Camp NY

Girls’ night is becoming more and more the standard and these days it feels like summer camp without the shorts. Loose hair instead of barrettes, juice boxes tossed for aperitifs, ants on a log have vanished and frisee salads appear as replacements.

I race out of the office instead of my parents’ kitchen, still with my bag whapping my side and my flip flops sliding around, to meet them downtown in a flickering West Village bistro, arriving late and excited and relieved as though Tuesday was Friday.

We drink too many glasses of wine and divide too few crab cakes at Paris Commune, contemplating New York and LA, reviewing weekend plans and downloading each other on the latest gossip, work and play. Shore houses, summer romances, tennis lessons, promotions; we all have something to share and envy here. And it prompts a Robert Altman conversation pace, everything overlapping, nothing resolved, as our glasses grow dry, the louder we exclaim, “Wait, what are you guys talking about?”

An adult in charge needs to shush us, but our waitress only encourages (probably so that she can reap the benefits of our overtipping to match our over-ordering). For us, the best of the summer week is at night, past our bedtimes, snapping phone photos and comparing sunglasses, making plans and taking initiatives, being aspirational because it’s who we are.

Everything has to be explained more than once, especially since she’s in for a visit, an ex-pat now part of that other city, so we can’t stop our questions. How’s the pool in the apartment? Is just it like Melrose Place? How much is there really the prevalence of smog/collagen/silicone/a thong-clad Lindsay Lohan? Is June gloom anywhere close to the humidity of here? Are all the men blond “directors” with mustaches and vans? We know it’s all a cliché, but don’t clichés start from some point of truth?

I’ve wanted to start a life on the west coast ever since 90210 aired, and we talk about what it might be like next year, if I end up making the move. But now I’ve become such a fan of the pulsating vibrancy of here, I’m not so sure. It’s camp in the city all of the time, and it’s getting pretty hard to leave, particularly since there is no bus to pick me up and tear me away from my friends and paltry paycheck that I spend simply to be with them while we’re still sort of young, and sort of glamorous…at least to us.

Crack, Back, Quack?

Last night I experienced an entirely new kind of…doctor…er…medicine man….er….well, he was a chiropractor (he was offering a free consultation, don’t they all? And this of course is what drew me in. I like-a the free stuff).

Never has a profession been more maligned (with the possible exception of podiatrist) than this man’s. Yet I love a yoga class which ‘opens’ my spine, a spa treatment which ‘kneads’ the muscles, and any man that says I need a weekly massage, heat therapy and deep stretching already has me a little starry-eyed.

Of course, he said that my posture was slightly wonky, just as I noticed his floor was on the exact slant that my so-called “misalignment” was. Hmmmm. Minus two points for possible shadiness.

Free bananas in the waiting room. Score! Plus one point.

Have to come back for the rest of my free treatment because the schedule didn’t allow for me to have it all at once. Hmmm. Minus one point.

The rest of my treatment involves a massage. Double score! Plus two points.

All after are at my cost and they range about $60 per treatment. I’m on the fence. I’m a person who apparently ‘holds all my tension in my back and shoulders’ and have angered more than one suitor by asking for a massage immediately after I exited the one he had bought me as a gift (in my defense, the masseurs always spend all this time on my arms and legs and hands and I just don’t need it there, but still, sorry guys, I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with me, it’s like a drug—I don’t really like to be hugged and I hate holding hands but I love it when someone sticks an elbow in my spine—I’m such a weirdo*).

So, anyone have any thoughts about chiropractors? Love them, hate them? Is there anything to this at all? Is it the case that you go once and then you’re hooked for life?

And is it incredibly elderly for me to be so intent on straightening my 25-ear-old back on a weekly basis?

*Such a weirdo, in fact, that I also give my pets a massage every time I’m home after I saw a special on pet spas on The Travel Channel. They seem to love it as much as I do.

I might be obsessed in an unhealthy way. I think I prefer massages to sleeping and eating combined (and we all know I like-a the sleeping and the eating. And sometimes I like-a to talk in a really bad, cliched Italian accent in my head for no reason).

NSF...anything

"Hey, how was your weekend?"

"Awesome, you're going to love it when you come on Saturday. It was really good...but kind of dirty."

"Dirty like that Jersey car salesman who you hooked up with while a robot watched?"

(no response)

"I may be getting some of the details wrong here..."

"No, that's right. But it was about three degrees worse than that."

Home on the Outside

I’ve found recently that I’m becoming an outdoorsy person, and not just stretching out in the nearest fountain instead of writing my novel.

I’ve been spending so much more time outside as an active participant, walking around and discovering new neighborhoods, barely using my Metrocard, lusting after dogs in the park, planning beachy yoga retreats, researching the horseriding lessons I loved in seventh grade, filling out the paperwork to clean up New York’s waterways and trails and rearing to go as soon as they need more volunteers.

I’m not even sure how this happened since in the past my favorite activity outside was working on my tan and reading a magazine on a floating chair. It’s a far cry from me now, desperately trying to talk someone into going white water rafting with me on August 4th.

So far, no takers. I’m holding out for the right person. Or going alone. Either way.

My friends, lovely, all of them, have much calmer and arguably classier plans that involve barbequing lobster and shore-side lounging. Why I would want to hop on a bus with a bunch of random people I don’t know and eat a waterlogged bologna sandwich, ending the day with a burned nose and sore quads is beyond them.

It would have been beyond me a few months ago, but I figure, a sea change should encompass rapids too…

Misunderstood (Choose Your Own Adventure)

As all semi-adults in the city, I have problems understanding the world. You’re all well aware if you’ve come here to my musings before.*

But I think my biggest, for today at least, is the idea of the waves I send out without meaning to. And I think that it’s also not just me, but many of my girlfriends, too. I have acted as though I was needy when I was not without even noticing, I have given the impression I did not care when I certainly did or vice versa, and have thrown up a wall of unbending when really, I know deep down, I may be one of the most flexible people I know (and I’m not talking about yoga; I am barely mid-range if that).

In important events girls of a certain age seem to give off a collective vibe even though we don’t mean to. That we are completely understood in our intentions when we’re absolutely not.

I’m not exactly sure why. It’s a strange thing in this life where first you learn how you do react, then how you should react, and then finally how you radiate that reaction as to not confuse or anger those around you. Or make them think they have you figured out when they don’t. I had a deep discussion with some friends and found that the rest were feeling the same, we had all done this somehow, particularly with members of the opposite sex.

For example, a recurring tale of woe:

Once upon a time in a relationship, a girl was misunderstood. A mention of future plans mentioned as a means to look forward to (by her) put a freeze on the whole thing (for him). It suddenly shifted in one person’s understanding that the participants were who they were, and not alike, or perhaps too alike, and that the future was completely fixed. The idea held like cement that they were who they were, and always would be and their goals and their differences could never bridge. It fractured what was good and left the rest without understanding. One wanted to talk it out but didn’t have the words to express what one really meant, because one didn’t actually know what one meant. One wanted to run, because talking without knowing leads everyone nowhere.

And that was the end. Of them, anyway.

But the issue is that the real problem isn’t the supposed one. It’s actually one that could be completely fixed with a little enlightenment on both ends. It’s not that girls want to “settle down”. It’s what the definition of “settling down” actually means to both girls and guys.

Some people may be dying to get coupled by law, but honestly, most aren’t. And that’s perfectly great. The girls I know think to themselves, “We’d like to get married someday, perhaps after we publish our books, trek Tanzania, learn how to surf.” Does that mean the burning urge to marry is in all of us today or that it will be in the next few years? That our ultimate goal on this earth is to get a rock on a platinum band and then use it to cuff a guy’s genitals to a searing hot radiator for all eternity? No way.

I’m not sure where the problem started but I see it as an inherent difference between guys and girls of 24-30 and what they are communicating in this nebulous flux of growing up. And either being excited for growing or scared. How they are getting grossly misunderstood (for argument’s sake, I’m taking the girls stance, cause I definitely can’t purport to understand the male point of view right now).

I’ve seen an overwhelming dash away from the girls in my circles by the guys who are “not ready”. Because they assume the girls are. And both parties have completely different ideas of what we’re readying ourselves for.

And maybe we, as girls, are psycho, certainly we are in some respects, but we look pretty and we smell like green apples, so how about we get a break on this front? I understand things as this. Girls get super excited when they meet someone they can love, not because it holds them down for a lifetime, but because it feels great to have a teammate who’s got your back. And while it may or may not be a sure thing, it’s amazing to look across at someone and think, wow, when I go to Tanzania, this guy could be right next to me with an extra canteen of water. (AKA, Here’s someone to share my next adventure.)

I’ll make a sweeping generalization here, but recently, it has seemed to me and my friends, that while the girl is thinking this, the guy is thinking: wow, this chick is on my jock like white on rice, and now I can’t go to Tanzania at all. (AKA, Here’s someone who will prevent my next adventure.)

Why does it seem the case that when girls find one of “the ones” and they think: awesome! Guys do and think: oh shit! Is this really true or just completely anecdotal, and therefore completely false?

In my humble opinion, this misunderstanding of each other has destroyed and bent more relationships than any other obstacle (homeland security, aliens, and desperate housewives combined).

Of course it’s not just a guy-girl thing. It’s a growing up and apart thing. Motives change and in a coupling, they don’t change at the same speed. People either feel they owe it to another person to stick it through or they feel like they owe nothing at all and want to cut the cord. Rarely do both feel the same way at the same time.

And sometimes people tend to not hear potential, because potential is binding to being the bigger person and letting someone get up to your speed. It’s too understanding, it serves two instead of one (and let’s be honest, we’re all really just looking out for number one). So they jump on the fault lines because if they hear what they think they don’t want to hear, it will give them the easiest out. They can justify it, they can leave it be. They can move forward, knowingly misunderstanding someone, so that they themselves can say they tried.

So as we navigate all of this, I’m not passing judgment. I’ve done the wrong thing more than once, sent out the wrong signals, even thought I understood someone when all signs pointed to not. What I’d like to do, just for today, is come to a line in the sand of total confusion.

Which is when it comes to choosing your own adventure, we may not know what is the right path with the right person because we think they are something or lacking something they aren’t, but really, our problem is that we don’t understand ourselves half the time…

And now friends, with that, I think I have to go lie down. This has been more thinking than I'll do the rest of the year...

*If not, run away! What are you doing on this site? It’s just a 25-year-old loon ranting about random things; the blog version of flipping through the channels at 2:30 in the morning, hitting a sentimental Hallmark movie, a Ronco infomercial (“Set it and forget it!”), a thighmaster testimonial, and finally settling on a South Park re-run on the UCW.

Speed up to slow down

It’s officially popsicle-ocean-barefoot season and the plans are filling up weekends faster than ever. I’m feeling lucky these days. Who wants to join my gambling?

What is it about this time of year? The spectacular weather? The emergence of al fresco cocktails? The return of my adorable Pilates instructor (Lisa, I still have a girl-crush on you, big time)? The great moods that make everything seem possible again after dry branches and gray skies?

Whatever it is, I want to bottle it; pound into a pill and take one each morning on an empty stomach with a swirl of pink lemonade. Wear gold flip flops to every occasion, bag heavy with books I wish I’d written, my repeat list constantly changing with the sun. Things have lifted into the air, and I don’t want to catch them again.

Work seems easier, steps seem lighter and my pens are running dry as I scribble into my calendar. Deadlines aren’t looming; they’re blooming. Next chapter will be done by X, freelancing assignment by Y, that final and comprehensive tour de Brooklyn breweries by…

Tonight I’m going to the ballet and I’m more than excited to have a serious, girly good time.

A new apartment, my favorite holiday and ten days in France at the pool are just around the corner.

After that, it’s a weekend of debauchery at the shore to celebrate my surrogate significant other’s birthday, three concerts, a dinner party, a trip to see my goddaughter, and maybe even some long lost friends both on the east and west coast. I might even be able to finagle a second invite to the Hamptons, if the blonde’s boy is feeling super generous in the coming weeks…

Celebrations are in order. Slowing down too, but there’s no fun in that…

The upcoming man in my life…

He’s warbling, bearded and belongs in a different era. And he sings ironically about being in love with little boys. He reminds me of objects slanting shadows across my walls, paper lanterns, and when the first night of summer crosses over the darkness of the pool.

*Swoon* He’s whispering in my ear today.*

Who’s on repeat for you?

*Sure it's months from now and not even in town, but hey, we're going and so I'll be excited this far out before anyway. We'll make a night of it. If only we knew the first thing about Philadelphia...two NY newbies and no clue. Here's hoping King Tut is still in town.

Show us your kitties

I heart kitties. Always have.



Some people hate cats because old women like to throw them as weapons and when they're scared they sink their little needles right into your legs (the cats, though I suppose old women do too), but I grew up with them and adore them (again, the cats). Especially really adorable and *hopefully* less-than-average-intelligence kittens. The denser, the better. I like 'em stoopid.


Like when you have a little one with its tail stuck straight up because it's too small to bend the tail and it's so cute it's practically making you cry just by looking at it, and then you throw a lightweight blanket on top of it and you see the little lump jumping back and forth trying to get out (the internal voice that the kitty is using at this point I think would be "Bhat! Bhat! It's dark in here! Bhat!"). And then the furball just decides that she's too tired and too confused so she sits there still and not moving at all, like a parrot when you throw the sheet over the cage. Then you take the blanket off and she's so happy she starts jumping around again. It's not abuse if they're too young to remember it right?



Oh man I remember this one time when I had a really small kitten and I put a paper towel on top of him and he couldn't get out from under it. A paper towel! And then there was this really slow moving paper towel inching across the kitchen floor. I must have been seven and it was the most joy I ever felt.

Okay, I'm clearly in a ridiculous mood today. Noted by how I just spent the last six minutes searching for kitten pictures on the internet. I belong in 1988 with a sweatshirt with a unicorn on it and a perm right now...

The Secret

I just finished watching it and honestly feel a sea change (coupled with a few other things going on right now of course). You know I love the touchy-feely stuff, sure. But this really spoke to me. It made me feel really happy. And strangely powerful.

I had been inviting negative into my life by obsessively focusing on avoiding it instead of relishing all that I truly had to be thankful for and inspired by. Holding tight onto something instead of trusting it. Not forgiving what needed to be forgiven. And essentially, ruining it in the process. Driving it away, manufacturing bad feelings instead of positive ones. How lame of me, right? Well, clearly I didn’t know what I was doing.

Now, I think, I do. And I can release myself of the guilt of what I’ve done wrong, because I am almost certain I will not do it wrong in the future.

You can only force the bad in your life, not the good. If I had done things differently along the way is an empty thought that can’t be sated, so let’s let it pass for now.

Good things and only good things to come is all that I know now.

Have you watched this? Heard of it? Think it's a big scam? What are your thoughts either way?

Selfishness to Selflessness

Today’s inspiration for the day:

I am simultaneously reading several books, while writing one (and going to art school part-time. And with a full time job. And planning a vacation. And obsessed with Pilates. And Stoli Blueberry as I found last night since any drink that tastes like a Jolly Rancher has my vote. And moving…to somewhere…being busy is the best of times, at the best of times). I want so much for my life and I take too much to get it. I look ahead only for myself at times. People say this is good, especially in a time of transition.

People are often wrong.

In "Eat, Pray, Love" Miss Gilbert runs across the world on a dream to clear her heart and her mind, to bend like the yogi, to be loved by a gorgeous Brazilian man, all of it just for her. And after the initial “you go girl!” wore off, there emerged this sense of purpose to reclaiming herself that she found. Helping herself by helping others in a sense—her conclusion born from initial selfishness. So often we are too wrapped up in our own drama to lend a hand to those far less fortunate. To do what needs to be done is so easily ignored by a slew of instant messaging, celebrity gossip, getting your bill picked up by a good looking guy in a suit, or chasing the next pleasurable moment of your own life.

My roommate told me of a sign posted in a place far away at The Red Cross.

It said, “A refugee would kill to have your problems.”

As I have less, today I aim to give more. I just got my confirmation in the mail this week that the money I sent for Darfur has been used to purchase three efficient stoves for three families, because women spend hours a day searching for wood to keep their old stoves burning, and are attacked and brutally raped. Their husbands let them with shame because if the husbands were instead to go out looking for wood, they would simply be murdered and the women left off even worse. With the new stoves, families now have to be outside 75% less of the time. It could save three families from utter destruction until the conflict pasts. I wish I could save thirty instead. I think that I will put away the money I was about to blow on a cute new Parisian outfit for an upcoming event. A higher purpose is in order. I think it's a really good cause and I would encourage anyone I know to find one, or twenty that speaks to them in this way.

I will never be able to do enough, but I will try.

It is needed far more, elsewhere. It is not meant for champagne with friends just to pump myself up, just to take care of me. I am not important in the scheme of things. And that is an incredible thing to know. It is of a higher conscience to admit, I think. It brings me closer to the mark of what it means to be aware and thankful. The mark I will aim for, for the rest of my life. I will repeat the following to myself for as long as I know how:

If you are in a rut, ask yourself, how low are you really? You have loved and lost, your job sucks, your friend is mean, your car is a lemon, and yet you are here, you are alive and well.

Please.

Take a moment to stop and to think. Screwing around, being destructive, not giving the care and consideration needed to do something meaningful in this world other than to further your own insecurities and ego, avoiding to grow up, avoiding the conscientiousness needed to truly live free and well; these are the things which you should be wary. You have been given it all when so many have been given nothing.

Do something important that is not for yourself and you will be doing it for your true self. For your soul. And the connection it has to the good of this world.

Build some character. Do the right thing for once, or for the tenth time, the thing for someone other than simply you.

This is what I'll keep saying until it is my truest nature....remind myself what is important in the scheme of the world.

I’ll be your buddy in this. Because it’s not easy to do. But it is the reason that we get to be here, that we have minds and resources and why we have hearts. The only reason that we are aware at all…

Plans

Go swimming as soon as possible, show off my tan lines, eat homegrown tomatoes before they’re ready to be picked, laugh at jokes unfunny or not to recognize the effort, finish the piles of work I’ve pushed from one corner to another on my desk, write the check to the girls, submit that freelance piece, bachelorette festivities, RSVP to three different post-its, re-arrange those dinner plans, cocktail hour as a staple, shop for France, toss away that ring with gusto, write back to those emails with fresh thoughts, send the book for Father’s Day, trust the list of a bar whose name I don’t know, open my eyes, finally say yes to the boy who’s been chasing…

No time to wait, no time to waste…it sure does feel good to have a plan…

Wish for the negative...

My dad, at this moment, is sitting to hear in Philadelphia, if his most recent biopsy is negative or positive.

Please send your positive vibes again to there, so that he can be negative...

Sugar Rage

Dear Mom and Dad,

You’re great people, truly. But it has never been a child’s job to be kind to, nor appreciative of, their parents. So let me start this, instead, with the blame game.

See? See what you’ve done? See the monster you’ve created? All those years of restricting colored cereals, shapes, marshmallows, chocolate or fruit flavored loops have backfired. You used to let me get Kix on a good day, maybe Corn Pops if I had dusted the baseboards for once. But the rest of the time it was Raisin Bran, or plain Cheerios, or plain Shredded Wheat, or plain Corn Flakes, or a heaping spoonful of your own adult cereal, Just Right—and you could very much tell it was for lame old adults because it had not only raisins (gross!) but also dates (blech!), and nuts that weren’t encased in either sugar, nor honey (plain nuts? Puke!).

No, you didn’t let me have them. My only glimpses of freedom were at friend’s houses, the very likes of which drunk soda at dinner and had desert via pudding pops and cake (they had cake—and it wasn’t even anyone’s birthday! Dear God, this was a shock the first time I saw it.), and in the morning there would be a veritable grocery store aisle of eye-catching cartooned boxes to choose from, Count Chocula, Booberries, Fruity Pebbles, Reeces Peanut Butter Puffs, all of which strangely turned our milk the same hospital shade of gray. The only time I had a taste under our own roof was in those Variety Paks I could sometimes get Mom to purchase if I really turned on the charm and the guilt (Dad did all our grocery shopping—a Mr. Mom before the movie even came out, so when Mom was buying, it was time to cash in on everything Dad wouldn’t allow). Except there were two different kinds of Variety Paks, those marketing genuis bastards—one was bursting with the breakfast equivalent of Pixie Sticks, the other interspersed good and bad cereals, offsetting the Smacks with Fiber One…(not that Smacks even warranted Fiber One—that was most unfair—Smacks was, if anything, the bland equivalent of Crispix on the other side of the spectrum, not the eight-year-old-gag-reflex-inducing Fiber One!). And guess which one I got, even when I had dissuaded Mom?

Sure it kept me a tad less hyper (yeah right!). Keep thinking that. Just like when you thought I should have the regular vitamins instead of Flintstones and they tasted like what the owl pellet dissection in seventh grade smelled like inside, when you got a real good mouse in there, and I spit them all into your fancy brass umbrella stand when I was nine, every day for a month, and you didn’t find them until the next spring, at the bottom, mashed into a beige vitamin paste, crudding up all your umbrellas. That was the day you let me break my piggy bank shaped like one of those old-timey cash registers so I could buy the bottle of vitamins from you and toss it in the trash. That was one of the happiest days of my life. That was awesome.

Memories.

I know you intended well. You really did. You only wanted your only daughter and your eldest to be chock full o nutrients. You were in fact, really great parents…but…you know, you ruined me in that one respect. You know that right? All those years of repressed sugar rage. All those years of rationing Fruit Loops? What has it done?

I’ll tell you what it’s done.

Last night, for dinner, I ate six mini chocolate cookies, a donut, and two pieces of Bubble Yum.

After Pilates. And a salad at work. And plenty of water. Then I had to lie down because I had a tummy ache. Yeah, you were right. But it’s still no consolation.

And this morning, it’s back to oatmeal, before the next werewolf-like emergence of a fifth-grade eating pattern rears its ugly head.

It Ain't Easy Being Cheesy

I’m a cheese-head today. Not quite Wisconsin, but definitely bright-eyed and face-splitting grins.

While things don’t necessarily happen well these days (a death in the family; a death of a future) they also don’t just happen around me—I refuse to believe that they do. This morning, because of this decision of happy denial, I feel invigorated, effervescent, felted with hope…for some odd reason, this creates a fantasy where I am planted back into a romantic 17th century where the realities of plumbing and personal hygiene are gladly glossed over for the narrative of tonics, weird herbs, and cycles of the moon which chart the course we take and those we don’t. Old books written in olde English with maps of even older woods. Flowing curtains and stone walls. Curses and enchantment at the stroke of a wand.

The fairy that’s been following me for a week finally poured an elixir into my ear as I slept…or more likely, it was the first good night of over-sleep I’ve had in a while (ten hours will do wonders, I’m a believer).

I have a say in my own life, and when it comes down to it, that’s the only say that matters.


How can it be that naysayers who don’t even know the real me are at the helm, driving me into the perfect storm instead of calm shores of coconut drinks and sand-dusted heels? That’s an illusion, and not a helpful one. The only control we have is over ourselves, how we act and react, who we treat well and the happiness we emit. There is never a need for sadness, badness, to be inflicted upon situations which can be avoided or changed into good, floating memories and futures. I’ll keep this in mind, if I can keep anything at all. There is a being in charge, one who makes it good or bad at any given time, and it of course, is us.

What is helpful today is to be grateful for this life, no matter what emotion it brings, I am glad it brings any.

I have so much love to give and it’s time I gave it to someone else…maybe myself for once…wow, this is the cheesiest I’ve felt in a long time. Florid prose and stupid giggling today; certain embarrassment later…

House of Mirth

What happens when you don’t have a breaking point is you can never really write off your dreams as you once saw them.

I was raised in a house of constant forgiveness. We could scream, pull hair, threaten the world and still have meatloaf the next day with a side of group-hug. We created and weathered all storms, small, huge, silly and important. It was perfectly reasonable for us to spend hours on our feelings, enough to stay home from school or act like a loon and know that it was all okay because we were a unit. Failure was not an option. It was both infuriating and amazing not to be able to give up. It was, and still is, good in many ways. For us at least. For me working with the rest of society, the corporate world and adult life in general? Not so much.

Other people don’t fathom what my idea of sticking it out means. And how I wish I could be them; I wish I could run away from my problems, deal with them in quick fixes. Slay someone with a word and never look back to see if they survived, convincing myself that I was right to run from the dragon than to face it head on.

It would have saved me a lot of heartache in this world. It would have gotten me out of crappy jobs, friendships and relationships far sooner. There wouldn’t have been such a stick-to-it-tiveness ingrained in me. My middle name is Clare, but I’m thinking of legally changing it to “try, try again.”

But how do you know what is your own point of no return when you value not having one? How to quit when you’re behind so that eventually you’ll end up ahead? Slogging through circumstances that don’t care how hard you try or how good a person you are seems futile. There is no gold medal for effort for you when the relay team has put their success on your shoulders. By that token, the failure of the team is your failure. How unfair this is. How inevitable.

Now it’s time for a new lesson. How to get out while you’re still alive; trading self-preservation for your old good intentions and virtues. Things like unconditional love or perseverance can only take one so far. Why go through the pain for a job, a friend, a significant other who will not go through it for you?

It is important to be a rock, to be strong for a person or a situation. It is important to believe that being pure is enough, but it is not everything. Sometimes we all need someone to lean on, something to depend on, someone who will simultaneously take a leap of faith and one for the team, but what we truly forget, is that as important as it is to be the one who can shoulder the shock, is that we need the same in return.

Trying On

The first pair of blue eyes since January is fast approaching, and I have nothing to wear. It is nothing short of amazing how surprisingly fast opportunities can be offset by a trunk full of clothes and too-worn jeans that seem from a long ago other life of eyes all brown.

It’s times like these where I feel like I may be trying on new personalities by way of the wardrobe.

Casual urban chic K? Feisty stiletto K? Island bohemian K? Silly ridiculous K (that one fits nicely every time)?

Aaah, decisions, decisions. And the thought of finally finding my calling as an American Apparel model comes to mind…it is of course, time for a change of pace...

As if they even notice coordination over cleavage…blue eyes or not.

Items for a Wednesday

HBO’s surfer boy promotion

A heater to counteract industrial workplace cooling, cold water in the bottle to counteract the heater

The Rosebuds and Oneida’s Busy Little Bee right after each other on free radio

A new apartment’s mutual yes and central air, a hero or two to help me move, just a little more square footage, the existence of an invisible closet

Belting this Ra Ra Riot Tee as a dress with metallic shoes and not caring how ridiculous it might look

Sky…cloudless…Ciao Bella…lineless…The Strand…markup-less…brain…useless for anything remotely limiting

Fast-forwarding to a weekend in the Berkshires, the shore, the Hamptons and the south of France

The old, circular contemplation of bangs

The feel of the sun from beyond a window, cleaning out pockets and finding a receipt from 2005, thumb tacks with themes, colored paper clips strewn all over the desk

Zoning in and out, spinning in a chair, clicking a pen one short of interrupting the meeting, giggling on a phone where everyone can hear

New emails from old friends, writing class starting up again, the realization that my book should be done by now, the constant online articles dismissing my dreams as a career on delete

Thursday and every day after

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot

In school tests were announced well ahead of time—possibly so there was no one left to blame if you weren’t prepared. It’s in black and white. You should have been there the first day. You were handed the syllabus and it was posted online and scrawled on the corner of a beaten-up dry erase board (yes it was there the whole month, see down in the right corner, in chicken scratch, no, no one ever said it was there but you should have at least looked instead of zoning out). And the semester stretched out in front of you, full of parties and naps and breaks and holidays before the very end where you would be required to prove that you had listened, absorbed, and simply become a more knowledgeable human being by the end. So that everyone could be resolute in you moving onwards and upwards. This was all that you had to pay for learning that lesson on the finer points of Stats, the Philosophy of Law, Intermediate Italian (apparently the powers that be thought learning was its own reward, the results aren’t yet in on that one).

I didn’t realize it at the time, and frankly never do, but I so appreciated my tests being laid out for me. The scheduled points of needing to pay attention versus cruise control. I cringed in the wake of pop quizzes, they just seemed so incredibly unfair, because why would it be that we weren’t allowed to prepare? When it’s seemingly unnecessary, we don’t cram into our short-term memory the finer details of what matters in the moment. And why should we? We have lives to live, other stressors to cramp our shoulders, paths in the afternoon to jog, tea to sip, gardens to visit, Edward FortyHands to play, dutchies to pass on the left hand side, etc.

And now in real life, I finally comprehend the meaning of pop-anything. Because real tests are never laid out clearly, they come and go as they please and intrude without invitation. They plant themselves in front of you, tears streaming, snot running, vein-bulging, life-leveling, and they will not move until you take them in, absorb their worst intentions and are able to inhale, chew and spit back out so they can slide on down to someone else. They’re parasitic. They’ve been known to drive insane, kill, maim and all around cause unpleasantries. They can crush what you once looked upon as golden and good and forever and make you feel like a shamed fool who didn’t even deserve the gift of the lie you lived for TK number of years.

Pop tests, all tests can be incredibly cruel. They don’t care that this is the week the budget is due, or this day is the anniversary that you are woefully trying to suppress, or that your injury from the last has not yet healed. They can be dependant on another person’s flippant mood who will not be talked down from their incorrect perch, or a corporate restructuring from across the pond a million miles from your office, a sand castle that falls apart because it can’t bear the environment that made it possible in the first place, anything. Tests don’t really have rhyme or reason. They’re unpredictable.

They’re meant to teach us, of course. But there are no checks and balances to life. There is no one person or machine at an eagle eye view of your world and your world alone to judge whether you’ve been given a bad hand and it should be evened out. No intervention to shake the people close to you to stop doing what they are doing and to see the light. Or you. There is no force that strikes down and punishes when life treats you badly or when you do it to yourself. Religion and meditation may help alleviate, but you need to be willing to sign over your control to ebb and flow. And in New York City, that’s just hard to do. You might fail the test. At best you only pay for it in this life. At worst; it’s the next.

The only way I can see it to deal with anything at all is to tattoo your own cheat sheet on the back of your hand, rife with past experiences and expectations, future goals and your closest sense of self. There is no study group, no one who has been there before you have and is pushed to your own limits. There are people that sort of understand, in their situations, in their own experiences. And yet, something is always lost in translation. What’s most infuriating is that any path you take must be your own. You can only rely on yourself for the answers, and even if you think you are prepared on the best of days, you never really know for sure until it’s there, dark and passing a blue book and a number 2 pencil towards you in a room with no clock. Only then, when it is upon you, can you judge.

Will this be a day I pass or I fail?

The Transparency of Jellyfish

Today, I am a jellyfish. My insides are electric, glowing visible.

My feelers are out, I am stretched, transparent and floating and there is nothing else I can do except wait patiently and hope for waves to push to me what’s best and what I need.

Though the water I’m under can only provide external acceptance or tangible ideas, any sort of inner strength and wellbeing and even oxygen to breathe is all on me. I haven’t yet figured out how to convert the external accomplishments into the internal, and until I do, they will need to be infinite just to sustain me.

It’s a burden to ration out my own reserves, unsure of when they can be replenished, and there’s no way around it. I can’t have anything outward unless I am complete inside.

Dang.

The people we love who don’t love us back, the homes we covet and squeeze our eyes tight that we will receive, the breaks we deserve, the illnesses that strike us down before they don’t cannot impact us good or bad unless we are an open, waiting net. As large as we can possibly be.

There are no guarantees for anything and yet knowing this does not make anything one iota easier…

So for now, I wait. And see.

And the search continues...

"2 Small Rooms for Rent in Apt Full of Cats

We have two small rooms for rent in a third floor sunny 2 bedroom apartment in South Slope Brooklyn (22nd St Between 5th & 6th Ave)...If you want to use the stove, you will need to put the account in your name(s). There is an un-used cable in the apartment, otherwise there is no cable or internet service included with the rooms. Please note that the kitchen, living room, and bathroom are shared with my seven cats and their furniture and toys (their litter box is in the bathtub). There is a futon, TV, VCR, and cheap stereo system in the living room. I come and go at all hours of the day and night to play with and care for my cats. The bathroom toilet and sink in the apartment can be used but to take a shower you will need to go to the bathroom in the finished basement (modern, shower no tub)."

(I hear cuckoo clocks. That apartment must smell fantastic).

The Year of The Suck

I think good years and bad years alternate. For me, they do so not by calendar year, but by school year (probably because all the jobs I start are around this time, all the apartments I move into and out of are then as well, and no matter how old I get I still mark the end of the year by the end of summer). Great snowstorms seem to jump years, the best vacations, fashion that you understand, the good CDs by your favorite band always seem to skip…

Though this isn’t exactly absolute. Fourth grade and fifth grade were overlapping in their radical excellence. Junior year and senior year of high school too. The middle two years after graduation in the city were the ones where I had just enough money and energy to expend it casually and without restraint. But otherwise, it seems cosmically aligned to divvy out one good and one not-so-good. In years, in relationships, in cycles. Maybe it’s to keep us motivated, to keep us thankful, to keep us looking ahead for something better or behind to learn what once worked.

I’m not sure, but over the past ten months or so, I have been experiencing a not-so-great period. It started with a boy and ends with an apartment, and in between there was a job situation, a friend conflict, a family in crisis. It is true what is said about the rule of three, not just that bad things happen in this number, but the really big three: work, boyfriend, home, are never in sync at the same time; can never co-exist. If one is good, count yourself lucky, because the others may very well be bad beyond recognition. If you’re truly hapless, all three will clash violently at once, never to be outdone by the heartbreak of one another.

The solution of course is this: lose that attachment. It’s the expectation of the outcome that keeps us dissatisfied. It keeps us controlled—our own wants and desires mistaken for needs keep us away from our Zen goals. It is our need to grab on tight that kills the chance; that crushes our spirit animals. If we could relax, if we could breathe, we would see that so much of our life has been and always will be in flux, in transition, is uncertain. And yet, we still squirm at the thought, we’re still uncomfortable and we still push against the natural wave of change.

If there were no change we would never have seasons and by that logic, pumpkins. Never experience anything beyond our invisible bubble, never meet new people, grow, find love, get pets, taste edible flowers, upgrade our bed sheets and shower nozzles, get and blow our own paychecks on the adult equivalent of comic books (New York mag, Vogue) and bubble gum (wine). We would not learn a way to prevent past hurt or have memories of why a moment was special between two people, flashes of riding in the backseat of cars at night, knowing all the words to a song currently playing on the radio, and having nowhere to be. We wouldn’t realize this once it was gone without change. It would not be momentary and extraordinary. It would be usual without such an impetus. We know with our most right mind that change is good and always has been. It shakes things up, it drives us and moves us, propels us forward, lets us know that we have meaning even in the smallest of things.

But knowing the solution and being able to apply it, even when the light at the end of The Year of The Suck is within reach, are two completely different things…

Non-negotiable

Today I am thinking about a lusted after position: the non-negotiable. I’m wondering how it would be to have a slice of authority over my destiny in this way, one where I could hold strong and shake my head to an inane request in the office, a friend obligation on a faraway subway line, an architectural weakness of an upcoming apartment, a heart-wrenching give-without-take made in several re-relationships.

There have been tick marks for my standstills in the past. It used to be that I would not discuss music with someone who didn’t at least appreciate a little bit or was willing to pretend momentarily that neo-punk was the greatest thing since spiked collars (I was thirteen and full of such ‘important’ revelations). Before then, it was absolutely out of the question to hold my mother’s hand after the age of seven, wear earrings bigger than a ladybug, appreciate European history unless taught in video form, eat brussel sprouts, enjoy a moment of winter not spent sledding and be best friends with Caitlyn Dryer at the same time as Alyssa Berndt (they hated each other in the fourth grade).

Now, I find I have allowed myself less control when I am seeking more. I’ve caught myself making excuses for violations long past considered deal-breakers: friends backstabbing, boys not standing up literally and figuratively, me trying harder than the other party at least 75% of the time in a project, relationship, whatever. These should have signaled the end, and yet they remained just the middle: a continuation of an endless string of concessions.

My wish list of non-negotiables today includes:

Consideration without being told, pled, or asked

Enough time with the blonde’s new French bulldog puppy (only to be determined by if and when he gets sick of me or falls asleep upon which I am allowed to waste all of my phone memory by taking pictures of him)

Pink lemonade every week as long as summer lasts

Now is that too much to ask?

Mush Brain, Beard Face

I am no stranger to fake beards. My senior film project practically revolved around one (“You want a beard? Oh, I’ll give you a beard.” Some of the finest collaborative writing I’ve ever been a part of was in that twelve minute short). But last night, during Lost, and mesmerized by Jack’s heavily glued tufts, I could only think of that doctor on Scrubs with the big beard, and everyone always says to him “Get outta here Dr. Beardface!” and he always says “It’s Dr. Beard-Fah-chay, damnit! I am so sick of this!” Leave it to my feeble mind to reference one TV show with another.*

But seriously, for those who still have DVR-filled devices, don’t read further or else I’ll spoil it.

Charlie so did not have to die! That was weak! Run out of there, push Desmond into the water and both of you swim to the surface! Was it really necessary for him to close the door and lock it to take all the water in that enclosed space? Even if Desmond had run in there just because Penny’s face was on the video, there would have been more than ample time to check it out and then run out of there as the water spilled out of that room and into the rest of that station. That thing is monstrous, there would have been at least twenty minutes of time to get out and swim underneath and back to the surface. And what’s with Cyclops having more lives than Jason from Halloween?

And another thing, even if Charlie wanted to contain the water from coming in to somehow save Desmond’s life (not that that makes a lick of sense, but hey, I’ll play devil’s advocate), he already demonstrated his ability to hold his breath fairly long by getting down there, why then couldn’t he have waited for the pressurized water to stop gushing in, and then swum out of the little circle hole? You may say he was too big, but let me stop you right there. I saw Lord of the Rings, and hobbits are only about three feet high and maybe two feet in circumference (except for that chubby one, wow, Rudy has really let himself go). So hobbit Charlie, by reasonable calculations (or not) could have gotten out that way. Otherwise, Lost again tantalizes me with her siren song and minimal payoff.

Better than other season finales, but still I have to say, I thought all that Jack beard filler was nonsense—you’re a drunk who’s addicted to pills and no one loves you, wah wah wah, join the club, dude! You don’t see me whining about it. And if that really was the future (flash-forward versus flash-back), why the heck did you tell the new chief of surgery to get your father down there? The dude’s been dead for years! And also, all that teasing with who actually died was lame. No one showed up to the funeral but it was enough for you to try to off yourself? Yeah, that makes sense. Not! I’m just frustrated because I have to wait three months to find out—or knowing Lost—three years.

Wow, my brain is turning to mush. Thank goodness TV is ending so I can go jump around outside.


*PS. Zach Braff, you may fool other people, but not me. Just because you slapped together a half-decent soundtrack after reading a bunch of Pitchfork reviews (good call SNL) does NOT mean you are the greatest mind of our generation! Now quit acting like you’re under 30 and in The Shins. Plus, your chest is weird, like really, really weird. Please stop showing it all the time. You’re making us sick. Like really, really sick.

The Moronical Chronicles

I am not very smart. I understand this, have known it all my life, and am coming to terms with it. It’s okay. It’s the way of the universe. Some things I’m fairly good at, some things merely sub-par, and others abysmal. The finer points of intellect have eluded by grasp for a while now, like the time I threw away my boss’s money or the time I accused a friend of walking off with the downstairs remote as a prank only to find it under the covers in my bed (and no, reader, the remote doesn’t even work for my bedroom TV, is not even close to the living room, and was put there 100% by me, presumably during some sort of blackout period after I arrived home from work, and no I was not drunk, and yes I wish I were because maybe then it would make sense).

I have called people the wrong name to their face immediately after being introduced to them, I have freaked out about losing my novel’s USB port while holding it in my dominant hand, have caused substantial damage by crashing a rental boat into another man’s far more expensive boat while chasing down a pelican. I never purport to be adept at living and so I feel okay in saying this next statement.

Sometimes, other people’s idiocy makes me feel like I am the queen of all geniuses, sitting atop a library-chair-throne with a huge throbbing brain harnessing all the world’s power in an electro-magnetic field while laughing manically (and maybe with a tiny crown on top of that enormous dome-piece of mine). When I feel this, I am usually dealing with the following morons with an unexplained attitude of superiority problem inexplicably accompanying their moronitude:

Verizon Wireless (jerkoids)

Empire Blue health insurance (d-bags)

People giving directions when they have no idea where I’m trying to go (a-buckets), and so on…

Other things that make me feel smart:

Donald Trump, Rosie O Donnell, The Bachelor, The Inferno, My Super Sweet Sixteen, Rachel Ray

Luna Bars (because of their antioxidants growing my brain power as I write this, nothing sarcastic about that one)

Dateline sans Stone Phillips (moms across America are in mourning for this boneheaded move…meow, Stone Phillips is a stone fox! I need to be running NBC right now)

My crappy label maker at work, elevator and ipod etiquette of everyone in my morning commute

Landline calls between 9 and 5, 98% of email correspondence, people who leave the office and don’t turn off their lights

One small step for me...

I’ve gone where all hipsters have gone before me. And I looked upon it. And I saw it was good.

The apartment search is not just a great reason to whine (as if I needed a reason—hey-o!), it’s also a great reason to see other neighborhoods that I have judged too quickly. It’s funny that even though I’m perfectly aware of it, I still let the judgment seep in. I love my hood on the edge of the East Village and the LES. I have this burning notion that nowhere else in this entire island can be a place I may easily call home. Call it displaced assumptions. It’s ascribing good feelings to a location because of the experience which may have been great in any place, but just because one particular location was in the background fabric of said experience, it takes on responsibility for the good feeling itself. Is it just coincidence that the East Village has been my home for the last four years, being the first place I grew to know after college and by some shift of divine intervention I just accidentally chose the place—and the only place—in the city, or maybe nation, that was perfect for me? Or was it really the case that I made it perfect because it comforted me, induced familiarity and remained constant through jobs, friends, boys and even apartments themselves (all in the same ten block radius)?

It seems obvious, and yet part of my brain refuses to understand. All my friends love their neighborhoods and they live all over the grid. Many in the same areas as their first apartments. Is it then the case that all of us have magically chosen the best places for us or is it that we don’t give ourselves enough credit—that we love what we make ours? The parallel continues: we hold close our hometowns, whether they’re in Ohio or California—both places wrought with bias that may or may not be the case, but home is home and the reason they say there’s no place like it is simply because it’s true. The same can be said for our friends and significant others. How convenient that our best friends just so happen to be the ones that lived on our block in a college dorm, or were the ones who got off the same bus stop in elementary school, or our boyfriends and girlfriends are those that just happen to have worked in the cube next to ours. More likely the case that what brings us all together, connection/significance/love into our lives, is convenience and proximity. I don’t mean to negate growing to care for someone as a friend or more by meaning that romanticism and fate are less than, but it has never felt, to me, that there is just one best friend or fantastic boss or anything else for us—there are relationships that we make our most desirable because of opportunity. Same with ‘needing’ to be downtown, or on the East coast, in LA, in Poland, whatever.

So I’m trying to open my eyes, as this next year is an opportunity. Of course, everything in teensy steps. I saw an apartment in Williamsburg, and liked it. I walked around the area, and liked it. Some may say it’s just an extension of where I am right now, and some would be right. Yet, let’s stay positive because oftentimes that’s all we’ve got. As I see it, this is a step forward. I can see myself somewhere else, beyond the imaginary borders of today. Now I’ve got one year from this moment to turn that small step into the giant leap of Hawaii. One thing at a time…

What do you love about your neighborhood, wherever you are?

May Day

Chips, streamers, and a special on Duane Reade beer attempt to negate reality. It’s Friday afternoon in the throes of May, yet it’s dark and cold. Where am I?

Besides at work, besides in the midst of tapping keys and the office din, I am at the beginning of a strange summer and it all feels gently off. Was spring a season that ever existed, or was it always a figment of my imagination—like the Tooth Fairy and when subway cards were a dollar fifty? I’ve sent my winter coats home in hot anticipation and instead I shiver under an embarrassing sweater (hey—it didn’t look mauve in the store). I’m in the purgatory of weather shifts and too from sick to healthy, so the next few steps need to be taken with care…I will beware of excess and Crif hot dogs until I can be sure of them both.

I won’t be sad because my favorite TV shows have neared the end of their seasons (damn you Lost, if you don’t deliver this time, I’m going to…complain even more and still watch you in the fall) when I can be sad at the end of all seasons now that we’re already back to winter…

It’s a far cry from last weekend when the air hung heavy with flowered perfume emitted from green trees, the Roman sculptures at the Met glowed alabaster and the courses at Otto did not end after multiple white pizzas, shining pastas, spiced olives, salty artichokes and heavy glasses of wine. But still, it's the cusp of the weekend and it's May, and nothing could be better than that .

Sick, looking for an apartment, sick of looking for an apartment

I’ve been MIA lately and I’m sorry. Transitions have kept me from the page. I’ve been nursing a bad cold (or allergies? Which is worse? A cold in spring or the thought that I am actually allergic to spring itself? How nerdy of me!) and have been scouring this city for apartments far too early.

You and I both know I have an obsessive personality and though I am not moving until August, I feel as though this compulsion must be tended to now! Now! Now! Now!

Silly me, obviously nothing is open now for then. I know this and yet don’t. It kills me, I am a planner by nature, with the option to float spontaneous only between charted events, and to leave my fate up to fate is just not something quite comfortable to me.

I try to breathe deeply and then I wheeze through a rainbowed “productive cough”. I don’t take vitamins. I don't drink enough water. I don't sleep enough hours. I am stressed because my brain works in mysterious ways incongruent to my body. I slow down in action and speed up in anxiety. I could use a nap, some Tussin, a million dollars as usual.

I have a book to finish, a life to start, a year left to glean what I haven’t in four…now if only I could stop popping Tylenol like Pez...

I found the perfect apartment!

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/roo/328932975.html

Um...or not.

Mourning

I am enveloped by “end of semester” right now even though I am not graduating from my cube.

The end of the school year felt like stolen moments and brief bouts of realization. That these were times I would reminisce about later and the thought if I could just appreciate them as they unfolded, they’d remain perennial. Available for me to call upon when it was cold or lonely or when bills were due. It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now.

It feels like the end of an era. People are moving away and moving as the weather warms. I am departing from my one great love, one that I will remember forever, no matter how many or how few come after it, no matter how wrinkled and faded I become…

I can barely say the words. I have to move out of my apartment. The apartment I adore, in the neighborhood I cherish. I sigh with longing for what we shared (last year’s Cinco de Mayo party, the central air that I’ll never know again, the bedroom I can actually walk around in, the window inviting light onto the dresser…). And like all breakups, one party is bearing the brunt of mourning. This time, it’s me. My apartment, or should I say, my soon-to-be-ex apartment, seems just fine with it. It has legions of girls (and boys, as my apartment is free-wheeling and bi-habitat) just like me but a little bit better clamoring for its attention, lines even, girls who are willing to bend more, pay more, but as I suspect, appreciate less.

I can’t make the apartment want me as much as I want it, particularly when its standards have risen far beyond the bonds of my bank account. Not when there is this much competition. The August search for Manhattan housing is one of the most heartbreaking acts I think I will ever participate in. I’ve done it twice and am gearing up for a third. I am worse for the wear.

Last night I began, shoving thoughts out of mind of how no other neighborhood will suit me, how no other water pressure will bead as hard. I talked myself into a stretch of Canal Street littered with trash and wire-locked I heart NY tee-shirt shops. Up the stairs to a surly man and his slight girlfriend who immediately insisted I take off my shoes, that though he knew I could not move in until August and still asked me to come by to look, sternly barked that it was not flexible and that was that. And the room was small and cramped and unwelcoming and it was $1200 to share a little bathroom with three other people and most likely, a type-written list of house rules (no guests, no laughing, no breathing).

Sometimes, change is not good. I wish the semester of my apartment didn’t have to end. I don’t want to graduate.

Any ideas or leads?

O.P.D.

Last night I saw The National and Arcade Fire at the United Palace Theatre (essentially this enormous gilded mosque where few tiers provide a great view of the performance). The show was a dazzling display of lights, skewered video, jumping Canadians and frenzied drumming. It looked like the lead singer Win was about to bust an aneurysm on-stage as he kicked instruments, flipped his bangs and shouted at the mike. It was Saturday on a Monday night. It was great. They were, by all intents and purposes, astounding. The entire experience was.

Except.

Well.

You know…that thing. The thing which we do not speak of.

OPD. Other People’s Dancing.

And the pain it can cause for some.

It’s a weird phenomenon. Everyone looks so normal, so pacified at the start of the show. People shuffle politely, wait in line for beers, calmly locate their seats while clutching their stubs. You’re excited. They’re excited. Together you have something in common as you’re all here to share in the communal youth experience that is a good band in a great setting where the music is too loud and yet it doesn’t hurt your ears and won’t for another four years. If you’re lucky.

And then the lights go down, the speakers kick in and the quiet ones start to stir. Something starts squirming inside of them. Why is it always the quiet ones? The ones that look like they work at Blockbuster and it’s their one night off. It’s always some absurdly skinny, short or heavy drip with frizzy hair and Coke-bottle glasses who starts freaking out in a spastic display of the worst dancing in the world. They pump their fists not-to-the-music, they scream out the words during the slow parts, they hit people to the left and the right of them with flailing limbs, they jump and fall and twist like some bad rendition of an uncle at a wedding. And you don’t want to say anything, because hey, it’s not like you can dance, or like you’re so cool. In fact, you’re just a huge poseur hipster dork who is extremely skinny, short or heavy yourself and you’ve got frizzy hair and suspect vision but damn, at least you’ve got self-denial. You can limit your movements to a respectable head bob and two step. Your insecurity and fear of public humiliation saves you. And if you slip up momentarily, you don’t have to look at yourself and you can immediately right it. These other kids though, forget it. You have to look at them. They’re the ones with the slightly better seats and are blocking the view with their seizures. They’re the ones killing it. Killing the night you looked forward to for the last month.

So you say to yourself, you aren’t going to be bothered. You try to watch the stage, try to pretend things were the same as they were mere hours ago when you sped along on your way to the concert with your iPod at full volume, sure that the band was singing just for you. Of course you knew this wasn’t true, and if it were it would be incredibly clichéd, but clichéd perfection. And in that it felt personal and special and you thought maybe seeing the band live would also feel the same way. You’d meet people like yourself and you’d all sort of mosh happily together as a group of new friends.

But that’s the thing about concerts. Whatever benefit of seeing the band in the flesh can be completely off put by seeing the other kids who are into it (or even worse, 40somethings with bald spots, as last night proved beyond a reasonable doubt). And sometimes it’s unavoidable*.

Personally, I believe that it’s a hazard that has to be tolerated. Not everyone shares this philosophy. Last night, I partook in minimal dancing, cause I can’t dance, and enjoyed myself because that’s what I paid for. Unfortunately, the boy I was with couldn’t contain his annoyance. I’d look over at him to comment on how fantastic a transition was and he’d be staring at one girl to our left who looked like she needed medical attention. I tried to make a joke of it (“Just ignore it!”) and he sighed (“I’m trying but I can’t!”). Finally, between songs, he couldn’t help himself any longer.

Him: “I have to say something.”

Me: “No you don’t!”

Him: “Look, someone needs to tell her. If that were me, I’d want to be told.”

Me: “I really don’t think that’s true.”

Him (in a loud plea aimed at the row below us): “Please stop dancing like that!”

Me: “Shhhhh!”

Him: “Please! Please stop dancing like that! Please!”

Girl: “Whooo! I love you Arcade Fire! Whooo!” (insert flailing limbs)

Him: “Please, this isn’t Rusted Root! For the love of God!”

Suffice it to say she didn’t notice (in fact if anything, she was only re-energized). The rest of the set was amazing. We went home and laughed. Until we reminded ourselves we probably wouldn't have wanted to see us letting loose at our first concerts.

What were they again? Mine (G Love) and his (Type O Negative).

Wow. Okay, no more laughing at OPD. Ever again.

*Ever go to a concert with a person you’ve never seen dance before? It’s agita-inducing. It’s always such a horrifying litmus test for the friendship or relationship. Bad is the overly excited dancing that harms innocent bystanders. Even worse is the kid that doesn’t even move his head the entire time.

Arrival

Waking up in late spring I am wistful and absurd. I have an idiot’s grin as I jump around a white room in pajamas, appreciating the ceiling fan, clean clothes and flip flops, the ten minutes I am fully awake before my alarm is set to blare.

I can’t explain it; something feels so reminiscent of me at six years old waiting at the bottom of a very steep drive with a quarter meant only for chocolate milk in the front pocket of a navy corduroy dress. Too early for the bus and a little too cold in planned layers, squinting in the bright snap and hearing the birds call with their singsong (the one that sounded then a little like one note and then the other of “spriiing’s here”). Sometimes my cat Cream would wait with me and she would leave a trail of short calico hair on my tights as she rubbed aggressively from one leg to the next.*

Walking to the subway is practically cheery. Full of motion and still happy when I run back upstairs in a panic to clutch tonight’s concert tickets (they were, er, rolled in a newspaper in my other hand all along). Idiot’s grin returns to spread to the people on the streets.

Usually there are so many bad connotations for the weekday morning. The dread ahead for to-do lists that include strict intentions to floss the week before a six month cleaning, as if that would offset four Fridays in a row that ended with copious amounts of Diet Coke to “re-hydrate”. Notes to self. The idea of getting “finances in order”.

But in the late spring--funny because this year the early spring is late and so we’ve skipped weeks of this for rain and for the chill of seasons that should have finished months ago—weekday mornings are something else entirely. They’re hot coffee, blades of grass, birds beyond pigeons. Sideways light and bare legs and the smell of herbs on windowsill gardens. Plans to meet just because. Gatherings to celebrate the purchase of new grills. Changing directions because now is when everything feels right.

Sure, its expiry comes too early. This year, last and the next. But for now…

Spriiing's here.

*She’s been gone for years and I still hope that when she ran away after we got the new dog, the one that got sick and has now passed on, that she found a different driveway and a different girl waiting for the bus and is still around, surely holding an astounding record for the world’s oldest cat, for another spring.

He Hate Me

The XFL never did get its sea legs, and I might be fine with the fact if it weren’t for Rod Smart’s jersey name, the best I will ever hear.

I have no idea why I just remembered that.

I think it was because recently a friend was explaining, once again, how one played Edward Fortyhands (you duct-tape a forty to each hand and can’t remove them until you’ve finished them both, I half-pray this is just urban legend but I think he's actually completed--and possibly won--this game more than once, this from a highly respectable guy about to get married to a highly respectable girl this summer) and I remembered that and somehow made the connection.

Cause obviously, if there’s anything that goes with Edward Fortyhands, it’s the XFL.

…

Classy.

The Professional

My writing comes in the most inconvenient of spurts.

Ideas that seem amazing and wonderful only happen when I’m in the dentist’s chair, on the subway without a pencil, in the middle of a conversation with a higher up who is very carefully dictating the dos and don’ts of summer share etiquette (do bring wine, don’t bring red).

When I make it to a computer or the edge of a cocktail napkin, it stumbles out completely wrong. Once astute is now trite, ridiculous, middle school, even. Fragments on old notebooks boast, “power struggles of the culturally defeat, hipster schisms, the sound of one-headed napping.” What was I thinking? Why can’t I think it just a little bit better now?

It comes so easily and it leaves so easily. So much for the next great American beach read. I go back to wondering if my childhood teddy bear, Rosie, comes alive while I’m at work and judges me. (All conclusions point to yes.)

I’m looking at a half-blank page, tweaking something off the cuff so that it can become precise and meaningful, something that could theoretically fit into a publication and ready myself for waves of rejection and nausea, in that order. I wish I had picked something else, something that could be measured with a yardstick. Something that’s either right (write?) or wrong, with less left up to interpretation, opinion and circumstance. The tide and solstice. Interesting characters based on interesting people and my finicky moods.

Some days I’m sort of on—a low way to be sure, but the highest way for me—most I simply am not. And while practicing may make me good, I wonder if I hold the talent to ever become great. That’s the worst part. Some people are blessed, some are not, and it takes our entire lives to find out into which category we fall.

Julius Erving’s quote by way of Halberstam comes to mind. “Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them.”

In the meantime, should inspiration strike, I’ve got a notepad ready…

Sunday Rehab

When I went to Vegas for a bachelorette party, my last day was spent in a daze at the Hard Rock’s Sunday Rehab. It’s gained a joking celebrity on the claim of restorative properties for pool bunnies and thong-clad gamblers. A venue to soak up chlorine, somehow inducing the purge of tequila.

Of course it didn’t work. That was why it was so much fun. It was simply more incentive to drink again, get too much sun, flirt, spend too much money. All excused because all was "hair of the dog", figuratively speaking. It was most people’s last day of pink drinks, toned staff and promises of big money before flights back to flyover states, cubed jobs or strained relationships. You couldn’t just quit cold turkey. You had to ease out of a week of sin in Vegas, or anywhere else for that matter.

Most people got on their evening flights gin-drunk, half-dead from dehydration and shame. Long-term happy and short-term regretful that they had their one last hurrah when they should have been planning their upcoming week’s schedules.

Sunday rehab makes as much sense now as it did then; it offers an easy solution. You don’t have to be sorry for the fun you had all at once. As long as you believe, throughout the day, that you are tipping the scale from Saturday to Monday, you are condoned. I think this is why we start Sundays with brunch and end them with 60 Minutes (no comment on saying you’ll end an America’s Next Top Model marathon with 60 Minutes, only to keep on a few more hours and end it instead with Entourage and a fistful of Cheez-Its).

I enact this fun fallacy for my own Sundays not in Vegas. It should be the day for cleaning up the house, folding clothes, doing dishes, getting to the gym and dinners replete with whole grains and broccoli. But they never quite end up that way. I like to think I’m a person who follows many pursuits or at least half-starts a lot of things, but Sundays end up days that I waste with joy.

Yesterday, though hoarse from late-night karaoke and an ill-thought Colt 45, I met my new-roommate-to-be and oft-quoted blonde of this site and had brunch at Cookshop where the waiter described a dish as “chaotic”. We shared buttermilk beignets, mascarpone French Toast and philosophies on work and life (we’re still confused, but it’s fun to talk). We had a great celebrity sighting in Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and baby there.

Then we walked to Chelsea Piers and she decided she would have a bowling 26th birthday party (I pray for bumper bowling, but it might not happen). Being by the water, even if it was brownish gray and littered with splintered wood and lost soccer balls, was nice. We walked all the way down near the house of trapeze lessons, and then back up tree-lined blocks—pointing to all the pretty brownstones of which we will never see the insides. We fantasized about where our next apartment might take us and who we might become while in it.

I walked most of the way home, past diners and dates, tinkling glasses of Mimosas and happy friends and their wagging dogs. People were out to celebrate a nice day, that they were lucky enough to be outside, not working on a Sunday, to have people who wait for them or to have an extra dollar to spend on luxuries.

I went home and read a little, even put on workout clothes as if I would go to Pilates on a day I didn’t plan on it, before putting on that ANTM cycle 2 marathon and felt the evening stretch before me and the freedom it lent. I didn't write. I didn't fold. I didn’t do anything I should have, and that was what felt a little restorative. If not at the time, then now, in Monday’s hunch, in front of the computer…Sunday was rehab from this, and sadly, today is rehab from that…

Cure-Alls

Benny’s burritos plus Caddyshack equals a cure-all for the depression of a rainy day.

For me, the others are:

Speed Scrabble with the windows open to invite in the sound and smell of drops

Crossed-legged, couch cushions on the floor in a poorly made fort

Feeling perfectly justified in skipping Ab class and poor posture

Fantasy vacation planning, refreshing the prices and hoping the numbers go down, even by one dollar

Tivo and the idea of having to “make-up” shows as an assignment( Planet Earth at the top of the list)

The memory of baths, the reality of a long shower, moisturizer that smells of mangoes

Homemade manicures and peeled cucumber masks, cotton balls, cotton clothes

Delivered snacks, half bottles of wine, forgotten videos and new inside jokes

The idea of daily hospital corners and a folded blanket on the bed but never getting up to actually do it

The following New York-based course catalogues and guides: Parson’s, SVA, The French Culinary Institute, Time Out, a fresh highlighter and a mission

Playlists

Found journals, lost to-do lists, debit cards with overdraft protection

Two popsicles left in the freezer and four hours left of the night

-----------------------

What are yours?

Awful Waffle

Tell me someone remembers the show Salute Your Shorts. Because no one in my office does. In fact, when I told the mail guy I’d give him an awful waffle if he didn’t deliver my NY magazine to my inbox soon, he and everyone in the surrounding area looked at me like I was nuts.

Just because we’re in cubes doesn’t mean we have to pretend we were cultivated here, do we?

Come on, Ug, Donkey Lips, that redheaded kid from T2? You know the one. The one with the mullet. What a badass. Check out how he totally screwed up the song by saying ‘fart’ instead of ‘part’. Wow, that still slays me.

The Nickelodeon of my youth rocked***. Hey Dude, Welcome Freshmen, and old-school You Can’t Do That On Television re-runs (Barf’s burgers—delightfully gross, and I remember this one skit where all the guys were growing mustaches, and Moose said she was growing one, and she lifted up her shirt and was growing it in her arm pit—priceless).

Going back even further, there was Today’s Special, Pinwheel, (whoa—how scary is this intro to watch today? You’re welcome for the nightmares to come tonight.) Reading Rainbow and my favorite of favorites: Square One. Mathnet was sweet.

Today, I wish T.V. was as good as it used to be and pass a little diversion to you. Thank you, YouTube. You’ve saved Monday once again.

***Addendum: Because of some excellent suggestions I am linking the following: Clarissa Explains It All (oh how I searched for the Hammer Pants episode where Mr. Darling and Sam danced in baggy glitter pants), Are You Afraid of The Dark? (remember that episode where it was another dimension and the other dimension people had no faces or the one where the big pinball was going to run down the escalator and kill that kid?), Pete and Pete and finally, what I think is the best Nickelodeon commercial ever: Inside Out Boy.

Waterlust?

My tan is starting to fade, but back when it first started to form, I was dipped in the edge of the beach. I was buoyant in water--tepid and foaming green--watching cruise ships docked in the distance. The waft of vacation covered me like bubble film and I was so glad not to be on board; so glad not to have to pull away.

I felt like I belonged in the swells of the ocean. I love the sensation of a slow flapping dance to keep me afloat; I like to be weightless above animals unseen, fish darting around my ankles (and then screaming my head off when a foot is tangled in seaweed, forever convinced it’s a scale-covered monster that feeds on the flailing legs of girls…).

Not to discount the amazement of pools. I have so many happy memories of them: on the swim team in first grade when my nickname was “Killer K” because I had a furious backstroke which steered me sharply into the dividers at each side of the lane (right, left, right) and my kid limbs would thrash and I would hit one and then I would turn again. Somehow, this made me somewhat fast on certain days. Though I surely would have been a lot faster without this unique...er...technique. I still remember being small and cold in the early morning for practice in summertime, having to wear a sweatshirt until the very last minute (white with red block lettering, the sleeves hanging to my knees), or the startling crack of the gun indicating our jump in, or the shame of a false start--always my biggest fear--where a swimmer would expend thirty percent of her energy on a beautifully deep dive and pop her head up in triumph only to realize no one was swimming next to her, the coach shaking his head, the pull of weight to level herself back to the starting point and the slapping of chlorine drops off her body onto the cement.

At our last house we had a gorgeous pool flanked by gardens of roses and rocks that was shaped like a vintage Absolut bottle, edged with antique tiles and a florescent Miami light show at night which went from red to purple to blue to green to white. My friends loved it. I loved it. My parents barely used it. Then we moved away. Then I moved away, to the city, and the last pool I was privy to in this area was in Brooklyn for a Beirut concert and a hilarious game of dodgeball where there was a lot of hipster-on-hipster pounding.

It’s things like that—vacation, past houses and childhoods that shape my future wants. I want to be by the water: natural or in-ground doesn’t matter as long as I’m near blue. I want it more than anything else in a home: French doors, chef’s kitchen, acreage—all are secondary. I fantasize about water the way some people do about money or leather.

It’s a little weird…right?

Case in point. I was stuck in the airport for eight hours last Monday (as the perfect sendoff for my vacation) and I spent two of those gripping a luxury pool magazine, ooohing and aaahing at infinity edges, palazzo-inspired creations, lagoon meanderings. I couldn’t believe that someone out there had published such a book, like it was intended just for me, and when I had read it cover to cover I saw another magazine: this one only about islands. Have you seen either of these? Did I imagine them? They were truly great and I’m debating whether to look them up on the internet, and subscribe. I’m just a little wary. What will happen to me, when I extract them from my mailbox and a neighbor sees? Sexual perversions are one thing, but having a magazine about pools clutched under my arm as I cut short my conversation to run upstairs and feverishly flip through it on the couch without even taking off my coat and scarf might be too bizarre to forgive…

Bro, Broheim, Brosephine

I have been validated by the beach gods!

I got into Hawaii for grad school. I’m more stoked (see, I’m fitting in already) for this news than any other program. And, contrary to popular belief, it’s not an online university with a world-renowned program in basket-weaving, beach-bumming, board-waxing, falling over in the sand and getting lei’d at a bonfire. Not anymore, anyway*.

Let the island escapades continue until my face resembles a catcher’s mitt from the sweet, sweet sun. Clearly after St. Maarten and this acceptance, I know I’m meant for the water. And Mai Tais. Lots and lots of Mai Tais. And legions of surfer boyfriends in jam shorts and maybe one random guy, like in the background, serving drinks in a banana hammock. All I ask for is that.

Wait, scratch that, I think the dude in the hammock would be more like itching for years after fighting with your parents to control your own life and then graduating and semi-growing up and your first apartment and getting to eat whatever you want for breakfast. A Milwaukee’s Beast and a Hot Pocket later and you realize, slowly and horribly, the anticipation far outweighed the application.

In any case, it could be pretty amazing…

*In all honesty, the program pretty much rocks. Take that Iowa! Go on and keep your cornfields and your crystal meth. Yeah, I said it.

Quote from the island...

“Ever heard of Sasha and Digweed? Yeah, I’m totally friends with both of them. I open for them all of the time at raves in Miami. Yep. It’s pretty sick.”


“Cool. Oh sorry, wait, hold on a minute.” (Grabs phone and says hello, nods in understanding, hangs up). “Hey, 1997 just called. Even they want you to shut up.”

A Week's Work

I’m back from vacation and I am exhausted. How did this happen? When did relaxation turn hardcore cramming in of activities, beaches, sun burnt shots?

It was two days in, I think. When what was supposed to be recuperative turned in to far-too-much-fun-in-the-sun…

Things were crazy, wonky; up was down. Time was all wrong at points. I wore a bikini at night on a boat. At 6:30 AM, I wilted in a party dress, hailing a cab as ladies-who-lunch power-walked by. I ordered rum punch before coffee in the morning and no one even blinked.

I think about the free-for-all attitude I had in juxtaposition to where I am now, in two sweaters in the rain, spending no money but all of my time in front of a screen.

Highlights, in no particular order:

Heels dusted with sand, toes in water only lit by Tiki torches and moonlight

Snorkeling in the danger zone, back warm from the sun and a mouthful of saltwater

Beachside BBQs, ridiculously fruity drinks, losing one flip flop on a very long stretch of white and glittering blue

The first inkling of tan, the last day of burn

The steel drum version of Coldplay’s “Speed of Sound”

Bedroom eyes, Lucite heels, Platinum—all seemingly normal for Saturday nights

Getting invited to the VIP section to drink a bottle of champagne, leaving the VIP section because the guy got handsy, getting invited to the other VIP area to dance with the go-go girls, getting tossed out

Having long in-depth conversations on the following: Christopher Pike books*, displaced hipsters, what constitutes “vacation hot” (hint: sun-bleached hair and teeth, shades over eyes to hide a network of wrinkles, jobs as deckhands who never aim to be captains), the sadness of the setting sun, tactics for getting out of dancing with people who don’t understand the subtlety of tactics

How everything on a sunnier island is slightly 'off' (Amstel Light is Amstel Bright, outings are booked by shouting off a dock to a sleeping crew, etc.)

Enough sun block, new bathing suits

Gold sandals and terrific-bad 80s glasses

Ceiling fans, the absence of most other tourists, cover bands

Day-tripping, day-sleeping, night-running

Remembering moments the week after coming down and coming back

* I loved these. I cannot stress this enough. I loved these books more than life itself in my tweens after graduating from Judy Blume—who, by the way, seems to have only terrible novels now, not even good-sort-of-ironic-fun-terrible like Candace Bushnell in a deckchair, pages curled with salt spray, but terrible as in really awful.

Today...

that strange flower, the sun,

is just what you say.

have it your way.

the world is ugly,

and the people are sad.

that tuft of jungle feathers,

that animal eye,

is just what you say.

that savage of fire,

that seed,

have it your way.

the world is ugly,

and the people are sad.

-Wallace Stevens, gubbinal

In light of the VA Tech horrors, today is only for sending out well wishes and prayers to everyone in the area, everyone who is looking for or now missing family members and friends, and taking the time to be glad for the time we have and to make the most of it.

Today is for nothing else.

Stay safe.

This is goodbye (for a week)

Well I’m off early Monday to clear my cluttered head and my heavy heart and maybe get a tan on my translucent skin, and I promise to come back and have many stories to tell on Monday, April 16th. Lots and lots of stories.

Salacious! Graphic! Interesting! Exclamation-point inducing!

Don’t worry, I’m coming back in one piece. And you’re welcome to stay. Snuggle up, take off your shoes and stay a while. Actually that's not my Diet Coke so...yeah, sorry you can't have any. But seriously, feel free to touch anything else. Except the super duper entertainment console system. It’s just really complicated, okay? No, see, that’s the wrong remote. What did I just tell you?

Check out some of my old musings/wonderings/whines by checking out my archive. There you might even find how *not* to be a grown-up or what defines a person.

You can tally what I’ve lost and hope to gain.

Or even whose worse: boys vs. girls. Right now my count is girls by a nose.

And all the rest…see you in a bit.

My So-Called, Upcoming Life

I snagged Arcade Fire tickets. I am a GOD! I will sell them for nothing less than a golden idol and the blood of your first born…sorry dude with plot of land (is he for real?).

Blasphemy aside, I’m really excited for the next few months. I’ve got the following concerts to look forward to: Ratatat, CSS, The Decemberists and Grizzly Bear.

I figure if I’m leaving this city, I’m going to do up my last months/year with style.

Credit-card-melting-style.

Tonight a novelista-in-training-girl-date at The Little Owl and next week, a "needed"-by-specious-reasoning-but-very-much-lusted-after week in St. Maarten . Have any of you been? I’m ashamed to say my Caribbean experience thus far has been split between a Carnival cruise and an all-inclusive resort—suffice it to say both consisted of alcoholic Hawaiian Punch concoctions and periodic screaming of “Sprink Breaaaak!” while tripping into a pool so this agenda (quiet sunbathing, notebook-scribbling, Daiquiri-mixing, cabana-sprawling) is going to be a relatively new one for me and I'm dying for suggestions in the area.

This is not my life, not really, yet it’s always fun to moonlight. As though any of this is business as usual; it helps distract me from the 200 pages I need to revise and the 200 pages I need to write to complete my novel…which I’ve promised myself will be finished by the end of the summer (and if I say that and it’s not finished by this summer I can always default to, hey I never specified which summer…I meant the summer of 2012…yeah, yeah…2012).