Sunday scrawl

Some of you think I'm dippy for writing the previous post. Well, screw you. I know what I know.

Last night !J¡ and I escorted my nephew out for a funtastic birthday dinner on Long Island and afterward had a short, cozy visit with the family. As I was packing up to leave my (step)mom told me she had found my mom's humongous jewelry box. For various reasons, I thought this jewelry box had been lost, and I was elated to whisk it home and rummage through it again after all these years. Inside: a black jet bead bracelet; an Art Deco watch inscribed with my grandmother's initials; a NYC subway token from the 50s or 60s; a set of matching parakeet earrings and pin; a necklace of big fat orange beads; and more. Yum.

This has been the perfect afternoon to sit with a cup of tea at my desk and and notice the light changing. Gorgeous shades of gray and cornflower blue today.

Eeep! I've been tagged!

The scoop is, I post 6 odd things about myself, and then "tag" 6 others to do the same, sending them the link to this page.

Six odd things about me:

1. I floss after I brush, not before. (Then I rinse again.)

2. I almost always write songs with the radio on. Otherwise it feels too spooky.

3. I almost always leave a little food on the plate, as if to convince myself that I didn't really eat the whole thing.

4. When I was little I made up my own daytime talk show. It had a theme song. Perhaps this is the first song I ever wrote. In addition to reporting the news and weather, I enacted recurring dramatic segments such as Batgirl Story. I often interviewed my parents; they embodied a rotating cast of characters, such as a friendly neighborhood dragon, King Kong, Barbara Walters, and a daffy mermaid who sold used cars. I recorded all of this onto cassette tapes and still have them.

5. Last week I dreamed I was visted by a sweet, amazing dog. In my dream I knew that the dog was my grandmother. Now, a week later, I believe it really was my grandmother.

Holy Crap, It's 2007

Happy New Year. I've been sick and as of 4pm I've watched about twelve episodes of "Law and Order" back to back. I took the whole week off from work.

Random highlights of days off:

1. Painting the bathroom bright white while listening to Neko Case and Sam Phillips and singing along while pirouetting on the ladder on one foot, reaching with spongebrush to dab paint in ceiling corners.

2. Icing said foot afterward.

3. Curling up with Chinese food (steamed) and watching "Ugly Betty" marathon (but only after complaining on phone to buddies about how it was being pre-empted by Ford's funeral. "Casket, go home! We want Betty!").

4. The smell of smoke in the studio. It was just the motor on the tape machine blowing out, but still.

5. Bruce's 11th-hour determination to try loading the (intact) tape onto other machines and transferring the mix so that I could still make good on my promise to bring a song home on CD for the holidays. The other machines didn't work, but Bruce's persistence was touching.

6. Getting my first "Blowout." I had read about a place in Chinatown that gives you fantastic hair pizzazz for $15. It was fantastic and pizzazztical, and right on time for a crazy-badass haute foode lunch at Perry St.

7. My 4-year-old niece doing her impression of the Cookie Monster: "ME WANT COOOKIE! COOOKIE!!"

I'm not one for resolutions, but I do vow to strengthen my resolve, doing more of the good things and less of the bad things. You?

Hope to see you soon.

All my boxes finally were packed and sealed for the office move. We had been packing for two days. My coworkers were quietly sifting through their own papers, drifting around socializing, or drifting out of the office. Russian moving men were hauling stuff away on handtrucks.

I beat it outta there. It was 11:41 am.

I went as far away from Soho as the train could reasonably carry me in thirty minutes. Midtown! MOMA!

MOMA! Where I'd never been before.

MOMA! Steel and glass and hardwood floors.

MOMA! Where the Pollock's as high as an elephant's eye.

I spent a lot of time on those Pollocks, esp. full Fathom Five, in which you can see the form of a cigarette and a paint tube cap sloshed in with the rest of the caked-on color. I like that. The artist and his crap.

Museums are so dizzying -- not to mention the art therein, in this case -- I had to take pee breaks often, just to unwind. The arch of my right foot is aching something fierce too these days, and the wood floors are killer.

There seem to be a lot of German tourists afoot for some reason.

If this were a romantic comedy, a dashing man would have approached me as I gazed at the Walker Evans subway candids. He would have commented on how vivid the unwitting subjects look. I would have explained how, upon seeing the larger Evans retrospective at the Met a few years ago, I saw a candid of a man I swore was my grandfather. It made sense: New York in the thirties and forties-- a very familar-looking Anglo-aristocratic guy in a fedora and topcoat -- square jaw -- light eyes -- baby on his lap. I couldn't positively I.D. either the man or the baby, though. The man's head is turned.

The portrait burned in my brain. I found it in the Evans book that accompanied the show. I called up my dad and asked him to scout for the book and find the photo. He and my mom did so over a latté at their local Barnes and Noble on Long Island.

"I'm sorry to report, I don't think it's him," my dad said. "That wasn't grandpa's nose."

And that would have been the end of the story I would have told to the dashing man who did not exist and did not approach me.

As if MOMA weren't exhausting enough -- with or without these imaginary dramas -- I headed next to Bendel's for some serious froufrou.

Bendel's! With a whole wing devoted to candles.

Bendel's! Pashmina my heart.

Bendel's! With lace thongs wrapped up tight like little bullets and stored in a jar.

I wanted some makeup but wasn't sure what. Finally I supplicated myself to the girl at the Benefit counter. She was so young and skinny her bra stood up of its own will.

"We'll do the smoky eye on you," she said gravely.

I left with smoky eyes and shiny candy apple lips. Bought 2 products. One is a yellow stick that knocks out an excess of rosiness in your complexion -- effective for when you paint your lips red and want to tone down your face in contrast. Fooling around with it today, I discovered it makes a very good under-eye concealer as well.

The second product is more controversial. It's luminescence. The dewey look. Huey, dewey, gooey. I still can't tell whether I glow, or I look clammy and schvitzy as if from food poisoning.

As soon as I hit the street I blotted out my lips. It was warm out, which felt comforting.

It wasn't even five o' clock yet. I'd ordinarily be at work for another hour or two!

Crossing in front of the Plaza, I looked up at Central Park East. The boughs of the trees were touched with yellow. Yellow cabs were passing by. The sun was low and gold in the sky.

After Thanksgiving dinner, a bunch of kids and grownups retreated downstairs to the rumpus room. By the time I got downstairs my brother and nephews were locked in a single wrestle knot rolling across the floor, with my sister-in-law and niece looking on. Occasionally a child would break free from the wrestle knot, grab a Lego-fashioned sword or other blunt piece of plastic, and beat on the other wrestlers. The sound was of giggling grunting, with an occasional, muffled "I'm gonna get you."

This went on for a while until the knot became intractible. I could see the back of my nephew's head and his ears were bright red. My brother threatened he was gonna upchuck, or fart. More gasping and giggling.

Suddenly, a flash of pink across the room: my niece busted out of her mom's lap, toddled like mad toward the sweaty ball, and flung herself on top, rosy dress fanning out in all directions.

Every day for my first eight months out of college, I rode to work on the Long Island Rail Road with my dad. We would settle in adjoining seats on the 7:12 and Dad would open up the NY Times. He went straight for the obituaries. And he would always turn to me and say the same thing: "Just making sure I'm not in there."

Now I've become an obituary hawk as well. It's been a sad spell: we've lost Roy Drusky and Skeeter Davis, among others. I just found out in other pages that over the weekend a guy jumped in the Time Warner building and hit ground in front of Williams-Sonoma. We had walked through the building Monday night; the atrium was cool, hushed, and clean.

We go through life trying to make our mark. Roxy made her mark literally yesterday, peeing in the corner of the living room. I was glad I stayed home and played with her (and cleaned the litterbox).

I usually think that music is my contribution to the great river of life. Yet it's funny to hang one's hat on songs that are usually squeezed out of abject sadness and terror, and then delivered with fear, trepidation, and -- if I'm lucky -- an slow, dawning feeling of triumph, to a largely indifferent city/country/universe.

Am I being morose? I beg your pardon.

I feel a few songs rumbling in my underground. I'm singing them softly to myself and trying not to think too much about it. They always stay in the deep unconscious until something clicks. Then they come tumbling forth like jokester acrobats; and as soon as I sketch their image they pinch my cheeks and and scurry off, laughing to themselves.

Mysteries Solved

I found out the mystery of the fish mosaic at Delancey: It's because the station is located below the fish market on Essex.

I found out the mystery of the photo of my great-uncle's father: He was in the Texas militia circa 1899.

However, the mystery of the origins of the alien octopus is still unsolved.

Alien octopus at large. News at 11.

Bonjour mes petits chous!

J.J. and I are finally back from the land of the café au lait-addled. We had a lovely time, and when I see you in person I will force you to marvel at the $5 gold stilettos and $8 cowgirl boots I plucked off of the abundant, flowering Quebecois vintage clothing trees. In the meantime, it has come to my attention that some of you find these bloggings disproportionately nasty compared to my usual sunny demeanor. Of course, y'all can just go jump in a lake if you like. But you're my friends, and I trust you to tell me when I'm being a pill. So I will now make an upbeat list of things I love, and you can add to it if you like.

I LOVE lavender ice cream on the rue St.-Denis. I LOVE having pedicures with a buddy. I LOVE cats and dogs and people who love cats and dogs. I LOVE claymation. I LOVE Homer. I LOVE walking down Central Park West at dusk. I LOVE nieces and nephews. I LOVE picking out fun underwear. I LOVE the smell of a wood-burning stove. I LOVE swimming in a backyard pool when it's hot but not too hot.

And on another bright note: My 'blended' family has been together for twenty-four years as of today. Pretty amazing.