Ah... Spring?

I was asked out this afternoon.

His pick-up line was, for the record, "Do you like Mexican food?"

And then he said, "You must let me paint your apartment for you. I can make it nice."

Paint my apartment. Is that what they're calling it now?

Another sign of spring: Last week, most shows had their finales, and are gone until September. I am posting at 9:35 pm, and the only station that has had anything on that's scripted is CBS, and right now it's a pretty bad sitcom. I guess what's on the CW is scripted as well, but it's their usual twenty-somethings angst soapy opera stuff, One Tree Felicity Gossipy Hill. I thought, maybe, I might watch the dancers on Fox. So I tuned in, and there was this blonde bimbo doing interpretive dance -- badly, badly, oh lord, so very very badly, klutzy and she didn't complete her lines (can you tell I used to dance? throwing in that $40 comment there? cool, huh?) and there were these bizarre jumps for no reason and then these cheesy "reach for the stars, I'm emoting" kind of moves --and I thought sure the judges were going to trash her, but they loved it. Capital L loved it. Gushed about how much energy she had in her...get this..eyes, and they all agreed "She's got 'it.'" "Yes, you do, you've really got 'it.'" and I had to turn it off.

We all know people dance with their eyes, don't we? Yuck. By the way, apparently the guy just before her did a stepping dance of some sort, which I did not see... but I did see the part where they said no to him, even though they all said HE had "energy" -- He was wearing a mask, though, so they couldn't see if any energy was in his eyes, I guess. Next time he'll know to lose the mask.

Which brings me to wondering: What did we do to deserve Reality TV? That's rhetorical, I know the answer. We watched Cops and Real World too much and encouraged it, that's what we did. Well, not me, I didn't watch those shows, but enough of us did, or at least, enough of the Nielsen Families did and it has ruined television forever. It doesn't even matter if people stop watching these stupid shows...they are cheaper to produce, so as long as some people are still watching them who cares if most of the viewing public has turned off the set and are reading books?

Okay, I admit it, I'm in a mood.

On the other stations, we have the Bachelorette and an awards show for Movie Trailers (!!!!!) and a news magazine about a murder. At least that one involves a dead body.

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Ah, Spring

Another sign of Spring in New York is the arrival of critters. Not the year-round apartment invaders like roaches and mice, or the outside-your-window fire-escape regulars like pigeons or squirrels. This morning, there was a centipede in my tub.

And yes, I killed it.

Here is what Wikipedia says about the house centipede:

"Unlike its shorter-legged but much larger tropical cousins, the house centipede can live its entire life inside a building. Because they eat household pests, house centipedes are considered among the most beneficial creatures that inhabit human dwellings, but because of their alarming appearance, frightening speed, and painful bite, few homeowners are willing to share a home with them."

There was a moment, as I was dousing it with hot water, that I felt bad. Fact is, humans are the only animals that will kill something just because they don't want it crawling around in their bathtubs. I've now decided that the proper thing to do is simply keep the stopper over the drain. Voilá, no more centipedes in the bathtub; they can live on to eat cockroaches and ants and spiders and (shudder) bedbugs the way nature intended.

And a note to Mike: The air kiss was definitely NOT "one of those light and fluffy Latin lover air kisses." Not light and fluffy at all. Wet and sloppy, in fact.

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Please Be Patient

How many times a day does a New Yorker hear that from the MTA: "Please Be Patient"? It always makes me wonder what else, exactly, do they expect us to do? Scream and jump up and down? And what if we do loose our cool and make a scene? Does that disembodied voice on the intercom REALLY care if some of us go ahead and have a tantrum?

That being said, I had One of Those Commutes this morning on the 6 train.

The problem with being late EVERY morning is that when you finally have a legitimate excuse for it, it doesn't matter. You are late because you are Not a Morning Person: your 15-pound cat made herself comfortable on your chest just before your alarm went off and you can't bear to move her; you are having a bad case of adult ADD and you can't seem to focus enough to get yourself out the door; you've waited too long to take a shower and now there is no hot water and you have to wait for the boiler to catch up with the demand; you can't figure out what to wear so you change clothes five times; you can't find your keys/wallet/ID; because you are now running late the construction crew who are renovating the apartment next door has parked a Giant Thing outside of your door and you can't get down the stairs; or all of the above. And then, you have One of Those Commutes.

So I made it down my stairs, my cat fed and purring, my clothes Weather Appropriate, my hair smelling of Fructis Garnier conditioner, keys, wallet and ID present and accounted for, and a man sidles up to me and says, "Excuse me, Do you have any spare change?"

I said "no" and shook him off, but he kept smiling at me and then said, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Okay. Well, have a nice day." And then he leans in. "Have a nice night."

Springtime in New York. (see previous post)

He was grinning at me, and kept walking with me, so I crossed the street. Every time I looked over, there he was, smiling at me.

Okay, yes, I shouldn't have looked over. I stopped doing that.

I looped around out of my way until I saw him veer off in the other direction, and headed to my train. When I got down the stairs, there were a hundred people on the platform. This is never a good sign. Then there was an announcement:

"There is a southbound 6 train at 42nd Street." Six stops away. Why do they bother telling us?

There were policemen everywhere, and it occurred to me that Something must have Happened. Then came another announcement:

"Attention passengers. Due to a police action on Bleecker Street, there are train delays on the 4, 5 and 6 lines. Please be patient."

A group of twenty or so tourists picked that moment to enter the station. They huddled together in the center of the platform, right across from the turnstiles. (insert the snarky anti-tourist comment of your choice here.)

Twenty minutes later, a train arrived. The twenty tourists all filed into the same car of an already crowded train. (insert another snarky anti-tourist comment of your choice here as well.)

When the train finally left the station, it went about 6 feet, and stopped.

"Attention passengers. Due to a police action on Bleecker Street, there are train delays on the 4, 5 and 6 lines. Please be patient."

I suppose it was important for someone to say that at this juncture, because I'm pretty sure the riders in the next car were going to start sacrificing tourists.

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Springtime in New York

Okay, I have been chastised by my loyal fans (both of you) for failing to post anything new recently, so here I am, back again.

I was on a train to Connecticut and instead of taking my usual single don't-you-dare-sit-near-me seat, I thought I'd take a chance and spread out in one of those group of fivers that has a window, with the hope that not too many people would sit next to me.

By 125th Street, another woman sat down across from me, and by Stanford, there were three other people in this cluster of seats.

The first woman to invade my space, at least a decade or two younger than me, put on her iPod and opened a book. It wasn't until two more twenty-something women got on at Stamford and made us shift all the way over to the window that I became curious about the book she was reading. It was a thick paperback, and from the looks of the back cover it seemed it was not a novel: There was a photo of a man in a business suit, and although I never saw the exact title of the book, the back cover shouted "Find the perfect man online!"

Now I'm thinking... am I missing something here? This woman was not model pretty, but she was definitely pretty nonetheless, and not model-thin but who the hell wants to be model thin? So this woman who was maybe 33 at the oldest, is having trouble finding a boyfriend? Yikes! What the heck am I going to do, being dangerously close to completing my fifth decade?

As it often happens, New York City provided me with a tiny glimmer of hope as I was coming home late afternoon on Sunday on the subway. As we were approaching my stop, I stood to get ready to exit, and I felt somebody's eyes on me. I looked elsewhere, figuring that he was either a) looking at my blinged-out Grammy-Awards-50-years tee-shirt, or reading some ad behind my head. But as I was stepping off the train, he caught my eye and air-kissed me.

I haven't been air-kissed by a stranger in I don't know how long. Does that mean I still "got it"? (assuming, of course, I ever had it.) Not sure, but he wasn't a homeless person. He was Hispanic, possibly around my age, dark curly hair, gold chain, yellow and white tee shirt. It was absolutely inappropriate behavior and not actual flirting. But I haven't gotten inappropriate behavior of any kind thrown my way in quite a while.

Ah, Springtime in New York.

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