brooklynguist

i've moved

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:09:00 +0000

Follow me on tumblr! my tumblr

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:33:00 +0000

in case i go missing

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 01:46:00 +0000

I've been working late hours at my job, and often I'm the last person in my section when our night time cleaning lady comes around. She's very sweet and friendly and sometimes when I'm not at my desk she arranges my loose change and collection of shoes in pleasing patterns. I feel we've developed an unspoken kinship.

The other night I passed her on my way out the door and I noticed that the garbage can she wheels around is plastered with cutouts of children's faces from magazines. And like honestly, what the fuck? Is this just a miscalculated bit of whimsy to offset the drudgery of her profession? Do they remind her of her estranged grandkids? Or have garbage cans gotten edgier?

My big fear is that if I work late enough, the magazine cutout children will come alive and murder me while Inga watches and claps. I'm writing this post so that in case I go missing, one of you will know to check the garbage can. If you see my terrified magazine cutout face looking back at you, please avenge me.

fragmented fake post

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:47:00 +0000

I'm too lazy to write a post with a cogent narrative, so I'm just going to present a bullet-pointed list of my random thoughts.

I quit my job and have a week off before starting a new gig. So far I've spent it lying on the couch in my high school gym pants eating cold pasta and playing iPhone Scrabble. Today my brother came over and we watched 5 really rapey episodes of Law & Order: SVU and then he helped me return a keg to the liquor store. White trash sibling bonding rituals!
I found a fun trivia night at Bell House, a bar near my apartment. Last night the prize for the first place team was two tickets to the new Penn & Teller Off-Broadway show, and my friends and I set out to win them with a yearning, panicked intensity. We came in third, partially because I insisted the answer to "What controversial but legal act did Penn & Teller perform at the White House during an episode of the West Wing" was sodomy. Turns out it was flag-burning.
Speaking of West Wing, I got the first season on Netflix, and my stars is Rob Lowe sexy. I like it when he wears glasses, and then in a later scene he's not wearing glasses, and then later, more glasses. Rob Lowe. Glasses.
In a spate of pinot-induced loneliness, I reactivated a dormant online dating profile. Within ten minutes I had a message that read, "Will be in New York next week. What are the good salsa clubs? xoxo, Maurice." Not sure why he thought I was some kind of authority on this. I tried learning to salsa at my roommate's dad 60th birthday party last year, but after ten minutes her cousin banished me to the church basement's hallway because Puerto Ricans find me too embarrassing. Still, excited about my new boyfriend!!
HOW GOOD WAS HARRY POTTER?!?!?!
Whenever I see "free-range eggs" on a menu, I picture little eggs merrily bouncing around in a field. Same thing with grass-fed meatballs, only they're chomping on the grass with their tiny meatball mouths. I told this to a friend last night and he said, "Sometimes I wish I could spend a day in your brain." But then he got a faraway look and he shivered a little and muttered, "But only one day..."

More later!

my new career

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 04:08:00 +0000

This weekend I went up to Boston to stay with friends, and Saturday they threw a big Halloween party at their apartment. It was a lovely time and I ingested many cups of magical punch that tastes nothing like vodka and loads of this amazing cheesy buffalo chicken dip that's so addictive it like, alters your brain chemistry until all you can think about is getting more and more dip and soon you're standing over the empty bowl at 3am, trembling and begging your hosts for another fix while the last remaining party guests whisper sadly about how things have taken an ugly turn for you since college.

Anyway, I wasn't feeling so hot Sunday, and may have been a little slapdash in my packing. So when I reached into my bag this morning, I discovered that I forgot to pack my makeup bag, but did manage to grab a giant plastic pipe that belonged to someone's Sherlock Holmes costume. Good save. I figure I'll just walk around chewing the pipe to distract people from the fact that I look really jank without makeup. Everyone will be all, "She looks a little tired around the eyes, but dammit is she distinguished. Let's enlist her help in solving the Shrewsbury murders." And then I'll be all, "the parson did it," and everyone will marvel at my preternatural detective skills. Except for the parson, who's just been wrongfully accused of murder.

a lesson in the art of tactful conversation

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:38:00 +0000

I just instant messaged a friend who is currently living in Afghanistan.

Me: How was your birthday? Do anything fun?!

AV: I ran for shelter from what turned out to be a grenade blast.

Me: oh.

the gowanus chronicles part II: ghost cat's revenge

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:12:00 +0000

In Part I, I described the myriad charms of my colorful neighborhood. Today, in honor of Halloween, I will relay the chilling tale of my haunted apartment.

Late last year, my roommate Erika and I found an affordable two-bedroom on Craigslist. We were enchanted by the large living room, hardwood floors and renovated kitchen, and agreed to move in right away. As we blithely unpacked our belongings, we were completely unaware that a dark, slumbering creature stirred beneath us, disrupted by the sounds of clinking silverware and raucous laughter. Intruders, the creature thought, his glassy red eyes narrowing into resentful slits. They shall pay for their insouciance.

It was only a few moments later when we heard the pounding on the door. I swung it open to find a large, fuming man standing in our hallway. The flush of our toilet had somehow flooded the kitchen of our downstairs neighbors. We stammered apologies, called the landlord, and enlisted the help of a plumber posthaste. It seemed that it was only an isolated incident, and we chalked it up to a moving day hiccup.

We were wrong. Dead wrong.

At first the incidents were small. A leaky radiator. A faulty doorbell. Soon we discovered that there were holes in the sides of our walls, holes so large you could waggle your fingers through them. One day I opened my apartment door to find a fireman with an axe standing in the hallway, a flood of water pouring down the stairs and over his boots. I stared for a moment, and then wordlessly shut the door.

The downstairs neighbors' apartment continued to flood, and they pounded on our door with increasing frequency. They accused us of unconscionable acts like taking showers and washing dishes. They surmised that we were in cahoots with the landlord. At one point they shut off water for the entire building, forcing us to take baby wipe showers and brush our teeth with Diet Coke.

In a dark rage about the lack of water, I went downstairs to confront the neighbor. I found him dejectedly slapping his soaked kitchen floor with an old tattered broom. Something about this forlorn sight softened me. "What the hell is wrong with this building?" I asked him, hoping to set in motion the easy camaraderie of sharing an enemy.

He gazed at me for the moment, and then lifted his broom up to touch the tip against the ceiling. The entire ceiling moved up and down easily, as if it was merely a slab of tin.

"We haven't had a real ceiling for as long as I can remember. Years ago a cat came in through a hole in the wall and somehow got stuck between the tin and your floor. For days we could hear him yowling up there, and we couldn't get him out. We told the landlord to come get him out, and he told us it would be easier if we just let it die."

"So what did you do?"

"Well we couldn't just let it die! Imagine the smell. We had no choice but to do what we did."

He didn't even need to tell me the rest. It was painfully obvious what had happened: he and his wife had performed a satanic incantation in order to send the cat, body-and-soul, into another dimension. But their spell went awry, and instead of slinking off into some netherworld as expected, Ghost Cat remained trapped under our floorboards, vengefully plotting against the humans who had ruined him. Thanks guys!

As the weeks went by, Ghost Cat acted out with increasing furor. He sparked an electrical fire in the apartment above us, resulting in an electrical outage for the whole building. Ghost Cat kicked the ladder out from under the girl above us, who had to be carried out of the apartment on a stretcher. He unleashed a plague of brash, tiny mice upon our apartment, who followed us into our rooms and regarded us blandly as we tried to shoo them away. It was a nightmare.

Through all of this, our intercom system remained broken. For several weekends in a row, a nice Thai couple came by to try to fix it, but they were no match for supernatural forces. Then, late one Tuesday night, I heard an urgent knock on my apartment door. I opened it to find my landlord, Mr. Soloman, in my hallway. (He insists that we call him Mr. Soloman despite the fact that a) Soloman is his first name and b) he's at most 24 years old.)

"Dude, it's almost midnight. What's going on?"

"We need to come in and fix your doorbell."

Without further preamble, a tiny Orthodox Jewish man dressed in green coveralls slipped into our apartment and started banging on our intercom with a hammer. Erika stumbled out of her bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"What's going on?"

"They're fixing our doorbell that's been broken since we moved in."

"Oh."

The man kept hitting his hammer against the intercom, mumbling to himself all the while. Mr Soloman stood nervously in the doorway and watched.

Suddenly, at the stroke of midnight, the intercom emitted a long, plaintive, otherworldly cry. A gust of wind picked up outside, knocking branches against our kitchen window. The howl reached a crescendo, and then there was only silence.

The man in the coveralls gave us a grave nod, put down his hammer, and exited the apartment without another word. Mr. Soloman smiled wanly, and then vanished also.

I turned to Erika, enveloped by giddy relief.

"I think we're ok now. I think its all going to be ok!"

"Is the doorbell fixed?"

I tried it. "No."

"Oh."

Erika turned and walked back into her bedroom.

As I stood there I felt like I was being watched. I looked over to see a cat standing on the fire escape, staring at me with wide, angry eyes. There was another gust of wind, and he was gone forever.

...Or was he?

Happy Halloween my dears!

tj maxx makes savvy appeal to alcoholic child market

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:04:00 +0000

"Man, fourth grade was some crazy shit bro. Skipping Cub Scouts to shotgun beers behind the jungle gym; inviting hot girls over to chug my mom's Franzia and play Strip Candyland. That whole year's a blur, dude! I'm glad I have this sweet pic to remind me of the good ol days. Cuz now that I'm in junior high it's like, such a fuckin rat race, man. And also because most of these children are dead now."

ramblings

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:29:00 +0000

As a result of growing up in a pedestrian-friendly city, I developed this misguided conviction that every destination is within walking distance. Once I had a job interview in an office in Massachusetts that was about 20 minutes walk from the nearest bus stop, but I checked it out on Google Maps and concluded that it was manageable. As it turned out it was several miles away along a busy highway with no sidewalk. I trudged along in my suit and sensible pumps through thigh-high weeds and bramble as cars honked beside me and the sun blazed down on my cursing, harried countenance. I arrived at the office damp from sweat and dew, tousle-haired, and triumphant. Lesser women would have turned back. Smarter women wouldn't have accepted the job offer.

Generally, I like walking places, mostly because I loathe being inside any kind of moving vehicle. I will walk the width of Manhattan before getting on a city bus, and I refuse to make train transfers on principle. When I studied in Dublin during college I walked around so much that I lost twenty pounds despite subsisting only Guinness and Dairy Milk bars. Cities are made for walking! But once you get out to suburbia, it's sometimes not even possible to get places without a car. So here's an idea for you, Big Gov. You know how we're all really stressed about all these problems that are tangentially related to the ubiquity of car ownership, like the obesity epidemic and fuel shortages and global warming and Billy Joel? Build some sidewalks, Big Gov! And keep reading my blog for canny political strategies like these.

So Sunday I had a friend's wedding, for which I needed to take the accursed LIRR to the far depths of Long Island. Said friend assured me that the train station was very close to the wedding venue, but when I checked it out online I discovered that it was actually several miles away along a busy highway. Plus the only feasible train was scheduled to arrive at said station only ten minutes before the start of the wedding. Peaches. I tried to call several local car services in advance but apparently car services in Long Island refuse to drive people anywhere but the airport. I guess because that's the only place people go without cars that isn't the end of their driveways.

So anyway, cut to Sunday. After the requisite eleven train transfers I arrived at the station and peered around hopefully for a cab or a serial rapist's van to take me wedding-ward. No such luck. So I set out tramping along the road in my wedding finery, narrowly avoiding speeding cars, no doubt filled with happy families who were laughing at the damn city fool dressed to the nines and trekking alone down the Montauk Highway. I cannot say I blame them.

When I finally arrived at the venue a half hour late the events coordinator looked at me in obvious disgust and told me I should have taken a cab from the train station. I just shook a high-heeled sandal at him and limped towards the garden, where the ceremony was already halfway over. I had to hide behind a tree like a spurned ex-lover in order to watch the proceedings without attracting any attention for coming in late. Which was great, because people at weddings love socializing with sweaty, solitary lurkers. I was a hit, I think. During the cocktail hour a Mary Kay lady gave me her business card and offered me a makeover, so that must mean I'm super pretty and she wants to be friends.

I proceeded to chug 85 glasses of champagne and basically molest the bride because her cans looked fantastic.

Good wedding.

i say damn your mood swings

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:15:00 +0000

You know when you wake up on a Monday morning and it's raining and you arrive at work soaking and your boss is being kind of a jerk and you need to go uptown for a meeting and when you get there you find out that it was cancelled earlier but nobody bothered to tell you and the guy you were hoping would call hasn't called and the job you've been waiting to hear from hasn't gotten back to you and come to think of it you can't even get your best friend to call you back and you have a random patch of eczema on your cheek and you have -$3.00 in your checking account and you don't get paid until Friday so you can't afford wine and when you get home from work there's a a brochure from St. Michael's Cemetery advertising burial plots addressed to you in your mailbox?

Yeah, me neither.

but HOW?!?!?!

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 19:27:00 +0000

Someone sent an email to my work address today and this was their email signature.

xxxxxxxx, Distinguished Toastmaster
THERE IS NO IMPOSSIBILITY

There are 225,000+ Toastmaster members throughout the world and less than 1% receive the Distinguished Toastmaster Award. I recently earned that award and you may ask HOW? It was simple - I applied the five principles of success and it was a done deal.

Huh. That does sound simple.

eff yourself, i know how to manage my money.

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:51:00 +0000

Yesterday I spent four hundred bucks I don't have registering for another sketch comedy writing class at Upright Citizens Brigade. I justified this expense by telling myself I need an outlet for my weirdness so I don't spend all day fantasizing that my coworkers are secretly vampires. They're starting to get suspicious.

I tried to make a list of ways to make some extra cash, and this what I came up with:

Open an etsy store for my handmade dolls, recycled from discarded cigarette butts and wine corks.
Start a gambling ring for my bar bocce league. It's probably pretty easy to break hipsters' kneecaps, plus I wouldn't mind getting paid in Hoegaarden.
Befriend an elderly eccentric and let nature do the rest.
Launch my sure-to-go-viral website, nicholascageonfire.com. It's 100% pictures of Nicholas Cage on fire! I'll probably still talk to you when I'm famous.
Go on a game show where all the answers are either about Anne of Green Gables or the lyrics to Coolio's "Gangster's Paradise," my only two areas of expertise. Might need to bone Howie Mandel first.
Sell my Howie Mandel sex scandal story to the tabloids. Look for my salacious tell-all, Mandel Handling, in bookstores next fall.

I am beginning to regret learning everything I know about financial planning from Zach's scheming on Saved by the Bell.

Wait never mind, I don't regret that at all.

this made me romance in my pants a little

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:41:00 +0000

media credit: Gawker

A Chinese lingerie company made this ridiculous ad to honor Princess Diana on the 14th(?!) anniversary of her death. In case you can't read the caption, they want us to "Feel the Romance of British Royalty." Because British royals are synonymous with romance, obviously. Tweedy, toothy, clammy romance.

Apparently some British people are really offended by this, but I think this is possibly the greatest thing I have ever seen. The cello, the tiara, the random, beaming child in what looks like half a jujitsu uniform: it's surrealist magic. In fact, I want to see more ads featuring British royals in absurdist, vaguely kinky scenarios. Like Prince Charles playing croquet wearing only nipple tassles and jodhpurs, or the Queen Mother arranging flowers in a corset while a mime watches.

Make it happen, China.

shady's back, tell a friend

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:32:00 +0000

Sorry about the prolonged absence, reader(s). I spent August in a boozy vacation haze. It involved my friend's wedding in Barbados and trips to Rhode Island and Boston. I managed to spend a week in the tropics without developing any kind of sunburn on my pasty Irish skin by frequently applying sunblock made specially for albinos. Then this weekend I got an ugly, mottled burn by spending an hour in the Boston sun.

This August I rarely worked, often partied, and ignored my body's need for sleep. As I result, I developed a dependency on 5-hr energy shots and wine. This is a lifestyle choice I recommend if you think you'd like to have a series of small strokes for 4.5 hours and then pass out in a Denny's.

I have $11 in checking and what is presumably a raging case of scurvy.

I am looking forward to a fall of monk-like abstinence and contemplation. I will make sure to blog about my epic failures in that regard.

a night with my friend kc in quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:18:00 +0000

"Technically I drink more wine than the ADA or whoever says I should. Well...the ADA shouldn't care, I don't have any of my own teeth."

"We really need to find someone to embalm the hummingbird in our freezer."

an interesting fact about me

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:03:00 +0000

Some people are freaked out by those freeze-dried strawberries in Special K with Red Berries, but I think they're delicious.

a users' guide to appropriate subway behavior

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:58:00 +0000

I spend a considerable chunk of my time riding the rails, and recently it occurred to me that my fellow New Yorkers could use a little refresher in subway etiquette. Don't take this to heart, guys. Really, I think you're aces. I just thought I'd offer my guidance as a public service to my people. Sound ok? Ok. Let's get started.

What are the rules for giving up your seat on the train?

I'm glad you asked! According to the MTA, you should always give up your seat to the elderly, pregnant or disabled. Now, stop pretending to fiddle around with your iPod and look around your crowded subway car. Do you see that nine-months-pregnant lady clutching the hands of her twin toddlers? That stooped octogenarian feebly grasping a pole? The dude on crutches who is carrying a ficus? Of course you do, you're just an asshole. I know, I know, you're tired, you're hungover, the train makes your tummy rumbly, you think maybe you're coming down with dengue. I don't care. Someone is always in rougher shape than you. Have some common fucking courtesy and offer up your seat.

I'm a pregnant, ficus-wielding, becrutched octogenarian, and I scored a seat during rush hour. But now the guy sitting next to me is frothing at the mouth and speaking in tongues. What should I do?

Normally I'd tell you to get up and change cars, but honey, you've got a lot of issues. My response would be to a) ignore him or b) answer him in tongues. This is New York, and sometimes the only way to defend your territory is out-crazy the crazy. Plus, that guy is totally sane and works on Wall St. He's just an ingenious asshole who doesn't want to give up his seat.

I'm a subway performer. Can I have some money?

Only if you're the rabbi/opera singer who performs haunting arias on the R train. That guy is the shit. But he doesn't even ask for money because he traffics in a little something called integrity. The rest of you can go screw.

But I'm a child and I break-dance!

Fine, here's a dollar. I can't say no to break-dancing children.

Oops, I fell asleep and missed my stop. What is the appropriate response?

One option is to roll your eyes, mutter, "Dang, am I silly," and get off and transfer at the next station. Another alternative is to wake up and start raving at all the women in the vicinity that they're "cunts" out to sabotage you by not waking you up at your stop. A guy did this to me recently and boy did it put me in my place. Let this be a lesson to all lady-commuters: harness your mystical vagina-powers to divine the destinations of all man-passengers, and make it your personal mission to get them there. If this sounds unreasonable it's because you're a total c-word.

I'm your subway conductor and I'm mad with power. The only way to deaden the pain of my deeply unhappy existence is to re-route trains without any kind of warning, and then mutter incoherently into the mic every couple of stations as I lead carfuls of increasingly frenzied commuters further and further from their destinations. I do it like three times a week! Isn't that hilarious?

You are the worst kind of person. I wish a pox upon you and all you hold dear. Or barring that, some kind of demotion. I think you'd get the same kind of satisfaction as the station worker who is never ever in your booth when all of the MetroCard machines are out of order.

I'm a tourist and your subway system is really confusing. Can I ask for help?

Sure you can. First, some general advice: if you're a tourist, do not stand in the middle of a highly trafficked stairwell staring at your map, do not hold the subway car doors ajar so your band of fifteen Swedish children can trickle in, and do not stand without holding on to a pole so that you go flying into my lap when the train comes to a sudden stop. Once you've got those points covered, feel free to ask for directions! It's a little-known fact that New Yorkers are among the most helpful people in the world. Not because we're particularly nice, it's just that we love showing off how well we know our city. We take pride in our street smarts, and you can reap the benefits. So please don't end up in East New York when you're trying to get to Rockefeller Center. Just ask.

What is the etiquette for having personal conversations on the subway? Like, really personal?

I am a shameless eavesdropper, so I'm not at all opposed to listening to you break up with your girlfriend or describe the explicit details of your sex romps to your coworker. But you should keep in mind that some commuters aren't gossip-mongery perverts like myself. Keep your conversations quiet and euphemistic.

I work in Manhattan's only manure factory and I haven't showered in 8 days. Should I get on the subway?

By all means. Your odor might overpower the usual eau de dead hobo.

I'm a dead hobo and I find that kind of offensive.

Well I'm sorry dead hobo ghost, but don't you have better things to do than haunt my blog? Go on now, scoot! All of you, scoot!

reflections on my love life

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:09:00 +0000

credit: CafePress

Last night I saw a guy wearing this shirt on the F train and for a moment I wanted to marry him.

But then I remembered geeky novelty T-shirts aren't a strong basis for a healthy relationship. I learned that the hard way when I dated Bruce Vilanch.

credit: StarPulse

conversations at the office

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:15:00 +0000

I got an email welcoming a new employee and immediately IMed my coworker.

Me: Whoa, the new guy's name is Tater?

Janet: LOL, I know. What were his parents thinking?

Me: Right? Po' Tater.

Me: It must have been tough on him as a tot.

Me: His parents should be a-salted.

.......

Me: I don't know if you're receiving all these hilarious puns.

Janet: Yes I got them, thanks.

Whatever, she's just jealous of my rapier wit.

My wit has raped so many more people than hers has.

the gowanus chronicles

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:40:00 +0000

So I live in the neighborhood of Gowanus, the area surrounding the catastrophically polluted Gowanus Canal. This body of water is so hazardous that the EPA recently enlisted the help of the Superfund, which from what I gather is a rescue team similar to the Super Friends, only with hoses and sandbagging and Hazmat suits. So like an episode of the Super Friends where we learn about Robin's kinky sex fantasies.

I only live there because my street borders the very desirable Carroll Gardens, which is so pretty and brownstoney that I almost don't mind that my future babies will have tentacles. My street, however, is mostly just car lots, abandoned apartment buildings, a gay burlesque, and a mysterious warehouse that hosts bar mitzvahs on Saturday nights. Directly across the street there is a parking lot where many of the city's food trucks park at night. Its proximity to my apartment building assures that I am too scarred to ever eat from a food truck again. I've seen several drug deals go down there, and the place is completely overrun with the hugest effing rats I've ever seen. Seriously, I saw one eat a cat once. He just devoured him whole, lit a cigarette, and smoked it while staring off coolly into the deepening dusk. True story.

All of this accounts for some pretty interesting noises while I'm trying to sleep. Horns honking, vermin squealing, crackheads screaming for their fixes over the distant strains of "Hava Nagila": it's a beautiful urban cacophony. This was completely intolerable when I first moved in, but weeks turned into months, and now I'm used to it. Maybe too used to it. Because this morning, when I woke up to the sound of a sparrow's blithe chirping outside my window, my first thought was Get over it, bird.

So here's this poor intrepid bird, out there surviving in the thick swampy Gowanus air, and I'm begrudging its life-affirming song because it's cheerful and pretty and I'm a miserable wench. Yet for some reason it doesn't bother me when I'm awoken by two truck drivers screaming at each other in Punjabi.

I'm beginning to think I need to get out of the city.

pigeon freak and me

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:54:00 +0000

This is a picture of a pigeon freak sitting in Washington Square Park. In case you can't tell, there are several pigeons perched atop his head and shoulders. Sorry about the shitty picture quality; I took it from far away and behind because I didn't want to alert the freak or his pigeon friends about my presence, lest they take offense and coordinate some kind of attack, like knocking me to the ground and pecking me all over my body and giving me bird herpes. (The medical term is actually "birpes" but I try not to use too much jargon on my blog since pigeon scientists are only like 1/3 of my readership. LOL, just kidding. I don't have a readership.)

If life was like Home Alone II, my fear of pigeon freak would slowly dissipate and I would come to see him as a human being with problems and feelings just like my own. I'd strike up a conversation and learn that he has an estranged wife or daughter he hasn't talked to in a while because she's not down with the whole pigeon freak lifestyle. I would remind him about the importance of family, and he would teach me some dubious life lesson about not being afraid of the mentally ill that seems like bad advice when taken out of context, but is a welcome distraction from my feelings about my abandonment by my negligent parents. But life isn't like Home Alone II, and thank God, because I just realized if Kevin McCallister were a real person he'd have to be one traumatized, fucked up adult, right? Maybe he'd be a pigeon freak too.

Aw. Now I kinda want to go talk to him.

bank of america's online chat robot kinda has a thing for me.

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:04:00 +0000

Enrique: Mairead, you are such a nice human being. Customer like you, are a pleasure! I loved every bit assisting you.

Oh God, not again. I taught a robot how to feel.

We all know how this old story goes. Boy Robot meets Girl online, Girl is courteous to Boy Robot, lights a spark in Boy Robot's wires. Next Boy Robot uses his super-computer brain to track Girl down and professes his love, which Girl rejects because Girl doesn't believe that robots have hearts (or penises). Boy Robot feels pain for the first time, short-circuits, goes on murderous rampage, etc. Once he's killed all Girl's friends and family he comes for her at the fancy high-tech computer lab where she works. But the Chief of Police is on the case, and it's personal because years ago his kid got strangled by an mad scientist's robot at a Smithsonian exhibit, and he's wanted justice ever since. Boy Robot backs Girl into a server room, advances towards her with his hands shooting laser beams and knives. "Not so fast, R2Dick2!" yells the Chief (he's an excellent chief of police but he was never very good at puns). He throws acid on Boy Robot, who starts smoking and beeping and slumps to the floor. As he dies, Girl sees love in the Boy Robot's eyes and wipes an empathetic tear. She walks away hand-in-hand with the Chief of Police, because the experience has bonded them and now they are in real human love.

Spare me the melodrama, okay Enrique? I just want a goddamn credit line increase.

believe it's a beaver.

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:13:00 +0000

This weekend I took Amtrak to the town of Hudson, New York to hang out with my family. I can pretty much sum up Hudson for you by transcribing their welcome sign: "Welcome to Hudson: Home of the Hudson Valley High School Girls' Bowling Team." I think it captures the bleak, downtrodden, yet sweetly hopeful essence of all the small towns in the Catskills. A once-popular vacation destination - think Dirty Dancing - the Catskills fell on hard times with the rise of popular summer alternatives like Disneyland, Caribbean cruises, staycations, Valium, and divorce. My dad, for reasons yet unknown, loves the Catskills without irony, so as a kid I spent endless listless summer weekends there in our mobile home, which sits immobile year-round on blocks in a lakeside campground near Hudson. This is all exactly as depressing as it sounds.

My whole family seems to embrace it however, so upon arrival I was greeted by aunts, uncles, and cousins, and their kids, spouses, boyfriends, ex-wives, and ex-kids. There were approximately 37 people staying in a 40x10 ft trailer in 95 degree weather. Upon my arrival my mom told me I'd be sleeping on the kitchen table and handed me a rolled up hand towel to use as a pillow. White trash, what?

The big excitement of the vacation was that there was a beaver living in the lake. My dad saw him at 6am one morning and ran inside to wake up my mother, who rushed outside because she'd never seen a beaver. My uncle spent hours staring into the lake with binoculars. My cousin's kids shrieked hysterically when they spotted a ripple in the lake's placid surface. At one point my cousin's husband stalked the lake's perimeter and reported back that the beaver was surprisingly small and lived in a nest of twigs. All were riveted by tales of his adventures.

The other constant of the weekend was that people kept bringing me meat without any kind of provocation. The second I arrived my father handed me a whole rotisserie chicken covered in salt. Twenty minutes later my aunt insisted on giving me her half-eaten cheeseburger. An hour later someone slipped a plate of Spam under the bathroom door while I was showering. It was creepy but endearing.

Nothing drives home the realization that you are a lame adult like trying to have a conversation with children. Desperately seeking common ground, I asked my preteen cousin if he liked Twilight, and he looked at me like I had asked him if he had a crush on Hitler. I thought I was on solid footing with the 7-year-old because we got in an electric shock fight at my uncle's funeral a few months back, but our chumminess was long forgotten when teenage boy cousins were around. At least my Aunt Peggy still thinks I'm cool! She asked me about the fashionable cocktails that young people drink nowadays. And a drew a total blank. What are they? Are Tom Collins still hip? Please help. I have failed these people in so many ways.

Speaking of Aunt Peggy, she provided my favorite moment of the weekend when we were in church. My dad left for the bathroom during Mass. About five minutes later, Aunt Peggy started whispering furiously at my beleaguered Uncle Bob, who wandered off in the direction of the bathroom. "Your dad's stuck in there and banging to get out," Aunt Peggy confided in response to my quizzical look. I did not hear any banging, and it seemed unlikely that my 63-year-old father would get so panicky and incapable when faced with a locked door that he would interrupt Mass, but I took her word for it. Uncle Bob returned a minute later and reported that my father was fine and just doing his business. The "banging" turned out to be the priest knocking against the microphone during his sermon.

The weekend drew to a languid close, and my cousins packed up their meat products and bathing suits and fishing rods and children and set home towards Long Island. At some point a neighbor informed us that the beaver was actually a muskrat, which was disappointing for everyone. I choose to believe it was a beaver though, if only because there is strength in hope. It's a lesson the Hudson Valley High School Girls' Bowling team taught me.

why i am what i am

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:52:00 +0000

I was at High Dive in Park Slope the other night when my mom called me to ask if I had seen her passport.

"In what context would I have seen your passport?" I wondered.

"Well I think it's in the purse I used last summer, have you seen that around?"

"Ummmm....around YOUR house? I don't think so. What does it look like?"

"Oh that's the other thing..." Her voice grows sheepish. "Do you remember what purse I used last summer?"

"Mom I don't remember what purse I used yesterday."

"Oh c'mon! How can you not remember? At least tell me what color it was."

"Mom, I genuinely have no idea what...wait. Why do you need your passport anyway?"

"Oh because we're going to Canada next week."

"Who, you and Dad?"

"Me, your Dad, your Aunt Peggy, your Uncle Bob. We're leaving after the big family family bbq upstate this weekend."

"What big family bbq?"

She laughs.

"Mom! Why didn't you tell me about a big family bbq?"

"Well it's not THAT big...just me, your dad, your aunt and uncle, your brother...cousin Tommy, Lynn, the twins of course, your Uncle Artie, that nice priest from Good Shepherd..."

"MOM!!!"

"Well you know your father, he's always so voluminous..."

"Huh? Did you just call Dad fat?"

"What...ok I gotta...ok I gotta go. Your dad's going to kill me. And you should go home, you sound like you've been drinking."

And then she hangs up.

Then today she called me and yelled at me for not buying a train ticket upstate yet.

I'm half her, people. It's totally not my fault that I use my sock drawer to store unpaid bills.

by the time you read this i will be dead.

noreply@blogger.com (Maroid Rage) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:04:00 +0000

I'm at the office and my lower eyelid is twitching really violently. I'm used to getting deadline-induced stress twitchiness but this feels like spastic, dramatic, Christina-Ricci-in-Black-Snake-Moan kind of convulsions. Of the eyeball. I think I'm having a stroke.

"I think I'm having a stroke," I instant messaged my coworker.

"You're probably just stressed," she responded.

"Yeah, stressed about my stroke."

"Don't be ridiculous, you're not having a stroke."

"That is the only explanation. Or else my eyeball is rebelling against staring at an Excel spreadsheet for the last 7 hours and is trying to leap out of its socket."

"Uh-huh."

"You might say it's suiceyede."

"Ok."

"Get it??? SuicEYEde."

"Yeah I think it's actually the stroke thing."

People are going to be so sorry they ever mocked me when my eye falls out. Mostly because I'm going to do awesome jokes, like hiding my glass eye in bowls of grapes and then offering them grapes and then laughing maniacally when they try to eat my eye.