Doubleyew Tee Eff?!?

Living, renting and buying homes in New York City just plays all kind of unbelievable havoc with your sense of what's acceptable, cost-wise.

Case in point: The cost of this amazingly lovely Victorian home on one of my favorite streets near Pittsburgh wouldn't, in New York City (or at least, anywhere I'd want to live in New York City) buy me even a studio apartment. Of less than 450 square feet.

I'm just saying.

Something Was Missing

It's funny how I just had the most amazingly fun night – at my friend's birthday party – and it was marred by the absence of A.Pants.

I'm just saying.

Welcome Home A.Pants

So not long ago, I went to see Brendan James play a club in New York, and one of his opening acts was Jason Reeves, one of whose songs I've played for A.Pants.

He played the song, and I captured it below, but the fucking audience was so inconsiderately loud (HELLO! You paid to hear a musician! Shut the fuck up!) that it pretty much ruined the recording. Still, this one's for you, Mr. Pants:

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

I'm sure I've posted this before, but I just can't get enough of these folks:

Little Sister Is Watching

I was coming home late one night not long ago, and, as is often the case, the Q train kept stopping on the Manhattan Bridge. I really hate when it does that. Betty Boop and A.Pants insist that the Q is the fastest train to take from Midtown to my apartment because it makes fewer stops along its route, but I remain firmly convinced that the 2 or 3 trains are faster, despite their making four or five more stops along the route before arriving at a station near my apartment.

The 2 and 3 don't keep stopping to let other trains cross in front of them on the track and are, I swear, faster.

Anywho, I was riding the Q train and the damn thing just stopped on the bridge, right before descending underground again on the Brooklyn side.

Much, I'm sure, to the chagrin of the drunk guy who'd stopped to pee off the edge of the bridge as we all got stuck and watched him doing his business. He turned around while zipping up his pants as scurried away as this little child who was sitting near me waved at him.

There's an object lesson here, kids. As much as you might think the world is engineered purely for your convenience, there's always someone watching you, and it's not always Big Brother. It might be Little Sister.

If the Shoe Fits

I've been compared to these guys on more than one occasion. And it's not just because I'm old, yo.

Fooled You

I've never been terribly good at flirting. The first time I met A.Pants, I don't think he knew I was flirting with him at all. Most guys think I'm just being funny and chatty when I'm flirting.

So it was a total shock to me a couple weeks ago when I was walking through Central Park and I saw this really good looking guy taking pictures of all sortsa stuff. I passed by him and sat down on a bench to do a little reading, but his camera caught my eye. It was nice. It was, like, the latest prosumer NIkon digital. Totally cool. Totally made me envious.

Suddenly the guy turned and winked at me, and went on his way. He looked over his shoulder once to see if I was following him. I wasn't, of course. I'm a one-man kinda guy, really.

But I might have cheated on A.Pants with his camera bag. It was sweet.

Don't Mess With Dimitri

If you promise to call, then call. Otherwise, you might get this:

This Is How...

...Atticus' and Jazz' constant fighting makes me feel:

The Universal Language

So, a couple of days ago, I was riding the subway, and I was struck by something that was both funny (well, funny to me) and universal. I was sitting there as the train pulled into the station and people clumped near the door to disembark.

I don't know about where you live, but generally it's considered pretty good form for the people waiting to board the train to be cool and let those who are leaving the train do so before they come charging, pell-mell, into the car to stake a claim on the empty seats.

As happens more often than not, the people wanting on the train plowed through the disembarking passengers, knocking many of them aside, as they clambered for choice spots. Among those caught near the door was a couple of French tourists and some random New Yorker hanging onto the bar and reading her magazine, who really weren't trying to get off the train; they just happened to be standing there.

After the stampede happened and the tourists and magazine-reading chick managed to settle back down, the guy half of the French couple turned to the magazine lady and, not really having the language to express the sentiment, gave his eyebrows a single wag, as if to say, "What're you gonna do? People!" And she returned the same wag, in agreement.

That whole thing made me chuckle, until I then saw the gesture repeated three more times during the same ride home. All meant to convey pretty much the same sentiment in different situations. The facial equivalent of a shoulder shrug.

People. What're you gonna do?

Foiling Terrorists, Or, Not So Much

As you know, not so long ago, A.Pants and I had a bit of a California Adventure. We frolicked, with friends, in the mountains of around Big Bear Lake. 'Twas, all in all, a fairly fantastic trip.

But on the trip out to California — specifically, while we were sitting down to a (frankly) less than stellar meal at a not-to-be named restaurant at JFK airport — I was mildly taken aback by the flaming idiocy that's perpetrated in the name of making us think we're safe while flying.

The TSA spends hundreds of millions of dollars on low-rent rent-a-cops to scan your baggage and wand your ass for smuggled knives and Uzis and unapproved mustard in amounts over three ounces. Better yet, they've made airport restaurants stop setting their tables with real cutlery.

Mr. Pants and I had to eat our meals — at a step-above-TGIFridays kinda sit-down restaurant, cloth napkins and all — with plastic knives. Mine was a freaking steak. All this so that no nefarious evildoer might walk off with a steak knife after having already passed through security.

Okay, that's all well and good. But have you ever really noticed how sharp those higher-quality plastic knives are? They're pretty sturdy. Granted, you couldn't plunge one into someone's chest and expect much damage, but you could certainly blind someone with one. And worse, their little serrated edges are more than sharp enough to hold to someone's neck to demand you be given whatever your terroristic little heart desires.

So, thanks, TSA, for making me so much safer. Having surrendered all my personal liberties in the name of your Circus of Boobery makes me feel infinitely better.

Just When You Think It's Safe...

...there's always China, Jamaica, and Time Warner Center.

Today I was riding the down escalator at Time Warner Center, intent on nipping off to the post office across 60th Street. I wanted to pick up some stamps, so I could mail a couple letters.

It was unusual, in that there wasn't anyone else around, except for a lone guy coming up the opposite escalator. This guy — clearly disheveled, the sort the security guards in the Shops at Columbus Circle generally roust from the joint — waited until he was directly opposite me before looking at me and saying, "Faggot."

I actually stifled the urge to use a racial slur and then say, "How does that feel?"

A.Pants and Betty Boop will be happy to hear that. It's a change of policy for me, since they were both so upset the last time I refused to be meek about having been verbally abused by random assholes.

Baby steps.