le cat

hookey

2007-11-20T05:41:07Z

today i had an errand to run at work, so i left early. in the end i made it to the liquor authority 5-10 minutes to late to take care of it, which means getting up at dawn(ish) tomorrow to go back to harlem. so i gave myself the rest of the afternoon off. too the train to 72nd street and walked east into the park. i always manage to get lost and discover delightful things in central park. trying to head southeasterly i found myself walking down a wide empty avenue while the dusk fell down over my head in waves of purple and orange. there were rows of elms winding up to the sky.

le_cat @ 2007-04-29T20:28:00

2007-04-30T00:22:33Z

le_cat @ 2006-11-09T23:32:00

2006-11-10T03:32:05Z

you should all thank your stars and garters that i lost the post i was writing at work today. whole resevoirs of angst have been hiding out since high school.
la.
and now we're listening to the music on meatloaf's myspace page. variety is indeed the spice.

le_cat @ 2006-11-09T01:25:00

2006-11-09T05:25:07Z

i want booze and i want a cigarette. these are really things i ought to keep around the house. today has been a strange day, spent entirely indoors. this morning i was trapped by the rain in the raspberry's apartment, reading triumphant articles in the times about yesterday's elections. when the rain dropped off a bit, i headed home, driven by hunger, and still got half-drenched on the way to the subway. waiting for my transfer, reading a hardback novel under the dripping metal awning, an older man clumsily hit on me. my ears are plugged up from a cold and my head was in the book, so i had to ask him to repeat everything twice.
do you like park slope? what? do you live in park slope? no, i live in bed-stuy. do you sing? what? are you single? no, i'm not. sorry.
i smiled at his half-heard compliments and wiped raindrops off the pages of my book. i used my scarf to dry my hair while i looked in the other direction awkwardly. rebecca, sick, has been watching movies all day. i found her in the middle of the two towers. the return of the king and the triplets of belleville later, one issue of sin city and a few more chapters of the novel, and i fell the urge to put something out. this book i'm reading, i like it, though after llemma's articulate and devastating criticisms of several books i've enjoyed, i'm afraid to like anything anymore (and no offence to llemma at all. your reasoning is all very sound and i find myself agreeing with you, but it's a bit like losing an old friend every time i see a fondly-remembered story in a more critical light). there's no point in summarizing the book here, but it's about a poet, and about the snow. it makes me long for winter to start to make a stand here in new york and is an urging to me to read more poetry and try harder to write. putting the thoughts into words i'm already undermining myself. i find i can't write poetry about something that i've hashed out in my journal, and my prose is utter crap. a week ago saturday i went back up the hudson to go to a museum and immediately ran into my old poetry ta, whom i haven't seen or spoken to since 2002. he's looking well, although it strains credulity that he's become another lawyer working at a midtown law firm. sometimes it seems that everyone i know is becoming a lawyer or a teacher, while i drift along, unable to make a commitment to any path.
i've had dreams about dylan again. he's a symbol of past commitment, of one thing in my life that was certain and clear. rationally i accept everything that happened as for the best, but my superstitious brain feels i lost him because i wasn't pure, because i was inconstant and cruel. did i say i was done talking about him? does talking about his memory count?

now i feel special

2006-10-20T04:06:59Z

HowManyOfMe.com

There is:
1
person with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

le_cat @ 2006-10-19T23:15:00

2006-10-20T03:35:55Z

it's always so strange to me when the house is quiet. it's al lovely cool night, drizzling the last time i went up for a smoke. all's relatively calm in bed-stuy, too. i guess the rain and the hour have people at home. i'm wondering about the future and its potential, mulling about how i think rather than act. the window for applying to grad schools this year is closing, again. many of the people i work with are my age or younger, but they have the training or the drive to be doing more with their time than i. my advisor repeatedly urges me to e-mail him and discuss grad school prospects or job prospects, but i hesitate when i think about how we had a similar meeting three years ago and i have nothing new to tell him. i still want to get my masters in art history and museum studies, i still don't know where or what area i want to focus my studies in. brains i have, and knowledge, and the skill to articulate ideas, but no focus, no drive. i just want to find work and do well and be rewarded for that. slowly i seem to be succeeding, but i realise that i am tired of being poor and scraping by, of not having job security or health insurance, not feeling the satisfaction of exerting myself, and there is no indication that that will change any time soon. when i speak about my financial situation, i find myself surprisingly comfortable, and i'm not lying when i say that i'm happier now than i have ever been, but in my (short, so far) adult life i don't have anything to compare it with. i've been scraping by ever since i graduated from college and i don't expect expensive things. still, i'm suddenly tired of this zero-sum lifestyle, spending as much as i make and watching my savings trickle away.

le_cat @ 2006-09-07T20:31:00

2006-09-08T00:41:27Z

a rattle, then another. i gingerly moved aside the coin jar and found him taking his last breaths, heart beating visibly in his chest, tail twitching, but he didn't try to break free at all. the trap didn't close on his spine the way it's supposed to, but snapped shut across the top of his skull, in between his shiny eyes. one bead of blood on the copper wire. while i wondered over the quickest way to end his suffering, the tail stilled. i hate the thought of anything dying by violence, trapped and frightened, which may seem odd to those of you who know i keep a snake. as i type this he is prowling hungrily, following my fingers, nosing at the glass. but that's how he lives. the kind of death he gives is the one i fear the most, trapped and suffocating. in my nightmares i'm attacked by snakes that bite me again and again, something that i don't fear when i'm awake.

le_cat @ 2006-09-06T01:52:00

2006-09-06T06:01:02Z

good help me if i'm getting all teary-eyed over cruel intentions. though i didn't think the acting was aaaall bad... the screenwriting was a total wash.
i'm catching up with the rest of civilization in finally listening to that strokes album. good subway music. ir made me feel like the coolest cat in the duane reade as i bought toothpaste and contact solution. the winter clothes are working out for me. we have all the windows in the house open to catch breezes, even with the days of rain, and more expected. rebecca and i huddle on the roof, smoking cigarettes. last night we unburied our musical instruments to tool around a bit. i finally had to stop when my hand cramped up and my fingertips were on fire. tomorrow i think i'll go for a walk. cruel intentions was far too SET IN NEW YORK, but it did make me want to go for a walk in central park. fall makes me more than ever homesick for upstate. i want to take the train up to storm king and stumble up and down the hills in the wind. i want to watch the catskills turn red and orange.

off that crack

2006-06-08T18:24:07Z

my life was getting too complicated, so i deleted my okcupid account. part of me felt that it was so sleazy, and my "open minded approach" toward the online dating thing was a lie, anyway. okcupid strips away my personal illusions, and by backing away from it i'm either reducing that stuff i don't want or returning to willful ignorance. what am i saying?
i don't like thinking about how much i judge people on first impressions. i don't like feeling as though i'm on the prowl for romantic partners, and these things are what okcupid is all about. i would rather try to judge less and prowl less, or at least be less conscious of it, than face the fact that that's what i do and increase my efficiency at it. i met a few neat people on the site, but i think i'd really rather relate to them as friends than as sexual partners.
living on the web isn't expanding my life. it's never been the world to me like it is to some. look now, i need to go down the library and take care of my fines, get my sewing machine fixed, check out the new photo show at the met. instead, i'm in my pajamas at the kitchen table. bull.

le_cat @ 2006-05-31T00:28:00

2006-05-31T04:43:06Z

i spent the day tidying. picked the latest disaster up off my floor, scrubbed the kitchen table and floor, cut my hair, installed a much-needed step on my bed (though that would have been impossible without ergot), made preparations to move the snake, and bought a tiny desk and stool for my computer. i feel correspondingly refreshed. the apartment is empty and tranquil now jake and matty are gone, and sophie and miles are leaving. the first floor is all dark; no jake playing counterstrike, no matty reading and listening to electro-nonsense. cool breezes are blowing in from behind ergot, as he sits with blue computer light on his face, and out through the living room bay windows.
yesterday i finished reading dandelion wine where i started it, at prospect park near the library. it tells the story of one summer through the perspective of a boy, and when i set the book down today i was surprised to find my personal summer just beginning. all the movements around me have stirred me into some kind of transition as well. i'm changing my space, buying things, making things, altering my habits. some day soon i'll get a job and think back on the past several months as cocoon time.

will this work? let's see

2006-02-28T19:13:44Z

http://personaldna.com/psychyou-psychme.php?for=202f32eceecc

so there's this psych test, and you can take it for yourself, and you can take it for other people and see how your perception of them lines up with what they got when they took it for themselves.
humor me.
try it out.

don't drive angry...

2006-02-12T05:45:09Z

or, how i used to love the snow.
i guess i still love snow, and i shall go crazy if i don't venture out of the apartment tomorrow. i've been moping all day, trying to avoid stephanie's sick germs, and watching zombie movies on the sci fi channel (it's zombie day! who would've guessed!) tomorrow is still the weekend? can i go to work anyway? or sleep, i'd settle for sleep.

that last entry's a test

2006-01-13T05:57:47Z

but i don't mind sharing the news of my parents' winnebago with you guys. it's a cross-posting from the website i've been working for, riffs.com. click on the picture and it'll take you to the site, click on the link below and it'll take you to my user page. that's all the advertising i'm doing for those guys tonight.
otherwise, things are fine. leaving the house today for a work meeting and then to go to an opening was a good move. i'm feeling like not such a complete loser after getting a call back about an internship i applied for. goodness knows i could really use to be paid for my work, but it might be worth my while if nothing better comes along. at the very least it's a morale booster, especially since the cover letter i sent them didn't have all the typos weeded out of it (microsoft word, you are the bane of my existence). speaking of which, perhaps i should be finishing the application for my dream job rather than doodling here.

My Parents' Winnebago

2006-01-13T05:42:36Z

My parents' new Winnebago Mini, a 29 foot preowned class C motorhome with 2 slide outs. They just sold their house in Pennsylvania to travel the country in style. "We feel like teenagers starting a new life and are excited about the possibilities." Anyone interested in their journey can read about it in their blog .

you go!
i'm super proud and excited for my folks, but i think it's kind of unfair that their lives are more exciting than mine.
posted by elleroo

le_cat @ 2006-01-09T02:14:00

2006-01-09T07:19:30Z

today was a good day, as far as unemployed days go. i chilled at raspberry's and finished reading the league of extraordinary gentlemen, which redeemed itself a bit, came home and read some good articles in this month's art in america, and we had our first family dinner at the house. cooking all together in the kitchen went pretty well, and the food turned out great. now it's late and i refuse to go to bed. i've been sniffing around ok cupid, but updating my profile feels too much like tinkering with my resume. it's this idea of wanting to please people i may never meet. i'm probably taking it too seriously, but i'm mad judgemental when i read other people's profiles. i disregard anyone who lists requiem for a dream as one of their favorite movies. if i'm writing now when i have nothing to say, it's just out of a desire to send words out to people who already know me. i've been in the house too long.

gah!

2005-12-31T00:19:39Z

my library project ended unexpectedly and i'm back where i started: in bed all day trolling the internet. after pretending do work i ended up in the forest of craigslist personals. when i found myself seriously considering responding to some of them (the sort-of indie-looking guy? or the 6'2" water polo player?) i decided it was time to leave. i blame love & radio for putting the idea of craigslist personals in my head.
and gawker.
ugh.

ho hum

2005-11-10T08:31:50Z

well, i'm keeping the wolves from the door shelving books at a brand-new library in the bronx. i enjoy it a lot and wish there could be a position for me there after it actually opens to the public, but i'm contenting myself with the possibility that the company that hired me to move the books will have other fun things to do when this is done. they have also done projects for the brooklyn historical society and the metropolitan museum of art. in the meantime the first genuine physical activity i've gotten in months is leaving me feeling like an old man. my arms are sore, my legs burning, and my right knee is tightening up in a disturbing way.
tomorrow: apply to silly artsy jobs
egon schiele show!
last art conservation class uptown (will she have the nerve to ask the professor about pursuing an education in this challenging field? tune in to find out!)
matty charles and the valentines playing pete's candy store, in a perfect end to what should be a good day

damn it!
"don't exaggerate, it wasn't really love, don't pretend it was, don't you lie to us"
the boy puts it best himself, as itunes twists the blade.

i went back to ok cupid and it told me i was some sensitive love dreamer or something. fuck love!

tonight i spoke with the captain online for the first time since he called me late summer. this comfortable way of talking came back from far away and maybe david's right that i haven't changed in 8 years. but one of the things i remember most from being single my freshman year in college was feeling like i had so much love to give someone it was a terrible shame that no one was stepping up. i'm stubbornly proud to say that is way gone, no matter what ok cupid has to say on the subject.
another breeze that came clear and cold out of the brief conversation with cap'n 80's is the reminder that i'm not in york (as always, no offence to those of you who happen to be; you know anyway that this is personal). my life may be some strange jumble, but it's my life, and i'm living more on my own terms now than i ever have before, never mind that i'm unemployed and unfocused.
so cheers to everyone, wherever you may be. we'll all muddle through somehow.

le_cat @ 2005-10-26T15:11:00

2005-10-26T19:12:36Z

new computer means access to internet
lost job means time to update my livejournal.
argh! i'm not going to complain, so i'm just going to recommend radio free brooklyn, the podcast a friend of mine does.
i may try to leave the house. my efforts to get my resume out are being stymied, anyway.

le_cat @ 2005-05-21T21:32:00

2005-05-22T02:05:39Z

we shouldn't journal when we're bummed, and we certainly shouldn't journal when we're bummed and talking to other people online...
but we do many things we shouldn't, don't we?
i'm picking metaphysical fights because i'm feeling cranky. my friend tells me he no longer wants to work for the aclu; the money as a regular lawyer is too good. and it occurrs to me that he is making more now as a law student than i am ever likely to at any point in my career. and then i think of the woman begging for food at the metro exit in the rain yesterday, desperation in her voice. it was chilly, and everyone was walking around dripping. i put my umbrella up and went to buy a bagel before work.
also i think of the true pleasure i get at times from my job. opening up a new package from an artist, helping my boss select pieces for the shows, or even today, stopping off at the union square market on my way back from an errand. i'd rather have someone to cuddle up with right now than a hundred bucks.

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okay, this test is actually pretty cool

2005-05-17T01:18:25Z

Pyroclastic Flow
Nightmare scales: Panic: 50%. Dread: 68%. Lampreys: 43%.

You are the PYROCLASTIC FLOW. You are a giant flaming ball of hot ash and superheated air flooding down the side of the volcano. Unfortunately, you're not a particularly LARGE pyroclastic flow-- your fate is to set three trees on fire and then sputter out against a cliff. But hey-- fun while it lasted.

SEEK: anyone who can reach orgasm REALLY QUICKLY. AVOID: commitment.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 32% on panic

You scored higher than 90% on dread

You scored higher than 26% on lampreys

If you liked my test, send it to your friends!

The Vacuous Personality Inventory Test
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=5524563252314917208

i don't know what's wrong with me, but i didn't see the code box, so i just cut and pasted the text. you'll deal. and thanks to syckuis for the html pointer.
news. distracted by aim and wine and household drama. boston? eh. meh.

le_cat @ 2005-05-11T23:48:00

2005-05-12T04:06:41Z

manic and late and busy and trembling is a good time to update my journal, right? tumbled into the apartment today overflowing with energy and it seems to have run through me, taking important things with it, like coherence and stability (redundant?). super phone evening, with gallery-date-boy and old friends and wedding-invitation-list-people-from-my-past. trying to figure out how to get to the gig saturday without my car (single tear for b. he served me as well as he was able) and also make a tryst in boston (and why is it always boston? can't i have trysts in brooklyn? or even queens or manhattan?) new show up at work, people, it's really cool: www.johnstevenson-gallery.com
jon-o hasn't had a chance to teach me html yet, so you'll have to cut and paste. i think practicing tonight is not going to happen between jon-o napping and post-coffee trembling. tom conveniently left cigarettes in my car, as well, something that's been on my mind. monday was the worst day ever when it ended with breaking down on the brooklyn-queens expressway five miles from home, but it apparently wasn't quite over, because i came home to find all my undelivered mail from the past three months had magically arrived. sure, there were some overdue, unpaid bills in there, but there was also MONEY, in cash and check form, two driver's licenses (both mine) the latest issue of art in america, and, best of all, that lost letter from llemma. like christmas, it was.
so springtime has always felt like endings to me, this and the last one in particular, but now that i'm no longer in school it's high time to reclaim it. since i missed the beginning of this one i'm proclaiming spring to last at least until july, because of beginnings happening now till then:
moving to big apartment with new and old friends
two (count 'em, two!) june weddings
some serious band giggin' (for the unenlightened, cut and paste www.opiumrose.com)
and, and, stuff i don't even know about yet.
jon's making moving noises, so i will abandon his computer.

le_cat @ 2005-02-25T00:31:00

2005-02-25T05:48:42Z

people sound so different when they're sleepy. i almost checked my phone to make sure i'd called the right person. and it made me feel so tender towards him, that i'd woken him to tell him nothing, and had to frame it in simple, clear sentences so a sleepy mind could understand. i'm writing this now out of similar sleep-drunkenness, up late for no good reason knitting and listening to peggy lee. it snowed in new york today, and i had a good view of it from the window in my office. i kept calling bert up from the basement to see it. sort of a lazy day, with the breaks to watch the snow and pet the cats, suggesting again and again to bert that he get some lunch (damn! he never did...) because his mother would want me to. he's this high school kid who's come in a couple times to do random grunt work, and it's strange for me to order around a sixteen(seventeen?) year old, especially since i'm still trying to figure out what the hell i'm doing.
g'night

le_cat @ 2005-01-20T11:31:00

2005-01-20T16:33:31Z

i got a job at a gallery in new york. i'm moving next week. why does this feel so anticlimactic? maybe my life just needs more celebrations :-). too bad steph's going back to bard just as i come down here.

hmmmm

2005-01-06T04:18:40Z

i've hijacked galen's computer for lj purposes. i don't think he's noticed... it's like everyone's asleep here and i'm still dreamy from a crazy drive in lots of snow for NOTHING. i told my voice teacher i was sick of chasing this boy across the countryside in terrible weather and she said, well, he's pretty cool, to which i replied (while driving back from the gig he wimped out on in the snow) not cool enough! her response: he's a musician. 'nuff said. and anyway, i just got back from boston (sorry, nick, but it wasn't your boston), being with this boy i've mentioned before and all his crazy friends from u pitt. they all left on sunday, and monday morning nik and i called in sick together and drank coffee and watched pbs children's programming while listening to tom waits. he made me a tape full of music i've never heard with no track list, so i'll never know what i'm hearing, but there's an awesome tom waits song on it and this throwaway track by the velvet underground where they're all talking in the background and lou reed bursts into laughter. and it's good, you know? maybe it's not enough, but this is life in the MOVING ON. i'm going to jinx it by telling you, but one of the people my gallery boss wrote to looking for work for me wrote me back, and his gallery is all photography in the south-of-chelsea area. tomorrow i'm calling him. if it turns out to be not full time, i'll model on the side and it'll be all like my life up at bard, but in nyc. a change of scene will do her good, they said. when i was in the city last david and i turned and went into this hole in the wall bar with a great jukebox. kids my type were milling about and smoking and a big white dog wagged its tail. a girl at the table next to ours heard me mention tes, and she turned and asked if i was a member and we got into this big discussion about bdsm groups and parties in the city. i'd forgotten all about spam and stuff, and said maybe i'd see her there when i moved. her name was mary.

y'all don't need to hear this, but if i don't write it it won't be true. the dylan thing is closed and i won't be bitching about it any more. new year came at a good time. my fresh beginning isn't about a new relationship, it's about no baggage. and it still hurts, but it's over, at least. this is not the best of all possible worlds, this is not better off, this is just going to be about living with what i've got, and if i can do that, no more no less, i'll be a pretty successful girl.

they got a song for everything

2004-12-11T08:18:55Z

how insensitive i must have seemed when she told me that she loved me
how unmoved and cold i must have seemed when she told me so sincerely
why she must have asked, did i just turn and stare in icy silence
what was i to say, what can you say when a love affair is over

now she's gone away, and i'm alone with the memory of her last look
vague and drawn and sad, i see it still, all her heartbreak in that last look
why she must have asked, did i just stare in icy silence
what was i to do, what can one do when a love affair is over