unwanted attention

4 Frames of Unwanted Attention
Originally uploaded by cameron.mantel

Last night I went to Jessie Sholl's launch party for her memoir, Dirty Secret. It was good but a bit awkward since I was underdressed (in jeans). My pal Meg, who I'll be visiting in Istanbul, is more Jessie's friend than I am, but it was an honor to celebrate with her.

When I returned to Greenpoint, I met a former friend that I haven't seen or spoken to for a year, save bumping into him on the street when he was very drunk in July. It wasn't surprising that he was very drunk last night -- his birthday was Friday -- and though the night didn't begin so badly, it ended horribly. He couldn't stop touching me and giving me cursory kisses, and the night took a turn for the worse when I excused myself to sit at the other end of the bar next to a neighbor. He (the former friend, not neighbor) repeated "I want to stick it in her" to anyone within hearing distance, so I yelled at him and stormed off. My neighbor followed me. I invited him to my apartment for some water and to explain the whole history with the former friend. I cried, he took my hand, and then he tried to stay the night. I kicked him out.

I'm so disgusted by everything today. Why couldn't I have met the Punk Rope people after graduating college? Instead, I wound up with the Poker Stoner Buddies and wasted a year with people who should have never been on my radar in the first place.

On a positive note, I started Dirty Secret on the train back to Greenpoint after the party, and as I got up for my stop the man sitting opposite me asked how the book was.

"Great," I answered. "I know the author."

"I could tell it was good," he said, "you didn't look up once."

I'm really looking forward to learning how Jessie deals with her "dirty secret" -- that her mom is a compulsive hoarder -- because ever since Labor Day, when I admitted to the person I was dating that my dad sperm donor's a verbally abusive alcoholic (and then was subsequently dumped), it's been crucial to figure out how to be open with someone about the skeletons in your closet without being rejected for them.

After last night, however, the last thing I want is intimacy.

if you can't beat 'em, join 'em

Miss "New York Shitty" Heather edited my original e-mail for clarity.

At 6:30am Christmas morning my landlord's obnoxiously loud alarm clock goes off, waking me up. I send him a text message, asking if he could shut it off (since he's not going to work, obviously, on a holiday and Saturday). After an hour of hearing it I head down to the basement/man cave to search for the circuit breaker because I worry it'll be on the whole day; he's evidently not in his apartment. Well, I learned one thing: do not go into the basement or yet another alarm will go off and wake up everyone on the block.

While both alarms are still blaring, I think fuck this, take a shower, and wonder what coffee shop would be open before seeing The King's Speech at noon. When I get out, the cops are ringing the bell, asking why a noise complaint was called in. Meanwhile, the first original alarm is still going off and the second one had stopped while I was in the bathroom. I explain this. They go to the basement, setting off the second alarm again, and tell me they'll call the company to remotely shut off the basement alarm. Finally, at 8:30 -- two hours after it woke me up -- the first alarm shuts off. Miracles do happen, especially on Christmas.

I head to bed at 11:30pm. At 1am, the landlord and his friends crash into the hallway, waking me up, and proceed to blast Euro-pop versions of Christmas carols in Polish. Naturally, they sing along. I don't think I'll ever hear "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" the same way ever again. I send him a text message, requesting he keep it down. Nothing changes. I call the 94th precinct as a "concerned neighbor" calling in another noise complaint on the apartment. Especially since you could hear the music from outside the building.

Here's what I did wrong: I should have lied and been a "concerned neighbor" across the street instead of on the second floor, because once the person on the line ascertained I was a tenant, she became completely unhelpful. "It's Christmas," she said, "Let them have fun once in a while."

"Well, I can hear it clear as day in my apartment, and you can hear it outside the building."

"You can always move out," she offered.*

"I signed a two-year lease. There's no moving out anytime soon. If I were to throw a similar party in my apartment, he has every right to evict me. What rights do I have in this case?"

We have a little back-and-forth about "how this neighborhood gets" during the holidays -- yeah, the same way "this neighborhood gets" on the weekends and other holidays, with drunk Poles a little more troublemaking on the streets -- and I counter that I grew up in this neighborhood and never had to deal with such noise. Ultimately, she says that I can take him to court to get out of the lease. And she doesn't send an officer.

Protect and serve indeed! I thought they'd be more willing to help out since there was already a noise complaint earlier, and my landlord's parties are a chronic problem.

It's nearing 2am. I go downstairs and knock as loudly as I can between tracks. Yes, the same songs are playing on repeat. A meathead answers the door and says "It's Christmas." I take this to mean they have every right to party as loud as they want on holidays. I ask to talk to the landlord, explaining calmly that we've got talk. Then a woman comes up, less drunk than this guy. I (once again) explain my problem. She goes to get the landlord, returns without him, and says he's in the bathroom and "isn't feeling good."

Ultimately, the male drunk friend will not shut off the music until I join them downstairs for a shot. Though I keep refusing, I eventually go downstairs (barefoot, in my pajamas). The landlord, back from the bathroom, pours everyone a shot, I do mine and then ask them to shut off the music. They don't until I've told them my life story, which so closely matches theirs -- "You went to St. Stan's? Did you have Miss Ronnie?" -- and we become the best of friends after a handful of shots and cigarettes, giving me a horrible hangover.

I told my roommates that I'll be in Istanbul from January 13 through the 18. If during that time they're awakened by Martin Luther King, Jr. carols then they're welcome to join the party -- I'm serious, we have a standing invitation -- and drink as much of the landlord's booze, smoke as many of his cigarettes, and tell everyone spierdalaj (spear-doll-eye), Polish for "fuck off," which I take as being the true meaning of Christmas -- or any other holiday -- in the 94th precinct.

*I should have started ranting once she said this. Move out of my neighborhood? It's a miracle I can afford living in this area. Isn't the middle-class dream to move up and not stagnate?

to JS, wine consultant

I'm writing this message while finishing a bottle of Carménère. I didn't drink all of it tonight but rather had half Friday night with dinner (steak and broccoli). I had an appointment Saturday afternoon to donate blood, hence the high-iron meal. Before heading to Mr. Mecca's wake, Ashley and I ate at Lombardi's, where I took off the bandage around my elbow once we sat down. Ashley commented that the nurse who took my blood did a great job—there wasn't a bruise.

“I got a bruise only once from giving blood,” I explained. “I had some blood taken after a physical in eighth grade. My teacher saw the bruise and thought I used drugs. He also thought I had a demon in me that needed to be exorcised.” We laughed because the teacher was a nut (religious and otherwise), and it's the kind of thing you can laugh at with a good friend.

Last summer I started a relationship with a good guy, Prom King. I met him though a friend—a literary one at that, since she works at a bookstore—and everything was spectacular; I was so comfortable with him. Then I lost my job. (Since rectified.) Then I encountered a health problem. (Took care of it, too.) I was emotionally weak given the circumstances, and he stayed with me, distracted me, and helped.

I got him into Mad Men, and one night we were watching it at my apartment. I don't know if you watch the series, but this season the main character's daughter gets sent to a psychiatrist. After that episode, he turned to me and asked if I'd ever been in therapy. I cried and could not stop. I wanted to ask him to leave, but didn't. I excused myself, collected a few things from my bedroom (we had plans to stay the night at his place), and quickly pulled myself together with a short explanation.

“Yes,” I answered, “I've been in therapy against my will. My high-school teachers thought I was depressed and suspended me. It was a terrible time in my life, and I don't like talking about it.” He confided that he currently was in therapy: his father had died when he was in college, and he had difficulty getting over it. Neither of us laughed because it's not the sort of thing you can laugh at.

Well, that was the end. I couldn't get that night out of my head. Believing it would do me good to get a few things off my chest I confided in him about growing up in an alcoholic household and about my fears for my brother's future. I bared all, it proved too much, and he dumped me, citing he knew my anxieties better than he knew myself.

How do you feel knowing you had a hand in something that will affect me for the rest of my life, something that I will be fighting to prevent from rearing its head whenever I get close enough to someone that it's only fair we become vulnerable to each other too?

I knew there was the possibility of seeing some unfriendly faces at Mr. Mecca's wake, but with Ashley by my side I thought I could withstand them. Yours was the last I wanted to see, and I am amazed by the extent of my self-control. At least there won't be any awkwardness at your wake since I don't plan on attending it.

how to get along with landlords

Fact: I am the daughter of homeowners and therefore am a conscientious tenant. I don't host loud parties that don't have an end time, nor do I keep my laptop (or any other appliance, save my alarm clock) plugged in all day to waste energy. I pay my bills on time, keep no balances, and consider myself responsible to the extreme. My worst habit may be my heavy gait if you live below me.

During the summer I apartment-sat for Joe Katz while he was in the Hamptons. It was supposed to give me a month to prep the new apartment -- paint, get furniture, etc. -- without having to live in it. It was very generous of him, and all I had to do in return was pick up his mail and water his plants. Easy peasy.

Joe had said that his landlord, Frank, was going to fix a step on the fire escape outside the apartment in the back. Frank did so immediately after Joe left for the Hamptons, and we didn't cross paths. The second or third day I was at Joe's place, the doorknob to the door to the veranda popped off into my hands -- I was so embarrassed and worried Joe or Frank would be angry at me for breaking something -- but I left a note for Frank and tried not to sweat it. Again, he fixed the problem when I was at work, and I left him a thank-you note and doughnuts from Peter Pan.

It was a very hot summer, so hot that I got a heat rash on my chest, and I became accustomed to stripping upon entering the apartment and heading straight to the shower. One day as I was walking to the bathroom naked, I heard someone's voice and saw Frank on the veranda (inspecting his good job with fixing the step)! I don't think he saw me, but I crawled to the bathroom to ensure we didn't make eye contact.

Frank and I saw each other off and on during the summer, including the first time I invited Prom King to spend the night. We passed him in the hallway very early in the morning, and I was embarrassed again, but for the most part I didn't bother him, he didn't bother me, and it was the best relationship a temporary tenant could as for.

I mention the summer because soon I'll be posting a story about how I spent my Christmas. My current landlord, absent for most of the day, nonetheless had a hand in the holiday's shenanigans.