four points
11 July 2006
First point: Fuck it – no more whining. You’re right, it’s not very becoming. So I’m done.
(See? I listen to you.)
(Also, you have to know that I’m totally going to continue whining. I just want you to know that I’m aware that I’m doing the whining and that I don’t like it. Isn’t that the first step to recovery?)
On a related note, I’ve thought about why I’ve been so severe in my self-editing lately. Sure, I’ve had a rough stretch as of late, but I think I’m over that. And sure, I dread that I’m turning 27 and while I’m not over that, at least I can accept it for what it is: shit. Instead, I think it all has to do with this lil’ post.
See, I don’t know if you could tell by my misspellings and broken syntax, but I never really edit posts. I don’t really have time to, nor do I have the energy to, nor do I have the brain power to. Sure, I’ll give them a read over just to make sure they’re complete and that I didn’t say anything that might get me assassinated, but I usually don’t make many changes and just put ‘em up.
And then the engagement thing happened.
And now – guess what? – I’m reading more closely. Doing some editing. Making changes. And it’s completely robbing me of my mojo.
The hardest thing about writing the book is just that – it’s hard (indulge me for a moment). Writing a book, especially when there is no overlap between it (the book) and my current subject matter (the blog), is a very difficult and ginormous task. Sadly, I learned early on that I couldn’t just string together a couple of "I’m fat" jokes and be done with it. Which totally fucking sucks.
So after spitting out posts, there was an adjustment period for the book, which required reading, editing, rewriting, re-reading, and weeping. However, I still stayed strong on the blog (in some respects) and didn’t overanalyze the posts. I wrote them and put them up. Done and done.
But now I feel like I’ve regressed and have been more conscious of what I write. And this is destroying me.
I realize that this may be too much; that me, talking about the craft of writing, is like the pope giving advice on how to R the girl of your dreams and get away with it or like my brother Dennis talking about how not to be bisexual.
But I thought I would share this revelation with you all and let you know that I’ve stopped thinking about it. Much like in a relationship when you stop caring about the other person and he/she only cares for you more, I’m not going to overly concern myself with the posts, just like the old days. Nothing works better in life than insouciance. This mantra has gotten me this far. It’s time to go back to it.
Second point: remember: it’s never to early to send me a birthday gift in the form of cold, hard cash. Nothing will improve my mental state like an email from Paypal saying that I’ve been given money (well, certain sexual acts will, but I’ve been sleeping around too much lately and really need to cool it). So click on the "Make a Donation" button on the right and help make my 27th birthday my best birthday ever! Remember, this is the only time during the year that I ask for money! Don’t make me put ads up! Please!
(If you need extra begging before you send me the damn $10, please see here.)
(I’d also like to take this time, as I’m under $200 away from maxing out my second credit card, to thank the good people behind both of my projects. It’s most excellent that both projects were agreed to eleven months ago and since then I’ve received only a small portion of my promised monies – and that went directly to the debt I accumulated from taking off work for 4.5 months to work on said projects. So again, thank you. This has been working out for me really well so far. The good news is that one of the busboys at the Italian restaurant that my landlord owns just died, so I’m picking up two shifts a week to help offset the cost of rent. So that makes me happy.)
Third point: I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention what the scene looked like my Little Italy neighborhood after Italy won the World Cup.
Prior to leaving the shore, I saw the World Cup final on television. I walked into my aunt and uncle’s place just as regular time had run out. I saw the headbutt. I saw the penalty kicks. I saw the celebration.
My reaction: "Eh."
The reaction, which I would learn later, of my Little Italy neighborhood: "GABAGOOL! MARONE! BAHDAHDEEZH! ETC!"
I got to my apartment about 10pm Sunday night and to find madness. The streets were packed with people, all sorts of swarthy drunks wearing Italian flags, screaming EE-TAL-YA over and over again. The crowd was mixed: there were genuine off the boat Italians, who were not surprisingly the most passionate (and drunkest); there were "normal" Italian-Americans of all ages, wearing the blue jerseys, some with their faces painted; and there were the guidos, with their gelled hair and trimmed eyebrows and wifebeaters, looking more interested in starting fights and crushing p-ssy than the Italians’ victory.
Unsuspecting tourists either delighted or cringed from their sidewalk tables as these "hooligans" took over the streets. Police were out en force to keep order, and later I learned that several arrests were made. For what, I don’t know, but I imagine it has something to do with prozhoot or mutzharel.
Horns, honks, whistles, shrieks, chants, songs. Songs, chants, shrieks, whistles, honks, horns. This is what I heard all night long, until I finally feel asleep sometime around 3am.
What’s weird about this is that Little Italy is dead after, say, 1am. The nearest bar to my apartment is about five blocks away. This doesn’t sound very far, but several areas of Manhattan (Bleecker Street, 2nd Ave in the East Village, much of the frat part of the Upper East Side) have four or five bars per block. So to not have one within a five block radius, well, that’s not really a party area.
So as I laid there in bed listening to my whop friends, I wondered what, exactly, they were doing out there. There are no bars and all the restaurants were closed. It sounded to me like different groups of Italy fans were basically showing up in the neighborhood and simply walking down the street, yelling and singing, despite the fact that the neighborhood was otherwise dark and desolate. It’s as though a bunch of mid-twenties corporate Italian-Americans were drinking at a bar in the Upper West Side, getting progressively drunk, until one of them said, "You know what? We should totally go down to Little Italy to carry on and scare the fuck out of the Chinese people that actually live there. We’re Italian! And we just won! Let’s get some of the worst beer in the world and head down there - even though everything is closed! Who’s with me?"
(I can’t express this enough; this is my sixth year in NYC and I’ve lived in four different neighborhoods and spent many a late night in many more. None are as scary as my current neighborhood at night. This is because the tourists all have to get up early in the morning to get a head start on the Statue of Liberty line and the Chinese people have to wake up early to scurry around all day, sell shit that I’ve never even seen before, and/or smoke cigarettes. ChiLiTa at night is a strange place. If it weren’t for the constant rumbling of trash trucks on the streets, you could hear a pin drop. Very, very weird for Manhattan.)
(And really, Italy has some of the worst beer in the world. If I had to make a list of my top five least favorite beers, it would go:
1) Beck’s
2) Peroni
3) Moretti
4) Heineken
5) None. I only dislike four beers.)
Anyway, then it stopped and now everybody’s back to not caring about soccer. Thank god.
(By the way, the best part about the whole headbutt drama is the Italian’s reponse that he prompted the headbutt by calling the Frenchie a terrorist. When confronted about this, his response was: "It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I’m ignorant. I don’t even know what the word means."
What? How do you not know what the word "terrorist" means? I know Italians are not necessarily known for their brain power (not in the past 300 years, anyway, long before Italy became Italy), but that is really no excuse. That’s like saying, "I didn’t murder my wife. I don’t know what murder is. I just wanted her to stop cheating on me, then she died." Come on. Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.)
Fourth point: you’ll get your damn "Drink Until You Shit" recap soon. But I’ll save you the drama: I did not shit myself. I’m sorry to disappoint, and I’m willing to do a lot of stupid things while drunk, but pooping myself is not one of them. Also, I dropped a monster deuce right before the tour started and didn’t have to go. Crap.
(Well, not literally.)
(See? I listen to you.)
(Also, you have to know that I’m totally going to continue whining. I just want you to know that I’m aware that I’m doing the whining and that I don’t like it. Isn’t that the first step to recovery?)
On a related note, I’ve thought about why I’ve been so severe in my self-editing lately. Sure, I’ve had a rough stretch as of late, but I think I’m over that. And sure, I dread that I’m turning 27 and while I’m not over that, at least I can accept it for what it is: shit. Instead, I think it all has to do with this lil’ post.
See, I don’t know if you could tell by my misspellings and broken syntax, but I never really edit posts. I don’t really have time to, nor do I have the energy to, nor do I have the brain power to. Sure, I’ll give them a read over just to make sure they’re complete and that I didn’t say anything that might get me assassinated, but I usually don’t make many changes and just put ‘em up.
And then the engagement thing happened.
And now – guess what? – I’m reading more closely. Doing some editing. Making changes. And it’s completely robbing me of my mojo.
The hardest thing about writing the book is just that – it’s hard (indulge me for a moment). Writing a book, especially when there is no overlap between it (the book) and my current subject matter (the blog), is a very difficult and ginormous task. Sadly, I learned early on that I couldn’t just string together a couple of "I’m fat" jokes and be done with it. Which totally fucking sucks.
So after spitting out posts, there was an adjustment period for the book, which required reading, editing, rewriting, re-reading, and weeping. However, I still stayed strong on the blog (in some respects) and didn’t overanalyze the posts. I wrote them and put them up. Done and done.
But now I feel like I’ve regressed and have been more conscious of what I write. And this is destroying me.
I realize that this may be too much; that me, talking about the craft of writing, is like the pope giving advice on how to R the girl of your dreams and get away with it or like my brother Dennis talking about how not to be bisexual.
But I thought I would share this revelation with you all and let you know that I’ve stopped thinking about it. Much like in a relationship when you stop caring about the other person and he/she only cares for you more, I’m not going to overly concern myself with the posts, just like the old days. Nothing works better in life than insouciance. This mantra has gotten me this far. It’s time to go back to it.
Second point: remember: it’s never to early to send me a birthday gift in the form of cold, hard cash. Nothing will improve my mental state like an email from Paypal saying that I’ve been given money (well, certain sexual acts will, but I’ve been sleeping around too much lately and really need to cool it). So click on the "Make a Donation" button on the right and help make my 27th birthday my best birthday ever! Remember, this is the only time during the year that I ask for money! Don’t make me put ads up! Please!
(If you need extra begging before you send me the damn $10, please see here.)
(I’d also like to take this time, as I’m under $200 away from maxing out my second credit card, to thank the good people behind both of my projects. It’s most excellent that both projects were agreed to eleven months ago and since then I’ve received only a small portion of my promised monies – and that went directly to the debt I accumulated from taking off work for 4.5 months to work on said projects. So again, thank you. This has been working out for me really well so far. The good news is that one of the busboys at the Italian restaurant that my landlord owns just died, so I’m picking up two shifts a week to help offset the cost of rent. So that makes me happy.)
Third point: I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention what the scene looked like my Little Italy neighborhood after Italy won the World Cup.
Prior to leaving the shore, I saw the World Cup final on television. I walked into my aunt and uncle’s place just as regular time had run out. I saw the headbutt. I saw the penalty kicks. I saw the celebration.
My reaction: "Eh."
The reaction, which I would learn later, of my Little Italy neighborhood: "GABAGOOL! MARONE! BAHDAHDEEZH! ETC!"
I got to my apartment about 10pm Sunday night and to find madness. The streets were packed with people, all sorts of swarthy drunks wearing Italian flags, screaming EE-TAL-YA over and over again. The crowd was mixed: there were genuine off the boat Italians, who were not surprisingly the most passionate (and drunkest); there were "normal" Italian-Americans of all ages, wearing the blue jerseys, some with their faces painted; and there were the guidos, with their gelled hair and trimmed eyebrows and wifebeaters, looking more interested in starting fights and crushing p-ssy than the Italians’ victory.
Unsuspecting tourists either delighted or cringed from their sidewalk tables as these "hooligans" took over the streets. Police were out en force to keep order, and later I learned that several arrests were made. For what, I don’t know, but I imagine it has something to do with prozhoot or mutzharel.
Horns, honks, whistles, shrieks, chants, songs. Songs, chants, shrieks, whistles, honks, horns. This is what I heard all night long, until I finally feel asleep sometime around 3am.
What’s weird about this is that Little Italy is dead after, say, 1am. The nearest bar to my apartment is about five blocks away. This doesn’t sound very far, but several areas of Manhattan (Bleecker Street, 2nd Ave in the East Village, much of the frat part of the Upper East Side) have four or five bars per block. So to not have one within a five block radius, well, that’s not really a party area.
So as I laid there in bed listening to my whop friends, I wondered what, exactly, they were doing out there. There are no bars and all the restaurants were closed. It sounded to me like different groups of Italy fans were basically showing up in the neighborhood and simply walking down the street, yelling and singing, despite the fact that the neighborhood was otherwise dark and desolate. It’s as though a bunch of mid-twenties corporate Italian-Americans were drinking at a bar in the Upper West Side, getting progressively drunk, until one of them said, "You know what? We should totally go down to Little Italy to carry on and scare the fuck out of the Chinese people that actually live there. We’re Italian! And we just won! Let’s get some of the worst beer in the world and head down there - even though everything is closed! Who’s with me?"
(I can’t express this enough; this is my sixth year in NYC and I’ve lived in four different neighborhoods and spent many a late night in many more. None are as scary as my current neighborhood at night. This is because the tourists all have to get up early in the morning to get a head start on the Statue of Liberty line and the Chinese people have to wake up early to scurry around all day, sell shit that I’ve never even seen before, and/or smoke cigarettes. ChiLiTa at night is a strange place. If it weren’t for the constant rumbling of trash trucks on the streets, you could hear a pin drop. Very, very weird for Manhattan.)
(And really, Italy has some of the worst beer in the world. If I had to make a list of my top five least favorite beers, it would go:
1) Beck’s
2) Peroni
3) Moretti
4) Heineken
5) None. I only dislike four beers.)
Anyway, then it stopped and now everybody’s back to not caring about soccer. Thank god.
(By the way, the best part about the whole headbutt drama is the Italian’s reponse that he prompted the headbutt by calling the Frenchie a terrorist. When confronted about this, his response was: "It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I’m ignorant. I don’t even know what the word means."
What? How do you not know what the word "terrorist" means? I know Italians are not necessarily known for their brain power (not in the past 300 years, anyway, long before Italy became Italy), but that is really no excuse. That’s like saying, "I didn’t murder my wife. I don’t know what murder is. I just wanted her to stop cheating on me, then she died." Come on. Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.)
Fourth point: you’ll get your damn "Drink Until You Shit" recap soon. But I’ll save you the drama: I did not shit myself. I’m sorry to disappoint, and I’m willing to do a lot of stupid things while drunk, but pooping myself is not one of them. Also, I dropped a monster deuce right before the tour started and didn’t have to go. Crap.
(Well, not literally.)
