neither / ice nor mud nor winter light

Did you all know this existed in Brooklyn? 

The bluebells are meant to arrive in May, but it's been a strange spring so far, early and slightly off-putting, although not so off-putting that it couldn't be enjoyed on the wooden benches at the South Street Seaport. Not so off-putting so as to avoid my first sunburn of the year. It's cold again, anyway. But over the past few weeks, New York has flamed into bloom and I've worn out the patience of my friends by exclaiming over every blossoming tree or bush we pass. I've made them walk the long way past the yellow magnolias down the block, or across the street so I could hold the full weight of a string of peach blossoms.

Can you blame me?

What else? My family came to town. We drank.

Then we got $8 manicures.

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and shared a mango.

We took naps and saw a play and ate more and more and more food. I bought myself a pair of overpriced sunglasses for my birthday.

Yes; it was also my birthday.

You know what I felt on my birthday? Peace. A deep, centering joy. I was also hungover, which may have contributed to that sort of dead calm I couldn't shake. My coworker remarked I have a tendency to get drunk the night BEFORE important events. Curious, that. Drunkticipation!

I got to sit on the couch and eat spicy basil noodles on my birthday. I got daffodils and some Tim Riggins. I shared my licorice with everyone. I am lucky.

The bravest thing I have done recently: bought some unidentifiable green chiles. My knowledge of chiles is circumspect. I taste-test them with my tongue. That seems brave and stupid.

Adrienne Rich died today. She was brave. She was a brave, bold, strong-arm of a woman, an upward climb, a fist in the sky, a brash, vital artist and intellect. She wrote many poems much more vicious and - well, better, than this one, but I like this one, and this is my space, and I will salute you, Adrienne, with the quality I love best, your honesty, your verve. You said it like it is.


Song

You're wondering if I'm lonely:

OK then, yes, I'm lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.

You want to ask, am I lonely?
Well, of course, lonely
as a woman driving across country
day after day, leaving behind
mile after mile
little towns she might have stopped
and lived and died in, lonely

If I'm lonely
it must be the loneliness
of waking first, of breathing
dawns' first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house wrapped in sleep

If I'm lonely
it's with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in the last red light of the year
that knows what it is, that knows it's neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with a gift for burning.

for Frank, on his birthday

ANIMALS Have you forgotten what we were like then when we were still first rate and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth it's no use worrying about Time but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves and turned some sharp corners the whole pasture looked like our meal we didn't need speedometers we could manage cocktails out of ice and water I wouldn't want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days [1950]

goals

This year, I'd like to become one of those people with the foresight to buy things in the off-season.

not getting any stronger

yes, look!

I love, love, love that someone found this blog by googling "look boobs."

I love you, whoever you are.

Self Portrait at 28

Self Portrait at 28, Albrecht Durer, 1500.

Self Portrait at 28, iPhone, 2012.

(Daffodils by Hanna. Nails by Essie. New York City by New York City.)

Self Portrait at 28

               David Berman

I know it's a bad title
but I'm giving it to myself as a gift
on a day nearly canceled by sunlight
when the entire hill is approaching
the ideal of Virginia
brochured with goldenrod and loblolly
and I think "at least I have not woken up
with a bloody knife in my hand"
by then having absently wandered
one hundred yards from the house
while still seated in this chair
with my eyes closed.

It is a certain hill
the one I imagine when I hear the word "hill"
and if the apocalypse turns out
to be a world-wide nervous breakdown
if our five billion minds collapse at once
well I'd call that a surprise ending
and this hill would still be beautiful
a place I wouldn't mind dying
alone or with you.

I am trying to get at something
and I want to talk very plainly to you
so that we are both comforted by the honesty.
You see there is a window by my desk
I stare out when I am stuck
though the outdoors has rarely inspired me to write
and I don't know why I keep staring at it.

My childhood hasn't made good material either
mostly being a mulch of white minutes
with a few stand out moments,
popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer
a certain amount of pride at school
everytime they called it "our sun"
and playing football when the only play
was "go out long" are what stand out now.

If squeezed for more information
I can remember old clock radios
with flipping metal numbers
and an entree called Surf and Turf.

As a way of getting in touch with my origins
every night I set the alarm clock
for the time I was born so that waking up
becomes a historical reenactment and the first thing I do
is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it like
when you're riding a mechanical bull and you strain to learn
the pattern quickly so you don't inadverantly resist it.

II two

I can't remember being born
and no one else can remember it either
even the doctor who I met years later
at a cocktail party.
It's one of the little disappointments
that makes you think about getting away
going to Holly Springs or Coral Gables
and taking a room on the square
with a landlady whose hands are scored
by disinfectant, telling the people you meet
that you are from Alaska, and listen
to what they have to say about Alaska
until you have learned much more about Alaska
than you ever will about Holly Springs or Coral Gables.

Sometimes I am buying a newspaper
in a strange city and think
"I am about to learn what it's like to live here."
Oftentimes there is a news item
about the complaints of homeowners
who live beside the airport
and I realize that I read an article
on this subject nearly once a year
and always receive the same image.


I am in bed late at night
in my house near the airport
listening to the jets fly overhead
a strange wife sleeping beside me.
In my mind, the bedroom is an amalgamation
of various cold medicine commercial sets
(there is always a box of tissue on the nightstand).

I know these recurring news articles are clues,
flaws in the design though I haven't figured out
how to string them together yet,
but I've begun to notice that the same people
are dying over and over again,
for instance Minnie Pearl
who died this year
for the fourth time in four years.

III three

Today is the first day of Lent
and once again I'm not really sure what it is.
How many more years will I let pass
before I take the trouble to ask someone?


It reminds of this morning
when you were getting ready for work.
I was sitting by the space heater
numbly watching you dress
and when you asked why I never wear a robe
I had so many good reasons
I didn't know where to begin.


If you were cool in high school
you didn't ask too many questions.
You could tell who'd been to last night's
big metal concert by the new t-shirts in the hallway.
You didn't have to ask
and that's what cool was:
the ability to deduct
to know without asking.
And the pressure to simulate coolness
means not asking when you don't know,
which is why kids grow ever more stupid.


A yearbook's endpages, filled with promises
to stay in touch, stand as proof of the uselessness
of a teenager's promise. Not like I'm dying
for a letter from the class stoner
ten years on but...

Do you remember the way the girls
would call out "love you!"
conveniently leaving out the "I"
as if they didn't want to commit
to their own declarations.

I agree that the "I" is a pretty heavy concept
and hope you won't get uncomfortable
if I should go into some deeper stuff here.

IV four

There are things I've given up on
like recording funny answering machine messages.
It's part of growing older
and the human race as a group
has matured along the same lines.
It seems our comedy dates the quickest.
If you laugh out loud at Shakespeare's jokes
I hope you won't be insulted
if I say you're trying too hard.
Even sketches from the original Saturday Night Live
seem slow-witted and obvious now.

It's just that our advances are irrepressible.
Nowadays little kids can't even set up lemonade stands.
It makes people too self-conscious about the past,
though try explaining that to a kid.

I'm not saying it should be this way.

All this new technology
will eventually give us new feelings
that will never completely displace the old ones
leaving everyone feeling quite nervous
and split in two.

We will travel to Mars
even as folks on Earth
are still ripping open potato chip
bags with their teeth.

Why? I don't have the time or intelligence
to make all the connections
like my friend Gordon
(this is a true story)
who grew up in Braintree Massachusetts
and had never pictured a brain snagged in a tree
until I brought it up.
He'd never broken the name down to its parts.
By then it was too late.
He had moved to Coral Gables.

V five

The hill out my window is still looking beautiful
suffused in a kind of gold national park light
and it seems to say,
I'm sorry the world could not possibly
use another poem about Orpheus
but I'm available if you're not working
on a self-portrait or anything.

I'm watching my dog have nightmares,
twitching and whining on the office floor
and I try to imagine what beast
has cornered him in the meadow
where his dreams are set.

I'm just letting the day be what it is:
a place for a large number of things
to gather and interact --
not even a place but an occasion
a reality for real things.

Friends warned me not to get too psychedelic
or religious with this piece:
"They won't accept it if it's too psychedelic
or religious," but these are valid topics
and I'm the one with the dog twitching on the floor
possibly dreaming of me
that part of me that would beat a dog
for no good reason
no reason that a dog could see.

I am trying to get at something so simple
that I have to talk plainly
so the words don't disfigure it
and if it turns out that what I say is untrue
then at least let it be harmless
like a leaky boat in the reeds
that is bothering no one.

VI six

I can't trust the accuracy of my own memories,
many of them having blended with sentimental
telephone and margarine commercials
plainly ruined by Madison Avenue
though no one seems to call the advertising world
"Madison Avenue" anymore. Have they moved?
Let's get an update on this.

But first I have some business to take care of.

I walked out to the hill behind our house
which looks positively Alaskan today
and it would be easier to explain this
if I had a picture to show you
but I was with our young dog
and he was running through the tall grass
like running through the tall grass
is all of life together
until a bird calls or he finds a beer can
and that thing fills all the space in his head.

You see,
his mind can only hold one thought at a time
and when he finally hears me call his name
he looks up and cocks his head
and for a single moment
my voice is everything:

Self-portrait at 28.

a terrible machine

There was this day a few weeks ago where I had a salted caramel hot chocolate with a housemade marshmallow and a pretzel croissant for lunch.

It was a little much, is the point.

I'm curious about my decisions, of late. I spend a lot of time saying, "I don't know." It is one of my new favourite phrases, right next to "I'm fine."

I wonder how my relationships would change if I took the time to answer each question truly, thoughtfully, with purpose, with clarity of mind. It's not a realistic way to live, I know. But then suddenly I'm standing on a corner in SoHo with a paper cup of green tea and finding myself in the middle of a conversation I should never have been having, it is so at odds with what I know - I do know - I think I know - somewhere, maybe I know - to be true.

Does this make sense to anyone else?

I'm making a list of all the things I want for spring. New clothes, you know. Neutral wedges and bright denim. This won't happen, because I can't afford these things, but I wonder if I were to make a list of other things I want for spring: a truthful understanding of what I need from a partner. An accurate portrait of my career aspirations.

Also, one of those face robots that make your skin glow. And maybe a juicer?

It's just spring, I guess, and what this spring, in particular, means for me - maybe my last season in New York. I'm paying extra attention to the crocuses thumbing their way out of the late winter soil. I'm uncovering the pith of my being, letting the March sun, the weak, near-manufactured New York sun, warm it up. Soon I'll purge my winter clothes and unfold my summer dresses, all while knowing I might have to pack it all up soon, my life here, and with it, my fragile, exhausted heart.


 

random act(s) of bravery

- ordering the bigger pudding
- not backing down
- a series of increasingly uncomfortable conversations peppered with the phrases "financially feasible," "repackage the job description," "term limits," and "career objectives"
- holding my shit (mostly) together as a virus devoured my hard drive
- wearing my trench coat with abandon
- "getting back out there"
- so i wasn't wearing matching underwear. so what?
- i baked a loaf of bread!
- purchased very blue pants
- DID MY MOTHERFUCKING TAXES. (almost)

some things i have learned about internet dating

At some point, you will become overwhelmed. You will look at the torrent of messages to which you haven't responded and feel wracked with guilt. You will go on three dates in one weekend and no longer be able to recall which guy it was who showed you how to play Temple Jumper on his iPhone, and which guy has the very overbearing Jewish mother as opposed to the only slightly overbearing Jewish mother. You will realize you can't engage with anyone on a meaningful level like this. So you will come home, disable your account, and breathe a sigh of relief.

You will bask in this calm for about 24 hours.

And then you will panic because of course nothing will ever work out, because nothing ever does, and what were you thinking, just blithely going forward as though you don't need all of these options, as though any of these momentary flings will be anything more than what they are - fleeting, doomed. You will realize, as you reactivate your account and dash off responses to the last three guys who messaged you, that all of this smacks suspiciously of bitterness, but you live in New York City now. This is how we do.

baby goose

It's weird, being so totally enamoured of something that isn't yours. How is it that no one has adopted this goose yet?

Seriously - if you live in the New York area, and you want a total badass of a kitten who will also monopolize any available real estate on your lap, I give you Baby Goose. Some crazy, cruel person gave up on this sugar. He deserves better.

boundaries

Ask a Grown Man With Paul Rudd from Rookie on Vimeo.

There's this weird thing with Paul Rudd where I want him both to be my dad and my hot, dirty boyfriend. That makes sense, right?

jumps

Today - or what has now become yesterday - was a leap day.

Everyone kept pointing out that this was an extra day. I hadn't thought of it like that before. When I did, I felt rather pressured to do something monumental with that extra time. Because I am, after all, very old. I don't have many extra days left in my extra day pocket.

My coworkers grumbled that it meant we weren't getting paid.

Some people made art.

For an extra day, I would recommend:
-Early morning yoga
-A bran muffin
-Checking something, just one thing, off your task list for the week, even if that thing is just "make awesome dinner reservations"
-A glass of wine and stories of WWII (perspective!)
-A burrito
-A very funny movie. An appropriate one, at that. It's all about seizing the day.

Lately I've been thinking how I need to work from a deeper place. I need to operate in survival mode at all times. After all, isn't every day a leap day, really? (No, not really. That was a stretch. But when trying to get. shit. done., every little bit helps.)