I am the most occasionally socially awkward person alive. I just walked up to someone who I don't know but who threw a party with a friend of mine hence I recognized him. "Are you Michael?" I asked. He didn't hear me though, because it's loud here, so I stood tjere for a few uncomfortable moments while his friends noticed and then I walked away. Also, I have a lot more freckles than I left the house with.
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Luxurious!
I'm on the Hamptons Luxury Liner because I decided it would be easier than renting a car. I'm kind of already regretting it because I lost my plum spot in line to get on when I dropped my phone-this very phone I'm writing this on-because I was trying to drink coffee and twitter at the same time. I may have been twittering about drinking coffee. You know that phase when you're dating more than one person before you settle on one? Other people find it exhilarating, I find it exhausting. Anyway, communications wise, this is like that with the twittering and blog and myspace and facebook and my prominent listing in Who's Who and various and sundry gazettes and community bulletins, assorted minutes from a plethora of meetings, plus monitering my graffiti presence I don't know if I can remain so multi platform. Maybe, we'll see.
Anyway, so my phone clattered to the ground and some nice man picked it all up and I hastily threw it, unassembled, in my smaller than everyone else here's bag and then I got on to find that all the rows of two had one person in them. I hate strangers! (But I know they're as afraid of me as I am of them.) So now I'm gently bumming out a nice woman in the front of the bus who's reading a hard cover book. I don't know what it is. I'll report back.
So but before we were being held up for what seemed like a while because not everyone was on the bus yet. A girl arrived and as she was walking up I hear this crotchedy voice behind saying 'there's the asshole!' But I could tell he was sort of out of it. You know when you can tell the difference between an outspoken jerk and outspoken unwell jerk? He's the latter. So then she gets on and he starts yelling about how she's a fat slob who held us up or something. I turn around to see what the hell and he's easily three hundred pounds. I didn't want to look directly at him for fear of engaging. He's got a minder, or wife, though, so hopefully she'll keep him in line.
And the magazine selection blows.
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A banana grows in Brooklyn
Banana seat?
Banana seat!
Sackett? I hardly knew it.
Today I looked at an apartment on Sackett Street and first I was thinking that Sackett sounds like something you do to someone or something, like Phuket, and then I was thinking that if I took it I could have ample opportunity for dumb puns like “Sackett to me!” and the more refined “It’s Sackett, to me.”
Thank God I didn’t take it when you really think about it.
I'm now on twitter
I started a Twitter account because I feel like the world needs more ways to feel pseudo connected to me. Also, is it raining? Because the air conditioner in this living room sounds like a vacuum sucking up pennies. Maybe it's raining pennies? And cats and dogs? That would be both dangerous and damaging to even the most hearty umbrella.
But back to twitter. It's www.twitter.com/alisonrosen. I know my parents are going to read this and have a zillion questions about twitter so I'm going to answer them:
Yes. Don't know. Just because. Kind of. Yeah. On your phone. But also on the web. Doesn't matter. I don't know. No difference really. Yeah.
Also, I spilled mustard on my shirt and also discovered that if you mix splenda into mustard you can make low calorie honey mustard if you're into that. I just like it plain, on my shirt. Oh and guess what asshole is taking the jitney? Not this asshole! I'm taking the Hamptons Luxury Liner. It's not even a boat, can you believe it?!?! I'm going to wear a life preserver just in case though.
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The Diamond as Big as The Jitney
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
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.