New York break: three women and a plan

Plan number one was to go to the Fulton Street Fish Market at 2 a.m. Missed that one by dragging in too late last night. Plan number two was to go to the Flower Market at 5 a.m. Missed that one by… well, let’s just say that got missed as well (don’t look at me – I get up early). Plan number three was to make it to the South Street Seaport Museum on Fulton Street before noon. Missed that target time too!

On the other hand, couldn’t you argue that this little part of New York is more enjoyable in the afternoon sun anyway?

from an old deck: 

a handsome threesome 

warm enough to read outside, or, if you're a dog: people watch 

what time did we finally make it down here? well, these guys are leaving after the closing bell... 

New York break: the stress of city life

In Madison, I drive on automatic pilot. To change a route requires a mental exertion that I am not willing to hand over to the entire driving experience. I am not a big fan of driving all the time -- to work, to the store, etc. so it’s best for me to not think about the fact that I have to. Daily.

In New York, of course, it’s not all about wheels. That is indeed a relief. Except that now you are faced with endless possibilities of getting from point A to point B. It’s tense: from the minute you leave your place, you have to decide: left? right? And for how many blocks before you go up toward the next avenue?

I’ve always hated this, even when I lived here as a young kid. And there is remorse, too, because at times you realize you’ve made a bad choice. The block is especially dull – you have no window shopping opportunities, you pass by offensive places, shut down, barricaded, menacing. Next time, you say to yourself, next time I wont go this way.

And then through a confluence of factors, you find yourself on the same deserted block a few days later, hating yourself all over again.

It’s easier in Madison – no decisions, no self-loathing. Also no variation. Each drive to work is a repetition of the same route. To the grocery store – the same. Post office? Same. Gym? Same same same damn same.

potentially interesting... 

poor block choice 

rewarding window display of a good block choice 

and another... 

New York break: O’Leary’s? O’Reilly’s? Oh yes!

The night is young! an energized person tells me (she herself is not all that old, so why am I listening to her?) as my cab pulls into New York late in the evening. Come with me and we’ll join a New York crowd of shamrock-seekers. I oblige.

Morningside Heights (upper Westside, around Columbia) is not, demographically speaking, a good place to look for crowds with “Kiss Me, I’m Irish”-type t-shirts. In fact, the green motif, highly visible in the trimmings and decorations of the Irish Bar we stumbled upon, was not much in evidence among the patrons. It was the kind of place, also, where most people were drinking by the glass instead of by the pitcher – a welcome change from, say, State Street partying (although one might challenge my statements here, as I know next to nothing about Madison’s State Street bar scene).

Three women, sitting at a bar, is also an interesting situation, except when one of them so clearly is more than the combined age of the other two (yes, I did get called “mums” by one of the patrons, but the conversation sort of begged for it). If I had had any trepidations, they proved to be unwarranted. I would say that by the time we left (near closing?), the entire crowd (including the three of us) was pleasantly sober (-ish). Perhaps it’s because New Yorkers worry obsessively about keeping the numbers under control. You know, it’s the East Coast weight obsession.

the pitch: 

New York break: Notes en route

Standing in front of the Business School, waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for my cab this afternoon, I encountered, separately, four people (it was a long wait):

1. a colleague on her way to the garage beneath the Business School (most law school profs park there) – we chatted, it was pleasant;

2. a neighbor who teaches at the Bus. School (he was hurrying to a meeting), and who, with the highest level of pity at my plight (a very real possibility of a missed flight) said this to me: “take my car and leave it at the airport, then call and tell me where it is – I’ll get it later” (saint! but at that moment the cab came ---“you should never worry with Union – we’ll never let you down!” yeah, cool, save that for the next rider; it was about as credible as his next comment ---“you didn’t have to lift that suitcase in, I was about to get out and help you…” and finally ---“I don’t have any change – sorry…” Keep it and stuff it, buddy);

3. a blog reader (“do you remember, we met once… I wrote you in Poland…”);

4. and finally, a woman who smiled at me, though I am certain I have never seen her before. Even so, this chance encounter may significantly alter the course of my life. Picture this: she’s dressed in a long woolen coat (too warm for today, I think) of a stunning deep blue-navy color. Her hair is yellow – the kind I suppose a literary type from a previous century would have called “flaxen,” but I associate with Scandinavian women, ones who maybe picked up an outlier gene (from an unexpected past dalliance between their Swedish relative and an interloper Pole?) that passed down a bit of a honeyed tone.

That honeyed flaxen hair against the royal blue coat was so irresistible (yellow against blue) that I seriously thought of calling my man Jason (who loves to talk about hair color, being rather an expert at changing it for people), right then and there, telling him we need to make some changes during my next visit.

When a woman talks about changing her hair entirely (I’d already discussed going short again, but Jason balked: he loves the idea of a 50+ person with long hair, occasionally done up in a pony tail; one doesn’t challenge Jason), you suspect that something’s up. She is redefining herself in some way.

Am I? I’m thinking about it. For the time being, I put aside thoughts of hair and concentrated on giving permission for my cabbie to zip through yellow lights so that I could catch my flight. I did. I am en route LGA as I type this.

Heading into a storm

Class is done. Another hour and I’ll be New York-bound. Or snow-bound. Because as far as I can tell, a winter storm and I will be chasing each other around the Midwest before I finally get closer to the coast. My immediate thought – if I get stranded, at least it wont be like Aurora, Colorado.

But actually I’ve been mulling over a different kind of storm – the one that leads you to create something that roughly can be cast into the domain of “art.” A blogger over at Home Sweet Road writes this about her painting: “My art has always come from darkness.” She muses if she will be able to sustain that quality of painting, now that she has hit a period of tranquility, happiness even.

Will I be reassuring if I write and tell her this: not to worry! People who have lived through a powerful tempest (or two. or three…) never shake it at the core. There is something nicely permanent about that level of sadness which is juicy fuel for all of us who use it to produce the next painting, or chapter in a book. Sweet bedfellows – despair and creativity, egging each other on. They make happiness look soppy and dull.

T.G.I. March 17th tomorrow

(Do you know that it took me ten years to figure out what those letters stood for? Us immigrants are at a definite disadvantage as far as these hidden little meanings are concerned.)

I am not Irish (who is shocked by this assertion?) and so the 17th has no Patty’s Day associations for me. Though I did live in Chicago for a number of years and that city went hog wild over the holiday. I mean, it really was a holiday, where nothing was required of you except to drink a lot and wear green. Preferably the donning of the attire would precede the drinking, but you never knew. This was a city that died it’s river green. You can’t expect great sanity from a city that (at least in the 70s) liked to purposefully dump green die into the already murky waters.

It’s not St. Patricks that I am heralding, it’s the arrival of Spring Break for me. After I teach my Thursday class, I hop on the plane and take my books, my camera and my restlessness over to New York for the week.

A student in my seminar today told me that she was going to Paris with her mom for Spring Break. She asked for tips and ideas and as I told her about my favorite hobby there of people watching, of children-going-to-school-holding-their-rushed-doting-parent’s-hand watching, of older-men-and-women-enjoying-a-late-night-dinner-watching, she said: “yeah… it sounds like New York.”

Maybe. Except there aren’t establishments that facilitate that in New York. [Write and tell me if you know of a café where I can alternate between staring into space and taking in the presence of others for hours on end. Because that’s even better than a day at a spa for me.]

Still, New York is New York and tomorrow night I’ll blog with the inevitable sound of sirens and car horns somewhere in the backdrop. No saffron banners to distract me this time. Only the city there with its New York-ish smells and rat clusters. I can deal with that.

Did you ever notice how some people are so clever and sharp when interviewed on the radio, while others are not?

I just finished being interviewed by the producer over at WUWM (Public Radio). I am glad that the reach of the show does not extend to Madison. Upon hearing my very long answers to very good questions about Ocean and blogging in general, my friends and colleagues here would have said this to me:

* you sounded like you were testing all ranges of the melodic scales – what’s with the high pitch and the low tone and everything in between? [answer: if you party the night before, your voice sounds weird the next day; coffee helps, but I can’t find my little stovetop espresso maker yet – it’s buried somewhere under the dirty dishes]

* sound bites: don’t you know that you have to give answers in bullet points? No one will remember a word you said, you were way too long-winded. [answer: it is good that they wont remember all that I said]

* you went on forever praising the blogs of others, how come you did not mention mine? [someone is bound to say that and they will have been right; how do you praise blogs on a radio show anyway? It’s not as if people are sitting there listening, with pen in hand, ready to jot down blog addresses]

* you talked about the blog of a guy who hates Ocean – why would you give him publicity? [answer: she got that out of me! she's too clever with her seemingly tame questions! But, notice that clever me did not reveal his blog address, nor am I even linking to the clown in this post]

* you weren’t that witty; people will think “why should I read the blog of a person who sounds so ordinary?” [gee, thanks; I thought my recycled (from Ocean!) stories were decent. -ish]

* so you wont hear the program when it airs? [answer: I’ll hear it alright. She’s sending me the tape. I’ll put it on someday, in the privacy of my own boudoir, thank you]

Slow down, slow down, slow down……Why? Full days are good days.

An investigation into why the last twenty-four hours offered no time to post:

Perhaps leaping out of bed at 3:30 a.m. is not your own personal preference. I feel sorry for you, because the light is very special then: it’s very unobtrusive, very subtle, very…. dark.

My lecture needs a tinker’s touch. I have this pattern now: I sit in the middle of the night staring at my computer screen for a good twenty minutes thinking absolutely nothing more profound than how pretty that Giverny iris is (photographed last May, now pasted as wallpaper on my computer). It’s that blue and yellow pairing that gets me every time. Oh, I suppose an Ocean reader would be well aware of my love for the blues and yellows…

captivating  

I rouse myself, I write something, and then I go into my next trance. Eventually I look outside and notice that the sun is out, touching everything in sight. A good half hour is devoted to looking at branches jiggling this way and that.

How did it get to be so late?? The run begins. I never want to be late for class. They can roll in as they see fit, often holding what must be the first cup of coffee of the day. I’d rather be there benevolently waiting for the last straggler, and the one after that...

Class is finished. I look outside my office and the sky is the kind of blue that asks: aren’t I good enough for you? Why aren’t you here with me, playing?. I can’t. I have to go home and cook. Blogger dinner tonight (noted with photos here and also here).

I work at food prepping as if I had extra super unleaded pumped right up to the brim: I am energized.

Officially, we call it “blogger dinners” – but increasingly we do not bring out our computers unless, toward the end, someone wants to check their email. Here’s the thing: we always have our laptops with us – like the photographer who doesn’t want to be caught without proper equipment exactly at the moment when the child looks up at the aging face of her greatgrandfather and trustingly takes his hand. The computers are charging, waiting, not realizing that after many courses and many bottles of wine, the chance of any of us spotting a precious bloggable moment is very very small.

It’s dark outside. Someone says it is hot and we should open the door to the back yard. When was the last time I opened the door to feel the night air come in to the kitchen? Last October? [Someone else says it’s too cold. People who say that they are too cold typically win.]

The last guest leaves at 12:30. I make an effort to at least to wash my treasured plates, painted by an older woman living at the foot of the French Alps. Somehow I can’t stand seeing them stacked to the side, dirty and waiting.

I sit down for just a few minutes. No, that can’t be. If I am just sitting down then how come it is suddenly 5:30a.m., and I am under a quilt on top of my bed? I get up, I go down and turn off Ella and Louis who apparently have been singing all night. I survey the storm damage in the kitchen. I smile and sit down to post.

The face behind JFW: happy birthday, Jeremy!