My next act...creating a meaningful legend behind the practice of clipping your nails in public.

Called the party place, asked a few neighbors. And yeah. It's just a chair.

Which is sad really. Since I am the me that is me, I like a good story. I have a tendency to first assume--because it's more fun that way--that there's an elaborate cultural or spiritual or other meaningful significance to all the bizarre rituals and behaviors of modern man. And I really, really thought there'd be a great story behind the chair. Something epic and fascinating, a tale like "The chair dates back to the 14th century when an Acllacunas virgin wove an elaborate bridal throne for her ceremonial marriage to the state, an act punishable by death at the time, as thrones were only to be used by the highest male priests and nobility. However the manner in which she wove the chair made it light enough to wield, yet sturdy enough to fight off the soldiers who had come to arrest her, making her the first woman to escape Acllahuasi internment..." You get the picture. I have that Ken Burn's type crap going through my head all the time. About everything, anything, like why people on the subway have personal listening devices (iPod, walkman, etc.) yet insist on blaring their music loud enough for everyone else to hear. "...The forcing of one's music into other's personal space dates back to the first century and a rogue Viking bagpipe core..."

But not this time. No big story. Some chick twenty years ago had a big ugly chair at her wedding or shower, and her best friend was all, "When I (get married, have a baby) I'm sooooo getting one of those big wicker chairs." and then everyone who attended either event had to have one, and Viola! Everywhere you look; people walking around with big chairs. Which isn't the strangest thing that goes on my neighborhood. Once a year a few hundred men gather together to carry a four ton Saint On A Pole around a couple of miles. However at least that festival's got a pretty kick-ass story behind it.

Unlike the big white wicker chair. Which my friend Zeebah promised to carry me around in on the next holiday of my choosing, I'll remind her.

What can you tell me about the Crazy White Wingback Wicker Rental Chair?

I wasn't aware of them until I lived across the street from a party supply store in the Lower East Side. The first time I saw a group leaving the store with the big, fancifully decorated chair in tow I assumed they were buying it. When they returned with the chair the next day, I assumed they didn't want it, or it was broken. When the very same chair was picked up that evening by a new group of people who also returned it the next day, it was clear the party supply store rented it out. But for what? Well parties, yeah; but what's its purpose at the party? It's gotta be pretty important to lug a five foot tall, three foot wide piece of furniture around the streets of New York City, in and out of subways, up and down narrow hallways in six story walk-ups--and do it all again the next day.

Now here, in my apartment in Brooklyn, wedged between a strip of 99 cent/party supply stores and the subway, I see the Crazy White Wingback Wicker Rental Chair go past my window once a week on average. And that's only what I'm witnessing when I'm home. It's a must have for parties, obviously. A must have for some kind of party I have yet to be invited to in my near forty years. Someone, somewhere in my neighborhood, right now as I type, is discussing an upcoming event and saying, "And of course we'll have to rent the big white wicker chair..." The forgone conclusion of festivities that it is.

Have you ever rented the Crazy White Wingback Wicker Rental Chair? Have you ever been to a function that included the Crazy White Wingback Wicker Rental Chair? What do they DO with it there? I mean, it can't just be...a chair.

I'll do the laundry tomorrow.

Via Zeebah: Procrastination is the sign of a brilliant mind.

If that theory is correct, my man and my friend Maud are supra-geniuses.

Christmas wrapping, up

Why our Christmas was just plain wonderful, thank you very much. Fun, calm, easy, satisfying, and Christmasy too. But sadly, nearly impossible to recreate. A fluke, like a bunch of randomly chosen leftovers thrown in a pot that--defying reason--combine into the most delicious meal you've ever had; the Chili Chicken Marsala Tom Ka Gai Potato Pancake Souffle of holidays.

The recipe is as follows:

Have a transit strike hit the group of islands on which you live the Tuesday before Christmas, making travel impossible between the island you call home and the island where everyone works and does all their holiday shopping--which you had yet to do.

Have your days become unbearably grueling, long, and exhausting.

Realize Thursday, strike still going, that unless you buy gifts for your family and mail them TODAY, they won't arrive by Christmas. Start scouring the local shops on your home island that are within walking distance. Discover that they are all nail salons, newsstands, 99 cent stores, and near the water, where you can SEE the island you need to be on, fancy pants artisan boutiques that sell unique and/or remarkably hip goods you can't afford--which is of no consequence because no one in your or your partner's family (or your partner for that matter) have any desire or use for vintage 1980's clothes, coffee table books about architecture or vaginas (or the architecture of vaginas), or the new Silver Jews CD.

Go home empty handed. Drink. Weep. Panic. Repeat.

Wake up the next day, the Friday before Christmas, find that that strike is over. Throw on your clothes and dash over to the island with all the stuff on it, desperate to find the two small things you had in mind for your partner at least. Encounter SIX MILLION PEOPLE with the exact same agenda. Choke in impassable sidewalks, witness lines snaking out the door and into the street in front of each store you enter, stores that, you discover, do not carry the two simple, stupid, easy to find things you were certain would be a cinch. Walk past a clock that says it's four PM. And you haven't bought a single gift. For anyone. And tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the day you have guests coming over for an afternoon supper, and you have yet to clean the apartment or do the dishes or buy a single item on the menu.

So you--and here's the REALLY IMPORTANT INGREDIENT--give up. Dramatically. In Union Square. You give up, throw your hands in the air like you just don't care, admit to yourself and the world that it is physically impossible to pull Christmas together in a single night, to find an appropriate gift for your man and thirty other gifts for thirty other people. Even if you could it'd be stupid to pay twenty bucks a pop to overnight panic-inspired tokens just to say you sent something. There is nothing left to do, game over. Get on a train, and go home.

And POOF! You notice a weight is lifted. You notice your mood is dramatically improved. You find peace in surrender, terror evaporates, you are suddenly unafraid of that which lies ahead.

You, with all this newly acquired time on your hands, spend the rest of the afternoon finishing up a few home made gifts you had begun in a frantic can't-shop rush and cast aside days before. You find this activity pleasant and fulfilling. You go to the grocery store, unencumbered by stress of any kind, to pick up the things for your supper the next day; delighted by the prospect of spending time with those you love. You notice the people rushing, the mad dash for the last minute whatever, and you feel sad for them--poor people! Panic and guilt sucking every bit of life from their faces. You hold the door for them and smile; concern and kindness on the outside, a bit of smugness on the inside, because you have learned how to bypass such useless stress.

The next day you spend the morning doing a bit of cleaning, and a bit of leisurely trinket shopping (just for fun!) in your neighborhood, and spend a wonderful relaxing afternoon and evening with your friends. You eat food, drink wine, and talk, and it's very, very festive indeed.

And you wake up Christmas morning more excited than you had been in years, ready to tear into the packages under the tree that you know--due to the big No Real Gifts This Christmas surrender--consist of only whatever silly, useful, or shiny little things you picked up the day before from the local dollar store and pharmacy. Each item wrapped up with equal importance. Each item received with a level of excitement that an onlooker might mistake as a joke or sarcasm, "Salsa! I love salsa! A new night-light for the bathroom! Chocolate! A bar of soap! GUM! CHAPSTICK!!! A TIGGER TOOTHBRUSH!!!!!" and then (because you must) you sing, "The most wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things. Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs. They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun! But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is, I'm the only one...IIIIIIIIIIIII'm the only one."

Then there is a movie in a big, uptown theater, and a walk in the pouring rain to see the tree in Rockefeller Center and the window displays on 5th avenue; and your mood is so very light you can't even work up a decent grimace for the tourists with their cameras and oversized umbrellas. You find, quite uncharacteristically and beyond anything resembling your usual mode of being, that you enjoy the fellowship of the crowd.

And home again, where there is a full dinner waiting (left over from yesterday), a pup, the tree, your totally amazing gifts from the drug store, a scary movie, and the night; which you spend doing exactly as you wish, for once.

Anyway, that's my recipe for the most delicious Christmas ever. Feel free to try it out for yourself, make substitutions where necessary, etc.

The wind cried uncle

Well that's over with. Now we can all stop complaining about our contingency plan nightmares, and get back to complaining about our shitty subway commutes. Order is restored.

I purposely didn't weigh in on the strike. It's darn hard to pick a side when one greedy, corrupt corporation is trying to take advantage of a mismanaged, equally corrupt organization. They all can suck it as far as I'm concerned.

I will say, however, that I can't totally get on board with those who are of the opinion that the workers were demanding too much. The whole, "Who do they think they are...NOBODY gets guaranteed pay raises, full benefits, pension plans..." line of thinking. Just because big business has made it their hobby to pay people as little as they can get away with and not provide any reliable security for their future; have outsourced and freelanced and automated the career professional into obscurity; doesn't mean we should all roll over and accept abominable wage and job insecurity as our fate. Yes, some MTA employees make more than and have better benefits than, say, teachers. Which is why the teachers union should continue to fight like hell for above subsistence wages, better benefits and full pensions as well. Is a teacher's job worth more than a subway conductor's? I don't know...how much did you enjoy your six mile walk to work? Should the transit workers have been satisfied with their whopping 45-60k a year salaries? Well, let's see; they live in a city where a studio apartment costs a third of a million dollars...hmmmm, you tell me.

My problem wasn't with WHAT they were asking for, it was when, and how, and why, and through whom. And I would have been all Yay Union! and Down with The Big Meanies! if I thought for a second that their goal was to fight the good fight to restore what have traditionally been (and damn-well should be) basic provisions for the career employee.

But then again, I'm just a socialist commie type who thinks things like health care and Social Security are the right of every American. So what do I know.

We shall overcome

Well if you live in New York you're well aware of the big crisis, and have already worked out a backup plan. Me? I'm going with a plastic hip flask that won't set off the metal detectors. That and whatever I can sneak in my oversized foam hand.

Thanks for Asking!

To the folks at kingdomonline.net who write at least ten times a day asking, "Hi Antigeist, Want get rock hard dick for plenty of orgasms for Lady?":

I'm sure Lady would appreciate your (daily) concern over the frequency of her orgasms. And I have to admit, being a curious sort of female, I have imagined having a penis of my very own. However I find all things zoophilic remarkably immoral and creepy--despite the opinion of people like you and Peter Singer. So what's say we leave Lady's orgasms up to Lady. And the Tramp, of course.

But thanks for asking!

Laura's next stop? Delivering shiny new bicycles to the Vet hospital's paraplegic ward.

I just looked up a word to make sure I understood the correct meaning. Because you know how you use a term, your whole life maybe, and then come to find out it means something similar to what you intended to say but another word would be a more accurate definition? For instance, years ago I thought inexorable meant that which is impossible to physically divide. Like cream after its been put in coffee, or young lovers. However come to find out it has more to do with inflexibility, like Strom Thurmond's view on segregation. You learn something new every day!

That said, today I learned the important difference between an heartless asshole and a psychopath. See, a heartless asshole won't grant clemency to death row inmates whose circumstances are the definition of why clemency was created in the first place--whose situation is the legal guideline for when it is granted--and in so doing destroy the last remaining shred of human decency to which we as a society had claim.

Whereas a psychopath visits a bunch of children, Katrina victims, many of whom are STILL displaced from their homes due to your husband's (also a psychopath)--I'll be kind and say lackadaisical--relief efforts, children who have the added horror of a parent or parents who are off fighting and dying in your husband's illegal war, and is so unforgivably, monstrously cruel, they force the children to watch a movie showing what life is like when you have a big house and lots of food and sick money and tons of gifts, even for the family dogs--dogs like the ones your family was forced to leave behind to drown or starve to death--all to remind the children of the real meaning of the "holiday" (they only use Christmas in the title) season. And to cheer them up, of course.

The origin of the cool aunt/uncle.

Remember when you were a kid, a teen, still living at home, and your parents were always all up in your shit over one thing or another, and you couldn't wait to grow up and get your own place? Remember fantasizing about being able to stay up as late as you wanted, watch whatever tv you wanted, eat whatever you wanted (mac and cheese every day if you so chose!), playing your stereo as loud as you wished, at whatever hour, with no one to tell you to "turn that crap off", or "clean your room", or "be home by eleven", or "no, you can't go out with your friends on a school night"?

And then you got your own apartment, for which you had to pay, which meant having a job, which meant you could not, in fact, stay up as late as you wanted. Worse, the steady diet of frozen pizza and Lucky Charms and Kraft mac-n-cheese made you gain twenty pounds and break out with monster zits, so you ended up eating salads and vegetables and stuff...by choice. And people still screamed for music to be turned down, only now it was you, screaming at your neighbors (it's three in the morning for Christsakes!) and calling the police when they ignore you. You learned--although you believed it impossible--there's a level of filth that even you can't tolerate; which meant, much to your chagrin, you had to do the dishes and wash your clothes and scrub the toilet once in awhile. Often on weekends...in addition to paying the bills, and taking the car in for servicing, and going to stupid dinner parties with your partner's boring friends, and shopping for groceries, or a birthday present for your niece, who's thirteen, and just wants to get the fuck out of your sister's house and get a place of her own.

So you buy her a really inappropriate gift; a revealing outfit, gangster rap, beer. Something that'll make her parents go totally batshit. And you take her to a midnight screening of an equally inappropriate movie, and let her wear her micro-mini and drink a beer with her popcorn. Take a drag off your cigarette. Because you realize it's the closest she's ever gonna get to living the fantasy of adulthood she's created; and she'll learn the hard truth soon enough.

'Cidin

You know you've been sick too long when you find yourself going "Mmmmmmm" after every sip of cold medicine. G says in bed last night, "Soon I'll be drinking this stuff just because I like it." I got a picture of us in a month's time; hitting all the pharmacies in town, faking a cough, nodding, ashamed, when the clerks make comments on how our cold is "really hanging on".

Hey baby...what's your sign?

Me? Well I'm a Scoripo/Saggitarius cusp. Someone too cynical, too easily engrossed in the petty, too sex-obsessed and stubborn to even bother with such a remarkable waste of one's time like astrology (Scorpio); but also fully willing to admit there are things about which I know nothing, that the universe is a mystery, a never ending source of knowledge and wonderment; the pursuit of which my most precious concern (Sagittarius).

It means that like a revolving door, I'm simultaneously opened and closed. It means, much to the constant crazy-making dismay of the man I love, that I always have a secret. ALWAYS. Because I need things that are mine and mine alone.

However my fair-minded and honest Sag brain counters the Scorpio's passion for excitement; to the point where my secrets are tame beyond belief. I don't run a dungeon out of our apartment while G's at work. I haven't racked up a life-threatening debt with a bookie. I don't have an eating disorder, I don't cut myself, I'm not having an extra-marital romance (except with you, my darling). Nothing that interesting.

I keep really stupid things secret. Like my favorite place to eat lunch. Or that I gave a woman at the pharmacy our grocery money because she didn't have enough to get her prescriptions. That I have an extensive 'win the lottery' list of paintings and sculpture I've collected from solo visits to galleries all over the city. That I listen to ham radio net-streams and watch Oprah and have a long standing fantasy about starring in a Three Is Company remake with Rufus Wainwright and Janeane Garofalo* I never lie, though. If you ask me a direct question, my favorite lunching spot for instance, I'd tell you. But until and unless I'm asked, it's my spot, and Fakir the owner is MY friend, and I ain't sharing him. Get your own Fakir.

I admitted to my friend Zeebah during one of our weekly girl nights together (which I never write about, because it's ours), that I find my secretiveness bizarre--because of what I choose too keep secret. I know why one wouldn't mention an erotic dream about an ex to their current lover (which, oddly I would). Or an embarassing moment (which, again, I would). Or tell a potential employer about your drinking habits (okay, that I'd keep to myself). But keeping a second blogroll? People I read every single day but never link to, never leave comments with...out of some childish need to keep a portion of my life to myself? Or how about crafting home made paper bag book covers for whatever book I'm reading, wrap them up like a porno mag, so no onlookers can see what it is. And not just the pulp bestsellers, the highbrow literati stuff. Especially the highbrow literati stuff.

I've told G that I believe EVERYONE has a secret double life. Everybody. To varying degrees. Am I wrong in this?

*with a modern twist...see he'd be a gay man pretending to be straight for the benefit of a sweet, sweet NYC "deal" apartment owned by an outwardly homophobic landlord--who's a closeted queer of course, a'la Mr. Furley--played by Michael Mckean. And we'd be his aging--yet hip!--fag-hag [hate the term, but I'm pitching here] roommates who--having no idea Rufus is gay--embarrass ourselves each week with our ever-more-outrageous attempts to lure him into bed; meanwhile driving him mad with the constant parade of our gorgeous gay male friends who he cannot approach because it would blow his cover. Comedy of error hilarity ensues. You have my number, Mr. Burrows.

Achoo

G and I have caught the cold/flu ick thing that's made it's way around our entire circle of friends and co-workers. It was inevitable in a way, I guess. But the thing that really stinks about being the same level of sick at the same time is that neither of us are able to pamper the other. As it stands it's down to a kind of drawing lots; we take each other's temperature and the one with the lowest has to walk the dog and get the soup. This morning I joked that by tonight we'd need a nurse. As the day wears on I've decided to check the yellow pages in earnest.

But the teevee did bring a bit of good news to me in my sick bed. The long awaited Civil Partnership Act goes into effect today in England. A great stride forward, even if overdue. Particularly when you read a sentence like, "One of the first couples to take advantage of the new law is Roger Lockyer, 77, and Percy Steven, 66, from Westminster, London, who have been together for 40 years."

And the final nail in the coffin of my anti-establishment youth is my excitement over the MTA's old/revised subway rules due to be posted today and enforced thereafter. The 'you may not take up more than one seat' rule, specifically. It's nice that they're letting us keep our morning coffees (as long as they have a lid), however nothing will make me (and others I know) happier than to witness one of the ball-room brigade get a ticket. An event I await with much, much anticipation.

Because really fellers; the baggiest pants in the world can't hide the fact that sadly, your manhood does not require three feet of space. But dream on though, bro!

Thanks for Asking!

To the anonymous emailer (whose address began with adrianoti@) who wrote me a very, very long letter in French:

Bon Jour! Did I say/spell that correctly? Because see, me no parle le Francais. Well, that's not totally true. I know how to say "Would you like to go to bed with me tonight" because of the Lady Marmalade song, and I can also say "I want you to grab my ankles" thanks to a French-speaking former roommate who thought it would be a gas to send a young woman to Montreal armed only with the ability to ask people to bed and demand that they grab her ankles. The imp. Oh, and since I listened to Steve Martin's "Wild And Crazy Guy" album about twenty thousand times, I can order an 'omelette de fromage'; so breakfast would have been taken care of had my other two French phrases landed me an overnight guest. Alas, we will never know--I never did take that trip to Montreal. It's probably for the best.

So since you were neither asking me to bed, offering to grab my ankles, or feed me a cheese omelette, I have no f'ing clue what you were talking about (because--as Steve pointed out--you French have a different Goddamned word for everything).

But Thanks For Asking! Or should I say...Merci de demander!

The moral of the story: It's impossible to out-asshole an asshole.

What, you ask, does it take to pull me out of a two week hiatus? Getting so pissed off that I nearly kill an old woman. Before nine am. Before I've even had a coffee. Okay, I didn't nearly kill her. I damn near clobbered her though--and I would have--had she not been wearing that sweet little old lady hat and the orthopedic shoes. I suppose my rage has limits, and those limits are reached through clothing. Because had that bitch been wearing sneakers...

See, G and I joined a group of friends at the Starshine Burlesque last night to celebrate our friend L's Birthday (which was wonderful, BTW. Great fun). The show didn't begin until eleven, so, you know, we were out late. Home late. To bed late. And there had been a wee smidge of the drinking. So when our doorbell went off like an air raid siren at eight in the morning it was quite the rude awakening. It took me a good minute to figure out what the noise was, what day it was, what time it was, process it all. After putting the pieces together I decided to ignore the bell. Deliveries and meter readers don't show up that early, and we certainly weren't expecting anyone. Someone had the wrong apartment, obviously. They'd figure it out and go away.

But it kept ringing. Actually ringing is too polite a word for the sound. Old buildings such as ours do not have typical doorbells. No light little "Ding dong!" to alert you. No delightful musical notes, no chime of Big Ben. We have buzzers. Buzzers that let out a God-awful "Blaaaaaaaaaaannnnt" at such insane decibel levels, you know when you neighbor's pizza has arrived a half block away. So that sound, over and over. A dying sheep bleating into a vocoder. Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaant. Blaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaant. Imagine you've only been asleep for four hours...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And you're feeling the effects of that regrettable last cocktail...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And you know, are 100% sure whomever it is is NOT someone looking for you... Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And it's eight in the morning...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And the only way to make it stop is to do the one thing you are trying to avoid at all cost: get out of bed and see who it is.

I shuffled toward the door, croaked "Hello?" into the intercom. Nothing. Street noise. Again, "Hello?" And again just the sound of cars whizzing past. Good, I thought. They'd left. Not until they dragged my ass out of bed...which is where I returned.

In answer to the question, "Does God have a sick sense of humor?" Uh, Yeah. The second my head hit the pillow...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. As if pressure on the pillow was the trigger. Again to the door, again just street noise. Yet the buzzing continued. I figured since I was oh-so-definitely up now, there was no need for them to wake all the neighbors too. I grabbed G's robe and headed down the two flights of stairs, fully prepared to kill whomever was standing in the front hall.

And there she was on the other side of the glass: the sweetest looking little old lady you ever saw. Church-day hat. Smart winter coat. Aforementioned ortho shoes. Poor thing out in the cold. "Can I help you?" I asked sweetly, a little ashamed of my murderous thoughts seconds before.

"Where's Ida?" she barked like a Marine sergeant. My head snapped back with enough force to give me whiplash.

"Ida? I'm sorry, no Ida lives in this building."

"Well, this is the address she gave me," she said accusingly, and then shoved a piece of paper in my face with my address written on it. "and I've been standing here five minutes ringing this bell."

"I'm aware of that." I said, less sweetly. "But you have the wrong address. Unless she's staying here with someone."

"No she's not staying here. She lives here. Look." Again the paper appeared under my nose, my head snapped back reflexively.

"I'm sorry, but, I don't know what to tell you. I know all the other tenants, and there's no one named Ida."

I noticed a phone number on the page in my face, and I was going to point her to the pay phone right outside if she needed it; but before I could she turned on her heels and walked away, bitching and moaning to herself as she went. "...tell me I got the wrong address...I wrote it down...make me stand here, freezing..." She got to the main door, opened it, and made her exit. Just sashayed her sweet ass out the door. Not a word of thanks, no "sorry to disturb you." Not even a nod, something, anything. She just walked away, grumbling about all the trouble *I* caused.

Perhaps it was the accumulative effect of the twenty some-odd wrong numbers we receive a day (all of which end with a thankless hang up); or the number of times our buzzer rings and I'm summoned to the lobby for someone else's food delivery or cable appointment or boy/girlfriends; maybe it was my throbbing temples and being dragged out of bed three hours early, but I snapped. I heard it actually, like the crunch of a twig underfoot. Snap!

I ran to the door, swung it open, and launched into a world-class tirade. How I LOVE strangers leaning on my bell first thing in the morning. How she couldn't have possibly known from the hour, and how long it took me to reach the door, and the fact that I was in SLIPPERS and A ROBE, eyes half closed, that she had dragged me out of a peaceful slumber. My great joy in being subjected to demands, in being physically assaulted with paper. I apologized for all the trouble I caused, being that I somehow inadvertently switched the world over to another dimension in which it is I, not Ida, who inhabit my apartment; for which I must pay! Yes pay! For how could my discomfort be her fault, it was I who had the gall to be in what is clearly someone else's apartment--sleeping no less! I DESERVED her rudeness. Plain and simple. I thanked her again and apologized for any inconvenience.

But you see, this particular denizen of Rudeland was not fluent in sarcasm, she took my litany at face value. Her (willful?) ignorance allowed her to execute the check-mate of the century. She said, "You're welcome" and walked away.

Not Dead

Just, you know...resting.