I Heart NY

After reading this, you, like the rest of the people I know, will probably think I’m verging on crazy. I originally had an entirely different topic in mind when writing this week’s column on Wednesday; however, due to circumstances you’ll see why I’ve changed my mind.

I had an interview last Thursday, giving myself what I thought was amble time to get there I hopped on the train. Sadly, in New York City the transit can be unpredictable. The train only went to Chinatown, leaving me no alternative but to walk the rest of the way. A 45-minute jog got me to the train I needed by the WTC, leaving me sweaty and irritated. Dollar had printed my resume off, forcing me to go to his friend’s house before the interview I was already late for. I snatched up my resume, promising to come back after the interview, dashing once again for the train. The interview was short to say the least, we rescheduled for the next day. 

As promised, I returned to Dollar’s friend’s house. He was drunk, his friends were drunk and I was sober. A few bitchy comments and I was beginning to feel attacked. The friends disappeared into the house, giving the idea that this was a premeditated bitch attack. First I was interrogated about cheating, which I had not. Then I was dumped with the following line, “I’m too old to not know where this is going after a month.” I was pissed to say the least. I had actually tried my best to form some sort of functioning relationship with Dollar. “I’m too young to know where this is going after only a month,” was the only thing I could say. I picked up my jacket and left the apartment. I made a few angry calls to my friends (venting always helps). I would like to point out that Dollar is only 28 and if he is convinced that he is old I can only imagine what his life is going to be like when he turns 48.

The next morning I awoke feeling slightly pissed and a little nervous for my upcoming interview. My roomie and I left the apartment together at noon. We talked on the train until she had to transfer for work. As I exited the train in New Jersey my phone beeped. I checked the voicemail and my interview had been pushed to Monday because of a corporate visit. Irritated, I decided to hit the gym and burn some steam and calories! I worked out longer than I usually do, figuring there was no real reason to rush home. On my way home I passed my neighbor about a block away from the apartment. I tried to say hi but he looked away and crossed the street. I didn’t invest any worry in the matter. I entered my bedroom to get my laptop. I had finished the first draft of my third novel two days earlier. It took three years to write, but I had finally finished it. I typically don’t leave my laptop home; I’m obsessive when it comes to knowing where it is at all times. No laptop. I ripped our entire apartment apart looking for it. Turns out someone had opened the front door with a screwdriver and exited through the fire escape in my roomie’s bedroom. Considering I was only gone for four hours the cop pointed out whomever stole the laptop was watching us very closely.

I can not begin to describe the hysterical depression I fell into. I think I’ve made a decent recovery, considering it’s been less than a week. We had a $500 lock system installed on our door, to make sure this never happens again. I can’t help but feel my neighbor stole the computer. He disappeared for three days after our encounter on the street. Typically he doesn’t leave the stoop of our building; not having a job gives some people a lot of free time. Come to find out he’s been busted for breaking into the apartment below us and cars out front of the building. I can’t prove it but I know he did it. The cops thought I was crazy, not that they cared, but I lost a huge piece of myself. I know that I can get a new laptop but I don’t think the Apple store offers a re-write your life discount. Grrrr! 

In a sense, I feel directionless. I’m a writer with no way to write. Pen and paper are so not my thing, I’m no tree killer! I escaped the city last night hopping a train to Baltimore. I decided that visiting some old friends may do me a world of good, let’s hope it does.

Dirty Rotten Racist

Sometimes I remember why I tell people that I’m not accepting applications for any new friends. My roomie forced me to meet her former friend from Utah. We met up for dinner after a long day of Ikea shopping. I can’t say that we hit it off but I nearly knocked the girls teeth out.

By reading my column I’m sure by now you’ve noticed that I have a bit of a smart mouth. I say what I want, when I want, how I want and if you don’t like it then that’s just too damn bad. I don’t care if I offend and I’m not looking to be politically correct. I feel that everyone has spent so much time trying to not offend anyone that they have sucked all the fun out of life. I would like to preface this story by saying that I am not a racist. I don’t care what color your skin is or what you believe in. I figure live and let live, but make it funny.

We sat down to dinner and my roomie began to talk about her assistant manager. She bitched for a moment referring to him as, “the flamer at my work.” Now, this didn’t phase me in the least. I’m gay, but I know the difference between someone being funny and someone being offensive. Then she began to tell her friend about our horrible apartment experience. I added to the story, “we have evil Jew bastard landlords.” It’s true they really are slightly evil, considering we still don’t have a finished apartment or keys to our building. I borrow the phrase “Jew bastard” from my favorite comedian, Lisa Lampanelli. If you’ve never heard of her then I insist you google her now, I’ll wait.

Allison the super Mormon, who is my roomie’s friend, responded, 

“I don’t appreciate that.”
“What?” I replied.
“You being a racist.”
“I’m not a racist. I’m honest,” I snapped, getting a little pissed.
“Well, I don’t want to hear that.”
“Well I won’t censor myself for you, so you’ll get over it.”
My roomie added, “He won’t censor himself.”

I was proud of her for standing by my side. Now let me explain why I felt so compelled to argue this fact. I usually would let it go and not say it again if it really bothered someone that much. However, this girl is very religious and being a total hypocrite. I find it very interesting that she had no problem with a gay person being called a flamer but it was unacceptable to refer to a religious person in a derogatory way. I call this point out because I was also raised Mormon and I know how some of them like to act as though they are better than everyone else, but deny that they are doing so. They, like many religions, believe that gay people go to hell. I love religion for its brainwashing abilities.

The evening ended shortly after our spat. Pretending she wasn’t a total fake bitch Allison left me with, “it was nice to meet you.”
I’m happy to say that I am a bitch. I turned and walked down the stairs to the subway.

Too Old to Know Better

I recently found myself with a few days to myself. Dollar had to leave town to visit an ill family member and I was left to entertain myself. What better way to entertain myself than to say hello to Wall Street?

I accepted Wall Street’s invitation to his friend’s birthday party. We met at his apartment and had a few drinks before making our way over to the party. I didn’t even have my drink made before getting riled up. Earlier in the evening when I was on the train a girl had commented on my pants. She didn’t think I could hear her over my iPod, when she started ranting about the destructed state of my jeans. I ever so politely mentioned to her that it was extremely inappropriate for someone who looks like they crawled out of a shower drain to be giving fashion advice. I mentioned this to Wall Street while several of his friends were gathered around. Little Bitch, as I refer to him, is one of Wall Street’s buddies. He is the type of person that likes to come off as an ass. He added to my story, “She was right.” If you know anything about me then you know I had to say something. I snapped, “That was overly bitchy, don’t ya think?” I then finished my drink and made my way towards the makeshift bar. Little Bitch avoided me the rest of the evening, which was fine with me. Though I did enjoy the expression of shock on his face after our conversation. 

The evening picked up from there. I made friends with some girl, had a guy try and take me home, had a hand shoved down my pants, kissed Wall Street (or so he claims) and finally started drunk texting on my phone. I’m usually very good about not touching my phone when I’ve been drinking, but something got into me. 

One thing I rarely mention to people is that I did the love thing once. Three years ago I was in a long-term relationship with the only guy I’ve never been able to give a nickname. Jerome and I ended when I flipped out and pushed him away and now I get trashed and think about it. I picked up my phone and the texts began. For some reason I was very focused on the fact that he was completely over me but I was stuck on him. He feeds the fire by saying that he isn’t over me but we shouldn’t be together. I don’t know if he intentionally does it or not, but it gets me all worked up. In my blurry state all I want to hear is that he wanted me back. I don’t care if it’s a lie. I know he lives 2000 miles away and I may never even see him again, but come on, lie to me! I’ve realized the only way for me to prevent this sadistic form of self-torture is to delete his number from my phone. I can still always email him,  how many times have I drunk im-ed someone? Well, a few times, but still it is far less likely to happen.

The next day I went about things pretending that I hadn’t done what I remembered. When my roomie asked for details about the evening I was very vague giving a distorted diet version of the evenings events. I figure I don’t need the reminder that I should know better by now.

It's Brooklyn Bitch!

We’ve all heard the saying, ‘moving is hell’. I firmly believe that the person that came up with this must have been moving to Brooklyn. Moving can be a nightmare no matter where you move, but I can promise you that this is worse. Let us rewind to last Thursday when we paid our first month’s rent. The very Jewish man that we signed our lease with told us that they would have the keys to us that night because there were a few things they needed to finish around the apartment. My roomie, Lacee, and I said that was fine. We made our way over to the apartment and began moving her things in. 

The building we’re moving into is newly renovated and incredibly nice. We were surprised, to say the least, to find that there was no power or water in the apartment. I got on the phone and called the person I was told was the property manager, he promptly told me he had no idea what I was talking about and I needed to call someone else. I played phone tag for about twenty minutes before I was able to find someone that knew something about our apartment.  This is when the tomorrows began. 

Friday came and now it was time to move my stuff in. We packed it in the truck and hauled it over. After moving everything in I called the tomorrow man and he said we would have to wait until Monday for power and water, not to mention we still had no keys to the apartment. I called the Jew that had taken our rent money and he said a locksmith would come out to change the locks, but not until Saturday. Dollar was kind enough to take Lacee and myself in for two nights, so that we were able to rinse the sweat off ourselves.

Saturday arrived and we had to return the moving truck to a location in Queens. I haven’t driven in months and Lacee isn’t much of a driver either. I forced her to drive, using my suspended license as an excuse. I have a $750 warrant in Wyoming that we can talk about another day. She drove, while I guided us with my laptop. Oh, the misadventures that we have! We sideswiped a bus, nearly tearing our mirror off. We laughed hysterically, terrified that the bus driver was going to come after us. That little adventure was followed by; hitting one of the cement barriers that support the elevated rail. I can say that if it weren’t for our innate ability to laugh at ourselves, and our situations, we would both probably have been in tears from stress. Somehow we managed to get the truck back to the lot without causing much more harm to the truck or ourselves.

Sunday was a bright and happy day. We awoke at Dollar’s house, hopping on a bus and then on the Long Island Railroad at Penn Station. We needed to find the way for my roomie to get to work. She just moved her for a job in Bay Shore, which is way out in Long Island. It took about two hours on the LIRR to get us to Bay Shore, where we searched for a bus. We stopped in a gas station, where a drink exploded on me, to ask for directions to the mall. I couldn’t understand our Muslim friend behind the counter, but we tried our best to follow his pointing. We ended up walking a half-mile out of the way and two hours later got to the mall. Looking like hell, Lacee snagged the keys to her store and we tried to find out about the bus. We were sad to be informed that the bus only runs Monday-Saturday. Walking through the 90 million degree heat we finally got ourselves back to the train. It took three trains to get us back to Brooklyn, where we were starving and dying of thirst. We stopped in the local store where we bought dinner. Arriving back at our building we were greeted by silence. The security guard who has to let us in and out of our apartment, due to our lack of keys, was gone. We sat on the stairs for about an hour before he arrived to let us into the black hole that we live in. We plopped on the couch, lighting enough candles for us to see our white trash dinner. We ate our cold spaghetti-o’s, warm bottled water and pint of melted ice cream. It’s like we live in a white trash paradise and there just happen to be some brown people there too!

Monday. Oh, Monday. I awoke with such high hopes for the day. I waited until about noon to call the property manager about the water and power.  All the tomorrows had been changed to Monday when Saturday had arrived. I was very unhappy to hear that they weren’t going to be able to fix anything until Friday. That’s when it happened, I snapped. This is a direct quote from my conversation with the tomorrow man, “Everyday has been tomorrow, it’s f**king tomorrow! We can’t take a shit in the f**king toilet or make anything to eat. We have no water in the bathroom, but for some reason we have it in the kitchen. We have no power and it’s been four days. You let us move in and it’s a f**king slum. I’m going to report you if it’s not fixed today!” Mind you, that all of this came out in my loud-scary sounding-straight voice. I feel I’ve been jerked around enough and obviously being nice isn’t working with these people. I had to leave so I could find a place to charge my phone and laptop, but unfortunately for me the three Starbucks I visited were full of people in my same sinking boat. Not one of them had a free outlet for me to use. Luckily, I was able to borrow an outlet at Dollar’s office for an hour.

I got myself on the ever-lovely L train and made my way home. I was straddled with a shoulder bag and three heavy shopping bags that were beginning to rip. My phone kept ringing: Mom. Roommate. Roommate. Dollar. Mom. Roommate! There are those moments when you want to pull your hair out, but I have mine cut so short there’s not much to work with. I walked into our darkened apartment, knocking over a tower of DVD’s. It just added to my already over the top frustration. My roomie sat in the dark, ready to give me good news. Our Jew landlords were working to get the power and water working! They claimed to not know anyone was living in our apartment, which I had to do my best not to snap over. 

It’s now Tuesday and things are coming together. We have a toilet that can flush, hot water to shower and electricity to see. It just goes to show that you have to yell in a scary straight voice sometimes for people to listen.

7 Days

525,600 minutes. How do you measure, measure a year? Well, I sure as hell don’t measure it in any musical manner. I am getting the impression that my lover, Dollar, is looking for this magical musical measurement. 

We had the first fight! It wasn’t so much a fight as it was an argument over it being a fight. Let me explain. We were having a few drinks at Dollar’s friend’s house and just talking about random things. Out of the blue he mentioned that we had met a week before. I was just drunk enough to not keep my mouth shut, “Seven days doesn’t mean anything!” I blurted. The reaction was almost instantaneous. Dollar put on his angry face, which I only needed seven seconds to learn, he turned slightly away and took a sip of his beer. I quickly apologized; realizing seven days was a big deal to him, even if to me it was microscopically short. In all honesty, is it that big of a deal? You never hear someone say, “Yeah we’ve been together for three years and a week.”

We then argued back and forth over the fact that he was angry, and the fact that I thought him being angry was a waste of energy. The problem we now ran into was this: When I’m angry I just get over it and I expect others to do the same. Unless I have a good reason to be angry and then I use my philosophy of forgive and never forget, but that’s another topic. When Dollar is angry he remains angry, but withdraws from the situation.

We spent most of the night arguing over him being mad, which followed with an explanation of why he was mad, and an apology from me for speaking without consideration. I still believe that the entire situation was ridiculous. If we had been together a year and I responded in such a way, then yes, please be angry with me. I know I apologized but I can’t say that I meant it, especially when I don’t feel like I did anything to be sorry for.

It only took a day for us to get back on track to happy dating town. Things are going well, I let Dollar come over to my apartment for the first time. That was a feat; I never let guys come home with me, even if we are dating. For the moment things are good, unfortunately I am left to wonder if there is an argument waiting to begin from whatever little thing is building on the tip of my tongue.