the curse of the spare room

so my beloved bolshevik and i were united this week after his SIX WEEK stint in the motherland.  urgh, let me tell you it is not fun to be without my man for 6 weeks.  but this was the last time!  from now on we will be partners in adventure and intrigue. 

so the bolshevik and i are staying in the spare room for a night, and then the next day we go for a walk on the boardwalk at jones beach (despite the bolshevik's aversion to sunlight).  and then when we are about to go back to brooklyn to be with our own kind, i realize that i have left the front door to the house unlocked.  so we drive all the way back to the house, lock all the doors and such. 

and then as i am packing out of the driveway, animatedly chatting to my man about plans for our trip, i wind up tapping a parked car.  it turns out that this parked car belongs to the neighbors across the street, and upon inspection very very very little damage was done to the car.  there were some scratches that the car owner admitted were there before, and then there were a few bits of chipped paint that were caused by the tapping which can be easily fixed with one of those little jars of touch up paint.  so i explain the situation about me leaving next week and tell them my step-father lives across the street, yada yada yada.  and i give them my email address and tell them that if they just tell me what i owe them for the touch up, i'll send a check to them.

so then the next day i get a call from my ex-step-father saying that there's a message on the machine from an insurance company about my "accident." really?  they had to call an insurance company about this?  so now i fear that they are somehow going to try to take me for a ride and get me to pay for an entire new bumper even though there is no physical damage to the car beyond two or three pea-sized spots of chipped paint. 

i hate the suburbs.

beware the spare room, dear blog readers.  only misery and drama will befall those who stay there.

as cute as howard hughes

i may have mentioned my paranoia regarding dust mites.  let me tell you a little something about dust mites ... they are microscopic organisms that feed on dead human skin.  they typically live in bedding and i am highly allergic to them.  gross.  totally gross.

so i come back from my week's vacation in brooklyn, and after just two nights of sleeping in what i neurotically assume is a bed invested with dust mites (i have washed all the bedding, including the pillow, and i have placed two sheets in the mattress in hopes that they create a barrier between me and the dust mites) i develop a bad sore throat and get all congested.  so then i stay home from work because i am feeling very yucky, but then i worry .... will i only get worse, staying in this dusty dust mite environment?

and that is when i decided that since there is no one else living here to witness my craziness, i shall wear a surgical mask to protect myself from inhaling dust and dust mites.  yup.  that's right.  i am one step closer to being howard hughes.  but to be perfectly honest, i think that it's working. 

maybe south america will have some sort of fabulous magical environment that is void of things that i am allergic to.

massapequa: land of plenty

couldn't help myself

chillaxin' in the pequas (part 2: invasion of the lumberjacks)

this morning i ordered a tea with milk and shuggah ... i must be back on long island.

This Week On Spare Room: A storm hits and there's a full house in Massapequa.

apparently while i was hanging out with my boys in sunset park there was a big storm out here and lots of trees fell down.  so i come back for week two on strong island and my ex-step-aunt (don't you just love it when i talk about my family?) is staying at the house because the power has been out at her place for several days.  so she's staying in what used to be her old bedroom, and my ex-step-father is staying in the master bedroom. 

one of my college friends was in from out of town, and he and i were supposed to go out.  i had this vision of us going out to one of the many depressing drinking holes in the neighborhood, places with names like sidekicks and gossip.  he calls me and tells me he can't find a hotel room anywhere because all these lumberjacks are in town to deal with the fallen trees.  yes, you heard me ... lumberjacks.  he said his typical hotel was filled with lots of burly men in red plaid and knit hats. don't we have local people that know how to do this?  we have to import people from washington state?  anyway.

so i'm sitting on one of the two twin beds in my bedroom and i'm telling my ex-step-father how it's too bad that all the bedrooms are taken because my friend could've stayed at the house instead of spending the night driving around in hopes of finding a hotel sans lumberjacks.

then my ex-step-father looks at the twin bed next to me, which i have been using to hold piles of clothes and books and assorted crap, and says "well why don't you just move all your stuff and let him sleep there."  he's so smart,  my ex-step-father.

so instead of a night out on the town where i run into people from my high school who have all gotten fat, my friend came over with beer and snacks and we all had a fun little sleepover.  just a typical day in the suburbs i guess.

chillaxin' in the pequas (part 1)

many of you fine people may be asking yourself, "self, where is miss dewey decimal living now that she gave up her apartment?"  the answer is ... massapequa!  oh yes, home of joey buttafuoco and such great cultural hubs as the sunrise mall.  it's all been very exciting.  i ride an LIRR train with commuters and i drive a car to and from the station!  just like a real suburbanite!

needless to say, i have been trying to spend as little time in massapequa as possible.  aside from sleeping, i have yet to spend any great lengths of time in the -qua.  one of the problems is that the house is very very spooky.  have i mentioned that i'm actually quite the scaredy cat when it comes to stuff like The Dark and being alone?  well i am. it's kinda sad.

so the house where i am residing belongs to my ex-step-father (please read: a who was once married to my mother but is not actually my father).  this house used to belong to his parents, and let's just say that they weren't big on modern decor.  so room by room my step-father has been refurbishing the house, pulling up fuscia carpeting, taking down metallic (motorized!) blinds, removing wood paneling, etc. 

right now he is remodeling the kitchen.  so when you walk into the house there are huge plastic sheets covering the entranceways to the living room, dining room and kitchen in order to protect the rest of the house from dust and debris and whatnot.  these plastic sheets are CREEPY!  and since my ex-step-father doesn't live in the house full time, more often than not i am coming home to a scary empty house.

if this were a horror movie everyone would be like "no, miss dewey decimal!  don't walk near the plastic sheet!  the killer is hiding behind it and he is going to stab you and your blood will stain the brand new kitchen tiles!" 

unbeknownst to my ex-step-father, i have gotten into the habit of leaving ALL the lights on when i leave the house so that when i return (hours later) i will be less freaked out to walk around.

i have also noticed that the house makes weird noises.  not just creaking noises, noises like there are people inside, walking around noises, things moving noises.  and then the other night ... i could've sworn i heard whispering.  granted, i was supposed to watch the latest episode of Lost that night (it was The Others!), but i am pretty sure it was not "just my imagination."

this may be a long six weeks.