Hmmmm

It’s New Years Eve day. The end of another year. A bad year in most people’s estimation. If I look back to where I was a year ago, I am personally in a much better place. Last New Years Eve I was on the brink of a break up that spawned this whole essay writing business to begin with. How cool is that? This New Year’s Eve, I many be on the brink of another break up…Yeah that sucks. I’ve sort of bookended 2009. In a way, I may be in the exact same place but I know I’m not. I am enriched. I am enriched by the relationship I’m in regardless of its outcome; I can’t say that for the previous one. That already is progress. I’m enriched by the writing I’ve been doing, by trying to live a truly authentic life, one that is true to who I am at the core. It’s just hard to be mindful of the fact that though I’ve been making small steps, those steps are progress. It’s even harder to be mindful of the progress when desperation and depression seem to be much easier things to cling to, as the progress is so small that it is virtually unperceivable to an outsider.

Earlier today while sitting here at the café that has become my office, Ben the person on the laptop next to mine said “what’s so great about new years, I’m one year closer to my demise.” Ah, a fellow writer I thought to myself. I was wrong. Ben is a recruiter. He also had other thoughts to offer about New Years Eve, “There’s too much pressure to be happy on new years.” And then I started thinking about happiness in general. I mean what is happiness? I tend to think I’m generally happy about something and then happiness turns into complacency and complacency into dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction then into restlessness and restlessness into anxiety. An “is this really my life” anxiety when only moments ago I seemed happy.

The years just keep going by. There’s no way to prevent that from happening or to slow down their perceived speed of passing that seems to grow with each year. So all I can do is make a resolution. I am going to be happy with this moment. And then this moment will lead to another moment in which I will plan to also be happy. I’ll just be in the moment so I can’t distract myself with thoughts of my past mistakes or the potential mistakes I may make in the future. That should be easy right? I resolve to be in the moment and to go to the gym more. After all, I did just join my boyfriend’s gym.

Hmmmm have I learned nothing this year?

Merry Kwansanukmasadan

11:24:43 am Dec 25th 2009. “I‘d like to know if it’s too early on the east coast for a scotch. Merry Christmas.” This was the text I wrote to my best friends. I knew they’d get a kick out of it. Somehow, on certain mornings a stiff drink doesn’t seem to be reason enough to raise an eyebrow, stage an intervention or ask what’s wrong. It’s just how it is and on this Christmas morning, that’s how it was.


You see, I’m at home “celebrating” with my family while my Jewish boyfriend is back in NYC not “celebrating “ anything. I did speak to him this morning though. “Look on my side of the bed behind the headboard…there’s a red bag ” “A red…oh I see it…Wow.” I had left behind a surprise present for him and his friend who was staying with him during this time. I didn’t want them to feel like holiday orphans. You see, it hasn’t felt like the holidays and that never feels good when you know it’s supposed to feel like the holidays. He was away for the beginning of Chanukah and doesn’t even have a menorah. And while 2 holidays may have come and gone in his one bedroom apartment without one candle being lit, a prayer said, holiday decorations being hung, eggnog drunk or mistletoe kissed under, there is a lot of love there.


But I worry. I worry that leaving a “holiday” present behind for your Jewish boyfriend to open on Christmas morning, as thoughtful as it is, might really be an act of defiance in the face of the man you love who has come to a decision: that he’d like you to convert to Judaism so you can live happily ever after.

I never expected happily ever after to come with such a condition. I wonder if that condition makes the thing it’s offering seem almost null and void once you accept the terms. Isn’t true love supposed to be unconditional? As a romantic I find these things too clinical, too calculated and too much of a proof that the other’s love may not be strong enough to overcome the differences of two people who really aren’t religious at all to begin with.

Love is the most important thing on this planet. What else are we really here for? Certainly not to look back on our lives and count how much money we’ve made. Success has not meant a thing to me without having someone to share it with. And the older I get, the less sustaining success seems to be as a consolation prize for being alone. Perhaps that’s why my drive for it has diminished as I’ve aged. Every failed relationship seems to echo louder how important having a good one in your life really is, how empowering it is to build a life with someone you connect with, share passions with and who you ultimately consider your best friend.

So why, if you’ve found this person would you be willing to let it go for a difference in religious affiliation especially when the affiliation is lacking in affirmation. I think the Jewish religion is one of the most beautiful with wonderful traditions and rituals. But aren’t all religions beautiful at the core? Aren’t they all seeking the same results? Aren’t they all equally destructive when practiced with enough fanaticism?

I would want to teach my children, should I ever be privileged enough to bear them, that religion is personal… love is universal. That God surely loves all of us. That being a good person with a kind heart with compassion and respect for others regardless of the color of their skin or what God they prey to is the highest form of religion there is.

Couldn’t we have a new religion? Christanukmas? Maybe even Kwansanukmas? I like the sound of that. Or better yet…Kwansanukmasadan. Yeah. Merry Kwansanukmasadan everyone. Let’s all raise our scotch to that. It’s 5pm somewhere in the world.

It Takes A Very Steady Hand

I usually get to my yoga class (what my teacher refers to as my practice) twice a week. I’ve been doing it for almost 2 years. That and this new cleanse I’ve been on have definitely had a centering effect. So why I haven’t been to the gym in months is a question with many answers, none of which substantiate the behavior or in this case the lack thereof.

Today, after a long hiatus I took a yoga class as a friend’s guest at the Equinox on 76^th and Amsterdam. By all accounts it is a beautiful gym, sleek design with wood floors and light fixtures, locker rooms with digital locks and Kiehl’s products.

It is surely worthy of some design awards and gives the impression that you are there to relax and have a drink rather than sweat your ass off. It is exactly the kind of place I would have loved years ago. The kind of gym I have been a member of in the past. However, after being downsized and then downsizing my life, I’ve been learning to live with less. And not only have I learned to live with less, I have come to enjoy having less and yoga has been a big part of that journey.

My gym, the dolphin on east 4^th street between First and Second Avenues is exactly the place I would have cringed at in earlier years. It’s a tiny bare bones muscle gym. Where Dolphin is the gym equivalent of 5 immigrants living in a studio apartment Equinox on 76th street is the gym equivalent to Graceland.

You’d think I’d have been happy to be in this South Fork Plantation after so much time of slumming it. But I missed my little gym where the form follows function theory of design is truly applied. Where nothing was designed that wasn’t necessary. And in many ways I believe that that’s what yoga is about. About simplicity, stripping away what’s on the outside to get to the inside and of course the hope of one day successfully doing a headstand.

While the yoga teacher, in between jokes of how hung-over Alice was, yammered on about finding our light, polishing it and then letting it shine even brighter than it had in the past, I missed my yoga teacher Sylvia. Sylvia does not encourage talking during the class, she speaks in a low voice and if we do end up laughing because she occasionally says right hand when she means left and people are futilely trying to perform physically impossible poses, she redirects our focus to where it should be, on being centered and quiet and within.

And then something happens. On the basement level of a dingy gym, without too much talking of light and polishing anything off, in a poorly ventilated room filled with old yoga mats, and occasional condensation dripping down from the ceiling, you have your own spiritual experience.

Sometimes I cry in yoga. I strain to hold a pose and as the physical seems impossible to endure, the tears well up in my eyes and roll down one cheek or the other. Though I’ve never noticed it happen to anyone else in any yoga class I’ve ever been in, my teacher says it’s quite common. “You’re working stuff out”. Shit. If I haven’t figured it out by now there’s little hope I ever will. I’m not sure what’s scarier, the fact that I cry in yoga with no emotional prompting or the fact that I don’t even know what I cry about when it happens. I barely cry in therapy, (I hear all you out there thinking, yeah, that’s why you need it).

Then at the end of yoga, something else happens. As I lay there in final relaxation pose, feet mat width distance apart, arms to the side palms facing up, I get the distinct feeling that I am the patient in that game operation. Anesthetized by my own fatigue, I lay there and wonder if there is a doctor with a very steady hand out there about to fix what I don’t even know is wrong with me.

As Seen on TV

So there I was in the beloved skin care aisle at Rite Aid on the corner of 5^th and 1^st Ave. Beloved, since there isn’t a Duane Reade within reasonable walking distance as an alternative when you live just across the street. This Rite Aid is sadly under stocked on many things including hair dye options. I know because I have wasted my fair share of hours pondering the alternatives to my natural hair color, weighing my options between cool and warm tones only to walk out empty handed. Who doesn’t love drugstore shopping? Walking into one alone is like taking an upper let alone the rush of walking out with new body wash, shampoo and lip-gloss. I however was there to take care of some serious business. Having just told my friend I would now qualify as a before photo for Proactiv and having thought about calling them a few times, I decided to look at my limited but immediately available, better than Proactiv, compare our ingredients to theirs, alternative courses of treatment to save my face from this hormonal uprising known as adult onset acne, as if the onset of adult hood wasn’t bad enough.

I’ve been one phone call away from Proactiv for a few months now. I thought of going to the dermatologist but friends with the same problem were told to get pregnant and breast feed and their hormones would go back to normal. Well, if fate wasn’t cruel enough leaving me to navigate New York City singledom in my 30s, nature was even crueler. You’d think there’d be an upside to having the last of your fertile eggs closing in on their sell by date; that pregnant women were the ones that are supposed to be traumatized by the hormonal coup d’etat I was experiencing. To make matters worse, I’d never had serious problems with my skin before. Actually, it was something people always complimented me on…How did I end up in this adolescent dilemma? Perhaps it’s fitting since I seem to be going through a second adolescence in my personal and professional life but please, one acne free adolescence was bad enough. I wonder if this is like reincarnation for the living? Did I not learn what I needed to from my pimple-less teenage years that I must hopefully now learn as a mildly and hopefully temporarily pizza faced adult so I can avoid the horrors of old age acne if such a thing even exists?

So there I am in aisle 3 resigned to the fact that there are probably many life lessons I still needed to learn, not picking at your face still among those. But that lack of learning has caused me to learn one thing…how to cover up blemishes. Apparently, I learned it so well that a woman in the airport bathroom during my thanksgiving travels actually stopped to say, “wow, that stuff really works.” “Thanks,” I answered. Not sure how to take the compliment, I just kept talking. “It’s Face of Stockholm under eye cover up, but it works everywhere.” Her older than mine, rosacea affected cheeks rounded in a smile of thanks and understanding. Is there no end to what we can and probably will endure as we get older?

What I wouldn’t give to have my under-eye be my only problem area. Of course even then I panicked. I temporarily substituted the low of realizing I was aging for the high of buying every eye product Rite Aid could keep on its poorly stocked shelves. And yes, in one low moment I ordered a product from the box known as the TV. I wish I could say it was in the wee hours of the morning, that I was so tired I knew not what I was doing but I can’t. No, I called Principle Secret one morning around 11am while I was getting ready to go to my yoga class. The “secret” ingredient of Argireline and a glowing endorsement from Jules Asner seemed like a winning combination and the only solution at the time. But back to the current problem staring me literally in the face.

I’d pretty much settled on the Neutrogena 3 Step Acne Solution System. It’s got some orange on the packaging but the tubes containing my redemption seemed to come in neutral tones worthy of any good decorator’s palate for living rooms and bathrooms that seek a sophisticated yet understated appeal. I was almost out of the aisle when the bright neon orange package of Severe To Clear caught my eye…how could it not even though it happened to be on the very bottom shelf? It has the same ingredients, the same claims but offered 4 products to the Neutrogena 3. Severe to Clear came with one cream for day and one for night. I was torn between the branded name Neutrogena had always been and the promise Severe To Clear’s catchy name assured it would deliver. I marveled at the neon packaging though. People with acne want to hide, want to draw less attention to themselves and walking through the store holding a toxic orange package was certainly counter to that objective. I decided I’d chance it. I positioned Severe To Clear behind the pack of toilette paper I was glad I didn’t forget to pick up. Once home, I immediately found a nice pouch to hold my new products so that when at my boyfriend’s he wouldn’t be tempted to check out my new purchase mistaking the bottles for radioactive colored playthings.

So far I’ve used the product 3 times. I wonder if thinking good thoughts here speeds up the process. Things like snowflakes, puppies and chocolate…wait, forget the chocolate. That may have gotten me into this whole mess in the first place. But I do think it’s working and that’s a good thing. I highly doubt my insurance will cover the cost of getting inseminated as a cure for acne so that I can start breastfeeding already.

Destination Unknown

I’ve never had a good sense of direction. Couple that with my preference for meandering to find my way rather than consulting a map for directions and you have my basic roadmap for life. I will however, occasionally, ask for directions and in my dream the other night, I asked Steve Jobs. Though I had no idea where I was actually headed, somehow I knew I had driven off course; that I hadn’t taken a certain road indicated by some directional iPhone app. Naturally, though I was lost, I had driven to an Apple compound of sorts that also happened to employ several high school friends. As I exited the ladies room, Steve Job exited the men’s room. “Excuse me, I’m really sorry to bother you sir. I’ve been using this app; I think I took a wrong turn and I’m not sure how far back I need to go.”

Steve hesitated for a moment but then produced a clipboard with a blank print out of the mapquest like app. He filled in the blanks writing down the directions for me to get me back on my way…destination still unknown.

I thanked him as he handed me the clipboard and let him get back to his very busy schedule.

Before departing, I thought I’d take some time with my old friends and ventured up to the second floor. I was greeted by familiar faces…a nice little reunion indeed...until a woman I had never seen, a woman I took to be Mrs. Jobs or Ex-Mrs. Jobs , enraged by my presence, yelled at me that I had to leave instantly and that I was not welcome there. My friend took my arm, “Let’s go, you should get out of here.” She walked me downstairs and as we said our goodbyes in the cool of the outside air, I realized I left the clip board up stairs. I was struck with panic. “I forgot my clipboard, I forgot my clipboard,” I kept yelling. Words, that out of context, would only resonate with Julie, social director for the Love Boat. “I forgot my clipboard,” I repeated as tears rolled down my face. I was still lost and had no idea where I was going. Then I woke up.

You’d think one directional dream in a week would be bad enough. Enough to alert you that your inner compass needed to be readjusted, realigned, re-northed, or whatever it is they do to directional instruments. I am lucky enough that my psyche knows me well enough that one major and very vivid clue into my subconscious sometimes isn’t enough. Sometimes I ignore the clues the universe chooses to give me, admittedly sometimes on purpose…

Even more vivid than Steve Jobs and his clipboard was a dream I had last night. I was on a subway platform that is flanked by 2 trains heading in opposite directions. (I say that only because some NYC subway platforms are flanked by trains going in one direction where one side is express and the other local, in which case taking the wrong one is a minor annoyance.) So there I am, on the platform, what I hope is a slightly younger version of me since I’m with my boyfriend, who happens to look like a 14 yr old, and his mother. They decide to quickly check on something, use the bathroom or get a drink from the water fountain at the other end of the platform. I’m not quite sure what they’re doing, but in their absence the train comes...It was imperative we not miss this train though I still can’t tell you why or where we were headed. I grab the backpack my boyfriend left behind and decide to jump on the train, thinking they’d jump on at their end knowing that someone as thoughtful as I am would have the presence of mind to realize they’d assume I’d pick up the bag and join them on the train. Now on the train, I watch as we pass a few stops, not at all wondering where my adolescent love and his mother have gone and I realize I’m going in the wrong direction. I mistook the train that came for the one we needed and asked the woman next to me what the next stop was. Before she answers, the subway car has turned into a greyhound bus and we’re on some small highway. Snow is falling and is beginning to accumulate. “Pittsburgh,” she replies. “What?” “Stop the bus,” I tell the driver. “You can’t get off, once we’ve departed you can’t get off until we make a stop,” he answers with no sympathy. “When’s the next stop?” I say containing as much of my panic as possible. “In about five to ten minutes.” “How am I going to get back to New York City from here?” I ask containing less of my panic than before. “You can get a cab.” “A cab, there are no cabs here, I don’t know the number for a cab out here,” I respond helplessly, tears rolling down my face.

I woke up like a shot, my heart racing and with the complete stress of someone in a broken down car on an isolated road and no way to call for help. Again, I didn’t know what my intended destination was supposed to be, but it certainly wasn’t Pittsburgh.

500 Days Of Summer

I just came from seeing 500 Days of Summer. It was a great movie and I think they’ve definitely hit the new direction romantic comedies are headed. They’re now tragedies where, in the same vein of The Beak-up, the leading man and leading woman do not end up with one another.

There was a time when people wouldn’t want to see a movie like this. This movie was real. It breaks from romantic comedy formula and fortunately is hitting the theatres at a time when the country’s whole sense of formula in the real world (the economy, healthcare and joblessness) is shattered. We’re ready to accept a romantic comedy that’s filled with more pain than romance.

My friend recommended I see it. “It was like watching every relationship I’d ever been in” he said. Always up for a good emotional flagellation, I went…alone and came back to my boyfriend asleep in bed on a diagonal leaving no room for me. It was only 9:30 and I couldn’t help wonder if he purposefully wanted to be asleep when I arrived or if his sleeping on a diagonal was his unconscious mind pushing me out. I also thought, at least he made it into bed and didn’t just pass out on the couch the way he did the 2 nights before. And no, we’re not fighting and so I shouldn’t think anything of it. He wakes up early, his job is stressful, he’s tired. I get it.

But the movie did unearth the one thought, one fear in my head that new relationships are prone to; one that I am trying to push aside and prove otherwise by his conscious actions. What if he just feels differently about me in the morning?

In the movie, Tom tells Summer he’s ok with the no labels thing she needs to be comfortable in the relationship but that he needs some consistency from her; some assurance that she won’t feel differently about him one morning, simply because she does. She then responded with the truest and most depressing line in the movie. “But I can’t give you that. No one can.” UGH.

No legal document, no diamond ring and certainly no repeated professions of love can give you that. I’ve noticed that the older we get, the more baggage we acquire, the harder it is to feel secure with anyone. I’m not saying it’s hard to feel good, just hard to feel secure, where you don’t question the other’s feelings. Where you don’t question if he wanted to be asleep before you got home; where you don’t question if he thinks the two of you are on overkill even though he asked you to move in with him…and well now, only a few weeks after he asked you, living together just may seem like overkill.

All couples go through it. Wives can’t wait for their husbands to got to work to have some alone time while the kids are at school. Husbands try to squeeze in as much guy time as they can get away with and well, it’s normal. Maybe that morning their feelings changed, the things that bothered them about their partner became glaringly clear and space was needed. But that’s not to say that the next morning or one morning the next week he won’t pull her close for a cuddle because he returned to his normal state of loving her.

I used to believe in the one. At this moment I think I believe in no one, no destiny, no meant to be. And the insanity is that I want there to be one. I want the fairy tale that has my name on it. Where the guy I’m with feels that I was made just for him as I feel he was made just for me. Crazy…maybe. Childish and naïve…sure. But do not be deceived by my own need for distorted emotional outpouring on the keystrokes. The film does end on a hopeful note and does try to restore order to the disorder it spent an approximately well conceived, cleverly written 95 pages creating. But even so, as I try to sleep on the couch, I can’t get the thought that my boyfriend wanted to be asleep before I got home out of my head.

A Good Woman

They say that behind every good man is a good woman. It may hearken back to a time when women’s lib seemed like a bigger struggle than that for health care reform. Or to a time when that was all women could say for their self worth and contribution to society…clean laundry and a home cooked meal.

As a product of the 80’s and a single sex education up until my freshman year of college, the idea of being a super woman was force-fed to us in the media and in schools. No way did simply being a wife and mother seem adequate or even a passing excuse to be alive. We had to achieve. We were given the opportunity; we’d better not waste it.

I always thought marriage and children would come. That they were things that would just happen not things you had to work on. Working at work seemed work enough.

Who knew that marriage and family took so much effort other than the forgotten women of the 50’s who didn’t burn their bras so they could build families?

I’m no saying women’s lib is bad, of course not…but it makes you feel bad when you reach 37 and all you really want is to take care of a man who loves you and hope you’re still fertile enough to have his children.

That life, the life I personally and I believe countless others as well put aside, knowingly or unknowingly in pursuit of something more, found out that something more was also something less.

I can’t complain. I’ve been proposed to 2.5 times. .5 because we discussed marriage and there would have been a proposal had I been willing to renounce Jesus and convert to Judaism. And I didn’t say no because they weren’t good men, we just weren’t good fits long term. I’m sure that now, as painful as it was in the moment, those men would agree.

And yet, I never thought I’d be where I am now…getting on in my 30’s with no husband or kids. But I’m not one to live my life by a clock either. Most people think I look ten years younger and anyone over 30 still feels like their in their 20’s even if only in their hearts, so what’s really the difference?

It’s just that when you see your friends’ younger sisters on Face Book with kids posting status updates about Sarah’s first day of kindergarten, you realize that if exactly one year from now you pushed out a little Sarah or Spencer, you’d be well into your 40’s on his or her first day of school. And while good genes and the miracles of modern science may all conspire to make that happen, it seems somehow like you’re just trying to catch up to the natural order of things.

My dad once told me that if I wanted to marry a doctor I should hang out in a hospital. I think he suggested I have lunch at the Columbia Presbyterian cafeteria. For me, someone who thinks love should and does just happen, his method seemed too calculated. I’m sure it seemed too calculated as well and knew it was less romantic but perhaps the necessary and more practical approach for a woman who worked in an office full of other woman and who didn’t seem to be getting out there enough or meeting the right people.

I was lucky though. I did just happen to meet become friends with and then fall in love with a really good guy who I believe just may have an opening for the position of a really good woman behind him.

Unemployment rates are high and if that spot is open, I think I finally have the experience and the desire to be a success in that position if asked again.

A Modern Fairy Tale

So as I’m coming to grips that the traditional fairly tale may be out of mine, I am wondering if a newer modern fairy tale couldn’t be just as romantic, maybe even more so. I always thought things would just happen and happen in the order they were supposed to, you meet a boy, fall in love, get married and have a baby.

But, what if you have a baby, get married and then fall in love. Is that so bad? Maybe it’s better. Maybe with all those people who did it the right way and ended in divorce, going out of order may be in order.

My good friend just turned 39. She was in a long distance relationship with an old college friend of mine I set her up with about 6 months ago. It started casually enough but quickly after they got close she told him how she had been planning on getting inseminated in September. She needed to have a baby before it was too late, with or without a man.

“I think the two of you should just go for it” I urged. Why not? Half of succeeding in a relationship is just having the conviction to do so anyway. When both people have it, it works. When one person doesn’t have it, they both fail.

And what about arranged marriages? There was a beautiful essay months ago in the NY Times Modern Love column about a man’s love for his wife by an arranged marriage and how in the end, she couldn’t have been more perfect for him. Isn’t it better to grow into love then to fall out of it?

So, whereas I used to think that getting pregnant out of wedlock is one of the most terrible things that could happen to a woman; I now think it can be a blessing in certain circumstances. A nudge from the universe if you will, to move forward with your life because, well….EVERYONE ELSE IS.

Sometimes we’re scared to make decisions on our own, to take action. Sometimes, it’s easier when the action is taken for us and sometimes the lemonade made from lemons is so sweet, you reach for a second glass…

…Which also brings me to another thought. Love is a choice. You can’t help who you’re attracted to. But once you make a decision to enter a relationship, loving someone means making a decision to weather out the tough times; the times when you’re not so in love and avoiding weak moments where you could easily let yourself fall in love with another, even if only for a weekend.

I think disorder is healthy. I think an unconventional fairy tale is possible if you’re just willing to believe it is. It becomes as possible as the conventional kind, if not more.

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

Last night I had the pleasure of being the only woman at a table of 4 at Haru on Park Ave South. Two of the men were single and eyeing everything and anything with xx chromosomes and the other was trying to be as helpful as possible in not only spying targets but offering ideas of entry.

These are two great guys, successful, smart, funny and not unattractive. So why did it seem that they were having trouble meeting women? Of course, it’s not easy to approach a woman knowing that rejection may be a very likely outcome. But these guys have every reason to be confident and self-assured and not in a way that makes them creepy.

Yet, they sabotage themselves, by over compensating either on a self deprecating level or a defensive aggression that really only comes from a good place. Their insecurities get the better of them.

But here’s the clincher… as I was on my way to dinner in a cab I looked down to a very tired, sweet, peaceful and momentarily vulnerable 36 year old head on my lap, I was struck by a thought. Women fall in love with a man’s weaknesses not his strengths.

If I look back on every relationship I’ve ever had two things are certain. Yes a man’s strength may attract a woman, his confidence, his character, his "game" if you will….but it’s a man’s weaknesses, vulnerabilities and the shortcomings he is trying to overcome that make us fall.

This is true for two reasons:

1. Women need to feel needed. A man who has no need for the comfort a woman can provide (I'm not talking sex, I mean emotional comfort) is depriving her of exercising her natural care-giving instinct and makes her feel like he’d be just fine without her.

2. A woman needs to feel that she knows her man intimately and that there is a softer side of him that he only feels comfortable sharing with her and her alone. That’s why you’ll find so many women in relationships with “assholes”. I promise you, he may come across as a dick to most people who meet him, but he’d probably lay down in traffic for her and she knows it.

That’s pretty powerful stuff. I’ve also learned that the ones that are over confident, crack too many jokes, and need to be the center of attention definitely are good at attracting the opposite sex but rarely make the best long term partners. Usually, they are too insecure, and self centered to make anyone else a priority.

Last year after attending a dinner party my mom called me and said, you know what, geeks make the best husbands. She wasn’t talking about my dad, though she thinks no one compares to him. He also is the coolest and a Clooney clone. She was talking about her group of women friends all married to Dr.s of one kind or another, medical, scientific geeks who probably had their heads buried in books during high school while the others experimented with drugs and sex and worried about being popular. She was probably right. “Cool” didn’t necessarily keep well when not refrigerated after being opened.

Today my mom told me about a friend’s brother who was leaving his wife after 20 plus years of marriage and putting 2 kids through college. He just wants to be free she said. His sister is devastated, she and her husband love the sister in-law so much and hurt for her.

"He always looked like an asshole," she said. I guess if it looks like an asshole and acts like an asshole, then guess what...it’s an asshole.

But back to the topic at hand. I’m going to boldly suggest that there is nothing wrong with the way these guys are approaching girls. There’s probably something wrong with the girls they’re approaching. You can read The Game and other PUA Straussian self help guides and though they may help you with an in, they can’t help you have staying power. When 2 people click, they click whether you’ve got game or not. And if you’re bumbling and fumbling and tell her she makes you nervous because you think she’s pretty and you’re a bit shy and she responds well, then guess what…She’s probably just the kind of girl you’re looking for.

Dangerously Romantic

A good friend of mine recently likened me to how someone once described a much younger Carly Simon…Dangerously Romantic.

What could be so dangerous about romance? A lot. I’m a huge fan so let’s get that out of the way right now.

I used to live off of romance like it was a drug. My first relationship with my college boyfriend, who went to another college, ended as a an 8 year romantic rollercoaster of passionate weekends together, airport greetings and goodbyes, and wonderfully long phone conversations just before bed. I could have gone on like that forever. It was passionate to say the least but for every emotion, there is an equal and opposite emotion that comes into play and we had that too. It was a relationship of fantastically high, highs and fabulously low, lows. It was indeed dangerous. Not only while it was going on but the memory of that taunts you as you try to move on to other relationships that may have less to be desired in the smoke and mirrors category but a lot to thankful for in the areas that count…the hem...err…practical ones. But it takes a long time for an addict to forget the taste/effect of a drug, to forget the hold it had on you and how good it actually makes you feel. Romance is no different than any other substance-all well and fine in moderation but if you’re an addict…you’re an addict.

But in watching my parents who have had their ups and downs, as expected in all relationships, and in my own personal recent experiences with a fabulous guy, I've come to realize that real romance comes after...after the flowers have died and the chocolates have been eaten with the calories having taken permanent residence on your thighs; that it is in a simple holding of the hand, preparing someone breakfast, making sure his/her needs are met. That’s romance.

I’d have to say this is the most "unromantic" relationship I’ve been in and holds the most promise. He’s got all the qualities: character, integrity, honesty, genuineness and a whole hell of a lot of smarts. He’s also self aware, easy to talk to and most importantly…there for me. So what’s the problem? He’s not a romantic. But I am learning. I have learned to see what is there, not what’s not there. Actually, thanks to Steve Harvey for writing Act Like a Lady Think Like a Man. I read it one night when I had worked myself up into a real anger over something rather insignificant. A text that read “dinner tonight? Are you still up for it?”

What? Was I still up for it? Was He not???? To me, dinner had been set days ago. There should have been no question mark whatsoever, unless it was at the end of “where do you want to go to dinner?

Also the lack of I’m looking forward to dinner, haven’t seen you in a few days remained irksome to me. I was about to blow my top and certainly the call to a girl friend saying...”I think I just did something bad” as I explained my response to his text was, “I’m not sure. You?” didn’t help calm me down. Also, I got a “haha” back. He had no clue that there could be good reason for my being upset which on the one hand made it hard to be upset with him and on the other hand made it so much more satisfying.

So with an hour plus to spare before the meeting I made my way to the Borders at Time Warner Center and read the book that my mom had told me to read months ago after seeing Steve Harvey on Oprah. As usual, mom was right. Steve had some pretty good insights that actually readjusted my crazy before dinner and made me realize that I was very much loved by this man who simply wasn’t as romantic as I would have liked but who loved me deeply just the same. And I realized if I looked at the other things that were there and not the romance I believed to be missing, I might see that romance is offered in a whole host of ways.

That’s not to say that when I came to his apt the other day and asked about the two orchid plants that hadn’t been there earlier that morning and he explained that there were a whole bunch of flowers (including roses- yes he mentioned there were roses) and plants left on a corner in the neighborhood and he brought these back, and there were no “flowers” for me, I was secretly a little upset, maybe even a lot. So I tried to cover it up but still get to the heart of the matter by saying “you couldn’t carry more than this back”? He simply answered, “Well I wanted to leave some for other people.” I just thought, a good guy, I really do have a good guy and he’s thoughtful too.

The Modern Day Love Letter

Texting is the modern day love letter but how are you supposed to keep them? I have a tin of letters from my first love. Countless professions of love, one more tortured and true than the other.

I have, on the rare occasions that I’ve found myself in the 3rd floor storage room of my parent's house, opened up the tin to rifle through a few letters that span an 8 year push and pull long distance romance. All the other relationships since have relied on email to send messages of love, and the random notes attached to flower deliveries. At least you can keep emails though there is no evidence of a tear stain the smell of cologne or dare I even say DNA left behind from sealing the envelope shut, but fine, there's a record...you were loved by someone and you have a time and date stamped document to prove it.

So now, as new relationships and flirtations arise texting seems to be the new mode of communication, which not only doesn't keep well for posterity but offers limited space in which to profess. I hope that’s no correlation to the space one holds in someone else's heart.

The old jr high note that may have been passed to you by the first guy to scribble “will you go with me?” on a scrap piece of paper is now replaced with a text questioning whether or not your dynamic is destined to remain a friendship. Trust me, the latter is not without it's charm but there's no cyber texting tin in which to keep it for future reference. You must be sure you don't delete it and scroll through the myriad of crap that your phone is now capable of storing and sift through it every time you want to tell your friends exactly what he said, what witty retort you had and exactly how many minutes it took him to respond with something which clearly indicated he didn't get the humor through the allotted character space you were given. Plus, things like hope to see you soon even lose the little spark they were intended to create when written as hope 2 c u soon.

Someone please bring back good old-fashioned pen and paper. Think of it, whole generations that have never put a stamp on anything in their lives and we wonder why the post office is cutting back it's hours. Plus, no generation has gotten to the stage in life when they're looking back on all the technostalgia and have to show their grandkids their emailed love letters and the love text conversations they transcribed to a word document for safekeeping.

I'm so glad to have 8 years of love letters in storage. I think I'll sign different names on all of them. By the time I'm old enough to go back and look, I'm sure I'll have forgotten who they're from anyway.

I Want The Guy Who's Going To Give Me His Umbrella

Years ago when catching up with a high school friend while we were both home on a college break, she asked me to explain how I knew I was in love with my then boyfriend, the 8 year passionate roller coaster I wrote about in the previous post. We were crazy about each other back then. Looking back now, I think we were both just crazy. I told her I just knew I'd be happy in a field picking berries with him. Why I used that example I have no idea considering picking berries is not an activity I would normally take pleasure in. A few years later when we both ended up living in NYC we reconnected. She told me she used my picking berries idea as a benchmark for how much she liked someone. I felt honored. I had offered her a love litmus test.

It's been a while since I've thought about picking berries with anyone, a long time.

I believe, though it's getting harder to do so, that there is one perfect person out there for you. If I'm wrong, I'll settle for someone who'll at least offer me his umbrella when it's raining.

My Life's Not Over

The last thing I ever wanted to be was conventional; not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just not for me. I am however a romantic. I just spent the evening with 3 generation of couples. I'm in Pittsburgh for the christening of my childhood best friend's first child. Around the dinner table were my friend and her husband, her in-laws and her aunt and uncle. I heard the most wonderful stories of how these couples ended up together. The In-laws: Helen was still in college and Art had gone away to law school. Their relationship had been over for quite some time. Somehow, Helen ended up in the infirmary, surely sick but misdiagnosed with dysentery. Perhaps that's what lead to her entering the nursing field, but I digress. She was there, in bed, with "dysentery" and out of the blue, in walks Art.

"All I could do was put the sheet over my head! “Remember when you came to the infirmary?” Helen reminds Art as she puts her hand on his shoulder. He smiles and makes a joke of how he had come back to the college to see another girlfriend. “You lie,” answers Helen with all the assurance of a woman who knows she's loved or at least was in that moment.

The Aunt and Uncle: Rogie and her family came to the US from Hungary during WWII and ended up in Cleveland. On a trip to Hamilton Canada to go to a friend's wedding, she fell in love with the best man. And so their romance started over the telephone wires. He called her every Sunday. He wanted to marry her but, a modern woman before her time, she said, "why don't we get to know each other better first." She was so modern in fact that she even got to go visit him in Canada... on her own. Remember a road trip back then from Cleveland to Hamilton took about 10 hours, now it takes 7 thanks to modern highways! Her father wasn't that thrilled, but he let her go. “You're going to marry him?” he asked disapprovingly. Rogie's family waited 6 years to leave Hungary to come to the US and now, after all that, she's going to live in Canada! 60 yrs later, the answer is still Yes!

And then there's my friend's story. Her brother and her husband's brother were freshman year college roommates and the families happened to live close to one another. So Vicki needed a prom date and well one brother asked the other brother if his younger brother would want to take his sister. Read that again if you need too.

“What about you?” Art asks me. “I have a broken engagement on my resume,” I answer. “Broken by my doing.” I feel the need to add. “And I broke up with someone in January- again by my doing.” Helen interjects, “I find it's always for the best when that happens.” She's right and I explain that out of all the men in my past (I realize the line sounds like there were many but there weren't, they just all lasted a long time) my fiancé is the one I rarely ever think about in a should've would've could've sort of way. Maybe because it’s the one that got the closest to fruition, maybe because it was evident to most people living in the real world, besides myself of course, that it was doomed from the beginning. Those are the only answers I have for the unanswerable.

Back at the house Vicki pulls out a photo album, a “How I Met Your Mother” photo album a la Ted Mosby- This Album was full of photos, mostly from 1952 when her father, George, met her mother, Ida. To say Ida was a looker is a grave understatement. Rogie commented on how on any street corner on any given day when she and Ida were walking around Cleveland the men would roll down their windows to get a better look at her. And if they had the courage, they'd actually say something.

George, after much persuasion, won her heart. This album was full of black and white photos of the two of them in their best clothes on what would be a normal Sunday where today we'd feel over dressed in anything other than jeans. I wonder if modernity has really bettered us at this point. Beneath each photo is a caption in his neatest handwriting saying things like “I don't know about you but I find her to be tres jolie.” We reminisced about how George was indeed such a romantic, how in love with Ida he was from the moment he saw her until his last breath. I feel like they and their love are immortalized in those photos that are so old they fall out of the album as you turn the pages because the glue has worn off.

Even my own parents broke up for 3 years and then found themselves bumping into one another as my mom was on her way back from the beach and my father was back in town from medical school. He asked her to have dinner with him that night and when he left, my mom turned to her friend and told her “I'm not going to the movies with you anymore, I have to get my hair done.”

As much as I don't want a conventional life, I seem to find everything about life in a time when convention was revered and Donna reed reigned to be so ideal. Photos from the 50's look better than photos from today, women dressed better, women dressed period; and things seemed mapped out. You went to school and you got married. I know that it wasn't all wine and roses, those days are certainly not long. But what strikes me is what the thought of those days and those stories evoke. Does Serendipity come close to the romance in Casablanca? I love serendipity don't get me wrong. It's just a feeling that somehow, as we've become more modern we've lost our charm.

Love is elusive. I think you're either lucky enough to find it and hold on to it or you're forever trying to find "the one" as you string one relationship after another around the cord you eventually wrap too tightly around your own neck.

I was recently at a wedding of a friend in NYC. It was a small wedding at the courthouse that preceded their official ceremony with family in Mexico. A small group of us were in attendance, 7 guests to be exact. While you could assume that there were seven individuals all random good friends, you'd be wrong and well, I'd have nothing to write about. Indeed, there were 3 couples and...me. When someone joked about tossing the bouquet it was graciously pointed out that she should just give it to me since I was the only single one there. A fact that I didn't really take note of until the comment was made.

So I wondered, how did all these couples know...know that the other person whose name they took or whose in-laws they agreed to suffer was the one.

One person from the wedding party, whose parents oddly enough were also from Hungary, told the story of how her mother and father met. Her mother was riding a cable car and saw him, her hero- a filmmaker whose films she adored. She jumped out of the cable car, professed her love and said, "Do with me what you will." He had only one question for her, “Will you move to NYC?” Later that day, in her black leather mini skirt, they got married. They divorced after 25 years. But I don't think the one means you're going to be happy with them, I believe the one means, they're the one-and this is where for better or worse comes in-barring any kind of abuse of course.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about the one, how you know, if there even is a one to begin with. My ex-the one that lives a block away-asked me if my first love, an 8 year long-distance passionate roller coaster of a relationship filled with one major car wreck, outrageously high telephone bills, airport greetings and inseparable weekends and a refused marriage proposal, was the love of my life. I, being quick-witted and hopefully skilled in the art of flirting replied, “Well...my life's not over...I sure hope not.”

In a time where finding the one seems even more unlikely than winning the lottery I think I should have answered yes.

For someone who wants so much to be unconventional, it seems that all I really want is an unconventional love that so many people seem to have, making it ironically-conventional. Then again, my life’s not over.

Where's the Hall Monitor?

We all have our own little places of refuge where we like to rail against the establishment (sorry Starbucks) and sit either with a book, laptop or a good friend and a nice quiet conversation. Mine happens to be the Mercury Dime on 5th street in the East Village just west of 2nd avenue. It's the cheers of coffee houses and it's tiny.

The downstairs is typically the conversation room while the upstairs, home to only four tables, has become something reminiscent of study hall, people with books, laptops and earphones. It is the quiet room. I've been here for a few hours. The girl previously on my left seemed to be an Art History student studying for an exam and the guy across from me was diligently working away on his PC.

Then, for a little while, I found myself alone. I had come to the end of my existential crisis- the battle between my desire to stay self-employed (subsidized by the state of NY) while I look for more freelance writing work and the possibility of returning to the corporate world. A decision in the making stemming from one factor and one factor only...my declining bank account.

The last resume had been sent and finally, I was going to get some writing done. At least that's what I thought. Unfortunately, I was no sooner joined by a couple, possibly having an affair, he had a wedding ring on and trust me that's not his wife. No, there were no tell tale signs of an adulterous liason such as a carrying case for her whip and boots. Tell tale signs need not be that obvious. It was the desperation of her unfulfilled need and the sense that it was finally about to be filled. That and the way she looked at him. I haven't seen a wife look at a husband that way...ever. Now I'm pretty tolerant and would have no problems with the hushed whispers of longing and lamentations of time lost between these two unrequited lovers...

This however wasn't the case and they certainly never got the memo that 8th period study hall had already started. Instead, in the well supported voice of a trained thespian, she explained to the two of us (her partner and myself) how miserable she had been and that if she didn't miss him she wouldn't have continued to write to him.

In my high school days I never would have been one to hush those talking in class or study hall, primarily because I was the person doing the talking. But something shifted in me as I found myself hoping the teacher would ask them if they needed to be separated.

Discussions of their pain, his bookshelves being built in his upper west side apartment, the problem she had with what I assumed to be the book The Reader (which I couldn't seem to understand-it was too intellectual: not the book, the problem) and European travel were peppered with passionate kissing and conversations about his hair which she thought looked good. She thought it looked so good in fact she couldn't stop running her fingers through it.

These people were well in their 30's if not pushing 40. It was nice on some level to see 2 people have that much passion for one another. We all want that. But I'm not sure where these obviously well educated, well read people checked their common decency. Holding hands and smooching on the street corner for a bit, fine. Smooching on the second floor of the Mercury Dime while one person quietly watches, not so good.

Let me preface this by saying first, that I'm not a prude and second, that I don't have a particular problem with voyeurism or those who like to do the voyeuring. I certainly enjoying peering into lighted apartments in the evening to view the décor of a neighboring street level brownstone apartment or to get a glimpse of a designer kitchen that inspires envy even though I don't like to cook. But the whole idea of voyeurism is that the initiative to watch is on the part of the voyeur. I was forced into this voyeur role to the point where I was embarrassed for them.

I tried to amuse myself by recording some audio on my blackberry so that my texting companion could hear what I was describing. Luckily for them they lowered their voices at that same moment I hit record. Even luckier...they finally decided (perhaps prompted by my impulse to turn on Pandora in an effort to drown them out) to go see his bookshelves before I could take video footage.

I have no idea what makes 2 grown people not at all care that they are putting themselves out there in front of one spectator who didn't plan on buying a ticket to their show. I was so privy, practically invited into their intimacy, that on their way out, I thought of wishing them well in general as well as with his bookshelves which, from what I understood, seemed to be an ordeal to have constructed.

I'm almost offended that they didn't at least acknowledge me with a goodbye, a nod of the head or a shameful smile as they left. They shared some personal things with me; they could at least share some respect for what we had together. Honestly, I feel a little dirty.

I did learn 2 things though. Geeks are passionate people too and Pandora comes in really handy when trying to make the point that certain people might want to take their conversations elsewhere.

One Morning In May...

How is it possible that I’m awake at this hour? No matter how late I go to bed, it seems I can’t sleep in. Maybe my age really should be calculated in dog years but I’d like to think of it as a sign of good health and an amazingly infallible internal clock.

The coffee shops haven’t even opened yet. Though I desperately need my daily dose of caffeine I am enjoying this incredibly perfect morning. I love this time of day when I’m up before everyone else…when I can walk around the streets in the quiet that is so rarely New York. The sun is shinning, warmth and crispness are perfectly blended and all the flowers are in colorful bloom on every street corner with a bodega.

Most in the neighborhood don’t wake up to mornings like this but rather go to bed to them.

I don’t really belong here. The East Village is rarely up before 8am on a Sunday. I love this neighborhood for it’s daytime grunge and grit that still barely exists on Second Ave. between Houston and 4^th street…For the guy just waking up and sitting on the steps of a church you’d never know was a church unless you read Spanish, a 40 delicately placed in between his barely limber legs spread out in front of him- not for the ever growing nightlife or the drunken students that cause me to sleep with earplugs which in turn causes me to worry that the earplugs will eventually create an irreversible expansion of my ear canal.

It is in these quiet moments I feel more connected to this little part of Manhattan than ever. In it’s clarity where you can’t hide the shame of life’s disappointments, of dreams that are unfulfilled and prayers by a church left unanswered and yet it’s still spectacular, life…and New York. It’s as if I’m on a closed set. The light traffic, strategically staggered by the first AD and directed to pass me only when cued and the extras, the bodega owners that have no lines but are given physical direction, “wave as she passes, smile and nod as you see her approach”, exist only for me and to set the mood.

I wish I didn’t have to wake up so early to enjoy it but, then again, if I didn’t wake up so early I’d never get my laundry done.

Yes. I've Burned Rice.

I am not a foodie. I definitely enjoy a nice meal out, Nobu's ok. But the other day at the grocery store I passed by the taco aisle. Ah taco night. Who didn't have taco night on occasion as a kid when mom didn't feel like cooking anymore? Now that I'm older, I can't say that I blame her. I hate to cook. Lucky for me, I have had the good fortune of being in relationships with men who were gifted in culinary arts.

Years ago, on the set of an independent film you've neither heard of nor will ever see, I picked up a few recipes from the chef on set. Shortly after the film wrapped, I tried a few of them out and had much success. Cut to- years later where I attempt to impress my Ex with a home cooked meal. Being a good Cape Cod-er of sorts, I thought he'd appreciate the crab cake recipe that had been a hit many years ago. How hard could it be to remember how to make crab cakes?

I had the idea while enjoying happy hour at Haru on 19th and Park, a favorite pastime with Jessie, who is a fabulous cook. She wished me luck as I ventured out of Haru and headed towards the Whole Foods at Union Square with only half an ingredient list in my head.

Needless to say we ended up going out for dinner that night. Who would have remembered you needed eggs to keep the crab cakes together, I thought that's what mayonnaise was for. Ever since, my lack of culinary skill was a point of hilarity. Except for the time when I burned the rice and he rushed to the kitchen to see what had happened and ended up losing a large video assembly he had been working on all day. It was infact the fault of the harddrive but I couldn't help feeling somewhat responsible. That wasn't so funny, but usually I didn't mind being a kitchen catastophe.

Thank God for a mother who teaches you the importance of being able to laugh at yourself. This same mother has also relentlessly suggested cooking classes.

My Ex not only was a good cook but was also OCD enough that he didn't like the way I cleaned or did the dishes. A man who cooks and cleans....I seemed to have hit a love jackpot. He did however, tell me I needed a fastball as he called it- that one meal you could whip up on a moments notice designed to impress. Really, I still needed one?

Mine became oatmeal, surprisingly, something he loved to have in the morning but never quite got right. It was a small cooking coup on my part which he said was a very sexy fast ball, “I can't cook you dinner but...I can make you breakfast.”

Before the oatmeal had been established, I had decided to bring back a childhood memory and successfuly made tacos. At fist, the reaction I got was “TACOS?”. “It'll be fun,” I prompted, Tacate already poured. I was right. We had taco night more times than I thought two grown adults would and they were as delicious as you remember them being.

More recently, on the set of another film you will never see nor hear of, one of the actors was heading home to his fiancé for...that's right...taco night.

Wow, it was real. Taco night made us a real couple the way the velveteen rabbit became real because the boy truly loved him. Taco night came to represent something more than a cheap dinner. It was family, it was intimate.

In a small New York City apartment, two adults often cooked a nostalgic meal together (he'd taken to cooking the meat the way he liked it...I chopped) and sat on stools at the eat-in counter top in his small but nicely laid out and very functional kitchen, literally inches apart from one another and rehashed the day.

It's hard to get that kind of closeness at Nobu. Besides, in these tougher economic times, I'm also reminded that somehow, the two times we went, I ended up with the bill.