beached.

I was at the beach this weekend, with a few friends (and friends of friends) from high school. It was great.

We stayed in a cabin:


We did yoga on the beach:


And we cooked with fire:


I ended up with various ailments, however: a dozen mosquito bites, a sunburn in unfortunate places, and semi-permanent black lines on my feet. (Rubber flip-flops + insect repellent = mysterious chemical reaction.) I also got my ass kicked by a wave and, in addition to swallowing a gallon of salt water and nearly ending up topless, I got raked over a bunch of shells and now have a moderately-sized, moderately-painful abrasion down my back. My jeans also smell like a campfire.

All in all, a very satisfying trip to the beach.

small-time crime.

Last night, in the ladies' room of the Brooklyn Public Library, there was a girl, maybe 17 years old, primping in front of the mirror. While I washed my hands, she fixed her hair, inspected her makeup. She also had a very large piece of toilet paper hanging out of the back of her skirt.

I didn't tell her it was there. Does this make me a bad person?

Could I possibly blame my crime on the fact that I had just failed a GRE math practice test?

all about the benjamins.

JuVo and I didn't get that apartment we wanted. Clearly, you all did not pray hard enough.

When we called the brokers (notice, we had to call them, the injustice never ceases) the reason they gave was that we don't make enough money. This is all well and good, but also untrue: we would have paid exactly the same amount for this apartment as we do for our current one. Probably this excuse was just that: an excuse.

Or, perhaps not. After all, I do spend half of my post-tax income on rent. Isn't there some (cosmic) rule stating that one should not spend more than a third of one's salary on rent? But is salary in this scenario post-tax or pre-tax income? If it's pre-tax income, I'm doing OK. If it's post-tax income, then I should be living with my parents, or in Bushwick/BedStuy/Brighton Beach. I do make more than the average New Yorker, though, and if you combine our salaries, Juvo and I make a whole lot more than the median American household. So how much money does it take to get a decent sized, moderately bright, two bedroom apartment, in a neighborhood where I can walk home alone at night? Am I asking too much? Yes? Well. That sucks.

What's worse, I am not even a struggling artist/musician/free-lance writer. If I were, I could be too poor for that apartment I want now but still dream about The Great Payday (bidding war over manuscript, major record deal, work displayed in Whitney Biennial, etc.) looming on my horizon. As it is, this is all I've got, and it's not likely to change much in the next decade.

To take Keith Gessen slightly out of context: "That should be enough. I hope that's enough."

top five reasons i won't rent your apartment.*

1. All the windows face brick walls.
2. The bedrooms have no windows.
3. The bedrooms are underground.
4. I would only walk home alone at night if I was carrying mace and a large heavy object.
5. Any of the above, at a price I still can't afford.

*Based on real events. (Kill me now.)

8pm update: We saw an apartment we love! In a great location! For the right price! Everyone pray that we are approved. I'm serious -- PRAY.

i wish i had a hot toddy.

My office is freezing. At this very moment I am wearing a sweater and a shawl, so I'm feeling alright, but my fingers are like icicles. If you wear sandals or a skirt or, god forbid, sandals and a skirt, you will be risking frostbite.

The reason for this frigid state of affairs is, I'm told, that men in suits prefer the temperature to hover somewhere between freezing and ass-bitingly cold. Certain men can't take their suit jackets off, so everyone else in the building should pile sweaters on. This seemed to me like a subtle and particularly sick form of sexism until my boss reminded me that I too could wear a suit to the office. "But Gary," I said, "we work in publishing." Not even my boss's boss's boss wears a suit. So I said that I would start wearing a suit when he did, and that in the meantime they could turn the goddamn air conditioning down. He laughed.

(When I write my memoir, it will be full of mundane little anecdotes just like that one. Forget stories about people who take amphetamines and believe that the key to time travel is to stand in the basement and repeat the matra, "I am willing, sir." Forget stories about being a high-priced call girl in London. My memoir will be about how cold my office is, and what books I read in college. No one will ever doubt that it's true, and no one will buy it. But I'll feel better.)

In other news: the fact that Ezra Klein is 24 years old is still really freaking me out. Someone my age, someone who drinks Miller Light, is paid by the American Prospect to write about politics. He's actually good at it, too. I am clearly a failure.

avoid the void.

I stayed up until 2 am last night reading a book that is, objectively, trash. I read the entire book, from start to finish, in 3 hours. This is never a good sign. I went home after work fully intending to read Camus, or possibly to begin studying for the GED GRE. Instead I ended up watching about 4 episodes of Jon and Kate Plus 8, then going to bed and reading trash until 2 am. Now I be so tired.

I think it was Camus that did me in, actually. If you are feeling at all insecure - if you are even marginally contemplating the void - do not read an essay that begins, "There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy." It's just, like, unnecessarily depressing.

Last night reminded me somewhat of first year in college when, by freak circumstances, I was required to read Nietzsche every quarter, sometimes twice. I emerged somewhat warped, much like Lloyd, who, in the best ever episode of Undeclared, learns about existentialism and ends up running around campus wearing nothing but a blanket. That didn't happen to me, per se, but I sympathize. Reading The Man of My Dreams until 2 am is, in its own way, kind of like losing all faith in existence.

if you don't know who the oranje are, you can skip this one.

I forgot all about Euro 2008. Gremlin and I went to the beer garden in Astoria on Saturday, in the hopes of sitting down and drinking something cold before we collapsed from heat exhaustion, only to find that Portugal was playing Turkey and there was no place to sit. There was barely any place to stand, either, which is why we ended up blocking a screen and getting booed by frat boys. (It was my first time getting booed; hopefully it was also the last.)

So, I forgot -- I won't blame the American media for this entirely, but only because ESPN appears to have fired Dave O'Brien, and this means that I might be able to watch a game or two without wanting to cut my ears off. They are even airing a handfull of games live and on basic cable! Which is nevertheless entirely unhelpful to me, because all the games are on the middle of the day. Being a soccer fan in America is really very sad and disheartening.

Anyway, this means that I had to go to Zum Schneider's last night to watch a replay of the Italy vs. Netherlands match. Italy is possibly my least favorite national team -- they are cheaters and divers and they wear their hair much, much too long -- and only begrudgingly will I conceed that their games are consistently fun to watch. The Netherlands is, on the other hand, possibly my favorite European team -- they are not too showy, or too weepy, or too famous, and their names are super fun to pronouce (Giovanni van Bronckhorst, anyone?) -- and even though they never win anything, I support them anyway, because they can do this. It was an excellent game.

And now, I must go -- Spain is trouncing Russia and Tom Lutz is live-blogging it for the Guardian, which means that it is too hilarious to ignore.