Also: I have started reading Twilight.

me:  i think i very much know how edward feels re: bella
SB:  lol
me:  because it is how i feel re: papa john’s cheesey bread
SB:  oh wow
that was poetic
me:  it just came to me
when i opened the cold box of leftovers
and couldn’t stop myself
SB:  except
he will kill bella
and cheesy bread will kill you

TOUCHE.

First of all, if you don’t know what Twitter is, just read this.

Now. There is this other fun thing about Twitter, which is “favoriting” a Tweet. And if you have your nerdy self registered up at Favrd, you get to see which other members of the Twitterati (AKA other registered Favrd twitterers, and don’t worry, I’m already hating myself for making that one up, if I did) have favored your tweets.

So. I get Favrd about once a day by exactly one fellow twitterer out of the 115 or so that follow me presently (I am the smallest of small potatoes).  Here, interestingly and in chronological order and with but two omissions to protect the innocent, are the only tweets I’ve ever twooted that have been favored by MORE than one person (aka 2):

• Rock of Love Bus. I feel so bad for the ones with their own boobs. All two of them.
• Welcome back, Post-Nasal Drip, did you have a nice vacation? You & Pounding Headache can have your old rooms back. Then go fuck yourselves.
• uh, was not kidding about that burrito. it just DEMANDED i nap. i was folding laundry, & it said NO & threw me on the bed. 2 groggy hrs ago.
• in other news, i just buried my hand in the fat folds of my cat to warm it (my hand, not my cat) #notaeuphemism
• boss just asked if i have an NYC allergist. “i don’t HAVE any motherfuckin’ allergies!!!!” i replied. i should lay off the afternoon coffee.
• dear banana republic: i ride the subway. ergo, i will never, not ever, not ever ever, buy white jeans. SO PLEASE STOP. love, abby
• possibly the best spam subject line ever: “Meat Wanna Feel like you’re in Vegas? Banana.”
• y’all know i’m just trying to get through the day so i can go home and play donkey kong, right?

Hasn’t this been fun? I think so.

~~~

Meanwhile, as a very important and wholly unrelated footnote, please hug your friends and loved ones regularly and tell them how much you love them.

I got a little wrapped up in the election. It kind of ate my life. Some of you know how I felt–lying awake at night, worrying about having to move to Rio if your fellow electorate ate the mushy pudding and decided that it is better to be lied to and coddled than solve 21st century issues with 21st century solutions and be treated like grown ups.  Fortunately, enough of us decided to wear our big girl/boy pants, reject being pacified and fear-baited, and, you know, try something new.

So what do I lie awake at night thinking about now? Well. My cat still poops on the floor, so there’s that. Like most people, I’m broke, so there’s that. I have never been very good at keeping a tidy living space, but not having one drives me bonkers, so there’s that. But generally speaking, life is good.

So to borrow a page from Miss Branch, whose delightful and uplifting blog has floated into my Google Reader,  I’ve decided that here, on the brink of Thanksgiving, I should do some gratitudes. Some of them are New York gratitudes, some of them are boring, generic gratitudes, but generally speaking, I think you should know how much I love:

• facebook. (Hey, do not say I didn’t warn you about boring, generic). I am a sucker for keeping in touch and for sharing joys and dramas (see: blog). I think I can safely say, four and a half years into my facebook membership (yikes), that it is one of the things that keeps me sane. I can reach out and touch my friends. They can do the same for me. It’s weird and interblaggy and fake, but it’s great when you need to see all of your people, the ones you contact and care for in real life, too, in one place.  And it turns into something real for the rest of your “friends” when you run into one of them on the street who you maybe haven’t spoken to in a decade.  facebook makes it absolutely acceptable to say, “I saw that you’re engaged, congratulations!” or “by the way, I loved your halloween costume, those pictures were so funny!” because your facebook friendship is a two-way tube–you get to stalk, and so do your friends, and you both have the task of making it not awkward.  I love it.

• Asian people who speak Spanish.  A universal truth of New York restaurants.  I love love love it when Asian people speak Spanish.

• Tights. Specifically these tights, which are reversible, which makes them a) just the tiny tiniest bit warmer than normal tights and b) just the tiny tiniest bit sturdier than other tights. Which is to say, I had a pair for three years that I just finally gave up last month. Look into tights!

• This Beyonce Video. It is among the more amazing things I have seen in a long time. Some of my coworkers and I are a little too enthusiastically committed to learning the dance. It reminds me of the olden days when we had to learn hot moves from VHS tapes of live performances and/or MTV. Oh the YouTubes, what joys you have brought us.

• My Hilarious Roommates.
• Air popped popcorn. If you only eat popcorn from movie theaters and microwaves, I dare say you have not lived. I recommend this popper, some butter-flavored PAM (I know), a dash of salt and some shakes of good old Kraft parmesan cheese. And that concludes this installment of GOOP for Non-Millionaires.

• Oh, this guy. Old news. But I’m about to lose him to the West Coast for a few months so he can be a badass with these folks. So, you know, it’s worth reiterating. Also he lives in Manhattan now in a very cute (also very little) apartment, so that is also very exciting.

• The Target in Brooklyn. I spent an hour and a half there a few weekends ago and only spent about $11, all on things I could have bought elsewhere, but I just like being there.

So. Those are my gratitudes today and always.  Work is an end-of-year shitstorm of paperwork, proposals, events and other general money-raising chaos, so I’m glad I have these happies.  If I don’t check in before then (har har har), Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good turkey/tofurkey/turducken/whatever!

Oh wait, I am addressing myself.

See, that’s the kind of strange thing that happens when you decide it’s a good idea to spend three days in Las Vegas and then fly back on the red-eye at the equivalent of 2 AM Eastern time and then go to work that same day.  Attributes that make this state of being even more interesting: residual effects of 1.5 Tylenol PM ingested at 2 AM Eastern time; unwashed hair; unshakable symptoms of last week’s stomach bug every few hours.  In other words, I am in a very awake, fresh, comfortable state right now, the kind of state that is conducive to mouth-breathing, gut-staring reflections.

Glubble, sayeth my lower intestine.

Anyway.  The Hunk of Man, some other friends and I went to Las Vegas this weekend, where we slept in a dilapidated pyramid that featured leaky ceilings and uncomfortable delusions of grandeur.  We were within spitting distance of cartoon castle, a comically misplaced “beach” resort, and a teeny tiny replica of our own fair city.  There were families from around the world in town for the holiday weekend, shuttling their children to shows and arcades and the M&M’s and Krispy Kreme joints while dodging the giant billboards for half-naked vampire women and scary washboard abs of the Australian “Thunder” boys.  Drinks were consumed out of 2-feet tall plastic beakers.  Money was lost and won over green felt tables and at the push of a button.  There were lots and lots of sound effects.

And in the end, my original summary of Vegas, made as a bored 17-year-old relegated to standing behind a certain line in the carpet, more than an arm’s length from anything on which one can bet as my parents and brother (then 19 and equipped with this guy’s expired passport and a baseball hat) played and played, still holds true: Las Vegas = Hell + Disney World, nothing more, nothing less.  There are castles, rides and a souvenir shop at every corner.  When you’re done smiling, you can feed one of many addictions: sex, gambling, drinking, famewhoring.  You can do it up right–stay somewhere luxurious, see the best shows (clothed or otherwise), come out ahead cash-wise–but it’s still Vegas.  It’s still seedy and oily and pointlessly located in the middle of nowhere, an isolating anti-oasis of “fun and games” that only thinly veil its status as a conduit of Western culture’s egregiously mislaid priorities.  Mass production, mass consumption, mass market, mass everything–nothing accomplished in Vegas is done so on a scale less than MASS, and the result when you’re there is a feeling of dehumanization in an impersonal smoke-and-silicone city.  The lasting effect is one of outdated, unfashionable opulence, a gratuitousness that seems downright insulting given the water, energy, hunger, you-name-it crises going on around the world and in our own country.

I’ll be the first to admit that my living practices are anything but green, practical, frugal, thoughtful, mindful, respectful, purposeful, or executed on a regular basis with any thoughts of those in need of water, energy, food, you-name-it around the world and in our own country.  I’ll also be the first to admit that yeah, I had fun in Vegas, but that had more to do with being with friends and being silly and seeing Love than avoiding the realities of my daily non-Vegas life.  And I don’t disagree that everybody needs an outlet, an escape, to keep from going insane.  I just don’t find Las Vegas a very productive one, and its scale and ongoing growth trajectory signal to me (with no scientific backup or anything, of course) an abundance of misdirected human energy, not a dearth of morality or anything.  Sin will be sin whether it stays in Vegas or not–but why so many billions of dollars go into making that quantity of shiny sin possible for millions of visitors each year is somewhat beyond me.

For goodness sake, you have to fly over the Grand Canyon to get there.  That’s at least more breathtaking than Carrot Top and Louie Anderson, right?

 ~~~

Anyway, we all survived (as far as I know, since Brian is still en route to NYC), as I’d imagine a huge percentage of Vegas visitors do.  JC and I had a mushy airport farewell as he headed off to do this for a few months.  My overgifting tendencies flourished in the desert heat, and I was damn near unstoppable, but he dealt with it well, because he is pretty super.  And, for blogging purposes, let’s get excited: I’m going to Los Angeles next month to visit him.  I will set foot on California soil for the first time ever.  Something tells me I might have a few things to say about it.  You know, just one or two.

hate-colored glasses

and my world came alive.