My Prosopagnosia* Kicks My Ass Again

So I'm in the elevator today, and I'm thinking, gee, I wish I knew what Annie Leibovitz looked like.

Let me backtrack. I have a real problem remembering faces. It's even worse than my problem with names. I only remember the names of really important people--usually the people who fix my problems. Still, as bad as my memory for names is, it is nothing compared to the utter black hole that is my fusiform gyrus. (Oh, look, that part of the brain does number recognition, too--I suck at that. I'm amazed this enormous hole in my head didn't show up when they were scanning for brain tumors.**) I can remember a voice instantly and recognize it effortlessly years later. You have no idea how often this ruins movies for me. But I need multiple exposures to someone's face before it gets remembered, and sometimes I don't even get it down then.

Which is why I found myself staring at this woman in the elevator and thinking, I just wish I knew if this were Annie Leibovitz. The rest of the elevator was crammed full of guys with camera equipment, one of whom was discussing the difficulties of cobbling together a custom tripod. So, like lightning, I figured it must be her. But never had it occurred to me that I would be anywhere near Annie Leibovitz. The sheer improbability combined with my total inability to summon up even a hair color made it impossible for me to decide. So I probably acted like a jerk, standing there and staring at her with utter lack of recognition and showing more interest in my tuna melt than in her fame and talent. As insults to celebrities go, lack of recognition isn't the worst you can do, but I probably stared at her for far too long while my brain ticked over, frantically hunting through boxes buried somewhere under all the SAP fastpath codes and Monty Python skits and scraps of movie dialogue in search of the half-assed scribbly index card that is my equivalent of a Wikipedia entry.

Whoopsie-daisy.

* No, not really.
** Yes, really.

Air Mattress--Not As Fun As Air Guitar

For those who don't know, I recently moved to Brooklyn, NY. I am thoroughly exhausted and therefore not really blogging. But here's a short overview:

1. A foot is much, much smaller in NY than in the rest of the world. Here 600 square feet is just friggin' tiny. And here's the thing. You think it's HUGE.
2. Air mattresses are NOT almost as comfortable as a regular bed. It is EXACTLY like sleeping on a plastic bag full of air. (See "exhausted," above.)
3. I am doing my shopping at some middle-eastern grocery store that sells pierogies and has a deli. They call me darling. I am sold. Of course, I've only shopped there once, and I was sleep deprived and suffering severe culture shock. Consequently I am living on granola. It's not pretty. Also, I was so tired I bet I can't find them again, even though it's a straight shot from my apartment.
4. I am around the corner from a renowned tattoo parlor.
5. Tonight I rode the subway with a woman who looked like she was reverse-engineered from Boy George. No, really. She didn't look like the woman Boy George might have aspired to emulating. She looked like someone photoshopped Boy George. It was like that line in Victor/Victoria--"a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman."
6. My users still swear at me. Some things never change.
7. The help desk still requires screen shots to achieve communication. I actually stood behind a user as she took a screen shot in an effort to get them to stop asking her the same question over and over. "This button? Yes. I press this button, right here."

In other words, I'm right at home.

Not a Chance

No offense to the People of the Tall Pines. I wish you the best, I really do. But even if you paid me $25, I would not walk on this thing, and if you ask me to pay the $25, then really you're just inviting ridicule.

I have firm belief in American engineers. Scientific study has accomplished truly wondrous feats (the wonderbra, skyscrapers, suspension bridges). I'm sure it's perfectly safe. But I have no desire to pass out as I look down 4,000 feet to the canyon floor. I've gotten brave about a lot of things, but this is not one of them. Sorry!

I'll be in the gift shop. You pick me up when you're done.

Goodbye, Bully Bougainvillea

I've been working on putting my townhome up for sale, because I'm moving to Brooklyn next week. Yeah. I'm a little behind. Thanks for pointing that out.

ANYwho, I've been trying to keep up with this endless list of stuff my realtor keeps pointing out. Now, let me be clear. The woman is an amazing realtor. She actually comes over and dabs touch up paint on my walls. She helped me trim the trumpet vine in the backyard. And she knows what makes a place sell. So the list is a list of good and useful things that are good for me and good for my townhome. It's just so damn long.

Part of the problem is that I seem to have very low standards. One of the kitchen cupboards doesn't close. You close it, and then it swings open like there's a little ghost inside it. Doesn't bother me. Sure, part of me would like it if it were shut. But I'm pretty sure it's nothing sinister, so I've lived with it for two and a half years. It's on her list.

The bathroom tile was coming up when I moved in. I never ever get any water on the bathroom floor. I'm a freakish freak of a person, and when I get in and out of the shower, I go to great lengths to make sure no water escapes. So I was sure the tile wasn't getting any worse. But that chicken came home to roost in a big way. (Now I have all new tile in there. I guess it's nice. Who am I to argue?)

Then there's the matter of the bougainvillea. The big bougainvillea that bullied all the other plants in my tiny enclosure had a rough winter. It actually got down around freezing for like ONE night this winter, and these plants that stride around here summer after summer threatening to kidnap and eat your animals all turned out to be big babies. It was like watching a big, scary, macho wrestler pass out while getting a tattoo. Not that I've ever done that.

So the two bougainvillea and the TVUO (tropical vine of unknown origin) out front all looked dead. No, seriously. You had to cut them to see if they were alive. Donna, my realtor, was philosophical about it. "These look dead. We should get rid of them." Apparently she was expecting tears (and let me just say that I've been really stressed lately, so that wasn't an unreasonable expectation). But I did not need to be asked twice. I trimmed them back as far as I could by myself, and then recruited help to get them out of the ground. The grapefruit tree that's been cowering there all this time practically wept with gratitude.

Also marked for death was the sickly desert sage. This plant reminded me of a story that I think Tina Fey told after she won the Emmy for SNL. She was being interviewed by Conan or Jay or someone, and she talked about how image conscious everyone is in LA. By way of illustration, she described standing in line behind this woman who looked just beautiful. This woman looked young and vibrant and perky, and had long silky hair like a mermaid. Then the woman turned around and revealed herself to be an old woman with approximately seventy years of tanning damage. That's what the desert sage was like. As you walked IN to the townhouse, it looked all gorgeous, with lovely purple flowers and mossy green foliage. As you walked OUT, it looked like a dead skeleton. Sort of a Dorian Gray effect.

My gay best friend, Mike, came over to help me with the yard work. I've never seen anything so butch as him pulling that desert sage out of the ground--it was like Paul Bunyan yanking trees out of the earth. The bougainvillea put up a bigger fight, but eventually victory was ours. My trash bin is really full, and I don't think I can clean out my fridge, but whatever. We did good work, and the grapefruit tree and the trumpet vine have the place to themselves now. Both of them are already growing leafier to show their appreciation.

Now all I have to do is...the rest of Donna's list. Which involves paint and decorating and sanding and cleaning and hiding and staging and generally pretending that perfect decorator Barbie lives here, wearing clothes that never get dirty, showering with pretend water that never generates soap scum and walking on clean floors with her clean Barbie feet.

I can be Barbie for a week, I'm sure. Stop laughing, or I'll hit you with this bougainvillea stump.

Thoroughly Exhausted, But Here's A Link

This blog is just fascinating. It's perfect for anyone who's been dragged through an Ikea. It's also perfect for anyone who's stood in front of two Ikea products and realized that although each of them is almost perfect, neither of them is exactly what you want. Well, if you were motivated enough, you'd be able to Frankenstein them together into a super Ikea product.

I think my favorite is the woman who says she hates Ikea but felt compelled to buy pillowcases and make them into a sassy skirt. There's apparently a lot of sassy skirtmaking inspired in Ikea. Who knew?