Another Friday, Another Holiday Weekend

I saw someone shoplift tonight.

I was at Brooklyn Industries (50% Off All Women's Sweaters & Outerwear!) and I saw this whole scene play out. I didn't realize what was going on at the time, but what I figured out was, this woman and her kid walk in to the store and start looking at stuff close to the door. They keep setting the alarm off "accidentally" -- which is blamed on the kid -- so that the clerks no longer even look up when it buzzes. Meanwhile a guy -- later revealed to be the friend, maybe husband and father, of the woman and her kid -- stuffs a sweater in his bag and walks out. I see him when he does and when the alarm goes off, it's definitely him who sets it. As planned, the clerks take no notice, and he's out. Another guy in the store comes up to me and asks if I saw the sweater he laid down by my things.

A few minutes later I run into the woman, the kid and the guy walking together down Seventh Avenue.

I've seen one other shoplifting in action. My friend and I were in a mall in Baltimore shopping at the Gap. (Also having a good sale) We walk around a rack of jeans and see this kid crouching on the floor, frantically shoving jeans into his backpack. When he sees us he freezes. (My friend Sam is a large, intimidating ex-con who has seen the light and gone straight.) Sam says, his hands held in the air in a no-worries gesture, "It's not my business." And we keep walking.

Seconds later we see the backpack kid make a mad sprint through the door with the alarms blaring and the oh so preppy Assistant Manager on Duty feigning an attempt to run after him.

This kind of stuff amazes me. Maybe I should be the kind of person who intervenes when she sees wrong doing, but I really don't have a problem with it. First of all, a few pairs of jeans are not going to hurt the Gap. And the kid who was stealing them maybe had a good reason. Maybe he was taking them home to his family who couldn't afford to buy them. Maybe he wanted his brother to have a nice present for once on his birthday. Maybe he was going to sell them for crack. Who knows.

And that little crooked family who is exploiting their toddler ... how does that happen? What life circumstances could lead to someone thinking that's okay behavior? Now I know that there are truly bad people. And Smoking Baby knows I believe in sociopaths, but I also believe that for the majority of people, they're led to bad behavior by shitty circumstances.

Tonight I was talking to Dan and he told me about a murder that happened in his apartment building Christmas night. After much drama and Law and Order police-line-do-not-cross action, he found out that what happened was a drunken fight between two young guys that had moved out to the sidewalk. One of them pushed the other and when the guy fell, he hit the concrete in such a way that he died. The fight lasted for about 3 minutes and now one person is dead and one person's life is now most likely going to be spent in prison for murder. Imagine that. Being a white trash girl from South Georgia, I have been in several drunken fights in my life. (Ok. One was in New York, but it was someone else's fault.) And I've pushed people down. (In New York, I slammed someone down on a Pac-Man table game, but that's a story for a later post.) And I can not fathom how I would even begin to handle the repercussions if I had shoved someone down just right (or wrong, I suppose) and taken their life in a stupid late night drunken fight over something certainly ridiculous. Like the rules to Quarters.

Happy New Year!

I'm a Stalker.

Know what sucks about living in a building filled with professional writers?

Leaving notes in the hallway. I just caught myself in the doorway thinking -- out loud, no less -- i before e except after c. Then I couldn't decide whether it was inconvenience or inconvienience. I knew it was the former but I kept saying, in-con-veei-nence. in-con-vee-nence. I finally convinced myself they weren't going to care -- or notice most likely. But then I thought, "I would totally notice and I would totally care." (Though I apparently would have to check my assessment in a dictionary.)

You'll be relieved (i before e) to know I got inconvenience right. Thank god.

So, have I told you about my building? I have real, honest to god, published, book on the Barnes & Noble table writers living in my building. One more step closer to Oprah. (Oprah can you hear me? Oprah can you see me? Oprah can you find me in the night?)

How do I know this you ask? Obviously, I am stalking my neighbors. Rather, I am stalking my neighbor's mail. My building is one of those with two front doors with the mail box in the little room between them. If someone gets packages that don't fit in the box, they're left on the floor in the doorway.

99% of the time, the package is for Tom. Tom is a book reviewer. I know this because I always check. (I always hope it's a surprise for me. It rarely is.)

I covet Tom's mail. Tom gets piles and piles and piles of books delivered to the hallway. And I come in and I see them and I tell you, it is hard not to steal Tom's mail. I've been in his apartment and I have seen his book collection. Tom has good books.

So, as I'm checking to see which publisher has sent Tom another book, I recognize a different name. Mainly because it is written above the name of my all-time favorite literary magazine. Someone in my building is getting mail at our address for my favorite literary magazine.

Her Name
Magazine's Name
Our Street Address
Her Apartment Number

If you've ever read HRH's and my profile, you will have noted that HRH and I strive to be friends with Sarah Vowell in order to get closer to our favorite writers (she is the key to all of them) and become friends with them -- Nick Hornby being one of the top 5. The woman who lives in my building is, by way of editing the literary magazine that he writes a column for, Nick Hornby's boss.

Man. Is She on a Roll ...

So. I'm on the phone with Mom and we're talking about her dying.

I've been talking with my mother about her death for my entire life. She and my grandmother were both completely obsessed with death. Especially death by cancer. Basically, they both threatened me and my sister with my mother's imminent demise from cancer (probably lung since she was a smoker, but definitely exacerbated by the undue stress A and I put on Mom and Grandma.)

This conversation, (Mom on the cell driving somewhere, me on cell at home) was based on a talk she apparently had with V, my niece. Somehow my mother and my 11 year old niece had a talk about who V would want to live with should Mom die. (By the way -- this is a conversation I, as an 11 year old Princess, had with the very same mother. I chose my Aunt G -- but only because I knew that was the right answer to please Mom. I actually hated the thought of living with Aunt G and her husband H who was a minister. I couldn't bear the thought of going to church every week.)

V chooses to live with me in Brooklyn. So Mom adds a twist ... What about A? (A, my sister, V's biological mother)
V: She can come too.
M: No she can't. We tried that once before and it was awful.
[My sister came to live with me in New York years and years ago. It didn't work out. Everyone has moved past this ... except my mother.]

At this point I'm thinking, here she goes again. I can't believe she said these things to V. Maybe she's exaggerating and she didn't actually say this to her 11 year old granddaughter. Then, I hear someone in the background.

Not only was my mother re-counting her awful comments she made to V. She was doing it with V in the car next to her.