Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002 / 6:27 p.m.

~The Air Was Warm, It's Not the Cats' Fault, My Tattoo Will Be Famous, and a Small Concession~

I'm falling behind. I've not read diaries in two days, I've not responded to emails (I will, don't worry), I've barely read BB3 recaps and I certainly have not logged in to the live feed. The air conditioning debacle sent me into an absolute tizzy. Is that how you spell tizzy?

I mean it. Hormone-influenced or not (and I am experiencing temporary stress-induced menstrual cessation), I freaked out when I felt warm air suddenly coming out of the vents last night. I changed the filter, and yes, I needed to before last night, but so what?, and I vacuumed out the intake vent. Is it still called a vent if it only takes in air and doesn't blow out? I'm confused. But nothing helped. I'd turn it off, turn it back on and it might be cool for a few, but then the warm air. That's just wrong. I panicked. I began cleaning the apartment. Someone official would have to be in here, poking around, while I was gone.

I flirted with the idea of calling in sick. And I felt sick. There was a snowball effect of OMIGOD, I never clean, I never dust, I just set things in a place and that's it, I'm always online, I'm a slob, no one can enter my apartment, especially not a maintenace worker. No one. I broke down. I really did. It wasn't pretty. All because I needed someone to fix my air conditioner.

But look, who wants to read, and do I want to write?, all about my fucking air conditioning woes. It's a long story growing ever longer. Let's just say it wasn't working. I turned it off. I called maintenance, I did not call in sick. Maintenance came, they saw, they disbelieved. They/He called me at work. Said it's fine. I said, "Huh?" He says the filter was the culprit, good I changed it. I said, no, no, no, turn it on, you'll see, it blows warm air and that is wrong, he did, it didn't. He gave me extra filters, I came home at lunch, it was cold in here. Wrong. Wrong answer.

I was thrilled. I had shut the cats in the bedroom, left them with the litter box and their water, a fan in the window, and he left them there. I let them out, I turned off the fan, all was well. I made a sandwich of whole wheat, mayo, garlic bologna, garlic cheddar (love garlic!), and red leaf lettuce, I began to eat. Warm air filling the apartment. Wha....?

I was furious, again. I tried to call the apartment office, busy. Busy. Then busy. I was on my lunch break. I drove over on my way to work. I said, "Hey, it was cold, then it wasn't" and 'Sheila' called the dude on the walkie and told him, and he begrudgingly (okay, I don't know if it was begrudgingly, I am projecting here) agreed to go back. I went back to work.

He called me again. It's fine, he says. I say no, no, no, it was warm, so I turned it off, I never should have turned it off, you'll never see if I don't leave it on so you can put your hand in front of a vent and feel that WARM air that is so wrong. He says he believes me. He keeps blaming the cats. "When you have animals..... the hair gets in there and you have to change the filter, and it can get in the coil above the filter and that could be clogged and the only thing I can do is take it apart and clean it and see if that is what it is, because it's working, it's blowing air, it's cool..." (NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, IT'S WARM, THAT'S THE POINT!)

Bottom lining it for you: He will be by 'first thing' tomorrow to discombobulate things. I will stay and stand guard. I don't even know which one of the maintenance dudes he is. I see them, but I never talk to them, so he is merely a voice so far. An intelligent voice, a knowing voice, but a stranger. In my apartment. For two hours tomorrow??? I'm staying. I told D., the Supervisor, I didn't ask. I need to stay. It's okay.

The second time he came today I left the girls out of the bedroom, no point locking them up, he sounded cool, except he blames them for the demise of all my large appliances, no doubt. The fridge broke. The cats. The washer broke. The cats. My garbage disposal broke. Those damned cats.

Yes, I will broach the subject of the disposal, ever so gently. "Oh by the way, Mr..... Dean, is it? Yes, well, Dean, you see, my garbage disposal doesn't seem to be disposing, and it's causing my sink to clog and I have to PLUNGE it all the fucking time, so do you think you could check it next time you're in my neighborhood? Er, my building?"

Okay. We all clear on that? Good. A/C woes. It's cool right now, literally. It's on right now. Can't 'splain it. Really. I swear to any higher power available, okay, I swear on N and G's lives, my girls, that it was blowing out WARM air at lunch. Swear. 'Dean' says that if it is the coil all clogged with the hair of those DAMNED CATS, then it could cause the compressor to overload every so often. On account of this is an every so often kind of a thing. Makes sense to me. Please, I want it to malfunction before 'first thing tomorrow morning'. I want it to be blowing out hot coals when he arrives. So he can see I'm not some idiot woman who doesn't know a coil from a compressor.

In other news.....

Look, I have HUGE news. I came home to a message on my answering machine from the woman who did my leg tattoo at the Convention in June..... she says not only is she coming back for the next Convention in October, but her photo of my leg tattoo is in a major tattoo magazine, the November issue, along with an article about her. It's supposedly on newsstands now, but I'm not going to tell you her name or the name of the mag (Whew! I almost did!), because I don't know if she gave them my name for the caption...... must see, must see, oooh, so exciting!!!

Yes, isn't that wild? Actually, someone else got a picture of my arm tattoo, the big lizard, and he said it might appear on a web site, but last time I checked the site it was still under construction.

I'm definitely going to get her to do an ankle band below the butterfly. And maybe she'll tweak it, if she wants I'll let her. Even though she freaked my ass out with different colors than what I thought she was going to use, I trusted her, and I'm not displeased. It's not my favorite tattoo, but I really respect her as an artist, and I think it is an incredible piece of art what she did on my leg. If only my legs weren't so fucking skinny. Yes, yes, I could stand to work out, we know this.

So, that was huge.

I made a small concession today. I had no clean clothes. I grabbed semi-dirty jeans from my dirty clothes basket and didn't want to think about what shirt is comfy, but not too casual, a tshirt without a logo? I have maybe 2 of those, they all have logos, they're souvenirs for chrissakes, so I went for something easy, and it just so happened to go with the theme, the Patriotic crap, I didn't mean to, it happened, and I'm not ashamed, and I didn't have to do it, but I wore a little red and white striped tshirt. There.

HIGH ART

I didn't want to look like a flag, but I guess I did, and as I say, it wasn't really intentional, but part of me wanted not to rock any boats. And others wore black or whatever they wanted, but we were mostly red white and blue, the lot of us.

The lot of us were called to a 'Floor Meeting' at 9:00 a.m., and the Site Manager addressed us, told us he heard George W Bush on the radio saying that today would be a day of tears, a day of prayers, and a day of resolve. And the Site Manager expounded. Rather eloquently. He is a genuine, nice, Patriotic, religious man. A family man. A kind man. An Aries! And I see him making changes in our site already since he's been back.

And I wonder if he'd been in that office one year ago today if he would have sat there with the only TV in the place turned so he could see it, not even addressing us as we all scrambled to radios for our news. He would've pulled us together, unlike that horrible woman whom he has replaced. Oh well.

He allowed us a moment of silence, and almost all bowed their heads. A hundred people? Some blatantly did not, only stood looking around, eyes wide open. And I felt it was all so inappropriate, it wasn't what I'd wanted, the Memo said there would be a 'moment of silence' per Corporate decree at 8:46 a.m., and I knew I'd be driving to work, I'd miss it. I guess the Site Manager thought of this and wanted to include us all.

He said we're all working together for a reason and he cares deeply about each and every one of us. And we've all known someone who's been affected by something tragic, and we can all help each other, etc., and etc. Nice. But, I don't know. I'm too cynical. It wasn't what I wanted first thing in the morning when I was trying to get the apartment office on the phone and I could only get voice mail. Selfishly, desperately, all I could think of was my stupid a/c and were the cats going to melt in the bedroom.

Luckily it was only 92 today. And it's on now, it's blowing, it's cool, I feel it.

Oh, it's Moby's birthday today - I think he's 37. You can visit him at Moby.com. He is in Japan on tour for the latest album, "18". Buy a copy today.

Sucky birthday, eh? Ahhhh, maybe not. But he wrote in his online journal that he is lonely and sad. And crying. Poor, sad, lonely, Birthday-Boy Moby. Aw.

So, gee, what now? I'm thinking of the bell peppers, orange, purple (which is green inside, isn't that cool?), green, sauteed with a zucchini, sliced, maybe fat julienne?, sticks?, and shiitake mushrooms? How would you season that? That's where I run into trouble, if I'm not following a recipe, I tend to think something like Tony Chachere's Cajun Seasoning will be good, then I realize how salty it is, or I think Basil would be good, but then it tastes too sweet. I tend to like Dill on veggies, but I may be out. Oregano? Mmmmm.....

And I still have the broccoli, but I honestly want it with the olive sauce, steamed, and I have yet to make the dang sauce. It's just a white sauce with lemon juice and black olives. It's good. I'm so lazy.

I'm still considering frittatas too. I could take the peppers, the zucchini, the shiitakes and the white mushrooms too and make one hell of a frittatta, mix in some shredded garlic cheddar! Hey! And the potato salad I've yet to make, there's always that. I didn't eat after my salad last night, I was too upset. Lost my appetite.

I think if I had someone fun to cook with it would be more fun, I'd be more inspired. Not that I don't love cooking by myself, but you know. Some things would be better with someone else. Like cooking. Not just any someone else though, see, that's the problem. There's no someone else I want to cook with. La de da.

No TV. I've promised. I already gave in with the wardrobe, not intentionally, we know this, and I watched a PBS docu last night on the rebuilding ideas of the WTC area, only because Entertainment Weekly recommended it, and Kevin Spacey narrated. It was really interesting. Did you know they saved the sculpted Sphere that used to sit outside Towers 1 and 2, saved it all bashed in as it was, and set it up as a temporary Memorial in Battery Park? Well, if you watch news incessantly, and/or you're a New Yorker, you'd know, but I did not. And it was very cool.

They showed some meetings between residents of lower Manhattan and victims' families, lots of articulate arguing in very heavy New Yawk accents.

But today? Nope. Not turning it on, not even a cable movie. Nada. Niente. Zip.

Why are my entries so LONG lately? Yikes!

Um, guess I'll cook, read diaries, BB3 recaps, and maybe I'll watch the Houseguests LIVE, on the feed. Listen to what they have to say. Tonight is somebody's last night in the house, as tomorrow is Eviction Night. Excitement Galore.

I'm also washing clothes so I can get the laundry basket out of the laundry room (home of the A/C) so 'Dean' can have room to do his job in the a.m. Oh yeah, I have to get up earlier than usual so he can come dismantle and discombobulate, all 'cause of those damned cats, don'tcha know.

I love my cats.

One more small thing: Did anyone notice I changed the Gorey drawings on the Guestbook and the Older pages???

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