Jennie SMASH!

My new hobby is advising people who are looking at apartments in my building to go live in a cardboard box in front of Bowery Mission instead. The other day, a perfectly lovely young lady, clearly an NYU student (I don’t know how you can tell, but you can tell) stopped me in the hallway to ask me if I liked living here.

“Sure,” I said. “I mean, the neighborhood is great. Well, not the neighborhood, exactly. Cuz this street sucks. But a couple blocks north, or a couple blocks east — anywhere where you’re not smack next to the cheesiest nightclub in Manhattan — it’s great. Also, there’s no laundry here. Oh! And a hobo shit in the hall. Did you know the front door was broken for TWO YEARS? Well, it was. And I heard a girl got raped in the stairwell a few years back, but it was much more ghet’ around here then. You know what? Don’t live here. I’m serious. I’m moving to Brooklyn. Or maybe up the street. You should, too. Anyway — moving.”

She backed away slowly and smiled. Probably that was a lot of info for someone who didn’t seem to speak a lot of English, but I like to help.

So, I’m moving. Probably to Brooklyn. The rent situation is out of control, and also, I’m tired of living in a little teeny box. Anyone who has a lead on a decent place should write me e-mej-ja-mo. I will be forever grateful.

You know you’re wearing your laundry day outfit when the workmen outside your building avert their eyes when you walk by.

In other news, my friend Eric reports that he saw a woman get whistled at by a dude who was driving a school bus today. How great is that? Makes me want to go out and buy a cuter outfit.

Mrs. Piddlington: Hello?

Me: Loaf.

Mrs. Piddlington: What?

Me: I had meatloaf for dinner.

Mrs. Piddlington: OK.

Me: Like, a LOT of meatloaf.

Mrs. Piddlington: O-kay…

Me: BRARF! LOAF!

Mrs. Piddlington: I’m just glad you’re happy.

My allergies are so bad, I’m pretty sure I actually have cholera. Just thought you should know, in case posting ends abruptly.

It’s pretty clear to me that if I ever want a boyfriend again, all I need to do is stand outside my door and one will appear. It might not be the one I want, but still: men are milling about on my stoop, waiting for single ladies.

This evening, I got home in the rain and stood for a moment on my step to have a smoke before going inside. Two men were standing under the awning, smoking and waiting for the line to clear at the nightclub next door.

One of them noticed me and looked up. “Hey, how ya doing?”

“Fine. You?”

“Fine. You going home?”

“Yep.”

“Your husband waiting for you?”

That threw me off for a second.

“Um. I have a boyfriend.”

“You been together a long time?”

No fool, I: “A year.”

“Are you in love?”

“Yes. Yes, we are.” I ground out my cigarette. This, eventually, is why I’ll quit entirely. Anyone will speak to you when you’re smoking.

“You have a problem with dating black guys?”

“Uh. No.”

“Is this guy black?”

“Uh. No?”

“A year, you said? Shit. If it was three months or something, I’d have a try.”

I laughed and dug out my keys. The bouncer next door is huge and burly, and smiles at me when I go by. Otherwise, maybe I wouldn’t have stopped. But now I was maybe a little nervous.

“Are you going to marry him?”

“Yes. Yes, I think I will.”

He shook his head. “Shit. Everyone is getting married.”

I smiled politely and let myself into the building.

I think my neighbor just tried to introduce himself. I couldn’t tell, because he was mumbling and leaning against his door. In fact, if he hadn’t had a key, I would have thought he was the Hallway Pooper. But he had a key, so probably not. Unless it was an inside job! Man! My life is full of drama.

Seriously, though, I felt a little bad for Drunken Neighbor Dude. I’m sure I was giving him that look that you give to people when they’re so drunk they might actually be speaking a foreign language. And any time that’s happened to me, I always wanted to slap the person speaking to me. Like, there you are, in your head, away from the drunkenness that’s taken over your body, and all you can think is, why is this person speaking slowly? What’s with the raised eyebrows? I understand! I get what you’re saying. And then you start to speak and you sound like Sloth. It’s all very perplexing.

I hope Drunken Neighbor remembered to drink water before he went to bed.

The Mouse claims that I am “weaksauce” because I sometimes need to go to bed before, say THREE O’CLOCK IN THE DAMN MORNING. Because I am nothing if not proud, I offer the following rebuttal:

1) I have many projects. It’s true that some of them involve rearranging my paperwork and organizing my earrings, but they’re still important. Others involve writing. Mostly checks. (Kidding!)

2) This weekend, when I was preparing to go out, I found a two-inch long gray hair standing straight up from the crown of my head. Unlike my other hairs, it was perfectly straight. It looked like it had been stolen from someone else’s head. My point? I’m not weaksauce. I’m just old.

3) The Mouse is very silly and shouldn’t even be able to speak anyway, because he’s a mouse. Mice squeak. They don’t play the dozens.

4) ‘Sauce you, ‘saucer!

5) The end.

People are supposed to clean up after their dogs in New York, but many have their own ideas about what that means. It’s not uncommon to see newspaper lying on top of a pile of dog droppings, or a great big smear across the sidewalk, as if someone finally got tired of picking up crap and just kicked it into the gutter instead.

Today took the cake, though. Today, I was actually chased a full block down 17th street (between 7th and 8th, if you’re wondering) by a brown paper bag covered in dog doo. Apparently, someone had used it to pick up Muffy’s little droppings and then dropped the bag itself back onto the street. Awesome. Anyway, it blew up against my leg, and then pursued me, I swear to God, when I realized what it was and tried to escape.

My fellow travelers on 17th street had fun, at least. I’m sure the sight of me running at full tilt down the block, screaming, “Git away! POOP BAG! Ahh! Ahh! Git!” would be worth money. If only I’d had the foresight to charge.

In a taxicab, heading east, we disagree about where, exactly, we’re going:

“It’s 11th, I think,” the Mouse says.

“Or 10th?” (And who knows says this. Four people in a cab.)

Along the avenue, cars turn their lights on and off, squiggle into parking spots. The street lights burn bright above us. The cab stops. Craning your neck out the window, you can see where stars would be in the sky.

“This will sound weird,” Cedric says, his German accent slight and charming, his English perfect. He’s thinking in English: We’ll discuss this later. “But New York is so beautiful.”

“It doesn’t sound weird,” I say. Ahead of us, brake lights wink out. You can smell the cabbie’s frustration. “It doesn’t sound weird at all.”

“11th, for sure,” says the Mouse. The cabbie swerves perfectly into a space, and draws us into line.