Dark forces must be at work tonight because I ended up in the wrong place at Port Authority. I mean I strolled right into that mofo, head held up high, my mind praying that no one had taken my favorite corner stall, when I suddenly realized that there must be either butch night out in the city or I had entered the men’s room by mistake. By the shocked looks of the people on both sides of the room, protectively cradling their tools in one hand and trying to zip up with the other, i understood the second was true.
To make matters worse, the homeless druggie who’d set up house in the corner under the sink, kept repeating indignantly: “Miss, this is the men’s room, miss, this is the men’s room, the men’s room, miss.” Then he got up an pointed me out of there. I obeyed, trying to become an insect, a molecule, an atom and begging that my future husband was not watching me in the meanwhile, his tool in hand and his pants around his ankles.
Later on, on the bus, the humiliation finally left its place to desperate reasoning. I mean I was always an open-minded feminist anyway. And I am over thirty. And it is nothing I haven’t seen before. And there is no law that stops men from using women’s bathrooms and vice-versa. And nobody saw me. Nobody cares. Nobody remembered my face two seconds after coming out of that bedroom. And I don’t really have to wear the same grey blazer anyway. I think i would look great in a shaved head, never mind the ocipicie thingies.
It must be the dark forces influence, it must be, since I found a hair in my hot dog this morning. It was a black and coarse hair standing defiant in front of my incredulous gaze. and then later i was late for work, and i missed my bus stop so I had to run like the wind (addmittedly a very fat and geriatric wind, but a wind nevertheless) until i caught it. so…watch out.
And hopefully tomorrow I will remember to look before I go into a room and before I start unbuttoning my own pants.
Dark forces rising
The visit of the Albanian PM and his entourage in New York was shrouded with mystery, high level security and media. First, I had to decide whether to go at all to meet with our charismatic Preemie. As one man put it “You are against him, so why are you here?” I said to him that I was actually there to meet somebody else a bit lower in the totem pole but still a friend of sorts. I wanted to say that not all of us need to lick behinds to get invited to places like him but I didn’t. Nobody can say I am not a diplomat. However, his question made me ponder a bit.
“True,” I thought “Why am I here?” The man is the source of all eeevil in my family’s eyes. I can even go so far as to say that my grandmother was the only one who understood the Axis of Evil concept but she added Mr. Berisha to it. Over the years, I have found little to dissuade me of this idea, but enough of politics. The truth is I like APEN and their events and I had an errand to run with one of the people there.
APEN always seems to attract young and interesting people who like to dress well and love to get introduced to other people. And have fun. They are sort of a hybrid crowd. Many came in this country when they were little and graduated here and emerged clean, well coiffed and almost human. Some were born here and thankfully only know Albania through Skanderbeg stories and Southern Riviera. And there there is people like me who worked the minute they set foot in this country and will continue until the day they die. (in different stages of evolution)
So, in short, I chose APEN because i always get a free drink or two there. And sooner or later old friends converge with new ones and I meet everybody all over again. Some used to be ugly ducks and they had turned to swans. Some used to be creeps and had doubled up in creepness factor. And the thief from last time was in attendance again, since I lost my camera this time (Every time I go to the Russian Tea Room, something disappears. But hey, free drinks and exquisite dinners I don’t pay for make up for it. So, if you decide to go, savour the food and keep your purse closed and your cell phone in your boobs) New faces not so much.
Before anyone asks, I have absolutely no idea what the PM said. Political speeches give me acute ADD. I did hear comments about internet access in every village. Well, who knows, it might actually be true. However, there were quite a lot of people there and I did get a handshake or two. I also entertained two irreverent teenagers with repetitions of “Where do you live? “New Milford” “Milford?” “No, New Milford” “Hey, she said Milford, get it? Milf- ord. HiHiHi”
I also finished my errand which consisted in bothering several people from the PM’s entourage to locate the person who was bringing me a tea china set from Albania, since US is completely out of the wretched thingies. And there is the answer to the whole creep question.
I was really there to pick up my china set. 
Sometimes it is good to get drunk. You get to revel in the drunken camaraderie of your drunken friends, your drunken boss does not yell at you, and your drunken and handsome male coworkers have a legitimate reason to rub your hair and plant a full lipped kiss on your cheek.
Let me tell you that sometimes that one cheek kiss with full lip in it sears hotter then a full tongue Frenchie with honey and chocolate. One such kiss brings back all the hottest and most awkward high school moments when other girls were learning how to slowly draw a pant zipper down and I was learning the location of my mouth.
There is plenty of shots on the table and plenty of fun around it. Our crew is mixed as all true New York office crews are and our skin color spectrum is only paralleled by our clothing spectrum. But we all drink the same. The trick is to know when to pass on a round of shots and to focus on the long road home. Not enough to obscure the enjoyment of the evening but enough to know that if you get shitfaced there will be no one to walk with you the weird long trip home over the bridge and that you will quite possibly find yourself in three pieces in some honest citizen’s freezer if you lose it tonight.
So the trick is to drink enough to enjoy the company around you and to feel they are the sexiest people alive and you all want them in your bed, but to retain enough sanity to know that you are drunk as a skunk and so is your radar and therefore sleeping with your married coworker will be a horrible idea in the morning especially if you are office mates and females and your she-boss is watching.
But hey yeah, tonight was fun. Pray that I get home ok. Smoochies!
i gave him a song
he said thank you kindly
and then gave it to someone else
i gave him a smile
he treasured it for half a minute
then bent to collect from the rest
i gave him a verse
he wrote a poem of yore
and won a prize to hang on his wall
i gave him my back
he painted a picture
and flayed the skin for his wall of fame
i walked away
he cried for a day
then saved his tears for somebody else to dry
i figured then
some like it differently
no matter how much it hurts.
So it came to be that for whatever reason, Mother Theresa’s name is attached to a corner of Lydig Avenue in the Bronx. I think it was all that hard lobbying.
Anyway, most Bronx politicos showed up in all their glory, with smiling faces and long speeches and for whatever reason yelling: “Cheers to Kosova’s Independence!” prompting a yellow-shirted scruffy man to yell back “Long live Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg!: That crazy history and those pesky Albanian borders are very confusing, it is true. It seems that it was the perfect meet and greet opportunity, one of those occasions when you nod to people you know and have seen in every single Albanian show and tell, you shake hands with people you do not know and normally would hide behind the turkish grocery store if you normally saw them on the other side of the street, and you note the absence of previous Albanian Scene staples, murmuring “hmm, strange he/she is missing this, did something happen i do not know about?”. Then you clap and cheer the speeches you heard nothing of since you were trying to nonchalantly take the best pose for the sweeping cameras in front of you, until you suddenly catch from the speaker gems like this one: “We will work, and elevate Mother Tereza’s name to the skies…” Well, excuse me but isn’t Mother Tereza proclaimed a saint already? how much further will her poor name go?
There were some sisters from Mother Tereza’s order too but they only spoke near the end and the microphone was off for half of the speech. but hey, they got their claps and sat down happy.
Then the time came to take off the paper hiding the name, unveil the miracle, the fruit of so many Albanian organizations at work (each circulating the same 6 members in any kind of weather) and yes, the cord came off but the paper stayed on. frantic searches for ladders, the politicians wincing through their smiles, then the saviour of the day, a businessman did it Albanian style. he climbed the pole and took off the paper for all to feast their eyes and feel like Albania has finally arrived. He looked like such a mensch.
And I shook hands and gave out my business cards, posed for pictures with a whole bunch of women, smiled at the politicos and left ready to pass out from the sun.
All in all, a good event.
-Look at that – I say to my coworker – What do you think?
- Wow – she squeals – where is that? It is gorgeous.
It is a place where i was once as a teen, a magical part of the world with blue green sea and impossible sun shine. It is a little corner that always photographs like a postcard, no matter what camera or what angle. It is the paradise my mind escapes too when things become back, the image I hope will once greet me from my open veranda, and the background of my first intense erotic fantasy.
And my cousin is grinning his smile in it almost holding but not quite a big fish. Typical tourist photo.
-My country – I say – a village in the south. Nice view huh?
-Well yeah. How much does it cost to get there? You know if it is reasonable, I could ask some of the girls and get organized for next year. It could be real fun. Is there public transportation?
My coworker has already started planning and calculating and looking at flight details. She is a very organized woman. Meanwhile I get hit by a panic attack. I explain to her that to get there her friends and she will have to fly for 13 hours, then either catch a cab for another five, or catch the dreaded public transportation (the van with the leery driver, or the bus with its butt hanging out of the road for most of the trip) But once they get there, ah once they get there the view of the perfect see and the best mojitos in the world will probably make up for all the hassle. Probably.
I maybe should explain to her a bit further and maybe try to dissuade her from this Albanian dream. But I feel bad because Albania is very beautiful and deserves visitors and admirers and adorers who will discover her secrets and fall in love with her, and keep her images in their hearts to start in their own fantasies. And yet…
I can’t imagine what they would do to the village, a whole bunch of fun loving New Yorkers, born and bred in the Bronx, who can raise up pretty much any roof they happen to find their selves under. I know that the village has seen its share of strange and foreign people drive through. Yet, things might get pretty interesting next summer. Stay tuned.
I went to the store to get my cousin a birthday card for her 40th birthday. wouldn’t you know that everything there treated 40th birthdays as something dirty to be shaken off as soon as possible? i mean here is a successful, beautiful, elegant woman surrounded by husband, children family and well wishing friends, and all I could find in the store said: “don’t worry that it is your fortieth birthday. we’re sorry but it is better than being fifty”
I know that women might experience a degree of sadness at the years that pass and at the body parts that sag. yet, why should we be reminded of that? We are not all cantankerous old biddies which cannot be happy and grateful for the blessings in our life, just because we are a year older. I do not exactly remember when I saw my first gray hair. I do not remember a day when I did not feel fat and saggy. I do remember days when my hair had a life of its own and framed my face in the most perfect way. I do not think any of those things happened on my birthday, the day that I want most to be perfect. What I remember from my birthdays is laughter cake and fun. Yet, cards warn me not to be sad and take solace when I am forty. Boo-hoo to them. I am having fun, i do not want to think about a wrinkly tush.
Some of us actually are proud of that wrinkly tush and enjoy the fact that it brings us more quality compliments than twenty year old booty. Some of us like gray hair at the temples, or the strength and respect that comes with them. Some of us are not afraid to turn forty when the man we love and given children to, is on our side with roses and a childish grin on his face because he will get lucky again tonight with the woman of his dreams. Some of us have a life and celebrate that, instead of mooning over meaningless dates.
So, I look in vain for a fun card that does not involve wrinkles, sadness over age, forced humor, and stupid comments on my body shape. In the end, I resolve to buy her an empty one, and write my own message of love and affection that has derived from our relationship. I am sure her birthday will be a glorious affair.
rivulets of thought, bearers of pain,
pain of no essence, absurd wishes
wishes with sugar for a sweet tooth
of a tooth fairy with broken wings
wings that ache instead of flying high
high up where my eyes can’t see
the unsightly truth that we once were
werewolves blinded by the moon
moon howlers but with no hair
hairs are not in style nowadays
nowadays neither is faith
in love and in war unfair
unfairly fair becomes at last
at last we are no more
if this thing is fairly painful to read, scratch your eyes out.
I am turning into my grandmother. That is whenever adoring eyes and cooing voices enfold our little precious bundle, there goes the little old lady inside of me screeching “Eyes on the butt! Eyes on the butt!” I have twice threatened to poke holes in my brother-in-law’s shoes, and I had my sister whip out the garlic in a panic as soon as an adoring passerby asked to see our sleeping prince in a basket.
I see him when he sleeps, a tiny little miracle in the middle of the large and cuddly feeding pillow and I strain not to spit in the air around him and disperse the evil eye. Surely, no one can help but be envious of the warmth and peace that surround him, the strange highlights in his hair, the oriental tilt of his miniature eyelashes and the tiny fists he puts on his ears as if he is tired from all the oohing and the aahing his every little gesture elicits. And that envy, i was taught, that evil magnetic force can cause high fever, uninterrupted hiccups, colic and all kinds of other little torture that affect little angels and make them uncomfortable and their mamas and daddies miserable and gray with worry and sleeplessness.
Hence, the little magics of the earth and women, the ancient and secret murmuring upon the modern cradles, the “singing” in the babies’ ears, the baths of eggs and honey/sugar, the garlic, the keeping them away from people with “evil eye” who will take one look at the infant and “eat” him with their eyes. the soft, demure new brides, the old and shriveled great-grandmas, the stylish and well preserved grandmamas, the nubile and promiscuous bevies of aunts and cousins, they all congregate and pull together their knowledge whispered to them or dreamed about, and try to build the wall of protection, warmth and nurture for the little prince or princess or maybe both born to them.
so here it is people
newborn babies cannot be seen by other people before 40 days.
wash your girls with eggs and honey in the bathwater to make their skins soft and pretty and their fortune sweet.
wash your boys with warm water and a bit of milk to make them hurt less in life.
don’t kiss babies in the nape of their neck so they do become obedient.
never kiss babies just breath their aromas in.
give babies to unmarried girls to hold so that they be fertile and get married quickly.
don’t look at babies when they are asleep or feeding. you’ll take the milk away.
poke holes in people with new shoes who visit the new baby. bad juju, don’t ask me why.
never let the mother of the lady giving birth know when her water breaks, or her labor will be very difficult.
don’t ask what your grandma is singing to the baby and why she is waving the new broom twigs around.
keep lots of garlic cloves handy, hidden under clothes, in the carriages or cradles. garlick is the best protection.
shave the first hair of the baby when he is about 18 months.
and don’t forget:
Eyes on the butt! Eyes on the butt! Eyes on the butt!
