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

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

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?

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.