the pressure. . .of a name. . .

2011-10-24T08:37:00.000-04:00

The beige pants, sweater, skin, hair. Could a boy look more like a wall? With pale eyes and a plaid collar, the wall keeps sliding over to me. But I once leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away, as The National sings. Leave me be, Wallboy.

2011-01-05T14:07:00.000-05:00

I'd like to be here right now.

2011-01-02T00:27:00.008-05:00

Suddenly, unexpectedly, I won. Well, "won" in the sense that he finally came knocking. Banging, really. And I let him in; for the night. For whatever reason, after seeing me at work one morning, he called me 12 hours later and said, effectively, "I want you. Now." So, ok. Come get me. And we fucked, and it was good. About as good as I thought it would be, and about as good as it can be when there are no acknowledged feelings. So, catharsis. This thing between us that I had tried to will into being all summer, which had only ended in frustration and rejection, was finally consummated. What unmitigated relief I felt in the morning! I nearly thanked him.

But it's gone nowhere since. I didn't think it would, really, but I guess I've hoped. I keep seeing him now, because he suddenly keeps turning up at dinners and brunches-- in my neighborhood no less. He looks at me across the table and I can't read him. I look back, trying to be equally opaque. And all I do is wonder, why don't you want more? Not even more romantically, but physically at least? It's pissing me off. Is he withholding? Or is he just satisfied and indifferent? What is it between us that feels like a contest of wills? He seems to want to be around me, but isn't cultivating anything. That's not true. With his increased presence, I think he wants me to want him. But it's apparently all he wants. And I think it's for his own vanity. It's perverse-- on the one hand I should be flattered, that I'm of enough value that he wants my regard and my attention. But I struggle to feel flattered. Instead, I'm back to feeling frustrated. I want more involvement, I guess, and I can't have it. Why can't I just let this go? Why am I giving him what HE wants, when he won't give me what I want? Of course, he doesn't know that I'm giving him what he wants. He doesn't know I'm thinking about him. He sees me living my life, active, busy, vivacious. He doesn't see my feathers are ruffled. But he must know, a little. He ignored a flirtatious email from me a week after. At brunch an hour later, I tried not to let my surprise and disappointment show.

His audacity is galling; he demands my attention but feels no obligation to heed my signals. Except for that first time we fooled around, drunk from the work bake-off, he ignores or rejects my advances. Since then, all our encounters are on his terms. "You're not fair," I told him when he called. "It's true," he replied. "I'm unfair." Two weeks later at dinner, when a new acquaintance asked if he had a girlfriend, he replied with some diffidence, "I'm selfish and self-absorbed." He knows what he is. He doesn't apologize for it. And he's not budging. So my task is to not push against an unmovable object. But this is creating such tension in me. It's eroding my win! Perhaps that is what he wants. To regain the power he lost when he gave in to desire a month ago.

I'm haunted by the self-taken FB photo he posted recently. Not by the sweet-faced girl nuzzling him, but by the ebullience in his eyes and smile. "Look at me," he seems to say. "I've got it made right now." It's akin to what I imagined I must have been projecting at dinner, only mine wasn't attached to the male gaze; just to my own self-sufficient joie de vivre, from being at delicious dinner with friends-- happy, confident, living my life well. That's something I'm proud of, at least. His sense of agency seems tied to his success with women, however small and fleeting and even insignificant.

He's taken to texting me. "merry xmas, even though you're a jesus hater ;)." is what I got two days after Christmas, while he was home with his family. "Next time he texts," my friend Dan suggested, "You should just write back, 'What do you want?'" Maybe.

Anyway, I'm feeling attachment, which I have to just accept and respect for a minute. I want to receive something. I want to be given pleasure and affection. I can pass through this, the foul belly of the beast, and get back to focusing on giving. It's interesting that I'm not more frustrated this time by someone not wanting what I offer him. I remember so acutely the pain of being with J and feeling his resistance to everything I wanted to give him. It was overwhelming. But this time I'm not insistently wanting to give to the guy. I think I understand it's not worth it to force your offerings on someone. I finally appreciate how widely enjoyed I am, how easy it is to find people who want what you have to offer, actually. Why should I care to impose myself on someone? And I suppose I also understand that he enjoys me very much. It's just that beyond a certain point, he won't. And that's his problem, not mine. It's not even a problem. It's a prerogative. We don't get to decide who wants us; nor why, when or how much.

I wanted to write my way back to gratitude; I think I succeeded. He wanted me, he gave me attention and pleasure for one full night, he released me from the struggle I felt over our unfinished business. For all that validation, I am grateful. Pleasure, as always, is fleeting. But frustration can be, too. Nothing endures. Not even pain.

2010-09-29T20:41:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, he was a newlywed and I a newlysingle. He was about to move abroad for his wife's job, his own job prospects uncertain, and I was trying to piece my self back together, the fate of my heart even more uncertain. We teetered on the brink of an affair, leaning heavily into unspoken emotions. But I pulled back and he left. A messy fall averted, integrity mostly preserved.

Four years later, he arrives in New York for a visit. He is separated, and we are having dinner.

I had not realized it had been more than two and a half years since we had last seen each other. I wasn't surprised, though, to hear that his marriage is ending. I am so sorry, I say. But I recall the late night chats we'd had, brimming with sexual tension, when we said we weren't sure we believed in monogamy. I remember thinking that that philosophy had different implications for him than for me. As far as I knew, his wife certainly believed in monogamy.

The conversation over dinner veers quickly into relationship territory. Particularly my feelings on relationships. I talk and talk and he asks questions as I develop a steady buzz off the Tuscan red; he is many beers ahead. Do I want to be married? I don't think so. I'm not sure I believe in long-term monogamy. Me neither, he says. Not that that's why the marriage ended. His job demands constant travel, and he never achieved the work-life balance he claims to have wanted; the balance she expected before they started a family. How could he want children when he's never around, she had asked.

Do you want children? It's not a goal. Why not? I have reasons. Like, there's my brother. It was tough growing up. I like my freedom. I feel like I just got it and I don't want to give it up yet. But you would make a great mother. Yeah, so? But someone who looks like you should procreate. Flattering, thanks. But not a good enough reason.

But don't you feel lonely? Don't you feel that people need a companion? No, I don't really feel lonely. And I don't think everyone needs one main companion. I have many companions. Anyway, I thought we kind of didn't believe in monogamy!

Actually, I offer, I could see myself getting married at 60. He laughs. I'm serious, I say. He looks at me strangely, as though no one on Earth would ever say this. I find myself starting to feel defensive. Rather than rhetorically challenged, I feel personally challenged.

Would you move somewhere else for someone? Ah, is that it... Am I being screened? I tell him I sort of feel like I am auditioning. No, no, of course not! I'm sorry. But it doesn't really seem like he is trying to understand my positions.

As for his own, he seems conflicted, on the one hand still doubting the viability of monogamy, on the other appreciating the emotional and social satisfaction of having one significant other. It gives you a certain status, he opines. And that is true. In his professional world-- the world of my father's, incidentally --it is unusual to be a single person after 30. I tell him I sympathize with this. It must be hard to live as an expat in the developing world, where you may be invited to dinner parties, but there is no singles' scene. You may as well live in an American suburb.

It occurs to me that this is not my predicament. Being single in New York is a protected status. Most people are here to develop careers, and you have the opportunity to socialize with people younger than you, so that even as you lose peers to family life, your world does not have to shrink. In the last five years I have patiently (painstakingly, at first) reestablished my life as a single person. Work can be very intense for stretches, which I enjoy. I adore time alone, but am also surrounded by friends. I have, I explain, intimate friendships. Perhaps this is why I don't feel lonely coming home to an empty apartment sometimes. If I didn't have those connections, and if I traveled months out of the year only to return to an empty house, I suspect I would also feel unfulfilled. But, I tell him, this is not my predicament.

I just can't believe you are not taken, he says later while folded into a couch in a dim bar. I sigh inside. He doesn't know it, but this is the language of 'singlism,' a form of discrimination I had no idea existed until recently. It is the kind of remark that implies that being single is not a choice, but a circumstance. My unattached status is not, then, the logical result of my ideals, feelings or choices, but some failure of the universe to deliver a man who ought to have snapped me off the shelf by now. He has understood nothing I have said. And he wants to kiss me.

2010-09-08T16:45:00.000-04:00

These swells of grief creep up and wash over me. They're brief but happen several times a day. What can I do? I had no business getting attached to this person, but I did. And disconnecting desire from its latest object feels like snapping a dental root. You're losing that tooth, it has to go, but that one piece of connective tissue hasn't disintegrated. It resists. You should yank. You don't want to.

It's weird, the way I can ache for someone I never really knew all that well. It's probably unhealthy, but people do it all the time. Why shouldn't I?

2010-03-30T01:44:00.000-04:00

Every step they take in their relationship and life together just reminds me that you and I did not get this far, and never will.

2010-03-13T22:54:00.004-05:00

I make a habit of looking at the name and photo on the taxi licenses of my cab drivers. Tonight I did a double-take when I read the name "Amadou Diallo." First it was confusing, and then it was sad. Amadou Diallo was brutally gunned down by NYC police over a decade ago. And then I was curious- how many Amadou Diallos are there in the world? Is there just one other one in New York? Turns out someone already investigated:

"There are no less than 106 Amadou Diallos driving yellow taxis and livery cabs in New York City."

"Reached by telephone, Kadiatou Diallo, the mother of the late Amadou Diallo, estimated that in her hometown, some 80 percent of the people are named Diallo."

Amadou Lives at Marie Runyon's Dinner Table

Color me educated!

2010-02-24T17:06:00.001-05:00

I want to smoke. I'm not doing it, but I want to. Why hasn't anyone come up with a healthier activity, something that makes me as happy but without such disgusting consequences? Something I might actually want to do. I'm so annoyed.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

2010-02-22T16:17:00.001-05:00

It hasn't even been a week. The relative silence in the wake of the Joe Stack event is kind of stunning. Consider the weeks of commentary after the Fort Hood shooting and Underwear Bomber debacle. Where has everyone gone?

Even the little coverage that occurred stands in marked contrast to the way Nidal Hasan and Umar Abdul Mutallab were handled. There were a few mumbles around whether or not to call Stack a terrorist, with most voting not to because he acted alone rather than as part of a larger cell. In fact, there was much emphasis on this being "an isolated event," suggesting the press wanted to move on quickly.

Another clear difference is that the press is willing, even to a small degree, to discuss whether Joe Stack had a point. Today's Web news search yields headlines like "'hero' debate heats up" and "Is Joe Stack a Wake-Up Call to America?" After all, I keep reading, nobody likes the IRS.

What? Because most of us grumble about taxes, I am unlikely to condemn Joe Stack outright?

So, then, is it unfair of me to observe that when a white American commits a violent act against the government it is some how more tolerable than when a foreigner does it? That we are receptive to and curious about his motivation, while a foreigner's grievances are automatically without substance, merely social maladjustment coupled with indoctrination by foreign elements.

There is a very subtle thing happening here, where Stack is being depicted as kind of 'rational irrational'. It says a lot that his own daughter feels comfortable telling the press that he was justified in his grievances, if not in his actions. Where was Hasan's family? Certainly not on Good Morning America calling the American government faulty and saying "maybe now people will listen about the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq."

2010-02-19T14:50:00.001-05:00

"God, I hate you." The words burst out as I hit 'End' on the phone. I don't want him to hear it but I need to say it. This explosive visceral reaction is so familiar. This was my childhood. We had a sick kid in the house, and most of the time I wanted to flatten him. How can one little person take up so much space?

Please don't touch me. Please don't lie outside my bedroom door and press your face against the crack so I can see your eye. Please stop repeating that sentence from the Dennis the Menace cartoon. Please stop. Stop.

He's not so little anymore. He's 26, with the will of an adolescent and the perspective of a nine year-old. Trying to reason with him now is not much different from trying to reason with him then.

Please don't argue with mom about medication. She doesn't want you to take any more of it, so maybe just don't tell her about it. Please try to appreciate that your parents care, and that when you tell strangers only your side of the story, of course they will say you are an adult who is free to do what he wants. They are also not the ones prepared to fly you to the Mayo Clinic to solve the mysteries of your mind. I picture my words bouncing off his rigid brain.

In those days, my rage consumed me. Now the feeling moves like a summer storm-- fierce, quick. I feel a bit guilty, but mostly spent. Acceptance returns, not quite like the warmth of the sun, but at least with a certain stillness.

"Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."

2010-02-18T11:28:00.000-05:00

I haven't been blogging much lately, and every time I try it feels like I'm relearning how to ride a bike or ice skate, so I'm just going to start with short random musings and see how it goes.

I love coffee. I could drink it exclusively all day until it's time to switch to alcohol. But this week, I've not-so-secretly replaced my morning coffee with a hot water-lemon-cayenne-maple syrup concoction. Sounds gross maybe, but frankly it's delicious. And I have to say, I'm not missing coffee. Spicy and acidic, the hot lemon beverage has very little in common with the milky, nutty coffee I like to drink. So how is that I'm so able to make the switch?

I've always said that as much as I enjoy coffee, I don't "need" it to function. So maybe I just like a warm beverage.

TV of a Certain Caliber

2009-12-08T00:23:00.001-05:00

Pleasantly surprised by the TNT premiere of Men of a Certain Age. It's pretty depressing for basic cable. Like Sideways. Except without the raunchy sex. Which is even more depressing, I guess.

It also reminded me of Sex and the City. Except without the raunchy sex and amazing shoes. Now that's really depressing.

In all seriousness, I am surprised. While I presume it will pick up in the hope department (signaled, among other things, by the sexy young women who, improbably, show flickers of interest in these middle-aged losers), it was daringly bleak and low-energy for a show premiering in tough economic times. Where the failures and petty humiliations of the Entourage boys are cushioned by their sex-filled youth and a fantasy world of money and power, the MoaCA are actually vulnerable. They are paunchy, pasty and pitiable. One is separated with a gambling habit, another is a diabetic dragging himself into work at his father's Chevy dealership, and the third is a temp/actor coasting on the dregs of his looks and charm. No one wants to be these guys. Not one of them is living the dream.

This is rough stuff for mainstream TV. Are they banking on the mirror effect, i.e., people are struggling and they want to relate? Anyway, it's a nice change from whodunit melodramas like The Closer or Saving Grace. And I'm looking forward to Southland. Nice work, TNT.

Freudian Slip

2009-12-02T08:35:00.000-05:00

For the record, Obama definitely uttered this sentence last night:

..."we are bringing the Iraq war to an irresponsible end."

Whoops!

Why Sleeping Is Better Than Anything

2009-11-07T12:44:00.025-05:00

A long night's rest after a long week is one of life's best gifts. I lay there looking into the open doors of my messy, incoherent closets and felt I finally had the strength to pen the rant I've been developing for years. Opening line, something like: "2010 can't get here fast enough, because I need this era of fashion to end." From there I would outline my mounting frustration with a generation of garments I do not understand. From bulky belted sweaters to ultra-lowrise then ultra-highwaist pants to boxy tops with floppy frills where breasts should be, shopping since around 2005 has become a nightmare. If you don't have an extra-long torso, forget about t-shirts and tank tops. Bell-shaped skirts-- why not just wear a birdcage around my hips? Oh, and The Layered Look works great assuming you have more than bones. And skin. I'm a curvy 5'0-tall girl, size 2 - 4: picture me in a t-shirt down to the tops of my thighs (at least!!), with a cropped vest, under a bulky sweater-jacket tied at my waist, and a big floppy scarf around my neck. With a fedora. I LOOK LIKE AN A**HOLE.

But Sheesh, you say, you don't have to shop at hipster boutiques... to this I reply, who can afford hipster boutiques?? I'm talking Bloomingdales, H&M, Anthropologie, freaking Banana Republic, even! At an age where most women (outside of New York City) forsake fashion for family obligations, I'm here and I still care. But fashion has forsaken me. I have been all but locked out of a kingdom that used to be mine. Goddammit.

So anyway, all this was to be part of my goofy rant. It was going to be organized, maybe even bulleted. But then I decided to call my mother first, and that only sent me outside with a cigarette and jumbled thoughts of myoclonus and pharmaceuticals and acupuncture and divorce and chronic family dysfunction and the movie Precious and a killing spree on a military base that only stirs the hornets nest of race, religion and identity.

We can talk about clothes another time, I guess.

File It

2009-10-31T13:29:00.000-04:00

Anxiety is not just a problem or symptom. It is a method, a way of accomplishing what we want. What do we want? We want to not be aware of something. Pain, often. Or fear. To stop and sit and be honest and say, I feel abandoned, I feel bereft, I feel fear.

So anxious behavior, chaos, disorganization, these can be ways of avoiding unpleasant truth or unpleasant tasks, such as opening the mail and paying the bills, or returning phone calls. It can be a way of keeping the world at bay.

-Cary Tennis

Teasing Gravity

2009-10-16T18:10:00.005-04:00

Last night I went to see my unfulfilled summer crush perform in a, er, quirky production of Chekov. A classic tale of reasonably well-off people who are so miserable that it's, well, funny. And this production definitely played up how ridiculous we are with all our unrequited longings, overwrought expectations and dreams deferred. The production didn't work all the way through, but for awhile it was fresh and delightful, all the subtext abandoning its usual restraint to wiggle its eyebrows like Groucho Marx. Hahaha, we chortled, delighting in the chance to lampoon our tiny furies. Hahaha, spiders trapped in their own webs, aren't they absurd!

After the show, we stuck around to say hello to my crush. He and I hardly see each other now, which is for the best. While I wasn't just imagining that the interest was mutual, it became clear early on that he was not going change anything about his circumstances. So I did my best to put a lid on my feelings and go about my business. Of course, if you've ever played with magnets, you know that if there's any hope of keeping them unstuck you have to maintain a certain amount of distance. The closer they get, the less control you have over the attraction and the harder it is to keep them apart. So as long as we were working together, it was too close for comfort.

There were days we barely spoke or made eye contact, and were in such foul moods that people asked if we were okay. Some days I would soften and give in to flirty smiles and quick shoulder rubs. Some days I needed those hugs. Sometimes I would go to the bathroom just to get out of the room. I was often angry (frustrated) but, just as often, I could see that we were both trying to behave. Just clumsy and human. Once, in the last days of the project, I finished working on something and cheered. He cheered too and then, like a little boy who's been chastised for putting his hand in the cookie jar yet still wants a cookie, he looked up at me from his chair as I stood beside him and asked, "Can I hug you?" "Of course," I exclaimed, feeling a stab of sympathy and guilt. Yes, it was all absurd.

He didn't ask for a hug when he approached us after the show. He didn't have to. Now that we are a safe distance apart, a post-performance hug is natural without being costly. So, feeling free to offer a full dose of affection, I give him a long, full-bodied squeeze. Ahh... And then, as he starts to retreat, for a split-second I feel the pull of two objects reluctant to separate. My body cringes as though it's bracing for impact- Oh no! I don't want this to hurt. But then, in the next split second, I realize that the pull is not magnetic. No, actually it is... tactile? It is the tug of tiny hooks and loops, known by the street name of Velcro.

As he's pulling away, the velcro strips on his nylon jacket are pulling at the loops of my finely-crocheted emerald-green sweater. At the first tugs we look down, confused. Then we look up, our eyes meeting in surprise. "Whoa," he blurts, starting to laugh nervously. Burning with awkwardness, I join in. "Whoa!" Hahaha...ha...er... We are literally ripping ourselves apart.

The whole exchange takes 7 seconds. The faux laughter trails off, we both look elsewhere, and the others step in to congratulate him. I feel the corners of my lips twitch with real laughter and squeeze them shut. After all, I really enjoy when the universe makes a good joke at my expense. I look away, I look around, I desperately want to make eye contact with someone who is in the know, so we can have that "Oh my god, did you see that!" moment. But it is in vain! I am without confidantes. This will have to be replayed in text messages and emails.

Later, he joins us for a drink. We laugh and banter like old friends, our legs pressing furiously against each other under the table. Chekov's ghost is smiling in the corner.

Hot Mess

2009-07-26T19:46:00.005-04:00

I'm kind of obsessing. And attempts to stop obsessing are... modest. A week ago this bothered me. Well, more than that, it induced a kind of hysteria re: how dysfunctional I am to want yet another unavailable man. But I've managed to ease up on myself a bit, and accept my humanity. After all, I'm not actively trying to break up a relationship, and I'm not deluding myself into thinking anything will happen between us. I just want. I desire. What's so wrong about that, anyway?

So I've given myself permission to explore a connection with this person with whom I feel mad chemistry on multiple levels. To be overwhelmed not by lust as much as by curiosity and interest and affection and empathy. To feel wonder at how at ease I feel around him. To appreciate that he seems to genuinely enjoy me, and I him. To feel blessed just to see him every day, for a brief interlude. To be reminded of what qualities I find attractive and valuable in a man. To play. To have my imagination stirred. To feel an urge to touch and hold the likes of which I have not felt in years. To be made to laugh often. To feel the edges of my heart smolder.

I have done a lot of mining of my psyche over the course of my adult life, so the temptation to frame these feelings in pathology is strong. But this time I reject the pathology paradigm outright. Because, yes, these feelings are inconvenient. But are they ugly? They can't all be coming from the broken places in me. After all, I didn't know at first that he isn't available. Why should I be expected to shut my feelings off immediately? And why should I hastily red flag my interest as inappropriate? Why should I feel shame?

I'm not even saying that there's external pressure to do this-- aside from some admonishments from friends who are just looking out for me, naturally --but I think that, internally, there was instant pressure to stanch not just my pursuit but even the flow of feeling. After all, it's not "right" to covet another woman's man. In this culture, it's simply not morally correct.

But we know why that is. Because morality is designed to minimize mess. Yet people make messes every day and life goes on. People tear things down to rebuild. Yes, there is plenty mess to cut down on in this world. Maybe this particular mess should escape the censors.

There is a little part of me that's sticking its chin out in defiance. I am not itching to make a mess. But nor, in this case, am I fully opposed to it. I don't want to hurt people if I can help it. I don't want to take things that aren't mine to take, just for the thrill of victory. I don't want to actively dismantle or blow up a relationship that is none of my business and was perhaps happily oblivious to my existence just weeks ago. But... I do want joy and bliss. Dare I say it: I want some justice that takes the form of two people who are right for each other being together. And I guess I don't think it's so bad if some mess needs to be made to accomplish this (grandiose? ridiculous? presumptuous? ah, selfish!) vision of justice of mine.

So, yeah-- screw the morality of the anti-mess, I say. If I were to come to believe that I could make him happier than she, and that he might think that, too, then I might just believe that a little mess would be a small price to pay.

But I don't know that's the case yet; it's far too early. And I won't incite it. It's not who I want to be, and, frankly, it's not who I am. So I will just be around, be myself, be the sign that reads, This Could Be Worth It.

Take notes, Silda et al.

2009-06-24T17:22:00.003-04:00

Whoa! Finally, a cheating's pol's wife shows it's possible to have both a dignified and SANE public response.

Jenny Sanford, 46, was not in attendance at the news conference. She issued a statement later in the day saying that while she loves her husband, she asked him to leave the family two weeks ago in a trial separation.
“When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage,” she said. “We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong.” Because of the separation, she said, she did not know where he was in the last week.
-Gov. Sanford Admits Affair and Explains Disappearance

Medium Game, Side of Crazy

2009-06-18T17:05:00.040-04:00

I should probably just be banned from dating. It appears I am terrible at it.

Sometimes I resent my friends who married their college boyfriends around the turn of the millennium. They have no idea what it's like out here, now that social conventions are in rapid flux. We barely had time to get used to calling someone's cell phone instead of their home phone, or to using email to ask someone out.

Now, only five years later, I'm trying to understand whether opting for a text message is lazy or sleazy or just... a logical update to 21st century dating software. Maybe it takes the pressure off everyone involved in a way that smoothes out the rough edges of those first gestures.

Obviously I am not contemplating this in the abstract. I met someone on Saturday. Someone so yummy, I wasn't even going to wait for him to call me because why would I take a chance on someone else sticking their spoon in before me? (That dirty euphemism doesn't quite work when it's a girl talking about a guy, does it?)

Well, he beat me to it, sending a text on Tuesday- I had fun talking to you. (Yummy LOVES me. I WIN!)

Yes, of course I was happy to hear from him so soon. But the text option caused a slight eyebrow raise. Anyway, I responded, madly flexing my humor muscles. And he responded, with some solid humor muscle of his own. And now what? Time for a reciprocal gesture. When shall we get together, I ask. I'll call you this weekend, he replies.

Mysterious.

Why doesn't he call you during the week, asks my friend Fan, a guy. I don't know. Why are you the only person I've told who asks this question, I wonder. Because it's a good question.

Except it's not really. Because, as it turns out, a guy cannot win with me. Mr. Yummy sent a text early, presumably to assure me that he is interested, with clear plans to call when it is convenient for him. Isn't that fair enough? If he had waited the week to call, with no other contact, wouldn't I have started to give up on him? When he finally did call, wouldn't I have sniffed, Too late! CLEARLY, you are Just Not That Into me.

Yes, yes, and yes. Those were much better questions.

So, you see, I am no good at this. And it's not just the texting-vs.-calling issue. In the same "I'll call you over the weekend," message, Mr. Yummy told me I'm sexy and funny. Clearly my texting humor went over well with him. (As did the grubby camping outfit he saw me in both Saturday night AND Sunday morning. HOTT.) What didn't go over well with me, however, were the compliments delivered in ones and zeros. Was I flattered, in that first moment? Uh-- yeah! But then I had to worry. Is that too forward, and premature? Is he refreshingly direct or... a sleazoid?

But those are also not good questions. Didn't I complain recently that another man, who I know is interested in me, has no game? And now I'm concerned that Mr. Yummy-- what --has too much game? Come ON, Sheesh. This isn't a burger joint. You can't ask for medium game.

So did I mention I suck at this? I don't know which indicators are good, and which are bad. It's like a language I barely understand, and it's imperative to get around this strange land, and I just want to cry.

And, yeah, I'm overreacting (thanks, Fan). I should just stop thinking about it and go on an eventual date and get some more data to mine.

Only, I'm just not good at this yet. I still hate to look forward to spending time with someone who will turn out to be a frog. (God, especially when he really seems like a prince on paper.) I hate being disappointed so much, that I am willing to drive myself nuts parsing every bit of early information in search of something that might prevent it.

Poor guy. If he has any sense he'll be as wary of me as I am of him.

(ps- a great Modern Love piece about text dating, from way back in '05: R We D8ting?)

And the lady will have a purple unicorn

2009-06-12T00:32:00.007-04:00

Diaz, who has reportedly split from Brit model-actor Paul Sculfor, has certain qualities she looks for in a partner. For instance, she wants a guy "who knows who he is. Someone who understands himself, has already dealt with his issues and who can say, 'I see where I've been foolish before and I'm not going to be like that again.'

Oh, man... If a hot, successful chick can't find that, what hope is there for the rest of us?!

(I kid)

(Sort of)

Judging the Judges

2009-06-06T16:13:00.007-04:00

Paths of Sotomayor and Thomas Diverge on Race and Identity

Interesting adjacent portraits. First off, Sotomayor comes off pretty great. She sure seems like good people. And secondly, I'm always intrigued by how & why people handle difficult circumstances and challenges differently. Thomas comes off a rather miserable fellow here, where Sotomayor seems to have been more resilient. If I had to speculate, I'd wonder if his being abandoned by both parents made him prone to internalizing the rejections and difficulties at these institutions. Seems like where Thomas saw affirmative action as predominantly flawed and humiliating, Sotomayor navigated the inevitable obstacles and worked on proliferating opportunities and holding people accountable for discrimination.

It's interesting to think about the factors that go into shaping attitudes about race. For instance, it's not a stretch to see how a displaced child might grow up to feel like "a man without a country"-- black or not.

And I guess it bugs me to think that one person's shitty emotional coping skills have cost thousands of people decent opportunities.

But anyway, I'm excited by the prospect of Sotomayor as a counterweight.

Scenes from a Manhattan Starbucks

2009-05-13T00:10:00.003-04:00

This morning, on the Upper East Side, as I walked into my closest Starbucks, I witnessed a little boy shouting through the window to a little girl inside.

"Where's your nanny?! Or mom?!"

Man, I love this town.

Baldwin Humor

2009-04-25T10:44:00.010-04:00

Sheesh got blindsided by a nasty virus and has been sick for days. Sheesh is not accustomed to this level of infirmity, and is pretty pissed off especially seeing as how NYC is suddenly bathed in unseasonably warm sunshine.

Anyway, besides making sticky Kleenex sculptures for a Chelsea gallery installation, I am amusing myself by starting 30 Rock from Season 1. As much as I dislike Alec Baldwin, personally, for his narcissistic parenting style (see Voicemails, Verbally abusive), I have to admit that his comedy skills on 30 Rock are, well, breathtaking.

Damn you, Al Bal. Don't make me admire your talent so much! Talent makes me so-o-o... Yeah, anyway, so, fortunately it took 5 seconds on Google to be reminded that I only enjoy him when he is working from a killer script.

From an LA Times piece last year:

"A man turns 50 and he has a funeral for the skills that he never had," he said. Baldwin just had that birthday in April. "He says goodbye. I'm never gonna be a cop, never gonna be a professional baseball player, never going to play the piano, a ballet dancer, the leading rusher in the NFL. All those things gone. But! There's other things to do. The world is run by men in their 50s. So I'm trying to decide what to do when I quit this business."

Oh BOO HOO. White, male and middle-aged in Hollywood...What a hostile environment! He must feel like a real loser. Did anybody else catch the recent NYT article noting that packing on pounds doesn't seem to prevent your favorite middle-aged male stars from getting parts? (See Hanks, Tom or Travolta, John). Meanwhile the women of Desperate Housewives all look like Skeletor because being over 40 is crime enough without adding an ounce of flesh to the offense.

Even Baldwin has rounded out since the first season of 30 Rock. And what did it get him? An Emmy.

The one missing observation from the piece is that all these newly chunky hunks still have their hair. Older men with hair can gain 50 pounds and basically get away with murder. In fact, there's actually a great storyline on 30 Rock where Baldwin makes a male subordinate wear a wig because he finds him more appealing that way. It's humiliating and hilarious because it's true.

Just think-- Eliot Spitzer might have kept the governorship if he had more hair. Sure he's thin, but that's not good enough when you're dealing with an Emperor's Club situation. Even hunky Joe Biden has admitted his minty fresh smile wasn't enough to take him all the way to the White House. Although, there is such a thing as too much hair. Blagojevich's overdone bird's nest probably cost him his gubernatorial perch. (Also, he really cranked up the Crazy Knob. That might've been part of it...)

So I started out wanting to talk about comedy, and ended up on weight and hair. Which I suppose are favored topics of humor but... hmm, let me see if I can find a point here...

My point is that Alec Baldwin has hair. No. My point is that Alec Baldwin is deeply gifted but should only speak scripted lines. Yes. Check it out here.

Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist

2009-04-17T18:34:00.002-04:00

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."
--William Faulkner

If my aim is to prove I am "enough," the project goes on to infinity-- because the battle was already lost on the day I conceded the issue was debatable.
--Nathaniel Branden

On Petty Theft

2009-04-13T21:15:00.016-04:00

I made a list. There were so many things I needed to do today that I made a list. I am not a list-maker, not usually.

At 8:15, I darted outside to rescue my car from the ticket-happy street cleaning brigade. At 8:16 I discovered hundreds of fragments of glass-- from chunks all the way down to dust --strewn across my front seats and, somehow, even the back.

So, it happened. After over 4 years of having a car in NYC, some enterprising person successfully penetrated the sanctuary that is my '93 Acura Legend. Not in Brooklyn, mind you. Oh no-- BK snobs take note --the only two times my car has been tampered with have been in MANHATTAN. My driver's side keyhole got jacked in Chelsea (yeah, I've been unlocking my car from the passenger side for... oh, who knows how long now...I try to always act like my bag is sooooo heavy that I just HAVE to put it in the passenger seat before I get in). And now I got my driver's side window smashed. On the tail end of Easter Sunday, across from a mosque.

Well done, godless Petty Thief. Today you managed to cost me hours of wasted time a) sweeping glass off my front seat so I could actually move the car, b) calling and texting friends for assistance and tips, and c) calling around for replacement glass estimates ("I'm sorry ma'am, that is after-market limited-availability glass. We can't help you.")

Besides glass, you littered my car with outdated DC Metro maps, faded years-old gas and toll receipts, bright orange parking ticket envelopes, and yellow packets of Splenda. And for all the hassle you generously caused, what did you get?

My EZPass.

What? You didn't want the Bebel Gilberto CD? YOU DON'T LIKE MY TASTE IN MUSIC?? Eff you, Petty Thief.

The guys in my deli told me not to cancel the EZPass. Just wait, they said, if he's stupid enough to use it you'll catch him and then he'll pay for all the damages. You won't have to pay anything.

That sounds nice, doesn't it? Catch the thief and he'll just fork over some cash for the damage he caused! Justice, all neatly wrapped in dollar bills. Yeah, right... (Who says immigrants don't believe in the American dream anymore? Haha.) I'm guessing that anyone who breaks into an old car and is satisfied with an EZPass probably won't be able to fork over the $232 for the window and and replacement pass, anyway.

Welcome back to the old neighborhood, Sheesh.

I Heart NY (but which part wins?)

2009-03-27T18:44:00.000-04:00

In the past year and a half, I've moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back to Manhattan. To those living outside NYC, the notion that there could be a noticeable cultural shift between two parts of town connected by bridges and subway trains might seem kind of precious, but when I moved to Brooklyn I had a bit of culture shock. I really did.

But I gave it a chance. I deliberated. I compared and contrasted. And after a few months, I declared,"I think I'm a Manhattan girl."

Haha. Not that I didn't enjoy Brooklyn. I grew to really appreciate the slower energy while still being so close to the lower part of Manhattan that I enjoy so much. My brownstone-lined neighborhood was quiet and quaint, but also socio-economically and racially diverse and quirky in ways that nowhere I'd lived in Manhattan had been.

Still, I resented the long distances between me and my upper Manhattan friends. (Actually, even my lower Manhattan friends-- see my post last weekend about the 45 minute trip to go 3 lousy miles. sheesh.)

By the time I agreed to move back to the main island, though, I realized I was going to experience reverse culture shock.

And I am. It probably sounds silly, but I lay in bed early this morning-- the second morning in the new place --listening to the sounds of morning rush in the borough that is the heart of New York City, and I felt different. And not just because I was in a new space.

So I tried to sort it out. It's not the sound of cars and city buses, per se-- I had that on Fulton Street. Maybe it's being on a higher floor? Perhaps... Ok, it's also a little bit that the traffic is heavier.

It just felt as though I've been living in a vein, but now I'm back in an artery. There was, oddly, this pressure to get up earlier. To move more quickly. To be busier. And I wonder if I have that in me anymore. Still, I'm excited to be back. And I can always visit Brooklyn. It's so lovely there in the summer.

2009-03-22T15:08:00.003-04:00

...No human being, no nation, no religion, has been chosen to be the sole interpreter of mystery. All cultures struggle to give words to the experience of the transcendent. It is a reminder that all of us find God not in what we know, but in what we cannot comprehend...

...The smallness of our lives, the transitory nature of existence, the inevitable road to old age, are what the idols of power, celebrity and wealth tell us we can escape. They are tempting and seductive. They assure us that we need not endure the pain and suffering of being human. We follow the idol and barter away our freedom. We place our identity and our hopes in the hands of the idol. We need the idol to define ourselves, to determine our status and place. We invest in the idol. We sell ourselves into bondage...

~Chris Hedges, The False Idol of Unfettered Capitalism

you take the good you take the bad

2009-03-21T13:19:00.004-04:00

I've been walking around these last few weeks thinking how much I will miss my quiet little brownstone neighborhood here in Clinton Hill. The energy in Brooklyn is so different than Manhattan. Not better or worse, per se, just unique to themselves.

But.

I will NOT miss what a ^$*!*#@ pain in the @#% it is to get in and out of Manhattan on the weekend. Because of what they call "weekend service updates," it is going to take at least 45 minutes to go three miles.

Sonofa! If I weren't going in party clothes I would just jog it.

Hurry up Mars

2009-03-17T08:29:00.003-04:00

Cancer (June 22 — July 22)
The sky is not going to fall on your head. It may seem as though the mighty firmament is shaking, but it will hold firm. That unsettled feeling you have will now start to stabilize as powerful Mars moves into an alignment of empowerment.

The sky is not falling, the sky is not falling, the sky is not falling.

Adventures in Clubland

2009-03-12T10:25:00.003-04:00

A portion of my dream this morning:

Irene and I are dragged to a mysterious club by a male friend (familiar in the dream, but doesn't exist in our lives). We have to take a train all the way to nowhere Long Island, which is bad enough, but our friend has never been there himself so there is really no guarantee of fun times. We give him hell but he assures us it's going to be cool. Fine.

Following directions from the station, we look for a hidden, unmarked entrance that looks like the entry to a tunnel that goes through a mountain. We find it and step inside. It's dimly lit and empty but there's music playing. There's also an archway to another room, so I peek around the opening. I see a few guys standing around with drinks in hand, and some sad disco lights flashing. No one is dancing, and our friend has disappeared.

"Oh my god." I suddenly realize that the guys are... little people. Midgets! And I freeze. Somehow, in the dream, this means we are in trouble. I start to whisper to Irene that we have to get out of here, but... it's too late. We've been spotted! And they have multiplied! Suddenly we are being rushed by a dozen guys who all look like Peter Dinklage.

And then we are running. They don't want to kill us, though, they just want to jump our sexy bones. Irene and I are screaming directions at each other but we are not running away, we are running around. It's chaos. And then somehow we figure out that if we throw gumballs, we can make them slip and fall. (I don't know how we got access to gumballs, but that's dreams for ya...)

So they are coming from every direction and we are blindly, furiously pelting them with gumballs of every color as we try to get away. Our friend has reappeared but he's useless; he's been jumped, like Gulliver captured by Lilliputians. Our only hope is each other. And the gumballs.

Now that I think about it, marbles would have been smarter.

Not My First Lady

2009-03-06T14:37:00.008-05:00

Michelle Obama in O Magazine
"Michelle talks frankly about decorating the White House, keeping up with friends, her daughters and more."

Oh goody! "..and more"? I wonder what else! Shoes? Recipes? In-laws?!'

So what's the "and more" in the article? Does she talk about work? Missing it, not missing it? What about her policy ideas? Maybe she has some thoughts about balancing work and family, or about legislation to make the workplace more family-friendly? Could that be relevant to Oprah fans? Or do ordinary American women only need decorating tips? Doubtful.

A Harvard Law grad is reduced to talking exclusively about hearth and home. Every time I hear her refer to herself as "first and foremost, First Mom," it's like nails on a chalkboard. There's no reason to have to articulate that, unless you feel you have something to defend. Perhaps something like... a career, or your own interests. Yes, Virginia, evidently women still have to downplay their personal interests and ambitions.

The media expects its version of Michelle Obama, this neutered First Homemaker, to be my role model. No ***damn way.

Why? Because a month in, we've already seen enthusiastic coverage of Barack catching a basketball game with the guys. Cool! Apparently we are interested in how "the most powerful man in the world" retains his personal identity while performing a challenging role. But what about the Mrs.? I wonder what activities or personal interests Michelle enjoyed as a private citizen and whether she gets to keep up with them now. Does anyone else care?

Our culture continues to insist on publicly pigeonholing women even as reality reflects that we are multi-dimensional. Sure it's subtle at times, but it's real. Michelle the individual taking a backseat to Michelle the homemaker is natural, right? Just as natural as our delight in Barack the dude maintaining his selfhood amidst the pressures of this job. But only Barack's selfhood gets to be differentiated from his roles as husband and dad. Not Michelle's. At best, other than wife and mother she is fashionista and modern-art-lover, neither of which seems particularly self-appointed.

Women make the sacrifices, with a smile, and men have it all. Does the story ever change? Consider the 125,000+ plus members of the Facebook group "Moms-who-sometimes-need-to-go-out-with-girlfriends-&-drink Secret Society," a group for moms who "sometimes sneak away with the girls to talk, have fun, complain about life, do something different, whatever!" Hunh? What the heck is the sneaking for? Do guys have to sneak off to drink and watch sports? Whatever, indeed!

So, I couldn't be less interested in Michelle the First Lady. Just as I wasn't much interested in Hillary the First Lady (unless it was the way she was pissing everyone off.)

But who knows... Maybe we are making strides and I don't have the foresight to realize it. Maybe Michelle is cracking the crystal stemware that women one day won't be expected to-- or have to pretend to --care about.

2 things

2009-03-05T23:01:00.003-05:00

1. A couple fighting on the subway in English is uncomfortable. A couple fighting in French is hot.

2. I put an ad on Craigslist to sell my couch, saying call or email me. And someone texted! Isn't it presumptuous to text a stranger? I say this as someone who prefers texting to calling in general. Am conflicted...

There's no place like _________

2009-03-04T08:46:00.005-05:00

I need a serious pep talk this morning, but am not sure where to get it. What a strange feeling.

When facing your greatest mistakes, where do you go for comfort? It's a good thing to know. At present, I just don't.

Fragments

2009-02-25T01:18:00.001-05:00

sometimes this is the summary: the trouble was that i loved you like i love myself, when what i wanted was to love someone better than me. to be with someone who is a better person than i am. we are both just ok.

sometimes I just want to find some small notch in this wall that I could press up against to talk to you. sometimes I still cannot believe there is just nothing.

it is bottomless. i will never get over this disappointment. and i give up; i accept it. but i want to have a separate life now. i want to drop it off somewhere. a museum. a convent. a mental asylum. i would visit. i think i would. maybe i would forget to sometimes.

We know where we're going/But we can't say where we've been

2009-02-16T10:02:00.007-05:00

I am not a regular viewer of morning TV news. Hanging out on MSNBC this morning, though, I can see I've fallen wayyy behind the times. For instance, Morning Joe was host to about 9 talking heads. When did this many pundits start getting up so early on a Monday? Back in MY day, the only place to do that was the McLaughlin Group on Sundays. Now there's such a glut of these guys, they have spilled over into the workweek?

Another trend seems to be youthanization. Who are all these young dudes? (And where are the young chicks?) Now some female anchor is interviewing a "senior" writer for Newseek about Michelle & Barack's marriage. He looks about 17. He's Andrew Romano, and is only 5 years younger than I am, but has major baby face and I can't imagine what insight into the First Marriage he will provide.

Ah. Here is his central observation, "It's the sense they are the same in public as they are in private, and you don't usually see that in the White House."

Ok, fine. Point of reference?... Laura & George Bush.

"We just really haven't seen that in the White House," he assures us again, having dug back as far as... 2000.

And that, folks, is what you get when you turn for perspective to someone born in the 1980s.

Happy Valentines Day

2009-02-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

Watch CBS Videos Online

Sorry for the TMI, but...

2009-02-10T13:23:00.004-05:00

it's fun when your friends make art out of your suffering:

make your own wordles here :)

My M.O.

2009-01-27T13:47:00.006-05:00

pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
~ antonio gramsci

and, I HEART LONDON:

Frantzesco Kangaris/Agence France-Presse

Is Peace Out of Reach?

2009-01-27T08:54:00.005-05:00

Fascinating story on 60 Minutes this Sunday about the future of Israel & Palestine. Watch as Bob Simon tries to talk to Israeli soldiers who routinely occupy a West Bank Palestinian home, at will. Just imagine!

Watch CBS Videos Online

Never again?

2009-01-18T08:46:00.006-05:00

During the 22-day-long offensive, Israeli attacks killed more than 1,300 Palestinians, including some 700 civilians, Gaza medical officials said. Israel said hundreds of gunmen were among the dead. Ten Israeli soldiers were killed as well as three Israeli civilians hit by rockets.

...In an address late on Saturday, Olmert said the Israeli operation, launched with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks that had killed 18 people in Israel over the previous eight years, had achieved all its objectives.

~Reuters, Jan. 18, Hamas Announces Cease-fire in Gaza

So, for 18 people in 8 years, Israel had to kill 1,300 people in 3 weeks? This actually makes sense to people? To Americans?

At least Britain's PM Gordon Brown is sounding like a human being, which is more than I can say for ANY of our American officials:

"We are yet to discover the full scale of the appalling suffering," Brown said on an early morning flight to the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. "But what is already clear is that too many innocent civilians, including hundreds of children, have been killed during the military offensive."

...Brown said: "For a ceasefire to be sustainable we must address the underlying causes of this conflict, including continued Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and Gaza's economic isolation.

~The Guardian UK, Jan. 18

Note the 'AND.' The 'and' in that last sentence never seems to come out of the mouth of an American. Until it does-- IN PUBLIC --America cannot be an honest broker for Arab-Israeli peace.

Yes, it is that simple. And these kids get it:

So true

2009-01-18T02:38:00.001-05:00

“Beth mirrors Josh,” said Matt, his brother. “She has the same focus on enjoying the moment. But she also challenges him. In all the good relationships I’ve seen, there’s a combination of mirroring and challenging.”

Fruitless

2009-01-16T15:18:00.009-05:00

I love how my yoga class almost never fails to meet me right where I am.

At the beginning of every class I take, the teacher offers some bit of wisdom. And, not always but sometimes, I arrive with a monkey on my back or some struggle that has me by the throat. I know better, yet I can't soothe myself. Not well enough, anyway.

Last night I definitely brought in a monkey. A different Jen G. was substituting for the usual Jen G. She turned out to be a softer, gentler (more cliched) teaching specimen than regular Jen G., whose un-hippy-dippy, matter-of-fact tone I have come to really appreciate. This means that alternate Jen G.'s warm Earth-Mama manner and voice were, well, kind of grating. So, as she scooped into the Bhagavad Gita, I braced myself for irritation. In fact, I was so consumed by the concern that I might be annoyed for the whole class that I was only half-listening. Luckily, one phrase pierced through the mental noise:

Be focused on action and not on the fruits of action.

Instant noise reduction. Right. Yes. Of course. I'm upset because I'm attached to the fruit. My ego is yelling, Where's my fruit, dammit? I acted, now where is my bloody fruit salad? It better be sprinkled with almonds, too...

sigh. Ok. Devotion to action and only action. Got it.

Been sleeping with a clown above my bed

2009-01-14T15:53:00.005-05:00

I had a really nice date yesterday, and whatever happens from here, in a way, last night was enough. Today I keep thinking of the wisdom of Anais Nin. And, funny thing I just figured out... today is the anniversary of her death. She died almost 6 months, to the day, before I was born. Merci a toi, Anais! Merci pour ces jolies mots qui me reconfortent...

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Voices of Reason

2009-01-12T14:20:00.002-05:00

We are in a terrible bind-- Israel, the Palestinians, the U.S. Each greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another man's resistance to oppression. Is it possible to turn this mindless tragedy toward peace?

~Bill Moyers, PBS, Jan. 9

...the establishment discussion rules are virtually identical to those that prevailed in the pre-Iraq-war days, though even more rigidly enforced: one can question the efficacy of the Israeli attack from the perspective of Israeli interests, but may not question its morality, legality or justifiability...

~Glenn Greenwald, Salon, Jan. 10

...the new administration will have to be tough, much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it's serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking... In 25 years of working on this issue for six secretaries of state, I can't recall one meeting where we had a serious discussion with an Israeli prime minister about the damage that settlement activity—including land confiscation, bypass roads and housing demolitions—does to the peacemaking process. There is a need to impose some accountability. And this can only come from the president.

~Aaron David Miller, Newsweek, Jan. 3

But we invited a gay marching band!

2008-12-18T18:18:00.007-05:00

Below is President-Elect Obama explaining (defending) his choice of outspoken anti-gay-rights evangelical pastor (and best-selling author-- no minor detail, I'm sure) Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration...

And here is an excellent Op/Ed by the Human Rights Campaign prez, Obama's Inaugural Mistake. Best quote:

We understand that the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, a civil rights icon and a dear friend of LGBT Americans, will close the inauguration ceremony. But would any inaugural committee say to Jewish Americans, "We're opening with an anti-Semite but closing the program with a rabbi, so don't worry"?

Funniest quote:

And the Obama campaign's response to the anger about this decision? Hey, we're also bringing a gay marching band. You know how the gays love a parade.

Truly, I cannot believe that Obama's straight-faced rationale here is 'inclusion.' No one who has seen the just-released and powerfully humanistic film about the efforts of the first openly gay American politician, Harvey Milk, and his devoted constituents, could accept this premise. Since when do we make progress by going out of our way to distinguish an active bigot?

Somewhat tangentially, many blasted Columbia, an academic institution-- i.e., supposedly hallowed ground for inclusion and debate --for inviting the Iranian president to speak, on the grounds that he is an anti-Semite who doesn't deserve a platform. Yet now we are to "open our minds" to a man who, just 2 months ago, actively campaigned to strip the rights of American citizens via Prop 8 in California?

An example of selective outrage, to be sure. Should we have a color-coded system for discrimination, like we do for terror alerts?

Rep. Barney Frank in the Huffington Post (whoa- Anderson Cooper is reading this quote on TV as I'm blogging about it. weird!):

Religious leaders obviously have every right to speak out in opposition to anti-discrimination measures, even in the degrading terms that Rev. Warren has used with regard to same-sex marriage. But that does not confer upon them the right to a place of honor in the inauguration ceremony of a president whose stated commitment to LGBT rights won him the strong support of the great majority of those who support that cause.

I'll give him the last word.

No, no. I'll give Hilary Rosen the last word: "I think the issue is, is this the day to start to play political coalition building...?"

Mixed Signals

2008-12-10T12:25:00.002-05:00

I noticed this while rushing somewhere around Grand Central. Heh heh...

Another stab at definition

2008-12-08T14:23:00.002-05:00

Somebody's vows, from a NYT wedding feature:

“I want to travel to the center of your perception of me.
“The place where you and I meet.
“Which, for lack of a better word, we call love.”

I love this. What an idea-- to endeavor to travel into the heart of someone's perception of you.

Good fences make good families

2008-12-06T00:54:00.005-05:00

It's hard to imagine having children as long as I am already raising my parents.

Enh- that's probably why you should have them. Convenient diversion. "I'm sorry, I can't get into drama X, I'm utterly consumed by needs of small person Y, who, by the way, is your direct descendant and therefore deserves only the finest and most attentive care, don't you think? I'll call you later."

NYT Fantasy

2008-11-13T17:05:00.002-05:00

Oh, if only this faux column were real... What a triumphant and long-overdue moment it would be.

The End of Experts
By Thomas J. Friedman
Published: July 4th, 2009

The sudden outbreak of peace in Iraq has made me realize, among other things, one incontestable fact: I have no business holding a pen, at least with intent to write.

I know, you’re thinking I’m going too far. I haven’t always been wrong about everything. I recently made some sense on global warming and what we needed to do about it, for instance.

But to have been so completely and fundamentally wrong about so huge a disaster as what we have done to Iraq — and ourselves — is outrageous enough to prove that people like me have no business posing as wise men, and, more importantly, that The New York Times has no business continuing to provide me with a national platform.

In any case, I have made a decision: as of today, I will no longer write in this or any other newspaper. I will immediately desist from writing any more books about how it’s time for everyone to climb on board the globalization high-speed monorail to the future. I will keep my opinions to myself. (My wife suggested that I try not to even form opinions, but I think she might have another agenda.)

Baffled? I don’t blame you. So I’ll cite some facts to support my decision — a practice, I must admit, I have too seldom followed.

Let’s start with the invasion itself. I was pretty much all for it. Mind you, I was not one of the pundits, reporters, or public figures who said that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. I knew better — but I said it didn’t matter!

Back in February of 2003, I wrote in this space: “Saddam does not threaten us today. He can be deterred. Taking him out is a war of choice — but it’s a legitimate choice.” In other words, we should invade a sovereign state and replace its government in order to remake the world more to our liking.

Now the simple fact is, an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state is a war crime, even when linked to grand ideas of the future of mankind. In fact, that’s exactly what Hitler did, for exactly the same reasons. The Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal called it the “the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

What was I thinking? And more importantly, why didn’t anyone stop me?

But wait, it gets worse. Having expressed how acceptable it was to commit Hitler’s signature crime, I then applauded the invasion of Iraq as an “audacious roll of the dice.” It should have occurred to me that this gamble would be unspeakably painful for an untold number of Iraqis who had done nothing to us — in other words, any of them.

Soon, when it became obvious that my pipe dreams for a peaceful and democratic subject nation were just that, I decided to say it was too soon to tell how things would turn out in Iraq, but that we would definitely know in six months to a year. I said this pretty much every six months for five years. And The Times just kept giving me more and more column-inches.

I’m not trying to beat myself up here. I’ve done that plenty already, believe me — and my wife has done the rest! But I have one question: why are newspapers like The New York Times letting people like me make fools of themselves, mislead the American people, and, worst of all, give their wives a lifetime of ammunition?

To err is human, but to print, reprint, and re-reprint error-mad humans like me is a criminally moronic editorial policy.

Nor, of course, is it only me. Just consider who populates the opinion pages of America’s top newspapers. Bill Kristol, who was actually hired by The Times long after being proven wrong on Iraq. Charles Krauthammer. Robert Novak. Mona Charen. Fred Barnes. The list goes on and on of officially-approved wise men (and a woman or two) who never once doubted that Iraq had vast stockpiles of W.M.D.s. And that’s just in newspapers.

We were all wrong again and again — and the consequences were devastating. Can anyone tell me why any of us should ever be asked, let alone paid, for our opinions ever again? Or, for that matter, why Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz should be allowed behind any sort of desk whatsoever as long as they live?

Peace in Iraq will undoubtedly have many far-reaching consequences. As promised, I’m not going to speculate publicly about what they might be.

Except one. As of today, I’m putting down my pen, to take up a screwdriver. I am going to retrain as an engineer and spend the rest of my life working to build non-carbon-based energy technologies. And I’m going to spend a lot of time washing my hands.

After

2008-11-05T11:37:00.005-05:00

Yeah, everything feels different. Share your thoughts here, please.

__12 hours later...__

Ok, now that I'm not drunk anymore, I can post thoughts, too. But don't expect them to be in any respectable order. I'm still hungover. Still.

I listened to Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' About a Revolution" today. It's the perfect anthem for what happened last night...

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Don't you know you're talking about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

And finally the tables are starting to turn
Talking about a revolution
Finally the tables are starting to turn

Joe the Reward

2008-11-03T12:04:00.007-05:00

Starbucks is pushing a different Joe on us than the one we're completely sick of hearing about.

Their GOTV message? Free coffee for your vote tomorrow. Hmm, ok... I mean, it's a nice gesture, I guess, but maybe Starbucks should be offering free coffee today. People seem like they could use a pick-me-up today. A free, warm, aromatic liquid hug.

I only say this because many people I talk to or hear from right now are kind of a mess. People aren't sleeping, they're not going out, they're making out-of-character choices like inviting their mother-in-law over on Election Night. Some of them are even abusing alcohol (ow, my head.)

It's not pretty.

People are really riled up over this election. I mean, people are on the verge of losing it. Nice people, people I care about, people who just want to get back to the days where the matter of our nation's leadership was occasional cocktail conversation not a feverish, all-consuming tenth circle of hell. They want to get back there, but-- oh, god! What if he doesn't win?? They want tomorrow to be over because they want to rest, but then they consider that the outcome might be bad, so then they dread tomorrow. So now people are wracked by an agonizing ambivalence: they are desperate for tomorrow but they are terrified of tomorrow.

Now you see why they don't sleep.

I'll go out on a limb here and posit that these lovely people are freaking out because there's a lot at stake. After eight years of the Bush administration fucking America in more ways than there are positions in the Kama Sutra, no one feels they can afford to be complacent. They are pushing 11th hour ads and making last minute campaign calls in swing states, they are making plans to be together tomorrow night, they are doing Pilates.

We are not getting good sleep because we are really, really politically AWAKE.

Not convinced? Try asking someone if they are voting tomorrow. You don't get a simple yes or no-- "Oh, I'M VOTING. Hell YEAH I'm voting." I was on a bus on Friday with angry lesbian who was coming home to New York for a few days just to vote. I know someone who took time out of a hellish cross-country moving process to cast her absentee ballot in person, in Brooklyn. Two New Yorkers I know went "home" and voted in their respective swing states of VA and PA.

These people, who are not sleeping or doing anything with much enthusiasm these days except for obsessively tracking polls and screaming, "I don't believe them!" to anyone who will listen-- or those who have to because they are trapped in the same subway car --these people are voting with feeling. This year, they are voting with their DNA. Verily, every cell of their bodies is invested in the vote.

So-- and I don't mean to be rude here, Starbucks, when you are just trying to be nice, and self-promoting --but I doubt a free cup of coffee is going to register tomorrow.

Tomorrow will not be the kind of election day where people slap on an "I voted" sticker and merrily head into their local Starbucks. Tomorrow will be the kind of day where people will have one simple goal: to not lose their shit. They will vote, they will go through the motions of what they must do, they will try not scream at anyone all day, and then they will go home and turn on their TVs.

There is only one thing people want tomorrow, and it is not a free cup of coffee.

thin as I wanna be

2008-10-21T13:55:00.003-04:00

I exit the elevator munching on a pre-jog tangerine. The "security guard" at the front desk takes one look at my leggings and sweatshirt and says, "What's this, are you losing weight?"

"I dunno," I shrug. "Yeah?"

"Well, don't lose too much! How much more you wanna lose?"

I laugh. "Why not? I dunno, 10 more pounds?"

"10 pounds?!" Her eyes widen and she shakes her head. "You know what, I'm gonna tell you, men don't like it," she lectures, with a thick Puerto Rican accent. "No, I serious! They like some meat."

"I'm sure some do. But I'm not doing it for men." I reply, laughing.

"I'm telling you, they don't like you too skinny. They tell me, 'Why women get so thin? You know what, they just selfish. They just wanna look good in clothes.'"

I'm cracking up, 'cause that's exactly why I'm doing it. But I've never heard it framed as selfishness. Love it!

I don't think I wanna think about it

2008-10-20T13:56:00.001-04:00

Governor of Absurdistan

2008-10-02T08:25:00.003-04:00

Crazy Right-Wing Elizabeth must be vying for the role of resident comedienne on The View. (Watch out, Joy.) Ever the defender of Sarah Palin's readiness for our nation's second highest office, here she insists that Palin has "actually been leading a microcosm of the United States of America."

Ahahaha! Microcosm? Alaska, the state ranked 48/50 by population? (Has anyone even seen a Latino there?) The state where agriculture represents a fraction of the economy and manufacturing is virtually nonexistent?

Right, then- of ALL the states in the Union, let's nominate Alaska "Microcosm of the U.S." Surely that is no more absurd than nominating Sarah Palin vice-president.

No reason, just rhyme

2008-09-26T09:43:00.009-04:00

On CNN, Bush is "briefing" the country again. I don't know why I'm always amazed at the way he speaks but doesn't convey any information; this is his trademark after all. But his rhythm and cadence are rather poetic. Check it:

...continues to work with Congress on a,
uh,
rescue plan.
And we need a rescue plan.
This is,
uh,
it's hard work.
Our proposal is
a big proposal.
And the reason it's big,
and substantial,
is 'cause we've got a big
problem.

We also need to,
uh,
move quickly. Now,
any time you have a plan
this big,
that is moving
this quickly,
that requires legislative approval,
it creates
challenges.

See, so if you just imagine he's reciting poetry, and focus on the style rather than the total lack of substance, it makes it sort of bearable.

The CNN graphic at the bottom of screen helps, too:

PRES. BUSH: THIS IS HARD WORK, OUR
PROPOSAL IS A BIG PROPOSAL

Who says those news drones don't have a sense of humor?

Rock Bottom - 50 miles. Are we there yet??

2008-09-25T23:36:00.002-04:00

Hey! Hey-- remember back in 2000, when Gore, like, lost the election because he felt so embarrassed about having been VP to a perv hunted by the right wing but still boasting a 60% approval rating? Remember how we were all- Well, this is his election to lose! And then he lost(!), to a total party-boy douchebag, and we were all, Whoa!

So, yeah, so, isn't it funny that now that-- 8 horrendous years later --in the midst of complete financial meltdown and-- oh yeah --unending wars, it is again our election to lose and... we are in A DEAD HEAT?

Ha!

Ha... ha.

Chair today, gone tomorrow

2008-09-17T11:59:00.011-04:00

"Can you remove the balcony furniture," she asks.

Odd. The woman just said she never sets foot on the balcony, so why does she need to get rid of the furniture?

"Mom, do you want the table?"

"There's no table. Only those chairs. And they're pretty worn out."

"What? Really? But I love them."

"I know, but they're not in great condition anymore, love."

"Really? Ok." I guess they are- what? -seven, eight years old. Gosh, can that be?

I feel hollow, suddenly. The pair of Pier One dark wicker scooped seats has been sitting there all this time, through various tenancies, and I suppose I imagined others were appreciating it. The chairs I bought for lounging on my first balcony in the first and last place I've lived alone as an adult. Where I savored weekend morning coffee while gazing at the funny red house. Where friends would come and drink and chain smoke. Where I fooled around late into silent chilly nights.

But now I discover they have been aging, neglected. Imposing, even. They are just relics of my life in someone else's home. And I can't bring old and dirty relics into my home now. How silly.

"If the chairs are in ok condition, I can come get them in a month when I'm in town. The carpet can definitely get tossed," I reply, thinking of the jute rug pressing roughly against my back, sometimes my cheek. "But, really, I don't mind if you want to get rid of the chairs. Just let me know."

Hope's tiny voice. Tell me they are worth holding onto.

"The chairs are kind of dirty and worn," she writes back. "I am going to call them to remove the carpet, table and chairs and discard. Just confirm so we are on the same page."

We are not on the same page, lady. But go ahead and turn it for me. God knows I'm no good at it.

I Told You So, Part I

2008-09-05T04:06:00.005-04:00

Sheesh, in emails to friends yesterday, post-Palin's speech:
The only thing Obama had going for him was this change theme, and McCain/Palin-- piggybacking on stubbornly resistant racism --can steal that from him with co-maverick personas.

Current newspaper headlines, post-McCain's speech:
'Change Is Coming'

McCain Vows to End ‘Partisan Rancor,’ Seizing Theme of Change From Rival

You KNOW it

2008-08-28T12:17:00.007-04:00

This reaction to Hillary just rocked my world the other night. It is overwrought, of course, but the bit where she sort of grabs the media by the balls and says "You just saw it yourselves. You know that was a presidential speech. You know it." was awesome. On the last line, she even grits her teeth and goes feral.

Reminds me of acting class, when someone is delivering a mediocre monologue and you're sort of cringing/tuning out. Then something shifts and she's 'on' and your spine sort of straightens and, yeah, now you're interested.

For some people-- like me, like this woman --it was Hillary who made a better future seem possible. We look at Obama and think, "Why a candidate with training wheels when we could have a freakin' Harley?"

(As an aside, CNN struck gold with her-- a black woman torn up over Hillary and defiant about Obama. Nice.)

Anyway, this defeat seems to agree with Hillary. She has never looked or sounded better. When Scooter Obama falls off his trike in November, she'll be back in 2012-- with a whole new game plan.

And don't forget my mashed potayta's...

2008-08-26T13:56:00.002-04:00

Happy 88th Birthday, Women's Suffrage!!

Stephanie Tubbs Jones

2008-08-21T08:04:00.005-04:00

So, are we sexist and racist? Or is the media just incredibly self-involved? Or is it both?

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio died last night. It's now 8 am, yet her obituary is barely discernible on the WaPo home page.

But, you say, who is she anyway? She's a 5-term Congresswoman, I say, from the famed swing state of Ohio. Chairman of the House ethics committee, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress, and-- as the Associated Press bothers to mention -- one of just 11 House members who voted against authorizing the use of force in Iraq.

Oh-- and she's the woman who kept getting on CNN to back Hillary Clinton during the primary! Surely you've seen her recently.

I mean, she's no Tim Russert, but maybe she still deserves a photograph on the home pages of these news sites. If I had to endure days of national mourning for the sudden loss of the Pride of Buffalo, NY-- a political news hound and media genius who somehow still fell for the "intel" that supported the Iraq invasion --then I would like just a few hot, visible tears over STJ, a double minority in Congress who had the prescience and the courage to fight that overwhelming war wave.

It's really a shame that Stephanie was too black, too female, too liberal, and too RIGHT to get the respect she deserves.

God, I detest sounding like an angry liberal feminist banshee. But I can't help it when y'all MAKE ME SO ANGRY.

Things that make my head explode

2008-08-20T14:56:00.004-04:00

So, it turns out that ABC's John Stossel is a conservative columnist. Imagine my confusion at reading a poorly-reasoned diatribe, The Idiocy of Energy Independence, written by... a longtime news reporter and 20/20 anchor.

Some gems studding the sparkling band of his intellect:

"To be for 'energy independence' is to be against trade."
Right. Of course. All trade. Energy independence is actually code for, "Yes, we won't buy your bananas."

"...cars need oil. We don't have nearly enough."
Forget about seeing if they could run on something else... you know, someday.

"It's not a "transfer"; it's a win-win transaction, like all voluntary trade. Who cares if the sellers live in a foreign country? When two parties trade, each is better off -- or the exchange would never have been made."
Right. Like when Timmy trades his heroin for Annie's crack. This way they can both get the fix they really want, which, naturally, makes them both better off.

And then a couple other standard barbs from the Conservative Handbook. Unmitigated praise for the free market-- check. Attack Jimmy Carter-- check check.

For 20 years I have known (not personally) this guy as an investigate reporter working for reputable outlets. Imagine my surprise to find him now moonlighting as a conservative blogger. A quick turn on Google reveals that, in fact, I wasn't paying attention. Evidently, he has always pushed the boundaries of impartial reportage and that has been part of his appeal.

But now he seems to have crossed over into editorial work... while keeping his anchor job at 20/20.

How is this ethical? If you are a working reporter, you have to keep your goddamn opinions to yourself. You confine them to dinner parties and your diary.

Did we know how Peter Jennings felt about energy independence? Dan Rather? No. And there's a reason for that. Now how am I supposed to trust Stossel's reporting on, say, developments in alternative energy investment? On oil money funding terrorism? (Right, like that ever gets reported on by anyone except Michael Moore or Jon Stewart... but whatever.)

I realize that 24-hour cable outlets have nearly obliterated the line between reporting and editorializing (Lou Dobbs being a prominent example), but it pains me to see this infecting the networks. ABC is allowing him to air his biased personal beliefs while continuing to pose as an impartial storyteller, and that is just wrong. And they may be doing worse than that-- here is a very unpleasant look at ABC's complicity in one of Stossel's propaganda endeavors-- Stossel in the Classroom.

To add insult to injury, Stossel isn't even clever. Here is an effective rebuttal to Stossel's biased, facile and fallacy-ridden thinking.

**

The other thing that makes my head explode today is this article in the WaPo about the "complex" abortion views of the candidates. It fuels a dominant paradigm that I deeply resent-- that presidential hopefuls, first and foremost, have to answer to evangelicals, conservative Christians and other anti-choice Americans on the subject of abortion. Where is the pro-choice response to the candidates' responses at the Saddleback Forum?

And don't even get me started on the spectacle of an entire evening devoted to Christian litmus testing. As Kathleen Parker writes, "What does it prove? Nothing except that these men are willing to say whatever they must—and what most Americans personally feel is no one's business—to win the highest office."

**

I feel bad talking about my head exploding while Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones is in critical condition after suffering an aneurysm. I hope she pulls through, though it doesn't look good. Sad. We need more women and minorities in Congress, not fewer!

Living in utter confusion

2008-08-15T17:07:00.006-04:00

I just finished Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, which covers more ground about men, women and marriage than I've ever seen on film.

I'm totally overwhelmed. For starters I feel the need to sort out how much it confirms what I'm already either convinced of or confused about, and whether it offers something enlightening, comforting, or-- dare I hope --liberating.

In the meantime, I have to go to Tiffany's.

The Last Days of Disco

2008-08-13T19:28:00.002-04:00

What a bizarre interview. First off, perched at that desk it looks like Bush is about to comment on the 200-meter freestyle. And then, why does he smile like a mental patient? Also,"be in a position to respect you enough to listen to your views on religious freedom and political liberty." What a comedian. And finally, the reflexive and creepy assertion that "once religion takes hold of a society it can't be stopped." Nothing says 'diplomat' like invoking the specter of a Crusades in China. Awesome.

We'll miss ya, buddy.

Maybe Mother Nature is also sad that it's chilly in August

2008-08-13T14:32:00.003-04:00

On Monday, during a night picnic in Central Park, we spotted a sad face in the clouds. Spooky...

You say 'recycle,' I say 'sleep on the couch'

2008-08-03T18:55:00.006-04:00

Ok, so this is a terrible photo taken discreetly with my truly worthless "camera" phone. But-- this sight was too good to not share with you, even poorly (but the framing is excellent, no?).

Here I am, on the train, on my way home from Whole Foods where I noticed they were selling the very bag this man happens to be carrying. It's a reuseable shopping bag that boldly says, "This used to be a plastic bottle." A plastic bottle, I presume, much like the one being carried by the lady friend sitting right beside him.

He's responsible, she's not. They make it work. They're like the James Carville and Mary Matalin of plastic consumption. Adorable!

Summer in the city

2008-07-31T12:34:00.004-04:00

Now that is good collaboration. Lovin' it!

And a vast improvement on the Get Chucked campaign. Much better, Nike.

Product Stand-In

2008-07-30T02:50:00.003-04:00

Jess swears that she did not get Cat to pose for this. The light box is for work.

And work, according to Cat, is exhausting.

Living just to breathe

2008-07-30T02:12:00.000-04:00

our Disney candidate

2008-07-28T16:01:00.004-04:00

What is the message of this Obama ad on the WaPo site?

Vote for Obama-- he's so smiley! Look how cute the crinkles around his eyes are!

7.11.77

2008-07-11T00:58:00.000-04:00

He's old, but so limber...

2008-07-09T01:37:00.000-04:00

If I had a hammer...

2008-06-25T10:59:00.006-04:00

...I'd hammer on the head of the person jackhammering outside right now. They're ripping up and repaving my whole street for the next three days. Now, if I had known this perhaps I would have arranged to remain in the woods savoring fresh air, the gentle sounds of nature, and eggs cooked over the campfire (instead of considering throwing eggs out the window.) Me loves this stinky, crowded city but having just been reminded, this weekend, how lovely it is not to be in the city, this business is particularly unwelcome today.

Also, the cable is still out (2 weeks!). So I am missing Wimbledon at least until Friday. boo hiss

There's only one consolation in times like this (not counting wine or bacon):

D & I stopped at the pet store on Lex yesterday for some post- minor-surgery pick-me-up. A three-month-old puppy can cure anything, man. And if I'd just plunked down $2,200, I coulda taken her home and named her Dinah (she looked like a Dinah.) "Isn't this worth two thousand dollars," D asked as I cradled wee "Dinah" in my arms like a snuggly baby...swoon... You bet. And someday I will be a dog mommy, soon I hope. Then I'll have to worry about finding a campsite that allows dogs. And then there's the ticks, and raccoons, and, oh no! Okay, no need to stress about a dog I don't have yet. For now I love being able to take off and go camping or to the beach without any complications.

Relationships, not things

2008-06-23T21:46:00.005-04:00

I saw this car yesterday, on the edge of Central Park. My first thought wasn't even "Hey, a painted car!" It was, "Wow, a painted Mercedes, on the Upper East Side." Meaning, it's a remarkably liberal, unconventional act for such a traditional brand and conventional neighborhood.

And then it reminded me of Randy Pausch and his Last Lecture, in which he encourages parents to let their children draw on their bedroom walls. Meaning, I guess, to let them self-express and dream and feel free, as he had the opportunity to do and feel. And I wondered if the Mercedes parents had that idea on their own, or if they were inspired by Randy. Regardless, it was cool to see, especially in that buttoned-up context.

It always makes me smile when I see parents doing right by their kids. Truly a beautiful sight.

Where's the Cat?

2008-06-23T16:46:00.004-04:00

Just another word for nothing left to lose

2008-06-18T17:18:00.003-04:00

source: AP via NYT

This is not my beautiful class

2008-06-12T19:42:00.004-04:00

Got this e-mail from one of my alma maters today. Totally panicked for a sec, thinking that I was about to start college again and I'd have to sleep in a twin bed in a room with a stranger and wear flip flops in the shower and make all new friends and drink Jager and make out with random guys in clubs.

Then I remembered I'm 30. Phew.

The best part, of course, is that I graduated from another school. Thanks for reminding me I didn't get to cross that bridge with my friends... Thanksss.

Replaced!

2008-06-10T00:15:00.004-04:00

Jess-Cat left me for L.A. and has now shacked up with two real live cats. One named Cat and one named... Monkey. Aww, Cat and Monkey together again. Guess which is the slow one? Of course the slow one is my namesake. I want to know which one is hanging out in Jess' crotch. Probably Monkey. That's me, slow and inappropriate.

Men, men, men, manly men, men, men

2008-06-06T00:15:00.004-04:00

I know there are so many bigger things to worry about, but what can I say-- this picture hurts a little.

Happy Belated Anniversary of women's suffrage. 89 years and counting...

Change we can believe in, eh?

2008-06-05T15:52:00.004-04:00

A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday -- and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner...

He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force has "rightly been labeled a terrorist organization"...

Yesterday, Obama, who has generally declined to wear an American-flag lapel pin, wore a joint U.S.-Israeli pin, and even tried a Hebrew phrase on the crowd...

~WP, 6/5/08

Gosh, I suddenly feel so much better about supporting Hillary than I did in February. Suddenly, the guilt at betraying my liberal brethren, and the shame of being a "cynic," has just fluttered away like the fluffy hairs of a dandelion clock being carried away on a spring breeze.

That sweet little lamb is growing up awfully fast, isn't he?

Feelin' the Vibe

2008-06-05T01:13:00.005-04:00

"You don't have a vibrator?" This incredulous remark is often what I hear when the subject comes up. Believe it, sisters! I am au natural.

Tonight, while killing time before catching a play in Soho, a (nameless) friend and I stop in at Babeland next door. As we approach the impressive display of vibrating shafts, I hear the remark again. And again I respond, deadly serious, "I'm afraid that if I get one of these I will never go back to men."

Friend, who has several vibrators (that don't come between her and men, except in a good way), rolls her eyes and starts fondling some options."I think you should start small."

"I can't. It's a bad idea." But the array of bright colors and curious shapes are already piquing my interest. "Look, I could get a purple one. I love purple!"

"I don't think the color is the point," she says wryly.

Yeah, I know what the point is. The point is that if a machine can blow your mind without breaking your heart, I may never look back. Of course, deep down I know this is silly and that I deserve the bemused looks these women give me that say, "Honey, if you swear off men for good, don't blame it on a vibrator." That's true of course, but I'm afraid a vibe will be the nail in the coffin.

My thoughts are buzzing as I finger the smooth, splash-proof silicone on toys designed for "solo or partner play." Maybe I'm not afraid I'll swear off men. Maybe I'm afraid this sleek pink instrument will demand accompaniment. Maybe I'm afraid it will turn up the volume on feelings I've muted.

"Well, I definitely need one that's quiet," I muse, holding one up to my ear. "'Cause I can hear my roommate's Blackberry buzzing in the next room."

Hmm...

Sexism? What sexism? Where? Show me.

2008-06-03T11:30:00.004-04:00

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president. --AP, 6/3/08

Um, it's "effectively ending her bid to be president."

Unless, of course, the writer means to imply that Obama has secured the Democratic nomination to be the nation's first female president.

I don't write it, I just comment

2008-06-02T12:11:00.004-04:00

Orbie is right to point out that I'm way behind on blogging. Am I uninspired? Hardly. There's been such a glut of irritating news, I don't even know where to begin...

McClellan's book "What Happened" and its lesser-known sub-title, "When Self-Serving Flacks Finally Cash In By Telling Us What We Already Know." Looks to be the successor to Bob Woodward's last book...

The endless death rattle of HRC's presidential bid, including plans for an underground railroad for Michigan and Florida delegates so they can crash the Denver convention. No Delegate Left Behind!..

The ascent of Bobby Jindal and the absurd reality that our likely first minority VP turns out to be a conservative Republican. You can't make this stuff up...

Press coverage of Condoleeza Rice being "thrilled" to meet the band KISS. You can't make this stuff up...

Fulbrights revoked and then reinstated for Palestinians held hostage in Gaza...

Cranes raining down in Manhattan, dangerously close to people I care about and on routes I have taken regularly.

A personal highlight from last week was going to an orthopedic surgeon with poor Deb who broke her wrist over the Memorial Day weekend. Not to make light of the misfortune of a loved one but it's pretty excellent to be present for a line of questioning that goes like this:
"What do you do?"
"I'm a political consultant."
"What happened to your wrist?"
"I fell off a rip stick, which is a two-wheeled skateboard."
"Oh yes, I know. I have young children."

You can't make this stuff up...

No End In Sight

2008-05-20T10:44:00.008-04:00

Lately, it seems Bob Herbert at the NYT is begging the public and the presidential candidates to eschew the trivial and tackle the real issues that face America. I feel his pain. It is nothing less than shocking that, given the number and scope of the problems we're struggling with, we allow the public discourse to disintegrate over nutty pastors, 60s radicals, anti-Clinton hysteria, and cries of appeasement. Even the issues of race and gender stirred up by Obama and Clinton-- the sociological olive oil in which I can't stop soaking my thought-bread --are not as important as the steady flow of articles over the last year might imply.

A foundering economy, an educational system in shambles, scant health coverage, fossil fuel dependence... these are a few pressing problems. But, that we are so profoundly shielded from the horrors of the wars we're fighting is the most shocking reality. Not to say there isn't some amazing coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan-- there is. But, largely, this war is a distant buzz in the public consciousness.

In today's column, Herbert mentions a soldier who committed suicide, whose story was detailed in a lengthy Houston Chronicle article over the weekend. Herbert's inclusion of the suicide of the soldier's girlfriend (whose name he screwed up... don't they have fact-checkers??) in his argument is rather cheap (double suicide!!), given that she was a manic-depressive and not in the military. But it doesn't ultimately diminish the tragedy of the army recruiter who cracked under the strain of his service, and didn't get the help he needed. He is emblematic of the pervasive neglect and abuse of our soldiers, which is but one strand of the horror this administration has woven over the last 6 years.

I want this nightmare to end, but I also know that no matter who the next president is there can be no real sigh of relief on January 20th, 2009. There is too much mess.

Let me 'splain

2008-05-19T21:59:00.004-04:00

Drying my hands in a public restroom today, I noticed the sign on the dryer. It occurs to me this is the only appliance I've ever seen that has a list of facts about itself on it. It's sort of plaintive, actually. As though, in the face of your paper towel outrage, it has to defend its existence.

It's all, "Don't be mad, baby. Let's save the earth together."

Wrong Choice

2008-05-15T09:53:00.004-04:00

NARAL has gone out of its way, in the 11th primary hour, to endorse Obama.

Sen. Obama has said, "A woman's ability to decide how many children to have and when, without interference from the government, is one of the most fundamental rights we possess. It is not just an issue of choice, but equality and opportunity for all women."

Cool. Let's look on his Web site to see where he stands on choice... clicking "Issues"... I see "civil rights," "education," "faith"... hmm, "women's rights"? Nope. No women's rights. Aha! Here-- how about "family"? Maybe he'll mention family planning. Hmm... no family planning section. Ok... uh, how about "healthcare?" Surely he'll mention contraceptive coverage... hmm, no. Well, what about equality? Is there an "equality" section? No.

Oh! Ok, there's an "additional issues" section. Let's check that out... "arts," "katrina," "science," "sportsmen."

Sportsmen. Even hunters and fishers get a nod from Mr. Liberal. But not the ladies.

Yeah, sure, Obama is pro-choice (what Dem candidate wouldn't be?), but he doesn't deserve a primary endorsement, and especially not over Clinton, the tested choice champ. Not cool.

And what's this about not consulting your affiliates about the endorsement? The biggest ones--Pennsylvania, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, Texas and New York--are scrambling to insist that they're remaining neutral. Ohhh, you're gonna lose members. The good news is, you've earned it!

An endorsement this late in the game only serves one purpose. You must have yourselves confused with the DNC, NARAL. It's not actually your job to pick a nominee.

'7 Years Went Under The Bridge, Time Was Standing Still'

2008-05-14T22:20:00.001-04:00

Lest our sweet little president think we've forgotten all about him during this nutty primary...

"Popularity is fleeting. Principles are forever.” ~G.W. Bush

I love it. It's like something Duckie would say to Andie, to convince her to pick him, the Geek, over Blane, the Big Man On Campus.

Watch the whole heart-warming interview here. Don't miss where explains how he stopped playing golf for the troops. Whatta guy!

Just To Be Clear

2008-05-14T22:10:00.001-04:00

I'm not switching my allegiance.

I just no longer have any.

Annnd, we're done here.

2008-05-14T11:33:00.005-04:00

The scene playing in my head is me in an empty room, surrounded by torn streamers and pizza boxes, with confetti stuck to my ankles. Now that the party is over, my cone-shaped hat with the thin elastic chin band looks more like a dunce cap than an artifact of festivity.

I don't feel like a dunce. I am not ashamed that I stuck by Clinton this long. But I have reached the limit of my loyalty. And here's why:

I know she's tired, she's desperate, but this is unforgivable. Cold black/white analysis belongs in the War Room, not in the public discourse, and certainly not out of her own mouth. I now concede that Hillary's relentless personal ambition is dragging us back into an ugly past.

We have enough problems today without a candidate boasting, explicitly, that she's got more of the white vote.

Tacky.

So now I'm a voter without a candidate. Sad...

Mamma Mia

2008-05-11T20:04:00.005-04:00

Wow. Eva Mendes in Italian Vogue. Wow. I think I would die happy if I were photographed this beautifully.

That link is NSFW, by the way, so check out the amazing photo spread at home not in your cubicle. And enjoy...

The Good Old Days (of last year)

2008-05-05T23:55:00.007-04:00

I miss Central Park. I was never terribly impressed with it when I lived on either side. And then I moved to BK, and now I realize there's a little CP-shaped hole in my soul. Typical, right?

Oh anyway, it's not like I LONG for it. I was just glad to see it again. Last week N & I took some lovely long afternoon walks among the budding leaves and cherry blossoms. We ate gelato. We passed a Gossip Girls location shoot. I spotted a scruffy Liam Neeson. I made us take pictures with my ridiculous camera phone:

N, being a very good sport.

I tried for art-y. "How do I look," I shouted. "Fine," she grumbled. "Come on! Art direct me!" ...sigh. I came out looking dead. Like a dumb girl murdered while walking alone in the park at night. This could be a still from a Law & Order episode. You know, if there were fake blood. And a barking dog. And an hysterical older Upper East Side woman.

We passed the magnificent clay courts. It's been nearly a year since we've played, and I've basically resigned myself to never getting out there again. My ankle still gets sore, and I am busy struggling to accept that it will never again be 100% and the ramifications of that in my everyday life (ramifications= it Sucks!!). I mean, screw tennis-- even yoga is still a problem. But seeing people on the courts, well... I wasn't prepared to tap into how much I have missed it. I teared up a little. N & I had some glorious early mornings out there. Plus, it saved me post-breakup. Tennis made me feel alive and powerful when I was feeling left for dead. Also, you can imagine the ball is your ex's face. Does wonders for your stroke.

I'll get back out there again. I will.

Why I Heart NY, especially the Upper East Side

2008-04-30T23:49:00.004-04:00

Have been in my old 'hood the last couple days. I forgot how entertaining it can be...

...and culinary institute. and dojo. for the deaf. and anemic.

Unrepentant

2008-04-22T13:55:00.003-04:00

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Odds, Ends, and not much Beyond

2008-04-22T00:24:00.015-04:00

I've been awfully unbloggy lately. Sorry. Some of it is the move. Some of it is primary fatigue (how much longer can I support Hillary without seeming like some combo of Adolf Hitler, Karl Rove and the Grinch?) Some of it, I won't lie, is Facebook. None of it, rest assured, is because my life is awesomer than yours.

This "one month free" HBO promotion has allowed me to finish the season of "In Treatment" I started online... I am mesmerized. For an actor, this show is like steak au poivre, medium rare, with the crispiest frites. (I did indulge in just such a steak on Saturday. It was perfect.)

This evening I had another typically New York night trying to get a few errands done. I'm in Bed Bath and Beyond, determined to pick up hand towels. Rae & I bought complementary green bath towels (Peacock and Clover) last week but we skimped on the matching hand towels because, honestly, why is a hand towel only $2 less than a towel that dries __your entire body__?

But the lack of matching hand towels has been driving me a little nuts (no, I don't know what's happened to me, either. why do I care about matching towels?), so I went back tonight. It's immediately obvious that the huge towel section of the Chelsea B3 does not have the same color palette as the one in Tribeca, where Rae and I bought the bath towels. I circle three times. Unable to really accept this disparity with Zen calm, I turn to the nearest B3 associate: "So, is your selection here NOT the same as your selection at your other stores?"

He uses about 32 more words than I need to tell me, "No."

Seriously? Jewel tones sell better in Tribeca than Chelsea? Fine. What about an extra-long shower curtain? No. Right, ok. I leave B3 with... a roll of paper towels.

Over to The Container Store, where I planned to buy a laundry cart but instead left with a clothes-drying rack, which I had forgotten I needed. This drying rack looks so huge and elaborate that, right there in the aisle, I decide to test my ability to set it up (who wants to be reduced to tears by the contraption at home alone?). Sales associate Miriam helps. Together, Miriam and I figure out how to work this complex-looking wooden structure. I complain to her, and I'll complain to you-- they used to make things better and cheaper. I know I sound about a hundred years old, but it is so annoying when something breaks and you go to replace it only to find that its "descendants" are more flimsy, more expensive, and even "re-designed." There was nothing wrong with the old design, you ninnies! Arg.

The good news is that the rack seems to be deeply discounted. So after checking nothing was broken I take it to the register, where I notice a man with an ivory parrot on his shoulder. The parrot is on a leash. Naturally.

Then a stalled train forces me to think creatively about how to get home. I decide one more stop on the F and then a bus is better than hanging with restless crowds waiting indefinitely for the next train. Good thing I had something unusually cumbersome to carry.

The End. Tune in next week to Errands: NY-style, and find out if your hero heads back to the Tribeca B3 after all. Maybe Target will finally re-stock that extra-long shower curtain. Maybe it's possible to have a thousand options and __actually__ find what you want...

It Cries. And It VOTES. It also blogs. And poops.

2008-04-09T23:08:00.007-04:00

Wow. I just watched a compilation of Hillary coverage. Seeing it all spliced together is really... special.

"she morphed into a scolding mother talking down to a child"
"resembling someone with multiple personality disorder"
"It cries"
"after spending decades strippin' away all trace of emotion, femininity, and humanity"
"men won't vote for Hillary Clinton because she reminds them of their nagging wives"
"men hear, 'Take out the garbage!'"
"the look toward Obama... looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" "ha ha ha ha"
"the reason she's a senator is her husband messed around"
"someone's going to have to go out there and take her behind the barn"

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the TV talking heads discuss a presidential candidate. Not the regular ones, but the rare female variety.

Let's imagine there were similar remarks about Obama:

"he morphed into an angry black man"
"resembling someone with a chip on his shoulder"
"It gets down like a real brutha!"
"after spending decades strippin' away all trace of blackness"
"men won't vote for Obama because he reminds them of their lazy slaves"
"men hear,'You're not my master!'"
"the look toward Hillary... looking like everyone's presumptuous house boy" "ha ha ha ha"
"the reason he's a senator is because America upheld slavery for 200 years"
"someone's going to have to go out there and put him in his place"

Imagine the public outcry that would ensue over remarks like these. It would be deafening. (Sort of like the relative silence over the disparaging remarks made, daily, about Hillary.) I am ashamed to write them.

But sexism is still so entrenched that comments of this ilk are made every day about someone who is an accomplished public figure, who happens to be a lady. And almost no one bats an eyelash.

Putting aside the lack of punishment for a second, I don't even get the crime. I don't get why men say these things. Women are your mothers, your sisters, your lovers, the mothers of your children. What are you so afraid of?

I mean that rhetorically... I do get it. It just makes me really sad.

invented forms of grace

2008-04-07T20:43:00.004-04:00

In honor of Robert Hass' Pulitzer win, one of my favorites...

Privilege of Being

Many are making love. Up above, the angels
in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing
are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond
and the texture of cold rivers. They glance
down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy--
it must look to them like featherless birds
splashing in the spring puddle of a bed--
and then one woman, she is about to come,
peels back the man's shut eyelids and says,
look at me, and he does. Or is it the man
tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater?
Anyway, they do, they look at each other;
two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious,
startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet
lubricious glue, stare at each other,
and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically
like lithographs of Victorian beggars
with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags
in the lewd alleys of the novel.
All of creation is offended by this distress.
It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes,
rising. The lovers especially cannot bear it,
it fills them with unspeakable sadness, so that
they close their eyes again and hold each other, each
feeling the mortal singularity of the body
they have enchanted out of death for an hour so,
and one day, running at sunset, the woman says to the man,
I woke up feeling so sad this morning because I realized
that you could not, as much as I love you,
dear heart, cure my loneliness,
wherewith she touched his cheek to reassure him
that she did not mean to hurt him with this truth.
And the man is not hurt exactly,
he understands that life has limits, that people
die young, fail at love,
fail of their ambitions. He runs beside her, he thinks
of the sadness they have gasped and crooned their way out of
coming, clutching each other with old invented
forms of grace and clumsy gratitude, ready
to be alone again, or dissatisfied, or merely
companionable like the couples on the summer beach
reading magazine articles about intimacy between the sexes
to themselves, and to each other,
and to the immense, illiterate, consoling angels.

from Human Wishes, 1989

Extraordinary, indeed.

2008-04-01T23:36:00.004-04:00

So, Walmart dropped the suit to recoup the 400K from Debbie. Yay.

"Wal-Mart's top executive for human resources, Pat Curran, wrote that Shank's extraordinary situation had made the company re-examine the situation."

In other words, the extraordinary amount of bad press & public recrimination that Walmart has been getting is very bad for le bottom line.

How bad? Bad enough to set an exception precedent, I guess. This was not done lightly, no doubt.

"Save Money. Live Better." Indeed...

2008-03-27T12:31:00.005-04:00

Ok, this has has been bugging me for days. I know that rules are rules, but this case is grotesque. Here's the deal:

Walmart employee is severely brain damaged in car accident. Debbie has no more short-term memory. Confined to a wheelchair and put in a nursing home.
Walmart pays major medical expenses.
Debbie is awarded about $1 million in a lawsuit against the trucking company involved in the crash. After legal fees were paid, $417,000 was placed in a trust to pay for long-term care.
Now, Walmart wants its money back. All $470,000.
Yes, according the the fine print, because Debbie collected damages Walmart is entitled to recoup the expenses.
That means Walmart is entitled to every cent of the $417,000. (Which is now down to 200something.)
Money left for Debbie: ZERO

How fucked up is that?

Some more fun facts:

In 2007, the retail giant reported net sales in the third quarter of $90 billion.
Walmart says it "wishes" it "could make an exception" but "it wouldn't be fair to the other employees."
Debbie will never work again.
Debbie's husband Jim is recovering from prostate cancer, and works two jobs.
Last year, he DIVORCED Debbie so that she could get more Medicaid.
They can't afford to send their youngest son to college.
Debbie just lost one son in Iraq. Since she keeps forgetting, it's like she's continually hearing the news for the first time.
Luckily, she's oblivious to all this legal and financial wrangling.

...Meanwhile, the feds rush to the aid of Bear Stearns, probably rescuing some of the very people responsible for the financial hole we're falling into.

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate. ~Bertrand Russell

Our Lovers, Our Selves

2008-03-25T00:36:00.012-04:00

"61 Things I DON'T Miss About Him"
"But what if I miss out on a great guy because I wasn't patient enough?"
"i just feel confused... like did he ever care (i know if he did, it wasn't enough but still...)"
-- Actual quotes from actual lady friends

As corny as it is, there is a good reason behind the success of best-selling book "He's Just Not That Into You."

(Sidebar: In the 21st century, surely we can admit that some men also need to hear that "She's Just Not That Into You," but I will let the icky gender-typing issues slide here if you give me a pass on using only women in this post. Thanks.)

The one reason that book was such a hit is that sometimes our highly-evolved brains cannot grasp the simplest concepts. When that happens, we need TV professionals to break them down for us into little bitty bite-sized pieces in glossy wrappers that cost $24.95. (Hence, the Holy Oprah Empire.)

So, thanks, Greg What's-your-name-with-the-cheesy-hair-- thanks for sifting the gold from the silt. It is stupid to make excuses for men who are merely a waste of our time.

That being said... WHY do we do it? Why do I know several bright, sexy, independent, clever, caring women who:
- Let breezy flirtation mutate into tortured relationship simulacra.
- Continue to spend time with men who make them feel like a decent alternative to Lost/last week's Chinese takeout/their own hand.
- Stay in awful relationships, plugging every leaky hole with all manner of found objects until there's nothing left but their own fingers and toes and they end up stuck in a sinking ship? (Much like I am stuck in this sinking metaphor.)

The answer is probably really complicated and just hasn't been filtered through the right TV personality yet. I'll hold my breath.

Ultimately, these women --and I-- we pull ourselves from the wreckage. But the wounds take time to heal and some parts remain paralyzed indefinitely. There's a lot of anger, outrage, despair, blame. It's understandable-- our time, our feelings, our efforts, our bodies deserve more.

The feelings of betrayal are real, but there's a bit of disingenuousness lurking in the shadows. Just who is betraying whom?

No doubt the offenders are offensive. He doesn't have time to see you more than once a week. He won't ask you on a proper date but still invites himself into your pants. He finds fault with your body/job/blowjob/coasters.

But we pick them. We stay with them. And we have to pry our fingers loose.

We sell ourselves on the cheap, and then blame the other person for being a cheapskate.

Which, by my count, brings us to "62 Things I DON'T Miss About Him." Stingy bastard...

Welcome to middle age, Starbucks

2008-03-20T13:03:00.005-04:00

“We somehow evolved from a culture of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to a culture of, in a way, mediocrity and bureaucracy.”
~Howard Schultz, Starbucks founder

Aww, poor Starbucks... Worried your stock is going down?

...The company faces a hurdle that may be impossible to overcome in the short term: Will penny-pinching Americans, in the grip of an economic downturn, still pay $4.10 for their daily dose of white chocolate mocha-flavored coffee?...

Bummed you're being upstaged by hot new options?

...The announcements are intended to help Starbucks hang on to customers in the face of intensifying competition for brewed coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s, which is widely introducing espresso beverages this year...

Hey- you know what will make you feel better? A shiny new convertible!

...Mr. Schultz introduced an improved automated espresso machine that grinds coffee for each drink and has a lower height that will allow customers to see baristas making their beverage...

(Also, maybe you should cut back on those sugary, fatty Frappuccinos...

...Mr. Schultz said that the company planned to introduce health- and wellness-related food and drinks and energy beverages later in the year...)

Getting older sucks, man.