sprung

been too long.

haven't had time; with spring everything speeds up, and all this awesomeness has made it especially hard.

i'm just feeling really happy and grateful. and in lurv.

off to san diego for the weekend, get my chill on with the girls, and then see the fam in vegas, and then back here to get to kick it in the city.

shit's coming together man. and it's beautiful, it really is.

feel a lot better now

spring seems ready to pounce. i'm trying to get all my ducks in line so when it springs i'll be ready to go with it. in a fuckin sundress, and these 5 inch litas from jeffrey campbell, nadahmean?

i'm feeling a lot better than i was, and i feel i should blog just in case anyone checks, so they don't think i'm still drowning in winter sorrow. made it through the worst.

oyster po'boy with hannah hit the spot, and taking it easy for once this weekend has been really nice. i feel healthier.

i'll be in texas in five days and i'm gonna burst if i keep thinking about it so i'm trying to focus on the things i've got to do this week. it's better that way.

i just got a good feeling... the next cycle is rumbling under the surface, and baby, i think it's gonna be good.

cold comfort

at the end of a long bad week. it always happens after my birthday--the hangover, the inevitable letdown after the awesomeness, and valentine's day.

now i'm not a hater of valentine's day, but it usually makes me sad. revisit the old wounds. wonder when i'll stop doing that.

i had a weird one this year; spent it with somebody, which helped, but kind of confused me, made me feel like i was settling. i'm sure he felt like that too.

i've given up on having sex, really, so i don't these days.

the root of this all is so deep it's hard to see where it starts. fuck tweezers, i need a scalpel and pliars. this city is too fast. i love chasing the goals, but i dream of slowness. the other night i dreamt of a little venezuelan town i discovered right outside of vegas.

the night before that i had a nightmare that katie from the class ahead was bedding my ex. completely random. stings.

i guess i'm just frustrated. this pinche cold, endless winter. the politics of school. wanting to talk about something else, and finding out there is nothing else, not right now. wanting the comfort of people knowing me well, someone who will take me out of the bar before i make an ass out of myself.

mitra says wait it out. mom says the lessons are hard to learn, but it's important to learn them. went to didion, but run river was cold comfort.

wait it out. wait it out.

what i'm worth.

lauren friedman edited this piece from an in-class interview assignment.

Roxanna

dance yourself clean

talking like a jerk except
you are an actual jerk
living proof that sometimes friends are mean

today is the day before spring semester starts. i did my laundry today, even my towels and sheets! stocked the fridge with kombucha. and spending the day catching up with my homegirls on the phone. sorting the brain.

tomorrow i start.

this is what i promise you i will do.

i will get paid.
i will focus.
i will get a press pass to sxsw.
i will land the internship.
i'll limit the drama, and limit my ties to it.
turn that energy into drive, burn that in the right places.

saturday night i went out with andrea and jim and we just danced ourselves clean. drank whiskey and danced, and the DJ played WHITNEY HOUSTON. possibly entered the fourth dimension.

Here's to Two of Three. Phase one of New Year's Resolution: make the most of my opportunities. make opportunities.

more snow

it's snowing again and i don't quite know what to do with myself. i'm trying to go to sleep earlier tonight, so i can wake up before three in the afternoon and wash some damn clothes, get my life in order.

but it's so cold out and my bed's nice and i just feel sad.

i called sanja to give her support and she ended up giving me some. i told her i just want to heal from the old hurt and have somebody who will be nice to me. she said i built an empire of roxanna and that can be intimidating.

i can't help but be strong-willed--i have to be to make it out here. i'm on my own, and i've kind of hardened myself for that.

but intimidating? there are only choice examples of where i'd want to be that. like earlier today, when dude followed me into the grocery store to holler, and then waited outside to walk me home. intimidating can work in my favor then.

but mostly, i wanna be loved. like really loved, for something deeper than the way my pout looks or even how it feels...

but the snow comes down and the home-base withdrawals have been raging and that's probably why i'm writing this longing out to begin with.

reset

i'm back at home now, came back to a paper shrine: christmas cards, hank williams on vinyl, strawberry stationery set from hannah. she was in town from houston and stayed at my apartment while i was gone, and left me a strawberry kombucha in the fridge. warmed my heart.

that trip was a voyage, a journey into the present of people with whom i've shared so much past. i fortified some bridges, fashioned some rafts. anything to get me across.

it's hard not to be sad sometimes, when i think of everyone i love and the lives they are leading at this exact moment. i want to be in all of it. i think that's greedy. but it's a happy ache, like ms. miet says.

now i'm getting to know snow, and sleeping 10, 12, 15 hours at a time. it's absolutely vital if i'm going to get back in top-grind shape. catching up with the ones i missed while i was gone.

i'm ready for this year. i'm scared, in awe when i think that this year is it-- one year to hustle this degree and land myself a sweet spot. so many possibilities, starting to take shape.

but first things first. a bed stuy chai and head to the city to get the brows lined up. see what the city's been up to.

kill em with calmness

There is a new ride at the Stratosphere that dangles you down the side, strapped to bungee cords. You can hear people scream from Cameron’s yard. He lives in the Country Club, sandwiched between the Hilton and the Stratosphere. His house feels like home. He's got RZA's version of Washington Crossing the Delaware.



I just dropped my mom off at the airport. We spent the last two days together, the last of which was one of the heaviest I've had in a while. Not because of her, but she tends to be with me at moments of peak emotional intensity. She helps me to process.

We got our nails done and went shopping, and took Charmaine out to dinner, and fixed Cameron's car. Or tried to. Cam and Lazar drove to Portland and back in the storms and now the Tacoma's maybe beyond repair.

So far I've driven Meliss' yellow mustang through the flash floods on Eastern; and Cam's Tacoma on the freeway while it shook violently... it didn't want to go past 45 mph. In Vegas on the freeways people do not bullshit. Finally I borrowed my dad's Mercedes and it has a Texas longhorn on the back, which I love, and no CD player, which is incredibly frustrating. Been listening to country and oldies.

The first nights were wild; missed my homegirls. The night at Rumor I saw so many people I haven't seen in a long time and there was drama. I realized that shit is just gonna come up now and then and I can't let it get to me too much anymore. Kill em with calmness.

Now I'm nursing my kidneys. Sleeping all day. Time now to sort shit out.

loves me like a rock

my kidney hurts. something back there hurts, and i remember last time that happened i ended up in the hospital for four days with the longest pit hair of my life.

i had big detox plans for when i got here, but those have had to be on hold. there is just too much. too many parties, and it's hard to say no to parties. especially with people i haven't seen a while. but i partied for weeks straight back in new york and i need to get my health on 100 so i can be ready to kill it when i get back up there.

it is always strange coming back home. calming to be with my fam. getting some much needed estrogen and perspective from the girls, and just space between my life now and me--for just a minute. reset the brain.

hopefully the next few days here can be a little calmer and i can do bikram for a week and juice. that's what my body (kidneys) really need.

got to plot out the next moves. this is going to be an important year--and i'm ready for it.

happy thoughts

i think i've narrowed down my christmas list.

i want a mini crockpot, a beard trimmer, a single-cup coffee maker, willie nelson on vinyl (preferably 'blue eyes cryin in the rain). and you know i wouldn't be mad at a little waylon either.

that man makes me want to name my son after him. as long as my son was from texas.

i know i'm procrastinating like a motherfucker, and not 100 percent through with this cold, and have a daunting stack of assignments due tomorrow...

but i can't help being extremely happy and grateful right now. i toured the times' newsroom today. my professors are kick ass people i respect. and i booked my tickets home for the holidays, and to see ash and jed in SF.

and in a couple weeks i will be done with a third of it, done with the hardest part, the beginning.

now it's time to get ready for some flexin. and ballin, smashin, stackin my endz.

out!

what I'm worth

my friend lauren friedman edited this audio piece from an in-class interview assignment.

check it out here.

knockin over whiskeys

texas was perfect and worth it and i got back, dove head first onto the ground and into reporting. dangerously close to something big, but we'll see tomorrow how it pans out.

i should/could be writing some of it up right now but i think i'll just zone out instead, save it until tomorrow, dream on it and then hit it with maximum impact tomorrow.

plus i'm tired
my fingers is tired
my brain is too

so it's an early night of sleep.

learning these social media tricks, these deep-web searches, these background searches... reminds me (makes super clear) that i've got all sorts of wild shit out there. but i can't help it man, gotta live. even if that means babybirding out of a beer bong and having my mom stumble on the photo.

at least the video was emailed. and if it resurfaces in ten years, then this should too.

LIGHTEN UP GUYS! it ain't that serious. at least not in 2010 it's not.

the future is all speculation. but it's feeling pretty good.

“Desire is the diamond ring on the finger of eternity.”

The hand-painted façade of Port 41, scrawled with these words, beckons to the few stragglers who make their way down the alley next to the Port Authority on 41st Street near 9th Avenue.

Mostly the passersby are mailmen, pushing mailbags like wheelbarrows down the nearly empty block toward their warehouse. They ignore the signs.

Others are stragglers who come from the bus. Maybe their eyes light on the awning’s signs first. POOL. Or the other one. BIKINI.

A man stands outside puffing a Newport. “Why not?” he calls after someone who looks intrigued as they pass by.

He ducks back in, away from the cold, unbuttons his jacket. The girl at the bar is indeed in a bikini. Leopard print. A man sips a PBR tallboy and calls her “Maria” when he orders another.

The bar counter is red, with a dinged-up wooden edge, and there’s a sticker plastered on the cash register that says “Down By My Sins.”

The smoker from outside orders another. PBR is his drink as well. Maria bends over the trough full of ice to fetch the tallboy, and everyone peeks at the appealing curve of her ass.

Maria has a slight accent, light brown hair, kind eyes.

A sign near the bar lists “No sleeping anywhere in this bar” as one of its rules. The Newport smoker tells the other PBR drinker that he looks stressed out.

“Shit happens,” he says. “Welcome to the club.”

There are only men in the bar, besides Maria.

“I was critiqued!” A man yells on the TV at Dr. Phil, in response to a pointed question about why he felt he could sleep with other women, but not his wife. Maria changes the channel to a recap of the Giants’ win.

An older man in a black coat limps in on a cane. His Chuck Taylors are an unusual match with the rest of his outfit, which is distinguished, understated. The Chuck Taylors must be the key to why this man is here, in the Port 41 at 3 pm on a Tuesday.

His phone rings as he slides into a stool, and he answers it.

“House of Pain!” he shouts into the receiver. Maria smiles. She’s sitting carefully on the counter behind the bar, so as not to make any creases in her stomach. She fiddles with a personal-sized heater that’s directed at her legs.

The man with the Chuck Taylors hangs up the phone. “Well ain’t that a bunch of shit.”

He nods at Maria and limps out for a cigarette. His smokes are Marlboro Lights.

cold is coming.

texas country's on, that's almost all i feel like hearing these days. waylon.

i'm in my old chap soccer hoodie and i'm drinkin chamomile tea. it's just starting to get cold now. this week i've been playing catch up for all the fun i had last weekend, when i didn't do anything but enjoy my best friends' company. ash and jed are my fam.

now the apartment is a cesspool and i'm running behind on all this week's assignments. hopefully by tomorrow night, when i get out of class, i will be on the side of the winners again.

this running behind is exhausting.

i talked to kel tonight, and her and ferrick are in love, and it fills my heart with happiness to hear it. she asked me how things were going besides school. i told her, there really isn't much besides school.

after the election, my brother will be ousted into his next phase. it's disappointing in a way, but exciting in another way.. because he's got all the things he needs to do all sorts of awesome things.

this weekend i'm going to the turkish bath. i'm going to clean everything, and make my home a cozy place for the winter. I think I'll buy some sweaters, too, and possibly a space heater. i'm just wondering if my heat will ever come on? my landlord says it's like a sauna in here when the heat comes on and maybe that's why he hasn't turned it on yet. the other day i woke up and it was 38 degrees and the apartment was like a freezer.

i'm a woman of the desert. turn the fuckin heater on.

i'm gonna make it through this winter. no telling just yet how hard it will be.

people gon spray no mater what.

Okay, when i get to huffington post and the human resources association in google before i get to my blog... it's time to write a blog.

tipsy off whiskeys. and after a great (and long) fucking day.

i really just dig my professors and dig the way they are pushing me out of my comfort zone. once i realized that that's truly what it is, and not just general punkassness, it's easier for me to see the benefit to me of doing it their way.

if i hold onto myself, it can only make me stronger.

i feel like i'm on the cusp of something big. i think the skills are coming together. and that, honestly, feels awesome.

charles has a worm or something, but she's on antibiotics and i think she's a-ok. she charmed the pants off all the vet staff.

i really miss ashley and sanja and charmaine and i just want to have a damn beer with them, or a sleepover. i'm so glad i got to be back in vegas before i came here, because i treasure that time i had with my genuine, 100-percent-down life support. and having the time to be there for them, physically.

sometimes you just need that physical connection. life these days, and skype, and the general accessibility of everyone and everything, it's so good and it helps so much.

but it just doesn't cut it all the time, when all you want is to smoke a bowl with that person, or go shopping, or juice some veggies.

i'm just lucky as hell to have all these awesome bad ass women around me, here in the city, and in texas, and back in the desert.

yall are all still awesome. even though at least 50% of the time, you pee on the seat.

get in where you fit in.

life has been coming fast.

these mondays through thursdays are like a four-part marathon. i was sitting in the health & social services committee meeting tonight in fort greene... all we were talking about were liquor licenses and all i was thinking was how much i wanted to be at the bar.

but i think i got a plausible story idea that i have until friday at 5 to complete... because i think liquor licensing is a large point in gentrification tension... or at least an outlet for it. these oldies are downright bold with each other.. it can be pretty entertaining. but a couple times i had to fight not to say something... they were trippin on these license approvals, and then at the end they casually mentioned that the owners can completely bypass their approval and it's on cursory.

that's this week's story, essentially.

the new digs are dope and i love this hood. some dude called me a snowflake tonight when i was walking home. new one. but there's an old man that sweeps in my street at night and sings the jams... he was singin tonight, and i was humming along.....

STOP! in the NAME of LOVE... before you break my heart...

think it over.

btw, a couple weeks ago i went to the coney island tattoo show, and i finished the video today for my interactive class. check it out.

25th Annual Coney Island Tattoo Show from Roxanna Asgarian on Vimeo.

"it's a revelation only had on your knees."

this week has taken a toll on everybody at school. i saw three girls crying, separately, at school yesterday. honestly, this made me feel a little better about my public breakdown two days ago.

but alas! i've got a secret weapon. it's called CALL BLOCKING and you can do it right from the verizon website! i found this out today and i feel like writing them a letter.

dear verizon,
thank you for saving my sanity by allowing me to easily block motherfuckers. you have my undying support and affection.
love, rox

sigh. this is hard but i feel a lot better. honestly, it's also NOT RAINING today which i feel like helps a lot. and i got my move worked out. so YUHH.

i'm on a new roll. lets keep it comin, week. we're gonna power through.

common search phrase here.

in interactive class yesterday, my professor starting talking to us about writing for search engine optimization.

now, this was at the end of a 6 hour day that started out 'blah blah blah' and continued in a steady stream, ending the same way.

everything he had to say about it, i hated. i feel like i am doing really well in school, and right on track, but i somehow feel like i am only half a self.

half myself.

suddenly i'm so MATURE, so RESPONSIBLE. while i welcome this in a way... it means none, or less, of that gut-wrenching 'i completely forgot' feeling... in another way it's like, where did that self i know so well go?

where is she hiding? in my dreams limas is getting mauled by bears, and i'm sexually entangled with inappropriate people, and i'm fucking in the whisper room.

i don't want to write headlines that trick algorithms into popping me up on your screen. i want to fucking say something.

i packed all day and immersed myself in old mixes, old pictures, letters. searching my brain for the spark i don't want to lose.

i worked so hard to harness the energy into focus. that's good, i'm happy with that, but can i smudge the edges a little? if i hold the energy too tight i might throttle it.

and what will happen then? i'll be writing headlines and ledes with the hottest search phrases embedded inside, waxing journalistic on blah blah blah forever.

no.

I WANT A REMINGTON SL3

...aka, the greatest prologue ever, written by Tom Robbins for "Still Life with Woodpecker":

"If this typewriter can't do it, then fuck it, it can't be done.

This is the all-new Remington SL3, the machine that answers the question, "Which is harder, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov while listening to Stevie Wonder records or hunting easter eggs on a typewriter keyboard?" This is the cherry on top of the cowgirl. The burger served by the genius waitress. The Empress card.

I sense that the novel of my dreams is in the Remington SL3--although it writes much faster than I can spell. And no matter that my typing finger was pinched last week by a giant land crab. This baby speaks electric Shakespeare at the slightest provocation and will rap out a page and a half if you just look at it hard."

Seriously. Early Christmas present? Marriage proposal? Just wanna get me on your good side in case you ever need me down the line?

Remington SL3. Circa 1980.

12-9 on the tracks

talk about beat explorin'.

so i was on my way back from a day hitting up the fulton area business alliance office and the social service agencies in bed stuy, thinkin i got some pretty good leads..

and i'm on the C train going toward manhattan and we were coming into the nostrand ave. stop when we screech to a halt and the train operators start yelling at each other over the intercom. "12-9!" one of 'em says, and the other one goes "what's going on?!?"

everyone in the train just looks at each other like what the fuck? and the lady across from me says 12-9 means someone fell on the tracks. then an MTA employee runs in our car and over to the front left side. the dude was trapped there. right there.. under the car i was sitting in.

i said "holy fuck" and start freaking out a little because i think about that stuff happening but never think it's actually going to happen. i read a story when i worked at the brooklyn paper about a girl with a prosthetic leg that fell trying to move between cars on the N and got run over by 10 cars before the driver realized what was going on. they fired that guy. that story haunts me.

and now this? then they cut the lights. a bunch of people were moving into our car, and they weren't opening our doors and we had been in there for a few minutes, and everyone was crowding in to try to see the body. we were right in the heart of bed-stuy.

so finally they let us out and there are cops everywhere and i kind of walk away for a second and then i think... yo. i'm a JOURNALIST. aren't i supposed to be covering shit like this? so i emailed my professor and started snapping photos and my queasiness turned into... a goal.

one cop wouldn't let me back down into the station so i crossed the street and sweet-talked the other cop... then when i came back up both of 'em were standing together. they called me lois lane.

word around the street was the guy jumped. but we didn't print that. i couldn't get to any witnesses who were standing on the platform. and i don't know if the guy was okay or not, but they took him to king's county.

wild day. now i got more homework.