Another Weekend Bites the Dust

Another weekend in NYC.

It started off well, with only minor ulcer-induing events such as PW being on a bus to NYC that was lost, on which various busriders nearly staged a coup, followed by the part where his cab driver got lost on the way to Williamsburg.

During this ulcer-inducing event, I spent my first evening at home in quite some time doing things like laundry and dishes and searching for ancient 401k documents and Travelocity reservations. I also started my taxes, only to learn that partial-year residence forms are not intuitive.

I used TaxAct, which has this infuriating feature that calculates your refund as you go along, so you go from the elation of thinking you'll receive thousands of dollars from the government to realizing you owe shitloads of money.

Luckily I do not owe shitloads of money because moving can be deducted. Thanks, M, for the tip!

I can't, however, figure out if I will be getting money back from or owe, gasp, over $1000 to the state of NY. Why, you ask?

Because I don't know if I live in the city of New York or not.

Now.

I live in Brooklyn which, in my mind, is not the city of New York. In my mind, the city of New York is Manhattan. Some people, however, think that the city of New York includes all of the burroughs, of which Brooklyn is one. If I live in the city of New York, I have to pay all sorts of extra taxes. If I don't, I will get money back. I'm not sure how to figure this out. Tomorrow I plan to march my occasionally red hair over to the post office to get a booklet, which will hopefully explain to me where I live and will hopefully tell me that I will be getting money back.

Additionally, the state of MA will not allow you to e-file partial year resident tax returns, so I have to do a paper return for MA as well. I guess that's ok, since I didn't have to pay extra tax because I lived in Somerville.

How weird.

Needless to say I almost vomited when I saw how much I will owe if I live in the city of New York. Ulcer. Yipee.

PW eventually arrived so I set the taxes to rest until Sunday morning. He also had an ulcer, so PW, D and I split a bottle of champagne and all passed out with less agita.

On Saturday, D and I went to the MOMA to see a Vietnamese movie called "Buffalo Boy." It was slow and gritty, and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not until the Q & A with the director, which convinced me that I did.

It was interesting to watch, because it was an instance of thinking "Wow, people live like this, and they don't seem to mind." The contrast is amazing. The simplicity of every day life, the struggle, the acceptance. The challenging aspect of this movie was that nobody in the movie was happy, and I wondered "Do they mind? Do they wish they had something else?"

The audience was comprised mainly of people between the ages of 65 - 80, museum patrons wearing fur coats and suit jackets to a movie on a Saturday afternoon. When the film ended, I went to the ladies' room and witnessed a horrifying scene. I was about fourth in line amongst women aged 65 - 80. We were waiting for 6 stalls. The seventh stall, which was closest to us, was not being used. This vile lady - maybe like 60 or so - busted into the restroom and marched to the front of the line and declared "Is there any particular reason this stall is not being used?" The small, cute, polite, and meak woman in the front of the line said quietly "Well, it doesn't have a seat..." to which Cruella responded "That does not mean it's NOT FUNCTIONAL! Did anybody CHECK TO SEE IF IT WORKS!?" Nobody had. We all shook our heads. She said "Well, CHECK!" The woman at the front of the line went in and flushed it and said "Well, yes, it appears to work..." "SO USE IT!" The poor woman, fearing for her life, used the seatless toilet just to appease this horrid woman.

Now. Horrid woman had every right to check the stall herself and then cut the line.

She did not, however, have the right to yell at all of us, nor did she have the right to force the nice lady to use a stall she didn't want to, nor did she THEN have the right to cut all of us because she'd been so forward about marching in there. She seriously CUT ALL OF US.

I left fuming. D said "Wow, this is going to be good," as I was running up the escalator so as not to attack an elderly woman.

We then tried to meet up with D's friend S to go to the Scope Art Show, but didn't because it was crowded and D doesn't do well in crowds. He had some alternate activites planned, including checking out this design store near the museum that's in a renovated townhouse in which someone used to live. It was very lavish with balconies and staircases. We pretended that the floors were made of lava and that we had to escape onto lava-proof modern mats, and then that I was the captain of a spaceship seated in my modern space captain chair.

We met up with PW there and then went to eat at SEA, where S accidentally ordered a whole fish and where we all shared molten chocolate cake and fried bananas that looked like little spring rolls.

A photo of PW and I looking as though we are on a bad first date:



We then went back to the loft and drank more.

Too much drinking going on, folks.

PW and I oscillated between watching "Minority Report" and some god awful Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle on Oxygen (I didn't even know we got Oxygen) after D and I had a discussion about communication techniques (sigh, this has been a long time coming and I am relieved but still insecure; I apparently have no idea how not to be insecure) and the worst question in the world "What are you thinking?"

Today, I met PW at the MOMA after he finished his interview.

The MOMA is overwhelming. Too much to digest. I decided to become a member because I want to spend more time there and digest things in a more thoughtful way. I am slow to go through museums and realize that I will need at least 30 hours to deal with it appropriately.

I realized today that I am stupid at art because I have zero recall skills when it comes to artists. I can't remember who does what. I can't remember names. I can't remember styles. It's like how some people can't remember dates. I can't remember artists. I was staring at the most wonderful painting and kept thinking "Do not forget this name, do not forget this name, you will remember nothing from today so please please please do not forget THIS name."

Of course I forgot. I remembered the name of the painting, though, so I was able to track down the artist.

I'll never be able to "talk art" because I'll be like "Uhhh... was Picasso the one who painted 'Starry Night?'"

Well, not that bad, but I'll never be able to keep up.

I just have to sit there, be quiet, and say "Wow, this is pretty!"

I am hoping that my MOMA membership will rectify this situation. If I go through one gallery a week, perhaps I'll absorb something. I think this might involve, gasp, studying.

This is all magnified because D is very art-y. He reads current art magazines and knows who's showing at every gallery in NYC and knows what they're trying to say or do and has fierce opinions about all of it. He's also the type to blaze through galleries and then have three hours of things to say, whereas I have to stare at every painting for half an hour before I have any idea what's going on and then say "Ummm, well, I like the use of... well.... I don't know. It's fucked up."

I wish I was better at this. I wish I didn't drop my art history class at UMass because it involved field trips.

The museum was crowded and chaotic, so we didn't see the whole thing, nor did I buy as many postcards as I'd have liked.

Yeah. This is a prime example. I bought postcards of a bunch of pieces I liked, but I've already forgotten who they're by even though I looked at the postcards a million times. Well, that's not true. I remember one photographer's name, but only because Sister and I saw a travelling exhibit of his at the San Francisco MOMA and because I said to D "Sister and I saw this awesome exhibit of these, like, giant photographs of concert crowds and like a supermarket and it was incredible," and D was instantly "Oh, you mean Andreas Gursky, blah blah blah blah" and he knew everything and I felt stupid.

As PW and I were fading, I decided to take some photos using his camera.

This was awesome. A bunch of mirrors and vessels with reflective surfaces can really trip you out. I am going to freely stare at this for hours with my membership:



For whatever reason I've always loved little things. Miniature animals and dollhouses and figurines, like Charmkins. Needless to say I fell in love with this and took a million pictures trying to capture the depth and cuteness, but this was the best I could do:



After the MOMA we journeyed back to Williamsburg. It felt good to walk around. It felt like it felt when I first moved here. It was new and exciting and I was psyched to find a flea market that's open every weekend. I haven't been here in so long. It smelled like it smelled in September - unknown and thrilling.

PW and I cooked dinner and dyed hair and rolled around on the new black shag rug that Roommate brought back from Philadelphia. It's nice to have softness in the Loft.

I am going to be in the Loft this week because D is in Florida and because I really need to be.

I need to de-frazzle. I need to finish my taxes and write songs and read books and work on theories and have ideas and think about a painting and miss him and not miss NYC. There's so much to figure out when everything is new. And so much to keep up with when everything from before is far away. Nothing is assumed, nothing is a given, nothing is routine.

Everyone says it takes a year. I hope they're right because if they are, I'm half way there.