3-month hiatus

I’ll tell you what happened. Every New Yorker’s nightmare. Bed bugs. Also known as (per my roommate’s metaphoric genius) house herpes.

Not that it’s taken 3 months to rid my apartment of them, but the experience left me traumatized. I knew I had to write a ‘good riddance to the bugs’ post, but my PBBTSS (post bed bug traumatic stress syndrome) seems to have restricted me from writing about the critters…and just about everything else!

So this is it. The time has come to take the bugs by the antennae, and get over this writer’s (that would be me) block. I’m not a very superstitious person, but somehow a fear of jinxing myself and securing the nightmare’s recurrence turned into somewhat of an insurmountable obstacle to regular blogging. Of course, I should have just skipped the bug post instead of allowing my blog to stagnate, but I just couldn’t. The bug post had to be the gateway. Inexplicably.

But now I’m avoiding the subject again. Basically, this post is about making it. Making it and moving on. Making it through my first New York City summer. Which doesn’t seem very difficult at all (given the good weather, free events, great vibe), until you are covered with very itchy bites despite having crossed the path of very few mosquitoes.

One dreaded Thursday evening mid-August, a professional exterminator inspection confirmed my fears, and I spent Friday night, Saturday and Sunday washing and tumble drying everything fabric in my apartment (clothes, curtains, canvas bags, cushion covers) and inspecting/bagging/labeling everything else.

The exterminators came Monday and $700 (2x mattress bed bug proof cover, 2x box spring bed bug proof cover, 1 extermination) and a couple of follow-up inspections later, we were supposedly in the clear, but certainly not psychologically. For weeks after I had the phantom sensation that bugs were crawling all over me, all the time. My roommate suffered sleepless nights until she sprinkled a homeopathic remedy all over the apartment in an attempt to regain her sanity and slumber.

The good news? If you rent in NYC, your landlord’s responsible for covering the cost of the extermination (though not the mattress covers). The bad news? I’m already starting to get a little itchy penning this post!

I still cross to the other side of the street when I see a discarded mattress on the sidewalk. (You all saw ‘The Bug Apple’ Metro cover this fall.) And I will never shop in a vintage clothing story again. But with hope, this post will do away with the bug writing hex, as I’m itching to write about regaining childhood fearlessness, the jaded traveler, online dating, the magic of marge and hibernating tattoos. Fingers crossed!

Summer in the City

Yes. This is the right time to figure out how to embed a slide show into my blog. But wouldn’t you much rather scroll down, then click through?

Thought so.

It’s officially summer (in fact it has been for almost two weeks),

but it’s still raining an awful lot…

Luckily, even rain has its advantages.

To be fair, we have had some sticky-thigh sunny days,

but we are looking forward to a whole lot more.

New York summer stories (x-rated)

NY summer story 1:

Last Saturday, five girls – dolled up to party – gathered at a newly moved into, sixth-story studio apartment in the East Village (belonging, of course, to one of the five). One – not the tenant – was visibly upset over a boyfriend’s decided lack of consideration. Amidst glasses of chilled white wine, make-up touch-ups and an engagement tale, words of comfort, confirmation and advice were proffered. A couple of cigarettes on the narrow, street-facing balcony drew the attention of two of the girls to a fire escape across the avenue, where two rather naked individuals – a girl and a guy – loitered, intertwined. The girl waved nonchalantly, seeming not to mind the attention.

The inhabitant of the sixth-story studio, upon finishing her cigarette, came back inside, pronouncing her neighbors’ state of undress. She asked her guests not to ogle, as the girl and the guy were, after all, her new neighbors. Which, of course, led her guests to ogle, which – in turn – seemed to excite the new neighbors, and within moments, the girl and the guy were, well, at it. She standing in front – pressed against the railing – and he behind, thrusting rhythmically – the two were indisputably mid-coitus (though ironically, somehow lacking in abandon). Despite the sixth-story studio’s tenant’s mounting protestations that her guests not stare, it was hard not to experience the fleeting New York moment fully, hard not to indulge the couple’s apparent wish to be watched.

Later, one of the girls thought that had she not had four witnesses (and a blog in which to record the details), the episode would retreat – absurdity slowly taking out reality – into an area of the brain reserved for mere fancies, imaginations, half truths and urban myths.

Additional thoughts: This is not having sex in a public restroom, on a dark rooftop or on a deserted meadow in the country, where the excitement comes from “WHAT IF someone finds us? sees us? stumbles upon us?” This is having sex for all of New York to witness, where the excitement comes not from a ‘what if’ but from the certainty of an audience.

NY summer story 2:

And, speaking of exhibitionists, a friend was recently killing some early-evening time on St. Marks, when a guy in a car said, “Hey, do you know of any good exhibitionist clubs around here?” Somewhat intrigued, she shook her head no, but asked for clarity and found out that – or at least according to this guy – exhibitionist clubs involve all patrons stripping down to their skin upon admission.

“By the way,” the self-identified exhibitionist queried, motioning netherwards, “do you want to have a look?”

“No,” my friend shook her head, ready to walk on, but the exhibitionist had recognized her intrigue and played to it, piquing her curiosity, convincing her to have just a quick peek. She walked up to the exhibitionist’s car, expecting an unzipped fly, thinking this is sure to make for a good story, but found instead that the exhibitionist wore nothing but a shirt. Aghast, she decided (rather wisely) that it was indeed time to move on, despite the exhibitionist’s additional supplications that she maintain her, er, eye-contact, until he had finished.

My friend got the distinct impression that the exhibitionist spent his days driving around Manhattan bottomless, in search of a spare set of eyes to humor his fetish. She got the impression that to him, this kick was indeed better than sex, and that to whom the spare set of eyes belonged did not matter an iota – as long as they were willing to watch to the end.

Thoughts: It’s the summer. It’s warm. People dress more provocatively. They feel liberated. And horny.