November 20, 2006

The Things You Never Remember.

Tradition. We all want it. It’s something we look forward to, like the tradition of always leaving work at five, of getting brunch on Sunday afternoons, of getting dinner then seeing the movie. These are the things that keep us going, the little things that we need to hold on to in the ever-changing world that surrounds us.

Turkey. Every year it’s the same. A big piece of meat in the oven and you don’t know how it got there. A woman, most likely, somewhere in the house acquired it at a grocery store, perhaps days, even weeks before, and you wake up mid-morning and find that its been sitting in the oven for hours already. You know not to question how or when it got there. All you need to know is, (like it is every year) that it will be ready by 3PM.

Amidst this whole extravagant day that is based solely around eating massive amounts of food, you always do find yourself around family members for a longer period of time than you’ve been in years. Decades, it seems. When you were twelve at least. You find yourself asking the questions: did Mom always drink that many martinis while mashing the potatoes? Did Dad always ask this many questions about the overall direction of my future? Questions of money, stability, growth? Did Grandmother, (who at one time seemed so sweet) always pester you about when, when for crying out loud, will you just bring home a nice boy for all of us to meet? (As though you really are going out of your way not to meet someone just so that she won’t die “a happy woman.”)

And then it’s over. You’re out of your mind and out on the back porch drinking glass of wine number too many to count, cold, wondering why it is that Tradition, as great and stable as it tries to be, is never ever the same as you remember it. You have that one great holiday that one time in your past, the one that makes you still believe in holidays, the one that keeps you participating and loyally eating cranberry in the shape of a can, every year with the hope that one day you’ll get it back again – that and of course, a normal family.

It’s the burnt turkeys, and the fights and arguments, the feeling of being too full, and the overwhelming sense that your life is getting away from you, the years that come and go so fast, that all you can remember after a while are all of the things that make you hate the holidays and tradition and your less than normal family (well what is normal really?).

But it’s the things you never remember, (and we all have them), that have us booking train tickets and packing into airport terminals, and waiting on standby, and getting over our fear of cruising at 50,000 feet. Because we all know, deep down, that no amount of turkey (no matter who makes it) is worth all of that.

November 15, 2006

Never trust a man in Glen plaid.

Some days it’s pinstripe, grey, with some sort of pastel shirt, lavender, pink, French collar, yellow tie. Something sharp, color schemes I’d never think to put together, there they are, right in front of me at 8AM and looking like the best thing I’ve never thought of but should have. Solid navy wool with pale blue shirts, turquoise ties with flowers, and brown leather wingtips.

He is there every morning as I wait for the bus, never repeats a suit and has a staring problem. A staring problem in that he stares at me (and most other women) every day when I walk over and stand, reading The New Yorker, trying not to notice that he has a staring problem (and a great eye for fashion) even though it’s so obvious that he does.

He pretends to read the Metro en route, and I usually don’t notice when The Staring Man gets off the bus at 66th and Central Park West, because he never speaks. He only stares.

One day, I will speak to The Staring Man/The Suit Man and find out that he’s got this weird disorder in which he can’t control the movements of his eyes. I’ll learn that this handicap has caused him a lot of trouble in his life up until this point: professors always thinking he wasn’t paying attention when his eyes decided to transfix themselves on the open window, the CEO at UBS who interviewed him and was offended when all he could seem to do was stare at the blatant non-real-hair that looked like a small cat sitting atop his otherwise bare head. And with Julie Jennings, the love of The Staring Man’s life, who left him because she couldn’t handle his head always turned as they walked down the street together, staring at every other woman as they passed by.

All of this was against his will, naturally. “Gosh darn eyes!” He curses himself. His bad eyes. His bad luck. Because really, he’s a good person at heart. And now he overcompensates with really nice suits, a suit for every possible occasion in an attempt to keep him not looking as creepy as, say, if he were wearing jeans and a Ramones T-shirt, making him look more “sex offender” than “slightly eccentric businessman.” How can you not trust someone in a Savile Row Henry Poole?

One day I will talk to him, ask him about his disorder and feign sympathy. Because initially he had me looking behind myself searching for the person he must have been looking at, and then realizing, foolishly, embarrassed, that it was me (do’h!). I will get him back for those moments where I had to pretend that I was just stretching my back or that the brick wall of the building behind me was really interesting. Oh yes, bricks, fun.

Staring Man and I are going to war, a war I’m waging on bad etiquette and for anyone who has ever stood on a street corner and felt visually molested. I don’t know how I’m going to do it or when, but I have a feeling, even with his eyes open and transfixed, he’s not going to see it coming.

November 12, 2006

Autumn leaves

There are yellow leaves all over the sidewalks of New York, that the doormen and store owners try to get rid of with the long hoses that they bring out in the morning to water down the pavement, to make it clean, to make it grow, to make it shine.

The fog was so thick today that walking down 7th Ave the skyline of downtown was invisible, cut off, swallowed up in the thickness of it, as though the city itself had suddenly disappeared over night.

And on 66th street there were men on ladders stringing white lights on the naked trees in the afternoon so that they would be bright at night.

At Lincoln Center there was a line a block long to get tickets to The Nutcracker, and it was so windy out the people were pulling up the collars of their coats.

On 59th street it was officially declared peppermint mocha time of year again, as the Starbucks on the corner was full of red holiday cups, large snowflake cookies, and crowds of people all ready for their first cup of the season.

At Central Park South the ice skating rink is visible through the park and was filled with people all moving in a counter-clockwise motion with The Park Plaza, The Ritz-Carlton and The Essex House all watching over them from above.

By the time I got home the yellow leaves were gone, and with them, fall, and I didn’t even notice.

November 9, 2006

Aviatophobia

I don’t know if you can acquire a fear of flying, but I have. Something that has never bothered me before suddenly throws me into a heart-thumping fit while I close my eyes and grip the arms of the chair (in its full upright position), and as the wheels slowly lift up from the runway, my stomach floods down to my feet and then rushes back up to my throat. There’s no point in trying to calm myself down, because when you’re afraid of something sometimes the best thing you can do is accept it.

Maybe because the older you get you start to realize things you didn’t when you were a kid, and how quickly things can change (like, say, in the amount of time it takes you to fly from New York to Madison, WI). And you sense better the risks of going too high in life, the repercussions of getting too close to the sun and finding yourself with melting wings over a very large and endless sea.

And then I touched down in the Midwest, into seemingly another world. I don’t know what was making me more nervous, the flight or the quiet night I found myself in when I walked out of the airport, and on the drive to downtown Madison, past the endless open fields and large office buildings and shopping malls equip with enough parking lots to hold the entirety of the city’s population at one time.

At night the silence kept me awake. But it’s all about what you’re used to, isn’t it? Like how in New York you’re used to warmer air and louder streets and people everywhere all in a rush to get somewhere. How you spend no less than $7 on a beer and never get a guy to buy you one, how you never meet someone who can hold a conversation, who can hold a door or eye contact. Is it that as New Yorkers we’re always searching for something better? Even being at the center of the world we’re still looking for a way to get more - more men, more money, more luck, more love, more room in the over-priced closets we call home.

Is the mentality of New York one that will never leave any of us fully satisfied? Leaving us left living among the noise of the lives of the people that surround us, all on their on quests towards having it all.

In Madison, WI. Life. Is. Slower. And as a New Yorker thefasterthebetter is what you’re used to, and the fear of slowing down is much like the fear of flying – it can come upon you when you least expect it and paralyze you. Because what do you find out when you stop rushing through life? Answers to the questions about yourself that you’d rather not know? Hear you thoughts? Hear your conscience? Hear your heart?

But suddenly, there I was, surviving another flight and back in New York where I don’t need to hear my heart because I can feel it pulsing in the pavement I walk on, vibrating beneath my feet. Now that I’m older I realize (and I didn’t when I was younger) that there is something comforting about the never-dark-sky of Manhattan, of seeing a world always moving outside your window - and not having a parking lot in sight
.

November 6, 2006

It's always the ones -

Tall
Dark
(and handsome)
Who are Med students
Who love Miles Davis (especially Birth of Cool)
Who tell you you’re beautiful
That have girlfriends.

November 1, 2006

Gain an hour, lose a year.

November already? Wasn’t it just yesterday when we were all walking around in shorts and complaining of the heat with all of summer ahead of us. Its green leaves and humid nights where everything made sense and the city seemed more alive, thick with hot air, wavy distant sidewalks and a steaming 39th street.

Wasn’t it just a month ago that I got here, to New York with my BlackBook List: New York 2006, a gift from a friend, listing the best places to go, Tia Pol, Chow Bar, Oznot’s Dish (Brooklyn) Angel Share, with a note on the inside front cover telling me to “kick the shit out of this city.”

November already? It’s so easy, isn’t it, for life to pass you by. There’s a chill in the air on the walk up 5th Ave. to 85th street to the steep, ascending steps of the MET to see the latest addition (Americans in Paris through 1/28). So I dig my hands deep into my pockets and I know that soon more tourists will be on the streets, filling their bags with items on lists, buying love, buying more time.

Wasn’t it just five minutes ago that I got here, to New York with the remnants of my old life packed up in two bags. There was a chill in the air then too, and if you listen closely, (shh), you can hear time passing, being picked up in the air and taken away into tomorrow as you dig your hands deeper, (a gesture being repeated all over this island) and watch your life pass you by.