Category: The Virgin Mary

Benchly’s Guide to Renting in Burlington

After graduating from college, I decided to do the conforming nonconformist postgraduate thing of cramming my belongings into my car (a Plymouth Colt the size of Plymouth Rock [a rock that’s far less impressive in person than in name]) and promptly heading out of town on the open road to a destination paved in gold where I was sure I’d find a job and, subsequently, myself. I said my goodbyes to my family including Mama Benchly who, because she’s Mama Benchly, morbidly assumed this would be the last time she’d ever see me.

On my trip, I drove through my college stomping grounds, which, because I had graduated two weeks earlier, could now be referred to as my old college stomping grounds. After a quick overnight stop to see my college buddy Hugh, I resumed my trip, serenaded by a seemingly unending supply of cassette tapes, each of which was forever branded with my postgraduate taste in music (read: Dave Matthews and Counting Crows). 12 hours later, I reached my destination: a 2-3ish-bedroom, Wilmington, NC apartment occupied by my friend Scoot and her friend Susan. And then three weeks later, without a job or experiencing anything close to a moment of self discovery, and with ~$30 to my name, I packed up my belongings and begrudgingly headed home. (A side note: if you can believe it, if my car hadn’t died in New Jersey, that $30 would have come close to paying for my entire trip home to Vermont. Oh to be 22 and paying less than $1 per gallon of gas again!)

After a 3-month stint as the Benchly Family Bum, I found a mind-numbing, yet well-paying job at the Evil Empire. A year later, after saving up a small fortune, I bought Inga Beep the Jeep (at $.89/gallon, you would have too), crammed my belongings into my new car, and headed out of town on the open road to my new home: a 2-3ish-bedroom, Burlington, VT apartment occupied by my coworker and soon-to-friend Veronica Japonica. And that’s where I lived for the next seven years. When Veronica Japonica moved to California the following year, I had the pleasure and pain of having to find a replacement roommate, which went something like this:

1. Place creatively-crafted classified ad in the local weekly (read: liberal) newspaper, and do your best not to feel like you’re selling yourself in the personals.

2. Screen 50-75 calls in the next week from interested potential roommates who:

– “can’t believe how cheap your downtown Burlington apartment is”;
– “is a totally laid back and mellow roommate who gets along with anyone, and I’ve called you three times so how come you haven’t called me back?”;
– “is, like, the ideal roommate”;
– “is a quiet, peaceful roommate who should probably mention I’m a recovering alcoholic, and the anger management classes seem to be working”;
– “is looking for a nice apartment for my daughter who is really nice…and…she’s really cute too.”

3. Interview the elite few who survived the screening process and do your best not to laugh when one of them says she loves to sing at home and then volunteers a completely tone-deaf rendition of “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

4. Choose the person you’re going to be living with for the next year, give or take a month-to-month. In this case, I selected Dexy’s Midnight Runner, a UVM graduate student who reminded me of an old friend. One year later, when Dexy moved out, Veronica Japonica moved back in, and one year after that, when Veronica moved out again and in with her boyfriend/now husband Rick Springfield, I repeated the process and selected The Virgin Mary, who, in her phone interview, said, “I’m pretty much a loner who will be out of your hair most of the time, or in your hair if you want, too.” After The Virgin Mary moved out and in with her boyfriend/now husband Joseph (notice a trend?), I repeated the process twice more to first select Closed Bedroom Door Roommate (CBDR) and then ultimately Julia Stiles.

This is the long-winded (read: Benchly) way of saying that I’ve had quite a bit of experience in the roommate search department, and less experience in the apartment search, which explains how unprepared I was when I began my latest apartment search last month. Suddenly, I was the one whose phone calls were being screened, who couldn’t believe how expensive downtown Burlington apartments were, who was a quiet and peaceful roommate, and whose anger management classes seemed to be doing the trick. And remarkably, considering Othello and Burlington’s blatant discrimination of tenants with cats, suddenly I was one of the elite few who survived the screening process and who was doing his best to sound completely “normal” and like the ideal roommate.

My first interview, for a 2-3ish-bedroom apartment close to the border of Burlington and its southern counterpart, was with Speed Guy, so named for his apparent choice of recreational drugs. He was super nice, but talked like he was being paid per character, and ran up and down the stairs like he was a toddler late for Saturday morning cartoons. There was also a photocopier in the living room; an odd decorative choice a roommate might someday regret should a weekend party get out of hand. During the interview, another potential roommate arrived and I found myself conducting the interview for her in the hopes that Speed Guy would pick her over me; that’s how little I liked the place.

My second interview, for a studio a few houses down from The Virgin Mary and Joseph, went well until I entered the studio. I’m serious. I was charming. I sounded responsible and like the ideal roommate. And the studio was mine for the taking, and I would have taken it too except that it was essentially a kitchen hallway with closet space. Maybe I’m naive, or at the very least, way too influenced by Hollywood, but I’ve always envisioned a studio apartment as a large square room with hardwood floors, high ceilings, large windows, a loft bed, and enough room to distinguish between bedroom/dining room/kitchen. The one that I checked out was essentially a basement with carpeting and the kind of kitchen you’d find in a college’s temporary housing built to accommodate hundreds of students displaced by renovations.

My third interview was for a promising 2-no-wait-3-bedroom apartment in the south end on the hill. The ad was misleading; I entered the apartment expecting a 2-bedroom living arrangement and was surprised to find 3 bedrooms and 2 roommates. Strike one. Strike two was the huge dogs who growled, barked, and showed their teeth at me the entire time I was there; the same dogs their owner, Clancy Brown assured me would be friendly toward Othello (I imagine Othello will end up rooming with another dog at some point in his life [he roomed with one when he lived with Montana Girl] but I think I’d rather he live with a dog his own size). Strike three was the kitchen with dishes piled in the sink up to and above the faucet. Strike four was when Clancy pointed out an extra room and said, though we would be paying equal rent, that this extra room was his and could be used only if I was quiet and didn’t disturb his stuff. Strike five was Clancy pointing out that on a street with minimal parking, if the apartment received a parking pass, it would be his to use. Strike six was Clancy saying he’d get upset if his roommates made noise after 10 p.m., but that he tends to make a lot of kitchen noise at 5 a.m. Strike seven was that Clancy and only Clancy would be on the lease. He offered me the place. I declined.

After Clancy, I was discouraged to say the least. I replied to quite a few Craigslist ads and received only a handful of responses, most of which thanked me for my time but regretted to inform me that the apartment had been filled…in the 15 minutes since the ad had been placed. This is when I gave up hope. And that’s precisely when a woman responded to my email and asked me to check out her apartment later that day. I recognized the woman’s name and quickly realized that we shared a mutual friend: Sarah the L. Score. Mama and Papa Benchly were especially generous in letting me stay with them for a month, but as a 31 year old, I needed my own space or else I’d risk having my sanity go the way of the dodo bird. And that’s why I wasn’t above exploiting this connection.

When I looked at the place, a residential gold mine by Burlington’s standards (front and back porch, huge yard, off-street parking, a large bathroom, rooms with character), I discovered that this woman wasn’t looking for a roommate, but rather a tenant to share her downstairs apartment with another woman who had already been chosen to live there. Essentially, she was playing roommate matchmaker for the apartment she owned. And when her first choice backed out, I was offered the place. I gladly accepted and last week found myself yet again cramming my belongings into cars.

I can’t say that this process has taught me much in the way of how to find an apartment in Burlington. If anything, it taught me how screwed up this town’s housing situation is, and how lucky a person has to be to find a safe, clean, decent, affordable home. For every landlady like mine, there are 15 who end their ads with “sorry, no pets.” And for every safe, clean, decent, affordable home like mine, there are 20 broken-down, dirty, overpriced holes in the ground owned by deadbeat landlords (you know who you are, JL). And no matter how hard you try, sometimes you end up finding a great home for a reason you never even considered.

After moving in, I learned that my new landlady had specifically chosen me because of my described personality traits but also because of Othello. As the proud mother of her own cat, she knew how difficult it was for kitty owners to find decent housing. Consequently, as Othello settles nicely into our new home, I’ve made sure to smother him with hugs and kisses for helping us get here. Not one for PDA, he then pushes me away, licks his paw, walks to the window sill, sits down, and keeps an eye on his new neighbors.

Proud of My Pride

I’ve never been good at taking care of my car. As my troubles with Inga Beep the Jeep proved, I’m pretty awful at it, in fact. I don’t take the car in as often as I should and therefore, inevitably, whenever I do take it in, there’s something wrong with it. And so each time I bring my car in to be worked on, I sit there in the waiting room with all of the other less-than-proud owners, dreading bad news and the subsequent guilt.

The same can be said for pets. Yes, I had a dog when I was growing up and yes, he lived happily and healthily until he was 13, but he did so only because of Mama Benchly. I fed him periodically and I walked him occasionally, but my ownership responsibilities extended only to playing with him during the day and sharing a bed with him at night. Because all of the responsible responsibilities were left to my mother, it can be argued that she was his proud owner.

In college, my senior year, I had a few fish (as did my three roommates) but they never seemed to survive more than a month each. My roommates and I taped on the wall above the fish tank home-made construction-paper tombstones for each fish that passed on to the tank in the sky; “RIP Alexis – 9/2/98-9/7/98.” By the end of the year, there were at least 12 tombstones on our wall, each staring down at the still-alive fish, serving as a reminder to exercise and to eat only the recommended number of pellets per day.

At the end of the school year, the day before graduation, we donated the fish to the tank in the office of the Dean of Students. Considering that they were outnumbered and much smaller, if my life was a movie, I’d have been shown giving the commencement speech while a dramatic song (maybe with chanting, and long notes in major chords; maybe something by Moby) drowned out my words and the camera cut to a shot of our poor fish being attacked by their new predators.

When I adopted Othello from Montana Girl, I was fearful that I wouldn’t be able to take care of him. Even The Virgin Mary still thinks that I’m not up to the task; to her credit, I was definitely slacking in the food-purchasing/litter-scooping departments in the beginning; and to my credit, I’ve definitely improved since she complained. But then a peeing-outside-the-litter-box incident pushed me to set up a long-overdue yearly check-up for the little guy, and this morning, I found myself sitting with said kitty on my lap, impatiently waiting for the veterinarian to tell me all of the things wrong with him.

And so, as you can probably imagine, words cannot possibly describe the joyous feeling I had when the vet told me that my kitty was healthy and perfectly normal, and, evidently, “naturally gorgeous.” Although Othello’s ears perked up when she said that, you can be certain that his owner was the proudest of them all.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

I’m sitting in my Church Street apartment in Burlington, contemplating the end of another summer while the afternoon sun paints my maroon living room walls with the golden colors of its slow, yet far-too-quick descent to the other side of the horizon, where it will rest while pondering tomorrow’s fate. As I try to recall all of the activities of this past summer (read: all the reasons why I’ve slacked off on my blog), I’m reminded of the “What I Did on My Summer Vacation” papers that Loser Cruiser passenger Fun Curly Haired Teacher Guy was busy grading on the ride home from work last fall. When I was growing up, I used to dread writing that paper as much as I loved it. I dreaded it because it was my first homework assignment of many; I loved it because I got to talk about me. In that sense, and serving as a perfect closure to the introduction of this long-overdue entry, all I can say is that some things never change.

It’s only fitting to mention that infamous elementary school assignment when you consider that summer is the season when most of us are finally able to reacquaint ourselves with our inner child (mine was hiding out in my Inhibitions and Social Anxiety Closet). With the fine exception of Mama Benchly who, for various reasons, prides herself on being unremittingly in touch with her inner child, most of the rest of us adults corrupted by society’s cynicism and realism are only truly able to interact with this exuberant, whimsical, passionate, and youthful spirit when summer is in season.

It seems that only when the summer sun has come out to play for a few months do we see grown and overgrown men shrug off their aching muscles to return to a baseball diamond, and mothers fiercely compete against their adult offspring at any of those barbecue/picnic-friendly games (croquet, badminton, bocce, etc.), and grandfathers challenge their grandsons in cut-throat amusement park video game rides, and 30-year-old women plead like Nieces #1–3 to set off “just one more” firecracker, and 20-something friends return to the playground to have a go at the swings after throwing frisbees around all day, and a young couple see just how fast they can travel together on a jet ski.

Needless to say, I’ve had a really rewarding summer this year, and the summer began, as many successful summers often do, with a great new romance. After describing the last few months as rewarding, it was no surprise for me to realize that my courtship with Freckles began to take shape about the same time the official first day of summer came to pass. And while I’m thankful for Freckles for a number of reasons that I won’t delve into in this entry, I must acknowledge how incredibly grateful I am for having her in my life because if it were not for her, I wouldn’t have experienced half of what I did this summer.

The summer began with not one, but two summer beer-drinking softball leagues on Bad News Bears teams that threatened to break the long-standing record 6% winning percentage set by the Giants, my Little League baseball team. We couldn’t hit, we couldn’t field, we didn’t know where to throw the ball, or when not to throw it, and at the end of each game, the official boxscore resembled the betting odds for a Kentucky Derby long shot. But like most men given the opportunity to play the game they love, we had fun. With beer.

Thanks to Freckles and her unbelievably generous family, I was fortunate to spend a few summer afternoons and evenings at a camp on Lake Champlain where the aforementioned croquet and jet skiing took place. And as a too-good-to-be-true encore, I was also given the opportunity to accompany Freckles to her cousin’s Florida wedding in August. The only question that remains is how to properly thank people who, without hesitation or second-thought, gave so freely and so much? Needless to say, I’m still working on that one.

The rest of the summer was filled to the brim with disc golf with Montana Girl, The Virgin Mary’s birthday party celebration campout on a lake, canoeing, hiking with friends, time spent with the nieces, and all the other activities that make you feel young again, even if your 28-year-old body has a different opinion.

And then, just as I started to believe that I had recaptured the innocence I lost far too long ago, I was reminded that I can never go back to the world I once knew because as the summer sun began to set on this great season once again, I was assaulted with the kind of news only the sheltered Nieces #1–3 could have possibly overlooked: my company laid off nearly one-fifth of its workforce so that it could “continue to stay competitive”; Hurricane Katrina destroyed the way of life for hundreds of thousands of people; and gas prices soared to levels only Europeans ever thought were possible. And while I found some solace in one of the most powerful images of my short life (a seemingly infinite line of my fellow citizens ready to donate food and supplies to the hurricane victims), I can’t shake the reality that my childhood has left me, and in its place now stands an unforgiving and stressful world of pain and sorrow.

A. Bartlett Giamatti once wrote that baseball was a game designed to break you heart; that “you count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.” And now, as I prepare to face the chill rains of fall in this terrible, wonderful world, I think the same can be said for summer.

Turning on the water

If I have a favorite household chore, The Virgin Mary will assure you that it’s definitely not cleaning out the kitty litter but maybe, just maybe it’s washing the dishes. And her hunch is a correct one backed by a year and a half of detergent-soaked proof. I seem to be always washing dishes and for awhile, my explanation was simply that it was the only chore I knew how to do effectively, but recently, I’ve realized that I do it more for the sense of cleansing satisfaction I get whenever I finish the job. It’s nice to be able to make something clean and pure again; in this world, you don’t get that opportunity very many times.

This weekend brought with it plenty of opportunities to wash dishes. CAT invited all of her friends to her family’s summer home for the weekend, and I graciously accepted the invitation. Considering the emotional repercussions of last fall’s Great Snoring Banishment of 2004 (see October 10, 2004 blog posting), I was hesitant to return to the Bradford, VT wood, but with lowered expectations, and less people in attendance, this weekend turned out to be more rewarding than the previous one spent there. And while I admit this partially had to do with the fact that I was not forced to share a room with The Paraguayan (the snorer, not a guy pretending to be gay), I believe that my improved spirits were more the result of a new friend that I made: The Righteous Babe (named as such for her startling resemblance [both physical- and personality-wise] to the original RB).

The Righteous Babe showed up late Saturday night after catching a bus from Boston and though I had only been at the house for half the day, her arrival was a much-needed antidote for the frustratingly annoying Ma Gorg (picture the traits of this Fraggle Rock character and Fraggle nemesis, and you know what I had to deal with this weekend). Ma Gorg has a dominant personality and because of this, she made a point of having her hands in every activity, food dish, and tangible part of the summer house, while making sure to rule every discussion, joke, and thought of the weekend. I learned very quickly Saturday that my favorite part of the house/property was always wherever there was the required space between myself and Ma Gorg to make her voice disappear. When The Righteous Babe arrived, I no longer needed that spatial filter because she brought with her a spiritual buffer to any and all stress (that may sound cheesy, but it’s the only way for me to describe it).

We set a place for The Righteous Babe at the dinner table and made enough food for the extra person, but because of commuting obstacles beyond her control, she arrived late and a few minutes after we had finished eating. Most of us remained at the table to keep her company while she ate her meal and it was quickly discovered that thanks to Ma Gorg’s generous second helping, there was nothing left of the main course for The Righteous Babe to eat. With a heartfelt appreciation for even having a plate set aside for her, The Righteous Babe devoured what was left of the salad and dessert.

The evening gave us the chance to play board games (CAT’s favorite past-time and the universal G-rated ice-breaker). While a few hours of games wasn’t remotely close to enough time to thaw the many layers of ice I had placed between Ma Gorg and myself, it did allow enough time for the green-house effect to take effect between me and The Righteous Babe. And for that, as is often the case, I can take no credit. And I doubt that The Righteous Babe would take credit either; she was simply doing, I believe, what came naturally to her (ie, she was being herself).

The rest of the weekend allowed for many opportunities to nap, read, write, play games, go for walks, enjoy the scenery, eat, sit in front of a fire, have great conversations, and all the other activities silently implied by the term “R & R.” And after nearly every meal, in an effort to chip in around the house, and while mentioning my inability to do any other chores (specifically cook), I washed the dishes. The weekend would have been perfect had it not been for the fact that Ma Gorg was part of nearly all of it. And then:

Monday morning, after an enormous breakfast I classified as in my list of “Top 25 Breakfasts of All Time” and after a satisfying weekend, which, because of Ma Gorg’s constant interference, was not completely satisfying, I found myself on Closure’s doorstep, washing dishes and standing beside The Righteous Babe, with a towel in her hands. We were alone in the kitchen and took the opportunity to talk about everything two strangers could possibly have time to talk about in 10 minutes, which is to say we didn’t talk nearly long enough. But what we did say was important, I hope, to both of us. While she gave me career (and on a subtextual level, life) advice, in an ironic conversational twist, I may have given her the advice for which she had not yet realized she was looking.

Regretfully, I finished washing the last dish and hesitantly, The Righteous Babe dried it and filed it away in the cupboards. She said that I should write about two strangers/new friends washing dishes in the kitchen and I assured her that I had already written part of the story in my head. A few short minutes later, with a hug and well wishes, we said goodbye and I waved to her as she drove down the long driveway. After watching her car disappear into the trees, I returned to the house where CAT had already begun the process of closing up the house by shutting off the water.

Let’s Not Go to the Movies

There’s a Simpsons episode where Homer realizes his stupidity can be blamed on a crayon he shoved up his nose and lodged into his brain when he was a young boy. As an adult, he decides to have it removed and instantly, he becomes a genius. He’s so smart he accidentally proves there is no God. Unfortunately for him, after gaining intelligence, the simple things in life no longer entertain him.

In one scene, Homer is shown in a movie theatre watching the latest comedy off the Hollywood assembly line. He is surrounded by a theatre full of people laughing hysterically and he can’t understand why. He says something to the effect of, “I don’t understand; this isn’t funny at all.”

The point of all of this is, I felt like Homer Simpson Friday night as I sat there in the theatre with CAT, The Virgin Mary, and The Irish Postman. We were watching Monster-in-Law with Jane Fonda and J-Lo, and my lord, I’d say that I had never seen anything so poorly written and badly acted as this, but I’d be lying because I see it more often than not whenever I go to the movies. What’s worse than that is that nearly everyone in the theatre left thinking it was money well spent.

I understand Hollywood’s point of view here; it’s the same point of view that McDonald’s and WalMart and auto companies, and oil companies, and the government share: if society keeps on buying it, we’ll keep on selling it. So you can’t really blame them for cashing in like that. I’m sure most of us would sell out for a billion dollars. But you have to blame us for not putting our collective foot down and demanding better products. At some point, we decided by majority that we will accept less than what’s good for us so long as we could chalk it up to easily pronounced sayings like “that’s life” or “so it goes” or “welcome to the real world.”

And sadly, I need to bring this rant to a quick end. I’d write more but XXX: State of the Union starts in 20 minutes.

I’m With Crazy

As some of the five of you know, while I do have a computer at home, I don’t have Internet access, which went the way of the landline phone. And so my ability to send emails and post on my blog rests solely on the shoulders of three separate but equally awkward computers:

1. My work computer, which is owned by the very same company that recently officially forbid its employees to send personal emails and surf the Internet. Thus, whenever I send emails and post on my blog, I’m risking termination of my employment.

2. My parents’ computer, which I use far too often whenever I visit. And truth be told, I visit them far too often. They’re probably sick of me and probably sick of me using their computer all the time.

3. The public library computers, which I use occasionally and which I’m currently using. Typically, I use them on the days I don’t work and whenever I feel like I’ve worn out my welcome at my parents’ house.

And so, after spending at least 5 consecutive days at my parents’ house due to the holidays, and on my day off from work, I have decided to venture down to the public library to post this message. In doing so, I am braving an hour in the building in which I have had quite possibly the most uncomfortable encounters of my short life.

You see, the library is home to the Library Crazies. There are the men who talk to themselves; the women who cause scenes because their allotted computer time expired before they could finish their Internet game; the teenagers who are so starved for attention that they yell at each other and ignore the poor librarian’s desperate attempts to quiet them down; and finally, the staining ones (the individuals who leave stains on the chairs they use). So far, with 14 minutes left, I have been fortunate enough to have only encountered a man singing to himself and luckily, he sang in tune.

Today has been a somewhat disappointing one. My friend CAT canceled our cross-country skiing plans and so, despite the newly fallen 6-8 inches of snow, I stayed indoors. After a short trip to the mall with The Virgin Mary, I got into my car to run some errands. Well, evidently, Inga Beep the Jeep had another idea because she wasn’t running right and I had to turn around and park her in the parking lot. I don’t think her gears were catching; though, let’s be honest, her turn signal could have caused this problem and I wouldn’t have known the difference. The sun has set, the day is slowly ending, and I feel as though I’ve wasted it. If I had it to do over again, this is what would have happened:

I woke up at 9, showered, dressed, and walked to Muddy Waters, a local coffee shop and ordered a hot chocolate. After reading a few chapters in a new book of short stories, and after writing a few pages of a letter to a friend, I returned home, dropped off my things and then ventured out onto the streets of Burlington in my skis. After skiing around town for an hour or so, I returned home again, showered, dressed, and ventured to the local theatre to watch a matinee. Then I returned to Muddys for another hot chocolate and to read some more. As the sun was setting, I walked home for a quiet night of movie-watching and cuddling with Othello. The end. Oh well.

A Five Dollar Shake

While driving up Church St. at 5:15 am this morning with an old friend from high school sitting next to me (for reasons obvious to me [and soon to you], from here on out, I’m going to call her Mia Wallace), Mia turned to me and said, “well, this night has been interesting.” I commented on the fact that people usually say that after they’ve been mugged or left for dead in Mexico. She laughed as I turned onto Main Street and headed up the hill toward South Burlington. Now, how did we arrive at this moment?

Mia Wallace and I met my senior year in high school during study hall. I don’t know how it came about that we sat next to each other but we did and so for the rest of the year, I enjoyed her company and conversation, which were both unlike anything I had ever experienced in life. She got her tongue pierced, she talked about the great love between the Pulp Fiction characters played by John Travolta and Uma Thurman, and together, through the miracles of the McDonald’s Monopoly game, we briefly believed we had won a million dollars. She told me she would be famous one day and I agreed with her. The crush I developed on her was inevitable.

As is often the case, Mia and I lost touch with each other shortly after my graduation. And by “shortly,” I mean as soon as I walked out the high school gymnasium door with my back to my classmates in black gowns. I went to college, she went to a private school her senior year and by the time we graduated college, so many years had passed, I assumed I would never talk to her again. And then, through the miracles of the Internet and specifically an alumni website, we got back in touch, then lost touch, then got back in touch again. Soon, we began making plans for a reunion.

Last year, Sarah the L and I traveled to New York City and spent the weekend of February 14 with Mia. Together, the three of us celebrated our own anti-Valentine’s Day. I had an incredible time (to this day, the trip remains my all-time favorite NYC trip) and was thankful for reconnecting with Mia. Unfortunately, after the trip, we fell slightly out of touch again save the time in June when she remembered a bitter comment I made in February (“I’d rather get flowers on a random Tuesday in June than on Valentine’s Day) and sent me flowers. Since then, we’ve remained in touch, though not enough. Over a year passed by before I returned the favor and sent her flowers last month with the note: “Flowers on a random Tuesday in October are just as nice.”

Mia and I recently began discussing another reunion; this time while she visited her parents back in our hometown. Arrangements were made and so last night, I found myself in a booth in a bar situated on Plattsburgh’s only alley, sitting directly across from Mia. We talked about her recent New York City Marathon adventure, my stalker, and the many different levels of friendship:

1. The best friend.
2. The close friends you keep in touch with.
3. The close friends you lose touch with occasionally but always think about.
4. The friends you hang out with consistently that you would like to be closer with.
5. The friends you hang out with consistently that you’ll never be close with.
6. The friends you’ve outgrown (aka, the Throw Away Friends).

After a few hours, she told me she was returning to NYC via bus Sunday morning. I asked “why not fly?” to which she responded that the only flight she could take left Burlington at 6:15 am. I said “we could stay up late and I’ll drive you to the airport.” She thought about it, called the airline and decided to go for it. We went to her family’s home and spent an hour there to hang out with her family (at 11 pm).

At 12:30 am, Mia and I drove to Burlington, played Boggle on the ferry, ate an early morning meal at Denny’s, and went to my place where we tried to stay awake. At 4 am, we decided to sleep for an hour (Mia in the unoccupied Virgin Mary’s bed and me in my own). Around 4:30 am, I heard the front door open and quickly realized that the Virgin Mary, contrary to my earlier assumption, was not spending the night at her boyfriend’s place. I ran to the living room, told her that Mia was asleep in her bed and then woke up Mia to have her move to the couch. At 5:15 am, we left my apartment and headed for the airport.

The entire ride to the airport, I wanted to tell her that I hoped she didn’t think I considered her a “Level 6 Friend” or a “Level 5 Friend.” I wanted to tell her that I wished she and I were closer and that in the next year, I was going to try to make that come to fruition. But every which way I formed the thought in my head seemed overly cliche and in need of some serious editing, which, at 5:15 am, was definitely impossible. We reached the airport, hugged goodbye, and went our separate ways. She left me a voicemail an hour ago to tell me she made it home safely and to thank me for driving her to the airport and the crazy night we had. She ended the call by saying “see you soon.” And I hope that she’s right.

Song of My Anecdotal Self, Volume 1

– Last night, I took part in what has become sort of a family tradition: I hung out at my parents’ house waiting for trick-or-treaters to stop by, ate more candy than we passed out, and smiled uncontrollably at the sight of two of my nieces dressed up in their costumes. This year, Niece #1 was Belle and Niece #2 was Little Red Riding Hood. Niece #3 was in her home near Albany, celebrating the holiday dressed up as Blue. And, proving yet again the theory that small children will never ever understand sarcasm, I jokingly told Niece #2 that I had eaten her candy and watched in horror as she started bawling her eyes out. I’m going to hell.

– I went for my semi-daily walk with CP today. Typically, we walk up a very steep hill on a road near our company, and then turn around and come back. Today, while walking up the hill, we heard rustling in the woods to our right. CP immediately put me between her and the woods and we looked up to see a pair of eyes staring at us. After a few seconds, we realized we were staring at not one, but two deer who were probably as scared as we had been a moments earlier. After staring us down for a few seconds, they hopped away and disappeared into the woods.

– The Great Kitty Trial Run of October 2004 has officially ended! After a few kitty disputes coming nowhere near “Cat Fight” status, after Othello showed signs that he had settled into the apartment enough so that he wouldn’t be afraid to come out of my room, and after it was decided by The Virgin Mary and I that while the cats may never like each other, they most certainly will be able to coexist, I decided to officially adopt Othello. So let it be known that on Halloween of 2004, I adopted Othello, an all black cat born on Friday the 13th (4/13/01). Congratulations may be sent to my attention in the form of check or money order.

– Tomorrow, as I’m sure all of you know, is Election Day and I don’t think it’s an overstatement when I say that it will be the most important day of our lives thus far. Tomorrow is our opportunity to unite as one voice and declare to our country and to the world that we do not stand for narrow-mindedness, or hatred, or bigotry, or unjust wars in a society where the rich get richer and the poor die on the front lines. Tomorrow is our opportunity to sound our barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world and slowly, morally, and peacefully heal the wounds on which our current president has continued to gnaw. Please exercise your right tomorrow and please think before you do. When we ultimately pass this world on to our nieces and nephews and sons and daughters, I want to be proud of the world we’re giving them.

The Great Kitty Trial Run of 2004

Not since Ringo Starr’s 3-minute meeting with Ann B. Davis in a unisex bathroom of a small Omaha, Nebraska nightclub in 1972 has there been such a meeting of minds as there was yesterday afternoon in my apartment when Montana Girl’s cat Othello and I joined forces to take on the world and single-handedly put an end to cancer, starvation, crime, and subsequently, prostitution. Yes, that’s right, Othello moved into my apartment for a week at the end of which we should know for sure whether or not he gets along well enough with The Virgin Mary’s (TVM) cats Sherbert and Shu-Shu. So far so good. Here are some highlights:

1. Sherbert seems remarkably calm with the transition. After learning of the presence of a third cat in the apartment, and upon determining the food supply to be satisfactorily stable, Sherbert was business as usual. He slept on the couch, and didn’t flinch an inch when Othello greeted him with a hiss and kitty growl.

2. Shu-Shu, though remaining in TVM’s bedroom for the duration of the first day, did make a few appearances out from under TVM’s bed and was seen this morning staring through the bedroom glass door at Othello as he roamed around the dining room. Although greeting Othello with hisses and kitty growls on Day 1, she seemed somewhat peaceful this morning and able to stand her ground (behind the bedroom door) as Othello hissed in her direction.

3. Othello, as should be expected considering he’s been uprooted from his home and mother, has been acting nervous and excited rolled up in a big ball of curious reservations. With the help of his kitty tower, kitty litter, water, food, and “Catnip Box,” he’s made a home for himself in my bedroom. He’s fond of the square-box-shaped crawl space behind my clothes rack and so I’ve officially dubbed that area of my room “Othello’s Fort.” I think he realized early on that my room was really his room and should there be a kitty brawl, he has a safe haven to which he can run.

4. TVM and I have decided to divvy up apartment time between the three cats. Othello had most of yesterday evening to roam around the apartment while Sherbert and Shu-Shu were stuck in TVM’s room; then Sherbert and Shu-Shu had all night to roam the apartment while Othello was in my room. This morning, there was a brief “communal time” where all cats roamed around freely. Today, Othello has the apartment until 1, then Sherbert and Shu-Shu have the afternoon, and then Othello has the evening for an hour or so.

5. While stuck in my room last night, Othello seemed more than content to snuggle with me on my bed. This quiet time lasted until about 2 a.m. at which point he felt the need to explore the various nooks and crannies, and then mark his territory in the kitty litter box not once, but three times. It was also discovered by me that Othello is quite possibly the loudest eater in the history of cats. At approximately 6 a.m., there was a kitty confrontation through the crack at the bottom of my door between Othello and an undetermined kitty. Both cats expressed their disgust with the other with the traditional hissing. At approximately 6:30 a.m., Othello began crying to be let out of the room. TVM opened the door to feed him and thus began the aforementioned “communal time.”

In summary, after 24 hours, Othello seems to be as well-adjusted as can be expected; Sherbert couldn’t give any less of a crap about Othello; Shu-Shu has been less social than her normal self, which, I might add, is far less social than the normal cat. More updates to come.

Here kitty kitty kitty

Contrary to popular* belief that can be partly blamed on a nasty rumor that originated somewhere in the Sahari Desert, I have not, as of yet, fathered any children. Yes, that’s right, folks, thanks to the concerted effort of myself and numerous (though not THAT numerous) women, I’m 27 and without children. Please please, hold your applause until the end.

Although, ironically, in order to achieve such a lack of responsibility in the present, I had to be extremely responsible in my past, it’s safe to say that I’ve never considered myself to be a responsible person. And so, it is with an extremely nervous tone that I declare to the world that in two days I will be the proud and skittish pseudo-owner of a beautiful and skittish black cat named Othello. I say “pseudo” because the permanent custody of Othello is yet to be determined.

You see, my friend, who for obvious geographic reasons pertaining to her childhood shall henceforth be called Montana Girl, has discovered that she does not have the time and energy necessary to give Othello the love and attention any pet needs. Yes, she’s THAT busy. And then, one day, when she determined that Othello was the equivalent of my kitty soul mate, it was decided that I would ultimately assume responsibility and ownership of said kitty. But first…

I have a roommate and I can’t believe I haven’t yet mentioned her. For obvious religious reasons, I’m going to call her The Virgin Mary. Well, you see, The Virgin Mary, when moving into our apartment, brought with her two very adorable and eccentric kitties named Sherbert and Shu-Shu, who, for the remainder of this blog will be referred to as Sherbert and Shu-Shu. Sherbert is old (as The Virgin Mary says, “age undetermined”) and has one fake eye; Shu-Shu is a SCAREDY CAT with a capital S and CAREDY CAT. They’ve all settled into the apartment nicely but a new cat could completely negatively disrupt their lives. And so, Montana Girl, The Virgin Mary, and I decided to have a Trial Run. We’d take Othello for about a week or so to see how he adjusts and to see how the other two kitties adjust and if everything works out, he’s mine. If things don’t work out, he’s the Humane Society’s. No pressure, right?

And so, two days from now is Day 1 of said Trial Run. And in 9 days, if all goes well, I’ll be a daddy. And I’m nervous. Really nervous. I’ve never cared for anything by myself. I’ve only ever cared for a living, breathing thing for a few hours at a time (in the case of my nieces), a few days at a time (in the case of my roommate’s kitties), or with the assistance of my family (in the case of my childhood dog). Never with the buck stopping at me. Cousin J’s recent fish trauma only intensified my fears. What if something goes terribly wrong? What if Sherbert eats Othello? What if Shu-Shu goes insane? Now I’m the scaredy cat.

*In this instance, “popular” is used loosely if only because it’s untrue.