1.6.07, 8pm, North Hollywood, CA
I called a real estate agent over the holidays who deals in new development, high-rise condos. A too-rich-for-my-blood 2-bedroom, but nevertheless, I called. What the hell.
In Williamsburg. Found it on Craigslist.org. I am how I Google. I shop for real estate on Craigslist.
Oof, is that’s depressing. Anywaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…
Soo called me back with a warm and friendly voicemail confessing her plan to move to Billburg as well in the summer, and how simpatico. The condo is to be in a new development totally unlived in and ready for move-in in July. (Who knows who was priced out of their own home in order for this development to happen.) I’m shopping for brownstone apartments, too, 150 years of paint and shellac. However, the desire to own – finally – something that I can be the first in is pretty damn strong these days.
How freeking American… damn mutated genetics.
Anyhoo, the real estate agent Soo … is she driving up the market in Billlburg? Or will she become my newest best friend? Or will we shop at the same Crate & Barrel and only wave politely when we run into each other? Or is she destined to be the High Priestess of my Home Ownership Neuroses?
It’s been phone-tag and e-tag ever since.
However, I now have a floor plan from the website’s posting, I decorate it obsessively with my 1920s Italian-American Stink of Gaudy. I hang my dad’s mirror in the front room. I arrange my clothes and shoes in the closet. I exchange familiar jokes with the Imaginary Doorman in my mind.
And I believe that I can create my home there. All I’m doing is visualizing the Possible. Seems a little creepy and unhealthy, but I can’t stop.
650K for a 2 bedroom condo seems like a lot, though, for a starter home. Like A LOT a lot. For a toddler home? For a house with training wheels? For a home that stills has stuffed animals and a pacifier to keep from screaming bloody murder? And I get scared. I know I want to move to Brooklyn, but maybe I should find a smaller town, a lower rent. Save some more. It’s felt good, lately. The Saving. So far in my financial life, I’ve saved to skrijmp by. But for the last two years, I’ve saved towards Brooklyn, which means paying off some bills, starting an IRA and a 401K.
These are all new feelings – new, demonstrative actions proving to me that I no longer believe I’m gonna die in my 40s.
I mean, who doesn’t schedule their own death, really?
But the words in my head – ‘settling in Brooklyn’ – sound so glamorous. So end of the rainbow. So legendary. So right. It just sounds like glee. Sounds like the prom and I’m 16 and there’s a guy that’s been buying me cokes at lunch and the prom’s in a month and I might, I MIGHT JUST HAVE a chance to get dressed up and feel like a fucking girl for a change.
I gotta get that Soo on the phone.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Why Brooklyn?
1.7.07, 2:30 pm, Starbucks in Burbank, CA
Why Brooklyn?
It’s 76 degrees today.
It’s January 7.
.
.
.
.
.
It’s just unnatural. Who needs this much Vitamin D??!
Why Brooklyn?
It’s 76 degrees today.
It’s January 7.
.
.
.
.
.
It’s just unnatural. Who needs this much Vitamin D??!
Taking Stock
12.31.06, 3:23 pm, Burbank, CA
It is the end of the year. Time for me to look back, see what resolutions I've made progress on, see what resolutions I need to make up for '07. And just for the record:
NO, I AM NOT STAYING HOME ON NEW YEAR'S EVE! NO, I AM NOT SPENDING THE LAST NIGHT OF THE YEAR TAKING STOCK OF MY LIFE AND MAKING MY 2007 RESOLUTIONS TO LOSE WEIGHT, SAVE MORE MONEY AND TO GIVE UP DATING ON THE WEST COAST.
NOPE, NOT ME. NOT THE HELL ME.
I did the resolutions earlier today. No, seriously. Citizen Journalist plans well … Of course, I’m not banking blogs to post occasionally throughout the week. Seriously, who does that?
Anyway, as for my goals for the new year, I'm not copping to all of them here publicly, cuz who needs that kind of pressure. But there is one that I'm working on,
thinking about,
weighing the pros and cons of.
Something I've thought about acting on in the past, something we all think about but could never, would never. Something that would create complication, may ostracize me with some, attract me to others, get me new gigs, and kicked out of old ones. It’s simple, it’s revolutionary.
It’s … no, not yet… I'm getting to it.
The resolution for the past couple of years has been to INVITE CHAOS. And I know that's very existential, pretty indefinable and undeniably the resolution of a neurotic chick. But it's really paid off. After one dead boyfriend, several dead family members and a dead career, I battened down the hatches of my life. For the last couple of years, I've been in the basement of my heart, (which is an add-on to the house of my soul) staring at the hammer I could use to bang out the nails to my self-inflicted coffin. INVITING CHAOS has certainly helped to remind me to poke my head out of the bomb shelter to see if there's any life left that I can latch on to.
After 5 years of no dating and hardly any friends – five years surviving a financially driven move to LA, I now have some functioning friends and a couple 3-month dating forays under my belt. 'Course after giving it a go in DATING LA – I don’t know…
…
I’m a little nervous about going much further on this blog entry ……
I’m still thinking about this resolution… I don’t know. It’s pretty big.
Eh, it ain’t THAT big.
I’ll get back with you on it.
For now… I’m out.
It is the end of the year. Time for me to look back, see what resolutions I've made progress on, see what resolutions I need to make up for '07. And just for the record:
NO, I AM NOT STAYING HOME ON NEW YEAR'S EVE! NO, I AM NOT SPENDING THE LAST NIGHT OF THE YEAR TAKING STOCK OF MY LIFE AND MAKING MY 2007 RESOLUTIONS TO LOSE WEIGHT, SAVE MORE MONEY AND TO GIVE UP DATING ON THE WEST COAST.
NOPE, NOT ME. NOT THE HELL ME.
I did the resolutions earlier today. No, seriously. Citizen Journalist plans well … Of course, I’m not banking blogs to post occasionally throughout the week. Seriously, who does that?
Anyway, as for my goals for the new year, I'm not copping to all of them here publicly, cuz who needs that kind of pressure. But there is one that I'm working on,
thinking about,
weighing the pros and cons of.
Something I've thought about acting on in the past, something we all think about but could never, would never. Something that would create complication, may ostracize me with some, attract me to others, get me new gigs, and kicked out of old ones. It’s simple, it’s revolutionary.
It’s … no, not yet… I'm getting to it.
The resolution for the past couple of years has been to INVITE CHAOS. And I know that's very existential, pretty indefinable and undeniably the resolution of a neurotic chick. But it's really paid off. After one dead boyfriend, several dead family members and a dead career, I battened down the hatches of my life. For the last couple of years, I've been in the basement of my heart, (which is an add-on to the house of my soul) staring at the hammer I could use to bang out the nails to my self-inflicted coffin. INVITING CHAOS has certainly helped to remind me to poke my head out of the bomb shelter to see if there's any life left that I can latch on to.
After 5 years of no dating and hardly any friends – five years surviving a financially driven move to LA, I now have some functioning friends and a couple 3-month dating forays under my belt. 'Course after giving it a go in DATING LA – I don’t know…
…
I’m a little nervous about going much further on this blog entry ……
I’m still thinking about this resolution… I don’t know. It’s pretty big.
Eh, it ain’t THAT big.
I’ll get back with you on it.
For now… I’m out.
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?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
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?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Yep, Yep, It Does
12.29.06, 3:05 pm, Burbank, Calif.
My heart longs to Brooklyn. Everyday. Every. Day. My heart longs to Brooklyn.
I think of cold weather, trash on the streets, the first time I saw Brighton Beach Memoirs performed on the community theatre stage of Theatre Memphis back in the late '80s, back before Theatre ever thought of giving me credit card debt and a dream.
I can see the subway entrance in Bay Ridge, next to the McDonald's and a caucus of variously ethnicked boys arguing like lawyers over the pros and cons of Warcraft. I see Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. I can feel my air conditioning straining to cough out a laugh at me in the middle of Son of Sam's heat wave.
I see the curls of the Hasidic men on the way to Shabbat service getting caught on their mufflers, and they close in tighter to their distanced families.
I see trash on the street.
And sweating bakery windows.
And pubs who know how to be a pub.
Every day - this is where my mind brings me to, and I have such joy.
Oh my heart ...
*****
I went for a teeth cleaning the other day. I'm on Christmas vacation from my job as a celebrity news photo editor, I'm a few uncomfortable pounds over my desired weight and six months late on the cleaning. Don't know what my weight has to do with that, but anyway, my teeth are getting some attention.
I usually do okay at the dentist.
"You're grinding your teeth, you know that?" the dental hygienist said.
What??! "WHADKCHGH??"
"Yep, your front teeth are flattened out."
"WhADKCHAAAUGH - Maw ack ath?" Again, she insists on delivering this shocking diagnosis while hovering with those sharp pokers in my mouth agape.
"Yep, here in front," and she looks closer. "Yep, here in front, you're rubbing the front top teeth against the bottom teeth."
Again - WHAAAAAAAT??
That's just damn strange. My front teeth? Although I had woke up that morning with the right side of my face hurting when I yawned. I didn't think much about it ... that was weird too. I usually LOVE to ruminate on my pain.
I sit straight up. Luckily she gets those pokers outta there before I start a-yapping.
"Why?!" I attack her. "I'm on vacation, for crisssake! I mean, I have stress but GRINDING MY TEETH? What the hell! I DIDN'T THINK I WAS that STRESSED..."
It was then that I saw all the question marks and exclaimation marks hitting her in the face and hanging from the deadly pokers and bouncing off the "Hang in there" kitten posters on the ceiling. Historically, I've had stress about having stress because my family was so repressed, strained and stressed, and they all died - either of a legitimate early death or a timely spiritual death. So stress means disease to me, and disease doesn't just mean a lousy, unproductive life of pills and addictions and griping to the grocery clerk about your prostate - STRESS MEANS DEATH. IMMINENT. RUTHLESS. DEATH.
So I'm grinding my teeth? I'M SLOWLY KILLING MYSELF WITH WORRY AND FRET AND REPRESSED RAGE! And maybe a little bit of the indulgent punctuation...
"What's the big deal?" the dental hygienist shrugs, just when I've convinced myself I'm in a production of Little Shop of Horrors. Behind her AMA-approved riot gear, holding her pokers up in the air like Dr. Frankenstein, her kind eyes twinkle. "You live in LA - so, you're stressed."
:~|
This is the reason she gives for my grinding my teeth? Like it's a problem of such epidemic proportions that it's like, 'Oh, you live in Africa and you can't shake that cold? Well, it's gotta be AIDS.'
But she makes a really good point.
There's much about living in LA that I don't cotton to and I'm a flagrant imposter. I hate the oppressive, omnipresent sun. Who needs that much Vitamin D? I don't own a car, a cell phone, an IPOD, and I can't MySpace to save my life. (though that's just probably cuz my computer isn't fast enough at home... in any event, who has time to scroll through endless wannabees?) Martinis have me down for the count in two sips. I don't want my feet to sweat in Ugg boots. And I hate being cynical and snobbish.
But I do like seeing the mountains everyday and having a culture of horses around me. But dude, that's about it.
So maybe it's just getting to me - this plan to move to Brooklyn. I've moved inside my heart and mind. I pack my closet into boxes daily - in my mind. I plan the moving truck and the cross-country trip through Memphis and Chicago - daily - in my mind. And yet, daily, in my life, I have to negotiate the trip to work, the culture of celebrity news work environment of talent barnacles that drive my website's market.
Maybe that's why I'm grinding my teeth - Cuz the clock's ticking down slowly but surely on the verb that I'm busy not doing.
I've been holding it in. Well, not anymore. My jaw's killing me. If Brooklyn's under my skin, and expressing itself through my teeth... and that's the only thing I have to worry about is the time passing between now and Brooklyn, hell! I'll blog my way out of it. It's cheaper than a Sonicare electric toothbrush, anyway.
*****
So here will be where I'll get it outta my system - to save my teeth, to save myself.
My Heart Longs to Brooklyn. I'll tell you why from now until the moment when all I have left to do with my day is BROOKLYN.
My heart longs to Brooklyn. Everyday. Every. Day. My heart longs to Brooklyn.
I think of cold weather, trash on the streets, the first time I saw Brighton Beach Memoirs performed on the community theatre stage of Theatre Memphis back in the late '80s, back before Theatre ever thought of giving me credit card debt and a dream.
I can see the subway entrance in Bay Ridge, next to the McDonald's and a caucus of variously ethnicked boys arguing like lawyers over the pros and cons of Warcraft. I see Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. I can feel my air conditioning straining to cough out a laugh at me in the middle of Son of Sam's heat wave.
I see the curls of the Hasidic men on the way to Shabbat service getting caught on their mufflers, and they close in tighter to their distanced families.
I see trash on the street.
And sweating bakery windows.
And pubs who know how to be a pub.
Every day - this is where my mind brings me to, and I have such joy.
Oh my heart ...
*****
I went for a teeth cleaning the other day. I'm on Christmas vacation from my job as a celebrity news photo editor, I'm a few uncomfortable pounds over my desired weight and six months late on the cleaning. Don't know what my weight has to do with that, but anyway, my teeth are getting some attention.
I usually do okay at the dentist.
"You're grinding your teeth, you know that?" the dental hygienist said.
What??! "WHADKCHGH??"
"Yep, your front teeth are flattened out."
"WhADKCHAAAUGH - Maw ack ath?" Again, she insists on delivering this shocking diagnosis while hovering with those sharp pokers in my mouth agape.
"Yep, here in front," and she looks closer. "Yep, here in front, you're rubbing the front top teeth against the bottom teeth."
Again - WHAAAAAAAT??
That's just damn strange. My front teeth? Although I had woke up that morning with the right side of my face hurting when I yawned. I didn't think much about it ... that was weird too. I usually LOVE to ruminate on my pain.
I sit straight up. Luckily she gets those pokers outta there before I start a-yapping.
"Why?!" I attack her. "I'm on vacation, for crisssake! I mean, I have stress but GRINDING MY TEETH? What the hell! I DIDN'T THINK I WAS that STRESSED..."
It was then that I saw all the question marks and exclaimation marks hitting her in the face and hanging from the deadly pokers and bouncing off the "Hang in there" kitten posters on the ceiling. Historically, I've had stress about having stress because my family was so repressed, strained and stressed, and they all died - either of a legitimate early death or a timely spiritual death. So stress means disease to me, and disease doesn't just mean a lousy, unproductive life of pills and addictions and griping to the grocery clerk about your prostate - STRESS MEANS DEATH. IMMINENT. RUTHLESS. DEATH.
So I'm grinding my teeth? I'M SLOWLY KILLING MYSELF WITH WORRY AND FRET AND REPRESSED RAGE! And maybe a little bit of the indulgent punctuation...
"What's the big deal?" the dental hygienist shrugs, just when I've convinced myself I'm in a production of Little Shop of Horrors. Behind her AMA-approved riot gear, holding her pokers up in the air like Dr. Frankenstein, her kind eyes twinkle. "You live in LA - so, you're stressed."
:~|
This is the reason she gives for my grinding my teeth? Like it's a problem of such epidemic proportions that it's like, 'Oh, you live in Africa and you can't shake that cold? Well, it's gotta be AIDS.'
But she makes a really good point.
There's much about living in LA that I don't cotton to and I'm a flagrant imposter. I hate the oppressive, omnipresent sun. Who needs that much Vitamin D? I don't own a car, a cell phone, an IPOD, and I can't MySpace to save my life. (though that's just probably cuz my computer isn't fast enough at home... in any event, who has time to scroll through endless wannabees?) Martinis have me down for the count in two sips. I don't want my feet to sweat in Ugg boots. And I hate being cynical and snobbish.
But I do like seeing the mountains everyday and having a culture of horses around me. But dude, that's about it.
So maybe it's just getting to me - this plan to move to Brooklyn. I've moved inside my heart and mind. I pack my closet into boxes daily - in my mind. I plan the moving truck and the cross-country trip through Memphis and Chicago - daily - in my mind. And yet, daily, in my life, I have to negotiate the trip to work, the culture of celebrity news work environment of talent barnacles that drive my website's market.
Maybe that's why I'm grinding my teeth - Cuz the clock's ticking down slowly but surely on the verb that I'm busy not doing.
I've been holding it in. Well, not anymore. My jaw's killing me. If Brooklyn's under my skin, and expressing itself through my teeth... and that's the only thing I have to worry about is the time passing between now and Brooklyn, hell! I'll blog my way out of it. It's cheaper than a Sonicare electric toothbrush, anyway.
*****
So here will be where I'll get it outta my system - to save my teeth, to save myself.
My Heart Longs to Brooklyn. I'll tell you why from now until the moment when all I have left to do with my day is BROOKLYN.
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