‘The Butcher’ and the brawling marathon with Eman.

…This movie is what Eman and I have been brawling over for the past 4 days. Perhaps it was the mistake of calling my best mate past midnight and informing him for a straight half hour that I had just seen a movie with Eric Roberts and it was freakin incredible and that I would loose all respect for him if he wouldn’t watch it, as soon as possible, preferably the next day. So he did, and he called me at my job and while I was surrounded by most of my coworkers( none of us really exit the office unless its for the can) it began –the first major fight, on the phone and with everyone as a witness they heard me roaring and showering Eman with the worst of curses that now as I think about it were completely inappropriate for an office setting, especially while my boss was standing 3 feet away. I told him in the end to go stand in a corner or go watch Shutter Island and masturbate to that because he’s lost all perspective of things. Completely oblivious to the weird looks I was getting from my desk mate that could not make sense of what the hell I was yelling about especially when he kept hearing me repeat the words, butcher, you’re an ass, shootout, and masturbation I calmed down and tried to contemplate where the hell the enormous gulf between Emans brain and mine came from. So I decided that for once Staten Island was the source of what is now officially a marathon of debating of what constitutes a good movie and what not. You might think that now that I live again in Staten Island eating ritz cracker sandwiches and being forced into a suburban version of a Zen like state of mind that it somehow has skewed my vision and taste but no, it has not. I inform you now that I have devoted my self to movies that are like little gems, that even though they are not widely recognized they are in fact good not only for what they are but for their potential. You see in The Butcher a very unusual director and incredibly good acting and not only from Eric Roberts. This is not a freakin dreadful Lifetime movie, where being forced by my aunt to watch many of them, so many that I now officially have side effects the next morning, like a bad one night stand. This is a movie, and in a way it is perfect the way it is, take it as it is, please do not watch it and compare it to the standards of Shutter freakin Island cause it will make my ears bleed-I don’t care if it Scorsese-yes they are good but in a way it's expected, but here in the twilight zone of a city, what I wait for are small and unusual surprises, unexpected ones, something that made me think that perhaps one day there will be another movie that will blow me away in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. And that was it-no more movie comments, I need to go down a bottle of Pepto.

http://www.thebutcher-movie.com/

Oh Lord...

Oh Lord
I cant go in to work today....How will I ever survive without going in to work today?

The Metamorphosis

The first day I walked into the office I now work in I remember being a woman-I distinctly remember wearing a sexy black suit with high heels-make up-jewelry the whole freakin shebang. I was sweet as honey, when they addressed me I blushed, and I was so compliant to everything that I would make a Geisha look aggressive. Fast forward 4 years-4 years of sitting amongst 10 men and 3 women that might as well have been men and I find myself in the most peculiar state of being. I can now say that although I don’t remember when exactly it happened, I now know for sure that on a theoretical level at least, I have become a man. On the phone I yell and curse like a sailor when something goes wrong-When they make dirty jokes I not only understand the innuendos but I add some of my own. When a hot woman comes in I check out her weight first, then her outfit (if she’s not wearing a skirt the standards become automatically stricter) then her face –if its not that pretty I just ignore it and go for the body-and if she doesn’t have a hot body or a pretty face I ignore her existence. I do the same for men-I check them out-literally check them out- and I must have such a sleazy look on my face that my friend that sits next to me reprimands me on a regular basis. I found myself being nicer to the men that look good on a particular day and I don’t acknowledge anyone that’s less hot than the hottest guy of the day. I also scratch my belly-an odd looking belly that has the attributes of an amateur beer belly. Now when I stretch I don’t stretch my arms way over my head with my spine being nice and straight and my breasts all pointing forward like the Guns of Navarone-no- I stretch like a 40 year old sexless married man that’s been sleeping on a couch for the past decade-I lean back in my chair and kinda stretch my arms a bit backward-not too much out of fear of a potential muscle cramp- and make a noise-a freakin whale like noise-a whale that’s old and dying.

'This is me bending you over right now'

The day I heard my coworker utter the above words to some poor bastard that was probably having the shittiest of days, was the day I realized that if life had something to say to me it would probably be exactly that.....'This is me bending you over right now...'

....a small introduction to Dita

Over the past 4 years we work together, scream together and at each other, than cry, than hug and than go and get piss drunk together. In fact all of my hangovers aside from one are caused by Dita and Dita alone, which is an odd achievement on her part but deserves congratulations anyway. Her phenomenal ability to drink shots and only shots during the course of a night have left many with their mouth gaping open either by surprise or because they are puking. Actually now that I think of it at the end of a night like that, she reminds me of a general that looks at a battlefield that’s filled with so many casualties that it makes him wonder why the deities made him so strong while the others so weak. She is often referred to as the contradiction and this goes back to an incident involving her mother. One day as she was talking to me in her usual manner-a very quiet, soft and delicate way -her mother called and suddenly I see her picking up her phone getting angry and than unloading a sh*%storm of various curses and roars in Mandarin…People at work have often witnessed us fighting and the combination of her ninja temperament with my hysterical outbursts are a unique experience, so unique in fact that when we do fight our coworkers pay us their respect by remaining entirely silent and giving us their undivided attention. To their disappointment we make up immediately which has given both of us the reputation of being a bit psychotic.

Cheap Cologne and the Teenage Wasteland

Yesterday was a momentous day in my life as Dita, the Hound and I decided to go to Webster Hall, and for all of you who don’t know what Webster Hall is I am glad to inform you that it is indeed a night club as I found out yesterday. I don’t know how I could possibly screw up a grand entrance to a nightclub that’s crawling with 18 year old boys wearing cheap cologne, and teenage girls looking for ecstasy and along with that their bras and panties, but I managed to do exactly that as we were all going through the security check. My two friends waited for me quite patiently if one ignores the part of the hound rolling his eyes very often and very far back while screaming ‘ COME OOOOOOON’…… COOOOOME OOOOON…….Just pick a line ALREAAAAADY’. My plan of constantly switching lines in order for me to chose the quickest and most efficient way of going through a security check obviously was falling apart with my two friends and a swarm of teenage blood witnessing that failure. When all three of us finally went through the golden gates I discovered that there was yet another line for the coat check-and it was on this line that I discovered how original and inventive a teenage boy becomes when he hits on someone that could obviously take upon the role of his cougar. For an experience that I would otherwise consider to be an actual achievement (getting hit by someone 10 years younger that is) it left me quite confused. As the boy turned to me, we locked eyes and than he muttered the magical words ‘Hey, I like your coat’ to which I answered ‘thank you’ and than was just left staring into the blank space while the hound was hyperventilating from laughter which I think was caused by yet another failure of mine. Than after all that came the actual dancing, which Dita and I have got down to a science since from simply observing the dance floor we have realized that nowadays it consists of grinding, lots of it, back and forth, left to right consistently and adamantly. And there were boys more of them throughout the night, boys that have blown into pieces centuries of courtship rules, and have adapted the ‘less is more’ motto. They come, they grind, they leave or you leave or you have a friend like the hound observing our facial expressions in order to save us from young boys who would think of shaking our breast before they would shake our hand. And that was the night.

Dr. Katz's Guide to Prostate Health

...I just glanced over my coworkers desk....Now next to the hand shaped back scratcher lies this book to your left. After two years I've grown to love my coworker and the beautiful moments we share, such as me typing away on my computer while he pulls out the garbage can from under his desk in order to spit into it. Sadly we are moving to a new office and I no longer know for sure if we will continue to be desk mates, and all these beautiful moments, the back scratcher, the spitting, his shoes falling apart one fine day in the office, all these moments will become memories of a distant past and I will be but a mere nostalgic ex-desk mate

Dog Piss and Thomas Paine

I began walking in Staten Island. I was walking, going through desolate streets thinking about how beautiful it is to walk in industrial neighborhoods that are covered with snow, looking down at the foortprint’s other people had left before me, thinking of the poetry and metaphors involved in stepping in other peoples footprints and as I was reaching my destination and I looked down again at the snow my thoughts were interrupted by an unusually long trail of bright yellow dog piss. I looked up and realized that this was Staten Island and if there’s something poetic about this whole experience its probably gonna involve the dog piss and not the neighborhoods or the snow or footprints.
So I went back home and went straight upstairs to my uncles room and sat watching him smoke away and curse the president and board members of our townhouse community. Now whoever is reading this I want them to realize that I’ve been hearing about these problems with board members and presidents since July and I still have no idea what the real problem is, all I know is that these are my uncles mortal enemies and that this has also been an endless source of amusement for him. He looked up at me and while he was simultaneously coughing and smoking and eating grapes he said to me ‘I got a project for you and it involves writing a letter to these sons of bitches’. Now let me stop time for a second and describe what I felt at that moment, I felt like a Charles Bronson protégé on her first assignment to wipe out an entire neighborhood just because they annoyed the master. That made me feel good, I found it a better alternative to contemplating dog piss. So he gave me to read the Presidents letter. Let me say this, it was unfu*ckin believable (I don’t know what the point was to wiping out the letter u from that word but just go along with it). I read this guys letter and in an instant I recognized in him a soul mate, the missing link to my life here in Staten Island. This guy was a work of art, someone that really had an infinite amount of time on his hands. First off he started off his letter with a quote from Thomas Paine-whoooooo is Thomas Paine? Well one of the founding fathers of the United States Of America-whooooo was he addressing this letter to? The residents of a Staten Island townhouse community that were fighting about their roofs falling apart.... Than he proceeded to talk about slander and reputations and many other philosophically abstract ideas. So finally I had found a new meaning to that day of mine and I was determined not to disappoint the master.My reply to his letter was also a freakin work of art and this will be one of the few times I will take pride in my work.So this was my reply:


In response to ***********letter that is included in the January 2010 Management Report (page **-**)
What worries me in regards to these letters is that again the matter at hand is being avoided and another one is put forth to deflect attention away from what truly needs to be solved , and that is the real tangible problems this community is facing with its finances and its construction project. I have re-read Mr.******* concerns and although they are eloquently put they are, as a matter of fact, irrelevant to any of the concerns that the majority of the community members have. But since it would be rude not to respond to his concerns I will start by quoting Albert Einstein when he said: ‘The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.’
Dear Mr. ******, questions directed to you or the board members are not intended to slander you, or create false impressions and rumors. That would be a waste of time and energy and if I can assure you of one thing it is that there are not many people in this community that have either the time or the energy to squander towards creating preadolescent situations and environments. We are all hard working people and above all we are concerned people that hand you over our questions and concerns in hopes that we receive a reply. Now you must have confused the promise of a reply to our concerns with an actual reply to them. One is non existent and the other is still on its way, both of which do us no good at all. Now we are absolutely certain that Mr. ******* and all the board members are of impeccable integrity and character but what we are not sure of is if they understand the matter at hand. These questions are of a practical nature not a philosophical one, they concern money, dates etc. And we hope that there is as much practical sense among the board members as there is a tendency to expand on many great ideas such as what constitutes a rumor, a slander, a reply and a question. You are the president and that is a position that has many responsibilities the most important being that you look out for this community, and this community has members, human beings that actually have houses here and would love to have the opportunity to know as much as possible about their community and this unfortunately can happen only by posing questions, lots of them. It would be a shame to create an environment were questions are not only unwelcome but they are misrepresented as well. So yes we do still need answers to our questions-all of them, the practical ones that is. Best Regards,
*************

The Wall Street Job

…which basically amounts to paying bills, booking checks, looking at the guy sitting next to me scratch his back with a back scratcher that’s shaped like an actual hand, organizing files, cleaning the kitchen once in a while, sending out my resume on a daily basis for the past 4 years, calling my aunt on a weekly basis while I cry my eyes out and tell her what a sell out I’ve become, answering phone calls, telling Dell Financial services that I hope their building gets demolished after everyone has evacuated, threatening my coworker that I’ll cut his balls off if he ever backstabs me again and than finding out that he hasn’t backstabbed me, hoping I get promoted but knowing very well that I can’t even handle the workload as it is now.


So last night , thanks to the Hound, I talked to a complete stranger, apparently a coworker of his that had nothing better to do at that moment. As we were talking he informed me that he would gladly exchange jobs with me in a hypothetical situation

Norma : Really? You would? ... that’s so great…ok I’ll switch with you…but wait what do you do?

Complete Stranger: I’m in charge of all the videos for this t.v channel

Norma: What?! Really! That sounds incredible. You mean you get to approve what videos will be aired or not? Of course I would switch jobs with you!

Complete Stranger: … no… I mean that I’m in charge of putting them in the video slot and taking them out of the video slots….

Norma: …what? ...well… wow…I would still switch jobs with you…

Complete Stranger: Alright, what do you do?

Norma: I work in Wall Street…you know finance stuff….

Complete Stranger: ………………………………………………………yeah…I don’t think so

Norma: but it’s Wall Street

Complete Stranger:……………………………………………………you can do my taxes though

The Introduction-

After five years of absence and due to an infinitesimal mistake on my part that cost me my apartment, which I later found out to be tantamount to losing my self-rule, autonomy , independence, piece of mind, laziness, major responsibilities, my one and only favorite bad habit which was smoking, and basically everything that differentiated the 28 year old adult version of me from the 15 year old adolescent one, I have once again moved back into my Greek aunt’s and Irish uncle’s house in Staten Island. To be frank I am like those rare prisoners that after planning a great escape for more than three years and than actually accomplishing it, they are caught trying to break in back into prison after they feel that life has given them a nice slap or two across the face.

So I am here living with both of them now and have re-acquired the habit of praying each morning to whichever God is available at that moment for me not lose complete possession of my wits. The combination of the three of us is what the Holy Trinity would be if Ed Wood had conceived of it first and made it into a movie. I suppose this will not be a permanent situation and if I want to be completely honest returning to my aunts and uncles home (even if its temporary) is as close as I can get to crawling back into my mothers belly where I once must have felt entirely guarded from the interestingly vicious jokes God had in store for me.

My Aunt

She goes by the nicknames Napoleon or The Wolf depending on the situation. She is five feet tall and she has super powers that have humbled me more than once. She has the ability to nag me to death but she can also save me from any unpleasant situations that come up ( most of which I am responsible for creating). She inspires fear and respect to all my friends even though they are double her size in width and length. She allows me at times to argue with her but will make sure to have the last word even if that word will suddenly appear 6 months later. I love her and I know this because after we fight I usually call to tell her that, and than I proceed to recite to her a well practiced philosophical monologue on how many different ways she’s wrong to which she’ll listen to and pretend that I’m right. As of late she feels the need to share with me stories that she has either read in the newspaper or seen on the news and they usually entail a gruesome murder or suicide or if I’m lucky sometimes the combination of the two. This happens usually right before I go to bed or in the morning while I’m drinking my coffee and waking up to a new and magnificent day in Staten Island.

My Uncle

He has every heart and lung illness known to man, he is entirely bed ridden and he is also Irish. Which means that even if the doctors told him he had a year to live a decade ago he is absolutely resolute to prove that they are full of B.S. I look up to my uncle ever since the day he told me “Norma, quit whining and get over it”. I didn’t know at that time to what specifically he was referring to so I figured I would apply it to everything in my life. Every now and then when a bad situation comes my way and by combining wit and swiftness I handle it on my own, well its because of him that I can do it. He now switches between thanking me for bringing him his coffee or his bacon cheese sandwiches and letting me know that I need to get my behind out of the house again because frankly I’m too old to revert back to my teenage lifestyle again.


My Best Mate

He goes by the nickname Eman. I often tell him that I don’t remember once having to be there for him except for minor problems such as how to fry eggs or clean a potato in which case he gives his usual reply “Norma you have enough problems to cover the both of us”. He was the first to tell me about pornhub and redtube, he has let me cry on him continuously for more than an hour, wipe my snot on him and if I ever comment on a woman’s legs, breasts or behind its because of the unusually long hours we have spent together. I can receive from him either very wise advice or a report of how many successful runs he had to his bathroom on a given day, and all this information will come as unexpectedly as a hail storm in the middle of Sahara. We progressed from simply hanging out with each other to being roommates and than to being neighbors when we both decided that my clutter and I should move to the upstairs apartment that was available in our building at one time. He has been witnessing me switch from brilliant to idiotic and vica versa for the past eight years and knows by now that he will never witness anything that exists between those two extremes.

Second Best Mate

I'll call him the Hound. He is the mate that will call me in the afternoon at work while my brain is getting gang raped to tell me he just woke up. When he starts laughing it might seem to a mere beginner that he is hyperventilating -no- in fact he is just laughing. My best memory with the Hound is when he invited me to Carnegie Hall and we ended up with our faces being as close to their floor as possible with tears in our eyes-no we were not crying-yes we were laughing- and yes we did almost get kicked out. As of late we discuss our sexless lives then give each other advice that leads us to having an even more sexless life.

Me-aka Norma V.
By the age of 21 I had lived in three different countries, six cities and had gone to about seven to eight different schools and changed about a dozen apartments. I don’t know why but it was great-at least it feels like it now-well if you disregard the small side effect of me having absolutely no direction in life and my chronic inability to finish or accomplish anything I feel worthy of finishing or accomplishing. I have cultivated though an incredible ability to daydream for hours and sometimes I have had daydreams that continued on to the following day as well. I have actually daydreamed my way through entire lifetimes and various incredible accomplishments which has lead me to the conclusion that this is probably why I haven’t really succeeded in doing anything worthy with my career or personal life. I am the type of person that will barely understand and pass any math class till their last year of college and than will land an accounting job in Wall Street after graduation-well actually I am that person. Among my other accomplishments is writing an unpublished pilot episode for a porn soap opera, creating several flash fiction stories that involve some king of peculiar death, watching 13 straight hours of television on more than one occasion,being able to watch a Jewish rock love musical in Yiddish without gauging my own eyes out, understanding math one day after 23 years of complete ignorance, working as a cleaning lady when I had a reputation for being one of the most untidy people my friends had ever known and several other absurd triumphs that have lead me to nowhere in particular. I must also warn the readers that from time to time my thoughts and opinions and posts might appear be a bit seedy, and although I was debating of whether or not I should sensor that part of my personality I figured that it would do me good to be a bit honest in terms of that, especially since I am going by an alias. I have a side of me that might make you feel like you've just run into a oversexed trucker at some raunchy bar out in the middle of nowhere but I I'm also as delicate and reflective as.... well I might come up with a comparison later . And that’s about it, I really don’t know what this blog is about other than the wonderful, superb sporadic moments and thoughts that will be appearing now that I live in Staten Island again. Thanks to all.