Posts filed under 'General'
Whoops, I sort of took a month off there, didn’t I? It wasn’t intentional and it wasn’t one of those unexplained-breaks-that-clearly-indicate-pregnancy-breakup-depression-drama-bookdeals. I’m not pregnant, I haven’t broken up with anyone, I’m not depressed and I certainly don’t have a book deal. I might, however, have a touch of the winter madness, but other than that, I’ve just been Without Inspiration.
Normally at this time of year I have enough Awards Show Excitement to balance out the dreariness of January, but I did not see many movies last year and I don’t even really WANT to see many of the movies from last year and as such, I’m having a hard time caring about the awards shows. (That being said, Diane Kruger at the SAG Awards sky-rocketed up my list of all-time favorite red carpet looks.) (Also, whether or not her looks have been red carpet appropriate or not, I really like Anna Paquin’s quirky/formal look and yes, that means even the heavy gladiator sandals with the gold dress.)
Speaking of Anna Paquin, I rode the cross-town bus sitting in front of her back in December. The city was hit with a snow storm and D. and I clomped out and wound up on the east side just in time for the the Oh! Look! Snow! to become a near blizzard. We eventually made it home late that night via the bus (In icky weather, you take cabs. In truly bad weather, you thank the baby Jesus for public transportation.) and once all of the passengers shook off the snow and removed sodden hoods and hats I realized that I was sitting in immediate proximity to Anna Paquin, who knows that in a snow storm, you take the damn bus.
One of the fun side-effects of living in a big city is the occasional celebrity sighting. I’ve lived in New York for almost 13 years (there is a sentence I never thought I’d say) and have accumulated my fair share of celebrity sightings, ’sightings’ being the key word because with very few exceptions, I’m talking about instances of ‘Oh Hey Isn’t That So and So’ and then a few furtive glances, the end. I don’t have any stories about “…so I was in the bathroom at The Beatrice Inn and Kate Hudson asked if I had a tampon then we started chatting and yadda yadda yadda that’s how I drunk dialed Owen Wilson,” mainly because I never went to The Beatrice Inn, not ever. I did, however, once see Sarah Jessica Parker in the ladies’ room during intermission of a Broadway musical.
The biggest, most stomach-flutter-inducing star sighting I’ve ever had involves George Clooney, who I’ve actually seen twice. Both times I was rendered mute and at the risk of being crass, I think my panties got a little wet. The first time I saw him I was in Los Angeles visiting friends, one of whom who was – at the time – playing the father on a sitcom which filmed at Warner Brothers. I went to the studio and as we walked along one of the little fake streets we passed a basketball court on which George Clooney was shooting hoops with some crew guys (this was a million years ago, circa ER). I almost fainted. Then, more recently I was with Emilie and Caroline (um, auditioning to be on the World Series of Pop Culture which we almost did, Regal Beagles holla) in the Sheraton (Hilton?) in midtown and George (by this point, he’s just George, no?) walked across the lobby, right past us, and the wave of charisma that wafted off of him dropped all three of our jaws, in rapid succession. (He was there filming Michael Clayton and when I finally saw the movie I squealed at the end; that scene where he tells Tilda Swinton that she is royally fucked is the scene he was filming that day, and Oh, just the memory of seeing George was nice.)
Most of the celebrities I’ve seen are not quite of that A+ List caliber, but I’ve seen Julia Roberts in person, and she drips with star power. She is gorgeous, but I remember being surprised that she looked sort of delicate in person because on screen she is larger than life. But she is stunning, less iconic but prettier in a more human way, if that makes sense.
I think the two prettiest people I’ve ever seen in person might be Liv Tyler and Keri Russell. I saw both of them while they were just out and about, wearing jeans and running errands, and in both instances I was floored by how purely pretty they were. Liv Tyler is not done justice on film; she is breathtaking.
One of the strangest star sightings I’ve had was on 9/11; I was frantically rushing uptown in a daze and I passed Jimmy Fallon who was frantically rushing downtown in a daze. He wasn’t all that famous back then, but passing him on lower Madison Avenue is one of the many snapshots of that day which are preserved with bizarre clarity in my memory. He had on a red plaid shirt.
I’ve seen both Hillary Swank and Meryl Streep in shoe stores. I once did yoga behind Michelle Williams. I used to see Heath Ledger skateboarding around Brooklyn. I saw Michael Stipe having dinner with Mario Battali. I’ve twice been hit on by Steve Guttenberg.
I think the only time I’ve ever spoken up and approached someone famous was when I found myself in line behind Connie Britton (Tami Taylor, y’all!) at the Starbucks in my office building’s lobby. It was right before season three of Friday Night Lights began airing and I told her that I was so excited for the show to premier and that if I was so vested in a show about high school football in Texas, they were doing something right. She was so nice and sweet and appreciative her friends liked my boots.
I don’t remember the details but I think I was in Chumley’s with Emilie and Jake when Emilie went up to Jeremy Piven and spoke to him.
I’ve never seen Brad or Angelina or Tom or Katie or Oprah or Madonna or Gwyneth or any of the cast of Friends. I’ve never seen Robert Downey Jr. or Mark Ruffalo or Joaquin Phoenix or Adrian Brody or Aaron Eckhart, but oh how I wish I would. I’ve never seen Charlize Theron but I’d really like to, because she appears to glow. I have seen Benjamin Bratt, twice, and he in fact does glow.
I’m trying to think of what my favorite celebrity sighting might be, and it’s hard. My dog has barked at Conan O’Brien on more than one occasion and I’ve thought of her reaction recently, hoping that maybe he’ll be spending more time in New York and I might see him and his golden retriever in the park again. Hopefully this time, Tuesday wouldn’t bark at all.
January 28th, 2010
On New Year’s Eve 1999 I went to work in the morning, planning on working close to a full day before spending the evening with my newish boyfriend (spoiler: I married and then divorced him). I got to work feeling fine, started coughing around 9:30 and by 11:00 was home in bed with a terrible case of flu. I celebrated the end of the 1990’s with a high fever and body aches, and am not altogether sure whether I was awake for the fateful Y2K moment or not.
When 1999 became 2000 I was 24. I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t have a passport. I didn’t have a blog. My hair was in the late stages of a You’ve Got Mail inspired shag. I lived with a roommate. I had never been out of the country. I had never really cooked a proper dinner for anyone. I had never had a mortgage. I was still in debt on my college loans. I had never had a pedicure or spa treatment. I had never been a bridesmaid, much less a bride. I was in the baby steps of my first real adult relationship. I was working in finance. I rarely wore heels.
It seems impossible that a decade has gone by, but at the same time I feel so far removed from that person, place and time that it seems just as impossible that I was ever 24, ever living that life. In the past ten years I have seen a world of change. My world has changed..
The other day D. and I were trying to recount how we’ve spent all our New York New Year’s Eves and while some of the specifics escape me I know where I was for most of them, and I know with whom I spent them. One friend I no longer speak to. One couple has divorced and each since remarried. One has moved away. There have been weddings, too. Babies have been born. Cheap bar celebrations have given way to posh dinners have morphed into apartment parties in homes we now own. And so on.
Ten years ago I couldn’t have fathomed the ways in which the internet would grow and bring people into my life. I can’t discount the significance of certain relationships and people in my life, but without a doubt the blogosphere – to use a silly word in an effort to be a little more expansive – has been the biggest influence on my life this past decade. I started writing online in 2003 and I cannot imagine who I’d be without the outlet, the outreach, the openness I’ve found online. I remember when we called our blogs online journals because there were no blogs. And now my grandmother is on Facebook. Well done, internet. Well done.
The resolutions that I’ve kept: use fewer paper towels, drink more water, start practicing yoga. Some of the resolutions I’ve abandoned: bring my lunch more often, lose weight, shop less, become organized and stylish domestic goddess, wear more red lipstick, take more pictures, become fluent in French, etc etc etc
My resolutions for this year? Re-start my yoga practice, write more, stay in better touch with my friends, become orangized and stylish domestic goddess, take more pictures, etc etc etc
I’m not sure what D. and I are going to do on New Year’s Eve. I don’t really care, honestly. 2009 has not been huge with the parties, and I’ve never really been interested in the overpriced open-bar club celebrations: my current favorite idea is going out for tacos and returing home to drink champagne and take turns playing DJ with our iPods.
iPods! In 1999, did you have any idea that iPods were coming? In 1999 I was running through Brooklyn with a Walkman and mixed tapes.
Happy New Year, internet. I wish you all the best.
December 29th, 2009
Tall boots
Clean sheets
Expensive cheese
Cheap manicures
Stretchy pants
Bear hugs
Dog sneezes
The smell of bacon
Grey beard stubble
Broad shoulders
Real mail
Throw pillows
Almond flavored things
Lemon flavored things
Peppermint flavored things
Cobblestone streets
Movie previews
Boozy brunches
Stacks of books
Dangly earrings
Cable knit sweaters
Old-fashioned packaging on cosmetics and toiletries
Lip balm
Salt water taffy
Firm mattresses
A full house
The sound of corks popping
Fireplaces
Spooning
Brown leather saddle bags
Exposed brick
Little kids wearing backpacks that reach the backs of their knees
Felt tip markers
Cured meats
The smell of D’s head
Farmers’ markets
Corn on the cob
Guacamole
Dogs who carry their leashes in their mouths while walking
Tiny bikes with training wheels
My parents’ kitchen
The Brooklyn Bridge
Summer afternoons at the cafe in Riverside Park
Brown paper packages tied up with string
These are a few of my favorite things
December 24th, 2009
The day I realized I was getting a divorce – months after separating but still mired in What Are We Doing – I left work early because I could not stop crying. I collected myself as best I could and took the subway uptown, stopping at Gracious Home where I wandered the downstairs kitchenware aisles, eventually walking home with a new bread knife and a set of nested measuring cups. I had left Brooklyn with the bare minimum, not really knowing where, when or if I would return but on that February Friday, through my tears, I suddenly felt it was imperative that I buy myself another set of measuring cups. And then I went home and drank wine, and later met friends out for fried food and beer, and began putting my life back together.
I recently read a blog post about someone’s breakup, and in reading it as well as comments in response to the post, I was taken back to that time in my life. Divorce, even amicable ones that you asked for and know are the right thing to do, is a heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching thing. I view it now much the way I view old and unfortunate photos from the mid-nineties: Ooh, that was unpleasant, I can now say, laughing at the scrunchies and mom jeans as well as at the way in which I thought, really and truly thought, I’d never get over the end of my marriage. (This sounds crazy, I realize. My ex husband and I both knew with total certainty that we did not want to remain married to one another. We both knew there were better potential partners out in the world for both of us. We both knew we brought out bad things in one another. Yet undoing a life you share with someone is hard, and I felt like a failure.)
The memory of that bruising comes up every know and then, like it did as I read the comments of people offering advice (and counter-advice), on what should and shouldn’t be said to someone in the aftermath of a breakup. Certain things that people said to me were helpful, “Just go ahead and feel bad, go ahead and cry, do whatever you need,” and certain things were kind but hard for me to believe, “You will be okay, You will be okay, You will be okay,” and certain things were meant kindly but stung, “At least you didn’t have kids.” (Because while yes, children would have complicated the matter, leaving my marriage without children felt a lot like leaving behind the chance of ever having children, and besides which there was the frustration of failed ‘Trying’ and a whole slew of emotion.) It’s easy, while in the throws of breakup pain, to forget that scores of other people have been punched in their guts with heartbreak too, and that they really do know how awful you are feeling. To that blogger, I wanted to say: I know how awful you are feeling, I know, I know, I know.
I was making cookies earlier this morning while D. wrote about the Celtics on his blog. Music was playing and the dog was sleeping in a ball on our bed and I measured ingredients out into those same little measuring cups I bought nearly two years ago. That I can look at them and feel no sadness, no twinge, no regret, no bruise is a testament to the human heart. Mine was put back together again, and my effort now is to appreciate those that helped me, and to not let the fear of hurting again get in the way of what I have. I have a lot.
December 19th, 2009
When I was six my brother M. and I were playing in the downstairs rooms of our then-house. My mother was upstairs (on the phone, in our memory) and we were playing hide and seek or tag or maybe even just ‘Unattended Children’ and we opened up the door to what was used as a storage room and saw piles (Piles! Oh the skewed yet immovable memories from childhood!) of toys, just sitting there. There was a red rubber four-square ball, I remember (or do I?). We ran upstairs to tell our mom, who got off the phone (a key detail in our collective re-telling) and came downstairs, trailing behind us as we insisted that we had discovered an entire early delivery of Santa’s stash. We opened the door to the storage room, made some sort of TA-DAH motion, and looked inside to find…nothing. The toys were gone.
Clearly Santa knew we had sneaked a peek, and he made sure to take care of business, zapping our toys back up into the netherworld. Clearly. On Christmas morning, the very same toys re-appeared, this time beneath the Christmas tree. Clearly Santa was real. Clearly he was not only real but capable of magic. Clearly.
The story became family myth and we clung to it, until a few years ago when my mother finally shook her head and said, You do know it was me that moved the toys, right? And while I hope that my brother and I did, in fact, know that it was my mother who moved the toys and not Santa (“I mean, it wasn’t that hard to outsmart two little kids…”), we’d always sort of loved embracing our story as proof that holiday magic was real.
I’ve probably told that story here before but I mention it now because every year at this time I am reminded how different all of our holiday experiences are. The first time I realized that some people grew up with gifts from Santa that came WRAPPED (I mean, why bother, Santa?), I think I actually took a literal step backwards in shock. December tastes and smells and feels like childhood, but WHAT DO YOU MEAN you wore your pajamas all day long on Christmas and ate roast beef for dinner, at 2:00 in the afternoon? THAT’S NOT HOW WE DO.
My entire extended family has matching knit Christmas stockings; the tradition began a few generations before me and yes, I know I’ve blabbed about the damn stocking before, but I was pulling my stocking out the other day and D. mentioned that he never had a stocking growing up (the fact that he is half Jewish and was Bar Mitzvah’d might have something to do with that) and so I again launched into the tale of How My Family Does It, Re: Christmas with a little addendum about Stocking Stuffers.
And then I bought him a stocking. It doesn’t match mine, but sometimes change is good.
December 7th, 2009
There’s a part of me that loves the stress and drama of holiday travel, the hustle and exasperation and story-topping complaints, the very sturm und drang of it all. That part of me, however, is perfectly happy to spend the day before Thanksgiving with nary a care in the world and a glass of wine in her hand. I’ve traveled on many, many holidays, and I do have a little nostalgia for the haul, in that I like to imagine myself and my fellow travelers as characters in glossy holiday movies with twinkle lights and family hijinx, but oh, how nice it is to stay in one place on a day like last Wednesday.
D. and I stayed put for Thanksgiving and it was wonderful. We got up on Thursday and took the dog to the park and drank coffee and came home and ate bagels and made Bloody Marys and watched football and one of D’s good friends came over and we had more drinks and watched more football and I cooked (Chateaubriand! Not even a turkey! Clutch the pearls!) and we drank wine and lo, it was good. Later that night D. told me that after many years of being the orphan who was adopted at the Thanksgiving table of others, it felt really good to be the one providing the home.
It might not have been intended as a compliment but few things have made me feel better. I’m proud and delighted with the home we’ve carved out for ourselves, and I am thankful every day. Every single day.
And then I ate for three days straight. Seriously. We had a delicious dinner on Friday night, and then spent Saturday doing my favorite thing ever, which is a sort of urban walkabout/pub crawl hybrid…basically, we wandered and ate. Then we sat down. And ate some more.
In unrelated news, I think I might need to shop for new jeans.
(No really: I like the boyfriend jeans rolled/pegged with flats or heels but it is getting COLD and I have one pair of skinny jeans but they are – see above – tight and I’m not sure what the best jeans for boots are, and for that matter, I think I need jeans for both flat and heeled boots, no? You see how hard it is!)
Tied to the Stressful! Holiday! Travel! stories are, of course, the Christmas! Shopping! Begins! anecdotes and I should probably apologize to, oh, America for this but I’m so very over the gifting of the holiday season. Don’t get me wrong; I love (LOVE!) the holidays but I have run out of ideas for gifts (to give OR receive) and I am terrible at the process and end up buying three things for one person and nothing for another and then worrying that I’ve somehow indicated that I care for that first person three times as much as the other when in fact, I just am a terrible shopper and buy things without clear recipients in mind and every time I think I’ve landed on a truly remarkable gift for someone, it inevitably goes bust. Last year I 1) adopted/sponsored a polar bear for D. (he told me he loves them!) and 2) bought a t-shirt from a bar in Chapel Hill as a replacement for an old and long-lost favorite t-shirt he had bought in his Youth. The WWF never sent any of the promised documentation regarding the polar bear and the t-shirt was way too small so D. gave it to me, and within two weeks it was lost by my (ex) cleaners. So you see what I mean.
In short, I avoided the shops all weekend long and have not really started thinking about gifts yet. I have, however, been menu planning: we are hosting our first (very small) party this weekend, and I am torn between putting out a proper spread, or just going to Shake Shack and buying 20 cheeseburgers and a mess of fries. Both options sound pretty good.
I’ll let you know what we decide.
November 30th, 2009
Not my intention. Sigh.
November 29th, 2009
While I’m not one to necessarily go around claiming that there are two kinds of people in the world, I kind of think there is something to the notion that certain people are just lucky (and conversely, some of us are not). I don’t know if people are born lucky or if they are karmic-ly being rewarded for past hardships but I’ve always sort of felt that there are people who walk through the world with slightly surer steps than the rest of us, and those people seem to encounter a lot of good fortune. When I was younger and much more foolish I might have said that Yes, there are in fact two kinds of people in the world: lucky and unlucky, but nothing is ever that simple, now is it?
I can think of a few people in my life who fit this ever-so-vague criteria, and I’m not trying to downplay any strife these individuals have faced, but from my point of view, their lives have been a little less fraught with drama, a little sunnier, a somewhat easier fit and a little less peppered with indecision. To an outsider, they seem lucky.
I certainly have never considered myself lucky. I have a wonderful life, but there have been missteps and mistakes, misdirection and missed signals. I sometimes (okay, most times) feel like a bumbling fool, doing the best I can and over-analzing every step of the way. I’ve been hurt. I’ve made wrong turns. I righted myself (I hope) but there have been many What The Fuck Am I Doing moments. (Moments? If you listen hard enough you can probably hear those closest to me guffawing at the idea that my WTFAID crisis are mere moments.) I’ve learned a lot about myself over the past few years and I suppose being able to grow and gain perspective is quite lucky, now that I think about it, but I’m not the chick who walks through life with a sunbeam shining down on her always-well-coiffed head. I’m not the happily ever after type. I don’t find a $100 dollar bill in the cab I just climbed into, I don’t stumble onto amazing apartment deals, I don’t win things.
BUT YOU GUYS I DID I WON SOMETHING, SOMETHING AMAZING. I won a contest, a lovely little contest that I read about on Whoorl’s site and which completely spoke to me, and I knew as soon as I heard about the details I would enter, even though I never expected to win. But I did. I wrote about going to Paris at a time in my life when I felt spectacularly unlucky, and now – two years later and a million miles from where I was, emotionally – I am being given something wonderful.
And I feel lucky, sure. But not nearly as much as I feel thankful. OH HEY LOOK AT THAT, IT’S ALMOST THANKSGIVING.
And I am thankful for so very much, including all of the delicious fortune which has brought me to this place in my unlucky, unlikely, sometimes surprising and perfectly imperfect life.
ETA: I’m not trying be to evasive by not mentioning the contest or prize, just not sure how much I can say yet BUT it was a writing contest and I won a trip to Hawaii, so you can see why I am so giddy!! Also, you all know that I am calling myself unlucky with my tongue firmly in my cheek, right? Because this life of mine, I like it very much.
November 23rd, 2009
…I’ve been neglecting you.
Don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m fine, I’ve just been distracted by, oh…this:
Happy Autumn internet! I hope you are well. I promise to write more soon, but in the meantime, go read Doxie (who is back) and The Trephine (who I just discovered), because whenever I start to write all I can think is that I’d rather just go read their sites, sometimes more than once.
KIT, internet, miss you lots!
November 20th, 2009
I’ve never been a good sleeper but in the past six or seven years I’ve become a downright bad sleeper. Getting a dog probably contributed (because there have been all manner of sleeping arrangements, from crates to the floor to my bed to under my covers to back on the floor to pacing around the apartment with clicky-clacky dog nails and collar-jangling racket) but I’ve always been a light sleeper. I do not remember the last time I slept through the night and I know those of you with children are probably all, BISH PLZ but I’m just laying the facts out there: I am a shitty sleeper.
Last night I woke up around 4:15 in the morning to the not-so-unusual sounds of Tuesday, doing her passive aggressive ‘Oh, am I making noise? Why don’t you let me on the bed where I will be SO MUCH QUIETER’ thing. She was making a sort of smacky-licky mouth noise and sighing loudly and seemingly trying to get my attention in what I assumed was a ploy to get me to invite her on the bed. And thus a battle of wills ensued.
And [spoiler], she ended up on the bed, because I am weak. But she was still not relaxing, and was shaking and panting and seemed to be having a canine panic attack. That’s totally a thing.
By that point both D. and I were both awake and trying to reason with her; yes WITH OUR DOG. She jumped off the bed and was pacing the bedroom in a total frenzy, which is when D. got up and flipped on the lights. Tuesday was totally spooked and acting strangely and in my 4am mind I decided it was one of three things: she had seen a mouse, our apartment was haunted, she was the harbinger of some natural disaster about to strike.
The mouse seemed the most likely, especially when she started frantically nosing around under my dresser and so D. got on his hands and knees and looked and looked and finally went into the bathroom, grabbed a wad of toilet paper and went back under my dresser. “IT’S A LITTLE BUG,” he said. “A TINY LITTLE BUG.”
Tuesday remained unconvinced that the threat had been taken care of for a solid half hour after that. She paced, she checked the perimeter of the apartment, she panted DIRECTLY IN MY EAR, she whined, she got up on the bed, I got down on the floor with her. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Eventually she calmed down.
At then we dozed off for a brief nap before getting up and getting ready for work. BECAUSE OF A TINY LITTLE BUG. Ah, parenthood.
October 21st, 2009
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