Plantas

Randy's back, after going to California for 10 days. Did I make use of the "free house" in his absence? No. My mom gave me some plants for the apartment; she said they weren't going to survive the winter at my parents' place. It's like a jungle in here now!

Have I mentioned that I totally love Sunset Park? This is kind of the first neighborhood that I've lived in that I haven't felt like an outsider in for, you know, class reasons. Park Slope and Prospect Heights always felt like temporary nesting ground -- it's hard to feel like a real part of those neighborhoods if you're not personally invested in real estate and the, you know, trance state of upper middle class entitlement. And I know the fact that I've moved in pretty much means the secret is out on this place and that there's been this low rumble from condominium developers about this being the Year Of Sunset Park, but I haven't started to get stroller vibes from the neighborhood yet. In fact, as I mentioned to Nina, I sort of feel like Paul Atreides -- no, not in some creepy colonialist way, but in the sense that the Spice Michoacán has turned my eyes blue. I mean, fuck, my cupboard's stocked with todos las cosas de Goya, and in the fridge I've got a gross little baggie of charales, a six-pack of Presidente, and three different flavors of Yucateco.

That being said, I spent an hour last night combing the freezer aisles of the bodegas and carnicerias on 5th Ave. looking for Goya frozen taquitos (the previously-disappointing dryness of which I'd decided would be perfectly mitigated by this bottle of Goya mole sauce I bought at Key Food) without any success whatsoever (and I know Steve's C-Town has 'em). Nor did the liquor store have any Jameson. The worst of both worlds.

So the Summer is pretty much over. We set out to do a bunch of stuff back at the beginning of June; some of it we got to, some not so much. I saw these bands:

• The Horrors
• The Fucking Champs
• Direct From Hollywood Cemetery (twice)
• NullSleep, Bit Shifter
• Spoon
• Ralph Stanley
• Violent Femmes
• They Might Be Giants
• Peelander-Z, Go!Go!7188
• The Hold Steady
• The Thermals, Ted Leo
• MC Frontalot

I'd planned to see more. I saw like a half-dozen free movie screenings; I'd planned to see more. I went to Coney Island a couple times; I didn't ride the Cyclone. Nina and I had wanted to go to the beach (Fire Island, as she defines it), and we did, last weekend -- N/R/D/M to the LIRR to the Ferry to the Pines. There were gays, and, you know, they were frolicsome, but the beach itself was chilly and the water was prohibitively choppy. And that's kind of the end of it.

But now it's autumn, which is actually my favorite season! Leave the fire behind, watch the world die, etc. Pick some apples.

Some kind people have put a whole fuck of a lot of episodes of Ricky Gervais' XFM shows and Stephen Merchant's new Radio 6 show, The Steve Show, online. I've been downloading and listening, several times a day. I just like hearing people talk.