A General "Hello" (Meanwhile, My Landlady Is Crazy)

Hello, ornery women! I have been a member of this site for a long time, but up until now I have not posted anything. I believe I was busy with "stuff" and further sidetracked by "things". Mea culpa. I look forward to posting and reading other's posts until the world is wrapped in a giant hug of a post.

Meanwhile, my landlady is crazy.

Very, very crazy.

Not crazy in a fun way. She's not "wacky neighbor" type of crazy. She's not of crazy that's a little quirkly, yet strangely endearing.

My landlady is categorically bat-shit insane.

Before I go into the particulars, let me give you an idea of what we're dealing with:

My landlady is ninety-four years old, but doesn't look a day over two hundred. She's about three feet high, and dresses in the classic "crazy-old-lady chic" style: housedress, sweater, orthopedic shoes- winter, spring, summer, or fall. Her crowning glory is a helmet-sized wig of brown curls that makes little to no effort to hide her actual white, thinning hair. A friend has remarked that my landlady looks not unlike Bathilda Bagshot from Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. She is originally from Poland, and has gotten by on about three words of English: "hello", "cash", and "now". In her spare time, she enjoys rooting through her tennant's garbage, fixing vacuous gazes upon passerbyers, and waiting for death.

Her crazy first manisfested itself to my roommate while I was on tour. She accused Dana of paying her rent with a counterfeit one hundred dollar bill (she refuses to accept checks). Her proof? A photocopy of a one hundred dollar bill with a stamp from the bank marking it as counterfeit. That could be from anyone, argued my roommate (and rightly so). Our landlady rebutted with a barage of malicious, vaguely coherent crazy threats to which my roommate could only reply with stunned promise to repay the money and a hasty retreat to our apartment. I'm pretty sure she cried, but did not tell me as much.

We never paid her the one hundred dollars we did not owe her. She asked about it a few times afterwards, but otherwise accepted our rent money without further episode. We assumed that her crazy mind had driven out the notion, and life continued on as normal.

This afternoon, I was in Manhattan putting in hours at my new catering job. After the event, I checked my cell phone messages. There was one from Dana:

"Hey, La. Please call me back as soon as you can. I'm having an issue with Mrs. [Landlady], and...well, let's just say I called the police."

By the time I was on my phone I was literally steps from our building. No yellow caution tape, no traces of a struggle. All was eerily quiet. I ascended the stairs, not knowing what I would find.

Nothing greeted me in the stairwell. I enterred my apartment, found my roommate to still be alive, and asked her what had happened.

The power went off soon after I left for work. A circuit...thingy did...something and Dana had to go down into the basement to...make it better. The technicalities are not important. The basement was locked, so Dana went to Mrs. [Landlady] to get the key. Mrs. [Landlady] refused to let her in the basement and left my roommate to sit in her powerless apartment. She called her lawyer friend, who informed her that Mrs. [Landlady]'s actions were, indeed, illegal and that my roommate should call the police. So she did. When the cops arrived, Mrs. [Landlady]'s batshit truly took flight. She screamed to the cops that Dana was not as innocent as she looked, pulled the counterfeit bill card, and flatly refused to let Dana into the basement without the presence of a police officer.

All this because my roommate wanted the power back on.

I do not know what secrets my landlady is hiding in that basement. It chills my heart to think about it. I keep with me only two comforts: 1.) according to Dana's lawyer friend, we have the law on our side, and 2.) our landlady is a frail, hobbit-sized old woman, and if it came down to it I could totally take her.

Fighting the Zaca Fire

From the Line-
August 19, 07

Zaca Fire Day 12- SLAYING DRAGONS

This time the flames were the size of buildings! We're all standing outside the engine behind the dozer line when suddenly everyone starts yelling like indians and shouting "Spot Spot" and it was on. Shaffrar looked at me, "Pepaj, c'mon!" and we took off diving into the brush and tearing up the hill. The helodrop was blarring like machine gun fire. It was like being in combat, my adrenaline was pumping so fast and when we finally got in the open, the bombs started to drop.

8000lbs of water just crashed to the ground no more than 5 feet away from us with the chopper so low you could read the tail number. We all jumped in and started hotshoveling and scratching a line around the spot while someone from another engine sprayed it down. We hacked on that sucker until it was dead, and even then we still weren't breathing.

We loaded up and headed to the other side of the line, we might as well have been driving straight into hell with flame fronts like tidal waves so close to the engines that it was melting their paint. We were ON the line, the road WAS the line. Shrubs were torching right next to us and a Fire Whirl snaked its way right behind our striketeam leader. We jumped out, grabbed hose packs and tore up the green side to run a progressive hose lay around a huge slop-over. I followed Shaffrar and Embrie up the hill and plugged into the second gated wye, where Kyle was staging. Half way done with my hose pack and struggling to keep my balance, suddenly the pack flies off my back, knocks me over and sends my helmet flying off my head right in front of a hotshot team. Kyle charged the hose pack while it was still on my back!!!! Thanx man, you're a pal (punk).

No time! Grab the nozzle and go. I'm scrambling trying to stay with Shaffrar and spraying flare ups as I'm going. Holy cow, I'm fighting fire! The smoke is so thick it's making me cry and I'm trying to fan it away.

Kyle looks at me and laughs, "what's the matter, don't you just love smoke in your lungs?" Yeah, I really do, now there's nothing I love more.

Night came and the engine bumped along the road while we all walked spread out in a line beside it. I'll never be the same after what I saw tonight. The most powerful force in nature ripping and charging and tearing up the hillside like it was alive. The mountainside was on fire, crowning and torching like the hand of God. My team looked over at me and pointed to my head, "keep it up here."

I know who I am now, I know why I'm here.

Katherine and Friends: Theatre Worth Seeing

My pal Kelly's NYC theatre company, KNF (Katherine and Friends) has shows running all through the month of September, and they're only $10!!! Go check them out!

They also have a KNF MySpace page.

Support an up-and-coming NYC theatre company that I can guarantee will be a hit in the years to come, as they support playwrights and actors by showcasing great material. I can guarantee that they will take us on a journey!

See you there!

It's 2007: Why Are There So Many Homophobes?

For CHRISSAKE.

I just had to go around the corner to get some water and when I went into the deli there were a bunch of brooklynite kids hanging out...being...well, annoying and somewhat intimidating are probably two good adjectives. I mean when you have three guys that are about a foot taller than you eyeballing you like you're a piece of candy (even though I was wearing jeans and a hoodie sweatshirt, c'mon, how fucking appealing could I be?) it's a little weird. We were in line waiting to pay for our various items, and a man was in front of me - a sweet little queen who had just come in for some beer and cigarettes.

I mean, is that okay, beer and cigarettes, guys. Why give him a hard time? He was talking on his cell phone and I suppose that he was talking to a friend about his boyfriend loudly on the phone made it obvious to these morons that he was not walking the straight and narrow (pardon the pun); but maybe they would have said something even if he would have been very masculine and hadn't said anything at all.

All I know is that somebody muttered "fucking faggot" as he was walking out the door. He stiffened for the briefest of an instant. Then, he walked out the door.

Point for him.

He didn't let it get him down, didn't stoop down to their level, and rightly so; these kids are a bunch of tough Polish youths who are just looking for a reason to beat somebody up, and why not go gay bashing?

Yeah...sure...I feel comfortable inviting my Brother and his boyfriend here. I mean, I would...as long as they don't have to go to the corner store. I always feel very proud of the people who are openly queer in this neighborhood. Although I know that they are a hair's breath away from getting into some trouble with the nearly Nazi youth that seems to be the norm around here (despite all the hipsters, and to be honest, I really can't tell which is worse, but that's another rant for another evening of insomnia) but all I know is that I have wanted to beat people's asses on more than one occasion around here. Between the Latin slurs (someone actually said something to me talking about hispanic people and I just laughed as I told them "guess what? I'm half PR! Isn't that hilarious you stupid sonofabitch" - the italicized part kept in my inner voice, thank God) - and the homophobes, I sometimes go nuts.

Then I remember that in Manhattan, it's really no different - the only difference is that people HIDE it better...and when they decide to cut you, they do it in a different way. At least here in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, people wear their asshole flag on their sleeve. I almost like that better.

Oh, and the awesome pic above I found somewhere on the net during a late-night insomnia cyber journey. I wish I could say I made it; if someone knows where it came from (I have since forgot) please let me know so I can give credit where awesome credit is due.

Workday Blues

I'm sure that working in Manhattan automatically puts me in a bracket of having a job where I'm likely to: 1) Have lots of pressure 2) Work for assholes somewhere along the foodchain 3) Deal with obnoxious people, be they customers or co-workers/bosses. This latter issue is really the most tedious, especially when you're dealing with artistic assholes who think that THEIR ad layout is oh-so-very unique and that THEY should be allowed to have complete run of the place; and then you happen to browse another magazine (a mac n' cheese/vampire novel/chocolate guilty pleasure mag like Cosmo or something) and see the same fucking thing - almost verbatim.

I'm low in the food chain here, folks, so I don't really have a leg to stand on; and truth be told, I don't give a rat's ass if the person in question is just slapping another idea someone else had or if it's an honest mistake (I mean, when you think about it, is there really an original idea out there anymore?). As long as what we have for our company looks good and we do well, I'll still get my paychecks and my boss's boss will be happy. We'll get our free lunch on Fridays, I get to say that I work in Soho, I get to go to "Art Parties" (I like to call them "fart parties") and other little perks.

So, for the most part, I don't give a shit.

What I DO care about is that the person in question treats me like ASS. And as anyone knows, that kind of thing is infectious. When one person who is semi-high on the totem pole treats someone like the plague, others seem to follow suit...Even if it's for total bullshit reasons - and I would say she slept her way to the top except that she's really fucking ugly - we're talking ugly like bulldog with vd on her face ugly - and she's not that talented compared to some of the other people here, and NO, I dont' mean me. I'm catty, but not a complete asshole.

Most people here seem to still like me because I have done good work. But I have gotten really fed up with the way certain people have treated me (mainly just her) and I have to admit that it has been affecting my performance. For example? I'm doing this blog during work.

I know, it sounds like I'm just a big baby, but I'll tell you: it really sucks when other kids piss in the pool, you know? Why throw sand in the sandbox? Why bring 8th-grade antics to a job environment?

I'm the first one to admit that I can get my feelings hurt sometimes over stupid stuff, but this woman is a cunt, plain and simple.

How does one deal with issues like this in the work environment? It's one thing to say "don't let her get to you," but when you have to work with someone who you know is a fuckup and is getting promoted, whose ideas are shitty (if not completely plagurized), and who is really mean to you - how do you deal with it? We have to spend 8 hours a day somewhere 5-6 days per week...and if it's with toxic assholes...well...maybe I need to get a job someplace else.

Sigh.