Drawers; Drew Toal

So I'm back in NY and I haven't unpacked yet but there's something I need to say before I do that and also I'll probably need to sit around for awhile and possibly I'll never unpack. I just don't like unpacking. I don't really like packing either. I've got a problem with things. I never quite know what to do with them and I have trouble getting rid of them. Over the vacation I was hanging out with the friend I dubbed Phil in the last post, although I could totally tell you it was the friend I dubbed Collins because seriously, how would you know? He had this bank of very small drawers with tiny things inside them. Tiny Tabasco bottles and those runts candies and teacup poodles and thimbles. Actually they were thimble poodles. They're so cute but I can't help but feel sorry for them.

Actually, none of those things were in the drawers. I don't really know what was in the drawers, probably nails of various sizes and washers and thumb tacks and twist ties and earring backings and paper clips and Q-tips and cotton balls and perfume samples and ribbons and very small scarves and packets of Splenda.

Oh! Speaking of, my landlords who are the best landlords ever got me a Facts of Life DVD and a book of recipes featuring Splenda for my bday! Aren't those the best gifts ever? They are!

So back to the small drawers. I looked at this bank of drawers and felt so calm and relaxed looking at it. It was like a waterfall screen saver or nature sounds. It was the organizational equivalent of a rainstick, except rainsticks are cheesy and make me think of didgeridoos, which are noisy.

I was so profoundly affected by the small drawers that I thought to myself, "Self, take note of this and do the equivalent in your New York apartment."

As I write this I'm sitting inside a small drawer and to my left is my sleeping drawer and to my right is my showering drawer. The only thing is that it's kind of difficult to use the bathroom in the middle of the night because it's hard to open the drawers from the inside and once you manage to get the thing open you have to throw yourself over the edge and then cling to the whole bank of drawers and then, because they all look the same from the outside it's easy to forget which is which. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea.

Wait, none of that was what I meant to say. Damn!

What I meant to say was that there's this young whippersnapper with whom I worked at Time Out New York by the name of Drew Toal who has informed me that he wants to challenge my media empire. "It's lonely in the upper quadrant of the lower middle," I warned him, but there was no getting through to him. He has a blog and I'm remiss in not linking to it so go there and get to know him.

puppies and lesbians

I don't mean to blow smoke up Gawker's ass by linking to them twice recently but their referring to Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson as "lesbadoodles" cracks me up.

Incidentally, when my friend Dustin and I worked at Time Out New York we wanted to breed puppies in the kitchen and call them TONYdoodles. Somehow that morphed into discussions of doodledoodles, but I can't remember why exactly.

Hot Seat with David Schwimmer

Click on the image to read it. Or click here.

But wait, after you read that you're probably going to want to look at those photos of me interviewing him at the Apple Store. Do I know you, or do I know you? Look at me, deep-linking!

Saget bio

The Bob Saget Biography Channel Bio that I was interviewed for aired. I know this because I received a nice note about it from someone who saw it and then found me on MySpace, which is how I find out that most of the Biography Channel Bios that I was interviewed for are airing. I added a couple air times to the upcoming TV appearance sidebar on the side of this page. I haven't seen it yet, so I don't remember what I said, nor what I wore. Something brilliant, surely. (Something brilliant being what I said. I imagine what I wore was a sweater. I would never use "brilliant" to describe clothes, anyway, unless I was in Britain taking the piss and chatting up mates on my mobile.)

Need more Bob? Or more me? Or more me on Bob? Here's my Hot Seat interview with Bob Saget.

Hot Seat with Emily Mortimer

Read it here.

P.S. But the thing is that I really hadn't heard the phrase "chaps my ass." I've heard chaps my hide, but not chaps my ass. Please do weigh in. Have you heard it?

Appliance interruptus

I woke up this morning sleep-blogging, or rather sleep-storming, or rather thinking about fodder for a potential blog post which struck me as brilliant in my not-awake state. It would have looked like this:

Very Specific Reassurances

1. They can't vacuum forever.

2. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (this is where I fell back asleep again)

Sadly I can't see the appeal of this list beyond people whose upstairs neighbors vacuum for what seems like forever early in the morning.

In other news, I added to the list of articles I wrote recently and list of articles I wrote long ago (on the right side of this blog). It really breaks down to stuff I wrote for Time Out New York and stuff I wrote for the OC Weekly, so maybe some day I'll change the way it's labeled. The TONY stuff shows more restraint, but overall the OC Weekly stuff is probably more fun to read—arguably more creative—and I don't quite know why that is. That's not true actually, I do know why it is, but I'm still unsettled by it.

Hot Seat with Salt-n-Pepa

Read it here.

My interview with Harvey Keitel

Read it here.

puppies, cash, two weeks notice

The following was sent to the staff to announce my decision to go freelance. Now there's actually a voice in my head telling me not to post an internal memo, but this one is so nice that I'd like to tattoo it on a butt cheek, except then I'd have trouble reading it:

"After 3+ glorious years providing TONY with one of its more distinct and stylish voices, in everything from music reviews to Ed Koch exposés, Alison Rosen is moving on. She's jumping into the freelance waters and will remain actively involved as a contributor to TONY, but we'll miss her breezy way with words, quick wit, and masochistic eagerness to get up at 5am every Saturday morning to do TV for TONY. Her last day is 1/31. Please join me in wishing her well and demanding that she not lose touch."

So, you're likely wondering why I'm doing this and what I'm doing next. I will keep you posted.

If anyone would like to give me a mountain of cash and a puppy, I would entertain that offer.

I'm in Playboy

No, not like that! In the January 2008 issue they round up the Year in Sex and they blurbed my exchange with Ed Koch (here's the story as it originally appeared in Time Out New York). Thanks to the reader who tipped me off. That sounds dirty, doesn't it? Funny how everything can sound dirty when you view the world through flesh-colored glasses.

Also, I will post more photos soon. I have more Tobey photos and I have a bunch of me after various TV things which I took in case I wanted to try to remember how they did my makeup.

Petty criticisms

Dustin and I dashed off a brief list of junk that bugs us (to coincide with the critics issue) and turned it into a story that resembles a brief list of things that bug us! Upon reading it though, I'm realizing it's really just scratching the surface.