tannenbaum!

i can't believe i actually did it: i bought a christmas tree. i also bought lights, ornaments, ornament hooks, tinsel, and a tree stand. the tree is from greenpoint trees. it's a little four-footer that set me back twenty bucks. twenty bucks! and to think i was prepared to pay at least twice that for this thing. i couldn't stop smiling as i walked down manhattan avenue with the tree in my arms. to the passers-by, i am sure that i must have looked very cheeseball, like some happy-go lucky female character from a fifties christmas special. of course i felt excited about the holidays in that moment, but i think at least half of it stemmed from the fact that i'd just scored a great deal. 

i had to carry the tree back on the subway. a pair of stoned gentlemen told me, "nice tree!" i got sap all over my hands, but it was only mildly annoying. once i got the tree back to my apartment, i went around the corner to family dollar, where i purchased lights and a few ornaments, including tinsel. in my family, we never decorated our tree with tinsel because my parents always said that it was tacky. this is my first-ever christmas tree with tinsel, and it's because i'm alone this year, which means that i get to decorate however i want. it sucks when you don't have any ornaments and have to accumulate them, though. i miss the big box of ornaments at my parents' house. i hope that one day i'll have a big ornament box to show my family. maybe i'll still have these family dollar bulbs to show them:

they're not so bad, right?

though putting the tree together entailed a lot of running around and putting things together and a second trip to family dollar (i needed another strand of lights- "you just can't get enough of family dollar!" the clerk told me), it was definitely worth it. i'm having christmas on my own this year, and it won't just happen: i have to find the tree, i need to decorate it, i need to buy appropriate holiday liquor and drink it while decorating and listening to the charlie brown christmas soundtrack on repeat. and sure enough, i made it happen.

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the moment

last night i went with james to shea stadium to see DIVE, which is partly comprised of two of my oldest and most favorite bros of all time. i am so proud of them. best new music, holla! when i learned that andrew and cole were in the same band i was excited because i've always loved watching and listening to them perform, and it always felt right to me that they should play together. please run, don't walk, to see them play live, which they do with some frequency here in b-town. i wish the best for them. their music is perfect for right now, when everything is cold and sad and wondrous. winter is almost here. the end of the year is so weird. everybody is celebrating and overindulging and having a good time and picking over every single detail of the last twelve months, endlessly contemplating what was good and what was bad, what you would do if you could go back and fix everything you fucked up, if you could bask in those moments that were more exquisite than you ever could have realized at the time. all of these things occur to you and you want to sit and look out the window and think about them, but then you need to buy a christmas tree, you need to buy christmas presents, you need to buy champagne. none of it makes any sense. tradition dictates that we do these things at this time, no matter how you are feeling and no matter what is going on. i suppose what i am trying to say is that though i love buying the christmas tree and the champagne and the presents, i also like to stare out the window and think about it all, about how we are all supposed to tie the year up into this loud, garish, dizzying knot that is the holidays, and how we are supposed to wake up on january first feeling new, like everything was just a dream and that things will be different. things will be different. you will think, you will look out the window, you will listen to music that will help you think while you look out the window. in addition to the new tom waits and zola jesus albums, i will be adding dive's 7" into my rotation as well. i need more winter music. this is one of the best times to listen to music.

now, if you'll excuse me, i need to settle in and make progress in the paperback version of FREEDOM A NOVEL BY JONATHAN FRANZEN AUTHOR OF THE CORRECTIONS.

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that's life

last night i heard my neighbor having loud, fake, depressing sex at an hour that some may consider to be unreasonable. now i am getting revenge by playing my favorite song of the day on full blast and on repeat.

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a sequence of events

every thursday night john asks me to watch the kids desk and i oblige because it's fun and you can do whatever you want. there are very few customers and absolutely no supervision at that time of night. when he asks me, i take a seat behind the desk. he leaves and goes around the corner to pie while i check facebook, do some online shopping, and peruse the "rants and raves" section of craigslist. when john comes back he says his break was very exciting because detroit scored two home runs against the yankees in under fifteen minutes. after john is back i take my fifteen and i go see patrick, who is unpacking boxes of used paperbacks in the basement. we talk about steve jobs for under a minute. i ask him in a joking way if he's sad that he's dead and he says that it's always sad when somebody dies.

after work we go to get beer and the yankees game is on. they are doing poorly and it feels good. two finicky ladies who argue over the bill sit next to us. people who could have been customers are turned away because it's almost eleven which means that the place is about to close. we ride the train, we say goodbye, and by the time i get into my house the yankees have lost. my computer told me so.

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working at a bookstore

work, read, drink

work, read, drink

work, read, drink

work, read, drink

work, read, drink

read, drink

read, drink

and it goes on.

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this is my favorite movie

cute skater dudes + bomb soundtrack + turnstile-jumping + forties + BROADWAY JUNCTION (what up) + 1-800-COP-SHOT + shitting on the MTA in general = most excellent. i have been thinking about this video a lot because i've been utilizing broadway junction quite a bit lately. it saved my ass during the shuttle bus debacle (and most likely in future shuttle bus debacles), it can take you to the beach or the shittier parts of bushwick where your friends live, there is always a dude selling churros, AND you get to ride that huge badass escalator that makes you feel like it's taking you to heaven and hell at the same time. out of all the subway stations i've visited, broadway junction is always the most entertaining. it's a JUNCTION, which means that everybody is busy; if you are hungry you may buy yourself a stale, sugary treat; and there are stained glass windows to look at and to look out of while you space out as you go up or down those many stairs. it is far out and thus it seems dangerous, but then again there are people on their way to the beach so it must not be that bad. i like it there. i like it when i need to go there to get going.

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words

left my phone off at work and didn't check a single social networking site all day. a girl asked me for the exhibition catalogue for talk to me, which is now at the MoMA. it made me think of how my phone was off and how i hate facebook right now. these things keep talking to me and i keep talking to them and they pass the word along, and though it's convenient and nice it can also be dreadful, as it is with everything i suppose. sometimes i feel like having a phone is like dragging a ball and chain. leave me alone, stop talking to me! only please, please talk to me. it hurts when you tell me nobody has called.

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the makings of a terrible weekend

no L train and the same old shit. i'm angry and need to be sedated. tea won't do it and neither will beer.  i'm overreacting, but it's terrible to feel this way, just like when i was young and trapped inside on a saturday night when all i wanted to do was go to the movies. i knew that if i just tried to move on and think about something else and read a book or work on some writing or artwork then i would forget all about it, but a lot of the time i would just lie on my bed and fume for hours. eventually i would pick up a magazine, and then some scissors, and then i would make little surrealist collages because it was fun and we were learning about surrealism in art class. i cut out pictures of girls and put them on top of waves, inside of flowers, and other places where you wouldn't ever think to look for girls. 

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dreams are boring

last night i had some ambitious reading plans, and to be sure i had already accomplished a lot during the day. despite gulping down three cups of tea, i sunk down into my bed and my eyes began to feel heavy. i decided to put my book down and take a power nap even though it was almost one in the morning. i set the alarm for a half hour later, then another half hour later, and then i gave up and fell asleep. i had a really awful dream. i dreamt that my head and my foot were both injured at work and that they would never be quite right again. i woke up at the sound of andrea coming home, and instead of getting up to brush my teeth and change over my laundry i turned out the light and fell asleep again. it doesn't sound terrifying now, but at the time i was so upset that i couldn't bring myself to finish the things one is supposed to do before retiring. i had another bad dream after that. i was being pursued by the undead and decided to flee by horseback. i am assuming that this scenario arose due to the fact that i had been thinking about horseback riding earlier in the day. i was thinking about whether or not i'd still be able to remember how to saddle a horse after so many years of not riding. well, in my dream i didn't remember, and i was pulling out all of these leather straps that i didn't know what to do with. just before i woke up i think i was contemplating riding away at full speed without a saddle.

writing about dreams isn't interesting because nobody really cares to read about what anybody else dreams. self indulgence! oh well, it is labor day and i am feeling lazy. at least i am actually cooking something? egg salad: i hope i don't fuck it up.

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g.t.f.o.

totally done with summer. terrible work week. am about to get into the shower and then tramp around all over town.

i don't know how to write anymore. these half-sentences will do for now. i'm in the mood for a sulk.

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