believe it or not, i used to be a brat...

when i left the office yesterday i found myself walking up Madison behind a mom and two grade-school-age kids—hers, presumably. it was still (still) raining and she was gracefully juggling an umbrella, a couple shopping bags and her two charges. a few thoughts went through my head:

1. how is she not having a nervous breakdown right now?

2. i hope i'm as collected when i have my kids in the city

3. my poor mother

when i was young—and my obsession with New York was at its highest pitch (and lowest point)—my parents brought me to see a Broadway show once or twice a year. those days were easily the best of whatever year it happened to be. i anticipated them with enthusiasm and impatience bordering on obnoxious and from the minute we made it through the tunnel i dreaded the time we'd have to head back to Pennsylvania.

there was one particular trip, i must have been twelve or thirteen and i was both especially aggravating to and aggravated by my parents. it was the summer and i forget what show we were going to see, but we'd arrived early enough to have lunch and wander around Times Square (funny how that prospect makes me shudder now—i avoid that area like the plague). at one point, we were walking down Broadway and my parents referred to a map they had of the Theatre District. as soon as that map came out, i wanted to get as far away from them as humanly possible.

you see, in my addled adolescent mind i thought i could seem like a real New Yorker if i ditched my map-weilding parents. they were the only things blowing my cover... not my braces, bad perm and worse wardrobe. (this was decades before Ugly Betty made such a look even remotely cool.)

on a busy midtown sidewalk in the middle of summer, i sped-walked my way two blocks ahead of my parents. this, understandably, gave them a heart-attack. they were yelling after me—which, obviously, made me seem like even less of the chic city girl i wanted to be than walking next to my parents while they read a map. (and what was the big deal with the map anyway? it's not like they had fanny packs at their waists and Polaroid cameras around their necks and Statue of Liberty crowns made of foam on their heads. they just wanted to know where our theater was.) 

i forget how it all shook out. i did not get kidnapped or wander down the wrong alley or find myself face-to-face with a flasher on 42nd Street. my parents probably caught up with me at the next Do Not Walk sign and gave me a swift reality check. and i'm pretty sure i never pulled a stunt like that again on any subsequent trip to the city.

but they tell that story fairly often—how i ran away from them on a busy street—so i know the scars have not completely healed.

watching that mom and her kids yesterday i realized how easily one of those tykes could run ahead the same way, leaving her standing helpless with an umbrella and FAO bag. i knew that if it were me, my heart would leap into my throat and i'd start screaming like a banshee right there on the sidewalk.

i pray that my future-kids have more sense and self-possession than i did at twelve or thirteen. but just to be sure, i'll probably do any necessary map-consulting before we leave the house.

mbm

tales from assisted living (a.k.a. old people and the crazy things they do)

i went to visit my gram on saturday because i had plans on sunday and didn't want to miss another weekend with her. my week had been long and hectic and after dragging myself to my class at the gym saturday morning (which, of course, was more torturous than usual—David seems to have an innate sense of when i need my ass kicked especially hard) i was feeling spent. in fact, i fell asleep on the bus and part of me wished i could have kept sleeping.

but as always, my time with gram was precious. i count my blessings constantly that she's still around for me to talk to and laugh with. and this particular visit i laughed a lot.

gram is better off in the assisted living facility than her old condo, for sure. but as with any communal living situation—a college dorm, an apartment building, a nursing home—it has its annoyances and inconveniences. every time i see her she has stories for me, about the antics of this caregiver or that nurse or so-and-so down the hall. most of them are hilarious.

for example, a while back there were a few consecutive nights when gram woke up in the wee hours to find an old lady sitting in the chair across from her bed. the lady  just sat in the dark and stared at gram, obviously lost and unaware. gram would page the caregivers to help the lady back to her own room. gram seemed to take the midnight visits in stride, though i found them insanely creepy.

another time, Margot (the caregiver with whom gram has a love-hate relationship—think Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar) was helping her get ready for a doctor's appointment in town.  after gram brushed her hair, Margot went to finish up with a little hairspray but instead grabbed gram's aerosol deodorant. chaos ensured.

on saturday, gram filled me in on the latest incident: a day or two earlier, another resident—"a tiny, little thing," gram said—came into her room with the assistance of a walker. gram was relaxing on her bed, watching a movie on TCM, when the old lady came around the corner, into her line of vision, and stood there.

"you're lost," gram told her, as kindly as possible. "you're in the wrong room. head over to the door now."

the lady blinked a few times, turned herself around and headed toward the exit. in the process, she spied the bag of Vienna Fingers on the counter of gram's kitchenette. she took it upon herself to open the bag, take a cookie and reclose the bag before leaving gram's room. the whole time, she never said a word.

i couldn't stop laughing as gram told me the story.

as if that weren't enough, about a half hour before i had to leave, gram asked me to help her with the new computers installed in the lobby not far from her room. she'd had help getting an account set up and writing an initial few e-mails, but wanted my guidance while checking her mail.

i rolled her out into the hallway and just as we were getting to the computer desks, a woman (Kristy, the facility's activities director, i found out later) bellowed from down the hall, "Clara! hey Clara! want to take a picture with the Easter Bunny?"

there were so many things wrong with those words that it took my brain a while to compute. first of all, my gram's name is Claire, not Clara. second of all, a large, dingy rabbit was headed our way trailed by a photographer. the scene was frightening to me, a thirty-three year old with most of her faculties in check—can you imagine being eight-five or ninety and in a generally confused state and witnessing the same thing? what are these people thinking?

anyway, gram was a good sport and let the photographer take a photo of her with the "Easter Bunny"—and of course i couldn't resist; i grabbed my iPhone and captured the scene as well. things went from bad to worse as the bunny removed its head shortly after the photograph—inside the costume was Kristy's sister—and so now in the hallway was a large, dingy headless rabbit.

all the hoopla piqued the curiosity of gram's across-the-hall neighbor Dr. Albert. he's a friendly fellow with the slightest resemblance to Abe Vigoda. i'd never formally met him before but had the pleasure of making his acquaintance after the rabbit took off to terrify other elderly residents. i shook his hand after gram introduced me and he told her that her granddaughter was beautiful. (aw shucks.)

"you know who else was beautiful?" Dr. Albert said. "my wife. i have a picture..." as i helped gram log onto the computer, he rolled back into his room to retrieve a folder. a few minutes later he was back, showing me an image he'd printed from the computer. it looked to be from the '40s and showed a woman in a swimsuit, laying on a towel.

"was she a knockout or what?" he said to me. i asked her name—Muriel—and told him that she had indeed been stunning. he also showed me a photo of himself at age fifty and a poem he'd written for his son's funeral. he quickly came back to the photo of his wife and said, "you know how pretty she was? i'll tell you. when we went to her high school reunion..."

he went on to tell me that at this reunion, a former classmate of Muriel's approached Dr. Albert and asked if he could dance with his wife. Dr. Albert said it wasn't up to him, it was up to Muriel. Muriel accepted this man's invitation to dance, but after one song returned hastily to her husband, sitting at their table.

"well, i won't be dancing with him anymore," she huffed. Dr. Albert asked why. "while we were dancing, he must have gotten excited... i could feel his manhood."

at the word "manhood" i somehow managed not to swallow my tongue and sputtered, "well, it was really nice meeting you, Dr. Albert!" and scooted back over next to gram tout de suite.

(he was a sweet old guy; i just didn't want the conversation to veer any further into questionable territory.)

a little while later—after helping gram write a couple e-mails and giving her a quick glimpse of Facebook—i was back on the bus, feeling happily content. as i'd kissed her goodbye she'd thanked me (per her usual) for spending twelve bucks on the bus to come see her. "megs," she said, "you are just the best person."

"oh, gram," i replied. "that's not true. you are."

and that's the truth.

mbm

why to have a husband

[this is the first part in a series i assume will number many. i will update recurrently.]

before i left for work this morning, i kissed a sleeping Michael goodbye. he'd worked several hectic days in a row and seemed out cold. but he stirred when i kissed him, opened his eyes a little and said, "hey... you look pretty. like that one from Breakfast at Tiffany's."

i can guarantee that—considering he was 98 percent asleep at the time—he won't remember ever saying it.

but i will.

mbm

the upswing

the pendulum in my life tends to swing swiftly and i'm wondering if it's like this for other people, too.

for example, my week didn't start out great and only got worse. monday night was sleepless, tuesday was fraught, tuesday night was sleepless and wednesday—wednesday i hardly remember. not because i indulged in too much cheer on St. Patrick's day. in fact, it was the first St. Pat's in a decade during which i did not have at least one pint. i was too damn tired. i was a zombie. there were a few points during the day at work when i really believed i wasn't going to make it. (dramatic much?) wednesday night i was desperate and swallowed two Tylenol PM before dropping into bed at nine o'clock. 

thursday morning? i woke up a new woman. i'd slept more soundly than i had in a couple weeks and wow—what a difference. of course it helped that it was sunny and 70 degrees outside. amazing the impact sun and warmth has on a person's outlook, even people in the northeast who've lived here forever and endure the seasons year after year. makes you wonder why we aren't all migrating south or west. then again, the winters make us appreciate the rest, right?

anyway, thursday was awesome. i even made dinner. friday was equally great. and the week culminated in yesterday—an achingly beautiful day. clear blue sky, warm breeze, new-smelling air. there were zillions of people out and about (unfortunately, most of them were on the A train at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but that's another story)—as if a reset button was pressed on everyone at once. 

i'd agreed weeks ago to babysit Scott and Henry, and it was just great luck that it was such a perfect day. my aunt Val took Scotty to a birthday party just after i got there, so for a while it was just Henry and me. we hung out in the front yard, playing with trains and sidewalk chalk and bicycles. there were kids tearing up and down the street on bikes, on foot (there was one kid pushing another in a grocery cart) and i was pushing Henry around and around the driveway on his big brother's training-wheel-less bike. it was hard to say who was having more fun—him or me. later, after Michael arrived after work and Scotty was back from his birthday party, there was a point—during the game we were playing, 'Hostage Situation'—when i saw Scotty's face. he was laughing hysterically, genuinely, and i remembered feeling that was a kid. 

i remember so clearly a night when i was six or seven, my babysitter Kelly let me and her little brother (and my friend) Kevin stay up way past our bedtime. we were in the basement, there were toys strewn everywhere and i was high on life—and probably sugar, but i truly believed nothing could ever be better than playing with my favorite toys and people i thought were great, up later than i thought possible. 

for a few seconds last night, as i watched Scotty's face, i wondered if we were making similarly enduring memories for him. at the very least, i knew they'd be more enduring memories for me. it felt so good to feel so happy.

Michael and i drove back home just before midnight. below 14th street, the city was utterly alive. throngs of people on corners, crossing streets, standing in lines that wrapped around buildings. i thought maybe i wasn't the only one who's life went on an upswing when the mercury rose. 

still, i'm hoping the pendulum slows down a little for me. i made it through last week in tact and i'm glad and relieved and even a little proud of all i accomplished. i just don't want to do it again anytime soon. 

mbm

so very astute, nic cage. so very astute.

this quote from Moonstruck is one of my all-time favorites. i stumbled upon it again via this month's O Magazine. felt compelled to share, because i believe it is 100 percent true.

"Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is—and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get into my bed."

 mbm

an annual ass-kicking

it's funny. i just looked at what i wrote about a year ago on here, which was, essentially, "life is kicking me in the ass."

and guess what life has been doing to me lately? yep.

but at least things are better now than they were last March fifteenth. for instance, i'm getting money back from the government this year rather than relying on my father to keep me from being hauled away by the IRS; there are no looming lay-offs at my company—i actually have a ridiculous amount of work to do (mostly self-inflicted, because you can never been too indispensible!); i just visited my Gram yesterday and she's clever and feisty as ever; and i am not currently, thank gawd, planning a wedding.

i am, however, fed up with blogs at the moment. that's part of why i haven't been writing. i've been thinking lately: who the eff cares? seriously, who cares what i have to say? i'm nobody! i started this thing three-plus years ago because my dad kept nagging me and a few friends mentioned it and i thought it would be good to have another writing outlet. back then blogs were hardly new—there were plenty to go around—but not nearly as annoyingly ubiquitous as they are today.

i skimmed an article in the Times yesterday about mommy-bloggers and i couldn't even get to the end. just using the term "mommy-bloggers" gives me the creeps. those two words connected by a hyphen, to me, signify everything that is horribly wrong with our country right now.

i used to think i was jealous of the people who made money from blogging—who got eight million hits a day and sold ads on their site and got book deals and made appearances Oprah. as recently as a few months ago i thought perhaps i could tweak my site somehow, increase my traffic, bolster some attention for my writing via my blog. i could be famous too! even worse, i felt competitive, that i shouldn't be so blasé about this thing—that if i wasn't writing often enough or about the right things, i was failing.

thankfully, i've come to my senses. and i know for sure that i'm not jealous, nor do i care how much traffic i get. mostly because: i don't want to be one of those people.

almost everything i write about here is silly, ridiculous, meaningless, trivial, fleeting and/or useless. i'm well aware of this and i'm okay with it. i basically have a compulsion to write. i just have to get it out sometimes and, oh! here's a place where my friends and family can read my blatherings about life if they so please, thus saving me from writing fifty individual e-mails. end of story.

i don't want to be famous because of a blog. i don't care how many hits a day i get. i don't want random strangers insulting me in the comments section because i'm not writing this for you, jerk-face. you don't like me? stop reading!

anyway.

i'm undecided about what to do with this blog, if anything. i have a love-hate relationship with it at the moment. i have to wait and see which emotion wins out.

mbm

like the airline industry doesn't have bigger fish to fry...

i don't fly all that often, but when i do, i try to fly only JetBlue. why? one, i like their copy. their quippy, offbeat attitude appeals to me and makes me feel safe for some reason. two, being able to flip through channels and watch, say, Barefoot Contessa at cruising altitude eases my irrational fear of flying.

also, over the last 10 years, i have flown out of JFK far more often than any other airport. i hate traveling along the Belt Parkway to get there, but otherwise i have no complaints about the place.

why am i babbling about this? because i happen to think this controversy over the air traffic controller letting his kids communicate with pilots last month is ridiculous. as in, not newsworthy. at all. and it sure as hell won't keep me from flying JetBlue out of JFK.

i'm actually amused and even touched by the whole thing. when i was a little kid, being able to go to my dad's office was not far below Disney World on my Favoritest Places to Go scale. i'm serious! it was like being allowed into a secret club—a whole other universe—and i'd wander around the desks and into the kitchen or mailroom with a mix of wonder and trepidation. i had no concept of how an office worked, what the hell it was even for, which made the experience that much more intriguing.

(plus, his co-workers always made a fuss over my presence. i was shy, but secretly i loved the attention.)

so, i can imagine this air traffic controller's kids losing their you-know-what over not just going to work with dad, but actually getting to communicate with pilots! and, i'm sorry, but god knows the world needs more dads who actually have the time and interest and patience to bring their kids into their workplace.

i watched an NTSB spokesperson and a former pilot duke it out on the Today show this morning and the NTSB guy sounded like an alarmist idiot, saying how this would only heighten the public's concern about flight safety, while the pilot was all, "what's the big deal? this guy is a seasoned professional. no one was ever in danger."

it's not like the kids were let loose in the control tower without supervision and were recorded chatting with the pilots about the latest episode of The Suite Life of Zach and Cody or telling knock-knock jokes. i imagine they were sitting on their dad's lap, repeating exactly what he told them to say, albeit in squeaky voices.

and, hello: the pilots were unfazed! amused even! one went so far as to say he wished he could bring his kid to work.

so, really, i don't know who passed this story onto the media but it's bogus. it's a waste of airtime and newsprint. the eight-year-olds cleared, what, approximately three flights for take-off? and guess what—nothing happened.

i think the FAA and NTSB and MSNBC ought to keep their attention focused on how to prevent religious extremist nutbags with exploding undies from getting onto our planes, not on creating hysteria over innocent kids in the control tower, who will probably grow up to be awesome, well-adjusted people because their dad cared enough to give them a taste of his professional life.

that is, if the poor guy doesn't get fired.

mbm

where i am

i just want you to know, i hate going AWOL. i really, truly do. i love writing here more than almost anything, but sometimes i feel that i have no choice but to stop for a while. lately, i've felt that way.

the past 12 hours are basically a microcosm of my current life. so here's a glimpse:

last night, at 9 o'clock, i was watching "The Bachelor," which i don't think i've ever watched, not even in the early seasons, but my mom was talking about it so much a few weeks ago and there was one Monday night when i was home and nothing else was on so i watched it. and couldn't change the channel. i felt horrible about myself, believe me, but i still couldn't stop. and since there were only a few episodes left in the season, i decided to see it through.

so i was watching "The Bachelor" and cringing and rolling my eyes and eating brownies for dinner (i have been logging a lot of hours at the gym and eating a lot of sweets—right now that seems like a balanced diet to me). i was also thinking how stupid the whole thing is. they kept saying they fell in love in St. Lucia. well, duh. who wouldn't fall in love there? and ever since the proposal they've been living undercover, separate lives, unable to go out in public or live together. come on. real life will hit them like a Mack truck.

maybe i'm just sore.

anyway, i got into bed at 11 o'clock and read my book for a while—Catcher in the Rye, which i read early on in high school but was completely lost on me then; this time, i get it. finally turned off the lights around 11:30, but woke up two hours later to go to the bathroom. tossed and turned 'til 3 o'clock, when i turned the lights back on and finished the book. lights back off. fitful until 5 o'clock, when i start obsessing about my alarm clock, which was set for 6 o'clock because i wanted to go to the gym—i'd taken Sunday and Monday off due to exhaustion and was really hoping to make it this morning. fell asleep sometime before six, had a horrible dream in which i was essentially being held hostage by a really weird guy who wouldn't give me my phone back, and when my alarm did go off i reset it for 7:30.

finally dragged myself out of bed at eight, feeling almost numb in my limbs—sheer, utter tiredness. i got ready for work in thirty minutes and tried not to be sad about missing the gym. my eyes felt too tired for contacts, so i opted for my glasses instead. i love my glasses, but when i wear them i do feel a little like Clark Kent. you know, doofy and nerdy and bumbling, whereas when i have my contacts in i'm—well, not a super hero, but i do feel more together.

anyway, on my way to the subway, i bought a sugar-free Red Bull (just a pre-cursor to the large coffee i planned to purchase a block away from my office). the F train came fairly quickly for once, and i felt OK. had my Red Bull and a new book to read.

i stepped onto the train and grabbed an overhead bar and sipped my Red Bull. i reached into my bag to get my book at one point, and everything was going smoothly until the train lurched and a big splash of Red Bull landed on the guy sitting in front of/below me. it landed on his coat.

"ohmygod, i'm so sorry," i blathered, "i'm so, so sorry, i don't even have any napkins!"

he was youngish and laid back and told me not to worry about it, no big deal. so lucky—most people on the F train in the morning are major jerks. i was so grateful he wasn't one of them.

before i could get my act together again, i dropped my book and when i bent down to get it, yet another splatter of Red Bull left the can and landed on this poor guy's coat.

"jesus christ, i'm sorry," i said. "today is not my day."

at this point i turned away and held onto the center pole. i hoped it seemed like i was being considerate—removing any further chance of Red Bull showers. but really, i was humiliated and my eyes were stupidly filling with tears and i didn't want him to see me. i already felt like enough of a jackass.

i made it to the office without further incident and i have my big coffee and i'm sure i'll get through the day all right. it's just tonight i'm dreading. lately, no matter how tired i am, i sleep awfully. my brain won't stop worrying.

i'm not sure if it's already been coined or patented or trademarked, but i've come to think of this as secondhand depression.

Holden Caulfield would know exactly what i meant.

mbm