tavie.com

Everyone has to read Goose's rhapsody on milkshakes. It brought a tear of mingled pride and envy to my eye. (No worries: the pride was for the lass, the envy for either her well-documented-in-this-forum gift of prose-that-makes-me-want-to-kill-myself-because-it-is-so-good or because she got to drink a milkshake and sometimesImisssugar.) My girl works fast.

(Still watching M*A*S*H marathon, but I've seen this one a couple times.)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:09 PM | shower me with attention

Can't talk. Watching M*A*S*H marathon.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:43 AM | shower me with attention

Friday, September 20, 2002

The big news of the day: Mint Manor has a Mr Coffee! After long last, years of wishing and hoping, it took the impending visit of Gina's parents to get her to purchase one. Which makes sense, seeing as she's not a coffee-drinker. But now caffeine addicts such as myself can reap the benefits of her filial piety.

Also: I've started a second pair of socks. I know you're thrilled.

Finally: a shout-out to my thoughtfulsister, who not only lent me $80 yesterday and brought me a salad for lunch, but lugged my heavy computer to an Airborne Express dropoff location while wearing extremely painful shoes. Word up.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:21 PM | shower me with attention

It's sick, but I'm completely addicted to this Newsradio Trivia channel on dalnet.

Art class better tonight. He spoke to me, complimented my sense of proportion (hah!), style, line quality and "sense of movement". That's more like it. Still didn't get to post a sketch at the end of class, because I was out of the room making a photocopy when he asked everyone to put a drawing up. Once again no one noticed. I wonder if I can go a whole semester without ever posting anything.

Got another job interview next week. So much for me not working and being in school at the same time.

And, finally, back at Mint Manor. That's definitely more like it.

(Who's read A Confederacy of Dunces? I came across it on my mom's bookshelf and am seriously considering dropping everything I'm currently reading, schoolwork included, to have a go at it.)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:21 AM | shower me with attention

Thursday, September 19, 2002

Happy Djin day, to a dear friend whom I've known online for many years.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:07 AM | shower me with attention

I am loving all these "100 things" lists.

My favourite Kitana item:
75. I once asked musical genius Rufus Wainwright a stupid question about the Golden Girls on national television.

also:

89. I said “fuck” to Jesus behind the church’s community stage to see what would happen, once.

I really hate using my sister's computer. I find the keyboard annoying.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:38 AM | shower me with attention

Rather than read on and on and on and on about the Iroquois at the time of initial European colonial contact, I have taken a fancy to trim my black winter coat with miscellaneous buttons, like a mummer.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:18 AM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Procrastination is the rule once again. I was supposed to get a book of artwork-- preferably drawings-- from "an artist whose work I wish to emulate and use as an inspiration for the rest of the semester". I'm such a lazy cuss; I thought we'd have plenty of such books in my home.

Luckily I scrounged up a book of Andrew Wyeth sketches. Works for me. It's a book and it's got drawings in it. What more can they ask of me.

I hope he doesn't ask me to explain why I picked this particular artist. "It was the first book of drawings I could find laying around the house" doesn't sound too good.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:20 PM | shower me with attention

Job interview today went well. Should hear back next week.

I'm sweeeeeeeeeeeaty.

That's all.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 8:44 PM | shower me with attention

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Hmm. I use the word "really" too much.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:19 PM | shower me with attention

I am a follower. I loved reading Serra's and Nicole's lists so much. I didn't think I would enjoy reading so many facts about someone else, but they were both really interesting. So I made my own. It was really fun:

100 Things About Tavie:

1. My sister and I were born 2 months premature. She weighed 3 lbs 2 oz, I weighed 3 lbs 14 ozs. I have always been the heavy one.
2. I have been to one baseball game in my life, with my church, when I was 10. It was Mets vs. Yankees. I don't remember who won.
3. My father is Jewish and my mother is agnostic. I was Lutheran until I was 11.
4. I am an agnostic.
5. I have a long-hair fetish. My goal has been hair I can sit on since I read Judy Blume's Blubber at age 7.
6. I have attained that goal.
7. I have gone on the internet almost every day since March 1993.
8. Eight is my favourite number because of the meaning of my name.
9. I am a synaesthete; I taste words.
10. "Octavia" tastes like scrambled eggs.
11. I hated scrambled eggs when I was little and now I like them.
12. Kofi Annan used to live in my building.
13. Al Lewis lives in my building.
14. Everyone calls him "Grandpa".
15. I've never known either of my grandfathers.
16. I really, really want a dog. I've never had one.
17. I have a turtle and a cat.
18. It still hurts to say "a cat" instead of "two cats".
19. When I was little I desperately wanted a long-eared, floppy-eared, black rabbit named Shadrach.
20. I've never had stitches or broken a bone.
21. Except my little toes, which don't count. But I got to wear slippers to school.
22. I was on honour roll every year until high school.
23. I consider myself to have peaked at age 7.
24. From age 4 to age 10 I took violin lessons. I can't play the violin.
25. From age 5 to age 11 I took piano lessons. I can't play the piano.
26. Sometimes I like to play with my violin and my piano anyway.
27. When I was younger I was sure I would be a Disney animator when I grew up.
28. I know almost nothing about animation.
29. I've been to Disney World 22 times.
30. EPCOT is my favourite place in the whole world.
31. I have been on two dates in my life: one when I was eight with my friend Adam, and once last year, which I didn't know was a date until after.
32. According to TheSpark.com I am 99% undateable.
33. I am the only person in my family who doesn't adore Shakespeare.
34. I used to be very proud of the fact that I was the best student in grade school from kindergarten until fifth grade. Now I find that pride very saddening.
35. I am horribly afraid of tree sloths.
36. I used to think my dad was a wizard.
37. My dad's favourite ice cream is mint chocolate chip. I still associate wizards with mint chocolate chip ice cream.
38. My favourite colour is yellow because when I was very little we had a yellow-and-white bath towel that I loved.
39. I wanna be a Care Bear.
40. I didn't get drunk until I was 20 years old.
41. I have almost no sense of smell.
42. I am missing a molar that I never got around to replacing. It broke on a crunchy Chinese noodle and was wrenched out by my friendly dentist.
43. The Kids in the Hall have had a bigger influence on my life than all of high school and most of grade school put together.
44. I can't roll my r's.
45. I said the word "shit" until I was three years old because no one had bothered to teach me baby euphemisms for excrement until then.
46. I wish I could be a singin', dancin' Broadway star, but I haven't the skills.
47. I walk around singing showtunes all the time, anyway.
48. In grade 3 I was in the group of kids who weren't allowed to write in cursive yet.
49. I used to know all the books of the Bible in order; now I only know the New Testament.
50. I find Jesus Christ incredibly sexy.
51. I have to look up words in the dictionary a lot.
52. I do my crosswords in ink, too.
53. I'm a snob about this fact, even though I often mess up and have to write over letters.
54. The last time I threw up was when I drank a great quantity of gin alone in my home one night last year.
55. The time before that was food poisoning in Australia in 1998.
56. Before that I hadn't thrown up in eleven years.
57. My middle toes are longer than the rest of my toes.
58. Once, in the Bahamas, a monkey sat in my lap for 10 minutes. It was really cute.
59. When I was in eighth grade my friend Amy and I wrote a skit for Social Studies class that was picked to be performed at a show in a theatre called "Symphony Space". The laughter one of my lines got is one of my all-time favourite moments in life.
60. The actress who played "Tavie" had very short hair and this displeased me.
61. When my sixth grade class was in the audience of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?", I was the only one who didn't get up and dance at the end.
62. I can't dance.
63. I used to like Genesis, during the "I Can't Dance" era.
64. I am widely considered to have highly impressionable taste in music. This makes me popular with people who wish to mold me to their own tastes.
65. I am very malleable.
66. I am much more popular online than I ever was in real life.
67. I think I have pretty feet.
68. If I ever write a book, it will be called Novembodentity, after a word I dreamed in junior high.
69. I've had many flying dreams. I love them and wish I could have them on purpose.
70. I hate most roller coasters.
71. A famous and respected singer-songwriter once wrote a song for me. It was released under a different name but I will always know it to be The Song Formerly Known as "Tavie".
72. I care too much about what others think.
73. My mother taught me to read when I was three. It was the best thing she ever gave me.
74. My family is very small; it consists of five or six people total, including extended family.
75. I used to be obsessed with pie-throwing, steel-tipped boots and the movie Newsies. I'm over them now.
76. I used to find beards creepy but lately I've been finding them attractive.
77. I hated "Star Trek" until my friend Ade forced me to watch an episode of The Next Generation. Now I am an avid and unapologetic TNG fan.
78. I find "Star Wars" boring.
79. My dad is a big geek who used to attend science fiction conventions regularly.
80. I am wary of conventions and most science fiction fans, but I love geeks.
81. Despite being born and raised in Brooklyn and Manhattan, I have been told I have no New York accent.
82. Neither do my parents, both b-and-b NY'ers.
83. I can belch on cue.
84. I think I'm attracted to gay men because they're unattainable.
85. I need therapy.
86. I hate Martin Short with a passion you could not begin to imagine.
87. Yet I loved Clifford, a truly awful movie.
88. I have been on five different antidepressants since I was 10.
89. I didn't watch M*A*S*H until spring of 2002, when I became obsessed, although my mother insists she made us watch it at 11 p.m. nightly as babies so that we'd be too tired to wake her up at 5:30 in the morning.
90. I am a Canadiophile.
91. I don't know that much about Canada.
92. When I was 7 I took gymnastics class and was quite good at the uneven bars.
93. When we were 6 my sister and I took jazz-and-tap lessons which culminated in a pageant where we all danced to Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time". We all had to wear pink sequins, including my friend Adam.
94. Adam and I got married every day when we were 5.
95. I can't remember how to multiply fractions.
96. I used to be very, very afraid of Steve Martin.
97. In grade 8 I used to come home from school every day and drink large quantities of water while watching Barney and Friends. I do not know why I did this.
98. I'm bad in an emergency.
99. My first woman crush was on Isabella Rossellini, because she looked like Dave Foley in drag.
100. I never tasted canned peas until I met my friend Gina.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:18 PM | shower me with attention

Oh, please, God, take more: it's not enough you got my uncle, my cat, my ring, my little loves, my computer and possibly the best-friend-foursome I've had for 18 years: please, by all means, take away 3 out of 4 of my nightly M*A*S*H reruns so I have no way to take my mind off the other things you've stolen.

How I hate you.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:11 AM | shower me with attention

And my dad is 65 today. A senior citizen by any scale. Someday he, too, will die.

My mood is as black as the mushroom on my screen. Are there any philanthropists out there masquerading as computer repairmen?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:58 AM | shower me with attention

When I thought it couldn't get any worse... now the LCD screen is broken. Yes. Broken. Big ugly black mushroom-shaped tear in the screen. Apple won't repair this under warranty. The cost of repair is much more than we can afford. So even when it comes back with a nice, fixed ethernet port, there will still be a big black mushroom on the screen and I'll just have to live with it.

I am extremely upset. It's just one thing after another after another. I don't know what's going to happen next. It's just crap upon crap upon more crap. Things are falling apart. The seams are unravelling. My sanity is shrivelling.

Shit fuck piss cocksucker.

And last night I dreamed that a former friend of my mother's was a doctor who diagnosed me with an incurable illness and told me I would have to be put to sleep. It was the same malady that killed my Rosie, and I had it, and I was terrified of death. The prospect of death was very, very real in the dream and I spent my last moments trying to contact my friends and tell them I would soon be euthanized. I woke up realizing that I am, indeed, grateful to be alive and afraid of the possibility of death. I could never entertain the thought of suicide because I want to live. Believe it or not, this was a monumental realization for me. I'm afraid of death. Oh, great. Just one more thing to worry about: someday I will die.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:55 AM | shower me with attention

Monday, September 16, 2002

They're sending me a box to pack my sweet little iBook in, and send it off somewhere to get the ethernet port fixed. They'll send it back in about a week.

Sniffle.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:18 PM | shower me with attention

My motherfucking ethernet port is broken. I'm on Kirsten's computer right now.

I'm pissed.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 5:07 PM | shower me with attention

Sunday, September 15, 2002

I don't know how many of you have been in a position to notice, but lately-- in the last year or two, I guess-- I've realized that I hate talking on the phone, and avoid it a much as possible. I'm rarely in the mood to be talking on the phone. I usually will, anyway, if it's someone I love talking to or it's an important matter or something, but, generally speaking, for the most part, when I'm on the phone with someone, I'm looking for a way to end the conversation so I can be off the phone.

I think I feel similarly about IMs, because I rarely initiate a conversation (although, again, sometimes I am in the mood) and don't like long IM chats.

So, I don't know what that is. I like talking in person. I like talking on the phone sometimes. I like email. I just don't know what's going on with me and the communication thing.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:47 PM | shower me with attention

I'm pretty into this song, "Waltz #2", by Elliot Smith, that my friend Robert sent me awhile back. I just rediscovered it. It's quite a haunting little number.

K and I met Erica and Steph at the Seaport today and had lunch. Talky-talky-talky.

"This is nice, Dave, you and me, talky-talky-talky..."
"Yeah but you know I'm not going to remember any of this tomorrow."
"Yeah me neither."

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:43 PM | shower me with attention

You've got your Duckies and you've got your Albert Brooks in Broadcast News. There's something about the guy who doesn't get the girl. Or does he? I can't remember how this movie ends.

It's very warm in here. I think there's something wrong with the air conditioning. I would give my life's blood right now-- my actual blood, I'd slice right into my arm here-- to have something interesting to say right now, or something interesting to do, or something interesting to think.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:42 AM | shower me with attention

Remind me that I want to watch the Alan Alda biography tomorrow at 7 and the Andy Dick thing immediately after.

Because tv is the only thing in my life right now.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:04 AM | shower me with attention