kerouac says

i overflow so bad that it hits the blog, and you counter with possibly the single greatest act of kindness a relationship knows. you knock me out, you know that?

you know, you're no good at apologizing. i think i'm just realizing this. you can be so tender, and so good, that i think this escaped me until now: you just won't say you're sorry.

you aren't the only one who should be sorry. i said stuff, too. and the premise of the whole thing is frankly ridiculous, and mostly on me--you're not wrong. but ridiculous or no, that thing you did hurt some soft places. i'm more than willing to cop to my own stupidity; in fact, i feel like i've been doing it for about twenty-four hours, at this point. and if i keep bringing it up, it's because no matter how wrong i am, i'd like to hear that the hurts matter. i can't shake this weird feeling that i'm being punished for being occupied with something other than you, for asking you to take the back seat for a little while. god forbid. it's not like i asked you for help planning the wedding.

it's just one of those days i want to push all your clothes to the other side of the closet. i don't want you to bring me coffee. i don't want to find your hair in the sink. you made me feel bad. i did that to you, too, but i also did the full-on, real, sincere apology. and right now i feel like you'd rather be right than kind and that sucks, so: go away for a few hours. go visit your independence. i'll be glad to see you when you get back.

i graduate on may 7. or, really, the 10th, but the earlier ceremony is the school-specific one, where laurie anderson is speaking, rather than the giant faceless commencement where no one will know who i am. i may have said this before, but i'm skipping it in favor of the unofficial class trip to coney island. did you know they're taking the rides down? they totally are.

stuff is due. stuff is mildly done, but not wholly. feeling a funny mixture of expected anxiety and sort of ennui-ed out about the whole thing. the next step is planned, confirmed; what happens next happens however well i do my homework, so. i'm not holding my breath, but i'm looking forward to a full exhale.

* * *

david halberstam died. i met him, once, at this thing i went to for famous people and smart kids. we talked for about twenty minutes, and he found me later to tell me one last thing. he said he'd won every award his profession had to give, and that in the end, they weren't satisfying. never do anything for the awards, he said, and you'll be okay.

i've never been very good at it. i like the awards. i like them to be shiny, and to be mine. but i work on it. sort of like the exhaling.

* * *

something must be going right, because i feel like wearing sundresses. i don't often do the dress thing--especially sundresses, where you're expected to be bare-legged which brings up all sorts of sturm und drang for me about shaving and not shaving and self-tanning and self-confidence--but the first warm weather in new york does funny things. i woke up sweaty and remembered that spring here lasts for about ten days; ten days of daffodils and wonderful bare arms before it turns humid and stinky. nice ten days, though.

following the revelation that the virginia tech shooter was an english major, a member of my writers' group asked each of us what we would do with a copy of a story of his, supposing we had been in workshop with him. burn it? sell it to the highest bidder?

i had to admit that while i like to think i wouldn't sell it, i would be tempted to write something about the weirdness of having such a thing in my hand, and the fact that people might want to buy it. and i wouldn't be above pitching it to salon in a timely manner.

this bugs me, though. there's something about everyone looking at this kid's "bizarre" writing and seeing a tragedy written there that just . . . it's like a bad combo plate of rubbernecking and subtle phillistinism. i would never say it wouldn't have been better had an intervention or referral stopped what happened from happening, but the easy one-to-one correlation of bizarro writing to criminal behaviour rubs me the wrong way. stay tuned; i'm sure it's only a matter of time before we're all privy to his am@z0n wishlist, itemized phone bill and childhood letters to santa.

i don't know. i'm being cranky; i'm no better than anyone else. i read it. and who am i to say it's not news, i guess . . . it's not evil to want to know why.

it just gives me the ick.

but i was buying wedding underwear!

and reading Brian Massumi!

and developing an addiction to online settlers of catan!

and . . . shut up!


it's funny to think that on top of everything else, there's some approaching melancholy about the end of the NYU experience. i can get maudlin about just about anything, so getting even remotely close to a group of people for a year and then witnessing a massive dispersal gives me pause. it was a funny year. on the other side of it i feel like an egg that can't be unscrambled, and all these young people were there getting scrambled, too. it's not like this was college, but i'll miss them.

if you know of an apartment in L.A. for us, or you want to sublet our apartment in washington heights, or fucking buy it, please speak up.

this morning at the elevator i ran into one of our next-door neighbors. she said, how are you? and without thinking i chirped, "i'm clean!"

the only other place i've ever been where it snowed in april was ashland. that was more fun than today, when it is snowing in april but i am not on vacation or full of shakespeare. i'm cold and my carefully blown-out hair (as the wedding approaches i am trying occasionally to look like a girl) is for naught.

and if the city of the great satan needed more charisma points on such a winter's day, it turns out that one of my larger performance crushes is also relocating there. it seems clear: the universe will not have urbaniak and i separated. if only veanne cox and scott shepherd would come, too.

1. my mother mentioned the wedding to all of my father's cousins and did not think to lead them to question their assumption that they would all be invited (all: four cousins, with spouses, none of whom i know--we've met maybe twice). they began to toss around the idea of associating a family get together on the oregon coast with the wedding, since "everyone" would be in the same place. red flags. my mother said: it will never happen! this family is not the reuniting kind!

2. my mother professed to be surprised that i objected to the idea of inviting these people i don't know; it never occurred to her. she oscillated between declaring her hands were off of the wedding and we could do whatever we wanted, saying that family had to be included, and sending lists of people she wanted invited that included not only these cousins but friends of hers she hasn't seen in years and my next-door neighbors from growing up. the last time i was home i gently pressed, with the monkey's support, for a clear and unambiguous declaration of feeling regarding these invites: just how important were they? answer: invite whoever you want, i don't care! and, here's another list, with annotations re: why each prospective guest should be included!

3. my mother sent me an email this morning, the opening line of which was: "Don't kill me. Please." turns out the reunion plan is going forward, and she believes there is an unspoken assumption on the part of the family that everyone who is considering attending will recieve a wedding invitation, since the wedding is the raison d'etre of the gathering. which i will not be attending, because after the wedding there is a honeymoon. no one has contacted me about this reunion.

4. my mother, however, was contacted. in an email subject headed: "Wedding plans?" my dad's cousin bob's (husband of Fat Diane, if you saw the play i wrote about it where i wore a toilet paper dress) daughter angie addressed the following questions to an audience including all of my father's cousins, their spouses, and a few of their children: "so, what's the intel on louella's wedding?"



here is the motherfucking intel. first, please address these questions to me. not to my mother and a group of ten people who are not me, the groom or even really associated with either one of us. if you don't know my email address or phone number, please ask for them. in fact, perhaps that is a clue about how we are not close and you may not be invited to my wedding. another clue? the complete inanity of this phrase: "my dad's cousin bob's daughter angie." do you invite this person? no. you don't even know her last name.

weddings that do not include the children of second cousins are not only not bad manners, they are not unusual. what is bad manners? planning a family reunion around my wedding and not talking to me about it. suddenly, this "bob" who is spearheading the reunion is in charge of our guest list.

if you are my mother, please, please take a step back and a deep breath and realize how ridiculous this is. it's a wedding. the failure of the planners of a family reunion to hijack an invitation to it cannot be held against you by reasonable people. the stakes are lower than you think. and we cannot just extend the guest list to another generation of my father's family (from 8 to 18) because we don't have the budget, nor can we trim off the guest list friends of ours we have already verbally invited. and whom we actually like.

and if you are anyone anywhere: please never assume you are invited to a wedding. it is not classy.

the way we were going to deal with the problem of coordinating selling here and buying there was to sell the new york apartment as soon as possible after leaving, and to move into university housing for as many months as it took to find a new one. i applied for housing (there was a fee, which struck me as weird) and sat back to wait.

i was wondering how they'd notify me of the decision, so i asked. turns out it's "common knowledge" that the wait for an apartment is 9-12 months. this common knowledge does not appear anywhere on the website or the numerous brochures that were mailed to me . . . groan. i want my thirty bucks back. and for someone to figure out what we do to get an apartment in california without going there first.

some british journalist has called on deep reserves of orientalism to figure chinese WoW gamers as believable Modest Proposers of manslaughter.

my favorite? they'll hunt "real chinese people"!

christ.