breakingupwithbrooklyn.com

She's far from complete - but I'd like to invite you all over to my new 'home' on the Internets:

http://www.breakingupwithbrooklyn.com

There will be changes made from time to time - but I figure it's time to herd the traffic toward the new site. I do hope you'll all be patient with me as I learn the ins and outs of wordpress and play with themes from time to time. I welcome your feedback - and any tips, tricks, and/or general knowledge you'd like to share with me as it pertains to maintaining a site using wordpress.

Please familiarize yourself with the various different 'categories' which include Kitty's Story, Brooklydoscope, and BK Events.

Kitty's Story is the continuation of the story you have been reading up to date. Don't you worry one bit because I have every intention of continuing to post my thoughts, my fears, my confusion as it pertains to Daniel, and to just simply share my general insanity with you all.

Brooklydoscope is a little something different that I'm introducing to the site and I hope you all share this with any friends or acquaintances that you think would be interested. Through Breaking up With Brooklyn, Brooklydoscope will serve up interesting and distinctive photographs of Mother Brooklyn. The only common characteristic for all of Brooklydoscope’s featured photos is that the main theme directly relates to the mindset of traditional Brooklyn. What does this look like? I’m not sure there’s an answer to that question but I can guarantee you I’ll know it when I see it. Some of the photographs shared will be taken by yours truly (you'll recognize them by their crappy quality and general blah-ness) but I am hoping to solicit submissions from artists interested in having their work shared by means of the blog. Spread the word!


BK Events is exactly what it sounds like. As I mentioned in my Brooklyn: Unite! post a few weeks back, I want to try to serve as a sort of aggregator for events that are of interest to the Brooklyn native who shares with me the desire to get out and enjoy this borough a bit more, sans hipsters. Summer of 2010 has started off on a serious note and I plan on continuing to enjoy it as much as possible. I will share the skinny on various events, cool locations, and general happenings as they pertain to the real Brooklynite.

So, folks - I hope you like the new set-up. From here on I will be posting any blog-entires, photos, etc on the new site so please re-bookmark or re-subscribe to me via RSS once you click the link.

Coming soon: subscribe via e-mail... Just as soon as I learn how to add that function, Jesus I'm a noob!


PS - I am working on a follow up to my hipsters are fake artists and this is why piece. I realize that my random spewing of thoughts came off as a pretty unsupported argument as to why I am so anti-hipster and as such I'm going to put together a little something that will be better structured, a bit more coherent and all around awesome. Keep a look out!

Hodgepodge: A Move, Test Scores, & Fleet Week!

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog but I've been super busy prepping Breaking Up With Brooklyn's new abode on its very own domain of which I am now the proud owner.

Seeing as I am brand spanking new to the world of WordPress and its innumerable functions, the content is not completely moved over just yet but pretty soon this blog will be re-directed to a much cooler space. As a result of this transfer, I will be editing some of the current content to downplay some of the more questionable admissions. The last thing I want is for people to be hurt by way of my words - and the truth is that although I change all names for the purposes of anonymity, there are many many identifying features that can easily be pointed back to my real identity should somebody I know stumble upon these stories. I'm not so much concerned with folks learning about my exploits as I am them learning secrets of my loved ones, current or past, without their consent. That said, get your last fixins of smut in while you still can - cause the filters are coming soon.

I'm pretty proud of myself with the shift over to WordPress. I've been playing with various themes and editing them to make them a bit more to my liking. In only a week or so I've picked up a lot of the basics with respect to editing the php files and the likes. Through the help of a great friend who is a master-of-all-things-wordpress (and then some), I'm starting to get a feel for the user interface, too. Blogger is cool and all, but the functionality is super-limited and if I'm going to take this Breaking Up With Brooklyn idea any further than where it is now I need to step into the current-times and rock out with my .. fucking filters!

Aside from all the computery stuff I'm trying to make work for me right now, I finally received the test results for my entrance exam to the Radiology program I tested for weeks ago. I PASSED!! Had I not already decided, through various research and just a general gut instinct, that RN is actually the route I'm going to take, the next steps in my admission process to the Radiology program would've been an observation and then general admission board interview. I have no doubt that I'd have done wonderfully in both. The entrance exam was my biggest hurdle. When I began taking the practice tests I was scoring in the '4' percentile for the math sections (3 being lowest and 7 highest)- and the required passing percentile was a 5. My results told me that I passed the math sections in the high 6's. I damn near harassed everyone I knew to help me with the various math problems that I just couldn't grasp - and come test day I walked into the classroom with much more confidence than I'd had only a few weeks earlier... And, it paid off. I'm so proud of myself for not only following through with the exam, but ROCKING THAT SHIT!

I have a bunch of new posts to finish and will be releasing them shortly. Lots happening this weekend:

1. I would have been going to a wedding with Daniel and his family out in PA. Knowing where he is/what he's doing fucks with my head and I wish it didn't. I wonder whether or not he'll think of me, even once, during the ceremony or any of the romanticized portions of the evening... Probably not.

2. It's FLEET WEEK! God, I love a man in uniform - especially uniforms with white pants in which you can see just every lovely curve of that male body. F-i-l-t-e-r-i-n-g N-o-w!


Til later!

60 Minutes -

I am officially registered for fall semester 2010 as a matriculated college student.


Wow. Wow. I’m so excited, and proud of myself. This is going to be a long road ahead but it’s one I am actually honored to say I’ve worked hard to get on.


I went over to the school to finalize the actions this evening and the woman who helped me with my academic advisement was kind enough to push up my available registration date so that I had a better chance of obtaining the classes that worked best with my daytime work schedule. I rushed home and completed the necessary clicking-arounds to ensure that I be officially registered for two of the six pre-requisite courses I need to complete prior to entering my nursing curriculum elsewhere. Done deal, readers. Classes start September 11, 2010.


The bus ride home was an interesting one. My iphone battery went kaput after about 30 minutes of listening to music via the Pandora application. This made it impossible for me to drown out the sound of the two valley-girl like teeny bopping, squeaky voiced, bad-make up applied girls who were sitting behind me discussing some boy who was 31 and still a virgin. I will not enjoy the commute home from school each evening if this is what it is normally like. Car, now – please. Anyway, I was able to filter their squawking out while I looked out the window and I realized that this particular bus runs a route that could easily be associated to my entire life. It’s really rather unsettling when I sit down and think about it.

The timeline I was running in my mind in fact started prior to getting on the bus at all. As I entered the campus I looked around at all the youngish faces and remembered myself in this very same place at their age. I was enrolled here right out of High School. At the time of my first semester I was dating a boy named John. I wondered whether or not the bench in which we carved our names was still around. I didn’t check –and instead I walked the halls of the institution and took note of the other handful of ‘adults’ who looked like they were students and not professors. The number was small – and for a minute or so it fucked with my head but I reminded myself that there is no time like the present and what is important is that I am HERE.


The ride home brought me past not only my High School but my Junior High and my Public School as well. We rolled by the giant High School – no students outside hanging about the way they did during my tenure. I thought about the time I’d kissed Charlie, the hottest bad-ass in the school, right on that bench that was outside my bus window. The memory brought on countless other thoughts of boys I’d kissed and girls I’d had fights with. I thought about this one time that I was waiting for the bus at the very stop we were picking up passengers from and some older kids threw a rock out the back-emergency exit flappable windows that are a NYC MTA bus feature. The rock hit me square on the bridge of my nose and cut my face open.




We rolled through Gravesend. This is where the memories are most plentiful. The small stretch of area that this particular route covers in Gravesend somehow managed to cover two previous residences, my public school, the library I did my homework in every night as a child, and a stretch of concrete that was the coolest place in the world to hang out when I was a tween. The first apartment we passed on my way back home was actually the last apartment I lived in with my mother prior to moving out on my own. I remembered the time I walked in and found strangers in the house, and the time I came home to find my niece hysterical crying over a fight my mother and sister had gotten into over their drugs. This was definitely not a good period of my life. The second apartment we passed was the one I grew up in. We had a two bedroom walk-in, with brown shaggy carpet, an eat-in kitchen and a bathroom that was as pink as pink could be. Being that we were on the ground level, we had access to the back yard as well. There were two kids standing outside my old home – and they were playing some sort of ball. I remembered how my sister and I would play stoop ball on those steps – or box ball, a Brooklyn original, in the three concrete slabs outside of our front-door. A lot happened there in the 18 years I occupied that space. There were countless drug-riddled arguments and dramatized events, robberies, assaults, and the most vivid of all the memories, overdoses.


I clearly remember coming home from school one afternoon and walking through our long narrow living room to find the paramedics working on my mother. White foam fell down the sides of her mouth as she seized. I couldn’t have been older than 6. My mother would overdose a few more times throughout her opiate run – and then she graduated to crack.


I was lucky to have family members on my street. Two houses to my right lived my great – grandmother, a woman like no woman I’ve ever met. She was the rock on which I lay my head at night and know that all was going to be alright. Across the street and a few doors down was my maternal grandmother; a woman that never really accepted me because she didn’t like my father – and because I had a father and my sister didn’t. She died some years ago – and we never did really become fast-friends before that happened. Aunts, uncles, and cousins were never sparse growing up in Gravesend – and I thank god for that!


Driving down the main Avenue on which I spent many a night hanging out on street-corners and being a little asshole was a welcomed reprieve from the memories of a gloomy home life. The hang-out scene in Brooklyn back in the early 90’s was fierce. There were literally never less than 20 kids hanging out back then. We all knew each other and we all looked out for one and other. Fights were never real – and if two guys wound up getting into a tiff over some bullshit, they’d have a chance to settle it with the insurance that no one there would let anything truly BAD happen to each other. I miss those days – eating sunflower seeds and drinking Snapple iced teas while listening to old-school hip-hop out of one of the older kid’s car radios. Us girls would hang in little cliques. We’d flirtatiously look at the boys we were crushing on – and give the other girl-cliques dirty looks if we thought there may be an overlapping of admiration. It was a great time to be a kid in Brooklyn.


Public school memories are few and far between – and the bulk of them are bad enough that I’d rather not even get into them at this point. Let’s leave it at this: I was the daughter of known drug-addicts who wore hand-me-down clothes and had a problem with my eyes that resulted in my having to wear a patch half of the time…. Yes, I was a poor dirty pirate girl up until the age of 8 or so…..


We passed the neighborhood projects. Building 15, 14, 12 – and I was reminded of Louie Alonzo – I was his first kiss in Junior High. He lived in building 6 with his parents and 3 brothers. Our torrid love affair lasted three hours until I found out he tried to kiss another girl before kissing me. Fucking Latinos are players even at twelve years old… Damn them and their sexy boriquenness.


Onward we moved - my getting closer and closer to where I now call home. We drove through the neighborhood in which I lived prior to moving in with Daniel. It has only been around 9 months or so since I’ve been gone from there but the area looks even worse than it did when I was initially becoming disgusted with it. It’s a completely different world than what it was back in the day. Fully populated by an immigrant mainland Chinese population, the area is filthy. Store signs are half falling off of their canopies – and garbage is strewn all over the streets. Empty store after empty store passed by my window – and I felt a tinge of happiness to be gone from there even considering the circumstances under which I parted. My new area, although not too far from the old, feels much more like the good old days of Brooklyn.


My bus finally took its turn onto the Avenue I currently reside - and by this time I was less engaged in the memories of yesterday – The time-line was an interesting one. It was one that brought up feelings of sadness, shame, happiness, and confusion. It also allowed me to identify the fact that my drive to move up and out of this southern-Brooklyn territory is not at all unrealistic. My entire life was just chronologically recounted on a one-hour bus ride. If that doesn’t scream sheltered I don’t know what does.


Brooklyn… I love you, baby – but this break up is going to happen whether you like it or not.

Workin Nine to Five...

New York, I Love You

New York, I really do love you.

This afternoon while attempting to busy myself every which way possible in an effort to avoid doing what my company pays me to do, I was on my various sites reading up on all things NY when it was brought to my attention that the infamous graffiti artist Banksy struck in NYC last night. Apparently Banksy hasn’t thrown up anything in NYC since 2008 so the intertubes are all abuzz over this recent find.

I tried to communicate some thoughts regarding the idea of every hipster harry and their entourage running over to the piece in order to snap their picture next to it, pointing at it, or doing some other lame ass thing that hipsters do when things like this pop up all over NYC but my comments were misconstrued to represent my disdain for a difference in personal style. Guess I shouldn’t have opened my statement with a bitch-fest on skinny jeans? Either way, the person that I had a back and forth torrent with later came out to express their interpretation of the image as a doctor looking for life in NYC and being unable to find any. I thought it was an interesting concept – and I suppose to some of us out there, myself included or else I wouldn’t be looking to get out of NYC as a whole, their elucidation holds truth. The interesting thing for me was that as much as I have a difficult time in finding the positive things to see in our city these days, my first estimation when looking at Banksy’s piece was that the doctor was listening to the heart of NYC and was loving it.

If there is anything that can be said about a NYer that is true, it is that we have got some heart. There is definitely a pulse in the underbelly of NYC and even in the grittiest grimiest parts of town, the flavor is clearly identifiable. It bothers me that I forget that I love my city. It bothers me that my life’s experiences have given me this cynical approach to all of the wonderful things that are inherently New York – I already posted the Brooklyn Unite thing and I’m going to really try to run with this idea for the reason that like any abusive relationship, I want to fall back in love with the bitch.

Photo credit: Banksy forum on Flickr.

Brooklyn: Unite!!

 

 

I’ve been doing some thinking – Yes, that’s what that smell is.

 

Through various conversations I’ve had recently both as a result of this blog and utter randomness, I have come to the conclusion that I have no one to fault but myself when it comes to choosing to exclude myself from various artistic events happening in the BK. Yes it is certainly true that half of the reason I avoid most of these things is because they’re generally swarming with hipster wanna-be Brooklynites who make my skin crawl, but looking past their dirty-on-purpose vintage store rags and Ray-Bans, some of these fuckers may actually have decent taste in art. I realize this statement may be met with major criticism from my fellow native BKers, but I will stand by it – for now, at least.

 

I have, in-fact, attended various artsy happenings in gentrified Brooklyn in which I actually had a decent time and got to take a peek at some interesting stuff happening. There’ve been readings, film-screenings, and various gallery-events that were not completely dominated by an unimaginative trustrafarian’s attempt to be the next Andy Warhol. I realize they are few and far between, but the reality is that they do exist and by avoiding the gentrified areas of Brooklyn, which unfortunately is where the bulk of the events are, all I am doing is robbing myself of whatever good I may be able to find in Brooklyn while I am still here.

 

My days here are numbered. That number may be high right now, but it’s certainly not infinite and I intend to, at minimum, attempt to grasp on to whatever fun can be had here while I’m still around. I’m met with a couple of roadblocks when I enter this thought pattern. As previously mentioned in a few of my posts, I don’t have a very exposed social circle. This leaves me with a limited amount of folks to which I can forward an event happening with the hopes that they’d be down to join me. Second, and this one really angers me to throw out there but I realize that I may actually be the minority at these events and it does leave me feeling a tiny bit uneasy in terms of having a go at it on the solo tip.

 

The uneasy feeling of facing these events alone brings me to a memory I have of Daniel and I at a rooftop party in Bed-Stuy this past summer. Hipsters love to take advantage of rooftops. When I was a kid, rooftops were used for taking the sun with a visor but these days anywhere north of Brooklyn’s Mason Dixon line which I might go so far as to say sits somewhere between Dark Slope and Sunset Park, rooftops are used for parties, bbqs, and late night movie screenings. Daniel and I ventured out to this event and I was literally the only non-hipster type there, save Daniel (although I am beginning to wonder about this). At some point up on the roof, the I-pod shuffled its way over to Biggie Smalls’ Gimme the Loot. This being one of my all time favorite Biggie tracks enabled me to get my bop on in a serious way. My Kitty emblazoned doorknockers bounced about freely while the beat filled the air and with my fast flow was re-mark-able as I threw out word after word along with Frank White. Daniel knew every word too, and he joined me in the little sing-a-long. We volleyed the verses like Serena and Venus – and our energy was on some serious love shit. I have to admit, I was kind of diggin’ it. Looking around me, I saw Brooklyn to the left and right. I was on a rooftop in Bed Stuy enjoying the likes of one of the very reasons I am proud to be a Brooklynite; good hip-hop ala The B-I-G. All was great and dandy until I noticed that all around me these pasty skinned, too concerned about what every other person at the party thinks about them, daddy-pays-my-rent mother fuckers, were giving me dirty looks! I mean, it wasn’t at all something I needed to figure out here, they were completely giving me the up and down eyeball thing while probably commenting inside their pigeon holed minds about my obnoxious behavior. Man, this is Biggie Fucking Smalls. This is a rooftop in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. You want to move here and party here? Celebrate Brooklyn. Fuck another person’s opinion. Live it, be it - Rock out to Biggie – Now, I realize there is a great chance that Gimme the Loot may have been a foreign thing to the rest of the attendees. They were probably much more familiar with Juicy or Big Poppa – but don’t be giving me dirty looks cause I know my shit – you fuckers. Shortly after my realizing what was happening, my tone for the remainder of the evening changed. I announced to Daniel that I was pretty much ready to go. He wasn’t, so I went downstairs grabbed my shit and waited on the front stoop until he realized I was gone. About 20 minutes later, after at least 4 sewer rats walked by the stoop as I sat on it in the dark, the tunes of Brand Nubian and Tribe Called Quest filling the summer air around me, he finally came out. We called it a night shortly there after. He never fully understood what had changed and why I needed to get out of there – but you, my native Brooklynites, I trust you get it and that I don’t even really need to decipher the situation.

Fuck all that noise.

 

So, from that warm night with Biggie and a bunch of douche bags comes a bit of an idea. As I mentioned, I was digging the overall tone of the evening. I had my borough around me and aesthetically the night was beautiful. I really want to be able to experience these types of evenings but I want to experience them with my kind of people in tow. This means going out to events – not necessarily those that are completely hipsterfied, but going out to events that give me that same general feeling of ‘I dig this’. Artsy environments do this for me. Being around folks with brains does this for me. Unfortunately, I have a hard time finding things in my part of the BK that satisfy the need for culture and in order to get my fix, I’ll need to venture a bit North.

 

Who Is With Me?! Who’s with me?!? Who – Is – With – Me?!  (Jerry Maguire, anyone?)

 

Are any of you readers out there down with the idea of starting a Real Brooklynites meet-up type of group, in real time, where we can scout out events that may be to our liking and head on over to take advantage of whatever the evening is offering? I am talking about film screenings, poetry or spoken-word readings, (no pansy hipster shit), gallery viewings for mixed media art events, concerts, hiphop nights at bars/clubs, etc., and all other things Brooklyn history and the likes. I am contemplating creating an aggregator – or, at minimum my myself becoming an aggregator, of events that I feel us native and real Brooklynites would be attracted to and I’m thinking of including it as a feature on this blog.  What comes out of it will shape the future of the blog itself but I really believe this may be something that is needed for ‘us’.

 

Let me clarify, too, that a “Real Brooklynite” is not necessarily someone who was born and raised here like us natives. You may have moved here at 10 or even 15 and experienced Brooklyn during its more authentic period. This would constitute you a Real Brooklynite in my opinion. Anyone who did not move to Brooklyn because it was socially expected of them to do so would probably be on the same level of thought as me and those I keep company with. It’s not about geography – it’s about so much more than that. It’s about a state of mind and of consciousness. It’s about having an opinion and sticking to that opinion. It’s about expressing a thought and not being easily wavered when someone chooses to challenge that thought. It’s about being real – and being tough.
 

It’s about being about Brooklyn – not being about the social status being about Brooklyn will bring to you. Do you get that?! If you do – and you want to venture out and experience many of the things that have been somewhat hijacked by the hipster-holes, comment back to this posting and lets see what we can create.

 

Creation, hipsters. Creation. Try it on for size. I bet you an egg-cream it will look better than your too tight jeans. 

 

 

 

 

Fuck you, Daniel ---- and a little more, too!

I’ve been having a bit of a ‘block’ with respect to writing this week. I don’t know why – my thoughts run rampant on a daily basis and I’ve got so much shit trickling through my mind that I can’t even keep track of it. Sometimes I envision the scene in Hackers when the mainframe is attacked and they’re showing all the rambling lines of code – and every now and then a number or a letter becomes illuminated. I suppose the same could be true of the DiVinci Code movie. It’s a constant borage of thoughts floating through the cerebral fluid that is Kitty G.

I’ve had a lot of shit plaguing me this week – There’s the thoughts of Daniel and his would be Match.com meetups that are consistently making me sick. I know I need to not worry about this but it’s really a lot easier said than done. I think one of the major things that is fucking with me is that in his new profile, the section that asks whether or not you want kids is answered with a “definitely”.

Really, Daniel? ‘Definitely’ - ?

Cause, like, a month before our breakup you came to me on some “I never fully committed to having children, Kitty” and these remarks are what sparked one of the angriest arguments we’ve ever had. Now, all of a sudden, you’re ‘definitely’ into the idea of having children? Fuck you! – I told you from the very beginning that I wanted kids more than almost anything. My friends are having children left and right – and above all that, it’s not like I have an abundance of time left in which I can dick around. My biological clock IS ticking like Marisa Tomei’s and I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to perform one of life’s greatest miracles. Shit, even as I type this one of my friends is in the Labor & Delivery ward of a hospital in Staten Island preparing to give birth to her first child. FUCK! What the fuck, Daniel!?

The interesting thing about his “definitely” answer is that in the “describe your perfect match” section, under the ‘wants kids’, he notates that he’d be OK dating women who either “definitely, or someday, or maybe’ want children. – Do you even know what the fuck you want, Daniel? How can you absolutely want children - yet you’ll consider dating someone who may, or may not, mirror your desires? Get your ass to therapy and stop fucking with people’s emotions you heartless fuck.

I think I am slowly entering my anger phase. I wish it would be quicker and that the anger would be fiercer – but, I have to remind myself that I’ve made great strides in allowing myself to feel and that acknowledging my pain is A-OK. That said, I acknowledge that this all still hurts a hell of a lot. And I acknowledge that if I see Daniel with one of his fucking match.com dates in the Bay Ridge area, I will have to hold back on a preposterous scale in order not to spit in both of their entitled faces.

Phew -- Breathe, Kitty. BREATHE!

So – second to all that stuff, I am sort of bugging out on the whole school tip. I took the entrance exam last week and am waiting on the results. 10-14 business days is the expected wait time. It’s like a fucking gestation period… What will be birthed out of the result? I don’t know. I went ahead and did a bunch of additional research on the radiological field and job availability. Turns out that via the opening of tons of programs which suddenly offer this training, the market is completely over-flooded with candidates looking for jobs – and, well, we all know the current state of the economy. There are hardly any jobs, anywhere – even in the land of opportunity that is NYC. With this in mind, I am starting to doubt my next moves. I realize this could be my fear manifesting itself like I said it would – and I’m keeping a watchful eye on all of that. It cannot be denied, however, that facts are facts and if there are 1000 folks looking for work and only 100 jobs, my fears are very real and should be considered on a grand scale. I am looking at managing loan payments for a better portion of the rest of my working career. Do I go ahead and complete this program only to come out – unable to find work – and responsible to pay these notes? It’s a valid concern.

As a back up option to the Radiological program, I have revisited the idea of Nursing. I originally planned to try to get into a nursing program back when Daniel and I were living together. His mother is a hospital bigwig down in Florida and when Daniel and I were planning what I thought was the rest of our lives, Nursing seemed a very smart career choice for a number of reasons. Just because he is no longer a part of the future plan doesn’t mean that I should forget that there is a lot of success and, more importantly, merit in the nursing industry. I’m a caring person – and my bedside manner is amazing (just ask the trannys :P) – so, I’m sure this would be a smart career choice. The fact that all of my thoughts are centered around medicine in some respect is a bit calming. At least I know I’m not barking up the wrong tree completely.

In order to move forward and get into one of the two full time nursing programs offered in the evenings in NYC, I need to complete various pre-requisite courses on the Liberal Arts and Basic Sciences. I did the preliminary research and it looks like there are around 6 classes I’ll need to complete by June 2011. I think it’s certainly possible and I’m looking forward to this as a serious back-up consideration if the Radiological stuff doesn’t seem like the best way to go.

So, yeah – this is just a random spewing of the thoughts that are going through my mind today. I wanted to throw something out there in terms of a posting and I just didn’t know where to go with it. Sorry if it’s a bit of a ramble. I know I tend to do that on occasion. It’s the Brooklyn in me!

Speaking of Brooklyn – Tour De Brooklyn is June 6th – it’s 18 miles and it starts in Williamsburg and ends in Williamsburg with a stop off at Redhook Park. God, I never thought I’d be considering doing a bike tour that takes me to RedHook. Brooklyn sure has changed, huh? I know a bunch of you readers are Brooklynites. I see your locations on my stat-finder software ;) (big brother is always watching, motherfuckers!!) – so I am just throwing this little tidbit out there as an FYI.

Destructive behavior at its best

Daniel and I would often kid around about how our relationship was on the wild side due to our both being sex addicts. We'd laugh about it and even throw around the term in a manner meant to mock one and other. The very beginning of our relationship was met with a super concentrated physical union. We were easily having sex three times a day at minimum and, for us, this seemed completely normal. Our nights out were always ended with intense kink. For the first month and a half or so we kept the sex to ourselves but eventually we stepped outside of the normal male/female relationship parameters and introduced exaggerated variations of our kink.

In a previous post of this blog, I mention that I was introduced to the group scene via a dude I met on Craigslist. Scouring the Internet was not that uncomfortable for me. I have, indeed, engaged in anonymous sex. This behavior, looking back, was super dangerous but while you're doing these things you don't stop and look around at the warning signs because for the most part, these actions are dictated by something much greater than the sheer desire to cum.

In the Six Feet Under snippet linked to this post, Brenda goes to see a therapist at the push of her friend Melissa who happens to be a sex worker. I chose to include this clip for a few reasons. At one point, Brenda mentions that she thinks she truly enjoys the euphoric feeling she gets from these random sexual encounters with strangers while she is in a monogamous relationship. Save Daniel, I have cheated on pretty much every boyfriend I've had. There was a point in my life that I was allowing my sexuality to dictate the bulk of my decisions. The idea of being in a relationship that was not centered on sex seemed nearly impossible. I was condoning my behavior by stating, simply, that my activities were a result of my desires. It's a rather simple equation; you want something, you get it. Deep down inside, I think I would often wonder whether or not my behavior was out of the norm and time and time again I would condone it by rationalizing the fact that I was simply acting on my raw needs. And, to a degree, this was true. I did have these desires and curiosities and my acting on them made me feel as if I was a step ahead of everyone that was allowing their repression to filter their desires. I was on top of the world in my mind.

Sometime over the last five years or so, I began to question these decisions. I wouldn't say that I was particularly ashamed of myself for having experimented but I am confident in exclaiming that the events took on an unsatisfying air after a while. They just became a bit substandard at their core and I tried, for a long time, to figure out what had changed and why my interest in these self-gratifying events began to dissipate. I still don't really have a firm answer on that.

When Daniel and I went to a group event, I found myself taking a moral inventory of the attendees. I was creating scenarios in my mind of all of their lives and the paths that brought these folks to the same room in which I was sitting. How fucking condescending of me. Of course, none of this was said aloud, but I certainly do remember having choice thoughts about two women in particular. One was the very youngish girl that had come along with a much older man. Her skin was as alabaster as a fucking porcelain doll and her hair as healthy as could be. I would guesstimate her at around 20, tops. I wondered what type of fucked up shit had happened in her childhood to bring her to this event on the arm of a 40+ bi-sexual male with whom she didn't seem to have very much in common. The other area I focused the remainder of my attention on was this socially awkward mid to late 30’s female. It was very evident via the weird small talk we had that she was a very self-doubting woman. She was on the heavier side, probably around a size 14-16, and while I didn’t find her particularly sexy or attractive, she was not an eye sore either. I studied her awkwardly work the room while she was fully clothed and later sat back to watch while she turned into this sex-beast who suddenly exhibited the confidence of Aphrodite. It was a transformation like none I'd ever seen before and all that continued to run through my mind was the sadness I felt for this woman who could only feel strong and beautiful when she was a sexual object. Now, far be it from me to cement any of these observations as real. My opinions are nothing but opinion - and a part of me plays with guilt for even having these types of thoughts but our minds are interesting creatures and they will go where they may. After the get together and my little thought session I turned the tables onto myself and played with the ideas of why I had found myself in this scene at one time. I still participate in these thoughts and I endlessly come up with the same answer: I use sex as a coping mechanism.

When the therapist in the clip above introduces the basic fundamentals of sex addiction she says some choice words. "It involves the sublimation of emotions that are too painful to address". My onset into the world of extreme casual sex came less than a year after the death of a man I was dating for five years intermittently and was sure would eventually be my husband. My entrance into the world of sexual activity at all, came at the ripe early age of 13 and I was unquestionably looking to escape the reality that was my home life. My parents are recovering drug addicts. The word recovering in the previous sentence might as well have a toggle switch because their lengths of clean time vary even to this day.

I have no hesitation declaring that the bulk of my sexual experience was gained via the attempt to not sit down in my own skin and deal with my life. This makes the most sense to me now because as I go through the motions of this break up with Daniel, I have never struggled more with feelings and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is because instead of having a dick in my hand, I am actually allowing myself to go through this. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that I need to attend sex anonymous meetings - but I am positive in exclaiming that avoiding unhealthy sexual encounters is becoming a real struggle for me. I am starting to set myself up to jump back into this behavior pattern and I need to keep a watchful eye on it because this is NOT what I want to revert to. If for no other reason than to have a one-up on Daniel, I cannot go out like that. But, seriously, this has absolutely nothing to do with Daniel. This is about my healing process and I'm proud of myself for actually feeling the pain.

Three days after breaking up with me, I spotted Daniel on a strictly-sex site looking to hook up. He'd been staying at a friend’s place over in Washington Heights and I noticed that his 'location' on the site had been changed to reflect his current whereabouts. I was hurt, obviously, but more so I was actually a bit stunned that he would so quickly revert to this behavior. We'd discussed our sexual exploits and repeatedly he'd mentioned that he did not want to go back to being "that guy". Here I was in our apartment, drowning in a bed of tears, looking at the online profile of "that guy". It was heart breaking on a number of levels. Even now, nearly two months have gone by and I can't help but check his online status on that site every now and again. He's still active, still seeking hookups. I went and looked further today - and found that he now has a match.com account, too. I was joking with a friend of mine after having read Daniel's Match.com profile and said "He's going to make me go out and suck a dick, and I don't want to do that!". The real joke is that I don't know how untrue that statement is.

I have not had sex with anyone since Daniel which may honestly be the longest period I've been without intercourse in over 10 years. It's a conflicting feeling because a part of me is missing the intimacy that comes along with intercourse. I want to have someone’s hands running down my post-coital flesh. The issue with this is that anyone that I would fuck right now doesn't do the snuggle thing. It'd be strictly sex and I am just not 'there'. Reading Daniel's Match.com ad had me nearly in tears. It's my own fault for looking, obviously - but the Internet will test your limits if nothing else. I am just 'not ready' for the next steps and I suppose that means I'll need to hold off on getting my rocks off accordingly. This is difficult.

Rebounds can be a good thing. Rebounds deflect and I need deflection. I want to nerve up the energy and resources to build my own damn Match.com account - or at least to go out to a bar, or actually attend one of those meetup.com meetups. Why the fuck did I even join if I'm never going to attend an event? Pointless! I suppose my process is one that will work at its own pace. And, I need to make certain that I don't lose sight of the fact that I am not the one with active sex accounts looking to hook up. Typing that sentence prompted me to check his online status - what do you know? Online! I have to stop that, seriously.

Xtranormal Adaptation of why hipsters are assholes!

I am not the only one out there who thinks hipsters are the douchesacks of the universe. Some fellow hipster-haters over at diehipster.com ran a link to this blog and it prompted the ultra awesome Xtranormal adaptation of my previous entry.

I can assure you, my Brooklyn accent sounds nothing like this chick. My brown hair, however, is pretty damn spot-on, and so is the scowl on her face as she delivers the truth!

Hipsters are fake artists and this is why

This entry has moved to: http://breakingupwithbrooklyn.com/2010/05/03/hipsters-are-fake-artists-and-this-is-why/

The Trannies

When I think back on the various things that should have raised red-flags in the course of my relationship with Daniel a few instances come to mind.

There was the time when he told me that he didn't believe in a person having a soul. I obsessed over that comment for a good week and a half. How can you not believe in a persons soul? What, if not their soul, do you believe in? I have always been a pragmatic type of girl but when it comes to matters of the heart, soul, and conscience, I lose all sensibility. There is a certain something inside of us as human beings that keeps us ticking. There is a driving force, a sort of metronome of life if you will. It's there, all the time, and it is with that internal life force that you go about your daily existence in this world. This, my friends, is your soul. It drives you. It makes you who you are. We are not paper-doll-cutouts. We are living and breathing and it is our soul that carries us along! I am passionate about this - and when Daniel said that he didn't believe he really even had a soul, I felt a little sick inside. I bombarded him with philosophical questions and scenarios for the next 10 days or so until finally I was able to either convince him that believing in a soul is important - OR - he just said he could see my point of view to get me to shut the fuck up.

Then there was the time his Aunt, over dinner at the Time Warner Center, asked whether or not I cooked for him and he abruptly answered "No!" - Daniel is not the type of man who wants a woman at home slaving behind a hot stove in order to have a meal ready upon his arrival. Actually, I think that type of thing turns him off. God forbid a woman wants to take care of her man!! Amazing what having unavailable parents will do to a man. Anyway, I get that he doesn't necessarily look at that as a very admirable quality in a woman but society definitely does and I was mortified. The truth is that just that very week I had tried my hand at a bunch of different recipes. All were altered to befit the limited diet he has as a result various food allergies. It may sound stupid but I put a lot of love and care into doing the domestic type stuff and for it to be denied by him really hurt. I, somewhat immediately, jumped in and said "what do you mean, no?!" - We turned the situation into a joke but it was belittling.

Last, but certainly not least in the bullet-list of red-flag raising moments was the night we spent with the two Trannies in a dungeon basement in Brooklyn.

You can't make this shit up.

They were both of some sort of third-world Latin lineage. One was much more attractive than the other. She came in at around 5'10 inches tall with a decent body, small natural breasts as a result of her hormone therapy, and still packed a decent package. Somehow in the pretty small sized dungeon that sits underneath a widely popular venue in the Park Slope area, I had lost Daniel for all of a minute and a half. When I finally stumbled into a cubby-hole and found him, it was in their company.

Initially I was confused. I couldn't figure out how in the blink of an eye I had actually lost him. (funny, looks like I am asking myself that same question yet again in a completely different fashion) - The way that this place is set-up makes it nearly impossible to lose people. There are these small wooden booth like areas that are positioned in a mish-mashed labyrinth. One booth basically backs the next and each of these semi-private spaces has glory and peek holes with an approximate 3" diameter sitting on the bottom and top of the "walls". Some have small doors - and others just a framed out space where a door would otherwise serve a purpose. You know, that is if the whole purpose of being at this place wasn't to have others watch/join you.

There are a few larger spaces, namely in the back and front of the basement space. The front private space is marked with clear signage indicating it's Female and Transexual friendly only. Inside of this private space there is a sex swing and a few other fun items to make your stay more enjoyable. I found it to be a bit too butch heavy for my liking and didn't spend a lot of time in there. The large space in the back is where the real fun happens. There is a queen-ish sized bed that seems to always get a fair amount of play. It's anchored in the far left hand corner of the square room. In the immediate foreground to the bed is a fun cross that I, unfortunately, never got to experience. There are multiple flat screens playing various genre of porn strewn through out the space. In the far right hand corner of the same room sits a hanging sex swing that was ALWAYS occupied by some way too heavy dude that seemed to want to put the weight limitations of an anchored sex swing to the test. There are some suspended benches for sitting and viewing purposes, a private caged area that has an enclosed cross and spanking bench, and a dog cage for your every day, often overlooked, Fido fantasies. I have to give it up to the folks that run this event called SPAM; they really got it all covered from a "need" perspective. Strewn about the venue are condom dispensers, containers full of individually packaged servings of lube, handy wipes, and paper towels for easy clean-up. They even have small chocolatey goodness in the form of ho-hos! How apropos.

There are three reasons I like this event:

1) It's in Park Slope and doesn't require my taking the train into Manhattan just to take the train back into Brooklyn (read: Williamsburg or Bushwick). There are not enough progressive events, never mind progressive sex events, in Brooklyn. Also, I don't generally consider Williamsburg Brooklyn. Hipsters went and fucked it all up for me.

2) The environment provided by the folks that run this party is clean, safe, and sex positive. There is something to be said for an event that encourages a somewhat 70 year old tranny-ish girdle wearing grandpa to get his shit off. A lot of people would have been turned off by seeing that. I'm not a lot of people and if anything I thought it was heart warming.

3) There is a mandatory pants check at the door. This sounds like exactly what it is. After you come through the entrance and confirm with the host that you are aware this party is queer, you take a walk down a steep flight of steps and stop at the coat-check. This is where you remove your pants and whatever other articles of clothing you want to check and you exchange them for a ticket. What a wonderful way to promote people getting naked; make it mandatory.

After I found my whereabouts and looked into Daniel's occupied cubby hole, I stopped for a second and took it all in. I stood for bit and watched him. Daniel was looking at me with a crooked smile. I was certainly interested in what was going on and there was a fair amount of lust running through my veins but deep down I think I was genuinely taken aback and I'm sure my face showed that. Daniel cocked his head back to indicate I should join them. So, I did. "Is this your girlfriend"? the pretty one asked. We both responded and smiled at her. It was a good night.

A little while later, our friend took a seat next to us as we were taking in the action of another scene. She and I began to chat about toys and the likes. We discussed her topping. She told me it didn't happen very often but that when it did her equipment handled it. We would come to see her at a few future parties but the fun of that evening was a single occurrence.

Since our breakup, Spam has held one party. I don't see myself ever going back there but who knows what the future holds. I am sure, however, that Daniel and Miss Pretty will have their fun once again.

Who - What - Where - When - Why - as it stands today

Dating Daniel was sort of a sweet escape from the usual men I've been with. He is originally from Florida, attended college in Minnesota and has done his share of traveling. He regularly commented on how NYC seemed like a great place to be for now but he couldn't see it being home. That made me hopeful, as having called Brooklyn home for the last 32 years has really weighed me down and I have no doubt that this won't be home forever. I have been contemplating leaving Brooklyn for years now.

They say you can't get where you're going unless you know where you've been, right? Well, with that in mind, let's talk about the who/what/where/whens/whys of Kitty Graves' life as it stands today:

The who: Kitty Graves, female, 32 years old. A mix of Italian (Siciliana), German and a bunch of other fun stuff. Born with a severe addiction to Methadone into a family of one 7 year old sibling and two parents both of which are also Brooklyn born and raised. Household was of the typical Brooklyn Italian persuasion and located right outside of Coney Island. Employed full time in Administrative Management in NYC. Sexual orientation: Straight (with a history of extreme experimentation) No children. Single. Under-sexed, Under-paid, Under-loved, Over-emotional. Lives with one cat and often thinks about getting another but doesn't want to be a Crazy Cat Lady before the age of 50. Education: HS Graduate with approximately 30 some-odd college credits. Currently in application phase for program at a Brooklyn based hospital program for Radiological Therapy. Physical description: Brunette, ultra-feminine with a propensity to rock Timberlands and Hoodies on the perfect spring night. Moderately tattooed. Size 10 all American chubby chick - full bust, full ass, full of spit & vinegar!

The where: I am one week into a new one bedroom apartment in the South West corner of Brooklyn, NYC. My neighborhood is one of the few remaining Brooklyn neighborhoods to have a heavily populated Italian immigrant population. Seeing as I am an Italian American myself, this works for me.

The why: Well - this answer will come in multiples -

(a) 6 months into living with Daniel he pulled the plug on our relationship forcing me to find a new place in a hurry. Part (a) of the why section brought me to the where section.

(b) I have been a resident of the South-Westish area of Brooklyn my entire life and it's familiar. It's interesting that as much as I seek a change, I continue to stay in an area that has not seen much in terms of the ever popular gentrification of Brooklyn. The truth is this: I am paying $850.00 for a one bedroom apartment in a very safe area (Wikipedia reports there was only 1 murder last year!). Now, don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to live in a gorgeous area like Carroll Gardens, which by the way also has a decent Italian population left, but in comparison to what I am getting for my money down yonder, I'd be renting a closet converted into a bedroom. I, unlike most people who are moving into Brooklyn, cannot see paying more than 50% of my income on rent alone. That's just insane.

(c) I've been at this jumpy South-West Brooklyn thing for approximately 13 years. During High School I was lucky enough to jump into a program called Co-Operative Education. I worked one week and went to school the next. The program gave me the opportunity to get ties into fortune 500 companies in Manhattan and by the age of 19 I was supporting myself with a full-time job on Wall Street. This wasn't any Gordon Gecko gig - but it paid the bills and gave me the opportunity to get the fuck out of dodge (aka, home) when the environment became way too unhealthy. Since then it's been one big game of survival.

I envy those who have had education and a safe home life handed to them. I envy them more than you can possibly imagine. Only now, at nearly 32 years old, am I beginning to come up for air. Only now am I beginning the process of stepping out of survival and into success. This shit is scarier than anything I have ever had to do - and as this blog builds more of a foundation on my past you may find that hard to believe.. Because, frankly, I've been through some shit.


The when: There is no time like the present

The what: Damned if I know? The what? What is it, exactly, that I am hoping to accomplish by documenting what may be estimated to be the next two years of my life? Phew... You know, I'm not sure I can really answer that definitively. I have one ultimate mission in mind and that is to say goodbye to the borough of Brooklyn. I suppose it's safe to say that this blog will be a structure of sort? It may serve as a ladder I need to climb up and out. It may wind up serving as just a means to get out the pain I hold inside. The pain of a life that has been far less than fortunate, the pain of a break-up that has not only broken my heart but proceeded to masticate it, swallow it, regurgitate it and spit it in my face. Yeah, I can be dramatic at times. Get used to it. Ultimately, it may just be something to do to kill the time while I figure out the next steps in this 32 year stroll through life.

The one thing I can tell you for sure, however, is that the story will be a wild one so strap in and get ready to ride. I am happy you're joining me and quite frankly, I need you, so please, stick around.