The Big Ride, Part 2

Once you get outside with the bike, there is a decision to be made: Right or left. I usually go right, which is the opposite direction from my destination, but has its advantages.

Unlike other people, who seem to accept riding in traffic as a necessary danger, or a welcome thrill, I avoid it at all costs -- sometimes even doing the Bad Thing and riding on the sidewalk. The choice comes down to a quick equation involving how many other objects you are likely to encounter. Under the bridge there is a bike lane, but there are also cars backing out into the lane without looking (on the right of it), cars whizzing by (on the left of it), and double-parked cars and even schoolbuses (on top of it). I'd prefer not to get a rear-view mirror stuck in my ribs, so up on the curb we go. Unless a corporate softball game has just ended and there's a small mob coming back from East River Park to party at Boss Tweed's, you're unlikely to encounter more than one or two people.

There are times I've continued straight on Delancey and pedaled up and over the bridge that spans the FDR Drive. I don't like it, though. The bridge has a steep incline and then a few hairpin turns on the descent. The first day I started riding again after 25 years, embarking on this bridge was goofy indeed. I was still piddle-paddling with my feet along the pavement every so often, trying not to fall over. Once I hit that first angle on the bridge, it was hard to keep upright and keep my dignity.

So instead of hitting the bridge, I cut right onto Lewis. There is a bike lane here, but far less activity -- it's a side street. And after a few beats, I make the momentous (for me) left turn onto Grand, and then cut behind onto Henry.

This part of the neighborhood is unfamiliar to me. It's behind the supermarket, so I never need to go there. It's nice and quiet. I can hop the sidewalk without encountering anyone. And within the space of a few pedals, I'm at Corlears Hook Park, with its long, virtually empty mall and slow ascent to a run-down ampitheater. Heaven.

The Big Ride, Part I

On Saturday afternoon I was feeling a bit restless. The house was kind of a mess, but it was nice out! The perfect day for a ride. But there was just one problem: traffic on the bike paths. I've only been out a handful of times and don't feel ready for the weekend warriors. From the kitchen we can see a serious uptick of riders on the Williamsburg Bridge once Saturday rolls around. Would the East River path be the biking equivalent of the Cross Bronx Expressway on a Friday afternoon?

As I was mulling this over John and I drove down the east side to drop stuff off at the storage space, and we didn't really see that much bike traffic on the path! So John encouraged me to go, as he was heading off to Brooklyn for a few hours anyway. So I suited up in my Saturday best: leggings and t-shirt and track jacket and windbreaker and sneaky sneaks and, of course, helmet. The helmet, as well as the bike, belong to John. He also has leather riding gloves, but they're too big so I don't bother with them. In my backpack I put house keys and water bottle and wallet.

When I get the bike out it's a bit of a procedure, as I have to roll it around the boxes of books on the floor awating rearranging and then across the apartment and into the vestibule, and then press the elevator button and wait for the elevator which is an extra-long wait on Saturdays because of the Sabbath, and once the elevator comes it is sagaciously slow, and once the digital numbers count from 12 to B and the car touches down I roll the bike through the gray-painted cinder block hallways and out the door into the sunlight. And we're off.

A Note on Hegel, and women and men, courtesy of Rebecca West

From BIRDS FALL DOWN, in which the 18-year-old female protagonist is being lectured on the dialectic:

“The dialectic,” echoed Laura. It was one of those words to which she never troubled to attach a precise meaning. Teleology, oolitic, proportional representation, symbiotic; what they stood for was part of the world, and might once have been bright like the world, but the dust which falls wherever there are males had buried them in its dingy drifts.

Oh, SNAP.

East River Park Bike Ride

Looking north


Looking south


Looking up

Pins and Needles

Once a week I lie on the acupuncture table with some combination of needles sticking out from my body parts.

Today:

one needle in each ear
one in the crease between each big toe and second toe
one in the soft concave spot under the knob of each ankle.

Lucy the acupuncturist is very small and slight, like a needle. After getting me all set up, she turns on 2 gooseneck heat lamps and positions one over my torso, the other one over my legs, and sets the timer. Then she turns on bland Chinese music and slips out.

Three seconds later the florescent lights go out. I cook for thirty minutes or so until the timer dings.

This is supposed to be a time of meditation and relaxation, but often I feel profoundly anxious. As your body lets go of tension, it sometimes feels as if you are in an elevator that has just gone into a 5-floor freefall. I grip the sides of the table, then ungrip. Grip, ungrip. I study the black squiggles on the ceiling tiles.

Once Lucy put a needle in the underside of my wrist and advised me not to move my hand. That was hard. Sometimes I get needles in my belly, and after the needles plus heat lamp, my belly looks pink as a piglet.

Last week I didn't feel anxious at all, but I had spent time the few days before upset and yelling. (Lucy softly tells me that I have a lot of stress "inside.")

Score one for emoting.

The Big Drop

It's a good thing I have my husband, family, and friends, as well as (perhaps to a lesser extent) my wits. So much else seems to have slipped away.

Earlier this year: Medical issues (all better), the loss of our beloved Dave, and finally in June, laid off. Wow.

My employer gave us 24 hours to leave the premises. After that: exhilarated, confused, elated, free. (And freelance.)

Today, 3 months later, is the first day I felt bored and anxious.

After a brutally hot summer: It's finally 72 degrees, breezy, and clear, and I'm freaking?

It's time to start sizzlin'.


(ABOVE: Confetti courtesy of Sir Paul McCartney. NOT PICTURED: Magical Mystery Tour piano, McCartney's Hofner bass, well-timed fireballs)

Vow

Dear John,

Holy smoke! We are getting married. I can’t believe it. This is just crazy.

Let me begin by saying that I always kind of liked you. It was a very innocent kind of “like.” I remember one Beefstock – I think it was the flooded one -- Jill and I commented to each other how nice it would be to find a guy like John Sharples. Perhaps it was because of all of your fancy guitar moves, or your jumping all over the stage and banging on the keyboard singing “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.” You took a real bite out of that song, and I giggle with delight now, just remembering it. I think it was simply because you were a cool and intelligent person to talk to. Sorry I can’t be more specific, honey. Sometimes it’s very difficult to remember conversations from Beefstock!

Well, needless to say, the more I got to know you, the more I liked you. That night we went to Galapagos together, we were gossiping about Paul McCartney and his new record. And here we are, still geeking out over McCartney. As evidenced in your many friendships, this discussion could go on for decades. I think this is a good omen for us.

And even though that shared Beatle passion might sound trivial, we soon found out that we not only liked the same stuff, we liked to do the same stuff, pretty much all the time. And whatever was happening at any given moment, we pretty much saw it the same way. Hang out at Freddy’s till 2? Cool. Drive miles for the perfect shish kebab? Awesome. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? Hilarious. Jazz standards? Yum. Take me on a date where I have absolutely no idea where we’re going? Yippee!

And of course, as we shared so much time together doing all of this barflying and jazz listening and shish-kebabing, it became ridiculously clear that our deeper ideals were totally in sync. I have a lot of respect for you, John.

I am not only impressed by the depth of your music geekery – even though that level of knowledge is, indeed, awe-inspiring. I am not only impressed by your musical aptitude, in which you can play pretty much any instrument you pick up with a very uncanny intuition for how a part “should go,” even with very little direction – or vague direction – such as “like Badfinger on acid!”

I’m most impressed that in life, you have a history of going for it. You believe in what you do, and push it to the hilt, and if it no longer works, you don’t get stuck for long – you adapt and evolve.

You took your musical gift and you really went for it, living a musician’s life for so many years. I’m impressed that when it was time to move on, you earned your Columbia degree while also working full-time. And when that era came to an end, you challenged yourself yet again by going to law school in your 30s. And now I get such a kick out of seeing you lay down roots and thrive as a lawyer.

I respect you because you work hard to see the best in people. And you help me see the best in myself. You give me unequivocal boosts of confidence when my fervor lags; measured insight into recurring conundrums; and always, the best remedy ever: food and wine. Lots and lots of food and wine. Seriously, is it any wonder that I wag my tail when I see you? You feed me bacon!

And perhaps more important than the deep, complex, multilayered levels of respect I have for you. . . you make me laugh my butt off. Coffee shooting out of my nose at Zafi’s when you do your Ringo Starr impression. Fresca spraying out of my mouth when we play and rewind and play one scene of “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” a half dozen times and mimic our favorite parts. Falling out of our chairs laughing, just talking about something that happened that day.

And whether it’s one of our good days or our cranky days, you have never, ever bored me. I don’t think you ever will.

Without a doubt, each of us has been through so much in life. This is a polite way of saying that each of us has kind of been around the block. So be it. I would do it all over again, if it led me again to you.

I’m so happy we have the chance today to gather all of our loved ones in the same room, and have a big party, and get married.

I love you!

Erica

Goin' to the

You are all so lucky, so very very lucky, that I have spared you the wedding crap on this blog.

If you're desperate to hear all about the final countdown, I invite you to find me on Facebook (where video has clearly not only killed the radio star, but disemboweled it).

But what can I tell you. We're getting married on Saturday. This has been the grandest few weeks of my life, just feeling happy about everything. And last night the McCartney show was exhilarating. No eyerolls -- the man can bring it.

I keep thinking of what the next phase of life will bring. Surely it will bring some form of poverty after all the wedding bills are paid. I want to keep boxing and doing the horrendous kettlebells, but maybe add something new. Learn Spanish finally? Take a modern dance class? See more movies?

I sound like an idiot, but I'm tired.

The suggestion box is open. In the meantime, I finally got wind of Google Reader, which means it will be infinitely easier to keep up with all of you.

Taggin' Your Ass!

The previous feature led me to start tags for the blog. Now I've started to go back and tag everything. It's interesting to see how the themes have emerged. So far these are the categories:

99 Cent Dreams
Alien Octopus
Anxiety and Terror
Art
Books
Boxing
Cats
Concerning My Ass
Drunk Again
Eros
Family
Faves
Food
Grammar and Etymology
Grief and Suffering
Household
Interludes
Interspecies friendship
Love and Friendship (Human)
Movies
Music
Pampering
Public Service Announcements
Remembrance of Things Past
Style quest
Tautologies
Wedding Saga
Work
Yoga

New Feature: Interspecies Friendship

Witness the love.

Cat Adopts Rabbit!



Rat Loves Cat!




And, perhaps oddest of all, Kitten and Crow!

I'll Take You There

Staple Singers, Grammys, 1973!

Two Kinds of Sick (But Very Well Overall)

Lately I keep waking up at 4am. This happens a lot in December, now that I think about it. Usually I'm just garden-variety anxious and/or looped into some kind of solstice-related biorhythm. Tonight (this morning) I am anxious with the added bonus of feeling sick and gross, one sickness self-inflicted, one not.

About the former: Please remind me never, ever to drink before dinner. This is very bad. How did I get to be this old and not learn this lesson? ¡J! and I had toodled up to Queens for a tour of a swankaroo restaurant (in which we could get married -- warning -- more bridey-bride blog posts to come!) and we had to wait a few minutes at the bar. What the heck, bartender! I'll drink what he's drinking! A Manhattan? On a stomach full of lettuce and popcorn? No problem!

The sweet, delightful wedding expert for the restaurant gave us a tour of the appropriate rooms -- the bridal suite, the ceremony room, the cocktail hour nook, the walls that could be folded away to make a big-ass room bigger-ass. With a breathtaking view of Manhattan, this place seriously kills. But as the whiskey seeped its way into my system I started to get overly fascinated by the carpeting, the mirrors, the bunny hutch-ness of the bridal chamber, the copious artwork in Impressionist colors. (They are renovating the place for spring and it's going to be much more clean and modern. Less like Laura Ashley and more like Mitchell Gold. Whew!) I got distracted by the stall size in the ladies' room and peppered our girl with important, relevant questions (Post-reno, will it be big enough for two -- one to hold the bride's dress while she pees?). Later, we moved the party downstairs and we went over a lot of details (menus, pricing), almost none of which I can recall, having become deeply enamored of the twinkly lights and the piano player's choices (did he switch to Cole Porter to help seal the deal?), so it's a good thing ¡J! is on top of everything and our girl had a very nice packet with everything all written down.

This is all a long way of saying I got drunk off my ass on this wedding tour. We went to a really nice dinner afterward and I was still kind of drunk off my ass (salad and steak, alas, not that absorbent). It was fun while it lasted -- the car ride to dinner was inexplicably hilarious -- but I woke up feeling totally nasty.

The second illness is merely the cold that has taken hold as a result of having compromised myself thus. The only interesting thing about the cold is that it has a lot of gusto. I had a big sneeze in bed and was whiplashed by its force, volume, and trajectory. Basically, imagine being pelted in the face with a boomerang slug. This happened twice, so I'm inclined to believe it's a bonus feature of this particular strain of virus.

Stay tuned for further adventures. For now: water crackers all eaten up. One more glass of water. Beddy-bye!

Happy Birthday Saro!

Today little Saro is ten years old. She is 56 in people years.

Here's my favorite pic of Saro. She was so small then. The piece in the upper left corner was the bottom of a guitar stand!



Here is Saro as many of us usually know her.



And we would be remiss without linking to the Saro Multimedia Site. The audio is especially fun!

Hugs to Annie and Dave for bringing her into my life, and to all of you who show kindness and care to the Saro.

I love you, Saro! Happy birthday!

Spirit and Flesh

The saying goes, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I find this baffling, for over the course of a lifetime, I have personally found my flesh to be more than willing.

If you consider it, willing can connote determination, stubbornness and focus. Because you will something to happen, will it happen?

My spirit continues to will my flesh into becoming less and less flesh. By now the process has carried over years and years. It's become a kind of hazy mandate, an outdated law that still lingers on the books. By now its obscene prejudices have simply been absorbed into the rhythm of my daily life. The thought of putting on weight sends me into a preemptive panic. I eat a lot of leaves and apples.

Not that I feel completely deprived -- waiter, more wine please -- but it is kind of sad, because I always have felt that voluptuousness of flesh connotes a certain generosity of spirit.

Let's hug.

"For me, the greater the euds, the greater the che-launge"

I am not a fan of video tribute medleys. This is the exception.

Peter Sellers on Being Himself

"Sellers appeared on The Muppet Show television series in 1977. He chose not to appear as himself, instead appearing in a variety of costumes and accents. When Kermit the Frog told Sellers he could relax and be 'himself,' Sellers (while wearing a Viking helmet, a girdle and one boxing glove, claiming to have attempted to dress as Queen Victoria), replied, 'There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.'"

Clip here.

Strikes Again!

I have no words lately. Nothing out of the ordinary; just quiet.

However, I did laugh my arse off the other night watching this:



I have my vague memories of my parents laughing hysterically and repeating Clouseauisms back in the 70s. It's warming to feel part of the circle of life.

In this next scene, Clouseau tries on his Quasimodo disguise, which arrived ready-made in a box sporting a specific warning not to over-inflate the hump.

"The bell! The bell!"

Pow, pow.

It was John's last day in class; we took a bunch of photos.

I'm looking at them with mostly pride, but also with a tinge of embarrassment (see my hooks sail through the air) and annoyance (have to keep those hands up).

I've been sparring with these folks for several years now and just love knowing them, learning who they are through their punches.

We'll miss ya, John!

Step On Ya, Walk On Ya, Step On Ya, Walk On Ya

This phrase keeps popping into my head (and whoops, sometimes out of my mouth) at work. Its origin is one of my favorite cartoons from childhood, "The Cat That Hated People."

Appended for your amusement. It gets pretty trippy.

Today's quote

Me: "Well, I guess there's a yin for every yang."
Dan: "Well, some have more yang than others . . . "