much better now

I was feeling pretty crappy over the weekend. My head kind of ran away with me. I fret too much over the past sometimes, I obsess about the future, and therefore I am miserable in the present. Smart, huh?

So I'm taking the "friend cure." Dinner with Robin tomorrow (plus I plan to take my jewelry to The Village Scandal beforehand).

Barry and I are going for dim sum on Saturday, which is a late valentine's something. Significant gifts don't really happen with us anymore except birthdays, when we do manage something. But to be entirely truthful, I'm a little bummed that I didn't get flowers yesterday, not from anyone. Maybe I'm a little old-fashioned, but I love getting flowers. Kama Sutra says you should give flowers with your tooth and nail marks in the stems. Call me ancient-fashioned, but I think that's kind of hot.

Monday, a little wine-and-cupcakes get-together for Bob Steiner's 60th birthday. Even though he only lives in Park Slope, it's probably been about 20 years since I've seen him. He's another one I've been in touch with on FB. On top of that, his old summer-camp roomie Ethan Ries is showing up, and I haven't seen Ethan since camp (I think I friended him on FB but he doesn't really post and we haven't communicated). Bob and Ethan were each briefly a bit more than a friend to me, but that's how camp was.

A week from Friday, I am off to Yardley for a weekend with Jannah, which is always so wonderful. We will just be taking it very easy, talking about everything, and cooking and eating and partaking of our favorite herbal remedy, and we usually watch a movie at night. (Oh man! I gotta bring an Indian movie with me! Of the 11 Indian movies that I actually have on DVD, all but one are Amitabh, big shock. Jannah will love him, I think. Which movie to bring? I'm thinking Don, and maybe also Nishabd, for younger Amitabh and older Amitabh. Quien es mas guapo?) Anyway, I'm going myself; I go about three times a year, and Barry comes with me maybe once. So it's very serous girl-time. Jannah is bummed out about something (either husband or difficult teenage daughter), and said I should bring a lot of earrings, so I guess she's in a buying mood. (No matter how much I give her, which is always quite a bit, she wants to buy more.) I always feel so great after a weekend there: lots of talk-time, a slower pace, laughing, sitting out back when weather permits. She sometimes uses my visits as an excuse to invite a bunch of folks over, and by this time (I've known her 8 or 9 years now), I know her friends pretty well. They're very eclectic, mostly quite smart, and comfortable to be around. If I'm lucky, I'll get to see John and Linda Andrews; I first met Jannah at a party at their house. Love them. Love Jannah.

So yeah, I already feel better to have so much friend-time scheduled, and of course my online posse also does my heart good. I've gotten a little less absorbed in FB and Twitter and such, although I've been watching a lot of music on YouTube and posted quite a few videos on FB.

And speaking of online communities...Amitabh is still in the hospital. He was doing very well for the first day, but did not go home after 24 hours as expected. He started to have pain, then more pain, and then it was determined that the pain was not from the surgical incisions but from something else, so he's having more CT scans, x-rays, tests and so on. He's been blogging and tweeting through all of it, but his blog was very brief today, and he actually tweeted something mildly angry, which I've never seen him do before. It was something along the lines of "Anyone who is asking me to reply personally right now is being very inconsiderate!" More cranky than angry, maybe. He's is not doing well. The EF are extremely freaked out. And this isn't just the FmXt (same as EF) that comments on the blog, about 250-300 people per day. This is also the people who read the blog but don't comment, and I have no idea what kind of page hits he gets.  This is also the (wait for it...) TwFmXt (figure it out), the two million plus people who follow him on Twitter. Then lets add in the people who aren't online and only get their news from radio, TV, and newspapers. There are a lot of freaked-out people out there.

As far as the blog EF...all of the religious people are getting really religious. (Most Hindus, maybe some Muslims, and a couple of Jews - also an astrologer.) The non-religious in-love-with-you ladies are somewhat hysterical, and offer to come to the hospital (some from overseas) and help with anything. Everyone else is just a little on-edge and frantic. Amitabh reports his his discomfort pretty bluntly, and the blog hears more detail than the Twitter followers. He doesn't name or detail any conditions, but we always know how he feels. He reports mild worry, but I think he's a bad liar. I think he's scared.

The blog EF definitely consider him a friend. He treats us like friends. He's at least skimming the comments, because he never fails to wish happy birthdays, wedding congratulations, get-wells and condolences. He mentions certain of us here and there, and every so often replies to about 40 comments. It's not an equal relationship we have with him, but it's also not entirely one-sided.

But enough about Amitabh for now. Check this out:

I don't want to say when this was taken because I am lately a little self-conscious about my age. I refuse to explain why that is. In this picture (which Robin took, in her old apartment), my hair was still naturally brown. I started to go grey when I was about 25, so I'm a young kitty here, 23 or 24. I do not appear to be wearing a speck of makeup. I dressed a different kind of weird than the other girls my age, and I dressed fairly fearlessly.

Video time! (no Indian ones today.)

The extremely great Emily Kaitz, singing a cougar song before anyone used the word "cougar." For many years, I had a cassette of a performance she did with The Dysfunctionells in the early 90s. Met her once. Very shy. But her songs are great and I love her voice. She's pretty low-profile. A couple of her songs have been recorded by The Austin Lounge Lizards and Trout Fishing in America, which is slightly less low-profile than Emily. I really try not to be an asshole hipster about obscure music and bands, but the truth is that I was truly truly into some really fringey music for a lot of years, most of which radiated out from The Holy Modal Rounders and Michael Hurley.

I'm not gonna scare anyone with the Rounders just yet, because they're something other than an acquired taste. It's more like, you have to be born with a genetic abnormality to like them, and the first time you hear them, you get it immediately and become deeply into them. If you don't have that predisposition, you just go, "they suck," and nothing will ever change your mind.

Michael Hurley is a far gentler vice:

Michael (and also Dave Reisch, playing bass here) are serious old-school country hippies. I met Michael (generally known as Snock) many years ago, and I used to see him every time he was in New York. Despite his relative obscurity, he was one of my major musical idols, and I did get to spend a little quality time with him on a couple of occasions. Way back when we both still drank, we were both at a party at Peter Stampfel's, and Snock and I stood and talked and drank a huge amount of red wine for about two hours. I cannot remember a thing we talked about. And maybe fifteen years later, he was in town gigging, possibly with Stampfel or The Du-Tels (Stampfel and Gary Lucas), and for some reason - maybe killing time before soundcheck? - we ended up going out to eat pirogi at a Polish restaurant in the east village, just the two of us. Michael's a good guy. but I find it hard to connect with those DEEP country hippies. Even at my most relaxed, I'm a little too urban. Dave Reisch lives in an old school bus on top of a mountain in Oregon. Which is not to say that I don't have mutual warmth with some of these guys.

Oh, all right.

So now you either love this or you think I'm crazy for liking such sucky music.

The above album, of course, is way old, and I didn't hear it until many, many years after it was released. Here are Steve and Peter the way I knew them:

And if I do not stop thinking about those days right now, I will get myself into a dark mood once again. Good night.

pickled lemons

I have probably mentioned that I fell madly in love with pickled lemons from a local middle eastern grocery. Although I've now bought them two more times at a different middle eastern grocery, I've also tried to make them myself. I read a few recipes and came up with my, which was something like this:

Slice four lemons. Salt with kosher salt and put into a colander to drain overnight, in the fridge, for at least 24 hours. Then pack them into a glass jar (I used a three-cup jar for four normal lemons or five small ones), adding more salt and sprinkling in some hot paprika. Cram them very tightly into the jar and add additional lemon juice to cover, if necessary. Let sit in fridge for three weeks.

The first batch was way too salty, almost inedible. No good. I started a second batch before I tasted the first one, and even though it's not "done" yet, I tasted one today and it seemed less salty. Also, I used flaked red chile pepper (like you put on pizza) instead of hot paprika, since the ones I bought seemed to be done that way.

I put in a third batch today, and omitted the pre-salting and draining. I used considerably less salt and the chile pepper again. So I think batches two and three will be something of an improvement.

My second NYU interview today didn't seem to go quite as swimmingly as the one yesterday. I was interviewed by two women, who both seemed fairly young (of the three who interviewed me yesterday, the most senior was probably closer to my age), and they seemed to be reading their questions off an HR form of some sort, so it was of a conversation, though I was certainly asked questions yesterday. But I got the sense yesterday that they were pleased with me, and I didn't necessarily get that vibe today. Let's hope at least one comes through.

Back to recipes -- since it's been so monstrously hot lately, and since we were a bit broke waiting for Barry's unemployment check today, I made cold pasta-and-bean salads twice this week, which I kind of made up as I went. Like so:

Cook pasta al dente, drain and rinse with cold water. Combined with a can of drained beans (I used kidney one night and great northern another). Add basil (or oregano, or both), salt to taste, flaked chile pepper, and garlic powder. Dress lightly with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.

This can also be dressed with mayo, and you can add tuna. We'd been eating a lot of tuna and egg salad with mayo lately, so I decided on a lighter dressing, and it didn't really take much to moisten the salad and add a little flavor. We ate it all up both nights. I know this is probably a little starchy for a person with diabetes, but this was a classic what's-in-the-house meal.

we need jobs!

(This title is to be read in your best Larry Fine voice. A friend of my brothers had the theory that Larry was the Stooge who always motivated the action. He was the one who always said, "Look, a baby!" or "We need jobs!" So I always hear the Larry Fine voice behind "We need jobs!")

Barry's unemployment is about to run out and we're pretty tapped, though we're expecting a check for the last bit from his father's estate. But clearly, it's time to start working again.

I've applied for a ton of different jobs, but what I really want is to go back to NYU, where I worked from 1983-1988, and 1990-1998. And amazingly, since there's a hiring freeze on, I have not one but two interviews there. The one today was at the (university-wide) Office of Faculty Resources, and tomorrow at the Faculty Services department at Gallatin School (which is the division from which I graduated). I did a lot of faculty benefits work at my last NYU job, which is probably why I got the interviews. But I've been applying to NYU on and off since around 2000, almost every time I was unemployed, and these are the first two interviews I've had there since I left.

The Faculty Services interview was this morning. For anyone not in the northeastern US, we have been in the middle of a monster heatwave for most of the past two weeks -- I'm talking temperature in the high 90s and up. This makes it a little tricky to dress for an interview. Fortunately, NYU is not terribly corporate, and I think I got away with my Mission Canyon outfit, since it was the one I have with a matching tank, capris and kimono jacket. (All of the other Mission Canyon and Tienda Ho clothes I have are all different patterns (with the exception of two solid Tienda Ho pieces, a black top and brown pants) that you can mix and match, but the matched set seemed a mite more formal, as close as I was going to get to any kind of suit. (Actually, I remembered today that my first supervisor at NYU, at the History Department, dressed a lot like that, in ethic-y tunic-y stuff.)

Well, enough with the fashion report. The interview went quite well, I think. It's a support job in an office that provides services to faculty university-wide; it encompasses things like the Curriculum Challenge Fund (money to help faculty develop new courses) and the Distinguished Teaching Awards. I met with the top three people in the office, all women, and I think I came off as seasoned and very knowledgable about the university. At the end, the director said, "We still have a few more people to see, but we'll be in touch," which sounded good to me.

Tomorrow, I'm interviewing for a job with the faculty services unit at Gallatin School, so it's probably a somewhat similar function but only within ones division. (It happens to be the one that granted my degree.) At my last NYU job, I did a lot of faculty benefits work, which probably contributed a good deal to my getting both of these interviews. (Tomorrow is either the black Tienda Ho top with a patchwork Mission Canyon skirt, or a purple and white Mission Canyon sleeveless dress with a dark green MC jacket. All of the colors I mention are the main colors -- the pattern I wore today is called "lime" and is mostly light green, but also has blue and brown in it.)

As far as I can tell, they're both good jobs. The university-wide one is a grade high than the Gallatin one (which means a slightly better salary), but they're the top two clerical levels and both pay in the mid-40s, so either would be just fine. (I was earning $36K at Penguin, but started at $30K, so this sounds like really good money to me.) The most important thing is that NYU's benefits are insanely great. I'm not exactly sure what they are right now, but health insurance was always cheap and with a choice of about 5 programs, there's a lot of vacation and a ton of holidays (plus sick and personal time), and tuition remission (the fantastic benefit that rhymes!). TR basically offers nine credits of free tuition every term, provided you have the academic chops to get admitted. Graduate students have to pay tax on the value of the tuition, but undergrads don't. This is how I got my B.A. If I go back, I think I'll take a master's of some sort, just because I'd enjoy it.

I finally started reading my old classmate Joe Wallace's new book, Diamond Ruby. It's absolutely excellent, just the kind of old-New-York historical novel I adore.Diamond Ruby: A Novel

there's naked, and there's naked

Until today, I was subscribed to a bootleg music blog. That's a blog where music is discussed and free downloads are provided -- in this case, bootlegged live shows. I subscribe to a lot of these blogs, because mostly they provide out-of-print albums, mainly on vinyl, for download. As someone who bought tons of vinyl in the past, I'm pretty much just replacing what I lost. I PAID for it already -- sometimes more than once, between vinyl, cassette, and CD. Now I'm getting mp3s.

Anyway, this bootleg blog had some very interesting stuff, but the blog owner all of a sudden started putting up pictures of mostly-naked women in-between the music items, rather coyly calling them "deejays." It might not have been so obnoxious if it was just for a few days, or once a week, but a lot of them are turning up daily. On top of that, they're those horrible photoshopped and made up and fake-boobed kind of women. Anyway, I objected and so did other people, and I had an e-mail exchange with this guy, whose basic position was "naked women go with bootlegs, this site is mostly for guys, and I can put what I want on my site." I don't think I would have been so bothered if it wasn't those fake-looking women whom someone has convinced men are attractive and sexy. Fake tits and fake dyed hair are so obvious, not to mention globs of makeup. I mean, eww.

A former friend of mine, a man I was close to, once showed me a couple of magazines from his porn stash. They were magazines from the 70s, which were the years where my friend was very sexually active, and the women in the magazines had long fuzzy hair, natural breasts, very little makeup, and big hairy bushes (it's possible they also sported armpit and leg hair). I liked the fact that his taste was stuck in the 70s, and that he was attracted to relatively normal-looking women. That's a rare find, especially in New York, where every man, no matter how fat/bald/ugly, believes he "deserves" to be with a model-type.

There's a new TV show called "Hot in Cleveland" where three LA women, who are over-the-hill and just average in LA, end up spending a night in Cleveland -- airplane trouble -- and find that they are considered big-time babes. The show is a little sitcom-y, but I love the premise and also the fact that their housekeeper is Betty White, who tends to steal the show.

I've had a similar experience with midwesterners and even in upstate New York and among the hippie-folkies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I am a serious babe once I'm out of an urban area. They don't care about weight or makeup or big fake tits.

I once "met" a guy online and we got very friendly. He was an engineering professor from Kansas, a single father. We talked on the phone a few times, and he was a nice, regular guy, very square and very decent. He sent me a loaf of bread and a nice bunch of biscotti he had baked, as well as a picture of himself. He was pretty handsome, despite the mullet. But he wanted to see a picture of me. (I guess this was before the days of scanners and such...in fact, I did not yet have a home computer so the e-mailing all went on at work.) I was, of course, terrified to send a picture of myself, because he was cute and seemed decently in shape, and I was fat. So I sent the best picture I could find, and his response was, "a face like a china doll!" He thought I was beautiful. (He did come to New York for a conference, and brought his sons, and I spent a lot of time with all of them (as well as some private time with him). I was actually supposed to go out and visit him next, but he decided to put the brakes on, and I got all hurt and pissed off and disappointed, and that was that.)

I was lucky to find a decent man here in the city, but I had to do it with a personal ad. I'd been striking out in person for several years, because of the rampant looks-ism in New York City. At least with an ad, I had some time to talk to men on the phone before meeting face to face, so their first impression of me was not my appearance. I ran an ad that was very specific about who I was and what I wanted. I got twelve responses, talked to six guys on the phone, and met three face to face. Barry was the second one I met, and it was clear before we met that he was the frontrunner. We already liked each other a lot before we met, and it was a bonus that he was good-looking, not a requirement. (I was about 20 pounds lighter than I am now, which is not thin, but I was feeling pretty good about myself, having recently lost 30 pounds.)

I used to have a print of Titian's "Venus and the Lute Player" which I hung in my college dorm. I liked the plump, small-breasted Venus a lot. I would say to myself, "She's built just like me, and she's Venus!" I actually wasn't quite so plump then, at 17, but I thought I was. And Lord, was I flat-chested. Still am. I don't know any other woman who can be fifty or so pounds overweight and still wear an A-cup (though I rarely bother with a bra at all).

I interviewed for a job today, doing sales for the Jewish Yellow Pages. It's mostly a commission job, though if you don't make $1,800 in commissions a month, they make up the difference. Their product is a good product, and their price points and commission rates could spell good money. But the job is 9-7, five days (eek!), although it *is* walking distance from my home. They seem to want me, and I was asked to call back on Tuesday. But when I got home, I had an e-mail from the Office of Faculty Resources at NYU, and they want to interview me! So I'm seeing them on Wednesday.

I left NYU in 1998, and have applied there every time I was between jobs since around 2000. This time, I made a more serious effort and applied for about 6 or 7 jobs over a couple of days. This is the first time since I left that I was called for an interview. Faculty Resources (a new department since I left) is a good match for me, since I did a lot of faculty benefits work at the Law School. I would LOVE to go back to NYU since it's a good location, decent pay, and amazing benefits (which I didn't fully appreciate until I left there). I was the lowest management grade when I left there, but there are really no appropriate jobs for me at that level at this time. But the top three clerical levels have minimum salaries around $43K, $44K, and $46K! (Funny how for-profit Penguin pays so much less than non-profit NYU...) And there's really cheap medical, a lot of paid holidays, a very healthy vacation policy, a casual workplace, and tuition remission (which is how I finished my B.A.). NYU is a really good employer. Unless the supervisor is a total bitch, I think I want that job. Wish me luck.