well the neighborhood’s bustling again

drugdealers–and the ppl that hang around them–are like roaches: for every one that disappears, five more take his or her place. there is no such thing as “one roach” (just as there’s “no such thing as one mouse,” some home specialist said on the today show this morning. i can attest to that.  i can also attest to the roaches, but i digress). there is no such thing as a lone drugdealer. or hooker. or any such neighborhood riffraff. this is just my theory. but i think i’m right on the mark.

another one of my theories: as soon as you start telling yourself that things are SO much better–omG i haven’t gotten a headache in two whole weeks! the very next day? THREE-DAY MIGRAINE–they will go to sh*t. this is not always so. but watch what you tell yourself. or others.

holly and i were just thinking–trembly little happy thoughts that were too fragile even to mention to each other–that things in our neighborhood were settling down.

the paddywagon came a few weeks ago and carted off most of the local corner house’s dealers, hookers, etc. things were quiet. for, like, a few days. it was nice. then, of course, a whole new crew–with fancy jeans and shiny belts–came to replace them. but then it rained for four days straight and they disappeared. (drugdealers apparently do not like the rain. at least not in baltimore. go figure!) and now it seems like the power in the drughouse was turned off (at least on the first floor; the peeping tom lives on the second floor. he’s got lights. i don’t even want to talk about that freak.) and i honestly think the cold drove them away. (they don’t like to be cold either. hm.)

well now it’s friggin warm again (maryland weather) and lo and behold, more new ppl. more than that, some of the old hookers (and, yes, some of them really are ”old hookers”)/dealers/users (?) must’ve been released from prison and they’re back friggin running their friggin mouths all. day. long. you can hear them from around the block. i kid you not.

for all of you that smoke, esp. you ladies, stop right now. just stop. if not for your health or your looks then for your goshdarn VOICE. b/c i swear, if you’re my age (early 30s), in about 20 years you will sound like a baltimore hooker. and trust me, you don’t want that.

isn’t it crazy that some ppl still think calling someone gay is a dis??

sorry i disappeared, guys. i had four-day headache (cold/bad-weather induced, i think) but i’m back and i have a story.

holly and i decided we’d have a date night last, what was it? wednesday? yeah, wednesday night. this had everything to do with the fact that we recently found an old amc movie giftcard we had forgotten about (read: lost) from our wedding. we decided (read: i strongly suggested) on “whip it,”  the cute drew barrymore-directed movie about a girl who’s mom wants her to be a beauty pageant queen, but instead she joins a rollerderby team. great movie. awesome soundtrack, too. i highly recommend it. (funny that i was the one that was really gung-ho about seeing it, and holly wound up loving it even more than i did.)

so we ate a nice dinner (i actually cooked it! i know, right?!) and went to the theatre, located in a popular–and big–faux-mainstreet shopping area off 95. this place is known for tough parking, and wednesday night was no different than usual in that regard. we pull into the lot closest to the theatre, and we’re trying to navigate our way to a spot and there’s a car–a hoopty-type thing–idling, just sitting there, in our way. i don’t know if it was the rain (the rain makes ppl dumb on the road, i’ve decided; perhaps this is just maryland, but my hunch is that it’s everywhere) or what, but it was like, dude, wtf are you doing? we could barely make it around him. if holly, who was driving, of course (duh! driving could srsly ruin my nails! ha, no totally kidding but i bet you believed me) wasn’t paying attn, we would have definitely hit him.

anyway, she was in one of her take-no-sh*t-on-the-road moods (trust me, you don’t want get on her bad side on those days so ppl, puh-LEESE put on your blinkers). honestly, i don’t remember the details (duh, looking at my nails. jk, ha), but she essentially swerved around him to avoid a father walking with kids. i think she yelled at him. but not, like, out the car window or anything. and plus the windows were closed.

so we pull into the spot and i think we’re in the clear until holly opens her door real fast and gets out and i hear yelling. i’m thinking, ohno. oh nonononoNO HOLLY, NO! do NOT engage this moron! he could have a GUN! it’s baltimore, fer cryin out loud! every single day feels here like russian roulette. he’s yelling about her driving, she’s yelling about his, and i’m sitting in the passenger seat just holding my breath that the idiot doesn’t, you know, shoot us.

my hands have turned to ice and i’m thinking, great, date night is kind of ruined and it hasn’t even started. she comes back, leans in the car, sighs really loudly, takes out the key from the ignition and then slams the door shut. i get out and we start walking towards the theatre. i break the silence.

“is he gone?
“yeah, he’s gone.”
“how do you know? he could be following us.”
“he’s not following us.”

silence. rain drops.

“what a friggin idiot,” holly says.
“yeah.”

we walk into the theatre with only a few minutes to spare and walk up to the touchscreen ticket machines. i start tapping on the screen to get our tickets.

“you know he called me a dyke,” holly says.

“what?”

“yeah. before he got back into his car he yelled ‘dyke.’”

i suddenly felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

“you’re f*cking kidding me,” i said.

“nope.”

i stared at her feeling bad. i felt bad and angry and disgusted.

“you know, it didn’t hurt my feelings.”

i stood there, fuming in front of the blaring red ticket screens. i suddenly felt all bruised up inside. i know i shouldn’t have b/c he was just an ignorant idiot, but i did anyway.

“c’mon,” she said, touching my arm. “let’s go see the movie.”

we saw the movie and forgot about everything. we still held hands even tho i suddenly felt scared to–even in the dark. when some ignorant jerk yells dyke at you, somehow everything feels unsafe even tho you know it’s probably ok. everyone suddenly seems suspect.

we very rarely encounter anything like that. but it’s scary, you know. what’s just bubbling under the surface of so many ppl. walking back to the car in the dark, rainy lot got us thinking about what went down just a couple hours earlier.

“it’s like, so i’m gay. big f*cking deal. call me a ‘dyke,’  i don’t care,” holly said with a laugh.

“tell us something we don’t know,” i chimed in.

we laughed at that jerk’s ignorance. b/c that’s what you do. you gotta laugh it off. b/c ppl are f*cking stupid.

it’s crazy how some ppl still think calling someone gay is a dis. if someone thinks you’re a bad driver, they get out of their car, puff up their chests and call you a name that means you’re attracted to ppl of the same sex. woah, big dis, dude. gay and proud, buddy. gay as a day in may and f*cking proud of it. we’re here. we’re queer. get used to it.

plus you’re probably even gayer than we are!

booyah!

and all this time, i thought the old man was going senile

when in actuality, he was just freaking out, nervous, that i’d CAUGHT him!

recently, i told you about our old man neighbor. the ex-librarian hermit conspiracy theorist who (unknowingly?) breeds rats in his backyard and basement. the one that holly and i sort of take note of to make sure he hasn’t kicked it. the one i call the city about b/c i am honestly concerned that his house is a huge potential fireball since it’s (an exterminator told us, the one we somehow–temporarily, obviously–convinced him to hire) filled, floor to ceiling w/papers and books. the one who’s yard is so overgrown his weeds look like dinosaur snacks and have grown *berries* and things that resemble corn stalks. yes, him.

well a couple weeks ago, garbage day, now that i think about it, i was coming into our house or leaving it, i forget, and i see him walking up his steps. i say hello and i startle him (as per usual whenever i say hello or try to be nice) and when he turns around i notice he has a camera. i’m like, “taking pictures?” and he was like, what? and then babbles something about documenting dead rats in the alleyway. as if you couldn’t tell by my recent entry, this is not news.

i thought it was weird, but then again, he seems a little weird.

then i say something about the weather, about how it had finally gotten cold and then he starts going on about a play or something with the word “september” in the title. i can barely hear him, since he wears a hearing aid and must keep it up too high b/c he always whispers. anyway, he seems really nervous and just keeps laughing, all nervous-like, and going on and on about who knows what. i’m trying to be polite, but using the old, ok-see-you-later! body language (you know, when you’re talking but you start moving further and further away until the person you’re talking to, who obviously hasn’t gotten the hint yet, is 200-300 feet away but still talking) to make an escape.

finally i was like ok bye! have a great day! all the while shaking my head that the poor old man has finally started to lose his marbles.

then we get the “environmental citation” i mentioned the other day. you know, about not having our trashbag in the “proper receptacle”–which was actually leftover recycling that the recycling guys didn’t pick up. (please note: we’re the good neighbors. the ones actually committed to making our neighborhood a better place, and not, say, selling cocaine on our street corner, or buying it, or literally stuffing trash down chesapeake bay drainage sewers (remind me again why ppl eat living things out of the bay??) or putting our trash out unprotected from the elements (i.e. rats) three days before it’s picked up.)

well we’re requesting a hearing to object to the $50 fine b/c it’s friggin ridiculous. so i’m filling it out yesterday and checking off boxes:

“i request a hearing.”  i check off the box and sign and date it.
“i request the officer’s presence.” i check off the box and sign and date it.
“the citation(s) were issued based on information provided in an affidavit completed by a member of the public. check the box provided if you would like the affiant to be present at the hearing.”

WAIT WHAT?!

“aw HELL no!” i shout across the house.

i read the last part out loud to holly.

“THE OLD MAN!” i shout louder. “motherf*cker!”

“that’s what he was doing with the camera! he’s not going senile! HE WAS NERVOUS!”

we broke out our cell phone calendars and sure enough, we figured it out. the day he was out taking photos was right around the time of citation. the old man reported us!

you better beLIEVE i jumped on 311 (the non-emergency city call center) and reported absolutely everything i’ve been holding back. the cornstalk weeds. the rat factory garage (and smell of rotting rat flesh). the gutters (that we have offered to fix) that continually dump water in our basement.

here we’ve been kind to you. always polite. offering to help. but no. you had to take it this far. you had to make something out of nothing. so now it is on, old man. oh it is on like donkey kong.

we’ll see you in court! bring it!

interesting exterminator fact of the day

skip the peanut butter bait, folks.
also skip the cheese.

according to our new orkin man, mice (and rats, apparently) go crazy over…

wait for it!

slim jims!!!

we were like, “REALLY??!!” and he was like, “yes, really!”

this is the no-fail rodent attractant, his manager told him. “and she’s been doing this twice as long as i have!” he said. (she?! i thought. this struck me as funny. yes, obviously i’m sexist.)

and what do mice hate the smell of??? i bet you don’t know. i didn’t.

peppermint!

this is what everyone else in baltimore must secretly place around the house before company comes over so the mothereffin little critters don’t decide to, say, run across the room when you’re throwing a fancy dinner party. not that that’s ever happened to us. i’m uh…i’m just saying (ijs).

oh geezus! a trap just snapped. i nearly had a heart attack. oh fer cryin out loud, can i get a little peace and quiet around here?! my heart’s beating out of my chest. i was going to tell you something else, something funny…and thanks to our shared walls and filthyass neighbors, i’ve forgotten. i swear, my nerves are completely shot.  if i drank, i’d so be drinking right now. instead i’m going to listen to barry manilow. (i’m not kidding.) that’s how you know your nerves are shot to hell: easy listening.

we tried sushi again last night. big mistake. (“not a big mistake,” holly just said. “we’re gettin’ there.” yeah. not me. notsomuch.)

i'm so cool now b/c i ate this. well kind of. almost.

sushi. everybody talks about it. everybody looooooves sushi. holly and i have tried it and yeah, notsomuch.

me, i prefer my sushi the jewish way: smoked and salted. yes, folks, lox. on a bagel. with cream cheese. and maybe a cup of coffee. maybe a little piece of cheese danish on the side…but i digress. my–and holly’s–main issues with sushi are the following: the seaweed. the raw fish. we both don’t like seaweed. and fish we both prefer cooked.

the one and only time i tried sushi was a couple years ago with a then-work friend. i was a little scared. i settled that it was the seaweed that was my big issue, since i decided beforehand to order salmon. it resembles lox, i reasoned, and lox isn’t cooked anyway. 

“try the sashimi,” she offered helpfully. “it doesn’t have any seaweed. you’ll probably like it.”

so i hesitantly put it in my mouth and it was all i could do not to gag: it looked like lox. felt like lox. except it was on this bed of sticky rice. and tasted like…nothing. i don’t remember if i swallowed it or not, but i definitely couldn’t have another bite.

fast forward a couple years to last night. we went to a really nice japanese restaurant for a close friend’s birthday get together. holly and i were intrigued by this “bento box” thing, where you basically order four different things from columns a, b, c and d, and it’s presented in a cute little box. b, c and d all had cooked options, so we decided aw hell, this place is so fun, this box thing seems so cool, let’s just, omg let’s order some sushi from column a.

i order a spicy tuna roll “crispy” since that seems to be popular and after all, i’m trying to be part of the crowd here. i figure, i love tuna, and i’ve had it fairly rare–how different could it be?  i told holly to order something different so that way we could share. we agree a california roll would be a safe bet, since we thought it was vegetarian.

so the food comes and these boxes, they are so pretty. and there’s the sushi, looking so cute and i’m actually kind of excited about getting into this sushi thing. i can totally do this, i think to myself. totally.

we are taught how to combine the soy sauce and the wasabi, and holly’s like, wait, what’s this? this doesn’t look like avocado or cucumber. the waiter informs us it’s imitation crab meat. say “crab meat” even “imitation crab meat” to us and alarms go off.

i’m kosher, don’t touch crab. holly’s twice removed from crab (another story for another day; let’s just say she doesn’t eat it). everyone at the table starts buzzing that it’s definitely not crab, definitely not. definitely fish. probably cooked. holly eyes it suspiciously.

i go first. i dip the pretty roll into the soy sauce/wasabi mixture and, clueless dork that i am, bite into half of it and try to get the rest out of my mouth, and i’m having a helluva time of it b/c the seaweed’s so tough. i basically have to rip it apart with my teeth and the other half plops down into the sauce. and i surprise myself by…liking it!

“oh my GOSH i LIKE this!” i exclaim.

amy, who’s teaching us how to do the whole sushi thing, is like “good!! that’s awesome!”

“but man, it’s tough to bite through!”

amy, probably the world’s most non-judgmental sushi teacher, is like, “well, you’re actually supposed to put the whole thing in your mouth.”

“ohh,” i say.

i take the other half, drowning in the sauce by now, and pop it in my mouth. it’s good, i decide. right on. i’m cool now. i can tell ppl i eat sushi ! i think. i am suddenly feeling like one of the “in” kids.

meanwhile holly’s staring at her sushi, trying to decide if she’s going to eat it or not, since it’s associated with crabmeat, even tho there’s not a licka crab meat in the thing. we’re informed that it’s an avocado roll that’s vegetarian. not a california roll. oh. well, live and learn, we figure.

holly, unlike me, manages to get the whole thing down in one bite. doesn’t really like it. chases it with a beer. ok, it was actually fried chicken, she’s informing me now, as she reads this post over my shoulder. but she did have a beer, too, which probably also helped.  

“it’s not that bad,” she says. “but i definitely needed the chaser,” she tells me.

meanwhile, i’m trying to figure out this whole pop-the-whole-piece-of-sushi-in-your-mouth thing. i decide to go for it. i dip it in the sauce mixture and pop it in my mouth.

ohmygoshi’mgoingtothrowup, i think. i immediatley panic. what does one do in these sorts of situations?? when you’re at a birthday party at a nice restaurant and the special birthday girl is sitting directly across from you and your mouth is full of raw fish, seaweed and rice and you’re gonna barf if you don’t spit it out and there’s nothing but cloth friggin napkins. i’ll tell you what you do: you grab the teenytiny paper napkin under your iced tea, wait til no one’s looking, spit it in there, secretly shove it in your bento box and cover the whole thing with pickled ginger. that’s what you do. then you order a cocktail even tho you barely ever drink (captain & coke) to calm your nerves b/c you’re about to get an anxiety attack b/c you’re a huge dork.

even tho the flavor was ok, something about having the whole thing in my mouth–all the textures, the rice and the seaweed and the squishy fish. it was just too much to take. and i have a fairly strong stomach. holly says we’re going to try it again, and try to like it doggone it. but i say aw hell no. seaweed can stay in the ocean and anything that was once living needs to cooked. or at least smoked. and served over cream cheese.

it’s fall. can we give the ghetto-ass ice cream truck a break now?

ok so this isn't one from our neighborhood fleet, but it's damn near close. heaven forbid i try to take a picture of one and it might stop thinking i want some hepatitis softsorve.

please??? just one day. all i’m asking for is one day without “pop goes the weasel” or some other numnuts half-assed tune jangling full blast down our street.

oh the neighborhood ice cream truck. or trucks, as i honest to goodness don’t know if it’s one truck or a whole fleet of ‘em (i mean, can you tell roaches apart? not really! you see my point). sometimes i think they’re gonna be the end of me. like, they are gonna drive me to drink. and i am not a drinker.

“honey,” i often say to holly, usually when i’m fighting a migraine late in the day, when i just want dark and i just want quiet. “i swear, if we had a gun and i was a different person, i’d blow the speaker right offa that thing.”

“i know, honey,” she says soothingly. “i know you would…shhhh…”

it starts waaaay before memorial day, these ghetto-ass ice cream ice cream trucks and their gosh-forsakin music. i don’t know what time of day they start (after all, i’ve been doing the whole m-f, 9-5 thing, until now, that is, ha) but i’ll tell you what time they do stop: LATE.

now you tell me: what type of ice cream truck is still blaring its damn music and sitting on street corners at 10 or 11 p.m.? is it just me or do you think these trucks are selling more than just ice cream? i’ve even called the cops on them.

“hello, police.”

“uh, hello,” i say, my voice a combination of intense irritation and exhaustion. “there is an ice cream truck in our neighborhood that will. not. quit. it’s almost 11 at night! i’m trying to sleep! i have to work tomorrow!”

then the operator tells me that they really can’t do anything about it until after 11 p.m. or some other such bullsh*t. and then i hang up and curse this city and its supreme ghettoness. the worst is when at the tail end of summer, they start playing christmas music. “silent night”? at 97  degrees and 99 percent humidity? try that one on for size.

here’s another funny thing: all this time–for three years now–holly and i thought these trucks were selling, you know, your typical packaged ice cream…sandwiches, popsicles, that sort of thing. then we find out–as holly approached the doggone truck in a moment of sheer i-need-ice-cream-now weakness over the summer–that the doggone thing sells soft serve. who in their right mind would buy friggin soft serve from a ghettoass baltimore ice cream truck that blares “silent night” in the middle of summer, at 10 p.m., that probably hasn’t been cleaned since 1965??

actually i do know one person. our welder. the guy who welded the industrial-style steel staircase in our house. all the sudden it’s coming back to me how he used to buy milkshakes from those trucks when he was working in here. he was also going thru major morphine withdrawl from a 60-some ft. fall on his face. but you see where i’m going w/this.

anyway, i know it’s hard in this town, but all i’m asking for is a little peace and quiet.

“when you’re pregnant, i’m sending you to your parents’ for nine months”

i am apparently one of these when i'm sick. (my fave mug in our kitchen, btw. so funny, right??)

thanks, babe. thanks. i really appreciate that.

if you hadn’t already guessed, it was my lovely unlawfully-wedded partner who said that to me. only days ago. as i lay groaning in bed from a cold/flu type thing, which i undoubtedly must have caught in “room 618,” the room where they can ppl at my former place of work (i must give a shoutout to the ex-colleague/friend that pinpointed where we picked it up; she got it, too. HOLLA!)

so. apparently i’m a bad patient.

“you’re worse than a man!” holly says to me each and every time i get sick. [apparently men are bad patients? she was married before (yes, to a man, and yes, if she lets me i will tell you a little more about that in my book) so i guess she'd know.]

and i’m like (cough, sniffle), “babe! cut me slack! i don’t (cough, gag, etc.)…i don’t feel good!”

“i know you don’t feel good! you tell me every five minutes!” she said sometime over the past few days. “ i swear, woman, when you’re pregnant, i’m sending you to your parents’ for nine months!”

this, despite its ridiculousness (wait, honey, you’re joking right?? right?), made me laugh extremely hard. somehow i don’t think anyone would be ok with this plan except holly.

so yeah. i was sick. in case you were wondering where i was. which you probably weren’t. but still.  

“you probably have swine flu,” my mom said casually to me over the phone on friday.

“mom, i don’t have swine flu,” i said.

“you might. i mean, you probably do. maybe just a mild case. but it’s probably the swine flu.”

a mild case of the swine flu. oh mom. mothers. you know? i know you know. (esp. if you have a jewish mother.)

anyhow, it knocked me flat on my ass from thursday afternoon til today, pretty much. but in a way, it felt kind of good. like, cleansing. like all the bad stuff that built up in me over the past miserable year and a half of my four-year stay at FPOE (former place of employment; i’ll just call it that from now on, much easier) just kind of exploded and now it’s over. it also gave me a chance–more like forced me–to take it easy. tho i like stopping to enjoy, say, a cup of coffee, i so rarely take it truly easy. nothing like a whopper of a cold to force you to slow the hell down.

one thing i started doing again (haven’t done this in a long long time) while i was sick–and something i will continue doing, i am happy to say–is read. i love reading memoirs. especially effed up druggie/rehab/bad childhood memoirs, probably b/c it makes me feel really really ok and normal. [i can thank augusten burroughs, author of "running w/scissors," (bad bad childhood), "dry" (alcoholism/rehab) and "wolf at the table" (homicidal father; i read the entire thing on saturday)  for my fascination w/these books.] now i’m onto “a million little pieces,” despite all the controvery re: it’s authenticity.

why am i telling you this? i’m telling you b/c as i was calmly, quietly (yes, i can be quiet. sometimes. anyway) reading “a million little pieces” last night (holly, sitting on the floor in front of the couch, was doing homework-type stuff; she’s back in school in case i never mentioned it), we heard a sound. a sound we became all too familiar with over the cold months. a sound that, when i heard it while holly was at school last semester, i swore i thought something was gonna pop outta the damn wall and hiss and bear its teeth at me.

we muted the tv. (we were listening to the radio or something) we heard it again. louder.

we looked at each other, wide-eyed. after a moment we looked at each other again and shrugged.

“it’s probably just a mouse,” i said. nothing we can’t handle. we’ve dealt w/this crap before. if you live in baltimore, esp. in a rowhouse where you share ancient walls with potentially filthy and/or ancient neighbors.

we put the tv back on. the noise started again.

“MUTE THE TEEVEE,” i said in my most loud jewish whisper (you know, the kind you reserve for synogauge when you’re talking about how short someone’s skirt is).

we listened. nothing again. the tv went back on. then we heard the sound louder than we have ever ever heard it. i didn’t need to tell holly to mute it again, she did it w/out me saying a word. we listened, paralyzed with fear. i’m telling you, you guys would have sh*t your pants. the noise came closer
and closer
and closer…

and then…

it SQUEAKED.

then we screamed.

“HONEY. HONEY OH MY G-D IT’S A RAT. HONEY IT’S A RAT!!!!”

“IT’S IN THE VENTILATION!” holly shouted.

“OH MY G-D!” i screamed back, while i turned off the entire hvac (heating/ventilation/air-conditioning) system. well more like i turned it off and then on and them off again while i screamed and jumped up and down and freaked the hell out and shook.

it scurried again some more and stopped.

it probably wasn’t a rat. it probably was a mouse. i mean, who the hell knows. they’ve got to sound louder when they’re in huge industrial-grade metal exposed hvac pipes.  in any case, i’m tired of dealing w/this sh*t on our own. it’s time to bring in the big dogs. it’s time for a serious exterminator b/c i have had it.

i’ve pretty much had it w/everything lately. between the effing rats out back, the mice inside and out, the feral cats (we have caught quite a few; i’ll also leave that for the book) and, oh, i don’t know, witnessing a bunch of guys jump out of a car and kick the living sh*t out of some of our neighbors across the way (we called the police; unfortunately, this wasn’t the first or even the second time we’ve seen something like this go down late at night pretty much in front of our house), and the open-air drug market across the street, i don’t think either one of us is going to last much longer in this city. i’m really starting to lose my cool.

i just…we just. we need a break. you know? we need a goshdarn break.

altho, for the first time in my entire life,  i had to skip rosh hashanah services (over the weekend) b/c i was so sick, i really do feel like we will somehow get a break this year (jewish, i.e. lunar, year) and things will get better.

“bad things come in threes, right?” my mom said over the phone last night when i called to tell her what was going on. “that’s what they say. and then things start getting better.” (tho i must say she doesn’t know the half of it. no one really does save for holly and i)

while we’re way past three (again, the book), i’ve got to hope so. in the meantime, i’m just glad i’m not a disgusting infectious ”room 618″ mess anymore. i have cleansed myself of my FPOE and i. am ready. to rumble.

there are better things out there for me

i know this. i feel it. b/c i was laid off today. one door closes, a window opens.

i wasn’t the only one, either. ten percent of the organization was cut, 18 ppl.

i’ll tell you all, for those of you that don’t know me personally, or don’t know me well, i was miserable for a long time, so i’m looking at this as a blessing, an opportunity, more than anything.

i’m not going to go into it b/c, while i may have what some might call a big mouth (me??? never), i like to keep things classy. (anyway, all the juicy stuff is for my book, so you’re just going to have to wait ) but. i will say the following:

1) i have a sneaking suspicion i’m going to be getting a lot less headaches now.

2) while i’m stressing about cashflow (holly was laid off three weeks before our wedding, so, this doubly sucks) i am overwhelmed w/joy that i will be able to enjoy the season that i am ape-sh*t crazy for: fall.

 as in, i won’t be chained to my (ex) desk in my (ex) windowless office. i’ll be able to actually (gasp!) walk around, go to the park (with holly. during the *day*…sigh), stomp on soon-to-be-crunchy leaves and pet as many puppies as i want w/out any concern for time. as in: no busybody admin ladies who are all oddly obsessed w/my comings and goings noting in their little black admin books when i’ve left and when i return. the delight i feel at the prospect of this …well, i almost have no words for it.

3) twitter. w/said admin busybodies out of my hair, the tweets are unlocked, baby! it is ON! i’m in the process of putting the feed back up. bring it!

and, finally, last but certainly certainly not least:

4) lunch. lunch at home. and i don’t even have to wait til 11:30. (and i can eat it on the roof.)

good night, my lovelies. and to my facebook peeps: a million thanks for the kind words! (turns out facebook isn’t just great for coming out, launching blogs, having Big Fat Gay Weddings (BFGWs) and birthdays. it’s also pretty awesome when you lose your job.) you all are saying what i’ve been thinking since i got the news at 10 this morning, my breakfast barely digested and my to-go coffee mug from home still hot: this is a brand new beginning for me. and i’ll tell you something in case you don’t already know:

i’m completely unsinkable.

and like all those friggin cats that found their way into our walls this winter, i always land on my feet. something wonderful is going to come of this. i don’t know what right now, but it will. and altho i’m stressed in an unfamiliar new way, i have my life back. i. have my life. back. and i’m never going to lose myself like that again.

put your arm back in your car, dammit!

before somebody crashes into you and chops it off! i swear, some ppl really must not value their appendages or else they wouldn’t dangle them out their car windows!

i’ve seen it all summer, and while the warm weather’s still with us, i need to publicly say something before i burst: put. your arm. back. in your car.

now that i am an “experienced” driver (hey, i was a public transit city girl for a long time, this whole having-your-own-car is still somewhat new to me), i see how totally and completely easy it is to get in an accident. you look away, swerve as not to hit oh…a squirrel–or a deer…i don’t know, i mean, you can sneeze and hit something. what if that “something” is someone’s doggone squishy arm that they’re absentmindedly hanging out their driver’s-side window??? you don’t even need to get in an accident per se. you just need to brush up against it hard enough.

i don’t know about you, but my appendages are too damn important to me to hang out from my frigginass car window.

holly is sometimes guilty of this in the summer and it really irks me. granted, she doesn’t hang her entire arm out the window, but enough of it to make me feel lightheaded. i’m like, “BABE. COULD YOU GET. YOUR ARM. BACK IN THE CAR PLEASE.”

and she’s like, “BABE. CALM THE HELL DOWN. IT’S. FINE.”

then i put my hand over my eyes and shake my head and mumble some jewish-guilt ridden thing like, “that’s fine. you’re married now and it’s not just about you anymore. and if you want to hold your future children one day with your one and only arm, that’s your business. but don’t say i didn’t warn you.”

and then she shakes her head, probably silently wondering how in the hell she got mixed up with such a pain in the ass north jersey jew and then married her, no less.

in the words of my late grandmother: oy.

do yourself a favor and don’t clean your sunglasses with windex

ok? b/c when you put them on afterwards [and surely, if you're anything at all like me, you will do it too soon, say, before it even dries...right before you drive to work (via three different highways)] your eyes will start stinging and maybe even get blurry.

you might be asking yourself at this very moment: why did she clean her sunglasses off w/windex anyway?? i’ll tell you:

b/c i dropped them into the garbage basket at my therapist’s office last night. and those of you that go to a therapist are already gulping hard b/c you know you know what they’re full of!

tissues!

ew!

before we even got started talking about any of my many many neuroses, i must’ve bumped them off the cushy couch arm they were balanced on and…yeah. she and i looked at each other like UH-OH SWINE FLU. i was like, “yeah…i’ll just…let ‘em sit there and get them when we’re done.”

when i fished them out of the trash–and to be honest, there wasn’t much stuff in there, but of course what was in there consisted of…mm-hmm, you guessed it: tissues.

she was like, “wash them off??”

i felt stupid for even bringing them in to begin with. i mean, why in the hell do i even need bigass dark sunglasses (w/rhinestones no less) for my 50-ft walk into the office?? i mean, i know i have sensitive eyes, but c’mon!

aside from all that (“all that,” of course, being gag-inducing therapist’s-office dumpter diving) i’ve never cleaned sunglasses off before w/windex. it was very “my big fat greek wedding” of me to do that. it was holly’s quick thinking this morning, and, despite my haste and watery eyes, i really must say it worked fabulously.