Day 66, The Be Brave Project: Facts and Fears

Here are 3 Facts About New York City the day after the Election:

1. You couldn't get a single paper except the damn Daily News, which so offended people by referring to the Obama family as "The New Camelot" that I suspect it remained on the news-stands all night (we really, really are nervous for the man's continued health. Kennedy references are profoundly inappropriate: these Right Wingers have guns). The Times people were idiots in not cranking their papers out: London publishers could have told them that in times of emotion people regress a bit, and want something they can hold. That being said, hits for the NYT website were 29% higher than they ever have been.

2. For the first time ever, I heard racist comments on the street. There were 2 of them, and they were pretty mild, but I was shocked and disappointed. But I realized that some people's thinking will need an alignment and it's probably good to have it come out in 'jokes' than in sullen anger. . .and the longer this administration goes on, the more normal it will become. But it made me sad (we must note: I am still on massive amounts of medication so my defenses are not what they usually are).

3. More importantly, and far far more frequently, there was an air of friendliness and (if my drugged mind was not too distorted) a sort of almost sexual energy in the air. Everyone was checking each other out--so much more eye-contact than New Yorkers are used to. We are proud. We stood in line for hours to vote. We broke the Southern Strategy, we defied the Bradley Effect, we didn't vote according to gender or skin color or financial resources--a higher percentage of people earning more than $200,000 a year voted for Obama than for Kerry despite the fact that O has threatened them with greater taxes. On 81st and Broadway a family had just set up a table, and was giving away coke and cookies. The coke was cold and the cookies were good; I stood there and tried not to be shy--I grinned my swollen grin, and I felt what it was like to be excited by our political future.

On the BBP: Today I am going to see my new doctor for a first check-up. Due to the being a lush and all, I have not had a thorough check-up in a very, very long time. I am frightened by it, but living according to the "life on life's terms" and "face your fears" mottoes. I hope it will be all right. . .

Be Brave Project, Day 42; Bookending

I think I've broken the back of this moving job, but then I keep thinking that. . .and discovering how wrong I am. This time, however, as I sit here looking at a denuded bookcase on my left, the eight boxes behind me, the front room filled with more boxes, a shadeless lamp, the confused and increasingly complaining cat--I think I'm right on the ball here.

We shall see.

But it's always a funny thing, moving. Last night I was hauling books from bookshelf #1, when I found a few interesting objects:

-My DayRunner from 1999. With no days in it, torn back, old addresses and drunken notes scrawled on pastel colored paper in the back. Why did I keep this? What sentimental purpose could there have been? No Idea.

-A series of books on the Greatest Crime Films Ever. Bound in stiff cardboard that could snap like a matchstick, written in greasy cheap ink. And I don't like crime films. Why keep. . .?

-One excellent book (John Fowles' The Collector), a psychologically astute and deeply creepy story by a first rate writer--with the cover removed and the pages so loose that you can't turn them or they'll fall like a shower of confetti. Why keep a book you can't read?

Everytime you move--and this is my 6th move since 2000--you are sorting and tossing out a variation of you, the person you were when living in this space. The person you wanted to be, or hoped to be, or couldn't escape somehow. If you skip the sorting process and simply place everything in a box you miss the (only) educative and enjoyable melancholy aspect of moving--what has and hasn't happened since you lived here.

This is the only time in life you're actually going to spend a few minutes looking at that French book from 10th grade, or the yearbook you've carefully saved and occasionally used as a bug-killer.

It is interesting. As I said, it's a bit sad for some reason. Tempus fugit and all of that. . .but most important is to keep my eyes on the prize. Monday Night: Vietnamese food. And a lovely lovely bubble bath in my new apartment. . . Worth it.

Being Brave Project, Day 39; Mocked by my Email

My email is revving up for the holiday season, a fact I find both rude and distressing due to the fact that I am most definitely not, and will not be, doing any revving up at all, party-wise. But the party girl past still lingers, along with the fact that I was apparently incapable, when drunk, of NOT signing a mailing list. Here's a sample invitation received recently:

The Bond Ball New Years Eve

Be lavish, be outrageous, be daring and have fun! Try something new this New Years Eve--The original party in a Hotel, now in its 8th year! Admission + hotel room and after parties £99.95

Reserve your place today. See in ‘009 with 007, along with a host of Moneypennys, Dr Nos and Pussy Galores. For New Year 2008 an entire London Hotel will be booked out to Bond guests. Fancy dress events are always a hoot and this is a fantastic theme – true Bond fans will recognise every outfit while casual guests can enjoy the outlandish costumes, in-house casino and copious vodka martinis.

Gamble your way into the New Year, swap glances with impeccably groomed baddies at the bar, or take to the dance floor with Baron Samedi, Q and Bond himself at this classy theme night. Get dressed up so that you feel and look like a million dollars, a character straight out of a James Bond movie (Blofeld, Goldfinger, Miss Moneypenny, Bond girls from the 60's 70's 80's and 90's and of course Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang himself) and join 1000 other alluring bright young things for this years superlative Bond Ball event which will be held in a 4* London Hotel.

Sigh. Well, that's not going to happen--I've enjoyed my share of vodka martinis and am now leaving their 'copious' consumption to others. In this case they'll be wearing rented tuxes or drinking these martinis while freezing in white bikinis (which just doesn't seem as if it will end well or prettily).

But for reasons of sheer contrariness, I want to go.

I don't think I've sat through a single one of those adolescent fantasies known as Bond Films --though I would have if they'd chosen Clive Owen as the new Bond, oh how I'd have been rapturously entranced!--yet somehow I want to go to this party very much.

But then I think of the 'alluring bright young things' I would generally see at fancy dress parties in London, 3x more drunk than would be acceptable in NYC; I remember an acquaintance named Mellon crawling on the floor until he collapsed and lay there sprawled like a swastika as his friends stood over him cheering at his drunken paralysis. I remember Oliver, a drunken French Count, pissing himself in the back of a black cab as he kept repeating in a child's voice, "But I want to wee. . .but I want to wee. . ."

What I don't remember is the end of any party I went to when I was living in London. I lived there because they drank like me, and I left there because drinking like me was going to kill me.

But, of course, there are parties in New York:

Nestled beneath the fabled Chelsea Hotel, at the Star Lounge you can meet and mingle in this ‘intimate haven for night time revelry’. The venue is comprised of three distinctive areas subtly suggestive of a 1920's speakeasy. A modern, seamless style combined with a space's organic lighting elements give the Star Lounge a feel that is chic and exclusive yet warm & inviting.

Oooh! A 1920's speakeasy! Chic and exclusive and warm and inviting! Damn, this sounds pretty good as well, and has the advantage of not making me dress up like Judi Dench after she's attended a Womyn's Wicca Man-hating Convention. Plus, it's in my current home town. . .and on this Thursday night.

But what the hell is an organic lighting element, and does it smell of butternut squash when activated?

But No. No no. No putting on my party dress, or my sophisticated shoes. No wandering through the three rooms of the 1920's speakeasy, breathing in the glamorous scent of roasting squash as I show the Star Lounge how it's done. . .I'll be home, packing boxes and watching The Office season premiere. Dammit.

Re. the apartment: I have paid the security and rent. The Super has been bribed. 20 bags have been moved in, and more stuff's going in every day. Have at least 12 big boxes in here, and know where to get more more more of them (Beneath Columbia University's Business School, where new computers are delivered every day. . .to the future CEO's of places like Lehman Brothers.)

How upstanding am I nowadays? How changed, and streamlined, and NON White bikini-wearing speakeasy-roaming?

I just filled out my IRS Change of Address form # 8822.

Jesus. Talk about on the up-and-up.