An Asbury Park icon and legendary piece of American kitsch began crumbling to the wrecking ball [Wednesday] as the run-down oceanfront community begins shedding its colorful past to make way for what officials hope will be a vibrant future.
(excerpt from an article in The Star Ledger)
Damn. I'm glad I took some photos when I did.
I'm a little hazy, but I think it happened during second grade, the year I had a teacher who hated me. I had the opposite reaction from most of my teachers, presumably because I was quiet and shy and got good grades. Although I was always inclined to be a little rebellious, I didn't do very much rebelling, in part because I was so afraid of getting caught.
For my second and third grade years, through some redistricting miracle, I stayed at the same school I'd attended the year before, while ALL of the other students and teachers and even the principal transferred to another school. I was pretty miserable, since my friends had disappeared, and since, even at seven, I recognized that the instruction had been abruptly dumbed down. I eventually made a few close friends, but felt that my other friendships had been unfairly paused.
Anyway, for a variety of reasons, I lived in my head a lot in second grade and kept whatever negative feelings I had to myself, or so I thought. Ms. Worley, the teacher who hated me, didn't agree. According to her, I rolled my eyes whenever she said something I didn't like, which apparently happened rather often.
She wasn't a very nice woman. She was tall and thin and her shoulders folded in like the wings of a paper airplane, and she had a head of tiny and wild ashe-blond curls that sprang up out of her scalp like a Jack-in-the-box army. Her nose was hooked and I'm pretty sure she had a wart or two, but that could possibly be an invention of my childhood brain.
Propped against the blackboard in her classroom was an actual barometer of her mood, which she'd cut out of yellow construction paper. Her mood was shaped like a half circle, and it had two flavors: "safe" and "danger." A black mobile pointer was fastened to the cardboard, which she would move back and forth to externalize her oscillating temperament. When the pointer crossed the line into "danger," it meant that the class had to go outside and run laps around the playground until she cooled down.
Sometimes it was me, rolling my eyes, which nudged the pointer into the "danger" zone. I know, because she would announce to the class that it was my fault. (Which very likely made me roll my eyes AGAIN, which of course started a vicious cycle. Most of the time I didn't even realize I was doing it. Perhaps I should be thankful that I'm not still running around that playground at this very moment.)
Anyway, I think that was the year that my dad taught me an incredibly sweet but terrible lesson. On the dreaded morning my science project was due, my dad woke me up unusually early, just as the darkness was beginning to dissolve. Together, we walked out to the vegetable garden in the back yard, collected mounds of wormy dirt, and proceeded to stand in the carport and sleepily build a volcano, using baking soda (?) red dye (?) and some other important and secret scientific ingredients. Somehow, even though I'd waited until the last minute and even though I was absolutely terrible at making science projects, my volcano won first prize at the science fair.
I never again won any science-related awards, but I did learn that waiting until the last minute is indeed very rewarding. I'm also reminded that my dad has always been helpful and kind, and it's not just a recent thing.
The Amazing Daniel was not amazing, nor was he named Daniel, even. Daniel, apparently, was at a Little League baseball game and had therefore been replaced by Sam. So I guess it's not entirely accurate to tell you that Daniel was not amazing, since I didn't see Daniel's act, but rather Sam's act. Sam was not amazing.
Sam performed his magic show with the enthusiasm of someone who had a gun pointed at his head. Not only did he not smile, but the corners of his mouth sank into a fixed frown, pulled down by the weight of his apparent humiliation. He spoke in a barely audible mumble and stared at the ground a lot.
His worst magic trick was shaking a red handkerchief in order to expose a navy handkerchief tied to it. When he'd finished, I wasn't sure if he'd performed the trick yet, but I took a chance and said, "Wow," just in case (which turned out to be the right timing). As soon as I said it, his mother (Daniel's mother?) let out a tiny sympathetic laugh.
I'd only paid 25 cents for Sam's performance, and, with that, I was given a quarter-sized cookie and a cup of homemade lemonade, so, all things considered, it was a pretty good deal. I do, however, feel a little guilty about putting Sam through such obvious hell.
I've put up a few photos of Chinese New Year (from January 22). Hope you like them.
Unrelated: I'm not sure where to store all of the information I've been reading in the news lately. I have to store it somewhere, because I certainly can't digest it. What must it be like to know it first-hand?
I guess I should mention that I generally don't address political issues here (for a couple of reasons), but sometimes I feel silly only writing about my immediate surroundings, which, in comparison, seem rather trivial.
The Air America Radio studio reminds me a lot of the studio at my former university. It's small and modest and apparently not top-of-the-line, which is what I'd subconsciously hoped it would look like. The ceilings are low, the rooms fan off in a maze of tight corners, and some of the equipment looks like it has seen other decades. The only obvious extravagance is the view of Midtown, which presents itself like the city's beating heart, complete with busy veins and arteries that stream in and out, far down below.
My friend Joel, who works at Air America, had suggested I stop by last week to take a look around and watch Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder host their show, The Majority Report. I arrived in time to see the last fifteen minutes of it.
After we got out of the elevator on the top floor, Joel disappeared around one of the corners. I blindly weaved my way through the maze and ran into Bill, the newsman with a voice of syrup. "He went that way," he pointed, referring to my friend. "Down the hall and to the right." He added, "It should be to the left, I know, but it's to the right."
I found Joel in a room adjacent to the studio, where I could see Janeane and Sam from behind glass, a few feet away, mouthing the words that were being broadcast over a speaker above my head. I reminded myself that thousands of people were listening at that moment, that I, myself, had just been listening on my radio at home, that that was Janeane Garofalo sitting there, doing her weekday job, and that I was watching something that is politically important and new and still learning how to walk.
"You get used to it fast," a coworker of Joel's told me, saying something about how it stops being so surreal. I wasn't there long enough for that to happen to me.
When 11:00 came, the hosts relaxed, took off their headphones, sat back in their chairs, and began silently talking to each other, their words no longer coming through the speaker.
Joel led me through the rest of the station, a tour that included a very important-looking room full of metal boxes and blinking lights reminiscent of a Star Trek spacecraft. It made me nervous, as if there were a real possibility that I might accidentally bump into some sort of all-powerful button and throw the station off the air.
After Janeane and Sam left, I (reluctantly but willingly) took some pictures of the studio, including a few in which Joel and I took turns sitting in the pilot's seat, as if it were our radio show. It made me feel simultaneously like a tourist and a seven-year-old, but I think that's OK in this case.
In my neighborhood, the bank of the East River is guarded by fences and industries and No Trespassing signs. There's one street, however, that dead ends directly at the river itself, the only barrier being the large scattered rocks that get licked by waves whenever a barge hums past. There's an old round brick chimney that looks like it's missing its building, and directly across the water, is an impressive EKG of metal, the Manhattan skyline.
This "beach" isn't made of sand, but instead, pebbles and grass and some inevitable bits of trash, and, despite the factories on either side of it, people hang out there just as if it were a traditional sort of paradise. They sit on the rocks and spread blankets on the ground, girlfriends rest their heads on boyfriends' shoulders, a kid or two charges through, musicians pump good and bad noise into the air, models are photographed (yes, really), and sunbathers bake in their sleep.
One sunbather caught my eye, in part, because he was black, and in part, because he lay on his stomach and rolled up his shorts in such a way that he'd created a thong. I was less impressed by the act itself than I was by the confidence he'd exposed with his flesh.
Shortly after I'd parked my bike and had found a spot to sit, I watched a girl stand at his feet and take his picture, something I'd admittedly considered but decided against. Apparently she'd used a Polaroid camera, because a few minutes later, she sneaked over and placed a copy of the picture on top of his flip-flops for him to discover when he woke up. I was tempted to stay until that happened, but I didn't outlast him.
On Sunday, I stopped to take a few photos of some old men playing dominoes on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. I asked their permission first, and all but one gave it. I assured the dissenter he wouldn't be in the frame (he wasn't), but he held a hat in front of his face anyway, and scooted his chair back a couple of feet. He wasn't actually playing dominoes, but was sitting in a folding chair at the corner of the board, watching.
Another of the group, in contrast, specifically requested that I take his picture by pointing to his chest, and he stood still and stared at me with his arms by his side until I told him I was finished.
The dissenter grumbled for everyone's benefit, "I don't let people take pictures of me unless they pay me!" One of the domino-players looked squarely at him and asked, "Who the hell are you that someone would pay for your picture?"
I sat her on a pillow on my lap, pulled up the scruff of her neck, and pierced her skin with a tiny disposable needle. Sometimes that goes smoothly; sometimes she lets out a short, sharp cry. This morning she politely let me know that the needle felt more like a dagger, so I got a fresh one and tried again. Afterward, I fed her extra wet food—her favorite—because I knew she wouldn't have the chance to eat again until I got home from work.
I guiltily packed her, purring, in her new soft carrier, which I bought because of our now-frequent trips to the vet. The old carrier had no shoulder strap, and its metal handle cut into my hand when her 11-pound body was sitting inside. Trips to the vet can make you miss having a car.
The office is about a 15-minute walk away, and is in a small cube of a building. There are three vets there, one of whom I actually like. The other two, who are married, seem preoccupied and sloppy; all three contradict each other.
Vet I says that I should hope that Jane has Cat Scratch Fever, because CSF, which is curable, can affect her blood sugar. In essence, she said that CSF can, in a backward way, cure my cat of diabetes.
Vet II forgot to give her the CSF test today, even though I mentioned it three times this morning. Last week, when I called to get the results of Jane's blood test, he read me the profile of another cat, until I noticed it didn't make sense. He never mentioned that I shouldn't have given her anything to eat this morning; it occurred to me after I'd gone to work that it might be a problem, so I called to ask. He's also told me that I should only feed her diabetic wet food—in heaping once-a-day portions, even—because she needs to lose weight.
Vet III says that Cat Scratch Fever has absolutely no connection to diabetes. He also pledges that Jane should only be eating diabetic dry food, because it's less fattening than the wet food. He is the vet whom I trust (and like) the most, but what do I know?
She now has two fewer teeth, a little less blood, and a system full of drugs. When I first brought her home, she had wild, deranged energy. She desperately wanted to move around, but when I took her out of her carrier, her legs folded beneath her. Besides, trustworthy Vet III had told me to confine her for three hours or so, while the loopiness wore off.
Her pupils were big and excited, and she pushed her head against the side of the carrier, popping her claws in the net. She was determined but quiet, and didn't seem to notice me like she normally does. We took a nap—her, in her carrier, and me, curled around it. I had to pull the covers over both of us (the method used with parrots) to get her to relax a little.
Since then, she's eaten, fallen in the litter box in her own urine, gotten something uncomfortable in her eye (it's watery and half-shut), taken a bath, and started responding to me. When I first let her out of her carrier, she walked all over the apartment for a couple hours—legs giving out like a baby's—before finally settling down in a tight, exhausted circle. She doesn't even seem to notice the rare thunderstorm breaking open outside.
My computer and I reunited sooner than I expected. Since then, we posted some pictures: New York Fall 2003. There aren't that many, mostly because I was temporarily one-armed during that time. Anyway, enjoy.
It looks like my (new) laptop will be in the shop for the next two weeks or so, so posting will be more difficult (but, as you can see, not entirely impossible). I feel pretty paralyzed, since almost everything on my to-do list involves that clever little alligator head.
My cat also had to go to the shop, as her roller coaster diabetes has returned like an unwanted guest. She let me know about her condition yesterday, by drinking as much as a fraternity brother (and later by dutifully peeing on a barometer that confirmed her sugar was high). This morning "the shop" took two vials of blood from her, sucking it (along with $150) out of one of her back paws. It was painful for both of us, I can assure you.
