Nazario Scenario

Freddy's

When I met Sarah Seigel last night at Freddy's, which is probably going to be torn down (although I don't know for sure), the power was off in the front part of the bar. We were all bathed in candlelight. While waiting for her I had written her a poem, which I gave her when she walked in, along with a deck of "Romantic IOU" cards I'd picked up at the drugstore around her birthday (two months ago) and forgotten to give her.

"Wow!" said Sarah. "This is such a special night!"

The rest of the night was also special: we saw a cute young band called Backwords who all had different kinds of beards, hung out with my friend Clint, waited around for Anna and exulted when she showed up, albeit late. Freddy's is wonderful, I hope it doesn't get torn down, and I'm glad I got out there to be in it, 1.5-hour subway trek or no.

But today I'm staying RIGHT HERE in Hammy Heights. All day!

The Best Song in the World

I was thinking about writing a post each week mentioning what The Best Song in the World is. It would have to be a weekly feature because the best song in the world changes every week, if not every day.

It's doubtful I'd be able to sustain this as a feature of this blog. But I would like to say that this week, or at least today, the best song in the world is "Night in the City" by ELO.

Happy Things

I'm happy today because of several things. Last night at Vern and Joe's, Joe burned me some Rusty Warren songs that I get to listen to today. I have some leftover Bun Xao in the fridge that I can eat for lunch. I was able to remember all the lyrics to the elements song. I'm writing again. My Scramble stats are through the roof. There's more, but I don't have time to go into it all.

Hey, my sister Alex is 21 today! That's so happy. Happy birthday to her.

Sneeek Preeeview

On WHFR tomorrow night (Wednesday 7 - 8 PM), I will be singing the Tom Lehrer periodic table song from memory.

I've mentioned this here to make sure I don't weasel out of it last minute.

Hatehatehatehatehate

I'm writing a new story, trying not to hate it.

The three principal characters are named (get ready): Shannon, Aaron, Eric. It was not intentional at first that their names sound so like each other, but I decided not to change them because of the nature of the story -- these three people are alike in a few ways.

I thought briefly about changing the girl's name to Erin, so they'd be Erin, Eric, and Aaron. But that's too cute, even for me.

Cranktacular

My hair is now long enough to put in a ponytail. How do I know this? It is IN A PONYTAIL, bitch!

I use too much profanity, I do not write enough, I do not have enough money, and I get bored too easily. It's not that easy being me. To spend each day the color of the leaves.

Something terrific just happened, though: I went to the mailbox and received the CD I recently ordered from Amazon that I never got to listen to when I first bought it, which was thirteen years ago, because I left it on the subway on the way home from the record store.

The disc is Pummel by ALL, of course.

Seasonal

"You working Good Friday?" asked Victor the doorman.

"Yeah," I said. "We're on a regular schedule."

"But you going to have a leg of lamb, right?"

"Maybe," I said. "I like to eat seasonal food, even though I'm not religious."

"You? Not religious?" He opened the elevator door so I could collect Popeye and put his leash on. "Wow, that surprises me."

"Why?" I asked him. "Because I'm so good?"

Oh, how we laughed!

Taggers

The title of this post is from the time Dan's father mispronounced the word "tigers," whereupon it was discovered that he was incapable of pronouncing it correctly.

There has been for awhile, in the zeitgeist, an impulse to categorize everything. I myself enjoy doing it, and I was reminded of how comforting it is when I was reading (finally) the novella A Field Guide to the North American Family, which relies heavily on categorization, referring its chapters to aspects of the human condition and then relating those aspects to each other. (Hard to describe if you haven't seen the book, so use the link, if you please.)

The way things are organized in that book reminds me of search tags on websites. I don't give my blog posts categories or tags, but I was thinking this morning about what tags I could give them, if I did. For example, the post I was just about to write, about my hands smelling like garlic for a day after I cook, would be tagged thusly: Food, Odor, Nuisance.

But here are all of the tags:

Anxiety
Bicycle
Bodega
Books, Amazing
Books, Bad
Cartoons
Coffee
Crush
Crying
Dogs
Dog walking
Drunk
Food
Friends
Hamilton Heights
Hate
Housesit
Lists
Love
Nuisance
Midwest
Odor
Profanity
Quotes, Arcane
Quotes, Recognizable
Radio
Running
Semicolons
Songs
Street Crazies
Sugar
This Blog
Writing Center
Writing, Own, Good
Writing, Own, Sub-Par
Yelling

Bushwicked

Hey, what's Anna D'Agrosa doing these days?

She is curating this fine website and informing us all of the cultural happenings in her neighborhood.

Eyeball Skeleton, Eyeball Skeleton, Riding Down the Road on a Foggy Day

I need more energy. More more more! Although I'm writing a bit, I'm stalling on both my new stories, distracted by non-writerly thoughts. Perhaps this is because I have a lot of work out at literary journals and I want to hear about it before finishing something new? As if the nature of the rejection letter would dictate the direction I should take with the new work? Ugh, don't know. It's frustrating, though.

My musical obsession of the week is the band Eyeball Skeleton, especially their song "Eyeball Skeleton." I urge you to listen to this song if you can, but I will say no more about it.