Well We're Movin' On Up

...to a deluxe apartment on the gro-ow-0wnd floor. Mo-oo-vin' on u-up...I don't know any more of that song. But I can finally write my own lyrics. We've found our new home. In Astoria. At last. Phase one of The Chrysalis Year Extreme Makeover Home Edition is officially in effect. Details will follow but first, a few props:

Thanks to the cosmic apartment Gods--those heavenly, lawnmowing, benevolent beings responsible for the assignment of empty spaces to empty people. They finally put us in our place (literally and figuratively). Thanks to George, our celadon-Jag-driving broker, and his negotiation skills. Never before have I seen such an honest attempt at wheelin' and dealin' on behalf of owner and future hopeful tenants. For three days he believed our shtick, we believed his, and that was all anyone needed to know. He: honest purveyor of fine vacated apartments. Us: honest couple in search of an upgrade. He did his job. He broked. We did ours too. We signed our first lease in a decade. It's a milestone of milestones in so many ways. Thanks to our three-legged dog and her pink bandana for being the picture of low maintenance gentility so that the new owner would consider allowing her to prance around on newly refurbished hardwood floors. Thanks also to our current landlord for taking her foot off the insanity pedal for a day so we could plead our case about pro-rating June's rent. And now, to our friends and family: thank you for tolerating endless philosophizing on how much the rental market has changed (duh) in the last decade, being patient while we mused on notions of gentrification versus renovation and borough identity, and helping us (me) locate Prospect Heights on a map. If we hadn't been able to hold in our hearts the vision of breaking bread with you at a table that doesn't have screw-in legs, in a kitchen with a floor that actually touches the walls, I'm not sure we woulda survived signing that two-page, single-spaced lease.

I reserve my final thanks for 35-08 33rd Street. Thank you, beloved chicken shack, for being my first home in a house-shaped home in New York. Thank you for having the kitchen we called all our friends from at 3:30 a.m. the night we got engaged. Thank you for hosting our rehearsal dinner after-party, a crazy drunken holiday cookie exchange, and countless intimate Thanksgiving feasts. Thank you for having just enough space in your living room for a beautiful Christmas tree filled with hand painted wooden ornaments. Thank you for being a private house--a private forum for the noise of living. You were (are) the home I walked out of as a single woman and back into as a married woman. You were (are) my shelter during one of the most significant periods of my life.

Of all the changes I've pushed to introduce in MCY, it stands to reason that this needed to come first. A lovely conversation I had last weekend reminded me of something: outside is in. Inside is out. I talk a lot on this blog about changing the exterior to yield results on the interior. I don't think I ever could've realized how much of a metaphor our living space was becoming. The darkness of living on top of one another was starting to feel like every empty space inside of me was really just a small, dusty hall closet. I have these applications for school sitting in a bag on the living room floor. I haven't been able to touch them. It's because I've needed a clear, new, open space on the outside so that I can make that same space on the inside and actually create something.

It's funny sometimes when things finally shift. It seems like they happen all at once. To me it's a sign that needing to move was some sort of a block. Once it opened opportunities could finally push through. In the same week that we signed the lease, all my remaining transcripts came through so that I can formally apply for school, we started editing Off the Radar and I got my first freelance writing job.

So, I've officially sworn off Craigslist and its hotbed of apartment huting deception and am now knee-deep in modern furniture catalogs instead. I'm in the market for saffron-hued dining room chairs because orange is the color of gratitude.

Me? Me?

Omigosh, it's finally happened. I've been tagged for a Meme (the blogosphere's lengthy answer to the "truth" part of a truth or dare). I'm kinda psyched, actually. I love reading these on other blogs. They're sorta like those "getting to know you" emails where you're asked if you've ever been to Africa and if you prefer hugs or kisses and you roll your eyes but secretely love typing that your favorite food is Mexican. Thanks to the gamely Frantic Puppy I have the opportunity to honestly purge myself of the following wishes, pleasures and regrets. Feels good. Watch out, you're next.


I can't believe I have never...
Gotten on board with Obama. What's wrong with me? It seems such a good fit: the progressive values, eloquence, pro-green-women-gay platform, the saying-all-the-right-things schtick. The celebrity endorsements. The youth vote. The polish and shine. The magazine analyses. The hype. The opinions of so many people I respect. If I'd thought for one second in 2004 when I saw "the speech" that I'd be standing dry outside the big, ol' Obama swimming hole in 2008, I'da been shocked. But honestly, it's just not happening. He's not my guy. There, it's done. I've said it.


I wish I'd...when I had the chance...
This rates second only to wishing I'd gotten an academic education, which I really wish I'd done and I'm really gonna try to do. But that said, I wouldn't take back the education I did get and I'm not sorry I made the choices I made when I did. So, after that, I only wish I'd gone to visit the Liberian refugee camp in Ghana, West Africa when I was there in 2001. The group we traveled with had an opportunity to see firsthand how people at the camp were living after the civil war. Some folks went and some stayed behind. I stayed behind. I've regretted it for 7 years. I guess I was on overload. We were maybe a week or more into the trip and I'd reached maximum density. It was my first experience with the poverty of a developing nation and I was afraid of what I'd see and how I'd feel and I felt myself sort of going numb and no longer taking in the experience. So I didn't go. I missed an opportunity to see for myself the failures of the UN and the lives of people who were living in conditions beyond anything I could fathom. It would've given me an even greater perspective than I'd already been granted on that trip as well as a deeper connection to the people in the region, and I'm really, really sorry I missed it.


I've never felt so out of place as when I...
Last stood in a room full of actors at an audition about six years ago. Self-producing kept me nice and comfortable in the roles I cast myself in so on a lark I felt it was time to "get out there" and fire off an audition to keep the muscle exercised. The sides were on little slips of paper like the ones you write the name of your secret santa on and all the actors were standing around in a hallway prepping with these tiny strips in their hands. The breakdown called for "Freaks, pimps, glamour girls and Eurotrash". Now, don't ask me why but at the time I felt I could play Eurotrash. It must've been the "trash" that I connected to. And for some odd reason I wore silver satin pants. I guess I sorta felt they were Euro in a way. Flashy. I had some seriously contrasting blonde highlights at the time and I can still see myself walking up to the building in my disco pants, wearing a scarf (actorly!) and a pair of cheap pleather platforms ready to blow them away with my faux-Berlin persona. I knew immediately it wasn't my crowd. This was a room full of young, ingenue-y, waifish girls pulling off that wispy, tight-jeaned vulnerability with ease. And there I was, sparkling and cheap (but not Eurocheap) standing akwardly in plastic shoes. Insecure but not delicately vulnerable. I felt sorta like an Elvis impersonator in a performance of Swan Lake. I selected my sides (a poem about how my ass looked in jeans--another mistake) and tried to prep, at that point more as an exercise in pain tolerance than a genuine desire to play Eurotrash. When I went in to audition, I got about 2 lines in, uttered the word "orbs" in reference to my ass cheeks and from the dark came "thanks so much". I'm absolutely positive it was the pants.


My guilty pleasure is...
Oh, The Hills. I love it. It thrills with its urban Cali setting, jetting off to Crested Butte, drone-y boys and foolish control battles. I love its voiceovers and personal revelations. I love its megabitch and super-sweet, the flip flops, baby doll dresses, fashion internships and product endorsements. I love Heidi's fake tits storyline and her faux relationship with Spencer and Lauren's work trip to Paris. I love Audrina's ridiculous name. Audrina Patridge. Mostly I just love to put it on and listen to the monotonous voices of the young and lovely hash out the business of being beautiful and burdened with bad boyfriends. De-lish.


I hope...knows how grateful I am...
I think my husband knows how grateful I am that he's my cosmic twin. But he may not know how grateful I am that he's a hopeful person with great compassion. He might be unaware that I'm grateful he's profoundly dark and funny and imaginative. He probably has no idea how grateful I am that he eats my food, listens to Edie Brickell with me when I'm on a tear and calls me "ma'am" when I'm being naggy. What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man.


In my darkest hour I secretly blame...
God. Myself. We compete for first place. Though, I do thank God that I don't blame my parents anymore.


...changed my life forever...
In chronological order: The Michael Jackson Thriller concert, Prince, The Cure, Siouxsee Sioux, drugs, dropping out of high school, black hair dye, Morrissey, moving to New York, sleeping at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, Africa, This Woman's Work, getting married, losing my grandparents, finding our perfect dog, Gogol Bordello.


Every time I think about...I still cringe...
The first time I went on air on QVC in the U.S. I'm cringing so hard I can barely type. This also gets second place for the "I've never felt so out of place as when I" paragraph. I was replacing a former platinum blonde Mrs. America who'd repped our brand for a fucking decade, I had a severe updo and looked like the mistress at an orphanage circa 1935, I was under pressure to save our company financially in this one four minute spot and I was presenting cosmetics in a home show. I came just after the "mini aquarium" and just before the "car wash in a bottle". We sold 137 of 7200 items in stock. When I came off air there was no one to greet me. It's a "coffee is for closers" kinda environment. You only get an escort out of the studio if you sell mega product. I walked myself off the set and was greeted by a curt and hurried PA who pulled my mic quipment off in silence. Cringe.

So, now I gotta tag and keep the honesty comin'. Whatagoodguy, you're SO it.
Yours, OneKate

Dear Brooklyn

The following is a long time coming and I know it. Before I move either out of Astoria or to Astoria...again, it's necessary. It's a love letter of sorts and also a formal acknowlegment that I'm a stupid-ass and need to eat a Thanksgiving dinner's full of words. So, with that:

Dear Brooklyn,
I'm full of shit. You are really are a great borough.

See, I've been passing judgments based on those kids who look like Carol Brady infiltrating my little Queens nabe for the last two years. The fact is, I'm intimidated by white belts, spray denim and vintage glasses. I can't find those things at Target and that makes me anxious. And, I dunno, I just feel like those kids aren't coming to Queens for our great spanakopita. They want our cheap(ish) apartments. Nothing wrong with that, but they're the ones who made their own borough too expensive in the first place.

Really, though, I think I'm just jealous that sweater cardigans don't suit me and I can't rock that easy, edgy urban style. And maybe I feel like our borough lacks the kind of identity I wish it had. But the truth is, I never really knew you. I only knew your slopes and expressways and that's just not enough to sum a borough up. Besides, every borough has a "haircut". Boy, do I know that. I live in Queens.

While shopping for apartments, we've also shopped for neighborhoods. We've tried on Bed-Stuy (too up-and-coming), Bay Ridge (lush and bustling), and our dreamy Greenpoint. Oh, Greenpoint. You're so us. Just edgy enough. We'll never stop dreaming about living in you, you sweet little artsy, northernmost 'hood. We've scoped Brooklyn College's antique-y campus (charming) and enjoyed a sunny brunch in Ft. Greene (we know, not a chance in hell). And everywhere we've been, we've indulged in the color of Brooklyn, its hospitable variety and sense of self.

Brooklyn, you're glorious, you absolute destination. I was wrong, I was wrong. You are a wonder of grit and gray and gutters, a loud and luxurious urban paradise. I've spent the last month frolicking in all of your offerings and you're...ahem...um...twelve years in...a find.

Mine is a tale of isolation. New York has a way of making one insular in the most un-insular place in the world. But the shackles have come off, Brooklyn. My New York territory has gotten a whole lot bigger. I can't wait to crawl further inside you and see what else I've been missing.

I'm at the foot of your magnificent bridge.
I humbly admit defeat.
SWAK,
OneKate

Reality, Chrysalis Style

Hiya Chrysalis Camp,
There comes a day in every chrysalis journey when one must examine the full breadth of the tasks at hand (as well as the relative progress) and make some sort of big generalization about just what is being achieved, exactly. In other words, I need a reality check.

I think today is an excellent day for this. I'm sorta losing my nut. I've got my cell phone no further than six inches from my right wrist as I type, awaiting a call--any call--from a broker--any broker--regarding an apartment--any apartment. I've got two separate email accounts open in addition to my Blogger screen in the event that any one of fifty landlords/brokers/building owners I've contacted in the last few hours should happen to take a five minute break from walking people through empty, painted-over, poorly-lit, slightly aging apartments to sit down at a computer and compose a return email. I jump every time I hear the "new mail" alert and race to the little yellow envelope with my mouse only to find it's yet another "keep this flame going" email from a woman I worked with five years ago.

I've got each and every communication from Federal Application For Student Aid sitting in my email box acknowleding receipt of my application for the $3.50 they'll likely qualify me for but can't tell me about until after I've been accepted at a school I haven't decided on yet. Better than that, I have the auto-response from New York state's Tuition Assistance Program, which tells me its contribution is based solely on FAFSA's. Right on.

On the subway escalator this morning I was thinking about what all of this year's hanging about, flailing, faltering, hoping, sucking it up, letting go, accepting, resisting and resolving has amounted to thus far. And I decided that the measure of movement, however resembling of an iceberg, is the answer you get when you ask yourself where you are in comparison with this time last year. Asking myself that question is like dropping a big hit of Xanax (or binge drinking at a bar crawl--but that's another post). It slows me way down.

Last year there was no chrysalis. It wasn't even a concept. There were no empty apartments, financial aid forms, dream schools or polished up resumes. There was only the desire to be different in spirit and form and me, frozen solid under a lake of complacency.

So, five months in, what's my big generalization? The truth about change is that it's all relative. Timelines are abstract. Nothing ever takes as long as I think it will. Nobody else's timeline is the same as mine. Phone calls get returned at will, opportunities come and go more frequently than I have time to notice, my urgency is not necessarily anyone else's, and life is just simply not linear. If absolutely nothing else, the chrysalis concept has given me that big reality check.

I'm trying to learn that getting insane over stupid shit isn't necessarily the mark of regression but rather, growing pains. Part of the expansion process. Waiting for broker phone calls is a weird sort of blessing. Because, I suppose, they mean something is happening.

Away Message

Hiya Chrysalis Crew,
I'm writing a few hours before I depart for London to hawk red lipstick on television. Many of you know of my deep, abiding love for those creamy, crimson crayons. I've been wearing the stuff since I was just old enough not to look like a Denver version of Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver. I used to wear it with dance tights and sweat pants when I first moved to New York. Now I wear it in the daytime with flip flops and hoop earrings. I leave it, like a signature, on the rims of glasses, on linen napkins and smeared at the bottom of cheap purses. All I have to do is convince fifty thousand British women that they, too, can experience the surge of confidence and perplexing blend of retro and modern glamour that comes from leaving your lip print on the rim of a coffee cup. Easy. easy. easy.

Before I go I want to honor the month of April 2008 (the official anniversary of the best music year of my life) with a few links 'n' notes about what I'm taking with me and looking forward to upon my return. Now, I'm nobody's music blogger. I'm not a cutting-edge insider, music geek or go-to trendwatcher. But in April of last year I was in a dank apartment in Nantes with my brother doing one of those music-share marathons ("okay, now you go", "oh my God, I HAVE to play you this!", "where can I find that?") and it shaped my entire year. As I finish packing today I'm thinking of that gray, salty Nantes afternoon and am feeling a similar excitment about the coming summer of music and all the memories waiting to be made to its soundtrack. This post is my 2008 music-share. Some new, some older. From my dank New York apartment to you, with love.

Lest you should think there is any formality to this list, see disclaimers below:

1.) I totally know that some of these selections are not from 2008.
2.) I totally know that some of these albums have been out for awhile.
3.) I totally know that many of these bands have like, 3-5 albums out and that this is not their "pivotal" album nor have I "discovered" anything.

Alright, with all that business out of the way, let's delve.

The following accompanies me over the Atlantic:
-Elvis Perkins, Ash Wednesday
*a stunningly heartfelt, lyrical gem with some of the most complex singer-songwriter melodies I've heard.
**Standouts: All the Night Without Love, While You Were Sleeping, Sleep Sandwich, Good Friday.

-Blue Scholars, Bayani
*rich, intelligent Seattle-based indie-hop with memorable hooks and everyman quality.
**Standouts: Opening Salvo, North by Northwest, Still Got Love.

-Balkan Beat Box, Balkan Beat Box :
*sweet world dance with gypsy vibe and sexy, trippy vocals accompanied by mindblowing horns.
**Standouts: Bulgarian Chicks, Shushan, Hassan, 9/4 Ladies.

-Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago:
*heartachingly gentle falsetto vocals layered over acoustic and percussion with lyrics of love and loss.
**Standouts: Skinny Love, Flume, The Wolves (Act I and II).

-M.I.A., Kala
*bracing, ass-kicking Sri Lankan (via London) lady-rap with insane production.
**Standouts: Bamboo Banga, Paper Planes, XR2.


What Sends Me Back Home:
-Gogol Bordello, live, McCarren Pool, June 20. If you haven't seen them live, you're missing a piece of the human experience.
-Elbow releases The Seldom Seen Kid, April 22nd. How can they get better?
-Firewater (the best travel music ever) releases The Golden Hour in April and plays The Bowery May 26.
-The Black Keys have released Attack and Release. Just good. Just period.
-The Raconteurs have released Consolers of the Lonely. Richer, deeper, more complex.
-Ghostland Observatory has released Robotique Majestique. Insane techno-glam-rock with a frontman to rival Mick Jagger.

Okay, now you go...

Size 142

It's beautiful in New York today. It's finally the April we've been yearning for: crystalline, warm and glistening with spring's familiar clarity of purpose.

As the weather shifts I launch into my quarterly practice of trying to make seasonally inappropriate clothing thrive out of their element. In that weird post-winter, pre-spring transition period for instance, I often try to make flip flops work as regular shoes even though the chill April wind cuts across my bare toes like swift swipes with a shard of glass. I'm also guilty of wearing slinky summer dresses with a pair of tights in mid-winter, justifying them sheepishly with a scarf and blazer in hopes no one will remember they saw me in the same dress at a barbeque in July.

Today I'm especially uncomfortable. I walked out of the house in my cheap Target chain link print summer dress made smarter (I thought, at 7:30 a.m.) topped by a velvet blazer. But the dress is flimsy and too big on top and I made it work with a mini safety pin covered in cat hair that I found in a jewelry bowl on my dresser. As I walked to the subway holding the bottom part of the dress closed against the wind, my mother's words came at me from the recesses of a Penney's fitting room when I was 10: "ill-fitting", "unbecoming", "pulling around your middle". I've spent the morning tugging the front of the chain link dress closed, pulling at my boot tops to meet its hem, buttoning and unbuttoning my blazer. And the simple truth is it doesn't fit. It doesn't matter how expertly I hid my mini pin, my bra is still nearly in full view when I sit at my desk, which further confirms my image as part-time office worker/summer intern at a brothel.

It's all got me thinking about trying to make things fit when they don't. I'm doing that outside my closet too.

As part of the "chrysalis curriculum", we've decided it's time to move. Now, I'm not going to bore you with tales of rental woe, broker shenanigans or apartment atrocities. It's pretty obvious that moving in New York is no joke. The entire cosmos has to be in line (as does your bank statement, w-2, employment history and at least 6 months' worth of pay stubs) in order to even begin the search. But I'm finding that the desperate need I feel to keep my hot summer moments in heart and hand by walking around in a sundress in December is similar to the desperation that has me trying to make our perfect apartment out of what is very often just a mini bar with a bathroom. It's a stick of dynamite created by two polar opposites: needing to move forward and wanting to hold on.

The clawing insanity that accompanies hours spent on Craigslist browsing listings intensifies, hour by hour, making each and every little ridiculous blue link look more and more possible. "One bedroom studio". Okay, what is that? If it has a room, it sounds like it could work. A "one bedroom studio". Sounds painterly. Sounds artistic. Done. It's our apartment. "New walk-in apartment". You can walk in it? Well, thank God. That's what we want! To be able to walk in it. Done. It's our apartment.

And on I go, just like that, trying to make things fit. Pulling, tugging, hiking. Convertible 2 room? Junior 1 bedroom but on the Upper East Side? Bushwick? Flatbush? Give it to me, lemme see it, wrap it around me, try to fit us inside it, inside the neighborhood, bedroom, bathroom. Make us, it. Pretty soon, I think, I'm gonna realize I can put it on and zip it up but I might not be able to breathe in it. And that's not progress, that's just a filmsy chain link dress on a chilly April day.

So there's this little red building at 142 Franklin Street in Greenpoint. We're kinda hoping for it. We don't know enough about it yet. It might be a chain link dress, it might be a fuckin' Versace. Either way, this post is my vow not to pull and tug so hard but to instead a.) wear seasonally appropriate shoes and b.) shop around, look for the best fit, then move ahead.

Look Out, You Rock-n-Rollers

Oh, Ziggy Stardust, inhabit me! I need a new persona. I need a rock and roll genie, a lean and lanky British God with jagged teeth and two mismatched marbles for eyes to sweep me up in a twisted tulle tornado and ch-ch-ch-ch-change me. In my fantasy, I'll rocket past dusk in a polished, hollow, shining bullet loaded with gleaming pastel potions, be made over by a drunk transvestite in platforms and return to Madison Avenue at sunrise to wander the streets in a vinyl raincoat -- a newer, more certain version of myself.

When one reaches a particular level of gerbil-wheel-turning madness, regardless of effort toward personal evolution, career progress or just plain forward movement without desired result, one must do something to push change from concept into reality. And at this point, I'm no longer referring to the kind of change that comes from an hour spent wandering the "Self Help" section of Borders, a pilates session, two pieces of expensive dark chocolate or three hours binge drinking at a place called Crime Scene Pub. No, I'm talking like, transformative change. The kind of change rock and roll genies write songs about. The thing is, sometimes all the "change" talk just becomes overwhelming in the abstract. It needs a physical manifestation. It needs a model.

Enter David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy's my pilot. Periodically, I have to pull him out, dust him off and slip into his blazing, manic-tron glory for a moment. He's the perfect icon for right this minute; for all this stagnant dust I need to blow off and turn into glitter. He's gonna represent my new philosophy: if you don't feel it, fucking paint it on.

I'm now working from the outside, in. Spackle up the exterior, put a brave face on, make myself look like the change I want to feel. I'm gonna airbrush every bit of doubt out of the creases of my face and polish up my platforms. Time to step it up a bit and build a beautiful beast who can go out there and do all my singing.

In honor of Ziggy, we'll start with the hair. I'm gonna make myself a redhead tonight. Well, really, Lana, my militant Russian hairdresser is going to make me a redhead. Let's see if a little fire on the head sparks a little fire in the heart. I need to see some change. I'll begin outside, head blazing, and see if I can start a wildfire.

"Just gonna have to be a different (wo)man". -- DB/ZS