My Soul is a Butterfly

From Palindromes to Toy Soldiers

2010-01-04T12:27:00.006-05:00

I have been spreading myself thin lately. I don't mean this is a sexual way.

Then again, maybe I do.Your call.

In any case, Hannahmiet.com (I got rid of the .blogspot, how exciting) will be the only place I post prose for a while. Poetry will be posted at Hello, Absurd World.

However, before I settle in at home, I have a final guest post up on these internets: Fuck Me Like a Toy Soldier.

The blog, Conversations with Myself: because everyone else is masturbating, is just as hilarious as it's title entails:

Trust me on this one.

Fake Palindromes

2010-01-02T20:11:00.006-05:00

I once wrote that I wanted to be fucked like a lustrous, lingering palindrome.

I couldn't tell you what that meant, precisely. But a stranger I met (briefly) at a Philadelphia poetry reading tried to interpret it. Then a friend I would end up dating (less briefly, but still briefly) responded to this interpretation.

I am a palindrome, or at least my name is. I can be lustrous and lingering at times, I guess, though never before my morning coffee. So maybe I just wanted the "fuck me" part.

I think of palindromes today because it's 01/02/2010. The start of a new decade, a new space to circle forwards at a backwards pace.

After several beautiful New Year's Eve-nings, I am reminded that the best moments sink in when time feels meaningless.

Which brings me to an email I received from a stranger. The stranger was surprised that my name was real and not made up. "Hannah is a palindrome and Miet is an anagram for 'time.' It's too perfect," she said.

My magical thinking has yet to form a theory as to what the anagram means, but I'm open to your interpretations. You don't even have to want to fuck me like a lustrous, lingering, palindrome to take a stab at it.

As you know, I have no resolutions, yet my dreams are doing the foxtrot full speed up mountains with no plans of slowing down. I will refrain from sharing every rock, but here are a few of my deepest desires for the decade. I hope you will also share yours.

I will speak. Sometimes into microphones.

Lauren once suggested I read stories at The Moth and fear immediately began its rapid circulation through my body. This is what happens when someone mentions something I really want to do, but am also not quite sure I can do. I am deathly afraid of microphones.

However, I have been working up my nerve in small steps. Smaller poetry readings to not-so-small ones.

We'll see.

Mornings without mourning.

I recently woke up on a bed in Brooklyn next to my married friends. They were having passionate morning sex under the covers, breathing each other's air. They were almost silent. Somehow, the silence made it even more beautiful.

I usually refrain from wanting things I cannot achieve with my own hands. I refrain from building an ideal human out of clay and searching for him in faces on street. I refrain from finding pieces of things that break my heart - a line of poetry here, a dark smile there - and pretending that it's real love, not just heartbeats.

But I knew that morning what I wanted. It was simple. I wanted morning sex.

Really good morning sex. The kind that's just as instinctual as it is intimate. The kind before your brian starts thinking in sentences. Even before coffee. The kind that makes you feel smaller and bigger than everything in the world, together.

I would like to find this one day.

For now, my dreams are smaller. I am trying to be a better morning person. To stay awake when the insomnia is real, and not an excuse to read a novel cover to cover, or ride the waves of the internet until sunrise. At least not every night.

I am allowing myself to be less hard, to shed just a little bit more of my cracking shell.

Big things in small steps.

I started working on my book again. It overwhelmed me for months, the thought of it, the outline in my mind. The subject matter, the length. Being alone in my head for so long, drowning out sound.

But things are different. I see more clearly. Smaller stories, that feed into the whole. I think this blog helped me see through the fog.

I also think the very things I feared are the things I'm ready to embrace.

Yes and yes.

I will climb mountains, when someone offers me a rope. I will travel, when I have wings to fly. I will meet you, and you, and especially you. We will talk about nothing for hours. My stomach will be unafraid. It will say yes. and yes. and yes. and Oh, yes.

Some lonely night we can get together. And I'm gonna tie your wrists with leather. And drill a tiny hole into your head.

Lonelytown, USA

2009-12-30T12:20:00.006-05:00

I would say that today is like Freaky Friday, because I wrote a post on Lauren's blog: Hipstercrite, and she is here haunting my soul...er, My Soul is a Butterfly.

But it's not Friday, and when Lauren writes, I see things through her eyes in beautiful, tragic colors. Sometimes I even feel them. Sometimes they are sad, faded polaroids, and sometimes they are happy crayon drawings or bittersweet watercolors or fun fingerpaints. But they are always beautiful.

Since the root of the conflict in Freaky Friday was that the mother and daughter could not do this, could not see tragic colors through each others eyes, I must conclude that Lauren and I are not like Freaky Friday at all.

We are simply swapping blogs, which sounds a whole lot less exciting.

However, I know you will enjoy Lauren's words and hope that you tell her so. I also hope you will stop by her place to read mine.

Be sure leave some evidence in comment form.

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Sunday Night Salvation

"I wonder whatever happened to my art teacher in Potsdam," the old man in a flannel overcoat says to no one in particular.

"No one even knew that we were dating."

He sits alone at the counter, rubbing his starched Elks Lodge cap.

"She wanted to marry me, you know?" he excitedly tells the short order cook who suggests the slightest nod of interest.

"I wonder where she is."

The old man trails off. Lost in his own thoughts, his memories.

Completely unaware to the fact that no one is listening to him.

It's Sunday evening in Lonelytown, NY. A town of 19,000 and dropping. One of the many forgotten children born from the Northeastern Rust Belt. The child, strong and willful, always did what he was told, never once questioning authority, never once breaking down. The child bled the blood and sweat the sweat of a good Christian boy. Until one day, the child watched all the fruits of his labor plucked from his cracked, begrimed fingers and hidden away, never to be returned. Without warning or explanation, the child was told that he was no longer needed, that his existence simply no longer mattered. Lost, the child spent his days walking through the shadows of gray empty boxes, walking and walking until he became old and talked to no one in particular about his art teacher in Potsdam.

I'm sitting in Frank and Mary's Diner. The only place open after 5PM in Lonelytown.

The only salvation for the forgotten.

As a child, my mother told me never to go into Frank and Mary's.

"It's smoky," she'd say. "It's smoky and only the riff raff go in there."

She's right, but maybe it's the only thing left that can connect me to this lonely town. This town I ran from as soon as I was old enough. Tonight, as I drove through the shadows of what this town could have been, trying to conjure some semblance of sadness, I found myself here, standing below the broken neon sign, gazing into the milky opaque of the windows, forcing myself to remember that this town, this statistic, this darken spot on the map of the World, is my hometown.

Frank and Mary is a symbol. A hazy staple, stuck in time, refusing to adapt. The resistance of change, would be good if there was nothing to change, but this town has only everything to gain.

Lonelytown, NY simply gave up.

The waitress asks me for my order. She can't be much older than myself, but the dullness in her eyes says that she understands life more than I can pretend. The automated rhythm of her writing down my order, pouring my coffee, handing the slip to the cook implies a monotony I will only fully understand on my drive home this evening.

I try to drum up something, anything, as I sit here watching the old man quietly eating his eggs alone, but all I feel is a cold wind.

Only a realization that I'm forcing a sentiment that I have already mourned- the death of ignorance that this town could be anything more for me than the place of my birth.

Nothing more than a town that showed this child everything she didn't want to be. A way out.

The old man will come back here tomorrow and the next day.

And I am sitting in any diner, any story, in the wake of opportunism.

This old town's too small for you now, baby girl.

2009-12-26T19:01:00.007-05:00

When I travel back to my parent’s house, it is no longer like time travel. The Metro North upstate is no longer a Dolorean ride. Instead, it is train tracks across towns that pass my window in a lulling blur. It is two hours of escape, when my mind empties into the pages of Chronic City, and the children in the seat to my right speculate what Santa will bring them this year.

My old bedroom is a museum. There are snowglobes that you can shake and watch flakes of white cover Jack Skellington’s bones. My old bedroom is bones. The photos in heart shaped frames are Technicolor movie stills. I stare at the narrative on the storyboard and say:

“That scene was before the car crash. She was beautiful, but too skinny, too scared.”

“That scene was when she was engaged to be married. Her eyes looked like puppies first discovering snow. Without understanding that it falls from the clouds.”

The tension that used to travel through the floorboards of our home is replaced by warmth and balance. My mother whispers family secrets as she cooks me a vegetable dish in a separate pan, ignoring my protests that salad is fine. I speak of oysters and strangers, parties with martinis, and words that get lost in translation between French and English. She tells me that I’m living better than her and dances with my father in the living room.

I tell them that I will never get married unless I find my George Bailey. That all I really want is for a man to knock the phone from my hands, shake me until I cry and say that he doesn’t want any plastics or ground floors. My parents laugh and we all wash the dishes and sing Christmas Carols out of tune.

I can hear my brother upstairs, speaking to an invisible human. It hurts that I don’t understand. But there’s also acceptance. I spent my childhood understanding that my brother was autistic, that he was different and I loved him. Now, he is also schizophrenic and autistic, and he is different and I love him. He thinks that people are out to get him, invisible people with real names. I tell him that no one is out to get him and that we all love him, us and the invisible people and everyone. Then I escape to my museum room and watch a A Christmas Carol before I get sad. I end up feeling surprised by how calmly the blood flows under my skin.

The day after Christmas, I sleep until I wake and dress in a daze, unsure of where I am. I drive to the shopping mall where I worked in high school. I do this for the purpose of listening to radio in the rain and fulfilling my annual tradition of buying my New Year’s gown. It used to feel like a "fuck you" to the past. Now it's just tradition and a dress to spill champagne on.

In front of the Macy’s mirror, I remember how insecure I once felt. I pick the dress that hugs the small of my stomach, giving way too hips. “A Joan Halloway dress.” I'm walking on clouds.

In the food court, the clouds start to evaporate around me as I wait on line to pay for a Diet Coke. I feel eyes brush my skin from all directions and realize that I do not fit into this frame. My body feels photoshopped into the crowd of teenagers in Abercrombie, mall workers and overweight moms with strollers. The man at the deli counter is the same man who used to make my coffee before I clocked into work at the bookstore. He doesn’t recognize me at all. Instead, he tells me I must not be from around here. “You look like you’re from those old movies,” he says. I put a tip in his jar for the compliment, but the words make my stomach feel strange.

Walking towards the exit, I pass by familiar faces I don’t wish to speak to. I don’t want to hear bad news that I’m already aware of. Don’t want to say the words “full time job” or be the visualization of someone else’s dream.

My old manager from the Toy Store, the one that got fired for being mean, passes me on the escaltor, frowning. He is wearing a Brookstone uniform and nametag, 100 lbs more overweight than he was 6 years ago.

I think of saying hi to him, or even buying him lunch. But he would know that he was mean to me, and he would know that I only felt bad for him, and he would hate me. I keep walking and feel guilty. The guilt forms static on my skin as I button my coat. Guilt for escaping without baggage. Guilt for being alone and having keys on my keychain. Guilt for standing at the beginning of the road, so very far from the end. Guilt for everything that makes me who I am.

I drink my Diet Coke in the car as the rain drops dance to the radio.

I want to be the lion. Everybody wants to pass as cats. We all want to be big, big stars, but we got different reasons for that.

Believe in me. Cause I don’t believe in anything. And I want to be someone to believe.

Meet me at the Confession Booth.

2009-12-23T00:52:00.001-05:00

The blogger that this cartoon freakishly accurately depicts is Cheryl.

If I did not love the electric personality that bubbles through her words much like caffeine pumps through her veins, or how often she makes me spit out my own caffeine laughing at her posts, I would love her for the fact that she inspired Mysterg to start a blog, and it's one of my favorites.

But I do love all of those things about her, and more things about her, and, ok, pretty much everything about her. Fine. Since you're forcing me to admit it, I have a girl crush on Cheryl. Sheesh.

Today, I invaded her house (without stealing any underwear, I promise) to write a Dating Wednesdays post: Sorry, I'm Busy Dating Don Draper. Leave a message and I Won't Call You Back .

It may have inched the rating of her blog ever-so-slightly in the direction of NC-17, but I refrained from using the word "cunt." My mother would be proud.

Astronauts, Anti-Humbugs, Strangers in my living room.

2009-12-21T09:01:00.003-05:00

I don’t think that love is like cracking your knuckles or the first glass of water when you’re thirsty.

I think it’s more like a popsicle that drips and drips and makes your tongue feel happy, or a watercolor sunset or the part of fall that still feels like summer. I think it's more like ice skating without falling, or the way that soft skin feels on fingertips.

I have a roommate that I don’t mention much, since she has a separate entrance to our apartment and we don’t interact very often. She certainly doesn’t know me as well as you do, except for things like how my shampoo smells and what songs I play in the twilight. Lately, I can tell that my roommate is lonely when I leave the house and she stays home watching wedding shows on TLC and Lifetime. It feels silly to feel sorry for a woman who has no one to cuddle with, when I have no one to cuddle with either, or at least no one that I like. But I think I cuddle with myself pretty well and I don’t know if my roommate knows how to do that. We don’t really talk about things like this. Instead, we talk about snow.

Maybe I just don’t understand the appeal of the Lifetime Network. Or maybe she reads Nabokov in private or smokes weed when I think she’s at synagogue.

Sometimes I’m bewildered by how many people there are in this green world, and even a few astronauts floating in outer space to boot. I think that people are like satellites or radio signals, instead of islands. There can’t just be one person for everyone, or even seven, with all of these wavelengths.

I hope my roommate finds her station or her man on the moon or her white dress. Even people with bad taste in television deserve to be happy if they’re kind.

I kissed a woman and a man and another woman and a man one night recently. I came home smiling like a school kid but I didn’t tell my roommate anything about it. She wouldn’t understand if I said that it felt like blankets, or the world exploding with heartbeats, or a marching band or the anti “bah humbug.” Even if she could understand, I still wouldn’t tell her. Instead, I ate salad for dinner and wished that I could watch Scrooged, rather than women yelling about bridesmaids, or horses, or weight loss, or lace on television. Instead, I talked about puppies playing in snow banks and my roommate talked about work Christmas parties and it really wasn't so bad after all.

I hope she has happy holidays, or at least Technicolor dreams.

Welcome to my Tabula Rasa: Part 2

2009-12-18T16:14:00.006-05:00

When I left, he said that the man in the turban had lied to me. That I simply did not love people as much as they love me, and that he was proof. There was his heart, and there was me, leaving it.

He said that my soul is only a butterfly because I fly away.

For months, I feared his face in every stranger. There were 65 missed calls on a friend’s cellphone. There was a 911 call to Los Angeles when I thought he might jump off a building. There were closed doors and opened doors and holiday cheer and new cities and new hands to hold, but my world was never silent enough, or warm enough or clear enough.

I wondered if a soul in flight was really no soul at all. I wondered if I was destined to fix people temporarily, to fill in their gaps with warmth, then break them into shattered ice. I wondered if he was right, and the man with the turban was wrong. I wondered if I would always leave with tears in my wake.

But after a while, rain fell on the sidewalk, washing the dirt into the gutter. After a while, I had written enough and spoken enough and cried enough that my own voice was a comfort. I began to feel my heart again, beating like it always does.

I felt reborn in moments, smiling at strangers and holding doors, reading poems or just pausing to stare at the open sky. I realized that I did love hopelessly, endlessly, even without pouring it all into one person, without making them whole when they should be whole on their own. I love with every whisper and click of my heels. With every syllable, I love.

As I shed my skin, the clouds disappeared. I let my heart hurt. I let it break ten times a day. I built it up again even stronger.

So here I am. Not a clean slate, not a simple slate. A growing slate. One that loves with every inch of my soul, without destination, without a target.

I’m glad you’re here with me.

As more people enter my little slice of the internet, I feel the need to share some old posts that new readers should check out:

1. Keep The Change, You Filthy Animal

2. Slice.

3. C is for Cookie, Among Other Things

4. Romancing the Stone

5. That Stupid Ache

I also exist elsewhere on the internet:

In poetry form.
In 140 character semi-poetics.
In tumbling semi-poetics.

Additionally, if you haven't already, you should check out the blogs in my sidebar. They are all inspiring writers that keep me going everyday.

And lastly, I leave you with some Soul Meditations.

1. Womyn's Work by Mahina Movement.

If you're hungry for truth, press play on this one. Turn the lights out. Close your eyes and tune in. Then let me know what you think.

2. 4-5 (I Will Survive) by Ava Luna

I gave Ava Luna an award in The L 's Best of NY Issue. I still think it's insane they aren't ridiculously famous.

3. Little Girl Blue by Spiritchild

Spiritchild is one of my closest friends. Because how could someone who has musical conversations with Nina Simone not be one of my closest friends? We inspire each other, even during months when we don't speak, and I am sure that he will inspire you too.

Have a beautiful weekend,

Hannah Miet

My Soul is a Butterfly.

2009-12-14T23:17:00.003-05:00

I meant to write part two of my last post today, but I needed to paint the background first. I hope you enjoy my painting.

It was one of those years when I was always broke. When my feet felt out of sync with the world, or at least the midday traffic. When I thought that every 6 train and alarm clock and bus blocking a pedestrian walkway had a personal vendetta against my heart.

At lunchtime, the smoothie stand filled to the brim with suits, becoming a four-walled closet of briefcases and Blackberries, forced smiles and frustrated sighs and checked and re-checked watches, cologne and condescention and protein powder. The regular customers put tips in my jar. I recommended the smoothie with peanut butter and bananas, or the one with blueberries and rasberries. I smiled at everyone, especially the jerks. I wanted to stamp my smile onto their jerk hearts. I wanted to break out of my skin.

It was one of those years when I overused the word "love" in my poems. When I hibernated under blankets of smoke and turned off my phone and only saw the skyline from bedroom windows. When I lost my vocal chords. When I poured myself into someone else, until I was empty.

In the late afternoon, I was alone in the closet and became a smoothie artist. I wrote short stories on napkins and mixed bananas and coconut and soy milk. I told the cleaning guy from Mexico dirty jokes in Spanglish. I gave him the leftover smoothie in the blender. He told me there were not pretty girls like me in his country and I said he probably had not seen every girl in his country, or my country for that matter, and that it was a wildly unfair compliment. He bought me a rose once and it made me feel sad. I gave the rose to my boyfriend.

It was one of those years when it was too much and not enough at once. When I was cold all the time, even standing over fire. When I wanted to sleep through winter and wake up in fresh fields far away.

The only regular customer after the lunch rush and before the dinner rush was the gray haired crazy. He carried a compressed stench about him, like the smell of 40 million garbage trucks and 40 million sewage plants packed inside the body of a single human. Sometimes, his smell was so strong that I had to escape to the bathroom to vomit. I don't know how it's possible to smell that badly. The gray haired crazy liked to yell at me. I always did something wrong. There was no "stuff on the stuff." There was too much "stuff on the stuff." I was a "stupid whore." The crazy never ordered smoothies, only food, so one day I made him one for free to see what would happen, the one with the bananas and the peanut butter, the kind that makes you feel like you're ten years old. I held my breath while I brought it to his table. He stopped yelling at me that day, but he didn't stop smelling. Then the next week, he started yelling at me again. I guess he didn't remember.

It was one of those years where I was always hungry or claustrophobic or pretending not to be scared. When my voice quivered in front of an audience of outlines as I read poems about sunsets and murderers and revolutions that start with oatmeal cookies.

In the late afternoon silence, I saw a figure approaching through the window, and thought it must be the gray haired crazy. Instead, it was a man with a turban that had a purple jewel in the center and very serious eyes. He never stopped looking at me as he walked inside, right up to the smoothie counter. He took my hand and I should have been scared but I inexplicably trusted him.

It was one of those years when I wanted to trust everyone so badly, even when I didn't.

He looked in my eyes and said that I would always love more than I would be loved, but that it would never make me sad.

He said that I would someday struggle less than I am, and someday be successful, but not in a straight line. There would be ups and downs and lefts and rights.

He said that I hold my own happiness in my soul.

He said that my soul is a butterfly.

Welcome to my Tabula Rasa, Part 1

2009-12-11T20:12:00.002-05:00

Last New Years Eve, I wrote what was possibly the most cynical sentiment ever to grace this blog, explaining why I don't make New Years resolutions. I still don't believe that January 1st means anything more than a new calendar (if you still use a paper one like I do, preferably one covered in naked women or Sesame Street characters or Humphrey Bogart movie stills, please.) But I've definitely changed since then.

It could have something to do with the journey that was 2008-2009-almost 2010; with moving from Brooklyn to Paris to living with an ex to living alone in a box-sized room downtown to finally finding home on The Upper West Side.

I'd been on my own, technically, since 2005, but this was the first year I felt strength in my arms and my lips. The first year I looked at myself in the mirror and saw open eyes, wide hips, a small waist, vulnerability.

2009 was the first year I learned to calm myself without substances. The first year my feet made noise on the same concrete streets my great-great-great grandparents believed were paved in gold. The first time I payed my rent in full and still had money to tip the girl who serves me frozen yogurt with a smile that sends me soaring.

This year, I let my world grow silent enough to hear my own whispering, silent enough to feel whole in the soft of my skin.

I still don't make New Years resolutions, but I no longer think they are stupid. In fact, I'd like to know what yours are if you'll share them with me.

This year, I decided to make some non-resolutions and yell them from rooftops. Or at least desktops, swing sets, sunsets, overseas via carrier pigeon, anywhere, everywhere at once - doesn't matter, as long as you hear them.

Non-Resolutions of 2010

I am messy.
I am curvy.
I drink wine in bed.
I inexplicably laugh when saying "goodbye" on the phone.
I am full speed ahead.
I seduce with the force of a Roman army marching to the beat of a Fiona Apple symphony.
I won't and don't exercise, unless speedwalking through life counts.
Unless picking myself off the ground counts.
I don't resolve to stop eating cookies or to fold my laundry the second it comes out of the dryer.
I don't resolve to hide my neurotic quirks.
I only resolve to try, until I can't.

X,

2009-12-10T09:43:00.003-05:00

I dreamt of you again, on a night when sleep only came in whispers; intimations - on and off, as the potted plants in windowsills welcomed the incoming sun.

This time it was different, not underwater colored like a Mazzy Star song. Not blurred along the edges or shaded with gray pencil. This time it was more like a symphony in bright daylight, orchestrated and cleverly angled, leaving space to wonder what I don't yet know. It was the kind of warm that moves you forward, not backwards like a lullaby. Electric warm. Ice warm. Sharp without cutting skin.

It wasn't winter anymore.

You brushed a curl away from my eyes so that you could see them. Your fingers grabbed at endless hair.
I never remember how the good kisses begin. They start as if we're powerless to the movements of our lips. Even in dreams.

"This train is moving too fast," I said. We were sitting in a coffee shop. "But I don't want to slow down."

Then the scene changed and there was brick. You were strong but also gentle, holding me against my bedroom wall. I felt as if I might disappear or explode, all at once. When I tasted your lips, all at once, the landscape slipped from my grasp.

I said something I wouldn't say if I wasn't dreaming. "I want to show you me," I said, slinking from your grasp. I unbuttoned myself slowly; your eyes covered me like a blanket. Electric warm. Ice warm. Sharp without cutting skin.

Hannah Miet

White Russians and Paper Tornadoes

2009-12-09T08:04:00.002-05:00

I’m unphotogenic, I think. And I can't help but wonder if my resume is also unphotogenic. If I look too big on paper, too faint, too messy or too bold.

I wonder these things aloud, so Lady Hem hears me. Orders us another round and tells me I’m wrong. “You’re just more beautiful as a living person,” she says.

“Is trapping a tornado in 750 words like bottling an ocean?”

“Stop worrying,” she says. Our glasses clink.

Lady Hem tells me that I’m clearly the poet of the two of us. That she’s the sharp point of the pencil and that I’m the clouds in the sky. She underestimates her value, weaving stories with electric eyes. We blink and sip and sigh. We order more and I'm happy again.

I used to think of Hem as my fun friend; my writing and whiskey whirlwind of a friend. The one who snaps expectations in half and indulges my need for daily mischief. “Our lives are like books,” she once said, after shameless misadventure. “It’s too bad we can’t let anyone read them.”

We part ways on 96^th street beneath an endless sheet of gray, and I wonder if she knows that she’s my strand of Christmas lights.

I forget to tell her that lately I’ve been typing in my dreams, and stuttering at interviews in my dreams, and kissing strangers in my dreams. I like telling Lady Hem things like this.

X,

2009-12-08T14:04:00.001-05:00

I could tell you that I'd have to stand on tip toes to reach your lips. That once I remove the heels that connect me to the skyline, clicking my presence into pavement, I'm small enough to fit inside blankets and arms.

I could tell you that the fear used to come in waves so strong I couldn't move, but lately I'm brave and bold like ice. Lately, I glide, moving fast but thinking slow, wings outstretched as if to fly to you.

I could tell you that sometimes I feel like the butterflies my mom hatches in her nursery school classroom; all of them, at once. That pieces of me are painting the sky with purple, and pieces of me crawl on the ground by your feet, and pieces of me are still stirring in their cocoons, waiting for the right moment to break free.

And maybe that's the point. That I could tell you so many things. But they'd really only be pieces. Pieces of a road map, a dark sky with a single visible star; an ocean, a compass, pointing you my way.

Hannah Miet

Alone V. Lonely

2009-12-06T01:41:00.009-05:00

Are you ever quiet for so long that your throat doesn’t work, so when you speak, your voice is someone else’s? Like an old film noir or a sepia photograph or reading a letter aloud?

Are you ever surrounded by so many people that you long for the sound of the breath in your lungs, and the freshly made sheets that you tucked inside the silence of your mattress?

Do the muscles in your face ever hurt from smiling, being still, or grinding your teeth while tapping the time?

Do you ever fall in love over the course of a sentence, or hear a song that feels like the tip of a needle?

Do you ever trace the small of your stomach with fingertips that slide into hips like mountains?

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and feel shocked and amazed that you’re whole? That memories and bones and thoughts about train tracks all fit in one bed?

I used to fear so many things, like going crazy or speaking too loud or too soft.

I used to stare into mirrors without seeing blue eyes with specks of green and gold and light dancing, unsure where to rest.

I used to want to save the world alone like Superman. But now I just want to smile at no one. Now I just want to type words into vacuums, breathe deeply and sip and stare and sigh. I want to hold someone’s hand and feel warm in the winter and change the world in inches and waves and whispers. I want to remain unafraid of the skyline. Unafraid of the enigma that is love.

Strangers on this road we are on...

2009-12-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

I woke up to this:

and knew that this would be one of those rare mornings where beauty pushes up through the concrete.

I put on my lucky lace ungergarments (not to be confused with my "I'm getting lucky" lace undergarments, the color of which I shall not reveal) and a purple dress, even though I'm alone at the office.

On my walk to the train, an Arab man told me that my skin was more beautiful than snow, and offered to buy me a Christmas tree.

I put my Ipod on shuffle and didn't press skip when it chose a recorded poem by Mahina Movement:

...when I write love poems, I scratch them into the sky with my tongue...

A man entered the train with pamphlets, yelling the words of Jesus Christ and I told him "no thank you. I don't need to be saved today."

...this conversation between two tongues is understood...

In lieu of another dining post today, I'd like to share some songs that have been making my rotation a lot lately, and remind you to drop by la casa de Steve Brown, and wish him a happy birthday.

4:35 of this song never fails to break me to pieces.

I'm a wildflower, waving for you...Broadcasting tower, waving for you...

My glass is waiting for some fresh ice cubes...

Charming duets are a guilty pleasure, as is the phrase Be careful, you fool...

I can gather all the news I need on the weather report
hey, I've gone nothing to do today but smile...

Happy Friday, strangers.

Slice.

2009-12-02T15:48:00.002-05:00

I'm waiting for soy cheese pizza at Slice and my head is dull and buzzing.

There's reggaeton booming from the back, where the workers in the kitchen are chopping organic basil to sprinkle on my dinner.

There's droning acoustic in the front, and the restaurant is so small that it mixes with the bass boom and the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing.

The overlap of music is not pleasant and I try to distract myself with the Claudia Rankine book I am reading.

I switched from Prozac to fluoxetine. Prozac's patent is up, and now the generic brand, fluoxetine, is available, the insurance company will only cover that, my editor says casually. Because Oprah has trained Americans to say anything anywhere, and because no longer does my editor see confession as intimate and full of silences, I happen to know so I tell her that Eli Lilly, the drug company that makes Prozac, is now marketing a new pill: PROZAC weekly. Try to convince your doctor that taking a pill every day for depression is depressing, I suggest. We are all in this together, whenever, whatever, wherever-in detail is ok.

The buzzing is not quite painful. I must just be overcaffeinated or undercaffeinated; underliving, overcompansating, something.

There's a hispanic couple outside fighting. The woman's back is pressed against the glass of the window, so I can't see her face, but I know that she's angry. Her hands wave frantically, in disagreement with what the man is saying. The man is yelling. I can almost hear him. Something about goddamn TVs. Something about kids and climbing stairs.

I'm glad I'm not a couple.

Oh, yay, my pizza is here.

Before his breakdown we had DVD evenings. I'd go over with a bag of Doritos and a bottle of wine. After the breakdown, he didn't wish to see anyone. He wasn't answering the phone. I called; I left messages--sometimes to break into the general silence and sometimes to check on him. Finally, he agreed I should come by. I walked the thirty-six blocks to his apartment. By the time I reached his place I was anxious but optimistic. I thought the apartment would be a mess; the apartment was dust free. He seemed fine.

He had rented Fitzcarraldo from The Movie Place. They pick up and deliver. Herzog is his favorite director. He refused the glass of wine I poured for him...He was on Lithium, one capsule four times daily. There was a red sticker on the bottle warning against alochol use. He handed me the bottle.

While watching the movie, tears rolled down his cheeks. Apart from their use in expressing emotion, tears have two other functions: they lubricate the eyes so that the lids can move over them smoothly as you blink; they wash away foreign bodies. It is difficult to feel much tear-worthy emotion about anything in Fitzcarraldo as it is about having outlandish projects and achieving them in the name art, but since the tears kept coming long after smooth blinking would have been restored and foreign bodies washed away, I decided that my friend was expressing emotion and was not fine, not ok, no.

The manager comes out from the back. She's wearing a long white dress and black eyeliner that's either stylish or smudged.
She approaches my table with a clipboard. I sign a list to get emails about a wine tasting.

"It's a wine pairing," she says. "20 dollars per couple, for three types of wine, an appetizer and dessert."

That sounds like my kind of meal, I think. Main courses often disappoint me. Red wine and chocolate never do. Maybe I should apply this philosophy elsewhere. Kissing, oral sex, then cuddling. Fuck main courses, I decide.

The Manager is still talking. "It's a really good deal," she says. She says her name is Mickey.

Tracy Chapman is now singing something about revolution, with the reggaeton pulsing behind her. It actually sounds like it was choreographed.

I wonder who I'll take to the wine tasting.

In the real dark night of the soul, it is always three in the morning, day after day.

2009-12-01T00:17:00.002-05:00

This is the kind of week where I close my eyes on the subway and let the darkness warm my shoulders like a blanket. I picture myself emerging into a Times Square that is empty of people, where the towering buildings make me feel big, rather than small, as I stare up at a bright, neon sign that says "You're Doing Fine."

I'm stressed. But I ate at Peacefood Cafe tonight, a table away from Kramer. (That Kramer.) I wonder if he's vegan.

In the ice ages of this blog, I sometimes wrote my posts while dining. So while I am pulling my hair out, I am re-hashing a few of them. Please enjoy. Hopefully I don't get any hair in your food.

I Always Sit by the Window

Today I got an email I expected months ago, demanding belongings in boxes. It said “forget I existed, and vise versa.”

I’m satisfied with the “vise” versa. It means no more calls I shouldn’t answer.

Silence. The whisper of computer keys.

My memory is oceanic; there are no files to delete. No need to move back , to forget. Waves crash into the shore.

There’s a full moon tonight, The Manager says, “a lovely time to be writing.” He’s wearing a white collared shirt and a slight smile that speaks of detachment from here.

“Some nights you sit down to write and nothing comes out, but other nights you don’t have time to sit, and the words flood out like rain.” He isn’t talking to me.

I’m sitting by the window again, sipping Coca-cola and eating sweet potato soup with chopped apples. Frank Sinatra is singing Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away...

My brain waves are peaceful tonight. I am soaring.

There's a bald Jewish man outside petting puppies. That's all he's doing. Petting puppies. He leans against the pole of the awning, waiting for couples to pass by, walking their dogs. This happens every ten minutes or so. Then, he acts shocked by the cuteness, as if the sheer adorability of that particular puppy compelled him to stop what he was doing, as if he was not standing there, waiting. I like this man.

I know what I want as of late. I want to be famous, I think. I want someone to buy me roses and then never call me again. I don’t even like roses that much. I’ve always been fond of orchids.

I want to feel my own bones.

There’s a boy I want with eyes like waves. I don't want to kiss him. I just want to paint him. I like the way he articulates S sounds. A coworker says he looks more feminine than I do. Phosphorescence. Eruptions. He probably tastes like nectar.

My vacation is coming up in three weeks and I’m taking the Chinatown bus to another city.

I will take a second trip, alone. I just decided this. I will wear red lipstick and whistle to myself in museums. I will carry an umbrella when the skies are clear. I will meet strangers, or not meet them. I will drive really fast on the highway.

There are two other patrons in the restaurant. They are sharing a plate of spring rolls. The woman is chewing and typing on her Blackberry. The man is chewing and staring at her cleavage. He looks resigned.

I rarely see happy couples.

I wonder how many calories are in sweet potato soup with chopped apples. I wonder what kind of stuff The Manager writes.

Out the window, I can see the full moon if I tilt my head. It seems to be floating, suspended.

8 Thousand Calories, 8 Million Stories

2009-11-27T22:32:00.005-05:00

"I almost burned my homemade cranberry sauce because I was so anxious the strangers my parents had invited from Craigslist to our Thanksgiving dinner would turn out to be mass murderers." - My cousin Royal, "Craigslist and Cranberry Sauce" (8 Million Stories, New York Press)

"Thanksgiving is a time when you show that you are thankful by eating and eating and eating and eating, but because you are so thankful that the food makes you grow two inches taller." - My brother Gabe, 11/26/09

Every year, the hilarity provided by my family and our random guests of Thanksgiving honor floods my system and mixes with my sweet potatoes.

I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't a writer. I'd probably end up puking wine, pumpkin pie, and Yiddish jokes.

The holiday began in earnest Tuesday night, with my personal tradition #1: Getting Drunk the Day Before the Day Before Thanksgiving. On Wednesday, I practiced #2: Buying a Bum a Full Course Meal and #3: Taking The Metro North Upstate and Sitting Next to the Most Obnoxious Person On the Train. (The girl who showered me in sour cream and onion chip crumbs definitely got the memo about this one.)

Thanksgiving proper began with a Dirty Joke Battle between Bernie, my "eighty-fuckin'-five" year old first cousin twice removed, and my uncle Peter.

Bernie, who is deserving of a post unto himself (and will convince every person of every race that they are somehow descended from Jews), is a bonifide celebrity, in the sense that he knows everyone on Earth. Or at least in Chelsea. The man responsible for getting me drunk on the night when I met Probably Homo, Bernie never fails to regale us with stories about the crazies in our family that I never got to meet. (A particular favorite this year was how his mother invited the prostitute in their apartment building over for tea, and set her up to be married.)

Needless to say, the two of us went straight for the hard liquor. (Tradition overpowers sobriety plans.)

Our guest of honor this year was Ian, Gabe's friend from school, and his ever-so-patient parents. With two autistic teenagers at the table, my attention was split between an explanation of how to use DVD player parts to make a laser pointer that burns through things (Ian) and an argument for the fact that mainstream hip hop in 2008 was heavily influenced by "Electric Relaxation" era hip hop (Gabe), with a backdrop of two sets of parents yelling "That's enough (sugar, potatoes, talk about masturbation)" to their children across the table.

After we all stuffed ourselves silly (and I endured torment from all corners for being a vegetarian on Turkey Day), Gabe sat us all down in the living room to perform his latest rap, with Ian providing a laser-pointer lightshow in the background, and Uncle Peter making a "beat" that really just sounded like fart noises.

"Cruising down the Taconic in my 2004 Kia"
"Pfffft pfffft pfffft pffffffffffft"
"Eating pizza at the good ol' pizzeria..."

Doesn't get much better than that, folks. Now, please tell me, what made your Thanksgiving this year?

My Thanksgiving Gift to the Internet.

2009-11-25T13:45:00.001-05:00

My very own Lady Hemingway, gracing the cover of C-Spot Magazine, Columbia's Erotic Lit Review.

That Stupid Ache

2009-11-23T03:17:00.000-05:00

On mornings when even the internet is quiet, I let ice cubes melt on the tip of my tongue and eat real food, the kind you have to warm in the oven while listening to NPR.

Sometimes I think I’ve met every person on Earth, but their lips moved without sound, and sometimes the air tastes comfortably lonely, like fat people without plans to diet, or college grads who can’t sell themselves in a sentence, or joggers or liars or stoners with trust funds or people whose sheets match their curtains.

Sometimes the day feels like a picture frame, like a motel off the highway whose soap you steal, even though you didn’t stay long enough to take a shower, and stayed up late just watching the stars and the cars and the local news in a different state.

I find myself jealous of chauvinists and religious converts and people who buy scratch off lotto tickets. But really I just want to love without drowning, to run full speed, long distance, for miles, only to come right back home again.

2009-11-20T02:35:00.003-05:00

It is imperative that I interrupt regular blogging to pronounce my love for Jason Segel.

Sounds better than apologizing for the lack of regular blogging due to boring things like (relative) sobriety, grad school applications and studying the hell known as "mathematics," no?

No special effects. Please call me.

Minnie Mouse Confessional.

2009-11-08T12:20:00.003-05:00

I've been drinking too much lately.

Dreaming about ex-boyfriends suffocating me with garbage bags while I'm walking through the 96th street station at midnight. Waking up sober, gasping for air. Remembering the previous night in movie flashbacks of a woman with a Jew-fro who looks remarkably like me. Feeling reborn and infantile in the morning sun. Going to work and coming home and paying rent and feeling like I'm playing house in the life I created for myself.

Doing silly things at night, like climbing on stage for a Zombie costume contest dressed as Minnie Mouse, posing with the umbrella I bought when it rained on the Halloween parade. As if it were intentionally part of my ensemble. Getting mad when I don't win because a) I had the most applause and b) Minnie Mouse is the best zombie that ever existed.

Stupid, clumsy things, like saying "I love you" during sex, when I meant to say "I love that" and feeling irreparably awkward. For a whole five seconds. Falling down stairs, arguing with strangers, pushing boundaries I didn't know existed. Feeling strong, feeling potential, feeling nothing. Feeling everything in a wind tunnel. Feeling the whole world shake around me.

It's been...fun.

But I think my ducks are just about ready to start forming rows. (Good looks, ducks. You took it there. Ties and everything!) Which means that my short, very blogged-about liquor affair is coming to a close.

I don't mean cold turkey sobriety. I'm a vegetarian, and I don't eat turkey. What I mean, quite frankly, is this:

Oh, and Frenchman? Apparently pretty fond of the Bat Shit Insane variety. More updates to come.

How do you say "bat shit insane" in French?

2009-10-30T12:05:00.009-04:00

All photos in the post are by Nikola Tamindzic. Check him out.

Last night, I gracefully exited a party with a new ladyfriend. We simultaneously fell down a flight of stairs.

Gathering fallen possessions into our purses, we yelled our respective "Ow!"s and "Holy Mother of Zeus! That hurt more than anal sex with Ron Jeremy!"s.

Then we made out.

It seemed like the appropriate thing to do at the time.

Ladyfriend is now saved in my phone as "Stairs" and I have a bruise on my ass that's the size and shape of an awkward turtle.

Oh, and I wasn't particularly drunk last night. I swear on Zeus' nipple.

After hailing Stairs a cab, and dropping by (a.k.a. crashing) a Columbia party, I was once again faced with the conundrum you mortals refer to as "sleep."

Contrary to popular belief, my chronic insomnia is not caused by Neuro-Jew tendencies (that's "Neurotic-Jewish," or "anxiety-prone" for you laymen). At bedtime, my mind is not filled with terror or fear of an unknown future. (That's what my days are for.) Antithetically, it's much like the Brazilian Wax Scenario; My insom-no-matic thoughts are inconsequential. Last night, I was thinking about the irrelevance of Oprah, the physical rise and fall of Marlon Brando (how badly and repeatedly I want to bang him in A Streetcar Named Desire, as compared to the overdose of meatballs he clearly consumed later in life), and why Camus is to blame for my last breakup.

I was also thinking "Shut up, brain. Shut up, brain. Shut up, brain."

After hours of proverbially tossing and turning (really just lying in one place thinking "Shut up, brain"), I went out for a 6 a.m. bagel, wrote some 5 minute poems, and got to thinking about how weird it's going to be to cohabitate with another human for the next week.

That's right. I am actually inviting a real, live human being into my Den of Inequity. And this real, live, human is a Frenchman. A Frenchman that I happen to like, quite a lot.

So, for any of you who parlez-vous Français better than I do, please help me translate these warnings for my attractive visitor:

1. I do bizarre things at 5 a.m., like nom on cookies and sit naked at my desk writing rhyming poems. I'll try to keep my nom-ing noise down to a minimum so as not to wake you.

2. I broadcast my life on the internet, so you should probably pick a pseudonym. Unless you're cool with "Frenchman."

3. On the rare occasion that my insomnia subsides (or I pass out after a romp with Jack Daniels), I've been told that I sing Luda's "Move Bitch (Get Out The Way)" in my sleep. Actually, it would be helpful if you could confirm or deny this rumor.

4. Before I've consumed toxic levels of caffeine, I can't speak English, let alone French.

5. If this is not already blatantly obvious, I'm bat shit insane. I should probably have told you this before you decided to temporarily cohabitate with me. My French sucks. I'm sorry.

Bat-shit-neuroses aside, I'm excited. I love showing people New York almost as much as I love traveling. Next week with my Frenchman will also be my last drunken hurrah, before I have to buckle down and finish graduate school applications, while simultaneously working and studying that Satanous subject known as "Math" for the GRE's. (Come to think of it, this blog will likely get very boring if I don't continue talking about vaginas every five minutes. Which,of course, I will.)

It's Frenchman's first time in America, so I plan on taking it easy on him. By picking him up at the airport dressed as a slutty Minnie Mouse on New York City's national holiday. Obviously.

A (Sun)day morning, in the life of Hannah Miet.

2009-10-24T20:17:00.142-04:00

It's 7 a.m.

You wake to "Crazy In Love" on your Luna Ipod alarm clock.

You are not crazy in love. What you are is vaguely drunk. Head buzzing, electric. Non-electric tooth brush. You shower to "Videotape" by Radiohead. You are alive.

*****

You're pretty sure this homeless dude is the Grim Reaper.

He barely slides past the closing doors, floating slowly down the car. One arm outstretched, shaking an invisible cup, mouth moving without sound escaping.

He's looking directly at you, eyes dark and gaping. He's moving toward you, hovering like a shadow. You wonder if your soul is gone. Are you still alive?

"Chaaaaaaaange," he finally whispers. You hand him the uneaten half of your bagel. He exits at 72nd Street.

You listen to "A Change Is Gonna Come."

*****

It's a miracle that this Asian girl is standing under the weight of her suitcases. There is something profound about her confusion. She has fallen from the moon and landed in your train car.

You feel the need to inform her that she exists. And also that the next stop is Times Square, which is probably where she's going. She's too frightened to look up from her luggage.

*****

The 7 train starts moving right as you sit down. It's dark underground. The blurry lights feel appropriate. "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" comes on shuffle and for a moment you think "I am the happiest human in the whole wide world."

You are probably still drunk.

Time Travel, for the Condescending.

2009-10-22T23:42:00.002-04:00

I'm not much of a team player.

In high school, when we had group projects, I'd be the first to raise my hand and ask to work alone.

When that wasn't an option, I'd either take the reigns or the brunt of the workload. After all, who can do a better job than me?

(Don't answer that. Please.)

Well, I'm changing my evil ways. Temporarily, at least--for the sake of a guest blogger who not only does a good job, but is just about as cocky as I am. I have no idea what Mr. C actually looks like, but for some reason I picture a young Humphrey Bogart swirling whiskey in a glass with a backdrop of chandeliers and an orchestra playing "One Enchanted Evening," silently luring in the beautiful blonde across the room for a romp in the coat closet.

What? It's not like I've thought this through before now or anything.

*****************

I had a totally different post in mind to write as a guest here on Hannah’s blog, but I decided to change it last minute. I was going to write something funny, but Hannah’s blog is home to more than funny, so I’d like to talk about something imaginative and curious. Of course it will be in typical Mr. C fashion.

I wish I could live in a different time. Do you? Have you ever had the feeling that you would feel more comfortable in a previous time, in a previous place? And what would you be doing? Maybe in fact we all were living past lives of grandeur or pauper, I don’t know, but I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my pondering brain.

What I do know is that there are plenty of periods in time where I would love to have been a part of. You may have heard my salty tales of wishing I was a pirate, braving fierce storms and plundering delicious booty in exotic ports. But I wouldn’t actually want to devote my life to a ship lacking showers, plus a ship full of sea wenches and greasy men would probably invoke a self walk to the dreaded plank, and I don't wish to die a watery death.

I’ve dreamt of where I would fit in the best, and have thought of being a dapper don in the roaring 20’s, A southern gentleman with a six shooter in the 1800s (who runs a personal brothel), an artist in 19th century France forced to paint and sex women daily, and even a medieval knight with a strong arm and a rabid libido.

The problem when I think of these wonderful images, is that they are only appealing on the surface to me. I think where I would really feel comfortable is as an Egyptian Pharoah. If you read about the life of an ancient Pharoah, it’s a fine one, although not just anyone can handle it. I would handpick the most beautiful women, have absolute rule over all the land, and be treated as a near deity. I wouldn’t abuse this power, I would make sure every one had good entertainment, wine, and fine perfume. I'd make wise decisions with the Egyptian powers bestowed upon me, like summoning the Cheshire cat to accompany my rule. Or making sure everyone gets laid all the time. Isn't that worth burying me in a palatial pyramid and getting to write your name in mysterious pictures on my phallic obelisks throughout town?

Now regarding Hannah, I cannot place exactly where she should be, but I know she went to high school with a hot porn star, and she likes to eat the forbidden fruit, so I would be ok visiting her wherever she belongs.

Where would all of you like to be?

The Wild Things are at the Strip Club

2009-10-17T17:53:00.004-04:00

Warning # 1: This post is NSFW. Unless you're unemployed, self employed, or feel like being unemployed in the near future. Or if your profession happens to involve vaginas.

Warning #2: I haven't slept in over 48 hours. It's a wonder I am alive and typing, but I can't guarantee the typing will make sense. So, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally. (I bust out the math jokes when I'm sleep deprived....PEMDAS, bitches.)

Liquid lunches are always a good idea. By which I mean that liquid lunches are never a good idea.

Yesterday, before I had consumed the proper amount of caffeine (two Sugar-free Red Bulls, a Coke Zero, sixteen cans of Diet Coke--it's not like I'm an addict or anything), I had already finished up at the office and Lady Hem was on her way to meet McLovin' and I for lunch.

It started at the bar near our office, with gin and tonics. Then a shot of whiskey in the office. Champagne on the subway, hidden in styrofoam coffee cups. Fine, good, swell.

Then McSorley's, for dark and light beer, followed by more dark and light beer. Followed by mixing the two to make black and tans. It was 5 o'clock somewhere, so the placed was packed.

By the time we left, I couldn't even remember where the Europeans I was flirting with hailed from. A clear indicator of midday drunkeness. (Whenever I am even vaguely intoxicated, I'm bound to flirt with European tourists, who I never refer to by their actual names, just "those Germans" or "my Germans" or "German #7.")

The next best indicator? This conversation, at the oyster bar that followed McSorley's:

McLovin': Where to next?

Me: STRIPPERS!

Lady Hem: Does that mean you want to go to a strip club?

Me: STRIPPERS!

McLovin': I think so.

Me: STRIPPERS!

As Audrey Hephburn once said, strippers are always a good idea.

So is "Ego" by Beyonce.

Now, if you haven't caught on to the number of times I have referenced this song, I am more than a little obsessed with it. I'll get back to the boobies in a second, but this is important. "Ego" is a description of my ideal counterpart. If I ever find a man worth singing that song about, all bets are off. You might as well start building that white picket fence I always said I'd never have. And build it around our apartment, because we won't be leaving the bedroom anytime soon.

So, yes, my criteria for marriage is based on a Beyonce song. A Beyonce song that was playing while I got a lap dance from a gorgeous European with gloriously fake boobies.

Baby, you're a sight to see. Kinda somethin' like me.

I am proud of the fact that I fought my impulse to remove the stripper and dance on Lady Hem's lap when the song came on. Because, as we learned the last time we went to Lace, "patrons are not allowed to give lap dances."

However, despite my restraint, there were many indicators that I was, in fact, a hot mess. Here's the evidence.

Flashback #1: "So, do you like being a stripper?"

I should be banned from life for that question.

Flashback #2: "I'm sure I walked in with it."

McLovin' lost his bag and we were all looking for it. I recruited a stripper who reeked of Chanel to our search party.

We eventually found it. With, um, the coat check girl.

Flashback #3: "Are your breasts augmented (check yes or no)?"

This is a question on the stripper application.

As in, the paper application you fill out to become a stripper.

As in, I know this because something momentarily possessed Lady Hem and I to fill out stripper applications last night.

For approximately five minutes, Lady Hem and I were determined to become high class strippers.

As we filled out the application (in the "measurements" section I wrote "36-24-36...Only if she's 5'3."), it seemed like less and less of a brilliant idea.

"Uh, Lady Hem..." I said, "Do we actually have to write our social security numbers?"

At this point McLovin' entered the hallway to find his current employee (me) and former employee (Lady Hem) filling out stripper applications, and our stripper dreams died instantaneously.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love me some strippers. I have nothing against the profession. But I can write a book of reasons why I'll NEVER be a stripper. Here's a small sampling:

1. I have two patented dance moves. One is the awkward penguin. The other, I've been told, is reminiscent of this:

2. Money is dirty. Literally.

I'm way too germophobic for the whole money-in-the-g-string ordeal. If you trace that dollar back a few days, someone was snorting coke through it. A fews weeks: it was in someone else's g-string.

3. I'm too cocky about my mind to make money off my body.

I would do PR for a strip club, but that's about as far as my professional life would ever intersect with that world.

I talk like this cause' I can back it up.

Which doesn't mean I'm judging you, strippers of the world. If I tried to walk like this, in your stripper shoes, I'd fall flat on my ass.

4. Believe it or not, I have some moral standards. A few. One of them is that I do not get naked in front of a married man. Unless, of course, his wife is present. And also, preferably, naked.

Reaching my Helmut Newton photo quota for the week ending in 10.18.2009.

Miraculously, Lady Hem and I arrived safely at the 10 o'clock showing of Where The Wild Things Are, in time to meet her Columbia friends and buy pretzels to soak up the poison flowing through our bodies.

Like everyone else (apparently), The Wild Things was one of my most cherished childhood books. And, granted, I was drunker than a goose (any maybe still am..."drunker than a goose?"), but I thought David Eggers didn't do the story justice. It's hard to make a feature film out of a short children's book. It felt stretched out and, honestly, kinda boring. After the strippers, at least. Lady Hem was fast asleep for half the movie.

Also, despite excellent acting by Max Records (who has the coolest child actor name ever), the character of Max was less a victim and more of a brat than he was in the book.

Spike Jonze as a director, on the other hand: still awesome.

The Arcade Fire: also still awesome.

Yup, that's about the extent of my drunken movie review. After the movie, I couldn't sleep, so I read The Sun Also Rises cover to cover. Hemingway drunk is a feat I highly recommend.

I'm off to see An Education tonight, to kick off a relatively more sober week. Tomorrow I am taking my parent's out for French food and my stomach is already growling.

Some things you can look forward to in the not-so-distant future of this blog:

-A very condescending guest post.

-Cookie monster's dating adventures.

-Open MacBook, Part tres.