The Couch Chronicles: Chapter Two

First, if you'll remember, it was a crabapple. Allegedly.
Yesterday, things got a bit more aggressive. And furrier... things got furrier.
Back on the couch (what? it was raining. i wasn't watching oprah OR nancy drew. i'd already been on set at 7 in the morning, shooting a commercial. that's my work. get off my back.) and typing away furiously at my never-quite-done resume, I heard a thump that made the last thump sound more like a gentle tap. I whipped my head around to the window behind me, but this time there was no goo, no glob, still no beakless pigeon. I climbed up on the couch to peer out and make sure no hapless bird or harmless fruit was laying on the air conditioning unit. And I squealed like a little baby and almost broke my neck flying backward as a squirrel launched himself (or herself, it's tough to tell when they're moving) straight up at the window.
Apparently, the little guy (or girl) wasn't content to be on the back deck of my second floor apartment.
(Wait, speaking of a little guy on the floor, allow me to go back for a second. Just to give you an idea of what kind of PETA nightmare I'm living in these days. Friday morning, I wake up and stumble into the kitchen to find a mouse stuck to about 6 of those glue strip thingies. I think those things should be illegal. They are beyond cruel, completely ineffective, and totally gross. And yet, here they were, mission sort of accomplished, in the middle of my kitchen floor. I don't know how they - or he - got there. I suspect that my roommate saw or heard him in the morning, freaked out, tossed them on the floor, and left. She says he must've gotten stuck to them under the sink. It's a fishy story. Anyway. Long story short, I sobbed all morning watching this poor animal struggle and squirm and literally rip himself apart, completely alive and alert and I'm sure scared out of his little mind and in more pain than I can even conceive of, before finally having to swath him in an entire roll of paper towels like the shroud of fucking Disneyland, scuttle him into the biggest bag I could find, and taking him outside to complete his losing battle in the rain. I have never prayed so hard for my soul. It's been a tough week for the animal kingdom here on First Street.)
Back to the squirrel.
Once I realized he wasn't actually trying to bust through the window but to somehow scale it, it was less scary, still a little upsetting, and actually pretty funny. He was leaping in that spread eagle flying squirrel way that they do from the window sill to... nothing. I don't even know what he had his little buggy eye on. The apartment above us doesn't have a deck or anything, so all I can surmise is that after a short stint eavesdropping on me, he got bored and decided he wanted to check out the action one windowsill up. For all the points I'll give him for pluck, he gets a big fat zero for execution.
Finally I had to open the back door and yell at him till he got annoyed enough to leave. He shimmied his way back down the drainpipe and disappeared from sight.
So sadly, I'm not expecting to be the next "I'd Rather Go Naked" billboard. Which, truthfully, just leaves me even more unmotivated to work out.

I Am Simply Not a Sidewalk-Hogger

It's kind of like when a pregnant lady starts nesting. Or when an old or sick person suddenly feels great and full of energy. Or when you can't stop having sex with the person you've finally figured out you're never going to marry.
When you know things are about to change, there's a heightened sense of awareness. Of connection.
And so goes my ever-changing love/hate relationship with New York City.
I'm trying to decide whether or not to stay. Whether or not I can stay. Whether or not I want to. If I should.
And damn if this city isn't pulling out all the stops to seduce me lately.

It's been gorgeous here for the last few days; that late autumn cool but not cold, amazing blue skies, special something in the colorful air that makes you feel like fall isn't so bad after all. I've been to fall in a lot of places, and New York somehow does it better than anywhere else.

(Yes, I know that soon it'll be fucking freezing and the leisurely walk to the PATH train will become a sprint, made more challenging by the extra 87 pounds I'm carrying in coat and boot and the like. Then I'll have to frantically strip it all off in the station because it'll be so hot down there and all that shit on me will be making me sweat like a whore in church. I know.)
But everyone's smiling at me lately. There's something in the air, the aura, that affects people in the most mysterious, wonderful way. Even the construction workers and homeless guys are friendly and polite; appreciative, let's say.
(Usually they're lewd and vulgar in the way that only evil people can be. And I'm always confused by these guys who have only bothered to learn, like, 6 words in English, and none of them are anything you want hissed out to you while you're stuck waiting for the light to change.)
The Yankees are going to the World Series this week.
(There's no bad side to that.)
My friends are suddenly friendlier, my prospects are suddenly more profitable, my apartment is suddenly cozier.
How could I leave here? For eight and a half years I've said that New York has been wonderful, but that it's never really felt like home. But it is. New York is home. The idea of leaving it behind makes me cry like a baby. It's terrifying. Does that mean it's wrong? Am I supposed to be here? I love this place. I love the life I have here. I feed off of the vibrancy and the activity and the perpetual hopefulness of the people on the streets. Especially the ones who aren't just here for a visit. The people who have chosen this little community as their home, and who graciously invite millions upon millions of slow, sort of stupid, sidewalk-hogging visitors to stand in their way - those are the people I relate to. Not the sidewalk-hoggers.
There are actors and singers and dancers and writers and artists everywhere here. There are a dozen languages being spoken at every restaurant, all the time. There is kindness and mercy and a desire to make the city - and the world - better. There is action beyond talk. Worlds blend here, sometimes violently, but oftentimes seamlessly. The rich and the strikingly poor expect to bump elbows. Different colors and cultures expect to cross the same streets.
I know I'll feel differently when the weather turns, and the unemployment runs out. I've had men in my life I thought I couldn't live without, and I do. I've lost jobs I hated and feared I'd be poor, but I'm not. Things have changed that I didn't want to change, and I think it's almost always been for the better. If I leave New York, I know it'll be the right thing to do. I'll make it so. But the thought of breaking up with her is really, really devastating.