Liar Liar Pants on Fire

Ali Brill had (real) Doc Martens. Anne Linder had (Super) Nintendo. Laura Goldberg had (her own) set of house keys. Amanda Staiano got (professional) manicures. Danna Weber had an older sister (who knew about sex). I had plenty of things but none of those things. I always wanted what I didn’t have. (To a degree, I still want what I don’t have.) We are who we are. I have a funny story to tell. (And I’m probably paying the price for it today, I’ll never know.) And it’s about wanting something I didn’t have. (Glasses.) I was 9 and I wanted glasses. I wanted glasses because my dentist told me I couldn’t have braces. I couldn’t have braces because I didn’t need braces. (What did he know?) I was on to the next best man in a white coat: my optometrist. Just a normal day getting my eyes checked is how I played it. I lied frequently as a kid so lying about letters I saw during the visual acuity test was going to be a breeze. But I jumped the gun and called As Ws and Ps Ks when I should have been calling Ds Os and Es Bs. I was given a prescription for glasses but I was also given a pirate’s eye patch to wear with them. The patch would help my one (ridiculously) weak eye get stronger. If I recall correctly, my mom paid a whopping $100 for my (fake) glasses. I hated wearing that eye patch, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I had faked the eye test. She’d be mad and I’d get punished. And I was still banking on (real) Doc Martens. I had to wear the patch. I wore it over my left eye. I remember watching Wheel of Fortune one night and thinking: If only I could see the letters! If only I could see the letters! I couldn’t see the letters with that damn eye patch. As if 4th grade life wasn’t hard enough (with Lenny Soberman stealing my hat), now I had to sit through class wearing an eye patch. No one said: “Hey, nice glasses.” My 4th grade class picture has me sitting front row, wearing (way too) circular blue frames, high-tops, and a black vest with pink rosebuds right where the nipples go. (Anne Linder loves this picture.) I really thought I fared a chance at looking cool when the glasses rolled around, but it’s never what you think is cool that makes you cool. Ali Brill wasn’t cool because she had (real) Doc Martens. She was cool because she watched movies like Back to the Beach. Anne Linder wasn’t cool because she had (Super) Nintendo. She was cool because she loved drinking milk. Laura Goldberg wasn’t cool because she had (her own) set of house keys. She was cool because she had freckles. Amanda Staiano wasn’t cool because she got (professional) manicures. She was cool because she was Italian. And Danna Weber wasn’t cool because she had an older sister (who knew about sex). She was cool because she was the first one to think of freezing lemon Ssips juice packs to eat with a spoon. Or so I still think. Who knows what cool is anymore?

Like a Bike Ride Down Ocean Parkway

At the airport, on our way to St. Maarten, Michael turned to me and said: “Know what you should write about while it’s fresh?” 

Two weeks later, to think that my reminiscence of our wedding day could ever shrink and fade like an old photograph seems implausible. If a normal weekday-workday were filled up with as many brilliant moments as February 24th, 2013 was, I’d be a walking burst of sunshine sifting through a daily grind that no longer felt like a grind. Morning commutes into SoHo would have me smiling bright at strangers and my street cart coffee would taste like cappuccino in a cobblestoned piazza. An overflowing inbox of bolded emails would all say one affable, amorous thing after the next, and conference rooms would be reserved not for meetings but for further merriness the cubicles only failed to contain. Peking duck cones and Pigs-in-the-blanket would fly around on platters, making pit stops at my desk first before moving on to the President. The Join.me numbers got dialed to get you to join me on the dance flo’. But these are not the workdays we are given. And if they were, how would the really good ones stand out? Stay fresh?

There’s no such thing as a difficult conversation on your wedding day, thank god. Nothing needs be worked out, analyzed, reported on. You are there to commit yourself to the one, new person you now love the most in life and to be surrounded by the ones who can attest to loving you almost as much. I can’t really begin to chronicle, nor do I want to chronicle, every split second that made up this wedding day, but like an old photograph will help do, I feel like writing up a slice of life into its moments. 

Nerves got the best of me at exactly 4:44am Sunday, 2/24/13. My stomach in knots had me up in the dark from those minutes forward through the morning, at which point my tongue was aflame from all the fresh ginger I’d been chewing. I sat in my living room, looking out the windows, and breathing deeply. My friend, Rebecca, had stayed the night with me while Michael slept at his parents’ house, and as I looked back at her sleeping soundly in my bed, all I could think about was how thankful I was not to be alone in the dim before sunrise. Rarely do I feel sick but when I do I get scared that the feeling will never go away, that I will need to push through life feeling nauseous and woozy. At 6am, with hot tea and deep breathing apparently not on my side, I texted Sackett Street for parental suggestions that one day I know I will have down pat and under my belt, ready for doling out: Fresh sliced ginger, bananas, crackers, lots of water to stay hydrated. Don’t go for a run this morning. Done and done. Sunday morning turned into a mending test. Could I feel better by the time I had to walk the aisle? I thought back to the night before the Brooklyn Half-Marathon, last May, when all my energy went to nipping a nasty sore throat in the bud. I worked and worked at ridding it, practically willing myself to feel better, having silent conversations in my head with God, ridiculous stuff. I can’t push natural remedies enough. (Although I’ve never gone the quick fix route.) They’re real and they work. Apple cider vinegar mixed with water. Bananas. Blueberries. Crackers. Fresh ginger. By noon, I was good to go. 

Four hours later, sitting in the back room of the Green Building, surrounded by my best girlfriends and guyfriends, minutes before walking out into what I’d been daydreaming about for the last 5 ½ months, God said “just kidding!” to our conversation and hit me with knots. It’s normal, everyone said, and an L&B’s pizza bite attached to a toothpick was handed to me. Comfort flowed through my body at that point. Right! L&B’s pizza bites. Outside the back room, these were being served to everyone – a little “welcome to the wedding!” pre-ceremony nosh and one of our first wedding brainstorms Michael and I had stamped our feet down with approval. And we’ll serve L&B’s! Yes. Obviously. After a morning of straight up ginger, water, and bananas, L&B’s had never tasted this good. (Well, maybe it had.) In that moment, the real cure for my nerves had been familiar, memory-lane food. 

Call me an emotional eater, but that quick nosh swung me back 4 ½ years ago to the springtime bike ride Michael and I took from Carroll Gardens to L&B’s. It was our first time bike riding together, and our relationship was still so new that I remember still trying to impressively dress. The weather was too warm for skinny jeans, but I threw them on anyway. After some sticky pedaling to 3rd Street to pick him up, I found him wearing a full-on bicycle-racing suit, filling water bottles, and pumping air into his tires. We went back to Sackett Street to not only change into shorts… but to get my helmet, too. Safety before beauty, I guess. (My mom can thank him for that.) We biked along Ocean Parkway talking about things I wish I could remember (perhaps I should have written them down) and finally ended up at L&B’s, eating squares outside, sharing spumoni, and feeling Brooklyn. We took a picture that day and I’ve had it framed ever since because it was a good day. A really good day. Looking back, it was the brief realization that I could be (and should be) as comfortable as I ever want or need to be with him. Shows need not be put on.  

I thought about that as my parents walked me down the aisle. Even though ceremonies, by ritual significance, possess somewhat of a theatrical quality, I really wanted ours to feel like that bike ride down Ocean Parkway. It totally did. 

Romantic Feelings Reciprocated

February 24th, 2013

The Green Building

I didn’t grow up dreaming of my wedding day like a lot of young girlies do. I dreamt of having boyfriends and romantic feelings reciprocated, but never did I go so far as to picture a wedding day. When Michael and I got engaged 5 ½ months ago, my first thought was to throw a picnic table party in the vacant lot next to our apartment. We’d do it in the summertime, hire my friend’s band to sing and get everyone sweating, make toasts with Brooklyn beer and my father-in-law’s wine, throw a slideshow of photographs up onto the concrete wall of the building when the sun started setting. Neighbors wouldn’t complain because it’d be like a good, old-fashioned block party. But it was September and we didn’t want to wait until next summer. Why wait? I’d like to chalk it up to being far too in love to have to hold out until the dog days, but in reality it was because neither of us wanted to mask an entire year with planning a wedding. Decisions can be made. You just have to make them. Some can even be made in a matter of minutes. Lucky for us, we knew we wanted to keep the celebration in the neighborhood. The Green Building sat smack dab between our parents’ homes – it was the perfect event space – and what could be better than walking to your own wedding? We had a cloudy Sunday all to ourselves after a rainy Saturday of not a whole lot. Our invitation called February 24th a day in the “hazy shade of winter” and that’s what it felt like. Cold, but not too cold, March felt right around the corner, and I got away with leaving my stockings back at the apartment. From our second floor windows I crouched down to steal better looks at Michael, suited up, down on the Columbia Street sidewalk. Once outside he looked even better - him in Palermo pink, a skinny black tie, clandestine skulls and crossbones in a place I won’t give up. His presence felt good and warm, like it always does, and the knots in my stomach got a head start on unraveling. Later on, standing up in front of so many people in an effort to declare romantic feelings reciprocated, life was only made easier because Michael was up there with me. I could never have gotten married without him. 

Because it's Fun

In faithful English teacher fashion, for Michael’s birthday yesterday, his mom wrote him a poem. She was up at 4am Saturday morning anyway, wrote it, and was done by 6:30am (she said). A piece of Word doc taped into the card whose commercial printed sentiment read: Happy Birthday tough guy. It was a lyric poem dressed up with rhyme that Michael read aloud to us (his family), each word enunciated with mock (“These landmarks are very confusing – a birthday, a wedding, teams losing / They sometimes are sad / And sometimes are glad / And often they robe you of snoozing”) was clue enough to his grandmother to keep reaching into her bag of murmured “Madonna mias” after each stanza’s rest, if not before.

“How do you spell rob?” he asked his mother. 

“R-o-b,” she answered. 

“Because you wrote ‘robe,’” he said, reaching across me to kiss her hand.

We sat and laughed at her ode – a piece of writing that probably sounds easy to compose (once it is composed) but I secretly know how that verse goes. I used to write so much poetry. Or as I labeled it in my twenties, poetic prose, because I didn’t take enough poetry courses in college to feed my confidence, or knowledge for it. I always wrote out of a combination of needing to write so that I could feel justified in a deep well of juvenile-turned-adult feelings, and to keep hold of my life and remember the details because whew! I’ve hung around in a lot of smoke. I also wrote to provide myself with a practiced script of sense, not necessarily for the listening ear, but for my love of clarity and brain-tease. (I will sooner try to write something than attempt a math riddle.) I know I’m not alone when I acknowledge that writing is hard. Writing something that you like is even harder. Someone I used to know once told me my writing was lazy, that my snippets of language were teasers of something better and that I was too afraid, too indolent, to move them into something larger. At once offended and found out, I knew this was why I did my best to avoid poetry workshops and writing groups; criticism felt like an unleashed beast I never had the spirit to wrestle. (Still working on mustering that spirit. Any advice?)

I loved Michael’s mom’s poem. I love that she wrote it so early in the morning on the day of the birthday and I love that she printed it out without proofreading. It gave us something to laugh about. It reminded me of another reason I write: Because it’s fun.

Sunday's Closure

It was one of those mornings where I was up real early, not because I couldn’t sleep but because I was done with it. Closure hit my dreams as the stories folded themselves up like accordions and my next move was only to put on winter socks, assemble the stovetop coffee drip and look out my Columbia Street windows. The Battery Tunnel, the auto repair shop and the buildings and billboards of Red Hook sat quiet caught between sky and snow, and not a single footprint or paw print, had made its mark. Unlike yesterday, which felt like an outdoor whirlwind of going places and seeing people, there was nothing to do today except enjoy the coffee and let the morning crawl. Michael was not far away. Like me, he was up early, if not earlier, doused in blanket and wearing headphones, tuned into a podcast. It makes me so happy to be marrying another early riser, someone with an appreciation for the morning. I had a small crafts project I wanted to do, maybe even finish, that I knew would go great with my coffee and so I set myself up at the kitchen counter and started working on it. I was making 16 handmade cards of exact width and length. Materials called for scissors, glue, paper, and the mind zone for repetitious exercise. Forty minutes into the morning, inspiration for a blog post hit and I immediately grabbed my laptop and went to go sit in the rocking chair by the window. It was one of those mornings when everything seems perfect, it is almost strange – the coffee is strong, the sunlight is dripping in slowly, you love your fiancé, it is Sunday, you are inspired. I wrote a long post, a sentimental one, one that I thought about circumspectly and with care. I choose my words like I move my chess pieces and this post had been a good game. And then it happened. With one faulty click of a key that I wish I could remember what, my post was gone. No draft saved, no remnants of sentences, nothing. And like that, the singing bluebirds of Sunday morning fell out their nest and died. After I was finished breathing hard in Michael’s arms, I got mean and said: “I hate Tumblr.” He quickly snapped: “Don’t hate on something that’s your own fault.” I thought about that for a minute or two, after slamming my laptop closed, after whipping the blanket-wrap I was wearing around my shoulders all morning onto the bed, after angrily washing a fork I saw in the sink for no real reason other than to have something to do with my hands. I had two choices. I could finish off Sunday as an angry, sad, and uninspired person, or I could finish off Sunday as if I had sipped really strong coffee, turned pretty paper into handmade cards, enthused a great piece of writing, and then cooked a delicious February soup. (I have a kale, sausage, and red lentil soup simmering on the stove now.) Even though my post from this morning doesn’t exist anymore, I feel good knowing that it once did. 

What Makes You Feel Like a Grown-Up?

You show a kid this picture and ask them what they like best about it and I bet you they say the fish tank. (See the fish tank?) That’s because kids don’t appreciate table runners, adults do. (Certain adults.) I crowned myself an adult this weekend when I swept this gorgeous thing across my farmhouse table, and dressed that shit up. Apologies to Michael who wouldn’t know a table runner from a marathon runner, but man do I love this apartment accent piece. Yes, an accent piece. I’m an adult now, and this adult thinks about accent pieces. When I was a kid, I was tearing out Absolut ads and taping them to my walls. Were those my “accent pieces”? I don’t know. All I know is that my mom used to yell at me for taping anything to my walls, let alone ads for vodka. You’ll take the paint off! she said. I wonder what else needs to go atop this table for me to really feel the adult bone. Candlesticks? A basket of fruit? Do I need to spread my bills across it? When I was in college, I had this shared vision with a friend of mine of what the life of an adult looked like. It went like this: I come home from work. I am very tired. I am wearing high heels. I take them off. I drop my keys on the kitchen “island.” I pour myself a glass of wine. I am dating someone, and that someone wants to give me a neck massage. It ended there. (Perhaps with good reason as it sounds like a scene from a  chick flick that I very well might stream off Netflix tonight.) What makes you feel like a grown up? Is it the decisions you make? The money you save? The writing you read? The table runners you love… 

LEGO Story Trauma

I didn’t know where I was going with my LEGO structure, but I was desperate to come up with something. At first I thought I was building some sort of locomotive, but then all of a sudden I was building a very, very tall scooter. (Did it mean I’d always wanted to ride a very, very tall scooter? I didn’t know.) But I kept changing my mind, kept picking up and touching each tiny piece faster than my brain could puzzle together what I wanted to build. I was waiting and waiting for the one right LEGO to inspire the entire construction because I really wanted something about its configuration to change lock, stock, and barrel, and it was nearly impossible to put into words what. Looking back, I was dying for the story to tell itself. 

Country-house Zip Code

12788

Tonight, I’d rather be in a country-house zip code, shuffling along wood plank floors in socks that feel like pillows, pulling on the drawstrings of an old hood, and closing windows all around, while some radio commercial for local lumber gets played on the ½ hour, while the Scrabble board stays out because it’s not time to put it away yet, and the coffee pot keeps hot on the stove. The VHS tapes, one by one, off the shelf because the row behind it can’t be seen unless we do. There are just too many tapes, not to mention an old Robert Parker paperback that somehow got missed all these years. So, take that from the shelf before you forget. It’ll make for some cold, sleepy reading in a bed fit for one, just you, while crickets make love in the black of the night, while I’m buried in blanket, more than just two, in the bed right across you, feeling the waft of the draft, but excusing our noses, for the air is cooked with pinecones and smoked wood and all the pages of every book that’s ever been read in these beds.

"Never Go to Bed Angry."

Even science says I should not go to bed angry. It’s because my reaction in the morning will be that much less visceral if I prolong sleep, and instead work to resolve whatever it was that got said in a fit of gratuitous emotion. If I fall asleep on an angry brain, it’s said that I’m going to collect and protect my feelings, fight off the good fairy, and clutch them like a newborn not quite ready for its first snowstorm.

I’ve become very accustomed to hearing the age-old “Don’t go to bed angry” one-liner. My parents have said it, my grandparents have said it, other people’s grandparents have said it, even Mr. Max has adopted it. I find it kind of a riot. First of all, I am a morning person through and through. I can’t argue with anyone at night. I am zonked, crabby, and probably hungry so whatever gets said, I am most likely only thinking about that piece of cheese over there. Let me go to bed; I need to recharge. I need a clear head, and a cup of coffee. Because who ever heard of fighting over a cup of a coffee? That’s like fighting while holding a bunch of helium balloons. Although, my next example was going to be while holding a baby, but I guess plenty of people fight while holding a baby. Parents. How come the age-old saying isn’t “Don’t fight while holding the baby”? The next time I go to a baby shower, that’s getting written on the card.

I will say this embarrassing piece of what feels like too much information. Michael and I argued the other night while holding hands. This was another bit of advice that got blurted out at my bridal shower on Sunday. And as soon as I heard it, I laughed out loud. “Oh, come on,” I said. “How can we hold hands when mine are flailing above my head like bad dance moves?” That’s when an entire room of married women looked at me like a girl who’d only been in a relationship for 4 ½ years. Try and do it, they encouraged.

That night, back at home, while Michael and I took extra-large steps over boxes of stem-less wine glasses and Le Crueset dishes, he spoke up to tell me that he was “feeling disrespected” with all of the extraneous items I’d brought into our 600 square-foot apartment now. (Ex: We have cups so why do we need new cups?) He was feeling disrespected? Was he serious? Am I supposed to feel guilty about registering for new cups the same day people came to celebrate us getting married? Quick. The advice cards. Think about the advice cards.

I didn’t think about the advice cards. It was too soon for the advice cards. I may or may not have told him to “get out of my face.” Michael, on the other hand, with no advice cards to call his own, took my hands and told me “it’s just how I’m feeling.” It was just how he was feeling! He held my hands and said this easily, as if there were a sunset behind us. Ugh, why is he holding my hands? I want to use them. But ok, he’s feeling things, he’s allowed to feel things. This is probably something worth remembering. Just because his feelings, in turn, made me feel stirred a negative reaction in me, this doesn’t mean he was out to hurt me, out to shit on my parade. But it can be so hard to shake certain things, especially in light of certain moments.

The handholding helped, I will admit this. It reminded me that we were friends.  

Friends that, in all probability, don’t even need advice cards in the first place.

Unfolds and Does

Morning has broken; we roll ourselves into Saturday like a couple of crepes, grounded to the down. Bed is warm, just shy of too warm, and if we keep this position, I might start to wake up. The pillow goes flip, the cool fits my cheek, and it’s like a dry water gun straight to the face, until the bed starts to feel warm again.

We’re walking to Bensonhurst today for a meeting with our DJ. Before we leave, Michael wants to watch one episode of Chappelle’s Show, but I can’t do it, I need to start this day; it is almost 10am.The sky is overcast, the color of rocks, but it’s no longer cold like New Years Eve. We walk up Union and stop at Sackett because that is what we do – we visit our parents – my mom in her bathrobe; my dad at the door before my key turns the lock. The news is on, it is too loud, but my mom talks over it with an anecdote about Martha, the woman who used to work at the Apple Bank, but doesn’t anymore. Luckily she found her on Facebook and sent her a message. (She’s always been kind to our family.)

Next stop is 3rd Street because that is what we do – we visit our parents – and Michael’s dad is in the kitchen washing his homegrown leeks, in preparation for a squash and leek soup. His mom is not home, but NPR is on, so she couldn’t have gone far, he says. We see her in her little blue car, chugging up the street, as we’re walking on down. Just some errands.

5th Avenue is hopping with brunch and people, so I return a phone call I’ve been meaning to return since last weekend. I’m tired of the Slope, it is scenery I’m too used to, and the phone call distracts me from the bagel stores and boutiques, so by the time I’m done, we’ve reached 20th Street - the quiet has come back, so has more sky, and the peace of Green-Wood is present even with the B63 stirring past. I am killing for coffee so I grab a cup from the Baked in Brooklyn store, a real gentrifier haven that appears out of nowhere. Now that I am holding a paper cup of coffee next to my man, I feel golden. I will walk anywhere. Uphill, downhill, over, across - I am sipping hot coffee in 50-degree January weather and the only thing missing is nothing.

The day unfolds and does. 

Nineteen Hours Worth of Music

I have 19 hours worth of music to give the DJ at my wedding. 19. And there is still music I am dying to add. All those Beatles songs I love. All that Tom Petty. All that Pearl Jam. Ugh, it breaks my heart to not include specific songs. I know we’ll never be able to play it all, but in my head I am hearing every song on that list, and not only am I hearing it, I am dancing to it, too. Yes, that’s right, 19 hours worth of me on a dance floor in a white dress for maybe a six-hour wedding. It’s crazy how many songs I feel an attachment to, how connected they make me feel to something or someone or somewhere from so long ago. How can I not play the Shins’ Chutes Too Narrow album? That’s me driving around in my first car, a plum-colored Honda Civic, going the speed limit on Amherst back roads. How can I not play any Drifters? That’s me half-asleep in the backseat of my parents’ car driving up to the Buffalo Colony late, late at night. How can I not play any Dirty Dancing songs? That’s me singing into a hairbrush with my eyes closed. How can I not play Shimmy Shimmy Ya by Ol’ Dirty Bastard? That’s summertime, skipping two to three steps to jump off porches. How can I not play Least Complicated by the Indigo Girls? I sang it when I had no one to sing it about. The camp songs (You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere), the high on drugs songs (White Rabbit), the bar&bat-mitzvah era songs (Another Night), the serious relationship breakup songs (One), the running songs (I Got it From My Mama). Every song you know tells a story about something that’s completely unrelated to that song. Better Man is about a kid in the 8th grade singing it to me over the phone. Sounds of Silence is about working to perfect a harmony with an old friend. Shoop is about sex. Obviously. 

These are all songs I will love ‘til death do we part. At least one good thing about music (aside from it hitting you and feeling no pain) is that it’s not going anywhere. If I get through even five hours worth of music at this wedding, I’ll be happy. I can listen to the rest of it for the rest of my life.

!

I didn’t write a post last night. Except for Michael, no one knows how much this killed me today. It was final thought as face hit flannel pillows and first thought as last night’s dreams turned dust.

There will always be an excuse. I’m sure it’ll fluctuate between fatigue and / or too much wine, which are kind of one and the same for me, but that said, I’m pretty sure I bored myself with my own post last night. It’s not that I didn’t write a little something-something, it’s that I didn’t write something I felt like sharing online. But that was not my resolution, as Michael so kindly reminded me as I bitterly brushed teeth in Thursday light shine. You said you’d write, he cleared up. Not share what you write. He had a point. I did say that. But how would other people know I was keeping my resolution? Here’s what I wrote late last night, after 4 perfect slices of Lucali pizza, a cocktail, and a freaking long day at work (not in that order).

*

I didn’t think it’d be easy to write a little something about my day every day for the next 365 days, and that’s why I made it a resolution. One of those small(er) challenges people feel more obliged to set for themselves at the beginning of a year. Start small, they say. Except this doesn’t feel so small to me. I have to make time to write a little something about my day every day for the next 365 days? Why did I agree to that? What is there to say about my day? I never come home and talk about my day. There’s no “How was your day?” except when we’re mocking people who talk about their day. Like the Kramer bit from Seinfeld. You know what I’m talking about. I could run you through the day – how I woke up earlier than usual to make it into my office to check my outlook calendar for the conference room I had to go to for a 9am meeting across the street, or how I worked up the strength to not eat a croissant with my coffee, or how the bathroom in the office was flooded today so everyone had to go pee on different floors. How my one boss, after one of his infamous midday walks, brought mini cannolis into the office to share with select people, and how I couldn’t resist.

*

That’s as far as I got because I bored myself to tears, except replace the tears with snores, except replace the snores with lovely, light, beautiful breathing which is of course what I sound like when I sleep.

Because I am not someone who talks about or likes to recount the day, it feels awkward to even do so in written form. Rarely are there exciting things to relay about one’s day! But maybe not everything you write has to be exciting. It’s funny. At work, I sometimes have to edit down these “Did You Know?” bonus facts that go into many of our enriched e-books. Because the character count for these facts is somewhere around 65 characters, it can be difficult to really get across how interesting and “cool” these facts actually are. The other day, we had this one fact about Abraham Lincoln that needed some re-working. It was something along the lines of how messy Lincoln’s desk always was and so messy, in fact, that he kept an envelope on his desk that read: “When you can’t find it anywhere else, look into this.” This fact well exceeded the 65-character limit. After the obvious shortening of Abraham Lincoln to just Lincoln, we ended up with something like: “Lincoln was known for being really messy and cluttered” when easily the best part of the original fact had everything to do with the envelope. So we added an exclamation point, which usually solves the problem because it makes the fact sound 10 times more exciting than it is. “Lincoln was known for being really messy and cluttered!” Wow!!! Is that true??? I need to go tell that homeless man over there this incredible news!!!

So, perhaps what I need to do to make my day a day worth recounting to you is to write it emphatically. Add a couple of exclamation points. And be grateful that at least my posts don’t carry a character count.

Over Gnocchi

Pasta. It was the death of us.

While I wouldn’t mind leaving this world via pasta overdose, I wasn’t ready for it to be the bullet to my relationship almost 2 years ago. The homemade gnocchi was out to get us. What happened was this: Michael pressing the back of his fork into each fat, floury pillow and me thinking: “Oooh, I don’t like the way he’s doing this. Is that how he’s going to do this?” Yes, I admit it. I did not like the way he was doing it. He is not a careful cook. There, I said that, too. The man is not careful. His food may taste good from time to time, but he is concerned with neither technique nor measurement. Everything he does is on his own clock. You may have come to teach him the lesson, but… he’ll take it from here. I watched him use the fork to make the gnocchi indentations, but they were not looking uniform enough for me. Me, I like things to be right. The chef said to do it this way, I pleaded with him. And that was all it took for him to drop the fork, lift his arms like he was under arrest, step away from the counter, and leave the kitchen. It was the last straw, or the last strand of spaghetti so to speak. We broke up over gnocchi.

His dad got us a pasta-making class at the Meat Hook / Brooklyn Kitchen in Williamsburg this year for Christmas. My body froze when I opened the envelope. Oh god, a pasta-making class. How cute, how great! my smile said. But in my head? Is he trying to split us up 2 months before our wedding? Is this a test? Are we going to fail? If a couple can’t make pasta together, are they doomed? I have to go to Williamsburg on a weeknight? Where the hell is Frost Street? I was a little nervous.   

Auspiciously, gnocchi was not on the class menu tonight. Fettucine and ravioli had been called to the plate. The teacher / chef was a small-waisted little woman who I suspected did not eat a lot of pasta. She referenced her husband a lot (“My husband doesn’t salt his dough,” etc.) because he’s a chef with a catering company and she’s not. She even went so far as to say: “My husband doesn’t think my pasta is very good.” Then why are we here? I wondered. Fettucine and ravioli, add it to the list! It was going to be the second death of Michael and I and all because of a tiny woman whose husband makes better pasta.  

I think we both knew we had to make this work. For the last 2 years, I have been completely turned off by the idea of attempting homemade pasta. Overnight it became the world’s most daunting effort. But in reality, in Williamsburg, fresh pasta is actually really easy to make, not to mention incredibly satisfying once you’ve hit your (relationship) rhythm. I was the dough folder while Michael cranked. At times, with sweet delicacy, we both helped the paper sheets unfold from their deli-slicer- cold-cut-look. A delicacy I did not know Michael had in him. That is until he plopped too much ricotta mixture into our ravioli divots.  I wanted to shake my rolling pin at him. She said only a teaspoon. Only a teaspoon! I wanted to shake it and I did shake it. The only difference this time around was that he let me say it. And when he shrugged his shoulders… I did the same.

We made beautiful pasta tonight. I knew we had it in us. 

Put it on the Menu

There’s not going to be much to write about some days. Just like there’s not always going to be something to talk about either. I spent the day trying to hone in on something specific worth mentioning but now that night is here, and the pan I cooked bok choy and white beans in (vegetarian entrée!) is washed, and my hair is shampooed, and all of my Words with Friends moves have been made, I guess I’m supposed to write a little something about something even though I’ve been nixing the thoughts in my head all day.

After a really good brunch at Public on Elizabeth Street with my whole family + my uncle Kenny and cousin Carly, at around a quarter to 3 in the afternoon, Max and I spat it out on the corner of Crosby and Prince while Amy, Michael, and my parents watched, semi-unclear as to what the issue was (or at least Michael was unclear because when we walked away he said something along the lines of “I have no idea what that was about.”) - the six of us standing there on this small, cobblestoned corner, like a family of tourists squabbling over who should hold the map, except we knew exactly where we were and where we were going. (Well, Max, Amy, and my parents had plans to “stroll around,” but Michael and I were headed back to Brooklyn to go for runs.) We argued about something dumb until my dad joked that I should “put it in the blog!” and as soon as Max repeated him with “yeah, put it in the blog…” I knew I was not going to put it in the blog.

Back to brunch. I’d like to say a little something about NYC brunch in 2012, and now 2013. As much as I love hollandaise and bacon, pancakes and french toast, fruit salad and scones… I am tired of these options. There, I said it! Can we put new things on the menus? For example, my first example, enough with the hollandaise and bacon. True, it is delicious, and I’d like to be eating a plate of it in bed right now, but why do we act as if this is the only delicious egg & meat dish to serve? I never see interesting scrambles on the menu. It’s always pancakes and fruit. Why not pancakes with shredded beets or spaghetti squash? I think both of those dishes would be nice.  And it’s always ricotta cheese with pancakes. Why not warm, creamy brie? Or a nice, sharp cheddar? How come chefs aren’t playing around with cereal? You know what I think would be delicious? (And the kids will love this.) A bowl of Cheerios and milk, drizzled with chocolate syrup and sliced strawberries. Who doesn’t like watching milk turn into chocolate milk? On Christmas, Michael’s mom took my dad’s leftover spaghetti with pine nuts, broccoli, and raisins and made spaghetti pie for breakfast. (See below.) Two ingredients: Leftover spaghetti. Eggs. Five words: Put it on the menu.

"C'mon, Sylvie!"

I’m not going to say two people made me feel bad today. Because they didn’t. I let two people make me feel bad today. Technically, one person made me feel bad right before I went to bed last night, but that might as well count as today because I had to sleep on it.

Since I don’t want to get into too much of the specifics within a public forum, I will just let on that I work with a writer who continues, and I mean continues, to not deliver. I send her notes after notes; revise this, revise that; read the writer’s guides, etc.  Yesterday, at the end of my work day, as I was reviewing her work, just when I thought oh my god, did she submit something that can go straight to the editor? Is it possible? Just when I thought that, no, another snafu. Another something or other that she could’ve been tuned into on her own. If she’d double-checked her work, she would’ve caught this.  So I wrote her asking for the fix.

I check my work email a lot. I do it because I’m part of an office culture that (kind of) expects you to. I also do it because I can admit to having somewhat of an obsessive-compulsive personality. I’m in bed last night, and obviously the last thing I want to be thinking about is work. But before I can check Facebook, before I can skim my Google Reader, before I can check my Gmail, I am checking my work email. Because what if, right? What if my boss is e-mailing me to tell me that I’m fired? What if my boss is e-mailing me to tell me that I’m now in charge of the company? I need to check my work e-mail. So I check it, and herewith is an email from the writer I’ve written and it begins: “C’mon, Sylvie!”

I will say no more. This “C’mon, Sylvie!’ has hit home. It doesn’t matter what I’ve said, what she’s said, or what will be said. Someone has called me out on being “out of line.” If I was anyone else, perhaps I wouldn’t give a shit. I’d take it in stride and state my case. But I feel defeated now. I feel an automatic loss. I have offended someone. I have made someone mad. Someone is having a bad night now because of me. I can’t handle it.

I can’t handle it, but I will learn to handle it. Oh, I will learn to handle it. But for now, I am unaccustomed to this. I’m pretty sure I am right, but as soon as I am challenged, I retreat. Why?

The second person who I let make me feel bad today was this guy at the gym that, to be honest, I have always watched from afar, as I run my miles and lip sync my play lists. I notice him because he wears his socks up to his knees. Not shins, knees. He is noticeable, to say the least. With the gym empty on an early Saturday morning, I took it upon myself to lift weights directly in front of the mirror, directly in front of all of the other available weights. I wasn’t thinking. I wanted to be close to my face. I like my weight-lifting face, what can I say. The guy with the socks comes by and grabs a couple of weights. He starts to lift them behind me. When he is done, he has come back to where I am and put his weights in place.

“Don’t move, don’t worry about me,” he says under his breath.

I stop lifting to move.

“No, no really, don’t move. Don’t worry about me,” he says again.

And then he walks. And I feel like I’ve done the worst thing one can possibly do in the world. I blocked the weights. I got in his way. I was selfish and rude. 

In the end, I have upset someone. And I can’t wrap my head around that.

Because I don’t upset people.

People upset me. 

The One Who Says "Boo."

We can only grow so fast out of our childhood habits. It seems I still like to wait to be told to do something than to actually do it with the right timing and intentions.

I’m registered at Crate&Barrel. For the last month or so, boxes have been showing up at my office, packaged with a black bow that I so quickly discard because of how excited I am to be opening gifts with such frequency. I’m 6 years old again, tearing paper with force, leaving heaps of it for the nightshift janitor to cook with. One time it was a cast iron skillet and another time it was white sateen sheets. A vegetable steamer. A pasta pot for two. A 6-piece bakeware set. Frames. Today it was frames. I chatted Michael “Frames from Thad & Kathy!” (Couldn’t he sense my excitement?) “Woo!” I typed. “Boo!” was his response. Oh, for the love of it. Just once I’d like him to share in feelings he might not necessarily be feeling. My feelings.

But Michael thinks we have too much stuff. He’s been complaining recently about the lack of space he occupies in the closet now. I should’ve nipped that one in the bud weeks ago when he first hinted at it. Instead, I took one shirt out of the closet, still on its hanger, and laid it across the wicker chest we have at the foot of our bed. (The perfect place to “put things.”) I didn’t do this to be funny or nasty, it was honestly the one garment I felt comfortable enough to let go. Except it stayed on the wicker chest for a little too long. And the menorah I took out of the cabinet weeks ago for Chanukah… I kept it on the windowsill. Because it’s pretty, it reminds me of Chanukah, and I like it. I like it, and that should be an acceptable reason. Shouldn’t it? I don’t know anymore. When you’re a kid, you fold your arms together, scowl, and say “But I don’t wanna.” When you’re an adult, you fold your arms together, scowl, and say “Because I say so.” Not to sound like a “My So-Called Life” episode, but… it’s like we’re the same, always, and there’s very little you can do to convince yourself that you’re grown up. Maybe. Sure, you can buy a car, stay up all night, have sex for the first time, write a rent check, move in with someone, host a dinner party, call a dinner party “a dinner party,” join a CSA, pay your own taxes. You can do all these things, and yet.

I don’t want to have to purge my things. Will I feel better when I do? Sure. Will I miss it all when it’s gone? Probably not. It’s not like I still think about those amazing worn-out Levis I wore in high school that made my ass look great. No, I don’t think about those jeans at all. Until I do. The pile of paper and jewelry and photographs on my dresser drives me crazy, but I’ve always been fond of the “beautiful mess.” When I was living in Amherst, in a studio apt all to myself, I remember looking around my room and honing in on my bookshelf, a wicker bookshelf only someone who lives in Amherst can buy and love so much. The books weren’t stacked neatly, weren’t alphabetized, weren’t facing the same direction… but they were books that I’d read or tried to read or were planning to read… and every single one was a reminder of me and my life. Do we look for things that will help define us? Maybe. Is that why I like to stack books in different corners of the apartment, place an old typewriter and dried hydrangeas on the white tile table my dad built with two hands? Hang my grandfather’s watercolor paintings on the walls? Leave the coffee pot on the stove? My Brooklyn half-marathon number on the dresser?

I don’t know.

I do know that I agree with Michael. There’s always too much stuff lying around. But I really don’t like hearing it when it comes directly from him. I feel like a child, like I’ve been bad, like I still haven’t fed the dog and was asked to do it 10 minutes ago. I want us to sit there one day and just agree together. I don’t want to be told “Boo” when someone gets us beautiful new frames. I want to be the one who says “Boo.  

Healthy Vegetable Baked in Cheese and Sauce

One of my New Years resolutions was to find a way to cook more vegetarian entrees. I have no problem whipping up a side of spinach and garlic or broccoli and garlic or any freaking vegetable and garlic, but I do know that that dish usually gets to sit next to a bowl of tortellini or a breast of chicken or a hunk of eggplant parmesan, or what I like to call healthy vegetable baked in cheese and sauce. I’m not looking to eat less meat – in fact, I don’t eat a lot of meat, and a part of me might resolve to try more meat next year – but this year, I’d like to learn to appreciate the vegetarian entrée.

My mom cooks simply – oil and garlic, vegetable, done. (This is where I get my repertoire of side dishes from.) My dad simply likes to cook. He will wake up early to fish so that blue fish can be for dinner. Both can be found at the kitchen counter on a weeknight noshing on cauliflower and couscous. They make it a meal. Living with them is a guaranteed diet. When Michael and I broke up for a good 6 months, I went to live at home, and aside from saving money, I got to live like a healthy person. Punching the air and crying on the treadmill secretly helped with that, but eating cauliflower and couscous before 8pm every night was such a nice little reminder that damn, do we overeat.

I’m proud of my vegetarian entrée for dinner tonight, so listen up!

2 cans of Sahadi chickpeas got rinsed and drained while I chopped up some leeks (a vegetable I never cook with… I made Michael google which part of it to chop… it’s not the part you’d expect, I’ll leave it at that), minced some garlic, grabbed a leftover zucchini from the fridge (need to do this more often… use what it’s in the fridge…), and half a red onion. Enough olive oil to coat the pan, and then I spilled the beans (in). I stirred them around until they got all golden and smoky. (I was careful not to burn my pan… I am famous for this… so I would carefully add a splash more of olive oil…). I added my leeks, all chopped up and reminding me of scallions. Stirred those around for a while, forgot that I’d also chopped up the zucchini, so threw that in as well. The pan was looking good, heartier than I’d expected, and I liked seeing food that was all similar in size. I cooked this for about 7 minutes and right before I took it off the heat for a cool-down, I shook the garlic in and zested a lemon. I once read somewhere that a squeeze of lemon or the zest of a lemon should always be the final, secret touch at the end of your recipe. It livens up the flavor of all your ingredients. I don’t have a source for this info but I believe it, ok? While my vegetarian entrée was cooling, I took a 1/3 cup of plain Greek yogurt and mixed a teaspoon and a half of curry powder into it, plus a pinch of salt. Woah! Who does this?! Not me. This was like the cheese and sauce to my dish. It came out great. Michael ate the entire pan, like he is known to do.

Day 3 of 2013, I owned you. 3 miles on the old treadmill and now this?! I am awesome.

Man with Blood on F Train

He had blood on his hands and he was wiping it off with ripped up pieces of cardboard that he dug around too long for in his pocket. Whenever someone I am suspicious of digs around in their pockets, I am 99% convinced I am going to die. The F was crowded with lots of pole holding and sorries between stations and I felt lucky to have gotten a seat, but it was near him, too near, and so I sat hugging my bag, trying not to look. But I do this thing with my eyes where I have to look – like 20 times more than I need to – and it only gets worse if I tell myself not to look. He got on at Jay St smelling like garbage, and in a matter of minutes, it felt like he’d been on since Delancey. His tallit’s tzit tzit dangled beneath his overcoat and his fat stomach protruded in a way that made me think he only ate one thing, and one thing only. I don’t know what the one thing is but it’s something horrible and probably very much against the law, like rats. He held his prayer book in one hand and I watched his dirty, torn-up, chewed-up thumb from under my double-wrapped scarf where I desperately fought to breathe in as much wool as possible. I watched his thumb and then I watched him dig around in his pockets for the gun, the knife, the razor blade – any of which were going to be used when he lunged at me. He was up, I was down. He had me where he wanted me and he hated that I was looking at him with such scruple. I had a pang of conscience and so I made my eyes find someone else… their hat, their shoes, their bag, their book. If I look away, that’s when he’ll kill me. I was setting him up. I looked around. Who was going to fight him? Save me? Clean up my blood? No one looked the part. He moved closer to me. His coat wide open and touching my knees. His hands, both of them, on the pole above my head. He was leaning too far, too much, the blood in my face. The train jerked and he went with it and I thought: this is it, he’s falling tzit tzit first into my small body. I got off at Bergen before it could happen. I stood up and said “Excuse me” and even though he moved with grace out of my way, I couldn’t help but look back to see if he was going to grab me by the hood and pull me back in.

Fingers to the Letters (an Attempt)

In an attempt to partake in the New Years resolution fad, I’ve decided to try writing up a little something about my day (each day) for the next 365 days. A lot happened in 2012 - so much that I can barely remember what - and that can only mean that 2013 and the remaining years ahead will be that much packed and equally, if not harder, to recount. (Especially as I get older.)

Today looked and felt like every other day I have known. I woke up feeling new / ready to live life differently. I do this by waking up early. Not as early as I would like, or as early as someone who prides them selves on early rising might, but early enough so that I don’t feel like my day is already passing me by like the hands of a classroom clock in some 80s movie. I brushed my teeth – an act that will usually jostle Michael from sleep – and pulled on my running clothes. It’s been a lazy vacation filled with pasta and cookies and all things delicious and wrong and I have a wedding to go to at the end of February, so 1/1/13 is when the running routine buttons up and makes the serious face. I forgot that it was New Years Day though and that my gym would be closed. And the weather was cold, like really cold, and I couldn’t bring myself / convince myself to torture my little lungs outside. It was also my parent’s 37th anniversary and another one of my resolutions is to see my parents more / be nice to my parents more, so Michael and I walked over to Sackett Street to see them for some 9am coffee talk.

I wanted to buy my mom flowers, but the only place open was Apple Tree, and the bodega guys hadn’t put the flowers out front yet. (Another sign that the day was still early / young.) I read somewhere once that we spend a lot of money bringing things to people whenever we go somewhere and we should feel more comfortable offering up ourselves, our presence, but of course it looks better when you come bearing gifts. But I had no gift and that was that. Although, I did bring my dad a homemade ring-a-ding from Betty Bakery, which are freaking delicious if anyone is interested. The cake is so moist and of course there’s the white cream and a thick chocolate shell holding it altogether with a dusting of cocoa on top. It’s rich and wrong and I do wish I didn’t view sweets as “wrong” but unfortunately, I do. There are mixed feelings there.

After Sackett Street, Michael and I drove to Coney so he could take the polar bear plunge. Once he ran in, I tried to get close to the water so that I could get him his towel, socks, and sweats all the more quickly, but apparently I missed him and he ended up sans all of that for a good 3 minutes. His friend dug holes in the sand so that he could bury his feet for warmth. Major fail on my part; I felt bad. The car was super warm once we started driving back to the neighborhood and I kept joking about how cold my nose was back on the beach. Because, ha, he was cold all over, and poor me, my nose was kind of cold. Wah, wah.

At home, we took showers and I heated up some leftover chicken soup from El Nuevo Portal (the best chicken soup) and then we went back to Sackett Street where Arthur, Claudette, Yarden, Max, Amy, and grandma all were. They’d gone to brunch at Provence en Boite – something that does not happen every day – and was nice to see; a familial start to the New Year for everyone. (Another one of my resolutions revolves around the idea of  “family first.”) We sat around the living room, speaking loudly and over one another - a Flatow thing – and actually laughed a whole lot. Arthur had me cracking up, tears in eyes, that sort of laughing, and it felt good to be giving it all up to the belly. Another resolution of mine should be to laugh more but I’m not sure how to force that one. I feel like that shit just has to find you, not the other way around. It should catch you off-guard. That’s how it works. For me, I want the joke to just be taken too far. Keep it going. Take it to a new level. Even resurrect it amidst the next context of conversation. Get ridiculous.

I forgot to mention that Michael offended me at some point between chicken soup and belly laughing, but that it was over and put to bed between the car park on luquer and the walk up the block to eat at prime meats with his parents. It was Norm’s birthday (62) and we got seated at the furthest table, nestled in the corner, with votive candles, personal carafes of wine, and spaetzle. Unfortunately, I confused spaetzle with schnitzel and had no idea I was in for another pasta dish. I was hoping to start 2013 off with some healthy restaurant eating (not that schnitzel is healthy… but it’s sure as hell not spaetzle). However, the good thing is that there is always tomorrow. Like I said up top, it’s the story of my life.

I Make My Moves Before Bed

One after the other, and I don’t think too hard on them either. I play to win – that’s a given – but I also play for the dose of fast relief I can feel once I’ve made a move. Notification: Your turn. It’s my turn, so I go now. Now. If I don’t go now, something will happen. Actually, nothing will happen. But I swallow these moves, these games, these notifications that it’s my turn to play like vitamins that are doing my body good. GOX. QIS. KEE. HUP. I don’t use these words in real-life, but it doesn’t matter. I’m abusing vocabulary. I’m making it mine. You don’t think it’s a word, but in this world, it is. And I know them all.