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HEY.

I am just simply never satisified. Cracky Neighbors are moved out, landlord says that I won't have new ones til August (August! no neighbors all summer!) and I'm still complaining.

There is a thin layer of black soot over my bathroom floor and half the kitchen. Landlord says it's because over the weekend (when I was gone thank god) there was DEMOLITION. On the one hand, dude, I missed demolition. On the other hand, BLACK SOOT. In the part of the apt I already cleaned.

But all worth it for the weekend we had. Starting Thursday night, house/cat sitting for Stacey in Prospect Heights with a) a rooftop; b) delivery and c) bottles and bottles of wine. Saturday a beautiful bus ride back to my own hood to hang out with Original Recipe Stacy, who was bartending. Ms PacMan Karen made me feel like a rockstar by flat out not believing my age and I caught a cab back to the Heights just as the skies opened up and spat out a warm, flat gush of rain.

Sunday, Anca came to town. We roped Ryan into abandoning his suburban duties so that we'd have 2 passes to the game, and we 3 + K-dub travelled up to the Bronx to see Godzilla beat Ichiro. We headed straight for the homeplate/net seats we scored last time and K-dub homed in on 4 about 20 back that remained empty for the whole damn game. Too many beers and a hotdog (how can something so very awful taste so very good?) later we were taking telephoto shots of Yankee asses and the Godzilla puppet guy, and then I saw my aunt's name flash across the Jumbotron. It wasn't actually my aunt's name, but someone with the same, crazy, uncommon first AND last name as her. I called mom and then we started coming up with our own ideas for Jumbotron messages.

Mandy, I want a divorce. Love, Todd.
Mom & Dad, I'm gay. Love Gary.
Yankees welcome the Yonkers NAMBLA Chapter.
Jennifer Bates, See you in court.
Daniel, I've been sleeping with your brother.

Anca, Ryan, what were the rest??

So today I was all weird and tired. More weird than tired. Somewhere around 4:30 I just hit a wall, all the energy just drained out of me. I felt all sensitive and delicate, like I'd gotten my feelings hurt. My feelings just spontaneously hurt themselves. I think I missed my apartment. So glad to come home to it, in all its soot-covered beauty.

I just came back from the ladies room at work and on the floor right in the middle of the aisle between my cube and the kitchen was a twenty dollar bill. I am such a ridiculous overthinker that my very first thought was that it was some kind of joke bill, and all my coworkers would laugh at me for picking it up. This could also be because they are the kind of coworkers who would do that.

I was just thinking this morning how weirdly guy-centric work is. Not weird as in, GUYS in a SPORTS company, how outre! Weird as in, I've spent the last few years in more female-centric environments and it's been interesting getting re-acclimated to such a Man Show kinda atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, in a lot of ways it's more comfortable. I'm not a total Guy's Girl girl outside of work, I have fairly equal amounts of close guy and close girl friends, but at work I'm much more one of the guys. I don't necessarily think it's some comment on the different working styles of men and women, for me it's more a matter of the actual job duties. I started out working in the Internet industry both long enough ago and in a technical enough capacity that my close coworkers were almost always all men. I've spent time in offices where I was practically the only woman. So I'm used to it and therefore feel more comfortable in that kind of enviroment. Kind of a Stockholm Syndrome kind of thing, I guess.

And it's not all guys here by any means. My boss is a woman, there are women everywhere, but I just happen to sit in what was before my arrival an all guy cube. And they're popular guys who other guys come to visit a lot. And ryan comes and visits me (I sit near the Diet Coke machine, his
lover, teacher, goddess figure) so it's just a Guy ol' time all day. I mean, the guys in the adjacent cube have the whole nerf basketball net business goin on, and a few times a day the ball will pop over the wall and onto my desk. They're always so sorry about it, and it doesn't make me mad, it's not a REAL basketball or anything. And yesterday there was an hour long argument over some two players relative merits (I'm adjacent to the Fantasy guys) and for real, I live for this. It's exactly like when I would hang out with ryan and that whole hacker crowd and just spend hours listening to, and transcribing of course, those guys talk to each other. It was like Hackers in the Mist. I'm not all Men are from Mars and shit, but something about a group of them, all sharing a common interest in something that they are almost obsessive about, is fascinating stuff. I always say I don't care what you're into, I just love people who are into SOMETHING, who have a passion for ANYTHING, even if it's something so deadly dull or extremely complex that I may never understand it. This place is full of people with passion and I dig that.

So anyway, the $20. I picked it up (from the suspiciously empty hallway, says my metabrain) and went back into my cube and told the guys I just found it and what should I do. Can't send an email (me: "Who lost a $20?" everyone: "I DID" me: "Can you describe the bill?") so I went over and gave it to the office manager to keep for the day and told the front desk woman too. Still think it was some kind of moral test, to see that I actually still have morals. And it's been hours since I started this entry and I'm at home now and I realize I totally forgot to go back and retrieve my found money so take that, universe. Do I get an A?

I didn't go to work today, choosing instead to spend the day drunk in my underwear, as the Cinco de Mayans intended. Or no, that was the last dream I had before waking up, on the couch, fully clothed, where I'd passed out the night before. Not in a "got drunk on wine at home alone while talking to Anca on the phone" kinda passed out, but a "I packed up my bedsheets and whatnot in preparation for the guy to come pick up my laundry" kinda way. Or at least mostly the second thing. Anca gives good phone; whenever I begrudgingly divulge some story or other that she missed by living in Not New York, she comes back with some crazy story of grad student debauchery that blows my small town shenanigans out of the water. The girl dated a tug boat captain fer crissakes, I cannot compete with that.

But I actually didn't go to work today. I had my SingleDrag training all day, from 10-5. I was there early, the only one. Already a nerd. Such efficiency at the SD offices, one of those old school, 1997-era giant kitchens with a row of glass fronted refrigerators filled with water, soda, juice, all free, and over looking that old dotcom relic, the gameroom, complete with foosball, ping pong and POOL TABLE. The ad world's still livin large. The Very Efficient Receptionist, sorry, Lobby Management Coordinator was so very disappointed in me when I failed to provide a contact name. Actually sighed at me! Regressing, regressing. I actually felt myself becoming less confident, shyer, PIMPLY. I got through school by being a sidekick - where is my Sherlock, my Lone Ranger?!

The trainer arrived and found me sitting in the back, like the bad kid I was trying so hard to be ("contact names are for suckahs, foo!") and made me move up. Front row. And......apparently there are only 2 of us scheduled for this class. Great. Then she had to call IT to fix something on the main computer in the training room and said the password in front of me like 5 times. I own them now. Oh, man, they had one of those electronic whiteboards that can print out what you write on them. I totally asked if I could try that shit out at the end of the class but was denied. Yeah, ok, nerd. And then she laughed at my temporary pass picture, which, in my defense, was not my fault, the security guy just pointed the thing at me and took the picture before I even knew what was going on. Laughed at me! Gimme back that trainer evaluation survey, lady.

It really wasn't all that bad. The trainer was a nice chick, who got into a few digressive, chit chats with me and Other Dude. She had just come back from a 6 week work trip to Europe and the Far East and told us about the bugs in Hong Kong. For serious I cannot handle bugs. There was one of those gihugic kabillion-legged creatures in my tub last weekend and I felt so very single at that moment. But I could not bring myself to be the girl who asks a neighbor to kill a bug. I ended up being able to smash it before collapsing in a nervous, twitchy heap on the bed but there was much screaming, which is hard to do while trying to keep your mouth tightly shut so the bug doesn't see an opportunity and hop in. Trainer Gal agreed with me, bugs=skeevotron, but Other Dude, like K-dub, hates rodents more. I would take a giant, hairy rat over the tiniest of bugs any day. I can keep an eye on the rodent, bugs are stone cold sneaky. And they can fit in places where no bug, nay, where no THING, should ever go. Oh Jesus, my ears are all tingly just thinking about it and I'm kind of freaking myself out. To recap: bugs no, fruit yes.

Speaking of the Dub, she's down in El Capitale with Ms Anca this very evening, staying with her while in town for work tomorrow. Anca told her in no uncertain terms that it was Cinco de Mayo and her classes are over, forevah, and so shut your pie hole we're going out drinking. And we all know how that goes... I emailed K-dub's Blackberry while she was on her way down: "i'll be personally offended if i don't get drunk dialed. if my 2 best homies ain't on my jock, who is? WHO IS?"

Now, I'm all Cinco de Merlot and cleaning the kitchen. Dang, my foaming pipe snake is ready. Sadly, not a euphemism. Viva la cucina!

I saw this woman on the A to work this morning. She got on at Jay with me - full burqa veil business, the whole nine. It wasn't til I skooched past her to snag a just emptied seat at B'way-Nassau that I saw her messenger bag, nestled amongst the layers of burgundy and olive fabric. Her American Idol messenger bag. I could actually hear a piece of what holds the universe together snap off and shatter.

FYI, all that neighbor shit was from 2 weekends ago. Things are much better now. Scene from last Tuesday:

ryan c nelson: so, maggie wants to go tomorrow, so you and i should use our passes or something
ryan c nelson: i'm sure we can find extra seats near the group
thebnan: well, i can just not go.
ryan c nelson: do you have other entertainment options?
thebnan: yeah, actually. something i was gonna do thur i can prob do wed thebnan: then i wont have to miss my 2nd thur plan
ryan c nelson: i guess you're still going to get the thrill-o-the-pass on saturday
thebnan: i'm very popular
ryan c nelson: the pass has that effect
ryan c nelson: all love the pass
thebnan: indeed
thebnan: i may get married this year.
thebnan: heh.
ryan c nelson: in some closet at your house, there's a portrait of you getting less popular
thebnan: HA
ryan c nelson: right now, it's wearing leg warmers and playing tetris
thebnan: oh, snap. on legwarming old skool gamers.
thebnan: it has dandruff and headgear
ryan c nelson: it's enjoying a very special episode of Silver Spoons
thebnan: its building a replica of that train in the garage.

So I did not go to the game on Wednesday night, but this past Saturday, ryan, jon, K-dub and I trucked up to the Boogie Down and it ruled so much I'll never be satisfied again. We hit the upper deck for the first 4 innings, then when the peeps with rights to our seats showed up we moved on to Plan B - the seats right behind home plate, under the netting. I have never been that close to Jeter's ass before and I'd give it 3 Michelin stars. Good times.

Tomorrow I have an all day training class for a popular ad serving company. In honor of Cinco de Mayo, I'm contemplating showing up in a sombrero and serape with a cooler full of Corona. So many bad stereotypes, so little time. But really now, how can this be fun? I HATE school. I will have to take notes and make new friends and my new loafers will be too tight and what if I have to sit alone at lunch, bringing my sad inner 14-yr-old nerd to the surface, once again! Or maybe I'll play it different this time, be a cool kid who skips class and smokes the reefer and sleeps around and chews gum and gets drunk and this time I'll be one of the chicks rolling up her skirt so it's just this shy of illegal in 40 states. Huh, minus the reefer, I think I grew up into a bad kid. And why do I keep saying the reefer? Don't fear it.

I nearly had to kill and gut some sort of hoary wildebeast and snuggle up inside of it to keep safe from the ravages of hypothermia this winter and tonight, MAY THIRD, at almost 50 DEGREES by NY1's measure, both radiators are blasting steam throughout the apartment, while I lay here in my underwear on the bed, limp and gasping for air and mainlining H2O to keep from severe dehydration and brittle husk-ification. You hear what I'm saying here? It's fucking HOT.

Maybe it's some kind of dry run for the hot, sticky, viscous gum that is summer in Brooklyn, or maybe the lack of sleep and food these last few days has me sweaty and hallucinating the steam heat hiss, or maybe the apartment is infested with mutated lizards and snakes and gila monsters with opposable thumbs they used to turn up the heat to tropical levels.

Or maybe the neighbors have found a new way to torture me and make me go all Hulk Smash! on them and then cry and freak out so much that I go and find new ways to fuck Shit UP. I didn't mention this before, but the weekend before last I had a little...episode with the Cracky Neighbors. They are always loud on the weekends but, it's NYC, I don't have to be up on weekend mornings and life is too short to sweat every single piece of shit these assholes pull. Also I've been here 2 years and I guess they just wore me down.

But that Saturday (that'd be the 17th), they kicked it up a notch. It started around midnight with about 3 solid hours of screaming at each other. Longer than usual, and more violent sounding. I had been out for a while so I still managed to pass out eventually somehow before being awakened at 5AM by the most unholy bass-like vibrations from what must have been the Devil himself. Seriously I didn't know noise actually got that loud. Or not even loud, it was so far beyond loud as to metamorphosize into a physical manifestation of Bass. Bass was oozing down my walls, across my floors and out my ears. Bass slid up onto the bed and slapped me in the face. Then Bass seeped through the membranes in my eardrums and gave me a seizure of pure, unadulterated HATE. I flipped the fuck out.

The hardest part of even telling this story is remembering how batshit insane I went. I didn't know I had that much anger in me, not to mention so apparently close to the surface. If things had gone even slightly worse I could have gotten myself killed. I finally pried myself free of the heavy layer of Bass pinning me to the bed and pulled on a sweater and walked across the hall where I not so much knocked on the door, as attempted to smash it in with my fist. They finally answered I started with "You HAVE to turn that DOWN." Blank stares. Then the guy who is the boyfriend of the woman whose apartment it actually is lumbered over to the door, dead eyed and completely and totally shitfaced, skittered his eyes over me, ascertained that I wasn't a cop and slowly started closing the door in my face. And then I had a mini psychotic break and slammed the door back into him, but he was stronger than me and got it closed. I, however, then just stood there shrieking and banging on the door for I don't even know how long.

They turned it down at some point and I went back inside and called the police to report a complaint just because I had no idea what to do with myself. The police did not show up, but I think it's because they actually had been here earlier, during the 3 hour argument part of this lovely evening. I spent Sunday on the couch, crying at commercials and deep breathing. I've never been that angry and it was awful, leaving me feeling like someone had hit me. The only consolation I have is that I told my friends this story and instead of shunning me as the out of control lunatic I felt like, every single one of them offered me a place to stay until the move out actually occurs. Even some friends of friends of mine offered, and I haven't even known them very long. You people rock.

But that was over a week ago and with a little stealth coming and going (a very healthy "I can't seeeee youuuuu." Not.) and a lot of plans and nights out and even more very, very loud music on the headphones at all times (Top 5 For Can't Stay Mad While Listening At Top Volume: The Police (specifically Every Little Thing She Does and Hungry For You), Beastie Boys (specifically the Fatboy Slim remix of Body Movin on the Anthology CD Disc One, Get It Together and Skillz to Pay the Billz) Cibo Matto (all of Stereotype A), the Mr. T Experience and The Clash (currently can't get enough Know Your Rights, "and it has been suggested in some quarters, that this is not enough!"). Oh, and Missy Elliott as loud as godamned possible.) has put my thing down, flipped it and reversed it.

And now the phone is ringing, oh my God. Night.