By special request of the NYC Metblog. Originally posted at www.pamie.com
When I first moved to New York, I floated a somewhat Carrie-Bradshaw-esque theory of urban life that has held up remarkably well in the years since I proposed it, even though that was six minutes after I graduated from college at a time I thought the Spice Girls would outlast that young Spears upstart. The theory went that there was a pie chart of human experience — “karmas,” as I faux-spiritually called them — split into three distinct sections: the job karma, the housing karma, and the work karma. The three karmas always add up to 100%, but the ratios within that pie are apt to change weekly, even daily. I know it sounds a bit life-as-USA-Today-infographic, but I swear it works.
For two years, I lived in a palace I wouldn’t have deserved to live in as the Sultan of Brunei, much less as a twenty-three year-old writer battling the strong, choppy headwinds of the New York City real estate market. It was owned by a friend of my roommate’s family, and I vowed upon moving in that leaving that apartment meant I was leaving New York, which turned out to be the case. It was beautiful. It was wood. Two of my best friends still live there. They’re getting married. It was an apartment so pretty it made you fall in love.
For the first year I lived in that apartment, I had a killer place and a shitty job. Then another shitty job. Then temping. I went on exactly zero dates.
(January 2000) Apartment Karma: 100%. Job Karma: 0%. Relationship Karma: 0%.
You’d think suddenly acquiring mice in one’s Palace Of Park Slope would be a bad thing, I’ll bet. And at one time, I would have been inclined to very strongly agree with you. Having braved the inevitable nasty bugs this city inflicts upon even its most privileged inhabitants, I always thought mice wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. After all, they were warm-blooded. They had tails. They also had the capability to be animated cartoon characters. In my imagination, they were even kind of cute. Y’know. Like pets.
No. No, they weren’t like pets. They weren’t like pets at all. They were more like fucking vermin, and they were coming in through the fireplace, through the bedroom walls, through the kitchen cabinets, through a hole behind the stove. They made their restroom lodgings in a bowl filled with decorative rice and flowers we could no longer leave where horrified visitors could see it. I cried. I begged the exterminator to hurry the hell up. I slept with the lights on. With my eyes open. Under a blanket of traps. On the roof. Of a nearby hotel. The very same month, I was hired full-time and was temporarily set for life in a job I loved. I still couldn’t get a date.
(October 2000) Apartment Karma: 30%. Job Karma: 70%. Relationship Karma: 0%.
I moved to LA and then back to New York and began a string of unfortunate apartment searches that ended with me in places less pretty, more expensive, in worse areas, and with less light than the place I had just left. Work was dwindling, and then I became employed by a fire-breathing monster. I went on some horrible dates, but hell, at least it kept that karma from statistical fucking null set for a while. Thanks, Los Angeles.
(January 2002) Apartment Karma: 49%. Job Karma: 1%. Relationship Karma:50%.
The musical took off (May 2003) and then stopped (um, right now). I was living in the middle of nowhere (October 2003) but living alone. I had my heart inflated (July 2002) and subsequently broken (December 2002). Better to have loved and lost.
(2003, all) Apartment Karma: 10-90%. Job Karma: 10-90%. Relationship Karma: 10-90%. But always a cumulative 100%.
Now I’m back in the only neighborhood I could ever picture myself living in as long as I’m in New York. It’s the place my brother lived in when he was in New York and it’s just totally fabulous. In April, I’ll need to find a roommate. At least that means I can count on some play.
Damn. If it’s that Carrie-Bradshaw-esque, maybe this entry needs a more appropriate ending:
All of which led me to thinking…can New Yorkers really have their pie and eat it, too?

Well, say goodbye to the flier I’ve had tacked to my bulletin board for the march and rally on the eve of the RNC. After a week in rural Oregon watching my two hippie friends get married among wildflowers on the banks of the Deschutes River (it’s a real river…even my spell check knows it), I’m here for three days and then off to LA for work. When there’s a Metblog for the city that exists 35,000 feet above Nebraska, I’ll be the first one to post.
I miss New York. Even Republican-infested New York. How many times can one human being be forced to watch Starsky & Hutch?
I am about to find out.

At a certain point in the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden evening, everyone just starts with the “aaaaaay!” A table near yours does it, and then another nearby table responds, and then your table chimes in kind of jokingly, and then that whole side of the garden is bellowing and smashing their mugs together for no reason except that you’re all outside eating kielbasa and ain’t life grand.
And it is, and so are the vegetarian crepes, so if you’ve never made your visit, check it out. (NB: Try to hook up staying with a local friend. The trip back to Brooklyn, especially if you live out in The Territories like I do, is a long and potentially expensive one, and if you haven’t timed the breaking of the seal properly…yeah. Word to the wise.)
Not a big drinker? No problem. You can also engage in anthropological experiments to pass the time. My bro and I were drinking Hoegaarden, but we were also compiling the master list of Verbal Tics Indicating Drunkenness, including the following gems (repeat aloud in slurry voice for full effect):
1. “You know what YOUR problem is? I’ll TELL you what your problem is. Your PROB-lem is…”
2. “Listen. Listen. Listen. Guys, listen. Guys. Guys. Listen up, guys. Guys, listen up. Listen. Listen, guys.”
3. “I love you, man!”
4. “I under-STOOD you, I just didn’t HEAR you.”
5. “Do you want to hear my theory on that? Here’s my theory on that.”
6. “Aaaaaay!”
Feel free to add your own…

It’s always something when you’re trying to park in this city — street sweepers, bird poo, the jerkweed kids in your neighborhood leaving Olde English bottles at the curb which you then run over by mistake if you forget to do a tire check EVERY TIME you use the car.
I mean, my God. Underage drinking is one thing — I was very good at it, myself — but damn, there’s a dumpster RIGHT THERE in the laundromat parking lot. You can’t take your Juicy-knockoff-wearing ass over there and throw one away for your homies?
Grrr.

tomorrow, august 21, 2004, tompkins square park, 5-7 pm… according to the wigstock website:
“For years people have griped “Wigstock was better when it was in Tompkins Square Park and it was free.” Well quit your whining, fuckers, cuz it’s back in Tompkins Square and it is TOTALLY FREE!”
also according to the website:
“An amazing line-up has been confirmed including RuPaul, Boy George, HRH Princess Diandra, Jackie Beat, Miss Guy, Sugga Pie Koko, The Ladies of Lips, Milan, Cashetta, Flotilla Debarge, Lily of the Valley and dozens more squeezed into an action-packed, wig-tossing, nail-waving, support hose-stretching, show-stopping 2 hour set with no intermission!”

max wants to know what you’re doing this weekend? fun for max is constant, unending ball tossing–the farther the better… across a field, down a hill, up the stairs, etc. you get the picture… this is max right now asking me at my computer if i want to play… hmmm… yep!

ABC is screening some its fall pilots on the big board in Times Square on Saturday and Sunday. The shows start at 11 AM; the event is open to all, so if you want to get an early peek at “Boston Legal,” drop by the Crossroads of the World this weekend for brunch and open-air television. (Thanks to Cynopsis for that heads-up.)

(Weak hed, sorry.)
Lots of discussion on WNYC this morning about the social promotion story — namely that about the same number of kids who got held back a grade last year will get held back this year, and this comes after a ton of haranguing by the council and Bloomberg and blah about stopping social promotion.
Here’s what strikes me about this story, and it’s not the social promotion aspect, although I agree, in theory, that it’s not a great trend. What strikes me is that they pick these kids who don’t pass the tests, send them to summer school, and get their test scores up — but only up to second-grade proficiency. These are kids who failed the third grade.
It’s a complicated issue; I don’t think social promotion helps, but there’s definitely something to be said for NOT stigmatizing the kids themselves for the system’s failures, and keeping them with their peer group. I don’t know.
Anyway. On a brighter note, if you’d like to help out an NYC classroom, check out Donors Choose for a variety of class/school projects that you can fund. I donated some cursive instruction books to a third-grade class and got the most adorable thank-you letters from the class (in cursive! Aw) afterwards.

Future Perfect, a rad designy furniture shop in Williamsburg is having an insane sale starting Thursday and continuining through Sunday.
They’re on the corner of Berry and N. 6th
Thurs 2:00 - 9:00
Fri 1:00 - 10:00
Sat 12:00 - 10:00
Sun 12:00 - 6:00
* Picnic Table from hivemindesign is marked down from $7000 to $2750
* Jason Miller’s Antler Chandelier is marked down 30%
* Groovetubes are 20% off
* Grenade Oil Lamps, Gourmet Dish ware and The Fifty Cents dishes will all be on sale!
* Tons of stuff under$30

I was pleased to see that I hadn’t lost my Skee-Ball touch (I was always the one who held everyone’s purses while they went on the rollercoasters, and passed the time getting wicked good at Skee-Ball). The prizes have gotten a lot crappier since I was a kid, though.
Would I pass up the chance to have a Skee-Ball machine in my own home? Probably not.