...more recent posts
Aug 31, 2000
I sleep in his semi-retired white cotton undershirts, the cheap ones that get like some perversly expensive fabric from wear and washing. Every time I go to his closet and click the safety catch open to access the neatly folded pile I think of Eleanor, who used to say when I would get out of bed and take another one of the t-shirts from the huge box: "You know, you can't just take a fresh one of those every day." She was trying to make a living one student summer having had things like "girl" and "boy" screened on them and we both came from households where you didn't take a fresh thing every day. I get such pleasure from taking a fresh t-shirt every night and not hearing a reproach, merely an echo of frugality.
Aug 02, 2000
This weather is like a perpetual European autumn; there is something deeply comforting about it. I have subtracted alcohol (1.5 bottles of wine/day), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (Effexor 150mg/day) and coffee (2 cups/day). I have added a bicycle (1 Trek 4500). I have to say that I am enjoying the latter at least as much as the cumulative effect of all of the former. I may even commence to rant with an evangelical tinge. Perhaps it's merely the urban equivalent of all those hysterical women who had to ride horses flat out every day; it's good to straddle something (other than another human).
Jul 05, 2000
Why is pedestrian a derogatory term? Resist the temptation to high five our flaccid air, to heil the sky: take to the street rather than that imposed sociability of the taxi spree. This evening wandering from Bar Veloce on 2nd Avenue (somewhere in the early teens; don't ask me where exactly, I'm a girl), where they serve delectable paninni and excellent wine, I experienced one of those nocturnal perambulations that remind one that psychedelics, though no longer imbibed on a regular basis, taught you the language of the metropolis. Post-samosas on 2nd Avenue in an odd Dehli-like deli affair, I find myself on 2nd Street going east of 2nd Avenue, blocks bulging with significance: the New York City Marble Cemetry (looks like it was fashioned after an Edward Gorey illustration); a mutual revelation in 67 2nd Street to Brian Greenbaum, amidst tubs of Haagen Dazs, of our imminent deaths, the only difference being he is dead and I am not; the dog shit strewn sidewalk of 2nd Street between 1st and A and the vision, simultaneously, of a homeless man alseep on the street and the chevron of fruit rippling accross the avenue outside Graceland deli. But I've missed two of the most pleasing aspects: I actually grabbed hold of the railings to climb up to read the plaque of the Marble Cemetry, and a Preserved Fish, a prominent merchant happens to be buried there. Whatsmore, just before reaching Avenue A I encountered whatever the collective noun for a lot of empty beer bottles is, lying there, beautifully, like a piece of Brit art. And three last things finished the night to perfection: I am without ambition, but cannot resist the temptation to make a walk sign, my favourite achievement being to cross Houston from A to Essex, or vice versa, without hesitation—made it tonight; then I find a clothes horse in the garbage, a twin to our household faithful on which our clothes hang, all of those we are too damn precious to throw in the dryer. Finally, I walk through the door to air conditioning. Thank you men folk who I love.
Jun 29, 2000
Fresh from the other side of the Atlantic: Hibernia, the old sod, Eire, home, the sow that eats her farrow... Actually, it seemed far more benign than JJ's moniker for his deserted muse. D. and I spent a magical ten days in Connemara sandwiched by familial visits in Dublin. Two weeks, the statutory vacation time, seemed cruelly short. But today, my first day off since return, reminded me how this time can refurbish the soul. The cooler weather of today in Manhattan had me wandering the streets and relishing the juxtaposition of Ireland and New York. It seems to me the perfect pairing, and my Gemini self wishes it could flit more frequently between the heteregeneous streets of New York and the dense homogeneity of Ireland. We ate well, as we always do, wherever we are. We drank well, as we always do. We are indulgent and don't seem to suffer too much guilt. We drove one and a half hours to purchase the hindquaters of a Connemara spring lamb in the town of Cong, Co. Mayo, which we marinated in port in a bucket and transported back to Dublin for a BBQ. The barbecue was borrowed from a friend, one returned from America, and my father emerged from the house and inquired if the barbecue was battery operated. He had never seen one before. Neither had he ever eaten the indigenous lamb in such a delicious guise. Wandering has its benefits, though they are difficult to define precisely. My friends in Ireland appear to have been tackling the underpopulation of their isle with a personal fervour. One's ovaries always ache a little during and after a visit there. They make childrearing look simpler and more of a necessity. However, all of that energetic investigation undertaken in one's early/mid-twenties, and late too, was postponed for many of them with the responsibility of caring for infants. Those infants are now half grown and some of their parents are itching to carry on in the way I remember doing so when I first arrived on these shores. It makes for interesting encounters. Some of the women have a sweet and desperate look in their eyes.
Apr 25, 2000
In honor of spring I had my nether regions waxed today. I'm not
going to get into the whole subject of depilation, whether one
should or shouldn't and if one should what the most effective
method is to maintain it, but rather the joy and the difficulties of
that endeavour to distance ourselves from our simian forefathers.
I've always enjoyed a good waxing. It supplies just the right
amount of discomfort for the results and requires less attention
than the shave. It can, for a few days, catapult the hirsute among
us into the regions of the hairless. One's skin feels newly made.
One's bits look better. The shortcomings, in my mind, are not the
regrowth, it's the unavoidable interfacing with the waxer. The
waxer, poor dear, confronted with the unwanted hair of
hundreds, the wayward beaver, the tufted pit, the wooly limb,
even the bearded lady, constantly battling a tide of encroaching
hair, is—not surprisingly—often a tad mad. This is my problem.
Here one is relinquishing one's tenderest bits, one's epidermis to
a woman (invariably they are female) who is liable to rant for the
full 30 or so minutes required to give the illusion of pre-pubescent
bliss. I'm not sure I can tolerate another rant. I want to be
depilated in silence. Hence I've become the waxing whore. I've
found several who do a truly excellent job; I just want one to do
an excellent job without railing. It makes me think that the
"superfluous" hair might actually be a bad thing. Some
inadvertent way of telling me that because I have hair "there"
she's going to tell me how bad, generally speaking, the world is.
While on the subject of maintenance, I have to address my
recently aquired affection for the New York subway system. The
only instance when I take the subway is to visit my hairdresser
uptown. I've noticed that the subway has taken on a sort of retro
appeal due to the fact that nobody can use a cell phone there,
everyone is just there, forced to be where they are and not
planning or implementing something better.