The always unique and wonderful Cooper
is Shayna’s guest on my musical highway this week.
When Lucia was a girl contractor, she did the doors shown in this triplex apartment in the Pierre for Lady Fairfax, and other things. Haven’t seen the slide show yet. Very excited. The apartment’s on the market for 70 mil. Interested?
Lucia was known more for her gold leafing, milk painting, ornamental plastering and other great finishes. Lucia was one of the first girl contractors. She was precise, hired the best and unaffordable. Painted my apartment nine years ago, and I’m first getting ready to repaint. I don’t know why I’m so excited, but I am. She made me a mirror with wording about friends on it. It’s framed in decorative plaster and is one of my prized possessions.
Frank Rich is probably the man I like most that I have never met or exchanged emails with, except of course for James Spader. This is a classic Rich column. It’s on the man who calls himself president but thinks that’s he a dictator. I can say this because I’m a blogger and don’t have to worry about editors having heart attacks or strokes because of my words. I have driven one crazy, but that was fun.
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All week I was looking forward to sleeping in on Sunday morning, the one morning that there is no drilling. It became cold suddenly. My bedroom has hidden pipes all over it, including under the floor. In order to heat the apartments that face Riverside Drive the heat is very high. In order to sleep, I must open the windows, not a crack, but at least one third up. Don’t worry, on top of all the other charges, we pay a monthly fuel surcharge. When windows are open we hear more. I have very acute hearing.
My upstairs neighbor used to live in a boat on the Boat Basin. After 9/11 he was deemed a security risk as he drinks too much. When he drinks he falls. I spent many months after the attack either hearing his falls in my sleep or spending the night awake waiting for the ultimate fall.
He would vomit for hours without closing the bathroom door. I would hear it. It almost became comical as he sounds like an animal. But I tend to get nauseous if other people are being sick. So nauseous I too can….
Though the only place I’m brash is in my blog, I worked up the courage to speak to The Board about it. While most people would have spoken to him first, I know from my work experience never to confront a drunk without back-up.
He did get carpeting and it became better. When I go into my bedroom bath, if he’s home, I hear self-help tapes playing. I can’t hear the words but I recognized some of the voices from my self-help days. Sometimes he plays tapes that sound like cattle auctions. Lately, he’s been playing a tape that seems to have interruptions by dogs woofing. Though there are plenty of dogs in the building, he doesn’t have one, and it’s one bark every three minutes. Yes, I timed it. I was curious.
The doormen have many stories about having to leave their posts to escort him to his apartment. They obviously don’t respect him but seem to have a weird type of affection for him.
I have heard his speaking voice. I pictured him as WASPY, in Top-sider shoes, khaki’s and polo shirts when not working. I found that comforting as some of my favorite drunks….I actually began to worry about him. He comes home earlier and earlier. No matter how loud the TV or stereo is, I can’t but hear his falls. He now spends all day Sunday in bed with his damn self help tapes playing.
Our building is about as soundproof as you can get. I do play loud music, and my downstairs neighbors claim that they never hear me. Only my large bathroom abuts another apartment. In some ways it feels like living in a private home.
One day I was about to get into the elevator. Fernando the doorman, took me aside and said in one of his famed stage whispers:
“Henry is in the elevator.”
I looked at a balding runt of a man, with many nose hairs, crumpled clothes that looked as if they had been last washed in the last century, and had never seen an iron, scruffy black shoes that needed to be laced and I wanted to cry.
Until that moment I hadn’t realized I had romanticized this man. No, not as if in, I wanted to date him, but to make him more tolerable to me.
This morning at seven, he began to scream: “No, no, no.” It wasn’t a sexual kind of “no.” It was an “I’m going to be sick,’no.'” Yes it sure was.
I almost took my broom and hit it on the ceiling, but was too lazy to get out of bed. I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Someday I will sleep late.
Oh, my! I feel so sorry for you, having to hear someone else retching. That would make me ill, too. And I know exactly what you mean by romanticizing things, especially voices. Too bad you actually saw him.
And about the heating: that reminds me of an old dorm building I lived in during college–I was never able to get the temperature right, so I was up and down all night. I can see why you’re thinking of relocating!
Morning, Pia. If drinking too much really qualified you as a security risk, they’d have to evacuate half of Manhattan to detention centers on Roosevelt Island.
(I think I just pitched a major motion picture. Oh Jerry? Jerry Bruckheimer?)
That’s a fantastic story.
You know, if it’s a dog barking at a metered pace part of me wonders if it’s one of those kid’s books with a tape that goes along it and barks each time you need to turn the page
Sleeping in is currently a crime in my household punishable by mean looks and demeaning comments… 🙂
My “Henry” is unknown toll free and out of state numbers which call from 8 AM until 9 PM, and which seem impervious to the Do Not Call list.
Oh, and my Mom always throws up when she sees someone else throw up.
I just wanted to stop by and say, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!”
See, just what we all needed, a holiday story. 😉
That was great.
Great stories and the guy up above you getting sick is another reason I don’t want to live in a city in a highrise…
That was a story worth coming home for. Remind me to get my shoes polished.
God, I so don’t miss living in apartments. This brings it ALL back…
It’s always weird to finally see someone you know of, but have never seen before.
I’ve never had my mental image match up with reality. Never once.
I think it’s special that Lucia was a contractor and did those doors.
I could live in the city but am enjoying a more remote existence right now.
one of the (many) things i lovelovelove about this post is the fact that you have beautifully confirmed what most of us suspect, but often fail to recognize: that sometimes we create a fantasy about someone else, that rarely has anything to do with who (or what) that person really is.
one of the many lessons i’ve been trying to take to heart over the past few years is that assumptions are not only dangerous, they’re usually 180 degrees away from the truth. besides being such a beautiful and interesting writer, Pia, you have insight some of us only wish we had.
and, by the way, you’ve closed comments to the post above this one, but i just want to say that i think i can relate to what you were feeling when you wrote that, more than you may imagine. i don’t strive to create deep experiences with the silliness that i write (altho’ i *do* put thought into the quotes i like to use, in the hopes they will speak to different people in ways that are meaningful and empowering… for the most part). you do, and i respect that SO MUCH. i am often left feeling intimidated about commenting on someone elses blog (for instance, yours) for fear i won’t measure up. you may notice i usually resort to making fun of myself, because that’s the way i most often feel comfortable (figure i’ll laugh before everyone else does). you are a thoughtful woman. what you say matters. i really respect that about you… and i know all who admire what you do, feel the same way.
whew! now *this* is starting to look like a post, eh? guess i’d better stop here, before i get even more carried away and you find yourself wondering what you ever did to deserve such a long-winded comment! xox
Well WOOH cause I see I am not the only one to hop “downstairs” when “upstairs” is closed for comments!
I too can relate to many of the things you wrote about so beautifully up above… but will say this… I do not think that you need to be a certain way or fill a certain niche to partake in things in the blogosphere… that is the fun of it!
Half the time I may not know what all others may be speaking of in the comments so I say my thing and move on and hey, where would a rowdy bohemian who dances the dance electric and calls people her bitches fit in, hmmmm? You, my dear, always have brilliant things to say and are a hard act to follow I tell you which is why it makes me laugh when you say what you do when you enter a comment forum after me! See? We are all just geeks at heart! (Wait! Does that mean I am including you in the geek label? Ay! 😉 )
and I think all us semi-narcissistic souls who blog do seek some attention not always necessarily found in comments as you so brilliantly put it… at the end of the day, especially after the rollercoaster ride we have gone through and continue to go through, it is the quality of the comments that matters and the fabulous people I have been lucky to meet through blogging and I hope you know you are one of the most important ones my dear…
… so blog on and I should best stop now before I call myself, you and all other bloggers anything other that geeks and semi-narcissistic! Talk about putting your foot in your mouth!!! Dios mio!
Al, they’re busy building luxury buildings on Roosevelt Island now (my friend lives there).
Pia, I’m cracking up at the self help tapes – well, maybe he’ll calm down and you won’t need to listen to him, er you know, in the bathroom.
At my apartment in Manhattan I lived next to a gay couple who enjoyed a bit of the drink themselves. When they enjoyed a bit too much, oy vay.