Home/The Ghost of Florence Foster Jenkins

Wow. I haven't sat down and written anything unrelated to my job in a very long time. I really hope I haven't lost any of my charm!

I just moved. Well, I have partially moved. I still have to go back to my former dingy, moldy basement apartment in Bushwick and schlep the rest of my stuff to my new apartment this weekend. I guess my point is that I don't live in Bushwick anymore.

I move a LOT. I move so often that most of my friends and family think I actually love not staying in the same place and that I have some sort of weird compulsion and that I'm incapable of making a home . . . that I am a bird who will always fly away. NOT TRUE. The reason that I move so much is because I'm constantly making impetuous decisions, not thinking them through fully, and then realizing my mistake I try too quickly to remedy the problem. It's a vicious cycle and I really hope that this is the end of it.

My new place is amazing. I REALLY hope this is the end of the vicious cycle because I come home at the end of the day, and it feels just like that - HOME.

It's funny, I didn't really sit down to write a blog about having a place to call home. I was going to write about something unexpected, wonderful and hilarious that happened during my commute to work this morning, but then I realize that the commute is a component of what home really is. To me, home is everything not including work. Home is the time that I don't get paid for. I don't know if that makes any sense. Home is the place that we elect to be, not the place we are required to be. At least that's how I feel it should be.

I suppose perhaps I received divine confirmation of my new home being, at the very least, an INTERESTING one during my commute this morning (I also believe it may be the RIGHT one, for once, but I only *just* moved). I live in Long Island City, and it's a 5 minute train ride from work for me. I woke up rather early this morning and, due to my affinity for crossing bridges, decided to walk over the Queensboro to work.

I spent about 10 minutes in the industrial part of Long Island City searching for the pedestrian entrance to the bridge (it's on the north side of the bridge, if anyone needs to know), and sometime during that 10 minutes, I could SWEAR that I overheard the ghost of Florence Foster Jenkins.

For those of you that don't know who I'm talking about, Florence Foster Jenkins is just about the funniest story in the history of funny stories about singers. She was (and I'm quoting Wikipedia here): an American soprano who became famous for her complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability. Also, an interesting tidbit: Her she was born NARCISSA Florence Foster. Wow. Her name was really Narcissa, y'all.

I need to add that I've always been a huge fan. Nobody could tell Florence Foster Jenkins not to dream.

This is my all-time favorite recording of her:


Yeah . . . so the sound that I overheard on my way to work today was pretty similar to that.

Once I finally began to cross the bridge, the singing started up again. It sounded like it was coming from somewhere ahead of me, and also beneath me, rising up from secret crevices in the Queensboro Bridge. What made this particularly exciting was today's foggy, overcast state - PERFECT weather to encounter a ghost in. I looked around at the other pedestrians and was surprised to find absolutely no quizzical expressions on their faces. I suppose this sort of thing happens every day . . . we're in New York City, after all. I became determined to seek out the source of the really, really, exceptionally bad singing.

I sadly learned, once I passed the pedestrian ahead of me, that it was not the ghost of Florence Foster Jenkins. It was simply the woman ahead of me, which was kind of adorable because she looked like a little yellow puddle duck in her rain gear and boots. Florence Foster Jenkins reincarnated as a little puddle duck lady walking her bicycle over the bridge - just take a second to think about that and laugh.

Long story short: Today has been awesome. I'm happy to be where I am right now.