marla garla

This is really disturbing and also kind of gross.

2011-04-28T11:57:00.002-04:00

This blog is not dead!

2011-04-05T01:09:00.000-04:00

It's just resting! I think I put this baby to sleep on my behalf, because Mama is tired.

But we are reawakening and there will be more action in this space while I continue the wildly humorous attempt to ace the whole time-management thing, which, wish me luck!

Here are some things that happened during the nap:

1. Some folks found my blog by Googling "every 20 minutes a child is diagnosed with a mustache," "guy holds himself up on pole," "I love Britney's vagina," and "you're not circumcised?" I would like to meet all of these people.

2. I had a freakin' mammogram. I just had a baby and now I'm getting mammograms. I am old. Also, there was a framed photo of Bette Midler in the exam room.

3. My friend Mara threw the most awesome birthday party ever. She showed Can't Buy Me Love in the Tribeca Grand hotel's screening room. All who attended participated in the final cafeteria scene's slow-clap.

4. I met my niece, whose male-patterned baldness is growing in nicely and who wears a bathing suit with strawberries on it. She's sweet as sugar.

5. My family lost a beloved uncle, two great aunts, and a dog; we had to cancel Stefen's first birthday party; Josh spent five days in the hospital. Most of these things happened within six days of each other.

6. I have been walloped by an overbearing amount of stress that I anticipated but am not handling well. Josh and I have been hit hard by the economy and I am working all. the. freakin'. time, on top of momming and trying to keep all the necessary life balls in the air. (Heh. I said "life balls.") I am spread way too thin and it all feels like too much for one person.

7. One thing I have gladly, gladly added to my life, however, is Parentables. It's TLC's brand-new parenting blog, and yours truly is posting for them every Wednesday. Not only am I jazzed beyond belief that somebody is paying me to write, it's also allowing me to approach the whole momming thing more clearly. Writing about raising Stefen and all that entails is helping me to organize my muddled brain and move forward with intention. And it's challenging my most acute professional fear: that I'm not an ideas person. It's always been that if you give me an idea, I can run with it, but coming up with something original and valuable has never been my strong suit. It's time to think big, and this is a really great outlet for me. You can see what I've written so far here.

8. Smokey Robinson hugged me. Smokey Freakin' Robinson!

9. I won an argument with an insurance company, got out of jury duty for the next four years without even going to the courthouse to plead my case, and tracked down the ass in Glendale, California, who stole the number of my unspent Macy's gift certificate and got my money back. Take that, The System! And criminals!

10. I dressed my son as Gargamel for Halloween. I am determined to make my nostalgia Stefen's nostalgia.

I'll post pictures soon. The boy is growing like a weed and thinks it's hilarious when I drop things. I'm so exhausted and uncoordinated lately that the kid should be laughing his head off.

For those of you who are still here reading this long-dormant space, thanks for sticking around.

I'm very glad my alarm went off.

We Love the City

2010-09-22T21:15:00.018-04:00

Here are things I've seen recently that should be noted for posterity.

(Also please note for posterity: Many of these photos were taken with my camera phone. I do not have one of those newfangled, high-tech "phones that have good cameras on them where you can actually tell what is in the picture." I basically have the Commodore 64 of phones. I've decided that the photo quality is not crappy; it is edgy and avant garde. Let's just go with that.)

Anyway:

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SIGHTINGS

1. This douchebag.

For those of us who were unclear on his identity as a hipster boner, he drove it home with his 1980s Casio calculator wristwatch. He could have gotten away with the wristwatch if he weren't otherwise outfitted as the Lone Ranger en route to picking up his cape from the dry cleaner. You have to hand it to him, though: If you get on the train already wearing a blindfold, nobody has to protect your identity when they post your photo on their blog.

2. In certain subway stations, a special someone draws curly moustaches on movie posters. The moustaches actually say moustache, and then they have curly ends, which give them a quality of both nefarious intent and whimsy. The artist wanted it to be known that this was not his work:

Because my camera is awesome, I'll help: It says "not moustache man". Moustache Man would never want the city to think he's an anti-Semitic fascist, which I think is a crucial quality in a graffiti artist. Wouldn't want all those curly, literal moustaches to be propaganda geared toward shutting down the masses.

3. One morning, a train pulled into my station (dirty!) completely empty except for about six firefighters gathered in the front of the first car. When things like this happen, it's confusing: You feel both safe to board the train and also crazy-stupid for boarding the train. We all boarded. I sat next to a man who reeked of scotch and cologne. I was then relieved the NYFD was on this train, for I was perched next to the most flammable human being in New York City.

4. Similarly, and sadly, I rode to work one morning with an old homeless woman who, for a good half hour, furiously scrubbed herself — her clothes, her skin, her hair — and her luggage with rubbing alcohol. The smell was stifling, but you could imagine that if you became homeless, especially if you were homeless for the length of time that this woman appeared to have been, and had been affected over that time, you would become a germophobe. It was heartbreaking.

5. You figure there are people on the planet who think they should look like Ke$ha. So there was a woman on the train with the appropriate ratty weave and patterned leggings. But what I really wondered about was the line of evenly spaced rhinestones adhered individually to her wrist. Does she have to do that every morning? Or once you glue them on, do they stick for a few days? She must have gotten up at 4 a.m. to get ready for her commute to her job at Whatever Company That Doesn't Have a Dress Code, but really, if my choice was to sleep in until sunup or glue rhinestones to my wrist, well, those better be some dazzling rhinestones. Those rhinestones better clean my house and make my kid his lunch, is all I'm saying.

AROUND TOWN SIGHTINGS

6. This, tied high in a tree.

7. This, sitting underneath a tree.

8. While waiting in line at the pharmacy one night, I stood behind a Guy. He reached the front of the line, and:

PHARMACIST: Name?
GUY: Nathaniel Archibald.
ME: No way!

[awkward pause]

ME: I'm sorry. You must get that a lot.
GUY: Um. Yeah.

9. One of my very favorite restaurants in the city is called Zen Palate. It's a lovely Asian vegetarian restaurant with tasty dishes named things like Wheel of Dharma and Mushroom Forest. Until about three years ago, their Union Square location was one of the most beautiful restaurants in the city. It was three levels with interesting stairs, gorgeous wood beams, rich metallics, it was just an excellent place to eat. And in the grand tradition of capitalism, their landlord tripled their rent or something horrible like that and they closed. They just relocated a few blocks away. Here's what moved into the gorgeous space Zen Palate was forced to vacate:

Have you ever found yourself standing in the middle of a crowd and taking in your surroundings and just wanting to scream at the top of your lungs? I did not do that when I saw this. But my innards did.

10. On the corner of my street:

a) Four people, not together, all walking tiny lap dogs on leashes.
b) The four people and their lap dogs stood around an abandoned grocery cart, lying on its side under a tree.
c) Inside the shopping cart was a vacuum cleaner.
d) Nobody moved. They all stood there with their dogs, considering the vacuum cleaner, for at least five minutes.

It was like domestic performance art.

11. It was not a grocery store–themed restaurant so this seemed kind of random and kitschy for the sake of kitschiness (and the restaurant was not kitschy either), but even so, kinda cute:

12. Ugh. I have rage. ZPELLING, PLEEZE.

Note: The best Ben & Jerry's flavor is S'mores. Just fyi.

13. You may have heard that last week, New York City experienced some storm activity. Or, like, armageddon, which is really what it was. I missed the End of Days because I was at work, and in the cave of the Us Weekly offices, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man could explode in front of our building and we would know nothing other than the fact that it may have gotten darker outside. So by the time I left the office, the tornadoes had come and gone and I went on my way to the subway. When I got off the train in my neighborhood, though, I walked into ... nature. Branches everywhere. Leaves on the ground like November. That smell. But it was dark outside, so I walked home knowing there had been some damage but not really understanding how much. I didn't know how bad it was until I watched the news and heard a torndado had touched down in my neighborhood. When I left the apartment the next morning, it was The Day After.

I walked Stefen to day care mostly in the middle of the street because trees had fallen all over the sidewalks. They were leaning against the fronts of houses. It was beautiful and exciting and absolutely terrifying. When I got to work, I started watching YouTube videos of the storm and heard stories of skylights flying off the roofs of houses and a crucifix being ripped off the front of a church and landing on someone's SUV not far from where I live. During the following two days, Josh was stuck in his office because of a bomb scare on his block, and half the New York City Fire Department showed up at my building to put out my upstairs neighbor's dryer fire. All of this is to say, I'm going to stop leaving the house right about now.

WORK SIGHTINGS

14. Tommy Lee came to the office. I stood back and watched him from afar, which is probably a good thing because the entire time he was there, all I could think about was his crotch. I never saw the sex tape, but the entire time that very nice man was in our office, all I could think was, There is the man with the very large penis. My friend Colleen is His Biggest Fan, and he licked her face. That may have been one of the kindest gestures I've ever seen a celebrity offer to a fan.

15. Another visitor?

CAROL FREAKING CHANNING!

The staff went berserk. Everybody had a Hello, Dolly! story and Carol Channing listened to each one as if people had not been telling her their lame Hello, Dolly! stories through half her career. (Mine: At summer camp in eighth grade, we put on a production of the musical. I could act but not sing, and my bunkmate Ruthie could sing better than anybody at camp, so when it was down to the two of us for the part of Dolly, she got it. I told Carol Channing this story, and Carol Channing said to me, "Well, how do you know you can't sing?" I said, "From all the cringing?" She said, "They don't know what they were talking about. You can sing." I don't care that she has never heard me sing; she set me free. Carol Channing lifted my drama-geek spirit. Love.) Anyway, she was so gracious. Her husband was there, this tiny, lovely man wearing a bow tie. He told us that they were sweethearts when they were 12 or 13, then went their separate ways. After each of their spouses died, a mutual friend reunited them, and they got married seven years ago. I wanted them to stay in our offices forever, though I'm not sure they would appreciate being surrounded by the photos of Sarah Jessica Parker's underpants and Lil' Kim's pasties.

16. Whenever I'm out of the office, a freelancer sits at my desk to help out my boss. When I returned to work after Rosh Hashana, there was a blue plastic water bottle on my desk, still filled about a third of the way. My friend Josh has the same bottle, so when he came in that afternoon, I brought it back to him, but alas, it wasn't his. So I sent an e-mail to the staff, you know, the whole, "If this is yours, please come and claim it." And nothing. Nobody came by, not a bite. People usually pick up their detritus; when an editor left what appeared to be a urine sample on my desk, he came to get it and explained that the Poland Spring bottle was actually his lemon Crystal Light, "but I know what you're thinking." So I put the blue bottle on our giveaway table, these long counters where everybody leaves freebies and food for anyone who wants them. This was two weeks ago. I believe it's still there. Also: A couple hours after I put the bottle there, someone had emptied the water that was left in it and then put the bottle back in the exact same spot. So weird. It's psychological-study weird.

AT HOME SIGHTINGS

17. My mother-in-law is always looking out for things that we might like. Whenever we see each other, she always has a bag of whozits and whatnots that she collects or sees that she wants to run past us. Sometimes they're very useful (hangers for baby clothes) and sometimes they're random (a decorative washcloth). Here's a random one:

It's a key chain. She thought that because it's a fuzzy little duck, even if it's an Aflac duck, we might want it for Stefen to play with. But here's the thing: It's an Aflac duck, which means that when you squeeze it, Gilbert Gottfried screeches and you want to remove your own head. I told my mother-in-law thank you, but I just didn't think the ideal toy for my son is one that squawks the voice of the most annoying comedian since Jackie Mason.

18. This lovely fella.

Here's the thing about that hat: I LOVE THAT HAT. I love that hat so much that I risked the lives of myself and my progeny to save it. Because it's shockingly hard to find the perfect hat for an infant. And this hat fits his head perfectly and shades his eyes perfectly and it's reversible and I bought it on sale for $2.83. So while we were walking to his six-month doctor appointment last week, it blew off his head and flew directly into traffic on Flatbush Avenue. Now, you might experience something like that and think, Wow, that sucks. I loved that hat. Too bad. I did not think that. I thought, Must run into traffic. So I did. I was actually glad I had Stefen in the front-carrier instead of in his stroller because it made it easier to dodge oncoming cars. Once someone honked, I hung back on the curb and watched the hat with an intense focus I never knew I had, shuddering as it was hit by a car. The second there was a red light, I went straight for it; it was lying on the lane-divider paint in between two cars, both drivers looking at me like I lost my fool mind. (They were correct.) I was just glad it hadn't landed underneath a vehicle, because then I'd have to figure out how to crawl under a random car with my baby strapped to my front. Let's all be grateful for small favors.

This weekend we're going to outlet shops. I'm bringing my good camera for this one.

Iced Iced. Baby.

2010-06-18T16:13:00.014-04:00

This morning, I left my apartment building to take Stefen to daycare and came upon this:

I got iced!

I'm not a bro so I didn't take a knee (!!!), but Stefen's a bro, so I was all, "Um, he can't hold himself up independently." My friend Noelle Who Climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro says that babies don't really have knees, so he's exempt. I looked around for the person who may have iced us, saw nobody, took some photos, and headed to daycare. When I returned a half hour later, the bottle was gone, and when I went inside and checked the Bros Icing Bros website, it was down because Smirnoff has no sense of humor.

Later, at work, my friend Chris asked me if I'd heard of vodka eyeballing. I was stupid enough to say, "No! What is it?" Here's what vodka eyeballing is:

Say you're drunk to the point where you've lost any good judgment but not drunk enough that you've lost all your coordination, and you want to be drunker. So, naturally, you take a shot of vodka and POUR IT INTO YOUR EYE SO IT GOES STRAIGHT TO YOUR BRAIN.

"It can cause instantaneous blindness," said Chris. "Seizures. Like, grand mal seizures. It's the most horrible of things. But it's the new trend in frat douchery."

People:

What the fuck?

I've done several stupid things while drunk. I kissed many boys I oughtn't have. I sat on a giant rock and cried for two hours. I threw a glass of water in my friend's face when she got upset after seeing her ex-boyfriend with this girl we knew who was wack-a-doo and not just a little bit of a slut. I fell asleep in a bathtub. I took a picture with a dude who had — tops — four teeth in his entire head and the ones that were left were metal-ish, and I looked like it was the happiest day of my life. I did these things. I went to a Big 10 school.

But these are mild things. I have not played Century Club (take one shot every minute, trying to get to 100). Nobody has held me upside down in order to experience beer. I've never shotgunned anything because I do not enjoy when liquid of any kind comes out my nose. I know that people do these things, and perhaps I'm boring or sheltered or, I don't know, not enough of a giant ass in the head to pour booze into my eye, but I just don't understand people who think it's a rite of passage to escape alcohol-induced blindness. Graduating college: That's a rite of passage. My bat mitzvah was a rite of passage and our bar bill was only $75 (somebody put two trees in front of the bar and nobody saw it; also, my ragin' party was on a Sunday afternoon, and Jews don't drink before 6 p.m. [in public, anyway]).

All of my sanctimony, though, and my 14-week-old child has already participated in his first drinking game. He would be so popular at Michigan State.

TODAY'S OBSERVATION IN PARENTING

Did you know that some mothers refer to their children as their "precious gifts"? If you were stuck in a conversation with one of these women, what would you even say? I don't know that I would say anything. She would be all, "Hello! Are you a new mommy? Isn't your little boy your most precious gift?" And I would just snap her bra and run away.

A Blog After My Own Heart

2010-06-17T11:22:00.003-04:00

If anybody wants to know what occupies my thoughts and actions all day long, this is amazing. The perfect blend of grammar obsession, pop culture snark and unapologetic atheism. I'm so in agreement over the "god" thing.

Comfy

2010-06-12T23:15:00.003-04:00

While I was waiting for the train last Tuesday, my first day back at work from maternity leave, I turned on my iPod. The first song it played was Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place":

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb — born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It's OK, I know nothing's wrong ... nothing

Related tangent, and I'll get to the point in a second:

A couple weeks ago, I got a haircut. My hairdresser is in Williamsburg, the Brooklyn neighborhood known widely as being a hipster Mecca that is as inconveniently located from my own Brooklyn neighborhood as a place can be. It's actually more direct to fly to Detroit than to go from Park Slope to Williamsburg. Anyway, it was a gorgeous, cloudless day. Sixty-seven degrees. In true Williamsburg form, I walked past a busker in the subway playing Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting" on the pan flute. A woman sitting on the sidewalk next to a bed sheet covered with old shoes for sale was strumming a ukulele. While I was buying an iced coffee and a marble muffin (first of all: yum), a permanently assfaced woman standing behind me with her giant iced coffee was bitching to her unfortunate and unamused companion about somebody else's coffee habits: "If you're going to do that, just go to Starbucks. GAH. They're a giant corporation. UGH. Um, can I have a separate shot of wheatgrass?" On the way back to the train, I followed a person of indeterminate gender wearing a prison-issue jumpsuit. Dark blue, not orange. I wondered how s/he got it out of the joint. So all in all, amazing people-watching. And getting my hair cut felt fabulous. It was the first time I'd felt normal in more than two months. All the stringiness and cumbersome length that grew on my head since having a baby were left on the floor. Josh had told me to take the afternoon for myself and enjoy the day on my own terms, but I high-tailed it back to Park Slope.

Like a codependent cliché, all I wanted to do was go home to my boys.

On March 9, at 5:14 a.m., I gave birth to Stefen Robert Garfield Banks. He was three weeks early. I was so unprepared that I didn't have my cellphone charger with me. I didn't have a camera. Nothing. I went to work and came home with a baby.

Basically, here's how it went down:

March 7 was Oscar night, a.k.a. the last time anybody thought Jesse James seemed like a good guy. It never matters how horrible or long the show has gotten; for me, it is a holy night of observance. This year, though, the boredom was crippling. So boring, Oscars; you have gotten so boring. I think that's when my water broke — it probably did so to pass the time, or maybe my body started crying — but because I'm an idiot, I didn't know my water had broken. So I kept watching the Oscars, went to bed around 1, couldn't sleep at all, and after what was basically a two-hour nap, woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Monday the 8th to go to work. Every Oscar Monday, I have to be at work at 7:30, but I get to go home early. I scheduled a crew to come to the apartment the next morning — Tuesday — to do a deep clean to prepare the place for the baby, who was due March 26. The apartment had just been painted, patched, fixed and improved, and things were coming together for the arrival of Comfy.

Here's the deal with not knowing your water has broken, because I promise that I may be dim sometimes, but I'm really not as stupid as this all sounds:

When you're pregnant, all kinds of klassy things happen to your body. One of these things can be a change in the characteristics of your body fluids. About a month before, I ended up in the hospital because I thought my water had broken, and it just turned out to be regular, garden-variety fluids that had gotten ... leaky. Great. Sweet. Awesome. Hot. Whatever. The doctors said that that would be my new normal, that until I had the baby, I'd be leaky and if it got heavier, I should see my OB. So, fine. I went about my life.

While I was watching the Oscars, it did get a little bit heavier but not enough to be alarming. By the next morning, though, it was heavier, and by the time I got to work, I was beginning to panic. I was underslept, hormonal, and stressed. I closed the early page I was working on around noon, went to the bathroom, saw a tiny pinpoint of blood, and just burst into tears. But it still never occurred to me that it would have been my water breaking. I don't know if it was denial or shock or brain-freeze. We're all led to believe that when your water breaks, it's a torrential gush that soaks your Manolos and you immediately launch into contractions and while you're huffing and puffing, somebody puts you in a cab and the driver panics and while he's speeding you to the hospital, you have a near-miss with a baby carriage that's actually filled with soda cans and you careen around a solemnly strolling group of nuns, because that's what happens in movies and on TV and everything in movies and on TV is true. Reality: Sometimes when your water breaks, it's a trickle and that's it. And you don't always go into labor afterward. Nothing is self-explanatory in pregnancy except the fatness, and even that isn't self-explanatory because I didn't get fat(ter) until my seventh month. Go figure.

Once I saw the blood, I went to the doctor. I figured I'd be back at the office within two hours, so I left my computer on, didn't really say goodbye to anyone, and hopped into a cab. I was still crying, I could not stop no matter how hard I tried, so I called Josh and asked him to meet me at my OB's office — something I never do. I just couldn't calm down, and I was so angry and embarrassed that I'd cried at work. I was convinced this whole thing was nothing, and I was pissed at my hormones for making me all histrionic. Josh left his bag at work, grabbed his wallet and his phone and headed uptown to my doctor's office. Between the two of us, we did not have a whole phone's worth of battery power — and no charger.

When I got out of the cab, I looked across the street. My doctor's office faces the Museum of Natural History, my favorite building in New York, and on a bench in front of the side entrance sat Glenn Close filming an episode of Damages. I'm still convinced that means something. So there I am, crying, with godknowswhat running down my leg, and I walked up to a production assistant, all, "What are they filming?" I actually contemplated waiting around to watch Glenn Close act. Because I am stupid. But you would do the same thing because Glenn Close is awesome.

Within five minutes of walking into the exam room, the doctor (not my own; as luck would have it, my doctor was on call at the hospital) told me I'd ruptured and they were sending me to the hospital. I was all, "Um, I wasn't planning on having a baby today." She laughed, of course, because to people who don't go to work and end up in labor three weeks early, this is funny and charming. I dried off my legs, got dressed, and paced the hallway until Josh arrived.

After that, everything moved quickly. At around 1 p.m., we got to the hospital, where my doctor told me they estimated that my water had been broken for 12 hours, maybe longer, so they wanted to induce labor to avoid infection. (Once your water has broken, the baby's barrier from germs in the outside world is gone.) Around then I started feeling movement and light cramping; at 3:30, they put me on Pitocin, the drug that induces labor; at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, I finally decided not to be a hero with the pain and asked for the epidural; and I fell asleep until 3:30 a.m. My doctor checked on me then, I still had not dilated past 3 centimeters, the baby had not dropped, and the cord was loosely wrapped around the neck. They decided to do a c-section, and at around 5 a.m., I was wheeled in. In the meantime, my dad was in a car en route to New York from Detroit and my mother landed in New York in a hot second, insisting she'd stay at my apartment on Tuesday so I didn't have to cancel the cleaning crew ("That baby has to come home to a clean apartment!").

Three things:

1. This sounds certifiable, but I wanted to go as long as possible without the epidural because it was important to me to know what labor feels like. I had a good nine hours of considerable pain, and once I could no longer concentrate on my breathing or get distracted, that shot could not show up fast enough. You wait and wait and wait to ask for it, and the second you do, you are beside yourself that it hasn't happened yesterday. The most uncomfortable part of getting the epidural is putting yourself into position for the shot. You have to drop your shoulders just so, jut out your back just so, and you still have a baby in your body who's trying to get out and you're having contractions. It is a feat. And then you go numb and fall asleep.

2. Despite all predictions to the contrary in my previous post, I did not wig during labor. I actually did most of it pretty quietly while Josh dozed in a chair beside the bed. I didn't want to wake him because I figured we had a long, long night ahead of us and someone should be allowed to get some sleep. For the most part, I worked through the contractions on my own without too much drama. When I finally needed help focusing, I woke Josh up and he talked to me and squeezed my ankles to redirect the pain. He later said, "Your labor wasn't too bad, huh? I didn't hear you at all." I said, "Just because you didn't hear me doesn't mean it didn't hurt." I have to say, I was awesome.

3. I don't know why this was surprising to me, but when you have a c-section, you are drugged out of your tree. You're awake but numb from the chest down. Which means you're groggy. Which means that during the birth of your child, you are pretty much guaranteed to fall asleep. I remember asking the doctors, "Am I seriously going to fall asleep during the birth of my baby?" I was so out of it that, when the anesthesiologist asked Josh if I was sleeping and all I heard him say was, "Oh, yeah, she's out," my eyes flew open and I yelled, "WE HAVE A GIRL?!?"

At 5:14, I felt some shaking, heard a cry, and then ... nobody told me what flavor the baby was. I kept asking, but, naturally, everyone was focused on the kid. Finally, my doctor said, "Josh, do you want to tell her what you have?" He said, "Oh, yeah. Uh, it's a boy." I paused and asked, totally bewildered, "Really?" I was so convinced we were having a girl. Worst maternal instincts ever.

They cleaned him off, closed me up, and moved me into recovery, where I finally saw him. My son was ...

... totally busted.

I firmly believe that the world would be a better place if people would admit when their babies are ugly. Most newborns are shriveled and purple and swollen, and babies born vaginally have coneheads. But c-section babies can be quite pretty. My nephew, Alex, was the most beautiful newborn I'd ever seen, but then again, at more than 9 pounds and four days late, he was basically a full-grown adult.

Stefen was not that. Stefen was 6 pounds, 2 ounces, 21 inches long, and all lips and nose. Seriously, the lip-to-nose ratio, it was not good. He was hairy. (Babies in the womb are covered with protective hair called lanugo that falls out if not soon before birth, then soon after. Stefen was early, so he was a little ... tufty.) He just wasn't done cooking, is all. But I was terrified that when I sent the e-mail announcing his birth, people would forward the photo to their friends saying, "Oh my god, you have to see this picture. My coworker had the ugliest baby." I mean, he wasn't ugly ugly, but basically, he looked like an old Jewish man. I started calling him Irving, and Irving goes to Battery Park to play chess with his pal from the war Morty, and they wear their pants really high and feed pigeons and Morty always cheats at chess but Irving lets him because of what went on during the war. There's no pal like Morty.

And it's not that he wasn't beautiful. The kid had some great angles; he just needed to grow into his face, which he did, and a week later, he was a total looker.

Ultimately, you're lying there in recovery and someone hands you a baby — your baby — and it's the most surreal moment of your life. And you try to figure out how this person is part of you, and Stefen looked nothing like me or like any baby I thought I'd have because when you picture your baby, you picture you as a baby, so I couldn't identify at all. He's the spitting image of Josh, who is a gorgeous adult but his adult face does not belong on an infant. Stefen looked so much like Josh that I might as well have not had any part in the creation of this boy. It was so surreal and scary and wonderful, but I was too tired to feel happy or excited or anything other than just ... mesmerized and overwhelmed.

He was in an incubator for a day and a half to correct jaundice, so I was able to go into the nursery and feed him alone in a storage closet. I loved that time. In our storage closet. He was so little, and the only responsibility I had right then was to feed my son, study his long fingers and his face, and try to understand him. In the following weeks, I mourned the lost weeks of my pregnancy — I really loved being pregnant but only showed for a short time and then I delivered early, so I had to grapple with losing part of that experience — and just adjusted while going from feeding to feeding, walks around the block, and trying to remember appropriate songs to sing to him at 3 a.m. I found that very few songs aren't totally sadistic or depressing. Lullabies are violent, the only song I sing on key is "Do That to Me One More Time" by Captain & Tennille, and camp songs are insane. Here's one from summer camp that kept popping into my head but I refused to sing:

A Tamarack goat
Was feeling fine
Ate three red shirts
Right off the line
A boy named Jack
Gave him a whack
And tied him to
A railroad track
And when that train
Came roarin' by
That Tamarack goat
Was doomed to die
He gave three shrieks
Of awful pain
Coughed up those shirts
And flagged the train
The train didn't stop
SQUISH!

Just like anybody else, before I got pregnant, I was terrified I didn't have what it takes to take care of a baby. I was 10 when Lauren was born, but I didn't raise her. I thought I wouldn't be able to handle the sleeplessness or the constant activity or the keeping on top of things. It was never automatic for me that I wanted children, so I didn't know what kind of instinct I'd have. But it's so true that the things you have to do you just do. It's automatic. And now, with very little guidance from me, my son is smiling and grabbing my hair. He laughs at his own poop. He rubs his eyes when he's tired. He has more than doubled in size.

He holds his head up. He grins in his sleep. He launches himself over pillows and propels himself around in circles on the floor. He sleeps through the night. He pushes his face into the wind and sunshine. He has a few super-cool pals who we met during the post-fog weeks of my maternity leave, and we all have a standing date to meet at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens every Tuesday (I don't work on Tuesdays) until the rest of the moms go back to work because it's dreamy there and we all really like each other. And he just started going to daycare. Josh and I are in a basically permanent state of shock, but we're doing it. The past 13 weeks have been the absolute fastest of my life — to the point where I feel like I left work pregnant and came back the next day no different other than I am minus an occupant — but I'm glad to be at the office even though I miss my son every second. I now understand why parents put so many pictures of their kids on their desks.

I miss maternity leave.

Spring is the best time on the planet to have a kid, but all the change can be disarming. The first time I left the apartment after bringing him home was the first time I'd left the apartment since going to work the morning I went into labor. Which means on March 8, it was chilly, I was pregnant, there were gloves and a hat in my bag. A week later, it was warm, I was no longer pregnant, and I was somebody's mother.

The amount of laundry that has to be done is staggering.

Josh and my big idea to spell Stefen's name phonetically so nobody would mispronounce it failed like a big fat fucking fat failure. It's Steff-in, not Steff-ahn. Not Steven. IT'S STEFEN, PEOPLE. Also, Stefen was the only name Josh and I could agree on. (He's named after my grandfather Sidney.) We decided Stefen Banks sounds Scandinavian, which we are not, so we loved it. It suits him.

I am a much more relaxed mother than I ever thought I'd be. I think it's because I'm old.

This whole thing has shown me how really on-the-same-page (to overuse an overused term) Josh and I are. I think it's because we're equally clueless.

If you paint your apartment before you have a baby, make sure you use washable paint. If you have a boy, he will pee on the wall.

All the anal-retentive research was worth it.

Josh's and my parents have been amazing, We haven't had to worry about food, childcare, anything, for three months.

When I had this baby, I did not have a change of clothes, juice in my phone, a camera, or a pediatrician lined up. But things do work out anyway. People make it so.

I'm still waiting for this boy's parents to come pick him up. It was so nice of them to let us take care of their lovely son for so long.

My problem with Miley Cyrus prancing around half-naked isn't that she's a teenager, it's that she's fug.

The Betty White episode of Saturday Night Live was epic.

The 15 minutes between the time Josh took Stefen to daycare yesterday and the time I left for work was the first time I'd been in the apartment alone in three months.

I still think those women who say parenthood is "the most important work we do," meaning women as a whole, are insufferable. It belittles other important work, and it discounts people who don't have children. Parenthood is a choice, and we're not saving the world, we're actually overpopulating it. When it comes down to it, Josh and I wanted to make a family and it worked out for us. It's not any kind of higher plane. It's not unimportant, of course, but it's pretty much important only to us and the people closest to us (regardless of what the length of this post might convey; it certainly appears I think this baby should be monumentally important to you too). Raising Stefen is the most important thing to me, yes. I'm madly in love with him. I chose to have this baby and I chose to take on the responsibility of raising a good person. But I don't like the idea that just because I have a child now, I have a greater role on the planet. Maybe it's too much pressure on him. I just think that, like anything important to you, you just want to do a good job, be happy, and make the people you love happy.

So far, so good.

Blah Blah Blah Pregnancy Blah Conversation Hearts

2010-02-06T14:23:00.003-05:00

I really need to get over this whole Not Wanting to Blah Blah Blah About the Pregnancy on This Blog thing. Because you know what? When you're pregnant, the only thing you can think about is the pregnancy. Even if you try not to. Even if you're hell-bent on not being That Woman. Because the second your mind rests (if it rests), the baby kicks you. Or rolls onto a nerve and gives you sciatica. Or you drop something onto the floor and you spend 10 minutes staring at it, hoping it will levitate because you can no longer bend over to pick it up. Or you get an e-mail reminding you that your fetus is the size of a rutabaga or, oh yeah, now's the time to find a pediatrician, and then you completely freak out because Oh my god, how did I get to the point in my life when I have to find a pediatrician?!? Because I haven't wanted to be That Woman Who Only Talks About the Baby, just like how I didn't want to be That Woman Who Only Talks About Her Wedding, I haven't been writing, and I don't want to do that either. So I'm just going to get it out of the way.

This whole experience is just weird.

About eight weeks ago or so, Josh and I were lying in bed. I looked up and asked him:

"How do you think I'll handle labor? Be honest."

He paused, his face desperately trying to go blank.

"Be honest."

He sucked in a breath. "Honestly? I see you wigging."

"Wigging!"

"You told me to be honest!"

"OK, OK. Wigging."

"You know, you're not always very good with stress. I really think you should get the epidural."

"Well, how do you think you're going to be when I'm in labor?"

"I'll be supportive and I'll be there for you."

WHATever.

So I vowed at that moment that I would show him. I would labor in a calm, stoic way, utilizing all my strength and womanly power, using my body in the way only a woman can (or, women and the Pregnant Man can) to bring my child into the world.

And then a week later, I found out that (TMI alert!) the placenta was covering the top of my cervix, thereby leaving no way for the baby to get out, and not only would I need a c-section, I wouldn't even be allowed to go into labor at all because contractions would cause excessive bleeding.

And there I'd been, thinking I had any control over any of this science project. Silly, naive little girl.

I was distraught. I really wanted to know what labor felt like, even if I did end up taking the epidural. And complications from the condition, called placenta previa, range from mild bleeding to hemorrhaging, which can lead to bed rest and early delivery. I was told I couldn't lift anything heavy, stress my body in any way with too much physical or emotional activity, or have sex.

"It sucks," my doctor told me. "I know, it sucks."

"You're not kidding," said my vagina.

And then five weeks after the diagnosis — after I'd accepted what was happening in my innards and that, hey, scheduling a c-section is pretty convenient because I'll know when my last day of work will be and I can get my nails done and have dinner with my husband and then walk into the hospital where they'll remove my baby and boom! I'll become a mother — I went in for another ultrasound, and it looks like the placenta moved away from the cervix and I'm no longer at-risk and can have a natural delivery. This is actually rather common, the placenta does move in most cases, but my doctor didn't think mine would and I was told pretty much not to hold my breath. So I was shocked and thrilled. But, of course, after a moment of, "Yay! I can go into labor!" I have since felt, "Oh, shit, I have to go into labor."

I am terrified.

Josh and I took a childbirthing class. It was great, but oh my gosh, I am freaking out. Wigging, as my dear husband would say. My dear husband who was right. I'm wigging.

It's all part and parcel of all the things that have been occupying my time for the past three months. See, when you find out you're gestating, you don't do anything. You can't believe it's happening, you can't feel anything, you don't look different, you just sort get really annoyed that the apple you just ate made you puke on the subway platform (I don't want to talk about it). And then, all of a sudden, it's your third trimester and you panic because you have no idea how to shop for a crib and you swear you're so unprepared that your newborn is going to end up sleeping in the sink.

So you research.

And research.

And research.

Because you have no idea what you're doing. And you want to make sure that whatever you're doing, you're doing it right, because you think that doing it wrong could be the difference between a beautiful bonding experience and a Consumer Product Safety Commission recall.

You just go mental. But now we're through with the "stuff" stuff. We've done the class and put ourselves on day-care wait lists and registered for all the doodads and picked out Comfy's stroller. All we have left to do, really, is wait — wait for the furniture to arrive, wait for the baby to arrive, and hope we calm down in the process. Of course, while all of this has been happening, we've had contractors in the apartment painting the joint, replacing the bathroom ceiling, hanging fans and a patched-up kitchen cabinet door, regrouting the tub, blah blah blah. The apartment is completely torn apart and everything is coated in dust, but man, is this cathartic. The paint is fabulous! We're reorganizing everything! For years, I've been visualizing all porn-like the revamping of this place, and man, I am sa. tis. fied. Although I did have a moment last week when Josh and I went to sleep in our freshly painted blue bedroom and I looked at the walls, all dreamy and undersea, and said, "In eight weeks, a baby is going to be in here. What are we going to do with this baby?"

My problem is is that I've had too much time to think about all of this. Ultimately, there's no way to know how things will go. There's no way to know what we'll really need. There's no way to know who this baby is going to be and how we'll all relate to each other. And painting the bedroom walls blue isn't going to make for a well-adjusted child, and spending a month researching organic mattresses won't make my baby sleep through the night any sooner. We just have to go with it. So I've just been sitting back and feeling the kicks and the hiccups and watching my sweaters thump back and forth with the motions of my occupant. In the past couple days, Comfy has taken up residence in my ribs, which is not the most comfortable feeling but it's kind of amazing to think, "That thing that's preventing me from hunching over? That's a foot." When I tried to move Comfy the other day, I felt a body part for the first time — an elbow or a knee — and it was so little, and for the first time, I really felt excited more than scared or overwhelmed. Also, since you have to do everything they do in movies because movies are always an accurate portrayal of major life changes, I put some headphones on my belly and let my iPod shuffle do some magic. The result? The kid loves the Supremes. Which makes sense, being half-Detroit and all. Makin' mama proud.

(That said, I have not recharged my iPod in three weeks because I only remember to do it at work, and the electrical outlet for my charger is under my desk, and I can no longer bend over to reach it.)

The one thing that has totally, completely, knock-me-over-with-a-boulder shocked me is that I'm now eight months pregnant and I haven't gained a single pound. Not one. I only bought my first maternity clothes last week. I've been heavy my entire life and I was certain I would be the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man by the fourth month. I have had no food cravings, I get full in two seconds, and so as I've been losing weight, Comfy is gaining nicely and I'm just evening out. My body is literally converting into baby. It's not that I'm not eating; it's just different. My body is making all these decisions for me. And this is without extra exercise because I'd stopped doing everything when I was diagnosed with previa; Josh would barely even let me lift my toothbrush. And now I'm just too tired to move. But who the hell gets pregnant and it ends up being the best weight-loss plan they ever knew? So weird. My body long ago ceased to be my own, but this is ridiculous.

(That said, the cleaning lady at work on Monday night asked me how I was feeling, then told me that she couldn't tell from the front I was pregnant, "but I could tell from the back. You have nice, big baby!" I'm sure in some Eastern Bloc countries this is a compliment, and I'm going to choose to take it that way. Even though right now, Comfy's weight is at the 52nd percentile. I have a perfectly average-sized little chicken in there.)

In other news (what? there's other news?), I ate a box of Conversation Hearts the other day that were all misstamped, with whatever legible letters there were hanging onto the bottoms and along the sides of the candy. One said UL TE and another said PPY VE. Such mixed messages, in a box of what is meant to be a sure-thing expression of affection, were so unsettling. Love, you offer no clarity. CK FF.

Just another day outside the office.

2009-12-18T12:10:00.001-05:00

Here are some things that happened when I went to Michigan for Thanksgiving.

2009-11-30T14:17:00.008-05:00

1. My youngest sister, Lauren, picked me up from the airport. She is 25 and a newlywed; I am 35 and pregnant with my first occupant. Realizing I'd forgotten to pack my prenatal vitamins, I asked her if we could stop by Trader Joe's so I could buy some. We went inside, I found what I was looking for, and we headed for the checkout line. We were kidding around about some such thing and Lauren said, "Ugh, I am so embarrassed." The cashier (male) said this:

"Oh, MOM, are you embarrassing her?"

!!!

"Mom?" I asked.

"Uh ... big sister?"

"That's better."

Trying to recover, he said, "So! Are you excited for Thanksgiving?!?"

I gave him a look and said, "Not anymore," and left. Please remember that as this whole thing went down, I was buying prenatals. And I was mistaken for my 25-year-old sister's mother. And that roughly 12 hours before, while I was waiting outside my office building for my car ride home from work at 1 a.m., a limo full of inebriated, hormonal bachelor partiers leaned out of the vehicle window and pleaded with me to join them at a bar called Johnny Utah's where we would all ride a mechanical bull. I sent the car full of (mostly) women behind the limo off to follow them and bull-ride away in the name of the old pregnant tired lady.

Look: I know that I don't look like I could have a 25-year-old daughter. I know I look younger than 35. And I also know that That Little Bitch Lauren never lost her baby skin and will forever look luminous and 18. But really. I normally roll over these things, but man, I felt ancient.

***

2. I immediately felt better during our next stop: the Franklin Cider Mill. This is a place I had not been to since probably before I was 12, but it almost never changes. The dirt parking lot looks exactly the same. The grounds smell exactly the same. The doughnuts and cider taste exactly the same. The ducks waddling around the stream quack exactly the same. And then there was the calypso band and hula-hooping. These were new. Because nothing says Michigan in November more than island music and hip gyrations.

***

3. Monday morning, I met my friend Amy, her husband, Todd, and their two sons for breakfast at a restaurant that used to be called The Village Place but is now called The Village Palace. Yeah, I don't know either. So after we finished eating, Todd left with the boys to give Amy and meself some time to chat. It was fabulous catching up with her, and when we were ready to head out, she popped into the loo and I stood in the lobby watching the same fish swim around the same tank that I believe were all there when I was in high school. She met up with me in the front of the restaurant and as we got ourselves together, two older men, probably in their late seventies or early eighties, a tall guy and a shorter guy, walked up behind her. Amy's back was to them so the tall oldster said to me, "Could you please ask this lady to —"

I looked at Amy and said, "Oh! Move over just a little so they can get by."

She looked back and said, "Oh! I'm sorry!" and scooted out of the way.

The tall oldster hadn't finished his sentence, though: "— to get the hell out of my way?!?"

Amy and I stood there, stunned. But the men started laughing, totally kidding, and Amy said to them, "Hey! That's what I could have said to you over by the bathrooms! You were in my way!"

And then:

Tall oldster: That's not what you said last night!

Amy, gaping: It's a good thing my husband's not here!

Short oldster: Hey, you got together last night? Why didn't you call me?!?

Me: Me too!

Short oldster, grabbing my left ring finger: Because you got these on!

Amy: Hey, I have them too!

Short oldster, WAVING THE STUMP OF HIS MISSING FINGER IN MY FACE: I used to have one but it fell off.

There is nowhere to go after that. Even after two men in or near their eighties make threesome jokes with you, there is nowhere for a conversation to go once someone brings their finger stump into the mix. End scene.

***

4. Tuesday night, I slept at Lauren's house. We made dinner, and then a dessert that was maybe the best idea we've ever had: pumpkin whoopie pies. (Instead of the cream-cheese icing filling, we used vanilla ice cream. When we bit into them, we just started laughing hysterically. There was no other appropriate response to the deliciousness.) Apparently, our genius ended right there, because we then played the most pathetic game of Trivial Pursuit. I was feeling cocky after my random blurting of "duck-billed platypus!" earned me a wedge, but that was pretty much the high point for both of us. See, when asked which gulf lent its name to the 1991 Gulf War, Lauren guessed "the Yemen Gulf," and when asked which impressionist often featured his wife, Camille (and then tuning out the rest of the question because I thought I was awesome), I shouted "Bill Cosby!" This was wrong on many levels, the least ridiculous being that one should always wait until hearing the end of a question before answering, and the most being that when one hears the word impressionist, one should think of an impressionist painter and not a comedian who does impressions of his wife, Camille.

The correct answer was Claude Monet.

Also, Lauren and I watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin with the closed captioning on, in case we missed anything.

***

5. On Wednesday night, I went to my cousin Michelle's for dinner. After two rounds of Memory with her 4- and 6-year-old sons (they totally cheated), she and I spent hours chatting, and then went upstairs to tuck in the boys, who were reluctant to go to sleep. I leaned over to kiss Noah, age 4, goodnight. He'd just gotten out of the bath, so I said, "Ooh, you smell good. You smell so clean." Without blinking, he said, "You smell dirty. When you go home, you need to take a shower."

An interesting note: Both boys have decided that not only am I having a boy, but that said boy should be named Carlos Book. Carlos Book Banks. These are also the boys who decided their sister, Arielle, age 15 months, should have been named Cindy Flowers.

***

6. A benefit of having a partner who is not from the city you are from is that that partner, no matter how sad your home town or city, is always playing tourist. My entire life, until I met Josh, I never knew that Hitsville U.S.A. was in Detroit. I am embarrassed to admit this, of course, but it's the truth, and another truth is that I know almost nobody from Detroit who has been there. It's the home Berry Gordy bought when he created Motown and where Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5 and the Supremes and the Temptations all recorded their first hit records. Josh has been begging me for 10 years to take him, and after a change in plans in which my mom couldn't join us, we finally went.

First of all, let me say this: After 11 years of barely driving, I now drive like a grandma. My native city is embarrassed for me.

That said:

The museum was incredible. They start you off with a 17-minute film narrated mostly by Smokey Robinson. Josh cried — this all hit home because in college, he started his own record label out of his dorm room — and the rest of us were pretty much singing through the whole thing. Then you go upstairs into the gallery where they have rooms full of photos and time lines and gold records. They have one of Michael Jackson's sequin gloves and a black fedora from his personal collection. They have a set of dresses worn by the Supremes in the late '60s. They re-created the living quarters of the house to show how the Gordys lived.

Basically, Berry Gordy Jr.'s father was an entrepreneur. He had several businesses, and the rule was if you didn't go into a family business, you had to get a job. So the Gordy children all went into one of the many business and became part of the Ber-Berry Co-op, a legal financial institution they could borrow from to help run and build the businesses. (Black banks ran fairly independently because they were not allowed to be part of the stock exchange, and back then, black people were not often accepted at mainstream white banks, nor could they open businesses in storefronts. All along the stretch of West Grand Boulevard where the house stands are private homes with businesses on their ground floors. The building next door to the museum has a funeral home that's been open since the '20s.) So when Berry Gordy Jr. came up with the idea for Motown, his entire family had to vote on approving the loan. If even one of them had voted no, he would not have been allowed to do it. Over time, he bought eight houses along West Grand Boulevard and used them for the empire; I imagine that when he brought the Jackson 5 from Gary, Indiana, they probably stayed in one of the houses while they recorded in Studio A (which was the main house's converted garage). Another house was used as a finishing school for the artists so they could learn etiquette before going on tour.

For me, the high point was going into Studio A. All the original equipment and instruments were in there, and we were all singing together. The moment the tour guide told us the piano in the studio was the one Marvin Gaye used to compose "What's Going On?" I nearly lost it. I spent the whole time smiling like an asshole. It was extraordinary. When the tour was over, Josh wasn't ready to leave, so we hung back and the two of us stood alone in the studio with the tour guide, asking a million questions and just smelling the place. I stared at that piano like a freak.

***

7. Just as we got settled onto the plane to head back home to New York, the flight attendants announced the copilot called in sick and we were waiting for another one to show up. Hm. You'd think something like that would have been arranged before we boarded, but ...

***

RANDOM BABY STUFF

I don't know if Comfy was just out of sorts being away from New York or the baby missed Daddy, since Josh didn't fly to Detroit until Thursday morning, but the kid was kicking like Lloyd Dobler the whole time I was in Michigan. That is, until Thursday morning. And now, any time I try to feel around to sense if Josh can feel the kicks, the kicking stops. It's as if the baby is all, "MOM, stop testing me. I'll kick hard enough when I want to kick. Back. Off." There is no doubt this child is mine. And Comfy's father still has not felt a kick himself. What he does do is this: When I put his hand on my belly and press down, he waits a second and then says, "I don't feel anything." I think he hasn't quite put together that if the baby doesn't kick, I can pretty much figure that out too.

I am completely overwhelmed by the idea of registering for stuff. Interviewing daycare providers was less daunting. There's just so much, and I think I'm most irritated by how stupid the names of some of these products are. Just because they're for children doesn't mean the children will ever be aware of what they're called, so why name them things like Snugadoo and Bumblebooter and whatever else? Just call it a chair.

Who's jammin' to my nasty groove?

2009-10-17T23:05:00.004-04:00

Tonight, Josh and I were driving back to Brooklyn from Westchester County, where his parents live. We're borrowing a car for a planned day trip to Sag Harbor next weekend. I think I've mentioned that I rarely sing anymore because I only ever sung when I was driving — my voice is awesome when confined inside an automobile — and since moving to New York, I'm so rarely in a car. Well, there was an '80s-fest happening on the radio this evening, and this was simply wonderful. A 40-minute drive gives you plenty of time to prepare for your audition at Juilliard.

Tangent: Why did the fast version of Alphaville's "Forever Young" not get more airplay than the slow version? It's without question 100 times better.

Anyway, after "Rosanna" (Toto's songs always make me cry) and "Jessie's Girl" (Rick Springfield's hotness always makes me cry), Janet Jackson's "Nasty" came on. I launched into an educational rambling of Paula Abdul's appearance as Miss Janet's backup dancer in the video, and proceeded to belt out the lyrics. Right around the time we got to "Who's that in that nasty car?" I stopped for a second, clutched my chest and winced.

ME: Ooh. Heartburn.
JOSH: You shouldn't have eaten that nasty fruit.

One point Josh.

Off topic, I was watching Law & Order: SVU not too long ago when my TV froze just here:

It's now my new favorite semi-expletive. "Oh, Christ melons! I have heartburn!"

So, about that baby ...

2009-10-16T11:57:00.004-04:00

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how I want to handle my knocked-uppedness on this blog. It's certainly something that's happening to me — this can be proven best by the human head floating around in my abdomen — and while I understand that women reproduce every day, sometimes ill-advisedly, it's pretty huge for me seeing that this is the first human head I've ever grown in my innards. There are plenty of mommy blogs out there and there are plenty of baby blogs out there and there are plenty of pregnancy blogs out there, and I read those and enjoy them for those purposes. But this blog has never been any of the three, and I kind of like that it's nice and random. I think I'm going to keep it that way. I started writing this whole shebang at a time when I was quite depressed and needed to remind myself that there were things in the world to notice and note other than my own misery, and now that I've come so far that I now have pregnancy-induced dementia and can think of nothing beyond that human head, I desperately need this blog to remind me that there's life going on beyond the belly.

So here's what I'm gonna do:

I'm going to continue the randomness. I will, however, be sharing pregnancy-related shenanigans, but I will be doing this under some sort of subhed, kind of like a spoiler alert, probably at the ends of posts — unless the dementia has taken over an entire post, in which case, this cannot be helped, for I will have succumbed. I know you guys are a diverse group age- and life-stage-wise, so for those of you who couldn't give a shit about procreation and some woman's tales of ankle-swelling, I shall not alienate you. For those of you who are into it, huzzah, welcome to my world of TMI: Pregnancy Makes You Fart a Lot.

OK.

That said:

As far as I can tell, these are the answers to the FAQs so far:

1. I'm due March 26.

2. The working in-vitro name is Comfy. This name is multi-tiered: We would like for our child to be comfortable with itself and others and its place in this world; we would like for our child to possess unsurpassed creativity and achieve success, much like, for example, Louis Comfort Tiffany; and we would like our child to be comfortable in its current location and stay there until at least term. I was brutally overruled when I pitched my preference for the in-vitro name, by the way: Josh would not agree to refer to the fetus as Awesome Banks. I'm still pissed.

3. We don't want to know the gender. I think it's sort of beside the point, really. This is making arguments about what to name the kid lengthy and hilarious, and also disturbing, because Josh has the worst taste in names ever. I would like to ensure that Comfy has rhythm, though, so if it's a boy, I'm voting for Carlton Banks.

4. I'm feeling good. The nausea was manageable, the fatigue was completely unmanageable, the massive zit cluster on my forehead is almost gone, and I've either been freezing cold or boiling hot every minute for 15 weeks. I'm not showing yet nor have I gained any weight (I don't think), but I woke up this morning feeling like someone had taken out the contents of my stomach and filled it with clay. The one thing that has truly surprised me is that my boobs have not yet taken over the planet. (Josh says they're not bigger, they're just more "buoyant," which I can get behind.) I think my body is sympathetic to the fact that all through middle and high school, I had to schlep around The Breasts That Ate Pittsburgh.

5. No, I will not tether a giant mylar balloon in my backyard and make my kid barf on national TV.

6. I have no food cravings. On the contrary, I've had zero appetite. Actually, my appetite is starting to come back, but I'm still never in the mood for anything, so I stand around hoping to feel inspired and then end up hating whatever I'm eating. I'm eating a lot of fruit and drinking a lot of juice, though, so I must be an independent vitamin C source at this point. When I had first trimester nausea, I was OK as long as I ate a carb before I ate anything else, but then my pee started smelling like crackers. I am so hot.

7. This whole experience is very, very surreal. I'm hoping for a kick soon so my brain can finally connect with what my body is doing. As if it's not enough my kid is going to be saddled with a Jewish mother, by not being able to fully connect with this science project I've become, I have guilt that I've failed Comfy and now feel like I have to overcompensate with an extravagant bar/bat mitzvah in which my child rides into the party on an elephant and we hire whatever the 2022 version of the Black Eyed Peas will be to sing whatever the 2022 version of "Let's Get It Started" will be.

8. Suddenly, I'm good at math. For instance:

people on the Internet are crazy + women are crazy x pregnant women are crazy = pregnant women on the Internet are crazy

9. I can smell absolutely everything. Therefore, people riding public transportation should refrain from using Vicks VapoRub. It's just mean.

10. Don't ask me about labor. Doing so will make me cry.

So there you have it. Comfy. Bloat. Zits. Crackers.

Insane.

In August, I went to Fire Island.

2009-09-29T10:33:00.003-04:00

I did some reading.

So, um, yeah. There's that now. Holy moly.

People are people. So.

2009-09-14T14:13:00.005-04:00

A List of People I Have Recently Seen and Was Tempted to Photograph But Not Talk To

1. Medium-height woman. Brown hair. This mullet, but curlier. Wearing oversize T-shirt. On oversize T-shirt: two (2) peanut M&M's, one (1) slogan stating "TOTALLY NUTS!"

2. Man of unknown age sitting on a crate on the corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue. Age undetermined because he was wearing a mask. The mask was a Boba Fett helmet. Man wearing Boba Fett helmet was playing the accordion.

3. Doyle from Gilmore Girls. Clearly on a date. Sitting at a table in a bistro next to myself and my two lovely friends Molly and Nadia. Reached across table and proceeded to stroke the arm of blonde sitting across from him. I could not decide if he was irked or amused that I kept staring at him, hoping he'd entertain us with some Krav Maga.

4. Man in Union Square. Multicolored clown wig. Long grey trench coat. Aluminum foil wrapped around wrists.

5. Woman in ladies' restroom in Penn Station Amtrak waiting area. Woman could not be bothered to bring luggage into bathroom stall with her. Bags propped in entry of stall, holding door open. I walked past to my stall, next to hers. Just as she was wiping.

6. Woman walking ahead of me up stairs leading out of subway station. Very short skirt. Very short skirt. Like, belt-short. First spotted: ass cheeks. Then spotted: vagina. Could not avoid vagina, as it was directly above me. Shockingly, despite having just seen a grown woman wipe herself in a public-restroom stall, this is the first Random On-the-Street Vagina I have seen in 11 years of living in New York. I figure that makes my odds of spotting offending genitalia pretty favorable (i.e., low), considering.

It was unplanned, but I am aware that this post has veered into gynecological territory. Would it have been more entertaining if Vagina Girl had been wearing the Boba Fett helmet?

Les Photos, Part Deux

2009-08-23T16:17:00.104-04:00

I feel like being French today. Ooh là là!

SO:

To continue ...

Have you heard about what the new transportation commissioner of New York City has been doing? Her name is Janette Sadik-Khan, and although she's in charge of the New York City Department of Transportation, she's all about ... reducing transportation. From what I've read, she's more motivated by the citizens' health and pedestrian accessibility than anything else, so she's consulted heavily with urban planners in pedestrian-friendly cities like Copenhagen to redesign how the roads are used here. The first big project happened this summer: Traffic lanes were closed along Broadway in both Times Square and in the shopping district around Macy's, and tables and chairs were put in the middle of the street. The idea is that if you create lanes for cars, then cars will come to fill them; six-lane expressways around major metropolitan areas do not cut down on traffic. Likewise, if you take away those lanes, the drivers will acclimate. As far as I can tell — although I don't drive here — the rerouting has gone relatively smoothly. The biggest concern was for shop owners in terms of how they were going to get their deliveries by truck. I don't know how that's working out.

This being New York City, it's going to take a while for these pedestrian plazas to become beautiful, so the chairs in the middle of Broadway are just place-holders until the redesign is made permanent. Meaning, the chairs are ... lawn chairs. And this being New York City, many of the lawn chairs were stolen pretty much out of the gate.

In June, Josh and I went to Times Square to check out the scene. And you know this is a big deal because people who live in New York never go to Times Square. Not even under extreme physical duress. Feh.

We couldn't stop laughing. The look of it was so bizarre, but we love the idea. And I'm amused by the thought of tourists walking around midtown with Belgian waffle–like imprints on the backs of their thighs.

In mid-June, my friend Kristina Riggle's first novel, Real Life & Liars, came out. I just finished it and couldn't stop crying. It's a beautiful, beautiful book and you should go buy it and read it and love it, and then tell the good readers in your life to do the same.

Anyway, the day it came out, I headed to Barnes & Noble in Union Square to pick it up. I decided it needed to be put in its rightful place of prominence:

This is what it's like to try to do freelance work in my house:

This is the kind of thing you see all too rarely nowadays on the streets of New York:

The hot dog weighed 150 pounds. These guys had walked it all the way from where they bought it down in Chinatown, up more than 60 blocks past the Port Authority (where I took this photo) and were heading over to their house in ... New Jersey.

Me: What are you going to do with it?
Hot Dog Guy #1: We have a barbecue area in our backyard. It's gonna go there.
Me: You know what this means. You have to get a matching giant jar of pickles. And, like, a burger.
Hot Dog Guy #2: We already found the burger. That's next.

My birthday was June 27. I'm 35. Thirty-five! Thirty-five. Thirty-five! When the hell did that happen?!? Anyway, Josh planned a lovely day on Governors Island. Governors Island sits in New York Harbor right at the tip of Manhattan, near downtown Brooklyn and within spitting distance of the Statue of Liberty. For years it was an Army and Coast Guard base, and then went unused. Eventually, the city of New York bought it from the government for $1 and the island has slowly been turned into parkland and gallery and entertainment space. Right now it's just a really lovely green space with historical homes, buildings and forts and shady trees to lie underneath. And there's a mini-golf course.

It was a damn miracle we could go. I don't know where you live, but our summer has sucked in terms of weather — there has been no summer to speak of because it's either pissing rain or steaming hot and humid — and in the month of June alone it rained something like 25 days. As luck would have it, June 27 was gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. So we took advantage.

The Fulton Ferry Landing and Brooklyn Bridge:

The plants and flowers on Governors Island were incredible. Huge and lush. These hydrangeas were the size of bowling balls.

Inside the former home of an admiral, this safe was installed into a wall, and on the front of the safe was the combination.

Stuck to the back wall inside the safe was this Post-it:

Apparently, Bill and Ted also think Governors Island is awesome.

I covet these bookcases:

We spent our last hour lying on a bedsheet on a lawn surrounded by chatting visitors and beautiful old homes.

After taking the ferry back to Brooklyn, we walked around the DUMBO neighborhood (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass; don't ask). It has always been an industrial area and has become more gentrified in recent years, with delicious restaurants, hopping bars, good shopping and condos popping up. It's making the neighborhood unaffordable, of course, but that's the nature of the city. There are so few pockets that are affordable anymore.

We wandered into the P.S. Bookstore, which was heaven. Really well organized, a good selection, comfortable and not stuffy, and look! A Hebrew section!

On the way out, I saw this:

Holy moly, that book was my youth. When I was in elementary school, there were two books I repeatedly checked out of the library: this one, and On Stage, Please by Veronica Tennant. I was obsessed with ice skaters and ballerinas when I was little, and the fact that this book gave a close-up look at the life of an ice skater, well, I was beside myself every time I read it. I was later thrilled to find that Katherine Healy, the skater in the Jill Krementz book, starred in the 1982 Dudley Moore/Mary Tyler Moore film Six Weeks. She died in it. Alas.

And I was too young to appreciate it then, but Jill Krementz was married to Kurt Vonnegut. It was meant to be that I own this book. I picked it up off the shelf.

It cost $82.

I did not buy the book. Alas alas.

We were in such a zone while we were in the bookstore that we didn't realize it had rained. We came out to this:

It was a helluva birthday.

The next day, we headed back to DUMBO for dinner. Between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, there are both a farmers' market and Brooklyn Flea, a huge, excellent flea market.

It makes me sad that radishes are flavorless, because they're so damn pretty:

I'm kind of loving the yellow shoes on the left:

In mid-July, I went to California. This vacation was stellar. It was Bass's first birthday, so I knew I'd be heading up to San Francisco to celebrate with Stacy, but it had been a long time since I'd been to L.A., and I have friends and family I hadn't seen in a long, long time who live there. Let me say this: I hate L.A. But I used to go a lot when I was a kid to see my cousins, and as adults, our relationship has faded. I really wanted to reconnect. And my friend Mark now has two children who I'd never met and I just thought, Enough. So thank god for Virgin America, because I flew from New York to L.A. to San Francisco and back to New York for $400. Recession, you rule!

My mom met me in L.A. so she could see her family too. We rented a car and ended up with a ... Chrysler PT Cruiser.

My dad had a PT Cruiser. It was black. We called it The Hearse. And not only did it look like a hearse, but the blind spots were so huge that you couldn't see behind you and your chances of dying increased thirtyfold. But the two of us, we two ladies, we showed L.A. how it's done in our ... PT Cruiser. Awwww, yeahhhh ...

We immediately headed to Van Nuys to see my mom's aunt Shirley, who is turning 101 in October. My mom's cousin Debbie was there, as was Debbie's sister, Susan, Susan's husband, Michael, and their son Damion, who is a year younger than me. I was close with Damion when we were kids but I hadn't seen him since Lauren's bat mitzvah in 1997. Seeing him in L.A. in July with his beautiful wife (who's pregnant!), Elisa, was better than I even hoped. It was just excellent. Last time I hung out with him in L.A., it was his bar mitzvah, during which I snuck away and French-kissed one of his friends in a phone booth. I was such a floozy.

Santa Monica:

I spent the next two nights at my friend Mark's house. Mark lives in Pasadena with his wife, Asha, and their two kids. Mark and I used to work together at an advertising agency in Warren, Michigan, right after I graduated from college. I hadn't seen him in, I think, three years, and I think the main reason why I had to visit him in California was because I needed to actually see him with two children to believe it. So much can happen in three years, and there's a slight suspension of disbelief when you're communicating solely over phone and e-mail, I think. But they're all doing great and it was just a really, really nice visit. I shared a bedroom with their 2-year-old son, Callan, who woke me up in the morning by reaching through the slats of his crib and tickling the bottoms of my feet. It was maybe the cutest thing that had ever happened to me.

Mark took me to Huntington Gardens, these tremendous, unbelievably beautiful botanical gardens in Pasadena. Oh my god.

Mark insisted on taking a picture of me in front of a cluster of prickly phalluses. And yet he still wondered why I couldn't get my head around the fact that he has two children.

I loved that it was 100,000 degrees in southern California and the middle of July, but flowers were still blooming:

The Huntington Garden also has an impressive art museum and a print archive that has texts you wouldn't believe. Isaac Newton books actually owned by Sir Isaac Newton! A Gutenberg Bible! Mark and I both really love Edward Hopper, so we took a bunch of photos of this painting for Mark's iPhone screen saver until the security guard yelled at us.

Mark and Asha were planning one of their children's birthday parties, so Mark and I went to Party City to scope out what they had. He came up with some ideas for the party, but even more valuable was what we found that was totally unrelated to the party.

Like this:

I just don't know that it bodes well for any couple that the bride's arms are ripped off.

And this:

The most miserable-looking couple ever.

Nothing gives a cake more meaning than sacrilegious candle packaging:

And then there was this:

Me: Why is Jewy stationery always so maudlin? We're the chosen people! Why can't we have invitations in colors other than blue, white and silver?
Mark: That's not so bad, I just don't know about the wording.
Me: "Please Join Us."
Mark: It's more like, Please join us. Be one of us.
Me: It's not like we need an invitation for that. We'll take anybody.
Mark: Yeah, but doesn't converting take forever? You have to take classes and stuff.
Me: Yeah, that's true. And if you're not circumcised yet ...
Mark: Forget that.
Me: Yes.

Up in Marin County, Stacy found out she had a few days off from work coming to her, so she planned three of the most excellent days for us. We spent the first afternoon in San Francisco. I've spent a total of maybe three hours in the city in my life, and Stacy hasn't spent much time there since moving to Marin, so we were both really excited and had the hardest time ruling out places to go.

One of the many cool things about where Stacy lives is that you can take a ferry into the city. It's a beautiful ride, and on a ferry, you're not stuck on a bridge when The Big One hits. And all I can think of when I'm in San Francisco is earthquakes, so this was much appreciated.

I took a picture of San Quentin for Josh because he likes crime. Say hello to Scott Peterson, everybody!

Hi, Scott Peterson!

The Bay Bridge

Being the tourists we were, when we got off the ferry, we climbed onto a cable car and headed straight for Chinatown. I've lived in New York and London; Stacy's lived in Jerusalem, New York and Chicago. And just like that, with one act of tourism cliché, all our street cred — gone. We didn't care. It was great fun.

In front of the City Lights bookshop

Another tourism rite of passage: Stacy and I walked up this hill:

At the top of the hill was a cable car. We took that to another tourism rite of passage, Fisherman's Wharf.

It should be noted that on that day, Stacy and I managed to take the worst picture we've ever taken together. It took 29 years to do it, and whoo boy, did we make up for the lag. It will not be posted here, but trust: It's heinous.

We capped the day with dim sum and a slow walk through the truly excellent ferry building. We hopped on the boat and headed back to Marin in time for my acupuncture appointment. I'd never done acupuncture before but I've needed holistic assistance with my very moody stomach, and it was fabulous. It was relaxing and fascinating and terribly helpful, and I'd recommend it for anybody.

This was in the waiting area:

The next day, we drove out to Point Reyes National Seashore. It's so beautiful out there. It's just a giant, giant area with mountains and redwoods and fields and animal preserves and small towns and the ocean. The air is clean, the sun is bright, the fog wraps itself around you like a blanket.... It's ridiculous.

This was an old creamery adjacent to an elk preserve:

We went hiking, first toward the end point that juts into the water, and then down a slope to the ocean.

That night we saw the latest Harry Potter, and happiness was felt by all.

Stacy wanted to plan a day for my birthday present, and holy crap, did she ever. We woke up that Friday morning and drove up to Sonoma, which, gorgeous. She said she knew I'm not into wine, so she thought of what we could do in terms of fun Sonoma tastings. And then she found the Wild Flour Bread bakery. When she first told me about it, she sent me an e-mail with a link to the Web site, and I wanted to eat it. So it was safe to think this was a really good idea. She thought we'd start the day there, tasting different kinds of breads and bringing home some snacks for her husband, Mark, and his friend in from out of town, Julia.

When we walked in, I wanted to lie down on the floor and sleep there forever. The smell was divine.

They allow you to taste the available breads, which we did heartily. We ended up buying three kinds for us:

A sticky bun bigger than my head

A chocolate, lavender and apple scone that was so light, the strongest flavor was the lavender

And the three-cheese fougasse, which also has hints of garlic and rosemary, and why do I want to say mushroom? Anyway, amazing.

The smell alone was perfection, but then we drove down the road to Osmosis Day Spa, and really, how could the day get any better? Well I'll tell you. It got better. Osmosis is known for their Cedar-Enzyme Bath, which is a large square tub filled with cedar shavings and hundreds of different kinds of enzymes that, combined with your body temperature, creates heat. It's a dry steam bath, no water at all. You climb into this thing and it's soft and cushy, and the Osmosis therapist piles the cedar around you to your comfort. It's the most comfortable blanket feeling I've ever experienced. You stay in for 10 or 20 minutes, and then you shower off and are taken to a meditation room, where you lie on a bed, put on headphones, and they pipe in relaxing music for 30 minutes. After that, still smelling like cedar and fougasse, we got dressed and spent some time in the beautiful meditation garden, where giant orange dragonflies buzzed around the pond.

In the locker room when we got dressed, Stacy opened her bag where she had stowed the bread she was bringing home, obviously not wanting to leave it in the hot car, and looked worried.

Stacy: Oh no. I made the whole locker room smell like bread.
Me: You say that like it's a bad thing.
Stacy: True.
Me: It smells delicious.

We had lunch in Occidental, a western town that time forgot. We drove the Bohemian Highway. We bought pluots and cherries at a fruit stand manned by a woman whose daughter usually runs it; it's how her daughter is financing her college education.

I don't even know what to say about that day. It was absurd. Driving around some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever taken in with my oldest friend, eating bread and spa-going and buying local fruit and homemade pies ... It was the perfect day. The perfect perfect day. Every two minutes I kept saying, "I don't believe this. This is ridiculous. You live here." I felt like I'd been there for a month, I was so relaxed.

And then, of course, the most important part of the whole visit: Stacy's son, Bass, turned 1 that Saturday. She organized a really lovely party in a local park, and her friends and all their babies came. It was a riot. I hadn't seen Bass since last summer, when he was 2 months old, and it's really spectacular to see a kid grow and change like that. He's on the verge of walking, he very enthusiastically says "Bye!" and he made his first art project. He's such a cool kid.

Bass's bass cake, made from individual cupcakes that were iced as one cake on top — genius:

Bass has a friend who has the best barrettes. I met her at a farmers' market picnic, where she was wearing a knit watermelon one. This is her party cupcake:

Stacy very brilliantly, for party favors, bought a bunch of bouncy rubber balls for the kids that were a huge hit. She brought a big basket for them. Bass most enjoyed taking the basket with the balls in it and dumping it over his head.

It was both hilarious and awesome.

My last morning, Stace took me to a huge farmers' market in San Anselmo. It was unbelievable. Row after row of flowers, produce, pickles, homemade lotions and juices; handmade purses and belts and picture frames; trucks with fish and pizza and breakfast food and meats. All locally grown and made. The produce in California is superior to anywhere.

These were the biggest blackberries I've ever seen:

This is Chinese zucchini:

As glorious as the sunlight was in California (especially since it's been grey as smoke here all summer), it's unfortunate it was so bright when I took this photo, because the electric purple color of the zucchini was stunning and you can't really tell with the glare in the picture. I never knew a color like that purple could exist in nature.

And then I went home, sad to leave and totally content from the perfect visit. It's been a loss of a summer for the most part, so posting these photos has actually reminded me that I actually did do something like leave the house and, uh, experience things. This week, Josh and I are off to Fire Island where we'll be watching some mad waves from the remnants of Hurricane Bill and breathing in some ocean air.

Beyond that, after not having watched a second of TV since May, I'm alarmed by my date book, which is filled with the premieres of fall TV shows. I think I'm becoming that person, but I don't think I'm wrong in believing that life is always better when Dexter is on.

Hey! Pictures!

2009-07-28T14:53:00.055-04:00

So it's been ages since I've posted pictures, and you know what that means:

Lots. Lots and lots in a long, long post. Hope you're not busy! Hope you have nothing to do this summer!

Anyway.

Did I mention that my youngest sister Lauren got married to her excellent boyfriend, Wes? In January? In Detroit? Michigan in January? During one of the snowiest winters in recent memory? In a city that's broke so it can't pay for snow plows? Not sure if I mentioned that.

It turned out really lovely. Yes, there was a major snowstorm, but Detroiters are not fazed by much, and one thing they're not fazed by is weather. Everybody showed up to the ceremony on time, dressed to the nines.

Saturday morning just as the snow hit, we went to the salon to get our hair and makeup done. The Nephew came.

Alex was so unbelievably well behaved. We were there for hours, and he just checked everyone out, looking all handsome while we got made purdy, and then passed out from milk-drunkenness. He slept the whole slippery ride back to my parents' house.

Jennifer, Stephanie and I were just about an hour late getting to the hotel for pictures (see: lack of snow plows), so when we got to Lauren's suite, we found this:

It was surreal. I kept telling Lauren that I really loved her Halloween costume because there was no way my baby sister was getting married. More to the point, there was no way my baby sister was having The Sex. Here's the age difference between the four of us:

Jennifer, born December 1971: 37
Me, born June 1974: 35
Stephanie, born October 1977: 31
Lauren, born July 1984: 25

So we pretty much all had a hand in raising her. When she walked down the aisle, we all just looked at each other, totally flabbergasted, because it felt like five of us were her parents. (For the record, Lauren was not an oops baby, although we have spent years enjoying showing her pictures of the family before she was born and saying, "See this one? This was taken before you came along. When we were happy.")

Lauren felt her wedding was the perfect time to reenact The Sound of Music. Because when else would be a better time?

The wedding was beautiful. The cake was the best wedding cake I've ever tasted. Ever. Anywhere.

This is my cousin Michelle:

Michelle is six weeks older than me, so we grew up together. When we joined ski camp in sixth grade, we realized we hated skiing and spent every Saturday sitting in the lodge eating french fries and drinking hot cocoa. When we went to summer camp together, Michelle would be homesick and try to get sent home by sitting on a chair, propping her feet on another chair across from her and then asking me to jump on her legs to break them. I'd be all, "Um, we're going home in three days. How about maybe sticking it out for a bit longer?" We lived together our freshman year at Michigan State and spent the entire weekend before midterms writing private jokes all over our wood loft in our dorm room. Michelle has always been the most organized person I've ever known, one of the funniest people I've ever known, has the biggest heart, and lets me exaggerate stories for dramatic effect even though she knows the real, less embellished version. She now has three beautiful kids, married her high school sweetheart and is just dreamy. I love her desperately.

(Note: This being the last of the Garfield weddings, I walked into the salon and told them to do whatever they wanted with me. I always find that hairdressers and makeup artists do a better job and have more fun if they can just go to town and be creative. I told them I didn't want to look like myself and to just go with it. Then I thought for a second and said, "Wait. Now I'm thinking Old French Whore. Can you do that?" This picture was taken long after Old French Whore was mingled and danced out, my eye makeup, which had been excellent, was a bit worn, the lip gloss muted, the earrings removed from my sore lobes and put into my purse, but you get the idea. I think they did a great job. The back was all nice and messy, and they really went with the whole "slutty and festooned with pearls" look. I was pleased.)

Later in January, as you all know, was the inauguration. This still makes me laugh:

Maybe it's the angle of my TV, but did you notice something about Biden and Obama?

Aren't their hands tiny? They look like Barbie hands! Obama's hand looks like it's actually the hand of the guy standing behind him! And did they ever say who the guy is behind the not-Obama's-hand guy who looks like James Cromwell?

On their way to their honeymoon cruise, which left from a port in Bayonne, New Jersey, Lauren and Wes stayed with us in Brooklyn. Wes had never been to New York, and this excited me to no end. I am always unreasonably thrilled to show people around the city for the first time because I remember what it was like my first time and I still maintain it's the most exciting place in the world. But they only had one full day to do it, so I packed that Saturday full of touristy goodness. The idea is, you want to give the visitor an excellent overview of the city, see most of the main attractions even if it's only a glimpse, and that way, on their second visit they can spend more time at the places that really interested them, and then on subsequent visits, they can get into the nitty gritty of New York and not have to worry about the touristy bits and just do fun bits and see how New Yorkers live. So we got up in the morning and headed to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, which offers the best view of Manhattan across the East River, south from the Statue of Liberty to north past the Empire State Building.

This is Wes's first glimpse:

It was unbearably cold. There were some days this past winter when it was so cold I tied two scarves together and wrapped them around my upper half, very Nanook of the North. Josh and I wanted to take a picture together but couldn't move closer to each other, we were so frozen.

Me: We look like old-timey immigrant ancestors. Like, we're just off the boat from Poland. The Statue of Liberty is somewhere behind us and we're not really touching.
Josh: Yeah, but we're smiling. So not exactly.

We had some delicious breakfast and then made our way into Manhattan to grab a double-decker bus tour. As cheesy as they are, they're the best way to see a large part of a city in a very short period of time. And you can get on and off if you want to walk around a neighborhood or site, so in the span of a couple hours, Wes saw Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Garment District, the Flatiron Building, the Chrysler Building and the West Village. We got off at Ground Zero, then walked through the Financial District to the New York Stock Exchange, which I'd never seen.

Here was the problem: We had the shittiest tour bus guide. He punctuated every single sentence with, "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" and littered his tour with name-droppings instead of actual facts about the city: "See that apartment building there? Rob Lowe used to live there. Yeah, I knew him because I'm an artist, and he came into my class one day, and he lived right there." Josh was beside himself because a lot of the city facts the guy did manage to spew were not fully accurate, and here's my research-nerd husband saying under his breath, "It was 1983, not 1981."

So I flipped the guy off.

We very easily could have hopped off the bus and waited for another to come, hopefully with a better guide, but it was so freakin' cold. When we did get onto a different bus after walking around Ground Zero, the guide was immeasurably better. We finished the tour driving past South Street Seaport, the East Village and Rockefeller Center, where we got off, walked up Fifth Avenue past Tiffany's, then across Central Park, caught the subway and had an amazing dinner at Josh and my favorite soul-food restaurant in Harlem, Amy Ruth's, and then went back down to the West Village for dessert at an old bakery. Needless to say, we were exhausted and cold, but it was a great, great I Heart NY day.

The next day, I went with my horror-film-junkie husband to see My Bloody Valentine 3D. The movie was, of course, terrible, but check out the glasses!

So much more high-tech than back in my day. [waving fist, crotchety] In my day, we had cardboard glasses! They bent before we used 'em! They didn't actually work! They just made you look stupid! We didn't need no stinkin' functional plastic Vuarnet-lookin' 3D glasses! The fanciest we got were the ones at Captain EO because they were purple, dammit!

In February, Josh and I went to Boston to babysit Alex while Stephanie and her husband, Josh (I know; confusing), spent a romantic Valentine's Day night in a hotel. This is the gist of our night with Alex:

The kid is a dream. He's good-natured, so cute it's ridiculous, undeterred by colds and teething, laughs easily, loves nothing more than being upside down. My sister made the perfect baby.

Wait, Johnny Galecki is on Craig Ferguson right now. Why does he look like that? Where did his adorability go?

Anyway.

In March, my friend Amy asked me if I'd ever seen the "little doors."

"Little doors?"

"I'll take you to see the little doors."

Here's Amy at the little doors:

It's a very short street called Dennet Place, a block between four main roads, tucked away in the reaches of my old neighborhood in Brooklyn. Nobody seems to know the story behind the four- to five-feet-high doors — they may have just been access doors to staircases going into basements — but people live behind the little doors. It's a very quaint street, very neighborhood-y. The doors sit beneath outdoor stairs leading to full-length doors and the main entrances to the buildings.

After wandering up and down Dennet Place, Amy and I walked around Carroll Gardens. We found a great vintage knickknack store.

During Passover, we had lunch at a kosher for Passover restaurant with Josh's brother, Adam, and Adam's wife, Rachel. They observe Passover more religiously than we do, so after lunch, we stopped off at a kosher grocery store so they could pick up a few things.

Now, I'm not a terribly religious person — I'm more of a cultural Jew than a regular synagogue-goer — but I went to Hebrew school through twelfth grade, had a bat mitzvah, I can read and write Hebrew, I went to Jewish summer camp, I know how to pray, I know from my peoples. But this, this I've never seen before:

Mishpacha means family. A family of mushrooms.

It was a gorgeous spring day, so we went for a walk in Central Park.

The short white building on the left is the Guggenheim Museum:

Spring!

April 18 was International Record Store Day, Josh's favorite day of the year, so we puttered around Manhattan and bought some music. I paid $5 for an Oasis CD. I have no idea what I was thinking. I've never liked Oasis. International Record Store day clearly made me a terrible judge of my own taste.

I love this:

A garden center with a clear view of a parking structure. Yay, nature!

This is Other Music. Josh has been shopping here for 100 years. He used to have his own record label, and then worked in the business for other labels until he went back to school a few years ago. These are his people.

In May, I went with some friends to our friend Marisa's country house up in Columbia County. It was just beautiful, and I hadn't had a girlie weekend in forever. So we ate a lot. We also spent an afternoon in Hudson, one of the more very charming, very old towns in New York State. There's a main drag there with really beautiful little mom-and-pop shops and a firehouse.

In Hudson, many shuttered business had this taped to their windows:

I love how these salt and pepper shakers look like they're doing "I'm a Little Teapot." Well, that's just a different item of kitchenware entirely.

I have truly wondered what the person who created this is trying to say:

Are they saying that Sarah Jessica Parker looks like Bea Arthur? That Sarah Jessica Parker wishes she were as talented as Bea Arthur? That Sarah Jessica Parker is the second coming of Bea Arthur? That Sarah Jessica Parker idolizes Bea Arthur? That Sex and the City is this generation's Golden Girls? So many questions, graffiti artist!

I just want to take this opportunity to say that I miss Bea Arthur. That is all.

In front of the firehouse.

Memorial Day weekend, I headed back to Boston. My parents came too, and we had a whole Alexfest all weekend. Because so many people were descending on Stephanie's house, I spent the first night in a hotel. I've been over-reading about the bedbug problem infesting the East Coast, so naturally I was struggling to convince myself that my hotel room would not be crawling with bugs that would then jump into my suitcase that I would then bring home and, as a result, be forced to spend thousands of dollars I didn't have to get rid of the problem. Once I convinced myself of this, I got to the hotel, and this was the pattern on the bedspread:

It did not help.

The next morning, I took Alex to his swim lesson. We had some time to kill before it started, so Steph, my mom and I took him to a nearby park to try out the swings. The best word I can think of to describe his reaction to the swings is: suspicious.

He could not seem to get his head around the whole sensation of dangling in the air without a person attached to him in some way. He reacted the same way to being in the pool. He didn't squirm, he didn't cry, he didn't freak out. He just looked around with that furrowed brow, sort of like, "I'm just not sure about this, and I don't know why all of you people seem to be." Except for when we did the Hokey Pokey. The kid loves the Hokey Pokey.

This is the view from Stephanie's gym. That is mean.

A pirate canoeing along the Charles River. Arrrrr.

Alex and my dad looking jaunty.

OK, I just spent four hours trying to load a video of a bunch of adults making humiliating noises to Alex while he looks at us like we're insane, and then it failed to load and error-messaged, and I'm gonna sign off now so I can pull my hair out. But just wait! Coming up next: A former Army base! Lawn chairs! Spiky phalluses! Christ candles!

Thoughts on the Passing

2009-06-26T15:14:00.009-04:00

Like everybody else, I was shocked to hear Michael Jackson died. I wasn't surprised — between the well-known addiction to painkillers; the surgeries; the gaunt frame; the overwhelming stress of lawsuits, debt and living inside his own head, it wasn't hard to imagine that something, eventually, was going to give and his body would be unable to withstand it — but I was shocked. I never thought about him dying. So surreal.

Also like everybody else of my generation, I taught myself the "Thriller" dance and awesomed-out in front of my TV back when MTV used to play videos. I engaged in Global Thermonuclear War against my sister Stephanie when we shared a bedroom in order to claim prime wall space for my favorite Michael Jackson poster (see previous post). I had a jacket that turned into a bag, but when it wasn't folded up, I called it my Michael Jackson jacket because it had zippers and piping and pointy shoulders. I tried to moonwalk and failed miserably. I voted for "Beat It" to win "Friday Night Video Fights." I watched the video for "Say, Say, Say" and wondered what ever happened to all the dancing hobos in the world.

Michael Jackson defined the pop culture of my youth just as much as John Hughes movies, Simon Le Bon Teen Beat posters, lace Madonna gloves, The Karate Kid, "Jessie's Girl," Henry Thomas's uttering of "penis-breath" and K-tel's Hit Explosion did. And the music in his heyday was great. The videos were legendary. For a long time, he was arguably the most famous person on the planet. But I'm uncomfortable with all the adulation of Michael Jackson in the wake of his death. It's important to acknowledge and pay respect to what he contributed to music and pop culture, but the adult he became doesn't change just because he died, contrary to those who are extolling his virtue despite four days ago believing he was a pedophile. And I'm not understanding the disconnect. Outside of the actual sadness of the loss of a person, deaths of icons are always fascinating when millions who long ceased celebrating them before their death line the streets in tears after. Michael Jackson was astoundingly talented, but he was also a mess, and talent does not make somebody an unassailable person.

Nobody is arguing the veracity of Michael Jackson's harrowing, truncated childhood. Joe and Katherine Jackson were shitty parents. They just were. It's true that their shitty parenting brought forth "The Love You Save," which, please, best song ever, but yeah, some people are just bad parents. So it was understandable that he'd have a yearning to re-create his childhood, live out the play he missed, and suffer while he admittedly lacked the ability to relate to people offstage. But Michael Jackson's re-created childhood as an adult lasted far longer than any person's childhood does when they are a child, and despite having kids of his own, he relinquished the responsibilities of an adult — which were lifted from his lap by people surrounding him who were happy to take on that burden. How sad that a man who had all the access in the world to all the best, most effective forms of therapy seemed to get worse and worse, more and more detached, and might not have even known how to engage because his life was spent embedded with these "yes" people whose livelihoods depended on him not changing much at all.

Change is terrifying when you only know one way to live, even if that way of living makes you miserable.

As far as I saw it, as a person who will never know what went on behind those doors, what that environment created was, on a good day, a grown man whose relationship with and affection for children was inappropriate, and on a bad day a grown man who may have been a child molester. I believe he was, others don't; perhaps that's the dividing line between who feels unbridled emotion right now and who doesn't. Maybe we'll never know if he was, depending on what the confidentiality agreements say — and even then, most families who sent their children to Neverland were such opportunists, who knows if they're telling the truth. But what I do believe is that Michael Jackson was so sick, so wanting to be someone else that he changed his entire physical self, so used to being used, such a complicated human being who might have never had the support system he needed or who rejected the strong, good-hearted efforts made toward him, that he should have been hospitalized so he could work with professionals who had his best mental and physical interests at heart, away from everyone else's desires of him. His demons — including substance abuse, which is its own evil animal — went far beyond any saving well-intentioned loved ones could accomplish.

I absolutely believe that no matter what happens to a person as a child, there comes a time in adulthood when they have to stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for where they are and how they've responded to what happened to them, even if there's no justice or closure or apology. That's not to say everything is surmountable — this is absolutely a simplified version of an idealized adulthood, and Michael Jackson's adulthood was anything but simple — but you owe it to yourself, your family and, if you commit to the responsibility of having them, your children to do your damndest to try. Especially if you have children. Easier said than done for an armchair shrink, right? I wonder how far Michael Jackson traveled along that road — perhaps that's why he wanted to be a father — or was he was just too lost, stuck, afraid and invested in living the dangerous, stunted, damaged life he did because, to him, it was safe even when it wasn't safe? And if he did do the things he was accused of, well, that makes sympathy that much more complicated.

What is heartbreaking about all of this is that many of us have watched a large part of the living of a very sad, bizarre life. In whichever stages of his career or our evolving tastes, he made an awful lot of people happy, yet he was clearly so very unhappy and uneasy with the world. We're all on a quest for happiness — that's the motivating factor for every decision we make, happiness and love — and it requires a lot of work and luck to find it. Whatever happiness Michael Jackson did find in his life, it's too sad that there was so much else that was missing and askew, and for his three children, I hope that in time they find the happiness and stability their father never did.

Ongoing Facebook Comment Stream, 6.25.09

2009-06-25T21:14:00.003-04:00

Marla Garfield remembers the day in 1983 when she asked her mom if she could marry Michael Jackson if he converted to Judaism.

Lysa Goodman Poore at 7:50pm June 25
Well he comverted his face, though not into Judaism. Cubism maybe.

Scott Friedman at 7:54pm June 25
LOL Lysa. That's funny right there

Lisa Ferber at 7:55pm June 25
did she say yes?

Marla Garfield at 7:55pm June 25
Picasso never dreamt such a face, oy.

Marla Garfield at 7:57pm June 25
Lisa: I'm not kidding, this is what happened: I asked, and she hesitated for a minute, and I shouted, "You're racist!" and ran out of the room. I was 9.

Lysa Goodman Poore at 7:59pm June 25
LMFAO...Marla, you rock. Me and my Barbie camper van were not worthy!!

Stephanie Garfield Dobbins at 8:19pm June 25
Did this conversation happen before or after you and Stacy ripped down my poster of him (the one in the yellow vest and the white background with the grandma broach) and told me he was not cool anymore?

Marla Garfield at 8:42pm June 25
I don't remember, but in any case, we only told you that because my poster was cooler than yours (brown leather jacket, purple background, no grandma jewelry) and I was bitter you hung yours in the best spot in our bedroom (on the back of our door). The only way I could hang my poster in its rightful position was if I told you Michael Jackson wasn't cool anymore and ripped yours down. And no, I'm not sorry, dammit!

Wait, did you rip mine down too as retaliation? We were mean.

Jenifer Golec Bement at 9:00pm June 25
LMAO.

Lauren Garfield-Herrin at 9:02pm June 25
That may be the funniest thing I have ever heard. How come this story has not been shared yet?

I am a terrible, terrible cook.

2009-06-13T14:14:00.003-04:00

Just terrible.

The good news is, I've officially given up, so I don't have to worry about cooking anymore. Mazel tov, Josh, you have won the battle over our kitchen — and you are a wonderful cook — but please add some new dishes to your repertoire because, since I'm no longer attempting to cook and it's all up to you now, I can't eat tomato sauce every night for the rest of my life or I'll get The Scurvy.

The road to my acceptance went thusly:

I had some time off work this week. It's gone by incredibly fast for two main reasons: I made a list a mile long of things I wanted to do that were more chore-like than fun-like, but if I completed them I'd feel I made some real progress in my life and finally — finally! — be a whole person; and I managed to do barely none of them while I sat on my couch and read magazines and thought about all the things I should be doing and watched season three of Gilmore Girls on DVD. I did buy four pairs of shoes, so that's personal growth. I am shod.

One thing on my list was cooking. My goal was to cook one meal every day. I really want to be a good cook. I really want to find it cathartic and I want it to be a creative, sensory outlet. I want to build an instinct for spices and timing and color. I want to know that, if I have a family one day and they might be, I don't know, hungry, I can whip up a tasty something for them that won't repel them from the kitchen forevermore.

That is not likely to happen.

Cooking Disaster #1: Eggs

I'm usually pretty good with eggs. I'm decent at baking, and baking involves eggs. There was nothing in my refrigerator except for a half carton of eggs, a package of Kraft fat-free shredded mozzarella, and half of a jar of Newman's Own tomato and basil pasta sauce. A normal person might feel nauseous and go to the grocery store for some actual ingredients. I am not a normal person, because to me it spelled breakfast. (Oh, come on: People put ketchup on eggs all the time. How far is spaghetti sauce? You know what? I've heard enough out of you today already.)

Basically, what followed was a horror movie of: too much melted butter that caused the egg whites (which had some yolk in them, as I was clearly not enjoying any kind of rhythm) to sort of slither and float around the pan, not really touching the bottom; an ill-executed egg-flipping that resulted in half the whites smacking onto the floor; and a pathetic rescue mission of adding one more egg — without separating yolk from whites — and just plunking the whole thing in the pan, scrambling the yolk with the rest of the mostly cooked whites. And then I added the cheese. And then I added the Newman's sauce when I plated the eggs. It was so barfily vile I wanted to apologize to both Paul Newman himself and the chickens whose eggs were wasted for this catastrophe.

Cooking Disasters #2 and #3: Chicken Tagine with Apricots; Sicilian Barbecued Chicken

These went pretty much the same way as each other. Thursday night's tagine was tasteless, the chicken was overcooked, and I didn't make enough rice. Friday night's barbecued chicken was an exercise in overcompensation: The chicken was overcooked again, but to make up for the previous night's tastelessness, I overdid every single spice and juice — including freshly squeezed lemon and orange — and it was so overwhelmingly citrusy that it was totally inedible. Also, I made enough rice to feed a medium-size country. The entire dinner (except for the rice) went into the trash. I don't think I can eat fruit for a week.

I'm disappointed. I thought that having some time off work would wake me up a bit and I could discover my inner Ina Garten and my house would suddenly become a delightful Hamptons hideaway and Jeffrey would be sitting on my couch, ready to rub my feet. But I wasn't relaxed. I was putting too much pressure on myself to get through that freakin' list. (On that note: Should you ever have time off from work when you're sticking close to home, DO NOT MAKE A TO-DO LIST. YOU WILL PSYCH YOURSELF OUT. You will waste your week thinking about onerous chores instead of seeing The Hangover. Learn from this. I would have had so much more fun if I'd woken up every day and just hung out. Bleh, Type-A.) Food-wise, maybe I should have started with something more basic. So at the moment, I'm totally discouraged and don't have any desire to find out if I'm Ina Garten. That's so sad! She has the nicest friends!

Here's what I'm good at in the way of the domestic arts:

1. I'm awesome at cleaning. I'm so OCD that you can lick off my floor right now. I vacuumed the couches.
2. Organizing papers. Another thing on my to-do list this week that I haven't done is tackle this giant cardboard box of papers on my bedroom floor. Some people fantasize about their unrequited crushes or those Twilight kids; I fantasize about getting a filing cabinet.
3. I can fold a fitted sheet.
4. I can bake an apple pie like nobody's business.
5. I'm unbelievably anal about separating recyclables. Never say I haven't done my part for our planet.

But I want to be able to cook. Gah.

Something that I did do was call Sears to come fix a bald spot on my treadmill before I slip and break my ass. I also need a lock for the thing: When we bought the treadmill six years ago, they never brought one of those thingy-things that holds the folded-up part of the treadmill so it doesn't collapse and crush your pets. Despite my efforts to encourage Sears to fix this oversight, I've had a shoelace tied from arm to arm in place of the lock since 2003. So I asked them to bring that when they bring the new runner. So I blocked out a good four hours of a morning, the guy showed up with just a toolbox, he looked at the treadmill, turned it on, and got ready to leave. I said, "Aren't you going to fix it?" He said that they have to order the parts, have them shipped to me, and then I have to make another appointment for them to come and install them.

!!!!!

OK, so even though you know what model I have and I told you what I need, you still had me block out a whole morning so you could send a guy to confirm what I've already told you, as if I'm lying and just want Sears to eat up my day for fun because what else would I do with my day you big loser who can't cook, and then I have to schlep the equipment home from work where it'll be shipped (I don't have a doorman to get big packages — dirty), and then I have to block out a whole morning again? Fuck you, Sears. I remember when we got our dishwasher, it took three appointments: one in which someone came to disconnect the old dishwasher and leave it in the middle of our kitchen, one in which someone came to deliver the new one and play with the electrical bits, and one in which someone came to take away the old dishwasher. So our old dishwasher was sitting in the middle of our kitchen for two weeks because that's how Sears operates. It's a miracle Sears can tie its shoes in the morning.

Also, while I've been home I've learned that NoraBanks spends a great deal of her day standing in the bathroom sink and meowing at the ceiling.

So: Please help me. Please share either — or both:

1. Your no-fail recipes that even someone as cheffily deficient as me can do;
2. Your favorite, most embarrassing kitchen disasters. I feel so alone.

On that note, I hate the word knapsack.

2009-06-03T15:57:00.003-04:00

I've been cleaning out my work e-mail, which is taking forever because there are literally thousands of them, both personal and work-related. The good thing is, they are in large part hysterical, and they also serve as a journal of my life so I don't have to keep one on its own. The bad thing is, there are thousands of them.

I found this one, which I enjoyed and thought I'd share with you. I sent it to myself on October 23, 2007, just after I'd gotten off the train and came into the office. The subject line is "Oogy couple." For very obvious reasons, I wanted to remember these people.

She has a long skirt on and is carrying an oversize orange leather shoulder bag, one that doesn't look like there's much in it. He's wearing a leather jacket slung over his shoulders, but his arms aren't in it. He's wearing black and blue checked cotton wrestler pants, but he's slight and older, and he's carrying a backpack. She asks him, "Do you want to hold this?" He asks her to repeat. She holds out her jacket. "This is heavy. Do you want to hold this? Do you want to put it in your knapsack?"

Um, duh.

He says, "Well, no, I don't want to, but you're asking me to, so I will." He keeps saying he doesn't want to but he will. She passes it over. I look up. It's a jean jacket. She's carrying a giant heavy shoulder bag but won't carry her jean jacket. He seems to despise her.

We get on the train. There are only single seats scattered here and there. She sits in an end seat, and he sits next to me across the way. There's plenty of room, but he sits practically on top of me, and his leather jacket is poking me. He crosses his legs and starts grading English essays. He smells like glue.

Cereal Killer

2009-05-09T19:52:00.005-04:00

In the vestibule of our building, there's a table upon which we leave ignored newspapers and yet-to-be-claimed packages and magazines that won't fit into the wee mailboxes. Last week, somebody left a box of cereal on the table for anyone to take, with a Post-it stating they didn't like it and maybe someone else would.

The cereal box was very colorful, with what appeared to be cartoony fronds on it.

The cereal was made by a company called EnviroKidz. (Don't even get me started on the "z." I have rage.) It is gluten-free, organic cereal.

It is called Peanut Butter Panda Puffs.

Here's my question: Of all the cereals in the grocery store, with all the options of getting-better-tasting organic foods, how did it happen that this was the one that was considered potentially delicious? And it's not even so much because it's organic or fun-free, which I do not frown upon under any circumstances: It's because it's peanut butter cereal.

I love peanut butter in pretty much any form. I love cereal in pretty much any form. Even when it's soggy (and, in the case of Froot Loops and — controversial! — Raisin Bran, I prefer it soggy). I will eat a peanut butter sandwich for pretty much any meal, and I will eat cereal for pretty much any meal. If your desert-island food is cereal, you can't go wrong and you can live a long, happy life — I guess assuming you don't need milk, because the refrigeration logistics on a desert island are not favorable to dairy products. And you might die of loneliness. Anyway. I digress.

However:

Peanut butter is not good in cereal. No exceptions. I wanted to write "Duh" on the Post-it.

Other food combinations I do not understand, despite the fact that I love one or more elements of these partnerships, but not together:

Hot sauce on eggs
Mayonnaise on fries
Vinegar- or ketchup-flavored chips
Three-cheese anything
Dried fruit that is infused with the flavor of another fruit
Coffee-flavored cake
Champagne-flavored soda (this was a very, very, very unsuccessful experiment, probably because on the bottle, cola was spelled kola)

What about you? What will you refuse to eat together? Or, like, in a sandwich?

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

2009-05-07T21:58:00.004-04:00

Two weekends ago, Josh and I cleaned up our garden to prep for spring. It's not huge, just an urban brownstone garden, and while I know I'm lucky to have it, I'll be honest with you:

I hate it.

I hate it I hate it I hate it. I should love it but I hate it.

I hate gardening. I hate planting. I hate pulling weeds, and we get tons and tons of weeds. I hate figuring out what goes where. I hate maintaining it. I have so little free time, and I don't want to spend what free time I have cleaning up and maintaining my garden. If the weather is nice enough to be outside fixing up the garden, I'd rather be somewhere else outside, not doing ... that. It is not cathartic. It stresses me out. Bleh.

I would perhaps love it if there were a place to sit and gather, but the couple who owned the apartment before Josh bought it were botanists, so there are just giant green plants (many of them prickly, so you try pruning them) everywhere, very little color, and a lame path of broken slate slabs that are uneven and cracked. There is no patio, no flat surface, no place to put a table and chairs. I would love for HGTV to magically show up at my door and tear out the whole thing and start it from scratch, with a grassy area and planters and brick entertaining space. I know exactly what I want to do with it, which makes me hate it even more because I don't have the wherewithal or funds to do it myself. Bleh.

Anyway.

I was clearing away some of last season's leaves when I found a weathered cat collar. The best part of the garden by far is that we get tons of the neighborhood cats hanging out. They're fun and friendly and they come up to our back door and flirt with Nora and Tallulah. I picked up the collar (which, praise jebus, was not attached to its owner) and read the tag. Clearly etched in it were its address, its phone number and its name.

Its name.

Whitey.

"I think I'm offended," I told Josh.

"This is why you don't let your kids name your pets," he said.

"That's like if we named one of our cats Heeb. Heeb Banks."

In any case, it's now my intention to take pictures of the garden and finally send them to HGTV to beg for a sprucing. I shall also include photos of my cluttered living room, my falling-apart kitchen and my depressingly drab bedroom for good measure.

After I cleared away all the dry and dead stuff, I sprinkled Preen onto the soil. Preen is a product that looks a bit like bird food that activates your soil in such a way that it prevents weeds from growing but doesn't kill your existing plants. Preen is also much like Happy Fun Ball in that it will kill and/or maim any living thing that comes into contact with it. This product is the furthest thing from organic I think I've ever bought, and that includes Shrinky Dinks. I sprinkled it around my garden, desperate to solve my weed problem, watered it to activate it, and Josh poured some soil over it to protect the critters. I spent two days watching the garden with the hope that no neighborhood wildlife die in my backyard — that Whitey would soon follow his collar, for example — and so far so good. It's now been raining for eight days straight — like Chanukah, but different — and whatever Preen is made of, it appears to be working. After more than a weeklong drenching, I can count three weeds to pull once it dries out. Three. I have joy in my heart for a pesticide. I don't know how to feel about this. It is certainly not in keeping with the fact that I just bought Seventh Generation toilet paper.

In other news, I recently saw a documentary about a New York City sex club that was famous during the growing popularity of the swingers' movement, and I discovered I know a woman who used to go there. This is more unsettling than Whitey, Heeb and having love in my heart for a gardening chemical combined.

Happy Anniversary to Me

2009-04-14T15:57:00.007-04:00

I moved to New York 11 years ago today, so I'm having a moment right now. Please bear with me.

The day I moved to New York, I had two large suitcases, a backpack, and a structured messenger bag for my résumés that turned out to be the biggest piece of shit bag I've ever owned. I did not have a job to go to or an apartment to move into. I had $5,000 and my best friend's couch.

I packed through the night and almost missed my plane, so the goodbyes with my family at the airport terminal curb were brief — an unexpected blessing, as I'm horrible with both goodbyes and change.

On the plane, I wrote very, very, very, very bad poetry because I thought I was supposed to. I was 23. I don't particularly like poetry, and I'm clearly terrible at it. Here are some of the better (read: worse) excerpts from that plane ride, some bits of pathetic verse and random thoughts:

Freckles dotting
Light but heavy
Fingers spotting
Paints

***

Repressing emotions
Testing out lotions
My heart has stopped beating
But my body's in motion

***

Mikhail Baryshnikov's dentist

[This was the only doctor's name I had, an old schoolmate of my dad's.]

***

I'm feeling ornery
Ornate
Oral
12:20 arrival time I can't believe I'm doing this
I hate the change
the stress
the distance
I love my dream
my guff
No certainty
No comfort
No security
No communication

***

Now I have to go do all the things I've been saying I want to do. Oy vey. Can I do it?

***

They say go west
But I'm going east
I'm pretty depressed
The nature of the beast

***

turbulence

***

[thoughts on an unrequited crush I left behind and — thank god — eventually got over]

If I'm never going to get over someone, I at least want to make them feel bad from time to time — I want to feel that, on occasion, say every 11 years or so, I've made them think of what they missed.

***

Stacy was in law school in Brooklyn, living in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights with her now-husband, Mark. She sent me a key and offered me her sofabed for my first 10 days until she had to hunker down undistracted and study for exams. I planned to get off the plane, take a taxi to her apartment, dump my stuff, and head into Manhattan so I could walk around, get my bearings and take the edge off.

When I got to her place, I couldn't open the door. Could not get the key to turn in the knob. After 15 minutes of trying, I sat on my luggage in the stairwell, forlorn, and thought I'd have to wait for her to get home from work several hours later. I couldn't lug around my incredibly heavy bags, I had no idea where I was and, it being 1998, I did not have a cell phone. I was emotional and exhausted and scared and overwhelmed. A neighbor finally walked by and asked if I needed help. I was convinced he'd steal the key and break in because this is New York after all, but I gave it to him. With one click, he opened the door, looked at me like I was a fish, put the key in my palm and went on his way.

I dragged my stuff into Stacy's empty apartment and, save for the rumble of the subway that ran directly underneath her building, took in the quiet. I still remember what I was wearing, this unfortunate ill-fitting shiny sweater that wasn't quite taupe. I sat on the couch, stared straight ahead, and actually said aloud, "What the fuck did I just do?" And instead of getting my bearings and taking the edge off by going for that long-intended walk, I cried in panic for five minutes and then fell asleep for five hours.

When she and Mark came home, they took one look at me, pulled me up and said, "We're going to the bar." They got me nice and tipsy, which is no difficult feat despite the fact I went to Michigan State, but this lightweight appreciated it just the same.

Stacy let me use her computer, and for the next 10 days, I furiously sent out résumés, made phone calls, panicked, went for walks and ate all of her Ben & Jerry's Blackberry Cobbler ice cream. I then moved with my stuff to Manhattan, into my friend Josh's apartment, where he let me house-sit for the next 10 days while he was in Israel. Josh — who will always and forever be referred to as Josh 1, much to the chagrin of my husband, Josh 3 (don't ask about Josh 2) — was my prom date, childhood neighbor and one of the best people I've ever known. While I was crashing at his place, I got my first temp job, and my mom flew out to cosign the apartment where I lived for the next year and a half.

All these people got me started. I came with no promises, but $5,000 and my friends' couches turned out to be more than enough.

I came to New York to work in magazines. Here are some of the things I've done since the night Stacy pulled my freaked-out self off her couch and got me drunk:

* I've worked at three magazines, and my first full-time job was as the assistant to the man who started New York magazine.
* I answered phones for a man named Stanley Licker.
* I got a lap dance from a bikini-wearing drag queen on my 24th birthday.
* I've traveled to, among other destinations, Denmark, Norway, England, New Zealand, Curaçao, Jamaica, Maine, Oregon, and the Louisville Slugger Museum.
* I walked the wrong way down the stairs inside the Statue of Liberty.
* I walked downtown and across the Manhattan Bridge on 9/11 while shocked men and women coated in dust walked uptown, away from the destruction.
* I wound up on June Allyson's speed-dial.
* I met the love of my life online.
* I got married.
* I willingly had cats.
* I kept my head down while I had an allergic reaction to medication on the subway, while other riders looked at me terrified, thinking I was tripping.
* I ice-skated in Central Park and bowled at midnight at Chelsea Piers.
* I saw Brian Dennehy play Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman on Broadway and cried for the next three days, and after seeing Tony Danza perform in The Iceman Cometh, I got him to autograph a rubber duckie I just so happened to have on me.
* I buried three grandparents and three pets.
* I saw the New York Philharmonic perform in Central Park on a perfect summer night.
* I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge on the Fourth of July and watched the fireworks reflected against the windows of the World Trade Center.
* I learned that one of the best feelings is standing in my parents' backyard in Michigan with my feet in the grass.
* I smoked from a hookah on Stacy's balcony while eating her home-baked pumpkin cookies.
* I've read some really brilliant books and I've read some really horrible books.
* I was in a cooking club, a book club, and found my membership folder from when I joined the Corey Hart fan club in 1986.
* I wanted a bunny.
* I let a guy I was dating (Josh 2) feel me up like a high-schooler while we were in a packed movie theater seeing Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.
* I took mambo lessons.

When I came home from work last night — or, more specifically, at 4:35 this morning after being driven home in a car that reeked of smelt until the driver farted, and then it reeked of smelt and farts — I found the most recent issue of New York magazine on the kitchen counter. The theme of the issue is "My First New York": people's tales of moving to this great city that has given us even greater opportunities. On the cover are photos of people who came here and made it big, photos taken the years they arrived. And Jann Wenner is on the cover, a photo of him in 1977. And now I work for the guy who is on the cover of "My First New York," published by the magazine started by the man who gave me my first job here. And I feel it's all come full circle, so now, just like the day I moved here, I'm sitting on the couch crying, but not because I'm scared; I'm crying because I'm proud of myself and so grateful for how things have turned out. I'm aware this whole post sounds like I'm bragging, but maybe I am. I've accomplished a lot, building a life in a place where it's often difficult to do that, and I did it with the assistance, love and support of a lot of wonderful people, and with a force inside myself I never knew I had. I often forget about this, especially when I'm feeling unproductive, so having these moments is necessary and comforting.

It's not to say it hasn't been difficult — these last 11 years have been the most challenging, emotional, testing years, because that's life and growth and change — but it's been worth every second. Every penniless, insecure, angry, support-grouped second. I wouldn't do it any differently.

I sent Josh 3 an e-mail to that effect, and this is what he wrote back:

I am very proud of you too. With the risk of sounding rather ethnocentric, the old cliche "if you can make it here you can make it anywhere" does have a certain validity. Of course its relative (ie i would have no idea what to do in Iowa). But it does take a certain constitution to thrive here (and yes that means you). Even us natives can feel overwhelmed by it all. But those "I love New York" moments you get when walking past the Chrysler (ironic for you, isn't it) or entering Grand Central that very first time (when I think about it-I was probably three-even I get teary) make it all so worthwhile don't they? In a way, I'm kind of envious. Since I grew up here, I've never seen my city through such eyes. I can pinpoint times of wonder of seeing the city for the first time as I grew old enough to form memories. Just thinking of them makes me cry. But I never had that point of reference you have, coming from such a distant background. But then again, I have to admit, the thought of being from somewhere else makes by body spasm. Maybe that's what your wonder is all about.
You should be very proud of yourself.
Happy anniversary.

I'm so lucky.

Overheard in My Living Room

2009-04-11T16:52:00.003-04:00

Josh: [grabbing a handful of M&M's from a Costco-size bag] What do you do when there are no more M&M's left in the bag?
Me: What if there were no more M&M's left in the world?
Josh: Oh god! I would kill myself.
Me: It's really no way to live, no M&M's.
Josh: Yeah.
Me: And, like, who's the fucker who ate the last M&M?
Josh: Let's get him!

Smooth Operator

2009-04-06T14:51:00.003-04:00

On my way into work this morning, I was listening to my iPod and playing Solitaire on it. I was sitting on the end of a row of three seats, and a mother and young boy were on a two-seater next to mine, sort of like an L-shape. Here, let me assist you with high-tech illustrations:

|
B
oM——

LEGEND:
B = boy
o = corner
M = Marla Leslie Garfield, 5'3", brown curly hair, likes long walks on the beach and drive-ins

About two stops into the commute, the kid jumped down from his seat, stuck his face in mine, and said, "Hi!" He was adorable: big brown eyes, long lashes, not annoying-precocious. I said hi, and he immediately started watching my game, pointing to the cards. He's four years old, so I tried to explain in as age-appropriate terms as possible how to play Solitaire: "See? Red then black then red then black. And see the numbers? What comes after six?" That kind of thing. Truth be told, I worry I have no idea how to talk to children; I always feel like I'm missing something, some sense of creativity they need for things to make sense. Babies I can do, children older than 18 months not so much.

As he got more into what was happening on the screen, he grasped my iPod, not trying to take it away but just holding on to it with me so he could concentrate and feel engaged. I was asking him what the numbers and shapes were, but I couldn't really hear his responses over the music and I couldn't turn down the volume because he'd taken control of the panel, so I slipped off my headphones. (And of course, to the surprise of no one, the mom just sat there reading her book. Didn't even ask me if this was OK, her child playing with my expensive piece of technology. Or that he was basically sitting on my lap. She wasn't as indefensible as WPE, probably because the situation wasn't as extreme, but I was just frustrated for him that she didn't show even remote interest in her son's interaction with a total stranger. How would she have handled it if I'd been less friendly and less amenable to her four-year-old futzing with my iPod? I understand she clearly liked having the relief of reading her book and someone else watching her child, but, um, you know what, it's not even worth it.)

So then he started pushing the buttons and spinning the wheel. I was wishing and hoping and thinking and praying he wouldn't break my iPod, but it was OK as long as I had my hands on it. Any time he got too erratic with it, I'd just slow down his fingers and show him how to be careful. (At this point, the mom was fixing her makeup.) I figured it would be good to practice the alphabet, so I clicked on the Artists section and he cruised up and down the list while I asked him what letter we were on (pointing to Janet Jackson: "J!" "What comes after J?" [pointing to The Kinks] "K!"). Sometimes he'd stop on inappropriate artists — I didn't want to have to explain "I Touch Myself" to him — and he seemed to have an affinity for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (which was when I wondered why the hell I have Bone Thugs-N-Harmony on my iPod), but by the time he got off the train, he was playing Sade, so all was cool. DJ Fierce Commute, whuttup.

As they were leaving, the mom did thank me and told me she liked my green costume ring. And as the train was pulling away, I looked up out the window, just zoning out, and the boy had stopped on his way up the station stairs, stuck his head through the railings, and waved furiously at me. Awesome.

I confess I'm not at ease around kids of a certain age — I'm more comfortable with a hormonal 16-year-old than an energetic 6-year-old — so I was proud of myself that I didn't want to tune out this boy or flee the scene. And the whole scene more than made up for the fact that, as my woozy self got ready for work not an hour before, I came thisclose to putting deodorant on my lips. Apparently, I cannot raise my hand, for I am unsure.

When the rain washes you clean, you'll know.

2009-04-03T21:05:00.003-04:00

Wednesday evening, I walked out of the office with Jann Wenner.

Jann Wenner is the chairman of my company. He started Rolling Stone. He's a music-journalism icon and a legend in the field of magazine publishing.

The only thing I could think of to say to him was, "I like your suit."

Ugh. I am finding that, in my adult years, I am becoming so socially awkward.

Here's what happened:

I ran into him as we were both heading to the elevator to go home. We said hello, how are you, very well thank you, very cordial. There's a glass security door you have to go through, and he got to it first so he held the door open for me. Very chivalrous. I said thank you. But here's the thing: My bag was hugely overstuffed, I'm not thin, and I just felt like I was taking up a lot of space, so my pass-through was clunky and graceless and I think I almost smushed him against the door. I took dance lessons for thirteen years, I can balance in a yoga tree pose for ages, but I couldn't navigate my way through a door past a Very Important Person without practically falling over.

Then there was the awkward stand-in-the-elevator-bank-and-wait minute. The minute that felt like an hour. This is what went through my head while I was standing in the elevator bank with Jann Wenner:

Do I introduce myself?
Do I tell him how much I love my job?
His suit is blue.
Do I tell him that the latest issue of Rolling Stone is really good? I haven't read it. He'll know I haven't read it. I can't lie to the CEO of my company. During a recession. I like the cover. Do I tell him I like the cover?
That's a really nice suit.
Where is the elevator?
Maybe someone he knows will come by and I won't be standing here like an asshole.
Do I call him Mr. Wenner?

We headed into the elevator. Two other people were in there with us. I headed for the back right corner, and a woman stood in front of me and basically backed up to about an inch away from my face. Jann was in the middle and then moved back to lean against the wall, right next to me. This is what went through my head while I was standing in the elevator directly next to Jann Wenner, practically with a mouth full of some strange woman's hair:

That's a really nice suit. I like his suit.

The doors opened, we exited the elevator and entered the lobby. This is what went through my head while I was walking through the lobby a few feet from Jann Wenner:

Do I say goodbye?
It's raining. I should ask him if he has an umbrella.
Do I give Jann Wenner my umbrella?
I hope he has an umbrella.
It's ass-kissy to give him my umbrella. But I think I should offer my umbrella. He's wearing that nice suit and everything.
Do I tell him to have a nice evening?
I wonder if he takes a cab or has a driver.
That would be funny if we rode the subway together.
I'm walking too fast. Does it look like I'm fleeing him? I'm going to get fired.
It's raining.

I spent the next ten minutes running the whole scene through my head over and over again, picking apart moments that could in any way get me fired. I really love my job. I should have told him that. I said nothing to him apart from "thank you" about 35 times. Once I was on the subway en route to my pity party, I was convinced I'd performed at least 10 business faux pas and required job retraining. Ultimately, I didn't know the answer to the big question: Do you talk to The Boss or not? I couldn't think of anything of value to say, so I said nothing. Saying nothing when you're intimidated is better than saying something stupid, right?

And then yesterday, while I was telling my boss about it, he looked up and pointed. And across the office was Jann with a group of people. In that group of people was a blonde woman, middle-aged, with shoulder-length hair. She suddenly smiled at the office, made a big, grand wave, and yelled to all of us, "Bye!" We all waved back, and as one of my coworkers walked past, I said, "Who is that?"

"Stevie Nicks," he said.

Of course. Of course I waved to Stevie Nicks and had no idea I was waving to Stevie Nicks because I couldn't see far enough to tell it was her. Stevie Nicks, who is so mind-bendingly cool that she acknowledged our entire office with one unexpected "bye!" Freakin' Stevie Nicks.

And of course then I froze, and the only song I could think of that had anything to do with Stevie Nicks was "Hold Me," and she didn't even sing lead on it. Christine McVie did. And "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" is one of my favorite songs, but I totally forgot about that one. If I happened to meet Stevie Nicks, I'd say, "I love 'Hold Me'!" and look like an idiot.

This is why I shouldn't talk to celebrities. And why it was good I didn't say anything to Jann Wenner. Because no matter who I've met (Duran Duran!), who I've interviewed (Susan Sarandon!), who I've been shitty to (Ann Coulter!), who I've worked with (Milton Glaser!), when I'm really intimidated, I freeze. And I never know that I'm really intimidated until I've made a total heel of myself. I forget that I'm a relatively smart, aware, pop-culturally-well-versed individual, and instead I become her.

(For the record, I'm not a total lost cause around The Famous and The Intimidating. One recent exception of The Famous was Christopher Atkins, with whom I openly flirted over the nuances of grammar. Long story. A not-so-recent example of The Intimidating? This is how the conversation went with my former editor-in-chief — a woman with whom I was never, ever confident in conversation, no matter how hard I tried — when I gave notice at my former magazine-of-employment:

Me: So, I'm here because I'm leaving.
Her: Oh, really?
Me: Yes. I'm going to Us.
Her: [shocked I would get another job] Oh?
Me: Yeah, so, this was a great experience! Thanks!
Her: [looking down at a container on her desk] Want a blueberry?
Me: No thanks.)

Anyway, babbling. All of this doesn't apply only to well-known luminaries or persons authorized to authoritate me. I was just invited to a girls' weekend at a friend's country home in May. It sounds like ridiculous fun and I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also nervous as hell. Lately I feel totally off my game conversationally and, even though I feel great when I'm with these women, I don't see them frequently, and I'm hesitant. What will I talk about? Will I say anything stupid? Will they even care about what I'm saying? I shouldn't speak. I just shouldn't speak at all.

Once again, I think all of this is because it's spring. I'm never as needlessly rattled as when nature fucks with me every April. I think it's pretty much consensus, particularly this year, that the transition from an unbelievably long winter into whatever this pseudo-thaw is supposed to be has been uncommonly difficult on the human equilibrium. I've felt off since January, actually, but everybody I talk to has mentioned how this season hath wrought the following for them:

depression
ravenous hunger
complete lack of appetite
total disinterest in and inability to exercise
dry skin
Brillo hair
sudden urges to cry
botched memory
debilitating exhaustion
sleepless anxiety
generalized bloating

Want me to go on?

Is this you too?

Because I think I'm experiencing all of these things at once, if that's even possible. Damn you, environment! Screw you, recession! Why do you make me feel like I'm going through puberty all over again?!? Was it not traumatic enough the first time?!? Gah! Feh! Bleh.

So my confidence has been rocked because I'm putty, and I know it's reflecting in how I move, how I speak, how I write, how I sleep, how I make my decisions, how much I mull over my decisions to the annoyed dismay of many. This drives me insane because I know better. I should know better than to panic since this happens to me every. freakin'. year, though I always forget. I know how I want to feel, and I know how to feel that way. At this point in my life, I know what to do for my mental and physical health and well-being. I know there's no point in me obsessing over all this the way I have been because I'm not that socially awkward, I'm not that crap at conversation, I'm not the train wreck I write myself to be here. I'm just, as My People like to say, fermished. So this is horseshit. I should be able to walk up to Stevie Nicks, tell her I love her haircut, and sing the Tom Petty part of "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" while she sings her part and we become BFF because she'll be really impressed with my excellent Tom Petty impression — something that, if you're lucky and if we get to know each other a little better, I'll do for you.

The good news is, things are looking up, by virtue of blooming crocuses and daffodils, and with the weather — and the goings-on in me noggin — stabilizing. And also this: This post is about an actual topic, rather than about a) how I can't think of what to write, or b) random pictures of people dressed as pandas. La victoire! C'est une pamplemousse!

Here, this is funny, courtesy of Stephanie.

I wanted to be with you alone and talk about the weather.

2009-03-02T14:11:00.003-05:00

We got seven inches of snow last night. There are several things I love about New York City snowstorms, not the least of which is the mere fact that they happen at all. Snow rarely sticks in this city because of the heat off the buildings and from the subway, and global warming in general, and I love snow, so I'm grateful for any hefty dumping that doesn't melt on contact. And then there's the untainted beauty of a pure snowfall on a brownstone before the plows come and grey it all up. And the more active folk cross-country ski down the street because fewer cars are out when the roads are slippery. And all the families in my brownstone have their fireplaces going and the building smells warm with burning wood. And all the TV networks have their screaming WINTER! STORM! 2009!!!!!!! Graphics of Doom, but the lovely NY1 just has some fluffy snowflakes floating around on their background because they know there's no need to panic.

But what I love most about snowstorms is when they happen at night. And last night's was spectacular. Please bear with my extemporaneous rhapsodizing.

One of the reasons why I love living in Brooklyn so much is that it gets dark at night. In Manhattan, the lights are so bright that even when there are fewer on, the sky still glows. It never gets completely dark. Brooklyn gets dark, but when it snows at night in my borough, the combination of cloud cover, the reflection of the whiteness on the ground, the lights across the river in Manhattan and the glow of the lights in downtown Brooklyn combine to render the sky light grey, like an aura, and the space around you is almost silver. Last night, the cloud cover must have been so thick that the mirroring of the city's lights off of it turned the sky orange. It was such a strange color that when I went to bed, I thought the yellow-orange hue in my backyard was from a neighbor's outdoor light. The entire backyard glowed tangerine, kind of a sunset after dark. It was practically postapocalyptic. And snowstorms at night are so quiet. Manhattan never gets that quiet. When it snows in Brooklyn, you can hear a pin drop. In the snow. Ba dum bum.

Now, I'm just spitballin' here. For all I know, the glowing and orange and aura and silver could be caused by some environment-damaging, skin-burning, people-eliminating cousin of the many things destroying our planet. And that would be horrible. But it sure is pretty.

Oddnesses, Wonkiness, Weirdosities and Observationisms

2009-02-27T11:34:00.032-05:00

1. Taped to a street sign in my neighborhood.

2. Just your basic panda sitting next to a tip jar in the middle of the Financial District.

3. Driving to Boston two weeks ago to visit The Nephew, I discovered that I am apparently Lite FM's biggest fan. You may not have heard, but there's bupkes on the radio. In the past, I only ever listened to the radio when I was in my car, and since I haven't had a car since 1998, well, you could say I'm rather out of touch with what the kids listen to these days. Songs trickle into my consciousness at work, but even then it's useless because I still can't tell the difference between the two Jonas brothers who don't look like the other one. No worries, though, because every time I do get into a car, it's the exact same music the freakin' stations were playing in 1998. Bush? Really? "Under the Bridge"? I mean, "Just Like Heaven" is one of my favorite songs, but to hear it twice in a 45-minute drive? Is there really nothing else?

So.

So Josh and I were driving to Boston, and in between airings of "Single Ladies," which, admittedly, is from this decade, we just kept our fingers on the Scan button. And then I came across REO Speedwagon's "Roll With the Changes." And I was rendered joyous.

Josh: What the hell is this?
Me: Come on! You know this! So if you're tired of the saaaaaame old sto-rayyyyyyy ...
Josh: Can I look for something else?
Me: NO! I can't believe you don't love this! Ohhhhhh, turn some page-ay-yesssss ...
Josh: Please stop what you are doing.

My happiness only strengthened — a crescendo, if you will — with Barry Manilow's "Weekends in New England." (Let it be known this is the second mention of this song on this here blog.)

Josh: Marla. [Note: He never calls me Marla.]
Me: But it's a theme! We're going to New England! For the weekend!

Then, "Hard for Me to Say I'm Sorry" by Chicago.

Josh: Ugh.
Me: Don't even do that. You love this song.
Josh: Actually, I do. I do love this song.

But it came to a head when "Always" by Atlantic Starr came on: Despite not having heard it since my bat mitzvah in 1987, I knew every single word. Upon fading out with the last "Ooooooooooh, ooooooooooooh, I will love you so for alllllllwayyyyyyyyssss ..." I said, "Hm. It's so obvious that I never drive. My voice isn't strong at all. I should be able to sing this song." (I can't sing. I only ever sang when I drove, so, granted, I'm out of practice, but still, singing in cars clearly makes me delusional. Let it also be said that the only song I can sing on key is "Do That to Me One More Time" by Captain & Tenille.) Josh harumphed. And then "Something to Talk About" by Bonnie Raitt came on.

Me: Yay! It's Bonnie!
Josh: Turn. It. Off.
Me: But it's Bonnie!
Josh: NO.
Me: But —
Josh: Enough. I'd rather hear "Single Ladies" again.
Me: [forlorn, quiet] Bonnie ...
Josh: We're done now. Change the channel.

There were many things happening here. 1) Josh, former goth and club kid, can only absorb so much Atlantic Starr. 2) I was singing. This is never good. 3) My glee was such that drivers in other cars were staring. On the interstate, where nobody looks into other people's cars. 4) I was completely taken aback by the intensity of my glee. Perhaps it was because I was just happy to hear something other than "Black Hole Sun" for once, but these songs are really good, dammit. They are my youth. They are the songs that played while I slow-danced with my unrequited crushes at middle-school dances and bar mitzvahs. (And then when the songs were over, I'd sit in a corner of the gym with my friends and cry.) I apologize for nothing. Lite FM? I'm forever yours. Faithfully.

4. While we were in Boston, we stopped by Rodney's Bookstore in Central Square. Josh had heard of it, and it was right near a record store he wanted to check out that had just opened. (Opening a record store? Now? In this economic climate? We give it six months, tops.) Rodney's is the best-looking used bookstore with the worst selection. Now, I admit that my preference in any bookstore is for the fiction section (shocker), so I can't fully gauge the quality of some other sections; considering that, it may have been the greatest bookstore in the history of the world. It certainly looked good — warm tones, homey, not dusty or claustrophobic, nonjudgmental staff. But the fiction section was weak, weak, weak, the prices weren't that great, and being mere blocks from Harvard University, it's alarming that there were, like, three copies of The Life of Pi (which, in my humble opinion, was simply horrendous in every way) and not a trace of Virginia Woolf. Anyway.

What Rodney's Bookstore did have was fun sections. Rodney's Bookstore's strength was in its sheer variety of sections.

Also, at Rodney's Bookstore, I learned that I am not seductive.

5. This is what happens when a baby falls asleep with a pacifier in his mouth and then the pacifier falls out.

6. In my dermatologist's office, there is a copy of Healthy Aging magazine. This month's issue features a cover model who is positioned just so over the title print, making it appear to be this month's edition of Heal Agina. It made me giggle. Hee. Heal a 'gina. This magazine should be in my gynecologist's office.

7. Walking through Union Square the other night to meet a friend for dinner, I passed a man wearing a business suit that was only just thismuch too big, he was carrying a briefcase, he had a sensible haircut, and head to toe he was painted silver. The paint was wearing off, it had a sort of pewter patina to it, and he appeared to be in a bit of a hurry, probably rushing home to take a shower. The Rushy Silver Fella looked like any other person who had had a long day at the office, who was a little harried and eager to schlub on the couch with some wings and a beer. Except he was, you know, silver. And he was not the usual Times Square Silver Guy. It was more like he'd had an unfairly bad review at work and instead of getting a lame raise, his boss poured a can of paint over his head.

8. While waiting for a train last week, I walked past a guy who looked exactly like Adnan Ghalib, except his hair was a debonair pee blond. The first thing I thought of was, "Dude, I know the police are looking for you and everything, but you need a better disguise than just dying your hair. Start by shaving that damn drool strip off your chin." A few days later, I did a double-take as I walked past a guy who was the spitting image of Justin Timberlake. I am now on a quest to find a Kevin Federline look-alike, and then Britney Spears's doppelgänger, and then I'll have covered an entire not-exactly-love-life.

9. Any time I've gotten into a reality show for the first time, it's always been when I catch the last two or three episodes of a season. I started watching America's Next Top Model with two episodes left in the first season (and I totally called Adrienne's win, thereby proving my worth as an analytical wünderkind), and the same for Project Runway. Last week I started watching Top Chef. Now I have — how many? four? — seasons to get into. See? I'm such a nonfan I don't even know how long it's been on the air. Anyway. Carla should have won, even though it's a given that soufflés never work in a high-stress environment. I don't cook and I know that. (To that end, I am now officially an armchair model, photographer, fashion designer and chef. So creative! So versatile! What profession will I ever pursue next?)

10. Look who came to the office.

One degree, people.

[I can't even think of a title. Useless.]

2009-01-26T12:15:00.008-05:00

I am staring at this blank page. Which is no longer blank because I wrote this sentence.

It's still not encouraging.

This writer's block is killing me. For the past two months, I haven't been able to think of a single thing to write that might interest you. Probably because I've almost forgotten what interests me. I keep thinking, Do something fabulous! Quick! Go to a park and see something hilarious or quirky or drunk so you can write about it and stop boring people! But the good news is, I think I've hit the tail end of my end-of-year blargh, which basically consists of 2 parts frantic work schedule + 1 part sleeplessness x 5 parts not exercising / 8 parts bloating = 1 woman loafing on the couch — except for when she's at work — and not expanding her horizons. Hopefully now that things have normalized, my schedule has regulated, all weddings and babies of the moment are born and celebrated, that's a thing of the past and I can stop using pictures of Crocs superstores as blog-filler. But for now, I regale you with these tales of nothingness:

1. Last Wednesday, I walked 30 blocks, from a doctor appointment to work. This seemed like a very good idea, as I usually walk to work after doctor appointments because then I can pretend that I'm healthy and didn't just get weighed. (And I understand 30 blocks seems far, but you'd be surprised how frequently I do this. New York is very much a pedestrian’s city, and I can often walk that far without even noticing.) I was wearing my pedometer, so it was immensely satisfying to watch numbers go up, up, up. But here's the thing: It was 18 degrees outside. And windy. By the time I got to 25th Street, I couldn't feel my fingertips (wearing fingerless gloves, holding a very large, hot coffee), and by 32nd Street I couldn't feel my entire face. I ran into my office building and headed straight to the bathroom so I could look in the mirror to make sure I still had lips.

2. Not surprisingly, I watched and was thrilled by Barack Obama's inauguration. However, I was less thrilled by the fact that I discovered I’m kind of an idiot.

I don’t work on Tuesdays so I was supposed to be home alone during the ceremony, and the only scheduled blip in the day was a visit from the plumber to fix our radiators. I was kind of bummed, because I think the inauguration — this inauguration — is the kind of event you want to watch with people. (If I’d bothered to watch George Bush’s inauguration, I’m sure I would have done it alone in the dark, under my bed, weeping into ice cream.) As luck would have it, the plumber showed up at 11:30 a.m., so we watched the swearing-in together. He worked through most of the opening rigamarole and Aretha’s hat (as far as I’m concerned, she’s the Queen and she can wear a feral cat on her head if she wants to) while I took pictures of my TV and jumped around the living room. And then we watched the swearing-in together and talked, not so much about our own political beliefs — he was pretty clear about not wanting to go there — but more about the campaign that Obama ran and what we hope he’ll do, knowing he’s going to fuck up but also knowing that he’ll do a lot of good. It was great. Exactly how I wanted to experience this giant, giant moment.

Here’s the thing: My plumber is African-American. And as a black man who goes into dozens of homes every day, he probably has dozens of people who are not black looking at him while he works and wondering, What is this historical moment like for him? Inasmuch as when a Jewish person finally gets elected president (Mike Bloomberg? Carl Levin? Winona Ryder?) people will be looking at me and wondering what it’s like for a Jew. Or a woman, when that happens. But I confess: I wanted to know too. Because for me, the inauguration was one of the most moving, exciting, monumental things I’d ever seen, but I will never be able to truly, fully experience the cultural significance of the first African-American president the way an African-American person can. It’s not my experience or my history, and it would be wrong for me to attempt to adopt it simply because I’m American. So I kept thinking, Don’t ask him, don’t ask him, don’t ask him … Because he very obviously just wanted to be at my house to do his job, and then leave to do his job somewhere else because it was no degrees outside and everyone’s radiators were kaput and he was busy and had many, many appointments to keep. And just because he’s black didn’t mean he wanted to talk about what it was like to be black, and it certainly didn’t mean that being black automatically invites stupid questions, even though I understand that being Jewish certainly invites stupid comments from people. (How many times have I heard, “You’re Jewish? But your nose is small!” [True, but my heaving bosom is right off the shtetl.] And, “Why don’t you go to church on Christmas? It’s a national holiday!”) Really, it just seemed like he wanted to watch the swearing-in and then go about his day, doing his work that he’s very good at. He was all business. Ultimately, what was he going to say? “Eh, a black man is president? It’s OK.” ??? Come on.

But because I’m an idiot, I asked anyway.

“Did you ever think you would see this?”

He smiled. “I thought it would happen eventually, but not in my lifetime. Not yet.” He said he thought this changes everything in terms of country leadership, and he’s certain the next president, regardless of race or party affiliation, will be a woman. He humored me, then showed me how the radiators work (down to the distribution of steam and how it passes through the home and oh my gosh I do not understand these things), and went off to his next appointment.

I hope I didn’t ruin the moment for him by putting him on the spot. And I imagine that when Shmuel Ishkabibble or Zac Efron or whichever Jew is the first to be sworn into the presidency, karma will rear its head and someone will say to me, “So! The Jews control the media and the banks, and now the government! My, you Heebs are a resourceful peoples! How does this make you feel?!?” And I’ll have deserved that.

3. Yesterday, Josh and I had this conversation:

Josh: So, I’ve been thinking.
Me: Uh-oh.
Josh: You were supposed to say, “I smell wood burning.”
Me: I will not succumb to cliché!
Josh: But that's my thing!
Me: Cliché is your thing?
Josh: Yes.
Me: How did I marry you?
Josh: Say it.
Me: You can’t make me do it.

4. Also yesterday, I found this very ugly word in the dictionary that describes something (potentially) pretty:

fard: vt to paint the face with cosmetics

5. My cat Tallulah eats from her food bowl with her paw. She doesn't dive in with her face; she scoops it out with her fingertips. Very dainty. The other night, I had a dream that she was eating with a fork.

6. OK, I’m out of material. I’m taking suggestions. You want me to write about [insert topic here because I can’t think of a damn thing]? Let me know. My creative juices have clearly fermented.

Trankilo.

2009-01-01T20:58:00.005-05:00

This post took me 10 days to write. So while it wasn't supposed to be a New Year's post, screw it. Happy New Year, everyone. I've already broken, like, five resolutions. Sweet.

If you hate listening to rambling stories about people's vacations and you can't bear the thought of faking interest while they force their photos on you, please stop reading this now. I understand. Because this is that kind of post. Annoying ... but colorful!

Moving on.

This is how Josh and I ended up in Curaçao:

You may remember this rant. By June, I was pretty much going berserk. Stress stress blah blah blah stress money stress life blah. Josh and I were on the subway, I'm sure I was all cracky-wild-eyed, and I said, "I have to get out of here. I have to get out of this environment, I have to sit on a beach. I know you're not a beach guy. I'll go alone if I have to. I have to go. I have to leave the country."

"No," he said, "I'll go with you." Twist his arm.

You wouldn't believe how hard it was for us to justify this trip to ourselves. How dare we do something for ourselves with our hard-earned money and energy! Here's the thing: We're Jewish. It's written in the Torah that you pack two suitcases for every trip. One suitcase is filled with climate-appropriate clothing options, extra underwear should there be an emergency, and multiple bottles of sunscreen so you shouldn't get [whisper] The Cancer [/whisper]. The other suitcase — the much bigger one, the one with no weight restrictions — is filled with travel guilt, the voice that tells you you should be spending your time and money visiting your relatives and studying. (It doesn't matter if you don't have anything to study for; just study.)

We left that suitcase at home. Bad Jews.

The two most frequently asked questions we heard were: Why did you pick Curaçao? And where the hell is it? OK:

Curaçao seemed like an excellent beach destination for someone who isn't a beach person. Josh likes flying to faraway cities and going going going; that's a vacation to him. I love doing that too, but I just wanted to completely decompress and be as far out of my element as possible. I need shlub-on-the-sand vacations too. Curaçao has beaches and is tropical and is a whole Caribbean culture, but there are also tons of museums and historical points of interest, it has a city, and being part of the Netherlands Antilles, it has rich European flavor. Flav. The perfect compromise. I found a super-cheap five-night deal that included hotel and air, and we booked it way back in June before we even knew if we could go.

My only goal for this whole trip was to do everything different than how I usually go about my life. I wanted to eat different foods and meet different people, do different activities and feel totally different.

Here are the basics about Curaçao:

* It's the largest island of the five islands that make up the Netherlands Antilles. Its capital (and the capital of the group of islands as well) is Willemstad.
* It's located about 35 to 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela, near Aruba. We were all, "Let's go to Venezuela! We're so close!" Our travel agent reached across her desk and, in an impassioned tone I've never quite heard before, said, "I beg of you. Do not go to Venezuela. It's not even about Chavez. Just don't go." That put the kibosh on our dreams of South America. Tra la.
* In the 1600s, Peter Stuyvesant came over when the Dutch West Indies Company claimed the island from the Arawaks, and he became governor. He later left and headed to New Amsterdam and became governor of what later became New York City.
* The currency is the guilder, also called the florin, but everybody wants American dollars because the value is stronger. The exchange rate is fixed. We were so excited to use guilders and nobody would take them. Tra la.
* The national language is Papiamentu, which everybody who lives on the island speaks fluently in addition to English, Spanish and Dutch. I felt like a tool with my fancy "I speak English and basic high-school French. Ooh là là!"
* The island gets 22 inches of rain a year.

NoraBanks helped us do laundry while we were packing.

She was extremely efficient in her dryer-protection duties.

We stayed at the Kura Hulanda. This place is amazing. It was built by a Dutch gazillionaire named Jacob Gelt Dekker, who made his fortune from various entrepreneurial endeavors, including one-hour photo shops. He went to Curaçao to visit friends, fell in love with it, and bought a mansion in a section of Willemstad called Otrabanda. (Willemstad is divided in two by a harbor; the side where most of the historical sights and shopping are is called Punda, and Otrabanda is a bit more run-down but is slowly being refurbished.) He ended up buying an eight-block section of the neighborhood, restored the houses to highlight their original Dutch architecture, and turned it into a hotel that is now UNESCO-protected. I hate calling it a hotel because it was a neighborhood: There were stores and restaurants and a fabulous museum (more on that later), and the guest rooms are in these old homes. All the rooms had handcrafted mahogany and teak furniture and deep marble tubs. It was insane. The property had this lovely smell and motion-activated recordings of birds singing everywhere you went, although it somehow wasn't Disney-cheesy. I've never seen anything like it.

The Kura Hulanda has two properties. We stayed at the Spa and Casino location because it was in the heart of Willemstad, but there's also a more luxurious Lodge and Resort that's about a half hour away on a beach on the west coast of the island.

This is the building where the reception desk is.

There were pottery and artwork and statues everywhere.

Our room was in this building.

We arrived late our first night, so we ate dinner at an open-air restaurant within the hotel's grounds. I ate banana soup and spent an hour watching a giant snail scoot up the wall next to our table. Its progress? About half an inch.

Our first full day, we rented a car and drove out to the Lodge to go snorkeling.

Bon bini is Papiamentu for welcome.

We weren't sure what to expect in terms of the topography of the place. With only 22 inches of rain a year, we expected dry. Like, tumbleweed-dry. But there were lots of the region's evergreen trees, cacti dotting the hillsides, and aloe plants. We were there during the rainy season (which is all relative); it was cloudy and it would rain for five minutes at a pop, but mostly it was just humid. And it was an odd kind of humid: My hair didn't frizz. I went five days without using any curl-control product (a Jewish miracle!) and my skin was luminous and not rosacea-enflamed at all despite the sun. Curaçao is a magical place.

Also, we had to slow down while we were driving to let a rooster cross the road. As my sister Lauren says, "There's a joke in there somewhere."

The beach at the Lodge

One of many, many lizards we saw scooting around the island

We took a boat to the snorkel sites. Because Curaçao was underwater all those thousands of years ago, much of the land is coral.

The west coast of the island is dotted with all these little peaceful beaches, some with white sand, some with black. (Click on the photo if you want a better glimpse of the beach. Those thatch umbrellas kill me.)

We snorkeled in two sites. One was called the Blue Room: It's a cave with no light source but the sand on the sea floor is white, so when the sunlight from outside reflects on it, it filters into the cave and the entire space glows turquoise. The second site was a shipwreck. There weren't a lot of fish at either site, but the color of the water was unreal.

After snorkeling, we spent about an hour on the beach at the Lodge. It was ridiculous. I sprawled out on a lounge chair while Josh fed me Dutch chocolates and read maps while the sun was setting. You would have barfed. We only had an hour to spend on the beach, but I was so chilled out I don't feel like I lost anything.

The beach itself is part sand, part rock, and part coral. Walking along the shore, you think you're kicking small stones forward, but what you're seeing is tiny beach crabs darting in and out of the ground.

Everybody we talked to told us to go to a restaurant called Jaanchie's, which happened to be only a few blocks from the Lodge. It's the most popular restaurant on the island, apparently, so we expected to wait for a table, but when we walked in we were the only customers there. It was 5:30 p.m. Things happen early on Curaçao: Lunch is the big meal, the streets are empty by 7:30 or 8 p.m., and as far as nightlife, we heard it's thriving but you have to seek it out and you need a car to find it.

Empty shmempty: Jaanchie's was an experience. The structure has open walls that are surrounded by lush gardens. Bird-feeders hang from the trees

so all you hear while you're eating is sweet tweeting and you can watch birds alight from feeder to feeder. Service on Curaçao is super-slow — they're insulted if you're in a hurry, and I think they find it rude to just bring a check to your table because they want you to relax — but the second we sat down, the waitress brought us a can of bug spray. "For people with sweet blood like yours," she said. Not long after, the chef came to our table, pulled up a chair and told us what he made that day: "I make it perfect for you!" There are no menus at Jaanchie's; just the chef. Josh had grouper, I ordered wahoo (a fish that's meatier than grouper but not as steak-y as tuna), and we shared iguana stew. Iguana tastes a bit like chicken (tastes like frogs' legs!), and you eat it with your fingers. Small bones. Tomato-based sauce.

After dinner, the chef brought us over to another table, this one surrounded by rocking chairs. He brought over two Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches drizzled with raspberry sauce and invited us to take our time, rock for a while, and when we finally said goodnight, he gave me a toy bird as we left. "Tell your friends about us," he said. Voilà. Told.

The next morning we headed to the Hato Caves, which served as shelter for the Arawak Indians and later as a hiding place for slaves, as Curaçao was an active hub of the slave trade. They were spectacular, and as we walked through, we could see the occasional bat flying around. There were four other people on our tour, all from Holland, and our tour guide seamlessly switched between English and Dutch as if she were speaking one language. At one point, she made a kissing sound, and all the bats hanging from the ceiling fluttered at once, then went back to sleep.

Outside of the caves is a trail where you can see Indian paintings on the sides of rocks. It had just rained, and apparently the only thing I found were mosquitoes. Unexpected mosquitoes. Ravenous mosquitoes. My legs look awesome.

Driving back to the city, Josh and I passed some amazing-looking markets, and we realized we had not done the most important thing a person can do while on vacation in another country:

Explore the snack food.

So we went here.

They had an excellent variety of marshmallows.

We bought a bag of green apple–flavored ones in the shape of what was supposed to be apples but really looked like smooshed butts.

We bought them because the flavor appealed to us, naturally, but also for Mr. Mallow.

Rhymes.

This soda has no discernible flavor other than "martian."

Of course we had to buy it. We also bought Chubby soda in blueberry and cola flavors. It tasted exactly the way you think it would.

We headed to the Curaçao Seaquarium. Here's the thing: I never, never go to zoos and aquariums. They're depressing and unnatural and confining and wrong. I read all these things about how the Curaçao Seaquarium was fabulous because it's built on lagoons that house the fish and animals so their aquatic environment is more natural to them. That's all well and good, but I wasn't biting. And then I read that visitors can sign up to scuba-dive down into a tank that has a Plexiglas wall with a hole in it, through which one can hand-feed sharks. Frankly, I was all over that shit. When would I ever be able to do that again? So I signed up.

It turned out, they were cleaning the wall and the shark feed was closed for the week. They offered me the opportunity to swim with sea lions, so I took it.

A dolphin show was going on when we got there. Beautiful, but sad for all the reasons why I find trained animals sad.

As it turned out, I was the only one signed up for the sea lion swim. It turned into a private lesson of what sea lions are and how they look in their own (well, limited in this sense) environment. They had me sit on a bench and brought out a female, showing me how she uses her flippers and the distinctions between seals and sea lions (sea lions have hair and outer ears, they can "walk," and they propel themselves over ground and in water using different fins than seals do). Then they told me to put my left hand on my leg, ball my right hand into a fist, and put my feet up on the rung under my seat. The sea lion walked over to me and nuzzled my hand for a few minutes, rubbing her mouth and whiskers over my knuckle and breathing onto my fingers while she let me pet her. I was smitten.

Afterward, they took some pictures of her kissing my cheek. It really was lovely — she was so sweet — but she was trained, and I looked at her and just wanted to set her free and, like, dump a can of paint on myself or something. The sea lions are all adored there and well taken care of, and they responded affectionately to all the trainers, but it was uncomfortable. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life, but also one of the most uncomfortable.

Then I put on my snorkel and got in the water with two other lions and a trainer named Jonathan. Oh my god. For all their awkwardness walking on land, sea lions are graceful and swift in the water. I pretty much just floated in one place because there was no point trying to catch up with them, they were so fast. They inevitably searched me out and swam around me — from a safe distance, there was no contact — so I just had to wait for them. Most of the times when the trainers told me where they were, they were gone already. But when I caught a glimpse, whoo boy. So pretty. At one point, they both crisscrossed each other directly below me, checking out the chick in their turf.

Feast your eyes on the only picture you'll ever see of me on this blog wearing a bathing suit. Also, a snorkel. Attractive.

Toward the end of my swim, I saw the main trainer whispering something to Josh and then calling out to Jonathan, who said, "Follow me," and swam over to the fence dividing the sea lion lagoon from the one next to it. We swam down a little deeper and I looked in front of me — at four our five large sharks just hanging out about two feet away from me. So I got my sharks. Ultimately, the whole experience was unsettling because to my idealistic mind, these animals should not be living in captivity and I never should have the opportunity to do such things, but it was unique and special and touching. I'm glad I did it.

On our drive back to Otrabanda, we got a bit lost, which is always awesome when you're on vacation. We got such a better feel for the island that way. And we landed on one of the main sights we wanted to catch before we left: Beit Chaim cemetery.

During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews fled Spain to Portugal and then Holland. They made their way to Curaçao to help cultivate the island with the Dutch. Beit Chaim cemetery is a result of that settlement and is now the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Western Hemisphere, dating back to the 1600s.

Sadly, one of the other major contributors to the growth of Curaçao, Shell Oil, built a refinery near the cemetery. It is no longer owned by Shell but it has grown so much that it now butts against the cemetery. The fumes have left the headstones unreadable, and it was impossible to ignore that without a readable name on their stones, the last form of these peoples' identity is gone. We met a tour guide a few days later who told us she has to warn her clients before going to the cemetery, to prepare them for how disturbing and sad it is.

In the Jewish tradition, it's customary for visitors to a person's grave to leave a rock or pebble on the headstone as a sign of respect, and to mark that the deceased was remembered. Despite this sign's instruction and good intention

we left a small one anyway. It seemed disrespectful not to, especially considering the condition of the plots. And apparently we weren't the only ones who felt that way.

The next morning we headed to the Hilton where Josh saw an iguana cross the driveway and we hopped a bus to catch a submarine.

We were driven to a marina about a mile or two away, where we boarded a boat that took us slightly out to sea. We all went down below, and the entire submerged section of the boat was walled with windows so you could see the coral and marine life under the surface. At one point, a scuba diver jumped into the water to feed the fish, which swarmed outside the boat. Touristy, but fabulous. I think the average age of passenger on that boat was 70.

Enjoy the porny music and my enthusiastic declaration of "I'm taping this whole thing!" that would have been true if my memory card hadn't filled up at that exact second and, um, I didn't get the whole thing.

We finally spent the afternoon exploring Willemstad.

Here's what we did not see:

* a bookstore
* a coffee shop

But we also did not see:

* a single Starbucks

Here's what we did see:

* a bar called Sopranos that uses the show's logo and cast posters to decorate the place
* a restaurant called GoodFellas

But we also saw:

* this bridge

Here's what's cool about the Queen Emma Bridge: It's kind of the perfect bridge because it can't sink, and that's excellent for people like my sister Stephanie who turn green every time they cross a bridge. See, it floats on pontoons, which act basically as boats. And it's a footbridge, so you sort of bob along as you walk across.

But even cooler is that this bridge is at the mouth of a harbor that sees hundreds of small boats and cruise ships pass every week, but it cannot rise like a drawbridge. So it detaches from the Punda side and swings out to rest flush against the Otrabanda bank, leaving the entire harbor open for business. In its place when it's parked on Otrabanda, two ferries transport pedestrians from side to side.

Here's what it looks like flush against Otrabanda:

Punda

The second we crossed the bridge to Punda, we headed straight for the Old Market. It's a partially open structure filled with picnic tables, and along one long wall there are stations of local foods, like the most bare-bones food court. It's where the office workers go to eat, a very "when in Rome" thing to do.

The chef at the station we picked was wearing an Obama T-shirt. A local guy standing in line behind us translated the Papiamentu menu for us. Another local recommended out-of-the-way places for us to visit. There weren't a lot of tourists at the Old Market, so all the residents were curious about us and so kind, recommending things we'd like and asking us questions. So nice.

To top it off, the food was outrageous. Probably the best meal we ate in Curaçao. We ate chicken stew, rice and beans, and mashed potatoes with spinach mixed in. MASSIVE portions. And drinks. For about $7 per person.

Next to the Old Market is the Floating Market. Every day, merchants from Venezuela sail over to Curaçao and sell fruit, vegetables, fish and spices right out of their boats, which float in the inlet right behind their displays. Ridiculously picturesque.

Does anybody know what this is? I'm at a loss.

I bought a banana. It was the biggest banana I'd ever seen. (Dirty!) I ate about a quarter of it before getting full.

This was my favorite display: dulce de leche, eyeglasses, and a drawing of Jesus and Mary. All spiritual avenues covered.

Ginormous avocado. Also: Ginormous Avocado is an awesome name for a band.

Cinnamon sticks

And then we explored the city. We saw multicolored lizards ...

... and this.

The shopping was decent if you were looking for a good deal on Dutch linens, Delft pottery, or fine jewelry, but as far as the clothes, the options veered toward hooch. And the mannequins had implants. Not that implants are necessarily hooch. Who am I to judge the size of someone else's boobs. You know what? You know what I mean.

The next day, we finally made it to the Mikvé Israel-Emanuel Synagogue.

It's the oldest continuously running synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, dating back to the 1600s. And it's in Curaçao. So random! There is still an active Jewish community in Curaçao, and services are still held every week. Who knew?

It's a Sephardic shul, modeled after the temple in Portugal. (Sephardic Jews trace back to Spain and Portugal; Ashkenazic Jews are from Eastern Europe and Russia. I'm Ashkenazic.) I have a complicated relationship with religion, but one of the things I love about Judaism — which I assume is true of most religions — is that no matter where you go in the world, there are certain elements that are universal: the layouts of Sephardic vs. Ashkenazic synagogues, the food, the "oy vey!" Yiddishisms. The inside of the sanctuary looked pretty much like most Sephardic shuls I've seen, save for the floor: It's covered in sand. The congregation was founded by Jews who had endured religious persecution, many of them descended from refugees of the Spanish Inquisition or fled it themselves, and they covered the floor with sand to muffle the sounds of their footsteps and the sounds of assembling to pray.

Yarmulkes. Or, as Jon Stewart referred to them, Jew beanies.

In every synagogue that has an ark where the Torahs are held, there is an eternal light that hangs above it, a symbol of the neverending presence of and devotion to God.

Within the courtyard is a fabulous little Jewish museum. They had a Torah that was brought over to Curaçao during the Inquisition, believed to be from the 1300s. Back home, we're all, "Our synagogue was built in 1970!" Suck.

Truthfully, the synagogue moved me to tears. The last time that happened, I was in the Vatican, walking into St. Peter's Basilica. (I was so affected by St. Peter's that I was painfully aware of how much I swear when I took my first look at it and said, "Oh, SHIT," and immediately apologized to nobody because I felt it was sacrilegious. And I cried when I looked at Michelangelo's Pieta. And I'm not Catholic.) At one point, I sat in a pew at Mikve Israel by myself and became overwhelmed. A woman from London whose cruise ship had just docked in Curaçao that morning came over to me and we talked about Judaism in England and America. It was heartwarming, the connection in this unexpected place.

After visiting the synagogue, we went to the Kura Hulanda Museum, on the grounds of our hotel. I called it our Morning of Persecution. This was one of the most impressive museums I've ever been to. Jacob Gelt Dekker, in his travels, managed to accrue one of the most extensive private collections of artifacts from the slave trade, much of which passed through Curaçao, and he put them all together and created the museum. The items range from early writing implements used by the African people in 2,000 B.C. all the way to the fight for civil rights in the United States today. Walking through the museum, we saw shackles and torture devices, a recreated slave ship hold so we could get some kind of idea of how many people were crammed into such a small space, articles and letters and uniforms and original KKK robes. There were maps and pictures and statues and religious artifacts. It was absolutely incredible. There was an illustration of a slave trader licking the face of an African prisoner, believing he could taste disease on black people. It was extremely emotional and so, so, so informative. I was just blown away by what was there.

She was at the entrance. I love her. I want her to be my friend.

The museum was divided into historical eras, each in its own small building that was situated around a courtyard. The first thing you see when you walk into the courtyard is this:

And then you walk around it and see this:

Each side was a face. Beautiful.

After the museum, we ran back to Punda for lunch before meeting up with this really cool woman named Eveline Van Arkel who gives walking tours. We ate at the Waterfort, which was an old stone fort that was built in 1634 to protect Punda. Naturally, it is now a strip of bars and restaurants. Yay, progress. But this is what we looked at while we ate.

I'm from Detroit. For me, the holidays = cold. Snow. Real snow. So it always seems wrong to be in a warm climate surrounded by Christmas decorations. It's like going to Florida and seeing Christmas trees with cotton around the trunks.

Post-lunch Waterfort mint.

Before we met up with Eveline, we watched the Queen Emma Bridge swing open. Honestly, it's really something you can do all day long. Ridiculous. Oh! And we learned that when the bridge stationmaster raises a navy blue flag, it means the bridge is going to be open for a long while and you should head for the ferries; an orange flag means it's just swinging open briefly for a small boat and you'll be able to hop back onto the bridge in no time.

Blue flag

Tourists watching the bridge swing open and closed all day long

Eveline showed us a couple trees that had carved art in their branches and trunks.

She said it's widely assumed the artist is, uh, overcompensating for something. The penises keep getting bigger.

We then made our way to Fort Amsterdam, built in 1635. The governor's residence is there, as well as office buildings, former barracks for soldiers, and the United Protestant Church.

Embedded in the face of the church is a cannonball believed to have been fired by Captain Bligh's troops (from the Bounty, as in Mutiny on the Bounty) when the English attacked in 1804.

Walking to the center of town, Eveline stopped at the large yellow building on the busiest corner of Punda. She pointed to this:

Because the building materials had such a high salt content, such is the nature of the land of Curaçao, the walls were soft, and this corner often got nicked by carriages back in the day. So someone jammed the barrel of a gun in the most affected spot, using it to hold up the building.

There are little alleys everywhere you turn in Willemstad. A local artist, Nena Sanchez, bedazzled this one because, really, there is no reason why an alley should be ugly. Nena is old friends with Eveline, and they both kind of rule.

Every night, we came back to the room to find our bed turned down and Dutch chocolates on the sheets with a different one of these each time:

When we got home, I was shocked about how different I felt. Everything rolled off my shoulders. The magazine production schedule is always frantic around the holidays so I've been working constantly since I've been back, but I'm all, "Oh, it's not so bad! Cheer up, Charlie! Just be glad you're you!" This is both a) annoying, and b) indicative of the sure fact that I must have been a huge bitch before I left.

But even though I ran around that island like crazy, I was completely relaxed. I was totally open to sucking that place in because it could be another number of years before I get away for no discernible reason again, and I think that going to Curaçao was Josh and my reward for all the hard work we've put into living and working since we've been married. We couldn't have picked a better place. All we talked about the entire trip were things we had just done that we loved.

The only food that made me feel like crap was conch. Venezuelan TV is hilarious, all soap operas and talent shows and commercials for dolls that pee. Willemstad is teeming with tourists but the locals love them because they spend money, and every single person was so nice to us (except for the waiter who, when we told him we were in a hurry, gave us a look I've never received in any country). I swam every day — twice at night while stray dogs howled at the moon. I smooshed an entire chocolate ice cream cone against my shirt and just shrugged and said, "Oh, it'll come out." (It did. I don't care if Shout Gel is made from bunnies and orphans, that stuff is amazing.) I was given a massage by a woman who had been raped by her husband and was raising her granddaughter as her own daughter, and she talked about how she was tired but she knows she's a good mother. We got lost and put our feet in the water and sat and rested. It was everything a vacation needs to be. I feel recovered. Curaçao is magnificently beautiful, the people are welcoming and hospitable and incredibly friendly, I would recommend it for anybody because it's so diverse and there's so much to do. I expected it to be tremendous, and it was even better than that. A lovely, lovely island.

And now that I'm home, I'm here to say that the other day, Josh and I were driving to see his parents and were passed by a car that had a giant sticker saying "BYE, HATERS!" on its rear window. I just don't think that's giving anyone the benefit of the doubt, do you?

The First Annual Marla Garla Song and Poetry Contest

2008-12-18T19:51:00.003-05:00

OK, so here's the deal:

I have writer's block.

My friend Scott Who I Love tells me that it's because I'm happy right now, and that could very well be true, but it doesn't address the problem. The bloglem. See? This is what I come up with. I should be ashamed of myself. So it doesn't address the problem of the fact that I seem to be relying heavily on filling this site with random photographs because words and ideas escape me. But I'm happy, so at least I'm not overwrought about it. I'm all, "Words? Who needs 'em! Lalalalallala pretty bird!" And at least my writer's block isn't as debilitating as Dan Brown's — poor Dan Brown, who is shouldering the blame for his entire publishing imprint going kaput because he hasn't produced another Da Vinci Code for Doubleday. Pressure.

So here's what we're gonna do.

When I was in Boston at the beginning of November visiting The Nephew, I had a tendency to sing to him. I sang to him a lot. I sang to him nonstop, I danced and sang to him. I sang this song when I was changing his diaper:

This is what we do
When you make a poo
We clean up your bits
And we clean up your butt
And now you're good as new

I sang this song when he got fussy:

There's no need
To be so sad
You've got a great mom
And you've got a great dad

But because I have writer's block, that's all I could come up with. No second verses, nary another stanza. Stephanie tried to build on the poo song and write one about pee, and it had potential and some clever rhyme patterns, but we just couldn't get it, you know?

Now it's your turn. You don't have to write about poop, you don't have to soothe the savage infant soul, you don't have to rhyme. Just see what you can come up with on any topic you choose, lyrics or poetry, haiku or tofu, and I'll send the one that cracks my shit up the most a prize. So easy! And I don't have to write! Fancy that! And if you do want to write a song for The Nephew, who is exceptional in every way, that would indeed be awesome.

Here, I'll start you off with haiku, my favorite form:

Isn't the blogger
supposed to do the writing?
This chick sucks my ass.

Tastes like chicken.

2008-12-15T15:25:00.003-05:00

Just back from Curaçao. Lots of pictures to come. We ate iguana. We broke for roosters. We did not manage to pronounce a single Dutch word correctly. We watched Venezuelan soap operas.

It was everything a vacation should be. More on the way ...

I'd rather wear Obi-Wan Kenobi, fer shure.

2008-11-25T15:46:00.013-05:00

In all the time I've lived in New York, I can't recall a single incident of being cornered by an aggressive salesperson. If anything, I've encountered the exact opposite: snooty fashionistas who won't talk to customers who don't look a certain way, or waitpersons exercising their trade with such laissez-faire, devil-may-care panache that all fruitless efforts to get a check at the end of the meal result in me filching a menu off a random table and leaving a best-guess, tipless (which goes against everything I stand for) collection of cash underneath the container of sweeteners. (And I'm not impatient; I've done this after 45 minutes to an hour of chasing down the check. Not unreasonable.)

So maybe it's the hyperventilating economy, or maybe retail folks are just getting acclimated to the onset of the shopping season, but I was walloped twice while shopping in the past couple weeks. Here are two examples of What Not to Do to a customer when you're trying to sell them something:

INCIDENT #1

There is a plus-size boutique in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn that has, hands down, saved my style-challenged sanity. It started off being for women sizes 14-24, but the owner, noticing that most boutiques in the city now stop at the wee size 8, expanded her inventory to carry sizes 10-24 to give the forgotten 10 and 12 women a place to shop. (How dare they have perfectly normal bodies?!? Good heavens!) Anyway, I found the store last year, and I have an excellent experience every time I go. The clothes are high-end, fit beautifully, and are stylish in a way that most plus-size stores never even consider. It goes beyond shrouding us in ponchos. I've found the best-fitting jeans I've ever worn in my whole life. I've bought sweaters that take a spin on the normal winter pullover and funk it up. I've walked out of there with the most flattering dresses I own. The owner has tracked down the most innovative, smart designers and finally given those of us who have been festering in Lane Bryant hell a destination we can feel grateful for. Thanksgiving, indeed.

The major perk of the whole experience of going there — besides finding beautiful clothes — is the owner. She's effusive and intelligent and creative and honest and makes you feel at home. She will tell you what works on you and what doesn't, and she's turned her store into a mini-empire, getting television exposure, hosting trunk shows, and organizing a Fashion Week every year, doing what she can to bring plus-size fashion into the mainstream and proving that we're looking for gorgeous, well-made clothes and don't want to just be covered up. She's gotten the word out and works her ass off. And she's hired a staff of lovely, informed women. Soup to nuts, it's a dream shopping there. It isn't cheap, but it's worth every penny. Every single item I've bought there I've worn to death and not a single piece is frayed, muted, thinned, or dated. I always walk out of there happy.

So when I looked in my closet and realized I didn't have a dress that I had any desire to wear to my friend Carol's evening bridal shower, I rolled my tired head out of bed one day and headed over to the boutique. I've had an unbelievably busy last couple weeks and didn't have a lot of time to shop, and I was so busy running errands that morning that I ended up walking into the store with my hair in a haphazard ponytail, wearing my ginormous jeans and a sweatshirt of undefined color that I've owned since my freshman year of college. Now, I'm a firm believer in showering before shopping; when you know you're going to try on someone else's clothes, you better be clean, dammit. But really, that day? Yeah, it didn't happen. I looked like a foot. The plan was, I was going to take a quick sweep through the store and be in and out in a half hour, and hopefully not stink up the joint too badly.

But that didn't happen. Actually, the exact opposite happened.

Because there was a trunk show. With cameras. And a designer with boundary issues. And I got hijacked.

Here's how it went:

I went in and started browsing. Josh parked the car and met me there. The women who work there know us, they love Josh because he helps me pick out a lot of my stuff, don't ask, I hate shopping, he loves shopping, so we were warmly welcomed the way we always are, and I went about my business and tried to avoid the cameras. The designer whose show it was works mainly in business attire, which wasn't what I was looking for, but I browsed through her rack (dirty!) to be polite. I mean, she was sitting right there. I picked out a shirt that looked promising, and then the shop owner graciously asked me if I'd try on one of the designer's dresses and sort of "model" it for them and let the camera guys take a few pictures of me for the Web site. OK, fine, I had some other stuff to try on anyway, including a cocktail dress that looked festive enough for Carol's party. So what if I wouldn't be out of there in a half hour. So what if I looked like I just came home from a camping trip.

I picked out a dress to model from the designer's rack (dirty again!) and went into my fitting room.

Three minutes later, the designer burst into my fitting room — praise all that is holy that I was dressed — and shouted, "Let's see what's going on in here! How's it fitting?!? Let me fix your bra!" She pulls me out of the fitting room, and this happened:

DESIGNER: Did you try the belt? The belt would look great on you!
DESIGNER'S ASSISTANT: Have you heard of the obi? It's an obi! We wrap it around you and it's a belt! An obi!
DESIGNER: You have to try the obi! GET HER AN OBI!
ME: Um, uh, I don't really wear belts. I carry my weight right —
DESIGNER'S ASSISTANT: Oh, but it's an obi! You can move it up! Or down!
ME: But I really don't like ... It just doesn't fit r—
DESIGNER: Don't worry! Here, let me tie this around you!
ME: Uh [being spun around] ... uh, OK ...
DESIGNER: Someone fix her hair! Make a higher ponytail!
ME: [being spun around, someone pulls out my hair band and raises my ponytail]
DESIGNER'S ASSISTANT: Red lipstick! Here [hands me a lipstick], put this on. It'll look great!

So there I am in the middle of the store, being videotaped, and one person is doing my hair, the designer is wrapping the freakin' obi around my waist and moving it up and down and up and down, the assistant is coaching my lipstick application (granted, it was a great color), the owner hands me a cute pair of shoes, and then the assistant throws around my head a necklace that, admittedly, I was completely in love with. And the next thing I know, I'm posing for the cameras, with Josh, with the store owner, smiling my unwashed face, totally unprepared.

I really wish I'd showered. It would have been so much more fun if I'd showered. Objectively, it was fun: It's fun to be dolled up and photographed and told how great you look, but it's not so fun when a) you reek, and b) you've just been groped by an overzealous stranger.

The good news is, I found the perfect dress, of course, as well as two sweaters I never want to take off. The owner, as always, was fabulous, because even though she had a designer in the store and kept the attention on her, she helped me leaf through the other clothes — not necessarily the designer's — to find what I was looking for. But I have to say, shopping when a designer is in attendance, then modeling her wares for her, makes it really uncomfortable when you have no intention of buying her clothes. I felt obligated to take something of hers, but I just couldn't afford it and, flat-out, it wasn't what I was looking for. The dress I modeled was cute, but it wasn't me. A giant ruffle was involved, and I just can't participate in activities involving a giant ruffle. I felt like I was cheating on her by buying another designer's dress, and what made it all the more awkward was that I thought she was obnoxious, so it just turned me off to her clothes. The second she walked into my fitting room and grabbed my bra strap, she lost me. I'm not prude by any stretch, but woman, what the hell is your name again? And please get off of me? I'm all for boisterous, but the second she crossed that boundary into my personal space, she lost my sale. And she was objectively entertaining and her clothes were really nice, and the store owner had a lovely rapport with her, so it seemed like a successful event, but, bottom line, don't walk into my dressing room and then belt me where I don't feel comfortable being belted. It's just pushy, presumptuous salesmanship and it was bloody annoying. Dude, it's not even your store. If the owner has ever come into my fitting room with me, she's always asked first. You know, common decency and all that.

On my way out, they took some pictures of me with my shopping bag and interviewed me about my experience there. And I was so wiped out and, again, unprepared, that all the eloquent thoughts I normally have about shopping in that store and how thankful I am for its existence took leave of my brain and I became Spicoli, all, "It's totally awesome!" I froze, and then left, feeling like a twit. A twit with a really high ponytail and fuck-me red lips.

I will go back again and again and again throughout the duration of my rotundity, but should I ever feel compelled to head over there during a trunk sale, I will do my research and make sure I like the stuff they're selling. And I'll bathe. Maybe the whole encounter would have been different if my hair didn't look like a monkey.

INCIDENT #2

This past weekend was my sister Lauren's bridal shower and bachelorette party in Detroit. Both were great fun — the party landed us in a Filipino karaoke bar in Clawson, Michigan, so there's that. I've been sprinting the length of Manhattan these past few days, getting clothes altered, running tedious errands, and making sure I had everything for Lauren's various parties as well as for a trip to Curaçao that Josh and I are taking next week. I KNOW. Anyway, last Tuesday I wandered into a $5 accessories shop to find bedazzlement for the dress I wore to Lauren's shower.

The store owner can be best described as The Narrator. She stood behind the cash register — the register as lectern, perhaps? — and commented on every single item I showed even the smallest dash of interest in. (And yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition. I'm tired. I'm going to Curaçao in ten days. I cannot be expected to perform.)

Me: [picking up a bracelet]
Her: Oh, that's very cute. We also have it in white and silver. Or pink!
Me: [putting the bracelet down; picking up a necklace, noticing that it's ugly, as it's made of buttons]
Her: That necklace is made of buttons!
Me: [putting away heinous button necklace, picking up a long silver chain]
Her: That's a silver chain. You can layer it with another long necklace and they'll look really cute!
Me: [heading to rear of the store, hopefully out of eyeshot of the woman; standing in front of basket teeming with plastic bracelets]
Her: Those bracelets are $1! They're really cute!
Me: [going back to silver chain, then taking it to the register]
Her: This is great! You can layer it with another necklace! [starts to methodically arrange the necklace onto a piece of tissue paper]
Me: Please. I can just throw it in my bag. Please don't wrap it.
Her: Well, we'll just take care of that then! [pushes it toward me]
Me: [drops a $5 bill on the tissue paper, leaves store, wants to cry]

For the rest of the night, the words That necklace is made of buttons! galloped through my brain. Buttons buttons buttons ...

When I was in high school and college, I worked a lot of retail. Folding sweaters at The Express in the mall during Christmas break, taking inventory of an overstocked children's store with an ornery coworker ... What I learned is that it's not that hard to find the grey area between showing interest in a customer and sitting in their lap. For two years, I worked in a women's clothing store where pretty much all I did was water plants and repeatedly rearrange jewelry in a display case while making sure the customers didn't steal the containers of shoulder pads. You approach a customer when they walk into the store, and if the store is small, you back the hell away until they ask for your help. You don't touch them unless they ask you to help them with an outfit. Depending on their cues, you can join in on their conversations. But there is no need to storm into their dressing room, and there is absolutely no need to point out the buttons. DO NOT POINT OUT THE BUTTONS.

No buttons.

Did I mention I'm going to Curaçao?

Also, I'm watching TV right now: How does Linda Evangelista still look like that?

FYI: My favorite color is purple.

2008-11-02T23:03:00.004-05:00

Tonight I was in the bathroom — OK, I was peeing — and Nora walked in, got all catlike around my legs, and sat down, watching me.

"Let's have a conversation," I said. "Tell me about you."

She stared.

"What's your favorite color?"

She kept staring. (And yes, I am aware I was having this conversation with a cat. I am that person. And I bet that if you've ever had a pet, any pet, you've been that person too. When I was in college, I discovered, based on a pattern of enthusiastic tail-wagging or lackluster or nonexistent tail-wagging, our beloved Bichon Frisé's favorite colors. He liked: purple, pink, yellow, and blue. He did not like: orange and brown. He could was neither here nor there on: green.)

"Tell me, NoraBanks, what's your favorite song?"

More staring.

"I'd like to know: Where's the most interesting place you've ever been?"

She blinked, got up, walked over to the bathtub, sat down, and looked at me again.

"The bathtub?"

When I said it, I realize I'd taken a whole "You love Chuck Bass?" judgmental Dan Humphrey tone. Nora looked a bit insulted, so she left. I would have been insulted too. Dan can be kind of a dick. And Blair really loves Chuck Bass. So.

And right there, I realized that my cat being in love with the bathtub and Blair Waldorf being in love with Chuck Bass and me being in love with Gossip Girl were all teaching me to not be judgmental of people for loving who and what they love. See? I was tying in a real-life lesson during the course of a pee based on both my feline and terrifically fictional television characters because I love my cat that much and felt bad that I might have insulted her even though she does not speak English but I really think she knows what I'm saying because she's brilliant. Right there, that's what love does to a person.

Anyway, I didn't say that very important real-life lesson was going to stick, because there are folks out there who inexplicably love magicians and mimes and, like, wicker and, you know, Crocs, and I can't help judging those people. But that leads me to another life lesson culled from something I love tremendously — the New York City marathon, which was today: It all takes baby steps.

Can you tell I had nothing to write about today? Coolness. Feel free to use the comments section for thoughts equally random.

Also: vote vote vote vote vote Obama vote vote vote vote vote. Vote. Vote on Tuesday. Vote.

You start with a cookie, you end with a cookie.

2008-10-19T21:33:00.057-04:00

It was 53 degrees outside today, the sky was clear and blue, the air was fresh, and a neighbor down the block — a girl of roughly six years old — set up a cookies-and-lemonade stand with signs that said Thirsty for Change? All Proceeds Go to the Obama Campaign. Not only did the whole civic-minded-youngster thing make me feel all warm inside, but it was just an idyllic scene topping off an already excellent last few months. (And yes, I'm voting for Obama, but even if it had been a lemonade stand for McCain, I would still have been impressed with this enterprising elementary-schooler. She was shy as hell, but was on a mission.) I really have to say, I had a helluva summer and fall is looking pretty stupendous.

You want proof?

I think it's been mentioned once or twice, here or there, half-assedly and undercover, that this was the last season for Yankee Stadium as we know it. I think it may also have been printed with just as little fanfare that the All-Star Game was held in New York to commemorate the stadium's last hurrah. Josh and I took advantage of the All-Star weekend events and got tickets for the Futures game, which highlights star players in the AAAs who might possibly have good chances of landing in the majors. Following the Futures game, there was a celebrity game, and I have to say, if this day was any indication of what kind of batter I am, I could kick Chris Rock's ass. He really couldn't hit anything a foot in front of him.

Yankee Stadium is Josh's temple, so he was particularly emotional that day. He went to his first Yankee game when he was four, and has gone back every year since.

(Incidentally, I think Josh has worn that Lou Gehrig jersey to every game since he was four, too. The New York Yankees managed to retire Lou Gehrig's number, but Josh refuses to retire that jersey. Cool as it is, and as much as I love Lou Gehrig in every way — Pride of the Yankees is one of my all-time favorite movies — Josh's decrepit jersey needs to be put down. It's old and experienced enough where it could tell you this itself.)

That tall pole behind Josh (dirty!) is a giant bat that became the easiest meeting-up point at the stadium. "Are they moving it to the new stadium?" I asked Josh. "People won't know where to meet up with their buddies. It'll be mayhem!"

The new stadium is being built directly across the street from the old one.

Bobby Murcer died the day before the game.

They had a moment of silence for him, and the sadness was thick. Bobby Murcer was so deeply respected not only as a player but also as a broadcaster, and by all accounts — all of which were positively glowing — he was an exceptional human being. I never saw him play beyond the old-timers' games, but I heard his voice on radio and television, and he was kind in everything he did. It was a huge loss.

I decided that any fan scuffles that have ever taken place in the right-field seats had nothing to do with the game being played but had everything to do with

where the hell seat number 6 went. And if the person with a ticket for seat number 5 had any right to take up twice as much space with their hot dogs and crap.

I've always liked going to baseball games, but I also grew up in Hockeytown, so baseball never captured my heart the way the mulleted, toothless Czechadian Red Wings did. So when I moved to New York and met Josh — and was, by default, but also by choice — parked at Yankee Stadium every season (and I just could never get behind the Rangers; I do miss hockey), Josh immediately set forth and taught me how to keep score. It made baseball games immeasurably more interesting. I won't go to a game now without keeping my own scorecard.

Cracker Jacks in bags.

Don't get me started. Just ... ugh ... gah.

I'm gonna be 16 for a minute, but look at this guy's arms.

I freakin' love New York.

Back home, this was going on:

For about a year, we had a sporadic but persistent leak coming through our bathroom light fixture. We'd had it checked out but it always stopped and the plumbers could never find the source. In July, it finally became less sporadic and more persistent, and the plumbers had to go into the ceiling to see what the problem was. Turns out, the seal around our upstairs neighbors' toilet wasn't sound, and let's just say that the water coming through the light wasn't ... all water.

"Our house is peeing on us," I said.
"Our house is not peeing on us," Josh said.
"I think it's had enough. This is its way of telling us it wants to be painted."
"There isn't any poo up there, is there?
"No, just pee. I think our house wants to be painted, but it isn't so angry that it would shit on us."

I'm not all wrong, you know. I mean, I panicked at the idea of having to replace an entire ceiling, and now we have to have a contractor tear down the pee-ceiling and put in a new one, but that also means the bathroom has to be painted, which means we should just go ahead and do the whole apartment because it desperately needs it, and now I'm glad our apartment peed on us. See? It all happens for a reason.

Something else that happened for a reason, though I'm not sure what the reason is, is this:

Josh bought the apartment from a couple who had a five-year-old son. He remembers they had alphabet magnets all over the place, on every surface they'd stick to. Josh bought the apartment eight years ago. Somehow, this summer, the cats managed to locate these two letters and leave them on the kitchen floor. I think they're trying to tell us something. They saw a mouse? They want us to paint our house? They smell something foul? They think that, as parents, we are astounding? They haven't unearthed any more letters, so until then, I just have to believe what I choose, which means I've decided that I think I'm awesome as a pet-owner.

Our five-year anniversary:

In September, Josh's brother, Adam, got married to his longtime love, Rachel. The wedding was a couple hours north of New York City in a town called Claremont, right along the Hudson River in the shadow of the mountains (the Catskills?).

The night before the wedding, it was pouring rain. Everyone was nervous, as the wedding was to be located right on the banks of the river, all outdoors. The ceremony and reception would take place under tents, but come on, nobody wants it to rain on their wedding day. (Although they say it's good luck, but "they" probably never had to deal with mud on "their" wedding day. Josh and I lucked out at ours — not a drop of rain in the sky, despite a history in Michigan of Labor Day Weekend being soaking wet. An hour after everyone left our reception? The skies opened up. We took it as a good sign.) So Josh and I, Adam, and a bunch of Adam's friends piled into our cars and headed out for Adam's bachelor party of a delicious dinner and letting out steam during some excellent small-town bowling.

I have to say, I kicked ass in my first game, seeing as how the last time I went bowling, I bowled a 33.

Socks in a vending machine

We decided to play Skee-Ball — the greatest game ever, perhaps — in the bowling alley's arcade and bestow some gifts upon Adam as a farewell gesture to his bachelorhood. Herewith, the spoils of 200 tickets:

The next morning was Adam's actual farewell gesture to his bachelorhood. Miraculously, not only did it stop raining, but the sun came out, the ground dried up, and Adam and Rachel's wedding day was just gorgeous.

This is where the wedding was, on the grounds of a historical mansion that is now a state park. Friends and family converged, the hora was danced, there were delicious sweet-onion empanadas served with salad. A beautiful wedding.

As Rachel and I were saying goodnight, I realized: I have a sister-in-law! Holy moly, with all my sisters, men have been joining my family en masse. But with Rachel joining Josh's side, a new sister. Pretty cool.

The week after Adam and Rachel's wedding, I went to San Francisco to visit Stacy and meet her son, Sebastiaan. Bass was born in July, so Stacy was in the groove of parenting, and Bass had just started to smile. It was amazing.

Stacy lives in Marin County, just north of the city, in this fabulous crunchy town where hippies who fled to San Francisco during the '60s and then traveled north still live. I saw a rather hairy fella sitting on some stairs with what I believed was a pile of animal pelts next to him. It's a beautiful place: sunny all the time, hilly and green, excellent mom-and-pop shops. There is a town ordinance that bars any chain stores from setting up shop there, and Stacy's husband, Mark, told me that there are more farmers' markets there per capita than any other town in the country. Everything there is locally grown, sustainable, organic, and homemade, and for the first time in ages, all of my systems worked and I didn't feel bloated or digestively heinous. Everybody is incredibly friendly, interested in who you are and what you're up to, and people introduce themselves with ease. Stacy's only lived there for about a year, but it seems that it wouldn't be too difficult to make friends there because everybody's so laid-back. She's met some really lovely people.

The first thing we did was hit up a farmers' market for dinner, where they not only sold the standard flowers and produce, but they had all different kinds of ethnic cuisine. I ate Himalayan food.

This peach was the size of Bass's head.

When Stacy and I went on a bus trip out west with our summer camp in 1989, we learned how to play euchre. It's really the most fabulous card game ever, except that as far as I can tell, the only people who know how to play are from Michigan. And you need four people to play. This is a problem, since Stacy has not lived in Michigan since 1996, I left in 1998, and we've managed to pull together three people at a time who can play but we rarely found a fourth. We miss euchre. So as luck would have it, Stacy took prenatal yoga with a very cool woman named Marissa who is from Michigan. She brought her twins over and Stacy, Marissa, Mark and I played a rousing game of euchre. It's addictive.

I particularly like how Bass, wearing his Johnny Cash Folsom Prison onesie, is eyeing Stacy's hand as if to say, "Hey, you know, Mom, some guys in my cellblock say to never call trump on a queen. That's all you have. I say, Pass."

The next day, we drove to Muir Woods. When I made plans to visit her, Stacy asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted to do. I hadn't given it much thought, because my main — and only — goal was to spend time with her and help her with the baby. But I did tell her that I had always, always wanted to see the redwoods. Lucky then that Stacy and Mark live just miles from several national redwood parks.

As a side note, the whole feeling of newness about this whole trip really sort of washed over me not long after I landed in California. I've been lucky to have visited some places in the last couple years where I've never been, but those getaways are always quickquickquick and what I've seen usually doesn't truly sink in until I'm already home. Last summer I was thrilled to finally see Seattle and Portland, but I saw them for about 24 hours each. This trip, I was able to really take it all in. (I'd been to San Francisco once before. For three hours. Ate on the wharf and then headed to Fresno for my cousin's bar mitzvah.) The newness — of the place, of the people, of the food, of seeing my oldest and dearest friend be a mom — felt fresh and energizing. I'd sort of forgotten what that was like.

On the way to Muir Woods, we stopped off at this cart:

The guy who ran it was a character. Ornery, but he gave me a free peach because it was too delicious to just sit there. I bought fresh almonds (I'd never really liked raw almonds until that moment, but these were unbelievable), and Stacy told me to buy fresh figs.

"I don't like figs," I said. "I like dates. Wait — dates? Yeah, dates. I confuse them. I don't like figs."

"You will," she said.

It turns out that if you've ever had a fig outside of California but in the United States, you've had a dried fig. And dried figs taste like bark-flavored ass. Figs outside of California are dried because fresh figs don't travel. Who knew?

This is called burl:

It grows on the redwood tree, obviously, and in some cases falls off, takes root and grows into its own redwood tree. I thought this particular cluster looked a little bit like Diana Ross. At Muir Woods, you can buy a piece of burl, put it in a bowl of water in your house, and watch greenery shoot off of it. Mark bought me one, I put it in a bowl, and then I forgot about it. I think I've already killed it. I think I killed a redwood tree. Who the hell can kill a redwood tree? They're thousands of years old. I killed a redwood tree.

Redwoods attract ladybugs. They were everywhere.

I can't begin to describe the smell of that place. Tree, tree, tree. It reminded me of two other vacations — one to Denmark and Norway, and one to New Zealand — when I found myself standing in the middle of the street and drawing in huge, deep breaths, trying to store the fresh air in my lungs so I could take it back to New York. I am a moron.

These are sprouts from burl:

This deer was standing on a completely vertical incline:

Afterward, we drove along the very beautiful, very winding, and very chunks-inducing Pacific Coast Highway. I was fine as long as I, strangely enough, didn't look at the road and kept my eyes on the cliffs and ocean. It was gorgeous. And winding.

Remember that peach that was the size of Bass's head?

Yummy.

Remember the figs?

Outside:

Inside:

Fresh figs are sweet, but light. OK, so they look rather vaginal on the inside, but — wait, you know what? I'll stop here.

Anyway.

Stacy and Mark have lemon and pear trees in their backyard, not to mention countless spice bushes. There's Mark in the background, picking I think it was rosemary for dinner. It's kind of ridiculous.

Bass has a tire swing. Also ridiculous. Also in a good way.

This is the part when I told Bass that, as Auntie Marla, I will buy his condoms for him if he's too embarrassed to do it himself.

But I did add that if he's too embarrassed to buy his own condoms, he's probably not mature enough to have sex, and maybe he should wait a while.

The trip was extraordinary. Stacy has slid right into being a mom. It's really something: I've known her since we were six, and I have no recollection of her ever holding a baby. And there I was, sitting on her couch, feeding her son while she and Mark bustled around the house doing parent things and feeding me delicious food, and it felt like that's the way it had always been, the way it was supposed to be. It felt completely natural. It's cheesy, I know, but I thought it would feel shocking, one of us becoming a mom — especially since we both had such mixed feelings at one time or another about the concept — and seeing it happen, it wasn't that way at all. I cried when I left, and I can't wait to go back. The other day she was telling me how she takes Bass everywhere with her, and she said, "And then we went out and had lunch. I had a really nice salad, and Bass had formula."

And then Stephanie went into, like, a 1,000-hour labor or something, and out came Alex.

October 6 is now Stephanie's birthbirthday. "There are 365 days in a year," she said, "and my son had to pick my birthday to be born. Great."

"Don't worry," my mom said, "by the time you hit a certain age, your birthday no longer matters anyway."

With my dad:

Aunt soup:

Last Monday, Alex had his bris. This is, in my opinion, the most — how do you say? — fucked-up tradition in the Jewish religion. Now, Jews have some odd customs. Some of us go over our pantry shelves with feathers during Passover to make sure there are no bread crumbs in the house. We smash glasses to a zillion shards with our feet at the end of wedding ceremonies. Others shake noisemakers during the reading of the story of Purim whenever the villain's name is said. (Haman! grgrgrgrgrgrgrgr ...) And when a baby boy is born, eight days later there is a bris, during which family and friends gather round as a mohel performs the circumcision, and then everyone has brunch and cake.

Remove the foreskin, have corned beef and coleslaw on rye. Oy!

Now, I'm all for circumcision. I'm all for opting against circumcision. Do what you do. But to have a party? Yeah, no. Needless to say, I did not react well, hiding in the corner of the kitchen. From what I understand, it's a grueling experience for the mother: Not only is she present during the procedure (though not all watch, and some do leave the room; nobody would blame a new mom for not wanting anything to do with the actual procedure), but she's also throwing a party. Eight days after she has a baby. While she's recovering from childbirth. And sometimes c-section surgery. And adjusting to parenthood. I just don't get it. I just kind of think this is the kind of thing a doctor does in a hospital where it's, you know, sterile.

But Jews have been doing it for generations, and I've only been to one. Stephanie, being a pediatric nurse, was a champ during the whole thing. All business. She and her husband, Josh, were tired, of course, but they handled the entire afternoon with a great deal of grace — grace I don't know that I'd have if I were in Steph's position, so I'm incredibly impressed by her. And Alex, well, he cried for about a second and then slept the rest of the day. It didn't faze him. He's such a good baby. I think the trauma was all mine. Auntie Boo sucks. I did find that, once it was over, it really wasn't that bad. And the cake was good. And the company was great. So how bad can it really be?

So, to reiterate, here's what I learned during my October in Boston:

Joy:

Travesty:

And then, to top everything off, Josh and I went to Costco this weekend, which is a chore we hate with the fire of a thousand suns, and discovered Costco is now carrying Mallomars, the perfect cookie. Three boxes of Mallomars for $9. We're rationing them: We only force ourselves to go to Costco once a year, so these have to last.

The best. Maybe ever.

2008-10-11T00:43:00.007-04:00

On Monday, this happened:

This is maybe the greatest thing ever.

On October 6 — her 31st birthday — my younger sister Stephanie became a mother to her first baby, my parents' first grandchild, and the first Garfield-born boy since my grandparents had my dad in 1944: Alexander Jacob. The turkey weighed 9 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 21 inches long. I went to Boston for his birth, came back to New York on Wednesday, and am on my way back to Boston tomorrow. I fully expect him to be walking and enrolled in a four-year college by the time I get there in the afternoon, gifted as he is. This will all happen if I don't eat his face first.

It really is so tremendous. He's sweet as can be, Stephanie did fabulous, and I'm smitten. He has a perfectly round head, wee chicken feet, and a leetle leetle butt. Oy, this baby. I've quickly become That Person Who Doesn't Shut Up About the Freakin' Baby Already. I make no apologies.

So, well, preoccupied. There's lots to write, lots of pictures to post, lots to say, so I'll get it all down when I come back from Bahstin. But first: The Nephew.

(FYI: I have been anointed Auntie Boo. This is a play on a nickname I've had ever since the day I was born, when my parents introduced me to Jennifer by saying, "Jennifer, this is your sister, Marla Leslie," and Jen said, "Ooh! Marlie Boolise!" As one would. She was 2 1/2. So I've been some variation of Boolise ever since. I told Steph that Auntie Boo sounds like the batty afghan-wearing aunt who has lots of cats and perfumes her house with patchouli, but I'll happily own the name and any afghans that come with it. Josh, on the other hand, was struck with an almost paralyzing jealousy that I get a Special Name, so he's chosen to be Uncle Jsh, so as not to encumber the infant with the burden of vowels at such a young age. As a grammar professional, I thought that was very sensitive of him.)

The B train is for Beatles.

2008-09-29T23:54:00.005-04:00

In the spirit of things just getting weirder by the second with my fellow New Yorkers — is it the financial tsunami? the hullabaloo over the upcoming election? the embracing of six-inch heels by fashionistas citywide? — I rode the subway the other night with two buskers, a father-and-son team, who were playing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" using only an acoustic guitar and a kazoo.

And with that, I bid you g'nite.

Grande Schmuck

2008-09-23T01:14:00.004-04:00

I promise to write a post in which I'm not complaining about something. After this one.

Saturday night I was participating in the New American Pastime (TM) — killing an hour at Starbucks — before meeting my friend Mara for dinner and a swank-ay pah-tay. I commandeered my own table, and a student took the one to my right. So there we were, me reading a New York magazine exposé on the flailing book-publishing industry, him thumbing through a packet of law-school mishegos.

And in walked the Worst Parent Ever.

Worst Parent Ever (WPE) planted himself two tables to the right of Focused Law Student (FLS). He unpacked his laptop, put it on the table, and sat in the booth seat against the wall. He haphazardly unpacked his child, a boy of about 6 or 7. The boy had with him a deck of trading cards, sort of like Pokémon cards but not Pokémon. WPE began typing away on his laptop, and within minutes, his kid was meandering around the joint.

The boy wandered over to FLS's table, onto which he began dealing his cards, spreading them out and moving FLS's papers to make room for his game. He didn't say anything to FLS, he just dealt his cards and moved stuff around. FLS clearly didn't feel that he could discipline someone else's kid — a touchy predicament, to be sure — so he looked to WPE for help. WPE sat at his table, watching his kid invade the space of a total stranger, and did nothing.

Let it be said that WPE was also Sensitive Ponytail Man. With his sensitive ponytail, he was wearing a woven pullover like the one I bought in Estes Park, Colorado, in 1989, when I spent the summer camping around the western U.S. via a crappy green bus and wearing polypropylene hiking socks and hanging my garbage in trees so bears wouldn't raid my tent.

(Note: The above paragraph is 100 percent, honest-to-god true.)

In any case, FLS's glances to WPE were for naught. Unable to figure out what to do with this child who was taking up more and more space on his table, he picked up his coffee and took a sip.

Big mistake.

The boy quickly dealt two cards where FLS's grande lattewhatever had been and left no more free surface for FLS to set his drink back down. FLS once again looked over to WPE for help, and I sat up and shot WPE some bitchface as well. I held my hands out as if to say, "Come on!" Finally, WPE exercised what I'm sure was his version of taking control of the situation and, without getting up from his seat, said, "Hey, Michael, why don't you come back over here, man?"

Michael ignored WPE.

"Mike! Hey, Mike! He's studying, man! Leave him alone!"

Michael kept playing. He didn't even react. But still, WPE did not get up to pull his child away. He kept shouting across Starbucks to his son, but never deigned to alight from his pleather throne.

Michael continued nudging FLS's papers over to the point where they almost fell off the table. Frustrated, FLS started gathering his belongings. Seeing this, WPE finally came over to the table and tried to pull Michael away, but the kid was having none of it and struggled for about five seconds before WPE gave up and let him go. Five seconds. That was it. WPE threw in the towel before the kid could even let out a yelp.

"Look, I'll just go," said FLS.

Now, at this point, what do you think most parents would do?

a) Pull Michael away, even if there's an ugly, kicking, slobbering scene, to ensure FLS keeps his table and can continue to study
b) Pull Michael away, even if there's an ugly, kicking, slobbering scene, and buy FLS a coffee, with apologies
c) Offer to switch tables so FLS could study in peace without disturbing Michael's card game
d) Remove self, laptop, and Michael from the premises until Michael was ready to play without disturbing patrons
e) Nothing

See if you can guess which one WPE was.

"Look, I'll just go," said FLS.

"Hey, thanks, man!" said WPE.

I'll repeat that, because I don't think I read it right the first time:

"Hey, thanks, man!"

And FLS threw all his stuff into a bag and began to scooch out of his seat.

"You can have my table," I said to FLS, shooting WPE a glare. "I'm leaving. It's OK."

"No, thanks," FLS said, also directing some stink-eye toward WPE, who stood there like the tooliest tool in the toolshed, watching FLS pack up before shuffling back to his own table and leaving Michael where he was. "I'm done here."

It was appalling.

I will admit that, as an armchair parent, it's all easy for me to say. Jon Stewart once did a standup bit where he talked about how he sits on his couch, drinking his beer, screaming at Olympic gymnasts to stick their landings. In my head, I was screaming for WPE to stick his landing. (I was also screaming, "Hate to break the news! Phish broke up!") But ultimately, it's not like WPE tripped on the mat and maybe dusted a judge with some chalk; he flat out wrestled the balance beam from its bolts in the floor and pummeled FLS over the head with it. Maybe Michael is a hellion and WPE is exhausted, but really, take care of your kid. At least get out of your goddamn seat and assess the situation. Apologize to the person you're responsible for uprooting. And throw all your Rusted Root concert ticket stubs into a shoebox instead of littering them all over the apartment with your homemade bongs. Gah.

If I hadn't seen a grown woman of, maybe, 30 skipping joyfully down the street 20 minutes earlier (it was a true skip, not a run that lost its steam; also, she was wearing pink culottes), I might have lost my composure. One can only handle so much weirdness in one evening.

Ode to Assface

2008-09-17T23:51:00.004-04:00

The train was crowded on my way downtown tonight, and it's a given that when the train is packed, the ratio of Displays of Bad Subway Etiquette skyrockets. It's simple math: The more people who jam themselves into a train car, the more people there are who can rub their crotches against your ass, ignore pregnant women and refuse to give them seats, keep their bodies planted in front of the doors so commuters can neither enter nor exit without a maddening forceful collision, blast whatever on their iPods, and other various boils on the behavioral butt of society.

So I was grateful to get a seat, because I could just bury my face in my Entertainment Weekly (a shockingly interesting piece on the bursting of Jessica Simpson's Grand Ole Opry cherry and similar forays into country music by pop artists) and ignore the sneezers around me who didn't cover their mouths. If I hadn't had a magazine with me, I might have picked my nose and wiped it on a pole the moment before someone was about to grab it, just to fit in.

Upon hitting the 14th Street station, the two commuters on either side of me got up and left the train. A man in a dark grey suit who had been standing in front of me proceeded to turn around with his back to me, bend over so his ass was directly in my face, pick something up, and move to the empty seat to my left, whereupon he sat, spread his legs as wide as he could, pushing me over to teeter on the ridge between the seat I had been in and the one next to it, and open his newspaper fully (instead of folding it in half or quarters, which is proper subway etiquette; takes up less space). He was totally oblivious to his egregious violation of any social code, and if you live in this city, it behooves you to have some idea of the code we all live by. Or not. Ignorance is bliss, and then everybody hates you. C'est la vie.

Anyway.

So I'm sitting, well, not in my seat but on the narrow between-the-seats spine that did the very opposite of containing my substantial posterior or my balance, and I'm stewing. And I start staring at him. And then I catch sight of his right hand.

There was a pink Hello Kitty Band-Aid on it.

I softened.

So then I started to think: He's in a responsible grey suit. He's carrying a briefcase. He's on his way downtown, toward the Financial District. Or he's on his way home from Midtown, where one can find many, many of the glass office buildings of the elite moneymaking set. He's reading the Business section. He's paying absolutely no mind to others around him. Holy Hell, I thought, he must work for Lehman Brothers. Or Merrill Lynch. Or AIG. Or [insert bankrupt/festering/defunct financial institution here]. And he's totally stressed out. And when he got home from work last night, he sunk into his favorite easy chair, head in his hands, bemoaning the uncertainty to come. And his four-year-old daughter tugged at her mother's shirt, and the man's wife bent down to their little girl and said, "What is it, sweetie?" And the little girl said, "Mommy, why is Daddy so sad?" And the wife looked at her forlorn husband, her heart aching for him, and said, "Daddy has a boo-boo and he can't make it better yet." And the little girl ran to the bathroom, dug out the Hello Kitty Band-Aid, and quietly tiptoed up to her father. He slowly looked up when he felt her tiny body standing next to him and said, "Hi, button." She unwrapped the bandage, put it on the top of his hand, and said, "There, Daddy. Now it's all better."

I loved this man. This man who, 30 seconds previously, pushed his ass in my face and shoved me out of my seat with the power of his right thigh.

We got to the next stop. The doors opened. He hurriedly shoved his newspaper under his arm and disembarked.

All that for one stop. And we were nowhere near any of the neighborhoods I'd decided he was going to to live the life I'd decided he lived. He probably sold watches or something and had 50 cats.

And there I'd been, creating a sad little scene that might have actually happened to an awful lot of folks in the past two days, and I got pissed all over again. Gah. Wasted sympathies: so frustrating. At least I was able to shift back onto a full seat once he left. Sitting on the ridge-thing makes your butt go numb.

It did make me recall this post, about the gorgeous Adonis with the ugly shoes and whimsical candy. How do you decide if you adore someone you don't know but who has let you down terribly with bad taste or bad manners and then makes up for it with fun accessories? Do I malign the suited fella for his space-assaulting ways, or do I love him for his cartoon Band-Aid? Maybe he did work for Lehman Brothers. Who the hell knows. I know it's surprising for me to do such a thing, but I'm really overthinking this.

So: To the man in the grey suit, if you work in the financial sector or were screwed by the financial sector and sport the Band-Aid to soothe your anxieties, you have my sincere sympathies. And if you are just a douchebag who exercises no courtesy to your fellow commuters and wears a Hello Kitty Band-Aid because you picked a mole off the top of your hand while you were watching porn, suck it. I have a bottle of lemon juice and I'm not afraid to use it.

In other news, apologies for the sparse (or, really, not at all) writing lately. I just got back from a truly excellent trip to San Francisco to meet Stacy's son, Bass, and dontcha know, I have pictures. They'll land on this here page toute de suite.

And speaking of this blog, I suppose I should say something about Sarah Palin, because everybody and their mother who has a blog has written about Sarah Palin. And I imagine there's nothing new I could say that hasn't been said, and I'm also sure you folks don't come here to read about politics (I have deduced this because you read my blog, and I have never written about politics; I is shmart). And I hate talking about politics because it makes me violently angry, which I also suppose completely conflicts with the fact that I'm writing about it at this very moment. And I've created this blog in the spirit of very few heavy things being discussed ever. In any case, it shouldn't surprise you that I'm pretty liberal and proud of it, so I guess I'll just say this: Don't vote for Sarah Palin. She's a twat.

Oh! Alan Alda is on Craig Ferguson right now! And Ferguson said "fucking cock" on air! Double attractiveness and an embrace of blue language! My hormones are going berserk. I'm unreasonably happy. May you be as well.