Jennie SMASH!

On the train yesterday, Mizza informed me that the city is apparently infested with bedbugs once again. This happens from time to time, I guess. I’ve gotten used to “water bugs” in my tub when I get home from a long break, but I really cannot handle this.

“If you get them,” Mizza said. “I recommend the following: Leave your apartment with the clothes on your back, which you will promptly have deloused, and perhaps burned. Abandon your lease and all your belongings and start over in a new city. Also: You’ve scratched your nose three times while we’ve been talking, and if there’s something you’d like to tell me, you can do it from across the aisle.”

I am dead serious, folks. If the bedbugs find me, there won’t be enough SSRIs on the planet to stop the screaming.

I just took the train back to NYC, and ran into my friend Mizza on the way back from the cafe car. Apparently, I not only know everyone in New York, I also know everyone on every major form of transportation in the tristate area. Sweet.

Mizza and I hunkered down with pizza and sandwiches and told each other our same six stories. Then we started listening in on our fellow passengers. It started because we passed the stop for Conn College, and Mizza was concerned that we should wake up the kid across from us.

“He totally goes to Conn,” he said. “Look at him: Peach-fuzzy chin beard. Plaid shirt. Zippery backbag with tags. He’s an environmental science major, but he doesn’t know it yet. He’s, like, a little high almost always, and he’s really getting into jazz.”

As if on cue, Conn College started to rouse himself. It was a long slow process, with much eyerubbing and stretching, and by the time he was upright, Mizza was half-asleep. So I made sure to listen in closely, just in case I was the only witness to the conversation.

“Yeah, ‘lo?” He mumbled into his phone. “Listen, hi. Here’s what I need you to do. I need you to go the bank machine and take out … forty-five dollars. My friend Klara will come get the … forty-five dollars. Klara. K-l-a-r-a. Klara. What did I say? Spell it back. K-l-a-r-a. OK. She’s short. Yup.”

At this point, Mizza opened one eye and mouthed: “Forty-five dollars.” I attempted not to pee.

“Oh, yeah, something else. I need this girl’s phone number. Can you go into my Facebook account. My email address is JUNIPERJOHNSON@NYU.EDU. [D'oh! -JH] And my password is WEED! With an exclamation point. That’s W-E-E…”

Mizza hit me in the side, and whispered, “When I was in school? It was James Brown. We’d call each other up and be like, hey man, can I borrow that JAMES BROWN CD, for like FORTY-FIVE MINUTES?”

“It cost FORTY-FIVE MINUTES when you were in school? Man, you’re twelve and I always forget. When I was in school, you could get some James Brown for THIRTY MINUTES.”

“Nah, see, this was the REALLY GOOD JAMES BROWN CD. You know that one? The REALLY, REALLY GOOD JAMES BROWN. It’s usually about FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LONG.”

“Yeah, I went to UMass. You could get SHITTY JAMES BROWN for TWENTY BUCKS.”

Hello, Pals of the Internets. Did you have a lovely Thanksgiving? Did you eat deep-fried bird? Did you burn your houses down? I hope not.

I am refreshed and revivified after my own holiday, which consisted of reading true crime novels and stuffing my face. Really, there’s nothing better than that.

I also discovered the cure for situational depression this weekend. It is simply this: Read a book about the Green River Killer, and then, when people ask you how you are, say things like, “Well, it could be worse. My body could be lying at the bottom of a ravine, garrotted with its own underpants.” Actually, don’t say that. You’ll upset people.

I’m sure I’ll come up with a better answer than this. Previously, I’d been cheering up my friends by saying things like, “Well, at least you have a pancreas.” Or: “Know what sucks? Dialysis.” It worked, too! People totally forgot all about their problems, whilst trying to figure out exactly what had gone wrong inside my pointed head.*

* Note: My head is not pointed. It is actually completely round and quite handsome, with or without hair, as I discovered in college during my punk rock phase. Thank you.

Ma Smash: Are you looking forward to a little break?

Me: God, yes. I’m exhausted. Definitely time for a vacation.

Ma Smash: Well, you just come home. You won’t have to do a thing! I made a pie the other day, and I went to the store today and bought all the trimmings and I’ve been talking to old Thomas, who is in the fridge as we speak.

Me: Oh, man! I forgot you did that. Your theory is that it helps with cooking, right? Sort of like playing Mozart for plants?

Ma Smash: Yes, but right now I’m concentrating on putting old Thomas at ease. Don’t tell him what Thursday is. Y’see, I’ve told him that he’s a pet.

Hello, make-believe friends of the electronic variety.

The Thanksgiving holidays are nearly upon us. This is a delightful thing, because it means that I get to go home for almost a full week and sit on my mother’s sofa and shovel food in my face and not have one single solitary thought the whole time. I am looking forward to this immensely, as you might imagine.

In the meantime, I must warn you that I might not be so great about the whole blog updating thing over the next few days. I still like you, though. I just don’t like you, like you.

I’m totally kidding. I think you’re hot.

Hello, my pals.

Please click on over to the ol’ BT to check out my latest encounters with the homeless.

Yesterday, I went to the doctor, as I do, and discovered that I had lost four pounds. Four pounds! This is entirely because I just broke up with someone, you know. I always gain weight in relationships, even if it seems like I’m eating just the same and exercising and all that. I blame hormones.

My friend Derek once said that he thinks that this pattern has a lot to do with the on-off nature of many relationships among young (he’s 24) people these days. When couples are together, they pack on the pounds. The girl might be fine with this, but the guy, being a guy, gets all grossed out at her fattitude and breaks up with her. She then cries and cries and loses like 37 pounds, and then she’s all hot and emaciated again and the dude’s like, whoa! My mistake. Let’s get back together.

It strikes me upon looking at that paragraph that Derek might actually be a very angry person, and I’d never realized that before.

Thanks Jen C., via Smyres:

Me: “I’ve had an epiphany.”

Ma Smash: “That’s wonderful! Epiphanies don’t come every day of the week, you know. If they did, they’d be called ‘the newspaper.’”

Me: “-”

Ma Smash: “Hello? Are you still there?”

I am looking at the movie listings right now, and “Saw 2″ has the following enticement below: “See a freaky clip of the serial killer mentally torturing his captives.” Um? Haven’t we had enough torture stories? Are we actually going to pay money to see more? What’s next? “Abu Ghraib 3″?