Mihow » brooklyn

HOLY SHIT. Pictures.

mihow — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 01:32:45 +0000

This is my neighborhood. I took a walk earlier to see how things were going before Irene hits. (Captions above each picture.)

The new fish shack near the water. Haven’t been yet.

Bagelsmith. They stay open ALL THE TIME. Seriously, it could be the end of days and you could buy a a bagel there.

The Future Perfect with a perfectly funny window treatment.

East River State Park. Mandatory evacuation for this area (about four blocks from us) It was basically a ghost town.

Blackbird Parlour. Boarded up but bumping inside.

Oy Vey indeed. (I have no idea what this bar is called or how it’s still open at all to be honest.)

NYC Muffins. Boarded up but ready for business. As you can see, everyone is in a panic.

Teddy’s Bar and Grill. AKA place where scenes from Boardwalk Empire was shot. (Among other shows/movies.)

Oh, and this is my baby. Arrr!

The Comfort Of Strangers. (I’m Her Ghost.)

mihow — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:36:14 +0000

We live on the fifth floor of an apartment building that overlooks several houses and backyards. We chose the fifth floor because of the view. And over the years we’ve gotten to know the people who make up that view even though they have no idea who we are. I take a great deal of comfort in this view and the people who live here. It’s like a rerun, an old movie, a longtime friend.

There was the naked couple who ran through the first snowfall of 2009. They moved out two weeks after we moved in and I still kind of miss them.

There was this:

There’s the girl who has so much sex and with several different guys, we have often wondered if she’s a professional. There’s the family of five, the lawyer, the guy without an air-conditioner who leaves his door wide open at night. He has a massive back porch, perched on the roof of four-story walkup, but never uses it. I covet his porch. But I bet he covets my central air.

There’s the gay couple, the couple who fosters dogs, the NYU student with the pet rabbit. There’s the little hispanic girl who rides her tricycle in the afternoon, the one my son loves to watch from our bedroom window.

There’s the polish couple who smoke together in the kitchen, then disappear for weeks on end. There’s the old Brooklyn lady who hangs out her window on hot days wearing a muumu. She watches people who are unaware, as we watch her.

There’s the doctor with the Flickr doormat, the couple next door to him who has a fat cat. They all share a backyard. Sometimes they combine parties. The yard is often illuminated with white lights.

There’s the guy on the third floor above them who BBQs on his fire escape almost every night and during every season. He sips Coke, hangs out his window and flips different cuts of meat.

I love these people. I love watching them come and go and work and play. I love their pets, their kids, their oddities. It’s the living equivalent to a blog—I feel like I know them, they haven’t the slightest clue as to who I am or that I’m even out here at all.

But there is one person within this view I cherish more than everyone else. She brings me the most comfort. And I want to explain why, put it in writing, I don’t want to forget her.

For the first several weeks of Elliot’s life I slept on the sofa. I wanted Toby Joe to get as much sleep as possible since he had to return to work right away. Elliot has always been a pretty good sleeper, but he does get up at night to eat. One of the feedings that remains relatively constant, and has since the day he was born, is the 4:30 AM feeding.

In the beginning, I had a case of the baby blues. And while they weren’t nearly as bad as what I experienced with Em, they were there. And that 4:30 AM hour was a particularly lonely one. It was February. The sun wouldn’t be up for hours, and I was alone with a baby who didn’t yet know I exist. The apartment was dead quiet, even the cats were in other rooms snoozing alongside other warm bodies. So I would nurse Elliot and look out over our view in search of some life, something, anything. There was a streetlight on Bedford Avenue, the occasional taxi cab, a hall light or two gleaming up through a domed skylight, otherwise, everything was dark.

This city really does sleep, contrary to what they say.

I would lie awake, staring outside, watching and waiting. And all my little TV screens, all my friends were sound asleep. All but one.

She wakes up every morning at 4:30 AM. I haven’t any idea what she does for a living and I can’t really see her. I can’t really make out her features, or how old she is. I know it’s a woman and I know she wakes up every weekday morning at 4:30 AM to go somewhere. I know it takes her a long time to get ready.

Besides work, she doesn’t get out much. She’s often home on Friday and Saturday nights all by herself. Her TV flickers and glows in the evening and usually goes dark around 11 PM. Sometimes she falls asleep with it on and it remains on all night. I guess her TV is her company. I get that. I’d have done the same if we had a bigger place.

For the first few months of Elliot’s life, when I was alone at 4:30 AM and feeling a little blue, I would sit with her. I wouldn’t bug her. I couldn’t. And she didn’t know I was there. But I would sit with her. I’d send her messages like: What is your name? Why are you always alone? Are you lonely? Where do you work? Why does it take you so long to get ready? Do you take vacations? Who are you?

What is your name?

Are you lonely?

Elliot is nearing 6 months of age. I’m floored by this. Six months! Time really does fly especially when the punctuation involved is generally the same. And my friend? She’s still out there.

I don’t get to visit her much anymore. But I do still sit down with her from time to time and I do still send her messages. She still takes forever to get ready. And I still feel comforted by her light, her ritual. And, yeah, her.

This woman has no clue who I am, that I know anything about her existence at all. But I really needed her company. My only hope is that she finds some of her own.

My Costanza Moment

mihow — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:11:11 +0000

A few months ago, I volunteered to be “Class Parent” at Em’s school. I figured, I’m not busy enough making candy, going to culinary school, and being a pregnant mother. I needed to add something to my schedule. But what?

CLASS PARENT!

So, I volunteered for the job. And for the most part things have been going just fine. (Plus, I get to pawn off my homework onto the kids and make it seem like I’m the BEST CLASS PARENT EVER! Because, what kid doesn’t like cake, cookies and croissants?)

Then the holidays rolled around, and I got the bright idea of arranging a group gift for all three of Em’s teachers. We (Toby and I) figured 20 bucks from each family meant each teacher would get 100 bucks. We thought 20 was a decent amount—not too much, not too little. I sent out an email saying, “Let’s do this! I’ll buy three cards and have an envelop waiting in Em’s cubby at school. Sign and drop off cash. Interested?”

What teacher doesn’t like cash?

The first response I received was positive. Something along the lines of: “YES!! Sounds great. That’s one less thing I have to deal with!”

Awesome.

Then the second one came in. It read: “This is very nice of you! But, listen, [insert daughter's name] has been going to this school for 3 years, and while group gifts are nice and all, this year I’m opting out. One teacher likes my daughter’s lunchbox, so we’re going to give her that. The other teachers are getting the equivalent in cash. But thanks for the offer! We’re out.”

So yeah. The second response? Not so good.

“Is it too little?” I asked Toby. “Maybe it’s too little. Maybe I should have suggested 30? Or 50! What if they all think this is stupid?”

He told me to stop being an idiot and wait to hear from the others. He then said something like, “There’s always gonna be one person who fucks shit up.” And I calmed down a bit.

By the following day, every other family had responded and everyone thought it was a fine idea. I decided that we would cover that family’s 20 bucks. It’s worth it, after all. We love Em’s teachers.

So yesterday, I gathered everything together, got some C notes and began to finish off the card. That’s when I had a Constanza moment.

Wait! The teachers won’t necessarily know that there was one family that opted out of the group gift. They won’t know I covered her non-conforming ass. OMG, I need to let them know this!

“From everyone but So-and-So’s mom. Because So-and-So’s mom is kind of bitchy and had to go and fuck shit up.”

How’s that for holiday spirit?

WORST CLASS PARENT EVER.

NaBloPoMo: Four Little Birds.

mihow — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:39:56 +0000

Toby Joe and I have been stressing out about our living situation again. We live in a tiny apartment. We pay a lot of money for a tiny apartment. And the rent is set to go up 200 bucks in December. Between that, the size of the place, and the fact that we’re about to become a family of 4, we’ve been stressing out a bit.

Where do we go? What do we do? Do we pay the extra amount until we figure it out? Do we move? Do I want to move while 8 months pregnant in the dead of winter when our lease is up? Not really. We’re just not sure what to do. We feel stuck and we’ve been stressing out about it.

Em is in school three days a week. He loves it. He loves it so much he wants to go every day and tells me this often.

The school is in our neighborhood. We can walk there in under five minutes. It’s one of the main reasons we feel tied to this area. We are very, very happy with the school. So is our son.

A couple of weeks ago, while I was there picking him up, he came out singing. I didn’t pay it much mind at first because Em is almost always singing something. But it seemed oddly familiar.

“Em, are you singing Bob Marley?” I asked and I hummed a little bit of what I thought it was.

“No. It’s just a song we sing.”

“Oh, OK.”

He continued singing it all afternoon. At the playground, he sang it loudly. It sounded an awful lot like Bob Marley. Had he been singing Bob Marley in school?

When we got home that evening, I decided to dig out some Bob Marley. Only I guess one doesn’t really “dig out” music all that much anymore. No. Instead one fires up the computer that hosts one’s thousands of MP3s. One turns on the Playstation 3 (or whatever), the receiver and the TV. (Wait! What was that? I just heard something from inside the closet! Why, it’s the sound of my vinyl collection sighing! And, OMG! What was that?! The dust made my one-of-a-kind, pink-pressed vinyl of Sonic Youth’s Evol cough! And that’s the sound of me sighing.)

I flipped through the list of MP3s and found “Three Little Birds”.

“Emdash, is the the song you’ve been singing?”

I could tell immediately from the look on his face that it was. He began to sing and dance around the room. I sang and danced along with him. It was impossible not to. Our apartment roared with noise and laughter.

Later, Toby Joe came home from work and I showed him what happens whenever you play “Three Little Birds” in front of Emory. Em immediately began to sing and dance again. Toby Joe started to as well. And just like that, the whole family began to move around our small, overpriced apartment.

“Singing:

Don’t worry ’bout a thing,

‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.”

This is my message to you: The space we call home may be very small. And it’s most definitely overpriced. We may be seen as a little stupid for putting up with it all, but the sound and joy that fills it up is monstrous.

And it’s just gonna get bigger.

And you can’t put a price on that.

Halloween 2010.

mihow — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:06:45 +0000

Sunset Tonight.

mihow — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:14:11 +0000

Tonight’s sunset blew my mind. It wasn’t there and then BAM! It was.

You see, I had a terrible day. This morning I nearly passed out twice a block from home and Em was with me. I had to sit down on the sidewalk and tuck my head between my knees. Twice. And then it took every last bit of effort to make it back home. I’m not sure what Em would have done had I actually passed out. Would he have panicked? Would he have run off? We were on a busy street after all, cars zoom past at intense speeds even though they’re not supposed to. It was early and there were a lot of people out, my hope is that someone would have stopped to help us/him.

Anyway, it was a difficult day.

I also felt bouts of rage at certain points. I found I was ready to pounce on anyone who did something even remotely uncool. The city and its people really got to me today, more so than ever before.

I’m not proud of my role in today.

But then we returned home and I was greeted by this sunset and it took me back and made everything seem OK again.

So here’s to hoping tomorrow is better—that the sunset was a promise of some sort. :]

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live

mihow — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:10:29 +0000

Y’all, it’s just me and the kid these days, so time has been limited, hence the lack of updates. I’ll be back shortly. (He starts school soon!) In the meantime, I just had to share this amazing article with you.

It’s hysterical on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin. Enjoy!

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live

NEW YORK—At 4:32 p.m. Tuesday, every single resident of New York City decided to evacuate the famed metropolis, having realizing it was nothing more than a massive, trash-ridden hellhole that slowly sucks the life out of every one of its inhabitants.

The iPhone 4 and Its Camera

mihow — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:10:48 +0000

Sunday is our long day at pastry school. We go from 9 AM until 5 PM but we do get a 20-minute break. Whenever lunch rolls around I pull out my iPhone to check email, Twitter and the like. Well, this Sunday it wasn’t working. The little ATT icon showed up but the 3G icon did not. I figured the entire network was down.

I looked around the room and saw another woman was using an iPhone. I asked her if she had service. Her’s worked. I restarted. When it started up again, nothing worked. The ATT icon was gone as well as the 3G icon. It read “No Service”. I no longer had a working phone.

Toby’s iPhone died several weeks ago. So he’s been living without one since. And that’s been hard for us especially since we don’t have a landline and haven’t since November 2001. For weeks we’ve been using the DM service through Twitter to communicate. (Why not email, I’ve no idea. But it did keep our correspondence to the bare minimum and there’s something to be said for that sometimes. You get to the point when dealing with 140 characters!) So he needed a new phone. He went back and forth on what to get, whether or not he wanted to switch away from ATT altogether or sign another contract. (Toby hates contracts more so than most people.) But in the end, given his job an all, he decided to stick with Apple.

I didn’t really need a new phone. Mine works, albeit rather shoddily since Emory gave it a sponge bath. But it does work.

But here’s the skinny: I need a new camera for school. We were told on day one that we’d need a small, but decent digital camera to document our work. At the end of our time there, we’ll need a photographic resume of everything we bake. I don’t have a small digital camera. My camera is a massive Nikon D200. And since we already have so much to carry with us to and from class (knives, a bag of pastry supplies, towels, a scale) there’s no way I could include that in my repertoire. So, I would need a new camera at some point. And I told Toby this in passing one day. It was such a non-comment, I kind of forgot mentioning it all.

Well, Toby apparently had an idea and his idea traveled uptown and entered my head right as I restarted my iPhone for a second time: my husband was, right at that very moment, buying me an iPhone 4 as well.

(Thank you, lovely husband!)

You’ve probably read all about the controversy surrounding the iPhone 4. And I’m sure by now you’ve heard that Consumer Reports basically said DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE. And they have to; it does have a problem. And Steve Jobs was less than accommodating when it came to responding to the backlash. He went from suggesting the user not hold the phone that way, to offering up free bumpers to fix the problem. Consumer Reports suggested duct tape. Another user suggested buying an Ove Glove. All those perpetually drinking the Apple Kool-Aid responded to the naysayers and critics by holding their hands over their ears and repeating, “LA LA LA LA! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” The whole mess was quite entertaining for those of us in the middle.

Straight up: I don’t use the phone part of the phone very much. If I were a heavy caller, I’d probably have taken my iPhone back. But I use it to browse the Internet, check email and Twitter, as well as text people. I’ve used the actual phone application maybe four times since Sunday and thus far I haven’t had any dropped calls. I know it will happen and probably at the most inopportune time, but for now I’m really pleased with my new phone.

A FEW THINGS TO NOTE:

The Screen

The screen is amazing. It’s just beautiful. Whenever the very first round of buyers got a hold of it and my Twitter stream lit up with tweets about the screen, I rolled my eyes. But you know something? They’re all right! It’s really wonderful. So much better than what I had been using.

The Speed and Ease

The applications run so much faster and smoother. I use the New York Times application every single night. I fall asleep reading. At least three times a week for over a year I have complained to Toby Joe about how buggy that application is. It takes forever to load, if it loads at all. It crashes. It crashes the phone itself. It spins and spins and often times you can’t scroll through the article. With any other application, I’d have trashed it on day one. But I like reading the NYT, so I put up with it.

That’s all in the past. It’s fixed. It runs supremely fast. Other applications run better as well. It’s just faster all across the board. No joke. And noticeable for even us laymen.

The Camera

But, guys, the camera. Holy shit! The camera. The camera is outstanding. It will definitely do the trick for class. And I’ve been inspired again! A phone has inspired me to take pictures again. I just want to snap everything I see, which is totally mihow.com circa 2002. For those who haven’t been around since the beginning, that’s how this blog began. I took pictures of my everyday life. I snapped hundreds a day—to an from work, during lunch—all over NYC and beyond. I loved doing that and often miss it. It was super easy to do because I had a Canon ELPH back then. I shot from the hip and most of the time my subjects didn’t even notice me.

Well, this phone has me doing that once again. I’ve taken dozens of shots in the past few days. I just can’t get enough of it. And with the added application Hipstamatic forget about it. I’m a photo-taking machine.

So, yeah. I’m really happy with this phone. No regrets at all. We’ll see how I feel with the first dropped call, but I super pleased with the phone’s camera ability. I haven’t even used the video yet!

That’ll be a post for next week.

For now, I’d love to share some more of the pictures I’ve taken in the last couple of days. I hope you enjoy!

I’m so enjoying this, my friends. And you know there’s going to be a whole lot more of this. It’s like I’ve met NYC and 2001 all over again.

On Soccer Camp.

mihow — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:16:31 +0000

I am constantly learning new things as a mother. For example, last week I learned that getting a 3-year-old to listen to a soccer coach for three hours in 90+ degree heat is impossible. We tried. I had high expectations, but it went just about as smoothly as Mom and Baby Yoga. The good news is we didn’t end each class lying on our sides, breastfeeding our kids. The thought of doing that in direct sunlight in 95 degree heat makes me want to puke.

He’s not ready to pay attention for that long. I was silly to think otherwise. Motherhood has been one learning experience after another. For example, I’ve learned that the more you spend on an activity, the less your kid’s gonna get out of it. And the more excited you are by said activity, the less excited they’re gonna be. So, should we ever have a second child, that kid’s gonna be ignored until age five or so, particularly where extracurricular activities are concerned. Sorry, kid. It’s nothing but flour and water for you. Maybe some paint. And we might take you to the playground.

(Wait, I’m a second child. This explains a lot.)

But all was not entirely lost. We had two great days. He followed instructions, had fun and we stayed the entire time. I won’t talk about the other three days; the days I had to take him home kicking, screaming and spitting. (Picture Linda Blair from “The Exorcist” only without the company of The Devil. Because, seriously, had The Devil been there I’d have asked him or her for help.)

I won’t mention those days. I won’t start talking about how age 3 is ten bloody times worse than age 2. If I start talking about all the timeouts we’ve had lately, or the fact that it took him 1 hour, 40 minutes to eat pancakes this morning all the while he sat screaming at the table, I’ll never stop talking. Plus, I’ll develop a stutter and start drinking. And I haven’t had a drink in a very long time.

I will say this: the closer we get to three, the rougher our days become. I’ll leave it at that for now. But soon I’m gonna need some companionship, a gentle shoulder to cry on. Because this has been hard, really hard. It’s kind of like breaking in a wild horse, not that I’ve ever done that. But if I ever apply for a job as cowboy, I’m putting this on my resume.

I’m convinced this is why siblings aren’t often 4 years apart. Who in their right mind looks at their husband after a day spent with a three-year-old and says, “Hi, honey! Let’s have unprotective sex so we can have ANOTHER ONE!”?

Anyway… SOCCER CAMP! The last class went off without a hitch. And I managed to get this short video of my boy following instructions, giving high fives and receiving his final award.

So, we won’t be back next week. But we will be back next year. Because the gentlemen from United Soccer Academy who were in charge of these 3-year-olds were amazing. I’ve never met two Brits more deserving of an award for patience. In fact, everyone pooled together a hefty tip at the end of the week to show how sorry we felt for them. A pity tip! A pitippy!

We’ll be back next year—you know, after three is over.

(Three does end, right?)

Now I Know Why They Call It A “Stress” Fracture.

mihow — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:30:39 +0000

I run about 20 miles a week—sometimes more, sometimes less. But that’s been my average for a while. I love running. I run to avoid depression. I don’t take pills. (Not that I’m against doing so!). It’s just that running works for me. I run because it gets me high and makes me unbelievably happy. I can’t imagine not being able to do it.

A few weeks ago, I started to notice some pain at the top and center of my left foot. I continued to run, of course, because, if you know anything about runners, we tend to be a stubborn bunch. It was fine. I mean, it hurt, but I ran through it. I ran and iced and elevated and then last Sunday I hit Central Park for a NYRR 4-miler and finished in great time (for me). I was so proud of myself. I came home and immediately signed up for another race. Sure, I could barely walk at the time, but I figured I had time to get back to normal again. I guessed it was just a bruise but I made a podiatry appointment just to be safe. This time I even stayed off of it. I used the elliptical machine and lifting weights instead.

Today my doctor ran a series of x-rays and I have a stress fracture—a bloody painful one. When she touched the magic spot, I nearly puked. So, she put me in a soft cast and gave me a boot. She told me to stay off of it. (Yeah, right! Have you met my son?) But, worst of all? I can’t run for 8 weeks. I can’t even use the elliptical machine.

Of course, with every fairly uncool event that takes place in my life anymore, there’s always an element of humor involved.

You see, I live in Brooklyn and I have a car, so a depressingly large chunk of my daily life is spent abiding by the alternate side parking calendar. Naturally, I was concerned.

“Can I drive?” I asked her.

“Yeah, because you don’t need that foot to drive.” She joked.

“I drive a stick.”

“Oh gosh. Well, the more you use it, the longer it will take to heal. So, I would suggest you not drive.”

And you know what my first thought was? I wondered if she might write a doctor’s note so I could get out of having to move the car from one side of the street to the other, as if the NYC government was going to take pity on the fact that I am wearing a cast. You could be a headless person without hands and the New York State Department of Transportation would continue to ticket your car. Hell, you could be giving birth and they’d give you a ticket and make you pay it. (YES, THAT HAPPENED TO ME! The birth part, not the headless bit.)

The NYSDOT does not care about my left foot.

When I left the doctor, I couldn’t call Toby because I knew I would just cry into the phone, so I texted him instead. I told him what was going on. Here are those texts:

Me: Stress fracture. I look like a freak. Huge boot and soft cast. WTF have I done? Can’t run for 8 weeks.

Me: Can’t do much of anything. This is going to make me into a crazy person.

Him: Will take care of ya. CAN YOU MOVE THE CAR?!!?

The first thing I did when I got out of the subway was move the car.

But seriously, people: what I am going to do without my antidepressant?

NaBloPoMo: Techanic

mihow — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:40:54 +0000

Just your average day here in our living room. That’s an Apple laptop. Well, it was an Apple laptop. Now it’s scrap metal.

P.S. Don’t worry, dad. It’s not yours.

NaBloPoMo: My Fair Lady

mihow — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:24:12 +0000

If there’s a perfect season to visit New York City, it’s the fall. The sky is alive and vision feels crisper. The trees are raining with color. There’s a leafy crunch on the ground that’s not snow! I love this city in the fall.

There are also some pretty outstanding sunsets. I’m not sure why this is, but every year the fall brings with it a canvas of color. I only wish I could capture them better! Digital cameras just don’t do justice. (Or maybe it’s a user error. Yeah, probably that.)

That’s the view from our living room window. It’s pretty great, isn’t it? I mean, if you like city life. Believe me, there are many days where I’d rather have this view but this one is pretty great as well—at least for now.

I feel pretty lucky these days, Internet. And I just wanted to write that down.

NaBloPoMo: ING NYC Marathon

mihow — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:32:45 +0000

Today is the first day of National Blog Posting Month. What does that mean? That means I’m going to try and write every single day in the month of November. I tried to do this once before (right after Emory was born) and I completed all but one day. This year I’m shooting for all 30. Wish me luck.

Today also marks an amazing international event: The ING New York City Marathon. I get really emotional during large gatherings of people and the marathon is no exception. I weep during live sporting events, political speeches, protests, marathons–you name it. I love the marathon. Every year it’s the same, I stand near mile 12; I weep, cheer, scream and clap. By the end of the day my hands feel like runner’s feet. It’s a fantastic feeling.

This year we took Emory along with us. He loved it. He sat in his stroller and watched in awe, clapping a bit. Then it was nap time and it showed on his face—the sheer exhaustion of it all, like he ran it himself.

And now he asks if we’ll take him back outside to see the runners.

“Where the runners go, Mama?”

And we try to explain to him that the race is now over—the runners have all gone home—they are eating, sleeping, celebrating and that they’ll be back next year. And I see it in his eyes as he tries to process this information and I wonder if he’s thinking that the runners aren’t 40,000 individuals running in unison, but are instead a singular entity that exists in that exact form and returns once a year like a comet or a tide of hope and human integrity.

On Leaving New York.

mihow — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:43:42 +0000

Murray lovers: I promise to have some Murray stories and videos soon. It’s been a little crazy lately and I feel like I’ve been cutting corners with the Murray stories as of late. I will make it up to you soon. Promise.

There’s been so much going on over here and I am afraid I haven’t had much time to sit down and actually write about it. But I wanted to explain (to some degree) as to why that is.

For starters, we’re heading to Orlando on Friday on an all-night train and I’m in OH MY GOD THERE’S TOO MUCH TO DO mode. I’ve been in that mode for almost a week now. I’m that kind of traveler.

You’re probably wondering: A train? Why a train?! When we scheduled this trip back in January, I had the brilliant idea that a train would be more fun for a two-year-old over something more reasonable and normal like an airplane. However, I’m willing to admit now that I’m the one who prefers the train. Flying terrifies me. Couple my anxiety with flying and Em’s inability to sit still for longer than 15 minutes and you have a flight no one wants to be on. So, in order to avoid sitting near the 20-something guy feverishly Twittering about how the family one row over SELFISHLY brought their SCREAMING BRAT of a kid onto an AIRPLANE, I booked a train for our trip.

The good news is we have a “Family Bedroom”. The even better news is Toby Joe got a pretty huge discount because he had so many Amtrak points saved up. The not so good news? We’re not sure what the hell we’re going to do with Em for 16 hours. Needless to say, I’m putting an Amazon order in today to buy as many Barney, Elmo and Thomas videos I can get my hands on.

So, there’s all of that.

Lastly, we’re moving again soon. I can’t go into the details surrounding that just yet but will in a few weeks. Forgive me for coming off evasive and weird; it’s just that we’re not sure what those details are yet, so it’s hard to write about.

Because of the impending move, Emory and I walk around a lot. It’s fall and it’s lovely and the time I have left with my favorite city is coming to an end. I know I complain about this city a great deal, but I love it. I love it like an old friend, one I share a passionate relationship with. This neighborhood is paved with thousands of memories—good and bad. Leaving here is going to mean leaving behind a great deal of my youth. But it’s for the best. It’s for my son, who teaches me each and every day that he loves the dirt and the grass and running around outside just like I did when I was a kid. Don’t get me wrong: we do that here, but it’s not perfect, not that any place really is. The thing is, I sound like a crazy person whenever we’re on the playground. I spend far too much time running around behind him screaming, “NO! DON’T TOUCH THAT!” or “PUT THAT DOWN! IT’S POOP!” He must see me as a crazy person.

It’s like, “Hey, kid! Let’s go to the playground FOR KIDS where kids can have fun!” And he’s like, “YEAH! YAY! YEAH!” And we show up and I’m chasing him around screaming things like, “NO! That’s an empty bag of crack!” or “Don’t touch the used condom!!”

It’s a playground. He should feel safe and free on a playground. But that’s just not been the case here. And I kind of want him to hold on to his youth an innocence for as long as possible.

But I digress.

I have spent a great deal of my 20s and 30s here in Brooklyn. Thing is, it wasn’t until the miscarriage did I begin to prioritize things. Losing that pregnancy made me realize how much my wanting to stay here is selfish. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, especially if making a selfish decision creates a happier parent who in turn raises a happier kid. I’m not judging those who’ve decided to stay. But what both Toby Joe and I want for Emory, and what he seems to enjoy for himself, isn’t something we can attain here. And that breaks my heart, Internet.

And so…

We’re leaving and I’m sad about it and my head is currently in the clouds. Lately, I’ve been walking around with my son in tow reminiscing. I have lived a great life here, a spectacular life. Leaving this all behind has me wistful. I will never, ever get over New York. This city is my first love. But I realized something this summer; even if I resolve to stay here forever, it’ll always be the one that got away.

Now THAT’S A Giving Tree.

mihow — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:51:04 +0000

I promised yesterday that I’d get a picture of the vagina tree of McCarren Park. Thoughts on the matter?

Usually there’s a great deal of vaginal adornment inside of it. But today it was empty. One big empty vagina tree. I reckon tonight, being a Friday and all, the tree will get some play. (I’ve already taken this too far, haven’t I?)

Breathe Locally

mihow — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:00:37 +0000

This post was going to be about organic food and locavores both of which are growing trends here in America. Just last week, Michelle Obama planted an organic vegetable garden on the White House lawn – the first garden at the White House since the FDR administration.

It seems that people are starting to care more about what they eat, where it comes from and who is potentially harmed (or helped) in the process. I like that. I like that more people are curious about and buying locally grown foods. I like the idea of waiting until something is in season before adding it to a shopping cart. I especially like the idea of cutting down on the pollution involved in shipping and producing many of the foods we buy and consume today.

Union Square Green Market

At home, my family tries to buy food grown, produced, caught, and slaughtered locally. I know what some of you might be thinking – how the hell does one do that while living in New York City? I thought that at first, as well. After all – I’m from Pennsylvania. Growing up, our milk was delivered by a local farmer before the sun came up. Our eggs could have rolled themselves over to our house. We got nearly everything locally. (The exception was Tang, which was made on the moon, by astronauts, and mostly of rocket fuel).

In my mind, the term “local” used to mean “in my neighborhood”. That’s not an option for the majority of New Yorkers, as so much of our food travels thousands of miles before it hits our bodegas and grocery stores, our restaurants and street meat stands. Our food is trucked in, shipped in by boat, train or plane and tends to leave behind it a long, dark carbon footprint.

For New Yorkers, “local” is a relative term and has come to mean “within a hundred-mile radius.” Since we have more farmer’s markets than you can shake a stick at, getting to some of those local foods is really easy.

I was excited to cover this topic as my first March Of Dimes Moms post, especially since they wrote an article recently on whether or not organic is better for your baby. Their conclusion seems to be that it’s not necessarily better. But how about trying to buy foods grown locally? I couldn’t wait to tackle this topic! But Monday came along and it had different plans. I was steered onto a much different road. You see, my son was diagnosed with asthma on Monday and that’s all I can think about right now.

Here’s how the last few days unfolded.

My son kept us up all night Sunday. He woke up every hour. His belly was tight. We thought he might have gas and constipation on top of the usual congestive rattle we’d come to know. On Monday morning, I began to realize that things were much worse than I had thought. At 3 PM he was hit with a high fever. I called the doctor. By 4 PM we were in the waiting room.

And by 5 PM we were armed with a ProNeb Ultra II, some albuterol, a more powerful round of antibiotics than he’s yet been given, and a new worry.

At that point, my husband and I did what parents do with an Internet connection: we started researching. I was looking for ways to blame myself. That’s what mothers do, right? And at first glance, my research told me that I was right. I was to blame for this—we were to blame for this. After all we live in a very polluted area. The rates of asthma in children living in North Brooklyn are on the rise.

“Ever look at dirty truck exhaust? The dirty, smoky part of that stream of exhaust is made of particle pollution. More new evidence shows that the particle pollution—like that coming from the exhaust smoke—can lead to shorter lives, heart disease, lung cancer and asthma attacks and can interfere with the growth and work of the lungs.” (American Lung Association: State Of The Air)

Fact: Emory spent the first year and a half of his life living right next to the BQE (The Brooklyn/Queens Expressway). We were so close to it, the trucks used to shake our apartment. We knew all along we were inhaling harmful toxins, but we chose to stay there. We were in a lease and rent was affordable and we thought we were leaving the area at any moment.

Actual view from the back window of our apartment.

We used to clean an alarming amount of dark black soot from our windowsills. And it didn’t take long to build up. A few days would go by and a black film would lazily blanket every surface in our home. We used to joke about how our lungs must look. We were nervous.

Signs of Asthma include:

• wheezing
• rapid breathing
• labored breathing
• gasping
• difficulty breathing when exercising
• chest tightness

Generally speaking, a child must first be vulnerable to airway inflammation. Everyone is vulnerable, to some degree – and often to any number of irritants. Next, the child needs an antagonist or trigger. Triggers can range from a common cold, a sinus infection, or bronchitis, all the way to secondhand smoke, smoking, cleaning agents and air pollutants. Triggers can also be as simple as getting too much exercise or experiencing too much stress, or the absurdly cold air of a NYC March day.

When I started digging in a bit further, I realized that this isn’t specific to Brooklyn. Emory probably would been diagnosed with asthma no matter where we lived especially since almost every place we’ve ever discussed living is also on the highly polluted area list. And that’s not because our list is really short. It’s that the master list is really long. Even the small, idyllic town we’ve been pining over for years has some of the worst statistics when it comes to the two types of air pollution at the root of the problem.

Dare to dream.

In Brooklyn, the biggest asthmatic culprit is exhaust from vehicles. This is why you’ll also find Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, The DC Metro, and a great deal of the Northeastern corridor on that list. Pretty much every city or town near a major trucking route is seeing a rise in asthma, cancer and other related illnesses. And most large, polluting vehicles (as we used to watch from our bed) are used to transfer goods – like food – into our cities.

The New England Journal of Medicine reports:

“Mortality rates were most strongly associated with cigarette smoking. After adjusting for smoking and other risk factors, we observed statistically significant and robust associations between air pollution and mortality. The adjusted mortality-rate ratio for the most polluted of the cities as compared with the least polluted was 1.26 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.08 to 1.47). Air pollution was positively associated with death from lung cancer and cardiopulmonary disease but not with death from other causes considered together. Mortality was most strongly associated with air pollution with fine particulates, including sulfates.”

The simple truth is that asthma rates are on the rise, as is infant mortality and in many cases we have air pollution to blame for that. And we need to do something about it. And I don’t mean we need to come up with more medicine to throw at the problem. (Though, I am really grateful for our new nebulizer.) I think we need a more preventative approach.

So, while buying organic and/or locally grown foods may cost you a bit more monetarily, I think that cost might be worth it when it comes to the greater good. Change won’t happen overnight, but it can happen if we just put our minds to it.

A funny thing happened as I was writing this post, I ended up within a hundred mile radius to the original topic.

Goodbye, Russell Street.

mihow — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Today was the last day we had access to our old apartment, an apartment we lived in for four years.

The picture below was taken the first few days we moved in, before our furniture arrived from San Francisco. Tobyjoe was hijacking the neighbor’s wireless network.

That same network is open and available today.

So much happened while living at Russell Street. I saw my early 30s under that roof. I got a job on Madison Avenue and quit it too. I met some lifelong friends. I got pregnant and had my first child while living under that roof. I said goodbye to a dear friend, as well as a beloved member of our family. I became a mother while living there, a fact that still blows my mind.

All in all, it was a nice home. Sure, its walls were totally uneven to the floor and everything leaned to one side. Our son’s toys often rolled north. But nothing in Brooklyn is perfect.

This morning I went over there by myself to finish cleaning and to remove the few remaining items. I went alone.

It was nice being there by myself. I spent most of that time lost in thought, walking from one end of the railroad apartment to the other—a physical timeline—inspecting our years with my hands, trying to remove our fingerprints, erase any proof of our having lived there.

A person can build up a heckuva lot of proof over four years. And that much proof is almost impossible to erase. But I tried.

Change, whether it be good or bad, has always been a funny thing for me. It almost always brings with it a side order of depression. So the last couple of weeks have been difficult. I admitted to Toby Joe just yesterday that I haven’t felt this sad, this emotionally troubled, since the months following Emory’s birth.

This is chemistry I’m talking about here. I have no control over it.

After we hand over our keys today, I imagine that soon they will coat the place with yet another layer of paint. They will cover up Schmitty’s paw prints that sit underneath our old bedroom window. They’ll cover up the holes we drilled into our bedroom door in order to install a latch. They’ll paint over the ghosted picture frame edges, our fingerprints—proof of our having been there at all.

But I reckon that no matter how hard one works to cover it up, pieces of us will remain there forever.

And so I think it’s time I move along, albeit sighing slightly.

Goodbye, Russell Street.

And hello, 2009.

Tuesdays With Murray (Chapter 72)

mihow — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:01:00 +0000

Moving Day!

I have a question for you cat lovers out there. We don’t yet have heat or hot water (gas) at our new apartment. It’s not unlivable for a grown adult (the building is “green” so it’s quite insulated) but I am worried about the cats. Would you leave them in an empty apartment (we have the old one until the 31st) where it’s heated? Or would you move them to the new one where they are surrounded by their stuff but are a little cold? Either way, they’ll be alone for much of the day as TJ has to work and I will be in New Jersey with the baby (whom I miss like you wouldn’t believe) until this heat fiasco gets worked out. These guys are like family to me. I want them to be as comfortable as possible. Any insight you may have is greatly appreciated.

UPDATE: We’re IN! And the cats are fine. The apartment is tolerable with the use of a space heater. (Good thing NYC apartments are tiny!) Murray is a bit freaked out by the continuing construction. He hid for the first 5 hours. And then at around 9 PM he came strolling out looking for handouts. So we put him to work and then fed him treats.

I am in Jersey getting my Emory fix. (I spent a whopping 4 nights away from him!) I will be back in Brooklyn tomorrow, God willing.

Things are really great, Internet. Thanks so much for your help and words and suggestions.

Craziest Week Ever

mihow — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:50:00 +0000

This week is likely to turn into the most insane week ever. We’re scheduled to move in seven days. (I have been working on a post for a while regarding the move, but can’t seem to find the time to finish it. In a nutshell, we’re staying in Brooklyn but moving to a less contaminated, easier to use 2 bedroom, two bathroom apartment. It’s a long, long story. I will share it soon.) Toby’s birthday is Thursday and I have not one, but TWO freelance projects to finish up this week. Oh, I’m also a full-time mom, one who has yet to find a local babysitter.

I may have gotten myself in over my head. Cross your fingers for me, Internet.

The good news is we’re moving out of the highly toxic area of Greenpoint and into the wallet-raping Williamsburg area. But hey, we’ll have a view, a washing machine AND a dishwasher. (The article above is from the NYT and it’s a little disturbing.)

If I make it through this week in one piece and without the use sedatives, I will reward myself with another piece of chocolate covered carrot cake from Fabiane’s, which may sound truly disgusting, but is actually quite delectable. I have been craving it every day since we met.

Voting As A Primary Caregiver.

mihow — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:34:00 +0000

Here in New York we weren’t allowed to hit the polls early. I’m anticipating long lines tomorrow. I’m wondering how other stay-at-home-moms are doing it (or have done it). Do you have a story to tell? Ideas? Suggestions? I have to bring Em with me. And while I’m hoping he behaves himself as long as we’re in line, I can’t promise anything.

Perhaps Election Day should become a national holiday, so that whomever goes to work for a living can stay home while the primary caregiver gets out to vote. While employers face charges if they don’t give their employees time off to vote, babies don’t have to follow the law.

If they can’t give the nation the day off, maybe they should have a “Fast Track” option for those of us with toddlers who really don’t enjoy being confined to a stroller for very long. Not that I’m looking for special treatment or anything. ;]

Edited to add: Early voting could go nationwide. Maybe in four years, this won’t be an issue for SAHMs and Dads after all.

I Hate New York.

mihow — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:19:00 +0000

I had a professor in college whose job it seemed was to make every one of his students as stressed out and angry as possible. The night I was accepted into the Graphic Design program I got a phone call from one of the seniors. He said, “Congratulations! You will cry. You know that, right? He makes grown men cry.”

Our professor worked hard at making our lives absolutely miserable. We lost sleep. We worked through days and nights. We had nose bleeds from darkroom chemicals, spray adhesive, fixative. It was like boot camp only without all the potential death and war. (Ok, maybe a little war.)

Naturally, we hated him. Everyone bitched and moaned about how difficult he was and how he was going to kill us all. We collectively hated him. And we collectively talked about it.

And then one day, right before I graduated, I realized something.

There were 23 in my graduating class. We spent countless hours together, sometimes not bathing for days at a time. Sometimes we went 48-hours without brushing our teeth or washing our underarms. We all did this in a studio together, sometimes working over top of one another in the darkroom or the computer lab. Yet, we rarely fought.

Under most circumstances, 23 people living that closely and for that long would have fought. But we spent almost all of commiserating about how much we hated our professor (who was a very smart man and an even better teacher). Did he do it on purpose? Was he merely acting as the tyrannical drill sergeant? Was he getting the best work out of his students by having us direct all of our stress at him instead of at one another?

The idea blew my mind because (even if he didn’t mean to do it) it worked.

I complain a lot about living in New York. I complain on here, to friends and to family. My friends and family (I think) know that I’m just blowing off steam most of the time. But there are some who probably just think I’m a resentful, hateful, cranky bitch.

And I am all those things sometimes, but not most of the time. I am only just now realizing that I may not have painted a very accurate portrait of myself. And judging by the email I receive and some of the comments I get, I know that many people have it very wrong.

So. Here goes nothing.

I’ve given some people the impression that I don’t have any friends who are mothers. That’s untrue. I have actually met several local mothers whom I really like. We try and hang out regularly although nap schedules, partners’ schedules, and overall exhaustion tends to get in our way. But whenever we do find time, we hit the park and gab as our little ones run around for an hour or two. I really enjoy their company and if our living conditions were slightly easier, I think we’d get to spend even more time together. I’m going to miss them so much whenever we leave here, so very much.

I don’t write about them for a number of reasons. The main reason is that I try and respect their privacy. I also don’t have very much time anymore to write coherent essays (or essays at all).

I realize how annoying it can be—trying to fill in the blanks. I get annoyed that people even try. There are far too many blanks to fill in! On here, lately, I paint the smallest portion of a picture representing my life. That may change soon and I hope that it does, but for now, I just don’t have the time. For what it’s worth, I don’t think I’m a bad mother. I don’t think everything is falling apart around me. I am not suffering from self-hatred most of the time. I just tend to bitch a lot on here I guess.

I know that one thing is for certain, I simply need to illustrate somehow that I have a lot of joy in my life. Most urgent, however, since we’ll be leaving New York soon, I must, for the sake of history, illustrate just how much I’m going to miss this place. (I am wiping a tear from my eye as I write this.)

It occurred to me recently that Greenpoint, Brooklyn is the one place that I have lived the longest. (When you add in the time I spent living here before I met Tobyjoe). I love this place. After all, I think (hope?) that it’s pretty safe to say that this is the only place I’ll ever live where I’ll be able to watch a hobo take a dump in my backyard and then wipe his ass.

What’s not to love about that? I mean, as sick as it may be, it’s temporary and slightly hilarious, so I might as well file it under the “Things I Tolerated And Even Laughed About When I Was Younger” category. Also in this category is my difficult and absurd parking fiascos, the half naked man I watched snort heroin at 1 PM at the local public track, and the crack bag I intercepted from my son on the children’s playground. I tolerate the smell of the human waste facility not too far from here and the fact that it wafts up from our sewers at least twice a week making morning walks downright third world. I deal with the loud construction taking place out back now that the hobos are gone. (Is it wrong of me to miss them?) I tolerate the toxic waste dump in our backyard as well as the water bugs (American Cockroaches, you ain’t foolin’ no one, New York) the size of small cats. I even tolerated the crack head that ripped my antenna off of my car so he could smoke up. I even tolerate the insanely high rents and even higher mortgages.

I have tolerated all of this and I continue to do so. And I do think it’ll end up being hilarious one day (assuming that none of us get leukemia from the benzine leak in our backyard).

You simply must tolerate the good, the worse, and the vile if you wish to live in New York. (Switch the city, however, and people might call you insane for putting up with such nonsense.)

But this is New York! New York gets away with being the drunk aunt at the wedding party, the rich 90-year-old with the 24-year-old wife, the strange 7-year-old boy who touches himself too much in public, the gassy grandfather at the dinner table. You shrug it off as expected, maybe joke about it to a few people and get on with your day.

I’m going to miss it. I am going to miss all the weirdness and grime. I am going to miss the fodder for stories to tell people whenever I see them. I am going to miss the defecating hobos, the laughing hipsters with stupid haircuts, the Polish kids who collect sticks.

New York is tolerated because it’s New York and it has a stigma attached to it, whether you agree with it or not. And New Yorkers get to bitch about New York and blame everything bad going on in their lives on the city, like it’s a living thing (or a graphic design professor). At the end of the day New Yorkers all have one thing in common: we get to collectively bitch about how much we hate the city we love.

^{Photographs are from this series.}

Edited to add: I have gotten a lot of email asking where we’re moving and when. We don’t know yet and we don’t know yet. But we know we have to leave here. I’m sorry I have been so vague. It’s not intentional. I am vague because I don’t know the answers yet myself.

Empty Cages Collective

mihow — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:45:00 +0000

It’s been a couple of weeks since I wrote about Empty Cages Collective. Since then quite a bit has changed. Thanks to many of the people who graciously visit this Web site, ECC received a great number of donations. Lisa has had her arms full with kittens, cats and adoption events, but she expressed to me several times how grateful they are.

Thank you so much.

They also got some press! I’m hoping that’s just the beginning. The more people in New York City who hear about what they’re trying to do, the better life will be for all of us, fuzzy or human.

Last but not least, ECC held an adoption event at The Beehive recently and 7 cats were adopted! Seven. That’s outstanding! They still have a lot more and there are many other colonies out there breeding and breeding, but that’s pretty remarkable for a one-day event.

Anyway, ECC is holding another adoption event this Saturday at Muddy Paws here in Greenpoint. Stop by if you are in the area. We’ll be there as well!

Needs.

mihow — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:32:00 +0000

I take Em to the playground a lot. He uses the kiddy swings and I let him run around for a while even though it makes me nervous and I usually need an antacid afterward. You see, Em doesn’t always have the physical ability to necessarily do what he wants to do without causing himself harm. He climbs things and sometimes has no idea how to get down. He trips over unleveled ground. Sometimes he gets shoved to the ground accidentally by the older kids. I constantly walk after him, erratically. Trying to figure out the motions of a toddler is like trying to model fluid dynamics.

He enjoys talking to squirrels and pigeons too. But I think one of his favorite pastimes is picking up sticks. Sometimes he picks up big sticks and sometimes they’re small ones. Usually they’re prime eye-poking instruments and so I snatch them from him before he gets too attached and break them down. I end up giving him a smaller piece in return.

Sometimes he picks up a sticks that are really long—long enough that they don’t pose too much a threat of impalement. So I’ll let him hold onto them for a bit until he grows tired of lugging around such a large item. I’ll then take the stick and sometimes I’ll put it on his stroller. I have learned that if I keep a stick around and he fusses later, it will appease him for at least five minutes. This is a perfect item to have around if I have run an errand or he starts screaming on our walk home.

On Monday we were at the park and Em ran over to the fence to grab two long, lovely sticks up from the ground. They were in that gray area. What I mean is, they were short enough that he could fall on them. So I traded with him. I gave him two smaller sticks and took the longer ones away. I sat there holding onto both sticks.

A brown haired boy walked up to us.

“Give me those sticks” He said.

“What?” I asked him a little shocked.

“Give me that stick. I need it. I neeeeeeed that stick.” He whined and pointed.

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you one stick but I want to hold onto the other one.” I handed him a stick.

“Give me the other stick. I need it.” He said.

“No. This is for my son.” I answered. I felt like I was doing somebody else’s job.

“I neeeed that stick!” He said.

“No.” I looked away from him.

He gave up and walked away.

That’s when two aryan poster children walked up to me. They must have been related. One was a tow-headed boy, the other a tow-headed girl.

The thing about children that I have always been wary of and it’s also part of the reason why I never really wanted one of my own, is how downright ignorant they are regarding personal space and privacy. These kids walked directly up to my nose, unaware of my body and its real estate. They’re freakishly direct.

“Give me the stick.” The sister said.

“Yes, we need that stick.” Said the boy.

“We need that sick. We need it.” The pale-headed girl demanded.

“This stick is for my son. He picked up the stick and I am going to save it for him.” I said.

“But we need it. We need that stick.” The girl continued.

“No one needs a stick.” I said. “This one is for my son. There are plenty of sticks. Why not go get your own stick?”

“Because we need that one.” The boy said.

I was arguing with children. What’s wrong with me? I thought.

Finally the aryans gave up. They walked away empty handed.

A third child walked up to me.

Now, I know this next part is going to come off as really politically incorrect. But I have no idea how else to tell it. I’m going to just tell it like how I saw it. Forgive me in advance.

The third kid was just weird looking. He looked like someone you might find after generations of inbreeding. He had blond hair as well. He was tall and very lanky. One arm was under his coat tapping something he had shoved up there. The other one dangled lifelessly next to his body. His hair hadn’t been touched by a brush in some time. And his eyes were so far apart, an entire finger could have rested on the bridge of his nose lengthwise without blocking his view. He was a perfect example as to why drinking during pregnancy is a terrible and risky idea.

“GIVE ME THE STICK!” The kid said. “GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEE!”

He wasn’t particularly mean about it. It was more like I had entered a game he had been playing in his head, one where I had a specific role, a role I was very unaware of.

“You want this stick? Let me guess, you need it?”

“YES I NEED THAT STICK!” He yelled back, squinting.

“I’ll tell you what, how about we split the stick?”

“OK!” He was very excited.

I broke the stick in half and gave him the longer part. “Here you go. Now run along.”

He didn’t leave. Instead, he started to hit himself in the chest with the stick. He hit whatever hard object lay underneath his shirt repeatedly.

“I’M TOUGH! HIT ME WITH THIS STICK! SEE! I’M TOUGH” He yelled this as he beat his chest with the stick. “I AM SO STRONG! WATCH ME HIT MYSELF WITH THIS STICK!”

As he continued to beat himself in the chest with the stick, I broke up the other half and threw it down. I looked around and saw that the first kid who wanted the stick was urinating on the ground with his father’s instruction. His pants were down around his ankles and he just stood there, pissing, while the bums on the park bench across from him drank from brown bags and tried to focus on something they do regularly as well.

I sat there defeated and stickless yearning for a yard of my own, a yard dressed in urine I’m familiar with if dressed in urine at all. What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to react to these children? Was it my job to tell them no? Is it right to ask a kid to go away? Is there a class one can take to learn playground politics?

Was I dreaming?

Where were this kid’s parents anyway? Had they taken a few minutes to do a couple of shots at the local bar? Were they copulating with other relatives? I know, I sound unfair, after all you can’t pick your parents, but I was irritated. Where were his parents? Did they think I asked him to beat himself with half a stick, the half I wasn’t going to take home with my son?

And more importantly, is this what need means?

I need a stick a stick that will thwart poorly supervised children.

I need a stick that won’t hurt my son.

I need a stick that will direct us home.

A Pumpkin on a Beach?! That’s Crazy!

mihow — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:51:00 +0000

I left for the Jersey shore on Tuesday morning to visit my parents and relax a bit. I also wanted to give TobyJoe some “time off”. That doesn’t mean he’s not still working—he’s very much at work and working—it means he gets to sleep all night long and wake up later than 6 AM (which is when I leave for the gym in the morning).

Incidentally, my stay here has a LOT to do with how I was able to completely space on what day of the week it was. I want to apologize to all of you who waited to read about Murray. I will make it up to you (and him). I gotta say, however, I am constantly heart warmed by the number of people who like Murray and look forward to seeing him. It always makes me happy whenever I get an email demanding to know where Murray is. (You have no idea how happy.)

So. Thank you for your email. Thank you for the comments. Thank you all for thinking of Murray.

Alas, what have I done while visiting South Jersey? I ran. I shopped. I ate fatty, caloric food. I sat around. I wrote. I took Em to the beach for the first time. We took him to Long Beach Island—a place I used to hang out as a kid. We vacationed there every summer. I also grew up deep sea fishing right off the island with my father. I have been doing that since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I used to ask him if there were skulls “down there” or big whales. I used to ask if there were treasures (not of the pharmaceutical waste variety either). I used to ask about dolphins. We used to catch flounder and blue fish. I grew up on that beach, more or less.

And so we thought it’d be nice to show that beach and its elephant ears to my son. We dressed him in a pumpkin shirt and took him to the sand. He loved it.

I was a little surprised that he’s so fearless. You see, there’s a storm brewing off the Atlantic (the same one making its way into Brooklyn on Friday and Saturday) and it’s causing some pretty rough seas off the coast. He loved it anyway—the wind, the sand in his face, the cold—he loved it all.

I love the fall. Right now, I’m wearing a wool sweater my mom bought for me. I’m sipping an ale and my belly is full of pasta. My feet are propped up. I’m reclined.

And my toes are stooping toward October.

Happy second day of Fall, my friends.

Moving Pictures.

mihow — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:20:00 +0000

The year was 1998. I was living in Washington, D.C. in a small, one bedroom apartment on 16th Street. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of 2 years. In less than 24 hours, our apartment was nearly emptied. I was living alone for the first time in my life.

Missy and I decided to go away for the weekend and visit our alma matter in order to spend some valuable time reminiscing with people around a keg. It was during that trip, I decided that to buy a massive, 2-ton television set.

I met Toshiba at Sears.

The TV weighed a lot. So the strong men working for Sears helped us get it into the back of the car. I never once thought about how Missy and I would get it into my apartment back in D.C. The building had an elevator, but how would we get it to the elevator? And then how would we get it to my door? And then how would we get it onto the TV stand? These were not questions I thought about until much later when we pulled up to my apartment building.

“How are the two of us going to get this out of the car and into your building?” Missy asked.

“Great question.” I said. “Maybe we can do it?”

Missy looked skeptical.

But we managed. Somehow we got it out of the car. I have no idea how. After that we rolled the box from door-to-door hoping the styrofoam casing would protect it. We rolled it onto the elevator, down the hallway on the 4th floor, and then rolled it right through the front door. And with every last bit of our strength, we hoisted it onto the pedestal.

All I had to do was never, ever leave.

In 1999 I began dating a guy whom I had been friends with for well over a year. And while our friendship may have lasted indefinitely; our romantic relationship ignited, sparked, exploded, smoldered and then fell to the ground in a heap of black ash in less than 5 months. Our main goal at that time was entrusting ourselves with the task of not trusting one another. That was imperative, and a relationship destined for failure.

But he did have the same TV and used to joke that the only reason I got mine was to one-up him because mine was like an inch larger. TV Envy, is what he called it.

We broke up. And it was tumultuous. It was harrowing. And I decided one night for no reason whatsoever that I was going to move to New York City.

Just like that.

A day before I was scheduled to move, I asked a friend of mine—a very strong friend of mine—if he’d help. I told him I’d buy him dinner, drinks, and give him a place to stay. I’d even pay for his train ticket to get back to D.C. He agreed.

Getting the TV into the truck at the DC end wasn’t difficult for him at all. He simply had to lift it up once, move it to the cart we had borrowed from U-Haul, and then lift it onto the truck. I helped. But barely.

I hadn’t thought to tell him about having to get it up the three flights of stair once we got to Brooklyn.

When we pulled onto my new street, it was already after 8 PM. And it was raining. We hustled and moved everything we could upstairs as fast as we could. The rain steadied as we began to wobble. I had hit that point during a move where giving up seems probable. I began leaving boxes and items on the street for passersby.

“How are we going to get the TV up three flights of stairs?” Todd asked me scratching his head.

“Us?” I answered stupidly.

“Are you kidding me?” He looked shocked. And he should have been. I couldn’t even hold the TV set let alone bring it up three flights of stairs.

“Missy and I rolled it into my DC apartment. Maybe we could do that?”

“UP the stairs? Roll it? Are you fucking crazy?”

I stood in the rain and kicked at nothing with my feet. I felt stupid in my new city. What was I thinking? Breaking up with him was a great move, but uprooting everything and moving to a new city was not the best way to be alone.

Todd went to the truck and got the TV out onto the sidewalk. The rain fell down onto its plastic casing. I didn’t care.

He lifted the TV up the three steps that led to the front door and stopped. “I can’t do this alone. There’s just no way.” He was out of breath.

We waited on the stoop in front of two propped open doors, which tossed 40 watt foyer light at us as the rain continued to fall. We were to meet friends for dinner in less than an hour. I was starving, cold and damp. I was tired from moving and driving all day. And it was suddenly becoming very clear to me that I had just uprooted my entire life—TV and all—and moved to New York City.

And that’s when I made up my mind. We had to breakup. This was going to be my third break up in 1 year.

“Let’s just leave it here. The fucking thing is too heavy. I hate how heavy it is. I don’t need a TV. I definitely don’t need that TV. I’m going to be too busy here and I can’t afford cable. Just leave it. Let it be somebody else’s problem. I’m sick of it.”

Just as I was getting to the meat of my sermon about how the TV and I weren’t meant to be together and that the TV and I never got along anyway, a 7-foot tall, muscular monster of a man walked up to the stoop.

“Can I help you?” The man said. He was German. “Looks like you could use help some.”

“You sure you want to do that? She’s on the third floor!” Todd answered.

“Not is problem.” He assured us. “It’s rain. Let’s go.”

And just like that, the gentle German giant and a friend named Todd brought the TV and I back together again.

That night we joked about whether or not our German was real.

(It’s been 8 years and I’m still not sure.)

On a day in September of 2001 I witnessed the worst day of my life so far. A month later (to the day) I met the man of my dreams. He and I were inseparable. We watched movies from my love seat. The first movie we ever watched together was “You Can Count On Me”.

We knew each other for three weeks before deciding to move into a loft together. The loft was roughly 4 blocks from that apartment, but it was zoned commercial and was on the fourth floor. There was a freight elevator but the hallways were long (almost a block from door to door).

I hired movers.

Moving day arrived. Three men showed up in a big white truck. One of the men was knee high to a grasshopper, Jamaican and dark as night. He was by no means someone I’d call muscular. The other two were much bigger in size. I worried about the smaller man. I worried about him right up until I watched him carry that TV set on his shoulders by himself down three flights of stair.

“He’s a fucking beast!” Said a taller man.

When we got to the loft, he carried it up into the freight elevator and then down the long hallway and into our loft.

I suggested twice that he be careful, that his back would surely break beneath that TV. He said, “Oh, you seely gurl, muh grandmummy could carry this TeeVee.” And he had a mighty chuckle. As did I.

I have for years wondered what would one day separate the two of us, take that TV down once and for all. After 2001 it moved back to DC and then again to another apartment in DC. In 2004 it was boxed up by movers and loaded into a wooden Door-to-Door Mover’s storage bin. It made it to San Francisco three weeks later unharmed.

Six months later it was loaded into a big wooden container once again and then shipped back to a slightly larger railroad apartment in Brooklyn where it has lived ever since.

My 10-year-old Toshiba died sometime late Sunday night. The last thing it saw was a member of the Colts fumble a football. I was in bed at the time. I heard Tobyjoe mutter a few OHMYGODS! at the TV. He then shut it down for the night. The next morning it projected nothing more than a thin white line.

Tobyjoe beat it a couple of times and it was able spit out one final image before taking its last breath. It projected a weather map of the United States.

Smart Indeed

mihow — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:41:00 +0000

This is for egirl because of what she responded with on this post. The trucks were there last night with a big ol’ spot in between them. We woke up to this:

I actually left a note on their car letting them know they made our morning. Hopefully they get to it before Hanna does.

There are so many massive cars living on this block. The juxtaposition here astounds me.

If You Get Caught Between a Loan and New York City.

mihow — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:12:00 +0000

I wrote to HGTV on Friday night. Can you believe that? I am desperate. We were watching House Hunters. I turned to Tobyjoe and said, “Call them and tell them to find us a house.”

“Do it. Write them.”

“Nah. Kidding.”

“That’s how it happens. People are sitting around, frustrated, they send an email and then the get on TV. Write them.”

So I did. I sent an email that will end up in the digital equivalent to a dead letter office.

Here’s the deal. To many living elsewhere, we actually can afford a pretty expensive house. There are many New Yorkers who would disagree, however, because the market here is so insanely resilient nothing ever goes down in price and instead continues to rise. It’s an enigma really. Manhattan was one of the only cities this year to rise where real estate is concerned. Pittsburgh was another. (Hello, Pennsylvania! My first love!)

To people living almost everywhere else in America, we probably sound like a big bunch of babies. And believe me, there are days where I have to stop myself from throwing a temper tantrum. To those who can afford to buy near Manhattan, however, we’re actually at the low end of the financial spectrum. To prove this point, I called a Westchester based Weichert agent last week and when I gave her our price range, she hurried our call. But not before reassuring me she’d call me back the following day. She never called. This isn’t the first time this has happened. We’ve been ignored by several agents because of how little we can afford when you compare it to the majority of the buyers around New York. Just today we were told by another agent that we simply must stop looking in her area based on our price range.

Agents just don’t want to waste their time on us. I can’t say I blame them. But my goodness does it ever make me angry sometimes. I feel totally defeated.

In order to buy a house in the city or close by, one must sacrifice safety, (in most cases) the quality of schools, the house’s structure, size or both. A lot of “affordable” options are total gut jobs. The house across the street from our apartment (which was advertised as a total gut job) sold for 800,000.

We don’t have that kind of money or time to devote to our living quarters.

We did discover some neighborhoods in New Jersey that worked but we were scared off by the taxes (one of the houses we looked at had an annual property tax of 12,000), the crime rate and/or the school system. Plus, like what you see happening here in Brooklyn, most all of the time the houses we could afford out that way needed a lot of work.

Again, we don’t have the money right now or time to renovate or even upkeep, which is precisely what we were looking at in Maplewood.

Then there’s the loan/down payment fiasco. In the city, you need at least 10% down, a lot of the time 20%. Most houses in our area sell for 700,000 and up. Even if we could afford that (which we can not) we don’t have the down payment. We don’t have 100 grand to put down on a house in order to make our monthly payments close to affordable.

If we buy in a safer neighborhood outside of the city (we’re talking an hour’s commute by train) and forego the down payment (which I’m not sure any bank will allow for these days) we would suddenly qualify for a jumbo loan. The interest rate is phenomenally high. That’s irresponsible and quite frankly, we simply can’t do it. If anything were to pop up (an appliance dies, flooding in the basement, termites, whatever) we’d have to use credit to pay things off. I think that’s irresponsible.

On Saturday we went even further out. And guess what? The houses are still very expensive. In some cases, the property taxes went down, and the houses were in much better shape, but they were a lot smaller and more expensive than what we were seeing in Maplewood, South Orange, and West Orange. We liked several of the homes we saw. But again, the lack of a sizable down payment to keep us out of jumbo loan territory stops us every time.

We have discussed downsizing our rental here in Brooklyn and buying a house two hours or more outside the city just to get some equity. But the rents here have gone up almost as much as the mortgages. We can’t afford both a mortgage (even a really cheap one) and rent. And since the rents have gone up so much in our area, finding another rental would mean not being able to save defeating the purpose entirely.

We’re stuck. Not to sound dramatic, we’re basically being asked to leave.

Why am I writing today? I’m not sure. Perhaps so I can one day look back on all of this and say, Thank goodness that’s all over! Because the indecision is killing me. Our inability to buy a place in a city that I have called home since 2000 is really just heartbreaking. Perhaps I’m writing because I hope that someone out there is in the same situation, misery does love a little company, after all.

And I’ll admit it. There’s a small part of me (the same part of me who buys a lottery ticket once every three years) who hopes that by some magical twist of fate my words will fall upon the ears of some real estate bigwig, someone who can step in and assist us, let us know what we may be overlooking. Because I have no idea how to make this work. This just isn’t my area of expertise.

Our lease is up in December and we still have no idea where we’ll be living. I can’t even begin to explain the amount of stress Tobyjoe and I are enduring based on that fact. And all the while we’re trying to raise our astonishingly happy son.

If houses were bought on smiles alone, we’d have thousands thanks to him.

He’s In Dirt. And I Don’t Care.

mihow — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:18:00 +0000

I grew up playing with dirt. I grew up lifting rocks, collecting salamanders, crawfish and wooly bears. My nails and hands were always filthy. I was constantly outside digging and exploring the woods around our Central Pennsylvania home. I loved the outdoors, which is why I am really itching to get out of Brooklyn and find something a little more environmentally satisfying for my son. Plus, I think I’m making poor decisions as a city-dwelling mama.

Yesterday I took Em to the park. I take him to the park every day at least once. Our afternoon jaunt usually consists of some exploration. I wrangle him into some shoes and I let him run around a bit. He always goes straight for the dirt. It doesn’t matter if it’s a foot-wide patch of dirt surrounding an out-of-place tree or a bigger patch worn down by soccer matches. He will find the dirt. He loves dirt. He loves picking up sticks and pieces of bark. He carries them around like souvenirs. It’s adorable really.

I generally try not to concern myself with how other parents raise their children. Unless it directly effects me in some way, it’s none of my business. And I should hope that others aren’t judging me for how I raise my own. But sometimes I have to concern myself with what I’m doing when dealing with other families. It’s the whole social contract thing. If my son is playing with another child, I should keep an eye on what he’s doing and how they’re reacting to what he’s doing. I won’t lie. This is very difficult especially for someone like me who spends too much time worrying about what others think. And it’s becoming increasingly more difficult as he gets older. This is perhaps the most trying aspect of having a toddler for me so far—figuring out what the other parent is thinking and if I should react.

Yesterday Emory was running around with another little girl. She was probably five months his senior but smaller in size. They were playing with her rubber ball. He stopped every now and again to pick up sticks in the patch of dirt surrounding the tree. I let him. I figured that since the little girl’s guardians where letting her play with a rubber ball that had been all over the dirt and pavement, letting my kid play with dirt while playing with their little girl was OK. At one point, a bit nervous about the situation, I said, “Em, why do you have to play in the dirt all the time?” (Incidentally, it’s funny the number of times I ask Em a question which is really meant for the person listening in. But that’s a post for another day—”talking through the baby” is what we call it.)

The girl’s guardians shrugged and said, “He’s a boy.”

So this continued. Em picked up dirt and sticks and giant pieces of bark as the little girl teased him with her rubber ball. He’d touch her face with his hands, and her hands to his. There were a few times Em would grab the ball and try and put it in his mouth. I would snatch it up right away and wipe the spit on my pants.

“Em, do you have to put everything in your mouth!” I said.

“He’s a boy.” They shrugged.

Fifteen minutes into our spontaneous play-date with complete strangers, the little girl bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. Her father ran over and lightly slapped the top of her hand. “NO! CACA!” He said.

Realizing the error of her ways, she immediately dropped the dirt, sticks and bark, which Emory proceeded to collect. I mean, who would let perfectly good dirt go to waste like that? Not my kid.

I need to have another child. That way, I can let my filthy children run around, eat dirt, slobber all over one another and I won’t have to worry about whether I’m poisoning someone else’s child.

I’m gonna breed me my own little filthy family.

Do you let your little ones play in the dirt at a public playground? How do you teach them not to? I can’t figure this out. I realize that city dirt can be questionable, but how do you keep a toddler from playing in the dirt? You’d have to keep him or her inside all the time. I can’t allow for that. He simply has to get outside time. But I can’t stop him from playing with dirt either. Am I not being cautious enough while parenting and living in the city?

Parenting is physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. That’s all there is to it. (But it’s awesome too!)

Tuesdays With Murray (Chapter 56)

mihow — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:56:00 +0000

Murray was orphaned at a very young age. I’m sure many of you know that already. He was so young he had to be bottle-fed by human hands. I talked over Chapter 56 with Murray and he agreed that those human hands are what I need to write about today.

Murray was nurtured by two people: Lisa and PJ. Though PJ doesn’t quite remember Murray (due to the number of cats he’s cared for before, and since) he is responsible for much of Murray’s trust of humans.
When Murray was a few weeks old, Lisa took over. Because Murray is unable to thank them personally, I’m going to try and do it for him.

PJ and Lisa have dedicated themselves to starting a unique animal advocacy group, and I’m attempting to contribute what I can to their effort.

THEIR MISSION

“The Empty Cages Collective (ECC) is a New York-based animal and environmental advocacy organization. ECC aims to cultivate a culture where animals are recognized as fellow sentient beings worthy of respectful and compassionate treatment. Through advocacy, education, hands-on rescue and assistance, the ECC envisions a world free of animal exploitation, abuse, and ecologically destructive behavior.”

WHAT THEY’VE BEEN DOING

They Trap, Neuter and Release animals back into their natural habitats. Here’s where being a realist can actually make a difference. As opposed to someone like me, who can only see the big picture, someone who wants ALL animal abuse to stop, all homeless cats to be adopted, all things to wrap up perfectly. It’s never going to happen that way. Instead of doing something, I get overwhelmed and give up.

PJ isn’t like that. Neither is Lisa. Sure, they want all of those things as well, but they’re a bit more level-headed about it. They take it day by day. They’re hoping that with every cat they trap and neuter, a dozen less will be born next season. They’re hoping that we city-dwellers can one day coexist with our city-dwelling friends. They’re hoping to teach people that animals living within the city aren’t a nuisance and that it’s not necessary to kill every stray or feral or wild animal you come across.

There’s room for all of us. Hell, they were probably here first anyway.

The problems they’re facing is that they’ve found so many adoptable kittens during their trapping efforts that they’re running out of room and resources to continue with their TNR efforts. To put it bluntly, they need some help.

HOW WE CAN HELP

When I asked PJ what they needed the most, he gave me the following list: donate, volunteer, and adopt. He reiterated twice to me that donate and volunteer are head-to-head in urgency. Granted, if they can get the cats they have in-house adopted soon, they might have more money to use for TNR. Obviously, adoption is important as well.

I’m writing this today on behalf of Murray and all the critters out there that are needlessly killed. Can you help Lisa and PJ and their cause? Do you have a dollar to spare? Do you have some time to donate? Do you have a Web site you can use to help get the word out? Can you write them some kind words? Anything will help, any amount, any number of hands or hours, any advertisement—big or small.

If you have some extra paypal cash and/or an Amazon gift card you’re not using, visit this link and send some stuff their way. (Some of the items on that list run as low as 4 bucks.)

If you’re interested in adopting a cat, here are the animals they have up for adoption. I’m going to put up some pictures as well.

And if you got some old balled up dollar bills you washed in that pair of jeans from last winter, they’ll take monetary donations as well.

For those of you who have some cash but don’t have a lot of time and just want to click a button and be done with it, here’s a link to their paypal account.

To read more about what they’ve been doing click here.

From here on out, I’m going to be donating as much as I can out of the money I make from advertising on this Web site. It’s not much, but it’s something. I purchased 90 pounds of cat litter for them yesterday. Like I said, every little thing matters right now. It doesn’t have to be a huge sum—or cash at all.

At some point in the near future, I plan on designing some banners for them so that other bloggers can add them to their site. I hope that you will join me getting the word out for them. I realize that they’re Brooklyn based right now, but if this works out—this model—it could become a nationwide advocacy group.

If you have a dime or or some time to spare, do it for Murray. He wouldn’t be here had it not been for these two people and their great big hearts.

Em’s First Birthday Party.

mihow — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:47:00 +0000

We’re back in Brooklyn and this is a brief (stand-in) update.

I was really excited to be back home until this morning when we went to McCarren Park and the smell of trash was so unbearable we had to leave. And up until about a month ago, I’d have thought, well, trash is just trash. But after reading this story about a badly decomposed body that had been rotting in a storage shed near the kiddy park for several months, I’m more wary of rancid smells.

We visit the park each and every day. Who knows what we’ve been smelling all along.

Em’s birthday was a hoot. We actually had two parties for him. We had a small one for him on Friday evening. We ate lasagna and watched the opening ceremony of the olympics. We consumed ginger cake and ice cream. We fell to bed early.

On the 9th, we held a larger party for him. Relatives came from all over to celebrate. He ate chocolate for the first time. Nico made the cake. She actually made two. One for Em (shown) and a bigger one for the rest of us. It was awesome.

I was a little disappointed at his chocolate eating performance, however. He did not bury his face in the cake as I imagined. He was actually kind of confused by it and entirely too delicate. But it was really fun to watch and equally as hilarious to clean up. A bath was had before bedtime.

There was a lot of diet-unfriendly food.

With the amount of wine I consumed once he went to bed that evening, you’d have guessed it was my birthday and not my son’s. After the way I felt the following day, I’m pretty sure booze is devil piss. A friend once said to me, “You don’t realize that you really need the babysitter for the following day as well.” So true. Devil piss, people. Devil piss.

Now it’s back to the basics—the grind. Diets need to be revitalized. I stopped losing weight weeks ago. (Still working out, however.) Em and I will continue our daily walks to the park and back. We’ll continue fighting with our neighbors because he’s a toddler living on the third floor. We’ll continue fighting with the men on our street, the ones who refuse to park their cars like decent human beings. We’ll continue our daily routine of chase the baby around the house to make sure he doesn’t eat cat poop. We’ll continue getting to know one another and I’ll continue to fall more and more in love with him. We’ll continue living here, doing this, until December when our lease is up and we have no choice but to get out.

The question still weighing heavy on my mind is: where will we be whenever Em turns two? Where will we be next year at this time? Will there be corpses near where he swings? Will he eat chocolate like it’s an olympic sport?

Where will we be when he sees 24-months?

The empty field next to that question leaves me pensive.

Mihow » brooklyn

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