Not Mold but Mildew

Whenever something “goes wrong” for me in New York I have to remind myself that I did not move here because this is a good place to live but because it has enough people with expendable income to pay me to tell jokes.

Last Tuesday I returned from a 3 week honeymoon/vacation in the Carribean. Weeks before I left I was already dreading the return. I was going to places that were sunny clean and compared to NYC stress free. I would be eating food that was fresh and delicious instead of pretentious, concept and PR driven - food that did not need to be accompanied by a celebrity sighting or an article by someone with dubious kitchen experience but with an axe to grind against anyone who dared to open a restaurant. For 21 plus days I would be spared the gory details of the celebutante set and would not have to take spotty dignity-usurping public transportation or see dirty starving “artists” or see the word tastemaker. When it rained I would not have to worry that the next puddle I stepped in might be a dangerous mix of city waste and DNA. I was unlikely to encounter the basic “why do I have to have this shitty job” aggression and petty hipster faux underclass angst that is sadly a part of New York life. I knew that even after just a fortnight I would be spoiled making my return to Gotham seem like a prison sentence the moment I set foot in that excuse of a transport hub called JFK.

I spent a great part of my last week away trying to think happy thoughts about the city. Still high on The Four Hour Work Week, given to me by the one person I know who has a chance to implement its strategies, I mentally made lists of how I would simplify my life when I got back in order to achieve my goals of being a fulltime entertainer and a achieve world domination or at least a fat market share. If I just kept that in mind I would be fine I thought. Stay positive, visualize… all that quasi/pseudo psych crap.

Then I smelled the mold. Actually the managing agent told me it was mildew as mold doesn’t smell. Phew! Well now I feel better.

Sometime while G and I were sunning ourselves on one of the Riviera Maya’s most self conscious beaches amidst the preening blue eyed light skinned Mexican nouveau riche (I’m guessing they were not the descendants of the Maya who culture is so aggressively used for marketing purposes but those of the conquistadors whom they pretend to vilify) pools of water were making their way from an overflowing tub a floor above us through our ceiling and then to our floor in an attempt to reach the basement. Welcome home.

The roaches love it!

This is not the first time this has happened to me in New York, but this I own the mildewed damp and rotting apartment. And it is also the first time that the apartment is my place of work.

If only it would stop raining.