capital N, small y, BIG fucking Q.

i got carded for NyQuil today.

oh Oregon, you are so bureaucratic.

i can't sleep. there are birds chirping.

so, it occurred to me, just now at 5:22am lying awake for no good reason, that my recent return to chronic insomnia might very well be due to a lack of urban noise infiltrating my bedroom.

oh, where are my traffic noises and drunken Poles?

here, there are birds chirping (incessantly) and, in the distance, a train at Union Station. then, intermittent silence.

it's so relaxing, pleasing to the ear.

it's just not the same.

the page is blank, my pen is down; i'm working it out.

So, I spent the weekend in Seattle, a place to which I had not returned in four years.

Point one: Laser Tool is awesome. I don’t care what my friends think.

Me: “dude, Laser Tool tonight. You in?”

Dave: “what are you, thirteen?”

Dave Hawkins: Thrill Kill. (love you!)

Loud as hell, and come on kids, the Seattle Center needs the money. Go in your jammies, stoned. I don’t care.

Point two: the Broadway Market is now a QFC, which is weird. Definately a sign of the times (pointing towards the fact that Broadway just isn’t the punk, raver, indie-kid drag it once was). If you like to juxtapose your Urban Outfitters i-needed-an-overpriced-Ramones-shirt shopping with your grocery shopping, then you’re in luck. Otherwise, just fucking weird.

Point three: late teenage drama makes for fun reminiscing. As do Kickwear pants, bad hair-do’s, and former drug-usage. Those were the days.

Also, a shout-out to Jason’s cat Miss Nixie (sp?), who provided ample cuddles and purrs and whose hair has indelibly attached itself to all my clothing.

surly and disinterested

A few things.

I have a wicked crush on Jason Jones ( a product, strangely, of Hamilton, Ontario, producer of my favorite Canadian, one Jennifer Sgro. [Whom, my thoughts are with, and I miss terribly]).

(Parenthetical within a parenthetical [I could footnote it, but I found Jasper Fforde’s use of footnoting in Lost in a Good Book disconcerting. Hilarious, but disconcerting. ])

Where were we? Ah! Yes! Mr. Jones.

Point one: prior to cutting it up on The Daily Show, he had recurring roles on As the World Turns and Queer as Folk. Which makes him more hilarious.

Point two: he is a classically trained cellist.

Damn you Samantha Bee.

Unrelated: I finally have my own apartment again. And, for whatever reason, I cannot seem to leave it this week. One could write it off as an “I work from home” thing. One might also call it a “lazy” thing. Maybe I’m moping. Or hibernating. Or celebrating.

We’re not sure yet.

I did have to venture out of the building this afternoon; I ran out of Red Bull.

Related: my parents just happen to rent the apartment directly above me. Which is, you know, um, something. I heard a loud thud at 7am the other morning. So instead of silently cursing the upstairs neighbor, I can silently curse my father. Which I do a lot.

Tragically, a potted orchid was knocked off a table. My mother’s potted orchid, to be exact. Snicker.

Answers. It's the difference.

More interesting things have happened this week. (but why would I write about them here?)

best. picture. ever.

why i love Christopher Walken.

these follies are within you and shine through you like the water in an urinal

I saw The Two Gentlemen of Verona on the Elizabethan stage in Ashland the other night. Imagine my surprise when, in Act IV, the Mantua outlaws bounded upon stage in full goth gear, blue mohawks and all (all this in a replica of the original Globe Theatre). They have a sense of humor, those Oregon Shakespeare Festivalians.

So.

My body is adjusting back to pacific standard time. I’m not sure if I feel at home exactly; Oregon was home, but now I associate it more with being on vacation, so I’m not sure what it is I feel here. Displacement, perhaps.

It feels a little empty, sleeping alone. Very empty.

I am suddenly aware that I have gotten very little affection, affirmation and support from any of the guys I’ve dated in the last five years.

“Ask me how it feels to vie.”

Of all the guys I’ve been with, not one had ever looked me in the eye and said I was worth the effort.

Sad, but true.

(thank you, B)

so dark the con of man, indeed.

so, The Da Vinci Code was underwhelming. potentially snooze-worthy, which could have been the effect of a number of things (Tom Hanks' acting, Ron Howard's directing, the fact that i saw it at 12:30pm EST) i'm inclined to go with Ron Howard's directing, but the crack of noon matinee is likely the more accurate culprit. i saw it on Google's dime, though, so who am i to complain.

lovely company, that Google.

the last few weeks have been, easily, the best i've had in my tenure as a New Yorker. Bri, this is all your fault; you don't suck at all!

however.

a few things have encumbered my joy this week.

1) my grandfather is in the ICU for a pulmonary embolism.
2) my cat is in the ICU for cancer.

(as a direct or indirect result, i'm not sure, my parents bought a BMW, which, if you knew my parents, is weird) sports cars are common remedies, i've heard.

3) (however unimportant) i've gotten a number of curiously random comments from prior romantic attachments about occurrences in my life writ below. which is...what it is.

4) and my flat-panel LCD monitor has magically disappeared in transit from Queens to Brooklyn.

also strange; i seem to have surpassed my it-tastes-like-crap/dimetapp opinion of Red Bull this week. surpassed to point of near addiction. Bri, this is also your fault.

lions and tigers and hybrids! oh my!

so, the first documented case of a grizzly-polar hybrid bear in the wild...and what do they do? kill it.

way to go, geniuses.

ode to a room with a door.

i have, for the time being, situated myself in a room of my own. with a door and everything. i have a clever little quasi-bathroom. and a bed that is not a couch.

and, of course, now that i have a bed, i've been sleeping in somebody else's.

i'm sure there's some cardinal rule about dating one's roommate.

two points.

one: it eliminates that whole pesky phone tag how-do-we-coordinate-our-lives thing.
two: you'll never have to borrow a toothbrush.

(it would be cumbersome to speak of the fact that i finally found a pleasant living situation, one with ample cuddling, only weeks before i move across the country. so i won't speak of this. at the moment, i am quite pleased. with the nagging exception that my cat of eleven years is likely dying. which is impending heartbreak. but truly, pleased, i promise)

yes, i know. proponent of the parenthetical.

but i have laundry in my apartment. which is blissful.

viva Mexico!

so, mexico is about legalize personal use of pot, cocaine and heroin.

who the hell would emigrate from a country like that?!

also: this whole "Great May 1st Boycott," or "A Day Without an Immigrant" is some major bullshit. i think there's some rule about naming a historic event before if happens. "A Day Without an Immigrant" just sounds like a bad novel.

why am i always in New York when shit like this happens? oh. i live here.

sigh

the Word: English!

as in, the official language of the United States of America. thank you Stephen Colbert.

unrelated: if you'd like to feel better about your life, stand on the corner of 23rd and Lexington in front of the United Cerebral Palsy center of New York (across the street from where i'm staying this week) and watch a busload of visibly handicapped people in wheelchairs wheel their way at you down the sidewalk. either severly amusing or terribly sad; that fine line.

CSI: Miami on HD is veeeerry pretty. David Caruso, not as much (though i had some wicked strange crush on him in his John Kelly days).

i feel ok. there are some people here that i really will miss, come June. and some, i realized, i won't really miss at all.

it's good to be [not] home

it's, um, raining. again. seriously. what the hell!?

MTV spring break Portland Oregon stylee

...wherein melaina wakes up late, shuffles her pajamaed ass down the hall, out the back door, around the corner to Starbucks for a grande Misto and a scone, returns to apartment, positions self in front of laptop, checks email and...does work.

(which in no way involves MTV save perhaps a guilty rerun of Laguna Beach which will reaffirm the fact that i think Kristin Cavallari is deeply irritating and i will later deny having ever watched said show)

this of course differs from my non-spring break life how? you might ask.

(i am, of course,still in New York, where it happens to be sunny. on a day i had devoted to getting some work done. which will obviously happen)

I would like to point out the 10-day forecasts for both New York, New York and Portland, Oregon this week.

note the fact that it starts raining on friday in New York, gets sunny for a week, then starts raining again at the end of next week, around say, the 21st. also note how in Portland it starts raining this Friday and pretty much rains on through until next Friday, the 21st.

mmmhmm.

death by guinness

So.

It’s been a perturbing month. I’ve lost my train of thought. Scratch that. I’ve lost my train of living.

I am particularly homeless for a while. Which is awesome. This week, it’s a lovely room in the west village. Next week, it’s Portland’s Pearl district. The week after that, I’m not particularly sure. The window I am presently staring out of overlooks the corner of Hudson and Perry, in particular the gold and brown striped awning of Citi Habitats.

Irony for you.

I’m two blocks from Magnolia Bakery. Which is fantastic and overrated. I’m half a block from the White Horse Tavern, where, in 1953, Dylan Thomas drank himself to death. So, at least there’s always that option.

Yet, like everything else in my life, save my tattoos and my parents, this is only temporary. Then, I hear there are lasers. For the tattoos. And not the parents.

I saw The Merchant of Venice last night at The American Globe Theater; my friend Robbie was a particularly good Gratiano. Then followed a lot of Guinness. I’ve had my nose stuck in a book for a while; it was a nice respite. today's headache, almost welcome. almost.

I wrote an eight-page research paper this week on chastity and women’s roles in The Tempest. I forgot to cite the bible.

It goes that way.

mutability

moving sucks ass.

unwritten

i am in no way an optimist but this Natasha Bedingfield song is a good way to start your day.

pop music happens.

unrelated: blind people on the subway amaze me (in that non-facetious way).

what better can we do...

I feel dead.

But it’s not as dramatic as all that.

I reconnected with somebody last week with whom I had not spoken in eight years. She had a severe impact on my life, back then. What matters to you, likely, nobody else remembers.

It goes that way.

I ended up in Westchester with Mike on Sunday, which was a nice respite from my life. Those were the best hours; the last, though, are always clocks ticking. People who see you every day take so much of you for granted. They don’t ever see you walk away. They don’t see you drifting. It’s in the periphery.

I think only strangers really look at you anymore. Like babies, they don’t know any better.

“Oh my god,” said a man on the train in Hartsdale yesterday. “You look like Debbie Harry.”

give Crash a break, yo

Annie Proulx is pissed about the Oscars. bitching about beautiful rich people handing out accolades to other beautiful rich people? it didn't go your way? awww.

it's strange. i've heard nothing but negative comments about the movie Crash since it won Best Picture. it got ripped apart in my women's(read: gender/race) studies class last week. "it promotes racial stereotypes" well, unfortunately, stereotypes happen. "it was written by a white guy" Canadian white guy, mind you.

interestingly, the female producer (who received one of the Best Picture Oscars) never actually got paid for working on the film. gender stereotypes you say...?

i don't know. i saw it twice in the theater (the first time alone, the second, with my then-"boyfriend" Mike) didn't anybody listen to the dialogue?

if you're going to bitch about it, bitch about the snow. that was a bit Hollywood.

also, i can kill you with my brain.

i don't really know what the hell i'm doing with my life. which is fun.

when i was eight, i wanted to paint stripes on my face, don a fur-lined unitard and sing jellicle songs for jellicle cats. that, i thought, was a reasonable thing to do with one's life. but then, that was 1988.

in a lovely turn of events, the temperature hit a sweltering 65 degrees this weekend. i, of course, spent the better part of my day shut up in the stale air of an auditorium taking a three-and-a-half-hour proficiency exam. it's fun being told that you can't go to the bathroom.

also fun: panic attacks in computer science. holding back unexplainable tears in a crowded subway.

normality is relative they say.

related: i'm in the middle of The Tempest.

at least my laptop shipped.

not your queen amidala

i love Natalie Portman.