morning song

woke up this morning with this song in my head:

i had a lot of good intentions
sit around for fifty years and then collect a pension
started seeing the road to hell and just where it starts

but my life is more than a vision
the sweetest part is acting after making a decision
i started seeing the whole as a sum of its parts

i look behind my ears for the green
even my sweat smells clean
glare off the white hurts my eyes

gotta get out of bed get a hammer and a nail
learn how to use my hands, not just my head
i think myself into jail

now i know a refuge never grows
from a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose
gotta tend the earth if you want a rose

my life is part of the global life
i'd found myself becoming more immobile
when i'd think a little girl in the world can't do anything.

a distant nation my community
a street person my responsibility
if i have a care in the world, i have a gift to bring

i look behind my ears for the green
even my sweat smells clean
glare off the white hurts my eyes

gotta get out of bed get a hammer and a nail
learn how to use my hands, not just my head
i think myself into jail

now i know a refuge never grows
from a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose
gotta tend the earth if you want a rose

song:  hammer and a nail
artist:  indigo girls
album:  nomads indians saints

david duchovny

early last week, i found out that david duchovny would be appearing on the daily show with jon stewart to promote his new movie house of d.  having not thought of him for years, i immediately reverted to the x-files-loving fanboy with a huge crush on fox mulder in my heart and bree sharp's lyrical tribute in my head: 

i can't wait anymore
for him to discover me
i've got it bad for
david duchovny

david duchovny
why won't you love me?

quite belatedly, i realized that i had never seen the video to this musical gem and suddenly had to track it down.

i have posted the fruit of my labors — the best version of the video i could find on the web (link below).  the quality ain't great, but it's big enough to enjoy (larger than other versions out there) and includes not only the jerry springer epilogue but the credits and outtakes as well.  watch for my favorite cameos — gillian anderson, sarah michelle gellar (buffy!), brad pitt and george clooney (with a basketball).

david duchovny, 9.2 MB, real video (.ram) file

relevant tidbit #1:  my friend sue was bree's roommate for four years.  according to sue, bree never got a chance to meet david — at least, not as a result of the song.  the video was put together for fun by members of the x-files production team.  since it was never an "official" music video for the song, bree never even received a copy on tape (though i'm guessing that the free publicity probably didn't hurt).

relevant tidbit #2:  while we attended the taping of gillian anderson's appearance on the daily show a few years back, neither sue nor i went to see david's.  as we established long ago, we love gillian more because she is, by far, the better actor, as fight the future can attest.  hmmm...house of mirth, house of d?  a pattern emerges...

(ir)relevant tidbit #3:  i love love LOVE playing by heart, starring both gillian anderson and jon stewart — as a couple, no less.

flashback weekend

(Lovingly ripped-off from matt mireles.)

friday, 4/8

i stay late at the office to finish up some work, even though i'm exhausted.  this has been a rough week, with my boss coming down hard on our team and us underlings not taking it very well — mutiny in the making. 

at around 7:45 pm, just before i'm about to leave, i receive a voicemail from sean, letting me know that he, billy and shelly have arrived at the leona helmsley suites on 42nd and 3rd for the weekend.  so, instead of heading to brooklyn, i take the shuttle from times square to grand central and meet up with the gang at their hotel room.  while waiting for the boys to primp and prep, i catch the premiere episode of life with fran.  i give it a month before cancellation.  from there, we head down to the east village.

at first, i'm at a loss as to where to bring them for dinner — not that they have any expectations or are even all that hungry, but i still want to be a good host.  i decide to steer us towards yaffa café (or, as sean and i would say, 'cuh-FAY').  i haven't been there in years and don't remember what i even liked about the place, but i can just see that black & white photo of a screaming woman clear as day in my head. 

as soon as we walk in, it all comes back to me — the decor, the patterns, the funky christmas lights everywhere.  in many ways, it's perfect for sean.  we enjoy our meal and have the waiter with the australian accent (hot!) take our picture.

after that, it's an evening of bar-hopping.  we hit starlight, where we lounge and people-watch.  after that, we go to phoenix, where the bathrooms stink and the touch-screen video game in the back takes up most of our attention.  finally, we wander down 14th street looking for a bar called nowhere, which i almost miss until shelly points out the awning five yards in front of us.  we walk into the empty bar, grateful to be able to sit down and use up three pre-paid selections someone left on the jukebox.

by 1 am, i'm crashing — i'm not as young as i used to be, blinky-blink.  we head over to third avenue and i send them back to their hotel in a cab while i catch one heading the other way.

saturday, 4/9

after a day of errands for me and shopping for the others, we reconvene at 10:30 pm on spring & lafayette before heading down to little italy for dinner.  again, i take them to one of my old favorites, paesano's.  the first time i tried this place was in the summer of 1994, when my friend christos and i walked back to the nyu dorms from the brooklyn bridge in the rain.  that time i ordered the carbonara, and this time i try the spaghetti with meatballs. 

i give sean a belated present for a long-forgotten occasion — in memory of karaoke night at spectrum, i bought him the music-only soundtrack to the musical wicked.  shelly informs me that i have made the ride home for her ten times more enjoyable.  (yes, that's sarcasm.)

afterwards, we head to chelsea in search of g bar.  for the second night in a row, i feel completely lost and realize that i haven't been out in so long that i literally don't know where to go.  we finally ask for directions from the doorman at splash and head over (after one last detour).  at g, we fight through the crowd, take ten minutes to get our first drinks, and finally grab some seats.

one of the dangerous parts of going out is the music — a good or bad night out can make you love or hate a song, regardless of its merits.  case in point:  while i have heard and generally don't like j. lo's single "get right," i now find myself smiling whenever i hear it because it now reminds me of laughing with friends at g.  on the plus side, gwen stefani's "holla back" is now on my ipod.

at around 1 am, g starts to empty out but the music gets louder and more monotonous.  we start to yell to make ourselves heard.  at one point, sean has a run in with some annoying straight girls whose flirtations with the bartender interfere with his ordering another round.  finally, we decide to leave, but not before sean gets even.

after g, we head over to barracuda, which is also crowded.  we find some seats in the back and relax.  sean and i re-live some of our highlights from our trips together, and i realize just how much of a party slut i really had been for a good two years.  despite all the crazy crap i experienced back in 2001, i have to say a lot of fun times followed.  a few regrets along the way, sure, and i don't think i could do it again now.  i guess, it's good that i did when i did.

by 2 am, everyone is tired, and i take sean, billy and shelly to 23rd to catch another cab.  as i say good-bye, i realize that i half-expect to see them again during the week, as if they all live here and not in boston. 

sunday, 4/10

looking at a card i received on thursday night, with a bulldog on the front and some writing inside.  joe has been away for over a week, attending first a conference in ohio and then in florida.  we've only been living together for three months, but the place really does feel empty without him here, even (or especially) with the apartment full of his stuff. 

before joe left, we got into a little fight — me stressing out about stupid things like vacation plans and money.  there was a moment when i was wondering (and slightly worried) about what life would be like on my own again. 

living by myself for a week and going out with sean for the last two nights was very close to revisiting my single life.  i have to say, i had a lot of fun — the irony/paradox/catch-22 being that i was only able to really let go and enjoy myself because i have a boyfriend and didn't have the stress that (for me) goes with being on the make. 

i also realized, receiving joe's card, that i'm really lucky that i have someone who wants to be with me, even if/when/after i act stupid and we get into fights and don't always get along.  i've been with and fallen for people who have been so in love with the idea of being in love that they couldn't or weren't willing to deal with the harsh realities of two all-too-human and flawed individuals trying to work out their own baggage while learning about each other.  (hell, i'm sure i've been that person.)  don't get me wrong — the honeymoon phase of a relationship is great, but i learned pretty quickly that what comes afterwards is the real deal.

basically, i'm ready for joe to come home.

Update

sean has posted pictures from the weekend.