persimmon pudding

Four shots of gin on a Tuesday night. Later he said he doesn’t like it when people act drunk. Too bad.  We parked at a spot and needed three quarters before it became free at eight and I asked people on the street as they passed. The guy who parked behind us had enough for himself and for us too; so simple, tipsy and able to ask strangers time and time again “do you have a quarter? I have two dimes and a nickel”. Walk until we find sushi and tempura and miso soup.

The night before and the night after we go see apartments but I have yet to tell my parents. My mother called and I told my family “I am in Waltham but I can’t come by”. The laundry was too far away in one, the walls too slanted in the other. No rush, we were looking for November, looking for December now. Rain-wet streets and wind and girls not ready to let go of their summer-dress-and-warm-tights combination. 
until next time 


Me and three of my roommates completing a crossword puzzle: we go all out on a Friday night. Alex made persimmon pudding and I helped Raj turn his phone into a walkman for his Halloween costume. Curtis pleased with himself for having gotten: someone who works a lot - a car salesman. Long discussion about housing prices with Adrian. 

This morning is another dreary one, Saturday before Halloween become Halloween, Mama is coming by. I finally picked up a roll of film I shot in the beginning of the summer, so maybe I'll have photos again soon, dear reader.

steam

I brought facepaint along to the first party and the next night the theme was steam-punk. I'm disappointed that my more youthful plans fell through (I spent both nights in the company of my parents) but hopefully next year I will spend Halloween in higher spirits (a couple of puns intended).

It is snowing and the snow is sticking. Some trees have trunks that turn into branches that turn into twigs, silhouetted against the white gray sky. Others stand in almost full green coats of leaves, surprised that such a warm autumn is so quickly turning to winter. Or at least I think they are; I am.

waiting room

Yesterday I went to the mechanic and waited while they changed a headlight bulb and the oil. They have nice waiting rooms: open area with a tv, separate closed area for kids filled with toys, another closed are for those who want quite. There was one man in the quite room, I joined him and tried to read.

He was at his laptop and sometimes his phone buzzed. When it did he would pick it up, look at it irritably, and respond. He wore a button down shirt tucked into kahki pants, and as soon as I entered he became the most boring person in the room. He needed to replace his tires as well as what he had come to fix, and his last name was Shaw.

A brunette entered the room, sat down noisily with Starbucks in hand, flipping open her tip-filled magazine. Her brakes had squeaked once. The mechanic said they were fine, that the sound was a one time thing, that he could change them but there's no point. He repeated this three times but she insisted he change them anyway.

At this point I noticed that the room with the TV also had free coffee, so I went and brewed myself a capsule. When I came back someone's stuff was in the the seat next to mine. Three self-help books, something like "Finding Hope" and "Putting yourself back Together". The man came back into the room and sat down right next to me (in a room of 20 chairs). He answered his phone Dr. Brown. He asked the mechanic to step outside the room when called upon.

A sever looking blond suburban woman, with short hair and a tall thin frame. She too was very aware of the quite sign on the door, looking over at me and saying 'sorry' after the conversation with the mechanic was over. Then she took her magazine and left. The brunette came back in, eyed her old spot, and sighed exhaustedly, having failed to find what she had lost, and left again.

A boy my age came in with a woman I thought was his mother until I realized she was his girlfriend.

I have two working headlights now.
In other news, Sima is very happy with the Halloween costume he picked out.

Halloween 4/4

Hannah and I have been going to the Red Hook farmers
market and having Saturday brunch.

We went to a party in Tivoli because we  
heard that live music was going to be playing. I dressed up as a fox with the sign “what do I say?”. We jumped up and down to the music and I kept going up the stairs, to the porch, down the stairs to the back steps and back around to keep things spinning and spinning. Up and two drags, down and shitty warm beer, the back entrance and a hello, and around back to the dance. A couple times someone came up to me and said “you say mew!” (no) and the band switched. The girl who had been a unicorn was now Frida Colo and eventually the police came to break it up and the swarms of us trickled away. I slept over at Amanda’s place and we went to Murry’s the next morning; the drummer from one of the bands did too.
The next weekend I only went to the ISO show for 20 minutes and did work the rest of the time. Ha.

Halloween: ¾

I dressed up as a doll. We went to a student haunted house in Tivoli. People dotted the street all the way up to the house, and we entered. Descending the steps, the density of people running up and down created a sense of claustrophobia for those prone to it. There were multiple rooms, and we entered to the right first.

My first impression was of the smell: a bit fishy, certainly not that of a household. Then I realized to room was filled with hay: bales of if splitting the room in two with a low fence and the rest scattered on the floor. A papier-mâché decapitated cow hung from the ceiling; a large bowl filled with inflated gloves, evoking cow udders, stood in the corner. Behind the hay fence was a creature dressed in nothing but underwear and a horse head mask. Its human hands put hay into its horse mouth, the vinyl played over and over and over.

The second room was filled with human remains mingled with dried flowers. Heads and shoulders disappeared into vegetation (From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity. – Edvard Munch). It was all covered in plastic wrap. In the corner, obscured by strips of black garbage bag, someone stood cutting up what looked like slimy flesh.

To the far left was a dimly lit hallway, strips of rectangular packing material was strung from the ceiling. The first room had what looked like the remains of a suicide: no dead body, but a record of a screaming woman. Outside the room, a telephone hung off the wall: when I listened, a little boy recited nursery rhymes in a singsong voice. The next room was small, you had to crouch down and shuffle a bit before reaching an insect-bit filled refrigerator, lite by a black light and covered in insect-foam-like shaving cream. In the third hung a sign that said “babies sleeping”, jarred dolls and a softer light filled this room. There was a person with an extra arm sitting in the middle. When someone reached out to see if it was real, “can I touch it?” they asked, and the person shifted their head and shook, slowly: no.

After that we went upstairs. Behind layers of black scrim, a band played, dressed head to toe in black. Another bowl of plastic body parts stood on the couch, and I walked through the living room and found myself on the porch. I could barely move there: a girl dressed up a sushi (she was on crutches: chopsticks!) smiled and I briefly chatted with superman. Back inside I found the ladder to the attic, which led my eyes to a tv screen showing sexually morbid images, the hallway I was standing in filled with broken mirrors, the bathroom door was opened and the bathtub was filled with blood and crutches.

Eventually we escaped.

Halloween: 2/4

doll, Bard school spirit, Jimi Hendrix, two biker chicks

Thursday I went over to Amanda’s, face paint in hand. We ended up at a party Red Hook- a lot of people milled around and there was a strand of large Christmas lights strewn diagonally across the beer pong table. Overall a fairly low-key event: I remember a unicorn going off on a tirade about how she wants to do a joint major in film studies and French, but requirements something or other.

There were also two "Great Gatsby" parties: one on Thursday and one on Friday - parties thrown by atrociously wealthy kids. Of the first, I head that there was a VIP room guarded by a bouncer, and a bar tender. It was hard to get to and harder to leave, mostly because the house was out in the middle of nowhere, but a lot of people managed. The kid had a taxi busing people back and forth from Tewks, but only for people on a list. (wtf?)
The second was similarly far away. Damon wrote of his night there:

I spent a lot of time wandering between the mansion and the barn, which was some twenty yards out back. In the corner of the barn, near the sound system, was a model Greek column. This provided some amusement. At some point a dog was wandering around alarming three girls who were concerned it was lost. Then the owner came and claimed it, and all was well.
Fortunately, my friend B was there to drive me home. Eating ice cream sandwiches at a gas station, we saw an ambulance heading north.

Halloween 2011

Anna and I went trick or treating. 

In Redhook. Some of the people did not appreciate that. Some were nice. A little kid on his way to bed (in his pjs) thought Anna was a dragon. One of the houses had a nice family and a firepit. 

I didn't know until recently that Margaret has a tumbler. its me: here and here and i took this photo

and I was watching this and the guy with the banjo is studying to be a choral conductor so he conducts chamber singers sometimes.

I feel so special.

Also Mama: I appreciate the care package you sent me.

This is team Zissou. Minus Margaret. She was MIA :(

Halloweenish

Okay, so last weekend this happened:

we had pie. we had pie after seeing if there was a party at smog or manor. the one at manor was huge, spilling out onto the porch. but we only looked at it. it was hot. it was drunken. it was toga-themed though very few people stuck to that. so instead we went back and had pie that Margaret and Rosette made.

Friday Alana's friends from school came over. We went to watch the Tiger Lilies dressed in cheetah print sing. Lot's of dancing. Including a pikachu, but mostly not dressed up yet. We stayed up for a while after that...

Yesterday it as Margaret's birthday. Her bf Jack came. We see him a lot. Which is a good thing.

I am not sure what is going on in it.

We made her pumpkin spice cake (Rossette headed the expedition) and she got a few tea-related presents (t-shirt from me, mason jar mug, submarine tea infuser)

we didn't do that on purpose. It was also a little bit Sam's birthday party because his birthday was on Tuesday. so many October birthdays.

It was also the day everyone celebrated Halloween (because it's on a Monday this year...)

It had been snowing since noon so everything was cancelled. I don't think smog happened. A party in village L got bested before I could even get over there. There was a flood of ppl to village C when the one at L got busted.

anyway, I guess I ought to do work now.

Seasonal Birthdays

The Culinary: So much seasonal baking going on! Three birthdays this week (Susa and Sam on Monday, Margaret today). These are pumpkin cupcakes Margaret, Cat and I made. There was also an apple cake a week or so ago, an icebox cake and currently chocolate pumpkin cheesecake bars and a LOT of pumpkin puree (one pumpkin worth, to be exact), not-yet-toasted seeds and some stir-fry. Also, Margaret's brother and his girlfriend came, and they are teaching us to make bread. yum.









General: I got a new skirt this week, and helped carve a pumpkin. Also, Susa's mom sent her Halloween candy, so now we are all dying from too much sugar. The pumkin below was done by Dylan, who is a PC in one of the toasters. Also finally fixed my bike :), with help from Eames, who I took L&T with and is part of the bike co-op. It had so many things wrong with it. First the tube was flat in the back one. Which he had already tried to replace before but it had popped. And then upon trying to pump up the front one turned out that my tire was so frayed that it wouldn't hold in the front tube which then nearly popped. But now it functions, is a bit cleaner (not perfect but at least ride-able).

Dream: I had a dream and in it...Adrienne and Chris were studying on Adrienne's bed and I was on mine, and Angela came in and we fought about work study forms. (I don't know why, probably because I haven't filled mine out and she's the authority figure here)
And then I went to a college with a lot of kids from my high-school, and we were at the beginning of sophomore year and excited to be choosing were to live in terms of dorms, and all ended up on the same side of one building, by a big cozy dining area with wood paneling that looked a tiny bit like Manor. Meera and NiNi and her siblings were in it mostly.
And then Anna from Paris did this..dance? on a horse, with a whip. And the morning was Islamic themed, but I couldn't tell the difference and other people were upset. And my family was there and the food was cold.
But this is the best part:
I was reading an autobiography. I was reading the words and it was in English but translated.
The woman writing it was raised by a male gay couple in Luxenberg at a time when it was weak (either in power, or it was in strife). I knew they were Jewish because they made her wear a yamakah, it was green and she didn't find it comfortable. They were divorced now, but she was telling a story of their youth, when they were young professors, how they would take the maple-tree pods and put them on apples in the fall, giving them wings. There was a photo in the book, endless yellow leaves and endless apples.
http://icons-ecast.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/p/polishprincess/5.jpg

When I woke up I realized apples and maple seed pods are not from the same season, which upset me because I wanted to go out the give apples wings.