About a month ago, I left my old digs in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn for Ditmas Park. I’ve been busy packing, unpacking and being poor from all the expenses associated with moving (asshole old landlord, movers, furniture, etc.) It’s all been a bit of a stressor.

But, the upside is that I now have a doorman, an elevator, more space and laundry within my building (a rare score in NYC for some people). The neighborhood is quiet, beautiful and has tons of cops (I see at least two every time I go outside, if not more). Bang for buck, the real winner for me is the laundry. I despise shlepping to laundromats. The fact that I can hit pause on the TiVo, hop an elevator with a bag of clothes and be back in five minutes nearly moves my grumpy, NY ass to tears of joy and salvation.

Every day, when I come home, passing the the doorman, Herman a.k.a. “Cheese” (Herman = Herman Munster = Muenster = Cheese. It’s how I remember people’s names), the lyrics to The Jeffersons runs through my mind:

Well we’re movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

Fish don’t fry in the kitchen;
Beans don’t burn on the grill.
Took a whole lotta tryin’,
Just to get up that hill.
Now we’re up in the big leagues,
Gettin’ our turn at bat.
As long as we live, it’s you and me baby,
There ain’t nothin wrong with that.

Well we’re movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

Granted, I’m white, have never fried fish, nor cooked beans on a grill and I’m in Brooklyn, not the Upper East Side. But, I am loud, grumpy and I walk funny.

This morning, I rushed onto the 2/3 train, heading into work, managing to catch a seat. As I settled, I spotted my upstairs neighbor a bit farther down the car from where I was sitting. I was about to wave when a man sitting next to where she was standing leaned over a let loose a massive wave of multi-colored puke onto the floor, liberally splattering her legs and feet.

Not even pausing for a moment of shock, she runs from the train, barely making it past the closing doors; I assume to go home and clean up. People quickly start moving to my end of the car. Meanwhile, Mr. Yakkity continues to hurl forth streams of joy and partial digestion.

For three whole stops, the man kept barfing. He must have had a second stomach or something, because it was fucking impressive. Someone gave him a bottle off water and some napkins and eventually, the torrent of chunks tapered off and stopped.

After wiping off his backpack, the guys stays on the train (thanks for that, buddy) and just slides down the bench, away from the scene of the crime and acts like nothing happened.

Gross, yet slightly exciting. I wish more morning commutes were like this.

This photo pretty much explains one of the prime things I dislike about Brooklyn—breeders with double strollers and a fucked up sense of entitlement, coupled with a total lack of awareness of how disgusting they are to the rest of the non-breeding world.

I snapped this shot as I was walking down Atlantic Avenue this past Saturday. The stupid-ass bitch’s stroller was completely blocking the only entrance to the store. Fuck anybody else getting into the place, the lady needs her shit, now.

On top of this obnoxious obstruction, she has a double stroller with only one kid. These buggies are a constant aggravation and eyesore in my area of Brooklyn, whether they be slowly strolling, taking up the entire sidewalk or completely blocking aisles in the supermarket, they fucking suck and so do the people that abuse them.

I was a little surprised yesterday to fire up my trusty Google Reader and see that some dude who lived 2 blocks over from me was stabbed in the side of the head with a corkscrew and killed. When I say surprised, I don’t mean the fact that someone was murdered in my neighborhood. People get killed or at least shot and stabbed on a fairly consistent basis in my neighborhood. Mostly, it’s gang-on-gang bullshit and/or drugs. Rather, I was surprised at the fact the crime made the news. Since violent crime in my area is 90% black-on-black violence and usually not involving children, the news never covers it. You can be sure this sudden attention was entirely due to the novelty factor of the corkscrew.

I’ve no shame in admitting that I burst out laughing at the mental picture of it all. Working for a wine magazine all I could think of was…

“THIS…*screw*…WINE…*screw*…IS…*screw*…FUCKING…PISS!!!!”

I’ve just returned from work and a quick trip to the supermarket for arugula and beers (awesome combo, you don’t have to tell me). As I was walking home from the store in my neighborhood (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn), I noticed by a woman walking her poodle down the street in the opposite direction from me.

As I came closer, I saw some small, stick-like thing hanging out of the dog’s mouth. From a distance, my first thought was, “That’s a cigarette!”, but I have shit vision, even with contacts. But, sure enough, as the dog came closer I distinctly saw an unlit cigarette poking out of it’s mouth. The death-stick was whole, slightly damp in some parts, but complete and smokable.

The owner, who was walking slightly ahead of the poodle, seemed wholly oblivious as I can only assume she wouldn’t condone her pet’s addictive habit. My guess is the dog picked it up off the street, managing by coincidence to get it oriented correctly, filter-first and at the perfect smoking angle. The poodle really looked like he was just trying to get a light for it’s smoke. I would have obliged, had I been packing matches.

This morning, I left my Apartment of Doom and hit the street, heading for the subway. As I exited my building, I noticed this sketchy guy hanging out near the trash bins. he wasn’t homeless looking but kind of shabby and shady. He had a ten speed propped against the side of the building and was in the process of putting on a mismatched pair of dirty, old latex rubber gloves. I’m thinking that maybe the guy’s diving for cans to redeem, but I notice he doesn’t have any bags or anything to haul bottles and cans in. What I do notice is that the guy had a black nylon file case tucked under his arm.

I walked to the mailbox to drop off a Netflix DVD and stopped. Something just wasn’t right. So, I turned back and watched the guy from a few feet away. Sure enough, after the gloves were on, he started going through the building’s trash bins, looking through discarded mail and other papers he could find. The fuckwad was looking to boost someone’s identity, maybe get a credit card in their name or some other bullshit. I wish I had my camera with me so I could have grabbed a photo of the shithead. I figured there was no point in calling the cops, since going through trash left street-side is not illegal and if I’d said anything to the guy, he’d have either tripped on me or just biked off to some other building.

I’m really glad there’s a paper shredder at home. I destroy all my mail, except for the junk shit, along with anything else that might have any sensitive information in it. If you don’t have a shredder…get one.

Yesterday morning, I got on the subway to go to work, leaned against the door and started reading a book as I normally do every weekday. After a few minutes, I noticed that several woman looking at me like I had just crapped on the floor in front of them. Dirty looks just for being the beautiful creature I am is not an unusual occurrence in my life, but as they persisted in staring me, I kind of snuck a look around and at myself to see if there was something really wrong that I was missing, like maybe I was standing in a homeless-puddle or something gross and offensive.

To my horror, I saw that my fly was down. Not just unzipped, but the flag was fully lowered, open and exposing my dorky-ass blue boxers with the stupid golf ball pattern. There I was, advertising to the the subway car what was going on in my pants. In their eyes, I was rank and file alongside the perverts, mad subway masturbators, crazies and other such dirty and undesirable gutter-scum. How I made it two blocks to the station and onto a train without noticing the homemade wind-tunnel for my testicles—I cannot fathom other than to guess that I was a bit groggy and scattered that morning.

(more…)

It’s mid-January in New York City and my apartment, building and seemingly the rest of my neighborhood is infested with mosquitoes. It’s jacket and hat weather outside and I’m sleeping with a mosquito net over my bed so I can manage some sleep and escape the relentless dive-bomb buzzing of my ears. Still, they seem to find ways to get at me anyway, as my constant itching attests.

Nearly every evening, I find myself doing a apartment wide bug hunting expedition. Swatter in hand, I scan the walls of my apartment, squinting for a glimpse of the blood-sucking fuckers. I hate them. I bring death to them at every opportunity.

After over five years of living in the city, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a mosquito in winter, much less a fricking plague of them. I’m at a loss to explain why I’m getting molested by these fucking parasites when it’s thirty degrees outside. I kill them, but more appear. I see them in my building’s hallway. I hear people on the street complaining about them. Perhaps it’s the construction going on in my area. Maybe it’s global warming. Blood-sucking aliens from Uranus? Whatever the cause, it’s disturbing and highly annoying. I can only hope that is winter is a single exception to the norm.

I’m at my office, sitting in the dark. Earlier today, we were told that our neighborhood was being evacuated (with the added bonus of a police escort, should we refuse), I guess so that the electric company can shut down our area in Manhattan, thus taking some stress of the power consumption. Within a minute or so, that order was rescinded, but we were asked to turn off all unnecessary electricity usage. So, here I am, typing in the dark. I just finished reading an email from a coworker’s friend whose father works for ConEd. Here’s what I have to look forward too:

From: [redacted]
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 2:05 PM
To: Music – New York
Subject: FYI TO ALL

THOUGHT YOU ALL MIGHT WANT TO KNOW THIS INFO…

All-
My friend’s dad works for ConEd – he just called and told her not to ride the subways any more today, as we will likely have a blackout. ConEd is sending all non-essential employees home right now so they can shut down power to their building. From yesterday’s heat, Manhattan has 4 feeders out, putting a big strain on the system. He said in his 30 years working there, he’s never seen ConEd act like this, especially at 10:30 in the morning. He said not to panic, but not to take a chance if it can be helped – avoid riding the subway if at all possible.

Now I’ve lived through enough bullshit in New York to take all these emails with more than a grain of salt, no matter how many people say they know the person who knows the deal and whatnot. I’ve had a slew of imminent terrorist bombing/blackout/dirty nuke “get the fuck out now” emails come across my desk since I’ve been working in Manhattan and not one of them has ever amounted to anything other than wasted stress.

So here I am. Typing in the dark and waiting to go home, be it by train or by foot.

After years and years of mild toe and ear frost-bite, below freezing temperatures, snow up to my ass and an omnipresent state of moist, damp socks, I thought I would never reach a state where I would long for winter. Well, fuck it. Give me snow. Bury me in permafrost. New York City in the summer is twisted form of Hell and I’ve fucking reached my boiling point. I’m ready to go rabid shih-tzu on something.

I’ve dealt with 100+ degree days many times before in Vermont, but there you have the benefit of clean air as well as much less congestion and grime. Here in New York, stepping out into the street feels almost like slipping into a hot bath. Hitting a major street is like having wool blankets thrown over your head, while is this same bathtub. The heat coming from all the cars more than noticeably jacks up the discomfort. It’s nasty, but not half as bad as going underground to take the subway.

Subway platforms are the single worst place to be in New York during a heat wave. Above-ground is hot, dirty and disgusting. Beneath the streets is worse—concentrated heat and grime, coupled with screeching train noise and crowds of moist assholes. I’ve always heard that violent crimes jump during heat waves and I’ve never doubted it.

Standing in the dead heat, with my clothes sticking to me as a dirty ceiling fan blows oven-hot air about, I want to kill everyone. Luckily the reality of exerting myself to commit mass homicide is too much to bear. It’s too hot to go postal and I’m far too pretty for prison. Those people that are responsible for the crime rate jump on these hot days must have balls of ice, because for me, just walking from point A to B is hard enough.