My Niece, My Nemesis

Nemesis: the Greek goddess of retributive justice; one that inflicts retribution or vengeance; a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent

This past weekend, Memorial Day, my plan was to travel to Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha to visit my brother (who is a dentist there), his wife, and my niece, Stella, who was having her first birthday. But plans, they be foiled. (Not that spending a weekend in tract housing on an Air Force Base is much of a plan to begin with, but I'll leave that one for another time...)

I had tried to smooth the way for my trip by spending my last two months' paychecks for a direct flight from New York to avoid the dual-leg snags that ruin every single trip I have ever tried to take home: lost luggage (without fail), delays, missed connections, nights spent overlooking a dumpster in suburban Minneapolis or sleeping in a bathroom stall in Houston. However, Continental saw fit to cancel my Friday evening, easy as pie direct to Omaha due to "weather," never mind that it was sunny both here and at my destination when my flight was due to take off. This meant instead "arising" at 1:30 a.m. Saturday after a two-hour nap to take the A train through the slums of Brooklyn to JFK for a connection via Houston that meant an 11-hour slog as opposed to a 3.5-hour jaunt. Off to a great start!

But it was worth it for Stella, right? That sweet little moppet of sunshine, that smiling bouncyball of babyfat, the gurgling little gargoyle of squish? Here she is, doesn't she look sweet?

NO. SHE DOES NOT LOOK SWEET. It's true that in the photo to the right (blown out as it is, causing me to squint and develop a sudden double chin), it appears as though she is snuggling up to my breast, showing with her hug the adoration and love her nonverbal self cannot yet express. But that's not what was happening.

If you see this baby, avoid, run, hide, leap into oncoming traffic to dodge her, if you must. Because that's not a hug she wants to give you -- it's an intestinal virus that will bring you to your knees. LITERALLY, TO YOUR KNEES, over a toilet, for a period of 24 to 48 hours, with unfathomable liquids erupting from every orifice of your fever-ridden, quakeing, clammy body. [NOTE: ALL PICTURES TAKEN BEFORE 'OUTBREAK' MOMENT.]

Here, as I am lofting her over my head, playing the "Look, I am now 7 feet tall!" game, I might have begun to regret about the cobwebby status of my own barren, rapidly aging womb. But no longer! One thing this weekend taught me is that a lonely, echoey belly might be a blessing, if it means keeping my house free of the virulent strains of disease babies apparently bring home.

Sure, sure, I brought olive branches, I tried to make peace with this miniature human conveyer of biological warfare. I got her this cute little wooden alligator pull toy that goes click click click to celebrate her new talent for "walking," because you know, not that many people can do it so it's something to be celebrated.

Here she is, she looks like she loves it, doesn't she? Haha, folks, that's all a game. What she's really thinking is this: "Ok, Lady, you swoop in here to change my poopy diapers every few months and I'm sick of being the only one in this house who shits their pants in front of witnesses! I'm going exact my revenge -- have fun waiting on line for the rest of your vomiting family to get out of the bathroom!"

Naturally, my flight home was delayed by three hours for no explicable reason, and I had to pay a $100 change fee to fly a day later even though I told them to return earlier meant vomiting on fellow passengers -- people, do NOT FLY CONTINENTAL. However, the experience did teach me one thing, and that is that there is one being in the world who truly loves me, will protect me, and most importantly, will never infect me: my brother's dog, Jackson. After he heard me repeatedly puking and moaning down the hallway on my crawl back to the couch in the middle of the night, he feared my expiry and came out to sit on my feet all night, warming them and being at the ready to bark at the event of my obviously impending death, alerting my brother to the need for a hearse. Here he is this winter:

Of course, Jackson's heightened affection for me could just be because of his proclivity for "smells." Jackson's favorite pasttime, aside from running and getting petted, is eating panties and underwear, and the smellier the better. Considering I had spent 8 of the previous 12 hours in the bathroom, perhaps it was just the heady aroma of sickness and near-death experience that drew him to my lap.

One funny-slash-sad thing that happened after my return was my (red-state, Republican, evangelical Christian) father, who also caught "the bug," called me to talk about the vehemence of the sickness. He has only taken one sick day -- which requires cancelling all of his toothachey patients -- in 30 years, so taking two days off to fight this bitch in his belly was a real novelty. We laughed and talked for 20 minutes about all the disgusting things that had happened to our bodies in the last two days and before we hung up, he said, "Well, at least now we have something in common!" Oy.

For my next vacation, I'm thinking of signing up for the "Re-Enactment of Trail of Tears Weekend" or perhaps "Relive the Bataan Death March!" At least I'll know what I'm getting into when I board my (sure to be delayed, or even cancelled) flight, and maybe I'll lose 10 pounds in water weight instead of only two.

I Can Swim the English Channel in January

So last night I went to a nice launch party for my friend Tom, a very good reporter and writer who just finished off a book that you really should buy about the dirty, dirty diamond industry. It was at the Bubble Lounge, and the caviar and champagne flowed freely. Of course, nothing's ever REALLY free and last night was no different, because the party was sponsored by MediaBistro, for which Tom teaches on occasion. (Disclaimer: I have written for MediaBistro.)

Any writer or editor who's been in New York longer than half an hour knows it's best to avoid MB parties. They're all the same -- they attract people who are really unhappy at work and are so, so desperate to find a new job that they're willing to throw themselves at strangers -- who likely can't help them anyway as they're all in the same, pathetic boat -- whilst downing $14 cosmopolitans and dodging the MB photographer so their boss won't know they're on the prowl. Many MB party conversations go like the one I had last night.

[Small, twitchy man to me]: Hi, I'm Herbert.
me: Hi, Herbert.
[man squints at name/affiliation tag on my chest]
Herbert: Oh, you work for TIME WARNER, what do you do there??! Are they hiring?
me: [thinking, don't you read about the layoffs on Gawker? shit, man!] Uh, nothing really, I just do some part time fact checking for the research department; I only said I work for them because you're supposed to be a full-time staffer to be at this party, even though this book party is for a close friend of mine. Whatever.
Herbert (dejected): Oh.

[Herbert smashes champagne flute on nearby table.]
[Herbert pokes sharp end of flute's stem into jugular.]
[Herbert falls to floor.]
[Laurel Touby runs over, wraps feather boa around Herbert's bloody, severed, suicidal neck and drags him out by a noose to the Bubble Lounge's dumpster.]

And, scene.

Anyway, despite the fact that I had to wear a stupid nametag and deal with Herbert after desperate Herbert, it was a great party because it brought together some kind of disaparate friend groups of mine, namely my former and totally amazing colleagues from the WSJ and a decent turnout of former Blacktable editors and writers. Whee!

One of my most entertaining friends is still at the WSJ, and while I don't spend 10 hours a day with him like I used to, I still see him every few weeks or so. He reads this silly blog and so he's been following the fascinating and hair-raising tale of my widening behind, which grows exponentially larger with each post (or at least I'd have you believe that...). So the first thing he said to me last night was, "You look great! And here I was expecting to see Erin the Hutt, what with all your whining about being fat on your blog." (My friend is really just too kind -- I was simply wearing a forgiving skirt.) It was at this point that I realized why I, I and the people who have the misfortune of seeing me naked are the only ones who are cognizant of my 10-pound weight gain: it's well distributed! I explained to him that for the first time in my life, I had BACK FAT.

"You know, I just thought of this," I said to J., "It's not like my ass is just getting fatter, or my tits are just getting bigger (even though both are true); this time I'm getting fat all over -- it's like I'm wearing a WETSUIT of fat!"

I'm like an adolescent seal; I could probably float leisurely across the ocean without shivering.

As I stood there contemplating the visuals of a fat wetsuit, I also started to tell people about my impending hiatus from New York. Starting in late June, I'm going to go live in Colorado for awhile, probably for around five weeks or so. I'll work on my freelance projects during the day, and on nights and weekends, I'll climb, hike, camp and let the sweet scent of fir trees envelope my hair with their juniper-y goodness. I will probably also shop in outlet stores, attend a megachurch and eat at a Cheesecake Factory, but let's not talk about that part.

Anyway, I was telling my friend Will (you should buy his books, too!), who is a fellow Midwestern transplant, about my plan. Will has always thought I've had one noncommital foot over the border when it comes to New York (although, as I'll explain later, that's not really true). We talked about my plans for a little bit, and then he started to twitter. What??? I demanded. He said, "Well, Greg and I have this joke about you."

First, some background. Greg is a mutual friend of ours who is also a Midwestern defector. But unlike Will or me, he has drunk long and deep of the New York Kool-Aid (which, by the way, tastes of matzoh and taxi tailpipe). He's never going back; he eschews the flyovers with a disgust normally reserved for baby rapists. And apparently, he likes to tell Will that Will doesn't really live in New York. To which Will responds, I live in New York, I just live in the Midwestern embassy in New York.

So ANYWAY, apparently the joke about me is that if Will is living in the Midwest embassy in New York, I am on the roof, waving my arms and trying to get a helicopter to rescue me and get me the hell outta dodge.

NOW. That's NOT really true. If there's any embassy I'd want to be associated with, it would be the "Nature Embassy," within whose walls I could breathe fresh air and climb trees -- THAT'S what I miss about living outside New York, not the Midwest itself. I love New York in many ways, and while my relationship with it is tumultuous, and I bitch about it incessantly, it's the longest love affair I've had with any place. Like taking a break from a love affair, I'm not sure yet what this departure from my city means. Is it a trial separation? Are we just "on the break"? Will it make me love it more, or will it make me realize I wouldn't miss it at all if I wasn't around it?

I guess that time will tell. Either way, my helicopter is going to drop me back in the city come August, as I have contractual obligations to fulfill for work and because my lease isn't up. So never fear. I'll be back to my bitchy ways before you even realize I've gone.

Warning: Scant Postings TK

Folks, as of today my travel schedule for May/June has officially reached Overbooked to the Nth degree, so consider this your warning that my postings are soon going to make like rich New Yorkers in the summer. I.e., they'll be gone. However, my postings will not be in the Hamptons, they'll just be floating around in the ether somewhere, unposted. Er.....something like that.

To wit, my travel schedule for late May/June/early July: New York (home base), San Francisco (work), New York, Nebraska (family), New York, New Hampshire (climbing), New York, Mississippi (work), New York, Atlanta (work), New York, Colorado (hopefully, climbing), and then...New York.

Given my tenuous relationship with airports and air travel in general (not because I'm afraid of flying, but because I always get seated by fat people and they always, ALWAYS lose my luggage if I'm forced to both transfer and check), I suspect my rage level is going to hit 9.7 by the time I turn 31 (eek!) in mid-July. On a more positive note, I hear street harassment in Jackson and Denver is less prevalent than it is here, so perhaps that will even out the bad kharma.

The point is, f I suddenly disappear for a few weeks, don't fear...the psuedo cancer hasn't done me in just yet.

Being Good Can Be Boring

So this past weekend, after inflicting serious damage on my liver, I decided I was going to take a break from the booze, get up every single morning before 6 a.m. to exercise, and make myself a better and more productive person in general. No more "after work drinks" that somehow stretch into benders that end at 3 a.m., no "dinners" that turn into wine-soaked bacchanals that wrap at midnight, no more "hanging out with a friend" if it ends in me taking a headlong spill down a flight of stairs.

All of these things I have accomplished (the booze abstention and exercise, that is), and when you're off the sauce, man do you feel clear-headed and get a lot done! I've actually been pretty pleased with the results, even if it's only been four days. Yesterday alone I lifted weights, did an hour of cardio (all before 8 a.m.!), worked for more than 9 hours, got stuck on an F train, painted my toenails, made dinner, did the laundry, read three chapters in a book about the historical accuracy of the Bible, finished a novel, polished off a entire New Yorker, did a crossword puzzle, exfoliated my face, looked for a new job online, wrote a letter AND watched the all-time finale of Alias, a show I hadn't watched in two years and which took the cake for the worst finale ever made -- would that it had "all been a dream." I was still in bed by 11! At this rate, I'll be a walking encyclopedia, a 5.14 climber and a rocket scientist within six months!

I did all that stuff because I was BORED. It's good to be productive, but man is it more fun to go out and booze it up with all my idiot friends. Maybe this is just an adjustment period, but this boredom worries me a little bit. I used to think I was all right company, even for myself. But maybe all the brain damage I've inflicted over the years has rendered me a useless companion, has dulled my imagination and conversational skills.

I'm also worried that I'm still filling the time with consumption (of media, of books, of endless glasses of Pellegrino with lime) instead of production. I'm basically the only person I know who hasn't thrown a book party for something I wrote, and I'm starting to think I will NEVER get into the Library of Congress, unless I ask to see their card catalogue, or something. Although, to be honest, that's never been a goal of mine. Last night I actually started entertaining thoughts of writing fiction, if only to have something to fill the endless, sober hours.

Then I gave myself a swift kick in the ass and remember the last time such a silly thought crossed my mind. "How hard could it be to design a web site, for fuck's sake?" I asked myself when my father asked me to do one for him. "If my ROOMMATE can do it, SURELY I can do it." It took me a year to learn Dreamweaver and get that sorry-looking puppy up on the old Interweb, and I learned my lesson about sticking to what I'm good at.

Which is why tomorrow I'm going to say "Yes please!" when I hit up a friend's book party where I know there will be free champagne. If I know one thing, it's that I can drink like an Irish priest with a fresh liver transplant.

Update on Cancer, or, Final Disgusting Post of the Day

A few of you have asked for an update on my possible cancer.

Well, as much as I'd like to tell all of you that I have nothing more than an inflamed pimple on the indecribable area between the crease of my inner thigh and my you-know-what, I went in for a sonogram a couple weeks ago and frankly, folks, I've stumped the entire medical community!

When most people go in for their first sonogram (aka an ultrasound), it's because they have a bouncing little bundle of joy on the way. They get all excited, they bring the hubby, they get a picture printed out to bring home and hang on the fridge.

But for some reason, nobody wanted to come along for MY sonogram, and I surely didn't get a printout of my own bundle of joy, which is reported to be a "palpable subcutaneous complex collection,, measuring 2.1x0.3x0.5cm." Ooooh it looks just like a baby shrimp, can you already see its perfect tiny little hands and feet! Not.

So my doc calls me today and tells me I have to go throw my legs open for ANOTHER doctor. I haven't dropped my drawers for this many strangers since the "Slutty Era of Depression" of late 2004. Man.

Bonus Diet Accelerator: Salmonella!

One of the distinct disadvantages of working at my particular division of the company I'm at is that I have to share the floor -- and, thus, the bathroom -- with the staff of a third-rate 99-cent women's magazine of the variety that's sold on the checkout lane at Wal-Mart. I'm sure these are all aspiring Conde Nasties who haven't yet taken the requisite number of laxatives or barfed themselves down to a size two yet, but given the amount of time they spend in the bathroom, they're on their way. Now if only their story-generating abilities could be bolstered by sticking a finger down their throats...

Compounding matters, there are only four stalls on a floor where 98% of the employees are female. This is particularly frustrating to me because I have a hard time peeing when a stranger is sitting a mere 3 centimeters from me in the next stall, and the bathroom is busy absolutely every minute of the day. Sometimes there are even lines; I swear sometimes I wish that bathroom traffic director from Penn Station would relocate here. Usually I can get through the ordeal without bursting a kidney by plugging my ears, closing my eyes, and pretending I'm at home. But other times, it's more difficult -- and FORGET about doing anything else at work. My policy is just to chomp away at Immodium and steer clear of Indian buffet day in the cafeteria and hope my body understands that anything else will have to wait until I've left the building. (A completely random aside: I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and telling him I was going to babysit my niece, and I'd probably have to change diapers. A look of shock crossed his face and he said, "HOLY SHIT, it never occurred to me that GIRLS POOP THEIR PANTS when they're babies! I, I, just never thought about girls SHITTING themselves. That is so gross. What?! Sorry, I didn't have sisters!")

ANYWAY, back to my day at the bathroom/mosh pit. I have begun a new "reduction" phase in my life, amping up my workouts and scaling back my eating in an attempt to magically "melt away" over the next, oh, year or so, the TWELVE POUNDS I've managed to pack on in the last three months thanks to my daily consumption of hormone bullets. Grueling, rigorous workouts at insane hours of the morning at my gym haven't been doing the trick, so I knew it was time to bite the bullet: it was time to diet. I've never really dieted because I love food and I work out a ton, but since I don't have cash at the moment to purchase a whole new wardrobe of pants, I don't really have a choice.

So today for lunch, I trudged into the cafeteria and loaded up a take-out box with lettuce and tuna. Grudgingly I forced it down, happy at least in the knowledge that I was eating good fuel and I'd go to bed with a calorie deficit. It tasted gross, really gross, but hey, usually the only things that taste great are bad with regard to shrinking your ass.

Half an hour later, though, I discovered that the "gross taste" didn't simply come from all those nutrients. It came from...SALMONELLA! It felt like a velociraptor was ripping through my guts, and there was no way I could do what had to be done in front of the Conde wannabes who were undoubtedly online to floss and gloss and flush and powder. After all, they might think that I was an UNSUCCESSFUL bulemic -- one who gave barfing her all (because I was soon about to) but was STILL unable to shed those pesky pounds.

It simply wouldn't do. Then, a flash of inspiration struck! I remembered seeing a dingy little door off a back hallway to the cafeteria with a women's restroom sign. Salvation!

Mercifully, it was empty, and I now have a haven where I can pee in peace, or upchuck the remnants of a salmonella-ridden lunch without having to feel like I'm being judged or waited on. I'm only hoping none of the ladies on my floor discover this site....(shhhhh, don't tell).

Guy's Wish is My Command

You asked for calves, I give you calves. Remember to lock your door at work.

Lose Yourself

OK, maybe everyone else has already seen this, but I was at the gym today and was horrified to hear this clip in the background in the locker room on Best Week Ever. Jodie Foster rapping (talking? singing? embarassing herself?) Eminem at Penn's graduation ceremony. Jodie, you've got some really awesome, overdeveloped calf muscles but your rap skillz could use a little work. I didn't lose myself, but I definitely lost it:

Photographic Evidence of Unironic Wearing of Flowers in the Hair

So as we speak, what I am supposed to be doing is loading my car up with quick draws, a 60 meter rope, my harness and other various assorted climbing gear for a trip up to the Gunks. However, I stayed out too late last night, drank 37 beers or so and filled my evening with frivolous activities such as parlour games and ill-advised nicotine consumption. Thusly, I was slothful today and slept until 3 p.m. So now God is PUNISHING me by sending a big old fat thunderstorm over New Paltz, meaning I can't climb tomorrow, I'm not loading my car, and instead am doomed to yet another day in the concrete jungle breathing in carbon monoxide and growing ever fatter. There will be no pretty views like the one above (taken last week during my Mt. Tam hike outside of San Francisco), no physical exertion, no fresh air, no hot shirtless guys in peak physical condition offering me a belay. Woe is me.

However, what this does give me is license to stay up too late and deliver to you, my dear readers, the aforementioned promised evidence that I, Erin, unironically wore flowers in my hair in San Francisco. I figured I had already frightened the natives with my startlingly white, New York certified ghostlike complexion, obtained through a firm commitment to exposure of 8 to 10 straight hours of fluorescent lighting each and every day. Why not freak them out a little more by living out the lyrics of the most famous song about their city?

Without further ado, here it is:

Good thing I have to stay home tomorrow, because I'd hate to strain my smile muscles. Having already been asked to produce one broad smile this week (see picture below, and thanks to Jonah for showing me a great time in the Bay Area), I'm not sure how much more exertion they could take.

Street Harassers Like Ass, not Sass

So I am experimenting with new and potentially dangerous ways of dealing with street harassers! Wheee!

There are only so many times a day, or an hour, that I can be told that I really know how to "shake that thing, mami" before I go ballistic (especially before 9 a.m.; come ON people, doesn't the testosterone settle down after your morning meat-flogging session?). You see, I'm afraid that if I keep all the fury bottled up that I'll give myself a stroke. Strokes, like the deliciously meaty rumps that street harassers loooove, run in my family. So lately, I've tried letting some steam off by telling my "fans" that I don't give a flying fig what they think of my ass. Actually, I'm far less polite than that, but this is a family blog. Ahem.

Today I learned that these charming chaps don't much like the back-talk. These dildoes think they're allowed to say anything at all to innocent women walking down the street, minding their own business, anything at all that makes us feel threatened and grossed out and powerless and preyed upon. And apparently, we're just supposed to shut up and take it. Today's harasser, for one, certainly seemed off-put when his target (me) gave him some sass.

I was accosted in midtown fresh off my morning train by some creep who gave me the hushed, lascivious "oooh, baby, baby, you're so gorgeous, oooh, walk like THAT, yeaaaahhhhh, oooh, I hope you have a good weekend, beautiful...." I LOST MY SHIT. I turned around and said "IDON'TWANTTOHEARITSHUTUPSHUTUP!" (If there was some way to indicate rising octaves for each syllable there, I would do it.) After I yelled at him, this asshole walked after me screaming at the top of his lungs for an entire half block calling me a cunt and a bitch and a whore. For a minute I thought I was going to have to throw down, and tried to draw on the muscle memory of those two weeks of Tae Kwon Do classes my parents made me take when I was 11. Ummmmm, how did that flying jump kick go again? Too bad I never even made it to yellow belt. But for whatever reason he cooled off after he ran out of an alphabet's worth of profanity and turned back around to go stalk someone else.

OK, maybe I provoked him. Maybe I gave him what I wanted and now he can go home and have rape/murder fantasies about me or someone else, or beat up his girlfriend. But dammit it felt good for a minute to open the anger valve just a tiny little bit and give this dipshit the what-for.

I think it would probably be more productive for me to find a less-insane way of dealing with these people, lest I find myself dragged into an alley and gang-raped. Tonight at Bluestockings, a "radical bookstore and activist center with...titles on queer and gender studies, feminism and black liberation," Laura Beth Nielsen, author of "Licence to Harass," will be giving a talk called "Nothing Sexy About Street Harassment!"

I kind of want to go, but feminist gatherings I've been to have all proven to be humorless, endless man-bashing extravaganzas and Laura Beth Nielsen also probably wouldn't condone my dream method for dealing with street harassers -- a swift kick in the nuts.

But at any rate, I really do like their description of the talk: "Whether you're commuting, lunching, partying, dancing, walking, chilling, drinking, or sunning, you have the right to feel safe, confident and sexy without being the object of some turd's fantasy."

Press material that includes the word "turd" is awesome.

What's Making My Ears Bleed Today, Part II

Kokomo. Need I say more? What is this, the Caribbean mixtape of suicide?

What's Making My Ears Bleed Today

So the lady in the office next to mine, which is separated by a wall that doesn't go all the way to the ceiling, plays music everyday. And why not? Resigned to cubicle life as a lowly fact-checker for a hypersensitive division of Time Warner, who wouldn''t need a little aural stimulation to help ease the pain of a grueling workday spent accomplishing inane tasks like finding government sources to back up the fact that bananas are healthy. "Hello, FDA? Um, yeah, I'm fact checking a story for a magazine called "Nutrients and You!" I was wondering if there were any documents available from the FDA that explicitely state the nutritional content of a banana. Yes, well, I know everyone knows they're healthy, but I need a GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT that says so, or my boss will freak out..."

ANYWAY, I wouldn't really care about this lady's music, except for the fact that her musical tastes seemingly stopped evolving in 1991. Most days I'm treated to repeat loops of "Fumbling Toward Ecstacy" or, if I'm lucky, an endless mix of Indigo Girls live performances.

But today, today, she's really gone too far.

"Don't Worry, Be Happy," by Bobby McFerrin.

That's right. Somewhere the world, someone turned on their iTunes and thought, "What do I want to listen to?" and the answer was "Don't Worry Be Happy."

Stella Smile

My brother married a girl. She is the perfect girl for him.

But sometimes, I get to feeling inadequate around a woman who makes both her own baby food AND sews her baby diapers, while I'm scrambling around working 37.5 jobs a year and trying to stay off the dole while and can't even find time to heat up a solo can of sodium-heavy soup.

ANYWAY, my sister in law and my niece came to visit the other weekend. Her brother was graduating from college here. So she brought my niece, who is soon going to move to Germany.

It was nice that I was able to be there to do a "first," even though she won't remember it. I'll remember it. It was a swing! Check it out:

New York, I Owe You

New York, I owe you a karmic debt. You have been my faithful, smart, messed up, engaging companion for seven years, and yet I'm always threatening to leave you.

There are many good things about our relationship, but what do I do? WHAT DO I DO? I always focus on what's missing. I call myself a "realist," but let's be realistic, I'm just not accentuating the positive. So now, in a fit of optimism, that I in NO WAY learned in your hippie dippie cross-country fraternal but much weaker and limp-wristed twin San Francisco (I promise! I hated it!), I am going to come up with 10 things that I genuinely like and/or love about living in New York (simply because any faithful reader who has been privy to my postings about poop and harassment and failure and fatness over the past couple years probably wonders why I'm living here). So, here are 10 things. Forgive me if I gush:

1) For someone reason, really, really fascinating and smart people let me hang out with them, and only in New York. Among them I count writers and filmmakers and respected authors and editors and painters and architects and brilliant lawyers and photographers and professors and marketers of ballet shoes and humanitarians and people who make web sites and people who take care of the homeless for their jobs and the independently wealthy and bloggers and gangster and publicists and caterers and strippers and doctors and businesspeople and professional thinkers and Pulitzer prize-winners and reverends and peacekeepers and comedians and climbers and journalists and, and, and, and, and... The people are by far the best thing about living here, and I will get increasingly frivolous as the list goes on.

2) The restaurants. Ahhhh...the restaurants. The foie gras, the duck, the sushi, the wine, the oysters, the dan dan noodles, the burgers, the steaks, the shakes, the food blogs and the restaurant reviews. Delicious, and after 18 years of eating hamburger casserole, I can't thank you enough.

3) I have the number of a drug dealer on my phone, and even though I never have used it, it's kind of neat to know it's there. Maybe because I just feel there are too many rules.

4) From my roof I can see: the big dipper, the Verrazano and Brooklyn bridges, four churches, the Empire State AND Chrysler buildings, the Statue of Liberty, the Hudson River, the Williamsburg bank building, Park Slope, all of lower and midtown Manhattan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, a park full of trees, people walking, dogs, a backyard, and the shipping yards. This is what I have instead of a backyard, though I've been meaning to plant tomatoes up there and if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know.

5) We're mean to tourists. We ignore them, snub our noses at them, and think it's "cute" that they live in ranch houses in the middle of soybean fields, even if that's what feeds us. But if they need directions, we'll point to their map, walk them there, or tell them how to flag a cab without a hint of eye-rolling.

6) My church. It feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, encourages you to think and discourages you from judging.

7) The people who plant flowers in their front yards in Brooklyn so everyone can see and smell them, and the people who invite other people over to enjoy their backyard barbecues.

8) That staying out until 4 a.m. when you're 30 is not only socially acceptable, but encouraged. That not having a baby when you're 30 already is not a oddity. That admitting that you don't have it all figured out when you're 30 is normal.

9) That you can fly to Europe cheaper than you can fly to Montana.

10) That occasionally we allow each other happy flights of fancy, and don't scoff. Sometimes, I need New York, but sometimes, it, or the people here, need me. Home is not the place you need, always, but the place where you're needed (even if maybe you're just imagining it couldn't go on without you).

Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

It's amazing to me how easily, once I leave New York, I am able to shamelessly shed my well-developed, inches-thick armor of cynicism and biliousness and remember how it feels to laugh easily and not be so damn pissed off all of the time.

I've just returned from San Francisco, where I spent one night at the Ritz Carlton for business and the rest of the time hanging out with my good friend Jonah, who moved there from New York three months ago and spent much of the trip trying to convince me that a cross-country move was in order. He didn't too bad of a job of that. If he ever tires of the sportswriter life the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce or Tourism Bureau should definitely consider hiring him for promotional purposes, because he had me convinced for three whole days that I'd like nothing better than to trade in the stink of New York's rotting garbage for the stink of San Francisco's patchouli-drenched hippies.

But back to the aforementioned shedding of the armour. Much of my time in New York is spent on the verge of a transit-obstruction or street-harassment induced homicidal rage. I guess there's something about the California sunshine that just automatically lulls my murderous impulses, because it was all ear-to-ear smiles all weekend.

Jonah came to pick me up at the airport on what was a postcard California day -- cool, sunny, breezy, and within half an hour I was LITERALLY wearing flowers in my hair. I was a walking hippie cliche and I didn't even care. We went for a hike and tree-climb at Mt. Tam, where gorgeous tiny wildflowers bloomed everywhere, perfect for tucking behind the ears, and the scent of juniper floated on the air. Jonah has photographic evidence of said flowers in the hair, which is pretty embarassing for this steely, flinty New Yorker. Luckily for me, the soupy marijuana haze that floats over the city has apparently rendered Jonah too lazy to download software that would allow him to send me the picture. So for now the secret that I'm not a cynical, nasty bitch 100% of the time is safe.

Jonah also has all the pictures of our hike, and my powers of description would surely fail the views of San Francisco Bay, the city, and coastline, the tiny little rocky islands and the foliage and greenery that's all available for your enjoyment and within a 20-minute drive of the city. If you want to write Jonah and bug him to send me the pictures, you can email him at Theresacloudofpotoverthiscitythatsrenderedmeuseless@aol.com.

Jonah lives in a house in the Castro district with three dogs named Pickle, Peanut and Tanner and two happy happy gays named Steven and Mitch, both of whom proved to be excellent chaps who I really enjoyed spending time with. Jonah told me that Castro was far gayer than even the gayest blocks of the West Village or Chelsea, but I assumed he was exaggerating. I realized this was in no way an overstatement the first night when we went out to dinner, and I was the only person in a 10-block radius with any estrogen (excluding, of course, a number of tall, hideous, trannie hookers).

We spent a lot of time hanging out in Jonah's backyard with the dogs, drinking beer or coffee, and enjoying the sun. Jonah's dog Tanner has adjusted very nicely to backyard life -- whenever I used to run across him in Brooklyn, he'd shy away behind Jonah's calves and not even give me an obligitory sniff before blowing me off. Now he's affectionate and watching him play with Pickle was awesome. Here they are, the pair of whirling dervishes:



I was in such a good mood that I even made friends with Peanut, the chihuahua, which is unusual, because usually I just want to step on chihuahuas. The proliferation of these things in NYC post-"Yo quiero Taco Bell" is just annoying, and also, half the time I think they're rats. But Peanut, pictured below, came up and sat down on my foot and made a friend for life. Dont' tell me she ain't cute here with her sparkly pendant (and her dad, Mitch):



Jonah took me on a good driving tour of the city so at least I got to see most of it. He made sure we hit up all the big touristy sites like the Golden Gate Bridge, and that I got a view of the bay and took a spin through the major neighborhoods that tourists are supposed to see; we did the requisite boozing in the Mission district and I fagged it up with the queens in the Castro -- I hold my rainbow flag aloft! I'm pleased to report that there are still dirty hippies in the Haight, but I must point out a little sadly that a Gap now sits at the corner of Haight and Ashbury.

But Jonah, knowing that any self-respecting New Yorker doesn't just want the equivalent of a Big Apple bus tour, took me to see some more obscure stuff as well.

I hadn't been to San Francisco since 1997 when I was participating in a writing contest and didn't have much free time to sightsee. I was relaying this to Jonah, and he was asking about the writing contest. When I was in college, I won an award for in-depth writing; my subject was the resurgence of buffalo on the Great Plains. National winners in each of the (eight?) categories get shipped out to San Francisco to try to out-write each other for what seemed, at the time, like a Massively Huge Cash Prize (for the record, and lest anyone think I'm tooting my own tinny bugle, I didn't win). So anyway, I was telling Jonah about this and he was like, "You like buffalo? We got buffalo!"

Within minutes, we were standing inside Golden Gate Park staring at a genuine herd of American Bison. I was telling Jonah all the fun facts I know about bison (and believe me, after like four months of reporting on them, I know many, many more facts about bison than is probably healthy), and noticed that a group of gangly, goofy boys next to us was kind of eavesdropping. One of them says to me, "Hey lady? I thought buffalos were EXTINCT." I didn't know what to say, except, "Um, no -- there's a whole herd of them standing right there."

ANYWAY, I figure a day where I can go hiking, commune with a herd of buffalo, and drink some excellent California wine is nothing to sneeze at.

The next day I went for an hour-long run, which was enough to burn my skin into a chip-like crisp, and after that I checked into the Ritz. The last time I stayed at a hotel, it cost $50, was two miles from the Atlanta airport, and my balcony overlooked a dumpster, a Waffle House and an Arby's. The Ritz wasn't like that. Here is a fruit tray they put out with me (along with a handwritten letter sealed in wax), with figs and fresh plums and berries and nectarines, the day I arrived:



After the work event I had Monday, Jonah took me out for massive burritos in the Mission. To say that I was dragging my feet on the way to the airport would be an extreme understatement. The streets in San Francisco LITERALLY smell like flowers, and I was loath to leave that behind and return to the land of stench. Sure enough, the first thing that happened to me when I got back to New York and hopped the A train was that a bum sleeping on the bench across from me pooped himself.

Maybe it's a sign, via the MTA, that it's time to move to the land of flowers and figs and fags.

San Francisco Puts a Spring in my Step

Sixty minutes off of a redeye from the West Coast and I have to take a quick catnap before I post about my trip to San Francisco lest I torture you with mispellings (or is that 'misspellings'? SEE?) and grammatical errors given my lack of shuteye. But I did want to take a moment to issue ample warning that it may not come with the normal heaping serving of piss and vinegar. There's just something about California that takes that all out of you.

More TK...

Firearm Catharsis

I think part of the frustration and rage I associate with living in New York stems from the fact that I can’t just shoot the things that annoy me – you know, loud B&T bitches who can’t make change because of their ridiculous fingernails, David Blaine, overmuscular men walking small dogs. Oh, that I could just shoot them. But I can’t. I just have to deal with them. And deal with them. And deal with them.

Here’s an example of how shooting things would make it better.

Growing up in South Dakota, if there was some pesky creature that annoyed you, you didn’t just grit your teeth and endure it. You SHOT IT. You just got out your gun and shot it. This led to a true feeling of catharsis. No more rage!

When I was a kid, starlings – the particularly mottled and aggressive kind – really bothered my dad. They were loud, they’d dive bomb other birds, and they shit everywhere. “They shit EVERYWHERE,” my dad would roar as he inspected the latest poop puddle deposited squarely on the hood of his freshly washed car. Then he’d run inside the house for a BB gun or one of his rifles and start taking out birds all over the lawn. Given his time in Vietnam, I guess he’s quite a shot, because before long there were four and twenty to bake in a pie. I grew up in town, mind you, and this was considered perfectly acceptable behavior within city limits. (In his defense, my dad is not some crazed lunatic, and in fact is a bird lover who this year is cooing about how many finches the finch feeders he put up are bringing to their garden.)

Last time I was home in South Dakota for Christmas, I mentioned to my dad one morning that I thought he might have mice in the attic, because something scrambling around up was impeding my sleep, and man, do I HATE mice. I have to put up with their verminy, sneaky existence in New York every single damn day, and I don’t want them bugging me when I’m on vacation and trying to sleep.

A few hours later, I looked out the dining room window, and there was dad, rifle firmly tucked up against his shoulder, aiming at the third floor. “Um, Mom, why is Dad shooting at the house?” I asked my mother, who was likely in the kitchen baking some delicious dish consisting primarily of butter, cheese and Corn Flakes. “Oh, honey, those weren’t mice this morning, those were squirrels up on the roof. Your daddy’s out there taking care of it for you!”

Sorry Mister Squirrel.

Now, when similar aggravations take place in New York, there’s no way I can take out my frustration through firearms.

We apparently have a family of starlings living in my backyard right now. They perch every morning on my roommate’s fire escape, right outside my window, and won’t let me have a moment’s peace. I know chirping birds are supposed to make me think of lazy mornings somewhere in a log cabin, holding a ceramic mug full of joe as I contemplate the dew while it rises from the grass. But honestly? These birds sound like my clock-radio alarm. And to anyone who’s heard my ear-bleedingly loud clock radio alarm in the last 15 years (sorry residents of Abel 12 at the University of Nebraska!), you know that’s not a pretty sound.

Seriously, though, Wikipedia says starlings “have been known to imbed sounds from their surroundings into their own calls, including car alarms and human speech patterns.” So these starling calls, starting every morning when my clock radio goes off, echo right back: “MEEP MEEP MEEEEP MEEEEP.” When they learn how to mimic me as well, they will add “Shut up you stupid motherfuckers!” to their lyrical calls. The New York Times might find them sweet, but I just want to shoot them. But can I shoot them? No. I just have to ram the pillow over my ears and shove my rage deep, deep, deeper down.

Of course, we have a rodent problem in New York that threatens to permanently push me over the edge, as well. And if ONLY it were squirrels scratching around on the roof. Oh, no, I have my very own stable full of mice. Mice with bellies full of poison who refuse to kick off. And, I would love to shoot them.

Instead, I am left standing on my own couch, helplessly screaming for my roommate’s boyfriend to come out and smash the fucker who just brazenly dawdled across the living room while I was watching “Lost.” The arrogant little fucker.

Obviously, this girl needs a BB gun.

I Want Lots of Babies -- And Make Mine Ugly!

There's a super interesting story today in the WSJ about why women don't want to mate with "studs" (their term, not mine -- I love the WSJ but they've never been known for their "hip lingo" factor).

An excerpt: "At first glance, the "sexy son hypothesis" makes perfect sense. According to this pillar of evolutionary biology, a female who chooses a high-quality male will have sons who inherit dad's allure. They, too, will therefore have their pick of females, allowing mom to hit the jackpot: grandmotherhood.

"But when scientists [who tracked attractive male birds] found no such thing. The studs were so busy mating they had no time to raise offspring, causing their health and fecundity to suffer. Homelier birds were better dads, raising sons who had more mating success....The idea that females choose the genetically best males is wrong. Instead of choosing mates who will increase the genetic quality of their offspring, females make choices that will increase their number of offspring."

And with THAT, I have a new theory on why my love life is near-constantly in the shitter: all my boyfriends have been too awesome, thus forcing me to dump them! See, what I need is some guy with a sloped forehead, a raging case of halitosis, and the IQ of a strawberry, who won't be tempted to stray. He can therefore keep his pimply butt where it belongs, in our home, impregnating me time and time again adn showering love on our fugly, fugly offspring.

I don't know why these scientists were following birds around when they could have just been tracking me. Deep down, I must have known that permanently latching onto a professional rock climber who spoke fluent Japanese, played classical guitar, was a physician with a black belt in karate, a dynamo in the sack and had abs on which you could grate aged parmesean, had to be a crummy idea for me and our potential offspring. I kicked that overachieving "stud" to the curb! Sayonara indeed!

That ex of mine who has already published two books, has two more on the way, is working on a screenplay with a major motion picture director and is something of a media sensation in his own right? DEFINITELY too smart to consider staying at home and feeding and nuturing our babies, who would have had FANTASTIC, silky hair. Next!

Because I totally know what I'm doing evolutionally, I gave the big F-U to a sensitive triathlete sculpted out of solid muscle, who had two master's degrees, made great money, loved to take me out for foie gras and oysters and shower me with presents. OBVIOUSLY, the right move for me and my unborn babes.

Now, if only I could find someone mediocre enough to settle down with...

John Krasinski's Girlfriend

About half the hits I get on this site are from people who ask Google if John Krasinski of "The Office" has a girlfriend.

Ladies, I know he's "Super Dreamy." I know you have daydreams about pushing those thick bangs off his forehead. I know that if CFCs weren't threatening to melt the polar ice caps, that his smile alone would do the trick. I know we all want Jim Halpert to be our boyfriend, to ask us about our innermost thoughts, to get all moony-eyed as he stares across the room at us. We want Jim Halpert to understand us in ways that real-life dolts never will.

But if you have to ask the Interweb whether he has a girlfriend, I'm guessing you don't run in the same circles as our man Krasinski.

You might want to try knocking your expectations down a notch. Start looking for your very own Dwight Shrute.

Too Fat to Blog

Hi folks. Since you've all been e-flogging me (where's the new posts? why have you abandoned us? yadda, yadda) I figured I better come up with an excuse for not having written anything for 37 days or so.

I'm too fat to blog.

A new study by researchers at Yale showed that a hormone that triggers hunger and jolts the ol' metabolism when the stomach is empty improves memory and learning. The speculation is that, back in the day than we had to hunt farther than the fridge or the nearest takeout taco stand for something to shove in our gullets, this hormone would help our brains remember better where we had seen food, so we could go find that patch of berries or bark or wild boars again, or what have you.

Remembering where to find the food isn't much of a problem for me. "Where did I leave that half-eaten cookie?" I sometimes think to myself. And only seconds later, I locate it, crumbling apart on top of my ever-expanding belly or wedged between a couch cushion, where I've perched so I can raptly watch T-Bag rape another inmate on Prison Break.

I blame my recent bloat on the hormone bullets I started taking three months ago. I literally can't stop eating! Today, I promised I would go on a diet, so I cut my breakfast back to only a doughnut, an egg McMuffin and a Cliff bar, just for good measure. I held off on the Coke though! I can't imagine why I've gained ten pounds in the last three months.

Sorry to bore you with the details of my "gain ten pounds in three months" meal plan. I just ate a chocolate pudding cup, you see, so I'm having a hard time even composing this short, stupid post.

The only time I can think straight these days is when I'm starving, so these Yale scientists must be onto something. But even that's a problem, as far as posting goes, because when I get hungry, I get crabby. Not just crabby -- irate. I blame it on my mother, who ate only carrot sticks and chicken broth while she was pregnant with me in an effort to gain fewer than 15 pounds during her pregnancy, which apparently was considered the ideal weight gain at the time. The day I was born, she weighed less than the day she conceived me, and I howled for food for the next year straight. I'm still convinced I could have had an IQ of 240 if she had just eaten something while she had a bun in the oven.

But anyway, back to the topic at hand. The only time I'm starving is after my daily 5:30 a.m. trek to the gym (which has done nothing to stave off the unwanted pounds, mind you -- it just makes me tired). I get out, and I'm furious, starving and itching to write somethign on my blog. But, all I can ever think about, standing as I wait for one of the six buses lined up on 18th Street to take me across town, is, "I am going to kill that fat fuck of an MTA driver if he doesn't quit reading that newspaper and come over here and give me a ride."

And that would make for a boring post every day now, wouldn't it?

In close, dear readers, I am going to try this new "starve and be smart" thing for awhile, both for your sakes, and for the sake of not having to buy all new pants.

A 'Blow' Against the War on Drugs

Via Reuters:

"President Vicente Fox within days will sign legislation that allows the personal use of cocaine, LSD, heroin and other drugs, his press secretary confirmed Tuesday, despite heavy criticism from the United States and within Mexico that the law will invite more problems than it intends to solve."

AND NOW, the money quote:

"In my judgment, this is a BLOW to the fight against the consumption of drugs in Mexico,'' said Jaime Olaiz, an international-law professor at Panamerican University in Mexico City. Olaiz, an expert on drug policy, speculated that the measure would increase business for dealers who sell small quantities of drugs.

Flash!

I put up with a lot of things to live in this city so I can get fancy, important (sounding) media jobs and eat $27 dollar hockey pucks of foie gras any hour of the day or night, and drink martinis for breakfast, to boot.

For what most people pay for a three-bedroom ranch-style home in the suburbs, complete with a tacky split-level living room and weedpatch in the backyard, I get a locker-sized bedroom.

I have to deal with battalions of mice taking over my kitchen.

I ride the subway with people who have freshly shat their pants. I've seen old ladies people vomit into Tupperware containers on the train. I sidestep puddles of puke considerately left behind by New Jersey residents who clog my favorite bars on the weekends so I can't spend eight dollars on a beer if I want to. If I do manage to venture out anyway, random assholes on nearly every corner feel the need to comment on my hair or my ass or whether or not I decide to give them a big friendly smile while they harass me. (And ladies, I know it's not just me.)

Someone tells me I might have some kind of hideous genital cancer and I can't get in to see a doctor. I suffer from an acute lack of Vitamin D in the winter, not to mention seasonal depression.

There's nowhere to park, I've already dated everyone under 40 and a crack whore once stole my wallet. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing here.

But this -- THIS -- I thought I put behind me when I left the great state of Arkansas. Go Hogs.

Mister New York City Penis Flasher, I don't get you. When I walked by you this morning on my quiet, leafy, residential street, I certainly wasn't looking flashworthy. Five minutes out of bed, hair unbrushed and mascara still in my bag and most definitely not on my eyelashes, was this the face you wanted to imagine later when you went home to sadly and furtively whack off over the memory of how my mouth twisted into a disgusted grimace as you pulled your wrinkly little twinkie out of your pants? I certainly hope not. So what gives?

You whispered "Pssst, psssst, psssssst, LADY! HEY LADY!" while you fumbled with your fly, hands shaking like a alcoholic Parkinson's victim with a serious case of the delirium tremens. I hurried by, eyes studiously averted. I hope that afterward, you went even limper as you thought of your dear old mother, who'd no doubt off herself if she knew what you were up to.

And across from an elementary school, no less. At FIVE THIRTY A.M. Shame on you.

For the love of Pete, what is this city coming to?

In Which I Try to Find Out Whether I Have Cancer

So at the risk of getting very much too TMI on all (three of) my loyal readers, but in the interest of humor, let me share this little anecdote, and add that today I would have sold my soul to have a workspace that is private enough that half of a floor of a division of Time Inc. didn't just have to hear what went down in my office.

About a month ago I discovered (um, please don't ask how) a little bump in a place on my body that is somewhere above my inner thigh and somewhere below that place where babies come out. Fearing I had 1) finally contracted some bizarre, unheard of, falopian-tube scarring brand of STD that will leave me forever unable to procreate or 2) smoked my way into early-onset cancer of the pelvis, I made an appointment at the girl doctor.

Of course, I wasn't looking forward to this appointment. I have crappy freelancer insurance -- although don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for it -- but it means your doc selection is limited. Thusly, my gynecologist was about 12 years old and had to call in her supervisor to check out my snatch when she was done with me to make sure she hadn't misdiagnosed my bump. It's bad enough having one stranger peering between your legs (at least without being boozed up). But TWO?

The girl doctor assured me that I do NOT have some rare (or un-rare) strain of STD that I picked up back when I was sex-touristing over in the Philippines (just kidding! I mean about the sex touring -- I ACTUALLY don't have an STD). She said it was probably just a lymph node or maybe a clogged pore (!!) or sweat gland, from all the time I spend hanging from a climbing harness. However, she said, I should still get it a sonogram.

The implication being, of course, that I actually DO have cancer.

Awesome!

So on top of the news that I might have cancer, this means I have to call someone up, EXPLAIN that I may have some kind of really enjoyable genital cancer, and make an appointment. Now, it's hard enough finding a doctor in this town that ever has an appointment available, since New York is full of neurotic, self-obsessed hypochondriacs. Finding a doctor who has a desk staff with a working knowledge of English and a sense of tact is, I've since found, even tougher.

Of course, all this appointment-making has to be accomplished during working hours. Since I've been slaving away like a dog for the last two months while juggling two jobs, this means I have to do it in one of the offices. In the first office, I sit approximately 18 inches from three other people, so calling about my super-fun genital-cancer screening was out. Thankfully, my office at my second place of employment has a door.

Less fortunately, (and for no good reason whatsoever), the walls in my office don't reach all the way to the ceiling, so it provides little in the way of privacy if you're on the phone, talking to yourself or, in the case of the woman next door, replaying a Sarah McLachlan's "Fumbling Toward Ecstacy" album for the three hundred and forty seventh time in the last two months.

I'd already put off calling about my potential genital cancer for a couple weeks now because a temp was filling in for Ms. Sarah McLachlan next door and he NEVER LEFT HIS DESK so I could talk freely about the foreign mass residing in my nether regions.

But this week, Fumbling Toward Ecstacy was back and this afternoon decided to take an extended bathroom break. Now was my chance!

I called and as my hold time extended, I became more agitated. But I had already tried to call three times before and hadn't been able to go through with it. I had to stay on the line so I can at some point have a radiologist assure me that I won't have to get my genitals mutilated in order to remove a tumor.

Of course, at this point, Fumbling Toward Ecstacy returns to her office. I'm hoping to avoid specifics on the phone so as to keep the contents of my panties to myself.

Finally someone picks up and asks me what I want.

"Um, a sonogram. I was referred."

"For what part of the body?" (All her grunting, halted replies have been translated into common English for your ease of reading).

"Um, it's kind of like, my upper thigh?"

"Can you hold?"

"Sure, I guess."

"Miss? We don't do sonograms of the 'upper thigh.' What does your prescription note say?"

"It says, er, folliculits vs. LAD, I think. It's hard to read the writing. I don't know what either of those things mean. Can't you just call my doctor? I have her number."

"Can you hold?"

(holding)

"That sounds like something [here she says some long word that contains the word vaginal] or [some other medical word]. We need the rest of the information off the paper."

"FINE. FINE!!! IT SAYS 'Sonogram. J GROIN MASS r/o folliculits vs. LAD. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS!"

"Did you say a BRAIN mass? We don't do brain sonograms here."

"No, GROIN, GROIN, how many more times are you going to make me say it??!"

At this point, half of my division was probably what all the screaming about GROINS was about, and I wished desperately that I could sink into a hole in the earth.

Finally, after the woman on the phone, who is obviously unsympathetic toward cancer patients, determined I had been through enough humiliation, she let me make an appointment.

I'll let you all know at the end of May if I have some rare form of terminal genital cancer -- unless, that is, I die of embarassment first.

Letter to a New York City House Mouse

Dear House Mouse,

It is growing increasingly apparent to me and my roommates that, although there is substantial evidence you are consuming enough rat poison to kill off a pack of wildebeests, you are nevertheless not going away anytime soon.

In the past there have been special circumstances where my roommates and I have approved houseguests to stay for a period of four weeks without requiring the payment of rent. Now, in your case, it's true that you have not been with us for a consecutive four weeks. You also like to visit with other tenants of our creaky old brownstone, and that's more than fine with us. Meanwhile, I suspect extraction of rent from one who gathers forgotten bread crumbs for a living might be impossible, so I guess you're off the hook on that count.

I propose instead that we come to agreemtn on some ground rules that will make all the tenants of my apartment -- the mice, the humans, and the pigeons currently mating on my air conditioner, happier. I mean, after all, it's New York and we're all just trying to eat (and screw), right?

The house rules that we've laid down for long-term guests are reasonable and, should you abide by them, they will allow us to avoid taking more extreme eviction measures such as the deployment of sticky traps and the use of a hammer on your easily crushable head. Believe me, that's a scenario neither of us wants.

Rule No. 1: No Shitting Where We Eat

We don't shit where you eat. You have yet to find a disgusting pile of human feces perched atop the areas that you treat, thanks to your apparent proclivities toward poison and cleaning products, as your own all-you-can-eat buffet -- the stovetop and the sink. We keep our poop off your eating areas, please keep yours off of ours and leave your crap inside the walls.

Rule No. 2: Make Like a Stripper

Mice, like strippers, are supposed to be nocturnal. I had a stripper for a roommate once and she adhered to this truism. She, unlike her rack, was very unobtrusive -- a quality you should try to emulate. As I arrived home each evening, she and her gorgeous and magnificently profitable tits were on the way out the door, a sequined purple dress and six-inch platform shoes sticking out of her canvas bag. In the morning when I left, she'd be quietly snoozing away on the couch, and really you'd hardly know she was there save for the false eyelashes sitting on my sink.

So, mouse, if you hear me open the door or see the lights come on, make haste and scuttle back down the drain or the gas line from whence you came. I won't have to scream, and you won't have to have mousey little fight-or-flee heart palpitations. If your furtive feet and weasly little eyes make an appearance while I'm awake, you're much more likely to get the "hammer treatment." Mice, like strippers, are to come out only at night.

Rule No. 3: Food-Sharing Bylaws

If I leave crumbs sitting on the counter, help yourself. Dig in! (Only in the dead of night, of course.) But when you tear into a fresh bag of potato chips or run rampant over a bowl of bananas, you're crossing the line. You're like that roommate I had who could SMELL the last beer I had sitting in a nearly-empty six pack in the fridge. I'd get home at night, after the bodegas closed but not nearly drunk enough to mentally erase another shitty night of trying to engage in conversation with I-bankers on the Upper East Side, in desperate need of one last beverage to help send me off to la-la-land. And my last beer would be gone. When my potato chips of been raped and ruined, my rage toward you increases and my resolve to get you out -- be it by death or dismemberment -- increase exponentially. Are you TRYING to piss me off?

Rule No. 4: Shut the Hell Up

A few years ago my then-roommate's cretin boyfriend was staying with us for the aforementioned period of four weeks without paying rent (or, for that matter, doing the dishes). I came home from work one day, and there he was, was sitting in the middle of my living room floor, butt naked on a serape in all his slack-jawed glory, humming unintelligably in an apparent attempt at meditating. I didn't want to hear (or see) that, and I certainly don't want to hear (or see) you. If you've gone and gotten your hind legs stuck on a sticky trap, do not -- I repeat, DO NOT -- start squeaking and scampering with those awful little scratchy claws in circles around the middle of the room. Just go gnaw your legs off somewhere where I won't see (or, just as importantly, hear) you.

I think if you abide by these rules, we can establish a long-term apartment sharing situation that will work in both our favors. You can eat, and I don't have to hear, or see, you. Oh, and when the neighbor's brownstone renovation is done, why don't you try moving back in with them? You might find their house rules more to your liking.

The Sweet, Sweet Irony

I was listening to WFUV tonight (www.wfuv.org) and was THRILLED to learn during the news segment that the trust fund for Social Security will be depleted in 2040.

Assuming my liver survives the last 7 years I've spent soaking it in the alcoholic bath that is New York City nightlife, that's the year I'll turn 65.

Great.