Today, I miss my car*

*Also Titled "I miss the convenience of Convenience Stores"

I had a car from when I was 17 until the day I moved to Queens.
The day I moved to Queens Iwas driving to get some pre-move coffee and I was thinking to myself,
do I really want to deal with parking the car, car insurance, and gas prices now that I'm moving out on my own?


and then the bottom of the car fell out.

Now I know what you're thinking -
You had a car when you were 17, you little Long Island Princess, look at you! Did your Daddy buy you it?

No, he didn't, and Mommy was getting tired of driving me to therapy because of it.
So I got a car.

I love driving. There is nothing better than getting in your car and riding around on a beautiful day. Taking the Meadow Brooke to Long Beach to get some Marvel. Taking a slow ride all the way down Ocean Parkway. Stopping off on the way home at a 7-11....
oh thank Heaven.

I love convenience stores.

I like the fact that at the convenience store there are usually 5-10 refrigerated cases full of beverages.
I like to take my time and look at all the crazy varieties of drinks; there have to be about 40 different kinds of drinks out there to what was the equivalent to what Jolt cola was when I was a kid.

There's also a selection of coffees at the convenience store full of different flavors of coffee and every kind of milk you could think of : fat free half and half - now that's just wrong.

There's also a selection of beer at the convenience store, but here's the difference, while there are flavors unheard of and unseen of all other beverages, beer is pretty much standardized at the convenience store. You'll see your Bud, your Coors, your Amstel and Heinkein, all the standards. Once in a while they throw in a Pete's Wicked or a Magic Hat, but at that point they're 12 bucks for a six pack and you might as well go to some lounge in Manhattan. But that's the thing, the convenience store isn't there for you to party, it's there for you.

The convenience store is there for you more than your best friend, significant other, even your family.
The convenience store is there 24 hours a day.
Hung over from last night and you have to get to work early? You need to pick up some fresh brewed 5am coffee
Hungry between lunch and dinner? You need to pick up some jerky.
Sick of your family after dinner? You need to pick up some ice cream.
Don't want to study for that test? You have an urge for a hotdog that's been spinning since 7am, yesterday.
Been watching a Family Guy marathon in your sweats all day? You need a slushy at 2 am.

Yes friends, I miss my car because now, when I want these things, I have to WALK.
Where's the convenience in that?

Well, I'm off now to go enjoy this beautiful day, on my feet.
It's like exercise.
Feels like work.



ps - yes, I am aware that in Queens there are such wonderful things as Bodegas, but these are convenience stores lite. They have less fridges, more gums and lotto tickets, and more 40's. Not necessarily a bad thing, but you don't really have the same assurance that everything you love will still be there you're next visit.
Like my favorite bodega in Carol Gardens Brooklyn, you know, the Optimo?
They stopped selling beer.
What did they do with the extra fridge?
Entire thing full of Poland Spring Water. Blasphemy.

Life Lemonade

One thing a good writer avoids is using trite sayings.
I don’t know if I’m a great writer. Sure people will tell you “you’re great” at things that they can’t do, or even if they are good, there’s the overwhelming want to be liked we have as humans, and we want to so badly that we will throw out praises willy nilly, sometimes I feel this paranoid praising is as innate as lying to humans.

Either way, I want to tell you a methaporical story based on the horrifically trite:

When Life gives you Lemons,
Make Lemonade
~Old Addage.

So without futher adieu…
Life lesson lemons seem to be a lot like lovers, they hit you when you least expect it.

You’ll be sitting at work typing away like a good little drone when an email, IM, phone call, or someone actually walks into your space and addresses you face to face and
-WHAM!

LEMON.

Or you’ll be hanging out with some friends, out for a good time, and some how, some way, someone will process a message and it will be delivered to you that somebody you know/like/love is dead, you have lost your money/love o’ your life/job, and you’ve been diagnosed with STD/virus/cancer and -
BAM! POW! SLAP!!!!!

Lemon bombardment.

And you sit in your swivel chair, that sounds nicer than it is, and wonder
what the hell am I going to do with all these lemons?
You can’t smoke them, Eating them is kinda nasty,
So you drink ‘em.

But in order to drink, you have to work for it – kind of like how when all these problems hit, you’d love to just pull out the flask and f-it all but you have to stay at work in order to afford to put anything beside tap water in that flask.

So you squeeze the shit out of your problematic lemons and you’re left with messy remains of them and some fluid.
But you’re still not ready to drink that it, although with a little bit of conditioner added to it you now have poor man’s Sun In, or just add to fish to decrease that fishy taste.

But the saying doesn’t say, when life gives you lemons, go blonde and fry up some snapper.

No, we’re making a receipt for lemonade a-la-shitty lemon pummeled day.

So you can add sugar to it and make it lemonade or add fructose to make it Minute Maid.

But either way you have to make your problems seem better than they are, because basically you still have their carcasses hanging around, and the plain victory of defeating an issue can sometimes be: being bitter.
As many people know,
many people I hang out with,
ok, OK
as I know being ditter and drinking isn’t a good mix.

My suggestion for perfect lemonade, try adding natural sweetners.
So here are my lemonade receipes:

shit storm sue:
1 Lemon Per 1 mini sugar cube
example:

• Health Problems – Not dead yet
• Growing Pains (not the fact they took that sitcom off the air, because even though they had some good episodes*) – At least I’m not living at home
• Money Woes – Who really needs to save when there’s a 401K plan? am I right? (don't tell me if I'm not)
• Longest Time Single in My Entire Life – Um,….not dead yet…
  

Life Lemons ala Long Island Ice Tea:
Lemon Juice + Triple Sec, Capt. Morgan’s Parrot Bay Rum, Gin, and Vodka proportionally – shake your ass on a dance floor to mix

Boy Trouble Lemonade
Add Pink Grape Fruit Juice= Girl friends
Mix in sugary music, and maybe some sea salt and sun - if not available try adding chocolate syrup, sure it might sound nasty but desperate times call for weird solutions.

The reason for this blog is in response to all the people who have recently asked “How are you”
And I honestly answered, and then made them very sad about how crappy things are,
But then added some good stuff to remind people that no, I’m not going to take myself on a long walk off a short plank,

It might seem bad to an outsider, and sure it hurt when the lemons were lobbed, but right now I’m the girl lounging around sipping on some juice, waiting to see what other fruit may fly my way.

Let’s hope not tomatoes on Thursday when I’ll be performing at Comic Strip Live at 5:30 or Wednesday April 19 when I’ll be at Ray’s Lounge and Comedy Club in Bay Ridge Brooklyn**
or
Sunday Sunday Sunday!
when I’ll be resting.

*The best ever episode of Growing Pains was actually the episode when Chrissy, the youngest season saving Seaver, wanted to stay up late because she was convinced all her older siblings were having fun (this includes a dream sequence in which Alan Thicke plays with Barbie Dolls) and her parents allow her to stay up on a night which ends up being the most thrilling night ever (pony included). Great, great episode. And if you're a little scared after reading that synopsis, don't be. I'm just a dork, it's not contagious, you can read this and not be dorky...unless you shook your head and laughed along, then I'm sorry to tell you this, but you might be dorky.

** Sorry for the shamless plug. It was really cheesey too, I mean real cheesey, who am I kidding tomatoes? Man, that's so cheesey you need crackers just reading it.
~THANK YOU! Good Night Folks, remember the 1 am Wednesday show completely different from the Thursday night Live show...

Funke Security System

I live alone.
I not only live alone, I also live about a half hour away from anyone I really know and an hour alone from the nearest relative or best friend. The thought has crossed my mind that there’s a good chance that I may die a Law & Order type death.

And I don’t necessarily mean a homicide. I’m talking more of a neighbor being like “what is that stench?”- discovery kind of death.

Not to say my building isn’t safe, but you never know what kind of nutty people are out there waiting to get in here.

So sometimes, when I’m laying in bed trying to fall asleep and I hear a noise, I get a little nervous that someone is climbing in my kitchen window from the fire escape making his way into my bed room to kill me because I didn’t say God Bless you to him on the subway ride home.
I go through panic mode, a mode I easily slip into, and am highly functional in.
How close am I to my cell phone?
I can get to the phone but he’ll see me, what do I have to hit him with?
…and then I visualize my living room (which he’d have to walk through from the kitchen to get to my bedroom.
Well, there are shoes in the hallway, the big DVR box that I still haven’t parted with and hop over, oh and the blue pillow that fell off the couch that you can’t really see in the dark, oh and I think I dropped some of the mail on the floor today too…

And then I snuggled into my comfy bed and I feel all better because I know that any rapist, murderer, or burglar would most likely trip and break his neck before reaching my bedroom.
This epiphany not only helps me sleep at night, and helps me realize that I’m not a slob, I’m a protective paranoid who is secure alone in her apartment with all the possessions she is smart enough never to throw out.
This is way is also cheaper than any fancy system with buttons and back up.

***New Edition***
I found out that my version of security is not the only Funke Security brand out there.