The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

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!

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

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.

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

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.

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

My parents got divorced when I was six and my mom took me and my sister to live with Grandma in Fitzgerald, Georgia. From that moment until I moved to Tifton when I was 20, I saw my Grandma every day of my life. Even after we moved out, we still went to Grandma’s house on the bus after school every day. We had dinner with her every night. Mom was always working, and when she wasn’t, she was sleeping, so in a way, Grandma was actually our primary caregiver.

Because Grandma was the age of a grandma and not of a mother, she couldn’t chase two kids around, though there were times when she tried. Usually with a switch in her hand. Adeptly adjusting to her shortcomings, she turned to guilt and emotional distress as ways of keeping my sister and myself in check. Her favorites always involved our mother’s death.

If you and A. keep fighting, you’re gonna stress your mama and you know stress gives you cancer.
Your mama already smokes so she’s probably already got cancer, but if she doesn’t, you two arguing is gonna give it to her.
Your mama is going to die someday and you two will be the only people on Earth you can turn to.

My sister and I fought a lot, as most kids do, but apparently our fights had super powers that were potentially fatal. I remember one time A and I were fighting in the backyard and Grandma came out screaming at the top of her lungs and literally beating at her breasts, “You two are trying to kill me! My two granddaughters are trying to kill me!” She screeched for what must have been five minutes. “Do you know that my bladder is hanging out of my vagina? Do you want to see it? Come in the bathroom and look at it, then you won’t treat me this way any more!”Grandma had some mysterious bladder issue that involved a botched re-attachment surgery that left her bladder hanging precariously between her labia at all times. Now that I am older and have studied anatomy, I realize that this is not physically possible, however, at the age of 8, it scared the shit out of me. I vividly remember an afternoon with Grandma when we ended up in a screaming match over whether I was going to join her in the bathroom to take a look at her nether regions.

The bladder threat ran a close second place to, “Your mom’s going to die and it will be your fault.”

Grandma died a few years ago. My last encounter with her involved her commenting on my outfit which barely showed my stomach. ”Susan. Nobody’s navel is pretty.”

Now, my grandma did a lot of wonderful things over the years and went way above and beyond when it came to caregiving and child rearing, but the thing is, people, those stories just aren’t as interesting.

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

I got a phone call at work yesterday.

“Hi. My name is Holly and I got a package that was for you. Do you live close to 67th Street in Brooklyn?”

Me: No. I’m in Park Slope. I wonder how … wait. Are you around the corner from Three Jolly Pigeons?Holly: Yeah, I am.
Me: And your landlord is Alex. I used to live there like five years ago.
Holly: I got the package and without checking the label I opened it. I’m sorry. It’s a box of Lancome products.

Turns out Klutz-o sent a care package to me at my old address. Old as in five addresses ago, and upon further reflection, seven years ago. Klutz-o does not keep accurate records.

So, Holly is obviously a very nice and good person who was honest enough (or afraid of karma enough) to find me, call and return a box full of makeup and lotion and perfume.

Anyway. While Holly and I were on the phone, I kept things short and sweet. “Thank you so much. I’ll send a messenger.” In my head I was thinking, “Do you have any idea what occurred in that apartment? The scenes played out, the characters who came through the door, the laughing and dancing and vomiting …”

So, I’ve decided to send Holly a thank you card with a little care package — some mascara and lip gloss maybe.

Dear Holly,

Have you ever gone to The Pigeon at 5AM on a Mother’s Day Sunday in your slippers and robe? Did you pay for your beer with a bag of change? Did you have your 30th birthday party in the apartment and did it involve your roommate being a slave for you and drinking beer out of a dog bowl? Do you ever, in the late, quiet night think you hear people dancing and singing songs from West Side Story? That’s me, Holly. That’s me and HeatherJeanne.

Do you ever wonder why there’s a cigarette burn in the window sill or red nail polish in the grout of the bathroom tile? I know the story behind both of those things.

Holly. You live in a place that was the scene of some of the most important moments in my life. That is where HJ and I fell in love with each other (platonically speaking, unless we were drinking), and where we had our hearts broken in two of the worst relationships known to mankind.

Did you ever imagine that on 9/11 while I was stuck in Manhattan unable to get home, HeatherJeanne didn’t know where to turn and found herself in the Fire Station on the corner sobbing uncontrollably and begging the Fire Fighters, “What can I do? What do I do?”

That apartment is where my friendship with HRH was born and bred.*

Enjoy the place Holly, and watch out for Alex. If you’re behind in your rent and he thinks you still have a lease although you do not have a lease anymore because it ran out and he never asked you to sign a new one, he’ll just barge in. Seriously. Just walk right in to the apartment — no knock, no nothing.

I suggest you keep the chain on.

Thanks again for returning the stuff!

With love and gratitude,

The Princess

*note: Obviously, I assume Holly is a fan. I feel you Jerry Seinfeld. There is no place on Earth where I can go and not be known.

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

Ok. I know it’s the time of the year that people are begging for money for every cause and charity and disfigured cat out there.

But.

This is a great idea to make your charity dollars go as far as possible towards the greater good. Seriously.

Last year I received a nice Christmas bonus for work and I felt I should share the love. I found an organization called Kiva and I fell in love.

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.

Here’s how it works (click on photo to enlarge):

It’s fun because you can watch these people’s progress and once they’ve paid back their loans (Kiva’s default rate is surprisingly low. Of the $2,494,210 of loans with completed loan terms, the default rate is 0.2%.) you can use the exact same money to help another business.

Just throwing it out there …

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by HRH

For exactly one month I lived alone in a one bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. And I was blissfully alone for that month with my own bathroom, kitchen, and my own living room. What I did not have, but what I definitely needed was a TV.

So, about three days into living at this apartment I went to Best Buy with my friend Irene to buy a TV. I spent, I don’t know about 10 minutes, looking and quickly chose the model I wanted based on price and appearance. I had no idea about quality, etc. In my opinion this is what men are for. Unfortunately, most of my adult life has been spent without one actually in my life, so… One of the guys who worked there picked up the TV and carried it over his head, like it was no heavier than say a book and promptly walked it out to the street, dropping it down for us to take over. I thanked him and Irene and I proceeded to pick up the box using the handles on either side. People, this box weighed a zillion pounds. I’m not kidding. Irene and I together had once moved our entire apartment from the second floor to the first floor with no help. You should have seen us struggling down the street. We had only four blocks to walk and I thought we weren’t going to make it. I considered just leaving the TV there on the street, but I really like to watch TV. I mean people were coming out of businesses to laugh and point while we struggled down the street.

Finally, we get it back to my place, plugged it in, it turned on and we left to go get something to eat. I come home after dinner, sit down on the couch and promptly realize that the TV does not have any sound. Let’s get something straight here people, I was not dragging that thing back to Best Buy, so I had no choice but to figure out how to make it work. What occurred next was an hour of reading the manual (something I’m morally opposed to but one must make allowances) only to find that indeed there was no answer. So, being the nice girl I am, I proceeded to smack the side of the TV and voila, within six seconds I had sound.

Now, what I have had for the last four years is a TV that whenever bumped or nudged must be smacked on its side in order for sound to be restored. It gets even better than that because it isn’t one spot that it must be hit in, but a never ending moving spot that tortures me to no end. Originally I used my hand for the task of beating the TV into submission, but sadly one time, with a day old manicure no less, I was smacking the TV so hard that I actually put my hand through the side of it. Listen, Lost was coming on in three minutes, it was very dire circumstance. Of course, it was at that point that I actually stopped being blonde for five seconds and came up with the brilliant idea to use an object to hit the TV. And this is how the biography of Georgia O’Keeffe came to find its home at the bottom of my TV.

Here are a couple of fun facts about the TV. One, did you know that the sound for the TV is not the same as the sound that comes from say your DVD player? Me neither. I know this because it is only the TV function in which I have no sound, I can play DVDs to my little hearts content. Also, did you know that if you have a TV whose sound goes out when it’s bumped at all that possibly, maybe the best place to live is not in an unstable house on the corner of a street where large trucks drive by.

Recently, “A” and I were talking about what someone would take if they broke in. I do realize if you’ve come to my house you really are desperate to steal and thus deserve to find something. We thought it would be nice if we left a note on the TV that said, “if stolen, please make sure to take book. You’ll see.”

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

Hi people.

On behalf of HRH and myself, I would like to apologize. We have not been very active with the blog lately. It’s the holidays … so many parties, so much shopping, so many hangovers …. You know how it is.

Anyway. I wanted to let you know what happened recently. As you know, Erica & I moved into a new apartment, complete with spiral staircase. Which, as you may have guessed, has led to drama.

Chulo is injured. He is currently on a strict regimen of no activity, twice daily pain medication and wound cleansing every 6-8 hours. Turns out, this little tubby pooch who appeared to be frightened of everything (especially plastic bags), is a four-legged Evel Knievel.This past weekend Chulo suddenly decided he was ready to give the spiral staircase a go. From the top. As he crashed into the artwork on his way down the wall, just moments before the plummet ended at the slate floor, Chulo had a realization.

He sucks at spiral staircases.

I’m sure his crash made a loud noise but it was drowned out by the hysterical screaming coming from all the dramatic girls in the apartment. (Our friend Flea was visiting from North Carolina and witnessed the entire event.) You see, we all heard the launch and freaked out. Our little Chulo is known for randomly falling down from a standing position. (He takes after Uncle Klutz-O.)I was sure he was dead. However, praise Smoking Baby, he survived. And he handled the ordeal surprisingly well.

He did have a very pronounced limp and as we discovered an hour or so later, a pretty nice cut in his back that had been obscured by his fur in the initial assessment.

We took him into the vet, the leg is not broken, the wound is not serious and Chulo is expected to make a full recovery. He’s already walking better.

Plus — he looks like he’s been shot so now he can pretend to be “Gangsta.”

The following blog post was originally posted on www.HRHandthePrincess.blogspot.com.
Written by The Princess

It’s happened. I’ve been found out by my family.

I recently received a comment on my “How It Happens” post from a mysterious Misty B.

My first thought was, “Yay! Another reader who isn’t guilted into it by just knowing me or HRH.”
Then I read her comments and she made these cryptic allusions to my hometown, Fitzgerald. She called it FishWorld — a nickname only used by locals. In my day it was FishBarrel. I think it was probably started by some Northerner who got lost taking an exit off of I-75 and stopped at the Suwanee Swifty to ask for directions.

Lost Yankee: Could you tell me where I am?
Fitzgeraldian: Fuhitzgeerald
LY: Fish Barrel?
F: Fitzgurald
LY: Fish World?

Anyway.

So, I get this comment from Misty B who is obviously from Fitzgerald and I freak a little. In my hometown not only does everyone know everyone else, they know everyone who has ever lived in Fitzgerald and are usually related to most of them. I immediately edited every blog in which I wrote about my family, changing names to initials and deleting photos, and I went back to my email. Misty B is my cousin. She used to be Misty F which is what caused the confusion. I learned this because I had an email from her.

She briefly caught me up on life through some small talk then this:

Anyways I also wanted to tell you that I have read your blogs…And I think you and mama should talk…you both have some of the same opinions about your mamas…haha….and also I read this…

tell my mother that she is in control of her life and that her current situation is the result of decisions she made for her life. I discuss my life openly regarding my domestic partner, Erica, the new home we’re buying, the fact that my family is so separate from my life because Mom doesn’t want me to be out to them.

And I just wanted to let you know that seriously…..I am cool with this…I love you…to me you have always been my cool favorite cousin…that I never get to see…..Your life is your life….whatever you choose and whom ever you choose to spend your life with is your choice..I think it’s great… oh.. mama knows too…she is cool with it too…. she says we all need to meet sometime and hang out…And what happens on the internet….stays on the internet…haha.. Well just wanted to tell you that….write back don’t be a stranger…

And, next to my birthday message from the Universe, this is the best email I’ve ever received.