Back Home (for a bit)...

Even after 7 months in NY it was as if I'd never left LA. My pink flowered canopied room looked exactly the same, my baby blue volkswagon station wagon still had gas in it, and my friends thought I was no worse for the wear, and in fact maybe even new and improved.

And so after a month or so of doing absolutely nothing but enjoying time with them I started back to school at CSUF, and it was seriously as if nothing had changed. LeeAnn was back as well of course and still talking about her big move to New York...

"No, No, Nanette"

For the Fall Mainstage production I was cast as a dancer in another one of Mimi Tate's choreographic masterpieces... For weeks we improvised, tossing beachballs back and forth to each other, learning how to look cutesy and getting our best Marcel Marceau's on. I think we must have rehearsed a tap dance number or two as well.

I'll never forget sitting at home one night just a week before our opening and getting a phone call from Dean Hess, the director of the show. He was frantic because one of the leads who was playing Sue Smith (the Ruby Keeler role) had dropped out with the excuse that she was just too overcome by nerves to do it. And would I take the role? Well, I sort of freaked out, being that it was a huge tap dancing role and other than doing the time-step in "Mame" a couple of years before and the few brief rehearsals I'd had with Mimi, I was really FAR from being a tap dancer. But he said he'd teach me and so somehow I said "Ok."

And somehow we pulled it off!

One of the most unbecoming costumes ever...

This was our Review.

I'll never forget sitting with Thom in his car in some parking lot in Fullerton, reading the review, and squeeeing!

Flowers for Sue...

"Mary Poppins"

That January I did a production "Mary Poppins," directed and choreographed by a couple of my Disney friends, who of course cast the rest of my Disney friends as well. I don't remember if it turned out to be any good at all, but we had a blast doing it. I think we did a couple of performances on the Downey Civic Light Opera stage and then a couple more at UCLA.

Chimney Sweep - "Step In Time"

A Pearly - "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"

Towns Person - "Let's Go Fly A Kite"

Such the make-up artist!...

I know all these entries seriously overlap and omit but I really don't know how to make them linear without redundance. So this one will probably contain mostly my theatrical efforts from those couple of years because in my memory that's just the easiest way for me to chronicle the past. Please refer to my LJP and TMB blogs for pretty much all the other stuff that was going on during this time...

Marshall Industries

Ok, I lied, because my full-time job had nothing at all to do with any theatrical efforts except that I had to ACT really hard to make people believe I had any interest in even being there. But it did provide me with play money that winter, spring and summer and I made $475 a month! I was the "Control Clerk" and I really don't remember exactly what that meant, but trust me it was pretty boring. I worked alongside one of my best friends from High School, Roberta, except that she was the company's computer programmer (at 20) and made a ton of alot more money than me. Yes, she was very smart! I don't remember receiving any benefits but I must have had vacation days because at one point I flew out to New York to visit Doug and we spent a crazy week on the town seeing shows like "Equus", "Chicago" and "A Chorus Line." Little did I know at the time that the latter two would eventually become such an important part of my life. Even though, looking back, I think I honestly knew that they would.

Back to Disney for a Day for The Easter Parade

I think I must have been really excited about doing this, given that I'd completely missed the last Electrical Parade and had been pining over it for a year. So it must have been great to be back home. Though I really don't remember much about this day at all!

With Michael

With Thom

A Fork

Somewhere during this time I had applied and was accepted to Brigham Young University, but for some reason I didn't go. I've always wondered how different my life would have been (not necessarily better or worse but just different) if I had gone.

"Promises, Promises"

I'd leave straight from work every evening and drive to Downey where I'd practice until really late at night, usally going out with the cast afterwards... then getting up to be to work by 7:00 am the next morning. I have no idea where all that energy came from. Obviously it wasn't a very successful strategy though, because at some point that summer they fired me. (The only job I've ever been fired from :) But no biggy, because that only allowed me to be able to stay out even later at night after rehearsals...

As Vivian della Hoya in "Turkey Lurkey"(the Donna McKechnie role)

Yet another make-up shot...

An August of Disappointments

I won't elaborate on this, just basically sticking it in as a time stamp. Because I was just about as depressed and whiney as anyone could ever be that month! Lorna was off in the Orient doing her USO tour and everybody else was just pretty much busy...

But then...

America On Parade

I think this must have been around the time that I delevoped my huge claustrophobia issue. Imagine being completely strapped into a costume that you couldn't get out of yourself, and of course you couldn't really talk to anyone once your harness and head were locked and in place. So if a panic attack were to ever occur the only thing you'd probably be able to do would be lie on the ground and kick your legs frantically until someone had the presence of mind to notice you were having a problem. (I'm only partially kidding here) But it was as hot as a sauna in there and I used the opportunity to sweat as much as I possibly could and setting my mental bar for kicking those legs higher and higher every day. I don't remember exactly how many months I actually did this parade, but I do know that I lost A LOT of weight.

And at this point I was dancing a ton. Not only at school and Disneyland but adding at least a class or two each day into the mix. Jackie and Bill Landrum or Joe Bennett at Dupree's downtown LA for jazz every morning, Kathryn Lowe's in Anaheim for ballet class every afternoon, and when my schedule allowed for an additional hour or two, Stephen Peck's in Fullerton. I was pretty much a dancing fool. And obsessed.

"Gypsy"

But CSUF found me again. This time in the fall musical "Gypsy."

Tessy Tura - "You Gotta Have A Gimmick" (aka the stripper with finesse)

I think the thing I remember the most about that show was losing my voice. I guess my vocal chords weren't quite use to belting out such a gutsy song. It must have been like the 2nd or 3rd night of the run that my voice just gave out, completely!... mid-performance. How embarrassing!

The very next day, our music director sent me to a special laryngologist in, waitforit... Beverly Hills. I remember he swabbed my throat with some steroid concoction and then I don't remember much else from that experience at all, except for seeing Gene Kelly sitting there while exiting through the waiting room.

I went on in the chorus that night with someone else replacing me in my role, but it's still pretty cool that the next day I received reports from the box office that several people had called to see if I'd be back playing the role or if the understudy was still on. I'm just hoping that was a positive...

A "likeness" rendered by my good friend Joe

Tryin'

It was right around this time that I first auditioned for the upcoming tour of "A Chorus Line." The audition was held at the Aquarius Theatre in L.A. and what an experience! The line for auditionees was, of course, wrapped around the block and we stood in line forever to get in. What I know now is that I didn't make it into the show (far from it!) But at least I lasted long enough to be one of the ones who got to witness Michael Bennett and Bob Avian perform the opening combination as we stood on the sidelines waiting to show our stuff. What a rush! But it would still be several years before I'd get to do that routine under anything but an audition situtation...

A Couple of Other Shows Hardly Worth Mentioning...

The only thing I really remember about this show was the "No Coffee!" number and also that Doug showed up out of the blue one night before the show and sent a card and flowers back stage. I was a wreck!

We performed it at the Good Time Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, which for all intents and purposes meant that it probably should have been good.

It was a disaster!

Then, in April, I auditioned for "Sweet Charity" with the Long Beach Civic Light Opera and that's when things finally began to look up...

Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple! (or maybe just a lick)... Part 3

Moving Day

It took Doug and I a whole two trips on the crosstown bus to move all my stuff. (I left the coffee table for the next renters...)

And there we were, with all my earthy belongings, sitting outside the door of my new apartment on York Ave and 72nd Street waiting (a long time) for my new roommates to arrive and let me in, leaving only long enough to go grab McDonalds and bring it back. It was a doorman guarded apartment, so the risk was only minimal. Plus, I'm pretty sure no-one living in that building would have had much interest in any of my belongings.

That was our apartment right up there in front with the curtains opened. (The one without the balcony)

(I'll never forget over the next few months, during his many absences, stepping in or out of my apartment door and pining about that afternoon, when we'd dined on that hallway floor.)

At any rate, Patty finally came home and I was finally able to settle in, which took me about 15 minutes max...

The apartment consisted of a living room/dining area, a kitchen, one bedroom and bathroom plus a small alcove off the kitchen area (with sliding accordion doors) probably meant to be an office but which I would find served Patty quite well for occassional afternoon trysts. So we all shared one bedroom, with three beds (except that mine was still a foam mattress on the floor). I think Patty used the coat closet off the entry way for her clothes, but Julie and I shared the other small one in the bedroom. Speaking of Julie... I don't even really remember seeing her very often. She mostly lived with her boyfriend somewhere in town and would come home only occassionally to exchange her clothes with other ones which were hanging in the closet she shared with me. Come to think of it, I don't really remember seeing Patty all that much either, though I saw her a lot more than I saw Julie.

Anyway, I remember the first morning waking up in that apartment and feeling SO disoriented and worried about being late for work, since I didn't really have an exact public transportation routine firmly worked out in my head yet. But I got up and started my morning with my usual bowl of Raisin Bran, when Patty came in and asked me what I was doing and I told her I was getting ready for work. She said "But it's only two o'clock in the morning!" I think she was just getting in...

Needless to say, I spent ALOT of alone time in that apartment. Which I suppose wasn't entirely a BAD thing, considering I was only paying $150 a month!

Spring

I can honestly say that I'd never experienced many higher highs than that of riding the bus across town to work on those beautiful spring mornings and saying to myself "This is mine! I live here! This is home!" One day in particular that I remember was a day in April, shortly before my mom's birthday because I was out buying a birthday present for her, and the day was so brilliantly gorgeous that I ended up walking all the way home, shopping bag in hand.

But it rained a lot too or was very overcast and depressing, especially on weekends it seemed, so there wasn't always that much to do. If there's only been internet back then! So sometimes I'd borrow Julie's bike and ride a block over to the east river to write in my journal.

Doesn't it look exactly like a scene from "The Godfather?"

And occassionally Doug would be in town and we'd catch lunch at some sidewalk cafe or stroll around the city, but more often than not he'd have other visitors in town as well.

Doug and Linda in Central Park :(

And Me...

Even though I do remember that being a lovely weekend. We all (including his roomate Timothy) watched the Oscars together on Sunday (the year Tatum O'Neal won best actress and Doug was livid!) But we also had some of the sweetest moments that day which will stick in my mind forever. Linda had sort of insisted on coming to visit and he just hadn't known how to turn her down. But it was me he really loved. You betcha.

I don't mean to make it sound as if I had absolutely no other social life at all, because as summer drew near I did have quite the routine of meeting up with Patty and her friends on Friday nights at one of the many available options of singles bars on the upper east side... and it was a lot of fun too! Even though more than once was I almost persuaded to do something crazy, I never gave in. But it was definitely an eye-opening awakening to the New York singles lifestyle.

Probably one of the most enjoyable weekends I had was traveling out to Long Island with Patty to visit her family. It was wonderful being in a real, live home again and her parents were incredibly hospitable. And we had a great time with some of her old friends too.

At a fun Italian restaurant. That's Patty on the right.

A chilly day at the beach! I think that must have been my only shirt!

But then as Memorial Day came and went I found myself even more alone in that apartment than usual, since my roommates had both gone in on a rental share on a house in the Hamptons.

Summer

We had a beautiful health club facility and swimming pool on the 40th floor, but of course in order to use it you had to be a member, which would have been like another $50 a month...

Here's a funny memory that I have of spending the day with this really nice (but sort of strange guy) who lived on one of the upper floors of my apartment building. A blind date of sorts. I don't remember much more about this day except for having to repeat over and over to him that I wasn't really that interested in having a sleepover.

And who EVEN wears a white leisure suit for an afternoon date anyway?

One of my more interesting stories was the time I came home from work on a Friday evening and proceeded to accidentally break my key in half in the lock to my apartment. So I waited and waited for one of my roommates to get home, but they never showed. Doug was out of town (of course) so I wasn't really sure what to do. I ended up wandering the streets of the upper east side, checking out all of the bars that I thought they might have stopped into but couldn't find them anywhere. It was probably at this point when I realized it was Friday night and they were out in the Hampton's for the entire weekend...

Here's a picture of me perched on the leather ottoman inside the lobby of my apartment building just past midnight.

Don't let the "half-smile" fool you.

But eventually a good samaritan came along and told me to come on upstairs to his apartment, where he'd try to help me figure something out.

Well, of course...

Many hours later, after fighting off a myriad of negotiations, advancements, and several mofioso late night visitors, he finally relented and called a locksmith aquaintance who was able to get me into my apartment. I suppose I should have been grateful that I hadn't been gang raped, or worse, but luckily all I did was sleep for the rest of the weekend.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Mindy was my very best friend at work. Very different from any other friends I'd had in the past but somehow we'd hit it off from the very beginning. Born and bred in Queens, she was the first true-blue New Yoah-kah I'd ever met. We had the best time at work together and her being there made the whole thing bearable. When something was funny she'd always say "What a pisser!" Except she'd pronounced it "Pissah!" I loved her! She had a husband named Vinny. Yes, Vinny. And they'd always talk baby talk to each other, it was hilarious. I spent a lot of time with them out at their apartment in Queens, going to the Belmont Racetrack (she was a huge jockey fan!) or just hanging out with her family and friends, or going to the beach.

Except that now that I look at this pic a little closer, I think this was taken at Huntington Beach when she came out to visit me in LA later that summer.

Anyway, she was a real little Jewish sweetheart... and one of a kind! I wonder whatever happened to her.

Trying My Hand at Theatre

So for the whole half year I'd been in New York I had done absolutely nothing in regards to what should have been my main purpose for being there. I did take a couple of dance classes at the YWCA, including a belly dancing class, but found them for the most part uninspiring.

And then I saw an ad in the paper that "The New York Academy of Theatrical Arts" run by Phillip Nolan was accepting new students, so I filled out an application and wrote a check for my first month (which was really all it took to be IN.) I went to class two nights a week after work, and in all fairness had a pretty good experience getting the feel of what it was like taking acting classes in New York. I did a ton of scenes with fellow students, spent evenings improvising and learning "The Method" and all in all I think our teachers were pretty good. But then one night the Academy director, Phillip Nolan, called me into his office and told me that he thought I had exactly what it took to become a model, but first he wanted to chat... take my measurements, etc. I guess I figured it was all legit, even though it felt really odd and sort of uncomfortable. I never did get that modeling contract. Perhaps maybe because I ran out of his office too abruptly? Who knows?

In the meantime, a student director was casting for a showcase "And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little" and he cast me as Ceil. We rehearsed for weeks on that play and the cast would often end up going out after rehearsals to a restaurant or pub in the Village, or just hanging out in Washington Square. And I just loved those people! We had so much fun together! And again it just felt so cool to feel like a native, to feel like I belonged, living in New York and attempting to do the one thing I wanted to be doing.

But as it turned out, "The New York Academy of Theatrical Arts" was not quite as legitimate (or maybe just not as profitable) as it sounds like it should have been, and within a couple of weeks a closing notice due to back taxes was posted on the front door. But we still kept rehearsing out on the sidewalk, somehow thinking it all must be some sort of bogus mistake, but it wasn't. We never did end up doing the play.

Posing in a doorway outside of the NYAOTA...

I also spent a whole lot of on and off time with Doug that summer, though I was never quite sure which of those times were actually on or which were off. In reading my journal though, I do know that we spent a ton of time together and went to lots and lots of movies! Doug was a real movie goer...

I remember one Saturday packing an amazing picnic basket lunch for us filled with bread, fruit, wine and cheese for an afternoon at Coney Island.

Doug and David, after lunch...

And Me...

I'm not sure if this picture was taken on that very same day or not. All I know is that it was taken at some time during that summer, at Coney Island, and that he took it...

Going Home With My Tail Between My Legs... but not exactly.

From my journal: Last night I decided to go home. I don't know what kind of decision this is. Wrong? Right? All I know is that I want to be able to put my arms around someone and cry. Maybe I'm not as strong as I thought I was. I'm just not ready for this kind of life. I love New York and I know it will always be here, but I'm just not ready yet to forget everything I left behind. I miss my friends! I've done something that I never dreamed was possible for me and I am positive that I will come back to it. But I just want to go home and figure out if this is what I really want. Do you know what I mean?

And I guess someone would have to read my entire journal from that time to completely understand just how much it had all meant to me and how much it had all changed me... (or as to why I still seemed to be acting so crazy and naive about the whole Doug thing...)

But given that, I still sincerely hope that no one will ever try to track down and read the thing... because that would just be really embarassing and humiliating. Even if I was dead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But anyway, knowing that I only had a few weeks left, I was able to then just enjoy the crap out of New York! I moved from York Avenue back to Doug's apartment and in with Timothy (Doug was living out in LA for the rest of the summer...) and it was absolutely hotter than Haites in that 4th floor walk up!

Mom came through town on her Church History tour so we were able to spend a few days together. (This was tour when mom met David, though they didn't really know each other very well yet... and I still believe that one of the most vivid memories he had of me was how very fast and purposely I walked while leading them all from their hotel to see the Empire State Building. He even brought up that memory 37 years later during the very last conversation I'd ever have with him, just before he passed.)

Me meeting mom at her hotel

On the Circle Line

I was also able to travel to upstate NY on the bus with her group to the Hill Cumorah Pageant, all the while witnessing David's increasing infactuation with my mother...

I returned to New York with just about enough time to catch one more evening out on the town with friends.

The afternoon before the evening I flew out I took the train out to the beach first, because of course I had to be tan for the entourage of friends who were planning to pick me up at the airport in LA.

I wish I still had that much energy!

Anyway, at around 5:00 pm I hauled all my stuff down those 4 flights of stairs for the last time and hailed a cab to the airport.

I'd survived New York City for 194 days...

Taking a Bite Out of The Big Apple! (or maybe just a lick)... Part 2

How is it that sometimes all it takes to transport you back to a particular place in time is just to hear a song?... and then it's like you're right back there all over again?

Well that's the case with "With You" from the Broadway show "Pippin." It was the very first show I saw in New York and that song (along with the whole album) would subsequently become the soundtrack of my life during that long and lonely month of March.

Except it was a tape...

And this was my best friend!

My routine consisted of coming home from work, changing into comfy clothes, settling down on my foam mattress, pressing "play" and then writing endless tomes of letters to Doug, Thom, Lorna, my family, and old friends from college and d'land. I had such fancy stationary back then too! Sometimes I SO miss the days of penning out thoughts, sealing, adressing and stamping the envelope and then actually mailing it. The same goes for waiting endlessly for and then FINALLY receiving a letter back in my mailbox! Which, if someone were to have filmed it, would have probably been the screenplay.

But other than that, sometimes I'd just wander down to Times Square in the evening to walk around... or on weekends walk through Central Park and maybe check out an antique shop... or just stare out the window at the snow, which seemed to never end.

But whatever, sometimes when I think about it I wish I could just go back there for a few minutes and experience it all over again, even as lonely as I remember feeling at the time.

If I had only known how very temporary that brief little moment of time in the scheme of things would be, and how short that time would last.

But then there are also those moments that I'd never want to re-live ever again, like the time I got that letter from mom saying that if she were in New York I'd probably find her at the bottom of the Empire State Building, and she wasn't referring to Bonds! (which was where Bonds was...) This in response to Lee and her parents reporting back that I was out in New York living in sin!

That was such a crazy night if I remember correctly. Talk about feeling mammoth portions of guilt! Even though nothing I'd done had been much to write home about (for the most part)... I understand now how it must have been much more than mom was probably able to handle at the time. But mine and Doug's relationship mostly consisted of going out to a Broadway show, a movie or a dance concert, him shopping for clothes at Macy's (yawn), listening to music in his apartment... (I'll admit he was a VERY good kisser!) And maybe only a couple of times (ok, ALOT) did he ever take me out to Le Jardin (the premiere and most exclusive gay bar in town...) where we would dance the night away...

Visitors!

But then suddenly all was forgiven and forgotten... and mom somehow procured plane tickets for herself and my sister to come for a visit to the Big Bad Apple!

And it was wonderful having them there those few days! It was like all of a sudden my apartment had been blessed... somehow making it feel like home.

I remember giving them SUCH explicit instructions on how to find their way down to 35th Street from my apartment on 72nd and how I felt so proud of myself for being such a native!

We had dinner that night at the very famous, yet now sadly closed, Mama Leone's.

I think this was the dress I purchased from "Bonds"...

During their stay my childhood babysitter, Montez Brown, and her dear family came up to visit us from Philly.

Dave Brown had baptized and confirmed me as a child, so we'd had a pretty long history! (I'd end up going down to visit them often in the coming years and have such great memories of those times! Ten years later they even came up for Whitney's blessing. Montez ended up passing away at much too early an age, but our families still remain in touch.)

Here's another shot of my "dining room table" without the KFC.

It was actually an old door that I'd hauled off the street and placed on top of a cardboard box which I'd covered in contact paper. *classy!*

Anyway, the night before my family left we all took in the show and a movie at Radio City Music Hall. Then Doug left us curbside grabbing a cab home to pack for his latest tour (or maybe it was Hawaii) which he'd be boarding a plane for in the morning, and I sobbed on my foam mattress all night! Of course mom thought I was crying because she was leaving, bless her heart! Though I'll agree that MAY have had something to do with my state of mind. But she was so dear. She just sat there and rubbed my forehead forever... the way she'd do when I was a little girl.

Thom came to visit me as well that month and we painted the town!... or at least ate hot dogs at Nathan's in Times Square and rode the Circle Line around Manhattan (on a freezing day!) But it was great!

Here are a couple of pictures he took while he was there. (Oops, I think the only one I have of Thom is from our Circle Line day, which is on my TMB post)...

Me, along side the only decoration in my apartment, which I'd picked it up at one of those antique shops on one of those Saturdays (which wasn't REALLY an antique... but just very Doug-ish...)

Off to work maybe?

A special delivery pineapple from Hawaii...

A Funny Coincidence

I'd always been sort of jealous of this one girl in High School, Sandra Z. Because she was a true blue ballet dancer who took professional classes in L.A. every night. I remember her telling stories during Home Ec about how she'd taken class with Juliet Prowse the night before. You know the type... Anyway, I knew that she had moved to New York and been accepted into the New York City Ballet Company and all that... but I never really quite expected to see a mailbox with her name on it right next to mine (being 3,000 miles away from High School!)

I saw her in the elevator once but kept a very low profile. I wasn't exactly that comfortable at the time introducing myself and saying "Hi there, remember me? I just recently moved to New York!... and have absolutely NO idea what I'm doing here!" Know what I mean? So I just sort of remained "aware" of her from a distance. Years later I would at least be able to redeem that self esteem a bit, but that's another story.

Reality

And so there I was... living on pretty much nothing and not sure where to turn. But a guardian angle, aka Patty P., who was also the head of Personel at Bonds (no, not Human Resources because it was still called "Personel" back in those days) told me that she and her roommate were looking for a third person to share their apartment on the upper east side for $150 each. I don't really remember whether she interviewed me first before asking me to move in, or not...

Taking a Bite Out of The Big Apple! (or maybe just a lick)... Part 1

So just how brave do you have to be to buy a one-way ticket to New York with only $300 in your pocket? Sometimes I overwhelmingly miss the enthustiastic innocence of those days. But there was nothing stopping me. My mom said I'd go off to New York over her dead body! Even though somehow 40 years later she's still with us.

I will never forget that day. January 21st 1974 ~ 11:45 am.

This must have been a really difficult picture for my mom to take...

Wow, that was a really big plane!

I swear there's nothing better than flying at 40,000 feet having absolutely no idea whatsoever what you're flying into...

My initial impressions of New York are pretty vague. Culture shock for sure. But somehow we made it from JFK to the East Side Bus Terminal and from there by cab to Doug's apartment at 542 East 14th St. where we were at once deposited. And so there we were, two young girls (with a whole lot of bags!) standing on a very empty sidewalk in the middle of a very blustery winter night. Thankfully it didn't take long too awfully long to discover this flimsy little note flapping wildly in the wind... taped just inside a darkened doorway.

I can't believe I still have it! Or that it even survived! *sigh*

Looking back... If I had the chance again, would I ever REALLY have dragged my two very heavy suitcases up those four flights of that very narrow, lopsided staircase? Yes probably. Most likely. You betcha!

It was at this point when Douglas most likely concluded that I hadn't brought along a suitable companion for his roommate Timothy... *g*

Fun Times

Popcorn!

Juggling!...

Ice Skating...

Practicing good hygiene...

The Met!

I should probably just dedicate another blog to all the rest of the fun times...

The Apartment Hunt from Hell

Let's see, when I'd left LA the going rate for a really nice 2 bedroom apartment ran for about $150 a month, so that's where we thought we'd start. What a shocker! The first place we looked at for $150 included a single room with unfinished walls, a bathtub in the kitchen with a plank you could drag on top of it to double as a dining table. Plus, I don't think there was any electricity... It didn't get much better at $175 or even $200. We searched for days!... and made the acquaintances of ton of cockroaches in the meantime. At one point, one day, we took a break to see "The Excorcist" which was a much less frightening experience than our apartment search was proving to be.

But then on that very day, from an ad in the New York Times, we got wind of a decent sounding vacancy on West 72nd St. for $225. So we forged a snow storm through Central Park to go take a look at it, stopping only long enough to snap a couple of pics...

And it was perfect! Or at least the entry and lobby seemed respectable. A one bedroom, and with only a random smattering of cockroaches that we could detect.

Here's me on one of our first nights there. Our bedroom consisted of two foam mattresses and a very ecletic collection of random artwork. But it was home!

The (dang) Job

Luckily LeeAnn's aunt (who lived in Queens) worked in the credit department at Bond's Department Store on 5th Avenue and 35th St. So we had a connection! And so then suddenly there we were. Each making about $70 a week (without any benefits.) But who cared? We were living in New York City! I'll never forget trudging up to the subway at 72nd Street (in the snow) every morning, taking the train downtown, changing at Times Square and then on down to 34th. As crazy as it sounds those travels to work then were some of the most thrilling experiences of my life. Especially later, when I was able to ride above ground and actually see the city each morning. But more about that later.

Here's a photo of the main Bond's store in Time Square. The office we worked in was the "operations" center located above a smaller store at 35th and 5th.

As I recall, the clothes were really pretty tacky, though I think I did buy one dress there once. By the way, and this is sort of odd, but we were allowed to wear pants to work. (It seems funny to me now given that 15 years at another job much later we were still required to wear skirts.) And another thing was that we worked the traditional Nine to Five (like the movie)... where we were actually paid for our lunch hours (as little as that probably equated to) but still... I STILL believe that totally makes sense.

I don't even remember exactly what it was that I did but I think it had something to do with matching up price tags with daily receipts and then reconcilling the differences.

Though I think I probably spent most of my time typing letters to Doug... (who seemed to be forever out of town with his dance company tour.)

Backing Out On A Promise or "Haha, I Was Just Kidding"...

So it must have been some time around the end of February when Lee approached me and announced that she was going home. She assured me that it had to do with the fact that I'd left her alone one too many times in that crappy apartment, and I'll admit that I probably did step out for an evening or two with Doug on few nights he was home. Or perhaps it was just her disillusionment... At any rate she blamed me totally for the fail. And so there I was with a $225 a month apartment lease in New York City with no phone (except for maybe the payphone down at the end of the block, but no change) and so, basically, I was pretty much alone.