Victoria Wilson's Blog

In the early days of Saturday Night Live, the late, great Gilda Radner had a character in her repertoire by the name of Emily Litella. Emily was a hard-of-hearing older lady who was given to tirades about some issue she had heard about on TV and misconstrued due to her deafness. Ms. Litella would appear on the Weekend Update segment of SNL and opine about subjects ranging from violins (instead of violence) on TV, to the Supreme Court’s decision on the deaf penalty, to the endangered feces act.

My favorite Emily Litella discourse was the time she sang “I Will Follow Him” to express her undying love for Tom Snyder, a popular New York TV talk show host at the time. “I will swallow him;” she intoned while a horrified Jane Curtin stared, open-mouthed. “I will swallow him wherever he will go…I love him, I love him, I love him, and where he goes, I’ll swallow…”

And after every one of Emily’s befuddled discourses, the stunned Weekend Update anchor (in the early shows Chevy Chase, or “Cheddar,” as Emily called him, and later Jane Curtin, whose barely disguised dislike for Ms. Litella earned her a sweetly uttered, “Bitch,” on more than one occasion) would explain what the actual issue was. Seeing the light, Emily would look in the camera and with a little smile, close with the line, “Never mind.”

I’ve been thinking about Emily Litella a lot lately. Here’s why:

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, older members of my family or anyone I spoke to at work older than thirty would invariably caution me about what was awaiting me as I careened inexorably toward middle age and beyond. It was as if seeing me, in the sweetness of youth, produced this knee-jerk reaction that compelled them to admonish me.

“Look at you, what do you know? You’re young,” my forty-two-year-old uncle would say, apropos of nothing, shaking his head. “Wait. Wait until you get to be my age. You’ll see. The legs’ll be the first to go.”

At work an older gentleman would turn every conversation, whether idle chit-chat about the weather or serious talk about current world events into a warning about aging. “You’ll see when you get older. You’ll be able to tell when there’s rain on the way. The knees’ll be the first to go.” Another day the first to go were the eyes, then the back, then the memory would go first. After a while, I started hiding from this human Eeyore; every exchange with this man made me want to run home, dive into bed, pull the covers over my head, and stay there forever.

I’m older now and I can state with supreme certainty that back in the day, my elders were completely wrong. It’s not the legs, knees, eyes, or memory that go first. Nope. It’s the hearing. The hearing is the first to go. I don’t know when this gradual deafness started happening to me, but I can tell you, it’s damn annoying.

At the office, I’ve made people repeat themselves two or three times before realizing what they’re trying to tell me. I frequently jump out of my chair if anyone comes up behind me and says hello. Whenever this happens, I say that I’m so focused on whatever I’m doing, I block out everything else around me, but that’s only partly true. I do have acute powers of concentration, but I’m also going deaf at the speed of light.

I don’t hear my smart phone’s ringtone announcing an incoming call unless the device is next to me on my desk. If it’s in my pocket or handbag, it might as well be miles away; I never hear it ring. And the volume is all the way up. It’s always a shock to find I’ve missed a call and then I hope and pray it wasn’t an emergency.

When I’m home, my television is on pretty much all the time. I find it strangely soothing to hear human voices selling merchandise, reading the latest news, or announcing new episodes of my favorite shows while I tackle the never-ending battle against the powers of dirt and cat hair. One day not too long ago, I was cleaning the bedroom when I heard the following emanating from the TV in the living room:

“I’m your penis; I’m your fire; I’m your desire.” What??

I ran to the living room in time to see a commercial for razor blades. Of course, I don’t need to tell you the commercial was using the song, “I’m Your Venus.” I chuckled to myself; Bananarama’s enunciation could have been better, so it wasn’t me.

Another day I was going through some mail sitting on the couch and a commercial came on for gluten-free opium. My head snapped up to see a family sitting down to a breakfast of gluten-free oatmeal. Ok, this one was all me.

Sometimes I have the TV tuned to music choice channels, usually Party Favorites, but sometimes I listen to some of the 80’s hits as well. Just yesterday, Corey Hart’s “I Wear My Sunglasses at Night” came on. I’ve always liked this song, but I’ve never been able to decipher what the hell Corey sings when he gets to the chorus.

“Don’t push the sky and share the light, ho ho??”

“Don’t push this guy ‘cause he’ll take a dump, oh no??”

Are you kidding me, Corey? I finally gave up and went to my computer to look up the lyrics. After all these years, I now know that the chorus is as follows:

“Don’t switch the blade on the guy in shades, oh no/“Don’t masquerade with the guy in shades, oh no…” And what in the world does he mean by that? Forget it; I don’t even want to know.

I heard All American Rejects’ “Move Along” a little while after Corey Hart’s hit. All I kept hearing was “Mow the Lawn/Mow the Lawn/Mow the Lawn.”

I’ve never been able to tolerate putting anything in my ears, like those phone earbuds; it skeeves me out no end. I shudder to think that pretty soon, if my hearing loss continues, I’ll have to be fitted with one (or two) of those “invisible” hearing aids. Oh, dear God. The thought makes my skin crawl. I’ve started to practice reading lips. I’ll sometimes mute the TV and try to see if I can tell what people are saying. Or I’ll watch a YouTube video on my computer with the speakers off to see if I can catch any of what’s being said. I’ll make out a word here and there, but I’m a miserable failure at this.

Today I heard Kaoma’s 1989 hit “Lambada” sung in its original Portuguese. What a great get-up-and-dance song this is! I thoroughly enjoyed hearing this fantastic tune after so many years, but since I don’t speak Portuguese, here’s what I kept hearing a few lines into the song:

“I’m in Curacao, why is your placenta on the floor?/Slap your ovaries, why is your placenta on the floor?”

As Emily would say, “Never mind.”

When I was a kid in Catholic grade school, we studied the lives and often gruesome deaths of the early Christian martyrs and saints. One day, our religion teacher, a nun who must have gotten her teaching credentials from the Himmler School for Nuns, gave us a rather curious homework assignment: we were to imagine we were living in those early days of the church, a newly converted group of Jesus followers, persecuted, living in hiding, eventually caught by Roman soldiers, and promptly turned over to the authorities. Furthermore, we were to write an essay declaring which manner of death we would choose in order to sacrifice ourselves for our faith.

I thought long and hard about the assignment, which had thrown my nine-year-old psyche for a loop. I mean, if it came down to a choice of denouncing my religion and living, or remaining a faithful Catholic and dying, I was obligated to choose death. It would mean I would go straight to heaven, bypassing purgatory and on my way up, giving the finger to Satan lounging in the fires of hell below. But it also meant enduring hours or days of unimaginable torture as my captors attempted to convince me to abandon my religious principles, followed by the inevitable end.

I asked myself if I had the strength to see this test through or would I break from the horrific physical pain and betray Christ? After some consideration, I came to the conclusion that I would last all of five minutes, maybe, under torture; I’ve always been a coward about pain. But what if there was no torture at all? Sister Mary Evan Braun hadn’t said anything about torture; she had only said to choose a mode of death. Ok, that was a little better, but what form of death would I choose? I was at a loss.

During afternoon recess, I conferred with some of my colleagues, who seemed enthusiastic about the task at hand. Most of the boys looked forward to writing about violent ends. They spoke about dodging stones hurled at them, like grenades in a game of GI Joe, until the rocks with their names on them found their targets. Or going one-on-one with a hungry lion, perhaps riding its back, clutching its mane before the great cat shook the rider off and had a leisurely Christian lunch. Even better, how about being pushed off a high cliff, enjoying a brief flight and experiencing what birds took for granted before the force of gravity introduced them to the stony ground below. I guess the boys saw these types of deaths as heroic endeavors, sure to make them legends for the ages.

The girls chose less energetic modes of dying, but by no means less violent. The majority of the girls thought a stoic, dignified march to the gallows, fiery pyre, or chopping block would befit an early Christian martyr, and who knew how many souls they would convert with their serene, saintly example. Bonus!

I started to panic. My friends were no help. The essay was due the next day and I had no idea what grisly demise I would choose. Would being fed poison a good enough way to die for the church? Getting stabbed over and over? I shuddered. I could see no painless way to go. It never occurred to me to make something up just to get the paper done, but whatever. Worrying about the assignment suddenly made me very hungry. I couldn’t wait to get home and dive into a snack of cake and ice cream, or milk and a few dozen cookies, or a huge stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or…

Like a bolt of lightning the answer came to me. I would choose starvation! It was only right; it was the perfect, ironic way for me to go, as my gluttony for sweets and unhealthy fast food knew no bounds. It would be my way of atoning for a lifetime of committing one of the seven deadly sins, so that was one more credit in the “Grace” column for me. And, most important of all, there was no blood, no pain, no fuss, no muss.

I could see it all now: I would be thrown in a dank, dark, filthy dungeon in the bowels of the city, my only companions the bugs and rats whose home I had invaded. Sitting on the slimy floor, the scattered bones of those unfortunate souls who had inhabited the premises before me silhouetted by the slender shafts of light coming from the tiny barred window above, I would wonder how long I would last. Probably a very long time, given my girth, I figured. I imagined my captors checking up on me every month or two. “Hey, girl, you still there?” they would call down to me. “Still here!” I would reply every  time. Who knew; maybe I would live for years and my jailers would realize it was a miracle, be converted, and free me. As they carried my frail, thin (at last!) body to the surface, I would finally die, but not before whispering, “I forgive you,” in my most dramatic, Academy-Award-winning style. My captors would be sorry and weep bitter tears of remorse. The end.

I’ve occasionally thought about that homework assignment through my sometimes food-deprived years. Of course, my nine-year-old self had no idea how painful hunger could be. In my early twenties, I went through a period that I call my “anorexic mentality phase,” when I gradually stopped eating solid food. I really couldn’t call myself a true anorexic because I never became underweight, but I lost so much weight that everyone who knew me remarked on it. Even my mother, for once in my life, started telling me to eat because I was too skinny. What a novelty. It only made me eat even less and exercise more.

I don’t know how I didn’t keel over. I existed on diet soda, black coffee and cigarettes. My breath could melt steel. Breath spray and sugarless breath mints could always be found in my bag. There were times, even after my body had adjusted to the lack of nourishment and my stomach didn’t rumble any more, I would get a sudden, severe stab of pain so intense I would double over and grab on to something to prevent my dropping to the floor. As my food deprivation continued, I began to faint on a regular basis. I fainted on a packed #7 train one morning on my way to work. Very kind strangers helped me and made sure I sat until we arrived at Grand Central, where they walked me to a bench on the platform and had an MTA employee stay with me to make sure I was all right.

I may have gone on in this fashion, ending up in the hospital or morgue, if my cat’s dinner hadn’t looked so appetizing to me as I prepared his food bowl one night. I wish I could tell you I resisted the impulse to taste what looked like a disgusting potage of mystery meat in brown gravy, but I’m not going to lie to you. Yep. As repulsive as it sounds, I ate cat food. Whether it was because I was starving or because it really was tasty, I found kitty’s meal wasn’t bad at all. I had to open a second can for him; I devoured the first one.

The next day I started eating again, a little at a time. I discovered my body rebelled violently against solid food after being deprived of it for so long, so I had to introduce a miniscule amount of nourishment for the first few weeks. In no time at all, though, I was back to my old eating habits, which led me to my bulimic phase, but that’s a story for another time…

I almost forgot – I got a B+ on my death choice essay, which really pissed me off back then. In my estimation, I should have gotten, at the very least, an A minus, if not a solid A, just on originality alone. Nobody else chose starvation and I doubt anyone in the class agonized and took the assignment as seriously as I did. I’ve often wondered which mode of death Sister Mary Eva Braun would have chosen. Creative and macabre, I bet.

Mark Twain said, “Write what you know.” I know about being fat. You know, the obese used to make up a very small percentage of this country (this sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?), but lately, if reports are correct, there are a whole bunch of us waddling around all over these United States. How did this happen? Well, I can’t speak for the general public, but I can tell you about my personal guerilla warfare against extra calories, cellulite, and adipose tissue.

My war against fat started early and through the years I’ve won some skirmishes, but my defeats at the hands of my old enemy have outnumbered my victories. Anyone who watched the show “Dexter” knows he called his impulse to kill his “Dark Passenger.” I call my impulse to eat sugar, carbs and junk food my “Saboteur.” The Saboteur is very, very tricky and very, very clever. And let me tell you, she’s really pissed off at me lately.

I got back to my long-abandoned healthy diet and exercise program in late April, when my goddaughter called to say she would be getting married in October. The announcement was just the kick in the ass I needed to do something about my unhealthy physical state, instead of just thinking and worrying about it. Also, I figured unless I wanted to attend the wedding wearing my sweats, I’d better do something right quick about my out of control eating habits.

Weighing myself that first day was incredibly difficult, but I needed to see what I was dealing with. I knew the numbers would be bad, but I was unprepared for just how bad they really were. I won’t write the exact number here; it’s too embarrassing. Suffice it to say, I weighed as much as two average-sized people. Heavyweight boxers weigh less. I did some fast calculating and decided I needed to lose 100 lbs. by the wedding. In order to do that, I had to lose 20 lbs. per month, or 5 lbs. per week. That’s a huge challenge, and to do that, I needed to work out twice a day, every day, and keep my food intake to 1,000 calories or less.

From the start the Saboteur gave me a hard time. “You’ve done enough; you can quit for today,” she would start ten minutes into my treadmill workout. “I’m hungry!” “My knees hurt this morning; come on, just work out tonight,” she’d whine. “Look, it’s raining out; sleep a little later.” “I’m tired!” On and on her complaints echoed in my head. I ignored her as best I could. I kept a food and exercise diary for several weeks, which I found helpful in the beginning, but after my body adjusted to the new routine, I didn’t see the point of this. Also, it was just too time-consuming and I didn’t have the time.

I finally banished the Saboteur to a dark corner of my mind a few weeks ago. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I yelled at her after another round of bitching and moaning. “There’s a new world order around here and no amount of whining is gonna change that, so deal with it.” Muttering, the Saboteur retreated to her cave. “That’s right,” I yelled after her. “There’s a new sheriff in town and you know what her name is.” I thought I heard some foul language as a response to that but I decided to let it go.

I’ve been obsessively watching “My 600 lb. Life” and “Extreme Weight Loss” of late. The people on these programs are truly inspirational. Here’s a question, though: how in the world do the individuals on “Extreme Weight Loss” lose 100 lbs. in three months? Do they work out 24 hours a day, every day? Do they eat, at most, 500 calories? Don’t get me wrong, I love Heidi and Chris Powell, the hosts of “Extreme Weight Loss,” but I have a problem when they’re disappointed if the person they’re working with doesn’t meet their goal of a three-month 100 lbs. loss. Seriously?

As of this writing, I’ve lost 35 lbs., which has been a monumental struggle to achieve. Heidi and Chris would probably shake their heads and walk away from me in disgust. Not only that, but I’m way behind schedule. If I’m to drop the 100 lbs. by October, I have to lose another 65 lbs. in the next two months. I don’t know. I’ll give it my all, but realistically, I know it’s a long shot. Still, I’ll be very happy with whatever weight loss I attain.

I’ll blog more about this in the coming weeks. Wish me luck!

Every three or four months, I indulge in a do-nothing day. I sleep as late as I want, watch TV or read in bed and pretty much have a peaceful, stress-free twenty-four hours. These quarterly lay-about days usually fall on Sundays and prepare my normally addled, firing-on-all-cylinders brain for Monday morning and the start of a brand new week of job hell.

My most recent lazy Sunday coincided with Presidents’ Day weekend, but due to several unexpected issues that had to be dealt with, my day of leisure didn’t happen until the next day. I didn’t care. That’s the beauty of a three-day weekend, I thought: if you can’t do what you want on Saturday or Sunday, there’s always Monday.

What I didn’t count on was weekday morning TV. No, not the many morning talk shows, game shows and reality TV fare. I’m talking about the commercials aimed at shut-ins, accident victims, the seriously ill, and the elderly. From about ten until five I was bombarded with ads for drugs that claimed to relieve all sorts of maladies, along with their numerous side effects. It didn’t matter what program I was watching, either. These ads were all over the place; the only escape was to watch a movie on HBO or TCM but I couldn’t find anything I liked. Even the financial channels ran these commercials, along with the ones for lawyers specializing in student loan forgiveness, settling with the IRS, and bankruptcy.

I know I should have turned off the TV but it was sort of mesmerizing. After seven hours of this constant barrage of possible misery, I became hyper-aware of even the slightest bodily twitch. I don’t consider myself a hypochondriac; nevertheless, by dinnertime there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I had contracted Type 2 Diabetes, Diabetic Nerve Pain, Crohn’s Disease, Fibromyalgia, Psoriasis, Acid Reflux, Arterio Fibrillation, Yeast Infection, Mesothelioma, Overactive Bladder, Post-menopausal Osteoporosis, Acne, Dry Scalp, and all manner of pet, food, and environmental allergies. The only conditions I was safe from were Erectile Dysfunction, Low Testosterone, and Gynoklemastia.

My doctor will be seeing me soon.

I finally pulled the trigger in January and moved out of the crack den-cum-hoarder’s-house studio apartment I’d been living in since God was a boy. My new place is a one-bedroom palace so vast my voice echoes when I speak on the phone. The apartment boasts a kitchen so large it can double as a second bedroom, a massive living room, an enormous bedroom, and a nice-sized terrace. I can also enjoy looking out of the many windows that allow different views of the neighborhood. I’m very happy in my new home and feel incredibly lucky to have found it. Of course, in order to remain happy, I can’t look too closely at my surroundings.

You may think I like to complain. I don’t. But I don’t understand why the only way quality workmanship is obtained these days is if many thousands of dollars exchange hands. Here’s what I mean:

I finished moving into my freshly-painted apartment at night, so I didn’t notice until the next morning that whoever did the paint job in the kitchen didn’t use a tarp or painter’s tape to protect the black tiles from drips or splatters. The floor has minute paint drops everywhere, sort of dandruff-like. There’s a giant glob of dried paint where the baseboard meets the floor at the entrance to the kitchen. Since he didn’t use a floor protector, why didn’t the painter clean up after he was done? Was he in that much of a hurry?

Here’s something else: in certain areas the hardwood floors slope down. The office chair I use at my computer rolls of its own accord toward the sofa if I don’t push it close to the desk. Anyone not familiar with the apartment’s quirks would swear the place was haunted. Who laid these floors down anyway? Hey, I watch HGTV regularly so I know there’s a way to make hardwood floors level. Maybe whoever did the floors missed those particular episodes.

The bathroom in my old place was always the bane of my existence. My new bathroom, although small, is really nice. It has a frosted-glass window which lets in light but maintains my privacy. Prior to my moving in, the bathroom was re-tiled and painted (I found another glob of paint behind the door where the wall meets the floor), making it very cozy and welcoming. However.

The light fixture in the bathroom is above the sink and has the one lone outlet for me to plug in my blow dryer. I’d like to have a talk with the genius who installed this thing. Did he think Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was moving in? I’m 5’4″ and the outlet is two inches from the ceiling. Every time I have to dry my hair I have to use the outlet in the bedroom.

The first time I went for the toilet paper, the heavy ceramic holder on the wall fell on the floor, shattering, narrowly missing my foot. Was this adhered to the wall with spit? Every time I wash my hands water drips from the spigot creating a small lake on the sink’s surface. I had the building’s handyman come over to fix these issues in the bathroom. About the drip he said, “Oh, yeah, look at that!” About the toilet paper holder he said the super had to approve the purchase and installing of a new one. He practically skipped as he left my apartment, obviously happy he had no work to do for me that day. I’m still awaiting his return.

I understand building owners wanting to save money on repairs. I get that. My point is, why not do things right the first time around? Why not take a few moments and put a sheet down so paint doesn’t splatter on the floor? Why doesn’t anybody take pride in the way a job is done anymore? Why is it that the only way things are done correctly is if it costs millions of dollars, like I see on the show “Million Dollar Contractor”? It shouldn’t be that way, but unfortunately, it is and it really pisses me off.

Something strange happened to me the other day. I was at the office, sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I got an overwhelming, almost uncontrollable urge to slap the bejesus out of a colleague who was telling a group of us a story. And it wasn’t just the story-teller I wanted to slap; it would have been delightful to slap the piss out of every single person sitting there listening. Where was this sudden animosity toward individuals I considered good friends coming from? Was it a full moon? A case of hormone imbalance? Demonic possession? Cabin fever?

I don’t mind telling you this phenomenon frightened me to the point of excusing myself to walk around the floor to figure things out. I tried to come up with reasons for my aggressive impulses but after several minutes of thoroughly berating myself for my inherent bitchiness and wondering why I couldn’t be sweet and nice to everyone around me like so-and-so, it occurred to me that I was bored. Yes, bored. What a revelation! Who knew that a simple case of extreme ennui could provoke violent thoughts? It was as good an explanation as any, I guessed. But how to rid myself of these unacceptable thoughts? Nothing came to mind. So I decided instead of fighting it, I’d embrace my hostility.

Now don’t get all excited; I don’t mean I’d actually slap people around every time things got a little monotonous. I’m no fool; they lock you up for that. Instead, my plan was to create a mental, or virtual Thunder Dome and go at whoever happened to be around when that wave of boredom came over me. Outwardly, I’d smile and continue to do my job; inwardly, the battle would rage on until the hapless target of my violence gave up and cried out, “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?” And my answer would always be the same: “Because I just don’t like your face.”

I’ve been so traumatized by the annual chaos created by the UN General Assembly that it’s taken me longer than usual to recover enough to rant – er – blog about this colossal time-waster.

You know, before coming to New York, I used to think New Yorkers were so lucky to have this vital institution domiciled right in the middle of town, where anybody could actually witness history being made. How glamourous! How sophisticated! How incredibly awesome!

What a crock.

Of course, I realize my previous views came from looking at things from the outside in. I didn’t have to battle my way across town taking detours because the streets I needed to get to were blocked to all foot and vehicular traffic. I had no idea what commuting nightmares awaited anyone using the Midtown Tunnel to get to and from Queens County. I was blissfully unaware of the massive clusterfuck that was created by the president’s visit to the Big Apple, or by his desire to have dinner out with other heads of state.

After many years of this stupefying exercise in frustration and futility, and after taking several informal opinion polls of the general populace (most of them cab drivers), I think I’ve come up with a solution to this annual pain-in-the-ass event:

Create Diplomat Island (DI), new home of the United Nations.

My idea is to provide a self-contained locale, fully independent of Manhattan; New York’s own version of Vatican City, if you will.

This man-made atoll would float on the East River, right across from where the UN currently stands, and would be accessible only from a two-lane bridge from Queens. Entry into Manhattan from DI would only be possible from  another two-lane bridge. Sentry posts manned by Marines would be set up on either side of the island and entry would be denied anyone who had no business there.

Of course, to achieve total independence and autonomy, all amenities, facilties,  services, and security measures that cultural attaches have come to expect would be available on Diplomat Island, so that the only reason any international or domestic luminary had to travel outside DI would be to go home.

I don’t know, but it seems to me establishing Diplomat Island would solve a lot of the problems and alleviate many of the annoyances that occur every year when the UN General Assembly is in session.

Traffic in the city would return to normal, that is, it would be merely appalling, instead of horrendously nightmarish. Citizens would not be scrutinized by the local gendarmes as if they were members of the Manson family. Mailboxes around midtown in the east forties and fifties would reappear just as mysteriously as they disappeared two weeks prior. And, most importantly, the coffee carts on the east side close to and around the Waldorf-Astoria would be allowed to return, much to the relief of those of us addicted to a particular cart’s brand of coffee.

I hope Diplomat Island becomes a reality soon. It will be a great day when the member nations gather to do their thing, i.e., waste each other’s time, annoy and subtly insult each other and accomplish absolutely nothing in a venue far, far away and leave those of us trying to earn an honest day’s living the hell alone.

[contact-form] Hello, Everybody.  Victoria Wilson here.  My first book, ‘Til the Fat Redhead Sleeps is live!  It’s the humorous story of two women trapped in an ancient elevator in New York City on the day before Thanksgiving and how they cope with their situation. Please check it out on Amazon or iUniverse.  I hope you enjoy my first published work!

I’ll be adding posts from time to time about living and working in New York City – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  It is my intention and sincerest hope that these postings amuse and entertain you.  Let me know!