Of Vivid Dreams and Ridiculousness

I am at a party. The monstrous house is full of people, drinking and laughing, all seemingly enjoying the festive atmosphere. I make my way into the living room and I spot my mom in the corner. She is surrounded by a group a women with a very “ladies who lunch” look to them; gold buttoned pantsuits, perfectly coiffed hair, pastels. The room is getting more and more packed. I look around for the bar, feeling intensely thirsty all of the sudden.

As my eyes dart around I begin to see that everyone in the room looks a bit like Hillary Clinton. No, they look exactly like Hillary Clinton. It’s as if Hillary’s face has been supplanted on every person in the room. Were they all like this when I walked in?

I glance back at my mom. Now, she too looks like Hillary. What happened to her face?  She sees me and starts waving me over. The room is getting thick with Hillarys and I’m having trouble getting over to my mom. I’m becoming fearful, not of the Hillarys—for I know they would never hurt me and only want to cradle me in a warm, Democratic embrace—but that my mom’s face may not go back to the way it was. Above the crowd I hear her yell to me, “Honey, honey, come show us your face.” A rush of hot panic hits me. I raise my hand to my face. It feels fine. I glance in a nearby window. To my horror, I see Hillary staring back at me. I touch my face again. It’s not a mask, it’s flesh. What’s happening? I look back at my mom. She’s still waving to me with a huge smile on her alien Hillary visage. I have to get out of here.

Outside, the cool air feels good on my face. My face. I think about going back in for my mom, but as I turn back to the house, the Hillarys are crowded in the window, watching me. There are hundreds of them now. I start running. I’m making my way through a vast clearing and into the woods. I’m running so fast that the trees are flying by me as if I’m in a speeding car. But there’s no one chasing me. The trees are so tall that the night sky is almost entirely blocked out. I want to touch my face, but I keep running.

I come to the top of a hill and I stop. Daylight is breaking. Down below in the valley I see a platform next to a single train track in the grass. I run towards it. It’s farther away than it appears. A train is coming. I have to get on it. I run faster. The train pulls in and stops just as I approach the platform. I look up and see my Dad. Thank god. I throw my arms around him. He is happy to see me, but somehow not surprised that we are meeting on a random train platform in the middle of the woods that I have been feverously racing to get to and I may or may not look like Hillary Clinton. I try to catch my breath.

“We’ve got to go,” he says to me.

Looking down, I see I’m not wearing any shoes. “But, I forgot my flips,” I say.

Pulling away from our hug, he puts his hand on my shoulder and whispers, “Perhaps you should have been more prepared, honey.”

Trapped in an Elevator, Again.

Among life’s many thrilling experiences, getting stuck in an elevator is somewhere in my top ten. It ranks slightly below a good bout of food poisoning and just above more commonly enjoyed events like burning the hell out of my mouth and having my nose hairs freeze up.

Yes, I am living quite an amazing life.

Of all of life’s experiences though, being stuck in an elevator offers the uniquely ridiculous combination of total surprise and life threatening reality that few non-violent events can achieve. It happens quietly, but suddenly. You step into the box, the doors close, life is in peril, you’re screwed. Perhaps you get stuck right away, or maybe you started to ascend and now you’re dangling somewhere between the ground and the top floor (ah, these metaphors for life just keep coming). Whatever you were doing when you walked in, whatever you were thinking about, all of it is stopped short.

Actual elevator of entrapment.

Actual elevator of entrapment.

While getting trapped in an elevator is in no way an event singular to New York City, it sure feels like it. With roughly 75,000 elevators in the NYC metropolitan area, the city is literally full of elevators. So, odds are you’re on an elevator more than you would prefer. The majority of the city’s elevators are in small office buildings and residential addresses where technology is not paramount, nor is any real upkeep beyond the requisite repairs mandated by the city’s inspections every few years.

I have been stuck in an elevator in NYC multiple times, the most recent of which is evidenced by the stunning photograph above—I know, it’s riveting. I have been trapped in both large, corporate office building elevators where a team of people was dispatched to free me from the confines of the metal box and random, nameless buildings where the shabby condition of the elevator probably should have tipped me off, and where I may never have been discovered. In both scenarios freedom was neither swift nor easy. And I like my freedom like I like my men, swift and easy.

The thought process you have while realizing that, much like R. Kelly who was “trapped in the closet,” you are, in fact, trapped in an elevator goes something like this:

  1. Fuck.
  2. Maybe it’s not stuck.
  3. … It’s stuck.
  4. Fuck.
  5. Where’s the call button?
  6. Should I push the alarm button?
  7. Is anyone even there?
  8. “Yes, hello… Hello?”
  9. “Can you hear me?”
  10. My location? I’m trapped in the goddamn elevator.
  11. You stay calm.
  12. “Okay, I’m staying calm.”
  13. And my phone has no reception.
  14. Unfuckingbelievable.
  15. I guess I’ll sit down.
  16. I wish I had a water.
  17. Thank god I’m alone in here./Thank god I’m not alone in here.
  18. Oh god, I’m all alone in here./Oh god, who the hell are these people?
  19. I have to pee.
  20. Where are these guys?
  21. It’s hot in here.
  22. Am I stuck on a floor or in between floors?
  23. Maybe I could shimmy out of the top latch?
  24. Yeah, okay, MacGyver. Way to get impaled.
  25. Fuck.
  26. What if no one comes?
  27. No one knows where I am.
  28. No one even knows I’m in here.
  29. I could be in here for days.
  30. If there was a nuclear war right now, no one would ever find me.
  31. I could die in here.
  32. Okay, stop being so paranoid.
  33. I wish I had someone to talk to./I wish this guy would shut up.
  34. Seriously, where are these guys?
  35. Thank god I’m not claustrophobic.
  36. I’m feeling a little claustrophobic.
  37. Okay, stay calm.
  38. Deep breaths.
  39. I am zen.
  40. I am zen.
  41. Maybe some music.
  42. No… save the battery. 
  43. Fuck.
  44. I never ate lunch.
  45. I read you can survive on Chapstick.

Each time I was trapped I told myself I would be more cautious in the future, remain on the look out for a questionnable car, and avoid using an elevator altogether when I could. But as the sting of my forced confinement eventually wore off and the elevator went back to being the necessary norm it is, I let my guard down. 

The few times I have been stuck, I’ve been lucky that I was alone or with only one other person. My nightmare (jinxing myself right now for sure) would be a crammed elevator where there is no room to sit down, the collective body temperature makes for sweaty confines and some self-nominated bright light starts coming up with ideas on how best to free ourselves. No thank you. I would also never want to be stuck in an elevator at a tourist attraction. The St. Louis arch comes to mind as the worst possible elevator to be stuck in; no windows, about three square feet of space and the all the charm of a port-o-potty. Death by electric toilet.*

So, the next time I get trapped in an elevator, I will do well to remind myself that, in addition to the creature comforts I’ll be enjoying during my time in there, no one knows where I am, no one knows who I am, and I could be stuck for days without food, water or a lifeline to the outside world before anyone even realizes I’m missing. That heartwarming message should help to pass the time in between cursing my phone and renditions of Destiny’s Child hits.

There’s nothing so ridiculous as the doomsday scenario-ist within, especially when stuck in an elevator with no music.

*Going atop my list of potential band names.

Plant a New Seed

I’m taking it literally this year.

I’m taking it literally this year.

The end of another year always brings the usual litany of year-end wrap ups, lengthy year’s “best” lists and endless reels of clips showing the year’s highlights, as if we have already forgotten what happened three months ago. For some, it can bring closure to a project or a fourth quarter they’re happy to be done with. For others, the end of a year can mean saying goodbye to a productive period of time or formally moving on to the next chapter. Whatever the year’s end signifies, it brings with it one thing above all else, the promise of a new year.

A new year. The year. The year when it all finally happens, when you do it, achieve it, receive it; a year that holds the possibility of being just one big fucking great year.

In preparation for this upcoming, epic year of life, many of us will begin to prepare ourselves. We’ll shake off the past twelve months, and take stock of where we are and where we wanted to be just one short year ago. We will cleanse our minds of what didn’t happen and wipe the life slate clean, preparing to take in the new, hopeful energy that comes with the year’s renewal. Yoga, juice cleanses, martinis, our methodology for slate cleaning is as varied as our life experiences.  

And why not feel the positive energy? This year you’ll celebrate another birthday, another anniversary; have another visit with your brother and your beloved pet pigeon. You’ll get to see your dentist, plumber, gynecologist (insert joke about plumbing and gynecology here), mailman, maybe even get to go on another glorious trip to the DMV. You will go back to that place you love, listen to your favorite Foreigner song once more; hear that one about the priest, the rabbi and the stripper, and laugh harder than you did the first time. This year, you will have an opportunity to do it all again, an opportunity to truly win one for number one.

Resolutions will be made, as they often are in the spirit of renewal. Making a resolution allows us a chance to verbalize a goal, a desire, a need for behavior modification, and attempt to attain it. Some stick with these resolutions, basking in the semi-irritating glow of a goal achieved come December; some slack off on the resolutions, moving on to other necessities by mid-February. There’s no shame in that, you went with the infectious spirit of the season and tried something. Don’t be too hard on yourself in eleven months, there’s always next year to finally stop smoking Phillies Blunts.

So, as you take in the flurry of year-end enthusiasm, remember that it doesn’t have to be the end of a year to make a change. Planting the seeds of positivity and possibility can happen year round, just like being ridiculous. I give you permission to wipe your slate clean anytime you need.

Incidentally, vodka is great for cleaning.

Halloween is for lovers.

Halloween is for lovers, lovers of every possible walk of life and character imaginable. The dead guy, the zombie, Bride of Frankenstein, Oprah, Lizzie Borden, the gang of kids bludgeoned in the face, the headless horseman; cheerleaders, nerds, Barbra Walters, mimes, Richard Nixon, fairy princesses, Kim Jong Un, Robocop, M&Ms, Helen Keller, RuPaul, a banana split; a donkey, an emu, Ghandhi, Jesus Christ, Eraserhead, Mr. T, the guys from Erasure (okay, not really); the blank check, the chef, Michael Jackson, Liza Minelli, Cher, The Warriors, Mother Teresa, hot dogs, The Hoff and—dare I say—a witch. Halloween is for all of them.

And so today, dear lovers, embrace that which you love and hold tight to the spirit of enthusiastic freedom that lets you, me and everyone out there paste a bloody, puss-filled gash across our faces and hit the streets. Go forth and be ridiculous.