one-eighty

so yesterday i saw this article online, something along the lines of '15 reasons the housing market hasn't hit rock bottom yet' or something. i read it with a churning stomach. the forecast is pretty grim. and it certainly doesn't seem like the market will be changing anytime soon. part of the reason we were so gung-ho on house-shopping was this feeling that it was the right time to buy, rates were historically low, who knows how long it will last, etc etc.

but after reading that article—and considering all the angst i was already feeling—buying a house was the last thing i wanted to do. renting for another year seemed downright sensible. (except: not our current place. we now have a furry little mouse lurking around, along with the waterbugs. shudder.) Michael and i talked about it last night, came up with a loose game plan and—whaddaya know? after a stressful week during which i was a lot more wound up than i cared to admit, i felt like a million bucks today. like a weight was lifted from my shoulders.

don't get me wrong... i still long for a beautiful, spacious kitchen. a backyard with a deck on which to sip cocktails when the weather is nice. my very own washer and dryer. and dishwasher! but things are just too volatile right now. home prices are still bloated in this neck of the woods, and if nothing is going to seriously change for another year, it definitely feels smarter to wait, really do our research and find the perfect place to live.

on top of this, i called my Gram today. one of her first questions was, "how's the house hunting going?" i told her, "it's the worst," and she said, "isn't it?" when i told her we were quitting for now she was hilariously relieved. she's always been a believer in us staying put, not relocating to the 'burbs just because we think we should. "you need to be around other young people!" she said today. "you're living life right now!"

lesson learned: we should have skipped the Remax office weeks ago and just gone straight to the real source—Grams.

mbm

home is where i want to be.

this was one of my favorite books as a kid.
wish i could live in this house.
with the animals.

the ironic thing is, i have all this time to write today and yet no idea what to write about. on my busiest days, all i can think about is all the things i want to post here. and how little time i have oh, Alanis. you knew what you were singing about.  

i guess i'll just vent.

our adventures in house-hunting aren't going so well. the prospects seemed to brighten on Friday when we saw a handful of townhouses we liked—even loved. but reality hit soon thereafter. property taxes in this area are tragic, nauseating, disgraceful. who can afford to tack a thousand dollars onto each mortgage payment? just to live in New Jersey? even if we could, i'm not sure we would, if only on principle.

to make matters worse, i've woken up in the middle of the night a few times this week, worry about random things such as:

- when i live in the 'burbs and have to drive to the train or bus station, what if it snows? i hate driving in snow. it scares me, to be honest. i'm out of practice. what if i can't do it?

- how will i exercise? after the mortgage payments and furnishing the place, it's not like i'll be able to splurge on an elliptical for the basement. will there be a gym nearby for me to join? will i have time to drive to a gym before work? will i have the energy to go there after work? contemplating this one gives me more anxiety than it should.

- are we really even supposed to live around here? is it worth all the cost and hassle? is it time to make a clean break? or are we just supposed to rent for the rest of our lives? 

i wish i were braver about this whole thing. i put on a confident, happy front and hope for the best, assume it will all get worked out. but the truth is i have no idea. i just read something i wrote on here three years ago about wishing i were a simpler kind of person, one who wanted less out of life, who was okay with settling. it seemed a foolish thing to write, even though it was how i felt. and, actually, i still feel that way. right now everything seems like so much pressure—our apartment is too small and too old to spend much more time there; the mortgage rates are at historic lows; the housing market is primed for buyers. it feels like we should be having our way with real estate right now. yet something isn't clicking. nothing is feeling exactly right.

and i just don't know what the answer is.

if i were less of a spaz—a simpler sort of person—i'd be able to just relax and trust that the answer will come in time. maybe before i start packing boxes and calling the moving van i should work on myself, on segueing from spastic to simple.

which may be—ironically—the only mission more impossible than finding the perfect home.

mbm

forgive my rambling, i had to get this out

the proposed site of Park 51

i had not paid much attention to the whole 'mosque' controversy prior to a couple days ago, mostly because i think 99.9 percent of what's reported on the news is inaccurate, overblown or skewed. i trust that i know what i need to know simply by being awake 15 or 16 hours every day. but i came across a piece on Gawker.com yesterday about what is actually near the 'hallowed' WTC site, posted it to Facebook and got quite a strong reaction. so i thought i'd keep the fire going by writing about my thoughts here.

the first i heard about the 'mosque' (which, from my understanding, is an imprecise term for what is planned for 51 Park Place) was about a month ago via a headline on CNN about a 'tweet' written by Sarah Palin. i know anything Palin weighs in on is bogus—i can't think of a less credible source or a more opportunistic idiot. first, she takes to Twitter to voice her opinions. second, she made up a word while composing the 'tweet' (ugh, i hate the whole concept of Twitter, so hard).  anyway, right off the bat i didn't take the whole 'mosque' story seriously, at least not the controversy part. if anyone is 'tweeting' about an issue—especially a politician—i'm just not going to buy into the gravity. i'm old-fashioned that way.

but a friend posted something on Facebook the other day that caught my eye. it was a link to a website called Coalition to Honor Ground Zero. the mission statement of the group begins thus: "We are a coalition of American citizens who are deeply concerned about the proposed building of a mega-mosque and Islamic Center at Ground Zero."

and i had to stop reading. 'mega-mosque'? i get ill, seriously get ill, from the fear-mongering that goes on in this country. yes, it goes on throughout the world, but we're supposed to be better, smarter, freer.

i just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird. the book is 50 years old this year but it still rings completely, alarmingly true—just in a different way. the people of Maycomb, Alabama heaped all their fear and anger and unease on Tom Robinson. Scout, on a smaller scale, placed hers on Boo Radley. if you read the book, you know how it all turns out. if you haven't read it, read it soon. i implore you. bottom line—the fear was misplaced, unfair and, ultimately for some, deadly.

i was a New Yorker on 9/11. i'd worked in the area for two years and had lived on the Upper East Side for one year. Michael and i were, yes, on vacation on September 11, 2001, but it shook us to our core, and affected us both deeply. we were lucky enough not to lose anyone close to us in the attacks, but we both knew people who died there that day. i saw Ground Zero up close when it was still smoldering, when shards of the WTC facade were still jutting out of the rubble. i stood at the Brooklyn Promenade a week after the attack and watched the smoke still rising, smelled the smells still emanating, saw all the candles burning in remembrance.

my point is, i'm not insensitive to the indelible impact 9/11 had on this city. but i've also been down to the WTC site within the last year. it is a construction site now. there are tourists there who snap photos. there are still reminders of the day, but by and large, it is an area in progress. an area under construction, desperate for rejuvenation.

maybe these people who are terrified and angry over Park 51 should be angrier that, nearly nine years later, there is still no 9/11 memorial. for all the talk, all the plans, all the rhetoric about how those we lost and those who still mourn will have a peaceful, hallowed place to go still don't have that place. and why is that? maybe investigate that, devote a website and an activist group and a march on Washington to that.

i've covered here before my belief that religion basically screws up everything and everyone. not faith. religion. 'religion' seems to be just another means for people to judge, hate, exclude, persecute and, in my humble opinion, create drama (and headlines) for the sake of furthering personal interests. i don't see this 'Ground Zero mosque' situation as any different.

it's not at Ground Zero, it's not a mosque and it's not a slap in the face to the loved ones of the people who died on 9/11. that's my opinion and i'm standing by it. if Park 51 is built and, ultimately, an attack on our country is planned from that building and i am completely wrong about everything i think and feel—well, i honestly would rather be the kind of person who is open and trusting and fearless than the kind who runs around yelling and screaming and tweeting that the sky is falling when it most definitely is not. i think life is more enjoyable when you assume the best of people rather than the worst, even if you're let down occasionally.

another friend shared a link on Facebook to an editorial broadcast by Keith Olberman. take the time to watch it if you're so inclined. it's excellent.

mbm

you know you're getting up there when, part II

i was on a NJ Transit bus on Sunday morning, en route to see some open houses with my dad (who was pitch-hitting for the hubster, who was stuck at work) and a few rows behind me were four girls. they could have been sixteen, twenty or twenty-five (i'm a horrible judge of age now that i'm old myself). they were all chattering and squealing at quite the decibel. i couldn't decipher all of what they were saying—they were talking over each other to the point that i likened them to puppies who jump all over each other when they get excited—but i got the feeling they'd had a Big Night Out in the City and were recapping everything that went on.

and you know what i thought that entire bus ride?

thank god i'm past those days.

i really sat there and thought about it for a good twenty minutes—how happy i am to be beyond the morning-after analyzing of this guy's intentions or that guy's interest in me; rehashing everything i said and rating the stupidity or brilliance of each word. not to mention the freedom from feeling the need to get totally trashed just to have a good time.

something similar happened at my cousin's wedding a couple weeks ago. when the reception was over, Michael and i skipped the after-party and hightailed it up to our hotel room. we got out of our fancy garb, slid under the covers of the glorious king size bed and—watched Seinfeld. until we fell asleep. it was awesome.

but is this weird? is thirty-three an acceptable age at which to mostly-retire from the party scene? am i just old? or is this what married life does to a person? i think i'm okay with it, i just wanted to make sure i wasn't a total loser.

mbm

stage fright

i was just ordering office supplies on staples.com for our new hire starting on monday and typed in the word 'pens' and had a horrible flashback.

during the summer of 1994 i spent six weeks at Carnegie-Mellon University as a student in their pre-college theatre program. it was a crazy, educational and totally fun experience—and my roommate became one of my favorite and undoubtedly forever friends—but there was one part of the whole shebang that might have scarred me.

there was some class or workshop—i think it was playwriting—in which we cast fellow students in our own short plays. i was cast in one called "PENS!" if you read that too quickly and thought it was actually part of the male anatomy, you have the right idea.

this is what i remember: a guy named Stephen Kaplan wrote it. i think he played the male character and i played the female character. i don't recall the plot at all. i do know i had to be on stage in a black slip and i had to bite and suck on a pen—"seductively"—and lay across and writhe around on a desk.

the details are hazy, i'm sure because i blocked it from my memory.

i was sixteen years old. i hadn't even made out with a guy yet. (late bloomer.) i had no idea how to be sexy, what the play was really about, or what the hell i was doing. i think Stephen was a fairly talented writer, but his puns and satire and double entendres were completely lost on me. i was about as innocent as they come, a hayseed of a girl in a hard core theatre program with kids from New York and Boston and L.A.

awww.

anyway, i nearly shuddered when i wrote "pens" earlier and had that flashback. amazing the things that stay with you and still, sixteen years later, conjure up the same acute embarrassment and helplessness as if they just happened yesterday.

mbm

buh-bye. bye now! buh-bye.

courtesy of nymag.com

i'm just going to jump on the bandwagon for a sec and say i think Steven Slater is awesome.

i had a similarly frustrating day at work yesterday and if there had been a button to press after which an inflatable slide would have popped up, offering me just the escape hatch i needed, i would have been severely tempted, my friends. every single working person in the world knows there are days when you're pushed just a smidge too far and while the vast majority don't respond by flipping out Slater-Style, how can you not stand up and cheer for him?

many airline passengers are annoying. hell, many people are annoying. especially the ones who think the rules don't apply to them. if the flight attendant says to stay seated for five more freaking minutes until the plane stops taxiing, then cool your freaking heels and keep your tush planted! what's so hard about that? what the hell was so important in the overhead compartment? could he not bear to be without his BlackBerry a second longer? was he in desperate need of the extra undies he packed?

i just read on Huffington Post what Slater said over the PA system after the dude's suitcase landed on his head. let's just all imagine, for a moment, having similar fearlessness. ohh... the things i would say if given the chance...! 

OK, hi. back to reality.

i just really love the scene i'm imagining in my head—like something out of a Judd Apatow movie, maybe?—that features Slater, with a beer in each hand, gliding down the yellow slide, sprinting through the airport (while maybe some cool Arcade Fire song is playing), then waiting patiently for the AirTrain—then cut to him being lead away in handcuffs, satisfied smirk on his face recorded by cameras and broadcast everywhere.

pretty remarkable stuff. and the coverage this story is receiving—from national news to Twitter—is, i think, indicative of how fed up most of us are with workplace BS. we all harbor secret daydreams of quitting our jobs in an equally memorable way—flipping the proverbial bird, saying everything we've been holding in, and swiping something as we leave (beer, a paper cutter, the coffee pot from the kitchen) just because we can, just because we don't give a damn.

the only difference between us and Slater is that he had the balls to actually do it.

mbm

summer reading list

right now i'm reading To Kill A Mockingbird, which i know i read at some point in high school, but i really had no capacity to fully understand or appreciate it back then—not the poignancy or importance of the story, nor the wonder and elegance of the writing. i can't tell you how glad i am that i decided to give it a second read. i swear, with every page the book gives me goosebumps, makes me smile, takes my breath away or has me jotting lines down that i want to remember. i know this will sound dramatic, but i really think the book is changing my life.

i've been reading some classics along with contemporary books this year—like Sense and Sensibility and Catcher in the Rye. i'm absolutely loving them all. and i absolutely know that in high school—despite being as voracious a reader as i am now—i had very little interest in them, no patience to comprehend them, no real ability to fully grasp them. and, hell, i was in AP English. was i just too preoccupied with being a teenager to care, or were the books really over all our heads?

my dermatologist noticed Mockingbird in my bag at my appointment the other day and she said the same thing—her husband was re-reading the book for fun, and that she really wanted to re-read the classics, too, because she hadn't realized the value of them back in school. it just makes me think that so much of what is thrown at us at a young age in a small amount of time—just so we can pass tests and move on to the next grade—is ill-timed and all wrong. it took me until my thirties to want to start reading the classics again, just because i felt like they'd been force-fed to me years earlier. i expected to hate them.

i'm happy to have gotten over that mental block, and so happy to know how many truly magnificent books are out there from which i can learn. but i do hope that English teachers have changed their MO over the last fifteen years. i'm not saying they should teach the Twilight series in American Lit. but there's no sense teaching books that require some years of living real life to fully appreciate.

mbm 

out of the mouths of nine-year-old boys...

he's a nut, but i love him.

i had the pleasure of spending last weekend with Scotty and Henry, who came to my parents' house to swim. and swim they did. i really believe that, including the hours they spent sleeping, they spent more time in the water than they did on dry land. incredible.

there were many funny moments (such as Henry's rendition of a little ditty that goes something like... "the jinx machine is out of order, please insert another quarter! the jinx machine just blew up, you have a big butt!") but the number one clip on the highlight reel was this:

the Yanks game on Saturday was a night game and not on television in PA. i had my trusty iPhone plugged into my dad's iPod speakers, and was playing the game via the MLB app. Scotty and i were sitting on the patio, right next to the speakers, hoping the Yanks would score in the second inning. i was wearing a black cover-up dress that fell to my knees—in other words, my calves were exposed. my much-maligned, sturdy Irish calves, the same calves i've hated since i was very young and forced to wear a skirt and knee socks to school every day. it was all too easy to compare my trunks to the slim and dainty calves of my fellow female classmates. only in my thirties have i started to accept my legs.

anyway, we're sitting there on the ground, my knees bent, my thighs and calves making an inverse V shape, and Scotty goes, "your legs are fat."

it was not malicious in the least; he was just being observant. and—as nine year olds have no choice but to be—brutally honest. that comment was quickly followed by a few noises from his behind, after which he stuck his hand underneath himself and then brought it up to his nose.

the kid was batting a thousand.

my Aunt Val overheard his comment and said, "Scotty, you better be nice to Megan. she can give you advice on how to talk to girls."

immediately i said, "rule number one: don't ever say a girl's legs are fat, even if they are. and rule number two, don't fart on your hand and then try to smell it in front of a girl. you'll get nowhere."

Scotty, god bless him, felt a little bad, i think. he said, a few minutes later, ever so sweetly, "the rest of you is skinny!"

i have to say, i respect the kid for calling it like he saw it. he wasn't trying to put me down or insult me or hurt my feelings. the fact that my legs aren't skinny wasn't a deal-breaker in our close cousin bond, didn't make him like me any less. maybe, when he hits high school, girls will appreciate his honesty. a guy who lays it on thick, who oozes insincerity, who fakes his way through charm—no good. quality girls don't go for that.

however, quality girls don't go for the smelling-your-own-farts thing either, so he still has some work to do...

mbm