dictionary

we made little dictionaries in python about ourselves this week in web 

legs

Last night I attended a wonderful housewarming a few blocks from my new apartment themed: LEGS and hosted by my friend Craggs and her two roommates, all animators. They made heaps of wonderful content for the occasion - animations, gifs, flyers, etc. and I liked it all so much that I couldn't not paste some of them here for posterity. I was surprised/not surprised when I arrived to see that Craggs was dressed as ceviche. Anemones sprouting out of her head and a papier mâché lobster tail mounted on her crotch. Other costume elements (like squid arms) were abandoned on surfaces around the apartment.


Craggs proffered lavender-infused gin, which she mixed with Squirt and served to me as a Vagin and Squirt. She also made the best tres leches cake I've ever had. It was in the shape of a pair of legs in a bed of peaches and strawberries and we ate it on the rooftop by savagely drunkenly digging our fingers into the cake. The left leg was made with whipping cream that had also undergone lavender infusion and it was so delightful that it was gone long before the right leg was (due much in part to my good-humored participation).

stay young wild and free

I tried to make pad thai tonight and it was fucking terrible. I put everything on my plate back in the pot, put everything in the pot in a tupperware, and put it all in the fridge as if I'm not going to throw it all away.

My new roommate is great because she opens beers for me and brings them to me even if I haven't asked for one. I stopped buying beer for myself because it makes me fat but it doesn't count if someone else is giving them to me.

the machine

One week ago, Aijia and I threw all of my worldly east-coast possessions into a Uhaul truck and we drove away. She valiantly drove this great beast of a vehicle half a mile away, parallel parking it like a pro, and, I'm sorry Trouble, but we haven't looked back since. I now live in an illegal basement room in a beautiful, plain white apartment that we found at the very last minute with Aijia, her cat Griffin, and two new friends who have just started school with us. Thank goodness. And we just got our internet installed yesterday! I need nothing else.

Tonight Mrs. Tuckersman and I went to see a play at the Park Avenue Armory called The Machine. It was about the 1997 chess match when Garry Kasparov played against IBM's Deep Blue and it was powerful and fantastic. I feel funny about how there's no way to properly convey how great some things were. The play was staged in a historic armory from 1880 currently hosting "unconventional works in the performing and visual arts," the acting was really really good, and we had front-row seats to it all. The excellent theater experiences that Mrs. Tuckersman finds are one of my favorite things about New York. Afterwards we had late-night mozarella sticks and beverages at TGI Fridays, which is the kind of activity that is one of my favorite things about life.

It's New York Fashion Week and all of a sudden there seem to be leggy, Brobdingnagian, urbanesque model people everywhere stalking about on the streets, subways, etc., laughing and looking young and carefree and not hungry.

This is what the stage looked like -

In 1997, Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest grandmasters the chess world has ever produced, arrived in New York City for the match of his life. He was playing against Deep Blue, conceived by IBM as the most powerful super-computer on the planet. What started as a bid by IBM to raise its profile and stock price became a historic encounter that pitted Kasparov against Deep Blue and its creator Doctor Hsu, a genius in his own right with a lifelong dedication to the game.

Staged by Donmar Warehouse Artistic Director Josie Rourke, this new work by British playwright Matt Charman explores Kasparov’s dramatic battle with Deep Blue and its wunderkind inventor as the world breathlessly watched on live television. The Drill Hall will be transformed into an intensely intimate environment to capture this epic struggle of man against machine.

“An arena extravaganza … a whirl of activity”
–The Guardian (London)

“... the pace and grip of this theatrical thriller made for a memorable evening.”
–THE INDEPENDENT (London)

“Josie Rourke… is no ordinary director, as was shown by her skillful pacing of the action, by turns fast and furious, and then dramatically breaking into moments of unexpected poignancy.”
–The Independent (London)

“[Matt] Charman is no ordinary playwright, as his immensely compelling firecracker script revealed.”
–The Independent (London)

air travel magic is dead

The amount of aggression on this plane from passengers and stewardesses alike, all stemming from overhead bin real estate struggles, makes me want to die a little. I'm glad I gate checked but there's still bad juju in the air.

airport blues

I'm freezing at the airport. In the moments where I'd normally be pondering my mortality, I'm feeling angry because the curbside check-in skycap yelled at me for not tipping him. I didn't know it was standard practice and now I'm mad because I was yelled at AND glad that I didn't tip him so take that. Things would be better if this terminal were warmer and had McDonalds. I'm sitting behind two tiny old Russian ladies with white hair who are propping up their cankles and speaking at a pace I can understand.

not dead yet

I've just experienced my last day in Los Angeles for the summer. This trip has been really grounding and good for my mental health - almost purely family time, quiet time, bagel time, and physical space as medicine for the daily trials. This last day, however, has been plagued by physical and mental torture. The morning began with my new apartment building backing out of giving us a place to stay for September 1st - four days prior to moving. The process of procuring and negotiating this apartment has been a real nightmare of being caught between liars versus liars for the past month, only to completely implode at the near-last second. I have affirmed in my mind that real estate is truly one of the most fucked up things about New York - may I never deal with it again.

After eating some insanity breakfast, it was comparatively soothing to go to the orthodontist, where my crumbling permanent retainer was yanked out of my mouth, the old glue painfully ground off, and a new retainer glued in. Afterwards, I donated some Missy's old lady diapers to the animal shelter (I bought them but she never wore them) even though I don't believe that any animal in the shelter lives long enough to need to wear them.

In the afternoon, my mom gave me a flu shot that hurt more than I'm used to and when she withdrew the needle I bled mightily down the arm, an actual stream flowing downwards and pooling in the crook of my elbow. My mom screamed, "Aaaaah!! aaaaaahh!! ARE YOU ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO BLEEDS TOO MUCH?!" and my dad was unhappy and ranted about how she didn't do it right and I couldn't stop laughing because it was so shocking and so fucked up. The way it spewed out was as if the head-bursting blood pressure from all my morning rage had finally found its exit. Later Ma came to me and said, "I'm very sorry. You probably won't die."

The evening became quieter. Ma, Pa and I went to Souplantation, where I ate all the favorite soups, salads, and carbs that I've been eating my entire life. On the drive home Ma was trying to come up with a Chinese name for baby Char. Every name she came up with we could turn into a joke by interpreting it as its homonym or changing the tone of one word slightly. You mean Bowl? Little Fish? Oh, Summer Shirt? Ma came up with a new one and tried to translate it for me. 

Ma: It means "prostate."

Me: PROSTATE?

Ma: Yes. Prostate. 

Me: Are you sure?

Ma: No..."prostitute"

Me: WHAT

Ma: No... ..."protest?"

Ma has traditionally rhymed my Chinese name with Fat Pig, but Pa came up with a new one for me today - Scarf.   

when we were in rhode island

When we were in Rhode Island, we were living a New England fantasy. We canoed across Indian Lake at sunset, stopping in the dead middle of the water to drink bottled beer, becoming trapped at times in beds of lilypads topped with yellow and pink lilies, only to free ourselves into beds of lotuses. We used our hands to splash water onto the lotus leaves and watched the beads roll off of one of nature's most water-repellent surfaces. We paddled by the island inhabited only by wild geese and blueberries. We were like Clark, Merriwether Lewis, and Sacagawea. We pondered the snapping turtles and eels resting in the mud below and watched thousands of small silvery herring jump out of the water to catch their evening meals under a ridiculous purple sky. The water was piss warm even through the night, and we waded and sunk our toes into muck and crouched on big slime-covered rocks that you could see through the clear lake water. For the first time it felt like I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing at that moment and had no interest in doing anything else.

We sat down to a lobster dinner that began with fresh watermelon martinis and grilled cherrystone clams. The lobsters, bought off a fishing boat that morning, surrendered peacefully and I ate mine from claws to tail and goop. We lied out at Sand Hill Cove, where the sand glittered and the water was a clear tropical green. Schools of fish visibly swarmed in the waters and I picked up crabs left and right and held them in my hands. The shore was littered with blubbery moms and tan, leathery old people rubbing themselves with oil and laying back in their beach chairs. We ate frozen lemonade and experimental burgers and then went back to the lake to sit around a fire pit in the dark. We laid on our backs on the dock as raucous frogs went wild in the trees and watched the Perseids going wild in the sky. We saw the biggest, brightest smears of stars fly by from all sides.

current favorite commercial

This JELL-O commercial makes me emotional, like I want to break out in a Salem-from-Sabrina-like sob and wail, Yeah! Being an adult sucks! Woeee

mama's indian kitchen

Last night Bagel had an earache so we ordered Indian delivery online to make him feel better. Shortly after placing the order, I received a call from the restaurant saying that I hadn't ordered any rice or bread with my curry or vegetables. I told the man on the phone that I didn't want any. He exclaimed, "NO RICE OR BREAD?! HOW ARE YOU GOING TO EAT IT?" at which point I agreed and I ordered rice. Good service. Really really good food as well - best samosas I've ever had. I also had chicken korma for the first time, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Order from Mama's Indian Kitchen in Culver City if you ever can.  

good body

This week I indulged in my last days of parental health insurance. I had my cervix swabbed, my arm vaccinated (against tetanus,diptheria, and whooping cough), and my blood drawn (an extra $10). I even got Sesame Street stickers. Below, the results of my blood test and proof of my impeccable health. Please excuse shitty cut/paste job - I'm not wearing my glasses. 

last moments of hatred

On a night when I needed to get up at 6:30am, I had to clamber out of bed at 3am to tell my idiot roommate, Artist, to turn down his fucking music. He started blasting jazz out of the large speakers in his bedroom to entertain his girl "friend" in the living room, who, by the way, showed up last night with 3 suitcases and looks like she'll be staying a while, of which I had no prior knowledge. The same girl for whom Artist entertained earlier in the evening at around 11pm with his electric guitar. Thankfully, I'm up this early because I"m leaving for Rhode Island for the weekend. I'm blockading the entrance to my room with suitcases and jaggedy open drawers and should probably booby trap the room floor with many forks hidden in the rug or something in case he tries to put her up in my room while I'm gone. I hope you have a horrible life.

uh huh hah

Katya went back to Los Angeles this morning. This is the first night in a week where I'm going to sleep by myself. It's weird. It'll probably be too comfortable. Today was also my last day at the midtown office. I'm going to miss the people I worked with. Too much leaving for one day? I had a chicken thigh for breakfast but I've been feeling very emotionally raw.

festive animals

sarah

A common book that the young people like to read on the subway in New York is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I often find this puzzling, because Nabokov is already so dense and challenging to navigate that I don't understand how anyone is making heads or tails of it while being jostled left and right, back-to-front, poked from the sides, and repeatedly fallen on by that girl who won't just hold the fucking railing.

Tonight I went to probably my favorite yoga class so far in New York. It was really soothing and I loved the teacher. I always worry that when a yoga teacher touches my face, she'll smear my eyebrows off.