The General Situation

But Is It Organic?

Why Not?

The Gift

When we sold the house in Santa Barbara, the new owners bought some of the furniture but not all of it, so we put some of the leftovers in a storage unit there and moved the rest to New York City—where the influx of new furniture meant that we also needed a storage unit here. As Oscar Wilde nearly said, to have one storage unit may be regarded as misfortune; to have two looks like carelessness.

From what I can tell, the storage industry is based on the notion that renters, once we unload our crap, try as hard as we can to forget that it's there. (That would be easier if Manhattan Mini Storage hadn't jacked up the rate by a third after one year.) But Adam and I are painting our apartment—i.e., we're having it painted—which meant we faced a reckoning. Over time, you accumulate stuff that you don't like enough to keep or dislike enough to discard; to exile it goes.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the double-locked door to see this.

It was unlikely that (a) anyone had been in our unit or (b) Adam has a double life. No, the odds were far better that the magazine got slipped under the door. When you're finished with a 2004 copy of Penthouse, I guess you're really finished with it. The reader might have been caught red-handed, or this might have been an act of charity—in pre-Internet days, you didn't just toss smut, you porned it forward, as it were. We'll never know, I hope.

Naturally, I looked through it—I am a former magazine editor. As I recalled from my youth, I had reason to be grateful that I had been gifted Penthouse and not Playboy, although the hardcore spread was disappointing. The couple was 90% hairless and glossy like charcuterie, and I couldn't shake the impression that they were being asked to freeze in place so the photographer could get each shot. Also, the man was named Jazz.

A cover line promised "London's Wildest Orgy," which impressed this former writer of cover lines. Try as I might, however, I couldn't find the article, and out of principle I refused to consult the table of contents. I had to make do with a Valkyrie-on-Valkyrie photo essay. The costumes were impressive, something I'd wager is not often said about Penthouse.

In the #pornitforward spirit, I attempted to stuff the copy of Penthouse under our neighbors' doors, but it wouldn't fit anywhere. Afraid that I was being caught on a security camera, I gave up and put it back in our unit, a deposit for a rainy day.

Sticky Situation

Today, while borrowing a ladder in our building's storage room, I came across a cockroach stuck to a glue trap. In recent years, I have become incredibly sensitive to the suffering of animals; in Connecticut, I spend more time than I would like trying to catch houseflies so I can release them outside. Seeing no other option, I sighed deeply, explained to the roach that I was acting out of mercy, and I killed it. As a result, I learned a valuable lesson about stepping on glue traps.

Howard and Jake

As a result of his spinal condition, Howard drags a back paw when he walks, so he goes for a weekly session on a water treadmill, where he can exercise without hurting himself. I was giving him a post-session bath when the next client came in with his dog. The facility doesn't encourage baths because it doesn't want you to inconvenience anyone; consequently, I hurriedly rinsed Howard off with the spray nozzle. (He runs around the big industrial sink and crouches in corners, turning the process into a game of Shoot the Freak.) I placed Howard on the floor and was attempting to dry him when I recognized the next client: Jake Gyllenhaal. He initiated a conversation about Howard's name and we had a brief exchange about how old-man names feel so appropriate for pugs. Later I realized how ironic it was. The breeder's original name for Howard was Jake. What's more, one of the reasons I wanted to change it was because Brokeback Mountain was still fresh in people's memories, and I was concerned others would think we had named him after Gyllenhaal.

Legend

At the Adidas Store

Me: May I try these shorts on?

Clerk: Sure, just give me a sec. [Rips "sale" sign off wall above rack.] The sale is over, though.

Me: Thanks, I'll pass.

Shvitz Where You Eat?

Tribeca

I borrowed this from someone online.

So I Found Next Year's Christmas Card...