Dumb & Dumber

Living with my sister for free in Colorado for a month is a great deal, but it's not entirely without its downsides. Here are two: Dumb and Dumber. (And keep in mind -- I'm a dog lover.)

Ok, their names aren't really Dumb and Dumber (they're McDuff and Wizard), although that would have been more appropriate for these two creatures. These have got to be the only two canines in the world so stupid that they haven't even figured out how to scratch their own balls.

They follow me around the house all day long, or sit right on top of my feet as I try to work, and try to trip me up as I go up the stairs. The opening of a grocery bag or a peek inside a kitchen cupboard sends them into paroxysms of whirling anticipation: "OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH THE NEW LADY IS OPENING A BAG WHAT could BE IN THERE, IS IT BACON IS IT A BUNNY WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT WHAT???!"

But the worst part is that I wasn't kidding when I said these dogs don't know how to scratch their own balls. McDuff has a trick he plays: if you're sitting on the couch or a chair with your legs crossed, toes pointing slightly upward a few inches from the ground, he will stealthily, quietly, come over and ease his way on top of your foot until his emptly little ball sack is situated right in between your toes.

Before you even noticed what he's done, you've inadvertently scratched a dog's balls.

A Reader Poll

I've never taken a reader poll before because, what with four regular readers and all, I'm afraid any sort of polling question might result in a tie. Plus, when I have questions about what to do with my life, I always know what the answer is: embrace the intertia, do nothing, and bitch about circumstances until things improve on their own/get worse.

But this one's a real stumper. I received this email today and the question is, do I click on this link or is it an obvious ploy to see if my email address is real and thus target me with scatalogically-centered porn for the next decade or so?

It reads as follows:

"Hi,
I just found your Beavis & Butt-head blog entryand I think you may be of some help to me. I'm reaching out to you on behalf of M80 and Ignited Minds regarding the launch of The Turds online game called Donkey Pong And The Adventures Of Rimdiana Jones. Have you heard of it? If not, it is the first from The Turds collection of roguish comedic characters born
from the best of toilet humour. Since you mentioned Beavis & Butt-head, would
you mind checking out the site and possibly posting a review on your blog? You
seem like a reputable influencer, so I think you'd be a big help to us.
Here's a link to the game site: http://www.funsta.com/turds/
Please let me know what you think.
Thanks for your time!

Mel / M80
www.m80im.com / www.m80teams.com"

READERS: WHAT SAY YOU?

A Word of Advice for JetBlue Passengers; My New Life in Uber-White Suburbia

Last night S. took me to a Brooklyn Cyclones game at Coney Island. Besides having a lot of fun and starting to miss both him and New York, I also ill-advisedly consumed a corn dog, half a hot dog, a good number of French fries, a basket of fried clams and approximately 27 beers. We took a private car home, on his company, and that was quite a luxury. The memory of that smooth, cool ride only made me feel worse the next morning when Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Omar bin Othman al-Ahmed came to pick me up in a local ghetto car-service clunker looking like it was about to spew a bucketful of bolts onto the road.

Hungover and already on the verge of heaving up grease-soaked corndog matter, I was a little scared of being away from a bathroom for longer than 10 minutes. That our friend, whose a/c didn't work and who had not only a lead foot but an incurable case of "twitchy braking disease," decided he wanted to set a personal land-speed record to JFK, didn't make my stomach feel better. To put it simply, it was important that I find a bathroom, stat, once at the airport.

But since I was hauling approximately 300 pounds of crap, I decided to make it through security first. Besides, wouldn't the bathroom situation be better once we were in JFK's much-heralded new JetBlue addition?

No. A word of advice: if you think you may be about to expel the contents of a Coney Island dinner before you get on a JetBlue flight from JFK, please make time to do it before you leave the house. Because there are -- and I counted -- exactly EIGHT women's bathroom stalls (that's stalls, not bathrooms) on the entire concourse for TWENTY EIGHT GATES. That math does not make sense, and the impatient, unbelievably long lines of trashy, gassy, bloated Long Island biddies was not a pretty sight to behold at 7 a.m. It didn't help that apparently it's considered a good idea by some ladies to drag 11-year-old boys into the women's room by their hands. Believe me lady, nobody wants to kidnap your pasty-faced nancy boy in his stupid fishing hat with matching knickers. I'm sure that kid isn't going to have issues.

ANYWAY, I have arrived safely in Colorado and am writing to you from the basement of my sister's suburban home in Highlands Ranch, land of late-model vehicles and infinite whiteness. Her two Westie dogs McDuff and Wizard -- who are also white and undoubtedly the two stupidist canines to ever have survived puppyhood -- are currently running in circles around my feet and trying to bite each other's faces off. Above me looms a large McMansion with ample room for parking and a backyard with flowers and a grill. I'm not quite sure what to make of all this and I'm not sure how quickly I'm going to adjust living in this thing called "the rest of America."

Because I arrived in the afternoon, and because my sister is pregnant AND suffering from a nasty case of food poisoning, there were to be no adventures today. We did, however, make a trip to the (huge, gleaming, very exciting) grocery store to pick up some Gatorade so she could replenish her fluids. While in the grocery store she said, "Gosh, everyone here is so white, it must be really weird from you coming from New York, right? I mean, our hometown of three thousand people was more diverse than this place. The only time you ever see, you know....the Mexicans....around here is at GARAGE SALES."

This should be an interesting month! I'll keep you posted. Viva la Whitey.

Wheels: Check! (Patchouli Application Required)

So part of the problem with the Red Baron exploding is that I was going to be left in suburban Denver without wheels. This meant no trips to the mountains, no trips to the crags, no trips into the city to see my friends, and basically, without any of that -- what was the point of the trip? To sit in my sister's basement and watch free cable for 30 days, growing ever fatter as I drooled over the Food Network and pined for restaurants in New York? I'd be better off at home.


Luckily, with my brother's upcoming move to Germany, he and his wife are trying to unload their wheels: a 1970's-ish Volkswagen Westfalia van that comes "fully equipped" with windows controlled by handles, no a/c and an AM radio with a dial! (Seen here playing a supporting role in this photo -- the van, not the AM radio.)

The orange Westie also has a popup roof with bunk beds, as well as a sink, though I'm not quite sure how that works. That's ok, though, because in order to drive one of these vans, one is required to 1) stink like feet that haven't been washed in 8-10 days and 2) wear patchouli oil. Who needs a sink NOW, mofo?

The great fun about this whole scheme, of course, is that -- and I am NOT being facetious as you can see here -- I have always wanted to live in a Westfalia van. I think it's because I missed out on some essential college experience by never studying abroad or attending a Phish concert.

At any rate, I was always a little jealous of my brother. Not only is he the favored son of the family, he also has the metabolism of an Ethiopian ultramarathon runner. He's a doctor who will one day be rich as Croesus, is happily married with one perfect child, and on TOP of all that he ALSO got the WESTIE VAN that I always wanted! I mean shit, can I please have ONE CRUMB of the family luck here people? Not only did I miss out on the family chip that God put in everyone else's brain that makes them whizzes at organic chem and propels them into high-paying medical careers, I didn't even get to be the family hippie!

I guess the consolation prize to being lonely, barren and on the verge of qualifying for food stamps is that I get one month in the Westie. I'm starting to grow my dreads now in anticipation. OK, not really. But I might go an extra day without changing my underwear just to celebrate.

How I Repay a Kindness

So last night, fried and frazzled beyond belief after my seven-hour ordeal driving a whopping fifty miles into Jersey (and back) only to spend hours in a tow truck with a man named Bubba, S. said he would take me out to dinner and ply me with booze and witty conversation to get my mind off the matter.

He took me to Gyu-Kaku, a Japanese barbecue place on the Bowery, which was amazing. Wouldn't you know, a large glass of sake and three mugs of beer later, I was happily grilling away thin and delectable strips of Kobe beef, kalbi tare, duck and scallops and wolfing down big piles of spicy bibimba. Mmmmmmm. Afterward we repaired to the 11th St. Bar for some more painkillers.

Sated and drunk a few hours later, I had all but forgotten about the demise of the Red Baron, Bubba, and how my familiar financial sinkhole of a life had recently grown much deeper and chillier. S. and I discussed valiant plans to "sue the pants off" the garage that deemed my rustbucket to be in "mint condition," and I chalked up yet another great night in New York, all thanks to S. We went back to his house, I had a glass of wine, and we went to bed.

Well, apparently I fell asleep (errrr....passed out?) with a piece of gum in my mouth.

Unfortunately, it didn't stay there.

Because this morning when S. woke up, it was only seconds until he shouted "OH MY GOD, there's something STUCK to my HEAD!", leapt out of bed and ran around the room swatting the back of his hair. In one of those slo-mo moments of horror, I realized IT WAS MY GUM.

I am now trying to walk S., someone who devoted last night to lifting my bleak, black spirits, through the process of applying different loathsome dissolvents -- including peanut butter, gasoline, olive oil and dish soap -- to his own head in an attempt to remove the gum that fell out of my mouth.

I hope someday he finds this situation at least mildly amusing.

A Long, Expensive Trip to Nowhere (Or, How I Spent a Day With a Man Named Bubba)

When we talk about "worst days ever," there's always someone who can trump you. You might have the kind of bad day where you miss your train, the next one is running express and skips your stop, and then when you come up from underground, it's raining and you forgot your umbrella and then one of your shoddy shoes disintegrates in a puddle and you're late for work and then you get fired for coming into work late and shoeless. That's a standard bad day.

A far worse bad day, for instance, would be if your arm got eaten by a bear while you were hiking and then, when you went to the doctor to get it stitched up, they found that you had a raging case of shoulder cancer. It would also suck if you got engaged and then on the way home from your celebration dinner, your fiance got hit by a cab and killed, and you found out as the cabbie ran out to check on him that, coincidentally, he had just broken off a hot and stormy affair with her a week earlier.

I had a bad day on Friday that was far worse than the rainy shoeless day, better than losing an arm or a fiancee, but definitely fell into the category of "so fucking bad I can hardly believe it actually happened." I might not have the kind of bad days where I find out I have cancer (although just give me a few years), but when it comes to travel, I have nothing but horror story after horror story. If I'm in Dubuque, I know my luggage is in Dubai. If I have a connection, I will miss it and be forced to eat fried cheese curds for dinner at an A&W Root Beer in the airport and will inevitably miss whatever event I was traveling for. If I for once arrive at the airport without incident, my flight will have just been cancelled. But I think what happened Friday trumps all the flying mishaps. Apparently, I'm not meant to drive anywhere, either.

After an excellent party on Thursday night, I awoke feeling excited about my upcoming cross-country drive, Clear Channel radio or no. Earlier in the week, I had brought my lovable little rust bucket, the Red Baron, to the shop to make sure its bill of health checked out ahead of the 1800-mile trip to Colorado. I also asked our good man at the shop if he could look at my freon as the a/c didn't seem to be blowing with much vigor (and no one likes a lazy blower). Unfortunately, a problem was detected: my a/c compressor was shot and cost ELEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS to fix. Well, what're you gonna do? I bit my lip, threw it on a credit card and secretly cursed myself. However, I was glad that the mechanic said that otherwise, mechanically at least, my car was in -- AND I QUOTE -- "mint condition." Remember that one later folks.

I made it out of Brooklyn before noon, just minutes ahead of the first raindrops, which I took as some kind of sign. The gods were smiling on me! Sure, moments later I nearly ran over an elderly man in Newark crossing against a light on a bicycle he was having a hard time maneuvering, but yet I was convinced all was well with my travel world. My motor made a funny dipping noise at a light, but hey, it was in "MINT CONDITION," nothing to worry about there.

At mile 49.6 of my 1800-mile trip, somewhere near the western edge of New Jersey (that's right, I hadn't even made it to Pennsylvania for the love of Pete!) I learned that the teardrops were those of the gods laughing at me so hard that they cried. Because on mile 49.6 of my 1800-mile road trip, I looked down in at my guages. The quick heat of panic and alarm flared up to my face as I saw my RPMs drop to zero. I pulled off on an exit ramp. A call to AAA was made. A red-haired, goateed man named Bubba (and no, I am truly not making that up) appeared.

The problem was quickly diagnosed as my timing belt, and as calls were made to garages, the costs of the repairs estimated rapidly multiplied from a somewhat manageable $800 to an absolutely unthinkable TWENTY FIVE HUNDRED (yeah, that's dollars, not pesos). And repairs would take until Wednesday. My car is only worth maybe $1500 blue book. To dump another three grand that I don't have into it was not an option.

Bubba took the Baron away to a junkyard (where I'm sure he's gleefully ripping out my brand new a/c compressor to sell for parts as we speak), I got zero dollars and a dropoff at the local Enterprise rent-a-car, where I transferred an enormous pile of now-pointless shit like tents, climbing ropes and quick draws onto the floor of the shop in front of a somewhat bewildered staff. I was too numb to cry (although that started up when I heard there was a 45-minute wait on the inbound Lincoln).

I got in my gray Corolla. I drove back to New York. I hauled all my pointless camping and climbing gear back up the steep flights to my apartment; it's currently sitting in my room.

I no longer have a car. I'm out $1,100, plus tolls, gas and towing charges. For my $1,100 I enjoyed my air conditioning for a sum total of 67 minutes. That's some expensive freon.

I'm FLYING to Colorado on Tuesday, but I have no car once I get there so I'll be either at the mercy of friends or stranded in the suburbs. I have no idea how I'm going to get all my gear out there, but I think as far as my climbing rope goes, I'm going to fashion it into a noose and have it at the ready around my neck for when my flight goes awry because people, I am ON THE VERGE.

You know I'm on the verge because I was going to try to make this funny, but I didn't even have THAT in me. This is all just so...discouraging.

My Last Night in Brooklyn

(for awhile, anyway) was so fun that I KNOW I'm going to cry out "What the HELL was I thinking??!" today as I inch my car into the tunnel, onward through Jersey, and toward Colorado for the next five weeks. Seriously folks, you made my night. Thanks for coming out for a trough full of booze at Abilene to send me off! You'll be happy to know that 1) since I didn't make you sign a disclosure agreement and 2) since we were all sweaty and had the propensity to close our eyes from all the booze by the point the camera came out last night that this picture of me and the roommates is the only one I'll be posting. I'll send some by email though so we can have a laugh.

See you in August! Look for my next post to be about either a rest stop in Kansas.

Still Just a Rat in a Maze

I work during part of week in Time Inc.'s building on 50th and 6th, which sits basically right on top of the catacombs that run underneath Radio City and Rockefeller Center. In these endless interconnected hallways exist countless fast-food joints, the entrance to Top of the Rock, underground entrances to doorways to stores like Anthropologie and Swarovski, and the sweltering Rock Center post office. There are shoe shiners, florists, overpriced pizza places; there's a Starbucks, a pay-by-the-pound salad place, a big picture window where you can watch the ice skaters in Rock Center in the winter, and a million other things.

There is no map.

Rather, there is a map but it's indecipherable and asking someone for directions will result in a conversation that goes something like this:

"How do I find the post office?"

"Um, so you take the elevator down to one, then you take the escalator, it's over by the security guard. Then you take your first right by the McDonald's and the hall curves around to the left. Then there are TWO entrances to ANOTHER tunnel, take the first one, there's usually a Chinese bag lady sitting there, and then, um....." [Person looks panicked, runs away.]

However, I've been working off and on here for coming up on two years and through a combination of mailing and shopping necessities, and cravings for six-inch delights from the subterranean Subway sandwich shop, I know my way around these endless tunnels by now.

Not everyone is so lucky. People walk around like robots with shorted fuses, bumping into walls and turning into janitor's closets in search for the Top of the Rock gift shop. So I found it quite amusing today as I was on my way into work when I saw a man, a fat, bald man -- with pleated khaki shorts and a braided belt, obviously a tourist -- stop dead in the middle of the hallway, tilt his head back to the heavens, and shout to no one in particular:

"How in the hell do you get OUT of here???!"

iPod Protection

On the streets of New York, iPods serve not just as a conveyor of your favorite tunes but also as audio protection from all the other nut jobs who might decide to talk to you. Every time I put mine I relish the thought that anyone who wants to comment on the juiciness of my ever-widening ass will have to do so without me hearing them, and I can go blissfully unaware through the rest of my day.

But today I was thinking that homeless people must REALLY hate the invasion of iPods. I mean, if I didn't have anywhere to live I'd be a little pissed off that someone was walking around with something stuck in their ears that potentially cost enough to cover one month's rent. And I wonder what it's doing to their weekly take? New Yorkers are always more immune to pleas for change than the easily-guilted tourists, and with the addition of earbuds, we can now pretend like we don't even HEAR their stories about how their dog needs a tail transplant STAT or how we must help because their house burned down last week. (Note to lady on the F train whose house burned down last week: you've been telling the same story for a year, might want to change it up a little).

Just a random thought of the day.

Shack Sauce Works as Truth Serum, Causes Visions

So bad...yet so good. ^_^
Originally uploaded by joeywan.

I, along with everyone else in NYC, has been hearing the siren song of Shake Shack for what, over a year now? But I could never bring myself to wait on that line, I just couldn't do it. Besides, could the burgers REALLY be as good as everyone said? It was like some kind of ground-beef cult. If I concurred, I'd be a loathsome bandwagon jumper; if I disagreed, I'd be disappointed.

Last night my friend S. asked if I'd like to have dinner somewhere ahead of my upcoming sojourn to Colorado, someplace I'd miss when I left. He shot down the idea of some good sushi and other ideas that were batted around didn't seem to stick, either (for some reason, my sarcastic suggestion of the Caliente Cab Club didn't strike a chord). Finally he ventured, "How about the Shake Shack?" I let out a whoop, ran down the stairs of my apartment and hopped on the train to meet him for a late, 9:15-ish dinner of a Double Shack burger, a couple of fries and the Arnold Palmer, a half-mix of lemonade and tea.

Holy Moses, that was an amazing burger. Not only did it live up to the hype; in my mind, or in my belly, it actually surpassed it. It was the juiciest, cheesiest, drippiest, most well-seasoned burger I've ever had in New York, greasy hands down. I am an enthusiastic bandwagon jumper. The line wasn't even that bad. It will hard to ever eat a burger anywhere else, ever.

Later in the evening I went on to have a very nice conversation with the friend who took me out for burgers, an honest discussion of things I had been wanting to talk about for some time. And later that night, as I drifted off to sleep (much later, actually, thanks to the tea in the Arnold Palmer), I was treated to some seriously wacky dreams.

I'm convinced it was the Shack Sauce seeping into my system.

Good Times at Good Fork

Last night was the first-ever Red Hook Adventure of 2006. My friends Tim, Jason, Scott and I decided we would bar crawl through the hook and end the evening at Good Fork.

We started with drinks at B61, carried onward to Moonshine, where two buckets of PBR were drained in the quiet, leafy back courtyard. From there, we passed a Rottweiler guarding a lot full of junked cars at sunset and pressed onto Hope & Anchor where we sat at the counter and had another round. Finally, we arrived at Good Fork. Jason had been to Good Fork with his wife last week and raved and raved about it. The NYTimes gave it an excellent review, and my hopes were high. Thankfully, I was not let down -- hurry up and get to Good Fork before everyone hears about it and it becomes impossible to get in.

For forty bucks apiece, we each had a cocktail to start, a glass of wine with dinner, an appetizer and an entree. The food was incredible. I started with the delicate, crunchy fried squash blossoms and had the slow braised Berkshire pork with polenta and grilled scallions as a main. The pork was unbelievably tender and well-spiced. I also got a bite of the Korean-style steak and eggs with kimchee rice, which was super tasty. Portion sizes were Just Right, which is rare. The main dining room of the restaurant is really lovely, with its curved wood ceiling, and the service was good, no complaints. We sat in the new backyard, which smells like flowers and is filled with candles and weird antiques like early-century refrigerators. It was a perfect date restaurant, and someplace that still feels relatively secret -- and yet cheap enough to be a servicable neighborhood joint. I'll be going back as soon as I can.

After dinner, we decided to walk down to the water. We walked out onto crumbling piers, just inches above the water, and watched a wedding reception across the way inside the old red Lehigh Valley boat. We considered swimming across, coming up like some creatures from the lagoon and asking if we could join in the chicken dance, but thought better of it.

Eventually we made our way back behind the Fairway building following the old trolley tracks. There we found a bunch of old abandoned trolley cars and our curiosity got the best of us. Though the doors didn't open, the windows were all gone so with a little climbing and scrambling we all hoisted ourselves inside the old cars by the water and poked around. TEchnically, I suppose we were "trespassing," but hey, there were no signs up, so....! The whole thing felt vaguely Tom Sawyer-ish but we marveled that there was a place left in NYC where you could go explore something creepy and broken down right on a beautiful waterfront with the moon shining on the waves, and have it all to yourself and not have it guarded to the gills by security. Afterward we walked around the other side of the building, only to be blocked by a huge, probably 15-foot iron fence. But being in the adventurous mood that we were, we opted to scale it instead of walk all the way back around.

I still have the bruises today, but I haven't had that much fun in a long time. Thanks to my partners in crime for a very memorable, totally weird and really wonderful night.

The Prince Charmings of MySpace

A longtime user of Friendster, with its nice clean layouts and un-creepy vibe, I've never really warmed up to the whole MySpace thing. It always seemed kind of seedy and populated by people who never learned how to spell words containing more than two syllables, with terrible graphic-design skills, to boot.

Nevertheless, since my West Coast friends are MySpace users, I'm on there. But I don't use it. I simply ignore all the mail that's in my inbox and delete it every so often, unread.

But today, my flight to Atlanta was cancelled for mechanical problems (because we all know I can never, ever fly anywhere without troubles, and I now have three hours to kill) and I was sifting through my email and decided to look at an email from one of the MySpace yahoos.

Dear God, I wish I hadn't. I hope that these turds, and there's really no better word for them, are not representative of what's left of single males from whom I have to choose. Some of these were so gross that I felt like I virtually re-exposed one of the penis-flashers who has forced me to look at their tiny, shriveled birds in the past, albeit online.

A sickening sampling. Enjoy!

From "Nick."

Never did this before, but...
Body: Hi Erin,
Never came right out and asked this of anyone, but I'm tired of being alone and sex starved. Would you be interested in getting together or chatting about having a sexual relationship/friendship. I need sex in my life and am tired of waiting around for it. I'm single, never married, no children. Very discriminating and have not had many partners. I'm just missing that important part of life and want to do something about it. I'm a nice guy, gentle, romantic, funny and will treat you well. Anyway, there it is. Never asked this before. Don't mean to insult you, just hoping you might be looking for the same thing. Open to something long term and forever if that should happen. If you're interested, say hi.
Nick-

[Wow, I can't imagine why that guy hasn't had many partners, with a come-on like this! What woman WOULDN'T go for it??!]

From "Todd," who apparently had written once before.

Not even a response?
Body: where my pics that bad...lol? i was actually looking forward to your response...

[You know, sniveling and sounding vaguely threatening are not turn-ons. I am looking forward to you going away. Please, please go away.]

From "Samir"

Just try my heart....Please!!
Body: Well..........I don't know why i'm sending you this message, bcz i'm not expecting you to say( Ohhh, i love egypt...i've always wanted to visit egypt....i'm comming soon, wait for me there!)...lol

And i don't know why i'm sending you this message bcz i really decided to stop looking and give up about women forever UNTILL i looked at your beautiful charming eyes, UNTILL i looked at your irresistible warm eyes, i felt a spark running all over my body, i felt that this world is very beautiful, i felt that i love life, i felt that i'm living in heaven!

And...........No, i don't live in USA....
No, i'm not american.....
No, i'm not even the same religion as you are.....
And Yes, i'm far millions of miles away from you....

Erin...... I'm not expecting you to say( No, my heart isn't taken)

BUT i've a warm caring heart and a romantic innocent soul......

If your heart can try my heart, i'll b the happiest guy on this planet......but if your heart is taken, then...... **SIGH!!!**.....all i can do is wish you all the best luck in your life and goodbye!! :(

[Ummm, please don't tell me about the warm sparks running all over your body after you look at my picture. To feel as though I exist for someone else's pornographic needs does not make me happy.]

From "Shenanigans" (which, incidentally, was the name of a bar in my hometown of South Dakota located in a mall and populated by people with bad perms):

Very Cute Girl...Would Love To Find Out More
Body: Whats Up Gorgeous...Loved the whole profile, you're cute, the layout's hot, and you seemed genuinely interesting. Love it...you seem like a fun ass girl. I'm a fun, laid back guy from NYC who just loves to get out and have a great time...would love to find out more about ya and get to know you. Would love to hear back from you...hopefully you aren't like all these other stuck up girls on Myspace who just don't write back, lol. Besides, how often do you find a guy on here who has a good job, is finishing up law school, and doesn't go tanning every day or look like he's ready to pick a fight in a club, lol. Hope to hear back from ya...
~John

[The "layout's hot"? Um, it's the standard layout, dipshit. I seem like a "fun ass" girl? I'm not sure how fun my ass is. Also, Shenanigans, if you're going to talk about how you're not a meathead addicted to the tanning bed, you should not put up a picture in which your skin is orange, your T-shirt is sleeveless, and your biceps are the size of footballs.]

These are the people who find me attractive. KILL ME NOW!

Pimp Roll

Right before my senior prom, I became very concerned about the size of my calves. Many women worry that they have fat calves, or even worse, cankles. But not me.

Folks in my family are cursed not only with hips large enough to easily birth a healthy-sized brood of hippos, but with "chicken legs" below the knees. I sometimes feared (even though I couldn't have been more than a size six at the time) that my legs looked like the chickens you'd buy at the store -- massive, white, meaty thighs perched atop skinny little bones that looked as though they might, at any moment, snap under the strain.

I wanted to look good for prom, so I started doing step aerobics. (It was the 90s. Shut up.) My calves muscled up a bit, and I was pleased with the results. I kept up the work when I got to college and even started using the calf weights machine, lifting, oh, I don't know, 40 or 60 pounds at a time and admiring the new curves below my knees.

Fast forward ten years or so to Chelsea Piers. I've been climbing and running and lifting and in general getting fit (and yet, somehow, fatter) for 10 years now and a few months ago, we got a new calf weight machine at the gym. I was pleased to see that I could now lift TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY POUNDS with my calves alone. I'm like a kangaroo! I could beat you up in a boxing match -- if only with my legs.

But I must have overdone it at some point because for the last week, I've been hobbling around like a polio victim who just had his knees clubbed. I think I must have torn a muscle or something in my left calf, and I think I'm only making it worse during my daily workouts.

ANYWAY, today I skipped out of work for a bit so I could make my way over to the Rockefeller Center post office to send pops a present for Father's Day. A side note on the Rock Center post office: this has got to be the mother-f**kin' hottest post office this side of the Sahara. Seriously, it's hotter than an August fish fry in Georgia down there.

But I digress. On my way to the post office, dragging my left leg behind me for half my stride, at some point I caught a glimpse of myself in a full-length window I was walking by.

And then, I had a horrific realization: I look like a white girl trying to sport a pimp roll.

It's time to get out of Brooklyn (or at least get some physical therapy).

A listicle

Things I am going to miss about New York:

My friends
My climbing wall and my church (my two “third places”)
Brooklyn
Fresh oysters
World-class restaurants
Snark
Rubbing shoulders with all the smart people
People who read. Read a lot
Endless options for live music
Being able to get drunk and take a subway or a cab home
No last call
Nonstop opportunities for fun, culture…and trouble
Free movies in Bryant Park
Newspaper stands, bodegas with resident cats
Watching the sailboats near Chelsea Piers
Watching the sunset from my roof over the Statue of Liberty
Walking through Carroll Park on my way to the subway and watching the kids run through the fountain
Old Italian men in wife-beaters smoking cigars on Court Street
My morning runs through Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, looking at the trees, flowers, dogs, architecture, and bridges
Italian ice windows
Being able to see every day, and easily get to, the ocean
The eternal adolescence of many adults

Things I am NOT going to miss about New York:

Rats on the subway tracks
Rats on the subway platforms
Mice in my house
Men who harass me on the street
The high cost of everything
The smelly garbage piles
The constant struggle to do even the most simple things
My roommate not emptying the dishwasher. Ever. (Even though I love him)
That it takes forever to get everywhere
That you have to go to six different stores instead of just one if you want to purchase shoelaces, milk, markers, a T-shirt, a box of Kleenex and new batteries
Public transit service interruptions
My dependence on the M14 bus
The traffic
The honking and car alarms
The starlings in my back yard
The homeless people who poop themselves on the train
The PIGEONS, dear God, I won’t miss the pigeons
A steep fourth-floor walkup
The eternal adolescence of many adults

Things I am looking forward to in Colorado:

Hiking
Mountains
Climbing
Camping
Fresh air
New restaurants
Making new friends
Seeing old friends
Spending time with my sister
A refreshing lack of overly self-aware hipsters
That last call exists
Being able to drive everywhere
A slower pace
That everything will be cheaper
Groundhogs, not mice

Things I am not looking forward to in Colorado:

A disturbing number of overly self-aware hippies
Having to drive everywhere
Chain restaurants and strip malls
Focus on the Family-style Christians
That last call exists
Suburbia
Cheesecake Factory
People who drive SUVs
Breeders

Things I am not looking forward to during my road trip:
(in 7 words):
Sixteen hundred miles of Clear Channel Radio
(Dear Lord, I pray that Clear Channel is no longer playing “Drops of Jupiter” 29 times a day, every day)

What would you miss/not miss about New York?

Street Meat

I'm no connoisseur of street meat and probably eat less of it than the normal midtown worker. I know there are carts that have delicious stuff, but I'm too lazy to do research on which ones are good and too particular about my midday meal to risk it without advice. However, today, the corporate cafeteria was sorely lacking in toothsome options, and a couple weeks ago a clean, large Teriyaki cart opened nearly outside my office door, on the north side of 50th between 6th and 7th (outside the Time Life building).

Since I know a bunch of us are stuck in midtown, with Pret a Mangers and identical delis as far as the eye can see, I wanted to give an enthusiastic recommendation of the Terikyaki cart if you're in the mood. It's only been there a few weeks and I've been curious, if wary. I'm pleased to report it's a great option if you can't stand another tiny $8 sandwich from Pret.

Beef, chicken or pork are available for $6. Eel is $7. The meat is freshly grilled while you wait, and afterward they slather it in a tasty, tangy, if slightly gelatinous, Teriyaki sauce in which you can really taste the soy. It's served over a generous pile of white rice. To top it off, you also get a fresh salad (iceberg, but whatever, it gives the thing some crunch) with carrots and tomatoes, which comes with a thin, tangy white salad dressing somewhat reminiscent of a house salad at a sushi restaurant. AND you also get your choice of a six-piece California roll or a spicy crab roll. I know it sounds, um, fishy getting sushi from a street meat cart, but the spicy roll I got today tasted fresh and not even over-refrigerated, and they made sure to put on a new pair of gloves when handling all my food.

What was an especially nice touch was that they didn't just throw all this in a box and shove it across the counter. They were really nice and polite and arranged everything kind of, dare I say it, artfully in the box -- at least as artful as you can get for street meat -- with everything sliced and stacked and sauced just so.

It's definitely a step above many of the other options on 50th Street and a great deal to boot.

Hooked on the Hook

You know you’ve been in New York a long time when every block in Manhattan feels old hat, when you never, and I mean never, need a map anymore, when all the archetypical-seeming folk on the street start to bore you – yeah, yeah, a transgendered albino midget playing a tambourine and riding a three-legged donkey, SO WHAT?

It’s times like these that call for a little “outer-borough” escape, to places that still feel unfamiliar, where the people still feel foreign, and the air and the space just feels different. Luckily, one never seems to run out of these places in a great city like New York. So today after eating my way through the New York Barbecue Block Party with a group of old friends -- where I had a huge slab of brisket that would make the pickiest ‘cue lover moan in happiness – I headed to Red Hook.

I’ve lived on the edge of Red Hook for about five years now and I started taking treks over there well before Time Out New York splashed it all over its cover as the Hot New Place. My now-ex boyfriend, who was an ocean lifeguard, was part amphibian, I’m convinced. Whenever his big, flat toes hadn’t touched saltwater for a day or two he’d start to get a wild look in his eyes – and it was then that I knew it was time to get in the car, drive down the rough, cobblestone streets of Red Hook, walk along the pier, and breathe in the salt air as you listened to the waves lap. There was no Fairway then, there was no Queen Mary Cruise ship, there was no 360 fine dining (though I was among its first patrons). Just empty, echoey streets, a few dirty beer halls for old salts like Sonny’s, and us.

Red Hook is a different place now. There IS a Fairway, there IS fine dining, there ARE cruise ships and hell if there aren’t even cutesy-named bakeshops like Baked, although the boyfriend is no longer.

I caught the Red Hook bug afresh last night when I hit up the bar Moonshine for a $5 bucket of PBRs with friends and the best game of Ms. Pac Man I’ve played since the demise of Sparky’s on Court Street (RIP). On the way home, we stopped at Schnack for sliders and I knew a return trip was in order the next day.

What I was happy to find on my solo meander through Red Hook today is that despite these creeping omens of gentrification that threaten to turn every neighborhood into a proto-Soho, Red Hook retains its air of separateness and specialness – both from New York itself and from the rest of the country. For instance, in New York, there’s no other neighborhood where you could find a humongous grocery store with awesome produce, huge, welcoming aisles, a parking lot for FOUR HUNDRED CARS (photographic evidence to come!), where you can buy toilet paper for rock bottom prices and a block of foie gras for, well, not rock bottom prices. In the rest of America, there’s no other grocery where you can see the Statue of Liberty and the ocean, as well as a pair of cruise ships and a wedding reception on a pier across the way, from the parking lot.

Of course, all my time in Red Hook wasn’t spent at the brand new, love of my life Fairway. I also stopped by the excellent and quirky wine shop, LeNell’s (416 Van Brunt), where LeNell herself greeted me at the door and in her excitement to share her wares nearly dragged me to the back of the shop for a sample of a South African Bukettraube from a vineyard called Cederberg. I had never heard of the winery or the grape, but after she handed me a glass (a real glass), with a heavy pour of the stuff along with a homemade cheesy break ball thing, I was floored. It was heavy and sweet and like nothing else I’d ever tasted, and, as she informed me, there were only 12 bottles left in all of New York. And it was less than $20. Sold!

I also stopped by Steve’s Key Lime Pie, famous city wide for being the only authentic purveyer of Key lime pies in New York. There was a little white terrier guarding the parking lot who ran up to me for a sniff as I walked in, and Steve wrapped up the pie and asked me if I was sure the pie would make it home safely? I assured him it would, as I didn’t live far. It was nice that someone cared so much about my tiny, single-girl pie.

There are lots of times when I feel like I’m going to miss the whole husband, family, kids boat (which departs for New Jersey every night at six, if you must know). But tonight when I got home with my Fairway haul and my treats from LaNell and Steve, I knew that one of the true joys of being single is that I can sit down and actually eat a dinner comprised of foie gras, cornichons, South African wine and my own little real Key lime pie. I have the distinct feeling that if I had a couple tots to worry about it would be Spaghetti-Os and peanut butter all the way. So I’m going to enjoy it while I can.

Here are some images I saw today on my trip to Red Hook. Get down there now before Ikea totally ruins the crusty, salty seafaring pirate vibe!

Ad Double Entendres An Idiot Exec Thought Up That I Am Ashamed to Admit Went Over My Head Until I Had Already Been Annoyed By Them For Years

"Trust Sleepy's, for the REST of your life."

"Every kiss begins with (K)ay."

Ugh. I obviously already had a lobotomy, and no one told me. I think they did it while they were taking my wisdom teeth out.

Burn of the Day

For some reason, all the boys at my church want to tell me about their love lives, and have me fix them.

To protect the innocent (and the not so innocent, certainly), I'll spare you the details on the muckety messes in which they find themselves, but suffice it to say that apparently I have become the go-to girl for advice when they find themsevles peskily infatuated with the lusty lady their best friend used to date or need some how-to's on tactfully dumping Tuesday night Bible study girl for the Friday night happy hour girl they accidentally made out with two weeks prior.

ANYWAY, my friend J. came to me today at a picnic we had on the church's roof, whingeing away about some babe he's in love with at work. Of course I bestowed upon his eager ears the wisdom of the fairer sex, and hopefully he takes my advice so he doesn't spend the next two years pining away for her and eating sad, high-sodium Campbell's soup for one on Saturday nights.

As I was leaving, I was telling ANOTHER male friend, let's call him R., that I had once again been called upon to dispense amorous advice. Awhile back, I had found myself on a church ski/snowboarding trip, drunkenly locked in a bathroom of our overcrowded ski condo with R. for privacy, nursing a Corona and advising him on some (seemingly unworthy) girl he had been pining after forever.

I shook my head and asked him, "R., why do all the boys come to me for advice when my own love life is so continuously in the shitter?"

He looked at me with mock gravity, an evil flicker in his eye, and recited that old maxim:

"Erin, those who can't DO, teach."