Be Brave Project: Day Five--Baby, Come Back

I cannot imagine what the hell a cat thinks when suddenly all the little amenities are gone: No water, no food, bedroom door closed so you can't hide beneath the bed amongst the lovely boxes, coffee table trestles, and suitcases that you've alternatively shed/vomited on. . .

But I very much doubt the first thing that goes through a feline cranium is the thought, "H'mm. . .I'm probably getting dental work today."

However, this morning Gigi Colette (rescue cat, quirky beauty, and entirely good egg) went in to have dental scraping and extraction. The vet, the sorrowful and avuncular Dr. Fierman of Cathedral Vets on 102nd Street, took a look at her chompers in April, when Gigi Colette last took a trip down on the M104 to visit him. "Way too much tartar for a cat her age." He said. "We need to scrape it."

"OK", I said, picturing a riveting few minutes in his waiting room with several 8 month old copies of Cat Fancier, "Knock yourself out." "No. We need to anaesthisize her--you drop her off one morning, and pick her up that night." For a dental cleaning???

Apparently.

I asked if she was in pain, if the tartar was causing any infections--Answer: Not now, Not for A While.

Hmmm.
The price, even with the 10% artist's discount Dr. Fierman gives, was pretty astrodamn-nomical. But that's what credit cards are for, right? I use mine so infrequently I don't even carry the things around with me most days. But--I didn't like the idea of Gigi Colette being put under. For dental scraping? C'mon, Dr. Fierman, be a man about it. She's just a little girl--admittedly, with talons like scythes--but just a wee kitty.

So, having ascertained that Gigi Colette was in no pain and no danger, I took her home with me. And I bloody kept her there. General Anaesthesiology for teeth cleaning, my ass. That's freaking asanine--and dangerous. And poor G will wake up but I won't be there--oh, all of my bullshit cheap-ass catastrophizing alarm bells were ringing.

But I did dimly realize that when it comes to feline anaesthesiology, I perhaps don't know best, with my little arts degree.

And, lovely as GC is, was and always shall be, about a month ago her breath began to take on the aroma of rotting canteloupe.

Enter Be Brave Project: Day 5--It's all about Gigi's Teefs. After I didn't feed and water her this morning, bundled her into her oversized carrier (which I stuck all over with travelling stickers, as if she's floated ashore on many continenents, a lady of adventure in need of a breath mint), and hauled her down to the Vet's.

I think she'll be all right.

They'd better not kill my cat.

Her breath wasn't that bad, if you just turned your head. . .and the apartment feels peculiar without my cat in it.

Next post/picture will be post-picking up Gigi, which I get to do during Rush Hour so should be fun.

Oh, BTW--also called Sous Chef at Consulate who told me about health care, and spoke with a woman at Bank of America about a mortgage. Bad news: No chance in hell I can buy in NYC. Good News: With a co-signer, I can buy up-state somewhere.

So lots of Brave things done today!

Be Brave Project, Day Four: Digressions and Accountancy

I have to tell you frankly that Elusive D. has not seen and will not see the Sex in the City movie, despite the fact that I am very pleased that its box-office has again forced Hollywood to wrap its mind around the fact that--gasp!--women can be big box office.

When I lived in London, from 2000 to 2005, I watched the tv show primarily for the NY scenery. But I always found the show to be a complete and utter post-feminst fairy tale. Which is fine, if that's your goal, except that it prided itself on its 'honesty' about how women New Yorkers live. I've never met anyone like any of them--though Miranda is definitely the closest to reality, with her intelligence, hostilities, and hit-and-miss wardrobe. Those ghastly neurotic entitled men they date? I'm sure they're around, though they don't even create a blip on my radar. (But then I am elusive.) Nonetheless I found the focus on shoes to be really fucking cutsey and patronizing. With a strong goddamn whiff of product placement.

But.

I have been playing around on Ebay all summer, and I have to say that the shoe auctions are somehow the most satisfying. I got a pair of Gucci loafers a few weeks ago, and the scent of leather made my nostrils flare hungrily. . .so much so that yesterday, less than 24 hours after my DMV experience, I found myself heading for the 125th Street Post Office. Had to pick up my new Coach flats. I've written enough, and too recently, for me to have to re-iterate the experience of dealing with NYC bureaucracy, but the experience is such that I had to pay some apologies to the S & t C producers: I was willing to brave the wilds for my new damn shoes. And, while I am coming down from my high horse, I state that Carrie was a flipping fool to let Aidan go. That man would still have welts from my death-grip on his ankles, if not other places.

Anyway, I got the shoes and they are fine--but not a patch on those damn Guccis.

Yesterday I took the day off, since it was my birthday, and I lay around with a celebratory ice cream cone and the Style section from the Sunday London Times. Once again they claim a social trend in NYC that I've never heard about (have you heard of SCUPPIES? Supposedly stands for Socially Conscious Upward Professional or some crap like that).

Sadly, cones only last so long--had to get down to the BBP; cleaning up my financial mess.

Today's girlish project was to get my financial summaries from 2007 and get them to the dreamiest accountant ever, Louie C.

Once again, why should this make me nervous/frightened? Because I am scared of what I am going to find out after this miserably stupid procrastination. After several calls to various people at the Death Star--oops, I mean Citigroup--I figured out how to print this information up. And then I looked at it. . .

And it didn't look too bad. However, I attended a School of the Arts where we studied fabulous and nearly useless things like European influences on the films of Preston Sturges. So I'll humbly wait to see what L. says.

But thanks to the BBP! I already feel so much better for just dealing with it--somehow having taken an action calms down the dread of the unknown. Considerably. In keeping with the flexible spirit of the BBP, which I appreciate and am taking full advantage of, I have added the following rules.

Yesterday I said that:

A Day's Brave Action doesn't count unless you follow up on it, if that is necessary.

2 new rules today:

• 2 Follow-ups on a brave action = One Brave Action.


• I get weekends off, not just Sunday. This stuff's emotionally exhausting.

So, if I do something about my financial mess + something about getting proper health insurance in one day, that = One Brave Act. I don't want to change the spirit of this project at all. I am just trying to maintain some impetus so I have a life enhanced by all of this astonishing bravery, not stalled for it.

In consequence of the new rules, the Second-half of my One Brave Act, which is actually the first step of a continuous brave act, was to find the Healthy NY website and print their information down. Then I emailed the sous chef I worked with at a European Consulate a few weeks ago, who recommended their health care to me: I usually am horrible about asking for advice (one of those people who are v. opinionated but secretly shy, that's Elusive D.)--so that, plus Health Care, plus financial stuff=

A Damn Good Day's Work.

Haven't spoken to the sous chef, but will tomorrow after I do my single big brave thing--

Take my cat Gigi for her dental surgery. Expensive and I really don't like the idea of general anaesthetic, which apparently is necessary. She lies on the floor next to me, softly blinking whilst digesting her Indoor Cat Chow. Little does she know what lurks in her future. . .

Be Brave Project, Day Three: The Tenth Circle of Hell, AKA The New York Department of Motor Vehicles, 34th Street "Speedy" Branch

The tenth circle of hell, located on 34th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues and boasting easy access by the 1,2,3, A,C, and E subway lines, is reserved for Procrastinators. It's earth name is "Speedy Easy Branch of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles". Obviously, it is not unusual for procrastinators to arrive late: There's so much to do in the area other than that which needs to be done! Stop by Macy's (pictured), hit the HMV, eat a kebab in Herald Square or test yourself with some even dodgier all-you-can-eat Korean food.

I did none of those things. I'm all sorts of fired up for the BBP, and I'd eaten on the subway. (Note: If any of you sons of bitches who eat McDonalds on the subway are reading this, know that one day I will joyfully set you and your grease-stinking Big Mac on fire. I have the technology, and. . .dammit. . .I'm being brave nowadays. So put that odorous stuff away or I swear the kerosene, bic lighters, and marshmallows on sticks will come out--and the other passengers will make me their goddess of public transport.) I ate a banana and an apple, like a civilized human being does when she's on the subway & travelling to Hell.

Got off at 34th Street, and walked West. I had on me: My expired Illinois driver's license, my passport, a certified copy of my birth certificate, 2 recent utility bills, a filled out license renewal form, that New Yorker with the incredibly long article on Obama and Chicago politics, a David Sedaris book. a sliver of Ghiradelli chocolate, three ways of paying the egregious renewal fee, and a light silk-blend cardigan (because I didn't know what the air-conditioning would be like in Hell). I mean to say, I was prepared. But worried. Upon my back I could still feel the lingering and unnerved handprints of my colleagues Sandy, Jamie and Erin--all had gasped when they'd heard where I was going. And then there had been the silence that says far more than words.

South side of 34th Street: "Easy Speedy License Renewal"--you could, I have walked by this a million times without noticing this sign. Discretely glazed glass and a humble shopfront hides the systemized misery within. Threw open the doors and. . .

Beneath low corkboard ceilings there were lines of defeated people coiling in all direction. To the right, about 12 people sat in low chairs with blue-padded acrylic seats: I shudder to think what they did to earn those seats. The other hundreds of people stood slumped as the hum of fluorescent lights beetled its way into their skulls. I joined the line closest to the door, so anytime someone entered they smacked my right thigh with it. The line said: First Step, Forms and Questions. I tried to go to the line that said For License Renewal, but a lady with a stick beat me back. Ok, she really didn't have a stick, she just pointed her finger--but it was extremely long and bony. So I stayed in the first line, smugly looking through my manilla folder, thinking of how prepared I was. And the air-conditioning was fine.

Eons pass, and after several decades my skin seems as if it should be hanging from my bones like wet crepe paper, but then I reach Satan's employee at the desk. Satan's employee wears a rather questionable combination of headband and sticky-up hair, as if she's auditioning for a music video in 1986. I smile ingratiatingly as her cold eyes rest contemptuously on me. I know she smells the fear. "Uhm--renewal of a driver's license. Please." "Social Security or a Passport," she says, as she slowly gathers together forms that I, the genius student of the DMV, already have and have filled out. "Yup! And my birth certific--" I clutch my passport before me, like a small vinyl shield. She eyes it with loathing--"I said Social Security card and a Passport." "But I. . I have my birth certif--" "You need a Social Security card." Satan's E. doesn't say the word "Dumb-ass", but that's only because it's understood.

She pulls a lever and next thing I know I am sliding down a sharply battered metal chute, and suddenly am spat out skidding on my ass across the dirty-mop damp floor of a Wendy's in Mid-town.

Ok, there may be some exaggeration towards the end of that story, but my Be Brave act was to go head to head with the NYC DMV, and I think we all know who won that encounter. Apparently we all need to carry social security cards nowadays (A. I haven't seen mine since I was 11--I was told to memorize my number, which I did. B. I wasn't aware I was living in a cold-war novel circa 1972.)

So I felt defeated. It was sorely anti-climactic to be walking back to Butler Library without a hot little NY Driver's license on me. So, I asked myself, what do you do when you don't achieve anything? If I were really being brave, I would have fought more, would have actually gone to--gasp--the Social Security offices.

But I am scared of them, because of my financial tangle. . .so I didn't go. So I was not brave.

Oh crap. And suddenly it began to bother me that I have procrastinated so much, that I have so damn many things I have to be brave about in order to sort out my life a bit. A lot. The days wasted doing nothing because I did too much, too late, the night before. The opportunities thrown to the winds, because like some spoiled Hilton I thought that time and opportunities were endless. . .

But then it occurred to me that I had made a new rule: A BBP action doesn't count until it is followed through on. Namely, I hadn't heard back from my Soprano's named accountant, Louie. So I sat my Wendy's slick ass down on a bench, pulled out my useless DMV forms and turned them over. Then I called Louie and had a brief, frank discussion.

And it was marvellous! So many thanks to Maggie for recommending him! Not only did he sort of show me what my first step for neatening out financial chaos should be, but he gave me a golden gem of information that I didn't have. This gem of info., these words dropped casually from Louie C.'s angelic mouth, came to this: That the three years I convinced myself I owe back taxes for? I'm wrong about that-- I owe nothing.

And oh, the difference it made.

Be Brave Project Day 2: One Phone Call

So here's the dealio: You're feeling a bit stuck, vaguely cornered, and a lot as if your life has to change. So you make a list of the things you need to do, really need to do (as opposed to buy cream cheese or vaccuum that cat's damn hair off of your foyer carpet). Seems as if it should be rather straightforward, but actually it begins to feel like catching fireflies between your palms--the brief riotous flutter of success, but once you've got the thing in its jar, labelled and awaiting your next move. . .it's a bit of a head-scratcher.

So my Be Brave Project Day 2 act was actually the first step of something I've been terrified to move on--getting my finances sorted. In March my friend Maggie recommended her accountant, who she got to know when she was working as a P.I. He'd just recently done some rather neat (and vaguely slippery) number crunching for her to ensure that her numbers looked right to get her a new apartment on the Upper West Side. I like kind, and I like people who aren't too tremendously stymied by drawing within the lines. I also loved the guy's name: like something out of the Sopranos. And do you think those guys had good accountants, or what? Louie Bottabicano. Nice.

So Maggie gives me the guy's name in March, and I sent him an email in April. No reply. Happily took that for an answer, because I really do not want to sort through 8 years of financial crapola, but then tried him again in May. This time he wrote back and said he hadn't received my previous email, but asked for some details and then. . .I froze. Didn't call him back. All I could think of was paperwork and horrible embarrassing discussions of my protracted idiocy--so I behaved more idiotically and just did nothing. He rang, and I didn't ring him back.

Stupid. Embarrassing. And quite, quite lame.

So the upshot of it all is that yesterday, after I came back from the gym--where there's a new scale that not only gave me a higher weight but announced it to the room--I sat down, found my old email from Louie, and called him. . .but only left a message. His machine had a canned message, so I don't know if he sounds as if he wears knit shirts and New Jersey gold, but a girl can dream. I was full of apologies and genuine professions of my intention to follow through this time if he'd call me back. So we shall see if he does.

That sort of gave me a bit of impetus, so I also acted on something else I've been procrastinating, and called the vet to make an appointment for my cat to have her teeth cleaned. Neither interesting nor brave, but anti-procrastinatory. And that's very very good.

I can tell already it's going to be difficult, deciding what is brave and what is actually just something dull or expensive I've been putting off. . .but is it fear that causes procrastination? of course, you put the dull stuff off long enough and then you need to be brave to get things back on track. And expense? Sometimes, for those of us with Scottish blood, spending money is brave. Ah, Celtic heritage--it's all extremely sun-blocky.

Be Brave Project: Little Acorns, or Day one

This has been a summer of shock and procrastination, of quietly avoidant days slipping into lovely, warm & empty nights; I have enjoyed some of the moments as they passed, but nothing has been achieved. So far.

Nothing has been fought for, or moved forward into a pattern of some kind of permanence. Just worry, indecisiveness and, again, procrastination. And that ghastly trip to Florida. (Picture above.) To give myself credit, I have also worked when I could, and exercised to assuage my fears. And I've ebay-ed myself some truly excellent shoes. . but woman cannot live by cheap-ass Gucci alone--or at all, really.

So yesterday I was poking around the internet, as is my girlish wont. I don't know how the hell it happened, but suddenly I was on the "Be Brave Project" website whose link you see on the right. And the all important Eleanor Roosevelt quote caught my eye:

Do

One

Thing

A

Day

That

Scares

You.

Eleanor Roosevelt

And I thought: Yes, I probably should.

Then I thought: But of course I'd forget after a few days.

Then the realization: Darlin', You've got to do something. Have faith in something.

Why not this?

And why not indeed? I read the posts, and the Diary of a Self Portrait Writer is immediately recognizable to me. Marvelously creative, inspiring but feeling a bit stymied, sensing there's a brass ring to be grabbed somewhere but not knowing quite how or what the hell to do with the ring once it's been seized.

We're all so worried; worried about time passing, worried about not achieving that which we've decided to achieve, fearful that somehow we're not meant to, anyway. . .

So fuck it. Fuck the endless doubts and the constant second guessing. The worry that I'll let myself down and produce something second-rate (and therefore not produce anything at all).

Trying this Be Brave Project certainly can't do any harm, and it might crack open the world to me, in ways small and large. Crack that juicy, peopled, love and money filled coconut right open.

So--Elusive D. decided to go for it!

Every day, do something that frightens me.

The contract goes as such:

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 Sundays 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.

So yesterday I began small, but it did feel good: I wrote a note to my ex, my idealized lost love who contacted me via. Facebook this spring. I found I couldn't handle constant Facebook access (he's a musician, and his videos and the images of worshipping girls made my obsessive mind start spinning again), and so cut off the contact. Childish, and I of course criticized myself for that. But did nothing.

Until the email yesterday: Just a line dropped to say that I appreciated his getting in touch, and if he's ever in Manhattan to drop a line and we can grab dim sum and ice cream some afternoon. But made it clear I don't want 24/7 access to the public version of his life.

And 2 minutes later he wrote back, saying dim sum sounded good, and he was happy to hear from me. And the point about Facebook was clearly made, so now I don't feel at all badly about editing him from my 'friends' file. Excellent! Facebook is The Devil, anyway. I deleted his email--Elusive D. can be a quite obsessive, and I don't need that scrap of black and white to re-read 49 times--so I left my apartment and walked up Broadway to the library, with my book on plotting clutched under my right arm.

Be Brave Project, Day One!