I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to chimps
January 11th, 2008
‘Cause that happened last night, and I’ve been sneezing all day. That’s probably not how allergies work, huh.
More on this later. It involved Conan O’Brien.
Extreme DR: Insect Edition
May 1st, 2006
Earlier this morning, I did the EW recap of last night’s Desperate Housewives. It probably makes no sense because while writing it, I was literally shaking in my chair in fear of what turned out to be a small moth that had entered my tiny apartment through the wide-open window that I haven’t shut for eight days. TO AVOID THE TEDIUM OF THIS POST, SKIP RIGHT TO ITS CONCLUSION.
When the moth came in, I didn’t notice. (I can focus really hard on staring at a blank document, as long as I don’t have to actually do anything to it.) But then I heard a really rapid clicking noise, like what you hear when something gets caught in an electric fan. I jumped up and tucked my legs under my butt, as if that would help, as if the creature making the noise might try to attack me from the floor and I would be ready.
I’m trying to decide if “clicking” is the best word for the noise. It could also have been ticking or flicking. The point is that a constant “ick” sound was resonating through my apartment. I’m not embellishing! The apartment is very small, and I swear this was very loud. “Ick-ick-ick-ick-ick.” Agghh! THINK ABOUT IT!
At times, the noise would cease, and for some reason I’d get worried. By this point, I’d resigned myself to having a houseguest, so I couldnt’ just forget it and move on. Even though the ick-ing was ridiculously unnerving, so was the thought of the thing slinking around on foot, defecating on my possessions or worse, eating my food. I would not stand for this. I wanted it out, which meant it better start making more noise so I could figure out where it was.
So when the ick-ing would suddenly cease, I’d wave my arms wildly, play my coffee table like a bongo, and attempt to simulate “wind” with my mouth. Just blowing into the air wasn’t cutting it, so I grabbed a near-empty water bottle and went to town on that. Still no response. I think my low point was when I started asking the creature where it was, out loud. “Where are you?” It began as a whisper, but after it was so rude as to not respond, I decided to bark it out. “Where? Come on? What the f—?”
I finally started rolling around on my chair just to provide some noise and let the creature gather what a powerful force I (compounded with the chair) could be. I realize now that this probably woke my downstairs neighbor. Okay, I also realized it then. Yes! Courtesy.
Then I finally saw it and it was a small moth. Lame! And yet I became terrified of the thing, simply because it was constantly moving and I was not. If we were at war, it would win based on activity alone. It was fighting so hard and I was just sitting here, frozen and staring, wanting so badly to kill it but knowing I had something important to do and that I should try to ignore it.
None of this proved too productive on the writing front. Insetad of focusing on the present and the task at hand, I could only think about what life with the moth would be like a few hours from then. When I’d try to fall asleep, would the moth still be in here? Would I even attempt to sleep if it was? I was positive I wouldn’t. I decided I had to kill it. The story was due at 6, but there was a moth in my studio that absolutely had die at 4:55. Priorities. I’m telling you.
It was all or nothing. I’d either kill the moth and then write the story, or I’d do neither. Instead of being scared that I’d get in trouble or seem unprofessional for turning in the story late due to moth-killing, like a normal, professional person might do, I felt a sudden sense of relief. If the story turned out horribly, at least I’d have a really valid excuse. I was 100% preoccupied… by a tiny insect in my room. Totally acceptable! Definitely.
LONG STORY SHORT: I killed it in under two minutes. I faced my creature, backed it up against a salmon-colored wall, and whacked it unnecessarily hard with my paperback copy of A Drinking Life by Pete Hamill. It was amazing. He would have been proud. Or disgusted.
I’m aware that this has all been really weird and sad. Tomorrow I’ll be more acceptable. Reset. Hello May!
How do you deal with unwanted houseguests?
Pigeons and Crack: The NYC you never wanted to see
May 20th, 2005
I’ve about had it with the freakin’ piegeons. I used to get rid of them by banging one of my 17 remote controls against my window, but now they’re so used to my presence that I’m not even a threat to them anymore. Sometimes I even open the window with a flourish and let out bloodcurdling screams. They just dart their heads back and forth as if something might be a little off, but that’s it. GOD!
Also filed under Things I Hate But Photograph Anyway for Shits & Giggles… DR presents this girl, her thong, and her Pooh tattoo. I hate to admit this, but I actually just spent two whole minutes debating whether the photo should be displayed to the side of the text like most of the pictures, or whether it warranted an entire column’s width. I went with the latter:
If you’re so turned on right now and feel the urge to save this image to make it your desktop pattern, you’ll notice that I named it “buttcrack_pooh.jpg.” Nice. Was she being ironic?
I am really, really mean. And probably losing readers by the tens by posting this. It’s something no one’s supposed to see, and my partner-in-crime Kate and I had to go and capture this atrocity with the triple-zoom. But you just can’t turn down the opportunity to snap a crack when one’s staring right at you. About a month ago, concerned reader Dee made a post demanding to know WHY I was so obsessed with putting SEC (Someone Else’s Crack, you know, instead of SEP, Someone Else’s Problem) on my personal website. I believe my exact response was “Mom, we live in a society. It’s just what people do.”
Huh? I’m not sure what it means either. But in that spirit, DR would like to extend a Call For Buttcracks. It’s sort of like a Call For Papers, which occurs in graduate school when prestigious universities hold conferences and need people to read at them. Well, this presitgious purveyor of Crack is holding firm on its SEC policy and needs people to send in their sightings. Happy hunting.
Note: I’m aware that the above photo does not contain VISIBLE Crack. But when the huge thong (and such a large portion of it!) is all up in your biznass, you really can’t tell the difference. And if you call this “covered-up Crack,” then I beg to differ. This is Crack! Say hello! Deal with it.
Add “Pigeons ‘n’ Poison'’ to my campaign platform
January 31st, 2005
There are at least 10 pigeons gathered on my two windowsills and the two directly across the five-feet alley. They will not shut up. They’re making this woo-ing noise. It’s awful. It’s like what I imagine people hear in their heads just as they’re about to die. “Deathbed: The Soundtrack” or something. Oh shit. I’ve just jinxed myself. Please, if I’m dying, crank up the music. It can suck — it can be like those cheesy ’80s mixes that everyone loves (because “how can you not!”) but I hate. Anything but this. This is torture. I haven’t even fallen asleep yet. It’s 7:15 in the morning.
Just when I think they’re about to let up, one starts up again and then the rest “catch on” and become the chorus for the most awful song imaginable. I literally wish I could kill them. Look at me in the left corner, glaring at the pigeon and scheming. This is intense.
I probably couldn’t actually kill them. As soon as I opened a window, they’d fly away, and if one happened to fly into my apartment, it’s more likely that it would end up killing me. I just wish there was some sort of homemade poison pigeon-killing concoction, like an over-the-counter thing I could whip up in my one medium-sized pot and smear onto the entire side of my building. Maybe even superglue — the squawking would be horrible for a few days until they died, but at least their friends would have learned their lessons and I might get some cool digital photography out of it.
Speaking of CDP, this is the best (and worst) thing I’ve ever seen on Gawker. I don’t approve of security guards watching DVDs, but I wholeheartedly admire the person who took that photo. I’d probably mess it up by using a flash or something. Harold and Kumar. If that’s for real, it is truly priceless. Good thing that when I slack off at work, there’s no one sneaking behind my back and catching me in the act. Oh wait.
Finally, I’d like to extend a giant F-you to winter, courtesy of DR fan D.R. It must be from somewhere in Boston. My thoughts exactly.
Fruit flies strike back… online!
August 7th, 2004
At the risk of sounding like a bad stand-up comic, which is still one rung higher than a bad sit-down writer, what’s the deal with fruit flies? I now host an entire army of them. I gather that they “go to where the rotting food is,” as someone told me on the phone. Brilliant!
That’s fine. I’ll take the trash out. My question is, where do they come from? Do they just hang out under the floorboards or between bricks in little colonies, waiting for me to throw out the bags of salad mix I buy and refuse to eat? Is it possible that they spontaneously materialize WITHIN the trash can once the produce has been deposited there?
I know the latter option is a stretch. But think about it: isn’t it a little more settling to imagine bugs forming themselves within a receptacle in which you can sustain their lives than to have to cope with the idea that they are everywhere, all the time, possibly staring at you while you eat caramel brownies and then furiously do your situps?
As usual, I didn’t bother to look something up before blabbering about it. Check out this explanation garnered from the creative Google search - get this - “where do fruit flies come from”.
| And once they’re established in your house, they can sustain themselves on an impressive range of nutrients. They can live on the slime inside a sink drain. They can flourish on a sour mop. They’ll eat damp flour or food fermenting quietly in a crack in the floor. They’ve even proven capable of existing on a diet of alcohol fumes, their bodies deploying a special chemical that converts the alcohol to nourishment before it can poison them. |
Okay. I’m sorry, but isn’t the imagery in that paragraph like, alarmingly harsh? I seriously think the writer was trying to freak people out. It’s almost like he’s on the fruit flies’ side, calling their range of nutrients “impressive,” having them “flourish” instead of just existing, and noting the miraculous “special” capability to thrive in the face of poison. Way to go, fruit flies!
I can only conclude that the paragraph was written by a fruit fly. No human is that sympathetic to the cause of insects. And I can understand how, since people are really annoyed by fruit flies, they’d want to sort of prove their worth with powerful adjectives and a heroic tone. They’re all, “Take that, humans! We can infest the Internet, too!”
Positively Bleecker Street
June 17th, 2004
Today I signed the lease on a studio apartment in the West Village for July 1. I am PUMPED. Granted, the apartment has roughly the same square footage of all of the mice I have caught and killed in my current apartment (if you laid their glue traps side by side on the floor). Oh wait. That’s actually pretty big.
Just to stick it to my current apartment’s management company, I’m laying down even more traps so that if they really want to show my apartment, potential tenants will be too freaked out to consider it. I am actually including this tidbit in the letter I am currently drafting, which states my imminent need to evacuate and includes a hotel bill for a two-week stay at the Waldorf.
Here I am, larger than life in my new neighborhood:
Is there anyone as self-obsessed as me? I dare you to provide me with a link proving so. (Hint: visit any other blog.)
The Wendy’s homestyle chicken strips are hit or miss. Tonight’s taste amazing, but maybe that’s because I paired them with a “spring mix” salad. With fries and a small Frosty they sort of lose their glamour.
