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On the way into my building after my walk, I witnessed the arrest of the neighbors I suspected to be a pimp and a prostitute. They were being arrested by two plain-clothes cops, and the pimp kept yelling at them to hit him. One of the cops pushed him against a car because the pimp kept getting up in his face. I ran upstairs and watched the rest transpire from my window. The pimp basically just kept yelling a lot and the prostitute would chime in every now and then. I'm not quite sure what she did, but one of the cops slapped her in the face. The pimp screamed, "Don't you hit her!" While the cop who hit her was definitely out of line, it's a laugh that the pimp came to her defense being that he beats her all the time. It was also pretty funny that he kept screaming that he "was just doing his job." Well yeah, that's why you were arrested idiot. Anyway, I'm just glad they've finally been arrested. 08*26*07 I just got done attempting to make more room in my closet for Patrick's clothes. Even with all my dresses now under the bed, and a garbage bag full of clothes for Goodwill, I still don't have enough room in there. I guess I'm gonna have to get more under-the-bed storage bins. At least I have until Friday to make more room. Patrick and I went to karaoke on Friday night. We met up with some of his friends and all got to sing at least one song. Towards the end of the night, pretty much everyone had cleared out of the room and it was just us and a few of Patrick's friends still left singing...but mostly Patrick. I'd like to say it had something to do with him being very drunk, but I think that would have been the case regardless. Anyway, we had a good time. Unfortunately we had to get up pretty early the next morning for the exterminator to investigate my bedbug problem. He didn't find anything, but he sprayed around my bed and in some other corners anyway. After he left, Patrick and I put my mattress, box spring and pillows in allergy covers I had just bought. Then I vacuumed everything like a mad woman. During all of this I never saw one bug, not even a cockroach. So maybe I never had bedbugs to begin with, but at least if I did, they're now trapped inside the covers. Next weekend Patrick and I are going upstate to his friend's house for a barbecue. I'm looking forward to that. We're a little nervous about leaving his cat and my cats alone together so soon after being introduced, but hopefully they won't murder each other. Whenever I hear the word barbecue I always think of the time my mom got lost on the way to my old apartment in Brooklyn. She had driven past my exit on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE), and called me up in a panic and said, "Emily, I don't know where I am! I'm lost somewhere on the BBQ." At least she didn't go hungry. 08*22*07 Commerce Bank's fraud protection services just called me to let me know someone had tried to charge two transactions of around $600 and two for $900 at a lumber store in Brazil today. Apparently they had made a counterfeit card with my bank card number. Joke's on them though; I don't even have $600 in my account so all the transactions were declined. Maybe next time they'll try to rip off someone who actually has money. 08*21*07 Patrick has to be out of his apartment in less than a week and a half, and his search to find a decent-priced livable apartment in an ok location has not been very fruitful. The offer to stay here until he found something else has always been on the table, and at this point that seems like more of a reality. My place is by no means big, so an additional person plus an additional cat will probably be challenging. But it's just for a month; Patrick will be in school soon, plus I'll be in Italy for the last week of September. So hopefully we won't be up in each other's grills too much. If we make it through next month without a murder/suicide as the end result, I'll consider it successful. I'm not actually that pessimistic about it. I'm sure we'll be ok. We already survived 8 straight days and nights together in a foreign country. At least making plans will be easier. I just watched Vacancy and I was pretty disappointed. I didn't think it was going to be good at all, but it actually had me pretty tense throughout the majority of the movie. Then they took the ending and flushed it down the crapper. I feel like if a writer can't come up with a good ending, they should just scrap the whole movie. It'd be better than fooling the audience into thinking a better ending is in store. Jerks. 08*19*07 I had a pretty good weekend despite my on-call shift Friday night. Luckily I didn't get called in until a little before 6 AM, so I was able to get some sleep beforehand. I was still tired when I got home around 11 AM, so I went back to bed around noon, woke up about an hour later, and felt groggy for a few hours before I finally decided to get ready and head to Patrick's. We had Thai food in Greenpoint and then had some drinks at a bar called Lost and Found with some of his friend's. I had good time. Today I had started the day off wanting to be good on my diet, but then as we passed The Lodge in Williamsburg, the brunch lover in me was screaming for pancakes. So I caved and we both got them. We then headed over to my neighborhood and saw Superbad, which was ok. I think I liked Knocked Up better and I wasn't even super crazy about that either. We walked around Carroll Gardens in the rain for a bit after the movie and then had dinner at my new favorite restaurant (as of today) called Robin Des Bois. I've been getting bug bites all over my legs all week, which has lead me to the conclusion that I have bedbugs. I can't see anything on my bed, so it's most likely those little fuckers since I read they hide in the light. I've never had bedbugs before and I can only assume that since I just got them, I probably transported them from the bed and breakfast Patrick and I stayed at in Baltimore. I don't remember getting bit while there, and it was a clean place, but I don't see how else I could have gotten them. Anyway, I'm fucking grossed out by the whole ordeal and I don't see how I'm going to remedy it without spending a lot of money. Either I have to buy a new mattress and throw out the $100 featherbed I got not that long ago, or invest in something that would seal both items up good enough to keep the bedbugs in. Apparently they can live without human blood for a year. Seems kinda creepy to keep a mattress with bugs sealed up inside it, but it would probably be the cheaper solution. I'm also worried I'd buy a new mattress and a few bedbugs would somehow still be lingering around that would infest that one as well. Blech! I hate this. 08*16*07 Is it wrong for me to want the European economy to continue to suffer just so I have a better exchange rate when I visit Italy in September? The Euro's value already went down 3 cents from a few weeks ago. About another 10 cents will do the job for me. 08*13*07 Patrick and I went to my mom's this weekend. We got there Friday night in order to borrow either my mom's or her boyfriend's car while they were at work on Saturday so we could drive to Sandy Hook in the morning. However, they were apparently under the impression we wanted to sit around on our asses most of Saturday and took their sweet time lending us a vehicle. This rather pissed me off, but I let it slide since we still got to go to Sandy Hook for a little bit in the afternoon. Lesson learned--never visit my mom for more than a day. I hate being held hostage in suburbia because I don't have a car. Sunday Patrick and I went to the beach in Bayhead with my mom. We both hadn't been to the beach in a situation where we wore a bathing suit and sat out for hours in years. Patrick apparently hadn't done it in almost 20 years; for me it's been 2-3 years. We even swam in the ocean for maybe a total of an hour. It was a lot of fun actually. Unfortunately, before we left, my knees started swelling up from the sunburn I had obtained. I got it in a few other places as well, but not as much or as painful as my knees. Patrick got it all over even though the only exposure he had to the sun was while we were in the water (he stayed under an umbrella the rest of the time). That sun is a lot stronger than I remember it being. Good to know for next time. I'm going to try to go to the beach with my mom one more time before summer ends. It's been really slow with donors at work. Painfully slow, actually, for all the shifts. I'm not really sure what's going on, but it's not the most ideal situation to be in when I'm still trying to save up for Italy. Also, I feel that there are some changes on the horizon regarding staff quitting or being fired/new employees. No one really tells me anything now that my relationship with my supervisor is strictly business because of our falling out. I didn't really feel too out of the loop until today when it was just me, him and one other technician working and they were IMing each other back and forth about who knows what. Also, he sent everyone an e-mail last week in which he gave us links to a crisis hotline, a therapist and a drug abuse hotline. I have no idea what that's about. I wonder if my superiors ever think about how their actions will be perceived prior to doing them? My guess is no. Is there such thing as a job where you don't have to deal with some sort of bullshit from your superiors? If so, let me know. 08*08*07 I uploaded pictures from the Virgin Festival:
Also, here is a video we took of a couple we thought danced funny. 08*08*07 I'm sure a lot of people have either experienced or heard some account of a nightmare commute today in NYC by now, but why not read one more!? I got to the 9th Street M/R station in Brooklyn around 7:30 AM and noticed the trains were moving very slow. However, it didn't take too long for my M train to come, and once I was on I didn't care how long it took to get me to work so long as I could sit in the air conditioning. Two subway stops and forty minutes later I decided perhaps taking that train wasn't the best way to get to work. An MTA worker announced several times that there were only problems on that line which had to do with signal malfunctions, so it would be better to transfer to another train like the 2/3. I decided to do just that. I couldn't help but notice the hundreds of people doused in sweat standing all over the Atlantic Avenue Subway Station on their cell phones looking pissed off and confused as I walked to the 2/3. I had my suspicions the problem wasn't just with the M/R. Once I got on the 3 train which also wasn't moving, that suspicion was quickly confirmed. Weighing my option of waiting indefinitely in the very, very hot and crowded subway, or just walking to work, I chose the latter and got to stepping. Since I walk home from work about three times a week, walking to work at a closer starting point wasn't a huge deal. However, I was wearing boots and a shirt that emphasized every bead of sweat that soaked through it, so I was not comfortable in the least walking 3.5 miles in that manner. I have the blisters to prove it. I ended up being 1.5 hours late to work, which wasn't as bad as the 4 hours it took my co-worker to get there. Patrick had to walk 7 miles to get to work, so in comparison my experience could have been a lot worse. The thing that pisses me off is the lack of information MTA provided to its passengers. At least when they went on strike in 2005 everyone knew ahead of time and found alternative methods to get to work. I just can't understand how they couldn't have done a better job of informing us of a problem so widespread that had been going on for hours. Had that been the case, I could have gone home to change and rode my bike to work. Bastards! Free B52s show tomorrow in Coney Island! 08*06*07 Back from the Virgin Festival! I had a good time. It was brutally hot on Saturday, and by the end of the day I was caked in greasy sunblock, sweat and dirt. Sunday wasn't as hot and there was a bit of a rain shower towards the end of the day which felt pretty nice. My favorite acts on Saturday were LCD Soundsystem and TV On The Radio; on Sunday they were the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs and M.I.A. Spoon was a little disappointing and, as always, so was Bad Brains. I also saw Interpol, Cheap Trick, Peter, Bjorn and John, and only some of the Beastie Boys, The Police, Modest Mouse, and Felix Da Housecat. Out of all the acts, I think I'd have to say the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs were the best. The bed and breakfast we stayed at was also very nice. An old couple ran it. When we arrived, the husband gave us a speech he had prepared for his guests that entailed every minute detail about Baltimore. We were in a huge rush to get out of there though because we had very little time before the first band we wanted to see was about to start playing. Neither of us had the heart to cut him off though. That is until he gave a map of Baltimore to Patrick saying that he should have it because he'd most likely be the navigator. Little does he know I map out everything when we go away. I feel like there's some unwritten law though that one should turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to old men who are sexist because that's how they grew up. But he was nice enough otherwise and the place was really beautiful. We saw a lot of dipshit frat-type guys at the show, as well as a plethora of teenage boys who "danced" like tools in the mosh pit. On my way out of the M.I.A. show, some random hand in the crowd groped my butt. Of course I couldn't tell who because there way too many people crammed together, but I had my suspicions. We didn't get to see Baltimore at all really except for the racetrack. Our bus ride back to NYC took forever and now that I'm finally back I feel somewhat disoriented. Going back to work tomorrow will also probably feel strange. Maybe I should retire. On a side note, poor Patrick has had to deal with the most horrid slum landlord since he moved into his place back in March. When we finally got to his place this evening, the landlord was waiting there to lecture Patrick about wasting energy. They both hate each other, so I think they pretty much came to an understanding which will entail letting Patrick out of the lease early. Finding a new place will be annoying to say the least, but nothing can be as bad as having to deal with that psychopath anymore. Granted I've had some difficulties with my landlord at times, but I feel very fortunate to have found a nice place with a sane landlord. I now realize it could be a lot worse. Anyway, I hope Patrick finds a nice place soon--he deserves it, especially after all this. 08*01*07 I went to the grocery store today to pick up a few items for my cats. Since I brought my shopping cart with me, I figured I'd just put the items directly into the cart and forgo the plastic bags. After the cashier announced my total, I was too distracted by trying to find exact change in my wallet to notice she had already put each of my three items in their own separate bag. When I finally realized, I apologized and told her I didn't want to waste the bags and had meant to tell her sooner. She said it was no big deal and asked if I wanted her to take the items out of the bags and I said sure. She complied and then took the barely used bags and threw them in the trash can. I laughed in disbelief and muttered something about if she was going to throw them away I'd have just taken them, but I don't think she was paying attention. It's not like my items were covered in feces; I don't see why she couldn't have re-used those bags! I think that was the most idiotic thing I've dealt with thus far this week.
This girl is a nerd, get me outta here |
