December 2005

December 27, 2005

And after all that, the ice cream maker and/or bread maker that E.S. bought me did not arrive in time for the holiday. But neither did my gift for him, so we've agreed to postpone the exchange of gifts.

In the meantime, here is the stocking that he bafflingly claims is more than enough of a present for him:

And I'm terribly sorry to inflict this Christmas photo of my dog A. on you, but I really have no choice:

God only knows what she'll decide to do for New Year's Eve.

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December 24, 2005

Followed by this conversation, from last night:

E.S.: My parents are coming into town tomorrow, and I want to show them the new house and the neighborhood. If you need to get together with your collaborator, why don't you do it while we go to Brooklyn?
FAUSTUS: Actually, I think we'll write on Monday, and tomorrow when you're in Crown Heights I'll go to the knitting store to learn the stitch I need to finish your Christmas stocking.
E.S.: That's not an acceptable option.
FAUSTUS: Why not?
E.S.: Because you should be spending time with me.
FAUSTUS: But I need to finish your present.
E.S.: I don't want a present. I want you.
FAUSTUS: I don't believe this.
E.S.: Your love is the only present I need.
FAUSTUS: What planet are you from?

Seriously, what planet is he from?

Plus, when I got to the knitting store, which is an hour away from my apartment, I realized that I'd forgotten to bring the necessary yarn with me.

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December 22, 2005

Since we started dating, E.S. has wanted me to express my feelings, even when they are unpleasant. He says things like, "I want you to be you, not to squelch your natural impulses just because you think they'll upset me."

I don't know where he came up with such a repugnant idea--probably the same place he got the ridiculous notion that I look better without product in my hair--but in order to punish him I have been taking him at his word. This leads to conversations like the following.

E.S.: So, since we're buying a house, can we talk about Christmas presents?
FAUSTUS: What about them?
E.S.: Well, I know you want a bread maker or an ice cream maker--
FAUSTUS: A bread maker and/or an ice cream maker.
E.S. --a bread maker and/or an ice cream maker, but it doesn't seem to be the right time to buy house-type things.
FAUSTUS (raising an eyebrow): Oh?
E.S.: I mean, I know you want to start playing with them right away, but the practical side of me says it would be better to wait until . . .
FAUSTUS: Until what? Until I break up with you?
E.S.: You're such a brat.
FAUSTUS: You told me not to squelch my natural impulses just because I think they'll upset you.
E.S.: So?
FAUSTUS: So it's your fault I'm a brat.
E.S.: About this bread maker--
FAUSTUS: Bread and/or ice cream maker.
E.S.: That's it. I'm giving you one disposable razor.
FAUSTUS: What?
E.S.: Merry Christmas!
FAUSTUS: I hate you.

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December 21, 2005

I am dealing with the New York City transit strike by having gone to Chicago before it started. True, Chicago is very, very cold, but I bought a down jacket and boots before I left, so I am toasty and have access to working public transportation.

Everyone in Chicago talks funny. I mean, they really do talk like people talk when they're imitating Chicago accents. I always assumed that was made up, but it's not.

What is made up is the idea that people in Chicago, because they talk funny, are also all fresh-faced and naive and innocent. In fact, they are just as annoying and awful as people in New York. Yesterday I had a fifty-minute ride on public transportation, and the annoying girl sitting five feet behind me would not shut the fuck up in her funny accent. "Don't you feel powerful?" she asked her companion loudly. "I feel so powerful. Like I could just kill somebody." I wished E.S. were with me, so he could diagnose her. She said it again about twenty minutes later. "Don't you feel powerful? I feel so powerful. Like I could just kill somebody."

Me, too, I wanted to say. But to do so would have required unfastening the hood contraption on my jacket that keeps my face from freezing off by allowing only my eyes to peek out from inside its shadowy depths, so instead I held my tongue.

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December 20, 2005

Welcome to the Search for Love in Manhattan, v. 2.0.

In a comment on the last post, anapestic asked if this is what you get when you sell your soul or what happens when they come to collect. The answer can be found in the full version of the illustration on the left-hand side of this page, by David Michael Friend:

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December 19, 2005

Everyone who lives in New York and hasn't already seen it should immediately get tickets to Striking 12, a glorious adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" by the band Groovelily and Tony-Award-winning bookwriter (and my occasional collaborator) Rachel Sheinkin. The most enjoyable evening I've spent in the theater in a while. It closes this Friday, so don't delay.

And yes, the new house is in pretty much the same neighborhood as the old one. So there may be an ancient Indian burial ground in my future yet.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:56 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

December 18, 2005

Except the mortgage fell through, so we're buying this non-HUD-foreclosed house instead:

On the one hand, it is not on the site of the former Kings County Penitentiary.

On the other hand, it has ceilings.

So we're probably coming out ahead in the end.

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December 13, 2005

Actually, according to E.S.'s further researches, our new neighborhood was in all likelihood occupied long ago by the Canarsie Indians.

Which means that we may very well be buying a house built on an ancient Indian burial ground.

An ancient Indian burial ground and the site of the former Kings County Penitentiary.

Talk about an embarrassment of riches.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 07:45 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

December 12, 2005

E.S. called me the other day, breathless with excitement after having spent an evening online researching the neighborhood we'll be moving into. "Guess what used to be where our house is now!" he burst out. "It's the best thing that could possibly have been there."

"An ancient Indian burial ground," I said immediately.

There was silence on the other end of the line. "No," he said. "I guess it's the second-best thing that could possibly have been there."

"A lunatic asylum," I answered.

A longer silence. "The third-best thing," he said, through obviously gritted teeth. I am actually terrible at guessing games, and I couldn't come up with anything else. When I admitted this, his voice filled with an almost palpable glee--no mean feat given that we were communicating telephonically--and he said, "the land where our house is used to be occupied by the Kings County Penitentiary."

"Oh, my God," I said, and melted. I took a moment to collect myself. "Now the next important question we need to answer is: who was the most famous resident of the penitentiary?"

He was clearly offended. "What do you take me for? Of course I already looked it up. Her name was Polly Frisch, and she was sent to the penitentiary after she poisoned her husband, his two children, and her own child by putting arsenic on their bread and butter."

"I love you," I said.

"She was eventually pardoned by the governor and released. Her fame was almost immediately eclipsed by that of another murderess named Lizzie Borden."

Since that day, my mind has been filled with fantasies of opening a café on the first floor (previously occupied by the Gospel Light Church, Inc.) called Polly's, or perhaps Polly's Pastries. It will be just like the café that Dallas Roberts and Colin Farrell opened in A Home at the End of the World, except that E.S. and I will have sex with each other and we will sell bread and butter both with and without arsenic.

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December 07, 2005

I think this man is the most brilliant person in the world.

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December 05, 2005

The summer after my sophomore year of college, I spent two months in Berlin studying German at the Goethe Institut. After a few days spent adjusting to the time change and another few days spent having nightmares about things like being abandoned by my father at Auschwitz, I started to settle in nicely and get to know some of the people in my class. One of my closest friends was a woman named Sarah, from somewhere in the midwest. She was dating a Frenchman whose hair was too long but who was very charming nonetheless, so I could eventually bring myself to overlook his ill-conceived coiffure.

One evening the three of us were having dinner, and Sarah said, "I think the world can be divided into two groups of people." I was interested to hear what her two groups were, as I myself usually divide the world into two groups of people; namely, people I hate on the one hand and me on the other hand, but I suspected her groups would be constituted differently. Indeed, I was right. When I asked her what the two groups she was referring to were, she replied, "People who had head injuries as children and people who didn't."

I blinked. "What?"

"Yes. You had a head injury as a child, right?"

I had to admit that yes, I had been injured at the tender age of two, cracking my head and bleeding profusely and creating a tiny bald spot on the top of my head. My mother, who had been out shopping, yelled at my father upon her return, "I told you to watch him!", to which he replied, "I did! I watched him climb up on the sink. I watched him fall. I watched him hit his head."

"How did you know?" I asked Sarah, as her French boyfriend gazed adoringly at her.

"Oh, I can always tell." And then she went through our class, dividing its members up. Belen had not had a head injury; Michael had. Gary and Laurent had not; Patrice had. Mario she wasn't sure about but suspected not. And so on.

The next day, before class started, we went around and asked everybody. Sarah had been right in every single case.

And this is one of the many, many, many reasons I will never have children. Because it was crystal clear that people who had had head injuries as children were better than people who had not, so if I were ever to come into possession of a child I would feel compelled to give it a head injury, for its own future good. But I would have no idea how to hurt it just enough to make it interesting but not enough to make it developmentally disabled. And the resulting paralysis as I tried to figure it out would prevent me from ever getting anything done again.

Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:41 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBacks (0)

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