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November 22, 2007
Escape from New York
I know people who have never left Manhattan. I don't think of it as snobbery, I merely think that, at a certain income level, it takes a serious effort to get out of Manhattan.
So we're going to Rhode Island. Rhode Island is only 173 miles away from my house. Back in Texas, that was 3/5 of the distance between Lubbock and Dallas, a trip I took frequently. You would jump into your little convertible and just drive for five hours, listening to dreadful pop songs at 70 mph. Here, not so easy. We have three options here. Planes, automobiles, or trains. Option 1- Fly. Flights seem a bit silly, especially since NYC has no subway connections to airports, unlike London or Paris. By the time I take the one hour to get to the airport, one hour to get through security and gate stuff, then one hour for the flight and debarking, I could have driven.
Oops, not so fast!! This teacher doesn't own a car! Owning a car in Manhattan involves hellish registration, insurance, and the daily quest for a parking spot. Option 2: rentals are the only real option. Unfortunately, renting a car in the city is seriously expensive, so in my NYC state of mind, I have to go to NJ. After work on Tuesday, I left the school, walked down to the GW bridge, and WALKED to Fort Lee, New Jersey. I'm in decent shape, so a walk of 2 miles across a fjord/tidal river seems perfectly sensible. Yes, I could have taken a bus from the terminal at 181st, but by the time you buy a ticket, find the right bus schedule, and board the bus to go two miles, you really could have just walked two miles. You rent the car, then spend the next hour and $6 to return the two miles back into the city. Once you're in the city, you then have the quest for a parking spot, only to be reminded that you even if you find a parking spot, you'll have to get up the next morning and move it from 9-10:30am for street sweeping.
There is always the train option, even though I really haven't taken it here in the US. If you are traveling alone, it makes sense to take the train or the bus. Since we're going with our friends Jerry and Patricio, the costs are too prohibitive. The bus is also a much cheaper option, but to RI takes 3 hours longer to arrive, plus there is no real public transportation once we arrive.
It has taken me two years to complete my 50 state tour, all because it is just so difficult to get there. When I find that the easiest way to complete my goal is to walk 2 miles across a bridge in nasty weather over a giant river, things just seem a bit odd.
Posted by G at 01:03 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
November 19, 2007
Wanna guess why I'm excited about RI?
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
If the map is truncated, here's a hint: every state is red except for a little tiny teeny weeny place.
I'll write more later this week, but we're heading to Newport, RI with another couple for Thanksgiving.
Posted by G at 07:58 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 13, 2007
Mates in the House Part II
Maslow has his hierarchy of needs. It makes sense. If you don't have your basic needs satisfied, nothing else matters. As soon as you have basic survival needs satisfied, you begin trying to make yourself comfortable. Once you're comfortable, blah, blah, blah.
After nearly two decades with housemates, I have developed a hierarchy of roommate needs.
When it comes to sharing living space with someone else, you hope for all of the levels, and they become bad roommates when one of the lower levels drops out. A person can be super nice, but if they stop paying the rent, there's going to be an issue. Just like real life, it is pretty rare to have someone who makes all the levels, but it is pretty lame how many never make the first one.
Let's use my very first roommate Breck as an example. Breck and I moved into an apartment in a seriously sketchy part of Phoenix, and was a friend from church and high school. We were only 18, but one would hope that by the time you moved out of your home, you'd be able to flush the toilet. However, every morning, I discovered his cold shit art coiling its way through the toilet. The main kicker was his constant failure to pay rent, which caused my account to bounce, as I wrote the check for the entire rent amount. Not amusing. After that first time, I ensured that my balance had sufficient to cover him, which saved me multiple times. Sweet guy, terrible roommate.
Once I bought my house in Lubbock, I had this gross renter named Travis. Not only did I have to kick him out once he owed me around 3 months of rent, he was a creepy slob and ATE HIS BOOGERS in public. My other renter Jeff and I would be mentally shrieking as he would sit in front of the television, his finger so deep in his nasal passages that I thought he might be touching the pleasure center of his brain. He would slowly draw his glistening finger out of his nostril, and then SUCK on his finger, making delicate sucking noises. All I'm gonna say is that Lubbock dust can produce some seriously large nose goblins.
Of course, wealthy-parents Jeff was a pretty good guy, although he had issues about having to clean the house, he always dated loudly giggling girls, and I almost killed him one month when he just bought a new $2000 stereo component, put new wheels on his Porsche, and then told me he didn't have the money for rent. Again, pretty nice guy, but some serious core problems as a roommate.
I'm just gonna say that the one roommate with the masturbation problem should have cleaned up the spooge stalagmite that he used frequently in the corner. I'm not gonna say your name, but you know who you are, and that was really gross. I definitely had to throw away the spatula and all other cleaning equipment. Paid the rent, but I should have charged you for having to clean up your 'pleasure corner.'
Then there was NY Bryan, who started out great. Talented, funny, and he kept the house really, really clean. In fact, he would stay up for 24 hours, obsessively cleaning, organizing my cd's, and using a sewing machine making giant flags for dancing. Then he started getting late on rent, sleeping at weird hours, lost his job, and began to get really crazy. Crystal meth does that to people. The final straws for me happened when my dog was chewing on a crack pipe he left on the floor, and when I almost accidentally put crystal meth on my chinese food. I'm not really familiar with drug paraphernalia, it came in little ziplock baggies and I thought it might be MSG/seasoning.
I replaced him with an ex-blogger named Michael who also became a Teaching Fellows teacher. I'll refer you to the hierarchy drawing. He paid the rent, cleaned up after himself, and even cleaned the house. He just really liked rules. One time he criticized my NY walking habit, as I am a fast walker, and will weave past people. He told me that "the sidewalk lines are meant to be followed," and when I asked what to do when I was going to bump into someone, he explained that people would just move out of the way if you were forceful. He slowly became the freakiest passive/aggressive person I've ever dealt with. I and my other roommate felt we were living with Joan Crawford, seriously. We definitely did not use wire hangers when hanging up his clothes. I think that starting teaching was really stressful for him, but he became brutally controlling in his relationship with us. He would do things like freak out because there was a smudge on his plate after I did the dishes, shoving me aside in the kitchen, angrily scrubbing the dish while chastising me. He always ripped into us for things that he did himself (he would clean the bathroom once in two months just before his boyfriend showed up, and then make me feel bad for not doing it first), and it turned into serious negative space in the loft. He then also brought out this crappy shelf system that blocked part of the kitchen, and when I offered to put my dishes away so we could have more space, he said "I know it sounds really crazy, but you're not allowed to touch any of my dishes. Teehee!" It did sound really crazy, and he was a major ass about it. He would still use my stuff, though. He scratched up one of my teflon pans, and when I asked him why he didn't treat my stuff with care, he told me that it didn't matter because my pans weren't quality anyway. Living with him became so freaky and negative, and when I finally asked him to leave, everything exploded a wee bit. After he left, my other roommate and I actually hugged, because a huge weight had lifted.
The most complicated relationship I had with a housemate had to be Dan. Was he the best or the worst? I still don't know. Things for which I am grateful-
Letting me, a total stranger, move into the loft.
Starting me on blogging.
Introducing me to some of my closest friends.
Helping me come to grips with some of my own issues with being gay.
Being a friend to me, which is the rarest type of roommate.
Unfortunately, he went through a meltdown. Yes, I know he had reasons, but his reactions really damaged people around him. Even though he was only 20 feet away in the loft, I had to learn of major changes via his blog; changes in his life; changes to my life. I learned that he was moving out on me by friends of his who read it on his blog, and only had weeks to come up with his part of the deposit, find a new roommate, and still tried to be his friend. I tried to just get past the screw, try to justify his behavior as someone trying to rebuild their life. However, he has repeated this process multiple times, each time not finding what he was looking for, then leaving wreckage in his wake. He just blogs about it. That makes me mad. I hope he finds happiness; I just don't want to see him again.
Maybe this goes back to Maslow. Maybe living with Dan was the beginning of a peak experience, maybe I still associate him with those heady first days of living in NYC. I saw Kiki & Herb for the first time because of him. I have this blog because of him. Maybe I can't forgive him because he didn't live up to my expectations, which are a lot higher in my 30's than they were in my 20's. Hell, he remembered to flush the toilet.
Posted by G at 07:27 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
November 12, 2007
Wee bit of a rant
I am really getting cranky with ALL local and national media, not just Fox. Living in NYC, one would hope to get a little more professional coverage than the local Lubbock paper.
I watch the news, and I don't see any of the news that I know happens, or it goes for the lowest possible level. This editorial really crystallized it for me.
"In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we've propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We've become inured to democracy-lite. That's why a Mukasey can be elevated to power with bipartisan support and we barely shrug."
Then the local Broadway strike happened over the weekend. Every television news report showed little crying children who didn't get to see the Grinch, fat Midwesterners disappointed they don't get to see Legally Blonde, and NOTHING about owners' attempt to essentially cut 38% of the wages for stagehands. Yes, tourism is a huge income producer for NYC, but let's tell the fat Midwesterners that the owners are all enjoying huge profits while balking at raises for the lowest paid employees.
Being a member of a union myself, I wish they didn't have to strike. Strikes are always the past-last option. However, the owners are just being greedy, as the new wages just keep pace with inflation.
The fourth branch of the government is as bad as the other three.
Posted by G at 04:10 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
November 10, 2007
Liquor? I don't even know her!
The chocolate show was quite fun, especially since they now have a free alcohol sampling lounge. We learned how to make an AWESOME new drink, plus I had about 5 shots of some new premium rums, including one that was aged 50 years. Smooth, unlike my walk back to the subway, as I am a total lightweight on real alcohol. It did offset my jumpy wiredness/weirdness from sampling chocolate from about 50 companies.
I need to stick to my beer.
Posted by G at 05:58 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
November 05, 2007
Count Chocula
Of course I'm going to the Chocolate Show!
Last year's disaster where I didn't get to go because I didn't pre-buy tickets will never repeat. When Derrick asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I made him buy us tickets to the Chocolate Show. Saturday morning, I'll be in line, insulin in one hand, bib in the other.
At 3:15, I'll take the class "ChocAmole" I'm not sure if this is a spin on guacamole or WhackAmole. We'll find out, just before I lose consciousness.
If anyone wants to join, buy your tickets now. Just be sure and don't get between me and the chocolate ganache.
Posted by G at 09:15 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November 04, 2007
Mates in the house Part I
Being a gay man in his 30's, I've had a lot of housemates, over 25. Just like a mother who says she loves all her children equally, I'd say that I've had a good share of great housemates. Charlie, Evan, Dave, and Brian (two gay, two straight) are guys who still get birthday howdies from me. They get the awards for best mates.
Good housemates are a rare and treasured commodity. Why are these the good ones? Even after 18 years of living with other people, I can't give an exact list.
Charlie is like the big brother I never had, always funny, always supportive. Always timely with rent, he also kept me going during some of the worst teaching times in Bushwick. Our dogs also worked well together.
Evan is the nicotine-addicted engineer who created a symbiotic grilling relationship with me (I bought, he grilled) and automatically took care of Bear the entire time I was in Peace Corps. He's now a dad, and I can't think of anyone who would be better at that.
Dave is the brilliant lawyer/comedian who was in Lubbock with me, and who now lives in NYC. My favorite moment with him: we're installing a new phone line along the outside of the house, and we've wired it into the outside phone hookup. He's on a ladder, trying to string the phone line to me, and he has the wire ends in his mouth. Suddenly he starts to scream in a weird way, stops, then starts screaming again. Someone was calling on his new line, but the electrical charge was shooting through his spit directly into his skull. Good times.
Brian has known me since junior high, as we went to church together. He's been my friend through the transition from straight to gay, plus he kept me fed on pizza. He also didn't object when my pet ferret Dog would attack his face, or when I forgot to buy his medication while he was dying on the couch. I almost killed him on our move from Clovis to Dallas, as I found him spazzing around inside the truck. I had no idea a bee was in the truck, or that bees could kill him. He was also recently came out of the closet on TV in Texas.
There are also the good guys who had some issues. BJ didn't make it to the top list, but that was primarily for buying a puppy and then immediately dumping the puppy on my hands for a whole summer. The dog pissed and shit on everything. Bear and I were not amused. I still count him as a good guy.
Same with Christian. Good guy, but he was just too damn distracting. He was straight, and would run around with his stripped down ab-tacular body, and I would walk into walls. He also had the worst farts in the history of mankind.
Ahh, but where are the bad ones? Those are in the next post. Mwahaaahhhaaahhaaaa.
Posted by G at 06:08 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack