Slice.

I'm waiting for soy cheese pizza at Slice and my head is dull and buzzing.

There's reggaeton booming from the back, where the workers in the kitchen are chopping organic basil to sprinkle on my dinner.

There's droning acoustic in the front, and the restaurant is so small that it mixes with the bass boom and the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing.


The overlap of music is not pleasant and I try to distract myself with the Claudia Rankine book I am reading.

I switched from Prozac to fluoxetine. Prozac's patent is up, and now the generic brand, fluoxetine, is available, the insurance company will only cover that, my editor says casually. Because Oprah has trained Americans to say anything anywhere, and because no longer does my editor see confession as intimate and full of silences, I happen to know so I tell her that Eli Lilly, the drug company that makes Prozac, is now marketing a new pill: PROZAC weekly. Try to convince your doctor that taking a pill every day for depression is depressing, I suggest. We are all in this together, whenever, whatever, wherever-in detail is ok.


The buzzing is not quite painful. I must just be overcaffeinated or undercaffeinated; underliving, overcompansating, something.

There's a hispanic couple outside fighting. The woman's back is pressed against the glass of the window, so I can't see her face, but I know that she's angry. Her hands wave frantically, in disagreement with what the man is saying. The man is yelling. I can almost hear him. Something about goddamn TVs. Something about kids and climbing stairs.

I'm glad I'm not a couple.

Oh, yay, my pizza is here.

Before his breakdown we had DVD evenings. I'd go over with a bag of Doritos and a bottle of wine. After the breakdown, he didn't wish to see anyone. He wasn't answering the phone. I called; I left messages--sometimes to break into the general silence and sometimes to check on him. Finally, he agreed I should come by. I walked the thirty-six blocks to his apartment. By the time I reached his place I was anxious but optimistic. I thought the apartment would be a mess; the apartment was dust free. He seemed fine.

He had rented Fitzcarraldo from The Movie Place. They pick up and deliver. Herzog is his favorite director. He refused the glass of wine I poured for him...He was on Lithium, one capsule four times daily. There was a red sticker on the bottle warning against alochol use. He handed me the bottle.


While watching the movie, tears rolled down his cheeks. Apart from their use in expressing emotion, tears have two other functions: they lubricate the eyes so that the lids can move over them smoothly as you blink; they wash away foreign bodies. It is difficult to feel much tear-worthy emotion about anything in Fitzcarraldo as it is about having outlandish projects and achieving them in the name art, but since the tears kept coming long after smooth blinking would have been restored and foreign bodies washed away, I decided that my friend was expressing emotion and was not fine, not ok, no.

The manager comes out from the back. She's wearing a long white dress and black eyeliner that's either stylish or smudged.
She approaches my table with a clipboard. I sign a list to get emails about a wine tasting.

"It's a wine pairing," she says. "20 dollars per couple, for three types of wine, an appetizer and dessert."


That sounds like my kind of meal, I think. Main courses often disappoint me. Red wine and chocolate never do. Maybe I should apply this philosophy elsewhere. Kissing, oral sex, then cuddling. Fuck main courses, I decide.


The Manager is still talking. "It's a really good deal," she says. She says her name is Mickey.


Tracy Chapman is now singing something about revolution, with the reggaeton pulsing behind her. It actually sounds like it was choreographed.


I wonder who I'll take to the wine tasting.

In the real dark night of the soul, it is always three in the morning, day after day.

This is the kind of week where I close my eyes on the subway and let the darkness warm my shoulders like a blanket. I picture myself emerging into a Times Square that is empty of people, where the towering buildings make me feel big, rather than small, as I stare up at a bright, neon sign that says "You're Doing Fine."

I'm stressed. But I ate at Peacefood Cafe tonight, a table away from Kramer. (That Kramer.) I wonder if he's vegan.

In the ice ages of this blog, I sometimes wrote my posts while dining. So while I am pulling my hair out, I am re-hashing a few of them. Please enjoy. Hopefully I don't get any hair in your food.


I Always Sit by the Window

Today I got an email I expected months ago, demanding belongings in boxes. It said “forget I existed, and vise versa.”

I’m satisfied with the “vise” versa. It means no more calls I shouldn’t answer.

Silence. The whisper of computer keys.

My memory is oceanic; there are no files to delete. No need to move back , to forget. Waves crash into the shore.

There’s a full moon tonight, The Manager says, “a lovely time to be writing.” He’s wearing a white collared shirt and a slight smile that speaks of detachment from here.

“Some nights you sit down to write and nothing comes out, but other nights you don’t have time to sit, and the words flood out like rain.” He isn’t talking to me.

I’m sitting by the window again, sipping Coca-cola and eating sweet potato soup with chopped apples. Frank Sinatra is singing Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away...

My brain waves are peaceful tonight. I am soaring.

There's a bald Jewish man outside petting puppies. That's all he's doing. Petting puppies. He leans against the pole of the awning, waiting for couples to pass by, walking their dogs. This happens every ten minutes or so. Then, he acts shocked by the cuteness, as if the sheer adorability of that particular puppy compelled him to stop what he was doing, as if he was not standing there, waiting. I like this man.

I know what I want as of late. I want to be famous, I think. I want someone to buy me roses and then never call me again. I don’t even like roses that much. I’ve always been fond of orchids.

I want to feel my own bones.

There’s a boy I want with eyes like waves. I don't want to kiss him. I just want to paint him. I like the way he articulates S sounds. A coworker says he looks more feminine than I do. Phosphorescence. Eruptions. He probably tastes like nectar.

My vacation is coming up in three weeks and I’m taking the Chinatown bus to another city.

I will take a second trip, alone. I just decided this. I will wear red lipstick and whistle to myself in museums. I will carry an umbrella when the skies are clear. I will meet strangers, or not meet them. I will drive really fast on the highway.

There are two other patrons in the restaurant. They are sharing a plate of spring rolls. The woman is chewing and typing on her Blackberry. The man is chewing and staring at her cleavage. He looks resigned.

I rarely see happy couples.

I wonder how many calories are in sweet potato soup with chopped apples. I wonder what kind of stuff The Manager writes.

Out the window, I can see the full moon if I tilt my head. It seems to be floating, suspended.

8 Thousand Calories, 8 Million Stories

"I almost burned my homemade cranberry sauce because I was so anxious the strangers my parents had invited from Craigslist to our Thanksgiving dinner would turn out to be mass murderers." - My cousin Royal, "Craigslist and Cranberry Sauce" (8 Million Stories, New York Press)

"Thanksgiving is a time when you show that you are thankful by eating and eating and eating and eating, but because you are so thankful that the food makes you grow two inches taller." - My brother Gabe, 11/26/09

Every year, the hilarity provided by my family and our random guests of Thanksgiving honor floods my system and mixes with my sweet potatoes.

I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't a writer. I'd probably end up puking wine, pumpkin pie, and Yiddish jokes.

The holiday began in earnest Tuesday night, with my personal tradition #1: Getting Drunk the Day Before the Day Before Thanksgiving. On Wednesday, I practiced #2: Buying a Bum a Full Course Meal and #3: Taking The Metro North Upstate and Sitting Next to the Most Obnoxious Person On the Train. (The girl who showered me in sour cream and onion chip crumbs definitely got the memo about this one.)

Thanksgiving proper began with a Dirty Joke Battle between Bernie, my "eighty-fuckin'-five" year old first cousin twice removed, and my uncle Peter.

Bernie, who is deserving of a post unto himself (and will convince every person of every race that they are somehow descended from Jews), is a bonifide celebrity, in the sense that he knows everyone on Earth. Or at least in Chelsea. The man responsible for getting me drunk on the night when I met Probably Homo, Bernie never fails to regale us with stories about the crazies in our family that I never got to meet. (A particular favorite this year was how his mother invited the prostitute in their apartment building over for tea, and set her up to be married.)

 Needless to say, the two of us went straight for the hard liquor. (Tradition overpowers sobriety plans.)

Our guest of honor this year was Ian, Gabe's friend from school, and his ever-so-patient parents. With two autistic teenagers at the table, my attention was split between an explanation of how to use DVD player parts to make a laser pointer that burns through things (Ian) and an argument for the fact that mainstream hip hop in 2008 was heavily influenced by "Electric Relaxation" era hip hop (Gabe), with a backdrop of two sets of parents yelling "That's enough (sugar, potatoes, talk about masturbation)" to their children across the table.

After we all stuffed ourselves silly (and I endured torment from all corners for being a vegetarian on Turkey Day), Gabe sat us all down in the living room to perform his latest rap, with Ian providing a laser-pointer lightshow in the background, and Uncle Peter making a "beat" that really just sounded like fart noises.

"Cruising down the Taconic in my 2004 Kia"
"Pfffft pfffft pfffft pffffffffffft"
"Eating pizza at the good ol' pizzeria..."

Doesn't get much better than that, folks. Now, please tell me, what made your Thanksgiving this year?

My Thanksgiving Gift to the Internet.

My very own Lady Hemingway, gracing the cover of C-Spot Magazine, Columbia's Erotic Lit Review.

That Stupid Ache

On mornings when even the internet is quiet, I let ice cubes melt on the tip of my tongue and eat real food, the kind you have to warm in the oven while listening to NPR.

Sometimes I think I’ve met every person on Earth, but their lips moved without sound, and sometimes the air tastes comfortably lonely, like fat people without plans to diet, or college grads who can’t sell themselves in a sentence, or joggers or liars or stoners with trust funds or people whose sheets match their curtains.

Sometimes the day feels like a picture frame, like a motel off the highway whose soap you steal, even though you didn’t stay long enough to take a shower, and stayed up late just watching the stars and the cars and the local news in a different state.

I find myself jealous of chauvinists and religious converts and people who buy scratch off lotto tickets. But really I just want to love without drowning, to run full speed, long distance, for miles,  only to come right back home again.

It is imperative that I interrupt regular blogging to pronounce my love for Jason Segel.

Sounds better than apologizing for the lack of regular blogging due to boring things like (relative) sobriety, grad school applications and studying the hell known as "mathematics," no?

No special effects. Please call me.

Minnie Mouse Confessional.

I've been drinking too much lately.

Dreaming about ex-boyfriends suffocating me with garbage bags while I'm walking through the 96th street station at midnight. Waking up sober, gasping for air. Remembering the previous night in movie flashbacks of a woman with a Jew-fro who looks remarkably like me. Feeling reborn and infantile in the morning sun. Going to work and coming home and paying rent and feeling like I'm playing house in the life I created for myself.

Doing silly things at night, like climbing on stage for a Zombie costume contest dressed as Minnie Mouse, posing with the umbrella I bought when it rained on the Halloween parade. As if it were intentionally part of my ensemble. Getting mad when I don't win because a) I had the most applause and b) Minnie Mouse is the best zombie that ever existed.

Stupid, clumsy things, like saying "I love you" during sex, when I meant to say "I love that" and feeling irreparably awkward. For a whole five seconds. Falling down stairs, arguing with strangers, pushing boundaries I didn't know existed. Feeling strong, feeling potential, feeling nothing. Feeling everything in a wind tunnel. Feeling the whole world shake around me.

It's been...fun.

But I think my ducks are just about ready to start forming rows. (Good looks, ducks. You took it there. Ties and everything!)  Which means that my short, very blogged-about liquor affair is coming to a close.

I don't mean cold turkey sobriety. I'm a vegetarian, and I don't eat turkey. What I mean, quite frankly, is this:




Oh, and Frenchman? Apparently pretty fond of the Bat Shit Insane variety. More updates to come.

How do you say "bat shit insane" in French?

All photos in the post are by Nikola Tamindzic. Check him out.  

Last night, I gracefully exited a party with a new ladyfriend. We simultaneously fell down a flight of stairs.

Gathering fallen possessions into our purses, we yelled our respective "Ow!"s and "Holy Mother of Zeus! That hurt more than anal sex with Ron Jeremy!"s.

Then we made out.

It seemed like the appropriate thing to do at the time.









Ladyfriend is now saved in my phone as "Stairs" and I have a bruise on my ass that's the size and shape of an awkward turtle.

Oh, and I wasn't particularly drunk last night. I swear on Zeus' nipple.

After hailing Stairs a cab, and dropping by (a.k.a. crashing) a Columbia party, I was once again faced with the conundrum you mortals refer to as "sleep."

Contrary to popular belief, my chronic insomnia is not caused by Neuro-Jew tendencies (that's "Neurotic-Jewish," or "anxiety-prone" for you laymen). At bedtime, my mind is not filled with terror or fear of an unknown future. (That's what my days are for.) Antithetically, it's much like the Brazilian Wax Scenario; My insom-no-matic thoughts are inconsequential. Last night, I was thinking about the irrelevance of Oprah, the physical rise and fall of Marlon Brando (how badly and repeatedly I want to bang him in A Streetcar Named Desire, as compared to the overdose of meatballs he clearly consumed later in life), and why Camus is to blame for my last breakup.

I was also thinking "Shut up, brain. Shut up, brain. Shut up, brain."

After hours of proverbially tossing and turning (really just lying in one place thinking "Shut up, brain"), I went out for a 6 a.m. bagel, wrote some 5 minute poems, and got to thinking about how weird it's going to be to cohabitate with another human for the next week.

That's right. I am actually inviting a real, live human being into my Den of Inequity. And this real, live, human is a Frenchman. A Frenchman that I happen to like, quite a lot.

So, for any of you who parlez-vous Français better than I do, please help me translate these warnings for my attractive visitor:

1. I do bizarre things at 5 a.m., like nom on cookies and sit naked at my desk writing rhyming poems. I'll try to keep my nom-ing noise down to a minimum so as not to wake you.

2. I broadcast my life on the internet, so you should probably pick a pseudonym. Unless you're cool with "Frenchman."

3. On the rare occasion that my insomnia subsides (or I pass out after a romp with Jack Daniels), I've been told that I sing Luda's "Move Bitch (Get Out The Way)" in my sleep. Actually, it would be helpful if you could confirm or deny this rumor.

4. Before I've consumed toxic levels of caffeine, I can't speak English, let alone French.

5. If this is not already blatantly obvious, I'm bat shit insane. I should probably have told you this before you decided to temporarily cohabitate with me. My French sucks. I'm sorry.

Bat-shit-neuroses aside, I'm excited. I love showing people New York almost as much as I love traveling.  Next week with my Frenchman will also be my last drunken hurrah, before I have to buckle down and finish graduate school applications, while simultaneously working and studying that Satanous subject known as "Math" for the GRE's. (Come to think of it, this blog will likely get very boring if I don't continue talking about vaginas every five minutes. Which,of course, I will.)

It's Frenchman's first time in America, so I plan on taking it easy on him. By picking him up at the airport dressed as a slutty Minnie Mouse on New York City's national holiday. Obviously.

A (Sun)day morning, in the life of Hannah Miet.

It's 7 a.m. 

You wake to "Crazy In Love" on your Luna Ipod alarm clock.

You are not crazy in love. What you are is vaguely drunk. Head buzzing, electric. Non-electric tooth brush. You shower to "Videotape" by Radiohead. You are alive.

 *****

You're pretty sure this homeless dude is the Grim Reaper.

He barely slides past the closing doors, floating slowly down the car. One arm outstretched, shaking an invisible cup, mouth moving without sound escaping.

He's looking directly at you, eyes dark and gaping. He's moving toward you, hovering like a shadow. You wonder if your soul is gone. Are you still alive?

"Chaaaaaaaange," he finally whispers. You hand him the uneaten half of your bagel. He exits at 72nd Street.

You listen to "A Change Is Gonna Come."

*****

It's a miracle that this Asian girl is standing under the weight of her suitcases. There is something profound about her confusion. She has fallen from the moon and landed in your train car.

You feel the need to inform her that she exists. And also that the next stop is Times Square, which is probably where she's going. She's too frightened to look up from her luggage.

*****

The 7 train starts moving right as you sit down. It's dark underground. The blurry lights feel appropriate. "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" comes on shuffle and for a moment you think "I am the happiest human in the whole wide world."

You are probably still drunk.

Time Travel, for the Condescending.

I'm not much of a team player.

In high school, when we had group projects, I'd be the first to raise my hand and ask to work alone.

When that wasn't an option, I'd either take the reigns or the brunt of the workload. After all, who can do a better job than me?

(Don't answer that. Please.)

Well, I'm changing my evil ways. Temporarily, at least--for the sake of a guest blogger who not only does a good job, but is just about as cocky as I am. I have no idea what Mr. C actually looks like, but for some reason I picture a young Humphrey Bogart swirling whiskey in a glass with a backdrop of chandeliers and an orchestra playing "One Enchanted Evening," silently luring in the beautiful blonde across the room for a romp in the coat closet.

What? It's not like I've thought this through before now or anything.

*****************

I had a totally different post in mind to write as a guest here on Hannah’s blog, but I decided to change it last minute. I was going to write something funny, but Hannah’s blog is home to more than funny, so I’d like to talk about something imaginative and curious. Of course it will be in typical Mr. C fashion.

I wish I could live in a different time. Do you? Have you ever had the feeling that you would feel more comfortable in a previous time, in a previous place? And what would you be doing?  Maybe in fact we all were living past lives of grandeur or pauper, I don’t know, but I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my pondering brain.

What I do know is that there are plenty of periods in time where I would love to have been a part of. You may have heard my salty tales of wishing I was a pirate, braving fierce storms and plundering delicious booty in exotic ports. But I wouldn’t actually want to devote my life to a ship lacking showers, plus a ship full of sea wenches and greasy men would probably invoke a self walk to the dreaded plank, and I don't wish to die a watery death.

I’ve dreamt of where I would fit in the best, and have thought of being a dapper don in the roaring 20’s, A southern gentleman with a six shooter in the 1800s (who runs a personal brothel), an artist in 19th century France forced to paint and sex women daily, and even a medieval knight with a strong arm and a rabid libido.

The problem when I think of these wonderful images, is that they are only appealing on the surface to me. I think where I would really feel comfortable is as an Egyptian Pharoah. If you read about the life of an ancient Pharoah, it’s a fine one, although not just anyone can handle it. I would handpick the most beautiful women, have absolute rule over all the land, and be treated as a near deity. I wouldn’t abuse this power, I would make sure every one had good entertainment, wine, and fine perfume. I'd make wise decisions with the Egyptian powers bestowed upon me, like summoning the Cheshire cat to accompany my rule. Or making sure everyone gets laid all the time. Isn't that worth burying me in a palatial pyramid and getting to write  your name in mysterious pictures on my phallic obelisks throughout town?

Now regarding Hannah, I cannot place exactly where she should be, but I know she went to high school with a hot porn star, and she likes to eat the forbidden fruit, so I would be ok visiting her wherever she belongs.

Where would all of you like to be?