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2001-06-24 - 11:22 p.m. Tomorrow I have an audition for a new “reality” show. Basically, it’s a dating game. I have to show up tomorrow at 11AM at a hotel in midtown “dressed as I would dress if I were going out”. This is one of those times that I miss living with friends. I have no idea what to wear. I wonder if there was some class that I missed growing up that taught us all how to dress ourselves. I’m studying the contents of my closet to try and define what “going out” translates in skirt/top combinations. Here I am on a Sunday night, unemployed, trying on all the small black pieces of fabric I own and hoping that I can finally decide. And the cats are no help. My life has taken quite a strange detour. I have a job offer for a position in Greenwich, CT. Yes, I will make the reverse commute. I don’t know the details (find out tomorrow), but I’m not that excited about it. I want to get out of advertising. What am I going to wear tomorrow? I ran the Central Park Loop today – the road course that weaves its way through the different sections. I love that park, it almost makes me forget about the great things that come with living downtown. I miss the village, but I know if I was still there I wouldn’t haul ass up to the park. Goodbye to one more New York City building. When I moved into this building, I took notice of an empty lot on the neighboring corner—and immediately flagged it as the site for a future “upper crust” doorman high rise. Next to the lot lived an old brick building, with quite large retail stores occupying its large ground floor. The stores that were in that space were quite odd. One was a copy store – very big space for a business that a) doesn’t need that much space and b) never had a customer the entire time it was there. The other was a vacuum cleaner repair store. Again, quite an odd occupant for a space that could of housed a nice sized bookstore or something. Well, these stores left their ample houses shortly after I moved in to my building. The building had been vacant for a few months now—until last week. Last Monday a dozen or so men began to take out large bundles of steel poles, drywall, bricks and leftover furniture from inside the building. Tuesday, they began to destroy the top floor walls, throwing the bricks into the empty lot on the corner—I was told by some important looking construction worker (don’t ask how I defined him as the “important one”) that yes, this was going to be a new apartment building. Wednesday, they had unearthed a basement that existed in that empty lot, under the debris and dirt and wild weeds that had established themselves. Thursday the whole building was gone. On Friday I walked by the building and wondered who had built the ghost building, which now lay in ruins. Who knows who had lived and worked in this nondescript, but old-fashioned New York City apartment building. I have no idea how old it is either. Everyone I’ve told this to has commented on how great this new apartment building will be for the neighborhood. It will attract new businesses, it will make the area safer. Sure. I understand and agree that yes, by constructing a high-rise, doorman building with dry cleaning service on the corner by my (thankfully so) rent-stabilized apartment may bring things such as a Starbucks or The Gap to my neck of the woods. For now, GASP, the closest Starbucks is two blocks away! The coffee bean to person ration is not high enough! While I agree that the neighborhood will change, I don’t think that this change will be all that positive. Why destroy a perfectly nice NYC brick building to create a temple to Donald Trump? The people who give the upper east side a bad name are leaking into my neighborhood, and I don’t like it. On another note, but in the same vein of saving this city from the stupid people, I’m looking into getting a law changed. A couple weeks ago I read this ridiculous article about a hotdog vendor who got a cop to shut down a lemonade stand that was being run by two kids under the age of five, and their nanny on a sunny afternoon on the sidewalk next to the park. They didn’t have a permit to sell food or drink outside, so he shut them down. We have drunk men molesting women after a parade in the park and no cop will come and help, but “oh no, those meddling kids and their lemonade—THAT has to stop”. Please. The hotdog vendor argued that they were stealing business from him. And apparently they did—in three short hours they had made close to $70. They were also selling cookies. I think the cookies must’ve been laced with something. Anyway, I want to figure a way to make it legal for kids to sell lemonade and cookies (laced or not) on the corner. Get a special provision made so that parents, teachers, or nannies can get their young children an appropriate permit so that when the Sabrett and pretzel guy who is committing a crime by selling 5oz. of water for $2 gets pissed off, he’ll have to suffer in silence.
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