Things I have to stop doing

Accepting dates with people I have no interest in.

Falling in love with the wrong people, thereby forcing myself to accept dates with people I have no interest in.

Watching shows like "I Hate My 30s" and "Scott Baio is 45... and single. The first one makes me want to kill all other women my age just to get them to stop bitching about our collective age and the second makes me want to kill all men over 30 for being the reason other women my age are so annoying.

Grabbing my friends boobies. It entertains me but it embarasses them and it gets creepy boys all excited.

Talking to my cats. Until they come out from behind the goddamn sofa and talk back they do not deserve the benefit of my friendly conversation.

Being a racist. I'm not actually a racist but the other day when I told some crazy lady she was in my way (standing IN the fucking doorway -- don't make me go off on this again) she called me an Asian-hater. I just thought I hated rude, insensitive people who stand in fucking doorways while people are trying to get on the train. But, no, thanks to her perceptive observation I now know that I hate Asians. I'm surprised that after 31 years living in New York City I never knew this before -- thank GOD I met crazy door lady when I did.

Writing sarcastically about racism in my Myspace blog. Because some people are not gonna get it and will probably think I really hate Asians.

Drinking so goddamn much. 'Nuff said.

Tiny little claws

I would like you all to be the first to know that tonight I welcomed the two new members of my family -- Henrietta and... well, the second kitten doesn't have a name because I wasn't really expecting her. I thought I might take two but I thought I was getting a boy kitten as the second, and I was going to name him Rufus. My cousin Frankie spit-tagged that one so I got two girls.

I'm trying to get inspiration from her behavior thus far. My aunt and uncle have been keeping these kittens for the last four months -- the mama cat lives with them. Henrietta wasn't easy to get in the cat carrier. We chased her all over the house. But the other one actually climbed the walls to avoid getting in the carrier. She was a like a cokehead being forced into rehab. Ya think I can name her "Junkie"? Or "Coke-Fiend?" Maybe "Lohan"?

Anyway, now they're curled in two little furry balls in the back of the cat carrier, not even breathing for fear that I will touch them or make them seperate from each other. Or maybe they're in there plotting my imminent death. Probably I'll fall asleep and they'll come in the bedroom and slit my throat with their little tiny claws.

I guess two cats at once was a bad idea but I kept imagining Henrietta sitting in my boring apartment all day with no one to play with. She got used to playing with five other cats at my aunt's house. How would she adjust to being all alone all day? At least now she has her very own sister.

I'm gonna go close the door to my bedroom now. Lohan's a wild one -- you never know what she might do and I have clothes that I'm really attached to in there.

Reasons why I am allowed to punch other commuters

I need to get this off of my chest. If you feel the following message applies to you, consider it a public service announcement from New York to you.

It is IMPOLITE and ANNOYING to stand in the doorway of the subway car because you don't want to move into the car and have to be close to your fellow passengers. In fact, it doesn't even matter WHY you don't want to move in. I don't care if you're getting off in two stops. I don't care if you can't speak English and you don't understand me politely asking you to move so I can get on or off the subway. JUST MOVE. You don't belong there. We allllllllllllllll are more comfortable leaning on the door than we are holding onto the pole crawling with bacteria in the middle of the car. But we can't. Because people need to be able to walk THROUGH the door and you standing there PREVENTS THAT. My new rule is if you are standing in the door that means you are some kind of masochist and we, your fellow straphangers, are all allowed to punch you as we are forced to squeeeeeeeze past you.

You are also asking to be punched if you lean on the pole that other people are holding onto, squeeze into a seat your fat ass can't fit in and spend the entire ride with your leg on top of mine or decide that your elbow belongs in my side while you read the newspaper. This isn't your living room. If you want all the room in the world as you commute to work in the morning spring for a taxi.

I think I need a vacation.

Reasons why I am allowed to punch other commuters

I need to get this off of my chest. If you feel the following message applies to you, consider it a public service announcement from New York to you.
It is IMPOLITE and ANNOYING to stand in the doorway of the subway car because you don't want to move into the car and have to be close to your fellow passengers. In fact, it doesn't even matter WHY you don't want to move in. I don't care if you're getting off in two stops. I don't care if you can't speak English and you don't understand me politely asking you to move so I can get on or off the subway. JUST MOVE. You don't belong there. We allllllllllllllll are more comfortable leaning on the door than we are holding onto the pole crawling with bacteria in the middle of the car. But we can't. Because people need to be able to walk THROUGH the door and you standing there PREVENTS THAT. My new rule is if you are standing in the door that means you are some kind of masochist and we, your fellow straphangers, are all allowed to punch you as we are forced to squeeeeeeeze past you.
You are also asking to be punched if you lean on the pole that other people are holding onto, squeeze into a seat your fat ass can't fit in and spend the entire ride with your leg on top of mine or decide that your elbow belongs in my side while you read the newspaper. This isn't your living room. If you want all the room in the world as you commute to work in the morning spring for a taxi.
I think I need a vacation.

Everyday life of an ordinary oblivious American

I spent the entire afternoon wandering midtown Manhattan with my client's digital camera taking short videos of "everyday life for an ordinary American consumer" -- people getting in cabs, getting on buses, buying lunch, queuing up at Starbucks, buying unreasonably priced seperates at Banana Republic. It was a bit annoying but I found out something rather surprising about my fellow New Yorkers. You know how people are supposedly paranoid about terrorist plots? Not so -- I filmed office buildings, public transportation, the freaking giant and highly bombable 42nd Street Library -- you know, the one with the big lions. No one even blinked - not even when I was filming them. And I did film lots of people -- I followed people down the street to Pret A Manger. I filmed some guy sitting on the library steps reading a newspaper. I was right next to this other guy leaning against the plate glass window of Starbucks and I filmed him for like 15 seconds.

If someone started filming me I might shove their camera up their nose. But that's just me. I get annoyed when I see newscasters reporting "man on the street" segments -- they're always in the way while I'm trying to get to work.

Maybe these people didn't notice I was filming them? Maybe they are the most oblivious people on the face of the planet? Maybe they are so wrapped up in their little worlds that they don't care why some strange girl might be filming them? It just scares me that these are the same people who are expected to alert the authorities if they see a suspicious package left on the subway -- 'cuz they might not notice it to report it.

Says the girl who just last week walked into a closed subway door because she didn't look up from her book in time to notice that, although the train had stopped, the doors hadn't opened yet. Yeah, that was me.

Leave the sign alone

This was the sign that was laminated and taped on the wall on the door of the bathroom stall in the ladies' room at my new favorite bar, Dusk.

"Ladies, if the toilet paper runs out, please inform us so that we can replace it. The fact that we are men means, only, that we don't come in here that often and not that we are insensitive... If you like this sign enough to steal it (god knows why but you won't be the first) please don't... Please, please, please don't make me go to Kinko's again."

The other day, as I was walking back from getting my daily lunchtime salad, I spotted a rolled up pair of lacy purple panties in the middle of 7th Avenue the other day. Spotting them forced me to think about little to nothing else all freaking day. At one point did the woman wearing those panties decide that she just didn't want to wear said panties any more? Were they riding up her butt and she just couldn't take it anymore? Did she decide she just need a little air up there? The possibilities are seemingly endless, don't you agree?

In my family, baseball is like a religion. In fact, I'm pretty sure my mom would be more likely to accept an interfaith marriage than if either my sister and I were to marry, let's say, a Red Sox fan. Needless to say we take our season tickets very seriously and we are loathe to miss one of our regular Sunday home games. So you can imagine how hungover we had to have been this morning when Jess and I couldn't get our asses to the Bronx to make the 1:00 pm game time. And what a game to miss.

We celebrated Ron & Joe's engagement party in Jersey yesterday with grain alcohol and chicken parm. It was fun to see everyone. In fact, I had so much fun I think I'll wait a while before smacking Ronnie in the back of the head for making everyone RSVP in April as if he was trying to get an accurate head count for a state dinner with the fucking QUEEN. I mean, he is a queen but that is beside the point.

Afterwards, I ended up at Sullivan Room. If, like me, you are a former club kid but in your old age you would rather shave your head than set foot in another club, check this place out. Good DJs, low-key vibe. Just don't do what I did and drag your drunk, sorry ass all the way up the stairs and out into the street before you realize you left your bar tab still open and your credit card and ID with the bartender. On my way back up, I realized that the banister was no longer secured into the wall and I nearly bit it walking up the stairs. Would have been an interesting, albeit not surprising, way for me to kill myself.

In other interesting developments gleaned from my nightlife experiences, lately I'm like catnip to boys who are bit too young for me. Must be something in my perfume.

I nearly drank myself into a coma last night and now I have to go to Jersey for an engagement party. Thank God I love the people who are getting engaged otherwise I would not bother stopping myself from puking on their lawn.

Last night one of the grooms (there are two) texted me to tell me to bring a bathing suit. What the hell kind of engagement party is this, you ask? The kind thrown by Evite by my dear friend Ronnie -- who, although usually detail-oriented and slightly anal retentive often forgets to mention crucial elements to his guests until the last minute. I bought a dress and heels for this shindig. Bathing suit?

I swear to God, if I wake up one more Saturday with snippets of memories of things I did and said floating around my sad little brain, I'm going to run off and join a convent or something just for the fact that it would give me new stories to tell. My life is like one long episode of... some show in which the main character drinks herself into a stupor and then has seemingly meaningful conversations about love and life with people she barely knows and wakes up the next morning to a splitting headache and the nagging feeling that she embarassed herself and her friends somehow. It could be called "My So Called Hungover Life" Or "Sunnyside, Queens 11104. Or "Saved by the Beer...The Hungover Years". I'll work on a title and get back to you.
Something tells me I wouldn't even make it through pilot season.

Morphine makes Mom sleepy

My poor mom. Another national holiday in the hospital. I swear if she was stolen she couldn't be sold for spare parts -- 'cuz none of them work.

As most of you know, she was in a bad accident about 7 years ago and since then she's been in and out of the hospital with various lingering injuries. She gets these cortizone shots for the pain in one of her knees (which by the way, she hurt long before the accident -- because clutziness toootallly runs in the family) and -- wouldn't you know it? -- she had some kind of allergic reaction to it or some kind of infection because of it and we had to rush her to the emergency room on Sunday night. I say "we" but really I met her there -- when she was being packed into the ambulance with my aunt and my crazy uncle in tow I was at Yankee Stadium watching Andy Pettitte get his ass handed to him. Oh, and did I mention I was drunk at the time? Anyway, that's been my week so far.

I hope you all had a better Fourth of July than I did. I spent it watching my mom sleep off the effects of a morphine drip, drinking tea in a hospital room. But at least I didn't have to go to work.

I heard, tore your faces right off

You know that scene in Beetlejuice when Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin come back from visiting Juno, the caseworker, and they think they're in another room of the hallway they've been walking down and then they realize they are back at their own house but it's completely different than when they left? I relive that scene every night -- I wake up, look around in the dark and don't recognize my own bedroom. It takes me a minute to place my own furniture, come to the realization that the long skinny thing on the floor is my bra where I dropped it before I went to bed and then I can relax because I know where I am.

I guess changing addresses three times in less than a year will do that to you.