Ready to Roll

In complete avoidance of doing something I needed to do immediately (find my passport, do my laundry, cut my own bangs in a fit of self-mutilation, minister tenderly to my own crouched-under-the-you-know-what self), I instead ministered tenderly to my neglected bicycle last night.

I rolled little Loki out of the corner, carefully wiped her down with a damp cloth moistened with a gentle, organic cleanser (no, you don't wipe down a bike with paper towels, of course not! You'll scratch the paint!), including every spoke on both wheels.

I carefully inflated her long-flat tires, to see if she could take a full 110lbs of air pressure, which she did -- though we'll see how those old tires hold up once I park my fat ass on her on the trainer, which is also standing patiently by. I'll probably switch out her tubes, as I'm sure the old ones are all dried out and flimsy.

Turned her over onto the handlebars and seat, and carefully picked the wads of dust and cat hair out of the gearset. Ran her through all of her gears, 3 front, 9 back, with careful drops of White Lightning.

Smiled at the happy "zzzzzzzzz" of the wheel spinning when I stopped turning the cranks, though I know that back wheel needs to go into the shop to be trued.  It's never been the same since that day I chased my molester off the Williamsburg Bridge, heedless of those plate covers banging the back end of the bike around. I still hold out hope that he rode his bike into traffic and got creamed by a truck or something.

Tonight -- adjusting the clips on my new Diadoras and seeing if the elastic is completely dead on all my bike shorts.

Putting her on the trainer, and pretending to go really, really fast down that big stretch of 9W going into Nyack.

Who wants to ride with me next spring? I need quads of steel and a really great glove tan.

Saturday Oldies

I started the day watching "It Might Get Loud," on DVD. I know, you're probably asking yourself, "Really? She's talking about that fucking movie AGAIN?" What can I say? It gave me a genuine appreciation for Jack White, not to mention the DVD has some truly great "Deleted Scenes" (Jimmy Page playing acoustic! JP, Edge and Jack White jamming on "Kashmir!") I'm totally in love with Jimmy Page -- he's a total rock god who's retained all of his hotness and then some. Wowsa. Hubba hubba.

I then started a bile-filled post about 25-year-old shitheads, then realized that perhaps my worldview was temporarily tainted by riding the L train out of and into Williamsburg on a Saturday, so I've shelved those thousand words for the time being -- until the next time some 25-year-old shithead pisses me off by whining about how he showed up on time for work three whole days this week and not one person threw a parade.

Instead, I want to talk about what a nice afternoon I had going to see "Raging Bull" at the Film Forum with my friend Judy, then we strolled over to Sixth Avenue on this unseasonably balmy night because neither of us had eaten all day and we were dying of hunger. As luck would have it, we got to Da Silvano just before the mad dinner rush and were seated immediately. We had to run a small gauntlet of paparazzi (that's twice this week for me, the first being outside my office, where some Jim Carrey movie is being filmed), but that was okay, I didn't care, as long as they sat us and dropped a plate of bread in front of me before I started chewing on my own fingertips for sustenance. I just wanted a plate of pasta.

We shared an artichoke (YUM) and had arugula con parmeggiano salads, so we both picked at our tagliatelle when it arrived. Somehow we managed to find room for the panna cotta, which as far as I can see, is a far superior desert than tiramisu. (I'm a complete snot when it comes to tiramisu, most you find is just terrible).

One of the things I like about Da Silvano is that their menu says, in big bold letters, "No cheese served on seafood, at any time." They might as well put a sign out front that says, "We are not the Olive Garden, you American rubes."

It's also about food. The service is fast, brusque, and efficient. None of this, "I'm Trevor and I'll be your server tonight," crap. They move ya in, and move ya out. Romantic it's not. Delicious, it is.

Plus, since Judy and I ordered the same thing, then picked at our entrees, I have enough leftover for two meals.

Now I'm home, early on a Saturday night, drinking a Guinness, and listening to 80's music.

How can I possibly end such a day on any kind of sour note when I've got Scritti Politti singing "Perfect Way," with Real Life's "Send Me An Angel," right behind it!

I mean, honestly. What's to complain about?

My Tired Old Eyes

Guys, even I couldn't read my own bloggy putrescence, so I changed my font to something that resembles actual letters, formed into words, formed into sentences, formed into paragraphs.

Occasionally, a thought will show up, too.

Randomalia: 11/11/10

It's 11/11, make a wish!

1) Milano is a go! Yay! Now, to find mia pasaporte (Ok. That may not actually be Italian, but it sounds good when you say it out loud.) Honestly, what I'm most excited about is not the shopping but the eating. I hear those Italians do know how to eat. Buon viaggio!

2) I'm reading a book called "New York," by Edward Rutherfurd. Eight hundred-some pages of fiction, moderately larded with the history of my town.

You know the style -- you have your main characters, fictional, of course, and as the author tells their story, Very Large Historical Figures appear on the sidelines to have some effect on moving the story along. It's a cheap plot device when used badly, but some authors do it better than others. I'm thinking of E.L. Doctorow in "Billy Bathgate," or James Michener in his epic period. It's a way to get your history spoon-fed to you without having to lie back and think of England.

This book is moderately engaging. I say "moderately" because I picked it up at JFK in early October when I needed something to occupy me on one of my flights to LA, then made it about ten pages in before sacking out for the rest of the trip. Ever since then, I've been half-heartedly reading it, a few pages here, a few pages there, sort of "feh" about the whole thing.

It's okay. (Talk about damned with faint praise. That's a "she has a great personality" book review if ever I heard one) It's not the worst book I've ever read, but it's not great, either, not by a long shot. There's nothing about it that makes me long for it, nothing that makes me wake up as if I'd been in a dream, having passed my subway stop, nothing that makes me stay up all night reading until I'm bleary-eyed, then fall asleep with my cheek on its open pages and reach for it in the morning like a new lover.

It's just "feh."

A month and a half down the line and I'm only 300 pages into this monster. And now the new Jonathan Franzen is sitting on my kitchen table, all hardcovered and alluring and giving me a wolf-whistle every time I walk by.

Someone told me this morning to look at the Franzen like dessert, and the Rutherfurd as the pile of Brussels sprouts I have to eat before I can eat my cake and ice cream. Really? Can't I just point at the Brussels sprouts and say, "But I'm full -- of THIS," then gesture at the cake and say, "I have plenty of room -- for THIS?"

What in the world is a girl supposed to do? I'm a grown-up, I can eat dessert first if I want, can't I?

3) I have no idea what is going on in a single television show that's on right now. This makes me a social liability in those ten minutes that get wasted at the beginning and end of every meeting talking about things like Justin Bieber's hair, those damned "Twilight" books and what happened on "Glee."

4) I know, I know, I've railed against white hosiery, but I just saw a tiny Asian girl wearing them and it worked. Two things -- no, four -- made it work for her. First, her Cyd Charisse stems. Most of the girls you usually see wearing white stockings have legs like eggplants turned on end. Second, she was wearing the most adorable pair of taupe suede shoes with a just-so chunky four-inch heel. Third, her cream-colored tam was tilted at just the right perky angle. And fourth, her very affectionate boyfriend was togged out in a fantastic Andre 3000-preppie getup, right up to his plaid newsboy cap. So the lesson here is, you *can* get away with a Glamour Don't if a) you're an adorable Asian girl with b) great gams, c) super-cute footwear, and d) an equally super-cute Romany Malco-looking boyfriend wearing an outfit as cute as yours. See how simple it is to have style? You can do it in four easy steps!

5) I've got the GC arriving next Sunday! Super-hooray with a stag leap and a triple axel-triple loop combination! I'm busy making shopping lists and plans, and appointments for secret girl stuff before he arrives. I'm not sure yet what we will do for the ten days of his visit, but I think it may be imperative for us to partake of some herbal enjoyment on Thanksgiving morning and go see 50-foot Bart Simpson skateboard down Broadway.

6) I went to see my pals at SUNY Optometric this week for an eye exam and to use up some more of my Flexible Spending Account ("We hold your money hostage, and if you don't use it, we get to keep it!"), of which I had spent a whopping 44 bucks so far this year (couple of prescriptions, I think for that uveitis thing with my eyeball). Well, it's official now -- I'm old. My new lenses for my glasses -- and this is just the lenses, folks, being put into my existing frames (which cost a pretty penny themselves) -- ended up being PROGRESSIVES (those are fancy reading glasses, crapola) and costing 350 dollars! Yipes! So glad I love my frames, because that about wiped out my FSA, leaving me with 67-some dollars to spend by the end of the year. I think a prescription for Xanax to help me get over the shock of spending nearly four hundred bucks on EYEGLASS LENSES might be in order with that last bit of money.

Well, I'm home now, my pasta is done al dente, and I've got on my eatin' shorts, so I'll stop here.

Ciao, y'all!

Wordless Wednesday