WHO DAT!!

I would be remiss if I didn't make mention of the fact that my (Superbowl champions) New Orleans Saints are squaring off tonight against the San Francisco 49ers, the city I formerly (and often begrudgingly) called home.  I had to laugh at the people who actually asked who I would be rooting for.  Seriously?  Is that even a question?

Oh, I forgot to tell you what happened at last week's game!  Jenelle and I decided to forgo Bar None, as it was disgustingly crowded three hours before the game and was only going to get worse.  We decided to go to dba in Brooklyn, another Saints outpost in NYC.  My friend James (also from New Orleans) met us down there as well.  We get there and I notice a guy running around who looks really familiar.  It took a little while, but I finally realized, holy shit, that's Jack.  He used to come into a bar I worked at ten fucking years ago.  I made a mental note to say hello when I got a minute.

Next thing I know, James is next to me saying, "Hey, wanderlust, have you met Jack?"

And I said, "As a matter of fact, I have.  I used to get Jack drunk ten years ago.  Shot of Jim Beam and a Budweiser, right Jack?"

The look on his face was priceless.

Of course he remembered me and of course we had lots of catching up to do.  Turns out he moved to San Francisco for a while and hated it too!  (OK, I'm being dramatic.  I didn't HATE living in SF.  Not all the time, anyway.  I just complained a lot)  He's much happier in NY, as am I.

That's the thing about New Orleans.  Once you've lived there a little while, it doesn't matter where you go.  If there's any sort of gathering involving New Orleans in any way, be it a Saints game, a crawfish boil, or oil-spill fundraiser, you WILL run into someone you know.  You just will.  Like it or not.  I once ran into a guy I used to HATE at the Black Magic Voodoo Lounge in San Francisco.  Fortunately for all involved, he was way too drunk to remember who I was.

But it's a beautiful thing, and I love it.  Anyway, I've got to go.  I have a date with James and Jack and the rest of the Who Dat nation.  Bar None has no idea what it's in for.

GEAUX SAINTS!!

Shadow Shot Sunday

Brooklyn, New York
Coney Island
Jenn Farmer on the Wonder Wheel

    


Jenn was in town visiting from San Francisco a couple of weeks ago.  I was so happy to have her here.  She herself is an extremely talented artist and photographer.  She's trying to convince me to let her paint a mural on my walls.  Actually, it didn't take much convincing.  I was like, when can you come back?  Check out her work here: http://jennfarmer.org/  Shamelessly promoting my friend, I know.  What can I say?  She deserves it.

       http://heyharriet.blogspot.com/

Weekend Reflections

Brooklyn, New York
Brighton Beach

            


Weekend Reflections  http://newtowndailyphoto.blogspot.com/

I don't understand

OK, I know this story is kind of old news, but I don't have a TV and I don't read the paper or magazines, I really just kind of exist in my own weird little world, so I was vaguely aware about Lady Gaga wearing a dress made of meat and I was like oh, whatever.  No big deal.  I once saw a chick sew a bikini out of flank steak as a performance art piece during White Linen Night in New Orleans.  The whole thing was quite tedious, and it was kind of stinky once it was finally finished, most likely due to the middle-of-summer-in-New-Orleans heat.  It wasn't very flattering, either, once she put it on.

Well, I thought, if Lady Gaga wants to wear a stinky, unflattering dress or bikini to an award show or whatever it was, that's fine with me.  I don't really care what she does to be honest.

But then I read today that she did it to support gay rights and the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, some crazy shit about if we don't fight for our rights we'll have as much rights as the meat on our bones, whatever the fuck THAT means and I was like what?  WHAT?  What the FUCK?

I'm one hundred percent behind gay rights, believe me, but I'm terribly, terribly confused here.  I'm trying my hardest to understand how a dress made of meat has ANYTHING to with gay rights, but I'm failing miserably.  Can anybody help me out here?

Way up high

Brooklyn, New York

Coney Island

From the top of the Wonder Wheel

                   

randomness

New York, NY
Brooklyn Bridge

        

Neurotic? Just a little...

It's ten-thirty at night and I just got back from the gym and I had it in my mind to go upstairs, eat a sandwich and go back out for a drink (or three), but apparently the doorman thinks I'm in for the night because when I came in he said, "OK, goodnight wanderlust!  See you tomorrow!"  And I said, "OK, goodnight Cesar!  See you tomorrow!"  So now I'm trapped in the apartment until after midnight when he leaves because I want him to think I'm a nice, respectable girl who gets home from the gym and goes to bed, not the kind of sleazy, alcoholic girl who goes out to bars at eleven o'clock at night on a Thursday.  You know, the kind of girl that I actually am.

I'm starting to think maybe I'm not cut out for having a doorman.  I might be just a wee bit too neurotic for that shit.  This isn't the first time something like this has happened.  More than once I have waited until after five o'clock (when the night shift guy comes on) to leave the house because I had some crazy idea in my mind that the day shift guy had seen me coming and going too many times.  Especially when I was running around job interviewing, I would leave the house all dressed up, come back a couple of hours later, leave again, come back.  I was like jeez, this guy probably thinks I'm a fucking hooker.  

So because I'm crazy and I think too fucking much, I'm trapped inside for a little while tonight.  With nothing to do but think.  And look at the ugly carpet.  Which can't be good.  Because that's why I'm stuck inside in the first place.  The thinking part.  Not the ugly carpet.  The ugly carpet was what made me want to LEAVE tonight in the first place.  

I know.  I need to get out more.  But it's hard.  You know, with all the doormen and all the thinking...

The resentment begins

You're probably going to want to smack me for what I'm about to say.  I would want to smack me for what I'm about to say.  But whatever, it's on my mind, so I'm just going to say it.

At first I was excited about fixing up this apartment.  I ran around saying, it's going to be so great!  It's going to be so much fun!  I get to fix it up however I want, paint it any colors I want, put in a new kitchen and new light fixtures and it's going to be SO MUCH FUN!!

You know what?  This shit isn't fun.  At all.

As a matter of fact, it's so not fun that I really haven't even started yet.  I put a rug over the huge stain on the ugly carpet, replaced the sheets and pillowcases on the sofabed, got a new tablecloth and threw a blanket over the ugly-as-shit-but-comfortable-as-fuck chair.  I hung a few random pictures in spots that already had hooks in the wall.  After that, the home-improvement project came to a screeching halt.

I look at the carpet and it depresses me and I think, oh, I should go to the hardware store and get a big knife and a pair of hedge clippers and tear that shit up and throw it away.  Then I could at least sweep and polish the lovely hardwood floor underneath, and eventually have someone re-sand and re-finish it for me.  But then the thought of actually DOING that depresses me even more and I want to go back to bed.

I should remind you here that I'm really lazy, people.  Really, really lazy.  I hate doing shit that requires me to, you know, move, unless it's something I personally find enjoyable and rewarding, like riding my bike or climbing around on mountains and shit like that.  Tearing up a carpet and painting my apartment don't qualify.

I need to call a fucking painter to come over here before I rip out the carpet though, because there's no way in hell I'm painting it myself, and picking colors gives me a headache.  Once they start painting my life will be thrown into upheaval until they are done, and I'm sick of my life being in fucking upheaval.  I've been living in a state of upheaval since JANUARY when this whole mess started.

But I can't stand the way it looks for much longer, so there you go.  I'm kind of fucked for a while, no matter what.

We're not even going to talk about the kitchen right now.

One of my biggest problems is that I can clearly see the finished result in my head, and I really can't seem to wrap my head around the concept that it's a "process" as they say, and that it will "take time and patience (and lots of fucking money, of course) to complete but will be so rewarding once it's finished!"  Yeah, I know it will be rewarding.  But if I know what I want it to look like, why can't it be done tomorrow?  Why can't I just leave town for a couple of days and get a team in here and have it be magically and beautifully finished upon my return?  Isn't that how it works on all those TV shows?

So yeah, I'm feeling resentful over having to direct my time, money and energy towards all this crap right now when I have better things to do with my time, money and energy.  Much better things.  Like, you know... write this blog, or see what people are doing on facebook.  Or ride my bike around the park, or sleep.  Or eat pizza, or sit in bars and talk to strangers...

Yeah, I know.  I'm an asshole, aren't I?

The Dude abides

New York, NY
215 Thompson, between Bleecker and 3rd.

My friend told me about this store and how bad ass it was.  So I went, and yeah.  It was pretty bad ass.  The Dude who owns it even wears a bathrobe all day.  Seriously.  You should go check it out.

  

WHO DAT!!

Oh yeah baby.  It's that time of year again.  It begins tonight.

Some might say it began a few weeks ago, but I say pre-season, shmee-season.  I believe pre-season exists solely to make me paranoid about injuring our starters.  I was especially concerned about Drew, what with that whole Madden curse thing.  But I have faith in our boy.  I mean, this is the same quarterback who led us to the Superbowl.  The Saints.  To the Superbowl.  I still can't believe it...

Jenelle and I have a date tonight with the rest of the Who Dat Nation down at Bar None, a Saints stronghold in NYC.  I've heard that Vikings fans like to hang out there too, so tonight should be especially fun.  I am so excited my stomach is turning upside down.  Or maybe I'm just hungover.  Either way, I'm ready to STAND UP AND GET CRUNK!!  WHO DAT!! WE DAT!! YEAH YOU RIGHT!!

            

Well said

"Now look, baby.  I don't never wanna see you cryin' behind no man, ya heard me?  Lissen-ta-me, now.  A man is like a bus, OK?  There's another one comin' along every fifteen minutes."


                 ~Dolores Bourgeois, 1998


She definitely had a way with words.  I didn't want to hear it at the time, but I never forgot those words.  I've repeated them to myself countless times over the years, and I've discovered she was right, as usual.  Life goes on.  Next!

Randomness

New York, NY
Iron Worker's Lunch Break

          

Night and day

This is what it looked like before:

          


I only lasted a week looking at that shit.  I said to myself, well who can blame the woman.  I would have killed myself too if I had to look at that shit day in and day out.  At first I was going to wait, I said, well, it might be ugly, but you just got here and you don't have a job so you really shouldn't go spending money on sheets and pillowcases until you have a job and have some money coming in.  Then I said, OK, if I have to look at that shit for one more day I am going to climb onto the roof of this building and jump off.  So I went down to Laytner's Linens to rectify the situation.

The painting had to go as soon as humanly possible.  I couldn't look at it anymore without wanting to stab myself in the eye.  I gave it away, to that dude from craigslist who has been so helpful, the one who helped me move my shit in.  I was foaming at the mouth to get it out, and the minute I did I was overcome with a hugely depressing and horrible feeling of guilt.  I have a feeling that she loved that painting and it meant a lot to her for some reason (because she was out of her mind and bat-shit crazy) and I'm sure she would have been extremely hurt and depressed to know that I was so eager to get it out of my house.  Because it was fucking hideous.

But I got over it rather quickly, and was grateful for the plain white wall underneath.  It's going to be forever before the place looks the way I want it to.  It needs to be painted, I need to tear up the carpet and refinish the floor.  I need this, that, the other.  Whatever.  It's getting there.  This is what it looks like now:

            

At least we're moving in the right direction.

                   

 

Shadow Shot Sunday

New Orleans, Louisiana
Down by the river

Play me something...

                

    

  
              

            

      http://heyharriet.blogspot.com/

Nice

New York, NY

I really like this building.  I'm not sure why I like it so much.  I just do.  I wish I could remember exactly where I saw it.  I think it was Broadway and Howard.  Maybe Broadway and Grand.  Somewhere around there.

Nothing good can come from this...

It's a movie now.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I remember when the book came out.  Every woman you saw had a copy of that book glued to her hand for a while there.  They all tried to get me to read it.  "It's so inspiring," they would say.  "It's so brave, and honest.  You absolutely have to read it.  It's, it's... it's life-changing!!"

Needless to say, I was skeptical.

I went to a bookstore, flipped through a few pages, and was unimpressed.  Seemed like a bunch a self-indulgent, new-age nonsense.  I put the book back on the shelf and forgot about it.

Last year when I went to Peru, I befriended a lovely mother and daughter from Washington, DC while traveling in the Amazon jungle.  We became quite close, and when we parted ways in Cusco the night before I was heading to Machu Picchu, the mother pressed a book into my hand.  "Here," she said, "Take this.  I'm finished with it and I would like you to have it."  It was a copy of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.  I smiled, put it in my bag, and forgot about it.

A couple of days later, I broke my knee, you probably know the story, and I was in the hospital and in serious pain with nothing to do.  All the books and magazines were in Spanish, and I'm much too lazy to learn Spanish, regardless of how much I enjoy traveling in Spanish-speaking countries.  Same with the flat-screen TV I had in the room, all Spanish.  I don't watch TV anyway.  So I decided to pull out my copy of Eat, Pray, Love and see what Miss Elizabeth Gilbert had to say.

I read the entire book during my two-night stay, and in retrospect it was probably the perfect book to read under such circumstances because halfway through the first chapter I completely forgot about how much pain I was in because I wanted to smack the fuck out of Elizabeth Gilbert.

For those who have been under a rock and are unfamiliar with the book, let me sum it up:

It's a book about this stupid, whiny, petulant bitch crying and moaning about being thrown into an emotional tailspin and crippling depression all because she had to make the hugely selfish decision to leave her husband for no good reason other than he wanted to have kids and she didn't, preferring to pursue her own career and her own happiness, living a life of pure self-indulgence.  So she leaves her husband, who has been a perfect husband and hasn't fucked her over at all, and the emotional ramifications of this selfish decision were so great that Miss Gilbert, after fucking some hot, young actor for a while, is forced to take a year off to spend four months in Italy eating, four months in India praying, and four months in Indonesia "loving," whatever the fuck that means, because Miss Gilbert makes a huge declaration in the beginning of this adventure that SHE'S NOT GOING TO HAVE SEX AT ALL FOR THE WHOLE ENTIRE YEAR, so of course, she has sex with some guy she meets in Indonesia.  She also shrewdly convinces some publishing company to fund this little sabbatical for her, so she can write a book for them about it later.

Incidentally, Miss Gilbert also makes a huge declaration at the end of the book that SHE'S NEVER GETTING MARRIED AGAIN EVER.  She now has another book out about how, surprise surprise, she's married.  Hmm.  I'm sensing a pattern here.  Next will be her huge declaration that SHE'S NEVER, NEVER HAVING KIDS, EVER.

It was one of the worst books I'd read in a long time.  I considered writing my own version, entitled Eat, Drink, Fuck, but it looks like someone beat me to it.  Fucker.

So now they've made it into a movie, and women across the country will be leaving their husbands for no good reason and trying to go find themselves in foreign countries.  And people will again say how brave she was to make that painful decision, and how amazing and strong she is for getting past that debilitating depression and I will want to smack the fuck out of them.

I would love to see what would happen to Miss Gilbert if life tossed some real problems her way.  Because there are far worse things that could happen to a person besides leaving your husband for a young, hot actor who's awesome in bed.  Trust me on this one.

Unexpected

New York, NY

JFK International Airport

Last Friday I threw on a dress and got all gussied up at nine in the morning to go meet Sweetheart at the airport.  We met up at the terminal and headed back to the train.  As we were coming down the steps, he looked out the window and said, "Hey, look at that.  I thought you said there was no nature out here?"

            

Hmm.  Guess I was wrong.