Not moved yet. Having a multi-dimensional crisis over life, work, health (physical and mental). We'll see how well I pull out of this one.
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Saturday, March 22, 2014
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
where I will no longer live
We've been asked to move out of our apartment. It's a long story, but the relevant facts are that we caused some damage to the apartment (leaking air conditioner, which we did not know was leaking or causing damage), and that the landlord never felt we kept the apartment tidy/clean enough. The latter has to do with the fact that the apartment has always been too small for us. When we first moved in, we had to put a lot of stuff in storage, and when we were unable to pay the storage, we lost it all. Even so, what remained in the apartment was not neatly storable and we certainly did have clutter. Not insane clutter, but clutter.
You have to figure that two middle-aged people who have all of their belongings in their possession (nothing stored in parents' attics etc) and who have some interests (reading, music) are going to have a lot of stuff. A lot of what I lost in the Great Storage Disaster was years and years of writing, many cartons of books, a lot of CDs and albums, a collection of baseball cards and a collection of postcards, and similar items. Barry lost some papers and all of his vinyl. While this was a lightening experience in some ways, it would have been nice to have the choice to keep some of these.
We've been sorting and clearing and throwing out as we look to move, and I'm starting to have a better understanding that I need to let go of a lot of things. As attached as I have been to my "stuff," it's clear that we'll never have a large enough home to make use of all of it, or store it neatly. I got rid of all but 100 or so books, pretty much only keeping those that are out of print, autographed, or books I worked on as a publicist. We got rid of a lot of CDs. We got rid of a lot of clothes.
As we needed to raise a good deal of money for the move, I sold my collection of 7,000 vintage bottle caps in one lot, to a collector in Germany. I kept about 20 that I'll display at some point. That was a little wrenching, but the truth is that it's all been packed up for about nine years, and I haven't had the money to add to the collection. It also turned out to be the single most valuable thing I owned.
Apartment-hunting is a hopeful and depressing thing. We saw a large, beautiful apartment in a great part of Bath Beach and put in an application, only to be turned down for poor credit. We've only seen one really bad neighborhood (Ditmas Park), but quite a few bad apartments. And there's no finding an apartment without a broker any more. There actually may be no obtaining a decent apartment without a co-signor, and it may be difficult to find one. Everything is much tougher, even since our last move eight years ago.
Although we were originally asked to move by the end of November, we asked for and were given until the end of December. Then the landlord called and offered us two months beyond that. This makes it less impossible but still hard.
The other bad part of this whole thing was that when we were asked to move out, the landlord decided that "cat" also had to go (we always told him we had only one although it was actually three), so the girls have been with Rochelle for about a month and a half, keeping company with her four. It's been a godsend - we couldn't have afforded to board them. But it's hard to have this kind of stress without the comfort of the cats. I've been visiting every couple of weeks. Maya won't speak to me, which just breaks my heart.
Other things go on, nothing too world-shattering. Barry and I celebrated our birthdays earlier this month with minor festivities. Things go well at both our jobs. I'm still reading and seeing movies and making jewelry. Hard to balance mind and body, as always. Peacefulness is elusive. I want to make some changes once the move is behind me.
When I was looking to sell the bottle caps, I did approach V. by email, first time in five years. I caught the hobby from him, and felt it would be right to offer them to him first (also, I knew he would be able to afford them). He emailed back and said that he was in a cash crunch and couldn't buy them right now, but would I like to have lunch? I said I'd have to think about it, and never emailed again. I'm still patting myself on the back for that one. If he had said some small thing along the lines of "I've missed you" or "I've been thinking about you," I might have given it some slight thought. Maybe it was self-centered of me to contact him about the caps, since I was only interested in turning them into cash, but it was such a small instance of self-centeredness by comparison to the years and years that I let him take without giving. I'm really glad I didn't give in to a nostalgic blindness, nostalgia for the times that I enjoyed his company and believed we were friends, and conveniently forgetting how badly he treated me and how many times he hurt my feelings. I think that toxic mess is thoroughly out of my life.
And here are some of the scans of selected corks that I prepared for prospective buyers:
You have to figure that two middle-aged people who have all of their belongings in their possession (nothing stored in parents' attics etc) and who have some interests (reading, music) are going to have a lot of stuff. A lot of what I lost in the Great Storage Disaster was years and years of writing, many cartons of books, a lot of CDs and albums, a collection of baseball cards and a collection of postcards, and similar items. Barry lost some papers and all of his vinyl. While this was a lightening experience in some ways, it would have been nice to have the choice to keep some of these.
We've been sorting and clearing and throwing out as we look to move, and I'm starting to have a better understanding that I need to let go of a lot of things. As attached as I have been to my "stuff," it's clear that we'll never have a large enough home to make use of all of it, or store it neatly. I got rid of all but 100 or so books, pretty much only keeping those that are out of print, autographed, or books I worked on as a publicist. We got rid of a lot of CDs. We got rid of a lot of clothes.
As we needed to raise a good deal of money for the move, I sold my collection of 7,000 vintage bottle caps in one lot, to a collector in Germany. I kept about 20 that I'll display at some point. That was a little wrenching, but the truth is that it's all been packed up for about nine years, and I haven't had the money to add to the collection. It also turned out to be the single most valuable thing I owned.
Apartment-hunting is a hopeful and depressing thing. We saw a large, beautiful apartment in a great part of Bath Beach and put in an application, only to be turned down for poor credit. We've only seen one really bad neighborhood (Ditmas Park), but quite a few bad apartments. And there's no finding an apartment without a broker any more. There actually may be no obtaining a decent apartment without a co-signor, and it may be difficult to find one. Everything is much tougher, even since our last move eight years ago.
Although we were originally asked to move by the end of November, we asked for and were given until the end of December. Then the landlord called and offered us two months beyond that. This makes it less impossible but still hard.
The other bad part of this whole thing was that when we were asked to move out, the landlord decided that "cat" also had to go (we always told him we had only one although it was actually three), so the girls have been with Rochelle for about a month and a half, keeping company with her four. It's been a godsend - we couldn't have afforded to board them. But it's hard to have this kind of stress without the comfort of the cats. I've been visiting every couple of weeks. Maya won't speak to me, which just breaks my heart.
Other things go on, nothing too world-shattering. Barry and I celebrated our birthdays earlier this month with minor festivities. Things go well at both our jobs. I'm still reading and seeing movies and making jewelry. Hard to balance mind and body, as always. Peacefulness is elusive. I want to make some changes once the move is behind me.
When I was looking to sell the bottle caps, I did approach V. by email, first time in five years. I caught the hobby from him, and felt it would be right to offer them to him first (also, I knew he would be able to afford them). He emailed back and said that he was in a cash crunch and couldn't buy them right now, but would I like to have lunch? I said I'd have to think about it, and never emailed again. I'm still patting myself on the back for that one. If he had said some small thing along the lines of "I've missed you" or "I've been thinking about you," I might have given it some slight thought. Maybe it was self-centered of me to contact him about the caps, since I was only interested in turning them into cash, but it was such a small instance of self-centeredness by comparison to the years and years that I let him take without giving. I'm really glad I didn't give in to a nostalgic blindness, nostalgia for the times that I enjoyed his company and believed we were friends, and conveniently forgetting how badly he treated me and how many times he hurt my feelings. I think that toxic mess is thoroughly out of my life.
And here are some of the scans of selected corks that I prepared for prospective buyers:
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
where I live
I live in a neighborhood in south Brooklyn that few people have ever heard of, even other Brooklynites. I'd like to keep it that way. Too many Brooklyn neighborhoods have of late been colonized by youngish people priced out of Manhattan, and their new neighborhoods have become trendy and expensive (Williamsburg, for instance, and Greenpoint and Bushwick). Ours may not be at risk of falling victim to this trend as we're not very close to Manhattan, but I'm still not going to name it. Suffice is to say that we're somewhat near Sheepshead Bay.
It had been a working-class Italian neighborhood, but most of the Italians are gone. There are still a few Italian grocery stores and restaurants. But for the most part, the neighborhood is mixed working-class. Avenue U is the main drag. On the opposite side of U from where we live, there is a colony of rich Orthodox Syrian Jews, who live in large private homes. So we also have a decent smattering of kosher food stores and other stores that cater to the wealthy (designer clothing, fancy tabletop goods, fine jewelry). It's basically a safe, family-oriented neighborhood.
There are a number of industrial businesses under the elevated subway line (about five blocks from us); the jewelry company where I used to work is one of them. There are quite a few factories and auto repair shops. It's the only stretch of the neighborhood that's less than pleasant. Quite a few Mexicans and South Americans work there, so there are some Mexican businesses near the subway - including a little grocery where I can always get good mangoes and avocados.
The only thing we don't really have is a good supermarket. There's a Met Food about fifteen blocks away, but it's a pretty old market, narrow aisles etc., and I don't trust any of their perishables. But they're not bad for packaged foods. There's an excellent Shop-Rite a few subway stops away - we used to shop there, carry our perishables back on the train, and have the rest delivered. But they won't deliver to our area any more. We used Fresh Direct for a while (shop online and they deliver), but we had problems with spoiled meat a few times (though they always gave a store credit, no questions asked), and the prices aren't that great. So we're back to mixed shopping. Paper goods and cat products at a few cheapie places nearby; chicken and pork and beef from an Italian deli; other groceries, wherever. Produce is a bit of a problem. A wonderful kosher produce store closes during the summer, and is only open on weekdays the rest of the year. There is a really shitty produce market up toward Met Food; every time I go in there, everything looks pretty icky except the bananas. I shop some at the Union Square Greenmarket, near my office, especially this time of year, when there are great tomatoes and stone fruit. I've recently discovered Trader Joe's, also near my office, which has canned tuna at a great price and other useful groceries. It's basically impossible to get a decent loaf of whole-grain bread where I live, so I've been buying unsliced loaves at the Greenmarket, but just discovered whole-grain bread at Trader Joe's for a dollar less. (Counting pennies, as always.)
We have a great mom-and-pop pharmacy near us for prescriptions, and a Rite-Aid for discount-drug-store stuff (cosmetics, shampoo, deodorant). We have a store called Meats Supreme which is good for cold cuts, but we've gotten spoiled meat from them as well. (Got a couple of well-priced and excellent packs of beef and pork from Trader Joe' recently.)
For fish, we're a short bus ride from the second-largest Chinatown in Brooklyn, with many groceries full of gently priced fresh seafood. You can get salmon fillet at $5.99 a pound, which is mostly what I crave. We also sometimes buy white fillets of some sort (sole, flounder, etc) and occasionally shrimp. There is a kosher fish market a few blocks from where we live, but it is quite expensive and of course you can't get things like shrimp.
I don't consider our neighborhood all that great for walking, and we don't have a park of any sort. But we're decently close to Coney Island (a few train stops) and not that far from Prospect Park (two buses).
We've been there about six years and doubt we'll be moving any time soon (although we'd love a bigger apartment). It's still cheap, we have a good landlord, and you need all kind of good credit and hefty income to rent an apartment these days.
It had been a working-class Italian neighborhood, but most of the Italians are gone. There are still a few Italian grocery stores and restaurants. But for the most part, the neighborhood is mixed working-class. Avenue U is the main drag. On the opposite side of U from where we live, there is a colony of rich Orthodox Syrian Jews, who live in large private homes. So we also have a decent smattering of kosher food stores and other stores that cater to the wealthy (designer clothing, fancy tabletop goods, fine jewelry). It's basically a safe, family-oriented neighborhood.
There are a number of industrial businesses under the elevated subway line (about five blocks from us); the jewelry company where I used to work is one of them. There are quite a few factories and auto repair shops. It's the only stretch of the neighborhood that's less than pleasant. Quite a few Mexicans and South Americans work there, so there are some Mexican businesses near the subway - including a little grocery where I can always get good mangoes and avocados.
The only thing we don't really have is a good supermarket. There's a Met Food about fifteen blocks away, but it's a pretty old market, narrow aisles etc., and I don't trust any of their perishables. But they're not bad for packaged foods. There's an excellent Shop-Rite a few subway stops away - we used to shop there, carry our perishables back on the train, and have the rest delivered. But they won't deliver to our area any more. We used Fresh Direct for a while (shop online and they deliver), but we had problems with spoiled meat a few times (though they always gave a store credit, no questions asked), and the prices aren't that great. So we're back to mixed shopping. Paper goods and cat products at a few cheapie places nearby; chicken and pork and beef from an Italian deli; other groceries, wherever. Produce is a bit of a problem. A wonderful kosher produce store closes during the summer, and is only open on weekdays the rest of the year. There is a really shitty produce market up toward Met Food; every time I go in there, everything looks pretty icky except the bananas. I shop some at the Union Square Greenmarket, near my office, especially this time of year, when there are great tomatoes and stone fruit. I've recently discovered Trader Joe's, also near my office, which has canned tuna at a great price and other useful groceries. It's basically impossible to get a decent loaf of whole-grain bread where I live, so I've been buying unsliced loaves at the Greenmarket, but just discovered whole-grain bread at Trader Joe's for a dollar less. (Counting pennies, as always.)
We have a great mom-and-pop pharmacy near us for prescriptions, and a Rite-Aid for discount-drug-store stuff (cosmetics, shampoo, deodorant). We have a store called Meats Supreme which is good for cold cuts, but we've gotten spoiled meat from them as well. (Got a couple of well-priced and excellent packs of beef and pork from Trader Joe' recently.)
For fish, we're a short bus ride from the second-largest Chinatown in Brooklyn, with many groceries full of gently priced fresh seafood. You can get salmon fillet at $5.99 a pound, which is mostly what I crave. We also sometimes buy white fillets of some sort (sole, flounder, etc) and occasionally shrimp. There is a kosher fish market a few blocks from where we live, but it is quite expensive and of course you can't get things like shrimp.
I don't consider our neighborhood all that great for walking, and we don't have a park of any sort. But we're decently close to Coney Island (a few train stops) and not that far from Prospect Park (two buses).
We've been there about six years and doubt we'll be moving any time soon (although we'd love a bigger apartment). It's still cheap, we have a good landlord, and you need all kind of good credit and hefty income to rent an apartment these days.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
odds and ends
Here are me, my mane, and Raghu Dixit. My phone was out of juice, and Barry is not good with his camera, so Raghu had someone take the pic with his phone and then posted it to Twitter.
So many random things on my mind...
I work a block from the Union Square Greenmarket, which is the best farmer's market in the city, and especially wonderful in the summer. Yesterday I came home with: local peaches, local nectarines, two kinds of plums (shiro and Santa Rosa), a quart of small heirloom tomatoes, a couple of Kirby cucumbers, French breakfast radishes (very mild), and a couple of young, mild red onions. Ate tuna last night mixed with chopped onion, tomatoes, cucumber and radishes. When I'm there, I tend to buy as much as I can carry. Barry is especially fond of the heirloom tomatoes. He loves tomatoes, but they're basically horrible and flavorless for most of the year. Most tomatoes have been bred to travel well and to be "attractive" (round shape), so most of them end up kind of hard and mealy...they look good but don't taste like much. "Heirlooms" are grown from old, non-hybrid seeds, and are grown outdoors and in season (as opposed to year-round in greenhouses), so they not only taste wonderful, but they're bumpy and delicate and irregular and all kinds of wild colors. When they're around, we basically eat them with everything, or eat them plain, and then buy more.
Splurged a bit today (hey, it's payday) at Sephora on a rollerball of Marc Jacobs' Honey. I got some small samples a week or so ago, and I love it, which is no small thing, considering that I am way picky about cologne and have only ever liked wearing a handful: Bellodgia (Caron), Coco (Chanel), Rush (Gucci), and Escape (Calvin Klein). I've tried others, but those are the ones I return to over and over. I go to Sephora a lot and just walk around and look at things, and always feel rather daring when I actually buy something, since you're basically spending at least $15 for a single item. And my inner cheapskate comes out when I look at $23 lipsticks, no matter how nice they are. I also bought a facial treatment I really like, an at-home facial peel. It's for daily use (yeah, right), but a box of five lasts me a month and only costs $15.
Friday, July 26, 2013
that's what I was aiming for
Finally, someone referred to my hair as "your mane." Thank you.
(Even better: he was a musician who'd just come off stage. I said, "You know, I was up there dancing the whole time." He said, "I know, I saw you - you were the only one I could see. I couldn't miss your mane.")
That might possibly have been the payoff for following musicians around all these years. And, you know, the music. The kind that makes you dance for nearly two hours.
(Even better: he was a musician who'd just come off stage. I said, "You know, I was up there dancing the whole time." He said, "I know, I saw you - you were the only one I could see. I couldn't miss your mane.")
That might possibly have been the payoff for following musicians around all these years. And, you know, the music. The kind that makes you dance for nearly two hours.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
he's the coolest
Raghu Dixit is playing in New York on Thursday, but it's a bad week and we don't have money for tickets. So even though it's been a while since I tweeted him (I'm rarely on Twitter of late), I tweeted him and asked if he could comp us:
Honestly, do they come any nicer?
And any of you in New York - do come see him at SOBs on Thursday night!
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Honestly, do they come any nicer?
And any of you in New York - do come see him at SOBs on Thursday night!
Monday, July 22, 2013
travels in Pennsylvania
Just spent two weekends in Pennsylvania: with Joyce in Pocono Mountain, and with Jannah in Yardley. I wouldn't say I know Pennsylvania well - hard to know any state well without doing a lot of driving - but I like Pennsylvania and have some good friends there.
Joyce's house is more rural and Jannah's more suburban, but it's all very different from my little castle in Brooklyn. Lots of talk about cars and boats and homes: costs and methods of repair and maintenance, comparisons, troubles, comparisons, and so on. Pool patches. Gardens. Guns. It's all very foreign to me, and some of it is very interesting, some...less so. But it's interesting to see how much less important my city-girl concerns are to non-urban folks.
It happened that there was a birthday party for John A. - his 60th - when I was at Jannah's, so we went to the party. I do love going to parties out around there (John is in Bordentown, NJ), except for some excessive drunkenness...and then it depends on who the drunk parties are. John was pretty rocked by the end of the evening, but he was very sweet and sentimental. Then there was another guy who was just plain obnoxious and was passed out by the time I left. (Needless to say, the latter was the only only guy at the party who flirted with me.) Some folks I knew and some I didn't. Linda made piles of food. John and his posse played some old-timey/bluegrass stuff, calling themselves "The Clam Daddy All-Stars," and even slightly out of tune, it was a good time. Before the weekend, I had a vague fear that V. might turn up, but I don't see John inviting him for a social occasion at this point. (One of the first times I V's incredible self-centeredness was when he was invited to John's wedding. V's response: "Why should I go?" Not a clue about being there for a friend. Of course, when he learned he'd have a chance to play, he decided to go.)
Jannah's life is insanely busy, like being inside a blender. She commits herself to a lot of stuff and then runs around like crazy. For instance, she joined a boat club so he could dock her boat (they actually call it a "yacht club," but the boats are not at all what you'd think of as a yacht). Next thing you know, she's an officer of the club and knows every single person there and is organizing all kinds of events. I accompanied her to a "short" meeting she was running there, which lasted three hours. Most of her boat pals are heavy-drinking white non-Jewish blue-collar men. Not really my crowd, though I met a few nice folks.
Things around Joyce are a lot more quiet. We went to see "Raymond, the Amish Comic" near Jim Thorpe, PA (we thought he'd be laughably bad, but he was actually pretty good). We walked around Jim Thorpe before the show, which is a quaint, touristy little town, not unlike New Hope. But the buildings were more impressive. It was certainly more relaxes in the Poconos than whizzing around between Yardley, West Trenton (where Jannah's boyfriend lives), Bordentown, and wherever the yacht club and the marina are (it's called the Bristol Yacht Club but I think the town is called Easterly).
I'm kind of all over the place here, but just wanted to post something...the bottom line, I suppose, is that it's good to get away, good to be with friends, and good to be with close women friends. Joyce and I have gotten pretty thick after years of not seeing each other - and when we did see each other, she was primarily my uncle's wife and not my pal. But we always liked each other, and in fact I absolutely worshiped her: she was so attractive, talented, funny, adventurous. Still is. And I still worship her a bit. And am so enjoying the way we slipped into a very warm friendship.
All of my women friends have been having bizarre relationship problems and arrangements (except for L., who doesn't have a boyfriend or boyfriends or girlfriends or husband or some combination thereof). Joyce's seems to be the simplest - which doesn't mean it's easy. But I can understand it. With some of my friends, I simply have to step back and just watch to see what happens.
A little plug: John's daughter Ashley and her fiance Joe have a charming blog called Our Bklyn. I feel like my blog has a lot of potholes in it, but their Brooklyn blog hits all the right notes.
Joyce's house is more rural and Jannah's more suburban, but it's all very different from my little castle in Brooklyn. Lots of talk about cars and boats and homes: costs and methods of repair and maintenance, comparisons, troubles, comparisons, and so on. Pool patches. Gardens. Guns. It's all very foreign to me, and some of it is very interesting, some...less so. But it's interesting to see how much less important my city-girl concerns are to non-urban folks.
It happened that there was a birthday party for John A. - his 60th - when I was at Jannah's, so we went to the party. I do love going to parties out around there (John is in Bordentown, NJ), except for some excessive drunkenness...and then it depends on who the drunk parties are. John was pretty rocked by the end of the evening, but he was very sweet and sentimental. Then there was another guy who was just plain obnoxious and was passed out by the time I left. (Needless to say, the latter was the only only guy at the party who flirted with me.) Some folks I knew and some I didn't. Linda made piles of food. John and his posse played some old-timey/bluegrass stuff, calling themselves "The Clam Daddy All-Stars," and even slightly out of tune, it was a good time. Before the weekend, I had a vague fear that V. might turn up, but I don't see John inviting him for a social occasion at this point. (One of the first times I V's incredible self-centeredness was when he was invited to John's wedding. V's response: "Why should I go?" Not a clue about being there for a friend. Of course, when he learned he'd have a chance to play, he decided to go.)
Jannah's life is insanely busy, like being inside a blender. She commits herself to a lot of stuff and then runs around like crazy. For instance, she joined a boat club so he could dock her boat (they actually call it a "yacht club," but the boats are not at all what you'd think of as a yacht). Next thing you know, she's an officer of the club and knows every single person there and is organizing all kinds of events. I accompanied her to a "short" meeting she was running there, which lasted three hours. Most of her boat pals are heavy-drinking white non-Jewish blue-collar men. Not really my crowd, though I met a few nice folks.
Things around Joyce are a lot more quiet. We went to see "Raymond, the Amish Comic" near Jim Thorpe, PA (we thought he'd be laughably bad, but he was actually pretty good). We walked around Jim Thorpe before the show, which is a quaint, touristy little town, not unlike New Hope. But the buildings were more impressive. It was certainly more relaxes in the Poconos than whizzing around between Yardley, West Trenton (where Jannah's boyfriend lives), Bordentown, and wherever the yacht club and the marina are (it's called the Bristol Yacht Club but I think the town is called Easterly).
I'm kind of all over the place here, but just wanted to post something...the bottom line, I suppose, is that it's good to get away, good to be with friends, and good to be with close women friends. Joyce and I have gotten pretty thick after years of not seeing each other - and when we did see each other, she was primarily my uncle's wife and not my pal. But we always liked each other, and in fact I absolutely worshiped her: she was so attractive, talented, funny, adventurous. Still is. And I still worship her a bit. And am so enjoying the way we slipped into a very warm friendship.
All of my women friends have been having bizarre relationship problems and arrangements (except for L., who doesn't have a boyfriend or boyfriends or girlfriends or husband or some combination thereof). Joyce's seems to be the simplest - which doesn't mean it's easy. But I can understand it. With some of my friends, I simply have to step back and just watch to see what happens.
A little plug: John's daughter Ashley and her fiance Joe have a charming blog called Our Bklyn. I feel like my blog has a lot of potholes in it, but their Brooklyn blog hits all the right notes.
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