Happy birthday to someone

Hey there, friend living south of the (WI) border, happy birthday to you!

I hope you appreciate the great trouble I went to, to send you a present. When I figured out I was not going to see you in the week of your birthday, I was determined to go out after work yesterday to search out some gifts for you, so that you would have stuff to open today.

First I went to Borders. There were two items there I knew you’d like. I bribed Mr. B to serve me well and we pedalled over.

I made my purchases and proceeded out the door. The alarm sounded. I went back in. The sales clerk again demagnetized my purchases. I went out again. The alarm went off again. I was asked if I had some culpable stuff on me. I was coming from the office! No heavy metal, no chainsaw, nothing!

Still, I handed over my briefcase, I handed over my purse, I handed over my bike helmet. And the alarm sounded nonetheless.

I was determined to figure out why. I took off my jacket, my glasses, all of it. By now EVERYONE in the store was watching. And still the alarm went off.

The store manager said it surely had something to do with the shoes. I reassured him that these were ancient shoes, with the tell-tale paint mark from when I proceeded to spontaneously repaint my older daughter’s dorm room when she was a sophomore. That was over four years ago. I had worn these shoes to Borders many a time without problem.

When the clerk suggested that it may be something about Victoria’s Secret underwear (I could not tell if she was joking), I decided to fight the impulse to explore further and just go through to the sound of alarms wailing and people laughing.

My next stop was at Banana Republic. I went in, just to add something to the package that I then overnighted to you, and the alarm went off. I raised my hands and said – shoot me if you will, I appear to have a magnetic personality, or charged Victoria’s Secret panties (fyi, it’s the yellow pair, with bright oranges, so avoid them to be on the safe side).

They waved me through, I did my purchases and prepared to leave. All clerks were warned that the damsel who sets alarms off is about to exit and all should pay her no heed. So everyone stared as I exited.

No alarm sounded. At all.

I lost my magnetic personality somewhere amidst the racks of the Banana Republic store. But I remain a good, albeit demagnetized, friend.

So happy birthday to you!

From the ninny-of-the year.

Monday: it's Depravity or Corruption time!

I was muckin’ around with topics for a post-of-the-week the other day. I threw out some ideas of things I might write about were I to do this kind of regular feature. But I wasn’t serious. Still, several bloggers followed up and told me that if I did not do “Vice of the Week” here on Ocean, they would do it on their own blogs.

I hate it when the competitive spirit pushes me to do things I would not otherwise do. That may be a vice in itself. I could not swallow the idea that Vice would meander over to another blog. It had to happen here, on Ocean, or not happen at all.

This week-end I reviewed my vices of the past week. They were either terribly boring or terribly conventional. I do have to say there was a lot to choose from.

All got rejected. Blog feature was about to die.

But then, a teeny tiny vice crept into my day today and the Monday Vice (of the Week) feature was born.

Oh, it’s not exciting. I did not engage in sex to gain favors, I bribed no one (that I can recall at the moment), I did not torture small animals [though I repeatedly told Tonya to donate her pooch for science or, at the very least, send her out on a boat in the middle of the lake and see if she swims home (I meant Lake Michigan, not Mendota)].

But know that by definition, my vice does not have to be filled with pathological acts of cruelty and mental imbalance to qualify (though even there, my own mother could find enough fodder in my daily life to make this work – though that may be more a reflection of how she regards me than how I regard myself).

The online Webster’s says this about vice:

a : moral depravity or corruption : WICKEDNESS b : a moral fault or failing c : a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming

So you see, a very small bitty little act could qualify. And I am going to start small. In fact, within one hour of waking up today, I had myself a vice. Here, see for yourself:

In the past weeks, I yet again have refused to pick up the mail from my mailbox on the theory that it looked boring. And when I did retrieve it, I shoved it in an obscure spot (under the bed perhaps?) and promptly forgot about it.

So that when I picked up the phone this morning to find out if an email message in my Inbox was spam or for real, I found that my newly established phone service at the loft had been shut off for nonpayment of the very first bill (that apparently came some 30 days ago).

(Personally, I think they should have sent at least one warning and allowed me to redeem myself, but hey, I am not the CFO of SBC and so I cannot tell them how to run their business.)

What is pathetic and vicey about all this is that it was my very first bill in my “new life” at the loft and I fucked up (oh, sorry, I guess we have ourselves vice number two, all in the same day! How sweet!) right from the start.

Bet you can’t top that.

P.S. The phone service is up and running. To compensate, I sent them a check and then, full of shame and remorse, called and gave them my credit card number. In effect, I paid twice, but hell, who cares. I needed to feel like a whole person again.

rhymes with cupid

A helpful reader gives tips about hooking up my DVD cables. I follow his instructions. No picture. A Madison blogger comes over and looks at the cables, gives a twist here and there but changes nothing. He turns on the DVD, puts in a disc, presses this button and that and voila. We have a picture.

How stupid of me to struggle for so long with cables. How doubly stupid to fail then at pushing the right buttons.

The only noble thing to do after the embarrassment of being a moron is to head over to El Dorado on Willie Street and close the place down.

Finished

Done. Totally done. Unpacked at the loft. Last box made it to the recycling bin. I am now completely moved in.

The first act of celebration? A ride on Mr. B to the Indie Café, where I encounter students, the more serious ones, congregating early Sunday evening to get their assignments in order. Me, I am done, finished, exhausted. No one will force me to crack anything tonight that would require effort, textbooks included.

A latte, leisurely sipped, nothing more. Done. Yes.

sushi, sex and chocolate

In the movie the 40 year old virgin, the protagonist flashes back to unsuccessful attempts at sex in his younger years. Circumstances (or, as Althouse argues here, powerful religious conviction) cause him to remain a virgin at 40.

It reminded me of Tonya, Ann and I setting out to see a show together. Our attempts were foiled by fate each time. The most dramatic illustration of this was when Ann decided to have a full blown collision, totaling her car on the way to a showing of Sideways last January.

Were we destined to never sit in a theater together? To demonstrate to each other who laughed the loudest? (Ann claimed earlier that she was a “laugh leader” in movie theaters. Ha. I say ha to that.)

Yesterday we made yet another attempt to join forces with the multiplex crowds of suburban Madison.

At first it did not look promising. One person picked a showtime at a theater on the far South side. Another argued that the crowds were likely to be more with-it on the West side of town. To which someone responded that we may as well fly to another city, as the crowds in Madison tend to be dead, regardless of which side of the compass you find them at.

That seemed extreme. We stayed in staid Madison.

Still, it was not a straight-shot to the comfort of plush chairs. When we arrived at the specified time, not a minute late thanks to the expert driving of the Person With the Leased From a Friend Car, it appeared that the show had started a good half hour earlier.

Did we give up? No!

When all is failing and you think fate is slapping you down once again, you, of course, go have sushi. It’s seductive, it’s sensual, it’ll set you in a giddy mood. (It was also close by.)











Our waiter, far from 40 and I’ll bet anything himself not a virgin, sings high praises for the movie. That’s a good sign. I wish he were in the theater raising the mirth levels to above tepid.

We make it to the theater. I manage to bring in a Godiva chocolate bar and a latte. How can you watch a movie about the pursuit of sex without filling your mouth with the creaminess of a solid piece of chocolate?

Maybe it was the chocolate that did it. Certainly it was not the tentative crowd. I haven’t laughed so hard in a movie in along time.

Mostly though, as for the Virgin in the movie, the spell of foiled attempts and no-shows for us was broken. Already, seconds ago, Ann sent this email: We should see "The Aristocrats" (recommended by our waiter).

Hooking up

Blast it. All my life I have wanted to do it right. I have hated it in the past, when signals have been mixed, or when you just didn’t feel you’re connecting.

Maybe I am too blunt here on Ocean. Maybe. Few bloggers would openly admit to these embarrassing failures. But when I get discouraged I turn to my blog and last night, indeed, my hooking up fell short of expectations.

There had been an earlier attempt, quickly aborted for lack of time. But last night was different. The light was right, my mood was primed for it. So what happened?

I don’t know. It’s all so confusing. I just don’t know.

UPDATE: This morning I figured it out. In situations like this, you need to find some young dudes who know about these things and can give you a few pointers. So I went to Best Buy and asked the guys there what I had been doing wrong. I showed them a sketch of my failed efforts and they set me straight. It’s the positioning that matters.

UPDATE 2: I’ll include a sketch of what I believed ought to have worked (broken lines), as well as what I should have been doing (straight lines, drawn by the BB guys). I don’t know why the instructions in the TV and DVD boxes don’t make it easier on you, I really don’t.

a return to Ninaland

Suddenly, for the first time in months and months, I have time. Oh, just don’t engage me on the topic of work projects I am behind in. Irrelevant. At the end of the day, I come back to having time.

Time to look for the deserted, neglected Mr. B. [Hey buddy, I have a present for you; I bought it in NY in this cool store on Spring Street; get a load of the colors! it’s from Ocean and me. I get a deflated response – as if much of the air had left him due to more than a month of neglect. I note that he's turned greasy, so that when I rub against him, as inevitably I am wont to do, it totally dirties my pants. Ah well, I was prepared for this – there’s some make-up groveling I have to do here. I take him out of his cramped quarters and we go for a spin together at the end of which, I finally introduce him to the loft.]


a bell for Mr. B


Time for a latte with a pal. (When did I stop those? Okay, I did not stop those, but I felt guilty during each and every one this past month.)

Time to swing by and visit Mai. [Hey there, another pair of pants to tuck and trim! You look well? Better. I have everything ready for you. Nina, would you help me make a video about sewing? Oh Jesus, I have no special talent for that! A photo, I can take a photo. Here, see how well you look! Wait, please, I have to comb my hair! Mai is dressed spiffily again. It’s Friday. Where will she go after she puts in the last tuck this evening? Whom will she meet up with? She is from Vietnam. Is he from Vietnam? I’ll find someone who can help you with the video…]




Time to go to Borders and look at books. Time. When I was 10 or 11 I read a book that I loved to pieces (I wont mention the title because it has since been shamelessly turned into a movie, so totally inadequate that it has ruined all my best memories of the original text, which was lovely, really lovely). It is about an efficiency expert who, in the 1930s, basically created ways to cut back the number of seconds it took to do, well, any number of things. Toward the end of the book he dies of a heart attack and it’s all totally sad (except for the fact that his kids then went on to write this book about him). But I have always for some oddball reason, remembered the last line of the book. It goes like this (and I am certain that I am not off, not even by a word):

(so, his friend asks him at some point) But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?” And he answers “for work, if you love that best. For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure. For mumbelty-peg, if that’s where your heart lies.”

I had my share of mumblety-peg today without tossing any knives into the air.

At what point do you think your speaking patterns should take a spin through the laundry cycle?

Yesterday, a friend who is more or less my age wrote this to me (and a bunch of her other friends):

I know I am swearing more. I enjoy it, but are there other and perhaps darker reasons why I find myself swearing more?

Jeepers. That’s scary. Imagine sliding into an abyss of routine cursing, where four letter words are something you find yourself reaching for in even the most innocent of times. Holy moly, I hope this never happens to me!

I mean, gosh, swearing is so undignified. If you insert the “s” word with any regularity, it does sound like, at some level, you are preoccupied with your bowels. The substitute – c*** can’t be any better.

My friend found herself calling forth in a public setting (among law profs no less) a part of the anatomy that oftentimes receives prominent coverage in skuzzy magazines. The people were rightly shocked. Goodness gracious, wouldn’t you be offended if someone asked about slanginess of the word **nt?

I was forced, nonetheless, to send a reply to her. She is a friend after all, living in a distant state, asking us, Midwesterners, with strong values and good manners, to comment on her increasing ventures into those parts of the dictionary leafed through mostly by adolescent boys.

I am honest. I had to admit it. Though I’m not one who likes the mention of poop in every sentence (blog or otherwise), recently I found myself in an argument with a friend where every other word seemed to deal less with the subject matter of our dispute and more with an act of copulation. It was more spirited that way! You can’t make a point by shouting “you are so gosh darn weird.” Gosh darn doesn’t have the same dramatic impact value as, well, its dirtier cousin.

The NYTimes got it right a couple of days ago (Science section, here) when it highlighted our longstanding committment to linguistic vulgarity. It causes people to stop and listen. Desparate types may need to resort to it more, but even us here on the sidelines, we need to fucking wake you up every once in a while. Life doesn't have a bold key to grab your attention and make your heart race.

…it’s either sadness or euphoria

briskly, have to move briskly after class, back to the loft to pick up the car and drive over for the house closing.

Hello, real estate agent? I think I am on the wrong road (on the wrong planet?). You’re all waiting for me? Sorry, sorry.

How many people does it take to sign a bunch of papers? Who bothers listening to an explanation of what they are about anyway? They say older people. Older people wont sign anything without going over minutely every word. They’re terrified of being scammed. Me, the attorney, I never read any of it. Bring it on and let’s be done with it.

Presents, I get presents. And profuse thank yous. Hey, for what? I did not build the place! For hustling like crazy to get it ready on time and for the fantastic cleaning job you did. (I did do a fantastic cleaning job. The place sparkled when I said good bye to it last night.)

We can’t wait to move in. And the neighbors! So friendly! Yes, definitely, but I did ask them last night if they would love you more than me and they promised no never in a million years, so don’t hold your breath.

My real estate agent gives me a gift certificate for a day at the spa to relax after all this moving craziness. Today, for the first time in over a month, I am not driving any boxes over anywhere.

I zip to Whole Foods in the spiffy (leased from a friend) car that I am loving so much. It is NEVER going back to its original owner. I decided. I will hide it and its awesome sun roof which I opened up, warm air rushing in, loud noise of the radio rushing out.

(Meanwhile, the van stands deserted, actually, unbeknownst to him, right close to this guy’s house. Someday I will get around to giving it away to some kid who wants to take it apart with the intention of never putting it together again. Inside, I hid Mr. B. I feel a little like a parent who has left a child abandoned in a hot car. But I refuse to bring Mr. B to the loft until they finish putting up a bike rack.)

I alternate between pangs of such deep nostalgia that it overshadows all else and feelings of euphoria. The house project is complete. The new family loves it. I am free of land. I am free of repairs and gutters and rakes and mice and older appliances and a super old roof, of three bathrooms to clean and salt blocks to replace. Of snow removal, of creepy people-eating vines growing among bushes and plants, of a lawn that looks like the Mojave Desert, of empty rooms holding tight memories and little else.

At Whole Foods, I run into Peder. Twenty-five years ago Peder sold us our condo – our initiation into home ownership. Freaky coincidence to see him today. I wanted to say – hey you! I am done with being a homeowner. One condo and three houses later, I am done. What a ride!

hey, maybe I should introduce a weekly feature...

People like regularity. Maybe I mean a different type than described here. I mean regularly appearing blog events, as in blog of the week, or if it’s Saturday, it must be market day, or Monday weigh in, or whatever else you want to feature on your blog to keep that returning audience curiously checking in.

I have thought of doing something on a regular basis. Of course, I am likely to forget about it one day and I’ll feel like a failure. What a loser, couldn’t even remember to put in her Polish Joke of the Week. [BTW, here’s one, via Saul: A Polish immigrant goes to the DMV to apply for a driver's license. He has to take an eyesight test. The examiner shows him a card with the lettersC Z J W I X N O S T A C Z. "Can you read this?" the examiner asks. "Read it?" the Polish guy replies, "I know the guy."]

So maybe I am not cut out to do something predictable and steady. Okay, I know I am terrible at predictable and steady. Still, I am tempted. Several ideas have occurred to me. Vice of the Week is one, where I describe in great detail the sinfulness I indulged in that particular week and ask readers to share some of their own failings and transgressions.

Or richest food consumed in the last seven days, with a photo of grossly fatty meats or over-frosted desserts sampled by me.

Or CD listened to in the course of the week with the greatest number of repetitions with an explanation of the deranged state of mind that lead me to select that particular one.

Or I could recall the most interesting conversation I had in the past week and reveal all fascinating aspects of it, putting everyone on notice that if you talk to me in the week to come, you may be the chosen one (or not, making you feel, well, boring).

I’m thinking about it. The semester is steadily progressing, tomorrow -- a new season begins. Time to play!

malutka*, malusienka** Ninka, welcome home, you old peasant, you

It is so in vogue in academia these days to say you come from humble origins, but me, I cannot say anything but this: I do come from humble origins.

Not humble like people in the States mean it (working class poor, crappy urban ghettos, farm isolationism, border towns, single parent resource-deprived), but Polish post-war humble.

We did not own land, us humble-origins Poles (that would be 99% of the men and women I knew and read about). We sometimes had chickens and other food-producing animals, but land? Forget it. Poland was the only Communist country that did not turn practically all private property into collectives after the war, but still, people, especially urban types, for the most part, did not own land. At least not anyone I hung with.

So then I came to America. Wow. Everyone who is not totally destitute (admittedly, there are a lot of those) seemed to own property. Moreover, the further you moved from the city, the more property appeared to define you in every way imaginable. You own land in a neighborhood – the neighborhood set the tone and style for you. It become your world, your life.

I came to first own land in America in 1984 (ergo: I was 31). It was in this partnership thing called a mortgage plus spouse, but still, I owned land. I would walk out in the morning, look at the soil and almost want to do the Gone with the Wind thing of running the dirt through my fingers.

This land is my land, this land is my land…

I felt American.

Today, tonight, is my last moment of land ownership. I spent the better part of nonteaching hours cleaning my house and getting it ready for its new owners, who take possession of my little piece of suburbia tomorrow.

I will return to my peasant stock. I will let go of the land. I will be one of the people. I will disposes myself of holding onto property as if it defined me.

Tonight, though, I am still the fat bastard who orders her peons to jump through hoops. I am a landowner. For twelve more hours I am a landowner. And then? You heard it here: never again.

* & ** = "little" & "very little," used in a folksy way here

warm and gooey

When you are up in the air, some thirty plus thousand feet above TV screens and magazines telling you how you should look on this day, any day, you become a free bird, suspended in your own chirpy little songs, lulled by the engines, bounced around by finicky air currents.

What a feeling! Zipping through dark skies with lights below and stars above, moving ahead to obligations and habits, but indulging none of them just yet. Think of it – you are there along with a handful of others, trapped - yet free, seemingly still - yet moving forward at terrific speeds.

It is perhaps for this reason that you do not say no to the warm chocolate chip cookies that are offered to you by the Midwest Airlines flight attendants. No one says no to the cookies (a signature Midwest Airlines treat). No one. I watched the flight attendant roll her cart down the aisle. Hands reached out, passengers sighed with contentment. The cookies. When all is said and done, at the end of the day, you can find comfort in two large cookies, warm and gooey, wrapped up in a napkin.

New Haven, the city that everyone loves to hate…

A city that suffers tremendously because it does not look fresh and honest. Because it spiraled through a period of economic decline and continues to cope with high rates of unemployment.

New Haven, visited by most because of Yale, hated by most because of its non-Yale aspects. Those same types that dis Yale for being resource-heavy even as the community remains resource-poor, manage to take advantage of Yale because of all that it does for them, at the same time that they look critically at at the community that would stand to benefit from their largess and I don't mean only in terms of money.

In fact, New Haven is as fascinating as any city on the Northeast corridor. And at its core, it is a city that will talk to you. Encountering New Havenites is easy – they engage you in taxi cabs, at the cleaners, at the distant supermarket. They ask who you’re buying for and what you’re doing here. They tell you how the best pictures for your walls come from free dated calendars (my encounter today) and they help you lift things when you’re struggling.

Yale and New Haven are linked in profound ways. The community recognizes, much more than us, the idle visitors do, how much its future depends on Yale’s success. Even the homeless person will tell you that there is a lot to be grateful for in this tight relationship. It is clear as hell that the city would become a burnt-out shell (case in point: Bridgeport CT) were it not for the presence of the university, even as every advocacy group would tell you that so much more needs to be done to revitalize this place.

Scenes from Yale are indeed pretty scenes. Academically strong, it is filled with images of what it means to be committed to your studies.

Atticus Coffee Shop


Maya Lyn's plate, dedicated to the first (and all subsequent) female scholars, including, I suppose, this one;


in between those gothic-like halls


"Koffee?" - a place to get serious about baked goods (me), or your work (them);


And there is the good life here for those who can afford it. Last night I ate this – it cost me $8, more than a vast majority from the neighborhood could afford, less than what I would pay back in Madison for a comparable appetizer.

Roomba Restaurant


New Haven. The city that always manages to teach me something. The city I love to visit and walk in, over and beyond the “confines” of the university, the city with bigger problems than any one town should be required to handle. How it manages to be so generous to the outsider is beyond me, but it does and I am drawn to it again and again, for its generosity of spirit in spite of the huge burden of its poverty.


(the other side of New Haven)

NYC, what is it about you?

Oh, the food, always the food!

For instance, skate in vanilla sauce, over seared greens at the Porcupine:





…followed by a pastry selection. This is not easy. Too many choices along Bleecker Street.






This will take care of the chocolate urge:



The skies clear, it’s Sunday, park day. So many little tykes, especially in and around the Zoo. Their food choices steer toward drippy, creamy cones and bars.



Still others take to the boats, looking for calm waters and quiet moments.



Outside the park, at the Museum of Natural History, an exhibit celebrating my blog:



Oh fine. I admit it. I visit Zabar’s with the same enthusiasm that others reserve for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Just the blue cheeses alone fill a photo.



I wanted to zoom in on the varieties of smoked salmon, but they insisted that the photo was about them.



More food thoughts: two randomly selected judges sample bagels from the “best bagel store in the world.” Great stuff. No complaints.





Ending the afternoon with a slice of the real thing: thin crust, New York pizza.



I am on the train now, heading for New Haven for a dinner with daughters. Sunday meals should never be eaten alone.

why would anyone not be drawn to New York?

I have not time to write now... I'm here with a small bunch of Madison and ex-Madison bloggers and they, especially one of them, the one who Intends To See Everything, keep me on the run.

I did take some photos and I am hoping that they will suffice for now. It's Saturday, a slow day for blog reading anyway.

My 24 hours, in a nutshell:


there's always something slightly off about New York



and just the other day, while still in Madison, I reflected on how steamy the city is,



it seems to rise from many sources and it envelops you, so that you float with it, reaching new heights of steaminess,



a city of reflections,



and maybe it's the Central Park lakes that make even ex-Madisonians feel right at home,



me, I love the food (in the Village: black pasta with pink fish)...



it's worth pausing a diet for a slice of New York cheesecake;



after that meal, she swore she would never leave the city



others are really drawn to the sights,



indeed, there are many sights...



me, I cannot pass on a latte, at Soho's Cafe Cafe



Oscar pointed out that JFW and Ocean appeared, well, sort of similar today;



in the early evening we finally reached the tip of the island. the breeze was magnificent. a New York haze, a low sun, the once busy harbor quiet now.

why would anyone go to New Jersey?

...to get to the other side.
of the river.

Last night, I watched the pink tones of a sunset outside my Madison loft window.





Today, I took the scenic road from Newark Airport to NYC. (Yes, it's the Empire State Building nicely framed by NJ industrial parks.)




When I was young and lived in New York, there were only two reasons to ever go to New Jersey: to splash in the bahtub of a pool with a million other kids at Bare Mountain on a hot Sunday, or to hold your nose and zip on the NJ Turnpike to D.C. I never ever went to New Jersey for any other reason that I remember. I crossed the river to Queens, Bronx, Staten Island, Connecticut -- any place, any place at all. But not New Jersey. Somehow Manhattanites had a thing for that state.

So it is no surprise that I have never in my life flown into Newark.

Today I am declaring a new affection: Newark, I love you. While planes are circling over troubled (weather-wise) La Guardia, I came in smoothly, early, without a glitch.

Oh, New York, New York! So crowded, muggy, loud. It's great to be here.

mai oh mai

Or: how to succeed in business without really trying.

If you haven’t guessed it as yet, I have been somewhat overwhelmed these past weeks. Work, packing, moving, clearing the house – all have taken their toll.

So I tell myself: oh, what the hell. Let me give my nonfitting clothes over to Mai. Mai will put up my pants, take in the tuck where a tuck is needed, she will do it well and she will do it cheaply. She has saved me before when my inclination was not to sew.

On Monday I take things to her little shop around the corner from where I once lived.

You have to be careful how you approach Mai. She has a million ongoing sewing projects. Like anyone on this planet, she does not like being told what to do. What you want to avoid saying is: please fix these by the end of the week. Instead, you say: is it okay if I ask you something? Then she will look at you with great doubt spreading to every pore of her beautiful face and you can push forward with your request. And tell her that you will amply reward her for her efforts. Then take out the bills and lay them down flat on the counter.

It’s worked before.

We agreed on Wednesday as the pick up day.

On Wednesday, I come by in the late afternoon. It’s dark inside. No sign of life. She must have closed earlier than her usual early hour. Okay, tomorrow I will come even earlier.

And so today I brush off students, write the most nonsensical, hasty emails on the planet and head west.

By now, people have pasted angry notes on the door begging for their clothes. I thought of the trip I am going on tomorrow at dawn and of my teaching needs for the next week. What good are angry notes when she is not there to read them? Calling her landlord proves futile. He notes that she had disconnected (temporarily? permanently?) her phone and his lawyer told him to stay out of her store (thank you, random and unhelpful lawyer).

Inside, her store appears even darker than before. And yet, I can see the parrot that keeps her company all day long (it flies loose, and I always check my clothes to make sure somewhere in their folds their isn’t a bit of parrot dropping). She may have gone off and left our clothes behind, but she would not have abandoned her parrot.

Or would she have?

I drive home wondering if a daily dose of jeans for the next three weeks would be noticed.

I sit down to write a post about Mai – about how beautiful she is and how I wished her beauty would make its way to Mai’s Tailor shop and open the door for me to retrieve all that I hold precious.

The phone rings. It is Mai.

Nina? I’m in the shop. Do you want your clothes? I am here for only five minutes.

I live downtown, no longer around the corner, but I promise her I’ll be there in ten. And I am, give or take ten additional ones.

She is standing there in the dark shop, not wishing to be seen by anyone, holding onto my clothes.

Are you sick? I ask her.
I thought I was. I do have an appointment in a few minutes.

I feel bad that I am keeping her from the doctor that she so needs to see. And yet, I note that she is standing in a full length black dress with sparkles sewn in throughout. Her hair is down around her shoulders. She is wearing make up. Her beauty, though no longer youthful, is especially palpable.

I stare at her unrevealing, unflustered face. Thank you, Mai. I tell her. You saved me.

She smiles. It is the only time I have ever seen her smile.

…a decent home

Michele Norris talked to some of the children displaced by hurricane Katrina and fragments of these interviews aired on NPR today.

I have often felt that living in the States induces an unmanageable amount of guilt for people like me. I never felt that way in Poland. At the time that I was growing up there, I witnessed levels of poverty as well as privilege that were nothing I would likely ever encounter in my own life. But this was rare. The vast majority of families were sort of in the same heap together and if it wasn’t a fantastically inspiring heap, it was, nonetheless, a heap.

Then I came here. I set myself up in a Fifth Avenue apartment in NY (the home of my employer – I was a nanny) and I attend a private college (paid for by my employer). And I kept moving up in life, so that by the time I settled in Madison, I found myself living among doctors and lawyers in a suburb where the yard was so big that it was beyond my ability to tend to it.

And when, for reasons of economics (but also preference), when I switched homes, I moved this week to a downtown loft that is a rental unit, but one with nifty track lighting and my very own washer and dryer.

So that when I hear a young girl on the radio, talking about what she feverishly hopes for herself fifteen years from now and she answers simply: a decent home, my heart breaks.

if these boots aren’t made for walking, then I’ll chuck them. the walking stays.

Although I have not yet come to class late (I am talking about my morning Tuesday/Thursday class) I pretty much come in at 9:30 and 59 seconds (it is scheduled for 9:30).

It’s not that I sleep in. On work days I am up and moving so early as to be able to watch with total fascination the night beat squad car meandering in the back lot, right by the railroad tracks. It appears to always finish the night in the same spot, causing me to wonder if this is a high-crime area between 4 and 6 a.m. or whether it’s just a good spot to tune out and doze off.

My near-late arrivals have more to do with the walk to work. It’s getting longer. I used to be able to pull it off in 22 minutes, door to door. Now I am closer to 40.

What’s happening?

1. It's the shoes, damn it. I am discovering that my teaching shoes are not walking shoes. I have never had to walk in them before! Yesterday I paused right there in front of Fraboni’s Deli, took off my shoes and contemplated sending a nasty letter to the manufacturer about the folly of using plastic lining in sensitive areas. Cars passed, people gawked, I stood with a shoe in each hand thinking evil thoughts about women’s footwear. Eventually I moved on, but it took time to motivate myself.

2. Then, there’s my utter fascination with the things I pass. When you drive, you are locked in your own little bubble of thoughts, occasionally waking yourself to maneuver the car in some assertive way to show your dominance and control. When you walk through a city you notice the world.

In Madison, that world seems to be all about construction right now. When you drive, construction is more than a headache. It is a nightmare. When you walk, it becomes all about people building things.

In New York, street corners are forever steaming and drills are pounding at the flawed pavements. The racket is fantastic! It adds bounce to your step.

Turns out that in Madison, we have the steam and the racket too.



And we have the crane invasion:




And of course, I cannot resist it all. I stop, I watch, I take an occasional photo.

I know I have to speed up or leave earlier. I know that. I’m not even going to mention my walk home, via State Street, then veering off into the Bassett belly: it’s even longer, with double points awarded for fascinating structures and scenes to consider along the way. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. So what will happen when I do? I wont make it home until 4 am, at which point I can stop and chat to the cop in the squad car.

Don’t wait a minute more, downtown

I don’t think there has been a single time when I have mentioned (to suburban friends) that I am moving downtown that I haven’t gotten some version of the “I’m so jealous” response. I truly believe our cities have been abandoned by hoards of reluctant sheep following some powerful force that drags them from vibrant urban communities to the stripped of any heart and soul suburbs.

And I am not even talking about leaving behind the downtowns of Manhattan or Chicago. I’ve moved to Madison’s downtown which, forgive me, little city, is hardly the epicenter of urban buzz. But it does have a buzz.

It’s for the kids that we leave all this, isn’t it? We buy houses with gardens and we let the children make loud noises because there are no neighbors above or below. We learn how to tend to tomatoes and flowerbeds and the kids go to proximate schools and have neighborhood friends to kick a ball around. They splash in wading pools while their dads grill meats on Sunday evenings.

Until we find that we need a new roof and the tomatoes rot and the kids have to drive everywhere and you hope they avoid intoxicated friends who incidentally are also horrid drivers. One year we take a long hard look at the four walls that we call home and we find that they’re, well, crumbling. And at night it’s quiet. Very quiet. Six-feet-under-type of quiet.

Downtown. Walking with crowds again, to and from work, looking at store windows, smelling not the roses but the coffee. Stopping to drink it. Getting home late, waking early. Watching construction workers leave their trucks in a vacant lot and move with their huge lunch coolers toward the newest condo project a few blocks up.

I was in my mid twenties before I set foot in a suburban house. Honest – I had never been in one before.

I’ll never forget the feeling when I woke up for the first time in our own house. One small daughter, another on the way, two cherry trees planted by me, next to each other, a yard where I put in coreopsis and campanulas (yellow and blue). It seemed right then. Almost like playing house.

Downtown. Bright lights and promises.