Stir Crazy

Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder
in "Stir Crazy" (1980)

STIR CRAZY:
stir-cra·zy/ˈstɜrˌkreɪzi/ [stur-krey-zee]
–adjective slang .
1. Informal . restless or frantic because of
confinement, routine, etc.:
I was stir-crazy after just two months
of keeping house.
2. mentally ill because of long imprisonment.

I like my apartment. I really do. But today, December 28th, is the third day I've been cooped up here. It's like when you really, really love pistachio ice cream and you have nothing in your house to eat and someone gives you a few dozen tubs of Breyer's Pistachio (your favorite) and you eat nothing but pistachio ice cream for a week. You'll never look at pistachio again. In fact you may never look at ice cream again. This comes under the heading of "too much of a good thing". So anyway, like I said, I like my apartment. The only thing I don't like about it is that it's been freezing in here lately more often than not. Funny thing is that I get to control the thermostat. It's across the hall and I can just go out there and adjust it upwards anytime I feel cold. Only problem is, it doesn't seem to help. I'm beginning to suspect that it's just a dummy thermostat that does absolutely nothing, and they installed it so that any tenant they happen to rent to can feel better pschologically while their teeth are chattering. But other than the fact that I sometimes feel like I'm living in an igloo, the place is perfect for me. I'm even keeping it c-l-e-a-n (don't tell anyone; I have a reputation to maintain). After roughly half the doctors in the Greater New York area informed me that I better clean up my act or my next address just might be c/o Beth Moses Cemetery, Farmingdale, New York, I figured it was time to see what it's like to dwell in a place where one can actually breathe. It's actually pretty cool. Don't know why I didn't think of it before. So I think I've established that I like my apartment. Did I mention that I like my apartment? Did you know that someone exactly nineteen days from his sixtieth birthday tends to repeat himself? So, finally meandering back to my original point (and, I might add, not a moment too soon), if I don't get out of here soon, they're gonna find me curled up in the bathtub humming "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while smiling broadly and drooling. The snow started early Sunday morning and just kept coming. I actually had the presence of mind to venture out for a few minutes that day to pick up a container of milk at the corner bodega. I understand that there is now more snow out there than there are prunes in Cincinnati. And everyone knows that Cincinnati is the Prune Capital of the World. Actually, as blizzards go, this one is strictly a rank amatuer. Back in '96 we had over 30" dumped on us here in Brooklyn. Of course I wasn't here at the time: I was bright enough to leave Sunday morning on a bus to a friend's wedding in Baltimore and couldn't get back for three days. But that's for another blog. We got 17.5" inches this time and, thanks to His Highness Mayor Bloomberg, about 17.25" of that is still lying in the middle of the street, waiting to be plowed. I'll bet you want to know what I've been doing for the past two days, other than going through Shas yet again. Well, I've been drawing my version of a Picasso on my kitchen wall. I kid you not. When I was unpacking I found an empty picture frame and thought it would be cool to hang it around a picture drawn directly on the wall. I don't know if I would actually have done it had I not become a prisoner in my own place because of the caprice of Mother Nature. But I am actually doing it. In washable crayons, seeing as how this joint doesn't belong to me (although I can't imagine that they would actually remove it when I leave!). I picked the Picasso because you don't really have to know how to draw to copy it. So far I think it's coming out pretty good. What do you think?