There are times when I miss my dog but I have to admit that there are times when this whole informal joint-pet-ownership thing really works in my favor, like on nights when I can flip the deadbolt as soon as I get home and put on yoga pants and assume that for the next five hours I will not be going anywhere, for any reason, and if an emergency arises and I need something urgently (like, oh, tandoori chicken) I can order it and the buzzer will ring and there will be no aggressive barking or whining when such a hypothetical event occurs, and I can then go to bed confident that I will have the whole bed to myself and will wake up with no more dog hair on my comforter than when I laid down.
You know, times like that.
I’m the one who went to the shelter on a whim and who test drove the scrawny dog around the block and then called to say, Um, so there’s this dog…and I’m the one who brought her home and who used to rush home at lunch - back in the days when I was working at a cookware store on Atlantic Avenue - in order to let the puppy out of her crate and make feeble attempts at housebreaking (which happened eventually, obviously, but as any pet owner knows - especially urban pet owners who do not have the luxury of outdoor space and must attempt to gauge puppy’s bladder control and get the leash on while also managing hallways, stairs, elevators and lobbies - housebreaking is an enormous pain in the ass and you have more than one moment of thinking, Well, maybe the dog will just always go in the apartment and we’ll keep Wee Wee Pads down. Forever.) and overall the division of labor was pretty evenly divided but I am still the one who would look at the dog from time to time and say, I brought you home, You cost me $87.
Tuesday lives part of the time with Kevin in a giant apartment in a posh building in a nice neighborhood, and part of the time with me in a tiny apartment in an old building in a totally different nice neighborhood and I’ve sadly had more than one occasion in which I’ve thought, Gee, she must get so bored in my apartment, The Poor Dog. As if square footage matters to her, who I am pretty sure spends most of her day sleeping illegally on the upholstered chair adjacent to her dog bed.
She’s adjusted pretty well to the joint custody, as have both Kevin and I. I’m admitting here and now that it’s nice to have a break from the dog. It’s nice to HAVE a dog, but it’s nice to have the breaks. It took Tuesday a little longer to adjust, because OF COURSE I have a neurotic special needs dog who doesn’t really like food that much and used to only eat when both Kevin and I were around so suddenly having just one or the other threw her appetite into disarray and she wasn’t eating enough and as a result her stomach would get upset because it was empty and she would vomit gross yellow dog barf all over the place and lost about five pounds which is not much but on a 37 pound dog makes a difference. So yes, I basically gave my dog some form of canine anorexia nervosa with a side of bulimia, which is super awesome, especially when also dealing with the guilt of Failing At Marriage And Therefore The Game Of Life.
Then the dog started eating more regularly and the vomiting got better and she gained weight back and is now generally able to make the transition from Upper West Side to Gramercy with ease, although there are still some setbacks and yesterday I came home to dog puke all over the rug (because that is where dogs vomit: on hard-to-clean areas) and I looked at her and was like OH FUCKING HELL DOG WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!?
But I had a friend over last night and Tuesday was all cute and show-off-y for my friend and again I was like, Awwww, I brought you home, you cost me $87, it was the best $87 I have ever spent, you nasty little puppy that I love/hate/love…
She goes back to Kevin’s next week, and I will enjoy not having to lint-roll my bedspread every morning, for a little while at least.
Hi, I just wrote a blog entry about my vomiting dog. Now, tell me of your pets’ quirks, pet owners; I know you have gross-lovable-hilarious stories. Crazy Dog People, I’m looking at you.
September 4th, 2008
As I was walking towards the park on Sunday, the doorman of one of the big apartment buildings near Central Park West stepped out towards me and asked me where my dog has been. I look for you, he told me, I see you in a different light now…
Um, wha? I asked and he said, I see that you got your hair cut, I see you with your dog in the mornings. Oh, my dog, um she’s…sleeping, I said, which wasn’t even true; she was with Kevin and he said something else to me about my walking habits and I added that she takes turns living with me and my ex-husband, and he asked if I had any kids and I said, No, just the dog, she’s the baby, and he told me that he lived in Gramercy and I was like, Okay, have a nice day, and crossed over into the park hoping I didn’t seem rude but also feeling a little…visible, because it’s a strange feeling to have someone you don’t know tell you that he knows your daily schedule.
There came a point when I walked into my cleaners and the man behind the counter handed me my laundry without having to ask my name and at that point I remember thinking, Okay, so I live here now. But there is a sweet spot somewhere between doormen tracking my dog-walking schedule and good customer service, I suppose, and I’m not quite sure where that point lies.
I lived in my old neighborhood for so long that I felt confident should anything happen to me, surely someone would notice my absence before the stench even got too terrible, but moving to a new neck of the woods made me pause and rethink my whole ‘emergency set of keys, in case of emergency contact, help-my-toilet-won’t-stop-overflowing’ hierarchy of support. That passed, and I settled in, and I started seeing Regulars on my commute and on the weekends and I started meeting people who live in this neighborhood and yadda yadda yadda six months flew by and now this feels like home.
It sometimes takes leaving to make you appreciate home, however, and I learned that lesson on two recent and consecutive weekends. First, I looked at an apartment for sale in the East Village and loved it and loved its proximity to restaurants I liked and loved its proximity to Trader Joe’s and subway trains and to other friends of mine but realized how much I would miss having Central Park just down the block from me. And then second, I went to the Kid Rock concert in New Jersey this past weekend.
I don’t want to get into too many details because I honestly prefer to pretend as if that particular day-slash-night never happened but I will instead offer you a selection of t-shirt slogans I witnessed: “I Like My Bush Shaved Or In The White House,” and “Let’s Go Fuck Some Whores,” and “One Country One Flag One Language,” and “I Fuck Sheep,” and “If You Think My Personality Stinks You Should Smell My Finger,” etc etc etc along with a much higher percentage of Confederate flag apparel than I thought to see, you know, an hour outside of New York City.
And the t-shirts were the highlight of the night.
We took a 12:30 a.m. train back to Manhattan and I am standing by my statement that nothing good happens on New Jersey Transit after midnight. A group of drunk twenty-something guys got on the same car as my friends and me, “found” a bag of bagels on the train, and then ate them. They ate mystery food that was found on public transportation. WILLINGLY. And worse, they kept calling the bagels ‘BAGGehls’ instead of ‘BAYGels’ which just made no sense at all.
By the time we got off the train and emerged onto Eighth Avenue my friends and I barely even glanced at one another as we parted ways. We managed a half-hearted, ‘See you, peace out’ and dashed for cabs, eager to go home and wash the sweat, Bacardi, bug spray, pump cheese and general disgrace off our sticky bodies.
Columbus Avenue has never looked so good. Had the somewhat creepy doorman seen me stagger home Saturday night he would have just shook his head, perhaps offering a rueful, Oh honey…and I would have looked knowingly at him, happy to see a familiar face.
September 2nd, 2008
I believe that everyone has at least one superpower. They may not be super in terms of INVISIBILTY or X-RAY VISION but everyone – even you – has a superpower, on a more human scale. My ex never takes bad photographs and can arrange furniture in a room in the best way possible, effortlessly. My friend T can give herself manicures and pedicures that look salon-polished. Jay is some sort of techno-savant and can connect/re-wire/adjust/install any sort of gadgetry you need or want. And he can make the wires go away.
As for me, I have two known superpowers. One, I can instinctively fast forward DVRd television to the exact spot where commercials and/or credits end, and two, I am good at collecting and then connecting friends. I match-make among my female friends to an almost uncanny degree, and while I have sometimes wished for this ability to translate in brokering romantic relationships, it’s apparently not meant to be. Superpowers are not the kind of thing we can pick and choose, now are they?
I had three friends over for dinner the other night – three friends that had never met one another, one of whom I had not seen in over a decade (thanks Facebook!) – and sort of shrugged my shoulders and figured, Eh, we’ll see how this goes…
It went so, so well, and I’m not sure what I would have done had my mishmash of guests not liked one another (actually, I know what I would have done; I would have opened another bottle of wine and turned on the TV because when all else fails, watch Tim Gunn) but luckily there were no Uncomfortable Silences or Awkward Moments and WHEW, everyone was all, OMG SQUEE I LOVE YOU, YOU SHOULD GO TO MY BIKINI WAXER SHES THE BEST because that’s what girls do when they get together, they talk about bikini waxes and lip gloss.
Amy moved here in May, and the more she spoke the more it became evident that she was in possession of some serious superpowers of her own. “My friends call me Forrest Gump,” she said, as a means of explaining her truly incredible knack for being in the right place at the right time and meeting the right person and just sort of…happening upon the most amazing jobs, experiences, adventures I’ve ever encountered in one person. But as we’ve learned from the superheroes, there is always a dark side to having such powers and her own “Srsly, Only To Me Would This Happen” tendencies mean that in the few months she’s been living in New York her apartment has twice been broken into. The second time? The thieves shat upon her roommate’s bed. Literally.
And that, my friends, is officially the worst New York story I have ever heard.
I’ve never witnessed a crime, never been a victim of anything more menacing than a panhandler, never known anyone who’s known anyone who’s been mugged or robbed or assaulted. My New York is a fairly kind and gentle place, but human feces on one’s BED is about as filthy as it gets. It’s the stuff of fiction, or of Amy’s life, apparently. And that story has no real relevance except that I felt the need to share it because it is JUST THAT UNBELIEVABLE.
She’s moving, I should add, in case it wasn’t implied.
I’ve known people whose superpower was real-estate related; the ability to happen upon No Fee apartments in Manhattan, especially those with roof decks and closet space, is a formidable superpower. I am not blessed in the ways of real estate, unfortunately. I’m one of those people who has always paid broker fees and never had a roof deck. I’ve accepted broker fees as a necessary fate (unless and until I buy an apartment, which is dangerously becoming a renewed obsession of mine, in case you hadn’t noticed I am project oriented and generally need to always be planning or plotting something) but that doesn’t stop me from getting all up in it with regards to apartments. I want to know where people live, what their apartments look like, how much they pay, the size of their bathrooms, everything. It is my nosiest tendency, and while in most matters I remain staunchly opposed to “price tagging” and discussing the cost of things I have become immune to that oh-so-New York question of “If you don’t mind me asking, how much do you pay?”.
Um, I had a point. Then it was lost in a daydream of penny tile and exposed brick. But! Tell me your superpower! I know you have one…
August 28th, 2008
It had been a while, so I figure I was due for a New York Day (and I mean that in a OH MY FUCKING NEW YORK way, not an I LOVE NEW YORK! way) and around the time announcements were being made on the hot subway platform about delays in service I realized that Yes, I was having a total New York Day.
I left work early to make a 6pm appointment and got stuck at 42nd Street waiting for a train while two cracked out vagrants (and I realize there are class-ist issues of political correctness associated with calling someone ‘crack anything’ but in this case I mean no implications about race or socio-economic status, only that these two people were missing some very important teeth, wailing about wanting their crack pipe, and swaying all around the platform, shaking their asses to the, um, beat, of the accordion-man’s accordion and so in fact WERE cracked out, I think) caused a general commotion to my left. Then the train came. Then they got on my train, and then they proceeded to SCREAM in alternating English and Hysterical Baby Gibberish while falling all over themselves on the A Train. And of course the air conditioning was spotty, and of course I was having some gastrointestinal issues while on a sloooooow train and of COURSE I was worried about being late to my appointment and yes, of course I was swarthy and sweaty and trying to be as unaware as possible of the adult cystic acne I was sure was sprouting from my face as I stood there, sweating with the cracked out vagrants.
And then I got to my appointment, which was a Pants Off type of appointment, and my skinny skinny black jeans had by that time become suctioned to my legs and one got STUCK ON MY CALF as I tried to remove it. And that is when I said, FINE, NEW YORK, YOU WIN THIS ROUND, IT IS AUGUST AFTER ALL.
August is when it all falls apart for me. Never mind that this year we’ve actually been treated to a mild and breezy August (as far as New York Augusts go), I have started to think that I am hardwired to completely devolve for a few weeks every year. My skin freaks out. My moods swing. My hair declares mutiny (and yes, even with a haircut the mutiny persists; this year the haircut seems to have instigated the revolt, in fact, and words cannot describe how very much I hate the new haircut, despite the fact that I also hated the old haircut). Nothing interests me beyond chilled white wine and the new J. Crew catalog. I eat entire meals of chips and salsa.
And so it goes.
Spring turned out pretty well for me, and summer - up until the calendar turned its pages to August - had also been thriving. I was tan! I felt cute! I was dating! I was texting! I was social! I was maintaining my regular mani/pedi schedule! Life was good!
I’m in the armpit of summer, though, and my general attitude has turned to, “Meh.”
I don’t feel cute. I am not dating anyone. My social life revolves around HBO In Demand.
I need to kickstart myself back into some semblance of a fun person, though, and am so very over my August Mehs that I agreed to go to a Kid Rock concert. In New Jersey. By choice. Hold me.
I’m going with friends and I’d be lying if I tried to pretend that the Blog Fodder argument didn’t come into play. Just Imagine The Things You Will See! a friend told me, You Can Strike Blogging Gold! I added that Lynyrd Skynyrd was also playing. My friend thoughtfully added, And You Can Drink As Much As You Want Since It’s A Saturday! which might have been the ultimate selling point, or at least the one that tipped the scales.
That sounds bad, doesn’t it? It’s less about the booze, less about the quantities of booze than it is about the “Well, Here Is A Total Break From My Life!” and frankly, I am not THAT prissy when it comes to concerts. I will see almost anyone live and I will stand, I will stand in crowded places, I will stand outside in the heat and I will also sit in high-up nosebleed arena seats and not complain once about them, but honesty Kid Rock scares me.
I did not pay for the tickets, needless to say. And perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised by Mr. Rock. Honestly, my biggest concern right now is that I am anticipating wanting a ponytail but new bastard haircut is sub-ponytail length, so I will need to Deal with my hair. Other than that, I can think of no better way to flip August the bird and embrace corduroy and boots and red wine than by attending a Kid Rock concert in Holmdel, New Jersey. I think we’re gonna call that Hitting Bottom, and come Labor Day I expect to be back to my usual pleasantly neurotic self.
The self esteem, she has had enough of August.
August 25th, 2008
I’ve had my fair share of impulsive moments and spending sprees but in general am not a frivolous person. I splurge on certain things but I live well within my means and am far too lazy to truly ever become someone who has an expensive beauty regimen or entire handbag assortment in need of daily bag-swaps.
However.
I made a decision earlier this year, and it’s been sort of a present to myself. I’m calling it, “My Fuck It Year.”
Which basically means that I am taking this year (and maybe a little longer) to do pretty much whatever I want.
Luckily, what I want is fairly routine. I’ve bought one $500 handbag. I’ve had a few nights on which I stayed up past sunrise and made some questionable decisions. I’ve skipped yoga in favor of wine and reruns. I’ve ordered in instead of cooking. Etcetera.
Oh, and I went to Vietnam, which was pretty inexpensive once I got there but cost more than any other prior flight I’ve ever taken, and I want to interject at this point that I have exclusively flown Coach, with very few exceptions - one being long-ago business travel and two being a surprising upgrade on a flight back from my grandmother’s funeral. But I have never booked or paid for anything other than economy plane tickets and back in May was out to dinner with a guy who knew I was heading to Vietnam and said, Now I don’t know about you but when I take flights like that, I obviously fly First Class…and I was like, Um, am I doing the travel equivalent of using the wrong fork or something because HELLO FIRST CLASS TO VIETNAM IS LIKE $10,000! But I digress…
So the bulk of my Fuck-It-Spending, in this Fuck It Year, is travel, and I just booked a trip to Barcelona with my dear friend Jay in October, and I have to say that the travel bug has hit me pretty hard and all I can think about is WHERE NEXT WHAT NEXT WHEN WHEN WHEN.
I feel a little silly admitting this, admitting my whole Fuck It Year strategy, because everyone read Eat, Pray, Love and gets the idea of a Year Off and everyone rolled their eyes at the affluent white chick with the paid vacation and everyone groaned at the naval-gazing, and so Yes, I feel silly. A Fuck It Year is frivolous. I could be struggling to put food on the table for me and my three children, or living back at home with my parents, or unemployed, or afflicted with some STD that made me undateble, or something equally awful, but instead I am just me, living on a nice street in a good city with an itch to see the world and a tendency to complain about my hair, feeling fat, having nothing to wear, etc.
Some might tell me to Shut The Fuck Up, and I guess to them I would say, Fuck It, and go buy a gelato. It’s a handy tactic, this Fuck It Year.
August 19th, 2008
When it comes to sports, I’m both fickle and inconsistent. I like sports, I like athletes, I like competition, and given the chance can get sucked into most sporting events, which means that when I’m around people who are all about the Yankees, I can be all about the Yankees, when I’m around people who love soccer, I watch soccer, etc etc etc. I lose interest in the blink of an eye, but there generally remains a base level awareness of Sport that allows me to at least engage in cocktail-party level chit chat about sports. “Euro Cup? Oh, I’m totally rooting for Spain…” “Did you see Blah Blah Blah pitch last night?” and so on and so forth.
I’m fickle about the Olympics too. I’ve spent the last week with my heart in my throat and my remote control set to NBC. I get emotional over sports, and over sportsmanship, and like everyone else on the planet have been consumed with the Phelps Phrenzy. I’ve been jumping up and down and waving my arms like a lunatic and loving every minute of swimming’s sudden front page exposure.
But I’m totally the girl who changes allegiances when she changes boyfriends (hypothetically speaking) and I have to confess that for me? The Olympics means swimming, a little bit of Track & Field, and that’s about it. I’m all for Sports! and Sportsmanship! and Celebrating the Athlete! but as soon as we switch over to beach volleyball or sailing or synchronized anything I go zzzzzzzzzzz….
Here’s an even worse confession: I was watching women’s beach volleyball (and my stance on sports like beach volleyball is that they are great and fine and look kind of fun if you’re so inclined but we already had regular volleyball so why keep adding variations, like maybe inner tube water polo should be included, or rollerblading, or three-legged races; like who says we need more events anyway?) and the scantily-clad Americans were playing against some scantily clad Belgians who were, um, bigger than the Americans (who have abs that would inspire me to walk around topless too, I guess) and the announcer kept calling out that the Belgian server (setter? hitter?) was “…6′4″, 195 lbs…” and all I could think was DEAR GOD I NEVER WANT THOSE NUMBERS BROADCAST TO THE WORLD AT LARGE. Which is probably several steps back for me as a feminist, but there you have it.
I am all about the swimming.
I grew up swimming all the damn time. I woke up around 4am most mornings, was in the water by 5am, swam til 7am, got dressed for school at the pool, went to school reeking of chlorine, was picked up from school and taken back to the pool where I swam from 4-6:30pm, every night, every day, with double workouts on meet-less weekends and all this was for someone (me) who was good but not great, so imagine the rigor required of the truly elite and you begin to understand why people are generally like, Um, swimming is boring…
It is. It can be. Meets are boring, they can be cold and rainy and hot and sticky and long and they take up all your time and you get in a routine and the thing about swimming is that while it can be exhilarating and rewarding and challenging, it’s not really fun, not the way I imagine some team sports can be. (Although I am soooo not a team sport person; like most swimmers I was thrown into the water because I am hopelessly uncoordinated anywhere but)
The guys really do look like that, though. That’s a plus, for sure. I’ve spent the past week wondering why I don’t still live in California, where the lanky laid-back swimmer and water polo types actually exist, in real life, all six feet plus of them.
But my point is this: I was out at a bar on the Lower East Side last night, and there was a television, and there were douchey hipsters of all ages and variety crowded around watching swimming, on a Saturday night, in Manhattan. Swimming is not a glamorous sport and if you told me when I was 15 that the entire world would be watching heats of swimming on prime time television, I would not have believed you.
It’s been an amazing thing to watch.
And now that swimming is over, I’d like to go back to regular scheduled programming, thankyouverymuch, because as much as I’ve tried, I just don’t care about cycling.
August 17th, 2008
So our Brooklyn apartment is officially a thing of the past. I fled back in February but Kevin was stuck there while we waited for our condo to triumph over the shitty real estate market, and finally - finally! - we are both free. He moved Monday, and speaking from experience I am sure he is effing elated to leave behind the giant reminder of “OH HERE IS WHERE A CRIB COULD GO” etc etc etc.
But there were (obviously) good things about that Brooklyn apartment, and about Brooklyn itself. I’ve detailed them plenty of times over the years but high on that list are the dog-friendly qualities of Cobble Hill. Our pampered Miss Tuesday had a team of devoted doggie types at her ready, and she was spoiled with a series of the coolest, nicest, warmest dog walkers I could ever hope for my baby. I mean, dog, that I could ever hope for my dog…
Her most recent dog walker left a note for Kevin a week or so ago, as she apparently noticed the apartment disintegrating into a very obvious state of upheaval: “OH NO, ARE YOU MOVING?”
Kevin wrote back that Yes, he was moving to Manhattan so Tuesday wouldn’t be needing walks from her (or her fantastic fellow walkers, all part of the best dog walking service ever; email me if you are in Brooklyn and need help with your pooch) any more. And then he got another note in return, in which the dog walker told him 1) how special Tuesday was to her, 2) what a sweet dog she is, 3) how much she was going to miss Tuesday, 4) blah blah blah, and THEN SHE ASKED IF ON HER LAST DAY WALKING TUESDAY, COULD SHE MAYBE PLEASE COME BACK AND TAKE HER ON A SECOND, LONG SOLO WALK - FREE OF CHARGE - SO THAT SHE COULD SAY GOODBYE TO TUESDAY ONE LAST TIME.
I’m not going to lie; I cried when Kevin told me that story.
Dog walkers do God’s work as far as I’m concerned.
August 12th, 2008
I live in an old pre-war building that luckily has an elevator but less luckily has the world’s slowest elevator, and so I have been taking the stairs, more often than not. I’m on the sixth floor, which means that taking the stairs has helped my thighs get a little less jiggly but is not such a strain that I end up wheezing when I reach my front door.
Somewhere between floors two and three, I tend to smell pot. I haven’t isolated which neighbor it belongs to, but no matter the time of day, there is a stretch of stairs that consistently smells all weedy. I neither care nor mind and there’s something sort of sweet and nostalgic about the smell of pot, to be honest with you. It’s almost refreshing to smell good old-fashioned weed, after realizing that the rest of New York is on a triple cocktail of anti-depressants, Viagra and cocaine.
I was at a concert in Central Park last Monday night, and it happened to be one of those perfect nights we rarely see during New York summers, all sweet breezes and clear skies. We stood near the beer lines and sipped Corona while sharing cheeseburgers, and when the occasional hints of weed would waft over our heads we looked at each other and sort of said, AWWW… Like smelling Elizabeth Arden “Sunflowers” perfume, or stale beer, it took us back to our easy, breezy college nights.
No one complains when they smell pot, do they?
Cigarettes are different. I’m not a smoker. I’ve probably smoked a cumulative total of 1.5 cigarettes over my entire life, and enjoyed absolutely none of them. I am so very much not a smoker. A lot of my friends smoke, and I try to walk a non-judgy yet health-wise line with them. I don’t mind when they smoke, but I definitely prefer when they don’t. I went to college in a town that did not allow smoking in bars and came to appreciate being able to come home smelling like nothing worse than, well, Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers and stale beer.
And then I moved to New York, back in 1997 when the subway still took tokens and bars were smoky. And lo, it was bad.
And it turned out, temporary.
Even gritty New York outlawed smoking in bars, which means two things: one, my hair and clothes smell just fine after a night out, and two, I get ditched when my friends need smoke breaks.
Which is the one reason I kind of wish I smoked. Something about the furtive, huddled sidewalk smoke breaks seem so enticing and exclusive. As the one who often stays inside holding our seats at the bar, I am convinced that the best gossip is shared under dripping awnings on rainy February nights with flinty matches and cabs splashing by in the background. The cigarette break seems like the perfect opportunity to inhale deeply, look at that person you don’t really know all that well but have bummed a smoke from, and say, “OK, So Seriously, What’s The Deal With ______?”
Cigarette breaks are totally Off The Record, aren’t they? I guess that’s the romance of it, at least from my side of the doorway. But as I have plenty of vices of my own I’m not exactly looking to cultivate any new bad habits, particularly not ones that are both expensive and carcinogenic, but non-smokers, we need to find a sexy alternative to the cigarette break!
In the meantime I’m gonna head down the stairs and see what sort of contact high is available around the second floor.
August 10th, 2008
- Fingernails should be short, and either clear, neutral or very, very red
- If you can read, you can cook
- And it’s okay to admit if you don’t like to cook
- A good meal is always worth the price
- Whoever asks should plan on paying
- But it’s always appreciated when he does, regardless
- The check should be split evenly among groups
- You should order whatever you really want
- If it’s between the cheese and the dessert, get the cheese
- Dinnerware and bed linens should be white
- A good photographer can make any event look beautiful and conversely, a bad photographer can make the most lavish event look ordinary
- So splurge on photography
- Dancing is a very useful skill and should be encouraged at an early age
- Manners matter
- It’s important to remember that everyone has feelings, and that they can be hurt
- You can tell a lot about a person by how he or she treats waiters and dogs
- Men should not sing/whisper/write/text/email song lyrics unless they mean it because that kind of thing is hard to get over and can on occasion ruin entire albums’ future listenings
- Singing/whispering/writing/texting/emailing song lyrics is one of the quickest ways to get someone naked
- Coldplay is not that great as a whole but some of their songs are brilliant, like Warning Sign
- Anthropologie is totally not worth it, and exists solely because of their visual merchandising department
- Sex and the City was a really good show and has many life lessons that stand the test of time
- It’s worth it to buy one pair of really good, expensive boots rather than several cheaper pairs
- But it’s better to have several pairs of cheap sandals because those things fall apart no matter what
- If something you own makes you feel fat, ugly or uncomfortable when you wear it, get rid of it immediately no matter how much it cost
- Patience is an overrated virtue
- Excessive lateness is a character flaw
- Women who have no female friends should not be trusted
- Not every trend is meant for every body, and those hideous jersey bubble dresses with banded bottoms are not meant for any body, ever
- Sometimes red wine and junk food really does make it all better
- It’s better to say I Don’t Know than answer incorrectly
- The only people allowed to question your spending habits should be people whose names also appear on your bank account
- The money you spend on professional movers is the best money you will ever spend
- If you can’t tell whether the person you are dating likes you or not, they don’t like you enough for you to keep wasting your time
- I should learn how to take my own advice
August 5th, 2008
I ran into the designer who made my wedding dress the other day. We were both waiting for the same subway train and stood on the sweltering platform chatting and then gratefully rushed into the air-conditioned C Train when it (finally) arrived. She had heard from my mother about my divorce, and offered, “I’m really sorry to hear about…things…” and I appreciated that, because after having a beautiful dress custom made in the most wonderful way possible, I felt a little embarrassed to see her again and be all, Um, so yeah…that dress you made me? Totes all for naught…
Having clothing custom made, by the way, is something that I highly recommend while also recognizing that it is totally impractical and beyond most people’s (including mine) means. Still, standing in a beautifully-lit atelier steps from Fifth Avenue is something I will remember always and forever. In the movie of my life, that goes in the musical montage, for sure.
Creating the soundtrack to said movie is one of my ongoing favorite games to play. A friend not long ago emailed me and told me he had heard a new song that would be perfect for the ‘right-after-break-up-just-getting-over-being-sad’ part of the movie of my life. That is the sort of thinking that I appreciate in a friend, despite being well past that particular plot point in real life.
One of the questions I like to ask people is, What song would play over the end credits to the movie of your life? And in no way do I mean to imply that the ending has already been written, but I have found that you can tell a lot about a person both by what they answer and whether or not they like to play the game. I went on a few dates with a guy who immediately answered Faded, by the Afghan Whigs, and his enthusiasm, music choice, and immediacy were probably the main reasons I kept seeing him despite an otherwise lack of chemistry.
My current answer is Carry Me Ohio, by Sun Kil Moon. It’s not a happy song. But it is oh-so-good that I have not gotten sick of it despite countless listens over the years. So that’s what I want playing over my end credits, although I am holding out for - nay, insisting upon - a happy ending to the movie.
One friend said Tupelo Honey, by Van Morrison. Someone else said an Elvis song, although I forget which one. Somebody told me there would be no music, just a literal fade to black, which is an unacceptable answer because it’s both pretentious and because it completely misses the point of the question which is, What Music Are You?
I like those questions, hypothetical What Ifs that have no bearing on anything but can reveal so much. Other favorites are Where Would You Eat Your Last Meal In New York, If Leaving?, Who Would You Invite To Imaginary Dinner Party?, What Is Your Dream Vacation?, and Who Would Play You In a Movie?
So have at it. What song would play over the end credits to your movie?
July 30th, 2008
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