Sidewinder

Beyond the Pallor

2006-07-06T03:31:45Z

At the time, I didn't get the irony, but I actually cancelled a dermatologist appointment to do the "I'm going to wait in the really long line" for free tickets to belle and sebastian. It was sunny and there were about four helicopters circling this filet of park slope. While it turned out that a construction mishap had occurred nearby, I imagined these headlines:
#1 "Pasty girl reads Chomsky at 10:30 in the morning! Pics inside!!"
#2 "Worlds oldest hipster at 49 wears the same bowling shirt for 15 years!"
#3 "Bronx nanny doesn't know why she's even here!"

So, that's what I did and I went to the concert yesterday.
It was good, I felt old, it rained a little, and I wondered at the affliction that is whiteness.

Yinz shoont be doin at

2006-06-29T05:19:50Z

A first installation of my Yinzer phrasebook:

"Where can I buy some beer?" = "Whuur da yinz get some ihhrns?"

"My mother lives up the street from me." = "My mum's haas, it's up eehr."

"That's unbelievable!" = "Get ahhht!"

"I disagree with you." = "Yinzisall jagoffs."

Because I am a Cat Blog

2006-03-06T22:28:49Z

I will blog about my cat, Bella. She seems to think an afghan blanket is her mom. She will tread and tread and tread it, purring and looking at me as if to say "see, I have mom's attention." Should I tell her it's not her mom?

In the vein of things I've experienced as a gal who lived in what I now realize really was a small town, I went to Chinatown to find bonito flakes for above mentioned cat. As I negotiated the narrow sidewalks and crowds around vegetable and fish stands, I found myself almost falling forward on my face when a knot of tourists would just decide to stop walking. This happened not a few times. At one point, as I found myself trying not to dump a bag of shrimp on to someone's neatly dockered legs, I heard the man in front of me say in my native dialect, yinzer, "Hey, Danny likes turtles!".

"Get ahht a my way, jagoff!", I thought.

Chek It!: Mad Props from NPR or Brooklyn, Represent!!!

2006-02-20T23:09:45Z

When one has too much time on your hands, as I did a few weeks ago, unemployed and overwrought in NYC, one might write a letter to a radio show. Robert Siegel from NPR read a letter I had written to "All Things Considered" on the air. You're welcome to give it a listen. Peace Out.

The Cupcake Trenches

2006-02-15T23:00:34Z

There, I said it. I work with cupcakes, and not the kind that wear skirts.

Yesterday, at the cupcake mines, I iced, boxed, decorated, and hand-delivered thousands of cupcakes. While we closed the store for an hour, people were milling about in front of the door and windows. I was reminded of the movie "28 days" and the scene in which the protagonist has decided that the only place that could save him would be his neighborhood pub. There were people out there with crazy eyes and all they wanted were our cupcakes. They were people with jobs, families, husbands and wives, large sweatered dogs, even, but, for that space of an hour, nothing could be as important as what we had behind the glass, in the cases, in our very hands. I tried to stay back from the windows and not make eye contact with anyone. I wouldn't have made eye contact with Brad Pitt if he were there. And he definitely wouldn't have gotten a cupcake.

As I left for home, box of cake in hand for my husband, the line was beginning to curl out the door and around the block. I felt smug knowing that my piece of was one of only 15 available such pieces in the entire island of Manhattan.

Actual Conversation

2006-02-12T03:43:50Z

I know I shouldn't blog about my work and I won't tell you what my work actually is except that it isn't in Pittsburgh anymore and I stand up a lot and get my arms dirty. That said, I will willfully recount an actual phone conversation in the 212 area code with noun and place substitutions.

Me: Hi!

Caller: Hi! I'm calling from St. Louis and I was wondering if I could order a delivery?

Me: In new york?

Caller: Yes. Can you deliver three petit fours to the east village today?

Me: Well, we're not taking any more delivery orders today, and there's a $30 delivery charge.

Caller: But it's my friend's birthday and it's like three blocks away!

Me: I'm sorry, but we're already booked for deliveries.

Caller: But it's IN the east village!

Me: Do you have someone who could pick them up for you?

Caller: That would spoil the surprise and I'm in St. Louis!

Me: I'm sorry, we really can't.

Caller: Please!? You're so close!

Me: Nope.

[click]

Weebl and Bella

2006-01-30T04:15:29Z

2006-01-27T20:09:26Z

2006-01-26T14:16:50Z

Do Not Be Fooled By Attractive Decor

2006-01-26T14:10:29Z

That's all I really wanted to say.

Watch Me Move to NYC

2006-01-24T22:54:18Z

Remember conversion class? Remember how much fun it was to read about? Well, things are only going to get better as I go through a conversion of an entirely different sort. Today I almost rode my 1970's era bianchi women's bicycle onto the BQE! Yes, I made a turn that looked okay, perhaps a little bit dodgy, until I noticed the big white arrow and a sign that said "express" instead of "local". Don't worry, I didn't do it. I rode up on to the sidewalk like a big dork and walked a few blocks back to a place that looked like it could be Carroll Gardens.

But it WASN'T Carroll Gardens! It was RED HOOK! Red Hook and seagulls and desolate parks with the biggest housing project complex I've ever seen. Imagine no cars and a lot of bored-looking folks hanging around a Stalinesque landscape. That's where I was and I did my best to look tough. I think that involves seeming kind of blank and uninterested. I'm probably wrong. In any case, I called my husband at work in Manhattan and asked him to pull up a map on his computer. It was then that I thought that when you're not sure, you should just move fast and hope you're right.

I'm home now. I had a chai in Park Slope and read a parental advice column in the local paper. Lots of folks there. One guy looked at me and seemed to emanate sympathy, as though I looked so messed up that I might as well have yelled out to anyone who would listen: "I spent two and a half hours riding my bike through the sketchiest parts of Brooklyn!". Of course I'm imagining this. But I'm home now--with a cat.

This is a photo I took in France during the Tour

2006-01-23T19:33:05Z

2006-01-23T19:26:33Z

Gimme a Kiss, Cupcake

2006-01-15T23:22:30Z

My favorite thing (so far) about NYC is that I see cupcakes everywhere. Sometimes I see really big ones and sometimes I see super tiny wee ones as samples at the supermarket. Each time I see one it is as though my midwestern past and ancestry is winking at me, as if to say "Get it? We don't live in Ohio anymore but that doesn't mean we can't eat CUPCAKES!".

Would You Do This?

2006-01-11T14:47:23Z

Would you buy a scratching post (for your cats) at a manhattan cat boutique that trades in tonkinese and other exotic cat breeds and take three trains (the 4, the D, and the 2) home? Would you sweat and sweat and sweat and feel like the stupidest person alive? Would you sling one end of it (the smaller end, not the base that the cats can balance on) over one side of your hips and the wider end on the other side and end up taking far more than your allotted seat share just because you love your cats THAT MUCH? Well, I would.