RG,
You-suck factor is kinda cool.
This term I developed when we lived in Greenpoint. We rented a row house that was 25 feet wide. Had the basement and two floors. The house had just been remodeled and done really nicely.
The situation was that it was the wife’s mother’s house originally, and the next generation lived there. The family had three girls and the father was a NYPD cop.
There was a third floor and a friend of theirs rented the top floor. Bill was also a NYPD cop.
This was back before September 11th, and the housing market was going crazy. Of course finding a nice place to live in NYC is pretty hard to do. Many apartments have not been updated in mucho decades, and to find a nice place that was affordable was kind of a miracle.
So we had a house party to show off our new abode. We occupied two floors of 900 square feet each, plus a 900 foot basement, plus a backyard that we made into a intense garden.
My friend Tim, the idiot savant guitar player, said, “You live in a mansion.”
The second floor back in the day was the salon floor with tall ceilings, and the master bedroom was 20x35 feet, bigger than many people’s apartments. Figure 700 square feet for just a bedroom.
So we invited a large group of friends, who were beyond amazed on how we lived. When they asked about the rent, that’s when we got the dirty looks. Pretty much without saying, “You suck,” it was said through facial expression. Pure jealousy. LOL.
This happened repeatedly BTW with everyone.
To add insult we at this time were just “Maggie” and me. 1800 square feet of living space, a backyard and a basement for just us. The creature, Maggie’s daughter, was off in college. So for two people it was pretty much a palace.
Another story is I would jog home from Sloan-Kettering where I worked on 68th Street and York. There was this co-worker I worked with that was not only younger than me by about 15 years, but she kinda had a swimsuit body with a supersized bust along with slender arms and a tiny waist.
I would wear these convertible pants where the legs zipped off to become shorts, and because I sweat a lot I would run bare chested. Also know that part of me is an exhibitionist, so pretty much I’m a natural show off.
So Eva and I would jog home after work working our ways downtown along the Eastside, and then over the Williamsburg Bridge. At that time we lived on the Southside of Williamsburg, and that section of Williamsburg had not yet been conquered by hipsters.
We had a loft with 14 foot ceilings that was pretty close to being under the Williamsburg Bridge. At that time the Domino Sugar Refinery was operating, kinda like living next to a bomb factory. Sugar refineries sometimes explode. A cloud of sugar can ignite, and the resulting explosion can be on the scale of a fuel air bomb. While not a “Daisy Cutter” still a rather powerful bomb potential.
We lived half a block away in a certain no-man’s land booby-trapped with dog feces from the hipsters who lived on the Northside.
So one afternoon, Eva and I on a hot afternoon are on the Williamsburg Bridge jogging. An attractive hipster girl is walking towards us, and as she approaches she adjusts her glasses to get a better look at a sweaty jogger with a cut build.
She smiles at me flirting. I take that as a compliment, but Eva reports that she got a dirty look and called that hipster girl, “a bitch.”
Again you suck factor.
Meanwhile I’m old enough to be that hipster girl’s father.
You can’t make this stuff up…
Eva would continue her jog to North 7th and Bedford where she would catch the “L” train to Bushwick where she lived.
So imagine having a running partner that has a body like Annie Fanny bouncing along with me for the about 6 mile jog home.
Pretty inspiring. To give you an idea of how lean Eva was is she was a Marathon runner. Kinda crazy. Of course this kinda amplified the size of her round bust hidden under a tight t-shirt.
Ah, the good old days… Trophies…
The electrics don’t have you-suck factor until you plug them in and play them, but the acoustics are pure lust even visually. Pretty much are trophies.
Tomorrow and Tuesday we have the grandson. We went to Trader Joe’s to load up on some food, and we stopped off at Lowe’s to buy a 105 piece Craftsman tool kit for the kid’s new home.
The grandson has a fascination with tools BTW, and even though he will only be 3 in August he is very advanced, except for his speaking. The kids have some cheapo leftover tools that pretty much are throwaways.
Anyways this is a bit of a social experiment about putting tools away, and not loosing them. To be honest I trust the going to be 3 year old grandson more than the parents and the granddaughter who soon will be 11. In fact I kinda know he would be rather upset if tools went missing.
So I kinda bought a $99.99 105 tool kit for entertainment to see if a almost 3 year old can control his parents and sister.
I already taught the grandson, and unlike his parents, he listens to me.
Place your bets… LOL.
They close on the remodeled cottage Tuesday.
Cal
