Turns out, my carnivorous plant, Mars, requires distilled water, only.
DIVA!
Don't they only sell that stuff in huge frigging gallons? That seems like a lot for an itty bitty plant. How on earth am I to keep a supply of distilled water around when he will only need it every once in a great while?
What will he require next? Dance and elocution classes?
I should have gotten a cactus.
If I have any writing regrets; it’s that I failed to save the addresses and notes from my Roommate Finders contacts back in 1997.
Prior to Craigslist, there was the Village Voice. Every Tuesday night the first drop of that week’s paper would occur at the newsstand on Astor Place. This was because the Voice’s offices were around the corner. Makes sense. The flurry of activity around this poor newsstand was insane, and there would often be a huge line, then a mad dash to any nearby gross God-only-knows-what’s-on-the-receiver payphone (mobile phones weren’t quite the norm yet). The funny thing was that this ritual was such a usual occurrence that many ads required you to call after Tuesday.
Last night, while coming back into the city from a holiday weekend away in CT, right as we passed the spot, my mind jumped to one of my experiences looking at a roommate situation directly off of CPW. There are a few memorable meetings that will forever be planted in the accessible part of my brain, but this one was stuck back there in my subconscious; just waiting for a moment to bring it out. It was the second apartment share situation on the UWS that I had looked at. But like several others, it was definitely a bit weird.
A young woman showed me the room that she had for rent, which was perfectly fine in size and condition. But, I noticed that there were an unusual amount of bottles of medication in her kitchen. Throughout the entire conversation, I kept darting my eyes between her and the huge stacked up pile of Valley of the Dolls meds. It wasn’t hard to notice. We were standing in the doorway of the room to be rented which faced into the kitchen, and had a direct view of her personal pharmaceutical stash. I remember searching for signs of sickness on her, which I didn’t seem to find. Was it a temporary or long term illness? Was she contagious? Was she in fact…A ZOMBIE!? The whole time I kept wondering what exactly was wrong with her, and would she die while I was living there? In the worst case scenario, would she die right there while interviewing me?
You would think that if you walked someone through your kitchen and there was an unmistakable pile of meds stacked up like a beer pyramid in a frat house, you would somehow work that in your conversation. I guess she didn’t read up on her Amy Vanderbilt book of manners. I guess I didn’t either, because there was no way I could gently broach the subject with her. She didn’t consider me for the apartment share, and deep down, I was kind of glad.
My goal at the time was to write an apartment hunting 101 type of book. In between the references and tips would be mine and other's stories about looking for apartments. These would of course be horror stories, funny anecdotes or amazing out of the ordinary finds. I wanted it to be a cross between the Newcomer’s books and the Zany’s books, and I also wanted to include my own experiences. The chapters would be named for the neighborhood and borough where the action occurred in; each story representing a different area of the city. My goal was to get away from those formal books, and offer the reader tips and hints from the people who lived it.
Sadly, in the haste to exit my temporary abode in order to get to my newly acquired apartment, I threw out my packet of information. It was a momentary lapse of reason. Turns out, I was more motivated writing a book during the period I was experiencing my own apartment hunting. Naturally, time has made me forget many of the addresses, but the experiences are there somewhere, inside my head. They are waiting for some event to bring them up to my consciousness and I can add them here hopefully for posterity.
I’m trying my hand at plant ownership - again. Those who know me are well aware that I can’t seem to keep anything alive in that tenement trap. Blame a dry heating source and lack of direct sunlight, but it seems that the minute I bring any greenery inside, it curls up and dies a dog’s death within a matter of days.
Yesterday, on my way back from the doctor’s, I passed a floral shop that had little Venus fly traps outside. Intrigued, I stopped and inquired about the upkeep on such an interesting horticultural creature. I was told what sounded good to me – low light and no watering needed. Sounds like my kind of plant! So, you keep the top on this little guy to keep him moist. Once in awhile, you take the top off in order for him to catch bugs. This should be interesting.
Now, what do I name him? A plant certainly deserves a name.
I thought immediately of the movie - musical play - and remake Little Shop of Horrors and decided that naming him Audrey II or Seymour would be too cliché. Then, it came to me. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. I’m going to be totally sexist and say that I identify a bug killing plant as male.
Mars it is.
Mars is my Venus fly trap’s name.
(Okay, that last bit sounded kind of naughty)
Excuse the Bridget Jones like calculations, but my alcohol damage for the week (Saturday to Saturday) was as follows:
3 - Big yummy cups of Sangria
1 - Strawberry martini
2 - Glasses Pinot Noir
3 - Vodka tonics
3 - Shots (2 SoCo and one a watermelon tasting thingy)
The Sangria was consumed at my friend's bridal shower. The martini, after work with friends. The two glasses of Pinot? Originally only meant to be one. I treated myself to my most favorite restaurant, Lamarca, and the waitress gave me another on the house. Rounding off the week was all that vodka...and those shots! Again, this was for the first friend mentioned; but now at her bachelorette party.
Don't get me wrong, the fun times went hand in hand with the fun drinks. I'm not much of a drinker, but to be honest, I feel pickled. I need a detox!
A funny thing happened on the way to the bridal shower. I had to take the NJ Transit train in what seemed like an eternal ride, complete with all local stops. What is it with me, New Jersey, and long exhausted weekend trips anyway? Because the party was out in the sticks, once the train arrived, I had to take a cab from the station to the house. I wasn't exactly feeling the impending cab fare and began to look for an opportunity. I spotted another woman at the ATM machine grasping what appeared to be a shower gift. I approached this total stranger and asked, "Excuse me, are you by any chance going to T's shower?"
Surprised and startled at my question, it turned out she was indeed another shower guest. I asked if she would like to share a cab to D's house; and we both saved time, effort, and money to our destination.
You see, I'm just like that.
There are four types of individuals.
1. Those who whistle
2. Those who hum
3. Those who whistle and hum
4. Those who so desperately want to go homicidal on 1, 2, and 3.
As you might have already guessed, I am in the number four category.
I am a devout magazine junkie, and the place I prefer to do business at is the magazine store in my neighborhood, which I stop in sometimes on my way home from work. Now, I've gotten much way better at managing my addiction, and I mostly browse whilst the young cute Middle-Eastern guy behind the counter flirts with me. Personally, I think it's a ploy on his part to get me to buy more, but since I'm forced to take it one day at a time with my habit, I just go along with the niceties.
The other day, whilst browsing, there he was – like a villainous superhero - The Hummer. This wasn’t your ordinary variety of offender. Like the ones who are humming away melodically on a happy, snappy tune. No, this was the worst of the lot. The down and dirty type. He was in the hum-a-few-bars-slow-and-randomly-way category of delinquent. And in a very low baritone voice I might add.
STOP HUMMING!!
Now, with the ones who hum away sing-songy like, you can just adjust your brain to tune them out. Make them background noise. With the type I faced the other day; you can’t really tell when the next verse is going to assault your eardrums. So you begin that long road to craziness trying to figure out when they will strike next. You even begin to think you are hearing them. And being in a store with roughly the square footage of my shoebox apartment, I couldn't get away from him.
I got so uncomfortable I just walked out. Yeah, just like that. Plus, he was real tall like and imposing, so I didn't have the courage to yell at him. To those who know about my magazine obsession, this was certainly no small feat.
Who could forget that shining moment which changed my outlook on life forever? I most certainly can’t. It was twenty years ago today, I first visited NYC. It was twenty years ago today that sealed my fate. A trip that made me realize THIS was the place where I was going to live. Be it a month, a year, or forever; I would one day be able to say, “I lived there”.
It was the annual 9th grade trip with my choir group. Our teacher, Mr. Lumpkin had a way of taking us places which on the surface, made sense. But in practice, proved to be excursions that let us blow off a lot of teen angst. Deep down, his goal was absolute. He wanted to spread music to the masses. He wanted to let us know that it was possible to sing anywhere and have fun in the process. I remember the time he took our class to his church. We stopped in and sang a few songs with Mr. Lumpkin on the organ. The rest of the afternoon was spent eating at McDonald's. You see, he knew how to plan a trip around hyperactive junior high school girls, and a trip into the city proved to be no different. I was so excited I could hardly sleep the night prior and the trip there was uneventful. Once we arrived, however, it proved to be the most magical thing possible for someone like me, who didn’t have the normal opportunities that someone my age had.
We gathered together near the fountain at Lincoln Center, sang a few songs, and we were on our way. Our tour bus guide was a guy named Scott, whom I later found out, was an extra in one of my most favorite movies, Desperately Seeking Susan. You can see him, in the dance club scene when Madonna walks away from the jukebox. Scott’s leaning against the wall, wearing sunglasses. I thought I had died and gone to heaven with this information. After touring throughout the city on the bus with Scott pointing out landmarks, and us with our cameras to the glass, we all went up the Empire State Building, browsed through The Wiz (now a Wendy’s), and had lunch at the McDonald's on 5th Ave and 33rd street. Funny enough, the night I arrived in June of 1997 to live here, the only place open that I could get any dinner was that very same McDonald's, layout unchanged.
Now here’s the major memory I have of that day. With my spending money, I bought a map of Manhattan. I remember the perplexed looks on some of my classmate’s faces when they saw my purchase. But, I knew. I knew what my future would have in store for me. I knew. Once home, I studied that map, but it didn’t help. I hadn’t visited enough to really learn what I needed to know. I think it was just my excitement at my new awakening, combined with a little bit of wanting to bring a tangible piece of the city back home to me all for myself. It’s funny, because today, I hardly know where things are, and rarely if ever travel above 40th street. I’m the one who whips out her little business card sized map of lower Manhattan in order to get my bearings. In a city where there are two West 12th streets, sometimes you have no choice but to!
This article below really resonated with me the first time I read it. Looking back on that day – May 14, 1987 - I see a bit of myself in the visitor the author mentions. I wonder if I gave off any signs or signals that showed I was different from all the rest? I would like to think that I did, but I can’t remember. I do recall not being phased at the things that came my way, and I didn’t point at people as my classmates did. I was pretty copacetic about life in the city and it's idiosyncrasies. Could that be it? Again, I don’t know.
So, I wish myself a happy 20th anniversary (I feel old just saying that!). I wonder - how many more?
TIMES SQUARE AT 100; Once I Was You
By MARK ALLEN
Published: June 13, 2004
MORE and more these days, I've been venturing toward the Times Square area, even if it's a little out of my way. I used to avoid the ''new'' Times Square because that was what real New Yorkers did, but lately I've been drawn to its colorful, touristy energy. I like navigating among its bombastic mobs; they make me feel as if I'm both being swallowed up by the crowd and am also the last man on earth.
These days, Times Square possesses some of the most pure and unaffected energy anywhere in Manhattan. Within its glut of intersections lie the ghosts of countless individual, split-second moments, the moments of people's first impressions of New York, the first and final meeting between an individuals expectations and the real thing.
But the real reason I've been gravitating here is because every once in a while, I'll spy someone in the crowd of tourists who catches my eye, probably because I am reminded of myself on that slapstick day some 10 years ago when I first arrived here.
They may be trying slyly to separate from a tour group, or perhaps they simply seem a bit too smart for their surroundings. They're easily spotted because whether or not they're conscious of it, they're the ones who secretly want to own the city, and this desire makes them shine very brightly.
I can usually spot the traits that differentiate the mere visitor from those rare individuals who have secretly planned on moving here their entire lives and are just testing the waters this time around.
Visitors who are indeed just visiting gawk in celebratory delight at the tourist attractions -- the neon, the zipper, the waxy giants. Visitors who have big plans for actually living here study the background extras behind those tourist attractions, the New Yorkers themselves.
I know this because I showed these peculiar characteristics when I emerged out of a hissing subway station on 42nd Street and Broadway on that first day 10 years ago. I tried to pretend I was gawking at all the objects and symbols that have made Times Square so legendary, but instinctively my eyes kept snapping back down to the throngs of people zooming back and forth in the foreground.
There were no outstretched arms or welcoming smiles, just black umbrellas, crisp hairstyles and leather briefcases whizzing by mere inches past my nose. These were my new neighbors, all eight million of them, and they seemed unfazed by Times Square's grand, galactic corridors.
It wasn't until out of nowhere, one of them approached me and asked if I needed help, that I realized I was holding an unfolded map in one outstretched hand. I remember the amazement I felt that a real New Yorker was actually speaking to me. I never saw him again, but I'll never forget that smiling face in the center of Times Square, framed by the hundreds of whizzing pedestrians all around us. That was the first human interaction I had in New York.
When I pass through Times Square these days, and I spot someone, map unfurled, perhaps studying the crowd a bit too much, I always offer to help. And though they're soon on their way again, I always think that someday they'll be back for good.
Today, I did what I never do much that I should do more often. I went to Ikea. Or, as the family in Maine would call it, "Ikee-ER". One of the luxuries of city living is that places like this actually will do stuff to get you to their locale. Case in point - Ikea offers a free shuttle bus service every weekend, picking up and dropping off from the Port Authority bus terminal. So, it's not unusual to see numerous hipsters waiting in a very, very long line at Gate #5 for this bus.
I went out of want/need of picture frames and didn't find what I was looking for. But I came back with the bendable cutting board (a necessity in my teeny-tiny kitchen), and some cheap towels to place across my windowsill to catch the grime that enters my apartment in the summertime (you have to see it to believe it). Oh, and I couldn't leave without buying some proper Scandinavian licorice.
I like Ikea, but I also hate it. For some time, all I could think was, what is it about this place that leaves me so conflicted? This weekend I figured it out. I go there mainly for the food. Okay, I'll admit it, I treat the cafeteria as if I were really in Sweden. The Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce are definitely the highpoint of my trip there. The coffee, which I rarely drink in my day to day life, is strong and smooth. And I get all jazzed up over the decadent desserts (who wouldn't!). My view of Swedish cuisine is forever skewed. I think anyway. I recall visiting the cafe inside the Scandinavia House and feeling let down that the $4.99 meatball plate special was not the focal point of the menu. Such is life I guess.
I guess the moral to the story is that I only emphatically LOVE the place. But, I do enjoy visiting.
So the next time you hear me mention that I went to Ikea, don't first ask what I bought. First ask me what I ate!
I've pretty much decided that the topic of my research paper will be about the Alaskan Inupiat and the Canadian Iqaluit and the problems each tribe is facing due to global warming. The Inupiat and the Iqaluit comprise the indigenous peoples we refer to as the Inuit, or "Eskimo" as they are often better known.
That's going to be a lot for me to chew on! I'll need all the luck in the world to pull this off. I originally thought of researching the history of the Hawaiian monarchy, but we are focusing more on the continental US and Canada. Not so much on the Pacific Islands.
You didn't know that Hawaii was once a kingdom? When someone tells you that the US never had a monarchy of its own, you can with confidence declare, "No my friend, we had one until 1887".
A very interesting history indeed.
Today, I met up with my mom and cousins in Tarrytown, NY. Mom had wanted to go for awhile and was waiting for good weather and another body in the car for the trip. Her favorite show back in the day was "Dark Shadows", and the feature length films had scenes filmed on location at the Lyndhurst estate, and the Sleepy Hollow cemetery. I was interested too. I figured I'd pay homage to Washington Irving, whose name graces a street and the school that are in close proximity to me.
Turns out, the cemetery was a blast. An old and absolutely huge Victorian set up, complete with mausoleums and beautiful landscaping. The weather was totally agreeable and perfect for exploring. You could get lost here, and at times, we did! We found Washington Irving's grave (who wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) and several cool mausoleums. Oddly enough, they are not really built for the living to enjoy. We found this out from all the effort it took to peer inside where we saw busts and statues, stained glass windows and mosaic tiles. Beautiful. The Rockefeller's mausoleum looks like one should be taking an oath in front of it. What we didn't anticipate were deer - lots of them. With the cemetery situated near woods, and the isolation and greenery of the cemetery, it makes it ideal for their lifestyle.
Naturally, any outing with family results in dirty jokes and much laughter. Some of the surnames on these graves left us in complete stitches with our jokes expanding into "what ifs" and "imagine ifs".
I think we all underestimated how much there was to do there, because we focused on the cemetery for the better part of the day. The center of town was like any other in Westchester County, complete with antique shops and such sprinkled all over. On a recommendation from my co-worker, we ate at Bella's for some good diner food, and had homemade ice cream at Main Street Sweets. Afterwards, we strolled up and down Main Street stopping into the quaint shops.
In the end, we had no time for Lyndhurst, the Rockefeller estate, or Irving's Sunnyside home.
I'm still waiting for photos back from my cousin's camera. She managed to get perfect pictures with a cheapo camera, close up, of the deer. Isn't that always the case? I'll add them when she gets around to sending them to me.
You can see my pictures here.
Yesterday, a co-worker and I ducked out of work and schlepped down to the Metropolitan Pavilion for the LeSportsac sample sale. Apparently, and according to those working there (I guess you could say those in-the-know), this was LeSportsac’s first sample sale in fifteen years. The stuff would be up to 80% off the regular retail price!!
The line outside the sale was L-O-N-G. We waited an hour just to get inside. Thankfully, bossman was away on business, or else we would never have gotten away with that crime against humanity. They were only letting five in for every five people who left. The thing I hate about long lines full of anticipated and easy to anger persons is that you’ve got that infamous game of Telephone going on (or "Chinese whispers" for my un-PC readers). This is great when you really want to create crowd chaos [insert sarcasm here]. Rumors become rampant, and things are taken out of context. To give you a for instance - When someone from the sale came down and told the crowd that the line to pay by credit card was about an hour wait and if you pay in cash, the cash line will be shorter, you heard whispers of “we can only pay in cash!” Of course, someone turns to the other and says, “She said we can only pay in cash, no credit cards”. Not true there, rabble rouser. I can only dare to imagine what that comment turned into by the time it reached the end of the line.
Once we managed to get in, it was well worth it. Luckily, because the space at the MP is big, everything was very organized and easily accessible - considering the ensuing madhouse. There was A LOT of inventory. My heart beating and my feet on go; I bolted around the place clutching the huge bluish-clear heavy grade garbage bag they pass out to you at the entrance for a shopping bag. The thing to do is grab what looks good, throw it in your bag and inspect it later to see if you actually want it.
Prices on the wall indicated the more you bought, the more you saved. So, say, a cell phone holder was for $10. If you bought three of them, they would go down to about $6 each. You catch my drift?
In the end I amassed quite the pile of booty. The line to pay by credit card was long. The cash line? Like, five minutes. I thought I had enough to pay by cash, but ended up having to borrow from said co-worker. Otherwise, I would have been banished to the back of the credit card line like I was being dragged away to a Turkish prison. Perish the thought.
What did I get for my blood, sweat and tears?
Looks like the long waited for day this year has come to naught. Every first Saturday of May, the Gramercy Park Block Association sponsors what is known as “Gramercy Park Day”. This is one of only two times out of the year (the second being the Christmas concert) when those hallowed iron doors of this private park open to allow the throngs of neighborhood citizens inside. Otherwise, you will need to live around the perimeter of the park, and have a key.
GPD turns into a fair of sorts, with free food, clowns and various activities for young and old. Now that it's cancelled indefinitely? The huddled masses yearning to breathe free will have to continue to hang outside of the locked gates and peer inside, like they do 363 times out of the rest of the year.
I am so thrilled. It's thundering outside right now. Nice big firing-the-cannon type booms.
We hardly EVER get thunder storms here in the city, never mind seeing any lightening (Boo! Hiss!). I have warm and fuzzy memories of New England thunder and lightening storms, especially the late summer/early fall storms where the weather is still nice and warm. The rain cooling off whatever ailed us. We would sit out on the porch with beverage in hand, watch the rain come down, and measure the level of ka-booms. Even the animals would come sit with us, waiting for it all to end so they could resume their last of the warm weather frolicking.
