Closed For Business...

 As you may have noticed, I haven't written much lately.

It's not because I've run out of stories, or things to say, or that I'm bored.

In fact, I'm crushingly disappointed in myself. Like I'm abandoning yet another project. But I'm not. This really started out as a Thirty Days to Thirty thing, and it's gone long past that. Am I sad I couldn't hack a full year? Of course. But I'd rather put the brakes on now (and I'm not sure if it's permanent or not) than keep churning out crap and then disappearing for weeks. I want the entries I write here to be good, to mean something to both of us. For a while now, they haven't.

 (The Artist's Process)

And all of that has to do with me. I need to focus on putting the pieces back together. I am not happy with how my life has turned out, and that needs to be remedied. Maybe that was the point of this blog all along. To take stock and realize it needs to be more. That I want to be more. And I need to expect better, from others as well as myself. I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about all the paths I have taken, and ones I wish I'd forged instead.
That's a lesson I would have liked to learn privately, but that's life, right?

A friend asked me recently what my plans were for the future....like, life plans. He told me where he saw himself in the next thirty or so years, who he wanted to be, and what he wanted to have accomplished. I was impressed. His goals are noble. Hard work. Business. Travel. Family. Enjoying life. When he asked me what I saw myself doing "big picture" I struggled. He could tell I was floundering and gently scaled it back to "5 year plan."

And I couldn't even cough up one of those. I told him what is my truth - every plan I have made as an adult has fallen apart (often in spectacular and gruesome fashion), and now I'm too scared to even admit to myself what I might want out of life, for fear that it too will never come to pass. I don't know what I want. I can barely see ahead to next month, and that's just a few blips on the old Google Calendar. This isn't being a free spirit or anything. This is drifting. I feel like Megan Draper (pre-season five finale for those of you crazy enough to NOT watch "Mad Men") adrift, hopeless, and unsure of "what I'm good for."

Now I need to find out. I'll let you know when I do.

Until then, thanks for coming along, the kind words, and the encouragement.
I'm out.

Seriously. 

It Was Only A Kiss

 One of my most favorite activities on earth, woefully neglected of late.

I miss kissing, on the regular. You know? I just do.

A Look Into My Personal Hatred of Binge-Drinking Holidays

I am not a teetotaler. I drink alcohol whenever I desire and in an amount that pleases me. Few things are as wonderful as watching a baseball game with a beer, or the warmth of a spiked hot chocolate in the winter. And bourbon old-fashioneds? I dream of them. So good. I got all sorts of buzzed a few nights ago when I ordered (and proceeded to house) a mysterious cocktail called (not kidding) "Dragonball" at dinner. (Goku would've been proud....yes, that's a Dragon Ball Z reference, and I accept that I'm going to die alone)
I appreciate alcohol done well and with respect. I love hanging out in bars.

However, the following "holidays" have become (to me) so gross that I almost pull muscles from rolling my eyes seriously hard and sighing all grumbly-like because the embarrassingly trashed are inescapable.

1. New Year's Eve
2. Mardi Gras
3. St. Patrick's Day
4. Cinco de Mayo
5. Halloween

Exempt from the list: Fourth of July, largely due to the fact that most drinking on this day seems to (in my experience) take place in private residences....with barbeques!! Barbeques make everything better. And I am a fun person, dammit. I'm fun. I just don't equate drinking until sickness/fistfight to be fun. Buzzed = fun. Blacked out = scary.

Despite being partly of Irish heritage myself, I'm so utterly, laughably relieved that St. Patrick's day has come and gone.

So, what's my damn problem? If you know me, we've probably gone drinking together. Maybe we have plans to meet up this week for a drink! MY PROBLEM IS NOT WITH ALCOHOL. My problem is with people who grossly, recklessly imbibe purely under social duress, and almost always end up making fools of themselves. These are holidays where I spend the entire day trying to avoid getting puked on, groped, or committing murder.

Yesterday on the train, as I have for many years now, witnessed a green sea of people stumbling around, many screaming and slurring their words before vomiting on the ground.

(DAAAAAAAMN!!!)

Clad in shirts declaring "Let's Get WASTED!" I am always curious what those people would do if they saw their boss while wearing that shirt. You know? How do you explain that one away? I heard women screaming for vodka shots the way EMTs call for a tourniquet.

Here is my own psychological breakdown of feelings:
I don't like it because it scares me.
Simple, no? The resulting question and answer is two-pronged:

What am I scared of?

1.) I can control myself and my actions. But I cannot control others, especially fueled by alcohol. Complete strangers have touched me without consent, propositioned me, and challenged me to fights all during these holidays. I've seen cops in uniform drinking. Bartenders unable to form sentences. And while I know this is frowned upon, it has still happened. Moving through a day, and a city as relentlessly grinding as New York, unable to trust that people are functioning scares the life out of me.

2.) Alcohol, as I've said, can be great fun. I've used it to loosen up a bit, shake off anxiety. That's pretty common. But again, my problem is not with the booze itself, but the excess. The inability to function without it. Too often I've seen it bring out the very worst in very good people. Drying out a mean drunk is a draining experience. Loving someone who struggles with their alcohol intake is hard. It is so goddamn hard.

Now....just a little over a month and a half until Cinco de Mayo....

Perhaps instead we can have ourselves a nice glass of iced tea?

Ghosts/Away We Go

I ran an errand yesterday, about eight blocks away from where I work. No big deal, right? I didn't think so....until I felt like the spectres of everything I've done in my years here were unable to be shaken off. What am I trying to say? Everything feels like a touchstone. In a short walk it was:

"Oh I lived here"
"I came here with Mom when I was eight!"
"____and I took a photo here last Christmas"
"Going for drinks here was a lot of fun"
"That restaurant used to be _____ but now it's out of business."
"I was standing here when I realized we were over for good"

And even more. That's just a small sampling of the deluge of feelings that came from popping out to complete a simple task. Does this happen to you? Because part of me suspects that most humans feel things this deeply, and maybe I'm simply in the small number who are game for talking about it? Either that or I'm even more irritating and emotionally overloaded than Taylor Swift. If that the case...uh, sorry. You should stop reading, if you haven't already. And maybe slap me.

New York is filled with ghosts.

Seriously. I have loved and lived the fuck out of this town, and I've got the stories and heartache to prove it. Every borough. Most neighborhoods. Places popular and not. Dozens of apartments, hundreds of bars, a thousand stolen kisses, spilled drinks, wasted hours. I will not forget. I can't even if I want to. I tried to forget a lot of things but because it was a huge element of shaping who I've become, it's not going anywhere - at least not in the foreseeable future.
I need to put them out of sight and mind.

What next? Not sure yet. It's not something I'm looking to talk about with others. I want some space.

Did you ever see the movie, Away We Go? If not, I highly recommend checking it out. I'm sure it's on Netflix. It's directed by Sam Mendes (who must, along with Ang Lee, be the most versatile and talented director working today) and stars Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski. Mendes gets beautifully understated performances from his two leads. They portray a couple expecting their first baby, and they travel around America trying to figure out where they belong, where they will be most happy and successful to begin this new chapter of their lives.

 It's a lovely little film. And I'm feeling strong alignment with it now, as I too wonder where I belong, where the next step is. Of course, there will be some practicalities to consider. I'm making lists upon lists. It's getting absurd. But it will be whatever it is.


*I appreciate the "come to (where you live)!" sentiments, but let's table those for now, please.

Sigh no more, sigh no more
One foot in sea, one on shore...

We are nearing the end.

"Those Who We Once Loved Out Loud"

“because we never stop silently loving those who we once loved out loud”


This was going around Facebook last week, and it moved me deeply.

(I know. You're slow clapping because I just figured out hyperlinks.)

As someone who still catches their breath when his number is reprogrammed back into my phone (old computer) or Gmail didn't delete all our emails like I asked it to - I cannot imagine open your eyes and seeing a lost love in front of you. I'd cry too, Marina. I'd cry too.

Happy Friday

Addendum to "Doubt"

Now there are MANY roaches in my home. Who am I kidding? I have no home. I have a place where my stuff is and I sleep. But God, the bugs. More than I care to even think about. I don't know what the hell happened, but it's happening and it's a big fucking problem. I called the super and had a panicked, rage-filled conversation with him that started as "I'll come by Saturday morning" to "I'll be there tomorrow." The only way to get things moving is to go ballistic and make people think you will burn the place to the ground. I am blinded with hatred and horror. Seriously, everything. Enough already. As someone with preexisting anxiety issues, I can confirm that this has sent me over the edge. 2013!! Another shitty year already off to a fucking miserable start. Break out the champers.

My apartment is due to be bug bombed this morning. Thanks for nothing, legally binding lease rider! I'm just a woman! Who cares what I add to a contract- must be all that estrogen making me stupid.

 

I even wrote the leasing agent a massive freak-out email at 4:30 this morning (when I turned on the light and found more dead roaches!) and he's like "It's ok, the landlord and I will make sure it's all taken care of" and I'm all "BITCH you said this would be taken care of before I moved in. LIAR LIAR I wish I could set all of you on fire."

I hate life. Truly. None of what I have experienced makes any of this nonstop misery worthwhile.

Also, let me change my timeline. My mistakes really revved up around 25. So it's really five solid years of working hard, being hopeful, trying to do the right thing, and still waking up wondering what the fuck happened.

Doubt.

This morning, as I was brushing my teeth, I looked out the bathroom door and saw a large roach staring back at me, like that scene in "Beetlejuice." You know the one I'm talking about? Where Beetlejuice turns into a roach and is like "Hey, how ya doin'?" in his gloriously deep and scuzzy Michael Keaton voice.

So I did what anyone would do. I let out a small scream and stomped on it. Then I checked high and low for signs of others, which I did not find. I know roaches are pretty commonplace in New York. I do. The fact that I live in a basement doesn't help the situation. BUT I just checked my lease again this morning, and it's in the rider that every form of vermin was supposed to be treated for with poison last week before I moved in. I bought stuff this morning, and yes, the roach I squashed was (hopefully, please God) just a straggler. I'm already over it. Once again, I am filled with doubt.

I needed to take this apartment. I had a week to decide and a small budget already creaking under debt. The neighborhood is good, and safe, and filled with friends. I can afford it. Most places for a person living alone, in less developed neighborhoods, were at least $200-$300 more expensive before utilities. In every way, it made perfect sense. However, the cheap, sexist scumbag that is my landlord, his rude lackey plumber (the Hasidic Napoleon Dynamite), and his blustering bullshitter of a super ("I been at dis building fuh 15 yeahs!") have combined to form a trifecta of pains-in-my-ass. They are in my phone, respectively as "slumlord" "fucktard" and "useless" and will remain as such. I am done being polite and respectful. I'm fine if they think I'm a bitch. Maybe I am. But this time I'm ready to own it. Because fuck all the rest of these people.

More than once, I've been told "just leave" but that does nothing but frustrate me, because this isn't fucking YOLO and that's not a practical way to live. To up and break a lease (to which I am legally bound) and take off for who knows where with no job, car, or savings is the stupidest possible solution. I made a commitment to this job, so I am honoring it. And it will benefit me in the long run to get some real work at a respectable company under my belt. So no, I won't "just leave" even if you think that's the best solution. In this instance, running away isn't a solution. The solution is growing up and dealing with it.

A shadow of doubt looms over every important decision I have made in the last four years (since my return stateside), and they all feel "wrong" despite (obviously) not knowing how things would have turned out to the contrary. Yet the time has yielded no decisions or events that I deem to be "great ideas" or "I'm so glad I did that." I doubt my decision-making capabilities in their entirety. Je Ne Regrette Rien? Non, I regret everything. Where I went, what I did and who I loved. How hard I tried (not enough?) and what happened. It's crushing. I make decisions with a combination of head and heart. I listen to my gut. Obviously my gut and I don't share a common language. If I had it to do all over again, I would. I'd change everything. But I can't and acknowledge if you get too caught up in that shit you might as well stick your head in the oven and call it a day. I don't trust myself to make any decisions that won't blow up in my face. And so far...I have zero evidence to the contrary.

So how do you move forward with your life, deeply saddened by how you've lived a chunk of it? One more year. At some point, I'll call it eight months, then six, and so on. By then I will have completed my commitment to this job, and hopefully moved into either a more creative department within the same company or onto something else. My resume will be fuller, more impressive. I will have great contacts. I will go somewhere else, a place where every neighborhood isn't haunted by ghosts of fuck-ups past. It's the clean start looming on the horizon that gets me through. I will continue to make wrong decisions, but if I simply accept things for how they are, then I deserve to stay miserable. The only way is forward. It can't come soon enough.

(Dis)Respect

Before I launch into my rant against plumbers and humanity in general, I'll start off with an amusing anecdote from this morning. Have you ever been asleep and dreaming, only to wake just enough to realize you're dreaming? It's only happened to me a handful of times in life, but it did this morning!

So in my dream. I'm talking to Adele. Yes, famous singer, and badass lady Adele. For some reason, we're comparing notes on yoga studios (one week in Brooklyn, and I'm already that girl - blech) when my real-world alarm goes off to tell me it's 6:15am and my ass better get up for work. Dream me hears the alarm and suddenly it all becomes clear. I don't do yoga regularly. I don't know Adele. And I better get up and get in the shower or I'm going to be late. I turned to Adele and said "I wish I could stay, but I have to go back to life now" and then I woke up and turned off my alarm.

In all the excitement dream-me forgot to high-five Adele, which would have made the experience perfect and complete. Maybe...this morning in London, real-life Adele woke up, turned to her man and said "Baby, I just dreamt I was talking about yoga with some rando in Brooklyn. The. Fuck?" Then she rolled around in her various awards and piles of money until it was time to go feed her son.

HOW ABSOLUTELY ODD.

Turning topics a bit more grisly, I really do understand why people beat the living daylights out of other people after dealing with my new landlord and his lackey joke of a plumber. They are horrendous, rude, condescending, and between the two of them, I feel incredibly disrespected. My life, my time, and my job...don't matter when it comes to their schedules. Keep me waiting 2 hours? Cancel on me abruptly? No apologies? Shout at me for asking a simple question? Sadly, they are stereotypes of a larger culture that doesn't view or treat women as equals. I was raised to be polite and respectful, yet when neither of those are shown to me in return, I have no choice but to be curt, short, and express how fucking pissed off I am. When the plumber called at 2:40 yesterday (to cancel, after having first delayed, then not shown up for his 12:30 or 2pm promises) he said he'd "let me know if" he could make it Monday. I just hung up the phone. Because the only answer I can think of to that is "go fuck yourself."

The simple solution is, of course, to use another plumber. However, jackass there is my landlord's guy, and since landlord insists on using him, I feel a bit stuck, seeing as last time landlord and I spoke, he yelled at me for daring to ask if there was a key to the mailbox. THE NERVE. Depending on how things go today, I'll just hire someone else and send him the bill. I really cannot be bothered with these levels of idiocy, incompetence, and raging douchebaggery any longer.

  RAGE.

Boof.

"Boof." is decidedly the sound I emit upon a deep sigh.

2013 has been tres boof.

Oui. This entry shall be laced avec terrible, fourth-grade French. Most likely because I had the enormous experience of seeing the great comedian Eddie Izzard try out some new material at a very petite venue Wednesday night in SoHo. And nothing is more impressive than someone who is hilarious in a multitude of languages.

 

 It was so much fun!! I actually shrieked with delight when he came out on stage. I meet celebrities often in my line of work, but to suddenly be 30 feet away from one of the funniest and cleverest men on Earth.....exciting. Really, really great. Does his set need polishing? Definitely. But the skeleton of his next show, to be titled "Force Majeure" I believe, is very strong. The way his mind works is simply incredible - all these thoughts, constantly making jumps and connections, all while cracking jokes, is really a thing to behold. I feel like he sees EVERYTHING. Nothing goes unnoticed. I'm so happy I could go.

Where was I? Right. Boof.

I'm sorting out some nonsense (yes. nonsense. ALREADY) with the boiler in the new place, having to accept the fact that my landlord doesn't really give a fuck as long as he gets his money. BUT it's not a deal breaker and I'm starting to settle in a bit. There is still a great bit of DIY/TLC/Other Acronym for "needs work" to be done but I'll get there. It'll be cool. At some point I might even buy a chair so I can have company. Or not. Solitude suits me alarmingly well. Just like Superman!

(Superman's Fortress of Solitude is like a big, icy Louvre)

(Oui? Resemblance?)

What else is going on....oh, I'm participating in a writer's group for the first time in years. I really enjoy it. It's forcing me to dust off my brain and think in ways I haven't in far too long. I need to be pushed, and this is a great start. Maybe my blog entries will suck just a bit less with some practice.

(insert "Les Poissons" maniacal laughter here)