Mihow » san francisco

Tuesdays With Murray (Chapter 63)

mihow — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:14:00 +0000

When we lived in Washington, DC. I took pottery classes at a studio in Adam’s Morgan. I studied with Jill Hinckley and threw pottery like this, this and this. I wasn’t great at it, but I loved doing it and while there I met some of the greatest people.

One of the people I met was an organic farmer named Mike. He was a sweetheart. I adored this man. He and I became close friends. He had a great big heart. I loved spending time with him.

Right before we moved to San Francisco, Mike gave us the most spectacular going away gift. It was a small vase he threw at Hinckely. It was fired out back during one of our Raku sessions. If I remember correctly, he used horse hair (taken from a local farmer) to create the most intriguing affect on its smooth sides. The piece was amazing—all of his pieces were amazing—but this one was particularly special, I think.

It was probably one of the nicest items we owned. I was so proud of that vase, whenever we moved cross-country, I wrapped it up and took it with us in the car instead of packing it away with everything else. I showed it off at home. It was always on display, albeit, at higher heights for all reasons feline.

(Trying to guess where this story ends is probably a no brainer.)

On Sunday, Murray simply had to get to the very top of the bookshelf like Tucker had. In doing so, his fat ass knocked the vase to the floor, shattering it into a million pieces. I was in the shower and heard the smash occur.

“WHAT WAS THAT!?” I yelled.

Tobyjoe came in to tell me what had happened. We were a little heartbroken.

I don’t like to get attached to non-living things because of this very reason. With cats around, you’re kind of a fool to. And now that we have a toddler, that notion became twofold. It’s better to just assume everything intangible will eventually die. It’s just a matter of when and how that end should occur.

But saying goodbye to this item stung. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.

I did not raise a hand at Murray (I don’t do that to any of my cats), nor did I yell at him (I do yell at them sometimes). He knows nothing of his mistake. And I think the noise it made was punishment enough for a creature with such intense hearing.

But I’m sharing this with you today (on Murray’s day of all days) because as I watched Tobyjoe sweep the remaining pieces into the trash can, something became very clear to me: I must really love this cat because I was unbelievably attached to that vase.

I didn’t even yell at him.

^{(And Mike, should you ever read this, I am so very sorry. Both Toby and I have actually mourned the loss of your gift. I thought about glueing it back together, I even thought about trying to make a mosaic out of it, but to no avail. We miss it, Mike. And would love to buy a replacement.)}

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.

NowBlowPoMe: The Forgotten City?

mihow — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 01:48:00 +0000

I understand why people move to New York. I moved here at age 27 because I always loved it. I decided to move to New York when I was a kid and my father took us to our first ever Yankee game. He drove us right through Harlem so he could teach us a lesson and show us just how good we had it. “Not everyone lives as comfortably as you do, kids.” In reality I think he was lost. I remember riding the subway convinced that I looked more like a New Yorker if I didn’t hold onto the bars. Only tourists need to hold onto the subway bars. I actually believed that. I believed that after living in New York for a while, you figured out how to ride the subways without having to hold on.

New York was where I wanted to live. Always.

I lived in Washington, DC before. Twice, even. I moved from State College to Washington, DC. Then, I moved back to State College, back to DC, to New York City, back to DC, to San Francisco and the back to New York. Writing that down sounds perfectly insane. But I can assure you that each move made sense. For example, the first time I moved to DC was for a job that wasn’t what I signed up for. I worked there for a little over a month before calling a quits. My apartment building was depressing and bug-ridden, and so I headed back to State College with my tail between my legs. (Back then, my life kind of looked like that Ben Fold’s Five song “Steven’s Last Night in Town.”)

But We thought he was gone
And now he's come back again
last week it was funny
now the jokes wearing thin
cuz everyone knows now
that every night now
will be Steven's last night in town

DC stuck the second time because my boyfriend at the time and I did it correctly; we lived in an apartment building in the city and one that wasn’t a housing project for those on house arrest.

Toby and I left New York because we were pretty messed up over what we saw on September 11th. I know that DC isn’t exactly off the radar where terrorist attacks are concerned, but it was a change of scenery for us and were therefore able to heal quicker.

Anyway, we’ve been here for three years and we’re at the point (again) where we want to leave (again). This time we’re going about it the right way, i.e.. slowly. And we’re talking about moving to Boston or New Jersey. We’ve even discussed moving to Providence with TobyJoe commuting to Boston every day. (Is that an insane idea?)

Truth be told, we’re looking for that perfect place to live. A place where we can raise Emory without running into too much trouble, whether it be something simple like subjecting him to incessant horrific language, or something a lot more serious like high pollution, or a murder rate every New Yorker tries to ignore. We want somewhere fairly safe. But we also want him to have the ability to grow up around art and culture. (I come from an art background. I really do put a lot of stock in the arts.) We want a backyard filled with fireflies not drunk and dying polish men. We want a garden fed with uncontaminated ground water as well as public transportation.

We’re readying ourself to move again. And we’re looking for the “Forgotten City”. The city on the East coast that isn’t riddled with murder or pollution. The city on the East coast with excellent public schools and affordable housing. We want to settle down and raise our son safely. Why does that seem so hard to do right now?

^{Part of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), where one writes every day for the month of November, which is easier said than done.}

Heather and Derek, The Papa, Snakes on a Babe, and Bonnie Prince Billy.

mihow — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 19:50:00 +0000

Tobyjoe and I met up with Heather and Derek yesterday for brunch at the Coffee Shop on Union Square. What was supposed to be just a brunch ended up with a visit to the Beard Papa, the Leica gallery, and a ride on both the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island. Coney Island is the only place I can think of where a guy can make money by allowing babes to wear his pet snake. I felt a little bad for the snake, actually.

Heather had had the Bearded goodness before. (That is not meant to be dirty.) And I can’t be sure, but I think she may have clapped when we came upon it. We had to partake. I had the chocolate one. Word of advice: Don’t breath in when you take bite. I inhaled a bunch of chocolate powder and came close to choking. I’m not sure if I should thank her for introducing us to the Beard Papa or kick her ass. Sweet jesus, they’re good.

We had an absolutely fantastic time with Derek and Heather. When they got off at West 4th and we parted ways, Tobyjoe looked at me and said, “They are really nice people. I like those two.” And they are. Incidentally, Tobyjoe is heading to the geek fest known as WWDC today. He’ll be in San Francisco by sundown. They’re going to try and meet up again on the left-hand side of our nation. I am sad that I cannot make it.

This evening Missy and I are heading to Joe’s Pub to see Bonnie Prince Billy. I almost bailed when I found out the concert coincided with Tobyjoe’s absence. Everybody knows that a week without my Beaner pretty much means a week without fuel. We’ve been married for almost three years and I still don’t like being without him. I hope that feeling never goes away. I freaking love that guy.

An Incurable and Necessary Sorrow.

mihow — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:33:00 +0000

I woke up at 3:30 AM to the distant sound of cats fighting. We have three cats. And although one might immediately assume that the sound was coming from inside the apartment, I can assure you, the sound was not.

Earlier that day, we had ordered a bottle of wine while sitting outdoors at a cafe. I was trying to get acquainted with a new idea. He was there to read. We ordered a Chardonnay. The wine made the inside walls of my mouth meet up. “They call this a pucker,” I had thought. “What a strange word.”

Pucker

“Did you know that some people believe that feeling sorrowful is a sickness and can be cured?” I asked him without looking up from my pages.

“Yes, I do remember hearing that.” He answered without looking up from his.

The day was a little drowsy. Still the sun worked hard to be seen. For the most part, we sat in silence. There was one point where our thoughts were splintered by the sound of two feral cats. The sound came from the empty lot next to the café. I wondered if cats made their fights sound worse than they really were. A bird fled the scene by air.

The idea of sorrow being considered an illness made me feel sad. Why would anyone want to fix such a thing? Aren’t we supposed to feel sad every once and a while? These thoughts lay answerless. A lot of thoughts enter and leave my head without the partnership of an answer.

“I wonder if those same people believe happiness is an illness as well.”

I could see myself in the reflection of his dark, mirrored sunglasses. I didn’t like the way I looked. I could see the wrinkles taking root around my eyes and my lips were growing thinner by the day. Even my freckles seemed to want a break.

“You know, the Apple Store had its grand opening last Friday in mid-town. Apple is calling it its ‘Flag Ship’ store. I seem to remember the ‘Flag Ship’ store being in San Francisco when we lived there. We win. New York City always wins. Screw San Francisco.”

My ability to lean toward cattiness surprised me. I had pulled rank over another city because of a computer store as if I had given birth to New York City and San Francisco was someone’s less fortunate, less attractive child. I continued my thought in hopes of sounding less absurd.

“San Francisco would have been a wonderful city to vacation. But there was something about it that made me feel like I was standing at the edge of the planet. Had they not proven that the world was indeed round, I might imagine that it would have dropped off at San Francisco. I’m not sure why it was that I felt that way. But I did. And it didn’t seem to subside in the six months we were there. Perhaps it would have in time. I’m not sure. But there was something very end-of-the-world about it.”

“No, I know what you mean. There was something very Shel Silverstein about it. I’m pretty sure that San Francisco is where the sidewalk ends.”

I laughed. Leave it to him to lighten a conversation.

“Still, someday I hope that I will be able to put my finger on it.”

The cats howled again. One of them seemed to be losing or maybe it just had the more horrific cry.

“I wish I felt better about my career. I wish I could ask the cynical about sorrow doctors if they believe there’s a cure for stagnation. I wonder if there’s one for frustration.”

I thought about our day and the wine and how we left it there. I thought about how the sun had finally given up as we had made dinner and settled in for the night.

It was nearing 4 AM and I had been prematurely pushed awake. I hadn’t heard from the cats again, which led me to believe that they existed only in a dream. I got out of bed and poured myself a glass of water. Perhaps fluid might remind me of sleep.

I watched the cars move along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and wondered if their inhabitants had just woken up or if their headlights were leading them to chilly bed sheets. I wondered if the cabbies were beginning their shifts, or parting with their final fares, getting ready to call it a night. Or morning.

Mourning.

The sadness I had been unknowingly sleeping off before I had awoken remained on my skin like the steam from a hot shower. I reminded myself of the fact that every time I wake up prematurely in the middle of the night without a punctuated reason I was usually greeted by an oppressive sadness. I knew that it would eventually go away. It always did. Nevertheless, as I stood by the window watching the people move to and from someplace unknown to me, I made a list of things I could do to be a better person come morning when I faced another shift.

(Remember birthdays and holidays even if they make people sad. Listen to him when he speaks. Stop wasting your life and stop blaming everyone else. Take better care of yourself for your body needs a break. Take better care of him. Remember that they won’t be here forever take their calls and visit them more. Stop making excuses. Please stop making excuses.)

The moon hung low in the sky just over Southern Manhattan. It was distorted by atmosphere and therefore seemed very close, close enough to touch. It had fought its way out from beneath the clouds like its light source had earlier that day. I wrapped my arms and legs around it like one might a beach ball on an ocean. I dipped my head back and watched New York City upside down, the city who houses the “Flag Ship” Apple store, the city much smarter than all the other cities, the one with imaginary, fighting cats. I hung upside down for a while, letting the blood rush to my head. I let the moon hold me in place and I bobbed up and down, floating along the heavy thoughts of all those who awoke prematurely to an incurable and necessary sorrow.

New York City Wins at Everything Weird

mihow — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 13:52:01 +0000

First there were the Mole People and now this. New York City was named the cloggiest city in all of America. Seattle was named the least cloggy.

Top 10 Clogged Cities:

1. New York
2. Miami/Fort Lauderdale
3. Los Angeles
4. Philadelphia
5. Houston
6. Atlanta
7. Chicago
8. Portland, OR
9. Indianapolis
10. San Francisco Bay Area

Clogs occur frequently during heavy flushing periods (obviously). Those periods take place on days like Black Friday, the day after a Thanksgiving feast, and during the halftime of a big game like the Super Bowl. Beat the wife. Take a crap. Beat the wife. Take a crap. Beat the wife. Have a beer. Take a crap.

In addition, many stopped-up toilets occur when nontraditional items are flushed, including disposable diapers, facial tissue, paper towels or napkins, cat litter, feminine-protection products and even a cell phone or iPod.

I have known TWO people now who have flushed a cell phone. (Hello, Bob.) An iPod? What the heck? Granted, I have gone to the bathroom at work while plugged into my Nano and listening to the Rachel Maddow show, but I make sure it’s secure before dropping my pants. Are people in that much of a hurry? And how are the iPods actually flushed? Why not fish them out first? Lastly, don’t people realize they swallowed the iPod in the first place?

The article goes on to say that SCOTT Brand toilet tissue helps to avoid clogged toilets. Which happens to be the toilet tissue we most use. We use it because it lasts forever and it’s cheap. But in a city where everyday life is far from comfortable, New Yorkers probably would have a hard time giving up their cushy toilet tissues. Anyway, I thought I’d share. (Thanks to Gothamist for the link.)

On Dieting, Losing Weight, and Feeling Good About Oneself.

mihow — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 14:43:00 +0000

This time last year I went on the South Beach Diet. We had just returned from vacationing down in Florida. When I put on my bathing suit, I looked like a big, mid-baked, fluffy ball of cookie dough. If that cookie dough had been tied up and then stuffed in an oven, that would have been me. I couldn’t very well avoid the pool. Not only was it 90 degrees and humid, but I love to swim. I borrowed my mother’s bathing suit. And even that one was tight not that my mother is overweight or anything. It was a rough week. I realized I was putting on weight faster than ever before and the Half Iron Man contest was taking place on the grounds where we were staying. I ate like a champ that week, stuffing myself full of pancakes, waffle, and anything beige and fluffy. I’ll take Foods That Look Like Michele for 1000.

As soon as we got off the plane at JFK, I went on a diet. And I lost about 15 pounds. I felt great.

Last September, we visited Rhode Island with Nico and George. One night, Nico cooked up some homemade mac and cheese. I blame her entirely for falling off the wagon, actually, I didn’t FALL, she kicked me. No one can turn down macaroni and cheese like that. No one.

From that point forward, I slowly stopped dieting.

For months to come, and into December, I refused to get on the scale fearing what it would read back to me. When I finally did, my fears were validated. Nearly all of the weight I had lost was back. I wasn’t at my heaviest, my heaviest was when we were in San Francisco and all I did was eat burritos, drink lemonade, and not walk, unless it was to get another burrito and some more lemonade. I was 5 pounds less than that. I had put 10 of my 15 pounds back on. I felt horrible.

I started running. That helped my self-esteem. And I’m still working out although that time has been severed, as work lately has been overly demanding. Excercise feels great, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t shed pounds quite like dieting does. Three weeks ago, I started dieting as well.

The other night, while I was watching the Oscars, I thought about Charlize Theron and her role in Monster. She probably put on 30 pounds for that role. I’m sure if I looked hard enough, I could find out exactly how much. She slimmed up immediately following the production. I admire her for being able to bounce back so beautifully. It’s weird, but I think about that nearly every time I see her. When I was at my heaviest, I feel that my body looked like hers in the movie Monster. What a weird thing to admit about oneself. What a weird thing to fixate on.

While I realize that the job of a moviestar is to keep one’s body maintained and that most of us don’t have the luxury of working out for 2+ hours a day with a personal trainer, there must be a way to remain fit. My goal is to lose 20 pounds. My goal then is to try my hardest to keep it off. I’m five pounds lighter this week than I was three weeks ago. It’s hard. It’s frustrating, but at least it’s working, albeit slowly.

Just like with every post, I do have a few questions. If you feel like answering, please do so. Are you happy with your weight? Do you diet? Do you workout? Have you ever lost and/or gained a large amount of weight? What’s your weakness? Mine is pizza, cake, and french fries. I would love to order a pizza tonight and not regret it in the morning.

Anything goes today, people.

Scent While Dreaming.

mihow — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 19:01:00 +0000

I stood in the closet next to Soung. We looked around at her clothing. They hung from hangers, sighing. The great contrast between aged skin and aged clothing became painfully clear: One becomes wrinkled over time, and the other becomes smoother. There were shoes tucked away and a few hair ties draped around the door handle. She once walked through there, figuring out what to wear before heading out for the night. The carpeting below our feet held indentations of previous footprints. I wondered if any of them were still hers. I thought about cutting out a square of it and taking it with me as one might a fossil.

(After she died, I tried to convince myself that I had less of a right to miss her.)

Soung lifted one of the shirts from the hanger. She held it up to her nose and inhaled deeply.

I reached toward the back of the closet. While my decision seemed logical, I was most likely in search of the clothing she rarely wore and therefore would harbor no smell. And it didn’t.

Soung pulled out a sweater and then a t-shirt. We picked up faint scents, and like sleepy memories, I wasn’t sure if they were real or my memory wanted them to be. She pulled out a pair of pants, a dress shirt, a suit jacket, and a sock. Each time, we inhaled deeply, absorbing whatever we could.

………………………………

The night I found out she had died, I took the train to D.C. to be closer to Soung. We had dinner and talked. We played pool. We took a cab home at 2 AM.

“I wish I saved a voice mail. Had I known, I would have saved them all. I really want to hear her voice once more.”

“Why don’t we call her phone?” I asked.

“But what if her mom answers? It’s really late.”

“We’ll call from my phone. It’s a San Francisco number. I’ll just say I have wrong number.”

I dialed her number and it rang several times.

“Hello?” A voice on the other end sputtered to life. I hadn’t expected anyone to answer. I figured I’d receive a “Mailbox is Full” message. Before anyone heard the news, they called and called and called. Up until that moment, I had never thought about all the overflowing mailboxes, maxed out answering machines, or voicemail boxes.

I immediately panicked and hung up the phone.

It turns out; I had flipped the two last numbers. I had called a complete stranger at about 2:30 in the morning from the darkness of a D.C. cab. What do you say to that someone, that voice on the other end? I woke up a complete stranger in the middle of the night just to hear the recorded voice of my friend. That stranger will never know they answered a phone call meant for a dead person.

The living is heartbreaking sometimes.

That night, when we finally laid down to sleep, Soung told me that my side of the bed might still smell like her.

“I haven’t washed the sheets since she spent the night during the snowstorm last week.”

I took great comfort in that pillow, but we never tried to call her again.

………………………………

Soung pulled a scarf she had knitted down from its hanger. She used to knit. She wore scarves all the time. Soung inhaled deeply. I could tell immediately this one held a lot. I watched Katrina’s smell fill Soung’s face. I saw it move up into her nose and then through her cheeks, which flushed with the introduction. Her eyes began to water; she had discovered her all over again.

I wanted some. She handed me the scarf and I inhaled but not as deeply. I wanted more and more and I wanted it to last forever. It seemed like the right thing to do was to save it for others.

We moved through the closet in search of more and more of her. We picked up each piece of clothing and put it back in its place when we were finished. Oh, how I missed her.

Could this be the only thing we have left?

………………………………

I woke up sweating.

I hate forgetting. I hope that I never forget.

Public Transportation: Can We Own It?

mihow — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:52:48 +0000

Well, the MTA didn’t go on strike. Yet. That’s a very good thing for the city. Last night, as we watched the news people salivate over any possible new breaks, I couldn’t help but wonder. What if the MTA was owned by the public? What if the money I spent to use it meant I owned a miniscule part of it? Do you think people would care more for the system? Do you think we’d have an input on the hiring? Would we have an input in management? I really wonder what would happen.

Now, this doesn’t only apply to the MTA. It seems that public transportation (at least in the U.S.) could use some help. And some places more than others. For example, I think we could all learn something from the Metro in Washington, D.C. Once you’ve used that system it’s hard not comparing every other system to it. It’s close to perfect. (I realize, however, it doesn’t run past midnight and it’s pretty much brand new in comparison to the Subway system.) The Metro does well even with all the jumpers. The MUNI in San Francisco was a joke. I’m sorry. I have trouble seeing it any other way. The BART is great and all, but it barely covers any ground. I haven’t used the EL in Chicago (Is that what’s it’s called?) So I have no idea if it’s any good or if people use it at all. Detroit’s People Mover makes me giggle endlessly. And unless you’re going to the downtown Casino called “Greektown” I don’t see how this system is much use to anyone. From what I hear, LA doesn’t even really have public transportation. No, really. Does anyone even use it? Judging by the smog I’d guess not. I don’t know anything about Boston’s Public Transportation sytsem. Seattle was great for walkers. I know nothing about the public transportation system. I hear it’s free.

I am told London’s Underground could use a facelift and that the cushions are basically biohazards. (Plastic wipes well, England.) I only experienced the Underground while visiting. So my judgment on it probably won’t prove very reliable. I’d love to hear about it, however.

What would happen if the users owned the system?

Oh Ford.

mihow — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 13:50:27 +0000

When Toby Joe and I lived in San Francisco, I worked for Gay.com. I wasn’t there long, but I was there long enough to discover how important it is to have such a site for men and women who are gay, bisexual or transgender. I also realized how tightly knit that community is. It’s reassuring knowing there are groups out there willing to take a stand to see change.

I was a multi-media designer for Gay.com. I worked on banners ads, campaigns, and print advertisements as well. The bulk of my work, was creating Flash banner ads for the many sites that PlanetOut Inc. owned. One of my largest campaigns, was a system of flash banners for Jaguar. I worked hard on that campaign. It was one of my better pieces that came out of my time working for Gay.com.

Around the same time I worked on Jaguar, Coors Brewing Company was facing a massive backlash from the Gay community when it was discovered that a large portion of profits were being donated to anti-gay organizations such as American Family Association. I remember reading about it back then. Bars in San Francisco stopped carrying the beer. Gay and lesbian people (as well as straight supporters) took a stand and got the word out informing people to stop the consumption of all products distributed by Coors. It was a huge success. Their actions spoke in novels. Coors changed their ways and issued apologies. (I read an article back then and am currently trying to find it. As it stands, all I can find right now is this blurb. I will post more when I find more.)

Today, while listening to the Rachel Maddow Show. I learned that the American Family Association is at it again. After threatening to boycott the Ford Motor Company for advertising in gay magazines, Ford has pulled all advertising from gay magazines, online and off. My Jaguar campaign is one of the past. And I hate to break it to Ford, but if they thought a boycott from The American Family Association was bad, wait until they face one from the gay community. Alienating the gay community in order to appeal to this small, right wing group out of Mississippi will not be good for business. I think we’re going to see a pretty massive backlash over the next couple of months. And I’m curious to see how their profits shift. I’m also curious to hear what others think about this.

This Is Not My Beautiful Life. Or, Is It?

mihow — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:44:00 +0000

It seems like lifetimes ago that Toby Joe and I were living in D.C. It seems like a lifetime ago we then picked up everything and moved to San Francisco. And it seems like not so long ago we were packing everything back up and moving back to New York City. And it seems that as I remember it all, I’m making it all up.

Toby Joe and I have moved five times since we met. That includes once while living in New York City (the first time.) It includes twice during our time spent in D.C. It includes two cross-country moves; one to San Francisco and one back to New York. As it states in the About Section of this Web site, Toby Joe and I have moved a lot. In just four short years we have moved more than some folks do in a lifetime.

Yesterday, it occurred to me that on November 22nd of last year we began our move back across the United States. I remembered this because as the Thanksgiving Holiday draws near, I remembered that last year we held our Thanksgiving dinner at a Cracker Barrel in Indiana.

Because of all our moving, we’ve had the opportunity to meet some of the most amazing people. Sadly, we’ve also had to say goodbye to them. While living in D.C., more specifically in Adam’s Morgan, I frequented a yoga studio called 18th and Yoga. (Now, it’s called Inspired Yoga.) I took classes there for a year straight. Toby Joe and I even flew to Turks and Caicos for a weeklong yoga retreat. While studying yoga with Kyra, I met some of the kindest people during the 31 years I’ve spent alive. Some of whom I still desperately try and keep in contact with.

This morning, I received a mass email from Inspired Yoga. They mentioned that this year they’d be traveling to Hawaii for the annual retreat. After reading about what everyone there is up to, I felt a wave of bittersweet sadness compress me. So much has changed over the past several years, it’s as if parts of my life were merely memories I adopted after reading an extraordinarily vivid novel. Parts of my life just don’t seem real to me. And I’m left wondering if that’s normal.

Today, after I convinced myself that Kyra was indeed someone I not only once knew but was also someone who meant the world to me, I decided to break time’s silence and write her an email. There is a part of me who wants to fly to Hawaii this February and join them all, try and relive that part of my life as much as I can. And then there is another part of me who is terrified of revisiting a period of time I can no longer get to.

Mike and Dee arrive today from San Francisco. Their existence and the fact they are visiting us pretty much proves that I actually did once live there. This realization surprises me time and time again.

As people exit your life, whether they pass away or they grow tired of you or you of them, does that extraction work to blur or erase life’s film a little bit? Is one’s history better set with the proof of other people?

I want to remember to not forget that these experiences, while distant, are indeed my own. I want to keep people with me no matter how far we move or how long it’s been. And I place shame on myself for not raising my hand more.

Gay Dot Com

mihow — Mon, 24 Oct 2005 19:41:05 +0000

Did I ever mention I worked for Gay.com? I did. I worked there when we lived in San Francisco.

While I worked there, the below scenario took place. I put the image up then and said it was funny but wasn’t able to mention why it was funny. Today, I am.

Anyway… just thought I’d share.

A Month of Visitors

mihow — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 15:55:29 +0000

Tonight, both Nico and George are coming into the city to see Antony and The Johnsons at Carnegie Hall. I’m going to try and see it with them, if there are tickets still available AND I can leave work in time to get there. I have two phone interviews scheduled for tonight so we’ll see. I might have to skip this adventure. Either way, I get to hang out with them and stomp around the wet city tomorrow as I took the day off. We’re going to have lunch here and who knows what else will happen.

Tomorrow night, Toby Joe and I are going to see the Moscow Cats Theater at the TRIBECA Performing Arts Center. I read a review of it yesterday that had me laughing. Here’s my favorite part:

But some of their routines go nowhere, and the Act I finale, in which two clowns dressed as giant elephants murder the main clown (for reasons I cannot fathom) is not just bizarre, it’s deeply disturbing.

I hate clowns. They frighten me. But I love cats. Which is why I purchased these tickets.

Right after we’re finished watching a bunch of Russian cats do weird shit, my Dearest, Soung, arrives. And I think there’s some billiard time scheduled. I’m sure Toby Joe could use it after the week he’s had.

In a few weeks from now, Mike and Dee arrive all the way from San Francisco. This will be their first time in the city. I can hardly wait. (If either of them read this, hopefully, they will send me a link to their latest and greatest Web site.)

Last weekend, I finally got to see Miss Mia. This weekend, Soung, Nico AND George. I love friends.

Is This Really Necessary?

mihow — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 14:44:41 +0000

This morning there was a dildo riding a SEGWAY on the elevator. I’m sorry, did I just say “dildo”? I meant perfectly able rich man.

He’s now second in line in receiving the award for the biggest ass. The contender is still somewhere in San Francisco. This gent rode his SEGWAY around the grocery store and once he reached the check-out line, proceeded to put it into reverse over and over again all the while running into the walls making up the isle. Eventually, he got off, turned it manually, and pushed it through the isle.

I silently judged him. To be honest, I am not sure why SEGWAYS bug me so much.

I’ll Have a Side of Boob Job with that Mango Lassi.

mihow — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:36:38 +0000

I have always wanted to go to India. I have told Toby Joe that for years and years.

Let’s go to India!!!!

How the hell are you going to survive a 20+ hour flight to India? You sobbed on the way home from San Francisco.

I can drug myself. Let’s go to India.

That dream has solidified after having seen the latest 60 Minutes regarding Medical Tourism. I wonder how much a boob reduction would cost? Knowing I could sit on a beach in India wearing a B-cup bikini top (or maybe one of those coconut bras) while sipping a mango lassi directly following surgery sounds awfully tempting.

I wonder how much a boob job cost in India.

(Side note: I will have one roll of vacation photos up later today.)

Leaving On a Jet Plane

mihow — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:17:11 +0000

My Toby Joe is heading to San Francisco for business this evening. I hate it when he leaves. I don’t like to be away from him. I know I have issues and am high maintenance, but I guess it’s better than rejoicing every time he leaves. I also hate it when he flies, drives, moves, or swims. :]

He returns on Thursday just in time for the Song’s Ohia show at Southpaw.

What am I going to do all day and night?

Hurricane Isabel Arrived Two Years Late

mihow — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 14:54:34 +0000

Yesterday afternoon, Toby and I heard thunder rolling in over the city. I love thunderstorms. One of the reasons I wasn’t able to embrace the West coast ~~- more specifically, San Francisco -~~ was due to its predictable weather. There is nothing more intriguing that the schizophrenic weather of the Northeast. Growing up with it, you become attached as one might with an eccentric cousin or an unpredictable friend; you just never know what might happen next.

Take yesterday, for example. We drove the car a lot this weekend. And although it lacks a working air conditioner, it does have a barely functioning sun roof. If it’s not closed all the way it leaks. Upon hearing the first distant rumble, I asked Toby if we could make sure it was closed tightly.

It probably won’t rain anyway—but just incase.

Within a half hour from my false prediction, we were witness to a thunderstorm with hurricane envy. And this went on for hours. First, the wind picked up. And the neighbors’ grill blew over and into their back yard. I’m not talking about one of those small, portable ones. I’m talking about the variety one wheels, the SUV of grills.

Our back yard turned into a monsoon. Buildings collapsed in Williamsburg. Trees were brought down smashing cars all throughout Greenpoint and Williamsburg. It was an awesome storm.

Today, I took a few pictures of my walk to the L Train on Graham Avenue. They don’t reveal much. And they certainly don’t illustrate what Williamsburg went through.

I got a phone call from Gerry after the first storm came and went. He called from the car as he and Anna drove home from a movie and aksed me if a tornado hit Greenpoint and Williamsburg. Apparently, in downtown Brooklyn, it didn’t even rain. Downtown Brooklyn is not far from Greenpoint.

It’s being reported that there were no deaths. And with the departure of the storm, it’s about 20 degrees cooler. Given the unbearably hot summer we’ve had, I think that I’m ready for Fall. I’m ready to take drives up north to see the leaves change. We missed our Northeaster Fall last year. I’m ready for the Apple Festival and hiking in the catskills. I am ready to take the car on long drives through Pennsyltuckey. I’m even ready for primetime TV again.

The 41st Annual National Apple Harvest Festival

mihow — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 17:47:33 +0000

Last year, we were in San Francisco at the time of the Gettysburg Apple Festival. This year, I’d like to attend. We went to the one two years ago and had a great time in spite of the fact that we had a most horrible meal at a local “5 star” restaurant. But the festival was fun and the Gaslight Inn was lovely. Anyway, I think I will treat us both this year in celebration of the day we met (October 11th).

At the end of August we’re heading to Little Compton, Rhode Island for a week of fun in the sun with our friends, Nico and George. I can’t wait. Trips like these make me realize the fun in being an adult. This is the sort of thing I used to dream about as a child, spending vacations away with the boy I love and excellent friends. While I want it to come up immediately, the waiting is exciting.

And hopefully, we’ll head to Pennsyltuckey for a camping adventure sometime in the fall with Gerry, Greg and whoever else wants to come along. Walter was right again, good things are indeed coming our way.

In Retrospect

mihow — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 22:44:06 +0000

A year ago today we were in San Francisco minding the heart.

I didn’t write two years ago today or three years ago today. I must have been recovering from all the fireworks.

iTunes

mihow — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 15:27:57 +0000

I knew my constant job hopping would eventually bite me in the ass. I just downloaded The Outfield’s “Your Love” because I have been singing it for two days now and I REALLY WANT TO HEAR THE DAMN SONG. I just went to play it and was told I can not listen to it because I already have five computers signed on to my account. That sucks. I have no way of turning that shit off as the computer in question, well, one of them, is in San Francisco.

Man, does this suck. Now, I’ll never hear that song.

Edited to add: Sucess! Holy sweet jesus this song rules. Does anyone out there have The Butchies cover of it? I’ll trade you.

The Wojcik Curse

mihow — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:15:25 +0000

Many years ago, after my grandfather passed away, Toby Joe and I inherited his couch. The couch is (forgive me, mother) sort of ugly. While it’s comfortable, it’s also a little homely. It’s green and blue and there are tiny gold diamonds all over it. Of course, it doesn’t help that the cats, specifically a small orange one, have adopted it as a scratching post. It’s the biggest, greenest scratching post ever.

In the time we have had Tucker, he has managed to pull off a part its right arm and pull out most of its gold hair, too. It’s losing. And slowly.

I like to nap on this couch. I have grown to sort of love it in that redheaded, one-armed step-child sort of way. I’ve woken up numerous times with its texture all over my cheeks (and my face as well).

Now that I have we’re a dual income household, we’re doing OK and have found that we can drop a buck or two on nicer things, like a car for example, and maybe even some furniture. Toby Joe has spent the last several weekends looking at new couches and armchairs. He wants a man-chair, pronto. Who am I to get in the way of a man-chair? Each and every time we have the dreaded furniture conversation, I suggest first getting rid of the ugly futon we bought when we arrived in San Francisco and had nothing to sleep on for several weeks. After that, we can talk about getting rid of my grandparents – I mean – the couch.

This couch comes up quite a bit. I think my mother likes everything that comes to mind when she sees it. The couch holds memories for all of us. The most prevalent memory that comes to my mind when I think about the couch is one featuring my grandmother who died several years before my grandfather. My grandmother used to sit on the left hand side of that couch, the opposite side that Tucker has a beef with now, thank goodness. When my family stayed at our grandparent’s house in New Jersey, we’d sleep upstairs in their finished attic – a room my uncle had to duck to stand in. From the stairs, just outside its door, I could look down and nine times out of ten she’d be sitting right there on that couch. It was really all I could see from up there, aside from a bit of the lamp and the coffee table. She would peer up at me, looking out from above her reading glasses, a lanyard framing her cheeks. She’d smile or say something cute. That’s what I picture when I think of the couch. That’s a most excellent memory. And for every one of mine, I’m sure my mother has 200.

The relatives on my mothers side of the family are slightly insane. But in a good way. I could go on for pages telling their stories. I have seven aunts and uncles on that side of the family. Which pretty much amounts to a whole lot of material. I firmly believe my grandmother deserved to rest on the left side of that couch for all eternity in reward for all that hard work. One of the most constant memories from the Wojcik family is this idea known as the “Wojcik Curse”. You see, for years anything that would go wrong for someone, albeit slightly, would summed up entirely using the simple sentence, “It’s simple. You suffer from the Wojcik Curse.” For example, should one forget to cut the little plastic tees off a new shirt or any piece of clothing and continue to wear it around like that for years to come, they suffer greatly from the Wojcik Curse. And to this day I still have a piece of plastic on a bra I have had for over two years. I suffer greatly from the Wojcik Curse.

During our wedding party in D.C., the couch came up again. It came up because Toby Joe and I had just found out we were moving to San Francisco. I wanted to break it to my mother easy. I did so in front of extended family while preparing for our party and everyone was standing around pretending to like our boxed up apartment.

Mom, I think we might need to get rid of that couch. I’m not sure it will fit in the bins with us.

My mother’s face changed. (Oh god, what have I done.) Not only did her face change, but one of her sister’s face changed as well.

Can you find someone to take it? It’s a nice couch. It would be so sad to just leave it on the side of a road someplace.

The other sister, this one:

shook her head and made a ppphfft sound with her lips.

Michele, you can get rid of that couch if you want to. It’s not like it’s actually grandpa, for crissakes!

This hadn’t ever consciously occurred to me. Which is a good thing, too because sitting on my grandparents is not something I ever would have wanted and leaving them on the side of the road isn’t something I wanted, either.

My mother laughed at this. Might I actually be leaving my grandparents on the side of the road someplace? What if some deranged local from DC decided to urinate on it? What if someone dismembered it, someone other than a 7 pound cat? This was an unacceptable idea.

So we moved the couch across the United States of America. And then six months later, after a similar conversation to the one above over the telephone this time, we moved it back across the United States of America. Today, that same green couch sits in our Brooklyn apartment losing a one-armed battle with an Orangemanistani terrorist named Tucker. And it’s second up on being “let go” – second only to a brown futon that no one would have loved if it had not been for the two of us.

If my grandmother were still alive today she’d have a hearty laugh over this Wojick curse – the new Wojick curse – the Curse of the Green Couch. I imagine she’d laugh long and hard and my grandfather would just shake his head and smile. And then she’d go into the kitchen in her nightgown, pull out the buttermilk and the flour and make me some galletes.

ReWrite RetroShock

mihow — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 15:14:20 +0000

I really don’t have much to write about today. Actually, I feel like I don’t have a much to write about at all anymore. It’s funny what happens to someone like me when they’re happy; there tends to be less drama and therefore they become a little more boring. I bore myself online now, too.

Lately, in order to remind myself of how miserable I can be, I have been reading through my archives. Some of what I wrote about over the past 3 years is kind of bewildering. The time that stands out the most is how unbelievably unhappy I was while Toby Joe and I were living out West. (If you’re new here and care to get a glimpse of The Great Depression after the fact, you can get an idea of how unhappy I was here, here, here, and here.) I would like to take this time to publicly apologize to anyone who may have been reading this while we lived there. Holy sad girl alert. Apparently, I wore black on the outside because it how I felt on the inside.

I’d like to finish this fantastically random post by making the following statement: No matter how depressed I REALLY was at the time of The Great Depression, it’s amazing to me that, in retrospect, I’m able to think to myself, “I had a good time back then. A lot of wonderful things happened then.” And the strangest thing is, I actually BELIEVE it now. Does the mind retro-shock? Because, when I look back on our move to San Francisco, I see blue skies, great walks, excellent dinners, amazing scenery, and wonderful smells. I see something more like this and this. I don’t see the Michele who wrote about how unbelievably sad she was. At least, not until I remind myself.

Days of Yore

mihow — Mon, 09 May 2005 22:22:12 +0000

A year ago today we were driving across the country, moving to San Francisco. That’s totally insane.

Cellular Nightmare

mihow — Mon, 09 May 2005 15:08:09 +0000

This weekend, Toby Joe and I finally changed our numbers from San Francisco to New York City. We walked into a store on 5th and 14th, which sported a HUGE sign that proudly read: T-Mobile Authorized Seller. (Yeah.)

For the past 9 months, Toby Joe has been using a phone he dropped down 6 flights of stairs. The phone went right in between the rails and fell the entire way down to the bottom floor. It hit every rail and wall along its way. The face was cracked. Miraculously, while he could not see any of the numbers, who was calling him, how much battery power was left, what time it was, or if he had a voice message, he could use it to talk. And so he did—for NINE FREAKING MONTHS. In spite of my half-assed attempts at buying him new phones, we just never replaced it. On Saturday, that time came to an end. Toby demanded it.

Right before this past Christmas I stopped in to this same store in a desperate attempt to try and buy him a new Blackberry. That quest failed because I had no idea what the hell he’d want added to it. I did however remember the store. And so when Toby suggested we go to the T-Mobile store in Brooklyn, I suggested going to this more “legit” one. (Yes, I think I actually used the word legit.)

It turns out, that particular “T-Mobile” store, the one we chose, is basically running out of the back of an unmarked truck. They guys running it are so very shady. I’m certain the store is also a front for other non-cellular items. We both ended up with non-T-Mobile phones. My phone isn’t even offered through T-Mobile. I had to get the latest and greatest hottie. And of course I had to drop an arm and a leg on it because it’s matte black AND it was the last one in the store. And since we were spending so much money on the phones, the drug dealer, I mean sales guy, sold us on the insurance as well. Granted, it’s only $3.00 a month each, but AFTER we took our lovely phones home, it occurred to us that if the phones aren’t supported by T- Mobile, how is it we’ll get new ones should something go wrong with the ones we just bought? Answer? We won’t. You might be thinking, how did we discover that we weren’t actually SOLD T-Mobile phones? When we arrived home, Toby hooked his Treo up to his computer and upgraded the OS. The OS no longer supported the T-Mobile SIM card, and so the phone no longer worked. When he called T-Mobile, they told him it wasn’t a T-Mobile phone and therefore there wasn’t much they could do. His only option was to take it back to the store and trade it in with a T-Mobile version of the same phone. Fine. He called the store, they said come on down. No problem, right?

Wrong.

They didn’t have any of those phones at their store. As a matter of fact, most of the phones they were selling were Cingular versions. Toby got worked up, walked they guy into admitting to a number of lies, and then finally left with the same dysfunctional phone he walked in there with.

In the end, they lied to us about the rebates. They lied to us about our phones being supported (in my case, offered) by T-Mobile. They sold us insurance that isn’t going to be recognized and they lied to us about the cancellation of our previous accounts.

The only GOOD thing that came out of this is that I got a really freaking HOT AS SHIT phone that no other T-Mobile customer can get. It’s so hot; I actually want to use it. I WANT people to call me; I WANT to use the phone. That’s a major breakthrough for me.

Anyway, we called T-Mobile and we gave them the long version of what happened. (Believe it or not, if you’re actually still reading this, this is the short version.) They are upset that this store claims to be an authorized T-Mobile dealership when clearly it is not. They have agreed to back my insurance should something go wrong with my most hot new Motorola Black RAZR. They have agreed to look into getting their “license” revoked. And they’re well aware of our situation should anything go horribly wrong. We are, however, out of hundreds of dollars as the 100-dollar rebate Toby was to get is not real. Plus, he had to drop another 70 on the deductible in order to get an actual T-Mobile version of the Treo.

But we have new New York Numbers and after it’s all said and done, we’ll be saving over 130 dollars a month by using the T-Mobile Family Plan.

Oh, did I mention I got a hot new phone? It really is pretty. I named her Lucy.

Los Angeles

mihow — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 14:52:57 +0000

Well, just when you thought our lives couldn’t get any more insane, Toby Joe is offered a transfer to the Los Angeles office for the company he works for. I’m besides myself with freak.

We would have to be there in May. And the project would begin then, too. They would pay for ABSOLUTELY everything this time, so that’s why I didn’t shut down the idea entirely. And the pay is good, too. Plus, we’d only need to be there for about 8 months. They have an apartment picked out (corporate apartment in North Hollywood, which is really close to two wonderful friends) and a company car we can use as well.

But I’m worried about the cats. I don’t think they can take another cross-country move. But I am not sure I can live without them for 8 months either. The company says that they will fly them there and take care of any vet bills should they need check ups. I’m just not sure Schmitty can handle it. I mean, he’s getting older every minute.

This has been brewing here for about a week now, and it’s caused much tummy stress and heavy discussions between the two of us. I love New York and, this time, I wasn’t ready to EVER leave again. I guess LA has much better weather than San Francisco does. And we do have really great friends who live there.

Are we crazy? Will someone please tell me why this kind of thing ALWAYS happens to us? My dreams last night turned to nightmares of flying over mountain roads while in a helicopter. We were barely above ground most of the time, and kept bumping into objects along the way.

Man, I am tired. Man, I don’t want to deal with this again.

Days of Yore

mihow — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 21:00:41 +0000

Sometimes, life is weird. Last year, I was dreaming about moving back to New York. Now, I actually live in New York, after having moved from DC to San Francisco and then back to New York again. Who would have placed money down on that scenario? Not me. No way.

Pace. (yourself for this is like reading a boring marathon.)

mihow — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 14:05:09 +0000

If there is a God, he’s either heartless or he has a sick sense of humor (literally). About two weeks ago, Toby and I decided to dump an excessive amount of red wine into our trash chutes, right after consuming a meal made up of entirely mac and cheese and crab cakes. We were out with friends of ours, Jon and Lindsay. It was one of those evenings where as long as the conversation was good, the wine was its chaser.

After we finished our meal at Dumont we headed over to Daddy’s to meet a couple of other friends for a few more drinks. Because, what we needed were more drinks at 10:30 at night on a Saturday^

There, we drank more wine and beer and booze. By midnight, I could barely walk. Not only was I drunk, but I was also dead-tired from walking around Manhattan all day with Toby Joe. I wanted to go home. We pulled a French exit from the bar just after midnight and stumbled under the BQE towards our house. Daddy’s is only about 5 or 6 blocks from home. It was the longest trek I have ever made.

Just like any good gal drunk, I made time for a few phone calls that I don’t remember. You know, the type of call where at some point during the following day you get a message from someone and it goes something like this:

HEY MICHELE! Oh my goodness! It was so nice to hear your voice! I’m still in LA and I still date Jonathan. He’s a professional bowler now and we have three pugs and a cactus. I still drive that car! It’s really warm here. Call me back!

It was just that kind of a night, a night that held those kind of calls.

By the next morning, I could barely move. (Surprise, surprise, I know.) I was sick. I threw up a few times. I crawled back to bed where I stayed until Monday, basically. It was the worst weekend ever. Even Desperate Housewives was a rerun.

That Sunday evening, while making hot tea and moping around the kitchen, I told Toby that I was tired of feeling sick and sick of feeling tired. I told him I no longer wanted to sway home at night beneath the underbelly of the BQE making phone calls to people I haven’t spoken to in 5+ years. Most importantly, I was tired of wasting my time. I was tired of wasting our time.

I have gone through something like this before. (I even wrote about it.) I have gotten to that point where I just throw in the towel. Usually it’s right after realizing that I just can’t seem to stop once I get started on the stuff. It’s not that I can’t get by without it, that’s just not the case. It’s that once I’m with it, I don’t want to stop being with it. That is, up until it sucker-punches me the following day. (Bitch.)

And I do this with simply everything. I do it with people, certain foods (which are either new to me entirely, or are new to me because enough time has passed), hobbies, writing, blogging; I do it with everything. Even booze.

So, we stopped drinking (again). Basically, I replaced the phrase “going-out” with “gym-time”. And the changes have been interesting. (This is the point in the story where my actual reason for writing begins.)

Several months ago, while we were still living in San Francisco, I wrote about a skin problem I was having. It tore my shins up for months. Some days, the pain and itch was so awful I couldn’t stop scratching them. As a result, they would turn red and bleed. It was horrible. I kept thinking that it was because I turned 30 and I had too many neuroses growing up. I thought there had to be some cream that would help. DonaldEugene even sent me a replacement box of Buttpaste because I basically inhaled the first one. It was an ugly time. My legs were ugly. I was ugly. I couldn’t shave. And I was living someplace I didn’t know. Things weren’t going very well for me back then, not well at all.

I tried everything. I talked to people about the problem. I even left messages on internet message boards in search of answers. (If you know me at all, you’ll know that this pretty much sums up just how desperate I was.) My friend, Dee, helped me to feel more normal again. And a lot of regulars from here were helpful as well. But nothing worked. My legs just kept on erupting.

Last Friday, almost a week after we had stopped drinking booze, I was sitting around watching yet another Law and Order, when I noticed something. Rather, I noticed the lack of something. My legs hadn’t itched in days. I pulled up my pajama pants and began to taunt them a little bit. Usually, if I even so much as touched them lightly, they would start to itch. But they didn’t this time. Were they finally, after a year of severe annoyance, getting better?

Yes, they were. My shins no longer itched. But what I don’t know yet is why? Is it because now that I’m going to the gym every day, I shower twice a day and moisturize excessively, more so than I ever had in the past? Is it because I am drinking more water? Or, is it that I’m allergic to sulfites in red wine? Am I allergic to alcohol in general? Because that possibility scares me a little bit.

Either way, up until I got sick, I hadn’t felt this good in ages. (I guess that was the incentive I was looking for.) I run at least 3 miles a day and the pace in which I accomplish my daily goal gets faster every day. I lift for a little bit, but I am weak, so that doesn’t last very long. And I bike for 7 – 10 miles a day. But just when I thought I was out in the clear, I get the worst cold I have had in years. And that is why God is laughing.

I’m writing today for a few reasons. First, I needed to be reminded about how good I have felt recently especially since I am so very sick today. And the mountain of used tissues currently sitting on my desk gets taller and taller by the minute, adding to the daunting climb I must make in order to get out the door. I’m also writing because sometimes it helps to say things out loud if even on here, even if no one made it this far. Most importantly, I am hoping that I won’t look back on this post in a month, three months, a year from now and say, “Why did you stop taking care of yourself?” (Again.)

I wish I could be one of those people who enjoys something just a little bit. Even when I’m sick I take it to an extreme. I need to work with this word, reservation. I need to work on my pace. And I needed to tell you this. (Again.)

Devine

mihow — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:34:51 +0000

Last night, I ventured out to see Kevin Devine at South Paw in Park Slope. While I was watching him play, after having just consumed a meal made up entirely of sushi and chasing that with a glass of dry white wine, I imagined writing something spectacular about his music and the show. I imagined creating new words and aligning them just so in order to take people there with me after the fact.

And wouldn’t you know, I don’t remember the words I came up with. I just don’t remember what they were anymore.

I knew that I would forget them all by today. Last night, I thought to myself that I should become more like the girl in Kicking and Screaming (it’s not every month you get to link to it twice). She carried a pencil and a notepad along with her everywhere she went. She took life notes to use later. “I should become more like her.” I thought. —This fictional character that nobody knows about.

But I left my orange notebook at home.

(A few weeks ago, actually it was on New Year’s Eve, Missy, Toby and I were watching Freestyle. During the film, they brought up a “Rhyming Dictionary” It was then we realized that Jay didn’t come up with it out of nowhere.

But I do actually have an orange notebook. It has nothing to do with Rhyming.)

Last night, after Kevin finished singing and I dropped my words, I spent the rest of the evening (well, my evening, they continued out after the curtains closed, and there were actually curtains) talking with the violinist. Her name is Margaret White.

Margaret plays violin with Cat Power usually. She has a dog and a cat and a car and she lives in Brooklyn. She’s probably the nicest person I have met since returning to New York City. I could have talked to her for hours more. And I hope I get that chance to do so soon.

Truth is, I’m a little sad today and I’m not sure why. I fear the old Michele stopped in for a visit—the one who I thought we left for dead in San Francisco. You know, the girl who walks around feeling somewhat troubled and writing about it? Her. She’s visiting. And while I truly enjoyed the show last night, I fear that it has brought back an old familiar feeling; I should be further along than this.

I wish I could go back and find the words I dreamed I created last night. I want people to walk around with musical instruments instead of grumpy frowns. And I want them to sing at people when they are angry and someone bumps them on a crowded train.

I want to not care about what I read and the emails I receive. And I want to actually give this meaning. Last night, I watched two people pluck strings with their fingers and make sounds with hair from a horse’s tail. As they shared the words they wrote, designed and remembered with their mouths which shadowed beneath the lights hung behind drawn curtains, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “What is it you’re doing with all of this?”

I am just not sure.

Yesterday was a rough day. Today I’m suffering from its vestige.

My Mistress: A long story about how I met The Times

mihow — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:11:19 +0000

(If a woman keeps a mistress is it then called a “Mister” because I’m not keeping a lady. Come to think of it, I’m not even keeping a man.)

The New York Times has become my evening lover. After Toby gets home and we settle in beneath our blankets on our couches, I read the rest of the paper. Usually, I begin reading it sometime in late afternoon after having finished my work for the day and before I begin making our dinner. The paper has become something I enjoy every single day. It’s the little things in life and this “little thing” makes me feel spectacular.

Since we moved from New York City to Washington, D.C. And then from D.C. all the way to San Francisco, I haven’t read much of the New York Times. While we were in San Francisco, I was buying The New Yorker and the Sunday Times. However, for reasons I am not proud of, I didn’t do it very often as occasionally I would become too homesick. On worse days, I’d become bitterly resentful for having left. I’m not proud of either emotion, but it’s the truth.

And I guess that the clich� is true as well; one never really shakes this city after having lived with it. Then again, I guess you could say that about any city, really. It’s not that it’s the greatest city on earth, on the contrary. But it does have it’s way of sinking in. I liken it to a first love; not always the best one for you, but definitely the one you can’t and never will let go of.

For a while I was keeping (what I’ve deemed as) a bad habit. I was spending too much time reading only a circle of blogs and forums. And while this medium has its place and is often times a hoot, it’s not really good for my head—I mean, ALL the time. I started to feel sort of stagnant. I was sitting around clicking through the same old circle of bookmarks, reading through the same topics, seeing the same old arguments. All the while I was reading about someone else’s life, I was retreating more and more into my own (and very small) head. This routine was making me very anxious. (Does anyone else go through this? Sometimes I believe that it’s just me and I succumb to my weaknesses too easily.) Anyway, after one long night lying in bed beneath the self-deprecating chorus of an old hit called “You’re such a loser, Michele” I made a deal with myself that I’d change a few things.

1) Lessen times spent reading Web sites.
2). Don’t spend time getting into lengthy internet discussions about topics with no definitive answers. (Save these topics for face-to-face conversations.)
3). Read the news.
4). Turn the people in your life into real people and not HTML and AIM conversations.
5). Get out and discover more.

I have veered off track again. I do apologize. One of the changes I made was geared toward my reading habit(s) and so I ordered The New York Times for our Paper Anniversary. It’s now delivered every single day. And every day I look forward to the thousands and thousands of words thrown onto my doorstep. (What a smart and worldly lover!) I get excited about the blue wrapping they use during the wetter months (i.e. now). The crossword puzzle makes me giddy (except for Sundays and sometimes Saturdays. Then, I just shrug it off). I get excited over the Arts section, the Metro section, stories about our nation, stories about the world. Like I said, it’s the little things. (Commence with the dork comments, please.)

I learn things, too. In an annoying way as I wish to share the information sometimes with others. (For an example, see today’s post.)

Did you read about the Submarine traveling 30 knots that hit an underground mountain 400 feet beneath sea level becuase it didn’t show up on their map?

Toby will be going about his business, his PHP business, and I’ll break his train of thought.

I didn’t know it was legal to drop off an unwanted baby within five days of its birth at a church, a hospital, or firestation in the state of New York.

The other night I was reading The Arts section and there was a story about a woman named Ruth Gerson. The article was called A Star Isn’t Born. She’s a singer/song-writer who, like many others, has had a rough life. She’s turned down record deals with big labels and instead releases music and tours on her own. Even Bob Dylan asked her to perform for him specially one evening. Apparently, she’s amazing. (But don’t take my word for it, it’s all in the article.)

Tomorrow night she’s at Bowery Ballroom (whose site, in my humble opinion, especially the calendar section, could use some help). And I want to go. The way the New York Times article made her out to sound, we’d be insane to miss the show. If all goes well and our visitor from D.C. cares to join us, I think we might head out on Thursday evening to see Ruth belt out some tunes.

Like I said, it’s the little things. But no one ever said that the little things can’t totally change your life?

Internal Confessions of a Dieting Mind

mihow — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:41:08 +0000

I’ve been on a pretty strict diet for about a month now. It’s known as the very popular, widely practiced MIHOW diet. You may have heard of it. After reading the Southbeach Diet book about six months ago, giving it a try and failing miserably after being confronted by a plate of french fries, I decided to follow my own this time. That way, there really is no where (or no one, rather) to fall from.

When I tried this the first time, I was setting myself up for failure. In San Francisco, I ate to feel happy. For lunch, I would eat an ENTIRE burrito from the Mexican place up the street. (If you knew the size of these bitches, you’d be shocked.) At the end of the day, when Toby came home from work, after sitting around doing nothing and feeling sorry for myself, the first thing I wanted to do was consume the biggest plate of cheesy pasta and wash it down with a loaf of garlic bread and some wine.

Nutshell: Gained weight. Felt like shit. Did nothing.

This time, I’m happy. And I didn’t even realize it was so until last night as we were walking to Daddy’s to meet Gerry and Anna. I’m happy. So I might as well look happy, too.

Basically, I calculate everything I consume using Web sites and books. I even carry around a little orange notepad around my neck and diligently add everything up. That way, at the end of the day, I can find out how much I’ve taken in. It’s fascinating if you start paying attention to the science behind eating. Truly.

Perhaps, this is just something to do because I have some time during the day and I have a constant need to amuse myself. Or maybe I’m determined this time and joining a gym (right now) is not an option. I hope it lasts, I do. As long as no one introduces me to a plate of fries or a bowl of macaroni and cheese, I should be fine.

Mihow » san francisco

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