My high school class reunion has a mission statement: “As a group, focusing our efforts on providing a fun, relaxed, non-intimidating/non-judgmental evening for all that attend. Giving every classmate a reason for attending all class reunions, present and future. Alleviating fears of being judged by past or present actions, economic or social status.” I guess that means that mentioning the planners' inability to write in complete sentences is out. Yes, folks, surprisingly, I'm attending, meaning you'll want to check back here shortly after September 22!

Today's project was to swab the basement, but a look around the house reveals that although I moved here six months ago, I have no floor-cleaning products. I need to take a look at myself.

Ignore my last post. Thousands are out of power here, hundreds of people in New Jersey had to be evacuated, the murders at Virginia Tec, and now I'm watching "United 93" . . . I have no problems.

Greetings from Lake Janet. Here in New York, we just had the second highest rainfall recorded, and the lower level of my apartment was flooded all day. My friend John came over and we valiantly mopped up 40 or 50 gallons of water, but it was seeping in from the walls, so we were basically trying to mop up Brooklyn. (John said the water was so deep on the streets downtown that when the bus door opened, water came in.) Fortunately, I don't trust basements (don't look at me that way, basement, you know you're an abuser!) so I only lost a few books and pictures which shouldn't have been on the floor. Still. When we finally gave up and ordered a pizza, a potentially much more life threatening situation presented itself--the TV kept turning itself on and off. Sounds crazy, but it did. Whatever breaker was being tripped finally calmed down in time for "The Amazing [but not last night] Race". My only hope that some good will come of this is the sight of several giant drowned centipedes--hopefully, their life cycle was disturbed. Now it's back to working on my taxes. The deadline's coming up, right?

As I was waiting for a bus in downtown Brooklyn, two people walked by. He was saying, "One minute, he's screaming at you, ten minutes later, he's cool. That's bipolar." She: "M-hmmm." He: "Plus, he's got the paranoia. He thinks people are talking about him."

What cracks me up about the controversy over the movie "The 300" is that Iranians think Americans know that their country used to be Persia.

Are there no homosexuals (or girls with tattoes and hair mascara) styling hair in Park Slope? I've had a straight man and now an older woman who seemed to be Greek (but she said "wary" instead of "very" so I suspect there's a story there) and they just don't get it.

Here's what I don't want when I go to a salon:
When I ask for foil highlights and a cut, don't ask me what time tomorrow I'd like to come.
John Legend and Phillip Bailey.
Silence.
Thirst.
Here's what I do want:
An offer of an inconvenient appointment time two weeks away.
Kelly Clarkson and Fergie.
Chit-chat about reality shows and who did what at the bar last night.
A compliment on my eyes or skin.
Suggest doing something really bizarre with my hair "next time".
Offer me something to drink.

That's it. Next time, I'm going to Manhattan.

On with the show . . . I went to two plays in two new parts of town this week. Seven-11 was seven eleven minute plays all taking place at convenience stores. It skewed a little young for me, but was in the Henry Street Resettlement Center, which was lower and more easterly in the LES than I've ever been before. It was actually a little hard to find because the street signs have been replaced by people's names, famous immigrants, I guess, or immigrant-helpers. It reminded me of my brother trying to find his way around Kuwait City after the Gulf War when all the street signs had been removed to confound the Iraqis. (More trivia: they played golf with orange balls on the sand. My brother and his clients, not the Republican Guard.)

Last night, it was Genet's The Balcony at the Medicine Show, which is in Clinton. (For some reason, it makes me feel too far from home when I'm in Midtown and can see New Jersey.) The play was funny, but overly complicated by about six thousand props, which kept falling all over the place. Several people walked out, presumably because they didn't know anything about Genet and didn't know "the balcony" is a whorehouse. It's probably the "Citizen Kane" of whorehouse comedies, really.

This license plate was on a dump truck I saw whenI made my first trip to the TKTS booth at South Seaport. I enjoyed one of my first hearty laughs after the stress of moving here.

So, some weeks, not much happens. I read a biography of Jerzy Kosinski, my favorite writer when I was in grad school. I really enjoyed it because I'd actually read all the books.

I also read the worst book I can remember--Flowers in the Attic. You all know this book--if you grew up in the 80's, you had to read about the Dollenganger kids. Since I see it referred to so often, I thought I had to read it, and let me spare you the experience. It reads as if it was written by an English teenager: hypercorrect grammer, overexplained inner states, and multiple duplicate redundant repitition. But that ain't why the kids read it--after being shut in the attic for a few years, the Dollenganger teens get it on. And the son slits his wrist to feed the young twin kids and the mom tries to kill the kids with powedered doughnuts. Apparently there are four more volumes of this saga, which I assume will include such adventures as bestiality and poop-eating. You crazy kids, get back to work!

Wednesday, Andy invited me to a screening of "The Hoax" which is okay but hobbled by bad wigs and anachronisms. In one scene, Richard Nixon was supposedly lauding the newly-elected Governor Bush of Texas, which elicited the expected boos from the audience. W wasn't the gov until 1995. Also, in a Vietnam protest scene that looked like it was shot in an alley, one neatly printed sign says "Bring Our GIs Home". We called 'em baby-killers back then, director Lasse Hallstrom.

I tried a new recipe out on my favorite guinea pig Friday, Nigella Lawson's Christmas Eve Ginger Prawns. I've seen the show a few times, so I noticed that the recipe on foodnetwork.com omitted hot pepper flakes. Boast, boast, boast. The shrimp were good, and I'll use the recipe again, but amp up the flavors even more.

I'll try to be more energetic this week. The weather's getting right for walking across the Brooklyn Bridge . . .