Slick Rick and the Swedish Giant (Dwell & Tell VII)

Slick Rick was an erotic dancer by night, and a highly-demanded personal trainer at the gym where I worked by day.  Not tall, but adorned with beautifully sculpted muscles and maybe the prettiest skin I'd ever seen on a man.  On any given day, you could catch Rick swiveling his hips a little if the right song came over the gym speakers, even at 8:00 A.M.  He was somehow always in the club scene, no matter where he was.  Rick was a firecracker and a little bit of a know-it-all who enjoyed some unheard-of sublet deal on 81st between 2nd and 3rd, so close to the gym that he could walk there in seven minutes and go home if he had an hour to spare between clients.

The head of the trainers was Jake, a dangerously good-looking and arrogant guy who knew someone who knew someone who handled this apartment.  Rick and Jake approached me one day at the gym and explained that the place was becoming available.

I.Heart.NY/Virginia.Is.For.Lovers: (Dwell & Tell VI)

Virginia is for (coffee) Lovers.   The coffee shops featured in this blog are the coffee shops of downtown Staunton, VA.  Though I failed to blog during the month of December while I was there, I made sure to take a few pictures of some of the best spots.  The two that are not represented in the photos are Blue Mountain Coffee (a gem, down by the Wharf and the railroad tracks) and Cranberries (really, really, good organic coffee in the cafe of this tiny Natural Foods Market.)  The photos on the blog home page show Mugshots, Newtown Bakery, and Coffee on the Corner.   While the story below starts in NYC, its happy ending takes place in VA.  Virginia is for Lovers.

Coffee on the Corner, Staunton, VA

The apartment that I stayed in before subletting to Todd's room was a not a rental but a gift.  My friend Darron offered me his apartment -rent free- while he was out of town for work.  I don't remember how I even got the keys, but I drove there, up to 188th Street in Washington Heights with a couple of auditions scheduled and a couple hundred dollars to last until I got a day job, unless, of course, one of the auditions panned out.  Darron's apartment was a fucking dream.  A rent-free apartment anywhere on the island of Manhattan -probably- is a dream.  He apologized for the lack of decoration, lack of TV, that lots of things were still packed away in cardboard boxes, but I don't care about any of that.  Darron's one bedroom place was tidy, sunlit, and he left me the use of his Egyptian cotton sheets and his well-stocked cd collection.  (His cd collection was massive.  He is one of the country's -maybe the world's- finest sound designers.)  Darron's place was only available for a month.

Crazy: (Dwell and Tell V)

The location featured in these pictures is the last coffee-shop stop I made while in Lexington, KY.  I have fallen a little behind in posts, but "Coffee Times" was so adorable a place that I had to include it in "Vino & the Bean" before moving on to the places in Staunton, VA.  Stay tuned.

While I remember a few positives from my year in L.A. (driving year-round with the windows down, always a good time for a Jamba Juice, the first apartment where I put up my own Christmas tree, etc.) mostly, when I think of my year on Findley Street in Los Feliz, I remember sheer craziness.

The landlady was certifiable.

Truly.

She made no effort to conceal the fact that she had been institutionalized for mental health problems.

Lacking sympathy and loving alliteration like I do, I wasted no time nicknaming her "Crazy Carol."

Basically, Carol told me that the job of managing the building was all she was really capable of.  And even the nagging responsibilities of us tenants were sometimes too much to rouse her from her hill of blankets and pillows that I occasionally caught sight of through her open apartment door.  And rent was free for Carol, so, you know, that's good for The Crazies.  Not so good for us tenants.

She took great pride in "hand-picking" the residents of our very small and incredibly well-priced apartment units, which I took as a compliment . . . until I met some of the other guys.  Another Crazy on the floor above me routinely attracted police and emergency vehicles.  He saw alien spaceships.

Bring It

Common Grounds in Lexington is a warm, brick environment with great coffee.  There is a main room with cafe tables and chairs and then two little rooms that have furniture more like what you find in a living room.  There is artwork on all of the walls and much if it is really nice.  The day I went, there were a lot of students at work.  There is also a piano in a corner whose exterior has been artfully decorated with paint.  It's on High St.  It's great.

A:  Did you bring it?
B:  What?  Oh, yeah, yeah.  Of course I did.
A:  Where is it?
B:  Uh...
A:  Did you fucking forget it?
B:  No, no, I got it . . . I just -
A:  Did you lose my -
B:  No!
A:  Marshall, I am going to kick your ass from here to Main Street if you don't soon produce my blouse.
B:  I don't have the blouse.

34th and 34th Astoria, Queens (Dwell and Tell IV)

At "third street stuff and coffee" in Lexington, KY, the walls are decorated whimsically inside and out and there is a shelving unit there stacked with games.  I think I saw four Scrabbles.  There is some interior brick visible behind the decor and the wireless access is free.  I loved the people behind the counter.  I paid $2 for my coffee "for here."  I requested a mug and the guy behind the counter was like "that's the only way to have it, isn't it."  Yes.  Paper and styrofoam are for emergencies only.
After 86th Street on the Upper West Side, I moved to Queens.  I chose an apartment one street block and one avenue block away from my Ex.  Say what you want, but I really had no ulterior motives; it was simply the best apartment I'd seen in my search, in a great location, and at a cost I could afford (if I charged each client $5/hr more for their personal training sessions, except for a few who were "grandfathered" in to their bargain P.T. rate.)  I also truly believed I would never see him.  I have to leave for work at 5:15 A.M.  He wakes no earlier than 10:00!
... But while I was waiting for the new place to become available and crashing at Amy's, on a couch that has hosted many a wayward friend (see D & T part II), this Ex called me up and traveled from his place in Queens to the Upper West Side in the rain to plead his case and try for a second chance.  He also offered to help me with my upcoming move to his neighborhood.
I accept . . . the offer, not the wooing, we'll see how the move goes. . .
He was a champ.
Yes, we got back together.
And yes, he eventually became my husband.
During that year that I lived on the corner of 34th and 34th in Astoria, we really didn't see each other much due to various out-of-town jobs.  I used the Fall to study and get a new Personal Trainer Certification, while working my tail off with the certifications that I already had.  I taught between 6 and 10 group fitness classes a week and trained clients privately for another 20 - 25 hours a week.  I was tired a lot, but I loved loved loved my little studio apartment on 34th and 34th.  I loved the windows in their miniature cathedral shape.  I loved the pristine white walls and the clean new kitchen.  I bought furniture!  It was at this apartment that a not-so-popular Christmas tree drove me nuts throughout the holiday season with its blinking musical lights.  I loved that too.
Then, in early January I was offered a life-changing job with American Shakespeare Center.  The one-year contract they offered me turned into two, and then three, and then two more seasons and the opportunity to debut a play I wrote.  I couldn't have known any of this at the time, but I made the right decision in giving up that Astoria apartment, and perhaps, if I had hung onto it, I might have felt compelled to return to it after one year and have missed out on 3/4 of my experience with ASC in Staunton, Virginia.  But before I left Astoria to work and live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, I squeezed in one more play:  and one of the Most Whacked Out Scenarios Of My Life Thus Far.
I was going to Maine-in February- to tour a production of Romeo and Juliet

Getting to L.A. (Dwell and Tell III)

Okay.  People.  Not that I think you care, but in case you are following the last two stories like Alisa Ledyard is, I feel compelled to tell you that the Dwell and Tell Stories will not be told in the sequence in which they actually happened.  This one dates back to 1999.  You will eventually hear what happened after 34 W. 86^th Street, but it’s delicate material so it’s going to take some time.  I will tell you now, however, that my dear friend Rob had his tumor removed and beat cancer.  He is recovered and happily residing in midtown Manhattan.

I am at Charlie Brown's in Lexington, KY.  The house cabernet is $5 during happy hour and a whole $5.50 otherwise.  The other wines-by-the-glass are $7.25.  Indoor/Outdoor Seating.  Inside, the seating is mostly couches.  Adorable.

How about the time I lived in L.A.?  Friends of mine have heard me put Los Angeles down, referring to it like some stupid ex-boyfriend that treating me poorly and lacked any qualities good enough to justify it so.  If L.A. was my Ex, he dressed well, smelled good, and always had something fun planned.  He was full of jokes, but after a month, I’d heard them all and he told them again anyway.  He was not interested in conversation, not real conversation.  He was a flashy car, a Mojito, a smoothie from Jamba Juice, a workout video set outside on the beach, a song by Smash Mouth.  What I’m trying to say is that while L.A. was not all bad, it was not at all what I wanted.

a chunk of my heart is in apt. 4A (Dwell & Tell Part 2)

I was standing on a curb somewhere in Queens.  I'd just seen another apartment that wasn't going to work out for another good reason and I still really needed to get out of my current situation.  It felt like life and death.  I had been given the number for Bill, a professor at Penn State where I'd recently devoted three years (much of which I wanted back.)
"Bill has an apartment to sublet on the Upper West Side, I think.  86th Street, maybe?," says Jen, who had been a student under Bill while we were both in grad school.
For a fortune, I said.
"I don't know, I think it's like eight hundred."
Impossible.
(I love Jen, but she is even newer to New York than I am, and she obviously doesn't know the Upper West side from a small town in Indiana.  $800 a month rent is a thing of ancient history in New York's Upper West Side.)
"Yeah, eight hundred.  Or something like that."
How come you're not taking it?
"I can't make that rent by myself," she said, in a moment of irony that we would address repeatedly in the months, and even years that followed.  She was living, at the time, on the couch of our friend Amy and splitting that already-low rent.  It could not be argued that there was a cheaper option for Jen, but it wouldn't be long before her salary was sweeping mine into the gutters of the Upper West Side.
Also, 86th Street just happened to be mere blocks from my early-morning job and no more than a ten-minute walk.  It was absolutely unfathomable to me that an affordable apartment was available in the proposed location, but there was Bill's number scribbled on a scrap of paper, back in the days where we did that ---wrote numbers down.
Ring, ring, "hello?"  (He sounds a bit like Tim Gunn from Project Runway.  Or maybe I just make that comparison because Bill teaches costume and set design.  Let's just say that if in the movie-version of this story, I'd get Tim Gunn to play the role of Bill.)