flynneoke’s blog

people are forever telling me that i need a week off from any and all kinds of obligation.  i say that's not possible.

and then when it seems like that's finally what i have to do for myself if i intend on making it out of here alive - not sleeping right, not properly digesting anything i eat, every decision that needs to be made has me literally shaking, i can feel my health slipping away from me quick as anything - no one is willing to accept that.

you spend a long time trying to learn how to be idle - which is, you thought, something that happens to others regularly - and when you finally figure it out, no one is willing to understand what you're up to.

my stomach hurts and i am still exhausted.  the thought of making decisions has me literally shaking.  i keep waking up alone and i don't understand why.

Summer Fridays, you're going to end soon, but until you do, I will relish the fact that I can skip out into the world and play at 1pm.

1. I'm starting to realize that fall is approaching, which I generally greet with open arms.  It's my favorite season of all, hands down - pumpkin muffins, roasted butternut squash, corn chowder, the beginning of ice skating season, holding hands on crisp fall days...what's not to love?

(It is no coincidence - or, I would hope, surprise - that most of these things are food related.  The Union Square Greenmarket, for example, is the most exciting thing that could possibly happen to me in the fall.  Apple cider!!)

If I can ever get my super to call me back about fixing the damn oven, the world is going to be in major fall muffin trouble.

2.  Here are some fun things for you to read or look at!

- I can usually do without the Tripwire, but this is a great piece by the late Tony Wilson.  A lot of great people died this week.  That is stupid.
- This is fucking awesome.
- This calls for an obvious audiophile alert: maybe things you knew, maybe not, well written either way.
- And this is about Roosevelt Island, so its interest factor needs no explanation.

3. Today (being August 16th, because I generally write these tidbits on Thursday nights when I'm supposed to be doing Important Stuff) is my parents' 33rd wedding anniversary.  Now, I can't even imagine being alive for thirty-three years, much less alive and living in close proximity to another person.  Maybe I'll be able to say that someday, but even if I start now, I'd be 59 before I could say that.

(Who wants to think about being 59? Not me.)

I just think it's cool that it's possible to be with someone for thirty-three years and still want to make out with them.

4. The new Okkervil River record is completely amazing.  I almost want to say that if you don't like Okkervil River, it's probably because you're too stupid to understand, but that would be really rude and inconsiderate of me so I will just say that everyone's tastes are different!  You should listen to it though.

Actually, the last couple of weeks in albums actually makes me want to buy albums rather badly.  If you have money and you're dying to buy some new records, then you should definitely get that record, plus the new Brunettes release, plus the ginormous Magnolia Electric Company box set, plus the new Mendoza Line album which will break your heart into a million little pieces and make you feel really bad about turning thirty.

5. I have to be honest and say I have no idea what's going on in the world this weekend, because most of my plans revolve around writing, editing, sleeping, and sitting at the movies and hoping someone feeds me cake.  The weeks get longer in the summer, I hear.

I do have to say that there's a new movie about Primo Levi out that I am all about, and if I can find ten dollars, I have to go.  Also competing for the "If I had $10" award of the week are all of the aforementioned records, pretty much any movie out right now, and the really cute tote bags that Art Speigelman designed for the Strand's anniversary.  Also Jason Rodriguez's cool book about postcards!

1.  Last night I was here:

seeing this:

I'm sure there are many things wrong with my life, but I think it's safe to say that the first thing at the top of that list is the fact that I don't dance enough.  I can't remember the last time I felt that good.  The only thing better than dancing is dancing to robots.

2. This is a great article about why we are stupid about eating.

3. If my life were the Oregon Trail, this would be the week where my axle broke and two of the oxen wandered away and then the wagon tipped over in the river and little Billy drowned, which was probably for the best because the little fellow had dysentery anyway.  But in the end we wandered upon someone else's tipped over wagon and inherited a couple of their oxen and a new axle or two and some pounds of squirrel.

Um, yeah.  Anyway.

4.  One of my closest friends and I have the kind of relationship where we sort of bitch and complain back and forth at each other (and usually about each other), which really works out well for us.  This week, for some odd reason - perhaps because I actually really need it - he has been the source of some of the sweetest and best nuggets of advice and good faith that I've ever experienced.  Where I would be without that, I'd rather not know.

5. Sometimes people will confuse you in the biggest ways possible and all you can do is remember that they don't mean it like that.  That said, it seems sort of apt that Time Out New York this week is all about where to go to be alone.

I spent last weekend sitting in my apartment writing and researching and writing more, and the only people I talked to were those I was interviewing over the phone.    It's rare - particularly because I have to admit I'm not too good of an interviewer - to find yourself in an hourlong conversation with someone that feels like just that: a conversation with a friend rather than an interview with a stranger.  And at those moments, it feels incredibly odd to hang up the phone and not say "let's hang out soon"

You begin to wonder if you really are alone in all your very strange ways of thinking, and then you get an email back that says "let's catch up when I'm back in New York!", like maybe they too forgot that you're supposed to be strangers.

I'm still obsessed with words and thoughts, and to that end, how badly do I need this?!

My stomach is among the things that have been broken.

I'm not sure of when exactly it happened, but if I had to venture a guess, I would say it was January.   There are moments when if you ask how my life is going, I will tell you that it is lovely, it is amazing, and I will mean it.  But I will be forgetting little things here and there, I will be double-booking my evenings on accident, I will not be writing things down or "getting work done."  I will be sort of floating along in a little haze of contentment until the moment I sit down and try to make myself a to-do list and realize that the things that need to go on it are too many to count.

In these moments, my body is the first thing to go.

Three years ago, it was my lungs that went.  Slowly, they punched merry little holes in themselves, warnings that trouble was up ahead.  I was beginning to admit to my self that best friend at the time had few redeeming qualities; I was trying to gauge exactly how I felt about this new boy in my life; I was trying to balance the new responsibilities of freelancing for two magazines while carrying on a full-time job and worrying, in the back of my mind, whether I'd ever make it back to school again.

I had, I suppose, some major shit brewing.  But before the flurry of activity could explode of its own accord, my lungs did them a favor and my body exploded instead.  My lungs, it turns out, were among the things that had been broken.

Casualties from the months of December 2006 to March 2007: my ability to climb stairs without getting short of breath, the aforementioned best friend, any hope of romance, a few thousand dollars, my personal sense of privacy, one freelance writing gig, and the idea that I could run around New York and drink and go to shows and see all of my friends and meet new people every night, and still get work done (sleep optional.)

The haze swept back in with the New Year of 2007; the next thing I knew, there were relationships sprouting up everywhere, one of which was my own, and a few key people began to pervade my life in ways they'd never done before.  I began, in the face of impending social obligation, to paint myself as a sort of powerhouse of work in the face of whom sleep cowered and the concept of "overbooking" seemed laughable.

The haze is fucking dangerous.  One of these days, the haze is going to kill me.

This time, luck.  This time, the damage is either unsevere or slowly penetrating (time, I suppose, will tell) and the physical manifestation of the haze is my stomach's inability to function properly.  Hunger layers itself with indigestion; certain valves that I imagine the digestive system to have simply don't open when they ought, unless you whisper some secret fibrous password at a certain time of day and then cross your fingers and hope.  Something is not right here, and I bear the burden with a measure of uncertainty.  What have I done to myself this time?

New, too, are the moments where I break down completely, and instead of tears or tantrums I simply find myself unable to walk one step further or make one more decision; I stand in the street and declare that I'm through and wait for someone to lead me away from harm.  What it all means, I'm not sure, besides the obvious: with all the haze of good comes the weight of a handful more responsibilities, and the attempts to juggle the two will literally harm my health.

And so my stomach is broken, and my head along with it.

My family is characterized by, and overwhelmed with, an extraordinary sense of love.  It has taken years to mature and become what it ought, and almost too much trial and error: misguided channeling of energy has always been our greatest fault.  You never forget the moments when your universe feels like it’s exploding; at the age of four, I sat watching The Toy with my dad at 3am after my parents had a fight and my mother walked out on him.  I don’t remember the screaming having been as bad as it was on so many future occasions, but the aftermath was so thick with tension that I thought we would possibly die there.  I couldn’t imagine that my family would have a tomorrow together.

There were plenty of those moments, and there will always be.  Somehow, though, we have gotten older and they are fewer and farther between.  We have not forgotten our anger, but we’ve channeled all our tensions into being excited about being a family instead of being irritated at every realization that we don’t know how.  It’s easier now, because we aren’t the same people.  How that happened, I’ll never quite tell, but it was through a series of complicated events that began with my sister having a baby and continued with my move halfway across the country, my mother’s suicidal phase, my life-threatening illness, and the mere fact of my father getting old.  Somewhere along the line, we turned into a happy (albeit off-kilter) family.  And as weird as we all secretly think each other, we all know this brand of love is unique.

I always feel as though I'm being nostalgic about my parents' house until I get here and it's everything I want it to be. And now and again I bring someone else and they're amazed; I look at Drew and know this is just the kind of place he's been needing.  I wake up early and sometimes even go for a run; I drink endless cups of coffee and read on porches in the sun. I have peach juice running down my arm as I write this.  If ever I could win that pot of gold, I could see myself sending my parents on a world trip and making their home ours for a month.  Writing, recording, playing the stereo as loud as possible at all times; it's like having a child's dream playhouse, only it's where my family actually lives.  This is uninhabited grass to roll around upon, and while I may always have an agenda, this may well be the only place I never feel rushed.  I am overwhelmed by how the weekend has turned out: my family and our friends coming and going, the grill fired up and nearly always in action, the cups of morning coffee turning into afternoon cocktails and then back into coffee again in the evening. 

And somehow we all get along.  I'm pretty sure real life isn't supposed to be like this.

Of course, there are many different versions of reality, and if you view this one from a slightly cloudier angle, you find the poverty, the struggle, the deaths, the illnesses, and the general overarching sense of drama that pervades my family's existence.  What I will take away from these visits is always what I choose to take away, and as the experience fades and my cranky New York self (where did it come from? how do I get rid of it?) kicks back in, a seed has been planted:

endless cups of coffee

fresh fruit

fresh grass

porches

It’s like some kind of magic formula that will unlock the sanity I’m staunchly convinced that I have lost.  Is it possible to have it all? I simultaneously worry, and also wonder if it's possible that I already do.

It's the first Friday Five on a bona fide Friday since I-can't-remember when, and I must say, I find my prediliction for spreadsheets to be nothing short of alarming. 

1. At some point last week, I stopped dead in my Crown Point ad-saleing, Impose-feature-planning, job-interviewing, music-curating, Sanctuary-Recording tracks and had the crushing realization that I work really hard.  I could be wrong, and I'm sure I could be working a lot harder, but I'm relatively convinced that the aforementioned is true.  The crushing part comes with the knowledge that with all of that work does not come success, or even financial well being.  I am still unsuccessful, I am still broke, and the feeling that I do this much with no result makes me feel like an incredible failure.

Enter this into my life sometime yesterday morning.  Sometimes unexpected things can touch you, and sometimes new-agey sounding terms like "finding your Why" can all of a sudden make a great deal of sense. This video made me tear up a little bit, and got my brain started down the path that Simon's comments are meant to take us.  Looking underneath it all for the Why, it will always make sense; I guess that doesn't always make the What easier to swallow.

(Sidenote: I have long been impressed by the breadth and variety of truly intriguing stuff that PSFK covers and the amount of new things it exposes me to on those rare occasions when I actually remember to check the site.  "Sometimes I think finding out about new things IS my Why," I said this morning to the article's sender, and I think there may well be a lot of truth to that, terrified as I can be of the new.)

2. A couple of days after the "all work no payoff" realization, I had the subsequent realization that all I have been doing is working.  Some of it's been “work work”, some of it's been other work, some of it's been personal, but work it has been nonetheless.  And I started to realize that the summer is passing me by, and all my lofty (read: silly) little goals are left unexplored, and I haven't seen most of my friends very much at all.

This makes me feel like one of those "someone who became part of a couple and disappeared" people, but in reality Drew sees me because he shows up at my house or because he lures me to his house with the promise of the internet.  In conclusion, I really miss my friends. I really miss spontaneity.  I really miss going on dates.  I know these things will happen again, but I don't want to see the end of summer pass without those kinds of memories.

3. Wisconsin, however, was brilliant.  I have undoubtedly never had a better time with my family.  Endless cups of coffee, afternoon cocktails, lying in the grass writing and eating an incredible farm-stand peach with its juice running down my arm, I started to think about when it will happen: the day I leave New York for the country.  It may be five years from now, it may be ten, but it will happen someday if I'm lucky.

And then there will be a dog.

4. I quite desperately want to see <a href="http://www.myspace.com/theswellseason”>The Swell Season at Gramercy Theater next week and I may well actually shell out the cash to do so.  Call me crazy but I love that Frames guy quite a bit.

In other music news, the new Stars album is unsurprisingly lovely.  Thank god.

5. Architecture in Helsinki! Live on the street! Wacky crazy!!

t is once again "Fake Friday", ensuring that I am doomed to never really know what day it is.

1) This evening circa 8:55 PM, Kim, Drew, and I will hit the skies headed for cheese, beer, sausage, and the fine cornfields of Wisconsin.  I am so excited.  (See also: Dairy Queen.)  I intend on doing nothing but eat and drink on the porch for two days.

Here's hoping I don't get us lost on the way there and that I find something to bring my parents as a "we're crashing your house" gift.  When asked if he would like anything from New York, Pat's response was "Cristalle."  I'm not sure I can find a suitable consolation prize.

2) This is a lovely article. You should read it. (Edit: so is this.

3) I almost hate to say it – and I'm a bit late in doing so, regardless – but the new Mark Ronson album is kind of genius.

4) I come up fairly often with new ways of praying to higher beings I can't be bothered to decide I believe in; it sounds less than convincing, but I swear there's some kind of faith in there.  Bruce says it best when he follows up his assertions of faith with the line "there's magic in the night"; I suppose that's all you need to know.  I'm leaving some decisions up to the fates, and I'm spending a lot of time wondering why people have such a hard time holding up to their ends of the deal. I guess those are two separate thoughts, but this week they're all intertwined.  Continually frustrated by emails that miss the both, emails that never come, meetings that have me sitting and wondering "is this really how we're going to play this?", I know I can't be the only one who has a fucking clue because at the end of the day I'm not sure I have one at all.

At the same time, though, is it an inherent part of the "30 is the new 20" mentality that we're all so loathe to take responsibility for ourselves, our actions, and the things that we need to get done?  Is it really that fucking hard?

Faith. Responsibility.  I'll admit that I'm not sure how they tie together but I know they do.

5) If you're looking for something to do on Saturday night, there's a bang-up Impose party hitting Glasslands – I suggest you get your ass over there.  Barring that, it comes as no surprise that the new Harry Potter movie is awesome.

It is not technically Friday; however, most good people are off for the rest of the week and some of us suckers are off for the next day and a half and then have to come back to work. Here's a fake Friday list in honor of the occasion.

1.
# of iphones i've seen this week: 0
# of people i've seen tape their phone to their ipod and say "look i got an iphone!": 2
# of barbeque invites: 2
# of conflicting plans made for tonight: 3
# of dollars made by trading in shitty cds that were sitting on my desk at work: 33
# of hours spent listening to crown point festival band submissions: 4
# of times i've listened to the most listened song on my ipod: 79
# of times i've thought about eating a cupcake this morning: countless
# of times i have actually eaten a cupcake this morning: suprisingly, none
# of times i have been annoyed this morning: 3

2. Remember when I got all excited about seeing Passing Strange and then didn't realize until Sunday morning that it closed this weekend? Whoops.

3. If there is anyone in the universe who wants to see the Lady Chatterley movie with me, let me know. It looks good and I love DH Lawrence. If you're laughing right now you obviously don't appreciate good literature.

4. Impose Issue 28 is available online! Click here to download that business - and if you're at Siren Fest in a few weeks, pick up a print copy with our Summer Sampler CD, which kicks even more ass this year than in the ones prior. Also mark your calendars for the issue's release party on July 13th at Glasslands. I will not be there because Derek only schedules the best parties for when I'm out of town. It's kind of a special bond we have, me and Derek.

No, really. Of all the people I've been so proud to know lately (and let me tell you, there have been many), he's up on top of that list. I nearly cried a million times at the Rabbit Factory-hosted show at Southpaw a few weeks back, and not just because the music was great. When I think of all he's accomplished in the few years I've been lucky enough to know him, I'm blown away. I will never, ever, stop feeling so lucky to be surrounded by extraordinary people who for some reason call themselves my friends.

Have I mentioned that the magazine keeps getting better and better, and will continue to do so?

5. I have way too many things to do to come up with a #5. As always, please feel free to get in touch if you're willing to be an unpaid personal assistant. I do make great desserts and I'm sort of cute, though - isn't that payment enough?

0. Sorry to everyone who called and/or texted me last night. My phone died and then went crazy and I got none of said messages till nine o'clock this morning, though I doubt that any of them were actually sent at such time.

1. Murray's Bagels will forever be one of my favorite things in life. Marble rye bagel with tofu veggie cream cheese, onion, and tomato with a large iced coffee? Fucking heaven. I feel sorry for people who are afraid of carbohydrates. Carbs are not the reason people get fat. The reason people get fat is because they get scared of carbs and yet continue to do things like drink thousand calorie frappuccinos at lunch.

(There's about half of a raw onion on this thing. Probably it's best not to come close to me today, especially since I quit chewing gum.)

2. I am dying to see Passing Strange, and this weekend I intend on selling my belongings on Ebay so that I can justify dropping the extra cash to do so. Stew remains one of this city's mainstays and is yet still something of an enigma; I find it fascinating and amazing, and every single review I've read of this piece has made me more intrigued.

3. What I am about to say is definitely no secret to anyone, but it remains something that I rarely say aloud. Today, of all days, I want to call it out. It's funny, too, because the person in question isn't a fan of the phrase, and I understand why; it's been overused in our language so much that it's lost a certain contextual punch that it used to have. But like I told him last week, I'm stealing it back; when I say things, I always want to be sure that I mean them clearly.

What I'm trying to say here is that there's someone in my life right now who's a strange amalgamation of qualities that I suppose I've been looking for in a guy for a long time. He's an incredible chef, the kind that hasn't had classic training or been ruined by anyone else's ideas; as such, the things he come up with are always fresh, new, and exciting. He once baked me a cake for no reason and delivered it to me complete with an extra cup of butterscotch frosting. (It was even vegan.) He's a musician, and a great one at that; I'm continually struck dumb by his song structures. He's way more attractive than me, and yet I fit into his shirts well enough to wear them in a pinch. He takes care of me when I need it. He buys me dinner when I'm broke. We have a certain unspoken understanding about the amount of work I generally need to do at night, and he's perfectly happy to nap or draw or work on his own shit while I get it done; we can go on dates, but we can also just co-exist together. He dances with me – in my apartment, in dive bars, on the streets of the city that we're both dying to conquer. And he makes me French toast on Sunday mornings.

I have no idea what the fuck the future holds, and my Myspace profile will probably always tell you I'm single. Neither of these things change the fact that I'm eleventeen kinds of in love with my boyfriend.

4. This weekend will be my first entire weekend off in almost a year. I find this kind of crazy, kind of overwhelming, and kind of exciting. I may even go to a tea party!

5. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think about how many extraordinary people I'm lucky to know, and I really can't figure out how the fuck I lucked out so much. I find this, too, crazy and overwhelming and exciting – to the point where I can't even pick out the right words to discuss it right now, so I shan't.

Happy weekend!

My sources tell me it's Friday.

1) The New York Times article on ice cream in the city this week has me itching for Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. My brain has already starting concocting plans (Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory is right by Between the Bridges is right by Superfine is right by 68 Jay is the death of me) that my stomach would kill me for.

And believe you me, my stomach is killing me already. We need some kind of deal terms to be struck pronto.

2) Throughout the course of yesterday, I formulated a goal for the next year that's almost too auspicious to possibly come true, but if I aim high I can at least get partway there if I'm lucky. It is one thing to say "in a year's time, I want to be able to get a dog." It is entirely another to figure out everything that goes along with that. Regardless, I got very excited about it and ran off last night after dinner eager to discuss it, only to fall asleep upon arrival instead.

If only in a year's time I could be promised a a dog that looks like a bear cub , or a white and fuzzy little ball of joy, or a dog named after one of my favorite authors , or a dog named after Bru!

3) Speaking of Bru, it's about to be his birthday! I can't wait to celebrate tomorrow night at one of everyone's new favorite bar / hangouts, The Creek and The Cave. I can't think of anything better than burritos, cake, whiskey, and a special performance by aldenbarton to commemorate such an event. You should come. It's going to be seventeen kinds of delightful. As a bonus value add, it's a birthday celebration for PaulBates! too, and I think you all know how I feel about Paul Bates. He's been working on his harmonies and let me tell you, they are killer.

4) My ipod broke again a few days ago, by which I mean it suddenly decided it had no music on it and needed to be reformatted. I've grown accustomed to such events, but as it happened I've only had three albums on it for the last three days. This is how I know that I can say to you with utmost confidence that the Shout Out Louds' "Tonight I Have to Leave It" EP is a bit of simple summer pleasure. For some reason, I'm not even bothered by listening to two remixes of the title track in a row; it's just that lovely.

And their cover of "Streams of Whiskey"? Well, duh.

5) I can't believe it's nearly the end of June and I have barely, if at all, scratched the surface of my summer goals (being, of course, to discover the best in NYC's offerings in the categories of dive bar, Mexican food, and peanut butter dessert.) I could blame a lack of funds, but I would much rather blame myself.