But Call Me Betsy

I found out that answer today while riding home on the subway. A regular commuter man got on with a greasy paper bag. He promptly pulled out a piece of fried chicken and started eating it. He tried to get most of it in the bag so as not to leave a mess, but then he had to rush off at the Market East stop and left behind a forlorn wing. It seems particular to Philadelphia to see these chicken bones lying against the curb or on the sidewalk, and now I have seen it happen myself. I also watched an old couple, small and stooped over about the size of fourth-graders step carefully on the train and sit next to a gigantic black man who looked like he was a little mortified, as though someone might think they were all traveling together. The little black dog from my neighbor's house has disappeared. I noticed a couple of days ago that the barking had stopped and then I peered over the wall and saw that everything had been cleared away; the canvas, the dog bowl, the bone. Avis and her frien...

Somehow, I have become the most popular blanco mujer on my block. It happened gradually. First, I made friends with Aivlis (pronounced "Avis"), the seven year old Mexican girl who lives next door to me. We bonded over her cat Diego, who has since disappeared (died?). Then, I met her cousins: Stephanie, Melanie, Christian, Memo and others. One day, I invited Avis into my house to meet Ernesto and Emma. Then Melanie (who is about 3) wanted to pet Emma, though she's a little scared of cats, so I found myself sitting on the front steps with Emma, surrounded by children. Melanie is very cute. I said to her, Beso el gato, and she kissed Emma on the tail. When I say I have to go in, she frequently says, No! Please...(it's one word of English that she seems to know. She typically talks to me in Spanish and I pretend to understand or ask Avis what she has said). After Diego the gato disappeared, Avis' family bought a little boy fuzzy black dog named Moxe. They keep him tie...

I took the train into Wayne, PA today to attend Jess' baby shower and lost approximately four .5 pounds in the process because the heat was unbearable. I wasn't even walking that fast, but when I arrived at my first stop in the trip (the Broad Street Line), my hair was matted to my head ala some chick from a Robert Palmer video. Luckily, Jess' mom had the air on full blast. There were three full grown babies in attendance, plus 2 soon to be born babies (Jess' and her friend Stephanie's). I was given the honor of recording the gifts, though I'm not sure I did the best job as I was too distracted by the baby books. I am sure I did better than at Julie's shower where I drank four glasses of wine and then insisted on writing up the presents so that Julie got a list that read: "Blanket from Aunt with the big mole and something that rattles...nother blanket...rattle...diapers or something that resembles diapers...another present from that one lady..." Lu...

Though I am usually not the most discerning viewer, I cannot stand to watch any of MTV's faux reality show, The Hills . Usually, I am fine with this kind of slick programming and I didn't mind Laguna Beach (the show's predecessor) that much, but not only is The Hills even more stilted than LB , it's also completely boring. It's mostly just this extended montage of close-ups of pretty girls staring off into space as though thinking. Scene: Lauren's bedroom. Lauren and Allyson or Chelsea or Brigitta or Whomever are sitting on Lauren's bed, both wearing tank tops, headbands, and shiny lip gloss. Lauren: So, like, what's up with Steve? A/C/B: Who's Steve again? (Close up of Lauren's face. We see her chew gum intently. Cut to: close up of ACB's face) Lauren: Who? A/C/B: Did you just ask me what's up with Steve? Because I'm not sure who Steve is. Is he that blond guy we met at that club? Lauren: You mean Cameron? What about him? Do you lik...

Classes start next week and I'm signed up for a graduate course called The Short Novel. My friend Molly is in it too and so I suppose we'll be competing to see who can answer the most question correctly during class. The first two books we're reading are Daisy Miller by Henry James and The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I've read the Chopin book but not the one about Daisy. I think I might hate Henry James, but maybe not; I vaguely recall trying to wade through The Turn of the Screw and being disappointed because I'd heard that it was scary (has a couple of dead kids in it maybe?), but the voice was so muted and detailed that I couldn't engage in it at all. Or maybe that was the book version of T he Way We Were . I am having an interior battle about taking the writing workshop this semester; I really enjoyed it, but it runs kind of late (6:30-9:30) and it might mean having to drive to work on that day and I am always exhausted, etc., etc. However, I did get a ...

Saturday, my new work friend, Stephanie, met me at the Germantown train line and we drove to this huge thrift store Celia told me about. I am spoiled by Circle Thrift because I now get overwhelmed when clothes aren't organized at least by color. Luckily, I had visited CT before going to the station and bought a pair of black Mary Janes, a tshirt with a unicorn on it that reads "Florida," and a Virgin Mary. The t-shirt I will only wear to work out in. It is just like the kind I used to have to make when I worked at a beach store in Clearwater. People could come in an pick from 100 plus transfers and then I would have to iron it on without burning anything. The Virgin Mary attracted me for sort of the same nostalgic reason. VM are omnipresent in South Philadelphia windows; virtually every other window features at least one Mary with her hands out as if she are saying, What? I didn't ask to be put here. I bought one to put in my window for three reasons (1). I kind of li...

C'est moi. Not really, though I did go to Center City Sips on Wednesday with Stephanie and her teacher friends and their guys. We met at Marathon Grill where the specialty cocktails were $4, wine was $3, and beer a mere $2. I ordered something containing gin, ambrosia, cointreau and PCP. It tasted terrible;like gasoline and paint thinner, but I drank it anyway, in part because we had already sent one drink back and in part because I kept thinking it would get better (it did not). Also, it meant that it took me a half hour longer to finish my drink by which time the rest of the crowd had moved on to their fifth order. On the plus side, I was able to breath fire and entertain the crowd. Then I ordered a raspberry cosmopolitan without the raspberry flavor and the server said icily, You mean you want a cosmopolitan? Yes, HAHAHA, sorry! Why am I always intimidated by service peeps? Well, mostly it's bartenders who make me feel like they're doing me a favor by serving me. I felt ...

My friend Kali sent me an e-card yesterday from this very funny site called someecards.com . You must go on it and obsessively send them to everyone you know. Here's mine for the week. Went out last night for Liz's birthday and met a bunch of her girlfriends and one of her guy friends at Chauc er's and then we went to Pub on Passyunk and then back to Liz's and then I walked home and was almost picked up by a very short Mexican man. I kept talking Spanish to him and he kept talking English to me and neither one of us understood the other. Tonight, I'm going out with Stephanie and Celia for Center City Sips. Hey, I went to the gym at lunch time which means I have earned the right to drink 16 wheat beers, right? I sent another one to my coworker that read "Our safe word scares me." Here's one for Jodie: I am still thinking about the Janey Doe book. Though I do want it to be a detective story of some kind, I don't want her to be a cop or in the busines...

A fun time was had by all in Brooklyn this weekend. I am now back in the city that (as I told Luke this weekend) alternately smells like fresh baked bread or dog shit (depending on the way the wind blows). I felt a surge of fondness for Philadelphia as the train was pulling closer to the skyline. It's the underdog of American cities. It's dirty, difficult and politically flawed but it's also friendly, manageable and chock-ful of happy dogs (on average, I am able to pet at least two dogs per day on my walk to the subway and have not once been bitten, though now, of course, you can expect to read about me being maimed by a pit bull since I just made that claim). What did we do? We did these things and much more: *Had coffee at Joyce's which contained 3 hipster moms and their fat burbling babies. One lady said, "I am such a bad mom! I gave him formula and then put him back down for another nap!" The other mothers all cooed their approval. I wanted to say, "Y...

This is Brooklyn Luke again. Sorry for that last less-than-illuminating post. What I was working toward before we lost our connection was some question about the creepiness other folks feel in reading blogs of friends. Do you? To me it seems more intrusive than reading a stranger's blog. But more than that, it is strange to be more kept-up with a friend's doings than they are of your own. Well. Respond at will. We have had an unprecedented lazy weekend, with nothing really planned. We had a tornado this week in Brooklyn, the first ever since buffalo roamed these plains. It knocked out the subways and they are still running a little slow. That is our excuse. The winds whipped up a pretty fierce pee smell all through town, so it is not really worth going out. Instead we have caught up on most of our crossword work for the year, smoked 365 packs of cigarettes each, and kept pretty much to our initially-established places on the couch. Need to be getting back to that. So--thanks fo...

That's how I feel about New York/Brooklyn. Every store that we go into has all the things you can desire and more. Even the local icky grocery store (C Town Town) has Annie's organic pasta as well as 500 different types of detergents. The people watching here is much better. It reminds me of David Cross' stand up about living in New York; at any given moment, you're given the choice, Do I look at the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life or the freakiest person? Though I haven't really encountered that many crazies this time. Oh, but while I was waiting for Luke to meet me at Penn Station, I was approached by a skinny blond guy with too much hair gel who was trying to sell me tickets to the Laugh Company. He talked to me as if he were onstage and I were in the audience. "Where you from? What do you do?" His jokes were the worst I've heard since like second grade when knock-knock jokes were big. "Yeah, people from Philadelphia don...

Hello all. I have the honor today to guest blog for Aimee. I guess I read this blog sometimes, but as I explained to her, it is a little uncomfortable to try to keep up with a friend through their blog because the relationship becomes one-sided. There must be a moment of mild dissapointment stalkers feel when their love objects rudely fail to reciprocate any familiarity--you didn't even know I got a job at the Citco near your house? Please pay just a little attention. Note: This was unfinished because the computer suddenly went off line. Luke may get back to it later...

Here is a photo that Celia took a couple of weekends ago. This was a book that I wanted to buy at an outdoor yard sale. There were actually five volumes in the series--one for each decade from the 40s-80s of women in popular photography. I thought, Hey, I'll buy this book for like $10 and then I can frame some of the better photos. But when I asked the lady who was running the sidewalk sale for a price, she quoted $50. I remembered that we were in Bella Vista, not Circle Thrift. I did not buy the book. I accidentally walked down 9th street on my way to work because I had some extra time and decided to walk up a couple of extra subway stops. I always forget that there's this killing market on 9th street--I mentioned it in a previous post--these doves and pigeons and chickens stacked in cages outside of the store. Today, there were three white bunnies in the cages as well. I petted one. He didn't bite. One of the other rabbits had a toe missing. Once again, no one was set fre...

During my quest for a hot body today at the gym, I was listening to my ipod (for which I bought a cover finally--$1 at the "Everything's $1 Store" where everything is not in fact a buck) and the REM song "Strange Currencies" shuffled in. It's not the best song to really get you going and if you're not careful, it can make you remember boys from your youth and cause you to stumble on the elliptical machine and fall down and hurt your nose. Except I don't know if you could call it a love song or if it's more of a stalker song. He sings "I don't know why you mean to me" which isn't very flattering to the adored and then "...you will be mine" which makes me think of him hiding behind a building and watching the silhouette of this person in the lighted window above him. But the song makes me want to just sit down with Michael over coffee and talk for a couple of hours, because all of REM's songs are like that--lovely a...

"It's not going to be easy, because I'm going to hurt someone..." His first words. The sun shines brightly behind his huge ears and his hair is somehow growing straight off the top of his head like an Italian/Australian Chia . Amanda is the young one. She is pretty but her mouth is gigantic. Huge. Cartoonishly large. I supposed it doesn't matter too much because he has a big mouth too. And then there's Jen, age 63 who has that tight look to her face like it might crack off at any moment and reveal a well maintained lizard. Jen has a son who is twenty-five and the Bachelor is 24 and a half. Oh, first betrayal...Jen brought a gift. Amanda wants to scratch her eyes out. She stares out the window at the beautiful fake scenery. We are about to meet the parents. We probably won't be able to understand a word they say. They are in Australia to meet the bachelor's family (I still can't remember his name. Andrew? Bob? Tangerine?). The big shock will be J...

Talked to Jess yesterday, who is not quite sure if she's having a baby in September or early January. I thought too that she was about three months pregnant, but it turns out that she and Scott will be having a child in the fall (if not sooner). We have not come up with a name yet for a boy or a girl though I'm still partial to "Emma Carol" for a girl. Ethan for a boy? Or would that be too weird, like he owned a furniture store or was part of an Edith Wharton novel? Speaking of which, Jess also told me yesterday that her ex-boyfriend, who earned his MFA from Iowa and has been written up in Oprah more than once, just had his first book optioned for a movie and is hard at work on another novel. This made me realize that I need to write a book that will be made into a movie where I will need to make a cameo appearance to kiss Colin Firth--just like, in the background, it doesn't necessarily have to tie into the plot. Combine this news with the fact that I've bee...

Here we are at another sweltering Saturday. What's a girl to do? Well, I just drank a glass of orange juice (sans pulp) and have made my bed, taken a shower and fought with fat Emma who chewed through an entire grocery bag yesterday and has not yet picked up her cat toys which are scattered all over the place. I'm going to the coffee shop for 45 minutes or so and then will go to Celia's. She's letting me do laundry and in return, I am driving her and me to the SugarHabit Warhouse Sale in Old City. Then we'll go to Trader Joe's where I will spend too much money on healthy, premade food. I'm looking forward to it, especially since Celia will bring her camera and I can later steal her pictures. Oh, then last night, I went with her and Lisa Marie to Vox , an art gallery in an old, crappy building. I was introduced to Lisa Marie's artist friend who has some work featured in the gallery and it was the most ackward conversation in recent history. Instant replay...

According to someone, this is the Simpson version of me. I can think of a couple of things missing from this, though the shirt with the cat and the pink shoes are accurate. Where are my boobs? Come on, people! Here's another photo Celia took in South Philly.