"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!