Five days until Christmas and I’ve already caved. I’m buying presents. I’m going to Bloomingdale’s after work tomorrow to push through the crowds (and be pushed) and wait in line while Winter Wonderland (by far the worst of the holiday songs – what does conspiring by the fire mean anyway? Every time I hear that song I picture two people on a couch plotting world domination) plays over the sound system with the sincere hope that I will be spending my hard earned money on something someone will appreciate.
Can someone tell me what to get Dads? They’re probably the hardest people in the world to shop for because they have everything, and if they don’t have everything they don’t tell you that they don’t have everything and you have to, through some form of divine intervention, figure out that what they don’t have is a new container of Titleists and the DVD of Bridge on the River Kwai.
Moms are just as hard to read. You could draw their name on a piece of paper with a red crayon and they’d frame it and put it on the wall in their office and act like it’s the best thing they’ve ever gotten. “For me?!” Gasp! You never know if what you gave them is something really great or totally bogus, they just love that you thought of them. I mean, I guess.
With siblings it’s like some strange competition, because pretty much everything else in your lives from the moment you could speak was about one-upping the other one. So Christmas gifts are no different. Who is more creative, who spent the most money, who had their ears open all year to really get the one thing that the other one wanted. I mean never mind about the gift, the stress alone is enough to make you want to just spend your life savings on a Lexus with that really big bow so that you’ll never have to worry about not being the better gift-giver ever again.
Maybe the Grinch was right. And I’m not saying I have a heart two sizes too small, I’m just saying that the whole capitalistic idea that drives this holiday is pretty ridiculous and it, with it’s not-so-perfect gift giving tradition, is driving families apart all over the world.
Oh, and did I mention that I hate shopping? I can already feel the chest pains and claustrophobia setting in that only comes along with being in tight, high-pressured spaces with women wielding shopping bags. Maybe that’s “the Eskimo way,” though you’d never know it because that song, like the holidays, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
December 18, 2006
December 12, 2006
mean something - stat.
Do you ever just get the feeling that your life doesn’t mean anything? I mean of course it means something, you’re living it. It has to have some sort of something that’s keeping you getting up in the morning. But I guess what I’m really talking about is a purpose. Like how when you were little you thought you could do everything (me: doctor, pianist, president) and then you come to find out that it’s very hard to do even one thing moderately well let alone three things very well.
And while I know how to:
apply a Band Aid to a cut,
play Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor, and
was voted in my high school yearbook as “Most Likely To Be President”-
I still don’t feel like I’ve accomplished half the things I set out to do back when I would put on my father’s white dress shirt that I wore like a lab coat and listened to the sound of people hearts through my yellow plastic stethoscope –
buh-boom, buh-boom, buh-boom.
Why can’t we change our minds now as easily as we did then? Because we’ve set a path, we’ve paid for (and are still paying for) a college degree that doesn’t allow us to cut people open or play with the Boston Symphony. We are paying to simply maintain our lives in cities and towns all over world. But what if?
What if, what if, what if –
you want more than that?
buh-boom, buh-boom, buh-boom
The sound of something meaning.
And while I know how to:
apply a Band Aid to a cut,
play Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor, and
was voted in my high school yearbook as “Most Likely To Be President”-
I still don’t feel like I’ve accomplished half the things I set out to do back when I would put on my father’s white dress shirt that I wore like a lab coat and listened to the sound of people hearts through my yellow plastic stethoscope –
buh-boom, buh-boom, buh-boom.
Why can’t we change our minds now as easily as we did then? Because we’ve set a path, we’ve paid for (and are still paying for) a college degree that doesn’t allow us to cut people open or play with the Boston Symphony. We are paying to simply maintain our lives in cities and towns all over world. But what if?
What if, what if, what if –
you want more than that?
buh-boom, buh-boom, buh-boom
The sound of something meaning.
December 7, 2006
You can't gift a non-gift.
Every year it’s the same. The anxious feeling in my stomach that no amount of eggnog can correct – the impending knowledge that Christmas is fast approaching. Then of course comes the regret that last year I neglected to send out a memo letting everyone know that I’ll no longer be giving gifts for the holidays, that I have officially decided to start the trend of not giving gifts, that Christmas cards and wishing good cheer should be enough for all of the people in my life to still love me without my having to put down half of my already small pay check to buy their friendship, for at least until next December.
I try, I try really hard to get gifts that mean something to the person. None of this, “oh just a blue sweater for him,” or “a bottle of really nice shampoo for her.” Because my bet is that he already has a sweater, probably in all different shades of blue and doesn’t need (or want) another one. And I bet she washes her hair every day (or at least rinses) and doesn’t need a bottle of shampoo from some specialty store that costs $30 and smells like chocolate chip cookies or brown sugar. You want to wash hair, not eat it.
I’m a firm believer in the idea that gifts should have some sort of impact in a person’s life - or else you shouldn’t be giving a gift at all (frankincense and myrrh? Please).
Because what are gifts supposed to mean anyway? When you’re a kid what something means doesn’t mean anything at all, and it’s probably the greatest thing ever. All you know is that you want a bike with a banana seat (in sea-foam green, please) the latest (and most atomically offensive) Barbie, and the train-set you saw those kids on television using. Little did you know (nor did you care) just how long a thing like that can take to put together. You’re a kid, and that’s the glory of being a kid, you’re not the one who has to do anything.
I had a train set. I had wanted a train set, talked about a train set, subtly pointed out train sets, and then one year, I finally got one. My father took many laborious hours putting that thing together, making sure that the tracks held firm over the make-shift bridge, aligning all of the bending tracks with the straight ones, even setting the little pipe-cleaner looking fake trees in all of the appropriate places. I think I used that thing all day, until I finally realized around 6:00 that I’d spent the last six hours watching something go around in circles. I never used the train set again.
Now that I’m no longer a kid (sadly) the holiday just doesn’t mean what it used to. And by holiday, I mean gifts. I don’t know what to get anyone anymore. But I’ve had a good run. I’ve been giving all of the right things to all of the right people since I no longer believed in flying reindeer, cared about train sets and started getting a paycheck. And like any good thing, my reign as ultimate gift giver has come to an end.
So what does this mean? Well it means I may or may not be without friends in 2007. But that’s fine. The ones who really care will respect my decision and will thank me for not wasting my money on sweaters they don’t need and shampoo they can’t bake. Either that, or between now and December 24th I might get hit with a stroke of divine gift intervention, however I’d say that’s about as likely as my chance at getting another train set.
I try, I try really hard to get gifts that mean something to the person. None of this, “oh just a blue sweater for him,” or “a bottle of really nice shampoo for her.” Because my bet is that he already has a sweater, probably in all different shades of blue and doesn’t need (or want) another one. And I bet she washes her hair every day (or at least rinses) and doesn’t need a bottle of shampoo from some specialty store that costs $30 and smells like chocolate chip cookies or brown sugar. You want to wash hair, not eat it.
I’m a firm believer in the idea that gifts should have some sort of impact in a person’s life - or else you shouldn’t be giving a gift at all (frankincense and myrrh? Please).
Because what are gifts supposed to mean anyway? When you’re a kid what something means doesn’t mean anything at all, and it’s probably the greatest thing ever. All you know is that you want a bike with a banana seat (in sea-foam green, please) the latest (and most atomically offensive) Barbie, and the train-set you saw those kids on television using. Little did you know (nor did you care) just how long a thing like that can take to put together. You’re a kid, and that’s the glory of being a kid, you’re not the one who has to do anything.
I had a train set. I had wanted a train set, talked about a train set, subtly pointed out train sets, and then one year, I finally got one. My father took many laborious hours putting that thing together, making sure that the tracks held firm over the make-shift bridge, aligning all of the bending tracks with the straight ones, even setting the little pipe-cleaner looking fake trees in all of the appropriate places. I think I used that thing all day, until I finally realized around 6:00 that I’d spent the last six hours watching something go around in circles. I never used the train set again.
Now that I’m no longer a kid (sadly) the holiday just doesn’t mean what it used to. And by holiday, I mean gifts. I don’t know what to get anyone anymore. But I’ve had a good run. I’ve been giving all of the right things to all of the right people since I no longer believed in flying reindeer, cared about train sets and started getting a paycheck. And like any good thing, my reign as ultimate gift giver has come to an end.
So what does this mean? Well it means I may or may not be without friends in 2007. But that’s fine. The ones who really care will respect my decision and will thank me for not wasting my money on sweaters they don’t need and shampoo they can’t bake. Either that, or between now and December 24th I might get hit with a stroke of divine gift intervention, however I’d say that’s about as likely as my chance at getting another train set.
December 4, 2006
The real thing scares me.
Its hard work being out there. And everyone is. Everyone is doing the same thing and they don’t know why or they don’t care about how ridiculous the whole thing really is. So the only thing to do is buy a scotch old fashioned, sip is slowly, and watch as everyone around you forces moments with each other and prolongs the whole charade.
They ask me things like:
Can I buy you a drink?
How do you like New York?
What do you do?
I want to answer with things like:
As many as you can afford.
We both know you don’t really care if I do.
Astrophysicist.
Because I’m not stupid or maybe I am so much so that I’ll never know the difference, but after almost a year in New York I have a pretty good idea of how things work. Because when you say things like “Vivian, Veronica, wait, Rachel? Want to come back to my place?” you have to know that you’re not fooling anyone.
Because I’m no fool or maybe I am so much so that things will never change. Men can always talk about things while I’m drinking scotch the way I’d talk about my knowledge of celestial bodies and the interstellar medium – halfheartedly.
They ask me things like:
Can I buy you a drink?
How do you like New York?
What do you do?
I want to answer with things like:
As many as you can afford.
We both know you don’t really care if I do.
Astrophysicist.
Because I’m not stupid or maybe I am so much so that I’ll never know the difference, but after almost a year in New York I have a pretty good idea of how things work. Because when you say things like “Vivian, Veronica, wait, Rachel? Want to come back to my place?” you have to know that you’re not fooling anyone.
Because I’m no fool or maybe I am so much so that things will never change. Men can always talk about things while I’m drinking scotch the way I’d talk about my knowledge of celestial bodies and the interstellar medium – halfheartedly.
December 1, 2006
What is it about the weather?
This can’t be right. I have my window open and it’s December. I have my window open and I can count down 25 days until Christmas. What it is about the weather that has us always talking about it and thinking about it and wondering how much to put on the morning and how much to take off at night.
Maybe because (like turkey at Thanksgiving) we can use weather as something to remind ourselves, that despite everything else that doesn’t feel like it makes sense, from work to relationships (or lack thereof), to family and friends (even when they’re far away), we know, no, we count on the fact that the weather will always be warm in summer and cold in winter.
The tree lighting at Rockefeller caused gridlock in Manhattan last night. I walked through the crowds to get home and got stuck in them, metal barriers stopping me, holding me back, telling me I wasn’t allowed to go any further. So I stopped on the steps of St. Patrick’s and stood among the crowd and watched their eyes all looking skyward in silence, listening as the people across the street tucked behind the buildings along with the tree none of us could see, counted down. And then the cheers came and I couldn’t see standing right there on 5th avenue what the rest of America could see right in their very own living rooms. Sometimes the way New York looks on television is an easier place than it really is.
That tree lighting every year at the end of November is something we count on. We count on that tree the way we count on people and God and love and getting paid, getting laid, getting drunk, getting out of where we are now to one day get somewhere else. We count on time and our lives and the delusional idea that nothing will ever change.
I have my window open and it’s December and it just feels like one more thing that doesn’t make sense.
Maybe because (like turkey at Thanksgiving) we can use weather as something to remind ourselves, that despite everything else that doesn’t feel like it makes sense, from work to relationships (or lack thereof), to family and friends (even when they’re far away), we know, no, we count on the fact that the weather will always be warm in summer and cold in winter.
The tree lighting at Rockefeller caused gridlock in Manhattan last night. I walked through the crowds to get home and got stuck in them, metal barriers stopping me, holding me back, telling me I wasn’t allowed to go any further. So I stopped on the steps of St. Patrick’s and stood among the crowd and watched their eyes all looking skyward in silence, listening as the people across the street tucked behind the buildings along with the tree none of us could see, counted down. And then the cheers came and I couldn’t see standing right there on 5th avenue what the rest of America could see right in their very own living rooms. Sometimes the way New York looks on television is an easier place than it really is.
That tree lighting every year at the end of November is something we count on. We count on that tree the way we count on people and God and love and getting paid, getting laid, getting drunk, getting out of where we are now to one day get somewhere else. We count on time and our lives and the delusional idea that nothing will ever change.
I have my window open and it’s December and it just feels like one more thing that doesn’t make sense.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
October 29, 2006
boxers, bars and a hole in one.
This morning when I opened the door to my apartment, I momentarily froze as I noticed a man in the hallway. He was standing at the apartment next to mine with nothing on but his boxer shorts, knocking. Once I got past the initial shock of this half-naked man standing in my hallway, I noticed that his boxer shorts had little golf clubs on them.
You can tell a lot about a man by his boxer shorts.
One color, typically some shade of blue, means they haven’t got the time to really bother with something as foolish and arbitrary as picking out boxer shorts. He is a minimalist and is typically easy-going. A man who goes for something a little more creative, let’s say gingham check or a stripe, has a little more vanity, is worried about who is going to be in the position of seeing his boxers and wonders what they’ll think when they do. This guy also uses some form product in his hair, and spends more time than he should getting ready.
And golf-club-boxer-guy, well, he likes to be defined. He probably has his initials monogrammed on some of his shirts and maybe towels. He has a tennis racquet key chain, a Notre Dame sweatshirt and a Dave Matthews Band bumper sticker. He likes everyone he meets to know what he likes, where he came from, and who he is.
So golf club boxer guy smiles at me, embarrassed (aren't we both) as he continues knocking on the door that he appears to be locked out of. I smile politely, go about the business of locking my own door and walking to the elevator try to hold back the laughter bubbling up in my chest.
I know he’s not locked outside of his own apartment because there are only three other apartments on my floor, all of whom I know, and all of which he doesn’t live in.
There is the old woman across the hall with the mounting pile of delivered issues of the Times outside her door, making me wonder whether or not she’s actually still alive. There’s the other woman at the other end of the hallway who is probably in her mid-to-late-forties with jet black hair and pale skin, and whose wardrobe was bought in the early 80’s and hasn’t been updated since.
And the other apartment, the one next to mine is the one that is occupied by two young girls. They are college-aged and blast their Kelly Clarkson so loud that I can hear through the walls as I’m trying to fall asleep, and they pre-game with friends in the hallway on Saturday nights with cheap bottles of pinot noir.
This is the door Boxer Man is standing outside of. I wonder how he got into this predicament, how long he’s been standing out here knocking, and what he’s going to do if no one lets him in. I also wonder what happened last night.
All I know is that it somehow included bars, booze and women, and that he probably had better times in mind at the time he started out last night, than the time he’s having right now.
Oh, and I also know that he likes golf.
You can tell a lot about a man by his boxer shorts.
One color, typically some shade of blue, means they haven’t got the time to really bother with something as foolish and arbitrary as picking out boxer shorts. He is a minimalist and is typically easy-going. A man who goes for something a little more creative, let’s say gingham check or a stripe, has a little more vanity, is worried about who is going to be in the position of seeing his boxers and wonders what they’ll think when they do. This guy also uses some form product in his hair, and spends more time than he should getting ready.
And golf-club-boxer-guy, well, he likes to be defined. He probably has his initials monogrammed on some of his shirts and maybe towels. He has a tennis racquet key chain, a Notre Dame sweatshirt and a Dave Matthews Band bumper sticker. He likes everyone he meets to know what he likes, where he came from, and who he is.
So golf club boxer guy smiles at me, embarrassed (aren't we both) as he continues knocking on the door that he appears to be locked out of. I smile politely, go about the business of locking my own door and walking to the elevator try to hold back the laughter bubbling up in my chest.
I know he’s not locked outside of his own apartment because there are only three other apartments on my floor, all of whom I know, and all of which he doesn’t live in.
There is the old woman across the hall with the mounting pile of delivered issues of the Times outside her door, making me wonder whether or not she’s actually still alive. There’s the other woman at the other end of the hallway who is probably in her mid-to-late-forties with jet black hair and pale skin, and whose wardrobe was bought in the early 80’s and hasn’t been updated since.
And the other apartment, the one next to mine is the one that is occupied by two young girls. They are college-aged and blast their Kelly Clarkson so loud that I can hear through the walls as I’m trying to fall asleep, and they pre-game with friends in the hallway on Saturday nights with cheap bottles of pinot noir.
This is the door Boxer Man is standing outside of. I wonder how he got into this predicament, how long he’s been standing out here knocking, and what he’s going to do if no one lets him in. I also wonder what happened last night.
All I know is that it somehow included bars, booze and women, and that he probably had better times in mind at the time he started out last night, than the time he’s having right now.
Oh, and I also know that he likes golf.
October 24, 2006
Everyone's An Expert
I like Starbucks for a number of reasons. One being that ultimately, I have a problem. I'm addicted to coffee and no one, in my opinion, serves up a stronger cup than what you find in that of a grande bold. And yes, people around me hate it because of its commercialized catering-to-the-masses-of-over-consumers, thinking that I should be over myself enough to frequent the mom and pop coffee shop on almost every corner of this great city, and stop handing over my hard-earned money to this over-priced chain. (and each time these people tell me how wrong I am the price gets higher: “how can you spend $3 on a cup of coffee?” “I don’t get how you spend $5 on just one cup of coffee.” “$6?! on coffee?!”).
But the reason I'm now almost entirely over Starbucks is because of this. Is it possible? Has this "herd mover" finally gotten a little too out of control, even for my addiction?
I've put up with a lot so far. I mean, are they “the experts” on coffee? No. They buy it and sell it just like everyone else, just in fancier cups. Are they “the experts” on movies? No. They have opinions and backers and can promote what they want, when they want. Are they “the experts” on music? No. They buy and sell Miles Davis whose music has been around, (in case you're not aware), for quite awhile and for a lot less.
And I'm the first to admit that “The Way I See It” isn't really the way anyone sees anything at all (#175 “The world would be a boring place if everyone wore a size 2. I love being a size 22, just like I love a giant cup of hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. F.A.T. ‘Fabulous and Thick’ folks know that it's the extras in life - like pounds, cash and love - that give us character. Embrace the extras, baby.” - Mo'Nique). Right.
Are they now going to be “the experts” on literature too? Most definitely not (Mitch Albom?), but keeping in the Starbucks tradition, they're going to think they are.
Because we all think we know better, and we never really do.
Because we tell ourselves we’re experts, and feel it’s our duty to enlighten the un-knowing others.
Because getting coffee is just that, and we don't need anyone trying to make us better readers in the process.
Because I’ll still go to Starbucks (for a while anyway, old habits die hard), and I’ll be the first to admit it.
Because no matter what people say, change isn’t always a good thing, and in this world of endless options, wouldn’t it be nice if we were allowed some time to not have to think about what movie, music, mantra and book we should be watchinglisteningtolivingbyreading - especially that early in the morning, when all we’re looking for is a less than profound way (at a $1.89) to just make it through the day.
But the reason I'm now almost entirely over Starbucks is because of this. Is it possible? Has this "herd mover" finally gotten a little too out of control, even for my addiction?
I've put up with a lot so far. I mean, are they “the experts” on coffee? No. They buy it and sell it just like everyone else, just in fancier cups. Are they “the experts” on movies? No. They have opinions and backers and can promote what they want, when they want. Are they “the experts” on music? No. They buy and sell Miles Davis whose music has been around, (in case you're not aware), for quite awhile and for a lot less.
And I'm the first to admit that “The Way I See It” isn't really the way anyone sees anything at all (#175 “The world would be a boring place if everyone wore a size 2. I love being a size 22, just like I love a giant cup of hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. F.A.T. ‘Fabulous and Thick’ folks know that it's the extras in life - like pounds, cash and love - that give us character. Embrace the extras, baby.” - Mo'Nique). Right.
Are they now going to be “the experts” on literature too? Most definitely not (Mitch Albom?), but keeping in the Starbucks tradition, they're going to think they are.
Because we all think we know better, and we never really do.
Because we tell ourselves we’re experts, and feel it’s our duty to enlighten the un-knowing others.
Because getting coffee is just that, and we don't need anyone trying to make us better readers in the process.
Because I’ll still go to Starbucks (for a while anyway, old habits die hard), and I’ll be the first to admit it.
Because no matter what people say, change isn’t always a good thing, and in this world of endless options, wouldn’t it be nice if we were allowed some time to not have to think about what movie, music, mantra and book we should be watchinglisteningtolivingbyreading - especially that early in the morning, when all we’re looking for is a less than profound way (at a $1.89) to just make it through the day.
October 19, 2006
Life by the Cube
Living in New York is like one big constant reminder that you’re human.
Maybe it’s because in no other place can you be constantly (and I mean constantly) surrounded by people and not even know who they are. And people here like to talk to you as you’re waiting in line at the corner bodega, waiting for the bus, waiting in an elevator, waiting for the subway doors to open at the appropriate subway stop. Because that’s what we’re all doing here in this fast-paced-metropolis – we’re waiting.
We’re waiting to get a table at the hot new restaurant, waiting in line at a bar, waiting for a cab, waiting for a chance, a big break, waiting for love to walk through the door so that we can stop telling everyone the obvious but sad truth that though we are constantly surrounded by people (and I mean constantly), it’s easier to master a Rubik’s cube than it is to meet someone in Manhattan.
And that’s what life is - one long never-ending quest for all the sides of our lives to match up.
blue
white
red
green
and it’s difficult, almost impossible, and at times you have one color of each in single scattered boxes on each side and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to make anything work. So you tackle the rows one by one and keep trying to remind yourself that making things work takes time and patience and the aching ability to not give up after you’ve turned and twisted and thought and over-thought how best to make it all come together.
I was never any good at the Rubik’s cube. I always spent too much time trying to make it work, trying, trying, to make it work, and never feeling like I was getting anywhere.
Like the cube New York isn’t an easy thing to master, and all the people buzzing around its sidewalks know it. That’s why they’re all waiting. Because they know that one day, (and no one knows when) everything will come together, because the subway keeps bringing you to your future no matter long you wait for it, and one day the elevator doors will open and the person who walks in will change your life and you won’t even know it.
Living in New York, is like one big constant reminder, that you’re human.
Maybe it’s because in no other place can you be constantly (and I mean constantly) surrounded by people and not even know who they are. And people here like to talk to you as you’re waiting in line at the corner bodega, waiting for the bus, waiting in an elevator, waiting for the subway doors to open at the appropriate subway stop. Because that’s what we’re all doing here in this fast-paced-metropolis – we’re waiting.
We’re waiting to get a table at the hot new restaurant, waiting in line at a bar, waiting for a cab, waiting for a chance, a big break, waiting for love to walk through the door so that we can stop telling everyone the obvious but sad truth that though we are constantly surrounded by people (and I mean constantly), it’s easier to master a Rubik’s cube than it is to meet someone in Manhattan.
And that’s what life is - one long never-ending quest for all the sides of our lives to match up.
blue
white
red
green
and it’s difficult, almost impossible, and at times you have one color of each in single scattered boxes on each side and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to make anything work. So you tackle the rows one by one and keep trying to remind yourself that making things work takes time and patience and the aching ability to not give up after you’ve turned and twisted and thought and over-thought how best to make it all come together.
I was never any good at the Rubik’s cube. I always spent too much time trying to make it work, trying, trying, to make it work, and never feeling like I was getting anywhere.
Like the cube New York isn’t an easy thing to master, and all the people buzzing around its sidewalks know it. That’s why they’re all waiting. Because they know that one day, (and no one knows when) everything will come together, because the subway keeps bringing you to your future no matter long you wait for it, and one day the elevator doors will open and the person who walks in will change your life and you won’t even know it.
Living in New York, is like one big constant reminder, that you’re human.
October 16, 2006
People keep telling me things.
He started off, (as I was waiting to catch the bartender’s attention to order a vodka soda and proceed to drown my week in grain alcohol with a side of lime) with, “why do you look so tough?”
That’s what it sounded like anyway, because he was one too many pints in the bag to be taking the time to properly annunciate things, but when I looked at him quizzically (read: squinted my eyes) he repeated himself and this time it was clear – I look tough, and he wanted to know why.
I didn’t have an answer for him, and truth is I didn’t have an answer for myself. After slurring more to me about why I shouldn’t look so tough (“do you always?”), I started to think about why we all have our own walls that we put up around ourselves, walls that we’ve had for so long that we don’t even see them anymore, leaving it so someone else, a stranger with drunken blurry vision to see it clearer than you do.
It’s like when you lapse into a panic attack (see “matter of the heart”) and you suddenly begin to feel everything you couldn’t before. And you weigh your options. You can go to the emergency room, but given Murphy’s Law you’ll get over it while you’re waiting in the ER. You can try to never let yourself be alone, because you think that if you’re going to collapse again, at least you’ll have someone there to catch you.
Or, the next time your heart wants to explode you can just tell yourself that you’re fine, that you’ll be okay, because while your relationship of heart and sleeve may be in need of immediate separation, you know you’re tough. And it’s okay if you look it.
Remedy: steer clear of mumbling drunk men (who may or may not be able to see more than they should), drink more vodka sodas (at $8 a glass, but don’t stress!) and hope for the best.
That’s what it sounded like anyway, because he was one too many pints in the bag to be taking the time to properly annunciate things, but when I looked at him quizzically (read: squinted my eyes) he repeated himself and this time it was clear – I look tough, and he wanted to know why.
I didn’t have an answer for him, and truth is I didn’t have an answer for myself. After slurring more to me about why I shouldn’t look so tough (“do you always?”), I started to think about why we all have our own walls that we put up around ourselves, walls that we’ve had for so long that we don’t even see them anymore, leaving it so someone else, a stranger with drunken blurry vision to see it clearer than you do.
It’s like when you lapse into a panic attack (see “matter of the heart”) and you suddenly begin to feel everything you couldn’t before. And you weigh your options. You can go to the emergency room, but given Murphy’s Law you’ll get over it while you’re waiting in the ER. You can try to never let yourself be alone, because you think that if you’re going to collapse again, at least you’ll have someone there to catch you.
Or, the next time your heart wants to explode you can just tell yourself that you’re fine, that you’ll be okay, because while your relationship of heart and sleeve may be in need of immediate separation, you know you’re tough. And it’s okay if you look it.
Remedy: steer clear of mumbling drunk men (who may or may not be able to see more than they should), drink more vodka sodas (at $8 a glass, but don’t stress!) and hope for the best.
October 11, 2006
At the end of the day, you sit down quietly and think to yourself: who am I?
If you’re lucky, you have an answer.
Tonight I sit and it’s far from quiet - especially with 72nd street outside of my window. A plane crashing into a building just down the street this afternoon, doesn’t leave one much room for quiet thoughts.
When I found out at work someone said “how does this happen again?” I have no idea. But I do know that death and disaster are in our midst all of the time, and we never even notice. A lot of miles on the highway without failing brakes, a lot late nights walking home from a bar alone without an altercation, a lot of planes than land safely on their respective runways.
After weaving past the cops and police cars and news crews and onlookers that were congregated just outside of my apartment when I came home, I thought about chance and how I don’t really know what it means. How some people get into planes that crash into buildings and some don’t. How planes crash into some buildings and not others.
Sitting here now with the loud and soon-to-be-forgotten sounds of the day’s events coming through my window along with the pulsating sound of the down-pouring rain, I ask myself a question and can’t hear the answer - because the rain is so loud it’s almost like it’s raining right here in this room, hitting then bouncing up off of the floor as the water spreads, rises, and eventually, engulfs.
Tonight I sit and it’s far from quiet - especially with 72nd street outside of my window. A plane crashing into a building just down the street this afternoon, doesn’t leave one much room for quiet thoughts.
When I found out at work someone said “how does this happen again?” I have no idea. But I do know that death and disaster are in our midst all of the time, and we never even notice. A lot of miles on the highway without failing brakes, a lot late nights walking home from a bar alone without an altercation, a lot of planes than land safely on their respective runways.
After weaving past the cops and police cars and news crews and onlookers that were congregated just outside of my apartment when I came home, I thought about chance and how I don’t really know what it means. How some people get into planes that crash into buildings and some don’t. How planes crash into some buildings and not others.
Sitting here now with the loud and soon-to-be-forgotten sounds of the day’s events coming through my window along with the pulsating sound of the down-pouring rain, I ask myself a question and can’t hear the answer - because the rain is so loud it’s almost like it’s raining right here in this room, hitting then bouncing up off of the floor as the water spreads, rises, and eventually, engulfs.
October 6, 2006
My specialty is living.
I sometimes feel like my life isn’t real. Like my life isn’t really happening to me. It takes something sort of drastic or out of the ordinary to make me realize, but when it happens it hits me and there I am, looking around the sides and over tops of buildings to the sky and feeling like I’m living someone else’s life.
I’m walking the streets holding a box of books and packages of press kits for work, searching for a cab at 6:30 PM on Friday, the Friday before a long weekend, and all the cabs are full. The streets are jam packed - what gridlock really means - rush hour and everyone is rushing and no one is moving anywhere.
So here I am, covering blocks, my arms getting heavy, trying to, on street corners, position the box and packages against my hip so as to have one free hand to hail down the already full cabs. I know I must look ridiculous, but I don’t care. I’ve found that a good rule of thumb (whatever that means) in New York is, that at the exact moment you’re starting to feel embarrassed or ridiculous (which for me is quite often) say to yourself “This is New York. I can do whatever I want.” It’s amazing the power two words can have.
Drivers shake their heads at me as they wait at red lights, passengers stare at me mockingly as they inch by. I’m suddenly talking to myself, suddenly becoming John McEnroe and saying things like “You cannot be serious,” shaking my head and thinking, “This is New York. I have to be able to get a cab.” Because I’m on a mission to deliver above mentioned items to The Palace Hotel and I already know I don't get paid enough to be doing this.
I finally hail a cab and the driver is tired and has just unleashed his last passenger and is ready to turn off his light. He sees the state I’m in and makes an exception, almost rolling his eyes when I tell him I have to go to the East Side in rush hour traffic on the Friday before a long weekend.
Along the way he talks to himself and eats a burrito and I stare out of the window, my arms tired (is it time to start lifting weights?) and watch the people on the sidewalks, the warmly lit restaurants with the Friday night crowd just arriving for drinks and dinner and a night out on the town. The bars full of suits and skirts, all people wanting to drown away the last five days and the last five hours and maybe even the last five minutes.
I make it to 50th, give the Talking (and somewhat crazy) Driver $15 ($3 tip), slide across the back seat and try heft the load out of the cab without falling over. A man in a navy blue suit and a power tie holds the door open for me and barely waits for me to make my less than graceful exit before pushing his way into the backseat, the smell of single malt scotch thick on his breath.
The Palace is what the name suggests, and when I stumble into this grand hotel, lost and overwhelmed, in my Casual Friday jeans (and black turtle neck sweater) I know I must look ridiculous, but I don’t care. This is New York. In line at the concierge, the man in front of me is complaining about a lost reservation and his wife looks at me with an apologetic smile. She’s decked out in vintage Chanel and cradling her Hermes bag in the crook of her elbow. I want to tell her she can get carpal tunnel for holding her bag that way, but then again, that might just be the pain talking that’s shooting from my own forearms down to the tips of my fingers, the weight of the 20lb box getting heavier the longer I stand here listening to this man carry on with “Roger” about his “very seriously made this two months ago” reservation. Roger finally gets around to taking what I’ve come to give him, just when I feel the sweat start to drip down my back, even though he calls someone in “Mail Box Services” to make sure it’s okay. This is The Palace I want to tell him. This is New York.
Outside on the street my arms feel like they’re still holding the weight of the boxes - but maybe that’s just the left over weight of this past week leaving its lasting impression. I start the walk up to seventy-second because I have $1 left after my cab ride and generous tip and can’t afford anything more. As I make my way up Madison, passing all of the warmly lit restaurants with all of the people sitting down to dinner, I feel for the first time today, the chill in the air, the chill telling me that fall is here and that I missed summer saying "see you next year," on it's way out the squeaky screen door.
There. That’s when it hits me. In this moment walking on Madison Ave, couples holding hands passing me on the street, twenty-five blocks from home, I feel like my life isn’t real, like my life isn’t really happening to me. Like someone in some distant city in some distant town is living a life that makes more sense. But soon the feeling starts to rush back to my limbs, and as I get closer to home I look around the sides and over the tops of buildings to the sky and realize - this is New York.
I’m walking the streets holding a box of books and packages of press kits for work, searching for a cab at 6:30 PM on Friday, the Friday before a long weekend, and all the cabs are full. The streets are jam packed - what gridlock really means - rush hour and everyone is rushing and no one is moving anywhere.
So here I am, covering blocks, my arms getting heavy, trying to, on street corners, position the box and packages against my hip so as to have one free hand to hail down the already full cabs. I know I must look ridiculous, but I don’t care. I’ve found that a good rule of thumb (whatever that means) in New York is, that at the exact moment you’re starting to feel embarrassed or ridiculous (which for me is quite often) say to yourself “This is New York. I can do whatever I want.” It’s amazing the power two words can have.
Drivers shake their heads at me as they wait at red lights, passengers stare at me mockingly as they inch by. I’m suddenly talking to myself, suddenly becoming John McEnroe and saying things like “You cannot be serious,” shaking my head and thinking, “This is New York. I have to be able to get a cab.” Because I’m on a mission to deliver above mentioned items to The Palace Hotel and I already know I don't get paid enough to be doing this.
I finally hail a cab and the driver is tired and has just unleashed his last passenger and is ready to turn off his light. He sees the state I’m in and makes an exception, almost rolling his eyes when I tell him I have to go to the East Side in rush hour traffic on the Friday before a long weekend.
Along the way he talks to himself and eats a burrito and I stare out of the window, my arms tired (is it time to start lifting weights?) and watch the people on the sidewalks, the warmly lit restaurants with the Friday night crowd just arriving for drinks and dinner and a night out on the town. The bars full of suits and skirts, all people wanting to drown away the last five days and the last five hours and maybe even the last five minutes.
I make it to 50th, give the Talking (and somewhat crazy) Driver $15 ($3 tip), slide across the back seat and try heft the load out of the cab without falling over. A man in a navy blue suit and a power tie holds the door open for me and barely waits for me to make my less than graceful exit before pushing his way into the backseat, the smell of single malt scotch thick on his breath.
The Palace is what the name suggests, and when I stumble into this grand hotel, lost and overwhelmed, in my Casual Friday jeans (and black turtle neck sweater) I know I must look ridiculous, but I don’t care. This is New York. In line at the concierge, the man in front of me is complaining about a lost reservation and his wife looks at me with an apologetic smile. She’s decked out in vintage Chanel and cradling her Hermes bag in the crook of her elbow. I want to tell her she can get carpal tunnel for holding her bag that way, but then again, that might just be the pain talking that’s shooting from my own forearms down to the tips of my fingers, the weight of the 20lb box getting heavier the longer I stand here listening to this man carry on with “Roger” about his “very seriously made this two months ago” reservation. Roger finally gets around to taking what I’ve come to give him, just when I feel the sweat start to drip down my back, even though he calls someone in “Mail Box Services” to make sure it’s okay. This is The Palace I want to tell him. This is New York.
Outside on the street my arms feel like they’re still holding the weight of the boxes - but maybe that’s just the left over weight of this past week leaving its lasting impression. I start the walk up to seventy-second because I have $1 left after my cab ride and generous tip and can’t afford anything more. As I make my way up Madison, passing all of the warmly lit restaurants with all of the people sitting down to dinner, I feel for the first time today, the chill in the air, the chill telling me that fall is here and that I missed summer saying "see you next year," on it's way out the squeaky screen door.
There. That’s when it hits me. In this moment walking on Madison Ave, couples holding hands passing me on the street, twenty-five blocks from home, I feel like my life isn’t real, like my life isn’t really happening to me. Like someone in some distant city in some distant town is living a life that makes more sense. But soon the feeling starts to rush back to my limbs, and as I get closer to home I look around the sides and over the tops of buildings to the sky and realize - this is New York.
October 1, 2006
A Grown Woman Talking to Her Computer
You’ve seen it all. You’ve seen (and have accepted me for) all of my insanity. Me talking to myself, talking at you knowing you can’t respond because you’re what? A screen? A lovely screen of course, but a screen nonetheless reflecting back at me how bad my writer’s block really is, how bad of a writer I really can be. ("Besides, don't most brilliant writers go through lots of versions?!").
Well you've seen them all, all of the pages over the years and the hours and days and weeks spent pouring my soul and heart and thoughts out to you every day, the sole witness to the inner-workings of my brain.
I curse at you, scream at you, on occasion shake you for some inspiration to come out, for a good name for that character from Connecticut (I'm bad with names): Sara? Lindsey? Val?
You watch as I pull at my hair and take lots of deep breaths and drink endless cups of coffee and talk to myself and stare at the wall and stay locked up in my room with you for hours listening to the world happening outside of my window wondering why I’m in here living the lives of people who live inside you instead of those yelling and talking and honking their horns out on the street.
But I keep hitting the keys and you’re always there, something I can count on (no matter how much I scream at you), to appreciate and reflect and accept every little thought and every little sentence and every little chapter that zips from my heart to my brain to the reflexes in my hands.
You're stupid (a fool!) for sticking by me, but I thank you anyway because maybe someday your loyalty will mean something to someone somewhere and it will all be worth it.
But for now I’m sorry, I don’t know of anyone from Connecticut with a name like Val.
Well you've seen them all, all of the pages over the years and the hours and days and weeks spent pouring my soul and heart and thoughts out to you every day, the sole witness to the inner-workings of my brain.
I curse at you, scream at you, on occasion shake you for some inspiration to come out, for a good name for that character from Connecticut (I'm bad with names): Sara? Lindsey? Val?
You watch as I pull at my hair and take lots of deep breaths and drink endless cups of coffee and talk to myself and stare at the wall and stay locked up in my room with you for hours listening to the world happening outside of my window wondering why I’m in here living the lives of people who live inside you instead of those yelling and talking and honking their horns out on the street.
But I keep hitting the keys and you’re always there, something I can count on (no matter how much I scream at you), to appreciate and reflect and accept every little thought and every little sentence and every little chapter that zips from my heart to my brain to the reflexes in my hands.
You're stupid (a fool!) for sticking by me, but I thank you anyway because maybe someday your loyalty will mean something to someone somewhere and it will all be worth it.
But for now I’m sorry, I don’t know of anyone from Connecticut with a name like Val.
September 24, 2006
The Matter of the Heart
After talking to a friend of mine who is confused about their job and relationship, I started thinking about life, about how none of us really knows what we’re doing. We’re in jobs that work us too hard, in cities without our real friends, in shoes we’ve walked too far in, in relationships we don’t care enough about. So we’re all waiting for something -
an answer
a clue
an idea as to:
why we spent four years in college
why we’ll be paying for it until 2015
why things are never the way we think they’re going to be
why we care
why we’re never satisfied
why some things never change
why are we (and how did we get) here
why the handyman never showed up to cover that empty hole love has left behind.
I felt it this weekend, it crept up quick and unsuspecting, like a ghost or a rainstorm or a deadline, gripping my chest making my heart beating at a rapid fire rate. And after I asked myself the impossible question: am I having a heart attack? I realized that my heart was being attacked by panic.
Life and its unanswered questions pile on so quickly we don’t even realize it, and suddenly there you are, feeling the anxiety of all that is your life pumping through your chest faster than you can count it (my heart!), making it difficult for you to breathe, forcing you to realize that you’re alone, and that there are no answers, and that if something really horrible happened right now no one would be there to help you.
And your heart picks up speed the more your brain thinks about it. You count the beats, over a hundred per minute, you lose count, your eyes on the clock, trying to breathe deep, thinking you should have spent more time taking care of your own heart.
And I thought between passing seconds (one Mississippi, two Mississippi…): are our hearts more delicate than we let ourselves believe? Is one really the loneliest number (Three Dog Night, 1969)? Can we internalize too much, keep life away for so long that after a while there is only so much it can take before it gives up keeping a steady beat, falsely reminding you that everything is fine, and picking up pace and pounding so hard that you have no choice but to feel it?
Because when faced with no choice but to feel (your heart is not a democracy), that’s exactly what you end up doing - and simply wait for the pain to subside.
an answer
a clue
an idea as to:
why we spent four years in college
why we’ll be paying for it until 2015
why things are never the way we think they’re going to be
why we care
why we’re never satisfied
why some things never change
why are we (and how did we get) here
why the handyman never showed up to cover that empty hole love has left behind.
I felt it this weekend, it crept up quick and unsuspecting, like a ghost or a rainstorm or a deadline, gripping my chest making my heart beating at a rapid fire rate. And after I asked myself the impossible question: am I having a heart attack? I realized that my heart was being attacked by panic.
Life and its unanswered questions pile on so quickly we don’t even realize it, and suddenly there you are, feeling the anxiety of all that is your life pumping through your chest faster than you can count it (my heart!), making it difficult for you to breathe, forcing you to realize that you’re alone, and that there are no answers, and that if something really horrible happened right now no one would be there to help you.
And your heart picks up speed the more your brain thinks about it. You count the beats, over a hundred per minute, you lose count, your eyes on the clock, trying to breathe deep, thinking you should have spent more time taking care of your own heart.
And I thought between passing seconds (one Mississippi, two Mississippi…): are our hearts more delicate than we let ourselves believe? Is one really the loneliest number (Three Dog Night, 1969)? Can we internalize too much, keep life away for so long that after a while there is only so much it can take before it gives up keeping a steady beat, falsely reminding you that everything is fine, and picking up pace and pounding so hard that you have no choice but to feel it?
Because when faced with no choice but to feel (your heart is not a democracy), that’s exactly what you end up doing - and simply wait for the pain to subside.
September 21, 2006
obvious truth:
People come to the city to live their own lives, but the truth is, living in a city this big you’re constantly living everyone else’s. The people pushing past you on the street, the girl talking too loudly on her cell phone on the bus to her friend about how Robert might be “the one,” the group of men discussing their stock options and how they don’t understand why Perry gave the position to her, “what was he thinking?” And the man who I gave my seat to on the subway who was lost on the crowd, unseeing, his white stick out front tapping, tapping and leading the way. “Thank you,” he said and then laughed. “Just when you didn’t think there was anyone nice left in New York.”
I didn’t say anything back, only smiled, and he couldn’t see it.
And it’s not that they’re unkind, it’s that they’re busy living their lives and everyone else’s, that sometimes it becomes too difficult to step outside of that fast moving spinning whirlwind to really see. Because we don’t see. We don’t see clearly the way we might if we knew of an end, an impending doom, a deadline, something that would really push us to make decisions, to make choices, to take action, to own up to our real feelings and passions and thoughts.
We are hovering in a fog of complacency, because each day the alarm rings and the stinging beep beep beep shakes us awake, and each night we set it again and it all repeats, our lives on autopilot. And the girl on the phone will marry Robert, or she’ll walk in on him in bed with her friend and it will all fall apart. And the woman in the office who just got that job will become known as the youngest woman in that office’s history to get such a position, or she’ll be so intimidated by the men and their rising stock (up two point since yesterday) that she’ll give it all up and walk away.
Whole days and weeks and hours pass by and we don’t see a thing.
And the man on the subway, lost and reaching, our Tiresias, the blind soothsayer, seeing all that we cannot, seeing all that we won’t allow ourselves or take the time to, will remain as a reminder.
Because living in this city you’re constantly living everyone else’s lives, and the truth is, before you know it you find that you’ve been bouncing around inside other people’s conversations for so long, that you’ve lost sight of who you really are. So I guess if you're looking for happiness (and I think we all are), it's just beyong the fog.
I didn’t say anything back, only smiled, and he couldn’t see it.
And it’s not that they’re unkind, it’s that they’re busy living their lives and everyone else’s, that sometimes it becomes too difficult to step outside of that fast moving spinning whirlwind to really see. Because we don’t see. We don’t see clearly the way we might if we knew of an end, an impending doom, a deadline, something that would really push us to make decisions, to make choices, to take action, to own up to our real feelings and passions and thoughts.
We are hovering in a fog of complacency, because each day the alarm rings and the stinging beep beep beep shakes us awake, and each night we set it again and it all repeats, our lives on autopilot. And the girl on the phone will marry Robert, or she’ll walk in on him in bed with her friend and it will all fall apart. And the woman in the office who just got that job will become known as the youngest woman in that office’s history to get such a position, or she’ll be so intimidated by the men and their rising stock (up two point since yesterday) that she’ll give it all up and walk away.
Whole days and weeks and hours pass by and we don’t see a thing.
And the man on the subway, lost and reaching, our Tiresias, the blind soothsayer, seeing all that we cannot, seeing all that we won’t allow ourselves or take the time to, will remain as a reminder.
Because living in this city you’re constantly living everyone else’s lives, and the truth is, before you know it you find that you’ve been bouncing around inside other people’s conversations for so long, that you’ve lost sight of who you really are. So I guess if you're looking for happiness (and I think we all are), it's just beyong the fog.
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