lermontovs - Tumblr blog

[lermontovs]

Me watching anything

[lermontovs]

all the days in between

this was a good exercise while it lasted (for two days)

i don’t know how i failed to write about 09.24, the day i woke up late and got my sideburns waxed at the e.w.c. in chelsea (i think the appt was at either noon or 1) and then i was reading a bit and working a bit at the sbux down the street from the e.w.c. when i received a text from sonya (who is also currently texting me about my impending return to new york; more on that later) asking if i wanted to pregame a party at kenka on st mark’s b/w second and third. i said of course, and i finished my reading and my work and i went home and i realized i had barely eaten! so i ran over to cafe social 68 on ave a and got a peanut butter smoothie and then ran home to change into something appropriate for the night, which turned out to be that perfect off-the-shoulder midi dress that made its first appearance on my second anniversary with my ex (how did we date for three years after that???) and its second appearance in hawaii and its third appearance at brunch with ash and gabby the previous week (a brunch to which i was exactly 15 minutes late, a miracle considering that the restaurant was on the west side and that i had to turn around twice because i had forgotten (1) a mask and (2) my phone, and it was a perfect day because the brunch was long and the sun was out and the sky was clear and i sat in my favorite spot in the courtyard reading discipline and punish and then i met vidu for a drink at fanelli and then her internet friends who work at restaurants that shall not be named showed up and one of them talked about how her sister who was about to start a biglaw job paying 215k a year was sleeping on her couch and refusing to move) (gabby is dead; she died at the end of january; fentanyl) and as i had the previous week i wore a denim jacket over the dress. at kenka we were seated across from a sex doll display and we ordered so many $6 pitchers of asahi. and noodles which were shared. and i talked to someone whom i had never before perceived in my life but who went to my undergrad and who graduated the same year as me and who was from the same town as my ex and knew my ex slightly and knew my ex’s best friend from that town better. i also perceived dev’s facial hair for the first time because it was the first time i had seen him without a mask. it suited him! i was surprised. as we made our way from kenka to the NQR to the party i talked extensively to sonya (whom i had made up my mind to dislike because before i knew her, at orientation, she was walking past where i was standing and was like “can you move?” in what i thought was an unnecessarily rude tone. now i know that’s just how she talks! it’s funny... she’s the same height and has the same voice and mannerisms as one of my best friends from my hometown) about our one professor who was very cute and about his wife who was rumoredly very cool and beautiful and about dating in nyc. when we exited the subway in dt bk we were best friends! we stopped to pick up drinks and sonya and i bought the same ciders. when we entered the apartment building (which we had some trouble finding, having probably had too many of the $6 pitchers at kenka) we ran into priti who was the alum who had also told me about the party and told me that i would meet great people there... it was 8pm on a friday and she had come straight from work [n.b. as a first-year associate] and she said that that was earlier than normal. at first it seemed like there were so many people in this little apartment but there was nobody in the living room so i hung out there with sonya and priti while priti ate the pizza that had been sitting untouched on the coffee table. then we went up to the roof, bringing candles and other sources of light because it was dark. sonya and i sat on a blanket with two second-years and they talked to us about school. (during this time, unbeknownst to me until later, dev was standing near us and engaging in an unsatisfying conversation with someone who made fun of his name and turned out to be the president of the federalist society.) the yankees were playing (beating) the red sox and some people i knew were watching at a bar in greenwich village and at some point i decided that i wanted to be there instead of on this roof in downtown bk. so i left and sonya left with me because she was also meeting people in the village. we laughed as we tried to pronounce hoyt-schmemerhorn. schmermerhorn??? and we talked more about our dating lives and we parted ways at w 4th. i texted this person i didn’t like that much at the time and like somewhat less now to see if people were still at the bar and they were (but he himself was leaving). the people at the table when i walked in: the girl i had gone to a yankees game with the previous weekend (whom i had met much earlier through the groupchat), a boy with a stentorian voice who was cheering for the red sox, a boy whom i had met in my reading group the previous week, a very quiet girl, two or three other quiet boys whom i didn’t perceive much. i went to the bathroom and then when i came back i got a white claw and a shot but i was already quite drunk so i’m not sure how much of the white claw i had. when the game was over we left, and as we passed the dorms the group dwindled to the yankees girl, the reading group boy, and two of the quiet boys.

TO BE CONTINUED

[lermontovs]

Bilinda Butcher @ My Bloody Valentine

[lermontovs]

2021.09.06

i went to bed too late the previous night, i spent an hour missing and catching the A and the L and then stayed up chatting with a friend in a completely different time zone. i set an alarm for (and woke up at, miraculously) 7:30 so that i could make it to 8:30 brunch. but i was suspicious that brunch would happen, or at least that it would happen at that time, because the friends with whom i was meant to be brunching had been out until at least 2am, maybe 3am that night based on the group chat, lol. i got ready and then saw a text (from the earliest riser) reading that the new plan was to “eat once everyone [was] awake.” fine, but i couldn’t take a nap immediately post-shower, as much as i wanted to erase the dark circles from my eyes before the evening’s date (which went well, or maybe just not badly; more on that later). so i read some of one way street, and then at 10ish i went to put our names in line for brunch, and then i bought an iced tea and read more of one way street on a bench in the park. brunch (11:45) was delicious but rushed because there were simply too many people who wanted clinton street’s pancakes on labor day; the waiting list closed not long after i added us to it. we strolled around the LES for a while, i spoke briefly with (and gave half of my remaining cash to) a homeless woman who told me how hard it was for her to sleep when it was so sunny, but it was also hard for her to sleep when it was rainy. she asked if i could buy her a coffee; i wanted to but also didn’t want to, and my friends came out at the right time. but maybe i should’ve bought her one? when i was walking with carl and matt and kiara around carroll gardens an old woman asked us for a dollar and we said sorry, we don’t have cash and then matt was like, fuck, she was just asking for a dollar! and he turned around and caught up with her and gave her a dollar. and kiara said wow, i’m surprised you have cash! which i thought was a weird thing to say. i always have cash except when i don’t, but i mean my default is definitely having cash in case i want halal. and matt said, i’m surprised when people don’t have cash! anyway... we looked around a few shops, i was very taken with an $84 tee with a b&w screen print of sinead o’connor smoking a cig. but i wouldn’t buy it, obviously. or would i? the first thing i did on sunday morning was shop the urban outfitters sale on sale, i don’t know if i mentioned that. anyway then i split from them and moved towards home, on my way home i bought bananas from the fruit stand, i gave him a fiver and wanted change but then he convinced me to buy four more dollars worth of peaches and blackberries and then he threw in a plum because i was “really cute.” he went on like that which started to unsettle me slightly so i dipped and walked home faster. then i decided i could read in the park a bit more before i went to go check on sam’s dog (which she wanted me to do again!!! it’s not that easy for me to get to her apartment) and i got a brown sugar oatmilk etc etc etc from sbux and sat in the park and then a BIRD SHIT ON MY BAG!!! i didn’t even realize what had happened, i was like what’s this green stuff that seems to be on my finger (a little) and on my copy of one way street (a little) and then i saw my bag and realized it was BIRD SHIT! and then i spilled my coffee. i tried not to get up immediately in order to maintain my dignity but i was so grossed out that i went home and washed everything and ripped the shitstained page out of the book (luckily i had already read it). then i walked to sam’s to hang out with the dog and do some homework. i barely accomplished any of the homework before i had to head home again to get ready for my date. my roommate was home so “getting ready” consisted mostly of him catching me up on his weekend upstate and me spritzing perfume and giving up on concealing the large whitehead on my right cheek. yeugh! i took the F to the date, my mask was disgustingly sweaty in that station, the last time i took the F in that direction i was getting off at 2nd ave for my first post-breakup date, now three months later i was getting on at 2nd ave and getting off at york st. i was only five minutes late :) i think it’s better for the woman to be later than for the man to be later. he was interesting, pleasant, inquisitive, cuter than he appeared on hinge. compact but not smaller than me, you know? he was ready to pay for our drinks but said “thanks” when i insisted on putting my card down too (i didn’t insist, i literally just put my card on top of his card). he has a soft voice but not in the way of my first hinge date where i found it slightly annoying, it resembles more the voice of (i know how strange this sounds) my preschool friend’s dad who is the consummate vermonter. and this guy is from maine so maybe it’s just like. a northern new england thing? (my ex wishes!) we parted ways, i walked to the F, i scared a group of four rats who were lounging in the trash and they made a break for it, two of them RAN OVER MY SANDALED FEET!!! very unsettling! when i got to my building i told my roommate he should meet me downstairs and we could go to the dumpling shop. and we got dumplings and then we went to a little bar nearby and we both nearly fell asleep in our drinks. it was only midnight!

[lermontovs]

2021.09.05

i’m listening to nightclubbing by grace jones (because i saw it mentioned in a pitchfork article about album art) in my friend’s apartment (because i am watching her dog while she works late). today has been the most magical day for walking! but first: i woke up at 8:30 in my clothes from the previous night, surrounded by the remnants of the dumplings i’d bought from the place down the block at 4am on the way home; i had meant to go to the farmers’ market in the morning to buy bread and peaches, and to dispose of our compost, but i spent too much time lying hungoverly on my bed with my wet hair wrapped in a t-shirt 1) setting up a date with an acquaintance-of-a-friend and 2) listening to the yankees game (they were up 4-1 when i finally left, on a gary sanchez grand slam) and when i finally got my ass over to the park (at 3:30pm; it is half a block away) i found that the vendors were all packing up. so i thought about getting an indulgent coffee (either gregory’s salted caramel cold brew or starbucks’ brown sugar oatmilk etc etc etc) but it was a perfectly gray day, as the yankees commentators were saying a great day for baseball but more relevantly to me, a great day to walk aimlessly around lower manhattan instead of completing my bluebook exercises. i got a notification as i was crossing delancey street that gary sanchez had homered again and i had the unbidden thought that not only had god breathed on him, god had spat in his mouth - and i also thought that that was blasphemous, and that blasphemous would be more fun to say if it were “blasphemious.” (maybe it is somewhere, or was sometime.) i went to the sweet pickle bookstore in the lower east side which 1) sells pickles and 2) started BLASTING just like heaven as i walked in which is a moment i’ll never forget, obviously, like the time just like heaven played in that irish bar in honolulu, and i had to buy not one book but two books even though i haven’t read a book in nearly two weeks (which is uncharacteristic! but i did start school nearly two weeks ago). then i wandered westward and somehow the orioles were leading the yankees, i saw the game on a massive tv as i was crossing bowery. i walked through little italy, down mulberry, and spotted the CANNOLI KING sign (at caffe palermo, which is where i got cannoli with carl and gabby the night after sam moved me into my new apartment). that was good cannoli; the cannoli i had two nights ago (at veniero’s) was not as good imo. (also the cannoli i had at that pizza place in jersey last saturday; that was also good cannoli.) un cannolo, due cannoli. i admire italy, italians, italian-americans... i started to make my way back home, straight on west 3rd. i stopped at a vintage pop-up where i debated buying a mesh leopard print tee but thought better of it, i noted the presence of a taqueria i wanted to try (i think on 1st ave?), it was the bottom of the ninth and the yankees were down 8-7. incredibly after gary sanchez’s grand slam a couple of hours earlier, and i hadn’t walked two blocks before i got the notification that the game was over and that the yankees had lost, lol. to the orioles!!! i went home to grab my laptop and snagged a high table at the bean on 2nd ave, which is now my favorite place to work because of the high table (i don’t know why i work so much better on them but i do; they give me somewhere to put my long legs. i am not bragging; it is a fact that my legs are long.) i completely bungled the exercises i had to do because i didn’t notice that there were two columns on the page of the book i was looking at. sam’s usual dogsitting friend had fallen through and she had to work late so she texted me asking if i could take over, and i was more than happy to; i speed walked to her place in midtown, stopping for food at this build-your-own-bowl indian place (i am eating it now; i’d eat it again). it was a perfect walk, and i felt like i was dressed for it: backpack, little bag with keys + phone, sweatshirt, tennis skirt with built-in shorts so i don’t have to worry about my backpack pulling the skirt up (which is what i was worried about all of thursday). i listened to just like heaven (heard, as i mentioned, in the bookstore), dancing in the dark (heard at the bean), a little less sixteen candles (what i listened to while walking home from soho yesterday afternoon). what else should i add to this playlist that contains only songs to the beat of which i could walk 30-40 blocks on a fall day like yesterday (sunny) or like today (gray)? (the dog is doing well; i am here with him now; he is a sweetie, he got a bone from me, he misses his real mother but is tolerating me, his aunt. we get along! he’s watching me type!)