Homelessness is not a crime

I'm disappointed in the hipsters of Greenpoint. Not all of them, but a growing handful. I've been following a local blog, which shall remain nameless, to learn about news and events in my neighborhood. Yesterday this local blog, among other sites posted a plea to prevent a 200 bed homeless shelter from opening in Greenpoint. I'm sickened by the hyperbolic reaction by my neighbors. How quickly we comfortably gentrify a neighborhood, and panic when space is made for people who cannot afford to gentrify in the same way. A common language of criminalizing homelessness, poverty, and mental illness is bringing some people of Brooklyn together. Winter is coming; people need a place to sleep. The recession is real. What makes any of us deserve housing over anyone else?

(Note: picture taken in Brooklyn, but not related to location of proposed homeless shelter)

Writing for the Times, a bloody affair

On Sunday, September 12th, please consider purchasing The New York Times; one of my essays will be published in it.

Publishing this essay makes me feel like I'm giving blood.



98% terrified
2% excited
As the date approaches, I'll let you know if the percentages change.

Mixmastermarriage

To celebrate our legalization, my parents gave Joseph and me the Mixmaster that my parents received when they got married. I'm talking old school, almost forty years. They handed off the Mixmaster because I asked them to bring it up from Florida for a super special secret project that Joe and I have in the works. More will be revealed in time.

Book-nerd Architecture

Rintala Eggertsson Ark Booktower in Victoria and Albert Museum in London. If there's a more inspiring architectural design, I haven't seen it. The shelves contain about six thousand books. You can take a video tour here. I'm meditating on how to include ideas like this into my bookstore project. The houseboat/bookstore/cafe dream feels a little more real when I see work like the Ark Booktower.

Intro to Cornholing

After yesterday's block party/housewarming, I'm thinking of joining the American Cornhole Association.


Everyone was better at cornholing than me, but that didn't stop me from trying.


Per and Oscar were definitely our best players.


Joe and I were most successful when we switched from the periwinkle to the green beanbags.


I overcompensated for my inability to cornhole by showing off my hoola hooping talents. Per seems to be good at everything, which doesn't strike me as fair.

Always Partners

I can’t control the world. But if I could, I would ask people to stop calling Joe my husband and calling me his wife. I guess there are more important things that I should do if I controlled the world.

Naming is big in my book. We’ll always be partners. He’s my Always Partner. I’m his.

My essay is in the final edits, which means soon it will be on the fast track to publication. I haven’t been able to process this information. At least one more meltdown is to be expected.

Tomorrow is our block party and house warming. Our house is not ready to be warmed, but the block is ready to party, so we are following suit.

People keep asking me, how does it feel to be legal?

I completely understand the term “honeymoon period” now. Joe and I are enjoying our new status quite a bit. I still feel a bit apologetic and confused about the whole marrying thing. I never imagined myself as a wife, the property of another. But here I am: the shrew's been tamed; two shrews taming each other, actually. For somebody who runs for the hills at the implication of being boxed in, I am getting quite comfy in my new role. If this was easy, uncomplicated, then it wouldn't be real. Sometimes I feel like the whole marriage thing is just a big campy role play, but that's just my defensiveness flaring up. I dig him, not going to lie. And I dig being his wifey.

I like our shared number, C816.



I've been consoling myself with my new favorite television show, Falling in Love... with Chris and Greg. The episode, A Special Election PSA seems particularly appropriate.

C816 = Legal Love

This is not Grand Central, but a court of love.


On Friday the thirteenth, with the help of our two witnesses, Matt B. and Veronica, Joseph and I legalized.


Love ain't nothing but a number: C816


We listened to You and Me in Time by Broadcast before the ceremony began.


Our service was about three minutes in length.


Our witnesses could not find a legal reason to object.


You may kiss, etc.


There was lots of the kissing part.


Veronica helped inspect our license.



















We decided to be traditional.




To celebrate, we ate cinnamon rolls in the park.






Legally in love.

Officially at the wheel

To thank me for teaching her how to drive, Veronica treated me to what is now one of my favorite buffets of all time: Ichiumi.


We gorged ourselves on fresh, delicious sushi, sashimi, and seafood.


I had been warned, so I arrived with an empty and eager stomach.


Veronica enjoyed the dessert buffet and I ate fruit because I'm back on the no sweets or carbs diet (except for the first Saturday of each month).

I'm so proud of Veronica for learning to drive in one of the most difficult cities for driving. I never doubted that she would ace her test.

Deckhands keeping me afloat

This is Monkey, the cat that lives near our new home. Everyday Nukah walks by and tries to eat Monkey's food. Some days he is more successful than others. The important thing is that Nukah never stops trying. We've taught him to be independent, persistent, and to believe in his dreams.

I'm immersed in my first intensive editing process. An essay I wrote is on its way to becoming published and all hands are on deck: Joe, my mentors, my family, and my friends are helping me through this emotional process (the only kind of "process" I know). Tonight, I've sent off my first set of revisions. I can relax and enjoy some rest before the next round begins.

Along with revising, I took in a brow-waxing at Aveda and a visit with my dear friend, Matt B.

Huge shout-out to my father, the best editor any writer can know. Thank you for allowing me to sob, flip out, and flail on the phone today. And thank you for getting me through it.

A song for Joseph:
I'm Into Something Good by Herman's Hermits

Another song for Joseph:
Beast of Burden by the Rolling Stones

Two days in heaven

Fire Island was everything Fire Island always is for us. We had a perfect two days and made lots of new friends thanks to Nukah's charm. I'm delighted to report that a very happy birthday was had by one handsome thirty-year-old.

Bibliomania and me

Apartment Therapy must be reading my mail. Their article on book hoarding makes me wonder if they aren't spying on me. After reading their suggestions, I don't think I'm ready to face my disorder and make a change. Instead, maybe I'll buy a few books on bibliomania for the "disorders" section of my library. (The above photo is just a fraction of the books we've just moved.)

***
Tips: Detaching Yourself (Rationally) from Your Books

Our recent survey inspired by The Economist provoked many readers to admit they are irrationally attached to their stuff. Books are especially difficult to part with because of sentimental and other reasons. But did you know that book hoarding can be a health disorder?

Bibliomania (book hoarding) is an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving collecting books that are neither useful to the collector nor intrinsically valuable. Symptoms of bibliomania include buying multiple copies of the same book and edition and accumulating books beyond possible capacity for use or enjoyment.

So most AT readers likely aren't bibliomaniacs, but you may still want to limit your home library for space reasons. To keep our small home uncluttered, we limit our library to the following:

- favorite art and writing books (used for work and pleasure)

- books we love that are out-of-print and not in our local library (like Kalimantaan by C.S. Godshalk)

- books we will reread like favorite novels and reference materials

- books written by our friends or teachers

The rest are donated to the public library, given to friends or sold. We also USE the public library so that we don't accumulate any more books that we will read only once (like most novels).

Do you limit your home library? If so, what are your rules?

Surrealist nonfiction, in vague terms

I used to work for a celebrity family, which felt like such a twist of fate. I never imagined myself working in a famous person’s home, eating out of the same refrigerator, and sitting down to lunch with him and his family. Even now, I find the situation hard to believe.

Once again, life is throwing me into exciting and strange experiences. A major change may happen soon and I want so badly to talk about it, but I need to be cautious and wait until the time is right. I look forward to writing all about my latest adventure soon.

Also on the horizon: Tomorrow afternoon, Joe and I are going to Fire Island to celebrate his 30th birthday, which took place this past Sunday, and which we weren’t able to adequately live up because we were busy clearing out the old apartment. This weekend is dedicated to lionizing my favorite Leo, Joseph.

Enya said it best

I've been thinking about Enya lately. It comes in waves, my curiosity. She was such a big deal in the nineties and I could never figure out if she was a real person or a computer-generated new-age robot.

Either way, she had it right when she suggested we sail away. I'd really like to be vacationing on a sailboat, breezing through the waves, the sun beaming down.

Instead, the work on the new and old apartments continues to invade my waking hours. We are wrapping up the clearing and cleaning of our previous place and slowly beginning to piece together our new home.

Projects on the horizon:

-Building bookshelves in the living room
-Building storage space in the bedroom
-Constructing counter space in the kitchen
-Building a dinner table/bar in the kitchen
-Mounting the shelves in the bathroom
-Unpacking
-Selling all of our unnecessary belongings