Month: January 2012

Alone - Uncategorized

Alpaca Pigeon Craiglist Personals Adventure

January 12, 2012 by 0 Comments

     Hi, friends and neighbors!

     In my previous post, a reader, Advo, left a comment suggesting that I re-post my craigslist ad.  He seemed to think that my ad got rejected due to a technical mistake.  I thought that he might be right and re-posted.  This time, my ad stayed up for half an hour before it was again flagged and deleted.

     Well hell, I thought.  Maybe I should try answering an ad.  It’s a lot more work, but there you go.

    So, I typed “likes art” into the search engine and started browsing.  Soon, I came across this ad:

Alpaca Pigeon – 34 (Williamsburg)

If you’re reading this then I’ve succeeded in my cheap attempt to stand out, or I’ve (unknowingly) used some sexual term that you were searching for; in that case sorry for your disappointment. The pigeon is made of alpaca fur. I saw it online. I don’t like pigeons but this one is great. I want it but I have too many stuffed animals as it is (joke).

I’m hot (been told), tall–6’2, thin, white, brown hair, brown eyes, well dressed, single.

I enjoy good movies, books, art books, art in general, Beach House, ice cream, food, walks, reading the New Yorker.

tags: williamsburg greenpoint bushwick L.E.S.

  • Location: Williamsburg
  • it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
image 0
        AN ALPACA PIGEON!!!  HILARIOUS!  LOOK AT HOW CUTE IT IS!   Whoever wrote this has a neat sense of humor.  And he likes art!  How can I resist?
     So, I wrote him an e-mail.  This is what I said (edited slightly to protect my privacy–sorry guys):

 I find that pigeon to be hugely entertaining.  Thank you for posting it.


   Are you having any luck with your ad?  Just curious.  I posted an ad yesterday, and I’m not having any luck with it.  It was not popular.

   Are you, by chance, as adorable  as the pigeon you posted?  Because if you are, you should get back to me.

     I am (age description straight job living in neighborhood).  I’m trying to find a date to go to an art exhibit with.  No luck thus far.  I guess it’s partially my fault for waiting till the last minute.  

    Am attaching a photo.
  If I don’t hear from you, thanks again for the pigeon and have a nice night!

      Yeah, so, I sent him a picture of myself and one of Parrot.  Is it dorky to send a guy a picture of your parrot?  Well, so what if it is.  I am the girl, so it is my prerogative.  
     
Mr. Alpaca Pigeon responds!

“No luck with my ad either… 

So what art exhibit were you planning on going to?  An opening tonight I suppose?  Since you said it’s last minute and it’s thursday night when most openings happen…
I’ll let you be the judge of whether I’m as adorable as the pigeon.  But I do have an alpaca sweater so I feel the same if you were to pet me.

Is that your bird?”                      

     He has attached a photo of himself sitting on the curb at night with something in his hand–maybe it is a taco or something.  Hmmmm well, the shot is very informal.  I would not post it on my facebook, much less send it to someone over the internet I was making a first impression on, but aside from that, he is pretty cute!  He is wearing a hoodie so I can’t see how long his hair is, but it doesn’t look emo-moppet.  He could use a shave, too.  But he is in the Lower East Side…
      Okay, I am going to write back!
Alone - Complaining - Humor - Questionable Judgement - Social Rehab - The Awful Truth

Rejected By Craigslist!

January 11, 2012 by 2 Comments

     I just got rejected from Craigslist.  Thrown off the island, as it were.

     I have to admit that I’m stunned.  Stunned and baffled!  What did I do wrong?

     Over the years, I’ve used craigslist to effortlessly acquire all sorts of things, including maybe 8 or 10 dates.  I’ve written ads looking for all number of random, far-fetched things and had, for the most part, terrific success in getting what I was looking for.  Date for the ballet?  sure!  Art history buff to show me around the Greco-Roman wing at the Met?  Tweed-wearing professors rained from the sky.  Concert on Governor’s Island?  no problem! And I won’t even get into the ‘casual encounters’ ads.  Suffice it to say that craigslist provides, it provides very well.  Very well, indeed.

     Until this afternoon.

     I’m still looking for a date to go to that art exhibit I wrote about in a previous blog post.  I decided to throw my net into the murky, fetid waters of the internet.  Say whatever you like–you will anyway–but guys who like to study USSR propaganda poster art just don’t appear like magic, okay?  So, I wrote a short, friendly ad.  My age, brief description, info and link to the gallery, looking for company, shoot me a note if you’re interested, blah blah.  I put it in the “strictly platonic” section, which I’ve never tried before.

     Flagged for removal and rejected within ten minutes!  Whaaaaa….?!


     I don’t get it.  How am I offending anyone?  Is in the mention of the USSR?  I included a harmless photo.  I didn’t have a list of requirements for the guy, other than “please do not be a demonstrable weirdo.  It would be nice if you had three or four brain cells to rub together, too.”  I mean, my standards are somewhat higher than that, but I’m not going to post a demanding list of requirements on an ad for a date to an art gallery, for god’s sake.

    Maybe there is something different about the ad standards for the platonic section, and I just don’t know it. I guess I could try re-posting in the women4men section, but I’d rather not.  Frankly, my life is so weird right now, I don’t think it would be very nice or responsible of me to foist myself onto some poor unsuspecting member of the general public.  I mean, I could definitely pass for normal for a date or two, or even a dozen, but it wouldn’t be long until the Awful Truth rears its ugly head.  I mean, what am I going to say?  The truth–the description in my blog profile box there on the right?  Think that’s going to go over well over after-dinner coffee and tea at Del Posto?

      Maybe I should try to repost in “Activity Partners.”  ?!?!

Memory Lane - Misc

Memory Lane; Seeking Date for Propaganda Posters Exhibit

January 10, 2012 by 0 Comments

   I’m watching the 2011 film The Sleeping Beauty.  I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m more than halfway through.  Unfortunately, thus far I cannot recommend it.  It’s kind of a snoozer.  It’s also gloomy, but not it a way that impresses me.  This gloominess is underwhelming, decidedly underwhelming.  


   Last night I caught up on my sleep–I slept for a looooong time–and then I went to a meeting in the late morning.  Sobriety fortified, I went to the gym.  Didn’t overdo it.  I’m up almost ten pounds from early November and I’m trying to accept it.  My feelings about it vacillate wildly, as I’ve written about on this blog.   


     My students are coming back for the new semester.  I’ve taken a new one, and spent two hours editing her manuscript.  I’m a little torn or what to do with it.  The awful truth is that I don’t think that she has a good grasp of research methodology yet and the premise of her article is fucked before it even leaves the gate.  She didn’t hire me to tell her this, but somebody’s got to–this article is not going anywhere.  But if I tell her, I could lose work. 


     I think I should tell her anyway, though.  Otherwise, I might be taking advantage.  That’s not fair. 


    I paid some bills.  I’m still behind, but if I have four more shifts at the Superstudio like the last four I had, I won’t be behind for long.  It was such a relief to walk out of there with hard cash on my person.  I went straight home to count it, re-count it, squirrel it away in secret places.


     I remember the first time I worked at a Studio–a stint a few years back, where I met the Surgeon.  Anyway, I was living in an awful neighborhood then.  Truly bad.  And believe me when I say that Miss Margo has spent some of her time on the great toll-road of life in some, ahhh, crummy places. 


      I’d finish the shift at the Studio and suit up to go home, sometimes very late at night.  I’d disassemble my wallet and hide my IDs and bank card and cash all around my body.  My bra, my sock, between my sock and my shoe, a special pocket I’d sewn on the inside of my jeans pant leg–that way, even if I was robbed, they wouldn’t get everything.  


     And I’d take three or four trains back to my neighborhood.  Sometimes, when I got close, the bus service wouldn’t be running anymore, so I’d have to hotfoot it back to my apartment on foot.  I had a whole strategy worked out for those scenarios–I could make it from the station to my apartment door, approx 1 mile, in less than 20 minutes, keeping off the street half the time.  I felt like I was in a scary movie, maybe a zombie film–you remember that Will Smith movie about zombies?  Where he was in the deserted NYC?  Well, it reminded me of that.  


     I always lied about my circumstances to the people I met at work–at least, to the ones who wanted to know about me.  I fabricated a story for them, blending elements of the truth and fiction.  I told them that I was going to school, which was true, and that I came from far away, which was also true.  About most other things, I lied.  Partially to keep my privacy–and partially because I didn’t think that they really wanted to know, even if they thought they did.  A great part of the fantasy is the willing suspension of disbelief.  They didn’t really want to picture me folding socks in the laundry room, or learning STATA through hours of tears and swears on my laptop in bed.  


    Now I’m nearing the end of the film The Sleeping Beauty.  The female lead wants to know what happens to her when she is passed out, sleeping a drugged sleep.  I could tell her what happens to her.  It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination.  Hmmm, it seems that she is faking taking her drugs, so that she can be conscious the entire time…bad idea, chickie! 


    Finally, I want a date to go see this art exhibit: “Die, Nazi Scum!” at the Adrew Edlin Gallery.  USSR WWII propaganda posters.  I’m a huge war dork, especially the Civil and World Wars (but really, any war will do).  I’m worse than a dude–I love to read books about wars; I could geek out about wars all day.  


     I also study 20th-Century totalitarian movements recreationally.  I’d love to teach an undergrad class about that.  Fascism, Nazism, Russian Communism, Maoism.  I find that shit fascinating.  


     Anyway, this art exhibition combines the two.  I’m a big fan of WWII poster art.  I have lots of coffee table books…


     I’ll go alone if I have to, but I’d just as soon have a date.  How shall I secure one?  I can check my rolodex of Menz, but I’m not sure if any of them are confirmed WWII dorks.  I want someone who can contribute to the conversation.  


     I need to act quickly–the exhibit is closing at the end of the week!    

Misc - The Biz

Pointless Update; Jame Gumb Rolls Into Superstudio

January 9, 2012 by 2 Comments

   The weekend passed in a blur of weirdness.  At least it was lucrative.  I could tell you stories, but I’m pretty tired and I don’t think that I could do the tales justice.  I find myself oddly humorless tonight, though not in a bad mood.  


    A strange and unpleasant fellow came to the Studio yesterday and ended up hiring me.  He resembled Dick Cheney in appearance and disposition.  In his fantasy, however, he resembled something else–something even more corrupt and sinister.  It would be unethical of me to blab his secret compulsions all over the internet to my 8 readers (but believe me, I’m definitely saving this one for my shrink), but suffice it to say that he wanted to get in touch with his, ahhh, feminine side.  


      Nothing wrong with that, of course!  It’s certainly not my specialty, but I am passingly familiar with the subject and I was happy to give it a whirl.  Nothing to worry about, right?  In my experience, the gents that like this sort of thing are uniformly gentle, friendly individuals (so what’s up with Mr. Sourpuss here? I thought).  At most, they might be exhibitionists who want to do dance reviews for you (just trust me). They like women.  They do what they do in order to feel closer to women (at least, that is my understanding).  I’ve never heard of one being a problem.


       Well, let me tell you: I got the problem.   Instead of Nathan Lane’s character in The Birdcage, I got the psycho from The Silence of the Lambs.  You know, the one with the poodle and the well in his basement?  “It puts the lotion in the basket!  It does this whenever it’s told!”  


     He brings in this gym bag full of clothes, and he wants to rehearse this scenario with me.  Okay, I’m game.  The scenario is preposterous, but so what–they almost always are (including my own).  And because I am a concrete thinker and a fan of English Lit, I am naturally trying to work the scenario into some kind of coherent narrative (improv acting, in other words.  I’m very good at it, btw).  But this guy’s not having any of it–he’s repeating the same thing over and over, albeit in slightly different vocabulary.  After a little while, I threw in the towel and just started to parrot the same thing back at him, even though it was redundant.  I didn’t understand.  


      The lightbulb finally came on for me about forty minutes in.  The picture of the man’s psyche it illuminated was not exactly lovely.  I didn’t want to look at it for long, which is unusual for me.  I almost never get the creeps from the people I meet in that capacity, but I got the creeps then.  I don’t think that he was dangerous.  Just haunted.  And pathological, if you will permit me that amateur diagnosis. I think he would be better served if he took all that money and spent it on a psychiatrist.  Believe me, that is what I will be spending his money on!  It will be, like, therapy twice removed!  


    Everyone else I met this weekend was copacetic.  And I met a few.  Am not quite ahead of the bills, but I made enough money to calm down and relax a little.  Thank goodness.  As you might have noticed, I can be a little highly strung.  Never learned how to relax without, you know, tranquilizers.  


     Finally:  someone I know had to have their appendix out.  It was going to burst or something.  This guy is probably fifty years old.  I was thinking about this on the train today.  I ask you, gentle reader: what sort of crapola is this appendix?  It’s like some bad cosmic joke on humankind.  A lethal time bomb that could go off at any moment.  Can you imagine how many people died in excruciating agony (is that redundant?) before medicine learned how to safely excise the appendix…?  

Duality - How to Not Eat - Moonbat Crazy - Subconscious - The Awful Truth - The Biz

Ravenous

January 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

    The last few hours before bed are the most difficult.  Waiting waiting waiting.  A test of endurance.  It is a one-player game, like solitaire.  My opponent is myself.  


     I made a lot of money yesterday. Today was not as lucrative, but I did have a booking at the Studio and a tutoring appointment immediately afterward.  I stopped by the pet store to get food for the birds (I splurged and bought Parrot a new toy) and then came home, exhausted.  I missed my Friday night meeting and I feel badly about that–can’t afford to do that too often–missing meetings is one of the things that contributed to my pre-Christmas relapse.  


     I am very hungry right now.  But I know that if I can wait it out till bed, I’ll wake up thinner.  I know that this thinking is dysfunctional, but I want to be honest here, to tell you how it is.  


     When you are very hungry, you will find that you do crazy things.  You start to obsess.  I have had the opportunity to speak at length with other girls who endeavor not to eat, and they all relate similar behaviors.  You start to spend a lot of time thinking about food.  Fantasizing about it.  Tonight, for example, I have perused four restaurant takeout menus.  I ask myself: if I were to order something, what would it be?  Which sounds best?  I weighed the merits of each.  A distraction, a flirtation with danger, as I watch Charlie Rose interview Bernie Sanders on the television (actually, the program is mostly in the background; I am primarily focused on the idea of a chicken avocado sandwich).  Then, in a burst of determination, I put the menus away, only to end up reading the restaurant reviews on the New York Times website.  


    When the disorder was at its worst, I would read cookbooks and Gourmet magazine recreationally.  I would pour over them, devour them with my eyes, collect recipes that I had no intention of ever cooking, squirreling them away.  This behavior is not uncommon.  


     Six years ago, I cooked all the time.  I loved to make dinner for my boyfriend.  I loved to work with food.  No longer.  I am nowhere near as bad as I was–nowhere near–but even now, the idea of cooking beyond a subsistence level is incomprehensible to me. 


     And tonight, this.  This back-and-forth with myself, this struggle. It is all internal to me.  I have created it.  It is mine, my pure gold baby.  


     Another hour, and I can go to sleep and wake up hollow, leaner, smug.  I’m never hungry in the morning.  It’s smooth sailing till mid-afternoon, at least.  


     You see, gentle reader, what an evening I’ve had.  One day, when I have the courage, I’ll write about what it’s like to be insane with an eating disorder.  The really scary stuff.  At the party I went to on Wednesday, an English Lit professor I am quite partial to told me that I ought to stop drinking 2-liter bottles of diet Coke every day.  “It’s awful for you,” he said.  “You’ll ruin your beauty.”  


     I let out a short, barking laugh.  I didn’t mean to be rude; I couldn’t help it.  “My beauty,” I snarled.  “I could tell you stories about what I’ve done to myself.  They’d make your hair turn white.”


    In the course of my studies and therapy with a psychoanalyst, I have been told that every masochist is also a sadist, consciously or not.  We possess the opposites within us.  I’ve blogged about this before; I won’t go into detail now.  


    In this case, this dynamic, I am both.  I am a disobedient and disappointing child, and I send myself to bed without any supper.   

Humor - Memory Lane - Misc

My Silverware is Pilfered from the Finest Hotels in Manhattan

January 4, 2012 by 2 Comments
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      I do not own a set of cutlery.  

      Instead, I have a series of random forks, spoons, and knives that I have collected from various luxury hotels in the course of my travels.  My silverware hails from cities far and wide.  I could, I suppose, store it in a glass display case, and entertain visitors to Miss Margo Manor with the splendid and sordid tale of how I acquired each piece.  Butter knife and sugar spoon from the Dorchester in London, where I actually ran around the floor of my suite looking for an ice machine.  The Ritz-Carleton in South Beach, where I spent a relaxing afternoon chained inside of a closet.  So many more.  Ah, hotels I have known..!
miscellaneous assortment 
Resting in my ghetto DIY silverware basket.  Inexplicably, my kitchen was constructed with nonfuctional drawers.
Complaining - Humor - The Awful Truth

The State of Miss Margo’s Refrigerator is Problematical

January 3, 2012 by 1 Comment
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    I was cleaning all afternoon and decided to tackle the fridge.  It sounded like it would be a lot of work, but after I went to take a look, I decided that it would be a 10-minute job.  

    Hmmmm…kinda funny, but the laughs have a very short half-life.  

Before cleaning–nuts for Parrot.  Only remaining Popsicle are grape–yucky!  BUT SEE THE EMPTY ICE TRAYS?!?!   NO COCKTAILS FOR ME!

Presented without comment
It’s what’s for dinner!

Memory Lane - Misc - Social Rehab

New Year’s Day

January 2, 2012 by 0 Comments

    Evenings are the most difficult time of day for me.  Especially late at night, in the hours before bedtime.  Sometimes work is an effective distraction, but unfortunately it also over-stimulates my mind and then I can’t slow down enough to sleep.  Exercise also wakes me up, which is why I usually hit the gym in the morning.  


     If the restlessness and unease threaten to become overwhelming, I usually go a meeting–there’s a few in the surrounding area.  The crowd gets more, ah, interesting late at night (MIDNITE, anyone?) and sometimes I have to force myself to go, but I never regret going once I’m there.  


     This afternoon I went to the crispy burnout meeting in my neighborhood for the first time since my relapse and did the hand-raise of shame.  Stayed to help clean up afterward.  I was invited out to eat afterward, but I declined because that struck me as an irresponsible expenditure right now.  A gentleman in my home group is having a birthday party this week, though, and I’ll go to that.  I spent the rest of the day cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, and making thank-you cards for the Christmas gifts I received.  I also sat down with a big calender and some highlighters and wrote down some 3-month and 6-month goals–mini-resolutions, I suppose.  


      2011 was a difficult year for me, but it was also productive for me, and I do not regret how I lived it.  Because I did live it,  which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for 2010.  When I look at the person I am now compared to what I was like a year ago, there is no comparison.  The financial insecurity of the last few months has been dreadful, but it is really nothing–nothing–compared to what I was subjecting myself to in the past.  I joke with people I know that I have re-entered the human race.  I got a little scorched as I hurtled back down through the atmosphere, sure, but it hurt a hell of a lot less than when I left.  And it happened much more quickly (THANK GOD).  I have people in my life who care about me–and would probably like to care even more, if I’d let them.  My phone rings.  In both directions, even.  I have plans.  I’ve done a ton of writing; my intellect is turned on full-force again and I experience (reluctantly, I admit) a full spectrum of emotions.  I have stopped degrading myself, and I have not done anything that I feel ashamed of–aside from pre-Holiday vodka-swilling, I guess–in a long time.  


      I have a lot to do, but I want to do it.  If I make the same amount of progress this year that I made last year, I might still be the sort of woman that I want to be.  


     The fact is, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have choices, and personal autonomy.  I can’t change the past–there is wreckage, no doubt about that–but it is comparatively light.  Cleaning it up is a painful, nerve-wracking chore, but at least I CAN clean some of it up.  And I’m free.  I can still make a future for myself; I’m not locked in to anything.  Miss Margo–Soldier of Fortune–have Parrot, will Travel!