emilyrems.com

Royal Pink, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

O.M.G. There are no words, abbreviated or spelled out in full, that can describe how much fun I had at Willie Mae Ladies Rock Camp this weekend. Holy shit dude, seriously. Eight (or more) hours a day for three days straight learning how to play drums for the very first time, making punk pins, silkscreening T-shirts, and ROCKING OUT in band practice with my new for reals band, ROYAL PINK!!! Here we are in the photo above (L to R) Errin on bass, Karen the lead singer, and lil’ ol’ me on the badass kit. Unfortunately missing from this photo is Stacie, supreme bassist #2. That’s right… drums, vocals, 2 basses and NO GUITAR. Our sound is so hot and heavy, you don’t even know. We were assigned to be a band together on Friday afternoon. We had our first original pop/punk song written and arranged by that evening, perfected it on Saturday, and on Sunday wrote ANOTHER song and messed around with a bunch of covers while gearing up for our debut performance at Sin-e on the LES. The show rocked. Hard. We didn’t fuck up, I beat the hell out of the drums in my newly cultivated, super-simple but hardcore Meg White style, and the packed house cheered and danced!!! To my in-time beats! That I made!!! Anyway, the whole thing was so exhilerating and awesome that the gals and I decided to stick together and make a go of it as a real band. Errin has a whole set up with drums and a PA and everything up in Harlem, and they like the way I drum even though I’m brand new, so I’m gonna try to take lessons with my Rock Camp teacher Caryn and try to get some skillz as a gritty girl drummer. Wow! I know I’m always booked up and on deadline and totally stressed and whatevs, but this past weekend was such a rush of pure adrenaline-pumping joy, it would be sick to give up on it now that the opportunity to jam out some more is being literally handed to me. Scary, for sure. But I love Rock ‘n’ Roll, so put another dime in the jukebox baby.

Feed Big Bertha, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

So of course I blithely type away on this thing every day, assuming nobody reads it but me and sometimes Han. But today all my illusions of anonymity were shattered when the nice lady who bought half my clothes at the fat girl flea market suddenly appeared in the comments section of my post “Flea To Be You and Me.” Not only that, but when I followed the link to her blog, I discovered a long, detailed, and quite hilarious account of our clothes encounter from her perspective.

Dear nice lady from Boston.
Had I known you would ever, in a million years, find your way to my blog, I would never have been so cavalier in my bandying about of terms like “Jackal,” “Fleshy,” and “Ringleader.” I was just being silly and hyperbolic and stuff, but I guess you busted me. Anyway, thanks very much for referring to me in your post as a “Hot Fat Chick” and for describing me as an “…eye-catching young woman…much taller than me and way more finger-on-the-pulse-of-fun-fat-fashion in her black tube-toppy tank and cats’-eye frames,” You are too kind. I will henceforth use HFC as my handle, and be super-annoying about it.

cuffed, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

When I came back from Connecticut this weekend, LCF asked me if there were any non-white people there. I said I thought I saw an Indian woman and her kid at Saturation Station, but I couldn’t think of any others until I uploaded this photo. See the guy on the right hand side being led away from the outdoor flea market in handcuffs by Middlebury’s finest? Yeah, he’s not white either.

bill-bored, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

NYC is the viral marketing capital of the world. Advertisers are always plastering perfectly good blank walls with obtuse gossip fodder that at a later date will be revealed as another lame gimmick to “create buzz” for another lame thing I can add to the pile of media I don’t give a crap about. In case you can’t read it clearly in my picture, this billboard at the corner of Houston and Ludlow reads:

Hi Steven,
Do I have your attention now?
I know all about her, you dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly-endowed slimeball. Everything’s caught on tape.

Your (soon-to-be-ex) wife,
Emily

P.S. I paid for this billboard from OUR joint bank account.

What those sneaky lil’ marketers, in this case Court TV (as revealed handily by the NY Times), want to happen of course, is for me to read this during my walk to Jenni’s house and think, “Ooh snap! Did you see that??? No she di-ent!!!!!” And then get all stereotypically gleeful in a knee-jerk, pre-packaged feminist kind of way, and then tell all my friends about it so we can have some kind of rousing session of shrieking “You go girl!!!!” in each other’s faces complete with loads of head bobbing and eye rolling. Thus, creating the much coveted “buzz” for their redic show which will be revealed as the true source of the sign in a few weeks.

Well guess what Court TV? That didn’t happen. I saw the billboard, I thought “That looks fake,” and moved on, later learning all about the fake blog y’all created for the scorned miss “Emily” and all of the “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” publicity that attended the fact that your hoax was discovered immediately after the ads went up. I learned all about it and I yawned. And then I scratched my ass. And then I yawned while scratching my ass.

Hi Court TV,
Do I have your attention now?
I know all about you, you dirty, sneaky, boring, uninteresting, poorly-executed slimeball network. Everything was exposed by the New York Times.

Your indignant neighbor,
Emily

P.S. I didn’t have to pay for this. Too bad you spent so much on your shitty ad campaign.

It’s Alive!, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Spent the weekend goofing around with my most bestest and very preggo friend Johanna at her mom’s new digs in Connecticut. We were in Middlebury, which is somewhere near Southbury, kind of near Danbury, and of course, in the general vicinity of the dreaded tropical disease island Berrybury, but somehow, I remain unscathed. Han is all beautiful and a-glow these days, and every time we got to spend some time alone together, we couldn’t stop laughing (as evidenced by this photo of me cracking up while groping her baby-belly). As part of our hijinx, we hung out at a ye olde amusemente parke that was built in 1908 called Quassy, which I quickly determined was a compound word created to emphasize the fact that as far as family fun goes, the place is quasi-classy. Much to my delight, they had an obstacle course-type-thing called SATURATION STATION (awes right?) that would periodically dump 300 gallons of water from a giant bucket many stories above the ground onto the heads of unsuspecting kidlings below with the brute force of a fire hose. Another highlight was when I bullied a listless teen running a carnival game in the rain to help me cheat my way to victory in the frog pond in order to win Han’s future bebe a stuffed seal. Apparently, the winning frog was somewhat malfunctional (which would explain why nobody ever won the good prizes) so I had to physically knock the lil’ sucker over with my fishing pole to claim my ill-begotten prize. We also had a super-fancy Italiano chow down with Han’s mom, and spent a long time curled up on the guest bed chatting on the phone with our mysterious and wayward friend Alex, who has recently returned from an itinerant stint in Paris. I haven’t lived anywhere near Han since I was 15, but that has never changed anything between us. Now, 20 years after we met at the sixth-grade picnic, We’re still BFF 4evs. 2 cool + 2b = 4 gotten.

pushups on A, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Madness ensued last night after the excellent Chicks and Giggles show that Brandy invited us to at Mo Pitkin’s. Ever the social butterfly, LCF started shmoozing Brandy’s pal Suzanne the pilates instructor while I was muttering under my breath to Brandy in the bar about every single person I hate in the whole world. (Side note: if you wish to talk in a mean-spirited fashion about another member of the human race at excruciating length, Brandy is an excellent person to do so with. Perhaps because she’s not just a girl, she’s also hard liquor…) The next thing I know, LCF is leaving the bar with the pilates lady, so naturally I’m in hot pursuit. Once outside, she proceeds to personally train him on the street. Right there on Avenue A. Bless her heart. Honestly, it was so hilarious, I forgot to knife her in the throat for touching him. Just kidding. Not really.

LES Mural 2, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

…has been swiped from this mural I spied on the Lower East Side while on a walkabout with LCF. After my exceedingly grumpy day yesterday, this whatevs attitude has not only made me feel like less of a hateful bizzatch, but has also fueled me to new heights of productivity. One of the many non-slacker things I did today was work on editing LCF’s mom’s cake recipe for inclusion in the Old School section of the mag. I have a bunch of questions about this recipe which I haven’t gotten answered by her yet, but here, for your baking enjoyment, is what I’ve got so far:

Old School: Mami’s Ponqué

When I was a little girl growing up in Puerto Rico, one of my mother’s specialties was this simple but delicious rum cake. I remember she would bring one whenever we would go visit her aunts, because she would always receive lots of compliments on it. Just follow her recipe, and you’ll be able to enjoy a taste of Puerto Rico anytime.

Preheat your oven at 350 degrees. Cream 1 lb. of butter that has been left out at room temperature together with 2 tbsp. rum and one tsp. vanilla. Slowly add 2 cups of sugar to the mixture, then stir in 10 eggs, one by one. Finally, mix in 3 ½ cups of self-rising flour, pour batter into a pan and bake for 30 minutes. [Noelia Castro-Green]

No - I don’t know what kind of pan, or if it should be greased, or what self-rising flour is, but you’re smart. I’m sure you can figure it out. Or, just wait till the mag comes out at the end of September where all will be revealed. As I was saying, I just to myself. What people think about me or my recipe is whatever.

IMG_0460, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Having a bad, rocky day. Sort of like an anxiety attack in slo-mo that makes me hate everyone I encounter, but most especially myself. I got rest last night, no nightmares, even did dishes and put away laundry before bed so the apt would be less oppressive this morning, but today still sux balls. I’m supposed to see a play with Ian tonight after work, so maybe it will get better. Sometimes there doesn’t need to be a reason, I guess. But the burning inside that starts at the base of my throat and has been trickling down into a molten pool of acid in my gut all day seems to be responding to something specific and painful just out of my view. And now, a revised version of a poem first penned by my high school chum Mark Shapiro a short while before he left lamb’s tongues on every water fountain in the school and then left our town forever:

Sick of editing
Sick of life
Gonna end it
With a knife

IMG_0462, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Am I missing something? WTF???? On our stroll through South Street Seaport this weekend to check out the Bodies exhibit, LCF and I encountered yet another NYC establishment unfortunately named DO DO!!!!!! And this one was attempting to serve fine cuisine! At least their helpful graphic flag implies that diners will be feasting on extinct poultry like in that movie the Freshman, rather than on a steaming plate of shit, but still, eew. I now fully expect that in a Robert Anton Wilson-esque turn of events, I will start seeing Do Dos everywhere as some form of synchronicitous urban punishment. Make no mistake, I will ruefully photograph each and every one for my own sick amusement, for to bitch about pointless crap is the sugar of life.

In other South Street news, the Bodies exhibit is badass! I especially liked the dead baby room, as it gave me an up-close-and-personal glimpse into what’s going on in my best friend’s belly right now. I was glad, however, that there was no face on the lady-cadaver they had on display with a panel of her skin and uterus removed so you could see her lil’ fetus suspended there forever inside of her all upside-down-like. I think if she had had a face that would have even freaked me out.

Fernando’s Elevator, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Finally nabbed that interview with John Cameron Mitchell today and am well relieved that he is, indeed, as rad in person as I always dreamed he would be. The time flew by, and before I knew it, I was being yanked out by the dude from THINKfilm to clear the way for the next eager beaver journalist. Seriously, the next guy was literally inhabiting my chair before I had even put my tape recorder away, so there wasn’t even a chance to snap a picture. I DID, however, snag this fetching photo of the building’s ye olde ricketye irone elevatore, and its charming operator. Thanks for the smooth ride Fernando!

flea market, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Lat weekend, after shaking my ass in dance class, I fell further down the fatass rabbit hole at the Fat Girl Flea Market! This event is so freakin’ awesome because thrift shopping is usually a fruitless farce if you wear above a size 12. But once a year, this fundraiser for NOLOSE collects second-hand donations from the closets of big girls all over the city, and then sells ‘em off wikkid cheap in a melee of plus-size bargain madness. Its only been going on for three years, but each year the event gets bigger and bigger, drawing crowds from all over. This year, I finally got my act together and filled a whole garbage bag full of stuff to donate. I was carrying it across the intersection of 14th and 6th when a gang of fat ladies from BOSTON literally chased me down the street and surrounded me in front of Grey’s Papaya.

“You’re taking that stuff to the Fat Girl Flea Market AREN’T YOU????” The ringleader demanded.

I was like, “Duh, ” so she was like,

“You’ve got good style. Let me see what you’re donating.” At which point she and her friends tore into my bag like a pack of rabid jackals and started trying on my clothes in the middle of the sidewalk. They were ooing and aahing, and high fiving, much to the consternation of the other pedestrians trying to get around the fleshy frenzy blocking the street, but these sisters were about to head back to Boston and would not be denied. They claimed nearly half of my cast-offs, then marched back to the flea market to pay for them, which I thought was almost ridiculously honest of them.

As for me, I picked up a black jacket, black pants, black fuzzy sweater, and a purple and black striped babydoll dress for $12.50. Those Boston ladies were right though - from what I observed, I did donate the best stuff - natch.

chicken_overload, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

The boss-lady came in today with a kitten she found in the street last night. Apparently, a bunch of wild cats were trying to break into one of those stores with the live chickens in them in Bklyn, but this lil’ girl was too small to jump in with them, so she was stranded on the sidewalk alone near all the traffic. Boss lady rescued her and brought her in today, and is now taking her to the vet. Don’t get me wrong, I like kitties, and this one is especially cute, but just try to imagine what the introduction of a fluff-ball like this into an all-woman office is like. In a word - hell. Honestly, the squealing only stops when the kitten is obscured in her little covered kitty bin, and I’m not just pointing fingers at others when I say that either. I, too, emit sounds at a decibel so high that dogs across town are organizing in protest, and I find this reflex both annoying and humiliating. I pretend I am immune to her fuzzy charms, but its a front. Do you hear me people? A front! Boss lady has been calling her chicken since she found her outside the chicken store, but since nobody knows who the ultimate owner of this foundling will be, I guess her name may change. Wherever she goes, she needs to get the fuck away from me. My very dignity is at stake.

Sweaty Ladies, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

When I wasn’t being all reclusive and PMS-y this weekend, I was engaging in all manner of eccentric fat girl behavior. For instance - in the blurry picture above, I can be observed getting all handsy with Marina Wolf Ahmad, the mad genius behind Big Moves. A totally off-the-hook experiment in size-positive ass-kickingness, Big Moves is a dance company run by Marina simultaneously in San Fran, Boston, New York, and soon Montreal, that shatters the notion that dance is just for teenie-weenies. Once a month, Marina comes to our fair city to teach Jazz and Intro to Hip Hop and this weekend was my third attempt to release my inner fly girl in the Hip Hop class. I have to admit, when I first took the class as an assignment for the magazine, I just expected a gentle exercise class with better-than-average music. But I was totes mistaken. Marina is a big girl with fierce skills and expects everyone to keep up with her elaborate choreography regardless of size. She’s like Debbie Allen in fame, making me pay in sweat and all, only she doesn’t freak out and yell in the face of my apalling lack of coordination. She says she may start a branch of her Hip Hop performance troupe The Phat Fly Girls here in the city…Do I dare audition? How will I look in knee pads? Will neon be involved? In any case she rules, her company rules, and I feel all sweaty and satisfied after a sesh with her. Its not just for fatties either - so if you’re feeling curious, check her out the next time she swings through town!

eraserhead, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Yesterday I woke up in the agoraphobic zone, so I stayed home, slept, and had feverish, fucked up dreams throughout the afternoon. My dreams are totes weird enough as it is, but every once in a while, I’ll fall asleep in the context of a dream, and then actually have dreams within my dream - the sort that would give David Lynch a hard-on and that will keep me hightaililng it to my shrink for the rest of forever. Here’s a little peek into one of these rare sub-sub-conscious scenarios:

I’m alone in a dark room looking into a microscope, and through it I can see what appear to be little iron filings randomly popping up as if magnetized, and then laying back down as if exhausted. I zoom in for a closer look, and under intense magnification I begin to see that the filings look like little pins with adult human faces hovering on top of their little pin-heads like tiny holograms. Some faces are brown, and some are white, and some are in-between. There are men and women, and all of their mouths are moving. I zoom in even more, and somehow locate a volume switch on the microscope which I turn all the way up so I can hear what the pin people are saying. Suddenly a cacophony of irate voices comes blasting out of the microscope. It sounds like a hundred different agitated people all trying to get my attention at once. They are shouting things like, “You had a chance to be born, now give me a chance!” “If you think not having a baby will keep you young forever, you’re wrong!” “Don’t leave me here!” “I want to live!” “It would be so easy, just ‘forget’ to take your birth control!” “Don’t be selfish!” “What are you afraid of???” I start screaming at them to shut up until I “wake up” from the dream back into the original dream I was having, only now I’m covered in blood.

Nice.

Maybe I’m freaked from the heat, or because I’m 31 with biology thudding in my ears, or because my BFF Johanna is fixin to become a mom for the first time this fall and I feel really invested in the process with her. Who knows? One thing is for certain though. I truly hate sleeping these days.

crappy store, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Considering the incredibly high turnover rate of retail establishments in my nabe, I feel especially bad for this accessories store about to open in Astor place next to the Cozy Soup ‘n’ Burger. Seriously guys, “DO DO”??? I assume it was a really long and arduous process, purchsing the storefront, getting all the right permits, ordering inventory, doing construction, decorating, hiring staff, all that stuff. You’re telling me you went to all that trouble just to name the place something that at best evokes an extinct, awkward-looking bird, and at worst creates asociations with poo? Did nobody at any point along the way say, “Um… guys?” I guess not. Now that all is said and done, I suppose the best I can hope for is an amusing local ad campaign. Speaking of poo, how long do you think it will take for jealous kids to start teasing Shiloh Pitt by calling her Piloh Shit? Just a question…

IMG_0430, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

…I don’t wanna be right! I haven’t totally anthropomorphised her to the point of thinking she’s a person yet, but I would liken my affection for her to what I may feel for a new, cute, lil’ cat. I watch her purring away in the corner, making my life all cool and comfortable, and I think, “Awww!” and give her a nice scratch behind her thermostat. Unlike the actual cat that I reside with, “Chilly” (like the cartoon penguin, NOT like Chili from TLC) doesn’t wait ’till I’m watching movies in the dark to secretly leave little kitty-puke bombs strategically placed all over the floor, so when I get up to pee, my toes experience something so wretched and brain-numbingly gross, my personality is forced to split to cope with the horror like Sybil. (Thanks Xiola.) So in conclusion, let me freakily proclaim:

I love you Chilly
Oh yes I do
I don’t love any of my other appliances
As much as you
When you’re not with me
I’m blue
Oh Chilly I (heart) you

The Big Bang, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Staying in NYC was def the right move for me over July 4th weekend, and my time indoors was made especially awes by the purchase of a sweet-as-sugar, Al Gore-approved, air conditioner. I’m getting sprung just thinking about it now… (Is there such a thing as climate porn?) Ahhhhh sweet relief! I love it sooooo much! And big ups go to LCF for haggling the dude at the store down by $100, carrying it home for me, and installing it for me. Despite my lofty feminist ideals, this type of kindness warps my brain, so I was fully growling and snarling at all the ladies in short-shorts eyeballing his bulging muscles as he carried the unit down the street. I was all like “That’s right BITCH, he’s carrying this up to OUR apartment! Whatchu gonna do about it??? Huh? What??? I’ll cut you!” The most amazing part is that I managed to communicate all of this using only my eyebrows. I’ve got mad skills.

The rest of the weekend shook out a’ight too. I didn’t go to Laura’s roof party because of L train madness, but did end up on Jennigirl’s roof where I took this picture of the East river exploding. I also ate brunch, did writing excercises, drank iced tea, went to the gym, and went to the Sunshine for midnight movies just as I had prophesied (thank you sweet spirit). The rest of the stuff fell by the wayside, but whatevs. I’ve got the whole rest of the summer to clean my gross house. Also. thanks to my pal Brandy’s blog, I was able to calculate that I am, in fact, 29% Dixie. How Dixie are you punk?