The Shopping Trip

I live in Brooklyn and I work in Brooklyn and Brooklyn is where I try to stay. I go to Manhattan when I have to, and yes, I'll admit I love the charge, the pace, and even sometimes the crowds, but I'm weak in the face of the city's temptations. Suggestive glances from bankers and falafel cart guys. Obscenely oversized chocolate chip muffins begging to be stuffed into my mouth. Department stores flicking their serpentlike tongues, hissing sssale, sssale, sssale. I bit that big apple a few months ago at Macy's. Now I stay away.  

But last Friday night, I made a fatal mistake. I emerged from the subway on a Manhattan work errand and encountered Temptation #1: the shiny windows and well-lit, overstuffed racks of H&M. 20-something girls drifted blank-faced through rows of miniskirts and halters like the legions of the damned, and all I could think was: well! How convenient! I'll just run right in there and run right out. All need is a sundress and a skinny black belt. Two things. Two simple things. I would not eat the six pomegranate seeds, I would not turn into a pillar of salt. I would get 2 things and get out of there quick.  

An hour later I was buried in the dressing room, surrounded by the carnage of my greed. Every item almost right but still just plain wrong, like the white drapey dress-t-shirt thing that could have passed for a sundress but was so see-through with even two layers of fabric that I would've had to wear a tank top underneath and gotten all sweaty and gross, and what's the fun in paying for $25 for that? The size 12 shirtwaist dresses looked skimpy and strained, the size 8 shorts actually fit (triumph!) but were too short to wear in public. But I tried, oh I tried, in my compulsive gotta-make-sure-I-get-it-all-right-now-because-the-world-might-end-tomorrow-and H&M-will-never-have-a-sale-again kinda way, and I tried on so many dresses and skirts and shirts and shorts and tops that surely I should buy at least one, but could I afford to? And that question made me pause for a moment, and in that moment I realized that no, I could not, but that dammit, I really didn't care, and that meant I had become part of the Problem, part of the self-obsessed trend-driven masses, part of the collective useless body heat, the shit-falling-off-the-racks gargantuan chocolate chip muffin aesthetic, in tune with the crappy-ass soundtrack that piped into the dressing room, numbing my brain. "I wanna be a billionaire, so freakin' bad..." Someone got PAID to write that song.  

Right. I had to stop. Leave. Go. Get out of there before I turned around and turned into a pillar of tissue-weight t-shirts. But I'd spent all this time trying on all these clothes. I'd give them to the cashier. Have her hold them. Come back later in case I wanted them. Yes. But there was that line. That endless line...  

So then I did a very bad thing. No, I didn't shoplift. I shop-hid. I stuffed the clothes in a corner, under a rack, so nobody could see them and take my shit, so that I could come back for it if I wanted. But I didn't. I left and I never came back. And thanks to me an underpaid employee, at the end of her very long, very bad day, had to bend her aching back and scoop up those clothes cause some dumbass just left them right there, on the FLOOR.  

(In my defense, I will note that I put all the clothes I'd tried on and rejected back on their hangers as requested by the dressing room attendant, which I heard some other shoppers refusing to do because "at $7.25 an hour they get paid to do that." Still. That doesn't excuse me, I know. If I ever set foot in that store again I'll do a helpful deed. I swear.)  

But that night, I spit out the seeds of temptation, turned my sorry tail, and ran. Left the 7th circle of retail Hell and marched to my initial destination: up the big stone steps of the Penn Station post office (the one that used to be open all night but due to budget cuts is now open till 10pm), constructed when post offices and banks were designed to inspire reverence, with 20-foot curved ceilings, stone detailing, and vast open spaces. I felt immediate relief at the quiet, the reversed ratio of space to people and stuff. But the line was absurdly, ridiculously, ire-inducing long.  

So I left and got a Frappucino. Which has calories and solves nothing, I know. But it was so hot, and Starbucks was right there. And the baristas were friendly, even happy, it seemed, which reminded me that my mood was not one shared by the entire city of New York, but particular to my specific attitude and circumstances, a fact I tried to remember as I re-emerged, cooled and caffeinated, back into the humid night, back into the cool post office cathedral, through the (merciful Jesus!) shortened line, into the labyrinth of Penn Station, on the A train, finally, back to Crown Heights.  

What a comfort to feel the cooler air, to see my corner Papaya Dog, and the Fulton Street Carib Grocery still open, with its rows of mangoes and plantains out front, and inside, stacks of salt fish, and coconut water, Anna's wafers, good chocolate, cans of Bustelo. And there, perfect timing, the B44 bus. A free transfer, air conditioning, a moment to sit. I missed my stop and scrambled up to get off at the next, dropping my copy of Leaves of Grass. "Your book!" yelled the big woman drinking a 40, with the urgency of one who's lost something that matters. I thanked her and stepped onto the sidewalk.

What was that singing? A church service? No, across the street: a woman in a long sundress and a rasta hat swayed, facing the doorway of a bright, narrow shop. It had to be close to midnight by now. Time to cut my losses, get myself home. But this woman was singing. I crossed the street.  

She was younger than I'd expected, round-faced, pretty, eyes closed, a thick ankh bracelet on her right wrist. The lyrics were hard to understand, but I could make out "I and I" and "rastafari" and "hot fire burning". She felt me approach and opened an eye. It's not wise to close your eyes on this street. I pretended to be checking out the sidewalk sale of Nag Champa, but next thing I knew she had stepped away from the doorway and I there was inside the store: a tiny place hung with black Bob Marley Beefy-Ts, plastic beads, giant earrings - Carribbean tchotchkes, made in China, no doubt. But at least this place felt more like a living room than Hades, with a fan blowing and there along the wall, a teenage boy asleep on a sofa. Next to him were some long batik skirts, two tops, two sundresses. One pink, one black with splashy blue flowers. Thin straps, a gathered elastic back. Blue rick-rack trim up and down the front. 

The woman, who hadn't stopped singing since I entered, paused for a moment, looked up at me. "That dress is ten dollars," she said. I smiled.

Three bracelets and one pair of fat earrings later, she gave me six dollars back for my 20. She advised me on the earring choice (the blue plastic rectangles bring out the dress), introduced herself, asked my name. The store is hers and has been for 6 years. Her parents are Jamaican, but she grew up partly in Europe, partly in Toronto. She was a street vendor before she opened her shop and still makes denim and cordurory skirts in the fall. She sells some handmade jewelry, wants to get more. The sleeping boy was her son.  

As she was putting my dress into my bag, she saw a stain on it I hadn't noticed. "What's that?" she said, no attempt to hide it, then tried to clean it off. "That's the higher law working," she said. "Cause some people would see it and just stuff it in the bag." 

As a stuffer-in-the-corner of tried-on clothes, was I worthy of her integrity?  No. But sometimes grace happens, and it's not about whether or not we deserve it. I thanked her and asked her about the song. "Oh, it's not a song, it's a liturgical chant." From a Rastafarian church. About the purification of the soul, she explained. And inner discipline. I remembered the dark lure of H&M and wanted to ask if she'd teach it to me. But I could feel it was not the right thing to ask. And here was a customer. Time, now, to go.

As she turned to help a tall black guy with short locks, she stopped, looked me in the eye, and said, "Good to meet you". Pressed my hand. Thanked me. Said my name.  

I walked home with my new treasures, singing inside.

2 Bridges

So. I did it. After three and a half months of biking all over the streets of Brooklyn, I am proud to announce that I popped my biking-from-Brooklyn-to-Manhattan cherry last night, on the day of the NYC Naked Bike Ride, no less. (I did not participate, but had the pleasure of crossing paths with the crew returning from their Manhattan invasion as I biked into the city across the Williamsburg Bridge. As I passed them, I remembered that a girl had given me a flyer about the Ride at a party the night before.) Before I rolled up onto the steep, wide pedestrian/bike walkway, I rode through the heart of Hasidic Jewish Williamsburg, where the stares from the post-shabaat crowd made me think perhaps I should have worn a longer skirt and other footwear besides my knee-high black boots. But. Well. I guess I kinda stare at their clothes too.


Returned to Brooklyn via the Manhattan Bridge, where I looped under the bridge through a scrappy piece of Chinatown at least twice before finding the elusive entrance to the bike lane - which is not to be confused with the pedestrian lane on the other side, or the actual driving lanes, which I learned were not made for cyclists from the symphony of taxi horns that greeted me upon my quickly-aborted initial climb onto the bridge.


It was about 12:45 AM. Silent. Two bikers passed me from the opposite direction, one overtook me from behind. That was it. Just a narrow two-lane strip of bridge enclosed by tight chain-link fence, with subway rails on one side and the Hudson on the other. I thought the water would scare me so I tried not to look at it. But when I did (I couldn't help it), I felt only calm. And that was strange. I'm afraid of heights and (as living in the mountains forced me to admit) a little afraid of nature. Buildings, buses, and subways relax me in ways that trees and pretty views never can. Or so I think. But it was different last night, as the bay's shifting waters soothed me, echoing my movement as I pedaled toward home.


*
About halfway across the bridge I hear a chuckle, a few words. Not from a biker; from the narrow space on the other side of the chain link. The water side. I see a flash of movement, of blankets piled in the 5-foot-wide strip of bridge between the bike lane and oblivion. Someone is staying there. Living on the edge. Literally. Pushed by circumstance or driven by daring, someone who may have very little to lose is planted along this solitary span of concrete, chuckling about some hidden joke as lone bikers push their way past in the night. 


The black waters didn't scare me. But that - yeah. That kinda did. I'm gonna take another bridge home from now on.

When the past is really Past

You know your past is really Past when, within the same month, one of your former places of employment is the subject of a radio story and various articles because it is finally becoming defunct; and the other, which ceased operations 6 years ago, is the subject of a graduate thesis. I'll write more about this later, I think, but right now I'm just noting it as something to note.

Basil Pizza

OK, I'm back. Lowering my expectations once again so I can get back in the habit of writing every day. Today I'm writing about Basil Pizza, a new-ish (in the past 3 months) kosher pizza joint at the corner of Kingston and Albany in Crown Heights. It's one block off of Eastern Parkway, the Olmsted-designed main drag that cut through the neighborhood when it was called Crow Hill and inhabited mostly by free blacks, cutting the heart out of that community (an all-too-common story, as the residents of so many big cities will tell you). Around the same time the neighborhood's name was changed to Crown Heights and buildings like the one I live in now started cropping up to house affluent Anglo-Saxons - buildings with names like the Excelsior and Concord Hall, their rooflines adorned with fake castle turrets and their lobbies filled with strange details intended to give an old-world feel - a plaster lion and unicorn carved over a massive fireplace, a rotunda with carved flowers running up and down the walls.

But I'm not writing about all of that though. Not now. I am keeping it short, I am writing a snapshot. I am writing about Basil Pizza, the kosher pizza joint that also sells espresso and pastry and unbelievable-sounding $24.00 Italian entrees and is owned by a couple of old Hasidic guys and is just on Kingston Ave off Eastern Parkway, which is now the central boulevard not only of the neighborhood but of Hasidic Jewish community. I'd heard of the restaurant but never been, and this morning a woman had one of their coffee cups with "basil" in pale grey lowercase letters printed on it, and I knew I had to take a walk there on this mercifully cool summer night. What a place. Open windows, high ceilings, glass globe lights, bright music. I sat on an outdoor stool with my dog, ordered pizza, and felt like I was in Paris. Talked to a black guy from NC about his big mama pit bull while the 2 Hasidic owners looked on and hipsters in yarmulkes kept drifting up. Mushroom and goat cheese pizza with truffle oil. They also have espresso. They are in walking distance of my apt. Be still my heart!


Just another one of the thousands of reasons I just can't help loving my 'hood. Good night.

Hiatus

Taking a break for a few days. There's a lot of great stuff going on, and actually a lot to write about, but there are also a lot of demands at both my jobs this week and most of my screen/brain time is going to be focused on getting donor letters written and out the door and writing an instructional DVD. Some of it will also be spent looking for job #3, as the cushion I brought with me is rapidly dwindling.

And at the risk of sounding a bit dramatic, I'll also say that I'm going through a time of transformation / revelation about what I want to do, who I want to be, and what I want to create here, and how, and all that internal yadda. I don't want to process it in public (and I bet you don't want me to either). But I need to assimilate it all more before I re-emerge. So. There it is. For now. Taking a break. If you do indeed exist, dear readers, I thank you for understanding!

gathering

is the word of the day, and what I'm doing right now: gathering with new people, and gathering up moments, stories, images, questions, to write about, think about and follow into a new maze of experience / reflection / action. 

soon i'll strew them at your feet like fresh cut flowers from a basket, one by one by one. 

but right now, i'm gathering.

Meta-resolution

Just read back through the last few blog posts and realized with a sinking feeling in my chest that this blog has become impossibly boring. Full of half-baked self-help insights and dull everyday resolutions that would put even the most dedicated reader to sleep.

So here's my meta-resolution for the week: no more resolutions. No more self-critique / self-improvement narratives. From now on, this space is about stories, encounters, moments, ideas, adventures, questions - anything but the bone-dry repetition of How I Can Do Better. That stuff will always be there. But I'll save it for my journal -- and my therapist.

Onward.......

FIERCE

Went to a benefit last night for FIERCE, an organization that provides services and support to queer youth of color in NYC. Excellent event, packed with fine women. Wore a blue afro wig, black platform boots, a clingy black dress, red lacetop stockings, and danced like I haven't in months. Performances by Stacey Ann Chin, Me'shell N'dege'Ocello, Toshi Reagon, a naughty trans hip-hop outfit from Brooklyn called House of LaDosha, the FIERCE staff, and a youth poet. Here's a pic of Me'Shell throwing down some FIERCE guitar.

A very different show (and very different performer) than when I first saw her 14 years ago in Seattle.

More later on that and the many social/artistic/racial/cultural questions swirling round my head in the wake of the event and this very full week.

But right now I'm paying for my long evening out, and I got hella shit to take care of!

Very very busy

is how I am right now. So not much blogging time this week.

I will admit that since Monday, when I wrote up that intricate set of standards for myself, I have not yet accomplished the get-up-early-morning routine.

On Tuesday I set my alarm for 5am and woke up at 9. Today I set my alarm for 6am and woke up at...9. I realize, of course, that if I went to bed earlier it would be easier to get up earlier. I do realize this is true. But I DO get a lot done later at night when the daytime distractions have dropped away, so the hard part is going to bed and losing those hours between 10am and 2am when I feel productive in a more focused way than I often do during the day. I have to make the adjustment. I know. But given that it's 1:35 AM and I'm still working, it won't be tonight!

This week's commitments

These are really lifetime commitments, but - as with almost every practice that is good for the soul but hard to begin and maintain for whatever reason - it's easier to do them if I/one commit(s) to doing them for a finite period. So, I'm committing to doing the following things this week. And if that feels like too much, then every morning, I'll commit to doing them for just that one day. And then the next. And the next.

Requisite disclaimer: of course: I know this is just boring personal everyday stuff, and I could just write it down in my own private journal, and by putting it out here on the web I'm contributing to that Oprah-inflected TMI-soaked culture of confession and public disclosure that some say is eroding the sturdy American tradition of keeping important things to ourselves, but sorry y'all, it helps me to say this out loud, to make the commitment in public. So if you don't want to read about my daily routines, eating habits, etc. - and honestly, I don't blame you if you don't! - feel free to ignore the following. If you do read it and hear me faltering in my commitments, feel free to give me some constructive coaching. (And if I don't want to hear it, I'll let you know!) Thanks.

Big commitment #1: go to bed earlier and start my days earlier, making/taking time in the morning for daily practices. (Goal: bed by 11pm, waking up by 6:30-7:00am) These practices are:
- Walk dog for a full 20 minutes before spending time @ the park. (Means must allow about 45 min for dog time).
- Read Rumi for about 10 min (while heating water for coffee).
- Meditate for 10-15 min.
- Yoga for 15-30 min. (Re-learn sun salutation and 3-5 other basic poses to do every day).
- Every other day: blog for 10-15 min. (Instead of doing all posts at the end of the day when I'm too tired!).

Big commitment #2: become more conscious of my eating habits and make better choices.
- Eat all meals sitting down at table or in living room, not standing up in the kitchen.
- Related to that: make the time to take all vitamins every day.
- Track breakfast and all food via Weight Watchers.
- Cut out all sweets except dark chocolate (and the remainder of that giant chocolate chip cookie in the fridge).
- Work harder at making vegetables part of my everyday meals. As in, take the extra 10 min to cook the damn vegetables or make the damn salad instead of taking the easy way out by microwaving yet another boca burger and calling it lunch.
- Make food on the weekends that I can take to lunch during the week so I'm not spending a bunch of time and money buying lunches that are probably more fattening than I want to admit.

Big commitment #3: Re-structure my process of working on grants, the DVD project I'm working on, and other deadline-based projects.
- Start project by looking at the end goal and working backwards.
- Start at least a week before I think I need to, because it ALWAYS takes longer than I think it will.
- Break down every project into individual tasks and create a schedule by which to complete each task.
- If someone else is part of the process (boss, editor, etc.) include them from the beginning: don't be afraid to ask questions and ask for assistance if needed - and do this sooner rather than later so that they have a chance to give input without being rushed.
- Leave plenty of time to check, double-check, triple-check everything.

Big commitment #4: Re-start my creative life
- In blog posts and/or journal, write down one writing idea or other creative project idea per day. (Even if I never do any of these it'll get the juices going.)
- Start/sign up for a new class: UCB, Neo-Futurists, or...class on generating new solo work, or documentary film class, or class at UrbanGlass

Big commitment #5: find new service project
- Explore opportunities to work with seniors and youth, either in my physical neighborhood/community or in a community to which I feel a particular connection
- Find the opportunity that most inspires me, even if it doesn't seem like something I would "normally" do
- Commit to a project - maybe start in a small-scale way, assisting with one or two events - and move forward from there.

And that's it - for now.
Ahh. Feels good. To have written that. Now to do it!

Grounding and expanding

My weekend was domestic and mundane, lots of taking care of business, from buying much-needed new bras at 40% off at Macy's to attending my first Weight Watchers meeting today to finally getting a pair of Born walking shoes so that I can protect my feet as I walk for miles around the city.  Despite the somewhat shocking outflow of cash that accompanied these activities, it felt good and grounding to do all these things (except during a few overstimulated moments at Macy's where I seriously thought I was gonna lose it in the midst of the racks and racks of on-sale clothing - the experience of shopping there, and what it brought up around materialism, money, and identity, may actually merit a blog post in and of itself).

In some ways, though, my domestic weekend felt way too limited, too anonymous somehow. I've given up on the idea of dating for the moment, but I'm feeling the need to be engaged in a larger context / dialogue, which is ironic given that i live in this giant city. It's a tricky balance: in order to feel sane and settled here, you have to, as my roommate says, "make it a small town," which I'm doing more and more as i learn the neighborhoods of Brooklyn, commune with my dog park friends, etc., find the best coffee shops to sit and work at, but I need/want to expand the world I'm part of here, and I need/want to do it in two ways:

1) By doing service work - in a creative way. Either through a senior center or a youth center or a vets organization: volunteer to teach/lead some kind of writing project. Could be an interview project like the ipod project in which LGBT youth interview elders in the community, or something more personal. But I need to get engaged in this way.

2) By expanding my connection with/to other writers and artists. How do I do this, and why? And is what I really want to expand my own creative activity, i.e. write more? Which comes first, the work or the connections? The work, of course: that's the heart of it. But there's symbiosis between the two. And I don't want to work in isolation, and I don't necessarily want to just write as my creative outlet. I just finished a big article project and am about to take on a bunch more grantwriting for my theatre job and health/expository writing for another job. What I feel the urge to do, more than ever right now, is some kind of performance that includes writing. Which makes me think: I should take an improv class at Upright Citizens Brigade or the Neo-Futurists. Or a film class. And I should do that this week.

But now, I should go to bed.

Word of the day: figment

It's the only word that Andy Warhol wanted on his tombstone.

"I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say 'figment.'"

Warhol also said, "Dying is the most embarrassing thing that can ever happen to you, because someone's got to take care of all your details."


Apparently, whoever did so for Warhol hadn't heard, or chose not to acknowledge, his tombstone request. 

Ironic, and a little sad, for someone who was so intent on creating and controlling his public image and his legacy. 


I hope there's always a Campbell's soup can perched on the base of his tombstone in the St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, PA (how the hell did he end up there? a story for another time). It seems it would keep him company.

more pics of the hood

i'm genuinely too tired to write tonight, so this post will be a visual sampling of my neighborhood, in pics mostly taken the other night after i met Enamul and learned about his garden.

the spot at the left is VIM (an acronym i have yet to decipher), a clothing chain that sells trendy kicks (Nike, converse), jeans, & tops. if i decide to cave & buy a pair of skinnys i'm gonna look there first. and whenever i need a pair of tennies I know just where to go.

the building that houses this VIM is a former bank. etched in the stone façade above the big stars and stripes sign are the words "The People's Trust Company". around the corner, there's a mural and the name of a cafe which must have formerly inhabited the space.

wait - i said i was too tired to write, and i am. so i'm just gonna post pics from here on out. but before i do - check out that sunset. pretty lovely, huh? one of the advantages to living in Brooklyn - you get to see stuff like that.

ok. after uploading about 5 pics i can tell it's going to look too awkward to just do the cop-out photo collage. so instead, here are 2 more photos, one of the church next door to my apartment building, and one of the church across the street. (i live on a quiet block, except on saturdays and wednesday nights, and sometimes other times, when the attendees of the French Speaking Hebron Seventh Day Adventist Church next door (yes, that would be the one with the archway) make a whole lotta joyful noise with their singing, much of which is indeed in French due to the high Hatian population in the neighborhood (which is probably due to the presence of the French Speaking Hebron Seventh Day Adventist Church and its associated school up the street). Once I knew I'd be living on this block I researched the history of the Hebron Seventh Day Adventists - their founders were kind of an intense bipolar-sounding bunch, prone to investing great a deal of energy in second-coming predictions and then getting really bummed when they didn't come true. definitely worth a blog post of their own.

The Methodists who gather in the brick church are much quieter, or perhaps i just don't hear them because they aren't singing just a few yards away from my window. Since i'm named for the founder of Methodism, I feel like I should be more curious about them. But my main relationship with the place so far is one of deep gratitude for their fenced and gated but never locked grassy yard, one of the few patches of green between my apartment building and Brower Park, which is a good 5-minute walk away. Sometimes when it's raining, or really late, or the dog is really tired, or I am, I ask my great great grandfather, the Southern Methodist minister Jason Chrysostom Moser, if my dog, who spreads joy to so many just by being her good-natured self every day, is worthy to commune with the church's green pastures. If I clean up after her. Which I always do. 

So far, Jason Chrysostom always says it's ok. 

obama & me

(Disclaimer: the piece below is raw and unprocessed. Just wanting to write it down to keep up with the blog and make sure I don't forget the dream. I almost NEVER remember my dreams these days, which made this one feel especially potent. With a bit more distance I might riff on how it feels like some kind of strange amalgamation of Grey's Anatomy, the Jesus story, the Clinton mythos, and (sadly) a runaway slave narrative...someday, I might. But not right now)


I dreamed this morning that President Obama, who in my dream was definitely the President but also a surgeon of some sort, and I were in a freight elevator talking to each other (he was still in his scrubs). I think we had started chatting earlier and he had allowed me to observe his surgery for some kind of educational or professional reason (maybe I was writing an article about his work).


We were enjoying our conversation, which was completely platonic, but we both knew we had to be really careful because there were all these people out to get him and if they saw him with any unknown female they would frame it as if he were having an affair to get him kicked out of office. Later we ended up at the same house - I don't know if it was my house or a house that belonged to him, or one of his friends - but somehow I was in the bathroom when some investigators came to the door. I couldn't see them, only hear them, gruff and presumptuous, "We know why you're here." Reeling off names of different women - "Is she here? Is she? Is she?" Finally they said my name. As he had with the others, he said I wasn't there. I locked the bathroom door and got ready to climb out the window. Dream end.


There was a sense of flirtation around us, but I knew what it was about: me being attracted to and admiring him. Nothing from his end but his usual universal charm, just directed at me for a moment or two as he took off his surgeon's gloves and smiled my way. 


I felt protective of myself (don't fall for the very charming and quite obviously completely unavailable and uninterested  president/surgeon and get dragged through the tabloids for no good reason) but so much more so, I felt protective of him. It was so clear there were wolves at every door, sniffing out any weakness, salivating as they waited for their moment to strike.

Enamul Hoque and the garden of love part 2

(Continued from previous post.)

After a work-related adventure in Manhattan last night, I was back in Crown Heights, I experienced the familiar disorientation that often accompanies my return from the Island back to my home turf. Walking up Nostrand from the subway stop, past all past the wig stores and 99 cent shops, I was thinking, "Yep, I live in the full-on hood," and pondering the comforts and pitfalls of urban insularity, when I noticed something going on in the usually empty abandoned lot about a block up from Fulton. About half of the grassy lot had been cleared down to the dirt. A small black-haired man in a work shirt and dark pants, his back to the street, was walking the length of a long gash in the dirt, tamping it down with his tennis shoes. A seed row, I realized. This guy had planted something.

I took out my iphone, ready to take a stealth photo and move along. But before I could press the button, a friend of his had called out from the fruit cart on the sidewalk - "Hey! She gonna take your photo!" The planter turned around.

Even from there it felt like he was smiling -- amused or delighted, or both, that someone would be snapping a pic of him at work on his project. His friend, an older bearded black man, beckoned me to step inside the chain-link fence and take a closer look. I did.

I recognized the planter as the owner of the fruit cart, which was being manned by several of his friends so that he could take care of his gardening. I asked what he was growing. "Tomatoes," he said in a South Asian accent, and then something else I didn't understand. I had to ask politely twice more before I got that it was "cucumbers". He has plans for other plants too -- potatoes, beans, and flowers -- the names of which became easier to decipher the longer I listened to him speak. He loves to garden. It's his favorite  thing. I have to come back and see it all grow.

The friend who had called to him from the cart came over and joined him, and let me know that they would be working on another garden about a block away, at Fulton and Herkimer, and I had to come check it out next week. I asked him if he'd like to be in a photo. He rushed to the planter's side and posed.

Then came the multimedia portion of what was starting to feel like some kind of spontaneous interactive form of street performance. At his friend's request, the planter gave me his name and cell number so that I could send him the photos. Enamul Hoque. The proud gardener and seller of fruit. "I garden everywhere and make it beautiful." From what I could understand (he talks kinda fast), he doesn't own the lot, but the city lets him garden on it. It's a micro-version of the organic farms emerging on the city-owned, neglected urban prairies of Detroit - and the community gardens that have been created in similar lots on the residential streets of Crown Heights. 

But there was something about seeing the emergence of this garden, smack-dab in the middle of the hood's retail district, that was especially moving. As I texted the photos to Enamul and thanked him for letting me take them, he brought me over to the fruit cart, saying "Please, please. Take banana. Please." I was so enamored of him and his generous spirit, and so caught up in the moment, that I took another photo, almost without thinking.

I thanked him again, for the banana and the photos, smiling at his fruit-cart friends who were all looking on in amusement (case in point, background dude in this photo). As I walked away, Enamul called out, "Hey - hey! Take plum! Here. Take plum." 

I realized that he needed to give me something without being the subject of a story, without having his picture taken this time. I turned back and accepted the perfect round fruit and thanked him again. I would be back to see his garden, I assured him. And the one on the next block too.

I placed the sweet gifts in my bag and resumed my trek up Nostrand, feeling the garden love at my back and all around me, the beauty of the full-on hood.

Enamul Hoque and the garden of love

So this afternoon I had a completely surreal adventure dropping off a grant at the JPMorgan Chase corporate headquarters at 48th & Park Ave in Manhattan. Surreal element #1: the program officer with whom I spoke last Friday about the grant retired from the bank, um, last Friday. But gave no indication last Friday that he was doing so - I found this out from his outgoing voicemail today.

Surreal element #2: the entire sidewalk in front of JPMorgan Chase corporate headquarters was barricaded with stanchions and caution tape and fronted by tired-looking but helpful security guards, one of whom accompanied me to the front desk to drop off my packet for whoever was replacing the now-retired Program Officer.

When I asked if this was a normal level of security for the building, they let me know that no, it was not, and no, it was not due to the car bomb that had almost detonated in Times Square yesterday - it was to prevent any more protesters from rushing the front lobby like they had on Friday. Hmm. I wondered idly if this had anything to do with the Program Officer's retirement as I followed their directions for dropping off the packet at the Messenger Station, which I found by "following the arrows" through Surreal Element #3, the pervasive construction going on in the building, which, compounded with the abundance of guards and barriers, and signs requesting official ID, made the whole place feel closer to a restricted military zone than the headquarters of a powerful financial institution.

And when I got to the door of the Messenger Station, a security booth-like room on the back of the building, it was completely unguarded and unlocked. Anybody's grandmother could've strolled in, offered the nice men behind the desk a grenade, pulled the pin, and disappeared back outside into the sea of weary bankers making their way to the subway before you could say "subprime lending". Which I genuinely don't wish upon those guys, or anyone, whether or not they're working for the Man. But like so many attempts to curb the chaos that threatens to erupt at any moment (and often does) in the madness of midtown Manhattan, the bank's attempts at security were fragile at best.

Surreal element #4 was leaving the Messenger Station, where the cool guys behind the counter promised to pass on my package (which I guess they must have taken on faith was not a letter bomb), stepping back out into the aforementioned sea of bankers, and having no idea where I was. Or how to crack the code of this swarming crowd in all its incongruous look-at-me glory. That six-foot-tall woman in black stiletto pumps, with a tight black miniskirt and suit jacket and slicked-back black-dyed bob strutting by with a satisfied look on her face: cutthroat financier or European whore? Hard to tell. And that woman there, a foot shorter with the pale blonde bangs and braid, and probably not of the banking domain judging from her almost thigh-high lace-up-the-back pointy black boots - fashion consultant or dominatrix? Got me.

But over there on the corner across the street was a character whose signals I could read just fine: pretty pictures, sizzling grill, happy man behind the cart. A soft pretzel and a kabob, please. Yes. We chatted about the heat, the car bomb, his barbecue sauce. And the world kinda sorta made sense again.

But this story is not about all of that. This is about Enamul Hoque, whom I met after I returned to the hood, and stepped out of the subway stop and thought, oh wow. I really do live in a different world.

to be continued...

toothpaste

so tonight after a long and not bad but less-than-awesome day which culminated - but did not end, as i have miles to go before i sleep - with me getting a flat tire on my bike for the 2nd time in 2 weeks and therefore walking my bike halfway home from work at 11pm (which was really not so bad because it was a beautiful night and the walk down dean street was full of lovely odd moments, like passing the guests of another swanky private party in that old converted warehouse and glimpses into secret pool halls with bright blue-painted walls with 60-year-old black women throwing sass, and my beautiful artist neighbor leaving the building in what looked like parachuter's coveralls), i discovered that i had two full tubes of toothpaste in the bathroom cabinet. (i had bought one recently, forgetting that i already owned another, which i now remember moving here from detroit.)

these are tubes of Tom's toothpaste, yeah that yuppie organic stuff, not a cheap brand. my first feeling upon making this discovery was one of embarrassment for owning redundant quantities of expensive organic dentifrice. it just felt so -- unseemly somehow.

my first thought was, "i'm glad toothpaste doesn't spoil."

my second thought was, "i'd better stay alive long enough to make sure i use all of that toothpaste, so none of it goes to waste."

guilt and thriftiness: the two things that kept my scots-irish ancestors -- in their minds at least -- safe from the devil and protected from depravity.

i'm sure there are worse qualities to possess.

this is yesterday's post II

this has been a big week of work and exhaustion and revelation and renewal.

the pressure has lifted somewhat, hooray, but right now it still feels there is no end of deadlines to meet and tasks to accomplish.

and that's a good thing. a good "problem" to have. because it means i'm making (or trying to make) some good things happen, creatively and financially. i like my geeky work-driven life. i'm passionate about it. most of the time.

but then i'll walk into someone's gorgeous brownstone that they created with their husband or see someone's happy-couple photos on facebook and there's that longing. for more. but it's a more i'm not gonna have now. i know. i'm not ready. and most of the time i don't want it. i want the world. i want to experience life through my own filter, when and how i want to, without someone waiting for me to finish up with all that so i can be home for dinner. i'm free. and that is worth a lot.

but it is also worth admitting: the flip side of freedom is loneliness.

sometimes.

it's a price i'm willing to pay. for now.

and i know, too, that not being Involved doesn't have to mean Lonely. there's a lot of joy to be created and happiness to be found in the connections we make every day with friends, with the people i meet on the street, the people i work with, hell, the coffee shop guy, cab drivers, and this is the gorgeousness of new york: you can be "alone" and in humanity all at once, a free agent and connected to the person with whom you exchange a smile as you both, at the very same moment, notice the toddler laughing, tromping down the street with his mom, almost tumbling but righting himself and then clapping. and this is the loneliness of new york: you are connected to that person for a single split second, a flash recognition, just long enough sometimes to wonder - and the moment passes. you never see them again.

on to the next one, and to your next task. and the next question of who and where you want to be, and who you do or don't want to be near, what you do or don't want to think about, do, see, investigate, query, accomplish, let go: this moment, and the next one. and the next. and the next.

**
last night before i went to sleep i set my clock alarm and the NEW YORK'S GREATEST HITS WCBS  radio station was playing Blinded by the Light. The Manfred Mann version. and I was on fire right then, just all of a sudden, I was under disco ball stars at an unknown dancehouse and i was throwing out moves, doing silent karaoke, mugging for no one in my imaginary blue afro wig. shiftin and twistin and clownin and playin and  throwin down. for no one. for me. in my room. 2 AM.

I think I gotta get out a bit more.
I think I'm gonna. Pretty soon.

this is yesterday's post

and it is to thank the kind woman at the emergency room who went way above and beyond her job to come out from behind the payment desk and hug me when i started crying as i checked out, because i felt stupid for going there in the first place just to have the doctor say i was "asymptomatic" and for feeling so damn physically shitty even though there was apparently nothing wrong with me.

thank you wonderful emergency room checkout person! for caring and for acting on it.

and thank you to my boss and roommate for confirming that it was ok for me to rest when i was feeling weak, achy, feverish (though no fever), with a stomachache and nausea (though no virus showed up in my urine sample).

and thank you to the universe for giving me the grace and the time to sleep many more hours than usual and wake up feeling much better today.

!

heartbreak

can come when you least expect it.
and in the most innocuous packages, too.

but i'm still here, and conscious, and awake. and moving.
forward.
and that's all i gotta say.
today.

w.

In All Things

A facebook friend of mine - more of an acquaintance, someone I know and like and respect from the Seattle theatre world but with whom I have probably never had a one-on-one conversation - threw this prompt on my wall after I commented on her fb Status:

Hi. Tell me something amazing - something inspiring that I won't believe at first. Go.

So I wrote about something that happened to me last week.

Last Monday I was having a really hard time making a decision about something in my life and was edging into dangerously woe-is-me territory around the whole thing. After going out to get quarters so I could do laundry, I entered my apartment building at the same time as a short, wiry African-American woman who appeared to be in her 80s. She wore a black turban on her head, a jacket, and pants. Walked with a cane. I opened and held the door for her. She thanked me. Then she said something else I didn't hear but kinda pretended to. The lady knew I was bluffing though and as we rode the elevator up, she explained, "A lot of people go out and don't get back home again. So I thank god every time I get back home." "That's true," I said. "That's a good thing to do."

I could feel my own self-pity falling away - and a bit of shame creeping in where it had been. Then she said, "God said, 'In all things give thanks'. Not just the good things. You have to thank him for the bad things too. The hard things." "You're right," I said, my shame giving way to wondering: How?

"There is blessing in the bad things too," she said. "I know. I proved it today." We hit her floor and she left before I could ask. 

I kept her words in my mind all day. Yeah ok, so she calls God "him," and she's probably a Bible-believing Christian at a church whose doctrines I deeply oppose. But in those moments, she shook me like Buddha: a sharp sliver of awareness that pricked me awake.

All day I washed, dried, folded, and hauled, thinking of my elevator guide and her words.

Later that night I made a decision. Not an easy one, but the best one. And thanked God for the problem. For the trouble it took.

I've been in a state of joy ever since.

She responded:

immediate tears. and understanding. and relevance. and, and, and... Wesley - would i even recognize you if i saw you on the street?? would it matter? thank you thank you thank you.

Of course I had to thank her because she had given me a huge gift: a nudge/reason to write the story that had been swirling around my mind for days.

Here's to those moments of beauty and connection that emerge when and where we may least expect them.

gratitude

for this beautiful sun-drenched social creative day. thank you o universe!
more soon.

the ride home

everything falls away as i pedal up fulton to vanderbilt, then left on dean, swooping home through the dark on my heavy old bike. even tonight after over 12 hours at work, about 10 of those really working in earnest, my energy lifts as i climb on the seat, slide the clip-on light in its holster, kick the pedals, push across atlantic avenue's wide relentless lanes, rounding the corner by the glass-fronted hipster bar that's always bright and full of laughing kids, then past the round-domed church with its bright stained glass and scaffolding, into the dean street silence. my favorite part.

there's barely any traffic, so it's easy to roll past the natty garden shop with its rasta-painted fence, past the auto body shop with its vintage lettered sign, past unseen barking dogs, into the land of unknown buildings. ancient icehouse-looking structures, brick archways over wood-shuttered windows, iron stars marking the crumbling walls. junkyards with 12-foot-tall fences, edged with concertina wire. unfinished, industrial, un-yuppified lofts, artist spaces in where they aren't supposed to live but do anyhow, and across from those, another artist spot, the low little building set back from the street, mini-junkyard for a front yard and out front on the sidewalk, fat boulders that somebody has painted pink. a kitschy displaced neon sign that says "Gina's Boutique" hangs from the low roof of the shack-like building, sometimes on, sometimes off, sometimes flashing. i always wonder what the different settings mean.

one night when i was riding home there was a big slick unmarked tour bus parked out front and in the junkyard, hipster kids hanging around a campfire. bright industrial lights set up almost like it was a movie, but nobody was filming. they were just hanging out. one guy was wearing some kind of fake-fur tunic over his t-shirt. i flashed on owen wilson's character in zoolander, with his surfboard and crazy loft compound full of surfers, dwarves, and special tea. i approached the driver side of the bus. the tour bus driver, a weary bald guy in his 60s with an eastern european accent, slowly lowered his window. "Did you drive those people here?" I asked "Oh yes," he said wearily. "What are they doing?" "I don't know," he sighed, as if this illogical late-night ghetto adventure pretty much signaled the end of all reason. "I don't know." He paused. Then, "What are you doing?" "Just riding home. Have a good night!" He shook his head and almost smiled. I rode off.

Three doors down,  2 big black bouncer-looking guys hovered in front of another unmarked building, fronted with a wall of glass windows. music pulsed from inside. a black limo out front. balloons tied to the iron railings. two white girls and a boy spilled out of the building. the boy was wearing sunglasses and couldn't have been more than 14. "Who let these kids out? They should be home in bed!" I said to the bouncers as I rode by. They smiled.

Just another night on Dean Street.

Peonies

My friend E had a whole big beautiful bunch, pink ones dotted with clusters of tiny green flowers. She passed them on to me because they'll just wilt while she's on her vacation. Besides, somebody else gave her another bouquet last week, so she's good.

Now they sit on my rough wood coffee table awaiting my roommate's delight.

I hope she'll like them.

It's later than I meant it to be. But good Thai food, and wine, and a long talk with E, were all worth the lost sleep.

I've felt the charge of nighttime Manhattan three nights in a row this week. I like it: that sense of In The Midst, the push of buildings, the sense of hidden life around and inside every corner. But: I still like returning to this Brooklyn quiet, to the breeze in the trees, to these stalwart churches,  to the broader night sky.

Re-beginning

Ok, I'm back.

I know, I promised to write this blog 3 times a week, and then I ramped it up to every day. Then I moved. It's been a month since I wrote, and it had been a month before that entry. But - yeah, but nothing. Yes, I'm busy and the city is wonderful but overwhelming and yes I was working on an article that I allowed to get much bigger than I'd expected or planned, much bigger than it's supposed to be, and yes I tend to be very tired at the end of the day and rushed first thing in the morning, the times I would normally write in this much-neglected blog. But really, I have no excuse. Except falling off the writing avoidance wagon, losing the good habit of the blog, and feeling bad enough for having done so that with every day that passed it got harder to go back.

My roommate was talking recently about some plan she was making for herself, and said "I'm not gonna make any rules I can't break..." and I liked that a lot: the flat-out acceptance that it's normal to break one's own rules, that you might as well make your rules with that in mind. So. There, I've broken those aforementioned blog rules I set up for myself. And look. The world didn't end. It actually got more interesting in the interim. And now I'm breaking my less-conscious but still sometimes oh-so-powerful internal rule that if I mess up, I must mess up forever. Or at least for a really long time, because hell knows I deserve to feel miserable if I'm not perfect, and messing up will help me do just that.

Hooray. It feels good to break that rule. It feels good and right and solid to return to what I love to do. Which brings me to some things that Susan Lori-Parks said way back on March 8 when I saw her at the 92nd St. Y. Which feels like about 3 years ago. Much good stuff in her lecture, and when I'm not falling asleep I'll list everything I wrote down in my scrappy tiny blue-covered spiral notebook. But for now I'm gonna end with this, which has run through my head more times than I can count in the last 6 weeks. SLP is a big stickler for writing EVERY DAY. For practicing imperfect craft to help you get to the whole truth that is writing. At the 92nd St Y lecture, a guy asked Suzan Lori Parks what she did when  she was just too tired (or too sick, or busy, or distracted, or or or....fill in the blank) to write anything of substance. She said: The important thing is just to do it. Lower the Bar. The guy said: Like write a sentence a day? SLP said: A word. Just write a word. At least a word!

So. I'm lowering my expectations of quality and raising the bar on participation. My new rule for myself is this: every day, you'll get at least a word from me. At least one word.

Today's word is: love.
Which, according to Suzan Lori Parks, is boundless. Unlike talent, which is limited. So we must write from love.

Working on it! More later.
W.

Here, Now

So this is how it is now: I walk my dog 3 times a day, descending & then ascending 5 flights of stairs (no dogs allowed in the elevator). I bike to and from work on my nearly 5-decades-old Sturmey Archer, newly outfitted with bell, lights, Kryptonite lock, and a new seat that doesn't kill my ass. I'm sore at the end of the day and sore when I wake up. But it's worth it.

When I can, I travel without a bag, stowing the essentials in the pockets of my vintage leather jacket. Slide the metro card into one skinny outer breast pocket; in the other, stash debit card, cash, and ID (still my MI driver's license, though I no longer own a car and no longer live in MI), secure the iPhone with its water resistant case in the one hip pocket where the zipper still works, hide keys in inner breast pocket. Slip in a Bert's Bees tinted lip balm wherever there's room.

The bag I carry when I must carry a bag I bought for $18 from a guy on the street. Black, waterproof, with a shoulder strap, a zipper-pocketed flap that covers the top, and two internal compartments. I got it the same day I got my new boots: black Timberland hiking boots, boy's size 6, laceup, thick soles, waterproof too.

Tomorrow afternoon, it will be 3 weeks since I parked the 16-foot Budget truck in the west village & walked my travel-traumatized dog in a park, where a mom threw snowballs at 2 laughing kids. 4 weeks since the dog and I hauled ass out of Detroit in said truck, with an excellent friend in the passenger seat and a snowstorm clouding the windshield. It does not seem remotely possible that a month ago, I was in Southeast Michigan, frantically packing the rest of my stuff, or that 2 days later, I was in rural North Carolina, watching birds in the snow from my mom's kitchen window.

What seems much more real is this: all my bags and boxes are unpacked. I have a new used desk, dresser, and armoire, and they all actually fit in my room. I have a new bike helmet that (for the first time in my life) doesn't make me feel like a total dork. I ride or walk down Nostrand Avenue past convenience stores and nail shops and wig stores and tax return places and cheap clothing shops and places that I don't even know what they are and a record store with piles of dusty CDs and the black nationalist shop that says "The Truth Lives Here" on its awning and runs Farrakhan videos in the window all day, and Zen Caribbean Flavor, and the Roti House with its big red awning, and Trini-Gul restaurant with its framed NY Times review on the wall, and the all-night fried chicken and pizza joints, and I feel, somehow, easy. Grateful. Like I'm home and I've been home for a while.

Unpacking

is all I'll be doing for the next 48 hours. Or so.
You know how this goes...
I'll be back as soon as I'm settled.
Meantime, gathering many stories -
Just walking down the street in my new neighborhood is an experience rife with material for new writing.

And so! More of that soon, once the boxes are emptied, broken down, and safely stored high in a closet, not to be accessed for at least 12 months...

Did I mention I love my new place? And my roommate? And my block, and my street, and my 'hood? I do. More on all that later...

Cannot BELIEVE

I haven't posted for 11 days.
I have been in the midst of moving - exciting and important and totally absorbing.

A few things I've been working on: packing and purging and goodbye-ing, selling my car and notarizing the signatures on the title, driving 5 hrs north to see a friend i really needed to see before leaving MI, adventuring with an excellent friend who came to help me move, driving out of Detroit in a blizzard and into NC at 4 AM, unloading and donating and reloading and cleaning the mildew off the platform bedframe that was stored in my mom's outbuilding for 14 months, getting a new mattress because the old one - oh never mind, purging 2/3 of the files i've carried around in 2 heavy metal cabinets for 10 years, shredding all the personal documents, rescheduling/rerouting the NC to NYC leg of the move due to more snow, managing my mom's anxiety about said snow (and numerous other potential risks, past and present), making sure the dog has enough walks and treats and rescue remedy to get through, replacing 3 dead phone chargers, meeting up on the road with my excellent cousin whom i haven't seen in almost 6 years & his niece whom i've never met...

I'm on the road from NC to New York now, spending lots of evening time in road motels (fulfilling my mom's request to not drive all night like i did on the way from Detroit to NC), which means I'm also indulging in a big fat dose of cable TV. Shows I've heard about but never seen, from Ugly Betty to Cash Cab, and shows like House that I (mostly) enjoy but barely allow myself to just sit down and watch in everyday life because I always feel I have to be DOING something, even if that something is a "busy" but ultimately unproductive activity like facebook. I also got sucked into an interesting-for-the-tv-guide channel behind-the-scenes exploration of the film Precious, which I still have yet to see, and yes, last night I watched Blades of Glory almost in its entirety. I feel a little weird about all this, of course - I know that, even when the shows are good, TV is at best a passive, if not largely mindless activity. And I know that I have plenty of other things I could be doing right now, such as a) pushing my creative work forward and b) applying for more jobs.

However: part of me - the part I'm indulging for these few days - just needs to absorb all this transition. And needs to be still and quiet and just a bit passive to do so. Paying attention to things that are not My Stuff and All the Boxes it is Packed In, or My Resume, or My Creative Work, or anything having to do with My Life and What I Am Doing With It Next helps with this. A lot.

At my mom's house in the mountains, where I spent 3 days last week, I finally watched the Mad Men Season 1 Disc 1 from Netflix that I had been hoarding for months because I wouldn't let myself sit down, relax, and watch it at home. But I also spent lots of time watching the birds that gathered on and below the feeders outside my mom's kitchen window - doves, a bluejay, 2 cardinals, countless sparrows, 2 woodpeckers (one with red on his head, one without, neither pileated but both beautiful), 2 rufus-sided towhees, a few tufted titmice, one fat brown unidentifiable something, and one red bird unlike any other I had seen. The moments I spent absorbing their colors, shapes, markings, and movements were more relaxing than any time spent in front of a screen. (But the onscreen stuff has stories, and I really like stories too.)

Any minute now I'll shift from transition/vacation mode into Do Mode again. Not just unpack-the-truck settle-in Do Mode, but job app/creative work Do Mode. But for now, I'm enjoying the state of reflective distraction afforded by the current suspension of Do.

Packing

is all I will be doing for the next 48 hours. Wish me luck.

No blogging and not much of anything else either till I'm done!

Till later!

w

The Meta-Post

Sometimes a post is more than a post. The one I just wrote induced an epiphany.

But first, before I write about that, an apology is in order, I know: to myself, to my readers, and to the writing gods for breaking my must-post-everyday rule. I am learning (again) that I must write in the morning, or it's way too easy to put it aside. I am re-determined to do the everyday thing.

On to the epiphany. The post I just wrote, despite all its flaws - and despite how darn long it took me to write it - was the most focused, satisfying work I have done in a long freakin time. It feels important to acknowledge that and also to acknowledge why.

As a grownup, single, never-married, childless and non-childbearing (hysterectomy due to health reasons 5 years ago), bisexual female who is sometimes sexually active, I don't quite fit a conventional mold. And neither does my social life, which includes whatever sexual or romantic life I may have. It is easy to be afraid of this - or at least of being publicly honest about it - which really, are pretty much the same thing, since what we are afraid to tell others often becomes what we are afraid to face / affirm / allow in ourselves. And vice versa.

It's especially risky to write about the parts of me and my life that I actually find most interesting in a highly public forum like this one, when all a potential employer (or friend, or date, or my mom - hi mom!) has to do is google my name and Read All About me. I don't have the veil of fiction to hide behind the way I would if I were writing a poem, a short story, a play. But therein lies the crux of the issue: I don't want my writing to be a veil. No matter what genre I'm writing in - whether it draws on my own life or not - I want it to be compelling of its own accord, not motivated by my own need to legitimize my life through Literature, to create a pretty, well-crafted form and say, "Look at this very nice thing I made. Doesn't it justify my existence? Pay no attention to the woman behind the sestina..."

I have nothing against pretty, well-crafted forms, as long as they come from an honest place. And if - like my Valentine's Day ritual, which I still haven't done because I've been writing about my dumb date last night - that sounds a little too New Age, tough shit. :)

I hid behind children's theatre for years. Not that I didn't love writing for children; I did, and still do. (Or I would, were I writing for children right now. But I know I would like to do it again, so it feels right to say "I still do".) The one play "for grownups" that I wrote and had produced after grad school was eviscerated in the local press because it sugarcoated its subject. The last play I wrote, 5 years ago, was a children's theatre commission that never reached its potential, partly because I didn't know how to stand up for my own vision. Others described the script as "too dark", and I let myself get persuaded that I had to clean/lighten it up...only to find myself gutting its meaning and distancing myself from the work. Not a recipe for success, I found out too late, about the time I realized that my own shame around my less-than-conventional relationship life had contributed to my fear of standing up for my work. I won't repeat the mistakes of that life, but I also won't allow myself to deal in shame anymore, no matter what kind of life I may live.

And so. All this is just to say that I'm going to reveal myself in this blog. As much as I want to, without any fear. My writing needs it. So does my mental health. And I think the world might benefit.

Potential employers, please take note: I am responsible, hardworking, intelligent person, a skilled writer and a strategic thinker with an eye for detail who also possesses strong organizational and interpersonal skills, as well as a high degree of proficiency in Word, Excel, Access, and Raiser's Edge. All of that is true, and will continue to be, no matter what I write in this blog.

And Mom, if you ever read this: I love you so much, and I'm grateful to you for everything you have given me. Including the confidence to move forward and create a life that makes sense to me. This blog is part of that process. Enjoy.

And Happy Valentine's Day!

For Saints Have Hands

"For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,

And palm to palm is palmers' holy kiss."

- Romeo & Juliet

Saturday night. The night before Valentine's Day.

I'm already late for my blind-except-for-the-photos-he-sent-over-email date, when my friend returns my call about Sunday. She is stressed and frazzled, having done things for other people all day when she should be studying for her GRE. I commiserate for as long as I can, but my belly is hungry and my brain is buzzing and my lashes are devoid of mascara, so I interrupt and tell her, ok, long story, but I'm going to go meet this guy at a bar. She congratulates me for my chutzpah, then says, "Do you want an out? Should I call you in an hour in case you don't want to stay?"

I tell her, no, he's cool, or I wouldn't be going. If I'm not into it I'll just let him know. My only stress is the time I'll be spending, time I could be writing or moving or revising my resume one more time or catching up on the blog I've neglected, or more importantly, really, PACKING my entire life into boxes and bins since, hello, I am moving in a WEEK. But.

I made a decision the night before, the Friday night before Valentine's Day, that I was going to have some sex in my life. So, later Friday night, I put out an ad, with no photos and no physical description, but a very direct, specific ad, with numbered sentences, 1, 2, 3, an ad that sounded for all the world like an action plan or a football play: in other words, like a man had written it. I figured most guys would think it was fake or be turned off by the directness. But wow. The emails came flying in. About 25 in about 7 minutes. Most of them not even worth reading, but still. It was something.

In about an hour, I had a date. A Friday night date who showed up at my door. And this date, I'll admit, was a catch, a prize, not exactly my type, way to metro for me, but, perfect, objectively speaking. And fun. And open. And young. And easy. And fun. I was terribly, terribly grateful for this, and emailed him the next day, and told him so. He wrote back: "Le plaisir est le mien." He's taking French while he studies to be a nurse. Supports himself by working bachelorette parties: cop uniform, lap dances, thong, the whole deal. It's hard to write about that without laughing, but yeah, no question: the kid is a prize. And he made me feel like a champ. Thanks kid.

You'd think I might have been happy with that. Quit while I was ahead, you know. Yet something was missing from our little tryst. An element of - how you say? - passion. The inexplicable bolt of attraction that makes you want to do something we didn't: slide into each others arms, and kiss.

So cue back up to the next afternoon, the Saturday before Valentine's Day. I call up bachelor #2, whom I'd almost picked from the Friday-night passel, but young #1 beat him to the punch. He's a bit older, a bit more my type (at least from the picture), and he says, a good kisser. Bingo. Will he be my Saturday date?

Sure, he says. He's up for anything. Sort of. In that you-come-up-with-all-the-ideas, I'll say "huh, cool..." to some, and groan at the others, slightly passive-aggressive way. That's ok. I have lots of ideas. I mention the dirty show (www.dirtyshow.org), an international erotic art event that happens here twice a year - he's never heard of it, he's lukewarm. What about an "alternative bar" or a strip club, he asks? Oh yeah, and he never ever comes into Detroit. He wants to go to a dark little dive, but he wants it to be in the suburbs. Huh.

I tell him I'm suburb-phobic ("You're what?"), my inner-ring suburb is as 'burb as I get, and anyway I was just way out in his hood 2 nights ago at that big (boring) pub. So why don't we go to this ancient dive in the Cass Corridor, how bout that? No. Too scary for him. Alright. We'll compromise. We'll meet in Ferndale, my suburb - it's still North of 8 Mile - at the New Way, a scrappy rock & roll bar where I've never been but have googled, read about, and assessed to be to his taste, in the spaces between his "huh, cool..."'s and "ughs".

(Did I mention this guy is a personal trainer and self-described very good kisser with a warm, witty phone manner and sexy voice? If you were wondering, dear reader, why I stuck with it: it was not desperation or boredom, no, but lingering interest in these attributes.)

The closer it gets to our meeting time, the more I really want to back out. I text him, "Let's make out at the bar," but I know I have way too much to do, and I had a sexy Friday night date, but the thought of good kissing pushes me on, to squeeze into lingerie, smear on eye glitter, and drive myself to the New Way bar, a white concrete block building with a dirty red awning where a cute scruffy 5-man band throws down on a tiny stage.

A tall blonde bouncer in black jeans and grey leather, vintage glasses, and Bettie Page bangs, takes my five bucks and asks to see my ID. "I love you!" I tell her. Of course she laughs. "Hey girl, I get carded too - and I bet I'm older than you." She checks my ID and throws her head back. "Uh-huh! I knew it! Two years older than you! Well get in there girl, show 'em how it's done."

Bachelor #2 sits at the bar, smoking patiently, staring at the tv. Yeah, I was late - I called and texted, but still, I was late. At least he had the olympics to watch. I walk up, say hello, apologize again, then have a moment of panic: what if that's not him, but some other cute bald dude with square glasses? Shit. Only one way to test it: "I'm here to meet this guy I met online, but I'm late, so I think he might've left...you're pretty cute though. Wanna hang out?" He laughs, says "That's hilarious," a word he used a lot on the phone when he didn't know what else to say. Yep. It's him.

He's got a tequila. I buy one for myself. We sit at a table across from the bar. We do our best to talk over the band, but he's not talking much. I say, "Well, it's loud here, and there are no strippers - do you want to leave and go to a club?" "Yeah, we could," he says noncommittally. Reminder: the strip club was his idea. Whoever pegged men as the decisive, assertive, action-bound sex has never sat across from one on a date.

So. I talk, as loud as I can without shouting, and embellish my points with gestures and smiles. It turns into one of those bizarre moments when you start to become a different self, co-created by the gaze of another. You feel the self taking shape as you tilt your chin, roll your eyes, tell a story. You imagine the shape this self will take later, in an email, a text, or a blog. Will you become "the one with the tits"? Or the one with the funny stories? The one with the lipstick who talked with her hands, the one who's "dramatic," "expressive," "arty," or worse yet, "artsy"?

(In the 13 months I've spent in Detroit, I've been called this more times than I care to count. Do people not get that it sounds patronizing? What if I called them "blue collarsy" or "engineeresque"?)

Under the inscrutable gaze of my date, I forge on like an actor who studied with Blanche DuBois, taking up her technique from A Streetcar Named Desire. As she explains to her dull date, mama's boy Mitch: "The lady must entertain the gentleman...or no dice!" (Moments later in the play, right after Blanche hangs a paper shade on the room's bare light bulb and says, "Look! We've created enchantment!" Mitch makes an aggressive pass at Blanche. Blanche is insulted. It doesn't go well.)

Our scene is interrupted when Bachelor #2 looks, then frowns, at his iphone. "Oh no." He speaks! I wait, intrigued. "This guy wants me to train him at 6 in the morning." Hey! Something we can talk about! I ask the bachelor about his work. He makes $80 an hour training bigwigs like this guy, who have to jet off for business on a moment's notice and who are hard-core enough about their deep-knee bends - but dependent enough on a trainer to make them do them - to send such requests at 12:45 AM and expect that their trainer will say yes.

"Can you train him on 2 hours sleep?" I ask, smiling. He avoids the question, but he's talking at least, so I ask him more - about his dream to own a business like the bar he might buy down in Wyandotte (Wyandotte! Help me!). Predictably, I tell him to buy a bar in Detroit, or to take over the excellent Mercury coffee shop in Corktown (he doesn't know where that is) that closed 2 months after it opened last year but is sitting there, all sleek and chic, in the shadow of the abandoned train station, across the street from Slow's, that barbecue place I told him about...He smiles, he says, huh, yeah, really, wow. I'm overwhelming the poor guy. Oh well.

The alleged client emails again, allegedly offers $200 an hour if my date will say yes to the 6am gig. Part of me thinks, wow. Rich people really DO that shit, and not just with prostitutes either. Part of me thinks, yeahwhateverright. My date's friend is just giving him an out.

Date goes outside, makes a call, comes back in. This guy is a 3-year client, and he's not taking no for an answer. Date's gonna be throwing medicine balls at this guy in just over 5 hours, so he needs to go. He's sorry. All of it actually seems very real. But of course I'm starting to suspect he's an actor who studied with Tiger Woods.

Just then, the heretofore serious white-boy band band breaks out the funk. It's the Young MC classic, "Bust a Move." The keyboardist, who I swear eyed me when I walked in, is on the mic, throwing down the late-'80s lyrics with equal parts passion and irony: "You're on a mission / and you're wishin' / something could cure your lonely condition / lookin for love in all the wrong places / no fine women, just ugly faces." I once knew every word to this song. I used it as the warm-up exercise for children's theatre rehearsals in college (the actors were college students, not children). I say, "OK. We have to stay for this." The blonde bouncer joins us - "We're old enough to remember this song!" she says, high-fiving me, and to my bemused, quiet date: "I bet you're too young!"

My date is 37. But he thinks I'm 34. That's the age I listed in my ad, and it is, on some level, accurate: a legitimate reflection of the way I feel inside, as is, sometimes, 29, 50, 14, or 5. But I know most people think of age as a literal, chronological, consistent kind of thing, so I shout over the scrambled guitars and AAABB rhyme scheme, "How old did I say I was in my ad? 34? Yeah. I'm actually 40". My date looks at me. "Wow. You don't look 40," he says. And he seems to mean it. He smiles. I smile back. "Well. Thank you."

But really, he has to go, and I'm cool with that. I really am. But I can't help saying, in a gracious way, "Hey, if this is just a ploy - that's ok too. I mean, if you're not into it, let me know. I'm fine with it. Really." No, he insists, he wants to hang out. He really does, tomorrow night. The Dirty Show's still on, right? Let's go to that. Sure, I say, I'm planning to go with a friend, but yeah, come along, and let's hang out after. Cool, he says, where's your car? Right here, smack-dab in front of the bar. His is the down the block. We hug goodnight. He walks away.

Wait, what was that thing about kissing?

I climb into my car, cursing my fishnets: not warm enough for a night like this. I crank the heat and review my options: 1) Go home like a good girl (and waste a good makeup job?); 2) Head back into the bar, hit on the cute keyboardist (and risk 2 disappointments in the very same venue?); 3) Venture out and find a bit of fun elsewhere to redeem the anticlimactic night.

I choose option #3 and cruise (yes, just indulge me, ok, I cruise!) south on Woodward, text my friends who are out at a real Detroit dive, the Apex, but they've headed home. Home? It's only 1 in the morning! There are plenty of interesting places to go. Motor City Casino, the MGM Grand (never been to either, here's my chance), Honest John's, the Comet, The Old Miami, The Bronx, Cass Cafe, the Park Bar, MOCAD, The Centaur...I poke at my curiosity. It just yawns and rolls right back over.

So. I take myself at the Northern Lights Lounge. It's on my way home and I know the scene. But it's the Valentine's Dance tonight, $5.00 cover. Another $5.00. Still I let Tank, the chubby, sweet black bouncer in camo sweats, persuade me it's worth it for just one more hour. It's not. It's crowded as hell, and loud, and I'm the lonely old girl at the bar, drinking Pinot and smoking a Marlboro Light while young-girl laughter cackles around me and big white wanna-be rock star guys slam down shots, yelling "Aw-RIGHT!"

I watch Naomi Watts and King Kong on TV for as long as I can, wait patiently for the bartender's attention, spend $6.50 that I could've sent to Haiti, and start to walk out the door, when Tank takes my hand. "Hey." he says. "Did you have a good time?"

I stop. I don't know what to say.

My hand is in his hand. His soft, strong hand, twice the size of mine. His pale brown flesh wraps around my white little fist.

He is giving my hand a place to be.

It only lasts a matter of seconds. And of course I know Tank is just doing his job.

But whether or not he knows it, of course, Tank is doing something else too. Like his blonde counterpart at the New Way Bar, he is tending to a traveling soul about to cross his threshhold. He is making my pilgrimage worthwhile, justifying my black bustier, my satiny top, my fishnets, eyeshadow, lipstick, mascara. He is giving me the one thing I wanted tonight.

He is giving me my Valentine's kiss.

For an instant, we are palm to palm. For an instant, the night seems almost worthwhile.

Thank you, Tank.

You're a saint.

Happy Valentine's Day.