How will it all end?

CRASH
Originally uploaded by shorterstory.

Our localized version of Katrina hit around 2:30 AM. I woke up to the sound of rushing water, which was pretty peaceful until I realized what it meant. Mr. Ben, being quicker on the uptake, was already dressed and scurrying around, doing things, while I fumbled for clothes. After a brief debate about whether we should dial 311 or 911, Mr. Ben was on the phone with a dispatcher; soon, three of New York's Bravest were at our door with iron implements and befuddled looks on their faces.

Was this some kind of karmic punishment for our not going in the water at the end of Saturday's "Going Places, Doing Stuff" ride through NYC? I wondered. The tour was led by a brilliant but crazy friend of ours. It smashed together 40 strangers on a vegetable-oil-powered bus built for 30 on a trip from Long Island City, to Woodlawn Cemetary at the end of one subway line in the Bronx, and finally to the beach at the opposite end of another.

Along the way, we broke bread with a Ghanaian king and members of the Federation of Black Cowboys. We tried to avoid poison ivy on a post-apocalyptic elevated train track in Queens. We crawled through holes in fences, did a loop in a Halal slaughterhouse, and deciphered graffiti in an abandoned munitions factory.

All with good cheer! It was a fun day, and it was lovely to end up facing the waves. But by then the temperature had dropped to about 65 degrees, and what with the clouds and the wind and everything it seemed like you'd have to be crazy to strip off your clothes and dive in the water -- especially since you had at least another hour on vinyl seats, cheek-to-jowl with your fellow man, before you'd get to a subway that would take you home.

A sane decision, and yet one for which we were punished: Sunday night, the water came to us.

The firefighters went off the way they came and we spent an hour turning our bayou back into a bathroom as best we could. The effort required two mops, two huge buckets, lots of towels, and a rubber dustpan that functioned as a ladle. It was gross and exhausting, and we were already exhausted; by the time we were done, we could barely stand. We put our filthy selves back in bed (naturally, we had just washed our sheets) and turned off the alarm clock.

Who needs an alarm clock when you have your own personal waterfall starting at 8:00 AM? "We just cleaned that floor!" I moaned as Mr. Ben jumped out of bed to gauge the new damage. At first it didn't seem so bad. Then, as were trying to figure out what to do next, the ceiling collapsed. If I had been using the toilet, I'd have been deader than Elvis. I will never take my safety while on the can for granted again.

the paradox of choice

OMG, you guys, I could have an iPhone.

Do you know how cool I think iPhones are? They're like puppies. When I see someone else with one, my eyes get wide with excitement and misty with sentiment and I ask if I can play with it.

The trouble is, I do not believe I am cool enough to have an iPhone. I cannot tell whether this is a logical impulse, being that the following things are true: I do not have the money to support an iPhone in the manner to which it is accustomed; my own lifestyle does not call for one; I might worry about it too much to enjoy it.

Or is the impulse plainly silly? Is it reasonable to be intimidated by appliances?

The back-up potential gift is an iPod because, believe it or not, I don't even have one of those. But they've been out long enough that I think I could swing having one, though I'd still know, in the back of my head, that it is more attractive than I am. Any over-thinkers out in Internet-land have an opinion?

the happiest time of the year

It's been Michael Jackson Week for about nine days now, with short interruptions in which we were instructed to laugh at the ramblings of Sarah Palin. ("If I die, I die," she says now, nonsensically. I wonder if she even knows who she's quoting.)

The AP begins a story on the funeral by describing the somber atmosphere:

Michael Jackson's public memorial started out more spiritual than spectacular Tuesday, opening with a church choir singing as his golden casket was laid in front of the stage and a shaft of light evoking a cross as Lionel Richie gave a gospel-infused performance.

I'm not sure "spiritual" is the word I would use for any of that. Then again, Harry Potter trailers are as close to spiritual as I get.

The Harry Potter movie is only one Michael-Jackson-Week away! It is one of the many reasons I am crazy about summer. Also Twelfth Night in the park and Harold and Maude in the other park and the idea of my birthday on Governor's Island.

Over July 4th, Mr. Ben and I basked in the good weather in Asheville, NC ("the San Francisco of the South!") with his mom and ten thousand other tourists, pasty from the past month or so of rain. To justify its reputation, the town had one gay bar and the local movie theater was playing "Every Little Step," the documentary about the making of A Chorus Line. But it was still the South. For every rainbow, there was a Jesus fish, and in the midst of the tourists in the town square waiting for the fireworks, there was a man dragging a large wooden cross. We don't get a lot of those in Brooklyn.

It was a nice change of pace, as well as a nice transition into my favorite month of the year. July will turn me into a 27 year old, even if it doesn't turn me into a published novelist (the prospect of which dims with every passing minute). Ah well, who's counting? And who's lining up to join the fun and help take my mind off the failure?

OH MY GOD SANFORD STOP TALKING

Mark Sanford, stop it now. You hear me? Stop it:

"This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

During an emotional interview at his Statehouse office with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Sanford said Chapur is his soul mate but he's trying to fall back in love with his wife.

He said that during the encounters with other women he "let his guard down" with some physical contact but "didn't cross the sex line." He wouldn't go into detail.

Right, of course, he wouldn't go into detail. What do you call what he's been doing for the past week? Is John Ensign paying Sanford to stay in the spotlight, performing his weepy one-man reality show day after day ("Sanford and Sons"), to distract from Ensign's more tawdry sex offenses?

Regardless, much as I feel for anyone who stands in front of a camera and cries, Sanford lost me at "I love your tan lines." Not that anyone expects the Song of Solomon, especially not in email form. But isn't a little poetry in order if you're writing to your "soul mate"?

Not to mention the fact that he skipped off to do the dirty over Father's Day weekend. Maybe I'm just bitter because I was stuck in New York, seeing a mediocre movie, eating mediocre food, and dealing with mediocre melodrama. (We did go see the Avedon exhibit at the ICP, though, which was worth the $12.) But when you have four kids, I think an international tryst that weekend is in especially bad taste.

Ooh, neologism time! When one has been caught "hiking the Appalachian Trail," one suffers from "Trystesse" -- affair-induced melancholy. Eh? Eh?

ETA: Wonkette is similarly horrified, though it chooses to malign Anne of Green Gables for some reason. Leave Anne out of this, Wonkette. She had "bosom friends," but she never "sparked" with any of them, let alone "crossed the ultimate line." That we know of, anyway.

In the style of Whitman

Monday night I attended the birthday bash of an elderly, illustrious folk singer and lion of the left. While there, I met both an author I respect (I gave her my best wishes) and a younger folk singer who I've seen perform at least twice. I felt I should give her my best wishes too, since I was being all sociable.

"Folkie!" she cried, when I introduced myself and explained where I had seen her play. She threw her arm around me and steered me towards her crew of intimidating Brooklyn hipsters and queers. "Look, everyone! She's one of us!"

The crew eyed me. "Where do you live?" someone asked.

"Brooklyn," I answered.

The interrogator smiled as though to say that that much one could assume. "Where in Brooklyn?" she asked.

Barely Brooklyn. Brownstone Brooklyn. The Heights. There was nothing to it but to admit the truth, and I put it as baldly as possible: "Montague Street."

Their "Oh" was eloquent. Having proven myself utterly uncool, I managed to escape.

Later in the evening, however, as I returned from the bathroom, I ran straight into them. There they all were, piled carelessly upon each other in the hallway like the cool girls at a bat mitzvah. The folk singer appeared, still happy with wine, and clasped me to her again.

"Ester!" she said. "Where did go to college?"

"Swarthmore," said I.

"Swarthmore! That's wonderful! See, I told you she was one of us." She smiled broadly at her crew. "And what do you do, Swarthmore? You're not afflicted with music, I hope?"

"No, but I do write some," said I.

"Marvelous! What do you write?"

"Stories, poems ..."

"Write a poem for us now!" cried the folk singer. "About that wall, there."

I stared at the wall which was papered a bright, coppery orange. God help me, I thought. My head was empty. The crew was watching.

"Do it in the style of Whitman," someone suggested, giving me more rope.

"Ego, splashed against a wall," I said promptly.

They hooted with appreciation. "Mary Oliver!" called someone else.

"Birds against a burning sunset."

"Thoreau!"

"The heart beating lonely by reflecting waters."

"Anne Sexton!"

"The birth and the afterbirth together."

This time they screamed, and I had passed their test. With all due apologies to Whitman, Oliver, Thoreau, and Sexton, of course.

Free movies!

At Brooklyn Bridge Park:

July 9
Raising Arizona

July 16
The Maltese Falcon

July 23
Paper Moon

July 30
To Catch A Thief

August 6
The Return Of The Pink Panther

August 13
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

August 20
Catch Me If You Can

August 27
Edward Scissorhands


Hudson River Park

July 8 - Iron Man (PG13)

July 15 - Vicky Cristina Barcelona (PG13)

July 22 - The Dark Knight (PG13)

July 29 - Hancock (PG13)

August 5 - Tropic Thunder (R)

August 12 - Sex and the City: The Movie (R)

August 19 - Pineapple Express (R)


Bryant Park

June 15
The Sting (1973)
Robert Redford, Paul Newman and director George Roy Hill generate high-voltage chemistry in this light-hearted yet complex, overtly nostalgic look at 1930’s Chicago con men. Winner of seven Oscars and featuring the famous Scott Joplin piano rags.

June 22
Breaking Away (1979)
A teenage cyclist, Dennis Christopher, is besotted with all things Italian in a small Indiana college town. Things seem to be going nowhere for him and his townie buddies (Dennis Quaid, Jackie Earle Haley, and Daniel Stern), and he convinces them to take on the students at the Little 500 bicycle race. Flawlessly written by Steve Tesich and directed by Peter Yates.

June 29
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Nobody created pure Hollywood escapism productions better than Busby Berkeley, and this musical set the standard. Designed to transport Depression-enduring audiences, the plot involves attempts to put on a show, featuring Ginger Rogers, Ruby Keeler and Joan Blondell as the indefatigable Broadway show girls, and Dick Powell crooning the tunes.

July 6
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Al Pacino plays Sonny who needs money to pay for his boyfriend’s sex-change operation and decides to rob a bank to get it. Things go wrong and he’s soon bogged down in a long, drawn-out hostage situation. Sidney Lumet directed this gritty, darkly humorous drama set in Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year.

July 13
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
Winner of the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars (over “Citizen Kane”), this beautiful film is about a close-knit family in a Welsh mining village. John Ford directed the story, told through the eyes of a young Roddy McDowell, striking an incredible balance between moral seriousness and elegy.

July 20
Harold and Maude (1971)
Teenager Bud Cort and sexagenarian Ruth Gordon both like to go to funerals of people they don’t know, and meet to embark on one of cinema’s great relationships. Audacious and heartbreaking, Hal Ashby’s superb black comedy also features a perfect soundtrack by Cat Stevens.

July 27
The Defiant Ones (1958)
Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis are opposites unhappily shackled together after escaping from a chain-gang in the South. As they flee from the police, director Stanley Kramer showcases the humorous and moving situations featuring memorable characters the fugitives come across as they fight for their lives.

August 3
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for his role as a father who will go to any length (even making French toast) to keep custody of his son. Meryl Streep is unmatched as his icy wife who walks out on him and returns to claim the boy, who is played by Oscar nominee Justin Henry. Robert Benton directs one of best acted films of the decade.

August 10
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
One of the most beloved Westerns of all time with one of the greatest scores of all time (by Elmer Bernstein). Seven mercenaries, including Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and Charles Bronson are hired to protect a Mexican village under siege by large group of bandits led by Eli Wallach.

August 17
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Steven Spielberg’s scifi blockbuster stars Richard Dreyfuss as a regular guy whose strange obsessions and journey turn fantastically clear at Devil’s Tower. Co-stars Teri Garr as his frustrated wife, and Francois Truffaut, the legendary French director, as a scientist seeking communication with extraterrestrials.

This one's for Ross

where have all the mix tapes gone
Originally uploaded by charrow.

and also Mr. Ben, who makes the best mix tapes, even if he doesn't have to make them for me anymore, since i am wooed and won.

Matchmaker, matchmaker ...

One of my coworkers mentioned today that when she took 19th century lit in college, her professor assigned every member of the class a fictional spouse from that era. She couldn't remember who she was given but she wanted Pierre from War and Peace. I thought Levin from Anna Karenina would be a good pick, if you don't mind Russians, and she countered with Pip, at which I could only scoff, "You can't pick anyone from Dickens. He had no sense of the romantic at all. Did anyone get Darcy?"

"Funny enough, no," she said. "Maybe he thought it might cause too much jealousy."

Another coworker came into the room and I asked him who he would choose. "Aw," he said, in the voice of Eeyore. "It doesn't matter. I'd probably end up with Emma Bovary."

I tried to buck him up, offering him clever heroines and feisty social climbers and crazy pyromaniacs locked up in attics, but he would have none of it. "I really didn't do too much reading, actually," he said. "All those girl books."

We expanded the category to include all literature, at which point he perked up. "Oh, Harriet the Spy's mom. Or Harriet -- when she's grown up. Is that okay?" We conferred and decided to allow it, because it was okay for Lewis Carroll, and anyway, who are we to judge?

Maybe a more interesting question is the age-old one: Fuck one, marry one, throw one off a cliff: Any three characters in 19th century literature. For me, that'd be: 1) Huck Finn; 2) Nikolai Levin; 3) Raskolnikov. Unless I could have Darcy, of course. If Darcy's in the picture, all bets are off.


"I like the hot woman in Brothers Karamazov," contributes Mr. Ben. "The town harlot. ... Are you writing that down? Dammit!"

I <3 NYC

At 3:15, I was told, my new office would adjourn to a nearby bowling alley, where we would commemorate the imminent departure of a coworker. At 3:45, the first wave of us actually made it out and walked fifteen blocks in the sunshine to the posh lanes hidden on the second floor of Port Authority.

By 6:15, we had played five games, drunk a tower of beer, chomped through several suprisingly-good pizzas, completed the Times crossword puzzle, dropped two balls, broken several nails, and had a rollicking good bonding experience. I was particularly satisfied, having improved: I went from losing the first game, to coming in second, to, finally, the third time around, coming in first.

THAT'S RIGHT BABY. I went from zero to hero, from Sarah Palin to Stephen Colbert, in the course of one short afternoon. And for my perserverance I now have "bowler's wrist." This is an affliction that may be specific to Jews. It's unclear.

This weekend, after some agonizing, I decided to ditch my five year reunion. Instead I did Only In New York things: lounged on Governor's Island with the Jazz Age partiers; followed brunch at Dizzy's with a long stroll through Park Slope; poked about in a little, overpriced boutique staffed by an extravagantly fey man in a Dolce and Gabana bandanna, etc.

Unfortunately skipping out on Swat did mean that I went the entire weekend without asking any of the questions I had prepared, like:

• "So, what's your thesis about?"
  
• "How many blind Zambian orphan girls would you say your organization has saved?"
  
• "What's it like to study with Judith Butler?"
  
• "Will you please tell me more about making tofu by hand?"
  
• "Your halo is so great -- where did you get it?"

"Hold on tight, Spidermonkey!": a meditation on 'Twilight'

Gone are the days of Anne Rice. She has found her lord and savior, and she has turned her back on the vampires she once tended to so lovingly.

Now, I never begrudge anyone a good rebirth (or two, in the case of Robert Zimmerman). But Anne Rice left behind her a void that lesser folks have struggled -- and failed -- to fill. True Blood is said to be campy and silly; everyone shudders at the idea of a new Buffy movie; and then, of course, there's Twilight, the international sensation.

The four books of the saga have twee names and covers that could have been designed by the staff at Hot Topic. That's more or less all I know about them, having never opened one; and if the writing is as over-ripe as the movie, that's all I ever need to know.

Lord, this movie. Have uncorseted bosoms ever heaved so dramatically? Have two sets of eyes ever stared so beseechingly into each other? Have vampires ever seemed so ridiculous? And I do mean ridiculous. The "good" vampires -- a set of clean-cut, wealthy, thoroughly creepy Aryans in pancake makeup -- have to stay hidden from view on sunny days. Why? Because they turn into David Bowie. Whereas poor Kirsten Dunst and her nurse were reduced to ash in seconds in Interview with the Vampire, and their equivalent bursts into flames in Let the Right One In, in Twilight the undead merely sparkle.

Other rules broken by these "good" vampires: they have reflections; they seem unfazed by garlic; and they can enter new spaces without being invited. What is the point, I ask you, of well-understood genre conventions if they are overthrown without so much as an explanation?

There are of course "bad" vampires, a crew of multi-culti, gender-nonspecific hippies who escaped from the recent Shakespeare in the Park production of Hair. These vampires seem quite sexual, whereas the others aren't; they also attack humans, while the superior creatures restrict themselves to animals (and then have the gall to call themselves vegetarian). It's the culture wars of the 60s all over again.

Here is the crux of the books' and the movie's appeal, as I understand it: though Bella and Edward are so into each other and so horny that their sexual tension made me need to pause and get some air, they cannot consummate their passion. It's all titillation and no release, presumably because if Edward were to physically love Bella, he would have to kill her. (Why? Who knows? He may be a vampire but he's also a teenage boy and they are NOT TO BE TRUSTED.) Still, as a viewer I felt like echoing Jeneane Garofolo in Reality Bites after she has suffered through the thousandth Winona Ryder-Ethan Hawke bantering session: "Just do it and get it over with already!"

The alternatives offered by the movie -- lying down in a meadow, holding hands, tearing another vampire to pieces and burning his body in a ballet studio -- are unintentionally hilarious, as is most of the dialogue ("About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him, and I didn't know how dominant that part might be, that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.").

For all that, it was the Indians-as-werewolves that were the tipping point.

Bias watch: Day 2

Dana Milbank makes an ass of himself in today's Post describing the woman who may be America's Next Top Jurist:

In selecting Sotomayor, Obama opted for biography over brain. As a legal mind, Sotomayor is described in portraits as competent, but no Louis Brandeis. Nor is Sotomayor, often described as an abrasive jurist, likely to be the next Earl Warren. But her bio is quite a hit. In Spanish, her surname can be translated as "big thicket" -- and that's just where Republicans could find themselves if they oppose this up-from-poverty Latina.

Who says she's not brainy? Well, no one that Milbank can name, but why let fact intrude on this lovely fictional narrative. Who describes her as abrasive? Duh, PEOPLE. You know, smart people, with titles and experience and everything. Just trust me on this, says Milbank. As I'm sure many folks will.

Let's make a song, shall we? Then we can sing it in response to anyone who claims that this brilliant, accomplished woman is merely Ghetto Barbie (comes with a briefcase!).

The song will begin:

Princeton U! Yale Law!
ADA for Morganthau!
Princeton U! Yale Law!
ADA for Morganthau!

Okay, that's more of a chant. No one ever accused me of being Bob Dylan. (Bob Dylans out there: help?) I am accusing Milbank of willful deceit, however, unless he can back up his demeaning, offhand assertions that there is nothing to Sonia but dark skin and a good bio. God, I hate this nonsense.

"... ladies."

A Cambridge student athlete has made it to the finals in the Miss East Anglia competition, precursor to the Miss England pageant. Is this more or less shocking than a Hispanic woman who grew up in the projects getting a Supreme Court nomination? Check out the picture below and weigh in.



This is a toughie. Let's hear comments from the peanut gallery:

"Slim women - not anorexic - look better than fat blobby women. Get over it. If that weren't true, people wouldn't prefer them, would they?"

An excellent point, since "people" do objectively "prefer" the slim over the blobby, and we know this from detailed examinations of everything since the dawn of time. Thank you, John Stern from London.

What about Sonia Sotomayor, a Puerto Rican from the Bronx: could she really hold her own on America's highest bench? Educationally, she has scaled some very high ivy walls, graduating from

Princeton University, summa cum laude, in 1976, where she won the Pyne Prize, the highest general award given to Princeton undergraduates.[7] Sotomayor obtained her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Still, surely there's a more qualified white man in the wings who is being overlooked simply for the sake of color? Again, speak, O peanut gallery!:

"This country has taken a dangerous shift away from the basic tenets of our Constitution , and instead of seizing the opportunity to right that ship, we get another poor choice designed to placate the masses.

Randy Barnett would have been a much better choice.

Unfortunately, being white and male,he didn’t have much of a chance from the start."

SO TRUE, SgNews. Btw, who is Randy Barnett?

the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Law at Boston University, where he served as the faculty adviser for the Federalist Society. He joined the faculty of Georgetown University Law Center in 2006. Barnett is a Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute and the Goldwater Institute. ... In 2009, he drafted the Bill of Federalism, 10 proposed amendments to the US Constitution designed to limit federal power and strengthen individual rights.

In other words, he's the Ron Paul candidate for the bench! I can't believe Obama didn't pick him. Of course, it wasn't his Libertarian views, his involvement with the Federalist Society, Cato Institute, or Goldwater Institute that held him back; it was his sex and his race, which as we all know are a serious barrier to advancement in America.

For more, because there is always more, see here and here.

Honestly, I am as shallow, judgmental, and quick to stereotype as anyone else who has grown up in this flawed society, and both of these women strike me as eminently qualified for their positions. I wish them the best. With all this criticism from all sides, though, is it any wonder women say they are less happy than they used to be? (Also, did anyone running that study consider that perhaps women feel allowed to be more honest these days?)

I am job (rather than Job)

I still don't know what I'm doing for the rest of my life, but I do know what I'll be doing starting in June. I will be paid money to work with artsy, lefty Jewish intellectuals in a non-profit on the top floor of a midtown office building.

~

Chris: How did I know it would be Jewish or Feminist?
Me: Well, all the gay male snarky jobs were taken.

~

For the third time in five years, I will begin a job on 6/15. Eerie, huh? The vernal equinox loves me like Barney, like Jesus, like a dog that's just been fed. The autumnal equinox is another story, of course. An R-rated horror story like Saw IV: The Sawiest Yet, So Sawy You Won't Have Any Fingers Left By The Time We're Done With You. Somehow I have offended the autumnal equinox and I have to figure out a way to make amends. Is it because I make fun of Christmas?

This job gives me all the Jewish holidays off!

~

Adam: So nice for you to have a chance to get in touch with your jewish heritage.

~

Meanwhile I will enjoy my last precious and increasingly warm hours of freedom, knowing, to my great relief, that there is some stability around the corner.

Klutziness

Can stress make you clumsier? In the last couple days, I've dropped things, stumbled, spilled water on a friend, cut myself in a very sensitive region, and nearly gotten hit by a car. The worst incident came at the end of my second interview yesterday. I bid farewell to the nice crowd of people who had been quizzing me, then strode gracefully through the lobby and straight into a glass door.

"Oh!" gasped the three women nearby. "Are you okay?"

I was, luckily. Nothing was broken: not my nose, not the glass. I did however leave a perfect kiss on the door, as though I'd planted it there on purpose.

In general I am not a klutz, because I am neurotic about not hurting myself. Even when I kid, I just sort of knew: Do this, and you could die; and as you don't want to die ere you become a famous writer, leave ice skating / roller coasters / black diamond slopes to the masses of future unknowns (or future deads). The closest I've come to a broken anything is when I twisted my ankle before my debut as Tzeitel in my 7th grade production of Fiddler on the Roof.

My mom took me to the ER, where a nervous young doctor fussed over me for a while and then finally took an x-ray. Several minutes later, he tracked me down in the waiting room and said, "I'm sorry, I messed up. Can we try again?"

The second time was also a flop, and he looked more pale as he asked for a third go-round. But when he came out the last time, he looked like he had just seen the Ghost of Christmas Future and it had told him his fate was to end up a dentist. He gestured for me to follow him to a corner a discreet distance from everyone else.

"You're not pregnant, are you?" he asked the thirteen-year-old me.

"Um, no," I said, wondering what the hell the x-ray had shown.

"Phew!" he said, the color flooding back to his cheeks. "Because we would have killed the baby."

Speaking of both clumsiness and inept professionals, the Daily News reports that an Arkansas state senator named Hedren has made an art of putting his foot in his mouth. First he called Chuck Shumer "that Jew." Now he's trying to make things right in the most hilarious way possible:

Defending himself again to the Arkansas News, Hendren went further, saying he didn't know why the words "that Jew" came out of his mouth. He added that there is a Jewish person he admires — Jesus. He's also partial to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman.

Estates

I've been in DC for a while, being with and, to the extent possible, taking care of my father. He was hospitalized with pneumonia and sepsis last week, which, on top of the maybe-inoperable pancreatic cancer, seems like overkill. So to speak. He was released and sent home finally but remained very weak.

Yesterday, he called for me from his favorite chair and when I went in, he didn't need me to fix the TV or get him another Vitamin Water. He wanted to talk about his estate.

The only thing worse than thinking about death is thinking about the intersection of death and money.

Pots, books, jewelry, art. What did I want? What are things worth? How should they be sold? I started welling up almost immediately so he couldn't really look at me while he gave instructions.

"I'm sorry to make you sad," he said.

"I'm not crying," I retorted. "I've got heavenly dust in my eyes."

On Sunday, my mom heard from another woman in the building that there was a garage sale of sorts going on downstairs. She and I and Mr. Ben, who had come down for the weekend, all trooped to the fifth floor, where we found a tall, tired man selling his mother's things. "She was very smart," he told anyone who asked, while they picked up pillows or kitchenware. "PhD in Chemistry. Fluent in French."

The neighbors said, "She didn't suffer, God forbid?"

He said, "No. No, she didn't suffer."

I discovered I loved her jewelry. None of it was valuable, but it was eye-catching and funky. The rings fit me perfectly. Looking around, I could almost conjure up an image of this little Egyptian doctor, puttering around an apartment filled with rugs and tablecloths, books and colorful dishes. All three of us left with our arms full and our hearts overflowing for a man who had to spend Mother's Day watching strangers bear his mother's life away.

My father has always been morbid, so it is hard to know whether when he says he has "months" he can be trusted. The word blasted through me regardless. There is space between the words "sick" and "dying," important space, space I want to curl up in for the next decade at least. With a puppy, if I can arrange it, and maybe a child. The idea of losing a parent makes me irrational. I want the book published, a beautiful baby born, a bank account full of money to display, all to say, See? You don't need to worry. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. You've given me all I need already.

Instead of sleeping last night, I re-read Little Women and cried so hard this morning I had a nosebleed. But I'm okay. I'm trying to be okay. Please don't ask me how my father is.

Things Anemia Has Driven Me To

1) Toasted Oatmeal Flakes from Trader Joe's. Man they're good! I gave them up when Mr. Ben and I moved to Park Slope; we joined the Co-op, which is the closest I'll ever get to being part of Skull & Bones, and I started buying Puffins instead.

Puffins, though lovely, have no iron, while TOF are whoa-fortified. And delicious.

2) Avoiding sharp objects.

3) Femme pride. There's something dainty and sweet about being anemic, like having consumption. Maybe it'll make me sexier!

The doctor was testing me for something else entirely, but I was in exemplary shape except for being low on the red blood cells. This struck me as funny, as though he had said, "The government is doing great, except that the President has just been shot." I mean, aren't red blood cells rather the whole point? Aren't they what blood is made of? I don't remember too much from what I learned in high schools, except words like Hemoglobin and Platelets, but I'm pretty sure ...

Anyway, if I'm wrong, please don't correct me. I may be too delicate to handle it.

"i just don't dig on swine"

This SiF hysteria was getting out of hand (although it did produce this touching tribute to school nurses). Thank goodness Arlen Specter stepped out to shift media focus onto something else. My newsfeed lit up with love for Arlen moments after his announcement, and Twitter's been abuzz all day.

It seems a bit to me like a deathbed conversion. Did he suddenly realize it must have taken a blue God to put a black man in the White House? Did he want to be in good graces with that deity when his time comes? Or is he just crushing hard on Michelle, like the rest of us?

Regardless, he has my blessing. Go with guilt, Arlen! If Charlotte can be a Jew, you can be a Democrat. Don't let those spurned, angry wingnuts get you down.

I don't have the Sif; I do, however, a pretty mean cold that's left me with a voice like Bea Arthur, and two interviews over the next two days. Hopefully my prospective employers have a soft spot for the Golden Girls. Hopefully they will also view my coming in this condition as a show of dedication rather than obliviousness. Hm. Perhaps I shouldn't shake hands?

quotes quiz!

Here's a quiz that I saw on the Face and I thought it would be more fun to do it here. Below are 15 quotes from 15 of my favorite movies, and you try to guess which movie each comes from. NO GOOGLING and no using IMDB.

Whoever can guess the most wins a prize of my own devising.

1. "Remember, honey, on your wedding night, it's all right to say 'yes.'" Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

2. "I've been thinking with my gut since I was fourteen years old, and I've come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains." High Fidelity

3. "What ain't no country I've ever heard of. They speak English in What?" Pulp Fiction

4. "Street slang is an increasingly valid form of expression. Most of the feminine pronouns do have mocking, but not necessarily misogynistic undertones." Clueless

5. "He owns the police!" Chinatown

6. "Is that your blood?" "Some of it, yeah." Fight Club

7. "2,000 years of glorious history from Moses to Sandy Koufax -- you're damn right I'm living in the past!" Big Lebowski

8. "Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear." Empire Records

9. "You sure have a way with people." "Well, they're my species!" Harold & Maude

10. "If you hold back anything, I'll kill ya. If you bend the truth or I think you're bending the truth, I'll kill ya. If you forget anything, I'll kill ya. In fact, you're gonna have to work very hard to stay alive." Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels

11. "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love -- they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." The Third Man

12. "Is butter a carb?" "Yes." Mean Girls

13. "A faceless man rips off your clothes, and that's the sex fantasy you've been having since you were twelve?" "Well, sometimes I vary it a little." "Which part?" "What I'm wearing." WHMS

14. "Technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but it's on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss." ESoTSM

15. "Wallace Beery. Wrestling picture. What do you need, a roadmap?" Barton Fink

BTW, Sorry for that last post, guys. It just kind of slipped out. Maybe it was the product of one of those "runners highs" I've heard so much about.

a swelling heart

I love this illustrated essay from the NYT: "May It Please the Court."

I love the power of context to say, sometimes, what words can't:



I love having neighbors, especially ones with a roofdeck, thanks to which I have my very first suntan of the season.

I love that I live with someone who loves me more than I love me, and gives me something to strive for everyday. Also he hangs pictures. Welcome, Marilyn, to Montague Street!

I love that it's in the 80s and beautiful today, that our windows are flung open and I'm wearing a bright blue dress, that I have a new book from the library and what feels like all the time and the all the luck in the world.

It's always midnight on Montague Street

I live in the Land of the Broken Clock, under the jurisdiction of the Broken Clock, and what's supremely funny about this is that it's a fancy one-year-old "radio controlled" La Crosse we were given as a wedding present. We tried changing the batteries, which didn't work, and now it serves as a constant reminder of how imperfect even high technology can be.

Speaking of imperfection, Robin Givhan of the Washington Post argues that Susan Boyle should get a makeover. Susan Boyle, the middle-aged singing phenom who has succeeded without altering her image one jot, should, now that she's made it, stop being so damn frumpy:

Boyle has charmed millions, in part, because she comes across as unpretentious and pleasant. But she's hardly Everywoman. She's an odd duck, a bit of a loner. She's a character. And she's living out a fairy tale.

Transformation is always part of a good story. Cinderella didn't go to the ball in hand-me-downs. She went looking her best in a glorious gown and won the heart of the prince. The ugly duckling becomes a swan.

The tale of Susan Boyle will not be complete until the shy spinster blossoms. Those who have been entranced by her story so far should let Boyle's fairy godmother finish her work.

In other words, why should Boyle change? Because the narrative demands it! In fact, why stop at clothes and hair and shoes? This "shy spinster" needs a prince, too. I for one will not rest until Susan Boyle gets boinked good and proper.

"Spinster," indeed. Jesus. What world are we living in? Maybe she's gay, Robin. Maybe she's not interested in sex. Who cares? Her personal life is her business, and she doesn't need the Standard Gift Basket of Our Approval ("Comes with lipstick, a Maserati, and arm candy for the red carpet!")

For the record, I'm not sure what Susan Boyle looks like or sounds like. I haven't watched the YouTube video (should I?) But I also don't care. Let the woman enjoy her moment in the spotlight. Her story doesn't have to be a fairy tale to be interesting, and even if this is her own personal fairy tale it doesn't have to conform to the Disney model.

Whither Thou Goest, I Will Go

THE FACTS:

• I am married.
  
• My husband wants to be a law clerk one level up in a District Court
  
• District Court clerkships are incredibly hard to get, especially in popular locales such as Washington, DC, New York, NY, and San Francisco, CA, and their environs
  
• I have no interest in leaving Brooklyn
  
• But my husband has a dream

THE DISCUSSION:
ME: How about when we're 30? I thought we agreed that when I'm 30, you are allowed to take me from New York.
HIM: 30 is a long time from now. I would really love to apply for next year.
ME: Next year I will still be less than 30.
HIM: But now is when we are still young, still mobile, still flexible ...
ME: 30.

THE NEGOTIATION:
HIM: How about we look at where I could go and you could say if one place or another would be more enticing to you? After all, it would only be for a year.
ME: Okay. Shoot.
HIM: Bridgeport, CT.
ME: My parents did not send me to Jewish Day School for 13 years so that I could wind up in Connecticut!
HIM: But I have roots there --
ME: Anyway it's too cold. Next, please.

HIM: Concord, NH.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Burlington, VT.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: New Haven, CT.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Come on! We're not talking about Alaska.
ME: Too cold.
HIM: Providence, RI.
ME: Maybe.
HIM: Maybe?
ME: Maybe. But probably too cold.

HIM: Okay, how about the South?
ME: Where are the clerkships there?
HIM: Nashville, TN.
ME: Too Christian. I've heard horror stories.
HIM: Shreveport, LA.
ME: The last Confederate command to surrender! Plus there's a whole Wikipedia section labeled "Churches."
HIM: Roanoke, VA.
ME: Are you crazy? People disappeared in Roanoke. It could have been aliens. They could come back. Plus there's a whole Wikipedia section labeled "Crime" with a subsection on "Gangs."
HIM: Yeah, but it's gone from 2nd worst city in VA to 5th.
ME: Next, please.

THE COMPROMISE
ME: How about you wait a year to apply?
HIM: That's fair. And in return, you'll be fine with my applying to ...
ME: Hawaii; San Juan; Columbia, SC; New Bern, NC; the Virgin Islands; Arlington, VA; Portland, OR; Jerusalem; and the Hague.
HIM: And maybe Memphis and New Orleans.
ME: Yes.
HIM: Thank you.

Green beans at the seder

As a hostess, my mother is conscientious, even, you might say, fastidious. Mr. Ben learned this his very first Passover with us back in 2001, an experience so scarring it is no surprise it took him six years to propose. His reaction could probably be summed up by a friend at this Passover who leaned over to me and remarked, "There are so many rules!" Uh, yeah. But what would Judaism be without rules?*

I don't mind rules. I'm used to them. Don't stack the china. Don't mix patterns. Don't fetch something out of the kitchen yourself. Don't eat dairy with the meat meal (even if you're a vegetarian). Don't break anything. My mother has her own version of Leviticus and even though it isn't written down, she thinks the rules are self-evident and she doesn't quite understand why some people don't immediately get it.

She also puts on a beautiful Seder.

This year however she made one mistake. Green beans. That's right, friends. Green beans are not technically kosher for Passover and she served them at BOTH SEDERS. Oh the shame.

Green beans fall under a category of food called "kitniyot," which are permitted for Sephardic Jews, i.e., those from Spain and the Arab world, and not for Ashenazic Jews, i.e., most of us. This is because Jews in Spain & the Arab world had more freedom under Islam than Jews in Europe did under various tight-ass Popes and Czars. So while Sephardic Jews got to throw parties, write poetry, and generally have a good time in good weather, Ashkenazic Jews were stuck in dour shtetls, looking over their shoulders for Cossacks, and inventing new laws to make life even more difficult for themselves.

Well, I reject this tradition of suffering for the sake of suffering. Sure, much of my lineage is based in Lithuania and the Pale of Settlement (Russia/Poland, depending on the year). But my father's family originally hailed from Turkey. The fun-loving Jews! Those are my real spiritual ancestors, and they eat rice on Passover; rice, yes, and green beans too, and soybeans, and corn. There is no end to their wild ways.

My 96-year-old maternal grandmother seems to have absorbed some of this hedonism, even though she is descended from those drab, staid Eastern Europeans. When my brother and I were arguing back and forth about whether soybeans were permissible to eat, my grandmother interrupted us. "Do you know what I ate today?" she said. "A piece of bread."

Now that left us speechless in awe.

Happy Passover everyone! Happier still: only a few days left.

----
*Christianity.

In gay news

When you're a teenager, my god, is there any issue more intense than sexuality? Love, acceptance, rebellion, identity, are you going to be an insider or an outsider, are you going to disappoint your parents ...

For me, it wasn't as simple as, Was I attracted to boys? Of course I was attracted to boys (the attractive ones, anyway, like Jonathan Brandis, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jared Leto).



I was also afraid of most of them, which complicated the matter, and starting about midway through eighth grade they weren't particularly interested in me, which didn't help either. At the same time as the boys were ignoring me, I became catnip to lesbians.

Fending off anyone's advances is difficult for me, and it was even harder when I was so desperate for physical affirmation and affection. But sleepover after sleepover, I laughed off the awkwardness or said things like, "Wouldn't you be more comfortable in your bed?" In some ways, it would have been so much easier to just be like, Yes, you're right: I wear glasses and I don't wear make up, ergo, I am a dyke.

When I fell in love with a boy who loved me back my freshman year of college, I was almost as relieved as my mother. (Oh, she had her suspicions.) The longer we stayed together, the more the issue faded and I found perfect middle ground for myself. Instead of being queer, I surrounded myself with queer people. They tended to have the right politics and not care that I didn't wear make up, and the gay boys didn't scare me at all. Plus, gays and Jewish ladies are a natural constituency: we have Sondheim and Streisand in common! Not to mention intellectual snobbery.

Today I had lunch with two old friends: my oldest-and-bestest, who's now an illustrator living in a "Boston marriage" in Park Slope (or is that redundant?); and the boy who was my first kiss and seven years later my senior prom date, who's now a gay Williamsburg hipster of the first order. Both of these individuals got way more action with the opposite sex in high school than I did, in case we need a reminder of how little what we do or don't do in high school means.

I told them excitedly about today's Midwestern bombshell ("Is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa"). Neither cared nearly as much as I did.

There should be a phrase that applies to this situation -- like "the zeal of the convert" but specifically meaning "the zeal of the near-miss." It's akin to survivor's guilt. Straight guilt? I can't be the only one who feels it.

Anyway, well done, corn-producing, Obama-nominating state! You get two thousand gold stars in my book.

It's here! It's here!

Forget the new address and new apartment and waking up on Montague Street for the second day in a row. The most exciting thing about today is that my April horoscope is up! These things are like farmer's almanacs in their specificity:

Venus has been in your house of fame and honors, but has been in weak retrograde orbit since March 6. Once Venus normalizes on April 17, you can more easily get help from references and high level executives whom you know and who want to help you.

Venus happens to be IN your house of career, but it RULES your house of home - so Venus retrograde has been a distraction because something involving home, property, or family seems to have tugged on you. It's very possible that you've been a bit drained by whatever was taking so much of your attention, and it may have been hard to focus on other things, such as your career.

TRANSLATION: You got an agent but since then nothing has been going your way, *and* domestic matters -- i.e., finding an apartment, securing it, packing for it, and moving into it -- have kept you harried and distracted. In a couple weeks, things will get better.

And people wonder why I find these things so reassuring.

Publishing and broadcasting industries glow for you now too, especially during the first three weeks, while Mars will brighten this area until April 22. This is a very broadening influence, and certainly you seem to be enjoying it.

One day that could be either very, very good or very, very bad is April 15 when Mars (energy or strife) conjoins Uranus (surprise developments). These two planets will meet in Pisces, a sign good for you. I would say, just don't take any chances by provoking anyone with a controversial or inflammatory remark. Those born at the end of the sign, near July 20, [ED NOTE: ME] are likely to benefit because both planets will be in the right position to send good news. Let's hope so!

Yes, let's. Because I'm tired of stress. I had my first panic attack in several months last night and for no clear reason. The day was spent surrounded by boxes, true, but also with friends, and I managed to apply to a couple exciting-looking jobs.

I guess the anxiety stems from the fact that I am over-identifying with this apartment, having put in so much energy to attain it. And though it has it charming points (it is spacious, classy, well-lit, full of storage, and well-located) it also has its pitfalls (a narrow kitchen full of appliances that date from 1983) and then its just-plain-weird points (a mirror right next to the toilet, in case you were ever interested in getting a close-up side view of your seated ass).

My guess is that an elderly woman lived here for decades, not cooking more than an egg every once in a while on the cramped, tilted range, and stocking lots of dry goods to give away to her children and grandchildren in the pantry. Soon, so I can more easily blame things like the padded toilet seat on her, I will give her a name. Shirley, maybe. It is because of Shirley that the pipes hit a high note after the hot water goes off. The fact that one long wall of the living room curves inwards? Shirley just loved that; it reminded her of her 60s commune days.

We will become accustomed to, or develop workarounds for, everything. I have confidence in our creativity. Still, part of me still misses the old place with our garden, our fridge, our stove, our heat that didn't hiss, our brand-new laundry machines.

Buck up, Ester! There is sunshine here! There are ceiling fans! I try, I swear. I try, if only because:

A sensational day awaits you: April 22.

I'm just going to push through til then.

Post #1400

Wow. That number is either impressive or depressing; I can't decide. That's how I feel about most things these days. Some mornings I wake up in a cold sweat imagining that I'll have to arrive at my Swarthmore five year reunion with nothing to show for myself but a ring on my finger.

I'll have stories to tell, God knows, some of which will appear in my upcoming book Never Marry a Short Woman: Narratives by ester, featuring the one where the priest died at the wedding, the one about being left in a coffee shop in Amsterdam at closing time with no money to pay the bill, and the one about how I lost my first job in New York because I was taken to the ER with a kidney infection.

Ha ha ha!, everyone will say. What delightful anecdotes you have, you pointless but amusing little sprite who got married at 25 (isn't that sweet). Have you heard about my advanced degrees and how I am living in a third-world country making my own tofu and biking around digging wells to provide indigenous people with safe drinking water?

They will present me with a copy of their prize-winning thesis and I will bow my head in submission before retiring to a hidden spot under one of the many labeled trees to read it, weep tears of envy, and shield my inferiority from their eyes.

"You know, you don't have to go," my mother pointed out. "The people who attend are a self-selected group of those who have something they want to brag about." True, O king, but to *not* go out of fear would be the real failure. The coward dies a thousand times before his death; the valiant only ever tastes of death but once, or so said some guy I once met at a bar.

Better to face up to my accomplishments, or lack thereof, with good humor. Also it would be good to stop comparing myself to other people, like my brother, who was sworn into the NY State bar yesterday, and my dearfriend Tamar who "matched" this week into her first-choice for residency, and the myriad other successful folks I feel I am surrounded by. Excelsior, my lovelies! Onwards and upwards! Don't worry about me; I'll always have Jesus.

My mother the brigadier general was here for three days to organize our initial packing-and-moving effort into the new place. Paid movers will be coming next weekend but we got a huge amount done in advance with the help of a small volunteer army. Maybe once I'm done being obsessed with boxes'n'bins and bubble wrap and tape I'll feel better about everything, because stability really does tend to help.

It would also help if some publisher realized that my poor little novel is NOT a satire. If it needs a label, call it a koala, okay? Publish it and put it in the koala section and I will kiss your feet.

Open wide ...

Off I go, in mere minutes now, to the Why to do what I call my slut exercises. No, I don't mean "yoga," although I challenge you to get on a mat with a rope and a couple soft blocks and not let your imagination get the better of you. I mean actual exercises.

As required by the contract I signed when I joined the Why in January, I met with my large, buff trainer again. Frankly I'd been kind of jazzed -- he had told me I had to go run on a treadmill or similar three times a week and dammit, I had done so, and I was proud. But he didn't even inquire after my progress. No, he had one simple question for me:

Upper body or lower body?

Uh. Excuse me? Can we leave my body alone please? It doesn't like to be looked at, used, or, worst of all, "toned."

With the grimace that always accompanies picking the lesser of two evils, I said, "Lower body." And the trainer led me through a humiliating series of "exercises," several of which necessitated spreading my legs. I tried to tell him ladies don't do that -- ladies should be able to hold a dime between their knees at all times, in fact -- but he was too busy using words like "abductor" and "adductor" to hear me.

One word, however, he could not remember. "Facing the mirror, you take this medicine ball and you ... what's that ballet thing?" I looked at him like he was crazy: do I look like the sort of girl who was interested in dipping gracefully while holding a medicine ball? "Plie," I said. "Right!" he said. "I gotta write that down."

And so, face aflame, off I go to the Why three times a week to "plie" through these tortures, at the end of which I can only hope my thighs with be strong enough to support my fragile and wounded spirit.

And to think that I saw it on Montague Street

I'm pretty broken up about Bristol and Levi but not as broken up as they are. Zing!

Yes, I know I already Twittered that. But I wanted to keep it around for posterity. Speaking of Twitter, I am loving this #fuckitlist thing, wherein people list things they will never do (this is as opposed to composing a "bucket list," where you make a list of things to do before you die or before you make two hours of inane, waste-of-celluloid-and-talent Christmastime pap).

Choice samples from the Twitterati's #fuckitlist:

#Fuckitlist - Learn to speak French. I mean, really, what's the point? A few well mangled words out of a phrase book and they speak English.”

“Upon my death I will have never seen all of the avante guarde films of Andy Warhol nor ever have volunteered for the Rose Parade #fuckitlist”

“#fuckitlist Eat turducken”

“#fuckitlist: learn ballet.”

“#fuckitlist Saving for retirement. I'll just shoot myself at 45.”

“#fuckitlist getting tickets to Jimmy Fallon”

“#fuckitlist Make a turducken.”

“#fuckitlist: give country music a chance.”

“#fuckitlist pay off all my debt, get arrested in Mexico, oh yeah, join a dance troup or the circus”

“#fuckitlist Read Twilight or Harry Potter, pay for cable, drink beer, eat raw meat, become a sumo wrestler”

“#fuckitlist Getting tickets to The Price is Right”

“Watch The Godfather #fuckitlist”

The hostility cheers me right up somehow. Things are basically better, anyway, as always happens: darkest before dawn, right? I mean, not in Darfur, where it's darker before the dark continues and it's like fucking Narnia over there -- always winter and never Christmas -- but here in America, for us privileged folks.

Darkest before dawn! Only hours after writing that last post about broker-monsters, I met a kind, funny, and helpful guy who found me a large one-bedroom on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights in my price range with high ceilings and laundry in the apartment. Then he convinced the owner to pay the broker's fee and didn't ask for any money for either the application or the credit check. Basically he did everything but secure me a three-book deal with HarperCollins. Mr. Ben and I are very grateful and we should be signing the lease in the next day or so.

Take that, broker-monsters!

Still no job, though.

Pro-PRO-active

There's a line between being active and proactive (good) and trying to control things you can't control (bad) and trying to make things happen just to shift the weight off your goddamn shoulders already (crazy). I'm straddling that line and it feels like a permanent wedgie. Help me, lord.

Actually this is one of those moments I wish I did believe in a higher, guiding, benevolent force in the universe. Then maybe I could lay back and think:

- the fact that I have not yet secured us an April 1 rental, despite spending every day shuttling from one middling apartment to another is all part of the plan

- the fact that, after a month, the bank has still not rubber-stamped our pre-approval so that we could forward with our potential purchase is all part of the plan

- the fact that brokers keep chipping away at my self-esteem and self-confidence is all part of the plan. Viz:

ME: My husband and I ...
BROKER: No. No! You're a BABY!


ME: I'm not sure this is quite right for us.
BROKER 2: Well, what is it you want, anyway? How many apartments have you seen? Shouldn't you know by now? Shouldn't you just commit?


ME, DIFFERENT APARTMENT: I'm not sure this is what we're looking for.
BROKER 2: (Shouts in Hebrew on her cell phone for a long time)


ME: I'd like an application, please.
BROKER 3: Mm, sorry. I really don't like giving wives applications without their husbands present.


ME: Well, for $2000, we'd like a large one-bedroom in a building with laundry and an elevator.
BROKER 4: You'll never find it.


- the fact that Mr. Ben doesn't know what he wants to / will be able to do once he leaves his clerkship in September is all part of the plan

- the fact that I keep applying fruitlessly to the sprinkling of available jobs is all part of the plan

- the fact that my father is sick and spends his days calculating the value of his library is all part of the plan

That would have to be one serious plan, that's for sure. And it could be. I just wish I had the faith.

Wonder

If you'd asked me, I would have said that there weren't people whiter than Mormons, but what do you know -- I would have been wrong. Know who's whiter than Mormons?

Seriously, guess. Guess and be wrong, like me. It's fun, almost as much fun as sitting in my living room in pajamas watching a foot of snow accumulate in my backyard. The weight of it is pushing a neighbor's tree over our fence and building higher and higher on our patio table and I'm taking bets on whether by the end of the day the two will touch.

Jews. Jews are whiter than Mormons; they are whiter than anyone in America, in fact. And the most racially diverse people in America are Muslims. This is historically relevant because it puts Jews and Muslims at loggerheads for the very first time.

But seriously, well done Muslims and well done Islam. There is virtue to being diverse. It is apparently not the virtue the lord intended for his so-called chosen people, but we will have to make do with what we have, I guess. Which reminds me of a funny story. A friend of mine recently confided that when she was young she liked watching and rewatching Yentl.

"You had a thing for Barbara Streisand?" I asked. She shrugged: "I like big noses."

We do have something in common though, you will be relieved to hear.

"The report also reveals that Muslim American women are one of the most highly educated female religious groups in the United States, second only to Jewish American women."

There. That's nice, isn't it? Those wacky Jewish American women also make more money than their female counterparts of other religions, and Jews overall are most likely of anyone to say they're thriving in America (56% -- the Mormons come in second at 51%, presumably because they have to cope with the backlash to Mitt Romney).

Yet Jews come in dead last when asked how important their religion is to their daily lives. Nope, not that important, thanks for asking. Somehow religion is a distinguishing characteristic -- generally in a good way, though I wouldn't call being the whitest people in America a positive -- and yet considered relatively unimportant. It's a fascinating cultural conundrum and I'm not sure what to make of it.

The 8th Deadly Sin (for women)

Just in time to dovetail with my musings on the propriety of lady writers having ambition, a friend of mine sent me this review of Elaine Showalter's new book. Her thesis is a variation of what you'd either call a myth or a truism, depending on your point of view: men are interested in Things while women are interested in People; and when it comes to literary prizes and recognition, Things win out every time:

She has insisted that themes central to women's lives -- marriage, motherhood, the tension between family and individual aspirations -- constitute subject matter as "serious" and significant as traditionally masculine motifs like war and travel.

Then, of course, there are those insidious doubts to contend with:

The majority of the women writers whose lives and work Showalter chronicles wrestled with the nagging feeling that they were going against nature as well as country in pursuing what was rightfully a man's work.

Which is not to say that lasses lack ambition; rather that what of it we have, we fear -- if not the drive itself, then the possible repercussions. And it's true! What's less ladylike than ambition, for god's sake? The word itself trembles with connotations of greed, heartlessness, and selfishness, none of which are laid out in the "Eyshes Hayl," a Jewish Friday night prayer extolling the virtues of the fairer sex. "Eyshes Hayl, mi yimstah?" King Solomon once asked, and we repeat: a righteous woman, who can find? No one looking through the aisles of Barnes and Nobles or the op-ed pages, that's for sure.

Her worth is above rubies. Why? Because she keeps her husband happy, her home clean, the candles lit, and there's a bunch of stuff in there about wool and flax and whatever. The point is, what wife and mother doing all that would have time to write a grand sweeping novel about the Napoleonic era?

Even now that many of us have rooms of our own and can outsource the spinning and weaving, it feels unseemly to step forward and say, "I, yes I, have written a book! Though I know the proper thing to do would be to bury it in a drawer, though I know I should be modest and afraid of outshining any current or potential reproductive mates, those I am exposing myself to ridicule for trying, I am putting this book out there for you to judge."

We try to cushion the blow by making the books either memoirs or memoirs masquerading as fiction (the literary equivalent of an "I" statement) or easy to ghettoize as "genre" (mystery, young adult, sci fi/fantasy).

This all boils down to the following summary: women write small, modest books about relationships, while men write large-scale epics about stuff, and when John Updike died half of the next New Yorker issue was dedicated to him, with another piece in the end about Ian McEwan. The only woman who could command a similar level of attention is Toni Morrison, and thank heavens she's around, if only for symbolism's sake.

Because I am an orderly person who likes charts and measures of things, I have created a handy-dandy scale for authors, ranging from 1 to 16.

1 = You really think you'd be good at this writing stuff! You read things and think, Pssssh I could do better than that in my sleep. You even have a weblog for when you will fulfill your potential and start having a go at it, at which point you will knock everyone's socks off.

16 = classics who get serious obits when they die; who are taught in graduate school; who have won at least one major international prize. 16s include Martin Amis, V.S. Naipaul, Rushdie, Coetze, Pynchon, Melville, Dickens, Nabokov, Elliot, Austen, Woolf, Orwell, Joyce, Faulkner, Tolstoy, James, Wharton, Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Marquez, Kundera, Steinbeck, Morrison, and their ilk. The majority of 16s are already dead. Almost all are male, serious, and at least occasionally unreadable. Frankly, I'm not sure even Twain makes the cut, though David Foster Wallace's untimely death might push him over the edge.

In between is everyone else, from the eager blogger with several beginnings of short stories and an outline for a novel on his computer (3) to the 26-year-old with a completed manuscript who just got an agent (9).

Anyone published is an automatic 10. Whether they continue to rise from there depends on whether anyone buys/reads/respects their book (11), writes a couple other books and has moderate name recognition, at least within certain circles (12), sees an adaptation make it to movie theaters and/or wins a prize and/or appears on a major radio or TV show (13), achieves name recognition and status to the degree that s/he can write whatever s/he wants (14), and is considered Great (15).

15s: Roth, Updike, Irving, DeLillo, McEwan, Ishiguru, Chabon
14s: Haruki Murakami, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Cunningham, Ann Patchett, Jonathan Franzen, Richard Russo, and popular authors whose gold makes the rules like JK Rowling, John Grisham, Amy Tan, & Dan Brown
13s: Donna Tartt, Alice Sebold, Myla Goldberg, Yann Martel, Jeffrey Eugenides, Nick Hornby, Curtis Sittenfeld
12s: Nicholson Baker, Audrey Niffenegger, Caleb Carr

I aspire to be a 12, if I'm very lucky a 13. But even admitting that much ambition is difficult.

Mark your calendars

On March 20th, you will hear from me as to whether I have good news to share. If I have bad news, you will find me beating myself to death with one of Mr. Ben's African drums, or perhaps trying to slide behind the refrigerator to die unnoticed like my hamster did when I was little.

My book, my crazy beloved stab at a book, is going out to editors at 13 publishing houses today. This means, I am told, its fate will be decided in a month, if not before then. I can't tell you which houses, in case I'm not allowed to, but YOU'VE HEARD OF THEM. Oh mercy. Perhaps I will fall apart at the joints while I wait. Today I'll lose a foot; tomorrow the tip of an index finger.

Sometimes my brain rushes ahead of me and I can picture the New Yorker's short, disdainful blurb in its May 2010 edition: "Although this young author's premise shows some originality and imagination, ultimately the book fails to live up to the expectations generated by the idea. Not mean enough to be satire or absurd enough to be farce, A,AoG lingers in a kind of limbo of its own making."

This is for real!

I will try to remember to put on pants today. Let's see if I can do it.

Into the Lions' Den

Here I go! Wish me luck, folks.

While I'm off doing something that makes me quake in the boots I've already vomited on once, if you feel like helping me up my day's earnings -- they're at $1.20 so far, but the sky's the limit! -- feel free to check out my posts as the NY Unemployment Examiner.

ETA: Oh, wow. That went really really well. My novel about a Very Important Talent Agency has now been picked up by a real Very Important Talent Agency. If I could eat ice cream I would go through a whole pint, and if I could drink I'd got sloppy, gushingly drunk. But all I can do is send text messages and glow.

Fingersmith

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Into every life, a little queer historical erotica must fall. This book is like Wilkie Collins, only with more smut!


View all my reviews.

The Why

Roughly a month after joining the Brooklyn YMCA I finally made it down there for my first of four free sessions with a trainer, O., a tall muscular black guy who was clearly wasted on me.

"First off, can you fill out this form?" he said, handing me a clipboard.

I got through providing my name, age, and address okay. (International money laundering scam alert!! Hopefully the YMCA keeps the documents in a vault.) Then I hit my first snag.

"Um, when it says 'Activities You Enjoy,' does it mean physical activities?"

"Yes," said O.

I crossed out "Reading, Writing," and left "Walking."

"Walking's good," he said encouragingly. That gave me the strength to continue. Twice the form provided me with the option of saying I was interested in weight loss; twice I refused to check the box. Take that, societal expectations of women!

The last section mandated that I list three obstacles to my success. I wrote down two and then paused. "Is 'inertia' the same thing as 'laziness'?" I asked.

O. shrugged. "One time I had a guy here who was like 300 pounds," he said. "And he wrote down, 'Too many women.'"

"That's good!" I said. "I'm totally going to steal that."

I signed the form, agreeing to commit to exercising 30 minutes 3 times a week, which is really something for me. I think exercise is like parenthood: something responsible people do, sure, mostly when forced, but which sensible folks avoid as long as possible. Of course I have friends who exercise; on this topic, just like parents, they become gushing Patty Hearst types. Perhaps I too will become an endorphin junkie, but I'm skeptical.

Bourne's Got Nothing on Me

[RINGING]
VOICE: Hello, FBI.
ME: Hi, um, I seem to have gotten involved in an international money laundering scheme ...
VOICE: Please hold.

[HOLD MUSIC]

VOICE #2: Hello, FBI.
ME: Hi -- I seem to have gotten involved in an international money laundering scheme ...
VOICE #2: Please hold.

[HOLD MUSIC]

VOICE #3: Hello, FBI.
ME: Hi -- I seem to have gotten involved in an international money laundering scheme ...
VOICE #3: Ah yes. Email or Craigslist?
ME: Craigslist. I answered an ad requesting a tutor for a six year old girl and the next thing I knew I was getting a check via Fed Ex for $3,200.00.
VOICE #3: And you're supposed to wire that money to a third party?
ME: Yes, sir.
VOICE #3: Yup, this is an international money laundering scheme run by Nigerians.
ME: I knew it! Or I hoped it was Somali pirates.
VOICE #3: Yeah, they're still mostly boat-focused.
ME: That makes sense.

On the FBI agent's advice, I had to inform all the credit bureaus to flag my account in case some tricksy African tries to steal my identity from abroad and I had to put the whole story in writing on an internet fraud website. When I was done, it offered me a link to the helpful site Lookstoogoodtobetrue.com in order to make me feel even stupider than I already did.

At least I didn't lose any money. And hey, not everyone has a $3,200 check sitting on their desk, albeit one that they can't cash.

Aside from dealing with the feds, I've landed two PT blogging gigs, applied to a gazillion more positions, checked out several apartments, speed-read Monsters of Templeton and Free Food for Millionaires, books about other over-educated twenty-somethings who don't know what to do with their lives, and attended a rousing session of Powerpoint Karaoke. I've also had two mini-breakdowns and a migraine. Come on, 2009. Enough playing around. Let's let the good times roll, shall we?

The new Gray Album!

It really is too bad. Once upon a time, I liked Christian Bale. Newsies, anyone? ("Santa Fe? Are you there? Do you swear you won't forget me? If I found you would you let me come and stay ... I ain't getting any younger and before my dying day, I want space! Not just air! Let 'em laugh in my face, I don't care! Save a place ... I'll be there ... in Santa Fe." This is from memory, folks.)

He's the cutest singing street-urchin this side of Aladdin but he wins out in a head-to-head because Aladdin chooses a chick with a waist the size of my wrist, whereas Jack "Cowboy" Kelly marries into a nice Jewish family.

Not to mention the brilliant American Psycho where he almost kills Reese Witherspoon.


Look at that picture and tell me you're not cheering him on.

I hope he bounces back from this, in short. Russell Crowe and Jude Law, both once-loved, pretty decent actors currently in the doghouse, don't seem to have redeemed themselves yet for their public sins (throwing a phone and bonking the nanny, respectively, in case your memory needs jogging). Are we more forgiving of idiot women? Britney Spears does stupid shit all the time and still goes platinum, and let's not even get started on Lilo.

Follow up / unrelated question: If medicine is expired, do you take more because it's weaker or less because it's poison?

so much to do!

My Busy and Important unemployed life demanded that I buy a planner for the first time. So far I have lots of exercise classes written in there, which is a great first step!

I also made an elaborate color-coded Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the 63 (and counting) agents to whom I have sent my proto-classic manuscript. I should make another to keep track of the jobs I have applied to, but that would cross the line into depressing. At least the agents have been encouraging, even the ones who pass. One fellow even asked me to keep in touch and let him know what eventually happened because it was such a close call.

I'll tell you what's eventually going to happen: I'm going to get to meet Barack Obama. Yeah, that's right. Somehow I will get from here -- in pajamas in an armchair with my laptop -- to a handshake with our heartthrob president and it will be because some agent takes a chance on my book. (Maybe if I write that in my planner for sometime in the future, it will happen. That's the Secret all over, right?)

Essentially I'm trying to stay active and focused. The big project at the moment is the mortgage, because if we can actually get the pre-approval and make a bid on the apartment we want, that will address one leg of 2009's Triathlon of Major Problems. These are, in case you're just joining us, that I

1) got laid off
2) am soon to be homeless
3) heard my Dad has cancer again

Is "problems" too strong a word? Should I say "challenges"? Someone who knows the Secret let me know, please.

1) is the hardest to fix, as I feel like I'm competing with every English/Film/Humanities major in New York City for every open position. But the unemployment checks help and I'm not in danger of insolvency soon.

2) could turn out to be a good example of falling up, if we do manage to get a loan and buy this one guy's amazing Cobble Hill apartment for appallingly little money (by New York standards). Regardless, though, I'm going to sow the fields with salt before we leave. I can't believe we planted a garden in our backyard and won't get to stay here to see it bear fruit come summer.

3) is not as dire as it seemed initially, thank god. I've now been to and from Washington twice to see him (well, and to see C.J. Roberts tussle with Obama, wish my grandma a happy 96th birthday, and meet my brother's new 24-year-old acupuncturist Californian girlfriend). Everyone's feeling more optimistic now that there is a treatment plan in place for him. This time last year, he was just getting over being chemo'd and radiated; now he gets to do it all over again, after which he gets to be skillfully disemboweled for the second time. Oh, the wonders -- and limitations -- of modern medicine.

My February horoscope looks good, though!:

The year 2008 seems to have been a little frustrating for you, but planets gathering in your eighth house will hasten your transition into your new life phase. ... On the agenda will be the basic questions: What will make me happy? How can I go about creating real, lasting changes - ones I will genuinely want - that will be in place for years to come? Certainly you want stability, so that's what will be on your list of questions to answer, too.

So true. I'm very open to suggestion, friends.

think different

I'm going to write a book about counter-intuitive things to do when you're unemployed. Like, join a gym! Mr. Ben and I took this opportunity to join the Brooklyn YMCA because of the pool and the classes and because he told me he'd withhold physical intimacy unless I do something to reduce my stress levels, which are registering at somewhere between Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island and the exposure to which are threatening to turn him into a three-headed dog.

Start an IRA! I did that the last time I was booted from a job. It has since lost more than half of its value, thanks to the current economy. Still, it makes you feel grown up and responsible to have an IRA, especially a droopy one, since you can join in the chorus of grumbling by real adults about the stock market. Camaraderie is important during these dark times, and to stave off a feeling of isolation while you're spending most of your days at home wrapped in a blanket talking to your dead orchid about the book deal you're totally going to get any day now.

Apply for a mortgage! Maintaining your equilibrium is key, as is a feeling of forward motion. (We are all sharks: we move or we die.) Talking to banks about rates and assets helps you feel more in control, as well as active and connected to the outside world. If you actually get pre-approved and can put in an offer on that fantastic Cobble Hill apartment across the street from your new gym, all the better.

Advertise your capabilities on Craigslist! Just because you've been laid off doesn't mean you don't have skills. You deserve to be paid to help other people do things you yourself have often failed to do, like find a great job and keep it.

Get a fancy haircut. Gotta keep up appearances! This works well when a guy you know offers a two-for-one deal at his hoity-toity studio and you and a friend can each get away with paying only $34 each to look so fabulous no one will notice you're still vaguely green and pulsing from the radioactive stress.

Post pictures of you and your friends looking happy. This will remind you that you have friends and also that you have, at moments, been happy:

Go Inaug Yourself

While I tried to jet down to DC, my queer Brooklyn posse, which was already in the city, scoured websites and schedules and even called the Secret Service in order to plot our strategy. Around 11:00 pm, they informed me of the plan and though I yelped in protest, I gave in. So it was that after three hours sleep, I got up and got ready to leave at the house at 4 AM and met them inside the appointed Metro station. Even at that hour, Tenleytown/AU was thronged by hopped-up youngsters, many of them looking like they hadn't bothered going to bed at all. The first train that came by was too crowded to board -- and that was the first warning signal of what this crazy, historic, overfull day would be like.

The second signal came at the final station, where enough people to fill a football stadium stood paralyzed by the Metro's insistence on swiping cards again to exit. The roar of the standstill grew until some frightened Metro employee finally made an executive decision and threw open the turnstiles so that the impassioned hordes could pour through. This was 5 AM.

We made it to the southern part of the mall where the ticketless were allowed to congregate, and after doing a lap to consider vantage points we committed to a location. Only then did we realize several key things:

1. It was fucking freezing.
2. We had almost a whole workday's length of time to kill
3. No one had thought to bring a blanket

We took turns sitting on the one stool we had with us and taking walks in vain attempts to keep our feet from petrifying. On one of my walks, I sought refuge in a port-a-potty, hoping it would be a little warmer. Finally, with the memory of the Time-Traveler's Wife vividly in mind, I decided drastic action must be taken, and I begged temporary shelter from a CNN man with his own trailer.

Kind, gentle man, he let Reb W. and me both into his lair which smelled like hot chocolate and which informed us, via several screens, that it was ten degrees outside. "Stay here," he said, leaving us alone to watch one TV count down the hours til the proceedings (4:40 to go ...) until he returning bearing hand and foot warmers. We blessed him and thanked him as we bowed our way out the door. For the first time in 2009, my boldness had won Reb W.'s respect.

Back with the posse, we danced to keep warm, played games for distraction, took pictures of the ever-expanding mass of people behind us, and watched the sun rise over the capitol. Never have I been so grateful to see that busy old fool, unruly sun, which almost immediately began to help us thaw. It wasn't doing the job fast enough so my friends ended up sacrificing belly warmth to tuck each other's bare feet under their shirts.

A few yards away from our camp I spotted John Oliver reporting live from the field for the Daily Show and snapped a few pictures. I have a huge TV crush on John Oliver but in person he looked depressingly normal, so I decided not to throw myself at him, even though I'll bet he too had a warm trailer that smelled like hot chocolate and could have given my feet a hot oil massage to bring them back to life.

After what felt like the entirety of Bush's presidency had flashed before our eyes again, the festivities began. The objectionable Rick Warren made a largely unobjectionable speech, forgoing any mention of hot topics like the gays. I had to laugh when he recited the "sh'ma" in English and said Jesus's name in Hebrew. I guess that's multiculturalism for you?

We cheered for everyone related to the Obamas and glared at folks who rudely booed Bush and his henchman Cheney, looking more diabolical than ever in a wheelchair. The lady behind me put it best as she chided the crowd: "People! What would Obama do?"

We shrieked when John Roberts fucked up the oath, laughed every time the booming announcer voice said "You may now be seated," and swayed in disbelief when the smart, calm, resolute, handsome, strong, thoughtful man I have every faith in came forward at last to assure us, over eighteen and a half minutes, that our years of wandering through the desert were over. The text was thrilling enough but the subtext was even better: It's all going to be okay. This is for real now. It's all going to be okay.

And then Bishop Lowry, possibly hopped up himself, had us all shouting Amen! to his fervent prayer for a time when "black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right." That's my kind of God talk.

Later, after the festivities finally ended around 12:30, we realized the city had left the millions of us on the mall no way to get home. The parade route had blocked off half of downtown, and the subway entrances were so swamped they looked like temples directly before stampedes. We holed up on the third floor of the Hirschorn, leaning on each other for strength, as we tried to wait out the masses. But, as it turned out, that was a bit like trying to wait for a bathtub full of molasses to drain through a narrow hole.

Despite the fact that we'd been up (and literally up on our feet) since the wee hours, battling soreness, sleepiness, and the beginnings of hypothermia, we decided our only option was to walk, and walk we did, around the police checkpoints and blocked off streets, through winter-savaged gardens and on curbs, over four miles, and some of it at the pace of molasses draining from the bathtub because we got caught up with the masses and could only walk as fast as the cops and traffic would let us. By the time I made it to Dupont Circle where my parents were, I decided I would never venture outside again.

But it was absolutely worth it.