I’m too old for this shit

You’ve seen those Buzzfeed tests with results revealing what “Friends” character you are, which 70s rock band, what sandwich — what arbitrary thing you are – these tests are clearly out of control.  By the way, I’m Courtney Love, the group Heart, Captain Kirk, and should live in the State of Washington.

Facebook friends who got the State of New York were pleased, proud to be associated with a high-powered, sophisticated city.

I was born and raised in Manhattan.  My dad, an artist, had a studio in the west 20s, and my friends and I took trains all around the city.  My mother’s from Harlem.

But when my results said that I should live in Washington, I thought – exactly!  This city was always too much for me.  My dad thought that I should live in Berkeley California, where it’s laid back and bohemian.

He had to make me go out and play with the kids yelling up at our window for me to come outside.  I was content to stay in my bedroom and dream, play with dolls, and write stories.

So I went outside, and before you know it, I was an alcoholic.  The cliques, the rules, the pace to keep up — I wasn’t suited for it.  I didn’t even care about going to college, though I scored high in my elementary school tests, and could read when I was three.

Early on I was anti-establishment – I saw how people were influenced to think the same way, and to follow trends.

I still live in Manhattan with filth, noise, and rude people.  I have principles and try to have manners, but in the city it’s hard.

In Whole Foods, I was nearly run over by shopping cart speeders.  I wanted to yell, “Where are you all going!!”  There were mostly upper-middle class young people, who pretty much own the island.  Yes, Manhattan is Dubai now — very expensive.

I was on the Upper West Side, a place where the gritty, the working class, and the intellectuals coexisted way back; the northernmost tip of that area being Columbia University.  At the base was the area immortalized in “Panic in Needle Park,” where junkies were.  A lot of that area was dangerous.

We knew a doctor in the seventies who bought a brownstone in the west 90s.  She was warned against moving there.  That house is probably a couple of million dollars now.  The people in that area today are wealthy, designer people.

Where I live is not like that, but it’s a matter of time.  Even though my neighborhood is considered good, in pockets it’s still noisy, dirty and overcrowded.  Even the airplane traffic is excessive.  I can’t take a decent nap because I’m hypersensitive to the noise.

I would love living in the woods of Washington State.  But for now I’m thinking about New Mexico.  I’m too old for this shit.

Angst and Evolution

Armageddon was pretty uneventful this year — other than the fact that I’m suffering from the need of an apicoectomy.  That’s a dental procedure.  It hurts like holy hell, which is why I didn’t get it when I was supposed to.  That’s why I’m in trouble now for waiting so long.

So…happy Armageddon to me — know what’m sayin’?  At least I got to listen to our favorite Armageddon holiday song .  It’s really hardcore, so only those who are interested in adding it to their holiday selection, please, enjoy:

As expected on this holiday of Armageddon, I experienced a small degree of existential angst, which I’d say wasn’t eventful.  That’s what this day’s about anyway.  Angst comes, and she goes — that’s what they told me in Harlem Hospital the day I was born.  It was during the Welcome-to-the-World speech that they gave to all the newborns back in 1962 – haha!

Harlem Hospital used to be the best place to go for gun shot wounds because they happened with frequency then.  So they were better prepared for it.  Harlem was very different during that period.

Ever see Cotton Comes to Harlem?  Well, that’d give you an idea.  Maybe.  My mom grew up there, not far from Frankie Lymon of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.  My dad lived on Convent Avenue, though he wasn’t born and raised in Harlem like my mother.

The Harlem area was originally inhabited by the Manhattan Native people.  The Dutch came later and called it Haarlem (Haaaaaaahhhhrlem!).  Fast forward to the Great Migration when Blacks came there from the south, then there was the Harlem Renaissance era.  My grandparents migrated to Harlem from the south during the later period of migration.  The depressed era in Harlem happened after the Renaissance.

Now the era in Harlem is the one that’s too rich for me to live in!  Haha!  You should see some of those brownstones, they’re palaces.  Nothing stays the same in this world.  Not even me.

I’ve come out of my angst to a period of excitement and wide possibilities.  See how that worked?  Evolution.  Cool.

My apartment

I work in Riverdale, the part of the Bronx with mansions and luxury apartments.  On the bus I pass neighborhoods and think, “I wonder what it looks like over there?”

After work I walked a different way to the bus stop through private streets with old mansions and got lost.  So I went on an adventure.  The sky was blue with cumulus clouds though it was swampy.  I got sweaty walking.

After walking in circles, I came to a familiar avenue, so I felt comfortable, though the area was strange.  There were swank luxury apartments with pools and terraces.  I figured where west was and walked as far west as I could because I wanted to see what was down by the river.  The streets were quiet, wide and pristine.  The sun glowed on the Whitehall, which actually is a stark white building.  I see it from the parkway, but from this vantage point, it was in another world, facing other privileged dwellings.  From there I walked on the southwest edge of Riverdale which eventually curved east.  There were woods then a school with a big soccer field.  Kids wearing orange uniforms were in there practicing.  Teenagers were in a park hanging out on the swings.  They looked like the cool kids.  I thought of Archie comic books, because the town of Riverdale where they lived is based on here.

My neighborhood is desirable by Manhattan standards, but it’s urban compared to this and in a different sphere.  Since this was a different world when I got home I had a new perspective of my neighborhood.

I felt like a traveler from somewhere else.  My neighborhood was quaint and vibrant.  I appreciated the different types of people, the prewar buildings, tenements, corner stores and congested streets.  The light seemed to shine differently on my own avenue even.  The buildings are neatly lined on the street.  It’s a clean look.  In my lobby I had a new appreciation for the photographs on the wall of this area from the early 1900s.  When I put my key in the grey door, I felt like somebody subleasing from another country.  Inside, I was a guest having a novel experience.  My building is pre-war so though my apartment isn’t big it has character.  I have a dressing area on view from the living room with a fake tiffany lamp and a spotted pig mirror.  I have textured walls and a view of the woods.  I felt like I was experiencing life maybe as an artist in a European apartment on a colorful street.  Sometimes I feel like I could live here forever.  It’s quiet on the street now, because the children are back in school.  Today I’d rather live here than in one of those sprawling Riverdale apartments.

My pissed off nine year old little brother gave me this name

Scroll back to 1973

Me:  Get outta here!

Little Brother:  I can stay in here!

Me:  Stu-pid!

Little Brother:  Fuck you!  Sword-Chin Bitch!

Fast forward to 1989, walking down 9^th Avenue, Manhattan.  I tell my boyfriend the tale. 

“I used to be skinny with a sharp chin.  So my brother — we had a fight.  He calls me a Sword-Chin Bitch.”

“Sword-Chin Bitch?!”  Boyfriend spits pipe out. Stops walking, bends over, holds belly.  Breathless with laughter, he wipes tears from eyes.

1991, hanging with my good friend B.  To break the monotony of post coital cigarette smoking I recount the story.

“And do you know what he called me?”

“Nah baby what he call you?”

“A Sword-Chin Bitch.”

“A sword-chin who!?  Yo that ma’fucker’s funny as hell.”

Laughter ensues for five minutes.

Years later, old as shit, I come up with the idea of marketing my homemade book.

Ah, lets see, my sister says I need a blog.  She says I need to get on that gaddam facebook, and I need a catch.

Got it — I’ll name my book Why Did You Try to Fuck Somebody You Hate, and Other Mean-Spirited Tales, Told by a Sword-Chin Bitch.  It’ll be like, like — Monty Python!

B. thought Sword-Chin Bitch was hilarious – my ex thought so too.  And I’d be giving my brother a shout out.

But I can’t say Sword-Chin – it ain’t grammatically correct.  Gotta hyphenate, make it Chinned.  I’m selling a book.  It gotta be right.

Responding to the prompt for a handle on Word Press, Sword-Chinned Bitch, no-brainer.

Months later, thwarted by my own guerilla marketing ploy with that long ass book title, I change it to Mean-Spirited Tales, but keep the Sword-Chinned Bitch handle, to the dismay of a few.

Dear Readers,

Now you see the origin of my name.  I’m the antithesis of a bitch and strive to be evolved when confronted by bitches.  My handle doesn’t mean that I endorse bitches, beeotches, or sons of bitches.  Some were put off by my Sword-Chinned Bitch head appearing in their posts.  I don’t know, should I follow her back?  She might be mean, you said.  But I assure you that I am kind, loving, and do not consider bitchiness an attribute.

God bless you.

Yours truly,

Sword-Chinned Bitch

A Walk Through Inwood Park

Crap quality pictures, but you get the gist.

When the rain stopped yesterday, I walked to Inwood Park.  It’s on the northernmost tip of Manhattan at the border of the Hudson.  With my air conditioner off and windows open, I heard cars racing, horns beeping, and groups of people talking.  I had to get out.  My walk was for mental health.

It was breezy and not hot, and occasionally overcast, which made the greenery in the park stand out.  The views include cliffs that border the river.  On Halloween, Haunted Inwood takes place in the forest.  Actors in costume lead you through the woods for ghostly tales.  There are caves up there with streams of trickling water.  The hike is complete with fog machines, graveyards and monsters peering from behind trees. The organization turns the nature center into a haunted house.

I sat on a bench, looking across the river.  Not far from there is a view of a huge rock in The Bronx.  In 1952 a Columbia University student began painting a large C on that rock.  The job was finished by members of Columbia’s row team later.  Columbia’s row team docks their boats at their row house near Inwood Park.  The C rock is part of the legend of this area.  Boys climb up the hill to the top of that rock and dive into the river over and over.  Once I sat for a while and watched them from across the river.

After sitting in that one area, I walked around the bend to a large Chinese cherry tree with drooping branches enveloping a small bench like a curtain.  It was perfect to keep the sun out so I sat for a while watching geese in the river a few feet away.  Though the bench was perfect for lovers, that idea was an intrusion on my meditation.  In the park you don’t hear city noises, only an occasional plane or the horn of the Metro North Train going through the Marble Hill Station.

I took the long way out, at the border of the cliffs around the soccer field.  A group of troopers waved as they passed in a car on the way to the hills.  I took a tour once with one of the troopers.  I walked this way to look at the inscription on the rock marking the beginning of three different paths into the woods.  The plaque says it’s where Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from Native Americans for trinkets and beads worth 60 guilders.  This area was also an encampment for Hessian Soldiers during the revolutionary war.

I continued out along the edge of the soccer field, watching a man clean up after his dog on the litter free path.  I had faith that he would.  Minutes after I got home, it rained.

 

Earthquaaaaaake!!!

We had an earthquake in Manhattan last year.  I felt it when a lot of people didn’t.  I had just joked about how that fault line in our neighborhood happens to be under a street with a strip of outdoor cafes.  It’s a weekend hangout.  Motorcycles race up to the street and park.  The drivers commune with each other, with people standing around the cafes.  There’s a garden across the street where people socialize.  If an earthquake came on Saturday, all those folks would be sucked into the earth’s core, I said.

A day later, my TV stand shook and I knew immediately what it was, though I live in an old building that shakes when trucks rumble by.  I knocked on neighbor’s doors to warn them.  They said they didn’t feel anything.  “I’ll turn on the news and see,” one said before going back inside.  I ran down six flights of stairs — Smokey the Bear said you shouldn’t take elevators if there’s a fire, so I figured you shouldn’t take them if there’s an earthquake either.

I got outside and stood there.  People strolled.  They waited for their dogs to finish pooping, talked to neighbors.  I squinted, looking for signs of panic in their faces, for people screaming, running around with their arms flailing.  Didn’t see any.  The super of my building whistled while he hosed our sidewalk.

“Did you feel that!  We had an earthquake – I know it.”  “Yeah?  I didn’t feel anything.  Where are you going anyway?  If there’s an earthquake, you’re probably better off upstairs.”  I told him I’d go to the armory, but I wasn’t really sure.  A couple with a baby in a harness walked by chuckling lightly.  I did recall hearing that you should stand in the door sill if there’s an earthquake.  I looked at the sky.  No answers up there.  I went back upstairs.

My phone rang.  “Are you okay?” It was my sister.  She’d heard there was an earthquake here.  “I knew it!”  I said, turning on the news.  Gotdammit I knew it.

Same thing happened around ’81.  I lay in bed Sunday morning hung over as usual.  The bed shook.  “Ma!  My bed just shook!  What was that?  Oh my God!”  “Sandee go back to sleep.  Nothing’s shaking.  It’s just you,” she sighed.  Turned out, another earthquake had happened.  Mom didn’t believe me.  She thought I was having the shakes, the DTs – I know, it’s messed up, but that’s another blog post, maybe…

[Sing to Olivia Newton John’s Physical song] Let’s get metaphysical, metaphysical, I wanna get me-ta-phy-sicaaaaal!  Let’s get into metaphysical [okay you can stop singing now] — Why do I feel the earth vibrating when others don’t?  And my joke about that earthquake a day before it happened.  ESP?  Hmm…

Gregor Samsa

If they didn’t fly it wouldn’t be as bad – if they weren’t so huge.  I’m frightened of these creatures you see because I did see one fly across the room once.  Clear across. I thought it was an urban legend that water bugs did this.  It’s something to see — all ten pounds of, bug.

They engorge themselves with water and can’t move so they stay in one place for quite a while giving you the opportunity to kill them.  But I just stand there petrified, poised with a container to put over there heads, afraid they’ll see me coming, leap up and fly in my eye.  I don’t want to squash them because they’re so big that they have guts like people, which is gross.  So, I stand there crying — as I did last year when I found one in the tub.  I stood at the edge of the door with a container moving forward slightly but I couldn’t do it.  I stood there 20 minutes before tip toeing away to get the phone to call — who?  The police?  I’m serious. I started balling when it began twitching.  “I’m calling the police!”  I screamed, picking up the phone realizing then how ridiculous this would be.  I settled on calling the super.

The night before one scurried from behind the book shelf, and just lay there – engorged.  THEY ALWAYS DO THIS!  I did my routine of getting a container to put on top of it.  I usually put the container on it and leave them in there until the super gets here to throw it away or until I get the courage to slide a cardboard under it to carry it to the garbage bins six flights down.  Once I left it under the container for a week until I was SURE it was dead.  Every day I came home from work and kicked at it to see if it still moved.  But the night before last the engorged creature fled behind the book shelf before I got the guts to trap it – I always stand there staring at it first, sometimes crying, sometimes not.  These are the times I miss my boyfriend being here.  He was good for killing critters.

There was a piece of my kinky hair on the floor not far from where the bug had been which made me think of Gregor Samsa, that poor bastard from Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis who woke up in bed to find he had morphed into a large bug.  At one point he starts collecting dust if I remember correctly.  I thought of this creature behind my shelves with a trail of dust and kinky hair on its hind parts.

I think Gregor Samsa is dead now.  But I know he has friends and that they love the humid Manhattan air.  I sprayed the crap out of the area behind the shelves and have the can still by the sofa.  Gregor Samsa, if you’re still alive, get ready to die.

I’d rather have a mouse.  I know they’re rodents but they’re mammally, like one of Paris Hilton’s dogs.  They’re like little Disney creatures peering out from inside of your favorite pink coffee cup.  I wonder if they eat bugs?

Naked Ass Cake Readings

“Naked Ass Cake Readings?” — Really?! — I feel like Kyle all psyching people out.

I’m supposed to be writing another book, but I wanted to see first if anyone would care about my first book, over there at the sidebar.  Actually I do have a novel called The Unavoidable, copyrighted in the year 2000 — ‘memba the year 2000, it was the future.  I really need to hurl that novel out there.  They say novels do better than collections of short stories.  We’ll see.

I want to do book tours in Manhattan.  Have readings.  Naked readings.  Okay not naked readings, but readings with people other than me reading.  Young, beautiful people.  Maybe Le Clown would fly down to read with his magnificence, charisma and mind boggling beauty…  I have to get copies printed of my book.  I’m not up to the task yet.  In due time…in due time, as says the Devil in the Exorcist.

I’m spending all my time blogging now and not writing.  I should be writing.  The last short story I wrote was Why Did You Try to Fuck Somebody You Hate?  Well.  Why did you?