Monday, May 23, 2011

hmmm....

Why is it that when I log on here from another computer, the Amazon Associates widget works perfectly, and here at home it doesn't? This is where I would mostly want to link to books I enjoy from Amazon and speak of my great love for all things Kindle.  But even reinstalling it some time back, the fucker will not work here.  Too bad.  I wonder if B&N would connect up here... (That's for you, Amazon!)

I am very sad lately way too much of the time.  It's a big kind of sad, about pretty much everything.  It comes and goes.  I do feel terribly disconnected from everyone, and like I'm barely holding it together.  Let's see if I can get through this one.

additonal earworm

I kept forgetting to list "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman" from the new NY Dolls album.  This was originally recorded by a girl group called the Velvelettes, and the NYD do a great job.


Friday, May 13, 2011

some stuff

I just deleted a post I wrote last week...I had a bad crush for about five days, and then got over it.  I have kind of mixed feelings about it.  In some ways it was a good feeling, and in some ways I just felt kind of stupid.  You'd think I'd be done falling for musicians, just because they play beautifully.  Musicians are bad, bad boyfriends.  And this dude wasn't going to be my boyfriend, anyway.

This all started when I went with Barry to a jam session he likes, a blues thing.  I used to go to a lot of blues jams back in the early-mid nineties, when I lived in Manhattan and listened to a lot of blues.  Also, I had a couple of blues musician bad boyfriends back then. 

Barry's been going to this thing for a while, and a lot of the people there are my old friends, who he's gotten to know, and there are some other nice folks he's met (one of whom was the five-day crushee).  So I finally went.  A lot of the old crowd is now in their 50s rather than their 30s, and are far nicer and calmer for it.  I did enjoy talking to one of my old boyfriends, who actually hadn't been a bad boyfriend due to being a musician.  He was in fact a fairly good boyfriend except for being a little nuts, or maybe more than a little.  I know now that a good deal of it was chemical, although some was also emotional.  He's on meds now, but still mildly cracked.  But he's a real sweetheart and it was nice to get caught up.


 
(Wow -- I figured out how to put in YouTube videos again!  Yay for me!)
One of these dudes is the sweet old boyfriend and one is the five-day crush.  If you guess right, you get to read this blog for a year, absolutely free.

Work is still great.  One of my bosses brings in bagels and lox every Friday.  (I can't eat the bagels, of course, but I do eat a bunch of nova and cream cheese.) 

I saw my doctor last week, and the finger thing is not arthritis -- it's actually something called "trigger finger," which is an inflammation of a tendon, sort of like carpel tunnel.  (I remember an older lady, many years ago, complaining, "I have the carpet!)  So I'm going to see another doctor this week, an orthopedist who specializes in hands, to get a shot of steroids in my finger.  Eek.  I don't like needles.  I don't like anything that hurts.  I don't mind getting blood taken any more, because the people in those labs are really good at it.  (In the olden days, the doctor or nurse would do it right in the office, and those folks weren't necessarily blood-taking experts.)  But Barry will come to hold my other hand.

Current faves and earworms:  Teenage Dream by Katy Perry (another one that played incessantly in my office at Dweck).  Forget You by Cee Lo is still on the list.  Weezer recorded an excellent cover of Viva La Vida, the Coldplay song I like so much.  I'm listening to my mp3 player a lot these days.  

Also reading a lot, because that's a subway thing.  A Ticket to the Circus by Norris Church Mailer.  Cancer on $5 a Day by Robert Schimmel.  The Ape House by Sara Gruen.  I'm tempted to reread some old favorites, but there's so much new stuff to read.  I did finally finish the third Stieg Larsson book -- I had a hardcover copy, but didn't get the job done until the Kindle.  How did I ever live without it?  I have around 1100 books on it now, plus another 400 or so in holding on my computer.  I bought four or five of them, many are fee (public domain), and the rest were gleefully bootlegged.  I tell everyone that the Kindle changed my life.  I guess the mp3 player did, too, although the Walkman did long before that.  (I listened to Imperial Bedroom and Graceland endlessly back then.)

Free summer concerts coming up soon, and the best one in Prospect Park, hands-down, is Los Lobos.  Also, the Holmes Brothers are playing free at City Winery in a month or so, and I can't believe I haven't seen them in over ten years.  They were great friends of mine when they were a local NYC group, playing in dives; now they're famous world-wide for about twenty years now.  They play all over the world and are rarely in New York.  I particular look forward to seeing Sherman Holmes, who has been a great pal since the early 80s.  When I got sober in 1986 and disappeared from the bar/club scene, of all the "friends" I had while drinking, Sherman was the only one who picked up a phone and called me to see where and how I was.  I don't mean the only one in that band -- I mean the only only one, from all of the musicians and fellow blues fans and bar rats.  Only Sherman.  I will love him forever for that.



There has been some consideration of a fourth cat in the Levy household.  There is a very nice cat rescue lady who tables across the street from Union Square, and I have fallen very hard for a ten-month-old tortoiseshell.  More to come.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

and by the way...

Japan - horrible
Alabama et al - also horrible
Royal Wedding - who the fuck cares?
Killing Osama - I can't believe it took ten years, but I'm glad it happened on O-Dog's watch.
Feeling old - I have a cell phone, an e-reader, an mp3 player, and a computer with internet access.  Younger people have one thing that replaces ALL of these.
Feeling old pt 2 - I seem to have a touch of arthritis in my right hand.  WTF?
Work - complicated but I'm learning fast.  I'm way more professional than the last two people who had the job. There's a lot of work but the atmosphere is about as laid-back as you can get and still be professional.  I adore my two bosses, who are kind of my age and kind of dress like me (loose tunic and jacket and pants kinds of things).  And they're just plain kind.

Vacay - well, not quite a vacation, but we are going to Jannah's for Memorial Day weekend.  I love the small-town parade there, and her new/refurbished cabin cruiser may be on the water already.
Money - not rich, but we got some.