ctrlaltdiscreet

WOW.
I HAVE LIVED A
PRETTY FULL LIFE.

BUT WAIT, COULD THERE BE PARTS I MAY NOT HAVE WANTED OTHERS TO SEE?

PERHAPS, BUT ONLY THOSE WHO FRIEND ME WILL KNOW.

FOR NOW, I WILL GET BACK INTO MY FLYING HYBRID CAR.

THE FUTURE IS GRAND.

(part of a series of anecdotes about inconspicuously important people i have unwittingly met)

one afternoon a few weeks ago, i took my friend chris around downtown dc on my lunch break. he was visiting from rural virginia, where he currently helps out at an herb farm and does freelance landscaping duties on former plantations and other such properties. before this, he used to work in new york as a showroom manager.

near my building, tucked beneath the underpinning of a larger structure is a humble tailor's shop. this is probably the manliest corner in the city -- not men as they are, but as they were. next to it is a well-vented cigar store, and down the street is the old ebbitt grill, where many of the same persons who prefer well-cut clothing and vintage tobacco are likely to drink. the tailor occupying this space is named georges de paris -- and he has made bespoke suits for every single president since lyndon b. johnson.

chris and i passed by his shop but i was leery about entering, but chris noticed this, short, stout man with a red face and long white hair motioning us to enter from behind a counter full of fabrics. he introduced himself as georges and asked what he could do for us. he showed us a variety of fabrics, and suits in different stages of construction. i told him i was familiar with his work for the executive branch, and asked if he'd done any work for the oval office's current occupant. in response, he guided my hand towards an unfinished suit jacket made from a black fabric with a subtle sheen, somewhere between silk and mohair, it was a really, really, nice composition. he then told me to flip over the tag on the sleeve: it read "president barack obama."

georges imparted the wisdom of a tailor to us two young men with a vested interest in clothing. he told us that while we are young, it's the right time to be "mr. spenders." that youth and hedonism go hand in hand, and a taste for the finer things in life is acquired by constant indulgence. when you are young -- you wear a suit because you want to, and when you are old -- you wear a suit because it's expected of you.

at the mcdonald's across the street
there is a woman with a droopy sweater and haggard face
rifling through a huddled mass of wrinkled paper with a fading bank
of america logo.

next to her is a steaming cup of coffee and seven empty cream containers.
her head is in her hands. she is trying
to figure out where it all went wrong.

underneath her chin, a dollar and some pennies.
this is not nearly enough for rent. but for now,
maybe a cheeseburger will suffice.

1 - Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 - Post it to FB with this text in the "caption" and TAG the friends you want to join in.



p.s. i used MS paint. beat that.

ok, i know it's been a while but i finally got around to cleaning out my closet and i'm trying to get rid of a lot of stuff. much of it is priced to move. there are some quality pieces in here though!

most of the shoes run between size 8-9. the tops are Youth Large-Medium, and all the pants are waist size 30.

visit the sale here: http://tinyurl.com/dcs5lt

willing to negotiate shipping, take cash & paypal. if you live in the area you can just pick it up. any questions just comment in this. tag anyone you think would be interested please.


all the stuff i am selling... compressed.

v-day cookies (asuka rocks):


pretty princess:


old man steez:

Decided to surprise asuka in New York yesterday morning. Originally I hadn't planned on making it on account of my being broke, but I figured I could cut other fiscal corners for the sake of doing something awesome for my girlfriend.

A lot of people from DC were also in town; Fffever had a show in Brooklyn on Friday night so we decided to meet up at some point. Lately my life has been giving me mind-blowing, LOST-like coincidences. Like this mannequin that Fffever keeps in their studio, which during a shoot last weekend, was revealed to have originally belonged to Raul, who used it for a photo shoot for one of my former roommates. He left it behind when he moved out of the art studio he was living in at the time, and its next tenant eventually brought the mannequin to Gold Leaf. While I was at Beacon's Closet, Abdul ran into me. It was so weird, because I had meant to call him later in the weekend, but serendipity plays itself out like that I suppose.

Sharon was with Lis as she was getting a tattoo, so Jimmy and I posted up at Sound Fix, this record store/bar on the corner of 11th and Bedford. Abdul, the girls and two of the Fffever dudes followed suit a bit later, and we enjoyed cheap booze and fun conversation. I think this is the direction my social life is taking, and I fear that means I'm getting old.

Whenever I leave this city, there is always a churning in my stomach as the bus pulls away from the bustle and the streets gradually become more desolate, darkened buildings and closed garage doors lining the path like husks. I feel like one of the survivors leaving the island. This is not my home, but for some reason I feel I belong here more than anywhere else, and even if the sojourn takes months or years, there will be a day when I find my way back.

I wonder if there is a proper term to describe this opposite of wanderlust. It's a peculiar tingling I wouldn't call homesickness nor is it a fear of change. My heart is here, and that's that. And when I say that I don't mean the idea of New York, the rags to riches fairytale city, the scandalous, hypersexual Page 6 city, or the über-hip, too cool to care fashionista city, I am talking about everything: the sewage smell running rampant through Chinatown, the undentifiable liquids leaking through the infrastructure's open pores, the street meat, the subway buskers, and even the staggering group of drunks on the corner holding up their friend as he pukes. These are the kinds of experiences that remind me I am not dead yet.

UPDATE: OMG YOU GUYS! It's a BEBEH!

When I woke up Andy left a note on the table re: salt in the closet, since the steps leading up from our apartment tend to ice over rather quickly.



Somewhere out here, there may or may not be a lost tabby cat who answers to "Stinky." Stinky is described as having a "large head and a small body."



This block gets waterlogged easily. When I first moved in, during the aftermath of a rainstorm, the sidewalks were waterlogged and deep, murky, moat-like puddles lined the streets. I was carrying a sewing machine, the front compartment broke off and I lost about two spindles and some spools of thread. I didn't feel like fishing for them.

I came home heavily-laden with groceries to find Alex hovered over the stove, stirring something that smelled awfully pleasant. Andy had the TV turned to MSNBC since there was no new "Gossip Girl" tonight, and I unpacked my groceries into the cupboard and threw the leftover brown rice and red beans I made for lunch into the fridge. Alex was cooking us risotto, which consisted of some rice, vegetable broth, reduced peas, some asparagus, and plenty of butter. She knew what she was doing, because the shit was the bomb.

She also brought over one of those high-quality DVDs of movies that get sent to members of the Academy, a copy of "Waltz With Bashir," which asuka, Andy, and I were about to see last night with Alex and Tobi, had it not sold out. Luckily, we were able to make a slightly later showing in Georgetown.

City life is quite exhausting. While the majority of my peers spent last weekend celebrating the inauguration of Bamalot, I was holed up in my girlfriend's house for a lot of it, sickly, gross, and spreading my man germs all over the place. Lucky gal, right? Honestly, I probably had more fun doing that than taking part of the clusterfuck that was Washington D.C. though, we watched a lot of "Mad Men," and I learned the finer points of Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty: World At War.

The other night, I was driving her car and she was rifling through her CDs -- desperately seeking Timberlake -- instead, she found the soundtrack to "Serial Experiments Lain," we ended up listening to it and remembering our awkward, funny high school selves. That's the thing about being a nerd, I've learned, is that you never necessarily grow out of it, but when you wise up enough, you kind of grow into yourself.