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Stalking
Lone Star Thomas
Goodies

phone home

27/01
I should be packing and getting ready for my early morning departure tomorrow, but I'm sort of just goofing off and being lazy at the moment. Those neighbors of mine are making me nuts. There is a good reason why I've never sought out a relationship with a neighbor. Not that I'm rude. I always say hi when they're sitting on the stairs out front, which is about 90% of the time (the cold spell that hit yesterday should put a stop to that. I know it seems like I'm like an old lady always talking about the weather, but I can't help it. I'm still fascinated by marvels like how the temperature can go from a high of 80 to 50 in less than 48 hours). So, I'd given them my keys Thurs. but they exterminator friend of the family came after I got home so it was fine. Then yesterday he wanted to come back so I left them my keys again. I have two locks on my front door, the top deadbolt works, the doorknob one doesn't and the landlord is well aware of this, and I'm just to lazy to deal with it, so I just lock the top one (I've always had a mental block with locks. In Portland I never locked my apt. or car even though I knew this was stupid. But now since I have two entrances on the ground floor that doesn't seem smart, plus the atmosphere is just different here) and it's never been a problem. I showed Melody (the neighbor) the silver key (there are three gold ones on the chain that I don't even know about) and said it was for the top lock, and that's the one I use. I never made a point of saying not to use the bottom lock, it didn't cross my mind...you can see where I'm going with this. I got home last night around 8pm and the top lock was unlocked (I explicitly said to lock that one) and the doorknob was locked. All three gold keys would fit in it, but none would turn. I suppose she instinctually turned the inside lock before shutting the door (I never said to do that). So, I was locked out and annoyed. Plus, my front light had the cover knocked off, broken and sitting on the cement in front of my door--how would that just happen on its own? Even with the incredible wind gusts yesterday, I don't see how a light cover could blow out of its grooves. But whatever, that annoyed me first off, then I was really pissed about the lock, it was Fri. night and I had things to do. The neighbor guy was on the stairs smoking a cigarette so I got him to try and help, as it was his family's fault that I couldn't get in and he started yelling up the street to some random guy that I don't know, who might've been a friend or the 3rd fl. neighbor (I've never seen the people on the top floor). This guy cracked me up, he was this huge, classic Brooklyn Italian type who bounded over all out of control. He had one of those personalities that always awe me, my total opposite, anti-cautious or self conscious, they act first, then think (or don't think at all); they basically get shit done. They sort of freak me out, like he went all crazy with the doorknob like he was going to break it off, then decided to bust in the front window (see, I'm scared of these things like climbing in windows from up high). This had potential, as I don't lock my windows (it's hard enough to deal with the doors, ok?) 100% of the time. Unfortunately, the window's all old and messed up and only opens like 5". He got some screwdriver and was banging the hell out of it and pushing and shoving, and I could just see the whole thing breaking or popping from the frame, but I was too horrified to say anything like, "please stop being so rough, mister." Then he speculated on dropping into my back yard from the upstairs neighbors' back window, which amused me a bit since that's right where the bees nest is. I didn't even know if I had a key to my backdoor, but figured that at least one of those gold keys had to belong to it. Next thing I knew he was over knocking on the next door neighbors's door trying to get in their backyard to climb over the fence into mine to try my back door. This is the sort of thing I'd hem and haw over for like 20 minutes, "should I really bug the people next door?" I don't think they even speak English, and he's all explaining how he lives next door (I don't even know if he does) and needs to get in their yard and starts barging in the house, which even prompted amaze from the guy upstairs, who'll I refer to as Joe from now on for simplicity's sake (I'm not sure what his name is, but I'm 75% sure that's it), that this lady would let a stranger in her house that easily. But being so gangbusters and non-planning he didn't bother to get my keys from me first. Oh well. So, I waited for while, then decided to go back too and had to walk through this poor woman's apt. (which made mine look like a dream dwelling, the floor was all bumpy and poked up at odd angles under a scruffy gray carpet [and I complained about the red in mine], it was all dark and dilapidated and depressing. However, they did have a laundry room which made me extremely envious. Wed. I did the hateful laundry trek. It's only eight blocks, but my bag is extremely heavy. easily 50 pounds since I always put off doing the chore for about three weeks at a time, and the straps kill my shoulder. My eyes kept tearing up, and I was having shooting pains in my lower back and I tried to pretend I was in boot camp and this was part of my training, to amuse myself during the strenuous walk, but it didn't help much. When I got home and took a shower, I noticed this gruesome purple-red welt from the front of my shoulder to my back where the strap had been and my arm muscles still hurt today) but he's already gotten in through my window. I was minorly chided for not locking my back window, but hey, if it was locked he wouldn't have been able to get in, right? He totally broke the screen and kicked over all my cds like a beast. It could've been worse, I suppose, and at least I got in, but none of it would have even happened in the first place if I hadn't been kind and neighborly and allowed the whole world access to my apt. to spray the bees. No one is allowed in my apt. without my being there ever again.

10/25/01
As if anthrax was not enough, now I have these stupid bees to contend with. I think I'm the only person around who's not freaked out about the anthrax. At least not majorly freaked out. I don't know why everyone thinks they're so special that they'd be targeted. I haven't heard of a single person just sitting in their house, minding their business getting anthrax spores. And I love the new advice about washing your hands after touching mail, like that's going to help. I did get like maybe 10% nervous yesterday because I noticed this little red scratchy splotch on my chest. I'd woken up Mon. covered in bug bites from who knows where, but this isn't a bug bite, it's not raised up and doesn't itch. The only reason it even made me think anthrax at all was some account I read about one of the women who got it and it was a spot on her chest. Of course, it eventually got all crusty and turned black so as to cause alarm, which I've yet to experience yet. Anyway, the bee situation is making me nuts. The neighbors upstairs wanted some friend of the family exterminator to come by today, but I can't be home to let him into the yard so I gave the woman my keys. When I got home tonight, he still hadn't showed up. Of course he waits till I'm all busy in the middle of stuff (well, just making chicken salad) to come by, and he's all slow and I don't think he's too bright and ends up drilling holes and spraying something up in their apt. I was told to close all my windows (what's up with the weather anyway? It was 80 yesterday and balmy today too) and it was all hot and stuffy (and still is) and then I saw all the half-dead bees walking dazed on my back patio. There's easily 100 of them, and they're not dead, they're just walking around really slow, and he sprayed them like four hours ago. And then I just noticed two bees in my house. I don't know how they're getting in, but it's annoying and much more aggravating now than before he did anything. And to top it, he's coming back tomorrow. I plan on not being here this time. I don't know how I'm going to sleep with bees in the house, and I'm too scared to try and smash or spray them. It's going to give me nightmares. I don't think I'm allergic to them, but the last time I can recall being stung, I was like nine or ten and sat on one in the car, but didn't realize it till I got up to get out and it stung my thigh right by my butt (I was wearing soccer shorts) and it turned pink and swelled into this huge circle like 3" in diameter (I don't mean 3" high, 3" around) and it was humiliating because it just happend to be during the time we were doing swimming in gym and it looked like I had this growth on my leg. People would probably think it was anthrax today. Everything's anthrax today. Our mailman at work, Tom, had a red eye yesterday, which I didn't comment on, as it's not my business, but he made a special point of reassuring me that it wasn't anthrax, and also made sure to explain that two ripped-enveloped, returned letters had been looked at by his supervisor and were OK. The fact that he was telling me this stuff freaked me out more than any potential anthrax threat. I'll be glad to get out of here this weekend, even if it's only a week long vacation. There'd just better not be any bioterrorism on my plane.

10/23/01
The bugs are determined to ruin me, even if it's indirectly. I'd all but forgotten about the mess with mice and roach/beetle-things a month or so ago. Then last night my doorbell rang, which is odd since no one's ever unexpectedly visited me. I assumed it was either neighbor kids or the landlord; it was the upstairs neighbor asking if I had trouble with bees. Ah, bees, one of the few insects who haven't given me any problems. But then I remembered how they were swarming around the top of my back door like they had a nest above it. Luckily, none had got into my apt. but apparently, they are somehow going through the wood and straight into the room above me and the kid's headboard is right where they're coming out. The visual image of bees flying around the kid's head sort of cracked me up, but it wasn't a laughing matter to the neighbors and I suppose I wouldn't like it much if they were in here doing there business. So, I had to keep letting people in to get to the backyard (who ever started the idea of houses with no entry to the yard except through the basement apt.?) and now I have to be home at a certain time tomorrow to let the exterminator in. All this fuss and it's not even benefiting me much. I guess I could cause a stink about the mice, but I'd rather just solve it on my own. Well, the neighbors did bring down a slice of warm-from-the-oven pumpkin pie, so that was nice and old-fashioned. Nice, but it leaves me the dilemma of having to return the plate--I never know how these traditional social interactions are supposed to work. Isn't there some saying about not returning an empty plate, like I'm supposed to give it back with a baked good of my own or something? Yeah, well they'll be lucky if I even get around to washing the darn thing.

10/19/01
I take back every word I said yesterday about what a great idea it is to slow down, notice things and get excited about tiny details like new Honduran restaurants. Seriously. I've become re-resigned to the fact that every single thing I'll ever attempt will eventually fail. I was vaguely talking about this article I'd been working on, it's not earth-shattering, nor brilliant, but it had been in my head for some time now, at least six months. Lord only knows why I decided to get on the ball now in Oct. I wanted to write about non-typical breakfasts and had come up with seven or so "ethnic" (I hate that word, but I never know what to use in its place)restaurants around NYC that could provide a welcome break from the usual egg and bacon combo. You know, when people eat Japanese, Indian or whatever they always do lunch or dinner so I thought it'd be interesting to see what people eat for breakfast. My query letter is finished and all ready to be sent out (I planned to get an appropriately sized envelope this weekend and head to the P.O.), I had a good feeling about this idea...then this morning I looked at New York Magazine online, which I only read every now and then, and what do I find in the Oct. 15 issue? Yes, you've guessed it already--"Egg Beaters," a piece on international breakfasts. They so stole my idea and I was completely livid all morning. It wasn't the same magazine I was going to approach, but at this point it doesn't matter since no competitor is going to want a copy cat article. And he even used four of the restaurants I was considering (though I did end up changing to what I thought were more interesting options) African Grill (Senegalese, Krystal's (Filipino), Hampton Chutney Co. (Indian) and Half King (Irish). Bastards. I swear to god, I could punch someone (who, I don't know--better watch out) in the neck right now. This city gets on my nerves so hard sometimes. I guess the lesson to be learned is that if you ever in a million years have an idea, even a half-baked stupid idea that you don't think anyone would ever care about, don't wait one second, immediately take action because someone will always beat you to the punch. Some days (or months or years) it feels like I'm being punished just for existing.

10/18/01
I hate to continue the Brooklyn bashing thread, but it never ceases to amaze me. First off, I didn't quit smoking like I said I was supposed to a few weeks ago. Whatever, but I still need to, so when I was at the dr. last week (that scary, evil nurse with the Jamaican accent, green contacts and blonde weave now knows me. I don't actually think Cynthia's [I know her name now, which is a scary indication of how much at I'm the dr.'s] a bad person, she's just easily riled up and has a short temper. She asked me why I'm in there so much and was outraged that I have to come in like every other week just to have my blood pressure taken and must pay $15 each time. She went all ballistic and was asking other nurses if this was right and started ranting that that was too much money, and even if I were rich [I told her I most definitely wasn't] that's no way to be spending my money. Amen. She went and tracked down my dr. and told her who-knows-what, but it caused the dr. to comment when I came in that everybody knows me as "the girl with the blood pressure." Jeez, I've always wanted to be recognized for something in life, but I didn't know it would be like this) I got a prescription for Zyban (no, not Cipro--don't even get me started on the stupidity of stockpiling the stuff), which is like Welbutrin, an anti-anxiety/depressant, so I thought it might be more interesting than the patch. Little did I know this drug is not covered by insurance. I dropped my prescription off yesterday, and today when I went back to pick it up I was informed it would be $131 for a one month supply (60 pills). OK, the expense is one thing, I'm totally stressing because I just realized that my next pay check will come when I'm on vacation, as well as my rent being due. I can easily leave a rent check for the landlord before I leave, but unfortunately there won't be enough money in my account to cover it, as my check will be sitting on my desk at work. It's really evil, I don't have any idea what I'll do for spending money and the like while I'm in England. So, I almost choked on the $131 price tag, but then the girl at the counter informed me they couldn't fill the whole order, that they'd have more stock tomorrow and I could get the rest of my pills, though still charged me for the whole thing. This is not some half-ass mom and pop drug store, it's Rite Aid, which last time I checked was a major chain throughout the U.S. There's a little hand-scrawled note on the bottle saying, "I owe you 52." Yeah, they put eight pills in the bottle and charged me $131?! I can't wait to see what sort of hijinx ensue when I go to get my remaining 52 pills tomorrow and there's a different girl working the counter. Jesus, for all this effort and expense, I'd better damn well quit smoking. Maybe that's the psychology of it, they charge an arm and a leg and make you go through hoops so you'll just give up on the whole bad habit out of frustration. I also got Xanax (I'm becoming a regular drug maven) so I won't spaz when I have to get that MRA next month that I had to reschedule after walking out the morning of the whole World Trade Center upset. It's too bad they don't go dispensing tranquilizers all willy nilly like in the old days, I only got four. Hmm...next to food, medical conditions appear to be one of my favorite topics of conversation. Hey, lame interests are better than no interests at all, right? I realized the downside to insanely speedy walking yesterday. You just don't see anything, you know, stopping to smell the flowers (or is it roses?) and stuff. I took a break from my 28 seconds per block attempt and tried to be more leisurely on my way home from work yesterday. I did notice a cute record store and some restaurants that I sort of already knew about, but I didn't go into any of them (I'm still in the noticing stage, I haven't progressed to stopping yet). The best score of the evening was spotting this brand new Honduran restaurant. See, I've been meaning to propose this article for a particular magazine for a while now, but I'm a lazy procrastinator who fears rejection so I keep putting off writing my query letter and do more research instead. I'd finally buckled down earlier this week and drafted what I think is a solid proposal, with the exception of one detail: I needed an interesting Hispanic restaurant in Brooklyn that served breakfast. I'd been racking my brain all week trying to come up with something good, not run-of-the-mill like huevos rancheros or even menudo (which I love despite its tripey grossness, but it's harder to find in NYC than you'd think since there isn't a large Mexican population here). It said that they served breakfast on their awning so I peeked at the menu in the window (the door was locked), then an owner or someone saw me and got all excited and found me a menu in English (all endearingly scribbled and misspelled on ruled paper that had been photocopied and stapled), and I told them I'd be back. Now I've got the missing piece to my soon-to-be-amazing article, and it's all because I slowed down and took the time to look around. And if this magazine doesn't want to publish it, well, they're just plain crazy.

10/17/01
I just found out there's a new Target in Elmhurst, Queens, and the only way I knew was from reading a random person's online journal (I don't even remember the site, it's odd because you'd think I'd read lots of other jounal-things, seeing as I do one myself, but I don't really). Why am I always the last to know these things? What I don't get is why out of the five boroughs, they'd put the only two Targets in Queens, and not even all that far from each other. When will Brooklyn get a piece of the action already. I guess Queens is sort of the most suburban borough, though I'd hardly compare it to a true suburban enclave. Maybe Brooklyn's just trying to keep it real and all, which is lame. I don't know why people have to be so into keeping things grimy and dilapidated. I'm all for retaining gritty character, but every now and then I wouldn't mind visiting a store that actually had the things on its shelves that are supposed to be there according to the little labels...or bean sprouts, for crying out loud. It's not too much to ask.

10/15/01
It's not that often that I almost disgust myself with my own cooking. I don't mean bad cooking, but bad ideas. I'll get to all that in a minute. This was one lazy weekend. I didn't go out Fri. night and that always makes me feel weird. By Sat. I'm all nutty and like an obsessive-compulsive binge eater (speaking of eating disorders, last week I started tracking who comes to some of the pages on this site and what search terms are used. It's strange, I feel like a spy, but it's also pretty amusing and well, I'm easily amused. The one I liked the best was anorexic+and+loving+it. Those words do all show up in my site at various places, but not together. I wonder if the searcher was disappointed, I mean, I'm a food-fixated pig really. Self-deprevation doesn't interest me in the least.) stay out too late and drink too much to make up for who-knows-what. So, Sat. I went to a party, hit some bars, played pool, forgot to eat dinner (not that I didn't want to, but we were four hours late for the party so we didn't have time to go out for dinner and by the time we showed up all the fancy party food was gone. Well, there were some tiny quail eggs left, but I didn't feel like eating baby-sized eggs.) so I was starving by 4am, but the drinking on an empty stomach damage was already done and by the time I'd eaten half my slice of pizza I started feeling the nausea rising and had to high-tail it out of the restaurant before causing an unpleasant scene. So, yesterday I got up late and sat around doing pretty much nothing. In fact, I didn't even get dressed till midnight, possibly an all-time lazy record. And I only pulled on a skirt and top to go down and have a beer at the corner bar for like a half hour, then came back and put my pajamas on again. James and I always go to the corner bar around midnight on Sunday, it's just the way it is. The place is odd, not the sort of bar I'd go out of my way for, it used to be called the Looking Glass and was sort of NYU-ish. Maybe 9 months ago or so they changed it to Finnerty's and the crowd has changed a bit, less college crowd and more blue collar/sports bar, not really a classic dive, just sort of lowbrow and dirty. The kind of place where strangers come up to you (well, James) out of the blue and start shit like, "Are you busting my balls?!" and leave you baffled. But now the bartender knows us, greets us heartily with a "hey guys" (I hope he just means that figuratively. I got my hair cut short, short last week and have been fearing that I look manly.) and gives us discounts on pints of Bud. The weird thing was last night this guy with a rolled up bandana as a headband at the bar kept giving me odd looks and freaked me out, then said, "weren't you two at Northsix last night" and I had no recollection, I'd never even heard of Northsix. He said he'd been working the door Sat. night, and it wasn't as if I was so inebriated I didn't remember where I was, it was the place we went after the party, but everyone was calling it 66 north 6th and it took me a minute to make the connection that yes, I was there the night before. It's strange because a couple Sundays ago we went to Pizzeria Uno because I'd never been to one and then we saw our waitress from there later that evening at Finnerty's. It must be where all the random people end up on Sunday night. Anyway, that was my weekend. Today I thought I should make something semi-healthy to eat like vegetarian pad thai, but I faced the annoying stumbling block of no bean sprouts in the boroughs. I used to have the same problem in Queens, but it appears that Brooklyn also lacks what I thought was a fairly common ingredient. Even the large well-stocked, gentrifying Key Foods by my work didn't have any (and I swear they did a few months ago because I made a mental note of the fact for future reference. However, they did have those freaky Bragg Liquid Aminos, which I'd been looking for since my sister has requested them when I visit in a couple weeks). It's all so frustrating to get anything done around here. The only store I thought might possibly have them between work and my apt. is literally at the half-way mark, on 15th St. (They'd come through with fresh mint for me before so I was hopeful.) Normally, that would be fine since my gym and bank are in the same two-block radius, but I was irked because I didn't have my gym clothes or my checkbook (I got paid today, but don't know my account # by heart so it'd do me no good to try and deposit without my checkbook) so stopping at the half-way point instead of taking the subway straight home would only be 1/3 as fruitful as it could be. Inefficiency really gets my goat, OK? But I've been into the walking thing lately (and have calculated that if I'm wearing tennis shoes, not carrying any heavy bags and no one gets in my way i.e. strollers, seniors and slowpokes, I can walk one block in 28 seconds--now that's efficient. Heck, it's faster than the bus) so I figured I'd go out of my way for the damn bean sprouts. The store did have them, I made my 31 cent purchase (yeah, all that rigamarole for 31 cents--I told you it was a pain to get anything done around here) and headed for home. This particular pad thai recipe called for 1/4 cup ketchup, which I never buy, I had two White Castle packets and some of that Blastin' Green Heinz EZ Squrit that only I seem to get a kick out of (it grossed out guests at my Labor Day bbq). I wondered what green ketchup would do to pad thai, I mean, how wrong can it be, they do have green curry, right? The ketchup tastes the same, it's just really intensely colored. I thought it'd be pretty, but then green has always been my favorite color (the only way my mom could get me to drink milk as a toddler was if she food colored it green--there is a precedent here). Uh, pretty horrifying was more like it. I never realized how much pad thai got its color from the sauce, this stuff stained everything bright green. The noodles were chartreuse and kind of cool, edible looking in that it was a vaguely vegetal color, but the scrambled egg bits and tofu became teal. Outside of Slurpees, jelly beans and bubble gum, food just isn't that color. I also added broccoli, which just added to the greenness. The only bit of contrast were the carrot shreds I improvisationally threw in, deviating from the recipe. I was actually kind of pleased with my monstrous concoction (in fact I just ate a second bowl while typing the last half of this entry). If I was a kooky mom, it's the kind of thing I'd whip up for the family on St. Patrick's Day. I don't think I'll ever go back to regular pad thai, at least until my bottle of EZ Squirt runs out.

10/10/01
I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I've been planning to take a vacation for a while now. Nothing major, only a week, but due to stupid circumstances this trip has never materialized. Originally, I wanted to do something in June since that was my six month mark at work, and the point when I could start using vacation time. But James had deadlines at work (not that I have to fit in my leisure excursions around his schedule, but I thought it would be fun to go somewhere together), so July was the new plan. Then it started getting so late in the month, that I was like let's just wait until Sept. when the fares go down (ever the penny-pincher), and then that got thwarted by his work load again (don't even get me started on workaholics. I get like no vacation time at all, one week is a big deal to me, he gets four weeks a year and didn't even use up all his time from 2000 [which doesn't carry over to the next year]. It's all insane, if you ask me). A whole other side issue, which is actually a big deal, is passports. We both got ours stolen last Sept., but I got mine back. He didn't and never got a new one (supposedly too busy to take the time out of the work day). Now I want to leave the end of this month, but to get an expedited passport you need to make an appt. and have proof of a plane ticket, then supposedly you get one within two weeks. It just makes me nervous to buy tickets before you even know when you'll have a passport. But anyway, last night we got tickets to London (I really wanted to go to S.E. Asia, but I hear there are a bunch of militant Islamic folks in Indonesia, Malaysia and The Philippines that we want to bomb the crap out of, so that dream may have to be put on hold for some time) for the last week of Oct. into the first week of Nov. Airfares are really cheap right now, and I'm not one to get all crazy over potential terrorism (though I'm pretty fixated on all anthrax hub bubo in Florida, in an amused way, not so much a scared stiff way...well, maybe a little bit), but even I, cheapskate extraordinnaire, balked at the lowest internet fare courtesy of Kuwait Airlines. $228 round-trip is damn tempting, and my sister flew it here back in May with no other complaint then that the vegetarian meal wasn't so great, but I just feel a little better paying the extra $50 to fly British Airways. Last night I saw "Ground Zero" (that term cracks me up for some stupid reason. Sat. night I was tipsy and overheard people talking about going to Ground Zero and I was so out of it, that initially I thought they were talking about some club I'd never heard of. I was all duh, thinking, "where is it, and why have I never heard of it") for the first time. And even though it'll be a month old tomorrow, it was still pretty freaky. I felt guilty for looking at it, and didn't want to stop and stare, I sort of walked and peeked a little. This was a big issue a few weeks ago, as it was becoming some morbid tourist attraction. I don't know, I got all pissed-off and indignant over the carnival-like atmosphere. So did the city. After the second week they banned stopping, taking photos, videotaping and the like (er, to be hypocritical, I had James take photos for me the day before the ban. Somehow I justified it since it was on his way to work and it wasn't like he was going down there with gawking as a sole purpose). Photos don't really convey the feeling though, it makes your stomach sink, ash is still all over the place, national guard are out in full force, the air reeks of burning wires and metal (and even does in parts of NW Brooklyn), and it's still smoking from who knows what. I didn't really feel right lingering around too long, and high-tailed it to the Thai restaurant, as was my original plan. I went to Century 21, the store I always bitch about, on Sat. I just bought some non-essential items like socks, underwear and a meat thermometer. The highlight of the excursion was when I went up to pay and the one Asian kid said, "next, ma'am" (that started freaking me out in my mid-20s and now I'm just resigned to being a ma'am. I've started getting all nuts about my age out of the blue, like 29 really did it to me. It's starting to hit me how everyone's so young at bars, on TV and the like. I feel like a middle aged Cathy hag. Like you'll watch a lame show like "Love Cruise" and all the women seem so old and tan and liney and bitchy and gross and they turn out to be 25 or something. All these professionally dressed women with kids and husbands and crap you see on the street always seemed like "grown-ups" meaning older than me, which held true at some point in my life. Now it's all out of whack and these grown-ups are my junior. It's really warping.) and his buddy, the other Asian kid started chiding him for calling me ma'am, "She's a miss, not a ma'aam. Look at her. You're making her older than she is." Ah, bless his heart. Now I really do sound like a Cathy. Ack, check my ID please!! Ack, wake me up when I'm a size 5! Jesus, somebody smack me.

10/4/01
I thought it seemed like a good idea to walk home from work today. I mean, I literally live in a straight line down fifth ave. from the office, about 37 blocks, but a straight line. I don't know why it never occurred to me before. I was too lazy to go to the gym, and figured it'd be better exercise than standing on the subway. Plus, I think today might have been the last nice sunny day of the year, and that should be savored in some way. It took an hour on the dot, I left at 5:20 and go to my door at 6:20, but that included a stop at Rite Aid (which I'd estimated would take five minutes since I was only picking up photos, but oh no, it was about a 12-15 minute ordeal) and about a 15-minute stop in the lame Salvation Army that I'd never been to for good reason. That's approximately one minute per block, which isn't too bad, especially considering the bus practically takes as long (never ride the bus in NYC unless you absolutely have to or are intentionally trying to kill time). When I got home there was this crazy message on my phone, some desperate sounding guy with a Brooklyn accent, "I miss you. I can't take it any more. Every morning I wake up and think about you. Please call me back." I was like "oh shit." Naturally, it cracked me up at first (you may think a normal first reaction would be thinking it was actually for me, but c'mon, who on earth would ever tell me they missed me?), but jeez, he sounded all breathy and on the verge of crying in this tough guy way like he was choking back tears. And of course, whoever this girl is, isn't going to call him back since he called the wrong number. And that begs the question of why wouldn't he realize it wasn't her voice on the outgoing message? If he misses her so much and all. Maybe he's so grief-stricken he was temporarily rendered half-deaf. I wonder what will happen with the two of them. He probably beats her. He sounded like one of those freaky types that's all badass around his guy friends, but is insecure and is always keeping tabs on his girl, suspicious, constantly calling and checking-up, not letting her go places without him. I often joke about these types (and actually do an impression, not a very good one, but I try), like they'd smack you so hard you'd fall down and then they'd rush over all emotional and torn, telling you how sorry they are and how much they love you using the term "baby" a lot. Think of that gross, tender manner of speech Mark Wahlberg uses when he's trying be sensitive. Yeah, that must be the real story. I predict they'll be back together by the weekend.