it would seem that, unbenownst to me, somewhere along the line i learned how to play a pretty wicked game of pool.

it's good to keep surprising yourself.

dig our prandial masterpiece.

i was attempting to give y'all one more installment of the guide to new york before everyone in this country shuts down and chains themselves to their stoves in the pursuit of what i consider to be the best holiday of all time: thanksgiving. a day whose entire point is to sit around with the people you love, eat a lot of food, get really drunk, and think about what makes you happy. what you're thankful for.

• my friends, who know without fail when to just sit back and let me operate on auto-witter and when to step in and call me on my bullshit. who are always on call to mop up a broken heart and always up for a night of debauchery and debate. they challenge me, surprise me, amaze me, make me crazy and make me proud. if the mettle of a man (or woman) can be discerned by the company (s)he keeps, then it's no wonder that my fits of self-loathing have grown so much fewer and further between; if i am to be judged by my friends, then i must be beautiful, brilliant, kind, caring, talented, fierce, strong and worldly to deserve so many people with those qualities in my life.  tribe, i salute thee, and i am thankful that you have all become a part of my life. i don't know what i'd do without you.
• my family. for all my grousing about my family, for all the frustration and anger that i frequently vent about my blood-clan, i am thankful for them, because without them i would not be the girl i am today. their largely hands-off method of parenting has left me fiercely independent and tough as nails, because i've always been expected to take care of my day-to-day myself. but without fail, when the shit really goes down, i know they're there for me. and that makes it easier to go out and risk myself to do what i want, because i know that i've got the big guns sitting in the wings to help me with damage control. family, i salute thee! personally, i think you did a pretty good job with me, for all my faults and issues.
• my dreams, and the fact that there are people other than myself who believe in them.
• my voice.
• myself, because i'm pretty fond of who i've become. and because i'm pretty proud of the life i've carved out for myself, warts and all.
• whiskey.

there's more, of course, but those are the big ones.

happy thanksgiving, kids. may yours be warm, trauma-free, and full of a buffy marathon.

as i type, fairy lights are being hung by the cubicles with care by sally sue (in a desperate attempt to raise morale a little for the holidays)...the mistletoe mafia is brewing its wiles to launch the party of the season...and therein lies today's conundrum. we promised one of the guests that we would find the best and brightest of all holiday songs to provide our background noise, which means: time to concoct the mix. here's what i'm plotting so far:
santa baby-eartha kitt/you're a mean one, mr. grinch/yuleman vs. the anti-claus-the bobs/christmas wrapping-the waitresses/jingle bells-brian setzer orchestra/santa claus is coming to town-jackson five (though that might be just a little too horrible)/christmas time is here-a charlie brown christmas/jingle bells-ray charles (please god, let me find this)/what are you doing new year's-rufus wainwright...

...and that's where my suggestions taper off. help me out here, kids! what songs would you add to my (not-so) fabulous christmas mix?

i'm having some trouble thinking of anything to say today, so until my brain comes back online, here's what i look like when i'm actually happy.

(thanks for the pic, jason!)

update: it has been brought to my attention that the 'when i'm happy' tag implies that i am not happy right now. which is a TRAGIC LIE! life is good, liebchens. i'm just having a brain stall.

that is all!

"you have what they call a 'dove face,'" he said, drawing mine towards him for closer inspection. "tiny mouth, pointed chin...valentine-heart shaped."

it all started with a crisis of ego transformed to a crisis of recovery, with me at the epicenter trying to figure out if i still had it in me to be the object of desire and had it in me yet to enjoy it. and that is why i allowed this man, this humorless professor, to kiss me. i needed a barometer. i needed to know. as it happened, i tried very hard to fall headlong into the moment and revel in the effect i clearly had on this man, revel in the long-missed touch of another... but all i could think was 'this is the wrong mouth;' 'these are the wrong hands' and 'these are the wrong kisses.'

my suspicion was confirmed by the first words out of his mouth when we broke for breath: "such a small mouth...i bet you give great head with that small mouth."

i've said it before, and i'll say it again:
Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to Junior's Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
--tom robbins, still life with woodpecker.

founded in 1950 by harry rosen, junior's deli is a brooklyn landmark and a local legend. frankly, it's so well known that there's not really much i can say about it that you couldn't find on a dozen other sites inside of a minute. but i can tell you this much:

be sure to try the cornbread. trust me.

their sandwiches are always and without fail the size of your head, so be prepared to get it wrapped up to go. either that or fast for at least three days before your visit.

be advised that the devil's food cheesecake should only be attempted by professional chowhounds: it's a cheesecake INSIDE a chocolate cake. not for the faint of heart. but really, the original and unadorned version is so great that such a creation is really not necessary to get the proper experience.

you can order a cheesecake from anywhere in the US and have it shipped within a day. so, even if you can't make it out to the corner of flatbush and dekalb, you can have a little slice of brooklyn (and heaven) sent door-to-door.

and there you go! a little cheesecake lovin' for your friday afternoon. if you want to know more about junior's but a plane ticket is a far cry from reality, you can also check this out, and dream...
picture credit little owl.

on the street where i work, right on the dirty outskirts of the fashion district, there are many shops crammed full of strange things. my favorite is one whose name i can't remember (largely because it's obscured by scaffolding, and thus not burned into my consciousness every day), but its windows are full of strange and mysterious parts belonging to ancient sewing machines, scissors that date back to the victorian era if they're a day, and a number of old-fashioned dressmakers dummies in varying states of decreptitude. i love passing this place, where the sweat-stained light fixtures give the long, narrow room a feeling of otherworldliness, as though you're looking behind the scenes of your own mind. or perhaps someone else's.

today, it gave me a little tour down my own wistful primrose path, though all flashes and minutae. a painfully bright day just before graduation and the destruction of a mannequin by way of insertion into a dish chute (not entirely unlike a dumbwaiter) in the school kitchens. i remember the way the freshly cut grass smelled, i remember the way the sunshine clung to my clothes for a good ten minutes before being vanquished by the cellar-like air of the kitchen, i remember the feeling of abandon, of freedom, of glee in a little bit of mindless destruction. i remember the clover puffball that i'd fashioned into a ring. but i can't remember who i was with, or why we were there, or where the damn mannequin had come from.

i could paint you a picture in freeze frame, but the narrative is long gone.

now that it is both raining and approaching thanksgiving, i find my interest in cooking is waxing quite a bit. while nowhere near the epic proportions it had the summer i was a kept woman (who has the time?), it is definitely stepping up to a point beyond the typical rice-beans-peppers action of my usual culinary creative roster. i am of the opinion that in winter, there is something very pleasing about the notion of toiling over a hot stove, particularlty when doing so for other people. perhaps it's my maternal instinct kicking in, perhaps its my chronic propensity for cold, but i would like at some point to return again to hearth and home and restore my kitchen to a room of more purpose than a storage bin for my whiskey and coffee.

today i was looking at recipes for corn pudding, mushroom quiche and pumpkin soup; i have also dug up my recipe for flourless chocolate torte. and while my kitchenly prowess is nothing by comparison to the biscuit's, i think i could tear it up with those dishes. or die trying!

any victims volunteers interested in coming over for dinner?

i sometimes find it difficult to tell if i'm engaging in a certain course of action because it's the right thing to do, or just because i'm stubborn.