Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

Last Saturday started early with a little festive cheer at Swedish Club. I decided to bring a mini-Christmas tree to ignite the holiday spirit. At the end of the party, I suddenly realized I had a partner for the evening. The mini-christmas tree and I took the subway downtown to catch Kent's band, Marlowe Grey , at the Mercury Lounge .  Me and the tree salmoned through the middle of the crowd, all the way up to the front by the stage. I cleared a path by stabbing people in the ass with boughs of evergreen. We missed Kent's band, but got there just in time to watch the next act set up and hear Adele predict, "That Asian chick up there in the jumpsuit is gonna fuck shit up." Tom rocks the selfie. Upon the conclusion of the jumpsuit excitement, Tom, Darcey, Kent, the mini-Christmas tree and I dipped out for a slice of pizza before Hank and Cupcakes took the stage. It was great pie, but I forgot the mini-Christmas tree on our table! Oh the non-horror.  ...

a few of my citizens enjoying their repast "Yabba Island Grill is the perfect spot in town for the grandchildren, grandparents and the kid in all of us! " Whatever, bitches, I'm the mayor here. I deserve the job, my darling coffin-dodgers. I bellied right up to that YabbaBar and enjoyed a YabbaRita. It was majestic and fluorescent. And then I came back the next day and stuck with bottled beer.  Two check-ins in two days, you can dribble your awe near the tips of my closed-toe shoes. My mayorship commenced just after Suzanne's informative discourse about a place called Vergina's, an alleged restaurant right across the street. Several pudgy dudes also listened with keen interest to Suzanne say "Vergina" early and often while "You Take My Breath Away"lilted from the bar surround sound and melted our hearts. It is possible I bellowed "I am your Mayor" with a flourish of spirit fingers to the bar area in general. Mostly my ...

After 13 days without lights, electricity, heat and hot water, your house becomes a pigsty of mystery. When the lights finally flicker to life, you get to see your wonderous cluster fuck of a living situation bathed in glorious incandescence. Hurricane Sandy: Accuweather Power Outage from Space In our house, clumps of dried leaves had rubbed themselves with great vigor into every square inch of carpeting. Understandable. When you cook pots of coffee, 10 pounds of freezer waffles and a 50-pack of half de-thawed mini party weenies on the grill, that's a thousand trips in and out the backdoor. I didn't even notice our indoor nature fest due to the pitch-black-darkness problem and the working-during-daylight problem. But even if I had noticed, it wasn't like anything was going to happen. Vacuums do not run on D-batteries. We found a fleece jihad in the bedroom. Rejected items littered the perimeter-- goggles, a broken pole strap, half a trail map and a pile of...

Bryant Avenue by 167th Street, but not in 1955. Pop grew up on Bryant Avenue in the Bronx: "I never saw a real tree until I was maybe 13. There was this large vegetation out front our building that I thought was a tree. But then my mother broke the news. It wasn't a tree, just a big bush."

I bought Tom a gift online at Fab.com .   Thursday Morning: A kind of large box arrives and Tom pounces on it with a pair of scissors and single-minded intent. He loves a gift. In short order, Tom reaches into the box and pulls out one pair of electric purple underpants on a hanger. He takes the hanger, with the dangling underpants, up to the closet and hangs it next to his work shirts. Friday Morning: Tom forgets about his new hanging underpants until after he's already pulled on an old pair and has both legs in his jeans. Go-to drawer habits are hard to break. Tom decides he will be late for work if he disrobes to switch up his underpants. But he wants to wear his new ones at the first possible occasion-- meaning Saturday in new york city. So he unclips the underpants from the hanger and throws them in one of the bags we take with us to the city. Saturday Morning: Tom cannot find his purple underpants. He settles for an old pair after finally conceding tha...

My nephew Jackson and I were hanging out by a garbage truck. Watching it parked by the curb. Its dusty green exterior not glistening at all in the sunshine. This is how we roll. Every five minutes or so, a very African American twenty-something guy walks by us carrying a bunch of empty produce boxes and tosses them in the back of the truck. He wears I-work-in-a-kitchen checked pants and a white T-shirt. At some juncture, I have about enough of the starry-eyed garbage-truck gazing, so I suggest to Jackson that we consider moving on. The kid looks up at me and asks, "Can we just stay here until the white guy goes by one more time?" I am momentarily confused. Only one guy keeps going by and he is most assuredly not white. Then I realize the guy has on a white T-shirt.

All I hear is a huge crash. Like huge. Some thrashing around and Tom shrieking like a little girl with a vile potty mouth. I sprint into the livingroom. Tom stands amidst an explosion of broken glass. Some blood trickles off his cheek at a non-fatal velocity.  Alex the Cat hovers nearby, puffed up like one of the more gigantic Uggs spaceboots. It all began innocently enough. Apparently, Tom was just lushing on the sofa watching the prequel to Planet of the Apes , starring James Franco. Alex nestled on his lap, sound asleep. Suddenly, an Ape lets out a wild Ape wail. Alex, in a singular apoplectic freakout, pops straight up in the air and lands on top of Tom's head. His claws cling to Tom's face and he perches up there like a demonic hat. With some quick battle reflexes, Tom yanks Alex off his head. The cat lands on a glass bowl and smashes it into a million pieces. Luckily no one was injured beyond:  the Lord, whose name was definitely dropped ...

"I'm much better than your father at mini golf. He chokes in the clutch."

We stood in the middle of the festival, people dashing all around us eating ice cream with sprinkles. My nephew Jackson gestured for me to lean over so he could whisper in my ear. He said he wanted to take a look at the garbage truck. Of course I agreed. I'm his yes-aunt. We shoved past some kid getting his face painted up like spiderman and dodged the line to the bouncy house on the way behind the food carts. To stand before the garbage truck. Gazing at it. Parked there. Kind of smelly. Parked there. Silently. After awhile, I made a shimmy like I was about to head over to the giant lollipop booth, but Jackson clutched my hand in his tiny vicelike grip and told me that this garbage truck had a dual ops compactor. And he would just like to watch it a little longer. Parked there. Silently. Jackson is into front loaders, rear loaders, side loaders, pneumatic collectors and grapple trucks. He will gaze at you with a very disgusted expression if you mix up a dumpster...

Seats right in back of me. One Asian guy flirts with the other Asian guy. "I got us a room in a nice hotel. Here's a picture of our room." "No, there's only one bed. They may be able to get us a room with two beds. We can ask. I mean. If you want." "Hey! There's no pocket on the seatback!" "You CAN't sleep on the soFA! It will be LUMpy!" "We'll go down and have at least one drink at the bar in the lobby. But you have to dress nice. Do you have a nice shirt I can borrow?" "Are those your headphones? I have nicer headphones. Do you want to use them? You take this here and you stick it in your ear. Just slide it in there." "Can I split the headphones with you? I use the one earbud and you use the other one?"

Probably one of my finest unsisterly moments transpired during the fight over the slingshot with my little brother. Nutchie had the slingshot in his vice-like grip. I had the sling. My brother yanked to. I yanked fro. Then I guess I got bored. "Whatever. you can have it." Five stitches on the forehead for the Nutch.

Today I encountered the self-check out at the acme supermarket. It was wonderous. Tom marched right up to the sleek contraption and started scanning yogurt cups like Herr Badass. Even though my hands started to sweat a little bit, I definitely saw a place for myself in the action. Tom totally dominated the scan pad. Every time I tried to siddle over with my boxes of Kashi Mega Crunch, he would accelerate his swiping to sub-teriyaki speeds. But my noob ass could not be  thwarted. I timed my thrust and got my barcode in there first. Eureka! How you like me now, Fast Hands?

Mom, Dad, Tom and I roundtable Mom's declaration: "Dad has the clap?" "Yes." "No I don't have the clap." "He sleeps on his back with shorts on and he's going like this, clap clap clap, with his legs. It's really loud." "Your mother exaggerates. I was just dehydrated." "Maybe duct tape some throw pillows to his knees." "You could just duct tape my legs together." "That would be easier. Except when you have to get up to go to the bathroom." "He can just hop like a frog." "If Dad puts cymbals between his knees he can join a monkey brass band."

Attended a one-man-show called "Hoaxocaust" last night. I'm glad I went; the production, hopefully a work-in-progress, has given me cause to limber up my floppy brain cells. Although probably not in the way that the playwright intended. The whole affair was a fiesta of cognitive dissonance. Let's start with two statements made by the production team in a Q&A after the performance: 1)  The play was written in part to highlight that only a paltry few know enough facts to successfully argue the holocaust happened. 2) The play's holocaust content is tailored for a "graduate-level" audience— who presumably know enough facts to successfully argue the holocaust happened Thus, we can conclude: The target audience of this play is those paltry few. So there is a rather obvious problem with the producer's stated goal: "We are hoping to show this play to a broad audience." But here's the more important oxymoron: If I...

There are two gigantic problems with this sms I just got from my mother, and I'm not even counting that she always signs her texts. 1) Ruthless and brazen newsflash! She has been selling my historic mementos and possibly treasured personal effects. 2) Her advertisement describes attire I wore at one point in my life as "vintage." Vintage? I just graduated from high school a couple years ago, give or take twenty!!!! And here's one more thing I just thought of: 3) She wrapped up a big box of my old track and cross country trophies and gave them to me for Christmas. Now I know why: She couldn't sell them, probably even after substantial mark down.

Well today was a busy day: Ran 4 miles, minding my own business on the shoulder of the road Got bitten by a little dog Screamed "Your fucking little dog bit me" so loud doors opened and neighbors came out on yards Had a protracted altercation with the old man owner who said things like, "Fluffy didn't really bite you, he just ripped your skin off with his claws." Ran 4 miles home with blood dripping down my leg Called the cops Went to the ER While waiting at the pharmacy counter for my antibiotics, bought a tube of really excellent Blistex After that, nothing much happened for the rest of the day except Tom cramped up something fierce and I had to get him a banana. Also, despite a limp arm from the tetanus shot, I am enjoying rehydrated lips protected by a five-star rated UVA/UVB moisture shield. (Apropos tetanus shots, the last time I achieved one, Tom and I were administering intravenous fluids to a cat. The IV bag hook slipped off the top of...

Hawt! First off, Loki rules. Really zesty. Definitely put me in a blue funk when he got hauled back to Asgård in a space-age hannibal lector mask. Spoiler alert, there. Seriously. What do those Avengers know from badass? Loki had by far the best outfit. Lots of supple black leather bespoke tailoring. Slithering toothy reptile ships are fucking magnificent. Thor might have had the best outfit if it was a much smaller outfit. Are you kidding me with the maxi-vest? By the Power of Greyskull show us your abs. It will distract us from your curiously inert dialogue. It was 3d surreal walking out of the theater onto 23rd Street after watching midtown get its clock cleaned for two hours.

I thought taking on Billy Jean in 2009 was some kind of brinksmanship, but the Bohemian Rhapsody? Bite my spandex bewinged ass! Freddy Mercury is to lip synching what the Sally who met Harry is to orgasms. After I finally figured out Andrew was not dressed up as Aerodynamic Harry Houdini, I marveled at the sizable sack of balls required to tackle such a big Queen. Finding the caliente in Andrew's 2012 magnum opus was like finding hay in a haystack. Here's my short list: 1) I liked the tufts of artisinal chest hair. I like it when a spandex unitard comes kitted out with a deep V-neck and ravenous fur. Shot of Andrew's pre-show desk, courtesy of MJG. 2) What foxed me was the Beelzebub sidekick posse over on the side. They popped in like a demonic bold flash powerpoint animation. 3) I liked the stage swathed in darkness. It smelled like anticipation. 4) I liked the florescent aria and the cross-over fake piano spirochetes. Even Scaramouch would appreciate the gen...

Earlier in the week, I showed our Lip Syncho De Mayo video to someone whose only comment was, "That is very weird."  Violence and smut are of course everywhere at LSdM. You cannot attend the event without seeing them, although sometimes you are forced to wait a little while. The night began with a fiery opening ceremony engineered by Andrew. I saw ample evidence that LSdM performers are surprisingly resilient-- how they chase gold, year after year, with different shortpants and different configurations of hair. Kully and Sharon did not take the stage until after the first or second intermission. As a reporter, I probably should know exactly when they went on, but achieving accuracy is often so terribly inconvenient. To the muted, warm milk tones of Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly , the two pulled off a sequel to their LSdM signature performance in which they demonstrate there is a fine line between cuddling and duct taping someone to a chair so they can't get...

Periodically, Friday night has the central nervous system of a magic eight ball. Is this a bad thing? Au contraire, my fairy. I'm all for a night in a parallel universe. First, Tom and I manage to get to Brooklyn, the borough of no return. As we alight from the L, I say, "Think we'll ever get back?" Tom should have replied, "Outlook not so good." Or, "Sure. I've sent in my three easy payments of HA HA HA." In hindsight, it was definitely a sign when I collided with two bunny plushies chasing each other around the turnstiles like squirrels in mating season. We make it to Mercedeh's "sentience" photography exhibit at the Greenpoint Gallery. She has the entire second floor dedicated to portraits of intriguing humans plucked from crowded, sweaty streets. We also see large amounts of blue foam spray-mounted to available surfaces and zebra stripes. We see a very short girl playing a very large guitar very near a cauldron of fire da...