Baby, It's Cold Outside: or, winter shennanigans in NYC

Ah, my lovelies, life has returned to normal after all the holiday jibba-jabba and the ensuing travel to exotic locales (Vegas and Boston). I've slept a lot for the past week, and now things are returning to their normal, frantically-paced rhythm. This week is outright insanity, and next week looks like it will be about the same, but my birthday is coming and I am gritting my teeth and determined to stay chipper.

The city is also settling back into its usual, bat-shit insane self. I've been seeing and hearing some interesting stuff lately, which I thought I'd share with you:

1) Last Wednesday, after a panicked morning of almost-guerrilla-style-because-it-was-so-low-budget filming for pornocracy, I was on my way to work at about noon. The subways at noon on a weekday are pretty deserted, so there weren't many people on the platform at 86th Street. I walked down toward the end for some seclusion, but as I walked I heard singing from behind me. I slowed down to hear it, then turned around. Two men, one on either side of the platform, were making music together. One, who I couldn't see because he was behind a column on my side of the station, had turned on some sort of background music, I'm assuming on a boombox, and had begun singing "Easy (Like Sunday Morning)" in a slow, jazzy style. Another man, on the uptown side of the station, stood and lazily beat the snare drum he was carrying, and sang back-up vocals. It was beautiful. Even as the trains came into the station and cut them off, they kept singing. I could see the backup singer's face through the flashing windows of the train.

2) A few days later, I was once again on my way to work, around 10:30. I'd ducked into a Starbucks, which I rarely do, to grab some coffee and yogurt for breakfast. I'd just been poked with needles, drained of blood, and told to take more medicine, so I was not oh so very happy. As I was stirring some milk into my cuppa Joe, "My Girl" by the Temptations came on the store's sound system. I don't know about you, but that song has got to be one of the best songs ever recorded, in my humble opinion. It gets me dancing, or swaying, or toe-tapping most the time, and it gets me singing every time. So there I was, singing away in Starbucks, stirring my coffee. One of the baristas came over to inspect the counter and supply situation; she was singing, too. We stood side by side for a moment, singing, before she stopped and looked at me with a huge smile. "You're singing, too!" We laughed and I left for work in a better mood than I'd been for days. Music really is amazing.

3) On Friday night, I watched "Bukowski: Born Into This," probably one of the best documentaries I've ever seen in my life. I was pretty drunk and I talked through a lot of it because I was in such a good mood, but the long stretches of Bukowski reading his poems jagged into me like a fishhook. I'd read Bukowski before, and I could recognize his genius, but sometimes the brutality, the alcoholism inherent in his poetry and especially in his novels, got to me and made it difficult. But hearing him, really, for the first time. His slow, nasal but very soft, very quiet, very measured voice, the rhythm of his poems, the bare and shocking truth of it. It really got into me. I spent the remainder of the night talking about what it is that makes real art, and how Bukowski's pain was the mark of art. And how the scary thing about Bukowski was that he was such a gentle man who longed only for peace and quiet and above all for love, but could not find it on this earth and so was turned into a nasty, violent, belligerent old man—and yet how, at any moment, he could burst into a beauty so fragile, in tears or honesty, that he could lure in a butterfly to his fingertip.

4) On Friday night, I went to see my favorite singer/songwriter/poet/novelist Simone Felice. He was doing his first ever solo acoustic set of whatever songs and poems and prose he felt like performing for us, in the tiny back room of the tiny Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. It was... Well, you know what, I'm not even going to try to describe it. Because some things are better kept locked up inside to keep warming you up than aired out so they can lose their flavor. Like soda in a bottle. I want this to stay bubbly in me. But, suffice it to say, all my musings on art and what makes it real were there in front of me, singing away and bringing the whole room together in a way that was stunning to experience. We sang together, and I got so deeply hooked that I almost had to get up and go cry in the bathroom for the beauty of it all, but I stayed where I was and soaked it up. Afterward, I gave Simone a vial of Fairy Dust and this poem by Bukowski. It's exactly like that soda-bottle feeling. It was the first full moon of the decade.

Where Do I Work? or, stupidity on the subway (no surprises there)

This morning on the subway I found myself standing close to a woman who may or may not have been on the train with a friend. She was talking to someone, but that someone wasn't really answering her when she spoke, so I'm not sure if they were together of if the first woman was just crazy.
Also, she was saying, "I'm trying to remember where my job is. I wrote it down in my notebook that's at home. Is it 28th or 23rd Street? I know I have to take the 2 to the 1, though, so I'm good on that."
Now, it's very likely that she was going to a temp job or a freelance job and had just gotten the call and so had forgotten. But, isn't it rather important to know one's work destination before leaving the house? And also, we were on the 5 train, not the 2. I kept expecting her to notice every time we came to a stop and the announcement said "This is a Brooklyn-bound 5 train," but she just kept wondering aloud whether she was supposed to get off at 28th or 23rd. I figured since she was willfully ignoring the announcements and her "friend" wasn't informing her that she was on the 5, which goes down the wrong side of Manhattan, it wasn't my responsibility to set her straight, either.
I just moved further down the car to avoid her.

Eulogy for my Euth: or, mindless self indulgence

There is a steady stream, almost a triumphant parade
Of stumbling buffoons like crumbs along the sidewalk,
A constant flow of retards in whom
I have no interest, no common thread.
I would like for them all to learn how to walk
Or, better, to evaporate into a cloud of subpar intelligence,
Then rain back down, purified into sophisticates.

I remember when this happened,
When this lack of romanticism became a real void in my soul.
It was down that long, empty, straight line of two-lane highway outside Pekin,
When I was trying to force myself to cry,
Expecting that those tears would send up some kind of primordial beacon;
Expecting my phone to ring.
But had he called then, as I wept myself away from him,
It would have been just the other side of too late. It wouldn't have really hurt.
I'd have flown back to him, dried those homing beacon tears,
Curled up inside him if he'd let me,
And settled into his chest cavity,
A blight and an emptiness already, but trying to force the sweetness he'd used up,
Wanting and working to recreate a childhood whimsy
With no whim to build on.

It had been a long time coming, this stony gaze of mine.
Chinks in my soft, fleshy armor had appeared long before.
The bitter Midwestern winters had whipped away the baby smoothness,
And the abandonment of a dear friend had formed a few scales.
But the coldness in my blood was just cooling down;
I was tepid, I guess.

But those wild moments in the middle of the blackest plains nights,
The feel of him near me, the memories crashing into foam against the present...
It was enough to make me feel again the the rush of my unfettered self,
To cry and to mean it. To want something so deeply I felt myself cave in around its absence. To explode into pinpoints of starlight with someone. Or even alone. To wonder at those stars, and try to discern them.

I nursed the possibility of keeping myself as raw as he made me.
I thought of it as I walked to work.
I wrote feverishly, painted nightly.
Listened to out-of-control music too loud.
Even as he drew away, and the coldness of my lonely living room floor stared back at me, so beige it made me spill paint all over it to love it again,
I relived those moments on the wide open prairie, wedged a lump in my throat to keep myself wide open, too.

But the baby-soft skin was shed, the scales and reptilian slowness were creeping in,
Along with an indifference I felt in return for him but pushed down beneath the joy.
I needed this feeling, this ululation and terror, I thought. It kept me young.

And then that night, alone and frightened in a foreign room, it snapped.
The grey force of reverse evolution, the fighting force in my genes overtook idealism,
And down came the high hopes, stifling the wind in my hair and plugging up the leaks in my eyes.
I stopped crying for him. I stopped crying for anyone.

Unexpected phone calls and the occasional reverie
Will bring a far-away tension in my guts even now,
A kind of echo of something that once was,
And was something that is far past the word "glorious,"
Up there in the realm of Biblical awe.
There was this feeling in me, for him, for the world through all that I felt.

But these days,
With the idiots bumping into me in the almost-as-bitter New York winter,
The crush of holiday crowds drowning out the sparkles of expectation,
I feel it really only now and then, in goosebumps,
And often, ice-pick-like, in the glittering of her eyes.

It Had to Happen: or, I hate Tourists

Ok, I'm sure this is trite in the way that, say, people in LA bitching about constant sun is trite. ...Do they do that?... Well anyway, the point is: I just HAVE to complain about the tourists. Ok? I just do. I have to vent.

I work in midtown, on 57th between 5th and 6th avenues, on the same block as Bergdorf Goodman, which I usually enjoy because everyone around is super classy and the window displays at Bergdorf's are beautiful, and it's near the park, and FAO Schwarz is just a block away, and generally it's pretty sweet. There are always a fairly high percentage of tourists tooling around 5th Avenue, but generally they stay in small clusters that are navigable, except around Rockefeller Center, which I only have to deal with once a week or so. They're annoying, but they're dealable.

But THIS time of year... I mean, I know the Christmas store displays are fantastic (Bergdorf's are off the hook this year--the men's side of the street has set pieces and models from The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the women's side has an Alice in Wonderland theme), and I know that FAO is a great place to shop for kids, and I know that lots of people have time off around now so they're just roaming around, looking at things, and I know that the giant Swarovski crystal snowflake is hanging RIGHT over my intersection at 5th, and I KNOW it's so exciting to be in New York... But...

Ever hear that phrase, "When in Rome..."? Well, in New York, the Romans are busy people dressed in black who have places to be at specific times and they are usually late to begin with because the holiday traffic and backups on public transportation are horrendous, so when in this Rome, do as the goddamn Romans do, and MOVE YOUR ASS. Holy crap! How is it difficult to figure out that when the thousands of people around you on the sidewalk are grumbling, swearing, and moving past you at high speeds, that YOU are in fact the problem? When you stop in the middle of a busy thoroughfare to stare up at the sky or try to find the kid you are for some reason allowing to walk unaided through a crowd of pickpockets, swindlers, hobos, and businessmen who don't give a crap if they step on a toddler, and everyone around you has to stop in the middle of their commute to avoid running into you, and they call you names, why would you look surprised? New York does not slow down for Christmas--it allows you to look at all its pretty stuff and enjoy an entirely made up feeling of brotherly love if you want to, but you need to do it quickly, or find a place that's not the middle of the goddamn sidewalk in front of Tiffany's to take your leisurely stroll, or you are going to make a lot of enemies and probably get accosted by every single homeless-people-donation-collection racket in the biz at least five times.

I swear to god, people, I don't like to be so mean to tourists. They ARE easy targets, but then again, there's a good portion of the city what wouldn't run at all if it weren't for them, and there is something to be said for the feeling of superiority one gets when realizing that thousands, millions of people flock to YOUR city just to see the sites every year. But for Christ's sake, you're TOURISTS. You don't live here. You do not own the sidewalk. You are in the way. At least TRY to fit in, or if not that, to not get in the way any more than possible. We who live here have to deal with all kinds of bullshit from our fellow New Yorkers every day, and we are grumpy enough without running full-on into the back of your light blue NorthFace parka when you slow down to take a picture of, like, a pigeon or something, because we glanced down to check how late we were to work after the train spent ten minutes sitting in the tunnels while we were smooshed in between the smelly guy and the gum-chewing woman with the really bad music blaring from her iPod and didn't see your ignobly wide ass coming to an abrupt halt in front of us. When you get called a prick by a little redheaded girl who just face-planted into your stupid, stupid parka, don't you DARE say, "people here are so rude."

Entering Old Ladyhood: or, kids on the subway

Well, it's finally happened. After years of bottling up my annoyance, I've finally let off the steam by screaming at a group of high school students on the subway. Those of you who know me well will not be at all surprised by this. Kids are annoying. And for some reason, kids in groups on the subway are about fifty thousand times more annoying than normal kids. I think it's because generally when there's a group of them together (especially on a morning train during the school year, like today), they're on a school-related trip of some kind. Freed from the enclosures and strictures of the school environment, they feel as if they've been let loose upon the city and they get all hyper and full of themselves and feel the need to:
-talk very fast,
-pack as many of themselves into as small a space as possible,
-scream to each other from opposite sides of this small space as if it were a football field,
-laugh hysterically at small jokes, say things like "snap," high five each other, and go "Oooooooohhhhh" when "snap" isn't good enough, all in unison,
-make fun of each other really loudly,
-try to flirt in really stupid and transparent ways, also really loudly,
-generally do everything at about thirty decibels more than it needs to be done at.

I hate them.

Well today when I got to the train platform, I could see a group of them--probably middle schoolers--about twenty strong standing where I usually stand, with a few chaperone-y people hovering around. I assiduously avoided this area of the platform while waiting for the train.

When a 5 finally came along, about ten minutes late, I was already annoyed because I was going to be late for work and because it was raining and I was soaked, and because it was morning, and so on and so forth. And then, just as the train was bearing down upon me, ANOTHER group of students showed up in the station and positioned themselves right behind me.

I couldn't run, I couldn't move to a different car. There was no time and I was running late. So I just shoved into the car as fast as possible to try to distance myself from the mob of shrieking, "snap"ing, obnoxious children. Instead of escaping them, however, I ended up merely plowed into by their solid-group formation moving into the train car at maximum velocity. Pushed forward by the group, I reached out to grab onto an overhead bar to stop the flow and brace myself because the train was so full there was literally nowhere else to go. I couldn't move in any farther--everyone had already moved in as far as they could. I had to stand my ground.

But the young bastards behind me didn't care or notice and continued to push into the car. I strained against them, pushing back with my shoulders while holding my arm as straight as possible to avoid being pushed forward onto the people sitting down in front of me. They kept pushing, kept pushing, kept pushing, all laughing maniacally, shrieking, yelling, completely ignoring the fact that they were almost knocking people down. The strain on my arm became so great that I was actually afraid it would break; it was getting painful. My one hand had been hurting all morning anyway and now the strain being put on it that it was white-hot with pain. They were soooo loud. They were CRUSHING me. I could feel the anger and annoyance of years of dealing with stupid kids on the train welling up, like in those cartoons where the person's face gets redder, like a thermometer, before finally...

I burst. I whirled around on them and screamed at the top of my lungs, "Oh MY GOD, STOP IT!!!"

Immediately the pressure building from behind me eased up. A young lady behind me looked at me with big eyes and said, "I'm sorry," then looked away. The group went silent.

I turned around, seething, and stared at my reflection in the window. I looked crazy. But the kids were quiet. I could stand up.

At the next stop, the lady who had been sitting in front of me got off the train and I sat down to examine the kids. They were still in their tight group, standing closer together than necessary now that the train was a little less packed. And they were all standing as far away from me as they could get without moving to a new spot in the car.

They stayed that way for the rest of the trip.

I have successfully entered Grumpy Old Ladyhood. It feels ok. I'm gonna go ahead and start shopping for creepy old houses with gigantic porches and yards with the potential for spooky overgrowth.

Foot guy

There is a man who rides the 5 train in the mornings who I simply cannot figure out. He is almost always in the second car from the front, sitting on one of the long blue benches in the spot nearest the center doors. His age, ethnicity, and motivation are beyond me. He appears to maybe be white, but he is pretty tan-ish, and there is something in the way he looks around that implies that he is not American by birth (this may sound silly, but the longer I'm in New York the more I find I can actually pick out the foreign people from a crowd by their mannerisms and bearing). He wears a diamond earring on the right side, and he has shoulder-length, sparse, wispy, but very well kept, straight white hair. Light eyes that move around constantly. He seems to be interested in everything going on around him; it's difficult to get a good look at the guy, actually, because he's so alert that every time a head moves in his direction he notices and turns to look. I've found myself looking him square in the eye many times. But it's difficult not to want to look at him, because here's the thing: he is always barefoot. I don't know why. Nothing about him suggests extreme poverty or homelessness--he is always clean, his feet in exceptionally good shape, not particularly dirty or gross. He wears nice enough jeans, rolled up to just below the knee, and everything jutting out from below the cuff is bare.
He is always in the same place when I get on the train, and I have never seen him get up from his seat. He usually has a black drawstring bag under his seat, and I've tried to sneak a few peeks at it to see if there are shoes in it, if maybe he just likes to be ON the subway barefoot, but puts on shoes before he disembarks? From what I've seen it doesn't seem lumpy enough to contain shoes, but then, every time I try to look at the bag, he notices me and looks up and I feel awkward and look away. Someday I'd like to go over to him and ask him why he never wears shoes, but a crowed train early in the morning just never seems the right time or place...

New York Gears Up for Halloween: or, almost a bum-fight

Yesterday when I left work to go to my night class, I heard some inarticulate shouting from down the block, but couldn't see its source. Intrigued, I approached the sound, and as I got closer I discerned a hobo, complete with shopping cart full of plastic bags-o-crap, arms raised to the heavens, shouting out incoherent witness to the Gods of Bums.

Just then, another hobo, sitting discreetly against an abandoned building with a coffee cup full of change some fifteen yards away and watching the first hobo, started yelling back!

It was a showdown:

Hobo #2: Shut UP! Shut the fuck UP!

Hobo #1: (continuing his earlier conversation with himself) So I said, what you wanna take my coat off? You want me to pull my pants down?

Hobo #2: SHUT UP you crazy motherfucker!

Alas, I was already late for class so I couldn't stop to see what kind of insane hobo antics were about to occur, but I can only assume that pants were dropped and blows exchanged.

Ahhhh, New York. You're ready for All Hallow's Eve.

An Update on NYC: or, weird things I've seen lately.

1) Yesterday, in Central Park, two dwarves walking together. Maybe brothers? I guess it doesn't sound so impressive in writing, but honestly, how often do you see that?

2) Also yesterday, a man came into the gallery with the most amazing set of mutton chops I have EVER SEEN in the flesh. I've only seen better photos because I've looked up pictures from international beard competitions. His facial hair--and his eyebrows, too--was bright white, surprisingly wispy, and at least three inches long.

3) Last week, outside FAO Schwarz, I got stuck on the sidewalk behind a very old couple (think upwards of 80) who were walking excruciatingly slowly. I got annoyed and moved to go out around them before realizing that the woman had BRIGHT BLUE HAIR. Like cerulean blue hair. It was AWESOME. I wanted to stop and tell her how much I liked it, but of course I chickened out instead.

4) Dan Akroyd.

5) Some other pseudo-famous lady whosename I dont know, but whose face is extremely memorable. Think big, inflamed looking chipmunk cheeks and short brown hair. Old.

Another Story and Another Column: or, shameless self-promotion

In case ANYONE reading this hasn't gotten an e-mail, tweet, FB post, or MySpace bulletin yet... I have two publications to show for one week, NOT on Whack! Magazine! Check it!

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Conflicted Existence of a Female Porn Writer: Column Two: Desensitization

And:

The Whiskey Dregs: Short Stories: The Old Goat Man

Now that that's over with, I've been considering the merit or not of the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are Movie. I don't know how to feel about it. On the one hand, it looks like a great film so far, and I have the utmost respect for Spike Jonze, as a director, as well as for the fact that Maurice Sendak's wishes are being realized by him directing this movie. He apparently once said that the only way he'd agree to his baby being turned into a movie would be if it were to be directed by Jonze.

So that's all well and good.

But still. It irks me on a number of levels. I'm always hesitant to see a book turned into a movie, particularly if it's one I grew up with. But this one bothers me more than others. For one thing, the book is so beloved by so many, not for the merits of its movie-length plot, but for its sparseness. It's a book with so little background and so little development of the plot that one must bring one's own imagination and experience to it in order to make the story whole. And one's own story must be a good one to match the incredible possibilities and the astounding artwork. And that brings the best of the imagination of everyone who reads it.

Of course I appreciate Spike Jonze's vision, and I think his version of the story will probably be one that will be eminently artistic and enjoyable. But. It's still HIS. From the time this movie comes out, every kid who's seen the movie (there will be MANY) will bring with him Spike Jonze's idea of the story, the characters, the background, the sounds, the sights we don't get to see in the pages. And that bothers me with this particular book because it has always been the opposite of a fleshed-out, pre-imagined story. And now it will be just like Harry Potter or Twilight or The Lord of the Rings. Well, ok, not JUST like them, but one person's vision of it will come to dominate the entire story, book, movie, idea. And I don't like that.

Furthermore, I feel like this movie was cooked up by some producers who looked at my very specific part of my very specific generation. They looked at the books we love, the music we love, the directors we love, and the type of movies we love, and then they said, "You know what would be perfect? Turning 'Where the Wild Things Are' into a live-action style movie and getting Spike Jonze to direct, the singer from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to come up with the soundtrack, and the Arcade Fire to let us use their anthem about growing up in the trailer. The twenty-somethings will line up around the block to see it, and they'll bring their kids! We can't lose! It's a money-making machine!"

I might be totally wrong about that. It's just as likely (and I've obviously done no research about it) that someone really really loved the book and really really loved Spike Jonze and The Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and thought that together they would make a beautiful piece of art. And you know, they probably will. But I get this feeling that I'm being led by the nose because being who I am, at this point in my life, at this moment in time (post-college fugue, frustrated creative visions, yearning for childhood feelings, wanting to be swept away to a better world without a recession or even money), I HAVE to love it. I don't like being led by the nose, even if the people at the other end of the leash are creative geniuses.

I dunno. I guess it just seems contrived to me, and too much awesome in one place.

I'll probably end up seeing it and loving it, but hating myself for it the whole time. Grumble.

What do you guys think? Support it? Love it? Hate it? Meh?

In other news: my coworker Maribeth saw John Turturro on the street today. I am way jealous. This lady has never even SEEN The Big Lebowski! Not fair.

But I DID see this after leaving work: a mid-twenties white guy sitting in traffic in a very nice Chrysler convertible, with the top down in 50 degree weather, smoking a cigar, and listening to "With Or Without You" at full volume. Way to go, guy, for blasting the music you REALLY love.

Just Another Day In Paradise: or, boobies!

I just walked past two women who were wearing jeans but no tops, holding pink balloons, walking down 6th Avenue and telling people (like me, because started clapping when I saw them): "It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month! Tell someone you love!"

...God, I love New York. Oh yeah, I'm all about pink.

I've Changed: or, the slow slide into degeneracy

This afternoon I was at work, sitting here typing away, when two of my coworkers came in from outside, flushed and breathless and giggling. "They're filming Sex and the City outside!" they grinned. "Kim Catrall was like 2 feet away! Up on 58th Street! So cool!" I smiled. "Oh, that's what all that equipment I saw them setting up was for. I thought they were done filming in this part of town," I said in response. "Well you should go check it out!" they cried, and went back to their offices to tell their other colleagues about their great fortune.
I shrugged and considered asking Kate to come watch the desk while I went and gawked. But then I just went back to work.
Yesterday afternoon, I got a call on the gallery phone from a familiarly deep voice asking for one of the directors. As is my custom, I asked who was calling. "Sylvester Stallone," he replied. "Ok, just a moment, sir," I said, and put the call through.
And then went back to work.
A year ago, I'd have been shitting myself over these stars. I'm still pretty impressed that over the course of two days I've had the chance to interact with at least two very major celebrities. But the thing is, I'm not dying over it this time. I've got other stuff to worry about.
And yet. And yet... last night I went to see the cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia live on stage, performing "The Nightman Cometh." I paid an obscene amount of money to get tickets after they'd sold out in minutes. I laughed and grinned until my face hurt during the show. And afterward, I went and stood in a huge crowd, getting yelled at by security people and shoved into from behind, to see the stars come out of the theater entrance and go to their bus.
Granted, I actually had a purpose for this (I wanted to give one of them my card because I really think they'd like the webisode I'm working on, and getting an endorsement from Charlie Day, who took the card and flyer I thrust at him, would be pretty much UH-MAZE-ING), so I wasn't just being a crazed fan. But still, looking back at the past two days, I realized that I've gone from a reverence for slightly edgy feminine banter about relationships and big burly men in action movies... to practically worshiping a group of people who got famous by screaming about poop at the top of their lungs on TV.
I'm not sure how I feel about this.
But then, I look at the artistic and intellectual achievements of Sex and the City and, say, Rambo, and I don't think I'm far off in saying that It's Always Sunny probably has a lot more artistic integrity than either of them. I can't really put my finger on why exactly, but I think I'm right. Maybe it's because the writing and performing in Sunny is so utterly brilliant and smooth, and that the actors are also the writers and producers of the show. I have a huge amount of respect for people with that kind of talent and dedication and willpower (the amoutn of willpower, that is, required to turn your show about booze, rivalry, poop, and creepy sex into a runaway hit and be involved in it on every creative level). I think Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howard, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito are true artists with a vision so far off the beaten track that it can't be anything but brilliant. And I guess I feel good about them taking precedence over Sly in my life.

...Sorry, Sly. You know I love you. But what have you done for me lately? Next time you call, ask me out for drinks.

Awkward moments in NYC: or, the Blue Guy

Ok. It's lunch time, kind of, and it just took me 45 minutes to eat a salad because the phone would not stop ringing, people's ordered lunches would not stop arriving at my desk, and other random people kept showing up and asking dumb questions... You'd think on a 65 degree, windy, rainy, Friday, maybe people would want to lay low and chill out, but apparently they prefer bugging me when I'm trying to eat.

And don't give me any of that "They're not really out to bug YOU" crap, because I know they are. Everyone is out to get me, people, and if that means calling and bothering me to such a degree that my brains actually explode out of my ears from the pressure, they'll do it. They're out to GET me. Remember that. Especially the slime molds.

Anyway, so I'm in the midst of my frantic running about/answering phones/signing for packages/smiling at whoever comes in/arranging messenger packages/blah blah blah, when in comes The Blue Guy. He's been in here a bunch of times, and I think I've even blogged about him before. Now, when I'm in the midst of my frantic trying-to-stuff-my-face-between-calls mode, it's easier to take things in stride because I already look frazzled and a moment of blank "Oh my god" staring might not be taken as rude. But, it's really hard not to stare at this guy. He's bluish grey ALL over. He's like the color of "steel blue" crayons. It's weird to see someone who looks like that. It makes you step back for a second and stare, then pretend not to stare.

I find myself doing that a lot in the city, where strange looking people abound. Sometimes staring is kind of warranted, like when you see a girl dressed in an insanely slutty outfit at ten on a Tuesday morning for no apparent reason, or a hardcore punked out kid on the Upper East side or something--people like that obviously WANT to be stared at in some way or another. But then there are people you're not supposed to really stare at, ever, but who it's hard NOT to want to examine. Especially "little people" or those in wheelchairs, disabled people who are making a fine display of themselves as they go down the sidewalk, flamboyant people (there are LOTS of ways of being flamboyant), and even really ugly people sometimes. And Blue Guy, of course. You want to stare, but you can't. So you look away and walk on by.

But then, when I'm walking by, I always think, "What if that person is offended that I DIDN'T look? What if he thinks I'm ignoring him and thus his condition, which he represents to the world?" So I try to look for a second, maybe do a short nod of acknowledgment, and move on. But then I feel really awkard cause I hate making eye contact with ANYONE on the street...

Ah, whatever. Blue Guy just left and I'm already bored with this topic.

Anyway, I'm off to PA for a day and a half, then back to the city to grind out a few more days. SO busy at the moment - deadlines looming, casting to be done, promos to put together for our promo PARTY next weekend, columns to write, agent queries to work on, books to read, homework to do, and general madness to try to kepe at bay.

Till next time.

The kind of morning I have to write about: or, surreal as all hell...

I won't pretend to pass this off as a post that has anything to do with any kind of blog theme. Truth is, I haven't had much time for those lately, and even when I do I've been so brain dead from all my other projects that I can't come up with anything, and I've been so wrapped up in my work and thoughts that I haven't been paying much attention to what's going on around me. So the blog has been dry.

But then, this morning, some cosmic ray or something showed up in my life. When I woke up I was in the midst of a dream involving me, my older sister, my father, and some other random people being stranded on a tropical island of some sort and seeking shelter as a storm approached. We had to wade through a swamp, past a calmly dozing row of gigantic crocodiles, and when we hit land I turned around to realize that my father had been eaten by one of them while pushing my sister out of the way. The rest of us sat to discuss what to do from there, the storm suddenly hit and we all had to run for cover to avoid being hit by lightning. There was some sort of massive half-built structure that we aimed for until we realized that it had no roof, so we had to alter our course for the trees ahead as the wind whipped up around us and the rain started pelting down. Just then I woke up, but wanted desperately to go back to sleep so I could see what would happen next. It was like a movie.

I got up and ran around crazily to get ready for work, somehow not having time for breakfast, but packing a huge lunch/dinner since I have my first session of a proofreading and copy editing class tonight at City College - my first in a series leading up to a Certificate in Publishing - and I won't have any time for dinner. So anyway, I started walking to the train very fast and heard a honk from a nearby car as it goes through an intersection. I assumed the driver was warning whoever might be at the stop sign going the other way that he was coming, but as he got up closer to me he slowed down and honked again. Ugh. Annoying. Eventually he took off again and I kept walking, only to catch up to him again as he was stopped further up the street at a red light. At which point he started shouting at me out of the window. What a nice guy. My name, however, is not "Mami."

So I got to the station right on time, only to find that my train had already passed. Way to go, MTA. Early trains are just as bad for most of us as late trains, you know. Running ahead of schedule will NOT make us like you more.

Anyway, I finally boarded a 2 train and found a spot next to an old, very angry looking Spanish woman who smelled like she was wearing an adult diaper, and that diaper was probably about due for a change. At Grand Concourse/149th I switched to the 4 train, which took its sweet time coming. In the meantime, I found a spot to stand right under the broken pipe that leaks water down into the train station all day every day, and wondered how long it would be before the ceiling caved in. I glanced down the platform to see a man with a big belly standing on the wrong side of the platform, shirtless, and talking to himself.

When the train finally came, I found a spot to stand right where a guy got on at the next stop, mumbling to himself. Great. Just what I needed. Turned out, this guy was a poet who had self-published 3 books and was selling them for $5 a piece on the subway. He spouted off some of his poetry, and it was GOOD. Not Pullitzer prize winning material, but good. I'd have bought a book if I'd had a $5 bill on me, but alas. One poem I remember is:

"The Quickest Way to Get to Riker's Island:
Take the D express train
Down to 34th Street,
And throw a brick,
Through the Macy's plate glass window."

Cute, right? So anyway, I was watching him walk down the car, selling his books and spitting poetry, and noticed as he passed a gentleman sitting, fast asleep, on one of the bench seats. He had that skin condition, the name of which always eludes me, in which his pigmentation varies in big blotches all over from black to pink. His mouth and chin and the tip of his nose were pinkish white, as was the skin around one eye, while the rest of his head was deep chocolate brown. The patterns gave him the appearance of having a muzzle, or a snout. But he looked peaceful. I noticed other people on the train looking at him, and I couldn't blame them--he was asleep after all, so he had no idea we were staring, and he was a singularly interesting looking person. I wondered if he was only pretending to be asleep to avoid the stares. Or if he was so used to them that he could relax enough on the train enough to pass out.

I got to work early, somehow, after being convinced I was late the whole way from the train. When I got in, the phone immediately started ringing and it's hardly stopped since, but I was told first thing by the guy who brings the newspapers to us on the second floor that our front desk man for the building, Steve, who has been a fixture of my mornings for 2 years now, died of a heart attack when coming up out of the subway on his way home last night. He was 54.

It struck me. Wow. No retirement party. No easy golden years. This guy who kept the building running, honestly, just stopped.

For some reason, every one of the weird events of this morning has just struck me as something significant. It's made me think about all the remarkable and weird things I've seen and done in my life. How everyone has these stories. How any moment, those stories could be silenced. It makes me want to call my parents and every person I love.

And of course it makes me want to blog.

Quick update: or, kind of unimportant ramblings after vacation...

Well, it's my first day back to work in the Big Apple after almost a week at my parents' house in the country. I hesitate to call it an actual vacation, since I spent my time there alternately running around between friends' houses, doing research for my book, working on some copy due this week, corresponding with editors, trying to track down a certain adult performer who forgot about our scheduled interview, attending a 1 year birthday party, and planning, preparing for, and executing a gigantic surprise birthday party for my parents. It was, to put it mildly, not exactly relaxing.

But, you know, when I came back to the city yesterday afternoon and was immediately pissed off by a woman in the subway who barked at me to move into the car even though I had literally no room to do so, then returned to a laundry-ridden apartment and a noisy street outside that made it difficult to sleep, I realized that even when I'm busy and stressed at my parents' house, having those crickets chirping outside sure does get one relaxed at the end of a long day. I don't know if it's just because I grew up with cicadas, crickets, frogs, owls, and all other manner of night-time fauna singing me to sleep, or if there's something inherently soothing abou their song, but I slept like a ROCK every night I was there, and last night could hardly keep my eyes shut for more than an hour.

Maybe I'll get one of those noise machines I've always scoffed at people for having in the past. My block is really very quiet, comparative to some others I've walked down at night, but there are always cars going by with their music too loud, alarms going off somewhere, and the inevitable late night mron who thinks that doorbells and cell phones are too high-tech and that screaming somebody's name outside their building is the best way to get their attention. A nice white-noise machine with some crickets might help me keep my city tension under control...

But, in other news, I have a fun, kind-of-NYC story to relate. It's only fun now that it's over, but you might find it interesting. On my journey back to the big city yesterday, my train stopped for 35 minutes in Philadelphia while the engine was switched. Before we got going again, a friendly middle-aged guy came and sat down next to me. He was a bit fidgety, but was reading a book called "The Poet's Handbook" or somesuch, so I decided he was pretty cool, and drifted off to sleep for a bit. When I woke back up ten or fifteen minutes later, I heard the oddest sound. It sounded like a muffled, high-pitched, conversational murmur, and it seemed to be coming from the guy next to me. As if he were having a closed-mouth conversation with himself. I pretended to be asleep for a while, listening, then made a pretty big show of waking up, hoping that it would shush him, since the sound was decidedly creepy. It occurred to me that perhaps the murmuring was his poetic process; maybe he was reciting a developing poem in his head, or working through the cadence of a new piece. But to me, it sounded as if he was talking to someone with his mouth closed.

My movement did shush him, but only for a few minutes. He fidgeted madly for a bit, half-standing and then sitting again, clutching his book against his chest, waving it in front of his face and thumbing the pages distractedly, before starting in on his murmuring. I ignored it, opened my own book, and tried to lose myself in its pages, but within a few minutes, his agitation had grown, and from the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of him slapping himself lightly on the cheek repeatedly, murmuring all the while.

This was getting a bit scary. The overall impression I was getting was that he was talking to a voice in his head, and was trying to slap it into submission, or to shut it up. Either way, I was not exactly comfortable sitting next to him. His fidgeting looked frantic, almost desperate, and the slapping was a bit over the line of what I'd like to call acceptable behavior on an Amtrak train. I briefly considered trying to talk to him, in hopes that it would distract him, but I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing or startled him too much, I'd send him right over the edge.

As it turned out, I just ignored him as well as I could for the hour and a half back to New York. It was not easy. When the train stopped, I waited until he'd already gotten in line to get off, placed a few people between him and myself, and waited until he'd already gotten to the escalator to get on it. All things considered, I suppose that if he
was hearing voices, he handled himself pretty darn well, but I was still just about as uncomfortable as I've ever been on a train. Poor guy. I hope he at least gets a poem out of it.

Musings: or, New York is a relaly weird place...

So today I was thinking about how I haven't seen that many interesting New York things lately. I like reporting on weird people and happenings, but nothing has stuck out in my memory lately as being particularly weird or funny. New York seems to have grown lethargic in the heat.

But then I realized I was just being stupid. It's New York. It's summer. Weird stuff is happening all over the place. I've just been so wrapped up in the craziness happening in my life that I wasn't paying enough attention to the following things I've seen over the past few weeks:

1) A man walking a miniature long-haired Dachsund and a Great Dane at the same time. This spectacle was so hilarious that I reached for my camera phone but didn't get it out in time to snap a picture. Trust me, it would have convinced you once and for all that if an alien landed somewhere and saw these two dogs sitting next to each other, it would have no idea they were of the same species.

2) A man in a wheelchair pulling himself along with his very-much-working feet, at 1:00 am in Harlem.

3) A man in a wheelchair with an American flag sticking up off of it and who was missing one leg, which was apparently being replaced by a traffic cone.

4) An old man passed out asleep on a bench in Astoria in 85 degree heat... first at 6:00 pm, when I walked by on my way to my friend's, and again at 7:30 pm, when I walked by again, on my way to the bus. How he could have stayed asleep in that position for that long, I have no idea.

5) Barbara Walters, who was crossing Madison Ave this morning as I was going the other way, on my way to work. Or, if it wasn't her, she could have been a body double.

6) A man dressed all in purple, with a purple wig, playing a purple saxophone in the subway.

7) A woman wearing spotless new dark blue jeans, a bright yellow and immaculately clean fleece shirt, and with a fresh French manicure, begging for change in the subway because she was reportedly "broke" and trying to get food for her family. Ain't nothing 'broke' about your manicure, honey.

I'm sure there are others, but they've slipped my mind at the moment. All told, though, I guess my past few weeks haven't been so ho-hum as I thought.

With that, I'm off to spend a week hiding out in Pennsyvlania and working my butt off on my new column, some interviews for a new publication I'm working on, and so on and so forth. I will also be feasting on fresh corn from the fields, whoopie pies, ham and bean soup, chicken corn soup, and tomatoes straight out of the garden. Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

The great mosquito conspiracy: or, I am really itchy...

The mosquitos are in league with somebody, folks. Some force of evil out there has caught on to my prophesying and has hired a force of mosquitos to hunt me down and persecute me mercilessly for trying to warn the masses about their plans to kill off humanity. It might be the slime molds; in their multi-species proclivities and doom-mongering depravity, they would seem to be rather well disposed toward going into cahoots with a group of blood-sucking, still-water-loving jerk-offs like mosquitos. But then again, it could be the robots, because they know it'd seem unlikely for them to team up with any organic life form and therefore I might not catch on to their little scheme. Or, god help us, maybe it's the slime-mold robot! God, I hate that guy.

Anyway, the point is, I'm wise to their game, whoever it is that's overseeing it. I'm no dummy. I know the difference between the acceptable number of bites I can expect to get in an evening of sitting outdoors in the city. For me, the number is higher than it is for many, since I've always been a mosquito magnet, but it hovers somewhere around 3. 10, however, is unacceptable, abnormal, and extremely f-ing uncomfortable. Especially given that on the night in question, during which said 10 bites appeared, I was with a group of at least 6 people at all times, none of whom have told me they are suffering from a single bite. Furthermore, for much of the time in question, I was seated in a beer garden the size of a football field, surrounded by hundreds of other people. There is no way that my 10 bites are proportionate.

And, yes, I know it's been a wet summer, leaving more than the typical amount of standing water sitting around in the city and leading to a lot more mosquitos than there usually are in the urban colossus. I know this. But even my usual high level of attractiveness to vampiric bugs, multiplied by the above-average number of the little monsters hanging about, still does not equal the overwhelming number and intensity of bites I'm trying to cope with in this hot weather. It's just not mathematically correct (yes I've done the math, but it's way too complicated to post up here. Most brains just can't handle it.). These bloodthirsty cretins are after me, specifically. I'm certain of it.

I know it sounds paranoid. I was thinking maybe it was. So last night I put my theory to the test and took a chance on walking outside in a friend's backyard to see his tomato plants. It was around 11:00, and we stood out in the garden for less than 2 minutes. When I went back inside, I told myself that if I didn't have any mosquito bites, I'd let the mosquito-robot/slime mold theory go. If the bastards aren't really out to get me, I'd be unlikely to get a bite in such a small amount of time.

Well. When I walked back in and looked down at my knee, there was a mother-f-ing mosquito ON IT, sucking out my lifeblood. 2 minutes, people. 2 minutes of outdoor activity (during which I was constantly swatting the air, running my hands over my limbs, etc, in pre-emptive fear of blood-letting), and I was already a banquet.

That's it, you bastards. I'm on to your game. You will NOT drain me to the point of hospitalization, thereby shutting down my warnings about your plans for world domination and doom! I will not leave my readers in the lurch of your evil scheming! Anopheles quadrimaculatus, you, your gang of buddies, and your robot/slime mold employers will not bring me down!

I bought some bug spray, dammit. And I'm using it every time I step out the door. For all your scheming, mosquitos, you're pretty easy to repel with storebought spray. So take that and shove it up your proboscus! I'm armed and ready. Bring it.


(Post Script: I figured all this out last night and am now carrying my bug spray in my purse, displayed prominently near the top to warn the suckers that I'm not afraid to fight back. Well, whoever it is that hired the mosquitos to track me is apparently on top of things. This morning, at the 59th and Lex stop, I got literally attacked by a COCKROACH. They're bringing in the big guns. I was walking toward the staircase to the street, and a cockroach the size of my big toe suddenly came running at me--me, specifically, out of the entire crowd of people!--from across the stairwell. Well, screw you guys. I can carry Raid around, too, if you want.)

The underutilization of English majors: or, how I plan to make a living...

Well. I have not been posting much lately, and I do apologize. I've been going through an intense period of thinking about my writing as per its career aspects, and where I'd like to consciously take it from here. It's been quite overwhelming and stressful, and I've been pretty busy to boot.
But I think something is afoot. Last week I purchased a new computer, which will arrive in a day or two and hopefully make my life as a would-be writer easier (the one I have now will no longer work unless hooked up in just-such-a-way to one single socket in my apartment and no other, nor will it connect to the internet, no matter what type of connection I try to establish; its Graphics driver has stopped working, and I think it basically just wants to die, so I'm letting it), I'm embarking on several new projects (co-producing, casting, story editing, and generally helping a friend with his awesome webisode, taking night classes in Illustration and publishing starting in a few weeks, and working with a musician on an album), and... oh my god, you guys... I just accepted a year-long, once-a-month column at McSweeney's Internet Tendency!!! AAAAHHHH!! I'm a writer!! Holy crap!!!

!!!!Exclamation points!!!!


...ok. Now that that's over with. There's a reason I'm exposing you all to my own self-congratulatory festival. Namely that, with all these projects and classes going on, I'm looking at my schedule and thinking: "This is nuts. How am I ever going to make time for all this without going crazy?" And, of course, since I'm at work, my brain is giving me sneaky answers like: "You're probably going to have to quit your full-time gig at the gallery." Which, my other, less sneaky, brain answers with: "That's ludicrous. How could we ever pay our bills?"

To which my third, more rational yet also creative and fun brain, answers: "Work the English major angle."

Ok, I know some of you are probably snorting with laughter at that. "What English major angle?" you're giggling. "That's no angle at all!"

And it would seem you'd be right.

But think about this. When's the last time you walked down the street, drove down the road, or even sat down at a restaurant without seeing a grievous error in spelling, grammar, or punctuation? I might see these errors more often than others because I live in a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood, but I'm sure many of you share my annoyance when you're handed a menu at a decent dining establishment and find an option like "Chicken Brest" or "Sasoned Rice." It's infuriating to me because I'm trained to notice things like that, and I would imagine it's mildly annoying to other people; but more importantly, it hurts a business when the people who write the signage and menus are made to look like fools to their clientele, or to anyone else who can read. Websites are even worse; I don't really even want to talk about the horrific crimes committed against the English language on the Web. But, suffice it to say...

That's where I think English majors should come in. Like many other people these days, English majors are hurting for cash and jobs, but unlike many other demographics, for English majors this is almost always the case. We're the slightly more academic Art Historians of the modern world; we have lots of practical knowledge but rarely find good ways in which to use it. Why not mobilize against the forces of stupidity? Why not take arms against a sea of idiocy, and by opposing, end it?

I think, if in my frantic writing/singing/running about this fall, I should lose my full-time job, I would march directly from the gallery over to Staples and have 250 business cards with my name and number and the words "English Major for Hire. Will proofread, edit, and correct any and all signage, menus, and online text."

I'd then go around to every business I could find and drop off my card. Simple. You pay me a very small amount, I fix your language problems. My fees would be modest. $5 for all your signs. $10 for signs and over-the-counter menus. $20 for paper menus. Maybe $.05 a word or something websites, maybe less (haven't done the math to see if that makes sense). It would benefit everyone: the business and its employees would look smarter, which would draw more clients, and the general public would be exposed to less bad English, thereby reinforcing good English.

Soon enough, we'd have a movement. English majors being paid for what they're good at anyway, making some money to pay the bills, and feeling good about their decision in college. More people knowing how to spell and use punctuation. It'd be a happier, better world.

Now, I know I'm too busy right now to start this revolution, but who knows what might happen in the next few months? If I do get kicked out of this high-falutin' gallery anytime soon, I'll start it myself. And if not: English majors, I urge you to unite! Help your less-educated neighbors learn how to spell! Become a positive force in your society! I emplore you! Please, for the sake of the Chicken Brest with Sasoned Rice.

Why I hate Abercrombie: or, gagging and coughing on my way to work.

I have about had it with the goddamn Abercrombie and Fitch flagship store, guys. It's bad enough that people--excuse me, not just people, but midtown tourists, on whom I love to lavish contempt because I'm a New Yorker and they're not, and because they clog up the sidewalk with their slow-ass walking and sudden stops in the middle of a crowded corner and cause me to almost lose my balance as I swerve out around them daily on my hurried route to and from work--line up literally around the block to get in all day every day. And it's obnoxious enough that the reason they line up for the overpriced and not-all-that-cool merchandise inside is because they post a shirtless beefcake in the store to chat with the ladies and get his picture taken. Seriously. See the above picture. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to beefcakes, and I certainly don't want to give the impression that the sight of a hot piece of manflesh doesn't get me excited, but when it's being blatantly used as a ploy to get me into a store, that kind of makes me angry. From the perspective of someone who hates to see anyone's sexuality being blatantly abused to sell stuff, it's just kind of gross.

But if those were the only obnoxious things about the store I probably wouldn't mind so much. It's the fact that apparently the lines that beefcake draws are not enough for them. Whoring out a man's body is not enough for them. Oh no. They can't stop there: they also pump the scent of their godawful cologne out of all their doors in clouds so thick that I literally cannot walk through them without gagging. It makes the entire corner of 56th and 5th reek at all hours of the day. I can't figure out how the tourists can sit/stand/lounge around for the hours they typically do waiting to get in without passing out from lack of oxygen. No, I am not exaggerating. It is really that bad. And the cologne in question is AWFUL. It's like Preferred Stock mixed with lead or something. It smells like metal and fakery and is completely unsexy. And they pump it out into the already-polluted Manhattan air like it's a tonic for what ails people.

I guess maybe the idea is that the scent of the collogne, when combined with the lure of the hunk of man-meat inside the store, will inspire in women an overwhelming pseudo-sexual urge to go inside the store and buy things. On a social acceptability level, I guess this works. There are people lined up out there all the time. But, really, it's a bad plan: researchers in Chicago have found that the smell of men's cologne actually reduces blood flow to the vagina (no blood flow, no arousal).

Take that, Abercrombie.

Some Dudes are A-Holes: Exhibit C

The other day I went to the grocery store on my way home and then proceeded to walk down Melrose avenue, weighed down by my purse and several bags, hot and sticky and feeling full of malicious contempt for everything around me, when I walked by two guys in the middle of a conversation on the corner near my house.

They were young and, one would think, had stuff to do or at least to talk about. But when I walkd by, one of them stopped talking in the middle of the conversation and made a kissy face at me, complete with lip-smacking noises.

Dumbfounded by this audacious display of uncouthe stupidity, I ignored him and kept walking. He paused for a moment, then turned to follow me with his face, and started up again with the kissy face and noises. This continued until I had crossed the street and turned the corner.

I just... I can't imagine in what world that seemed like a good idea to him. Did he think I would throw myself into his arms shouting "I love it when men make ridiculous faces at me and demean me publicly!"? Or was he just trying to be an A-hole? Cause he sure succeeded in that endeavor. But the issue I have with this idea is that as far as I can tell, the point of making fun of or otherwise demeaning another person is to make oneself look comparatively better. But this guy was standing on a street corner puffing up his face like a fish and making stupid noises. I fail to see how that gives him the upper hand, or, alternately, sex appeal.

I'm befuddled.

But also, dude was being an A-hole.

Leave the Freaks Alone: or, ridiculous political correctness overkill

I'm not sure how NBC New York decided that this was a story worth reporting on, but check out the one about the "5-Legged Puppy Rescued from Coney Island Freak Show."

Looks like a puppy mill operator decided to sell his five-legged chihuaha-terrier mix, Precious. Some "kind Southerner" outbid the Coney Island freak show operator and is being lauded as a hero for saving the admittedly adorable puppy from a life of freakdom.

It seems the fifth leg hasn't hindered Precious from many of life's joys, but since it hangs between her back legs and trips her, it has made walking difficult. According to the breeder, the dog "wasn't a freak, she was just ... born with five legs." Nevertheless, he was set to sell her to a freak show until Allyson Siegel from North Carolina outbid the Coney Island operator and basically stole the puppy out from under him. And, just to be sure she won't end up as a freak in any way, she's renamed her Lilly and is going to have her fifth leg removed in two weeks.

Now, call me crazy, but it seems to me this Siegel character is a little overly concerned about the 'freak' label. I mean, sure, I can't imagine the freak show on Coney Island is a fabulous home for 'different' animals (I've never been), and as humans we shy away from the idea of being seen as different or freakish, and all that. But who's to say the dog isn't totally fine with being a freak? Who's to say that Siegel should have its extra leg removed? Can't the dog be different from other dogs, or will that make it less valued as a pet? Or is she just projecting her own insecurities and issues onto Precious/Lilly?

Maybe this "kind Southerner" is one of those people who was a hopeless dork in high school. A social outcast with glasses and headgear who got called names and made fun of mercilessly by the other "normal" kids at the "education mill." Growing up she felt like a freak for not making the cheerleading squad or getting many dates. But as soon as she graduated with a degree in business and got a good job at some nice company, she went and had herself surgically and chemically altered so that now she's tall, blonde, and sporting DD cups. And now she goes to high school reunions with incredibly handsome men, her giant boobs hanging out of her taylored dress, to show those bitches from school who the real losers are. And she's a total douche.

And now she's forcng her brand of 'normal' down the throat of this poor, helpless, mostly functional and totally adorable puppy?? That ain't right. I say let the dog go to the freak show and learn to be ok with its extra leg, then make the decision for itself. Don't take your securities for you!