No Escape

This cracked me up. My friend Sean, who inks comics, got me on his Washington Post front page yesterday.



Let's take a closer look.



What is happening here is that his newspaper account is linking to his Facebook Friends list and putting up a random story. My random story.

Funny and spooky all at once. Especially because I am sure I've locked down all that stuff about using me in social networking ads. My privacy settings are super-high too, but since Sean is on my A-list, he gets to see it all. Facebook is pervasive, the octopus with a hundred million tentacles, whose prime directive is to find a way to monetize its massive membership base.

And the Washington Post? They don't know I'm alive. But for a split second, it felt like they did.

Looming Threat

I don't own a home at the moment, in JC, NYC, or anywhere else. I got out in the nick of time thanks to some spendy neighbors (the down side of condo owning is other people get to outvote you on how you spend your money). That's because I've been 1) too busy to look for a new place 2) too comfortable where I live 3) too lazy to seriously hunt down an investment property (possibly a foreclosure) and 4) worried that the "other shoe will drop" on property taxes.

The JC council has recently cast a resounding boom as that other shoe crashed down. And I am watching carefully as their actions will directly affect whether I buy here, continue as-is, or head back to Manhattan. Or (gasp) even Brooklyn or Astoria.

They will revalue properties citywide.

What does that mean?

It means that the economy has crashed, state budgets have been gutted, and local budgets are anemic. And the money has to come from somewhere. And I cannot deny that I benefited greatly from the last revaluation having been in the prehistoric era of 1988. My last condo had taxes of something like a dollar and a carton of orange juice a month. I was lucky to get out of that before it was reassessed after some capital improvements went on record.

So what's going to happen after properties are all revalued at today's market value?

Some people will likely come out ahead. If their properties are valued at 2005 levels, their taxes might go down. Some people will see no change, including those with abated properties. For some, rates will skyrocket and that's gonna hurt. I expect it will be passed on to renters, at which point a lot of folks (maybe me) will head back to the City since there will not be any financial benefit to being here.

Then there's the old-timers and the people barely making it.

In 1988, I clearly remember things getting really really bad. I didn't understand it at the time. What I understood was that my landlady was freaking out and eventually was foreclosed on. And I remember For Sale signs across what seemed like half the city.

And property then became VERY VERY cheap. If the Other Marie and I had understood what we were doing, we'd probably have bought the 3-family brick house on Mercer Street that we lived in for a mere $170,000. (Though it all worked out as we both went and bought cheap on Avenue B and learned pretty quickly what we were doing.) This is when I learned that this nonsense about "real estate never goes down" was a sign that someone was either very foolish or trying to snow you into buying something at an inflated price. Real estate goes down. And up. And all over the damn place.

I'm too tired to chase real estate seriously at the moment, so it doesn't really affect my actions all that much. But real estate can also be a spectator sport, so I am watching closely to see if history repeats itself or not.

And What Now?

Some interesting day job stuff has happened over the past few days. I don't really know what it means in the bigger picture, if it means anything at all.

But take a look if you're interested, here at the 5:40 mark. The video is funny, because the Prez kind of giggles and lights up when he starts talking about comic books. Nerd-in-chief! Love it.

And look here for a summary of events (though it names a 2007 comic as "recent"). Some of the comments... well, let's just say that I was losing interest in having a job but clearly, my work has just begun. Gone backwards, even. Gah.

And She's Off!

To work, I mean.

That's it... I'm goin' in. The blotchy thing is still plenty visible but it's a sort-of acceptable blotch. I'm going to smother it in flesh-colored make-up, put on my burqa, and go to the office.

Ash Monday

Purple thing update: It's still there, but more reddish now, with just a purple spot in the middle. I tried covering it in make-up but that didn't do much, so I'm working from home.

I did finally leave the house. Just to go to the deli. The day is rainy and gloomy, but as it turns out, umbrellas are even better cloaking-devices than sunglasses.

In spite of having months to prepare for staying home for days, I didn't. So I've been snacking on orzo with all-the-veggies-I-had and grilled cheese. Not at the same time.

After two-and-a-half day's of orzo, today's deli sandwich is heavenly.

A Little Less Purple Every Day

Today's hideous purple-spot update:

Still hideous. But turning red around the perimeter, with the dense thick purple now just a small blotch in the center. When it all turns red, the lasered blood vessel will still be hideous but I think make-up might render the spot ready for the public at that point.

Meanwhile, on another topic... I found this in an advice column in Time Out New York. The writer meant it in terms of relationships, but this advice applies to everything. In my case, he is aptly explaining exactly why I decided to stay home for a while.

"...the desire to continuously chase something new prohibits you from fully committing yourself to the situation you're currently in... you just have to make sure that you aren't making choices out of fear and mere habit."

Day After

Wow, that is one nasty purple bruise between my eyes.

The laser felt really strange. My eyes were covered (Doctor, casually: "I'm putting this over your eyes because the laser is toxic to eyes." Me: "WHA--?"), and there was a flash and a puff of air.

"Beautiful. You responded perfectly."

I was filled with pride, though I have no idea what responding perfectly means. The doctor stuck an ice pack on my face for ten minutes, told me to stay out of the sun (I agreed to go to the 6 train and not go above ground again until I switched to a taxi at Grove Street), and had me put on my sunglasses. Not for my eyes, but to hide the giant purple splotch that had appeared instantly where the laser had zapped the blood vessel.

I stared at my New Yorker through my sunglasses on the train. I couldn't really read but I didn't want to meet anyone's eyes. I didn't want anyone to look at me, to see the bruise.

There was no danger of the taxi driver actually looking at me (he was on the phone, of course), and I ran up the stairs to my building without encountering any neighbors. I went straight to the mirror. Eek.

I wish I'd stocked up on more food. I'm not going anywhere for a few days.

Maybe It'll Just Go Away On Its Own

So I have this zit to tell you about.

Which probably isn't the way that you thought I'd start my day on the morning-after occasion of my 44th birthday, a day when normally I'd be wallowing and bemoaning the state of my so-called life, which is currently full of mind-numbing repetitive items on lists. I shuffle from office to errand to school to bed, and sometimes I eat and stuff. If I weren't invisible, you'd see that my eyes are glassy and I no longer blink. Wow, is there anything more thrilling that settling down?

Well, yeah, there's a zit. That's a thrill a minute.

Sometime last summer, I noticed a red zit in between my eyes. Not a massive horrid one, but a noticeable large red spot.

And that was all. I noticed it. I forgot about it. The end.

Except it wasn't the end. I'd notice it every few weeks and sometime in the middle of fall, I realized it had been there for many months and that no amount of poking it or rubbing anything into it had any effect on this "zit."

More months went by. No change.

Eventually, I started to get a little worried. What kind of zit hangs around for almost a year? Why wouldn't it go away? Was there an unknown danger in having a big red zit between the eyes for months on end? What does skin cancer look like?

And so it went.

Finally, about eight months after I'd first noticed it, I looked up a dermatologist on my health insurance plan and went over.

She was young and efficient and still seemed interested, unlike one of those doctors that just appears overworked and tired, almost eye-rolling when you describe a minor ailment.

"The reason it hasn't gone away is that it isn't a zit. But it's not toxic. It's a broken blood vessel. They just happen sometimes."

"Will it go away?"

"No."

Shit.

"Can you make it go away?"

"Yes, with a laser. But you will have a bruise there, on you face, between the eyes, for about a week. And your insurance doesn't cover it."

Oh hell.

"Make it go away."

I put the appointment off for a few months but today is the day. I get a big bruise between the eyes for my birthday.

This isn't a good weekend to meet for brunch.

On the plus side, I have to do my Flash final anyway. This will keep me in the house.

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day hits the big 4-0 today, but gets no sympathy from me for its whining. I've got four years on it and that gap never seems to shrink.

Here are today's photos, not in honor of Earth Day at all.




This bag is on its way to the UK to a new home with Sally.

And here... this photo is something I stumbled over while searching for illustrations for my Flash project (you'll see it soon).

I cannot believe how blond my hair got by the end of MariesWorldTour. I kept going in for color in different countries, and people had to keep lightening it to make up for earlier mistakes... and it got lighter and lighter until this happened by the end of the year.

Tuesday Link

Here's a link to a fascinating and well-written story about a young woman who went abroad to Jordan for a year, was almost immediately assaulted by a taxi driver, and proceeded to stay in the country, learn that it was a freak thing not at all common in Jordan, and yet throughout, she doesn't let society off the hook for its attitude towards women. A nuanced approach from a young, intelligent woman, I think.

Here I am not being nuanced like her for a minute: Taxi drivers frequently are my nemesis. Nemesises. Nemisii. You know what I mean. I do the whole "stare-out-the-window-and-bolt-at-the-first-suspicious-comment" thing. And yet many taxi drivers have helped me, too...