saturday, december 28, 2002
heat! we have heat! we are so thankful, we felt like kissing the repairman. today is my birthday, by the way. feel free to send love or buy me presents. tomorrow i get to take a shower--in my own apartment! rock! if you are one of my many fans in the d.c. area, feel free to buy me a gin and tonic at either the fox 'n' hounds or the black cat tomorrow night. we will be getting wasted, thank you.

friday, december 27, 2002
heat 0, catherine 0. angry. frustrated. hopeful, then not. dreaming of swinging baseball bats at decidedly ineffective plumbers. ready for fun. UPDATE: apparently siccing a lawyer on your assfaced slumlord gets things happening! there is a guy with his head in the boiler right this very minute, and i think we are going to have heat tonight! woooooh!

thursday, december 26, 2002
ho ho ho. christmas. indeed. it went really fast this year, because i only had a day and a half to spare. at my mom's house, i put up the christmas cards, slept, and ate cookies. also i kicked everyone's ass in scrabble, off to an early lead with "dozens" and "pique," both on triple word scores, and exasperating the other players with the delightful "fixity," which is absolutely a word. it was almost too easy. after opening presents christmas afternoon, the kids motored over to dad's, driving through an increasingly raging snowstorm. dad had a real tree, a fire in the fireplace, and "the godfather" on the tv. he also gave me a lava lamp, among other things. i took a shower while everyone else played poker, then caught the 8:25 train back to the city, where it was gross and slushy and cold. the plumbers are coming today to give us heat, is the word. fun fact: tamar dropped the f-bomb on the phone with the slumlord's secretary and she got mad! heh. fingers are crossed. tonight is arts 'n' crafts night; it would be soooo nice if it were warm in my apartment....oh yeah, side note: cheap-ass slumlord went for the coil instead of the new boiler, even though they would cost about the same, presumably because of the labor costs involved in installing a whole new boiler as opposed to slapping on a new coil. what a guy, huh?

tuesday, december 24, 2002

last night holly and i, broken shells of greasy human beings due to the ghetto-like conditions of our apartment, and tamar, too young and sprightly to be broken, had baking cookies, drinking, exchanging presents, and trying to get happy night. i also made it listening to the clash in honor of joe strummer night. i think we succeeded in actually getting in a good mood. meanwhile, the boiler is shot, completely totaled. we need a new one. we might get it thursday, if the slumlord approves it. *sigh*

some companies are actually drawing up policies about what you talk about on your blog. [via betsy, back from europe and currently tearing up the highways and byways of washington d.c.]

good god, we have yet another season of friends to look forward to.

it's that time of year, folks: top 50 albums of 2002, the 50 most loathsome people of 2002, and the new york observer's 2002 year in media awards. i may be coming out with a series of lists. we'll see if i can get my shit together.

oh yeah: grateful shoutout to shelly r. for providing me with a replacement copy of the hot hot heat cd. dancing around my freezing kitchen actually makes me a little warmer!

wait a second, bill frist used to steal pets from animal shelters to experiment on them? and kill them in the process? i thought he was a nice guy!

and that's it for the jolly old parade of links. merry christmas, my kitties.

sunday, december 22, 2002
i am not in the holiday spirit. allow me to bring you up to speed, reader. we are currently into the wee hours of day seven without heat or hot water in my apartment. you would not believe the mind-boggling incompetence that has stretched out our misery to the point where we don't know if we'll even have heat by the new year. the "freelance super" in our slumlord's employ said the following things to me while ruining my friday night with eileen by sitting around my kitchen for three hours failing to get the real mechanics out. he actually uttered the phrases "oh, i'll be drunk tomorrow morning" and "do you have a token?" the next day "effective plumbing" (ha) went and "fixed" our upstairs neighbors' boiler and did not bother to visit our apartment. reader, please note that the boys upstairs definitely have and have had heat and hot water. i know because i went up there to take a shower one night this week. i don't know where my next shower is going to be. i feel dirty most of the time. i cannot emphasize how ghetto this makes me feel. my skin is a mess, i didn't get back home from south jersey tonight until freakin' 12:30, and "gangs of new york" was not even good. also, a girl from work totally snubbed me at the interpol show last night. but mostly it's the lack of heat and hot water that bothers me. it's all fine and good sitting around in two pairs of pants and a scarf, and really it's not that bad, i mean it's not like you can see your breath or anything, and hey, we're not paying rent for these days, but how long is this going to go on? it's just really depressing. send love if you got it.

wednesday, december 18, 2002
oh my god, i made whitney's year-end list of the 100 people of the year! i made the year worth living! plus, i am more culturally relevant than lance bass! awesome. love it. you know who would definitely make my list, if i ever made one? tim harrington from les savy fav, recognized this year for stripping down to a towel at sirenfest. yeah that's right usa today readers, you probably have no idea what i'm talking about. stick around and you will learn.

i find it extremely interesting that al gore decides not to run and all the people who supported him in 2000 give him a pass on this because he "can't win." i respect his decision, but does nobody believe in al gore anymore? uh, gore in '08? yeah.

oh and by the way: i did not win the gbv contest. however, beers with bob is still one of my favorite memories of 2002. possibly ever.

monday, december 16, 2002

i saw the santas! so exciting. also did a lot of christmas shopping after my list miraculously came together (almost). went to angela's party, featuring pigs in blankets and brownies, as well as jami's party, where the same old drunk guy who passed out on my couch passed out on jami's couch. two weekends in a row! what are the odds?! and that's the short version of my weekend, which is all i have time for. sorry!

friday, december 13, 2002
nothing unlucky happened today, except that it rained and i got sorta wet. i bought an umbrella though, which fixed it. tonight i went to see a couple of bands, oakley hall and oneida, at northsix with jami, cinde, and juli. it was fun. we skipped mudhoney because who cares. then jami and i went to lotus club to help leigh ann celebrate her whatever-eth (28th?) birthday. she looked cute. i had no present because i suck. soon.

earlier in the evening, i went to the record store in an attempt to purchase a christmas gift for my stepfather. instead, i of course purchased an armful of awesome used cds for myself: the liars/oneida split, some new/old mendoza line, "the new folk implosion" (who knew??), tobin sprout's new one, and the lifter puller double cd. tomorrow my plan is to listen to all of them and forget about all the christmas shopping i have to do.

fun christmas-related happenings this weekend in the city: unsilent night, a procession of boomboxes saturday evening. and then you just have to hope you run into the santacon, a gang of hundreds of santas making merry on the streets, subways, everywhere. so fun.

if there is a transit strike, which i doubt, my company has made it very, very easy for me: all i have to do is walk a few blocks to houston and lafayette and a car service will take me to work. in case you were worried.

whoa, that is one sharp tie on mr. bush. (fun bushism buried in there, too.)

thursday, december 12, 2002
this song is my current "must play every day at least ten times" song.

i saw the funniest thing ever on the subway last night. i made my way into the crowded car and grabbed an overhead rail, mindful as all decent people are to step into the center of the goddamn train. then the guy next to me started pointing and shouting, alerting people to the presence of a RAT on the train. "there it go! you seen it, didn't you!" he yelled. "oh shit! it's like this big!" a wave of panic could be seen spreading through the car. men brandished their umbrellas like baseball bats. women squealed, screamed, lifted their legs, and grabbed their belongings off the floor. one woman, i shit you not, even jumped up onto her seat. everyone was looking for this rat. some people actually said that yes, they saw it. and i tell you, reader, for a second i thought i too had seen it. i pretty much just stood there calmly, however, alternately looking at the instigator, the chaos, and the floor, waiting for the rat to run over my shoes. and then dude started cackling like busta rhymes. and oh how we laughed.

does anybody want to burn me my stolen hot hot heat cd? i just conducted a thorough search and it is gone gone gone.

wednesday, december 11, 2002
the new york times has a review of loose fur, jeff tweedy's little side project. "random guitar plinks," yeah i'd say that sums it up. i saw them play in brooklyn friday night, and my entire party (that's five people) abhorred their performance. it was basically one very long, uh, wank. and what is up with giving half the set to jim o'rourke, jeff? randi had some stuff to say about it, too.

haaaaaa: i didn't mean to lead you on by fucking you.

all right, which one of you animals stole my hot hot heat cd the other night? i am offering a reward of my fist in your face for its return.

monday, december 9, 2002

number of total guests, approximately: 90.
number of guests with urls: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.
number of review kids in the house: 9.
number of states from which people traveled to attend party: 5, plus the district of columbia.
number of movie stars who showed: 0.
number of foot-size holes kicked in my bedroom door: 1.
number of weird old guys passed out in sitting position on couch seen drooling blood: 1.
number of fancy chopsticks broken in ridiculous attempts to open wine bottle: 3.
number of people seen eating cat food: 2.
number of people now banned from the house: 6.
number of hostesses sporting fake j.lo tracksuits complete with visible thong: 1.
number of hostesses who got some: 1.
number of hostesses who made out with a boy in the bathroom: 1.
number of batches of beer punch consumed: 3.
number of kegs kicked: 1.
number of intense nypd cops in attendance who heard about the party from a girl at the whiskey ward, went around telling everybody he was a cop (and showing his shield!), and then purchased a case of heineken: 1.
number of almost-full vodka bottles wisely hidden at 4:00 a.m.: 1.
number of wine bottles left over for grateful hostesses to consume at a later date: 3.
number of hours spent cleaning the next day: 5.
number of months till the next party: at least 4.

75 or less, the music-review site i occasionally write for, has been named #15 in yahoo's top 25 websites of 2002. wooh! rock on slatch!

thursday, december 5, 2002
holy snow, batman! our office's holiday party was postponed. we got an email that read in part: "I would apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but really, think of all of the Manolos we are saving!" ha! (luckily i left my manolos at home.)

talking TP.

fun things i learned today: more than one-third (38 percent) of american women say they have sex in their cars. women think about sex 48 minutes a day and their hair 43 minutes a day.
fun thing i overheard today: "if you think i'm paying for your hair extensions, you're fuckin' crazy."

wednesday, december 4, 2002
genius + love = yo la tengo: last night randi and i had the great fortune to see what has to end up being the best of all eight of yo la tengo's hannukah shows at maxwell's. ladybug transistor opened; they played nice, pretty songs befitting their band name. next up was david cross. now, we had seen him perform the thankless task of opening for gbv and the strokes last new year's eve. at that time, leanne in particular heckled the shit out of him, because frankly he sucked. (ryan had no sense of humor about this.) last night he sucked a little less. he was about half funny--made me laugh quite a few times, but also rambled a lot about unfunny, unoriginal stuff. yes, i hate on david cross. he is sooooo overrated. at least in a live-performance situation (i've never seen mr. show or anything else he's done). then yo la tengo came on and immediately threw me into concert nirvana. last time i saw them, they kind of put me to sleep, but last night they were the best band that ever was. and then for the encore they brought out freakin' DAVID BYRNE!!! total insanity. the hipsters came alive with the sound of music at that point, though there was an odd incident where one dude shouted, "you've sucked since the 80s," like, really loudly, and then answered the resulting barrage of protests/insults with, "can't you people take a joke?" very obnoxious. but it was glorious: they played a lambchop song and a yo la tengo song and a richard hell song and some david byrne/talking heads song that people went nuts for, especially the insane jumping fanboy behind me (who was by that time a really drunk insane jumping fanboy). but it hardly mattered because the show was so damn great. they even gave out a free three-song christmas cd! i didn't get home till 2 a.m. but it was absolutely worth it. just for kicks: some yo la tengo mp3s.

all right folks. i put out the call last time, and you came through. so i need everybody to enter this gbv contest for me. the prize is two tickets to the new year's show in indianapolis (i know), plus dinner for two and hotel accommodations. which is a good enough excuse for me to fly out there. hook me up people.