Leaving Las Vegas:  well! That certainly was a repellent little nugget of cinema. Hey Emerson College film nerds, and I know there are a couple of you lurking around out there, can somebody please explain this carnival of atrocities to me? Total slam-your-hand-in-the-drawer theatre, by which I mean, I wouldn’t slam my hand in a drawer for two hours, so I’m not entirely sure why I sat through the whole thing (see also Precious; anything by Neil LaBute). I made Tom watch an episode of White Collar with me afterwards, so I could scrub out my eyeballs with a little Matt Bomer, and this morning I am going to put Leap Year at the top of my Netflix queue.

In a Breadbowl: It’s cold and I think I’m getting a cough, so I’m obsessed with the Soup Factory. I  got their cookbook out from the library yesterday and am looking forward to many happy evenings with my Le Creuset. First up: split pea with bacon. Then tomato-corn.

Chris and Lauren: are getting married this weekend! And Marissa is coming to visit! And I am getting a manicure and buying some city flats and working on the novel, and nobody is gonna rain on my parade.

Tell me good things.

At Yankee Stadium Tom bought me a Nathan’s hot dog. Nathan’s hot dogs are my favorite, all salt and snap, and you can’t get them in Boston, where people prefer their hot dogs grey and boiled as a matter of New England pride.

There’s a metaphor there, you understand.

*

In case you are just joining us and/or had any lingering doubt: I am not hard to the streets. I’m an Italian girl from White Plains with J. Crew wearing, PBS-watching parents; we listened to showtunes in the Volvo and took the golden retriever for long walks on Sundays, my hippie-girl Birkenstocks scraping along the sidewalk.

Still, I grew up with Jay-Z the way you grow up with garlic knots, the way you grow up with Z100, the way you grow up in New York: knowing all the words without ever having learned them, spilling out the windows of the cars of every boy I ever knew. Freshman year of college we’d drive down 95 with Tom’s friend Rob and he’d crank it so loud your teeth rattled. That’s how I knew we were home.

*

Before I started dating Tom I had a boyfriend who took great pleasure in acting smarter than me.

“Eminem’s a genius,” he declared with authority, zooming down Mamaroneck Ave in his Volkswagon, elbow out the window. He also took great pleasure in driving too fast. The bass echoed up my spine.

“Eminem’s batshit insane,” I replied. What I meant was: slow down.

*

At 125th street I squinted at a girl across the platform, pink tank top, hoop earrings.  “I think I know that chick,” I said.

Mike looked. “Why, did she used to steal your lunch money?”

“What makes you think I got my lunch money stolen?” I asked. “As opposed to, you know, stealing other people’s?”

He glanced at me, smiled with an expression on his face like: probably the cardigan sweater you are wearing to the Eminem show. “Just a hunch.”

“I think I know that girl,” I repeated, then gazed around some more. “Actually, I think I know all these girls.”

*

I came to Boston seven years ago and I was so cold and I was so miserable and in my hoity-toity honors seminar they gave us each four crayons and said, draw home.

I lived in a high rise on Boylston Street.

I lived in a farmhouse in suburban New York.

I froze.

I drew a greyhound bus.

*

For the record: no one ever stole my lunch money.

I never stole anybody else’s either.

*

In between sets we  chatted about CC Sabathia, who is my second favorite Yankee, because he wears those funny pants.

“Jeter is my favorite,” I said, and of course Tom knows that but I like to say it anyway because it always gets the same eye-rolling reaction. I always like the lead singer in the band. Tom says the Yankees will never put Jeter out to pasture even though he’s old and getting decrepit because it would be a terrible business decision, and plus Derek Jeter could still kick your ass at baseball.

“Jeter’s not old,” I told him. On the field the people with floor seats swarmed around like carpenter ants. A digital clock counted down the minutes until Jay-Z. “I saw Jeter play when he was a rookie.”

“Yeah, well,” Tom said, and put his arm around me. “You’re old, too.”

*

I have been to a lot of concerts.

That was the best concert I’ve ever seen.

They said: “Are you ready, New York?”

I thought: I want to come home.

*

Thanksgiving weekend of my senior year in high school we went and saw 8 Mile at the multiplex in Greenburgh. We bought tickets for the freshmen behind us. We were seventeen, and magnanimous. We thought it was the least we could do.

1. We’re going home to see Eminem and Jay-Z at Yankee Stadium tomorrow, which not only makes up for a whole weekend spent in my pajamas watching onDemand (you guys, Parenthood is such a winner, I never knew! It’s like a funnier version of Brothers and Sisters without Rob Lowe making you want to kill yourself all the time with his Serious Acting), but makes me legit excited because I actually love Eminem and Jay-Z with the pure love of an angry fourteen year old boy. Questions: have you ever read Oprah’s interview with Jay-Z where she shames him re: his liberal use of the n-word? Do you think the violence in “Love the Way You Lie” is real or metaphorical? Please discuss citing specific examples from the text.

2. Lady Gaga gives Beyonce a diamond-studded whip and lingerie for her birthday, DO I EVEN NEED TO GO ON except to say that Marissa, now you know what I bought you for graduation, sorry to ruin the surprise.

3. It’s cold in the morning and cold at night, and although I know from experience that it will take roughly one month before I’m bitching and moaning about how freezing and miserable I am, for the time being it’s really nice. In California I bought new socks to celebrate.

4. I’m reading Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman, who is married to Michael Chabon, who I love. It’s good but boring and makes me wonder what the two of them talk about at dinner, if he is all “Literary Themes! An alternate universe where Alaska is a Jewish state! Comic books! Harry Houdini! Homoeroticism!” and she is all “New England love story with class issues!” Frankly it seems like sort of what it would be like if I was married to Michael Chabon.

5. I’m going to go make an egg sandwich. If you were here I’d make you one, too.

and other Left Coast randomness:

pizzas with feta, avocado, chicken, and veg. neon and darkness. chilton. corelyn being awesome. amiee being awesome. eat pray love being awesome (whatever, i don’t care that everyone else hated it, it had javier bardem and an elephant and i think you all were demanding too much). amoeba. home. rummy in the park. sunshine and brunch. phase ten on the couch. the best croque monsieur i’ve ever eaten. new sneaks. long talks.

(hey, soul sister. i miss you already.)

Los Angeles, CA, September 2010

1. My aunt, who is cool, sent me my great-grandparents’ alien registration cards from 1942: Last of Italy. Grandma Victoria Vitarelle Cotugno was 44  when her picture was taken, though she looks at least twenty years older. There’s an expression on her face as if she’d like to kick your ass. I’m into it. I dig her. The note from my aunt said: she had a difficult life.

2. Plowing through nearly everything on yesterday’s to-do list, including but certainly not limited to a big-girl haircut, 500 words of the Big Fat Greek Writing Project, a double batch of pie crust (I really wasn’t kidding about this being the season of pie), a handful of magazine submissions, and a little online shopping. Just to reiterate: I really like working part-time.

3. I made Deb’s herbed summer squash and potato torte for H & J the other night. It tasted like fancy potatoes au gratin, which is to say, delicious.

4.  I’m reading Shopgirl. It’s heartbreaking but rad. Marissa told me it was rad like three years ago, but I am  notoriously slow on the uptake. After that I’m going to read Consider the Lobster, because apparently I want to be a filthy wretched hipster when I grow up.

5. I’m going to California tomorrow. Two of my three best girls are gonna be there, and no hillbilly hurricane is gonna keep me away.

Full disclosure: it looks absolutely nothing like this outside my house right now. As a matter of fact, it’s hot as two squirrels screwing in a wool sock, as all one hundred thousand sweaty people moving into my neighborhood today would be more than happy to tell you, and Southie smells less like crispy fall leaves than like putrid, rotting garbage.

HOWEVER: I love September. September is so good-hearted and earnest. September has new shoes and trimmed bangs and is going to get all her homework done on time. September is trying out for the musical and considering running for student council, but first she needs to finish her incompletes from last semester.

I need to finish my incompletes, too. One conclusion I’ve come to this summer is that while I’m aces when it comes to optimistic goal-setting, I am absolute rubbish at follow-through. Like, total shit at it. Like, I started to think about all the things I said I was going to do this year and then completely forgot about, and it made me feel a little like I was going to hurl.

SO. This September isn’t about new projects for me, really. This September–and the rest of this disappearing year–is about finishing what I’ve started.

And also about making pies, because, come on.

(Tell me what you’re up to this September.)

Anybody you know looking for a sweet leather love seat?

Jersey Circus. You’re welcome.

nyny, August 2010