Life Is Music

I don't update this thing nearly enough. Ugh. Alright, I've got a lot to fill in so I'll be vague.

I went to Carnegie Hall last week to see one of my favorite people in the world JASON/Doodle perform. He is a bass in the Gay Men's Chorus and they do a Holiday show each year. It was amazing! First of all, Carnegie Hall is pretty much the best venue ever. The sound is incredible and I was so high up my nose was bleeding on the chorus. It was a very exciting night.

My sad company is not doing anything holiday related this year so I have to live vicariously through Casey. It wasn't all that vicarious though because he invited me to his work party. It was north of Manhattan which made it feel like we flew to another state completely. They had a DJ that played the electric slide and when a conga line started up I tried to hide. People did lots of shots and did I mention that we were the best dressed couple there? It was a good time.

Saturday night we had tickets to see Rockapella. I have loved Rockapella since I was a very young kid thanks to my dad and the children's show Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. Lucky for me Casey happens to be friends with one of them so he got us front row tickets to their gig in Jersey. I called them crotch shot seats and I was thankful because the current bass singer is the sexiest man of all time. He knelt down, took my hand, and started singing I have no idea what because my body temperature went up a few degrees and I was swooning. He isn't the guy you see in the video linked above. Only one of the original members is still in the group but everyone is ridiculously talented in the vocal department. Wow. Here is a video of the current group.


Sunday night I saw Duran Duran perform in some theater in Jersey. Two nights in a row spent in Jersey? I must be crazy! The show was pretty good but you couldn't hear the skill of Duran Duran because they had the amps set at eleven. I just got my hearing back today. Your Vegas opened for Duran Duran. This is only my second time seeing them but a couple of my friends are pretty much groupies now and I have to admit that they are justified because Your Vegas is worth checking out.


Holy crap is today Wednesday? That means I have a show tomorrow night! HOLIDAY COQUETTES at The Duplex! I'm not nearly as worked up or nervous for this show. Probably because I'm not alone on stage. I trust Ava to not suck so as long as I can live up to that standard as well it should be pretty good. Casey has been given permission to attempt recording. If this works I will share with you. Maybe.

Ta!

Show Time!

It's time to promote my next show.

HOLIDAY COQUETTES

Location: The Duplex 61 Christopher Street (@7th Ave), New York, NY 10014 US
When: Thursday, December 18, 7:00PM
Phone: 212-255-5438

Come pick your fix; Naughty or Nice? Celebrate the holidays with vocals performed by Ava Mihaljevich and Carly Knight with Alex Lawrence on piano. Don't forget the mistletoe!

$8 Cover and a 2 Drink Minimum
Make your reservations online at www.TheDuplex.com
(Seriously make a Reservation.)

Be there Bitches! -Naughty
Be there Kittens. -Nice

What's Goin' On

I skated to Central Park yesterday to hang out and get some sun. I only got about ten blocks and thought I was going to pass out. How could I be so out of shape? I didn't realize how humid it was so I had to sit down and get water in my system. Turns out most people had the sense not to go to the park on such a gross day. I didn't get any tan lines but I left covered in sweat and ready for a nap. Isn't it autumn?

I'm working on a Holiday show with my friend Ava. Previously referred to as A. We went to that music and dramatic school together about seven years ago and then lived together for four years. We have worked on doing a show several times before and never actually performed it. This time I'm really booking the show and if she bails I will just do it by myself. I'm not sure how to pull off the duets but I'll figure it out. The set list is together and I'm excited to get this thing going. We know each other very well and we are a lot alike so it's easy to write. Hopefully everything will go as planned and I can write more about it later on.

No, I have not watched any football.

I'm really sick of/from Politics.

Dirty Dancing

*WARNING - This post is very crass.*

It's time for another blog about SCARY ASS PEOPLE. Saturday night I went out on the town with my friend Ava (previously known as A) We went to the east village or the lower east side. I don't really remember. Wherever we were we stopped at a nice place for a glass of wine and an appetizer. We started off the night well and enjoyed ourselves in a clean, classy environment.

After we left we wandered a bit and Ava decided it might be fun to catch a burlesque show at The Slipper Room. That sounds entertaining, right? She has been there several times and I have certainly seen a lot of burlesque dancing at various venues that was impressive. We figure we will go in, have a drink, and wait for the show. We chatted up the bartender and the room slowly became packed. I don't know how we did it but somehow we pushed through the crowd during the first break between shows and we ended up seated right next to the stage just feet from the dancers. It started off vaguely interesting with a confetti gun prop and a fan dancer performing to the Imperial March. One chick was wearing about twenty pairs of underwear that she kept pulling off. The host was a guy that came out and did a strip tease in his 80's attire to flashdance. Then he pulled the old red sock he was using as a headband and stuffed it in his granny panties for bulk. I'm still talking about the good part of the night just incase you can't tell anymore.

Everything was going fine with the interesting acts until crazy wig came out. She danced for a minute and then hopped off the stage to grab my face and "kiss" me. This was actually more her rubbing her glitter red lips across my chin thus giving me diseases. She then tried to do the same to various other people in the audience but they had the sense to jump back. Then she danced again. It wasn't long before Ava and I noticed that you could see her tampon string and we started feeling bad for her. Like she was modest or something. Unfortunately that string became a part of the act as she started to play it like a guitar. Yep. I kid you not. Crazy wig played away until she tired of this game and just pulled the whole thing out and threw it into the audience. The people scattered like the red sea parting. It would be incredibly creepy and weird if this were all the spur of the moment behaviour of a crazy person but it wasn't. This act was planned. She probably does this on a regular basis. A monthly rotation would be the obvious guess.

Just when you thought it wasn't going to get any worse/better another dancer had to come out and top the act before her. How do you do that? By playing a cardboard guitar shaped like a heart, tearing off your Dr's jacket, and urinating into a glass. SERIOUSLY. This girl started the stream in a thong on stage right into a large glass and then held it out for the audience to see. Like an offering. The glass read "Love Potion." Now you might think that isn't as bad as the tampon incident but I have not even made it to the good part. The chick held out the glass and then went to put it down but suddenly a guy with a group of friends jumped out of his seat, grabbed the glass, and chugged it like a shot! Holy mother of urine, I hope he knew something I didn't but I really don't think he did. The face he made after and the shock in that room... I don't even have words. The dancer stopped dancing and made the call me signal to him several times before leaving the stage.

That is when we decided to call it a night. I have seen a lot of crazy stuff in my life but that certainly was at the top... for this month.... so far. I hope I have properly expressed my trauma. Good luck going to sleep tonight.

Water Water Everywhere

Today I am going to share some flood pictures with you. I know some of you are probably thinking "What the hell does she know about flooding? She is in Manhattan." Or maybe you aren't. Well, it's true. I have not seen any flooding. I'm just waiting for that one giant tidal wave to come and knock out the whole city. Regardless, I do have some pictures for you of the mighty Mississippi eating my hometown.

I was born and raised in the Quad Cities. See the map here. It's that lump when Iowa gets on top of Illinois. Dirty. Anyway, they really don't have it that bad there but enough that my mother was inspired to take these photos from her office in Davenport Iowa.



Mmmm that lovely brown water I grew up with. No wonder I was so intrigued by the Bahamas.

Last night my friend and old roommate of four years took a big risk for a chick and chopped off her long hair into a sexy little bob. The excitement of the hot new hair inspired her to make a visit to my place with Bellinis. The offering of alcohol was a smart way to get us started on a fashion shoot. I didn't upload the photos of me yet but I wanted to share this picture I took of her.



My crappy digital camera can be difficult to work with when I want natural light. It goes all blurry on me. In this case it turned out looking like an oil painting which I really like. It's a little bit jazz. There are several others that are not blurry like this but I am fond of how this turned out.
Hey, like my new wine glasses? They were one of my birthday gifts from the boyfriend.
A.D.D. Bye!

Introducing Al

Today my blogging mentor (she hasn't exactly agreed to the mentoring) Tink of Pickled Beef awarded me with this:

Thanks Tink! It's an honor coming from you, the coolest chick in blogland.

Today I messed with my blog layout a tiny bit. I changed the top banner text and it almost looks the same but I almost made a huge jump to this:



Then I decided it looked a little too crime drama or night court. Very misleading. My co-worker suggested I include a hampster in a parachute falling in the skyline. I don't really understand that one yet but kudos to him for being creative. I also changed up my profile pic to what I call "escaping from the asylum". Casey says I look crazy in the photo so he always harasses me about it. The crazy is exactly why I like it! You all already know I'm crazy if you have read even one blog entry. I have nothing to hide here.

Speaking of crazy, I would like to introduce you to my roommate Al.

Al and I are good friends. I met him at Ikea and we hit it off. I agreed to look out for him as long as he didn't mind me singing and talking at him quite a bit. So far he has proved to be an excellent apartment mate. By that I mean, he has not died on me. I am very proud it's working out.

Today at work I took a few photos of the view from our office.

It's a nice view but it's sad to sit in Queens all day and stare at the place you want to be. The place where all the action is. *Sigh* I'm in love with this city.

Home(s)

I'm the type of person that really enjoys having alone time. I only have one sibling and we both had our own rooms growing up. My parents allowed us a lot of privacy because they both worked and for the most part respected our private space.
When I first moved to New York six and 1/2 years ago I lived in student housing (aka: a dirty little closet with a bunk bed) with a nice enough girl from the UK. It was a big change. When I finally moved into an apartment it was a rodent infested two bedroom converted to a three. We had very little space and it was hard not to fight because we couldn't get away from each other. It didn't help that one of the roommates was a close-talker and we would have to physically hold her back with our arms. When we realized we had mice I stopped sleeping and made myself sick. We had to move.

Luckily I went on tour for three months (living in a van and hotel rooms) and when I got back I moved with one roommate to queens. This wasn't so bad. Our dumb ass super never turned on the heat in the winter so we were always freezing but at least we didn't have infestations. We were in a two story house. At one point the apt below us had a fire in their closet. I had just walked out of the apartment to the deli and by the time I got back the place was surrounded by fire trucks. They had axed down our door and all of the windows. My roommates bed was covered in glass, our windows were all boarded up, and our new front door/piece of wood was locked shut with padlocks. Meaning, we had to come and go together. The "fire" was just smoke. We were done with Queens.
At the end of that year we decided we needed to be back in Manhattan and somehow a two bedroom for less rent than our Queens apartment was located via Craigslist on the Upper East Side. This was new territory for both of us but it was the perfect amount of space and the six floor walk up made our legs stay in great shape. Here is the proof.

Living on the UES forces you to get used to taking buses which is a big step in Manhattan living. Until you learn the bus system you don't ever bother going across town. You would consider the other side of Central Park non existent. We lived in that apartment together for two years until June last year when I finally had the opportunity I have longed for my entire life. Living alone!

It was finally financially possible for me to get an apartment by myself in a safe neighborhood. It's wonderful. It is the tinniest place ever and I should never have more than three people in in at once but it's mine. It's my stuff and it's always empty when I get there. I love coming home to my empty apartment where if there is a mess it is never unexpected. It's my food and my space and I'm all alone to do whatever odd things I please. All this sounds wonderful but I have developed a new problem. I find that I never want to leave. What if I become some sort of Anti-Social freak and my old friends would have to come drag me out physically? Creepy.
I wonder what will happen next? I don't forsee upgrading any time in the next several years. Will I stay where I am? Who knows. Life is a crapshoot.

Still Alive

In the early hours of Tuesday morning as I was drifting in and out of sleep I suddenly thought it was the end for me. I woke just enough to roll on to my left side when suddenly my whole body collapsed into the bed. I felt like I was cramping up all over in every muscle and every joint. I tried to look at the clock but I couldn't move my head. I couldn't move anything. This is when panic set in. I tried to call out to my roommate for help but I couldn't get my mouth to move. I couldn't do anything at all but lie there in excruciating pain. It occurred to me that I might die in that very spot and nobody would find me for days. I was praying that the pain would soon end and that I would make it through when I noticed that my arm was shaking. Was I having a seizure? A heart attack? What was happening? Finally the pain started to ease and I could think a little more clearly. I'm alive. I know I'm alive and I'm so unbelievably tired. Then I passed out.
Next morning at the ER I get an IV and CatScan. The Neurologist does some basic testing to make sure I don't have any damage. Diagnosis: Seizure. Could have been caused by any number of things but they don't want to treat me unless it happens again. I'm set up for more tests and referred to another neurologist for more review. Off I go back into the world with no changes made. Now I can't sleep at night because I'm afraid I will choke to death on my own tongue.
I can't help but feel like this is all supposed to mean something. What though? Am I not going in the right direction? Is the direction right but my vehicle all wrong? I really hope I get this figured out soon because I want to stick around for awhile.