and now i'm back.....from outer space....

Hiya! Is anyone still here? I wouldn't blame you if you've moved on, I mean I haven't written anything in like over a year. So, I got myself a nice man. Then, I had a pretty bad case of bronchitis. I kept looking for a job for a long long time. Then I had a terrible thing happen to my breast but it wasn't cancer thank God but it was still awful and disgusting and painful and I am still traumatized by it. So are my family and friends cause I won't stop telling them about it.
Then, I got a job,and it's good,really good! Then, my love affair went sour,went south,went sour in South Brooklyn. But my heart will go on just like the Titanic. Oh,well,like the song from the movie The Titanic.
So, I decided to come back and write again. Hello? Is there anybody out there?????

this is really hard

she- ohhhhh, i dunno. maybe i should bring my mother in.
me- that's a good idea.

she- i'm just not good at this.
me- ohhh,you're doing great!

she- do you really like it?
me- yeah, they're beautiful together.

she- oh, i just don't want to make a mistake,you know? i really really want it to be right. 
me- mmhmm.

she- i think the blue is just too much. what do you think?
me (well, i chose the three throw pillows we are looking at, and i'm pretty good at it so, no, i don't think it's too much.i think it works.)

she- what do they call that color?
me- um, seaside.

she- oh, i wasn't really going for a sea like look.
me - oh,right. (listen,it doesn't matter if it's called oil spill. it doesn't matter if it's called staph infection.the color is the color you SEE. Gahhhhd! what difference does it make what they call it? this is so hard. this is so so hard.)

she-i think i'd better bring my mother in.
me- oh,that's a good idea. (cause at 33,you're really not ready yet to pick out your own throw pillows.)

she- ughhhh,this is so hard. i mean, this is REALLY HARD FOR ME. i'm just not good at it and it's really really hard.
me- ohhhh, you're doing great. don't be so hard on yourself.

end scene

note- how the "f" do people like this not get chewed up and spit out by this city? 
if picking out and buying $600 worth of decorative pillows crushes your confidence and throws you in to a fit of hand wringing,what is going to happen when you get fired and receive and eviction notice form the landlord on the same day? pull up your diaper,it's time for big girl shopping.
it's really hard. it's really,really hard.

Eggerything is an ordeal.

I want to eat potato salad.once the thought occurs,the ordeal begins. I have to find the recipe on weight watchers. Then I have to root around in the fridge and cupboards and see how many important ingredients I don't have that I will decide I can do without. Well,the decision is not fully mine,it really comes from lack of funding. It called for relish but since I only have $3.07 in the bank until the next unemployment check directly deposits itself- (a modern miracle for which I am grateful. We used to have to wait for these,in the mail,like the mailbox,you guys. Geez,how many it times have I been unemployed? Don't think about it,don't think about it,don't think about it. Choose denial.) I am forced to use the bottom of the jar of that morphed condiment called "hamburger relish" which is nothing more and nothing less that mustard mixed with relish. Note- I just now decided that I am inventing a new condiment called "picnic relish" a disgusting combination of relish,ketchup and mustard. There is not one good reason not to do this. Anyway,I am a very busy person who shows up for life as they say. However,if laziness sneaks back inside the apartment, it gets pretty ridiculous. I resent and sigh my way through chores like looking at the bag of potatoes to see how much it weighs. Ugh,what a pain. The recipe calls for,hard boiled eggs- Jesus! What is this;prison cooking?! That's two ingredients that have to be cooked! Oh,geez. I decide that given my awful track record making hard boiled eggs-they NEVER turn out right- I am going to consult Julia Child. It'll be just like that girl who was so much like me, the one who lost her job and decided to start a blog in which she makes every Julia Child recipe and writes about and then the book gets published and Hollywood comes sniffing around,only,I am done my project already!In one afternoon! Laziness is good!I make it work in my favor! I follow Julia Childs' recipe for hard boiled eggs which involves precise timing and directions,2 minutes for this, a lid,then no lid, ice baths,10 seconds for the other thing. Ten seconds!!!I have never followed a recipe in my life that called for ten seconds of anything! Gahhhhhhhd, why is it so hard?! Ok Julia,I am putting my 5 eggs in your hands. When the time comes for the drudgery to end and for the greatest moment of a hard boiled eggs'life to arrive,I tap tap tap the first one on the glass cutting board and start peeling. The membrane (which remains lest you forget that you just killed something and boiled its life and if you continue to think about it you will be forced into veganism and out of your carnivore family.)and the shell come off in a clean swoop, beautiful success! Eggs are tres chic! But wait! I still have to boil potatoes,chop celery,onion,blah blah blah until at last-voila! Potato salad! It is 3 weight watchers points but since I had to slave harder than Sally Hemings on it,I decide that I deserve two helpings. Not very skinny thinking but whatever,I said I was lazy.

My kingdom for a guy on a horse

I happen to be a single unattached person. Which has been the case for so long now,I'm talkin years,that I really am beginning to be unsure about how much I actually want to change the situation. I've been "I" for so long now,I don't know if I wanna be "we". When I think about what kind of man I might allow to occupy my life with me its my little girl imagination that's coming up with the ideas. So this is what I come up with.... Archetypes.... In the fall and winter of this year I was dreaming of an Ironworker,strong,purposeful,a tradesman with a good pension,newly retired with a closet full of those Carhaart clothes that say " I'm a masculine man who likes it when you wear a bow." He works with his hands and eats steaks. He fixes things and tries his hand at listening to his girlfriend. He is very very easy to please and carries things for me.He doesn't like to talk about 9/11 and neither do I.But I need something a little more summer weight in a boyfriend for the warmer season. Spring is for cowboys. Wearing chaps,maybe he owns a herd of sheep,or cows that get wrangled.He is baked by the sun,has worn hands and a slow smile,doesn't say much but is heavy into native American mythology.He teaches me stuff and hails from Texas. He lies a bit but I don't mind. I braid his long hair for him and we take lazy naps.He's in to organic produce but not in a Brooklyn organic vegetable nerd way but in a the earth is good enough,we don't need to add anything to muck it up sorta way. He uses words like muck.He has a horse as fast as polished steel. He's left handed. I call him Lefty. But everyone knows him as Willie Nelson. Yup. My cowboy crush is Willie Nelson. Hey,knock it off,don't judge love. Summer? My Summer boyfriend archetype is a Native American Man. Beads,feathers,spirit world,teepee- whole 9 but more on him later,I'm not done loving Willie.

It'll have to wait...

It's a real bummer to be writing this on my fabulous new iPad,which is now,in my estimation,a whole lot less fabulous since I discovered that I cannot upload photos to anywhere with it. But I am very happy to have it and I am aware of the moment to moment need to put a few tablespoons of gratitude in my attitude or I won't have any friends left. Here's what I did today. I awoke,awakened. I said some secret prayers that I refuse to share with anyone but the great Navajo spirit of the universe that I am currently praying to.Normally I use my old standby,Catholicism but I switch off after the Easter fervor and celebration is over for something fresher and more seasonal. I made myself a blueberry and peach smoothie with full fat Greek yogurt and almost fainted from how delicious it was. I phoned a friend and told her things about me and my state of mind and its whereabouts. A friend phoned me and I met her for coffee. She wanted to go candle shopping. I thought this was preposterous but didn't say so. It was already 98 degrees and no one in their right mind should even be thinking about flames or matches or anything heat generating. I think there is something wrong with her. I went ice cube shopping. I came home and made a skirt steak and a salad. Ate it. Drank iced tea. I wrote down on a piece of paper three things to do today,day whatever of my unemployment journey- which is how they refer to it at the unemployment office. It's not really a journey,it doesn't feel like a journey and if the next time I get in a car or on an airplane I start crying cause I can't pay the rent,I will also not enjoy that journey. Looks like they ruined the word "journey" for me. Then, I took a nap cause I was tired from being awake for 7 hours. I decided when I woke up 30 minutes later with the 30 new reasons that I will never get anywhere or find a husband that I will call my naps "regret naps". Every shitty thought I have seems to wake up when I sleep and then I have to an awful lot of soothing and rocking and singing to put them back down again. Then I worried about how much it is going to cost me to have my teeth done. Then I looked at the list of the three things and beat myself up for not getting to them yet. Then I read about Katie Holmes and whatshisface. Wow,shocking tales of their divorce. I guess she got tired of not talking for 5 years. Then a friend called and I talked about myself and my plans for awhile.Then she hung up. Then I started a painting and I listened to that video of the two little girls being interviewed after one of them cuts the others hair. It was very adorable. Then the exterminator,Dominic,came by and put out some mouse traps. There was one on the stove top a few days ago. It's surprising how little it bothered me. Then I wrote this blog post,with a heavy heart because I cannot post a cleverly chosen photo with it. Goodbye.

February 2011?! Wow,I haven't really kept up with this blog. A lot has happened,like,I have procrastinated writing on this blog,which,if you are a procrastinator like I am,takes up a good chunk of time. I was fired from my last post as a retail wage slave shop girl malcontent because I hated being in the building,couldn't rise above the toxic feeling of it all and it showed a little around the edges of my otherwise breezy charm. Then I got another job. It was a big step up. Monday through Friday,9 ish to 5 ish, a chair,a desk,a phone,but,alas,it was a tacky sweater wholesaler run by an aging raging hippie with a Napoleon complex in lifts. I'll tell some excellent tales of angst later. On to now,like right now. Today I am unemployed again. As it worked out,and I can't believe I still feel embarrassed about this at all,I was let go from the tacky menopausal sweater company because I couldn't master the 50 year old counter system. It didn't have a mouse. When some technicians came out to fix it I overheard them say,"it's a dinosaur.they stopped making parts for it in the 80's". It was called the Vaxx. If we were having a bad day we would say we were feeling Vaxxy. Truth be told,I was the originator of most of the smart Alec comments. It was an open plan office. No walls and I just couldn't keep my mouth shut! That kind of a place,with those kinds of terrible conditions and smart frustrated people working there,well, how could I not be making smart ass remarks all day?! I was duty bound to a higher authority. I'm leaving now to go watch a sunset alone. Unemployed people do lots of alone things. I'm glad to be back. See you in the morning.

this coupon entitles bearer to torture one shopgirl.

"hi i need help."

"sure"

"are those for sale?"

"no."

"so i can't buy them?"

"no,they're not for sale,they're just display."

"oh,so you don't sell them?"

"no,we don't sell them."

"where did you get them?"

"i have no idea,i'm sorry."

"you might try pearl river mart." i suggest.

"hmmm,i don't know about the quality there."

"hmmm,i mimic."

"i want this bath mat. (she is holding a bathmat in  a bright white color.)

this is white,right?"

"yes,that's white."

"i also want to see the orange color."

i walk over to another display where we have them in two shades of orange. as i pick them up she asks,

"are those the orange ones?"

"yes,this is the deep coral and the pale coral."

"oh, i want hermes orange."

i"m sorry,i don't carry that color."

"i'll take the white.

i have a coupon."

she pulls out a coupon for $20 off that looks as if it was in the bottom of her pocket when she was 

homeless during the rainy season.

it is for our other brand,a different store. it clearly states on the coupon that is it only good for that brand,not our brand or the website or the catalog. it was a one day promotion that they ran.

i explain this to her and her $500 barbour coat. i'm pretty sure her $1200 prada bag is listening too.

she says" well i don't understand,i mean they gave it to me" why can't i use it? they gave it to me." 

"it's very easy to understand,i just explained it to you.( i am not supposed to talk to customers like that but it feels really, really good) it is only good for the other brand. it isn't good in this store. it clearly states it right here in print."

"well,ill take the bath mat."

"ok."

she tosses her credit card at me across the marble cash wrap desk.

(today,i just can't do it. i can't be moved today. i dig my heels in)

i don't pick it up for her which is what she wants.

"you can swipe it through the credit card reader please."

she does.

her receipt prints. i wrap her $48 dollar bath mat in tissue paper, and affix the fancy little sticker to it to close it up,place it in a bag and thank her very much. very much.

"is it traditional or contemporary?" she asks me.

(what? you want to know the historical provenance of a bath mat? seriously? lady, you are 60. if you could stop acting like a spoiled brat who is being victimized into paying full retail for a bathmat that she doesn't really want then maybe the rage that is knotting up the fist i wanna throw in your direction would ease up a bit.)

"it isn't really either. it is white on white knotted textile with a framed border.it will work just as well in a contemporary or a traditional space."

"uhhh,well,i have contemporary."

"it'll be fine". it's a white. bath. mat and by my estimation we should have stopped discussing it about 7 minutes ago.

she leaves the store.

i try to breathe my rage back down to a 2 or 3.

in 5 minutes she returns.

"i just saw my son outside. he saw the pattern on the edge of the bath mat and he doesn't like it so i have to return it. how can we make that happen?" (your son? the edge? a pattern? your son? what? jesus h. christ.)

"um,i'll get a manager"- because if i have to talk to you again i'm gonna punch you in the kidneys and tell you to get out of my store.

have a nice day and don't slip when you get out of your contemporary bathtub in your contemporary bathroom and break your contemporary neck. see you next week when you return and we go through this all over again.