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Flamer

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

I wrote a review of my toaster oven on Amazon. You should probably read it and definitely buy it, if you are a fire enthusiast or prefer your toast to look like this:

I still have not found a good toaster oven though. It’s been really hard, you guys. Life is, like, so hard. Sniff.

This is My Shit, Part II

Monday, July 18th, 2011

I have moved into the new office and into my new desk. And I did throw stuff out, I really did. But some of my shit I just could not part with. And other stuff, I was like WUHHHHHHH? You know, I spend a lot of my life saying WUHHHHH. And also OH SHIT.

So here’s more of my shit.

JURASSIC TATTOOS. I believe it was part of a birthday gift. I have used exactly two of them so far. I felt so POWAFUL when I walked into a bar in hip-and-with-it Williamsburg with my fucking badass Jurassic tattoos. When the bartender saw me, he flipped out and poured me a shot of whiskey with a razor blade. SO EDGY YOU GUYS.

Glow in the dark dinosaur. Yes, yes, everyone, I realize it is kind of pointless to have a glow-in-the-dark toy AT THE OFFICE.

Ricola. This isn’t really special EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT THEY EXPIRED IN 2005. People kept telling me they don’t go bad. But let me ask you this: Let’s say you are sick and have a sore throat. Would you eat a circa 2005 Ricola? Ok that’s what I thought, dick.

Say you are in Piccadilly and you are eating a casual breakfast. Dare I say it is a ‘continental’ one. You wonder, hmm, what tea you should I drink? Probably not this one because IT ALSO EXPIRED IN 2005.

You can’t tell in this photo, but the sugar inside the sugar packets feels like one big piece of wood. YES EVERYONE I SAID WOOD GIVE IT A REST. This probably expired in 2004.

This expired in 2002. WHY DO I STILL HAVE THIS and more importantly, WHY DID I MOVE THIS TO THE NEW OFFICES?

Cotton pads in a zip-lock baggie. There is a very, very good reason why I have this. A while back I opened my desk drawer and found MOUSE SHIT. AS IN, SHIT THAT COMES FROM A FUCKING MOUSE. This was around the time we walked into the office and “smelled something funny” and someone discovered a dead mouse behind his desk. It was a heavy scene. So, I read online that mice do not like peppermint oil. You just douse a bunch of cotton pads with peppermint oil and they will take a whiff and go shit in someone else’s desk. It worked by the way.

Shoes, one pair. Brown. From J.Crew, but from 1995. I guess I was going to donate them and they fell out of the bag and have been sitting under the desk. So I was going to donate them and then realized, wait, these are kind of cute now because the NINETIES ARE BACK. My feet have not grown since 1995. I have whimsical little elf feet. Sometimes I frolic through meadows and jump off of daisy petals.

My architect friends used their laser cutter to make me these. They spent like an hour in AutoCAD doing this. I think we can all agree it’s the best use of CAD we’ve ever seen.

One Darth Vader, in LEGO form. Given to me by my homie-4-lyfe Nathan Bowers.

People like to give me bacon toys. It’s just something people like to give me. Nathan’s relatives used to give him tons of elephant shit. Like little figurines or what not. And I was like dude, do you even like elephants and he kind of shrugged. It’s one of those things that ONE person gives you an elephant and then everyone thinks you actually like elephants and suddenly you have this curio shelf littered with elephants. That might be my bacon. This is Monsieur Tofu and Mr. Bacon. They are frenemies of the state.

In related news, I would like a monocle but it is unlikely due to my Asian face. But man how badass would a monocle be? OH LOOK I HAVE 20/20 OUT OF (only) ONE EYE. The only dude who can pull of a monocle is Mr. Peanut.

CAMPING STOVE. I’ve had this under my desk since 2006. It’s not even MINE. I mean, really. Do I look like the type of person who’d own a camping stove? But this is what I know: During the apocalypse, I will be prepared. While everyone else cries emo tears into their can of cold, condensed soup, I will be having fajitas.

YOU’RE WELCOME EVERYONE.

This is My Shit, Part I

Monday, July 11th, 2011

Our offices moved across the street last week, so we had to pack up our desks. Now for NORMAL people, it might take an hour or two to pack up their crap. They get their shit together and then they head to the nearest bar and catch the silver bullet or what have you. I think my co-worker packed her desk in like three minutes. Opened a box, threw everything in, taped it up. WHO’S BUYING ME A DRINK?

Then there’s me. I’m not going to say I am NOT normal, but let’s just say I am not “typical”. How about that? That sounds better than “abnormal,” right? The word “abnormal” always sounds so medical to me. Like oh hey, we found an abnormal growth. We think it might be a vestigial tail, etc.

Anyway, packing took me SEVERAL hours and I had to spread it over two days because it was so taxing. And of course every single co-worker stopped by my desk and had to comment on the amount of stuff I had. LIKE YES I KNOW DUDE, I’M PACKING IT UP AND I SEE THAT YES, I HAVE A LOT OF SHIT and also, HEY, DON’T YOU HAVE TO BE AT A MEETING OR SOMETHING? K THANKS.

I should note that I have a desk, and it’s small. I don’t have my own office or a cubicle. It is just a desk with a small three-drawer filing cabinet thing underneath. I’ve been there for about 5 years. And in that 5 years, I have managed to collect an amazing amount of garbage. Here is what I found:

This is a plate. My co-worker bought it for me on her trip to Israel. In 2005. Yes, 2005. I literally found it in my files. Just filed away, like a report or an expense sheet, in a hanging file folder. It is a regular dinner sized plate. Hand painted ceramic. It has a crack in it because plates do not like being filed away.

This is an alarm clock. It winds up. This means you have to wind it up every day. It was a gift from someone. It’s old. I got it and I squealed THIS IS SO CUTE! Then I wound it up and it was just the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. It made me anxious because it was like I needed to defuse a bomb RIGHT NOW before the whole building blew up. Kind of like that scene in the Hurt Locker. Where you are like OH MY FUCKING GOD HURRY UP YOU DICK WHAT IS THE HOLD UP? I originally had it at home, but it was so fucking loud I brought it into the office thinking it’d be better there, and you know what? It wasn’t. My coworker threatened to throw it out the window to “see time fly.” HA HA HA HA. (She really did threaten to break it though.)

These are golf balls. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, oh hey, does Annie golf? The answer is NO. I do NOT golf. These ballz happen to say COSMO on the side. As in Cosmo magazine. As in, “Ten Ways to Sleep With Your Boss” Cosmo or “Be Bikini Ready” Cosmo or “Taylor Swift Talks About Music, Love, and Waxing Her Legs” Cosmo. My co-worker’s friend works for Cosmo and sends her a big box of shit every so often. Then I sometimes get little tidbits of awesome shit. Like these golf balls. What I did is chose two random people and mailed them the balls with a sticky note that says “As discussed here are the balls. Enjoy!” That’s it. No return address, no note, and unsigned. These are people I do NOT know. One was Nat’s boss and one was a co-worker’s father. Pretty funny right? Yes I can tell you are laughing.

No desk is complete without a reporter’s notebook with Anderson Cooper on the cover. This was from Aura and I still use it. I feel very very pro when I bust it out. LIKE LOOK AT ME I’M A HARD-HITTING JOURNALIST ALSO I AM A LOOKER ALSO I’M A VANDERBILT AND I’M LOADED AND I GUESS YEAH, I’M GAY BUT EVZ NOT A BIG DEAL I LIKE TO PICK UP HOT LATIN MEN IN AIRPORTS (true story, that is apparently something Andy Cooper did. I’m not judging, just merely making an observation).

Origami Christmas. It is the day Jesus made an origami crane and was all, yo check it out, I didn’t use glue or scissors to make this shit and then everyone was all, oooo ahhhhh it must be some kind of Christmas miracle!

A list of words my co-worker has a hard time saying or says it “weird.” It is actually work-related but I also like to have it around because it makes me laugh at her expense. I can be a real dick, but at least I say “poem” right. HAR HAR (sorry K, I love you. Let’s go to the muZAYum.)

Two kinds of hand sanitizer. I am a very thorough person.

Shot glass, that a co-worker got me from St. Lucia. I have never used it. But I keep it at the office because WHAT IF YOU WANT TO DO A SHOT AT THE OFFICE? THEN I WILL NEED A SHOT GLASS.

One pair of duck feet. I do not know where the rest of the duck is, but the feet are here with me. So if you guys see a feet-less duck, then you know who to call.

An agate. I can tell you’re jealous.

A drawing by Mr. Pony. It says “Why you lie to me Annie?” I ask myself that question every day. Aww. There is something about a sad bear that makes me laugh. Like you’re a fucking bear, you get to sleep half the year. Why are you so fucking sad? Like, I know why I’m sad. Because I’m not a goddamn bear. You’re a BEAR. Fucking man up, dick.

Typewriter ribbon, black. I went to this office supplies store on our street and asked if they had ribbon and they all made fun of me. They were like MAYBE YOU CAN PICK UP ONE AT THE STORE THAT SELLS PAGERS. No joke. I bought it online. It of course does not fit any of my typewriters.

Ukelele tab sheet. I know you have one too, so I guess this isn’t that weird.

I have more stuff, which I will “share” another day. Stay tuned. There is just so so so much more for you to see.

Cropped

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

I send my laundry out to get done. This is because I have a life to lead. Also this is what New Yorkers do. They pay someone a ridiculous amount of money to do their laundry. I feel that New Yorkers are always paying a ridiculous amount of money for something–shoes, coats, handbags, coffee. Except not cabs. Cabs are cheap here. I rode a cab in L.A. once. Have you guys done this? It’s like $1,000 dollars. That’s USD. Laundry’s cheap in L.A. It’s free if I do it at my parents’ house, but I mean, in general. Everyone in L.A. has a washing machine. Because they are civilized people. In New York, some of us don’t even have bathroom sinks.

Anyway, I get my laundry back and what I’ve noticed is that over the years, I’ve slowly lost a bunch of underwear and socks and shirts. Like I used to just be swimming in goddamn underwear and socks, and now suddenly I have like 3 pairs of each. Horrible. Sometimes I think the laundry people just steal my undies and my socks just so I have to do laundry more often, but actually they don’t do that because they are Korean and you know, Koreans try not to stick it to other Koreans, though who knows. Maybe they don’t give a shit. Point is, yes, I send out my laundry.

So in this last load, instead of losing something, I got a little extra something. Here I am putting away my neatly folded clothes because Koreans know how to fold goddamn clothes like champions, and I see this shirt. It is gray. I have many gray shirts. But this particular shirt does not belong to me. How do I know this?

Because it is a crop top.

Let’s discuss crop tops, shall we? Crop tops make NO sense to me. It is like, hey here’s a shirt, oh wait WHERE IS THE REST OF IT? I DON’T KNOW IT IS A MYSTERY. I GOT IT ON SALE IT WAS HALF OFF HA HA HA HA.

But I have a question: Where does one wear a crop top? Where are you like, hmmm what should I wear today? Oh I’m going to the office, maybe I should wear my CROP TOP. Or, hey do you want to go out to dinner? Yeah sure, let me just go home and change into my CROP TOP. Oh I have to appear in court today good thing I’m wearing my CROP TOP. Like I just don’t know when it’d be appropriate to wear one. Maybe when you go to Jazzercise on Tuesday nights.

IN ADDITION: Most people look like ASS in crop tops. I mean that. It’s just such an unflattering shape. Accentuates a good thing–perhaps–but at the expense of a lot of other things. EVEN if you have rock hard tasty abs. It just looks totally unclassy. My mother would totally be appalled. She would be like OH MY GOSH YOU SEE HER BELLY. WHERE IS REST OF HER SHIRT? And I’d be like dude, pay attention, it is a mystery.

CROP TOP.

Also: It’s like fucking COLD here right now. WHY ARE YOU WEARING A CROP TOP IN THIS WEATHER?

I’m turning into an old lady. Sad, but also, awesome.

Hmm Something is Missing

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

This morning I was in the shower and I thought hmmm…something feels off. What is this strange feeling that has washed over me? And I just kind of stood there thinking. Have you ever felt like that? Where something is missing or something feels wrong, and you kind of stand there with your proverbial thumb up your proverbial butt. Like sometimes at the office, I wonder if I left the stove on or left my toaster on, which is probably worse than leaving the stove on since it’s such a piece of shit. Flammable shit. So I’m standing there and then realize oh hey,

OH RIGHT THERE’S NO HOT WATER.

YES, for some reason today there is no hot water in my apartment. This also means no heat, which I suppose is OK because it’s only 43° F. I mean sure, it’s been colder. I’m not freezing to death. But I am uncomfortable. I am wearing a coat, for example. It’s a nice coat, don’t get me wrong, but wearing indoors seems like an injustice.

So I turned off the shower.

Today, when you take your hot shower or relax in a warm tub or, like, do your dishes. Think: Yeah, Annie would like to be here.

Sleepytime

Monday, April 4th, 2011

There’s a few things I like to do while I sleep. I will share them with you now:

1. Take the pillows and throw them on the floor.
When I first get into bed, all my pillows are set up in a nice and orderly fashion. It’s all organized according to the style of pillow (flat and firm versus puffy and soft versus squishy and lumpy). Each pillow serves a purpose. Not sure what that is though.

Then, at one point, one winds up on top of my head. I find that I like to put things on my head. You can witness this at 4:00 pm during the weekdays, when I begin to put stuffed animals, scarves, hats, and sweaters on top of my head. At the office. It just feels good like a head and brain massage. So at night whilst sleeping, I continue this, and then eventually I throw all the pillows on the floor. This is because they want to be free. They no longer want to be subjected to the tyranny of my bed.

2. Roll around.
At some point in the middle of the night, I roll around and around and around. This wouldn’t be so interesting except for the fact that the sheets also roll around and around and around with me. Imagine a fork twirling around some spaghetti. I am the fork. Sheets are the spaghetti. There is no sauce. Sometimes I wake up because the sheets are a mess and I am very angry. Like who is the ASSHOLE who is messing up my goddamn sheets?

Oh.

3. Do the starfish.
I stretch out in all directions. I do not have to worry about my limbs hanging over the side because my limbs are quite short.

4. My impression of the letter C.
I curl up, like the letter C. Then, I wake up and my back is all sore because now I’m at the point where I’m so “old” I actually hurt myself while I sleep. Like I wake up sore from…resting. When I sit for too long, I also get sore. Weird how that works. Soon I will get sore from breathing. Like god, all this…air…it’s so…taxing.

5. Give in to the bed Sirens.
I have an extremely severe case of bed Sirens. These Sirens are very, very powerful. After I brush my teeth and brush my hair, sometimes I hear voices coming from the bed. So then, I go to the bed, and then lay down again. I don’t know how to get rid of the Sirens. From what I understand, they came with the bed, free of charge.

6. Make the bed.
I make the bed. With me in it. It is a very difficult thing to do, so I challenge you guys to do it. This is for the very advanced.

Caught

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

I just caught the lady who pees all over the seat. I know this is gross to talk about it, but I have to share it because I fucking just caught her.

We share the bathroom with some other offices on the floor, and most of the time the ladies bathroom is fine, it’s awesome etc.

But then sometimes there’s like A MESS OF PEE.

Everywhere.

EVERYWHERE.

Like the perimeter of the stall is covered in pee. Imagine if someone like hosed down the place with urine. Except this person doesn’t have a hose because she has lady bits. It is fucking insane and disgusting.

So I go to bathroom. I see lady come out, of the stall and I go in, and then it’s like raging waters.

And I say OH MY GOD.

Like I literally say OH MY GOD and then OH GOD THIS IS SO DISGUSTING! This is so this lady can hear me explode and get angry.

So then the lady basically runs out of the bathroom more or less.

Hopefully she will start using bathroom like a normal sober person and not hover while she’s drunk at 3:00 in the afternoon on a Tuesday.

This isn’t a club bathroom. This is no cha cha palace in the Meatpacking. This is the Flatiron, natch! We keep things classy here by not peeing all over the place.

But it’s just unclear how one lady can make SUCH a mess. Which leads me to believe she has two peeing holes and one is aimed at a 45° angle.

A Toast for the Douchebags

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

For whatever reason I always wake up hungry. Though to be clear, I’m pretty much hungry all the time. I have to eat like every five minutes, it’s extremely irritating. Because when I don’t eat, I become this total MONSTER ASSHOLE. You can see the transformation. I get this total bitch face and then I say shit like WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU NEED TO MAKE A PHONE CALL? HOW DARE YOU. YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE, etc. I don’t mean it. Please don’t take it personally. I think you are a fine human being and you don’t deserve to be on the other end of my bitch face.

So yeah. This morning, I wake up. I’m hungry, and I turn to toast. Toast is my best friend. Toast has been with me since the very beginning. Toast keeps me happy. I don’t know anyone who eats more toast than me. I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU TO OUT TOAST ME. Seriously. It is my favorite. I’ve actually blogged about toast before, several times before, and I’m sure I’ll blog about toast again. Maybe even next week.

So I make toast and I am pondering possible toast fixin’s. Do I go with butter? Or peanut butter? Or just some jam? Or maybe a slice of cheese and some tomato? Or maybe I should use cream cheese and cucumber OH MY GOD MY TOASTER IS ON FIRE IT’S FUCKING ON FIRE! HOLY MOTHER OF SHIT! PUT IT OUT PUT IT OUT PUT IT OUT! OH GOD HOW DO I PUT IT OUT, OH MY GOD TOAST IS GOING TO BURN MY APARTMENT DOWN AND SOMEONE TELL ME WHY MY SMOKE DETECTOR IS NOT GOING ON EVEN THOUGH MY APARTMENT IS FILLING WITH TOAST SMOKE AND OH MY GOD IT’S STILL GOING. IT’S A RAGING TOWERING INFERNO OF TOAST! WAIT DID I PAY MY RENTER’S INSURANCE BILL THIS YEAR? SHIT I DON’T REMEMBER, OH MY GOD THERE IS FIRE IN MY TOASTER! WAIT DIDN’T THIS HAPPEN BEFORE? I’M PRETTY SURE THIS HAPPENED BEFORE WHY THE HELL DO I STILL HAVE THIS STUPID PIECE OF SHIT TOASTER? DUDE IT’S STILL ON FIRE!!!

So then I manage to get my shit together long enough to put the fire out but then I noticed I had made a horrible mistake. Here, let me show you a picture.



THE TOASTER TOASTED ITSELF. I realize this is not a good picture but that’s because there’s not much to see. The toaster IS CHARRED. It is toast, as they say. I am going to throw this thing out the window. Or maybe drive over to the Black and Decker headquarters and throw it at them because I’m so OVER this thing.

So my apartment is filled with toast smoke and I open every window even though i’s like 30 degrees. But that’s not saying much because I only have two windows in my entire apartment. And then I open my front door to release the toast smoke into the hallways because I’m a dick and I want my neighbors to suffer too. Then I open the windows in the hallways because I feel bad for being a dick to my neighbors and then I realize it’s like REALLY COLD NOW. But the smoke is just sort of hanging around in my apartment and I’m like waving a towel around to fan it away. And then Sasha the 100 year old Argentinian lady upstairs comes down the stairs and sorta walks right into my apartment because when you’re 200 years old you can do shit like that and I’m thinking OH GOD Sasha is going to be PISSED I feel so bad, she’s at least 300 years old, the smoke will probably kill her. And she says “Annie thank you for helping me with my computer the other day.” (I helped her with her computer the other day). And SHE DOESN’T NOTICE ANYTHING even though my entire apartment is filled with smoke and there’s this piece of toast literally SMOLDERING on my kitchen counter. This is because she is like 400 years old and can’t smell or see. Poor Sasha, she is a nice lady.

So anyway, I just say fuck toast and I go to the office and I realize that my entire mammalian form smells like burnt toast. My hair, my jacket, my scarf. The inside of my nose smells like toast. Then I go to yoga and I’m kind of getting all sweaty and I smell like toast.

The end. I hate Black and Decker.

My Apartment Continues to be Piece of Shit

Monday, December 20th, 2010

I’ve been in my apartment for about 8 years now and for 8 years it has been a piece of shit. I knew that when I moved in, so it’s not like a surprise or anything. However, every few years everything falls apartment and then I realize how TRULY shittay my apartment is. I mean shittaay. You find one problem and suddenly it is like a million problems. Just as Biggie said mo money, mo problems, but in my case it is mo problems without mo money, other than paying mo money toward this shittay apartment because my rent goes up every year, so yeah, I guess in that case it is mo money, mo problems, but I’m not rolling in a fat ride with bitchez in the back or anything. Side note: No one says ‘fat’ anymore. Like oh that is a fat blog, bro!

So the contractor came, and he’s a nice man, with just a working command of the English language. And he is coming to deal with the cabinet, which I thought was fine, but just askew. Until someone said, dude, did you know your cabinet is like coming off the wall? And I then imagined my cabinet falling on top of me and, more importantly, my computer which is really probably the most expensive and most valuable thing in my life. Now some people may say good health is most valuable or love or children or good friends or unicorn princess fairies or baby back ribs, but you and I both know that it’s my computer. Sidenote: You should back up your computer today.

Anyway the man looks at the situation and he goes aye aye aye and turns to me and says, “This is no good” which really applies to my entire apartment, not just my cabinet. He’s like some kind of sage. Anyway he explains to me that the ENTIRE cabinet is held up by TWO screws and ONE screw is broken. He shows it to me. It is like this teensy skinny screw broken in half. So this cabinet with all of its stuff is being held up by one anemic little screw. Luckily the cabinet is jammed against a wall so it’s just wedged in the corner. So there you go. He puts in three more screws, using beefy Man-screws made out of bacon and he says, do you want me to put in more screws? And I say YES, SCREW THEM ALL. I literally say that actually without thinking. But as I said, his English isn’t expert or anything so he lost all the subtle nuances of SCREWING THEM ALL.

So then I say, hey, while I have you here….I point to the doorknob to my pantry which is about fifteen inches wide. Not even kidding you. The door is petite. The pantry is petite. Not sure why they even gave me a door really. The doorknob doesn’t turn and the door is falling off the wall. So he screws that in there and says “Be careful. You can lock you out of your food.” I really would not want to be locked out of my food. That’s up there with busting my computer.

And then there’s an issue with the bathroom step, which is falling apart. The wood’s coming apart and there’s this piece of “marble” that’s cracked. And he says “Why this here?” As if I was the one who put a step there. It makes no sense why the bathroom is a step up from my apartment but I guess it’s because the poo pipes are under there, I don’t know I’m not an architect. So he has to fix that.

And then he says, there’s this crack that’s running down that wall, you should plaster that and it’s time to paint, it’s been a long time. Which is true. Seriously it is never going to end. But what I really want is for him to replace the vinyl tiles because it is gray and depressing and about fifteen years ago some asshole who lived here tracked in gum into the house and now it’s petrified into the beautiful vinyl flooring. Sad face.

So really what I should do is either level this apartment and re do it from the ground up or I should JUST MOVE ALREADY.

Home Improvement

Friday, December 17th, 2010

The management company of my building sent a guy to “deal with” the bathroom situation. The situation being that my apartment is a premium piece of shit. Imagine a really nice neighborhood. And then picture a piece of shit right in the middle of it. That’s my apartment. See? Premium piece of shit. In addition to it being 187 square feet (or, if you insist, 17 square meters) and in addition to the heat coming on every once in awhile and in addition to the naked neighbors drillin and chillin across the way and in addition to the recorder player who practices “Greensleeves” every morning at 7 am (That’s EST) and in addition to evidence of mouse poop in my silverware drawer and in addition to the dead roach I found in my laundry detergent the other day (seriously what is that about), the bathroom walls are basically disintegrating. Why you ask? Because when they tiled it in the first place they did a shit job. It’s like they smeared cream cheese on the walls, threw on some tiles, and called it a day. So of course, the walls got messed because, hello, I take showers in there. Everyday. Sometimes twice a day because that is how I do. But the real problem really has nothing to do with the bathroom, it is more that my apartment is a premium dump and there’s not much that can be done with that. It’s really a congenital problem. No amount of cosmetic surgery can fix the fact that my apartment is butt ugly. Like despite what your parents told you, sometimes shit is just ugly and there is no actual beauty on the inside.

Anyway, they sent a guy. His name is Julian and he’s like my new best friend. Sorry old best friends, you have been replaced.

So he starts working on the bathroom and I hear all this noise and he keeps saying stuff like “Oh no!” or “Oh dear!” or “This isn’t good” or, “Huh?” Then he says “Oh my God it’s like the Twin Towers in here!”

OK, so it’s not really like the Twin Towers. The Twin Towers actually had nicer bathrooms than this.

Anyway I fucking love this fucking guy. He is cracking me up. Talking about how he wants to ski down the Upper East Side when it snows on Sunday because he saw some rich white people do that and thought it looked fun or how he thought the management company was “drinking the wrong wine” because they had sent him to a different building and then he went on a tirade about how Miami is cold, as if somehow Miami being cold totally messes with his worldview here in New York.

Then he told me this story where he was fixing something in a neighbor’s apartment and the neighbor says “If you don’t finish this soon….” and then proceeded to PULL A GUN ON HIM. Dude! I should mention that the neighbor in question is like a hundred years old. OK, maybe not a hundred, but he’s definitely in his eighties. Pulled a gun on poor Julian, I mean what the FUCK. How can you pull a gun on this guy? He is the best ever, I mean sure he is kind of slow with the fixing of things and maybe he is more bro than pro and maybe he doesn’t do like the most excellent architectural-quality work, though—let’s face it—this building is pre-war, as in the French-Indian War, and maybe he is quite the chatterbox, but I would never EVER pull a gun on his ass. And if I were like eighty years old I sure as hell wouldn’t pull a gun on anyone. I’m fucking eighty, what more do I have to prove. Anyway, this is SoHo, bitch. This is how we do it. Shit is real.

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Design: Nathan Bowers
Illustrations: Mika Oshima

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