The Literary Giant

Just Here for the Food

2006-11-20T16:11:00.000-08:00

Word count - 877

If to "cup" a body part is to gently cradle it from beneath with the palm of one hand, it would seem that I now need to "saucepan" or "popcorn bowl" my stomach to give it full support. My lower back, following suit, insists on shaping the bottom of t-shirts in its image, the way one would expect chests and shoulders to.
"How can you be getting fat?" asked Andrew Nico, senior literature, attempting to discredit my whines. "The food here sucks."

The traditional complaint of any eater subjected to a food service, as is the case in colleges, high schools, and summer camps, is that the meals are inedible and consumed solely for survival. I must take this opportunity to confess that I eat Chartwells food for pleasure.

Despite living in an on-campus apartment with a full kitchen (including two George Foreman grills), most of my on-campus nutrients come from the Dining Hall. In the past year, in conjunction with a rise in tuition, the food variation and quality has improved drastically.

The culinary calendar of Dining Hall dinners is now sprinkled with "special" nights, which range from intricately-flavored Cajun wraps with eccentric legumes prepared in the center of the hall (breaking conventions and fasts) to the transformation of the Dining Hall into a 50's diner, "Hot Dogs and Hot Rods," accompanied by do-wop and worth-five-dollar milkshakes, almost making the eatery's pleather seats shimmer as the booths did on Happy Days. Wednesdays at the Dining Hall are the unofficial best of the week, offering penne (al dente) in an unwatery, rosy cream sauce with eyelash-long vegetables, a Mexican casserole excited by grainy corn meal, and plump couscous with tart dried fruit. The friendly staff and muted MTV U televisions put forth a comfortable atmosphere daily.

Terra Ve, which sets Purchase apart from many colleges by serving as a haven for vegetarians, has been evolving beautifully. Already in the hearts of students for its enormous Odwalla juice selection, Terra Bacon, and, of course, quesadillas, Terra Ve introduced Cast Iron Pies to its cornucopia of made-as-you-order treats. With over forty filling possibilities in sweet and savory and a large banner that boasts, "hotter than average," the single-serving hockey pucks of happiness have quickly become a staple of the SUNY Purchase diet.
"Yeah, and sometimes the pizza’s good," adds Peri Lee Pipkin, senior visual arts and president of the Cheese Club.

I am also happy to report that this year, unlike in my freshman 2004, the freshly-prepared pesto pasta of Terra Ve no longer reacts in my body as a laxative.

This year has also seen an update of the packaged sushi available on the chilled shelves of Terra Ve and the Hub. Although pricey when compared to the average restaurant’s roll of six pieces (about $7 at Terra Ve and the Hub), Purchase consumers break even when considering the gas and time costs of transportation. Rolls now include "imitation crab," with a feathery texture and misleading red-and-white tones, at Terra Ve and (real) eel and cooked shrimp at the Hub. Inary, sticky rice in canoes of thin, sweetened tofu, is also on sale now at Purchase.

Despite long-running favorites at its grill, sandwich station, and juice and yogurt smoothie creator, one might argue that the Hub has changed very little. This year it "proudly" serves Starbucks coffee, which was met with howls from the workers at the Co-op and apathy from everyone else. (I generally do not enjoy the burnt taste of Starbucks and have remained a fan of the Ritazza Roast.)

For all Hub naysayers, I announce that according to a high-ranking Chartwells official, who has been granted anonymity to discuss upcoming appetizing additions, the Hub will soon be vending take-out packages of pita bread with hummus, including varying spiced hummus, and even more enrapturing, preparing quesadillas for its patrons. The significance of quesadillas served in the hub is that students will soon have the option of meat in their cheese. The Chartwells official explained that it was common to see students purchase chicken fingers from the Hub, unpeel their quesadillas, and stick the fingers inside.

This supply to demand brings to mind the one positive utterance I've overheard from a sober student about Chartwells, which came from a girl who was giving a tour of the school to prospective Purchase students.

"Chartwells is our food service and it's good," she bellowed in the echoing upper mezzanine of the Dining Hall, as the high schoolers craned their kneck to investigate the empty tables and chairs of the off-hours cafeteria. "They take students' suggestions and actually listen to them. They're really good about that."

Our food service is looking out for us, and for the past two years I've felt protected. And also unable to watch my weight.

Matthew O’Rourke, sophomore undeclared at Wagner College, noted that his school food is also courtesy of Chartwells but insists that Purchase’s food is better. Like ours, his dining hall sports a large sign with the Chartwells signature illustrations of vegetables and the phrase, "Menutainment!" However, the Terra Ve section of his dining hall offers the same bowls of unseasoned barely and raw tofu everyday, and there is no Terra Bacon to be found anywhere. At Purchase O’Rourke sincerely feels menutained.

Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond

2006-11-20T16:10:00.000-08:00

Matt and I dated for a few weeks and I spent a lot of that time sleeping at Wagner College, located in the esophagus of Staten Island. The following mornings, commuting back to Purchase for class, I took the Wagner shuttle wagon. It was reliably more entertaining than the Purchase loop bus because the students of Wagner College tend to be life-long residents of Staten Island.

One afternoon I rode the Wagner wagon with a blond girl who wore a lot of blue makeup, her mother in purple eyeliner, lipstick and a lavender vest, and two goth lesbians, one of whom was seated next to the driver. The mother was visiting her daughter for Parents Weekend and they were headed to Manhattan for a nice dinner. They were talking about boys and school when one of the lesbians started yelling about aging.
"I don't want my youth back," she exclaimed, her voice cracking as it got higher, "I hated my childhood! I just don't want to get any older." Everyone already knew she had hated her S.I. upbringing. She is, after all, goth.

Her friend, also wearing fat man jeans and plastic snack-like necklaces, tried to pacify her, but the mindless exasperation kepted being verbalized. As the oldest person riding the wagon, though thin and not dripping with wrinkles, the purple mother was undoubtedly uncomfortable with the conversation.
"It just sucks to be old," continued the goth. "The best thing to do would be to die young!"
"Well, now's your chance," I snapped. The purple mother turned around to me and laughed.

I boarded a Metro-North train on Wednesday evening. I saw three fat old ladies eating sandwiches, so I sat behind them. Nodding off, I came to when one of the old ladies started talking shit about her dead father.
"My father was a commuter on the LIRR and he was also a drinker," she explained in a faded Long Island accent. "Almost every day he would fall asleep and call my mother and say that he was in Babylon, which is the end of the train line, and we lived only half of the way to there from the city." Her friends started nodding and giving negative hums. "When I learned to drive, then I'd have to go pick him up. He never thought about how inconsiderate it was to do that to us." The three fat old ladies sat quietly contemplating the outdated complaint and I fell back to sleep.

Awoken again by a train announcement, I caught a different fat old lady saying, "The only real problem with breast feeding is that the father never gets a chance to have that close connection with the baby."
Although I still stand by the assertion that most things would be better off if the Wagner goth died tomorrow, it might be for the best, for me, if I took myself out of the breathing game earlier than nature may intend.

Hotel G-7-4

2006-11-13T02:03:00.000-08:00

Malomar and I have two life plans involving hotels.

The first, and less necessary, is to make the Howard Johnson's on Houston St., which shares a block with Landmark Sunshine Cinema, into our own Chelsea Hotel. We'll party there, we'll accumulate damage charges there and eventually we'll kill one of our friends there. [The perfect candidate for a murdered mate would be an attractive girl with a drippy psyche and family members in a far off area code.] After no arrests are made and the tabloids have stopped printing our names, we'll each slowly and inexplicably vanish.

Before that, or instead, Malomar and I hope to buy a motel together. We'll decorate the rooms with individuality and Malomar's employee discount to Anthropologie. Leaving the pool peeling baby blue and speckled with cement, rust still smeared on the diving board, we'll cover the deck in overpriced lounge chairs. Serving overly-alcoholic drinks and carrying bags will, at first, be our friends, and then we'll start only hiring hot people; it'll be the new American Apparel, which is the new Abercrombie & Fitch. Our VIP hotel will be called Hotel Everybody, taken from a line from Ludacris' "You's A Ho": hotel everybody, even the mayor/reach up in the sky for the hozone layer.

On September 7, celebrating Owen's first night as a downstate New York resident, Owen, Billy Jock, Matt, and I decided to see Matt & Kim at a warehouse in deep-Bushwick. We drank heavily in his kitchen and then headed out. After walking six blocks in the wrong direction, we re-lived our steps and then went the right way. We walked across a busy bridge and found ourselves in a dark industrial area. "1080 Metropolitan," the name of the ware-venue, was painted on a building that wasn't at the address we had gotten online for the show, and the street the ware-venue was supposed to be on didn't have that building number anywhere. We interacted with other lost fans and consulted their maps but couldn't find success. We asked a cop if he knew where people were playing in the area, and he directed us to a volleyball game some people were having in the dark. I called Sophia for directions and she put Tron on the phone, but I couldn't understand any of it so I, regrettably, hung up on her. Without hope, we four bought Sparks and went back to the apartment to sleep in a tent.
The next day, Matt commented on my MySpace, "p.s. I had a lot of fun at Matt & Kim with you."

Weeks later, Two Gallants played a show in Campus Center South. Owen deemed it worthy of a Purchase pilgrimage and Matt joined him. We drank in my room and then went over to Jenny's apartment, where I got wasted. Langhorne Slim was opening for Two Gallants, and I left in the middle of his set to yakk in the bathroom. Matt and I went back to my room to sleep, and the next day he cheered, "Two Gallants were SO much better than Matt & Kim!"

A month ago, while I was at the Co-op's counter, drinking all the brown rice green tea, Alex Malamy asked with nervous desperation if I could house an experimental band called Human Host in my on-campus apartment-styling-living apartment's living room. I excitedly agreed, but Alex still felt the need to compensate me. In return, he offered that the band We Are Wolves, a Purchase favorite and Culture Shock veteran, also stay with me when they played. Since then, I have been promoting their arrival and awarding sex with them to my various single friends.

There was a dilemma on the Friday before Halloween: whether to attend the costume party at Billy Jock's on-campus apartment at Wagner or see the Matt & Kim record release show. After much deliberation and multiple Owen sighs, we chose the Wagner party. Again, a night with Matt & Kim had been averted.

I bumped into Alex last week and he was taping up posters for the November 3 We Are Wolves show. Matt & Kim had been added to the lineup.
"If they need a place to stay, too, can they stay with you?"

So here's the plan for tonight: get too drunk to go to the show and lock Matt & Kim out of my apartment.

Rocawomen

2006-09-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Matt leaned into me. "Billy Jock informed me that Adidas has come out with a low-top... Tron sneaker."
He told me about the shoe's velcrow and color combination but I just could not be overjoyed by the news. Unfortunately, it was old to me.
"Not just that," I whispered, "but a Tron track suit, too."

I met up with one of the exgirlfriends of one of my exboyfriends after Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! with Architecture in Helsinki. After forty seconds of nausea, I slipped into a special social mode I can only access when I really want someone to love me. She was also speaking quickly, so I reckoned the feeling was mutual. Inherently she and I have something specific in common, but I assumed we would find pleasant small talk and just leave our respective [but similar] messes unreferenced.

Then she said, "Yeah, so I haven't been to a concert in a month because I don't want to bump into David."
"It can be pretty dangerous."
"Ha, dangerous. You could say that."
This was only the beginning of our broken heart-to-broken heart and I'd already run out of things to say. Anyway, I like bumping into Rocawear at concerts. I'm always drunk and he's always had too many energy drinks. We make fun of each other before the headlining act and then we separate for the rest of the show. It was only twelve hours ago but I've already forgotten why she told me what he said when he broke up with her.
"He said, I've Learned Everything I Can From You, And Now I Need To Go On My Own To Learn More."
"Hey, me too," I yelled, gesturing for a high five.
"I know," she returned with a hand slap. "I thought it was so funny when I found out that he used the same line. It doesn't even make sense, like, I wasn't even upset."
I wanted to say that it was kind of a good line. It's bewildering and confusing, but it also doesn't offend and leaves no room for debate; it stupidly, precisely cuts the string. Instead I said, "So, I hear you owe him money."

[I can't imagine the effect I desired but I didn't get it. I just made her a little nervous. It does sound funny in re-tell, though.]

American Heritage

2006-09-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

Natalie, Tyrell, and I were leaving an eatery when an art student started shouting, "Spelunking!"
"Where?"
"Anthropology Club meeting! Alumni Village!" I generally hate going to The Village, but for spelunking [dangerous cave diving], I would follow the Anthropological prophet anywhere.

Although inhabited by boys, an Alumni Village apartment was conquered by the estrogen-driven Anthropology Club. They then proceded to cook noodles with a lot of garlic for the meeting. I sauntered in, ate three plates of their food and sat on the floor.

The first order of business was spelunking. The three in-charge girls, all wearing long pants in summer, asked for a show of hands for a vote on the trip. They counted an arm from everyone in the room, and the trip was approved. I should have given them my email address and left then; instead I stayed and watched the meeting stumble around from possible museums to on-campus BBQ themes. I only saw that I didn't care about humanity enough.

A girl I had not noticed once for the two hours I'd spent in the apartment raised the necessity for further exploration into Native American culture for the school-wide Native American Heritage Week. If I tapped her, I'm sure a portion of the extracted blood would be of Original American descent. I spoke up with the same thing I say any time Native American Heritage Week is mentioned.
"Yeah, they should serve buffalo meat in the dining hall."
Unfortunately, unlike every other time I've said that, my comment was met with quiet contemplation. And also the horror of Natalie and Tyrell.
"I mean, they always just serve Thanksgiving food. It can't be authentic."
Tyrell recalls thinking, "ALAINA, LET IT GO."
"That's what I was thinking," said the American Indian. "A concentration on authentic foods."

A boy who lives in the apartment walked from his bedroom to the kitchen. He was wearing boxers and tube socks, and yelled, "Purchase Casino!"
I laughed hard and alone.

Gideon Yago On The Street And Project Jay In Yaffa Cafe

2006-09-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

An overweight woman was walking toward me on the street, and I was coming at her, too. I had the option meandering around the mini-fenced, dirt bed of a thin tree, or to follow the path right next to hers, stepping neighbor to where her wide feet would land. I chose to get near; by walking close to her, I've decided, I can compliment her: city walrus, it's O.K. if your arm brushes mine because you don't disgust me.

Passing the movie theater next to Webster Hall and, in turn, a slew of girls in layered outfits, Tamara growled, "That NYU girl did not need to walk that close to me."
"Maybe she's just saying you're not gross." That NYU girl would be right.

I Got the Whole World on my Neck

2006-08-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

At the Pitchfork Music Festival I bought a necklace for $6. Rounded, it features the blue-water-and-multi-colored-nations scheme found on childhood light-up globes. In hating on PitchforkMedia.com and the concert there of, Rocawear noted that the charm probably came from a key chain. Two things later made it clear that he was unfortunately right.

The globe, strung on a red ribbon without a latch, is impossible to remove without a scissor. In the shower, it fills with water, so once I'm dressed, it begins to spill out and make a small puddle in the middle of my shirt. After long days of hugging old friends, I have a horrible chest pain. The imitation earth is too big to be regularly pressed against me. When I had not yet realized that the heart ache was external, I resolved to quit fried food; but now I'm back on taquitos.

Last semester a woman approached me during my lunch in the Terra Ve.
"Can I use your cell phone? I'm supposed to meet my son but I'm lost."
I'm probably a snob, but I inherently feel adults without cell phones are freakish. Her uneven voice and crispy hair reverted back to my descrimination. I handed her the phone, which is one of the more easily navigated electronics I've owned, but she was unable to make the call. I dialed her son's number and they chose a new meeting spot.

On move-in day, Hed, Taub and I went to lunch at a decrepit, village-of-Purchase restaurant. After the heavy, cheese-oriented meal, they had to hurry back to Long Island. Leaving their car, I was hailed by a woman in the driver's seat of another car.
"I'm sorry, do you have a cell phone I could borrow? My son forgot a piece of his equipment."
"Haven't we done this before?" I smiled at the freak.
"That was you? What a coincidence!" She held my phone for a few seconds and then remembered that she still didn't know how to use it. Dialing her son's number, I heard her say, "Nice necklace."
I looked over and she was holding up her set of keys. Dangling from it was a smaller but otherwise identical globe.

I didn't feel embarassed in front of her, but I thought back to when I'd purchased the necklace. The jewlery designer I was buying it from was away from the table, but her table-mate sold it to me.
"I'm very excited," I told the vendor, paying $6 plus tax for a reinvigorated key companion. "Tell your friend I really like her style."

The Recognition Scene

2006-08-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Anne Niesenbaum voiced her concern. "I can't figure out what it is exactly," she giggled. "You're wearing it as a dress but what was it meant for?" I had on a long-sleeve, beach towel-material experiment from Adidas, printed with the New York skyline and a disproportionately-large but captivating-and-blond flying woman, and there was one vertical zipper that kept it on and closed.
After I explained it as a sarong for fat people, I admitted my fear. "I was worried this morning at the airport that when I went through security, someone would say, Excuse Me Ma'am, You'll Have To Remove Your Jacket."

I had put my two carry-on items in separate bins. My shoes were with my pocketbook, and my laptop occupied a third bin. As my group of property entered the X-Ray machine, the conveyer belt was stopped. A woman who easily filled the rounded design of her chair was in control. She began yelling for someone to walk over for a screen check. The attractive guy in front of me, whose bins of belongings were also being held up, could hear me sighing, "Fuck."

Upsetting my prediction of watching my large carry-on item being emptied and swabbed and then left for me to re-pack, a woman from Airport Security handed me my shoes [for dignity purposes] and then rifled through my pocketbook. She smiled in victory as her two fingers emerged with my moderately-expensive mascara.
"We ruled out mascara at the briefing last night, right?" she asked her nodding coworker.
"God, you're right. Mascara's a liquid."
The Airport Security guard dangled my makeup as a hypnotic pocket watch. "Would you like to put this in a bag and check it?"
I shook my disappointed head so she tossed it into the confiscated-goodies pail. I had banked on touching myself up with it after the flight.

Terry and I pulled up to the crowded curbside at 5 a.m. He declared that I should go inside the airport to check-in. Althought vechicles must be attended at all times, one of my duffle bags weighed 49 lbs and the other was a little less. With one for each of his hands, Terry speed-walked me into the terminal. Dropping them onto the line, he needed to leave immediately.
"O.K.," he rasped, pulling the large bills from his wallet.
Recognizing that I wouldn't see him for the next three months, easily the longest Terry-less period in my life, I started chirping little tears. Some of them were projected onto the hand that was holding my change purse.Terry's nose was running and there were cracks in his voice as he held out a wad of cash. I packed the money in and squeezed his stomach goodbye.

I remember you well in the Shalom Retirement Hotel

2006-08-14T01:33:00.000-07:00

Goodbye merchants of Melrose Avenue: the birl at SLOW with gapped teeth who definitely wanted it; Yana K., who gave me the job that I quit before I could collect cash or start calling it "yanak"; the Middle Eastern owner of Leather Land who tried to set me up with his also-foreign son, accompanied by a 50% discount; owners Francisco and Nico of Baracuda, who taught me that when I say, "it's not you, it's me," I actually mean, "I only like South American men"; and the transgender hairdresser, "Angel/Angelina," of Vous Hair, who took my life in her still-manly hands and made it ferocious for only $55. Any specific memories of you will quickly fade, but I'll always have a generally positive feeling toward your strip.

"LA's for Pussies" vs. "New York Shitty"

2006-08-12T21:19:00.000-07:00

My new California I.D. came in the mail yesterday, which was lucky for three reasons. For starters, the Government-issued photograph of me is vibrant and uncharacteristically attractive. Secondly, and bringing more luck, it arrived three days before my flight back to New York, and three days after a High Alert was issued and KTLA announced that bottled liquids are not permitted in carry-on bags and that moisturizers are considered liquids. The more suspicious airlines are of its customers, the more I, unable to prove that I didn't just steal the birth certificate, social security card, and platinum credit card of some Alaina Stamatis, would have been rubbed and delayed by Airport Security. With a picture I.D., I can leave for the mistrusting terminal four hours early like everybody else. Of the most good graces, however, is that the birthdate printed on the new I.D. is accidentally January 17, turning me 21 and simultaneously heightening my on-campus popularity three months earlier than in reality. Morever, along with mine came Mia's California I.D., letting her New York one off the hook and enter my wallet.

I realized my only misstep when I saw that my application-written weight was printed on the I.D. Of course I should have filled in that I weigh 300 lbs.

Although he landed in Virginia Beach today, Beaves and I will both be in Roslyn sometime next week. On the same day, I'll find a way up to Purchase and he'll fly to Pasadena. He knows no one in California, but neither did I. Because of the cheerful weather, people are more inviting to the idea of new friends. I think, all alone, Beaves will do just fine. Last night I described him physically to a guy I was talking to at a gay bar, and he was very excited for Beaves to move out here.

Answering All Questions

2006-08-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

Laurie Bird as the unnamed girlfriend of Tony Lacy [Paul Simon] in Annie Hall is my current point of fashion. In reality she was Art Garfunkel's girlfriend and killed herself in their New York apartment sometime after the film was shot [which I specify because Aaliyah's untimely death preceeded the wrapping-up of Queen of the Damned]. Here she is again in a top that I found repulsive as a child and dream about now in my post-pubescence.

Postcards from Davenport

2006-08-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

When my bag was stolen, I thought the fake I.D. was my biggest loss, as it held the most sentimental value. However, I soon began traveling by plane without a government-issued photo I.D., handing my original birth certificate and social security card to the United Airlines employees. They proceeded to print out boarding passes for me that featured, "SSSSSSSSS" across the bottom, alerting Airport Security that I was a threat to every life that they are responsible for. I was made to walk through extra sensors and, while everybody else was warned that they'd undergo a secondary screening if they did not remove their shoes, was told that I could leave mine on.
"But won't I be excessively screened?"
"You're going to be, anyway."

Many times since the robbery have I been lead to glass holding pens, made to stand on cushioned mats printed with white feet, frisked from my wrists to my crotch by the butchest security guardess on duty, and forced to watch from three feet away as my bags are turned upside-down so that gravity herself can empty them into bins and allow for the airline employees to leisurely swab them, suddenly deciding that I'm probably not that dangerous.

Sometime during my last two invasions of privacy, the postcard that I bought to mail to Camp Towanda, which read, "Greetings from Davenport, Iowa!" was misplaced. At this point I'm too lazy to replace it, so instead I'm going to type up what I would have written down.

Dear Chazzy and also Jessica, Emily, and everyone else who's seen Wet Hot American Summer,
I am writing you because my second Celebrity Sighting was the midget from The Station Agent [my first being Bobby Brown and my third was the time I saw the Rough Riders without DMX in Johnny Rocket's, which brought to mind your old joke: if Johnny Rocket's was an authentic '50s diner they wouldn't serve black people.] The Station Agent and I locked eyes but then he quickly looked away and I hope he knows that I wasn't staring at him because he's a midget but definitely because I'm attracted to him even though he's a midget. Little Person. Well it seems I've run out of space [I assumed at this point, because of my chronically-drunk handwriting, I would be out of space] but I'll probably see you in like three days anyway.
Love,
Assy

The Middle West

2006-08-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

If the subject was different, or maybe if she had been less attractive or overweight, the placement of pictures of my mother throughout Nana and Papa’s house would be pretty funny. Most of the house has an average distribution; a handful in the halls, a few in the room she slept in, several stuck into the mirror in the master bedroom. In the dining room, there are three framed pictures of my mother along with a framed picture of a framed picture of her on a church table beside some candles. The den is the winner, weighing in at seven pictures, one of which, a classic wedding photo, was converted into lamp with an orange bulb. In Nana's car there is a picture of her on the dashboard, along with a fake flower, a fresh flower [that is refurbished every morning only to wilt within a Summer hour], and a Virgin Mary trading card with the caption, "lady of perpetual help." I noticed on the way back to the airport that there's also a square picture of my mother taped to the car door, next to the window controls.

This would all be looney and wild if it was their cat or the pope, but their cat is still alive and we're not Catholics.

My aunt Ria in D.C. called me at noon Central time. "Hey koukla! Is Nana taking you to see all the cousins?"
"Yeah, I’m on tour."
I had spent the preceding weekend with Ria and her divorced childhood friend Georgette in Chicago; their sons are early-elementary-school peers, still developing social skills and working out the grumpiness in their personalities. Had I been interested in getting pregnant, I would have been scared striaght with every fiery demand to re-teach them to play computer Solitare.

I spent $558 to be in town for the thirty-dollar Pitchfork Music Festival: two days, three stages, 40 bands, 0 black people [tally does not include scalpers]. I spent the first day dorking around, trying to find an official PMF t-shirt. "You know, with all the bands on it." No such apparel existed. I met up with Tyler, the Russian Nesting Doll, and her sweet-as-victory friend Dan, and had excellent Chicago beer. There were two tented villages of vendors. On the second day, I met a guy at a comic book-and-'zine table. When he admitted he was from Wisconsin, I told him that my friends and I consider roadtripping there.
"Where would I go for cheese?"
Ignoring my question, he, excitedly, drew up a list of bizarre WI attractions.

Circus World Museum - A circus equipment graveyard, located at the original winter storage site of the Ringling Brothers. Haunted by clowns, parades, and the ghosts of those taken down by carcinogenic foods.

The House On The Rock - A man who was rich and crazy, but not rich enough to travel or crazy enough to alienate people, paid friends to bring back the largest, weirdest items they could find on their vacations. Moreover, unlike every other museum on earth, none of the displays have labels with dates or origins of the artifacts. What results is a huge home cluttered with unidentifiable shit, including several carosels and a statue of a sea monster as long as the Statue of Liberty is tall.

Spinning Top Museum - A museum sporting two-thousand tops, yo-yos, and gyrophones, the latter of which I've never heard of but can begin to imagine based on my knowledge of pop Greek cuisine.

The gift shop is huge and you can only test out 4 tops before they start charging you.

The Dells - You know, like, "the farmer in the dell," except all of the farmers and all of the dells. There is a high probability of petting zoos in the area. Here, no cheese stands alone.

By Monday I was in Silvis, Illinois, site of a water tower that reads, "City of Progress". Most of the farm land is being converted into white vinyl and red brick houses, and the restaurant my grandparents owned for 30 years is now an Irish sports bar. I noticed a trailer park near my grandparents' house for the first time this trip after all these years, partly because the front trailer is now 80's pink; I counted it as a testament to my progress.

NYLA

2006-07-29T00:40:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I went to the newsstand barefoot. The walk back to my house is so short and every evening the weather is so charming that although hedge clippings littered the sidewalks and despite confusing neighbors on whether I'm a homeless teen, I took a long, avoidant route home.

A half-block ahead of me was a father, his very young son, their Great Dane, and their Terrier. The Terrier defecated and the Great Dane lifted a leg, dousing a thin tree in yellow as a camper would empty a waterbottle on a friend's head in Summer's heat. The twelve-legged walk had been a success, so the father turned around and started walking in the opposite direction.
"Come on, buddy. We're going home now."
"Home!" The young son began pointing in the direction they had been heading.
"Home is this way."
"Home!" The young son began to cry. "Home! Home!"

My dad saw that I had written this and leaned over and said, "Defecated. It's two 'E's, no 'I'."
"Oh, uh, I'm not even done yet. I didn't look it over and--"
"I didn't get a chance to read it," he shrugged, "I just saw the spelling."
I was stumbling to explain myself, as I so often do, because I was writing about him. A parent presenting the child it loves with a home and the youth, without an alternate homestead, proceeding to deny it. The only discrepancy between this decent microcosm and my current living situation is that the young son was actually pointing in the direction of my house at 444 N. Orange Grove Avenue and the father was walking back East.

The Thing Los Angeles Does Not Have A Shortage Of

2006-07-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

Within four hours of landing in Los Angeles, I realized that I live within five minutes of Fat Beats. I think I called Lyle. Inside, it seemed all of the employees and record patrons had never seen a girl before. After polite, dreamy smiles, I was approached by a man with six teeth.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"What?"
"Are you old enough to drink?"
"Yes." Why did I say yes?
"Then can I buy you a drink?"
"I just got here."
"Do you have a cellular phone?"
"Well, yeah, but I'm changing numbers soon."
"Really? Can I have it anyway?"
"Do you want my email address? You can have that." I dictated my real email address to him. Weeks later, thankfully, I never got an email.

The first night I went to Il Corral, new friend Regina and I left to find a gas station that would be selling 40's after midnight. The only building flooding light into the dark intersection of Melrose and Heliotrope, aside from Il Corral itself, was a Mobile that had ceased to sell alcohol.
"Honestly, I didn't even want it," Regina admitted. "I just didn't want to see the guy who's on now play. I'm not too happy with him."
Just then, a figure jay-walked into the street lane next to the sidewalk we were walking on.
"Fucking faggots," grunted the man. "Where are your panties, faggots?"
Regina only paused for a second before continuing to talk. I contorted my cheeks and chin but couldn't bottle my laughter. "He just cursed at us like we were gay guys," I whispered in a giggle.

A t-shirt store posing as an art exhibit opened with a party. It was the first time I drank from a keg. I spent most of the time talking to a thirty-year-old Canadian tourist and being photographed. Around 10:30, the six-toothed man from Fat Beats showed up. He floated from one group of people to another, trying to vend records from a dirty backpack. I told the Canadian about my history with him, and when he came near us, my story was validated.
"Hey, miss! Do you remember me? How are you doing?"

After my bag was stolen at Starshoes, I stood outside looking for it, losing the battle against heavy tears. Lani and her friend Valerie were visiting me from New York and, recognizing my recent tragedy, casually avoided me to talk to drunk guys who had just left the club. I thought the person who approached me was a cab driver.
"What's the matta, baby?"
I told the man about having nothing.
"Here, here. Use my phone." He handed me a land-line portable phone.
"Uhhh where did you get this?"
"Use it, use it."
I pressed the Line 1 button on it, and it flashed the message, Too Far To Connect, Return To Port. "This is a house phone."
"So what happened?" he asked again, after I handed him the portable phone.
"Nothing, nothing, I just fucked up."
"Hey, you fucked up," the homeless man started saying loudly. "You fucked up, you just fucked up."
Valerie and Lani reappeared. "Hey, you can't talk to her like that!"
"It's O.K., it's O.K. Let's end this conversation," I said to them. "Thank you for all of your help," I began annunciating at the homeless man. "My friends and I need to have a private conversation now, but thank you again."

The next night, we tried to get into Cinespace. Without [fake] I.D. I would not be admitted, despite being on the list and talking Long Island and Billy Joel with one of the bouncers. I walked back to Starshoes, which is on the next block, and asked the bouncer there if my bag had been found. He told me to go in and ask the bartender, so I went inside, pounded two drinks, and came back out, pretending to still be sad about my missing belongings. The six-toothed man from Fat Beats was there approaching people that were on line for Cinespace and asking them for their email addresses. He was holding a busted iPod Nano and pretended to enter information into it. When people told him to fuck off, his response was, "O.K., then I'll be sure to never see you again."

As I came up to Lani, Valerie, and their two friends, Alex and John, one of the non-cab-driving Hollywood Blvd dwellers held out a plastic card and asked, "Is this yours?"
It was a fake Michigan I.D. with an anonymous white girl's face on it.
"Well, shit," I said, "this could work." I gave the homeless man two dollars.
Just then, a girl who looked like the girl on the fake I.D. ran over to us. "Oh my god, have you guys seen an I.D.!?"
I quickly handed the plastic card back to the homeless man, who handed it to her. I could have pocketed it but I'm glad I didn't. She was wearing a pink party dress; this was her big night at Cinespace.
"Can I have one of my dollars back?" The homeless man returned a dollar to me.

Mary and I went job hunting on Melrose Ave. We passed the six-toothed man, who was sitting on the ground with a turntable and a pile of records.

The closest movie theater to my house is a silent movie theater, but it hasn't been open since I moved in. Two weeks ago its marquee read, "See You Next Wednesday," which filled my heart with ripe California strawberries. However, as the second following Wednesday drew near, the theater showed no alternate signs of life. Mary and I were walking past it, so I went up to the ticket window to see what I could see. A small paper sign read that the theater would re-open in August.
"They show movies there every Monday," called a man from ten feet away.
"But it's been closed. It might be opening again soon, though."
In the hot sun, he didn't smell too good. "Nope, nope. Every Monday."
"But there's a sign--" Mary began walking away from me. "It says it'll open again in August."
"That's because the owner got shot."
"I don't think that's true." The man put his head against the ticket window so I ran to catch up with Mary.

At the store Baracuda, Lani, Valerie, and I started talking with 19-year-old Francisco from Mexico. He was attractive and walked us back to my house. I don't remember how, but we started talking about the six-toothed record man.
"Oh! You mean DJ Homeless?"
Francisco explained that DJ Homeless used to be DJ Biscuit, a fairly popular DJ and promoter in some sort of club scene. A combination of family problems and drug addiction demoted him to the DJ Homeless that peddles shitty records and annoys me when I walk my dog today.
"Man, I want to do a documentary on that guy," added Francisco.

New friend Will and I walked to the Washington Mutual near my house.
"What time is it?" asked a man on the ground.
"It is... 1 a.m."
"Thank you," said the man on the ground. There was a beat. "What time is it?"
"Still 1," new friend Will chirped. We went to the ATM and I told new friend Will about the time in Grand Central Station when I saw a man pissing on an ATM as though it was a urinal. We began walking back to my house.
"What time is it?"
"1:02." I turned to new friend Will. "Hey, y'know what my neighborhood doesn't have a shortage of?"

some regular shit

2006-07-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

I always romanticize a time when I was younger and more angry. With only a pinch of friends and gallon of social anxiety, I spent most of my post-school time at a computer, typing out the funny things I had been thinking all day. It was later discovered and I was eventually popularized, at which point I started to run low on things to be angry about.

Malomar sent me a text from New York that she didn't go to one of the outdoor concerts because it rained heavily. From Los Angeles, I replied, "Rain? I'm not familiar with that term."

I have been on vacation for three-and-a-half weeks now. I was hired as an assistant to a fashion designer at $8/hr, despite never having had a job before. The office is located in downtown LA and I quit before they had a chance to pay me; one of the many people who smell of urine on the streets of downtown LA tried to mug me on my first day. He must have been having an unlucky day, too, because I had already been robbed the night before at a club on Hollywood Blvd and only had bus fare to give up.

Before my phone was stolen, I was averaging/jugglging three boyfriends. Such behavior isn't the West Coast norm but apparently, "I'm from New York" is an aphrodisiac out here. It was so easy to get them in fact that when I no longer had their numbers and stopped contacting them without explanation, they were easy to forget.

Essentially, I'm beginning to wonder if, once I come home, my friends start whispering to each other, "Alaina's changed." I worry that the strong sun has boiled my brain, or that my agitated nature is being neutered by all this partying. With everything to be entertained by so close to my new home, have I forgotten how to make my own fun? These fears have lead me to one ferocious action: I ripped the cover off the cereal and designed a stencil. The next stop is to buy spray paint. I'm going to start getting kicks by breaking the law!

Of course I get lonely. But I don't want a relationship with a woman where I'm in "charge" and I expect fidelity and all that. I never require that of anyone and I don't want it required of me... -Mick Jagger

July 24 - Pretty Thigh, Health, Foot Foot - Il Corral

July 26 - Kiss Kiss - Kitten Factory LA

July 27 - CHI-TOWN - Illinoise!

July 29 & 30 - Pitchfork Music Festival - Chi-town

August 2 - Return to LOS ANGELES - California

August 2 - Hot Chip - Troubador

August 4 - Topless Magic - Il Corral

August 5 - Magnolia Electric Co. - The Echo

August 7 - Family Underground, Quintana Roo - Il Corral

August 12 - This Song Is A Mess But So Am I - The Smell

August 14 - MY TRIUMPHANT RETURN - NEW YORK

August 17 - Corn Mo - Maxwell's

August 17 - Iron & Wine - McCarren Pool Park [not recommended for anyone who isn't me or Atiya because we're going for alcoholic irony purposes]

August 22 - Bishop Allen - Piano's

August 27 - The Walkmen, Dr. Dog, Elvis Perkins - McCarren Park Pool

September 3 - Mono - Bowery Ballroom

September 5 - Ratatat - Bowery Ballroom

September 9 - Matt & Kim, Stars Like Fleas - TBA

September 14 - M. Ward - Webster Hall

September 19 - Pink Martini - Town Hall

September 22 - Adam Green - Bowery Ballroom

October 1 - The Mountain Goats - Bowery Ballroom [ATIYA DO YOU COPY, DO YOU COPY!?!?!?!??!]

Freak Scene

2006-07-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

I hesitate to go to a movie theater unless I'm excited for the film, and I'm very excited for August 18. Aside from a billboard near my house, I have avoided any promotional materials for Snakes On A Plane. I want it to be as fresh and hilarious as possible.

A handful of recording artists from different bands featured on MTV U, a channel I'm referencing as an insult, banded together [literally] as Cobra Starship to make a song for Snakes On A Plane. I heard it described as "a joke with no punch line," and then also as "so, so amazing" by an idiot. Preceding this song, a contest was held for musicians to make a Snakes On A Plane theme song that would appear on the soundtrack. The winning song by Captain Ahab is entitled Snakes On The Brain. On Sunday I was an extra in the music video for Snakes On The Brain.

In Clueless, Cher goes to a house party in Sun Valley. It's the area of LA where she is also mugged while a helicopter circles overhead, and it's the neighborhood that the music video was filmed in. I had to take two buses to get there but the second bus ended it's route early, which is apparently the way transportation operates on Sunday because everyone else understood this ahead of time. Alone and only English-speaking, I resolved to spend an unthinkable amount on a taxi to get to the video shoot. Forty-five minutes and six calls to 411 later, it became clear that no one was going to come for me. I went to the gas station to ask for walking directions to Sun Valley.
"Sun Valley?" posed a guy wearing a white denim hat and hanging out with the gas station attendant. "It's all the way down there. I can give you a ride!"
I thought he was joking and then I thought it was a bad idea, but I knew it would be the only way to get to the shoot on time.

"Mind if I smoke in here?" he asked when we got into the car.
"Nah, it's your car."
"I know that but I didn't know how you felt about second-hand smoke."
"Oh no, I don't really believe in that."
He started smoking and then put on some Jack Johnson.
"You like Jack Johnson?" I asked, showing that I recognized his selection.
"Oh yeah, oh yeah, man. You know Jack Johnson? I love Jack Johnson. How 'bout you?"
To avoid explaining a gentle distaste for J.J., I offered up this tidbit. "Oh, my exboyfriend has the same ukulele that he had."
"You said your 'exboyfriend'? Is there a current boyfriend?"
Despite being at least twenty years too young, I realized that I needed to lie. "Yes."
"Yeah? And he's from around here or back in New York?"
"Here. We just met recently."
"Like you and me?"
"What?"
"Like you and me? We just met recently."
"Well, earlier than we met. Like, six days ago."
"So what you're saying is, if I had been there six days earlier, I could have had a shot?" He wasn't laughing and I was in his car.
"Well, there are other factors involved."
"So, do you like Jack Johnson?" All that and I hadn't averted the question.
"He's O.K.," I shrugged.
The hitch-driver instantly shut the music off. "Would you prefer Madonna?"
"No, no. I don't have any preference."
He put the Jack Johnson song back on. Then a George Michael song came on and I pointed to the radio. "Now, this I like."

Sun Valley is a long, people-barren strip of junk yards and warehouses. I have no idea where Cher was partying.
"This music video gig isn't paying you? And it's out here? I don't trust this," repeated the hitch-driver several times. "This is a really bad area. I don't know if you should get out of the car." It was annoying but I preferred being spoken to by a surrogate father than a prospective suitor.
"It's the middle of the day," I implored, "and besides, I brought my gun."
He didn't laugh and gave me his telephone number. "Now call me if you need a ride home, I'm not trying to hit on you. If you need a ride, just call me and I'll be there. I'm not a weird guy, I'm not trying to hit on you."
Hours later I considered calling to thank him for the lift but decided against it; I don't want him to have my number.

I was happy as soon as I entered the Snakes On The Brain warehouse. I was instantly approached by a possibly-deformed man who smiled, "So glad you could make it--I'm the director!"
Behind him were women in lingerie and foot-tall heels and redneck-costumed guys eating Cup Of Noodles against the wall. Everyone had tattoos and it smelled like alcohol and there was a buzz going around that the snakes were coming out soon. If Cobra Starship is the commercial end, I had just entered the seedy subculture of Snakes On A Plane.

The official term for the underdressed women was "booty girls," which drew internet attention to Captain Ahab's classified ad for music video extras. The booty girls fell into two categories of sad skanks: failed Suicide Girls and failed Video Vixens. The failed Video Vixens had dancing skills and seemed more appropriate for music videos as long as you couldn't see their teeth, but the failed Suicide Girls looked better holding the snakes. I befriended some of the redneck guys because, to keep the booty girls comfortable, none of us were allowed to watch them shake. However, we did peek in just as the director was pasting snake and plane stickers to their booty cheeks.

Walking a short distance to the outdoor trampoline, some of the rednecks and I turned around to marvel at the clanking procession of booty girls.
"This group of people would never happen in nature," noted new friend Will. "That's why Ahab is amazing."

I agreed with new friend Will but he was proven wrong this morning at 3:30. After the late-night burger places had called it a night, new friend Brad and I cruised until we found an eatery named after a mining company. On the street corners preceding the diner, women were standing alone in baby blue. If they noticed our car coming, they would lean forward with arched backs and make eye-contact with me. When we pulled into the parking lot, I asked new friend Brad not to park near two women of that same stature, although they were already in conversation with a man in a pick-up truck. In the diner, many broad-shouldered women had come inside and were having dinner with the men who had stopped to pick them up.
"So they went through a sex change so that men would pay them--"
"Yeah, I don't think they have sex changes. It's like a with dicks thing." I blew new friend Brad's mind. Soon after, he overheard our waiter say, "You'd probably make more money if you gave him a blow job," to one of the artifically-proportioned women.
"Well, yeah," Brad explained, "he's gotta be down with them. They're regulars here."

"New Development" -a sign I stole

2006-07-10T13:06:00.001-07:00

The moving trucks came to empty the Roslyn house two days before I left. When I got to LA, there was a large air mattress in the room for me. With no friends, job, or concrete hobbies, I spent the time that wasn't used for walking around on the inflated bed: daydreaming, writing, reading comic books and the NY Times [it's $1.08 in LA and, unfortunately but understandably, doesn't have a Metro Section], masturbating, nail clipping, eating, sobering up, and all the other positive things people do by themselves.

Today the moving trucks came and brought all of the furniture that we apparently didn't need. When Terry yelled to the movers that one of the beds goes in my room, I went to my room and opened the air latch and pulled it far until I could hear it deflate. The air was leaving too slowly so to aid the process, in the way I had been ending my recent days, I laid on the air bed. As I drew closer to the floor, my stomach in the lead, I decided that what I was doing was not unlike holding a dying relative's hand; participating in leaving but not actually going. And just then, I sank drastically and the thick rubber-plastic of the mattress enveloped me. I was overpowered and looked stupid, but the mattress was taking me with it. It was a murder-suicide! I was being pulled overboard!

I tied up the dead mattress and brought it to the storage garage. I went to Terry and Mia's room, unlatched their air mattress, and then poured myself a glass of water, watched some T.V., and fed Skeela while it deflated on its own.

Ladies, please.

2006-07-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK:

PARIS:

TOKYO:

MEMPHIS:

For clarification, Memphis' Statue is actually of Liberation Through Christ. Weighing in at $260,000, Lady Liberation Through Christ holds a large gold cross, cradles the 10 Commandments, and wears a crown that reads "Jehovah". There is also a tear on her cheek, which is where one would be on mine if I had to spend an eternity nextdoor to a car dealership and discount furniture store in Tennessee.

Hollywood Forever

2006-07-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

executivepocky: are you serious?
Veela7: no

That sums it up but I'm going to explain anyway.

Picture everything you like in Manhattan; the clothes, bars, record stores, chained-up bikes, coffee shops, parks; the classy, the sought-after, and the indepedent. Now place them all on one strip, line it with palm trees, and cast a strong, dry sun on it. That's where I live in Los Angeles. I can walk to American Apparel, Fat Beats, and a lot of really good food. My house is a block away from a 24-hour kosher deli/bakery, thank God. I even met an elderly artist in the vein of Mark Tansey who said I could work as his assistant in a couple of weeks.

On the second day of living in Los Angeles, I realized I couldn't stay forever. What, my perfection allergy is flaring up?

Jaz was driving me home from a coffee shop and we passed a small, green establishment located next to the Tansey-esque artist's gallery. Quickly peering in, I noticed two things: it was an alien-themed bar, and it was empty.

I realized it, right there in the car. People in Los Angeles take themselves seriously. When they go out, they wear traditionally flattering clothes and seek to have a technically good time. They don't make big, elaborate jokes to have fun; they just drink and dance the way you're supposed to.

Last night, for The Fourth, I went to a really cool club because I'm hip-looking and that's how I should handle myself. I laughed this morning when I told Mia how much I had enjoyed it. I was legitimately dancing. I was befriending drunk Asian girls very honestly. I gave out my phone number a lot. The only time I was pretending was when I'd ask people who weren't smoking for cigarettes; I just wanted to talk to them.

And after my fun night, I feel as though I don't have anything to show for it but a lot of really boring self-confidence and a stomach ache. This must be the way most people wake up.

In conclusion, I'll never surrender. I went to a 99 Cents store on Sunday night and bought two Reeces peanut butter cup packages, one regular and one sugar free. I put the unwrapped, unlabeled chocolate out on the table and then shuffled them the way one does when one of the turned-over cups has a red ball underneath it. I then tasted them to see if I could identify the aspartame: I was able to pick the two out by their after-taste. I'm so glad I'm not fat/diabetic.

On Monday, when Terry and I went to the cell phone store, I got the number of the pink RAZR on display and started calling it when women would stroke the phone.
"Is it normal for your phones to be ringing like that?" one asked an employee.
He nodded yes.

Tonight, Jaz and I are going to the alien bar. I'm going to drink and ask everyone for cigarettes and get people's phone numbers, and then I'm going to walk home. I live really close to everything

Bid To Blog As A Historical Figure Commenting On Current Events

2006-07-02T04:03:00.000-07:00

My name is Alaina Stamatis and I'm a 20-year-old soon-to-be Junior at SUNY Purchase College. I am interested in writing a comedy blog from the position of John Wilkes Booth. This is appropriate for several reasons.

Given the equation, comedy = tragedy + time, one must admit that although the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln was a terrible loss for our fair nation, enough decades have elapsed to ensure that nearly no one is still sore over it.

It's hip for knowledge to be funny. Readers would get a better feel for both current events and a member of American History through laughter.

While it has always been assumed, John Wilkes Booth's craziness is routinely underrepresented in mainstream education. His most famous quotes [aside from his last words, which were, "tell mother I died for my country"] were passionate orations of misplaced grandeur and racist ramblings.

John Wilkes Booth wasn't born in the deep South, but he was still a racist ["southern sympathizer"]. He essentially killed Lincoln for abolishing slavery. He even claimed that God wanted him to. This dynamic is not dissimilar from the delusions of a certain Commander In Chief [born in New England with a firm Southern accent, making declarations with one hand holding a Bible open, et cetera]. Really, in some parts of the country, John Wilkes Booth's commentary on today's news would be of great value.

He had a tattoo of his initials on the back of his hand. He knew his name like the back of his hand.

Moreover, I have a t-shirt with a picture on it of Lincoln wearing sunglasses. A photograph of me wearing it would fit nicely with a JWB blog. It could even have the caption, "he killed my president."

http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln72.html is my greatest resource for JWB trivia; it includes his biography, accounts of his final days, and an excerpt from his diary. Wikipedia has also helped me through troubled times. I currently write regularly at www.literary-giant.blogspot.com, and www.livejournal.com/users/literary_giant before that.

"Is it nothing to you, all who pass by?" "Man ass" and other LIRR jokes

2006-06-29T01:41:00.000-07:00

It is true that I double-booked my going away party with my brother's high school graduation, but I somehow had both cakes and ate twice. While I sent text messages and played I Went To A Chinese Restaurant To Buy A Loaf Of Bread Bread Bread with my six-year-old cousin during the ceremony, Chan killed time in Roslyn and waited for me. At midnight, Owen and BJ arrived at the Roslyn train station.

Our foursome made a few quick stops [one was to 7-11] and then we walked to Chalet. The closed entrance door had a posted notice asking that patrons respect the dresscode. Very disrespectuflly, we entered Chalet.

Everyone at the bar turned and stared at us, ending their conversations but leaving their mouths open. It felt like it was accompanied by the record flying off the turntable. I didn't smile and I didn't wave because I didn't want to blow our chances of being served alcohol. We walked around the bar and up a flight of stairs.

The second floor is a string of rooms loosely separated by open curtains that contain couches, martini menus, and adults making out. All of them had loud music and soft lighting. We walked through a few lounges and decided to temporarily sit in one to plan our alcohol attack. A couple was far across the dark room and although I couldn't hear or see them very well, I could tell that the male was huffing because of our appearance.
What Did He Expect To Do In Here? I posed to my friends as I explained that we had to leave. It's Big And It's Not Like He Can Fuck In Here Anyway.

We walked to the staircase and stepped to the third floor. It is a small hallway, at the end of which is a bathroom that a woman was stumbling toward. Along the way there, however, she was passing two locked doors that read, "Private." A moment later, I bumped into the angry male from the second floor. Up close, it became clear that he actually colored in his tan with a brown crayon. I asked him about the Private rooms.
"Those are bottle service."
"Yeah? How do I get in?"
"You hafta buy a bottle and then you get the room to yourselves."
Believe the hype! Chalet has sex rooms.

When I bragged about going to Chalet, most people asked, "So, did you get hit on by any old men?"
I didn't. Nobody at Chalet was interested in us. Without acknowledging us, the patrons, some of whom were dressed in unexplained tuxedos and long gowns, interacted as loudly and lewdly as they would any other weeknight. Aside from the sauce, it was kind of like being at the zoo.

After we left, I tried to use my fake I.D. in 7-11, but the main guy who works there recognized me as younger than 28 and also not from North Carolina. My blunder might have been embarassing if I wasn't leaving, but I is so it ain't. Bye-bye, Roslyn.
My Top Eight [Songs For Moving]

8. Ben Folds Five -- Steve's Last Night In Town
7. The Beach Boys -- That's Not Me
6. Jens Lekman -- Run Away With Me
5. The Boy Least Likely To -- I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon To Your Star
4. Ryan Adams -- New York, New York
3. Figurines -- Silver Ponds
2. Art Brut -- Moving to LA
1. Jeffrey Lewis -- Moving

Recommendations For A Hot Summer In The [New York] City
[under the assumption that friends are not 21+ ]

June 29 - Land of Talk - Syrup Room
June 30 - Matt Pond PA, Voxtrot - Prospect Park*
July 1 - Elvis Perkins, The Little Ones - Bowery Ballroom
July 2 - Aa, Japanther, The Wowz, and more! - Stuyvesant Cove Park*
July 2 - Seu Jorge - Central Park Summerstage
July 4 - Beirut - Office Ops Rooftop
July 6 - Mates of State - Castle Clinton*
July 7 - Les Sans Culottes - Magnetic Field
July 9 - Broken Social Scene - China Club
July 13 - Les Sans Culottes - Warsaw
July 15 - Siren Music Festival: Scissor Sisters, Man Man, Art Brut, Dirty On Purpose, Tapes 'n Tapes, and more! - Coney Island*
July 16 - Tapes 'n Tapes, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin - Maxwell's
July 19 - Vetiver - Soundfix Records*
July 20 - Diplo - Warsaw
July 21 - Jens Lekman, Beirut - Bowery Ballroom
July 25 - Langhorne Slim - Maxwell's
July 26 - Danielson - Knitting Factory
July 27 - Dracula by Kronos Quartet with Philip Glass - Prospect Park*
July 29 - Silver Mt. Zion - Bowery Ballroom
July 30 - Of Montreal - McCarren Park Pool*
July 31 - Amanda Jo Williams - Pete's Candy Store*
August 4 - Hot Chip - South Street Seaport*
August 6 - Gravy Train!!! - Kitten Factory
August 11 - Jim Noir - Bowery Ballroom
August 13 - Deerhoof, Beirut - McCarren Park Pool*
August 17 - Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players - Maxwell's
August 21 - Frank Black - Beacon Theater
August 25 - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - South Street Seaport*
August 27 - The Walkmen, Dr. Dog, Elvis Perkins - McCarren Park Pool*

* free

A Twist of Arm

2006-06-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Danny Revolting drove me to the ferry station on the Staten Island side. It was a Sunday morning and, excluded from his knowledge, the boat was leaving once every hour, not half-hourly. All of the seats in the waiting room were filled so I paced and watched Staten Islanders interact. I was set on enjoying an ugly boy with long hair and a New York Dolls t-shirt and a fat girlfriend when I noticed that I was also being stared at.

The short, fat-backed, bald guy in a black collared shirt printed with flame-colored lion heads was not embarassed when I had looked back at him; rather, he lifted his controlled facial hair in a smile. I rolled my eyes and walked away.

When the boat came, everyone was herded through a few pairs of double doors.
"Nice tennis shoes," I heard, which is common because everyone compliments my sneakers. I looked over and it was the guy. I grumbled some appreciation.
"I think you caught me admiring you earlier. I couldn't help it. You're very pretty."
"Oh, O.K."
"Are you an artist?"
"Sometimes."
"I could tell you were an artist. I'm an artist. I'm also a filmmaker. I'm making a movie about 9/11 and also one about that bus out of Chinatown that goes to Boston. To top it off, I make jewlery and sell it up in Union Square."
At this point, I was suffering three plagues. The first was, of course, the new friend I was making. I wasn't compelled to shake him because of my hangover, a second plight, which made it more comfortable to listen to an idiot than to read the newspaper. Moreover, poverty had set in. I had two dollars, a canceled Platinum American Express, and a really full MetroCard that I contemplated selling.
"On Staten Island I was staying with a friend who drives a cab. Sometimes he'll give me a ride to Times Square and I'll show up in a limousine and people think, Who's This Celebrity? And then I get out."
Even if I wanted to read, I couldn't afford it. The Sunday Times is $3.50.
"It's a documentary called, The Aftermath of 9/11, and it's about the effect 9/11 had on Americans. I have interviews with Willie Nelson, firemen, that policeman over in the waiting room, I don't know if you saw him, but he had a big 9/11 tattoo so I interviewed him."
The Staten Island ferry ride is 25 minutes long. Looking at the Statue of Liberty from my window, I thought of two desirable commodities: freedom and water. Perhaps he was able to sense disinterest because my suitor then bent over his black duffle bag and quickly shifted through it. Hunched over, he lifted a fat handful of stringed beads. In nervousness, he broke one strand.
"I think everything happens for a reason. I think the people we meet, we meet for a reason. You're gonna do great things one day, I can tell. Now I don't know how, but I know you will. And maybe someday you'll hear about me and you'll think, Hey I Road The Boat With That Guy. God has a plan for us, and I don't know what it is yet."

I specifically don't believe in fate, and I haven't dropped the G-word in ten years. Of course it doesn't bother me when my grandmother goes on We Have To Pray That We'll Be Together tangents, nor do I dislike those of different heart-sets. However, my new friend's sloppy rambling on things I avoid, in conjunction with the corny lust in his posture, was inspiring me to dive off the deck. It was then that he gave me a necklace.
"I want you to have this. I think it will bring you luck." He held up a strand of puter-colored beads with some slightly larger and darker beads in the center.
"Oh, no. That's O.K. I don't really wear jewlery. Thank you, though."
"I feel very strongly about this." He then presented a small bag with a matching ugly pair of earrings. "Take these, too."
"No, no. I don't wear earrings. Really, these aren't mine."
"They cost me less than a dollar to make. And I think they'll bring you luck."
In an attempt to end this segment of the conversation, I put the necklace in my jacket pocket. "Put it on," he implored.
"I will later," I lied, dreaming of Manhattan's solid ground.

When I stepped off the ferry, he was still talking about himself. "I don't have that many friends in the area. Maybe we could get together sometime."
"I can't. I'm moving to Los Angeles. Sorry."
He got all worked up and started talking about fate again and then ended some sentences, "man." "I'm headed up to Union now to sell jewlery. Then tonight I'm going to a party; it's sort of a convention of erotic art. They said Tommy Lee is going to be there." He was headed toward the N train so I chose to take a bus that would go up First Avenue. He looked at me with frightening heartbreak so I waved my right hand and ran away.

Riding the bus, I was still hungover and poor. I got off before Eighth Street and found a small street fair. I would have ignored it but I could see a sign that read Thai Food $1. I massaged the two dollars in my pocket and approached the Thai booth. The only things that cost $1 were water bottles and spring rolls. The water could hydrate me, and the oily, crunchy, vegetarian roll would satiate my general desire for something greasy. However, for $2 I could get a bowl of rice. After five minutes of standing in the closed-off street, I ordered the bowl of rice. I scarfed it hunched over on the subway, which was a funny feeling, but as soon as it was over, I just wanted water and also something oily.

I got off the train at Herald Square and the first thing I saw was a black shirt with flame-colored lion heads. I looked the other direction and tried to run up the stairs, but then I felt an arm on my back.
"Hey! Whaddaya know?"
He is the only person I actively never want to "chance" upon again in my life, and there he was, an hour later, on the subway car next to mine.
"Why don't you have the necklace on?"
I gestured to my pocket. He reminded me what it would bring if I wore it.
"What are you up to now?"
I decided to use his crush on me to get a free bottle of water.

He walked me to Penn Station. "I know you're leaving soon, but maybe we could get coffee sometime soon."
"I really don't know, man. I'm so busy right now."
"Well, here. Let me give you my phone number. Do you have a pen?"
I didn't check. "No."
He walked to a chips-and-newspapers vendor and I stood in front of the Big Board. He returned with a piece of receipt paper with something scribbled on it. I threw it in my bag without looking at it. This time I gave him a handshake and then ran for a train. He headed to an erotic art convention. I don't know what happened to his phone number in my bag, but I threw the necklace away.

I See Where My Dad Is Coming From

2006-06-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

As the countdown to departure approaches single-digit days, more people are asking, "Why LA?" I'm beginning to feel that that question makes a lot less sense than Ben Kellogg's often-whined, "Why are you moving?"

There were always a slew of minor reasons I'd give when asked about Terry's preference of Los Angeles, but the overall argument was presented to me in the Starbucks on 2nd Avenue. Near the register was a large basket of small teddy bears for sale. Half of them were dressed like Kiss Me I'm Irish golfers so I couldn't grasp their aim. The other ten bears were meant for tourists to buy and bring home, wearing a Yankees cap, an I ♥ NY t-shirt, and a SWEATSHIRT. It wasn't a black My Chemical Romance hoodie with red detailing, either; these bears were not scene. They're just cold because New York is cold. And that's why my dad is moving.

Shit Lives!

2006-06-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, Pook and I went grocery shopping for dinner near her Summer At NYU apartment. She was getting a host of ingredients for the evening and future meals while I was just buying a juice drink and a three-serving container of frozen chick'n nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs, so when it came time to check-out she went into a normal aisle and I opted for the express lane.

Ahead of me was a large woman with round shoulders and orange hair and her unfortunate offspring, a twelve-year-old girl with a few blue-and-green highlights and striped eye makeup to match. They were speaking in drawls that suggested that their trip to New York was somehow sponsored by Disney, and were apparently trying to cash in some sort of lunch sandwich coupon to Food Emporium. My guess was that the daughter kept trying to add the wrong kind of drink to the combo, and the woman at the register turned to me and said, "After you, this lane is closed."

The daughter was sent to fetch a soda bottle and a guy who was very high and eating ice cream that he planned to purchase got in line behind me. I told him what the cashier had told me and he shrugged. The daughter returned with a Dr. Pepper that was half-empty and flat although she had not yet drank from it. Her mother repeated that it was a shame several times as the cashier hid the bottle and the daughter walked back to the small fridge from whence she had come. I was too fascinated to notice that Pook had already completed her lengthy transaction and was standing in front of my check-out lane. When I did see her, I started yelling things about how my express lane was running on the local track.
The large woman was angered and scolded, "Life happens, life happens."
"O.K., thanks. I'm just saying--"
"Life happens," she continued, "life happens."
"Yeah, life happened to your daughter."
"What?"
"The soda." And her hair.
"Oh. That's what I'm saying. It happens."

"I'm Spiderman Again" -The Boy Least Likely To

2006-06-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

Referring specifically to two overweight chiwawas, Malomar once huffed, "God. Everyone thinks I want their man." The more trim of the dogs, the female, would let Malomar's hand get close to her head, as though welcoming a pet, and then gnashed her teeth once the fingers were within biting-distance. This behavior came as a reaction to the affection Malomar had been showing the fatter, male pooch.
"Baby, your man is too fat," Malomar began, imitating a conversation with the bitch. "You, on the other hand, I think we could work something out..."

I worked at the Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art's Art Fest, a comic book convention, over the weekend. By Sunday night I had dropped $60 on a heavy bag of paneled novels and acquired a slew of 30 year old's contact information. Working the bar at the afterparty on Saturday night, I walked into a lot of personal intoxication, which made me especially thankful for the delivery of free pizza For Volunteers.

As I ate and listened to voicemails, a comic book-contributing guitar player was practicing to my right. He was scheduled to play in 45 minutes and was delectably skilled, so when he briefly put the guitar down, I started asking him questions. Two dollars later, I knew Jordan Cooper's occupation, hometown, plans for the evening, and was in possession of Antenna, a comic book that he and three friends had made over the course of three years [which they usually sold for $3]. I was then transferred to a bar that was far from any of the party guests, so I restarted drinking. A female [though not very feminine] friend of his came on the scene, and eventually I saw him kiss her on the head. When he eventually played his set, I incorporated dancing into my bottle cap-lifting job. However, I felt unaffectionate eyes on me; his lady did not appreciate my enthusiasm. He introduced me to her later in the evening and her smile didn't include any teeth.

The after-afterparty of the MoCCA Art Fest was at Cake Shop, and Jeffrey Lewis was entertainer of the after-evening. As a Purchase alumnus, and also the man who created my attraction to hairloss, he rarely performs in New York to an audience that I'm not a part of. After he plays, I can usually suppress my adoration long enough to hold a ten second conversation with him before my hands begin to shake. However, when I arrived at Cake Shop, none of my friends had come to meet me yet. Instead, it seemed that the only person available for conversation was Jeffrey Lewis himself, standing just off the small-step stage. I spoke to Jeffrey Lewis as though two of his songs are not in my iTunes' Top 25 Most Played at all. He performed and then I spoke to him again.
"So, what are you doing later?" I asked.
He laughed and described his planned supermarket visit in preparation for a trip up to Maine. I told him that his song "Moving" breaks my heart because I'm packing up my game and heading out west.
"I'll be on the west coast at the end of the month because my friend is having her baby."
KIMYA DAWSON!

Malomar and Jenny had arrived. For Malomar, who doesn't have a fake ID, I stole two Blue Point Toasted Lagers from the MoCCA afterparty. I presented one to her in front of Jeffrey Lewis and then asked him if he had a bottle opener. He stepped off the stage, knelt down, and opened the beer with the edge of the stage, which we instantly attributed to his Purchase education.

Nearby, Jeffrey Lewis' girlfriend said to my friend, "I think your friend is hitting on my boyfriend." The second confusion of the evening! If you overheard the talks I had with these gentlemen, you'd know I was being polite. If you had seen me in my MoCCA t-shirt with six cartoon pins, wiping oiling-off eyeliner onto my high-waisted denim shorts, you would know that my conversations were innocent and without intent.

And you'd be wrong! Of course I wanted to make Cooper love me. I was obviously attempting a lay from Lewis. It's true that I wasn't flirting, but I never do; I just talk and make jokes. My only way to a man's heart is through his belly-laughs. I probably could've made some serious head-way, too, if it weren't for their respective, alert balls and chains.

Medical Records

2006-06-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

On the second-to-last day of school, as with most mornings, Owen called me as soon as he woke up. "Alaina, wanna get some breakfast?"
I agreed to, although I had already had a yogurt, half a bagel, and a cup of tea. "Owen, wanna hear something stupid?"
He had begun to laugh. "What?"
"I think Mari gave me mono." His cackle set in.

Of Spartan-descent and the demeanor of an ass, I'm sure people are too easy on themselves when they get mono. I was awoken early by a fever that had set fire to my forehead to find that my nose was nonfunctional and that my chin was soaked with drool. Danny Revolting reported that I had been snoring all night despite his nudges and shoves. I immediately diagnosed myself as suffering from the mononucleosis that my roommate had used as an excuse to mimic a sloth for a few days and request an Incomplete in her classes.

"I'm gonna beat this thing," I vowed while buying four bottles of water. If I eat a lot of energy-inducing foods, I believed, I could be functional regardless of ailment. Half-slumped over a table and losing feeling in my legs, continuing to run a very high fever, I ate without stopping [I breathed through my nose]. Owen and BJ met us in the Terra Gay, so we all went to the Dining Hall and I ate the same way.

I saw the nurse and she said it was too early to do a strep or mono test. In the following days my throat ache receded to make way for jaw pain, and my family diagnosed me with infected wisdom teeth. Aside from toothbrush blood, the infection was causing lesions and inflamation of surrounded oral segments. I had a blister on my bottom lip which I called My AIDS and related to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.

I saw the dentist and he said that although it would be best to remove my four aspiring teeth, my mouth technically had space for them. T and Mia agreed with the dentist, and the dentist perscribed me Valium to tie me over.
"I should get them removed when I get to LA," I said but didn't mean. As eating became easier, I swore to myself that I would keep my four new friends. "Imagine how much more food I'll be able to chew."

Sunday morning, walking to the NY Times' "Sunday With The Times: What We Eat" panel of Rachel Ray, Dave "thrifty" Lieberman, and a PBS chef that wasn't Jacques Pepin, I picked something out of my bottom left smart-fang. It looked like the remnants of bread, but I had not eaten anything yet in the day. Curious, I brought the little bits to my front teeth: they were tougher than bread, like coconut flakes or bamboo, but their taste was remarkably similar to the flavor I experience when my tongue glides close to a dentist's drill.
"Oh what the fuck," I sighed to myself on the street.

Largely devoting attention to live, culinary entertainment, I ignored the dental cannibalism that had just taken place.

Sincerely Yours

2006-06-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

I had a dream wherein I strangled someone. I don't remember who it was or why I did it, but there was definitely a short, violent struggle. For the remainder of the dream, I walked around bragging, shrugging, "Yeah, I killed a man."

Although the majority of my dreams involve my buddy list or the obtaining of expensive goods and services, this dream was not especially boring and had a clear meaning: I don't take anything seriously.

This idea was first introduced to me at the dinner table of Lea and Reuve, who, confused by what their son had brought into the house, were trying to direct me toward sensible, practical, profitable aspirations. They usually reminded me that I was old enough to get my driver's license, too.

Without an honest answer that they could be relieved by, I'd avert their questions, making references to my forthcoming fame and also marrying rich.
"Alaina," Lea groaned, "stop making a joke of everything." This request was probably just relating to the conversation at hand, but it happens to be applicable to everything else.

Institutions that I don't understand, people who are engaged in boring lifestyles, real world chores that I don't want to do at all--all become laughable to me. Whenever figures make impressions on me with heavy authority or superiority, I take the time to embarass and belittle them with my associates. Wherever someone is making poor decisions, I'm right there charging them for it. I'm a great girl and everybody likes me, but I always end up acting like an ass. It reminds me of a saying of Middle School girls: "he's not boyfriend material."

I can't really imagine what thirteen-year-old boy made a soft boyfriend material, but I remember who didn't: funny boys who liked hanging out with their friends and thought highly of themselves. Girls liked them because they were fun to be around and generally cute, but their friends would just admonish against it. "You couldn't imagine having a serious conversation with him, could you?" I was warned. "I mean, like, he'll probably make jokes while you hook up!" Seven years later, sexually active and thinking highly of myself, I'm beginning to believe I'm not girlfriend material.

However, I'm completely disinterested in recovery. Like most problems, I don't think this warrants special attention or severe tones. I don't take anything seriously. Whateva, I killed a man.

Living Situation

2006-06-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

A girl who would sometimes sleep in my room when I lived with the Gothmate approached me in the Dining Hall. "You're going to be my roommate."
"Shit. Am I living in Big Haus again?"
"Nah, nah. The Olde, man." The Olde is an apartment complex named after its age, characterized by dingy, poorly-lit interiors and a chartreuse paint job. I think it's the most beautiful place on campus.
"Are you serious?" I celebrated. "Who else are we living with?"
"I don't know. I might try to live to the New, though." With no attachment, I didn't tell her what a big mistake that move would be.

Too excited, I went to the Office of Res Life. John Delate, the coordinator of housing, a man whom, due to his secret back office, most students would certify that they've never seen, was sitting on a couch with two secretaries. The three were instantly attentive to me, despite my slow entrance and inconsistant eye-contact.
"Hi, I was wondering if I could confirm where I'm living next semester."
"Sure, what's your name?" asked one of the secretaries on the couch.
"Alaina Stamatis."
"How do you spell that?"
"I don't understand. Would you remember my information?"
"I might."
One of the secretaries stood up and walked to a computer. When she sat down and seemed to have opened a program, I recited the spelling of my last name.
"Ah, you're living in The Olde. Apartment G-7-4." She was a trifle incoherent when she began to explain the nature of my double-room in an apartment with two other singles, shit I already knew about. Then she mumbled the word "faculty".
"What?"
"Yep, so you're all set." All three wished me a great summer.

I decided that I am probably living with teachers next semester. The housing process for Fall 2006 had been hailed as a fiasco by all future juniors, who found that sophomores had an easy time getting into The New and that faculty members were taking all the good apartments in The Olde. To assuage this beef, I believe they've funneled displaced '08-ers into the apartments that had been initially considered filled by one or two professors.
"Oh man, imagine the academic jokes you can make," laughed Natalie, as she began reeling scholastic-dishwashing quips. She has a point, but I think instead I'm going to pretend the teachers are my family; I'll tell them about boys I like, greet them in the late afternoon with "What's for dinner?" and eventually tell them I love them before I go to sleep. The only difference between my future parents and my current homelife is how drunk I'll be when I do familial acts.

The Campaign Trail: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the PSGA

2006-06-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

I turned to the short answer portion of my PSGA Executive Election packet, and Malomar brought shot glasses from her room. From my window, we could see ten or fifteen kids, a sausage-and-peppers trailer, and a Purchase-based band set up to open Culture Shock. Over the distribution of Baccardi O, including the filling of a Hello Kitty glass for me, I read aloud, "What are your qualifications and experience for this position?"
We drank and then I made up a slogan. "I go to a concert a week, I read music blogs instead of going to class, and I'm great on the phone."

The debate was on Wednesday, and lower-ranking candidates didn't know the format: a two minute opening speech, one minute for questions from the audience, and a minute-long closing speech. It was being filmed to be aired on pTV, so although I didn't have anything prepared, I wore my Abraham Lincoln shirt. My three General Programming Coordinator opponents were, in alphabetical order, Rickie [the dead horse candidate], Alex [who was most qualified and deserving], and Scott Mason [a graduate student who pretends to be Jamaican and hates women], and they all made their speeches before I did.

Rickie had recently shaved her head into a mohawk and was wearing a shirt that she forgot she had bought from me in front of the library. Alex went up and listed all of the things he'd done for the Student Center over the past year, and I wanted to make a back-handed comment about how the Student Center is great for a clubhouse. Scott Mason went up before me, and established himself as the crazy candidate before I could: dressed in a suit, garnished with green-yellow-black pins, he moved the podium and began strutting and rambling. He was getting laughs for his varying vocal intonations and for saying, "bullshit" in a scholastic setting, and I thought of Woody Allen [in Annie Hall] whining to the woman backstage that two comedians can't go on in a row.

I wanted to make a schtik out of moving the podium back, but in mock-consideration, he did it for me. I introduced myself and recited the slogan in a Craig Johnson-Representing-You voice and got a few giggles. As I began preaching, though, with little to say, in my bare voice, to no audience reaction because I wasn't making any jokes, things fell apart. I ended sentences abruptly and began new unrelated ones like an immigrant. I said, "preserve" twice in one statement. Ghost, host of Da Blast, the best show on pTV, was seated in the front-center, and I could see him put his head down, embarassed on my behalf. Malomar, the only friend I'd brought with me, recalled thinking, "Alex is pretty qualified," as she watched me drown.

"Guys, I'm soooo nervous right now. I apologize profusely. I'm sorry you have to watch this." The audience began cheering, my words overpowerd by clapping. "Right, we'll try this again." I said something coherent, and then my two minute-portion was up.

Emily, who was on the panel seated to my right, asked me if I would like a sip of her water. However, it was seltzer, and I'm just not that kind of girl.
"Actually, can I have your pizza?"
"Sure," said another Emily, also seated on the panel.
"You're definitely not eating it?" and she nodded at me. I brought the pizza onto the podium, looked right into the camera, and took a big rip out of it.

From that moment on, I was known as having a really good campaign.

In the following days I designed two posters. The first employed two pictures from my pear-ravaging series and read ALAINA STAMATIS for General Programming Coordinator: TAKING A BITE OUT OF BAD MUSIC. On the other was a picture of me pulling down my upper lip, with GPC drawn in from MS Paint. Above it, fairly unrelated, was captioned VOTING MAY 2nd & 3rd IN YOUR EMAIL IS YOUR ONLY CHANCE AT PURCHASE TO GO GREEK [referring to the absence of frats and sororities on campus] and the rest of the poster was covered in Google images of statues, urns, and thirty-year-old men in togas. 75 copies were made of each poster, and I proceeded to tape them on stall doors and above urinals in the Library, Humanities, Social Science, Natural Science, Dance, Visual Arts, and the hall bathrooms of every dorm building. Freshmen began staring at me because they couldn't remember where they recognized me from.
"I'm in your bathroom," I'd yell at them, "and I want to be in your Student Center!"

Running for office made me a celebrity. People approached me in the vegetarian eatery and I got all the alcohol I wanted at parties. Someone was overheard saying, "We're voting for her because she's cute and eats pizza."

The second televised debate would be live, and I grew affectionate toward all of the nervous PSGA executive candidates in pTV's screamin'-green room. I sat on the sunken couch eating a chocolate chocolate chip cookie on top of a white chocolate chip cookie as a sort of fatwich, and I think the other candidates grew affectionate toward me, too. Then Scott Mason tried to ask me if I was still hungover in front of the presidential candidates and I became ruthlessly competitve.

PSGA hopefuls were brought into the studio in order of executive position, and my position would be filmed second-to-last. A panel of Adam and President Jeff "I'd rather be naked" Stein gave us four identical questions, and again we were interviewed in Stamatis-last order. I felt lucky this time.

I don't remember anything Rickie said. Alex would speak well, but when the camera focused back on the panel, he'd look over at us and sigh, "I'm so nervous," which made my heart swell. Scott Mason, clothed and duragged in Jamaican paraphernalia, said he'd spend $15,000 to get the Whalers up here, and other things to roll eyes and turn stomachs.
"Alaina, standard opening question, why do you want to be General Programming Coordinator?"
I told Adam, Jeff, and the people of Purchase that I had been to a jazz party the previous night and there was a live band playing. "I felt like it was my birthday. I want to make everyone feel like its their birthday in the Student Center."
When asked how I'd improve turn-out for the Student Center and events in the Performing Arts Center, I said I'd advertise more to the Adult Ed. students. "I want to enjoy my music with the elderly."
When asked who I'd spend $15,000 to bring up, I answered, "Citizen Cope. Or Devendra Banhart. Any recording artist who used to be homeless is at the top of the list."
I got the panel to laugh. Having answered briefly, I left a minute open for a closing statement. I shrugged, I think, and then I thanked the PSGA for giving me this opportunity. I said I have love for my opponents and everyone running for positions. I told the camera that I'm having a great time, and even though I left out the part about hating Scott Mason, I was telling the truth. When I got the call from one of the Emilys that I had lost the election, it wasn't just my blood-alcohol level that kept me from being upset; I had been sublimely happy for the past few weeks, and was only sad to see it end.

Unfortunately, the sleep I'd lost, the classes I'd missed, and my forgetting of at least two friends' birthdays were, technically, in vain.

Saturday night, sometime after 2 a.m., a freshman girl told me that she had voted for me in last week's election. I recognized her because she had given my old friend a new, gruesome haircut [which I eventually remedied to the best of my sheer ability]. It wasn't the girl's fault, though; it was clear that she had long-ago botched her own mop, so to put your locks in her palms is Russian roulette with a full round. I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to lie for me to be nice to her, that I wouldn't make a window into her soul, but I was too tired. I went into an apartment, ate defrosted pizza, and watched a student film on pTV.

Go West, Young Man!

2006-06-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

I had been under the impression that my family would not be moving until August. I planned to ride the LIRR to my summer internships from Real World Roslyn, as I had every other hot season. However, there is an ad running for the sale of our house in today's NY Times, and Terry is close to sealing a rental in L.A. for the time between June 2006 and the completion of our house on Mt. Washington. My main objective for this weekend, Spring Break II, is to box up even more of my room, but all I can really do is grow increasingly affectionate toward New York. I texted Malomar [a.k.a. Conjunctivitis Jones] about the Stamatis race to the West, and she responded, "Ugh, take me with you." I wanted to write back, "Please take my place."

elliotkaufman: watch Russian cats walking on tightropes, negotiating mazes and doing paw-stands:
elliotkaufman: http://www.moscowcatstheatre.com/

New York was my town, and it always will be. It's time to get reflective.

Top Five Venues

1. Student Center
The drummer from Akron/Family mocked my voice, the singer from Of Montreal did the twist with Kyleigh, and everyone underwear-danced to Please Dept. I fully intend to take charge of booking shows for next semester because Jesse Heffler brought shame on our scholastic family.

1a. Glass House Gallery
It's just like the student center, only the management requests that you smoke indoors. Something about not having a liquor license or producing meth.

2. Warsaw
The perfect cross between a communist rally and pool hall. It'd be number one, but the acoustics are actually terrible.

3. Northsix
Great acts and easy to score sauce underage.

4. Town Hall
First place I ever saw Woody Allen in the skins. I had to open my eyes wide to equally distribute all the extra water they were filling up with.

5. Webster Hall
When the audience gets really excited, the floor moves.

Bottom Five Venues

5. Jones Beach Theater
Shit public transportation and Tommy Hilfiger's a racist.

4. Knitting Factory
I know you hate it, too.

3. Roseland Ballroom
There's trash on the floor and trash on-stage. I would enjoy taking dance lessons there, though.

2. CBGB
I'm so glad that shit hole lost its lease. The restrooms are completely nonfunctional, the flooring is uneven, the stage is cramped, and the clientel should funnel their money into something more practical, like their retirement funds. At the New York Dolls show, a bald guy with a hearing aid almost assaulted me with his head. I hope they erect a Hard Rock Cafe in its lot.

1. Madison Square Garden
Not a good seat in the house [unless you're seeing the Knicks vs. Utah Jazz].