Voices in My Head

So yes, here we are in a brand New Year. A few weeks back I wrote a post that now, for the life of me I cannot find anywhere. It is titled I am a Hateful Bitch and it is about riding on a packed train into Manhattan. It was packed to the teeth except for the cute girl across the isle from me who was in a whole other universe. I think she was actually riding on a whole other train that was running parallel to ours only her train was empty.

She sat alone, writing out her Christmas cards and occasionally checking email on her Netbook. No one sat with her and not because she had a shitload of crap. All she had was a tiny little purse that was color coordinated to match her tiny headband, which sat on top of her tiny little body.

I had a woman with a baby sit next to me and for two solid hours, all I did was eat Halls Defense with Zinc, Vitamin C and Echinacea. I just sucked them down one after another and probably gave myself some weird liver failure thing but I did not get that child’s version of Swine Flu. The mother was traveling with her husband and their other child (a toddler). The husband spent the majority of the ride standing next to her while letting the toddler wobble up and down the isle. Who are these people? Well, as we all found out, they have a house in Rhinebeck that they are renovating. They use to live on the Upper Westside and were traveling into Manhattan three days before Christmas because the baby had an eye appointment. “No nothing is wrong, just a check up.” The father chirped completely oblivious to his other child rolling around on the floor by the bathroom.

Ah yes, but that was all so last year.

Christmas for me was spent in Manhattan for six (count them six!) whole days in Manhattan. Martha was there with me for three days and then flew down to North Carolina to visit her mom.

It was right after the underwear bomber thing. They overbooked her flight and she ended up waiting at the airport for seven and a half hours to board a plane.

Jazz traveled by train and arrived in New York just after Christmas. Penn Station was a sea of people, so much so that Jazz and I walked right past each other while talking on the phone to each other.

Where are you?
I’m by the tree.
I’m by the tree!
What side?
By Krispy Kreme.
I’m looking at Krispy Kreme!
To be fair, I had my hat on and she has new glasses but still. Like I said a sea of people.

Gum at Penn Station

We stayed at a friend’s apartment in the Upper Eastside. Way up by Gracie Mansion. Good lord the living up there is crazy old money rich. I saw endless fur coats and extreme face-lifts walking around in the cold. I am not sure what they were doing walking around outside when they clearly are use to being driven everywhere. Maybe the sub-zero wind-chill helps in the preservation of stretched flesh. Who knows.

We had to babysit a gaggle of hamsters. Originally, the family we were staying with started out with one hamster but then decided to get another. That is when the trouble started. You know, I always say just because you get a good one first time does not mean your second is going to be a cakewalk. This goes for kids, hamsters, cats and every other living thing that you bring into the house. Sometimes, one is just fine. Then again, sometimes one is just as much of a nightmare as six might have been.

Anyway, the new hamster came home pregnant. Bad hamster. I’m not sure on what the total litter tally was, but when we arrived there were four babies left. Four cages, six hamsters in all. The family thought they had separated the males from the females but low and behold the day after Christmas Martha and I checked on them and it looked like the one cage had turned incestuous. Brother would not stop doing sister. We were stumped and it was very disturbing to watch. The boy would run really fast on the wheel, run over and hump his sister and then run over to the plastic food bowl and chew on it. Repeatedly this happened. It was insane and completely distressing.

The Sister

Martha called the owner and a decision was made to buy a new cage and rescue the sister. Good god, the hamster stress.

The trip just what I needed to distract me from every other part of my life. I shot a bunch of film, had dinner with old friends and even managed to play a few games of pool. Turns out that I now suck at eight ball and Jazz is really good.

Thank you to everyone who made it possible.