Keep the Home Fires Burning

12.30.06, 7:58 am, North Hollywood, CA

I think about Brooklyn firemen a lot.

I have a picture of them taped to my cubicle wall. It’s a photo of four of them gathered, full-on firemen helmets and suits, looking up at the building that was on fire in New York back in April or so of last year. An apartment building.

Anyway, I like to keep them near – Brooklyn firemen. I think it's smart – even from this distance.

Maybe when I move, I'll move next to a fire station. Maybe it's because of the 9/11 thing – I don't know. Maybe it’s because of that documentary about the Brooklyn rookie fireman by those filmmakers who just wanted to tell a story of a boy becoming a man, and happened to catch all of the ground zero action, far removed from CNN and NBC cameras. Maybe it’s because that rookie fireman went from boy to man in same 60 minutes that it aired. Maybe it's just because I fantasize about firemen of any borough …

Well, not the Burbank variety.

I had a wreck a year ago that totaled my car, and I found myself strapped to one of those keep-your-spine-straight carrybeds and flirting with two of the fireguys in the ambulance. They were nice, not all of ‘em married, but all of ‘em in there with me … well, … let's just say, they clocked more hair gel time in the mirror that morning than I did.

And sure, I'm single, and sure, I’m in my thirties and craving what some single and not-so-single women crave in these days of metrosexuals, celebrity talking heads and keyboard infantrymen – A Real Man. Let’s face it – they’re all in Iraq or at a Brooklyn fire station. Granted, A Real Man might just be too much for this thinky girlwoman, but if I don’t build it, how will it come?

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Does a fire station bring up or down the property value of surrounding homes?

Hm
m
m
m
m
m
m
m …..

There're just too many positives.
There’s the smell of phermones, sweat, smoke and PineSol.
The low guttural laughter of dudes hanging out together.
The spicy aroma of steak chili and gumbo simmering on the stove.

It’s gotta bring property values up, like a newly built elementary school. Candle-burning is up, you know, since the early 90s and our distractions, quadrupled. And a single woman in her thirties burns a lot of ‘em and busies herself doing anything to keep her from thinking about her single 30ness.

Who cares about property values? Hell, who really cares about values…

Anyway, it may seem impractical, this fantasy of loving and living with Brooklyn firemen. Couldn't hurt to bank the odds of my being saved from myself by a gorgeous Brooklyn firedude in suspenders and a hard hat.

I'm just sayin…

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Most firemen are in pretty good shape, right? Eh, I don't really care, not too much.
Ok, maybe a little …


… maybe 25-lbs.-overweight care.