jinners: why do you come here? and why do you hang around?
who is jinners?
why do you come here? and why do you hang around? ...it was just to see, just to see all the things you knew, i'd written about you... oh so many illustrations...
as stephie would say, "i'm an island of such great complexity... a shady jin, everybody wants one." jinners is my nickname... hopefully in an affectionate sorta way.
after the jump fest: bloggers unite to benefit music education
more charity
Monday, February 25, 2008
Writer's Tick-Tock
Last night at around midnight I had an urge to start writing the book that I have always wanted to write. I always said I never really knew what I wanted to say to the world, but all of a sudden clear ideas were popping into my head and finding their way into my TextEdit. Wherever that burst of writer's energy came from, THANK GOODNESS.
It was exactly what I needed to make myself feel a little better this month. I love that I finally had the courage to quit the cubicle a year ago in favor of pursuing some of my deepest loves... but as with anything, there are sacrifices and trials along the way to keep me guessing and questioning. It keeps my life unpredictable.
But what a fucking horror of a month it's been! I know all of life has ups and downs, but February not only boasts the shortest number of days (despite the leap year, I may add) it can also add to its list -- the first snow storm of the year in New York, my first time actually working on Valentine's Day, various personal struggles and the brokest month of my life since quitting my full-time job and forging on to freelance life. I know in the end these growing pains will pay off (one can hope, eh?), but what a fucking ride, dude.
In all honesty though, I'm thriving off the whole goddamn thing. I'm not all complaints. There were a lot of bright moments, too, thanks to my lovely stable of close friends. I am thankful for having a great support system to keep me breathing in the city. THANK YOU!
I don't always get to capture the important, memorable moments of my life, but sometimes I get lucky and actually take the camera out for a quick snap-snap. Here are some of my favorite recent moments...
I have been living in New York for 10 years now. Maybe I keep saying this in wonder over and over again, but I just can't help myself. I am in disbelief that the years have passed me by so quickly.
When I was applying to colleges back in the 90s, I knew there was only one city I wanted to go to. New York City, baby! I had attended a nerdy high school newspaper conference at Columbia University, and I instantly fell in love with the loud traffic blaring by, thousands of swift stomps from commuters, the anonymity, the small world-ishness. I connected with it in a New York minute. There was no other place, as far as I was concerned.
Now a decade later, my mind feels like it's starting to come full circle. I had arrived in the city with a lot of baggage (literal and figurative). I had been determined to lose said baggage here and peel away the layers until I had discovered myself, my true self. As you may have guessed, the city has a mystical way of handing you some epiphanies right away, and others are tucked away until the right time.
The other week while chatting with a friend about our complicated, crazy-ass family stories, I had a self-epiphany that I never thought I would have and it led me to a book idea. A book idea!!! If you know me, I have been waiting for this moment for a while. Yes, I manage bands now, but the music industry side of me snuck up on me post-college. Before I started promoting shows, I started a blog so that I could write about what I cared about. So that I could write about whatever I felt like writing about. True freedom. Almost too much freedom, one could argue.
So yeah, I guess I have been waiting for that one moment of focus, and then all of a sudden the book idea popped up. So I have decided to start writing my story, my saga, and I actually feel like I have a meaningful (though personally terrifying) tale to tell about my life and my family.
I started running again a couple of days ago. My legs hurt from the unused muscles coming out of inactivity. Though I said I didn't make any New Year's resolutions, this life change just snuck up on me. I kind of love starting my day with a run now. I get to listen to some good music, mouth the words while I circle the track and come home with a clear head. What could be better? Hopefully I will be in tip-top shape for ruining my healthy lifestyle during SXSW this year. HA!
So I didn't make any New Year's resolutions this year. Not that I typically make a habit of making them, but this year I was at a loss when I thought about what I wanted to change in my life for 2008. The end of the year is always a hurricane of emotion for me because my birthday is in late December. I turned 29. My blog turned 5. I've been a band manager for over 4 years. This past year also marked my 10th year in New York, which I think makes me a real Nyoo Yawker. How crazy? How quickly does life pass by? Does anyone else feel this way?
I remember when I first dreamed of moving to New York as a teenager. It was the only place I wanted to be, and I knew I would find something here for me... though admittedly, my life veered into a direction I never would have expected it to take. But I have no regrets so far!
My friend Yuri got engaged at the Wilco show at Voodoo Festival this weekend... "Heavy Metal Drummer" was dedicated to her and her fiance Mike while her cute face was plastered on the big screen with a "Will you marry me?". Awwwwwww. Go, Mike! That's such a perfect indie rock proposal!
Katy's hotel is in the worst part of town... midtown. But we managed to have fun anyways on her last night in the city. The bar inside is really cute and right next to a pool, where you can see people swimming behind the bar. Among the bands I heard in the hotel's playlist: Fujiya & Miyagi, Real Life, Calvin Harris, Information Society and some others. HA!
In most pictures, smiling makes me look like I have no eyes. But I swear, they are open. However Facebook's FaceDouble Celebrity Look Alike Program totally shut me down. See below.
So my sister told me that our grandfather died over the weekend. Usually it would follow that there would be some sadness felt here, but I don't feel sad. I didn't even know the man. He had abandoned my grandmother long ago, and was still living in Korea at a monastery or something.
Here's my question: If you are blood-related to someone but you didn't really know them while they were alive, should you feel sad when they pass on? Connected? Sad for the disconnection?
Most of the stories in my family's life follow the typical dysfunctional family outlines. No one gets along. There are a lot of myths floating around about various members of the family, in particular mine, because my immediate family is the only one with a broken marriage... two broken marriages, in fact.
I know I have some family out there on the West Coast, too, that I don't really know well, but at least I've met them before. But I've often wondered the same question about them -- them being my birth mother and my "whole" sister, who happens to be a year younger than me. I'm almost positive I would be sad. I think I've always hoped that when I got older, I could reconnect with them in a meaningful way, without all the dysfunction. Perhaps that will still happen one day.
As far as the family I grew up with, I am definitely getting closer to my sister Cathy. As she's catapulted into her 20s, I find we have more and more in common. And it's a nice feeling when I can actually help her with different aspects of her life. I actually feel like a sister. Go figure!
i can't believe that hilly kristal died. i remember when i first came to new york, and i was a budding journalist-in-training at the nyu paper. they assigned steph and me to a story on "how punk is dead." we hit the streets of new york and asked various people on the street what their thoughts on the issue were. eventually somehow, we wandered into cbgbs. we thought, this is the perfect place to find the answer.
the venue was as smelly and dirty as ever, and hilly kristal was sitting up front just like in the photo above. we asked him about whether he thought punk was dead and got into an entire discussion about the history of cbgbs. i think we were there for well over an hour listening to his amazing stories. i don't know why he talked to us, but he did. i need to find that cassette interview. it's somewhere in my pile of dead interview tapes.
one day i will resurrect all my funny interviews for all to hear. don't you love technology?
oh the daze of summer is soon approaching its end, and here i am, sitting in front of my computer on a rainy tuesday morning.
i leave for a wedding on thursday. i am a bridesmaid. it is my first time being in a bridal party like this, and i feel as if i have been the least helpful bridesmaid. of course, the bride, my best friend steph, lives in maryland and the wedding is in dc, so i've just been around more for moral support over the phone.
i remember when i first heard that steph got engaged. it was a moment that definitely signified the end of something, and the beginning of something else. but of what? at first i thought it was the end of best friends and the beginning of best couple, but i realized that those thoughts were brought on by my own insecurities and issues.
it's true that i don't really believe in marriage, but i don't think that was the issue since a couple of my other friends had gotten married over the last couple years. i think the real issue was that i had been holding on to the hope that steph would some day move back to new york and we would be reunited as best friends in the same city once again. but with her engagement, i knew this hope was no longer a feasible option.
however, once i accepted this change, it was fine. i knew that life would be a little different for me, but i would continue to be friends with steph. just not in the same exact way. and i was ok with that.
mike and i spent approximately 36 hours in amsterdam last week, and it was quite amazing and surreal. we basically went coffeeshop-hopping the entire time we were there. we wandered around the red light district. we tried a couple new things... we had the wildest time, and we will probably go back for mike's big 3-0 in november... here are some photos from the trip...
i am currently abroad on business and pleasure! going to the benicassim festival again this year in valencia, spain and then off to a brief trip to amsterdam afterwards. awesome! see you when i return... my biggest goal for the weekend is to stalk amy winehouse and try to convince her to do shots with me. yeah right!
last week mike and i went to visit the Quik-E-Mart located near port authority in New York. yep, the 7-Eleven convenience store was transformed into Simspons-mania. it was fun! this is all part of the crazy, omnipresent simpsons movie promotion. they sold buzz cola, but i couldn't find any. my friend jason though bought a six-pack of buzz. i was looking for duff beer but they didn't have any. all of the pink-frosted donuts were gone. they had squishees instead of slurpees. we bought a box of Krusty-Os, still uneated above. i loved it all.
after almost a week of being ill, i retreated to bethesda, maryland, where a weekend of suburbia awaited me. it was just what i needed to relax and get better.
i took the vamoose bus, which literally went from penn station right to bethesda, only a few blocks from where my best friend steph lives. she's getting married in august, and i am one of her bridesmaids. this past weekend, we had her bridal shower... and it wasn't as foreign feeling as i thought it would be. julie, steph's sister and maid of honor, put the party together with their mom.
julie got these wacky bikini cups that everyone had to drink out of and steph wore a "bride to be" princess tiara.
after the party, we spent a lot of time in steph and jamie's new backyard grilling every night. they had an outdoor firepit that reminded me of campfires. we even made s'mores!
i also discovered that i love zazz, giant's brand of seltzer water, and the board game, cranium. i drank like 20 cans of it this past weekend, and was addicted to playing cranium late into the night. i also enjoyed playing horseshoe, oddly enough. and yes, i got a million tiger mosquito bug bites.... ah, the suburbs.
oh i even went to the mall! that's where i went to buy a bathing suit -- the first one i've bought in 8 years.... in fact, the last time i bought one, it was with steph too! i guess you could say she's a beach person, and i'm not. however, she informed me that i've been buying the wrong size bathing suit, and that's why i never looked good in them. she picked out a wicked dkny suit for me that is way sexy. i'm not used to showing so much cleavage, so this will be a dramatic change for me.
mike and i are getting ready to go to spain and amsterdam next month. we're going to valencia to cover benicassim again this year, and we piggybacked a trip to amsterdam -- why the hell not! i cannot wait!! the only sucky part is that i have to miss the last siren festival ever! it feels sort of wrong to miss it since i've pretty much been to every one, but i couldn't say no to spain. c'est la vie.
cabin pressure, more than just a new book by josh wolk
so last week i went to a reading that writer josh wolk did for his book, cabin presure, about how as an adult he went back to camp one last time to serve as a counselor right before he got married. a revisit to his younger years, noting all the hilarity and self-searching epiphanies.
as he read excerpts from his book, i was reminded of the one time i went to camp. i was in 8th grade and my school sent me to attend a "leadership camp." i had never been in a situation like being plopped in a random camp far away from the comforts of suburban life with a bunch of other nerdly adolescents. but there i was, running through swarms of gnats to get to the bathroom and playing tug of war.
it was scary, but overall, definitely did help build my confidence and my social skills. of course, the only part i really vividly remember was at the closing night dance party. it was the first time i ever danced with a boy... and at the time, i was shocked... because HE had asked ME. and i never thought a boy would ask me to dance.
the world is a crazy place!
after the reading, i began to notice signs of how camp can revolutionize your life in tv and film. meatballs. salute your shorts. wet hot american summer. the simple life goes to camp. (although i think i can safely say that paris and nicole probably didn't learn much from camp, though maybe jail will be their "camp.")
how crazy??? but it makes me think about camp in a way i never had before. thank you, josh wolk.
have you ever heard that depeche mode song, "but not tonight?" it's one of my favorite songs ever. last night i was walking home from band practice, and a torrential rain began. i instantly had flashbacks to my first summer in new york when random rain would fall for about 10 minutes. i got drenched in one and i was wearing one of those long, slinky dresses. needless to say that dress was clinging to me like saran wrap and absolutely dripping. i felt like a wet dog. the same thing happened to me last night, except, i felt calm and happy. here are the lyrics to the depeche mode song, the perfect soundtrack to nocturnal rainfalls...
Oh God, it's raining But I'm not complaining It's filling me up With new life
The stars in the sky Bring tears to my eyes They're lighting my way Tonight
And I haven't felt so alive In years
Just for a day On a day like today I'll get away from this Constant debauchery
The wind in my hair Makes me so aware How good it is to live Tonight
And I haven't felt so alive In years
The moon Is shining in the sky Reminding me Of so many other nights But they're not like tonight
Oh God, it's raining And I'm not containing My pleasure at being So wet
Here on my own All on my own How good it feels to be alone Tonight
And I haven't felt so alive In years
The moon Is shining in the sky Reminding me Of so many other nights When my eyes have been so red I've been mistaken for dead But not tonight
this weekend i was in a soggy mood, but somehow mikers got me out of the house. my knee feels like it is sprained. my joints are achy like arthritis. i am exhausted from the busy week (that's new york for ya). the weekend arrives and all i want to do is catch up on sleep. but, on sunday i took the train all the way up town to go to the bronx zoo. i have seen plenty of ads for this place on the subway so i'm hoping that the visit will dispel my dreary expectations...
however, i think there were more children at the zoo than there were animals, and i only like being around kids i know. i felt sad when i saw a poor, sad-looking monkey sitting in a glass box with stupid people yelling at it to do something amusing.
i've been to a lot of zoos in my day but the bronx zoo was sort of ghetto. if you're going to have animals caged up, perhaps you should think about expanding the zoo so that they can actually live in a microcosm of the world they should be living in - more space to romp around, more animals in each part of the zoo... and maybe put a little bit of snow in the polar bear exhibit. it all seemed plastic and fake, and i'm sure the animals can tell the difference, too.
katy is in town this week from LA, so i met up with her last night at her job, which also happens to be a place i used to intern at back in 2001. i was the dot-com's first intern so i guess i hold a special place in history. hehe.
i said hello to the few people i still recognized on staff and met a few new ones, including the hilarious annie barrett. we found we shared a love of desserts as she talked about sweets, and i informed her of my dessert club, sugar high social. oh the goodness! i like annie because while the rest of us hit the whole foods salad bar for dinner, she went and totally scooped up a key lime dessert for din din. that is hardcore treatin' in my book. this girl gets my stamp of approval. and she's funny to boot - the kinda girl who can make apolo anton ohno seem funny. (note: he's not funny. i've interviewed him before and he's soooo vanilla, so annie totally won! plus that sparkly dress is CLASSIC.)
francisco and marc, my favorite gay librarians at EW, were also in on our picnic in the park. they made me miss having a gay boyfriend. i kind of love having a dude around that you can joke about boobies with and it's not at all sexual. we talked about how ridiculous and unattractive the people featured on real sex usually were because somehow we got on the topic of masturbation and group masturbation. we talked about that documentary series about severely obese people called inside brookhaven and how fucking depressing it was. we talked about some hbo special where the hookers were servicing johns behind dumpster or getting phone calls in the middle of fellatio sessions. we talked about how great taxi cab confessions was.
as we scoped the scene in sheep's meadow, we found a lot of frisbee throwers. i said, "why do people in the city throw frisbees anyway? don't they know that's a thing for the 'burbs? go to pittsburgh and throw a frisbee."
we watched people make out on blankets. we heard the "cold beer" guy mutter as he wheeled around the vast field. it was chillier than i hoping for, so we wrapped it up, said farewell to francisco and annie and headed for the hudson hotel, where katy is staying. i've never really been in this place, but damn, was it swank. we were scared of the drink menu because there weren't any prices listed. usually that means they are going to cost a shitload. i said fuck it and ordered a passion fruit caipirinha for dessert. three of them to be exact. whoever was picking the music at the hudson hotel needs to be treated for schizophrenia. one minute it would be JT. the next MJ. then some wack dancehall. some 90s r&b... then the kicker was when they played pulp's "common people" and cut it off before the chorus. WTF. if i'm paying $15 for a drink, you better finish the damn song! people in suits got up and started doing the white boy dance. couples were making out and then subsequently leaving to "get a room."
we went back to katy's tiny-ass but expensive room and made ourselves vodka clementine and sodas. yummy. but it sort of put me over the edge!!!
marc, katy and i went over to the library bar in the hotel and fingered through a book of vintage nude shots of women. we were trying to figure out which boob looked like ours. later marc and i bid adieu to katy, and i walked marc over to his hotel. his room was only slightly bigger than katy's and slightly cheaper. hotels in the city are so bizarre, but i guess it don't matter much when you're expensing it. haha.
i feel like i am turning into one of those crazy cat ladies. i went to h&m yesterday and totally bought a top with cats on it. haha.
anyhoo, mikers and i adopted a kitten the other day from the brooklyn animal rescue coalition. i love that place. you go there with the intention of just "browsing" and playing with all the awesome cats there, but then you get sucked in and end up leaving with a kitten. this happened to us. thankfully, the new kitten named Hazel, Hazy for short, gets along with my first cat, Ziegfried, Ziggy for short.
check out the video montage i made with the two cats!
when you come to new york city, you usually have a goal in mind. you come for a reason. maybe it's to run away from problems at home. perhaps there is a job in the city that you absolutely must have. maybe it's simpler than that and you just want to buy some designer clothes. whatever the reason, new york is a magnet for possibilities, and it certainly attracted me with its promise and hope for bigger and better things.
when i was in college, it was mostly to run away from the fear of being nothing. i grew up in a small town, and the last thing I wanted to be was small. i was caught up in a surburban world that would always see me in a certain light... a rather nerdly light. my instincts brought me to new york via new york university. this time the high cost of education was worth it to me if it would dig up and shine the light on my artsy side. the city, i am happy to say, did not let me down.
what is wonderful and glorious and so addictive about new york is that literally anything is possible. the minute my family drove me up here for my first day of college, i could taste on the tip of my tongue the exciting times that lay ahead of me. though i grew up with a strict upbringing that prevented me from truly connecting with the real world, from truly connecting to my desires and dreams, i knew here in this relatively tiny stretch of land, i would find something... perhaps even discover myself.
so i feel like i have discovered one of life's sweet secrets. it's like unlocking the mystery of lost or something. i am finding it is possible to live one's dream. i'm about four days into this freelance life, and honestly, i feel pretty comfortable. perhaps it was meant to be this way the entire time.
there are many goals to be accomplished in the coming months, and as i prepare to tackle the issues at hand, i am finding a renewed sense of joy in my life. it has been something that has been missing for quite a while in my life. i finally feel whole.
i feel like reading and writing. i feel like watching movies on netflix, in the park, in the theaters. i feel like having picnics. i feel like going to cafes and drinking ice coffees. i feel like calling up all my old friends and catching up.
so this is my last week working at my day job, and then it is off to live the freelancer's life for me. basically i will be focusing on managing dirty on purpose, eventually building an artist roster, and also be able to pursue some writing opportunities. it's going to be a breath of fresh air to actually peel off a layer of my life and see what lies beneath the surface... there is a kind of life just aching to be exposed, and i'm finally ready to give it that chance! i am thankful for all the friends i have made along the way who totally made it possible for me to have the courage to go after my dreams!
