OUT OF FOCUS

Two Blond Bubble Heads Found Dead In My Building

Or at least that's what the head lines would have read if I still had the A.D.D. temper of a ten year old.  Thank you, Wellbutrin. All homework aside, the only think that could get my out of bedding and blogging at 1 am are the two blond bubble heads in my building.  Allow me to paint the picture of this evening's events:

It's 12:15 AM and I'm close to a dead sleep.  All of a sudden, I am awaken by the sound of my apartment buzzer.  As always, my Wheatan Terrier starts barking, only tonight, I wish he sounded more like a Pit bull.
So I ignore for the three five minutes and then shortly after, I start cursing the damn Chinese delivery guy.  Another three minutes goes by, its buzzing again.  OK, this is ridiculous, I'm thinking. I gotta get this guy shipped back to Shanghai. So I get out of bed, I walk to my buzzer and lean into it, "Hello?" Nothing.  "Hello?".  Still nothing.  So I stand on my kitchen chair, look out the window and I see a white man who looked like he fell right out of The Preppy Handbook, carry a bouquet of roses.  OK, this is creepy, I think to myself.  He's standing right next to the buzzer but he's not responding.  Maybe his M.O is me buzzing him into the building, he breaks into my apartment, rapes and kills me and leaves his "signature rose bouquet" next to my lifeless body.  Hey, I've watch films like American Psycho.  Three times. 

So I go back to bed.  The ringing starts again.  OK, so this is when I call the police, I think to myself.  I walk over to my window again look down and see no one.  My dog is barking maniacally now so I have him rush out first and we walk together to the front door.  No one is there.  I look around.  No one is there.  Just as I am about to close the front door of the building, Bubble Head #1, who we rent a small apartment to above ours, emerges out of no where.   She's got this glassy if-I have-another-gin-and-tonic-I'm gonna-puke-look on her face.  I look at her like she's an insurgent.

Kali: What the hell are you doing?

The Robert Chambers look-a-like pops out of nowhere and stand right next to her.

Bubble Head: My roommates grandfather died.  I need to get into my apartment. Can I have keys? You have keys to my apartment, right?

Kali:  Your lucky I didn't bring a gun to the front door (it would be the first time but this is also coming from someone who fell asleep watching Serpico)

Bubble Head: How do I get in?  I need to get in?

Kali:  It's almost one o'clock in the morning I don't know where the hell the spares are!

Bubble Head: Well I don't have keys so what do I do?

Reluctantly, I escort The Odd Couple into my apartment and after emptying out a handful of junk drawers, I find what I think are keys to her apartment. I hand them to her.

Bubble Head: Hang on, lemme go try them.

Meanwhile, Biff is still standing at my apartment door just staring at me.  What, does he want me to offer him tea sandwiches? But I 'm still thinking that at this point he could be a killer.  Call me paranoid, but I read The Post once a month. 

Bubble Head screams down, "They work!"

Great, let the whole neighborhood know. Biff hands me the keys.

Kali: I thought she doesn't have keys?

Biff: She doesn't

Kali: Then what the hell are you giving them to me for?  How do you plan on getting in tomorrow?

Biff: uh...duhhh...

I smack the keys into his soft girly smooth hands.

Kali: You sure as hell are not buzzing me tomorrow night.

And I slam the door.

Biff: You forgot your dog.

I unbolt the apartment door.

Kali: Come in, Fozzy.

The Preppy jackass laughs!  No friggin thank you or I'm sorry.  Nothing.  After psychotic behavior of buzzing my door for twenty minutes, not talking into the buzzer like a zombie, the bitch and bastard have no manners to just say I'm sorry, knowing damn well that I have a three year old sound asleep.

What does That Preppy Hand Book teach them anyway? Times like this I really miss the Wild Wild West.  I would have played Tick Tack Toe on his plaid shirt with a shot gun.  Ah, but gone are those days.

Good thing I didn't fall asleep watching The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

 

This Years September 11; The Rebirth

The last week or so I have been inundated with juggling life's schedule.  Living in NYC, commuting to Phili two days a week, wearing a "Mom: hat five days a week, while juggling everything else that life throws one's way.

September 11

Three or four days before Sept 11, I was mapping out how I would spend this year's 9/11.  I expected it to be a copycat of the last five years; waking up to Utopian-like weather, bright blue skies with Hawaiian like trade winds, turning on the tele and listening to the long list of names being read by their loved ones, taking a subway ride downtown from my apartment to ground zero to pay my respects and lastly, I thought, for the first time,  I would pay tribute with an eloquently written heartfelt blog entry.  It so happens that I didn't do any of the above.

It was a very rainy day but a pleasantly gray one.  There was a like-minded energy on the streets that told you everyone else was thinking what you were feeling.  That kind of energy.  Some bleary-eyed, some morose but as with most, a neighborly, brotherly energy that made you feel protected all day.  I can't describe it but I know I felt it.

I spend my day recouping from school at home and a session of acupuncture.  I just love the feeling of needles all over my body.  I spent my evening my evening with a dinner eating exotic Tibetan dishes with a friend who lost a family member in the towers.  Over two glasses of cheap wine, I thought to myself, "When is the right time for me to tell him how very sorry I am for him and his family".  But I realized I didn't need that moment.  He knew I was thinking of what he was feeling. 

To my friend, he saw this year's anniversary as a rebirth; he had stopped smoking days ago, cut back on drinking and would hit the gym in the early AM to help him shed the pounds that sometimes creeps up on most of us. Sometimes  accidentally.  But most times deliberately. By the end of our evening, he kissed me a friendly goodnight, smiled knowingly and put me in a cab heading back uptown.  From the speeding taxi, I looked out the window as I always do when I'm in Manhattan at night.  Its the lights that get me.  Its the tall buildings that still have my whipped for this city.  Its the child-like awe that put the apple in my throat.  This time.  I let the tears flow.  But I still smiled.  The cab driver looked at me through his mirror.  He didn't have to say anything.

He knew I was thinking just what he was feeling.

What to do with a College Degree?

I have done the unthinkable.  I have decided to be a full-time student this semester so I can finally "get that degree".

I had a meeting with a professor this week.  He happen to be younger than me, which made the meeting that more titillating, and he asks, "So why get a degree now.  Probably won't help you career wise".  His statement made me stop and think; do I slap the shit out of him now, straddle him in his chair like Showtime skin flick, or simple agree with him.  I straddled him and got put on academic probation.  No, I didn't but wouldn't that have been funny.

So I have been thinking long and hard, not about him, but about what he said.  So I came up with a couple of ideas
of what to do with my new college degree:

1. Frame it in my office.

2. Hang it at my local dry cleaners along side Victoria Principal and  David Caruso.

3. Sell it on eBay with a "Your Name Here" space on it.

4. Turn it into origami.

5. Turn it into an optical illusion work of art that if you focus hard enough on it you will see the real picture of my degree shine through.

6. Use it as blackmail.

Any other ideas?  Please share...