Diagnosis: Bodygitis

I am kind of a lazy hypochondriac. This means that I imagine that I have all kinds of awful ailments, but am too lazy to be proactive about going to a doctor or finding the source of said illness. And being of the dramatic ilk, my diseases are always fairly major, life-changing ones. My most recent ailment: Meningitis. At least, it started out as meningitis - mostly because my neck was really stiff, and I had a headache. A headache, which I, of course, attributed to the excess of fluid my meningitis-covered brain was sloshing around in. However, as the days progressed while I was still able to touch my chin to my chest without any pain, I decided I must have mis-diagnosed myself. I considered legal action for a brief moment, but then once I realized the effort I would have to exert, I changed my mind.

So now I've decided that I have discovered a new strain of meningitis - Bodygitis! Where your entire body hurts! It's the awesomest. I haven't decided how the science of it works yet, but I'll get there. I think it is something to do with the excess fluid in your brain draining to more open areas and pooling - or something.

All I know is, I got it, and it's bad. Or, at least I think it's bad, but I'm not about to make a doctor's appointment so really it's anybody's guess.

'Tis the - eh, who cares?

I think that I might've become one of those people who is depressed by the holiday season. Which sucks.

I don't know - I have been loving the scent of pine distributed all around the city lately by the onslaught of northern coniferous-dealing gypsies. I enjoy all the little twinkling lights. I was tickled to see that my new neighborhood decorated the streets with old-timey-esque lights and garlands. And yet, overall, I am left feeling fairly "ehn" about the whole thing.

After we had our first semi-significant snow I switched to my Rat Pack Christmas on my iPod, but I only made it through Frank's "Christmas Waltz" and Dino's "Baby It's Cold Outside" before I went back to my Diane Rehm News Round-up podcast.

I am flying back home this week and am honestly very excited to see my family, friends, and pets. One might even think that would be enough to pep me up, but so far - nuffin.

I am going to try to head over to Rockefeller Center before I head home to see if an over-sized bedazzled tree surrounded by mass-capitalism can get the ol' holiday-cheer a-flowin'. At this point, I feel like I might need more of a Christmas miracle. Where's Linus and the gang when you need 'em?

I Can Even See my Gold-Diving Swimsuit

My roommate and I just finished watching the DVD of "The Secret" which is the latest feng shui-esque way of thinking sweeping the world (and by "world" I mean the rich, lucky, healthy, happy people), and I couldn't be yellier. Out of respect to my neighbors, I stopped yelling when it was finally over, but if I could still be guiltlessly yelling, I would.

My employer loaned me the DVD a little over a week ago telling me that "The Secret" was all about receiving back the energy one puts forth from the universe. (And, by the way, I refuse to provide a link to any information "The Secret" since I will not boost their readership by the - what, how many of there are you? - 2 readers of my blog.) When she told me this, I couldn't really argue with it since, I sort of agree with it in that I do believe that once you begin to look for the positive in the situation, the positive is more apparent. Likewise, of course, with the bad. Much in the same way that once you start to pay attention to yellow cars you suddenly see them all around you. So I reluctantly took the DVD and put off actually watching it since I would then have to return it only to be forced to discuss it with her. However, since she likes to watch bits of it fairly frequently, I had a set amount of time before I had to get it back to her. Expecting it to be pretty bad, my roommate and I armed ourselves with a bottle of wine and popped in dreaded DVD. And now 91 minutes later I am left not even angry as much as disheartened with the human race.

Basically, for those of you who don't know, (or, as I like to refer to you, "the lucky ones"), The Secret is all about how becoming schizophrenic will solve all of your problems. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a wee bit with the schizophrenia, but it is about how if you actually visualize yourself as a better, healthier, happier, and, most importantly, wealthier person, you will become one.

So the first issue that I take with this is that I am pretty much a person how lives in her head - imagining all sorts of happy, awesome things happening in her life. Therefore, according to The Secret, I should be diving into pools of gold like Scrooge McDuck with hybrid boyfriend Michael Showalter/Joseph Fiennes/Groucho Marx/Disney's Robin Hood telling me how funny I am with my pets, Ralphie, Toula, and an adorable panda bear cub named Inc., by my side. And yet, I am sitting in my tiny room, alone, broke, with cheap wine on my breath. So far, so good, right?

I mean I could almost forgive them the crazy of all of this if it wasn't so obviously based in materialism. There is even a bit in the video of a little boy looking longingly at a picture of a new bike. Of course all he has to do is think and see himself owning the bike long enough before he actually receives it.

Oh! and there is this whole bit about how The Secret works on a time delay - so just in case a couple of good nights of you imagining you spooning with the celeb of your choice doesn't work out, don't worry! It will. . . at some point. Just keep on imagining- sorry, realizing it and buying The Secret merchandise and it will come. For example, we do see the boy mentioned above does eventually get his bike, presented by his grandfather - but I couldn't help thinking it was like that old "Werther's Original" commercial where we see the initial kid's present grandson played by the same actor as the original young boy in the past.

Then, which elicited the most yelling, there is their whole thing about how if you are sick, it is your own fault since you were, obviously thinking unhealthy thoughts. They even go into a story about a woman with breast cancer who cures herself simply by "Secreting" it away. She claims that it was the funny movies that she watched that cured her in three months. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a touchy issue. And anyone who knows my late, beloved grandmother knows that, even in the toughest times, she was never without laughter so I call BULLSHIT!

There is also a whole portion of the 91-minute-long DVD (did I mention that it was 91 minutes long?) where all these rich and successful individuals (including one of the authors of "Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul") talking about how, clearly, there is more than enough riches/happiness/love to go around, since not everyone wants the same things. For example, in regards to relationships, not everyone "wants the same person." True, but quite a lot of people want to marry Brad Pitt and/or Angelina Jolie and I am pretty sure that polygamy is still illegal or, at the very least, frowned upon in most areas.

There is more that I could say - much more - but I need to start switching gears to how I am going to put some kind of positive spin on my seething hatred for this before I have to discuss it with my boss tomorrow.

Then again, I am going to start visualizing a fat raise, because, I mean, it couldn't all be bullshit. I mean, look how well it worked out for that “Chicken Soup for the Soul” guy.

Hopefully my 15 Minutes Aren't Up

I recently found out that the "Amanda" featured in a question in The Princeton Review's ACT prep textbook who makes a call to Chicago is actually inspired by ME!! Since I worked for TPR for, like, my entire life, I have had various people ask me about it, but since I am nothing if not insecure, I was sure that it was based on the Amanda* who held the lowly dewey position before me. Luckily for me, however, a good friend recently spent some serious Q.T. with one of the main writers of the manual who informed my friend that the inspiration came from none other than li'l ol' me!

As much as my former job drained the life and soul out of me, and made me fairly depressed, this news somehow made me pretty pumped. I mean, if they aren't going to bother to reimburse me at least most of the money they owe me, the least they can do is make me pseudo-famous, right?

I mean, right? True - they could've put me on a shirt, but I can settle with this.


*Not only was there an Amanda before me at TPR, but when I went away to college my position was taken over by another Amanda Smith who went to the same high school. Ah well. . .

I do know the word for "a case of dough filled with a savory filling"

The neighborhood in which we now live consists mostly of Polish families and young hipsters. I feel that in order to fit in I either need to start dressing way better or learn Polish. Seeing as my 5 plus years of French never really stuck, I'm thinking that outfitting myself might be my best bet.

In an effort to pick up tips, I've been watching people in the subway and on the street, but I'm concerned that I just don't have it in me. I'm not saying that I dress horribly now; I would even say that I am able to pull myself together more times than not. It's just that the full-on hipster look seems complicated and layered and requires an ability to throw together seemingly random pieces while making it all look effortless and almost accidentally. I tend to find a good outfit and stick with it so that I have maybe 4 or 5 really good outfits to choose from, all of which pre-planned and fine-tuned down to the jewelry and attitude to accompany it.

The pre-planning of the thing adds further complication to the whole process since I can't pull off the effortlessness that these urban hipster seem to bathe in. When I wear one of my pre-constructed creations, I feel like I am just screaming, "This took me 2 days and 20 outfit changes to come up with - not including the countless advice and reassurance from friends and family!!"

Which of course bleeds into a whole other hurdle: I can barely ever dress myself. I mean, I have the actual mechanics of the process down (one leg into pants at a time, make-sure to align buttons before commencing buttoning and so on), it's the confidence in trusting that what I think looks good actually does that I'm missing. And I just can't imagine that the 20-somethings that I end up studying go through those same apprehensions before leaving the house ("Are you sure the crying-Indian-in-front-of-rainbow t-shirt with the Harry Potter scarf and army boots with leg-warmers comes off as ironic and not as a mentally-challenged 11-year-old?")

I had dyed part of my hair purple in hopes that would make up for just wearing jeans and a black sweater for the 12th day in a row, but having transplanted myself to the hipster mecca that is Brooklyn, I feel like I have to start working a little harder and start layering up the irony. Taking a look around my room at the frog rainboots, pink Hedwig the Owl hoodie, and frankenstein-hands gloves, though, makes me feel like I'm going to end up much closer to the 11-year-old end of things.

Maybe I should go ahead and order some Berlitz Polish tapes online.

Even the Russian Judge Gave Me a 9.5

Part of the deal with me moving to New York was that I take over babysitting a three-year-old for my aunt since she will soon have a kid of her own on which to sit. The kid is totally awesome. He has also clearly learned already how to judge the help.

While giving him a bath the other day, he told me me, and I quote, "You really did an excellent job with rinsing my hair. I mean, you didn't get any soap in my eyes."

He then went on to score the rest of my bath-giving skillz by saying, "And the water temperature is perfect since it is not too cold or warm. Really it is just warm enough - very nice."

I feel pretty damned accomplished right now.

I'm Going to Hell for this Post, I'm sure.

When we first moved into our sweet new apartment the only real downside was that our heat wasn't working. After a day or so the maintenance man and a radiator repairman showed up. They were both very nice, but only the radiator guy really spoke English. As they were packing up, he said to me, "“At least you’ll be warm tonight. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.”

“Thanks, you too!! Thank you so much,” I said.

Pause, pause, pause.

He then says to me, “You have a smile like superman.”

“Oh – uh, Thank you!”

“I mean, You could be his sister. Uh, what’s his name – uh, I can’t think of it – he died, right? Oh! Christopher Reeve. You look like him” (motioning to his face)

It took everything I had not to respond with, "So I look like I'm paraplegic?" But I bit my tongue and responded instead with, “Oh! Thanks. I mean, you guys are my supermen fixing my heat and everything.”

He then, literally looks me up and down and says, “I wouldn’t mind being your superman." Which he then quickly follows with, "I mean – no disrespect, miss.”

I kind of stumble through, “Oh, no – I mean, thanks!! You have a wonderful Thanksgiving!”

He reciprocates the sentiment and leaves.

Is it wrong that since he followed up his come-on with a quick, "I mean no disrespect" that I found it a bit charming? And in fairness to the Christopher Reeve comparison, I was breathing into a tube in order to move through the apartment at the time.

Chapter 5 & 6: Zombies Can't Solve All Our Problems & Success, the 2nd Time Around!

So, amazingly enough, I finally found a place to live! And it was totally easy this time around. When I first went back to St. Louis, I was waiting to hear back from a guy about a roommate situation in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I didn’t blog about it because I didn’t want to jinx it. However, in the end, he didn’t pick me anyway so it really didn’t matter. I was sure that I was going to get it since, when I first met him, he got totally stoked about the idea of living with a life-size animatronic zombie. He ended up narrowing it done to me and a couple of other people. He then interviewed me again over the phone when I was back in St. Louis. We talked for at least a half an hour in which time we discussed everything from my sleeping habits to my religious beliefs to my taste in music and film. I felt really good about the interview since he and I seemed to be on the same page with everything. So I was pretty let down when I got the email that he went with someone else. I beat myself up about it for a while trying to figure out where in the interview process I went wrong. Was listing Radiohead as one of my favorite bands too mainstream for this po-mo hipster? Did my mentioning that my cat happens to be fairly fat come off as too judgmental? Was I doomed when he said that he couldn’t live with someone who would sit around talking about angels and I didn’t then immediately say, “Yeah! Angels, who needs ‘em?”

Eventually I began to let it go. I focused on what would have been the downsides with living with him: Even though the building itself allowed dogs, he didn’t want to live with one so I would have been without Ralphie, at least, for a few months. One of the major draws of the place for me, other the sweet claw-foot bathtub, was that in the initial meeting he had made it sound as though he would be moving in a few months – thus leaving me the apartment so that I could bring up my little dog, but in the second interview he sounded a bit more settled-in. I wouldn’t be able to ask him for directions ever since when Liz and I went to see the place he gave told me to get off at completely the wrong station which landed us literally in the middle of some cops arresting a man but then it turned out that the “right” directions had us having to walk over 15 blocks when we could have simply taken a different train that would’ve landed us only 4 blocks from the apartment. And I would have to deal with his dumb name, which I won’t say here, but I’ll just say that it was totally dumb.

In the end, it all worked out for the better. As it turned out a friend of mine from college decided to move and so we started looking for a place together. She had recently helped her brother find a new place in the city and had found the whole process to be almost as bad as what I had gone through in my initial search so when I got back into town for us to start actually viewing places, we were both fairly discouraged. After being back in New York for two days, we went to see our first place. We entered into the whole thing with our expectations set very low, but when we walked up to the building, we were totally impressed. And even more impressed when we saw the actual apartment. Two days later, we were signing the contract.

The place is totally great. It’s the 3rd floor of a house that has now been converted into apartments. It’s a 2-bedroom, each with a door opening directly to the hallway (so that if we ever end up hating each other we can manage to pretty much completely avoid one another). It has a good-sized living room and separate kitchen and bathroom, hardwood floors and lots of closets. It also has plenty of windows (a couple with a semi-view of Manhattan and one of the major bridges). It is just steps from the subway and is surrounded by lots of restaurants and shops. For now, I can only have my cat. I say, “for now” because I am being optimistic that I will be able to talk them into letting me bring up Ralphie later since their only concern is for potential noise. (The ad said that small dogs were okay, but that apparently meant under 10 pounds, which my mutant beagle is not.)

So all in all, we totally win. My head has finally stopped spinning from how fast it all worked out so that I am now left only to figure out how to get all my stuff up here from the ol’ STL. And hopefully, next month I will be able to win them over with how attractive my dog is. I mean, could you say “No” to this?:

I do still long for that claw-foot tub though. Oh well – I guess you can’t have it all.

A Cry for Help

The other day I was catching up on some older episodes of the new Dr. Who, which my aunt and uncle recently got me watching. In this particular episode, the Doctor was reunited with his old companion Sarah Jane Smith who, as it turns out, still has one of the Doctor's most faithful companions, K9. (I've included a picture for those of you not familiar with this hilarious-looking tin robot dog.)

Honestly, he really only barely resembles a dog at all. He is more of a toaster with a vaguely dog-like head attached. And probably the best thing about him (other than the fact that he can shoot lasers) is that he speaks in a total robot voice. So, again, not really dog-like at all. And yet this didn't stop my emotional reaction to the following scene:

K9 tells the Doctor that he is going to sacrifice himself to save them. After arguing with K9 for a moment, the Doctor kneels down by K9 and resignedly says, "You're a good dog," and pats him on his head.

In response K9 wags his antennae "tail", spins his satellite "ears", and says in full-on robot voice, "Affirmative." And I immediately start weeping - yes, weeping - while thinking what a truly good little tin dog he is.

Can you say, ridiculous?

Since I am now back in New York and Ralphie is still in St. Louis, I would like to be able to blame it on the fact that I miss my dog. But I have to admit that I probably would've cried even with Ralphie sitting next to me, because, I mean, K9 really is such a good dog.

At Least He Stopped Answering his Cellphone During Speeches

All I'm saying is that nothing good can come from this partnership, and I think this picture proves that.

Better than a Box of Chocolates and a Dozen Roses

Well, it seems that, after all that, Halloween and I have decided to work things out. Granted, things aren't perfect for us. We are still working through the slutty baby costumes, but he gave me these baby costumes, which are the most adorable:

If I ever do have a child, I would pick a costume like one of these and make he or she wear it continuously until they out grow it. Because, let's be honest, who couldn't love a little wolfette or octababy like these? Halloween also won me over with my own baby cousin's SUPER cute turtle costume, which wasn't the least bit slutty.

So he won me over, initially, with these cutes, but I was still upset with him for what he did to Harry Potter. Finally, after I gave him the silent treatment for a while, he showed me this:

What can I say?  He had me at "Baby Hedwig".

Then, on top of all of this Cutesville, Halloween went on to prove that he was willing to go that extra mile to make me happy. Halloween put a real, live owl perched on an one-way sign about 6 feet away for me!! It was freakin' awesome! So right now, he and I are riding a relationship high, but we'll have to see how he handles the other holidays coming up. He tends to be pretty jealous.

"Happy Whore-o-ween" or "No Wonder People Hate our Freedom"

Now I am a Halloween-lover. In fact, if Halloween was a dude, I would totally date it. Hell, with its troubled past, tendency to be cold, and fear of commitment (okay, so maybe that one doesn't relate to Halloween as much), it sounds a lot like most of the men I've dated. In fact with Halloween's recent propensity for young and slutty witches, french maids, and devils it sounds almost identical to, at least, my most recent beaus. That being said, I am a little upset with Halloween's most recent trend.

Let me say I do not tend to be the type o' lady who uses this great holiday to slut-it-up, however I am not totally opposed to those costumes for those who choose. (Well, not as opposed as I am to pre-made costumes like these, which remove any chance of one's imagination having to be used.) If grown-ladies want to use this fantastically spooky day to break out the sexy-construction worker costume, so be it. But I have to draw the line on kid's costumes like these:

I don't even know what this last one is - except that I am honestly terrified of this kid. Look into her slutty-evil eyes! Yike!! I also found this one, but I felt it cruel to post the image and make you look it since it is so disturbing. I'll just say that this is probably close to what Anna Nicole was hoping her baby girl would look like. Consider yourself warned.

What happened to you, Halloween? I know that what we had wasn't the best relationship ever, but when have I ever had a good relationship? But now I just don't know that I can be with a holiday that supports evil, baby, robot-whores like these. I would like to put the blame on Diva and Bratz dolls, but then I see what you've done to Harry Potter and think it might be too late for us.

I'm willing to give you another try, but I just don't know anymore. Maybe if I get to see Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin, I will change my tune.

Maybe She Didn't Notice We Were all Standing There

I was standing in line for check-out at The Dollar Store today when I was left with no choice but to listen to this woman scream the following into her phone:

"Listen, you are not using holidays against my son! We have already planned the whole thing and have it worked out!

No! You listen to me! You're not his mom! You're a stepmom -- Hell, you're not even his actual stepmom 'cuz your ass is too skanky for him to wanna marry!!"

Then she walked back over to her son, who was like, maybe, 6 and was standing 10-15 ft. away during the call, to help him pick out some candy.

I doubt that, alone, his mom letting him overhear this conversation is going to lead to his inevitable, future penchant for and/or extreme hatred of skanky women. It will probably be more to do with the fact that she did so in front of the crowd at The Dollar Store.

A Day With Gram!

Yesterday my father and I accompanied my 87 year-old grandmother to her 70th high school reunion lunch at a Ryan's Steakhouse in Jefferson City, MO - our state capital. It was . . . well, a day with my grandmother.

The day started out with her yelling at my dad for something completely random while I flipped through the paper. Once that died down we were faced with her disappointment and resentment when we explained that we could be not be using the convertible to make the 2 hour long drive since the forecast for the day was rain with a high of 50 degrees.

On the drive, Gram did a great ode to Marcel Marceau by pretending to have wind blow in her face from the far air vent on my father's left and tried to reach over the wheel to close it. After a moment or two she found that the wind was coming from her blower on the far right. As we pulled off into Jeff City, she erupted into a yelling rant covering the topics of driving, the absurdity of us not thinking she knew her way around (which was stated directly following her calling out that she had no idea where we were), and ended with her angrily stating that she had to pee.

Ryan's Steakhouse turned out to be a Ponderosa-esque buffet which upset my dad, but was kind of a relief to me. You see, almost all of my meals with Gram reach some point when she proclaims to the wait staff that I am a vege-tarr-rian (which she always manages to pronounce as if it were a rare, potentially contagious disease). Then she usually breaks off into a little rant about how she "just doesn't understand it" and "what could I possibly eat?" With the buffet I was able to get my own food without discussing it.

As we walked past the seemingly hours-old buffet, I also realized that I kind of like going out with her to eat at these places every now and then because it gives me a total excuse to be a bad vegetarian and eat what there is for me to eat: french fries, mashed potatoes, cheese, fried okra, and soft serve ice cream. (For example, when she went on her anti-vegetarian rant while we were in France, the confused and good natured Frenchman smiled and handed me a plate of french fries while my grandmother turned to complain about my diet to another customer at the table.)

The attending class at the reunion* was a total of 4 people. After only a few minutes of everyone sitting and eating, Gram launched into her "Back when I was in Japan and I had servants, my maid said to me, 'Missus, can I have your left-over grease?', and I said, 'Of course!' The poor dear was so grateful!" My dad and I discussed whether or not this was a new record time for her to launch into this story.

Most of the rest of the conversation consisted of who was dead and who was in a home. One of the other surviving members discussed how he came to the decision to have himself cremated. "I don't want to have no bugs eating through me!" That was about the time I pushed my lima beans away.

After lunch we over, we decided to drive past the capital building. On the way, Gram told us about how my grandfather knew someone who in the war was, and I quote, "shot between the eyes" and survived left only blind. My dad and I both kept asking her how this could be possible. She ignored us and went on to tell us about the day when a German soldier had come into the same medical area as the blindman. The blindman wondered if it was the soldier who had shot him. I asked if the German was shot in the heart but only left deaf. Gram continued to ignore me.

Once we got to the capital building, we pulled over for my dad and I to inspect the statues in the fountain out in front. The statues are crrrrrazy. There is a huge centaur-esque figure on either end, each holding some kind of sea-life. One battling a huge sea-snake. The other seeming to prepare to kiss a huge catfish. I say that they are centaur-esque because only their front two legs are like those of a horse; their hing legs are more like two water serpents. The other really curious thing was that their front hooves are webbed! Webbed!? After studying them for a minute of two, I then noticed HOW anatomically correct they are. After pointing it out to my dad we made some jokes about how Ashcroft must have missed these while he was still in town.

On the drive back, I heard only bits of a story that Gram was telling my dad. It was about how someone was telling her about how, back in the day, some black men told women that they were Indian. I made some quiet jokes in the back seat which made my dad crack up and, consequently, Gram yell at him for laughing.

*Her graduating class is the oldest "active" high school reunion class in the country.

My Creative Energy has been Going Elsewhere

I haven't posted recently because I've been too busy making these boxes with my mom. We are trying to get them submitted into an art show so we'll see. Mine are the two with the lady and the couple riding the scooter. I've made a couple of other ones that aren't shown here.

I did want to take a minute and point out some hilarious things I have overheard in public and/or seen on the TV lately.

• I was sitting at the airport in New York waiting for my plane back here when a woman next to me made a call to someone. From what I overheard, the call consisted of her trying to explain to someone how they can get around paying taxes on child support. At some point, though, she lost the call. She did the obligitory "Hello? Hello?" bit before hanging up. Then she turned to the complete stranger sitting near her and said, "You just lose people like that - it's just like that commercial! Ha! It's so true!" The stranger just kind of nodded and half-smiled in return. (I love that this woman was so wowed by this truth in advertising. Those cell phone commercials really blew her mind with their realism and honest, barebones depiction of an epidemic we of the 21st century are facing.)

• The other night I was watching Antiques Roadshow with my mom. This older gentleman brought with him a little carving that his grandfather made while he was a P.O.W. When he was explaining its history to the appraiser he said, "Yeah, it's a great example of Folk Art and Prisoner of War Art!" (Now, I was an art history major in college, and the last time I checked there was no such category of art as the Prisoner of War category. Was there some kind of P.O.W. artist collective that I don't know about?)

• Finally, I was out with my mom visiting with some of her friends. I was impressively holding my own in a conversation about Billboard regulations and sewage treatment when the main speaker said, "So I marched into City Hall and told them they need to literally get their shit together." (I mean, the misuse of literally always bothers me - but this one was just so unfortunate. It took me a while to get the image out of my head of the various elected officials gathering up their own poo into a big pile and presenting it proudly to this man upon his return.)
  

Meanwhile, Back in St. Louis

Right now I am back in St. Louis - spending time with my pets, packing some stuff up, getting ready for a yard sale. I will be here for around two weeks. Last night I watched an episode of everyone's favorite: Law & Order SVU. Usually my mom refuses to watch this show, but she let us watch this one after seeing that eye-candy, Aidan Quinn, played a major role. The storyline featured the daughter of Aidan Quinn's character as a girl with a rare mental disorder which causes her to quickly read people's facial expressions. When she came into the squad room, she ended up asking Ice-T for a hug (because, apparently this condition also makes her unbearably over-acted when she in her "happy" phase). The scowling Ice-T grunted and spat-out a brusque "No!" Then went onto briefly lecture her. Later, after hearing the effects of the girl's disorder, Ice-T blurted out, "And that's why she could sense that I was angry earlier."

Oh yeah, Ice, it wasn't the grunt or barely-restrained slap you almost gave her. Or the fact that the only emotion you ever bother to convey on that show is anger. No, no - it's her mental disorder. Way to put the pieces together! That man is such a good detective. I felt like the Cap should've just responded with a "Ohhh, yeah! That is why! Good detecting, Finn! Goo-ood detecting!"

Later in the episode someone makes some joke about Finn (Ice-T's character) dating this other guy on the force and it looks like he almost broke the guy's arm. It was adorable.

Non-Apt. Searchin' NYC Adventures

Staying with Matt and Alisha has been great. They opened not only their hearts but, more importantly, their sofabed. And spending time with them gives me a great balance geek & politics (Matt) and crap pop culture & girl-talk (Alisha). I have also learned all about the various wonders* of child-bearing. For more on that matter, check out my guest blog on Alisha's pregnancy-blog, Flabbypants.

* read "horrors."

Chapter 4: Cancelled For Your Safety

For place number four, my friend, Kim, was going to join me. Our plan was to see the place the day after I went to see Murder and Orgy-Central. This place was a studio in Brooklyn that I would have to myself that would allow me to have both Ralphie and Toula. I had actually contacted the landlord early in the week and didn't get back to him for a while and was surprised that once I did that the place was still available. Bad sign #1.

Kim has grown up in New York, but had never been to this particular area of Brooklyn, called East New York. Bad sign #2. She was excited to explore the area. We had even built-in extra time in our day to wander around and check it all out.

My uncle suggested that I look up the area online beforehand to see what I could find out about it. All that I could really find was a wikipedia article (of which I am always vaguely suspicious) which mentioned that East New York used to be pretty run-down but had gotten a lot better in recent years. It also pointed out that, as part of this upswing, they had recently gotten a Target. I love Target as much as the next person, so that seemed like a total bonus.

When I returned from narrowly escaping being stuffed into a mattress at place #3, I received a call from Kim with bad news. She had talked to her brother and mentioned that she would be accompanying me the following day to check out this place only to have him respond by telling her that East New York is one of the most dangerous areas in New York. Bad sign #3 - which pretty much struck this place off of my list.

Sure, I come from DangerCity, USA: St. Louis, which is steadily maintaining its top place on the list of the nation's most dangerous cities. And, sure, there might have been a shooting at the bar across the street from the apartment in which I used to live. But after going to the very nice neighborhood of Astoria and having the experience there that I did earlier that day, I wasn't eager to find out what adventure the most dangerous part of the city had in store for me.

Chapter 3: Immigrant Population, Orgies, and Jeffrey Dahmer

(It's a long one, but it's totally worth it.)

The third place that I went to see was actually an apartment-share situation in Astoria, Queens. The posting on Craig's List said that it was a 4-bedroom place with one room available. The main guy was a Canadian computer-consultant in his mid 50's; we'll call him "Charles". The post was actually one of the more descriptive ones that I found. It made a point to highlight the rose garden, grape arbor, and grey cat.

At first my aunt Alisha was going to accompany me on this voyage, but she ended up having to go to yoga-for-woman-who-be-pregnant class so Matt once again stepped in. As it turns out, I think that we all agreed that was a good call.

When Charles came to the door, he seemed totally nice. He asked us if we were coffee drinkers and invited us to head on to the kitchen to have a cup. This made total sense to me since he would need to get to know me in order to decide whether or not I would make a good roommate. When we made it upstairs, I was fairly disappointed. The apartment was really cluttered and pretty messy. There were tons of books and other stuff just stacked-up all over the place. To be honest, it reminded me a lot of my dad's apartment - but messier, which is saying something. Still I was optimistic and thought, "Well if it's only for a few months, I could live with it." We then went into the kitchen and were introduced to the roommate who was preparing to move out. We'll call him, "Tate". The third roommate, who we were told was Peruvian, wasn't around. The kitchen was a total mess and reminded me of the messiest kitchens I had seen in college, which is really saying something. The four of us sat down, and Charles poured us coffee.

It all started off fairly boring and low-key with lengthy discussion of the immigrant population within the various boroughs of New York. Surprisingly neither of them asked too much about me. They found out where I was from and what I was going to be going to school for and that was pretty much it.

The whole thing took a weird turn when Charles started telling us about meeting a "vivacious, sexy black woman" on the subway. He struck up a conversation with her and quickly found out that she had just been released from Riker's. He went on to tell us that he asked her what she was there for to which she replied, "Prostitution."

Now, let me take moment here to remind you that I was sitting right next to my uncle, and Charles knew that I was sitting by my uncle. And yet he went on.

"I mean, boy! Do I know how to pick 'em!" He told us about this encounter. I sipped my coffee a little faster. Then he started telling us about one of the other applicants for the room: a teacher who had been interested in renting out the room on a part-time basis because she couldn't get the quiet-time she needed at her other place to write out lesson plans. The reason, he explained to us, that she couldn't get the quiet-time was that her other living situation was a communal one. Where they all worked together to help pay rent. They worked together by throwing "Orgy Parties" once a month.

Again, I was sitting by my uncle.

He went on to explain how she had told him these orgy parties worked and that, unfortunately, single men weren't allowed to attend. (At this point, he made a bad joke about them not being allowed to come. Remember: Uncle, next to me.) He detailed the protocol of this set-up in such a way that it was quite clear that he and this woman must have discussed it all at some length. I sipped my coffee a bit faster. He then told us that they didn't have orgies at this apartment, and I quote, "Not that we don't want to - but because no one would want to have them with us!"

"Not that we don't want to -"!!!! I was sitting next to my uncle!! And of course no one wants to have an orgy with these guys - mostly because of the fact that these are the stories being told in the first meeting! At this point, I started gulping my coffee and hoped that Matthew was developing an exit-strategy.

Oh! I should also say that after telling us the orgy story, he asked Tate if he had ever told him that story and Tate couldn't remember. Couldn't remember whether or not he had heard this story! That could only mean that Tate has heard far crazier stories from Charles so that this one doesn't stand out. Yeah, that bodes well.

The next topic of conversation? The fact that a friend of his was B.F.F. with none other than Jeffrey Dahmer growing up. Seriously, people! I couldn't make this stuff up. Let me also point out that Charles created a very loose segue in order to tell the story at all. He told us how he had recently discovered that a good friend of his had been best friends with ol ' Jeff back in high school. He said that he asked his friend if, you know, he ever had any hint of the crazy in his good bud, and his friend said, "Well, I mean, we spent most of our time drunk and/or stoned - just trying to pick up women. But there was one time when he did mention knowing a good place to hide a body, but I didn't really pick up on it at the time." This was the point when I stopped drinking the coffee all together because I figured that we had been drugged and were about to be murdered.

Luckily, Matthew interrupted Charles to tell him that we did need to be going so we should just take a quick look at the room. The room was tiny - as if, at this moment, there was any way in hell that I would consider moving into this murder-den. What little furniture they did fit into the space was one of those super-uncomfortable metal futons and a little table, which served as a desk. Tate told us that the furniture would stay and was there when he moved in. All I could think was, "You mean that you slept on this furniture supplied by crazy Charles! Dude - that mattress is probably stuffed with fingers!!"

We thanked them and started our escape. They asked me a couple of questions like it was possibly conceivable that this interview had gone well and that I might be moving-in within the month.

Once we were about 10 paces from the building, Matthew turned to me and simply said, "No way in HELL!" We then spent at least the next half an hour recounting our favorite parts of the insanity we had just endured. It was during this when we realized that, at some point in all of that, we had both had the exact same thought: "Oh God, we have been drugged! We just need to get out of here so that we can pass-out on the street in public or on the subway. We'll be safer there."

Matthew's theory is that Tate was someone who came to look at the apartment a couple of weeks ago and is now hoping for someone to come and take his place so that he can go free.

Remember too that I said it was a 4-bedroom and we were only told about 3 of those being occupied. Who knows what could be going on in that fourth! I say it's used to stuff mattresses with scavenged body parts.

And these were the stories he told us upon the first few minutes of knowing us - with my uncle sitting next to me! And thank God Alisha didn't go with me because I am pretty sure that they would've kidnapped her and tried to harvest the baby.

I also realize that I am very lucky to have had Matthew there because otherwise I might have agreed based on the comic potential of the whole situation. And I would've ended up sleeping on fingers, wich couldn't possibly be comfortable.

Chapter 2: The Clown Car of Apartments

For my second apartment-viewing adventure, I enlisted Liz to accompany me. This place was a fairly cheap studio out in Brooklyn. Over email the landlord had said that he could "probably let me get away with a cat" and since I wouldn't have to sign a year-lease, that seemed like an okay deal.

I met Liz at a station near her and we headed out for Brookyn*. The train ride was nice, we went over the Williamsburg Bridge and had a nice view of everything. We got off the train at the stop that is just a block or so from the place we were getting ready to see. The stop conveniently lets you out right next to a sweet Duncan Donuts/KFC combo. We walked the block and a half to meet the landlord outside. He was a youngish, pomo looking guy who didn't really move his arms when he walked.

He led us down a steep flight of extremely dark steps to the door of the studio. Mumbling something about how the space was nice and cozy, he swung open the door to show us the tiniest, tiny "apartment" I have ever seen. The entirety of the space was smaller than any room - bathrooms, aside - in which I have ever lived. There were 2 teeny windows covered with stained glass decals as if to prevent any natural light from getting in. Two of the walls were adorned with beautiful faux-stone sticky paper - you know, to give the place that much needed dungeon feeling it lacked.

In an attempt to make conversation that consisted of more than "Yeah, I guess a futon mattress might fit in that corner" I brought up the cat.

"Yeah, I could let you have a cat - I mean, tell me about the cat," he replied.

I looked at Liz hoping that she had some kind of great insight into the psyche of my cat that I did not before saying, "I mean - she's fat, and, well, a cat." That answer, as profound as it was, seemed enough for him. I mentioned that I did also have a dog, and he seemed fine with letting me have one pet or the other. This, to me, meant that I could cop to having a dog and just sneak my cat in under the cover of darkness. However when I took another quick look at the "space" (I feel that calling an area that tiny "space" is misleading.) I realized that there would be no way in hell that my two pets and I would be able to spend even one night together there without all putting on some white tennis shoes and brewing up a batch of some special Kool-Aid.

So I told him I would think about it and get back to him, to which he replied, "Yeah, get back to me fast because I am getting an almost maddening amount of phone calls about it." I bit my tongue to avoid replying with, "Well maybe if the size dimensions, lack of natural lighting and complete inability to fit even a mattress in here were mentioned in the add you could have avoided that."

* ever since seeing the movie, The "40 Year Old Virgin" I can't think or say "Brooklyn" without affecting the accent that Mooj uses when taking about his accent's derivation. So, for those of you who have any idea as to what I am talking about, please hear it pronounced that way whenever I write it.

Let the Adventure Begin!

They tell me that everyone who moves to New York has their horror stories of trying to find a place to live. We can just call this Chapter 1.

After about a week of mining Craig’s List and contacting what felt like a hundred different people my trusty Uncle Matt accompanied me on my first actual viewing of an apartment in New Jersey. Up until this point I had been taking a recent string of synchronicities in my life as a sign that I was on the right track with this pretty huge life change – moving to New York and getting ready to start grad school. However when the bus carrying us to Jersey broke down in the Lincoln Tunnel my cosmic Magic Eight Ball’s take on the situation seemed to go quickly from “It is decidedly so” to “Outlook not so good.” Eventually the bus got moving again only to roll a few more feet then stop again. We kept this up gradually emerging from the tunnel and continued in this pattern inching our way towards our first scheduled stop.

More than a few deep breaths of stifled, un-air conditioned, bus air and a quick call to the landlord later, Matthew took the initiative to head to the front of the bus to talk to the driver to try to figure out how much further we had to go until our stop. I dutifully followed him up the aisle of the now herky-jerky bus silently praying that those bus-fairies my mom had told me about as a child would finally appear and push the bus to our stop.

I sat down a couple of seats behind the bus driver as Matthew asked him where our stop was. The bus driver, who could only speak a little English, threw up his hands as he gesticulated toward the dashboard of flashing lights, spitting out, “I don’t know! It – Uhhh. It - ” Matthew, sensing this was the best answer he would get, sat down next to me. We finally made it to the first stop. We sat for a while awaiting some kind of instruction as to what we would do next in order to reach our destination. Meanwhile the bus driver had put in a call to dispatch trying to explain our current situation. Through broken English he tried to explain to his superior on the other line what had happened with the bus. “No sir – it just stop. It just thrrrpppl!!” That was probably the moment when I knew we weren’t going to be making any other stops. We then got off of the bus to wait for the next one to come and pick us up. After about 20 minutes it finally showed, and we were once again on our way. We found the actual apartment without any more trouble. The one big advantage to this place was that it would allow me to have Ralphie, but by this point in the adventure it was clear that that didn’t matter since the commute itself – even without the bus-breakdown – was going to be too long for me to make it home in time to take care of him. The apartment was fine – very long and narrow, but it was on the ground-floor with the bedroom’s windows facing directly onto a main road, which would be uncomfortable for most people. It was only made worse by the fact that I have a fairly irrational fear of looking out ground-floor windows at night for fear of seeing a face looking back at me. (Don't ask me to explain it - but it totally freaks me out!) Also there was a mini-fridge rather than a grown-up, full-sized one.

We left knowing that my "Home Sweet Home" sign wouldn't be hanging up there and eventually wound our way through a rather delightfully eerie neighborhood to the nearest bus station and finally made our way back to Manhattan. In the end I felt fairly defeated, but happy to have something to get me started blogging again.

I'm gearing up - I swear!

Okay so I am sure that no one bothers to look at this page anymore, but if anyone happens to accidentally have stumbled across this page, please know that I AM going to write again - and soon.

For those of you who don't know, I am currently in New York City staying with my extremely generous aunt and uncle while I look for a place for my own. And let me tell you, looking for a place to live with a low price range, 2 pets, and no provable source of income is a recipe for comedy-stories. Well, depression and comedy-stories. So I will be documenting these stories if for no other reason than to let the pain out. And I promise to make it comedy-pain.

So if anyone is still out there, just be a little more patient, and I will be back. And this time, for reals!

I Heart America's Past-time!

I'm not a huge sports' fan. I really enjoy watching football, but I haven't committed enough to the endeavor to select a particular team to support or really learn anything to do with stats or specific penalties. I don't really care about other sports - especially baseball. I know, I know - a St. Louisian born and raised and yet up till about a week ago, I really couldn't care less about the thing. When I was little I would be taken to the games and found the only excitement in watching the temperature projected on the scoreboard drop degree by degree as the hours of monotonous diamond-patterned running continued. Since then I have not really had any over-arching desire to attend another game. But a few weeks ago, when a co-worker invited me to a game adding, "You'll need to take a half-day off of work to go," I was ready to give it all another shot.

It was glorious. The seats were wonderful - high enough up so that I could pretend that maybe I was on a amusement park ride instead of watching baseball. The view was great. The weather was perfect - sunny, but not too hot. And the beer flowed like the beer should - into my mouth, straight to my belly! So not only was I NOT at work for once, but I was OUTSIDE, enjoying the fresh air, spending some good Q.T. with a couple of friends, and the end of it all, drunk enough to fall asleep* around 9PM to wake up totally sober at 1AM.

No wonder America loves baseball. If they can work out a way to build into the whole game some tacklin', you can consider me converted!

*I mean, obviously, this means pass-out.

Get Ready, Everybody: It’s Time for a Manda-rant! (The G-Rated Version)

I work a lot. I could work every waking second of every day for 3 straight months and still have more work to do. So when I tell you that I don’t have time for you to flib-flab around, know that I mean it. Oh, did I also mention that I am sick of being nice. What I mean to say is that I am tired of being nice for apparently no reason. I am nice and work my cushy-seat off to help people with whatever flim-flammery they need at that given moment to turn around and find. . . Lo! And Behold. . . more flimmer-flammeries for me to deal with. While we’re on the subject, I am also, and more importantly, sick of people using their nice words and telling me nice, pretty things when I don’t have the time to sit around imagining what a magical, phtootie fairy-world it would be if the pleasant praise you bestow on me turned into something tangible that I could foollooting use. So here is my new policy:

Don’t tell me that I am working too hard unless you are in the process of taking on the list of crazy students I have to call while pushing me, mint julep and tickets to the circus in hand, out of the office!

Don’t tell me that I should get out more unless you are going to exercise my dog while buying me a pair of pants that fit after which you are planning on making sure that I am able to get enough sleep to get up extra early to go to work since I didn’t stay late the night before.

Don’t tell me that I’m pretty unless you are going to kiss me or get me a date.

Don’t tell me how I should be doing more Lizanda/stand-up/blogging unless you have been able to give me one day, ONE day where I didn’t have to attend to something work-related. Then I might be able to think about something other than my job and will be able to come up with more inclusive jokes than, “Man, can you believe those guys with the GRE? I mean, I’m convinced that they must be getting their advice from the White House. No, seriously think about it? Who else do you know who doesn’t want to set a timetable?!” Or my ode to Yakov Smirnoff material, “I’m telling ya – if the MCAT students had to physically line up in order to get into the April test dates, that line would be longer than the lines for toilet paper we had in mother Russia – Heeehn!” Heeehn!” Heehn!!”

Don’t tell me I should be eating more unless you have found the magic de-stress potion that will bring my appetite and/or will-to-live back.

Don’t tell me how fantastic I am unless we are going to play slappy-time or pay me cash monies.

Don’t you dare tell me how attractive or wonderful my dog appears to be unless you have just made an appointment to personally take him to his next anal-squeezing. Don’t know when to schedule it? Don’t worry; it’s easy! It’s once a jesuspraise week.

Got it, folks? My mom once summed it up nicely when she said to me, “I don’t care about all your jibber-jabber – just do the phelgin’ dishes!”

I'm SO in Love!!

Who knew that I would find the love of my life on Antiques Roadshow. Too bad he is totally dead. He did make some totally crazy pottery in Biloxi, Mississippi back in the day. Meet my new man, George Ohr:

How Much is that Anal Sack in the Window?

"Puppies are sooo cute!"

"Man! Dogs are so great!"

"Why can't we get a dog?! They are so wonderful!"

I once said these things. I once believed these statements, but then I got a dog. And if that wasn't enough, I then learned about anal sacks. "Anal sacks? What are 'anal sacks'?" you say. Check this out to get some really beautiful cartoons to help you understand the magic of the anal sacks.

One website describes the purpose of the anal sack as lubricating "the anus, and provid[ing] a scent." Knowing this, it should be pretty evident as to why it was such a bummer to find the contents of my beloved dog's anal sacks coming out of his mouth and landing on our carpet this evening.

Still have a puppy-hankerin'?

TPR, I Wish I Could Quit You!!

So sorry that I have disappeared from the world. My job has consumed me - literally. I am writing this blog from inside the belly of my employer. The worst part is that I can't complain or try to fight my way out - climbing up the esophagus and out through the mouth. No, I just have to sit and be eaten away by stomach acid and absorbed into the system. Why? (I hate myself for saying it) the money.

Unfortunately I have to deal with going awhile longer not have the time to do things that I really enjoy in the hopes that, by the end of the year, I will have enough money saved to go to grad school and start out on the path of doing what I really want to do.

Oh well, I suppose this current period of misery of working ridiculous hours and being, when sober, in a constant state of stress and panic will just make for that"low-point" in the Biopic that will be made of my life. Now I'm sure the Hollywood folks will dress it up with a storyline about my lover, Max, leaving me for my long lost twin sister, Miranda, who, as it turns out, inherited all of the romantic courtshipping ability while I was left with all the sass genes - This then pushes me to an expenisive addiction to rare, antique wicker bicycles that eventually bankrupts me and leaves me to start peddling little villages I make out of twisty ties from breadbags I steal from the local grocery store. But - basically, it will be the same thing.