Archive of ‘new york’ category

things i like

Since this has turned into a total hater-blog, where I just bitch about how awful the world is…I thought a little positivity could be good.

Things I will miss about nyc:

  • steve’s key lime pie
  • the subway
  • olmstead and vaux parks
  • manhattan skyline
  • brownstones
  • take-out
  • bodegas
  • proximity to amenities
  • the anonymity
  • cicadas
  • year-round greenness
  • summer rain
  • walking
  • that feeling of being in it. being a part of something big and something great. even if I’m sitting on my couch watching netflix–the sensation of being at the center of the universe.

tides

The thing about change is that it has big effects on your body and brain. Lots of mountainous highs, followed by riverbank lows. Storms of confidence followed by buckets of self-doubt.

Relationships are fascinating, right? Because, you never know if your perception of the thing is totally different from the other persons. It’s impossible to tell if the idea you have of a person (particularly those on the peripheral) is even remotely accurate. Or, maybe people and relationships are just far more fluid than I like to believe. Perhaps bonds are formed and broken and reshaped and remodeled more often than I am aware. Maybe I’ve just been living in a relationship bubble. Believing that the world is stationary, that people are mostly static.

Clearly they are not.

Boundaries shift and new ideas emerge.

This is all a very dramatic way of saying, I thought I had a great relationship with my landlord. For two years things have been better than perfect. No problems, no drama, nothing. Just pleasantries and professional transactions.

Now that we are moving, now that we are no longer his tenants, we no longer have this bond, this rapport, this ability to be cordial and friendly. Now, it’s just how much can I screw you over without you noticing? How much money can I get from you before you put up a fight.

And, here’s the thing. It’s never simple. It’s never cut & dry, like, screw him–he’s in the wrong! No, it’s taking all these various components into consideration and weighing the present circumstances (losing half a month’s rent) with future ones (losing a reference) and figuring out which one will be more costly in the end.

It also turns something that should have been simple and smooth into something ugly. Now, we have to seek legal advice and research tenant rights. Now we have to figure out if fighting or hoping for the best will ultimately be a better option for us–for our finances, for our emotional well being, for our egos.

I love so many, many things about New York City. But, one thing I will not miss for one tiny millisecond is the real estate bullshit. It is a racket. A seedy, disgusting bullshit of a situation. Where no one wins and everyone is miserable.

I guess a final fuck you from New York was inevitable. Let’s go out with a bang!

identity

In New York you’re constantly bombarded with people on the street. People living on the street, people hanging out on the street, passersby on their way to and from work, red-eyed dads trying to get their kids to sleep at 2 AM, all sorts of folks on any given day. I would say I’m hit up at least a half-dozen times for money or a donation, a contribution, a signature or a flyer about god, about a new restaurant, about a salon giveaway, there’s always something–in fact, there’s always a million things.

Sometimes I give, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I stop, sometimes I’m in a hurry. Sometimes I shoo them off, exasperated and frustrated–usually that’s on a really hot day when I’m in a big rush, and can’t they see my kid is having a miraculous nap in the stroller? But the interaction that always seems to leave me reeling is when I get stopped with, “Excuse me ma’am, are you Jewish?” Every single time I am stopped in my tracks. Do I lie? Is it really a lie? I’m not a practicing Jew. It’s my father’s side, so, does it really count?

And then I get to thinking about religion versus cultural ethnicity and internal identity versus external realities and how those all intertwine and get boggled up. You would think that after fifteen years in New York–and since I am besieged by this question during every high holiday–that I would have an answer at the ready. But, I don’t. Sometimes I say yes and other times it’s no.  And, no matter what I say I end up feeling kind of lousy.

Is it a fabrication to say yes? Is it a lie just to say no? Do I really want that horn blown in my face? Am I really expected to repeat that Hebrew verse? But, no matter what the answer, I feel like a fraud. If I say yes then I feel like the minute I can’t recite properly they know I’m full of shit. If I say no, I envision them walking away mumbling under their breath about how I’m so obviously Jewish and why would I lie? And, I get this queasy feeling in my gut.

Who am I versus who I am perceived or expected to be? Where do I fit in? Who do I belong to? If not to them, then to whom? Am I an island? And I start romanticizing organized religion. Which is not a useful pastime. Because, I have yet to find one organization that I would truly want to be a part of. Am I the only one for whom this happens? Is it strange that a simple question turns into a deep philosophical dialogue about selfhood and identity? Perhaps. Or, maybe everyone’s walking around questioning who they are, not internally, but who they are in relation to the world around them. Which is a very different investigation than who we are on our own–what we do, what we believe in, who we love, how we live–those are somewhat simple to determine. It’s a question of belonging and of community, having nothing to do with confidence or success or education.

Are we all still in high school, searching for our clique?

hell is a hospital bed in brooklyn // present

“Grampa, Grampa!” the woman next to me screamed. “Can I come to your bed, Grampa? I can’t sleep.” Silence. Maybe it’s over, I think. “Grampa, please! Can I sleep in your bed tonight, Grampa?”

Her thin frame lay mostly exposed above the white sheet, her wispy grey hair like a halo. A frail arm reaching toward the wall, a bony finger catching for a moment on the ruffle of her diaper.  A wild-eyed look of terror and confusion, not to me or the nurse, but just to the world. I knew it well. I recognized it immediately.

“Please,” I pleaded. “I don’t think I can stay in this room.”

“Miss, we don’t exactly have extra rooms lying around,” My nurse quipped. “This ain’t the Four Seasons. You’re lucky you got a bed. Ever since LICH closed, this is how it is. How long you was in the ER, huh? Exactly.” She paused for effect. To let me know I was being a pest. I was ungrateful and probably not empathetic enough. “You lucky you in here. We gonna take good care of you. Now, just relax.” Her tone shifted, perhaps because she remembered I too was suffering. Maybe she could see the look of fear in my eyes, genuine, real, huge. She knew how the hospital functioned. Blood work took half a day, CT scans ordered ‘immediately’ took 14 hours, iv fluids–for a a thirty-something woman exhibiting symptoms consistent with dehydration–8 hours. “You’re gonna be just fine. Just lay back. Call me if you need anything, sweetie.”

She threw in the ‘sweetie’ as a trick, I thought. So I’d let my guard down and so I’d think she was my friend. I pressed the call button immediately.

“Yes?!” a very annoyed voice from a loudspeaker asked insistently.

“Hi, um, yeah. Is there, can I, am I allowed to eat?” I stumbled.

“I don’t know.” The line went silent. “Looks like…no. No eating.”

“I, okay, I”m just…” she was gone.

I lay there, alone, numb from the knees down, my bottom lip still curled and contorted. The stiff, white sheet scratchy against my bare thighs. The neon light humming above my bed. A blue-white glare, hard and intrusive. It’s high-pitched buzzing like a zombie-mosquito, incapable of death, so it drones on, attacking, sucking, blood-letting through the night.

Hospitals are supposed to be places to rest and recuperate, I think. This is hell. This is where people come to be tortured. To humble themselves, to be lowered so far down into the depths of self-pity and shame and fury that they will submit simply because they lose the will to go on. What’s the point? you find yourself thinking. And the next minute you are crying and screaming that you need to get out. One breath of fresh air, the feeling of sun on your skin for just one moment. But, they ask you to wait. To be patient. So you try to breathe and you try to stay calm but every moment in that room–that room with it’s incessant beeps, its flashing lights, its filthy thin curtain, a veil, an illusion of privacy–feels like an eternity. Doctors unannounced, waking you just when you’ve finally drifted off to sleep to deliver, nonchalantly, some upsetting news. To announce a diagnosis, to provide no context, no explanation of process. They give you a card, walk out and in comes another one. With a different title and a crisp new card. Another theory, another acronym. Scrubs come in and poke your belly with needles, they draw vial after vial of your blood with no explanation. Where is all this blood going? you wonder.  Voices drift in, stories of other patients with attitude, with too many requests, with some sob story. This is their workplace, you remind yourself. It’s only fair that they should be so casual. It’s natural. Except that people are dying here. And being born. And doing all of the business in between. And, it’s too hard to be reminded that life, outside of your own experience, is continuing without you. Rivers will continue to flow, trains will stay on schedule, emails will be answered, books will be written. And the exact placement of your body–growing or dying– in space has little to do with the order of the world.

 

alone not loneliness

I went from a commune–a house with anywhere from 20-25 people, where I shared a room with four girls–to a college dorm with a roommate and dozens of women close by, to roommates in a teensy city apartment, to living with my partner.

When my husband is out of town I don’t sleep. I don’t mean I have trouble sleeping, I mean I lose hours and hours of sleep.

On the first night we slept in our current apartment it became clear that we could hear everything from our downstairs neighbors. A cough, a sneeze, the telephone ringing. My husband very nearly cried. He was sure we would have to move immediately. I loved it. Noise. People sounds–all the time. It felt comforting. It felt like home.

The thing I love about New York is that you can feel like you’re in a giant community, surrounded by people–but, still be all alone. If I scream, I will be heard. If I’m in trouble, there will be help. But, I’m also anonymous and invisible. Alone with my thoughts, separate and individual.

The thing I was always so terrified of in the country was that sense of being all alone. Helpless and vulnerable. No one for miles. Just darkness and woods.

In the city, you almost never get that feeling. There is something so comforting about the 4am bar closing. It means people are out and about until the wee hours of the morning. You can ride the subway at 3am and it’s really not as sketchy as you might think. It’s still super crowded at midnight and even 1am can sometimes feel like rush hour heading into the city.

In 2005, we moved to Astoria, a crummy little apartment off of 30th avenue. We thought we were moving to this quaint little “suburb” borough of NYC but as it turns out, Astoria has it’s very own vibrant nightlife. It’s no East Village, in terms of ambience, but I might go so far as to say it’s more raucous and possibly more populated on any given warm, summer evening.

The sidewalk cafe’s turn into bars, the restuaruants all open their windows and spill onto the street–there is a legitimate and bourgeoning “Euro-scene” there. People come from Jersey, Connecticut, Philly and (gasp!) Manhattan even, to hang out in these places that feel a whole lot like the cafes of Europe. There really isn’t a Manhattan equivalent. All the restaurants are Greek or Italian, and let me tell you about the quality of seating you get if you speak neither Greek nor Italian. It’s a real bummer and the hosts have no problem being totally upfront about it. “You speak Greek? No? Okay. You wait.” The food is well worth the hour and a half delay. Especially since they bring trays of wine around to the dozens of loiterers waiting for tables. It’s a brilliant plan. You’ve already started on the wine, you’re tipsy by the time you sit down. You order way more than you can eat and, obviously, you have to have another carafe of the house white!

You can spot the regulars from a  block away. They walk, arm in arm, not a care in the world, strolling down the street. They breeze right in, kiss the waiters, grab glasses of wine, smile and are whisked off to their table. Eating at the Greek restaurants in Astoria is a little like showing up to a family reunion that isn’t your family. “Oops. I think perhaps my kin are in the hotel next door. But, what the hell. You’re food looks way better. I think I’ll stay.”

When we first moved to Park Slope I was actually kind of freaked out by the neighborhood. I mean, all those babies and dogs?! Well, actually that did kind of freak me out. But, really it was the dark, vacant streets. Seriously, this neighborhood is shut down by 9pm, even on a Saturday. And, unlike a lot of other parts of the city, the residential streets are really separate from the commercial zones so those sidewalks are particularly empty. It took me quite a few months to stop looking behind me every half a block, nervous I was being followed. Now, I laugh out loud thinking about my initial fear of this bourgeois hood.

I guess what I am trying to say is that the thing that a lot of people complain about–cramped living quarters, folks stacked on top of one another, busy streets, crowded sidewalks–those are the things that most endear New York to me. Those are the things that I would miss most. That feeling of closeness and family and belonging amongst strangers. The incredible ability to be both alone but never alone.

time

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we choose to spend our time. The royal we. You know, us.

I’ve also been thinking about the judgment around those choices. Judgment from family, friends, perceived judgment from strangers. But, mostly my own self-inflicted scrutiny.

Choosing to keep my daughter in daycare for an extra day, choosing to pick her up early when I can, choosing to watch television and zone out for hours, choosing to take a nap, to sit quietly and read, to go out with friends til all hours of the night.

It has always felt difficult to create extra time and space for myself. Add a child to the equation and it feels like there is very little wiggle room. Our schedules are so mapped out. I used to scoff at the idea of a shared calendar. Now, we couldn’t get by without one. “Did you see I added an extra PT appointment on Tuesday?” I ask my husband. “That means you’ll need to do pickup. Can you make that work?”

We often talk about how easy it is to become nothing but parenting partners. Because, you can, literally, spend ALL of your time planning and just getting by as parents. And we only have one! Don’t even get me started. So, somewhere between all of these conversations about who is doing drop off and who can do pickup and when he’s squeezing in a run and I’m fitting in a doctors appointment, it’s really easy to forget about doing something nice for yourself.

Any free minute “should” be spent doing a load of laundry, cleaning the bathroom, tidying the living room, doing dishes, writing a blog post… But, if that’s all we’re doing then what’s it all for? We both work too many hours. Our jobs and commutes take too much out of us. One of us always gets home too late to have a sit-down, family meal. So, our daughter often ends up eating alone. Which is so crappy.

And so, taking time out to do things for ourselves just seems so selfish. But, it must be done. It’s like on the plane when they’re doing the safety intro and they tell you to put your mask on before putting your child’s mask on. What bullshit. I’d totally put my kid’s mask on first. But, perhaps, therein lies the problem.

I think my husband would put his on first. Not because he’s a dick. Just because he’s practical and follows rules. He somehow always seems to find time to go on runs and have a drink with a friend. To duck out for a quick NYU brunch reunion or catch a Mets game. I’m getting much better–at least partially at his urging. It was so different when I was nursing but now that I’ve got my body back to myself, I have much more flexibility.

So, we’ve implemented a one-night-a-week plan. Where one of us does bedtime and stays home and the other one can go do…whatever. It’s not a weekly date night, which would be nice, but it’s a weekly “me-time” night. Which is pretty great, actually. A lot of couples that I know don’t set aside any time for themselves. They do a monthly date night, or a more regular one if they have family nearby, but don’t think to give each other much space to do their own thing. Hey, whatever works is great! But, we are definitely people who both like  alone time. So, this has been an amazing addition to our shared calendar.

I’m thinking of spending an evening sitting on a bench in Prospect Park, staring at the trees. Perhaps with a fall-themed beverage in hand. A pumpkin latte or something. Ah, yes. And, I’ll try really hard not to think about whether my daughter is being a tricksy little beast and delaying bedtime with all her new tricks or if there is a tantrum situation and my poor husband is suffering through it, white-knuckled and furious, confused and helpless. I will push those thoughts aside and take long, deep breaths, and roll my shoulders back, and undo the top button of my jeans and just sit. Alone.

 

the joys of parenthood

Our apartment is wonderful. It is practically perfect. Sure, I could do without the two flights of stairs and I would KILL for some outdoor space. But, come on, it’s New York City. That’s how it goes.

The thing that is a real bummer. And, one that I think I’m justified in bringing up here, is the fact that we stare straight into our neighbors’ house from a distance of about five feet. Some architect had the brilliant idea to extract a few square feet of brick in between adjoining duplexes in order to provide more natural light. Now, this is wonderful in theory, don’t get me wrong. We get bright beams streaming through our kitchen glasses on the sun’s rise to noon. An eastern-facing apartment is a thing of beauty in Brooklyn.

However, an eastern-facing apartment with a large kitchen window that looks directly into our neighbors western-facing kitchen window is awkward at best.

Why haven’t we put up blinds? Well, it’s become somewhat of a stand-off. You want privacy? You pay for curtains. They’re giant panes and they didn’t come equipped with pre-installed blinds like the rest of our windows.

The problem isn’t that we see straight into their world and vice versa — though that is, admittedly, regrettable. The problem is that their lives are too dissimilar from ours for it to be ignorable. They are four, twenty-something women living the single life in New York City. If they were just, you know, another Park Slope family of three making dinner and listening to Raffi while ignoring their mirror images, it would be fine.

I’ve gotten amazingly good at not looking up, just pretending they’re not there. I can stand at my sink and wash an entire basin of dishes without even batting an eye when I hear their girly screeching from a few feet away. I couldn’t describe what these women look like if I had to. If the police came knocking on my door requesting a missing persons sketch I would literally have nothing to offer. “There’s, like, maybe four of them, I think.” How awkward would that conversation be? “Ma’am, your window stares straight into their apartment. You’re telling me you have no idea what they look like? You can’t possibly be serious.” And, I’d be all up on my high horse like, “Hey, man, it’s New York. This is how we live. I don’t get into their business, and they don’t get into mine.” Anyway, I don’t think there is such a thing as a missing persons sketch. At least not for middle-class women living in the city. I’m sure their images are all over the internets. But, you know, if there was…

So, anyway. I had a story I was trying to tell. It required this preamble but perhaps could have done without the whole police-knocking-on-my-door tangent. Anyhow, here we are. So, my kid is in her high chair eating her dinner. And it takes her forever to eat. So, I’ve already finished and I’m at the window, washing dishes. Staring down, into my steely sink when I hear her say, “Mama, you wanna take a bath with me?” And I think, ugh, it is so much more difficult to bathe with her than to just plop her in, real quick-like, and be done with the whole ordeal. Bedtime is already running late, we stayed on those damn swings too long (as usual) and now everything is about twenty minutes behind where I’d like them to be. And then I think, what is wrong with me? Yes, of course you should take a bath with your two-year-old. She is asking you to and there will not be many of these days left. They will pass quickly and without notice. One day very soon she will be a surly teenager screaming that I’ve once again used her special shampoo and when will we get a second bathroom because, uhhhhhggg, life is so hard!!

“Yes,” I quip. “Of course I will bathe with you, honey” As I push the image of her hating me (though, of course it is inevitable) out of my head.

To which she replies, in her most emphatic voice. Voice really being an understatement here. For whatever reason, she decides that these next words should be shouted. Screamed at the top of her lungs for all, near and far, to hear: “Mama, you have a VAGINA?!”

“Yes, sweetheart. That’s right,” I say calmly without looking up, without even turning around. We talk about parts. All our parts. It’s no big deal. I mean, I could do without the snickering of twenty-somethings from across the way but, whatever.

“You got a vagina just like meee?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“And, papa got a PENIS, right?! And, me and you we got VAGINAS?” Her inflection on questions is like an exaggerated slide whistle on it’s way up.

“Yep, that’s it. That’s how it goes,” I say, turning around to look at her like it’s just a regular conversation. Which it is. It just happens to be in front of an audience.

“Except you got a HAIRY vagina and mine’s NOT hairy, riiiiiiiiiiiiight?” she asks, holding onto the last word like a multi-syllabic lyric.

“That is true,” I say, whirling around and swooping her up out of her chair, escorting us both out of the kitchen and into the solitude of our bathroom. Where we can pick up this scintillating dialogue about our genitalia without our poor, horrified and most likely very traumatized neighbors listening in.

on growing up

This is going to sound ridiculous, but a few years back when I bought my beautiful bike, Dot, I became obsessed with getting a matching brown leather backpack. I envisioned riding around on my gorgeous cream colored bike — with brown handlebars and a brown leather seat — wearing a matching backpack in which I would carry my odds and ends.

Back when I was looking, backpacks really weren’t back in vogue yet. Now, it seems as though the 90’s have returned with a bang. And, with that era comes the small, girly backpacks of Friends and Felicity fame. I have been seeing them everywhere. Particularly on the younger generation. So, I’m having a bit of a dilemma. Do I get a backpack? Do I join the masses? Am I too old for this fad? I really wish I had gotten one years back so I could feel, you know, validated by being ahead of the trend.

Now, it just feels like I’m following a trend. I hate that. I don’t know why. Who cares? In fact, shouldn’t it be a source of great pride? Especially considering my yearning to fit in for all those years? I can’t quite explain it. But, all I know is that I have an intense desire to go against the norm.

This is all coming up because I just walked by my dream backpack. It was in the window of what I like to call a, triple-digit-boutique. You know, the stores you don’t even think about entering, because there are no price tags in the single or double digits.

But, it’s beautiful. It’s a medium brown leather, it’s the perfect size, it has these really cool closures made entirely of slightly darker stained leather pieces. It’s art. Perhaps that’s how I could justify its purchase? As a piece of artwork that I can enjoy and pass down to my offspring? Agh. Even I can’t swallow that. But, it’s so pretty!

When I was a kid, I had my own sense of style. A style which generated the argyle sock incident of 93′. “Are you wearing your grandpa’s socks?!” Rachel had asked me and then burst into laughter. I was wearing knee-high blue and yellow socks that I thought were the coolest. Then there was the rumor in 6th grade that all my clothes came from the thrift store (gasp!) which, as it turned out, was mostly true. That was before thrifting was hip. In 95′ I was the “dyke” at my high school both because I had a proclivity toward boys and girls and because (mostly because, in fact) I had short hair. In a school of 3,000 I was the only person who both identified as female and also had short hair. It was a dark time in my small town. And, it was pre-Halle Berry looking all shorn and gorgeous.

I look around and see stylish people, lots of them in fact, because I live in New York City. And, I love the way they look. The seemingly effortless flawlessness. The aura of confidence and cool. The way their shoes are the perfect match for their shorts, which cling in all the right ways. And, their shirts are spotless and pressed and their necklaces hang just so. And their hair? Well, it’s just a different universe on top of those heads. Filled with curling irons and hairsprays, gels and products of all varieties.

So many beautiful people. It’s great, honestly. Makes for wonderful people-watching. But, I also can’t help but sort of look down at my dingy, coffee-stained blouse, my gap shorts and my Park Slope mom shoes and think, who is this person? How does my style reflect who I am? When you’re young you have the luxury of wearing your personality on your outsides. Then, you get a job and you have to start conforming to certain standards and dress codes (depending on the job, I suppose). It’s so limiting. Because, the truth is, if you work five days a week (or more) then you’re mostly wearing work clothes. And, if you’re mostly wearing work clothes then you’re mostly buying them. Then, before you know it, you dress that way on your days off too. Because, what if you run into the super conservative parent of the child in your class whilst wearing your shortest, tattered jeans and a tiny tank top with no bra?

This is how it happened. Slowly. It crept through my wardrobe one item at a time. I bought one pair of gap shorts then four more. A simple gingham top and then a denim one and then that was all I had. Then, I needed comfortable shoes because…I’m on my feet all day and I have back issues. I had a baby and grew two sizes so tons of things just got tossed out (never to be seen or heard from again — the clothes or the previous dress size) and it continued on down the line. I never go out, this dress will probably never fit again, it’s ripped anyhow, and on and on.

Sometimes I think about dying my hair or shaving half my head and I know it would shift peoples’ perception of me. Some would think I was way cooler. Some wouldn’t hardly notice. A few would be offended and some might even have the audacity to complain. My first job working as a teacher’s assistant up in Yonkers in 2001 was a disaster due to my fashion choices. I worked for half a day before being pulled aside by my supervisor who told me the principal was concerned about my appearance and that, unless I took my septum ring out, I would not be allowed to continue working there.

I refused. And, got fired. But, that was fourteen years ago. Before I needed to make rent and buy diapers.

Now, I drool over beautiful, too-expensive backpacks and worry I’m too old to pull things off. I stare longingly at hip-punk girls with bleached hair and tattoos. And, I wonder things like: Does the way we look determine who we are? Or, does who we are determine the way we look? At the very least, the way we look determines how we are perceived. And, then I think about choices. The choice to live in a diverse and welcoming city. The choice to have a career that is still quite socially conservative. And, how sometimes you compromise on one thing you love to get a thing you love more.

And, then I think, relax, it’s just clothes.

i’ve never heard my father’s voice on the telephone

“That’s a poem. Right there. What a strange thing,” my poetry professor said, breathing heavily, leaned forward in his gray, ikea swivel chair. We sat in his windowless office, each of us sucking in the same stale air. Beads of sweat ran down his balding temples as he wrung his hands, wiping them on his slacks every few minutes. It was the beginning of September but it was still hot. Swelteringly hot. And humid. Cicadas still whistled outside, the grass was limp with heat and I swear there were some confused fireflies still flitting about in the early evenings. Fall had not yet fallen in New York.

Why haven’t I taken a writing class? I wondered as I flipped through the course offerings the summer before my senior year. “You should really think about seeing one of our writing tutors,” my Environmental Studies professor had said after reading my first paper. I ignored his recommendation but continued to double or triple-load my coursework for the next three years. I agonized over which classes to take. I read and reread course descriptions, desperately trying to figure out which classes would be best suited to my particular interests at the time (environmentalism, social justice, policies and politics, latin american studies).

The start of my senior year of college hadn’t been easy. Summer had ended with the realization that my on-again, off-again boyfriend was a covert heroin addict. By mid-year my mother was actively dying from early-onset Alzheimers and I had undergone unsuccessful back surgery which left me in more rather than less pain. So, an easy course load, I decided, was the only way to get through the year. Poetry, photography and one more sociology course for good measure. One entitled, Protest & Art: How art has birthed movements and movements have birthed art. Or something to that effect. In my four years I had established myself as the social sciences darling. My professor had even asked me to sit in on the interviews and help him pare down the admittance list. But, this would be the year to take an art class, finally. And, a writing one too.

I spent my first few weeks of classes lying on the ground, having received approval from the office of Students with Disabilities. I hobbled in, explaining that lying prostrate on the floor was the only way that I could cope with the pain. I hadn’t responded well to the pain meds and was hesitant to pop pills anyhow. I’ve never been much of a medication person. I blame it on my hippie upbringing. A sacred physical vessel and all that.

“How is that possible?” Jeff asked, puzzled. “You have a relationship with him, right? By that I mean, he is in your life. You speak to him. You visit him when you’re back in California, yes?” he paused. “So, how do you make plans? Do you email him?”

“No,” I explained. “He doesn’t do anything directly.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. His interest piqued. I could see him floating ideas for his own poem. My strange upbringing and experience perfect fodder for his dark, human-experience poetry. “So…what would happen if you were to call and ask for him?”

“Well, I suppose that if he were available…and wanted to talk to me…that he would speak through one of the women.”

“Speak through them?! Like, a medium? Speak through them metaphysically?”

“No, no. Speak through them, literally,” I said, regretting having mentioned it at all. “No one would go and get him. But, if he happened to be in the main house when I called and felt inclined — for whatever reason — to say hello, then it would go something like this:

‘Say hi to dad for me.’

‘She says hello.’ the woman would say aloud to my dad who would be sitting down for lunch.

‘School’s going well. I’m really enjoying my poetry class,’ I might say.

‘She says she’s liking her poetry class,’ she would relay. Then she would either hold the phone up near my father so I could hear his response — provided he had one — or he would reply and she would paraphrase his words back to me. This would go on until our (very short) conversation came to a lull. At which point I would lie and say that I had to go and they would know that I was lying but be more than happy to oblige. And, I would say goodbye and they would yell ‘goodbye’ and that would be that,” I explained.

“Hmm,” Jeff squinted as he caressed his stubbly chin. His brow furrowed, hunched forward, dripping with perspiration.

“Yep. That’s what I meant when I said I’d never heard his voice on the phone. I don’t know, it’s just one of those weird quirky things, I guess. Not a big deal. I’m not sure how that gets worked into a poem. But, then again, what do I know about writing,” I admitted, biting the inside of my cheek and tasting the sweet metallic flavor of blood.

“Fascinating,” he continued. “Just fascinating. Do you have other stories like that? Other, as you say, ‘quirky’ tales from your childhood?”

“Um…I don’t know. Probably. Honestly, it didn’t really occur to me that it was weird until I said it out loud and you told me how strange that was.”

“Right. Right. Well, keep digging. Think back to a specific time in your life. Remember a smell. Or, a sensation. One word someone said. Poetry can come from anywhere. Read tomorrow’s headlines. Start there if you can’t come up with something from your own life. There’s always an interesting story. A beautiful headline. I want five poems by next week. Let’s pick back up in our conference next Wednesday.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I said with a half-smile and backed out of his door, winding my way through the dim corridor and out into the orange September sun.

relationships // present

You’d think I would have learned my lesson about matchmaking. I’ve had a few epic fails that should have forever discouraged my efforts.

Perhaps I persevered because I assumed it only applied to romantic endeavors. Well, as it turns out, it is just relationships in general. Just, matching humans with other humans that I am bad at.

This past weekend I attempted to link two of my favorite couple friends. I thought, we love these people. Why wouldn’t they love each other? We all have kids about the same age, we’re all fairly liberal-leaning, we’re raising our kids in similar manners, we are somewhat similar in income levels, no one is too snobby but we’re all a bit snobby in just the right ways 😉 Everyone is in a committed relationship that works for them. Perfect, no?

I pictured renting a house by the lake in the Adirondacks every fall, a winter cabin in the Catskills where our kids would build snow people and drink hot cocoa. We’d all take turns going out on date nights, we’d drink wine and make elaborate, decadent meals. We’d be the dynamic six! Raising kids, working hard and still making friends in our thirties!

Well, best laid plans.

Perfect, dream world, fantasy stuff. That’s what that was.

Turns out my super-awesome friends who I adore and want to share do not so much adore one another. How this could be true, I do not know. They are all — all of them(!) — wonderful people. Like, friends forever folks. But, then again, my two best girlfriends are friends (in air quotes) who, I am quite sure would cease to even attempt to maintain the illusion of friendship if I were taken out of the equation.

Why is that Sex and the City foursome so incredibly difficult to actualize. Who are these people who like each other all exactly the same amount? Four besties. Who has that? I have all these wonderful friends but I get them in a room and my teacher friends don’t know what to say to my college friends and my musician friends have no clue how to interact with my mommy friends and then add my husbands friends (who have now become my friends) into the mix and it’s just a shit show of awkward exchanges and crappy small talk.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m guilty of it too. I go to my husband’s friends’ weddings and I have no clue what to say to people. I use my daughter as an excuse to get out of any conversation that isn’t going well. “Oh, darn. She’s gotta go potty. Talk later…” or “She’s getting so tired, I’ve really gotta get going. Great to meet you…” I mean, it’s bad. Who am I? What have I become? I used to pride myself on this social crap. I was the queen of banter. The master bullshitter. I could hang with anyone. Rich, poor, liberal, conservative, old, young. I was the puppet master. Now I use the cheap, I’m sorry, my mouth is filled with hors d’ oeuvres so I can’t talk to you, excuse. Or the, I see you coming for me so I’m going to duck into the other room to grab my phone which is probably, no, definitely ringing. Silently. But, I am expecting a call. So, I’ve definitely got to grab this, trick. The eye aversion, what a delightful chandelier. The, I see someone I actually know beeline. The, excuse me I need to ______ (use the bathroom/get a drink/find my husband) line.

I have no idea what happened. It’s not for lack of confidence or a lack of topics to discuss. It’s not because I don’t find the people interesting or because I think I’m better than anyone. It’s just pure laziness, I think. Really. Honestly. It’s the, I am so fucking tired and the last thing I want to do is chit chat, reality of adulthood and parenthood.

And, so maybe this is the problem with my couple friends. It’s not a wedding reception but it’s kind of the same idea. I already have friends. I’m already stretched too thin between my job and my kids and the few friends I do have so why would I make time or put forth any effort to extend my circle to include people who’s company I may (or, more likely may not) even enjoy? I get it. It’s a bummer. But, I get it. I feel the same way. I just have selfish motivation for creating these bonds. All I want is a damn cabin in the woods and a few friends who get along to split the cost. Is that really too much to ask? Sheesh.

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