Current
Filed
Dossier
Scribbles
Telegrams
Briefing
Patron

Cold Pussy
11 January 2004
4 04:20

First things first: Kudos to Shiv for a really lovely set last night and for that look I think she gave me when I walked in the door (apparently 2 songs into the show). This was the biggest crowd I've seen at one of her gigs, and I'm super-thrilled that the numbers seem to be increasing and that everyone's so enthusiastic about her music, 'cause she really is a bit of a wonder. Also major gratitude to Ful and L'Owl for making me laugh more and harder in the course of about an hour and a half than I've done cumulatively in the last several weeks. You kick all the ass.

Friday evening, after leaving work later than I'd meant to do, I went home, panicked through my wardrobe trying to figure out what to wear, discovered that round-trip Metro-North tickets from New Haven to New York have gone up from $23 to $30 (What ARE those fuckers thinking?!), and determined that between the cost and the unconscionable timetable, I'd rather drive down. I left later than I meant to, after confirming an alternate route involving no tolls given me by a friend about whom I've not yet determined just how much I can or want to say here, and I would've arrived on time at The Orange Bear, except that there was hideous traffic on the tiny bit of 95S which I had to travel right before the George Washington Bridge in order to access the West Side Highway, which I sped down at about 80 miles per hour, rendering the road somewhat of a roller-coaster as it twists and turns a bit on the upper end of Manhattan and is a little bit bumpy. After the ShivShow (tm), a group of about twelve of us walked the arctic-blast-cold streets of lower Manhattan to a charming hippy Mexican joint (pun!), where we had dinner and pretended it was Ful's birthday. During the walk over, Ful and I were chatting about the fact that he used to be nearly impervious to the cold, but living in New York, had turned into a "cold-pussy," provoking me to muse on the phrase for a minute or so, thus the title of this entry. No offence, ladies. It's not like I called the entry "Filthy Cunt" -- Ah, but I suppose I have to tell that story, too, now, don't I? Well, okay, later.) Here I must note that the women who hang around with Shiv are as gorgeous as she is, and frankly, this is no mean feat. I swear I'm astonished every time I meet another of them. I think Rel must really be right, and among the myriad reasons why I must move to The City is the fact that the talent pool from which to choose is so much better. Sadly, my excursion to NYC was cut short by the rehearsal scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday morning, so after dinner, as the crowd dispersed to its component home locations, I walked back up to my car and sped back to KineticFuck (erm, Connecticut), where I arrived later than I meant to do because of a little wrong turn which cost me probably a half-hour. RainDogs do NOT have flawless senses of direction. (OfficialTomWaits.com defines RainDogs: �a term used for someone who is lost and cannot find his way. Waits defines raindogs as �...the ones you see wanderin' around after a rain. Ones that can't find their way back home. See the rain washes off the scent off all the mail boxes and the lamposts, fire hydrants.�")

This morning, I woke early to get the voice going, but as always, left a little later than I should have done to arrive at my destination on time, so I was driving with a little more hubris than I ought to do (which is to say, any) when a traffic light turned green, the traffic ahead of me moved forward, and I followed suit, glancing down for something (I remember not what), then looking up to see the rear end of the car ahead of me FAR too close. (For the second time in the space of a week, and enormous �John�s Refuse� truck had blocked the intersection ahead of me, and traffic had to stop to accommodate the idiot who was attempting a turn which he shouldn�t have.) Mad application of brakes did no good (Four-wheel anti-locking disc brakes really are maddening; to use them to their full effect, one has to override one�s natural tendency to depress fully and instead pump them quickly and shallowly. I�m no good at shallow pumping.), and I rear-ended the driver ahead of me, doing no damage to the rear of her car, but minor cosmetic damage to the front of mine, which needs to go into the body shop anyway to recover from the numerous times I was hit by other drivers last year, and apparently, giving her whiplash. I was more concerned for her well-being than anything else, though, and still am, so I�m praying that she�s alright, not out of insurance concerns particularly, as we�re both pretty well-insured, I think, but more because I�m not the sort of person who can live with the thought that he�s actually harmed someone else. (Much as I like to claim I�m the Devil, I�m really not capable of a genuinely malicious act.) I suppose if there�s a lesson to be learned here, it�s that I really should pay more attention to my surroundings when I�m driving. In any case, I will not have the car in The City, and the lease runs out at the beginning of November, which will save me something in the neighbourhood of $600 per month, between car payment, insurance and consumable expenses (gasoline, routine maintenance), and I shall greatly rejoice.

Rehearsal was rather blah, I suppose. As much as I love singing, when I perceive that something to which I am committed prevents me from having a good time as I�d like to do, it sours the experience, and though I love the singing we do, we�ve just had a bit too much of it in too brief a time lately. When we were done, I went home and rather than doing the cleaning which needs to be done, I sat down on the couch and, in a glaring tactical error, watched the movie Get Real, which I recommend (though with some reservations now, as I realise that some of the dialogue is just wildly unlikely, Brad Gorton was too old to play a seventh-former (he�s a year and a half older than I am), and some elements of the plot should�ve been better developed), but which inspired a rather deep sensation of loss and depression in me, like that which I always experience when I hear Kate Bush�s �Never Be Mine� (�This is where I want to be / This is what I need / But I know that this will never be mine�). I think of England, and I think of loss, and I think of my ideal mate and his/her ideal qualities, and I think there is NOT somebody for everyone, despite what the spin-doctors of society would have us believe. I was fine, actually, until a certain point in the movie, where I realised it was starting to hit too close to home (I�d seen the movie a number of times before, but I�d forgotten certain bits) and I thought of the days in my early twenties when I�d run off to Europe at the drop of a hat, and I�d sit on my balcony in the sunlight reading XY magazine and wishing I could be one of those boys, and I�d go out, and everything and everyone seemed a possibility. Eventually, I dragged myself out of my morose introspection and packed the defective DVD player back into its box and organised the clothes I wanted to exchange with their gift receipts and forced myself out of the apartment and to the mall.

Filene�s, I discovered, was in the final throes of an apparently gargantuan sale. I returned the items I didn�t like (a knit cap and a scarf from my grandmother, two neck-ties from my father) and got vouchers for their exchanges, then I wandered around shopping for a bit. In the end, I settled on a �lite felt� hat to replace the knit cap (Yes, the felt hat was much more expensive, but it was on sale, and it�s pictured here (It�s the black one in the bottom centre), a dark blue/purple chenille scarf to replace the bright red knit one, and two ties (one white!) to replace the ones from Dad that just weren�t appropriate. Additionally, I bought myself three Calvin Klein dress shirts and two Kenneth Cole Reaction ones, as well as another pair of DKNY jeans, and charged it all to the Filene�s card. I�m very good at paying off my �virtual money� purchases with real money in a timely fashion, though, so no worries, and using the card meant a discount, so ultimately, this little shopping excursion only cost me in the neighbourhood of $100. DJRainDog is a smart shopper, in addition to being a smart dresser, thank you. (Erm, thank you, Mom, actually.) Perhaps pictures will be posted someday.

On the way back home, I stopped at Circuit City, where the kind woman behind the Customer Service desk, who appeared to be doing the jobs of about four people, exchanged the DVD player I got from Dad for Christmas, which stopped functioning after watching all of one movie in it, with a new one of the same model, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of friendliness. A smile and a friendly demeanour can, in fact, work wonders. When I arrived home, I was a bit tired, having not slept as much as I would like to have done on Friday night and having accomplished very little that I needed to do during the day today, so when I located my intended date for the evening online, we arranged to reschedule; I wouldn�t have been very good company, and I�m feeling rather fat lately, which makes me not want to risk anyone seeing me naked. I intended to be productive, doing laundry and cleaning up this Hell-hole, but instead, I lay down on the couch, wrapped myself in a wool blanket and fell asleep instead.

So here I am at nearly 4 a.m. watching one of my new DVDs, Tim Burton�s first full-length masterpiece, Beetlejuice. My enthusiasm for that film has somehow not dampened since the first time I saw it, many years ago, and I continue to admire Burton�s work enormously (with the exception of the Planet of the Apes remake, which I somehow couldn�t enjoy, maybe because I don�t like monkeys).

In any case, I should be up by about 7.30 to be sure the voice is properly prepared for the day�s singing, so I�ll stop here.

r

Last Dispatch - Next Dispatch