random act of bravery

Oh, right. 

I swear I've done something brave lately. We had a work event that was filled to the brim with famous poets and I didn't make up words or spill things down my cleavage or call any of them by the wrong name. New York has been good for me that way. Captain Kirk was at this Halloween Party with terrifically over-priced drinks and I almost got away with seeming like I didn't care. Heather Graham walked by and I barely blinked. 

(As a side note, I wonder if anyone has ever studied at what point the average person stops caring about famous people in New York. Six months, maybe? I could make money on this.) 

Okay, how about this: I am on a one-month hiatus from dating. From any sexual interaction of any kind. You might not think this is brave. BUT IT IS. I will tell you why. 

No, I don't know why. But I do know that it is against my nature, and that it feels good. Really good. In a way that my old therapist would tell me is actually unhealthy, because I am giving in to my controlling tendencies and creating a false sense of security and power in a world in which I actually have none (I am such a good therapy patient, guys), but I'm sticking with it, because this is the first time in a year I have been able to recognize that if I ignore the gaping hole where my heart used to be and which is now host to this sort of ugly void or hastily patched with guy-o'-the-moment who inevitably hurts and/or disappoints me in some way, a hurt that I then inflate to proportions far beyond what is warranted, I am actually sublimely happy. I finished graduate school. I moved to a new, wild city. I have friends of a greatness I cannot possibly deserve. I have a family that sends me a full case of wine when I am stressed at work (good wine, wine that is now fueling this post). I have WORK. Real work, a job, a salary, healthcare, in an economy where that is a rarity. And it is a job I truly enjoy, which is a rarity in any economy. I just ate greek yogurt with honey and I'm about to make some tea and settle down to work on my novel. I have the luxury to pursue my art. I have a blue bike in my room. I have the second disk of the 4th season of The Wire in my DVD drive. I have two adorable new cats who sleep with me at night and don't even laugh at me when I have to wear my mouthguard. Good god, I have a mouthguard! A PLASTIC MOLD OF MY MOUTH MY DENTIST MADE ME TO HELP MY HEADACHES! THIS IS AN IMMENSE GIFT! WHY AM I LETTING MY LONELINESS DEFLATE ME? 

So, there. And proof positive that this is working: A poet/law student who looked like a skinnier Penn Badgley asked for my number last week, and I gave it to him, and for the first time in a long time I hoped he wouldn't call, because it would save me having to explain why I couldn't meet him for a drink at random Williamsburg bar X. And he hasn't (which, let me just say, is a whole other thing, because why ask for a number if you don't plan to call?), and I really, really don't mind one bit. 

R train, Prospect to Atlantic

I think all of New York can be summed up in that moment when you're on the subway, travelling alone, and you're keeping your eyes on something that gives purpose, and the drunk across the aisle is calling you "beautiful" amidst the story of how he lost his house, and it has been so long that it actually means something, and then another train is suddenly beside you, moving at the same speed, going the same place or someplace different, it couldn't matter less, and you watch the people suspended in their car, in slow-moving windows that glow through the darkness, and your eyes meet those of someone across that insurmountable gap, close enough to tell their colour and to know if their day has been long or if they've been hurt of if they've just found joy, close enough to know them, and then they are gone, their train having slowed while yours sped up, and you will never see them again.

(I looked for a photo to accompany this, but every single photo I've taken in New York is of the beach or of a park. Which might say something, I guess.)

(Let's all move to a big farmhouse in Vermont.)

in all the old familiar places

One of the things I love most about living where I do -

Some mornings, when I wake up early (as I have been lately, to make a cup of tea and sit and write), it is quiet enough outside that the music Tom's Restaurant pipes gently onto the street floats into my open window. I like living by Tom's for the smell of bacon and oats and, my favourite, the Danish pancakes (with lemon, ricotta, and blueberries), that seeps through our walls and into our apartment every morning, but the best part is that they play old standards, mostly, and yesterday it was "I'll Be Seeing You," strange and outdated and totally misplaced in this Brooklyn neighbourhood. And it was perfect.

lately

Ginger lemon cookies and these cats and snow in October are all high on the list of things making me happy right now. These cats these cats these cats. It is such a simple thing. When I lie down they fight for space on my chest. Just a warm, simple thing.

I'm looking for someone to teach me how to play the guitar. I already have one. It's in the corner of my room. Once I could pick out "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" very, very slowly, but even that has been lost. I will provide baked goods in exchange. Or you could come over and I could let you lie down and the cats could stretch out over your chest, too.

I'm learning a little about control lately. About taking back control.

I've been thinking about something I read, about Donald Crowhurst.  I think it might all be related, somehow - autonomy, control, loneliness, the small worlds we construct, the stories we build so carefully that we start believing them to be true. Let's all get better together.

Texas

Today I was struck by the unseasonable and irrational desire to get in a car and drive through Texas. The long way.

I've been listening to a lot of Youth Lagoon. 

The only time I've been to Texas: I slept on a couch in Austin belonging to a drummer I had met at a hostel in Louisiana. He took me to hear music. I felt less like myself than I ever had before. I snuck out of his house in the morning. I almost lost his roommate's cat. I got my first and only oil change of the 25,000+ mile trip. I drove thirteen hours to Silver City, New Mexico, stopping in El Paso to get a look at the border and eat some tex-mex. And there were cats. 

It's a really good thing I haven't owned a car at any point over the last few years. The number of times I have wanted to get up and go. I'd be halfway there by now, the ink-night coating my windshield, the windows rolled down just enough to keep me awake. 

at the beach

"I'm changing I'm changing I'm changing: I've changed! Redemption, transformation - God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn't everyone?"

My happiest moments in New York are those where I feel true ownership of this city. Or maybe that's saying it wrong: it's when I feel true ownership of my presence here, my decision to come, to stay.

I sat on the stoop this afternoon to finish Goon Squad, and the late-fall sun was hitting the crests of the brownstones across the street, and the trees are starting to turn, and the city smelled, for the first time, not like garbage or sweat or just sheer human presence, but really, truly, like fall, thick and crisp, like change. A woman walked down the sidewalk with her daughter and called her "angel eyes" as the toddler pulled leaves out of her tiny pink shoes. And people were coming home from their Sunday errands with bags of toilet paper, and couples rode by slowly on their bikes, and no one was yelling. The sky was moving like it was made to, the clouds like someone was gently pulling them on a string. I sat on the stoop until the beds of my nails were purple with cold, and if you won't judge me I'll tell you that I had to swallow hard to stop from crying, suddenly seized by such intense cherishing for my small piece of this huge city, so terrified by the realization that the trees were changing and I almost missed it.

Maybe this is all anyone here is searching for - these moments when it feels like every decision that brought us here was intentional, purposeful, meant to get us to exactly where we are.

dressing down

Bought this stunner at the Flea this weekend: heavy gold brocade, complete with crinoline (!!) and a tag that reads "Cotillion Designs." Since I never got a cotillion, I plan to wear this to all sorts of wildly inappropriate events, like Board meetings and perhaps my dear friends' engagement party in a few weeks time.

how i feel today

Northern Pike

All right. Try this,

Then. Every body

I know and care for,

And every body

Else is going

To die in a loneliness

I can't imagine and a pain

I don't know. We had

To go on living. We

Untangled the net, we slit

The body of this fish

Open from the hinge of the tail

To a place beneath the chin

I wish I could sing of.

I would just as soon we let

The living go on living.

An old poet whom we believe in

Said the same thing, and so

We paused among the dark cattails and prayed

For the muskrats,

For the ripples below their tails,

For the little movements that we knew the crawdads were making

under water,

For the right-hand wrist of my cousin who is a policeman.

We prayed for the game warden's blindness.

We prayed for the road home.

We ate the fish.

There must be something very beautiful in my body,

I am so happy.

                                                                                                James Wright

Canadian Thanksgiving: an iPhone retrospective

Made: 

Kale salad with walnuts and cranberries in a lemon vinagarette

Roasted butternut squash crusted with breadcrumbs, thyme, and garlic

Apple pie in a cheddar crust 

Consumed: 

Grilled portabellos (pork for the meaties) 

Roasted vegetable soup

Homemade bread, rye and white

More apple pie, with ginger, vanilla ice cream, a sauce that approximated caramel  

Everything doused in balsamic glaze, everyone doused in wine. 

It was a different city. There were no hand turkeys. Many people were missing from the table. But I am so, so thankful for the people in my life who have made room for me these past few years. It might not seem like a lot to ask people to share your holiday by eating a boatload of delicious food, but I am still staggered by the generosity and love.