Now They Tell Us

Spotted on the train: Do not fall in love.

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite

On the train yesterday, Mizza informed me that the city is apparently infested with bedbugs once again. This happens from time to time, I guess. I've gotten used to "water bugs" in my tub when I get home from a long break, but I really cannot handle this.

"If you get them," Mizza said. "I recommend the following: Leave your apartment with the clothes on your back, which you will promptly have deloused, and perhaps burned. Abandon your lease and all your belongings and start over in a new city. Also: You've scratched your nose three times while we've been talking, and if there's something you'd like to tell me, you can do it from across the aisle."

I am dead serious, folks. If the bedbugs find me, there won't be enough SSRIs on the planet to stop the screaming.

Ah, Youth

I just took the train back to NYC, and ran into my friend Mizza on the way back from the cafe car. Apparently, I not only know everyone in New York, I also know everyone on every major form of transportation in the tristate area. Sweet.

Mizza and I hunkered down with pizza and sandwiches and told each other our same six stories. Then we started listening in on our fellow passengers. It started because we passed the stop for Conn College, and Mizza was concerned that we should wake up the kid across from us.

"He totally goes to Conn," he said. "Look at him: Peach-fuzzy chin beard. Plaid shirt. Zippery backbag with tags. He's an environmental science major, but he doesn't know it yet. He's, like, a little high almost always, and he's really getting into jazz."

As if on cue, Conn College started to rouse himself. It was a long slow process, with much eyerubbing and stretching, and by the time he was upright, Mizza was half-asleep. So I made sure to listen in closely, just in case I was the only witness to the conversation.

"Yeah, 'lo?" He mumbled into his phone. "Listen, hi. Here's what I need you to do. I need you to go the bank machine and take out ... forty-five dollars. My friend Klara will come get the ... forty-five dollars. Klara. K-l-a-r-a. Klara. What did I say? Spell it back. K-l-a-r-a. OK. She's short. Yup."

At this point, Mizza opened one eye and mouthed: "Forty-five dollars." I attempted not to pee.

"Oh, yeah, something else. I need this girl's phone number. Can you go into my Facebook account. My email address is JUNIPERJOHNSON@NYU.EDU. [D'oh! -JH] And my password is WEED! With an exclamation point. That's W-E-E..."

Mizza hit me in the side, and whispered, "When I was in school? It was James Brown. We'd call each other up and be like, hey man, can I borrow that JAMES BROWN CD, for like FORTY-FIVE MINUTES?"

"It cost FORTY-FIVE MINUTES when you were in school? Man, you're twelve and I always forget. When I was in school, you could get some James Brown for THIRTY MINUTES."

"Nah, see, this was the REALLY GOOD JAMES BROWN CD. You know that one? The REALLY, REALLY GOOD JAMES BROWN. It's usually about FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LONG."

"Yeah, I went to UMass. You could get SHITTY JAMES BROWN for TWENTY BUCKS."

And ... We're Back!

Hello, Pals of the Internets. Did you have a lovely Thanksgiving? Did you eat deep-fried bird? Did you burn your houses down? I hope not.

I am refreshed and revivified after my own holiday, which consisted of reading true crime novels and stuffing my face. Really, there's nothing better than that.

I also discovered the cure for situational depression this weekend. It is simply this: Read a book about the Green River Killer, and then, when people ask you how you are, say things like, "Well, it could be worse. My body could be lying at the bottom of a ravine, garrotted with its own underpants." Actually, don't say that. You'll upset people.

I'm sure I'll come up with a better answer than this. Previously, I'd been cheering up my friends by saying things like, "Well, at least you have a pancreas." Or: "Know what sucks? Dialysis." It worked, too! People totally forgot all about their problems, whilst trying to figure out exactly what had gone wrong inside my pointed head.*

* Note: My head is not pointed. It is actually completely round and quite handsome, with or without hair, as I discovered in college during my punk rock phase. Thank you.

Gobble, Gobble

Ma Smash: Are you looking forward to a little break?

Me: God, yes. I'm exhausted. Definitely time for a vacation.

Ma Smash: Well, you just come home. You won't have to do a thing! I made a pie the other day, and I went to the store today and bought all the trimmings and I've been talking to old Thomas, who is in the fridge as we speak.

Me: Oh, man! I forgot you did that. Your theory is that it helps with cooking, right? Sort of like playing Mozart for plants?

Ma Smash: Yes, but right now I'm concentrating on putting old Thomas at ease. Don't tell him what Thursday is. Y'see, I've told him that he's a pet.

Sporadic Posting Ahead

Hello, make-believe friends of the electronic variety.

The Thanksgiving holidays are nearly upon us. This is a delightful thing, because it means that I get to go home for almost a full week and sit on my mother's sofa and shovel food in my face and not have one single solitary thought the whole time. I am looking forward to this immensely, as you might imagine.

In the meantime, I must warn you that I might not be so great about the whole blog updating thing over the next few days. I still like you, though. I just don't like you, like you.

I'm totally kidding. I think you're hot.

Waxing Off Goodness

Hello, my pals.

Please click on over to the ol' BT to check out my latest encounters with the homeless.

The Attitude of Fattitude

Yesterday, I went to the doctor, as I do, and discovered that I had lost four pounds. Four pounds! This is entirely because I just broke up with someone, you know. I always gain weight in relationships, even if it seems like I'm eating just the same and exercising and all that. I blame hormones.

My friend Derek once said that he thinks that this pattern has a lot to do with the on-off nature of many relationships among young (he's 24) people these days. When couples are together, they pack on the pounds. The girl might be fine with this, but the guy, being a guy, gets all grossed out at her fattitude and breaks up with her. She then cries and cries and loses like 37 pounds, and then she's all hot and emaciated again and the dude's like, whoa! My mistake. Let's get back together.

It strikes me upon looking at that paragraph that Derek might actually be a very angry person, and I'd never realized that before.

I Have To Get a Camera Phone

Thanks Jen C., via Smyres:

Ma Smash Update

Me: "I've had an epiphany."

Ma Smash: "That's wonderful! Epiphanies don't come every day of the week, you know. If they did, they'd be called 'the newspaper.'"

Me: "-"

Ma Smash: "Hello? Are you still there?"

I Will Not Be Going To See Either Of Those Films

I am looking at the movie listings right now, and "Saw 2" has the following enticement below: "See a freaky clip of the serial killer mentally torturing his captives." Um? Haven't we had enough torture stories? Are we actually going to pay money to see more? What's next? "Abu Ghraib 3"?

George!

I am on the Internets in a variety of made-up electronic locations, so I am quite easy to find, if one wants to find me. Sometimes one does, which usually means that one is a dangerous maniac, an ex-boyfriend, or some combination of the two.

My last Internet person pop-up was a former coworker whom we will call George, because no one is named George in my generation, and therefore, no one will be offended. I never dated George, nor do I feel that he is a dangerous maniac. However, he did once decide that my friend Lisa was going to date him, and it took a lot of persuading to convince him that this was not the case.

George wrote to me a short time ago to say hello and tell me about his blog. I did not write back, because I remembered how hard it was to convince him that Lisa would not date him, and because I find his self-confidence disturbing, given that I and many excellent people I know seem to have so little. Perhaps they dole out self-confidence in inverse proportion to its deservedness? I don't know. Anyway, good old George is steeped in the stuff, which I realized when I went to his blog and discovered that it contained the following elements:

1) A bio page, referring to his many books, of which there is one. Referred to in the plural however! "Go here for my books. And when I say books, I mean, just the one."

2) A changing quotes section featuring a variety of witty aphorisms, by such sages as Picasso, Isaac Asimov, and George.

3) A brief history of George's world travels, which include: the town he was born in, the town next door, the nearest city, which is where he went to school, and then, another town right next to the town he was born in.

4) His wish list. Of course. Because when gas costs as much as $37 per gallon on any given week, sane persons should of course buy presents for strangers.

5) A list of sponsors. (!) (?)

Friends of mine: This ol' blog might vary widely in quality. It might bore you. It is certainly self-indulgent. But at least I don't make you pay for it.

More Parental Cuteness

Ramon from the mailroom thinks I'm crazy, because of all the packages I get. Here, as on this morning, are all the things my father has mailed me at work:

1) Money.

2) A carbon monoxide detector.

3) The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine.

The latter arrived just this morning and had a note with it, plus a cartoon of my Dad grinning through his beard.

Funny from Funny

Sometimes people ask me, "Oh, Jen, in the face of such terrible adversity -- hair that won't lie flat no matter what you do, probable liver failure, general psychosis -- how to maintain such a lovely and healthy attitude? How, how can you be so funny?" The answer, my friends is simple. I have the funniest mother on the planet, and I steal all her material.

My mother is funny in two ways: on purpose, and accidentally. I'm not sure which I prefer to be honest, although you do need to be careful about laughing at the second type of funny, as this will sometimes cause her to look confused, and a little hurt.

For example, this weekend, my parents came to visit me. We did a number of touristy things, which was great, because I've lived here long enough now that I feel weird about doing that stuff without an excuse. Also, some of the touristy stuff is disturbing. Like, we went to look at Ground Zero. That should not be a tourist attraction. But it is. I suppose the people who lived around Gettysburg were pretty horrified by all the foot traffic there directly afterward, as well.

Anyway, while we were there, we ran into a coworker of mine, who was showing a friend of hers around the city. Her friend was from France. This delighted my mother, who is a Francophile and goes to Paris as much as possible. So they chattered in French, and then, in English, my mother said, "Well, you must come see Boston some time. Have you ever been?"

No, he hadn't been.

"It's the best city in the world, next to Paris. You'll have to come visit, and when you do, you can stay with us!"

The French guy looked bewildered. "I can stay with you?"

"Yes!"

He looked at me. "Americans are so friendly!" he said. "This would never happen in Paris! We would never ask a stranger to stay with us!"

I thought there were plenty of strangers in Paris who would have liked me to stay with them, but I decided to keep that to myself.

"That's not Americans," I said. "That's my mother."

And she beamed. See? Funny on accident.

Funny on purpose? As we were walking away, we saw one of those dogs with obvious and disturbingly exposed genitalia, and my mother whispered, "Jennie, that dog doesn't have any underpants."

It's a Bad Neighborhood in Hubley's Head

Oh my God, you guys, I feel elderly. Everyone must stop having shows and things immediately. Also, they must provide me with a vacation home in which to recuperate. Or perhaps -- this is my favorite idea -- I will be hospitalized for "exhaustion." Do you think those hospitals issue you silk nighties in which to lounge? It seems like they should.

Meanwhile, because I know you're all fascinated with my menstrual cycle and cannot rest until you get the update -- "Where is she? Is it Aunt Flo time? Mid-month? How crazy is crazy? How seriously should we take any of her bullshit anyway?" -- I have the worst case of PMS and am now so looney that I've decided that I am probably going to die of liver failure before the week is out. This is because I pulled a muscle doing sit-ups, and now I have a twinge in my side. It might be the side my liver is on. I don't know anatomy.

I was explaining about my liver to a couple friends the other night, appropriately enough over drinks and one of them said, as if just at the moment having the realization, "Oh my God. You actually are crazy, aren't you?"

Duh.

We Understood That There Would Be No Math

The Donut: I have a lot less $ than I should.

The Donut: Which means that one of two things is happening.

JennieSmash: ?

The Donut: a) Embezzlement.

The Donut: b) I'm spending too much...again.

JennieSmash:: Oh no!

The Donut: Obviously, it's a. My bank is stealing from me.

Check it!

INCOMING! NOVEMBER 7, 2005.

I wrote it, and stuff.

Very Busy and Important

Man, I need a weekend to recover from this weekend. Generally speaking, New York weekends are actually less interesting than the regular week. So I go out on week-nights, mostly, when I won't have to fight with a million people from Staten Island just to get a drink, and then, on the weekend, I go on long walks, and go to the movies and hang out at people's houses. It's all very civilized and it's probably the only thing keeping me from going totally broke. It also lets me catch up on my sleep.

This weekend, however, I was a little a busy. Here's what I did:

1) Hung out with my parents, who were in from Boston. We went on a cruise around Liberty and Ellis Islands, and saw "Good Night, and Good Luck" and ate at every restaurant in Lower Manhattan. We also went to my favorite bar, which they liked a lot, although my Mom informed me gravely that I should take good care of my liver, because I clearly need it.

2) Broke up with my boyfriend.

3) Wrote an Incoming! for the Black Table. (Link tomorrow.)

So as you can see, I am a master of multi-tasking. And I need a nap. And possibly a new liver.

Curse You, Friendster!

OK, now Friendster is totally fuckin' with me. They've changed their "See Who's Viewed Me" feature so that I can't see who's viewed me ... unless I turn off my "View Profiles Anonymously" button. Which means that everyone could see if I was stalking them. And we can't have that.

I have defended you Friendster, against those who said that your time was over. I have defended you against those who said that you were always lame. However, if you continue to sell my ass out, I will take my business to MySpace. It's worth being propositioned for threesomes, if I get to stalk people as God intended.

Big, Big Love

Anger is Good For You

I have been saying this FOREVER.

A Nice Subway Story, For a Change

The other day, I gave up my seat on the subway. This doesn't happen very often, because I am hideously lazy, and also a girl, and therefore, unless I spot a pregnant woman, a handicapped person or Methusela, I feel that I should get to keep my seat. This may be sexist. I don't know. However, it helps me justify my sloth, so there you are.

Anyway, on this particular day, an elderly woman and her grandson got on the F-train. Something about the way they were talking to each other made it obvious that they were on some sort of special outing. The boy was wearing new shoes, I think, or holding her hand particularly tightly. He was definitely looking around at the other passengers as if observing zoo animals, so he didn't ride the train every day, safe to say.

"Excuse me," I said. "Would you like my seat?"

She said yes, and smiled, and tucked her grandson into the seat, and kept standing.

He stared at me a moment, and then crooked his finger at his gramma. She bent forward to hear him.

"Gramma, why did she give me her seat?"

At this point, the man next to the little boy got up and gave his seat to the grandmother. She thanked him, and leaned over to her grandson, "Because some people are very nice," she said.

Joe, Joe, He Don't Know

I was hanging out with Joseph M. Paws the other day. We played the Biting Game, which consists of him flipping over on his back and sticking out his chest until I scratch it, and then biting me, and then looking at me like, "What? Scratch my chest" and so on. And as this was going on, I looked into Joe's eyes, and I realized that he has not one single thought in his head.

Joe, you see, is kinda dumb. Brainwise, he has more in common with a golden retriever than a normal cat. For example, not too long ago I was over at Sean's, and Sean left the apartment to take out the garbage. I was then treated to some insight into Joe's love for Sean: As soon as Alpha Man left, Joe ran over to the door and stared at it. He looked fully prepared to do this all day if necessary, and I can only assume he does just that whenever Sean goes to work.

Cute, right? It gets better. After a minute or two of staring, Joe's wee eyes sort of fuzzed. He lost his focus on the door, and then he looked around, like, "Dang, I was waiting for something. What was I waiting for? Hmmm. Hmmm. Wait! There's a door here. Maybe I'll stare at it and see what happens. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Wait. What am I doing by this ... thingie. What's called? A dooo...dooorrrr..."

And then Sean came in and it was like Christmas all of sudden, with the yowling and the prancing around.



Joe: Pretty, but not real bright.