So last week the exterminator was supposed to come to my building, and oh, he came alright. Except guess who left the wrong lock unlocked on her door — after emptying all her cupboards and clearing off all her half-inch of counter space — and prevented him from being able to get into her unit? I’ll give you a hint: it’s the same person whose unit is closest to both the restaurant downstairs and the garbage. Oh, and the recycling, which is basically the garbage since people toss unrinsed plastic cartons that once contained, like, raw fish heads into it.

No, I did not personally call an exterminator to deal with my cockroach problem — which really isn’t as much of a “problem” as it is a “confusion over rights of cohabitation,” anyway — as I’m really not that much of a prima donna, and let’s face it: I’ve lived in six other neighborhoods in the city and have encountered a total of five individual cockroaches, one mouse, and zero rats — over these nine & a half years — so I consider myself quite lucky on the apartment pest front. But apparently “certain tenants” were having a “rodent” issue, and therefore the entire building needed to be dealt with.

I was off from work all last week, so technically I could have stuck around to see exactly what it is that an exterminator does, but (a) I didn’t want to be sad when it didn’t turn out to be John Goodman, (b) I didn’t want to “acknowledge” the fact that this guy would most likely be spraying the shit out of my entire apartment with the most toxic chemicals imaginable, and (c) I didn’t want to have to admit to myself that I was secretly okay with (b) as long as it would silently solve my roach problem, and as long as I didn’t actually have to witness it happening.

So I got up early, readied the apartment for extermination, and then left to go find a library to hang out in, except that was my first mistake, because guess what? Remember how there was a big stink about cutting library funding awhile back, but nobody really paid any attention since they didn’t think it would affect them? Well, P.S.: Libraries don’t open until, like, 11am now. I’m not kidding! I gave up on the one closest to my apartment immediately, eventually locating another, bigger one that opened at TEN, and proceeded to hover around the entrance, biding my time with the rest of the homeless people and crazies who have to deal with this travesty every day, god bless ‘em.

And then of course they didn’t have the book I wanted — Margaret Atwood, hello! What library doesn’t keep all Margaret Atwood books on hand? — so I ended up just going to the bookstore around the corner — which had been open since NINE, thanks! — and I sat down in a comfy chair in a nearly-empty room with faint adult contemporary music piping in somewhere off in the distance, thoroughly unintrusively. They had the book I wanted, and that book was on sale, and as a lifelong pusher of Libraries Being a Good Thing, I am pretty traumatized to report that the city’s most pleasant summer reading experience can be found at the Borders on 57th and Park.

After awhile, I was like, “Okay, this is almost TOO pleasant. It’s 95 degrees out. I should be SUFFERING!” So, where does one go during the day to suffer on the Upper East Side? Answer: a park. See, one major thing I’ve learned about East versus West is that the West Side does its parks entirely differently, and by that I mean that they incorporate grass! And trees! And, and… other elements that are supposed to comprise a… park! The East Side throws down a slab of concrete, puts up a playground, plants some shrubbery that only attracts the kinds of birds that will eat its berries and crap them right back out onto the benches, and then looks the other way when people don’t pick up after their dogs. I cannot convey in words how much I miss the West Side Greenway or whatever it’s called. I would risk my life crossing its bike path just to lie down on any of its grassy knolls anyday, hands down, rather than sit upright on a stiff-backed bench watching a nanny hold a twentysomething’s newborn so that mommy can primely situate herself in a cooing position before getting bored in .5 seconds and darting off to go pick up lunch at Subway while the nanny resumes raising her child for her.

When I finally went back to my apartment, I was like, “Wow — exterminators must use some crazy-ass advanced, invisible/scentless extermination products nowadays!” Because everything in my apartment was exactly as I’d left it. There was zero sign that anyone had entered. And then I realized: I am a moron. The top lock has one of those little extra levers that, if pressed down, makes it stay locked from the outside no matter what, and I had forgotten to disengage it. The exterminator hadn’t been able to get in.

After I collapsed on my bed in defeat, I looked up and noticed something marching directly toward me across the floor: one of my resident cockroaches. And I say “resident” because I firmly believe that this is the same family of cockroaches that has resided in the building for generations, laying low briefly each time a new human tenant takes up residence in a unit, and then dispatching the friendliest of its welcome wagon reps at a certain point to be like, “Hey! We’re more afraid of you than you are of us! We’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of ours!”

This particular roach, though, is a little too friendly. One of the first nights in my apartment I had the a/c off — even though it was 1,000 degrees — since I was living in constant fear of how much my bill would be, and I swear I woke from a delirious sleep to this cockroach perched on my leg. I shrieked, jumped up, swatted it away, turned on all the lights, and stood in the middle of the room for about nineteen hours, remaining on the alert until I was sure it was gone and I’d fully caught my breath and was calmed down enough to go back to sleep.

I’m still not sure if that really happened, or if it was just a nightmare. I mean, why would a cockroach come anywhere near a nice, brand new, clean, dry bed, with a nice, clean, dry, freshly bathed person in it, when there is a restaurant downstairs, and lots of delicious, fresh garbage EVERYWHERE within a .5 block radius?! Either way, something in my subconscious is preventing me from fully believing it was real, BLESS MY SUBCONSCIOUS’S LIL HEART.

But then sitting there in total defeat on my bed — after a day of everything that could possibly have gone wrong going wrong — and seeing this cockroach coming toward me, I couldn’t help but think it had to be the same one. I mean, it acted like it was on familiar territory — waltzing across the floor, AWAY from the kitchen, AWAY from the garbage can, TOWARD NOTHING EDIBLE OR OF VALUE TO IT — and looking up at me, like, “Oh hey! You’re back! I thought we’d chill for awhile again. Is now a good time? Yes? Okaygood!” The thing didn’t even break stride, and I’m sorry to have to do you like this, dear readers:

(Lara and Elliott, cover your eyes)

But without a second thought I took three steps across the room and stomped on the mo’ fo’ with all my might, squashing it into the ground with all my weight until I was positive it was 3,000% dead. And then I wiped up its carcass with a papertowel and tossed it in the garbage, should its relatives discover it there and decide to resort to cannibalism.

And now every night when I turn out the lights and get settled into bed, I think, “Okay, guys. Darkness has fallen! If you’re going to come out, there’s not a whole hell of a lot I can do about it, but please proceed in the direction of ACTUAL FOOD/WASTE… INSTEAD of toward ME. Got it? FOOD/WASTE = good. INNOCENT SLUMBERING HUMAN FORM = bad.” I haven’t encountered a single roach since the ill-fated stomping, and perhaps they’re in mourning for the guy, but something tells me we’ve reached a certain understanding, and we probably won’t be seeing much of each other in the near future.

You can’t really get the full effect unless you view this in my mother’s signature Comic Sans — and I don’t have the energy right now to upload the message as a screenshot or figure out how to code it in that font — but, seriously, how cute is she?

from: Jane and Art
to: Bess Jankowski
date: Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 6:47 PM
subject Re: awesome/easy recipe I just invented

Hi Bess. We will actually be in CT from Wed. - Thursday so just take my car. That way you’ll have it at the lake for when you are ready to come back down the mountain.

As for the lake - There is plenty of food there so you should go there first and then go to Rock Hill if you still need anything. I left homemade lasagna & chicken, veggies (lots), milk, OJ, eggs, English muffins, bagels, etc. there for you. You really shouldn’t have to buy anything.

There are keys on my keyring for the shed & cabin.

Do not swim alone.

Wear a life preserver if you go out in a boat.

Water pump switch is inside the shed door to the right.
Hot water tank switch is under the sink on the back wall to the left - push up.
Coffee pot plugs into the stove. If you use the toaster, unplug the coffee pot.
If there is a rain storm, make sure any open windows are closed if it’s blowing in.

Print this out and take it with you

Call us at Deb and Jamie’s if you need us. We’ll be home on Thursday afternoon and will probably head up to the lake on Friday afternoon/evening.

Have fun / relax!

Love,
Mom

P.S. I actually did swim alone the last time I was at the lake by myself, and it freaked me the eff out. I was certain I’d spot a snake along the waterfront and just immediately go into cardiac arrest and drown.

So I basically haven’t moved on yet at all. I feel like I’m on a business trip, living out of a hotel, or away at camp or something, and that one of these days it will be over and I’ll get to go home to my boyfriend and cats.

This is obviously not good, because for one thing, since it doesn’t feel like real life, I’m spending money like I’m on vacation. Nothing “counts,” as it were, and I’ve also been picking up takeout way more than I did in my other life, partly because it’s been too hot to cook, and partly because I have approximately .0000005 inches of counter space.

The good thing is that there are many great little eateries in my neighborhood, including a pizza parlor which may produce the best slice I’ve ever had in the city. And there are some good Chinese places — one in particular, where I had better Malaysian Chicken than the Malaysian Chicken I had in Amsterdam at this little divey Chinese joint, the first restaurant we visited upon our arrival last fall.

So of course I had to text Elliott to tell him about this, and he was all like, “Why’d you have to share this with me? I thought Chinese takeout was Our Thing™.” And he’s right, it kind of was, which is why I felt the need to share it with him, and which is why I wish he were there with me to experience the Chinese places of the East Side, because guess what else (and I swear I’m not making this up)?

I have received fortune cookies with my food from all of the Chinese places from which I’ve ordered so far. I never once received a single fortune cookie from any of the West Side Chinese joints — or from the Brooklyn one that we kept in business! — but it would appear that the East Side does not fuck around when it comes to the completion of your Chinese food experience. They will give you one, and you’ll enjoy it.

I’ve been saving my fortunes, and when this is over (See? This is how I think.) and done with, I’m going to piece them together and doctor up for myself a monster fortune-cookie fortune manifesto. Since I haven’t been able to come to any worthwhile conclusions about my future by myself, maybe it will be what finally shows me the way.

The last time I lived alone, I lived in an apartment high above the Henry Hudson Parkway, overlooking the river and the Palisades. There was a fire escape — my very first own fire escape — and even though the roar of speeding-past traffic made it almost unbearable to endure, I would dutifully climb out onto that fire escape and sit, surveying the domain, until the enjoyment was cut short: either by my vertigo setting in, or by a screeching fleet of passing crotch rockets.

I spent enough time out there to know that to gain access to my apartment via the fire escape would be next to impossible, as one would have to first figure out how to get to the foot of the tall bluff — which is completely inaccessible from the streets atop it, and more or less would require either approaching by boat via the Hudson, and then climbing up the hill and through the woods to make one’s way across multiple lanes of highway, or being dropped off or rolling out of a northerly-moving vehicle — and then conveniently having rappelling gear on hand, or at least a long, thick rope or several bedsheets tied together to expertly toss up and over the lowest rung of the fire escape ladder, which still hovers a good, oh, maybe ten feet overhead?

Yet, even with this knowledge, I routinely woke in the middle of the night in that apartment in a cold sweat, short of breath, nightmares fresh in my mind, convinced someone was coming to get me. And now here I am in my current apartment — living alone for the first time since then, with a fire escape again! — and I’m just one story up from the street. Anyone could walk by, reach up, grab hold of the ladder, pull it down, ascend, materialize on my floor, and take three long strides across the room to end me in under a minute.

And yet:

Here I am in my current apartment — living alone for the first time in two and a half years — and once again I routinely wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, short of breath, nightmares fresh in my mind, convinced someone is coming to get me.

Not for nothing, but from a mountaintop lair more secure than post-haircut Rapunzel’s tower to the elderly-infested Lower Upper East Side or Upper East Side South or DUQueeB (Down Under the Queensboro Bridge) or wherever it is that I now live (where nobody is even bothered by the squealing-past crotch rockets unless their hearing aids are turned up!) — separated by Bed-Stuy -Do Or Die!- Brooklyn™ and an anonymous highrise staffed by oft-slumbering-on-the-job doormen in the renowned “only remaining gritty” part of Manhattan — somehow it was only in the years in between that I felt safe.

…I’m getting really sick of writing about myself. I think this means I need to hunker down on compiling/editing my book, and then focus solely on writing about — brace yourselves — OTHER things. Like, things BESIDES myself? Imagine?

I moved into the new place on Monday, and I’ve basically just been fluctuating between broken-down bawling and total paralysis ever since. I honestly haven’t cried this much since my own parents got divorced, and when I’m not darting back and forth from Bed, Bath, & Beyond, noticing restaurants across the avenue, thinking, “Wow, that looks like a neat place! We’ll have to check it out sometime,” since it still hasn’t hit me that Elliott isn’t moving with me, all I do is hallucinate the sound of cats jumping in and out of boxes. Overall I’m learning that it’s extremely odd and depressing to move into a new place without being excited about it. I’ve never done that before.

And then last night I was just lying around in the 8,000-degree weather inside my apartment (the air conditioner SAID it was 76 degrees, but it was joking), just trying to mentally escape into my vampire book, which — along with my prewar, pre-society-caring-about-whether-people-kill-themselves, not particularly long or wide, but deep bathtub — is currently my only form of relief from sadness and madness. And suddenly I heard what sounded like an ELEPHANT rooting through the garbage.

Is it a rat? Is it a mouse? Is it a large mouse? It was making a hell of a lot of noise to be anything smaller, and I knew that if it was a rat, I would run screaming from the building and never return. If it was a mouse, I just didn’t know if I’d have it in me to kill it. Of course, I wouldn’t have been pondering any of these things at all, had I, say, a couple of cats on hand to scope out the scene. When we lived in Brooklyn, Sarge caught a mouse and kept it half-alive to play with it all morning, until finally I realized what was going on and took mercy upon it. When I came near him to wrestle the mouse out of his grip, the growl that came out of him sounded EXACTLY like a vibrating cell phone. I swear, I looked up and over at my phone to see if it was ringing in the next room. Meanwhile, Sarge is practically a kitten and can barely even meow properly! But that cat can growl, should you decide to take a live mouse away from him.

But last night I had to scope out the scene for myself, and I am not happy to tell you that it was the biggest, healthiest, shiniest cockroach I’ve ever seen. Even though I proceeded to smash the hell out of it with the huge, heavy chunk of marble from the base of the “Thank You for However Many Years of Service” Prudential desktop calendar/paperweight I inherited from my grandfather, it leapt back up instantly and scuttled energetically off into the shadows, quicker on its feet than ever. I may have actually increased its lifespan with that smash. What doesn’t kill ‘em makes ‘em stronger.

So the place may have cockroaches — only one so far, mind you, and granted it was three thousand degrees, and there’s a restaurant downstairs — but they’re free-range, juicer-pulp-fed cockroaches, dear readers. Or at least that’s what they’ll have to be if they want to peacefully cohabitate with my ass. Their immune systems might weaken temporarily but their shells will only grow sleeker and glossier over time. That’s about all I’ve got to offer these days. Take it or leave it, cucarachas.

Of course, the one other thing I do a lot of now is constantly try to stop thinking about what an excellent pied-a-terre / crash pad my apartment would make, should Elliott & I ever get back together and want to start saving a shitload of money for, oh I don’t know, a baby and/or a house.

So when I’m done with my vampire book (thank you, Goddesses, for making me a slow reader!) I may have no choice but to drown myself in the tub.