Lucky in Love 08-16-2008

It’s a gorgeous summer Saturday in New York, so this will have to be a quick post, as my bicycle and I are yearning for the sunshine. But before I go out a-frolicking, I want to report back to all of you, loyal readers, who have undoubtedly been AT THE ABSOLUTE EDGES OF YOUR SEATS wondering how my love life is going. So here’s the report:

I am on a romantic sabbatical, meaning that I am taking some time off of my normal romantic misadventures to think and to study, and to possibly publish a tawdry expose about each of my exes. Since this is the first time that I’ve been actively and wholly single in about a decade, I’m having a really self-indulgent time going to yoga and reading and riding my bike and napping, while changing jobs and moving apartments on the side. Still, I’m a little bored. To fill the time, I’ve spent hours upon hours slogging around in the sordid details of every single one of my crumbled love affairs, reviewing each ghastly breakup, and agonizing over a long history of love gone awry.

I’ve realized in this excrutiating and exhilerating exercise just how much I’ve learned from all these gorgeous and disastrous lover affairs, and I feel admittedly lucky and, surprisingly, have very few regrets.

Here are the top ten things that I’ve learned from my lovers over the years:

10. How to blanch a tomato

9. How to build a fire

8. How to surf (kind of)

7. How to roll a joint

6. How to merengue

5. How to strip and re-finish wood furniture

4. How to play the banjo

3. How to change a tire

2. How to build a bike

1. How to escape when being chased by wild turkeys or other fowl

Not bad, huh? Makes me feel like quite the renaissance woman.

I hope that all the survivors on the other side of those crashed-and-burned loves have tread off as well with some kind of new skill, something that they learned along the way. Because every time I change a tire, I grin ruefully at the memory of a sweet roadside kiss with a jack in my hand. And every time I’m being chased by wild turkeys…well, that hasn’t happened again. But if it does, I’ll remember a romantic Thanksgiving spent in the mountains of Arizona. And every time I slip the skin off a tomato and am left holding its exposed flesh gently in my palm, I feel a distinct and wonderful stretch in my heart that is remembering what it felt like to be in love for the first time.

And if that’s not lucky, I don’t know what is.

Weekend Update 8.12.2007

There were way too many wonderful things about this weekend to capture effectively in a narrative blog post without having it drag out into a novella, or possibly even a tale of Doestoyevskian page numbers.  Luckily, the old “top ten” format seems like it will capture moments and flavor without boring you to death or getting you fired for reading my blog all day instead of working.  (see how I am always thinking of the reader?  I love you guys.)

So here it is…Miriam’s top ten weekend adventure moments:

10.  The successful hunt for, and subsequent purchase of, my dream flip-flops.

9.  Politely declining an offer from a performace artist/carnie at a party to affix $5 to her shoulderblade using her “guaranteed sterile” staple gun.

8.  Hazelnut cappicino at Cafe Reggio.

7.  Late night pizza every night.

6.  Witnessing my roommate’s inspiring display of super-human strength as she pried open the train doors with her bare hands upon realizing that we were about to miss our stop.

5.  Tapas and gender theory in the West Village.  And accompanying mojitos.

4.  Convincing a wary bouncer that I knew someone important and trendy enough to warrant my unquestioned admission into a club, only realizing after the fact that I actually DID know the DJ.  (although he does not, despite my insistence at the door, also work for the UN.)

3.  Breakdancing contest in Union Square (Don’t worry, I was just a spectator.  I’m not trying to get hurt over here.)

2.  Pants-off dance-off with sk and the girls.

1.  The incomparable relief of peeling my contact lenses off my bleary eyeballs upon returning home at 5:30 am.

Have a great week!

Mike Gravel for President 8.10.2007

Last night, for the first time ever, the prospective Democratic Presidential Candidates (are all of those words supposed to be capitalized?  I couldn’t figure it out.) all hung out on LOGO, participating in a “debate” that was really more like a series of interviews.  Good times.  Here’s my (slightly editorialized) summary of what each candidate had to say:

Barack Obama:  “Marriage is a word that doesn’t mean anything to anyone worth anything.  Stop asking the black guy what he thinks about affirmative action. Personally, I believe that you are all going to burn in hell.  But as far as the law goes, you still deserve lots of rights.  You can count on me.”

John Edwards:  “I’ve never met a trans person, but I have met black people before, so I understand the issues at hand.  Also, my wife had cancer, so I am BFF with Melissa Ethridge.  I am totally comfortable around gay people.  You can tell by the way I’m sitting stiffly and botching my responses.  Totally comfortable.”

Dennis Kucinich:  “I’ll never get elected, but gosh am I sweet!  I believe in a big equality sign in an even bigger heart.  1 + 1 = a variety of things.  Hugs. I love you all.”

Mike Gravel:  “I’m glad that HRC finally decided I’m worth something.  My stance on “the gay issue” puts all of y’all whippersnappers to shame.  Alaska rocks, and HIV prevention can be helped first and foremost by having marijuana for sale at the liquor store.”

Bill Richardson:  “Oh, crap!  I’m at the gay debate?  I thought I was doing Focus on the Family tonight!  Someone fix my talking points!  This is not feeling achievable!  Ahhh!”  (And then the audience hears a terrible crashing noise and smells smoke.)

Hillary Clinton:  “Things will be different this time around, I swear.  I marched in NY Gay Pride in the nineties, when that was really dangerous to do.  I know how to talk like a president. Stop looking at my coral jacket. I’m your girl.”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (until a tornado rips it out of the ground and drops it in my ’hood) 8.08.2007

This morning started out like any other morning.  I ate my Cheerios and danced around my room to  bad  indie punk music for a while, and then got ready for work and headed outside at about 8 am.

Some of you may have heard me complaining recently that there are not enough trees on my street.  Well, I guess I should be careful what I wish for, because when I walked outside, the first thing I saw was a giant uprooted tree on its side right in front of my building.  And then I noticed that there were branches and – were those street signs? – and quite a bit of broken glass around, and I thought, “Huh.  I must have slept through some kind of riot or uprising or something.”  And then I went to catch the train.

It was during the 45 minutes that I spent sweating on the platform that someone told me about the tornado.

And then someone else told me about the flooded subway tunnels.

And then someone told me that the R train isn’t running.  And neither is the 4-5-6 line.  And the B-Q.  And I started thinking, “This might become a whole big THING.”

And, indeed, it did.

When the train finally came, it was so jam-packed that only one or two brave commuters of the 40 or so on the platform even tried to squeeze our way in.  I was one of them, and did get in, only to find myself pressed against the doors for two stops, with the full length of strangers’ bodies squooshed against mine from the other three sides.  And it smelled, kind of.  Then I felt something, in the back of my skirt, and I realized in absolute horror that the guy pressed against the back of me might be having this kind of physiological reaction that was super awkward and uncomfortable for us both.   It wasn’t his fault, and I could tell by the way he was staring at the ceiling (“think about baseball, think about baseball”) that he was more mortified than I.  So, yeah, not his fault and I’m trying to just be cool and adult about things, because I’m sure it was just the friction and all, but after a couple of train jostlings, I realized that I needed to get OUT of that situation, or I might end up pregnant.  Ew.  I know.  So I hopped off at the next stop, and asked if anyone wanted to split a cab to midtown.  A nice guy named Avi (yes, everyone in New York is Jewish.) jumped at the plan, and he and I headed up to Park Slope’s busy morning streets to try and find a way to blow $75 getting to work.  Unfortunately, there were no cabs at all, and the car services flat-out refused to drive to Manhattan, citing traffic of epic propotions.  “Even I’ve got my limits,” one driver told us.  We tried to get someone to even drive us to the Brooklyn Bridge, figuring that we’d walk across and then catch a cab (or even a train) from Lower Manhattan.  No dice.

(But, while we were waiting, who did we spot walking down the street in Park Slope?  Steve Buscemi!  Wow!  I need to add that to the celebrity spotting list.)

Our failure to execute the Brooklyn Bridge plan was probably good, having since discovered that Manhattan wasn’t in much better shape that those of us over in BK, except that the snooty Manhattan-dwellers seemed to actually be BLAMING the people who live in Brooklyn for this mess- as though we invited the tornado the same way we invited the yuppies, with our affordable brownstones and neighborhood bakeries.  What-ever.

Anyway, by the end of it, Avi and I failed, but are now friends for life.  I went to get a manicure and he went home to go back to bed.  A few hours later, I finally landed a spot on the F train, and a short 90 minutes after that, here I am at work, watching a newscast with the President of the MTA urging people to “just stay home.” Not very many people are in the office.

I wonder if I’ll ever make it home again?

AV Club 8.06.2007

Part of my “gonna make friends” campaign involves doing some kind of learning, preferably with some other people.  At first I thought about a writing class, and then I thought about some kind of social theory discussion, but I decided that I’d prefer to learn about something completely new, where I have no context, no sense of competition, nothing to do but soak it in.  And maybe make some friends.  So when I saw the posting from The Brecht Forum asking for volunteers to come learn about video production and help produce a lefty cable access show, I signed up right away.  A month or two later, I finally went to my first meeting.  Unfortunately, because the Brecht Forum is either dramatically understaffed or alarmingly disorganized (or, as I would soon discover, both), it took them over four weeks to respond to me, and by then, the class had already started.  No worries.  I was one of three or four first-timers who wandered in for the meeting at 6:30, clearly the newbies, who had not yet learned that a meeting scheduled for 6:30 would actually start around 7:15, and that until then we could help set up chairs for the impromptu Himalayan Slide Show that was scheduled for that night.

I had some pretty big ideas for the show, imagining that it would be kind of like Wayne’s World meets Democracy Now, and maybe with some elements of game show thrown in.  I mapped it all out in my mind; some anti-corporate banter, an update on the status of the oppression of Algerians in France, and then a rousing game of Plinko, the winner of which would decide on his/her prize collectively with the other contestants, choosing the reward that could be most gainfully redistributed among the masses.

Fun!

But it turns out that the committee of volunteers who had already been to a few meetings had started planning a much more traditional documentary piece on Black August, which actually also sounded super interesting, and it turns out that many of the volunteers actually have film production experience.   This is excellent, because the staff member who was supposed to lead our meeting never showed up, so we ended up pawing through the equipment closet and debating the benefits of mapping out the project in detail versus attacking it with no plan whatsoever and allowing the art to “emerge” on its own.  To my surprise, the latter was clearly the consensus favorite, which was ok with me because I am trying to engage more wholeheartedly in group decision-making proceses, and also because I figured that with no plan, I could probably find a way to get some Plinko in there after all.

Meanwhile, the Himilayan Slide Show people came into the equipment area looking kind of stressed out, because the audience had started to arrive, and the laptop with which they had planned to project the power point wasn’t working.  No problem!  I had my laptop with me!  And our meeting was finishing up soon anyway, so I helped them hook the computer up, finished chatting with my new film crew, and took a seat in the auditorium to watch the slide show.  After 15 minutes or so of what were stunning vacation photos of Tibet from 1998, I whispered an inquiry to the “technician” clicking the space bar to move the slides, wondering just long this program would be, and was surprised, if a little put out, to hear that it would be about two more hours of the same.

“It was a very long journey,” he whispered.

I guess so.

Feeling adventurous and so hungry that my stomach had started eating my other organs, I decided to abandon my computer for a while, and explore the neighborhood for something to eat.  To my surprise, the West Side Highway neighborhood, despite it’s demolition-site sidewalks and gaping asphalt canyons, is apparently home to the chicest restaurants I’ve seen yet in New York.  I overheard two giggling sorority types ask a bored-looked artsy woman where Buddha Bar was, and she vaguely motioned with her wrist in the general direction of the Hudson River.  And my ears perked right up.

If you haven’t heard of Buddha Bar, it’s supposedly an amazingly trendy and upscale restaurant/dance club, so known for it’s soulful world-house music that you can buy their compilations for the screaming deal of a few pints of blood and a million dollars on Amazon.com.  (I have one.) (Stop judging me; it was a gift!).  I started scouting around for the famed club, figuring I could, at the very least, stop in for a fig-and-lemongrass martini while I waited for the monks to release my computer.

Now, the thing I’ve learned about New York clubs is that the cooler they are, the smaller and more discreet the sign is.  In fact, the single strongest indicator that you are somewhere really cool in New York is that you have no fucking idea where you are.

Shockingly, as I tend to be lost most of the time, I have yet to reach this particular state of club nirvana.

I never found Buddha Bar, but I did stop by a little Spanish-warehouse-bistro-slaughterhouse kind of place with blaring music and hot, affected waitstaff who all looked about nine years old.  I ordered the mint and almond zuccini, which is apparently served kind of chilled, and when I saw the tiny poriton, was especially glad to see that they also provided me with a dainty silver bathtub filled with tooth-cracklingly underripe and mushy, black overripe olives, all misted with a fine vapor of either anchovy oil or sulferic acid.  And the whole thing only cost me $30!  I ate them all and left the pits, reclaimed my computer, and headed home.

The most exciting thing about all of this is that I am filming my first footage next Monday.

Miriam, you’re the next contenstant on the Price is Right. Come on down!

It’s not the Woody Allen One 7.27.2007

It’s not the Woody Allen one

So here’s the thing, beloved readers.  I’ve been having kind of a hard time of things.  And I’m going to go ahead and blog about that because I said it out loud tonight to my friend and it seemed to help a little bit, so maybe if I say it on the forum that’s garnered 5,868 views (and can I just say THANK YOU, loyal readers, that’s remarkable!), it will help a lot. That’s the ROI I’m looking for.  So I’m going to go on and say it:

The thing is, I’m kind of homesick.

Just a little bit though, you know?  Just kind of.  Not like I think about Tucson all day or anything, but…well, sometimes.  Maybe in the late afternoon when the sky there would have turned all violet velvet and electric and the monsoon would be just starting to rumble over the mountains…and all I can hear are taxi horns blaring and the sound of 17 million feet walking side by side and never saying hello.  Then, for a minute, I start to think that I’m wishing a little bit that I could just stop by ol’ 16th Street for the rain. Just for a minute, maybe, to smell the dust cupped in the clouds before they burst, to hear the roar of cicadas and little else. And those are kind of hard moments.  It’s true.

I spent tonight with a friend who’s moving away soon.  It feels like such a gift, this time we’ve had, after so many years, to reconnect before he spirals off into his next thing and I start swimming the longer laps and not running out of air .  We stood up on his roof and looked out across this crazy island.  We leaned against the rail and the wind blew my hair into both of our faces and he told me the story of the skyline:  the race to build the tallest building, propelling the Chrysler up towards the heavens, the Empire State Building’s straight spine and needle rising, the GE, once the RCA, and the hole where the towers use to be…It’s true that there’s probably nothing else like it.  There’s a magic here that I don’t even try to understand.

Last night my plane got in late from Chicago and I collapsed into the cab on my way home.  It was the exhausted conclusion of a long few days and lonely nights in the nicest hotel that I’ve ever seen, complete with complimentary truffles and Egyptian cotton and no one, really, with whom to giggle about it except me; and so it was an uneasy, sad kind of  laugh, that sounded pretty hollow rattling off the four poster bed and the empty space beneath my ribs. I thought about how quiet they keep the good hotels, how thick the walls are to muffle the sounds that might whisper away the myth that rich people can’t ever be lonesome.

So it was a long week in Chicago and a long flight back in to New York, wrought with delays and holds (and something about a bomb in a block of cheese?  Did I dream that part?), and then the line at the baggage claim and the longer line at the taxi stand, and then finally that broad leather seat that I just tumbled across, and the open windows blowing that same skyline, reaching out across the Brooklyn Bridge as we sped along the BQE, and I felt this twinge of something like home.   But even that felt sad, in this way that I don’t understand, because isn’t that the thing that I’ve been chasing, after all?

“There’s nothing you could ever do,” my friend explained to me tonight, “that could make me stop thinking you were someone I wanted to know.”  And if it had been other friends, maybe I would have thanked him, but I didn’t really need to, because he knew.  So we stood quiet, fourteen stories up, and listened to the faint cacophony of car horns and the pattering of the asphalt dance below, and I thought that home can mean a lot of different things, sometimes, in certain situations when the wind is blowing this whole mixup of the last ten years and tonight into the face of sometime I don’t know how to count.  If home is where the heart is, well, it’s true that I’ve had surer footing other times.

I’m sure I’ll find my way back soon.

Magellen of Manhattan 06.07.2007

I am not a master of circumnavigation.  In fact, as the case stands, I pretty much don’t know which way is up.  Nonetheless, I am joyfully bouncing through my adventures in New York with the open mind of a child and the guile of a brick.  My report thusfar includes the following astute observations:

1.  People in New York often give directions in terms of north, south, east, and west.  These qualifiers, to me, are largely useless, for unless the sun is in its fullest stages or either rising or setting, I have no idea which way is east.  For one thing, my landmarks (Chase bank, Duanne Reade’s, hot dog carts, etc) seem to constantly foil me by appearing on every corner, making all of midtown Manhattan look pretty much the same to me.  Second of all, I navigate around the city by way of the choppy seas of the Metro, and am thus underground for most of my traveling time, only to pop up dazed and confused from time to time, see a Chase Bank across from a Duanne Reade, and duck back down, like some urban game of Whack-a-Mole.  I hate walking down the street, suddenly catching a view of the street sign at the intersection ahead of me, and having to do the oh-so-embarrassing about-face and start walking in my kind of unattractive but pretty supportive new shoes in the other direction.

So, I bought myself a compass, and it’s actually wildly helpful.  I’ve memorized The Map, and so now, when I am at Herald Square and need to walk to Penn Station, all I do is consult myu compass, head due South-Southwest, and voila!  I’ve arrived at the Manhattan Mall, which is flanked on all sides by a Chase Bank, a Duane Reades, and a series of hot dog carts.  I feel like quite the maritime adventurer.

2.  The elevator in the office of my building seems to rely heavily on the powers of gravity, as it is much quicker going down than going up.  Understandably, I am uneasy with this proven fact, and feel that if gravity and momentum are driving forced in the elevator operation, then eating one too many knishes could send the entire 16 floors of us elevator-dependants plummeting to the basement in what I imagine to be a quite terrifying voyage.  Thus, if there are more than two or three people in the elevator, which is almost always the case, I cheerily hike up the 16 flights of stairs to my office, and spend the morning contentedly looking out my window and allllllll the wayyyyyy down, feeling quite safe and secure, if not a little sweaty, and suffering from shin splints.

3.  The G train, from South Brooklyn to Williamsburg, only seems to run once every three days.

That’s the skinny for now.  I’ll keep you posted on the flora and fauna as the adventure continues.

Revolver 5.30.2007

There are many, many new things in my life right now, to most of which I will adjust in the next few weeks.  One thing to which I believe I will never adjust is the new onslaught of revolving doors that I am forced to negotiate on a regular basis.

Such is the life of the urban traveler, I suppose.  But I just didn’t plan on so many turnstilian challenges.  There are revolving doors in the subway, in the airports, in all the hotels.  It seems, also, that most restaurants and bars in the Chicago and New York metropolitan areas rely on the revolving doors to centrifuge their customers both before and after filling them with slightly overpriced food and drink.  I’ve taken to a Dramamine Dessert in anticipation of JUST MAKING IT OUT OF THE RESTAURANT ALIVE.

In the past few days, I have been stuck in these doors in the following ways:

1.  Suitcase jammed in the doorway.  This has become so standard that I come to expect it every time, and am actually sort of surprised and bewildered when said suitcase and I emerge cleanly on the other side of a revolving door.

2.  Flipflop that didn’t revolve with me and got lodged in the compartment behind me, spinning beyond my reach in its little aquarium while I hopped around trying to get to it

3.  Hair caught in the door.  You’d think my short hair would have eliminated this risk, but I’ve grown quite adept at tossing my bob behind me as I walk. This is a very sophisticated move, really, until I catch my hair in the door and it wrenches my head backwards and slams it into the glass. Generally, this happens a few times before I break free.  It’s like a bloopers reel from a shampoo commercial.  Terrific.

4.  Accidentally revolve in with someone else.  This is so terribly awkward.  I don’t know how I keep jumping in with people, but I do.   It probably has some underlying psychological explanation about me seeking companionship or intimacy or something.  But it’s certainly frowned upon.  And once I’m in, then we’re stuck in there together and trying to be casual, like, “Hi, how are you, how about this weather?” all the while trying to set some kind of unspoken plan about who is pushing and how fast we’re going (as fast as possible to get out of this AWKWARD situation!) and trying not to end up in some kind of strange embrace as we spin forward.  This is especially trying when I combine this particular move with moves 1, 2, or 3.

Despite my ineptitude, I refuse to dodge the revolving door for the shameful regular doors that are always set right next to it.  In the case of the Subway, an alarm actually sounds when you opt for this door, notifying other communters that there is a HOPELESSLY UNCOORDINATED rider in their midst.  I tried this door the other day, and was terrified of the alarm, and of course, looked around in a panic and noticed that there was a man with one leg and a pair of shoddy crutches gracefully spinning through the turnstile at that very moment.

The world is a remarkable place.

And the Adventure Begins 5.23.2007

So I’m here in the City of Angels, getting to know the crew for my new job and learning the ropes as well as I can before the New York whirlwind sets in.  L.A.is as big and bright and unforgiving as it’s always been, but the people that I”m meeting seem warm and funny and smart and genuinely wonderful, and that goes a long way. The more I learn about the job, the less I feel that panicky “going to fall flat on my face” kind of nausea, and the more I think I might actually have the skills and the smarts and the wherewithall to pull this off.

But it’s hard, still, to be the new girl. Exhausting, really.  I’ve done so much smiling and shaking hands and “Oh yes, I’m from Tucson, and you’re right, it sure is hot there!”  and “I’m very excited to be joining the team!” and enthusiastic head-bobbing and pumping more hands and “It’s great to meet you too,” that I’ve started to feel just a little bit hollow.  I miss being on the inside of the jokes and getting knowing looks.  I miss knowing.  I miss feeling confident and bright and sure and like I can stand in the front of the room and be me and be loved and have it all be easy.   I miss my friends. I miss my job.  I miss.

And still, this is what I wanted, and I think that it’s all going to be ok.  The jitters will pass and the friendships will grow and my hair will get used to the humidity and stop looking like such a weird poof on the top of my head.  I will figure out how to use the fancy-pants Blackberry that they gave me and it will eventually stop making that beeping noise and I won’t have to hide it under my suitcase to muffle it so I can get some sleep.  (Either that or it will blow up, I guess.  But either way, the problem will be solved.)

Also, tonight the staff went out for dinner and most of them took turns riding a mechanical bull and if that’s not worth its weight in fun, then I don’t know what is.

I’ve got a few more days of this, my own proverbial mechanical bull, and I’m sensing that as long as I hold on really tight and try not to throw up that I’ll be just fine.

I Want to Be a Part of It 05.04.2007

Of the possible blog categories about moving to New York, I believe that I’ve sufficiently covered the following:

1.  Nostalgic
2.  Pragmatic
3.  Joyful
4.  Sanguine

Thus, the time has finally come for the freaking-the-hell-out blog.  The what-am-I-thinking blog.  The two-weeks-and-counting blog.  You know.  The one you’ve all been waiting for.

It’s Friday night, and I’m hanging out at the house thinking about terrible things that might happen, and thinking that if I really want to be using my remaining time in Tucson effectively that I ought to be out at an art opening or having a pillow fight with some friends or seeing some kind of great band with a tiny piano or something.  But the truth of the matter is, I can’t quite pull my head out of the corridors of my brain, so I decided instead to stay at home and panic.

Here is a list of the top ten things that could go horribly, terribly wrong:

10.   I arrive in New York to find that my job is a ruse and my apartment has been condemned.

9.  I throw up on someone on my first day in New York, and despite the fact that the NYC metropolitan area is home to 18.8 million people, I see that person every day for years.

8.   I end up living on Staten Island.

7.  I am desperately lonely, so I become one of those people on the subway who tries to strike up small talk with my fellow riders, and am thus severely beaten almost daily.

6.  I get caught practicing a Bronx accent by the very people I am trying to impress by perfecting it.

5.  I end up somehow having to drive somewhere. In an SUV.

4.  I lose my glasses in the subway and end up picking up a rat like that girl in “Adventures in Babysitting” did.

3.  Everyone is right, and I can’t take the cold.

2.  I decide to become an actress.

1.  I arrive in the city to discover that Tucson is the new New York, but I’m too late, because I’ll never be able to afford an apartment here now that it’s hip and no one will remember me anyway because I’m destined to be terribly lonely and I will lose my glasses on Staten Island and pick up a rat and talk to it on the subway in a Bronx accent and get beaten until I throw up on someone and then I freeze because I can’t take the cold and my apartment is condemned and so I live in an SUV that I have to constantly drive from one side of the street to another because of some kind of street-cleaning ritual that no one ever really explained to me. So, I become an actress.

The end.