…This man. I interviewed him today about his amazing new movie. He was lovely. So brilliant and funny and fascinating to talk to. Made me fantasize about running off to join his research team so I could help him ferret out injustice wherever it lurks. Integrity gets me sprung.
Check this perfect pony poster The Dutchess of Pink made for our show on Saturday! Seriously - I’m obsessed with it.
I’ve often marvelled at food blogs and the people who painstakingly maintain them, occasionally thinking, These crafty bitches have too much time on their hands. But the more I try to teach myself how to cook, the more I find myself posessed with the urge to “style” my food before I eat it. Then once I’ve styled it, I show it to LCF, who very supportively says how pretty it is. But he says it in a way that lets me know that he won’t eat it, either because it has vegetables in it, or because I’m still so slow in the kitchen with my prep work that it takes me upwards of four hours to cook anything, so I’m usually shoving a plate in his face at midnight. Then I try to sit down to eat it, like with the above Ginger-Mango Tofu I cooked outta Vegan With A Vengeance last night, and am seized with the urge to preserve my project for posterity since it took so damn long. So I take a picture. And now I have all these pics of things like Vegan Mac ‘n’ Cheese from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, and BBQ Pomegranate Tofu with Coconut Rice & Garlic Spinach from the aforementioned Vegan With A Vengeance…
plus these cupcakes I made from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, a book LCF’s mom gave me for X-mas.
So - yeah. I guess I’m turning into one of those psychos who posts pics of the food they make on their blog. But don’t let that in any way lead you to believe that this means I have too much time on my hands. These were all completed amid a hail storm of swearing in the early morning hours. Am I making anyone hungry? It’s lonely cooking all this food just for myself. Well, except the cupcakes. LCF and my bandmates graciously agreed to help me out with those!
Sometimes in the winter, when it’s cold and wet and my ceiling’s leaking and the rent is due and the holidays are over and everyone is grouchy and tired and stressed and pissy out on the street, it can be easy to forget that this city is a little floating island of magic. But then there are days like yesterday:
I was hustling up 6th Avenue to get to band practice after work when I happened to glance inside the Chipotle on 6th and 22nd, and there, perched on a high stool, sitting with some dude, was Amanda Lepore in full makeup and perfect Barbie ponytail. Alas, I would have given my left tit to see her tackle a burrito with that giant red mouth, but she’s from space so she doesn’t have to eat.
She was just sitting there, looking bored. The most amazing thing was that the place was CROWDED and nobody was paying her no nevermind. I guess that’s one of the magical things about NY, that no matter how attention-grabbing a personage you may be, new yorkers are too self-absorbed to give a shit, so you can zone out at Chipotle all you want without causing a frenzy.
It does lead one to wonder though, what does a drama queen have to do to get a little attention around here?
I sprained my ankle on monday in a spectacular step aerobics accident, but my million-year-old doctor told me I should be OK to play the big gig at Luna Lounge with Royal Pink tomorrow if I rest it up until then. So I’ve been, you know, resting. As much as I’m capable of rest anyway. The cool thing is, the more I’ve rested, the more my usual onslaught of nightmares has seemed to mellow into just general vivid weirdness. Here’s an indicative little gem of a dream from this morning:
I was a teenager with lots or red hair wound around my head in elaborate braids like Princess Leia or somethng, and I was attending a sleepover camp with tons of other teenage girls. The camp was pretty unstructured, so the girls my age and I spent lots of time hanging out at a candy store run by Vinnie the Tampon Case guy who works on my floor in real life. In my dream, the candy store was incredible - super-colorful and stocked with thousands of different treats that Vinnie had made and designed wrappers for himself. Plus the Hell’s Angels were there too, who I guessed were Vinnie’s friends. We didn’t really eat the candy. Everyone, which included me, the teenage girls, the bikers and Vinnie, mostly just stood around shooting the shit, until Vinnie dissappeared into the back of the store and came back with a big “bologna lasagna” for us to all eat in his formal dining room. It was gross-looking but also funny with lots of red tomato sauce and gooey cheese layered with tons of garish, pink bologna. The bikers ate it, but the teen girls were skeptical. Then Vinnie announced that he was about to launch his own cooking show, and that as his first recipe, he was going to make “Penguin Soup.” I was like, “What’s that?” And he went into the kitchen and came back with a big giant Vitamix blender with a big, live penguin inside.
He said “All you have to do is add some heavy cream to the penguin and blend!” The girls started freaking out and some of the bikers were like “No way man!” Vinnie dumped the cream over the penguin’s head and it ruffled it’s feathers. The girls screamed. The Hell’s Angels laughed. I started chanting “Penguin soup! Penguin soup!” over and over again, encouraging Vinnie to push the button. And that’s when I woke up, still chanting “Penguin soup!”
Maybe I’m not cut out to be a vegan after all…
Only 13 hours into 2008, I checked off another item from my life’s big “To-Do” list when I finally made it down to Coney Island Beach on new year’s day to swim in the Atlantic with Brooklyn’s famous Polar Bear Club. This year’s swim was a benefit for Camp Sunshine, a retreat for terminally ill kids and their families, so not only did I get to fulfill a dream, I also was able to scrape up enough pledge money to get a commemorative “Freezin’ for a Reason” T-shirt to mark the auspicious event. Big ups go out to LCF and Alison, who hauled their asses out to the ocean with me this morning, hangover (LCF) and all, to hold my coat and take my picture and wrap me in a towel and robe after I took the plunge. The ocean was a daunting 41 degrees, and running into it produced such a rush of adrenaline, I was hyper and euphoric for hours afterwards. A soon as I was submerged, I couldn’t stop laughing and screaming and there were hundreds of crazy people all around me doing that too - just jumping up and down, yelping and squawking and shaking all over. Men were holding their nuts, women were chasing little kids through the surf, it was pandemonium of the best kind, and I wished I could have stayed in the waves longer, but by the time I got all the way up to the bodysurfing line I couldn’t feel my feet at all so I wriggled back onto shore after just a few minutes. After the swim, I had a big goofy grin plastered of my face for the rest of the day (see below). I wore that grin all the way back to Manhattan where we had brunch at Little Poland, and where I thought I was hallucinating over my pierogies when Chloe Sevigny walked in completely glammed out and waited with her friend for, like, ten minutes next to us until a table freed up. Seriously - this is the weirdest, most fucking awesome city evs.
