The not so Real World

I enter the gym to find two cast members of MTV's new Real World season (Brooklyn) working out on my favorite machines. Cameras are hovering around the dudes and a big fluffy boom mic is swaying over their heads. I make sure I get on the rowing machine between these two Real World punks. I'm gonna be in this fucking shot.

In 1992 when the very first Real World season started in NYC, the cast was actually cool. It was a GOOD show. Granted, I was 17 years old and trapped in high school. After watching five seconds of that show I knew I was destined to live in New York city. And that's exactly what happened. Ha!

Hence, it was kind of weird to meet these new Real World people... they must have been 3 or 4 years old when the REAL real world aired. These kids don't know what it's all about. I miss Eric, Julie, Norm, Heather, Becky, Kevin and the guy who played in the grunge band.

Saturday morning

I get off at Morgan Avenue on the L-line, a pretty rough neighborhood I would say. I think it's Bushwick, maybe East Williamsburg. I can see the huge Marcy housing projects from where I stand, which is in Bed-Stuy (a friend of mine told me that many high profile rappers are from the Marcy projects. Oh well).

I walk past warehouses, factories, junkyards with old cars and with rottweilers, and I see.... a bunch of young, white, hipster kids having a smoke outside an organic coffee shop. Huh? How did they end up here? And where do they live? I see no apartment buildings except for the projects, and I know they don't live there. And why does the coffee place have to be organic?

I decide to follow one of them as she stands up to leave, but around the corner she gets on a bicycle, she rides off and flips the bird to a car that drives too close to her.

Is this the "new" Williamsburg? There's always a new Williamsburg somewhere. Anywho, the reason I was in Bushwick was to take my EMS physical agility test... I passed it!!

Wohooo!

When the California polls closed and the projection was - Obama! we heard a roar of cheers and cars honking from outside. We put our shoes on and ran out to join the party. A huge crowd had gathered up the street in the intersection. There was dancing, drumming, climbing up on lamp posts, drinking, toasting, cheering, screaming and jumping. Police cars arrived with lights and sirens from all directions. But, to our great relief, they did nothing to stop the party. The cops just directed traffic around the crowds (thanks NYPD!). A beautiful night.

Praying

I'm nervous about the election. Obama MUST win, must, must, must. Brooklyn, as well as the rest of NYC (maybe not Staten Island though), are heavy into Barack, no surprise there, and the polling booths are packed. Beautiful! I hope the swing states won't do anything stupid. I hope Florida won't screw up. Please, please, please.

To be continued.

Redemption

I got my driver's license! My (second) road test went smoothly. In fact, I was so awesome I got NO points deducted on my test. That's a perfect score. PERFECT. Not many people get a perfect score on their road test. But I did. I'm the best. The. Best. B.E.S.T.

Attacked by the German

German: "Haben Sie gehort das Deutsche blah blah blah gibberish...?"
Me: "....huh?"

- "You're not German??"
- "Nooooo...."

- "But didn't I just speak to you outside? By the bicycles...? You're not here for the German literary club? You're not one of the German teachers?"
- "...nooooo...I'm looking for the gym to play volleyball."

- "I could have sworn it was you I talked to outside!!"
- "Nope. I'm just another blonde."
- "C'moooon we're not ALL blonde in Germany!!!"

Maybe not, but I bet you wanna be!

Unfair

I failed my driver's road test. Big fat failure. Don't get me wrong, I was driving beautifully throughout the whole test - I parallel parked perfectly, maneuvered the broken U-turn without a problem, handled the left turns and the right turns without any incidents. The tester-lady then asked me to make the next right and stop the car. Test supposed to be over.

I signal right, stop at the stop sign, and turn. Tester-lady hits the brakes on her side. "You should not have gone, see that guy?" I look to my left. A freaking homeless person is pushing a shopping cart with cans and bottles in the middle of the street. He is not crossing the street. He's not walking towards me. He's just walking in the middle of the road. Actually, he's walking away from our car. "You fail."

These are the emotions I feel at the moment. They are pretty much the same as the five stages of grief that psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about in her renowned book "On Death and Dying". I go through death and dying emotions every time my ego's hurt. Like today. Here we go:

1) Denial. ("No way!!")
2) Anger. ("What the fuck?!?!?!")
3) Bargaining. ("But...but....but...")
4) Depresssion. ("This blows")
5) Acceptance. ("Oh well...")

I haven't gotten to the fifth stage. Just knowing Paris Hilton has a driver's license and I don't... that makes me angry. I bet you there were no homeless people around when Paris got her license.

I DID NOT GET MY LICENSE BECAUSE A HOMELESS PERSON WAS PUSHING HIS CART IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!!

Psychiatric Stuff

My quest for getting into the medical field has taken me to the psychiatric ward. Not as a patient but as an observer, shadowing yet another DPT as she is going on with her work day.

In the elevator ride up to the inpatient psych floor I felt exhilarated. I was going to see REAL crazy people. Sure, I've seen crazy people before, several times - on the subway, at the gym, in offices. But to be in the psych ward, that's another story, that's official; if you have a room here, you must be nuts.

The first patient we ran into did not disappoint. He was shuffling along the hallway in his socks, unkempt, head cocked to one side. Occasionally he stopped and stared into space. But where were the rest of them?

Turned out that most of the patients blended in quite well with the hospital staff. Both parties were wearing regular clothes. The only way to tell "crazy" apart from "normal" was the white patient wrist band. I looked at the wrist-banded people with awe, many questions flying through my mind. What's wrong with you? What's happened to you? Is there any hope? Will you get better? These were the exact same thoughts that went through my mind the first time I met a person who unabashedly admitted she was a registered Republican.

Our first patient was a bipolar elderly woman who had been admitted after feeling suicidal. To top it all off she also had trouble walking. "You know, they're letting me go home on Monday," she said as the PT had her do calf-raises in the hallway, "do you think I'm ready for that?"
"Yes I do, I'm happy for you. How do you feel?" the physical therapist replied.
"Well, I guess ok. Much better than when I got here. I can hardly even remember."
"I was here. You are doing much better. I think you will be fine going home."
"That's good," and then she lowered her voice to a whisper, "because my new room mate over there... she's crazy...screams at night."

I looked over at her room mate. She was sitting on her bed, reading. She's young, college-age, and pretty. No hint of any screaming or thrashing around. Just reading and looking pretty. Her side of the room was messy, socks strewn about, bed unmade, tea cups everywhere, glasses of water, newspaper on the floor. Just like my bedroom at home!!

And that's when I remembered what Amy, my nurse friend, once said: "You know, there IS a huge difference between people who are psychotic and us who are just neurotic. But sometimes it feels like a very thin line."

Drrrrive

I had my third driving lesson today. The instructor makes me turn left a lot. All he says throughout the hour is: "turn left" and "left" and "make another left." He says that I turn too sharply or something. He also tells me to watch where I'm going. I have an old driver's license that expired years ago; it's not like I've never driven a car before, buddy. I still have to rehearse left turns.

Other things he makes me practice is parallel parking. That's ok. I'm not great at it, but I'm not terrible either. I can totally do it.

The weirdest thing he has me do is the "broken U-turn". At first I thought he said "Brooklyn U-turn" and I said: "Wow, there's a BROOKLYN U-turn, what is that like??" But there's not one. Anyway, here's what I don't get: Why teach students to make U-turns in the city?? In my book, nobody should make U-turns in NYC. Just drive around the freaking block if you went down the wrong street. No, let's screw up traffic even more and have a bunch of idiots make U-turns left and right. I really don't get that.

Sleepy

I've fallen asleep a couple of times at work. This might not seem like a big deal if you work in an office or something, but I do massage. I've fallen asleep massaging. Just dosing off, but still. I don't think any clients have noticed yet. This only happens if I have a 7:30am appointment, by the way. I have to get used to getting up early. Although I only need to get up early once or twice a week. Anyway.

...what...huh?

When I'm old I hope I'll remember that when I was young, say in my twenties and thirties, I used to forget things all the time.

For example, I head to the bedroom from the living room and on the way over I forget why I'm going there. Or, I can never find my keys or my metro card. Or, I can't remember why I went to the store, for what...what do I need...what do I need? I buy stuff, go home, and realize that the reason I really went to the store was to pick up toilet paper, the one thing I didn't get.

Or today, I was craving a Sprite Zero (they're good) and headed to the deli. I picked up the Sprite, paid for it, went home and... where's my Sprite? It was nowhere to be found. Went back to the deli - and there it was, still on the counter.

This is what I shall remember when I'm old: poor memory is nothing new. Just how it's always been. (Have I written about this before...?)

DM f-ing V

A few years ago when I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my NY State ID, there was a five hour wait for service. A FIVE hour wait (the estimated waiting time is printed on the ticket you pick up when you enter, that's how you know). I actually walked back home, took a shower, read a book, had lunch, watched TV. I returned to the DMV just as they called my number.

Yesterday I went to the DMV again, this time to get my driver's license permit. Everything went smoothly. I took a written test for my driver's license (passed it), got my picture taken (looking fabulous as always), did my vision test (passed it), and paid the fee (credit card approved). All within 45 minutes. Unbelievable.

The only weird part was that the DMV lady who was processing my paper work kept falling asleep. That's never good. At first I wasn't sure what was going on, she just stopped writing and kept the pen glued to the approval document. Was there something wrong with my information?? After twenty seconds or so she would come to it and start writing again. Then she'd dose off again. I became a little unsure of how to act. Should I tap her shoulder and wake her up? "Excuse me, can you just finish writing down the information that will go on MY DRIVER'S LICENSE, and nap later....?"

I decided not to reach over and touch this woman. I decided it would be better to pretend nothing is going on. She's not asleep, she's handling my stuff perfectly.

The dosing-off episodes continued and I started to worry that the lady might be experiencing partial seizures. The symptoms can be quite similar. How awful of me to ignore her seizures! What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, my license, my license, my license, I want my license (or something less selfish).

Luckily, another DMV person walked by and woke the lady up. Sleeping lady with my important documents muttered: "Maaaan, I'm sooo tired today....."

I still got out of there within 45 minutes. Unbelievable.

Babies galore

Every block around where I live and work is crowded with couples and their babies. Strollers, pregnant ladies, daddies with babybjorn carriers, babies crying, babies laughing, babies talking gibberish, babies taking their first steps, more pregnant ladies - this is what I see ALL day long.

Park Slope has long been known as a "baby-stroller-neighborhood" (at least for the past 10 years or so), but the babies are spreading. For example, Carroll Gardens currently has the highest concentration of babies between 1-3 years old per square mile in the country - in the country. How did this happen? Why in Brooklyn?

My theory is that all the hipsters that lived in Williamsburg and Dumbo back in the '90s finally matured and got fancy jobs. No way any self-respecting Brooklynite would move to the suburbs to do the 'family-thing', so they all they coupled up and moved to the brownstone belt to procreate. I think that's cool. I do. I'm not against any of this... Although the whole baby thing has gotten a little bit out of control, can't deny that...

I have to go snuggle with my cats now.

Egg & Cheese please

I go to the coffee shop to get my usual egg and cheese sandwich that I always get during my break at work (=in between massage appointments).

The coffee guy behind the counter says:
- "Hey, you didn't pay for your sandwich last time you were here!"
- "Really, I didn't...?"
- "No, I remember now, now that I see your face and all, you didn't pay last time."
- "Oh, I'm so sorry... let me pay for it now then, I can't remember what happened last time."

And then the coffee guy tells me not to worry about it - "it's fine" - and I think: "cool, that means I got a free sandwich." But then I see the grumpy look on his face and he says "you know, I shouldn't even have mentioned it, since I'm not even gonna charge you" so I say:
"hey, I have a twenty right here, just charge me twice for the sandwich I'm getting now." And he does.

As I sit down to eat I'm thinking it's good that we sorted that out; I don't want to be remembered as the girl who didn't pay for her food, especially since I go there every week. But then I'm thinking, what if this dude is wrong? Maybe I DID pay him and he was just spacing out at the time...

Inevitably, I have to think of him as the guy who charged me twice for a stupid sandwich.

Signature

The unfortunate proliferation of those pushy 20-something-years-old "activists" that stop people on the streets to get a signature (or maybe money) for whatever cause they're into is the biggest nuisance of the summer.

"Miss, do you have a minute for the environment? Just a minute? A few seconds??" they ask, clip boards in hands. I never stop to chat. I don't want to. I have places to be, people to see. It's not that I don't care about the environment. I do. I just don't feel like talking to these kids, they're obnoxious. But of course I feel a tiny bit guilty when I walk on, ignoring the environment.

Sometimes I reply with a firm "no" as I walk by, just to get them off my back. That makes me feel even worse. Picture this:

"Miss, do you care about missing children?"
"NO!"
or
"Miss, do you support gay rights?"
"NO!"
or
"Miss, do you want to help animals?"
"NO!"

They're slick too. They have one activist facing one way and another activist facing the other way - this way they have you completely ambushed on the sidewalk, whether you're heading uptown or downtown. Here comes the smile, the waving of the clip board and the beginning of the spiel - "Hey Miss!"

I want them to leave.

Active

I just got promoted from being a 'probie' on the ambulance to an 'active'. Wohoo. This means that I will not be stuck in the back during non-calls, and I probably won't have to sit on the milk crate in between the front seats either. Being active means I have passed the initiation period and I get to ride shot gun from now on. Unless a more senior person comes out and takes that spot. That's possible.

"10-4"

I have a police & emergency-services radio scanner at home. I love it. It's totally legal to own one, believe it or not.

My excuse for owning one is that I want to develop a "good ear" for when I'm out on the ambulance, you know, I'll learn all the codes by listening, instead of just memorizing them from a long boring list.

But truthfully, it's also just pretty awesome to listen to. I turn the radio on to see what's going on in the city before I go to sleep - robberies, fires, unlawful urination, cardiac arrests, choking kid, stolen vehicles, smoke conditions, domestic disputes - it all comes spurting out of my radio, complete with addresses, suspect descriptions, and which units are responding.

If listening to this seems a little odd, or maybe even creepy, it's not nearly as morbid as keeping the radio in your private car and driving to the scene of the crime/accident just because you want to see the drama first hand. One of my paramedics instructors said she used to do this before she got her EMT license. Now if I did something like that, I would not tell anyone about it.

At any rate, I just have my radio to learn the dispatch codes.

Hazy

You know it's time to clean the kitchen and take out the garbage when one of the cats starts scraping his paw against the floor as if trying to bury something nasty. It's just so hard to do anything in this humidity, let alone clean. aaaaah.... but I guess if the cats are starting to clean up, I should too.

ER deli

I saw the Medical Director from one of the city's major trauma centers in my deli. Just the other week my ambulance unit worked with him covering an athletic event in the city. We had brought him an unstable patient with an altered mental status. The patient stabilized and the doc said he would get in touch with us to let us know the final diagnosis. But now, what was Doc doing in my deli?

I was just about to say "hi!" when shyness struck me. What if he has no idea who I am? Will he remember me? I may feel stupid having to explain to him who I am, he must see hundreds of EMTs every week. Also, I looked kind of unkempt wearing the t-shirt that I'd slept in last night, my old sneakers with holes in them (you can see the top of my big toes), and my shorts covered with cat hair, front and back. So I kept my head down, filled my cup with coffee and darted out of there.

This morning I was in the deli again, wearing the same sneakers, shorts, and the t-shirt that I'd slept in, when I heard someone shout out the name of the ambulance unit I belong to. I turned around. It was the doctor - he remembers me! And he knows which unit I'm with. "Heeey, how are you?" the doc said. "Good, good, and you?" I answered, and he said "Did you get any other good calls that evening?" And I said "Yeah, we got a nice cardiac call" and he said "Not from the event I hope?" and I said "No, no it was unrelated, so you're off the hook." And then we small talked about this and that and it turns out that he lives in the neighborhood too.

I totally feel important and cool, like I'm part of New York City's medical community at last. Just sharing a deli with this man gives me bonus points. Totally.

Rubbish

One recent morning I ran into the garbage police. It's true, there is such a thing. Or maybe they're called sanitation police, or something. Their uniform sort of looks like that of a traffic cop - the regular dark navy blue pants and a light blue shirt. I really didn't know these officers existed, but they do.

"You mixed recycling with regular garbage!!" the cop yelled to a man leaning on his elbows out the second floor window.
"What...??"
"You're mixing regular garbage with recycling, you can't do that, I have to give you a ticket for this!"

I kept on walking. They check our garbage??? We try to recycle, but when I feel lazy I just throw the cat food cans in the trash. So much pressure to recycle properly. What is happening to the city?

Third Game

Oh nooo, painful, painful!

The young Russian lads made the old Swedes look like clowns and Sweden is out of the tournament. The only fun thing about this game was that the commentator pronounced Zhirkov's (Russian player) name "Jerk off." I hope the Netherlands will kick out these young jerk offs in the quarter finals. I will be rooting for the Dutch as I put my Swedish jersey away. Until next time.

Second game

The neighbors upstairs saw me entering my apartment, again, and asked:

- "Heeey, how did Sweden do today??"
- "Lost... Spain scored a late winner..."
- "Oh nooo, we're rooting for Sweden... that's too bad..."
- "Yeah it's too bad, but at least it's not an embarrassing loss, I mean it's Spain..."

I now think of our neighbors as good, smart people. And whatever happens to Sweden on Wednesday against Russia (a draw or a win puts Sweden through), at least we nabbed 3rd place in the World Cup in 1994.

More towels

Sean came home, still wearing his gym clothes, and said something like:
"I just went to Equinox on a guest pass, that's a niiice gym, much nicer than ours. Here, check out their towels..." and he pulled out one of their towels from his bag. More gym towels!!

First game

Our upstairs neighbor poked his head out the door when he heard me in the hallway. He said:
- "Congratulations! Sweden won yesterday!"
- "Thank you," I said as if I had contributed to the win, "Greece pretty much sucks."
- "But they won the Euro last time around, didn't they? So isn't it good that Sweden beat them?"
- "Greece pretty much sucks," I said once again.

This guy is clearly clueless about football. OF COURSE Sweden must beat Greece. Greece is not a threat to the mighty Swedes. The neighbor retreated into his apartment.

Greece did win the Euro four years ago, that's true. But the odds of that were kind of the same as being struck by lightning. Or, like being crapped on by one bird twice in one day on separate occasions. Or, like catching the uptown train instead of the downtown train by mistake. Such things don't happen very often. And if they do, we still don't walk around and think that these things are normal, or good.

Euro 2008

Euro 2008 starts tomorrow and this is what I'll be wearing for the next couple of weeks (minus the cat). I might not wear the shorts if I'm out in public, but the jersey no doubt. I really should get the socks too. You know what, if I get the long yellow socks I will so wear the whole uniform.

Pirat peng!

I went through my passport to check a few travel dates and found a piece of Swedish candy (salt licorice) stuck between page four and five. I don't know how long the candy's been there. I pulled it off. Parts of page five came off in the process as well.

I had to eat this piece of candy, how could I not? It's so good. Doesn't matter that I had to munch on parts of page five as well. It was all worth it.

New towels

It's time for me to steal more fresh towels from the gym. Maybe I shouldn't call it stealing. Basically, I think I deserve to bring their towels home with me, I pay them something like $90 a month. I know I'm paying for my health, in a way, but I also want something more tangible for my money.

Impulse buy

Amidst frustration and impatience at Target, I suddenly became inspired to make a spontaneous purchase. Another customer was trying out pillows in the bed-and-towels aisle. He was standing up, pressing the pillow against his neck and head using both hands. Then he placed the pillow on one of the shelves, shoulder height, and arched his neck backward trying to lean his head against the pillow. Finally, he threw the pillow and himself on the floor, resting his head on the pillow the way you're supposed to.

I walked up to him and said: "How's that pillow working out for you?"
"It's good!" he replied, looking up at me, "it's not at all like those other fluffy ones."
"Is this the one you're using?" I asked and grabbed one from the shelf.
"Yeah," he said, still on the floor, "isn't it awesome?"

He was right. The pillow was awesome. Firm and soft at the same time, like a tempurpedic, but not a tempurpedic. I decided I cannot live without this pillow.

Not until I got home did I notice the smell. The pillow has a funky chemical smell to it. I washed it in disbelief. But it still smells...

Contemplation

I'm standing in the locker room at the gym, completely naked, ready to jump in the shower. A maintenance lady who works at the gym walks straight up to me and I get the feeling that, somehow, I'm in trouble.
"You're going into those showers??" she asks, frowning.
"...yeah...at least I thought I was?" I hesitate.
"You can't shower now, there are men working in there!"

I look around the room and no one else is undressed. I'm the only naked person in the locker room. I feel certain that, at this very moment, I must be the only naked person in all of Brooklyn. How come the other women knew there are guys behind that curtain? Nobody told me.

The maintenance lady walks back to the showers and returns to let me know:
"They say that you can shower in the stall next to them. If you want."

I consider this offer for a few seconds. I am in a hurry, I have to be in the city in 3o something minutes. No way I have time to go home and shower. And, will they really peek? Why would they do that? That would be so silly. I'm sure they're decent guys.

But then I notice that all the other women in the locker room - the ones who have all their clothes on - are staring at me, in silence, and I get to my senses. Maybe it would be a weird thing to shower next to the plumbing guys or whoever they are.

"Thanks, maybe next time!" I say and put my dirty gym clothes back on and dart out of there.

Ta en bok och skrik!

Frantic phone call from my little sister:
- "There's a cockroach in the living room!!"
+ "Oh no, you're so gonna to have to kill it."
- "I'm sooooo scared!! It's half way under the rug, and half of it is on the floor! What if it crawls under the rug??"
+ "Ok you just have to kill it fast, here's what you do - grab a book and throw it at..."
- "I'm already holding a book"
+ "Is it a big heavy book?"
- "Yes, it's the Bible"
+ "The Bible? You're going to kill it with the Bible??"
- "Yeah, it's either that or my Oxford Encyclopedia"
+ "But... the Bible...?"
- "It's some Catholic edition"
+ "Ok throw it"
I hear a loud scream and a 'THUMP'
+ "Did you get it?? Did you kill it??"
- "Yeees....."
I hear three more loud thumps - THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
+ "What's going on now?"
- "I'm jumping on top of the Bible"

Ripped

Ever since Dave-the-trainer measured my body fat percentage with his stupid body fat machine, I've been pumping some serious iron every day. How dare that machine say I have 25% body fat?? According to that machine, I'm a fat skinny person.

There is a possibility that Dave measured me incorrectly since I made him do it even though he's in a cast with a broken hand. But what if it's true?

That's why I'm building muscle now. I'm working out the way guys work out - huge dumb bells in each hand even if it means I can only do 3 reps before I drop them. And I don't care if I grunt. God damn that body fat machine.

Best behavior

A friend of Sean's is visiting and he's staying with us this weekend. I've never met him before so I'm trying to make a good impression and not seem weird.

For example, I refrain from my regular shriek to the cats - beedeebeeedeeebiff biff biiiiif!! - when I enter the apartment. I also don't lie down on my back on the floor screaming gooozy-gooozy-gooozy!! while flailing my arms in the air to get their attention. I think Sean's friend would be weirded out by that. It's hard though, I'm so used to talking gibberish with the cats. I've only slipped up one time so far during our visitor's stay here - an unexpected "beeedee!" came out all of a sudden. Oh well.

Hammock

A bunch of hipsters live two backyards north of us. They rent the bottom floor of a brownstone just like us, and their yard is filled with hammocks. Like 6 or 7 of them. At least. They throw parties all the time and I'm sure their hipster friends hang out in the hammocks during such events.

The other day I peaked into their place, as I always do when I go get coffee, and it hit me - I have a fucking hammock at home! Fuck, we're going to have a fucking hammock in the backyard too! The hammock is not really mine, but who cares. Someone left it behind in my old college Williamsburg apartment that I shared with a couple of friends, and when we all moved I took the hammock. I have a hammock!

The hammock is kind of scary to be in. I was all gungho putting it up and all, but I get kind of nauseas lying in it. I get motion sick. I'm also afraid that it's going to collapse and I will hit my back hard against the ground. And I'm scared that it will sort of start twisting around, entangling me, and then spitting me out on the hard ground. Or worse, what if it traps me and I can't get out. I also worry about air conditioners coming crashing down from neighbors' bedroom windows higher up in the building. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO RELAX??

Window

The cats have never been outside so we thought it would be a great idea to introduce the kitties to the garden now that it looks so nice and all. However, our-cats-loving-the-outdoors project turned out to be a complete failure.

Bentley totally flipped out when I put a collar around his neck. He tornado-ed around the apartment in a complete frenzy until I caught him under the bed and yanked the collar off of him. Basically he never even made it out there. Kompis went outside but he freaked out when a bee came too close and we had to bring him back inside (after he almost escaped over the fence - at least in my mind he almost escaped, it might have been less dramatic in reality).

So the cats are back in the window again, doing exactly what domestic city cats are supposed to do - look out.

Garden

Sean and his younger brother Thomas did a fantastic job in our backyard. It would be appropriate to call the backyard "the garden" at this point. That's how nice it looks. The brothers got rid of all the weeds and trash and old stuff left lying around from last summer.

We picked up flowers and herbs at the nursery, to plant in the garden. I wish I could list the flowers we bought, but truth to be told, I have no idea what we picked out. Except for one flower that's called SALIVA. Ha! I thought that was really cool and funny until I read the label again and realized it said "Salvia". Not saliva. Plus, it's technically not a flower, it's some type of mint, according to Wikipedia.

Oh yeah, Thomas also got a Venus Flytrap - a carnivore plant. How crazy that a plant can eat meat. Too bad Kompis the cat decided to eat the meat-eating plant. It's in his belly right now, the whole thing except for the soil.

My contribution to this domestic weekend was to clean the windows. And so I did - I rubbed the windows spotless using newspaper and real Windex, the way you're supposed to clean stuff like windows. The windows are so clean that birds can crash into them no problem if they come this way.

Aaaah, it's not so bad doing house & garden stuff.

Blind?

Blind people on the subway platform make me nervous. I always worry that they will take a wrong step and fall down onto the tracks. That would mean that the rest of us waiting for the train would have to jump down there and save the blind person. Otherwise we would be rotten, rotten people. I run into blind people in the transit system all the time, so I get to worry a whole bunch. Strangely, the blind don't seem to be nervous at all when navigating the platforms, their white canes swinging confidently from side to side an inch above, and intermittently touching, the ground. Good for them.

Another thing I wonder about (but not really worry about) is: How do blind people find those little signs with reading codes that are mounted on the walls, usually next to elevators or exits, or public bathrooms? You know what I'm talking about? I don't understand. Does any blind person ever use those public-reading-code-signs? I have nothing against these signs, that's not what I'm saying, I'm just wondering.

Weed out

The cats are stoned. I gave them cat nip. It's funny how cat nip comes in those small transparent plastic bags, as if you're buying a bag of weed. It looks kind of the same too - dark green herbs, kinda dry. The cat nip's got all those seeds and everything too. I bet you some idiot somewhere is smoking cat nip right now. I wonder what kind of high that would be.

The cats seem content, I will allow their drug use. But no smoking in the house.

Big scare

I come home, go into the bathroom, and run into the BIGGEST cockroach I have ever, ever, ever seen. Quickly, I pick up Kompis the cat who is rubbing up against my legs, and throw him into the bathroom and close the door. Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!

Commotion for about twenty minutes. How can I ever open the door?? I lay flat on my stomach in the bedroom and peak under the bathroom door (about 5 feet away, safe distance). I see Kompis' paws. He's circling the scale, like a shark. Then, he sticks one of his paws under the scale and tips it on its side - and there it is, the nasty bug is hiding under the scale!! Kill it! Kill it! KILL IT!! Kompis chases it under the cat box. No way Kompis can lift the cat box with his little paw. I call Sean.

"You have to go in there and kill it yourself," says Sean, "you just have to, think that you're tough, you're an EMT! If you can do that stuff, you can kill a bug."
"Noooo, EMT work is just about life and death... This is a ROACH!!"
"You have to do it, we don't want that thing to roam around the apartment."

I realize I must step in. Armed with a thick book - The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine - I swing the door open and pull the cat box out from the wall. Kompis spots the roach and corners it. I throw the book. It's a hit!! Die roach, die roach!! To make sure it's really dead I also step up on the Encyclopedia and jump. Take that, motherfucker. I hope Sean will clean up the dead body when he comes home.

Crates & Blood

Being that I'm the most junior person in the ambulance crew, I always sit in the back of the bus, even if we have no patient on the stretcher. The driver is in the front (obviously) and the crew chief is riding shotgun. There is a short, narrow "hallway" between the back of the ambulance and the two front seats. It is stuffed with radios, but most of the space is taken up by a milk crate turned upside down.

"Hey," the driver said, "why don't you come up here and sit on the milk crate so we can hear you better when we talk."
"Is that....safe.....?" I hesitated.
"Yeah yeah, come on up!"

Ok then. I leaned my hand against the oxygen-tank closet on one side and with my other hand I grabbed the back of the driver's seat. I stretched my left leg over the milk crate and then my right, and sat down. I immediately felt like a little kid. Why am I on a milk crate? My knees are almost touching my chin, there's no way I look professional like this. I want to look professional!! What if people can see me??

And then we got dispatched. The call was for a "heavy bleeder."

I crawled back to my original place, sirens wailing, ambulance speeding past red lights. Crawling was difficult. It was kind of scary. My adrenaline spiked. How stupid of me to have sat up there. I need to focus, quickly.

We arrived. Police officers hovered around a female lying on her back, blood gushing out from the side of her head, a dark pool of blood on the street, getting larger. I put the c-collar around her neck while a FDNY EMT from a second ambulance controlled the bleeding. Right there, in the midst of adrenaline surges and team work, I felt like a professional again. I just need to get a different size uniform shirt that fits me better. And maybe a new name tag too.

Everybody knows your name

We had dinner at the Italian place on Fulton street. I recognized the waitress as we walked in, but I couldn't place her. We haven't been to this place often enough to be familiar with the staff. "Heeeey, I know you from Rice," the waitress said, "you go there all the time!" It was the waitress from the Thai place from around the corner. I don't like it when people in restaurants recognize me that freely. And this was not even the right restaurant for her to be in. "It's my first day here," she explained.

Whenever I go to Rice, the other restaurant (the Thai place), they always know what I'm going to order, I don't even have to order, the waitress usually orders for me: "Small veggie meatballs with sticky rice and sweet sauce...?" and she hands a note to the kitchen as I nod 'yes'. I guess it's because I always eat the same thing. But I'd rather them just treat me like any other guest and have me order verbally even though they're spot on - I would order the veggie meatballs. But still.

So here we are, in the Italian place, with the new waitress who knows me from the Thai place. I took the opportunity to place my order. "Can I have the veggie meatballs with sticky rice and sweet sauce, please?"

Maybe it was corny to order something from the other restaurant, she didn't really smile, but I thought it was funny.

Football

A reporter and a photographer boldly entered our Biology lab last night. I heard them whisper up front, conversing with our lab teacher. They were from The New York Times. I heard them mention Chris' name. Chris sits right in front of me.

"Pssst!" I leaned over the table towards Chris, "Are you famous or something??" He looked up and answered "Well, I'm a professional football player...." How awesome! A real professional athlete in our midst. The Times is doing a piece on him, I guess about being a football pro and a pre-med student, or something; a football player aspiring to become a doctor.

My lab partner, Jake, was not amused. He turned to me and said in a low voice: "I know he's apparently had an amazing season or something, but am I the only one who's annoyed by these reporters??" I think so. Personally, I liked having REAL New York Times reporters in my vicinity. I could reach out my hand and touch one of them, if I wanted to. Even touch the humongous camera.

Jake continued, in a whisper: "You know, I don't care who you are, you should leave your personal life outside, don't bring the press in here, in here we're all the same, just students, I don't care if you're Britney Spears or who you are." Wow. I would care if you were Britney Spears. Imagine having Britney in your lab! What would she say? What would she do? Would she dance? Would she sing? Lab isn't so bad after all.

PB & J

I've lived in this country my whole adult life (about 14 years already), and I consider this to be my home. I see my 'old' country - Sweden - as my childhood home. Still, being all-American and shit, I just learned to eat peanut butter last week. Certain habits are just hard to pick up.

My sister gave me a look of disgust as she saw me spread the stuff on my sandwich.
"What the hell are you doing??" she yelped.
"Peanut butter!" I responded, and took a big bite. She looked at me incredulously, as if I had just watched a baseball game and enjoyed it.
"It's really not that bad" I tried, "and it has a lot of protein."
She was not convinced: "Just listen to the name... peanut... BUTTER..."

Whatever. It's not like she's holding on to Swedish customs anymore than I am. We both drink coffee on the run (out of paper/plastic deli cups), and we eat out more than we cook at home. But of course, when it comes to life and death issues - like baseball and soccer - we consider the former to be idiotic and the latter to be common sense, like any Swede would. So we have not lost our common sense, though it's been challenged. It's nice to be all-Swedish and shit, too.

Fun and games

The cats play with their toys very differently. Bentley pounces his toy mouse around, he sometimes carries it over to me and I throw it across the room and he chases after it; we play fetch. Kompis, on the other hand, doesn't know what to do with toys. He used to be a street cat and never had toys, the poor bastard. Until now. Kompis picks up the toy mouse ferociously and tries to eat it. No play, just kill and eat. (Top: Bentley's mouse. Bottom: Kompis' mouse after I yanked it out of his jaws. He'd swallowed the tail already.)

Aaaah

Finally, a REAL spring day. These are the times when I truly enjoy not having an office to go to (sorry old office team mates), I can just hang out and do nothing.

First day of not wearing a jacket or even a sweater. I just strolled over to the post office in my pajama t-shirt and jeans (not that other people would know that I was in partial pajamas, it's just an old t-shirt, but still). And then I stopped for a cup of coffee at the neighborhood bagel shop, sat outside in the sun, aaaaahhhh, still in my pajama t-shirt, and actually, still sweaty from they gym this morning, haven't showered yet! The freedom of not having a "real" job - being scruffy on a marvelous Thursday spring day.
Picture: Fort Greene Park, by the entrance.

Please

You'd think you'd be safe from weirdness at the gym. At least I think so, but no.

Today there was a guy at the gym, working out on one of those cardio machines, who was wearing a bright red hockey helmet. Complete with the face cage and everything. Why? Why? Why? Why? And nobody said anything, nobody asked him what was going on, nothing. There he was, sweating away in his t-shirt, shorts, sneakers and the fucking helmet. And everyone just let him get away with it.

I would have said something if he hadn't been so far away from where I was sitting catching my breath.

Teeth

I brush my cats' teeth. Some people may find this pathetic. The vet assured me it's not pathetic. "If you start brushing their teeth now, you will avoid gum disease and expensive vet visits in the future." Who can argue with that? So now I brush their teeth. The pet poultry-flavored toothpaste cost $10 and I use a q-tip to brush (as directed by the veterinarian). The cats are my life.

Plant

Little 5-year old Timothy was visiting us briefly on Sunday, along with some other relatives. "Can we look at the backyard?" he asked. Sure. We put the cats in the kitchen and stomped through the bedroom, out the back door to our wonderful backyard.

"Your backyard is a dump" Timmy concluded. Oh yeah?? You try living in New York City and pay ridiculous rent and work hard and go to school and see how your garden would look. At least we have a backyard.

Dance

After half an hour on the boring elliptical machine at the gym I sought out the stretching area only to find about 70-100 people in a total dance-off inside the work out studio. It wasn't a regular dance class because people actually danced well. I decided to join in. I danced my way to the back of the room and picked a good dance spot next to an awkward looking tall white guy, bald with glasses and runners' shoes on. He'd probably come straight from the treadmill, and I probably looked really good dancing next to him.

After about a good twenty minutes or so, the music stopped briefly, and people stomped their feet, hollered and clapped their hands. I took the opportunity to ask the bald guy what was going on. "How come everyone's so good and knows all the steps and stuff??" I asked. He yelled back: "Oh, apparently it's a party for some dance choreographers!!" That's when I decided it was time for me to leave.

"They're also having an open bar after this, at the Red Bamboo or something," the bald guy continued and kept dancing next to the real dancers. What was the bald guy doing hanging out at their party? And why is there a bar in my neighborhood that I don't know about?

Falling

I took a step off the curb on Central Park West and noticed myself flying through the air - slowly, as falls always tend to happen - and landed flat on my belly out on the street. "Shiiiiiiiit..." I thought to myself as my body accelerated towards the ground.

But I caught the fall gracefully and landed as if I was doing a push-up, sort of. How awesome! I had just read in The New York Times that a push-up is "a symbol of health and wellness".

"...push-ups can provide the strength and muscle memory to reach out and break a fall. When people fall forward, they typically reach out to catch themselves, ending in a move that mimics the push-up. The hands hit the ground, the wrists and arms absorb much of the impact, and the elbows bend slightly to reduce the force...."

That's exactly how I fell! There's more:

“What so many people really need to do is develop enough strength so they can break a fall safely without hitting their head on the ground,” Dr. Ashton-Miller said. “If you can’t do a single push-up, it’s going to be difficult to resist that kind of loading on your wrists in a fall.”

Ha! Obviously I'm strong and fit enough to take that load. My fall put me in an excellent mood for the rest of the day, what an athlete! (Though, I must have hit my knee in the fall because now it's swollen and it hurts a lot and I can hardly walk, stand, or sit.)

Mail

I haven't checked the mail in probably over a month. It's a good thing Sean does, because otherwise our mailbox would be pretty full. I just don't feel like checking it. I mean, what good could possibly come out that thing? Nothing. Last I checked: credit card offers (dangerous), bank statements (never a pretty sight), reminder to see the dentist (yikes), reminder to see the eye doctor (yeah right), reminder to take the cats to the vet ($$$), bills (of course), yada, yada, yada. The whole email thing has ruined real letters. I want a real letter!

Swe

I don't get to hear or speak my native language very often, other than with my sister who moved here from SF a couple of years ago. Thank God for that. It's like we have our own secret language since practically no one understands it. And there aren't that many Swedes around in the city that we have to worry about what we say - we're safe talking trash in our mother tongue.

But whenever I do hear Swedish being spoken somewhere in the city my heart beats a little faster and I naturally listen in on the conversation. I was having breakfast at the Coffee Den in Carroll Gardens when a Swedish father walked in with his American wife and their maybe 4-year old son. "Alexander," the father said, "vi väntar där ute så att vi inte är i vägen, kom nu." And the son answered: "But I don't wanna vänta där ute!!"

Alexander probably doesn't run into many Swedish people either.

Dissection

We've reached the point in Bio lab where we've started to dissect animals, if you consider crayfish and earthworms animals. Although I was a total tomboy as a kid - building tree houses, throwing apples at people's houses, ringing doorbells and hiding - I've always been girlie enough to be squimish around bugs and worms and other nasty species. I actually had to drop out of girl scouts at the age of 8 after running into a dead garden snake. That did it for me, no more scouting.

Touching the earthworm in lab tonight proved to be impossible. I let my lab-partner handle the earthworm while I dissected the crayfish. I am a Swede after all, and Swedes eat these bastards every August during "kraftskiva", with shots of akvavit, snaps and lots of drunken singing. But tonight in lab, I was facing the crayfish sober......


The nasty crayfish and the nasty earth worm. My lab partner took care of the earthworm.

Cat scratch

Kompis the cat tested positive for Bartonella (aka "cat scratch disease"). Bartonella is a group of bacteria that goes into the cat's red blood cells and cause inflammatory reactions in various tissues, most commonly in the respiratory system, skin, ocular tissues, and gastro-intestinal tissues. Luckily, Kompis has no symptoms at all so he might just be a carrier. Nevertheless, we have been instructed to give him antibiotics - azithromycin - once a day for 21 days. That should take care of business.

Humans can catch Bartonella diseases from being scratched or bitten by an infected cat. Good thing our Kompis is a true sweetie. Except for when we try to squirt azithromycin into his mouth. Kompis scratched for his life and Sean and I bled and bled. We kept our bloody hands lathered with antibiotic soap under hot water while singing 'row-row-row your boat' three times. That should take care of business.

Still sleepy

This morning I managed to get a seat on the C train during rush-hour. It takes some serious skills to do that. I fell asleep, of course, within a few stops. I woke up at 86th street with my head resting on a stranger's shoulder. That feels pretty weird, let me tell you. But why would this woman let me sleep on her shoulder...? Why not move away like everyone else does when someone gets too close?

I kind of forgot about this little incident as I sat in my Bio recitation class later on in the day, when suddenly, a woman in the seat in front of me took a dive - nose first, arms by her side, face smashed against the floor. She had fallen asleep in her chair and as a result she had slid off it. It was great.

The whole class turned around when they heard the 'thump' but I had seen it as it happened.
"Oh my God are you ok?!?" the teacher exclaimed, though she remained fixed to the blackboard.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the student said, still on the ground, "I'm just really, really tired, so sorry..." and she climbed back into her seat.
"Do you need water??" the teacher asked, trying to help.
"No, no, I'm sorry, I fell asleep, I'm sorry."

The student looked really embarrassed and the class didn't know what to do so the teacher just continued lecturing and everyone went back to taking notes. I wanted to laugh sooooooo bad. But instead, I tapped the sleepy student on her shoulder and offered her a tic tac. She took it.

Lbs

I passed my annual physical exam with a healthy grade. But it didn't start out too well when the doctor entered the room and said whooooah when he looked at the EKG print out. What? What? What? "Nothing, your heart rate is just really slow."

My heart rate was 50 beats per minute and my blood pressure was 100/70. This means I'm barely alive. I hardly have a pulse. A slow heart rate is fine if you're a cyclist or a runner, but I'm neither. What's going on? No wonder I fall asleep every time I sit down, chin-to-chest style, my heart is on vacation. I sleep on the subway, I sleep in my bio class, I sleep everywhere. One time I fell asleep standing up.

What's even worse than not having a pulse is that I've gained weight since last year. I'm not supposed to be able to gain weight. "Well, you're not 20 years old anymore." What tha' f-ck?? That shit doesn't apply to me. It should not apply to me. ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh...

Mad old

Since going back to Bio-class a few weeks ago, I've been completely devoid of any writing capabilities or random community observations. I just can't believe I'm at Hunter again. I wish I could keep it a secret - I'm really not still in school - but it's hard when constant studying has become such a big part of life. I always make sure I tell my 20-year old classmates the following:

1) I'm a post bacc student
2) I have had a real job
3) I have a job now (although it doesn't feel that real)
4) I'm old
5) I'm only taking this class because I have to
6) I graduated from college in 1998

This usually kills any potential friendships.

Fight

Posh and Becks live upstairs from us. They're not the real Posh and Becks, but they could be. They always seem like such an annoying perfect couple, and they make much more money than we do and their apartment is super dope. They live in the duplex part of the brownstone which is the rich people's part of the brownstone. In a way, they're quite irritating.

Anyway, yesterday there was a crack in Posh and Becks land - a fight! First, some commotion. Then, some screaming. Posh: "YOU'RE A FUCKING COWARD!!" Becks: "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" Wow. Even though it is disturbing to listen to another couple's anger, this was pretty cool. It might be ok to yell like that when you're 20 years old and drunk as hell and fighting with your boyfriend you've had for a month and will dump in a week. But when you're Posh and Becks??

This little incident made us realize, once again, that we are an awesome couple. A fabulous well-balanced couple. We might not have a set of matching wine-glasses, or even matching cups and plates, but we do know how to behave like grown-ass adults. For the most part.

Phew

An unattended 'Dora the Explorer' backpack on the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway platform stirred up the evening commute, for some.

"Is this your bag?" an anxious looking man asked a father standing close by with his son. It's a pink Dora bag, of course it was not. "Whose bag is that? Does anyone know??" the man called out. A couple of people shook their heads, but nobody owned up to the bag. "Well," the anxious man continued, "you know what they say: 'if you see something, say something'." And off he went, up the stairs, to get help.

Damnit, I thought to myself, is this going to cause one of those police investigations? That's totally going to delay the trains, and I'm one stop away from home. Why would there be a bomb in a pink backpack at Hoyt-Schermerhorn, a station which name nobody can even pronounce? I was waiting for the speakers to go "due to a police blahblahblah" but before that happened, the awesome G trained rolled in.

As I stepped inside and waited for the doors to close, one lone police officer approached the bag. He poked the bag with his finger. When nothing happened, he unzipped the top flap and looked inside. Nothing. He then swung the bag onto his shoulder and headed for the stairs.

And then the rest of us had to ride the G train listening to the all too familiar announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is a message from the New York City Police Department, if you see a suspicious package or activity on the train or on the platform, please don't keep it to yourself, tell a police officer or an MTA employee" ...and you know the rest.

Unfriendly soccer

The USA-Sweden friendly game pretty much sucked - despite my sister and I wearing full uniform.

Cup of Pee

Peeing in a cup is not easy. It's even more difficult when an angry nurse is waiting right outside the bathroom door. "Just a minute..." my voice cracks, and the warm pee hits my hand instead of the cup. How am I supposed to do this? Do other women aim right? Why don't they give us something bigger to pee in when we have to do these stupid drug tests, like maybe a bucket?

Most of my pee is on my hand, dripping down on the floor. How gross. Only a few drops make it inside - not even close to the 40 mL mark that the angry nurse has drawn with an angry magic marker. Shit. More peeing outside of the cup. If I just scooped up some water from the toilet bowl it would contain my pee at this point. But maybe the drug test results would come back funky this way.

Amazingly, I manage to sprinkle 40 mL into the cup in the end. I step outside and proudly hand the nurse my cup of pee. Completely gloved up she holds it up towards the light and eyes it with a frown. But there is enough pee. She checks the temperature of the pee to make sure I didn't bring in someone else's pee and transfered that pee into my cup. She then puts a sticker with 'date and time' on a separate tube and pours my pee into that tube. Then, she hands me the tube.

"Put your initials here!" she growls and points to the sticker on the tube that contains my pee. What? I don't want to touch that tube without wearing latex gloves. She has gloves on - I don't. But then again, given that I just peed on my bare naked hands, jotting down my initials on that tube shouldn't matter too much. Still, I hold the pen as far away as possible from the 'ink-point' and scribble down KE in caps.

Morning struggle

Bentley the cat has gotten into the habit of waking me up by nibbling at my face. He thinks I will feed him if he does this. In the beginning it was cute and all (maybe he thinks I'm the mommy!), but still, who wants to get up at 6am to feed the cats?

I try to ignore Bentley as he wrestles with my head and sinks his teeth into my chin. If I don't respond to his behavior there's no point for him to keep nibbling, is my logic. But no. The nibbling has turned into bites instead. He's not puncturing my skin, but it's very, very close. I have red bite marks all over my face as we speak. Pairs of red dots, like the marks of fangs.

I put him in the kitchen this morning and closed the door, but that encouraged the "door game" where Bentley scratches and meows on one side of the door, and Kompis the cat does the same on the other side.

So I asked Sean to get up and feed the cats so that they'd get quiet. This way - if Sean feeds them - there will be no connection between biting my face and getting food; hence, we're not encouraging the biting behavior.

Unless Bentley's brain starts to think: "Biting her face will make that guy serve me breakfast."