When I got off the subway last night in Brooklyn, there was a Latino man in a velour Statue of Liberty costume singing along and dancing to the Spanish-language music on his headphones in the middle of the street.
Author Archives: plumpdumpling
New Jersey = Ohio
I learned this weekend that the difference between having a car and not having a car means having Cheesecake Factory or not having Cheesecake Factory. My car-owning friend Beth has been inviting me to ride to Jersey with her to go shopping for months now, but something has always stood in the way of me going. This weekend, though, the stars aligned, and she picked me up at 4 p.m. with the promise that she and her friend Sylvan would wear out my Sauconys.
I sort of expected the same kind of shopping experience I used to have in Ohio, when my best friend, Tracey, and I used to spend the day shopping at DEB, Claire’s, and Maurice’s. It was a major thing when a Hot Topic went in, though we were already past our wallet-chain-and-skater-jeans phase by the time that happened. (Okay, so maybe I was the only one of the two of us who went through that phase.)
But no! This mall had a Gucci store and a Louis Vuitton, and instead of shopping for silver holographic Converse flip-flops like Tracey and I used to do, Beth was shopping for a pair of Yves Saint Laurent stilettos. The food court had a Wendy’s, which there are only, like, two of in Manhattan, and everyone there looked like a cast member from “Jersey Shore”. What fun!
When we got hungry later in the evening, Beth mentioned that another mall nearby had a Cheesecake Factory. I was like, “Excuse me?” Because, um, I would’ve pretty much given up every other activity and risked my neck on the snow all of those times before had I known that was part of the deal. Our meal was delicious, of course, and hugely-portioned and super-cheap and everything else that restaurants in Manhattan aren’t, but it felt so wrong, because
everyone in the place looked like they could’ve been from Ohio. The only time I see people who look like they could be from Ohio here is when my friends and I go bowling at Port Authority and have to pass through Times Square, but I had to sit amongst these people and digest food while looking at them. You can imagine how hard that is.
No, I’m kidding, but it was weird. It’s like I can’t bear for things to feel too familiar.
I’m Paying $10 Per Year for That Domain, Darn It, and I WILL Use It
Because there might be one of you out there who isn’t following me on Twitter, Google Buzz, or Gmail chat:
I updated www.lostandlonelyleftovers.com with a real doozy.
You should be subscribed to the RSS feed and sending me photos daily, anyway, but I understand that I haven’t exactly been as diligent about dropping food on the ground solely to take pictures of it to encourage you as I should have been.
I’ve Never Even Had Sideswept Hair
Filed under i used to be so cool, music is my boyfriend
Tagged as i used to be so cool, music is my boyfriend
Tagged as i used to be so cool, music is my boyfriend
Remember when Modest Mouse was so cool? When they were really emo, and no one you would consider “normal” listened to them, and not even your friends knew who they were?
And you had all of their albums and also all of their pins and also all of these homemade pins you bought off eBay, which you dutifully stuck to your messenger bag so everyone would know how emo you were wherever you went?
“Polar Opposites” came on my Pandora station yesterday, and I about died, so I immediately had to go to YouTube and find the best made-by-a-16-year-old music video for the song I could:
The lyrics are “I’m trying, I’m trying to/Drink away the part of the day/That I cannot sleep away,” and I remember being like, “Oh, my god, Modest Mouse, you totally get me.” Even though I had the easiest life and the strongest thing I was drinking back in 1999 in Ohio was Carnation Instant Breakfast.
Does This Look Less Terrible?
I’ve sort of been thinking about changing the layout of my site, because I basically had no idea what I was doing when I chose my WordPress theme and only later discovered that mine was built for WordPress version 1.1 or something and was so messed up that it took the smarts of every programmer at my software company to make it look reasonable. And even now, its a complete wreck internally.
So, I’ve chosen a new layout and done a little work on it to make it suit me more, but basically all of my friends think it’s too emo for my subject matter. I like it, though!
Click to enlarge.
What do you think? You know I can’t make decisions on my own.
