ME: Have you been to the Hamptons?
DUSTIN: never, actually
ME: I have to go out there for a story on Saturday
and I’m trying to figure out the best way to get out there
DUSTIN: are there multiple ways?
ME: yeah. either LIRR, renting a car or taking the Jitney which for some reason I don’t want to take
DUSTIN: it’s not an inviting name
ALISON: no
it sounds like goiter
DUSTIN: it makes me think of a clattery train through India
ME: yeah
like The Rickshaw
DUSTIN: that would have no ac in 100-degree summers
and like, rail ties missing and stuff
ME: there would be stories of cannibalism
DUSTIN: The Cannibal On The Jitney
that’s an award-winning short story waiting to happen
it’s about upper middle class ennui
Author Archive | Alison Rosen
Something I learned about apartments/real estate
The term pied-a-terre has nothing to do with gardens, apples, potatoes or feet! (It has to do with rich people!)
More Easy Pickles
Yesterday I wrote about how I misread a shop sign and thought it said “Easy Pickles” which I then imagined making frequent reference to when discussing running errands however just now I realized a couple more uses for Easy Pickles.
1) As a response to “cool beans.”
Person number one: I just bought these new Guatemalan pants
Person number two: right on
Person number one: cool beans
Person number two: easy pickles
Now, perhaps that’s not quite fair because in the above example both person number two and number one are of near equal levels of irritating as evidenced by the immediate use of “right on.” Here’s another, perhaps more realistic scenario:
Person number one: I’m going to check my mail
Person number two: cool beans
Person number one: easy pickles
2) As a passive-aggressive way to make someone feel vaguely self-conscious, along the lines of “easy, tiger!” but less playful, more insidious
Person number one: I’m going to eat some Cheetos!
Person number two: Easy, pickles!
Person number one’s inner monologue: “What? Did he just called me Pickles? I don’t get it. Should I get it? That’s weird. Do I eat too many Cheetos? What does that have to do with pickles? Do I smell like dill?”
For maximum mindfuckery I’d recommend tossing a THERE into it like this:
Person number one: I’m going to play xbox
Person number two: Easy there, pickles!
Today I was that a-hole with the camera
I wandered around Astoria today trying to see if would want to live there. Here are some photos from my journey.
In this first one I thought, “A pet store!!”
But then as I got closer I realized it’s totally not a pet store
And then here’s a cute street
And another
Here’s where you eat before you die:
Another cute street!
Some adorable whatever-they-ares:
And then back in Manhattan I discovered that Duane Reade is readying itself for bikini season
Easy Pickles
Today in Queens I passed a store called “Easy Pickins” but at first I thought it said “Easy Pickles” and I was imagining living near this store and how before long it would just become part of conversation and not even sound weird or funny to me when I talked about picking up my groceries at Easy Pickles or dropping off my clothes at Easy Pickles or getting my imaginary dog groomed at Easy Pickles. As is perhaps clear, I wasn’t sure what kind of establishment Easy Pickles would be, but I’m pretty sure I’d frequent it.
Then I had dinner with an ex in Brooklyn who casually let slip that to this day he remains a defender of my writing. Or maybe he said that he finds himself defending my writing. Whichever it is it just lodged in my brain like a grain of sand in an oyster, causing periodic discomfort and unleashing the full power of my ability to think the fuck out of something (defend my writing? what? who’s attacking it? no really, what did they say? huh? and the casual way you just tossed that off, as if I should know that people are openly disparaging my writing, as if perhaps I’m too sensitive for making an issue of this? I mean I guess that’s the price you pay for putting your words out there and as a writer I can’t expect that everyone is going to agree with me but it’s not like I’ve been courting controversy. Oh my God, do I really need approval this much? I don’t mean to make this all about me but can we back up and talk about that some more. No really, what?) and by the end of dinner I had a full-on brain pearl. I’m thinking of having it made into a tasteful brooch.
I'm in Queens. A black cat just crossed my path. It's a good thing I'm not superstitious. (Weird Freudian typing slip! Originally I wrote 'suspicious'! And the funny thing is that I AM totally suspicious! Mostly about opening umbrellas indoors though. And strangers.)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
A dog, shoes, and the promenade
I was moving photos off my camera and onto my computer and found a few I thought I’d post. The first is Brooklyn Heights taken from the promenade yesterday when I was wandering around apartment hunting:
The second is a view of some trash in a trash can with the promenade in the back:
And then here’s Tobey from when my parents were here:
And here, too, is Tobey. Also? Some shoes.
I should get back to vlogging. I will do that soon, promise!
Dear Broker
Oh goody! Time for another “Dear Broker”!
Dear Broker,
I’m sorry that when I asked the square footage and you said, “I like to approach it a different way, what are you trying to accomplish?” I sort of ignored your question and just asked my question again using different words (“Do you know the dimensions?”) It’s just that I didn’t quite understand what you were getting at—what cruel irony that I didn’t know what YOU were trying to accomplish—but now that I do, I can say with confidence that I’m trying to “accomplish” finding out the square footage or dimensions of the apartment.
Nothing “cozy” please.
Alison
It's very stressful for my houseplants
Is anyone having trouble viewing my blog today? Do tell.
Also, is anyone else watching Date My Ex or Swingtown?
I spent all day wandering around Brooklyn looking at apartments. I just want Fred and Rita to have a nice home. Is that too much to ask?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Caterpillar caviar
Not to be melodramatic, but there was very nearly a tragedy in my mouth tonight. I wasn’t even going to share this story (although I kind of mentioned it on Wendy and my blog), because in the retelling I’ll likely feel my whole body spasm in a kind of pre-upchuck reflex, however I feel you deserve to know. Warning: it’s gross.
So there I was cutting into a head of cauliflower in the way I often do which is to cut the thing in half and then flip the halves over and cut off the green leaves from the bottom. I’m sure this isn’t the fancy chef way but then I’m not a fancy chef, I’m just a gal trying not to eat caterpillars and their eggs. So I flip the thing over and I notice some weird amber-hued clusters of what looks like caviar. That’s the thing that gets me about this whole story is just how much I’m an architect in my own near misfortune. I mean, I actually thought to myself that it looks like caviar which is to say it looks like eggs AND THEN I scooped up a blob on my finger and smeared it and it smeared in a way which made me think it wasn’t eggs but was instead some kind of resin—like a plant’s ear wax—or a mold or something and so I kept cutting and looking at it and thinking that the tiny little orbs were certainly rounder than anything that isn’t living matter, so I was beginning to worry that really I was fooling myself because clearly I’m dealing with some kind of larvae so I was going to try to cut off the gross parts and I was cutting and throwing out lots of the cauliflower and then I saw this bright green thing in the heart of the cauliflower. At first I actually wondered if it wasn’t part of the stalk but then I kept looking at it and it was clearly an insect—I was thinking a worm or centipede because apparently under stress I forget the word caterpillar—and so while I was freaking out and bagging up the cauliflower trash and taking it to the basement far far away from my apartment so no caterpillars can lay eggs in my eye sockets while I sleep I began thinking about jokes like “what’s worse than finding half a worm in your apple”? Except I couldn’t really think of a good punch line because I was too busy disassociating from my caterpillar egg compromised hand which I washed so many times I’m surprised it still has skin on it. But this hand is dead to me now—may I never touch my eyes, nose or mouth with it.
Except I think I already did.
Anyway, yeah. So that was my night.