Sorry, Everyone

I totally don't match today. Can you please tell me why I would ever think mauve pants matched a light blue and navy mix of shirts? I hate these pants anyway. Why am I wearing them at all? The thing that most disturbs me about this situation is that I'm not more bothered by it. People are seeing me in this ridiculousness and the only time I think, "wow everyone must think I look like ass today" is when I see myself in the mirror. (By the by, I did see myself in the mirror this morning. It looked kinda funky then.) Which is actually avoided easily enough. Especially when there's a cockroach the size of my forearm in the bathroom. So...I don't match, but at least I don't have to look at myself all day. My deepest apologies to anyone I've offended.

Speaking Of The Key To Life...

...when breaking the lock repeatedly still doesn't get you what you want...

~break the whole damn door~
These are actual pictures of my front door. I wish I was kidding. I'm going to miss this place when I move, you know? The one disaster after another kinda living has its charms. Talk about timing. When I got home I was actually happy to see the door was fixed again and I had to dig out my key to open it.


(*did you notice the hole above the door knob where the old lock used to be? Ah, the good old days.)

Apparently someone was really mad they had to use a key. The facts are these:

1- 8ish A group of guys stood in the little area with the mailboxes, buzzing someone in the building and swearing loudly about not having the freedom to enter and exit the building as they pleased, despite not living here.
2- Someone comes down and lets them in.
3- 9ish The door being kicked in and a great shattering of glass sounds. (That glass is inches thick. No slamming of the door, which they were also doing as they entered and left the building, could have broken it.)
4- Another group of people immediately arrive after this and stare at the glass which is everywhere.
5- Someone from that group claims to have seen someone quickly leaving the premises.

By the time I opened my door, 6 people were in the hallway trying to figure out what happened. We have our suspicions, but of course can prove nothing. All I will say is apparently the brute has friends who are also Neanderthals.

But hey, at least this time the door knob held its own.

The Key To Life...

...is breaking the lock. Repeatedly.


There are two doorways that comprise the entrance to my apartment building. The first leads you to a little area where the mailboxes are and the second leads you into the actual building. When I first moved in the second door was permanently propped open, despite the key I (as well as everyone else I assumed) was given to open it. I live in a pretty safe neighborhood so at first it didn't bother me. But after a while I decided it was just short of an invitation for trouble, so one night I removed the permanent prop.

After a few days of an anonymous war, the door stayed closed.

That is until one day, a brute that inhabits the building apparently didn't have their key and pretty much ripped the lock out of the door. Completely. So that the door knob also fell to the floor where it remained for about a year and a half. But at least the door wasn't propped open, I told myself.

Then one evening a drunk frat boy collapsed at the bottom of the stairs and yelled for his friend to come down. For about an hour. I'm guessing it would have been longer if someone hadn't called the cops to remove him from the premises.

cop: who are you here to see?
drunk frat boy: my fren. adammm.
cop: adam who? does he live here?
drunk frat boy: no steeeevve. he's...he's here.
cop: what's your name son?
drunk frat boy: adam.
cop:...
drunk frat boy: no brandon. my name issss brandah....

And then the homeless man moved in. I don't blame him, it's warm by the giant heater in the basement, but really, if I have to pay as much as I do for this sh*thole so should he. Especially when he's warmer than I am and I literally live above the heater. Apparently having the cops kick him out didn't deter him. He came back multiple times.

Only after a few more hundred complaints did my landlord decide to fix the door. A pleasant little note went up on the exact same door he was going to fix, right next to the note from the water company telling him that the water for the building would be shut off if he didn't pay his delinquent bill. It said, "be sure to get your new key because a new lock will be installed Friday."

Yeah thanks.

Two days later, the brute pulled the door knob off the door. If you had the key, you could still open the door to get inside but if you were inside trying to get out, you were out of luck. It was soon propped open. Strangely enough, the door knob was fixed in record time: three days later by mid-afternoon.

That same evening the door knob was on the floor again, where it has remained for weeks.

Seriously? How hard is it to a) install a lock in a door and b) use it like a human being?

A Yearning

I miss Arrested Development.

Don't you?

Overheard In My Parent's House

Mom: The whole neighborhood is talking about my bush.


(Her Bougainvillea bush in the backyard.)

My Mother's Treasures Pt 3

These are the ones that terrify me:


I was mistaken. The ballernia head sold. This one did not. Hold me.


This is still on display on the coffee table in front of the TV. (I took a better picture last year.) I just can't understand why. Especially considering how much fun I make of it every Christmas.

My Mother's Treasures Pt 2

These are the ones I remember fondly or should want because they are akin to family heirlooms due to their age:


The wooden calendar was in my father's "office", or small room off the front hall filled to the brim with every single magazine he subscribed to going back to 1970, every encyclopedia set he purchased (there was more than one), and every CD, tape, vinyl record and piece of stereo equipment to play them on he owned. No one ever changed the date but me and I only did it every 2 years. (It now sits on a shelf in front of one of his sets of encyclopedias that surprisingly made it to Florida.)


This was also in my father's "office" and I loved it. I knocked it off the pedestal many times trying to rock it too hard. There's something very soothing in the teetering of a metal stick figure on a horse with big balls for hoofs. (Pictured here now also in front of yet another set of encyclopedias.) I often wonder if my dad had any part in the decor of his "office".


These three figurines, another picture my mother told me I should take, are old. I mean early twentieth century old. Apparently one was owned by my grandmother, another by a great aunt and the third by a great uncle. Which belonged to who (whom? - sorry, too lazy too look it up) was not discussed...Weird! I just had a memory flash of this little glass case in my grandparent's old apartment in which these three figurines sat for years. Or at least the cat. I kinda sorta remember the cat.


The coi. I can't remember a time this was not on the wall. Which wall is what escapes me now. Was it in the downstairs bathroom? Was it over my father's bureau in my parents' bedroom? Quite possibly both at one time or another? It was just always there. Every day. A little piece of Asian decor that survived the great Native American refurnish of '88.

My Mother's Treasures Pt 1

These are the ones I want:


The brass ducks are gone. Or so she thinks. There's a slight possibility they might be packed away somewhere still. They are actually in an episode of Freaks and Geeks. There's a scene where Lindsay walks by a table in the den where I could swear the mama and baby brass ducks I so long for are placed...Perhaps I could get them from the props department. IF all are gone, these wooden ones will have to do.


This metal cat sat on the ledge in front of the fireplace for as long as I can remember being alive. After they moved down to Florida it found its home here among the borrowed books shelf. When I finally have a fireplace this cat will be near it. It's like my familiar. Or something.


My mother made me take a picture of this. She told me it was painted by my grandmother in 1972. How could I resist that?


This is the Caribou my brother and I will not fight over because I'm extremely generous and will let him have it. It's pretty cool though, no? Sans Christmas cat of course.

Here's The Thing Though...

"Michael Jackson reportedly underwent emergency surgery after his young son accidentally punched him in the face..."He was whacked in the face accidentally by his younger son Prince Michael II while playing around and part of Jackson's upper lip collapsed. "That mishap led a hysterical Jacko to make a beeline for the plastic surgeon for a bit of quickie repair work."
-imdb.com

his lip collapsed?

how does a lip collapse exactly?

Did You Feel That?

The movement of my heart up into my trachea?

Yesterday I got into the elevator with a couple of co-workers and after we stopped on floor 16 to let someone off, the doors closed and the box dropped 5 floors. We work in one of those buildings that has different elevator banks for different floors, and floor 11 is not one that opens for our bank. However, our elevator still tried. In a panic we started pressing buttons until we began moving again.

We told the security guard who promptly replied, "thanks for telling me," and proceeded to do nothing about it.

We assumed he must have heard that story a few times that day and already called it in.

I think I still have a little heart caught in my throat.

Did You Hear That?

It's the sound of a law suit waiting to happen.

Can we please take a moment to discuss how absolutely terrifying this is?

I'm pretty sure I would have peed myself if I had been walking alone on this street and heard that.

It's bad enough I'm constantly visually assaulted with advertisements, but using my head as a speaker?

That's got to be breaking some kind of law.

A Small Preview

The monkey was moved. I almost had a heart attack because it wasn't where I expected it to be. Alas, it has not yet been sold.