the guez

There was a time when my filmmaker boyfriend took a job as an art model in order to make ends meet. The artist who employed him posed him nude against walls under bright lights and painted him, not as he was, but as he would be in fifteen years. He removed most of the muscle, added some fat, let the cheeks sag, the hairline recede. He added experience and some bitterness to the face, a hardening around the eyes. It's disconcerting to see what your lover might look like in the future, when time erodes his little perfections. This person. This man. Could I love this man with his sad eyes and sagging flesh? Besides, how well does this artist know my B anyway? Who's to say he'll ever wear that expression? Around the time B started modeling with more frequency, his restlessness started to shake him. He spent a lot of time thinking, started writing more. Had a birthday, realized some things, locked himself alone in his room for days at a time writing, screenplays, comedy acts, sk...

I recently got a gig cutting web videos for Hearst Magazines. It's not a terrible gig. Though arriving in that airy lobby every morning as those editors and models for Cosmo and Seventeen strut through the turnstiles in their heels and pose on the dual escalators past the waterfall, has done something to my self-esteem. Which is sort of why I never read those magazines in the first place. But now it can't be helped, and I've been forced to confront my own schlubbiness. The nice thing about working in film is the jeans/t-shirt uniform which I bring to new levels by also not doing my face or hair until I get to work, after which I run to the bathroom and half-heartedly throw some clips in one and powder on the other. Besides, I live in Williamsburg/Greenpoint which makes Disheveled into an art. But Hearst is Manhattan - the kind of Manhattan where Sarah Jessica Parker bought her shoes and gossiped and ate brunch on HBO. Hearst creates that Manhattan. And a short while I afte...

is an asphalt factory in Queens. Which is where brian, our flat tire, our broken jack, and I spent the afternoon. When the triple A guy finally arrived to lend us his jack, we were half delirious from the fumes and the inside of our noses burned in an unnatural way. How do you like them apples?

Sure, there are days when the fear really gets to you. There are days when you wonder why you made this choice, when you have no idea how to accomplish anything or even what the next step is. The path is all full of brambles and your paycheck is late. And of course the fear is nothing compared to the times when you wake up in an empty apartment and the only plan you have is to work in your bedroom alone all day and then go to sleep in the same room in order to do it again tomorrow. All for a movie that's full of flaws and empty of promise and not necessarily worth it. Then there are the days when you go to Joe's house to borrow some lights and he lends you his camera too so that one huge problem is solved, and you find it's easier to breathe. And then you put your glasses on to discover the brown lump on the couch is kenan feeling sorry for himself on a gig that fell through, and would you like some tea? So you drink the tea and tell them how you couldn't help but feel ...

Powerwalking down 8th avenue after work the other day, I was struck with a sobering thought.  If a portal to another dimension magically opened up on the sidewalk beside me, I wouldn't notice.  I'd be too busy stressing about rental houses and insurance agencies, and I'd march right past. Somehow, without my noticing, I'd become a grown-up.   The thought was so disturbing that I spent the rest of my walk trying to figure out how to reverse the effects. Maybe it's time to get out of the city?

I drove my car back from Massachusetts last night singing on the top of my lungs. I sang every song I know. Every showtune from every album I had as a child, from every play in high school including the parts I never got. Before that I sang about the woman who swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed a fly. I sang about the rare bog in the valley-oh, meeting a bear up in the woods, about picking up a bumble bee. Then I went on to all the lyrics I could remember of all the pop songs and all the folks songs I could think of. Unfortunately, I couldn't get very far on those without help and so I just switched to a new song when I couldn't remember a verse. Which is why I ran out of songs to sing when I was still in Connecticut.  When I finally arrived in Brooklyn, my throat was hoarse. And when I reached under the seat to grab my stuff, my hands closed around something unfamiliar. It was the crack pipe belonging to the asshole who stole my radio. I rasped out a quick cur...

Yesterday the jackhammer woke me up at dawn and told me spring had come.  I ran downstairs and asked the orange man what they were doing and he said they would just dig up this block and leave the rest of the street alone.  But I didn't believe him.  When I turned away, the little hammer winked at me. Cheeky bastard.