Snapshot

Summing it up. Mojo frantically looking for my attention. Marley on the hunt for edibles.

Quote of the Day

Jordan: "I'd devour a pumpkin pie right now. With some extra thick unfiltered milk straight from the teet. The kind where you could hold the glass upside down and yet the substance only drips down at a snails pace."

Quote of the Day

Jordan: "I wore a wool jacket today... It's gunna be 72 soon. I looked like an idiot with a jacket on."

Me: "I'm sure you didn't."

Jordan: "People were wearing shirts.I had a fur hat on and a scarf made of live sheep. Still think I looked appropriate? I was walking with those snow shoes with the holes in them, like flippers, but made of wicker. There were ice picks hanging from my safety harness which was tightly secured to my hip."

Me: "Well, I'm sure nobody was looking at you."

Jordan: "Alyson, I was being pulled by 6 siberian huskies tied to a sled. I was involuntarily whipping them because my years of training became my natural instinct."

Me: "It's New York City. People don't look around at others."

Jordan: "I HAD TO AMPUTATE MY LEFT FOOT DUE TO FROSTBITE! You still think people werent looking?"

A Couple Of Winter's Ago

These were taken on my .000002 mph walk past Bryant Park. There is something about all of the Manhattan odors ceasing to exist in sub-freezing weather that made even the strongest gusts of wind freezing my eyeballs and nipping at my extremeties feel like I was on vacation.

Quote of the Day

A: "Your fart last night was far and away the most horrendous gas passed in the history of both man and dinoaur kind."

J: "Oh get over it. And yourself for that matter. I've seen your morning breath decapitate creatures."

See Saw

I don't know if I should blame my mood swings on the incessant pressure changes, or my body's keen ability to recognize that this year with be the last one on this Earth? 12.12.12. for lyfe, yo! That would be quite the story, hmm? My body is finally adept at recognizing something and it is the finality of life as we know it.

I would apologize for the drifting, but that's what this whole extended brain release is right now. Drifting and waffling. Going from so determined to so resigned in a matter of minutes. Feeling resolve steel inside my blood and then melt away with a text message. Climbing up this pedestal I built, getting halfway to the top and realizing I overestimated the height. Or should I say halfway to the bottom?

Here's to hoping the cool weather that is slowly creeping its way around the perimeter of these early Fall days makes it's way to my core and chills me out. Or maybe rubs some dry leaves together and starts a fire. I don't care which direction it takes me at this point- I just so desperately want to stop ending up exactly where I started.

Quote of the Day

Me: "Hey hey, my little belly button."

Carrie: "Hello the chunks of my eyeball!"

Me: "DO YOU SEE HOW MUCH NASTIER YOU SOUND?!?!?!"  

Carrie: "It makes me giggle. Lots."

Heat Vs. Bites

So- It is O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L. Meaning not just to me, or in my opinion... it has been HOT, people!! Like, bring your deodorant stick out with you because an application an hour will do your neighbors good. I haven't worn pants on the weekend unless explicitly told to do so, either. If it weren't for long flowy maxi dresses, I think I would be a complete hermit. It's so hot that air conditioning is only working within two feet of the unit and I haven't even made an attempt to do my hair in three months. And here is the official CNN story, letting me know that I do not have an extremely long lasting fever:

CNN Says It's Hot Too

Now, I don't actually think there are words that I possess that could even come close to accurately sharing the pain that mosquito's have, and continue to, inflict on my every moment of every day. I have been getting eaten alive this summer. Everywhere. And I have done everything. I have gone through three different brands of bug sprays, I rub myself down with a Bounce dryer sheet and stick the left over sheet in my pocket, sandal, ponytail. I sit closest to citronella candles, then I try to sit farthest. I ignore the itch. I floriously give myself in to the fervent satisfying straching that offers the most temporary bliss. I have woken up scratching myself. I have woken up countless times just feeling that incredibly itchy. My feet have been covered, every inch of my legs, arms, back, shoulder, stomach, neck, face. I am waiting for my eyeball to get stung. Then I will take a picture and share it with you. But allow me to paint a picture...

Me. sleep deprived. Almost insane from months of relentless torture. Hair that cannot be tamed. Make-up slipping off of my face. Wearing one of five flowy dresses in succession of one another.

Is there a place where mosquito's don't live? And why do they live? What evolutionary purpose to the provide now? We can spread disease fairly well amongst out our species, than you very much.

Snapshot

My traitorous pup.

Marriott In Melville

I stayed in Longggg Eyeland this week. For one night. It's funny thinking about where I have slept on that island. In amazing Hampton's estates, in not amazing Hampton's estates... I slept in my car a few times when I was with my Pit Bull of a few months. I would be driving way later than I should have been from New Jersey back to Long Island when I lived there, and there were nights when I would scare myself. Or more specifically, my damned thirty pound eyelids would finally make their move while I was mid-yawn, and my cheek muscles didn't have enough bounce in them to get them back up to that ever so important "Open" position needed while driving. So I would do what any sleep depraved young woman with a big dog in her front seat would do. Pull over into a cute little side street, shut everything off, lock the doors and put my seat back to let my eyelids work off some calories.

Anyway, the reason I really brought that up is because I would have preferred to sleep that way than in the Marriott in Melville. I am sorry, Marriott, really.

Marriott:

I would like commend your staff for being so wonderful that maybe if I had been a little intoxicated, I wouldn't have even noticed how everything outside of your staff was WORSE THAN SLEEPING IN MY CAR IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Let us count your offenses... When I first pulled up, instead of instantly parking, I drove through your little half circle drop off area just to double check that my GPS hadn't jokingly brought my to an Emergency Room. And if you are going to look like a Hospital, be clean like one! So confirming that I indeed had arrived at a hotel, I set out to park my car. I didn't realize how difficult parking could be in a suburb. I guess when this place used to be an Emergency Room, the hospital owners wanted to keep visitors far away. Upon walking in, employee's were made available to take my bags from me and cart them to my room and bring them in and all of that was a lovely bonus. However, their funds should be for free valet parking. I have a broken foot! I didn't anticipate walking three street lengths in an overcrowded and very distant parking lot just to check in. Maybe that is my fault. Maybe I have been spoiled by less expensive hotels that cater to the needs of people staying in hotels and I am wildly unrealistic in my hopes of not breaking my back and arms and shoulders while hiking to a hotel lobby... in the SUBURBS.

Then, there is the smell to deal with. I thought that the mugginess and dampness and faint scent of mold was because of the open area indoor swimming pool, but as the smell intensified after leaving the very dated lobby fun zone, I realized that the mugginess was the pool, the odor was leaks and moldy carpeting. And I am not sure who's brilliant plan it was to get enormous fans and to have them blasting to maybe dry out the carpeting, but save that money, fix your leaks and then replace the carpeting. Or just move your location and give the poor people of Melville their Emergency Room back. *I just said 'swimming pool' as opposed to 'pool.' I cannot explain that one, but I feel old. Like, 'I remember when Fridgerdair Refrigerators came out and I would walk to school for 45 miles in the snow barefoot and pregnant.' No?

My room. Ah, how I dream to forget you. The entire entry lights were missing bulbs and dim, or were just made to be extremely dim- a decision no doubt made from someone who knows what it's like to be... not bright. The bathroom was great, albeit narrow, and the room did not reak of mold like the hallway on the other side of my door. But my door? I was unable to open it by myself more that 50% of the time. That is right. My foot is broken and it may heal one day. But my upper body strength? I need more than a foam booty with some straps around it to make that someone get healthy. Either way, getting locked in your hotel room is not fun. And the piece de resistance? My "window" was window-like in that it was made of glass. And there were shears on it. But instead of being a window out onto that massive expanse of wasted black top that has been kept clean of white paint or parked cars, I got to peer into the inside lobby. My room was facing the first floor walkway. And I couldn't use the faux drapes on the side of the windows to cover up the shears and block me from people's view because they are only two feet strips of hideous. So I struggled with the door, walked the fifteen feet to the front desk and had to have a grown man escort me into my room to show me where the 'hidden' black out plastic drapery was behind the shears so that I could hope to get undressed and sleep for the night. But that was not before he had to open my own door for me.

And as a side note, there was a giant blown up plastic black rat just out in front of the hotel with protesters and some neon signs about how you don't employ New Yorkers but you are in New York. I don't want to get involved in things I don't know about, but I will say two things. 1. Your staff really was lovely. 2. You should probably work on coming to a resolution to get rid of the GIANT RAT IN FRONT OF YOUR HOTEL.

So yes. I will not be returning.

Quote of the Day

Me: "So I heard I missed you by about six minutes yesterday."

Jordan: "Yeah, I heard the same. I guess wishes really do come true."

My Horizontal Life

Miss Chelsea Handler. How you made me giggle out loud many times in this book. If anything in this book is even 85% true, I applaud your honesty, bravery, and your doctor's antibiotics. Kidding. Kind of. If everything is a lie, I can breathe a sigh of relief and let you know that your imagination is both depraved and delightful.

I cannot say what compelled me to buy this book, or why, after so many months in a pile of other unread novels, did I make a bee-line for this one, pick it up and finish it in an airport, practically in the same spot I started it in. I can say that Chelsea makes one night stands sound even more hideous and mortifying and reaffirming of loneliness and dissatisfaction than anything else I have ever read.

I can also say that when I lent this book to my best friend, I was expecting a lighthearted comment in her review. Or nothing. What I was most definitely not expecting was a story about how her fiancee didn't "appreciate my giving her that kind of stuff." He apparently has been asking her if there was something I was trying to say to her.

Something to say? Like, you should have on night stands and here is a book that will teach you how? If he spent five minutes with one of the short stories, I would think he would be calling me to thank me. I imagine the call would go something like this:

"Thank you for giving my girl many, many more reasons to stay with me. I owe you and Chelsea Handler a sincere thanks for making this happen."

Maybe he thinks that a novel can really shape someone's mind set. Could you imagine?! Just in looking back to recent books... After The Hunger Games, I find myself near a group of 30 people and just start fighting for my life? After 50 Shades of Gray, find a near perfect megalomaniac with uncommon sexual predilictions and an unlimited amount of money and then... maybe I don't need to worry about that scenario as much.

And now? I can't help but want to succumb to this urge I have to buy her more books. Old ones, that he would appreciate. I have to see if such books exist on the internets. I am thinking, "How To Iron My Husband's Socks While I Wait For Him To Come Home And Read This Book To Me." Or, "Words Are Dangerous, So This Book Is Only Filled With Pictures Of Food That My Husband Would Like Me To Prepare For Him."

I will refrain from further comment. It doesn't get prettier from here.

Shot 'O Wha?

My foot is broken. Long story- it could be worse. It could be better. Such is my life.

I decided to move forward this past Saturday, helping a friend in need of some friendly hands help him move. Since I had already mapped out a plan of attack for the prior week's packing schedule to aid him in organization and hitting goals, I knew what we were walking in to: Boxes and neat piles of organized chaos. (Do as I say, never as I do, please.) Instead, what we walked in to was chaos... that had been kicked around for 12 months, growing dust and CD limbs with slight hoarding undertones. My previously realistic goal of helping unpack boxes and rearrange furniture in said new place became lofty and laughable. Instead, I stayed in the old apartment, packing and sweating and sticking my swelling foot in the air every twenty minutes to help my pain killers do a little something more than taste funny. I had help. His mother, in a full mechanical knee brace, not only packed alongside me, but she was excellent company as I watched my more limber friends pouring sweat off their shoulders, packing and unpacking the moving van. If it wasn't 100 degrees, and we weren't moving boxes, and my foot wasn't broken, it would have been the perfect day. I will settle for great, most of the time, though.

My head and heart were a lot happier to help than my stress fracture. And later that night, as I lay immobile on my couch with an ice pack on my elevated foot, I thought back on my favorite part of the day. I have been doing that a lot lately. Is that bizarre? Taking a step out of reality to observe it? I feel this need to capture vignettes outside of the 8 to 5. Here is what I came up with:

After hours of feeling pain in his heel, Ben-jammin decided to take his sneaker off only to find an earring post had punctured the rubber sole of his sneaker and was standing up straight, brazenly even, in his shoe. It had also managed to pierce the bottom of his heel, which was lightly bleeding. And as I made a scrunched up, "That sucks" face, I look up and see his eyes widen with horror as the realization that someone else's bodily secretions at some level were inserted in to his foot. And we were in Jersey City! More people could be culprits on that one street than in most people's entire towns. And his question?

"Oh no! Does this mean I have to get an AIDS shot?"

I hear those are the worst!

Snapshot

Marley's face looks about as dusty as the thin layer covering my bedroom dresser in the back. I never have the heart to tell her that she is on my pillow. So I crawl to the bottom of the bed, scratch fervently with both of my hands while simultaneously making a small circle until I plop down in the same spot I started and I sleep perfectly unless there is thunder, lightening, a creak in the neighborhood, a dog wagging its tail within a 30 block radius, or if it's my time for my hourly trot up and down the hallway as a volunteer security guard.

I'm On Fire

so you dont want to hear about my good song?


you dont want to hear about how i am getting on

with all the things that i can get done

the sun is in the sky and i am by my lonesome

so you don't want to hear about my good day?

you have better things to do than to hear me say



god its been a lovely day! everything's been going my way

i took out the trash today and i'm on fire...



so you don't want to hear about my good friends?

you dont have the guts to take the truth or consequence

success is in the eye of the beholder

and its looking even better over your cold shoulder



i'm not suggesting you get to line me up for questioning

but jesus think about the bridges you are burning

and I'm betting

that even though you knew it from the start

you'd rather be a bitch than be an ordinary broken heart



so go ahead and talk about your bad day...

i want all the details of the pain and misery

that you are inflicting on the others

i consider them my sisters and i want their numbers



god its been a lovely day! everything's been going my way

i took up croquet today and i'm on fire



i picked up the pieces of my broken ego

i have finally made my peace as far as you and me go

but i'd love to have you up to see the place

i'd like to do more than survive i'd like to rub it in your face.....



hey! its been a lovely day! everything's been going my way

i had so much fun today and i'm on fire

god it's been a lovely day everything's been going my way

ever since you went away hey i'm on fire.....


Good Day lyrics by The Dresden Dolls
 
No, I wasn't belting this out at the top of my lungs in repeat on my ride in to work today in flagrant defiance of the truth. Unless you saw me. Or heard me. In which case, I blame Amanda Palmer for being the most honest lyricist I could think of on such short notice.

Opposites Attract

Michelle: "I'm going to see Rock of Ages... Not the show, the movie."

Me: "Didn't know it was a movie."

Michelle: "Where have you been? Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, a bunch of other people..."

I look it up on IMDB... "Set in 1987 Los Angeles, Drew and Sherrie are two young people chasing their dreams in the big city. When they meet, it's love at first sight, though their romance will face a series of challenges."

Me: "You crack me up. We like such different things. I would rather do just about anything than sit through anything with a storyline like that."

Michelle: "Unique. I prefer it keeps the friendship interesting."



I fear that next, my oldest friend is going to sit me down in front of a big screen playing some Step It Up and Dance 9 movie with Elvis and Miley Cyrus singing in the background while speaking into a gas mask and the walls start spinning with swirls painted all over them. Basically, her choice Saturday afternoon is my bad acid trip. And we have been friends for cough*cough*cough years!

Snapshot

I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that in the Meat Packing District of lower Manhattan, where meat packing plants no longer exist, that they put incorrect signage in front of an empty storefront. I found out, after four hours of waiting under said sign, that this is in fact a lie, and taxi's do not pick you up here.

Visiting (Near) Rochester

Work is bringing me to the far North tomorrow afternoon. Highway driving on a highway with nothing but highway behing me and highway ahead and highway tunes blasting... I could handle a day like that. I will be staying about 40 minutes west and a little bit south of Rochester, NY and I mentioned the trip to a friend of mind currently working towards a pharmaceutical degree in that same city I thought I would never get to see again- by choice. Here are his words of advice:

Scott: "Make sure your wiper fluid is full. Soooooo many bugs...I hit one that might have been a small bird. Really. And then I puked."

Me: "Well, I am driving a rental, and I am pro-bug murder. So I will be fine."

Scott: "Let's just say I pulled into a rest stop strictly to clean my windshield."
I can just hear myself questioning the car rental advisor assigned to me tomorrow morning... While people around me are asking about gas mileage and smoking policies, I will be asking about potency of windshield wiper fluid.

Quote of the Day

Jordan: "Alright. It's time for me to get off the phone now. It's been 15 minutes and 20 seconds already- I'm looking right at my phone and I wanted to talk for only five minutes."

Me: "Well, my phone says fifteen minutes and fifteen seconds, technically."

Jordan: "Oh, maybe my phone says it's longer because it feels SO much longer on my end!"

June!

Just wanted to say.... It's June! Halfway through this year. Speachless.