bird by bird

Friday. On Friday night I met my friend HR at the Goodwill down the street where we found ton of stuff but were turned away at the dressing room (the dressing room closes at 7:30- have you ever heard of such a thing?!). I tried on a skirt over my clothes in between the isles like a fool, but it didn't fit. Humph. Then we went to the Fulton Grand to sit outside for beers while discussing underground volunteerism and the intricacies of Groupon. We went to Hill Cafe to split appetizers and sit outside by the glow of a citronella candle. We talked gender roles and weddings. Before we parted ways, we ran into AP outside the cafe on her way to buy carrot cake supplies. I just love Brooklyn. I stopped over to watch an episode of Friday Night Lights with KS while AP shredded carrots and listened to opera. I went home around midnight before my metaphoric coach turned into a metaphoric pumpkin.  Saturday. Saturday morning I woke up to weekend construction workers singing Garth Br...

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I started a job on Tuesday at the Empire State Building, and it has been awful . I have never hated a job so much in my life. I do not excel at Excel. Then I got an interview at the New York Public Library (my dream job) on Friday at 9am that was one block away. I usually don't work until 10am at the ESB but on Thursday night before I left work, I found out that on Fridays I have to be at work at 9am. I decided to call in sick to work and go to the interview instead. At 8:45 I got off the train at the 34th St subway station and walked to Madison Ave for my library interview.  I walked on 35th street because I didn't want to see anyone from work and have to explain to them why I wasn't actually "sick." After the interview as I was getting walked out to the lobby, someone stopped me and told me  that there had been an incident on 34th street, and that I wasn't allowed to leave yet. I took out my phone to google, and I found out that there had been a ...

Today was a long, hard day. It was the kind of day when it feels like you're wearing one of those lead aprons they put on you at the dentist when they are taking x-rays. Today was heavy all over. But then I came home and remembered the great, long overdue conversation I had with JJ last night, and I remembered this:

Tomorrow is my first day at my new job. First days at new jobs are always stressful. I should know; in the past year and a half, I have endured ELEVEN of them. ELEVEN times I have walked into an office setting wearing a stiff black blazer and uncomfortable heels. ELEVEN times I have extended my hand to the person sitting behind the front desk, smiled, and declared in my friendliest South Dakota voice: "Hi, I'm Amanda. Today is my first day." There are some people that I know that have stayed at the same job for 10, 20, 30 years. They have had to walk in to a brand new job once or twice in their lifetimes. They don't know how nerve-wrecking it is to walk in like a blank slate and have to learn all new log-ins and passwords for computers, different switchboards and copy machine settings, or the specific ways each company prefers that you answer the phone: "Good afternoon, Fidessa corporation. Amanda speaking, how may I help you?" "Ziff Bro...

by Charles Bukowski when you write a poem it needn't be intense it can be nice and easy and you shouldn't necessarily be concerned only with things like anger or love or need; at any moment the greatest accomplishment might be to simply get up and tap the handle on that leaking toilet; I've done that twice now while typing this and now the toilet is quiet. to solve simple problems: that's the most satisfying thing, it gives you a chance and it gives everything else a chance too. we were made to accomplish the easy things and made to live through the things hard.

She had a giant afro with giant fake eyelashes to match, and he was a skinny white boy with a shirt drenched with sweat and sneakers that were falling apart, but it wasn't their appearances that drew me from one end of the hot and sticky subway platform to the other; it was their sound. No matter what your feelings are toward this song and the frequency with which it is played at wedding dances and at karaoke bars, unless you've ever heard it at the acoustic epicenter of the Hoyt-Schermerhorn platform performed by a soulful voice and a warn acoustic guitar, you'll just have to trust me on this one. It was unbelievable. I took the train at 7:30 to meet a friend at the G stop so I could tag along on an apartment preview. MR is a Harlem girl, just like me, but also just like me, she's moving to the better borough of Brooklyn. She wanted someone to go with her to the apartment to avoid ending up on an exaggerated Law & Order plot-line. I didn't blame her. The...

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Tonight I'm dizzy and frustrated and I just ate a half of a cantaloupe (it's not as much as it sounds). I narrowly survived one of the worst migraines of my adult life this weekend, and it got me thinking about thinking and how nice it would be to turn it off sometimes. Brains can be such pains, you know? I'm giving up sugar for 30 days in support of KS's super intense cleanse, and it's hard, man; I love chocolate. Remember when I gave up music for Lent? That was the worst idea I've ever had. I'm 26 now, and I feel very anxious about it. Mostly I'm anxious about the fact that starting September 1st, I won't have health insurance. Also, I am getting gray hairs, so there's that. On the bright side, I've been watching a lot of Gilmore Girls while eating blueberries in bed. Sometimes it just doesn't get any better than that. Then I fall asleep and wake up with blueberries smooshed in my hair. Maybe that's the worst idea I've ever had...

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1. Calories don't count on your birthday. Don't make me try to explain the science of it.. but it's true! It's like your body still remembers the trauma of the whole "being born" thing, and so it cuts you some slack on this day every year. You can have cake and ice cream for every meal, some pasta and steak and fried whatever in between then spend all night drinking margaritas and mudslides, and your clothes are still going to fit just fine the next day!! Go ahead: indulge. Being born was tough, you know. 2. It's the only day of the year when Facebook actually makes you feel good about yourself. You wake up to posts wishing you "Happy Birthday!" and telling you to "Have a great day!" from people that you thought had forgotten all about you. (Frankly, you had forgotten all about some of them..) All day long you get posts and messages and sure, it only take like a millisecond to type those 13 ...

Put your feet up, grab a coffee/beer/bottle of whiskey, and get comfortable, because this story is a dousey and also so extremely long ... but I need to write it so I can sleep at night. This is my therapy, you know? Read if you dare. [Back story: I am moving from Harlem to Brooklyn, and I have NO MONEY. I consider hiring a moving company but then remember that I have NO MONEY, so I enlist the help of BFF's KS and AP to help me move. On Tuesday night, we carry 5 pieces of totally stuffed luggage down the street, on the subway, and all the way to my new Brooklyn apartment. We look like freaks, but it's kind of funny, as I keep reminding AP and KS, "We're going to laugh about this so hard one day!" For the rest of my crap (dresser, book shelf, crap, crap, and more crap...) I rent a 10' Penske truck like this one for $50 plus mileage, and KS and AP again graciously agree to help me load/unload it on Saturday. Here's where it all begins..] ...

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OMGAAAWWWDDD... Yesterday I moved to Brooklyn, and it was the most stressful, draining, laborious, taxing, don't-think-about-it-or-you'll-start-to-sob days of my life . I can't wait to tell you alllll about it. But first I need to take a deep breath, get my interview outfit* ready for tomorrow, and try to "keep calm" until I can appropriately reflect on the moving mayhem. On the positive side, I could not POSSIBLY love KS or AP any more than I do. I mean it. After the physical and emotional support that they gave me yesterday (and last week, and today, and every day), I owe them MY LIFE. I wouldn't be in Brooklyn without them. I wouldn't be in NY without them. I wouldn't be where I know I need to be without them. *And after this hellish weekend, I am starting my week by sneaking out of my stressful temp job mid-day to go downtown for a job interview at an international elementary school, then back to the stressful temp-job. Wish me.. luck?

Thanks to LJK for hosting last night's wine night and for sharing this vid!

“Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.” ― James Baldwin

Happy Birthday to the friend.. Who takes roadtrips with me and doesn't complain when I inevitably get us lost, Who introduced me to the glory of the Carey's margarita, Who was an amazing travel guide when my family, the Bussey's, went around the world, Who let me be a part of her wedding (and wasn't mad when I messed up the words!), Who convinced me to join Twitter and keeps me posted via multiple forms of electronic communication, Who came to visit me in NYC when she was six months pregnant, Who remains one of my closest friends, even though our surroundings and the phases of our lives differ greatly. Happy Birthday CS! I hope you have an awesome day!! Love you! (Forgot to post this yesterday!)

In case you haven't heard, I'M MOVING TO BROOKLYN!! Now I need to back up a little bit and tell you about the week I spent perusing Craig's List looking for an apartment. First of all, it wasn't pretty. Literally. There are a lot of ugly apartments out there. Secondly, some of the ad descriptions I found were so weird, funny, random that you know I had to copy and paste. [Unfortunately, I didn't really think of saving the weird ones until half way through my search, but still, you get the picture.] Search: Brooklyn Sublet Starting Aug. 1 Results: "...Also note: gender, race and sexual orientation no issue (just please no Republicans!)" "Beautiful large living rm (adorned with African/Caribbean/Latin American art and instruments, including tuned piano)..." "Must be cool with cats, synthesizers, the occasional party, the occasional quiet time, keeping things clean, weird books, rituals/seances, queer culture, records, an undramatic l...

I read this quote by cartoonist Lynda Barry: "If you could only tell your life story through the couches you have known--what would that story be?" I think it's such a cool idea! So I'm going to tell you my life story, through the couches I have known . Three.  It is shades of dark orange and brown and yellow, colors that belong in the leaves of trees, not on the design of a living room sofa. It feels scratchy on my skin and stings my constantly scrapped knees as they brush across the coushins. I lay on my dad's belly to watch reruns of M.A.S.H. and Batman and Robin, and we doze, only to be awoken occassionaly by commercials or by each other. Though the couch itself is ugly, itchy, and rigid in a way that couches shouldn't be, it's frim arms hold a precious memory of spending an entire Saturday afternoon being a tator tot with my dad, the King couch potato. Ten. The new furniture is delivered to our garage, and we find it there afte...