Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Elephant On My foot
“It doesn’t look pretty , but it doesn’t have any sugar, any alcohol, any chocolate, or any gluten in it, so fuckin’ Eat it!”
Such was the little Pep Talk I was giving myself while cooking an innocent omelette this morning. I used to like omelettes. But today is the first day of what may be a very long lifetime of omelettes - living without sugar, wheat, gluten, oats, alcohol, dairy, and a whole bunch of other things I really liked. Amazing how much the sexy omelette loses its appeal when you think you may see nothing but for breakfast for the rest of your life.
I tossed Colin’s plate to him in bed. “It’s not pretty…” I started.
Noted: Maybe I shouldn’t have started a major change in diet simultaneously with PMSing. I’ve always thought dieting is like monogamy. It’s like, now you can see that chocolate cake and the sweet, juicy mango and the candy corn on the other side of the kitchen, but you can’t have any. Some days it’s easier than others.
“…so fuckin’ eat it!” Colin is a smart lad. He shows no outward sign of having any problem with the omelette. In fact,the sausage on the side is a bonus as far as he is concerned.
A few hours later, I visit a friend who’s recently done a juice cleanse. She has some left over. It doesn’t have any sugar, alcohol, wheat, etc… in it, so I figure what the hell. By three o-clock my stomach is doing flip flops.
Despite the fact I feel I’ve over-stayed anybody’s welcome in her office, I email my Nutripath. For the last 45 minutes of our 2 and a half hour appointment this week, there was another patient waiting. It just takes that long to get through my health history.
That, and she has personal questions, like what was my role in my family? Does anyone have a 10 second answer for that? Maybe they should be my guru. Then she starts asking about goals, and personal and professional success, and fear of failure and fear of success. I found myself babbling, at something of a loss.
And it wasn’t until after I left the office that I thought, well, of course. Asking me, or anybody else with chronic pain about visions for their future is like asking somebody who has an elephant standing on their foot what they want for breakfast.
I don’t care what I have for breakfast. Right now I just want this elephant to stop standing my foot.
Thus I might have answered. But I have a writer’s mind; I think of these things when it is time to write, not when it is time to speak, and so my Nutripath still thinks I have a fear of success. Or failure. Or something.
We’re hitting it hard. I’m a little sore because I’ve hit it hard before – the anti- yeast diet, the gluten free diet, the separate-your-carbs-from-your-proteins diet… But I’ve never done it like this. I’ve never put in stuff while I’m taking stuff out. As advised by a professional. This time, at the same time I cut out the wheat, gluten, yeast, etc….I’m adding in a really good probiotic, colloidal silver, some herbal tea from the amazon, and possibly some antioxidants, if I tolerate them.
I have equal belief that is will harm me as that it may help, because, well , that’s been my experience. But as long as there’s one iota of chance that it could relieve me of the dizzying array of wild and crazy illnesses which migrate like gypsies through my body on no particularly organized rotation, I’m willing to give it a try.
I thought one of the hardest parts to staying on this regime would be Colin. Raised only three hours from New Orleans, Colin likes sugar. And dairy, and fat, and everything tasty and nice. He likes his ice cream before bed routine, his cookies after meals routine, and wheat crackers and cheese in between.
But Colin has been demonstrating his skills as an empath. When he needs a snack that’s vorboten to me, he’s been kindly shoveling it into his mouth in the kitchen while I’m in the living room. And to my surprise, he’s actually been eating – and liking- the food I prepare for myself. He had to keep himself form eating all the nutty rice crackers so there would be some left for me. He has no issues with switching to goat cheese, and the shepherd’s pie was a big hit.
I’m left with the daunting task of continual food activity. I spend most of my day preparing what I eat, shopping for what I eat, thinking about what I’m going to eat, writing down what I eat, cleaning up what i've prepared to eat and eating what I eat. In some respects a detail oriented closeted anal retentive individual, I do not enjoy being anal retentive about food. The Dali Lama said we should eat and love with abandon, and that’s always been my motto, too.
But I want the elephant to stop standing on my foot. I’ve tried hitting it, coaxing it, and ignoring it. I’ve called in specialists and trainers of all shapes and sizes. I’ve X-rayed, MRI’ed, yoga-ed, P.T.- ed, scoped and shocked it. So far nothing has worked.
I don’t have any more time to write. Gotta drink my Spirutein.
P.S. Playing the role of an OB-gyne in a reading tonight. Always wanted to be able to examine myself to save the trips.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Super Delegates for Hillary!
The folks who create these videos call them selves Brooklyn Vs. Bush and I met them at a green party event a couple months ago.
They talked me into showing up for one of their weekly filming parties, asking only that I try not to wear green.
I learned gradually throughout the evening: The videos are filmed in an extra bedroom on a third floor apartment on Court Street. Actors (or whoever shows up) are filmed in front of a green screen (thus, the "green" rule) on a carpet about 3 feet deep and 5 feet wide. You get a script, and while you look at it maybe some costume pieces and a stiff drink. And, at some point, dinner.
The folks who showed up made me feel squeaky brand new and naive. Salty actors from the days in New York when here were tons of strip joints on 42nd Street, they chain smoked and puzzled over their lines while downing a whiskey on ice. They prefer to do tis kind of work, they say, to working for Disney, which has pretty much taken over Broadway.
I was part of one video which hasn't been edited yet. You'll be the first to know. Unless I'm royally embarrassed!
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Social Reasons
Spring has replaced fall as my favorite season since moving to New York. My neighborhood is resplendent with blooming dogwoods, pink and white, tulip bulbs in a rainbow of colors and the more subtle hues of wine-colored leaves against red brick homes and iron railings.
Really, it’s the only time this place looks good. By the time summer arrives I’m too hot to appreciate anything. No, this is the best time. Hundreds of people in Prospect Park, sauntering through the farmers' market, buying newly dead fish, organic meats, green herbs and fresh loaves of bread and stuffing them in the now-popular canvas “green bag.” A group of younglings plays Ultimate frisbee on the green, mothers follow toddlers around on the grass, birds set up a discordant chorus in the trees, squirrels beg and lovers sit on the bench and neck.
I love this time of year especially because the days are long, but one isn’t longing for the sun to go down to dispel the heat. I love that when I leave for an 8pm show, it’s still light out. I did that last night. My friend Brenda (who, oddly, I discovered was in my high school home room in Wisconsin and we have absolutely no memory of one another) choreographed and performed in a dance piece on 14th street.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen real live dancers on stage. It may have been Brenda’s last show, in fact. It was fun to watch how her style has matured. While many of the works expressed clear stories of individual love, rage or outrage, Brenda’s was a fluid ensemble piece, expressing nuances of the music and the dancer’s bodies.
And I think, that’s just it, isn’t it? Almost everyone I know in town is entertaining some sort of major career crisis, thinking of getting out of the arts, wondering if the sacrifice is worth it, asking themselves, “why do I do this?” And coming up with a variety of answers.
In my second year at DePaul, my teacher had all her students in her office for a little chat. She asked each of us to answer this very question: “Why do I sing?” I’d actually been giving that some hard thought already. When it came my turn I hesitated. “I think…I think I do it for social reasons,” I said.
I could tell my answer displeased her. Something crossed over her face which was dark and uninterpretable. I think she wanted – or expected- something more insightful from me. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the choice of words. I might have elaborated.
Last night in one of the dance pieces, (which I think was about the Salem witch trials, but I'm not entirely sure) there was a chair. A metal folding chair, which always sends chills up my spine when I see on stage. Too many accidents waiting to happen.
Well, I needn’t have worried. First of all, the smart dancers always used the edge of the chair, keeping it from folding on itself. But also – and this is the Thing – there were always a dancer or two placed cleverly at the back edge of the chair, doing their choreography while subtly holding on to it.
This is what I mean by “social reasons.” It’s the little things you do, when performing, to take care of one another. The clear knowledge that we fly or sink together, all one interdependent unit which can easily break down without the cooperation of even one member. Or one body part of one member.
I remember one show I did where a guy in the cast was experiencing a major medical mental meltdown. He wasn’t sure he could go on stage. I promised him I would stay behind the set in a certain place when I could, and when his blocking allowed him to, he would come back and hold his hand out, just enough so I could grasp it. He clung to my hands like a drowning man. He got through the night.
There’s the way theater people move around one another in cramped quarters backstage. There’s an internal dance behind every production, moving bodies out of the way of moving sets and curtains and rigging and one another exiting and entering, an automatic turning aside of bodies, a light step for quiet, words whispered, or said without saying. Polite. Professional. Caring.
And quite frankly, it annoys me that other people don’t move with the same swiftness and dexterity on the sidewalk in the city, in the home or in the restaurant or in the store.
I was once in an opera where I was in a dozen consecutive scenes, each with a different, late 19th century costume. They were gorgeous. But the costumer felt the stage in that theater was too close to the audience to allow for anything unauthentic in the dresses, like oh, zippers or Velcro instead of fifty teensy buttons up the back.
The first dress rehearsal was a complete disaster. The costumer’s assistant had no idea what she was doing. The domino effect was of epic proportions – there was absolutely no room in the music for more than 30 seconds of changing time. I didn’t come on stage, the lights came up, my musical cue came up, no one sang, so no one sang after that, the conductor kept waving her arms in desperation, trying to coordinate the people left on stage, her job made more impossible by 20th Century scoring. Everyone just had to stop.
What it came down to? The entire show had absolute reliance on the costumer’s assistant.
Performing creates an intense sense of belonging, one which helps me understand completely why when people serve together in the military, all they want to do is sit around and share war stories. Because it recalls that sense of being an important part of a unit.
Of course your life isn’t technically on the line when you’re performing – usually, though of course there are exceptions – but try convincing your brain of that! We are all hard-wired to respond intensely to being observed, to peer pressure, to a tribal mentality of cooperation and trust. Try purposely screwing up in front of an audience of 600 – I can’t physically make myself do it. Could you?
And that’s what I think I miss about performing, as I haven’t been doing much of it at all lately. It’s “social reasons.” I’ve discovered into my thirties that I’m not really very interested in performing alone – I’m an ensemble player, be that in a band, a choir, an opera or a musical. And of course the question which follows is: Can one find that in another line of work which demands less sacrifice?
Sure, it’s possible. I think what’s important is recognizing what it is about what you do which enriches you and feeds your will to live. I like to be a functioning part of a unit, with something to contribute which is unique. My situation is, of course, complicated by the need for regular breaks and ten hours of sleep, a heart condition and such, but surely a choice is there if I should decide to grab it.
I went to Fibromyalgia support meeting last week (perhaps a mistake, as, in just being around all of them my pain levels spiked…) and I told them I was a massage therapist. There was a puzzled pause. “Wait – which do you have, fibro or CFIDs? “ one asked. I told them for what it was worth, I’d been diagnosed with both. There was a collective gasp. “And you do this kind of work????”
Although I argue with the characterization of people with these diseases being incapable of physical labor, and allow for differences in individuals, I’d still do well to perform a reality check and think that both my performing and massage days may be numbered. I am considered extraordinarily functional for someone in my place physically, and I thank many a wonderful hands-on therapist for that, but that work does not come free, and the budget for it would come much more easily on a better salary.
My friends and acquaintances are leaving show business in droves….leaving non-profits for capitalist ventures, leaving directing to have babies, leaving electrician work to go back to school, leaving stage managing to make it in real estate, to explore another life. Leaving for L.A. where there’s the possibility of residuals in film and television. Leaving for careers which are not as hard on their bodies. I see many making successful and rewarding transitions into worlds more stable and less competitive than the performing arts.
Who will take their place?
Well, more 22 year olds come every year.
Really, it’s the only time this place looks good. By the time summer arrives I’m too hot to appreciate anything. No, this is the best time. Hundreds of people in Prospect Park, sauntering through the farmers' market, buying newly dead fish, organic meats, green herbs and fresh loaves of bread and stuffing them in the now-popular canvas “green bag.” A group of younglings plays Ultimate frisbee on the green, mothers follow toddlers around on the grass, birds set up a discordant chorus in the trees, squirrels beg and lovers sit on the bench and neck.
I love this time of year especially because the days are long, but one isn’t longing for the sun to go down to dispel the heat. I love that when I leave for an 8pm show, it’s still light out. I did that last night. My friend Brenda (who, oddly, I discovered was in my high school home room in Wisconsin and we have absolutely no memory of one another) choreographed and performed in a dance piece on 14th street.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen real live dancers on stage. It may have been Brenda’s last show, in fact. It was fun to watch how her style has matured. While many of the works expressed clear stories of individual love, rage or outrage, Brenda’s was a fluid ensemble piece, expressing nuances of the music and the dancer’s bodies.
And I think, that’s just it, isn’t it? Almost everyone I know in town is entertaining some sort of major career crisis, thinking of getting out of the arts, wondering if the sacrifice is worth it, asking themselves, “why do I do this?” And coming up with a variety of answers.
In my second year at DePaul, my teacher had all her students in her office for a little chat. She asked each of us to answer this very question: “Why do I sing?” I’d actually been giving that some hard thought already. When it came my turn I hesitated. “I think…I think I do it for social reasons,” I said.
I could tell my answer displeased her. Something crossed over her face which was dark and uninterpretable. I think she wanted – or expected- something more insightful from me. Perhaps the difficulty lies in the choice of words. I might have elaborated.
Last night in one of the dance pieces, (which I think was about the Salem witch trials, but I'm not entirely sure) there was a chair. A metal folding chair, which always sends chills up my spine when I see on stage. Too many accidents waiting to happen.
Well, I needn’t have worried. First of all, the smart dancers always used the edge of the chair, keeping it from folding on itself. But also – and this is the Thing – there were always a dancer or two placed cleverly at the back edge of the chair, doing their choreography while subtly holding on to it.
This is what I mean by “social reasons.” It’s the little things you do, when performing, to take care of one another. The clear knowledge that we fly or sink together, all one interdependent unit which can easily break down without the cooperation of even one member. Or one body part of one member.
I remember one show I did where a guy in the cast was experiencing a major medical mental meltdown. He wasn’t sure he could go on stage. I promised him I would stay behind the set in a certain place when I could, and when his blocking allowed him to, he would come back and hold his hand out, just enough so I could grasp it. He clung to my hands like a drowning man. He got through the night.
There’s the way theater people move around one another in cramped quarters backstage. There’s an internal dance behind every production, moving bodies out of the way of moving sets and curtains and rigging and one another exiting and entering, an automatic turning aside of bodies, a light step for quiet, words whispered, or said without saying. Polite. Professional. Caring.
And quite frankly, it annoys me that other people don’t move with the same swiftness and dexterity on the sidewalk in the city, in the home or in the restaurant or in the store.
I was once in an opera where I was in a dozen consecutive scenes, each with a different, late 19th century costume. They were gorgeous. But the costumer felt the stage in that theater was too close to the audience to allow for anything unauthentic in the dresses, like oh, zippers or Velcro instead of fifty teensy buttons up the back.
The first dress rehearsal was a complete disaster. The costumer’s assistant had no idea what she was doing. The domino effect was of epic proportions – there was absolutely no room in the music for more than 30 seconds of changing time. I didn’t come on stage, the lights came up, my musical cue came up, no one sang, so no one sang after that, the conductor kept waving her arms in desperation, trying to coordinate the people left on stage, her job made more impossible by 20th Century scoring. Everyone just had to stop.
What it came down to? The entire show had absolute reliance on the costumer’s assistant.
Performing creates an intense sense of belonging, one which helps me understand completely why when people serve together in the military, all they want to do is sit around and share war stories. Because it recalls that sense of being an important part of a unit.
Of course your life isn’t technically on the line when you’re performing – usually, though of course there are exceptions – but try convincing your brain of that! We are all hard-wired to respond intensely to being observed, to peer pressure, to a tribal mentality of cooperation and trust. Try purposely screwing up in front of an audience of 600 – I can’t physically make myself do it. Could you?
And that’s what I think I miss about performing, as I haven’t been doing much of it at all lately. It’s “social reasons.” I’ve discovered into my thirties that I’m not really very interested in performing alone – I’m an ensemble player, be that in a band, a choir, an opera or a musical. And of course the question which follows is: Can one find that in another line of work which demands less sacrifice?
Sure, it’s possible. I think what’s important is recognizing what it is about what you do which enriches you and feeds your will to live. I like to be a functioning part of a unit, with something to contribute which is unique. My situation is, of course, complicated by the need for regular breaks and ten hours of sleep, a heart condition and such, but surely a choice is there if I should decide to grab it.
I went to Fibromyalgia support meeting last week (perhaps a mistake, as, in just being around all of them my pain levels spiked…) and I told them I was a massage therapist. There was a puzzled pause. “Wait – which do you have, fibro or CFIDs? “ one asked. I told them for what it was worth, I’d been diagnosed with both. There was a collective gasp. “And you do this kind of work????”
Although I argue with the characterization of people with these diseases being incapable of physical labor, and allow for differences in individuals, I’d still do well to perform a reality check and think that both my performing and massage days may be numbered. I am considered extraordinarily functional for someone in my place physically, and I thank many a wonderful hands-on therapist for that, but that work does not come free, and the budget for it would come much more easily on a better salary.
My friends and acquaintances are leaving show business in droves….leaving non-profits for capitalist ventures, leaving directing to have babies, leaving electrician work to go back to school, leaving stage managing to make it in real estate, to explore another life. Leaving for L.A. where there’s the possibility of residuals in film and television. Leaving for careers which are not as hard on their bodies. I see many making successful and rewarding transitions into worlds more stable and less competitive than the performing arts.
Who will take their place?
Well, more 22 year olds come every year.
Monday, April 7, 2008
2002
It's been exactly six years since I left my first sublet in NYC, figuring I was going back to Chicago for good. Or until I had the next better idea.
I had just had my first date with Colin. Though i didn't know it, I was soon to embark on my first real regional theater gig. I was driving the same car I have now. I was taking five prescription medications a day.
Some of you traveled with me via the old "email" method of blogging (I didn't really know that's what it was and still kinda prefer it that way, but alas we must all evolve...) and I thank you from the bottom of my gut for being someones to laugh with me at the ridiculousness of it all.
Yesterday I got word that my new MacBook Pro, which I got for Christmas from my Dad, needs to go bye-bye, to the rehab spa for computers. "I'm actually surprised it boots up at all," said the mac genius who was helping me. "I'd advise you to back everything up as soon as you can, and get it back in for repairs." He wrote down a number for me and sent me on my way.
I picture my computer forgetting everything at the spa - maybe it's in Arizona, under a hot, dry sun - and among those things are all those tasty memories of my first days in NYC. I backed everything up as best I can today. And came across those old Word Perfect files which barely even function on my new operating system.
I decided it's time to start the process I've been meaning to get to - slowly bringing all those stories to a new birth in the land of Blog.
I don't know if those signed up with Feedblitz will necessarily get a new feed every time I make a new entry dated way back to 2002. If so, I hope it's not too annoying. They'll probably come in small clumps.
If you want to look for them, they'll be appearing here. Look for them by date on the right hand side of the blogger page. Starting with "2002."
Please let me know if you know something I don't to make the whole process funner and easier.
And thanks for reading.
Niki
I had just had my first date with Colin. Though i didn't know it, I was soon to embark on my first real regional theater gig. I was driving the same car I have now. I was taking five prescription medications a day.
Some of you traveled with me via the old "email" method of blogging (I didn't really know that's what it was and still kinda prefer it that way, but alas we must all evolve...) and I thank you from the bottom of my gut for being someones to laugh with me at the ridiculousness of it all.
Yesterday I got word that my new MacBook Pro, which I got for Christmas from my Dad, needs to go bye-bye, to the rehab spa for computers. "I'm actually surprised it boots up at all," said the mac genius who was helping me. "I'd advise you to back everything up as soon as you can, and get it back in for repairs." He wrote down a number for me and sent me on my way.
I picture my computer forgetting everything at the spa - maybe it's in Arizona, under a hot, dry sun - and among those things are all those tasty memories of my first days in NYC. I backed everything up as best I can today. And came across those old Word Perfect files which barely even function on my new operating system.
I decided it's time to start the process I've been meaning to get to - slowly bringing all those stories to a new birth in the land of Blog.
I don't know if those signed up with Feedblitz will necessarily get a new feed every time I make a new entry dated way back to 2002. If so, I hope it's not too annoying. They'll probably come in small clumps.
If you want to look for them, they'll be appearing here. Look for them by date on the right hand side of the blogger page. Starting with "2002."
Please let me know if you know something I don't to make the whole process funner and easier.
And thanks for reading.
Niki
Monday, March 3, 2008
The sitch on Sackett today
Well, a little update on the housing sitch...
To sum up, I pretty much lost my sense of humor about the boiler when I got the the front door today, hands full of laundry, and could not get out.
I don't know what the rest of you talked about with your parents when you were young, but I grew up with dinnertime stories about people who'd burned up in fires, people who'd passed out and died from carbon Monoxide poison, some who maybe never knew, some maimed and killed for no good reason. My good old dad described the bodies in detail, dead and alive, blisters over 90% of their bodies, searing on the insides of lungs, the children, the parents desperate to save them and the idiotic actions responsible for their deaths.
With a father who's a fire investigator, such talk is to be expected. And it sewed the seeds of my extreme malcontent today.
The boiler did its thing two more times over the next 24 hours last week, so the Tuesday was pretty much a re-run of Monday, with oily smoke and opening of windows and shivering in the resultant cold, sadly without the handsome fire fighters but happily without the pets in immediate danger, because by then Kristina had the sense to take the precautionary step of taking her dog to work with her and Jessica was home with hers.
Then there was the front door.. Oh, we've been telling the Management company about it for years - the knob falls off, sometimes you can't get in, sometimes it's like the Hotel California and you can't get out....and it's not like a house, where there might be other safe ways to exit the front of the building. It's the door or nothin', baby, unless you can get to the fire escape in the back.
Last week, certainly because it was 25 degrees out, we were locked out. The story goes that while the dubiously skilled fix-it guy was waiting outside in the cold for the (potentially actually skilled) boiler guy, he understandably got bored and tried to fix the door. And made it worse.
So for several days, we lived with it taped open, and watched the news for stories of killers in masks who come into unlocked buildings and half hoped the next person in would accidentally mess up the tape, which would increase the sense of security if we were on the inside, but eliminate our ability to get in if we were on the outside of the building.
Of course someone did eventually mess up the tape system, and I called my landlord from the stoop one day last week, shivering in the cold and unable to make the lock work.
"Buzz 1R," his response. "She's home and been letting people in." Yeah. That's a good permanent solution. Of course the lady in 1R, though extraordinarily nice, doesn't speak a lick of English. Jessica, Kristina and I set up a little phone tree and called each other to make sure someone was here who can let the others in before leaving to go anywhere.
Meanwhile, I programmed the numbers of two 24 hour locksmiths in my phone, just in case.
Why didn't I call?
THAT is exactly the question. At the heart of this very question, I believe, is the brilliant psychology that our landlord, Orazzio, has played upon us all. Whether he has strategized it, or come by it by accident or out of desperation, I don't know, but somehow all of us have clearly been played. Somehow no one in this building, to my knowledge, is currently seeking legal action against Peto Management.
How is that possible? After years of monthly letters stating the exact problems and no permanent fixes, how is it we are all still participants in this group notion that somehow, someday in the future, the water damage will be fixed, the buzzer will work, the doorknobs will stop falling off, the mailboxes will work, the stoop will be repaired, the windows will go up and down like they're supposed to (and we'll be able to see through them), we'll have safe heat, access to the back yard for the cable guy, and enough hot water for showers?
Have we all drunk the Cool Aid?
I think the landlord's secret is in giving us just enough action to keep our ears off the phones and feet out of the courtroom. He has an amazing intuition as to my tipping point. My feet will be on the pavement when he'll finally authorize a fix - at least a temporary one.
Or, like two weeks ago, he sent the dubiously skilled fix-it guy to my door after I'd called, in order to explain why things were not getting fixed. (Never mind this guy spent an hour talking to me when he could have been fixing something.) There aren't enough employees to manage the eight buildings he owns (because they haven't been paid and then they quit, even the illegal immigrants). People have fallen behind paying rent and there aren't enough funds. Orazzio owes the places where they get supplies and therefore they can't get new anything. On and on and on.
Soon it becomes a counseling session in which I deliver career advice to the guy who's telling me he can't pay his rent (to Orazzio) because he's not getting paid regularly (by Orazzio) and who dreams, positively dreams of becoming a sanitation worker for the City of New York. There's a wait list, he says, but he knows some guys who know some guys who're soon gonna retire early, so he maybe has an "in."
And I'm thinking, doesn't it sound like Peto Management needs to sell a building? Maybe I'm nuts. I know being a landlord is tough. Managing a rent-stabilized building has to be tougher.
But look, he could have saved himself that expensive ticket from the city by putting lids on the garbage cans years ago! What a concept! He could have saved himself that expensive repair to our bathroom if we could have reached him when it started to drip. (As usual, his answering machine was full, apparently with other people calling with complaints and employees and supply houses looking for money, so nobody came for days and by that time the ceiling had caved in.)
Yet somehow he manages to engage our sense of pity, our sense of well, that's good enough, our sense of hope. Through the voices of his pitiful employees, who appear sometimes and invoke our sense of sympathy that they are not the cause of the problem, only victims of it, as we are, we get stuck in a downward spiral of no-I-don't-have-time-to-deal-with-this and -well-it's -really-not-that-bad and people-in-third-world-countries-have-it-worse-so-what-am-I-
complaining-about mentality.
We take a little action, like calling the city, and someone comes out and inspects, or not, and then nothing happens (are they getting paid off?) So we're quiet.
But I think the law is on our side. Today I called the Department of Buildings and actually talked to real person - an inspector who says he's coming out tomorrow to look at the boiler.
Good luck getting in, I tell him, with the buzzers not working and- isn't it ironic- he needs to call the landlord to get access to the thing.
To sum up, I pretty much lost my sense of humor about the boiler when I got the the front door today, hands full of laundry, and could not get out.
I don't know what the rest of you talked about with your parents when you were young, but I grew up with dinnertime stories about people who'd burned up in fires, people who'd passed out and died from carbon Monoxide poison, some who maybe never knew, some maimed and killed for no good reason. My good old dad described the bodies in detail, dead and alive, blisters over 90% of their bodies, searing on the insides of lungs, the children, the parents desperate to save them and the idiotic actions responsible for their deaths.
With a father who's a fire investigator, such talk is to be expected. And it sewed the seeds of my extreme malcontent today.
The boiler did its thing two more times over the next 24 hours last week, so the Tuesday was pretty much a re-run of Monday, with oily smoke and opening of windows and shivering in the resultant cold, sadly without the handsome fire fighters but happily without the pets in immediate danger, because by then Kristina had the sense to take the precautionary step of taking her dog to work with her and Jessica was home with hers.
Then there was the front door.. Oh, we've been telling the Management company about it for years - the knob falls off, sometimes you can't get in, sometimes it's like the Hotel California and you can't get out....and it's not like a house, where there might be other safe ways to exit the front of the building. It's the door or nothin', baby, unless you can get to the fire escape in the back.
Last week, certainly because it was 25 degrees out, we were locked out. The story goes that while the dubiously skilled fix-it guy was waiting outside in the cold for the (potentially actually skilled) boiler guy, he understandably got bored and tried to fix the door. And made it worse.
So for several days, we lived with it taped open, and watched the news for stories of killers in masks who come into unlocked buildings and half hoped the next person in would accidentally mess up the tape, which would increase the sense of security if we were on the inside, but eliminate our ability to get in if we were on the outside of the building.
Of course someone did eventually mess up the tape system, and I called my landlord from the stoop one day last week, shivering in the cold and unable to make the lock work.
"Buzz 1R," his response. "She's home and been letting people in." Yeah. That's a good permanent solution. Of course the lady in 1R, though extraordinarily nice, doesn't speak a lick of English. Jessica, Kristina and I set up a little phone tree and called each other to make sure someone was here who can let the others in before leaving to go anywhere.
Meanwhile, I programmed the numbers of two 24 hour locksmiths in my phone, just in case.
Why didn't I call?
THAT is exactly the question. At the heart of this very question, I believe, is the brilliant psychology that our landlord, Orazzio, has played upon us all. Whether he has strategized it, or come by it by accident or out of desperation, I don't know, but somehow all of us have clearly been played. Somehow no one in this building, to my knowledge, is currently seeking legal action against Peto Management.
How is that possible? After years of monthly letters stating the exact problems and no permanent fixes, how is it we are all still participants in this group notion that somehow, someday in the future, the water damage will be fixed, the buzzer will work, the doorknobs will stop falling off, the mailboxes will work, the stoop will be repaired, the windows will go up and down like they're supposed to (and we'll be able to see through them), we'll have safe heat, access to the back yard for the cable guy, and enough hot water for showers?
Have we all drunk the Cool Aid?
I think the landlord's secret is in giving us just enough action to keep our ears off the phones and feet out of the courtroom. He has an amazing intuition as to my tipping point. My feet will be on the pavement when he'll finally authorize a fix - at least a temporary one.
Or, like two weeks ago, he sent the dubiously skilled fix-it guy to my door after I'd called, in order to explain why things were not getting fixed. (Never mind this guy spent an hour talking to me when he could have been fixing something.) There aren't enough employees to manage the eight buildings he owns (because they haven't been paid and then they quit, even the illegal immigrants). People have fallen behind paying rent and there aren't enough funds. Orazzio owes the places where they get supplies and therefore they can't get new anything. On and on and on.
Soon it becomes a counseling session in which I deliver career advice to the guy who's telling me he can't pay his rent (to Orazzio) because he's not getting paid regularly (by Orazzio) and who dreams, positively dreams of becoming a sanitation worker for the City of New York. There's a wait list, he says, but he knows some guys who know some guys who're soon gonna retire early, so he maybe has an "in."
And I'm thinking, doesn't it sound like Peto Management needs to sell a building? Maybe I'm nuts. I know being a landlord is tough. Managing a rent-stabilized building has to be tougher.
But look, he could have saved himself that expensive ticket from the city by putting lids on the garbage cans years ago! What a concept! He could have saved himself that expensive repair to our bathroom if we could have reached him when it started to drip. (As usual, his answering machine was full, apparently with other people calling with complaints and employees and supply houses looking for money, so nobody came for days and by that time the ceiling had caved in.)
Yet somehow he manages to engage our sense of pity, our sense of well, that's good enough, our sense of hope. Through the voices of his pitiful employees, who appear sometimes and invoke our sense of sympathy that they are not the cause of the problem, only victims of it, as we are, we get stuck in a downward spiral of no-I-don't-have-time-to-deal-with-this and -well-it's -really-not-that-bad and people-in-third-world-countries-have-it-worse-so-what-am-I-
complaining-about mentality.
We take a little action, like calling the city, and someone comes out and inspects, or not, and then nothing happens (are they getting paid off?) So we're quiet.
But I think the law is on our side. Today I called the Department of Buildings and actually talked to real person - an inspector who says he's coming out tomorrow to look at the boiler.
Good luck getting in, I tell him, with the buzzers not working and- isn't it ironic- he needs to call the landlord to get access to the thing.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
More adventures in rent-stabilized living
Sirens are always blaring in Brooklyn. I've learned, to my amazement, to sleep through them, or at least not remember them when I wake. Sometimes they're even accompanied with the low hum of large truck engines in the street which shake the floor and mirror and the windows. And I ignore them, because it's just another neighbor who had a heat attack.
This morning was no different. Until I heard Colin, next to me: "Do you smell smoke?"
Why yes, I did. I noticed the acrid smell of burning oil greeting my one unstuffed nostril in the late morning air. And - coincidentally? Three fire trucks parked outside the building, lights flashing. And the sound of large boots coming up the stairs.
Clothes first, then bathroom. I pulled a shirt over my head while on the toilet, and listening to the boots get closer - surely fire fighters coming to evacuate me and all the neighbors - made a mental list of the things I should insist on grabbing before being cast onto the cold, wet street for hours.
Coat, cell phone, a bottle of water. Wallet. Last, shoes. The trucks were a good sign, I theorized, that little would be destroyed in a blaze. Fire is something we often consider as a distinct possibility in our building. There are a lot of people living in close proximity, in an old building, not to mention adjoining buildings, and any one of us could make a mistake. That's why we have insurance.
We skip the whole feel the door thing and open it to several voices echoing in the hallway. Three firefighters, donning thick jackets with glow-in-the dark yellow stripes and wielding axes, are gathering information as best they can from our disabled neighbor across the hall. There is a loud beeping noise coming from downstairs.
One man steps forward, carrying in his right hand a small object that looks like a weapon from Start Trek. As he comes through our doorway, it's making alarming squacking noises. A CO2 detector.
Now, lest you should judge us, I want to say right here that we do keep a CO2 detector like any good citizens. But last week it started babbling at us that the batteries were dead. And I'm on this new kick to replace all batteries in the house with rechargeable ones, right? And do you think they carry them at the hardware store down the street? Nope. So it went "on the list" And the CO2 detector, unused for several years, has sat open, waiting for batteries, on the kitchen table, since exactly last Tuesday.
And here the writer began to smell smoke again. At first she was sure it was just sensory recall from writing the story of this morning, but...no...open the hallway door. CHUCK full of smoke again.
So if I should die and my laptop be recovered, let this be a lesson to all - when there's smoke, leave the building.
Where was I? Star trek device, squacking, beeping...strapping, dripping men with big boots tromping into the bedroom. Not such a bad thing, that part.
"Set phasers to stun!" he said as he crossed the threshold. No, he didn't.
"It's registering at 90 parts per million," states the strapping, dripping man authoritatively. He never takes his eyes off the machine. "We turned off the boiler. You should be OK if you air out." He brings the Star Trek device into the kitchen. "Open the windows," he commands. We do it.
Now our windows aren't all graceful to get at. I wasn't sure what happened until later when Colin, who witnessed from behind, described it, but I remember turning on the big white fan, leaning over the bed toward a window and disturbing the big green ball which lives rather precariously, perched between the bed and the wall. The big green ball, in turn, disturbed the big white fan, which went face down on the floor and stated making a sound like, "Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"
Thinking one of the blades was broken, I turned it off, quick-like. Then I started thinking about Jessica's dogs, upstairs. And then about Kristina's dog, downstairs. I don't wait or the blades to stop moving.
"What was in the fan?" I ask Colin, who has gone to investigate.
"You don't wanna know," he says.
We have recently begun a campaign of Shock and Awe in an attempt to control the mouse population recently on the rise, quite possibly because there are several walls open in several apartments due to leaks which are as yet still leaking into walls which are as yet cracked and broken open.
I asked Colin to bring home traps one night last week, and I meant snap traps. He brought glue traps.
"This is all they had at the grocery store," he explained, and started placing them about the kitchen in corners.
"I don't like glue traps," I said. "I thought you would got to the hardware store."
"I'll deal with them," he said.
"Okay..." I said.
And so when, a few hours later, I heard this teensy, horrid little SCREAMING coming from the corner in the kitchen, I naturally turned straight on my heel and called in the resident Man. The screaming intensified as The Man did whatever he did to that mouse and I shuddered, and then cried in the next room.
These creatures have relatively developed nervous systems. There's a reason why a mouse -why any creature - screams like that. He knows he's in trouble, he knows he's trapped. I've seen studies on what happens to animals when they're rendered helpless - cortisol levels, heart rates, dilated pupils, and so on; Dude. They KNOW.
And there's reason why mice are used as surrogate humans in experiments. They are similar to us.
"No more glue traps." I said to Colin in a measured voice as we left the apartment that night.
And so it is we've since gone at them with snap traps, and poison, and yes there's still a -torture- trap sitting on the counter which hasn't caught anyone, yet, thank god.
But we never expected that THE FAN was also a weapon in our arsenal.
"I can't figure out how to get it out," calls The Man as I search for shoes and grab my phone and the spare keys to Jessica's apartment. "Here, you can wear my slippers..." he offers. I hear him THUNKing at the fan as I make my way into the smoky hallway, up one flight of stairs to my neighbor's.
There are more fire fighters in the hallway up there. "You have access to the basement now," they laugh, responding to Colin's earlier comment that last week we couldn't let the cable guy into the back yard because Orazzio (the landlord) keeps a stiff padlock on the basement door - the basement being the only way to the back yard.
So far I've accounted for two doors and a window which have fallen under one of those wicked looking axes. They say they're relieved I have keys, because they could hear the little dogs barking, but maybe were also looking forward to busting down something else, I can't really tell behind the masks.
I can already hear the newly broken door to the roof upstairs, swinging in the rain against the building. THUUUUNk. THUUUNk. Thunk - beeeep - someone's CO2 detector is still going off. BAm - BAM- BAm go the dripping hot men's boots on the hollow wooden stairs. Voices ring in the hallway. Acrid, oily smoke. Jessica's chijuajuas must be freaking out.
But they merely seem happy to see me, as I run around opening windows with one hand and calling Kristina, owner of the dog downstairs, with the other. These tiny dogs seem puzzled, but they're all right. Stuart is far more frail than the last time I saw him, but I know it is because he has conjestive heart failure and nothing to do with the current crisis. His ribs shift too easily and his heart is beating fast and a little irregularly when I pick him up for a closer inspection, but I hold him and talk in what I hope are soothing tones between cell phone calls, and ultimately he seems like his old self.
I don't have a key to Kristina's apartment, so she grabs a car and speeds home from work. Her dog, although younger, is considerably less delicate than the chijuajuas, so we're not too worried about him, but it seems advisable to get him some Carbon with two Oxygens instead of one, somehow. Hank, all spring and cluelessness, jumps eagerly at my face as Kristina hands me a set of spare keys. In case of next time.
Which we didn't expect tonight.
Post-script: The boiler man arrived, (landlord called me to let him in - why? because none of the buzzers are working...) he broke the lock to the basement, (second time today) says the boiler is badly maintained and we should call the department of Buildings. Whatever that is.
Then he told me where the emergency shut-off switch is.
"See ya," he says. "Good luck!"
This morning was no different. Until I heard Colin, next to me: "Do you smell smoke?"
Why yes, I did. I noticed the acrid smell of burning oil greeting my one unstuffed nostril in the late morning air. And - coincidentally? Three fire trucks parked outside the building, lights flashing. And the sound of large boots coming up the stairs.
Clothes first, then bathroom. I pulled a shirt over my head while on the toilet, and listening to the boots get closer - surely fire fighters coming to evacuate me and all the neighbors - made a mental list of the things I should insist on grabbing before being cast onto the cold, wet street for hours.
Coat, cell phone, a bottle of water. Wallet. Last, shoes. The trucks were a good sign, I theorized, that little would be destroyed in a blaze. Fire is something we often consider as a distinct possibility in our building. There are a lot of people living in close proximity, in an old building, not to mention adjoining buildings, and any one of us could make a mistake. That's why we have insurance.
We skip the whole feel the door thing and open it to several voices echoing in the hallway. Three firefighters, donning thick jackets with glow-in-the dark yellow stripes and wielding axes, are gathering information as best they can from our disabled neighbor across the hall. There is a loud beeping noise coming from downstairs.
One man steps forward, carrying in his right hand a small object that looks like a weapon from Start Trek. As he comes through our doorway, it's making alarming squacking noises. A CO2 detector.
Now, lest you should judge us, I want to say right here that we do keep a CO2 detector like any good citizens. But last week it started babbling at us that the batteries were dead. And I'm on this new kick to replace all batteries in the house with rechargeable ones, right? And do you think they carry them at the hardware store down the street? Nope. So it went "on the list" And the CO2 detector, unused for several years, has sat open, waiting for batteries, on the kitchen table, since exactly last Tuesday.
And here the writer began to smell smoke again. At first she was sure it was just sensory recall from writing the story of this morning, but...no...open the hallway door. CHUCK full of smoke again.
So if I should die and my laptop be recovered, let this be a lesson to all - when there's smoke, leave the building.
Where was I? Star trek device, squacking, beeping...strapping, dripping men with big boots tromping into the bedroom. Not such a bad thing, that part.
"Set phasers to stun!" he said as he crossed the threshold. No, he didn't.
"It's registering at 90 parts per million," states the strapping, dripping man authoritatively. He never takes his eyes off the machine. "We turned off the boiler. You should be OK if you air out." He brings the Star Trek device into the kitchen. "Open the windows," he commands. We do it.
Now our windows aren't all graceful to get at. I wasn't sure what happened until later when Colin, who witnessed from behind, described it, but I remember turning on the big white fan, leaning over the bed toward a window and disturbing the big green ball which lives rather precariously, perched between the bed and the wall. The big green ball, in turn, disturbed the big white fan, which went face down on the floor and stated making a sound like, "Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"
Thinking one of the blades was broken, I turned it off, quick-like. Then I started thinking about Jessica's dogs, upstairs. And then about Kristina's dog, downstairs. I don't wait or the blades to stop moving.
"What was in the fan?" I ask Colin, who has gone to investigate.
"You don't wanna know," he says.
We have recently begun a campaign of Shock and Awe in an attempt to control the mouse population recently on the rise, quite possibly because there are several walls open in several apartments due to leaks which are as yet still leaking into walls which are as yet cracked and broken open.
I asked Colin to bring home traps one night last week, and I meant snap traps. He brought glue traps.
"This is all they had at the grocery store," he explained, and started placing them about the kitchen in corners.
"I don't like glue traps," I said. "I thought you would got to the hardware store."
"I'll deal with them," he said.
"Okay..." I said.
And so when, a few hours later, I heard this teensy, horrid little SCREAMING coming from the corner in the kitchen, I naturally turned straight on my heel and called in the resident Man. The screaming intensified as The Man did whatever he did to that mouse and I shuddered, and then cried in the next room.
These creatures have relatively developed nervous systems. There's a reason why a mouse -why any creature - screams like that. He knows he's in trouble, he knows he's trapped. I've seen studies on what happens to animals when they're rendered helpless - cortisol levels, heart rates, dilated pupils, and so on; Dude. They KNOW.
And there's reason why mice are used as surrogate humans in experiments. They are similar to us.
"No more glue traps." I said to Colin in a measured voice as we left the apartment that night.
And so it is we've since gone at them with snap traps, and poison, and yes there's still a -torture- trap sitting on the counter which hasn't caught anyone, yet, thank god.
But we never expected that THE FAN was also a weapon in our arsenal.
"I can't figure out how to get it out," calls The Man as I search for shoes and grab my phone and the spare keys to Jessica's apartment. "Here, you can wear my slippers..." he offers. I hear him THUNKing at the fan as I make my way into the smoky hallway, up one flight of stairs to my neighbor's.
There are more fire fighters in the hallway up there. "You have access to the basement now," they laugh, responding to Colin's earlier comment that last week we couldn't let the cable guy into the back yard because Orazzio (the landlord) keeps a stiff padlock on the basement door - the basement being the only way to the back yard.
So far I've accounted for two doors and a window which have fallen under one of those wicked looking axes. They say they're relieved I have keys, because they could hear the little dogs barking, but maybe were also looking forward to busting down something else, I can't really tell behind the masks.
I can already hear the newly broken door to the roof upstairs, swinging in the rain against the building. THUUUUNk. THUUUNk. Thunk - beeeep - someone's CO2 detector is still going off. BAm - BAM- BAm go the dripping hot men's boots on the hollow wooden stairs. Voices ring in the hallway. Acrid, oily smoke. Jessica's chijuajuas must be freaking out.
But they merely seem happy to see me, as I run around opening windows with one hand and calling Kristina, owner of the dog downstairs, with the other. These tiny dogs seem puzzled, but they're all right. Stuart is far more frail than the last time I saw him, but I know it is because he has conjestive heart failure and nothing to do with the current crisis. His ribs shift too easily and his heart is beating fast and a little irregularly when I pick him up for a closer inspection, but I hold him and talk in what I hope are soothing tones between cell phone calls, and ultimately he seems like his old self.
I don't have a key to Kristina's apartment, so she grabs a car and speeds home from work. Her dog, although younger, is considerably less delicate than the chijuajuas, so we're not too worried about him, but it seems advisable to get him some Carbon with two Oxygens instead of one, somehow. Hank, all spring and cluelessness, jumps eagerly at my face as Kristina hands me a set of spare keys. In case of next time.
Which we didn't expect tonight.
Post-script: The boiler man arrived, (landlord called me to let him in - why? because none of the buzzers are working...) he broke the lock to the basement, (second time today) says the boiler is badly maintained and we should call the department of Buildings. Whatever that is.
Then he told me where the emergency shut-off switch is.
"See ya," he says. "Good luck!"
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