The Exquisite, Alabaster Corpse
I asked him about the children’s scooter on the ground. “I don’t know how that got there,” he said.
Fredquisha manically paced her apartment. Three THOTiana roaches, thinking they were chilling in the 3-0-5, were skinny dipping in a cup of orange juice and vodka sitting on the coffee table in the living room. Despite the putrid smell inside the apartment getting worse minute by minute, Fredquisha was unfazed. All she could think about right now was the precarious situation she had going on with her children. Her two boys just less than three hours ago gave her an intense beat down which resulted in her fucked up face and swollen limbs. They were now temporarily staying with her mother until things got sorted out with a caseworker. Then, Mrs. Watkins was holding Myyah hostage, adamant on not returning the girl until she got a social worker investigating her ass. Fredquisha was on the verge of an epic meltdown, but she wasn’t going to let any of this deter her from growing her relationship with sexy ass Trel. “Pop, lock and drop it! Pop, lock and drop it!” Fredquisha’s ringtone on her iPhone went off. Huey’s one hit wonder “Pop, Lock and Drop It” was MooMoo’s jam back in the day and made it her ringtone. “ARE YOU OUTSIDE WITH MY DAUGHTER!??!?” Fredquisha roared, her loud and thunderous voice scaring away the THOT roaches from the vodka pool. “I heard about ya little situation with your boys. We’ll just see about you getting Myyah back after you get your shit together, you nasty hoe. You are OBVIOUSLY not fit to be anyone’s mother.” “BITCH! I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON’T BRING MY DAUGHTER BAC—” Mrs. Watkins interrupted, “Or you gonna do what? Seems like you gon have a caseworker down your back? You really gonna do something to me? Something to Myyah?” Fredquisha just stood there in her smoky, somewhat dark apartment not able to come up with a quick response. A part of her knew Mrs. Watkins was right. Her hands were tied. In a day or so a social worker was going to be all up in MooMoo’s shit and the last thing she needed to do was make her situation even more complicated. “So, what you got to say now?” Mrs. Watkins continued… “FINE! FINE! You want her, you can have her! You and Austin! Didn’t want her ass anyways! I should’ve aborted her mothafuckin’ ass!” Fredquisha quipped and hung up the phone. “AHHHH!” Without hesitation, she threw the phone against the wall and on impact, it exploded into several pieces.
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
Miami roaches, DALE
Paulette, a woman who considered herself a BBW boss bitch, was a well-kept redbone who weighed damn near twice the size as Fredquisha. A tad taller, Paulette had a devil red lace front bob crowning her head. Baby blue contacts covered her pupils. The longest fake eyelashes rested on her eyelids. Everywhere Paulette went she had to show the fuck out in case she met a nigga that was going to elevate her to the next level.
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
In 1542, Paul III authorized the establishment there of a Spanish-type Inquisition, which would pursue the agents of doctrinal impurity who were corrupting the Church from within. He appointed as its head the fearsomely ascetic Gian Pietro Caraffa, who had served as a papal nuncio in Spain. “Were even my father a heretic,” Caraffa is remembered as saying, “I would gather the wood to burn him.”
--Constantine's Sword - James Carroll
Mrs. Watkins quickly shook her head in disbelief, “No, no, no. Detective, I get all that. But if the girl is saying that her mother has been hitting her, psychologically abusing her, and doing all types of crazy stuff to her, are we just supposed to sit back and let her suffer like this until some government agency decides to act?” “Trust me, Mrs. Watkins. I’m there with you – but unfortunately this is the law. I can’t circumvent that based on hearsay. And hearsay is all we have right now coming from a six-year-old. We would still need to talk to Fredquisha and get her side of the story. Then we would also have to interview witnesses. Oh, and by the way…This entire case is out of my jurisdiction. I’d then have to refer this over to a detective at the Chicago Police Department.” “So, should I go there now before it’s too late?” Mrs. Watkins asked. “Well, I mean, you can. But even then, they will tell you the same thing. I can always have Dr. Nunez type up a report and give those notes over to CPD. But they are going to do the same thing…And truth be told, they are going to move much slower than us. CPD is overwhelmed with child abuse allegations.” “So, in other words Myyah is fucked. That’s what’s your telling me.” Det. Jackson lowered his head. “No, I am not saying that at all. But what I am saying is Mrs. Watkins we need to give this time and we can’t impulsively act and make her situation worse. I mean, the reality is that you nor her father have any type of shared custody with Fredquisha. In the event the police were to remove the girl from the home, she’d go live with her other grandmother or another designated guardian. I mean, the judge MIGHT consider handing you custody, but for that to happen, you need to lawyer up and get someone who can prove you are a better suited guardian than Fredquisha’s family.” “This is…just too much. This girl has been telling me now for the last two days that she doesn’t want to go back home, and yet there is nothing we can do to stop her from going into what she says is clearly an abusive situation.” “I know, I’m sorry Mrs. Watkins. But the law is the law. Right now, all we have is hearsay. DCFS needs to conduct an investigation. Then, they will then determine what’s the next course of action. In the meantime, my suggestion would be to just to pray, get a good family lawyer and get ready to battle for the girl.”
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
You think with all of our technology we'd be able to speed up bureaucracy since we know that it can lead to situations where it becomes too little, too late, and the court just comes in with financial recuperation as opposed to being able to prevent issues from happening in the first place?
The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform somberness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother. It was something natural, that had its reason, that had a meaning. Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks—these chaps; but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort to look at. For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away.
--Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)
A focused life with community, friends, and purpose is a good life, no matter how little or much technology you have. Case study: our modern world seems to have a lot of technology, but the future might even have more than ours, which is something that's crazy to believe. But if that's the case, is a person who's happier today a primitive compared to the more technologically-adapted person 500 years in the future who's depressed?
She talked about ‘weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,’ till, upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the company was run for profit. “ ‘You forget, dear Charlie, that the laborer is worthy of his hire,’ she said, brightly. It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there has never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over.
--Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)
In the era of adventure, Victorian England and big dresses, it's really interesting to see the back-and-forth dialogue between those who were traveling the world and those who were commenting on it.
“The old doctor felt my pulse, evidently thinking of something else the while. ‘Good, good for there,’ he mumbled, and then with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprised, I said ‘yes,’ when he produced a thing like calipers and got the dimensions back and front and every way, taking notes carefully. He was an unshaven little man in a threadbare coat like a gaberdine, with his feet in slippers, and I thought him a harmless fool. ‘I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there,’ he said. ‘And when they come back, too?’ I asked. ‘Oh, I never see them,’ he remarked; ‘and, moreover, the changes take place inside, you know.’ He smiled, as if at some quiet joke. ‘So you are going out there. Famous. Interesting, too.’ He gave me a searching glance, and made another note. ‘Ever any madness in your family?’ he asked, in a matter-of-fact tone. I felt very annoyed. ‘Is that question in the interests of science, too?’ ‘would be,’ he said, without taking notice of my irritation, ‘interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals, on the spot, but ...’ ‘Are you an alienist?’ I interrupted. ’Every doctor should be—a little,’ answered that original, imperturbably. ‘I have a little theory which you messieurs who go out there must help me to prove. This is my share in the advantages my country shall reap from the possession of such a magnificent dependency. The mere wealth I leave to others. Pardon my questions, but you are the first Englishman coming under my observation....’ I hastened to assure him I was not in the least typical. ‘If I were,’ said I, ‘I wouldn’t be talking like this with you.’ ‘What you say is rather profound, and probably erroneous,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun. Adieu. How do you English say, eh? Good-by. Ah! Good-by. Adieu. In the tropics one must before everything keep calm.’ ... He lifted a warning forefinger.... ‘Du calme, du calme. Adieu.’
--Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)
Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun is kind of a banger. Du calme, du calme.
“Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, ‘When I grow up I will go there.’ The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven’t been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamor’s off. Other places were scattered about the Equator, and in every sort of latitude all over the two hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and ... well, we won’t talk about that. But there was one yet—the biggest, the most blank, so to speak—that I had a hankering after. “True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery—a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land. And as I looked at the map of it in a shop window, it fascinated me as a snake would a bird—a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, a company for trade on that river. Dash it all! I thought to myself, they can’t trade without using some kind of craft on that lot of fresh water—steamboats! Why shouldn’t I try to get charge of one? I went on along Fleet Street, but could not shake off the idea. The snake had charmed me. “You understand it was a continental concern, that trading society; but I have a lot of relations living on the continent, because it’s cheap and not so nasty as it looks, they say. “I am sorry to own I began to worry them. This was already a fresh departure for me. I was not used to get things that way, you know. I always went my own road and on my own legs where I had a mind to go. I wouldn’t have believed it of myself; but, then—you see—I felt somehow I must get there by hook or by crook. So I worried them. The men said ‘My dear fellow,’ and did nothing. Then—would you believe it?—I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work—to get a job. Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul. She wrote: ‘It will be delightful. I am ready to do anything, anything for you. It is a glorious idea. I know the wife of a very high personage in the administration, and also a man who has lots of influence with,’ etc., etc. She was determined to make no end of fuss to get me appointed skipper of a river steamboat, if such was my fancy. “I got my appointment—of course; and I got it very quick. It appears the company had received news that one of their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me the more anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards, when I made the attempt to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens. Fresleven—that was the fellow’s name, a Dane—thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh, it didn’t surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man—I was told the chief’s son—in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man—and of course it went quite easy between the shoulder blades. Then the whole population cleared into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand, the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble much about Fresleven’s remains, till I got out and stepped into his shoes. I couldn’t let it rest, though; but when an opportunity offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell. And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough. The people had vanished. Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned. What became of the hens I don’t know either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow.
--Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)
The course of progress got our hens and replaced them with lab-grown meat.
They were men enough to face the darkness. And perhaps he was cheered by keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by and by, if he had good friends in Rome and survived the awful climate. Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga—perhaps too much dice, you know—coming out here in the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even, to mend his fortunes. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him—all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.” He paused. “Mind,” he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the pose of a Buddha preaching in European clothes and without a lotus flower—“Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency—the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were not much account, really. They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force—nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea-something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to....” He broke off.
--Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)
A very clear look at imperialism, one of the only clear looks I think in the book. Specifically as it pertains to the aggravated robbery of another land's resources at scale.
“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.” He was the only man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them—the ship; and so is their country—the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut.
--Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)
I never thought of it this way, but I guess the monotony of the sea would create a type of individual who is single-minded in a way because the oceans are just so vast and so self-similar at least from the surface.
Until you’ve seen a dead body like Padma’s, death can seem almost glamorous. Imagine a Victorian consumption victim, expiring with a single trickle of blood sliding from the corner of her rosy mouth. When Edgar Allan Poe’s love, Annabel Lee, is taken by the chill of death and entombed, the lovelorn Poe cannot stay away. He goes to “lie down by the side, of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, in her sepulchre there by the sea, in her tomb by the sounding sea.” The exquisite, alabaster corpse of Annabel Lee. No mention of the ravages of decomposition that would have made lying down next to her a rancid embrace for the brokenhearted Poe.
--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty
Alabaster corpses stir up images of I'm not a Vampire | A Little Piece of Heaven
Racially, Padma was Sri Lankan and North African. Her dark complexion, in combination with advanced decomposition, had turned her skin pitch-black. Her hair hung in long, matted clumps, splayed out in all directions. Thick, spidery white mold shot out of her nose, covering half her face, stretching over her eyes and yawning mouth. The left side of her chest was caved in, giving the impression that someone had removed her heart in some elaborate ritual. Padma was in her early thirties when she was felled by a rare genetic disease. Her body was kept for months at the Stanford University Hospital so doctors could run tests to understand the condition that killed her. By the time she arrived at Westwind, her body had taken a turn for the surreal.
--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty
A mummy!
As I scraped Byron’s body out of the cremation machine, I saw that his skull was still fully intact. Looking over my shoulder to see if anyone, living or dead, was watching, I carefully inched it toward me. When it was near enough to the front of the chamber, I reached down and picked it up. The skull was still warm, and I could feel its smooth, dusty texture through my industrial-grade gloves. Byron’s lifeless eye sockets stared up at me as I tried to remember what his face had looked like as he slid into the flames just two hours before. It was a face I should have known well after our barber-client relationship. But that face, that human, was gone. Mother Nature, as Tennyson said, is “red in tooth and claw,” demolishing every beautiful thing she has ever created. Bones, reduced to just their inorganic elements by cremation, become very brittle. As I turned the skull to the side for a better look, the entire thing crumbled in my hand, the shards tumbling into the container through my fingers. The man who was Byron—father, husband, and accountant—was now entirely in the past tense. I got home that evening to find my roommate, Zoe, on the couch, sobbing. She was brokenhearted over the married man she had fallen for on a recent backpacking trip to Guatemala (a blow to both her ego and her lesbianism). “How was your first day?” she asked through her tears. I told her about Mike’s silent judgment, about the introduction to corpse shaving, but decided not to tell her about Byron’s skull. That was my secret, along with the strange, perverse power I had felt in that moment as skull crusher of the infinite universe. As the sound of ranchera music from Esta Noche blasted me to sleep, I thought of the skull lodged in my own head. How it would one day emerge after everything that could be recognized as Caitlin—eyes, lips, hair, flesh—was no more. My skull might be crushed too, fragmented by the gloved hand of some hapless twentysomething like me.
--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty
What was a nice girl like me doing in a body-disposal warehouse like this? No one in her right mind would choose a day job as a corpse incinerator over, say, bank teller or kindergarten teacher. And it might have been easier to be hired as a bank teller or kindergarten teacher, so suspicious was the death industry of the twenty-three-year-old woman desperate to join its ranks. I had applied for jobs concealed by the glow of my laptop screen, guided by the search terms “cremation,” “crematory,” “mortuary,” and “funeral.” The reply to my job inquiries—if I received any reply at all—was, “Well, do you have any cremation experience?” Funeral homes seemed to insist on experience, as if corpse-burning skills were available to all, taught in your average high school shop class. It took six months and buckets of résumés and “Sorry, we found someone better qualified” before I was hired at Westwind Cremation & Burial.
--Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - Caitlin Doughty
It's sad to see that all entry-level jobs need 5 years of experience, but it does seem that this particular type of experience is kind of hard to acquire.
I asked Lee the big question: If renovating, maintaining, and owning is so difficult, is it even worth being a landlord anymore? “I derive an income off it,” he said. “I’m not one of those distressed property owners. But the reality is that it’s getting much more expensive.”
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
The class narrative is one where it feels pretty bifurcated between Winners and losers, but the nuance is that there are winners with a capital W and a lowercase w, and losers with a capital L and lowercase l.
Can a mayor really freeze the rent? Technically, no: rents are set by the Rent Guidelines Board. But the mayor appoints the board’s nine members, and can choose people who would likely vote to freeze the rent. Leah Goodridge, a former tenants’-rights lawyer, who was appointed to the board by de Blasio during his mayoralty, wrote that a Mamdani rent freeze is “not pie in the sky.” Conversely, Adams said that the current board didn’t listen to him—and raised the rent too much. De Blasio recently said in an interview, “The people named have the power to make their own decisions . . . you do not control them entirely.” Andrew Cuomo tweeted, in response, “I have a major campaign announcement . . . I agree with Bill De Blasio. @ZohranKMamdani’s signature campaign promise . . . can’t actually be enacted.”
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
I like Mamdani a lot (moreso his youth than anything), but I don't trust politicians as a general rule.
I asked him how he could be a progressive but oppose Mamdani and the rent freeze. “What D.S.A. is pushing, ironically enough, would concentrate the amount of wealth to fewer hands, most of the larger developers,” he said. “If you’re a person of color that owns property, you tend to be small-property owners. Even though the rhetoric is progressive, of freezing the rents, the actual consequences of his policies would concentrate wealth, because it’s the mom-and-pops that are the most vulnerable.”
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
Reminds me of San Francsicko by Michael Shellenberger, where a lot of liberal policies that seem good on paper actually end up causing more harm to the community because in their execution they fail to take note of human incentives.
Lee, a former train operator, said he identifies as a leftist. “I consider myself a progressive,” he told me. “I’ve studied enough of the Soviet economy and real revolutionary socialist movements.” When I e-mailed him, I noticed that his profile image appeared to be a photo of a vintage Chinese Communist propaganda poster. “It’s just solidarity,” he said, when I asked him about it later, “with progressive revolutionary struggles.” He paused. “But I do realize that, in terms of small-property owners, which is being a landlord—is it counterintuitive? Is it counter-revolutionary?” He thought for a moment. “I guess not so now because of the fact that, even in China, there are landlords.”
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
In China, our landlords have landlords.
Before the H.S.T.P.A., which introduced the fifty-thousand-dollar cap on renovations for which a landlord could be reimbursed, landlords had an incentive to invest in their properties—to “beautify the building even at a loss,” the manager said. His company, for example, spent four hundred thousand dollars on brick pointing. But the H.S.T.P.A. “made landlords stop investing and start patching,” he said. “The owners we work with who used to care, stopped caring.”
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
I miss whatever era existed where the beautification of architecture was the goal. It seems like it appeared for a little bit in the early 20th century, late 199th century, but got swept away by the conveyor belt of progress (along with the hens).
Approximately a million apartments in New York are rent-regulated, and living in one is sort of the dream. The rules are often arcane and not necessarily understood by the people who live in these places. (One renter in Harlem recently discovered, after twenty years of paying market rents, that his apartment was rent-stabilized.)
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
Living in a rent-stabilized apartment really does make you feel like your New York experience is on easy mode compared to some of the complaints that you can hear out and about on the streets.
We continued the tour. “I’ll probably get rid of this,” Lee said, waving at the paint around some windows, “because this is all lead.” Given how much lead he was pointing out, I asked Lee if it was safe for us to even be there. “That’s a good question,” he said. “I think it’s O.K. It’s not really chipped off or anything like that.” He peered at a wall. “I don’t know if you have an actual monitor to see if there’s any dust?” he asked. I told him I didn’t. “This is par for the course for Chinatown tenement buildings,” he said. “There are some buildings that have the toilet in the hallway.” I asked him about the children’s scooter on the ground. “I don’t know how that got there,” he said.
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
If you're a New Yorker, you'll totally understand this: there's children's scooters everywhere in this motherfucker.
There are 3.7 million apartments in New York City, and, like families, the good ones are all alike and the bad ones are each unhappy in their own way. They can be sunlit but rat-filled, quiet but small, pet-friendly, too pet-friendly, doormanned, with or without an in-unit washer and dryer, in a great location and actually pretty decent for how much you’re paying, and, maybe most important, rent-stabilized or not. Average rents rose 8.4 per cent in Manhattan in the past year, but rent-regulated apartments, which have their rents set by a board, have risen only nine per cent across the past three years. They might not go up again for a while. Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor—and the increasingly likely winner—has promised, along with free buses and free child care, to freeze the rent on all rent-stabilized apartments, potentially for the length of his mayoral term.
--Would Zohran Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Keep Rent-Stabilized Apartments Empty? | The New Yorker - Naaman Zhou
You can even have six cats in your 200-square-foot studio apartment if you dream big enough. If you make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Wednesday afternoon. Chicago’s South Side. The busy and relatively quiet 2nd floor of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services located right on 62nd and Emerald. The neighborhood: Englewood. “Hahah! Yess, bissssh! James is a mothafuckin’ trip, you hear me! That nigga is so nasty. He had his tongue all deep down my ass last night, you would’ve swore that nigga was looking for Waldo!” Shirley McGill, mid-50s, a senior DCFS case manager on the cusp of retirement, made no qualms about talking about her freaky sex life with her close-knit group of co-workers. Between her, Geraldine, Theresa, and Juanita, Shirley was the only married social worker. The rest of the women were either divorced or in on-and-off relationships. Dick desperate they were, the three always huddled around Shirley during the afternoon to hear her rehash her nasty sex stories. “Yesss girl, I want that done to me! I ain’t never had my ass ate!” Geraldine roared and clapped her hands. “Ohhh, chile! I cain’t even imagine! YESS GUHL! I SAID CAIN’T!” she barked sticking her tongue out. Geraldine was in her early 40s and resembled a voluptuous Anita Baker with a gap in between her two front teeth. “Hahah! Hoe, you a trip! That’s just nasty. I wouldn’t dare have a nigga stick his tongue in my ass. That’s doin’ too much. Just give me some bomb ass head and dick and I’m good,” Theresa remarked as she smacked on a Harold’s wing. Fried extra hard. Doused in mild sauce. Salt and pepper. Just how Theresa liked it. Theresa, approaching the age of fifty, was a solid four hundred pounds. Rumor had it her husband Darius left her…for another man. Her husband leaving her was one of the major reasons she spiraled into a depression and ended up developing an eating disorder. Although she was the heaviest in the group, ironically, she was the most stylish. Despite her size, when she wasn’t blowing her money on fast food, she was blowing it at the MAC store, designer clothes, and shoes. Guess you can do that when you are making nearly $85,000 a year as a state-based social worker. Couldn’t do that working for a private, nonprofit agency.
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
A reminder that dressing well and being well are two separate skills. They often overlap, but not 100%. What you can put in your body and what you can put on your body are two different tasks.
“So, you got a man?” Damn, he was bold in asking that. Nurse Tonya jumped in a tad surprise to the question. “Damn, where did that come from?” “Just asking…You seem like you got a good head on your shoulders. You got a good job. You’re nice. Seem honest.” Tonya didn’t respond, she just playfully shook her head. “Well, I did. But he’s on bullshit like most of you niggas,” Tonya responded. “Damn, what’s that supposed to mean? ‘you niggas’?” “You know…You men. Black men always be playing games…” “Men play games regardless of race…Don’t make it a black thing.” “Yeah, well. That’s all I date anyways. But enough about me. You got a girlfriend? Wife? Significant other?” Tonya made her way over to the countertop where she sat the breakfast tray. She picked it up and meandered back over to Austin and positioned the tray on top of his waist. “Ehhh, no. Not at all. Been in here for almost two years. My last relationship was kind of crazy. I got a daughter though. Myyah. Her mother is kind of crazy and filthy. I’m trying to get custody of her…” “Question for you…Why do you men do that?” “Do what?” “Blame the baby mother. Call her crazy. Filthy. Like, didn’t you know that before you got into a relationship with her?” “I mean, I wasn’t paying attention like that. I was so dumb and out there. Just wanted ass if you want me to be completely honest with you. I didn’t think it would ever go that far, but eventually, it did. Now we got a kid together…” “Typical…You let the allure of sex pull you in and it blinded you to reality? That’s the excuse you’re gonna give me?” “Are you judging me? I mean, I am pretty sure you’ve made pretty bad decisions when it came to being with people.” Tonya paused for a moment and thought about it… “Yeah, you’re right. It is what it is though. Sorry if I come off judgmental.” “It’s cool though. I get it.” “Anyways, let me check up on my other patients. You enjoy that breakfast and I’ll be back to help you start your physical therapy today.” “Bet…” “Oh and one thing Austin…I’m a lesbian now,” Nurse Tonya casually confessed and smiled. Austin hung his head in shock. “Really?” “Yes, really. Talk to you later.” Tonya made her way out of the room. Austin shook his head. “Bitches becoming lesbians left and right nowadays.”
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
"Bitches becoming lesbians left and right nowadays" has to be one of the funniest sentences that I read in this book.
Deontae looked around his immediate surroundings to see if anybody would notice what he was about to do next. Without hesitation, he pulled out his gloc from his back. He was wearing a black Chicago Bulls jacket to cover up the gun. “Bitch, you think I’m playing with you? You gon bring yo ass home along with my kids or I’m gonna show you how I really feel!” Tina, almost on the verge of losing her composure, stood her ground and lightly shivered in slight fear. “Oh, so that’s the shit you on? You just gon shoot me if I don’t follow your commands? Deontae, I thought you were smarter than that…” Deontae didn’t say anything back. His eyes turned to slits. Glancing around once more, he quickly tucked the gun back into his back and slightly shook his head in the affirmative. “Don’t worry, bitch. This shit ain’t over. You gon get yours. Do what you gotta do, but trust me, I’mma be back to get what you owe me. Bitch, I held you down when you didn’t have shit and when nobody wanted yo fat black ass. But I see what it is. Don’t have my kids around no other nigga either or we gon have serious problems, bitch.” Suddenly he turned on his heels and quickly ran away. Katina closed her eyes and clutched her palpating chest. With her heart ferociously pounding, beating at a million beats per hour, she just knew Deontae was crazy enough to do something stupid. But she couldn’t show his ass weakness. She knew if she did and buckled, that was it. He would forever hold her and her kids hostage. That was the first time ever Deontae had shown that type of potentially violent and dark side to himself, but it came as no surprise to Katina. When niggas quickly realize they’ve lost something good, they do three things. Fight hard to get it back, let it go and move on, or stop others from having it. In this instance, Deontae was using the fear of murder to stop Katina from moving on. But it didn’t work. She was gonna get hers regardless. Deontae sensed that too, which is why he quickly dipped the fuck out. At that very moment, nothing, not even the threat of death could deter a real ass bitch from doing what she had to do to get hers. That was one of the reasons why Deontae was attracted to Katina in the first place. She was gonna be on her grind no matter what situation she found herself in. Nevertheless, Deontae simply couldn’t let it go ‘cuz he could already sense his life was now destined to be in somewhat shambles. The strong woman who was holding him down for so long was gone.
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
Overreactions cause overreactions cause overreactions.
“I know. I should’ve been listened to you, but I’m over him now. I’m just over men, period. I’m just gonna do me and worry about my kids for now,” Katina replied to her mother’s statement as she finished packing her book bag. “Well, don’t give up on men. Shit, you still gonna need a man eventually in your life, if you know what I mean,” Mattie turned and smiled at Katina. Katina knew exactly what her mother meant too by the smirk she had all over her dark brown chubby face. Shit, a vibrator can only do so much for you. Every woman eventually wants to find the right man to be with for the rest of their life. And every woman knows ain’t nothing like riding good dick from a good, sexy man who had his shit together.
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
The creaking of the bed intensified, a sign that the landlord was probably a good fifty-one seconds away from busting a nut. “Ahhh, ahhh,” Nate wailed as his breathing got even more hot and rapid. Gusts of his cognac-infused breath ventilated MooMoo’s neck and parts of her face. “Ahh, ughh, ohhgh, ughhh!” Nate continued to grunt out loud. “Come on, baby, fuck this pussy! Cum inside me!” Fredquisha fake moaned and squeezed them twat muscles even harder so this man can hurry the fuck up and get up off her. You know, truth was, to MooMoo, if Mr. Perkins was about a good thirty years younger, she actually would’ve been more passionate about this fuck session. Just looking at his features, MooMoo could tell maybe in his day Mr. Garrison was probably a looker. Old nigga reminded her of an older version of a nigga she used to fuck with back in the day. If she was some old bitch looking to get her dry, ancient pussy fucked, Mr. Garrison would definitely get it. Despite the weird situation, the truth was Mr. Garrison’s dick wasn’t all that bad, to be honest with you. Pretty decent size. Like a good eight and a half inches, especially since that Viagra pill and three Henny’s on ice is running a race in his veins. But this situation was just business; nothing more, nothing less. As Mr. Garrison continued to pump in and out of MooMoo, his dick swelled up and got even harder. Oh yeah, bitch, that big pussy was definitely cooking up some gumbo tonight! Pussy juice was creamy and thick like roux too. Mr. Garrison’s eyes turned to squints, beads of his sweat dripped down his forehead and onto MooMoo’s back. The headboard pounds against the flowery wallpaper-covered wall harder and faster… “Ahhh! AHHHH! AHHHH! I’m cumming! AHHH! AHHHHHHH!” Ladies and gentlemen, mission accomplished! Mr. Garrison came [no pun intended] to save the day. Power of that P. Despite having some loose pussy walls, MooMoo’s coochie muscles were flexin’ like she was at a bodybuilding competition, destined to come in first place. “Gahddamn! SHIYYAT!” Mr. Garrison shouted as he slowly pulled out of MooMoo’s ass and rolled over to the bed. MooMoo didn’t hesitate. She needed to secure the bag quickly. “Ok, so how you gon help me…” As Mr. Garrison tried to collect his breath, he rubbed his chest. “You use CashApp?” he asked. “Hell yeah…” “Good, I’m finna send you $500. And I’m gon have Glen call up this ole Mexican bitch named Maria. She got a cleanin’ service out West. I’mma have her and her brothers come by tonight to help you clean that place up. I can probably get them to deal with the roach problem too. You know them damn Mexican can fix everythang...” Nate then leaned over, picked up his pants and pulled out his cell phone. “What’s yo CashApp thang?” “$BossLadyQuisha”
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
hashtag $BossLadyQuisha
Fredquisha honestly at this point was just willing to give her up and just let Mrs. Watkins take care of her. She didn’t even love the girl enough to really care anymore. Sad, but at least slowly she was becoming more and more honest with herself and was willing to put baby girl in better hands. Hell, there were so many times Fredquisha had thought about letting Mrs. Watkins take permanent custody over her. But of course, the one thing Fredquisha couldn’t do was possibly sacrifice the thousands of dollars a month she was receiving to take care of the poor girl. Close to $2500 was at stake and that was enough money for Fredquisha to get her hair did, nails did, buy two to three outfits a week, go on occasional vacations with her besties, even enough money to splurge on drugs and alcohol. It was also enough money for her to go all the way out for her sons. She’d use Myyah’s money to buy the boys new clothes, video game systems, and other gifts. But now, with a new baby possibly in her stomach from some random nigga, she could always exploit the newborn to re-up her SSI cash stash.
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
Truly vile. An evil villain that only a mother could love, who's also a villain. Kind of a Maleficent play when you think about it.
But once his eyes were fully opened and gawking at Tina standing at the front of the room he yelled, “Oh shit! What you doin’ back early?!?” “FUCK NIGGA! WHO IS THIS BITCH?!?” Although Tina wanted to know, she actually didn’t want any answers. “YOU KNOW WHAT! FUCK IT!” she screamed as she quickly darted out from the door and went back into the dark living room. All types of anxiety-riddled commotion went on in the master bedroom. The distant sounds of the frantic side hoe doing her best to put her clothes back on her naked body could be heard all the way from the living room. Tina dashed towards the sole utility closet near the front door and searched for her gun. The angered mother quickly located the pistol inside a black combination-lock box. She hastily yet cautiously checked the chamber and then made her way back to the master bedroom. Light skinned side hoe dashed out of the master bedroom and attempted to make a run from the precarious domestic situation. “AHHHH!” She screamed and threw her hands up, trying to make a sudden run back into the bedroom once she saw the barrel of the gun aimed right at her forehead. POW! Tina let the blickie off in the apartment, sending a bullet down the hall and into the upper part of the wall. Luckily behind the wall was cement, so the bullet instantly got lodged, not penetrating over into the next apartment. “I’m gonna kill these motherfuckers! I work fuckin’ seventy hours a week and this fuckin’ nigga gon bring a random ass bitch up into my mothafuckin’ apartment where my kids are sleepin! Nigga gotta die to-fucking-NIGHT!” Armed and dangerous, all Tina now saw was crimson red and she was ready to murder Deontae and the side hoe. She barged into the room and there Deontae with his gun his hand, aimed right at Tina.
--This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib - Quan Millz
You know what? Fuck it. I'm grabbing the Blickie.
