Happy birthday twelvety-third (123) birthday to one of the biggest influences to me as a child and all the way to my adult hood. The Tolkien society has listed a few bars in New York, Europe and Indonesia who will be celebrating the professors amazing life with a toast at 9 pm. If you're like me and not in any of those towns currently, just go to your favorite bar and raise a glass at 9 pm with a toast declaring "the professor!" Aur Onnad Meren, asha

View from my bed at 622 am

My body is ready 🍑💀💭💤

Reading Frankenstein for the first time and Mary Shelley found some beautiful words to express how ugly shit was.

Commander Riker's easy-going manner and sense of humor is fascinating to me. I believe it to be one reason he is so popular among the crew. It may also be partly responsible for his success in matters of love. There may be a correlation between humor and sex. The need for more research is clearly indicated.

Finally its hat/sweater/tights/high socks season 🍁🍂

Dear man who is always on my morning commute at 10:15 am from the G to the E train

I don’t know what it is about you that intrigues me more… the fact that at one point you chased me down and asked for my number or the fact that 18 hours after asking for my number you texted me saying that you had to back out of meeting me for a drink because you were going through some “self work” and “coming from a complicated place”. But either way you still intrigue me. I see you more than I see my closest friends and family. I see you more than my favorite bartender and clients. Every morning I see you. I know that if its raining you will always wear that L.L Bean navy blue rain jacket and tan leather shoes. I notice you get your haircut about every 6-8 weeks. I notice that when it starts to get cold out your jacket is changed to a black and white pendelton wool button up. I notice your tortoise shell round eye glass frames and the way your hair curls around your neck line. I notice your Museum of Jurassic Technology tote bag and the book you were reading about the subconscious mind. You read. You read a lot. Faster than me and more complicated books than me. They are always second hand. I noticed that you get on the same car in the same location on the G. Right were the doors open on court square so that it leads directly to the stairs, I notice this because I do the same. I notice you know where which car doors open on the E and M so that it opens right where the escalators are on Lexington. I notice because I use the exact same doors. The exact same escalators. I don't know you at all. But I know you are smart and I know that you are embarrassed by me. I know that after you asked me out over a year ago and then "un"asked me out you suddenly got on the wrong train car. You decided it would be better for you to struggle through the throng of strangers to fight your way to the escalators up to the manhattan streets than suffer the strain of seeing me or being in any form close to me. I know that after a year you still tend to do that sometimes. You see me with out ever once noticing me. I just wanted to let you know that though I have no interest in having that drink (I moved on about 17 minutes after you text me) that I still notice you. I still see you more than my friends and family. I will continue to do so. And you will continue to see me with out ever noticing me. Until then, Your faithful morning commute companion in this dark wet city, Mari de Monte

Alaska and New York are scary as all hell.

There was one very serious and very brief moment in my life where I honestly thought I was going to leave New York. It was about this time last year. The one relationship that will now forever be doomed as the relationship I will compare all future relationships against was in the haze of painstaking endings and long drawn out hysterical conversations of things that don’t matter now, but ended things then. I had started my new job after being suddenly fired from the last one of 7 years and was in a general phase of uncontrollable grief and melancholy.

I had always had a slight judgmental stance on people who moved away from New York, especially if their reasoning being that it was just “too hard” or “too expensive” of “too angry”. I find all of those reasons hog wash. Yes, New York is all of those things, but so are a lot of other places. And honestly, New York isn’t like an abusive relationship, its what I can imagine what being in the middle of the wilderness of Alaska is like. That bear, that looming long and lonely winter, that river, none of these elements give a shit about you and whether you live or die. In that sense its how it should be. New York is like that to me. No one, not the train conductor, the man with 5 kids who is delivering your egg sandwich up your 5 floor walk up on a Sunday morning because you’re too hungover on coke and gin and tonics to see the light of day, the guy who owns your favorite restaurant, no one gives a shit if you leave or don’t. Or sure, your friends will. But thats why they are your friends but the reality is that after you board that plane, they will still get up and take the E train to work and maybe visit you on a long weekend, maybe not. Maybe they will text you a picture once a month of some bathroom graffiti that reminds them of you, but for the most part they will continue on and not think about you as much. Its like that to me. Alaska and New York are damn hell scary and don't care about you. And I like that.

So when I was telling my friends over and over again that I was thinking of moving, and making my list of cities that I could potentially move to, I realized that I was being and doing everything that I can’t stand. It wasn’t so much that i thought the city was “too hard” it was more that I thought all these bad things, these 8 years of bad luck that just kind of goes with living in New York, like taxes, was a sign from New York saying that it was time for me to leave. Like a break up.

I imagined New York as a handsome but not your stereotypical handsome dark haired male wearing something casual but sexy like nice jeans and a jcrew sweater from a couple of seasons ago, sitting across from me in a coffee shop and staring me straight in the eye saying; “I really loved the time that we spent together, but I think its time we start seeing other people. You know… so we can both grow” Thats what if felt like to me.

So I made my list. Looked at help wanted ads in other major cities, thought about a cross country trip, and generally planed out my life with out the love of my life (in this case, Brooklyn on a fall day). The marathon was getting close and I started thinking not only was this building up to a physical “fuck you I’m better than you” to my ex boss and anyone who has ever fucked me and never called me back, but also a sad and self contained “goodbye” to my favorite place in the world. I felt like a hypocrite. It didn’t feel right and the more I stared at the list of names of other cities, the more I just couldn’t imagine any where else I would be. Philly is too much not like New York, Austin is wonderful but sadly is surrounded by the state of texas, LA is a beautiful nightmare, Chicago is too flat and the people are to nice, Portland is too beautiful and comfortable and for a city that is too beautiful and comfortable I could see myself with a family there but not on my own. I would read too much and my stress levels would probable go down. I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. And so it came to be that I actually didn’t move because I couldn’t think of any place else I would rather be. A Mari de Monte in Philly or Chicago wouldn’t be Mari de Monte.

So I stayed. I stayed with the job, I didn’t end up staying with the same guy and I stayed in my apartment. I stayed in New York. Three out of four isn’t so bad. And when you run through 26 miles of New York city streets with everyone from every borough calling out your name, begging you and pleading you to make it to the finish line, who are you to say no?

I recently just found out what a Baku is and pretty  much my mind is blown. 

Basically its this japanese mythological creature that is like, part tiger and part elephant and it devours nightmares and bad dreams and I’ve never been one to get super into Japanese culture but omg where has this been all my life?

I quit smoking cigarettes almost three years ago

I decided a while back that I was going to live a better more healthier life. I started to watch what I ate more closely, I stopped smoking and drank alone less, read more books and went running regularly. I bowed out of the marathon this year. No don't get it twisted, I signed up for the mother fucker and paid for it, I did everything I had to do to make sure I was for sure going to be in it this year, but with ever month to week of this year my heart was less and less enthusiastic of feeling proud. I can't tell you exactly why my motivation suddenly as left me, or where these extra 7 pounds look the worst on my body but I know that sitting in a chair makes me feel bad about myself. i know that jeans don't fit me like they used to, and I know that complaining about it won't fix anything. But I can't stop complaining about it. Its called a rut. Its called a pit. The perks of this is that I've been in ruts and pits before and have always pulled myself out, I'm not worried about that. Only time will allow for that to happen and I'm pretty patient with myself. But that doesn't make it any less hard. Its difficult to work and feel like you've reached a ceiling, its hard to feel like you may or may not be a annoyance to your friends and family, and its hard to be with someone who it feels like sometimes you're more single than not. And all of that is ok. It really really it. But sometimes its not. And I'm just realizing that while I'm sipping this neat whiskey alone and smoking a cigarette in my humid, moist kitchen. I thought it was supposed to fall right now. What happened to the fall weather?