UPDATE: Legally blogged

A week (almost) to put up pictures from the small group karaoke evening? Reasons for the delay? I am so by the book Camic, that I bet if you googled by the book Camic you’d get Ocean as your first hit (don’t try it; in the words and spirit of our leader, reflecting on the wisdom of selecting Miers to fill the Supreme Court vacancy – “trust me”).

By the book Camic obtained written permission to post from all herein so that I would not get a pounding on my door from some overseer of blog legality-propriety informing me that Ocean needs to shape up or ship out to sea.

So, here they are, a few One-Ls from my sweet and lustrous small section, ready to beat the pants off of any other university group engaged in the art of karaoke song.

I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine...but how are you?

This post is really about French people. I love France. I do. And I don’t want to hear how the French are this and the French are that. It matters not at all. They down an espresso at cafes on the way to work and wouldn’t think of eating fish for dinner without a glass of wine. And they kiss. Everyone kisses and it is wonderful. The day I bought tights in a little store in Paris and got pecked by the shopkeeper, I knew I need look nowhere else in this world. French people are my kind of people.

Tonight I had to go out and get food. It was impossible to imagine that I would make it through the night with only a box of raisin bran and various configurations of chocolate tidbits. And treasured wine. [There is a "wine cellar" in the loft, if you can believe it. At least I call it that. Basically it is a cubby under the stairs and it contains my never-to-be-opened-because-they're-too-special bottles, acquired in years when French wine growers and I were tight. There were years like that.]

So I am about to enter Whole Foods and stock up and I run into a friend. Not just any friend. A person whom I love with all my friendship heart. A person whom I have not seen for well over a year, as she had been living elsewhere.

She has recently moved back to Madison and I had to say this t her – so…I had not heard from you. And she said: I read your blog, daily. When I need a break, I click on Ocean.

[Okay, one important addition: she is French. She is as French as can be. It is, therefore, unfortunate that every time I ever run into her I am wearing my guy’s grundy, discarded jacket and a pair of shoes with paint stains on them. She, on the other hand, is never unkempt. But that’s just an aside.]

I am so thrilled to see her. I cannot wait to sit down at a table with food (and wine) with her (and her husband) and talk about everything. Oh, and to see their sons, to spend a morning or an evening or an afternoon togehter. We have done any and all of the above. I miss it. But I admit that I cannot get together this weekend because I am soon departing for XXXXX. [I do not have a habit of disclosing destinations on Ocean until I am really up and running toward them, so if you want to know where XXXXX is, click on this week-end.]

Really? She says. So am I!

Now here’s the curious thing: I have not been to XXXXX for almost thirty years. It used to be a frequent enough destination for me in years that I lived in Poland, but recently it has faded, in much the same way that Freud has faded from evening hour conversation over very dry martinis. [Is that EVER a hint.]

And so there you have it: a recognition on my part that so many of my friends care about keeping up with me through my blog and through my blog only.

And, secondly, I have this to say: if you think that Whole Foods serves no useful purpose on this planet, you are so wrong. It is where I always run into my French friend. Without Whole Foods, we would have never realized that we are to be flying over to XXXXX together at the same time, albeit in different carriers. [n.b., I don't want to sound accusatory or anything, but why isn't she flying Air France? Don't the French believe in their own pilots, wine with fish notwithstanding?]

Monday already? Okay, one more run before I close shop on this: vice of the week time

Anyone reading Ocean is waiting for me to admit that this topped all regrettable and reprehensible behavior last week:




But no, you are wrong!

This was an insignificant smudge on my otherwise vice-filled days. Yet, it is for this reason that this weekly feature on Ocean is about to experience its last moment of glory. For, given all that I see and read about in the larger world (let alone in my own smaller one), it is impossibly difficult to lightheartedly admit to one’s own failings on a regular basis. They cease to be humorous – they read to me like the kind of vile excesses that best be dealt with during a process of meditation and internal healing, perhaps on top of some glorious mountain peak where all truth seems within reach and noble goals are easier to set.

So here, enjoy, for one last time, a littany of vices. I'll list, for impact value, the first fifteen, in the order that they spring to mind. Andiamo:

In the last week, among other things, I had evil thoughts, I ate too much, and I failed to accomplish work goals for this week-end. I bought way too many pairs of socks, I biked dangerously, I lied to people who called about the van, I refused to read some blogs and overindulged the reading and commenting on others, I did not call my mother and did call a friend – excessively. I drank numerous lattes, I refused to support sustainable agriculture as I skipped going to the farmers market and instead, on Saturday morning, I woke someone at an ungodly hour to fret about a blog issue. I went over the speed limit, I read poorly written books and I seriously considered spending money on a warm jacket that I cannot afford – to the point of having it set aside for tomorrow, even though I know that I will not be buying it tomorrow; indeed, I will never return, ever, and the jacket will be left hanging with the name Nina on it, ready, waiting with hope and expectation, only to be picked up in a few days by the salesperson at Karen & Co. and, like an unwanted orphan, returned to the rack where the smug others will laugh at it as it droops its shoulders in shame, forced to admit to being rejected after all.

studying the text of Thursday night

Sunday, a day of reflection and atonement. Perhaps even ditch digging if I can find myself a ditch to dig.

Let me start, though, with reflection. Because in the course of the last few days, I have wondered if I should perhaps take stock. And think about, for instance, this: isn’t it the case that academic excellence demands a high degree of concentration and rigor? An intellectual preoccupation with the Task At Hand, which most certainly does not include sidetracking in support of the karaoke trade and the booming tequila industry (no offense, t mockingbird…besides, I think you’ve fallen asleep), on a Thursday night no less? (In my defense, it was the only conflict-free night for the group.)

If so, then I most certainly should step back and engage in a deconstructionist-type* foray into my evening with my beloved Torts law school small section (I insert the word beloved in part because they are such and in part because I do not remember the number of the section, never having had to register for this class myself). For, what good is an author’s (mine, in this case) intention when a different (conflicting?) reality may be picked up from less generously interpreted renditions of the evening?

Let me review things, with aid of a photo or two (thank you, oh finder of camera!) though for now only of myself, as I believe in privacy rights and will not post anything with student faces unless I have their enthusiastic permission to do so.

Thursday. It seems ages ago. I arrived early at Casa B, making sure that the table was set with fine linens and china. In the alternative, paper plates and plastic cups. It’s all in how you read what’s before you.





I had taken a poll earlier on pizza toppings. I was relieved that the vote for pineapple could go unheeded as the unfortunate student-advocate of it fell victim to a horrible case of something or other and could not attend. What remained speaks for itself:





And really, that is the end of the text. The official evening is over, we move now to an epilogue, written by a dozen-plus hardy souls who were determined to pour out their sentiments about work, life and American Pie at the Karoke Kid. I offered to pay for all songs sung, so yes, I admit it, I was an enabler, the ghost writer, as it were. Of course, my European upbringing and exaggerated sense of politeness and protocol did cause me to say “yes, thank you” to beverages purchased by others. How could it be otherwise.

But now that I look at the entirety, from the perspective of time and with the aid of the pictures, I think it is principally my participation in the performance side of things that lacked proper decorum. Because otherwise, only one interpretation held true for everyone: they all behaved extraordinarily well. On the other hand, looking at the photos now, what can be said of a person who, while on stage, looked slightly twisted and off balance, like this:





What lessons then? Perhaps I can eek one out: maybe I should seriously contemplate toning down the exaggerated movements, the gestures, the wild eyes, the loud enunciation of words, ones which could easily be heard even in a less spirited rendition.

I’ll have to remember that when next I am on stage. At the Kid, or in the classroom.

*(independently, you must check out my favorite deconstructionist, who is, BTW, running a marathon today and who has engaged me on the topic of runners' sensitive body issues in the comments here)

Mr. B, you’re fired.

That sounds harsher than I meant it to be. But let it be known that my days of night bike riding are over. At least until the bike path linking all sorts of neighborhoods with my loft is completed.

Last night I endured the swipes at the thigh of passing vehicles that, I swear, did not see me & Mr. B in the dark, in spite of Mr.B’s bright yellow guards, a flashing strobe and a rear reflector. Because the distance was not long, I knew my survival odds were high. And I am proud to say that I managed to land some significant kicks at the sides of a few pretty impressive road hogs.

However, it’s the return trip that finally convinced me that midnight riding in downtown Madison sucks.

Why car-loads of loaded boys (I will not call them men, they are children in my eyes) would find it entertaining to come up close on the cyclist and then shout right in their face something that strikes them and only them as hilariously funny is beyond me, but such are the behaviors exhibited in and around campus after midnight.

So, for now, I’ll be cozying up to the neglected little number sitting in its little parking stall, reserving Mr. B for daytime adventures.

Still, last night’s brush with death, or at the very least dismemberment, was worth it. It’s gotten cold in this town. When you arrive at a house where the hosts have this percolating on their stove, you know you have faced danger for a good end result. Thank you, hosts.

in trouble with the law

It is early. I am wating for a Charter Communications person to stop by. He is not here. The phone is ringing. A potential buyer is asking about the van (I ran an ad for it in the paper today). I’ll be there to show you the van in an hour.

Don’t sell it to another, I need it! He begs. (Why does anyone need a 1993 minivan with a torn seat and a broken headlight?)

The Charter person never shows. Thank you Charter person. I get in the car and drive to meet the potential van buyer. My van is parked off of Monroe Street, in a residential neighborhood, where it is unlikely to be damaged or bothered or disturbed in any way. I am already on Monroe and my cell rings. Are you coming? The potential buyer asks. On my way, on my way, I answer, weaving my way past slow moving cars.

Half a block from my destination I see the telltale blue and red lights flashing behind me. Shit. I do apologize for the vulgarity, but there is no other word for it. Crap might do equally well, I suppose.

The police man comes over and tells me I did a number of reprehensible things, the first one being my driving without an updated registration sticker.

I know, I know, it’s registered, I explain. It’s just that the journey from envelope to car license plate is a long one, oftentimes not taken by me. I am sorry!

And about your weaving in and out of traffic. Let me ask you this: have you been consuming alcohol?

At 8:30 on a Saturday morning??
Officer, I have not even looked at a something containing alcohol (unless you count the toner I now use on my face after being scolded for not moisturizing several weeks back). Last time I consumed an intoxicating beverage was at around midnight on Thursday at the Karaoke Kid. You can read about it here, officer.

I feel he is leaning in to see if a whiff of something mightn’t be found anyway. He seems disappointed as he leans back out.

Finally, you are speeding. Ten over.
Finally? Shouldn’t that be firstly? Indeed. I am going the speed of the car in front of me. That kind of an answer, of course, will get me nowhere. I hear my mother saying: if your friend jumped out the window would you do it as well? – a favorite question of hers, implying, at the very least, that I have suicidal friends.

The young cop takes my license and disappears with the reassuring words we’ll get you out of here and moving soon. Sounds like something you’d day to a person who already is sitting in jail, not simply waiting to sell a van off of Monroe Street.

He comes back and tells me: you have a spotless record. Yes, I know that. I have never had a moving violation in the 35 years I have been driving. I have traversed all continents (well, almost) without putting so much as a dent into any vehicle under my control. I have trucked tour groups around narrow lanes and mountain passes. I have navigated cars through storms, tornados, downpours, heatwaves and blizzard whiteouts and have come out unscathed. You do not need to tell me about my driving record. I am proud of it. And, sadly, it is about to be deflowered, right there on Monroe street, in front of Michael’s Frozen Custard.

I’m letting you go without a citation, he tells me. He hands over a brochure, put together by the Madison Police Department, with the assistance of the Michigan State University Police Department, the Miami University Police Department and the New Castle County Police Department in Delaware. An eclectic bunch, wouldn’t you say?

The brochure asks for feedback, of the “how am I doing?” sort. It is right for him to hand this to someone who has just gotten off without a citation. Even though I have never taken it upon myself to call those numbers on trucks that say “call and tell me how I am driving,” this time, I want to help the MPD. I feel warm and fuzzy toward them.

Except, well, except I think the brochure is all wrong. It outlines what you should do when you get stopped by a cop. It invites a recurrence. It does not have faith in my continued attempts at keeping within the boundaries of the law. So I wont comment. But I did want to use this opportunity to say thanks to the dear man patrolling Monroe, on the look out for signs of early morning corruption and depravity. My purity is preserved.

that's entertainment

And again I was asked yesterday: why do you blog?

And again I answered: it's a writing exercise. In the same way that listening daily to language tapes is something you might do when studying a language, so, too, writing daily posts is something you might consider if you were seriously interested in the craft of writing.

It never stops there. The next line is predictable and it always comes soon after: Don't you find it hard to say something interesting on a daily basis? Why do you presume that you can keep a reader's attention with stories from your days?
And I say: I don't presume anything. I just write.

Next line (it is always like this): do you think it is appropriate to put yourself out there?

Here I stop and think about what the person is really after. Because in writing, just like in music or dance, you do reveal something. And whereas my views on politics, on the law, on corruption in Poland, on issues that typically make it into the press each day -- those pass the acceptability bar, writing about my own life is often called into question.

But I say none of this. Instead, I always remind the person that the day is long and a blog post is short and the relation between one and the other is small indeed.

Imagine: as an exercise for all you blog-doubters, take one day and jot down those events, minute observations, things that you see, conversations that you have -- jot down those that may lend themselves to a short paragraph. If your list is shorter than a thousand points then you're not trying. And think about all the important things you left out.

Are there risks? Oh sure. There is a reason why most known to me bloggers write under assumed names or identities. I do understand this, especially since I grew up at a time and place where so many lived in fear of having their words used against them.

And I know that for every person who warms up to Ocean, there is another who does not (I'm thinking of you, author of note to me from this morning!). I do listen, I pause, I consider the words and then I move on to write the next post, and the next, until at some turn I come to decide that what I am doing is worthless dribble, at which point I will pack my bags and move to a land far away where I can help dig ditches for those who need them. If I feel guilty about anything in life it is that I have not spent enough time digging ditches far away for those who need them.

I left my heart camera in San Francisco the Karaoke Kid. again.

I took my beloved small section (of One-L tortsters) out for pizza and drinks last night. It is a ritual for me. I have a chance to schmooze informally with them and ponder over the meaning and worth of life and pizza toppings. I can understand how, from their point of view, it beats the grind and rigor of class time, where the discussion is decidedly more structured and the questions fired by me are all evil and require them to think legally about the problems of daily life. So they all show up, we eat, we drink, we talk.

So why was last night unusual? Because someone read on Ocean that I am not one to drink myself silly and indeed, haven't overindulged in any substantial fashion since I was an adolescent. (That would have been many many decades ago.)

And so, some devilish minds rose to the challenge of getting Camic drunk.

Bottom line: I won. It can't be done, I tell you. I have this deep seated line of propriety that probably dates back to my past stiff and prudish upbringing (is someone laughing at that?) and me getting out-and-out plastered in public is way below any line that I have (really truly) drawn for myself.

That is not to say that tequilla shots were not downed. You got me there, especially since, to the best of my recollection, I have never done shots at all ever anywhere at any point in my long and tarnished existence. (Trick is to eat many many cheesy fatty pizza slices beforehand and give yourself lots and lots of time in between those tiny evil glasses. There. My secret is out.)

I was, however, plenty silly and yes, I did allow myself to be dragged to the Karaoke Kid where the law school bunch dominated the evening with lots of unbelievably cool singing and dancing. Truly, punch me out for saying this, sociology students (with whom I have also gone to the Kid), but the law students were right up there with the best of the best.

I have to say, I loved the way they went about selecting songs. You would never think that future lawyers would want to gear their vocal talents toward inclusiveness, but indeed, it seemed to me that repeatedly they searched for songs that would have everyone on their feet and singing loudly enough to drive all non legal types out the door.

Just to give you an example, American Pie was a favorite and it was done several times, mainly because no one could get enough of that chevy being driven to the levy. Hey Jude – ditto. It’s those na nas that had everyone roaring (it cannot be described otherwise).

There was another first (besides those evil shots), as well as a second for me: the first was that some silly persons took over my camera and took lots of pictures of Camic looking phenomenally dopey and they did so with such energy and enthusiasm that, for the first time, the camera went dead from overuse.

The second was that I was so bent on fingering the tricky combination on Mr. B’s chain afterwards (was it really that late??) that I forgot my camera. It is under lock at the Kid (I hope) and so any picture posting will have to wait until they open up again.

Thank you, class. What I said earlier, when I gave you back your papers, is true. You are a magnificent and talented lot and your sense of earnest fun is phenomenally appreciated by me as well as, I am sure, by all your friends and future associates.

Have a great week-end. I recommend strong coffee and lots of water.

Badger Bus

It’s 1979 and I am just barely 26. Hey, I am moving to Madison! My husband is beginning his staggering climb up the professorial ladder.

I should be working on my dissertation proposal, but instead, I take a full time job as a lecturer in the sociology department at UW-Milwaukee. We need the money. Three times a week I commute there, riding the Badger Bus from the terminal on West Wash, the same terminal that is now a block from my apartment, the same terminal that I pass every morning on my way to work.

On the bus, I always sit with Elaine, a woman more than twenty years my senior, but quickly becoming my closest friend in Madison. She taught me how to disregard age in friendship. She is brilliant and extremely laid back – a fantastic combination. I am a wound-up spinning top next to her.

Each trip out to Milwaukee frazzles me. I have never taught before. I am given a class in social psych – 350 students with young-and-know-nothing me there on the stage, and a class in the soc of the family, with a mere 60 in it. I am sure I am a terrible teacher and a complete idiot. Temerity and chutzpah push me through each lecture.

I come home tired. My husband greets me at the Badger Bus station. In the three semesters that I do this, he is never late, not once. We go out those nights, eating dinner, often steaks and hash browns, ravenously hungry at the late hour that I arrive back in Madison.

Early on Elaine tells me she is going to die shortly. I tell her so am I. Except that I am just doing my Polish angst thing and she is not. She dies within eighteen months, from ovarian cancer.

Many people look at age 50 as some kind of a turning point. I am fucking fifty! – they seem to think that this somehow puts them in some pile of wasted human material.

My turning point came at 48, when I passed the age at which Elaine died. I can’t believe that I have now lived four years longer than she did. I never thought I would – it did not seem fair that I should.

The Badger bus plows back and forth between two cities that are as different as can be. I come face to face with the terminal at two periods in my life that are as different as can be.


twenty-six years later, still the same inside

It’s like rubbing the belly of a lobster before plunging it into a pot of boiling water

What a day! All sun and warm temps, what a day!

I had been up since 4, agonizing over how many plusses to give to the paper grades I distributed to my first year law students and so you would think that by late afternoon I would be spent. Wrongo bongo!

I took Mr. B for a little 'pleasure trip' after class. I let him pick out guards for the winter (this post led me to believe I should in some way winterize my guy). He opted for yellow against his blue body. I thought it was a little garish (even though I am SUCH a fan of blue and yellow). I would have chosen the steely metal, but you know, you gotta let the guy preen and show off every now and then.



We did far far west side errands and then I took him to Borders on this warmest of October days. Bliss. A Maisie Dobbs mystery, a low hot sun, a latte and Mr. B and me.




Then came the hatchet. Mr. B, I expect service. I want respect for things that are important to me. I need you to carry your weight. To contribute.




The bags are there for a purpose. You are strong. At Willie Street Bikes they said you were built so well! Do your stuff. Carry my groceries for me, please.

I’m in for a period of moping. Indeed, Mr. B was in a reclining position when I retrieved him at my last rest stop. It was all pretense and high drama, I am sure. No matter. I’m firm. I need him to use his muscle. He and I are in this together, while the guilt-car gently weeps.

…like a cigarette should

So, I was a social smoker once. Times were different. Only goody two-shoes prissy girls did not smoke. Smoking was cool. I hated the way it made my lungs hurt (being one with weaker lungs) but I hated being lumped in with the goody two-shoes prissy girls even more.

So, depending on which set of friends I was with – the goody two-shoes super achievers or the rowdy set – I stayed clear of the stuff or I puffed away with the whole motley lot of them, starting (on rare occasions) when I was 15 and finally saying good riddance to the pretence of enjoying it at around 22.

So, of course, then I proceeded to hate smokers. Take your putrid second-hand smoke elsewhere!

So, now I am past that. In France, Poland, Italy (places where smokers are not yet the devils incarnate that they are here), if they’re puffin’ away next to me, I hardly notice.

Still, it was weird for me to be moving into an apartment that had tobacco written all over its walls. Indeed, my place is in a building that once housed the warehouse where Wisconsin leaves rested, awaiting the train journey to North Carolina where they would be used as cigar wrappers – being too low-grade to serve as the stuff of Lorillard brand cigarettes.

I am looking at the brick walls of my loft, not too long ago covered with dirt and soot and I am impressed with their history, for it was a dirty one and dirty pasts bespeak of complicated lives.

I’ve been reading a lot about Lorillard since I moved here – about the company’s curious advertising strategies (even as it commanded a tiny share of the overall market with – remember these names? Kent, True, Old Gold…), about its origins (it is, in fact, the oldest tobacco company in the country, dating back to 1760) and I am, for once, satisfied with my city, for it recognized shades of gray in naming a street just this year after Lorillard – my street, tainted and tarnished. Just like so many of us living there now.



sign of the times: only native prairie flowers are used to surround the tempered brick walls; and there are to be no AC condensers, nor gas-based heating units; instead, an elaborate system of geothermal wells built under the parking lot provides steady climate control to the buildings.

close encounters of the Ocean kind

Yesterday, I am pulling up on Mr. B, rushing to make it to class on time and a (random) student, out on a cigarette break outside, hails me.

Hey there, prof Camic? – she says, seemingly trying to match the face with one she has seen elsewhere. I think your loft is awesome!

This arrests me on the spot, even though I am terribly aware of the clock and of the fact that class should be starting in 7 minutes and I have yet to print out my lecture notes.

You know about my loft… You are a blogger yourself? – I ask, tentatively.
More like a voyeur. I read blogs. I read Ocean.

What can I say but: well now, ha ha! I keep it funny over at Ocean, ha ha! All about light 'n breezy entertainment, after all, ha ha!

Not always so funny, is it? – she counters. You can be very serious.

Ohhhh, is she referring to this post or this?

Ha ha, well, sure, right oh, yeah, well hey! (I mean, what else can one say?)

I move on. Knowing that around any corner I may find a person who knows that I last threw up from drinking too much when I was 15.

Listen, Ocean is just a lark, okay? Just a lark. La di da lark.

P.S. Why is it that when the chancellor of the university spoke last week at the Law School (I did not attend) and subsequently we, the faculty, received an email with basically the following: "chancellor’s missive: what we can do to uphold standards and fight moral corruption at the university" (or words to that effect), I automatically panicked, thinking surely it must be referring to faculty blogs, or more specifically, certain faculty who keep larky blogs, or, hey, one particular faculty member who regularly posts on Ocean?

You’re looking maybe for Ocean’s vice of the week feature? Ohhhh, just sit back and read. I have many up my sleeve.

Where Ocean again files a Monday report on vices [def: moral depravity, corruption, wickedness, moral faults or failings, or, at the very least, habitual and usually trivial defects or shortcomings] manifested by its author, on the theory that if I blurt it out here, I will earn myself a clean slate for (vices to be committed in) the week ahead:

Last night’s loft warming warmed my heart. People are way too nice and I do not deserve any of their goodness.

So why is it that I let them work for their grub? That’s a vice! At least a half a dozen literally finished off dish preparation for me and at least two actually cleaned up a pot or two so that I would not wake to the disaster that typically follows one of my cooking binges.

And another vice – sampling wine from practically every bottle that was opened (okay, only the whites!). And with twenty people, the last ones trickling out after midnight, there were plenty that got uncorked. Vicey!

But here’s the one I’ve been saving up for Ocean. It indeed is about uncorking, except, what is it that I uncorked????

So here’s the story: I got up early and began the usual clean up. I am a woman of great attention to detail. You would not know this about me, just reading my blog, but in the loft, everything is in its place. Very neat. Very orderly. And so of course I was going to correct some guest’s erroneous placement of a piece of paper in the recyclables garbage can. I reached in and was about to transfer it, when my evil curiosity got the better of me.

I unfolded the yellow sheet and read it. (Truthfully, I did worry that it was some important page that accidentally got trashed.)

It had four words on it, followed by a question mark:

Do you love me? Some female hand wrote stealthily.

Okay. There were five married couples here (random note: amazingly, only one out of the ten keeps a blog) and another that also belongs to the 'committed' category. Then there were seven without any Significant Other in sight. So it could have been innocent, right? Married woman asks her adored one, in a moment of drunkenness if there’s passion behind that cool demeanor.

But hey, wouldn’t she have waited 'til they at least got to the elevator? Rather than scribble it right there in the middle of chomping on a crostini with gingered beef and wasabi? The more likely explanation? -- a guest is reaching out to touch someone and that someone is not their spouse at all, but the spouse of another.

Too many permutations and possibilities for me to figure it out. Unless… I compare the handwriting with the cards I received.

Don’t worry. Your secret is my secret.

On to one more vice: a run of photos of, well, me (not always in the most flattering poses). Kathy, was that you working my camera? Okay, for once, I have a batch of photos depicting how absolutely insane I become at one of my own dinners. I have no shame. Here they are, interspersed with the sanity of others and, of course, food.


lofty dusk, stuffed figs, all is calm



why are three others working around me at food prep?



make that four others... (is that a tattoo??)



billed as chocolate cigarettes, but looking more like cigars



off goes the apron



urban flight



watching...



still waters? maybe. maybe not.



I did say to the guests: you need only bring oreos. trust a therapist (not mine!) to be a good listener.

Urban flight

So it was a challenge: come up with a menu for tonight that represents the very urban-ness of my loft. For my first big dinner here, cook up stuff that fits with the brick walls and steel pipes and screaming fire engines and guns blasting and construction trucks making their daily morning racket. Okay, maybe not so much the guns and the fire engines, but you get the picture. This food cannot be tame. It has to zing, it has to, according to commenters, pile high and fuse market flavors. It has to have street character and restaurant sophistication.

So I decided to take myself to the Italian neighborhoods of New York. Pile on the cannelloni, the cannoli, but make it modern! Spice it up! And fuse it – bring in the wasabi, the Serrano and Fresno peppers, the lemongrass, the lavender.

I turned on the TV last night and there on Bravo, I hear the familiar music of the Godfather. Perfect. Let my work begin. Here’s the menu. Eight mains, four desserts, twenty people. Let’s see if anything comes of it.


Grilled figs with Fantome goat cheese, honey and rosemary

Crostini with gingered beef and wasabi flavored crème fraiche

Flatbread with assorted roasted peppers, hot chiles, scallions and mild cheese

Gougeres with aged Parrano cheese

Diced heirloom tomatoes with Chianti Classico olive oil, Balsamic vinegar and slivers of Parmesan

Cannelloni with grilled zucchini, shrimp and thyme butter

Puff pastry with caramelized onion

Grilled shrimp on lemongrass skewers with Asian lime sauce



Key lime tarts with toasted meringue

Chocolate cigarettes

Orange cannoli with coffee mascarpone filling

Baked moonglow pears and berries, with lavender flower topping



always start with the dessert

in my little town...

...I grew up believing
That life is boring.

I changed my mind.
Though anyone looking at this first October day may get the impression that I have simply joined the ranks of the Madisonians who basically love to do the Madison thing, all organic this and healthy that and actively engaged in the community, etc etc. and that’s it – what else could you possibly add to this basket of symbiotic perfection?

And I have indeed succumbed, to some extent. Pulling on some raggy clothes, last seen yesterday, on me, not bothering to even shower, I set out for the market this morning. I am only six blocks away. I can walk. I feel wholesome (if grungy). The sun hasn’t broken the city horizon yet. I am an early bird.

At the market I throw down several twenties in support of sustainable agriculture. I am with the land and the people who grow things on it. I talk to farmers and cheese makers. The moonglow pear guy uses words like epistemology. Or was it nomenclature? Or both? Not that I undervalue the intellectual inclinations of the men and women who till the land, but believe me, the average farmer in Poland does not muck around much with either epistemology or nomenclature. But hey, this is Madison.



eerily, they glow



much needed for tomorrow


I look at the kid who is part of the brood at Avalanche. She looks like the kind of waif of a child I would want to raise on a farm were I into raising kids on farms. That family is so together, so all about wool knits and cottons. And they’re doing well. I buy their stuff at Whole Foods all the time. It makes me happy to find and purchase their bags of greens. I feel like I am helping put the little ones through school. (Or – are they home-schooled?)





The flower family always throws in extras – they give you yellows if you want more yellows, they coddle you and infuse you with their own flowery joie de vivre.




I get a blueberry bar for my coffee which I have yet to consume. This is a morning run, a pre-breakfast thing. Wholesome, remember? The bar is additive free, wheat free, sugar free, gluten free and a bunch of other frees I have by now forgotten. It’s not free-free, but it is Madison-like free.

I pick up a latte and head to the loft.

Okay, so a little glitch here: I have a lot of food. And flowers. And a cup of coffee. And my wrist and thumb have yet to heal from my June bike accident, especially since I ignored the advice of the doc who told me to go do some hand therapy. (Hand therapy sounds sissy-like. I’m no sissy.)

I am struggling. I am thinking that I ought to get a backpack. Wait, I live an urban existence. I have never seen anyone in NY carry groceries in a backpack. Forget it.

On I go. I am about to cross the tracks to get to the loft (third, fourth and fifth windows on the top, from the left) and I see the construction vehicles again. I ask what the fuss is about. They have been grinding away at the space between the loft and the tracks for days. If there is some super highway going up right under my lofty windows, I want to know about it.





But no! This is Madison. They are putting in a new, beautiful bike path, linking the lakes with the city – and mainly, creating even more venues for Mr. B and me. Right under my nose! View remains undisturbed. I can take endless photos of the capitol from my loft. And I can go for wholesome rides everywhere.

So all this is what creates bliss, right?

Nope. Bliss lies elsewhere. But these trappings, they sure as hell make life in (downtown) Madison a good thing, they really do.

the shop around the corner

When my daughters were little, I took them regularly to Fraboni’s, the Italian deli and grocer downtown, on the corner of Regent and Park. We lived on the far west side, but we drove in just so we could load up on Fraboni’s gnocchi. No one in Madison had better gnocchi. And of course, once there, we’d get thinly sliced salami, olives, Parmesan-Reggiano, pasta and so on. I probably could buy this stuff elsewhere, but I liked getting it there.

The Fraboni family knew my girls by name. They would say things like: Oh, they’re growing so fast! I’d indulge in an Italian nougat candy at the register. The girls preferred the cookies. We left happy.


the Fraboni's dude

And then I stopped going. I got busy, the daughters got busy and satisfactory gnocchi could be found elsewhere. One makes compromises.

The other day as I was telling someone how good it is to live downtown, I was asked about the grocery store situation. I hesitated on that one. I need a car for food shopping. Nothing within walking distance of the loft. Maybe when Trader Joe’s is up and running on Monroe (looks to be a half hour walk – just like shopping in Poland!), maybe then I can hike over…

And then, this afternoon, as I was making up a grocery list for my week-end of heavy duty cooking, I thought: there isn’t a place in town that will have this one particular item. Except maybe Fraboni’s.

I went there at dusk. I looked around – it had been years (decades?) since I had stopped by. The old discolored map of Italy was gone. The shelves were filled with many types of balsamic vinegars from Modena. The nougat candies weren't at the checkout counter.

But the family was still there. The son was now one of the proprietors. I asked him about the ingredient I was looking for – he called his mother to talk about it, to check whether my rather weird usage of it would work. I looked around at the cheeses, the sausages, at the shelves that weren’t exactly arranged, the ones that always, in their disarray and devotion, had a distinct taste of Italy.

A five minute walk from my loft, that’s it. My grocery store, just down the block.

It’s all fun and games until someone breaks a leg and asks for a divorce

Reading Ocean from the last several months would have one believe that I do not work. It isn’t that I post huge amounts, or that anyone would be inclined to say – man oh man, there is no Nina out there, everything is on Ocean and Ocean is about everything. It’s just that I never mention anything related to my work here.

Of course, Ocean is a mere smudge on my day – a lovely (for me) effervescent smudge, with colors and ebbs and flows, but a smudge nonetheless. Moods come and go, flowers bloom, leaves fall, and all this never makes it onto to the Ocean floor.

Still, many have said that Ocean works for them because it is so…personal.

Gulp. Personal? Oh dear.

Okay, so I do happen to work and I do happen to teach. Something equivalent to 2.25 classes per semester (Torts and Family Law this fall). And predictably, ever since I started blogging, each semester, a handful of students from my classes will in some way let me know that they read my blog.

I do send out little tests: I mention something that one would get only if one read Ocean and I canvas the room, looking for that small flicker of acknowledgement, that wink, that tiny grin that tells me They Know.

This fall, their faces have revealed nothing at all. No guilty admission after class, no wink, no reference, no email and, most significantly ----- no comment.

Because in fact, this is the first semester where I am teaching with a blog that has a functioning comments section. The opportunity for (pseudo-anonymous) punchy-ness is there, and I am waiting for that irrepressible shot from the hip, of the caliber where I am sent to my proper place in the corner, quivering.

As for the personal stuff appearing herein -- okay, so I have to live with the fact that a student may potentially know a hell of a lot more about me than I do about them. I have come to accept that. It’s like throwing up in public.* You reveal your weaknesses and hope that all witnessing your transgressions are a forgiving bunch.

As a final note on teaching and blogging and the relationship between the two, I want to say that I have two groups of students (in my two classes this semester) that are astonishingly wonderful. I will protect them with all my might and so references to them and their peculiar and adorable idiosyncrasies will not appear on Ocean.

*BTW, my Ocean is my huge indulgence. Let it be known that I have never thrown up in public. And it has been more than 35 years since I have had so much to drink as to make myself ill, so don’t hold your breath waiting for a sordid description of such an event here, on Ocean. It’s not gonna happen.

Reade-ing the minds of New Yorkers

While in New York a couple of week-ends back, I walked enough to worry about getting a foot blister. I had neglected to wear socks and the shoes were getting awfully comfortable in their up and down rubbing motion against my heel.

Not to worry! I said. I’ll just step into the next Duane Reade and pick up bandaids and socks. While there, let’s throw in some chewing gum and water.

It took one more block to come across a Duane Reade drugstore. Inside, it took a little longer to find what I was looking for. On the corner of 35th and fifth, it was one of their two-floor set-ups where nothing seemed logically placed and finding things required either rambling around some, or asking a clerk for directions. Luckily there were plenty of Duanies to ask and so I was soon on my way.

I write all this because this morning I was reading an article that demonstrated to me that I was just a peg and a pawn in the Duane Reade master plan, a typical sucker who was breathing life into a growing monster of a chain.

Because Duane Reade has really taken over the city. There are far far more DRs than there are Starbucks coffee shops or Food Emporium outlets. So how is it that this ugly little store with scrawny interiors, somewhat overpriced items and bizarre layouts has eeked its way into every handful of blocks of Manhattan?

I don’t usually paste article paragraphs into Ocean, but I cannot resist it this time because the piece (found here) says as much about New Yorkers as it does about Duane Reade’s executive officers who have simply figured out what the average urban type is looking for on her or his daily run through the city (as contrasted with the suburbanite):

Duane Reade ought not to be successful. The prices aren’t particularly low andthe staff isn’t particularly helpful. And the often cramped and disorganized stores offend the boutique sensibilities of New Yorkers.
…
[Yet] what the stores sell gives a pointillist portrait of the New York consumer. Unlike most drugstores, where prescriptions make up the majority of sales, half of Duane Reade’s sales come from food, cosmetics, and the like. That runs from insoles and corn pads—because New Yorkers walk so much, Duane Reade sells twice the industry average—to foods for the society-X-ray palate. “We have four-foot-long sections of rice cakes. Put those in a suburban store and they all go stale,” says Charboneau. “And we have these soy crisps, which are not the best-tasting things. But they fly off the shelf.”

Make up? The store developed its own line of cosmetic because the top national brand (Cover Girl) appears to target the blonds and the blue-eyed types and New York hasn’t too many of those. And there’s more of that savvy pulse reading going on here:

When New Yorkers make their way to the pharmacy counter, their selections are heavy on sex and therapy and ambivalent about kids. The top-selling sedative, ranked nineteenth nationally, is one of the top five drugs sold at Duane Reade. Also popular here is Viagra, and a couple of anti-AIDS drugs are in the top twenty. But what New Yorkers really specialize in is birth control: Three contraceptives rank in the top 25 of Duane Reade sellers, while no contraceptive breaks the top 50 nationally. “There is no birth-control pill that’s No. 1 in any market except here,” Cuti [the man who made DR what it is today] explains. “It’s the nature of the city. It’s where the action is.”

The aisles are narrow because New Yorkers don’t mind being bumped, and skuzzy because urban types aren’t that bothered by dirt. But they hate lines and so DR has twice the average number of salesclerks ready to hustle you out:

“When I’m catching somebody out of Penn Station moving 100 miles per hour, they want service and they want it quick,” says Cuti. “It’s, ‘I’m carrying my bag, I’m ten minutes late, the dumb train was late, I got to get the Tylenol and my bottle of water as quickly as I can.’"

In the end, it’s all about real estate – figuring out which crummy space will work wonders for the next store (they have 250 of them up and running thus far) and getting a long term lease cheap. But that aside, I have to say that Duane Reade should be on every vistor’s list as a quintessential New York experience. Except, you probably don’t need to make note of it in the tour books. Inevitably you’ll hit on the store during an NYC stop. They have us figured out: Viagra, corn pads and rice cakes – just what you need to survive a day in the city.





In that set of NYC blocks, there must be at least six Duane Reade stores.

Kitchen, confidently

So I intend to cook big time this week-end. A few assorted odd types are coming to the loft Sunday, to help warm the place up and I told myself it’s time I did something more with the stove than just turn it on for my morning latte.

It’s depressing to realize how much care I took with moving my kitchen paraphernalia from the spacious suburban place to the smaller loft unit and how little I have used any of it since I have been here. It’s disgustingly pristine at the moment.





Time to take out the variously shaped tart tins, the pastry scrapers, the double mesh strainers and get to work.

But on what? I lack a theme. I am stumped. Random nibbles? I am yawning as I write this. Substantial salads? I can see the splattered vinaigrette on my new couch, the soggy lettuce that’s been sitting out too long. Oh God, I have to do better than that.

National themes? Last time I meandered over to the kitchens of the Eastern Front, I found my table laden with foods that were as heavy as the granite on my new kitchen counters. It was nice, it was fun, it was then, now is different.

Got it! The theme has come to me as I type this: Urban Foods! How appropriate! How edgy and sleek! How urbane!

Okay, but what do I mean by that? Damned if I know just yet. Write me if you have ideas.

idle talk over a paintbrush

My man Jason and I had a talk yesterday. He asked: how is it downtown? (He recently bought a house with his partner, not too far from where he works – west of Middleton, which is pretty west, if you know Madison).

I could not lie. Great, I said, it is great! All last year I kept coming home to a big empty house and before the night was out, I would be bummed to the core. My thrill would have to come from seeing the plumber arrive early at a neighbors’ house as I would try to second-guess which of their toilets might be leaking.

These days my sense of isolation is gone. I left it somewhere there with the sagging gutters and chipped roof shingles. Toilets and plumbers are not the thrill du jour anymore.

Longing, I smelled longing in the air. Jason, who is possibly the best color guy on this side of the Polish/German border, is not one to complain so he kept quiet. Very quiet.

He painted and snipped (did I detect a sniffle?) and I watched his talented hands do such beautiful work even as the elaborate tattoos on his trained, muscled arms seemed to sag in a dispirited kind of way. We stayed in our comfortable silence --- a favorite way to be, very intimate, very “I understand you” kind of thing.

When we spoke again it was about the condo boom downtown, about trips to big cities – topics that had the big E (escape) written all over them.

A year. I give him a year. He wont stay away longer than that.