I woke up on Saturday morning to discover an unfortunate note slipped underneath the door of my Park Avenue maid’s quarters. The doormen and other tenants complained about me to the the elderly man who owns the glorified storage space in which I am living. His personal assistant cross-examined me, asking, “Do you have someone living in there with you?” If she had experienced the claustrophobic nature of my room on a daily basis, I don’t think she would accuse me of hoarding some “extra person” in my apartment.

I recently broke the only key to my door while turning it in the lock, and I was forced to make a copy of the lobby’s spare key. I think that the doormen, who are inordinately aggressive and snarky toward me, are spurning the malicious gossip, claiming that I had an extra key made for the mysterious “extra person” now allegedly taking root in my maid’s quarters.

Everything is sexual, and I assume that their aggression stems from repressed jealousy and resentment at the fact that I had a male visitor on Friday night. I was supposed to go to a Waspy “40 Days ’til Christmas” ham and cocktail fête in New Canaan, Connecticut, but I stayed in the city and had dinner with my gay boyfriend instead. He walked me back to my Park Avenue address and came upstairs to watch the edited footage of the Halloween film my sister and I made, Princess Cricket. Upon seeing my male visitor in the lobby, the doormen gave me shifty looks and the next morning I woke up to the eviction note…

I escaped to New Canaan that afternoon, where I hoped to hop a ride back to Boston with my sister (to the safety of my mother’s un-suspicious Beacon Hill doormen). But my sister had an unfortunate incident with a speed bump at the New Canaan Country Club, and the car was towed to the nearest Volvo dealership. With no alternative, my sister and I spent the night on Park Avenue in the infamous maid’s quarters.

Now, someone (sexually frustrated doorman? nosey neighbor with some dark determination to do away with me?) is more convinced than before that I have a stowaway living in my room. Today I was officially threatened and told to vacate the apartment by Friday. The Wanker of the Week remains a mystery to be solved…. Who is bad-mouthing me all over the building? Upper East Side frigids at it again?

The above photo is from my visit to the Calder exhibit at the Whitney Museum, but I too feel like a monkey hanging by a wire.

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