My sister graduated from high school on Thursday!
June 2009
The First Ward
I’ve been in Buffalo for about three days for my sister’s graduation and, while I don’t really have much time here, I had to get some picture-taking in. For all of the culture and economic prosperity that New York City has, it really doesn’t quite appeal to me as much as dear old Buffalo. I was hanging out with Russell on Tuesday and suggested that we go to the Lovejoy neighborhood to take some pictures. On the way there, we drove past the First Ward and I immediately instructed him to exit the expressway so we could take pictures there instead. We walked around for about half an hour, snapping photos of the old industrial neighborhood. I’m really starting to sound like a broken record, the way I say “I LOVE BUFFALO” every five seconds whenever I come home.
Junk Shopping
Katrina, Elaina, Carolina, and I went to the junk store in Williamsburg aptly named Junk. Elaina was in the market for a mirror and Katrina was in the market for some chairs. Carolina and I were pretty much along for the ride in Katrina’s pretty red convertible. I ended up purchasing two vintage Coke bottles which look pretty cute as decorations in my kitchen. The ride back was kind of an adventure. Elaina and Carolina had to endure two large chairs on their laps while I tried to hold onto a mirror in the front seat. Katrina meanwhile tried her best to navigate the winding, jam-packed streets of Williamsburg without running over any women with strollers. I do not understand how people even bother to own cars in New York City. It took us so long to get through the rush hour traffic that we might as well have walked.
Freddie Vs. Boredom
So, I am pretty much bored out of my mind. This is my millionth week of being without steady employment. Having little spending money and not much to keep me occupied is making life incredibly dull. I know that I live in the most awesomest city on the planet and I’m crazy to just sit around twiddling my thumbs all day, but I have excuses! One: metro cards cost money. Because I’ve been out of school all of this month, it doesn’t really make sense to purchase a monthly unlimited card. I’ve had to resort to buying one ride at a time and those $2.25s really add up. Two: IT WILL NOT STOP RAINING.
Seriously. What is with this rain? I feel like it started raining sometime in April and it hasn’t really let up since. It seems like every day, I sleep in until noon and wake up to thunderstorms and apocalyptic rain outside of my window. There are brief glimpses of sunlight like yesterday, but it’s been pretty much miserable 90% of the time. I’ve decided to blame the recession for my unemployment and global warming for this awful weather.
The day before yesterday, it was so stormy outside that I did not leave my apartment at all. In fact, I stayed in my pajamas and on my couch staring at the computer screen the entire day. After a while, the hours sort of melted away and it was one in the morning and I had a migraine and was surrounded by snack foods and banana peels. It was pretty disgusting.
In a vain attempt to ward off my boredom, I’ve started watching a ridiculous amount of horror films. When food is boring, you put hot sauce on it. When life is boring, you watch horror movies. In the past week or so, I’ve watched Scream 1, Scream 2, Nightmare on Elm St. 2, The Blair Witch Project, Joy Ride, Friday The 13th, and The Shining. Nightmare on Elm St. 2 could possibly be one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen simply because of its hilarious and unintentional gay subtext. It’s free to stream on Netflix, so if you have that, watch it. It’s so worth your time. There’s a scene in the film where Freddie Krueger murders the high school gym teacher by stripping him naked, tying him backwards to the locker room showers, whipping his rear-end telekinetically with towels, and then scratching his back to death. It’s intense. The Blair Witch Project was kind of a disappointment. The Shining was AWESOME.
Last night, my roommates and I decided to throw a super awesome Late-Night Movie Pajama Pancake Party (exclamation point)! We rented a projector from Pratt and bought enough food to make everybody in attendance morbidly obese: pancake mix, chocolate chips, blueberries, walnuts, pickles, Kool-Aid, tortilla chips, cheese doodles, popcorn, beef sausages, and cheese grits (AKA Britney Spears’ Breakfast of choice). Friday The 13th and The Shining were watched at this event. The projector rental was free from the Pratt library and I wondered why I had never done this before. Watching a movie from a projector while laying on a mountain of pillows and being surrounded by every kind of junk food is probably one of the most fun things a person can do.
Alright. So I’m kind of movied out. at the moment. I hope I get a job soon.
Yes, she still exists.
I was on the train into the city yesterday to drop off job applications (I’m super poor) and I heard somebody shout “Maxwell Tielman” from across the car. Looking up from my magazine, I saw that it was Lauren, somebody that I’ve been trying to hang out with for ages. The problem with leaving Pratt is that I hardly see any of my Pratt friends anymore and our conversations have been whittled down to facebook messages that say things like, “We should hang out!” — “Yes, totally!! Soon!”
I got up and went across the train to sit down next to Lauren. I told her that I was on my way to apply for jobs and she told me that she was going to see Mandy Moore in concert. Being an über Mandy Moore fan since A Walk To Remember came out, I got super excited. It turned out that if you bought a copy of her new album at Best Buy, you could use your receipt to get into a “special acoustic performance.” So, you buy the album for $12 and get a free concert ticket! Not a bad deal!
I hopped off the train at Spring Street to pass out resumes and applications, but soon wandered over to the nearest Best Buy to pick up the album. From there, I walked over to the venue where the show would be (some place called the Highline Ballroom). I met Lauren in line and there were only about ten other people in front of us. Apparently, Mandy isn’t nearly as popular now that she has crossed over to singer/songwriter territory, but that was all the better for us. After a few hours, Lauren’s friend Abby came to meet us in line and, at 7pm, the doors opened.
We scurried inside and found ourselves literally one person away from the stage. If we wanted to, we could reach out and touch it. We passed the time before the show started discussing old Mandy Moore videos and contemplating whether or not it would be in good taste to ask her to sing “Candy.” At around 8:30, they dimmed the lights and Mandy, Mike Viola (her guitarist), and her keyboard player walked out onto the stage. And it was pretty awesome. I was kind of scared that Mandy wouldn’t talk to the audience or it would be that awful scripted talking that a lot of teen-pop stars do, but she was actually quite personable. It was also kind of weird that like ten years ago, she was basically the same as Britney Spears and now, here she was, singing folk music in front of just a few hundred people.
Check out how close we were (photos by Lauren):
