halfway point, but in the first 20 pages i got the feeling this might be my new favorite book. yes, there are parts that are annoying or trite or severely over-written, but every book has faults. half the reason these little things bother me so much is because i am so in love with all the rest that it hurts to see any stupid, small... misjudgment?... make it less than perfect. the language is so poetic and unique. it is full of beautiful truths, brilliant randomness, striking ideas, the most imaginative images. he weaves together the different voices and storylines so fluently. and this is his first novel. it makes the writer in me maybe want to grab a laptop, a journal, any scrap of paper, just write frantically, or maybe just give up now because how could i ever find that in me, curl up in a ball and never write again. it's inspiring and depressing. it enjoys its own sadness, makes it feel good to read it and feel bad. i can't put it down. (please note that this can result in long, detailed, rambling, unnecessary journaling of my own)
-- we apologize for the interruption. thank you for your time. you may now return to your regular lj voyeurism. --
is it bad that greg and i were so very proud of ourselves for rolling out of bed, even getting dressed and leaving the apartment, before 5 on (oh no, not one, but) *both* our days off? (i'm impressed enough when we're out of the bedroom by then, even if it's just to move to the couch.)
saturday was the typical debauchery, my regrettable mood the only damper on an otherwise good night. maybe i was just grumpy after working all day then not getting a nap. then again, i already felt a little off early that morning, listening to myself talk from some other place entirely. we joined missa and eileen in the north end for drinks and a game of apples to apples. braden even came to hang out for the first time in maybe a month, now with the added perk of having a car at his disposal. parking was a burden, but it was worth it to save the $40 for cabs there and back. we returned home for the usual all-nighter. somehow, i just couldn't deal with any of it. i just couldn't deal with being there, anywhere. i just couldn't deal with being. i was hardly tired when we crawled into bed that morning, but i fell asleep almost immediately just to get away from myself.
the feeling faded to a softer, almost pleasant melancholy by the time we began the slow process of waking. we mumbled and groaned and rolled in the sheets. we had sweet conversations that followed the wavering, broken rhythm of morning, wore us out quickly, ended simply and abruptly. we took turns closing our eyes, not awake but only pretending to sleep, lost in conscious dreams that scatter and disperse just like the real ones upon opening our eyes. we took turns finding brief fits of motivation, pockets of awake, to poke and pester each other, to try to lure each other from sleep with licks and kisses and bites, feeling devious, amused, as they were met with whimpers, brushed away. at 4:30 he rolled over, sighed decisively, and announced that he wanted to go to the thrift stores, thinking that by the time we got ready probably it would be too late. we wasted time debating with each other whether it was worth trying, debating with ourselves whether we were too lazy to try, and as he was giving up with the excuse that i would take too long getting ready i promised, just to prove him wrong, that in 15 minutes i could be out the door. he didn't believe me any more than i believed myself, so as i pinned up my hair and sat in the tub he pulled the covers back over his head. i washed my face, brushed my teeth, warned him that he should think about getting out of bed. i put on a little concealor and blush, shook sleep wrinkles out of my hair, stole the covers and flipped on the bedroom light. he groaned something about already being awake. i pulled on the same clothes from the night before, and presented myself, ready to walk out the door, and even a minute to spare. laughing at how proud i was, he rolled from the covers into his jeans and the first shirt he came across, zipped a sweatshirt overtop, and we left with pillow creases still marking his cheeks.
i found a small, slouchy, navy blue cardigan with the crest for some private school over the heart; a girl's polo long-sleeve, just like the one i had on only white, which was a lucky find as it had accidentally been put in with the little boys' shirts; and a navy tee-shirt with three white carousel horses across the front that stretched easily enough to accommodate my chest but then pulled short to show two or three inches my belly (which i'm not entirely comfortable with, although the way he smiled when i tried it on made me feel sweet and cute, making it worth all 99 pennies). he walked away with a shirt resembling a plain, skinny basketball jersey to wear under his plain dark tees so just an inch or two of red mesh shows at the bottom; and a red and white rugby-style polo that was just a little smaller than he would have liked but could work, and that reminded me of where's waldo (which i kept to myself, as it would certainly have discouraged him from buying it, and i liked the way it looked on him).
the second we'd made our purchases, we both came to the sudden and urgent realization that we were famished. the combination of not having really eaten since dinner the night before and not having a proper shower to wash away the haze of sleep left us grumpy, brain-dead, and incapable of even the simplest decision. we stood outside the store for maybe ten minutes trying to figure out what sounded good, where we could go, what exactly we were hungry for, but mostly just whining about how hungry we were and dismissing any obvious options because in our drowsy, moody, pickiness nothing sounded quite right. finally concluding that we should walk back toward the familiar area, as the only real option past that is the brazilian barbeque which was out of the question because all we know for sure is that they cook the meat right at the table and i was too hungry to take a risk on a place that didn't sound particularly vegetarian-friendly. we passed places that were not options because he'd already eaten asian twice this week or the last time we went they screwed up an order. we stopped at the corner for another ten minutes of whining and turning down any and all ideas. no point to walk any further that way, as it was all trashy take-out, which, if we wanted, we might as well get right next door to our place and not go out of the way. no point turning up that street, as it was really only the colombian place, and he wasn't sure he could eat so heavily so "early" in the day. we turned the other way, back toward the apartment, passing other not-options (what exactly is mexican greek international pizza?), making our last stop across the intersection from our place. this ten minutes was mostly just standing, whimpering, and groaning, finally realizing that by now the liquor store was about to close and he had to pick up and agreeing to just order pizza. (this idea was adjusted when, in our hunger, we feared the sometimes-long delivery wait and opted instead to pick up a large frozen pizza at the convenience store before returning home, where it was barely out of the oven when we devoured half each.)
the plan was to get to bed early sunday night. this never works. still, we were (somewhat) awake not long after noon the next day. to prevent the usual tug-of-war in and out of sleep, we put edward scissorhands on the tv in the bedroom. it kept us from closing our eyes again, still allowed the luxury of time to stretch and wake up gently, and left us, when we were fully awake, already seeing something whimsical in the day. we were starting out a bit later than we'd hoped, but all week we had planned our harvard square outing (a plan that had previously been unsuccessful week after week).
feeling ambitious, we took on a new challenge, facing our fears -- we decided to take the bus. it had to be done. the bus would carry us from our front door right into harvard square in 15 minutes. how long could we go on convincing ourselves that the 40 minutes inbound to park street, the indefinite wait for a red line train, the five or so stops back the opposite direction, really did make sense? my fear was more anxiety of trying something new. how would i know where to put my fare, which stop was which, how to request when i need to get off? not having to learn it alone was enough to ease my worries, though as it turns out the whole thing was much easier than i'd dreamed up in worst-case scenarios in my mind. greg, on the other hand... well, he never was a fan of public transportation -- the crowd, the talking, the noise, the smells, the shoving and shaking and bumping along -- he'd freak out on the train without his ipod. he grimaced and moved his eyes back and forth without blinking. i tried to keep talking and held his hand until the nervous tapping became squeezing became fingernails and i had to remind him he had my hand and it was starting to hurt. he made it through and, when we were off the bus and he'd had a minute to recover, even noted how it was so much friendlier, with people thanking the driver as he pulled to their stops.
the main point of the voyage was to visit an old friend of greg's who's now managing hootenanny, and to introduce me. sean was everything i expected from the stories greg told. the meeting was even just as awkward yet comfortable as greg had predicted. sean told us about his boyfriend's latest gallery showings in new york. greg talked about the salon. they gossiped about people they used to know. we talked about movies and restaurants, music, the good and bad shows we'd been to, upcoming shows. we made plans to get together when adult plays the paradise in october. we looked with him as he unpacked and stocked boxes for halloween. greg finally found a sweater that fit the way he liked, a black v-neck fred perry. realizing when he checked his balance that we had quite a bit more than we'd though, he picked out a cute shirt for me as well, along with the fingerless mittens i fell in love with the second we walked in. sean had mentioned that he'd give greg a discount, but he was even more generous than we'd expected, making greg wish he'd bought his sweater in gray as well.
i had offered the possibility of getting dinner at veggie planet, and sean also had brought it up as one of his favorite lunch spots, so we decided to give it a try. i'd been once before, a year or so ago, and i am disappointed to say i remembered it being much better. of course, i had also gone with a girl who was working there, so we'd eaten at real tables in the other room and she'd served us and prepared the food herself. now we had to sit on wobbly pre-school stools and stoop over one of the five or six extra small, low-to-the-ground tabletops that had been shoved together in an area that could comfortably have only fit one real table, maybe three of these. on a slow, sunny afternoon there may have been some novelty in all this, but now it was only cramped and awkward. and because there was no real separation between this "dining" area and the kitchen and storage, the waiters seemed to constantly be pushing by or hovering over us as they gossiped, having fairly pretentious conversations making fun of everyone and everything not within immediate earshot... which does not exactly put you at ease. greg, who hates crowds and cramped spaces, was now thrown in the middle of both. he looked scared to death the entire time. there was also no way to hold a natural conversation, since you couldn't help but be aware that everyone in the room would be listening, by choice or chance. we split a plate of black beans and cheese and salsa over rice, which was good in a very average sense.
we were both still a little hungry when we left, and ice cream seemed like a good idea. i wasn't in the mood for ben and jerry's, probably because of the rumors i'd heard of a wonderful ice cream place in harvard square. unfortunately, neither of us knew even the name of a place, much less our way around. i began walking with no particular direction, and within minutes had led us directly to herrell's. i called it luck, but greg is convinced i have a sixth sense for sweets that led me there. either way, it was just what i wanted.
by the time we had finished our shopping it was rainy and dark, and greg wasn't much in the mood to brave the bus again. we grabbed a cab home for a quiet night watching american psycho, which we'd just picked up at newbury comics.
there's not much worth saying about the past day or two (although there wasn't much worth saying about the weekend either, but that didn't stop me from writing pages). yesterday i spent the day cleaning, the evening reading, the night not much able to sleep. today i've tried to clean a little more, but mostly i was lazy from not sleeping. i spent an hour trying to figure out how to record a show for greg, only to find that i couldn't even get the vcr to play. i'm sure it's broken, although i have a feeling as soon as he's home it will miraculously work perfectly. i'm waiting for groceries from peapod.