There is an old saw that if you've gone halfway to someplace you might as well go all the way, because going back to where you started would take just as long as reaching your destination. I have very little experience with taking actual trips and deciding whether to turn back halfway, but I have a lot of experience with this theory as it relates to public transportation in New York City.
Mainly with buses. The issue is that for it to be worth taking a bus you have to be at least a half mile, or so, from where you want to go. Otherwise you might as well walk it and save the wait.
The other issue is time. You can walk a half mile or so in about 15-20 minutes, if you're moving briskly. Now stick with me as I explain this, it is just about to make sense.
I had JUST missed the bus. I was about half a mile away from the F train, which I needed to get to the Brooklyn Navy Yards before they closed. I could walk it and get passed by a bus, having wasted all my effort, or I could wait it out, and hope that one comes soon. At night the buses are supposed to come every 15 minutes or so, but there is no guarantee. This is New York after all. I decided to wait it out.
And I waited, and I waited. It was getting later and later. Soon it was a little after 7:00 p.m. Bus after bus drove by our stop, all with signs saying they were out of service. It was drizzling. At the stop with me was a mother in a wheel chair and her little son. What they were doing I don't know. But even THEY got tired of waiting, and soon rolled away. I felt extremely sad for them, they looked like they needed help, but off they went. Meanwhile I kept waiting. Because now, surely, the bus will finally drop by because it's been so late. It's a strange paradox. And then I waited some more, proven wrong, once again.
Not to drag this out too much, but eventually a bus FINALLY stopped for us. I got on, and in due time it took me to the F train, where I walked down some more stairs, and awaited a train. In due time that finally showed up too, and off we went, at last.
It was getting later, and I still wasn't sure about my instructions. The train was crowded and wet, although I fought for, and finally found, a seat. The F runs above ground for part of its trip, once its on the Brooklyn side, and I looked into all those apartments, with all those people. Do you ever wonder what happens to them, what their story is? Or the people on the other subways that pass alongside you as you rail out to wherever your life is taking you right then? I do. It always looks like the set of a movie to me, although that movie, unfortunately, is "Shortbus."
As we finally approached York Street, the stop where I was supposed to disembark, I decided to stay in the subway and just ride on through to home. It was now 7:50 p.m. and they closed at 8:00 p.m. I didn't know for sure how to get to the Navy Yards, and I only had a few minutes to spare now. I decided to merely suck it up and pay the extra money they would require to storage the car. I would get the Honda tomorrow night, instead of killing myself to get it tomorrow morning. Because if New York has taught me anything, and that's debatable, it's that Murphy's Law is really the only law, and if something can take longer, and I can get lost, I will. So I said screw it.
Once back home I saw Randi and told her what happened. She understood. Stella was fussing, so I went into our bedroom and laid down and sang to her. We made up a lullaby for the little girl, and sometimes at night when she can't sleep I will sing it to her and then hum it to her, after a couple of choruses. She's almost 23 pounds now, and, really, the strongest reason we even have a car. It makes it easier to get around with her, and drive out to see family. And buy things from Target and Ikea. Which we do, quite a bit.
The next day I went to work, like usual. It was Thursday. The plan was to ask to leave work a little early to get the car. My boss, Mike, had been kind enough to understand what a monumental PITA this whole ordeal had been. I was lucky.
Work itself was another normal day, if any day in a collapsing economy can be said to be normal. Hear enough about record job losses and it starts to make you think. But I try not to worry too much about such things, and hope that by working hard and putting out a quality product I will show my value. So that's the plan.
I left slightly early. Now it was really raining, like buckets, like cats and dogs. I got off the York Street station once again, after checking the directions three times. I was in Dumbo, my old stomping ground.
An enthusiastic, if still amateur guitarist, I was privileged to have been the lead player in a rock band for three years. We were called Connecticut, and over the course of a few years we got to play in a variety of settings and clubs, including the old Meow Mix (the lesbian club made famous in "Chasing Amy") and the Knitting Fact0ry, which helped me realize a boyhood dream. I loved being in the band, but bands are made to be broken, and break up we did. Still I harbor fond memories of Dumbo, which is where our practice studio had been, and might still even be.
We practiced in a loft "owned" by a guy named Mike, who had been a producer on MTV's "Beavis and Butthead." I think Mike originally squatted the loft back in the late 90s, before Dumbo became tragically hip. When I first started going down there for band practice in 2000 there was a bar between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges--called Between The Bridges, natch--some bodegas and not much else. Now the area was aswarm with yuppies and their little stores.
And rain. It was raining for real, like sideways sheets in your face no matter how you walked. I had an umbrella in a rare act of foresight, but wasn't sure of my directions. So I got walking, hoping they would lead me right. They didn't.
To be continued ...
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Parking Tickets Up The Ass: Part Two
So, I trudge back up 34th Street away from the Javitz center. It was drizzling and warm. Before I had left Pier 38, the Manhattan towed car depot, I called the number for the Brooklyn Navy Yards to make sure I had the directions right. Of course the directions made no sense, and were hard to understand. I also had to go through about three key pad entries until I finally got to the subway directions "in English," which is not considered the default language at this particular moment in NYC.
I was about as far West as one could go in Manhattan, right near the Hudson River. If you've never been here, Manhattan is a strange, strange island in that it has virtually no density along the waterfront, completely opposite from virtually every other place in the world, where people clamor to live near the water. As such in the middle of the island when you get to the Hudson there are a few cruise ships, the Intrepid aircraft carrier museum, some empty, decrepit piers, the car depot, the Jacob Javits convention center and that's about it. There is no local subway stop, and few buses. So I had to schlep back to the subway, in the rain, to get to the "F" train line, to get to Brooklyn's Navy Yards before it closed at 8:00 p.m., or pay to have them store my car another night. Though it wasn't my fault, since they told me the wrong address to begin with, got it?
So I started walking, and quickly realized I had to take a pee, like majorly. I considered whipping it out on the deserted sidewalk, channeling shades of old New York where you could do that sort of thing--and a whole lot more, by the way-- in that part of the city, and no one would care. The old Wild Westside, back in the mid-90s and earlier, used to be notorious for trannie prostitutes, and non-trannie prostitutes, gay clubs and drug use. You know, the good old days. But that era's passed, and I quickly shelved the idea of peeing publicly. Another reason: I wasn't drunk.
So, I had to go. Walking up 34th Street I passed a McDonalds, and walked in. About five years ago I was driving back from upstate New York with my brother and we both had to go so we drove into a Burger King, I think, and used the bathroom without paying. I wasn't sure if we should do this, as the bathrooms are for customers only. But my brother scoffed.
"Have you eaten at a Burger King before?" he asked, rhetorically. Well, yeah, of course. Our hometown, Closter, N.J., had one, and I had gone there countless times by the end of high school. You see, he explained, you've already given them hundreds of dollars in business. They owe you some bathroom time. It's part of the deal.
"So, it's like a social contract?" I asked.
Exactly, he said. I had never thought of it that way. So pee we did, with no guilt. Now I used that mindset in the Mickey D's.
The workers inside seemed like they had been waiting for me to arrive.
"It's upstairs," they said before I could even get the words out.
I had expected them to ask me to buy something before using the facilities, but they really didn't care. And if they had asked me that I had a defense prepared in my mind, at least: do you REALLY feel so much loyalty to the McDonald's Corporation that you feel you need to act as security guards for their bathrooms? For, what, $6.50 an hour?
But they didn't need my William Kunstler-esque arguments about the men's restroom and my moral claim to use it. I guess that I didn't resemble a shabby drug-addled homeless guy was a major plus in my column.
So, use it I did, and then left the restaurant, only to see my bus pull away across the street. Now another one wouldn't come for, how long? I had no idea. I decided to wait it out. It was not my best decision ...
I was about as far West as one could go in Manhattan, right near the Hudson River. If you've never been here, Manhattan is a strange, strange island in that it has virtually no density along the waterfront, completely opposite from virtually every other place in the world, where people clamor to live near the water. As such in the middle of the island when you get to the Hudson there are a few cruise ships, the Intrepid aircraft carrier museum, some empty, decrepit piers, the car depot, the Jacob Javits convention center and that's about it. There is no local subway stop, and few buses. So I had to schlep back to the subway, in the rain, to get to the "F" train line, to get to Brooklyn's Navy Yards before it closed at 8:00 p.m., or pay to have them store my car another night. Though it wasn't my fault, since they told me the wrong address to begin with, got it?
So I started walking, and quickly realized I had to take a pee, like majorly. I considered whipping it out on the deserted sidewalk, channeling shades of old New York where you could do that sort of thing--and a whole lot more, by the way-- in that part of the city, and no one would care. The old Wild Westside, back in the mid-90s and earlier, used to be notorious for trannie prostitutes, and non-trannie prostitutes, gay clubs and drug use. You know, the good old days. But that era's passed, and I quickly shelved the idea of peeing publicly. Another reason: I wasn't drunk.
So, I had to go. Walking up 34th Street I passed a McDonalds, and walked in. About five years ago I was driving back from upstate New York with my brother and we both had to go so we drove into a Burger King, I think, and used the bathroom without paying. I wasn't sure if we should do this, as the bathrooms are for customers only. But my brother scoffed.
"Have you eaten at a Burger King before?" he asked, rhetorically. Well, yeah, of course. Our hometown, Closter, N.J., had one, and I had gone there countless times by the end of high school. You see, he explained, you've already given them hundreds of dollars in business. They owe you some bathroom time. It's part of the deal.
"So, it's like a social contract?" I asked.
Exactly, he said. I had never thought of it that way. So pee we did, with no guilt. Now I used that mindset in the Mickey D's.
The workers inside seemed like they had been waiting for me to arrive.
"It's upstairs," they said before I could even get the words out.
I had expected them to ask me to buy something before using the facilities, but they really didn't care. And if they had asked me that I had a defense prepared in my mind, at least: do you REALLY feel so much loyalty to the McDonald's Corporation that you feel you need to act as security guards for their bathrooms? For, what, $6.50 an hour?
But they didn't need my William Kunstler-esque arguments about the men's restroom and my moral claim to use it. I guess that I didn't resemble a shabby drug-addled homeless guy was a major plus in my column.
So, use it I did, and then left the restaurant, only to see my bus pull away across the street. Now another one wouldn't come for, how long? I had no idea. I decided to wait it out. It was not my best decision ...
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Parking Tickets Up The Ass Pt. 1
You know what is really great after a long, hard, often frustrating day of hard labor, mixed in liberally with the wonderful but draining job of parenthood? Parking tickets up the ass.
I have been literally inundated with parking tickets over the last few weeks. Some were my fault, some were not, maybe, but I have a new strategy. I will fight them all. I don't care. They're fucking expensive. My car just got towed, too. I need to get some of mine back. I am tired of being a personal revenue source for the fat cop pension plan. I am tired of the abuse, I need to fight back by any means necessary.
Here is a short summary of my tickets.
1. It was late at night, I had work the next day. I parked on a dark street, that had alternate side of the street parking on Wednesday. I showed up two days later, and had a ticket in my windshield. How? I was too close to a hydrant. That will be $115.
2. I had driven to the vet's early before work about two weeks ago as a friend to pick up their cats. I couldn't find a spot anywhere except on the service road we live on. My choice: either be very late for work, or get a ticket. Work is our only source of income. I took the ticket. And the cats didn't even say thank you when I dropped them off at my friend's. Also, it was raining. I'm a good friend. That will also be $115.
By the way, there is no courtesy for alternate side of the street parking on Ocean Parkway. In our old neighborhood, Park Slope, they would clean one side of the street and you would double park until the coast was clear and then move your car back. Then the people on the other side double parked when it was time for their side of the street to get cleaned. Nobody got hurt, everybody's side of the street got clean. Or at least "cleanish." Here they can't do that because the service road is too narrow, so I'm moving the car like three times a week to find spots. It's a royal, royal pain in the ass.
3. I drove into Manhattan last weekend so Randi and I could attend a trunk show from the lovely and talented Alex Pflaster for her jewelry. (I am too lazy to link right now, but go to her website if you like nice, handmade, affordable jewelry. Her blog is listed as one of my favorites, so you really have no excuse not to.) First I drove around for a half hour after dropping off Randi and Stella before finding a spot. Then once I found the spot I made sure to pay the ticketing machine and place the ticket on the dashboard.
I got back 50 minutes later--because New York city only allows parking for one hour in some places, at the cost of $2 an hour!--in order to feed the meter and guess what I found? ANOTHER gosh-damned parking ticket! This one for $65. My sin? I had put my ticket in upside down on my dashboard.
This one really sent me over the edge. "GodDAMMIT!" I screamed, kicking a light post, again and again. Right then I really hated cops, just really goddamned hated them. I started talking like a Black Panther. "Fucking pigs, fucking pigs, goddamned cops are nothing but fucking pigs, I hate goddamned cops, I just fucking hate them fucking cops ..." and so on. I am sure you can imagine. If I were a cartoon character there would have been an angry work balloon filled with exclamation points, percentage signs and asterisks hovering over my inflamed head like a rain cloud.
Of course when an actual cop walked by I toned the act down a whole lot. Let's not get too crazy here, after all. Even though the cop, a parking ticket cop!, looked like it would take him the rest of fiscal year 2009 to run the forty yard dash. So, yeah, I'm a real ramparts charging guy, aren't I? But inside I didn't care. Right then I hated cops. And, oh yeah, I'm fighting this ticket. You can bet your ass. Or even his ass.
4. Two months ago when we signed our lease we drove all over god-forsaken Brooklyn to find the office of our landlord. Once there I carefully, once again!, fed the meter and placed the ticket on the dashboard. The lease took a while, as these things do, and it was a cold rainy day, again. Once outside I noticed they had given me a ticket within five MINUTES of my ticket expiring. Another $65! When does it end?
5. Last Sunday I parked my car on the service road in front of my apartment. The sign said I had to move the car Wednesday before work. So, okay, I will. I go to get it Wednesday and my car's gone! First I think I'm having a senior moment, though I'm only 36, but then I realize my car had to have been towed. For the love of all that is holy! Can this really keep going?
I called the city, and they told me my car is in Manhattan, for some reason. I leave work early, and walk to one of the few abandoned parts of the whole city, in the rain, to get to the car-towing depot. Once there I wait on a long line, for about an hour, only to be told that my car is in Brooklyn! Ugh, it never ends! To my right some fat-assed would-be exec is yelling at the woman behind the glass about how he's waited an hour for something or another. Soon a security guard walks up to him.
"Sir, why are you yelling?"
"I'm yelling because SHE's being rude!"
"You were being rude first, now stop yelling."
The Alpha-Fat Ass then quiets up, and resorts merely to grumbling under his breath about how he just GOT THIS CAR, and his information in California, and yada, yada, yada.
Now I have a problem. I have to get to the Brooklyn Navy yards before they close, in an hour and a half. You wouldn't think this would be hard, but everything in NYC takes longer than you think it will. Except for when they ticket your car. That shit's like instantaneous.
To be continued.
I have been literally inundated with parking tickets over the last few weeks. Some were my fault, some were not, maybe, but I have a new strategy. I will fight them all. I don't care. They're fucking expensive. My car just got towed, too. I need to get some of mine back. I am tired of being a personal revenue source for the fat cop pension plan. I am tired of the abuse, I need to fight back by any means necessary.
Here is a short summary of my tickets.
1. It was late at night, I had work the next day. I parked on a dark street, that had alternate side of the street parking on Wednesday. I showed up two days later, and had a ticket in my windshield. How? I was too close to a hydrant. That will be $115.
2. I had driven to the vet's early before work about two weeks ago as a friend to pick up their cats. I couldn't find a spot anywhere except on the service road we live on. My choice: either be very late for work, or get a ticket. Work is our only source of income. I took the ticket. And the cats didn't even say thank you when I dropped them off at my friend's. Also, it was raining. I'm a good friend. That will also be $115.
By the way, there is no courtesy for alternate side of the street parking on Ocean Parkway. In our old neighborhood, Park Slope, they would clean one side of the street and you would double park until the coast was clear and then move your car back. Then the people on the other side double parked when it was time for their side of the street to get cleaned. Nobody got hurt, everybody's side of the street got clean. Or at least "cleanish." Here they can't do that because the service road is too narrow, so I'm moving the car like three times a week to find spots. It's a royal, royal pain in the ass.
3. I drove into Manhattan last weekend so Randi and I could attend a trunk show from the lovely and talented Alex Pflaster for her jewelry. (I am too lazy to link right now, but go to her website if you like nice, handmade, affordable jewelry. Her blog is listed as one of my favorites, so you really have no excuse not to.) First I drove around for a half hour after dropping off Randi and Stella before finding a spot. Then once I found the spot I made sure to pay the ticketing machine and place the ticket on the dashboard.
I got back 50 minutes later--because New York city only allows parking for one hour in some places, at the cost of $2 an hour!--in order to feed the meter and guess what I found? ANOTHER gosh-damned parking ticket! This one for $65. My sin? I had put my ticket in upside down on my dashboard.
This one really sent me over the edge. "GodDAMMIT!" I screamed, kicking a light post, again and again. Right then I really hated cops, just really goddamned hated them. I started talking like a Black Panther. "Fucking pigs, fucking pigs, goddamned cops are nothing but fucking pigs, I hate goddamned cops, I just fucking hate them fucking cops ..." and so on. I am sure you can imagine. If I were a cartoon character there would have been an angry work balloon filled with exclamation points, percentage signs and asterisks hovering over my inflamed head like a rain cloud.
Of course when an actual cop walked by I toned the act down a whole lot. Let's not get too crazy here, after all. Even though the cop, a parking ticket cop!, looked like it would take him the rest of fiscal year 2009 to run the forty yard dash. So, yeah, I'm a real ramparts charging guy, aren't I? But inside I didn't care. Right then I hated cops. And, oh yeah, I'm fighting this ticket. You can bet your ass. Or even his ass.
4. Two months ago when we signed our lease we drove all over god-forsaken Brooklyn to find the office of our landlord. Once there I carefully, once again!, fed the meter and placed the ticket on the dashboard. The lease took a while, as these things do, and it was a cold rainy day, again. Once outside I noticed they had given me a ticket within five MINUTES of my ticket expiring. Another $65! When does it end?
5. Last Sunday I parked my car on the service road in front of my apartment. The sign said I had to move the car Wednesday before work. So, okay, I will. I go to get it Wednesday and my car's gone! First I think I'm having a senior moment, though I'm only 36, but then I realize my car had to have been towed. For the love of all that is holy! Can this really keep going?
I called the city, and they told me my car is in Manhattan, for some reason. I leave work early, and walk to one of the few abandoned parts of the whole city, in the rain, to get to the car-towing depot. Once there I wait on a long line, for about an hour, only to be told that my car is in Brooklyn! Ugh, it never ends! To my right some fat-assed would-be exec is yelling at the woman behind the glass about how he's waited an hour for something or another. Soon a security guard walks up to him.
"Sir, why are you yelling?"
"I'm yelling because SHE's being rude!"
"You were being rude first, now stop yelling."
The Alpha-Fat Ass then quiets up, and resorts merely to grumbling under his breath about how he just GOT THIS CAR, and his information in California, and yada, yada, yada.
Now I have a problem. I have to get to the Brooklyn Navy yards before they close, in an hour and a half. You wouldn't think this would be hard, but everything in NYC takes longer than you think it will. Except for when they ticket your car. That shit's like instantaneous.
To be continued.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Hello! It's Been A While!
Some new photos: The BBB and her Uncle Stu ...
Eating paper ...
The Brooklyn Baby Mama, The Brooklyn Baby Baby and a very hairy man.
Man, almighty, ever have weeks in a row where you just don't get a break? It's been like that in New Brooklyn Baby Manor. The move was a little over a month ago, the job is crazy busy, people are getting laid off all over the place (in general not specifically at my job) we have lead paint related issues that I'm not all that comfortable talking about here, and I live in Poland.
Okay, so the last point is not specifically true, but sometimes it feels that way. Ocean Parkway is the "real Brooklyn" in the sense that almost no one speaks English as their first language. It's kind of funny that that is what marks someplace as authentic to us newcomers to the neighborhood.
So let's talk about the Brooklyn Baby Baby then, okay?
Things are coming along well in this neck of the woods. Stella is now like 23 pounds. She's a big girl for her age, and she's starting the rudiments of crawling. She kind of pushes herself backwards, so it's the opposite of forward movement, but she's starting to get there. She also rolls herself onto her belly or side to sleep. First we were scared about this, but now she's been doing it long enough where we are more comfortable with it.
She's also starting to talk. Her first word, I am proud to say, was "dada," although she's since branched out into "mama" and "nee-nee." Nee-nee is her all purpose term for boob feeding. She'll get upset, start crying and then you'll hear a plaintive refrain: "nee-nee." It's adorable. Or, as Randi, the Brooklyn Baby Mama says, it would be adorable if she didn't say it "all the freakin' time!"
Seriously, this girl is a total boob adict. She still nurses all day, and for long stretches of time. She's supposed to suck for like five minutes, but does it for half an hour at a time. She's just always hungry, or she's simply addicted to the closeness. She's even started sucking on my arm, god knows why.
Another new thing happens when I get home at night. Nine times out of ten she's crying, and Randi can't do a whole lot to get her to sleep. So I go into the darkened bedroom, and lie down with her, and she rolls herself into my side, buries her face in my shirt and THEN goes to sleep. It's adorable, but I'd be lying if I told you I understood it. I guess she just like some dad time. Often I will go do to sleep, too, when this happens. Being a parent just keeps getting more and more singular all the time.
Other baby related highlights? Well, she sleeps a whole lot better than she did two or or three months ago. Those endless, sleepless nights that turned into weeks that turned into months that turned into my entire life are now mostly over. She still wakes up a few times during the night, most nights, but often after she's done eating her midnight snack I can put her back in her pack and play (a portable crib, for those of you who aren't toting rugrats just yet), and she'll actually roll over and go back to sleep.
Yes, this means she still sleeps in our bedroom. I know this is probably bad. We have a big, beautiful bedroom set up for her, but we still sleep in the same bedroom. The logical reason is because she still wakes up so much, so it's a shorter walk. But also I think it's that we're not totally ready for the seperation just yet. She might be, but I guess we aren't. Her crib, which is lovely, and a total bitch to assemble (and I did it TWICE) sits in her bedroom, holding stuffed animals, but no Brooklyn babies.
I guess that's my life right now. It's exhausting, and very focused on the child. I haven't written all that much (as most of you can see), I haven't played all that much music, I haven't done a lot of things that I used to take for granted. But I feel it hasn't been wasted effort, because the energy has gone into Stella. She deserves it.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Counting My Blessings
Hi Everyone,
So, it's definitely time to give thanks and count some blessings. Here I go.
1. My job. Sometimes it's stressful, and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed, but it's been exciting and engaging too. I am writing more than I have in years, and it reminds me of how much of a job just writing can be. For the past two years I complained that I wasn't writing enough. Boy has that changed. I write at least one story a day, sometimes more. And I'm getting to talk about the key issues of the day financially.
Also, I should note that it's a very GOOD time to not be at a magazine, as I had been through mid-2007. I ran into an esteemed colleague from my old, very well respected financial magazine and they told me about how the climate there is one of fear and unease. They (no gender clues here) also complained about the drudgery they have to do at the Internet division of our firm just to ensure that they keep their job. I felt bad for this person, whom I've always like very much, and saddened by the death of that great American institution, the magazine.
Because, no mistake, magazines are dying. And it's a great loss. When I was a boy my dreams started to take shape around 13 years of age when I started to read magazines. I wanted to have a column, I wanted my little picture on the page, I wanted to have the respectability and platform that only a magazine, like Time, could give. As I got alitle older I read the investigative pieces with awe. How could a person, a reporter, know so much that no one else does? How could they open up the world to so many things it didn't know before?
So, while I never felt as strongly attached to the investigative, hard news side as the sassy columnist side I felt I wanted to know more. I dreamed of some day working at a magazine, Time preferably.
Well, Time these days resembles a news pamphlet, and worse still it's just one place that's going under. The worst part is that there is virtually nothing that can do the job that a fully staffed magazine, or large newspaper, can do. Long, time intensive investigative pieces that take months and months to report are not the meat and bread of most Internet journalism, although, of course, it can be. The 'net is more about spot news, in a hurry.
I fear that even though we can still report out those long pieces that change the world that it's not a perfect fit for a medium that demands constant updates. In a way working at web-site is a lot like working at a daily where the day never ends, or begins. It's an awesome place to be, but it's a category killer, too. And the category it kills is daily newspapers and news magazines.
So I am grateful, no matter what, to be here, rather than there.
2. Without being obvious I am gratefuly for my daughter. Every day she grows and thrives, and even though we have been scandalized by the presence of lead paint chips on our floors (for more on the read the Brooklyn Baby Mama's blog) I am thankful that we caught it early. I can't bear the thought of this child, my love, losing ONE IQ POINT. So we are all taking all appropriate measures necessary to clear this up. More on this front as we know more.
But I am thankful for Stella, in all her wonderful ways, and the joy that she brings to us, and that we hope to bring to her.
3. I am thankful for my wife, so supportive and loving. Randi understands me better than I understand myself sometimes, and whenever there is a problem that threatens to overwhelm me she is right there beside me, and we work it out together. When I worry about the future, she finds a way to let me know that we will work it out together, and that as long as we can be honest with one another we can have a strong marriage. And she makes me laugh. So, thank you!
4. I am thankful for the rest of my family. My mother has been the rock of my life, and can be counted on always. My brother is fiercely loyal and the one person I would want to take into a streetfight, provided it's not me against him! My sister and her family have lead the way on parenting, and I've learned so much from them. My nieces are delights, and I love them. I am thankful for my dad, because he gave me my sense of humor.
5. I am thankful for Brooklyn. It's fun, funky and at times almost affordable. This is a great borough.
6. I am thankful for my friends. I don't see them enough, but to the person they understand that I still care about them, and am still the same guy. Their patience with me is always a surprise.
Well, that's all for now, got to do some cleanup before Turkey Day. Take care.
Dave
So, it's definitely time to give thanks and count some blessings. Here I go.
1. My job. Sometimes it's stressful, and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed, but it's been exciting and engaging too. I am writing more than I have in years, and it reminds me of how much of a job just writing can be. For the past two years I complained that I wasn't writing enough. Boy has that changed. I write at least one story a day, sometimes more. And I'm getting to talk about the key issues of the day financially.
Also, I should note that it's a very GOOD time to not be at a magazine, as I had been through mid-2007. I ran into an esteemed colleague from my old, very well respected financial magazine and they told me about how the climate there is one of fear and unease. They (no gender clues here) also complained about the drudgery they have to do at the Internet division of our firm just to ensure that they keep their job. I felt bad for this person, whom I've always like very much, and saddened by the death of that great American institution, the magazine.
Because, no mistake, magazines are dying. And it's a great loss. When I was a boy my dreams started to take shape around 13 years of age when I started to read magazines. I wanted to have a column, I wanted my little picture on the page, I wanted to have the respectability and platform that only a magazine, like Time, could give. As I got alitle older I read the investigative pieces with awe. How could a person, a reporter, know so much that no one else does? How could they open up the world to so many things it didn't know before?
So, while I never felt as strongly attached to the investigative, hard news side as the sassy columnist side I felt I wanted to know more. I dreamed of some day working at a magazine, Time preferably.
Well, Time these days resembles a news pamphlet, and worse still it's just one place that's going under. The worst part is that there is virtually nothing that can do the job that a fully staffed magazine, or large newspaper, can do. Long, time intensive investigative pieces that take months and months to report are not the meat and bread of most Internet journalism, although, of course, it can be. The 'net is more about spot news, in a hurry.
I fear that even though we can still report out those long pieces that change the world that it's not a perfect fit for a medium that demands constant updates. In a way working at web-site is a lot like working at a daily where the day never ends, or begins. It's an awesome place to be, but it's a category killer, too. And the category it kills is daily newspapers and news magazines.
So I am grateful, no matter what, to be here, rather than there.
2. Without being obvious I am gratefuly for my daughter. Every day she grows and thrives, and even though we have been scandalized by the presence of lead paint chips on our floors (for more on the read the Brooklyn Baby Mama's blog) I am thankful that we caught it early. I can't bear the thought of this child, my love, losing ONE IQ POINT. So we are all taking all appropriate measures necessary to clear this up. More on this front as we know more.
But I am thankful for Stella, in all her wonderful ways, and the joy that she brings to us, and that we hope to bring to her.
3. I am thankful for my wife, so supportive and loving. Randi understands me better than I understand myself sometimes, and whenever there is a problem that threatens to overwhelm me she is right there beside me, and we work it out together. When I worry about the future, she finds a way to let me know that we will work it out together, and that as long as we can be honest with one another we can have a strong marriage. And she makes me laugh. So, thank you!
4. I am thankful for the rest of my family. My mother has been the rock of my life, and can be counted on always. My brother is fiercely loyal and the one person I would want to take into a streetfight, provided it's not me against him! My sister and her family have lead the way on parenting, and I've learned so much from them. My nieces are delights, and I love them. I am thankful for my dad, because he gave me my sense of humor.
5. I am thankful for Brooklyn. It's fun, funky and at times almost affordable. This is a great borough.
6. I am thankful for my friends. I don't see them enough, but to the person they understand that I still care about them, and am still the same guy. Their patience with me is always a surprise.
Well, that's all for now, got to do some cleanup before Turkey Day. Take care.
Dave
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Reflections On Being In Between
The move is over, new life in the apartment begins. The first thing to note about our apartment is that it is not quite anywhere specific. When we lived in Park Slope that was it, we were in Park Slope. You might love the area, you might not, very much not for some people, but it was someplace. This area is a little bit harder to pin down. It's near Ditmas Park, but is not in it. It's near Kensington, but Kensington itself is kind of not that sharply defined a place. We are near the Flatbush area, but, again are not in it.
Here is what I know. We are on Ocean Parkway, which is one of the nicest strip of roads in Brooklyn. We are within walking distance of all those places above. And our area does have a flavor all it's own, it's just not one that already has "marketing" so to speak.
My building, I get the sense, is very Jewish. All our neighbors have mezuzahs (sp?) on their doorposts out front. We are conspicuous for not having one. For those not in the Jewish religion, or still learning about it, a mezuzah (sp?) is a box, usually metal, that you attach to the doors of your home. It has a prayer in it, and is used to bless those who walk through the door.
The prior resident of our apartment obviously used to have one, and quite a large one at that, because the front door post has a massive space where a mezuzah used to be. It's almost like a chalk outline on our door. So we would like to get one. And not too long from now.
We had one, and I do mean had. It was made of stone, and was very pretty, I thought. The problem was that we tried to attach it to the door of our past building via double sided foam tape, because the door frame was metal. Before not too long the tape came loose and our beautiful stone mezuzah fell to the ground and cracked. Surely this was some kind of bad omen, or at least it felt like it could be. I tried not to think about it, to be honest.
While I am proud of such Jewish traditions I also put a Native American dream catcher above Stella's crib, and would like to burn sage inside to keep away evil spirits. If I could find any sage to burn, outside of what they sell in super markets.
Our new apartment is probably about twice the size of our last place. The living room alone, by New York standards is enormous. The kitchen, though, is actually kind of tight, and the bathroom is, believe it or not, smaller than our last one. But each bedroom is a nice size. We are moving in with all deliberate speed. We are trying to figure out the best way to make use of the space before we decorate so that we use our new space as efficiently as possible. I, for example, am typing this in our foyer, which doubles as our "office area." It's as far from the bedrooms as possible. I guess this is why it's the office. No one wanted to listen to me type.
But even though we have more space still, there are a few bugs to be worked out. To wit, when we tried to use the toaster and the microwave at the same time it blew all the fuses in the apartment. Some of our paint is already peeling, which worries us, as we have a little baby just waiting to crawl, and this apartment is quite old. So lead paint is a concern. I am sending out samples this week.
Our bathroom, oddly enough, doesn't have even one outlet in it. Now, I'm an analogue kind of guy. I like vacuum tubed guitar amps instead of transistors, my razor is a manual one, and I even make popcorn on the stove over nuking it. But c'mon, that's just kind of silly. No outlets in the bathroom? Not even one? To trim my beard the other day I had to make a three pronged extension chord from Stella's room, and bend down quite a bit as I faced the mirror. As you can imagine I got an immaculate shave.
Other problems. Our closet door just doesn't shut. Our front door saw the doorknob almost come loose today, and we could barely get out. I had to fasten the doorknob so we could leave. Which is not what I expected in a new place.
Oh, but the big one I left out. They polyurethaned the floors multiple times before we moved in, so it was extra smooth and shiny. Unfortunately it also not only reeked, but the fumes were making us all sick. I, in all my days, had never gotten sick from refinished floors before, so they must've done quite a job to accomplish that. To cure this, eventually, Randi, no lie, got on her hands and knees and rubbed down the surface with a lemon. Now that's dedication. I couldn't believe her discipline. But it got done, and now the room smells a whole lot better. Kudos to her.
Otherwise, living here is an adjustment but I'm enjoying the change of scenery. The area is also heavily Polish, as well as Jewish. When we go into the local shops that's most of what I heard spoken, Polish. And I am just getting into experimenting with Polish delicacies. I already bought a jar of imported pickles from Poland, and they were excellent. Now I want to try one of the seemingly infinite different kinds of canned fish these folks consume. We also have come to drink Baltica brand beer, made is Russia. (Which is close to Poland.) It's $2.00 for an enormous bottle, and strong too.
Culturally there was also some shock. It really does feel like a different world than Park Slope. For starters, there are all these middle aged Polish guys who hang out in front of a pharmacy, all wearing black, most with mustaches. There's like 10 of them. I would call it a minyan, but they probably wouldn't appreciate the joke. What they do there all day I have no idea, but they love hanging out, talking/smoking.
There are also some Mexican delis down the street, and even a place where I can get my fortune told Santeria style. I have no idea what that would mean, but it intrigued me, although the fortune teller is never actually open. Maybe she just pops up when there's a customer.
Overall, our little stretch of Ditmas road isn't exactly pretty, but it's real. I am not a critic or foe of gentrification, in many cases, but it is interesting to live in a place that so far has not been completely exploited by white, middle-class yuppies like, well, us. Maybe we are the harbingers of doom, or at least Thai restaurants. (Thai restaurants are my personal indicator that an area has been yuppified. It's high-end kids stores for Randi.)
We also had to switch our cable service, and now are on the Optimum Triple Cast, I think it's called. We get phone, Internet and cable TV, all for one low, low price that escapes me right now. One thing that's been really great is that they have some free channels on demand, and Randi and I have gotten totally hooked on Mad Men. Such a cool, stylish show. And, really, who had ever heard of any of these actors before they got onto the show? Jon Hamm, who plays lead guy Don Draper, was virtually a bit part actor, for years. And then he got his break in a role that looked like it was created for him, he owned it, and now everyone can't get enough of him. For someone, like me, still looking to sew his creative wild oats on the world's biggest stages, this is an inspiring story. Believe in yourself, no one can do it for you. Easier said than done, as always, but I would like to start living what I say in this department. And taking responsibility for my impact.
Here is what I know. We are on Ocean Parkway, which is one of the nicest strip of roads in Brooklyn. We are within walking distance of all those places above. And our area does have a flavor all it's own, it's just not one that already has "marketing" so to speak.
My building, I get the sense, is very Jewish. All our neighbors have mezuzahs (sp?) on their doorposts out front. We are conspicuous for not having one. For those not in the Jewish religion, or still learning about it, a mezuzah (sp?) is a box, usually metal, that you attach to the doors of your home. It has a prayer in it, and is used to bless those who walk through the door.
The prior resident of our apartment obviously used to have one, and quite a large one at that, because the front door post has a massive space where a mezuzah used to be. It's almost like a chalk outline on our door. So we would like to get one. And not too long from now.
We had one, and I do mean had. It was made of stone, and was very pretty, I thought. The problem was that we tried to attach it to the door of our past building via double sided foam tape, because the door frame was metal. Before not too long the tape came loose and our beautiful stone mezuzah fell to the ground and cracked. Surely this was some kind of bad omen, or at least it felt like it could be. I tried not to think about it, to be honest.
While I am proud of such Jewish traditions I also put a Native American dream catcher above Stella's crib, and would like to burn sage inside to keep away evil spirits. If I could find any sage to burn, outside of what they sell in super markets.
Our new apartment is probably about twice the size of our last place. The living room alone, by New York standards is enormous. The kitchen, though, is actually kind of tight, and the bathroom is, believe it or not, smaller than our last one. But each bedroom is a nice size. We are moving in with all deliberate speed. We are trying to figure out the best way to make use of the space before we decorate so that we use our new space as efficiently as possible. I, for example, am typing this in our foyer, which doubles as our "office area." It's as far from the bedrooms as possible. I guess this is why it's the office. No one wanted to listen to me type.
But even though we have more space still, there are a few bugs to be worked out. To wit, when we tried to use the toaster and the microwave at the same time it blew all the fuses in the apartment. Some of our paint is already peeling, which worries us, as we have a little baby just waiting to crawl, and this apartment is quite old. So lead paint is a concern. I am sending out samples this week.
Our bathroom, oddly enough, doesn't have even one outlet in it. Now, I'm an analogue kind of guy. I like vacuum tubed guitar amps instead of transistors, my razor is a manual one, and I even make popcorn on the stove over nuking it. But c'mon, that's just kind of silly. No outlets in the bathroom? Not even one? To trim my beard the other day I had to make a three pronged extension chord from Stella's room, and bend down quite a bit as I faced the mirror. As you can imagine I got an immaculate shave.
Other problems. Our closet door just doesn't shut. Our front door saw the doorknob almost come loose today, and we could barely get out. I had to fasten the doorknob so we could leave. Which is not what I expected in a new place.
Oh, but the big one I left out. They polyurethaned the floors multiple times before we moved in, so it was extra smooth and shiny. Unfortunately it also not only reeked, but the fumes were making us all sick. I, in all my days, had never gotten sick from refinished floors before, so they must've done quite a job to accomplish that. To cure this, eventually, Randi, no lie, got on her hands and knees and rubbed down the surface with a lemon. Now that's dedication. I couldn't believe her discipline. But it got done, and now the room smells a whole lot better. Kudos to her.
Otherwise, living here is an adjustment but I'm enjoying the change of scenery. The area is also heavily Polish, as well as Jewish. When we go into the local shops that's most of what I heard spoken, Polish. And I am just getting into experimenting with Polish delicacies. I already bought a jar of imported pickles from Poland, and they were excellent. Now I want to try one of the seemingly infinite different kinds of canned fish these folks consume. We also have come to drink Baltica brand beer, made is Russia. (Which is close to Poland.) It's $2.00 for an enormous bottle, and strong too.
Culturally there was also some shock. It really does feel like a different world than Park Slope. For starters, there are all these middle aged Polish guys who hang out in front of a pharmacy, all wearing black, most with mustaches. There's like 10 of them. I would call it a minyan, but they probably wouldn't appreciate the joke. What they do there all day I have no idea, but they love hanging out, talking/smoking.
There are also some Mexican delis down the street, and even a place where I can get my fortune told Santeria style. I have no idea what that would mean, but it intrigued me, although the fortune teller is never actually open. Maybe she just pops up when there's a customer.
Overall, our little stretch of Ditmas road isn't exactly pretty, but it's real. I am not a critic or foe of gentrification, in many cases, but it is interesting to live in a place that so far has not been completely exploited by white, middle-class yuppies like, well, us. Maybe we are the harbingers of doom, or at least Thai restaurants. (Thai restaurants are my personal indicator that an area has been yuppified. It's high-end kids stores for Randi.)
We also had to switch our cable service, and now are on the Optimum Triple Cast, I think it's called. We get phone, Internet and cable TV, all for one low, low price that escapes me right now. One thing that's been really great is that they have some free channels on demand, and Randi and I have gotten totally hooked on Mad Men. Such a cool, stylish show. And, really, who had ever heard of any of these actors before they got onto the show? Jon Hamm, who plays lead guy Don Draper, was virtually a bit part actor, for years. And then he got his break in a role that looked like it was created for him, he owned it, and now everyone can't get enough of him. For someone, like me, still looking to sew his creative wild oats on the world's biggest stages, this is an inspiring story. Believe in yourself, no one can do it for you. Easier said than done, as always, but I would like to start living what I say in this department. And taking responsibility for my impact.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Moving Day
Stella enjoying the good life in her new bedroom. It's the nicest room in the apartment, of course!
Our new living room is vast
It's late Friday night now, after a long week at work. After a long move on Saturday. After a long week spent packing for that long move on Saturday.
Well, miraculously we ended up getting everything packed in time for the movers to show up Saturday morning. And when they showed up, oh, what a sight they were. The first guy I saw stumbled out of the truck and looked both high and drunk, and it was only slightly after 9:00 a.m.
"Wonderful," I thought. "We get the guys who look like they could star in the moving version of 'Disorderlies.'"
Eventually though the stoned guy's boss emerged, and he seized control. He introduced himself, I did the same, and the moving began.
Moving creates a weird power dynamic. You pay guys to pick things up so you don't have to. I pay for this because, well, dammit, at some point I became too old, or at least felt too old, to keep bribing friends via pizza and beer. If I could get any friends at all, for any price.
It used to be so much easier. When I lived in Colorado if I had to move I could pack everything in my car, tie my mattress to the roof and off I went. The whole project might take 15 minutes.
Things change. Now we have so much stuff that is so specific. We have a white noise machine for Stella so that she sleeps. We have a baby monitor it's base and an adapter--you need all three--so we can listen to white noise machine as she sleeps. Seriously, you cannot imagine quite how terrible a white noise machine sounds pumped through the world's smallest, and worst, speaker.
Stella also has a puppy dog lovie that she curls up with in the pack 'n play. For the males out there a "lovie" is the term of art for a toy that the baby snuggles up with in order to feel comforted as she drifts off to Sleepytown. Randi made the puppy dog especially homey for the Brooklyn Baby Baby by wearing it around in her cleavage for a while. So now Stella smells mommy with every restful breath.
We also had all Stella's clothes, and all her books. Then there is her antacid medicine, because apparently our seven month old daughter has the digestive system of a seventy year old man. There is also the dropper for her medicine. In other words, we have so many little things that we can't lose. Have we? Ask me when we've fully unpacked.
And that's just stuff for Stella. I don't want to make it seem like all the things are hers. For starters I have six guitars. Six! I am not ambidextrous, and I've barely picked up any of them in a month but there you go, six guitars. Now we use them for when Stella sleeps on our bed. To keep her from rolling off we'll put guitar cases on either side of her, and a laundry bag at her feet. So I might not play my Les Paul, or my beloved Fender Telecaster, but they still serve a purpose, albeit one to make Aerosmith cringe.
So there were all those things to consider. But I must want to get back the moving power dynamic. It's an intimate time, this time spent with movers. They arrive in your life for just a few hours and you are completely locked in with them for that amount of time. You can't ignore them, and you can't really leave them alone. There are too many things that can go wrong, and too many specific sets of instructions for what needs extra care, and extra packing.
Maybe I am the strange one, I don't know. I've found that I simply cannot walk away and let them move my things. I need to be there, hanging out, encouraging them, getting in the way probably, even as I try to help. And sometimes you have to admonish them. At one point, for example, one of the movers was throwing our garbage bags filled with clothes down the stairwell. I had to tell him to not do that.
"You know, there are some things in there that are fragile," I said, thinking of our inflatable air mattress. The mover was abashed, and promised to not do it again. And he didn't, I think.
Two of the movers were from East New York, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. My mother was from there too, way, way back when. But when I mentioned this to one of the movers--trying to build rapport--he gave me a knowing smile.
"That was a long time ago," he said. "Back before the white people moved out and the black people moved in."
He was right. He and the other movers were black, I am white. Obviously we're from different places, and their job is much harder than mine. I tried to help make their day a little easier, though. I bought them juice, and cups with which to drink water, but there's only so much I could do to help. They have to haul ass to get paid. And chitchat, while appreciated, is not necessary.
I have to hand it to them. Despite my initial impression these guys were quite good at what they did. One guy, for example, hauled my entire bureau down the stairs on his back on his own. I was amazed. My friend and I, together, barely got it up the stairs eight months ago. He didn't get a scratch on it, and didn't scratch the stairwell, either.
In so many ways the move itself, the emptying of the apartment where we had lived for four years was a revelation. As we packed I found two T-shirts I had simply thought were lost. It turns out I had created a special, new T-shirt area in my bureau about three months ago, and had immediately forgotten that I'd ever done it.
When the couch was moved I was truly disgusted and fascinated by what I found. Disgusted, because there was quite literally a warren of dust bunnies that had reproduced under our sofa. Fascinated because the area under the sofa could easily be called the Land Of The Lost Cat Toy. Under there were toys we had lost, in some cases, years before. I found one crinkly Mylar ball, another knobby ball, two dented plastic balls that make noise when they roll, and other various cat curiosities. I took all these toys and threw them away, because if they can get marooned under the couch once, they surely will again.
I also found an blue bulb syringe. The syringe had originally been bought years before to help me flush out my ears. But it had instead become a cat toy without my knowledge. Now filled with filth and dirt I thought the better of keeping it, aware that I probably shouldn't clean my ear with something so disgusting.
Under our bed I found a picture of me from when Randi and I started dating. In it I wear a Centre College T-shirt, and stand at the kitchen area of her old apartment. It's not a good picture of me, and I didn't miss it, but Randi seems glad to have found it.
We also found an orange plastic fish teething toy for Stella that was also under the bed. This one we kept, washed and plan to use in the future. She's not only teething now, but also starting to get into the rudiments of crawling, so exciting times here.
Loose coins, I also discovered, had gone everywhere. I am sorry, but nothing looks more shitty than an apartment with loose change all about. One penny had wedged itself into the corner of our bedroom, a perfect fit. I didn't even bother trying to remove it.
Once we moved out, I was also amazed by how much dust we had collected. We swept, and vacuumed when we lived there, sometimes multiple times a week, really we did, but you wouldn't know it to see the floors as we moved out. Dust was everywhere, and the movers started to get teary eyed, allergic to the dust itself and our dander, I guess. Which is a kind of disgusting thought, really.
I guess that's part of why we pay them so well, they have to wade through our filth, as well as carry our crap.
In total the move took five hours, and we were well satisfied with the job the movers had done. I paid the guys their money per hour and gave them a fairly nice tip, or at least I thought it was nice. I came to think of these guys as kind of my friends by the end of our time together, and why shouldn't I? They made our life in our new apartment possible. It was a bargain.
More about the new place next time. Stella is crying, and someone is speaking a foreign language outside my door. Goodnight.
Well, miraculously we ended up getting everything packed in time for the movers to show up Saturday morning. And when they showed up, oh, what a sight they were. The first guy I saw stumbled out of the truck and looked both high and drunk, and it was only slightly after 9:00 a.m.
"Wonderful," I thought. "We get the guys who look like they could star in the moving version of 'Disorderlies.'"
Eventually though the stoned guy's boss emerged, and he seized control. He introduced himself, I did the same, and the moving began.
Moving creates a weird power dynamic. You pay guys to pick things up so you don't have to. I pay for this because, well, dammit, at some point I became too old, or at least felt too old, to keep bribing friends via pizza and beer. If I could get any friends at all, for any price.
It used to be so much easier. When I lived in Colorado if I had to move I could pack everything in my car, tie my mattress to the roof and off I went. The whole project might take 15 minutes.
Things change. Now we have so much stuff that is so specific. We have a white noise machine for Stella so that she sleeps. We have a baby monitor it's base and an adapter--you need all three--so we can listen to white noise machine as she sleeps. Seriously, you cannot imagine quite how terrible a white noise machine sounds pumped through the world's smallest, and worst, speaker.
Stella also has a puppy dog lovie that she curls up with in the pack 'n play. For the males out there a "lovie" is the term of art for a toy that the baby snuggles up with in order to feel comforted as she drifts off to Sleepytown. Randi made the puppy dog especially homey for the Brooklyn Baby Baby by wearing it around in her cleavage for a while. So now Stella smells mommy with every restful breath.
We also had all Stella's clothes, and all her books. Then there is her antacid medicine, because apparently our seven month old daughter has the digestive system of a seventy year old man. There is also the dropper for her medicine. In other words, we have so many little things that we can't lose. Have we? Ask me when we've fully unpacked.
And that's just stuff for Stella. I don't want to make it seem like all the things are hers. For starters I have six guitars. Six! I am not ambidextrous, and I've barely picked up any of them in a month but there you go, six guitars. Now we use them for when Stella sleeps on our bed. To keep her from rolling off we'll put guitar cases on either side of her, and a laundry bag at her feet. So I might not play my Les Paul, or my beloved Fender Telecaster, but they still serve a purpose, albeit one to make Aerosmith cringe.
So there were all those things to consider. But I must want to get back the moving power dynamic. It's an intimate time, this time spent with movers. They arrive in your life for just a few hours and you are completely locked in with them for that amount of time. You can't ignore them, and you can't really leave them alone. There are too many things that can go wrong, and too many specific sets of instructions for what needs extra care, and extra packing.
Maybe I am the strange one, I don't know. I've found that I simply cannot walk away and let them move my things. I need to be there, hanging out, encouraging them, getting in the way probably, even as I try to help. And sometimes you have to admonish them. At one point, for example, one of the movers was throwing our garbage bags filled with clothes down the stairwell. I had to tell him to not do that.
"You know, there are some things in there that are fragile," I said, thinking of our inflatable air mattress. The mover was abashed, and promised to not do it again. And he didn't, I think.
Two of the movers were from East New York, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. My mother was from there too, way, way back when. But when I mentioned this to one of the movers--trying to build rapport--he gave me a knowing smile.
"That was a long time ago," he said. "Back before the white people moved out and the black people moved in."
He was right. He and the other movers were black, I am white. Obviously we're from different places, and their job is much harder than mine. I tried to help make their day a little easier, though. I bought them juice, and cups with which to drink water, but there's only so much I could do to help. They have to haul ass to get paid. And chitchat, while appreciated, is not necessary.
I have to hand it to them. Despite my initial impression these guys were quite good at what they did. One guy, for example, hauled my entire bureau down the stairs on his back on his own. I was amazed. My friend and I, together, barely got it up the stairs eight months ago. He didn't get a scratch on it, and didn't scratch the stairwell, either.
In so many ways the move itself, the emptying of the apartment where we had lived for four years was a revelation. As we packed I found two T-shirts I had simply thought were lost. It turns out I had created a special, new T-shirt area in my bureau about three months ago, and had immediately forgotten that I'd ever done it.
When the couch was moved I was truly disgusted and fascinated by what I found. Disgusted, because there was quite literally a warren of dust bunnies that had reproduced under our sofa. Fascinated because the area under the sofa could easily be called the Land Of The Lost Cat Toy. Under there were toys we had lost, in some cases, years before. I found one crinkly Mylar ball, another knobby ball, two dented plastic balls that make noise when they roll, and other various cat curiosities. I took all these toys and threw them away, because if they can get marooned under the couch once, they surely will again.
I also found an blue bulb syringe. The syringe had originally been bought years before to help me flush out my ears. But it had instead become a cat toy without my knowledge. Now filled with filth and dirt I thought the better of keeping it, aware that I probably shouldn't clean my ear with something so disgusting.
Under our bed I found a picture of me from when Randi and I started dating. In it I wear a Centre College T-shirt, and stand at the kitchen area of her old apartment. It's not a good picture of me, and I didn't miss it, but Randi seems glad to have found it.
We also found an orange plastic fish teething toy for Stella that was also under the bed. This one we kept, washed and plan to use in the future. She's not only teething now, but also starting to get into the rudiments of crawling, so exciting times here.
Loose coins, I also discovered, had gone everywhere. I am sorry, but nothing looks more shitty than an apartment with loose change all about. One penny had wedged itself into the corner of our bedroom, a perfect fit. I didn't even bother trying to remove it.
Once we moved out, I was also amazed by how much dust we had collected. We swept, and vacuumed when we lived there, sometimes multiple times a week, really we did, but you wouldn't know it to see the floors as we moved out. Dust was everywhere, and the movers started to get teary eyed, allergic to the dust itself and our dander, I guess. Which is a kind of disgusting thought, really.
I guess that's part of why we pay them so well, they have to wade through our filth, as well as carry our crap.
In total the move took five hours, and we were well satisfied with the job the movers had done. I paid the guys their money per hour and gave them a fairly nice tip, or at least I thought it was nice. I came to think of these guys as kind of my friends by the end of our time together, and why shouldn't I? They made our life in our new apartment possible. It was a bargain.
More about the new place next time. Stella is crying, and someone is speaking a foreign language outside my door. Goodnight.
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