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.

Someone Come Get Me

Whoa, boy. It's not working.
You guys, I'm watching Oprah again. (Addiction. I see the irony.)
Only this time, there's Phish food. Straight from the carton.
Someone come get me.

Blog of Shame

I am staging my own intervention.
It’s 4:30 on Monday afternoon. In and of itself, that’s not a particularly scandalous declaration. Except that I haven’t done anything today. Anything.
Nothing.
I got up after 11. I sat on the couch and ate. I’m watching Oprah. More specifically, I’m watching some Bollywood people on Oprah. And a polo player named Nacho. And dammit, I had stuff I wanted to do today. More stuff than watching House Bunny and trying to decide how difficult it would be to make a Vito-shaped voodoo doll, which are the only two tasks I've completed today.
I am my own worst enemy.
Remember when I climbed right up on my furlough high horse and said stuff about making to-do lists and getting exercise and NOT watching Oprah? That same horse has bucked me off, presumably because I haven’t showered all day and am still in the clothes I slept in and don’t smell good, and trotted off without me.
The most exciting thing that happened today was when I was watching Nancy Drew - I shit you not, Nancy Drew - and something forcefully hit the window right behind my head. I shrieked like a little girl, then sat frozen on the couch for the rest of the movie before peeking outside to see if there was a maimed, beakless pigeon on my deck. There wasn’t. But now there is something foreign and globby laying on the air conditioning unit and I can’t tell if it used to be alive before it flew into the window, or if it was never alive and someone launched it into the window. I would make a horrible pre-teen sleuther. Now I have to wait for Megan to get home from a long day at work and solve my crime for me.
So… yeah.
I need some major accountability. You’ve heard of people keeping food diaries to help them lose weight? I am now turning this very blog into an activity diary of sorts, because if I spend another day like this I will be very ashamed. I’m hoping that if I have to fess up to my comings and goings, I will be less inclined to host my own one-person Minesweeper smackdowns.
I promise to be better.

UPDATE: Megan’s opinion -- it was a crabapple. Looks like I have a mystery to work on for tomorrow after all, as I can’t imagine why someone would chuck a crabapple at my window on a rainy Monday morning. It’s also Megan’s opinion that it was probably God telling me to get the fuck off the couch.

Anticipation

Hi all. Can you believe it's the last day of summer? Mixed emotions, certainly. It's a stunning end to my favorite season, to be sure - I'm broadcasting live right now from my back deck, squinting at the screen and wishing desperately it could stay like this till spring.
It's been an interesting summer. Usually right about this time I start to get a little depressed, or anxious maybe is a better way to describe it. I love fall, I love football and sweaters and all that, but the thought of impending winter gives me heart palpitations. But this year things feel a little different. Scary, but different. Sort of exciting. The air doesn't feel stagnant like it usually does - it feels like stuff is happening. And not just in my own little life but in general. It's making me some kind of restless, impatient little girl.
I haven't written much lately, the weird result of some kind of reverse writer's block. I've got so much on my mind that it's been tough to sift through and put into words. I can't tell you all how many times I've sat down to write to you and quickly given up in frustration, because I don't know where to begin.
I keep saying it's good that the weather will turn soon, because it'll make me crack down and get to work. I am full of shit. It is not good. And it just means that I will have to find evermore creative ways to procrastinate, and I'll have to do it while fighting off bouts of cabin fever.
But at the end of this winter, my ninth - ninth! - in New York, everything is going to look different. I'm at the end of a very, very long wait.

A Blog About a Movie About a Book About a Blog

So I don't generally comment on many books I read or movies I see. I don't know why. I love books and I love movies. Even the bad ones. And being my generally narcissistic self, nearly every movie I watch I wish I was in, and nearly every book I read I wish I had written.
But I went to see Julie & Julia recently, and I feel compelled.
It was a cute film. Fine really. Not the most spectacular thing I've seen in eons, but I don't think it was aiming to be and it was perfectly charming and lovely, which I do think it was aiming to be. I am usually loath to see a movie before I have read its accompanying book. Books are, by default and to a naturally-inclined reader, always better. There's simply more detail, more information, more insight into what is happening internally to and with the characters. But I'd only just been given the book by my friend Abby (thank you Abby) on my birthday, and was in the middle of another book (American Wife, also thank you Abby) when her birthday (Abby's, that is) came up, and I offered to reciprocate the gift by taking her to see the movie. (I think just typing the title of this post committed me to as many long-winded and confusing sentences as possible.)
So, having not yet read the book, off we went to see the adaptation. I think this is one of the rare exceptions to my book-first rule; Abby didn't love the film because it veered quite a bit from the book (she loved the somewhat snarky, clever writing of Julie Powell, and felt the film turned her a bit whiny. We decided that this was probably a decision made on behalf of Julia Child's, and in turn Meryl Streep's, powerful personality. One can only take so much, really, right?) But I could enjoy the movie for what it was, and still enjoy the completely different experience being described to me in the book, which I've meanwhile finished. I've only just now started to read through the actual blog posts from several years ago that started this whole snowball in motion.
None of this is my actual point.
My actual point is this, as is my actual conundrum: in this instance, which do I wish for? The book, or the movie? Or, whoa there curveball, the blog itself?
Admittedly, It's the blog I'm most envious of at this very moment. Sure, if someone wants to offer me a part opposite Meryl, I'd take it - even if it's a part where we never actually meet in the making of the movie because we share no scenes, because we're basically filming two different movies that editors will brilliantly weave together to make one.
And if someone catches on to the catchiness of my blog and wants to offer me a book deal, I would take that as well.
But, as it stands, that's not going to happen.
Not because I can't write. I love Julie's tone, her loving irreverence, her chosen voice for expressing herself, unapologetically, to whomever wants to tune in. I think it's similar to what I've got going here. She's a little verbose, just like me. She's a little... shrill, just like me. She's surrounded by lovingly supportive and equally crazy friends and family members, who go a step beyond support into encouragement with her wacky endeavor.
Here's where Julie has a decided leg up on me.
Julie has a point.
Julie has a purpose.
I have neither of these. Just a keyboard and a lot of time on my hands.
So I'm thinking I need a theme. But not just any theme - one that's as brilliantly unique and original as Julie's decision to cook her way through MtAoFC.
I don't cook, so I'm lucky that's out.
I don't have a job, so that's less luckily out.
The whole New York single girl writer with awesome friends and hilarious stories of debauchery and heartbreak has been pretty well covered.
So? What do you guys suggest? What should my theme be?

Dressed for Stress

It's September first today. (Okay, technically, it's 12:33, so it's September 2nd. But I haven't gone to bed yet, which means really it's the same day as before. Right? Anyway, as I was saying...)

And you know what that means. It's just about time for The Panic to set in. Fall is in the air and soon, everything changes. You can't stop it; you can't control it.

Wait, before I go any further I should probably just clarify that we’re all on the same page. I’m sure it’s obvious, but let’s confirm we’re talking about the same anxiety.

I’m talking about that late-in-the-season predicament where you suddenly remember every single cute summer outfit you haven’t worn once yet, and subsequently scramble to figure out how many times a day you’ll have to change wardrobes between now and the imminent post-labor-day (no white), rainy (no flip flops or open-toed sandals), chill-in-the-air (no tank tops, sundresses, or breezy linens) onset of autumn, if you want to cover all the adorably lightweight, brightly colored pieces you've neglected for your one over-worn beach coverup and a ratty pair of old cut off Levi's.

Not that I don't love fall. Clothingwise. I love soft cardigans over long sleeve tissue tees and I LOVE my jeans, and who doesn't look like the epitome of cozy chic in a great pair of boots?

But all that merino and cashmere aside, I am not a winter person. I am not a cold weather person of any kind. And so, while the charm of September is undeniable, aided by kickoffs and halftimes and Script Ohios, it really just means winter is right around the corner.

I'm not ready for winter. At all. I have a Boy Meets Girl tee and a fantastically green cotton dress and a pair of J. Crew peeptoes that have hardly cracked the surface of my closet.

I am simply not ready.

What? Well what did you think I was panicked about?