Under The Hell Gate Bridge

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• March 31, 2017

Fate is something I do not believe in.

It is my firm belief that there is nothing supernatural, nor is there any driving force behind anything that happens.  What people call fate is just the decisions you make plus time.  Yet sometimes, yes, sometimes, things seem all together too perfect.   Or even familiar.  A path you’ve been down before.  Irrational thoughts may tell you something is written in the stars.  But keep in mind, stars are merely dead light.

This all being said, if you know me even a little bit, you know I sometimes space out, and my head will temporarily exist in an entirely different place.  I both lack the desire and ability to write about where my mind rocket-ships off to, but without a doubt, rational takes seat in the passenger side.  Astoria has been home for me for three years, and there are times even I think that’s not a coincidence.

My studio apartment is cozy, clean (OCD), and simply my favorite place on the planet to be.  My neighborhood is eerily quiet.  The suburbs where I grew up were much louder.  Always someone mowing a lawn, fixing a roof, or that fucking asshole who owned that retarded rooster that couldn’t tell time.

When I was looking to move, originally, I was supposed to move with my best friend, whom, upon nearly putting a deposit on a place in Forest Hills, bailed on me because of financial reasons.  I was fucking pissed.  I’m not one of those people who can just find roommates on craigslist.  First of all, I don’t trust anyone.  Second, I’m a chore to live with.  I need things to be in certain places and a certain way, I pace around a lot, and I leave post-it’s with ideas written on them all over the godddamn place, which I fear throwing out because “I have so many brilliant ideas.”  Silence is my favorite, but sometimes, when I’m in really good moods, I blast music in my headphones and dance around.  If I lived with someone and they murdered me, I would have to understand a little bit.  If you put the cayenne pepper in the wrong place on the spice rack, I’d probably say some unfair and unfavorable things about you.  I’m a bit nuts.  God forbid dirty dishes ever be left in the sink.  I literally cannot sleep if I know there are dirty dishes in the sink.

Because I am too neurotic to live with anyone else, and fear whoever lives with me will end up (justifiably) hating my guts, I started looking at studio apartments.  Despite my parents nagging me from the day I graduated college to move out, suddenly, they pivoted their stance and were basically begging me not to move.  As much I loved growing up on Long Island, I needed to move closer to the city, where I could really push a career in comedy.

The first couple studios I looked at almost made me cry.  They were dilapidated, there was a dead cockroach in the hall, they were expensive, and all I pictured was me OD’ing on heroin in those bloody studios (to be clear, I’ve never done heroin, but if I lived there, I felt as though that was the next chapter).

Then, I looked at this studio in Astoria.   I had never been to Astoria Park before, and I was immediately drawn to that beautiful view.  Also, it seemed oddly familiar.  That’s when I realized, I had a poster in my bedroom for YEARS of that exact view.  Weird.  Also, it was right by the water.  As a south shore Suffolk girl, I always wanted to be as close to the water as possible.

It was love at first sight.  I loved the apartment.  As soon as I walked in I had visions of me typing on a typewriter, by candlelight, smoking a cigarette, and drinking whiskey (again, an odd vision, since I have never owned a typewriter, don’t smoke cigarettes, and rarely drink whiskey, but alas, there was something so romantic about this place to a young writer such as myself).  An hour later I called the broker and told him I was going to take it, even though I wasn’t entirely sure I could afford it.  I’ll make it work, I told myself.  I can always work more jobs (FYI, I was already working three jobs).  Yes, living under the Hell Gate bridge seemed like such a perfect fit for me, it could be easily confused with fate.

My landlord loves me, and I know this not only because she hasn’t raised my rent, but also because she told me she loves me.  After my first year living here, she said (in her very thick spanish accent), “you’re so quiet and you never have company.  You are best tenant.”  Wait, I never have company?  I actually had to think about that.  Oh, I guess not.  I think that first year I lived in my apartment, I could count on one hand how many times a person came over.  Goddamn hermit that I am.  My Mom always said I’m someone’s dream girl, but I didn’t think that meant as a tenant to my 85 year old landlord.

Admiring the view of the manhattan skyline, and watching the rip tides swirl in the river while running, or even taking a notebook to the park, has turned many bad days into good ones.  I had for a brief time once lost the warmth and comfort of the feeling of home, and that was god awful.  The quintessential key to quality of life is having a place to call home where you look forward to returning to, and some days (most days) find it unbearable to even leave it, because that’s how much you love being there.

I used to only love to run on the beach.  Otherwise, I hated running.  When I moved, I could no longer afford a gym membership, so running would be my exercise by default.  But it’s so nice where I live, I’ve grown to both love it and be addicted to it (I don’t think I understand the difference between love and addiction.  They feel the same to me.).   Last year, I was running and this old woman comes up to me and heckled me.  On a run!

“You’re done,” she said, “you look great, you should just stop now.”
I didn’t want to make eye contact with this woman, let alone talk to her, so I mumbled something about “maintaining,” and then she yelled at me, “I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND YOU.”

Ditto, lady.   Ditto.

Kids are often trying to play with me or hug me when I work out in the park, or if I’m writing, or at the laundromat.  What’s the opposite of a pedophile?  Like a child who hugs an adult stranger who doesn’t want to be touched?  Because this happens to me a lot.  I’ll be running the track, and kids start laughing and running with me.  I’m doing crunches and toddlers waddle up to me, laughing, and try to embrace me.  Little girls in pizzeria’s tell me what they learned in school.  For fucks sake, a kid in the Laundromat left his mom and followed me out to the sidewalk.  I yelled at him like a dog, “no! stay!”  What the fuck is wrong with these kids?  I never thought I’d have to be worried about accidentally kidnapping a child.  It’s crazy how much kids trust me.  I DON’T KNOW YOU. YOU DON’T KNOW ME.  PLEASE DON’T PUT YOUR STICKY, GERM FILLED HANDS ON ME.  YOU KIDS ARE DISEASE CARRIERS.  I KNOW WRITING THIS IS POINTLESS BECAUSE NO LITTLE KIDS ARE READING THIS, BUT MAYBE TELL YOUR SMALL CHILDREN NOT TO HUG STRANGERS, EVEN IF AND/OR ESPECIALLY IF THAT PERSON IS LORI PALMINTERI.

People always rave about the great restaurants in Astoria, but alas, most my income goes to rent alone, so I don’t eat out much.  That’s okay.  I’m rather content living simplistically.  And when I do make some extra money, I will thoroughly enjoy a meal at one of my favorite Astoria restaurants (Agnati, probably, by the park).  The greek food is fantastic.  I’m a glutton for great, fresh seafood.

It would be dishonest of me to withhold the lonely days.  Because they come and go, and occasionally last.  Even in only three years since I’ve moved, there’s a rift in close friendships I once had.  This is mostly my fault, I’m aware.  I work a lot, and I’m never free on weekends.  The decision to put my career above all is one I made years ago (and do not regret), but as consequence, kinships have waned.  Make no mistake, just because someone is a recluse and prefers solitude over social, doesn’t mean they’re immune to loneliness.  Sometimes I think I’m especially allergic to it.  The sting always seems to last too long.

Still, the thought of living with someone else sounds terrible to me now.  It’s hard for me to imagine a situation where I  would even want to live with someone else.  Even if I was with someone I was head over heels for, I would still want to live in separate apartments, but maybe, live on the same block.  I love waking up alone.  Usually, I prefer going to sleep alone.  I love playing classical music, and writing, with no other presence but my own manic energy bouncing off the walls.  I love to not wear pants and read on my comfy chair.  Obviously, living with my family for 24 years, I wasn’t naked all the time, and now that it’s just me, I’ve come to realize the joys of not wearing clothes.  I love long, steamy showers, knowing no one is going to disturb me while reveling in the sensation of water washing away thoughts.  And sitting in my tub, smoking weed.  I do miss cooking for other people.  I used to make my parents dinner a lot, and now when I make dinner in my Fisherprice kitchenette, I want to share it (if it turns out good).  How Italian of me.

The threat of losing my apartment is ever prevalent.  Like many others, I live paycheck to paycheck, and narrowly get by monthly.  It’s too dangerous for me to think about losing my apartment.  That could spiral me into a full blown anxiety attack, and truth be told, I’ve been on that ride too many times.  I could live somewhere cheaper.  I could have a few roommates, and be able to quit my part time soul crushing day job, and live off comedy money if I shared a bathroom with four people.  But that sounds simply awful.  I’m trying very hard to preserve whatever little sanity I’ve left, and there could be nothing more important to that preservation than this little place I call Home.

For all the times someone has asked me how I’m doing, and I’ve sarcastically answered, “living the dream.  I’m living the fucking dream,” there have been an equal amount of times I’ve looked out over the water, thinking about where I am right now, under the Hell Gate bridge, and thought, sincerely, “holy shit.  I am actually living my fucking dream.”