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…at around 9:15am ET. Set all your alarms!

Like many of you, I’ve always assumed that if I were going to accidentally kill someone it’d be from drunk driving, not an air conditioner unit falling out my window. Call me an optimist. So yesterday I’m tending to my pet penguins when I hear this popping sound. I think it must be something electrical but instead my window suddenly opens a crack and my no-longer-beloved A/C unit tilts precariously. “Oh no!” I said aloud to no one. The rest is kind of a blur because my heart started beating as my brain cycled through the following scenarios: A/C unit falls and kills someone—that would suck. A/C unit falls and busts open and I’m out the money of the unit and also responsible for whatever damage it causes to whatever it falls on—that would suck. A/C unit falls and rips part of my window/wall out with it—that would suck. But these scenarios were cycling very fast. Just images of death and disaster and courtrooms and money in brief flashes. Also periodic swatches of the conversation I’d had with Eddie where I kept asking him if he was sure he didn’t need [various part] and he said no and that the unit “wasn’t going anywhere, sweetheart.”

View to a kill

So I don’t remember opening the window more but I must have because I somehow am holding the unit with one hand and trying to reach for my phone with the other, not sure exactly who I’m going to call. It dawns on me that even if I reach someone I can’t let them into my apartment if I’m holding the near-dangling unit with one arm. It occurs to me to call my sister but I don’t know which location she’s working at–the one that’s far away or the one that’s really far away. There’s no way I can hold this thing for the amount of time it would take for anyone to show up. I feel very much like someone holding on to a branch in a cartoon or like someone who’s keeping a person from falling off a building by just holding their hand as they hang there. Like “Don’t worry, I got you, oh no!”

So I realize I have no choice but to pull this thing inside. I begin bringing it toward me and water is now spilling all over everything. Nothing fragile though, just some power strips, all my computer cords and various other electronics. Also a game of Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition which really isn’t very fun. Get soaked for all I care, Trivial Pursuit! I pull my computer chair around and hoist the unit onto the chair using the Herculean strength afforded me by the panic. At least I assume that’s what it was because both my legs are bruised and my finger’s cut up and I didn’t feel it at the time.

Anyway, now I’m tired of telling this story, but Eddie came back and didn’t impress me with his ability to put this in there in a way that’s any more secure (he wouldn’t follow the instructions in the manual and wouldn’t use the bolts/nuts/brackets) so I had to haltingly say “I’m sorry, I believe you but I’m just too uncomfortable to risk it. I’d like a refund.” “You don’t believe me!” he said. It was true, I didn’t, but since when am I in a relationship with Eddie? Jesus. So I haven’t seen that money yet but my lawyer sister is none too happy with this whole situation. I kind of just want it all to go away.

In the meantime, Jason from a professional A/C installing place is coming tomorrow. I think I love him already because he sounds like he knows his shit, but then, mine is a heart too soon made glad.

The thing is that when Eddie said “It’s not going anywhere, sweetheart,” I actually allowed myself to be reassured, like when the guy who rodent-proofed my apartment kept calling me sweetheart. But no more. From now on I am angry! I’m like an Oxygen movie.

I'm taking a spin class and I'm early so I decided to read some of the instructional posters on the wall and I'm reading about foot eagles and putting your feet in foot eagles which I'm assuming are the little foot holder things attached to the pedals. It's dark in here though and really I'm reading about foot cages, I just realized. It makes so much more sense but I liked them better when I thought they were inexplicably called foot eagles.

It smells like tennis in here.

Everyone's now pedaling but the instructor isn't here yet. Hm.

Wait, now it smells like a hair salon.
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It’s weird, you can know someone for over a decade and not only did you not know he has this blog about donuts, but you also didn’t even know he loved donuts in this way. Guess you really didn’t know him that well at all.

Come to think of it, the bear claws for hands should have been a tip-off, but I guess I was just in my own world.

Air conditioner not actual size

It’s officially too cold in my room! I can die now! And if I did, I bet I’d leave behind a refrigerated corpse that wouldn’t even begin to smell for a long time, that’s how cold it is in here.

But how, how did I manage to achieve such coldth? I considered asking many of my strapping man friends to help me install my A/C and then I called up Eddie from the hardware store. 65 dollars later I’m officially not dying of the heat! Hooray!

(note: “help” in this scenario means install it for me while I stand there)

Update: I now have an A/C unit that’s too heavy for me to lift sitting in a box in the middle of my bedroom. It’s 72 pounds. The amp I used to use when I played in a band was 80 pounds. I was thinking that while that was heavy, it wasn’t impossible for me to move it, but then I didn’t ever have to hoist it into a window. But maybe sometimes I had to lift it up onstage? I can’t remember now. Probably other people did that for me while I conveniently stole away to the bathroom to fix my glitter (we were a shiny band). I’m an asshole like that.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go buy milk and when I come back I expect this air conditioner to be properly, safely and magically installed.

Note: If I come back to find this air conditioner installed I will breath a sigh of relief and then call the cops. Do you hear me, inanimate objects in my room? I’m talking to you, hair dryer! No funny business, folded towels! Yeah that’s right, don’t pull any fast ones on me, fingerless mittens. I’ve got my eyes on all of you.

That was the title of a blog post that’s been sitting in my head (the whole post, not the title) for two days now. It’s a fascinating tale of my decision to purchase an air conditioner unit. I haven’t written the post but I’m this close to buying the A/C. My blog posts are backed up. Also I need to regale you with the day I went to two parties and then a “karaoke night” in Orange County and my thoughts about the Sex and the City movie. This is turning into the promised prune post situation, which I’d link to if I had more energy. I’m losing energy people. It’s because of the heat. If I were a piece of spinach I’d be wilted. If I were cheese I would be separated (the kind of cheese that comes in a can, of course). If I were a shrinky dink, I would be shrunk. If I were one of those window ornament kit things with the metal frame that you put little crystals in and then bake in the oven till the crystals melt and form hard plastic and then you have a hard plastic thing in the shape of Strawberry Shortcake, I’d be that piece of hard plastic. If I were the sound, heat, light spectrum, I’d be, um, okay well that teaches me to try to be scientific when my brain is melting. I’d be hot is what I’m trying to say.

And the thing is that it’s not even that hot. I mean, it’s nowhere near as hot as the surface of the sun, which I’ve been on, well, I don’t want to brag, but a handful and change times. So I know what hot is. It’s just that this apartment traps heat. It also traps piles of clothes, crushed dreams, lint, bottles of nail polish (now I’m just looking at the surface of my desk), papers, cords, CDs, a napkin, a camera, speakers, fake flowers, envelopes, a tape measure, my economic stimulus check which didn’t stimulate me because my economic erogenous zone is the one between my ears, uncle sam!, a nail file, okay I could go on but this is ridiculous.

even when you clean it still looks dirty. To wit: I just cleaned my whole bathroom and now it looks ready to be cleaned. This is the second apartment I’ve had this problem in. Guess I should probably start just using the toilet like everyone else.

Disgusting! That is totally disgusting and I can’t believe I would even joke about it. Well, actually I can, but you can’t.

But see that’s the thing with these charming old apartments. They have years of charming old grime stuck in all the corners. If you remove it your walls might literally crumble and you’ll be living in the middle of a quaint pre-war rubble heap. The stories this grime could tell!

Also, I miss dishwashers and garbage disposals and I think my neighbors are getting tired of me peeling my carrots out the window.

Fine, I don’t really do that. The last carrot I peeled was months ago in California anyway, not that what I do or don’t do with vegetables is really germane to the discussion of bathrooms.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is if you watch me on Red Eye tonight, please note the way my bathroom is very clean.

In the city, that is. You may begin rejoicing. Unless you’re on the west coast in which case you may commence hand-wringing, tear-shedding and heavens-railing-at. A friend recently told me that I’d become more LA ever since I moved to New York, by which he meant that I sucked because I didn’t get in touch with him when I was in California. Hm.

I’m on Red Eye tomorrow so don’t forget to cancel all your plans so you can watch it.

Greetings blog readers. Sorry I've been a little MIA it's just that every time I think of you I picture you reading another blog and I thought I could get past it but I can't. Wait, I need to dry heave for a couple minutes and then I need to whimper, sniffle and then violently chop lettuce while wiping my tears on my apron. You break my heart sometimes, you know that? You really do. I'm just glad we never had those half human half blog babies we dreamed about.

Anyway, I just walked down to the water. If I had a camera on my phone I could show you how beautiful it was but since I don't I'll have to use words to paint the picture. here goes:

The water was blue and shiny not unlike my eyes if instead of dancing brown eyes flecked with gold I had eyes that were blue and shiny like the water. The sand was sandy. I don't know this firsthand since I stayed on the sidewalk overlooking the beach, but in my experience sand is sandy and also sometimes it sticks to you. then you go to wash it off and then you take another step and whatever grains of errant sand are on the street cling to your just cleaned and still wet feet. I kind of hate that because I am fastidious in all areas of my life except the way I keep my apartment and the way I live.

While at the water I took a few deep cleansing breaths, thought about what it all meant while getting my head together and then I called a party line because I wanted to talk to attractive singles in my area. Okay, that's not true, but remember those? No? Neither do I.

Also, I think you should know that I'm walking around with my phone in one pocket and my ipod in the other and I think it makes me look a bit like a duck. The fact that I'm quacking every few feet and just laid an egg is beside the point.

I guess that's all for now.

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