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".