About four years ago, a friend of mine told me the story of a Yorkie named Rocco. He was made to live in a bathtub with his food and wee wee pad, was rarely taken outside, and although a little girl in the household loved him he had never been to see a veterinarian. The little girl could not protect him from her drug addict mom's less loving friends - one had kicked little Roc in the teeth so that his whole mouth was infected. His first week home as a puppy, someone had dropped him and his leg was broken. I made my friend tell me the story again and again until I could convince her to steal Rocco from his family. I promised I would find him a good home.
It was March 4, 2006. I remember the day because it was my dog Maggie's 15th birthday. A Yorkie bitch of the first order, there was nothing cuddly about this dog whom I had inherited from my mother; but I admired her tenacity and willfulness, the way she barked when dinner was not on the floor at 5:30 sharp and how she bit the ankles of any man who came near me. Good girl, Maggie.
So it was March 4. I had made Mags a hamburger birthday dinner and I knew my friend was bringing Rocco over any minute so I would be able to find him his new home. What I was doing taking in an un-neutered male dog when my girl was so old, I do not know; I only know from the minute I heard his story - and heard it and heard it - that I had to help this little guy. The doorbell rang; I told my doorman to let them up. I left the front door open as I ran to the kitchen to get Rocco a welcome dog biscuit, and when I came back out this tiny guy dog, head down as if in submission, was sauntering - really sauntering - right towards me off the leash. He sat down at my feet and looked up at me, a dog obviously wanting to please. I gave him the biscuit but it was too big for his sore mouth. So we sat on the couch, I broke it into pieces, and watched him struggle through the treat. I wanted to kill his (former) owners.
Rocco, of course, was home. He didn't go to a shelter or a new family; with Mags, he and I became a pack. I had 15 of his teeth removed the first week he lived here; I also had him neutered, for his own good and so he would stop bugging poor Maggie who nipped at him in vain as he kept trying to mount her. He gained 3 lbs (he weighed 4 when he got here) and learned to love sitting on pillows looking out a window, car rides and adventures to the bank and Bed, Bath & Beyond. He is so cute he got scouted by an assistant director of Law & Order. Mags succumbed to old age in 2007; I thanked the universe for Rocco's presence and always felt she had waited to go until I was taken care of.
You might wonder what all this has to do with my poverty journal. Well, Rocco has not had a good week. He is straining at the haunches to relieve himself, he has stopped eating, and he has been in obvious discomfort. So off we went this morning to the veterinarian -- who immediately said two awful words that will ring in my ears forever: BLADDER STONES. The x rays showed that Rocco has four of these crystalline beauties, each almost a half inch wide, rolling around in his tiny bladder and wreaking havoc. "They must come out," said the vet, a lovely young woman in her mid-30s. Yes, of course they must. To the tune of about $2,000 dollars.
The irony is that an old boyfriend, Miles (who I have spoken about here before) came through with a hefty loan just this week. It was my most beautiful surprise in ages. I had been looking forward to some breathing space, but the truth is I would stop eating if necessary to help this lovely little animal, my wolf spirit guide in miniature form, the closest living being to a prince I have ever known. So, through my tears, I worked out a plan of payment with the vet, put down half, and carried Rocco the four blocks home so he would not be in pain from walking. I am making him boiled chicken and have some baby food in case he won't eat that (he has not eaten anything in more than a day) and hope I can get some pain meds into him so he is at least comfortable until his Monday surgery. I am worried; hell, I am scared to death. The idea of the anesthesia alone makes me cringe with trepidation. And he can't come home until the next day. But I have to keep the faith that some higher power brought me and Roc together, and that we are meant to stay that way. Now, finally, he is asleep and his breathing has evened out. Mine, of course, has not. Isn't that always the way it is. I'll let you know what happens.
Showing posts with label poverty journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty journal. Show all posts
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Rich Girl Gets Courted - in Housing Court
Tonight, I am tired. I am listening to Charlie Rose interview architects Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano. They are talking about important buildings (theirs) in faraway places. I remember meeting Gehry years ago in Venice, and thinking he looked exactly like my father's uncle Lou. Lou, the bootlegger who ran bathtub gin from Philly to Baltimore and was turned into the authorities by his wife. Gehry was building the Guggenheim in Bilbao; he explained his drawings, his hands running across the lines as if they were alive. Now, I am sitting alone and my dog is snoring. The computer keyboard is hot. I had a panic attack yesterday which I lived through. Work is moving, if slowly. And, hopefully, when I surface from this odd torpor, I'll still have a place to live. Speaking of buildings.....
Last week, it arrived: a knock at my door, a young black man who said "from the landlord" as he shoved a paper into my hand. I am being sued for back rent in civil court. I told the young man I was happy he was gainfully employed. However, while I'm a big fan of watching all the Law & Order franchises, I would rather not live them. But down to housing court I had to go, to "answer" the suit.
Frankly, I have no answers. At any moment I could have all the money I need to pay off every single debt; or I could be on the street tomorrow with many months to wait until I am paid. I worry every day where I might go, what will happen to Rocco, what will I do with all the stuff I've accumulated over 19 years in one place. Sometimes I think I should just throw everything I own out the window, like someone in a 1960s film might have done to "simplify" their lives. And it would really irritate my landlord. But holding even one coffee cup over the edge of the sill, remembering where it was bought, who I was with, where its specific space is on a kitchen shelf, I just do not have it in me to let (it) go.
So -- 111 Centre Street is the home of Manhattan's civil court. You walk in and they put all your junk on a conveyor belt through a metal detector, just like in an airport. I've always wondered who would be stupid enough to bring knives or guns to a courthouse, but I'm told there have been incidents. I do not want these people to think for one minute I will be creating one of THOSE, so I smile and practically give a volleyball push to my handbag, right into the chest of the woman working the belt, leaving it wide open so she can see there is no glint of metal, no trace of firearm. I smile; The woman gives me a blank look. I get past the machine and a happily chubby guy tells me what floor housing court is on. I go to the elevator; I am on my way up.
Through two nondescript doors on the 4th floor is Housing Court. There are lines marked with the Latin phrase "pro se," which is where I have to go as I am doing this on my own, which is what "pro se" means. There is a row of people at windows talking to those in line - one such "teller" who looks like Jerry Garcia is sipping a diet Pepsi and assuring a woman she will not be kicked out. Behind these tellers are symptoms of city disorganization, what looks to me like mile after mile of stacked files, each one probably detailing some awful moment in someone's home situation here in the Big Apple.Then a cute guy in a nice suit and a magenta tie comes up to me, looks at my papers and says "you don't have to stand in line, come with me," which I do like a puppy who has been offered a snack or a long walk in the park.
He disappears; comes back. "I tried to get you a free lawyer,' he says, "but your debt is too high." Something tells me this is a phrase I will hear often and again while I am dealing with all aspects of my debt. The truth is I have not made a dime in 2009, although I have 12 million in real estate for sale. But there is a clubby atmophere here, a humanness to which one succumbs, a sense of camaraderie, however scared we all are. Ellen, sitting next to me, lost her paralegal job six months ago after asking for a raise, something she had not had in three years: I have to translate for Juan from Washington Heights when he doesn't understand the question "is this rent really due?" but hears something like "doe" or "does". Ellen likes to bake - she has taken to baking her own bread so she doesn't have to spend 4 dollars a loaf. She has lived in her apartment for 16 years. We are comrades in the about-to-be-homeless front lines, sisters bound by bricks and mortar, soldiers in the fight for fairness over a landlord's lust for filthy lucre.
The guy with the magenta tie comes back; he has our court dates. I have to come in again next week to get an adjournment; I am thinking of hiring an attorney, no matter the cost, as long as he can give me another three months here which I think is what I will need. Pro Se isn't all it's cracked up to be. I think about getting married which, i admit, I ONLY think about when I'm in financial trouble. That is, indeed, another blog entry.
I say goodbye to all, wish them good luck and swish through the department's double doors like Loretta Young on her TV show. On my way downstairs, everyone headed for the street is cheery, even buoyant; the weather has finally turned and it is spring. I walk out into the warm air, still with a bit of briskness in it. I am oddly comfortable that moment in my own skin. Perhaps that is, after all, what home is. Isn't it?
Last week, it arrived: a knock at my door, a young black man who said "from the landlord" as he shoved a paper into my hand. I am being sued for back rent in civil court. I told the young man I was happy he was gainfully employed. However, while I'm a big fan of watching all the Law & Order franchises, I would rather not live them. But down to housing court I had to go, to "answer" the suit.
Frankly, I have no answers. At any moment I could have all the money I need to pay off every single debt; or I could be on the street tomorrow with many months to wait until I am paid. I worry every day where I might go, what will happen to Rocco, what will I do with all the stuff I've accumulated over 19 years in one place. Sometimes I think I should just throw everything I own out the window, like someone in a 1960s film might have done to "simplify" their lives. And it would really irritate my landlord. But holding even one coffee cup over the edge of the sill, remembering where it was bought, who I was with, where its specific space is on a kitchen shelf, I just do not have it in me to let (it) go.
So -- 111 Centre Street is the home of Manhattan's civil court. You walk in and they put all your junk on a conveyor belt through a metal detector, just like in an airport. I've always wondered who would be stupid enough to bring knives or guns to a courthouse, but I'm told there have been incidents. I do not want these people to think for one minute I will be creating one of THOSE, so I smile and practically give a volleyball push to my handbag, right into the chest of the woman working the belt, leaving it wide open so she can see there is no glint of metal, no trace of firearm. I smile; The woman gives me a blank look. I get past the machine and a happily chubby guy tells me what floor housing court is on. I go to the elevator; I am on my way up.
Through two nondescript doors on the 4th floor is Housing Court. There are lines marked with the Latin phrase "pro se," which is where I have to go as I am doing this on my own, which is what "pro se" means. There is a row of people at windows talking to those in line - one such "teller" who looks like Jerry Garcia is sipping a diet Pepsi and assuring a woman she will not be kicked out. Behind these tellers are symptoms of city disorganization, what looks to me like mile after mile of stacked files, each one probably detailing some awful moment in someone's home situation here in the Big Apple.Then a cute guy in a nice suit and a magenta tie comes up to me, looks at my papers and says "you don't have to stand in line, come with me," which I do like a puppy who has been offered a snack or a long walk in the park.
He disappears; comes back. "I tried to get you a free lawyer,' he says, "but your debt is too high." Something tells me this is a phrase I will hear often and again while I am dealing with all aspects of my debt. The truth is I have not made a dime in 2009, although I have 12 million in real estate for sale. But there is a clubby atmophere here, a humanness to which one succumbs, a sense of camaraderie, however scared we all are. Ellen, sitting next to me, lost her paralegal job six months ago after asking for a raise, something she had not had in three years: I have to translate for Juan from Washington Heights when he doesn't understand the question "is this rent really due?" but hears something like "doe" or "does". Ellen likes to bake - she has taken to baking her own bread so she doesn't have to spend 4 dollars a loaf. She has lived in her apartment for 16 years. We are comrades in the about-to-be-homeless front lines, sisters bound by bricks and mortar, soldiers in the fight for fairness over a landlord's lust for filthy lucre.
The guy with the magenta tie comes back; he has our court dates. I have to come in again next week to get an adjournment; I am thinking of hiring an attorney, no matter the cost, as long as he can give me another three months here which I think is what I will need. Pro Se isn't all it's cracked up to be. I think about getting married which, i admit, I ONLY think about when I'm in financial trouble. That is, indeed, another blog entry.
I say goodbye to all, wish them good luck and swish through the department's double doors like Loretta Young on her TV show. On my way downstairs, everyone headed for the street is cheery, even buoyant; the weather has finally turned and it is spring. I walk out into the warm air, still with a bit of briskness in it. I am oddly comfortable that moment in my own skin. Perhaps that is, after all, what home is. Isn't it?
Friday, May 1, 2009
I'm Not Waving, I'm Drowning
The poet Stevie Smith wrote a wonderful piece with a line about a figure far out in the ocean, who seems to be waving at friends on the beach but is, in fact, drowning.
That seems to be me.
I get up every day, get dressed, take Rocco (my dog) outside, go to work, do more work, and then do more work, then I come home, do more work, watch some tv, work during commercials, and collapse sometime around midnight on my bed. Oh yes, in there somewhere I take Rocco out one or two more times. And in my dreams, I work.
I usually smile and wave at people I see down the hall, across the street, in the buildings where I am selling property, at my office. But a distance is opening up, and something is creeping into my lungs like water, slowly stealing my ability to breathe......oh yes, it's the bank account draining! An all too familiar sound these days. A friend of mine calls this separation from life - this distance or asphyxia - like living under water. I am oiling my wetsuit as we speak.
Today, I lost my health insurance. I expected it - my fabulous company has been carrying me for many months. Now I am not sick, and I can replace my current mood meds with LOTS of activity and, hopefully, more sunlight than rain, but it's always a gamble. My home looks like a warehouse as I am running an ebay business out of it; my desk is chaotic; my dog has almost become un-housetrained as he feels my pain and anxiety so I usually come home to a welcome back dog mess. I have been served with a rent demand, but no lawsuit yet - my attorney says it's imminent. And none of my listings are selling or renting. But lots of people are smiling at me. Or waving.
What's a girl to do?
Tomorrow I am taking a mental health day. No work, no real estate, a lot of dog (Rocco is wonderful), some art, some fun conversation, one great meal, and long long walks. I am going to take myself out of the medium that is drowning me and try to find new ways to breathe. So when you see me in the street, I may look a bit haggard, but it is me, and I assure you, the smile on my face is real. And I will NOT be drowning, but waving.
That seems to be me.
I get up every day, get dressed, take Rocco (my dog) outside, go to work, do more work, and then do more work, then I come home, do more work, watch some tv, work during commercials, and collapse sometime around midnight on my bed. Oh yes, in there somewhere I take Rocco out one or two more times. And in my dreams, I work.
I usually smile and wave at people I see down the hall, across the street, in the buildings where I am selling property, at my office. But a distance is opening up, and something is creeping into my lungs like water, slowly stealing my ability to breathe......oh yes, it's the bank account draining! An all too familiar sound these days. A friend of mine calls this separation from life - this distance or asphyxia - like living under water. I am oiling my wetsuit as we speak.
Today, I lost my health insurance. I expected it - my fabulous company has been carrying me for many months. Now I am not sick, and I can replace my current mood meds with LOTS of activity and, hopefully, more sunlight than rain, but it's always a gamble. My home looks like a warehouse as I am running an ebay business out of it; my desk is chaotic; my dog has almost become un-housetrained as he feels my pain and anxiety so I usually come home to a welcome back dog mess. I have been served with a rent demand, but no lawsuit yet - my attorney says it's imminent. And none of my listings are selling or renting. But lots of people are smiling at me. Or waving.
What's a girl to do?
Tomorrow I am taking a mental health day. No work, no real estate, a lot of dog (Rocco is wonderful), some art, some fun conversation, one great meal, and long long walks. I am going to take myself out of the medium that is drowning me and try to find new ways to breathe. So when you see me in the street, I may look a bit haggard, but it is me, and I assure you, the smile on my face is real. And I will NOT be drowning, but waving.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Bells from the Past: Old Boyfriends Chime In
By my age, everyone has something of a past. And parts of that past always stand out more than others.
For me, one remarkable moment was my last year of graduate school at Columbia, where my aspirations to become a famous poet were humming along. Let's say it's the late 70s, a kind of TAXI DRIVER ambiance pervades the city, bar after bar on the Upper West Side blinks its name and wares in aqua or pink neon lights, and one block from Dodge Hall was considered the ghetto, or Harlem as we now know it. I was studying with Nobel laureates, editing the school literary magazine, and thinking about my first book. For years I had lived with a very kind and sweet guy, then a law student - let's call him Jeremy. And all of a sudden my heart got taken hostage by another, very quickly one day at one of those bars, I looked at this man and knew my life was about to change forever. Let's call him Miles, like "miles to go before I sleep." He was, after all, a writer in my program and a good one at that. I fell in love, left Jeremy, stayed with Miles until we burned out, and eventually ended up with neither of them.
When my finances began their downward spiral this winter, it was these two men I thought of. Jeremy first, of course, because I thought he would easily be able to help me with a loan and would also be compassionate about my situation and likes to help people. Miles, well, because I still think about Miles a lot. Not every day, but at least once a week because it was with him that I had the best sex of my life. He was not as nice as Jeremy, he did not understand things as astutely as Jeremy, but he got right down into the muckiness and mess of our mutual chemical dependence on each other's physical selves. The dark side, the shadow, as Jung might call it, got full throttle with Miles. And I felt like I was slipping into a truly dark place that he would understand. With Jeremy, the sun was always shining and, if not, a replacement for it had to be found immediately. No shadows allowed.
So I emailed Jeremy and asked him to call me on my cell, I had a favor to ask. He did call me,more quickly than I anticipated, and we traded small talk and biographical details for about 15 minutes when I finally just said "if I do not ask you this right now, I never will." I told him I needed a $5,000 loan for six month.s The silence on the other end of the line was so thick I thought he had hung up. "Wow," he said when he collected himself, "wow." I felt the first tickle of impatience in my stomach. Then I am hearing about the children still in college, how people are not paying their bills (Jeremy is a defense attorney), and how he would have to ask his wife. Now the wife and I have a checquered history which is whole other story; but I knew the moment he said those words I was dead in the water, and waves of sadness rushed over me. "OK, sure," is what came out. And at that point, he pulled into his office parking lot and had to hang up the phone.
Miles, on the other hand, despite a less tactful and calculated approach to life, chose this moment to prove he really could be empathetic. "You will always have family as long as I am alive," he wrote, "and if I had the money, I'd give you thrice what you need." Of course, he has no money. Miles is a part-time professor and full time dad to a lately conceived 11 year old who has him busy deciphering the body language of parents at little league games, which mystifies him. The real world was never Miles' best suit; he had been able to write brilliantly subdued fiction and now his life did not allow him that, or so he perceived. We wrote back and forth via email, and the result is we truly are friends again and probably always were. He married the woman he originally dumped for me, and so he is kind of consistent. The one thing I saw about Miles that I had not seen when we could not keep our hands off each other was how tightly he was now holding onto his family. I used to think he was the opposite of Jeremy - one wild, one tame - but in this, they were equal and the same.
The only difference in this moment was that Jeremy -- having studied Jungian psychology in Switzerland, ever the referee and problem-solver among his friends and family -- couldn't really deal with my fortunes being on the skids. He didn't call me back for a week, and then instead wrote me an email saying he could not afford to loan me money for all the reasons he had stated previously but to keep in touch with him. I was and am not sure if he felt horror, anger, fear or any of the above. Let me just say one thing about Jeremy's wife - she is, was, and always has been very wealthy. The fact that she 'dated' him for two years in the car that took them back and forth between Manhattan and their Long Island law school (my car, in fact) doesn't even enter her head, and certainly not his, nor all the things Jeremy never disclosed at the time, wanting to play it safe until he watched me get enveloped by Miles, at which point all bets were off.
So where I thought I would be thanking Jeremy and forgiving Miles for some ridiculous response, it is the opposite. I thank Miles for the time he is taking to talk to me, to remind me of who I am, to tell me (not in so many words) that I will be OK. Jeremy, well, I lived with the guy for five years and I never for one moment felt taken for granted or simply ignored and now I do. For all the times I stepped on his soft spots, I am sorry; and I forgive him his inability to either tell me what he really thinks of all this or find a way to help me when I know if he wanted to, he could. Without Jeremy, I would never have grown up and accomplished all that I have done; he gave me language and tools to work through problems. Without Miles, I would never have grown into myself as a woman. And although I am poverty-stricken, I have riches aplenty from moving through interesting life cycles, two of which, these guys, have made it all the more worthwhile, all the light and shadow, for better and for worse.
For me, one remarkable moment was my last year of graduate school at Columbia, where my aspirations to become a famous poet were humming along. Let's say it's the late 70s, a kind of TAXI DRIVER ambiance pervades the city, bar after bar on the Upper West Side blinks its name and wares in aqua or pink neon lights, and one block from Dodge Hall was considered the ghetto, or Harlem as we now know it. I was studying with Nobel laureates, editing the school literary magazine, and thinking about my first book. For years I had lived with a very kind and sweet guy, then a law student - let's call him Jeremy. And all of a sudden my heart got taken hostage by another, very quickly one day at one of those bars, I looked at this man and knew my life was about to change forever. Let's call him Miles, like "miles to go before I sleep." He was, after all, a writer in my program and a good one at that. I fell in love, left Jeremy, stayed with Miles until we burned out, and eventually ended up with neither of them.
When my finances began their downward spiral this winter, it was these two men I thought of. Jeremy first, of course, because I thought he would easily be able to help me with a loan and would also be compassionate about my situation and likes to help people. Miles, well, because I still think about Miles a lot. Not every day, but at least once a week because it was with him that I had the best sex of my life. He was not as nice as Jeremy, he did not understand things as astutely as Jeremy, but he got right down into the muckiness and mess of our mutual chemical dependence on each other's physical selves. The dark side, the shadow, as Jung might call it, got full throttle with Miles. And I felt like I was slipping into a truly dark place that he would understand. With Jeremy, the sun was always shining and, if not, a replacement for it had to be found immediately. No shadows allowed.
So I emailed Jeremy and asked him to call me on my cell, I had a favor to ask. He did call me,more quickly than I anticipated, and we traded small talk and biographical details for about 15 minutes when I finally just said "if I do not ask you this right now, I never will." I told him I needed a $5,000 loan for six month.s The silence on the other end of the line was so thick I thought he had hung up. "Wow," he said when he collected himself, "wow." I felt the first tickle of impatience in my stomach. Then I am hearing about the children still in college, how people are not paying their bills (Jeremy is a defense attorney), and how he would have to ask his wife. Now the wife and I have a checquered history which is whole other story; but I knew the moment he said those words I was dead in the water, and waves of sadness rushed over me. "OK, sure," is what came out. And at that point, he pulled into his office parking lot and had to hang up the phone.
Miles, on the other hand, despite a less tactful and calculated approach to life, chose this moment to prove he really could be empathetic. "You will always have family as long as I am alive," he wrote, "and if I had the money, I'd give you thrice what you need." Of course, he has no money. Miles is a part-time professor and full time dad to a lately conceived 11 year old who has him busy deciphering the body language of parents at little league games, which mystifies him. The real world was never Miles' best suit; he had been able to write brilliantly subdued fiction and now his life did not allow him that, or so he perceived. We wrote back and forth via email, and the result is we truly are friends again and probably always were. He married the woman he originally dumped for me, and so he is kind of consistent. The one thing I saw about Miles that I had not seen when we could not keep our hands off each other was how tightly he was now holding onto his family. I used to think he was the opposite of Jeremy - one wild, one tame - but in this, they were equal and the same.
The only difference in this moment was that Jeremy -- having studied Jungian psychology in Switzerland, ever the referee and problem-solver among his friends and family -- couldn't really deal with my fortunes being on the skids. He didn't call me back for a week, and then instead wrote me an email saying he could not afford to loan me money for all the reasons he had stated previously but to keep in touch with him. I was and am not sure if he felt horror, anger, fear or any of the above. Let me just say one thing about Jeremy's wife - she is, was, and always has been very wealthy. The fact that she 'dated' him for two years in the car that took them back and forth between Manhattan and their Long Island law school (my car, in fact) doesn't even enter her head, and certainly not his, nor all the things Jeremy never disclosed at the time, wanting to play it safe until he watched me get enveloped by Miles, at which point all bets were off.
So where I thought I would be thanking Jeremy and forgiving Miles for some ridiculous response, it is the opposite. I thank Miles for the time he is taking to talk to me, to remind me of who I am, to tell me (not in so many words) that I will be OK. Jeremy, well, I lived with the guy for five years and I never for one moment felt taken for granted or simply ignored and now I do. For all the times I stepped on his soft spots, I am sorry; and I forgive him his inability to either tell me what he really thinks of all this or find a way to help me when I know if he wanted to, he could. Without Jeremy, I would never have grown up and accomplished all that I have done; he gave me language and tools to work through problems. Without Miles, I would never have grown into myself as a woman. And although I am poverty-stricken, I have riches aplenty from moving through interesting life cycles, two of which, these guys, have made it all the more worthwhile, all the light and shadow, for better and for worse.
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