The Old "Crack Fell on My Shoe" Excuse

I ask you to believe me. Believe this little tale I lay before you. I couldn't make ths s*%# up, I swear.

So, you remember the hustler/prostitute who moved in with her new victim/my roommate, right? To recap, he met her and after one night of being together, she moved in with us, sending the household into utter turmoil and forcing me to find a new place to live. She seems like a total scammer, but my roommate just can't see past his raging...adoration for her.

She is gone for the month of December, as per my request - so I can look for a new place to live in peace. I came home a few nights ago (get ready for this one - you're gonna luuuuvvv it!) after eating spectacular Vietnamese food at Nah Trang in Chinatown with my friend Ruby and my roommate is in his bedroom, door closed, yelling at his new "girlfriend." At first, I tried to ignore it and went in my room to change into my jammies. No...no...I was naked (that's to keep the horny captivated.)

Now I'm not much of an eavesdropping sort - but this one, man - I could not pass up. I tiptoed to his door and listened to the weirdest one-sided conversation that perhaps I have ever heard. It went a little something like this:

"What do you mean the crack fell on your shoe? That's impossible. It's physically impossible!" (Pause)

"Its in my hand! I'm looking at it! Its in a bag. It's a white rock. Of something. I don't know! I don't know crack but I've heard it comes in the form of a rock."

(At this point, I was ready to knock on the door and explain to him that meth and cocaine can both come in rock form but I didn't want to interrupt his flow.)

"So you're telling me that when you were staying here, you went out to the front of the apartment building to smoke a cigarette and a bag of crack fell on your shoe. You weren't sure what to do with it, so you brought it up here...that's ridiculous!" (Long Pause then quietly)

"No...no...I'm not calling you a liar. I'm sure it could happen. I mean...lots of things...happen. Its just really weird."

And with that understatement of the year, I returned to my soon to be ex-bedroom and went to sleep.

Ah...love.

Sexy Dream Last Night with Grouchy Guy pictured below

Yes, I know - I did vote him as one of the most grouchy famous people to meet - David Walliams from Little Britain. For those of you who havent' seen Little Britain, it is a big hit in Britain, akin to Monty Python and you need to watch it now. These two guys - Matt Lucas and David Walliams - play all the lead roles. They dress up as women alot, as all proper British comedies require.

I quickly developed a crush on David (as I like to call him), though I assumed he was gay - again, maybe because he is in dresses all the time. But, in real life, apparently, he is STRAIGHT. Like he likes girls. That's really exciting for me...a girl. A grown girl. In my dream, he is still gay, though...follow?

Okay, on to the dream, because I'm sure by now you are just dying of curiousity. Just dying.

The Dream: We are at some apartment together where he and I and Matt Lucas live. We are very comfortable with our living arrangement and with one another - perfect chemistry. It is morning and I jump into bed with Matt Lucas. David Walliams lie on the floor next to the bed, because he is too tall to fit. But we are all happy and cozy.

Next thing I remember, David Walliams is dancing with me, very closely. He is dressed impeccably - as he does in real life - and dancing close to me...oh, I said that already. Um...wow. He smells so good too. Too good. God, good. He was humming a song in my ear, a very pleasant old song. I break away for a second, because I'm thinking "Huh...you're gay, right? I'm confused."

He then starts walking toward me, forcing me to walk backwards. He kisses my neck and around my ears. I feel like I could faint from all this physical stimuli. And he...is so vampire-like, tall, strange, an inexplicable power - dark, sexy and thoroughly Intoxicating. He reaches under my dress and touches me between my legs. At this point, my knees start to go week and I almost fall. He catches me and explains how he is in fact gay and that's about as far as he can go, as a gay man. I say "That's fine," barely able to breathe.

And it was fine. Because I was dizzy and high from it. Too high from it. Besides him being so sexy, there was this taboo element - of a gay man and his suddenly straight desire...for me, no less! I woke up and thanked God for such a dream. It was sexy and even though he's on my grouchy list, he's my new boyfriend. Someone please tell him. Hurry. Please.

That's a Vagina.

So, dear reader, as you may already know from my previous blogs, my quiet roommate, who hasn't done much dating in the last few years, has found himself a hooker/self-proclaimed model named Teniqua or Lutwella or something, who seems to have moved in with us suddenly. So this dear writer has to find a new place to live by January 1. Oh Joy.

I told my roommate that the prossy needs to leave for the month of December. In exchange, I will find a place to live by January. He acquiesced. Ms. Thang went back to Cleveland on a Greyhound, patiently awaiting her return to my naive roommate and her free abode in NYC.

I thought the month of December would offer me a bit of quietude as I figured out what the heck I'm going to do. But my formerly shy, balding 43 year-old roommate, who seems to have recently discovered the apparatus in his pants, has decided he should test me a little more. Two nights after Leticia leaves, I enter the apartment after a hard day's work, and he has another "young lady", shall we say, in our living room. Her name is Maesha. She looks a whopping 16 years old but turns out to be a whopping 20. They are drinking Hennessey and she's telling him about this rash she's developed, this nasty rash, on her chest and do you want to see it? At this point, I grab my tea and retreat posthaste to my bedroom, but leave the door open a crack, as a sick form of masochistic pleasure, akin to driving slowly past a car accident or picking a scab.

Before my roommate became a fulltime freak, he was a painter. He begins to show her the various paintings hanging on the walls. When he gets to the one hanging right outside my bedroom door, he and Maesha stop.

Now I've always liked this particular painting. It has these deep shades of blue and brown and in the middle there is a sharp, silver swoosh. I think of it as a bird plummeting to the ocean for prey. Or maybe even a falling star. Apparently, I'm painfully off base.

He points to the painting and says to Maesha, "That's a vagina." I spit out my tea and begin coughing loudly. "That's a vagina." It plays over and over in my head like an audio nightmare. "That's a vagina." He proceeds down the hall with Maesha. They go in his bedroom and I realize my audio nightmare has only just begun. "Dat's the spot, baby!!" "Oh yeah, dat's the way I like it!" I run for my bed, wrap a pillow around my head, but I can still hear it.

"That's a vagina! That's a vagina!" I wonder if I'll ever want to have sex again after this. "That's a vagina." I have a sudden urge to run down the hall, bust open the door and grab my vagina and scream "No..this is a vagina, you little bizarro!" as bullets magically fly from between my legs and race thru his bald skull. Maesha would huddle in the corner, screaming "Not me, bitch. Not me." I'd let Maesha go, I suppose. Maybe.

"That's a vagina." How dare you? How dare you use MY female body part in your dumb ol' art and then use it as a weird way of picking up girls from da hood? What do YOU know about vagina, Mr. Vagina Man? "That's a vagina." So is your head! Your head is a vagina. A big fat vagina! I pray for the day a 3-mile wide vagina drops from the sky and sucks you up in it for eternity. Then...and only then, you creepy bastard, will I allow you to say in my presence "That's a vagina."

That's a vagina...indeed!

Suddenly Third Wheel

My roommate has lost his effin' mind. The prostitute gone "model" who suddenly moved into our household is now staying the rest of the month (refer to November 6 entry). My roommate, sensing my immense discomfort, paid me $500 to shut my mouth. Suffice it say, my mouth has been paid shut but my eyes are wide open, in dumb shock.

This morning, I see a card on the dining room table (next to the dozen roses he gave her. And a pineapple with a ribbon on it. Hello, has this man ever had sex before or what? The card reads:

"Though the road of life may be hard to travel..." (open) "Know, I'll always be there for you."

Now I'll give him some credit here - perhaps the road is is often hard to travel when you're wearing 6-inch high, white stiletto stripper boots and you just polished off a fifth of Southern Comfort.

Then...then....THEN....oh my god, then he writes (and again, dear reader, let me remind you, they have been together less than TWO effin' weeks):

"I love you baby. Justin."

Ahhhhhh....shoot me! Feeling powerless, I went in to the trashcan in my bedroom and pulled out a joke birthday card I recently tossed. It read: "Great Farters Throughout History" with little cartoon renditions of historical figures as: "Fartacus", "Napoleon Blownafarte" "Abe Stinkin" and "King Toot." I placed it behind the roses, the decorated pineapple and the ridiculous "I love you baby" card and prayed for a miracle.

Dancing with Shadows

I have a major birthday today. I won't tell you which one, but I will tell you it starts with "f" and ends in "death." Had a little party at my place last night. It was pretty lovely actually. My friend Ruby outdid herself with the preparations and my place looked really nice, with candles burning everywhere.

I felt a surprising amount of acceptance on my birthday this year. On previous birthdays, I would be heavier of heart - sad about people who were no longer around to share this day with me, nostalgic for simpler birthdays in the past, you know, your average birthday melancholia. But this birthday, felt a little more que sera sera, which felt nice. Well, at least I thought I felt alright.

Later that night, as the booze played out its effect, one of my gay male friends asked me to dance. There's was an old 50's song playing on the stereo. It was from The Lettermen, I think, called "Where or When." I wish I could play it for you now, it's such a ghostly and sad song to me. As the rest of the group talked quietly on the couch, my friend pulled me in to dance with him. The second he did, I felt this overwhelming urge to cry. A big cry, not a little...a BIG one. What was happening? Why this feeling? I suppose it felt so nice to be dancing with someone, no, more specifically a MAN. I was so in need of it - the visceral, charged energy of dancing with a man. The warmth, the stickysweet romance. Even though my friend is very gay, the worn parts of my soul felt sated and loved suddenly. I wanted to cry because I haven't felt that way in a long time and I felt sad about that.

My dance partner, who was NOT on the same page as me, kept trying to get laughs from my other friends by slowly moving his hand down my back to my behind, as if we were at some high school dance. This only made me hurt worse. "Please, please let me live out my timeless little fantasy for just a few more minutes. Please. Please let's not make a joke of it" But he didn't hear my psychic plea. He grabbed my ass suddenly and everyone burst into laughter. Except me, who quietly slunk off to my bedroom and cried for a while.

Help! Prossie in the House!

Egad. My life is currently giving all new meaning to the expression "going from bad to worse." Since my return from my summerlong stay at the Jersey shore to the quaint and beaucolic city of Brookyn (insert sarcasm here), I have dealt with bugs and mice in my apartment, sudden and financial ruin (remember, if you ever move to New York City, a cash register sound can be heard the SECOND you enter the city. And it never stops until you leave), a breakup with a white powder lovin’ boyfriend and well, a general sense of loneliness and ennui. I never knew you could feel so alone in such an peopled place.

Anyway, enough mea culpas. Let’s get back to the prostitutes, shall we? Or “prossies” as I will refer to them in this entry. My roommate is a bit of a pushover. Which has worked to my advantage thus far. Because I’m a bit of a pusher. He went to his construction site last Friday, where he serves as a designer, and met some woman who entered the site looking for a “modeling agency.” They struck up and conversation and Voila! My roommate, who doesn’t do so well with the ladies, brought home a brand new, fresh, spankin’ "model"! He tells me this Sat. morning. He tells me she’s in his bedroom now. Congrats, Justin, I tell him. Good for him.

When she finally stumbles out of the bedroom, a tall black woman, wearing 5-inch white thigh-high stiletto boots, a rabbit fur top and a matching rabbit fur hat, emerges. I almost spit out my coffee. “Hey there, baby,” she says. “My name is Lutwella.” Lutwella, indeed.

I figured, yeah, you seem like a prossie. Like a straight-up, street-walking-car-door-hanging prossie. But…what care I? Dost thou not have enough problems on thy own plate, Beth, than to worry about a roommate’s sexual miscalculations? I sip at my coffee, give her one last glance and go back to my paper. She and Justin eventually go on their merry way. Indeed, what care I?

But care I did. Because she kept returning. The entire weekend! I’d hear the clippety clop of her white boots up the steps to our apartment and wonder, when is this going to end? Then Sunday night, I hear the clippety clop of her boots and an additional thud! Thud! The apartment door opens and Lutwella is dragging along a large, fuzzy pink suitcase. There is no roommate, only her.

“What are you doing? Are you going away somewhere? What are you doing?” I stammer nervously.

“Honey, you can talk to Steven about that.”

“By Steven, I’m guessing you mean Justin, my roommate.” I say.

“Did I call him Steven. Oh shit, bitch! I can’t believe I said that!” she says, cackling away, slapping her bony knee. “No, seriously. I’m a model. And I came here to New York from Cincinatti to look for work. I’m a model.”

“You said that. What are you doing here…I mean, in this apartment?”

“I need to meet some people. Make some money. I can make money here. I can make up to 100.”

“A hundred what?”

“A hundred bucks, honey. Sometimes I get paid a hundred bucks an hour.”

“I bet you do, Lutwella. I bet you do.”

“Anyway, my friend…she said I could sleep on her couch but then she had all these other losers there. And I had to sleep on the floor. I have to look good. I can’t get those modeling jobs when I’m sleeping on the floor! So Steven…”

“Justin”

“Shiiit…did I say that again? Justin said I could stay here.”

“For how long did Steven say you could stay?” I ask tensely.

“Well, I’m supposed to go home in 10 days. That’s what my Greyhound ticket says.”

Okay, let’s stop here. This is a long blog and writing this, while offering some comic relief, is literally a little too close to home and making me tense all over again. When Lutwella was taking her bubble bath (kid you not!) that night in our bathroom, I pulled my roommate aside and said “You got to be kidding me, right? You got to be kidding!?”

“Well,” he whispers, “she has nowhere to go and she’s sleeping on a floor and…”

I go on to explain to him that sleeping on a floor IS in fact a place to go. And so is her HOME in Cincinatti. And I just gave you a big fat check so I DO have a place to go, a place free of prostitutes who double as models. He seemed very confused with this very basic logic. He was under some strange “I haven’t had sex in a while and now I’m getting some” trance and my straight-laced logic need not apply.

I went to bed that night, tense and mentally exhausted. Nothing makes you feel worse, I’ve decided, than explaining the obvious to people. The standard “pink elephant” thing - “Hey, there’s a pink elephant in the middle of the room.” “No there isn’t. YOU’RE the pink elephant. There is no pink elephant. It's a polka-dotted daffodil!” Its the fundamentals of crazymaking. My roommate denied the existence of the “pink prossy” in the room. But the pink prossy exists. I can hear her clipclop now. Help.

Body Surfing and Other Random Sports

Went to Philly last week to see 30 Seconds to Mars at the Electric Factory, with K, my best friend, who's recovering from cancer. I fell in love with 30 Seconds when I heard "The Kill" which allowed me to feel that not only is it alright to be really, really pissed about a breakup but you could even get PAID for it one day. So there we were, K and I, patiently sitting thru FOUR opening bands, drinking Jameson's straight, waiting patiently for our band of choice.

K and I have gone to concerts ever since we were kids. We loved the whole concept of getting backstage and meeting, nay, partying with the artists. But somehow, we got older. She dealt with cancer and divorce. I dealt with...alot, but nothing in comparison to that. Point being, we're adults now, watching a longass show and maybe, just maybe, not rocking out like we used to. Sitting on stools on the balcony, watching the chaos below , we suddenly seemed so...civil. It felt sad and a little like death. As the sedentary sensation grew like mold over me, I suddenly heard myself say "Kris. I'll be back. I'm going to the mosh pit." K, looking shocked...and drunk, uttered "Uh...okay."

I ran downstairs, burst into the mosh pit and prompty tripped over my own two feet and fell flat on my face. Two guys stopped moshing to pick the poor lady up. "Get off of me. I'm fine!" I shouted. Oh, did I tell you what I was wearing that night? A bright, polka dotted, 50's style dress that screamed "I like cupcakes and bright, shiny things!" Hardly punk...more like...spunk...and drunk. So, I started slamming around to reassert myself, but alas, it was too late. I was too loose of a cannon with this crew, just a little too...foreign. I stood in the middle as the crowd moved away from me, like I was a bad smell.

I looked out at the crowd and saw these kids body surfing, flying, as if by magic across the raised hands of the crowd. "Okay, that! That's what I want! I want to do that!!!" I screamed. "I really, really, do!" Some kids in front of me screamed "Well, fucking do it then!" Oh I will, youth. I will! I will!!

I took a deep breath and a running leap and flew into the crowd and magically. Magically. Magically...they lifted me up and tossed me about. I experienced a high rivaling the last time I did some serious blow with my dumb ol' ex-boyfriend who needs to be executed in front of a brick wall with no blindfold. I was tossed around like a beautiful, little ragdoll. I smiled so hard that my face hurt. It was pure fun. Clean, distilled fun. So fun it hurt my face.

The crowd tossed me, polka dot dress and all, toward the stage, where the hottie Jared Leto stood. Ah...there he is. In the flesh, up close and cute...cute as hell. Like extra crazy cute. I screamed (you can guess) "Hey...you..you're cute!" He looked down as if trying to understand me. "You...you're cute! You're cute!!!!!!"

At that point, the crowd dropped me and I fell to the floor, completely and utterly confident that I wouldn't be trampled on...or if I were to be, oh well. It would be a very rock and roll way to die. "Hey, did you hear...Beth died in a mosh pit. And she was going to turn 40 next week!" Yes, I'd die like that. I'd gladly die like that.

Black Holes, White Lines

I just ended it with my coke-fueled boyfriend. I am sad. Sad is hard. Because sad is in fact, really, really sad sometimes. Sick sad. Hard-achey-make-thoughts-stop sad. The sad that takes over my sleep and wakes me up and shakes me and makes me want to smoke cigarettes and fuck whiskey.

He is a beauty. A real one-of-kind. He has seen so much in life, he radiates a certain manliness from his history. It's crushingly beautiful at times. I always go out with "guys." This guy is a man. And its different. It feels different, being in the presence of a man.

And the sirens scream thru my window now and I want to scream with them. Its frustrating to taste what you want and know its not yours, nor should it be, steeped in such unhealthiness. I can feel the pull of the sickness, and its tempting and terribly sexy. Like the devil is tempting and sexy. People on drugs, they are like the devil. And I've always had a certain fondness for the devil. Who doesn't, really?

Our last night together was full of me feeling ignored, betrayed, steamrolled, obliterated, obfuscated - nothing princess-like, I can assure you. I managed to see thru the haze of drugs for a moment and grab his face and say "I know there's someone else underneath this." But human kindness was gone and I was alone.

So I love you,
amidst this orgy wasteland of burnt toast friends
amidst this scene of blood-tinged decay
amidst this scene of nothingness that feels like everything right now - I am your comrade, I'm your love and I am still here...

Or at least my love will be. Because I, myself, can no longer stay - unless I want to lick the filthy floors of Hell for eternity. Unless I enjoy a neverending mindfuck of lies and shabby treatment. I will save myself. I'll try to value myself the way I value you - the you underneath the white dust and frozen fear.

So its over for now. And supposedly, that's a good thing. Everyone will say, that's a good thing, Beth. But they won't know. They won't know that in place of a sick man, I have a sick me to contend with - and she's certainly not a pretty sight. I have a sick me and a cold body of emptiness and loneliness to kiss at night and no, I don't give a rat's ass that "somebody better will come along." Because I wanted him and I'm not afraid of the dark. But fortunately, I suppose, my survival will have to come first.



“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” - Edgar Allan Poe

Waiter, There's a Mouse in My Throat

My dream this morning - October, 22, 2006:

My dead father and I are watching an old video of me as a child on my 5th birthday. As an adult in this dream, I am struck by the fact that I'm not as cute as I remember myself to be...almost bordering on the homely. I was dragging a chocolate birthday cake mindlessly along a long table. It would have fallen off the table but a relative grabbed it. I am a careless and free kid who doesn't give a rat's ass about a chocolate cake and its final whereabouts.

Then I dreamt there was a mouse, a live mouse, stuck in my throat. I was a human mousetrap. Someone was playing a cruel hoax on me and I was a human mousetrap.

Somebody out there...send for a doctor. A really handsome one, preferably.

Baby's First Blog

Let me introduce myself:

I live at the Jersey Shore. My name is Beth Mann. I will be sad when I die and have to give up my simple but effective name.

Beth Mann.

I'm in my 40's and still feel like a child, wandering, searching, finding myself. A work in progress, I guess.

Most people think of me as "deep" or "intense" but I think I'm almost Homer Simpson-style simple. I like surfing, good food and fine wine, watching movies, listening to loud music and fretting over my latest dysfunctional relationship.

The Jersey Shore used to be my home, as a child, but it isn't any longer. I'm lonely a lot of time. Not just for that romantic "other" but for a community that gets my jokes. Sometimes I think of moving to Scotland and just saying goodbye to my life here in the States. And I could do it because I have a lot of freedom. No kids, no husband...not even a house plant relies on me.

I like karaoke because I can sing and release the frustration and sadness I often feel. I'm not a great singer, but I keep getting better, and there's something beautiful about that. Even in the beige and lifeless community, I found an outlet. Proud of myself for making lemonade out of lemons yet again.

I kinda like my non-traditional seat-of-the-pants approach to life. Its rather freeing. Surfing was really freeing this summer - bordering on the mystical - and there’s all these cute young guys, wet and…cute. Good sport for cuteness. (Beats boxing, for example.)

I need a transcendental experience. I need sex on a daily basis. I need a week’s worth of deep sleep. I need to drink wine less. Or drink wine more. I need to read stuff that changes me on the inside. I need a deux ex machina. I need a lover who won’t drive me crazy.

I’m rambling. Let’s stop. Lest I reveal too much, too soon.