mysterious strangers

I'm not huge into Halloween, as my monsters this year seem to have more to do with mid-twenties angst, economic constraints, and the less glamorous side of city living. Still, there is always the comedie humaine of Craigslist as the awkwardness of men and women only gets more interesting when everyone's dressed up and either in or out of character.

To the 4 different girls I saw dressed up as Annie Hall last night - w4w - 32 (Cleveland Ohio)

I don't know why all of a sudden it's in vogue to be a 23yr old dressed up as Annie Hall, but you might have saved yourself the money you spent on a hat you will probably never wear again, and just gone as Zoey Deschanel, cause it's the same damn thing. Also, you should aspire to date better men, Woody Allen as a boyfriend sucks. And please promise yourself right now to never make a movie with Jack Nicholson.



I get a little offended when people think that I'm a Woody Allen movie person, because hopefully I don't come across too much like a brilliant yet neurotic and pathologically selfish loser. I really hope that's not the case.

Bonnie + Clyde's Wonder Woman 10/28/11 - m4w - 38 (Lakewood)
Date: 2011-10-31, 9:55AM EDT
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Hey Wonder Woman! Wow, you really are sexy and cute at the same time. Each time our eyes met, I got flustered. I'm kicking myself for being intimidated by your friends and the other guys drawn to you. Since Friday night, I just keep seeing your brown eyes, great figure in that little red, white and blue outfit; and most impressively, your bright smile which you flashed at me several times. I wasn't wearing a costume but I was drinking rum & coke. Tell me what color my shirt was........I saw you checking out my arms.. lol Let's connect Wonder Woman. Maybe I can be your Superman!

this makes me think of a terrible soft rock ballad by the All Sports Band that is sadly not on Youtube, and also this cinematic gem.



Werewolf at the Chamber Saturday 10/29 - w4m - 36 (Lakewood)
Date: 2011-10-30, 3:01AM EDT
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You: You're a great dancer, funny, and polite. You're about 5'10", nice solid build, and if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say you're about 5 years younger than me and good-looking without the makeup, ears and fangs.

Me: I'm 5'10" without the high heels that I ditched a couple times, full-figured with short dark hair (some of it was pink tonight), wearing a purple jacket, lace t-shirt, and shiny red/black pants. I was with a friend who's the same height and was dressed as Lady Gaga.

I was having a really rough night till you started dancing with me. You made me smile. Thank you.

As it's the Chamber, no Twilight jokes here, just that there was something kind of sweet about this one.

And outside of Clevelandia, here's more tales of missed chances in the Rust Belt.

Frida drew a bleeding heart - m4w - 27 (MOCAD)
Date: 2011-10-30, 1:05PM EDT
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Frida, you drew that amazing bleeding heart on me and even though my costume is gone it's still there. This is the first missed connect I've ever posted, really regretting not having talked to you more. How amazing, when a painter and a piece of paper can come together like that.




Oh art kids, I hope you find each other.

Also, Jay and Silent Bob seemed to be universally big this year, probably because any pair of average looking dudes around my age can look and act like them without any trouble.


Your mischevious eyes at Tops - m4w - 29 (Grand Island)
Date: 2011-09-23, 4:42PM EDT
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You were a beautiful brown haired woman, I was a dorky, bowling shirt clothed silent bob impersonator with great glasses. Your black hooded sweatshirt was adorned with what appeared to be neon writing, and your eyes lit up with mirth or mischief when you looked my way.

We exchanged glances a few times, finally nodding at one another in passing. I wondered by your expression if my hair was a mess or my shirt had something on it.

Well, was it my hair?

Your half smile melted my eyeballs out of my head, and I hope that whomever you smile like that for appreciates it as I did.

* Location: Grand Island
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests


Not only that, but the chicks seem intrigued by that dynamic duo.



Looking for Jay & Silent Bob from the town ballroom party this weekend - w4m - 26 (buffalo)
Date: 2011-11-01, 9:24AM EDT
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anyone know jay & silent bob from those parties and possibly know how to reach either of them???? PLEASE???? any info would help. a name, a number, a facebook page, ANYTHING!

looking for silent bob. i was the red-head standing next to you waiting to signup for the contest. i tried talking to you, but you remained in character and just smiled and waved at me. i'm hoping we can get together and actually TALK a bit, you're pretty cute!! 8-P

if you remember me, tell me what my costume was!! 8-)

i'm also throwing a party this week and I'd love it if you guys could make it! please get back to me asap if you see this or anyone can help me track him down!! thank you xoxoxoxo

And this really isn't Halloween related, but the sheer wastedness and embodiment of OSU bro-ness made it priceless.

Party Bus - From 7/11 to Park Street - m4w - 24 (Downtown Columbus)
Date: 2011-10-30, 5:14AM EDT
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Soooo... I was totally blacked out and I forgot your name. You live at waterford, teach something, and love New York like 50 cent. I'm still pretty drunk and won't remember posting this, but email a brother and we will get a cup of tea..

M

PostingID: 2676163433


Meanwhile, while dude is so drunk he doesn't remember that he's looking for lurve, other souls are for glitter girls who rock and roll and appear to be dating losers. It's strangely reassuring that this cuts both ways across the great divide of heteronormativity.

Hot Blonde at Skully's!!!!!!!!! - m4w - 39 (Columbus)
Date: 2011-10-30, 9:51PM EDT
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Halloween costume party at SKULLY'S on High Street this past Friday 28th. You were wearing a white ROLLING STONES t-shirt with glitter on your face.....some guy was all over you & I could tell you weren't into it.......you need a rocker......(me)......NIRVANA came on & you dug it, Mr. cool didn't get it.....he was either too drunk or..well, his actions spoke for themselves. If you were a couple, please forgive me, but I nor any of the people I was with saw it or understood it. Anyway, if you see this, by all means I'd love to hear from you. You were STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!


Thurston and Kim have called it quits, life is not usually a Sonic Youth video, but dream on rocker dude who loves the capital letters and exclamation points and it's an excuse to post the song below.

nonstarters

Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl. They knew each other for a very long time, because when they were seven, the girl splashed him during a game of Marco Polo at a pool party and he dunked her most unchivalrously, which made her cry. But she kind of deserved it. He doesn't remember this at all.

Ten years later they meet again, part of a group of pretty good kids who did pretty good kid stuff like parent induced social activities for their betterment as good Christian kids although the girl smuggled in a tube of hair mascara and Alice in Chains cassettes and dyed everyone's hair green, and his best friend had a stash of Slayer CDs in his closet, despite his parents views on Lavey affiliated hard rockers the Eagles. Later their group of friends would do good kid things like laser tagging or ice cream at Friendly's and getting kicked out of the Southland strip mall by security for drinking half gallons of ghetto tea in the Giant Eagle parking lot or hang out in someone's basement or bedroom drinking pop and complaining about their parents.

They liked some of the same bands and didn't like some of the same bands and he was partially responsible for her transition from fledgling metalhead to the punkier side of things by loaning her lots of CDs. He also dated her best friend, broke up with her, and they lost touch.

Five years later, they meet once more, and find out they have a lot in common, and like to do similar things, but don't have anyone else to do them with. So they start hanging out, because he has a car and she doesn't, and they go see shows together on an almost weekly basis. His dad thinks they're dating, but they're not, because besides liking most of the same bands, they really have nothing else to talk about and he likes girls who are more girly. She's cynical but he's even moreso, neither for reasons that are terribly concrete besides being mad at "The System" and when not working he maintains a constant state of entertainment immersion that kind of freaks her out because while she finds Mystery Science Theater funny too, she doesn't want to watch it all the time and needs some time to be quiet and existential.

He moves away to another state, and she realizes she doesn't miss him all that much. There was nothing besides a love of good music, which only goes so far, despite what any hipster love song about mixtapes would say. She can talk about bands and guitars as good as any record store clerk, but finds herself less and less motivated to as she has less to prove. She gets a slot on college radio, still goes and sees her favorite bands and sings along to all the songs she knows, but it doesn't mean as much as it once did.

She doesn't want a compadre for the mosh pit anymore, because she's too old to mosh. She doesn't want someone who likes some obscure scene in some random town, she wants to talk about God and books and history without always coming up with concrete answers. The love of tuneage becomes a springboard to other things deeper rather than the end of the pool that seems deep compared to the baby pool, but is only maybe three feet or so.



And she still doesn't know what this all means.

you didn't look so good and you didn't feel so well...

I didn't drink all the way through my college years, except for the occasional post-work glass of wine over dinner and the Big Lebowski with Tegan, due to watching countless freshmen girls in my dorm go out for their first weekend away from their parents' house and then stumbling home at 3am half dressed and wasted. There were certain weekends where I would walk through downtown late at night past the bars and house parties, subcultural androgynous in a hoodie pulled up, bandanna over my hair and leather jacket that gave my skinny frame some bulk, and see from a distance the combination of girls dressing to impress, male piggery and alcohol and know that this could only end badly for those involved.

I remember being out with some people who lived down the street from me shortly after I moved onto that street in Kent and got locked out of my apartment. He was in my English class the previous semester and we got along well but there was pressure on me that raised the mental red flag, and when we were all sitting around and they started trying to get ahold of their dealer, after he kept pouring me glass after glass of cheap red wine that I kept leaving behind the endtable when he wasn't looking, I slipped out, hoping my landlord left the key under the mat (he did) and figuring that if he didn't I'd find another place to crash because I knew that where I was wasn't safe.

Knowing that date rape or something like it happened to someone you love is even worse, and every time this has happened, it's hit even closer to home. I know that this isn't preventable, that the strong have often taken advantage of the weak, that people make bad decisions every day that lead to things they never thought would happen to them. I wish I could shake the girls I know and scream "what the hell are you doing?" and inflict some serious injury on the male species that somehow feel entitled to take what someone's not willing to give when in sound mind. I know that isn't the answer. I wish I had one.

the phone's off the hook but you're not

I can't untangle all this, and this isn't the place to do it. I'm pretty pissed for good reason I think.

boys go to jupiter and get more stupider

Doing an early morning radio slot means that few listen, and fewer call. Occasionally I've gotten some weird ones, or the ones who want to one-up my musical acumen, or the "hey who is this band/song/singer?" or the ones who want to hear Rammstein or 80's house 12-inch singles or Tenacious D. Sometimes I get creeps too, but I don't give my name out, and I don't take calls over the air so I don't have to deal with too much most of the time.

As it's early in the morning, I don't tend to play anything heavy until I wake up, so it's mostly African grooves, Britpop, and trip-hop, though recently it's been a lot more moody alt-rock more and more. A lot of this includes female vocals just because I like the way they sound, not because I'm Kathleen Hanna 2.0 but more because bands like Echobelly and Throwing Muses and they don't get much play elswhere.

This morning, I gave away tickets to see Wild Flag, who I'm going to next week, and got a call from someone who used my playing of mostly female musicians to rant about the superiority of Manly Men of Manliness and Manly Music over the perceived weakness of the fairer half of the human race, and that our day was coming and someday we would be "put in our place" or something because things were going to change in 2012. I thought he was joking but then I realized that he really was this ridiculous and so I was laughing at him and being half-asleep snarky about how proud I am of him to be asserting what's always been his until he hung up.

I was planning to amp it up a little bit, but figured that it'd be a good time to dedicate some good loud and girlish tuneage to the dude, so hopefully no one's lurking in the parking lot waiting to ambush me next week.

Seriously Youtube? No actual version of 'Golden Ocean?' Ah well, I played this 50 Foot Wave cut too.





And the Bellrays, because if this is the new incarnation of Racist Caller, I might as well mess with him even more.



He didn't call back, but someone else did wanting to know more about one of my favorite Kristin projects so score one for the ladies, right? That's what I thought.

not I'm bitter or anything.

So there are these flyers everywhere for some kind of sermon series a local church is doing on Song of Solomon, the words of which I love, even though the entire erotica part kind of went over my head as a kid. Lush verse, beautiful words. Me and a friend of mine concluded one night over a dish of pomegranate seeds in an apartment that's served as a crash pad for Indian medical students for the past three years that this book would make a fantastic Bollywood movie, what with all the daughters of Jerusalem chorusing Athenian in the background, love and poetry, dream sequences through cities and gardens, "One blink of your eye, one jewel of your necklace..."

As I get older I find I've gotten more liberal about everything else, and less so about religion. Not in a fundamentalist kind of way, but in the sense that I get really irritated with something with an essence so beautiful and inscrutable and sacred is marketed like a club flyer or a brand of perfume, attempting to tap into the confusion about love and all that icky cootie stuff.



I tried to explain to my coworker and great Pagan of Distinction (whose snarky Naked Gun commentary is on the side) why this kind of thing irritates me. It's hard to explain. Part of it's the graphic designer in me that knows how much full color printing on cardstock costs and thinks the money could have been better spent helping people or something, and the whole marketing to my demographic of white angsty suburban questioning Christians by appealing to the need for love and the desire to be around people my age cuts a little too close in a way that hits a nerve.

The closest analogy I could come to was the packaging of classical music as a commodity to be background music for a dinner party, to make your baby smarter, or to relax to something innocuous. Maybe someone will fall in love with Beethoven after hearing it on a compilation. Bach for Babies, Mozart for Modern Romantics. Whatever. Maybe something like this will be the first step to trigger a spiritual reawakening for some fellow traveling soul like yours truly discovering underground tuneage through a K-Tel indie rock compilation that included the Minutemen and the Melvins. It's not necessarily that the end is so bad, it's just the means and manner in which it comes. And I hate the feeling of being marketed to.

The blatant marketing to the 18-30 demographic, those of us who are on the spiritual kick, and possibly looking for love. What better way, perhaps? Easier to meet someone at church than the bar, gives you a good story later on, maybe you have some mutual friends. Maybe you'll like the same generic indie bands with vaguely spiritual overtones and that new book by whoever's cool this week.

I snark, but there's a little bitter in here too. It's hard for everyone, but it's especially difficult for quirky religious like yours truly who relate to neither the America&Guns&ValuesWhenIt'sConvenient or the Trying-To-Hard-To-Be-Cool-And-Relevant binary. The similar spiritual perspective thing is the prerequisite for anything serious, and even that seems hard to come by. I know there's way more nuance and I'm being harsh, but this is more or less what I come across. If there isn't an astounding lack of intellectual depth, the opposite extreme is to be so philosophical and esoteric that there's no room for life.

nothing to offer but confusion

Two extra hours of sleep mean the world, the moments of nerve-wracking, the strange feeling when one finds out someone of one's teenage acquaintance got arrested for murder, of peon ex machina from meetings of infinite awkwardness, of possibly being the 'missed connection in a Craigslist ad for the first time to my knowledge (I don't remember saying anything to him, and think I only looked back because I got that sixth sense of being looked at and wanted to see who was doing the looking), of strange characters that I need to be nice to as a civil servant though they give me the creeps and I can't tell if they're just socially awkward or if they're creepy, though it seems to be the latter more often than not when the age gap is bigger than half your age plus seven. I don't envy the awkward position of the male species, especially the non-Type-A's.

I do not hide my feelings well even when I say nothing. The perpetual smile inherited from my father is both a blessing and curse, though it's harder to hide my anger than my cynicism (because I hold almost nothing except God to be sacred and so everything is ripe for snark), and when I deal with the creeps and those who come on too strong, I have to force my cadence into monotone, avoid eye contact, detach out of risk of getting pulled in.

Every time I think of turning my string of non-degree kicks-and-giggles classes into something like a real piece of semi-worthless paper, I sit in a class where I am condescended to and my synapses are stimulated only the absurdity of immature undergrads and sycophantic adults, and the grad student tales of department politics that remind me exactly of why I used to call my mom up every other week and claim I was going to drop out of school, and why I didn't want to continue on to do an MFA or literary crit. I know I have the brains, but when the classes don't grab me, when it's theoretical or revisionist or regurgitating, I check out.

I like to read things that are written well, that make me want to learn more, filled with passion and brimming with brilliance, not the self-indulgence of academic deconstruction written for conferences and journals that no one reads, kind of like the ivory tower counterpart to Yngwie Malmsteen albums that are owned only by uber-musicians who subscribe to Guitar World to read John Petrucci's columns religiously. It's boring as hell for everyone else and there's nothing to capture one's inspiration.

And I've been so tensed up, as I always am when there is change and when I'm dealing with Powers That Be whom I distrust, but I caught the early bus home and made a joyful noise tonight practicing for Sunday's music with dear friends who are also fantastically fun musicians to play with, everything loud and loose, and I need to get back to my parents' house and find my distortion pedals to add to the reverb and tremolo waves from the amplifier, laughing and messing with harmonies and key changes, hanging out in the cool already-fall night talking about books and museums and weirdness.

A late night dinner that didn't turn out so well, another comfortingly cloudy day, a morning to drink coffee with the neighbor who's come by to fix the drain and with whom discourse of caffeination and good conversation was had. And now I'm here, and it's not so bad...

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

We Single Ladies are working the late shift and while I could be working on the next Great American Rust Belt Novel, we are instead snarking at the dudes on PlentyOfFish. Now, I'm not well-versed in the Arts of Love, but the men of My Fair City really need to step up their game unless they're looking for a fellow trainwreck or hookup.

Saying you're looking for a serious relationship while having your arms around two skanky chicks, not being able to spell, posing with a bottle of Jaeger or your theoretical motorcycle or showing off your bad tribal tattoos, sporting your best Affliction duds if you're wearing anything (because showing that much skin is not nearly as attractive to us as vice versa).

A visitor from another planet would assume that all of the male species in Clevelandia were either pale future mass murderers living in their parents' basement or fratboy bro types who listen to way too much Sublime. A little awkwardness is understandable, but Vulgar Displays of Douchebaggery were all too many. Take a look at these cybertastic pickup lines:

People call me Andrew, but you can call me tonight

Looking for a good-hearted women

Do you like pudding? I sure do!

Looking for someone to heal my heart

I'm all over the place, search engine that!

More than humpin'

Some of my well-intentioned relatives have asked me why I haven't tried the Internet in order to find my future soulmate but this along with the anecdotals of my friends, gives me every reason to believe that my gut feeling that such an idea is bad is definitely accurate.

sappy and sapped

Too tired and uninspired to make anything of beauty, falling asleep on the couch, in the hot apartment, waking up sleepy, ignoring the ringing phone, because as much as I enjoy company on my sojourns through the city, I don't like the ambiguity of that particular companionship.

It wasn't easier when we were younger, as we were all more awkward and sometimes more obnoxious, but as we head towards our thirties, "just hanging out" gets more complicated, because we're all starting to wonder what the future holds and those interactions become more rare because everyone starts pairing off, and we're less likely to bother if we don't think it's going anywhere.

My platonic friendships have brought more joy and enrichment to my life than any time I've dated someone, which has never really gone well, and also why I don't like that scene, because it seems like a terrible way to get to know someone. These attempts usually dissolved quietly with a mutual understanding. We both knew by the end of a meal or the end of the first week that we weren't going to call each other, that there would ultimately be irreconcilable differences, we really didn't click and it was pointless to try and make something work that wasn't and found that as we got to know each other, we really didn't like each other very much.



Sometimes it seems easier to be just friends with those with for whatever reason you know that nothing will happen with because then nothing's going to happen and you worry less about looking stupid because you're laughing too hard or doing things together that you already enjoy doing by yourself.

And there are times I wish that things were more codified, because how was I supposed to know it was a date when I didn't bother to pretty up, got there by myself and paid for my own food and we just talked about music the whole time? Does us going to see a band together mean something more to him than it does to me? What did I say or do that made it look like I was interested when I wasn't? Do we just see what we want to see when it comes to our interactions with others? Are any chances of connection as remote and unrealistic as peace in the Middle East? It feels like it.

I feel the brain drain acutely as I put my roots down further, when I see the ones with promise migrating to bigger and brighter places full of doubtless beautiful Bright Young Things, when the social circles don't get any wider as many places as I go, and to be honest, there just aren't a whole lot of other likeminded souls, period, who crave the spiritual in a way that's neither halfhearted or dippy nor sanctimoniously dogmatic, care a lot but haven't forgotten how to laugh, and have a healthy curiosity about everything and an appreciation for beauty.

So many times in church culture it seemed like there was all these lectures about how to be a good woman, but there was always less about men being men, so I see either a weakness that's irritating and pushoverish or a Type A manly manliness that can't handle someone with a strong mind who has a hard time shutting up, and I can't respect either.

So many of the amazing girls I know settle for less and try to justify it, and that's just not the way I do things. I'm content most of the time, because I get to do a lot of stuff I enjoy doing, but to be honest, I'm not sure if I want it to be like this forever.

I wanna be your Thurston Moore

This is pretty awesome.



My dad always used to call them "Sonic Old" because they were closer to his age than mine.

I was never a fan of Kim Gordon's songs nearly as much as Thurston's but I had a cassette tape with mostly cuts from my roommate's copies "Goo," "Sister," and "Dirty," that I rocked out to when shelving books as an undergrad.

Honestly, I prefer the band's more radio friendly moments, which kills any pretensions of true fandom on the part of yours truly, but I have seen them live, having cut class to do so, feeling like one of those people who want to hear the hits. Enough with the arty noise where's Dirty Boots?

eternal grey and rust

People keep talking about how the weather sucks but soon they'll be complaining about how it's too sunny out and at least we're not dealing with the aftermath of earthquakes and tornadoes or living next to the Mississippi.

And I wonder how much asbestos I've inhaled and lead I've ingested, wondering if there will be anything left of me. I wonder what will be messed up later on because of all the art-making now, all that turpentine, oil paint and lead-laced flux.



My car is starting to feel old too. It needs new breaks, an oil change, and the muffler that was already starting to go is now clanking against the trunk, the purr is now a roar and I'm hoping my it gets fixed before my sister had the kid because I know I won't get through the cracker suburbs without getting pulled over in the meantime.

I bought motor oil at Murray's last night and even though I totally know how to pour it into the engine myself, having done so weekly in the latter days of the Sexy Saturn, I was relegated to damsel in distress by an guy in the parking lot who told me what I already knew about car engines (admittedly not very much but still...)

While I insisted that I was okay and that it wasn't a big deal he said I needed a husband and gave me a card with his number in case I break down so I guess he can be knight in shining armor or something. Like heck, I'm going to call some random man I met in a parking lot when I'm in a position where I'm most vulnerable. Right.

so much wrong here.

As a chick and musician, I find the below Craigslist ad totally hilarious due to the misogyny and general rock star egotism especially endemic to the untalented. I'm going to assume here that being a "kick ass hot female" is probably more important than actually knowing how to play, but I could be wrong.

Also, I highly doubt from the band photos that said singer/guitarist looks like Dave Navarro. To just assume that all chicks are into you seems just a bit narcissistic. And "Grunge Lust" just sounds corny. I was really hoping they'd have a Myspace page or something, but no such luck. Still, it is slightly less demanding than the ad a few years back looking for Elton John and Tom Araya combined into one person.


Looking for Sean Yseult (Battery Park/Ohio City)

The name of our band is Gypsy Prince. If you know who Sean Yseult is, then you are on the same page as us. Our music is "Grunge Lust" and needs a kick ass hot female bassist. We're already booking shows, so hurry up. All though the drummer and myself are incredibly beautiful people, it is important to remember we are trying to get something done here, and we can't have you falling in love with us. We already have a sweet bass rig so all that you need is a sexy swagger and the chops to back it up.

I've got lust in my heart
My eyes set wide apart
I'm a Gypsy Prince
From far distances

Son of a far land
Traveling
With the wind at my back
Into the west
Into the sunset
Pulled by invisible forces
You wake up
I'm gone with
Your wallet
Your jewelry
and your heart

* Location: Battery Park/Ohio City
* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

As a side note Sean Yseult is doing graphic design and general awesome arty things now. Go her.

hormones and sound

I was working on some projects at the art center when a song came on the radio that reminded me of someone because he once said it reminded him of me. I understand that being sappy is part of human nature for some of us, but I remember being kind of pissed as you can only be when you're 18 and skeptical about most things especially ooshy-gooshy things and it's a terrible vanilla song about some chick that the guy loves who goes off and has adventures and drinks soy lattes and he's still pining for her but she's kind of off doing her own thing. Or something. I don't know.

There were a lot of reasons why things didn't work out with us and this was the least of them, but it was kind of what happened, except that I drink my tea and coffee black and don't do tae-bo while listening to Mozart. For a pair of goofy young kids who both had subcultural leanings and closets full of black clothing, he should've known that something else would have tugged at my heartstrings way more than Train.

Yet I don't take the Tastebuds.fm philosophy that finding one's soulmate is possible through common love of the same bands. It must be some weird hipster thing maybe or a way to break the ice, where taste is cultural currency and conspicuous consumption is paramount. But heck, what do I know anyway? I know that there were way too many relationships in my life where me and whoever connected with the same sounds but never connected with each other.

Those times we drove around all night listening to our favorite songs and talking til 3 in the morning about everything and nothing, listening to soul music in your old Crown Vic by the lake when I was so stressed out and sore from a car crash and you wanted me to feel better, that time we huddled under a track jacket watching Sonic Youth in the rain getting goosebumps from the gorgeous noise of Thurston Moore's guitar and being really wet and cold? A shared love of tuneage and an enjoyment of each other's company was all it was and nothing more and at least I see it for what it is instead of trying to read anything into it further. Life isn't Garden State, people.

I'm also not sure if I trust a site that suggests due to some terrible survey that Nirvana and Metallica fans are more likely to copulate on the first date than people who like Coldplay, in part because the sampling of genre was so limited. And by the way, oh White and Mostly British People, the Blur/Oasis rivalry is so 1990-what?

people my age, they don't do the things I do...

I eschewed public transportation for a long walk over the bridge to Tower City, fortified by a cup of coffee and an enchilada, to meet up with Tangerine to watch the Indians play. I'm used to downtown being deserted, and it was until I entered Tower City and there was some kind of art fair thing full of swarovski crystal jewelry, general kitsch, generic skyline photos, and the kind of nonoffensive art that I tend to associate with dentists' offices or corporate lobbies, knowing that what I'm making is just as decent, just that I'm too much of a slacker and slightly afraid to out my creative output outside my small circle.

I forget that the rest of the world does different things on the weekends when I ended up at a birthday celebration at a bar where there was much in the way of bad Top 40, 80's cover bands, and general college bar-ness. My peers drink more in one night than I do in a whole year, and most people were with their significant others so I was able to pay my respects and make a quick exit after doing some general observation and people-watching.

I used to be freaked out by social situations involving all of the above, but one of the wonderful things about getting older is being comfortable in my skin, not feeling like I have to fit in or make conversation, or that there's something wrong with me because I can't wear high heels and don't know what's on TV. I drove home in the rain basking in the sounds of Faith No More, feeling strangely victorious that I'm no longer intimidated and that despite everything, I've come into my own my own way.

the couple next to you think you look strange...

When I worked at the zoo, people thought it was really funny to prank the receptionist with calls for "Miss Ellie Phant" and "Mr. Lion," and while no one pulled any Calvin and Hobbes style prank calls at my place of employment, I found myself trying to maintain sanity in dealing with a series of generally disagreeable people, and was so glad I cut class to go outside, wander up marble staircases to far more aesthetically pleasing biblioteca halls and marvel at the wonders of Norton Furniture as grown and sexy R&B played in the background. Surrealism of the rust belt at its finest.

As the art show was this weekend and the studio was closed, I came home and took a nap, planning to do some art later, but got a call from my creative partner in literal crime who said he was up for hanging out but not doing a whole lot and as I'm a slacker and it's the weekend, that sounded perfect. Besides, it had been awhile.

The last time we went out somewhere together, we ended up at a soul food restaurant in East Cleveland, where my general crackerness generated quite a few side-eyes of the what's she doing here stealing our men kind, and it turns out that he ran into the server at the club a few months ago and she remembered him because he came in with "that weird white girl "that one time (what gives Youtube? No Soul Coughing except in relation to cute puppies?). What can I say? I'm memorable and that's why I'm always "That Girl."

We got Lazizas at Holy Land Market and dinner at Latitude, which I've never been to before, and judging by some of the well-dressed clientele in fur coats and neo-Dynasty couture and hair, I was slightly underdressed for this scene with my black hoodie and Bad Brains t-shirt.

Everyone else seemed to be out on the town to see and be seen, looked and acted like extras out of tv shows I never watch, but we were so busy devouring perfectly herbed pizza with portobello mushrooms and basil pasta bake catching up on the last six months or so, talking art, music, life while observing our fellow diners from our perfect vantage point of a booth in the back with a view of the door.

The mating rituals of the upwardly mobile are fascinating. I'm not the most fashionable to be sure, but zebra print doesn't seem to look good on anyone. But the people watching highlight came courtesy of this one woman came in near the end of the night, making a dramatic appearance, throwing off her coat revealing an incredible electric blue cocktail dress with lots of feathers on it around the neck and bordering the hem, crazy high silver heels, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to one of my sister's Barbie dolls, but with a very loud and projecting voice like the cheerleader character in Daria. There were all these cameras set up around the table where she and her friends were eating and I couldn't tell if this was some kind of filming or if they were famous or what but it felt like being on the set of Friends or something. Priceless nonetheless.



We came back to my place and spaced out on the couch, drinking fruity Lebanese malts until we both felt tired, he went home, and I slept in super-late this morning, waking up only when I got a text about the Indians game downtown, wondering how I own no home team regalia but somehow have a Detroit Tigers shirt in my closet. I'm going to be a good public transportationista and walk to the Rapid station, get a cup of coffee and maybe some food at the market, see how the day takes me.

best of the blotter 39: blind dating rules, whiny kids, and birds

DISTURBANCE, SOUTHPARK CENTER: At 9:53 p.m. March 19, Houlihan’s restaurant reported having a problem with male customer refusing to pay his entire bill.

Apparently, the man had been on a blind date with a woman who insulted him and left the restaurant after eating her meal, but before the check arrived.

The man did not believe he should be required to pay for her meal, since this is not in the “blind dating rules.”

Police convinced the man to pay the bill in order to avoid being arrested, but he did not include a tip.

THEFT, ROYAL PORTRUSH DRIVE: A Solon man, 30, reported March 15 that sometime after Christmas, someone took his watch, an Audemars Piguet Las Vegas Strip Special edition, valued at $18,900. Details were sketchy, other than the watch had a black alligator strap with red stitching

An Aurora Road boy was charged and taken downtown March 16 after he was not allowed to go skateboarding because he had not taken out the garbage, then went anyway after a parent left the home briefly. He then returned with two friends and packed some personal belongings with plans to leave again, before a family member attempted to stop him.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, PRINCETON COURT: A woman called police March 19 to report that her 26-year-old son had become enraged when she discarded some marijuana she found in the home.

He threw a candle at her, injuring her arm. He left the house for a while, and upon his return home, he was arrested by police and taken to the station and charged with domestic violence. The mother put in a request for a temporary protection order.

ANIMAL COMPLAINT, IRENE ROAD: A man said March 19 a bird somehow got into his dishwasher, and he requested help removing it. The bird was removed.

ASSAULT, BAGLEY ROAD: A 49-year-old man sitting in a theater at Regal Cinema with a woman on March 19 was struck in the head by the woman’s husband, 53, of Olmsted Township.

suburban thrashers, awkward girls, and sexy huntresses

So I really wonder who responds to Craigslist personal ads. I really do.

When I worked at the Cleveland Zoo, I sold tickets to a family that we snarky kids working referred to as "The NRA Family" because their blond and blue-eyed children all had camouflage baseball caps saying "Daddy's Little Hunter" and they all had toy guns like they were going to go and hunt big game. The youngest was about three, and had his sippy cup in one hand and a toy rifle sticking out of his little backpack.

The following missed connection is the more estrogen driven model.


Sexy Huntress Baron's Supply - m4w - 31 (Lorain)
Date: 2011-02-26, 11:29PM EST
Reply To This Post

We met at Baron's today around 2 or 3 pm. We both had our two daughters with us. It was so cute when your little girl asked for a pink and purple crossbow. I am kicking myself for not asking you out for coffee or dinner or something. I was wearing sunglasses a peacoat and my boots jingle when I walk. You are so sexy and beautiful. I regret not talking to you more. you brought a shotgun there. Please if by some chance you read this contact me.

When super rich people end up looking for love and hot women with sports cars.

Porsche carrera "mean biz" - m4w - 29 (turnpike i 77 booths)
Date: 2011-03-08, 8:21AM EST
Reply To This Post

You were coming off the turnpike as I was getting on, you're a beautiful and obviously succesfull woman with fantastic taste in cars. I'm from Europe but I live in Akron Canton area. I drive a sports car myself so if you ever want to go riding, would be tons of fun. Anyway I hope you or a friend of yours reads this. Would love to hear from you. Love the license plate btw ;) send me the color of your car so I know it's you.


Now this next one hits me the wrong way probably because I've known too many of the male species like this who play the 'average guy' card but look down on people who don't have the same sophisticated taste. Because really, it's not like these things are so unique. If you're white and have a liberal arts degree, you probably like all this stuff too and if you live in Cleveland you might be reading this blog. So if I've totally misconstrued you, I'm sorry Dude.

It is true that I am an introverted chica who has some interest in most of the below (I've never been to the Cinematheque), but I'd resent being referred to as awkward, which is almost as bad as getting hit on with the line "You seem like you read a lot." Ya think?

Also, having worked in multiple bibliotheques in the course of my life, I can agree that a Greater Access card is amazing but it is hardly grounds for finding a soulmate. There's lots of freaks with library cards.


Any awkward girls that like going to thrift stores? - m4w - 28 (Westside)
Date: 2011-03-09, 7:00PM EST
Reply To This Post

I’m looking to meet an awkward, shy girl who enjoys similar interests, such as going to thrift stores, exploring small forgotten towns and watching movies at the Cinematheque. Being a card holding member of either the Cuyahoga County or Cleveland Public Library would be amazing.

I’m average height, average job, average car, and average mind. I enjoy the metroparks, reruns of Madmen/Leave it to Beaver, college radio, and when in Parma Heights, dining at fine restaurants such as The Whip and Udupi Café.

If you have kids or listen to WGAR, no thanks.

To exchange emails, please put the name of a thrift store you like in the subject line so I know it’s not spam.

And this last one is for the one and only Randal, as it mentions Darkthrone four times and confirms the hypothesis that there will always be a disaffected segment of The Kids that gravitates toward loud and fast rock and/or roll.

In Parma, we were lucky enough to have kindred who also existed on the margins, though it seems like this kid's having a hard time finding other likeminded souls. It must suck in Avon Lake.

metal punk death squad - 18 (avon lake)
Date: 2011-03-12, 8:47PM EST
Reply To This Post

venom, hellhammer, bathory, motorhead, onslaught, sacrilege, bulldozer, dishammer, children of technology, sodom, kreator, destruction, slayer, anthrax, overkill, nuclear assault, agent steel, puke, discharge, black flag, anti cimex, judas priest, black sabbath, electric wizard, toxic holocaust, razor, slaughter (can), acid witch, apokalyptic raids, sepultura, sarcofago, vulcano, entombed, inquisition, autopsy, dismember, grave, black sabbath, candlemass, celtic frost, repulsion, terrorizer, carcass, iron maiden, midnight, nunslaughter, crucified mortals, DARKTHRONE, DARKTHRONE, DARKTHRONE, DARKTHRONE

leather jackets, studs, back patches, spikes, combat boots, no corpse paint

NO METALCORE, NO MOSH, NO TRENDS, NO FUN

am i alone?



No kid, you're not alone, you just need to move to a cheap apartment in Lakewood and hang out at My Mind's Eye more. It'll make you happy even if you're into NO FUN.

got me wrong

I was accused last night of hating men.

Aforementioned acquaintance, who seems to get her ideas of what ideal manliness is and what a woman's supposed to do/be from supermarket magazines, trashy romance novels, and unrealistic movies, is not a reliable source on my relations with the male species, and I found this comment amusing especially given the context that it was taken out of. So it's not just a grain of salt I'm taking this with, it's the Dead Sea.



In all honesty, I enjoy the male species far too much to buy into this whole anti-dude thing, especially considering that most girls aren't interested in the things I'm interested in. Just because I'm interested in the same things as some of the male species, doesn't usually mean that we're interested in each other. It's just nice to enjoy what you enjoy with others once in awhile without worrying about things getting messy.

Besides, it seems like even the smartest of them end up dating really boring chicks who listen to country music, buy expensive purses, and watch terrible reality shows but put more time into their personal appearance than I do which makes me question their judgment slightly. Or they end up with impossibly thin fashionista hipster types that I know better than to compete with. Maybe it's an ego thing, to feel superior or it's something reserved for nights out with the bros. Whatever.

In all honesty, females of any age have generally caused me more trouble and drama than most men, be they classmates, catty coworkers, nasty bosses, or crazy mothers. Too much testosterone or too much estrogen is usually a bad thing. We need each other to balance each other out.

In other news, I've got about ten minutes before I'm gone, to go let the downstairs neighbor's dog out, have dinner with the family and the might-as-well-be-family-in-the-best-way in-laws, start working on some cut and paste-y awesome layout art for the first time in forever, and maybe work in some Darkthroning in the woods or at the Cemetery of Awesomeness.

And because there can never be too much Alice, I'm going to do a way-cooler-than-Michael-Stanley doubleshot to start off your weekend. Muchas gracias to Randal for hooking me up with what has become my winter car music and making me realize that I wrote off said debut album as sounding "Too 80's" in my misguided youth.

Sorry about my ditziness in the way of closing up.

how can you say I go about things the wrong way?

I got a call at random from a friend of a former friend last night. I don't really know her all that well, as I know her through my most recent roommate who's no longer speaking to me, and so there's a dynamic of awkwardness there because I don't know what she knows about everything that went down in the past year. Since I'm not a fan of drama, I figure that what she doesn't know can't hurt her.

Every so often, she finds me at work or calls me and asks for life advice, most of which I know is not what she wants to hear and that she'll never take. I don't believe in sugarcoating but I try to be nice, yet the truth usually seems to possess this uncanny ability to hit nerves and make people mad.

We come from very different frames of reference in relation to absolutely everything, in part because of the difference of socioeconomic status and the values with which we were raised.
My upbringing was fairly conservative (though by no means as conservative as others I was around), and lower middle-class, while her parents are progressive, very well-off and live in a very affluent part of town, and currently bankroll her rent and college education in hopes that she'll get a master's degree because those are the kind of things that matter.

I tell her that maybe if you don't like school you should do something else until you decide what you want to do, get some life experience, because life isn't about how many degrees you get or what they're in.

Or instead of being on the Internet all the time looking for love, you should get out and get interested in stuff, volunteer or something if your parents aren't crazy about you working minimum wage, because that opens up your world and usually gives you more common ground with other people, and that usually guys get a little creeped out if you text them all the time and tell them their exotic ethnicity is sexy.

So she's asking me for love advice in regards to her roommate that she's enamored with even though everything about him even through her rose-colored gaze screams bad news to the point where I actually fear a bit for her safety and general well-being because said guy sounds sociopathic.

She considers me a "nice person" and a bit of a prude, which isn't terribly far from the truth. Any Victorian-ness on my part comes from an uncanny instinct for self-preservation coupled with the memory of several unpleasant incidents in my teens and seeing lots of instances of date rape aftermath in a college town. Moral code aside, it's a man's world and I tread there knowing that I have fought back and don't intend to be in those situations again if I can help it.

She always apologizes for swearing around me. She's surprised to find out that I have lived with male roommates, though it was for about three months in a college housing sublease situation and nothing "happened," considering that one was a fratboy who had his sorority girl friend with benefits upstairs and the guy I shared space with weighed 90 pounds and had muscular dystrophy.

So after she goes into way more detail about the relationship than I really wish I knew, she gasps a little bit when I tell her this guy is a total asshole who is constantly denigrating her, sees this as an economic arrangement plus the sex he'll never get to have in his own country, and that if I was her, I wouldn't date him ever and would probably move out also because he sounds like a terrible person to live with, let alone date.

"But I want a relationship!"

Don't we all. Sometimes.



But there's a reason why we don't give our phone numbers out to random dudes on the bus who ask for them because unlike humans, all relationships are not created equal. Sometimes it's heaven on earth like it is for my sister and her husband, and sometimes you end up with someone dead. There's Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, but there's also Sid and Nancy.

The conversation ends quickly after that, and I paint for awhile and go to sleep on my couch in my cold little half a house wishing that I knew her parents' phone number so I could tell them that their daughter is living with a scary dude and that if they're going to pay her rent they should maybe pay it somewhere else where she'll be safer, but also knowing that she's a consenting adult and will probably continue to make mistakes like these so maybe I should let her? I don't want to feel responsible for someone's stupidity but I wish I didn't know.

you have seen some unbelievable things...

When I was heading home yesterday, I saw a familiar car coming the other way, a black Impala with tinted windows and once I saw the green track jacket, knew it was an old friend from a time that seems more and more distant, when I was singlehandedly trying to teach kids to read and help their parents adjust to a world far different than where they came from.

We both pull over and start talking and catching up. I've run into him while grocery shopping but haven't really caught up with him since I went with him, my roommate, and his mom to get his car out of the Rocky River impound lot after he got pulled over for being the wrong person in the wrong place with a loud car system, an arrest record, and all that.

In an economy that's profoundly depressed in our city, he's gotten himself a full-time job working at an auto parts shop, where he's welding and cutting, and going to night school. Despite having a small rap sheet, he's studying criminal justice and wants to be a cop.

I tell him I'm stressed and tired, and wished he could see me on a day when I wasn't like this, that life has been a bit crazy this summer with the whole probation/recent life transitions and my dad nearly dying and everything, and then he hugs me and says, "Take it from me, you'll get through, and you'll be stronger. Look at where I've come from. You'll be ok."

And I realize how petty I sound, even if my tiredness and stress is for good reason. I almost forget that I'm talking to someone who escaped a genocide committed by machete, saw people he loved die violently, nearly starved to death in a refugee camp, whose father tried to leave him behind knowing what that would mean. He still has sisters stuck in Nairobi that they send money to, and talks about going back to Africa someday just to see it, but he never wants to live there again.

He came here as a teenager speaking no English and finding out that the streets aren't paved with gold, who considers looking "ghetto" a good thing to be so that he blends in and doesn't get messed with, where he's become someone so many people in his community rely on as a translator, babysitter, and an accidental advocate having been here long enough to know what's going on and move between two worlds.

We have a strange friendship of asking questions and learning and arguing about the dynamics of men and women (his attitude toward women being much more patriarchal), and I have been someone outside his circle that he can admit to that he sometimes cries himself to sleep thinking about the past.

I don't know what it's like to deal with all that, but we put ourselves in a bad place when all we can see is our own problems and forget about how many things are simultaneously going on outside of us...