beyond the boughs and the crows

here's the thing: i really, desperately need a camera.

whereas i do not have a camera, this camera-less effort will have to suffice. i'm bubbling over a little bit. just a little tiny bit.

i'm in new york city. right now, specifically, i am on the eighth floor of a fancy office building (the kind with elevators that have little televisions in them) in union square. i am sitting at my very own desk at my very own office computer where i have my very own phone extension (5435). i am at the nation magazine -- my favorite magazine in the world.

for the record, the nation magazine is better than i thought it was. it is, by the way, the oldest weekly publication still in existence in the united states. it was started in 1865 by a group of abolitionists who wanted to track recently freed slaves and simultaneously tell the news of the growing country. since then, the nation has enjoyed writers such as henry james, margaret atwood, james baldwin, george bernard shaw, noam chomsky, emily dickinson, w.e.b. du bois, martin luther king jr., susan faludi, robert frost, langston hughes, molly ivins, sylvia plath, arthur miller, ralph nader, hunter s. thompson, james thurber, kurt vonnegut and w.b. yeats. and a lot more. adolph hitler wrote a letter to the nation once. because he was angry about something.

yesterday, for example, ken burns came into the office (he's the revolutionary documentary-maker who made the movies "civil war," "jazz" and "baseball") to screen chunks of his new movie which won't even screen until september 23 on pbs. i got to watch michael moore's "sicko" two days ago to fact-check a piece that will run next week in the magazine about it.

i kind of feel a little bit like a rockstar.

i love my job. yesterday i didn't even take a lunch and i stayed a whole two hours after my shift was done because i think it's so exciting. now i'm just bragging. bragging feels good. a whole lot better than whining, somehow.

new york in and of itself is big. i should have known that, considering so many of my friends go to new york. ben malbin gave me a list of people to call and hook up with while i am living here, which i haven't done yet, but i probably should because yesterday i started to feel a little bit lonely. at the end of the work day i just don't really have the energy to do anything but eat a burrito and fall asleep reading virginia woolf's journals.

there have been a lot of alex's in my life. here are three noteworthy alex's:
- burson. who, ben says, is dating some really hot girl now, and i think that's true judging by what i can tell from his livejournal pictures (which isn't quite enough for me to be satisfied). alex burson. one of the top five most significant figures of my entire high school career. and i'll leave it at that.
- manning. who dated my sister. and really hurt her a lot. i actually think she's still hurting from that. i hate guys who do that. i hate guys who are heart-breakers -- who don't ever put in 100 percent but allow the girl to put in as much as she wants, only to devastate her without a second thought in the end. FUCK. MEN.
- falcone. who actually prompted this "many-alex's" realization that i had, because i was reading the student listserv and there was something on there about how he and his comedy troupe were going to be doing a show relatively soon in the bay area. i checked out their web site (which i think that alex actually built all by himself, somehow), and it was really professional. like something i would find all by myself and really be interested in, regardless of the fact that alex falcone had built the web site. he might be one of the most talented and simultaneously odd people i know.

alex is a popular name, i guess, but i still have this notion that i maybe magnetize alex's. or soemthing. maybe when i was born an alex chip was put in me and now i find alex's everywhere i go. and not just regular alex's. important alex's. kind of like how laura seems to magnetize ryans and eli seems to magnetize lauras. who magnetizes sophies, i wonder? i'm going to have to find that person.

you know, actually, i was in the nation institute office on my first day and the first person i met was a sophie. she was the kind of sophie ben would really be in love with. she was really little and well-dressed and kind of quirky and erratic. and it was totally bizarre because she was FROM PORTLAND. and I HAD THE SAME DRESS she had. it was like a little fate thing. maybe ben magnetizes sophies. he needs a third sophie to really make me believe it.

i got drunk in new york with vince's friend emerson. oh yeah. i forgot to mention that i was living with vince for a while. that was BOMB. seriously. even though his apartment was tiny and hot, it was just so good to be sitting in his room talking about journalism and lovely ladies and sexy music. the relationship i have with vince is very good. it may be one of my most solid relationships in life. the only other person with whom things have been so solidly solid is maybe ariana rampy. mind you, "solid" is not necessarily the best thing a relationship can be. but it's by far the solidest.

anyway, vince has this "cuh-raaazy" roommate named emerson who just recently came out of the closet and he invited me to go out with him into the city and drink a little bit. now we all know me. i am definitely not one to go out into the city and drink a little bit. definitely not. but i wanted to kind of reinvent myself, you know? i wanted emerson to think i was this really fun, well-dressed metropolitan urban-dweller who was totally into going out into the city and drinking, so i went, and i got drunk. like, really really drunk. and that's because i cannot hold my alcohol because i do not drink hardly at all. and that was actually kind of fun, until i cut my evening short because i had to work the next day, and then i was drunk and alone and i drunk-dialed people. here's the path that took:
- i called GRANT. obviously. but he was asleep. because it was really late, and he, like an intelligent person, had done the right thing and NOT gone out drinking on a tuesday night.
- i called BEN. i don't think i'll divulge what was going on when i called BEN. except for that he wasn't really all that amused and he couldn't really talk.
- i called ARI. and i left her a message in which i told her that she was the only girl i'd ever go gay for. awk.ward.
- i called IAN. and it was his BIRTHDAY! which i knew somewhere in the back of my mind because i had written it in green ink on my palm the night before, but the day had been so busy i hadn't gotten around to calling. well, i called ian and he was in the car with nikki, and he definitely was not drunk yet (although i'm sure that changed later). and i think i told him that i believed he could change the world. actually, i called him again last night (i was much less drunk; read: not at all), and i think i wanted to, like, have a deep conversation, but he was just totally not buying it. failure.
- i called ALEXIS. that's my sister. i asked her to stay on the phone with me until i was sober. at that point i was so SICK of the whole "being drunk" thing. and alexis, being the wonderful woman that she is, stayed on the phone with me.

that's so weird. my sister is a woman. a WOMAN! she's eighteen now! fuck.

it seriously freaks my shit how old we're all getting. it's something that's always in the back of my mind and i just don't really want to put much thought into it because it makes me too upset. i tried to talk to bmal about this while i was in portland. i think we just kind of sympathized with each other, but it didn't solve anything. grant is usually very helpful in terms of discussions about my continuing existential crisis. man. can i just say that if i were not me and i were given the opportunity to date me i would definitely not do it? definitely not. no.

that reminds me of this happy accident that happened yesterday:

i was walking home from my nightly burrito and into my (awesome) apartment building when i happened upon a loud argument between two people that i could hear behind closed doors. i listened for about a half hour and learned about this much:
- the two who were arguing were jim and nicole.
- jim was mad at nicole because she had stayed out 'til seven in the morning doing cocaine at a friend's.
- nicole was mad at jim because he just wouldn't let her be twenty-three and live by her own time schedule.
- jim is thirty.
- nicole was mad at jim because she was coming down from a cocaine binge and she was in a bitchy mood.
- jim was mad at nicole because this was the SEVENTH TIME this has happened in the last TWO MONTHS!
- nicole just needed to be able to spend some time with her friends.
- jim tried to be nice but nicole picked a fight.
- but why couldn't jim just be a little more sympathetic?
- hey. JIM wasn't the one out 'til SEVEN IN THE MORNING and then SLEEPING ALL DAY.
- nicole wanted jim to move out.
- jim doesn't even live there!
- jim was going to leave.
(at this point, jim left the apartment and slammed the door, but he didn't go anywhere. nicole opened the door about twenty seconds later and the argument ensued outside the door.)
- jim was not leaving, said nicole.
- jim wanted to know why not.
- nicole reminded jim that it was POURING RAIN!
- nicole would leave instead.
- jim reminded nicole that this was HER apartment.

and at that point they notice me and i kind of hurriedly left the scene, up six flights of stairs to my own apartment to call grant and tell him how much i loved him and how i had just had a revelation about how healthy our relationship truly was.

nothing like another man's woes to make you feel better about yourself.

i thought "sicko" was very good, by the way. much better than mr. moore's previous two efforts. not that those were bad; this is just a little more non-partisan, so it kind of appeals to the human in you -- not the way-off-in-left-field democrat who enjoys gotcha gimmicks and propaganda-oriented facts.

so. just a reminder: i'm three hours ahead. but you can still always call me. (please?)