The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

Now that I’ve been living in my place for almost 18 months, I’ve developed a pleasant yet distant rapport with some of my neighbors.

Pleasant yet distant is how I like it. Let’s say hello and smile, and even make little comments about the ongoing mouse problem on the second and third floors (yikes!), but that’s enough. We all have our own lives. So of course I’m freaked out by both the overly friendly and the overtly bitchy.

Case in point: the guy across the hall. He moved in over the summer, replacing the distant-yet-pleasant, younger, cuter guy who lived there. The new guy is probably in his early 40s, and looked way too pleased to bump into me shortly after he moved in.

“Oh!” he said as though delighted to find a $10 in an old pair of pants. “Hi!” Now whenever we run into each other, he not only has to say hello, he has to stop dead in his tracks, make eye contact for way longer than he needs to, and not just say hello but ask what’s new, how I’m doing, how’s it going.

I guess he has a thing for me, or a thing for Asian women, as I witnessed him and a quite young-looking Asian ladyfriend leave his apartment one hot Sunday morning.

Yuck-o. Not for me.

On the other end of the spectrum, Friday I let in this woman, perhaps in her 40s, dishwater blond hair. The bitch didn’t even look at me, let alone thank me as I opened the door for her. I was so flabbergasted, I just stared at her. No eye contact, nothing. Unbelievable.

Why can’t everyone be like the nice Israeli couple on the second floor? The woman is semi-friendly while the guy always says hello but not in a gooey way, and plus he’s hot.

Or the older cowboy boot wearing gentleman who lives above me? True, sometimes I wish he wouldn’t wear those boots while walking back and forth over my head, but whenever I see him, he’s very polite but not creepy.

Or even my next door neighbor who has noisy and vigorous sex with his girlfriend whenever they’re home? I prefer not to hear the groans and grunts, especially at this date-less stage in the game, but they’re always nice when I run into them.

* * *

Speaking of date-less, I had a loser, no plans weekend. I mean, it wasn’t a total loss. I had a good run yesterday, and my apartment is spic and span. Also, I went to Chinatown to get some groceries and ended up running onto the tail end of some early Mid-Autumn Moon Festival activities.

And although I trashed MySpace, I gave in and made a profile. I needed one anyway to look at S.’s and my brother’s blogs, so I beefed up the empty one I had set up.

I’ve also done searches on people from the past. I thought I found a girl I was friends with back in elementary school, and was dismayed to discover that she is now a former drug addict living in Texas.

This was strange to me since the last time I talked to her, which was early in college, she was on her way to dental school. So I did a Google search, and I think the person on MySpace just has the same name and happens to be around the same age, and that my old friend is indeed a dentist either in Indiana or South Carolina, and not a crackwhore in the southwest.

Interesting what you can find on the web.

I’m in much better shape this week than I was last week. I had dinner with SB on Tuesday and was telling her how it’s like night and day.

But, let’s face it, having no date for the weekend is going to take some getting used to. I have the whole cleaning thing to do, as well as perhaps a trip to Chinatown and some fall shopping (it’s cold out today, brrr! and me with no jacket). And a couple of runs. This is how this week went so far:

Sunday: 4 miles
Monday: 4 miles
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 40 minutes on the elliptical trainer
Thursday: 5 miles (woohoo!)
Friday: hopefully a run after work

I wanted to go to the gym this afternoon, but a 2 to 3 meeting ran till 3:30 and the gym closes at 4:30. Not enough time for me.

I sort of feel like starting to write again. Blogging here has helped keep the writing muscles limber.

Last night YP had a stand-up gig in Williamsburg. Such a different population. Hipsters and whatnot. While on the inside I feel out of place, like I’m too old, on the surface I think I fit in more there than where I live.

I rarely get a second glance when I hang out around my area. A different experience in the bar in the BK, though some may argue Williamsburg is not truly BK. Either way, a boost for my self-esteem.

Was able to catch this week’s Project Runway yesterday. Like a sap, I actually got a tear when they found out all four were going to Olympus Fashion Week. They all seem to get along well, unlike last season with Santino and the others, and the first season with the horrible Wendy Pepper.

I’m not going to judge. It seems much too complicated for that. I mean, she did wait and wait for Luke, trying to be “good” and not get involved with April, which doesn’t make any sense. As the shrink said in last season’s finale episode, “Only you can make you wait.”

And that feeling that he wouldn’t fight for her must have been devastating. And if she hadn’t gone to Christopher, well then there’d be no drama, would there. There’d be no show.

I can’t get my head around that it’s still summer in Stars Hollow. I know by the magic of television that before we know it, we’ll be on the same time continuum, but for now it irks me.

Also, is it me or does Lorelai look heavier? I don’t mean she looks fat. Before she was model-thin and now she looks more like a normal person. I wonder if the actress is pregnant and they’ll work that into the storyline. D’oh! Christopher’s or Luke’s?

The racquetball scene was pretty hilarious. And more evidence that I’m a complete doork: when Kirk crashed into Luke’s diner, I totally gasped, like it really happened.

I just finished “What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?” by Annie Proulx, author of “Brokeback Mountain.” Ms. Proulx likes her some gay cowboys.

I’ve read Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” before, though I can’t remember where. It appeared in The New Yorker but I haven’t picked up that rag in ages. Maybe it was in a class.

I loved “Accomplice” by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, and not just cuz the author’s a sister. In fact, the story isn’t “Asian American” at all but focuses on an English teacher and her junior high students.

Of course all the stories are good: “Some Other, Better Otto” by Deborah Eisenberg, “The Tutor” by Nell Freudenberger (which made me cry for some reason), “Intervention” by Jill McCorkle. But one that really got to me was “Grace” by Paula Fox.

He had got Grace because he had begun to feel lonely in the evenings and on weekends since the end of his affair with kitty-kat girl, as he named her in memory. In his loneliness, he had beugn to brood over his past. He had been slothful all his life, too impatient to think through the consequences of his actions. He had permitted his thoughts to collapse into an indeterminate tangle when he should have grappled with them.

Excuse me while I pull this knife out of my heart.