lash boost

Latest BzzAgent product: Loréal Paris® Lash Boosting Mascara.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one yet. However, it's better than the old-school Great Lash I'd been using out of its hot pink and green tube. With the biting winter wind, I ended up weeping the mascara all across my cheeks. So far, the Loreal has stayed put.

However, the confusing thing about it is that there are two sides to the tube, and the first is a white 'primer,' some sort of conditioner that you put on before the actual mascara. It stays white, and then the mascara itself creates an outer layer. This is probably doing something nice for my eyelashes, but a few times, the white has shown through and turned out looking funny. Maybe I'm not doing it right, or maybe I need to let it dry longer. And I'm not exactly fond of adding more steps to my pretty simple face routine. But I'll keep on giving it a try.

When I lived in San Francisco, I was given a magnetic poetry kit. This is the type of thing I love, because I'm much better at creative ventures when I'm provided with some basic tools and framework. Same goes with music writing and sketching.

The poetry kit came with me to New York, but I haven't had it out in my new apartment. At some point a few of the words got loose, and I found them floating around in my purse, gently attached to metal surfaces. One of them kept resurfacing, first magnetized to a pair of fingernail clippers and then making its way inside of my wallet: produce.

This struck me as an accidental but beautiful reminder of what I hope to be doing in all my downtime. One quality shared by some of the creative folks I admire most is their ability to consistently produce material that they share with the world. In a culture saturated with artistic endeavors, it still seems to be the way to most clearly exist and be present. And whether or not everything you create is made public doesn't matter either; to me it's more about materializing ideas and leaving a legacy of some kind. That's the appeal of the blog; it doesn't matter to me whether anyone reads it, more that I process and verbalize some of these crazy life experiences, and hopefully craft them into something relevant and poetic.

Roosevelt

We had a great time last night at the Roosevelt in Phoenix, AZ. The atmosphere was great, the food and wine divine, and the audience so supportive and sweet. Thanks to SilverPlatter for filming and posting the show:

travel curse begone

I normally seem to have the worst travel luck, almost like a curse. I miss trains, sit on weather delayed flights, miss connections--rarely does there seem to be a trip that operates like it should.

However, my trip home for Christmas has been a ridiculously easy travel day so far. It’s like an ad where the plot line is good luck; everything just keeps working out. It started with a sweet and restless night. Luckily I’d packed the night before, and the three days before that (my style—I like to have the bag out and gradually fill it while I wander around my room over the course of a weekend). I tucked some final items out of sight for the subletter to come and closed up the room.

The last day of work was short and uneventful. I finished up a few charts, sent a few emails, and cleaned off my desktop (and my physical desk). The coworkers were in and out with meetings, and I checked my flight, and the news, to see how things were affected by the weekend blizzard and hundreds of flights reschedulings. A news blurb from 10 minutes earlier reported that cops were breaking up passenger protests in the Delta terminal, after more flights were bumped and delayed. I imagined the ultimate chaotic frenzy of angry passengers and indolent children, security lines that snaked across thoroughways and departure screens flashing with flight changes. I had to allow myself more time; nothing stresses me out more than being late for a flight.

I left the office 4 hours before my flight time (yes, I know I sound crazy…) and hopped on the E train toward Queens. The AirTrain took me to the Virgin America terminal (texting with Chris Morrissey, who was in the international terminal at the same moment headed to meet his family in Italy) and was relieved to find that there were no cops, no riots, no chaos. The security line was a little hairy, but that’s bound to be the case when they’ve added about eight separate elements to the process.

I found my gate and realized that I was so early that the previous San Francisco flight hadn’t taken off yet. I asked the Virgin attendants at the gate about my chances at a standby spot, and the jovial employee printed me out a standby pass. It was announced that it would be a full flight, and bags would have to be gate-checked. But about 20 minutes later, my name was called and I was given a boarding pass. A miracle. I boarded into the plane’s blue-lit discoteque of a cabin and hoisted my exploding luggage into the overhead bin.

My seat was a middle, which was a little disappointing, not so easy to sleep in (something I desparately needed). But the couple showed up who’d booked the seats on either side of me, and they kindly asked if I would scoot over so they could sit together. Again, amazing—here I was in the window seat of a flight two and a half hours earlier than mine. I watched a few TED talks on the on-demand programming and settled in to write some emails. Maybe the travel curse has lifted after all.

free-for-all

Last night was the first real snow of the season. The streets were a mess, it was as if Brooklynites had never seen falling snow before. People ran around in playful free-for-all mayhem, but also with a spirit of camaraderie. Jeff helped some folks push their car out of a snowbanked parking spot, and we spotted another fellow cross-country skiing down Driggs Ave. It took us about three times longer than usual to get home from the Ugly Sweater Party, but we had a good laugh along the way.

2010 'do it again' west coast tour

it's that time again... the mia riddle crew is heading west for the winter! mia and dear friend tim left yesterday with the van and the gear. they'll play a few shows on the way to california, and we'll meet up in seattle after new years. we'll tour down the coast, making stops all along the way to san diego. then we turn east, spend a few days in phoenix and then make our way back to brooklyn.

dates are below; if you can't make the show, tell your friends! we love meeting new folks and seeing old friends along the way. a few more shows may be added too.

1/4/2010 - Sunset Tavern - Seattle, WA - 9pm (with THEMES)

1/5 - The Woods - Portland, OR - (with THEMES)

1/6 - Joe's Bar & Grill - Eugene, OR

1/8 - Hotel Utah - San Francisco, CA (with Beatbeat Whisper & Ari Vais)

1/9 - Crepe Place - Santa Cruz, CA - 10pm (with Bart Davenport and Inca Silver)

1/10 - house concert - Aptos, CA (email me for details)

1/11 - Blue Lamp - Sacramento, CA

1/12 - Muddy Waters - Santa Barbara, CA

1/13 - Beauty Bar - San Diego, CA

1/14 - Spaceland - Los Angeles, CA (with Butchers & Builders)

1/15 - Yucca Tap Room - Phoenix, AZ

1/16 - Bianco's world-famous pizza joint--yum! - Phoenix, AZ

1/18 - Atomic Cantina - Alberquerque, NM

1/20 - Kirby's Beer Store - Wichita, KS

1/22 - Vollrath Tavern - Indianapolis, IN

1/23 - Casa Cantina - Athens, OH

this crazy year

2009 has been massively generous in the amount of creative material it has provided, and I think I will have no choice but to write it all down. What better way to feel productive over the holidays than a mid-20s memoir? I only hope I can remember it all...

End of the Oughts

I'm going to plan a party for the end of this year that will be entitled "the End of the Aughts." It'll be in Santa Cruz, late-December, at Mom's house, and it's going to celebrate not only the end of the Aught-Years (you silly decade, you) but also the alternative spelling and meaning of the word. As I approach my 10-year high school reunion, and have gone through some serious recent life changes, I've thought more about where I "ought" to be by now. And I'd like for me, and all of my friends, to let this go, and just live our lives. Live the best we know how, and in the meantime let it be enough. No more "ought" or "ought not." Bring on the new decade. And let's party!