a weight on my shoulders

probably one of the things i miss the most from my "old" life is taking Total Body Conditioning class on Saturday mornings in Brooklyn. i know i sound like a freak, but i really, truly looked forward to it. i actually enjoyed hauling my ass out of bed at seven-thirty on a weekend morning, downing a sugar-free Red Bull on my walk to the gym, making sure to hustle so i'd get a good spot in the studio (front of the room, right hand corner). i would literally get there at least thirty minutes before class was scheduled to start, because the women at the NYSC in Cobble Hill were cut-throat about getting spots in the class; believe me, i wasn't the only one there at eight-forty-five for a nine-fifteen class. i would sit and read the paper or eavesdrop on all the interesting conversations going on in the room until David arrived.

and oh how i loved him. he would kick our asses, but he would make us laugh in the process, tell us - while we were hating him intensely for making us do twenty more lunges - that we would make the other girls on the beach so jealous with our tight butts. i have no idea where he was from, but he had a great accent and said "shoes" instead of "feet" and would always come up to me during our warm-ups to say hello - he addressed me as "my friend."

an hour later, feeling spent and sweaty and relieved, i would leave the gym, grab an apple at the organic market on the corner and walk home, feeling downright joyful about being alive. seriously. the class always put me in an unbelievable mood - and what a way to start a weekend. (Sundays were usually more about being in pain, but hey - the sore glutes were worth it.) i have tried not to think about David and the class too often in the last two months. i've tried instead to focus on my running, to do crunches on my own, even some push-ups.

yeah, no - so not the same thing.

you may remember that i joined a gym in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago in a fit of desperation during a particularly brutal bout of humidity. i spent forty-five minutes on the elliptical that day - and never went back. until this morning. they had a body sculpting class on their schedule that sounded sort of like Total Body, and so i decided to be brave and give it a shot. i couldn't neglect my muscles any longer. to be honest, my expectations were low... which is why i was pleasantly surprised when i walked into the aerobics studio to find a bunch of women with their steps in place, a few sets of weights nearby, and their mats rolled up, waiting to sweat. a scene right out of Cobble Hill!

but there was no David. instead, Workout Barbie was at the front of the room, pink tank top and headset included. she was a decent enough instructor, i suppose, but she played bad music and chatted away into her little microphone the entire class - about Dancing With the Stars and her trip to Hershey Park and how if we went even lower with our squats we could have more margaritas this weekend. she did too many jumping jacks and not enough crunches. and i had to drive home from the gym - no apple, no euphoria.

of course i was judging the whole experience unfairly - nothing will ever live up to David's class. and i did sweat quite a lot today, and my muscles are feeling happily fatigued now. but it was just another reminder that i am not a big fan of change, that i will resist it with all my might - but that sometimes it's just inevitable. and sore glutes are better than neglected glutes any day.

mb

a roof with a view

last night was the last hurrah on Lauren's roof. her pool closes after Labor Day, and so we had one final shindig to bid farewell to summer. the weather cooperated (for a change) and Lauren, per her usual, put out an incredible spread (including a watermelon and cucumber gazpacho that was kick-ass), the wine was flowing, and many of my favorite people were there. oh, and the moon was orange. yes, orange, just hanging there over the East River. rather stunning, actually. and we all had a really great time.

there was the requisite talk about jobs and relationships and why Dolch didn't bring potato salad. Margaret and her husband talked about their honeymoon in Australia (i think everyone said, at one point or another, "a dingo ate my baybay!") and a few of us dared to go in the pool despite it being almost chilly on the roof. the little kid we gave brownies to last time came by for some chocolate chip cookies, and the older folks who were up there having a pool party of their own gave us their leftover wine and an entire pizza (after we'd already gorged ourselves on cheese and crackers and prosciutto-wrapped bread sticks).

the most interesting part of the night came later on when Dolch and i were chatting with Lauren's boyfriend, Chris, who always has very insightful things to say about life. we were discussing family issues and then, specifically, father issues. i don't have any to speak of, personally (other than the passed-on DNA that causes me to go apoplectic over the Yankees) but i do know very well the impact a rocky relationship with a father can have on a person. and it sort of blew my mind last night, because how long have i been in therapy, and that one conversation on the roof opened my eyes, and turned out to be a real light bulb moment for me.

come to think of it, that roof has actually been the scene of several "moments" for me this summer. i think i may have experienced some real mental growth up there. (perhaps it was the combination of chlorine and pinot noir. or maybe the bacon chocolate from Vosges.) anyway, it was another lovely night. you never do know what will happen up on that roof. and i will miss it very much all winter.

mb

is it just me...

...or does the world seem extra-crazy lately? two years later, Louisiana and Mississippi are still struggling with the effects of Hurricane Katrina; Leona Helmsley just left 12 million dollars to her dog; Owen Wilson - who was stoned out of his mind when i saw him at a Daily Show taping last year, but otherwise affable - tried to kill himself over the weekend; yet another politician is lying about lying, this time about a gay tryst in a freaking airport bathroom; and the current cover of Philadelphia magazine screams "The Worst Parents Ever" - inside is an article about how the current crop of kids in the area (and the country) are spoiled, entitled, ungrateful and in need of a lot of help (which is in sync with everything i heard last weekend from the former private school teachers i was hanging out with). yikes.

my dad and i were talking last night about music - how the 1960s have not been surpassed by any subsequent decade in terms of its music. i was trying to tell him that times have changed, that people making music these days are, by and large, angrier and angstier than people in the '60s so of course it has a different feel and a different appeal. he pointed out that there was plenty of angst in the '60s, too, and that one day we'd be looking back on these years (2006 et al.) as "the good old days."

i just have one response to that: i f*cking hope not.

mb

what i did on my summer vacation

can anyone wrap their heads around the fact that Labor Day is less than a week away? my teacher friends are either already back in the classroom or in the throes of preparing to be back in the classroom. the sun is setting earlier and earlier. Halloween candy is on display in all the drugstores. guess there's no avoiding the fact that summer is, more or less, over.

i think i've mentioned here before that i can't even keep track of what day it is anymore - i literally wake up in the morning and it takes me about 30 seconds to work out whether it's Tuesday or Thursday, where exactly i am, what i'm supposed to be doing that day - so i'm sure it comes as no surprise that this summer has been a bit of a blur for me. i was wondering earlier whether teachers still have their students write "what i did on my summer vacation" essays - and if i had to write one, what the hell it would say.

on my summer vacation this year, my heart was trampled by what felt like a stampede of buffalo. i packed up my entire life in New York and moved it all the way back to my parents' house, where i spent many hours by the pool contemplating all sorts of things, like what love really is, if money or happiness is more important in a career, if the Yankees would actually come back and win the AL East. i spent approximately 1,362 hours on trains, during which i read books and wrote in my journal and stared out the window a lot. i also ran many miles, drank many gallons of wine, and saw many movies. i did not get to the beach, not even once (which still makes me very sad, but i guess there's always next summer). in retrospect, this was not ostensibly one of the greatest summers of my life, but looking back over the previous few summers - during which i did get to the beach quite often and went to a few baseball games, and even took a trip or two - at least i know that this summer i accomplished something for a change. there aren't exactly tangible results yet to prove this, but they're coming, i know it. i feel it. the end.

i suppose i wouldn't receive any gold stars for my essay; it's not exactly marvelous or thrilling. but, you know, this has been a summer of transition. i'm a work in progress. i'm shedding all the aspects of my life that weren't fitting right anymore. (including my job - i quit yesterday - more on that later.) and it had to be done. weekends at the beach can wait. i needed my summer of transition. and next up: my autumn of, hmm... renewal. yeah, renewal. everything else will be dying and falling off trees, while i'll just be starting to bloom, baby.

and next year's "what i did on my summer vacation" essay? it'll be a must-read.

mb

the party continues...

i met my friend Kate about 13 years and three months ago. we were roommates at the pre-college drama program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh during the summer of 1994. we were 17 years old and, on the surface, pretty different. i came with my showtune tapes and Broadway posters, which i plastered on the dorm room walls, and i believe on the first day i was wearing a gingham skirt and (oh dear god) a straw hat with a bow. Kate arrived with her Reality Bites soundtrack, no posters to speak of, and i'm sure was wearing something normal and cool, like jeans and a tee shirt. she was (still is) a brilliantly talented actor. i... should have gone to writing camp.

but - we clicked. we were between our junior and senior years of high school, and were equally (woefully) inexperienced with boys and alcohol (and eyebrow waxing), yet we both knew a lot of Sondheim lyrics. we wound up having many late night, soul-baring talks in our little dorm room, about life and dreams (and the sadistic ballet instructor at CMU). it all added up to the basis for a friendship that has only become more precious to me in the years since that summer.

which is why i was so happy to be celebrating her 30th birthday over the weekend at a surprise party her little sister Moe threw for her at their parents' house on the Island. it was - as expected - a truly kick-ass time and exactly the kind of weekend i needed right about now. friends, food, free-flowing margaritas, and a trip to the Nutty Irishman. it's hard to go wrong with those ingredients. among the highlights:

• Kate being completely, utterly surprised to find us all in her house on Saturday afternoon, replete with balloons, streamers, and guacamole. she was rendered speechless (but that didn't last too long...)
• there were nine of us all together, and half of us were just meeting for the first time. i'm not even kidding, within 10 minutes it was like we'd known each other all along - eight girls and our Gay Boyfriend, Andrew.
  
• the balloons, which said: happy 30th birthday...the party continues. amen, sister.
  
• the guacamole, made fresh by Kate's former fellow teacher Marcele, and inhaled immediately by the rest of us (who had already been drinking for an hour or two). in fact, all the food - homemade Mexican, Kate's favorite - was incredibly delicious. as were the super-strong margaritas. mmm.
• the spontaneous dance party that broke out in the sun room after dinner. you'd have to see it to believe it, and i do have photos, but will not post them here in case any children are around. just kidding. sort of.
• when Kate's friend Rachel and i realized we had met each other's dream man. she hated me for my John Krasinski encounter; i hated her for her fantastic Derek Jeter moment. since neither one of us actually landed each other's dream man, we let go of the hate and got along swell.
• the movie Moe made for Kate, with pictures from her baby days on. the soundtrack included Ben Folds Five's "Kate" - which i found wildly appropriate as the song has always made me think of her. incidentally, i think you can see daisies in her footsteps.
• the riotous, hard core game of Celebrity we played. i only ever seem to play this game on Long Island, which is funny, and i have to say i need to play it more often... despite the fact that i described Dorothy Parker as an African American writer. i'd like to blame it on the margaritas making my brain soggy, but i really think i just had an idiot moment. anyway, we never did make it to the charades round, but the first two were intense.
• the impromptu midnight trip to The Nutty Irishman. half of the group opted for bed, the other half (99% of whom are single) opted for a trip "The Nutty." it's a Long Island bar if there ever was one, and it was a bit of an adventure. there was the cab dispatcher who yelled at Moe, the super-cheesy cover band, and, of course, all the interesting fellas at the bar, like the two (yes, two) wearing capes. i think we were about eight years too old to be in the place, but that didn't stop us from having fun. there's nothing like a little dirty dancing with sweaty Long Island boys to soothe the soul.
  
• yesterday's hangover brunch of Nan's cheesy eggs, croissants, bacon, watermelon and lots of coffee. we didn't get to the beach as we'd hoped due to the bizarre August weather, but who cared? there were cheesy eggs.

the best part was that, even as we were saying our goodbyes yesterday, Kate was still in disbelief that we'd all come out to Long Island to celebrate her birthday... as if Islip were at the end of the earth - and as if we all wouldn't go to the end of the earth to celebrate her birthday. as i've already told her (because it takes one to know one) Kate has been waiting to be 30 all her life. what better reason to have a party than the fact that she's finally reached the magic age?

in all honesty, i got my ass kicked at CMU that summer 13 years ago. i was in way over my head. the evaluations my instructors sent a few weeks after the program ended proved that being the star of your high school drama department does not make you Broadway material. and especially not drama school material. however, i wouldn't trade the experience for anything. partly because Patrick Wilson was a student at CMU back then and he came to our voice class and sang "In Lily's Eyes" and i still have goosebumps from it.

and partly - mostly - because i met Kate.

mb

i could not love him more

my six-year old cousin Scott won a dance contest over the weekend. it was held between innings at a minor league baseball game in New Jersey. this is a video of it, courtesy of his dad, my Uncle Mark. Scotty is the little guy all the way on the left, in the light green shirt. he looks at first like he's not doing much, but oh, he is doing so much. he's doing... the robot. how freaking lucky am i to be blood-related to this kid?

ouch

i fall down a lot.

it has nothing to do with an equilibrium problem or any other physical ailment. i'm just clumsy. my body is usually two beats ahead of my brain (or the other way around) and so i'm prone to tripping, slipping, tumbling, sprawling. also: smacking my head on things. just this week i stood up too soon on the train twice and rammed my head right into the overhead rack. brilliant. i've walked into doorjambs, cracked my noggin on shelves - once i even passed out in Times Square, hit my head on the pavement, and woke up in a CAT scan machine. the point of this is - i have developed a high threshold for physical pain. even when i got my wisdom teeth out during my junior year of high school, the dentist was asking if i was an athlete because i was handling the pain so well. (i was actually high on nitrous oxide - what a great day that was.)

but my bionic qualities do not extend to my emotional side. in fact, i think i'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to emotional pain. i'm not the kind of person who will drink away her problems - or eat them for that matter (unless the Mallomars are nearby). i don't like spending entire days in bed or on the couch with rumpled Kleenex on the floor and the remote control in my hand. i don't have the finances to go shopping every time i have a bad day (at least not the kind of shopping that would temporarily alleviate a bout of sadness). so that leaves me with exercise - which does work - and, basically, just gritting my teeth and waiting it out. but that's extremely hard.

over the last week i made it a little bit harder on myself, and, in the process, found another method of easing emotional pain that does not work: looking back. i had my rose-colored binoculars out big time, and what a recipe for disaster that is. my trip down memory lane was ill-advised and short-lived, and i was feeling the way-too-familiar mix of angst and anger and frustration last night on the train ride home when i pulled out the paper to distract myself.

there was an article about the elderly woman, Betty, who, with her husband Bob, had traveled by yellow cab out to Arizona from Queens last spring. they wanted to retire somewhere warm, but because they had cats they didn't want to part with (nor stow in a treacherous cargo hold) they preferred to drive west rather than fly. it turned into a big, warm and fuzzy story in the New York press, and the couple became insta-celebrities out in Arizona. they had a crowd of people waiting for them when their cab finally arrived, 2,500 miles later, and they looked forward to many sunny, happy days together.

but earlier this week, Betty died. it was just reported yesterday, and i swear i wanted to cry when i read it. mostly because Bob sounded so grief-stricken. this wasn't supposed to happen. this wasn't a part of their plan. now he has to pick up the pieces and find a way to keep going without his best friend, without his other half. i haven't the faintest idea where he'll begin. it put my own grief into perspective pretty quick. the uncertainty makes me anxious, the memories make me sad sometimes, but relatively speaking, my emotional pain consists of some bruises that are already starting to fade. for people like Bob, he might go through box after box of Band-Aids and it still won't feel better.

i'm going to try and think of Bob next time i'm tempted to get out the binoculars, or squash the uncomfortable feelings in some other foolish way. Bob doesn't have the option of looking back now - except to say goodbye.

mb

a sign of the times

how sad is this?

my best friend Christine and her husband Durrell just celebrated their first wedding anniversary a few weeks ago. since paper is the traditional gift for a first anniversary, i decided to get them a reprint of the front page of The New York Times from their wedding day - August 12, 2006 - as a a keepsake... a clever one at that, if i do say so myself. i thought it was a great idea, and something their future children would think was cool someday.

right. the thing finally arrived earlier this week but i didn't open it until now. and imagine my horror when i saw the headlines - sprinkled with Al Qaeda, 9/11, war in Lebanon - there were stories about prison, too, and liquor coming to dry areas of the south. what the hell? is there no good news in the world any more? apparently not.

i can't imagine Christine wanting to hang anything regarding Al Qaeda on a wall in her house so i'm returning the dumb thing. maybe i would've been better off ordering a reprint of the cover of Us Weekly. shameful.

mb

it's sofa king great

i am not typically a big fan of change of upheaval. it does not come very naturally to me, nor am i particularly good at it. or, i wasn't. i'm wondering if maybe i'm getting a little better at it now.

last night i was back in Jersey City, hanging out with Darren and Alayne. (Darren is the one getting married next month in Montana.) last month i stayed on Darren's couch, last night it was Alayne's turn. and as i was drifting off to sleep - delirious with exhaustion - i started counting the couches i'd slept on since early July. there have been six, though a couple i've slept on more than once, so it seems like more. i am beyond grateful to my cousins and friends for being so cool with letting me crash in their respective living rooms. i do feel lucky to have people in my life who don't mind me drooling on their guest pillows (just kidding). it does get to be a grind sometimes - lugging a bag with me wherever i go, waking up and not knowing where i am, learning new remote controls in each new place i stay....

but there's an upside, i realized this morning, to getting to see so many different apartments before i settle in one of my own (please, please, please god). in fact, i've gained great ideas from each place i've stayed:

- Alayne's apartment didn't look at all like a 23-year old's apartment should look like. in other words - it was stunning. she has great New Yorker cover prints in her guest bathroom that i coveted immediately. i also noticed that she has VHS tapes among her collection of DVDs, and so i felt immediately less of a nerd for still having so many of my own.

- Sarah has an awesome rain spout shower head, and her pantry door is actually a chalkboard (on which she and her boyfriend have sketched various vegetables, and love notes in Hebrew).

- Lauren has a great cookbook collection, a very comfy couch - and, oh yeah, a pool on her roof. she and her boyfriend also sang a duet for me, while he played the guitar. hospitality and entertainment!

- Kerri's new house has lovely wainscoting, which i probably won't find in an apartment but i'll keep in mind for when i have a house. (she also has a kick-ass leather couch that i love for sentimental reasons. i spent many a drunken night on that couch a little while back. fun times.)

- Darren's fiancee Sara had a book on their coffee table, which i flipped through before i went to bed and bought on amazon the next day - Muriel Hemingway's Living Healthy From the Inside Out. (i admit i haven't read much of it yet, but when i have my own coffee table, i will put it out to encourage other people to shop impulsively on amazon.) they also have a fantastic bamboo bathmat by their shower. definitely getting one of those.

- Kate was staying in her friend Rachel's apartment while Rachel was out traveling the world. the whole apartment was stunning, but my favorite part was the little balcony out front. the place was in Park Slope, but the trees were situated in a way that made it seem, when you were sitting on the balcony, that you were somewhere secluded and green. excellent place to drink wine and chat.

so basically i'm in a research phase. right? and it will all add up to me having an idyllic place of my own - where each and every one of the people who've been so kind to me can come and sleep on my sofa anytime they want.

mb

rain clouds cause brain clouds

it has been a strange stretch of weather up here in the northeast. it went from august to september to november in about thirty-six hours over last weekend, and there has been a gigantic mass of gray clouds stalled over us for too long. i'm not complaining too much - it's sort of nice to have a break from the fetid august grossness. still - there's only so much gloomy a girl can take. especially a girl in a bit of a funk.

speaking of funks, who knew that pancakes for dinner was such a cure-all? that's what we did last night - i made a big stack of pancakes (some with chocolate chips) and syrup and strawberries, and bacon of course. i was Miss Mopey Pants for most of the day, but put a few chocolate-chip pancakes in front of me and it's amazing how i perked up. i think we used to do breakfast-as-dinner fairly often when i was a kid, but i can't remember the last time i did that. it was comforting and yummy. only problem was that it wasn't exactly clear which wine paired best with pancakes. still not sure. any ideas?

today marks one month 'til my cousin Darren's wedding, so a month from today i will probably be fully in love with Montana, which is where the shindig is taking place. i got the invite for his fiancee's bachelorette party yesterday, scheduled for two days before the wedding. the invitation included directions, which at one point indicated - i'm not kidding - "walk through the pasture." i could not be more excited for the whole thing. just the idea of actually having a vacation brings a little mist to my eyes. this weekly grind of trains and work and couches and more trains and lots of driving is weighing me down. maybe i'll find a little place in Montana and stay there. i've been told i have the 'farmer's daughter' look - which i think was a compliment, but maybe not...

anyway. i guess that's all i had to add on this oh-so-dreary hump day.

mb

or is it just indigestion?

i've been thinking a lot lately about gut feelings.

for as long as i can remember, my mother has been telling me to trust my gut. i guess it's sort of the same as women's intuition - screw logic, we're just supposed to be able to feel things, sense things. and somehow, that will lead us in the right direction. it's more complicated than that, obviously, as this article in Psychology Today indicates, but that's the general, dumbed-down principle.

i'm no Laura Day and i'm not going to hang up my psychic shingle any time soon, but sometimes i really do think i have a sixth sense about certain things. (no, i don't see dead people.) for instance, nine years ago, i left my parents' house one rainy Thursday morning in July to drive to Long Island to visit with a friend and see a band play. a random thought crossed my mind as i made the right turn onto 309 (the "big" highway near the house) - "i'm going to have an accident today." no idea why i thought that, and i dismissed it - it left my mind as quickly as it had entered. maybe an hour and forty-five minutes later, my car was fishtailing on the Belt Parkway. i slammed into the median, the air bags deployed, and my little mindless "prediction" had come true. i was not driving fast, nor distractedly. an oil tanker had crashed there hours earlier, spilling its cargo and creating treacherous conditions on the already rainy roadway. in fact, as i was waiting on the side of the Belt for the tow truck, another car hit the same spot, flew off the road in a flash and landed in a ditch.

how in the world did my subconscious, my "intuition," - my whatever - know that an oil tanker would crash on the Belt Parkway and ultimately lead to me having what still ranks as one of the more nerve wracking, surreal days of my life? i can't explain it. but i learned then to listen to that little voice, that tiny-but-powerful tugging at my gut. in fact, a few weeks ago i had planned to go visit my grandmother in New Jersey one sunny, warm Friday afternoon. i woke up with a vague, uneasy feeling, but i figured it was just a little melancholy. i stopped at the gas station to fill up the tank, but when i stuck the nozzle into the car - as i've done thousands of times before - the gas came gushing out everywhere, the car, the ground, my flip-flops. it took the help of an attendant before i was actually able to fill up the tank. i was a little rattled - aren't gas spills really bad? - but i still set off for my trip. still feeling uneasy. i took the back way, as i usually do, and encountered a gigantic sign and traffic cones: ROAD CLOSED. and that was it. did i need to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer? no. clearly this wasn't the right day for a road trip. i turned around and came home and rescheduled for another day. who knows if i would've encountered worse things if i'd kept driving that day. maybe, maybe not. but i wasn't about to take the chance.

my gut feelings haven't always been about bad things. i was so set on majoring in drama in college - until i actually got there and found myself gravitating in the bookstore not to the books about Uta Hagen and set design and Kabuki, but to the Chicago manual and journalism texts and all the classic novels. didn't take me long to realize i had picked the wrong major. maybe that was more common sense than a visceral reaction - i wasn't exactly a budding Broadway star - but it definitely involved my insides telling me i'd be much happier over here than over there. the insides were right.

anyway, Martha Beck talks about learning to listen to your essential self - the part of you that knows what it wants, no questions, no doubts, no input from third-parties. it's not advisable to always listen to your essential self - if i did, i'd surely weigh 300 pounds from eating chocolate cake all day every day - but apparently a lot of us don't at all, and that's not good. that's how we wind up in careers we hate, relationships we're unhappy about, in situations in which we feel stuck. we're afraid to listen to our essential selves because doing that requires putting a lot on the line - emotions, ego, the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. there's great potential to get squashed like a bug. but i think the idea is - isn't it better to risk getting squashed than to live a life that doesn't feel quite right?

it's not an easy task. i've been trying to sort it all out for a while now, and it's very tricky business. some famous physicist once said, in regard to intuition, "the first priciple is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." no kidding. i'm just trying to really pay attention to when i feel happiest, what makes me feel peaceful, what makes me feel energized, and so on. weirdly enough, it's not something i thought all that closely about for most of my adulthood. so i'm getting back to the gut feelings. i actually think i'm having one right now...! oh, wait, no. it's just my stomach grumbling. time for lunch.

mb

so easily comforted...

i was just flipping through the current issue of Glamour and saw a little blurb about doing it "all wrong" at age 20, 30, and/or 40. the dek is: "women explain the value of throwing out your timeline." one woman, who is 31, says she just moved back in with her parents. she's back in the room she had when she was four years old, but she's saving money. and, she said, proving to her family that she can actually cook.

i'm happy that i happened upon this blurb today. it's giving me a lot of reassurance because 1) i just made dinner twice over the weekend, for my dad and me (my mother wasn't feeling well) and i was proud that my culinary skills have progressed beyond pouring a perfect bowl of cereal; and 2) the woman in the blurb is technically older than me (though i'm only a little more than three months from 31 - egads) and i am not sleeping in the same room i had when i was four. mostly because that room is no longer mine - it's actually no longer a bedroom - but still.

it seems i'm not really such a big loser after all. phew. thanks, Glamour.

mb

i am in love...

...with a bunch of 12-year old boys.

no, no, not like that. please. i'm not pulling a Mary Kay Letourneau. i've just been watching the Little League World Series and it's impossible not to love these little guys - they of the pimples and braces and preternatural skills on the baseball diamond. if you haven't watched even an inning of a LLWS game, i highly recommend it.

first of all, ESPN filmed hilarious little introductions for the broadcast, where the kids say their names and who their favorite baseball player is. a lot of them are from the south so these intros sound like, "haaah [hi]. mah name is bobby lee and mah fav'rite player is [more often than not] a-rod."

second of all, i don't know what they feed these kids. none are over the age of 13. yet it seemed like an extremely high number were six feet tall - or taller! i was my current height of five-feet-eight by seventh grade and i was definitely taller than 98% of the boys in my class. i can't imagine these poor kids having to walk around the halls of their junior high, a foot taller than most of their classmates. then again, i'm sure they don't care. after all, these guys are on ESPN - on Sportscenter for chrissakes - and they're kick-ass pitchers. one kid yesterday struck out 17 batters!

third of all, it's like watching pint-sized versions of MLB players. they have a lot of the same tics - spitting, cap-fidgeting, elaborate handshakes when they do something good. it's amazing. how do they know how to do all that stuff? does it just come naturally when they pick up a bat and glove? do their coaches teach them how to spit, along with how to shag a fly? whatever the case, it's extremely amusing.

but - they're also just regular kids, who do regular dumb kid things. for instance, there was one kid last night in the dugout with a big wad of bubblegum in his mouth. he was playing with the wad with his grubby fingers, twisting it around his tongue, generally being a doofus. the ESPN camera lingered on him as he stretched both ends of the pink glob across his tongue and down past his chin. no matter if the kid hit a home run or made a game-saving catch - i'm sure that will be the footage played at family gatherings for years to come.

anyway, i think i've more than established in previous posts how much i love baseball. watching the Little Leaguers only made me love it more. how can you not root for the pipsqueaks? i became particularly attached to a catcher named Brandon Green - that's him in the picture - because he's freaking adorable. his helmet seemed a few sizes too big for his head, and he had the fantastic, geeky goggles - not to mention a mean swing. after watching him for about five minutes, i wanted to adopt him.

maybe i'm so taken by the whole thing because i was dreadful when i played softball at that age. i didn't really understand the game - and chubby girls and sports just don't mix. my coach stuck me in the outfield and i spent my time out there picking dandelions. so the fact that these kids not only understand the game, but also are awesome at it - i just think that's really, really cool.

mb

if x=y and trains A & B are traveling at different speeds, is it any wonder i don't get numbers?

i think i've finally realized why i hated algebra: numbers confound me.

i truly think i have dyslexia when it comes to numbers. either that or a brain tumor. (but, as my aunt val said yesterday in her best Ah-nold: "it's not a tumah!") this is why i know something is wrong:

on Thursday night, we ordered in a stromboli for dinner and i went to grab a bottle of wine out of my dad's nifty little wine fridge. two months ago i made the mistake of opening a 2003 vintage 3 Blind Moose cabernet. i hadn't realized its value, though i was made well aware of it after my transgression. my dad had another one on hand and we went over several times (tongue-in-cheek) that i was to keep my paws off anything with a "2003" on its label. on Thursday night we had two bottles of 3 Blind Moose in the fridge - one 2003, one 2005. i told myself to be sure to fetch the correct one, i tripled checked the dates on each label, and i pulled what i thought was the right bottle. i opened it, i poured two glasses, and that was that. maybe an hour later, my dad went to pour himself another glass. he squinted at the label, removed his glasses to get a better look and said, "two-thousand-and-three?" my dad can be quite the smart ass, so i scoffed at him initially. then it became clear he wasn't joking. "WHAT?" i squawked and smacked my forehead. "you've got to be kidding me." what the hell went on in my brain between when i told myself not to pick the wrong bottle and when my hand reached in and grabbed that exact bottle? it's like a switch was flipped - the same switch that flipped every time i walked into Mr. Cullen's Algebra I in high school. i went from being a bright, competent girl to being utterly useless.

right on the heels of my wine faux pas, i had another brain fart while making brownies to bring to my grandmother yesterday. i love to bake. i'm pretty good at it, too. i read recipes carefully and measure relatively meticulously. yesterday morning, pressed for time, i was making a mix out of a box. a mix i'd made a few times before. a Betty Crocker mix, easy as pie. or, you know, as brownies. i greased a pan, poured out the dry mix, measured the water, cracked open two eggs. the recipe also called for vegetable oil - one-and-a-half cups. yes, it seemed an inordinate amount to me, too, but i checked the box three times. it clearly said one-and-a-half. so i poured one-and-a-half cups of vegetable oil into the mix. the batter seemed extra-smooth, but i was in a rush so i poured it into the pan and set the timer. they came out of the oven nearly an hour later seeming slightly off, but, again, i thought it was just me.

i waited until i got to my gram's before i started to cut the brownies. i put a few on a plate for her and they did seem a little... slick. i cut off a little piece to test and popped it into my mouth. it was difficult to chew as the thing slid promptly down my throat. my tongue couldn't even get a grip on it, it went down so fast. "umm, gram?" i said. "don't eat any of these until you hear from me. i think i made them wrong."

after i left gram, i went to my aunt val's and was telling her the story, and how i think there is something impeding my brain. she happened to have a box of the exact same brownie mix. i looked at the back of it and it could not have been clearer: a HALF cup of vegetable oil. "there's even a picture there," val said, "in case you couldn't read the numbers!" (i guess my family is full of smart asses.) just to be sure, when i got back home i poked through the garbage to find the box i had used - just in case there'd been a misprint on my box. (you never know.) but no - it said the same damn thing - a half cup.

so... Will Hunting i am not. apparently i'm lucky that i can read a clock and understand my bank statements. i'm not complaining - it's not like i have a secret wish to be a rocket scientist or tax attorney and if only i understood numbers. i just hope that if i have kids, they don't ask me for help with their math homework. i'll just toss them a copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "1984" and tell them, "don't waste your time with numbers...words are far superior."

ps - i called my gram a little while ago to tell her about the brownies but before i could even get the words out, she told me she had eaten several and they were delicious. do you see why i love this woman?

mb

a night in the city

i had forgotten how big and lonely New York can feel sometimes.

the last time i remember truly feeling that way was almost exactly eight years ago, right before i started my first "real" job out of college. i was apartment/cat sitting for my cousin and her husband, staying in their place on 51st and Lexington. it was Labor Day Weekend and i walked around a mostly-empty city - the same city that i had pined for and wanted to live in since i was nine years old - wondering what the hell i had done. i didn't love it there! it was big, and dark, and scary! i remember wandering around a Rite Aid on Third Avenue, looking at all the back-to-school displays and wishing i had, oh, the first day of fourth grade to look forward to, not a new job and a new life in a new place.

obviously i got over it. and i stayed. and i really hadn't viewed New York that way again until last night. sure, i've gone through my weeks when i've hated it, loathed it, been disgusted by it (especially the mornings when i'd pass piles of vomit on the stairs of the W4th Station). but it's not very often when i feel alone in it. so i was sort of caught off guard last night.

i had gone to see an apartment across the river - one i never wound up seeing the inside of because the outside told me everything i needed to know. i was feeling deflated and discouraged and i still had time to kill before meeting Sarah at her apartment for my second couch-crashing engagement of the week. i thought about Bar Veloce - about getting a glass of wine and some olives and maybe a panino, reading my book for a while, relaxing. it seemed a good antidote, so i hopped back on the PATH to Manhattan and walked to 7th Avenue. of course, i forgot that it was nearly 8 o'clock and naturally Veloce was packed.

i considered McManus, only a block away, because hey, maybe i'd get lucky a second time. but of course it was pretty crowded in there, too, and i wasn't really in the mood for mozzarella sticks anyway. i was in the process of scrapping the glass-of-wine plan in favor of some coffee at a Starbucks when i passed by a place called Merchants. there were several spots open at the bar and i walked in and sat down - and immediately regretted it. i had been in Merchants on the Upper East Side years ago, and didn't really remember much about it. this one, in Chelsea, was clearly a blind-date bar. there were at least three going on around me (i'm a good eavesdropper) which i didn't realize until i'd already ordered my wine. and there i was, utterly not on a date, with an issue of Self magazine, in my jeans and ponytail, so hilariously out of place. i smiled to myself, shrugging it off as just one of those nights, oh well, what can you do. i sipped my wine and ordered an appetizer and flipped through my magazine.

then they dimmed the lights. of course they did; it's a date bar. so much for reading. the Yankee encore was on the flat screen above me, but they were dreadful yesterday so it wasn't much fun watching them play. i opted for holding Self closer to my face so i could get back to "total body makeover in one month." you can imagine how awesome i felt. i got the hell out of there as soon as i was done scarfing my bruschetta.

Sarah had texted me that she was running late, so i still had at least an hour to waste. i got some Tasti-D (with lots of mini chocolate chips on top, you better believe) and ambled down Seventh Ave, back into my old neighborhood - my old work neighborhood anyway. there seemed to be an inordinate number of crowds and couples and way too many happy people for this to be New York. the farther south i walked, the more melancholy i was. i feel less "groundless" than i did a month ago, but still in some sort of life purgatory. maybe being back downtown made me miss my old life - at least the knowing-where-i-belonged aspect. i walked down Christopher Street to Hudson, and walked past the old Out of the Kitchen and saw the shiny bright new one at the corner of Leroy Street.

i sat down on the first stoop i encountered on Leroy - one i had walked past a million times before - to rest, and to think. it's a little scary sometimes - those moments when you realize you don't really have any idea what you're doing, when you realize your life may not work out the way you want it to after all. i mean, who knows? sometimes the weight of uncertainty hits me all at once, i guess. then a woman on a cell phone with a big yellow lab on a leash turned the corner, headed toward me. the dog wasted no time introducing himself to me by way of his curious snout in my face. the woman lived in the building - it was her stoop i was sitting on - but she didn't seem to mind. neither did the dog, who seemed more than happy to have me pet him. "oh, he really likes her," the woman said to whoever was on her cell.

i thought, "well, at least someone does." oh, i know - poor me. but it was one of those little moments i love, one that makes me think. one that comes in handy on a night when you're feeling rather small and alone. if nothing else, at least this dog was glad to have me there on his stoop. his owner finally dragged him upstairs and inside. and i got up off the stoop and walked to the subway and a half hour later Sarah and i were catching up on life in her apartment and the loneliness subsided.

that's just how life goes here, i guess.

mb

a note from the author

i wanted to make my blog "private" for (not surprisingly) personal reasons. however, it seems that acquiring a google account and then using that account to access this blog is trickier than it sounds. far be it from me to deprive my readers of my silly ramblings-on, so i have, for the moment, made it un-private. (sort of like Britney does with her womanly parts on a regular basis.) anyway, i apologize for all the rigmarole last week. but, hey - even if it didn't help you gain access to my blog, y'all have google accounts now and it's hard to get by in life anymore without a google account...

mb

scenes from the dinner table

my father and i were sitting by the pool tonight, enjoying the crickets and the still-quite-lovely summer air, talking about the round of golf he'd played earlier in the day. he was bemoaning his habit of picking up his head during his swing - apparently he's just too damn anxious to see where the ball is gonna go. he doesn't have this problem at the driving range, and he is capable of keeping his head down when he's out on the course and hitting the ball farther than any of his golfing buddies. he just can't do it consistently, it seems. he told me tonight that he tells himself, when he's teeing up, "OK, just keep your head down, follow through, don't worry where the ball is going." then he swings, and he picks his head up, and the ball never goes anywhere good.

"it's kind of like...i'm retarded," he said, so matter-of-factly and with such disdain that i burst out laughing. this is the funniest thing i've heard him say since he threatened to commit suicide after we didn't make it to the IMAX screening of Pearl Harbor because of traffic.

ohhh, my poor dad - he's such a drama queen.

mb

don't sweat it

so it's basically been difficult to breathe up here in the northeast for the last week or two, let alone do anything else. the humidity has been relentless, which makes going for a run nearly torturous. but running outside has been my only exercise option on the days i'm in PA. so i've pretty much been at a loss lately where working out is concerned. i've been doing squats and crunches at night, but please - a girl needs her endorphins.

by this afternoon i'd finally had it. i started feeling like a slug on the train ride home, feeling like i've been spending too many hours with my ass in a train seat (trust me - no endorphins there) and i found myself longing for an elliptical machine. sick, i know, but i used to love that thing, how it kept track of which parts of my leg or rear end it was working, all the calories that were dripping from me. i would hop on it for 3o or 45 minutes on my lunch break or after work and feel blissfully exhausted at the end of the workout.

the air was still disgustingly thick as i drove over to the nearby L.A. Fitness club around 2 o'clock. i had a free, three-day trial pass i'd printed from their web site. only - i couldn't use it. i needed a local form of ID, but all i had was my New York license - which i am so not changing, hello - and so i was screwed. fantastic. and then i did something crazy. i signed up for a membership. it's a month to month deal and even though i had to pay the initiation fee, the guy helping me knocked $10 off the monthly fee because his baby mama is apparently driving him crazy and he's all about people getting fresh starts in their lives.

actually, i think he saw the wild look in my eyes - the look that said, "listen, buddy, i hit the low point this morning when i ate at McDonald's for breakfast, i NEED cardio, and i need it NOW." he showed me around the place and then cut me loose. and i spent a kick-ass 45 minutes on my beloved elliptical - granted, without the little TV that i'm used to, and less bells and whistles than the one in New York Sports, but hey - desperate girls can't be choosers. i got my workout. in a nice, cool, air-conditioned gym. whew.

but of course, when i left - at a little after 3 o'clock - the air outside had gone from sticky and gross to almost autumn-like. perfect running weather. i'm sure the humidity broke just as i was handing Brian my Discover card.

oh well.

mb

a big, fat asterisk

so of course Barry Bonds was going to break the record. i had hoped for a miracle, some divine intervention in the form of a hamstring injury or something, but oh well. i could care less about him or his new record (A-Rod will break it in six years or so anyway) but i am happy about two things:

1 - that he did it in San Francisco. at least the fans got to enjoy the pomp and circumstance (emphasis on pomp) and the fireworks they set off and, presumably, the incredible garlic fries they sell in that ballpark. mmm.

2 - that a Mets fan from Queens caught the ball. i heard the guy on WFAN yesterday morning and it was the funniest interview. he was calling from California, clearly still wasted, and clearly beside himself. he described getting the crap beat out of him after he snagged the ball, but that all the people who were in his section (and had pounced on him) could "suck it" now because he had won the battle. he went on to say that he'd thought about it and had decided to do the right thing and give the ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame. a beat went by and then he burst out laughing - clearly, he was going to take the cash and screw history. finally, he said he had to go - he wanted to get the ball signed quick before he sold it. then he said: "you guys have Hank Aaron's number?" very clever for a drunk idiot from Queens.

anyway, i'm glad the whole thing is finally over. perhaps now we can focus attention on more important things... the AL Wild Card race, for instance? ahh... this is the time of year i love baseball the most.

mb

is this some kind of joke?

you know, i'm not a real big fan of August. it just doesn't have any redeeming qualities in my eyes. the humidity cranks up, the mosquitoes get worse, there are no fun holidays, no days off from work, the good movies are usually all released by now, and way back when, i would just spend the month counting down the days 'til school started again. well, this week has given me yet another reason to dislike August - the A/C in my office building has gone on the fritz.

i came in yesterday morning from Long Island, on a train so chilly i had to wear a sweatshirt. by the time i sat down at my desk, i was dripping sweat. our CEO told everyone to get the hell out if they didn't have deadlines to meet or meetings to attend. the one meeting i had scheduled got pushed back until today. i was supposed to work from home today, but obviously when the meeting got changed, my plans changed as well. no big deal. i woke up this morning at five-thirty to get ready and had a fleeting thought - what if the A/C still isn't fixed? - but it left my brain as quickly as it entered. of course the A/C would be fixed. it's August in the city. i drove 45 minutes to the train station (in my mother's un-air-conditioned car) and calmly rode the train to Penn Station. i arrived at my office building a little after nine and knew right away - there was a crush of people leaving the building as i was trying to get inside. none looked happy; none looked fresh.

great.

so here i am, sitting at my desk with sweaty palms and my hair in a ponytail and the back of my dress sopping wet. i'm waiting for an OK on some copy i wrote and then i'm getting the hell out of, well, hell. i swear the universe is trying to tell me something here....

mb

what a coinky-dink

an old friend of mine developed a real attachment to A-Rod when he became a Yankee, and i gave him a hard time about it, especially last season. A-Rod was more than a little uneven and like all the boo birds, i had no problems expressing my disdain for him. (of course, whenever he did something good i thought he was awesome.) anyway, this friend e-mailed me on Friday to say that he was sure A-Rod would be a Yankee through 2011 and that i heard it from him first. i wrote back and assured him i was now in the A-Rod fan club (at least until October), and apologized for teasing him so much. i said i hoped A-Rod would hit his 500th home run very soon - preferably in Yankee Stadium, and not on the same day as Bonds hits his.

well, wouldn't you know - the very next day Alex hit number 500 at the Stadium - and that very same night, Barry Bonds tied Hank Aaron's record of 755. i guess two out of three ain't bad!

mb

i'm melting, i'm melting...

yeah, so it struck me around 10:30 last night while i was watching (what else) Gilmore Girls through eyes so puffy my vision was restricted that maybe i need a break.

had a bit of a meltdown in the car last night. it actually started with my commute back to Trenton. (is it obvious yet that this commuting set-up isn't one of my favorite things?) i raced to Penn Station only to find wall-to-wall sweaty people staring up at the departure monitors. there was a train back-up, and the train i'd rushed to catch was promptly canceled. twice as many people then crammed onto the following express train, and i made the mistake of choosing a seat on a two-seater that faced another two-seater. under normal circumstances, no one would feel compelled to sit across from me - that would just be ridiculous - but with double the pissy commuters on board, people would've crammed themselves into the overhead racks if they could've. anyway, a blissfully un-self-aware 12-year old plopped down across from me, wearing a Red Sox cap (uh-oh) with a program from a Yankees game in his hands (are you kidding me?). my legs are on the long side, so i suppose if someone had to sit across from me, a gangly 12-year old is better than a 300-pound man. however, it was not comfortable, my toes were trampled repeatedly, and the kid was oblivious.

oh, and did i mention the train was stuck in Penn Station for a good half-hour?

so, by the time i made it to Trenton i wasn't the happiest camper. i got into the car and opened all the windows and thought the drive home would at least calm me down. i plugged in my iPod and sang along with the Dixie Chicks for a while, trying to let the stress seep out. about 15 minutes from home, i decided to switch it up a bit and played a Diana Krall song i hadn't heard in a while. she does an achingly gorgeous version of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You." i made it through maybe the first six bars before i broke down.

the sobbing didn't stop until i got home. actually, it didn't even stop then.

the song is melancholy, but definitely not sob-provoking. as it happened, the song brought to mind a not-so-nice memory from last year. it was bizarre and astonishing - i was crying before i even realized why. i listened to the song when i was upset back then, and i guess hearing it again just opened the flood gates.

my father later told me that it was good for me, it was cathartic, it's better that i get it all out. maybe he's right, but meltdowns are not my idea of a fun time. i wish i'd realized how much crap i'd filed away in the far reaches of my brain - perhaps i would've been a little more prepared. too late now. but it all made me wish i'd taken some real time off last month, rather than jumping right into this crazy blur of cars, trains and keeping my job. i fell sound asleep around midnight last night, but was wide awake again at three, wondering what to do, where to go, what to think. my brain is seriously starting to hurt. gaaah. *

so, anyway, i think i need a break. i'm headed to Long Island for the weekend for a change of scenery and hopefully a little decompression. and definitely no Diana Krall.

* i hope my regular readers aren't put off by this emotional funhouse i seem to be stumbling through at the moment. i know i promised this wouldn't turn into My Sad Little Life. but i figure if there's anyone out there going through something similar, maybe my blathering is helping.

mb

speaking of choices...

this short film reminds me of the kind of short story i like to read (or, actually, write). i loved it. ironically, i think the gist of it is: people tend to feel trapped in their lives. a lot.

eeny meanie miney mo

i think it was within the last year that someone told me, "you feel too much." it wasn't meant as a compliment, i don't think, but that's how i took it. i spent the first 20 years of my life feeling the bare minimum. things were always "OK," i was always "fine." it wasn't always true, obviously, but i didn't know how to let my guard down back then. i feel lucky that i eventually learned how to "feel" things. it's helped me be a better writer, a better friend, a better person.

but i admit: on days like today i wish i didn't feel so much. i wish i were a simpler person. i wish i didn't give a crap about so many things. life changes can be truly great, blessings in disguise, etc. but for me it's also a little like being in a pressure cooker - or, better yet, like being in a bakery. as soon as i decide on the pink-frosted cupcake with sprinkles, the chocolate-chip brownie catches my eye. then i spot the chocolate molten cake. then i realize i haven't had an apple turnover in a long time, maybe i should try that. i can't very well have them all, at least not without making myself sick, but how do i choose?

of course, in the meantime i wind up wasting precious time when i should just make a decision and give it a whirl. what's the big deal? i read in the paper this morning about the horrible bridge collapse in Minneapolis-St. Paul and thought, jesus christ, anything can happen. anything, at any time. i wondered about the people who died - what they'd done in their lives, what they never got to do. i wondered about the people who missed death by a few minutes, or a few inches, how their heads were today. do they have a new perspective on life? do things make more sense to them? or less? will they wind up like me - feeling like they have so many choices now, but no idea which to choose?

i bought a Powerball ticket yesterday afternoon, because the jackpot was over $100M and, as they say, you never know. i was dreaming out loud last night, ticking off the things i'd do if i won: 1) quit my job; 2) pay off all my credit card bills; 3) pack a bag and go see the world. i had conversations with friends in college about how i hate the fact that people die without having seen as much of the world as possible. i know some people are quite happy never leaving their own backyard and that's totally great - in a way, i'm almost envious of that - but it drives me crazy that i haven't been to Europe yet, that it may be a very long time before i do, that winning the Powerball would make everything so much easier and yet - what are the odds of that?

i don't know. i guess this morning i started wishing that i wanted less out of life. does that sound pathetic? ridiculous? it would just take some of the pressure off, and that might be nice for a change. i got off the train at Penn Station this morning and had to stand on the platform - aka the depths of hell - for over five minutes, waiting to walk up a flight of stairs. everyone in the crowd was huffing and puffing and looking at their watches every three seconds. i thought, why do we do this? why do we all cram ourselves onto this tiny island? what are we proving here? i finally was on the staircase and some woman was behind me, literally on my heels, clipping the backs of my flip-flops as i was trying to walk. i don't know if she thought it would make me go faster, but she wound up knocking me right out of my right flip-flop, which meant i had to stop, pick it up, and further hold up the throng of already-pissed passengers.

and just like that i wanted to be so far away. i wanted to have nothing with me but a backpack and my laptop and be sitting in a pub in Edinburgh, or a villa in Tuscany, or stuffing myself with bread and Nutella in Paris. simple, easy, peaceful. of course, there are no guarantees that my brain would cooperate if that was, in fact, my life. i might still be restless wherever i go. but it would be nice to at least give it a shot.

alas, i did not win the Powerball last night. but no one else did either, so, perhaps Saturday will be my lucky day... i hope so, because making choices would be so much easier with $100M to my name.

mb