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Errin holds the Royal Peeps aloft, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Just when I thought that I had eeked the last drop of festivity out of my birthday, Karen showed up at band practice yesterday with a choco-liscious cake and this HILARIOUS diorama of our band made out of pink marshmallow peeps!!! She made a backdrop! The instruments are PINK! The lil’ bassists are holding cutouts of actual Daisy Rock basses!!!! I can’t even take it. When I first laid eyes on it, the craftiness was so intense I sheided my eyes for fear of being blinded by Karen’s dazzling talent. Unbelievable. Has anyone ever tried to shellack a marshmallow peep? Can I use spray mount?

5th Ave @ 14th St., originally uploaded by emilyrems.

I have many smart-ass comments to make regarding this event currently taking place in my office building, but maybe I shouldn’t be so flippant. What if the advertised baubles and shmatas actually can usher their wearers into a mystic communion with the fundamental nature of all reality? What if my snark is standing between me and the universal oneness only an overpriced hippie tank dress can provide? I wonder if they come in plus size…

Emily High Sticking, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Last night after work, LCF took me out for a romantical post-birthday-dinner of “Recession Specials” at Gray’s Papaya, and afterwards when I landed back on our couch, I drifted immediately off into a world of anxiety dreams. I know I have ‘em all the time anyway, but today I chose to blame the dawgs.

In my dream, I was in the tiny town in NY where I grew up because my parents had moved back into my childhood home, and they had invited Royal Pink to play a concert at the church/community center across the street from our old house. My whole band had lugged all of our equipment into the community room of the church where I used to take kiddie aerobics classes back in the day, and as I unpacked, I realized I had forgotten the bass pedal just like we did for real at our Lit Lounge gig last week. When I discovered I had forgotten it, I flew into a rage and started throwing all my cymbals around and throwing a temper tantrum. My band-mates were scared to come near me and my parents looked embarassed. Since there were no other bands on the bill besides us, I asked my dad to help me find a phone book and to help me find local music stores we could get to in time for the gig. My dad was helpful, but was also moving very slowly and kept getting distracted by other things so I got impatient with him and yelled at him and then felt incredibly guilty for yelling at him when he was trying to help. I was just about to start begging rides to look for a music store without him when someone from the congregation came over to me with a bass pedal she had taken off of her son’s kit when she heard about our difficulty. I was so grateful and so ashamed for acting like an asshole to everyone that I started crying big stressed out tears, and I was still crying when I woke up.

Back Door Man, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Last night was a karaoke birthday for the record books. The fruity drinks flowed freely while 20-ish of my beloved friends kept the cordless mics busy for FOUR SOLID HOURS. As promised, I did indeed scream my way through Total Eclipse of the Heart with Callie early on, then sang duets with Logan and Moira and Karen before pulling out my secret weapon - Paul Revere by the Beastie Boys. Word. Some terrified family members also hit the spot - Auntie Bev and Uncle Stanley were in full effect and so was cousin Jared, which was all sweet and familial and whatnot. This was one of the easiest and most rambunctious parties I’ve ever thrown. We just pulled out the song books and let the alcohol and cupcakes and show biz magic do the rest. Thanks so much to everyone who came out and shamelessly sang with me. Why, oh, why are birthdays only once a year?

P.S. Will whoever sent me an ENTIRE BOX of Marshmallow Peep lollipop rings today please identify yourself???? You are the most awesome awesome who ever awesomed, but I have no idea who you are!!!!!

Birthday Grrrl, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

This pic was snapped by LCF about an hour after I turned 32 this morning. I am nothing if not dignified. Being a surly mess isn’t that much fun at home though - so why not come out to the bar and get into some real trouble with me tonight?

Emily’s Karaoke Birthday Jam!
Monday, March 26
7-11 PM
The karaoke lounge downstairs at Lemongrass/Izu
9 E. 13th St. (btwn 5th Ave. & University Pl. NYC)
Cost: Free!
I’ll be distracting myself from my advancing age with fruity drinks and fruitier ‘80s power-ballads all night long tonight in this lounge underneath my fave Thai restaurant. We can sing all the songs we want for free, order Thai and Japanese munchies from upstairs, and since it’s a Monday, ladies can all drink for half-price! Yowza! I double-checked, and they definitely have the Karaoke version of Total Eclipse of the Heart, so you know at least one performance of the evening will be hauntingly beautiful.

Lit Lounge Window, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

Royal Pink was in full effect at Lit Lounge last night and I’m still recovering. There was some weird kinda force field around that place that made the gig stressful and chaotic but also kinda awes. When we got there they wouldn’t let us in because the sound guy wasn’t there, so we were all piled up with all our gear in a booth by the front window doing our nails until someone finally gave the OK. Then as soon as we got downstairs, part of my drum equipment rolled irretrievably under the stage so we had to borrow a replacement. Then I got everything all unpacked and realized we had left the bass pedal behind so we had to borrow a replacement for that too (thank you Violets - THANK YOU!!!!) Then one of the bands after us loaded a giant digital drum setup onto half the stage, so I had to fold myself into a little origami paper crane to get behind the drum kit. Then LCF came in all flustered because he got static at the door. Then during our set I couldn’t hear any of what was going on because of the monitors and lost my place on the set list and started playing a totally different song from everybody else. But guess what??? After all that, it still turned out to be a rockin’ gig! There were hipsters a-plenty gettin’ down to our jams on the dancefloor, including my hot homo posse from college, and opening for the Violets is always a real treat for us because they are so super-glam. After the show and dinner, I don’t even remember immediately passing out alseep, but somehow I made it into bed still covered in pink glitter.

Once asleep, I had another endless nightmare. I was back in Israel, this time on vacation with my friend Ian. As we were getting ready to leave, I was informed by our hotel that because I was Jewish and had chosen to visit Israel twice in one year, I had automatically been enlisted in the Israeli army, starting immediately, and was required to remain in the army for the next three years. Ian was all, like, “Ahh Hah - Sucka!” because he was raised mormon and was free to go. But I was stuck, and freaking out. I spent what felt like days trying to figure out how to dodge the system and get back home. After tearfully navigating through a mountain of foreign red tape, and enduring mounting scorn by strangers who thought it was disgraceful that I didn’t want to serve, I was very grateful when the alarm went off this morning.

Bergdorf Window #3, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

I was still a lil’ insomniac angst ball last night when LCF got home from work around 1 AM so he slipped me one of his Ambien and sent me to lala-land on the couch for a few hours before my early-morning dentist appointment. The pill worked great, but since I didn’t have long to rest before the alarm went off, I was still a space-case when I hit the scary dentists’ chair, and kept drifting in and out of a sharp, painful, liminal dreamscape where I knew I was being tortured but I wasn’t sure why. Once I got my release papers from the gestapo, I mean, hygenist, I shuffled back and forth past this Bergdorf’s window like a mental patient and got completely freaked out. Are these, or are these not, the scariest fucking ventriloquist dummies on the planet? Don’t they look totes ready to kill? Absolutment. I ran for my life from them after taking this picture and then groggily rolled up to work where this horror-scope was waiting for me:

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Week beginning March 15
Copyright 2007 by Rob Brezsny
http://FreeWillAstrology.com
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Here you come dragging your exhausted but redeemed ass out of the deep dark forest of symbols. The red-eyed monkey demons fall off your back as you straggle toward the light. Your sunken eyes see wonders they were blind to before your ordeal. Your heart rages with a wild angelic love you’ve never tapped into before. And as you realize the magnitude of your tough miracle, you feel glimmers of gratitude for the rude tests you had to endure. Maybe you should get totally lost in limbo more often.

Yeah right. I’m soooooooo sure.

Escalator photo by Brandon Stone, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

I wasn’t gonna blog about this because I still feel somehow wounded and unnaturally upset by the whole thing, and I feel stupid for still feeling upset, but I can’t seem to concentrate today because of what happened yesterday. I was on the super-long, super-steep escalator at the Smith-9th stop in Brooklyn, on my way to a drum lesson with Caryn, and when I got about 1/4 of the way down a pack of 15-ish year old boys, rough-housing and being loud, started up the other escalator on the other side. I saw them look up and see me, and my heart sank. I looked away but it was too late. The biggest, loudest one started screaming at the top of his lungs about how his friend had a big cock and he was gonna shove it in me. I could feel myslef blushing, I kept looking away, but I also felt mad that some stupid kids were intimidating me. As they got closer, the kid got louder, and when we were paralell he screamed in my face that I was gonna get fucked so I gave him the finger. That set off a whole torrent of his friends being all like “Ooh - did you see that? She flipped you off!” So of course he started screaming that I was a “fat bitch,” and all his friends joined in. My stomach dropped and the striped escalator stairs started swimming in front of my eyes as vertigo took hold. I thought about snapping the kids’ pic and humiliating them on HollabackNYC, but I really felt like I was going to fall if I let go of the rail to reach for my camera, and every moment took them physically farther away while their voices boomed insluts at me through the tunnel. Basically the incident is typical if you’re a woman trying to go about her business alone in NYC, but it really freaked me out, and made me feel depressed and ashamed and made me cry while playing drums along with the Shangri-Las song “Out In The Street.” I guess there’s no point in dwelling on it. But I can’t seem to stop. As my BFF Han says, when teen boys yell crude stuff at you, no matter how old you are, it feels like you’re back in Junior High again. And being in Junior High is preferable only to being dead.

LCF + ER @ House of Blues, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

…the first picture of me, possibly ever, in which I am somewhat well-rested! I can actually sorta SEE my eyes behind my glasses! Thank you Atlantic City, for being so weird and sorta boring that I actually got my 8 hours of sleep-a-day (and ten at night) for a brief moment in time. Of course I was so wound up last night about returning to work that I was asleep by 4:30 AM and up by 7:45 AM. But whatevs. Nothing gold can stay. Except for Ponyboy. He always stays gold.

Taj View #1, originally uploaded by emilyrems.

This was the first thing I saw out my window when I finally pried myself off the puffiest, most cloud-like hotel bed evs this morning. Sea, sand, sun, sky, tacky faux onion domes and creepy old kiddie rides frozen for winter. Heaven. My idea of intentionally fleeing New York for a place with no redeeming cultural value so I don’t feel compelled to do anything but max and relax is working like a charm so far. Since my arrival here all I’ve done is recline on a variety of soft surfaces, watch multiple episodes of Law & Order on the plasma TV, take a loooooong bubble bath, nosh on room service and cautiously investigate the bidet. My plans for today are more ambitious. They involve a foray to the spa, where I think I’ll force myself onto the treadmill first, then reward myself with jacuzzi, steam room and pool action. Maybe I’ll make it onto the casino floor, or actually out of the hotel at some point if I’m feeling wanderlust. But damn, that hotel bed sure is comfy. When one is used to waking up every morning in a cramped, messy, little closet-sized bedroom with bars on the windows and water dripping from the ceiling, panic stricken from nightmares after five fitful hours of daily rest, this kind of morning is a shock to the system. For the record, I still had my required dose of nightmares last night (involving pirates, and this really annoying dude from my High School named Paul), but they were somehow kinder, gentler nightmares, and when I woke up and looked around at my palatial hotel room, I didn’t give a shit about them anymore.