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

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

Be Brave Project, Day 42; Bookending

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

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

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

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

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?

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.