i affectionately refer to this weekend as "new york adventure weekend."
when i typed that, i meant new york city, but i suppose i had probably my best afternoon/evening ever at sarah lawrence on friday, so i guess westchester county in new york state can get in on the titled weekend as well.
on thursday a girl from my playwriting class invited me and another girl (i realize that "girl" is becoming a less and less accurately descriptive term, as these two "girls" were 20 and 27, respectively) to her house on friday late afternoon for tea. i was so excited.
tea was four of us young women sitting around discussing gender and time and blood and women and poetry and then tea became red wine and the afternoon became 9:30 at night. so very nice. it felt so very "college" or "sarah lawrencian." then i met my roommate erin back at out apartment and we walked dizzily to the "fall formal," a surprisingly well attended and attired event under a large white tent. we had ice cream. we danced. the dance ended, i went to watch some "friends" perform short plays about sex and censorship. i got a very long, very nice hug from a new friend.
i cooked rice at 1:30, alone for the first time in many lovely hours and feeling every minute of being alone, for better and worse.
on saturday,
i met with a friendly acquaintance/friend from high school in the mid-afternoon on saturday and we just hung out in the city for several hours, intending to end our night in brooklyn at a vivian girls show.
seeing her was nice.
we talked about her "boyfriend" (ihatethatwordihatethatword) and the confusion liking him a lot entails. i tried to give advice that may have been a little too flighty or existential (do i sound pretentious yet?) for her to latch on to, but she said she was glad i said it, as no one had given her the advice that i had.
we went to the opening ceremony store and tried on very very beautiful and well-made clothing and shoes for a while, which was surprisingly fun.
then we tried, in vain, to use public transportation to get to this vivian girls show in a nowhere-land industrial district, that we ultimately had to take a cab (expensive. so fucking expensive, i cannot spend any money this week, except for friday, when i'll maybe go see vivian girls again) to get to this crazy cement block of a space.
but oh man vivian girls are good. so good.
we were right up front, the two people closest to the stage and pretty much the only two dancing. fuck hipsters. yeah i'll just cross my arms and maybe nod my head or tap my right foot. also i guess with a band like vivian girls, it's like, well yeah they're a punk band, but they're also really girl-group-y, so maybe i should just sway and listen to their pretty voices. just dance, people.
speaking of girl-group-y: the vivian girls dressed as the shangri-las for halloween, which was kind of the coolest thing ever (okay, not ever). they dressed in the white shirts/black vests/black jeans of the leader of the pack cover. they also covered two shangri-las' songs: "gone" and "remember (walkin' in the sand)." hot.
while i stood there, so close, listening to these songs that i have come to love, that have started to mean something to me over the past several months, dancing, i was doing some thinking.
vivian girls sing a lot about boys, which is great, they're writing what they know, i have no problem with that, that's what i do, but
why is indie rock so heterosexual?
and also
i want to be at a bikini kill show. i want to watch bikini kill play. i want to be part of a bikini kill show.
but bikini kill is long gone. i think i was thinking that because i was watching these three creative women and listening to their delicious pop songs, singing along, feeling so full. but the kind of full that comes with ice cream.
with m&ms.
with caffeinated black tea, drunk down like oxygen or smoke.
i wanted bikini kill to shout along to,
to witness to pure female, pissed-off power.
i wanted an attack and i wanted to feel the full where my heart swells and my limbs shake for fear of holding my very core together.
but they are so long gone.
the rest of the night was a mix-up of public transit and west side college campuses. it was utter exhaustion, it was chewing gum on my sequin dress, it was two.5 hours en route, it was getting stranded at barnard and then sort-of saved (let's say "relieved") by absolutely one of the last people i ever thought would be of any use to me ever. it was an hour gained.
my friend and i fell asleep on separate couches in barnard's 8th floor lounge at 4 in the morning. we woke up at 10.
waking up in new york city is without a doubt one of my favorite things in the whole world.
a few more hours in the city held bagels-and-cream-cheese, philosophy-on-a-relationship-level, good-byes, missing-my-train-thanks-a-lot-fucking-new-york-marathon(oh-man-i-can't-be-annoyed-with-you-because-you-are-all-in-such-great-shape, ihope), back to slc.
it was a nice weekend.
here's the radio show, that has already happened tonight. it's heavy on bikini kill and vivian girls for obvious reasons.
double dare ya - bikini kill
i want you back - jackson 5 (three nerdy looking boys in union square were tap dancing and then stopped and sang this song, with karaoke wordless music. this song is dedicated to them.)
never see me again - vivian girls (one of my favorite vivian girls songs.)
where did our love go - supremes
tell me so - bikini kill
celebrate the mundane - grass widow
all the time - vivian girls (according to their set list, which my friend got to take home at the end, and which we could see on the stage from our close proximity, this was the second-to-last song. but they didn't play the last two songs.)
be yr mama - sleater-kinney
rise above - black flag
speed heart - bikini kill
when i'm gone - vivian girls (another of my favorite vivian girls songs. one of my favorite songs in general right now. "will you do what you think is right?/will you ride your bike past my house late at night?" - i love that lyric.)
sittin' on the dock of the bay - otis redding (a street vendor in harlem had this song playing from a boom box when i walked past.)
shelia - atlas sound
remember (walkin' in the sand) - the shangri-las
skeletons - yeah yeah yeahs (love this song so much right now.)
listen next week, 6 p.m. eastern, 5 p.m. central, 12 a.m. france.
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