capitalist mafia.

2012-01-24T14:48:00.001-06:00

Rothko Sandwich

Mondrian Sandwich

Hirst Sandwich

2012-01-18T08:45:00.003-06:00

I wrote the following to my Congresswoman today:

Dear Congresswoman Velazquez,
This is the first time I've ever written to a representative, but I must say something about the PIPA and SOPA acts, which threatens the open internet by creating a witch-hunt for potential downloaders. Congresswoman, one of the reasons for the last financial crash--and for our present economic situation--is that centralization of power thwarts competition. Once power has been given, it is never given up again. By giving more power to large corporations, and giving less power to the individual citizen, you are creating an environment where the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many.

Please vote against these bills.
My best,
Mary Jones

Get involved

2012-01-06T09:10:00.000-06:00

2012-01-03T10:07:00.000-06:00

2012-01-01T09:01:00.000-06:00

From my mom to me, my siblings and dad this morning:

http://www.dirtyelectricity.ca/index.htm

In Canada, MS and other neuro diseases are epidemic. This is an article on emf radiation's harmful effects and what to do,
PUT ON YOUR FOIL HELMETS !
MAY YOUR NEW YEAR BE GLOWINGLY RADIANT (not} and may we all REFLECT on our blessings --beneath our aluminum helmets.
I want a ghost hunter kit (emf detector) for my birthday. And lots of heavy duty FOIL.
LOVE YA ALL WITH SHOCKING INTENSITY,
Ms. Itoldyouso

2011-12-30T12:30:00.012-06:00

October: First Sequence

October was a month of networking events and work volatility, of celebrations of fall and friends. Let us join hands and explore this road together.
Mixing and mingling and people getting wasted

It started out with Digital DUMBO, a monthly open bar event in DUMBO where tech companies show off their latest swag and host an open bar. I went with my Euro pals Lissy and Steve McQueen. Afterwards we talked type faces at Grimaldi’s. This is what advertising people do: we network, then we talk about fonts and technology like we’re still in college, and people pay us for it. Astonishing.
Lissy and Steve taking pictures during our walk under the Brooklyn Bridge

At the event, Lissy convinced me to go check out the IBM Think exhibit at the Met. I agreed if she agreed to come with me to see Diane Wolkstein's storytelling session at the Scandinavia House beforehand. She agreed, and Brooke tagged along. Diane told some Hans Christian Anderson stories, and then joined us for a little while for brunch at the fantastic restaurant downstairs.
The restaurant of the Scandinavia House, complete with it's own tree

After some window shopping and hair wrapping, we finally found the Think exhibit, which was (naturally) a glorified commercial for IBM's latest technology.
It was a room with gigantic high def tough screens that showed movies of how computers were pushing innovation, then it allowed users to interact with the various features to learn more. As I was in the middle of working on an iPad application, I was actually pretty interested in the organization and interface of the touchscreens, so the promotional aspect didn't bother me.
Brooke and Lissy, just chilling you know girl

On October 5th, Lissy and I once again reunited for Ad Week’s Microsoft party, where she had gotten VIP tickets. Before hand, we ate at Rosa Mexicana, where we heard about Steve Job’s death. That put a bit of a pallor over the whole evening, because Lissy was a genuine Jobs devotee, and considered his death to be a true tragedy.
The very ornate wall of cliff divers at Rosa Mexicana

The Microsoft party was in Terminal 5, and everyone in attendance was quite obviously Very Important and believed themselves to be Very Important. Also young—so young. At 30 I was one of the old timer’s in the room. I thought it was a great tribute to Jobs that the photobooth Microsoft was running used Apple hardware. Microsoft didn’t skimp, and offered another open bar, which was mostly useless for me. TV on the Radio played a set, which I liked. I wasn’t crazy about their older stuff, but their newer stuff has a great vibe, and they put on an energetic show.
TV on the Radio, rocking out at Ad Week 2011

Thursday, the pharma company my agency works for wiped out their entire marketing department, and I found myself facing the possibility of being jobless at Thanksgiving. I can’t go into the details, but you can read about some of the drama on this message board.

I spent the next month floating around the office with nothing to do. I realized how much pride I took in my job, how much I felt I had accomplished something great by clawing my way to a well-paying advertising job in New York. Facing the possibility of losing that job, my accomplishments seemed very small and unsubstantial. Which, of course, they are in the grand scheme of things, but it was a surprising blow to my self-esteem. It’s one thing to have your life’s love leave you—it’s another thing to be left and lose your job in the same year. It makes you feel like everything is slipping away.

To console ourselves, our team went out for a final lunch together at Ruby Foo's. It was nice, though none of us were sure what to say
I went home that Friday. Saturday morning I met with my high school BFF Bonnie at Kathleen’s Art Café near her work. She’s just the sweetest, most wonderful person and we talked a lot about our successes and disappointments over the last few months. I came to her work for an hour and hung out by the embroidery thread while she introduced me to the Vampire Diary Photo Recaps.
Hanging out with the ladies at the embroidery store

Met with Dad, Julia, Jordan, and Zach at Mi Cocina for lunch, then saw the truly horrendous “Abduction” because my dad HAD TO SEE A MOVIE and that’s all there was. And believe me, I wish I hadn’t.
With my incredibly cool siblings at Mi Cocina

Went to church with my parents on the 9th and joined them, mistakenly, in their Family Relationships class, which is meant to strengthen marriages. The teacher was saying something about how men and women’s brains are different and so that’s why we need different things, but the guys in the class took that as free reign to point out why they shouldn’t pitch in with housework or talk to their wives about their feelings. So of course I had to jump in by pointing out that most of those biological changes can be changed with a few minutes of coaching (in some cases), and that we are much more malleable to nurture than we think we are. Afterwards mom said that I intimidated everyone. Sick of being told this I asked her to elaborate, and she said “I didn’t get it either until I heard you speak, and I noticed that people just get freaked out. You’re so confident that other people don’t know what to do.”
Julia, in town and in charge for my Dallas visit

Monday the 10th I went to IHOP with my family and bought some arrows so I could help Zach with his Eagle Scout certification. I could not even believe how much my archery skills have deteriorated since high school. If I ever get a real house, I am setting up a target in the back yard. This is ridiculous.

Before heading to the airport, I asked for a prescription for antidepressants, the first time I’ve asked since 2005. The job situation had taken me to a very black space, and I found it impossible to crawl out from under it, no matter how much I tried.

From Thurs October 13th-Monday 17th, Anna O. came into town with a whirl of energy. Friday she picked me up at work, and we went down to DUMBO to see Karen O’s digital/rock opera Stop the Virgens.
Somewhere between a rock concert, Japanese kabuki, performance art, and Germanic opera, Stop the Virgens was unlike anything I had really experienced before.
Karen O, doing it like she does it best

A semi-autobiographical story of growing up, Karen served as sort of a playwrite, with a Greek chorus of blonde wigged girls acting out moments from her childhood and her development as an artist in front of an ever-changing stage decorated with screens and digital projections.
I found the whole thing very powerful, and even teared up at the end when the little girls fell down, blood hemorrhaging from their mouths and chests.
You can read a review of the spectacle here.

Afterwards Anna and I wandered over to the Origin installation across the street.
Built as part of the Creator’s Project by United Visual Artists, the UVA crew used a series of pressure and infared signals to trigger digital music and light displays.

“A multi-disciplinary collective from the UK, UVA can best be described as “architects of light and sound,” creating colossal interactive installations and sets for live performance that have the power to attract and captivate audiences like moths to the proverbial flame….For our New York event in DUMBO this weekend, UVA will debut Origin, their latest large-scale responsive LED sculpture. At 10 metres wide and 10 metres high, it’s the largest responsive work they’ve created thus far. Taking inspiration from UVA’s previous monumental site-specific works like Monolith, Tryptich and Volume, they’ve created a giant cubic structure that is simple in form but still manages to create a powerful ‘otherworldly’, ‘alien’ or ‘god-like’ presence. Calling to mind images of Mecca and the Tower of Babel, the group hopes to capture the energy and diversity of NYC in the experience.”

I found the hum strangely enchanting, and Anna and I laid down in the middle of the sculpture and just listed to the pulses and hums for half an hour.

Saturday, I needed me some city detoxing, so Brooke, Anna, and my roommate Veronica all hopped on the Metro North to check out the Wilken’s Fruit Farm. Located near the Croton-Hamon stop, we took a taxi through some of the most peaceful and beautiful forests I had seen in a long time. It reminded me a lot of Vermont, with changing leaves and silvery lakes.
It be apple-picking time

It had just rained the day before, so the farm was a bit chillier than we had expected. Still, we warmed up at the café with hot apple cider and fresh-off-the-fryer apple doughnuts.
JLZ?

The ground was muddy, so we ended up getting more dirty than we wanted to as we tramped through long grasses and orchards, picking the last of the season’s apples.
As you can expect, there were shenanigans.
Re-enacting the infamous scene in Footloose. I need a hero!

Monday Anna leaves, and on Tuesday the 18th Benjamin arrives. Having broken up with his fiancée earlier in the year, we had a lot of similar bruises to compare. He was planning on coming up to New York for the World Inferno’s Hallowmas spectacle, and since he was between jobs, I told him he could come up earlier and house-husband for me. My dinner isn’t going to make itself, obvs.

Benjamin’s presence is always restorative. He is very positive and physically affectionate, and uncomplicated in his wishes and wants. We spent a large amount of his visit just watching things and eating pizza, which is about all I could do after work
Benjamin, in one of the 2 shirts he brought for his fortnight stay

Work started going better, as I was picked up by a new team and given all sorts of nice perks and additional responsibilities (and a new office! With real walls! Only without a door. But progress!). I talked to my HR head about being transferred to Europe, and she said I could submit my paper work as soon as I wanted. I was immediately overtaken with a kind of cold feeling, which I am still trying to sort out. Usually when I’ve made a right decision about something I feel completely calm and almost passive, or at least very calm with a buzzing nervous energy. This felt very prickly, angular—I’m still sorting out if it’s my childhood aversion to moving, or something more spiritual that’s at the root of this anxiety. Until I sort it out, I’m staying put for the time being.
This is Arturo.

Friday the 21st was Arturo’s 40th birthday at the Norwood. Arturo was my project manager—an incredibly organized, hyper competent, kind, funny, and stylish man who I happened to adore. His partner Andy was a member of the Norwood, a super fancy cultural country club that has members like Gwyneth Paltrow, and the Norwood had condescended to allow Arturo to celebrate in its hallowed halls. Recognizing that this would be my only opportunity to ever set foot in the Norwood, I was psyched to go.
The bar at the Norwood

Before the party, my coworker Samantha had her husband Fourth meet up with Benjamin and I at work, and we all headed over to 33rd street to grab some Indian food. When the restaurant I had picked turned out to have no tables, we jumped across the street for some pub food. I always thought of myself as a very good, supportive girlfriend, but watching Sam and her husband, it became clear to me why I’m not a particularly heteronormative or feminine girlfriend. She deferred to him to order or to tell a story, was constantly saying little things to make him feel more masculine or more powerful. She never joked with him or teased him at his expense. It was very odd to watch, because I had only seen work Sam—bossy, brash, confident, and very much The Star. But when out as a couple, she made sure her husband got the attention from the group. This is not in anyway a criticism, just peculiar to me, and I went away very reflexive.
The design inside was very eclectic--old-school architecture with all sorts of modern art pieces (though you can't tell from this photo)

The Norwood of course, was a thrilling success. Wonderful food, wonderful drinks, all my friends from work, beautiful art, and great conversation. As is usual whenever I take him out, everytime I left the room Benjamin would be swarmed by men and women trying to cajole him into bed. I cannot take that boy anywhere.
Andy had hired the drag star Hedda Lettuce to perform. Drag stars are always kind of my bag—mouthy and dirty and irreverent, and poor Arturo bore the brunt of the roasting.
Arturo taking a beating

But afterwards, Andy made things better by asking Arturo to marry him in a surprise proposal.
The proposal is accepted.

None of us saw it coming, and we were all absolutely thrilled. The two of them have had such sadness in their lives, and they really deserve the happiness and stability of a lifetime together.

The next morning, continuing the celebration of fall, Brooke and I took a bus upstate to Cornwall for a visit to Storm King.
Me at the observation deck

Ah, Storm King—the Field of Dreams for contemporary and modern sculpture. Founded in 1960 by Ralph E. Ogden, Storm King is an open-air museum on 500 acres of beautiful Hudson Valley hills and vales. A few of the sculptures are hidden on hiking trails, and visitors are allowed to hike in the forests surrounding the park.
Darrell Petit's Kiss

Outside of the usual Calders and Serras, there were some wonderful, unique pieces like a mirrored picket fence or a multi-lensed telescope. One piece that I very much enjoyed was Mark di Suvero’s “Beethoven’s Quartet”; a ram’s head of a bell suspended over a lone mallet.
Visitors could take the mallet and bang away at the bell, producing various warm tones. They notes would hang in the air like lambs wool.
Alyson Shotz's telescope

When Brooke and I weren’t looking at the sculptures, which were breathtaking, we were hiking in the forests.
We took off our shoes and soaked them in a creek then took naps on the flat rocks, hair tangled in the roots of new trees.

2011-12-22T09:11:00.000-06:00

Putin's new face OMG

2011-12-08T14:41:00.001-06:00

Ha! Oh, the timing of this research seems hilarious.

2011-10-28T09:18:00.001-05:00

I laughed harder at this than I probably should:

2011-10-27T15:56:00.003-05:00

A Glimpse into My Email Correspondences

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 1:47 PM, S.N. wrote:
I hope you'll forgive me when I say that I thought of you immediately when I found this.

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Mary Jones wrote:
And what may i ask are you trying to imply?

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 9:41 AM, S.N. wrote:
That you might like to date Mr Twitters?

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 2:57 PM, Mary Jones wrote:
Why would I want to date Mr. Twitters?

On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 9:46 AM, S.N. wrote:
Because then the rest of the world could follow your relationship in real time on Twitter, rather than waiting for it to fall apart first so we can read about it on Capitalist Mafia.

2011-10-25T15:27:00.006-05:00

Last of the September Posts!

I’ve literally got so many things to do that my brain is shutting down and I am writing blog entries instead. This is my life. Deal with it.

Ugh the third week in September was so mundane I can’t even bring myself to blog about it. The only good thing (outside of finding my favorite pen, nail file, and scissors in the couch) was a spectacularly awkward Advertising Law seminar where we talked about the subtle nuances of attaching a brand name to something, say, like “Two Girls One Cup.” At this point, of course, I burst out laughing, and everyone in the auditorium looks at me quizzically. I’m looking around, mouth open, like “Guys? Guys?” and no one knows what the video is about, hence no one knows why I’m schadenfreuding out over here. Oh my gosh, if only someone under 35 had been in the room with me so we could have made glorious, knowing, uncomfortable eye contact with each other.

Friday, September 23 I went out for drinks on the Lower East Side with Marsha and her friends.

We went to the Blue Owl, which was an adorable, hidden gem of a bar under a Tarot Card studio. Not a lot of people, beautiful mixed drinks (the bartender whipped up some awesome sparkling Mormon-approved cocktails for me), and well priced. Started talking to Krystyna Printup about Iceland. Apparently she had gone there after a bad breakup, and it was a restorative spirit journey for her, where she fell in love with a fisherman and got to ride the local horses. I was pretty much dying by the end of the evening.
Krystyna giving me the thumbs up

We went to Vesalka for food afterwards. Talked to Diana Eng about her new line of laser-cut shirts, which I adore. (Seriously, if you have a chance, check them out here.) Much of the night was spent with Natasha and Grisha, discussing the finer points of boiling your own stock for richer soups. Grisha takes his soups very seriously. Not sure if that’s the Russian in him, or if he’s just an intense person.

Saturday, I went to Central Park to hear some traditional Hasidic stories. Mark’s boss had invited me, plus I love Jews more than anything (sorry I’m not sorry). Afterwards, Diane (the boss, not the designer) came up to me, and like the sage older women she is, decided to just ask me straight up what was going on with my relationship.

Kind of taken aback, I told her that I was cool with everything, except I wasn’t sure of the reasons for the break up. She looked at me surprised, and said “I thought you had talked about this issue thoroughly?”
I sighed. “We did, but all of the explanations I got were very contradictory.”
She then told me a lot of highly personal things, which freaked me out a bit, because they indicated that she had a lot more insight into what was going on than I did. I felt the familiar sting of walking into a classroom as everyone stops talking and stares. At the end of her assessment, she said, “For what it’s worth, I think he loves you more than anyone else in the world.”
Nope, can’t say that’s worth a lot right now.
But it was a nice gesture, trying to make me feel better about the whole thing. It’s nice to know that there are some real, old-school hippies left in the world.
After speaking with Diane, I met Brooke in Koreatown, and had dinner at this crazy little cafeteria on 32nd street. Basically, everything tasted delicious, with very hot spices and very affordable prices. Way to go, New York!
Afterwards, we went to some of the Korean grocery stores and bakeries. One very attractive man chatted me up, and me being me I completely blew it and accidentally insulted him. I just don’t know how to be careful with men in a romantic capacity—they’re so fragile, and you can’t just say things like, “actually I totally hate salted prawns, but I am delighted by your enthusiasm!”
After buying up some tasty Korean and Japanese snacks, we headed over to the movie theater. I wanted to see Moneyball, and Brooke wanted to see Drive, so we each bought a ticket to the movie we wanted to see. I decided to watch the first part of Drive, and when it was over, Brooke would join me in Moneyball. Now, Imma just throw this out: the first 30 minutes of Drive could be some of the best moviemaking I’ve seen in ages. Crazy score, smooth and lazy SoCal cinematography, realistic dialogue. It could have been a brilliant, self-contained short film, and it would have been a complete triumph.

Then I left, and proceeded to watch almost 3 hours of Brad Pitt eating stuff. Brooke comes in after about an hour, totally white. “After you left, it was like a whole other movie!” she whispered. “Ryan Gosling stomps a guy’s head to a pulp! And they show it! They show it Mary!” Yikes. Very glad I did not stay for that.
Sunday kicked off what I will call the Email Trail of Tears, which started with my dad writing to Mark, Mark responding, Mark writing to me, me responding to Mark, and then Dad forwarding his correspondence to me. During the course of the exchange, I was presented with the 7 Theses of Failure: or the 7 ways in which I had been found wanting as a partner. And I have to say, having them all in black and white was totally and completely freeing. What started off as humiliation was quickly followed up with good, old-fashion righteous anger. And nothing is quite as awesome as righteous anger.
Of course, the cleansing fire of rage did not stop me from crying on the subway on Monday, or crying at my cubicle. I started going down a very dark road, where I began to wonder what the point was in trying at anything other than being hot, really. Clearly, it didn’t matter what I had accomplished; because I wasn’t sexy, slender, or alluring, all of my other positives were negated. I’d never felt uglier than I had at that moment.
But on Tuesday, I sort of just got over it. That sounds very dismissive, but all of the emotion just disappeared overnight. By withholding the real reason behind the break up for so long, I had been kept in this tortuous limbo. Now that I knew, I was able to see how sad the whole thing was, and leave it as a kind of Tolstoyan tragedy. I’m sure, during the next few months, I’ll have many more such epiphanies before sliding back into the abyss. But the positive thing is that each peak and plateau gets a bit higher than the last. It’s such a relief as the love and the hate merge together drop by drop into a tepid indifference.

2011-10-19T12:54:00.001-05:00

September: Gettin' Involved

With work slow and still under the weather, I took Tuesday off to avoid spreading my germs throughout the office. I was inspired to see Contagion on Friday the 16th, which was sort of awesome really. It kind of whimpered out, and the people I spoke to who saw it really didn’t like it, but I thought it was Soderbergh doing what Soderbergh does best: mixing the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Essentially, it was a “documentary” about what would happen if a fictional disease began to spread in today’s society. It was exploratory, educational, unbiased, and I felt very accurate. The best part was the total crazy guy in the theater across the aisle from me, who kept laughing hysterically at every single preview. I was cringing, thinking of the hassle we were going to have to go through to call security and remove this guy. Luckily when the movie started, there weren’t any laugh-out-loud scenes, so he was docile. Unless you consider watching Gwyneth Paltrow’s scalp flopping over her dead face a laugh-out-loud moment.
Saturday the 17th was Maker Faire, a San Francisco import that allows tech nerds, design nerds, and steampunk nerds to come together for one glorious weekend to share what it is they do. And they do so much! Let us take a walk down my gallery.

Our first stop was Lali Ghuras in Queens, where I took Mary for Himalayan food. Sadly, because we went early in the morning, all the kitchen had was some thali and some momos, but as usual, the momos were super delicious. I could probably eat nothing but Nepalese and Tibetan food for the rest of my life and be super cool.
Above, Mary South poses with a plate of thali. Very similar to what you would see in Indian food: rice, lentils, potatoes, etc. Everything is just a little bit spicer, and the flavors a bit less complex.
These are momos! Glorious Chinese-style dumplings stuffed with curry and chicken, then steamed. Served with a very spicy, creamy sauce. Again, I cannot stress enough how these have changed my life. The South's eyes were watering because of the spicy smoke coming from the kitchen, so you know it's good.

Then, over to Flushing Meadows we go! After some finagling with security, South and I were able to get the comp tickets our friend Dave so nicely set aside for us.

First impressions: joy. There is an overwhelming sense of excitement and creative energy at Maker Faire. Families bring their kids to learn how to pick locks and make circuits. Artisans show how to make bicycles out of bamboo or 3-D printers out of old electronics. Computer programmers show how to turn conductive paint into an interactive light switch, or program a knitting machine to create a fractal-patterned scarf. Amazing!
The first area that greets you at the South entrance is the SteamPunk wing. Most of Maker Faire is practical and ingenius (ie, things that actually work), while the other half is whimsical and fantastical (meaning it will not work but the idea might). This is the SteamPunk outhouse, which seemed to fall into the later category (I think it was supposed to use the waste as fuel? and it was also a boat?). Still, points for presentation guys!

The Steampunkers brought a whole cadre of bikes with them, which they let the kids try out. I can't tell you how delightful it was to see an entire swarm of kids wizzing around on a bunch of oddly shaped bicycles. If I ever have children I can't wait to do stuff like this with them.

This table was dedicating to teaching children how to hack radios. This boy is perhaps a little young to be learning the fine art of circuit welding.

In addition to selling the usual awkward corsets and leather top hats, the steampunk kids were getting crazy with screenprinting. Above is a tie company with some of the greatest patterns I've ever seen: everything from chemical structures to sharks to circuit boards.

One of the biggest things at Maker Faire was this 3D printing the kids are talking about. Mark and I heard a whole lecture on it back in April 2010 for DIYDays: essentially, you can use a blueprint online to assemble a Makerbot out of inexpensive parts, then feed it different materials (plastic being the most popular). The Makerbot melts the plastic into whatever form you program into it (via a USB port I assume?). Above is a child watching the Makerbot "print" the image of a globe from the computer into a 3D replica.

Some people get very creative with their 3D printing technology. This is an elaborate and very delicate creation from one person's custom Makerbot. Other people had replaced the plastic with chocolate and were printing chocolate (or cheese even) in different awesome shapes.

This woman made some of the most interesting jewelry I've seen in a long time. Using a computer program, she makes highly mathematical (yet slightly irregular) shapes based on fractals, then prints the negative space around the shape, creating a mold. She then pours gold, silver, or acrylic in, making her jewelry. I bought a ring from her (similar to the one she's wearing on her middle finger) and I can't take it off.

This poster for afternoon activities reminded me of Nickd: Soft Circuits for Burning Man Enthusiasts and Candy Ravers. I mean, how could you not want to attend that workshop?

This is a random sculpture over by the circuit area. There was some elaborate scientific process for how the artist breaks up and reassembles the planes of the face, but I'm a girl so bah science! I just really liked the way it looked.

This is our friend Dave, who was at Maker Faire debuting his History Erasure near the LifeHacker area. Essentially, by manipulating various knobs and frequencies, you could change the course of small, repetitive events (like brushing your teeth) or big, unique events (like an assassination), with various repercussions depending on your settings. He made it with his dad. Pretty precious.

Around lunchtime, we found ourselves intrigued by the idea of a Grill Tub Time Machine and Meat Jacuzzi. Sadly, we found this to be much less interesting than advertised.

Instead we went to the Food Courte (hey, if we're going to add arbitrary "e's" we should do it everywhere, eh Maker Faire?) and grabbed some pizza. Doesn't it look delicious? It was. It was very delicious.

These giant paella pans were the biggest of their kind I had ever seen. Are you looking at them? Who even manufactures pans this big for paella? It's just a burnt rice-fish stew. I don't get it, people, I really don't.

On the way to the crafts and games area, we found this guy with his "solar sewing" machine. (Although there were also people riding a stationary bike to generate electricity for his sewing machine, so maybe "solar" was a bit generous?) Either way, his very elaborate programmed designs were mind blowing. I wanted both the red supernova and the blue jellyfish.

Not sure what this was: a dragon house? a repurposed home? An homage to How to Train Your Dragon? What I do know is, the kids loved this thing: it was a metal, fire-breathing dragon that you could climb on, complete with chairs and couches to chill and yell at the people below you. I've never seen kids flip out for anything the way they flipped out for the dragon house.

Inside, the South and I briefly visited the light technology room. Lots of fun with bluelight, shadows, and perception. This dress reminded me a lot of Diane Eng's line from 2009.

Afterwards we watched a coke-and-mentos explosion demonstration, then wandered around the crafts area. I was a big fan of this little guy here: look how expressive his face is!

This artist had an entire series of zombie and unicorn themed items. I know both are played out, but I still like her spin on both. This one says "I will have an army of clones. We will be so charming." Not pictured: the South's tote bag: "Zombies are crap at knitting." Truth: they totally are.

Because no awesome event can occur without a corporate sponsor, GE was there to make sure everyone realized how awesome and progressive they were. We're just like you, Maker-Faire kids! We care about the future of tomorrow! That's why we decided to take a picture with this humble engineer: because we found his presence SO INSPIRING for the future of innovation.

Sunday the 18th, I continued doing my part to be gettin' involved, for srs. That meant getting myself up at 7am and getting on a bus to New Jersey with several hundred other Mormons to take part in the New Jersey flood clean up. Although Hurricane Irene was a bit of a whimper, New Jersey saw it's third year of consecutive flooding, and much of the area was so badly damaged that FEMA had to step in.

If there's one thing Mormons excel at, it's getting organized in a crisis situation. Man, when we arrived in Caldwell, everything was like a well oiled machine: snacks, drivers, vehicles, tools, supplies, schedules, teams. We were divided into teams of 10, and then subdivided into groups of 2-5, then sent to various neighborhoods or particular houses where people had requested help. I scrubbed the kitchen of a Ron Paul advocate, took down drywall and cleaned a bathroom of a 100 year old house, played with kids, dragged out wet lumber, all that stuff. The mildew was so intense, and the mess so overwhelming, I could imagine how much I would panic if I were in that situation. Water gets into EVERYTHING, and it's water with hair and mud and trash mixed in, so every corner of everything has to be scrubbed, or pulled out, or stripped.

But what's great about service work like this is how rested you feel after doing it. It's like, if I worked that hard cleaning out my own apartment, I'd wake up Monday morning completely exhausted. But when you do it for someone else, someone who needs it and is grateful for the help, it's like you've spent the whole day resting in bed. That said, it's one thing to do this kind of physical volunteer work once a month--I can't imagine what it would be like every week, or even every day. Hopefully I'll be able to get the chance to find out one day

2011-10-18T11:12:00.008-05:00

Convention of Awesomeness: October 2011

Thursday September 8th I spent all evening in the kitchen cooking lasagna and birthday cake for Adele and Lakshmi’s Friday arrival. As is our biannual tradition, my Chi-town ladies were coming into town for the Convention of Awesomeness. What number is this? Convention of Awesomeness 5? Let’s go with 5.
Imma be honest with you guys right now, I do not deserve friends as good to me as Adele and Lakshmi. They listened to so much of my crazy, especially with regards to my newly developed body issues.
They were so supportive, telling me I was beautiful and I looked great, which was nice to hear for once, even if it was a total exaggeration.

There’s a scene in this week’s Parks and Recreation where we’re introduced to Treat Yo’self, a day where Donna and Tom spend the whole day pampering themselves, telling each other they look awesome and they should totally buy stuff like fine leather goods because they deserve it. TREAT YO’ SELF! When we have Conventions of Awesomeness (COAs), It is very much the same concept: for the whole weekend it’s just one big love session where we tell each other how pretty and smart and talented we are, not because we're vain but because sometimes you need to be bolstered up when life is really hard. We buy ridiculous things and eat out and live large because we are treating ourselves, and we deserve it dangit. And this COA 5, I was for sure Ben to Lakshmi and Adele’s Tom and Donna (meaning I was the person in need of cheering up, gosh seriously do yourself a favor and just watch the show already).

So the girls arrive on Friday afternoon, and we have a late lunch at Le Pain Quotidien, catching up and talking like we do. Then I had to go back to work, so the girls went around shopping and exploring. When they came home that night, they brought with them a birthday quiche from an amazing shop in Williamsburg. This quiche would sustain us for much of Saturday.

That night I baked the lasagna, and we sat down to eat as guests trickled in for my impromptu birthday get together. Marsha brought with her some runny cheese (the best!) and petit fours, Brooke brought treats from Sweden, Patricia brought fruit and gouda. So we all sat around and talked about lame jobs and sexism and international politics…oh no wait I’m sorry we’re women! We all talked about shoes and shopping and boys duh. My bad.
Saturday the 10th, we woke up and had birthday cake and quiche for breakfast. These two items sustained us throughout all of Saturday, and turned out to be somehow the greatest decision we made on the trip. It’s like a constant stream of sweet and salty goodness that we could take little slivers of whenever we wanted.

Adele and Lakshmi started a new band called Love and Radiation, and while they were in town we figured we’d do some promotional shots for their website. They played me a few tracks while we were getting ready for the shoot, and I have to say, I haven’t been this excited about my friends’ music in a very long time. It was fresh and energetic and cool, with great harmonies and lyrics. I legitimately feel like this music has the X factor that could make these girls really famous, so I was very nervous to be charged with taking their photos.
Luckily, there are a whole bunch of very cool murals down by Kent, so I walked the ladies down by the waterfront to make use of them. Here are some of the backdrops we employed:
Dia de los Muertos backdrop

Random street fair backdrop

Balloon mural backdrop

Clouds backdrop

Joy division backdrop

Silver graffiti backdrop

Cupcake backdrop

Wolf backdrop

After the shoot, we came home to change and eat more quiche before Sleep No More. Despite the fact that we were all broke, we managed to cobble together enough money to see The Greatest Play of Our Time. My friend Lissy met us there.
The greatest thing about Sleep No More is that seeing it for the second time, I saw a completely different play than I saw the first time. There were almost no scenes that overlapped. And this time, I became aware for the first time that the play itself was entirely silent. The communication between the actors was so effortless in its physicality that it hadn’t occurred to me they weren’t speaking.
Contraband photo from inside the hotel

Afterwards, I was lovingly escorted out by a bellhop, who entwined his arm around my waist and rested his head on mine. We shared some drinks at the speakeasy, then meandered over to the Highline, where we randomly met the set designers for the play, who were taking a midnight stroll.
Sunday, September 11th I taught my lesson while Lakshmi and Adele went into the Village for brunch. I met up with them at Brooklyn Flea, where we looked for spirit jewelry and I tried very hard not to buy an entire crate of used medical equipment.

Adele’s brother Bobby met up with us, and we all went back to the house for Mac n’ Cheese and some Real Housewives of New Jersey. Lakshmi and I tried our best to convert Adele to our favorite train wreck show, but she was having none of it. Greatly disappointing, Adele.
That evening, Mary South popped over and we all went to the Roebling Tea Room for drinks. Tasted my first martini which was terrible you guys. Seriously the worst. How can something that looks so sophisticated taste like poison? Unreal.
Monday I was super sick, so I had to stay home from work. Managed to hobble it over to Margot's, where we had croissants and hot drinks. Then it was time for my girls to pack up and head back to Chicago. I found myself much more emotional than usual at their leaving.
It was so nice to be around such positive and supporting energy, to be complimented instead of criticized, accepted rather than judged. They were just such good company. And despite the fact that we’re complicated women, aloof and stubborn in our own way, we can really rally together in times of trial. And I felt like their coming gave me the strength to press on a little bit longer, despite overwhelming odds.

2011-10-18T10:07:00.004-05:00

Birthday Weekend

Saturday, September 3rd I attended my coworker Sam’s wedding. I’m going to admit, given my present circumstances, the summer wedding circuit hasn’t been an easy one. But I love celebrating marriage too much to really make the day about me and my emotional problems (I’m turning 30! I’ll never marry!), so I appropriately compartmentalized my feelings and made a day of it.
Did I mention The Vampire Diaries photo recaps were going to continue? I feel like they best illustrate the sensitive feelings stirring in my soul.

Mary South and I rented a zip car and headed out towards Wading River, Long Island. We had budgeted about an extra hour and a half to account for traffic, but since it was surprisingly light, we had some time to kill. That meant heading to KFC in our fancy dresses. Juxtaposition 4 the win y’all.
Why is the mac n' cheese this color and consistency it is not natural

Note the elegance

We drove over to Port Jefferson and got some ice cream. The town was pretty presh, with a very nice pier, a C’est Cheese shop (genius name!), and a Masonic temple (as every quaint New England town has).
It took us forever to find the country club, but when we did we scored premium parking. The ceremony was pretty much the shortest ceremony I’ve ever witnessed, but everyone looked beautiful, and it was clear the couple was very happy.
During the cocktail hour, I introduced Mary to some of my coworkers. I talked to my former art director’s husband about molecular gastronomic restaurants in Chicago (just light conversation, NBD), and Mary and I stole a whole bunch of mini quiches.
The face of thievery

The reception was designed by Sam, and she did a lovely job of attending to all of the details. I could never do this. It is a good thing I will never be married, because I could never bear the overwhelming minutiae of planning it. The only drawback was that the reception didn’t start until 930 or so, and I had to get back to catch a 6am flight to Dallas.
Mary and I had dinner, listened to toasts, did line dancing…typical wedding stuff. Around 11 we had to bounce a bit early to get the car back on time.
Sunday morning I flew home to Dallas for my birthday. Both Margaret and Julia happened to be in town, so it was like a minireunion. We went to church straight from the airport, where someone (no names…JORDAN) dropped my phone on the ground and someone stepped on it/drove over it. Screen wicked broke. This literally happens every single time I’m in Dallas: if not a broken phone, then a borrowed sweater goes missing, or someone spills bleach on my favorite jeans, or my debit card gets misplaced. I need to stop bringing home things of value.

We spent all day in the kitchen preparing various food for a missionary farewell: mini quiches (food of the weekend!), artichoke dip, meat-and-cheese trays, etc. Because my family is my family, while we cooked I showed everyone pictures and videos of krokodil junkies, which quickly sent my family down the dark internet hole of horror.
When we finished, mom had me go into the bedroom to spend some time with Jordan and Zach, and when I came out, everyone was all SURPRISE! And Bonnie and Monica and Michael were there, and I was 100% shocked. I legitimately thought we were doing nothing for my birthday but going out to dinner, and I was so touched that everyone would go to the trouble of planning a surprise party for me. And all of the delicious food mom made was for me! Not for missionaries but for me! Along with a dozen Sprinkles cupcakes! OMG amazing.
I would show you pictures from the event, but my phone was broken, so you will have to take my word for it that it was amazing.

So I got all teary and embarrassed, and my friends just sat in the living room and we hung out and talked for like 4 hours, and then I fell asleep practically and they all went home. But it was a wonderful surprise, and it really made my transition to 30 much easier.
Monday the 6th was my official birthday, and I spent it having my phone fixed, then getting lunch at Mi Cocina with my family. The presents were ridiculously generous: some fabulous Vivian Westwood oxfords, jewelry, books, and glass vases. I’m so lucky to have such an amazing, sweet family.

As is always the case when I fly nowadays, I was stuck on the runway an additional 3 hours on the way back to New York. Not cool, everyone.

2011-10-13T13:33:00.006-05:00

August (Part 3)
Imma be super honest right now: I watch The Vampire Diaries. What started as a way to bond with Julia in July has morphed into a genuine appreciation of a show that is full of contradictions: it is both boring and exciting, realistic and inconceivable, fleshed out and one-dimensional. On a recent trip home, my friend Bonnie got me introduced to TV.com’s completely brilliant photorecaps of TVD. I will be using some of my favorite images to help tell my August recap today.

The Monday after getting back from the Bachelorette Party weekend, I took myself out for a date night at the Film Forum. Now, when I signed up for a documentary on Anselm Kiefer, I knew what I was getting into. Let’s take a look at some of Anslem’s work:

Here is a brief description of Anslem’s style:

His works are characterised by a dull/musty, nearly depressive, destructive style and are often done in large scale formats. In most of his works, the use of photography as an output surface is prevalent and earth and other raw materials of nature are often incorporated. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and/or names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or places particularly pregnant with history. All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with a style called "New Symbolism."

Now, I love Anselm Kiefer with a fiery passion ever since I saw his 2006 Heaven and Earth show at the San Francisco MOMA. He’s the kind of artist that paints all of the dreamscapes in my head, no exaggeration. And yet, despite my love, I gotta say, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow was a tough sell. It was a documentary about Kiefer’s opus: a derelict city he built on top of a field in Provence. Sounds cool, right? I mean the man literally built an entire city, an underground labrinyth, roads, staircases, everything.
So that was fascinating. But did I mention that almost the entire documentary is silent? Except for a super crazy atonal score by Jörg Widmann and Gyorgy Ligeti? And that when Kiefer does speak, he talks only about how our blood is an ocean, and Heidegger, and how his sculptures are reactions to facism? YIKES.

Running, yoga, running over the next few days. No weight loss, but definitely a lot of emotions vetted in an appropriate way. Being in isolation definitely helps with the feelings too. Comfortably numb.
Thursday the 18th I had to stay at work until 1am to make sure the iPad app beta edition was bug free. Surprise! It wasn’t. We had to type up a list a mile long of different bugs, which is an extreme exercise in patience.
Friday was the day of probably the best storm EVER. I start walking home, and the sky is all bruise-colored and sinister, and the wind is whipping up and everyone is scrambling indoors. And as I get to the W4th street subway, where I usually catch the M, huge drops begin to fall. In one of those hilarious moments where you realize your short term actions are symbolic of long term metaphors, I decided to walk home.
And man, did the sky open up! I mean sheets and sheets of rain, by far the craziest rainstorm I’ve ever seen. Tons of lightening, and buckets of rain. By the time I got to my front door I looked as if I had been swimming in the Hudson. It was AWESOME.

Saturday the 20th, I went to my first district meeting since being called the seminary coordinator. What was supposed to be a 1 hour meeting ended up being 4 hours, and I was pretty burned out by the end. Left Woodside, and back in Williamsburg sat at a café all afternoon writing, then edited my dad’s book and read all of my teacher training materials.
On Tuesday the 23rd, my coworkers and I threw a goodbye party for Sam, who was taking 3 weeks off for her wedding/honeymoon. After ice cream cake, there was an (unrelated) earthquake which I did not notice AT ALL because I assumed it was my normal vertigo. Tells you a little something about what I am dealing with, doesn’t it? THINK ABOUT IT
One of the bad things about being good at something is people want you to do that something a lot, when you’d rather be doing other things. Yeah OK #whitegirlproblems but still. So when my agency was doing a last minute new business pitch, word got out that I have all sorts of digital experience or whatever, and I got sucked into the vortex of the last minute pitch. Last minute pitches are like being assigned a 25-page paper that’s due tomorrow ie the worst. You know what else is the worst? Krokodil. Seriously, google that shizz. It is hideous. Russians be ruining my access to over-the-counter codeine y’all.
I took Friday off—did some laundry, had brunch with the South. I was sort of sad that my eremitism (thanks, Serge!) was coming to an end. I felt very calm and centered and happy, and was not looking forward to entering the fray once again. Watched Network finally, after having it on my Instant Queue list for forever. Kind of awesome, but mostly terrible. The one thing I did genuinely adore was the whole subplot with the Ecumenical Liberation Front trying to negotiate broadcasting rights. Wish I could find a Youtube clip of that genius.
I’ll admit it: I love a good crisis. Nowhere do I flourish more than in a moment of distress. I clamp down and the robot takes over, man, and I am all business. So when Hurricane Irene was set to smash into New York, I was thrilled. I was imagining how I’d handle flooding and looting, no water and electricity, makin’ plans and whatnot. They canceled church on Sunday in anticipation, so I didn’t have to prepare a lesson or anything—I could just chillax, do mah cross-stitching, and catch up on the Tivo. NBD. I did have to answer the door at some point because the fire department needed to check my apartment because my building had a toxic carbon monoxide leak. Who knows how many brain cells I lost in that incident.
Speaking of losing brain cells, after watching Die Hard (LAME guys), The Rock (Ugh), and Tenderness (almost), I was bored and stircrazy, and no storm had yet hit. Irene was supposed to be at her peak sometime around 2am, so after I went to bed (I kid you not) I woke up every hour to look out the window and see if there was flooding or tree-breaking. NOTHING. And then I woke up in the morning around 730 and guess what? Nothing. AT ALL. I turn on New York 1 and they announce that by the time Irene limped up to New York, it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. (Inspiring the amazing tweet “Hurricane Irene hits Wall Street and gets downgraded. Typical.”)
I gotta say, I was super disappointed by this. I realized that it was a blessing people didn’t get hurt, or have their homes and precious things ruined, but man—I wanted something to happen! Something to get my mind out of my mind, something external I could focus my energies on solving, something I might actually be able to fix.
I threw on my jacket and walked outside to grab some pictures before the goon squad stepped in to clean up the branches and whatever. I was super annoyed that the cops were out in full force, stopping everyone’s fun by barricading off the few areas that were genuinely flooded. Assuming the coast was clear, I climbed over the yellow tape down by Grand and the waterfront, and I snap a few pictures and then literally 2 seconds later a cop shows up and tries kicking me off, yelling at me about trespassing and trying to get me to come over and show her my ID.
I was listening to my early 1910-1930’s mix (Cole Porter and Al Jolson for the win!), which made the whole thing seem pretty surreal, so I just kind of walked away like I didn’t hear anything, and luckily, the cop did not follow me. As Jolson would say, yessir, that’s my baby.

2011-10-05T15:17:00.001-05:00

From Gawker. Love.

Anyway the essay is filled with all kinds of swear words and Mollen uses the word "whore" a lot, so you can tell she is funny and quirky and like totally laid back about sex and not at all desperate for approval or insecure in a way that manifests itself as a really aggressive kind of juvenility.

That is, I swear, like every other girl and guy I've met in the last 4 years

2011-10-05T14:07:00.003-05:00

August (Part 2)

My last Flex Day of the summer was the 5th of August. It was sad, the realization that my summer, like my spring, had completely passed me by without notice. Seriously, I was trying to think objectively the other day what had happened in my life between March and August. Things happened, clearly…I remember a trip to Hawaii, and I finished an iPad application for work, but everything else is an indistinct blur. What a sad way to say goodbye to my twenties!
Truth

Still buzzing from my meeting with H, I coasted on those good vibes. I went to a café and edited my father’s book, went to McCarren to read Cormac McCarthy and listen to Arvo Part on the grass, then went back home to enjoy Jersey Shore and Project Runway. I also went on a fantastic 6+ mile run.

The running thing is an interesting development in my life, because I have traditionally hated it so much. But Julia’s trip to New York and her espousal of Zen running got me thinking: why not just run when I want to, and stop when I don’t? So I started running from my apartment to the Williamsburg bridge, across the bridge and back, down to Kent, up Kent to N. 12th, then over to Bedford, and back to my apartment. Naturally, I don’t run the whole thing (yet), but I run over half of it, and each time I go out I add a few blocks to my session. It’s awesome, and it’s completely helping me deal with my rage issues in a healthy way.

The interesting thing about my month of hermitude was that I wasn’t able to be all that secluded. I’m probably going to shoot for a more draconian cleanse in March, during my spirit journey, where I don’t talk to ANYONE. August was mostly about trying to do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, and taking care of me. So I did spend some time making new friends. With Veronica out of town for 2 weeks at a conference, I had the house to myself—so I spent Saturday rearranging it and cleaning it. Moved the desk into my room, flipped it over so I didn’t have to see Mark’s name carved into it, rearranged the ottoman by the window. I felt enormously better after doing that—as if the entire chi of the room had been altered. I also made my first-ever pasta salad for a church activity about Homemaking tips, then went on another run afterwards. I kind of wish in the back of my head that I can get good enough at this to run in next year’s New York marathon, but I hate to set myself up for such an obvious failure. Still, I am not above making drastic sacrifices in the name of spite.

Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, on Sunday I got called as the district seminary coordinator. This means I’m in charge of maintaining the ranks and checking up on every seminary teacher in Brooklyn. Now, that’s only 6 or so, but it means I have to visit all of these teachers every few months to make sure they’re teaching actual doctrine and not going rogue (as some occasionally do).

Monday August 8th was the beginning of the final push to get our app out to the client. That meant a lot of late nights at work, ordering burrito box and waiting for editorial to give me proofs. I did manage to finish Child of God, though, which I loved. When the protagonist tries to murder his friend while wearing a woman’s scalp and her torn clothes, I knew Cormac McCarthy was for me.

My hermitude meant book consumption was proceeding at an alarming rate—so after McCarthy, I picked up Manchester’s A World Lit Only By Fire, a nonfiction book about the change in Europe from a medieval mindset to a renaissance mindset. This book made me very popular on the elevator, as several men stopped to talk about the Reformation. On Tuesday I got home to find a UPS notice for Mark on the door, and was so enraged about the reminder that I ran 6 miles again, then collapsed into bed at 930. I’m finding that I fall asleep around 930 or 10 every night, but still struggle to get out of bed by 730. I’m not sure when my sleep cycle is going to get back to normal.

On Wednesday, Mike Aktpis, that lovely young man from NU, met me for drinks in Midtown. Let’s talk about how amazing Mike is: how positive and well-mannered and educated and enthusiastic. Let’s talk about his awesome job and his fabulous wife and his supportive friends. Let’s talk about his trips to Brazil, where he stayed in the middle of the jungle, and to France, where he and his wife are going to bike through Provence. And then let’s talk about how it is impossible to be resentful of Mike because he is so good and so joyful that you are comforted that the world has saw fit to reward him. Because a man like Mike should be given everything, and it makes sense somehow that he should have the life that he has.

There was a moment when talking to Mike where I told him about my hermitude, which seemed to puzzle him exceedingly. “Don’t you feel, as you get older, that it gets harder and harder to find people with passion?” I asked. “Most of the people I meet anymore are so negative, I find it difficult to stay optimistic.”

Mike was generally incredulous. “No, that’s not my experience at all,” he said. “Who are these people you are talking to? You need to meet new friends.”

And of course, Mike was right. What struck me was that Mike has made his own fate: he only sees the good in other people, and when they don’t match his energy and enthusiasm, he simply sees them less. And so little by little he has surrounded himself by a network of like-minded, sweet-natured geniuses, and everything is right in his world. And perhaps I need to be better about rewarding the good and ignoring the bad. Afterall: be like Mike.

And I would also like to point out that Mike is the first man to take me out for drinks and pay for it since 2001. Not as a “you’ll get the next one” or “you got the last one” or “let’s split”, but as a “of course, I am a gentleman and I will pay for you.”

Thursday the 11th was a day of much emotion—mostly involving a run in with another worker at the temple. There’s this ancient little lady that sometimes works on my shift, and she is very adamant that things be done a certain way—laundry folded a certain way, ordinances performed a certain way. And I do those things the way I was trained, but I also do them in a way that makes the patron feel as safe and comfortable as possible. So there were 2 instances where this wizened grandma thought I was doing things “incorrectly,” so she scolded me, THEN told the temple matron, THEN proceeded to tell everyone else that I was “overwhelmed” and “needed help.” When I didn’t pin a “Spanish” nametag to one patron (who comes every week, so everyone knows she speaks Spanish)—Grandma drags her out of the antechamber back to me and tells me I need to give her a language card. It was totally the worst—and even though I was in the right, I secretly went to a back room and burst into tears. At this point, I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to take any criticism without being emotional. Luckily, Grandma didn’t see—I wouldn’t want to start drama, and incidents like this are so rare at the temple, to make issues out of them makes more trouble than its worth.

Speaking of intrusive old missionaries, I’m in my underwear on Saturday the 13th, cooking eggs and trying on shoes (this is what I do when I’m alone LAY OFF) when the doorbell rings like 30 times. I look out the window to make sure it wasn’t the ConEd meter guy, but sure enough, it was the Shepherds—the missionary couple in our ward. So I throw on a kimono, hide all of the shoes in my room, and run down to let them in. Apparently there was a problem with a food order (the LDS church provides free food to needy families), and since Veronica (who, as Relief Society president, is in charge of food orders) wasn’t there, they needed to see if she had a copy of the missing form. So I had to find the sheet in Veronica’s room, and then engage in like 2 hours of small talk while trying to cover myself up as much as possible. AND BY THE TIME THEY LEFT THE EGGS WERE COLD.

In the afternoon, I headed over to Penn Station and caught the Bieber Bus to Pennsylvania. My friend and design partner Sam was having a bachelorette party, which her sister secretly invited me too. And who is going to turn down the chance to party in Pennsylvania? I know I’m not.

So I take the bus down, and it’s already super overcast. I’m picked up at the bus station behind a Wendy’s near Bethleham, which I recognized as the rest stop Brooke and I took on our trip to Amish country. Melissa—Sam’s sister—picked me up with her boyfriend Jeff. We grabbed some Wendy’s sammiches and hit the road. I had a great ego boost when, after 20 minutes of conversation, Melissa asks me “So wait, how old are you exactly?”
“I’m going to be 30 next month.”
“Awww dude! No way! I totally thought you were Sam’s age!” Sam is 23. This was an excellent development.
This is Sam!

Melissa took me to her mom’s house—a gorgeous 18th century farm house tucked way far out into the hills of Pennsylvania. Melissa is one of those chicks you like almost instantly—easy and mouthy and good natured and fun. Example: we drove past Sam’s old high school, and there was a lone car sitting in the parking lot that Melissa recognized as her friend’s. “I’ll bet he’s waiting for drugs.” I said. Melissa calls him up, “Hey dude, I just drove past the high school. You’re totally waiting for drugs aren’t you? Dude I knew it! It couldn’t be more obvious! You seriously need to go to a different spot, this is so sad.”
Sam's fiance Fourth, with a bird on his shoulder, naturally

At Sam’s mom’s house there was Melissa and her long-term boyfriend Jeff, Sam’s mom, Sam’s other sister Amanda, and Sam’s cousin Cassarah. Even though no one had any idea who I was, everyone was totally hospitable and treated me like family. I absolutely love when that happens—when you can effortlessly integrate yourself into someone else’s life, skipping over the years it takes to build familiar intimacy. I’ve tried so hard in my life to create a home where people feel that way, but it’s kind of hard when you’re a home of 1.
Sam and her mom chilling in the living room

I changed into my party clothes, then checked out all of the bachelorette-related materials Amanda has purchased at the mall. My favorite was the penis-shaped cake, which was straight out of a box and straight into my heart. It was literally SO GOOD, I kept sneaking back into the kitchen and cutting off chunks of it. Penis cake for the win!

When Sam arrived with her fiancé Fourth, she seemed pretty thrilled to see me. For some reason, I was the only non-family member who wanted to come for the party, which to me is a testament to how terrible our generation is about face-to-face decorum. Seriously, everyone is so selfish and self-involved anymore. Who doesn’t RSVP to a wedding? Who doesn’t call a hostess if she can’t make a dinner? Apparently tons of people. So disappointing, generation.
Cassarah (blonde) and Amanda during present opening

After some embarrassing presents like lingerie and vibrators, (I swallowed my pride and gave her a $50 gift certificate to Victoria Secret, which killed me inside) everyone piled in Cassarah’s car to head over to a hookah bar in Bethlehem. Now, the rain—which had started at Wendy’s—had progressed into a full-on downpour of epic proportions. This was serious: we could hardly drive through the fog, and the rain was pouring down so hard that seconds without an umbrella left you soaking. Which was OF COURSE what was going to happen because I straightened my hair.
Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!

The hookah bar wouldn’t let the girls bring in booze, and at a bachelorette party that was not going to fly, so we went over to a sports bar next door and proceeded to eat hot wings and get trashed. Well, obviously Melissa (18) and I (Mormon) did not get trashed, but we did encouraged others to do so. Going around, I realized I was the oldest person there by 7 years, and the only one without a long-term boyfriend/fiancé/husband. It was a pretty lame feeling, I have to say, because everyone was SO IN LOVE, and they spoke about their partners in these glowing terms, and their partners texted and called them throughout the night, which never really happened to me while I was in a relationship. So I ended up winding down in energy as I thought of the gulf that seems to exist between me and everyone else, how I can never seem to do things the right way. I try to approach everything so systematically, to do things the right way, only to look up and see everyone is staring at me.
Lacey and Melissa

Besides being perplexed at my religious views, the girls were very cool and chill—I watched as they hit on bartenders and waiters and dealt with male attention in a breezy, flattered way. Again: the gulf. Unable to gamble at the local casino due to Melissa’s age, we compared nipple piercings (I’m not even going to dive into that one) and drove home, where I slept on the couch and Melissa and her boyfriend Jeff slept on the floor while watching Wilfred. I woke up surrounded by dogs. It was a surreal experience.
Melissa and Sam (who is THRILLED to be wearing her buttons)

The fog and the rain did not stop the next day. I had serious concerns about whether or not my ceiling was going to be able to hold up under the weight of all of this incessant water. Melissa and Jeff and Sam and Fourth (so many couples!) drove me into town to feed me ridiculously large hoagies from the neighborhood deli. We ate at the Carr’s grandma’s house, played with the birds, and watched some NASCAR. The Melissa, who was late for work, had to drop me off at the bus station (really just a curb behind the Wendy’s) so she could get their on time. Which meant I had to stand shivering in the cold wet rain for over an hour before the bus came. Man, did I feel haggard and weathered and old that day. But my apartment was dry! Little victories.

2011-09-20T15:18:00.002-05:00

Also I will have it be known that I did not change the Blogger template--this happened on its own. Unless Adele or Anne updated us. But still, try not to delve too deeply into the past.

2011-09-20T12:51:00.003-05:00

August (Part 1)

After Julia left New York, I decided to undergo a month-long social fast as a way of clearing my head. I had been taking care of people for so long that I had lost my enthusiasm and my interest in other people; I found myself emotionally needy, and I needed to fix myself before I was going to be any use to others. That meant no dinners, no lunches, no movies with friends—no telephone calls, no Twitter, no Facebook. I was going to do what I wanted, when I wanted. And let me tell you, it was life-changingly awesome.

It also happened to be the month where I fell completely, head-over-heels in love, proving that love really is where you least expect it.

But before we go into that, let’s talk a little bit about my pre-hermitage partying, which was epic. Friday, July 29 I took one of my penultimate flex days, which was awesome. Mary and I went to the Roebling Tea Room for brunch, and who should we happen to see but Gossip Girl’s own Dan Humphrey. Yes, Penn Badgley looked exactly as he did on TV, only shorter. And when I mean looked exactly like he did on TV, I mean he looked like an uptight white guy trying way too hard to fit in and inexplicably attracting beautiful and leggy blondes way out of his league. He wore a straw fedora and a tank top: dude, what am I supposed to do with that? I’ll tell you what I did: I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help it—it was so hilarious seeing him there.

After pedicures, laundry, and Hannah and Her Sisters (old school Woody Allen marathon continues! This time the story of a wife who’s husband cheats on her because she isn’t vulnerable enough!), I schlepped over to Park Slope (I know! So far!) to meet my Russians (Marsha and Natasha [sort of]) and my Tibetans (Sarahana and Srijana) for some momos at Sarahana’s house. Sarahana is the most beautiful, fantastic, sweet filmmaker/photographer/graphic designer I have ever had the pleasure of knowing—we used to work together at my old agency with Natasha—and I was completely charmed by her as a hostess. She introduced me to the world of momos, which are Nepalese gyoza, only instead of pork/vegetables they’re stuffed with chicken and Indian spices. I kind of flipped over them, and ate myself into a coma. When Srijana arrives, we broke out the Apples to Apples and played a few rounds while listening to French pop while the rain poured down outside.

I got home from my night of bliss only to realize that my ceiling had caved in, and water was pouring down from the upstairs apartment. There is nothing quite like getting home at 4 in the morning, climbing into bed, then stopping and asking yourself, “Wait, why is my bed a swamp?”

The whole thing was very lucky, in that my bed (and the futon under it) absorbed all of the water, so none dripped onto the floorboards. And my computer, which had been on the bed, had miraculously been the only thing untouched by the deluge. So I pulled off all of my sheets and blankets and brought them to the living room, put down towels on the futon, and slept quite uncomfortably until the morning, when I had to deal with the problem.

Saturday the 30th, I had to call up Stephen and cancel our interview plans. He was making a documentary on the Mormon phenomenon of Duck Beach, and wanted to interview me about my experience with the event, as well as my more general Mormon dating experience. He was very sweet about the last-minutes cancellation, and offered to help. But as I was just hairdrying my mattress and washing all of my bed linen, there wasn’t much he could do.

After 6 hours of work, my room had more or less returned to normal, so I met up with my old coworker and current partner-in-crime Lissy for some Vietnamese food at Pho Sure (I know! Amazing name!). She introduced me to the cutest Swedish candy store on Christopher Street called Sockerbit, where we picked up some contraband before heading over to Cowboys and Aliens. Which OK, wasn’t the greatest movie ever, but DANIEL CRAIG. Daniel Craig. I mean, I was helpless.

Sunday, I taught a total bummer lesson on the crucifixion, where I was crying and my whole class was crying, and it was a hot mess. Afterwards I skipped Relief Society and met Brooke at Union Square, and we headed over to the South Street Seaport to see the free Ravonettes show near Pier 21. The opening band played for SO LONG and were SO BAD—imagine Sleater Kinney, only without energy or fun. The Ravonettes were pretty fun, but I have to admit I’m getting too old to stand in one place without dancing, and no one was dancing. I HATE shows where there is no dancing or seating. Except Jonsi. Jonsi is of course the great exception to any rule of concert going I might have.

August 1st, I went to see Miranda July’s The Future after work. I was deeply affected by it, despite the fact that it was a little twee and narrow in scope. It reminded me a lot of my failed relationship, and I could sympathize a lot with the male lead. Afterwards, I went over to Marsha’, complete with overnight bag. At this point, I was feeling the strain that comes with going out EVERY SINGLE DAY, but it wasn’t too bad. It took my mind off things, which was good. Marsha made me my first borscht, which was delicious, and a super fantastic potato salad a la Russe, which in this case means nothing but dill, olive oil, and potatoes. And it was awesome. Marsha and Sarahana are proof to me of the huge value of cultural diversity: delicious food. Yes, ok, also influx of new ideas and genes and whatever but MOSTLY I value diversity for food. Let’s get real here.
Sarahana came over to join us for our outing: Rock n Roll Burlesque night at the heavy metal bar down the corner. While she and Marsha drank tequila, Marsha introduced me to the world of electronic cigarettes. This is why Marsha is a terrible example and influence. THAT IS ALL I AM GOING TO SAY ON THE MATTER.
So after the ladies got a nice buzz going, we walked over to the bar, just in time to see a women in a giant Hello Kitty head finishing her act. Over the course of the night, we saw the following routines: Witchy Woman, Animatronic Doll, HardCorey and his amazing butt cheeks, and Disney Princess, as well as some musical numbers in between.
The atmosphere was very fun and jovial—it wasn’t until the gogo dancing started on the bar (yikes! That is some crazy flexibility! Also, I’m pretty sure that’s more strippy then gogoy) that the mood started taking a dark shift and we decided to head out.
A lot of people want to know why it is that I can take such a hard line against nudity in movies and strip clubs, yet be cool with burlesque. The answer is for me is context. Context is what separates a bathing suit from a hoochy outfit, a piece of art from a piece of pornography. In burlesque, the context is one of playfulness. That’s why Dita von Tease uses a huge martini glass, it’s why women dress up as giant lobsters complete with glitter “butter.” Burlesque is first and foremost supposed to be funny, and being sensual is a second-tier objective. Still important, but not the driving energy. That’s why the women don’t go topless, why the men keep (barely) covered—because it isn’t about trying to get the maximum sexual response from the audience. And the mood in the club reflects that—it’s light, it’s funny, it’s camaraderie, but it isn’t lecherous, or overly intense, or one-sided. There isn’t the same power dynamic that you see in movies or in strip clubs. And maybe I’m splitting hairs, but I definitely noticed the change in atmosphere that occurred when the burlesque dancers took turns on the bar for their “gogo” routines.
Basically, the bar had a pole, and the women climbed up there and started dancing on it for dollars. And as soon as they got up and started going through the traditional stripper moves, the mood in the club changed FAST. Guys were putting dollars in their underwear and standing transfixed. The laughter stopped, and the girls on the pole stopped looking like they were having fun, and looked like they were at work, bored and going through the motions. There was nothing playful, it was a simple sexual transaction: stimulation for cash. And that’s a transaction that I have trouble with, and so that’s when I was sort of over the outing. Not that the girls weren’t sexy or I wasn’t turned on. But the newly dark atmosphere wasn’t winning me over to the idea of “sex-as-empowerment”, that’s for sure.

Sarahana went back home after the show, and Marsha pulled out the couch for me. We talked, looked at 70s gay comic strips, you know—like girls do. I fell asleep around 3 with her fat Wilford-Brimley-looking cat staring at me.
Tuesday was the last day before my hermitude, and I promised Mary South I’d stop by her restaurant, so I did just that. Passed by some kind of bum fight on the way over—blood everywhere. It was very intense. Mary got some scallops and some Salade Niçoise to go, and we went up to the Highline to eat dinner. Afterwards, we went to see the absolutely stunning documentary on El Bulli that was playing at the Film Forum. It’s time like those I really wish I was still talking to ex-Future-Husband, because he would have loved it: imagine, a whole documentary made by Germans about the science of molecular gastronomic cooking! What could go wrong?

After having a good week of solid partying, I began my month of solitude. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, since I had previously had social engagements every night since I could remember. I would stay late at work for no other reason then because I could. I started walking home from work, from 52nd street all the way down to West 4th, where I would catch the M home. At first, this caused me a great deal of anxiety, but as time went on, I became more confident I wouldn’t run into my ex, so it became easier. It also gave me an opportunity to walk around, to listen to music, to be outside. Walking in the rain was especially fun, and I did it as often as I could.

And then, I met H.

The only thing more emo than writing about falling out of love is of course, falling in love. And this whole episode is truly emo. And the idea of H ever reading this is of course horrifying. It is only because I am so certain that things will not work between us that I can even venture to discuss it at all.

Thursday the 4th, I head over to Stephen’s house for my documentary interview. We talk about books for a while, and he gives me a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God. As he’s doing lightening, his coproducer arrives, and begins setting up the sound.

The interview goes OK—I’m pretty articulate in places, but I also come across as a bit pretentious and a bit sad. I mean, I’m being interviewed for over an hour about my failures in dating, my failures meeting men, my failures to be included in mainstream Mormon activities. Stephen and his producer are laughing at my jokes, so I know I’m not coming across too awkwardly, but I’m definitely talking about some embarrassing stuff, stuff that I wouldn’t be sharing with most people.

Once we wrapped up, I am convinced I have just given an interview that, if aired, will keep me from ever finding a Mormon husband ever. And then H takes off his headset, and I turn to look at him for the first time, and…wow. I was completely struck, stars and everything. He was so beautiful. Not everyone's thing, but definitely mine. Tall, slender, dark hair, beautiful bones, effortlessly dressed, sharp teeth. So I immediately get all nervous, and sort of fidgety. And then, in a brilliant stroke of luck, Stephen and Hilary ask me to stay for dinner. So H and I go to the table and start talking while dinner gets prepared.

When I talk to people, I am used to asking questions that have decreasing rates of return. Each answer becomes less and less interesting, until I am out of things to talk about. With H, every question led to an answer of increasing complexity and fascination, creating ever-more-beautiful topics of conversation. The coincidences were a bit startling. It turned out we worked for the same company, in the same building. We both viewed our jobs in the same calculated way. We had both been educated abroad. We had both spent significant amount of time in New Zealand (he was born in Christchurch). We had both studied medieval French and British history.

After a while, the coincidences became so numerous and so bizarre that I had to stop asking questions, because I got the feeling we were making our guests uncomfortable. But by that time, it was too late—I was infatuated. And as we continued to talk, and he expounded his views of religion, his values, his goals and passions, I fell in love. And I don’t use that phrase lightly. I really did, at that moment, love this stranger. I had never had the experience of falling in love with someone at first sight—if anything, all the men I’ve dated took months for me to become deeply attracted to them. Mark was the only one I loved, and it took me over 8 years to fall in love with him. But with H, it was a kind of lightening intensity I had never experienced. I was shaking, my mouth was dry, and I had no idea what to do.

I'm well aware of how unstable this makes me sound. After all, this is coming on the tale end of almost 6 months worth of the most miserable break-up narrative one can imagine. And yet, there we are. I'm as confused as anyone. I believe that love is based on attraction, mutual values, shared life goals, a clear and crystal understanding of a person's mind--and none of that can be ascertained within a 3 hour conversation. But what I felt at that moment on that night was that degree of clarity-as if I had seen this person deeply, understood them completely, and was willing to accept everything that came with that knowledge. I know that after being in a relationship so long, this also looks like a rebound fixation. Which is true to an extent, I'm sure, but I couldn't help but feel my previous relationship was, if anything, an interference. As if my old loyalty to my former partner kept me from becoming as emotionally invested than I wanted to be. I didn't want to transfer love from one man to another-both had their own places, both were loved for different reasons.

Sadly, the intensity of my feeling lived and died in my body, the cage. Firstly, I don't think the attraction was reciprocated. That's probably my newly-developed self-esteem issues talking, but there we are. At the time, it was impossible to gauge what was going on--I was certainly behaving super awkwardly and was too abashed to even look him in the eye half the time, Japanese-school-girl style. I couldn't get a clear read on the situation at all—I sort of got signals, but they could easily be “you’re really interesting” signals, not "I'm really interested" signals. Normally, I would have asked H out to dinner, then taken things from there. But in this case, things were a little different: poor H had interviewed me for over an hour about all the reasons why men weren’t attracted to me, and why I felt I was never going to get married, etc. How desperate would it look to take the first single man I had (ostensibly) met in months and be all, “hey baby, let’s make this happen!” It would look horrible, that’s how it would look.

After some FB investigation, it was clear that my awkward first impression wasn’t the only impediment to romance. That whole wife and kid thing was sort of a bump. I think. (No wedding ring? Lives alone?) There is enough complication there, at least, for my enthusiasm to be suitably dampened. But even if I never see him again, that evening with H was absolutely life changing moment. THESE PEOPLE EXIST. Men like H exist, and they can be found, and they could be anywhere. I was surprised at how willingly my heart revived, how quickly it embraced someone else, even if that person wasn't tangible. And that realization filled me with a quiet strength and a peace. I will be able to do this, after all.

2011-09-19T15:07:00.001-05:00

The only poignant comment I've come across from Jezebel in a long time, regarding the issue of why there are so few female comedy writers:

Look, being funny requires taking personal risks, a willingness to tease, push the envelope, risk offending, make fun of individual or cultural foibles, challenge conventional ways of looking at things, call attention to yourself, be intellectually rather than sexually provocative. Generally, for many fucked-up reasons, women are not rewarded for any of this. Men are.

2011-09-16T15:34:00.002-05:00

I was coming home from work yesterday, crowding into the subway with the rest of the commuter rats. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the man next to me was staring at my face. I tried to avoid his gaze, and stared off serenely. Really, it's the only thing you can do when the subway gets that crowded: resign yourself to your fate. Out of my peripheral vision, I sized him up. He was a boring-looking man: early thirties, completely nondescript, not attractive or unattractive, generic genes and athletic shoes.

Doors opened, and we swarmed onto the L, everyone breathing on each other's faces. I held the pole, and notice that the man had put his hand eversoslightly over mine. I looked at him in the eyes, and he looked back, and we stared at each other for at least 15 seconds before I broke away.

Doors opened, this time at Union Square. More people pushed to get on, crushing the rest of us towards the back. The man positioned himself behind me, and then slowly pulled me back towards him, so my entire body was resting against his. It was almost imperceptible-a gesture that could be easily brushed off as accidental if I had moved or turned around. But instead, I leaned back into him--again, gently, almost accidentally.

Doors opened and closed at the next 4 stops, and we rode on, nestling into one another--even when the crowd disappeared. Nothing perverse, nothing aggressive or sexual. For the next 15 minutes, he held me against him as if I were his girlfriend-his hand gently resting on my hip. It had a sort of sweet intimacy, as if we had known each other for months, and this was just another ride out of the hundreds of rides we had taken together.

Doors opened at Lormier, and we got off, not looking at each other, as if nothing had ever happened.

2011-09-14T12:52:00.007-05:00

July

I finally managed to download Spotify almost a month after signing up. Thanks so much, work computer, for being so awesome with those firewalls.

Luckily, with Mark out of the way, I could make room for the new man in my life, Michael. Michael is a friend of mine from Dallas whom I have adored for forever, but we have never gotten together for geographical and religious reasons. And he was in town! Which was amazing! On Wednesday we get together with some of his old Middlebury friends at the Biergarten in Williamsburg.

Michael’s friends were predictably adorable, and had the greatest “how we met” story I had ever heard. Apparently when Michael’s college friend “James” (I can’t remember his name right now) was in Moscow working for a Russian newspaper (James isn’t even Russian, which makes it somehow better), he sees this TV segment on Russian TV about the Tenement Museum in New York, and they were interviewing this tour guide names Cindy. So James decides that this Cindy girl is amazing, and he’s going to date her. Many years and many near misses later, James and Cindy finally go out on a date after she happens to be his tour guide on a Tenement Museum tour and almost immediately fall in love because of their mutual love of Russian, travel, and hockey.

They also told me this great story about the stray dogs in Moscow who apparently have learned how to use the subway in order to go from one food truck to the other and hang with their dog friends. Crazy but true.
Friday, I met up with Michael at Fette Sau for meat, then we went to Spuyten Dyvel for drinks. Poor Julia was bored out of her mind, sitting between two English majors talking shop about what books they loved and OH MY GOSH ISN’T MICHAEL HANEKE THE GREATEST, I mean did you even SEE The White Ribbon it was so much better than Funny Games or Cache. One of the good things about going out with Michael is that he had literally no tolerance for listening to my breakup stories. Whereas women seem to encourage and even garner a certain, albeit disturbing, satisfaction from listening to tales of love lost, Michael was having none of it. Basically he said that I sounded like a crazy person and I needed to move on and stop thinking about this. Very good practice for when I start dating again. This is why I need more male friends in my life (seriously, where do you go to find them?) We convinced Julia to watch “In The Loop” with us, which she liked despite the fact that there were no hot guys in the whole thing. Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult, Julia.
Saturday Julia and I went off to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met. This was very emotional for me, as I have only recently gotten over his death (I know! I am completely crazy! I’m not even a fashion person it makes no sense.) The collection itself was just as beautiful and well-curated as everyone said it was. Stunning—and I mean STUNNING—dresses, leather work, metal crafting, boning, stitching. And the execution was strangely pale in comparison to the actual design work, which was airy and dark and effortless and just so sexy. The only thing I regretted was how crowded it was—it was hard for me to spend a long time in front of the dresses and inspect them closely. And I was only able to grab one illegal snapshot the whole time.
After the McQueen show, Julia and I went down to Battery Park to meet Michael, James, Cindy, and a few other friends for the River-to-River production of Henry V. What was fantastic about this production was it was my first experience (next to Sleep No More, I guess) with “panoramic theater”—essentially theater that takes place outdoors, and moves from set to set, taking the audience with it.
So the first few scenes took places at Clinton Castle, and then we ran into Battery Park, and then when Henry V sailed across the channel to France, we boarded a ferry and sailed across the Hudson and East River to Governor’s Island.I make no bones about the fact that I was totally crushing on the Henry V lead—Justin Blanchard, who has the beautiful Asiatic eyes of a young Keanu Reeves. And watching the armies battle in the twilight with fireflies in the fields, it was truly a lovely evening.
Michael returned to Park Slope with his posse after the shop, and Julia and I went over to one of the old Revolutionary-War era pubs, Fraunces Tavern.
The worst and slowest service in the world was followed by the worst and slowest train service in the world—it probably took us 1 hour to make the 20 minute jaunt from Wall Street to the Marcy stop.

On Monday July 11, I took Julia to Bryant Park for the HBO Summer Film series. The same Film Series where poor Glenn Beck got heckled a few weeks before. Has he seen the hipster crowd that goes to the HBO Film Series? What did he honestly think was going to happen? It’s not an excuse for rude behavior, but these aren’t exactly his people if you get me.
Mary South and Veronica met us there to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Gosh, Marilyn Monroe is annoying. If I were to walk into a person’s home and see a picture of Marilyn Monroe anywhere on the wall, I would know instantly that I was in the home of someone who would never be my friend. It’s how I knew I would never like Megan Fox.

Tuesday the 12th, I continued my unfortunate pattern of staying in the office until well past midnight. My poor sister was abandoned again. I got up at 7:30 am to head back to the office, meaning she wasn’t able to see me at all. I stayed late at work again, then went to the temple in order to help a woman in my ward take her endowments for the first time.

When people in the LDS church speak of having a testimony, it means having a belief that something is true. Some testimonies are strong and closer to knowledge, some are weak and closer to vague feeling. My testimony of many aspects of my church is weak, but my testimony of the temple is almost unshakable. It is the foundation which allows me to put up with a lot of the shenanigans that come with religion in the modern world. This particular Wednesday, walking through with this stranger for the first time, I was struck with a feeling that can only be described as blinding clarity—a truly profound sensation of the choices I had to make at this moment, and the roads all those choices would lead to, fanning out in an elaborate network of possibility. I saw what would most likely occur in my life, but I also saw what could occur, or what may occur. It’s moments like that which help make religion tangible to me.

When I got up at 4am for my Thursday temple shift, I had to again leave Julia alone. I felt bad about abandoning her, so I tried to find tickets to the sold out Harry Potter premier as an act of atonement. The only place available on the day of the premier was the Magic Johnson Theater in Harlem, so that’s where we went.
We got dinner at Sylvia’s (chicken and waffles, naturally), then stopped and picked up some 5 Hour Energy, because after sleeping 8 hours in 2 days I was ready to collapse. Are you aware you need an ID to buy 5 Hour Energy? And are you also aware that 5 Hour Energy is awesome? I have mentioned this before, but let me stress again: if you are in an emergency situation where you are almost delirious from fatigue, 5 Hour Energy is truly astonishing in its capacity to push you through those last 5 hours. And the commercials don’t lie: you really don’t get jittery, you really don’t crash, and you really can just go to sleep at the end of the 5 hours without problem. I cannot say I have the same experience when I double up on Adderall. Oh, what horrors await me in those dark amphetamine spaces.
At the theater, we played numbers games in line with some high school students in New Jersey.
Then, when that got boring, we started talking to some occultist who practiced midwifery and numerology, who was taking the daughter of her neighbor to the premier. She gave Julia and I our numerological reading, which was strangely accurate, but also seemed to be more of an “intuition” thing than, you know, a real thing. Here’s my numerology reading:

“Your Personality is 16/7
You seem mysterious and different. People see you as serious and studious. You are highly independent and self- sufficient. Your exceptional intelligence and wisdom are quickly noticed, people respect you. You are not one to attract people on the basis of your warmth or compassion -- though you may be loaded with both -- but because of your obvious insight into life's mysteries.

You are hard to get to know. You are often withdrawn. It is common for people to see your focus turn inside of yourself in the middle of a conversation.

You have the makings of an intellectual and an aristocrat but you have to guard against arrogance and an attitude of, "I've got it all figured out".

There have been periods in your life when you had little concern for your clothing or fashion, while at other times you are very aware of your clothing and use it to make a specific impression.

You appear dignified no matter how you dress., but a well groomed seven with a touch of dash definitely has an advantage. Your confidence increases when you know you are well dressed.

You are recognized as spiritual and religious, with your very own ideas regarding the purpose of life and the Creator.

You are an inspired speaker, but only when discussing subjects that really interest you. Otherwise, you are not one for chatter.

Your love of knowledge and wisdom shows.”

So yeah, weird right? Especially the clothing thing. Apparently I’m also drawn to the number 2 or 8 or something, but I can’t remember.
The movie itself was exactly what I thought: sweet and sad, the end of an era. Oh, and I totally saw a huge rat on our way back to the apartment. I was in bed around 3:30am, which was just so crazy late for me I couldn’t even comprehend it.

A random aside: did you know my sister Margaret was once booked on a bill to play with Fleet Foxes? Apparently the FF’s van broke down on their way to the show and they never made it. She also performed with DeerHunter. Small World.

Friday I only made it through work by gunning the other 5 Hour Energy that I had bought. Julia took her friend Courtney to the Friday Harry Potter show while I walked home and went to sleep at like, 7pm. It was awesome.

Saturday, July 16th I decided to show Julia a proper time in New York, since I had been such a sad sack the whole time.
Our first stop was the Mac store, followed by a trip the Highline where we took our shoes off and walked through the water fountain. Then I bought her a dress at AllSaints, because that’s what big sisters do. Seriously, what fun would it be to work in advertising if I couldn’t buy awesome things for my sisters? We finished up the day at Lombardi’s, talking to the Italian exchange students at the next table. Finally ended up watching Paris Je t’aime which was sweet, but still a bit too romantic for my current taste.

Feel like we also made our way up to Greenpoint on Sunday to break the Sabbath and order some Peter Pan doughnuts. Then shared a cheeseplate at 5 Leaves. I was seriously being a bad influence on Julia (with regard to setting a religious example), but after spending so much time at work, I wanted to make her last few days in New York amazing.
That night we also fulfilled a lifelong goal of finally watching the abysmal The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. Many years ago, the dear Allie Polatin and Margaret Jones saw the trailer for this movie and decided that it was the Worst Movie Ever Made and that they HAD to see it. Ever since, phrases from the movie (“It musta fallen inta ona ya pockets”) have become common in the Jones-Polatin lexicon. The movie, if anything, disappointed in being rather better than we had thought it might be. Still, the trailer is not to be missed.

Monday the 18th I took off for a summer flex day (seriously the greatest you guys). After a morning meeting, we went into the city to do some more shopping. At this point I was still dealing with some fairly substantial anxiety problems: I would be alright in the morning, but by the later afternoon I would have trouble breathing and I would feel sick. Shopping in the Village and Soho definitely exacerbated that condition, but the clothes were so awesome, it’s not like we could go anywhere else. We went to Balthazar’s for a cheese plate (not as good as 5 Leaves, but close!), then went to Evolution where I saw a whole bunch of amazing things I was coveting (re: Macaw feather earrings. Re: baby human skeleton. Re: meteorite). I really wish baby skeletons were cheaper.

On our journey to Nordstrom’s Rack, I discovered to my horror that they had begun to stock AllSaints. The last thing I need is another venue in which to buy AllSaints clothing. My wardrobe has become a walking billboard for that store: I wear at least 1 item by this brand every single day.

Afterwards, I took Julia to an early dinner at Babbo so she could have at least 1 fancy restaurant experience since she arrived in New York. That’s probably the only useful thing I’ve learned since I arrived in New York: if you want to eat at a fancy restaurant, just show up at 5pm and you will get a table, no reservation required. We shared some spicy orecchiette and the smooth half-moon pumpkin lune and crunchy bread. Then gelato at Grom. Delicious!

Tuesday, we cooked dinner for the missionaries. What was very odd was how different the missionaries were around me when Julia was there. All of a sudden they were all chatty and laughy and flirty, none of the super awkward fear and coldness I get when I’m alone (or when I was with Mark. Yikes!).
Poor Julia—by Wednesday the 20th, she was really starting to get down. She was set to leave New York on the following Wednesday, and she was already feeling separation anxiety. I went to Pies n’ Thighs to try and cheer her up, but even talking to the Berliners next to us didn’t seem to help. The next night, Mary cooked us dinner, and Julia cheered up by tormenting her roommate’s cat.

Friday, we decided to make Julia’s last weekend in New York an all-out, no-holds-bar extravaganza. We started out by sneaking turkey burgers into Captain America. Which was seriously fun you guys, stop hating. My gosh, Friday was hot. Like 100+ hot. Like so hot, Con Ed called my building and told us we had to stop running our electricity because AC units around the city were going to cause the Grid to blow.

We started the night meeting Nina and her friend from Rutgers at Raine’s Law Room, a speakeasy on 17th street. Julia brought her friend Anna and Niq, but unfortunately poor Nick didn’t get the whole “dress up” memo for a speakeasy, so he got a lot of bad looks. Which was weird, because Niq works as a runway model in his spare time and has a closet full of Dior. But no matter! Raine’s is amazing—delicious drinks, beautiful waitstaff, awesome location, perverted wallpaper... And they were really lovely about the fact that we snuck in another 2 people, even though the limit was 5.

Afterwards we went across the street to a karaoke bar, which apparently is where my sister really shines. She had this circle of admirers within an hour, touching her hair and giving her high-fives. She and Anna did a couple of duets: “Party in the USA”, “Bonnie and Clyde,” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Brooke sang “Black Velvet,” and Nina sang some Celine Dion song I didn’t know but had the whole bar on its feet.
Saturday Julia had to do some packing in the morning, so I met Marsha at Red Bamboo, since Dos Toros didn’t have the facilities we needed to have a 3 hour lunch. Julia joined us halfway through, and we all learned together of Amy Winehouse’s death via Twitter. I was legitimately shocked. I was sure she was going to be like Keith Richards, all grisly and bone at 70.

Afterwards, we grabbed some Sprinkles cupcakes on the Upper West Side, then walked through Central Park.
We stopped by Bergdorfs to check out the shoe sale,
then dropped by Alexis’s pad to say hello. By the time we got home, the heat had sapped all of our strength from us, and we collapsed on the couch.

Sunday the 24th was almost entirely spent in bed, eating pizza and watching old school Woody Allen. I loved Manhattan, and Manhattan Murder Mystery was also adorable. I miss Diane Keaton as his sidekick—she was really the most relatable actress, and I always liked her style.
On Monday, Julia came by to get lunch with me at Angelo’s, where we were greeted by the world’s rudest waitress. We got a half-white, half pepperoni pizza, and this is how she decided to serve it to us: all white with sauce on the side. Genius.

Tuesday, we had dinner at Red Bamboo, then I took her to Magnolia for cupcakes, then we went home to watch "Pretty Little Liars." She left around 6 am on Wednesday morning. Poor Julia. She was in tears about how much she didn’t want to go back. I felt terrible for her—it’s not easy having to go back to a place like Provo. It was hard for me too—once she left, that would be it. I would be all alone. She had been a nice transitional buffer between Mark and non-Mark. Once she left, that was it.

So Julia, I wanted to take a minute to say Thank You. You really did a fantastic job of making me feel better during a difficult time. You have a wonderful spirit and energy, and you make everything seem fun and unpredictable. Thank you for introducing me to the Vampire Diaries, and for ordering Domino’s with me every Sunday. Thanks for putting up with my dreary gazes into space, and my lack of energy. I know going back to school is tough, but you accomplished great things this summer. You are an amazing person, and people are drawn to you. Use that energy to make yourself better, healthier, and happier. Everything else will fall into place. Plus, you can always come back and live with me any time you want.

2011-09-08T13:03:00.011-05:00

July

An End to Lost Love and My Cousin Heather’s Wedding

You’ve been so patient. I appreciate it, I really do. Today is the last entry of the lost love saga. After today, you will no longer have to read the intricate, drawn-out reflections of my personal hell—only short bursts, usually driven by anger. Let us all breathe a collective sigh of relief that this journey is nearly finished.

The first week of July, I had planned on going down to Washington DC for Heather’s wedding. Mark was set to move out during that time, (in fact, I believe my exact words were “I can’t have you or your things here when I get back. You need to be gone.”) and I wanted to be able to close the chapter on this properly. We had agreed that though he was staying in the city, we would cut off ties completely: no calls, no interaction, no emails, no texting. And since our post-Appalachian interactions had been so horrible, I wanted redemption. I did not want Mark’s last memory of me being a series of crying fits, hiding in closets, or throwing up.

In every closure event I plan (and there have been SO MANY), I assume that I will never see the person again, or that things will never be the same again. So I had the anxiety of making the most of what I felt to be a kind of emotional deathbed, but with it the additional humiliation that the person I was taking out for the evening did not want to be there, and was at best humoring me out of guilt and a near-removed sense of loyalty. Recapping this, I’m not sure if that gives me more or less dignity in doggedly persisting in my tradition, though I suspect it gives me less.

Mark and I met up at a Cuban restaurant around North 5th and Berry on Wednesday, June 29th. I made an effort with what was left of my hair and skin (I had begun picking off pieces of my lips and cheeks), trying to look pretty and normal and healthy. Definitely not sexy, though. After everything I’d been told over the last 6 months, I don’t think I could ever try to be sexy for Mark again. It would be like my mother telling me I looked fat in a dress and then wearing that dress every day just to see her wince.

I could see this horrible look of panic in Mark’s eyes when he saw me. If I could put my finger on it, I would say there were two emotions running concurrently through his veins:
1) Oh no she dressed up I hope she isn’t trying to win me back that would be so sad
2) I hope I’m not going to have to spend the entire night answering tearful questions about the state of our relationship
I felt literally no apprehension, because of all the things in this world I am good at, one-on-one conversation ranks very high on the list. I was determined to be my old, pre-Christmas self: charming, agreeable, sociable, and gracious (those at least were the words I kept repeating to myself). We were going to have one last proper date, and then I could pack this up and store it away cleanly with all of the other memories I have culled and curated over the years. (But I have to say, at this point even I was aware at the absurd lengths we had drawn this out. Over the last 10 years, we tried quitting each other dozens of times, yet each last moment of "closure" somehow never seemed to be the last moment.)

We got a table, and I started asking Mark about the friends he was staying with in Greenpoint, books he was reading, music he was discovering. I could see Mark visibly relax each minute that went by, realizing I was not going to be steering the conversation towards dating, romance, or relationships. I shared with him a bit about what Julia and I were doing, my health problems, how work was progressing, etc.

Afterwards we went to Bedford in search of ice cream. We found a truck over by North 8th or so. Mark started flirting with a couple of college girls in front of us, while I watched detachedly. As he talked with them, I kept thinking about my insecurities surrounding being replaced. I realized part of what was making me so ill was the certainty I had felt that I would be easy to replace—that the city was full of women who were sexier, more adventurous, more athletic, more musical, and less religious than I am. But as I was watching those girls, who seemed so lame to me, so boring and uninteresting, I was struck by a thought that should have occurred to me ages ago: I was, in fact, going to be very hard to replace.

It’s very easy to find a woman with positive qualities I don't have--however, they also come with much more baggage than I have. For example, a more adventurous might be flaky, or she might be drawn to hard drugs or abusive men. It’s easy to find women who are sexier, but they often (stereotypically, I know, but often true) have issues with trusting men, issues with their fathers, issues with feeling objectified. What I have that comes in short supply is a sense of balance, moderation, temperance, and true openmindedness. I am cool doing edgy and impractical things in moderation. I’m fine being sexually creative and passionate, but responsibly. I’m religious, but I’m intelligent about it, and frankly less reactionary and slavish about it than many nonbelievers are about their belief systems. I embrace the highs and the lows, I see paths clearly, I understand what it takes to be successful in life, I live without regrets. And that is something most people do not have, and that is something that will be difficult to replace. And I thought of all those girls who are so involved in scenes—all of those girls Mark was so thrilled about dating—girls looking for reinvention and validation, and I felt oddly sorry for him. Not to say he isn’t going to fine people who are amazing, beautiful, interesting, and kind—but he’s going to have to work really hard to find those people, and harder still to keep them 5 or 10 years.
It was a freeing moment. As I've mentioned before on this blog, I am a selfish lover in the sense that the way my partner perceives me is paramount in how much love I give him. One of the most attractive qualities I find in a man is his ability to find me attractive. Because I’m a little strange and a little cold, a man that finds me beautiful and desirable must be, by my reasoning, an extraordinary human being (yes, i know how this sounds!). Watching Mark flirt with two idiot girls when I was standing next to him put it in perspective: he is choosing THIS over ME. I new he wasn't serious about them, but it was a visual context that allowed me to see the bigger picture. And I felt liberated, because I couldn’t be attracted to someone who would value someone so shallow and, well, temporal. And rather than being hurt, or jealous, or bitter, I just felt pity, because he was consciously choosing to make his life less meaningful, more difficult, and for lack of a better word, more adolescent. I’m being very harsh here. I realize more is going into Mark’s reinvention than just a desire to be with someone young, fun, and wild. But I tend to be harsh when I see people endlessly retrace the same patterns in their lives. What is life for if not progress, the attempt to purify and perfect ourselves? Perhaps that's what Mark thinks he is doing. I have little idea.

After ice cream, we went home, and Mark played me “Holocene” from the new Bon Ivor album. I have to admit, it brought tears to my eyes. I thought the lyrics (or what I imagined the lyrics to be) were very poignant: And I knew I was not magnificent/take your fate and stick with it/I can see for miles and miles and miles. We then sat on the couch and watched a movie. About halfway through, I cuddled up next to Mark. We have developed an entire unspoken language of physical intimacy, and when he moves his body a certain way, I respond accordingly. And so, when he signaled he wanted to hold me, I complied without conscious thought. I can’t imagine how long it’s going to take to build up this intimacy with someone else. The mere thought of trying to date again filled me with complete exhaustion.

We spent the night in bed, whispering about old times and favorite memories. Before I left in the morning, I pressed my chest against his, until our hearts started to synchronize. The last thing he said was “Please let this not be forever.” The last thing I said was, “I love you.” I wish I had said something else, because the silence that replied broke my heart. I think of all the things that happened over the course of the year, that hit me the hardest.
I met Julia after work at Penn Station to catch the Bolt Bus down to DC. I wasn’t sad or upset—I had gotten my closure—but I certainly wasn’t enthusiastic to be going to a wedding between two college sweethearts who had known each other 10 years. Yikes. Maybe a bit too soon for that. Mom picked us up at the DC bus station, and we then drove up to the Ronald Regan airport to pick up dad. Mom and dad are heavily invested in the whole break up drama, so they pumped me for details, which only served to confuse them and hurt them more. They legitimately feel like they have lost one of their sons, and are trying in their own way to make sense of it.

Because my parents are mad deal-finders, we managed to find a sweet deal at the Ritz Carlton near McLean. This allowed us to relax in style. I am such a whore for a good hotel room—they are such a wonderfully impractical thing. I flopped into bed and slept 12 hours.
Friday, July 1st, I opened the windows and surveyed the deep green canopy of the McLean forests. I spent the first 4 years of my life here, and the country still strongely resonates with me. The only downside is the sheer amount of construction that’s occurred in recent years.
McLean used to have a rural New England sort of vibe—lots of small townships, wooden homes, and acres of trees. Because of its proximity to Langely, it’s slowly but surely being infected with urban sprawl, and now the town looks more like Dallas than Montpelier.

There were several crises of clothing that needed to be solved on Friday: I needed a dress for Saturday’s wedding, Dad needed a shirt and tie for Friday’s dress rehearsal, and mom needed shoes. The wedding was black tie, and dad didn’t have a tuxedo, so we needed to get the closest approximation. I had a lot of clothes that could work for winter black tie, but nothing for summer. We were practically pulling our hair out trying to figure out what we should wear. (For the record ladies, if it comes up in your lifetime, black tie summer means floor length silk or organza, or knee-length silk, satin, or organza in pale colors, jewel tones, or floral prints.) We went to a couple of malls, solved a few of the problems, and bought things off the registry. Because I am still dazzled by the fact that I have a job that makes me money, I bought a $700 pair of dolce and gabbana shoes that were on sale for $250 and that look like a million dollars. Don’t worry—these indulgences are becoming less frequent.
While mom and dad went to the rehearsal dinner, Julia and I ordered all sorts of greasy food and watched a marathon of “Dual Survival”, the best outdoor adventure show I’ve seen since “Man vs Wild”. Sample dialogue: "You can call me a hillbilly, but that's a derogatory term. I prefer Appalachian American"- Dave

That night I slept another 11 hours or so. This is a trend that to this day remains. My hair has begun to grow again, my face is slowly healing, and the bleeding has stopped, but I can’t seem to get back to a normal pre-divorce sleep schedule. Currently, I sleep 9 hours a night and I wake up EXHAUSTED. On the weekends, I sleep 12-14, and still can’t seem to catch up. Hopefully, as the depression starts subsiding I can return to something a bit more normal.

Saturday we watched Wimbledon while mom sewed some adjustments onto the dress I decided to wear for the wedding (One of Jordan’s old prom dresses.)
As you can see from this awkward photo, I was doing my best impression of someone with grace.

I then tried to do my hair, but for some reason, I could not get it to work. I had mom do it out of frustration, and she asked me how I wanted to look, and I just slumped my shoulders defeated and said “Just don’t make me look old,” and then started to cry, and that made everyone start to cry, because everyone realized I was (obviously) not talking about my hair and I pretty much broke everyone’s heart, so then I felt really bad on top of that.
Brooke with her mom, Barbara

Brooke came over to get dressed with us as Mom was dividing her jewelry among Julia and me. I got to wear some of her super nice antique gold, so I felt really rich.
Julia at Trump

The wedding was on the Trump National Golf Course which overlooked a river and a forest. The inside of the club was relatively tasteful for a Trump establishment, the only exception being some self-aggrandizing Trump-related press releases on the wall.
Heather is the daughter of my dad’s sister Marlene and her husband John. They are both Freudian psychiatrists, and we lived in their basement growing up, which is why I still have a soft spot in my heart for Freudian theory. (Incidentally, I think history will be kinder to Freud than this century has been.) Heather’s brother JD (screenwriter) and his sister Jennifer (doctor) were both their with their respective brilliant spouses. My Aunt Barbara (Brooke’s mom) also made it from Utah; unfortunately my other Jones relatives were either sick or on missions, so they weren’t able to join us.
Aunt Marlene and Aunt Barbara

After some pre-wedding photos, we sat on the lawn for the ceremony. Nonmormon ceremonies are always odd for me, because the spirit of the event changes so much from wedding to wedding.
Every Mormon wedding and reception I’ve been to has an unmistakable energy: holy, intense, nostalgic—no doubt due to what marriage means in our church. Outside the LDS faith, weddings mean different things, and so the tone changes from wedding to wedding. For example, Adele’s wedding had an amazingly spiritual sense about it, even though both she and her husband are nonbelievers. The energy was full of love, and it felt very much like a Mormon wedding to me. However, when one of my childhood friends got married, it felt like she was doing it to spite her mother, and the whole thing felt very hollow—like a prom.
Heather’s wedding felt like a corporate event because every detail had been planned to perfection. Not to say that there wasn't a sense of love and pride there, but the whole thing was so meticulous.
The ceremony was very beautiful, the cocktail hour very perfectly done, the food selected to show her taste and education. (I did have the best gazpacho of my life though, so well done Heather!)
Everyone my parents’ age and older looked like they were monstrously educated. The kids my age were a different story. All the guys there looked like their names were Troy and they should be trying to take Rec Centers away from poor kids. All the girls there looked like lawyers dressing up as Russian prostitutes. This is my generation.
Before heading in to dinner, I took some time off of this depressing pagent to walk around the forest near the golf course. For some primeval reason, nothing feels as organic and natural to me as a Virginia forest. I only spent 4 years living in McLean, but I remember all of the noises, smells, and sounds much more clearly than I do any activity or event. I stood and listened to all of the noises as bugs crawled across the dead leaves, as squirrels ran across the branches. I drew strength from the clarity that comes from returning to places long-thought dead that remain familiar.
I went back into the dining room, saying hello to several of the families I remembered from my childhood. I didn’t recall their faces, but I remembered the events we talked about, and they all seemed very proud of me, and were terribly impressed by my height.
We ate a bit at the buffet, and I managed to talk about yachting with the man next to me for about an hour.
Then toasts, dancing, and cake. I couldn’t bear to dance, even though my dad and aunts were doing it.
All I could do was stare off into space. After being a good sport and being positive all night, I finally reached my threshold. I know I must have looked dreadfully unhappy, but I couldn’t summon the energy to fix it. I just sat quietly, politely answered questions, and waited for the family to go.

Sunday, July 3rd mom and dad surprised us with room service while we watched Nadal get pwned by Djokovic in the Wimbledon finals. We should have known we were being buttered up, because soon mom and dad tell us to get dressed, we’re going to church. They drop us off at the Langley single’s ward, which was in the same chapel I went to as a kid. I had heard from my aunt that Langley had amazing guys, so imagine my shock when 5 guys are present for all of Sacrament meeting. You imagined right—I was not shocked at all. I was at best surprised the numbers were SO low—on average 5 girls to every guy—but the quality of the men was not surprising at all.
I had met an old family friend at the wedding who told me I needed to meet her son who taught gospel doctrine. So I go to his class, and he uses poetry, and he leads a very intelligent class discussion. (I will give the Langley men this: they may look watery and pale, and they may be small in number, but they are infinitely more intelligent and assertive then the men in the New York singles scene.) Afterwards, I go up to him to say hello, and he looks at me with complete awkward nervousness and proceeds to cling to the wall and move away from me. I have no patience for this, so I leave him and spend the rest of church outside, scouring for wild apples and raspberries in the forest and talking to Adele on the phone for moral support.
After church, our parents pick us up, and we head over to Marlene’s to light some fireworks and pick at what’s left of the wedding cake.

Me lighting fireworks: "these are the greatest things man had ever invented"
Dad: "it wasn't man, it was the Chinese."
I spent the majority of the time on the couch reading Tina Fey’s “Bossypants” and trying not to talk about boys, romance, or dating. This is much harder than you would think, but then at a wedding, I guess everyone’s mind is on these sorts of subjects.

Monday was the 4th of July. We pack up the apartment, grab some bagels from the Chesapeake Bagel Bakery, then go to Marlene’s for her annual 4th of July lunch.
We eat some cake and talk with the relatives, and there is a little bit of tension from the relatives with regards to mom, whom all the kids love and want to hang out with.
I think the other adults feel jealous. I remember how jealous I used to get when I was a kid when mom would spend all of her time hanging out with my cousins, who all adored her.
Now I’m like, DRINK IT IN, KIDS, SHE’S MY MOM 24/7 BE JEALUZ. After a couple of hours we need to leave so mom and dad can head over to the airport. They drop us off at the Marriott where Julia and I are staying for the evening, which is right by the Mall in downtown DC—a perfect location for the fireworks.
After we unload, Julia and I walk to the Lincoln Memorial (thanks for being closed, wading pool), then get Potbelly’s sandwiches.
We meet up with Marlene, Brooke, Barbara, JD, Jenny, and all of our little second cousins on the grass of the Mall in front of the White House.
Marlene and JD attempt to give me relationship advice—Marlene offers me a medical diagnosis of Mark’s behavior, which was interesting in its accuracy. I want to point out that I did not initiate this soul searching, and I was still in a place where I couldn’t stop myself from talking about it if someone asked.
Aunt Marlene bought us sweet glowing headbands, and got some light-up bracelets for the little kids. She’s always taking care of people like that.
Finally, the fireworks. The DC fireworks were unlike anything I had ever seen: They were so opulent and powerful, so unique and creative, I was transformed into a 4-year-old again, oohing and aaaahing with every blast.
Afterwards we enjoyed room service and ice cream, then fell asleep during “E! True Hollywood Story: Selena Gomez.” The next day we get up early and take a bus back to New York. I get back to my apartment only to discover…Mark’s stuff is still there. Yeah…apparently, the only time anyone could help him move it just happened to be a few hours AFTER I got back. The only time! And yes, I was angry. Again, break up clock had to be reset. But this time, there was no sadness--just fury at what I perceived to be another example of him treating me without respect. He packed up, and after a few hours, a guy from Craigslist arrived to help him move it downstairs. When everything was packed up, I had him leave his keys, and the last thing I said was, “Let me know whenever you figure it out.” Not quite as poignant as before, but the most accurate representation of my sentiments. And wouldn’t you know, I haven't seen him since.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, the door shut on my 10 year relationship. I appreciate your patience. Thank you and goodnight.

2011-09-07T16:20:00.006-05:00

June
My sister Julia decided she was going to come up to New York for about a month-and-a-half to do some internships and get out of the soul-sucking depression that hangs over Provo like a cloud. This meant that my Brave Face, ever worse for wear, was going to have to be brought out again; it meant that Energy would have to be summoned. It also meant that I would have someone to lifecoach- a fun pastime for me.
Brave Face requires cleaning up, and that means getting hit on, which was terribly awkward and uncomfortable for me. One of the unfortunate side effects of being both honest and celibate is a huge degree of anxiety whenever anyone shows me any sort of sexual interest. As soon as I can tell someone is interested in me, I start going through the inevitable uncomfortable conversation in my mind: yes, I’m religious. No, really. We can go to a bar, but no, I don’t drink. Also I don’t believe in sex before marriage. No, that counts. So does that. Yes, that too. Sorry, I can’t do any of those things.

I’m way too honest to string a guy along when I know what he wants and I know he’s not going to get it. Flirting isn’t fun for me in this respect, because there isn’t really any chase: all I’m going to do is waste someone’s time. So when guys start talking to me on the subway and ask for my number, or when I go out to dinner with a group of friends and start to really hit it off with a single guy, it’s like pulling teeth. So in order not to have to deal with it, I either
a) ignore the guy, or shut him down
b) consciously affect an antagonistic air
c) don’t put in any effort at all
d) desexualize my persona
I usually have to do 3 out of those 4 things to ensure I get left alone. So when Julia comes into town and I start putting on a Brave Face, (b), (c) and/or (d) usually slip. So the first part of June was filled with a ton of awkward run ins: work, subway, street, and dinner. I even had to stop taking the 8:32 M train because of one very aggressive doctor.

However, having Julia as a wingman kept things at bay, since I wasn’t traveling places alone and thus looking like I was inviting company. Julia arrived Thursday, June 2nd, and I took her to see “Tree of Life” with Mary and I at the Angelika on Houston. While maybe 30 minutes too long, I found it immensely moving—especially the end that had me in tears. Having spent a lot of my childhood in Texas near where the movie was film, I can say that the entire cadence and language of the movie spoke to me. And the sense of the inevitability of death, and putting too much of a burden on the ones we love—these were all themes that had a great deal of resonance with me.

Since Julia was crying as well, we decided to see something a little less depressing on Saturday, so she and I went to a screening of "Thor." Julia assured me I would be dazzled by Chris Helmsworth’s body, and indeed, I was not disappointed. Now, I cannot stress enough how low my expectations were for "Thor," but I can say that I found myself entertained. Also, entranced. Seriously, how can one person’s biceps be so big? It’s insane.

I took Monday the 6th off as my first summer Flex day. Similar to Summer Fridays, Flex days are given to employees during the summer so they can take random days off of work and go to the beach or whatever. The only catch is we can only use one a week, we can’t use them to create 4-day weekends, and we have to come in if there’s an emergency. It’s a pretty nice perk, and it allowed me to eat organic strawberries in a darkened theater with Julia. She was having a tough time adjusting to New York’s “no-air-conditioning” summers, so movies were the best place to take her.

Tuesday I had lunch with Marsha, where we had to talk about office drama related to … [legally redacted work drama] ... She was very understanding and assured me that … Afterwork, I did yoga with Julia. It was the first yoga session I had done as a single woman, and my instructor noticed. She looked like she was going to say something, but thankfully did not. Instead, she played Slowdive, and part of me died.

Thursday June 9th, the work drama was effectively over, which allowed me to relax a little bit. Cooked turkey stroganoff for my sister and watched “Bored to Death.” It was nice to be able to cook for someone again. I don’t really do it while I’m alone anymore. I’m sure I’ll start again, but right now cooking for myself is too much effort. I much prefer to be Liz Lemon in a Snuggie eating Night Cheese

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were completely wasted days: nothing but rain, so Julia and I tucked in and just ordered pizza and watched the Vampire Diaries. As I write this from a post-Hurricane-Irene vantage point, I can attest that this summer has been brutally chilly and wet—no beach opportunities at all.

Tuesday the 14th, Julia and I went to Target so she could get some housewares she needed for the summer. We went to Applebees for dinner, so we could legit make it a suburbs night. Now, the only problem with Applebees is that Julia and I were on a strict diet of 500 calories or less a meal in an effort to get healthy. Have you ever tried anything off of Applebee’s "low cal" menu? It is effing disgusting—a complete afterthought, bland and watery and crazy boring. And every other chicken dish on the menu that isn’t under the Weight Watchers menu (or whatever they call it there) is like, 1300 calories minimum. It was a pretty miserable night for both of us.

Wednesday, Julia and I celebrated her new fashion internship with dinner at Le Zie, then walked over to Chelsea to see “Sleep No More.” This adaptation of Macbeth was put on by Punchdrunk, the production team behind Jonsi’s tour (among other things). Without exaggerating, I can say that this was the most beautiful, exciting, fascinating, and poignant theater event I had ever been to. Staged in an abandoned hotel from the 1940s, you essentially wander through a variety of rooms—each one fully furnished. You poke through jars, order drinks from the speak easy, rummage through papers, open drawers, and explore.
Occasionally, you will see actors, whom you can either follow, or you can stay in one space and wait for the drama to come to you. (all the audience wears white bird masks, while the actors where clothing from the 40s—it’s the only way you can tell who’s in the play from who isn’t).
People grab you and take you into hidden rooms, or run away from you, or lead you into back alleys away from the action, making it hard to piece together a completely picture of the plot. However, the whole thing so beautifully captures a truth of mood, it was completely eye-opening to me how little linear plot you actually need to resonate strongly with your audience.

Friday rained again, so I didn’t bother going to the free Books concert in Brooklyn. Realizing I am a terrible host, I take Julia to Far Rockaway beach on Saturday with Brooke, Mary, Jesse, Wistar, and Nadia. We had tacos, we swam, we read—it was a lovely day, despite the cold water.
However, around 4pm, I became completely ill. My hands started shaking, and I had trouble breathing. I knew that Mark was going to contact me, and I was completely nauseated by the idea. And sure enough, I went home and I checked my email, and there was a Facebook message from Mark Roberts, sent at 4:30pm, letting me know he was going to be back at the house Sunday night. I promise I am not being histrionic--I can just feel when bad (and good!) things are about to happen. I'm not going to say it's due to increases in meditation and prayer, but I will say it's an interesting coincidence

Sunday, while watching Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never,” Mark buzzes up. I open the door, and there before me is a wild-haired Scot, complete with kilt and red beard. Mark had lost a significant amount of weight, and looked exactly like I imagined someone to look who had been hiking around in the Appalachian mountains for over a month.

I also knew that every cell in my body was on high alert, as if in the presence of a foreign radical. I told Mark during one of our last dinners that when he got back from his trip, things would be different between us, and the intimacy was going to be gone. And I was right—my body knew it. I was facing someone who looked and felt like a stranger, whom I loved yet somehow didn’t even like. I couldn’t even bring myself to touch him. He came upstairs and we talked awkwardly in front of Julia. It was really hard, because my family has had a tougher time with Mark’s rejection than I have, and so whenever I mention him, they respond with strong clan loyalty. Having Julia there just increased my discomfort, and Mark’s behavior, combined with his actions on the trail (lack thereof, to be specific), made things even work. We walked to the taco truck, and I asked him a bit about the trip, keeping things very light. He asked a few questions about me, but outside of my stress-related health problems (internal bleeding, hair loss, weight gain), there really wasn’t much of a development as far as I was concerned. I had nothing to say.
The awful thing about seeing Mark is that it set the internal breakup clock back to Day 1. I had spent 6 weeks on my own, grieving and coming to terms with the break up, and then just like that, we’re back in March and I’m having to re-mourn all over again.

Things got so much worse this time around.

There are many ways to sink a friendship, but the way we managed to do it was truly breathtaking. It started with Mark and I sleeping in the same bed together because Julia couldn’t sleep next to me (I impeded her ability to spread out). We fell into old habits of cuddling up next to each other while going to bed. I allowed this, because I figure on July 1st he’ll be in Berlin, and I won’t have to deal with it anymore. But then, Mark announces he’s going to stay in New York. Which is a great idea for him, careerwise, but a terrible blow to me. It means everytime I walk around in my neighborhood, I have to worry about running into him. Everytime I have to walk around his neighborhood, or our favorite restaurants, or our movie theater, I have to worry about seeing him. It means I can actually read the Facebook posts between him and his future girlfriends, rather than luxuriate in the ignorance of German-language exchanges. It means when our mutual friends run into him (which they do) I get to hear about it, or when they run across his OK Cupid profile (which they do, because EVERYONE is on OKC) I get an update about it, or when they see him out with a girl, I get to hear about her. It means that now, I can’t fall apart and rebuild—I get to live with this hell every day, and I have to be Brave and Strong while doing it.

As soon as Mark developed a plan (ie, job, career, city, apartment), he executed it immediately. He was still planning on staying in my apartment until July 1st, which I allowed him to do rent-free (since November), because I am deeply flawed and not quite correct in my logic. I was still under the impression that we loved each other, and selflessness is what people express when they are in love. In reality, the fact that I was allowing him to stay, and we were sharing a bed, permitted me to imagine there was greater intimacy between us than there was. So it hurt my feelings when Mark spent every night going out. At first it was to meet guy friends, then it was guys and girls, then it was just girls. At first it was until 11, then 2, then 4.

I tried to distract myself by taking on extra freelance projects and going out with Julia, but that just pushed me over the brink, stresswise. I had huge bald patches from where my hair was missing, and I was nervous and jumpy and brittle all of the time. I would go on these long crying jags, and when Mark would see me, I could feel this animosity mixed with relief, as if I were such a bitch for making him feel guilty, but luckily he soon wouldn't have to put up with me.

The breaking point for me was when he went out until almost 5 in the morning with a girl he had met at a bar, then slept on the floor of our living room, rather than sleeping next to me. Then I got a text from a friend saying Mark was actively looking for girls on OK Cupid. I was so absurdly jealous and hurt and humiliated I went to the bathroom and dry heaved, but of course I had nothing more to give at that point, so I was left to vomit air. I felt what can only be described as a foggy certainty that Mark was truly not in love with me, did not love me, and would not love me. As I mentioned before (I think—at this point I’ve discussed this ad nauseum so who knows?), I had been holding onto this belief that our separation had been because Mark was not ready to get married, but he still loved me. But like lust, love is defined by actions more than words, and there was no love to be found in any of Mark’s actions towards me—platonic or romantic. And I had to face the unhappy realization that this was truly over, and I had lost everything: friend, partner, future.

We went out the next day, Sunday the 26th, to discuss what we should do. I desperately wanted my foggy certainty to be contradicted: I wanted to be told that I was amazing and important and beautiful, that I didn’t deserve this, that he was sorry, that he would move out immediately because he loved me and didn’t want to hurt me. Instead, Mark told me he was going to stay with friends for the week, but leave his stuff at my place. He was moving not because he loved me and wanted what was best for me, but because he was ready to get on with his life, and he was too excited about his new life to be bothered showing discretion for an additional week. I'm sure to many of you, this is a perfectly reasonable request. After all, we had been broken up since March--how long is someone supposed to live next to the dead body of a relationship, watching it decay every hour? After all, we broke up because the love wasn't there--obviously, I wasn't going to be told the things I had wanted to hear. Those were things a boyfriend says, not an ex-boyfriend.

I hear you, I do, but the logical part of my brain was completely hidden behind a blanket of raw love. I loved this man, I could not comprehend that a love of this intensity could be ignored, or spurned, or abandoned. I was incapable of logic. And at this point I was so emotionally dead that I couldn’t even feel any of this, just a yawning chasm of disappointment and emotional hunger. Sitting here in September, I can’t tell you how much this hunger feeds into every waking hour: I haven’t been romantically validated by another human being in so long that I am starving for it. To be told I’m sensual and desirable and wanted. Like an anorexic, my body is literally eating my heart for lack of nourishment.

As he spoke, I was so tired of fighting for him, I could barely keep my eyes open. I asked him if he had anything left to say to me, and he didn’t. He had no insights, no reflections. And as I sat at that coffee shop on Havermeyer, I became aware that I couldn’t fight for the heart and soul of someone who wouldn’t ameliorate my suffering at such a small cost to himself. I just wanted a letter of reflection, some words of closure, some action that could illustrate that there was once something there. And nothing.

For the first time in years I saw Mark differently, as a new person- a person I wanted nothing to do with. The leaves were slowly shedding, the friendship sinking. And yet like the broken, degenerate, pathetic person I had become, I asked him for one more night. Of course, me and closure, that old crutch. He looked at me with something close to embarrassment and long-wearied tolerance and asked me why, and without exaggeration, I can say that I was so humiliated in that moment I would not have hesitated to kill myself had a gun been available. We went back home, and Mark packed an overnight bag, then left.
While all this craziness was going on, poor Julia tried to distract me like a champ. On Thursday the 23rd we went to a Deepak Chopra lecture on Grassland desertification. I knew almost nothing about Chopra, but took an instant dislike to him. He knocked into me after the lecture trying to get passed me in the crowd, and didn’t apologize, which sort of confirmed my opinion about his sense of entitlement.
The panel was very good though (word, Allan Savory!) , and it was in ABC Design, my favorite store on earth, so that was a delight.

(An overworked printer smells like the sea. I don't know if you've noticed)

Friday Julia and I went to see “Midnight in Paris,” which I loved because it reminded me of Woody Allan’s old short stories (Pick up “Without Feathers” if you have some free time), which are always wonderful. Minimum Allan pathology, which is nice for a change. We then spent the weekend watching "Lord of the Rings" in an attempt to cheer me up.
On the way to a client meeting

The Mark drama sadly wasn’t done for me, though I wish it had been. I spent Thursday the 27 at a client meeting over in Pennsylvania, so I felt all awesome and grown up and cool. And then I meet Julia in the city, because we were going to go to a movie, and she tells me that Mark texted her in around 7 in the morning. He had left his charger at my house, and that he was “in the neighborhood” and wanted to know if she could leave it outside so he could pick it up. Now, of course, my mind has turned crazy over the events of the previous week, so this is how my logic goes:

“Mark in Williamsburg + Mark getting up before 8 = Mark has spent the night in Williamsburg-->which means he’s probably spent the night at someone’s house-->probably a girl-->Mark is sleeping with other people after moving out 24 hours ago.

All or none of this might be correct, but at this time my mind was too diseased to be able to tell the difference. I was so sickened I couldn’t eat dinner, and poor Julia had no idea how to help me. We ended up going to see “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” and I tried very hard not to let my discomfort be too obvious.
So yeah, I’d have to say June was probably the lowest point in the break up. But I was surprised to learn that the human heart is like any other muscle: it conditions itself to stress. After 6 months of consistent pain and poor treatment, it had reached its saturation point. That was the moment that I really stopped caring. Sure, I’ve had moments of weakness where I get jealous, or moments where I miss him, but those moments are drying up. The whole thing—the partying, the girls, the drinking—it seemed tawdry to me somehow, and I didn’t want anything to do with it. And the more reflection I devoted to the subject, the more clarity I achieved, and none of my personal epiphanies involved continuing to give unrequited energy. However, the downside to that meant I had no more energy to give as a friend or as a partner—there was no way we could be part of each others lives again. Mark and I were all or nothing. He chose, and I choose, to give nothing.

2011-09-01T16:19:00.005-05:00

Bidness Trip!

You know what’s awesome? Business trips. They just are. I’m sure after doing it for 30 years there will be a time where I’m thinking, “Geez, Mary, could you just chill out and stay in the same town for two GD minutes,” but that is only a hypothetical. Because it would be really, really hard to get sick of business trips. I am being paid to collect free airline miles. I am being paid to get free Westin points. Every meal and taxi is paid for. And when I answer my phone, I can say things like, “Oh I’m sorry, I can’t come to your party tonight, I’m here in Ft. Lauderdale ON BUSINESS.”

Because of a scheduling problem, my supervisor R was unable to fly down for market research on one of our latest projects. (R is coincidentally one of the coolest women I’ve ever worked with—she used to work with Ridley Scott, and saw the Tanks roll in from Russia during the Prague Spring.) I was then drafted to take her place as the Copy Lead. This was a terrifying prospect: me, alone with the client, the head of our brand team (M), our account director (K) and our head of art (A). I was by far the youngest person there, and the only one who had never traveled for business.

On Monday the 23, I wake up at like, 6am to catch an early flight from JFK to Ft. Lauderdale. My agency arranges for a company car to pick me up. I want to play cool, but the truth is I was completely thrilled. I felt as if I was in a movie, playing the role of the Hard As Steel Advertising Executive—like “Big Business” or something. (Gosh, I love that movie. Have you seen it? Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin play two sets of identical twins switched at birth. I probably watched that movie a hundred times growing up.)
Now, the trip to Ft. Lauderdale had a certain amount of work drama that for legal reasons I cannot talk about. So unfortunately the fun part of this narrative will have to be concealed. So if there are ellipses (…), you’ll know that it was removed for contractually-obligated reasons, Nixon-style.

So I’m in Ft. Lauderdale, at like 10 in the morning. Everyone else flew into Miami, because I was not aware until I actually flew into Ft. Lauderdale that it was 40 miles from Miami, and had a much more convenient schedule of arrivals and departures. In my head, they were like 150 miles apart. Wish I’d known—it would have made everything a lot less complicated. Because as it was, the only other person flying into Ft. Lauderdale was K, and K’s flight didn’t get in until 1. With market research not starting until 3pm, I had 3 hours to kill, so I stumbled into a Chili’s (the only restaurant open at that hour) and order chips and queso at 10 in the morning (which I had not eaten since college. Oh my gosh, it’s like pure salt with a little cheese thrown in). And free refills. I almost cried. Are you aware that there are places in the United States that do not charge for additional sodas? It’s true!

So at noon, I sent K a text message that was all, “K, I’m here at the Chili’s. Let me know when you get in.” I wanted to split a cab to the hotel, then drop our stuff off and head back up to market research—that was the tentative plan back in New York. I would have done this myself, but I did not have the $100 to make that trip (even though I knew it would be reimbursed later), and K had a corporate card with him. So I waited, and then 1pm arrives and K texts me: “Just landed, gate X10. I’m going to go to the hotel first.” I text back, “Great, I’m gate Y7, want me to come meet you at your terminal and we’ll head over together?” Nothing. I assume he’s getting off, so I wait 10 minutes before calling him. “Oh hey, Mary, I’m in a cab. I totally misunderstood. Sorry. See you at research.” I was really surprised about this because …, and we had made plans in New York, and also, I had been getting a definite vibe of …, so the behavior was a bit puzzling on all fronts. But whatever, I get my own cab and go to research with my luggage. Honeybadger don’t care.

When I was a kid, I had this anthology of science fiction short stories that I reread every 6 months or so. One of the stories was about an astronaut who wakes up in a blue desert world, and is separated from half of the world by an invisible force field. On the other side is an alien. He and the alien can’t travel through the barrier, but nonorganic items can pass through it. Ultimately, they realize that they are locked in an elaborate Battle Royale, where one must kill the other in order to escape the planet. Man ultimately kills the alien with a spear.

Market research is a lot like that. Only instead of trying to kill each other, you’re trying to “communicate” with each other in a mercenary-like fashion: exchanging opinion for payment. They have information we want, we have money they want. We hide behind the mirror barrier, the invisible enemy, while they sit in a barren room without color or adequate warmth, sharing barbs in the form of questions that are communicated through a computer. I will say, however, on our side of the glass, we live like kings: there are snacks everywhere: baskets full of chips, bars, fruit, and nuts. Dishes full of candy and pretzels. Fridges packed with water and soda. 3 different coffee dispensers. Then every few hours some assistant wheels in an array of meals: breads, bagels, and danishes for breakfast; then whatever we have order for lunch and dinner (there’s a book filled with menus from local restaurants). There are recliners, sofas, pillows, blankets, and WiFi: so everyone just snuggles up, pulls out their laptop, and takes furious notes. It’s kind of awesome.
This is by no means the nicest spread we had, but it gives you an idea of the breakfast optoins. Snacks and cereal are out of frame. B JLZ

The hours are crazy long in research. Got to the facility at 3 (man, Ft. Lauderdale is BORING—how do people live in cities like that? I’m being completely serious about this question) and wasn’t out of the facility until 10pm--and that was a half day. By the time we got all the way to the Coral Gables Westin (I know! It was so nice!) it was almost 11pm, and we had to leave around 545 in the morning to make it back for the 630 interview. So this was not ideal. I really wanted to luxuriate in the awesomeness of having a room to myself, maybe look for a nice local restaurant and walk to the beach, but Noooooooooooooooooooooooo, I had to go right to bed so I wouldn’t be a zombie the next day.

OK, I’m going to admit something a little too personal here, so just roll with it: staying in a hotel on business is thrillingly dirty. To all those politicians and celebrities on tours and junkets who use Craigslist for anonymous hotel-room hookups and then get busted: I DO NOT JUDGE YOU. Something flips in the back of your head when you close that door on a business trip, and suddenly you want to do very bad things. I have stayed in dozens of hotel rooms by myself over the years, and nothing ever prepared me for this. It’s like you’re wearing the ring of Gyges and no one will ever know the things you’ve done--you feel powerful and sexy and rich, even though you are none of these things. And let me tell you, I wanted to do filthy things. It took everything I had to be a good girl and take a shower and go to bed LIKE A LOSER. But with that temptation came a profound revelation: if I ever get married, and I have a husband who travels for business, I’m going to have to travel with him or engage in some X-rated Skyping (or at that time whatever digital technology we’ve bent to our wanton ways) to make sure things stay on track. The business-trip-hotel-room syndrome is no joke.
Think of the possibilities!

Tuesday, we had our second day of Ft. Lauderdale interviews, which was disappointing because half of our subjects canceled on us. Around oneish, it was time to fly to Dallas. Because I love my family, I took the earliest flight I could out of Ft. Lauderdale so I could spend time with them Tuesday night. M and A were flying back to New York, which meant that it was just K and I going to Dallas for research. K was on a flight that left an hour later than mine…apparently we were in the same terminal for like 3 hours hanging out, but we missed each other because K was … and I …so I spent the wait getting to know our interviewer MW, who was absolutely delightful. He reminded me a lot of my old high school friend Michael O’Brien, actually.
My family at Mi Cocina during a tornado. Grapefruit-size hail outside as we enjoy that chips and salsa!

As it turned out, the fates were with me. A major tornado was about to hit Dallas Tuesday night, and my plane was literally one of the last ones to land before they shut down DFW. Which meant that poor K was diverted to Houston, where he had to spend the entire night … MW decided to go right to the Marriott to settle in, and I had Dad, Zach, and Julia drive me over to the Galleria Westin. We grabbed some dinner at Mi Cocina, then chilled in my hotel room for a while. Jordan came over, and she and Julia spent the night crashing in my ridiculously huge king bed (it was a Heavenly® bed!), cause we’re sisters and that’s the sort of thing sisters do. In the morning, Julia dropped me off at market research and then took Jordan to school.

At the research center, I said good morning to MW, who had to spend the night in the lobby of his hotel because of a tornado evacuation, so he got no sleep. I was very lucky that my area just saw some hail and heavy rains. But I’m going to be real, even if they had evacuated us to the basement, I wouldn’t have gone. Just like in college, I would have hidden myself under the covers so the firemen wouldn’t see me and then just watched TV. I live hard guys: no fear, obvs.
After the morning sessions, I got lunch with Dad and Julia at Cadot, a beautiful French restaurant by our house. Then, as the afternoon session started, K came in. He had been diverted to Houston, but then no planes were coming to Dallas until the morning, so he had to stay at a Howard Johnson’s, but on the way there, … came out of the building…drove away…email exchange…ants…then he said…and so we HAD to talk about it…eyebrows…Then afterwards, I had Jordan pick us up, and I dropped K off at the hotel so he could finally sleep after …, and it was really …
Because the office was closed on Friday, and even catching the red eye I wouldn’t be back in New York until Thursday afternoon, I decided to make a long weekend out of my trip to Dallas. Naturally, this was not billed, and luckily for everyone, considerably cheaper than if I had just flown straight back to New York. Julia let me try some of her homemade blueberry pie, which was delightful. I grabbed dinner with Bonnie at Mi Cocina again (I am fully aware I have a problem), and Jordan stopped by. Thank you, Bonnie, for always playing host to my cadre of siblings that follow us everywhere.

Thursday (May 26th) was a bit of a fail day in the beginning: everyone had to go to work but me—well technically, I was working remotely, but still; no one was in the house, not even Benjamin (who had moved back in following his engagement fiasco as well). So I decompressed, put on some niceish clothes, had lunch with dad at Marco’s pizza, then Julia and I drove over to Bonnie’s house for a jewelry trunk show. Because it’s me, of course the only piece I want is a RIDICULOUSLY huge statement piece: all chains and turquoise and crystals. No one can make expensive things look cheap as well as I can.
Mine is the one in the middle. It weighs a million pounds

Afterwards, Monica comes over and because she and I keep it old skool we stop by Taco Bell (WHAT? We have to keep High School memoriez alive, y’all) and then watch "Real Housewives of New York: The Moroccan Chronicles." Look, you don’t have to say it, I know the RHONY has been terrible this season: nothing but screaming and fake drama. But the Moroccan episodes were truly inspired. Then Jordan and Zach crash the party, and then Michael and Alan come back from FOGO DE CHAO WITHOUT US, LIKE THE MASSIVE TOOLS THEY ARE, stuffed with meat and wine and cheese puffs. I hated them so much in that instant, it was unbelievable. Then Bonnie, who (rightly so) loves Kanye West more than anything, mixes up Malibooyas based on a recipe she heard in “Monster.” Apparently they were delicious. This may sound lame, but honestly I have never been prouder of my friends then I was at that moment: my sister playing with Bonnie’s dog’s neck, Bonnie passing out Grey Goose and Malibu, Michael and Alan half asleep on the couch yelling at RHONY…It was beautiful.

Friday on our way to Chick Fil-A for breakfast, my sisters tried to get me hooked on the world’s worst Justin Bieber song, “Eenie Meenie.” Let me preface this by saying, I’ve tasted the sweet Justin Bieber Kool-Aid, and I’m loving it. But that song does not make a GD bit of sense. "Shorty is an eenie meenie miney moe lover" dude WTF. For lunch we met dad for pizza, and then driving back Julia is all, “Holy Cow guys, I think that’s Chace Crawford! Turn the car around!” So of course we whip the car around and see that it is in fact Chace Crawford of “Gossip Girl” fame (turns out he was in town for his sister’s wedding).
Back of ladies, Nate Archibald is mine

We probably stalked him for 2 miles, driving past him super slow and taking “furtive” camera phone pictures.
Chace, if you ever read this, I am so sorry. We weren’t trying to be creepers, and I apologize if you heard our excessive screaming.

Saturday the 38 I got up early to have brunch with Bonnie. Usually mom is in town, so most of my free time is spent with her, but this time she was in Paris helping Margaret move or whatever, so I was able to spend more time with my BFF. It was difficult hauling myself out of bed at like 8am on a Saturday, but Bonnie was worth it. We had brunch at Kathleen’s Art Café, and mostly talked about boys, which was a bit out of character, since Bonnie and I NEVER talk about boys (srsly, it’s almost always TV, friends, music, and work). She didn’t have any advice for me, other than to try and find someone who was enthusiastic about me, and then move back to Dallas so we could hang out again. If she could move up to Boston, I feel like I might be able to meet her halfway on this.
My awesome dad

Went back home, then worked on mom’s ironing and watched some of the extended version of LOTR. Then Dad, Zach, and I went over to the courts to play some tennis. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much my new grip had weathered the winter—it was one of the best games I had played in a while. It was incredibly annoying to know I would not be able to play again once I got back to New York.

Sunday the 29th, I flew back to New York with a layover in Chicago. It was one of those cock-tease layovers that was just long enough to be super inconvenient but not long enough to allow me to see any friends in the area. So thanks for that, American. Also, all of the first class upgrades in the world can’t make up for 2 hour delays on top of a 2 hour layover. Just saying. HOWEVER, arriving back in the city to a corporate car waiting for me did improve my trip SIGNIFICANTLY. There is so much that is difficult about business and yet much that is totally awesome.
May 30 (Memorial Day) was spent celebrating summer in the park with Mary South. We grabbed some food at WilliamsBurger, then put her cat on a leash and walked up to McCarren Park, where we spread a blanket and people watched. Not being able to withstand the heat anymore, I installed all of the air conditioners, which took me like, 10 minutes. It took Mark like, 2 hours to install them last year. I’m not going to say I’m a genius at installing air conditioning units, but I am going to just put the facts forward.
Talking the cat for a walk

Finally, the end of May marked the end of an era: my friend and mentor Anna O’Brien was leaving the states for her new job in London. I helped her pack up her apartment, she gave me her KitchenAid mixer. Not exactly a fair trade, but very sweet. Thank you Anna! Godspeed on your new life!

Link of interest!
Exactly what I've always wanted: flight vs drive calculator

2011-09-01T10:41:00.002-05:00

At the risk of sounding a bit inside-jokish, I had to share my dad's response to an email I forwarded him:

I tried to read your email, but it BURNED A HOLE THROUGH MY HARD DRIVE!
whatever that virus was, it has to be the worst virus ever to infect a microsoft
product. That was a really mean trick.

Love,

Dad

2011-08-29T12:01:00.007-05:00

May

While May greeted us with the death of Osama Bin Laden, I really couldn’t bring myself to get to engrossed in the action. Coming back from Hawaii, I was well rested, but still felt like the living dead.

On Monday the 2nd, I dropped Mark off at the bus terminal. I was expecting him to be gone Sunday, the day I got back from Maui, but he had misread his ticket, and it turned out it was the following day. I was determined to be a strong and gracious person about this, so I dealt with it: I took him out to Thai food, then took him to the bus depot. He was very nervous and apprehensive, but also excited about the challenge of hiking 500 miles. Trying to put aside all of the anger and hurt, I focused on being empathetic, and told him he would have a phenomenal time—which I knew he would. All of those feelings of betrayal I packaged up neatly and stored in the closet of my heart. This was a time for character.

As I was waiting for him to board, I noticed this old guy was looking at me. “You not going with him?” He asked, nodding in Mark’s direction.
“Nah man, he doesn’t want me.”
The guy took a look at Mark, who smiled and waved back at me. “Looks to me like he wouldn’t mind have you going with him.”
“Don’t be fooled. He broke up with me 2 months ago.”
“Really?” The guy frowns.
“Yeah. I’m really religious, and I think the religious thing just wore him our after a while. My guess is, he’s on a journey to find a girl just like me, only who doesn’t believe in God.”
“Religious huh? Just tell me you’re not Mormon”
I burst out laughing. “Dude, how did you know!?”
“Hell no you ain’t?” He was bowled over. He then proceeded to tell me the story about falling in love with this Mormon girl, and getting engaged to her. And he read all about the church, read the Book of Mormon and everything, but he couldn’t get passed the whole history of the church with the black community. He told me a lot of stuff that was “doctrine” about race that wasn’t actually true, which caused me to seriously wonder what sort of Mormons he had been talking to, but I let it slide. At the end of the story he said, “You know, in the end I couldn’t do it. It was too much of a commitment, her whole way of life. So I left, and she ended up marrying some very nice guy, and now she’s got a couple of kids. But there isn’t a day I don’t think of her, and what it would have been like to be with her. She was a very special lady.”
“Yeah well, I don’t think I’ll be so lucky. I’m not exactly an easy sell: 29-year-old virgins aren’t exactly in great demand.”
He looked me over. “Hey now, You’re a sharp, smart woman. Maybe a little bit scary, but ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

On the way home, I felt this enormous sense of lightness. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much Mark’s physical presence in New York was a torment. Even apart, just knowing I was coming home to him was enough to cause anxiety. We didn’t fight, but in our domestic kindness there was the constant reminder of all the things that had been good about our relationship. In the absence of anything bad, I had to accept that I wasn’t worth staying around for, even when nothing was actually wrong. Every day I felt on trial. That constant scrutiny made me depressed, it made me anxious, it made me awkward and emotional, and as I displayed those reactions, I could see the narrative being written, the judgment handed down. I was turned into a monster, and then called one. While I sound like a broken record, the physiological toll of this was profound and enduring.

But when I got home, he was gone. No one was judging me anymore. And I wanted to keep everything as free from the memory of that pain as possible. Mark had left his stuff all around my apartment, and I couldn’t stand to look at it, so I spent 3 hours boxing all of it up, packing it away, and hiding it in the closet. And as soon as I did, I felt a sense of freedom that I hadn’t felt in months.

With my newfound freedom, I mostly just hung around the house and luxuriated in the privacy. Having not had a room to myself for over 2 years, this was a rare treat. I caught up with all of the friends I had neglected: I ate at Williamsburg’s Traif (specializing in non-Kosher food), got kimchi-chahan with Marsha at Congee Village, and helped Anna pack for England.

Saturday the 7th I made the mistake of trying to download a Microsoft Office keygen, which completely wiped my harddrive clean. This was a complete disaster, as I had tons of music that Mark had just given me, which I had get to put on my iPod.

Monday, we began market research for a new project, so I stayed late at work, watching plastic surgeons being interviewed over the web. I loved that there was no one waiting for me at home. I could stay as late as I wanted in the office without guilt. Delightful!

Tuesday the 10th I was supposed to meet Nina at Vapiano in Union Square. Along the way I wandered around the ABC Design store, wanting everything. As I was exploring the room of old medical equipment, I thought “Oh man, I can’t wait to share this with M…ah yes, we don’t do that anymore.” For ever after, whenever something cool happens to me, or I see something I love, or I taste something delicious, I can’t share it with him. That’s going to suck.

My office sucked me into this project to create a digital process, and I got recruited to help write brochures and templates for the company. It also coincided with us landing this huge digital project where I was the lead writer. This meant I didn’t have much time to think about my life as a single lady: for the next 3 weeks, I was literally in meetings every day from 9 to 5, then writing before work and after work. Again, the distraction was very much appreciated.

Thursday is always a rough night for me to go out, since I start out the day at 4am to work at the temple, but I made an exception on the 12th, meeting Mary South and her Columbia girls at My Thai. I really loved all of them—they were smart and well mannered and very sweet girls, but I wasn’t really bringing my A-Game. Sleepy, overworked, and walking around in a perpetual sleep walking fog, I feel like I left a very lukewarm impression.

Met Anna on Friday to see Herzog’s “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” It had the trademark Herzog WTF moment at the end with the albino alligator, but mostly I found the subject matter (oldest known cave paintings in Southern France) to be incredibly compelling. Afterwards we wandered around Duane Reade together, where I bought leather perfume and gold nail polish like a ghetto superstar. I know gentleman, it’s difficult to resist my awesome charms.

My first Saturday as a single woman was a bit horrible. I had a list of chores, but I didn’t want to do any of them, and every single restaurant and shop in our neighborhood reminded me of Mark in some way. I probably should have planned it better.

I finally broke down on Wednesday the 18th and called Lakshmi. I was putting it off, because both Lakshmi and Adele are women of intelligence and substance, and our friendship is based on everything but boys, which is refreshing. We can get together for a weekend, and boys will maybe be discussed for an hour, and all the rest of the time we talk about music, movies, careers, goals, sports, investing, whatever. This is incredibly valuable to me as a woman. However, when the only thing that is preoccupying my waking hours is the loss of a boy, I am loathe to call them. And yet, I broke down and called Lakshmi, and it was glorious. She listened sympathetically and without judgment, gave me a lot of good insights, and handled the whole thing with a mixture of toughness and sweetness. I felt very comforted after the conversation.

Friday the 20th, my cousin Brooke asks me if I want to do a tour of Amish country with her. Needing a change of scene, I immediately agree, realizing that if I don’t go, I will end up watching Archer all weekend in my room.

Saturday, Brooke and I head over to Central Park, where we meet the others in the tour group. I was hoping for some male presence, whether it was a single guy or a gay couple or something, but instead I got 3 Park Slope moms and a Catholic insurance attorney whose boyfriend recently left her. Everyone in the car was unmarried, only not of choice, so we had a lot in common as you can naturally see.
Our first stop was at a cute town in Lancaster, nearish to Bethlehem. We passed by some beautiful forests along the way, and I couldn’t help but feel jealous of Mark’s mountain hike. Partly because of his insinuation, and partly because I love nature, I was beginning to feel trapped and old. Being out in rural Pennsylvania only made that desire more intense.
At the first Farmer’s market in Lancaster, I was absolutely shocked by how delicious everything tasted, and how incredibly affordable it was. So I loaded up on dairy—I actually brought a spare duffle bag for that purpose.
Cheeses, breads, amazing granola (I regret not buying more of that)—I was a machine. I also bought a gallon of unhomogonized milk just so I could enjoy the milkfat (I never drink milk anymore, but this stuff was aces).
Afterwards Brooke and I walked around the town, sampling chocolate, eating at a mediocre Mexican restaurant (chips so good! Other things not!), shopping at the dollar store, and checking out the site of Indian massacres.
Afterwards we all piled back in the car and checked into our Amish B&B.
They technically had electricity for us English types, and they had those infamous “Amish” fireplaces that were all the rage in 2008: They also had a very aggressive swan who was always trying to pick a fight with me. I did not appreciate his tone.
After we had settled in, our tour group went into town for the Lancaster Rhubarb Festival.
This was a bit of a disappointment, as I was anticipating much more of a Farmer’s Market-hoedown vibe, and instead it was some musical acts at a strip mall, but there were rhubarb jellies and a kettle corn stand, so who was I to complain?
This woman had rhubarb in her hat, like a boss. I tried her raw rhubarb and found the tartness very enjoyable.
Seriously, this one store specialized in a million different jellies, jams, and butters. Had I not already blown all my money on dairy, I would have cleaned up.
Brooke and I made our way over to the barns where the Amish hitch up their buggies, and started playing with the stupid chickens and the possessed goat. Let’s take a minute to look at this goats eyes if you doubt me:
Afterwards, we piled into the van, and now legitimately exhausted, we rolled up to Plain & Fancy, a family-style restaurant that had all-you-can-eat everything, and had some of the best fried chicken I have ever consumed. While we were there, the rapture did not happen in New York as it was intended to. This was a surprise and a disappointment.
The next morning I was supposed to get up early to milk the cows, but I had a terrific migraine (which may or may not been caused by the fact that Brooke and I stayed up late watching “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” on VHS). We had a small breakfast (which one of the PS Moms turned into a liquid breakfast. Never too early for wine), then drove over to a reproduction Amish Village.
I learned the differences between Amish and Mennonites, as well as fun cultural nuggets (all their appliances run on gas! They have phones out back!)
I also learned that I desperately want the walls of my next apartment to be painted Amish colors (pale blue, pale green, or white only), and I am obsessed with peacocks.
It’s funny the things we learn about ourselves.
I bought an Amish newspaper and 2 pounds of hand-churned butter. You literally cannot take me anywhere.
We drove through the covered bridges of Pennsylvania, seeing at least one Amish buggy, which was always a delight. I had to take a picture, under the guise of taking a picture of the bridge. Yes, I am a terrible person.
Our final stop before our return to New York was Lititz, which is unfortunately pronounced Le-tits. My 12-year-old sense of humor was completely tickled by this, and I kept snickering under my breath.
HOWEVER, JOKING ASIDE, THEIR FURNITURE PRICES ARE AMAZING. They had a whole shabby-chic French style hutch in a delightful blue for like, $300. I almost bought it and shipped it back to New York, I was this close. Unbelievable deals on furniture. I highly recommend it for bargain hunters.
Brooke and I went to the colonial inn (General Sutter Inn) for brunch, where I had the most unbelievable eggs benedict. I saw Liquid Lunch mom there, arguing with the waitress about their selection of microbrews. It was the best.

Monday was the start of my first business trip, which deserves it’s own post. Until then, here are my favorite links for the month of May

Kodokushi ("lonely death") reminds me of how important it is to maintain both of things and relationships
Exploring the reality between hunger and poverty

2011-08-22T17:57:00.002-05:00

April Presents: Hawaii (April 23-30)
While my father is insistent that he is morally superior to my mother because he doesn’t care about girly things like shopping for girl things, like a girl would do, he is mistaken. He is in fact exactly like my mother, only he prefers shopping for precious metals and real estate. So when he found a "total bargain" time share a couple years ago when the luxury real estate market bottomed out, you better believe he was ON IT. So now, every year my family treks out to Hawaii once a year, which is just fiiiiiiiine with all of us.
Mark was originally supposed to go with us, but due to that whole not-being-together thing, that ended up not happening. Sad-sack moping aside, it was a genuine disappointment, because Mark would have ADORED Hawaii. So it ended up being a whole trip where I wanted to share all of these things with someone, and I couldn’t, and I then had to be reminded why I couldn’t.
You know what’s suddenly becoming clear as I write this? How weird it must seem to most people that I took the break up this hard. If you were to talk to me socially, you would never guess that I would be a secret sex-starved romantic. That despite my insistence on rational response and accepting a given situation, there’s this churning sea of unnavigable feelings I have to live with every day, and if the dam breaks, well…Then I guess everyone gets covered in melodrama. Yes, I had to take it there.
So on April 23, I boarded a plane for Maui with my whole family (Margaret flew in from Paris!), and my Aunt Mary and Uncle Randall. We met up with my dad’s brother (Uncle Dan) and part of his family (Aunt Jane, cousin Carolyn, and Carolyn’s 3 boys).
Stepping off the plane in Hawaii is, without a doubt, the single most relaxing experience in the world. You are entering an athmospheric bath of perfect breeze, colors, and temperatures. Everything is open air, everyone’s wearing flip-flops and loose shirts. All the unconscious signals are being relayed to your body that you do not need to struggle for anything: everything here is for your nourishment and healing. See a fruit on a tree? Go ahead—you can eat it and I am almost positive nothing will happen. I did this one night to discover some weird fruit that was super sticky and tasted like mango-papaya-yoghurt. Walk into the ocean, and there is almost nothing that will hurt you (sharks aside). It’s always 70 degrees, so you never need to worry about dying of some kind of exposure. No, Hawaii invites you to come and thrive.
However, because it is so peaceful, it is very hard not to just collapse, which is just what I did. With all of the emotional stress winding me up so tight, as soon as I drove up to the Marriott and got in that bed I collapsed and slept for 16 hours. Every night thereafter I slept between 12-14 hours a night, and when I wasn’t sleeping in a bed, I was sleeping in a hammock, or on the beach, or by a pool.
On any given day I probably spent 6 hours awake and actively engaged. This was very annoying to my family, who actually wanted to interact with me in some manner.
Sunday the 24 was Easter Sunday, and my mother, being of course the best mother in the world, prepared Easter Baskets for all of us. She also managed to find me an amazing pair of Ray Ban aviators, which she had scored for a ridiculous bargain-basement price (girly shopping, fyi). I was so grateful for this sweet gesture that I tried to stay up and talk to her, but ended up eating chocolate and falling into her bed for another hour.
When I woke up, Randall and Mary wanted to explore Lahaina, the nearby town. We left Jordan and Zach at home because they totally did not want to go to any “retarded” craft fairs, so they missed out on the red coral necklaces and crazy amazing jams for sale. Whatever guys, be that way. The only place open in Lahaina for food was, sadly, Bubba Gump shrimp, so that’s where we went. It was right by some shallow water, so we should see the crabs walking about on the rocks, and the breeze was absolutely perfect.
If we could’ve only shaken off that annoying waiter who kept trying to quiz us on our “Forest Gump” knowledge, than everything would have been fine. Seriously, guy, we don’t like the movie—we just wanted shrimp and burgers go away and bring me more soda because I am finally in a state that provides free refills chop chop.
Monday we spent our entire day bouncing around back and forth from the pool to the beach, which is just about all of the excitement I can stand for one day. You know, it actually doesn’t even make sense to try and recap all of this in a day-by-day fashion because the days completely run together in a wonderful bouillabaisse of sleeping and tanning and eating, so it would probably be more accurate to just group all the days together.

Monday 25 through Wednesday the 27 I went to the beach and to the pool, went down the awesome water slide, and taught myself how to make an awesome pina colada (turns out a coconut-based syrup PLUS coconut milk PLUS pineapple juice PLUS ice. You’re welcome). I tried to hat up Dynasty-style whenever possible, because I am getting old and I don’t want old-lady lines on my face.
But despite all of the attempts to cover up, I found myself burned in the weirdest places: armpits, back of my hands, ankles. We had a couple of trips to Panda Express and various burger joints near the hotel and in Lahaina.
Since dying my hair from blonde to brown, I cannot get buy with simple shampoo-and-conditioner routines. I need about 15 minutes and 3 conditioners to ensure that my hair looks and feels like a normal persons. In Hawaii, with salt water and just one small bottle of hotel conditioner, it didn’t take long for my hair to look like this:
Imma be honest, I didn’t feel top-of-my-game in Hawaii. My sister’s all looked incredible, as you can see:
And I…didn’t. Even taking one of the more flattering photos taken of me on the trip, I don’t really look well.
It was just one of those things: I hated my hair, I hated my body, I looked terrible in everything I owned. This contributed to a lot of clandestine crying along the lines of “my gosh look at me I’m a monster no one will ever love me,” which I would normally keep on the DL except it is such commonplace breakup behavior that really, what's to hide? Watching the royal wedding didn’t help either: oh wow, look how slender and polished Kate Middleton looks! Look at this tasteful celebration of 2 decent people in love! So yes, even in Hawaii I had dark days. But in general, I was too laid back and sleepy to give anything much thought. Plus, it's hard not to be happy when you're related to these people:
Favorite quote of the vacation:
Me (realizing I was missing the season finale of The Biggest Loser): "It's Tuesday. I need to get home for "Biggest Loser"
Margaret: "You sound like the biggest loser right now"
Finally, by the time we got to Thursday (I was flying back on Saturday), the family decides that we need to break out of the pool/beach doldrums, and so we decide to make our way to the East Coast of the Island.
The road from East Maui to West Maui, then South West is called “the Road to Hana,” and is supposed to be crazy windy.
It’s also crazy beautiful: you have to drive through sugar cane fields
and bamboo forests
jutting out of lava rocks. The warnings weren’t kidding around though: you had to creep up the mountainsides and the costal roads because the turns were so tight. But I mean, when you’re passing waterfalls,
crystal-blue oceans, and
fruit-stands, who really cares?
We stopped for burgers since some members of the family…ahem dad..were resistant to the idea of getting Thai. Then we headed over to the 7 Sacred Pools.
This state park is a series of 7 fresh water pools near Haleakala.
We climbed down to the black sand beach and walked around, poking plastic bubbles (seriously, what were those things?)

and looking out for mongooses. Then the parents headed back to the car, and the kids went cliff diving in the biggest pool.
It was fun but a bit creepy—it looked a little bit like a place where ancient piranhas were going to come out of a secret aquifer and turn us into gore.

After swimming in the pools, we tracked down Charles Lindbergh’s grave, hidden behind a humble little church and overlooking the ocean.

After our trip to the the Lindbergh grave, we faced an impasse: do we press on into the southwest, hoping to connect with the highway and get back to Lahaina in an hour, or do we turn around and go back home the way we came, roughly 2 hours?
If it turned out we were wrong about the Southwest passage, then it would take us 3.5 hours to get home, but if we were right, victory was sweet. Dad was against the new route, because the map was sketchy on details, but we decided to go with it. In the process of doing so, we discovered:
A horse, just hanging out
An old general store complete with a goat who jumped up on our car

Crazy cool rock formations

And low and behold, a Southwest corridor!

The only casualty was our poor Aunt Mary. Randall and Mary had rented a Harley, and had spent the whole day riding through gravel, split hair turns, cold rain, and sizzling sun. By the time they got back to Lahiana the poor thing almost passed out. And we were separated, so there’s no way we could have known and had her go with us in the car.
Friday, we were going to go to the top of a volcano, but it got too late in the day so that idea was struck down. We ended up going shopping instead, and Randall bought us some amazing gelato, which Julia summarily got on her sweater (seriously, we have ALL been there). We all got too burned to surf, which was a crushing disappointment. But you know, that would have been way too much physical exertion for my mood.

2011-08-19T16:12:00.005-05:00

April

When my family had come up for Spring Break in March, we all watched this documentary together on the Appalachian Trail. For whatever reason, this idea of hiking a mountain passage sparked his fantasy, and he decided this was going to be his transitional tool: he would hike the Appalachian Trail, and then he would leave immediately afterwards for Berlin. Then we could get on with our lives.

The problem with living with your ex-fiancé is that every day the breakup is new. I came back from Tokyo empowered, stronger, confident…and then I walked back through that door and saw Mark and it began all over again. Having a departure date (in this case, the first of May) made it easier. And since I was going to be in Hawaii from April 23 to April 30th, I’d be able to have a goodbye dinner with Mark, have him disappear on the trail, and then see him for a few days before he flew to Germany. I just had to make it two more weeks. I could be strong for 2 more weeks.

Laura Terry, my high school sweetheart, crashed with me the Weekend of the 8th for MoCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) conference. She was a bit apprehensive about entering the lion’s den so soon after a breakup, but she found us surprisingly civil, watching Michael Caine in Sleuth. She later declared us in a state of shock. I’m still not entirely sure if we are as she suggested, or if loving each other is just who we are: an emotion as an identity. For instance a few days ago (August 18—we’re in present times now) Mark sent me the sweetest text message about my writing, totally out of the blue. We shouldn’t be speaking to each other, but he still sends me notes every now and then, and I write back just as I always have. I am very curious as to how this story will end: are we a couple who was deeply in love, and who is now getting over the shock of being apart? Or are we a couple who is deeply in love, but who still needs to develop independently before we can begin a life together? I always had to flip to the last page. Living without one is excruciating.

In a book I used for my New Testament lesson, James Talmadge wrote that in “every adult human life...too frequently the saving aid is mistaken for a greater terror.” If honest with myself, I think that Mark and I—we are guilty of that. Throughout our history at different times, we have mistaken strength for terror. I know for many years, I refused to let myself fall in love with Mark because of the terror of marrying outside of my religion. But that terror caused me to overlook the fact that I was with someone who was right for me in every other way. However, it’s equally possible that this relationship meant nothing, that I’m aggrandizing it because I have nothing left, and I can’t bear the idea of having nothing to show for those years.

So despite all of the uncomfortableness, I pushed through our last two weeks in April. I wanted Mark to leave remembering me as being strong: which, in retrospect, is laughable. I cried in bed for days, sat on the curb in tears, questioned him in circles for days, fell into deep depressions, and lacked the strength to tell him to leave. How on earth could I ever have imagined that anyone would find me strong again after having to witness that? So you see, this is why it is critical that people separate after a break up: once they see you gain 10 pounds and sleep in the same shirt for days, they will never look at you the same way.
Who is posting photos of me on the internet?

But I tried to put on a brave face. I saw Hanna and adored it. Had to say it’s depictions of Berlin were so bleak, I began to have serious questions about whether Mark should be moving there. Our favorite sitcom Perfect Couples was canceled, which made life very hard. IN FACT, NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE. That show was amazing

Thursday April 14 I met with grad-school friend Nina for dinner at Village Yokocho. Over kimchi-chahan, I explained to her my ridiculous situation. The good thing about having so many girlfriends is that I can tell each one the same story, and then I can have the benefit of discussing it over and over without having to look like a crazy who actually is talking about the same thing over and over. Nina was very supportive, though understandably confused (take a number).
Shopping for breathable synthetics: literally the only thing Mark did for weeks

Before meeting Nina, I picked up a copy of Lonely Planet: Iceland. Mark’s constant talk about his Appalachian Trail Spirit Journey (my sisters call any solo trek a Spirit Journey, which I think is apropos) was making me incredibly wunderlusty and jealous. Seriously, he talked about it all the time, and when he wasn’t talking about it, he was researching it online, or comparing gear prices, or reading AT memoirs. Part of it is just who Mark is: when he goes through a mania, he goes full tilt, but I couldn’t help but feel that a big part of it was a purposeful division of the two of us in order to make the break up more definitive. Like drawing a line in the sand separating his new life and all of its ensuing adventures, from me and the old life he wanted to leave. Which, I’m sure you’re telling yourself, is a perfectly normal and healthy thing for a couple to do when they’ve broken up. But remember, Mark was still living with me, so the separation wasn’t exactly so clean cut, especially on an emotional level.
I need to go to there

But Iceland called out across the iron-filled Atlantic sea beds, and I was desperate to get out. I wanted to go somewhere alone and just lose myself, and Iceland seemed the perfect place to go do it. The more I read through the book, the more I was convinced that not only was this a place I needed to explore, but this was probably a place I was going to need to habitat. But yeah, without a burgeoning advertising scene, I can’t imagine I’d be able to find work in Iceland. Still, plans are being formed-I’ve actually created an Iceland fund which will be used towards my own Spirit Journey. I’m keeping it close to the chest, but when it goes down, y’all will know and y’all will be jeluz.

Because I’m a nostalgic person by nature, and I’m a story-teller, closure is very important to me. Closure to me is the last chapter in the narrative, and knowing it is the last time I will be able to experience something gives me the opportunity to pay attention to the moment, to soak in the details and structure memories. Because Mark was going to be leaving for the Appalachian trail the day I got back from Hawaii, I wanted to have a Last Weekend. When he would get back from the trail, we’d only have a few days together before he flew to Germany. I wanted our Last Weekend together to be a snapshot of what our last year and a half had been: so what better way to celebrate it than to see the Atlas Shrugged movie? After all, Ayn Rand had brought us together—it seemed a fitting way to end it. (The movie was not as bad as the poster imparted):

Afterwards it was pouring rain, so we went to Balthazar’s for coffee to wait for it to let up. Over a cheese plate, I tried talking, but Mark was really down. I kept feeling like he was trying to be a good sport, but he really didn’t want to be there-like the whole concept of a Last Weekend was crazy retarded. I’m sure it was—anyone who has had the misfortune to date me knows I’m really into Lasts, and if they repeat themselves, the exercise can get really old really fast. It’s difficult to live with the expectation of significance when you don’t feel the person or the action at hand is significant.

But despite my suggestion that we go our separate ways, Mark trucked with me over to All Saints, where I bought a dress I had been ruminating on for weeks. Then we trucked through Kmart so Mark could check out his gear options.

Sunday the 17th was one of the first Sundays since the breakup where I had to go to church alone. Since March 7th, my family had been in town, or I had been traveling, so I wasn’t able to have the AWESOME experience of going to church by myself and having EVERYONE stare at me with that sympathetic look that only reinforces my own weakness, and sit there by myself and look at everyone else’s adorable children, and then have Super Hot Industrial Designer tell me he’s moving to San Francisco leaving me as the only single woman (roommate excepted) in the ward. It is horribly annoying, not being able to start life-building.
This is how I feel on the inside

After church, I spent the day with Mark: shopping for books, getting drinks and a taco, buying meat balls and cheese at Marlow and Daughters, then get Diner. I had cow’s heart and a nice salad, Mark had something rabbit related. We had a really lovely conversation—we always excelled at the candlelight conversation. But the light wasn’t dim enough to keep me from seeing how uncomfortable he was, how much he resented this last ritual, even as he enjoyed the company and the conversation. It was uncomfortable to myself at that moment, to be aware of the fact that I was no longer being seen as someone who was strong, sensual, and complex, but as someone who was boring, conservative, materialistic, and weak. If anything, that is the reason why you should avoid seeing ex-partners: that new filter obfuscates the shared history.

2011-08-18T19:09:00.007-05:00

April: My trip to Japan
Due to my sister Jordan's complete failure to upload my Japan photos from her camera, I've cobbled this post together with iPhone shots and internet photos. Apologies. (Thanks Jordan for ruining everything)

The trip to Japan was me in a nutshell. I hoard money, tend my retirement account, set 5 year plans, meticulously calculate every scrap of vacation time, and then one day someone says “Hey let’s go to Japan for the weekend” and I shrug and say “Yeah, ok.”

In this case, the instigator was my mom, who discovered that American Airlines was offering double miles to Tokyo for only $400 +taxes (which are crazy expensive-I mean holy eff 9/11 tax! Who do you think you are?). So on Wednesday, May 31st I meet mom at JFK and we fly to Japan.
Guess which one is the wheelchair for Americans?

Before heading off, everyone in my office begged me not to go. New Yorkers are a hysterical lot, and this was only 3 weeks after the March 11th Japanese earthquake and subsequent Fukushima meltdown. My coworkers were convinced, and I mean CONVINCED, that I was going to get radiation poisoning and die. They forwarded me articles about radioactive fish, they printed op-eds about the contaminated milk, they stopped me in the halls to tell me that I was putting my life at risk. Clearly, they don’t understand how important frequent flyer miles are to me.

But the great thing about being in a country full of fear-mongering hypochondriacs (and yes, there is an upside!) is that my flight to (and from!) Japan was completely empty. So I was able so stretch out on the floor and get a full 8 hours of sleep. When we landed in Haneda airport, it was Thursday around 11pm, which meant I was able to sleep an additional 8 hours in the hotel, and BAM, no jetlag. (Depression combined with my natural constitution meant an increase in the amount of sleep I required. 16 hours was just beginning to make a dent).

So what is Japan like? Japan is like Plato’s Republic, or More’s Utopia, or Cavendish’s Blazing World, only for real and way cuter. It is the perfect representation of what life in a civilization is supposed to be like. For example, I disembark the plane, and there are 4 men in white gloves and face masks who are silently waving me over so I know precisely which bus to embark. I get onto the passenger bus, and everyone is completely silent. Wordlessly teenagers and young people get up to let the elderly take their seats. If the seat is declined, the young person does not take it back, in case the person changes their mind.

As we take the bus over the tarmac, I pass an inhuman level of cleanliness that outshines even my own people, the Swiss. (While I’m most proud of my Native American ancestry, the majority of my makeup is divided between the Swiss, the Germans, and the Welsh. Let’s keep that Welsh bit between us, yeah?) I realize Haneda is new, but it’s not THAT new. As we funnel silently up the perfect escalator, past the polished floor and gleaming windows, I reach the public bathrooms—a cultural odyssey if there ever was one.

Public restrooms—indeed all public and private utilities—are the surest ways to gauge the progression of a civilization. Europe may claim free healthcare and cheap university systems, but a run-in with a squat-toilet tells you all you need to know about how the government is really working.
This is what socialism gets you: a hole in the ground

Meanwhile, the United States may have problems with gun violence and drug use, but even the cheapest gas station in New Mexico will have a sit down with flush. Capitalism is high-fiving a million angels.

Much has been made of the Japanese toilets, and for good reason: what does it say about their culture? While some may argue that 10 settings, including optional noise filters, heated seats, and different douching action, could reveal a certain latent anal-fixation, this misses the point.
A higher power

The point of the Japanese toilet is a supreme dedication to making humanity universally bearable for everyone. The overall dedication to public manners, cleanliness, and order is cultural utilitarianism, and it’s an unbridled success. But of course, I say this as a visitor, not as a citizen. I might feel differently if I had to grow up with some of the historical baggage that created such pleasantness.
Subway poster urging people to give up their seats. Adorable!

The trains were completely shut down, as it was well past midnight when we finished with customs. Thus mom and I had to take a taxi. Now, taxis in Tokyo are quite an experience. For one thing, they are ludicrously expensive. It costs me $70 to go from the airport to Ginza, which was pretty much the closest neighborhood to Haneda you could get. For another thing, they look like this:

Yes, those are hygienic doilies on the seat covers. Yes, the drivers wear gloves. And yes, there are magazines and occasionally curtains at your disposal.

A thing I learned about the Japanese on that cab ride: do not ask a question you do not want an answer to. I am accustomed to asking people questions out of politeness, or asking questions I only half-heartedly want an answer to. “Which way to Marcy?” “What does that mean?” “Is the train running on Wednesday?” I expect that if the person doesn’t know, or doesn’t speak English, they will smile and shake their head at me. Oooooh no, not the Japanese. They will painstakingly ask you to repeat your question in different ways, or make hand gestures, or pantomime, but there is absolutely no way you can just wave the whole awkward situation away. You have asked a question, and they will not stop until you have gotten an answer. I wasted over 1/36 of my waking hours in Tokyo trying to get answers to such pressing questions as “What does that knot symbolize?”
Ginza

Our hotel was a time capsule: what hotel stays used to be like when customer service was a commodity, not a buzz word (I don’t care if that makes me sound old!) We had full-sized bottles of French shampoo in the showers! We had complimentary Shiseido skin products, combs, brushes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hairbands, slippers, and eyemasks! We had cotton night dresses and fluffy bathrobes! Our key was a gigantic brass skeleton key with a formal tassle! And yet they didn’t have wifi. Unbelievable
Ginza

We were staying right in the posh Ginza neighborhood (thanks radioactivity for making it affordable?), so when we woke up Friday (the 2nd) morning, we decided to get straight to the shopping. And man, was it absolutely dead. We were on the street by 7:45am, and we were the only people around. Every shop was closed, and only a few old men and some street cleaners milled about, staring at us very politely. I’m about a million feet tall, and my mother has brilliant blonde-red hair, so we didn’t exactly fit in.

Apparently the Japanese (see how I’m reducing a whole complex nation into a passing judgment based on one particular neighborhood!) work hard and play hard and sleep hard. They’re out until midnight drinking, then they’re at work at the crack of 11. Or whenever. I was definitely expecting such an industrious nation to have some busy bees up in the AM. But there were none.
Checking out the local bodega

So mom and I killed time by hanging out in a convenience store. I could have spent ages just jumping from bodega to bodega, looking at all the awesome stuff for sale:
Octopus tentacles!

Afterwards, I took another step towards my personal goal of visiting a McDonald’s in every country. I had breakfast at the cleanest McDonald’s I’ve ever been to, and I have to say, it was probably also the best-tasting McDonald’s I’ve had since childhood. You know, back when they didn’t add “Enhanced Smoky Flavor” to their ham. A boy sat down next to me while mom was in the bathroom, and started chatting me up. Fully believing myself to be too tall/heavy for a Japanese man, I was shocked when I realized that he wasn’t just being polite, he was mad flirting. He invited me to go out with him and his buds later, and to stop by his store while I was in Ginza (he worked at a sporting goods shop). I asked him about the earthquake and the radiation, and he said most people were resigned to whatever fate had in store for them, since there was nowhere they could go. So yeah, if I could sum up the general atmosphere of the city, it would be “resigned tension.”
Respect

So after mom got back, I parted ways with the totally hot Japanese guy (what, you think I’d actually be together enough to get a rebound? I’ve got no coordination. Please), the stores were finally starting to open. So the first place we visited was a stationary store, aka best place in the world. Look, I’m a writer, ok, and I am very particular about pens. And sure, maybe I’ve got a notebook problem, and maybe my paper fetish is a little out of control, but who are you to tell me what I can do with my own money? If I want to buy post-its that are shaped like giraffes, I’m gonna. If I’m going to buy 20 pens with 0.15mm tips, I’m gonna. And maaaaaaybe it got a little reckless, but I cannot buy pens like this in the US, and it is seriously worth it. I bought over 25 pens, and as we speak I’ve already burned through 5, and I’m agonizing over the fact that I should have bough at least 5 of the metal Pilot Razors with the 0.4mm tip.

Afterwards, we went over to Mikimoto’s to buy pearls. For legal reasons I’m going to leave it very vague as to the recipient of said pearls, but I will say that both of us ended up looking very bad by the end of it. And we were trying to buy like, $1700 worth of pearls or something, and I wanted to pay for it. So I had enough in my account to cover it, but my debit card was declined because I bought two purchases back to back in the stationary store, so apparently that triggers the fraud protection. So Mikimoto has to call the US and I have to explain that it is in fact ok, so they take the fraud lock off. I try it again, but they say I’ve reached the limit for how much I can withdraw in a day (apparently, only $500). So I tried to split it up between my credit and my debit card. My credit card declined the $500 amount, saying I could only charge $400. So we managed to charge $400 on that card, and then mom tried one of her credit cards, which was declined because she was in Japan and didn’t tell her bank she was going to Japan. So she managed to get like, $500 on another one, and then pay for it with like, the $500 cash she had, and then I through in another $200 in yen, so we’re like, throwing cards and currencies at this poor guy as out banks keep throwing up all of these random technical hassles and it was so humiliating.
I can never again show my face here

I mean, that guy is standing in front of a million dollars worth of pearls, and he has these two Americans who speak no Japanese, and are paying with 5 unique forms of payment. Yeah, ok, white girl problems, but still—it made me enraged at my bank (Chase, for those of you who want to commiserate). There’s no reason why, when I’ve informed all my card companies of my travel arrangements, that I should be having that degree of difficulty in a transaction.

We grabbed some breads and drinks on the street, then went back to the hotel for a much deserved flop. That’s one of the great things about traveling with mom—like me, she’s not super into the whole “let’s sit down and eat at this quaint restaurant” thing for every meal. A thing of bread, some cheese, and a coke and she’s good to go. Genetics are a scary thing. We watched Japan’s equivalent of “Extreme Makeover,” only it was like “Tsunami edition”, and just involved a lot of neighbors helping to comb for glass and repear fishing huts.
Easy enough!

Saturday the 2nd we wake up and head over to the Imperial Palace. Navigating the Tokyo underground system was a real challenge, but not as much of a challenge as I had anticipated. We stayed away from rush hour, so we didn’t have to put up with any pushing or crowding. It was navigating my way out of the subway systems that was challenging: the particular exits weren’t very clearly marked, so I was always surfacing on some random corner. And since I didn’t have a map, I was just sort of feeling my way through the city.
Godzilla, don't eat the public transportation!

All reports claimed that Tokyo would be in the 60s and 70s this time of year, but I failed to bring clothes for any temperature dips. So on the cold, rainy day of our Imperial Palace visit, I was not a happy camper. Adding to it, the Palace was closed for whatever reason, so I got to get a good look at the moat and the wall, and that was about it. I did get to see the Japanese homeless sleeping under cherry trees, their clothes neatly folded, their shoes laying outside of their matt or cardboard shanty.
I'll bet this looked cool from the inside

After the imperial palace, mom and I went to look for kimonos in the Ikebukuro area. There was a traditional crafts store near a mall that looked promising, but further investigation revealed it to be more useful for pottery than for textiles. Not that I didn’t find a kimono I wanted—I fell in love with a purple-and-gold silk number—but the brand new ones cost close to $5,000, about $4,900 out of my price range.
Nightclub Stars In Ice. If only

Afterwards we wandered around the mall, which only served to depress me. Look, I realize that at 5’10” and 170 pounds, Japanese clothes are not going to fit me. But what was infuriating is that these stores did not even carry Japanese size Large. Everything in every store was Small, and maybe if I looked really hard I could find a Medium. And when I asked the sales girls if there was anything bigger, they looked at me with genuine incredulity, as if to say “Why would anyone need a size other than this?”

Additionally, the stores were charging Anthropologie-level prices ($40-80 a shirt, $120-$250 a dress) for clothing that was, if I’m generous, H&M or Forever 21 quality. This is not just bitter grapes talking: the fabric was usually synthetic, the seams were sloppy, buttons missing, etc. The best clothes were usually by American companies, and even then, they only stocked in Small. So my dreams of coming back to the US with awesome Japanese crazy fashion was crushed.
Everyone uses these towel-in-a-cups when it's hot to dab off the sweat. Adorable!

That said, Japanese women really caused me to question my attitude towards femininity. These women were in it to win it: thigh high socks with shorts or skirts (you have no idea how my inner thin self, as well as my inner slut, yearned to steal this look), flouncy shorts with tailored blouses, ties and high heels, lace dresses with open-toed leggings. Their hair was all curled in movie-star waves, and they were always accessorized to the nines. It was as if being a woman was a job, and they were working at it: they brushed and bleached and plucked, they scrubbed and cleaned and polished, they starved and squeezed and pinched. And it made me realize that as a newly-single woman approaching 30, I was going to have to be more serious about the job of being a woman. It sort of threw the whole gender battle into sharp relief, and while I realized the brutal unfairness of the whole mating game, it became clear how it was played.
Look--news especially for women! Like on what Lady Gaga is wearing!

Sunday the 3rd was our last full day in Japan, much to my mom’s crushing disappointment. I think she failed to take into account the amount of days that were actually lost on that bloody international dateline: instead of having 5 days in Japan, she really had 3. So we had to make up for lost time. Because I was still kimono hunting, we ended up going to Shinjuku, where I found some vintage kimonos near Harajuku Square.

Harajuku wasn’t the centralized place that I was hoping to go for people watching: or if there was a place, I couldn’t find it. It was very crowded (Japan, obvs), and I was unable to get a sense of where the energy and the action were happening: it seemed dispersed and unfocused. But the fashion was legitimately crazy: I was super excited to see bandage-fetishists, which I had known about (don’t ask) but never actually been able to witness:

The cauc-Asian thing was weird: as a white person, I’m usually the one that’s appropriating other cultures for aesthetic reason. I mean, Madonna is the patron saint of this. So seeing Asian women use white eyeliner to make their eyes seem bigger and rounder, dye their hair blonde and curl it, wear cut-offs and trucker caps…I don’t know. It was a trip man. I was definitely inspired by their good-girl-gone-bad routine, so when I found a local accessory shop I loaded up with lacy anklettes and over-the-knee socks. I regret immensely not dropping more money on trampy socks. Words fail.

Another disappointment with Tokyo: food. I was hoping that downtown I’d discover some yakitori stand or a really great ramen restaurant. Instead, the only sit-down places I could seem to find in all of Tokyo were French-style cafes or American-style bars. We ended up having to eat at The Great Burger, which looks like it could be out of any American mall. The only give away was the awesome English slogan: What is your life? Hamburger is my life. They also had wifi, so I was able to skype dad from my phone, and we were able to talk to him for free. It was one of those great “isn’t technology amazing” moments that made me so glad I was born in the 21st century.
It actually was a pretty great burger

The rest of the day was spent visiting souvenir shops and walking around. We made our way towards Shibuya, which you’ll recognize from every picture of Tokyo ever:

It’s the most crowded intersection in the world. Mom and I went upstairs to a bookstore and sat down at a café for a much-deserved break. Up until this point we had been the only non-Japanese people in all of Tokyo, with maybe 2 backpackers as an exception. We had gotten so used to the respectful, homogeneous crowds that it was quite a culture clash to run into two Middle Eastern guys also waiting for a table at the café. It was very uncomfortable standing with them, watching as they stared so openly and so degradingly at every women that walked by, talking about them Arabic, looking at them up and down like they were ordering from a menu. They took one look at me and I stared them down, so they didn’t try it again, but man. It was an uncomfortable reminder that I was going to have to go back home to people who were not as civilized and respectful as the Japanese.

Visiting Japan in such a whirlwind, particularly while so depressed, definitely left me more dazed than enchanted. But it definitely lit the fire to return—especially outside of Tokyo. As you probably imagined, Tokyo is exactly like New York—it loves everything French, it’s crowded, the subway is complicated, and lights are everywhere—but a Disneyland version of New York. It’s easy to get around if you don’t speak English, it’s expensive but completely manageable if you plan correctly, and the people couldn’t be a better example of humanity. With or without a nuclear meltdown.

2011-08-16T14:08:00.006-05:00

March (the second half)

The show went on, blundering and ugly and lost. I cried for 4 days straight. And I actually mean that—no hyperbole. When I wasn’t actively sobbing, tears would just stream down my face involuntarily. It was one of the weirdest things I had ever experienced. That Tuesday the 8th was just a mess. Luckily, it was very slow and no one came across me except our traffic person, who saw me crying and made me tell her everything. Now, this is a woman who is now married to the man she divorced bitterly a few years ago, then remarried, and all she said was, “Honey, you got to believe what your partner tells you. And if he says he doesn’t love you, then that’s all there is. There’s nothing else. Have a good cry, then move on.” Tough love straight from Long Island, that.

As luck would have it, I also simultaneously came down with a cold, so when I wasn’t crying I was coughing and sneezing. On Wednesday I was too sick to go to work, so I spent all day wrapped up in a blanket watching “1,000 Ways to Die” on Spike. At this point, I was still too depressed to eat, so I just lolled around looking like the living dead, or staring out the windows for hours at a time. Not my proudest moment. And the funny thing is, of course, as I’m doing all of this I have a narrative in my head that’s screaming to snap out of it, that I look pathetic, and I’m embarrassing myself.

Of course, it didn’t make it easier that Mark was in the house. He didn’t exactly have a plan B when he broke up with me, so he was trying to figure out what he was going to do. And not being a vindictive person, and also not being in any state to do what was best for me, I let him stay. This was a terrible idea. I can’t even enumerate how terrible an idea this was. But I’m not necessarily sure the alternative would have been better. As it was, he was very sweet and supportive to me, very concerned for my well being, and treated me with the upmost kindness. We were still very lovely to each other, in part because we weren’t entirely sure the ramifications of what had occurred.

I tried limping into the office on the 10th, but my boss heard me coughing like a TB ward and sent me home. I picked up a Z pack and proceeded to Skype with Julia for 8 hours as I played Ke$ha’s The Harold Song over and over. YES I KNOW HOW THIS LOOKS. Too weak from 3 days of starvation to actually cook, I tweeted for Mac n Cheese, and who should respond to my call but Allie Polatin, the hands down Best Friend in the World. She had it delivered to my door. And then Kraft decided to select me for a Twitter contest winner, so they sent me a shipment of like 6 boxes, which arrived at my house a few days later. That was a nice show of support, friends.
My family, who is prescient about these things, had arranged to come up to New York for Spring Break. My dad showed up on Friday night, which was very nice. I was terribly low-energy though, and mostly just wanted to talk about why this was happening. Dad was great—he insisted on giving me the “man’s perspective,” and didn’t talk bad about Mark, which is what I wanted. I really didn’t take any comfort in people disparaging him, and was very quick to cut off any attempts from people trying to do so in the name of solidarity.

It says "Need bottles for your Tiger Blood? We've got you covered. WINNING"

Saturday I walked dad around Williamsburg, bought some cheeses, then rented a movie. Sunday I took him to the Single’s ward so he could see the kind of guys I had to choose from. He started talking to some cool guys—turned out they were in a band called the Fictionists, and they were all married (cool coming to the single’s ward, guys), and Harry Reid decided to show up to visit his granddaughter. But even my dad wanted to know why there were only 3 guys in the entire ward. Wouldn’t we all like to know, dad.
The rest of my family came up soon after (and by “rest” I mean Mom, Zach, and Jordan). They were very nice about my lack of energy, and insisted on still inviting Mark out to do things. Dad and Mom both had an evening out with him to try and understand what was going on, and wound up just as confused as…well, everyone. We saw Battle:LA and Red Riding Hood, both of which were terrible. I took my family to the temple, then to the Staten Island Ferry on Thursday the 17th, and afterwards we ate at Fraunces Tavern, this amazing historic pub in Battery Park.
This is our family friend Matt. He joined us on our day of adventure

We spent Purim Sunday on Lee Avenue, looking at all the amazing costumes. We shopped at Muji and ate at Angelos.
I took Jordan to work (with a stopover at Tiffany’s so she could fulfill her dream of having breakfast at Tiffany’s).
Mark and mom and Zach and Jordan and I ate at Balthazar’s, and then I took Zach to Mary South’s birthday party in Chinatown (he was a total hit wit the Columbia MFA crowd).
I was appreciative of all the little things the universe did during this time to make me feel better, such as letting me win the fishbowl at Chipotle, meaning free burritos for my office. The next day (Thursday the 24th) my cousin Brooke paid for me to get my nails done, then took me out for burgers. People wrote me lovely letters, and excused my repetitive conversation loop. The temple president offered to give me a blessing, which was in itself a bizarre moment (he gave me almost word for word the same blessing I had received from my uncle 6 months previously, to a frightening degree, since the particulars weren’t that common). But I appreciated the support.

The rest of the month was completely dead. I would hole up in my room after work watching Ingmar Bergman movies and eating chips and salsa. Mark and I saw Suckerpunch, which I actually found very pro-woman, short skirts aside. It was weird, going on dates with my now-ex. Each outing, more and more of the warmth would die, though we were still as friendly and respectful as ever. And yet, despite how terrible it was to watch it die in front of me, I couldn’t turn away—it was like warming my fingers in dying embers, trying to ignore the darkness creeping in around me.

2011-08-15T15:40:00.003-05:00

March (the first half)

By the time we got to March, I was a bit of a mess. I knew what was coming down the pipeline, but I kept trying to convince myself that I was being neurotic or negative. When I met my uncle for dinner on Tuesday the 1st (Spotted Pig, bad choice for him, though the gnudi was delicious), I told him I was feeling “cautiously optimistic.” That seemed like a safe answer.

March 2nd, Mark came back from New Zealand. I went out with Anna to get my nails and feet done in the off-hand chance that I might want to be pretty for whatever would transpire. I got a text at 7pm that simply said, “Just landed. Should be home in an hour or so.” I got the subtext.

As luck would have it, I arrived home at precisely the same moment Mark did. I waited for him outside of the car, and he looked at me with the same look I have gotten from dozens of men at church over the years: that mixture of fear and uncertainty. My heart audibly broke. He got out, and collected his bags, then hugged me wordlessly. I helped him take his stuff inside. We hugged for a while, and he wouldn’t kiss me, then said he had to take a shower. I went to bed, and we talked a little bit about his mom’s performance, but I didn't press him to talk about anything more substantial. I resigned myself to the inevitability of what would occur the next day.

March 3, work was a living hell, and by the time I got home, I had no energy for dealing with the storm I knew was going down. But I tried to put on a brave face, and met Mark at Il Forino on Bedford. We chatted playfully enough, kept things civil, until dinner was almost over. Mark was speaking about his mother, how she would only tell him if she liked or disliked one of his girlfriends after they had broken up. I couldn’t help myself, so I said, “you’ll have to tell me what she thinks of me, after we’ve broken up.”
“That’s a bit harsh.” Mark replied, looking down.
The reality of what was happening split across my chest and every nerve ending went dead.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to do this here.”
But I pressed the subject. I had to. So he started in on his reasoning, and his doubts. On the walk home, he laid them all out. None of them really made any sense, given our narrative and history, and most of the reasons contradicted each other. As he spoke, rather than feeling angry (which I was at first), I found myself overcome with a different emotion. It was as if I had invisible hands across my shoulders and back, and a thought entered my mind with perfect clarity. It was as if I was being told exactly what was going to occur, and exactly how I should act, almost to a supernatural degree. I would experience this sensation dozens of times in different ways over the next 3 months.

The whole thing was so patently absurd, that I couldn’t help but laugh. Which I did—I couldn’t help it. The crying came later, when we got home. And then sometime during the jags of desperate, soul-wrenching crying, we agreed that breaking up was a terrible idea, and we should just get married. So Mark proposed, and I accepted. If you are confused, so were we.

But when I showed up at work on Thursday, I did not look like a girl recently engaged to the love of her life—I looked like a trainwreck. Everyone was worried about me, and my energy was slacking. That perfect clarity I felt on the street told me this was not over, and this was not the way this story was going to play out. And I knew Mark wasn’t convinced of it either. We were both trying to sort out something that was occurring, that seemed to have a greater reach and influence than either of us had anticipated.

Friday the 4th, Mark and I had a date night. We went out to Klong, where I asked him if he had changed his mind. He said he hadn’t, but he sounded a bit like he was convincing himself. So I remained awkward, cold, tense—seeing how the gears were moving, and powerless to stop it. We saw the “Adjustment Bureau,” which was ironic, because that was exactly how I felt: as if my future was being controlled by other individuals, and I was a passive recipient of decisions handed down to me.

The one bright spot was telling my family. After the Christmas fiasco, I was expecting tension and sadness, but the opposite occurred. My parents had spent a lot of time at the temple, in prayer and meditation, and had reached their own opinion about Mark and me. They were thrilled for me, and told me things would work out, that I was marrying an amazing man with a great love for me, and for what was good, and that the difficulties would work themselves out in the end. I took a lot of comfort in that.

Monday the 7th I had plans to go to the gym after work. I got a text from Mark around 3pm asking when I was coming home. An hour later, I went to the bathroom and threw up. I knew instantly that as soon as I walked through those doors, he was going to break up with me. I left work as soon as I could, and started crying on the subway. I cried for 20 straight minutes, from 34th street to Marcy. And then I went home, I walked into our room, and as I hung up my coat, Mark said, “I can’t do this.”
“I know.” I said.

I’m not going to say I understand why Mark and I broke up. He tried to explain, and in the coming weeks, he’d explain it over and over again, in a million different ways that all seemed to fight each other. But the reason isn’t what’s important. What’s important is that when all was said and done, he simply didn’t want to be with me anymore. And in many ways, that simple reason is the hardest thing for me to accept. I reread letters between the two of us, and the love is so clear and genuine, that I'm in a state of confusion most of time.

This is the only thing that makes sense to me: When Margaret got engaged a few years ago, I started taking classes to receive my endowments. For those of you non-Mormons out there, endowments are sort of like entering the priesthood. It means that I pledge a vow to behave a certain way, wear religious clothing, and take on greater responsibilities within the church. You’re also able to participate in sacred temple rituals. Now, while taking classes, I had a great feeling about the whole process—I was really looking forward to deepening my commitment to my faith, and seeing what all of this secret temple stuff was about. After I completed my course, I got my recommend signed by all the higher authorities, and with my paperwork all filled out, I just had to wait until Christmas, when I would go to the temple for the first time with my parents and my sister. So far, so good.

The two months in between when I got that recommend signed and when I actually went to the temple were among the worst months I had experienced in my life. I was enveloped by this gray, unyielding depression that would not lift. It was kind of like this dark foreboding, but not as acute—I had no motivation, I had no enthusiasm, I felt as if life was going to be a series of dull, painful, and empty days without any excitement or happiness. And this mood persisted until the moment I stepped into the temple. Instantly, I was transformed into the enthusiastic, excited, and positive person I was before—the cloud over me vanished. And from then on, I’ve been better than ever before—as if my entire life has been elevated by that one commitment.

I think that when it comes to the big decisions in our lives, that there is a huge amount of uncertainty as to whether or not we’re doing the right thing. That cloud that exists during the decision-making is a way our brains let us know how serious the decision is, and how profound the changes to our lives are going to be. I think it must contribute to postpartum depression: from now on, you are responsible for an entire person, and your life will never be as it was. Marriage is the same thing. Even when we make the right decision, such a major life change is inevitably going to lead to a cloud that will hang over us for a while—our trial by fire, as it were.

I loved Mark purely. I saw all of his faults, his insecurities, his pettiness, and his fears clearly, but loved him as if I had idolized him. I saw all the potential paths his life could go down, and agreed to go down each one of those paths. I saw all of the people he could become, and I loved each of those men. I would have traveled anywhere with him, lived on any amount of money, and forged any number of adventures. I am unsure how to realign my life without him as my stars and compass. And yet I set a new course blindly, pressing on into the blazing world.

2011-08-12T11:37:00.003-05:00

February

By the start of February, the constant snow, slush, and grey had begun to take its toll.
February is one of the worst months for me: it’s just as cold as January, only by February you’ve been enduring the cold for the 4th month in a row, and your patience is just about worn thin. And yet, it isn’t yet March, where it’s cold but you see that stray crocus or tree bud, that harbinger of better times. My mother was even getting her fill of it halfway across the country—she was stuck in Missouri for 3 extra days after getting iced in by a freak winter storm.

Luckily Mark came back on Wednesday, February 3rd, which was wonderful. At this point though, we had spent almost 2 months apart in the past 4 months, and it was making things a bit awkward. It was difficult for me to tell if the distance between us was because of the constant traveling, or because things between us were going south. On the outside, nothing was really different. I could just tell the atmosphere was changing—little things like involuntary touches, gestures, compliments, and invitations all dropped away or changed in tone. And yet I had to be tough. As Joan Didion wrote, “People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of mortal nerve; they display what was once called character." And so I somewhat grandiosely soldiered on.

Materially, I turned my feelings of stress and fear towards food, and kept searching for Pepperidge Farms Brussels cookies, which for some reason are always snatched up off the shelves in New York. Seriously, shop owners always by a million Milanos, but it’s always the Brussels the people are searching for. At my most stressed, I was consuming about half a bag a day. Hence the gradual, inclement rise in my weight by almost 15 pounds over 6 months.

Sunday February 6th was the Super Bowl, which was only entertaining because of the commercials. I was digging the Audi “Escape commercials (http://bit.ly/fJfRV7), and I legitimately got a kick out of the Groupon “Free Tibet” ads, which were so typically Andrew Mason I was surprised to find out Andrew didn’t film them himself. However, the backlash was completely hilarious, and I followed it with a certain glee. Was kind of disappointed when Andew pulled the spot—I thought he’d really stick by it. Shareholders, whatever.

Monday was Mark’s last night before he left for New Zealand—he was planning on accompanying his boss on a tour of the South Island, and visiting some friends and family. Before he left, we went out to Klong to talk about that whole “What are we going to do about us?” thing. Are we getting married, or aren’t we? Mark wasn’t sure. And I get the hesitancy, especially if you weren't raised the way I was, in such a marriage-centric society. The thing about marriage is, the person you marry will change, and you have to gamble on the fact that you know them well enough, or you’re crazy enough about them, that you can still love whoever that future person might be. And if you’re not sure about your own trajectory, or if you don’t really know your partner well enough, that decision can be petrifying. All I could think to say was, “Look, I don’t want to get married to someone who isn’t super psyched to get married to me.” So we agreed that during him month in New Zealand, he would think about whether or not he could commit to a lifetime with mah crazy, and we would stay out of contact during that time ("so I can forget how awesome you are and how much I enjoy your company." Actual quote!) Which meant, of course, that I had to agree to wait for an entire month, and try and be cool while waiting for someone else to decide my future. Not awesome.

Wednesday I started a process of gradually beautifying myself. It occurred to me that for both eventualities, I was going to need to look good: either for a wedding, or to attract a new partner. I bought new makeup and clothes, got my nails done, worked on my skin, went to yoga. I seriously tried to cut down on my Brussels consumption.

For Valentine’s day, since me and most of my girls were single, we decided to do an old-school slumber party at my house. Friday, February 11th, we kicked it off by getting Bon Chon (Anna and Mary South), then we went to CVS so I could get hair dye (I was going from blonde back to brown, as I was not going to look like a punk rock stripper when I got left/engaged). While at the store, Anna and I had a brilliant idea of posting pictures of ourselves looking miserable and single on Valentine’s Day. Inspired by the huge, ridiculous boxes of candy, we figured we had to do something with them, and a photoshoot sounded like the best idea.

Brooke came over, we put on Drop Dead Gorgeous. While the girls were watching, Anna dyed my hair. The only problem, of course, was that I bought dye in a shade way too light to cover up my blonde. I had erroneously assumed that because my hair was so porous, it was going to soak up all the dye and be way darker than shown on the box. Instead, the opposite response happened, and my hair turned mousy grey-blonde. Sort of like Courtney Love meets cat lady. But it was such an appalling color, that I thought no no, we must use this for our photoshoot, it will be transcendent! Sure enough, what resulted was gold: I painted on tear marks, ratted out my hair, and proceeded to take some of the best photos I have ever taken in my life. Brooke and Anna were also amazingly successful.
The sad thing was, afterwards we went to The Lodge to get brunch, and I through on the ugliest outfit I had: a transparent hipster t-shirt and flowered leggings, just to make the look complete. And I kid you not, the hipster dudes were ALL OVER IT. I haven’t gotten so many appreciative stares and flirting since I moved to the neighborhood. That confirmed all of my suspicions about Williamsburg fashion in an instant.
My family however, was less impressed. “Um, Mary, it’s one thing to post like, 2 pictures looking sad, but an entire series makes you look really desperate. It’s like meta that folds into itself until it’s just sad.” I refuse to believe this. My Sad Valentine series was a genuine accomplishment, and interestingly enough, one of the only times in the month of February where I didn’t feel like a sad woman waiting for love. (Oh, and I did fix my hair on Saturday, getting it back to the original brown).

"Mary, I get the feeling you've got this whole secret life outside of the office I can't even imagine" -Best compliment ever from my boss

Tuesday the 15th, mom tells me there’s a really good deal on American Airlines that takes you to Japan for like, a $400 ticket. I’ve always wanted to go, and the flight would be in April, so I decided to go for it. I hadn’t heard from Mark at all, not even on Valentine’s Day, and I was under no illusions as to what that meant. After a decade together, Mark is an open book to me. While I don’t always understand the whys behind his actions and thoughts, I always understand the meanings themselves. When Mark is excited about something, he can’t contain it: he wants to talk about it immediately, share it immediately, act on it immediately. When he has to do something he doesn’t want to do, like write an uncomfortable letter or go to the post office, he will put it off and avoid it as long as possible. I knew I was being avoided, and I could feel the disquiet. I know that sounds like I’m rewriting history, but it isn’t. After living together for 2 years, knowing each other for 10, and meditating/praying about our relationship daily for a year, I was pretty in tune to the energy that we shared. And while I didn’t think we would break up, I had a sneaking suspicion that things were going to be very difficult for us before they got better. So I booked a trip to Japan, knowing that by the time April came around, I was going to need a distraction.

My family took pity on me, so on Friday the 18th, I flew to Dallas to spend a weekend. I got my face threaded for the first time (ouch!), saw the mediocre “The Eagle”, had breakfast at the Original House of Pancakes, then went out for drinks and Mexican at Mi Cocina with Bonnie. Jordan stopped by too, and was adorable. I’m so grateful to have a best friend who puts up with my constant familial +1s. Julia tried to get me to watch “The Notebook” for the first time, and I was underwhelmed by the complete lack of a plot. I’m write that there’s no plot in that movie, right? I mean people are together and then they’re not and then they’re together, but nothing really happens outside of Ryan Gosling emitting crazy sexual vibes, right?

I have to add an excerpt from my sister’s old notebook. According to her the 5 wonders of the world are as follows:
1) vanilla coke
2) Old Chinese women
3) The shirt w/ Matt's dad on it- "you gotta be kiddin' me"
4) John's snoring
5) The line, "I'm a hunter and it's you season"

I get back to New York Monday the 21st, and the first thing I see on the internet is that Christchurch, where Mark is supposed to be, was hit with a terrific earthquake, and all these people are dead. So I start calling and texting and Facebooking and get no reply, until finally one of Mark’s friends tells me Mark has contacted him, and everyone is fine. And while there are perfectly logical explanations for this (he had no internet access, his phone does not get international texts), it was another weight on my chest.

At this point, I was entering the second month of general unease about my relationship, and it was starting to make me sick. I was going through periods where I’d eat 5 meals a day, then I wouldn’t eat anything for 2 days. I couldn’t sleep well, but had serious trouble getting out of bed. I lacked energy, and had an impossible time finding things to talk about. Work was also picking up speed, after 3 months of dead space. I started spending later nights at the office, which I didn’t mind—it’s not like I had anyone to hurry home for.

Wednesday the 23 marked the day my sister Margaret was officially divorced from her abusive ex-husband, which was a call for a great deal of celebration. All attempts to reach out to her husband amicably had failed, so in the end we just shrugged our shoulders and moved on with our lives.

It’s also the night I met with Brenda Roberts to discuss how we were going to take care of her Carnegie Hall gig. Mark’s mom had rented out Carnegie Hall so she could perform some of her favorite songs—a dream since she was a child. Since Mark couldn’t be there, I took care of her as best I could, running odd errands here or there, helping out (secretly) with expenses, and making sure she was having a good time. We spoke very little about the current situation—Mark’s mom didn’t want to get involved, but she was sweet enough to say that she couldn’t imagine a better match for her son, which meant a lot to me. It’s funny—we were sitting on the bed, and she said “I know Mark has been struggling about what to do, but I think he’s going to come round.” And I remember smiling and telling her, “Never underestimate the power of fear.”

Thursday night, burned out from work, I met Marsha at Kuboya ramen at 5th street and avenue B. Great ramen, and she was very patient as she listened to me talk out my crazy.
Friday, February 25th was Brenda’s Carnegie Hall gig. My friend Alexis volunteered to run the merch table, and then Anna and Mary South came, as well as many friends from church. Rod brought his granddaughter, who hung out with us big city girls, and seemed to have the time of her life.
It was really wonderful to get the chance to see Brenda in her native environment. Previously I’d only heard recordings, or seen her in recital settings—it was very clear that she really was most herself on stage.
She wore a fantastical pink dress, had her hair up, and swept across the stage, ever inch the diva. Every movement of her shoulders, the way she flashed her eyes, was all calculated for maximum power and drama. Her voice was so passionate—she clearly loved every melody, and loved sharing it with other people. My friends at church had never seen an opera singer, especially in the Carnegie Hall, and they were so overwhelmed and enchanted. They all insisted on getting her autograph and getting their picture taken with her.
Since Mark couldn’t be there, I made sure to give Brenda a special evening-flowers, taxi, and dinner. I brought her, Rod, and Rod’s granddaughter to Balthazar’s, and brought along Mary and Alexis for good measure. The restaurant was very loud, but the conversation and food was very good, and seemed a perfect cap to the evening.
Mostly, I hoped that Brenda felt like she was as successful and as amazing as she was that night. It takes a lot of moral nerve, that thing they call character, to have a dream for 30 years and to make it happen.

2011-08-10T16:54:00.008-05:00

After my previous post on my sad-sack December, I got the following email from Mike S, which ended with this great line about oversharing “there's nothing really wrong with it, it just doesn't make you look like the asskicker you are (and will be again eventually).”

Of course, Mike raises an excellent point—there is a lack of dignity that accompanies any sort of explicit detailing of the inner workings of a relationship. Also, in being super girly. There’s no dignity in being girly. And there is nothing more girly than going on a blog and sharing feelings about a relationship.

The truth is that writing this has become more of an sociological interest at this point: what happened between these people, what action elicited what feelings, what was the cultural expectation that surrounded the decision, etc. As far as exploring it publically, I think it probably ties back to the fact that I want to complete the narrative: I wrote publically about falling in love, I want to write publically about breaking up, and I want to write publically about moving on. I’m not sure how to do it correctly, in a way that doesn’t make me look desperate or sad, and that doesn’t make Mark look cold or insensitive. It’s going to take some finesse, that’s for sure.

One of the reasons I’m so eager to get this all down and documented is because the moving on part has become very exciting. I’ve met new people, developed feelings for new people, restarted hobbies, revived interests—and I’m ready to move on and discuss those fun things. But it can’t be done until all of this unpleasantness is out of the way.

But I take your point, Mike. Now, let’s get this show on the road.

January
I returned to New York in January to see a city completely consumed by snow. Apparently the whole time I had been in Europe, the East Coast was blanketed in snow. I had a surprisingly snow-free holiday: wherever I went in Europe, a blizzard was either just finishing or just about to hit, but somehow I remained immune

Sunday Mark gave an interview with Raquel about his music. I helped a bit with the lighting, then disappeared with the laundry so as not to make them self-conscious.

Spent Monday the 3rd seeing True Grit, which I loved specifically because it had a female who was just doing something without having to be sexy or sexified. Gosh, that was so refreshing. Afterwards, I got drinks with Mark at Verb on Bedford. I really loved the lazy days off we’d have together, just drifting off writing and working on lyrics, reading and listening to music, but always warmed by the other’s physical presence.

Here is a picture of Mark reading one of my feminist books:

Had an awesome gaffe at work on Thursday January 6th which was so awesome I have to write it down for posterity. We have a large conference room that faces time square, and 2 of the windows are all glass, so we are often face to face with giant billboards. This morning I was sitting in the conference room facing a giant engagement ring billboard, when one of my coworkers came in and was all, “isn’t that a beautiful ring?” I was exhausted, since Thursday morning is my temple day, and I get up at 4 in the morning, so I said without thinking, “it’s not really my thing. I mean, maybe if it was a fun fake ring like yours, but definitely not a real diamond.” I don’t know why this made sense in my head, but it did. And she looks at me and she’s like, “um, this is real honey.” And I was like, oh my gosh what to I do? Do I tell my coworker her diamond was of such questionable quality that I thought it was a fake? So I mumbled something about it being so big I thought it was fake, but then it looked like I called her poor, so I just gave up. This is the kind of person I am: I have to control my thoughts so heavily, because there is literally such a thin filter between my brain and my mouth.

Saturday, Mark and I went to see “The King’s Speech,” which we both loved very much. It was interesting how that movie went from 0 to 60 overnight. I mean, one day it was this charming little indie movie, and the next day it’s like, winning the Oscar. People really went crazy for it. Personally, I go crazy for any Colin Firth/Geoffrey Rush mashup, but that’s just me. Will and Jenny Butler were in town, doing a dance performance they had created together, and they stopped by church on Sunday to say hello. Gosh, there literally could not be a sweeter couple of people in the world. They pretty much charmed my whole ward. Afterwards I cleaned my kitchen and worked on sewing projects, since it was too nasty outside to do much of anything else.
Tuesday, January 11th we got hit by another blizzard. Sadly, this was the only day I got off for the rest of the blizzard season. Every other time, all of my New Jersey and Long Island coworkers couldn’t come in because snow had stopped the trains and the highways, but being in New York with a functioning subway, I was expected to go to the office, even if it meant I was the only one there. Not cool, company. Euro would let me work from home whenever I wanted. Why you guys got to keep me on such a tight leash?

After many months of flickering and shutting off randomly, my completely terrible SpectronIQ flatscreen TV finally died. If that wasn’t a testament to only buying name brand electronics, I don’t know what was. Knowing the new season of Jersey Shore was about to start, Mark and I researched TVs, finally settling on a flatscreen Toshiba. Friday the 14th, we went over to Best Buy and bought it, our first appliance as a couple. I will say that in the divorce, Mark did leave the TV with me, which was very nice of him. Of course, I allowed him to keep the speakers, so it’s a bit Even-Steven.

I promised Jenny Butler that I would throw a Golden Globes party on Sunday, and since Will lives in Montreal most of the time and has no access to good Southwestern food, I decided I would cook a Southwestern meal in accompaniment. Now, for my fellow gringos out there, Imma tell you that there are few things more difficult than making a Southwestern meal from scratch, and on Saturday I realized the enormity of my decision. Not only did I have to track down Mexican groceries for ingredient (thanks, Mexican 2000!), but I had to go out and buy special cookie supplies (ramekins, why you got to be so expensive?). Luckily, Mark accompanied me into town on my William Sonoma run, as he had to drop off some information to Carnegie Hall for his mother’s February performance.

I literally spent all of Saturday evening making adobe pies, an excruciating dish involving stuffing a chicken, cheese, and mole mixture into a masa crust and baking in a ramekin at a very specific temperature for like, 2 hours. Crucial mistake 1: not enough water in the crust/foil not tight enough to keep moisture in masa crust. Crucial mistake 2: was unable to procure enchilada sauce, so the pies came out a bit on the dry side. Crucial mistake 3: Did not wear gloves when de-seeding and slicing the poblano peppers. My hands were literally on fire ALL NIGHT. I was on the verge of tears. I tried dipping them in milk, in vinegar, in ice water, and nothing would work. I just had to go to bed crying, my hands feeling like they would fall off my body at any moment.

Also made about 20 servings of sweet corn, a delicious mixture of cream, sugar, masa, and corn kernals that is literally the most delicious thing in the world. I need to figure out how to make the masa less grainy though, because it runs a bit on the gritty side.

As I always do, I freaked out that I wouldn’t have enough food for everyone, so on Sunday I also got chips and salsa and tortilla soup, which was rubbish. I mean, it was just so bad. I could not make those ingredients come together, and it was watery and strange—just not good at all. Mark worked some magic, and in the end used his emulsifier to give it some weight, but let’s just say it was the least successful part of the evening.

Everything else was superb. Jenny and Will came over with Mary South, then Mark and Veronica, Brooke and her friend Jas. I’m sure other people were there—maybe Raquel? I honestly couldn’t tell you right now. I can tell you the food turned out great, and everyone was very complimentary, and I considered it one of my favorite dinner parties. And Ricky Gervais charmed everyone as the Golden Globes host.

On Tuesday the 18th I finally finished “The Corrections.” I had been resisting that book for years because Frazen seemed a bit of a snot, but Mary gave it to me so I was all, Ugh fine I’ll read it already. And you know what, I hated the first 4th of it. Just hated it. And then by the first third I was like, ok, I can see this is ok, and by the time I was halfway through, I was like, This is pretty masterful, and by the time I finished that book, I was literally sobbing. On my bed, sobbing, body shaking, just a mess. It affected me more profoundly and on such a personal level than any book I’ve ever read—it touched on everything I found beautiful and hard about trying to live life and love your family. I mean, my family is not dysfunctional, but the same stress and pressure and feeling and love is there. My gosh, what a triumphant ending. That book was just the best thing to ever happen to me.

On Wednesday, my work decided that I was sort of valuable, so I got moved to a second account. What proceeded for the next month was a huge territorial war as two creative directors fought tooth and nail to get me working 100% on their campaigns. They literally would not share. I’ve never seen anything like it. I honestly believe a random person plucked from the street could do what I do for a living, and yet here I am, somehow the most valuable commodity (for a few weeks anyway) in the agency. Believe me, I was as shocked as you.

Thursday was the belated office Christmas party, which was just a living hell. I just cannot get my head in the game for those. It’s like at business meetings, everyone wants to talk about anything other than business, and as soon as you get us into a room recreationally, all anyone can talk about is work. It’s just the most uncomfortable place to be ever. So I ducked out early and met Nina for dinner at Klong. I just didn’t have the strength.

On Friday the 21st, my mom came to New York to pay me a visit. Things were still kind of tense between us after the Christmas debacle, so I was glad to have a chance to clear the air. She was determined to be accepting of Mark and my relationship, which wasn’t easy for her. The more she tried to get to know him on a deep level, asking him questions about why he felt this way or what he was going to do with his life, the more tense and upset he seemed to get. It got to the point by the end of the week that I tried to keep them apart as much as possible, since Mark was having a tougher time dealing with her than usual.
That didn’t stop him from accompanying us to the Brooklyn Museum on Friday. Mom wanted to see a lecture on feminism and migrant workers, which turned out to be a ridiculous rant about immigration, where the whole argument was based on specious, emotional stories without a fact or a figure to be found. I almost got up and walked out I was so bored.
On Sunday, Mark departed on a two-week jaunt to Germany to see his mother perform (since he was going to miss her Carnegie Hall gig). Mom and I almost froze our feet off as we walked up and down Lee Avenue looking for skirts. It took so much out of mom that she came to work with me on Monday and Tuesday and just slept under my desk all day. It was a pretty dead day, so nobody noticed, and I have to say I was very jealous of her George Costanza moment.

Mom left on Wednesday, which was very sad. I always get really depressed when family goes, and heading into February, which is the longest month for me (seriously there is nothing to do but be sad in February). In order to make the best of a bad situation, Brooke, Mary South, and I braved the winter sleet to make our way to Colicchio & Sons for restaurant week. I had my first bone marrow and a delicious crispy-skinned chicken. Got talking with the general manager, and he gave me a gift certificate to come back, which was gratefully accepted.

Thursday the 27th, we were hit by another blizzard, which I was going to stay home for, but then my coworkers (who were at home) decided I really needed to be at work so projects could route. So I rolled in around 11am, then had a nice lunch with Alexis, who took me to the Momofuku Milk Bar, where I had the infamous cereal-milk ice cream, which was really too bland for my palette. But it’s inventive, and I like to see that sort of initiative.

Friday night was very powerful for me, and not because I had tacos while reading Snooki’s book “A Shore Thing.” No, it was because Friday I got to see Will and Jenny’s dance performance “The Honeybees” in Soho.
Will composed all the music, Jenny had choreographed the whole production and was dancing in it, so it was very much a labor of love. The show itself was absolutely charming—it was roughly about the isolation of growing old and dying, set in a desert.
Jenny used cow skulls and torn dresses to create the mood, and Will had created a really open, melodic score that seemed to drift perfectly with the dancers. At one point, Jenny even sang as she nestled against the piano where Will was playing.
What I loved about that is that Will loved her so much, and had written a song for her to sing, to showcase to the world all the ways he found her beautiful and soft and lovely and strong. And as she sang his words, you could see in her body language how much she loved him, and how she was dedicating her dance to him.
The flow of love between the two of them was electric, and it was impossible not to be sucked in. I was moved and a bit jealous, but ultimately so happy that two such open and guileless people should find each other, and love each other so selflessly. I found myself in tears by the end of it.
Afterwards, I turned around and found a lot of my friends from Chicago were in the audience: the Duran family, who used to teach me Sunday school, and the Whites, who I knew from the Chicago church days. What I love about these two families, who all have kids roughly my age who also came, is that we probably spent 2 minutes catching up on what we were doing, and then immediately started getting into issues like the state of urban architecture and its effect on the elderly, the Arab Spring and higher education, the future of printed literature, post-earthquake relief efforts in Chile. Everyone was so informed, so educated, and so bright and excited to learn I felt like a light inside of me had been lit just by talking to them.
I spent Saturday going out to brunch with Jeff and Kelly, also Northwestern friends who were in town to see “The Honeybees.” We at Diner on Broadway and Driggs (I think), which was delicious. I regret deeply not ordering the chorizo and kale. Afterwards I worked on finishing my epic recipe book, which contains all of the awesome recipes I had developed with Mark and stolen from my mom, as well as many of the amazing ones Martha Stewart has turned me on to.

Links of significance for the month of January
Amazing video by a former Disney employee who got to live my dream
Always a good time: Photobombing

2011-08-08T17:30:00.002-05:00

Applicable items taken from bestweekever.tv:

30 AND NOT PREGNANT: 30 Things MTV And I Have In Common At 30

30. How Do All These 16 Year Olds Have Babies And We Don’t?
29. We Both Don’t Really Care About Voting Anymore
13. And Why Is That 16-Year-Old In A Mercedes While We Drive A Used Impala?
12. We’d Both Still Shamefully Have Sex With A Guido