Smart, For a Girl

Terrible, Horrible Edie

2012-01-27T00:35:00.001-05:00

You probably think she looks pretty cute in this photo, and that maybe she could never really be terrible and horrible, but you'd be wrong. Dead wrong. Don't you see? That's what she wants you think. You're playing right into her hands, and you don't even know it.

Trust me, she's got her dark side. You see it, oh, around 2 am. Then again around 2:23 am. And then again at 3:15 am. And so on. And it's 4:03 am and you're thinking, okay, we'll just never travel again, and you've got one week to regulate this sleeping, sister, and things are going to get real.

But then it's suddenly 10 am and we're laying on my bed reading Peter Rabbit and she's laughing and making this charming cooing noise, and suddenly, I'm right there with you. Right back in the palm of her pudgy little hand.

Super Special: Home from the Coast

2012-01-25T00:21:00.000-05:00

Bad weather just as we left California was dispiriting, that has to be said. Other than that, California 2012 was a success. I ate a million tacos, hung out with old friends, visited family, ate See's candy, watched Idiot Abroad, and learned that Downton Abby is worth the hype.

It was hard to leave, as it always is. Coming back to New York in late January is, well--let's get serious--it blows. I brought back a Babysitter's Club Super Special to read when I get lonesome.

The flight home was fine. I watched three episodes of Tabitha's Salon Takeover while sitting perfectly still so Edie would stay asleep in my arms.

We had a friend apartment sit for us, and when we got back tonight there was milk and coke in the fridge, and candy on the table. I think this is what it must be like to be rich. James and I installed Edie on the living room floor, and stretched out beside her to eat Thai food and read Entertainment Weekly.

It's good to be home, of course. It's just that sometimes, sometimes, I wish my home were in California . . . along with my heart.

Taylor's Message

2012-01-24T00:39:00.002-05:00

And she means it too.

Can We Be Real For a Minute?

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

Did anyone really like Dawn Schafer? I mean, when it came time to choose your favorite BSC member, did anyone on planet earth choose Dawn Schafer?

She must be completely impossible to be around. I mean, she's that friend who's a vegetarian, but instead of just eating her garden burger and shutting up about it, she's always telling you what's in your cheeseburger and how long it's been since she's had a chicken nugget, and you're like, who cares?

And she's not even right. I mean, in the Babysitters Club Super Special, New York, New York, everyone else from the BSC grabs a soda when they get to Stacey's dad's apartment (Stacey's mom and dad are divorced, remember?), and Dawn drinks fruit juice, because it's healthier. I mean, get real, Dawn. Ever checked out how much sugar is in a glass of juice? You might as well just drink a glass of ginger ale, though maybe it doesn't allow for quite as much self-congratulation.

I started reading BSC #72, which is called Dawn and The We (heart) Kids Club, which is about some sort of bastardized BSC that Dawn runs in California with four other blonde, featureless Dawn-ettes. I say started because I couldn't get through it. It started to go downhill for me when Dawn meets up with her California BFF, Sunny, who is eating a bag of vegetable chips. I just couldn't go on. You understand.

I assume the We (heart) Kids Club crumbles because there are no rules and no officers and no one ever arrives on time for meetings which Kristy would never allow. Everyone knows that a babysitting club can't run with such shoddy leadership. Not that I would ever want to finish this particular book, but I don't even need to. I can tell the end from the beginning.

It occurs to me that I've never actually read a BSC book from Dawn's perspective. I mean, does she even have one? Apart from being blonde, "healthy", and from California, what the H do we really know about her?

James and Edie

2012-01-16T00:11:00.001-05:00

James and Edie share a habit of falling asleep in places that are not their beds.

This is not an example of one of those times, but, you get the picture.

Three Things that Keep Me Up at Night

2012-01-12T12:08:00.002-05:00

1. Two nights ago Edie slept from 10 pm to 3:30 am. After she ate she went sweetly back to sleep until 7:30 am. And I was like, Yes, this is my life.

2. Last night she went to sleep at 10:30 pm and woke up every two hours. And I was like, Yes . . . this is my life.

3. I'm three weeks away from the start of my 4th semester of graduate school.

Dodge Duvall

2012-01-11T18:47:00.001-05:00

So, I knew this kid in college named Dodge Duvall. The story goes that one day he happened upon a clothing combination that he just really liked: blue pants (not jeans, think dickies) and a blue button down shirt. He liked it so much, he wore it every day for a year.

In this sense, Dodge Duvall is so much braver than I, because, if I had the nerve, I would wear this outfit everyday, maybe for my whole life.

James and I strolled over to Carl's jr. for lunch the other day. I've had it on my brain ever since Thanksgiving in North Carolina. North Carolina (the East in general) has Hardy's, which has the same signage, but I am assured by Annie Howington that it does not have the same menu. The Carl's jr. secret is the flame-broiling, which will make you a believer. They also have a hamburger with onion rings on it, and I'd pretty much eat a boot if it had onion rings on it.

My parents keep asking what our plans are each day, and look nonplussed when we look blankly back at them. I keep telling them, this is our plan. Hanging out, eating Carl's jr., and going for walks.

We did venture out to Nordstrom's Rack yesterday, where James and I lost our minds in the face of clearance Baby Benetton clothes, and I picked up a pair of jeans at 75% off retail price (see James's note about 75% off). They are labeled on the tag as "burnt orange" but I think of them as "pumpkin pie".

Today I held Edie as she napped and watched two episodes of Top Chef, which I found highly satisfying.

But, I'm going to tell my parents we went to a museum.

As a side note, this stroller is great. It's on loan from a friend and is super handy. This photo depicts Edie's first ride in a stroller. This particular stroller is a bit like a minivan: super convenient and useful, but doesn't totally make sense for my life. That Carl's Jr. cup, however, that's all mine.

thisclose

2012-01-09T16:30:00.000-05:00

That's how close I was to bringing running pants to California. Because, you know, it's January, and maybe that would be a smart choice, rather than shorts. Luckily, I saw this as the mistake it was. Today's high is going to be 81 degrees.

So, I ran in a running skirt, got too hot anyway, and now we're going to walk this kimono-ed baby all around town.

Greetings from California. Wish you were here.

Stigmat-ugh

2012-01-09T11:46:00.000-05:00

I fell. Again. While running. Not over anything, or in an attempt to escape from a careening car. Over slight rise in the sidewalk. Which indicates that my stride was such that my feet were just barely clearing the ground. Which, you know, is how a champion runs.

Here's the thing: when you fall while running, you end up with a lot of forward momentum on your hands. So to speak. Think about that for a second. I ended up with skinned hands and a knee, and a new gratitude that I was no longer pregnant. Luckily, no one was around to awkwardly try to help me up, so I paused for only a nanosecond to record this new chapter in my life, then jumped up and kept running, trying to look positively fine, just in case anyone had seen.

That gouge is centered right on my lifeline. Or loveline. Or whatever line it is that makes washing your hands, cleaning your bathroom, or grasping things a total misery.

Baby Face

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

This baby feels better. Or, at least she sounds better. She hasn't exactly mentioned that she feels better, I'm just assuming.

So, thanks humidifier.

In other news, I went running this morning. Due to an oversight, I didn't check the weather before I left, which is for the best. Had I checked it, while still wearing pajamas, there's not a big chance I would have braved the 26 and feels like 14 degree temperatures. But, ignorance really is bliss. Or, as blissful as anything can be when it's 26 degrees, but feels like 14.

Lights Out 2012

2012-01-03T11:07:00.002-05:00

So, our power went out at 2 pm yesterday. And came back on at 2 am. It was awesome. Also, the building's pilot light is electric, so the heat went out as well.

It was awesome.

James ran out and got some holiday candles on deep discount*, we ordered pizza, and played a billion rounds of Scrabble Slam (thanks Jen).

It was pretty cozy, but I'm sort of skipping the part where I called conEdison twice and spent a large part of our pitch dark evening being really irritated.

James commented, around 8 pm, that this is just what farm life is like in the Northern Territories or someplace without electricity. I told him it probably was, as long as people spent their dark evenings making friendship bracelets and reading Bruce Campbell's autobiography (If Chins Could Kill) out loud to each other. Just like.

We thought about spending the night at a friend's apartment (and the promise of cable tv was appealing), but my laziness won out in the end, and we dressed Edie in her bunting suit over her pajamas, and waited it out.

*James told me he'd buy anything at 75% off.

Robot Quiz

2012-01-01T22:32:00.001-05:00

This baby, as pictured here in happier days, has a cold, which, among other things, makes her sound hoarse when she cries. It's completely heartbreaking. Unless you're a robot.

I am not a robot, which is how I found myself, at 9:30 pm, on a Sunday night, New Year's Day, at a Neerguard pharmacy, spending way too much for a humidifier which, as it turns out, is super, super loud. But, if it makes my room feel like waking up to a cool Hawaiian sunrise, then it'll be well worth it.

That's what humidifiers do, right?

just a side note, I know the button of her jeans is undone. i leave it like that, for comfort. i mean, we've all been there.

Reverse Bucket List

2011-12-31T11:11:00.000-05:00

On the eve of the new year, a list of things I hope to never do:

1. Fall out of a hot air balloon.

2. Accept a challenge from Lin Dan, the bad boy of badminton.

3. Become vegan and/or gluten free.

4. Box a kangaroo.

5. Be accused of a crime I didn't commit, and have to flee, Fugitive-style.
5a. Be in any situation where Tommy Lee Jones isn't on my side.

6. Be buried alive (I feel like this one is kind of a given).

7. Toil in obscurity.

8. Live in a world without milk chocolate. All you dark chocolate eaters can eat my shorts while you're at it.

9. Meet Stan Lee or Chris Claremont and be forced, by politeness, to tell them that I really enjoy X-Men, and don't, in fact, think they're all whiners and total babies and maybe they'd get a lot more accomplished if they just forgot about their respective "identities" and what "it's all supposed to mean", and just got to work, like Iron Man, or Batman, or any other superhero.

10. Same deal with Diablo Cody and Juno.

11. Find out that I'm allergic to candy.

12. Live in any state that counts the number of days since the sun was seen.

13. Forget the proper use of there, their, and they're.

14. Be an accidental get-away driver.

15. Get bitten by any snake or bug I've ever seen on the Discovery Channel.

16. Fall through a frozen lake.

17. Be eaten by a lion I thought I'd befriended.

18. Live to see an apocalypse - zombie or otherwise.

19. Have my life inspire a movie made by Lifetime.

20. Two words: Shark. Attack.

Baby's Day Out

2011-12-30T20:25:00.002-05:00

Not pictured:

Baby not eating Lucky's cheeseburgers
pretending to be "waiting for friends" while I feed Edie in a hotel lobby
being totally overwhelmed by the crowds and fleeing Rockefeller Center
halfheartedly standing in line at the MoMA only to give up and go shoe shopping instead

I Blame Books

2011-12-29T21:23:00.003-05:00

I grew up in California, which may have the least cozy winters known to humankind. But, I grew up reading Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib - books that romanticize winter in a very convincing way. Despite my less than positive feelings toward winter, years of re-reading leave me here: a New Yorker conditioned to want nothing more than a wood-burning fireplace and cozy slippers for the duration of winter.

Brooklyn Baby: or, Brooklyn, Baby

2011-12-28T21:20:00.002-05:00

I'm always hassling James because I feel like he projects onto Edie. I mean, she's just under 3 months, so I'm understandably dubious when he's all, oh, she likes when I make her dance; she loves this Sigur Ros song; she really wants me to get this moterbike, and so on.

However, even I can't deny that she seem really happy to be home.

Augie Rios Defined my Christmas

2011-12-28T14:20:00.000-05:00

I can't be the only one with a complicated relationship with Christmas. I mean, I love it, because who doesn't love Christmas? But, I kind of hate it, because I find myself in constant pursuit of some kind of "perfect Christmas experience".

I want to capture magic, and be focused on the spirit of Christmas, and have perfect gifts, and have time to sit under the Christmas tree and stare up at the lights, and eat baked goods, and go for crisp winter runs, and play games, and drink egg nog . . . it's a big list.

This pursuit I've, for the last decade or so, found harder and harder. It's no mystery, Christmas is more complicated than the quiet waiting of childhood. I buy gifts and organize secret Santas. James and I pack and travel and miss whichever family we're not with.

It's just . . . complicated.

This Christmas was no exception. There were some moments, however, like the one's pictured, that were less fraught. Moments that were still and quiet, and, though the Christmas of my childhood didn't involve lakes and bare trees, still had a faint sense of nostalgia.

From the sound of it, my Christmas was nothing but angst-y. Which it wasn't. There were games and baked goods and one puzzle and a Christmas song that would have taken a bullet to get out of my head and cozy hours spent with newlyweds.

Now we're back in New York, and after 18 hours of traveling yesterday, are still in our pajamas at 2 pm.

Meeeeeeeeeerry Christmas.

Michigan, Michigan

2011-12-26T21:47:00.001-05:00

2011-12-18T21:22:00.000-05:00

There is a chair in the corner of my bedroom, next to a window, where Edie and I spend a lot of time. I feed her there, I hold her as she falls asleep, we read books there, or just hanging out and looking out at the cars going by on 4th Ave.

Most of those activities, except for the reading part, leave me with not a lot to do. So I look out the window to the corner of 4th Ave and 7th Street, where the TrueClean Laundromat is. I've often wished for commotion to occur on that corner, like a little play for me to watch as I sit.

Here is a list of the things I'd most like to have happen, in ascending order:

5. A surprise proposal.

4. Any sort of loud, dramatic break up.

3. A fight (but more of a West Side Story fight, with singing and Bob Fosse choreography, as opposed to one where I have to call the police).

2. A movie being filmed in which the star has a temper tantrum and storms off set when he/she spots the guy working the crane eating a hot dog. I will accept any of the following stars: Sandra Bullock, Steven Segal, Sally Feild, or teen heartthrob Taylor Lautner.

1. Any sort of non-violent illegal activity where I call the police and they are, serendipitously, right around the corner and I get the satisfaction of watching justice being served.

Fact.

2011-12-16T23:17:00.001-05:00

The security guard at the Brooklyn Target looks exactly like David Cross.

My theory? It is David Cross.

Baby Fear and its Manifestations

2011-12-15T12:00:00.003-05:00

Here's the thing: I'm afraid of Edie. And I think she knows it.

I pretty much terrified of upsetting her. I mean, if I upset James, I know it, but he doesn't become immediately hysterical (usually). We talk it out, like reasonable human beings. Not so with Edie. If I, say, put her down so I can eat a taco, or give her a bath, that's it. Catastrophe.

And, as adults, or just as humans, we're hard wired to try to prevent someone from losing their marbles as a result of our actions, so, long story short, I'm completely intimidated by this tiny little baby. If she objects to anything, I more or less knock it off. Tummy time, baths, fingernail clipping, sitting in that weirdly molded rubber seat, listening to ABBA . . .

And I realize this kind of makes me a bad parent. But, back off, I'm trying. We sort of figured out a bath ritual she likes (though, full disclosure, James got the idea from 3 Men and a Baby), I'm working up the nerve to clip her fingernails, and she now has tummy time whether she likes it or not (mostly because I don't want her head to become misshapen).

I'm hoping to grow a backbone before she becomes aware of the power she wields. And before she finds this post in my blog archive.

If she asks, no one show her how to search the archive for topic, okay?

*that is a giant bottle of oil on my kitchen table, which makes it look like I just got a FryDaddy or something (wishlist), but in reality I just wanted some brownies and that was on sale at the Mexican grocery by my apartment. Okay?

Winners and Liars

2011-12-14T21:31:00.004-05:00

So, here's what's happening. Everyone who commented is getting a handcrafted friendship bracelet. I just couldn't decide.

Congratulations:

Shiloh

Allen

Jennnnnnnnnifer

Camille

Natalie

Rachel K.

Donna

Diana

Liesl

Amber

and B-Town

We'll work out the details as I finish your heirlooms.

In other news, this photo is a lie. She won't sleep. Like, at all. I'm not actually sure how it's physically possible to carry on with so little sleep. Because I'm sure as H having a hard time. Unless all her restorative sleep comes in 5 minute increments that occur while in the arms of one of her parents, and then she's totally refreshed by the time that parent tries to stealthily lay her down in her crib, on their bed, in the bouncy seat, on a pile of freshly laundered clouds . . . it doesn't matter. She just wakes up.

It's fantastic.

1:34 pm

2011-12-13T21:31:00.008-05:00

I re-learned to make friendship bracelets. I first learned about age 8 when my sister, Silvia, taught me. I valued that skill then as I value it now. Wearing them makes me feel like I just got back from summer camp.

I wish.

Who needs one?

Wait, that's a crazy question, as everyone needs one. How about leave a comment and I'll pick a commenter at random and bestow a handcrafted friendship bracelet.

Can You Win at Parenthood?

2011-12-10T22:35:00.003-05:00

Because - take note other parents - here's how to do it:

1. Kind of don't pay attention to naps all day Friday.

2. Don't notice that you're not paying attention because there are two of you, so, someone's probably paying attention.

3. Instead of noticing the lack of napping happening with a certain 2 month old baby, hi-5 about the purchase of the first two seasons of Community (what? on sale? merry christmas, indeed).

4. When she wakes up from what should be the afternoon/evening nap after only 30 minutes, hey, don't worry. Just put her in that Bumbo thing and laugh at what it would look like if you installed a steering wheel on it.

5. Pat yourselves on the back when she falls asleep like a freaking angel at 8:00 pm.

6. Look at each other, perplexed, when she wakes up at 8:11 pm.

7. Pause the Christmas episode of Up All Night when she wakes up again at 8:23 pm. And again at 8:34. Don't notice the irony.

8. Have a minor nervous breakdown at 3:30 am wherein you tell a baby that no one can live like this. Make that pronouncement shrill.

9. Toss out all plans for Saturday and improvise around any nap that baby wants to take. Ever.

10. Ever.

Ever Seen White Christmas?

2011-12-09T10:13:00.007-05:00

You know that song the girls sing? Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters. That's how I feel about mine.

This is one of them. She came from Arizona for Edie's blessing, which makes her 6 for 6 on niece and nephew blessings.

We ate a lot (like, a lot), shopped, watched PBS's documentary, Circus (thanks, Rachel) because we both want to be acrobats, and realized we both just bought the same pair of earrings though 2,000 miles apart.

Edith Blessed

2011-12-08T11:44:00.005-05:00

On Sunday, 1:30 pm, at home, surrounded by dads and moms and sisters and cousins and dearest friends.

Edie wore the dress I was blessed in.

We finished with fancy cheeses and brownies and banana pudding, but the best part, even better than the banana pudding, was James's sweet blessing for our Edie.

We are very happy.

Oh, then this happened:

Sweatsuit in a Business Suit World

2011-12-07T17:50:00.006-05:00

Because of classic projection*, I like to dress Edie in comfortable clothes (read: a sweatsuit). I mean, she's not going anywhere; who does she have to impress?

Ways Edie is like George Costanza:

aforementioned sweatsuit

lives with her parents

doesn't have a job

very little hair

*I say I'm projecting because I dress Edie as I want to dress, which is also in a sweatsuit. I'm thinking of becoming a fashion blogger** actually, but, like, one for the rest of us. I'll do tutorials like, "Sock Bun too hard? I thought so too. Try the Unimaginative Ponytail. I'll show you how".

**I am pathologically underdressed, which is never a huge problem in that I don't really care. I usually sort of notice, like in a passing, uninterested most people at this New Year's gathering seem to be dressed for a party kind of way, but, not really. Until . . . James and I were headed to a party in at this beer garden in the Meat Packing District. I had bowed to pressure and was wearing my fanciest sparkly t-shirt*** and ballet flats with my jeans. We stepped over a line from what, the West Village (?) into the Meat Packing District, and BAM, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was a t-shirt SURROUNDED by tiny black dresses. And not just little black dresses, tiny black dresses. Like the kind you see in club scenes on TV. Shows like CSI where someone has been murdered but no one heard the gunshot over the din of the pumping beats. Strappy open backed dresses and towering heels and I'm two feet shorter than everyone and in a t-shirt. It was the first time I ever felt really conspicuous in New York City****.

***This is true. It's a grey t-shirt with sparkly accents. I wear it for special occasions.

****Have I told this story before? If so, don't tell me. I'll just feel embarrassed.

Genetic Imperatives

2011-12-06T21:47:00.006-05:00

Edie doesn't look like me. I mean, yeah, she's 9 weeks old, so, really, she doesn't even really look like herself - what's she's going to look like - but right now, we don't look much alike. She has this light, light skin; the kind that looks like it would sunburn easily (a trait I find to be a sign of weakness). She has light hair, red maybe, and blue eyes. She maybe has my nose, which isn't my most endearing trait to begin with.

What we do share is a similar distrust for society at large. I gather this from her often furrowed brow and dubious stare. We also both yawn - often. We sneeze occasionally and both become very, very upset when we are hungry--we both often say things we don't mean.

My point is that I don't see myself staring back when I look at Edie. Sometimes I feel this disbelieving distance - I have to remind myself that I had something to do with making her. But even that seems strange, and not quite believable. She's still new, and I'm still figuring out how she fits in my life, or how to redraw my life around her.

My point is (this one's really my point) that I love her, just that sometimes I see myself and I see her and truthfully I'm not sure what the connection is. I don't see the end from the beginning. I just see her, everyday, awake and newly lively, staring with those blue eyes and smiling and ready for me to love her.

Me+The Rest of You=Us

2011-12-01T09:34:00.006-05:00

Years: 11 the longest, 8 the shortest

Miles: 500+

Babies: 6

Meals: hundreds

Late Night Talks: thousands

Plans: billions

Arguments: few

Chuckles: innumerable

Baby's First

2011-11-29T17:32:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago James and I took Edie for a ride in the car, and James pointed out that it was her first car ride. I pointed out that we were going to be noting "baby's first" a lot if we started down that path. Baby's first thunderstorm, baby's first falling asleep to Iron and Wine (first, but not the last. that band is hipster nyquil), baby's first visit to Colonial Williamsburg, and so on.

But this was baby's first Thanksgiving, which deserves to be captured. She didn't actually eat any of it, so I thought it was in bad taste to photograph her with the food. So, instead I captured what she actually did: hung out and didn't nap in Janelle's coolly lit room.

Shrine On

2011-11-27T12:00:00.004-05:00

The Shriners put on a circus in Raleigh, and Annie managed to come by some tickets. After getting lost on the way over, we saw about fifteen minutes of it, but, still worth it. The guy taking tickets was wearing one of the Shriner's hats, and that alone would have made the trip worthwhile.

I've never been to the circus before; it equal parts desolate and magical. I'm hard-pressed to define what it was about it I found so fascinating. I think it was because it felt like stepping into a different world. Or a different time. Slower paced, more vaudevillian . . . honestly, I don't know. But I loved it.

On the way home I considered joining up. I think James and Edie and I could work up some sort of family high-wire act.

Occupy Krispy Kreme

2011-11-24T11:28:00.006-05:00

Tuesday, November 22nd. 10 am. North Carolina. Occupy Kirspy Kreme.

Our demands were simple. We wanted donuts. We wanted them hot. And we wanted them NOW.

Our demands were met.

Seemingly.

Our people were placated.

Our people got tired and lost their fury.

Then we saw the means of production. The sleek river of hot oil that leads to the waterfall of glaze.

We saw the volume of available donuts as compared to our measly dozen and our people got surly.

Our people twittered the revolution.

Then, as expected, the man got involved--and things got ugly.

Was it a success? Who can say? True revolutions never end. They go on and on.

We Fly on a Plane, and I Have an Epiphany

2011-11-21T09:42:00.002-05:00

From New York to Raleigh, North Carolina.

It was raining when we left, so what should have been a 45 minute car ride turned into 2 hours on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (the BQE). Edie held it together pretty well, and through the security at the airport where I had to take her out of the carrier or be patted down--me and the baby. We even were doing okay as everyone else loaded onto the plane.

Then we started taxiing down around the tarmac, and things kind of fell apart. Edie came undone. She wanted nothing, nothing but to be free of the steel armor of JetBlue's commercial jet. She started crying, and James and I started sweating. We had said nothing to each other, but I knew neither one of us wanted to be the people on the plane with the inconsolable baby. We didn't want to be the source of conversation for people on their way home from the airport. So we tried everything. We bounced, we soothed, we sang, we passed her back and forth between us like a hot potato.

And I had a revelation: this is the point of parenthood--to humiliate us. To take people who previously considered themselves "with it" or "together", people who usually sat back with their iPods and coolly appraising looks and let them know that, no, in fact they do not have it together. I want to say it was awful, but it was actually sort of refreshing. Like starting over. Nothing to prove.

Also, the flight is only about an hour to North Carolina, which is just about the right amount of time to feel philosophical and not like you want to kill yourself.

Eventually Edie simmered down, and she spent the rest of the flight watching the food network with no sound, where she watched people make recipes she will never try.

Just like her mother.

Growth

2011-11-15T15:45:00.003-05:00

Not hers. Mine.

I don't wake up in the morning and have to remember that this is my life now. I don't take her from James as he leaves in the morning and dread the long day ahead. At least not everyday. When she takes long naps, I've started to miss her.

I realize the signs of my "growth" make me sound like a monster. Which I'm not. The first few weeks are hard; harder than anyone told me, or, more likely, harder than I was willing to believe. There is adjustment, and sleep is the least of it. I wanted this change - want it - and I knew it would change things. I just didn't realize the scale. I've had to adjust how I viewed everything: my life, my goals, my ambitions, myself. It didn't take me weeks to learn to get by on less sleep. It took weeks to get used to imagining my life in a radically different way. To realize nothing was left untouched by this change.

But, as I said, I'm growing. Everyday.

Like all growth, it can be tricky to track the progress. Yesterday I found a measuring stick, and I was overwhelmed with the understanding of the depth of my love for my sweet baby. I knew that the love was there, but it's new, and I hadn't yet tested its depth.

And yet, that doesn't sound right either. It's not new. It's old; ancient. It's not that I feel love for her stirring within myself, I feel it stirring in everything; in me, in James, in the wind and the traffic and the leaves. It's in the fabric of our clothes. It's everywhere.

Thoughts I Have While Watching Sister Wives

2011-11-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

1. Do they dress that way because they're polygamists or because they live in Utah?

2. I kind of love that Utah regional dialect.

3. Who would I choose as my sister wives?

4. Where does Kody get those stupid shirts? And why does he always, always wear them?

5. That Logan is a peach.

6. Christine is crazy, right?

7. Is it a plural wife imperative that all their indoor lighting be overhead and florescent?

8. Meri reminds me of a million Mormon women I know - capable, business-like, and super efficient.

9. What is Janelle's job? I want to know more.

10. Madison is my favorite kid. I think I only like Janelle's kids.

11. Do the kids all want to be polygamists?

12. Why don't they talk more about religion. That's what I want to know about (which, I realize, might not be of such interest to the viewing public at large). How did Kody (and his parents) and Janelle (and her mom) go from mainstream religion to this? What were the steps they took to cross that chasm?

13. Why does Kody spell his name with a K? Doesn't he realize that makes his look like some teenager working at Lagoon for the summer? He should think about changing that.

14. Annie and Susanna were right. This show is totally engrossing.

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

2011-11-10T16:44:00.005-05:00

Things that have not changed:

My preference for snacks rather than actual meals

My inability to arrive anywhere on time

My interest in old television series

My furniture

My name

My hair

My city

My park

My friends

My phone number

My social security number

My late night snacking schedule

The nature of my conversations with James

Things that have changed:

My interest in showers

My interest in babies

The amount of online shopping I do vs regular shopping

What time it gets dark in the evening

The number of times per day that I am sucker punched by a flailing infant

My runs

How frequently I speak to friends about my boobs

The freedom I have to sleep, eat, go to the bathroom

The nature of my conversations with James

My expectations for each day

How I see my life

. . .

Just everything

Puerperal Running Fever*

2011-11-09T08:00:00.001-05:00

I had a dream right before Edie was born that I was running. In this dream I was running on a slight incline, outside, my stride was so long, and I was so happy.

I was deeply relieved to have this dream, because after not running the last two months of my pregnancy, I was worried that I didn't miss it.

5 weeks post baby, I'm back to it. I wanted to return on the 4 week mark (I love symmetry), but weather got in the way**.

Postpartum running is a series of highs and lows.

I barely register the street I had to convince myself to run to before I could have a walk break. When I realize I've past it, blocks later, I smile to myself and my stride gets ever so much longer.

When I turn to cut short what was my shortest run, that feels less encouraging.

Also, the fact that my hamstrings feel like they're about 2 inches long. That makes that long stride more a figment of my imagination.

Also, when I was pregnant it didn't matter how slowly I was going; I was out there, wearing running clothes, moving along. Now, however, I'm still about as slow, and without the visual interest of being 7 months along.

Soooooooooooo, I guess, on balance, it seems like there are more lows than highs. But, I'm doing it. And that's it. That's what running is, until it's effortless and joyful, it's just doing it.

*This title is in incredibly poor taste.

**The weather was a "winter mix", which sounds like it should have chex cereal and peppermint bark and holiday m&ms, but in reality is just what they call weather when it's too frozen to be rain but too wet to be snow. gross.

Brooklyn, Brooklyn Take Me In

2011-11-08T08:00:00.003-05:00

Brooklyn. Brooklyn in the fall.

When Edie was about a week old, I went for a walk in the gathering twilight. I took a deep breath and could feel it in the air: it was Crucible weather.

On Halloween Brooklyn felt like Halloween. The kind of Halloween you see in movies, with scuttling leaves and kids in homemade mummy and ghost costumes.

Last week, when Edie was 4 weeks old, I took her for a walk in the Prospect Park, and Brooklyn felt like I and Love and You. Quiet and lonely, but the kind of lonely you want to feel.

I'm a faithful believer in reinvention, just like Brooklyn.

Thanks to Annie for introducing me to this song.

My Weekend in Words and Photos

2011-11-07T18:56:00.007-05:00

Saturday as a day of rest (these sleepy photos belie the amount of work it took to accomplish them).

Next to my chair, which is next to the window. This is where I sit to feed Edie, and look out onto 4th Ave. Where I see drunken fights on weekends, cabs all night, and bread and newspapers delivered in the early morning. In case you're wondering, the book on top is a Babysitters Club Super Special, New York, New York. I'm re-reading it.

On Saturday I made my triumphant return to running. It was . . . not as un-triumphant as I was expecting.

Who, besides me, thinks DVDs are on their way out? I got this baby for $2, and we watched it this weekend. Worth every penny.

The New York City Marathon runs past our apartment. Which is so exciting, every year. There was a band this year. James swears there's one every year, but, hand to heart, I don't ever remember seeing one before. And I feel like I'd remember, because this band was apparently taking requests, and played Livin' on a Prayer and Don't Stop Believing while the crowd sang along like it was early morning karaoke. I feel like I'd remember that from last year.

They also played Darth Vader's theme as the elite male runners ran past. It was thrilling (those aren't the elite runners in the photo below. those are just john q. public runners).

Baby's first subway ride. She liked it okay.

She liked it as much as anyone likes the subway.

Weekend accomplished.

Paper Chain Countdown

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

I only wish I could claim credit for this photo. Le sigh; I lack the vision.

2 weeks, folks. 2 weeks. As we speak, Annie has put her children to work making a paper chain counting down to the big day. As she says, they don't care what it's for.

So, this movie represents a pretty big departure from the story I know. Though I hadn't read the previous books, I had a pretty good idea where the story was heading. From here on in however, I'm sailing in uncharted waters. My understanding is that one (one might say the) major conflict gets solved pretty early in the story, so I'm interested in seeing what happens after that (and when I say interested, I mean jazzed).

Oh, and for the record, if anyone tells me ANYTHING about it, so help me, you will be the recipient of one icy, icy stare.

I like to go in fresh--no previews (because has anyone else noticed that previews these days are pretty much just mini movies. i don't mind though, it saves me from ever having to see an Amanda Seyfried movie. ever), no interviews, no People magazine exclusives--nothing. This makes for the ideal movie watching experience.

Also important for ideal movie watching experience: themed t-shirts, candy (large quantities), coke (ditto), and like-minded friends.

2 weeks.

Smarter, for a Girl

2011-11-03T08:00:00.002-04:00

I think I'm getting smarter. I don't check my email when she's asleep. I take showers, or nap, or make sandwiches. Things I can't do when she's awake (no, I cannot make a sandwich when she's awake, okay?). Everything else I can do in snatches, like eat a bowl of cereal, or respond to a text message, or get dressed.

I'm also think I'm getting less smart. I was chatting with a stranger at Barnes and Noble the other day, and I found myself telling her that I was usually a lot sharper than I was appearing. I don't know that she was convinced.

I'm also getting fixated. This is not new. James brought me a box of Trader Joe's graham crackers. Have you had these? I can't stop eating them. They should call them Trader Joe's graham crack(ers).

I used to be a lot sharper.

*beautiful photos via our good pal Double R.

Everyone's Got an Agenda, Even on Halloween*

2011-11-02T16:01:00.008-04:00

Halloween in Brooklyn was good, though was kind of spare on the candy front. What is the point of having a child if they don't earn a bucketful of candy that they are too young to eat, so, being a responsible parent, you eat it yourself? Is there a point?

The noteable exception was the guy at the dumpling place who gave James and me a kit kat each. I think I'll be eating a lot more dumplings these days as thanks (note: it actually might not be possible to eat more dumplings than I already do).

We did bully our good pals into dragging their young girls outside in the cold to watch the Park Slope Halloween parade, which was a scene. James, as per usual, bemoaned the fact that we didn't dress up. It was only this morning that we realized he had the makings for a pretty solid What About Bob costume. All that we'd need to have gotten was the fish in a mason jar around his neck. Is there anything more bitter than a missed opportunity . . . to stand in the street and yell, DR. MARVIN? DR. LEO MARVIN?

Next year.

*The best part of the parade are the homemade puppets people carry. No small scale nonsense; big, impressive puppets--like a 5 foot spider with PVC legs, and a giant zombie mermaid held by 4 adults. My personal favorite was the 99% representing Wall Street man, 8 feet tall, looking appropriately sinister and holding a bag of money. Also, a Fidel Castro walked with his kids, smoking a cigar and giving the crowd the communist fist of power.

You Already Know How This Will End

2011-11-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

I stopped in to see my pizza man the other day and introduce him to Edie (note to self: make a greater effort to see actual friends), and he told me he remembers his oldest when she was Edie-sized, and now she's 14. He told me it goes by fast and that I should take photos and video. Everyone tells me it goes by fast.

So I take photos of her sleeping. Of her awake. I have a 30 second video of her crying. Of James making her dance. But, really, that's not anything. What I want is for someone to tell me how to remember her face in the streetlight of 3am when it feels like just the two of us in the whole world. Of her still weight as she sleeps on my chest. How it feels to crook my arm around her whole body. That's what I want to remember.

This constant reminder that what I have is fleeting makes me nervous. It makes me sad--now. There can't be any greater sin than missing something you have, now, in your arms, or in her seat, waiting to be picked up. But what do I do? Will I regret any moment I take to check my email, or blog, or shower, or take a walk by myself?

I don't miss college because I feel sure that I got what I wanted out of it. I made it my job to have fun; to really experience my experience. When I got pregnant, I knew that however my life changed, I had not misspent my childless years. I had lived, and gallivanted, and done what I wanted to do. I want to look back on Edie's babyhood the same way.

I just . . . I don't know how.

Freestyling in the USA

2011-10-31T20:00:00.001-04:00

You see those kids? They're gazing at the future. And the future is the coke freestyle machine.

Over 100 different flavor combinations. You choose your base (sprite, fanta, rootbeer, dr. pepper, or, of course, coke), then you just go nuts. Orange coke, grape sprite, vanilla cherry dr. pepper . . . whatever you could possibly dream.

And all of them are awful. I mean, they're awesome, because you can get raspberry coke, but, man alive, it tastes like it has enough chemicals in it to give you cancer of the teeth on the spot.

I'm not going to say that we drove out to Long Island specifically for the freestyle coke machine. But, I'm not going to say that we didn't. Ask any New Yorker, Saturday was awful, but the whole gang--7 adults, 9 children--trundled out in miserable slushy weather to Popeye's Chicken in Northport, Long Island (where the freestyle is located), and we spent a happy hour, buying biscuits and drinking ourselves into early diabetes.

My vote is for the vanilla root beer, which seems a little obvious, but is the only one that didn't leave a distinctly chemically aftertaste.

When You Can't Look at One More Pringle

2011-10-27T16:38:00.003-04:00

I was unemployed the summer before I started graduate school. It was a weird feeling, seeing James go off to work and knowing I didn't have to follow. It wasn't as fun as you'd expect. Well, that's not totally true. Ultimately, it was fun, but also fraught with guilt about not being productive. I started keeping track of everything I did in a day, and giving it a value, 1-5, as to a level of importance. The idea was that if everything I did added up to a certain number, then I was productive.

Crazy, right? Compulsive? Neurotic? Yes. All. It didn't last long, which is good, as it indicates that I knew that that kind of compulsive behavior wasn't healthy.

I did stay pretty productive all summer. And all year for that matter. And this summer was jam packed with fun and productivity, in preparation for what I anticipated having an infant would be like.

Turns out, I was totally right. It's . . . time consuming. Is that the right word? Engrossing? Alllllllllllllllll encompassing.

My productivity standards have changed. For example, today I went to the post office, then walked up to see Shiloh. Edie was going bananas before we left, so I didn't have a chance to eat lunch, so I settled for eating 3/4 of a stack of pringles and a fig newton that I snagged from the 7-11 on the way up to Shiloh's (it was raining, and I was carrying an umbrella, which explains the absence of the fountain drink).

The moral of this story is that I'm beat. I don't think I'll be fitting anything in tomorrow, the amount I accomplished will tide me over for a couple of days.

*this photo was taken yesterday, but it works for today, as she's wearing the exact same thing. that's fine, right? I'm not being cheeky, I'm actually asking.

Edith, on a Sunday

2011-10-27T08:00:00.001-04:00

October feels like it never happened. Or, that it hasn't happened yet. I keep expecting it to be the 7th, or the 9th, but it's nearly November.

Edie will be one month old on November 1st, which is a trick of time, I think. How does a month seem endless, and also feel like it only lasted an hour or so?

As If I Didn't Know My Own Bed

2011-10-24T08:00:00.001-04:00

I'm getting used to a new way of life. Well, I'm living a new way of life, and I have no other choice than to get used to it.

This new way of life involves multiple attempts at naps, some of which are successful, some of which are not.

It is a life wherein the most modest of goals are sometimes impossible to accomplish.

It is a life where I have so little control, I hold fast to the things I still do control. A made bed, for example. A shower. Two things I never before had such interest in.

It is a life that juxtaposes the truly dispiriting with, when she rests her little self against my chest, the truly transcendent.

My Love Has Concrete Feet

2011-10-21T08:00:00.002-04:00

Well, it's almost November, which means it's time for me to start my 'in defense of Twilight' series.

So, these books don't depict a "healthy" romantic relationship. Well, in the words of the junior high girls standing in front of me in line at McDonald's yesterday: yeah. duh.

I know that. Everyone knows that. But let me ask you something: what book worth reading does? Seriously. A healthy romantic relationship--let's make it any relationship--has no place in literature. Is it me, or is that not the point? I mean, I don't want to get all literary (not when we're talking about Twilight), but isn't the point of literature to depict something broken, or on the verge of breaking? There's no use of a healthy romance in story form. That's what self help books are for. Relationships in fiction are supposed to be extreme, fractured, disordered. That's what makes them interesting. That's what makes them the cathartic experience literature is intended to be. It's their imperfection that makes them useful.

Healthy relationships = good to live, boring to read.

Literary history is full of such diseased romances. Allow me to list a few:

Um, like every single Shakespearean play out there

Jane Eyre (come on, I love it as much as anybody, but Mr. Rochester as a father figure never fails to freak me out)

Wuthering Heights. I feel like a chump for even bothering to mention it.

Jane Austin's canon of evasive, competitive male/female relationships

Leo Tolstoy

Edith Wharton

Henry James

Pretty much anything by Jonathon Lethem, Chuck Palahniuk, Flannery O'Conner, or Kurt Vonnegut.

You know as well as I do that the list could go on and on.

So, allow me to give some unsolicited advice: don't be a buzzkill. There's no use in pointing out the inherent problems in love stories. Those too young to notice don't care, and those old enough don't care either.

What is Past is Prologue, Part IV

2011-10-20T12:49:00.008-04:00

September:

(week 36)

I start thinking about the women of the 19th century, and I begin to understand why they spent their last month of pregnancy in confinement. It wasn't for health, it was to avoid the well meaning but ill-conceived comments of passerbys. While out walking early this month, a man asks me how much longer I have to go. When I tell him about a month, he looks deeply suspicious and asks if I'm sure. A guy in a plumbing van yells to me as he drives by, "Almost there".

(week 39)

I fashion a new rule, that no one is allowed to comment on how pregnant I am unless it's part of a larger plan to help me out. Like, oh man, you look like you're ready to pop. Let me buy you a slurpiee on this warm summer day. Or, are you sure it's not twins? Just in case, let me carry you these last few blocks.

(week 40)

In all honesty, I do start thinking of the the women of the past. About how their preparation differed so much from my own. About how, though I have a list of things to do, absent from that list is to prepare for the possibility of not making it through childbirth. I think of the research I did for a paper on motherhood in the 19th century, about a quote from a women in a letter to her sister. That the month of confinement was a time to order your life, to prepare for the possibility of death. I think of this as my due date comes and goes, and I am poised at the edge of the unknown.

October:

(October 1, 2011)

It is finished. And I am a mother.

What is Past is Prologue, Part III

2011-10-18T08:00:00.001-04:00

July (cont.):

(week 27)

August:

(week 31)

The summer feels long at this point. I begin to think that I will never have this baby. Not that I feel like, ugh, I feel like I'll never have this baby, but more that this new reality is the only reality. That the next step, having a baby, is an illusion. Being pregnant is my new state of being, and I'm just getting used to it. No point in upsetting the balance now.

(week 34)

(week 35)

Different days. Different weeks. Different shirt. Same intention.

It is around here that I begin to suspect I'm in my salad days. I had the same feeling the summer before I started graduate school: that I am enjoying the expectation of something wonderful, the anticipation, rather than the reality of that wonderful thing. When it's all waiting and getting seats on the subway and napping whenever I want.

to be continued . . .

What is Past is Prologue, Part II

2011-10-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

April (cont.):

(at 19 weeks)

On a Sunday night I tell my parents and my friends that there will be a baby. Everyone is way more surprised than I anticipate. Like, shocked.

May:

We go camping again with friends, and in photos from the trip, I realize that I actually look pregnant, rather than simply chunky.

June:

I announce that I'm pregnant on my blog. Sort of. Running gets complicated.

(at 23 weeks)

July:

I start swimming, and am astounded at my reduced lung capacity. I spend a lot of my time alone these days. I think a lot, which is a mixed bag. Like anything, solitude is great in moderation, and like everything, I'm terrible at moderation.

(at 25 weeks)

to be continued . . .

What is Past is Prologue, Part I

2011-10-13T14:17:00.009-04:00

So, it's come to my attention that some people (lindsey z., this is you) feel that I've been remiss in documenting the last 9 months of my life, baby-wise.

Here's the thing: I'm coy. It runs in the family (just try to get my mom to speak Spanish. seriously, try it). Also, I'm deeply, deeply superstitious. That runs in the family, too (I can thank my Jewish grandma for that and my tendency toward neurosis). So, I tend not to, you know, I don't know, talk about things.

But, I do like to be thorough, and I did spend the entirety of 2011 in, well, the family way, so allow me to take you through it.

January:

Blissful ignorance. I return from Christmas in California so determined to not let east coast winter have it's way with me that even now I shake my head that I was ever that young. I go for an ill-advised run on a 17 degree day and give myself bronchitis, which leads to

February:

which was, without a doubt, the worst February in recorded history. Picture this: I'm sick, very, very sick. I am also, apparently, newly pregnant, and I decide to take a trip to DC to hang out with a bunch of pretentious, competitive, grasping, insufferable writers (not james). I do not realize I'm pregnant and down a pharmacy worth of cold medicine and begin to grow physically sick at the sight of books.

Seriously.

I return from DC and spend the month in a profound stupor that requires me to mostly lay on my couch and watch Murder, She Wrote and do little, little else. I am in school, but only technically. As in, I show up. It comes as a legitimate relief to find out I'm pregnant, and not clinically depressed. I see my doctor who looks slightly bemused when he tells me I'm pregnant and I just kind of nod at him. It will take us a while to get used to each other.

March:

(not pictured)

I don't eat anything. I mean, I eat, but not exactly food. I go to the store and walk out with a bottle of sparkling apple cider which I down, by myself, in one afternoon, which is as close to drinking alone as you can get without actual alcohol. I pull myself, slowly, out of my February stupor, and my obsession with fruit begins. I start reading a biography of Sylvia Plath, thinking I'm safely out of my winter blues, but promptly, promptly stop.

April:

I run a 5k in decent time, though it is harder than I anticipate. James takes a photo of the number pinned to my stomach, and I think of how I can call that "baby's first race", or something equally obnoxious. Luckily, my camera and my laptop are stolen out of my apartment the following Monday, so I never have the chance. On the camera are photos of me in early pregnancy. I mourn the loss of those more than the handful of stories and essays unsaved anywhere else except my computer.

I spend my spring break in Sag Harbor, continuing to eat mostly chocolate cake and pineapple. I remain astoundingly lazy, but begin paying a little more attention at school.

to be continued . . .

Editing

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

There are exactly two photographs of me just after Edith came. There are few because it was a bit of a tough go, and I looked it. There is one of me the afternoon after Edie was born, and there is one of me on the street as James and I walked home from the hospital.

Hospitals require that you provide a car seat to transport the new baby home, but, apparently, they're not too concerned about where that car seat ends up. It was a nice day, and I was feeling okay, so we walked back to our apartment. James made the comment that if there was a list of events that made him feel like a real New Yorker, this was probably pretty high on the list.

We walked slowly, and I felt okay, but James kept asking me if I was alright. He snapped a photo, and it wasn't until I looked at it later that I understood why he was asking. This is the edit I did on James's phone:

And this is the original. With my actual, ghoulish color. Don't worry; I didn't die:

Edith

2011-10-08T06:41:00.001-04:00

New roommate. Sleeps all the time. Has yet to pony up her share of the rent.

Sentiment for James, Photo for All

2011-09-30T15:51:00.002-04:00

On the streets of Brooklyn.

Is there, really?

2011-09-28T17:34:00.004-04:00

Is there anything worse than getting a bad haircut?

Yeah, I'm sure there are worse things, but for the sake of this blog post, let's just say that there aren't.

You can kind of tell it's happening as it's happening, like watching a building fall over in slow motion, but there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, once it's started, it's done.

I have been a recipient of some really bad haircuts. I have curly hair, which people think covers a multitude of sins, which just shows how misunderstood we curly haired people are.

1. There was the semi-mullet in high school. I think I went to my mom's hairdresser, and it was the closest I've ever come to crying over a haircut. I wore a headband for months.

2. Then there was the triangle head episode. I have to take some responsibility for this. I said I wanted a short, blunt cut. But any fool will tell you that people with curly hair should not have short, blunt cuts. Because it makes them look absurd. My hair took on the previously mentioned triangle shape, and I wore it in two little ponytails under my visor for the rest of the summer.

3. There was the poorly reasoned $12 haircut in Rexburg. Again, admittedly, I have to take some credit for this fiasco. Having a chair and a mirror in the back room of Rags and Tans (real name) are not really the credentials I should have been looking for. I left with wet hair and didn't truly understand the atrocity committed until later that night. Basically, I had a layer of hair cut at about ear height, and then the next layer fell below my shoulders. Apparently, she'd never heard of "long, round layers".

4. The repair haircut I got after the one above (we left the next morning for California, so there was no time to have old Rags and Tans fix it). I went to a Supercuts, because I figured it couldn't get any worse. I was only half right. There wasn't much to be done, so she just cut it really, really short. As short as I've ever had it - above chin length. Weirdly, I don't remember this time in my life at all. I think I might have some post traumatic shock symptoms.

5. Then there's today, with Lizzy, the almost-Aveda graduate. I put my faith in her. But why? Because she's about to graduate? Because she has cherry red and black hair? Because she wore diamond-like gauges in her ears? I mean, really, what was my foundation? Too short. Too, too short. Actually, now that I think about it, even a little triangle-like.

I've wasted the good will of all those prenatal vitamins, and now I just have to wait for it to grow out.

Ugh. And buy a headband.

Curated.

2011-09-27T08:40:00.002-04:00

Do you know why I can love Murder, She Wrote so much? Because, as weird as it is, it's a curated taste.

Beyond that, it's my birthday, and I can love what I want.

Thanks to Tyson, for the image.

Birthday Alert

2011-09-26T15:38:00.001-04:00

Guess what this week is:

It's my birthday week.

I'm doing a lot of birthday alerts this week. Consider this the first (unless you've been within shouting distance of me at any time this weekend). Quite frankly, I just don't want to be outshone. Selfish? Possibly. I'll consider my motives next week, after my birthday.

Here's what I want (in order):

a sandwich

the possibility of space travel for James

a trip to an island (to be redeemed in February)

for February to be easier to spell

the complete Seinfeld series

Birthday Alert. Seriously. Watch it. For my birthday.

The Summer I Had Two Heartbeats

2011-09-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

In May I go to Gettysburg and try to stop sleeping on my back. I keep it up until my hips feel bruised, then decide it's not worth it.

I walk on the beach in Montauk with night fog so thick there is no discernible horizon. I take off my rain boots and put my feet into the ocean for the first time of the summer.

In May I am careful about the photos I post.

In June I finish my first year of graduate school. I write a paper on the anxiety of motherhood in 19th century America. My mother says to me, don't get carried away.

In June I buy skirts with stretch and Annie comes for a visit and Shiloh has her baby.

I keep running.

In July I hike the Appalachian Trail. Some of it.

It gets hot. I keep running.

In July I start to swim.

My parents visit. I tire us all out.

In July I can no longer recruit my stomach muscles to sit up.

The last Harry Potter movie comes out, and it's wonderful, but feels like the end.

I go to Rockaway Beach and feel slightly conspicuous. I lay on my back for the last time for Summer 2011.

People, women mostly, start to give up their seats on the subway.

In August I stop running. I keep swimming.

Annie and Shiloh throw me a beautiful party.

In August I wear three skirts, over and over and over.

I finish school.

I am married to James for 7 years.

In August I see a hurricane.

In September I am alone when I cut my finger and sprinkle blood on my kitchen floor.

I have one outfit to wear to church.

It is 10 years since September 11th, 2001.

Allen gets married 2,000 miles away and I miss it.

A woman stops me in Target and makes a face at my choice of hospital.

A man crossing the street says I have a beautiful belly.

My pizza man asks how my parents are.

In September the summer ends.

File This Under: Things I Should Have Seen Coming

2011-09-20T21:19:00.005-04:00

Update: I found a book. I picked up Winter's Bone, which is just as depressing as I figured it was going to be. I'm going with one of your suggestions next.

New Information: Do you have an email address you don't check often? I do. It's more "professional" than valerietown, so I use it in more "professional" situations. I kind of hate it. I don't check it that often. I once missed an audition that I wanted to go to so badly that reading the email the evening after the auditions felt like a punch in the stomach. I just missed a scripts in progress reading last week. I blame the very idea of "professionalism" for this.

The Apartment: Old Smokey's at it again. My downstairs neighbor. I guess I didn't notice how much I just tolerated it this summer, or, for some reason, now my smeller's kicked into high gear again, or she's just smoking more than usual, but now I'm on edge all the time.

I spoke to her - again - two days ago, and now I have to again. It's that part that bothers me most, just this obligation of confrontation. I have to psych myself up for it. She's perfectly nice about it - which I suppose is pretty easy when you're just nodding at someone and pretending like you're listening to what they're saying - but it just takes a fair amount of psychic effort.

I just rarely run into things that politely calling someone out won't fix. Litterers, people speaking loudly in libraries--that kind of thing. Once you let people know they aren't invisible, usually they sort of shape up.

My plan is to just get down to brass tacks with her. I'm done doing this whole, oh, maybe you just aren't aware routine. Tomorrow, it's going to be more of a listen sister, we have to work this out.

And if that doesn't work, I don't know. I guess I'll have to get some dumbbells to start dropping whenever she lights up.

I know it seems like I'm a little fixated, but I'm home a lot, and she, apparently, is home a lot, and there is just lots of time to think about my dry throat and imaginary smoke curls invading my apartment.

For you: James just wrote a really wonderful blog post about the frustration of the sacrifice/selfishness of art.

And also this: I'm Comic Sans, A-hole. I'll tell you right now, it has a lot of swears. So don't read it. But it makes me laugh every, every time.

The title: Of this blog is stolen, whole cloth, from James's poem.

Other things that are stolen: A joke James stole from me last week. About how The Help could be renamed The Blind Side II, and no one would notice the difference. Joke's on him; I stole it from a friend from school.

Thing I did this summer: Dropped a class because the professor used all her fingers when making air quotes. Do this now, so you can see how absurd it looks.

Innocuous Confessions

2011-09-16T18:47:00.002-04:00

1. I don't wear demure colored nail polish. I've never chosen coral or ballet pink in my life. During the summer I choose highlighter colors. Colors you might conceivably find in a popsicle. During the winter I'm all denim blues and vampy plums. When I get around to it, at least.

2. I think donuts are the new cupcakes.

3. I hate cupcakes.

4. Start to finish, my getting ready routine takes me about an hour and a half. I know.

5. I've lived in New York for 5 years, and still, especially when I'm driving around, I can't believe I live here.

6. I went to my pediatric dentist until I got married. They played cartoons in the waiting room, and even at 22, he still gave me games to play with while he worked. I still miss him.

7. The best burger in the city is at Lucky's (I just had one today. I tagged along with Andy and Shiloh to celebrate Andy being finished with tax season [there are two, which was news to me]. James was in the city putting actors into vans, so when he finished with that, he headed over too and drank all my orange soda. This isn't a confession, but Pete bit Shiloh's finger ["accidentally"] hard enough to draw blood. I told her the human jaw is powerful enough to bite through bone, so really, she got off easy. She didn't look much comforted.).

8. I cut my hand opening a bottle of root beer yesterday. A plastic bottle of root beer. It was left over from root beer floats on Sunday. Once I muscled the bottle open, I made myself another root beer float.

9. I stalk a lot of blogs. I probably stalk yours. Which reminds me, update already, will you?

10. This list took me 3 days to write.

On This Weekend in Current History

2011-09-12T05:52:00.003-04:00

Who knows quite what to do with a weekend like this?

New York Magazine's coverage is worth looking at. Just, you know, proceed with caution.

*photo 1 from the Upper West Side, photo 2 from pier 6 in Brooklyn

Looking

2011-09-08T07:51:00.006-04:00

Shiloh's on the hunt for nude pumps. This has proven to be harder than you'd imagine, because she apparently does most of her shopping via the interweb, and if you google "nude pumps" you run in to trouble.

We were shopping yesterday and I pointed out no less than four pairs to her. She'd look over, and acknowledge that they were in fact nude pumps, and then sort of say, that's not what I'm looking for. She couldn't say exactly what she was looking for, but she'd know it when she saw it.

I find myself in a similar pickle, reading-wise. My semester ended almost a month ago, which means I'm ready to put down the non-committal Me Talk Pretty One Day, and the 3rd re-reading of Bill Bryson's Shakespeare, and read something new. Because when I say I take a break from reading after classes end every semester, this is only partly true. I never actually take a break. I just re-read old favorites, books that don't require much from me, books that I can fall asleep to. And while these are nice, and comfortable, they're not I'm happy that I missed the train because now I have more time to read books.

I'm ready for one of those. But, I don't exactly know what I want. I don't want anything as light as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but nothing as heavy as The Road. No short stories, but I don't want to commit to anything Ayn Rand sized. I want something engrossing, but that won't necessarily hijack me for the next month. I want dreamy, maybe The Virgin Suicides-dreamy, but without the bitterness.

Sigh.

I guess I'll know it when I see it.

p.s. if anyone has any suggestions, do me a favor and pipe up.

photo via here.

Graphic

2011-09-06T04:05:00.005-04:00

I always think it's completely extraordinary how easily we take the dexterity of our fingers for granted until one is injured, and then you're like, wait, my ring finger does how much work?

I cut my finger on Sunday night, and, long story short, it was pretty graphic. This was the second time in five years. By that I mean 2nd time wherein a significant amount of blood was involved. The first time was an incident involving a bagel and and unwieldy serrated knife. It resulted in a cut on the side of my left pointer finger that closed almost instantly (which I attribute the serrated knife) and stayed sore for forever. I will never again forget that the side of the left pointer finger is where the milk jug balances when you pour.

This time the villain was a manically sharp number my mom got me for Christmas, and involved an onion that I had inexplicably decided to wrap my fingers around to cut. The end result is a digit that may have a significantly altered fingerprint and that I feel amazingly hobbled by this minor injury. I suppose when there's major injury, there is a change in lifestyle that comes as a matter of course. This, being so minor, requires no real change, so it's constantly apparent what you can't do. Wash your hands in the carefree manner you once did. Type 's' and the letters surrounding it without a fair amount of correction. Freely apply hair product. I'm not quite at the point where I think a charity run is necessary, rather, just a moment of appreciation for the free use and movement of all ten fingers and toes.

If you've got them.

In Summer, the Song Sings Itself

2011-09-02T09:17:00.007-04:00

There's no getting around it, summer is drawing to a close. I don't grieve (not yet anyway, give me until February), because New York is kindest in the transition from summer to fall.

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. -Sam Keen

The summer night is like a perfection of thought. -Wallace Stevens

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. -Henry James

I still have a few days of summer left in my heart. Swimming, tacos, another batch of pesto from homegrown basil, a Labor Day picnic, mexican corn on a stick, and sitting in my kitchen listening to the cicadas buzz. I'll ease into fall in the same way New York does, slowly and happily.

*title quote by William Carlos Williams

Brooklyn College, Summer, 2011

2011-08-29T14:39:00.003-04:00

I just got my last grade from this summer's term, which means it's officially done and I can officially let it go.

If your apartment is hit by a dolphin, DO NOT GO OUT TO SEE IF THE DOLPHIN IS OKAY. That's how the hurricane tricks you into coming outside.

2011-08-28T15:54:00.007-04:00

Just in case you, like me, 1)don't watch the news, 2) only only listen to Stuff You Should Know podcasts, and 3) only read McSweeny's for political updates, then, let me tell you, there was a hurricane bound for the East Coast this weekend.

I've never been in a hurricane before, and the build-up was all new to me. I've never had so much warning for a natural disaster. Earthquakes are more of a "pop-in" type catastrophe. It was a little stressful, but not too bad, as we were asked by our area authority (for church) back in July to start preparing as if there was going to be a hurricane in late August or early September. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was totally prepared, but, I was, admittedly, better prepared than I was in July. Let's just say this, I wasn't hauling home cases of water on Friday, that's for sure. I did buy fixings for root beer floats. Listen, I don't know what a hurricane is like, and everyone says you should have comfort foods on hand. I find floats comfortable.

We filled our bathtub with water, brought in all our plants, readied our 72 hour kits in case of evacuation (we're technically in the flood plain), and got batteries for our radio (er, iPod dock with a radio--we don't have one of those crank radios. we're not libertarians for crying out loud), and just kind of hung out.

Saturday was unnerving for that reason. Just that weirdo waiting feeling. It was overcast and raining, and maybe a little tense. Also, I didn't feel awesome, and lost a game of Phase 10 we were playing, so, Saturday was rough.

The winds picked up at night, but blew down 4th Ave, so we could open the windows (cautiously) without being soaked with the torrential rain. The fire department next door was busy all night. The early morning weather was the worst of it, lots of rain, lots of wind. It started tapering about 10, and by 12, James and I ventured out for exploration purposes.

The damage is . . . relative. Downed leaves in some places, uprooted trees in others.

So, I'll say this about hurricanes (Category 1 and downward): The build-up is bizarre, with people running around like crazy, clearing out stores of bread and beer and batteries. The waiting--in a humid, still apartment with all the windows closed--is deeply unnerving. The storm itself is something else altogether. Scary and captivating. What was most unexpected for me was the smell of the storm. We had the windows open on occasion, and this smell, this amazing ocean water smell, swept up the avenue. Not the smell of the beach or the shore, but this inexplicably familiar smell of deep, deep ocean. It was so bewitching to find it in Brooklyn, it seemed almost a shame to shut the windows against it. In that way, the storm seemed a little sinister--the way it lured you.

It's over now. The wind continues, with just a little rain. But the wind still carries that smell.

*photos taken in Red Hook, Brookyn

**title take from this guy's twitter feed.

If Valerie Best Didn't Sleep

2011-08-24T21:22:00.005-04:00

My brother was in town this week, and in lieu of entertaining him, I sat at my kitchen table working on a paper and twisting my hair around my fingers. Oh, I did spare some time for eating a bagel when he brought me one.

He's visiting a friend who is leaving the city after living here for a year. To commemorate the big move, they are staying out all night tonight.

When he first told me this, I was like, ugh, that sounds awful. Because I get sad and bored when I'm tired.

But I keep thinking about what I would do all night long. And I've come up with a plan, just in case:

1. First, I'd go shopping. Fishs Eddy, Sephora, Books of Wonder. I wouldn't buy anything, because I don't want to carry anything around. I'd do this until everything closes at 9, then I'd go to Strand until it closes at 10:30.

2. I'd grab a snack at the Whole Foods in Union Square, and then head to the movies; the latest one I could find is Captain America at 11:00.

3. I'd get out of the movies at, what, like 1:30ish, and then hop on the L to Williamsburg. I'd get to Barcade at about 2:00, where I'd brush up on my Ms. PacMan skills and dominate on Tetris, and suck down seltzer with lime until 4 in the morning.

4. I'd head back to Manhattan to the Lower East Side Coffee Shop, where I'd eat pancakes (studiously ignoring the fact that they are listed on the menu as "Aunt Jemima Pancakes").

5. I'd order and eat slowly, and head out about 5:30, at which point I'd stumble down to lower Manhattan and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge back home.

This actually doesn't sound so bad. I mean, I'd totally rather be asleep, but, for a night out, I've constructed one that only involves only one bar and NO clubs. That's a recipe for success.

*also, while my brother was here, we made the most obvious of scientific discoveries: adding bacon and caramelized onions (sauteed in bacon fat, btw) to anything makes it better. In this case, it was hot dogs.

**photo via here.

Dream (and paper) Deferred

2011-08-22T12:21:00.004-04:00

Sooooooooo, someone got an extention on a hellish Harlem Renissance paper, and someone is totally working on it, and is not procrastinating by posting a blog, but merely taking a well deserved break. Someone.

Onto a related but more concrete topic, I took a walking tour of Harlem with my class for a final field trip last, last Thursday. Truth be told, I've never spent much time in Harlem, and it's pretty great. Whatever your interest in the Harlem Renaissance, there are worse things in the world than wandering around Harlem on the world's most perfect late summer afternoon, through brownstone lined streets, and finishing off the day at Sylvia's, which has a photograph on the wall of Barack Obama and Al Sharpton eating chicken*.

Unfortunately, not a ton remains of the culturally significant places of 1920s Harlem, but the brownstone where Langston Hughes is still there, with this plaque marking it.

*If you want to see the photo, it's here. Along with a bunch of other awesome ones.

Day 19

2011-08-19T19:42:00.000-04:00

Sunday is the big day, the 21st, and since I don't type on the weekends, here's the money shot.

I can't be sure, but James and I may or may not have our heads together whispering I don't have to do this, I could leave at any time. We didn't have the smoothest engagement (see day 2), and I wish it could say that all the fear and the doubts flew away on the big day, but they didn't. But, we stuck it out, and after the shortest ceremony on record, given by the oldest man alive, we were married.

Recently a friend asked me if there was ever a moment after we got married that I knew I had made the right decision. I told her that nearly every moment of the past 7 years have proven to me that I made the right decision.

Day 18

2011-08-18T14:47:00.001-04:00

This was 2003. Fall. Early fall. I'm sure of it, because I remember this photo being taken, and it was the first day of auditions for The Crucible. James had done something to his finger, and for some reason, I had bandaids. Probably for just such an occasion.

Candice took this photo, if I recall, and it's inside Cedar Heights, in the kitchen. It's early fall, it was still sunny outside, auditions had gone well, James was there, and I was so, so happy.

Who knows why this moment of all moments was captured, but, as this photo would go on to become our engagement photo (the one we sent out with invitations), I'm glad it was. I don't even think I considered taking specific photographs for the invitations, as lots of people do. James and I were apart all that summer, and maybe it just wasn't practical. I made a lot of weird decisions in wedding preparation, but this is one of my most favorites, and one I don't regret. I'm sure we would have taken a perfectly nice photograph of us to send out, but I like the authenticity of this one. It's not posed, it's not in a wheat field or on train tracks. It's just us. Being us.

*the engagement photo would be black and white, with the bandaid removed, but the thumbs-up still in place.

Day 17. Warning: There's smooching

2011-08-17T11:10:00.003-04:00

Europe. Summer, 2004. First photo vs. Second photo:

The first photo is nice, because it's more iconic. Paris was fun, and overwhelming . . . and pretty dirty (but that was before we moved to New York), but I like the second, because it feels more authentic.

It's in Italy, off the Cinque Terra path (which remains the most beautiful place I've ever been). It was mid-way through our trip, and it was hot. Maybe that's why I like it better. Paris was chilly and overcast, but Italy sunny and balmy, just like it should be. But, it was much more than that. We had been with a friend for the first two countries of our trip (England and Paris), and then we headed to Venice and Florence by ourselves. But as wonderful as they were, they were still work. Lots of train schedules and museums and wondering where to eat. The Cinque Terra part of the trip was the opposite of that. We stayed in this rooming house (too nice to be a hostile) nearby, and it was a bit shabby and spotlessly clean. We woke up to sunlight streaming in windows that took up nearly the whole wall, and a view out those windows of small, well kept gardens and a hillside of grape vines.

There were no sights so significant we felt obligated to visit, so we wandered the seaside dirt path between villages, and wandered within the villages. We ate anywhere, and everything was perfect (I still remember I ate walnut ravioli the first night). We bought focaccia bread for breakfast, and wandered some more with this perfect sense of well-being (maybe it's just memory, or maybe it's just Italy).

Mostly we promised, promised, promised that we'd come back. And I, for one, haven't forgotten my promise.

Note: When we decided to go to Europe, especially for that amount of time, we got really mixed reactions upon telling people. We lived in Rexburg, a small, religious, college town. Every "adult" (person over 29 or so) we told was super supportive, and encouraged us to use the time that we had while we were unencumbered. Every person our own age and in our own situation (newly married) was super doubtful. They asked us a lot about money, and what our plans were (read: when we were going to start a family and buy a house), and if, really, we thought it was a good idea.

Answer: it was a good idea. I knew it then, and I know it now. I don't know where that money would have gone if we hadn't gone to Europe. What I do know is that I wouldn't have it now. I'm no genius financial planner, but if we're talking investments, this was a solid one, and it's value will only appreciate over time.

*these photos were actually taken digitally, but, they're not on my computer, and the CD they're on is so far away, and the scanner is so close.

Day 16

2011-08-16T17:16:00.002-04:00

4th of July, 2010. Rooftop party. No explanation why I'm looking at James with such a predatory look.

photo via Natalie Clay (and when I say "via" I mean "stolen")

Day 15

2011-08-15T08:00:00.001-04:00

James told a story last week on his blog, and I'm going to re-tell it. He didn't get it wrong, exactly, I just don't think he quite captured the spirit of it. I'm going to try to do just that.

To tell this story, I choose the oldest photo I could find of us. This is my birthday, 2003. Johnny Carinos, Idaho Falls.

This story takes place before then:

It was the fall, 2002, let's say. I had seen James in an ill-conceived Comic Frenzy show (done for a bunch of humorless newlyweds), and I thought he was cute, but, unfortunately, not funny. Apparently I was willing to look past this failing, and mentioned my crush to Jeff, a mutual friend. He responded with what I'm sure was an eye roll, and a comment like, yeah, you and everyone else. Case closed. I didn't want the crush equivalent of The DaVinci code. If everyone else liked him, I'd find someone else.

Or, maybe I'd just keep on liking him, and just let the crush idle until something else happened. We ran with the same group of friends, so we spoke. I started working with Comic Frenzy, so we spoke some more. He referenced The Picture of Dorian Gray in a joke and I thought, well, at least if he's not funny, he smart. And so on.

Then one day, Shiloh and I were walking through the Kirkham. I was wearing a denim pencil skirt that I was particularly fond of (I still have one--different skirt) and tights. Shiloh and I had just started down a sort of half set of stairs as Comic Frenzy left rehearsal and headed toward the same stairs. It wasn't a full flight, maybe 8 or so steps, but it was no step ladder. Just for the record, I happen to be pretty nimble, but that day my abilities failed me, and I tripped, sort of pirouetted (gracefully) in midair, and was headed down the steps headfirst, face-up. I don't remember falling exactly, but I do remember James, in a proto-Edward Cullen move, diving under me to catch me before I crashed into the very solid vending machine at the bottom of the stairs. As it was my head hit a steel trash can, which I found plenty embarrassing, and I asked, in a fairly baffled voice, what are you doing? And this part I remember distinctly: he said, in a voice so familiar and exasperated that I wouldn't hear again until after we were married, I'm trying to help you.

I said, oh, and then got up, took in the rest of Comic Frenzy piled up in the hallway, staring; said an unceremonious thank you or goodbye (who knows which), and got the h out of there.

For years, possibly still, Shiloh claimed this was her favorite story about us. After the sting of embarrassment wore off, and I found myself still pining for James, I also liked this story plenty.

Actually, I still do.

Also, he's gotten funnier.

Beach: Summer: Weekend

2011-08-14T19:34:00.007-04:00

For the record, this is last weekend. This weekend was a whole other story. A whole other story*.

James.

A wave (though, if you look closely, Tyson is inside that crashing wave).

Tyson.

Wave buddies (James's phrase).

*I'm compiling a list of things that bum me out. When someone says something, pauses, and then says it again--that bums me out. This list is getting pretty long. That bums me out too.

Day 12

2011-08-12T09:17:00.002-04:00

Thanksgiving day run, 2010. James likes running, and is even good at it, when he feels motivated to do it. Which is less than regular. But he loves people, and a bit of a scene, so he loves running in races.

This was our self-organized Brooklyn turkey trot, named the Trypto-fun Trampler. It was a hit.

And I beat James.

Day 11

2011-08-11T11:00:00.000-04:00

Michigan Christmas (I'd bet it was right after the Day 10 photo), maybe 2005. Which would explain why wearing that cute coat instead of the body length parka that I wear today.

Michigan at Christmas is always a little tricky for me. Even now, I still miss California, and being with my family, and the Southern California weather. But, I like going to Michigan because it's getting to know a younger James. There's a feeling like wind whistling through trees as I wander through rooms that used to belong to teenage James, there's a history that I can't know, can only feel in the floorboards and the door frames. In the streets and the stoplights and the libraries. Even after he's gone, he's still there.

Weekend from the Perspective of Wednesday

2011-08-10T14:00:00.005-04:00

Like most projects I start, I'm wearing a little thin on this 7 year itch project. Not that I don't like talking about James and meandjames, but, I find it's interfering with me talking about my first love: Summer.

To remedy this, how about a quick recap of summer activities:

1. Saturday we go to the beach. The waves are crazy choppy and incessant. James loves it. The rough waters have stirred up all the seaweed, however, and it feels like swimming in miso soup.

2. We drive through light rain to see the Brooklyn Cyclones game. On our way we see a helicopter spot and divers jump off a police boat to rescue a person out of the East river. Then we see that person hauled onboard the NYPD boat and resuscitated. It is nuts.

3. Oh, then we get to the baseball game, discover our seats are terrible, and sneak into better seats. This isn't as daring as it sounds because it was pouring rain and everyone smart had taken off.

4. After the game I get a corndog from Nathan's which will be the nutritional highlight of my weekend.

5. On Sunday James mentions the river story (see #2) in his testimony, and I spend the rest of the meeting feeling totally put out with James for depriving both Tyson and me the opportunity to tell anyone the story ourselves.

6. Then I realize that Tyson filmed the rescue on his phone, and that we can use the footage in our next project. Production Value.

7. Tyson makes strawberry kiwi ice cream in his new ice cream maker. As everyone is finishing and Tyson is collecting the bowls to take to this kitchen, I refuse to give mine up and explain that I haven't finished scraping the bottom of it for the last ice cream remnants. He looks slightly askance, and slightly flattered.

Day 10

2011-08-10T08:00:00.001-04:00

This is our first apartment, in Rexburg, around 2005-ish. I can tell it's Christmastime, because I've clearly gone all out to decorate by putting those lights around the window, and I can see the gift my mother gave me behind James's shoulder.

This would make it early winter in Rexburg, so I have no explanation as to why I seem so happy.

So, if I'm right, and it was around 2005*, then this is pretty early in our marriage. Our second Christmas together. It's funny what you remember. I remember these first couple of years as being kind of hard. I had graduated from college before James, and had found a job that I hated enough to work at for the year and half it took James to finish. We were hemorrhaging friends, everyone was leaving Rexburg, and the city was beginning to feel like a bit of a vice. But then, I remember that my sister was there, and James's brother, and how much I loved the time we all spent together. How that was the period that we all discovered Home Movies, and told ghost stories in the back of Craig's truck in Beaver Dick Park (back off, I didn't name it) and had the pants scared off of us by skinwalkers. And how James and his brothers floated the river and jumped bridges and how James and I would meet up with Annie and get Horkley's and sun ourselves at Rigby Lake.

So, I don't really know what to believe, whether these couple of years were difficult, or really just perfect. I guess it doesn't matter. These ideas can exist simultaneously.

*I am right. It's Christmas 2005. Because we spent Christmas 2004 with my family, and my mother wouldn't have sent my Christmas gifts if we were going home. I feel like all my time spent watching Murder, She Wrote has really paid off in my powers of deduction.

Day 9

2011-08-09T08:30:00.000-04:00

Harry Potter Day. July, 2007. I'm not going to lie about it, this photo may depict the happiest day of my life.

Here's the thing about James. He likes Harry Potter. He may love it. But what I'm sure he loves is how much I love it. Ours is a house where enthusiasm, wild enthusiasm, is encouraged.

Day 8

2011-08-08T08:00:00.002-04:00

Did you ever have a roommate who was a photography student? I did.

A Cedar Heights roommate was studying photography and we were drafted for this. This is actually a smaller version of a much larger photo involving more people and looking a lot more like a soap opera press photo.

I'd place this photo late winter semester of 2004. Maybe late March or April. We would be married by the fall following. We would also continue to be this dramatic.

Day 5

2011-08-05T08:42:00.004-04:00

I would place this one about 2007. Roughly. This is the MoMA, one of our favorite places in the city. When we first moved here and people would come to visit, we had a Friday greatest hits tour we'd take them on: the MoMA, which is free on Friday nights and just as rowdy as can be; then a walk over to the ineffable Lucky Burger on 9th Ave; then a walk downtown to Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre for a show.

We are undoubtedly in the middle of one such tour here.

James and I have fun in New York. We moved here five years ago with no children, no apartment, and plenty of plans. I'm no scientist, but anyone could tell you that that is a formula for fun. Our time here has allowed us to do most everything we wanted. New York has heard James read his work, and I've stomped across its stages. We've both been published (he more than me), we've both seen rejection, grad school for both, Yankees games, Mets games, Cyclones games. Coney Island hot dogs and a billion great museums.

James is a good person to be in New York with. He's got a good sense of direction, which helped a lot at first, and is still useful in parts of Brooklyn. He's up for anything, and if he's had lunch, is almost always in a good mood. I love New York, and I love us in New York.

Look at us; don't you?

Day 4

2011-08-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

Guess who gets the winter blues? Answer: it's me.

So, last April (2010)--in New York's early spring--James and I headed off one Saturday on a small adventure. I can't remember if we didn't have plans, or if we canceled them, but we woke up in the morning with a case of spring fever, and had to act. It was early April, but a true springly warm day, and I still remember how perfectly right it felt to roll down the window and sing Vampire Weekend's Horchata into the breeze. The album was new to us, and we listened over and over again until we knew all the words.

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011.

2011-08-03T14:00:00.000-04:00

Day 3

2011-08-03T08:00:00.002-04:00

Halloween 2007, New York City generally; Washington Square Park specifically. We went as the Superfans from SNL. Our friend Aaron dressed up as well, but he wasn't involved in this photo (he does a really spot-on Chris Farley impression, and carried around Wendy's hamburgers all night -- he was a hit).

We had been in the city for a little over a year, making this our 2nd Halloween there. We hadn't dressed up the year before, and James, loving a scene, insisted that this was our year. He was right, this was the most successful Halloween costume I've ever worn.

James was just a year into his program at NYU, and I was working for a publishing company. New York was still new enough to be endlessly fun, but familiar enough not to be totally overwhelming.

Also, we are both wearing mustaches.

Day 2

2011-08-02T08:30:00.003-04:00

This depicts a more complicated time. We were newly engaged, and, I don't know if you can tell here, but I really didn't want to be (I can't help but notice that my left hand is completely hidden--tucked out of sight. I'm sure it was unconscious). I was terrible, terrible at being engaged. I still feel badly about it now, and annoyed that I wasted so much time with indecision, but, you can't really resent feelings, can you?

James was a champ during that whole summer, steady and sure, willing to calm my constant (and totally redundant-- and fairly flimsy) concerns. This may or may not have established a pattern for our marriage.

I was in California for the summer (alone, by the way, Annie was still up at school--I had too much time alone to think [read: obsess], which didn't help matters any) , and I had come to Rexburg to go on a church history tour of Nauvoo with my pal Candice. This photo was taken the morning I left. I remember it was a really lovely day, and the shirt I was wearing belonged to James, until he gave it to me and I cut the neck off. It was a favorite. Oh, and those pants are Annie's (I really loved them, I borrowed them all the time). The flip flops are mine.

More Tacos, More Problems

2011-08-01T14:00:00.001-04:00

That's a joke. Tacos never cause problems.

James and I were trying to remember what we did last weekend, and it took an astonishing long time to recall. Then we remembered that we got slurppees and did very little else, because it was a jillion degrees outside and the humidity was 500%.

This weekend the weather was not so inclimate, so we did more:

1. Beach--perfect, perfect weather. I love the West Coast, but the beaches there can be a bit mercurial. East Coast beaches are less moody, more dependable.

2. Rockaway Taco. Believe the hype. Hipster swarming grounds or not, these fish tacos will call me back again and again.

3. Basil harvest and pesto made.

4. Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game. Severe weather conditions were predicted, so they held the game while it rained cats and dogs. Score was 0-0 until the 8th inning, when the fire marshal insisted the post-game fireworks be set off. The Cyclones scored twice as the fireworks exploded. I've never felt so patriotic.

5. Strawberry cake made. It's been a while since I baked (or stood in the kitchen for longer than it takes to eat a nectarine), and I had to take frequent rest breaks, but, it was worth it.

7 Year Itch

2011-08-01T08:25:00.002-04:00

7 years this month. The . . . 22nd (I always forget if t was the 21st or 22nd. it's the 22nd).

In honor of this massive accomplishment, let's do a month of us. Not you and me, me and James.

Conference Camping 2003. Happy to find ourselves back together after a summer apart (he rainstorm watching in Michigan, me tan and life guarding in California). The height of happiness.

We'd slipped away to chat alone, which is a sure sign of early love. Watch out for that at parties.

If This Is the 21st Century, then I Hate the 21st Century

2011-07-28T21:43:00.002-04:00

I've been to more than my fair share* of poetry readings in this city in the past 5 years, and, they're always a mixed bag. Unless you know, going in, exactly who you're seeing, it's pretty much a crap shoot. I've seen some really amazing poets (ross gay, I'm looking at you), totally unmemorable poets, and some awesomely bad ones**.

However, the one I attended last night had a poet who managed to evade all of my categories, and landed himself into the poets I would never see read again if paid a jillion dollars, and plan to throw out the book he gave james as soon as I'm done writing this blog post category. I won't mention his name, or link him, because I don't think his website deserves the hits. By way of explanation, I'll say there is plenty of poetry that I don't like, or that doesn't work for me, but I don't feel ill-used by listening to it. I felt subjected to this person's "work". Rattled and shocked for no purpose and to no end. It was ugly, horrific violence with no meaning at all. No end in mind. Just this selfish pursit of ugliness.

I am loath to ever call a piece of art valueless. Value is near impossible to identify, and differs so much from person to person. However, today is a special day, and I'm making an exception. This "poetry" was valueless. Without value.

About halfway through the reading, he paused, considering whether to read a poem, and asked, as though testing the audience, "This is the 21st century, right?"

I'd rather live in the middle ages.

*note: everyone's fair share of poetry readings differs from person to person, but it averages out to be about 3 over a lifetime.

**i actually really love embarrassingly disclosing confessional poetry. and if it's read directly from a leather bound journal, so much the better.

How Could This Go Wrong?

2011-07-27T08:38:00.004-04:00

These photographs are from an issue of Life from the 1970s. They're outrageous, obviously, but I feel a little like this family today.

The weather here is sunny and crazy beachy, which makes me feel a little glamorous and eccentric, sitting here in my pajamas in shafts of morning sunlight.

This weather also makes me feel wildly irresponsible, just like this family.

But hey, all judgement aside, let's all have a zainy 70s style day.

photos via here.

Breathless.

2011-07-26T12:37:00.004-04:00

In the wake of the last movie, there have been a lot of these HP graphics, but doesn't this one take your breath away?

graphic via here.

To Have and to Hold

2011-07-25T09:45:00.003-04:00

I saw HP7 part 2 again. Just for the record, it holds up to multiple viewings.

I don't feel sad, but, I don't know, I feel sad, I guess. Not because there will be no more Harry Potter books or movies, but because whenever something like this ends, I always feel like I'll never love like this again. I'll never feel as excited or committed, that I'll never get this back.

Which is true. I'll never get this back. I'll never plow through the 4th book so quickly, I'll fervently resent anything that pulls me away (which at the time was rehearsal for Little Women). I'll never finish the 5th book and look up at 4:00 in the morning, and wonder how I'll ever wait another 2 years. I'll never draw another lightning bolt on my forehead in preparation for a movie release. I'll never spend an entire day in near fatal excitement about the release of the last book. I'll never get into another near fist fight with someone in line for said last book (he had some preposterous theories regarding the 7th book's outcome. Someone had to set him straight). I'll never wait for two hours in line to see Harry Potter at midnight. I might never buy another Harry Potter t-shirt (this is unconfirmed). I'll never get to read a Harry Potter book for the first time.

This is all true. But, what else is true is that I had all this. And I can't ever have it again, but neither can I ever lose it.

And that's something.

circa 2004 (ish)

Trust Snape

2011-07-21T19:00:00.001-04:00

I never talk about Harry Potter because I think it would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.

-Alan Rickman

The End Was Near

2011-07-21T11:00:00.005-04:00

photo via Bizsel

Beach Day

2011-07-19T06:31:00.000-04:00

James said that he wants to spend every weekend at the beach from now on. And I was like, okay.

I'm always sort of fascinated with what people bring to eat at the beach. We (I) brought half a bagel with strawberry cream cheese and 2 chocolate chip cookies. I ate the bagel and gave the cookies to Tyson and James. My main beach memories of childhood involve eating sandy dorritos. As we were leaving the two guys to the right of us were lunching on a bucket of KFC. I thought it seemed too heavy for the beach, but also, simultaneously, wondered if they'd share if I asked.

I didn't, and instead we went to Red Hook (for the food trucks) and ate tacos and mexican corn.

I'm still in the mood to give advice, so here's my beach advice:

1. Arrive early.

2. Don't feel the need to stay all day. Let's get serious. Unless you're a serious surfer or fisherman, no one really wants to be at the beach all day. That's a recipe for sunburns and bad attitudes at the end of the day. Leave when you want to leave, preferably when it starts to get crowded and your style starts to get cramped.

3. Go into the water. Often.

4. On your way home, stop for a frozen treat (see my post about summer heat). Enjoy it while riding with windows down and feeling sand in the seat of your bathing suit.

*photos via Tyson

Ice Cream and Lilies

2011-07-18T08:00:00.001-04:00

With the parents in Maine for the weekend, James and I were on our own. To celebrate, James went to a party and ate pizza, and I went to Coney Island and ate a corn dog and a caramel apple (I only eat things on sticks at Coney Island).

After that we went to a reception (where this photo was taken) where we both ate ice cream cones while looking at Lady Liberty.

Other highlights include:

1. Baby blessing for this kid.

2. Making plans to see HP7 part 2 with this kid.

3. Sour Patch Kids at church.

4. Realizing we had gotten our tax return (like, a week ago).

5. Doing n-o-t-h-i-n-g on Sunday.

6. Watching the 6th Harry Potter (it's no HP7, but it's good).

7. Drinking more than my share of this cranberry/oj punch at the reception.

8. The lilies I got at the farmers market*.

9. Klondike bars.

10. Finishing a long put off project. It was a short, personal essay that I felt I had only written half of. I didn't know how to approach it, but once I tried, it took me about 10 minutes (thanks, Annie).

*I took my parents to the Frick (which is my favorite art museum in New York--and not just because it's small and you can get through the whole thing in about an hour and a half--but that helps), and they always have fresh flowers in the rooms/galleries. They had lilies this time, which smelled so lovely, I had to get some of my own.

Because It's Technically Still Harry Potter Day

2011-07-15T16:05:00.004-04:00

Guess what I did last night. Spoiler Alert: I saw HP7 part 2. And it was awesome.

My parents are in town, but this was a non-negotiable.

I look a little wry here, but that's not because of the movie, but only because it was 2:25 am and we were in the process of waiting (I kid you not) 25 minutes for the F train.

Still, that didn't dampen the evening.

Harry Potter Day. Or Thursday, for the Joyless

2011-07-14T09:04:00.006-04:00

See you tonight.

*t-shirt via designmarie.

UnAfraid

2011-07-13T09:18:00.004-04:00

I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong. Here I said there was only one way to improve summer. And I was wrong. There are two ways. And the 2nd way is the 2nd 7th.

Heat Lightning

2011-07-12T10:48:00.005-04:00

It's getting hot in New York. I mean, it's July. It's getting humid, too. It was 60% yesterday.

Here's the thing. I was born on September 27th, after a significant heat wave in Los Angeles.

This is important because I have this feeling that, much like a super-hero, I absorbed all that heat, and turned it into pure power. Heat-Lightning.

One of the many benefits of this is my ability to withstand high temperatures. It's not like I don't notice, it's just that I don't mind as much. I remember when James and I were in Venice, we didn't have an air conditioner in our hotel room. I don't know how hot it actually was, because whenever we asked people gave us the temperature in Celsius (and I was like, okay, but what is it in real degrees?) It was humid. James couldn't sleep. He was a mad person, rolling around all night, I guess trying to find a position that would be cooler. I tried to impart some of my innate heat knowledge, and told him that he couldn't fight it, that he just had to let the heat pass over him. He had to think of himself as part of the heat.

It was late at night and he was really hot, so there wasn't a lot of interest in my heat philosophy.

A few days later we found the a/c. It was a small unit, near the ceiling. Those Italians.

I just turned my a/c on last night, and only because we had a guest. Because I realize my philosophy is simply that: my philosophy. Not everyone can be a disciple. But, as a near heat superhero, here's my advice:

1. Don't wear snug clothing. Really ever, but especially in the summer, unless you want to feel like a sausage squeezed into its casing. No matter how good it looks, take my word for it, it's not worth it.

2. Buy popsicles. Have them at home. A big box, but don't let that stop you from buying them while you're out. Eat them regularly.

3. Only eat ice cream outside. Eating ice cream inside (especially inside with air conditioning) is a waste.

4. Try not to be late. Walking in the noon-time heat is one thing, hurrying is quite another.

5. If you have to take the subway, and find yourself waiting for the 5 at Atlantic, and you look up from your book as a bead of sweat falls onto the words, and think this is unbearable, you're not a traitor to the philosophy, it's just that you happen to be waiting in Dante's 9th circle of hell.

Photos from this weekend. Outside of Blue Marble. I'm eating a black raspberry cone. It was delicious and also lowered my core body temperature. That's what you call two birds, one stone.