Wednesday, 30 July 2003

We used to play a game in kindergarten in which we listened to a particular song and pretended that we were rag dolls. This meant, we were told, that we were supposed to start from a sprawled position on the floor and slowly lift ourselves up, as if by strings, and then limply fall back down, over and over again until the song ended.

I didn't like the game. If I were a rag doll, I reasoned, I wouldn't move at all. So I stayed on the floor, my legs and arms splattered around me, eyes closed, unmoving, while listening to the other five-year-olds drop to the floor, splat, splat, like bugs on a windshield.

When I was six, I remember listening to a storyteller in the children's section of the town library, a section which was located in the basement of an old white building that had ornate trimming like a wedding cake. I was normally fond of storytellers, but this one required crowd participation, which I hated. I hated to move and clap and march; I hated pretending that I was having fun. And so I didn't. I just stood there, expressionless, arms at my side, blond ponytails sticking out of my head, watching the other kids' arms fly around, their mouths open with giggles spewing out.

Apparently this storyteller was big news, because both the local newspaper and TV station did a piece on the event. The cameraman must've thought I was amusing, standing there like a frowning pole among a pack of hyper hyenas, because he kept bringing the camera back around to me. I remember thinking about the ridiculous situation I was in: a lose-lose.

Later, when I watched the spot on the local news channel with my parents, I cried from embarrassment, worried that I stood out, that I looked like a moron. I immediately wished that I had forced participation, that the stupid cameraman would've left me alone, that I hadn't been in the library to begin with.

Early signs.

Tuesday, 29 July 2003

I need you to do me a favor. Could you please break in my house and move back the hands on all of my clocks? Slip my wristwatch off while I'm sleeping, and pretend you're Chronus? While you're at it, it's probably a good idea to do something about the digital clocks in the underground trains, as well as the NPR reporters who announce the hour just before I silence them with the snooze button. I've tried setting my own clocks ahead, but I always remember how to subtract. But with your help, I can go to bed early, be on time, and stop stretching the overstuffed hours like a middle-aged waistband. Since time won't be manipulated, you must manipulate me, okay?

Monday, 28 July 2003

Sunday, 27 July 2003

Piercing a slender needle into the scruff of my cat's neck is easier than I'd imagined; getting a urine sample from her is not. I discovered that when I leave a pile of cleanish clothes on the floor and I don't put any litter in her box, the pile of clothes can just as well serve as the litter.

This evening it somehow made sense to me to carry an army bag full of urined laundry to a hard-to-access part of Brooklyn, because then I could wash clothes with company. Company makes it easier to ignore the unappealing details of the laundromat: the coin machines that have a taste for perfectly ironed bills, the cranky washing machines that are coated with a residue of sticky detergent, the squeaky wheels on rusty carts, grayish pink lint that bonds like sorority sisters, the dryers that cook and shrink my cotton, the TVs that play the otherwise forgotten shows, the mean-faced people that don't want to be there either. Company is also capable of turning the chore into a nearly thoughtless process, a simple, necessary act like brushing teeth.

I hadn't, however, counted on the post-laundry thunderstorm that tore the sky over me on my walk home. It quickly and unremorsefully undid much of the work the quarter-eating dryer had just performed.

Thursday, 24 July 2003

I've had five plants in the past year. I've killed four of them. Granted, two people who weren't me dropped the jade plant on moving day in September and its health went downhill from there, so maybe its death wasn't entirely my fault.

The spider plant came from several states away to be with me, wrapped in a damp paper towel and carried quickly at high altitudes; it never liked New York, however.

The string-of-pearls plant had a Homie stuck in its soil and strand of green peas that dangled over the edge of its pot like an offering from Rapunzel. I really liked the string-of-pearls plant and tried so very carefully to sustain its life, to comprehend its strobe messages of Water me! Don't water me!. I gave it too much attention and drowned it.

The last one to go was the succulent plant, which was, incidentally, the grandfather. I think he drowned, too, but it's hard to be sure. He left me a bowl of yellow spikes.

The only plant that is not dead is the bamboo plant. That's because the bamboo plant sits in water, not soil, and requires virtually no care, no interpretation. It's because I would have to literally try to kill it in order to do so.

This has me worried. I'm worried because I've just been given a much bigger, more sensitive type of "plant" test. Yesterday I learned that my cat has diabetes.

With respect to my cat, I think that means that she will have to adjust to new food that may not taste like savory seafood with gravy, and that she can no longer eat the same generous amount. That she may uncomfortable a lot of the time (thirsty? tired? stiff? weak?). That other parts of her body may eventually fail (kidneys? eyes?). And that her owner will probably seem like the enemy.

With respect to me, I think that means that I will have to make my schedule more uniform, to kick it into shape like a new recruit. Learn and read more about diabetes, of course, beyond my experience with diabetic humans. Find someone who is willing to care for someone else's diabetic cat when I am out of town. Spend lots of money. Perform regular feline urinalyses, however that's done. Stop giving her bits of my dinner, treats, and second helpings, and learn to refuse her big, round, needy eyes. Get over my discomfort with needles, and learn to stab her at least once a day in order to save her life. Sense the nuances in her behavior, interpret how she's feeling, and correctly calculate her dosage, in deference to my performance with my unfortunate plants.

Monday, 21 July 2003

The left side of her face was flared out like a fan. Originally I thought I was imagining it, or that her fur was disoriented. Several phone calls later, I'd assessed that her tooth had rebelled and inflated her cheek, so I packed her in her carrier and we slid through the veins of Brooklyn into Manhattan and into Brooklyn again before arriving at the emergency vet, one-and-a-half hours later. Whenever I land in a new part of the city, it seems like I've stepped into another country, although the buildings still obviously belong to New York. So it was a little unsettling to find myself walking among a pack of young English guys, as if I had just come up on the other side of the Atlantic. They were "hooligans," and were busy destroying everything left to them on the sidewalk, including an old refrigerator and discarded furniture.

It was late when we were finished; I decided to take a cab. I stood on the sidewalk and watched the old man behind the wheel of the cab meant for me lurch forward and brake, forward, brake, as he approached me. I think he was wearing a captain's hat. "You got an animal?" he yelled out the window. "Yes," I answered, and held up the carrier. "No animals!" he barked. "I'll call someone else." We looked at each other while we waited for the someone else to show up. "Is that a cat?" he finally asked. "Yes, it is." "Okay, get in."

Just as he said the words, the cab he'd called pulled up in between us, and I got in that cab instead, relieved to find a young, friendly driver behind the wheel who didn't seem to be bothered by my cat. The windows were down, which I like, especially in the non-weather we've been having. "You want me to go fast?" he asked with a smile. "Sure, I guess." Moments later I was gripping the handle on the door with one hand and holding the carrier in place with the other, to keep it from falling to the floor as he sped toward other cars and then slammed on brakes. We sewed a tight seam down the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, dodging cars like tiny pieces of fabric rather than crushing tearing lethal metal. Eighty in a 45, I saw during a glance at the speedometer. The stretch past the Manhattan skyline seemed to take only a breath (a gasp?), and soon we were at my exit. He turned to me once again, tapped the clock, and said proudly, "Ten minutes."

Sunday, 20 July 2003

Friday, 18 July 2003

They know single details, such as what I like on my burrito, what kind of wine I like to buy, or what time I walk to the subway in the morning. I know some details, too: he moves to another part of the food assembly line at 3:00; he gets drunk at night and can't remember anything that isn't Polish; she lives in the apartment closest to the front door of my building and seems to (quietly) know everyone in the neighborhood. We are familiar with each other solely because we happen to live during the same decade, the same year, in the same city, the same neighborhood.

I don’t know his name, but there’s a guy who, almost every morning, stands in an open garage door on a street between my apartment and the subway. He’s a middle-aged black man, and though I can tell he isn’t especially old, he looks worn. His voice has a gravel quality to it, as if he needs to cough. “Good morning, sweetheart,” he likes to say. Sometimes he mixes it up with a comment about the weather or something equally impersonal, but he it’s always some form of hello, he always smiles, and he always dips his head in a deliberate nod as I pass by.

I don’t know his name, but he knows that I don’t yet love black beans, that I only like them. He’s a Hispanic guy, from Mexico, I think, and he makes quick veggie burritos. He stands behind the counter with a look of concentration that breaks for a second when he recognizes someone. “Veggie. To go. Not too many beans...?” he says for me. Sometimes he mentions the weather or something equally impersonal, something I never initiate, because I can see the long line of people behind me, waiting to get theirs. The man at the end of the line and I also have a little agreement; he knows to never give me a bag.

I don't know her name, but she knows which ways I can (and can't) bend my body, and that I should avoid yoga positions that are hard on my neck. She's a young and tiny bendable straw. Her voice is soft and calm, especially noticeable against the city sounds that drift up through the open window from the street below. She looks like she might be from India. Sometimes, after class, she'll ask me whether I enjoyed the lesson on that particular day (or something equally impersonal). It's strange, seeing her in street clothes, because for some reason I have trouble imagining her with a life outside of that room. What lifestyle do bendable straws lead, I wonder?

I don't know the name of the UPS man who packs his truck outside of my office building. Or the Middle Eastern man who sells me a banana each morning. Or the guy who works at the deli on my corner, who looks just like the abused deli worker in Amélie. Or the man who sells me cranberry muffins, who (deliberately?) holds onto them a little too long when he hands them to me, so that I have to pull them away.

If I stopped passing by these people, they might take notice, but they'd forget me soon enough, just as I would them.

Tuesday, 15 July 2003

Including the time that I was horizontal, wrapped in the comforter cover I use for a blanket and thinking about things I can't recall, I was at home for exactly sixteen hours this weekend, all because there were too many things worth doing and because I can't say no. I never learn to say no, because, looking back, I can't say I would have sacrificed any of the events for more sleep or some "alone time" or to have the dishes washed and the clothes on hangers. I do those things, of course, but not when they have any sort of competition. N tells me that a busy, sleepless lifestyle means I am going to die younger than I would otherwise. Sometimes I feel like telling her that there's something to be said for living more now, but I never do, because I'm not sure I'm right.

Speaking of living and the way one chooses to do it. Eric has been sending me email from Arusha, Tanzania, where he's spending the summer working for the UN, helping prosecute war criminals of Rwanda. Reading his writing makes me want to be exactly there, to help somehow, to escape the western bubble for a little while, and to appreciate new degrees of superficiality. (If he decides to put his stories online [there's a possibility], I'll be sure to mention it.)

Speaking of superficial (albeit entertaining) western culture. Look what I got in the mail yesterday.

Saturday, 12 July 2003

After a discussion with my Romanian friend the other day, I've decided that I know what's wrong with English and with European languages, respectively. The following can be used as guidelines the next time someone invents a new, improved language.

ENGLISH:

No plural "you." It's not clear how many people are being addressed, since "you" is both singular and plural. To make up for this, English-speakers have made up their own ugly versions of the plural "you," including but not limited to "you all," "y'all," "yous," and "you guys." I nominate that the plural "you" be "yie." (Pron. "YEE.")

No special word for "yes" when responding to a negative question. In English, if someone asked you, "You don't like my sideburns?" and you responded "yes," it's not really clear if you do like the sideburns or if you don't. The only way to avoid confusion is to answer in a complete sentence: "Yes, I do like your sideburns." Both German and French (and certainly others) have this feature. (In German the word is "doch," and in French it's "si.") I propose that the negative "yes" in English be "aye" (although that might throw off the Scottish and Irish, who sometimes currently use that word to mean a straightforward "yes").

No generic word for the third person singular (when referring to a person). I suppose you could argue that English has the word "one," but it sounds ridiculously stilted: "If someone wants to eat a hot dog, one should probably reconsider." The word "he" has been used liberally until relatively recently, which, of course, is imperfect, as is the more PC-version "he or she." People often insert the less clumsy word "they" in place of the "he or she," but when referring to a single person, the word "they" is incorrect. I'm suggesting that the new word be "zie," as in, "If someone wants to eat a hot dog, zie should probably reconsider." (Pron. "ZEE.")

EUROPEAN LANGUAGES:

Gender assigned to genderless objects. I will concede that having masculine and feminine forms of the word "friend," for example, might be useful. But assigning gender to, say, "book" is only confusing and strange. The European languages aren't even consistent in how they assign gender; for example, "moon" is feminine in French and masculine in German. Of course, inconsistencies are bound to happen, since inanimate objects don't have an inherent gender. Therefore, I propose that genderless objects remain that way.

The formal "you." Europeans sometimes say that they like having the formal "you," because then it's possible show respect or familiarity. But if there is no formal "you," then there is no informal "you"; addressing your professor by the tense you use for your best friend is not impolite. And if your professor becomes your best friend, there's no socially awkward switch to make between the "you"s. (Europeans also sometimes admit that they don't always know how to refer to borderline people.) Besides, there are other ways to show (dis)respect. Therefore, I vote that there be no distinction between the formal and informal "you."

That's all I can think of.



An article.

Thursday, 10 July 2003



I stood at the base of the stage in the stiff heat, crammed against the other sweaty, impatient people. The opening band had left the stage for perhaps 45 minutes before The Fall took their place; it took another 5 minutes before Mark E. Smith swaggered on stage to join his backing band. (Was that a swagger or a stumble?)

He clung to the microphone and blared some unintelligible words into it, in a voice I immediately recognized as The Fall, the voice that is their one distinct characteristic. (Were those words, or was that a moan?)

He got frustrated with the mic stand and threw it to the ground, got tangled in the wires, and then barely missed tripping over the stand repeatedly, in an uncoordinated sort of dance. The muscles in his aged face seemed unnaturally relaxed, making it hard for him to use his mouth to form recognizable sounds. (He is definitely on something.)

He tried to pick up the mic stand and make sense of the folded legs at its base, which had rearranged themselves so that they were all poking in the same direction (rather than spread out like the foot of a hawk). He concentrated on it, tried to correct it, and threw it down again, before he resumed singing.

Two or three songs into the set, he stumbled off-stage again. The band continued to play, looking around at each other, carefully compensating for his erratic behavior. They seemed calm and responsible and ready; they were like parents, though considerably younger than him.

A minute later, he was back on stage, sloppily licking his fingers. He would go off the stage and on again at least three more times during the set, once dragging his two guitarists with him, who were, at the time, wearing their guitars which were attached to amps. He just grabbed them and pulled them along, as they fumbled to disconnect their umbilical chords.

He wound his band members up in wires without noticing. During the set, he: squatted beside the drum kit with his back to the audience, rifling through papers and reading the words to his songs, seemingly unaware that there was a sold-out venue behind him. Threw another mike stand, this time at the back wall. Swayed above me at the edge of the stage, looming like a tree just before it falls. Shoved a lyric sheet in the hand of his new keyboardist, who (apparently) hadn't expected to sing. Kept stuffing his hands down the back of his pants in an ungraceful effort to tuck in his mis-buttoned shirt. Took over his bandmates' microphones after losing his own, eventually handing one of the mics to an audience member who passed it around. (It came my way but I declined.)

It wouldn't have really surprised me had he tripped, fallen on the audience, or even died. It made me wonder what it would be like if he had died. It made me think about him, and about people, rather than about the music.

My friend Sean tells me that at the last show he went to, Mark E. Smith was angry, and had thrown a microphone at the head of the (former) keyboard player. The keyboard player, Sean tells me, was bleeding from his head, but continued to play the rest of the show as if nothing had happened.

Monday, 07 July 2003

Out of five possible scenarios, it was the third best, which I immediately recognized and was grateful for. The best scenario, of course, would be that no mice would bother coming into my apartment at all. The second would be that they visit and leave again without my noticing; the third, that if one comes to stay, it is small and fully dead by the time I see it; the fourth, that it is alive and healthy and I must devise a way to capture it and release it into the "wild." And the worst scenario, that the mouse is injured, and it is up to me to humanely kill it.

I didn't see it for at least half an hour after I came home from work. I saw that the rug was rumpled, and I'd just assumed that my cat had run the length of my apartment and slid into the rug, as she does in rare playful moments. Somehow during that initial thirty minutes I didn't step on it, though it was in the middle of the room, and I'd passed by it several times. I'm so glad I didn't step on it.

A few months ago I'd noticed my cat's habit of running to the baseboard in the living room to a point just under the window, where she stares fixedly and sometimes even paws at the empty wall. It wasn't until about a month ago that I began hearing noises as well—scratches and quick footsteps and small knocking sounds. Finally, last night, came the first distinct squeal. I examined the hole in the floor that's jaggedly cut around the radiator pipe and wondered whether one could squeeze through. Should I set a live trap? Tape up the hole? Stuff something in it? Drop sunflower seeds into it to fatten the mouse up so it can't emerge?

I did nothing, and today I was rewarded with a corpse. A corpse that had tiny teeth, claws bent forward like little hooks, paper ears, faint whiskers, and gray-brown fur. Its eyes were closed. It wasn't bloody, and it looked like it ought to be okay, but the mysterious element that makes it run and yell and eat and breathe had vacated its body, trading places with the mysterious element that makes it decompose.

After taking some pictures of it, I picked it up with a paper towel and we climbed out onto the fire escape. It weighed nothing; I could barely feel it there. I carefully flung it toward the dirt a few feet away and several feet down, so that could happily melt into the earth, but it's light little body didn't make it that far, and fell instead two floors down to the concrete alley around my building, producing a quiet thud when it landed. It bothered me that I hadn't "buried" it as planned, so I decided to retrieve it and try again. But as soon as I stepped into the hallway, another mouse scurried down the stairs in front of me (exactly the second mouse I've seen in my building), and I let it go.

Sunday, 06 July 2003



Hello. I put up some pictures (taken this past fall and winter) from various public gatherings in New York. I put them here.

Saturday, 05 July 2003

I've discovered something disturbing about the green face mask that I think to swirl on my skin once every three months or so: it is a crystal ball. I apply it and forget about it (unless I accidently touch it or turn the phone green) and continue doing whatever it is I do in my apartment until my Halloween face dries. Just before I wash it off, I can't help noticing the places where it cracked, the predetermined lines in my face that are currently being carved by a combination of repeated facial expressions and time, not unlike the persistent chiseling of the Grand Canyon by the Colorado River.

I can't see the lines very well without the green mask, which makes them easy to ignore. I don't look old (I'm often accused of being in my early twenties), and I certainly don't feel old. I'm not ready to be in the target audience for anti-aging and wrinkle creams. I don't want to be jealous of those younger than me. I don't want to even think about it. Thanks, green face mask.



Last night I joined the rest of New York on top of one of the flat rooftops that collectively form the city, which stand at various elevations like a scrambled Q-Bert gameboard. I was on top of the Domino Sugar plant, just at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, at the edge of the East River. There were bands and grilled food. There was a nice view of the city, of the low, orange sun, of the sliver of moon, and of people, many of whom were wearing distinctly 80s fashion, such as hot pink lace socks and high heels, cheerleader skirts, and asymmetrical haircuts.

It wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped; I'm wondering if it's because of the pressure of the holiday. (New Year's Eve parties are often some of the worst, right?)

There were fireworks, of course. I don't dislike fireworks, but I've never really understood their appeal. They seem wasteful and basic, and they remind me of noisy toys strapped across a baby's crib, and of the baby's reaction, the way it gurgles and oohs and aahs at the colors and the noise. Certainly some fireworks are pretty.

I chose not to think much about my mixed feelings about my country, about the things I like, the things I don't. It was just a party on a roof, among other roof parties, which all happened to have fireworks.

Wednesday, 02 July 2003

Even though you know that famous people are essentially normal people, it doesn't make it any less strange to be standing next to Winona Ryder at a club. It's hard not to look at her, because your brain is asking you to look, asking you to get confirmation that she's really 3-dimensional, breathing, and human. You nonchalantly glance her way and notice the back of her bra poking out of her dress. You notice that she's wearing flip-flops. You see her face, and, yes, it's the face that you know, the face that you both expected and didn't expect to see. You connect her with things that you've read and seen, bits of information that your brain has independently decided to store. You leave her alone, as does everyone else, except, of course, with their eyes.



A string of days with unusually nice weather, which inevitably means that whatever it is I'm doing with it, I feel like I should be doing more, packing it away like the last meal before a fast. The other night, I caught a glimpse of the pink, scalloped sky from my position on my fire escape; it was wedged squarely between the tops of two taller buildings and was starting to descend.

Thinking that I must do more with that sky, I jumped on my bike and pedaled toward the "shore," the edge of the East River, the unlucky mobster graveyard. There's a park there (if you can call it that) that I discovered only a couple weeks ago. It's an old ferry port, though all that's remaining are an old brick chimney, a stone path, and something that resembles an expired dock. The park takes up about 30 feet of shore and is wedged between a factory and some other equally unfriendly looking building. Along the shore are charcoal gray rocks where you can sit while the waves lap at you. People bring beer from home (no one's monitoring), strollers, friends, and bikes, and scatter themselves among the rocks and benches and litter to watch the sun set behind the Manhattan skyline.

That night the sky was wispy and colorful, the air cool and breezy, and there was a blimp encroaching on the Empire State Building, which was glowing in the sky and on the water. More people came than usual, but I had a large, comfortably contoured rock to myself. Granted, there was the stench of manure as I was coasting toward the water (it faded once I arrived), I could hear a whinging car alarm in the distance, and the factory to my right produced a constant sigh like that of an oversized air conditioner. But. Half-amused, I was rather easily able to dismiss the drawbacks.

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