The Elusive Duchess

Day 88, The Be Brave Project; Au Revoir '08

2008-12-18T09:10:00.002-05:00

This is my last posting of 2008.

I am flying to Chicago, which is apparently in the grips of the coldest winter in history. That's something akin to London's rainiest summer--which I experienced two years ago--or the Presidential Chimp's stupidest public gaffe: No joke. Chicago in a mild winter requires nerves of steel and underpants of thinsulate--that damn cold gets in everywhere. I grew up there, and thought nothing of developing thick horns of skin on my feet and hands each winter. The cold would make my skin thicken and buckle, and you'd have to rub petroleum jelly into it before trying to pumice it off.

And those weren't winters described as cold.

As for that summer in London, it's always interesting to visit a place and have to spend a week watching images of its citizens rowing to the grocery store as the rain slaps against your living room windows so hard you'll fear they'll break. Seriously, it was like The Birds, but with water. (As for Bush's stupidest gaffe, My favorite is still the old classic from 2000: He and Cheney walk onto a podium to tumultuous applause as they prepare to greet the press. Bush forgets he's miked, leans over to Cheney, and the words "There's that asshole from the New York Times" ring out over the speakers. It was a subtle indicator of the complete blind obstreperousness to come.)

But the Be Brave Project has helped me to sort out my life immeasurably, and I am very thankful to be leaving NYC with

1. A health insurance card

2. My taxes paid and entirely up to date.

3. A clean bill of health from my internist and cardiologist.

These improvements are so huge, and having run from them while still 'using' had created so much fear and tension, that my life truly is different to how it was last July. . .not to mention that I now live in an absolutely kick-ass apartment overlooking the Upper West Side (which was not my work, but the kindness of the powers above)!

In 2008 I will start my year with a new list, and some new goals. . .but the remaining goal on my BBP list will still remain: Time To WRITE. I will have 2 months to work on a book, before I need to get a job. I need every fibre of bravery and impulse control to do that. . .

But Happy Holidays to all who read this!

Be Brave Project, Day 87; Duckin' and Weaving thru the Chocolated Christmas Maze

2008-12-17T09:13:00.007-05:00

Well, I manned up and returned the fox fur neck stole I bought at Century 21 the week after thanksgiving: It was an egregious purchase in too many ways to keep. At $90, there are far far many better ways to spend the money than on a poor skinned animal; credit card payments, Internet/cable/phone bills, and a little something known as, well, gifts for other people.

But that's the horrible side-effect of all this damn Christmas shopping--I rarely to never go into department stores. Nowadays I pretty much shop in the magnificent vintage shops of this city, which I adore, but the experience is far more of a battle than a treat. If you emerge without having exposed your lady bits to employees and fellow customers, that is considered a victory.

So when I get in department stores, even cut-rate ones like C 21, all is gentleness and delight. Music is playing, perfume is being spritzed, salesgirls are sneering contentedly. After waiting in a long coiling line in the hidden bowels of the 3rd floor, I handed over my egregious purchase and got the money back--then all hell broke loose.

I ran for the basement, but they were out of Godiva chocolate bars. Shook my fist at the sky, then sprinted for the elevators to check out the Godiva stands on the second floor--still no chocolate bars. Feinted and ducked my way into "Accessories and Stockings", where I found silk-lined gloves for my mother. I then bought a pair of sheer sheer stockings for myself.

I simply cannot help it: Shopping kills my impulse control, but at least (unlike a fox stole--the lunacy of which still appalls me) sheer stockings are a necessity for the parties I'll be attending in the next week, cost under a tenner, and involved no bloodshed. Plus I'm hardly getting thrift store stockings, all laddered and covered in crumbs.

Then I bought my cousin a RL Jeans t-shirt, twisted and ducked my way back down to the Godiva stand in the basement, and found that 2 chocolate bars had appeared. Grabbed them, stood on another line, and eventually got out of C 21 with almost all of my Christmas shopping done.

Upside: I returned that poor fox.

Downside: I have bought approx. 19 Godiva chocolate bars in the last 3 weeks.

But all of my shopping is done, apart from one more (expensive) gift for my mother, which I will pick up at the Met.

If you were to ask me what the hell any of this has to do with the BBP, I would be at a loss for an answer. For a moment. Then I would say that remaining sober during the holiday season requires some cojones, the sort that most people don't swing around. And what will require fortitude is remaining patient with my family, despite their massively self-destructive tendencies.

But right now I will do something that I have been procrastinating on (always a danger sign): I will call my accountant with some questions about taxes for next year. And if he doesn't know, I will ask my brother to recommend someone who does.

Such glamor, my Manhattan life! Chocolate bars and tax scenarios.

Day 87, Be Brave Project; Done with the Chestnut Roasting

2008-12-15T09:26:00.005-05:00

Just spent the better part of an half an hour mucking about in the control panel "Internet Options" setting because blogspot here told me to enable java settings (that were already enabled), and muck about in the cookie realm.

Well, it's nice to do something that isn't connected with Christmas. Yesterday, as I roamed Broadway looking for a Best Buy store, I began totalling up the price of Christmas for me: Airfare, a little over $300 (used to be under 200). Tipping of the doormen: $200 (never had doormen before, and do not begrudge the tips for a moment--totally worth the $20 a month). Catsitter: $150. Taxi to airport: $30 (used to be able to take the M60 bus, right from my corner). So, before I've even bought a gift, Christmas costs me close to $700.

$700 before a gift is bought!! Holy crow. Is that not flipping egregious? And should Christmas alone not be able to improve our economy somewhat? In addition I have already made 2 trips to the dirty nugget of heaven that is Century 21, ducked into horrible Filene's several times, only to emerge foul-tempered and empty handed, strolled indifferently into Variazione and came out with the greatest dress bargains in history (2 black, boat-necked capped sleeved back-wrap dresses at $20 each, and one ruched jersey for $10). I've bought approximately 15 Godiva chocolate bars, and will buy more--their milk chocolate is absolutely sublime, with a rich caramel taste. I've seen one woman faint (Century 21), and two women fight (Loehmann's).

I'm ready for Christmas to be over.

Today I have to buy some nice hand cream for my step-Grandmother. She is a lovely southern lady who lives in a nursing home in Jacksonville, Florida. For decades she ran a funeral home down there, and Miss Flo was the most respected person in town: She'd hide bootleggers in the basement with the corpses, and she'd take in your dead daddy even if you couldn't pay to bury him. Now she has diabetes, and has lost one leg.

Once I find the hand cream, I get back here, wrap it and put it in a padded envelope along with a gift card for my father, socks, a 1940's game of skill & luck, and a German date-book. His wife gets a silver frame with pictures already in, earrings, napkins, and a cell phone case. Then I'll be meeting the cat sitter here, showing her around, and heading for the post office afterwards.

Oh the grimness of the NYC post office at Christmas.

One week from today I head to Chicago until the New Year: My poor cirrhotic mother will have a filthy house and a pile of chores to do; it will not have occurred to her to not drink so she would feel well enough to do them herself.

But I like Chicago, and I will try to make the best of it all. I will not drink (I hope and pray). I will see wonderful movies at the greatest neighborhood cinema in the world, The Wilmette Cinema, and I will drive around-- a lot.

But for right now I wish Christmas would come once every two years. That's enough.

Days 85 & 86, Be Brave Project; Straight to the Crazy

2008-12-12T09:12:00.006-05:00

Sometimes, drinking seems like a completely logical response.

Not now, not now that I've seen the damage it's done and could till do me. Not when I remind myself that my liver enzymes were all over the place and how swollen my gut was. . .but I quite clearly see why the hell drinking often seemed such an utter relief and necessity.

It was, to paraphrase Jane Austen entirely out of context, the natural response to an unnatural situation. At times my entire family seems to be wired differently to the dictates of self-benefit, logic, kindness and reason. I could give many sweeping statements on how that operates, how they demand success but only encourage failure, believe--to a man--that they are absolute shit and yet the complete center of the universe, but instead I will give this example of the weirdness that makes me head straight to the crazy.

Two days ago I received an email from my cousin informing me that my father's 95 year old uncle was dying. I only met the uncle a few times, as he lives in Texas. But I thought that I should check in with my father, just to say I heard what's going on and hope he's doing ok.

Seems pretty logical, right? Rather normal human behavior, I thought.

I went on with my day.

Yesterday I received an email in response--the email was written to me alone, but sent to the entire family, and also forwarded my previous email (a breech of modern etiquette). The letter was long, with much in praise of the great uncle, and very formally written as if it were a speech. And it concluded with the nugget of information that my father and aunt were welcome at the funeral, but none of the rest of us were.

Then I hear that my father is furious at my aunt for telling her daughter about this imminent death in the family. And the aunt is furious at her daughter for telling me. Apparently these things are classified and information that will only be released months--if not years--after the event. My three sentence email to my father was viewed as forcing his hand, making him tell people of this death, and being the result of an egregious blabbing of information that had nothing to do with us.

See what I mean about the crazy? It would take beaucoup vodka to make logic of this thinking, this control freakery and emotional disconnection. No wonder I behave like an overgrown adolescent--my generation of cousins are bankers, businessmen, graduate students, high-level federal employees, analysts, parents and tax-payers: But we should not be informed of major family events or, if a serious breech of security has occurred, we should never discuss the information amongst ourselves.

Sober, I cannot wrap my mind around this. I also cannot laugh at it, apart from that bitter sort of barking laugh. I trust I'll find this funny later. It makes me think of that Marguerite Duras quote, where she said she would be perfectly happy living alone on an island provided she had enough booze. I do not understand any of it, the hostility and the blame, the defensiveness and the rigidity. I just want to be on an island, away from it.

And I am so sick of trying to figure it out. I need to find another response to the crazy, apart from obsessing or capitulating or drinking--I need to remove myself in some way.

Day 84, Be Brave Project; Tips n' Teeth

2008-12-10T09:21:00.006-05:00

I have been giving the doormen their tips for Christmas. After much research on the internet I settled on $20 per person, and twice that for the Super (who got a huge chunk of change when I moved in 2 months ago).

This tipping involves more work than you would expect. First, I bought Christmas cards at Century 21 last week. Or should I buy "Happy Holiday" cards, to be politically correct? Or one of those cards that makes a point of celebrating Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa? Oh crap--Just bought Happy Holiday cards; the least vulgar ones there that were still 50% off. Dark green cards with wreaths on, decorated with a single bronze bow. Very tasteful, darling.

Then I go to the bank and take the lovely money out from my worrying and dwindling assets. Sigh. Bring the money home and sit down, with the cards on one side and the money on the other. I made a list of all the people who work in the building: Pat (crazy as a box of frogs), Angela (don't fuck), Anthony (friendly and sweet), Vernal (moody but nice), Gerard (super with a wonderful Irish face), Manny (shy, tends to hide behind doors), and the two people I've seen around doing work whose names I don't know. On my list I wrote, Young Guy & Middle Eastern Guy. It might be racial profiling, but I needed to get it all down.

Then I put the envelopes together--h'mm. Hmm. Obviously I write "Happy Holidays and All the Best from Elusive D. in apartment #XX." But won't "all the best" seem a little ironic, given that I'm only handing them $20? Or are there people giving less? So perhaps I should write ". . .and a Happy New Year?" But then that's two "Happy's" in one sentence. Not echt.

Hmm. I could write "and a Wonderful New Year." But doesn't that sound rather fulsome and as if I'm from Connecticut? I don't want that. I sat and chewed my pen for a bit, then ate a piece of Godiva chocolate 72% dark chocolate with almonds, then ate some saltines. I could see Christmas lights sparkling from balconies up the street, and I realized that meant the sky was darkening while I mulled this over. Ridiculous. Getting tangled up in knots over crap like this is why I became a drunk, anyway.

I wrote "Happy Holidays and Many Thanks from Elusive D. in Apartment XX", put a 20 in, wrote the name on the envelope (obviously I didn't write "Middle Eastern Guy" on one--I just put another "Happy Holiday". Big ass pile of envelopes sitting on my coffee table and a job well done.

Or half done.

The last few days I have been quietly stalking the building. Poking my head around corners to see if anyone I need to tip is lurking there--yesterday I had a curling iron wrapped around the hair on the back of my head when I heard a sweeping noise in the hallway. Building employee!! I didn't want to unwrap the iron, so I unplugged it and ran out the door, envelope and keys in hand and curling iron held to back of head--ah! I found the Middle Eastern Guy and gave him the envelope. I also asked his name (Bernar) and we shook hands with great zest after I switched hands on the curling iron.

I tracked down everyone, chasing the Young Guy down the hall towards the laundry room. He rewarded me with a rather surprising hug. V. sweet. His name, he said was Dee. (!?) The only person I haven't seen is Mad Pat, who's usually around the building all the time cracking bad jokes and telling dogs to pay their taxes. Hope she's all right.

Now I need to find a catsitter, and then I'm pretty set. Apart from buying gifts, of course.

Yesterday I had my new crown put in at Dr. Folickman's. A nice little $1500 spent to keep me looking like a member of the middle class. It feels and looks fine but oh! I just keep thinking of how nice my bank account would feel and look with that money still in it.

Day 83, Be Brave Project; Letters and Lists

2008-12-09T09:32:00.005-05:00

Tra la la, la la la la! If I were another person, a wiser person, a person more aware of the frail fluid passage of time and less fearful of it; a person more inclined to be grateful than to be careless; a woman more involved in my future than messing around with the wreckage of my past--I would be positively THRILLED!

As it is, things aren't bad at all. . .

Friday afternoon was quite a good time. First, my faux fur toque was admired by a discerning man on the street. Love that. Secondly, when I got to my building there was a package from FedEx for me--turned out to be Style sections from the London Sunday Times, sent to me from my cousin. As I went to check my mail I thought --Right. Get upstairs, feed the little cat, then it's bubble bath/Style section time for you, Elusive D! Wonderful.

My hand pulled a few thin envelopes from the mail, and I stepped into the elevator. As the doors slid shut, I glanced at an envelope and my heart lurched. Central Park West Women's Imaging and Radiology.

Oh fuck. The eagle had landed. But maybe it was only a massive bill?? I tore the envelope open, replaying that horrible day the doctor thought she felt a lump. . .the ghastly painful mammogram and clutching my clothes to my chest like a refugee as I was sent to the bad news waiting room for the doctor. . .

We are pleased to tell you that the results of your mammogram are normal.

Hot damn!!! I burst out of the elevator like a bullet from a gun, and ran towards my apartment, where I grabbed the cat, clutched her to my chest, and did a little dance. I then went upstairs to get on the internet, as I'd been doing some bargaining with God and now had to give some money to charity. I gave to The Children's Hunger Relief Fund, because they seemed profoundly legit. And, obviously, do some good in the world.

That night I feasted on the best vegetarian chili recipe it has ever been my pleasure to encounter, I worked on my Christmas list (in my family you have to make one, as it is so much easier for other people. And because we are greedy), and I went to bed with a smile on my face.

. . .And woke up with a horrible cold. Ah well. Below is the list, just because I am the kind of person who likes to read other people's lists. And check what they're buying in the supermarket. And eavesdrops on people's phone calls when they're on the bus, unless they are shouting--in which case I get all annoyed at other people's intrusive rudeness.

Elusive D's Quite Modest Except for Some Bits 2008 Christmas List
1. Cat carrier, soft sided, made by Sherpa. For a cat in the 10 pound range. By Sherpa because that’s approved by all the airlines. This is expensive–I think around $75–but probably available cheaper on the ol’ intershmet.
***2. Queen-sized sheet sets. I like percale or sateen, and in a French blue–preferred–or sage green or some other nice color (I have a white room and a white duvet, so a little color would work.) I’ve no sheets that fit my new bed. Patterns are fine, if they’re not overwhelming!
3. Really high-quality set of coasters.
4. 2-4 small but thick pot-holders. Preferably machine washable, not ugly, & not mitten-type.
5. Book: Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood. Hardcover, if possible. (By Cari Beauchamp)
6. Jeanine Basinger’s book Silent Stars. Hardcover, please!
7. Kiehl’s facial cream.
8. Microsoft "Word" word processing system. I’m hoping someone has a copy of this sitting unused in a desk somewhere! Doesn’t need to be super up-to-date; I have Windows XP. My computer came with WordPerfect, which is v. imperfect.
**9. Armband for an Ipod Nano 3rd Generation.
10. Socks–not too thick, knee high and/or shorter, in dark patterns.
11. Small, pea-sized, pearl earrings. Also, very small very simple gold hoop earrings.
12. Pocket map o’ Manhattan, in a book form. I get lost below 14th Street!
13. Some of that smoked Paprika Toby talks about. And some fancy Chili seasoning.

Day 82, Be Brave Project; Fat Pets & Dead Eyes

2008-12-05T08:55:00.004-05:00

Every day I'm just chipping away at Christmas, until it becomes the perfect little ice sculpture for me to slide into the New Year on. Yesterday I put together a package to send to my cousin and her family in London: While I was wrapping a silver picture frame for her (and internally celebrating the day I bought a box of 14 types of tangled ribbons at a garage sale for $1--good lord that stuff is expensive!), I was watching tv.

The show I was watching was called Fat Pets. It was about English pet owners, who own the highest percentage of obese animals in Europe. Isolated couples who treat their dogs as spoiled children, lonely women who anthropomorphize their animals and believe that not giving them 6 slices of birthday cake is simply rude, sad women who cannot work or date or deal with the world. The lady who fed her dog birthday cake clearly equated a healthy diet with something preposterous that no one in their sane mind would demand of her: When the vet asked if her asthmatic heart-murmuring miserable King Charles Spaniel had been following the diet set for him, she burst out with a fruity laugh and a "No!"

The dog sat wheezing on the metal table, its hip joints literally strained to popping from the pressure of fat between the dog's legs. And its eyes were dim and drooping. Suddenly, with the tape and ribbon in my hand, I thought, "That look on the dog's face is very familiar to me."

It took me a while to place it, but that dog's miserable expression exactly matches that of an English friend of mine, when I saw him last summer. When I first knew him he was full of quiet contentment, with a sly sense of humor and bright eyes. By last summer, he'd gained masses of weight, and just seemed to have the hope sucked out of him. Peculiar to be sitting in nYC, looking at his face in the form of a spaniel in Leeds.

But the expressions were the same. Absolutely burdened, with a sense of no way out.

A while back, when I was still drinking, someone gave me a picture they'd taken of me at a party. I did not like the picture, and nearly tore it up and threw it out. But there was a look in the eyes, in my eyes, that made me tuck it in my bag for later viewing. That night, when I was sitting at home drinking wine and smoking, I pulled the picture out of my handbag.

I looked bloated, and sad, and was unquestionably wearing the wrong color sweater for me (a blazingly bright blue). My jawline was heavy and sullen, my hair tied back messily in a way I thought looked casually cool. I was wrong. But what had prevented me from tearing the ugly picture up, what made me look at it again and again and again over the ensuing months, was that not only did my eyes look vaguely rectangular in shape--they looked absolutely dead. No sparkle, no life or hope or humor or anger or anything.

Just dead.

And slowly, as I kept looking at that picture, I realized that something was very, very wrong with my life. . . I hope my cousin's husband figures his problems out, because he's one of my favorite people on the planet and I would like to see him enjoy his life.

So, in the Christmas countdown, I have:

-put together the packet for London

-bought xmas cards for building employee gifts (must get $$ today).

-bought dvds and books over Amazon, which are being shipped to Chicago.

-created a rapprochement between my sister and law and mother, so that dinner is served earlier (though not as early as the SIL wanted it--we are not farmers). I usually loathe this sit-down dinner on Christmas night, as I hate events with fussy table settings and the bullshit pressure for 'witty' conversation, but hope I can make it pass as quickly as possible.

-printed up a pattern to knit a tea cozy for my aunt. Hope it works out!

I have still, happily, not heard about the mamogram last week. . .I think that no news is good news on this front? I do not have the cojones to call the doctor's office. But if I don't hear anything by the end of today, chances are good that that dreadful visit went well.

Day 81, Be Brave Project; Fox News

2008-12-03T09:02:00.002-05:00

Century 21 shopping was the same as always; I felt a little tired & bored walking in, I wandered around and around those damn escalators that are never never in the direction one wants to be going--and then next thing I know it's 150 minutes later, I have two shopping bags cutting strips into my wrists, and I am emerging from the store in a daze of hostile joy.

I bought:

9 v. large Godiva dark chocolate bars

3 silver picture frames (2 still in the box)

2 wooden puzzle sets for children

1 Lily Pulitzer pink & red child's blouse

1 Columbia nono-tac camping mini flashlight

1 FDNY child's knit hat

1 pair Laura Ashley bedsocks

1 box christmas cards for doorman gifts

and. . .

They must pump some drug made from the bones of cremated chorus girls into that store. . .

because. . .

I bought a fox fur neck wrap, for me.

My Dear God. I have never wanted a fox fur neck wrap. I have never noticed them on the street, or priced them on the internet. On the rare times I have had occasion to look at a fox (when I lived in Richmond, SW London, they used to congregate on my street at night--poor leggy oily sad things), I never thought --Oooer, peel that garbage-eating bad boy and I'll look fabulous.

It just happened, the way car wrecks do or Angelina Jolie obtains another child: In the blink of an ill-judged eye. I simply rounded the corner, all hopped up on Godiva chocolate and the free tote bag I'd just been given--it says Century 21, Where You Have to FIGHT for Fashion--and there was a sign saying "Fur Head Wraps".

Hmm. I thought.

Hmm. Wonder what that'd look like on me. I'm sick of always suffering from Celtic Scrawny Neck (a hereditary trait wherein one feels the cold in that particular fatless body part). I put down my two bags, my handbag, my chocolate bar, and my diet coke hidden in the pocket of my handbag. That alone felt very, very good.

Then I grabbed one of the velcro tipped, long pale grey fur pieces and wrapped it around my neck, once. The tips fit together in a discreet V at my breast, and the fur was so lovely and warm--how they get the fox stench out I don't know--and the effect so elegant that I paused.

I felt the heat of an impulse buy coming on. But $90??? I am so cheap that I eat vegetarian most of the time simply because it's one of the most inexpensive ways to be healthy. I am so cheap that I make cookies instead of bread because baking soda is cheaper than baking powder.

I wrapped the piece around my head, as it was intended to be. It looked enchanting. My eyes looked very brown and big, the fur felt very soft and warm. And, here is the danger knell. . .I could always buy it and decide later. Because I could always return it, next visit. . .

Oh crap. Oh dear. That is rarely a good and wise voice. Fur is a horribly cruel business, and I have an animal I love who has a coat as thick as this--imagine her dead and peeled. Horrible. Horrible. Just so some scrawny-necked discount shopper can have fun on her chocolate high.

I bought it, and shall return it.

After a trip to Bo-Ky on Bayard Street for a large bowl of $3.75 WonTon Soup, I walked up Canal Street and caught the C train home--very nice, very direct. Had enjoyed a long chat with my mother on the phone the day before, so decided to call her again. She was drunk, at 4.30 in the afternoon her time. I got off the phone, felt depressed, wrapped my horrible cruel fur collar around my neck, and did a crossword.

But I kept the price tags on.

BBP: Still haven't heard from the Doctor. Today am going to library for work on outline.

Day 80, Be Brave Project; Century 21

2008-12-02T08:59:00.003-05:00

Today is a day I look forward to throughout the year, a day that takes nerves of steel and sinews of extreme sinuousity to negotiate successfully. . .

Today I go to Christmas shop at Century 21.

Century 21, as you doubtless know, is NYC's absolute best discount shopping. It's all the way down at the bottom of Manhattan, just near the closed World Trade Center subway stop. One must have eaten roundly of protein and carb before venturing in, one must have settled accounts with one's family and lawyers. . .one must carry a shiv.

Ok, that's going too far: Let's keep lawyers out of it.

The first time I went to Century 21 was when I came to NYC in the 90's, for graduate school. I was absolutely thrilled to be living in a small gleaming-floored studio on 118th and Amsterdam, which I'd furnished with one mattress, a mahogany side table, a tv that only received Public Television, and many many books. Naturally, I felt I needed to purchase a handbag.

For many years I'd heard about C 21 from my Aunt, who used to work at the Trade Towers before her office switched her to the City Hall building. She had presented me with absolutely wonderful chic quirky un-affordable clothes for Birthdays and Christmases. She would sit me down and tell me of the rude sales-girls, the heaving odorous crowds, the dressing rooms that you aren't allowed to use if you're trying on trousers. I listened saucer-eyed as she regaled how a pair of boots had been torn from her arms as she clutched them in line, just moments away from the cashier (who turned her head).

I needed to go to Century 21. Caught the train down, found the handbag section in the basement--thousands of bags. Thousands of them hanging from hooks and straps and rails. . .I put one after the other over my left arm, and mimicked scrabbling for keys in it, or seizing it by the strap to clock someone over the head before restoring it to its armpit holster. Finally, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror--red faced, hair in disarray. I decided that a pizza break was called for, and to leave the store, grab a slice and a vat of diet coke poured over a mountain of ice, and decide which bag to buy.

Five minutes of wandering in circles finally brought me to the front door, and with a sigh of relief I saw a Pizza shop outside. "Buy 2 slices, get soda free!" Ok, then. OK. I marched out the door--but suddenly could go no further.

An enormous hand had seized my arm.

And then another one grabbed my handbag. . .

As I looked into the serious faces glaring down at me (faces which themselves weren't unfamiliar with many many slices of pizza), I realized an important thing:

That wasn't my handbag.

I'd forgotten to put back the last bag I had tried on, which turned out to be so comfortable that it just rested from my shoulder unnoticed. And then I'd tried to walk out of the store.

The two security guards led me away from the door, when I decided to use the only tool in my arsenal. Not my innocence, obviously: My Mid-Western Accent. I opened my eyes as wide as they'd go, and did the same with my vowels. "Oh my Gahd, I am so sorry!! I didn't know it was there, I was just trying these cute bags on and then thaaaaght I'd go out for a slice. I am so sorry to bother you boys!" I sounded like Marge from Fargo--I looked like butter wouldn't melt.

And they were so dazed by contempt for my stupidity and my ear-shattering accent that they let me go, but gave me a warning not to shop there anymore that day. I left there vaguely thrilled by the drama of it all, and didn't return for 2 years.

But today I'm going back, Christmas list in hands and loins firmly girded--I'm going to take Century 21, then walk up Broadway slowly, stopping for a cup of tea and cake somewhere, and then buy jewelry chatchkas on Canal Street and/or lower Broadway. It's above freezing, the sky is blue, and I've still got a mid-western accent in my armory if it's needed.

Re. the BBP and the medical stuff: I have not heard from the doctor, but of course I have until Friday. Very stressful. Doubtless good for mental discipline, as drunks are just not good at dealing with anxiety (therefore the up-turned vodka bottles), and on top of it all I am a catastrophist. But that damn mammogram wasn't a reassuring experience--far from it. I am waiting to hear and hoping not to.

Day 79; Be Brave Project; Tits Out and Eyes Lowered

2008-12-01T09:16:00.005-05:00

It's been an anxious weekend, and entirely, entirely due to the BBP. Not one moment of the holiday weekend was without a sepia soaked edge of anxiety. On Friday I went for my first mammogram--and it was not a good experience.

I arrived a bit late and flustered, having wandered around 8th Avenue thinking it was Broadway (Columbus Circle always confuses me a bit), signed into the building and took the elevator up. The West Side Breast and Heightened Anxiety Clinic--perhaps not its real name--was on the 9th floor. There was a high dark red counter behind which two nurses sat, their heads visible only from the bottom lip up. I gave my insurance card, filled out the forms, and gave them back. Then I was called back up to the desk, asked if my mammo was diagnostic or baseline. I didn't know. They said that my doctor had felt a lump, and asked where it was.

I answered, and said that that is why she wrote "sonogram if necessary" on the paper, so we could get it checked out fully. They appeared somehow dissatisfied with this answer, and I returned to my seat for thirty minutes. I was called back up and given a questionnaire. I sat back down and looked at the couple opposite; the man was Hispanic, in his fifties. He wore sweatpants and a look of discomfort. His wife looked horribly underslept--or ill. She sat very still, her eyes closed and her hands crossed on her lap. They made me anxious, and I was relieved when she was called in by the technician. More time passed.

A middle-aged fire plug of a technician came out and called my name--she reiterated the question about diagnostic or first-time mammo--I answered. She asked if I'd used talcum powder, deodorant, perfume or lotion this morning. I said, nope. I was led to a small sock-shaped room where two women were sitting, one of them the weary woman from the front room. There was no eye contact. I took my clothes off, put on the robe, and had to carry my clothes with me in a bundle back to sit in the sock-shaped room with the women. No one spoke.

More time passed, and I bundled my clothes more tightly. The woman two chairs away from me moved her handbag so I couldn't reach it. There were pictures of rock stars on the walls, and small placards talking about the photographers. Fire Plug came back in, called my name, and we went to another room with a big stand-up machine. I was pressed into it closely, closely, my feet wedged in uncomfortably beneath it, and a big plastic guard above sticking into my face. Fire Plug started turning a lever and a plate came down down to painfully press my breast. Fire Plug kept turning the lever. . .kept turning it until I thought I would scream. Then she stepped back and told me to stand still--lower eyes, don't breathe.

This went on and on, and the disconcerting thing is that she kept taking images of the same breast, the right one. 4 times, each more painful than the last. She looked silently at the images, and, while I was standing there in my disarrayed robe, clutching my damn bundle of clothing like a fucking refugee, I asked, "Is everything all right?"

Sharply she replied, "I'm not a doctor!"

Oh, fine. Not feeling good, though. She said I shouldn't put my clothes back on, but go back to the sock-shaped room and wait for a doctor. Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, have I quit goddamn drinking only to get a horrible terrifying life-threatening disease?? Oh God, Oh God.

Sat back down in the sock-room, and the lady moved her handbag even further away from me. After a while Fire Plug came in and said, "Your doctor's office is closed today. So just put on your clothes and go." I looked up at her, pale in my frightened refugee status, and waited for something more. Some word of explanation as to why I had been asked to wait for a doctor, why my own doctor had been called, what was up with the continued shots of the right breast. . .

I got nothing. Except that I'd know in one week.

As I walked out, a nurse called to me, "Don't forget to fill out your questionnaire!" And believe me, I filled it out.

Then I went straight to an AA meeting, where I met a lady who had had breast cancer, and who said that my experience used to be the norm when getting mammos--but wasn't any more. That next time I should ask for a different location, and make sure that I would walk out with the results. . .she gave me her card.

The weekend contained some heroic eating, much television watching, and epic levels of worry.

Day 78; Kind Hearts and Lost Crowns

2008-11-28T08:59:00.004-05:00

Wednesday was warmer than it has been, and I felt like wearing a skirt. When I am nervous I tend to dress a little more formally than usual. Perhaps this is a sign that you're half-way to being an idiot, but I find it reassuring and somewhat distracting to be in fancier clothes I rarely wear. I put on my tweed pencil skirt from LK Bennett in London, black satin Isaac Mizrahi (pre-Target) knee-high boots, a midnight blue v-neck sweater and silver geometric necklace.

I was going to see my new cardiologist.

Hopped out the door and was at 60th Street in something like 10 minutes--living near the B train is fabulous--though I wish it didn't have those bench-like seats that made my tweeded ass slide all over the place. Soon I was sitting in a doctor's office on the 10th floor, thumbing my way through an article on Michelle Obama (NOTE: Please quit with the "Mom-In-Chief" stuff--I know you needed to tone down the smarts for the election, but let's see that Harvard mind at work, please. You could help to de-Palinize the public opinion of professional women!)

I'd already had an ekg that confirmed that, yup, I still have right bundle branch blockage. Small beans, and I'm lucky it's the right, not the left, because that goes under the description of 'cardiac pathology'. My cholesterol apparently is kick-ass, so the next bit was to proceed to the electro-cardiogram.

Nothin' says welcome to the holiday season like having your naked chest lubed up! I lay there on the table, in the blue paper gown, and watched the tissue of my heart flutter on the monitor. It was a curiously relaxing experience, apart from the moments when he dug the little nodule deep between my ribs. Echocardio technology has improved, certainly since my last experience, and the cardiologist was pretty certain that I'd had a false diagnosis of mitral valve prolapse--it was a fashionable diagnosis for a while, and I also have the right appearance for it, being a small, slender woman. I thought of my first cardiologist, a solemn yet wry monkey-faced man at Northwestern General in Chicago: I didn't see him being influenced by fashionable diagnoses. And sure enough, there it was, a little bend in the valve but no leakage or backwash. Otherwise my poor little alchohol-soaked heart looked "pristine".

That, children, is the power of cardiovascualar exercise. I went one with my day, literally feeling light hearted. . .until later that night, when eating an apparently challenging bowl of sweet potato and acorn squash soup, my temporary crown fell out.

Well, of course it did.

Day 77, Be Brave Project; Downey Dreams & Medical Schemes

2008-11-25T09:17:00.004-05:00

Here I am, at my desk again. In this absolutely stunning apartment of mine that I hope I get to keep for a while. . .oh my how I hope it, because it is very, very clear that one becomes accustomed to luxury rather quickly. And the bump back down to reality (living in an apartment that is legal and therefore renting at market rates) would be rather unnerving.

But I could handle it--you don't forget how to do studio living, and you don't need to have quite so many things around all of the time as I do now. It's nice, though.

My morning schedule is this: I sleep until 2 things happen. First my cat, who no longer sleeps on my pillow every night due because there's a nearby warm radiator with a shelf over it where she can observe me without being harassed. I miss the days of Gigi asleep next to me on the satin pillow that she's torn up with her talons. . .but still, in the mornings she hops up on the bed at around 6:00. I clumsily pet her for a moment, and then go back to sleep. At this juncture she either curls up into a small white ball and wraps her black tail around her, or she slowly slowly approaches me and, with great slowness and delicacy, sticks her small cold pink whiskery nose into my ear. Yow! I put my head under the covers and she triumphantly takes over the pillow.

The second thing that happens is that the alarm goes off. No one likes this, and the cat glares at me, before remembering that it's close to feeding time, so then she stands up and blinks forgivingly. I hit snooze. Again. And again. I don't like waking up in the mornings, I don't like alarms, I don't like being interrupted in my dreams of being in Cornwall with Robert Downey Junior and attempting to rehab him all on my own. A positively filthy dream in which his puppy dog eyes play a large and thrilling part. Even in my dreams the rehab doesn't work, and in addition, he sticks me with the check at a diner.

I get out of bed grumpily, but the cat is thrilled and runs towards the narrow wooden stairs-she heads down them quickly but carefully, her little white bottom moving from side to side. Gigi Colette disproves the theory of feline grace: This cat can fall off of a chair. I've seen it. We go to the kitchen, which is delineated from the living room by a high white Chinese screen, and I pull the Purina Indoor Cat food out of the cupboard. Excitement reigns, many cries of Now Now Now from the feline contingent, and I feed her and put the kettle on.

Then I come up here to write this and to drink my tea.

***

This week is a lot of the dealing with the medical catch-up: I have more dentistry today, I go to my new cardiologist tomorrow morning (so not sure if I will have time to write), and I get my first mammogram on Friday. Oh lord, I do hope it all goes well. It will be such a relief if it does.

Day 76, Be Brave Project; De Cold and Defiance

2008-11-24T08:58:00.004-05:00

Thank Goodness that cold snap is over for the moment--it's difficult to leave home when it's that icy outside. It's difficult to do anything except pile on the layers, knit, and think about what lovely little thing you'll be stuffing in your face next. It's also hard to face the world when dressed like a bloody Bostonian (though without the appearance of wearing hemp). All chic goes out the window, except for a very jaunty little faux fur toque I wear at an angle. Otherwise it's slate grey long underwear, double layers of cashmere, enormous complicated scarf twistings that look as if I was bandaged by a blind giant, a thick pea coat. . .and boots by L.L. Bean.

The ultimate concession. Practical footwear.

Saturday morning I donned this garb and caught the A train down to Columbus Circle. The searching northern wind made me realize, even though my hands were stuffed deep into my pockets, that one of my gloves had torn at the right index finger--cold wind flooded in through that finger tip, straight up to my elbow. I would walk a block, jump into some card shop and wander around for 10 minutes, removing my hat before meandering through the shop with my cold finger inserted beneath my armpit like a thermometer. Then I jam my hat back on my head. . .and walk another block.

I assume everyone else was doing the same, unless the world awoke with a passion for Thank You notes that day.

What got me out of the house, when I could have been home with knitting and cat and fabulous footwear and food? My friend Kendall invited me to a noon SAG screening of the not-yet released film Defiance. I love a good WWII film (who doesn't delight to see Nazis taught a lesson, yet again?), and I particularly love it when there's a new true story to tell.

Defiance is about the Bielski brothers in Russia, Jewish men who are forced away fro the family farm into the woods near their home--their parents have been slaughtered by the Russian police, who are being paid the equivalent of $500 a head to kill or turn in Jewish people. The Bielskis bring along a rather half-witted farm boy, who you suspect will be a bit of dead weight, a gun with four bullets, and very little food. They swear that they will take care of the farm boy, but beyond that remain a tight lone trio.

However people--other Jews seeking asylum-- kept finding them. By the end of the winter the Bielskis had created a community of Jews in the forest, more than several hundred people strong. They built shelters, had schooling, food, weapons. And they also had power struggles, between the two oldest brothers.

The brothers are played by Jamie Bell (the guy who might one day shake the "Billy Elliott" label), Liev Schrieber (supposedly one of the great theatre actors of his generation, but known to me as the sarky guy from Scream), and. . .well, there's no other way to explain my foray out into the cold. . .Daniel Craig as the oldest brother.

It is a fascinating and beautifully shot film. The cast acquits itself well and there are some rocking action scenes involving guerrilla attacks on Nazis. There are also some rather amusing movie conventions like 1. It's easy to tell the bad guys, because they have bad teeth. Everyone else in the forest clearly brought dental floss, but the Bad Guys neglected to do so and the decay apparently went to their morals. 2. The Brothers Bielski, though they entered the woods in unprepossessing woolen jackets, somehow are rakishly dressed in belted leather bombers halfway through. We do see Schreiber steal one coat, but the others look as if they were provided by the Calvin Klein Brigade. And I dug it.

The actors are excellent, the Russian accents well done--and DC does show one coquettish naked shoulder. Excellent. I was surprised, however, to find that Liev Schreiber stole the show. He was more than slightly thrilling as the angry alpha male who couldn't bear being outshone by his older brother. More than slightly thrilling.

Thrill was added by the fact that there were guards hired by the film studios in the aisles during the screening of the film--we were told that if anyone so much as filmed as much as one image of this movie on their cell phones, these guards would be all over them. If the one of the security guards had been in a belted leather jacket, I might not have been able to resist. . .

Day 75; The Be Brave Project; Top Chef, US versus Euros.

2008-11-20T09:21:00.006-05:00

IN the name of the father, the son and all that is mangled, seasoned, and stuffed into a casing--I am absolutely thrilled that "Top Chef" is back on the air! And better than ever, as one of its primary components of tension this year is the spicy yet intimidating mix that IS New York City.

And some brilliant, brilliant producer (who is probably 14 years old and has text messaging capability inserted in the skin beneath her forearms) decided to further mix it up by adding some Europeans. With impeccable timing, it's being done just as NYC has become the world's Walmart, with people jetting over here to buy luxury goods at 40% off their price at home. An economic war is being waged, and it is on our home turf: Now THEY are overpaid, oversexed, and over here.

And I do mean oversexed! The entire episode was woven together with soundbites that seem to be lines from bad porno films or medical guides to sexually transmitted diseases.

Examples:

* Guest judge, a woman I can't help but like: "Gimme a good chorizo and I'm happy!"

* A diner, on how the food made him feel dirty, dirty: "It's a terribly slimy feeling on the tongue afterward."

* Chef Hosea, a big goateed boy, gives us the downlow on his offering: "lumpy, little, short sausages." And he was right--those poor mangled meat bits looked like a botched circumcision on a plate.

*Fabio, whenever he's not recounting some damn Italian parable about dragons and princesses, "I love hotdog! I know how make sausage!" It's like an opening line for a deli-based porno.

Absolutely divine. Padma's still stoned out of her gourd, Tom Coliccio is still oddly attractive (and I suspect the two of them of bangin' sausage into casing in the refrigerated walk-in). They will even be having a guest judge in Toby Young, an english wanker of the first degree who never seems to know when he is being profoundly inappropriate.

Excellent.

BBP--Today I go back to the doctor. Taking it step by step.

Be Brave Project, Day 74; Summary

2008-11-19T09:10:00.004-05:00

This picture is by the woman whose blog alerted me to the Be Brave Project back in July--she is an artist whose cards are for sale, and which benefit animal rescue. The quote beneath is hard to read. It says, "Your work is to discover your work, and then with all your heart give yourself to it."--Buddha.

I like that. It might seem as if I have taken a bit of a breather from the original goals of my particular branch of the Be Brave Project, but I have actually been disconcertingly (to me) assiduous in my efforts.

I have been going to the library to work on the plot of the novel every day now for weeks.

I have health insurance!

I now have a doctor, and have begun to get myself vetted out head to toe, with a gynecologist and a cardiologist. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, when I will hear the results of my blood tests. I'm a bit anxious, but hopeful.

Still haven't got AB to read my screenplay--need to work on that again. He keeps eluding the nets I set out for him, and it is tricky because of our non-dating history (he wanted to, I very much didn't).

My taxes are all entirely sorted out. My account with the IRS is absolutely up-to-date--debts are paid that I didn't know I had, and they turned out to be quite small compared (oh my!) to the amount of money I was owed. This has been a huge relief, an enormous burden lifted. Very important to note about myself that I was not meant to live as a rogue or a rebel: Those who get all fluttery due to late tax payments should not attempt to live as runaways. Note to Self.

And oh, the book. . .well, as I said, I've been working on the plot. And I want to get some intense writing done in the next month, before I return to Chicago for Christmas.

Meanwhile, the economy seems to be sliding into ever more frightening abysses, and my chances of getting any kind of pre-qualifying for any kind of mortgage are pretty slim. . .

The odd thing is that what remains for me right now, to replace the self-contempt I felt due to the losses incurred while lushing it up on other continents, is a sort of low and swirling anxiety. This is not helped by the holiday season and the worry over my mother's cirrhosis. This is not aided by my father and step-mother being locked in a cabal of recrimination and blame, talking of discontinuing relations with my brother due to what his wife said, and accusations to me of treating my step-mother badly--in the future. Yes, they've decided to become angry before-hand, to save time and money.

All the causes of the drinking and the running away are still there within me. Of course. I thought every thing would get sorted out so quickly, be so straightforward. I am learning to practice a little patience; it takes a while to undo these things. But today I will again go to a meeting, go the the library and work on my book, go to the gym.

Tomorrow I work at the Consulate. There is really a great deal to be thankful for on this crisp winter day, where thin pink strips of clouds float over the Manhattan apartment buildings outside my window, and sometimes that is the brave think I need to do most of all. Just be thankful.

Day 73, Be Brave Project; Hummous and Heartache

2008-11-18T09:13:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I did something that I've done only once or twice before--I went out for a meal after the women's meeting. Socializing with fellow lushes from AA is something that I never, ever thought I would go in for; thought they'd all be so busy tucking their toes into the torn cloth of their shoes, or going down to the soup kitchen for seconds on that dishwater minestrone. Of course, sadly, there are homeless people in AA, and people who have hit extremely low bottoms.

But the majority of people, of course, have jobs. Have homes that they live in and a sufficiency of shoes. . .it's still not a festival of mental health, but neither are most crowded subway cars nor, now I think of it, were the social events in my graduate school. I have a great fondness for Columbia University, but there's no denying that the School of the Arts is a breeding ground for the high-strung. Someone once dropped a plate at an end-of-semester party, and you had to crowbar my colleagues off the ceiling.

Anyway, my lunch yesterday was with two women who work in the media, both as writers for very successful television shows and magazines. They own their own houses (ooh I'm jealous of that), they dress beautifully and have the sort of resumes that most people can only dream of. . .but both are very funny, and occasionally rattled by anxieties and insecurities. It was such an enjoyable afternoon--from the outside we looked like successful Manhattan career women, swathed in camel hair coats with high wedge shoes and expensively angled haircuts--but it felt like junior high school. We sat and ate bowls of hummous and thick yogurt, and kept ordering more and more of the warm fresh thick pita bread. Laughed over Jessica's husband having to put his foot down over the amount of lame ducks she brings home ("No more Virgins or refugees!"), and over Maya's attempts to get her cat to lose weight.

I left afterwards feeling very good because a) it was the first sugar free meal I'd eaten since Friday, and b) it's just healing to laugh with women friends.

Then, when I got home last night, I received an email from my father--a weighty and worrying thing. Very kindly inviting me down for Christmas, but also filled with anxiety and dread over his financial state and reflecting his wife's anxieties about the future, after he dies. She likes to talk about that alot. Now she is 'justifiably' doubtful that my brothers and I will be there for her. . .and she and my older brother's wife are quarreling over Catholicism, mutual insecurities, and a well-intentioned party last summer that went horribly wrong when it was decided we were insulting my step-mother.

Which we weren't. I always liked her--but now insecurities and rage and resentments are simmering on low boil and things don't seem to be cooling down. Resentments are very damaging things for alcoholics--for anyone, really--and everyone is throwing shit and blaming others for their dirty hands.

I want to stay out of it, but don't see how I can. My interests are being threatened by people who aren't quite balanced, and my happiness is dampened by how hurt everyone is and how willing to throw blame around. Why not just give it time and assume things will work out well?

Why not, indeed.

Wish I had some more hummous.

Day 72, Be Brave Project; Forbidden Fruits (and Veg)

2008-11-17T09:22:00.003-05:00

I don't quite know why, but I spent the weekend eating like a 14 year old girl who was let loose from parental supervision. Last night's dinner was a box of Entenman's chocolate chip cookies and a couple of pints of skim milk. The night before was Breyer's chocolate ice cream, a smashed sweet potato with brown sugar and butter, a salad, and many tea biscuits.

That's not educated eating.

Those aren't adult food habits. And, frankly, it's a little weird because since I quit drinking I also (say Hallelujah!) quit dieting, so nothing's verboten. And I always thought that it was by forbidding foods that one made them ultra-desirable. Sort of like how telling bible belt kids not to have sex doesn't make them actually not have sex--it just makes them stupid about it.

But something was compelling me to treat cheap dessert items like a southern boy's invitation to the barn this weekend, and I didn't quite know what was up with that. I knew what I was doing, but I still went ahead with it. . . Then, last evening I was out on Columbus Avenue looking for a news stand and I realized.

I miss wine shops at Christmas. They're so sparkly and festive, like candy stores for adults--my favorites are the ones that have open crates of wine piled up, with the wine resting on straw while in the background the more serious reds stand sentinel on the shelves. I miss the cheese tastings and the people all bundled up in their nice wool coats.

I walked by a very attractive wine shop like it was an ex-boyfriend's house. Casual gait, but I didn't blink and I took in everything. The beaujolais nouveau est arrivee, the Sam Adams sign in the window, the wide wooden planks on the floor. The flickering golden light and the rushed employees in their smart green aprons.

Frack. I kept going, to my damn AA meeting, which last night felt like nothing so much as a cliche spouting load of bullshit, with the same people telling the same stories for the same spurious reasons. . .then I came home and ate my Entenman's.

Because frankly, even at my most tempted moments (like last night) I do realize that not drinking is in a way much more interesting than drinking is for me: I know what happens when I drink for a long time. I know what I look like and what I achieve. . . this not pouring the same old crap down the same unsatiated gullet is what is new, and interesting and potentially life-changing.

And I suppose a few empty calories are worth it.

Day 71; Be Brave Project; Parties, Pumpkins and Plot

2008-11-14T09:10:00.006-05:00

More party invitations coming in, and also much BBP related Plot work is progressing--which makes me feel wonderful and very, very encouraged.

But first, of course, we will turn to food:

My cousin in London makes the most "more-ish" pumpkin bread, which people there thought was an absolutely bizarre and wondrous thing. . .she would give loaves of it to her dry cleaners, to her house cleaner, to her neighbors. It was a way of bringing a little of the mid-west to south-west London and it helped to make her very popular indeed.

And I have been craving the stuff--that moist texture, the very slight and piquant taste of autumn that comes with squash, the cinnamon and ginger combination. Oh my. . .but I didn't have a recipe, apart from ones I'd look up on the internet that contained something like 1/2 cup of oil.

Now really. You're making a bread that contains moist mushy squash--how much damn oil do you need? I ended up hauling out my old recipe for Low-Fat Banana Bread and adapting it. It worked Beautifully--and only one tablespoon of fat in the entire loaf. Bring out the butter, cos' I've got calories to burn!

Low Fat Pumpkin Bread

2 large eggs

3/4 cup of sugar--half brown, half white granulated

1 can pumpkin

1/3 cup of buttermilk--if you don't have buttermilk, use 1/3 c milk + 1 teaspoon vinegar.

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 c flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon clove

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

(1 tablespoon grated orange rind)

(1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts--tossed in a handful of flour so they don't sink in the dough as it cooks)

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 8x 4x 2.5 inch bread pan. Beat two eggs and the sugar in a bowl until thick and frothy. Mix in pumpkin, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Sift flour, baking powder and soda, salt and spices--blend gently. If you are adding nuts and orange rind, fold into the batter. Pour into bread pan.

Bake for approximately one hour, or until a knife draws out clean. Turn out onto rack and cool.

Delicious! I took a thick slice to the library yesterday, and it was a very nice quiet but satisfying lunch. Came home and had some more. . .and will be doing the same today.

I do like my Fridays: The gym is empty and much of the fierce competition for machines is gone. The library is also considerably emptier, and today I think I will do some shopping so I have some McIntosh apples in the house.

Last night I was invited to another party, but this one is being thrown by someone in AA--so there's no being trapped between red-wine drinkers and asked to carry their bill at the end of the night. December 7th, from 4 to 8 in the evening: Very, very civilized and I am looking forward to it, almost. No, I think I actually am. Doesn't hurt that it's only 12 blocks from my house.

Excellent. Now I can turn down 1/2 of my invitations, accept 1/2, and not feel like a complete isolating loser. And in regards to the Be Brave Project, I think that I am moving forward at a better pace than I perhaps usually believe. I am working hard on Plot for my book, and coming up with some good ideas, I think. I am beginning to believe that quiet focused work will sort of pull together a plot that is out there already, just sort of waiting to be connected. . .

I don't know. That sound weird; I was at a meeting last night thinking about it, and it seemed that all of my tension and panic about plotting and writing and failing failing failing was such a waste of energy, so superfluous--when the plot was already written, in a way, and all I have to do again is adapt it. . .

Maybe better not to talk about that too much, as I don't want to ruin that sensation.

Anyway, I'm working on plot. I'm all paid up with the IRS. I have health insurance. I'm seeing the doctor again next week, gave blood tests, have appointment for mammogram. I do really hope it all turns out well. Dental stuff is on-going, but manageable.

My life has changed since starting this in July--all I have to do is look over my right shoulder at the skyline of the UWS, and I can see that.

Day 70!? Be Brave Project; Parties

2008-11-13T09:12:00.005-05:00

Did anyone hear that slight whizzing sound in the air? It began last night at Midnight. I was in bed eating a Cadbury Fruit & Nut bar and reading Jeanine Basinger's book "A Women's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960", when suddenly my cat looked up and shook her head. I heard it too--vhhhhhrrrrrrrrrr. . .vhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrr. . .

It was the sound of a million retailers bracing themselves for a crap holiday season. It was the rustle of a housewife turning over in bed as she thinks of what the hell she can sell on Ebay for gift money. It was the clicking of a thousand knitting needles, the drawing out of millions of credit cards. . .the tearing open of millions of envelopes.

The Holiday Season 2008 has begun.

I have received 3 party invitations in the last week. Perhaps you would think it churlish if I mentioned that my response to each invitation is one of profound disinterest mingled with a sprinkling of resentment?

Why ever would you think that? Elusive D is usually the soul of social ease and access and-- oh, let's face it. That's not true and never was. The fact is, if I have a choice between putting on a dress, stockings, some rather fabulous Lulu Guinness shoes and taking a train to Park Goddamn Slope, OR staying home and watching the new Top Chef series while eating pumpkin bread, the decision is easy: Those Lulu Guinness shoes are ON in a New York instant, just before I cut a slice of bread and head towards the tv.

Cannot tell you how many nights I have watched tv in stilettos and sweat pants. It's quite a nice little look, in its weird way. And you never end up limping along a street, 19 blocks away from public transportation, wishing like hell you hadn't eaten that weird brown party dip.

So. . .the question is, to go or not to go?? Here are the three parties:

One: A dinner party in a restaurant. Setting: East Village. Cast: Restaurant workers, young urban professionals, people in the arts. The party is for my friend Courtney's birthday. She's dating a very much younger guy whose charms completely elude me, though she seems to think he's a charmer. Attractive men possibility: High, a possible mix of Harvard grads who went on to write books, and puppyish waiters who think they're more interesting than they are. This party would be fine, and perhaps even fun, if I were drinking.

But I'm not. I don't want to go.

Two: A cocktail/nibbles party in, again, the East Village. This is in the legendary building The Christadora, where Iggy Pop lived for years (his album Avenue B is about that time). This party is older people, ex-hippies, and might have some very amusing election related discussion. I will feel very young and slender, and be treated as someone without opinions. . .though that's easy enough to turn around. The food will be excellent, the seating non-existent, same with likelihood of attractive men.

I lean towards going to this party.

Three: The party in Park Slope. Cast: Unknown, but some of the players from Party #1. Setting: An apartment shared by two women, aspiring singers in their 30's. I suspect the food will be of the variety served in styrofoam bowls. The theme is good, though: Wear your Finest Recession Garb. You can only wear things that are already in your closet, and you must look as fabulous as possible. There might be attractive men here, of the deeply neurotic variety.

I do have some rather fabulous things in my closet, but there is no chance in hell that I am going out to Park Slope to watch relative strangers drink. I don't even know where Park Slope is.

Party #1 is the only one where people might be offended if I don't go, but it's also the only one where I'd be stuck at a table, watching people drink, for absolute HOURS--and then get stuck with a bill where I pay for other people's drinks. "Oh, just split it in 18". . .and if I bitch then I look like a complete asshole.

No, no, no. I don't want to go.

I used to love the holiday season when I lived in London. The glamor of that dirty town after dark, with dodgy over-priced train service adding to the mystery. Men in London are more attractive to me, simply due to their verbal dexterity and the fact that they actually really do try to impress you. Very sweet, that. I always liked them for it.

But NY men are too neurotic, too entitled. Or they're in AA and simply too damaged, like me.

But oh, it'd be fun to meet someone with a sillly sense of humor. . .unfortunately, everyone with the sense of humor I most love lives on a different continent. I suppose that's the definition of being, well, Elusive. And a bit dim.

But it makes me sad. How to meet a nice Brit in NYC?

Day 69, Be Brave Project; Eavesdropping and Dis-ease

2008-11-12T08:53:00.007-05:00

I'm feeling a little. . .thoughtful today. A tad on the contemplative side. Ruminative: slowly chewing things over with the teeth of my mind.

Oh dear. The teeth of my mind?? Let's continue nonetheless.

You see, the end of the year has rushed right up on me. It's come snaking right up towards my ass, and I do not appreciate it. It seems it was just a minute ago that I was at my old apartment, listening to the grinding churn of my air-conditioner. . .and suddenly I've bought my tickets home for Christmas. Gak.

6 weeks to the end of the year, and I haven't achieved enough. I haven't written enough. I haven't put myself out there dating-wise (and cannot really imagine that happening anytime soon). I haven't found a way to make some good money while putting some behind. I instead am still living in my hand-to-mouth sort of way, hoping for the best but not sufficiently planning for the worst. And not writing enough.

I think much of this was stirred up by what happened when I went back to my dentist's office yesterday. I tripped in merrily, said Hello to Maya at the desk--who knows me well enough now to just smile and point towards the seating area--and sat myself down to read a US News & Weekly Report all about the election. I was feeling quite perky; had just spent some time at the gym and then at the library working on structure for a novel. I was wearing my new "rich girl" Italian camel's hair jacket (from my favorite thrift shop--score!) that I'd recently had dry-cleaned, and elegant wedge-heeled suede boots.

Next to me was sitting a stocky European man with shoulder-length salt and pepper hair. The waiting area at the dentist's is a very small, narrow space like the kitchen seating in a mobile home, and this man's hands and knees seemed to be too large. He leaned forward anxiously to ask Maya a question about his treatment--from her rather weary answers, I could tell this had been going on for some time. "How much percent do I get off on the root canal?" He asked. "Your dental plan gives 15% off, but we need to call them to confirm your plan." "Okay."

There was a pause as Maya turned toward her work, but her very ponytail was stiff with irritation at the question she knew was coming next.

"How much percent extra can I get off on the root canal?"

"None. You pay what the price is."

Pause.

"Can I get the root canal to pay by the month?"

"No."

"You said before maybe I could."

"Sir, the doctor said No."

The poor bastard, I thought smugly. Got his root canal ahead of him and not firmly in the past. I knew that like me, he hadn't budgeted for dental emergencies--just had his discount plan, a wing, and a prayer. Or rather a tooth, and an infection.

When I grew up it seemed all adults had everything covered--massive amounts of insurance, of money for camps or schools or trips. . .roomy houses and freedom from financial worry. There was great sorrow and resentment in my childhood home, and some violence--but no worry about money that I could detect. Now of course I know that there must have been, and that people face this stuff all of the time. Sometimes you cannot organize your life sufficiently. . .but the poor stocky man's worried face and timid persistent manner made me feel his vulnerability, and the vulnerability of all of us who haven't perhaps made the money we hoped to make, or done what we hoped we'd do with our lives so far.

So I was already moving from smugness to sympathy when Maya told me I could go into the dentist's room. I sat down in the angled vinyl chair, said Hello to the hygienist, and twiddled my thumbs whilst gazing at the ceiling. . .until I noticed that the hygienist was placing the colored pins on the tray in preparation for the dentist's arrival.

Actually, they just look like pins with brightly colored tips, but they are really tiny pin-like files. Used to clean out infected canals.

"Uhm--I had the root canal last week," I pointed out, "I'm just here to do the molding for a crown."

Her perfectly painted eyebrows rose, in pity. "No, mami. You are getting the rest of your root canal today."

"Whaa--?"

"Too much infection to get it all last week. . ."

Oh crap. The dentist snapped on his rubber gloves and broke out the dental dam.

An unpleasant hour ensued.

So that kicked up a lot of stuff for some reason: I walked home with a numb jaw and an unsettled mind, and when in the apartment all I could think was I should have bought somewhere when mortgages were easy--fuckin' fathead. I thought of Christmas and my brothers with their families, while I go visit my poor drunken mother should have married some poor guy just to get away get secure get settled. I look at my bank account and it all becomes you've got to write something now you've got to sell something now do it do it. . .

Not a good night.

But I will continue to get my medical tests done, get my dental crap dealt with. I will check with the editor at Women's Health to push for a response on the piece I sent her. And I will keep working on that novel structure. . . I need to be set in a career in 2009.

I need to settle down. At last.

Day 68, Be Brave Project; Neighborhood Fun or Smug Eco Mummy Alert?

2008-11-11T08:47:00.003-05:00

I received a flyer through my door around two weeks ago. "West 90th Street News", from the West 90th Street Park Block Association. This is not the type of thing that was distributed at my old address, where neighbor's dogs occasionally urinated outside my door but otherwise I lived in unbothered isolation.

Next weekend is apparently a biggie here on West 90th, with two days of activities including a street "Green Up" day, a Block-long tag sale and bake sale. The Green Up day is on Saturday from 11-1. The primary activities are getting daffodil bulbs to plant in containers and in garden fronts on the block, sanding and painting tree surrounds that haven't been maintained by the nearby buildings, painting yellow curb markings to define the no parking areas, and re-painting fire hydrants. Sounds sort of fun, actually. . .might get to know some of my neighbors. Seems like a friendly, helpful sort of thing to do. The kind of thing people do in Chicago, actually--not NYC.

But I am reluctant.

This seems like the kind of thing that might be made for people who have children--to foster a sense of community here in NYC. In other words, if I showed up, would I be surrounded by self-consciously virtuous eco-Mummies and their children?? If so, I cannot imagine anything more off-putting. I would smile my rictus grin at their kids--I never know what the hell to say to children, particularly these strange spoiled hyper-confident NY ones--and wish to hell I were at home.

However. An ex-boyfriend of mine did something like this, at his old place in Grammercy Park. He was assigned an area to keep clean, and one morning when he was out tending it, no doubt wearing his black biker's jacket and Ramones t-shirt, he began chatting to a woman in a suit who was walking by. Turned out she also had a little plot that she was keeping clean. Turns out she lived in the area. . . And then, Peter told me on the last night I ever saw him, it also turned out that she had inherited a three bedroomed rent-control apartment.

I knew he'd marry her, and he did.

But if leather jacketed Italian guys do stuff like this, then why not me? It's a good way to meet people in the area, and I do desperately need a cat sitter for Christmas.

Or I could put together a table for the tag sale on Sunday, though that requires 6 hours of sitting outside in the brisk chilled air. My final option is to bake something for the bake sale that day, which really is the wimp's way out because all I do then is give my banana bread to the relevant people and then walk away. Not much involvement.

So I will think about it today, and then probably call and volunteer for the Green-Up Day on Saturday. . .after I check the weather.

I don't see myself doing rainy day charity. At least, not yet.

*****

Re. the Be Brave Project:

I have continued on the medical front, and woke up yesterday to get my blood tests. Such an inconvenience, because (like most lushes) I am such a creature of habit that not having my morning cup of tea really chapped my ass. Sipping an abstemious glass of H2O somehow didn't do it for me. Hopped the D train down to Columbus Circle, where a large-busted lady in a very tight flowered smock took one, two, three, five vials of blood from me, and then wanted a urine test out of the blue. Good lord!

I am a little nervous about the results of the blood test, and also wondering if there's still some infection from those abscesses floating around my system. . .but I also am very curious to know things like my cholesterol level and my iron level. Next step on the medical front is to see the Doctor again in 9 days, and begin making appointments for gynecology and cardiology.

I'm getting it ALL checked out, for the first time this millenium.

Oh my I hope it all looks good. . . today another trip to the dentist to make sure my Lower East Side is infection free and to get fitted for a crown. Good bye, Europe money!

Day 67, Be Brave Project; Fabulous Autumn Soup Recipe

2008-11-10T08:31:00.004-05:00

What a lovely weekend; no opiates, no tortuous pain or grotesque resemblence to Joseph Merrick. . . shopping and exercise and cooking, reading the newspapers and watching tv. I don't have much time to write this a.m., as I have to go get blood tests near Columbus Circle and I can't eat or drink tea until then.

But I did create a beautiful autumnal soup recipe from what I had around the house this weekend, so I will write it down:

Sweet Potato, Ginger, and Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

1 onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 thumb of ginger, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

T of olive oil

1/2 t of nutmeg

Saute these over a low flame for 7 minutes, then add:

6 cups of chicken broth

1 peeled and coarsely chopped sweet potato

Let simmer over medium flame for 15 minutes, then add:

1 medium roasted butternut squash--no skin, of course. (I had one as a leftover--cook for 2x as long as the recipe advises.)

Mix, and then blend with immersion blender. Add:

salt

pepper

2 t brown sugar

1 shake Louisiana hot sauce

Let simmer over very low flame for a bit. Ideally, you would turn off the flame and let the soup sit for an hour or two for the flavors to blend (best is if you make it the day before serving). Serve garnished with a dollop of cream and sage or chives, as above, or just on its own.

4 servings.

Day 67, Doctors and Dentists and Popcorn, Oh MY!

2008-11-07T09:11:00.005-05:00

Beware the humble popped kernel--whether coated in the most nefarious of chemicals, caramel, or salted butter, that seemingly innocuous treat can end up costing you. Turns out everyone knew this except me: One of those crispy popcorn skins gets beneath your teeth and eludes flossing. . .next thing you know you've got an abscess, your face blows up like a Republican election campaign, and you're shelling out big bucks to have the thing surgically removed.

Next time you're at your local multi-plex, shudder and look away from the popcorn. Or do as I did and have a separate emergency fund that you can tap into just for dental emergencies--of course my fund was in a money market account labelled "Savings For Trip to Europe", but that means nothing. Just girlish dreaming.

Sigh.

However, today is my first normal day since it all began, in the gruesome distant past, on Ooctober 28th. I still have a small hard lump o' pain on my lower east side (dentally), and I am still on mega-penicillin, but I feel normal! I will be going to the gym and the library to work! I will be going to my favorite market in the city--in North America, perhaps--the West Side Market on 110th Street, to eat their free samples and buy salad, lunch, and slivers of chocolate.

Then I'll march up the rain-sodden streets to the NYPL, Morningside Branch, for a look around at their videos. It's all terribly high-minded in there, with Kieslowski and Fellini and Truffaut videos being relieved by the occasional BBC production of a Hardy novel. I've always suspected that there are some professors who scurry up Broadway looking over their shoulders, guiltily aware of the copy of Fast Times at Ridgemont High they have in their leather satchels.

Today is a normal day, and I am so pleased about it. I will work in lovely Butler library overlooking Kim Mead and White's beautifully designed campus, meant to re-create an Italian piazza. I will snap on my iPod and listen to George Clinton's "Atomic Dog". I will exercise long and hard--I've missed it. Amazing how difficult to do that when in searing unfeasible unremitting crazy-making pain.

As far as the BBP goes, I went to my new doctor yesterday. Her offices are on a shabby stretch of 58th street, where the buildings are so tall that daylight never seems to reach the street and pedestrian faces are always in shadow, like E. Hopper paintings. When you step into the building, however, all is mahogany and velvet chairs, with a wolfishly grinning doorman directing you to the office.

I liked that. I love the feeling of finding a little oasis of civility in the dark loud hustling city.

It was an incredibly thorough first visit: I filled in many forms as to my own and family's medical history, my desires for the visit. . .I peed in a cup and then was weighed and measured (I AM 5'3"!! I always thought I was lying, that I was an inch shorter!), before the doctor came in. Then I spent a while alone, banging my heels together on that padded metal table.

Getting more nervous and ashamed of myself by the minute.

After a while I began to say the serenity prayer, but couldn't do it properly. I kept interrupting it with my own impatience.

God, Grant me the Serenity where the hell is she I'm freezing here

To Accept the things I cannot change, Oh god I'm a mess and I don't know where I'll start. . .

The Courage to change the things I can Should I lie about how long since I've seen a doctor??

And the Wisdom to know the difference. I don't want to know if I'm sick--I feel fine and I don't want to know if anything's wrong--ignorance is bliss is bliss is bliss knowledge is popcorn in my gums--

Then the Doctor walked in. She is blonde, with chin length hair and pale skin. She looks a little weary, very kind, and as if she has a dry sense of humor. And she spent an unbelievable amount of time with me. When was the last time you first visited a doctor and she looked over your histoy and talked to you for 45 minutes?

So now I'm set up. With a gynocologist and a cardiologist. With blood tests on Monday and a mammogram on the 28th. All this testing is frightening. . .but this is the stuff everybody faces. I don't get a free pass just because I want one, or because I'm a lush, or because I'm scared.

Life on Life's terms, once again. It feels okay.

Day 66, The Be Brave Project: Facts and Fears

2008-11-06T09:20:00.004-05:00

Here are 3 Facts About New York City the day after the Election:

1. You couldn't get a single paper except the damn Daily News, which so offended people by referring to the Obama family as "The New Camelot" that I suspect it remained on the news-stands all night (we really, really are nervous for the man's continued health. Kennedy references are profoundly inappropriate: these Right Wingers have guns). The Times people were idiots in not cranking their papers out: London publishers could have told them that in times of emotion people regress a bit, and want something they can hold. That being said, hits for the NYT website were 29% higher than they ever have been.

2. For the first time ever, I heard racist comments on the street. There were 2 of them, and they were pretty mild, but I was shocked and disappointed. But I realized that some people's thinking will need an alignment and it's probably good to have it come out in 'jokes' than in sullen anger. . .and the longer this administration goes on, the more normal it will become. But it made me sad (we must note: I am still on massive amounts of medication so my defenses are not what they usually are).

3. More importantly, and far far more frequently, there was an air of friendliness and (if my drugged mind was not too distorted) a sort of almost sexual energy in the air. Everyone was checking each other out--so much more eye-contact than New Yorkers are used to. We are proud. We stood in line for hours to vote. We broke the Southern Strategy, we defied the Bradley Effect, we didn't vote according to gender or skin color or financial resources--a higher percentage of people earning more than $200,000 a year voted for Obama than for Kerry despite the fact that O has threatened them with greater taxes. On 81st and Broadway a family had just set up a table, and was giving away coke and cookies. The coke was cold and the cookies were good; I stood there and tried not to be shy--I grinned my swollen grin, and I felt what it was like to be excited by our political future.

On the BBP: Today I am going to see my new doctor for a first check-up. Due to the being a lush and all, I have not had a thorough check-up in a very, very long time. I am frightened by it, but living according to the "life on life's terms" and "face your fears" mottoes. I hope it will be all right. . .

Day 65; Election Daze and Opiate Nights

2008-11-05T09:15:00.006-05:00

Fatigued from the shock surgery on my poor infected and opiate-dazed system, I realized that yesterday I wasn't getting much done.

Apart from voting.

Other than that, it was the kind of day when you bend over to pick up a newspaper and then stand half-erect in the hallway with your mouth hanging slack, wondering what you were going to do with it. Build models of the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria? Create a miniature reconstruction of the earth's atmosphere? Uhmmm. . . .hm.

So I took my mega-doses of amoxycillin and wearily got dressed. Found my voter registration documents, a passport, two bills with my name and address on, a New York Magazine and a bottle of water, and headed out for the Goddard Riverside Community Center. This time I knew there'd be no problem--I'd planned ahead and was going during the slow hours of the day. I'd checked out the locale in advance, so no wandering around.

Only, there was no one there. Or rather, when I pulled open the bullet-proof doors of the building, I found several painters at work, and a secretary looking at one of them flirtatiously. No lines, no pushy volunteers, no people apart from flirter and painters. They told me the voting was around the corner, at P.S. 58. Okay--walked down there and found the full voting system set up, including old-style booths with curtains and big red levers to pull. I began to get girlishly excited.

But the sign said District 10, and my papers said District 9, "Goddard Riverside Community Center". Oh crap. Went to the volunteers and showed them the paperwork that I'd so vigilantly had sent to me. They said that people were voting at the GRCC. I said, No--Flirting and Painting is going on there. I was told that I couldn't vote at District 10, had to vote at District 9. At . . .well, you know where.

Finally a small woman with the compact form of a fire hydrant dashed up. Her name tag said MARIA, and every other tooth was missing in her mouth, which told me that she has known pain. She gave me random papers and then looked at mine, all while telling me that she had so much energy that none of the other volunteers could keep up with her!! A glance at the other volunteers faces showed this to be her own rather positive spin on the situation. She then took back the papers she'd given me, grabbed my hand, and said we were going back to the GRCC and sorting this out--they'd been sending people there all day and they'd been coming back saying they couldn't vote--let's go let's go let's fix this right now.

She pulled me back to the Community Center, we saw the same secretary (who now was toying with strands of her long dark hair as she coyly told her painter that he was fucked up on fumes), and Maria stormed up to her. Within 12 seconds it was all straightened out: There are 2 GRCC's, within 5 blocks of each other, both with the same name and primary address.

Of Course there are.

I bid adieu to Maria and rinsed my mouth in some salt water as I headed for the polling place. Here, after a wait in line with nervously excited ladies wearing hemp clothes, older women in tweed jackets and hair helmets, and an intriguing amount of rastafarians (could this area be where musicians choose to live!? If so--excellent!), I reached the front of the line. An angry putty-faced man glared at me and my papers and looked me up in the book. "You're not there."

Well, I'm here--and here is my voting card and address change documentation.

"You can't vote here."

I looked around and saw that I was in District 9, and that a neighbor of mine was standing on line eating a bagle and reading P.G. Wodehouse.

"Oh Yeah?"

I pushed past him until I saw someone who looked both competent and important. Explained my situation and ended up sitting at a table (not a lovely curtained booth), voting by means of an: Official Standby Ballot for voters for the General Election

November 4, 2008

City of New York

County of New York.

My work was done. I pushed out by the crowds and walked home, trying not to cup my hand over my swollen mis-shapen jaw. As I walked, dazed by pain and opiates and stress and sudden oral surgery, I foolishly thought to myself. . .I am America--infected and tired and hi-jacked by combative, destructive, extremely costly forces that are sapping my energy at every step.

And I'm so tired. But we've cut the infection out.

Day 64; Be Brave Project; Agony & Upstate Continued

2008-11-04T08:42:00.002-05:00

It's 8.43 Election Morning as I sit here at my desk the skyline of Manhattan's Upper West Side over my right shoulder and the sound of drilling. . .the sound of drilling. . .the sound of drilling coming from the building next door.

Can't get away from it. You see, I did travel upstate for Halloween weekend--for a time of crisp country drives and walks through a town consisting of 1 grocery store, 1 restaurant, 1 'video' store. To help my Aunt finish her canning for the year and to work on my projects upstairs in my room with the lovely golden quilted twin bed and the views over barns and rooftops.

What I did instead was roll on that bed, punching it in agony and shaking my fist at the skies. Or that was the first night, after my dental hell kicked back in, in high gear. By night #2 I was on codeine with acetaminophen. . .much less cursing and wailing, except for the early hours of the morning when the drug would wear off. I didn't cry--the crying came later.

And re. Codeine: That is, I must say, a pretty damn nice drug.

By Sunday my face swelled up to look as if my Aunt had been smacking me with a frying pan (enough codeine and I wouldn't have cared, really), and the throbbing twisting agony was making it impossible to sit still. Monday morning I had a pendulously large, square jaw--and a 3:00 meeting with my dentist.

Back in NYC, I wove my way down Columbus Avenue, clutching the hot egg-shaped swelling on my face--but like any self-respecting Manhattan woman was wearing a chic trench coat, immaculate heels, and clutching an over sized Canal street faux D&G bag. Glimpsing myself in shop windows I looked as if I were in a J. Crew shoot re-creating Munch's "The Scream"--one hand firmly clutched to jaw, eyes burning in pain, but a kicky little knot on my trench coat.

Got to 79th Street and my dentist--walked in looking forward to having this damn situation out of my hands and into someone else's. I expected the usual leisurely sit on the vinyl bench, more info about Madonna's divorce, some nervous glances from patients who wondered if my dental state was before or after treatment. . .

But one glance at me, and I was rushed into some secret back room I've never seen before: a lead apron was tossed over me, x-rays taken with quick intensity, instruments placed on high tables where I could only see their sharp tips gleaming. A gum specialist came in from God knows where. . .and next thing you know I'm being rushed E.R. style to another secret room--secret rooms come expensive in Manhattan, and should have made me worry--to be told what was going on.

I had a double abscess and would need an emergency root canal immediately. The infection over the last few days already had killed much of the gum surrounding the tooth and surgery would be required to trim the dead bits still carrying the infection. . .

Holy Crap. Emergency root canal. Not the way to begin the holiday season! It all began immediately, with the gum guy going in to the top abscess and pulling clumps of rotted gum out, before my guy went in to drill away my molar and do the emerg. root canal--such fun it was! The best part: Abscesses apparently don't take Novocaine as regular flesh does, so I had to have 3 direct shots into the burning infected center of the pain. After the root canal, the gum work proceeded, and then a temporary crown.

An hour later, with patients piled up in the waiting room glaring , until they saw the state of my face, I wobbled up to the desk and was given the bill. And that, after a week of what I was told is the worst dental pain you can go through, is when I began to cry.

I handed over my card, weeping. I wept in the elevator, and all the way home. I wept in the Duane Reade as I gave them my prescriptions for amoxycillin and more codeine. And in the elevator up to my apartment. Once I closed the door behind me, all pretense of stiff-upper lipping it was off and I wept like an Italian widow. . .

All my savings for a trip to Europe in the summer. Wiped out in one painful, painful afternoon.

Day 63, Be Brave Project; Agony and Upstate

2008-10-30T08:49:00.006-04:00

After the last entry I reclined on the sofa like a Victorian housewife, gripping my upper arms and trying not to scream. . .that was a long 4 hours. Time in which I began to move from Victorian housewife on the verge of hysterics (due to extreme corseting of body and mind) to a cornered animal. I began to think about what I would do to STOP THE PAIN. Take a sledgehammer to the face, if I were guaranteed the pain would stop?? Well. . .

Yes. After a while the answer was yes, please.

Crawled up to the dentist's office, only 11 blocks away, and waited in a chair clutching an Us magazine with Madonna and her ex-husband on the cover. That kabbalah she practices seems to have given her a great level of calm maturity, hasn't it? (Nope.) Dr. F came in, all curling brown toupee and gentle smile. He looked at the ex-ray, said my sinuses could be inflaming the nerve endings of my tooth that had the root canal and the crown--and he filed the crown down.

20 minutes later, reduction of pain at 80%.

Yesterday stayed at 80%. . .but enough to bring me back from the animal, to make me leave my Victorian sofa.

Now I'm going up-state for Halloween. I can be a silent, suffering warning to all children about the importance of proper dental hygiene.

Or I can just scare the crap out of them by telling them the story of my root canal last year. . .

Be Brave Project, Day 62; Back to the Dentist

2008-10-28T11:29:00.004-04:00

Ugh. Oof. Gra%d*(!

I'm in serious dental agony here.

Tooth whitening vanity project went just fine. . .except that one of the gently used cups seems to have dislodged a crown on my Upper East Side (of the mouth), and I spent the night gulping down Advil and trying not to weep.

Have a dentist's appointment in 3 hours. . .roll on, time.

That crown has been giving me trouble since it was installed, but the last few weeks I kept thinking, "Has that thing moved?"

Now it has, into the Zone of Agony.

2 hours 58 minutes.

Gak. Urrrghhh.

Day 61, Be Brave Project; Standards and Saccharine Sentiments

2008-10-27T08:58:00.006-04:00

Just looked at the opening sentence of my previous entry, and found that it made me want to beat my head with a shoe whilst vomiting abundantly, due to the excess of saccharine. Not the response I was hoping for or expecting.

"I have come to believe that working towards a goal is the only satisfying way to lead a life," or some such stuff. Well, it's sort of true--the most satisfying time I've spent since I quit drinking was when I was working on the screenplay adaptation. It's true and yet it sounds as if I'm some Oprah-watching, capri-wearing, cinnabun-munching housefrau who thinks her every little discovery is hers exclusively, yet fascinating to the rest of the world.

But. . .isn't that sort of self-absorption what a blog is about? Particularly a blog that is, however much I might chafe under this description, about self-improvement?

Urgh, well. . .urgh. . .yes. And my fear of being a frau really is nothing more than a form of sexism seasoned with envy that I have picked up from my gay male friends: They have a detestation of their married up/babied up/don't give a crap about their weight female co-workers so vehement that it clearly contains an enormous dollop of envy. The fat seems to bother them more than the smuggery (which is the part that gets me), but the result is the same and results in my gay friends coming out with this opinion: Big Fat Married Women are Like Children.

They get to stuff anything in their mouths at any time, look ghastly, and still have the expectation (How dare they think it's a RIGHT, my friend Will once asked) of being admired by their femininity and loved by their husbands. Will sat weeping in a darkened room the day before he turned 30, and when I tried to console him he whipped around dramatically--just like he was Crawford and I'd waved some metal hangers at him--to tell me, "For a gay man, 30 is the end. The end of dating as I've known it." And sadly, as Will's swimmer's build turned more solid from maturity and years of office work, it did turn out that the men no longer chased him as they had. This creates bitterness.

My gay friends starve themselves with incredibly expensive high protein diets. They are obsessive about gym memberships. They always know of a tooth-whitening deal, or of a discount on cashmere. There are very, very strong opinions on the wearing of flip-flops for men over 25. There is still, amazingly, even now the sort of self-loathing that societal disapproval can engender: A phrase popular after a particularly 'gay' sentiment has been expressed is, "That is why they hate us."

So my gay friends, many of them, loathe fat married women. Slender well-dressed women they can tolerate, because they're used to losing men to high-maintenance hotties. And the years of their endless bitching bitching bitching seems to have sunk into my head as well. Age if you must--Judy did, horribly and heartbreakingly, squandering love and talent along the way--but don't get fat. Or smug.

So that is why the 'living for your goals' statement clearly kicked something off in me--I do believe it. I do. But there's some part of me that also believes that if I start spouting such conventional bits of (irony free) wisdom, I'll suddenly start wearing Liz Clairborne clothing and socks knit out of shedded cat fur.

I want to be sober, but the life of the party. I want to be slender, but eat my Lindt chocolate. I want to find a relationship, but one where I cannot get hurt. I want I want I want. . .well, I want to remember the 'goals' comment and to live by it.

But I also am getting my teeth whitened today. And wearing fabulous shoes on my way there.

Day 59, Be Brave Project;

2008-10-23T09:10:00.002-04:00

Working towards a goal is the only really satisfying way to lead a life, I belatedly believe. (I also am beginning to come around to other radical concepts like paying my bills, and the benefits of not ingesting poison on a regular basis.)

But back to the goals: Not even I can delude myself into believing that no one told me about this 'achievement' thing, so I can only come to the embarrassing conclusion that I suffered from deafness in addition to depression. I come from a family of high achievers, but both of my parents hated their jobs, their lives, and drink far, far too much. It was a lot like living in a mini-series entitled: John Cheever's People: The Next Generation. I was early on infected with the concept that one achieves basically to impress other people, and I didn't see that the flip side of that coin is obviously "because otherwise they'll find out you're crap."

Ish. No wonder my brothers and I are all anxious at best, and angry/evasive at worst. And my poor parents have never been content within themselves, not for a moment.

Anyway, The Achieving Goal thing. This BBP--Which I recommend to anybody, even if done in my rather raggedy and roaming manner--has really shown me the satisfaction of that. Since July I have done my terrifyingly belated taxes, received refunds for all three (most of which just ended up paying fines, but that's still a fantastic step forward). I have got myself health insurance at a price I can almost afford. I have paid my bills and paid off one credit card in full--and my credit rating has gone up 50 points. I have battled with my landlords, written a letter to bargain them down to a more reasonable rent, and then seized the bull by the horns and accepted a fabulous opportunity to move. It's a bit uncertain, and frankly required accepting an un-official lease, but the financial and safety advantages are enormous.

Now I have two more things to do, apart from the Big Book Project:

-Get my Social Security card, now I'm cool with The Man. Then use that to re-new my driver's license.

-Go see a doctor and get a check up already.

And yesterday I called to make a doctor's appointment, with a woman who is highly recommended by a friend in AA. The appointment is two weeks from today: I frankly am frightened. I feel pretty good, I work out all the damn time and eat like a refined but famished linebacker. . .but it's been a while.

2 weeks.

Before that time I would like to get that Social Security card. Which means going back to Mid-Town to deal with NYC bureaucracy. . . .It's Halloween, so time to talk about SCARY!

Day 57, Be Brave Project; Insinuating Myself, via Halloween

2008-10-21T09:17:00.007-04:00

Since I returned to the States, Halloween has been one of my favorite holidays. First, it comes at the absolute best time of year, when one can wear both bulky sweaters and stilettos, when people are still friendly on the street and not dashing by in a huddled hurry in the freezing cold. Secondly, when I lived in England the English--though lovely people with a beautiful country and admirably evolved senses of humor, plus a social ferocity that keeps their politicians nice and tame--well, the English suck at Halloween. It's a Celtic holiday before we Americans grabbed and ran with it, and consequently has a whimsy that the Brits don't really get.

Back in the days when I was engaged to the Posh Bloke and living in his flat, I encountered many of the children of the privileged. They all understood that Halloween = Free Stuff, but didn't quite know how to go about it. If you saw a child in costume, it was a sure bet one of their parents had lived in the States. More usually, I would find myself in the somewhat Dickensian situation of finding myself suddenly surrounded by children who were holding out their bare, cold hands for food.

These children were also wearing Barbour jackets and $400 running shoes. And they thought they were Trick or Treating.

Tap on the shoulder. I'd turn. Five hands held out as they chirped "Trick or Treat!" "Do you think I walk around with my pockets filled with candy?" I asked. "No," one kid with Sideshow Bob hair explained patiently, "You just give me money."

Didn't happen. I told them where to get off and said that if they weren't wearing costumes and being paid in chocolate, their actions amounted to little more than extortion. Immediately their faces assumed expressions they'd seen in rap videos, and as I walked away I heard, "Fuckin' Septic."

That's Cockney rhyming slang, and is now now much beloved by the landed gentry: Apple and Pears = Stairs. Trouble and Strife = Wife. And Septic (Tank) = Yank. Slang for American. I turned around, walked back up to the kid--who did look frankly terrified--and laughed in his face.

But I still felt it was extortionate, and that these kids believed the world was going to rain money on them.

For the last 2 years I've gone upstate NY for Halloween in Sullivan County. My aunt has a house up there in a working class town where the majority of shops are closed up, and the bowling alley has closed down. More recently some people moved in to the area from NYC, and tried to establish posh antique and gift shops--which don't do very well. Times are tough, and a walnut veneer-front desk doesn't seem to be at the top of people's priorities. There's a lot of 80's hair and leaning on walls while smoking cigarettes--there's also beautiful countryside and gorgeous Victorian houses. It's a nice mix.

Anyway, the kids up there don't have money. But they still have a healthy respect for free candy and the people who give it to them, so they dress up properly for Halloween. Most of them make costumes at home (their mothers actually sew?!! See Picture above), or once they get older and cooler, they do a lot of scary gothic stuff with blood and lipstick and pillowcases. Remarkably effective. Last year more than 200 kids came to my Aunt's house--we gave away quality stuff: Mars bars and butterfingers and something called "Body Parts" which were severed fingers and ears made out of gummy jelly.

We were very popular, and the kids were so charming and happy just to walk around and see their friends and get their candy, that it sort of choked me up a bit. Felt like America can't be quite so fat and indifferent and spoiled if these kids are all so sweet. Very few of them seem to suffer from the personality loss that accompanies 'being cool'.

So I've devised a candy scheme here in my glorious Manhattan building, too. It is part of my nefarious and cunning plan to endear myself to the door people: I will present them with a pumpkin shaped box filled with candy to give to the kids in the building as they go by.

They might already have something set up, for all I know, but who's going to bitch about excess chocolate?? The door people need to stay awake and lively.

And I'm bringing out the big guns in my search for door-man respect: I'm giving out Snickers bars.

Yes, I am good.

Day 56, Be Brave Project; Ah, Autumnal Sundays & Curbside Treasures

2008-10-20T09:02:00.008-04:00

When I first stopped drinking I joined a gym, less for the health aspect than for a very real need to reduce anxiety. I was at that gym everyday, plugged into my two (not nearly as effective but at least not liver-damaging) new distractions, the reclining exercise bicycle and silly magazines. Every day another 60-70-90 minutes on the bike, gulp down a guilty magazine or two, 100 arms 100 abs, stretch sauna shower and back out the door to figure out what the hell to do with myself.

Unsurprisingly, I began to lose weight.

I was gratified--because in addition to cycling and silly magazines, I was also rather compulsively eating sugar. Sugar in any form, though my two far-away favorites were either a) chocolate or b) home baked goods. I swung from respectable sugar fests of homemade apple cobbler with sour cream or banana bread toasted with pats of icy butter, to boxes of Chips Ahoy! cookies downed with skim milk straight from the container. . .

And still the weight came off, slo-owly. Around 2 pounds a month. I continued to find this to be quite exciting. For years I never ate sweets (got enough sugar through the booze, anyway), walked my ass off, then would eat a glamorous dinner consisting of 3 fish-sticks and some sliced carrots. And I really thought that was a healthy meal; protein and vegetable. Yet both my waist and face were swollen. Thanks, vodka.

Now, In my ugly and oddly counter-less little kitchen near Columbia University I started putting together feasts of Marcella Hazan's Spaghetti Bolognese, Joy of Cooking's Chili Con Carne, or Poulet a la Fermiere (a fabulous chicken/potato/vegetable/tarragon and cream dish). One Autumn Sunday I was coming home with food laden bags strung from my newly gym toned arms, and I saw something on the street--it was a heavy waist-high wooden wine rack. Hmm.

I dashed inside and dropped the plastic bags on the floor--was glared at by the cat--and ran back out to seize the wine rack. I dragged it up the stairs, down the hall, and into the kitchen. The cat glared again and slunked under the bed. The rack, though very heavy with a thick butcher's block top, was a bit rickety. I wedged it in tightly next to the oven until it didn't wobble at all. And--voila! I had a kitchen counter!

I washed the wine rack with bleach and hot water, dried it carefully, and put my cookbooks on the lower shelves. I'd of course heard of curbside treasures in NYC--but this was my first experience. The wood was pale and gleaming, the cookbooks all laid out on their backs on three levels.

For some reason I think I'll always remember that day--when some things sort of came together. My apartment was more complete, my cooking easier. I appreciated a free counter/bookshelf and also the irony that it was an empty wine-rack in a lush's house. I cooked a lot of excellent meals there--no more 3 fish sticks for me--I'd eat bowls of food, second and third portions after years of denial. . . then I'd take cookies to bed with me.

Last night the weather was again just like that Autumn day. Perfectly clear, crisp. I'd been to the gym, and to an AA meeting on CPW. At the gym I'd weighed myself and found that my weight was, in my opinion, too low. At 105 I look all right--but at 103 I frankly begin to lose my boobs altogether. It was time for another feast: I bought a chicken for roasting, and boiled some potatoes. Put a lemon in the cleaned chicken, dried the thing off, salted it and plopped it on top of the potatoes and carrots, and popped the whole thing in the oven. Waited an hour and made a salad. Ate 3 portions of roasted chicken dinner and followed that up with butter pecan ice cream.

It was excellent, a true 1958 dinner. But something was missing.

As I looked around my wonderful new apartment, at my lovely parquet floors and my northern facing views of Manhattan, I realized. . .I rather missed my old ugly and counterless kitchen, where I first figured out how to eat.

Be Brave Project, Day 55; Vague Phone Calls

2008-10-17T08:44:00.003-04:00

I was about to write "There are few things that worry me as much as a vague phone call out of the blue. . .", but then I realized that's not true at all. Many things worry me a great deal. Like:

flying

vague aches and pains

important looking envelopes in the mail

emails from the more rage-fuelled members of my family.

no emails from the more rage-fuelled members of my fam, which means they're plotting.

ageing

lack of financial stability

what I've lost through the drunken years

But, few things kick up the worries about what the hell I am going to do--if anything is possible--about my cirrhotic mother quite like a phone call, out of the blue, from one of her dearest friends. Last night I got home (oh! you should see my home nowadays!) and came upstairs to read the New York Times front page story on Obama and McCain's debate the other night--when I noticed the light on my phone flashing.

No one calls my home phone, except my mother. And I just spoke with her.

So I check caller ID, and the call is from her life-long friend Anne. Anne and my mother went to school in Cleveland together, became debs together, went to Smith College together--and my mother set Anne up with her husband, the very wonderful Danny. When I saw the caller ID number, I immediately catastrophized and thought that my mother had finally died, been found with her head cracked open behind an arm chair, and somehow Anne had been elected to tell me.

But no--it was simply Anne wanting to ask me out to lunch, either here in the City or up in Bronxville where she lives. . .

However.

However. Anne has just seen my mother in the last few weeks, she has never asked me out to lunch before, and I am afraid that the drinking has got out of control (because it usually is), and that Anne has some really grim story to tell me (because there usually is one).

The whole thing bumps up anxieties in a big way, and make me want to not return the call. It makes me want to do some Christmas shopping and to see matinees and get massages and date gorgeously accented witty diverting men who sadly do not exist outside of my imagination. But, instead of spend money I don't have and date men who don't exist--which even I realize is not a particularly viable pair of options--I will call Anne at 10 am and set up a date for lunch.

What a fucking endless stress alcoholism is. The pain and the selfishness, the delusion and the weakness, the grotesque physical results and the contemptible emotional state all serve to bind people irrevocably to you with coils of steel, while making them dread the very thought of you.

And if you're the alcoholic child of a lush you get the old double whammy, because Boy, do you want a drink!

***

Yesterday I printed and created a file for the 'plot' information--I also went to good old Butler Library to read the file through, get some ideas on where to start, and look up books. . .for weeks, months, I've been trying to look up Writing Manuals that discuss plot. I type into the subject heading, "Plotting Novels", and receive information about Plotinus. Hmm. Yesterday I cracked the code, found that the phrase to use is "Fiction--technique". From there the computer led me to 9 pages of relevant books and to the potential Momma-Load of valuable information--a book on plotting suspense fiction written by Patricia Highsmith herself!! Oh, let the feet of the NYPL be fleet in getting it to me!!

Day 54, Be Brave Project; Three Act Structure, Final

2008-10-16T08:57:00.002-04:00

The Third Act.

The main tension of the screenplay has been brought to a head at the end of the second act--the Statement of Transformation make sit clear that tension is building. How will the changed main character resolve the situation? Or is the change just temporary? The end of the second act asks the question, "What happens Now?" The third act provides the answer.

the conflict is resolved

the central question is answered

the sub-plots are tied up

characters are settled in new circumstances

Here are the two pivotal points for a Third Act Structure:

Climax. External events and/or the actions of the main character have pushed the situation to its most extreme state. The Statement of Transition promises a change in how the Main Character deals with it: This is where that SOT is put to the test and mus be demonstrated through external action. The climax offers the final opportunity for the character to succeed--or fail--in their mission.

Resolution. The problem has been dealt with and a new order has been established. We are given a sense of how the main character's life has been changed as a result of this experience.

Probably the most obvious examples of a Third Act climax and resolution are in traditional mystery novels. In books like those of Agatha Christie, the Statement of Transition is a sudden realization of the detective--s/he has been looking at things entirely wrong; once the kaleidoscope is shaken, the missing piece fits into place and the truth emerges.

This leads to the final (usually very brief) third act, when the characters are gathered in the study. The detective tells their story in a leisurely and vague manner, only coming to the point--the Climax--when telling of how they figured out the truth and then by naming the murderer. The Resolution is the brief series of scenes afterwards, telling of the restoration of order (or of the new world order) within the community after the removal of the murderer. Secondary characters are glimpsed in their new lives, love affairs are resolved.

Today I will

create a folder for organizing this plot work.

print up website information I've found on plot.

begin with chart/graph for plot.

eat something for breakfast, just because it's silly not to.

Be Brave Project, Day 53; Three Act Structure, Cont'd

2008-10-15T09:00:00.004-04:00

Three Act Structure, Cont'd: Act II

Midpoint, discussed yesterday. An action is taken which increases the jeopardy or which makes it harder to turn back OR the midpoint takes the form of a reversal, making things significantly worse or forces main character to more desperate action. Not every story has a midpoint, but it is a useful way of focusing the second act, and pushing the main character towards. . .

End of the Second Act/Second Turning Point. The main character is pushed to her limits. Things have gotten as bad as they could possibly get short of death--OR the mc has lost the thing they value most--OR the journey they undertook at the beginning of Act Two has completely runaground. In On the Waterfront, Terry's brother is killed and Terry knows he is next. In "Tootsie" Michael will not find happiness as Dorothy and must re-assume his male identity to find fulfillment. With his/her back up to the wall, the main character makes a statement of transformation. A new course of action takes shape. With everything else having failed, the main character now sees what must be done in. . .

THE THIRD ACT (tomorrow)

I always have a problem getting my mind around the end of the second act, and find it easier to think of it as the second-act turning point. It seemed to me that it was a sort of shifting of gear that would inevitably lead towards the slide into the third act, as in "A person isn't getting the results they want, so they change-this change forces the situation so that they either get what they want or they finally irrevocably find it's impossible. Quick slide into home."

But when I was working on the screenplay adaptation it was clear that it wasn't that simple or that reductive: At the end of the second act you have at 30 pages to go (that's 30 minutes in a film, or 60 pages in a book). If it's all a long slide towards home, that'll be a little boring. I realized that for me, what is most important about the End of the Second Act is the statement of transformation. In that screenplay the SOT was when a former drunken frivolous London party girl states her intent to stay in the Irish countryside--this statement indicates an enormous change in character and focus--and results in 2 deaths by the end of the third act.

So with the Augusta novel, she will be in London, she will have been chasing after her 'dead' ex-husband. . .and she will discover--what? List of things it could be:

that he's married

that he has a twin and she's been chasing the twin

that he put out a hit on her

that he loves her

that he left a note behind--and someone else destroyed it

that he took money to go away

that he was ill when he left--thought he was dying--and believed she couldn't take it, so just took off. When he lived he didn't know how to go back to her.

And how will it change her??

The most important change that happens to her during the book is that she will stop drinking. At the beginning she is a daily black-out drinker, but something happens in London that will force her to stop. She will have a bad 3 days or so. Will this stopping drinking happen this late in the book, at the end of the second act?? Or will it happen earlier, and the end of the second act will result in A. going to buy a big ass bottle of vodka. . .reverting to drunken type but afterwards emerging stronger, with her mind made up.

I am going to print this out and think about it. . .

The Be Brave Project, Day 52; Three Act Structure, Act II

2008-10-14T08:49:00.005-04:00

So we've covered Act I:

The Set-Up

The Inciting Incident

The First-Act Turning Point

Though I think what I wrote about the (very important) end of the First Act is somewhat lame: First, I used the phrase "internal decision", one of the silliest tautologies I've ever heard of. Secondly, I over-complicated it all while neglecting to make my point--it is election season and perhaps that's catching.

Anyway--First Act Turning Point is the first major turning point in the story, the event towards which the first act has been headed. Turns the story around in an unexpected direction and contains an element of surprise. Pushes the main character deeper into the problem. Here's what I didn't say: In response to the first act turning point the main character makes a decision and embarks on a new course of action. We now know what the heart of the movie's about--i.e. what the second act is about.

Examples: In Tootsie, will Michael Dorsay find success and happiness by becoming Dorothy? In House of Games will Margaret Ford find the adventure she craves by returning to "The House of Games"? Will Thelma and Louise make it to Mexico before the cops find them?

Act II

Midpoint. The middle of the second act is often a place where a pivotal moment occurs. Sometimes the main character takes an action which increases their jeopardy and makes it that much harder for them to turn back. (In On The Waterfront, this is when Terry punches out the gangster who's heckling the priest; in Tootsie it's when Michael/Dorothy becomes a national celebrity.) Up until this point the main character could conceivably go back to being the person they were at the beginning of the story. After the mid-point, the character crosses over the 50% mark. In other stories, the Midpoint takes the form of a reversal--a major setback that makes thing significantly more difficult for the main character. In Thelma and Louise, Thelma's negligence allows all of Louise's money to be stolen. In Hamlet, Hamlet tries to kill Claudius but kills Polonius instead. Not every script has a midpoint, but it is a useful way to focus a second act.

(Tomorrow. . .The Second Turning Point)

Okay. So the First Act Turning Point is needs to be something that would shake Augusta up, take her out of her comfort zone. I want her to go to London, so she is obviously going in search of something.

Her ex-husband.

What would make her go after him, after a considerable passage of time?

Hearing something new about him, something that reverses her previous expectations. She always thought he had. . .died? And now it turns out he'd taken money to pretend he had? Or that he'd been bribed by a family member? Or that he was actually someone 'important' (inherited importance), and a lord or something? (That does sound like a 30's movie plot, but not a noir.)

What would then occur or she then discover in London that would make it harder for her to turn back, and impossible that she become the person she was at the beginning of the story?

So I'm still on the end of Act I questions, but I think it's important to get these answered before moving on to the Act II questions. This plotting is a major part of the BBP--this novel is--and I need to get the pieces together before writing.

My goals for the Be Brave Project for this Winter, now to New Years are to:

Complete a first draft of this book.

Go see the doctor already.

Both scary in different ways.

Day 51, Be Brave Project; Classical Cont'd

2008-10-10T09:05:00.003-04:00

I just applied for the deferment of my student loan. . .I am picturing thousands of people around the country doing the same just now; men unaccustomed to not being in suits at this time of day, women who've anxiously been clinging to their jobs for the sake of the benefits and who now have to pay for the 'benefits' themselves, despite the lack of salary--because being born a citizen isn't enough to get your child medical care in this country.

It's going to be a bumpy change, this. This adjustment from the lop-sidedness of the world of late, with the US as the only 'super-power' getting fatter, more indifferent and arrogant at every turn. We are going to have to share the power, and it'll probably end up being one of the best things that have happened to us in a long while. China and Europe will have to step up--China with great (and worrying?) willingness, Europe with slightly less willingness--it was nice to have America to bail out the world, and to blame when we didn't do so. But no longer. They are now the United States of Europe, running their empire on a far, far more evolved scheme than we are. And we Americans can get a little thin and nervous, perhaps stop fearing education as we learn that education teaches us what not to fear.

Anyway, it's a bumpy ride right now and reminds me of the old Chinese curse: May You Live in Interesting Times. BUT back to our scheduled programming, more because I need to get my mind around this than because anyone out there gives a rat's ass--------

An Introduction to Three-Act Structure, Cont'd!

Yesterday we left our heroine at the cliff's edge of Act 1, point 2: The Inciting Incident. Now we get to . . .

3. The First Act Turning Point. The first major turning point in the story, this event is where the entire first act has been headed. It usually turns the story around in an unexpected direction and contains an element of surprise. The main character is pushed deeper into the problem, and there are new complications which make the problem more difficult and more pressing. This leads to (or is) a moment of internal decision on the part of the main character from which they take their first step that will lead them towards the story's resolution. The conflict has been set up and something must be done about it causing the main character to choose a course of action that DRIVES the narrative of the story into the second act. At this point the MAIN TENSION of the story (see Tools of Screenwriting) can usually be recognized.

Hmm. Hm. I need to see about getting that TOS book. I also need to think about what A's move would be after seeing her ex--let's call him Martin--at the club. What would she do? She's a drunk--so she would really, really tie one on. And wake up the next day to find. . .what? What might she have done?

Could she find herself having passed out on the sofa of M's only friend? She could have drunkenly gone to find the guy, thinking M. might be there. He wasn't. A. had shown up with some tough pretty boy on her arm, and Martin's friend, (who could be a good character?) got rid of him. . .A opens her eyes. She's on the sofa.

What has she learned? What can he tell her? How do we get her out of the US and to London to track down M? (Is there any reason for her to go to London apart from the reason that I want to write about it? Not that that's not reason enough--cheaper than airfare. But must come up with a reason.)

OKAY. So the First Act Turning Point occurs at the End of the First Act, when the main character not only recognizes that the status quo is fucked up, but decides to do something about it. In this case, she goes to search for Martin, who she thought was dead. Turns out he's been living in London. . .

So had it been he that she saw at the club?

And how does this best friend fit in?

Be Brave Project, Day 50; Novel/Classical Story Structure, ACT I

2008-10-09T08:49:00.005-04:00

A few years ago, when I was drinking and talking about writing but getting absolutely nothing done, a friend who now teaches at Columbia sent me a short, anonymous document entitled An Introduction to Three-Act Structure. In my many moves I managed to hold on to this document, and did so without really being conscious of it. It was just 4 sheets of paper I'd tuck in somewhere as I moved from NYC to Chicago to London (1, 2, 3 apartments there), back to NYC.

After I'd dried out I pulled this much-folded and stained document out again, re-wrote it, and used it as the guideline to structure a screenplay adaptation I actually--I haven't been able to get the rights for the novel, but I did complete the adaptation and it's damn good.

Now I want to use it to finally get this book started. It's time. I have some money to tide me over for a few months before I have to get a job. I have an agent who's said that she'd love to look at a novel of mine. I have an idea--an old one that's never left my system.

And I have the Be Brave Project, my redemption and my curse!--forcing me to get my finger out and face this big task once and for all. This document refers to screenplay length projects, but I think I'll just double it all and take it from there. So when it says an opening act should be around 30 pages, I view that as 60. That will ultimately create a 240 page-length novel. I'm not going to italicize it because, frankly, I always find that annoying to read.

So here, with apologies to whoever wrote it, are the opening words of

An Introduction to Three-Act Structure:

"Classical story form, handed down to us from the ancient Greeks, is based on a three-act structure. In the most general terms, the three 'acts' are what ensure that the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Within each act, there are functional points which, when fulfilled, will help give the story an effective progression from beginning to end. When a writer departs from a classical story form, it should be done in a purposeful manner that serves the dramatic effect of the story.

Three Act Structure: The average screenplay is 95 to 120 pages long, based on a measurement of one page per minute of screen time, and contains approximately 60-75 scenes. There are three 'acts' which guarantee that the story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In very general terms, the first act is measured at approximately 30 pages and 15 scenes, the second act is approximately 60 pages and 30 scenes, and the third act is approximately 30 pages and 15 scenes. These measurements should be taken as guidelines as opposed to rules and should be modified to serve the story. The most common variations are that the first act may be longer when a large amount of complex information needs to be established, and the third act may be shorter when little needs to be done to resolve the story.

The First Act

The first act introduces the main character, sets up the basic situation, the time and place, sets the tone and style of the film, introduces the "world of the story" and establishes the main conflict, central question, or the main character's goal or objective.

The Set Up. The 'once upon a time' part of the screenplay. Introduces the main character and the current situation in the character's life. Shows us what 'normal' is for this main character--and perhaps what is lacking in this character's life. Gives us a sense of the 'world of the story' and introduces other important characters. Sets up the status quo which will be disturbed by. . .

The Inciting Incident. (This is also sometimes called the Point of Attack, Catalyst, Hook.) Approximately 8-10 pages in but sometimes earlier or sometimes, but less frequently, as late as page 25. SOMETHING HAPPENS. An external event upsets the balance of forces in the main character's life. From this moment on, the story begins to take shape. We don't yet know how the main character will deal with the inciting incident. (Will Sheriff Brody be able to fight the shark in Jaws? Will Macbeth ignore what the witches have told him? Will Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront, be able to live with the guilt of setting up his friend Joey?) We do know that they will have to take SOME action in response to what has happened, and we are interested in finding out the outcome. The inciting incident gives a sense of what kind of story this will be--and what is at stake."

So, If I may break away for a moment--and dammit I shall!!-- this has us to the point I discussed yesterday, where Augusta is in her club, doing her depressing work in a dead-end job she's rapidly getting too old for, when she sees her husband in the crowd below her cage--she shouts for him--but when he sees her, he quickly pushes through the crowd and disappears.

That is the Inciting Incident, and I picture it as a sort of ledge that you push the main character toward and toward and toward until she and all her baggage go tumbling over--the fall into the new status quo is the plot of the novel. Begin with one status quo and move to another. . .

Tomorrow I'll finish with Act One.

Today I need to do boring but necessary things like buy ink for my printer so I can actually print out some of the plot-structure documents I have found on the web. Also need to go to the gym, to AA, to go to the library to write some notes on how Act one will play out.

Tomorrow I need to call the student loan people about deferring payments--I have a feeling there are a lot of people doing that right now, and that this might prove to be difficult. Ish.

Day 47, The Be Brave Project; All the King's Horses, Plus Movement on the Novel Front

2008-10-08T08:53:00.006-04:00

Howzat for an original title? Cos' things are falling apart here in North America, you see, and now in Europe. Failed European conference over the weekend resulted in Monday's blood bath at the NYSE, and yesterday was worse. I read last night that Iceland's money is worth 40% of what it had been the week before.

The Wall Street Journal has cut their on-line staff, the New York Times has 86'd its "Metro" section due to costs, Los Angeles Times cut their staff by 75 people, and papers are discussing the "long slow bleed of journalists out of NY's capital" after the New York Sun folded last week.

I only got this home because the guy living here was relocated back to California, due to his office being shut down. . .let's hope I can continue to earn enough to live here. It is very very cheap for NYC, but if there's no work there's no rent.

In short, this might be the perfect time to stay home and work on a book. Looks like plenty of others will be doing the same.

At least I know how to wait tables. Just hope there are some customers.

Anyway: 2 months' worth of money is what I have, so I'd better get cracking on the book.

What do you want the book to be?

Novel, first person narrative by a woman. Film noir voice, hard-boiled. . .dark atmosphere, comic undertones, lively description, a sense of what it feels like to live nowadays but always poured through that noir filter.

Length: 250 pages. The least I can get away with.

Plot, as far as I know: Augusta Gunn, aged 35. Ageing cage dancer recently moved over into management but still working the floor sometimes. She lives in a family owned apartment in _________. Every day she wakes out of a blackout, puts on a filmy old robe and negligee, fixes a cuppa joe and obsessively watches old films on tv. . .every day she does every thing she can to not think about her past. The man she loved and (this is where a lot of research needs to be done), the child she thinks she lost/killed.

Or perhaps she should think she killed the man??? Probably should go with that.

Anyway, one night she's at work, out on the floor, swinging in a cage in the strobe light that makes her still look young, that highlights her body parts like packaged meat; a flash of thigh, a dead white expanse of arm--and then she thinks she sees him.
Her ex husband.

She stands above him, shouting for his attention, but he keeps looking around. She screams, her face Toulouse Lautrec-ed in the garish light, over the throbbing tech beat--for some reason he turns and looks upward--he sees her. And then turns and pushes his way out of the club.

So that would be the first 1/3 of the first act, pretty much--the status quo and what happens to change that status quo.

And if Augusta did think she killed him (maybe the child thing is just too dark, though it is extremely similar to what happens in Women's films of the 1930's when kids were offed for sentiment and plot development all the time, and also to make depression-era mothers feel better about their secret resentment of their children's stranglehold on their lives)--she's going to start investigating what really happened.

Which means that she'd recreate that last night they were together in her memory. She'd start asking people who were around that evening questions. She'd really focus on whoever told her the guy was dead, and what evidence they'd come up with that convinced her it was true.

She would have required evidence: She is hard boiled but extremely sentimental beneath. Who provided the evidence? And why? Booze has made her selfish and lazy, but it has also increased the sentiment--there will be times when she gets choked up over the littlest things. Think of John Self in Money.

OK. That's good work for today! Tomorrow I will try to move forward.

-Create a document that is the plot synopsis.

-Use structure model you used for screenplay adaptation.

think of screenplay length, but 2x as long.
screenplay structure works with this, as cinema (and "partiality of perception" is woven into this book.
take screenplay structure work to library today and work on it.
draw up map for structure.

Be Brave Project, Day 46; The Big One

2008-10-07T09:01:00.004-04:00

I've written about this before--I dance around the subject sometimes, before retreating from the floor to go have an ice with the ladies--but there are two big things I need to complete before the BBP, in its original format, is complete.

1. Now I actually have health insurance, I need to go see a doctor. To establish that relationship and to stop being so paranoid about my health.

2. Oh. . .well. You know. It's The Bloody Book.

I have so much anxiety wrapped around this book that it seems almost insurmountable. Then I look around my apartment and I think: How Long Will This Last? Beautiful apartment, gorgeous view of the UWS skyline (picture above, taken at 6 this morning) heading north, just enough money scraped together so I have the time to write. . .

And yet I am very very frightened.

What if I can't do it? What if the whole thing turns out to be a bundle of crap; plotless, soulless, meaningless drivel? Well. . .

If I follow that line of reasoning, then I will have proven that I cannot do it. I will have actually proven that, at this time, I cannot do that well. In which case I can stop beating myself up for NOT doing it--I mean, I don't constantly berate myself for not completing a forward pass. Or for not having proven that the papilloma virus can be halted by a vaccine. Some things you're not meant to do, to the extent that it would be absurdly illogical to waste time in one short life trying.

If I pass up this chance, however, I will simply have given myself another reason to be angry at and disappointed in myself. I have NYC's dream apartment. I have a computer and a cat to sit by its side. I have characters and a tone, a voice that I think I can pull off. I need a PLOT. No more writing into the void for me.

And, I know an agent who has said she'd look at the book.

In the London Times yesterday I read an interview with Elmore Leonard and his son, Peter. Peter has just, at age 56, come out with his first book. They talked about character and plot ( E.L. claims he doesn't worry about it, it just comes to him), but more about the simple efficacy of hard work. The son seems to have a tough road to hew, with his father being one of the most successful writers on the planet in terms of profit. But it made me want to look at one of E.L.'s books, just to see what path it followed. . .the Times said that none less than Martin Amis is a huge fan of Leonard's work, the adjective-free purity of his writing.

Ok. I will go have a look. And I need to get cracking on a schedule.

Today I am getting my first haircut since February: Since discovering the very real difference between a good haircut and a cheap one, I've been getting no haircuts at all. Just going at my bangs with scissors--which actually has been remarkably successful. But now I've got that IRS refund, so it's time to go through with a proper haircut at the TwoDo Salon on W. 82nd Street.

Cannot believe I'll be paying $100 on a haircut.

I also will go to the gym and the library, to pick up some EL books. And also returning to my search for plot, plot, plot. . .

And call my doctor.

BBP yesterday: Did speak to financial guy at Smith Barney, but since the European makets were flipping out, he was a bit distracted. However, am glad I am 85% out of the stock-market right now: Can't take the suspense.

Be Brave Project, Day 47; L'Argent L'argent, Toujours L'Argent

2008-10-06T09:06:00.007-04:00

One of the first--if not the first--films I ever saw outside of the home was the 1939 MGM Production of The Women (I've written a blog entry on the utterly inadequate re-make). The film was screening at the Children's Museum of Chicago, for some reason, and was showing in a cordoned off area on the South Side of a large ramshackle room. The other activities varied in quality: some were rather inferior and involved paint and string and metal bit o' crap that you'd glue to paper. Others were quite good and produced a very large neon green ashtray that hung around the house for decades.

You could get your picture taken in a Model T Ford, which was the highlight of the event, though sadly it would soon be over-shadowed when my father took us to an Auto show where they had an old car from The Godfather that was riddled with bullet holes.
The excitement of it!!

Ah, Chicago.

But to return to The Women, after I'd finished making my 13 pound green ashtray and had my picture taken in the Model T, I'd wanted a little peace and quiet from the hurly-burly of my fellow children. . .so I stepped behind the curtain, where a bunch of mothers and au pairs were quietly hiding from the same children, and I watched the film.

From the first I thought it was excellent because all of the characters were introduced by first showing which animal they resembled: Joan Fontaine--who I never did like and was her usual cud chewing self in this film--was represented by a deer. Roz Russell by a spitting cat, Joan Crawford by. .. I can't quite remember. A snake perhaps? If one can imagine a big eyed snake in a bias-cut dress and a frizzy perm, that was J.C. in the film.

But my favorite character of all was the Countess, who appears half-way through the film on a train to Reno. The Countess is older, puffy-eyed, with gem-encrusted rings jammed onto her sausage fingers--but she had a girlish belief in Love (and in the healing benefits of Champagne). As she sipped from her flute and told Norma Shearer about her latest gold-digging young husband she'd intone, "Ah, l'amour l'amour, toujours l'amour!"

Sadly, I have no gem-encrusted rings or girlish belief in the power of love, but I do have all sorts of financial messes to sort out--my taxes, as I wrote recently, seem to be very happily sorted out. I am awaiting a reply on a credit card application. I used some of my tax money to pay off another credit card bill in full. I also set aside one month's rent in a money market account for "Oh My God" money. But student loans are due again, starting on the 11th. And I have an appointment with a financial advisor this morning.

No idea what to say to the guy, apart from pointing out that I'd prefer to have more money rather than less. And that I'm not going to make any decisions today, which I think will hardly break his heart. If I'd only had a little more confidence around money I too could have bought myself a McMansion when mortgages were being given out to ham sandwiches.

One think I don't get about this credit crunch: Why is Citibank putting so much pressure on people to apply for credit cards? I understand they make a lot of money on them, boy do I understand that--but every phonecall to Citibank nowadays ends with their people doing a hard push on one of their cards. I don't like it. I am picturing the Citibank bankers as un-humbled, watzing top-hatted around town like Eddie Arnold in the picture above.

And I don't know what to say to financial advisor guy. I suppose listening is the best option, and then taking it from there. . .

I wonder if that's how the Countess chose her husbands. Uh oh.

By the way, here is a link to a lovely elder lady's blog--she's going to be the smash hit of the internet: Margaret and Helen

Be Brave Project, Day 46; Fruits of Being Brave.

2008-10-03T09:17:00.004-04:00

I think one of the first things I did as my opening act in the Be Brave Project was to go to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles on 34th Street.

Brave indeed.

The entire outing was pretty much a humiliating fiasco in the way that urban endeavors even in the most glamorous cities can be: When I was living in say, Chicago, trips to the DMV always ended in success. . .but even if they hadn't I'd still be driving home in the splendid isolation of my car, an over sized diet soda wedged between my knees, bellowing the words to Hall and Oates' Private Eyes to the radio as I cruised along the expressway.

But in NYC I was ignored and mocked, put back out on the street, and had to jostle down 34th Street towards the 1 train. No soundtrack. And when I say 'jostle', I mean 'get shoved around'. When you're 5 foot 3 and weigh a whisker over 100 pounds, people aren't big on getting out of your way--you get a lot of handbags in the upper arm and elbows to your shoulders. This explains the popularity of the tortuous devices known as stiletto heels: They make your feet ache, but they can really do some damage to someone's ankle. Accidentally, of course.

Of course.
The size-ist bastards.

So, that hot July day I did take the subway back to 116th Street, the Columbia University stop. I hadn't done my very basic task for the day--head to the DMV, get license renewed. A chimp could have done it, provided she had her Social Security number and reading material for the 3 hour wait in line. But I hadn't been successful. . .and it made me feel like crap. I was never going to be able to do this Brave Project, it was always going to be more of the same: Me running from the mess I made of my life when I was boozing it up. And I was drinking so much partially to check out, another way of running away.

But that day I sat down on a low bench, and got out my folder. I found a phone number and I called it--I called an accountant and explained my tax situation (hadn't paid in years, was hugely terrified of what would happen, was a lush in recovery, etc. . .). By the end of the conversation I felt better than I'd felt in years. In years. I had a plan--get my financial info. for 2007 organized, send it to the Dream Accountant, keep doing same for earlier years until done.

Skip forward a few months to an entirely different situation: I walked into my new building, with its clickety-clickety bank floors and concierge at the desk, and pulled mail from my mailbox. There was an envelope from the IRS.

But nowadays, or for the last 3 months, there's always been an envelope from the IRS, and they all say the same thing: You Owe Money. They say it nicely, which truly was a relief since I sort of though the IRS would be the epistolary equivalent of a drill sergeant ("You useless piece of shit--drop and give me 1400, dollars that is!"). But it is always the same.

Not yesterday. Yesterday the envelope was smaller and rather more cheaply made than they usually are. And it wasn't squishy, so there were no envelopes or lists of debts. Hm.

The elevator skimmed its way up the building, 8th floor, 10th floor, 12th floor.
I tore open the envelope, and I was floored.

It was a check for $1921.00.

I'd paid enough, it seems.

Be Brave Project, Day 45; Other Side of the Looking Glass, Part II

2008-10-02T09:31:00.005-04:00

Vernal sat behind her high desk, reading a magazine and chewing on a muffin. I approached her desk and gave her what I fear was a watery smile--this was my last barrier between me and my illegal sublet. She responded by picking up a clipboard marked "Mail Delivery".

I cleared my throat.

With infinite slowness she turned her head to look at me, which I viewed as a cue to watery smile #2. "Uhm--I'm moving in, and I'm supposed to check in with you about it. The truck is at the back door."

"Yeah?"

"Gerard said I was supposed to check in with you."

"Yeah?"

"The truck is waiting outside." I was beginning to realize I had to put some attitude into this relationship.

"Yeah?"

"Actually, YEAH." We glared at each other for about 30 seconds, before she slowly reached out a beautifully manicured hand and picked up a walkie-talkie. (A walkie-talkie?? They still make them?) Keeping her eyes on me the entire time, she called the garage and told them to open the doors, that there was a truck out back. When she put the w-t down, I leaned forward and held out my hand. "My name's Elusive D." I said. Reluctantly she shook my hand, and then her attitude improved slightly.

It wasn't friendliness, it was the $20 I'd just slipped her. Should have started with that. I'd realized I was going to be raining $20 on people that day, and Vernal was the place to start. Also donated to the garage door guy (who had a face like an eager teddy bear).

20 minutes later I was in my apartment, and the furniture was coming up. . .slowly. Slowly the boxes came in, and I was directing the traffic. My sofa had been wrapped in saran wrap, and appeared without a scuff on it--same with my Grandmother's chairs. Nothing was broken, nothing was dented, nothing was lost. Once again I will recommend New York Magazine's choice for Best of Movers--they were absolutely stellar. And that ride in their Pope-Mobile was fantastic.

By 5:00 I was alone in my apartment--in 3 hours they'd moved everything, and set up the furniture, put the tv on its stand (which I could have done, but it wouldn't have been smart or pretty). They'd put all of my pictures in a box for transport, wrapped the furniture, set up my futon, and done it all in an hour less than their estimate. They did charge me $30 for the wrapping up of tv, pictures etc. . .but that's all right. All in all, the move cost me a whisker beneath $300. Pretty flipping fabulous, I think.

And outside my window the lights of Manhattan were gleaming, I could see Columbus Avenue below--cyclists speeding along, taxis gliding, pedestrians beginning to feel the chill of a late September night. I can see tennis courts and roof-top gardens, brownstones and walk-ups, and long thin trees stretching towards the light, waving in the wind.

And I was home.

Long may it last, please God.

Long may this odd and wonderful gift last!

Be Brave Project, Day 44; Other Side of the Looking Glass

2008-10-01T08:56:00.007-04:00

Here I sit, surrounded by those same boxes. . .but I'm at the new apartment. My father's old station master's chair is here--and my beloved graduate-school desk that's elegantly constructed of 2 filing cabinets and 2 birch planks. Same modem, same old chatchka hold-all from Pottery Barn.

But over my right shoulder is a stunning view of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, buildings and water-towers, trees and pale streaked sky.

Downstairs the furniture is mostly set up, the kitchen organized, soap on a silver dish in the half-bath (I have 1.5 bathrooms!!)

Monday morning I woke up with 6 hours until the movers arrived--had a leisurely cuppa tea and told myself to relax for an hour, enjoy my last bit of time in the old place, in the dear old neighborhood. . .but some feminine instinct kicked in, and next thing I knew I was hauling the remaining clothes into suitcases, taping drawers shut, shoving a printer into a box, and keeping an eye on the increasingly uneasy Gigi Colette (who knew I was up to no good whatsoever.

Three hours later I was in a froth of activity still--madly taping things shut, putting numbers on boxes and noting the numbers and the boxes' contents in a red notebook--My Moving Bible. Caught a glimpse in the mirror; I had the mad eyes of a prophet and the hair-do of an 80's video star, was covered in a thin glaze of dust and sweat, and hadn't eaten in 20 hours. Staggered to the Appletree for an egg sandwich (the lunch crowds parted before me like the Red Sea and I realized that disgustingness can be an under-rated quality; I was served immediately).

Got home, brushed teeth and was gazing disconsolately at my suitcases wondering where the hell I'd put my underwear and t-shirts, when there was a knock on the door. Threw on some granny pants and an itchy woolen sweater the color of dead hair--and opened the door.

It was a small white haired man with absolutely beautiful olive skin and small almond eyes. He held out his hand, and it was small with the long sensitive fingers of a pianist.

This was Igor, the Mover.

80 minutes early.

Igor the mover was accompanied by two wiry, dark, and attractive young men who immediately began picking up boxes. "They're numbered!" I cried, "So I know what order to go in at at the other place!" The guys nodded, grabbed boxes number 7 and 23, and headed to the truck parked outside. Igor had pastel colored papers for me to sign, all tissue thin with much writing in very small letters, and I was hunched over reading when my friend Kendall arrived.

She was 30 minutes late, and we were supposed to have had an hour and a half to get the cat to the new apartment and all set up with litter and food. . .but K. stopped to check out a new cell phone deal on the way. At this moment Gigi Colette streaked out from under the futon in a mad dash for the door. Kendall moved fast-- got the cat by the front paw in a magnificent lunge.

So now I had to leave the movers with every possession I own, and head to the new place with the cat in a box (not a new fast food), and Kendall. K. kept talking about the pilot she works with--she's a chef for a millionaire and flies all over the world providing him with omelettes and profiteroles--while I pictured the movers ripping madly through my possessions searching fruitlessly for anything of value.

The car trip was a mile and a half, thirty city blocks, but it seemed interminable.

When I returned to 122nd Street, the movers were pretty much done--there were a few boxes left, and I checked the Moving Bible to make sure numbers 1-27 were accounted for. Suddenly the apartment was empty, completely empty except for a small bookcase I'd pulled off the curb, and a poster from a Film Distribution Company that I'd worked for which I decided I no longer liked.

And suddenly, my moving bible was missing.

I checked my handbag and the truck, I checked the top of the fridge and the bathroom--was so distraught by this disappearance, which left me feeling like an explorer without a compass, that I forgot to say goodbye to my old apartment. . .just got in the truck with the movers, and headed south.

The moving truck ride was just fantastic though, once I forgot my anxiety and loss of the Bible. The front of it was entirely glass, so it was like riding high through the city in some magnificent Pope-Mobile, if the Pope travelled in very, very close proximity with delicate yet wiry Russians.

And it was when we arrived here at the new building that I had to do my Being Brave thing: Face the Woman at the Concierge Desk.

Her name is Vernal, and she has hair dyed in an aggressive eggplant color. Her lower lip is very large and slack, and she likes to ignore you when you stand in front of her. And, I worried, she had the power to keep me out of the building, out of my (illegal) sublet--and I'd have to wander the streets forever, until the Russians kicked me and my stuff out of the Popemobile.

I threw open the front door of the building, and tried to hide my nervousness as I walked up to Vernal's seat of Power. . .

(cont'd tomorrow.)

Be Brave Project, Day 43: Tune in Later, Please

2008-09-28T10:30:00.002-04:00

Elusive D. is doing her eponymous thang. . .moving! Be back on Wednesday, October 1.

Be Brave Project, Day 42; Bookending

2008-09-25T09:07:00.004-04:00

I think I've broken the back of this moving job, but then I keep thinking that. . .and discovering how wrong I am. This time, however, as I sit here looking at a denuded bookcase on my left, the eight boxes behind me, the front room filled with more boxes, a shadeless lamp, the confused and increasingly complaining cat--I think I'm right on the ball here.

We shall see.

But it's always a funny thing, moving. Last night I was hauling books from bookshelf #1, when I found a few interesting objects:

-My DayRunner from 1999. With no days in it, torn back, old addresses and drunken notes scrawled on pastel colored paper in the back. Why did I keep this? What sentimental purpose could there have been? No Idea.

-A series of books on the Greatest Crime Films Ever. Bound in stiff cardboard that could snap like a matchstick, written in greasy cheap ink. And I don't like crime films. Why keep. . .?

-One excellent book (John Fowles' The Collector), a psychologically astute and deeply creepy story by a first rate writer--with the cover removed and the pages so loose that you can't turn them or they'll fall like a shower of confetti. Why keep a book you can't read?

Everytime you move--and this is my 6th move since 2000--you are sorting and tossing out a variation of you, the person you were when living in this space. The person you wanted to be, or hoped to be, or couldn't escape somehow. If you skip the sorting process and simply place everything in a box you miss the (only) educative and enjoyable melancholy aspect of moving--what has and hasn't happened since you lived here.

This is the only time in life you're actually going to spend a few minutes looking at that French book from 10th grade, or the yearbook you've carefully saved and occasionally used as a bug-killer.

It is interesting. As I said, it's a bit sad for some reason. Tempus fugit and all of that. . .but most important is to keep my eyes on the prize. Monday Night: Vietnamese food. And a lovely lovely bubble bath in my new apartment. . . Worth it.

Be Brave Project, Day 41; Try Not to Shout at The Children

2008-09-24T09:02:00.005-04:00

Oh dear. Well, I always sort of assumed that spinsterhood beckoned. Smelling of lavender, filled with nervous laughter, and brimming with baking projects. Two of my aunts never married--one moved here to NYC, got herself a job working for the City (I believe Ike Turner wrote a song about her. . .), bought a condo downtown and a house in the countryside.

My other aunt moved to upstate Michigan and likes to sleep with enormous egg-shaped crystals. She teaches tai-chi and is a righteous unappealing guilt-trip on legs: Has the tendency to ask you if you will give her one of your possessions, and when you say no she sighs, "I forgot what it's like to be with people who are so materialistic."

I always think, "And I forgot how intense my urge is to kick your ass." I don't really get hippies--exposure to them has taught me that they are much more about guilt trips and passive aggression than peace & love; In my family they turned not working into an art form, and I early on noted that people who are secretly ashamed of themselves are very, very difficult to be with.

So a hippie I shall never be, but a spinster? Different story altogether. As I say, I've always had a worrying bent in that direction: I like reading, knitting, and cats far too much. I absolutely adore travelling alone--when I've travelled with boyfriends I kept wanting to send them off on errands so I could investigate places on my own, and talk to the natives. I get offended very easily, as spinsters do in 30's films. And, as I believe I demonstrated yesterday, I am a complete doofus around attractive men. (I didn't used to be that way; that's an annoying new sobriety thing. I used to be confident to the point of cockiness, and they'd always call. Now I don't even give out the number.)

But yesterday, at 3:00 in the afternoon, I discovered another symptom of incipient Spinsteritis: A tendency to roll the eyes and mutter, "kids today. . ." when confronted by the young generation. I was, as usual, on the bus--v. spinsterish mode of transport, by the way--carrying stuff down to the new apartment. I had a duffel bag filled with trousers and hangers, and an arm laden with dry-cleaning. At 110th and Amsterdam the bus-driver, who had been regaling us with her theories on medical care and the pharmaceutical companies, suddenly announced in tones dark with dread, "The school children are coming. Watch out."

The bus pulled to the right, and the doors swung open. And about 25 children rushed into the bus as if they were escaping a gun-man. Each of them, for some reason, had a half-eaten piece of chocolate cake in hand. And all of them shouted, all at once.

Do parents not tell their kids that one of the reasons Americans are hated abroad is because we SHOUT ALL THE TIME? And that not only does it make whatever you say sound quite stupid, but it's also a form of social bullying? The bus passengers cowered in their seats--more than one lady had their hands clapped to their ears--as the children shouted and fell all over the place. They swung from poles and told stories of Miss Harket being the BEST teacher. Blobs of chocolate cake seemed to smear themselves on the floor and windows and seats. One boy, who had Elizabeth Arden skin and Sideshow Bob hair, kept shouting "They don't have buses like this in Africa!" in very sarcastic tones.

It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. I would literally rather have another periodontal scaling than go through that again. On 89th Street, I pushed my way through the chocolate-caked crowd and through the back door, and stood slumped on the corner. My dry cleaning bag was torn, my duffel grey with foot-prints, and my hair looked as if I'd been dragged by a horse.

But Oh! I was so happy that I get to spend every night living alone. Just me and my cat and my Volkswagen-sized bowls of pasta. . .now that's my American Dream.

BBP: I am applying for a new credit card, in the hopes of creating a better credit portfolio (and so I can stick it to Capital One). Not the best time to apply for credit, but I haven't applied for a new card this year and I want to go for it--diversify and up my limit. We Shall See.

Be Brave Project, Day 40; Recovering Doofus

2008-09-23T08:58:00.007-04:00

Most people know this (and I am sure that my very few but gem-like readers know all), but it is very much frowned upon for people to date for the first year they are in A.A. Dating seems to kick up the worst of our character flaws, accentuate our weaknesses, and bring on the jones to pick up.

This rule against dating has been used by rehab storytellers and memoirists as a 21st Century form of creating Romeo + Juliet style forbidden loves: Augusten Burroughs in Dry falls hard for a Mel Gibson-esue meth user who turns him on to the drug before disappearing beneath the steam rising from NY streets; Sandra Bullock in 28 Days is cooped up with Viggo Mortenson but nobly refrains from showing him how congenial she really can be; and of course old slab-faced James Frey, in A Million Little Pieces, wrote about re-claiming the soul and trust of an abused girl, and saving her from a crack den (by literally dragging her from the crotch of an old man who was providing the drug for her). Lily loved James with strength and intensity but couldn't, oh she couldn't bear life without him--so within 24 hours of his release from jail she hanged herself.

Of course, now it's come out that Lily probably never existed, and there is no record of a girl of "Lily's" age found dead by hanging in Chicago at that time.

And James Frey never did go to jail.

So perhaps ex-drunks and addicts should be forbidden to date OR to write, for a decade (or more!) after quitting. Just to give us some time to get used to telling the truth and bearing the consequences without a tumbler of vodka. Between paying off our old debts and internet games/netflix/gossip sites (whichever is your choice)--there's plenty to do.

But, no matter what you might think about the fact that a dry drunk has been running this country into the ground over the last few years (I in all honesty think that recovering addicts and lushes should not be qualified for the presidency, but that's another day's topic), drunks are people too. They get crushes. They sometimes find themselves dressing a little more carefully than might be strictly necessary. . .perhaps they have an incredibly nice pair of open-toed spectator pumps made in Italy they're dying to flash around town with a crinkly-eyed male in tow. Yes. Perhaps they do.

All of this is leading up to a rather interesting development on Sunday. As usual I had hauled 2 shopping bags down to the new apartment, and then was planning to go to a meeting near Central Park West. Rather a tony location for someone in dust-creased cargo trousers and flip-flops, but what the hell. Who cares, right? I've never regarded meetings as my personal dating pool, never jokingly referred to my early time as "90 outfits in 90 days", never been at all receptive to the occasional man who suddenly swans up after a meeting with a business card in hand.

I walked into the school basement where the meeting's held, and there was only one damn seat available. In the back row, and next to a man I haven't seen since I was counting days. Jon, a sculptor. And I'd always really liked him, and his crinkly eyes. And curly hair. He's not my usual type--he's not very tall, and he's not younger than I am. But I just always liked what he said in meetings and what he looked like saying it.

Desperately I looked for another chair that was available. There was none. I thought about dodging out and going home. But he'd already turned around and smiled, which was SO like the scene in Pride and Prejudice where Jane sees Bingley at the Bennet's dinner party, that I had to sit down.

And it was a long hour. I sat back, to look relaxed, but it was very uncomfortable. I sat forward, but felt I looked as if I had to use the bathroom. I crossed my right leg over my left, and noticed he was doing the same--didn't want to send a message of mimicry. I finally just tucked a foot up on the chair and wrapped an arm around it. Unless he'd been doing yoga, he couldn't achieve that pose.

Every time he brushed his hands down his jeans, the sound reverberated as if it was miked.

He'd laugh at sometime funny and look over at me, which was very nice but unnerving.

At the break we exchanged swift "How are you doing's?", but the real horror was after the meeting when we stood and chatted for a bit. . .or, in my case, yammered.

Am I making this up, or was I talking about waffles and the Korean influence on Bryant Park this year? Oh my dear God.

Finally, a woman came up who wanted to talk to the poor man, and I made my escape--probably yammering in half-sentences until I got out the door. Thank God for that woman: I would like to buy her a spa-day and a fruit basket. She did a sister a favor.

And perhaps someday I'll see that man again and behave like someone who hasn't had 37 coffees and a recent lobotomy. . .but I doubt that'll be happening anytime in the near future.

Being Brave Project, Day 39; Mocked by my Email

2008-09-22T08:57:00.005-04:00

My email is revving up for the holiday season, a fact I find both rude and distressing due to the fact that I am most definitely not, and will not be, doing any revving up at all, party-wise. But the party girl past still lingers, along with the fact that I was apparently incapable, when drunk, of NOT signing a mailing list. Here's a sample invitation received recently:

The Bond Ball New Years Eve

Be lavish, be outrageous, be daring and have fun! Try something new this New Years Eve--The original party in a Hotel, now in its 8th year! Admission + hotel room and after parties £99.95

Reserve your place today. See in ‘009 with 007, along with a host of Moneypennys, Dr Nos and Pussy Galores. For New Year 2008 an entire London Hotel will be booked out to Bond guests. Fancy dress events are always a hoot and this is a fantastic theme – true Bond fans will recognise every outfit while casual guests can enjoy the outlandish costumes, in-house casino and copious vodka martinis.

Gamble your way into the New Year, swap glances with impeccably groomed baddies at the bar, or take to the dance floor with Baron Samedi, Q and Bond himself at this classy theme night. Get dressed up so that you feel and look like a million dollars, a character straight out of a James Bond movie (Blofeld, Goldfinger, Miss Moneypenny, Bond girls from the 60's 70's 80's and 90's and of course Mr Kiss Kiss Bang Bang himself) and join 1000 other alluring bright young things for this years superlative Bond Ball event which will be held in a 4* London Hotel.

Sigh. Well, that's not going to happen--I've enjoyed my share of vodka martinis and am now leaving their 'copious' consumption to others. In this case they'll be wearing rented tuxes or drinking these martinis while freezing in white bikinis (which just doesn't seem as if it will end well or prettily).

But for reasons of sheer contrariness, I want to go.

I don't think I've sat through a single one of those adolescent fantasies known as Bond Films --though I would have if they'd chosen Clive Owen as the new Bond, oh how I'd have been rapturously entranced!--yet somehow I want to go to this party very much.

But then I think of the 'alluring bright young things' I would generally see at fancy dress parties in London, 3x more drunk than would be acceptable in NYC; I remember an acquaintance named Mellon crawling on the floor until he collapsed and lay there sprawled like a swastika as his friends stood over him cheering at his drunken paralysis. I remember Oliver, a drunken French Count, pissing himself in the back of a black cab as he kept repeating in a child's voice, "But I want to wee. . .but I want to wee. . ."

What I don't remember is the end of any party I went to when I was living in London. I lived there because they drank like me, and I left there because drinking like me was going to kill me.

But, of course, there are parties in New York:

Nestled beneath the fabled Chelsea Hotel, at the Star Lounge you can meet and mingle in this ‘intimate haven for night time revelry’. The venue is comprised of three distinctive areas subtly suggestive of a 1920's speakeasy. A modern, seamless style combined with a space's organic lighting elements give the Star Lounge a feel that is chic and exclusive yet warm & inviting.

Oooh! A 1920's speakeasy! Chic and exclusive and warm and inviting! Damn, this sounds pretty good as well, and has the advantage of not making me dress up like Judi Dench after she's attended a Womyn's Wicca Man-hating Convention. Plus, it's in my current home town. . .and on this Thursday night.

But what the hell is an organic lighting element, and does it smell of butternut squash when activated?

But No. No no. No putting on my party dress, or my sophisticated shoes. No wandering through the three rooms of the 1920's speakeasy, breathing in the glamorous scent of roasting squash as I show the Star Lounge how it's done. . .I'll be home, packing boxes and watching The Office season premiere. Dammit.

Re. the apartment: I have paid the security and rent. The Super has been bribed. 20 bags have been moved in, and more stuff's going in every day. Have at least 12 big boxes in here, and know where to get more more more of them (Beneath Columbia University's Business School, where new computers are delivered every day. . .to the future CEO's of places like Lehman Brothers.)

How upstanding am I nowadays? How changed, and streamlined, and NON White bikini-wearing speakeasy-roaming?

I just filled out my IRS Change of Address form # 8822.

Jesus. Talk about on the up-and-up.

Be Brave Project, Day 38; Van Gogh-ing Around Town with Dishes

2008-09-19T09:13:00.005-04:00

Every day, on the M11 bus, I haul 2 filled plastic grocery bags over to the new apartment. The theory was that I would move the breakable objects over, so the movers couldn't break them. . .but now it's become a bit of an obsession: How Much of my Kitchen Can I Carry?

Answer: Pretty Damn Much. I've moved a lot. Crystal tumblers and vases and pink Wedgwood dessert plates with pheasants on 'em. Crystal Highballs and casserole dishes, wooden salad bowls and 10 white and gold Limoges plates (bought at a house sale in Chicago). Silver trays and bowls and candlesticks, teapots and big bowls and pottery bowls, enormous soup tureens and small plates with pictures of Elvis. Utensils and pots and immersion blenders, coffee makers and saucepans. Paper thin crystal red wine glasses--I only ever drank red wine if nothing--and I do mean nothing--else was available. They're over sized and immensely fragile and, quite frankly, a pain in my ass--but they belonged to my grandmother so they remain.

I keep telling myself to drink diet soda from them, but their intense fragility makes that an unattractive option. I think you have to be drunk to deal with these very, very fine glasses and their twig-like stems.

Now I'm pretty much down to bare basics for my kitchen. And it's interesting what The Essentials turn out to be:

-4 Ginori Italian Fruit salad plates. They're just so damn pretty and girly, and they make food look lovely.

-4 William Sonoma pasta bowls. That I don't eat pasta out of, but I use for everything else. Great size for a big salad, very good for eating messy stir fries. Excellent to shove in the fridge with rinsed fruit on, or for soup.

-Ikea leftover bowls with lids: They stack, you can mix eggs in them for scrambled eggs (scrammie eggs with some grapes on the side is my new favorite post work-out meal). They're no breakable and they take up little room.

-1 old Lechter's saucepan. For everything, from boiling pasta to poaching chicken breasts.

-1 small Corning Ware saucepan with lid; for re-heating my tea in the a.m.

Today I am making one of my last kitchen trips--Last night I began packing up my bathroom! All the 2nd Tier toiletries are bagged and ready to go. 2nd Tier toiletries are those that you don't really use that often, or which you don't particularly like, but you put them under the sink in the hopes that one day you'll need them and discover that their purchase prices was actually money well spent. What generally actually happens is they get sort of gummy from that under sink life, and you toss them when you move. These haven't had time to get gummy, so naturally I am taking them to the new place to finish marinating in time and sink-hood.

Today's trip will be made on my way down to Lincoln Plaza for a press screening of a new French Imax Film, called The Genius of Van Gogh. I got on the press list last spring, when I was doing a piece on some film screenings in the East Village that ended up not going to publication in the end. But I like Van Gogh--who the hell doesn't?--and thought maybe I could figure out a place to sell a piece on this film.

So over to see it, and to scribble some notes in the dark on it--then to research places where it will be distributed and see if I can pitch a piece to them.

BTW, still haven't heard from Self about essay. Not good. When they like something, you tend to hear within a day or two. I wish they'd be courteous enough to reply equally quickly when the answer's "no".

Be Brave Project, Day 38: Get Down To IT, but How?

2008-09-18T09:32:00.005-04:00

There really is one big thing I have to do with the Be Brave Project to complete my original list from nine weeks ago--work on that novel.

I have an incomplete manuscript that sit in my desk drawer. This manuscript won me a fellowship and a grant, and was my thesis project for graduate school. It is however, at this point, impossible to complete due to the fact that there is no coherent plot. It's all voice, 2 opposing voice driven first person narratives. So what I need to do before I get my ass out on the street and find a full time job so I can pay off those student loans and perhaps start eating meat again, is figure out A PLOT.

But I just don't know what to do about it--recently took a few books out of the library on plot, and they gave me some different styles of plot (For the Revenge story, for the Epic, for the Search story. . .). That gave me some ideas but isn't concrete enough. I want some very solid plot to sort of pin my story to, stretch out its fabric and show the light through the words, give all that narrative structure. In the way that satire is pinned to the skeleton of a previous text (Shamela to Richardson's Pamela, Swift's Modest Proposal to political and religious tracts of the time), I want to use an established form to make a comment.

I just don't know how to find a plot. That's the thing--I don't know how to find a plot right now and I cannot figure out where to start.

So I'll just have to take the BBP and shake it down a bit, cut the chunks into smaller bits and move forward from there. By next week at this time I want to:

-Have one P written that is a synopsis of a classic FILM plot I really like.

-Have a synopsis written that is a classic HARD BOILED MYSTERY (novel) that I like.

It's tough when moving to keep these other irons in the fire, plus family keeps coming to town as people do in Autumn. BTW the essay I wrote has now been turned down by the Times' "Modern Love" column, and by Marie Claire magazine. It's with Self now, and is destined to be sent to Psychology Today next. I really would like to sell this puppy--must think of English Publications to send it to.

The Be Brave Project, Day 37; Old Women Better Than New Women.

2008-09-17T09:15:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I shuffled out of my apartment building carrying two shopping bags filled with: One green and orange Vietnamese pottery bowl, One English glazed Octagonal Bowl, one very large English Tea-pot, one smallish sized plate featuring a picture of young-ish Elvis Presley wearing black leather, one glass vase shaped like an alien's egg or a pod of some sort, 2 needle pointed Paris coasters, and a beaded mat with my grandmother's initials on it.

I rounded the corner just as the M11 bus was coming, and banged down the street using careful fast mini-steps--caught the bus down to the UWS, my new building. Hauled the bags up to the 16th floor (as usual, the door people ignored me, which I love; cannot imagine anything weirder/more off-putting than someone noting your every coming and going) and came dashing back down to catch the M4 to 59th and 7th. Saw the M4 coming and ran full throttle 2 blocks to catch it.

I was going to see the Screen Actor's Guild screening of The Women. Written and directed by Diane English, starring Meg Ryan and Annette Bening.

Oh, How I wish I'd stayed in my new apartment and grouted the tile!

In the New Yorker review, Anthony Lane (who I adore in a sort of girlish fluttery way) said that in the screening he saw, the audience laughed during the opening credits, when Mick Jagger's name came up as a producer for the film. And that, for the next 1 hour 50 minutes, was the last laugh heard.

I sort of wish that had been the case when I saw it. I felt like some kind of foreigner in my home land, as the audience jovially chuckled to lines as stellar as, "What do you think she sells, Chanel Number Shit?" Oh how my sides ached from--oh, actually they didn't. The film covers every tedious sitcom convention from the late 80's on; Seinfeld references ("The Vault"), Gratuitous "women are built to shop" jokes, "oh those chicks and their circular arguing" scenes, and of course, the kicker of them all, the most fabulously life-affirming and original way to end a movie. . .the Childbirth scene.

Because childbirth is--get this, it's pretty damn funny!--painful!

Surprising, yes?

No.
No no no.

No one wants to see it, the knees book-ending the ears, the red-faced screams, the bystanders (do they really allow 3 people to mill about a woman while she's giving birth?) I've always said that if I get knocked up, there's nothing more important to have in the delivery room than a magazine editor.

The elegance and ferocity of the original film has been carefully milked out of this piece of tripe. Where Crawford and Goddard were jungle cats from the street, dangerous and sleek, the other characters managed to unsheath their claws fairly regularly despite their society upbringings. The 2008 film is toothess, moorless, and at heart utterly unsympathetic to its characters.

Ironic that The Women doesn't even bother to let its characters be recognizably human, witty or intelligent. I'd have settled for one out of three. What is peculiar is that it seems almost intentionally cruel to its actresses: The film is often lit like an interrogation room--Bening has never been shot worse--and it seems at times as if English gave up on providing us with wit, plot, and action. She simply gave the audience what she believe they want, Meg Ryan's odd new face viewed from awkward, searching angles.

All I can hope is that this somehow whets the world's appetite for some true bitchery, down in the dirt girl-fighting, and cynicism: Watch the original 1939 MGM film directed by George Cukor, starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and the astonishing Rosalind Russell in a seminal female comedic performance.

Be Brave Project, Day 36; Wall Street Drowning

2008-09-16T09:13:00.007-04:00

Well, I certainly picked the wrong day to take a stand with Wall Street. Amazing; you'd think that perhaps my Arts Degree and study of the 18th Century Epistolary novel somehow hadn't prepared me for wrestling with the big boys.

However, I do know that there is sweet fuck-all I can do about it at this point, and at least I stopped the hemorrhage of money from my portfolio--though it took a blood bath to end the daily drip, drip, drip. . .

Yesterday I went to the Tribeca Cinema to see a screening of a film, Transcendence, written and directed by an old friend of mine. It was a short film, so not much commitment of time apart from hauling myself down 150 blocks or so. A very New York crowd was milling about the lobby: the hipsters in their girl jeans; the lean grizzled older guys who look as if they miss wearing tinted glasses; slender chic women with anxious laughs; a couple of guys with slick hair and suits to match; a few Connecticut matrons with cotton sweaters tied around their necks; and a lot of loud outgoing restaurant workers/actors. I felt a bit like a fly on the wall. Was wearing cargo pants, t-shirt and flip flops--usually when I go downtown, I like to get my groove on. But I was tired and anxious and just didn't bother.

The film was beautifully shot with excellent dialogue, and I love love love to see people in films who don't appear in the Hollywood variety--in this case, two sick women in late middle-age. The close, calmly searching camera made the bones in their face, the fatigue in their eyes, beautiful. Afterwards the crowd filed out towards the cash bar, but after congratulating my friend Courtney on a beautiful film, I got the hell out of there. Didn't feel like having red wine waved in my face, looking like the blood of Wall Street and smelling like Christ's last temptation.

Every day since Friday I've been hauling bags over to the new apartment--glassware and silver and all pottery. Turns out I've got a lot of pottery. When the hell did that happen? I don't wear shawls, radiate smug calmness (or calmness of any variety, really), and never make vegetarian casseroles.

So yesterday my BBP act was to pull my money out of the stock market. Not such a good move, perhaps. Or maybe a very good one. But it was a move, it was a decision and an act--not simply a continuation of waiting and feeling anxious and ignorant and trapped by decisions the financial 'gurus' have been making for the last decade. Adults make decisions, children wait for decisions to be made. So I made a decision, and perhaps the next time I do it it will turn out a little less. . .painfully instructive.

Tonight I am going to a SAG screening of the purportedly ferociously bad film, The Women. Excellent-- that anyone thinks they can out-do MGM's 1939 version is another sign of lunatic, over-weening arrogance.

And today we continue in our waiting game, as anxiety begins to shroud this city.

The Be Brave Project, Day 35; Wrestling with Wall Street

2008-09-15T09:21:00.005-04:00

Well, the market opens in 9 minutes and from what I hear (my main source of news in the world is a Gay gossip/political site that can be disconcertingly prescient) it's going to kick off on Wall Street. Of course, that's been all over the place--unprecedented weekend meetings, Lehman Brothers losing its bailout, Merril bought by BOA, WaMu and Wachovia teetering. . .

But today, after months of watching my money dwindle and feeling hopeless about it--I followed the precepts of the Be Brave Project. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, I went in fighting. I called the Darget brothers who have my account at Smith Barney Chicago, and asked to speak to John. He wouldn't be in until 8.30, the posh-sounding male secretary said. But I could leave a message in voice mail. By 8.30 the market would already be open.

A year ago I would have said, "Oh. Oh, okay."

Today I said, "I do hope you're kidding me. I want to speak with one of those brothers before the market opens." And all of a sudden I was through to Andy, who could tell I was Pissed. Pissed with the lack of communication from them, pissed at that secretary. And within 30 seconds my order was given: Liquidate, except for 15% in Spider (SPY). It must be admitted I was acting on the advice of my aunt, who had a seat on the CBOE for decades.

Now I'm wishing I did this a few weeks back, when I could have better eaten the taxes, but it feels pretty goddamn good to have stopped that spiral. God only knows what's going to happen. Only thing I'd change about it is the use of the phrase, "I do hope. . ." That sounds like a 1930's matron making sure someone used the right recipe for cheese straws. But otherwise I feel quite proud.

And what if the market goes up? And I've just sold out, literally?

I sort of don't think that's going to happen. And if it does, I've learned a valuable lesson about steering your own damn ship. V. important.

Oddly enough, on Saturday night before I heard the rumblings about quiet weekend meetings on Wall Street and the Lehman deal collapsing, I was feeling pretty good about myself, financially--I'd just found out my credit rating went up 41 points.

No idea why, but it did.

Be Brave Project, Day 34: Moving and Reflecting

2008-09-12T08:30:00.008-04:00

Well, I've booked the movers: Even better, I've moved from the usual yen for stasis to a sort of brisk multi-tasking efficiency. Still hauling those boxes in. Called the cable company to make sure I could get cable/internet/phone installed within 24 hours of the move. I've started lists and lists--post office moving packets and voter registration + magazine, IRS, and banking related change of addresses and what furniture I'm giving away.

It's beginning to feel very, very real.

There's something really wonderful about how this all happened. I complain in an AA meeting about being yanked around by my landlords and feeling like "the Universe's bitch." At that time I was, as usual, upset about my mother's advanced cirrhosis and her continuation to drink. I was filled with sorrow and disappointment at my father's latest threat of violence in July. (My brothers and I threw him a birthday party at his request, and he declared that the "execution sucked" and that we had been disrespectful to him and his wife: then he threatened to "beat the shit" out of my older brother, whose own children weren't 6 feet away. A decade of good behavior was thereby erased, and a lonely old age guaranteed. Very sad.)

So I was reeling, towards the end of the summer when I received the lease offer from my landlords. The offer that would raise my rent by a total of 66% in three years--in this economic climate! And I was resentful at all of the bullshit I was supposed to say smelled of Chanel. I'd been trained to ignore ugly realities and to keep my mouth shut in regards to the family inheritance of lunacy--so I went to an AA meeting and bitched simply for the relief of having people come up to me and confirm. "Yes, that's insane behavior. No, you don't need to cover it up or compensate for it."

I listened to them, and also followed the Be Brave Project: I wrote the landlords a scorching letter that resulted in them reducing the proposed rent increase by hundreds per month. . .

But then, via AA, the offer on this new place came in--a duplex with a dishwasher, within one block of Central Park. And now I feel grateful & like the luckiest person in the City.

Re. the BBP: Today I send in my voter's registration form--with the new address on it! I haven't voted in a long, long time. And I doubt that my vote will make a big difference--but dammit I'm doing it: This country is like another crazy ass parent to me right now; producing a lot of worry and shame. Yesterday sent in 2006 taxes, and today will return my older brother's call about the family situation. This is the stuff that used to send me to the sofa with a vase of Pinot Grigiot, but instead tonight I will be making these, and pouring milk into the vase to accompany them.

Today to library to work on plotting.

Yesterday sent an essay to Marie Claire.

Be Brave Project, Day 33: A Busy Day for Liquor Stores

2008-09-11T08:44:00.007-04:00

It's impossible not to add to the 9/11 media onslaught: Last year the anniversary seemed to glide ghostlike by me, I felt only lightly brushed by tatters of fear and nervousness and memory. Twelve months ago I was less than a month sober and consequently a bit stunned; plus, I am fortunate enough not to have known anyone who had died that day. I'm sure people talked about it in the rooms of AA, but I simply do not remember.

This week the anniversary has loomed large, and it's been both interesting and unsurprising to hear the alcoholic's take on the day. One woman, Alice, has commemorated each year by holing up in her apartment and getting drunk while the name roll call has taken place--Alice is dark haired, smoky voiced, and from the outer boroughs, where many of the restaurants' employees and building operators and staff worked. She knows many people who died that morning. This is Alice's first year sober, and she went down to the liquor store on the ground floor of the building last week to talk to the owner, a guy who sold her a lot of booze over the last 15 years. "I quit, Tom. I'm in AA. And I'm scared about next Thursday, so please don't sell me anything." He hugged her, and said he wouldn't ever again, he was happy for her--and that he wanted to quit smoking but couldn't do it. Could she help?

Alice is still scared about this anniversary today, but as she keeps saying, "The people I know wouldn't like the fact that I was commemorating them by taking the day off to drink."

Christine was in the WTC that day. Christine is ash blonde with white skin that's so unwrinkled it's almost egglike; to me she looks more like an Upper East Sider, but she attends West Side meetings so I give her the benefit of the doubt. She was shaking as she spoke at the Women's meeting yesterday, she was shaking with rage. "All of my security in life was taken that day. I'd worked so hard to put it together, and in one day it was gone." She fought her way back uptown and, of course, into a liquor store. She bought a bottle of vodka and, with grim humor, a bottle of champagne. The clerk told her that she was mixing drinks, but she shoved them in her bag and went home to her high-rise studio, where she could see plumes of smoke rising from the south.

That night is when Christine turned to alcohol full-time. For the next three years she went back to that liquor store daily (unusual, because lushes usually will walk miles to get to a store where people don't know them). She drank, literally, until her bones began to soften and her teeth to loosen. She was attacking her own infrastructure.

Right now it is 9.17 in the morning, on another sunny early-autumn day. Wall Street is already reeling, Columbia University is on a deceptively casual alert, mid-town is as usual bluffing it out and pretending things are business as usual--but every siren is a moment for pause. Inwood's retreating to a safe pretense of suburbia, Dumbo's hipsters, who were still in high-school, look across the East River at a city that--to them--looks normal.

Be Brave Project, Day 32: Mmm. . .Is that A Cardboard Box I See Before Me?

2008-09-10T08:28:00.008-04:00

Hanging out with someone who's moving is a lot like spending time with someone who's in love; they just won't shut up about it. Everything is related to the object of obsession.

Once I was walking down Avenue A with a friend of mine, an educated woman and usually a humorous one. She had just met a man named Ryan the week before. Coming towards us was a hipster wearing an expression of rebellion and discontent. He glowered at a police car that went by, he sneered at the people carrying coffee and briefcases. His haircut was one of those expensive English rocker ones that make someone's hair look as if it died while crawling down their forehead in search of escape--but this wasn't why I laughed at him. What made me laugh was the fact that he was walking five fat dachshunds, who were clearly his own pets, and the ones in charge.

Five dogs means that you have an absolutely enoooormous apartment--not a cheap thing in the East Village, where enormous apartments generally mean buying several (previously tenement) units and reconstructing them with cathedral ceilings and bedrooms for your hot and cold running waitstaff. . .Five fat dogs means that you spend your nights shinnying around your home on your knees, offering pastry bits in return for a few scratches and a waft of bad breath. There's nothing wrong with living large--if that's your definition of it--but it just struck me as hilarious that the hipster wanted his public persona to be all disenchanted and sneering: There's a reason Marlon Brando didn't carry dachshunds in The Wild One. It might be nice, but it ain't cool.

So I smiled towards the hipster and he sneered at me Elvis-style as a dog threw up a little bit on his shoe, which made me smile more. I turned to look at my friend. She was gazing dreamily at the hipster's mid-section. "You know what?" she said, "Ryan would look so great in that belt. . ."

Sigh. But I'm that way now. Walking down the street I'll suddenly stop in my tracks and stare intently at a box that's been left on a corner. Is it strong enough? Does it smell? Does it have a convenient handle? (Believe me, I've dated men where I wish I'd asked these questions first.) I go to Staples and lurk in the back section, fingering various packets of tape. Every person I meet I interrogate: Who do you use for cable? For electricity? Who helped you move?

Yesterday I had an early and nerve-wracking meeting: My crucial first encounter with Rebecca's husband Markham. He owns the condo, he's the one who's nervous about renting it. . .he knows she met me in AA. I couldn't sleep the night before, and in the morning couldn't eat. Dressed in the most respectable & innocuous outfit I could think of (jeans, white cotton pressed shirt, heels). Put together financials. We met on the corner of 80th and Broadway at 8.30. Markham was dark haired, with kind hooded eyes and a slightly nervous manner. As he was talking about the condo in a kind and settled manner (as if it's all a fait-accompli!) I heard a sort of rush in my ears--uh oh. A few moments later my stomach lurched, and I realized I was going to be very, very sick. Quite soon.

After several eons passed, with me swallowing hard and schvitzing like a roasting piglet, we shook hands in what I hope was mutual satisfaction, and parted.

I almost immediately threw up in a grate on the street, came home and went back to bed, where I remained for 26 hours. With a plastic bucket comfortingly nearby.

Still feeling less than great--with an odd urge for macaroni and cheese mixed with peas--but the move looks like a go!

Be Brave Project, Day 30: Hanging Meat and Mailing Letters

2008-09-08T08:50:00.006-04:00

Last week I wandered into my building's front hallway, and found two "City Pass" booklets propped up on top of the mailboxes. Looking through them I saw that they contained what seemed to be free tickets to The Guggenheim, The Empire State Building, and The State of Liberty + Ellis Island. Hmmm. The books were half-used, and due to expire in 4 days.

So a friend and I went to the Guggenheim yesterday. I'm ashamed to admit that I'd never been there before; every time I have tried to become a fan of modern art art I end up with the frustrated feeling that either someone's onto a really good con game, or they're taking the piss. An example: A few years back an ex and I went to the Tate Modern in London. Absolutely lovely building, but once I looked at an art installation that consisted of a pile of bricks, and another that was a film of a naked German man jumping up and down, I felt I'd got the point.

Was I simply an irretrievable philistine, or was someone laughing at me? Annoying, when you don't quite get the joke. So, I approached the Gugg with trepidation. CityPass turns out to be brilliant--we didn't have to wait in line and just swanned in. Got our free audio phones, put the earphones on, and pressed 1. As we stood on the ground floor near a 10 foot sculpture of a spider, we looked up the spiraling ramps towards Frank Lloyd Wright's famous ceiling (in the picture above). It conveniently resembles nothing so much as a large crystalline web from which the bronze arachnid has dropped, fully formed.

The exhibit on now is of Louise Bourgeois' work, and the spider represents her mother, a tapestry weaver. To Bourgeois the spider is a symbol of industry, ingenuity, and frailty. We walked up the ramps, looking at early art work of women who are becoming houses, their hair in flames and their arms flailing out of the windows. The "New York in the 40's" exhibit was vaguely disappointing (though there was a Picardie painting), but the Thannhauser collection absolutely thrilled--Cezanne, Manet, Picasso, Pissaro.

I was sighingly dragged out of the Thannhauser rooms back up the ramps, to more Bourgeois works. Sculptures of slender wooden planks huddled together; enormous pods and what look like piles of shit. Here was where I realized, --Oh, this is about rage! I get rage, and can channel it in my girlish way, so we were off to the races. Bourgeois' father had abandoned his family when she was young, and then returned to allow his wife to support him. At the same time, he moved in an "English Tutor" for his daughters--namely, his mistress. One of Bourgeois' most famous pieces was of a dinner table with glowing red seats--everything in the room is glowing red with rage and vengeance. On the dining room table there are dismembered bits of the father that will be gnawed to the bone as a meal.

But the most interesting piece in terms of the reactions it got, where my friend and I mooned around for ages (so did a lot of guards), was one of her later works--I cannot remember the title, so I'll just call it what it is: Penis on a Meathook. Holy Crow! You round the corner and there it is, hanging. The reactions of various museum visitors varied from the studiedly intellectual to the sniggeringly embarrassed. My definite favorite falls to the middle-aged woman who was wearing yellow hair, yellow trousers, and shiny yellow shoes. She walked right up to it, studied the dangling object at a very close range, then turned around to shout to her friend. "Come here, Sean--take a look at this ham!"

I liked the Guggenheim.

Today I am doing a very brave thing indeed; launching into the unknown. I have done this before but never when I was sober, and never when I had so many possessions (a sofa! 2 coffee tables! 2 bookcases, a bed!) and a cat to look after. . .today I am mailing in my notice to vacate this apartment. I am scared of ending up homeless, but if I don't jump at this opportunity I would be kicking myself next summer, when the price goes up again on this place and I am again looking in Inwood. . .it's a risk, so I need to take a deep breath and leap.

Be Brave Project, Day 29: The End of The Beginning

2008-09-05T09:35:00.003-04:00

Today was supposed to mark the end of the Project for me; 6 weeks ago today I did my first Brave Thing, by contacting an ex boyfriend in Paris with whom I needed to sort some things out.

That bit o' bravery took me all of 12 minutes, he couldn't have been nicer about it all (well, it was mostly me apologizing--but as I'm sure you know people can occasionally take apologies as an opportunity to recite your faults, and he did not).

12 minutes that I've barely thought about since, because once the phone call was made and apologies accepted, my monkey mind stopped torturing me with it all and just settled down. The next day I called the Dream Accountant on the impulse of a moment--and left him a message. Second brave thing done. . .I'd begun nervously circling the tax issues that had been bothering me so, and was profoundly tired of waiting for some terrifying notice to come through the mail, and wondering why on earth nothing ever arrived.

By the end of the week I'd:

-Visited hell, in the form of the "Speedy Renewal" branch of the New York Dep't of Motor Vehicles.

-Spoken with the Dream Accountant and already received good information. Put together tax packet for him & shipped it off.

-Taken cat to the vet for delayed dental surgery/cleaning that I was worried would kill her.

-Given an Enormous diabetic cat 2 shots of insulin, needle-phobic though I am.

And I'd realized that the BBP isn't a 6 week project; that most things considered brave in my daily life, (where there's remarkably little hand-to-hand combat or embedded land mines, apart from the emotional variety) are simply acts of self-care and determination to have a better life. You can avoid dealing with your taxes, if you want to behave like a child and feel like a deadbeat. You can live without health insurance simply to protest the antediluvian gruesomeness of this wealthiest country providing none for its citizens--but who does that hurt? Who does that keep up at night? Certainly not our President.

The BBP is like going to the gym, really. You use those muscles or they get weak, and flabby, and they worry you and age you.

What I've learned is this: You've got to ACT to be motivated.

It isn't the other way around. The Be Brave Project is, I have realized, about the long haul.

Next phase of the BBP: Moving and getting that book done! I have an agent who wants to see it!

Day 27, Be Brave Project: Hello, My Parqueted Darling.

2008-09-04T09:13:00.005-04:00

Absolutely exhausted today. How people function on very little sleep has always been beyond me; in my drinking days it took me a solid 12 hours of recovery time + then a torpid roll in the sack with those devilish twins, diet coke and Big Mac, before I could face the world with any kind of decisiveness.

And I had very little sleep last night.

Yesterday I walked up Columbus Avenue at around 1.30, on my way to meet Rebecca at the Columbus Cafe on 87th street. Columbus Avenue is. . .oh, it's fine. Loads of lovely restaurants with awnings and a single rose on each table; boutique shops whose windows dance with 'back to school' sales; elegant stationary shops and very, very serious organic drycleaners. Yummy mummies shout into cell phones as they one-handedly push expensive strollers up the street, the infants within bald and serious as Churchill in his War Rooms. Shopgirls with piercings beneath lace tops. Shouting tourists heading towards the NYC Historical Society are quickly subdued by reproachful glances from the older ladies of the Upper West Side.

Rebecca was at the cafe already, and within minutes we were at The Building. As she opened the front door, R. unnervingly said, "That's Angie at the desk--she's mean." A moment later she was giving Angie a picture drawn by Maggie, Rebecca's 8 year old child; within the folded drawing there was also a $20 bill. "That's from Maggie's own wallet," R. says . . ."So be sure to have fun spending it!" Angie takes the picture and says she'll put it up on her "Turin Baby" cork board. I am introduced as Rebecca's cousin, and we are in.

Do children tip concierges in NYC? I didn't have the cojones to ask.

The building is modern, built in 1972 after someone decided to raze some beautiful brownstones: It's 18 stories high, and all of the apartments within are duplexes. In the 80's these condos were sold as middle-income housing, with the understanding that they cannot be re-sold until 2012. After 9/11, in some form of anti-terrorism paranoia, it became forbidden to rent the condos. Consequently a very NY situation was born: Condo owners whose families have expanded cannot sell, but also cannot afford not to rent. A loophole is therefore created, in which the building supers and doormen get a lot of $20 bills thrown their way, for turning a blind eye when 'cousins' move into the building.

We took the elevator to the 16th floor, walk down a darkish hallway, and R. opens the apartment door. My first thought was, "Hello Darling!" Parquet floors! A Japanese style room separator between kitchen and living area. The kitchen is small but clean (dishwasher!) The main room downstairs is well-shaped, and has a small marble table and cast-iron chairs. "We can move that, if you like." The windows look North, towards the jagged skyline of Morningside Heights.

But oh my Stars--I fell in love with the bathrooms and the closet spaces. 1 and 1/2 baths, looking like proper clean modern rooms, not worrying damp seep-holes. A full sized bath! Immaculate looking medicine cabinets, and towel racks and hooks and lovely clean clean white tile floor without the cracks and chips mine has. And 4 closets. 4 closets, big bold lovely closets, about which I cannot write with sufficient reverence and enthusiasm.

So. Semi-legal tenancy. In a clean, safe unit. With utilities included. I would save $4300 in a year's rent. And leave my beloved ground-floor tenement style housing with the un-lockable front door: But I'll have to leave here next summer anyway.

I think it's a no-brainer. I'm moving.

And, sadly, I did nothing Brave yesterday--just walked around in a daze.

Day 27, Be Brave Project; Past Perfect Syndrome

2008-09-03T09:16:00.006-04:00

To a person afflicted with a particular turn of mind, nothing--nothing--on this planet is quite as attractive as something you're about to lose. Ever. And the things you have lost? Absolutely devastating in their attractiveness. I'm sure the Germans have a word for this emotional state (if they don't, no one will), but I will simply refer to it as "Past Perfect Syndrome".

PPS has happened to me time and again with boyfriends, of course. The way he chews and those flannel shorts he wears--the approximate color and shape of wilted lettuce--turn from being disgusting indicators of future mental cruelty to being endearing hallmarks of quirkiness. A tendency to talk incessantly while viewing dvds is less an incitement to decapitation than a rather sweet boyish yen for conversation.

This is obviously an unfortunate character trait, one which has caused me very real unhappiness over the years. I no longer believe it to be sweetly melancholy, or sign of an artistic temperament: I think PPS is an indulgent and unnecessary pain in the ass.

And now I'm a New Yorker. So I am suffering from PPS in regards to my apartment.

Which has never, ever looked so good to me.

Never mind that when I moved in, my aunt and brother were close to speechless over the state of the place. That I put in hour after hour of scrubbing and thought into this weirdly designed apartment, which has a large kitchen but few counters, a bathtub that occasionally likes to burp tan bark up the drain, really weird rectangular moldings on the walls, and two long picture windows that alert the neighbors to my shamefully indulgent tv habits. Now all is beauty and delight to me; honey colored wooden floors and oh, look there! That's where Gigi Colette hid on her first day here with me. Directly next to it is the spot where she first vomited. That's the mirror I put up the first night I had cable and was watching one of those Jack Nicholson films with exchangeable titles (As Good As It Gets or As Low As It Goes or Something's Gotta Give).

What a night that was! I think I ate pasta.

Everywhere I look this place is filled with charm, from the deeply overstuffed bookshelves to the tarnishing silver, from the coffee table that attacks my shins to that damned kitchen carpet that just won't stay clean.

It's not too tough to figure out why I feel like a business man who's having breakfast with his lovely wife, knowing he's going to schtup another woman during lunch hour. Today, at 1.45, I am going to view the UWS Duplex apartment. And from what I hear, she's built. . .

Be Brave Project Yesterday: FINALLY finished the essay, and think it's quite good. A lot of excess trimmed and a much less overwrought ending to it. Also found myself a General Practitioner near Columbus Circle, and sent the form in to Oxford. Also sent form in to Smith Barney about being a little more moderate with investment goals. Rec'd credit card application at low percentage rate, but am going to hold off applying until I see if anything better comes down the pike or I get a sudden brave-wave of financial acumen. But I'm going to get one more card before 2008 is over; lower my utilization rate and diversify.

Now I have to get dressed for my duplexitous lunchtime activities. Ooh I can't wait to see the place but equally Oof! I don't want to lose this one.

Be Brave Project, Day 26: Word On The Street

2008-09-02T09:21:00.012-04:00

There are plenty of lonely and unbalanced people in New York, and many of the arguments I overhear seem to be about dogs: I just heard a man shout to a woman outside, "Why aren't you admiring my fuckin' dog?" Why not indeed. Her response was a shower of shrieked abuse which came so fast and so high pitched that, I suspect, only the poor dog could hear it. This couple lives on my block, and while they seem to live much of their lives publicly in what downtowners might interpret as exhaustive performance pieces, I suspect that their home life consists of few moments of artistic reflection. They are tiring, and certainly could be viewed as a bit depressing, but I'm used to them and they're as much of a background in my life as BBC's Radio 4 is when I'm cooking. I like to know what's going on, big picture and small.

There is also a man in my building who involves himself in a lot of arguments--with his dog. He's a man who speaks in sharp, forceful tones that ring with despair over this uncontrollable beast. "Pee Wee!" The voice cries out with the harsh anguish of a man in love, "Pee Wee, COME HERE!" I've learned to recognize the jingling of Pee Wee's collar as he trots down the hallway, blithely ignoring his owner. My cat will always move swiftly to the door in a low crouching run, to exchange sniffs with the dog. She's double his size, and I suspect has nine times his native intelligence, but lacks Pee Wee's capacity for drama. At four in the morning I hear the man outside, shouting pleas in attempts to control this wild wild creature who holds his heart, but is dancing dementedly in the street. Frankly, I admire Pee Wee's blithe insouciance.

NYC is famous for its street crazies. Of course, the current take on them is riddled with nostalgia: The crazies nowadays (we are told) are not as full of character and richness as they were in the 'good old days' when the subways were covered in graffiti, Times Square riddled with those poor women in the unrestricted sex clubs, and you got an 8 ball of cocaine free with every box of fig cookies bought in a bodego. This sentiment is even more ludicrous than nostalgia usually is: Grime infested, crime infested New York City seems to have been lively, but also gruesomely depressing in its teeming and trapped underclass--something that Dickens and Gogol could have created after a hard night spent together, smoking crystal meth with neighborhood prostitutes. A quick view at how the city was (thanks to Rich at FourFour), quickly dissipates nostalgia.

Nowadays, you can walk up Broadway for miles without hearing from a single crazy on the street. It's quite relaxing in its way, though yesterday I was relieved to see a small dirty red-headed man darting up the street with his fists clenched, yowling the age old question, "Who Put My Buick up their Big Fat Ass?!"

Today I will finish and submit that damn Self essay, which I've finally trimmed to under 2000 words. Shall also call a doctor on West 58th Street to see if she'd agree to become my primary care physician, so I can send this health insurance stuff back & get the doctor's visits started. . .haven't had a thorough check-up in so long that this is seriously scary stuff. As I head to the doctor's office I will welcome/pay for any distraction the streets of this city have to offer.

Be Brave Project, Day 25: Dealing With Dealing.

2008-08-29T09:19:00.009-04:00

Labor Day weekend is here, and I feel a bit melancholy and reflective. Outside the milky curtains of of my apartment windows, I can hear the soft sound of cars swooshing by in the rain, of horns half-honked out of habit more than anger, of women clipping by in high heels. Whenever someone comes into my building, a typical NYC walk-up built in 1904, the front door squawks resentfully before easing back into a closed position with a sigh. Ground floor life.

I don't want to move; the hassle, the expense, the finding of the boxes and movers and time. . .and yet, and yet I have not yet sent my lease renewal. I am still waiting to see that damned duplex. Rec'd a call from Rebecca yesterday; they can show it to me next week. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow--this shit might just petty pace me out of a home. But the idea of having a dishwasher and stairs to climb, of laundry in the building and a full-sized bathtub (bubble baths! Oh!)--in addition to saving $300 a month, just keeps me dangling on the line with teeth firmly clamped to the bait.

They're not screwing me around; I just think Rebecca is shy about gaining access to the place for some reason. And if my landlords try to boot me out for being a few days late on the renewal (these landlords being the same people who took 4 months to repair a hole they knocked in my bathroom ceiling last summer), I shall simply say I mailed the renewal at the beginning of the week.

So that's what is making me uncomfortable; I really do not like duplicity. Even in the name--particularly in the name--of taking care of myself, it makes me uncomfortable. I don't like duplicity or uncertainty or negotiations. I don't know when I turned into such a Pollyanna, but it's ruining my sleep and chapping my ass.

Anxiety about the Be Brave Project is also really kicking up. Yesterday I mailed the second out of the three tax returns I missed due to being a lush. Again, I am supposed to get money back; but I feel as if that cannot be the full story. Can you really just do the late taxes and that's it? I spent years feeling terrified about this, and all it took was 1 week, 1 accountant, and a stamp to sort it out? That cannot be.

My Health Insurance card, which I still do find a bit thrilling, is kicking up anxiety as well; I am profoundly mistrustful of the American health system, and convinced that if I actually use the damn thing all sorts of ghastly paperwork will reign down upon me. This, in AA terms, is known as catastrophizing. And, as you can imagine, it's a jolly fun way to live your life.

So, what with the stress of moving/not moving/might get tossed out, dealing with my taxes, health insurance mistrust. . .I find duplicity is seeping into all sorts of odd places. An old friend from Paris called and texted on to invite me to a dinner party in the East Village last night--I was told that attractive men would be there, that the food would be divine. . .

Phhh. That's how I felt. Phhh. First the hassle of getting dressed, which on an average day is far from a thoughtless, casual event for me. Then a hostess gift, two trains downtown, switching at Times Square. Long long walk from Astor Street stop down to Avenue B. "Attractive Men" always sound stressful and a bit high-maintenance, and as for food? Please. I have my pesto, I have Cadbury's Fruit and Nut bars. Unbeatable.

So I lied: I said I had to deal with my taxes.

And I sat on my sofa all night, quietly focusing on not freaking out about it all, the Be Brave Project and moving/not moving, sobriety and the stockmarket, grave family worries that kicked up this summer and the solace of the beginnings of financial acumen. I suppose you could say I was dealing with dealing with my taxes.

And that's attractive enough for me.

Be Brave Project, Day 24: Eat Your Greens, Mr. Eastwood.

2008-08-28T09:30:00.006-04:00

Canoodling around on the internet yesterday, I found an old article from the London newspaper The Evening Standard in which a journalist took England's most famous female boxer, Cathy Brown, to see Clint Eastwood's film Million Dollar Baby. I love this film so very much, or the first 2/3 of it, that reading about a woman boxer's response to it made me leap around my apartment until I found the dvd.

In the article the woman boxer, 34 year-old Brown, had recently knocked out Hungarian Viktoria Varga after just two rounds-- exactly the type of fight Hilary Swank's character, Maggie, excels at in the film. Why is it so great (and really very weirdly satisfying) to watch Swank swing out a meaty arm and knock someone senseless?

What is it with boxing and films? Why does boxing transfer so well to cinema when, for example, movies about movies so frequently suck? (Don't even get me going about The Aviator. . . Scorsese got more from one shot of blood dripping from rope in Raging Bull than he was able to muster in 3 hours of the crap Hughes bio-pic. ) Say what you like about Sylvester Stallone, but Rocky is an extremely well-constructed, enjoyable film-- plus, I can't help but remember my pre-adolescent stirrings at the sight of his armpits. (And if you think you're disturbed by that, imagine how I feel.) Would On The Waterfront have been quite so earthy and moving if Brando had been, say, a failed golfer?

There's essentially something very moving about the strength and sadness of people who get beat up for a living.I suppose much of the appeal of boxing films is obvious: Women like watching well-built men sweat with very little clothing on. Men like sports. Boxing is an inherently simple conflict-- two people face to face with their fists and their minds as their only weapons. It has a structure that is inherently both violent and sexual: The rounds of only a few minutes a piece, the terse interstitial instructions, leaping jets of blood as eyelids get sliced open and noses re-arranged. Plus, boxing films have the climactic potential of the old KO. Add a condom and a pizza and that's a Saturday Night!

Million Dollar Baby relies on a lot of standard cinematic relationships, and it is all the better for that. Eastwood clearly is too experienced to avoid the necessary and enjoyable cliches: He knows their power. Swank is a classic underdog, born of the trashiest family in a trash-filled town, and freely confesses that if she were thinking straight she'd buy herself "a used trailer, a deep fryer and some oreos." Eastwood's Frankie is a world-weary old trainer with a mother-hen instinct, who helps his boxers with their automotive problems and worries about their health. The story is told in flash-back, in voice-over. And who does the voice-over?? Only the biggest smoothie in the business: the buttered gravel voice of Morgan Freeman. This man's voice held The Shawshank Redemption together, its gravity belying the movie's potential for sentimentality. The man could read the back of a tampon packet and make it sound epic and evocative.

Eastwood and Paul Haggis, the screenplay writer, also rely on one of my favorite movie conventions: The Same Sex Non-Sex partner. Think Laurel and Hardy, Voight and Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, Butch and Sundance. (In fact, the only film cliche I like more than the Same Sex Non-Sex partner is The Makeover. I just love it when they take a beautiful person with no make-up on, make them up, and suddenly. . .guess what?!? They look like a movie star!) But I digress: Eastwood and Freeman are world class SSNS partners. I would happily watch hours of footage of these two characters, Frankie and Scrap, sitting in a van waiting for the Automobile Association to come fix their alternator. Or maybe shopping with double-discount coupons at the Piggly Wiggly.

The best SSNS couples express their affection through rudeness and honesty. After Frankie's #1 fighter coldly dumps him for his rival, Scrap observes, "It wouldn't be so sad if you weren't so old." Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's exactly why Frankie has taken as his motto: "Always Protect Yourself." He doesn't want his fighters in over their heads, because they might get hurt; yet he doesn't want to get attached to them because he might get hurt. He doesn't want to train girls because it's painful to watch women get beaten up.

All of this vulnerability makes Million Dollar Baby a difficult film to watch at times. After a few girlfights I began to distract myself, to have fantasies that Hilary Swank might want some revenge on the bastards who raped her in Boys Don't Cry, and start kicking a little male ass. After all the films we've had to sit through watching women get assaulted, it seemed time to even things up a bit.

However, the filmmakers are far higher minded than my vengeful soul, and they took this quietly inspirational story in a very different direction. After Maggie and Frankie have realized that their friendship has turned into a deeper father and daughter relationship, Frankie forces himself to throw caution to the winds: After several refusals, he allows Maggie to fight Billie, the WWF champion. Billie's a dirty fighter (we are told she's an ex-hooker from Berlin, so presumably she's a little cheesed off what with us winning the cold war and all those low-paid blow jobs). And, in an exceptionally nasty move, Billie throws a series of illegal punches which culminate in Swank's spinal column getting snapped.

Which brings us back to what Cathy Brown--remember the English boxer?--thought of Million Dollar Baby. She felt that the film enacts a big fear that people in the boxing world have always had about women's boxing: "That a serious injury to a woman boxer might destroy the sport. I think some people will come away from this film not wanting to see women box in real life. That would be a shame. We train as hard as men, we fight as hard, and we have the same right to be in the ring."

Well, I can see why Brown would worry about that, but in fact this film reflects quite well on women's boxing (though slightly less well on ex-hookers from Berlin). What I would say to Cathy Brown is this: a. Please don't kick my ass, and b. Maggie traveled places she'd never imagined visiting, earned beaucoup bucks, excelled at a sport she loved, and found a very meaningful relationship with Frankie. As Scrap points out, "People die every day after mopping floors. Never got their shot. If she dies today she'll be thinking 'I did all right'."

In short, thank Christ for Clint Eastwood. He just keeps cranking out film after another intelligent, serious, thoughful film. He doesn't have the soundtrack shout his intentions at us (are you listening, Scorsese?? Howard Hughes was deaf: I am not). And Eastwood can take the piss out of himself. I will be trying not to let the Angelina Jolie effect deter me from seeing his next, The Changeling, though the pulsing veins in her arms--and the crazy in her eyes--are somewhat distracting. But eat your greens, Clint baby. . .we need you around.

And as for the Be Brave Project, my own efforts to stop shadow boxing with the past? Sent off my 2006 taxes to the Dream Accountant, received my 2005 from same. Am within one day of sending off that damn Self piece, and will be seeing the elusory duplex this weekend. Oh yes, and I've decided to get over my fear of Russian Literature: I bought War and Peace.

I just wish Morgan Freeman would read it to me. . .

Be Brave Project, Day 23: Butler Library & The Glare of the Blairs

2008-08-27T09:53:00.006-04:00

There's already an autumnal lilt to the air, here in Manhattan, that I've never detected before the third week of September. Usually the students move to the city at the end of August and spend three weeks gasping in the dying grip of a New York summer; they gawp in shocked appreciation as models stroll up Broadway wearing nothing more than three handkerchiefs and a pair of knuckle-dusters, they avert their eyes from bearded hipsters in cut-offs (there's just something about the sight of a bearded guy in shorts that's a bit porno in all the wrong ways.)

But this morning something happened that's the equivalent of Groundhog's Day--I woke up, scratched my way to the kitchen, fed & watered Gigi Colette, and then went to get a glass for my morning diet soda. But I froze. I sniffed the air. I wrapped my arms around myself and felt the need for a dose o' cashmere, or at least a velour hoodie. And then I made myself a cup of tea.

Autumn's come early this year.

I should have been expecting it: Last week I had a slightly disconcerting experience. I was heading to Butler Library on the Columbia University campus. As an alum I have access there, and it's a fine, elegant, efficient place to get some work done (whilst occasionally distracting yourself with their quality baked goods). The architecture of the building is so marvellously over the top in its self-important pretentiousness that I always smile when I see it. I adore this building. I can see some 1930's Preston Sturges characters discussing its design: "I want some columns, see--big ones, and don't be stingy with 'em! Gimme lots of columns, a few big hanging lamps, and a couple a' archways. And let's get some names up there! Who's big in this book business? Aristotle--I heard of him--get his name up there. He's dead, right? Good. No lawsuits. . ."

Anyway, I'm walking towards the library, smiling and thinking girlish thoughts of Preston Sturges, chocolate chip cookies, and the diversification of my credit portfolio--when suddenly I noticed that the people around me were far, far better looking than the average variety of human being. And that these good-looking people were weirdly over-dressed for a summer's day. They all had sweaters tied stiffly around their necks, and the guys wore khakis with knife-like creases ironed into them.

And they were glaring at me.

Turns out that the tv show Gossip Girl was being shot on campus that day, and the entire College Walk was shut down. H'mm. Why, now you mention it, I did suddenly notice that there were plenty of people standing around with the self-important casualness of a film crew--and oh yes, those are some big ass cameras and equipment trucks over there.

While basking in the feast of my own imagination, I had apparently ignored the shouts of the various interns, assistant directors, and security guys, and wandered into the middle of the scene they were shooting. Whoops! I've never seen the show, as I watch Skins on BBC America and only have the capacity for one group of self-involved adolescents in my viewing life. . .but it certainly looked as if I'd just really pissed off a bunch of girls named Blair.

So if you watch that show and see a scene in front of a profoundly fabulous library, where there's an over-aged and apparently mentally challenged female student mooning around, wearing summer clothing when all others are tweeded up to their asses--That's Elusive D.!

Be Brave Project: Yesterday pulled together tax stuff for 2006. Called Health Insurance about activating plan. Edited Self essay, and think it's better and tighter. Called Rebecca about going to see the duplex in the ugly building. . .I decided to risk it for a biscuit, and slightly delay returning the lease agreement to my landlords: It's Labor Day weekend, and these things happen.

Just please God don't let me end up on the street. Think how many film shoots I'd screw up if I wandered this town full-time.

Be Brave Project, Day 22: Capital One, it's the Sock Drawer for You.

2008-08-26T09:33:00.009-04:00

I don't like not quite knowing where I'll be living in five weeks, and I obviously don't enjoy the sustained effort it costs for me to dig myself out of the swamp of vodka and financial insecurity beneath which I was buried for most of the new millennium.

Turning around and facing the grotesquely self-sabotaging behaviors caused by addiction is not only frightening, but wearying: You feel as if you're stumbling up a down escalator all of the damn time, while next to you your friends and family glide serenely along, effortlessly moving up and forward, forward and up. My world got smaller and bleaker, while friends got married or arranged book deals; purchased houses--wisely at the time when a ham sandwich could get a mortgage--or decided to row across the Atlantic for charity; had children or leapt into exciting career changes.

A great deal of time at AA meetings is spent discussing the dangers of over-reacting when we are feeling "less than." (I know, these recovery phrases make you want to cover your ears and hum show tunes loudly, but as I mentioned, we are weary. Somehow it helps to speak in a sort of emotional shorthand, although you feel as if you're in an afternoon re-run of a crap Lifetime film.)

It's all a bit confusing, and ironic, and circular: Lushes drink when they feel inferior, and feel inferior because they've run away from life. Lushes drink because they feel resentful, but are perpetuating the behavior that created the disparity which causes resentment. Lushes isolate so they can drink, but drink because they're so cut off. But most of all, Lushes drink because they are lushes. And yet once you've put the bottle down for a bit, you do find that avoiding resentments and comparisons and anger and fatigue and isolation does quiet down the drink signals, and telling other people about it really does help to shut the signals off.

So the AA meetings exist, otherwise we'd be wandering the streets grabbing the lapels of innocent civilians and telling them our trivial stories of grudges and woe. Like I'm about to do here:

In my sustained effort to improve my credit and re-join the more responsible members of the human race, I bit the bullet and called Capital One yesterday evening. There actually wasn't as much fear/bullet biting involved in the call, because I have never missed a payment with them since I got the card (hot damn, Elusive D.!), and I have never made any previous requests. So I wanted them to drop my APR from 15.65%, and possibly give me a credit increase.

Fifteen minutes later I hung up the phone almost shaking with anger. I'd been spoken to like a child, told that having the low limit and the high APR was "good for me, and for my credit", and that as a Capital One customer I was "like a child in school asking for a good grade before the work has been done." Well, I asked, biting my words out so I wouldn't tell the woman what I thought of her demeaning customer service technique, what can I do in order to qualify for these improvements in the future? "I can't give a time frame. Files are pulled randomly." Well, fuck you very much, Darling.

Her advice was that I should start using the card, a lot, and then eventually Capital One would decide to award me for my good behavior. They clearly are using the oil crisis to push buying gas with credit, as she kept telling me that it's soo easy to just swipe the card at the pump. Twice I said, "I'm a New Yorker. No car." Oh, she piped in, I could do a balance transfer at a low APR. As if every other card on the planet doesn't have a low balance transfer. But how helpful of her to point out that how I can improve credit is by shifting debt around! Thanks ever so! Happily, I currently have very little credit card debt, having spent the last few years paying it off. I suppose the Capital One Customer Service Manager would have suggesting running up debt in order to transfer it.

I thanked her for 'the interesting information you've given me'.

She thanked me for calling and wished me a good night.

We hung up in mutual loathing. It really was one of those conversations where you realize --Oh, she doesn't like me at all.

So I went to the kitchen, removed the pitcher o' pesto from the refrigerator (anyone who doesn't have a fridge and freezer filled with pesto this time of year should really get off their ass and to a farmer's market pronto). I put water on to boil, pulled out my whole-grain penne pasta, and began slicing tomatoes. The entire time I was banging pans and muttering to myself about assholes who have no goddamn business dealing with the public. . .what the fuck is on my credit information there that she feels she can talk to me like that?. . .I've screwed up my life and will never ever be able to make it. . .the stock market's in the tank, the Be Brave Project has done nothing for me, nothing, it's just removed me from my protective cocoon. . .

As the water neared boiling, I went to the hallway to check the mail. One envelope wouldn't bend: It was thick and contained something plastic--always intriguing. Back in my apartment I threw the rest of the mail to the floor and tore the thick envelope open--

It was an Oxford Health insurance card!

I Have Health Insurance! Thank you, "Healthy New York"!

Scorecard:

Be Brave Project: 2 (Health insurance and Taxes)

Capital One: 0 (That card's going to be eating socks for the next few months.)

Be Brave Project, Day 21: Weirder and Weirder, The NYC Real Estate Gods Smile (Capriciously?) Upon Me

2008-08-25T09:45:00.012-04:00

Yesterday I got up late, for a person whose exciting Saturday night consisted of chocolate chip cookies, a liter of milk, and a Peter Bogdanovich film. Like any rational human being I do usually try to avoid seeing PB films, just as I try to avoid looking at PB himself when he squats malevolently in his seat at MoMA screenings, wearing his peanut-faced scowl and milliner's eye glasses, with his poor re-constructed wife by his side. Rather creeps me out.

But The Last Picture Show is an excellent film, with a very young Jeff Bridges exuding sunny charm all over a somewhat thankless role, and I'd already had the dvd out from the library for two weeks, so I broke out the chocolate chip cookies and got down to it.

However, sugar combined with the black and white (literally and figuratively) view of people trapped, diminishing within the rigidly low expectations of their community: I had a fitful uncomfortable night's slumber. I dreamt Peanut Face was a wooden dummy sitting on my lap, with frighteningly long arms and fingers that crept along the floor. When I awakened, very late, I found I'd received a phone call.

Hadn't heard the phone ring.

The call was from Rebecca, a woman who fitfully attends my Home AA group. I always notice when she is there because a) she looks like Lisa Kudrow from Friends, b) she wears some marvellously simple clothes, which I know cost the earth, and c) she's a writer at one of the influential women's magazines. I like Rebecca because she has a wry, intelligent way of talking, and a few weeks ago she helped Jackie--another ex-drunk, the only person currently under treatment for breast cancer who's doing the Tour de Pink bike marathon this year--get some over-due assistance from her sponsors. Rebecca placed one call, mentioned her magazine's name, and. . .suddenly Jackie's bike is getting customization out the ass. As it were.

Rebecca's message states that she and her husband own a duplex on the UWS, one block from Central Park. They do not live there since having children, as it's too small--yet there are some of the typical impossible NYC rules around the place, and they're not allowed to rent it out. But of course, they have been, and their current tenants have been transferred to LA. So here's the big ol' question: Would I be interested in renting this 2 bedroom duplex apartment, with 1 and 1/2 baths, dishwasher and central a/c? For less than 2 grand a month?

Well, to be perfectly honest, I'd prefer to buy a furnished mews house near the King's Road in London--but lacking that option--HELL YES I'D BE INTERESTED.

Dishwasher + Duplex???!! Dreamy! I could put dishes in the dishwasher, run upstairs, wave my arms around and shriek in high excitement, then compose myself and elegantly descend the stairwell a la Lana Turner in her MGM years. I could do a great deal of that.

You stick around AA long enough in this town, and you get goddamn connected!

The downside of course is that it's not tremendously legal. But there's not legal (happens all the time), and there's not legal (you're a warped freakshow who deserves to be prematurely cremated). In NYC, this rental situation apparently goes under the former category. I've called a few friends--profoundly respectable people, darling--and almost all of them have lived in a similar situation in NYC. Rebecca's out of town, but I could look at the place next week.

The nasty part is that I'm supposed to send in my new lease THIS week.

So today I went to look at the building. And I.M. Pei on a stick, it was freaking ugly. Tiny little windows and that grievous burnt orange sort of brick that you just know saved someone some money. The tenants I saw didn't strike me as very prepossessing: One guy was standing outside of the building, and he handed me a business card in which he proposes to "Hi pressure wash" my entryway. Well, really (she clutches her pearls). But. . .there's a concierge at the door. Mm Yeah. And have I mentioned the words dishwasher + duplex???

So I've got 72 hours to somehow figure this mess out.

P.S. I did some brave stuff today, regarding both work and credit, but will talk about that tomorrow. I am suffering from a marked sense-of-humor malfunction since I got off of the phone with Capital One.

Be Brave Project, Day 20: 9 out of 10 Wise Guys Agree: Take Your *%#@! Beta Blockers!

2008-08-23T09:44:00.013-04:00

Thank God for the days off from Being Brave! I've come to realize that Being Brave produces an odd combination of feelings, none of which are comfortable: Anxiety, embarrassment, boredom. . .and the constant nagging thought--Have I Been Brave yet today? Oh, crap--would that count as being brave?

What's become clear is that, in many instances, what I call "Being Brave" is what other people would think of as basic self care. Taking care of your credit, tending to your career, maintaining contacts, taking proper care of your body and its necessities.

An example: For some reason I kept procrastinating a very simple call to my cardiologist in Chicago (I like my cardiologists the way I like my bankers: Handsome, Midwestern and Jewish). For some reason Duane Dumbass Reade, the pharmacists here in NYC, hadn't understood that my prescription was supposed to have re-fills. I've taken these pills since I was diagnosed at the age of 20, and believe me, sudden withdrawal from beta-blockers is no one's idea of a fun afternoon. The tightening of the heart, the shaking of the hands and the sudden sweating, all exacerbated by the worry that very soon one might just pass out. . .it's no good. (Though I did publish a piece in The Guardian about a ghastly withdrawal I went through in Paris one year, and was paid in Lovely Lovely pounds sterling).

Anyway, why procrastinate that phone call? Did I imagine the cardiologist's people would say, "Sweat it out, beta blocker bitch--no pills for you!" Did I think that my need for these pills would suddenly go away, like a yen for pesto or the urge to see a mid-week matinee? No. I didn't think any of these things. I just didn't feel like calling to ask for help. Knowing, as I did, that eventually I would have to call, I decided to just put it off. . .

That is just a little example of how an ex-lush, however fit and trim and nowadays filled with broccoli and calcium, can casually create a little drama and chaos in her life. And for some reason it requires an act of consciousness, and of bravery, for me to place a necessary call. I think that we have successfully established that I don't like authority figures, which is rather bizarre because I used to feel I WAS one. Ah well, the many complexities of Woman.

Yesterday I placed a lot of phone calls/emails in the morning. I emailed a former employer, a Web Publishing company for whom I wrote/edited/worked as consultant, to ask for copies of my tax information. Haven't heard back. I called Jefferson Capital Systems about 14 times to find out why they have placed negative information on my credit report when I signed up to make payments on an old debt the minute they contacted me, and have made my payments on time every time. I did the word count on a Self essay, and realized I have to cut over a page from my submission. Ouch! I also have been combing that brilliant credit site to find out about the world of credit and how to 'diversify my portfolio'.

Ooh that sounds so knowledgable and sexy! I also learned about off-shore phone calls being a sign of sub-prime cards, and that it's a good idea to get a card from a Credit Union. Which I think I shall try to do.

Went to an AA meeting yesterday and IT finally happened. The thing that any NYC lush dreams of: The man who spoke was connected. As in a Wise Guy. Fantastic stories of having no social security number, but owning these lush places on Long Island and the Upper East Side, of the girls and the drugs and the DUIs, of dropping an envelope off here and picking up some money there, 'helping some guys out'. . .Most excellent. The guy even had eyes like DeNiro--the sad humorous look under a twisted brow.

Damn, I love New York City.

Right now my neighbors are cooking bacon and it smells so good I could gnaw my way through their wall. And my landlords actually put a lock on our front door! Living large.

Be Brave Project, Day 18: Ah, the Days When I Allowed Myself Distractions. . .

2008-08-21T09:11:00.008-04:00

Don't really feel like writing anything here today: I sort of wish I could resume my normal off-line journals, which I have been keeping every morning for years and in which I do feel less need to censor myself--and no need at all to be even vaguely interesting! It's an unusual combination: Uncensored yet dull.

Could be the title of some ex-Saturday Night Live Cast Member's next concert film. "Eddie Murphy--Uncensored Yet Dull!"

But. . .must keep moving forward. In the last few days I've been trying to keep my eyes focused on just moving my goals forward, quietly, just in an undramatic inch-by-inch method. I have:

-Sent 2005 tax information to the Dream Accountant.

-Mailed Proof of Payment of an old debt to the NYC courts.

-Rec'd and signed form for new organization of bank accounts.

-Organized new debit card so I get miles for using it.

-Received 2006 tax information.

Still need to get more of the 2006 tax crap, and to keep moving forward on letting the credit companies know my debt to Asset Acceptance has been paid--though I don't know if that'll remove the negative information from my credit report. Should ask the guy from the 123Credit link on the right here. Also should call old Web publishing employers for old tax forms.

But today I'm going to work on that damned Self essay. Need to check word count (it may be over, which would be v. annoying. . .), write cover note to Paula Derrow. Essay needs to have more personal detail, as in age and current life. I read several old Self Expression essays in the mag, and they're not too strong on either dialogue or humor, which is good for me (in this case).

So I'm going to skip the AA meeting today, I think. Just don't feel like doing the meditation that's the focus of the Thursday meeting, and I also am feeling slightly--actually, perilously--over-exposed since the qualification earlier in the week.

Oh boring boring it all feels so boring!! Four years ago I was dating a 6 foot 5 rugby player and living in South West London, going to pubs and parties and staying in the odd country house on the weekends, visiting. . .oh, let's face it, I was hungover every goddamn day. Either working illegally or hemorrhaging money in some way, starving myself so I could save the calories for night, for booze. All dolled up in the evening, but during the day eating one McDonald's cheeseburger (which are better tasting over there--must be the subtle flavoring the mad cow disease imparts), or a sad old Tesco egg-mayonnaise sandwich. And as for the rugby playing big boy? He was absolutely lovely--and I didn't give a crap, about him or me.

But oh, I wish I had him around now. I'd love to cook him enormous meals of Tarragon Chicken and vegetables, and cut brick-sized slabs of home-made tarte tatin for his dessert; I'd rent him dvds and sit on his lap as he watched them, I'd find him some rugby games here in NYC. (But he'd have to do his own laundry. I draw a line there.)

Sigh. Anyway. Shower. Self magazine. Being Brave. Ok, ok.

Be Brave Project: Day 17. Dreams and Schemes and Flying Machines

2008-08-20T09:42:00.010-04:00

Just woke up from a dream I repeatedly have. . . I am flying home from Europe, and the plane makes a series of straining, popping noises as it takes off. Passengers and the flight attendant make jokes about it the danger, but I am terrified. Next to me is an American businessman who doesn't like Europe and wants to go home. Behind me is an old female friend.

As the flight continues the plane doesn't rise above the old city--it flies low and weightily over narrow streets and between buildings, with wings tilting to avoid tearing off against their facades, then suddenly the plane's nose turns up and we head straight straight straight towards the sky at a dizzying speed, and I'm pressed back in my seat by the force--then, as the plane seems to level off and begin to fly normally thousands of feet above the ground, there is a sudden tumble and rush as it plummets, as the views from the window are smeared blurs, possibly our final view. As the plane falls toward the narrow city streets, the pilot (who is a woman) attempts a landing--but the wheels don't come out. We're moving faster and faster, the plane is level but heading for the ground, the city road beneath us. . .enormous sparks fly up when the undercarriage scrapes the ground. . .we bounce. . .

And the dream ends.

Forgot to mention that for some reason, lately, Carson Kressley of the cancelled show Queer Eye is the flight attendant. This dream is obviously a control dream, a wanting to escape fantasy of fear. . .and I think that the woman who pilots the plane is actually me. (It must be admitted that there have been versions of the dream in which I am outside of the airplane, straddling the cockpit--Dream interpreters need not apply.)

I think the dream was, this time, a response to my having qualified for the first time at my Home group AA meeting. It's a fairly unnerving and exposing thing to do--I don't really want people to know my boring-ass story. Unlike many women in the rooms, I wasn't raped. I wasn't sexually abused. I didn't try to commit suicide or cut myself, though I did think about the latter. I just. . .drank. And learned how to drink some more. And, like some George once sang-- (Foreman or Thorogood or Bush, or for all I know, all three Georges)--I drank alone.

So that was my brave act for the day. Telling my story and then sitting with the feelings and regrets that brought up. "We learn not to regret the past", they keep telling me.

I think that the Be Brave Project might help me get there, but right now I'm feeling impatient and underslept. So if someone gives me that line about learning not to regret the past, my answer right now would be: "Oh Yes? When?"

Be Brave Project, Day 17: Let's All Just Take a Deep Breath, Now.

2008-08-19T15:07:00.007-04:00

I apologize for the somewhat breathless (though still rather earthy) tone of the previous few posts. It's just that for years I wandered this planet feeling like the outcast of outcasts, premiere drunken asshole du monde, and general paralytically frightened fool--all over my taxes. But now the untangling has begun--and it's such a relief.

Not just the money--though like most Duchesses I've ever met (and baby, shouldn't we all be Duchesses in our own minds? Not accepting anything but the best behavior, from ourselves and others?)--I can absolutely use the money.

It's just a pleasure to walk around, do my errands and work and write, with this weight lifted from me.

But now's the time to stop running around in circles at the excitement of it all, and re-focus.

Breathe, Elusive D.
Breathe.

And let's take stock for the moment. The original goals of the BBP, as set out late last month were--here we're going to go all italicized and misty as we fade to the past--

For the next Six Weeks, until the Friday after Labor Day (September 4th),
I will do One Brave Thing each day.
-Some of these things will be small, like my first one, but must be celebrated nonetheless.

-I am required to write my brave thing down here, in order to commemorate it.

-I am taking Weekends off, to be a non-brave self and just to rest and watch "It's Me or The Dog" while I paint my toe nails and write sweet fuck-all apart from e-mails.

-I do not have to continue doing brave things after the 4th of September. In fact, if I would then like to forget bravery and impetus and the cruel passage of time upon the procrastinatory, I am then free to do so. Or I can use this blog to take a look at how things have changed and try to find how to move things forward.

Within the space of the 6 weeks of the Be Brave Project,
I must get these things done:
-Get Health Insurance
-Get Driver's License Renewed
-Call the Accountant and sort out grievously embarrassing money issues.
-Pre-qualify for a mortgage. Find out what you are qualified for.
-Take A.B. up on his offer to read your screenplay adaption.
-Plot the novel, using the "Quest" structural format and the one adopted last summer.
-Write the first draft of the novel; 200 pages in total. BRAVE.
-Begin serious job search--force self to decide if you can deal with office life. The trade-off of security for giving up the luxury and uncertainty of freedom/freelancing.

That seems like a pretty damn serious list to begin with. Too big, perhaps? Too much.
Well, I've seen what asking and accepting too little can do: NOT Bloody Enough.

Woof! That's a bit sobering. And here's the summary of my actions & results so far:

-I wasn't able to get my Driver's license renewed, due to ridiculous identification demands by the NY DMV. And I was scared (hmmm) to go to the Social Security office for my card. . .seriously tempted to renew my license in Illinois, where it's civilized and they require reasonable forms of ID, like passport and birth certificate.

-I DID apply for Health Insurance. Am waiting to hear from Healthy NY.

-I DID DEAL WITH THE TAX SITUATION. Now not scared of the Social S. office. Learned I should be getting money back! All delightful. . .

-I HAVE written A.B. about lunch (with goal of bringing script for him to look at). Haven't heard back yet: The ball's in his court, which is quite nice.

-I HAVE called about pre-mortgaging, and found out some discouraging truths, + some useful information. Also found a guarantor for a mortgage, which will make all the difference.

-I am STILL frightened by novel. Am researching plotting, still. . .but not working hard enough. Work done on Novel is part of the BBP: I need to remember that. Something done every day.

-Have PUT OFF job search due to fears of moving, and in order to have time with novel--one of which didn't happen, the other of which I'm scared to work on. That must be resolved.

So here are new Being Brave Projects as additions:

1. Learning how to sort out my credit history. I will be reading this fantastically straightforward and informative blog on credit. I like the guy who writes it because he actually replies to emails--very encouraging to a person crawling out of the primordial mire, financially. . .

2. Taking action to remove negative credit.

3. Organize plans for Novel--Start writing in September. Until then, sort out plotting.

4. Find a part-time job (preferably on the Columbia University campus) so can afford to write.

5. Send essays around! Self magazine gets the piece on Facebook, and pitch Jackie's "As Told To" to Marie Claire and Women's Health. If that doesn't work, find other publications.

6. Keep moving forward with plans to buy a home.

So. Now I will spend half an hour dealing with my credit report, which I printed up yesterday via. Experion (BBP action for yesterday). Dealing with credit plus the fact that I just mailed my 2005 tax information to the Dream Accountant= My BBP actions for today. I think I'll email the lovely guy at Creditmatters123.blogspot.com to ask a question about negative credit. Or I'll send proof of payment to NY State. . .

And this evening, as a lovely greasy nutty insanely summery treat, I will make Elizabeth David's Pesto.

Day 16: Be Brave Project: Day 16. Sometimes A Nice Fax Can Make All the Difference, Baby!

2008-08-18T09:32:00.010-04:00

Right--so, Thursday night I got the staggeringly good tax news (which I think will be followed by some occasional bouts of more sobering tax news as I remember paperwork I've scattered over two continents) that rocked my world.

Woke up Friday with that contented yawn and stretch, the stretch that goes all the way down and makes your toes spread out. I was one year sober, and my taxes were. . .the phone rang and it was Louie, the accountant of a girl's tender dreams, returning my call of the night before. Yes, he could change the paperwork so the money would be directly deposited into my account. It would happen in as soon as a couple of weeks or so.

Goddamn! Wish I hadn't remembered about that lost paperwork--now it's got me worried about what other work my drunk ass did. Anyway, I'll make the calls and clear it up.

I'd also rec'd a call from Martha, a publishing professional who attends my Women's AA group--she wanted to take me out for lunch. Yes please! We made plans to meet at Fireside and then hit Sushi A Go Go in the Lincoln Square area. And I was to meet Lara (from same group, works for one of the tv networks) at Crumbs on 75th and Amsterdam later. Excellent! I put on a pair of expensive (thrift store) jeans, a nice top, and my DKNY 'urban wellies', rubber boots with 4 inch stiletto heels. Grabbed my short trench coat and a brolly, because it was supposed to rain canned hams during the afternoon.

I was going to look at apartments in Inwood, so I wanted to look respectable and not be dashing in from the rain looking damp and ferrety and insolvent--decided stilettos might add to look of general drunken unreliability--so I switched to cowboy boots. Reliable, I felt, without being too mind-numbingly corporate.

Great meeting at Fireside amongst the mid-town workers and the hard-core drinkers with yellowed hair and shaking hands. It's got to take a basketful of courage to face sobriety without even an apartment door to close between you and the world, the bars, the degradation you've watched yourself live. . .It always humbles me. Wonderful lunch with Martha, who brought me a lovely rose that's on my bureau in a bud vase.

And then I grabbed a cab up to Crumbs. Holy Mother of all that's Fatty and Delicious, I don't know if it's a good thing that I am aware of this place. It blows the Magnolia Bakery, with their lardy yet dry cupcakes out of the damn water. Unpretentious, roomy without looking like a chain store, amazing location near Barnes & Noble, Kiehl's, and the Weekend farmer's market. Lara got a large cookies and cream cupcake, and I got a large "Hostess" cupcake--looked just like the old plastic-wrapped crap, but made of actual chocolaty buttery food! Down to the white squiggled line bisecting the top of the cupcake.

And oh, it was delicious. De.Li.Cious. With eyes and thighs still quivering from the sheer sugar-power I'd just ingested, I then flew on the A train up to 192nd Street--the subway stop reminded me of London: Dirty, with long low curved-ceilinged tunnels that open onto a lot of green, a number of people walking a little slower than downtown, some guys skateboarding in circles around the street. . .but the buildings are still the enormous NYC square blocks, and the view of Broadway was just grim. Bodegas and phone cards and fried foods. Oh my!

Saw two apartments. One smaller, ground floor, with an odd built in breakfast table and a weirdly outsized fridge--but nice arched doorways. One, fourth floor, bigger, great closet space, eat in kitchen (if you can eat whilst folded in 3 as if riding in clown car), beautiful hardwood floors. Laundry in building. And the whole place left me feeling. . .bleh.

With my sugar levels now plummeted, I took the subway home. Pulled mail from my box--oh crap, something from the dread landlord. A large envelope--probably my marching orders. I opened my apartment door, threw the envelope on my printer, and went into the kitchen to make Marcella Hazan's exquisite and easy tomato sauce. Then I faffed around the apartment a bit, harassed the cat and ate some saltines. . .until I opened the Landlord's envelope.

They'd reduced my rent increase!! They accepted the (low) offer I made on that fax I sent them last week--I sent it in the spirit of the BBP, figuring they could only say No, smack me on the peachy pink ass, and kick me out the door--but they accepted my negotiation! I feel like a superhero, on a small scale. Mighty Mouse!

Elusive D. is NOT going to move--it's Morningside Heights for the Duchess and Gigi, at least until next summer! 2 Days of HOORAY for the frickin' frackin' brilliance of the Be Brave Project!

Be Brave Project, Day 15: HOORAY! Being Brave Pays Off!

2008-08-15T10:09:00.004-04:00

One year sober! I'm going to the Fireside meeting in Midtown Manhattan, eating lunch with Martha (from my home group), and then meeting Lara for some cupcakes at Crumbs! Treating today as a holiday! After cupcakes I'm going up to look at apartments in Inwood.

BUT yesterday I rec'd my tax return information, the first thing I did when I started the BBP--all I had to do was open the thing, sign & send a check to the State of NY, and decide what to do with my Federal overpayment of (whoo-bloody-hoo) $59.06.

I tossed the unopened packet on my printer, and went to the kitchen to make some cream of broccoli soup. Talked to my mother on the phone for a while, which was a relief as she sounded much better than the last conversation. Changed out of my high-heeled espadrilles into DKNY yoga shoes. Then, with a sigh, I decided to open the pack and, if I had the energy, write the damn check to NY State. Couldn't find scissors to cut the seal open, so tore at it for a bit, then got a kitchen knife. Pulled out the creamy white folder, opened it. Tax forms, filled out on the left. On the right was a bill for the accounting services, and a summary of the tax forms.

I read the summary and yelped like a labrador.

I read the summary again.

I called Louis C.'s office.

I read the summary again.

When Louie had said I had a $59.06 refund coming, he didn't mean $59.06. He meant $5906.00!!! Of all that is Good to the the Poor Sad-Ass Drunks on this planet!!

$5906!??

That'd pay for my rent increase!!

May God Grant me the Serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

& The Wisdom to know the difference!!

HOT DAMN!!

Be Brave Project: Day 14: Cry Me a River, Elusive D. (or, The Lameish and the Sameish)

2008-08-14T09:42:00.008-04:00

OK, well. This whole apartment thing has me somewhat distracted from my Be Brave Project mission, and from getting enough done on that essay for Self, though I did read some back issues and do some edits to make the thing more specific as to times and dates, etc.

What I'm really suffering from, as opposed to apartment worries or the usual grim knowledge that my mother is in Chicago pouring vodka onto her acute cirrhosis, is a thoroughly unattractive case of Self-Pity. I'm told (and I believe 'em, for they know) by AA that Self-Pity and Resentments are the hallmarks of the alcoholic character--and brother, I'm all hallmarked up!

Yesterday was feeling horribly hormonal, to the point where I thought it was probably good that I wasn't operating a vehicle: If I had been and anyone cut me off or even looked at me funny, I'd have felt compelled to repeatedly ram their car into a brick wall until it was a bloody mash of steel and bone, the entire time gently weeping at the other driver's selfishness and dark, dark soul.

So, you'll see, I was a little under the weather.

Looking around my apartment all I could see were things I don't want to wrap, to pack, to move. Furniture that might--would--get broken. Walking to the subway I felt fat, poor, unappreciated and under-utilized. . .sitting in the meeting I looked at all the women near me who were hoisting enormous rocks around on their wedding fingers, who have tanned limbs and expensive coiffures, who-I strongly suspected--have never bought a $1 bag of "old new potatoes" from the shopping cart outside of Fairway (I actually made some delicious potato egg and chive salad).

So, when I raised my hand in the meeting I said all this, minus the wedding-band envy and the potato salad info (though really, it was delicious). I bitched about not being able to afford to keep my shabby-ass apartment, about my mother's drinking and my father's violent lack of balance, about how I felt I was the "universe's bitch". So there, I felt, when I had finished.

And over the next ten minutes two other women spoke: One, aged 38, who had waited to find a man to have a child with and then discovered that she's going through premature menopause and can't get pregnant. Even with IVF there's only a 3% chance. The second woman who spoke was Jackie: In her 40's, single, apple-cheeked with short wavy hair that stands up on end, a struggling country music singer and songwriter, she's also fighting breast cancer and will be the only person currently in chemo who's undertaking the Tour de Pink, a 200 mile bicycle ride benefiting the Young Survival Coalition. But what Jackie wanted to talk about was just accepting the universe. Just deciding to take the leap and wait to see what unfolds. . .because she thinks to do otherwise would make her nothing more than "a dog chasing its tail."

I was utterly gobsmacked and humbled.

And I decided to stop with the lame bitching, about the same damned ancient things that bothered me enough to provoke me to drink in the first place. There's a vast, intricate, marvelous, admittedly frightening world out there and I want to stare and stare and stare at the same problems. Ludicrous and lame.

BBP: Days 12 & 13: Less Wackness to My Thinking?

2008-08-13T09:42:00.005-04:00

I've definitely noticed a subtle change in my thinking that is producing a marked change in my behavior: When I have a situation that I don't like dealing with, particularly one with an imposing/frightening institution or situation that I would prefer to avoid or delay, now I am far more likely to simply do it. Example: Writing an email to Maggie's friend Jay, a famously intimidating NYC mega-landlord, to mention that I'd love to become one of his tenants. Usually I'd put that off, because I hate asking favors, bothering busy people, and the requisite coating of flattery and bullshit you have to wrap that request in. But on Monday, I just did it. Also I called a company to whom I had paid a debt, and got on their asses about sending me proof of payment, so I can go to the credit bureaus with that proof.

In addition, I have spoken with my friend Andy (he who promised to read my script), and we are tentatively talking about lunch--he's being more cagey than usual, though. Does he somehow know that I'm finally going to take him up on that script offer? The film he wrote won a woman a Best-Actress Oscar, so you know a LOT of people have asked favors in the last few years. . .but he did offer to read it, twice. And I didn't show it to him because I didn't want to be a pain in the ass, and, let's face it, because I was scared.

I have also decided to go look at apartments in Inwood, just to see if I can tolerate living there. It might be very nice--there seem to be parks and nicely maintained old buildings! Who knows? I had a friend who lived up on 192nd Street, and her place was in a dodgy building--but what shocked me most was the linoleum floors throughout the place. She'd covered them with rugs, of course, but still felt a deep deep shame and repulsion. . .as did I. I have done many drunken shameful things in my time (there are a few house parties in England that I wish I'd blacked out), but I have never, never, yet allowed linoleum out of the kitchen.

OK. My brave things for the end of the week involve:

-Going to see these Apartments in Inwood. Not letting time go by without researching it.

-Editing this piece that I'm sending to the "Self Expressions" column at Self Magazine.

-Sending the pitch and essay in.

-Sending Pitch to Marie Claire about Jackie, the only woman currently under treatment for breast cancer who will be doing the Tour de Pink next month. If MC no longer has their "First Person" column, try to angle it to Women's Health. Or Health magazine--or think about Self for that one, too. (Self pays well and has a larger subscription base than Marie Claire.)

-Go to library and read back copies of these magazines.

In the last two days have seen two films: Swing Vote, with Kevin Costner: I didn't really want to see it at all, but it was for a free SAG screening at the DGA on 57th Street, so I trundled along with my glamorous friend Kendall, she of the Jennifer Aniston hair. It actually was an amusing, diverting comedy--particularly when you got past the slapstick moments. There is a brutally funny commercial in which the Democratic candidate (played by Dennis Hopper, who is one facelift away from being bollock-chinned) reverses his stand on abortion: As he walks through a playground talking about children and lollipops and America, the children suddenly disappear in puffs of smoke, leaving us with a child-free land.

Pretty brutal, pretty funny--of course, no mention of the fact that if abortion were to be made illegal, that wealthy people would simply go/send their kids to Europe for the operation, while poor people would have to simply have the kids, thereby deepening the already terrifying rich/poor gap in this country and providing more soldiers for the next generation of war. But the film was good, and actually smart. Also saw The Wackness at Lincoln Plaza last night--absolutely wonderful film, dark and funny and a fucking brilliant performance by Ben Kingsley (whose American accent is better than most, but not dead on). However, he character is so funny and contradictory and sad; a crappy shrink who occasionally says something quite relevant--a film about the desperation of men and the anger of women, and how honesty and a little bravery can bring you up above it. Really wonderful.

Be Brave Project Day 11: Red Letter Day--or, Don't be Scared, Baby!

2008-08-11T08:43:00.008-04:00

I should have written here on Saturday, when the astonishing fruits of the BBP were still fresh in my mind and not all muddied, stirred up with the feelings of dread produced by A) Looking for an apartment in Manhattan, and B) upsetting phone conversation with my drunken, cirrhotic mother yesterday afternoon.

But let us focus--unfortunately, first I have to go to the Post Office.

Back, and only 28 minutes later! I went to pick up a first edition, with dust-cover in excellent condition, of the 1992 book by the sublime author Riva. That'd be Maria Riva--and I'm the proud owner of her only book, Dietrich, about her own drunken mother, Marlene. One of the best Hollywood biographies ever written (with that little lemon twist of nastiness only a daughter of a Golden Age star seems willing to give), it's also the story of one of the most fascinating and deluded narcissists ever recorded. Poor old lovely Marlene--alternatively downing epsom salts & booze with one hand and using the other to stick upholstery pins into her scalp, while servicing Hollywood and the US Army. Oddly enough, it takes cojones. Hat's off, Marlene!

But I don't have much time and I have a lot to do today, so here's the BPP Update: The biggest worry I have had for years has been about my taxes. Wasn't facing the issue because I was paralyzed with fear about it--terrified to go to government offices to give my SS# lest I be sent to Leavenworth. Friday I spoke with the accountant, Louie, who I hired to sort my way through--he'd had weeks to look at the paperwork, and he'd called me the day before, "with good news and bad news."

The good news was that things were sorted out. The bad news was that it'd cost me--$741 and some change to the State of NY. And the Federal Government owed me--$59.01. They owed me!!

That's it. That's years of self-loathing and not facing problems and fear, all due to a drunk's avoidance of reality. (The drunk I'm referring to is me, this time. I know there are a lot of lady lushes in this blog--welcome to my world, Saucepots!) It took an accountant several minutes to sort out, and less than a grand to pay. I could have done this, oh, ages ago. . .but was paralyzed by worry. Never again. Never again. Now I have an accountant I will never ever let him go, and will send him casseroles and dancing girls during the tax season to make sure he's feeling plump and energized for the important work he does.

I also sent in the health insurance packet on Friday, so now we're waiting to hear on that one.

After I spoke to Louis, I went to Butler library and tried to do research for that Self article I'm editing. But all I could do was alternatively grin like an idiot while leaking endless tears of relief and happiness. Yes, I was that crazy lady. I suppose it's only fair to take her shift now and again--and on Friday I most definitely was the woman whose eyes you don't meet for fear she'll tell you the story of her life.

So less than 2 weeks into the Be Brave Project, it looks as if my tax issues are 90% sorted. I cannot emphasize enough how enormous that is, how I have tortured myself over this (Clearly, I was not made for a criminal life--there are people blithely whistling their way around this city who've recently ice-picked close friends for the big mac held in their hands. I wear a 6-year hair shirt over $750.) The most important thing is I have someone to consult, and that I've made it clear that as an ex-lush I know I fucked up, but all I want is to pay what I owe. So I can look myself in the mirror with a sense of pride again. AND I hope to be approved for this health insurance (Note: Keep an eye on bank account-- if they cash the check it'll be a good sign.)

This weekend I cleaned the hell out of my apartment--bathtub, windowsills, the full monty. Not brave but very nice to wake up this a.m. My Brave things today are: Credit Report research. Necessary before heading out to find apartments. And start getting the Self piece ready: Submit on Thursday.

Friday is one year sober--I just colored my hair a very authoritative dark dark brown, which somehow quells the Celtic pinkness of my skin and turns it creamy white. I will trim my bangs, arch my eyebrows, and wear high heels all this week. I think Dietrich would approve (apart from the lack of booze.)

Be Brave Project Day 10: Too Many Coats, Too Little Time

2008-08-08T09:14:00.007-04:00

Already I am lying awake at night, thinking about moving the things I've accumulated over the last 2.5 years. Last night I was compelled to check if the front closets were, in fact, as filled with clothing as I feared. . . had to tear myself away from my cool bed, velvet-eyed cat, and Jeanine Basinger's excellent book Silent Stars. I padded out to the front room, and slid open the painted plywood doors--from the floor up there are 2 filled storage boxes, one frontless fan, 24 sweaters, 9 skirts, 4 dresses, replacement coverings for the sofa, 4 jackets. One Donna Karan black satin shrug, trousers for goodwill, old notebooks organized by size and date, tarot cards, folded sweatshirts, curtains, and 4 blankets. And a vacuum. That's one closet.

The other contains a low bookshelf converted into a shoe stand. On top there are winter coats. I counted, and I have accumulated 7 coats since I moved in here. With one exception (a fabulous Variazione faux-vintage pink and white tweed), they are mostly from thrift shops--but who the hell needs seven coats in a decade, much less 1/4th of that time? Mint colored suede jacket, Black leather shirt jacket, beaver cape (old family item--I wouldn't buy fur), fantastically slimming camel's hair coat, long tan trench--v. Kate Hepburn, short navy trench--v. mid-range secretary in an agricultural supplies firm. On top: Sheets and towels and oh crap I had to run back to bed with a fistful of saltines to reduce my anxiety about moving. The cat glared at me, because I wouldn't share.

I read the Basinger book until I fell asleep, and particularly enjoyed the fine, poignant chapter on Marion Davies (above). Then I had a drunk dream, a phenomenon well-known to lushes like Elusive D. and, I suspect, Marion Davies. In the dream I blacked/passed out in my front room and a group of robbers came in the windows. They stole my crappy framed pictures, broke my chairs, and left broken wicker all over the floor. When I came to I was ashamed and embarrassed,though pleased to find myself not raped. Next thing you know I'm making out with John Wayne in a hallway, much to his complimentary approval, when a bunch of annoying fraus with their irritating children came rushing into the house.

I could have done with more making-out and fewer fraus & their dull dull kinder, but at least I wasn't passed out on the floor.

Yesterday I felt much better about the apartment situation due to helpfulness of my friends in my ladies' AA group: Mira said that she would keep an eye and ear out for me (she and her husband live in one of those imposing doormen buildings in the Upper 70's, so I think they might have friends who own apartments), Cassie has a friend who's looking for a room mate in Brooklyn, and Hillary knows a man who has a two-bedroom on 112th street. I could rent it and get a roommate who'll pay slightly more than I do for the rent. And I wrote a note to someone from my freelancer's emailing group who has a place on 96th with a backyard. God, I am so sick of renting.

Most importantly: I heard from Louie C., the accountant! He has "good news" for me, and I will be receiving my tax refund--though it will be deducted from what I owe. I shall call him today to find out how much that is. Gulp.

And (BBP): Yesterday I composed and sent a fax to the Dermott Management Company about the 64% increase over the last few years-- used the words "staggering" and "should be investigated"--however. I also proposed a gentler increase or that they show me some of their cheaper apartments: I really don't want to pay a broker's fee. Pay someone to walk me around an apartment?? Feck that. (Though that's what I said last time. . .fact is, these people are leeches, but they do push a deal through.)

BPP today: I will finally send in my Health Insurance application--nearly put it in the mail yesterday, but realized I hadn't written a cover letter. Jesus--I get prissier as the days go by. Also today will edit Self piece, and write cover letter. And call Louie C.

Be Brave Project: Day Nine--Recouping

2008-08-07T09:03:00.003-04:00

A lovely, summery picture here. . .beautiful and full of natural ease--everything I am currently not feeling. Taken at my Aunt's house upstate this last weekend, before I received The Lease Offer.

Just like yesterday I am still reeling. A 66% rent increase in 2 years.

Reeling.

But, in the spirits of my rules of the BBP, I have rallied by following through on several previous projects: One, I wrote to two brokers upstate to follow up on house viewings. Two, I finished my application for Healthy NY Comprehensive Health Care through the Oxford Plan. The application (with first monthly check) will be mailed today.

Today my Brave Thing will be to write the Evilly Grasping landlords suggesting that they perhaps adjust their reign of terror to something slightly less egregious. I will suggest a $150 rent increase, and mention that I am planning on being here just one more year. I shall also ask, if they refuse that, to see any other one bedroom apartments that are in the same area.

Last night looked at shares (which would mean all my stuff goes in storage), and also at apartments in Inwood, way the fuck uptown. There are some nice little 1999 prices up there still, and I need to consider that. Just look at myself as a commuter--buy a monthly metro card with the $900 p/m I could save living up there, and travel down to Columbia for my gym and library access.

Yesterday had lunch at Blossom, a vegan organic place that's new on 82nd and Columbus. Veganism clearly agrees with their very fetching waiters, who all have that hungry waifish NYC Adiran Brody look that makes me want to feed them beef stew and then, with rough girlishness, throw them up against a wall. Maggie--who looks like a beautiful version of Hillary Swank-- has had one of those usual thrilling/disappointing NYC romances, with a guy who sent her flowers and poems and promised the moon, the stars, and regular tickets to Symphony Space. . .but who kept another woman in the background. Sort of an heir and a spare situation, but of course Maggie renounced her crown once she found out. Now the guy's emailing her constantly, but she's too hurt to resume the old glamorous rendezvous. I've been in similar situations, of course (though the bad behavior was regrettably often mine, due to drunken idiocies and insecurities), and I felt for her. At the same time, I'm ashamed to say, part of my mind was thinking-- there are romantic problems and real estate problems, and real estate's more serious.

That sort of thinking is a sure sign you've been in Manhattan too long.

Ugh. I think I want to look at the pretty picture again.

Be Brave Project: Day Eight. Down, Down, Down: Or, Does this Look like the Kitchen of a $2400 per month Apartment?

2008-08-06T08:59:00.006-04:00

I wouldn't say that my current abode is my favorite apartment ever, but I can say that I've worked like hell to make it a decent place to live. Despite the uselessness of Nick, the Not-So-Super, the egregious grasping nature of the management company (Dermott Realty), the low level of light and the complete lack of a lock on the building's front door.

Because who worries about security in New York City??

But, knowing that they were shysters and completely indifferent to their tenants and their own reputation, I still wasn't expecting the lease renewal 'offer' I received yesterday. A $450 per month increase, backdated, so I have only one week to decide if I agree to it.

I am still reeling. Their feeling is that this apartment would now be over $2000 a month, and therefore they can ask anything (there are very complicated sets of codes from long ago re. how the rules change when an apartment hits 2 grand a month). My feeling is that with Wall Street in the crapper and units in this building empty--plus the hight turnover rate-- it might be smart to not attempt to financially rape your tenants.

No. Apparently not.

So now I have to spend the next few weeks/months in debate with these people. I will have to Be Brave for this, and in addition will have to double up on the BBP, because now I have housing negotiations to deal with on top of starting a big writing project within the next few weeks.

But the Brave Thing I did yesterday was financial: I looked up what Wall Street had done with my small, small amount of money. Answer: Lost a lot of it. I am still interested in the possibility of moving upstate next year, though now there are huge concerns in the county about corporations drilling the area for natural gas, leaving behind God knows what chaos and chemicals.

Welcome to Bush's America. Be proud you don't live in it.

Be Brave Project today? Calling the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, and requesting the forms for an Administrative Determination--once and for all we shall see if this apartment is/should be rent stabilized. I also read that I can retro-actively get rent back for the non-locking building door; I shall check that out, too.

I will also keep my eye on the prize health care wise--I don't want this administration mining my corpse for calcium deposits--and fill in the forms for the application. It must go out by the 20th, to have me insured by September 1. I hope.

In addition, to add to my lovely lovely day yesterday, I came home to a mouse corpse on the ($2400 per month??) kitchen floor. Gigi Colette was being very "Who, Me?" about it all. If only I could shrink down the employees of the Dermott Realty Company and set them scurrying all over my apartment. . .

Final brave thing--one gets in the habit of all of this--is that I just printed up the essay I submitted to Modern Love at the Sunday New York Times, and will be re-submitting it. I'm going for the women's magazines: Self, Marie Claire, and then Tango.

I could sure use some Conde Nast money right now.

Cos I'm feeling Kinda Nasty.

And not in the good way.

Be Brave Project Day Seven: Stickin' a Needle in the Big Boy

2008-08-05T09:26:00.005-04:00

I do not like needles. The sight of them makes me feel squeamish and rather as if I've just swallowed a hot brick: I think that lots of other people feel the same, or else why would do so many close-ups of injections appear in films? I'm always having to be on the alert for some dripping 6-incher held erect, about to plunge into its waiting destination. . .(ooh my, that came out rather porno, didn't it? Not my intention. Blame the movies).

So I do not like needles at all. But life being the vale of tears and broken shoe-straps that it can occasionally be, I've had many, many annoying blood tests where I'm led to a barely trained nurse who sits behind a white curtain, holding a long needle in her shaking hands. Now, Elusive D. has a plump lavender vein in each inner elbow--easy targets that don't even need that shoulder tourniquet--but I've sat on too many low vinyl stools, my head turned towards the wall, while these nurses stab me repeatedly. I walk out of there looking like the worst kind of junkie.

However, in the spirit of the Be Brave Project, I decided that I would give a diabetic an injection of insulin. 2x, so that I could say that I really had done it. The diabetic in question? An 18 pound tabby cat from New Jersey, named Tiki. Think Tony Soprano with a taste for bats. (Seriously, look at the cat--Look at that Fuck You gaze. Wouldn't he suit some golder-than-gold jewelry, and maybe an open-necked bathrobe to wear when he gets the paper from the driveway?)

What I was really dreading was the idea that a) I wouldn't be able to get the needle in, and would be jabbing ineffectually at this poor animal, and b) that the needle would go in, with a sort of pop! as I broke the skin (urgh), and c) that I'd wuss out and fail to press the plunger at the right time, and pump insulin all over the wrong places.

So I stuck the needle into the rubber-tipped bottle of insulin, and retracted the plunger until the dosage hit the 4.5 line. Then I went to where Tiki was hunched over his dinner. I half expected him to say, "Fuck you, Paulie--I'm fuckin' eating here!" But he didn't even look up. Grabbed a bit of skin beneath his meaty shoulder blade, closed my eyes, and stuck the needle in. Tiki didn't even flinch. I pressed the needle's plunger until it wouldn't go any further, then retracted the needle. I looked at the spot where I'd injected him, and you couldn't see a thing. Hey! (My Aunt watched the entire procedure, and assured me it all went fine.)

And then yesterday I did it with my eyes open. So I figure that counts as my Being Brave Act.

I was upstate NY at my Aunt's house this weekend, in Sullivan County. I had gone up there with the idea that perhaps I could find a place to live; having come to the realization that I cannot afford anything in Manhattan unless I invent a time machine and go back to 1995 (h'mmm. . .Clinton as President, no war, no deficit, and a happy stock market. But no Project Runway. I think I could live with that exchange, much as I adore Tim Gunn and want him to find a lovely boyfriend, preferably an Australian who's horse-hung).

Anyway, I looked at houses--one was a grim Victorian wedged between a chicken farm and a house where dirty children apparently run free. It was filled with the stench of 1000 small dogs and cats. One was poshly remodelled, but somehow uninspiring--and no eat-in kitchen, plus next to a restaurant parking lot. One was very sweet. A small ranch house, and I've never been a fan of ranch houses, with their low ceilings seeming a symbol of low expectations in general. But this one was immaculately cared for by the same couple for the last 40 years. There was land with a gazebo and peach trees. But. . .but. . .I couldn't see me living in that house somehow--fake wood panelling and such tiny rooms--and it's a long long winter in upstate NY, when peach trees and gardens will make no difference at all. Plus, I'd only seen 3 houses. So who knows? I might regret that one.

A complication also set in. Lots of people talking. Apparently there's a gas company moving into the area, wanting to mine natural gas from the land. They'll pay farmers good money to rent this land: The problem is that their process involves leaving chemicals--they won't tell the residents what they will be using--in the soil after they remove the gas. This is soil that grows the vegetables, that feeds the animals, that provides the beauty of the area.

So I think I will be in Manhattan for one more year. Work (Being Brave) on my credit rating and my income--and then try to buy in the spring. Let's hope that there are still houses being sold. That people up there have not become multi-millionaires whose houses cost 10x what they do now. And that they haven't sprouted extra fingers due to touching contaminated soil.

Today Being Brave; more sorting out of financial crap.