Spirographs and Flying Fish

2011-09-14T08:55:00.000-05:00

fyi, i'm mostly over here now...should be checking in here sporadically, but wordpress seems to be a lot quicker in turkey...hope to see some of you there!

2011-09-01T13:39:00.000-05:00

along with sundaes and cones (favorite flavors: red bean, taro root, black sesame, matcha), il laboratorio del gelato will be one of my most-missed new york institutions.

flavors tried: earl grey, toasted almond, sweet potato, espresso, salted caramel, coconut, mexican chocolate, black mission fig, fresh mint, strawberry, olive oil, malt, pistachio, pink pepper tarragon.

2011-08-17T18:51:00.002-05:00

i’ve said it before, but one of my favorite places in the city is the south seaport. no, not that south seaport - the one with throngs of tourists and sticky gimmicky restaurants and abercrombie storefronts belching shoppers in and out…no.

walk past that to the site of the old fulton fish market, where every sunday the new amsterdam market sets up camp. separate from the greenmarket, the vendors are a combination of farm booths selling fresh produce and more specialized local businesses and restaurants: artisanal drinks and sweets, cheesemongers, pie bakeries, heirloom citrus, brooklyn-made wine, fresh tempeh, hand-harvested seaweed.

it’s less comprehensive than more traditional greenmarkets, but fun for excursioning. in the past two weeks we picked up the most insanely delicious yellow nectarines, heirloom tomatoes, p&h lime soda, oysters and corn on the cob grilled over a wood fire from mas farmhouse, a lobster roll, rye boules from nordic bread, and world-altering cheese. more on that soon.

my favorite shop in new york, bowne & co. stationers on water street, has been closed by the seaport museum since the spring. tragically, i think (others agree). it makes the area a lot less full of life, but the market is still worth a trip.

2011-08-11T13:31:00.001-05:00

saying goodbye to new york is hard. this city and i have had our ups and downs, but it’s tough to leave. gw is here for another year, then who knows when/if we’ll be back in a permanent way.

so i’m trying to transition deliberately. revisiting favorite places, checking out new things i’ve been meaning to do.

last weekend gw and i took the water taxi down to red hook to pay a visit to fairway and, more importantly, steve’s key lime pies. we got off the ferry just as the place was closing, but we called ahead they kindly stayed open an extra 15 minutes for us.

we got what we always get: the swingle. a 4-inch key lime pie with graham cracker crust on a stick, completely encased in dark chocolate and frozen. perfection.

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the big news

2011-08-04T16:13:00.004-05:00

the "big news" that i alluded to many moons ago is finally fit to print. so here it is:

after almost 2 years, 2 apartments, 2 boroughs, 2 jobs, leagues of sidewalks pounded, dozens of pilgrimages to the beach, countless dinners at bark, millions of mta miles logged, 7 book club books read, pounds of flour sugar cocoa powder sifted mixed and baked, and, and, and…i'm leaving new york.

in july i found out that i've received a fulbright grant to turkey. two weeks of much hemming and hawing and some really heartbreaking decisions, but ultimately this is too big of an opportunity to pass up. i'll be shipping off to muğla, in southwestern turkey, for nine months of working as an english teacher at a university, and hopefully doing an apprenticeship with a local farmer. there are still a lot of unknowns at this point, but the wheels are in motion and i'm excited.

i've heard enough scattered information to suspect that blogger may still not be supported in turkey, so i've started a new wordpress blog to document my life in turkey: crustacean island. i do hope to continue updating here as much as possible, but i suspect that in the face of technological difficulties, the new tumblr will be my primary means of blogging for the next year or so. hope to see you over there!

2011-08-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

2011-08-02T13:17:00.001-05:00

and the reason for the season: gw’s show. four solid days of prep culminating in an incredibly vital, warm and well-attended opening night. if you’re ever in the south of france, check out non-objectif sud.

2011-07-28T15:38:00.002-05:00

blissed out from paris, we were a little sad to be leaving the city for provence. a few hours by train, with a brief stopover in lyon, we arrived in orange. romantically whisked away by our gloriously generous hosts via open top car to la barraliere, site of the gallery and sometimes-b&b. our minds were changed. just outside the village of tulette, literally surrounded by vineyards, the site is a renovated provençal farmhouse with former stables serving as gallery space. lavender and sunflower fields, shockingly ripe fig and plum trees, ubiquitous mistral cutting through.

each night, every night,around nine, we head up to the terasse for champagne, nuts, olives, sunset watching, pit tossing. the evening settles in and we move to the courtyard for the main event: tomato salads, potato gratins, barbequed quail, grilled trout, roasted lamb, followed by salad course, followed by cheese course, followed by sorbet. hand-pressed olive oil from backyard vineyards, local young wine in giant plastic jugs, lavender honey, fresh butter, raw milk cheeses, rosemary olives. the dream.

2011-07-21T16:24:00.025-05:00

we walked all the way from rue monsieur le prince to montmartre. my friend had warned against venturing into the tourist throngs, but we decided to venture it. blisteringly hot day, but it was cool inside the sanctuary. we trooped down through the back stairs, and wandered up deeper into montmartre, to the north. picnic lunch on a suburban bench. oddities shop filled with disembodied dolls' eyes, tin fish and ciseaux de brodeuse. started back down to the center, stopping for meringues and croissants aux amandes. spotty rain. questing for glass jars and vases. broken french.

heading downhill seemed like a good plan, until we realized that we had somehow walked all the way to the banlieu. edging above porte de clichy, we'd gone off the paris city map. adventurers, we. a long, long trek back, dotted with rain, unplanned gardens, carousels, gelato, the eiffel tower by night.

we walked and walked and walked and walked

2011-07-20T16:24:00.003-05:00

arriving in the city in early morning, our friend david met us at charles de gaulle. a tourist like us, in the city for just a day. a train ride into the city, exhilarating after years, years! on planes, in airports. orange and beige, open windows. emerging - is there any better word for subterranean decampment? - from the luxembourg station, i felt like a was walking in a picture book, a living backdrop of Paris. paree. everything so creamy and gravelly and haussmannian.

it was the first time for david and gw, and the first time in a very long time for me, so we did what all good first-timers should: we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. we drank our weight in water. shared croque monsiers and chilled rose in les tuileries. les jardins du luxembourg, la seine la seine la seine, the louvre, the pyramid, walking with necks craned.

we parted ways with david at notre dame so he could catch a train to avignon, then made the wise traveler decision to go back to our hotel (so perfect!) and nap. we’d been told that paris is at a much more northerly latitude than new york, but it was still a shock to find ourselves back out at 7:00 with the city still lit by milky-shimmery natural light.

much more walking, along the seine and back, through rue mouffetard. crepes en route. yogurt in lavender ceramic pots. public pools, tired feet. almost no good photos from the first day – we were too busy looking.

2011-07-13T16:37:00.001-05:00

back from france, well and settled. walked and tanned and croissanted. espadrilled. lavendered. fromaged. seined. graveled and dusted and macaroned. wined. wandered. watered. ile de la cited, gelatoed, bensimoned. pooled. glass jarred, yogurt cupped, french buttered, pain d'amanded. fleur de selled. more to come soon!

bon voyage...(très excités)

2011-06-25T16:57:00.001-05:00

gw and i are leaving for france in less than 24 hours. of course, being me, i have that usual flutter of nervousness about all of the moving parts (planes! trains! cars! hotels! navigation!) coming together smoothly... regardless of what happens, it'll be an adventure. we've got good walking shoes (at least somewhat stylish, i promise), bad french, mixed senses of direction, and a healthy enthusiasm for wandering. back in a week!

anyone else with summer vacation plays? or stay in place plans (i refuse to use the word ~~staycation~~)?

2011-06-19T18:11:00.000-05:00

oy, a month goes by quickly. it’s been a schizophrenic spring in new york. rain and cool and august heat and back to cool. high summer’s on its way, though. busy-ness here. gw finished his first year of grad school a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been prepping for summer shows since then. summer fridays in full swing for me. fort tilden beach, coney island, governors island, van brunt street wanderings. water, water, wherever we can get it.

next sunday we’re taking off for a week in france. gw’s been invited to show in provence, so we’re spending three days in paris, then heading down to avignon-tulette for four days. any must-do’s while we’re there?

sun sun sun

2011-05-24T11:13:00.000-05:00

after seemingly years of rain...the sun breaks! summer fridays start this week. governor's island opens, sandals hit the pavement, sun sun sun.

living like a citizen

2011-05-20T11:23:00.001-05:00

feeling a bit sheepish about the quiet front around here. all's well, just busy. Big Life Things are potentially in flux (not in a bad way), so there's been a lot to think about lately.

i've been loving this spring. cool and rainy and wildly humid, but not blisteringly hot yet like it was this time last year. strange to think that we've been in new york now for a year and a half. seeing seasons move. as i've talked about before, it still feels temporary and immediate in so many ways, but the settling in of the realization that i'm making a life here adds some urgency and motivation to have a surer sense of place. does that make sense? it's easy enough to plan segments of my life into year-long increments, but committing to a place is something else completely.

not sure i'm there yet in terms of new york, but i suppose it's just about making a point as often as possible to live like a citizen, rather than a tourist

a day

2011-05-04T16:02:00.004-05:00

rainy rainy day here. summer just around the corner. some big news on the homefront.

more to come.

lately...
eating: hearts + minds
reading: more sherlock and some australiana
planning: a trip to d.c.
attending: festival of ideas for the new city
watching: elizabeth and the young victoria (yes, still in the royal wedding mood)

and you?

hello, summer.

2011-04-15T14:06:00.003-05:00

heading up to denniston hill for the weekend. planning to some smores-making, some sherlockian-reading, some field-wandering (wuthering heights style), some kiln-building, some apple-eating. hello, summer.

my first apartment

2011-04-12T11:04:00.004-05:00

my mother has been collecting items “for my first apartment” since elementary school. the daughter of a near-professional pack-rat, my mom is definitely not a hoarder in general, but somehow hoarding for others is perfectly acceptable: observe, her garage increasingly filled with cardboard boxes labeled “for jenna’s apt.” every so often i’ll get a call detailing her latest addition to my ad hoc hope chest, “i just bought something for your apartment. it’s an antique headboard/10x10-foot-rug/woven navajo basket/etc/etc.”

i'm now on my third grownup apartment, so the term is used a little loosely, but the idea is that someday i'll live close enough to home to reclaim the growing stash. this weekend my mom acquired, in the name of “my first apartment,” a set of champagne glasses and a giant terrarium jar.

as cliche as it sounds, it makes me feel like i'm waiting for my "real life" to start. the real life where i have complete sets of dishes and cupboards to fit them in. the real life that comes equipped with a car for shifting pieces of furniture too heavy to carry up and down sixth-floor walk ups. the real life with rooms big enough to house even one of the kilims i brought back from turkey.

insert lesson about recognizing the joy in everyday moments, making myself at home in my actual, nine-to-five itty-bitty apartment clogged sink renter’s agreement et cetera life.

but you know. and i know. it’s just life. good with bad/happy sad. and all that. that’s enough. either way, i can sleep peacefully in the knowledge that when my real life actually does begin, i'll be outfitted with more dishes than I could ever really have room to store, enough rugs to carpet a barn, and a literal garage-full of furniture. plus, champagne glasses

even if it inhabits a different day

2011-04-08T10:39:00.002-05:00

at night sometimes in certain parts of the city, usually in those remaining streets that are left deserted, usually in winter, but sometimes in other seasons if the streets are sufficiently forsaken, the past can be seen as if through a smeared window. Sometimes this effect occurs only for an instant: when you’re walking back from someplace with a head crammed with company and music and sensations, to a point where all new sensations dissipate, on some dead street in the middle West Side lined with jobbers and import showrooms and loading docks and shuttered luncheonettes, or on a street on the Lower East Side where the intersections have no stoplights and everything is nailed down and dark and the only people to be seen dart by as furtively as wraiths. there will be no traffic, and the streetlights will seem to shrink back into their globes, drawing their skirts of illumination into tight circles, and the rutted streets reveal the cobbles under a thin membrane of asphalt, and the buildings all around are masses of unpainted blackened brick or cacophonies of terra-cotta bric-a-brac or yawning cast-iron gravestones six or eight stories tall. this is the sepulcher of New York, the city as a living ruin.
It is also the bridge to the past, the past that shares the same night as the present, even if it inhabits a different day.
-luc sante, low life

bony cups

2011-03-31T15:54:00.004-05:00

another drizzly day. cold all week. people keep going on about this “everlasting winter,” but somehow i don’t feel quite ready for spring. or maybe that’s not right: i’ll welcome spring with open arms, but it’s bizarre to realize that another season has gone by. it honestly feels like last week that we were celebrating g’s birthday on the grass under the brooklyn bridge, or setting up the tent at fort tilden.

the seasons are so much milder here than in the midwest, and indeed, it snowed in minnesota this week. my internal clock is permanently set to central standard time.

last weekend was committed to major spring cleaning. we’ve also getting our kitchen in order. slowly accumulating glass jars for story dry goods. gary built us some sturdy wooden shelves which have been a lifesaver in our tiny kitchen.

one year ago yesterday was gary’s first month in new york. a year ago yesterday was the evening he found out about grad school. surreal and wonderful to be in the gallery a year later at the same, updated senior mfa show. next year it’ll be him.

tonight we're going to this show, where i'll be picking up a pair of these bowls from clair at clamlab. i've been excited to take them home all week.

work no. 1065

2011-03-21T16:45:00.005-05:00

martin creed, mothers

I will tell you what cheesed me off when I was a kid—even though I couldn’t really articulate it at the time. And that was books that were too East Coast-y, too New York-centric.

I grew up in suburban Michigan. I read my fair share of, say, Judy Blume, Robert Cormier, Paul Zindel, and E.L. Konigsburg—but many of their stories presumed common knowledge about, say, how subways worked, about class divisions, about urban life, that just alienated me. I had no idea what they were talking about. And the way they described it, New York seemed like such a dirty, squished, tense, terrible place that I didn’t want to know what they were talking about. As a kid, it seemed to me that too many authors wrote about New York, as though it was the default state of humanity. Since I didn’t know anybody who spent any time in New York, that seemed presumptuous to me. I was more attracted to authors like, say, Beverly Cleary or Ray Bradbury, who seemed more “Midwestern” to me, and frankly, more human.

loving james kennedy. from the best interview ever

raining in new york today. spent the weekend at the beach. a little sunburned, windswept, windburned in march. zine reading and reception in unearthly state street apartment. red wine, peanuts on the train.

reading the order of odd-fish and museum of innocence. highly, heartily recommended.

seventy

2011-03-18T15:37:00.004-05:00

seventy degrees in new york city. spring is here? our saint paddy's day was mellow. guinness, bread and cheese at the harbor after work. i always love being down at the battery park city esplanade. the skyline from that side is so anonymous, practically unrecognizable as new york, and then, of course, the statue of liberty is a pretty good reminder.

being at the bottom of the harbor makes me feel like the horizon is wrapping and extending. the water pulls you away from the city.

this weekend: beach. anyone with plans? it's already summer in my mind...

oh hey

2011-03-14T10:43:00.003-05:00

just checking in. still kicking, if somewhat feebly. march-ly. last gasp of winter-ly.

this weekend: friends of friends at columbia. My new favorite painting, “dunes in zeeland,” early mondrian, guggenheim. the met: rugs and ritual in tibetan buddhism.

tse gutor, rtse dgu gto

sketchbook, japan, sailboat, japan, warped polaroids, japan.

tired, today. franny and zooey, today.

2011-02-22T18:18:00.000-06:00

2011-02-15T16:21:00.004-06:00

thesefreakytoesbelongtomybaby. pas moi.

spring is in the air. i can feel it. and the groundhog is on my side.

my true-love hath my heart, and i have his

2011-02-14T18:18:00.004-06:00

check the awesome photo of my mom, circa 1968.

back in january i bought a simple paper heart garland to hang above our window for valentine's day, but, alack, it's still in its package under some pile of books. my birthday was on the eighth, and our anniversary is the 12th, plus school and work and school and work, and come the official day of love, we're a little festived-out.

so. we met for lunch. pakistani vegetable curry, takeout. some homemade applesauce in tupperware. we're easy.

on saturday we went all out, though: mussels steamed in white wine and parsley, a shared half rib-eye steak, mashed potatoes in butter, mesclun salad with grape slices, homemade chocolate-cinnamon cake, and a happy bottle of prosecco.

gary's teaching tonight, so i'm looking forward to a leisurely evening of grocery shopping at the happiest place on earth followed by maybe a little harold and maude.

but it's still valentine's day, so...

play it, jane:

If you want my apartment, sleep in it
but let's have a clear understanding:
the books are still free agents.

If the rocking chair's arms surround you
they can also let you go,
they can shape the air like a body.

I don't want your rent, I want
a radiance of attention
like the candle's flame when we eat,

I mean a kind of awe
attending the spaces between us---
Not a roof but a field of stars.

don't say you weren't warned

2011-02-11T17:24:00.002-06:00

in case you're thinking about venturing into the wilds of central park this weekend, beware:

2011-02-02T11:47:00.002-06:00

north shore, lake superior

what has happened to january?

2011-01-27T12:34:00.010-06:00

it looks like we just slipped into this year without a ripple.

what's new?

there is a lot of snow roundabout these parts. we had to kind of wedge open the front door this morning (we're on ground level) and trace other people's footsteps through the astorian fields.

long waits on train platforms, lots of crowded wet bodies in down and wool. quiet days at work. quiet nights at home.

we've been cooking together, more than ever. grilled lemon bay scallops, maple-glazed tempeh with brown rice, lemon-ginger muffins. there's laundry, there's grocery shopping, there's reading (lately this and this). this morning i bought $40 worth of seeds (thank you, gift certificate), heirlooms and antiques, little specks of...we'll see. we'll see how i do as a little windowsill gardener.

i saw the houdini exhibit at the jewish museum last week. it's inspired me to revisit my resolution to make a trip out to houdini's grave at machpelah. it can be done! see here and here. still a few weeks left till 24. yikes.

oh, books.

2011-01-18T10:56:00.005-06:00

of the 127 books i read this year…

91 were works of fiction
36 were non-fiction

70 were by women
57 were by men

63 were written for adults
64 were written for kids

the top of the stack:
(obviously not limited to books pub’ed in 2010)
- east of eden. john steinbeck
- the bottom of the harbor. joseph mitchell
- everything on a waffle. polly horvath
- how to cook a wolf. m.f.k. fisher
- robot dreams. sara varon
- what we talk about when we talk about love. raymond carver
- savvy. ingrid law

beautiful, silky muscular packs of fiction:
- lighthousekeeping. jeanette winterson
- cowboys are my weakness. pam houston
- why did i ever. mary robison
- the turning. tim winton
- someday this pain will be useful to you. peter cameron
- half in love. maile meloy
-the lost books of the odyssey. zachary mason

intriguing, surprising, far from what i expected:
let my people go surfing: the education of a reluctant businessman. yvon chouinard
in defense of food: an eater's manifesto. michael pollan
new york waters: profiles from the edge. ben gibberd
asterios polyp. david mazzucchelli
bright-sided. barbara ehrenreich
final salute: a story of unfinished lives. jim sheeler
zeitoun. dave eggers
committed. elizabeth gilbert
mennonite in a little black dress. rhoda janzen
the immortal life of henrietta lacks. rebecca skloot

place of ice palaces and pneumatic tubes

2011-01-07T12:51:00.010-06:00

photo: gary

snowing today in this old city.

gary and i headed over to the new museum after work yesterday to catch the newspaper show. i usually have pretty mixed feelings about anything i see there, but i guess that's the point, no?

on the way we stopped at mcnally jackson (great store, surly staff), and i picked up a copy of a big blocky jewel of a novel, aurorama, new from melville house in dumbo. beautiful jacket, beautiful interior illustrations, beautiful paper, beautiful copy: 1908. New Venice--"the pearl of the Arctic"--a place of ice palaces and pneumatic tubes, of beautifully ornate carriage-sleds and elegant victorian garb, of long nights and vistas of ice. what more is there to ask?

having an inactive morning commute (ie: subway) has done wonders for that pesky old reading habit of mine. freak that i am, i’ve been keeping a dated list of books read since the 8th grade. data reveals that in 2010 i read 127 books. a considerable jump from 2009’s 90 and 2008’s – yikes – 48. this isn’t so much impressive as reflective of the fact that i automatically read for an hour every day on the way to and from work (30 mins each way) and…i don’t have a tv. we be simple folk. tomorrow (edit: eventually): a list of favorites, surprises, etc., etc., because who doesn't like lists.

folks, the eighth route army is back with us again!

2011-01-03T13:32:00.007-06:00

just got back from a quiet, snowy week in the land of 10,000 lakes. food, so much food. pumpkin-pear gnocchi, flourless chocolate torte with berries, buttery wild rice soup, more homemade norwegian cookies than i care to admit to. back in the city now larger in most ways, with a slightly wider waistline, a fuller closet, a more crowded bookshelf.

new year's resolutions? spend more time at the beach, explore astoria, cook more often and more adventurously, investigate sewing machines, take more photos, have more adventures, drink more tea, grow more green things, take a few trips, be a better partner, pare down my wardrobe to only things i like. read more books. try to listen to new music oftener. figure out the mindboggling street system in queens. make less trash (in all respects). be nicer.

new year, new year. hoping this one's calmer, but no less sweet, than the last.

or me lately

2010-12-20T11:15:00.003-06:00

a bit of a radio silence lately. we’re still settling into our new space. in the first week after we moved to astoria there was a flurry of nesting and buying. so much buying. we needed a can opener (though I successfully pried open two cans of chickpeas with a cleaver, a washcloth and elbow grease before putting my foot down), towels, bath soap. q-tips, a vacuum, a dish rack. little incidentals that you don’t really think about till you need them. we moved with our bed, a futon, and our wooden kitchen table and three wooden chairs. the couple who had lived in the space before us (friends of friends) had been there for four years, and it was the most perfectly, economically, design*sponge worthily-organized place I’d ever scene. each and every piece of furniture was perfectly situated for the space, every oddly shaped nook and cranny utilized in the best possible way. that place was curated. so I have to admit that when we started planning for the move I was intimidated.

we’d been living for the past year in a single bedroom in a shared three-bedroom apartment, with only a few pieces we really wanted to take with us. the wooden table was driven cross-country from iowa in a horse trailer last march. the bed was a hand-me-down buy from the previous renter (another friend of a friend) – not the design I would choose, but fine for our current renter/nomad life. the futon? I kind of hate it, another hand-me-down. now that we’re in the space, though, and it’s been recovered in white, it’s starting to grow on me.

the point of this whole tirade is that we haven’t really picked up any more furniture, as we’d originally planned. a pantry rack, more lamps, a dresser, an end-table. the apartment is a little bare, but I like it. I like the idea of adding to our space slowly, carefully, over time. finding the right pieces, not packing things into the space just to have them. it’s not what I’d planned for, but it’s nice to have room to grow, bare walls to add to. it feels clean and relaxed and manageable and…grownup. now it's about adding things we love. a linen throw. a tiny porcelain creamer. we're getting there.

there’s more to say. for me lately. about being in my twenties, about being in new york, about having a job, about figuring out the nomad thing. there’s a lot more to say. this is enough for a monday morning, though, I think.

2010-12-07T09:17:00.000-06:00

"watching the rain, studio door shut, in my underwear drying off, hot orange tea"

2010-12-01T13:46:00.005-06:00

gary's email to me this morning.

cats and dogs today, folks. too windy for umbrellas, new york. cuban garlic shrimp for lunch. now coffee and shortbread cookies. spending my lunch hour reading some salty sweet buttery david lebovitz archives. yes, please.

g and i are all moved into the new apartment, and now we’re focused on getting unpacked and settled. now that we're in a place of our own i'm getting excited about cooking again. g has class or work till after 10 most days, and i don't usually get home till after seven anyway, so it's a little tricky maneuvering schedules and energy levels, but i'm convinced we're going to make it work (even in our teeeeensy tiny new kitchen.

any good, easy, quick healthy meal recommendations? i love the mark bittman 101 series.

peppermint sticks, champagne, twinkle lights

2010-11-22T15:03:00.007-06:00

there’s a lot going on here at chez spirographs. we’re prepping for the big move to queens this weekend, folding shirts, newspapering dishes, weeding through books and clothes. we decided to toss our crappy old inherited dresser and desk (ikea, several times handed down), so we’re trying to figure out some low-cost replacements. any non-ikea suggestions for cheapo (but not atrocious) bedroom furniture?

what i’m looking forward to most about the new apartment: being able to take the time to put the coffee on before hopping into the shower in the morning (right now it’s a race to beat the roommates to the hot water – i can’t chance taking the time to make coffee!); getting home from work and being able to make dinner slowly, without scrambling around four other people at the stove; knowing exactly what’s in the fridge; no more missing tupperware; no more blaring television/xbox; no more mysterious smells; no more random visitors. okay, i think that’s enough for now.

i’m still happily getting used to my new job, but am starting to fall into more of a routine. g just finished his first open studio as an mfa candidate – i was so proud! we ate oranges and drank portuguese white and talked and walked and all was well.

aaaand, now that thanksgiving is almost upon us, i’m officially allowed to start getting in the holiday spirit. g wants to have at least a little tree, and i require twinkle lights. christmas cookies! soup! deep-sea-themed holiday cards (photos to come)!

it’s going to be a good year.

ps: i'm reading dashiell hammett's the thin man, which has gotten me geared up for walking off the big apple's thin man tour. get hot! get hot!

hello, there

2010-11-15T17:08:00.006-06:00

just stopping in to say hello. it's been week after week of business. busy-ness? busy business. happy busy, but busy all the same. the weather here in new york has been astonishingly beautiful - crisp and clear and all those lovely fall adjectives. g is gearing up for midterms, and i'm still getting used to the rhythm and pace of the new (wonderful) job, which essentially consists of reading children's books and writing about my opinions. pretty good deal.

in other news: we're moving! not out of the city, but to astoria! i'm sad to be leaving our much-loved park slope neighborhood, but the new apartment will be a hugely needed change. for the past eight or so months, g and i have been sharing a bedroom in a 3-bedroom hovel *ahem* apartment (we have two roommates), which is, needless to say, not ideal. the new place is a sweet little oddly-shaped one-bedroom that should be perfect for us. i'm trying not to get my nesting in full gear too early, but i'm pretty excited for the move. wish us luck!

on swimming

2010-11-10T20:41:00.003-06:00

diptych by only_alive

On Swimming
by Adam Zagajewski

The rivers of this country are sweet
as a troubadour's song.
The heavy sun wanders westward
on yellow circus wagons.
Little village churches
hold a fabric of silence so fine
and old that even a breath
could tear it.
I love to swim in the sea, which keeps
talking to itself
in the monotone of a vagabond
who no longer recalls
exactly how long he's been on the road.
Swimming is like prayer:
palms join and part,
join and part,
almost without end.

sirens, then marathoners down fourth avenue

2010-11-08T17:45:00.004-06:00

i heard sirens in the far distance last night and thought, for a moment, that they were canada geese.

summer feels like it lasted for years, while fall...maybe a week. or maybe it's still in process? i keep meaning to get back up to fort tryon park to see the leaves.

now that i'm a grownup (ha ha), i find that most of my favorite things to do draw heavily on sentimental childhood activities. on saturday i spent twelve hours in my friend susan's apartment eating cookies, drinking hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows, watching '90s rom-coms, making macaroni and cheese, and assembling christmas cards. christmas cards! a good weekend.

bon weekend

2010-11-05T16:57:00.003-05:00

g is at denniston hill for the weekend. it's friday, so i'm trucking up to the met for the evening. weekend plans include: reading. bon weekend!

good dog home

2010-11-04T16:06:00.002-05:00

new, unimaginably happier, job has brought me back to myself. lower-order concerns like survival have been met (can you believe that i basically stopped eating during the day – for months on end – because i was so frantic with anxiety?), and i can focus on…happiness. basic and free and good.

just like that, i feel – almost – the way i did in school: eyes, heart, and mind open. Reading for pleasure, not just a sort of desperation (though books have served me well through the sad months, as they always do).

just like that, i’m ready for adventure. i want to go to museums again, plan trips, tick off events on the to-do list. i want to buy new dresses and cut my hair. i feel up for exploration again. i’ve started looking at photos of far-off places with strength, excitement and intention, rather than a kind of mute indifference. Different lives, different worlds…don’t feel so distant anymore. this is just to say: i’m getting ready.

cycling

2010-11-01T20:04:00.004-05:00

my first fall here is quickly cycling into winter, and new york feels familiar again. something about the cold makes the city feel smaller, quieter, more personal. everything's less aggressive and more interior - physically and mentally, i think. last weekend i went to the beach again and was dumbstruck at how empty it was. miles and miles of sand and water and literally no one in sight. how could just a week or two of cool air make such a difference?

there are still some loose ends in need of tying, but generally i feel calmer than i have in almost a year. a little more settled, a little less frantic. due to the weather, in part, but mostly the new job. i got choked up over and over again last week at how nice everyone was. civility! friendliness! kindness! and now, cinnamon toast and hot chocolate, coats and blankets. i get to build up my phyiscal defenses and in a way that makes me feel more open to the world.

ahoy, there!

2010-10-26T10:54:00.001-05:00

no big news here, just leaning in to say hello! it's busy around here but happy indeed. fall is in full swing, and my neighborhood in park slope is decked out for halloween. any good costume ideas?

happy

2010-10-20T18:25:00.001-05:00

just, happy.

how to rise up like new bread

2010-10-17T18:00:00.001-05:00

no pictures today, too much doing. a really nice, restorative weekend leading up to my first day on the job (tomorrow!). friday woke up late to coffee and balthazar croissants from the cafe down the street, then spent the rest of the day with a well-shielded thermos of tea and a blanket down at a windy windy windy sandy coney island. one of the best ways to spend a chilly fall afternoon, as far as i'm concerned.

saturday morning in queens, then a stop at bowne & co. and a long afternoon at jack's. in the evening we met up with old friends from iowa for a poetry reading beer drinking bike raffling in a giant former hotel turned artists' studio. today: another slow morning at little buddy, then an afternoon reading mfk fisher on a sunny bench near valentino pier with coffee and a pumpkin cream cheese whoopie pie. perfection.

this isn't what i submitted, but i wish it was

2010-10-12T14:43:00.003-05:00

drawing: letter of resignation, by cy twombley

north star

2010-10-11T09:49:00.002-05:00

this is what it looks like at home this time of year. photos taken by my mom last weekend. my heart is aching for the north shore, but i'd be a fool to complain about the beautiful weather we've been having in new york lately.

in other news...it's my last week on the job! it'll be a busy, busy few days, but i'm feeling good.

dia

2010-10-06T11:46:00.008-05:00

last weekend we took our first real daytrip together outside the city. gary and i had actually planned a road trip out to dia:beacon during our senior year of college, but it never materialized, as 1,000+ mile car trips are wont not to do. since moving to the city it's been a constant "maybe next weekend" plan, but g's ridiculous restaurant schedule and my full-time job combined forces to give us not one single full weekend day free together all summer. i know, right?

this past saturday, though, the fates smiled on us: no class, no work, no rain. yes. we packed a picnic lunch, trooped out to grand central station (it's always exciting and glamorous to start a trip from grand central), got great window seats and onward, onward!

the train follows the hudson all the way from harlem deep into the hudson river valley to poughkeepsie, and it was incredible to watch the river widen and sway, see the trees get denser and more vibrant, admire the country houses and small towns along the way. it's somehow reassuring to know that still beautiful but considerably subdued hudson that slurps down the west side of the island comes from this.

g and i were both in the middle of some serious job and school-related stress, and feeling the river and sky build up into clean brightness really opened something in me. oh yeah, i finally reminded myself, there is something beautiful outside the city.

the museum, what can i say? it absolutely exceeded our high expectations. the space was magnificent and bright, a renovated nabisco factory whose scuffed wooden floors and vaulted barn-style ceilings were a perfect complement to the mostly minimalist modern and contemporary installations. richard serra, sol lewitt, imi knoebel, agnes martin, louise bourgeois. it was a gift to see so much groundbreaking work in one modest space.

afterwards, a walk down the town's mainstreet, drawing us back to mount vernon and the amanas. exactly where we want to be in the fall. haunted corridors, homemade chili, the first cider of the season, a hudson sunset.

a new start

2010-10-06T11:18:00.002-05:00

hello, invincible winners.

the big news is: i have a new job.

a new job!

i don't need to pollute this space with specifics, but i think it's pretty obvious that i've been a miserable basket case for the past, oh, eight months, and a huge percentage of that has been job related. and now i'm moving on. i don't want to get too head over heels, but i'm basically moving into my dream job: exactly the field i want to be in, exactly the right department, a great company, wonderful co-workers, and, hey, even a salary increase!

my first day is in less than two weeks and it is...surreal. every day since giving my notice i've felt more buoyed, more excited, and more free. i don't want to start getting philosophical, but it's just nice to know that good things come.

hoping

2010-10-03T17:27:00.006-05:00

nothing much to say. just little things. waiting. hoping. hoping.

Fall Ritual

2010-09-26T13:47:00.005-05:00

1. Wake at 3:30 a.m. to see the canada geese wheeling overhead
2. Begin accumulating layers of mismatched clothing, wool and flannel in shades of green, blue.
3. Keep track of sun and moon risings and settings. In this season of tangible objects, it is critical that we keep track of what is amorphously concrete
4. Don’t drink apple cider
5. Take pleasure in the bored expansiveness of plants kept indoors. Do not become like these plants: keep the windows open

slushhhhh

2010-09-24T13:36:00.003-05:00

hasn't anyone informed new york city that it's NOT SUMMER ANYMORE?!

must visit the slushie truck. pronto.

photo = not where i am today. but where i'd like to be.

equinox

2010-09-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

september 23rd: autumnal equinox. derived from the latin and applying to the northern hemisphere only, the autumnal equinox is the time when the sun lies directly above the equator.

vibrant red which doesn’t brown before falling

2010-09-21T15:56:00.006-05:00

walking at night through fields: scarecrows, wind, colors, bright-dullness, rural crimes, bulls

memories of childhood home, gospel Mahalia, folk; shearing sheet, season, purpose, harvesting; maze, corn maze, life maze; season of tangible objects; exoticism of the midwest

migrating birds; up at 3:30 to record birds overhead

sundresses and sweaters on alternate days

-journal entries, fall 2008

a point of context must be chosen

2010-09-19T11:59:00.003-05:00

By mid-August the lakes of the Boundary Waters are cooling again. There is only a small window of time in which the water is temperate, warm enough to step in without hesitation, just the wonderful flinch of water covering dry skin, then refreshment. By this point, though, the water has cooled formidably, and to swim is a commitment. You must have a soft towel waiting on the bank, with the promise of dry clothes and a warm bed very near in sight. With the decreased temperature comes increased excitement.

Late one evening I shed my shoes and towel, facing the night wind, and drop into the water. Swimming far out, nearly to the opposite shore, I watch the sporadic, dull flashlight beams from the bank, then drift on my back, watching a parallel, but much brighter, more familiar, set of lights above. At night it is colder, but easier to lose track of the state of one’s body, to forget the intensity of the cold, to let frozen hands and feet go unnoticed. Above water, there is the rushing of air through wet ears, but below, just a muted, eerie warmth. When I do leave with the rest of the group on shore it is not for tiring of the water, but fear of navigating land alone.

By day the only reason I see for going in the water is distance. After eight-hour days of paddling a canoe I want nothing more than to steep my muscles and bones in this cold water. A point of context must be chosen, without it I might keep going until reaching another shore, losing my time and place completely.

from a 2006 journal entry

2010-09-17T08:54:00.001-05:00

2010-09-16T17:37:00.003-05:00

this photo was taken on the same day as the one below. the east river in the sun. there's always daylight. i left work a few hours early today because i wasn't feeling well (i'd stayed till seven the rest of the week). i've been having such a hard time lately. trying to remember that this is my situation, not who i am.

i came home this afternoon and cleaned up my room a little, opened the window, let some light in. it was so buoying to rest in the daylight, to be home before dark. i miss school. i miss being a student, having leisure time, making my own schedule. i miss writing. i miss having space and driving and seeing the sky. these aren't the things you're supposed to write about. you're supposed to write about happiness and diversions and projects. but i just...can't.

these last eight months have been hands-down the hardest in my life. i've never felt so miserable, anxious, and beaten-down. i've felt trapped, stuck, totally defeated by my job, my living situation and this city, spending way more time crying than i should. why am i telling you all this? i don't know. nothing has really changed between yesterday and today. but the light was so beautiful this afternoon in my room. there are people out there living good lives. there are clean, open spaces. there are places to breathe. now i just need to find them.

2010-09-14T23:34:00.001-05:00

a strange and sad weekend, turning into a strange and sad week. bear with me. maybe, if you can, throw some good cosmic thoughts in my direction.

les ennuis, les chagrins s’effacent

2010-09-07T15:25:00.002-05:00

"piaf" embroidery by jenny hart

i watched la vie en rose last night and bawled my eyes out. a magnificent movie. joyful and tragic and absolutely pierced with light.

yesterday was made for the beach. big rolling waves, warm water, soft sand, fish tacos, cherry lemonade. long sandy hot sunburned sticky happy train ride home. and that's the end of the summer.

hurricane earl

2010-09-04T21:53:00.003-05:00

photo: my boo

the hurricane does not seem to have materialized. we're told there may be riptides at the beach. fall is starting to feel real. much-anticipated. i've stocked up on thick socks and tights (a first for me), started breaking out the thicker linens. hot tea. brownies (with frangelico - thanks, mom).

met friends at the cloisters today. fort tryon is unbelievably lush, the hudson unbelievably shiny. i think it'll be even lovelier in the fall.

new yorkers, have you heard of the key to the city project? neither had i. it seems that back in june the people of creative time set up camp in times square and handed out 20,000 keys to the city, each of which opens 4-7 "secret" places in each borough. there are locks to be opened in trinity church, the brooklyn museum, gleason's boxing gym, and the bronx county courthouse, among many others. a couple of our friends had keys, so we walked down to the george washington bridge and opened the gated pedestrian walkway. heartstopping wind and sun and views down the river to the ocean, to the skyline. there's so much.

au revoir, august:

2010-08-31T22:47:00.004-05:00

you've been something else. it's been a full, full summer, but i'm ready for fall.

on the way home from work today my train got stalled just before my station for two hours. two hours, stuck underground, literally a three-minute walk from my apartment. but it wasn't much of a thing. the car stayed quiet and cool. a few people started crying, but nothing crazy or frightening. it was just fine. i made some good headway in off the grid, kind of appropriate for the situation.

after two hours, the train inched forward enough so that a single door at the front of the train could open and people could squeeze through. we were that close to the station. the emergency exits were propped open and two hundred commuters walked calmly and in single file to the front. that every day should be so simple and complex.

i could

2010-08-30T09:45:00.007-05:00

drinking tea that's way too hot on a monday morning.

i spent the weekend chopping/dicing/roasting/sauteeing/baking all the damn vegetables from our last two weeks of csa. reading about baby wolves and the meaningless do. puppies. end of summer picnic in central park. watched the sun go down on a blanket in prospect park, saw the bats - the bats! - come out and circle. big-screen mad men showing at sheep's station.

i'd been feeling a little down about this and that (the usual apartment/job/future, coupled with sunday syndrome). at one point i made my way to the water closet, and as i was washing my hands i noticed a wrinkled little postcard of a faded-bright australian outback scene.

it was nothing epic, no sweeping vistas, but i felt a rush of relief, an exhalation, and was flooded with the feeling that everything is going to be alright. it just is. because you don't have to take it with you. i could leave next week, throw some shoes and an umbrella into a backpack and fly to australia. no more mouse/roach/who knows what other vermin issues, no more job, no more city air - just pack it in and go.

now, i'm not saying that's going to happen next week. maybe not the week after that, either. there's such a thing as responsibility and health insurance and being a grownup. but i could.

just like that

2010-08-24T13:21:00.003-05:00

photo: hafiz raji via pictory

and just like that, it's sweater weather. immediately, i love new york better, harder. and everything's so much fuller in the rain.

walked to the river on my lunch hour today, drank my coffee in the fountain courtyard of bellevue hospital. people going about their lives on a different tone, a different rhythm.

lordy, oh lordy

2010-08-22T16:22:00.002-05:00

painting: red hook pool series (5) by leah giberson

perfect late-summer weekend in brooklyn. after a nightmare hades-underground-heat-people-panic-attack-saturday venture into the city at the beginning of july, we made it our policy never to go to manhattan on weekends unless we absolutely have to, and it's been serving us well.

friday i walked to the textile arts center just up the road in park slope for a workshop. bags for the people. i was about ten years behind everyone else there in experience, but no matter - i made a darn impressive drawstring reusable bag. a good step in my use-less-plastic goal.

on saturday i finally broke out the bike that g brought back from iowa for me. a little black schwinn. it's not a perfect fit, but it cut our trip to red hook down to under 15 minutes (it's about an hour on foot). my ass and wrists were not happy this morning. is it normal to have elbow/wrist pain after biking? i'll get used to it. the reward is a four-foot-deep oasis of cool, surprisingly clean turquoise, and if you float on your back and squint, you can drown out the sirens and music blasting from the park and focus on the tip-tops of the trees and maybe maybe catch a teensy whiff of the ocean a few cement blocks away.

lunch at fairway overlooking the harbor and the statue of liberty, a walk through red hook oceanside park, wobbly cobblestone biking, another swingle, and a tour of the awesome waterfront museum by a professional clown and barge restorer. later: homemade banana-blueberry-walnut bread at g's restaurant.

today we nursed our sunburns and muscle aches (didn't know i was that out of shape...) with guilt-free rainy-day napping, toast, movies in bed. onward, to monday, no no no.

excited...

2010-08-20T22:41:00.001-05:00

excited about...lemonade. excited about swimming. excited about g&ts. excited about learning to sew.

i skinned my knees coming out of the subway today. what a doofus. banged-up limbs make me feel like a little kid. now it's officially summer. i'm already loitering on halloween central. eek.

et vous?

rain water river water

2010-08-16T16:07:00.007-05:00

been looking at this blog and this and this lately and thinking how nice it would be to try to live more like a tourist. not in the jostling silly stupid casual sense, but in the paying attention having fun seeing things with new eyes sense. trying to turn la vie quotidienne into something a little less...quotidienne.

and why not, i thought. we live in an exciting city. we go on adventures. we appreciate small things. we try to keep our eyes open. also, we're into kitschy shit.

the difference, i suppose, is that i have a full-time job. one that's a little low in thrilling swimming through light looking up at sun-water days and nights together maps and backpacks. you know?

so, i'm trying to shed some of that. in many, many ways. channel some water-diffused sunlight. eat more ice cream. wear my red sandals and sit by the east river and draw jersey-scapes and take pictures and treat these two years like the adventure that they are.

citrus aurantifolia swingle

2010-08-15T10:21:00.010-05:00

yesterday was a grand old saturday in brooklyn. the weather cooled down a little (a sign of good things to come?) and g had a day off, so we walked from our apartment in park slope to neighboring red hook.

we love red hook, and take every opportunity to go there, especially if by water taxi. it's definitely one of the neighborhoods we're looking at moving to. we love the waterfront, the civil war-era buildings, cruise ships next to kayaks, the interesting assortment of people and businesses. a lot of cement, but, also, cobblestones.

yesterday's mission was: pie. key lime pie. i remember reading about steve's authentic key lime pie before moving to new york, and it's been on my to-go list forever. yesterday was the day. we had some vague directions and a street address, but there was definitely some stumbling involved. happily, red hook is generally a pretty good place to wander aimlessly.

our first accidental find was...saipua. saipua! i knew this was in brooklyn, but didn't realize that it's in the heart of red hook. the storefront is just an open garage, no visible sign, but it's so weird and lush and curated that we couldn't help sticking our noses in. floral arrangements and soaps, textiles, stationery, unifnished wood, a friendly blue hound - good enough for me (better photos: d*s)

i'll be stopping back in the fall to stock up on christmas gifts. even their dumpster is cute:

next stop: baked. weird, dated hipster decor, but the chilliest smoothest yummiest iced coffee this side of bqe. worth it.

then: metal and thread. closed for the season! lame.

a discovery: the red hook pool. we've been hearing about this summer oasis from friends, but i always imagined it being sort of gross and crowded and...gross. au contraire. it was big and clean and blue and glorious and free.

finally, after much dead-ending, we found (and followed) the signs:

the bakery is tucked into a big warehouse, with a gorgeous outdoor jungle + picnic tables for sitting and sipping. interior decor = florida keys, circa 1963, by way of the gowanus. they sell: pie, "limonade" (not limeade?), teeny baby key limes. and frozen pie on a stick, covered in chocolate. it's pricey, though. we settled on the cheapest menu item: a 4" tart, with limeade. crumbly, buttery graham-cracker crust. creamy custard filling. rindy tart limeade. so good. so good that we had to go back and get that shit on a stick.

a swingle. literally an entire frozen tart, crust and all, dipped in dreamy dark chocolate and impaled on a stick. g, a man who loves to eat, declared it "the best thing i've ever eaten in my life." no joke. the consumption of this beast was narrated by moaning.

in the end, we gave steve's a 4.5/5. when i asked g where the extra .5 went, he said, "i leave room for perfection to give me a reason to keep coming back." fair enough. if you're in brooklyn, or new york, or on the eastern seaboard, go buy a swingle. and then bring me one.

*i'm sorry these photos are so stinky. i really need to get a new camera.

ennui advisory

2010-08-11T13:58:00.004-05:00

image from my favorite new serial webcomic, sailor twain, by mark seigel. this serial is so atmospheric, so beautiful and mysterious and funny and evocative, and the historical period and setting (1890s new york) are absolutely vivid - i almost want to live in between these panels. (there's also a wonderful links section)

still don't feel like i'm really back in the swing of things post-vacation. being at home was wonderful. i ate more in five days at home than i probably have in the last month in new york. that might be an exaggeration, but only a little. cinnamon rolls, wild rice soup, bacon & eggs, sicilian pizza, chocolate malts, juicy burgers. i swear, we ate some healthy stuff too.

and there was lake superior, northern lights, a real-live sundog, creeping fog, 2-mast cutters in action, beach-side picnics, late-night campfires. the only downside? descending back into the smog of new york. i don't mean to sound negative or dramatic. it's just that being here gets me so...tired.

in related news, there's an ennui advisory in new york city this week. take notice. it's actually about as hot as it was in july, but it feels a little milder now that the end (autumn) is hopefully in sight. you just get used to being otherworldly hot.

and i'm back

2010-08-10T07:36:00.003-05:00

vacation was...perfect.

it's hard work, but being by the beach makes it all worth it

2010-08-02T14:09:00.006-05:00

this dude stole/perfected the new york version of my fantasy life

he has a pool! and the beach! and tacos! and a bee suit! in new york city! (well, queens)

now i just need to get over the beastly commute and the ghet-to.

but even andrew "winters where it's warm." wtf.

edit: oh, okay, he goes to mexico to "research." hmmm...

août

2010-08-01T21:10:00.006-05:00

august came in like a beautiful mellow lamb with rain and cool wind. mixed metaphors. nevermind.

homeward bound in one day. one day! and g leaves tomorrow for iowa. he's flying in, then driving back, hopefully with a bike for me in tow. i'm not the most adept person in the world when it comes to limbs and hand-eye-coordination and machinery, but the prospect of not riding the train as often is mighty appealing.

read somewhere recently that new york is the unhappiest state in the union. hawai'i is supposedly the happiest. in honor of that statistic, here are a few things that make me happy:

-not being in subway stations
-the sunday respite from construction
-vincent's delightful wobbly mid-atlantic voice reading "recuerdo." oh, oh!
-little teensy lovely things like croissants and coffee and good stout solo morning walks
-being a responsible adult and making lunch for myself and for g the night before
-the song in the closing sequence of this film. "run river," not featured in the trailer.

everyday present

2010-07-30T09:19:00.006-05:00

not the best week, in the grand scheme of things. a lot of non-happenings, and some bad news. but g and i are both getting ready to go home for a few days. for me, it will be my first time back in minnesota in almost eight months. can't even express - or think about, really - how wonderful and much-needed this break is.

g's birthday falls while we're apart, so we celebrated last night (his only day off this week) by meeting for a picnic at brooklyn bridge park. sunset, sitting under the manhattan bridge looking out at the city skyline and the twinkling gothic towers of the brooklyn bridge. strawberries, raspberries, cheese & crackers, samosas, chocolate cake, prosecco. french tourists taking artsy photos. books of poetry and urban natural history (snyder and anagnopoulos and, um, johns hopkins). i wish i'd taken pictures, because it was beautiful.

getting through the rest of today. the photo is from a couple of weekends ago. jacob riis state park. we gathered driftwood and built a little fort and swam in the ocean. it's enough to push through the rest of the week.

not seeing straight

2010-07-25T15:03:00.006-05:00

another weekend and it's hot as a belly. never in my life have i sweated so much as in these past few months.

raining, raining today. much needed. so much cooler. g and i walked to cafe 474, read (his and mine), then sat outside under the awning and watched the rain. talked about hüzün. somehow it keeps popping up.

last night was my first real new york thunderstorm. met friends and friends of friends for a late-night showing of inception. totally enjoyable. there were plenty of moments where you're not sure whether elements of the convoluted plot are sailing over your head or just actually don't make sense, but of course there are those great "i'm so smart, i get this" breakthroughs. i loved leo's huge head and ellen page's doofy college student self. the movie got out at 1:30 am, and we ran to the subway in the pouring rain.

i really need to schedule an optometrist appointment - my left eye has started to get blurry when i look at the computer screen. my vision is horrible, and i haven't updated my prescription in four years (!). not good.

could such things be?

2010-07-19T16:13:00.001-05:00

currently scheming about ways to get back to the boundary waters. g and i would both love to eventually move back up north, to the superior shore. not to sound like a feckless dreamer, but i think, with a little more experience and capital, we could make it work.

this is probably several years and several moves away, and who knows what might happen in the interval (the pacific coast? europe? canada?) but it's something beautiful to keep in the back of our minds.

what about you? what's your secret, singular little place?

to-do

2010-07-17T11:14:00.005-05:00

hope your weekend involves plenty of cold drinks and lounging in breezy locales. g and i have so far accomplished: picking up our csa share (melon, kale, sweet onions, lettuce, radishes, beets, basil, cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber) and making iced tea. our ambitious rest-of-the-day plans include walking to a cafe, ordering iced coffee, reading. i think we should be able to manage that.

i don't care if the sun don't shine

2010-07-14T22:03:00.004-05:00

that is all i've got to say.

it's been raining for the past two days. this morning my train was running weird, so i got off two stops north of where i normally do and walked down, umbrella in hand, in the pouring rain. though it was only about 15 blocks away, it felt like another planet. in the 30s, between midtown and the flatiron, kind of korea town-ish.

i don't know if it was the rain, or my recent dumb blue malaise, but was reminded, for the first time in a long time, what it feels like to be new to this city. i felt like i was a part of something, a member of a long urban timeline. it made me want to go crazy reading new york history, taking funny tours, going on urban adventures. i never meant to get jaded. i've been a little sad, and being a little sad sometimes makes it hard to get excited about adventuring.

but this morning was kind of a kick in the shins. in a good way. a little siren call from the city. no, i haven't forgotten you. there you are. here i am.

on a quasi-related note. all this new york in the rain stuff has got me thinking about stieglitz. and, by extension, photography. gary thinks i should get a new camera. maybe then i can take pictures like this and this and this and this.

suggestions?

note to self:

2010-07-14T16:34:00.006-05:00

you know what's not a great thing to do when you're apartment hunting in new york?

look at apartment listing for the twin cities (specifically grand avenue) on craigslist.

i'm still trying to prop my jaw up after seeing the insanely low prices. and hardwood floors! river views! laundry! utilities! actual for-sale-by-owners! gah.

neither king nor kaiser

2010-07-14T10:11:00.003-05:00

i watched the young victoria last night. as a proud irishman (well, second generation), i've got to hate those damn english monarchs on principle, but period dramas are just so right sometimes. you know. and so now i'm listening to wagner. which doesn't have anything to do with anything, really, except that it feels suitably regal and stern. beglückt darf nun dich.

victoria and albert's romance was great and all, but lest we forget, can anyone say famine? deliberate policy of genocide? i'm going to start getting worked up.

i still miss ireland. often.

#books that changed my world

2010-07-11T18:50:00.001-05:00

approximately 92% of susan orleans's "books that changed my world" are the same as mine. didion, moby-dick, nabokov, richard yates, ondaatje, ulysses, franny and zooey, woolf, "alfred prufrock," the god of small things, márquez, the things they carried, ishiguro, the hours, faulkner, ron hansen, jane eyre.

that means i'm destined to be a wildly brilliant essayist, too, right?

a few more of mine (in addition to the above):
-the moviegoer - walker percy
-"twenty love poems and a song of despair" - pablo neruda
-the blind assassin - margaret atwood
-ironweed - william kennedy
-a home at the end of the world - michael cunningham
-lava - pamela ball
-under milk wood - dylan thomas
-motherless brooklyn - jonathan lethem
-east of eden - steinbeck
-paddy clarke ha ha ha - roddy doyle

as a kid? sideways stories from wayside school, tuck everlasting, gone-away lake, little house, harry potter, weetzie bat, from the mixed-up files, lemony snicket, the view from saturday

and because it bears repeating: didion, didion, didion. faulkner. franny and zooey. didion. this feels a little canon-heavy, but it is what it is.

what about you? what are your personal books of lightning/shivers/revelations/lightbulbs/soulspots?

also, does anyone have any good book/reading blogs to recommend?

once i lived on the southern coast of spain and did nothing for two years...

2010-07-10T21:05:00.007-05:00

...then i ran out of money and came back to new york to go to work again.

i picked up this pulpy 1962 gem, adventures in a cold-water flat, a while back for the hilarious cover and backmatter ("home is where the harem is"). this weekend, though, i actually opened it and read the first few pages, and was surprised to find it...pretty good. here's an excerpt:

"for hours at a time i would stare at the water and try to imagine that it was the green mediterranean which i missed so much. but i could not really manage to do it. it did not disappear beyond the horizon. on the other side, i saw clearly, was the shore of new jersey...i was brought home to the fact that this was not the green mediterranean but the bleak, steel-gray hudson.

"it was after a long time and much deep thinking that i finally realized that i had not been a deserter at all. all of these men to whom i had gone seeking work were, of course, the bosses. they had become the bosses by not going off to spain as i had, but by remaining here, in new york, in this harsh concrete world, working in it and working for it.

"it was then that i asked myself which one of them had not, sometime during all those dismal years, wished and wondered what an easier and softer world smelled like? yes, they were angry at me. they were resentful of someone who had left it all behind for two years and had hone out to breathe in deeply the perfume of an older, slower world."

light, dark, deep, shimmery

2010-07-09T22:46:00.005-05:00

quiet weekend to come, i hope. maybe some cross-breeze. we're gardening, and museuming. getting unintentionally tan. saltwater. some writing, some reading.

any recommendations? books, drinks, new york destinations? hot weather retreats? alternatives to air conditioning? novels or music of the light, dark, deep, shimmery variety?

be glad

2010-07-05T19:02:00.001-05:00

my mama is here this long weekend, so we've been new yorking it up. in light of the heat wave, we've been searching for quiet places - think dappled light, cool breezes, running water. we did well with the ramble, right smack dab in central park (see above).

she also wanted to go to one museum. any museum. preferably not too crazy. so i took her to the met, where there were impressionists and picasso and echoing hallways and period rooms and the big bambu. have you seen the big bambu? you should see the big bambu. there are bungee cords, and bamboo:

and while you are up there, way at the top of the metropolitan museum, after you have ridden many miles underground and walked many avenue blocks in maybe a little too tight sandals and wandered many lovely cold marble corridors and sipped from many new york city drinking fountains, you will see this:

and you'll be glad.

happy fourth of july!

2010-07-04T22:12:00.006-05:00

we celebrated by spending as much time as possible on the waterfront and drinking icy beverages all day. there may also have been cucumbers and ice cream and fruity popsicles. and a ferry. and a water taxi. water taxis are wonderful.

and then we trooped home. guacamole. plans for the new day. the macy's river fireworks from our brooklyn rooftop. oooh, aaaah! happy, happy day to you - i hope yours involved seawater and lovingkindness and icy drinks.

at the bottom of the harbor

2010-07-01T00:08:00.006-05:00

i don't love "the south seaport." as in, hamburgers and sticky crowds and the gap and vendors with hemp and tshirted teenagers on segways.

but i love the south seaport. as in, windy windy ocean air and joseph mitchell and sea-wind sea-ward apartment drafts and peeling paint and moby-dick and fulton fish revisited gloriously and oysters on the half shell and look you can see governors island and bread of all shapes and seaweed-sellers and water. and water. and water.

ps: i got to hang out with julia yesterday. and it was fun. we sipped beer and chatted about many things, like dogs, music, bikes, jobs, apartments, neighborhoods, life, and stuff. hi, julia!

oh, gosh, i love

2010-06-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

sounds like rain but it isn't

didion, california, la rochelle, evening light

brownstone windowsills when the night is coming

summertime, with beat-up feet and scuffed hands, chipped pink nail polish, callused toes. scabs, scratches, bug bites. the pride of childhood injury

i miss the quiet nighttime colors. let's go home. let's go home.

to this friday i say:

2010-06-25T13:32:00.009-05:00

photo: syoin kaji

get me to the giant mind eraser!

i'm gathering bits and pieces of evidence in preparation for an eventual trip to dead horse bay. anyone have seemingly elusive specific directions? who knew what wonders contained within...brooklyn?

the days that lie ahead involve: late mornings (g's night shifts are not fun, but at least it's an excuse to sleep in guilt-free), sugar cookies, garlic scapes, lunar eclipse, painting, reading the big sur bakery cookbook. dreaming about big sur. worrying about apartments. chewing ice. et cetera.

anyone up for a free lightning party?

2010-06-24T10:17:00.006-05:00

"the lightning chasers invite you to a spontaneous lightning party!" always something to do in new york, eh? work is still crazy, the city is hot. hot. been sick this week, fighting through the heat and congestion. operation make friends is going alright - slow and steady.

we're thinking about starting to apartment hunt again. how is it even done in new york? we kind of fell into our current place, so the process is new. our lease is up at the end of august, but we have to give a month's notice and it seems near impossible to lock down a new place more than a few weeks ahead of time. scary prospect for an uber-worrier like me. the diy-er in me cringes, but we're considering going through a realtor. i know, i know. but craigslist feels like such a dead end. we'd love to stay in park-slope, but who knows what'll happen. deep breaths. any advice from new yorkers?

for now, in my first grownup june: dreaming about about long expanses of summer, days at the pool, trips to the lake, endless expanses of reading smoothies sand chipped nail polish planning sipping rolling fanning swimming swimming swimming.

and lightning parties.

the sixth borough

2010-06-21T07:18:00.003-05:00

i am loving summer hours. i get to leave work early on friday afternoons, so gary and i have been planning little adventures each week. this past friday we met down at the bottom of the island to catch the free, 10-minute ferry for governor's island. the island was closed to the public until 2004 (i think, please correct me if i'm misinformed), and has an interesting history dating back to the 1600s involving dutch colonists, revolutionary war cannons, the war of 1812, the smothers brothers, batman, and, most recently, prince harry. seriously, wikipedia that business.

anyway, it's subsequently been added to the national register of historic places, and is now open and free to the masses on fri/sat/sun through september. there are: old brick houses, forts, a castle, free bicycles, ice cream, ample picnic space, a crazy little brooklyn etsy shop, ice cream, art installations in ramshackle houses, killer views of manhattan and brooklyn, art-type activities for kids, and tons of space to ramble and explore.

it was a wonderful, epic afternoon. we picnicked, we sprawled on pretty private lawns, we rambled, we wheeled. if you're in new york you should definitely make a point of coming out - even though the ferry was crowded, we felt like we had the island practically to ourselves. it felt, in all honesty, like being at home in the midwest. so calm and peaceful and private, with all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies. we'll be back!

a tale of two stoop sales

2010-06-19T18:46:00.008-05:00

here at chez spirographs we are big lovers of the stoop sale. or, even better, the stoop giveaway. in the last three months we have dragged off the street the following:

1. on three separate occasions: three beautiful oldish (dare i say antique?) wooden chairs. voila, dining room set! (total: $13)
2. more books than i care to admit (free)
3. a yummy red-painted wooden creeper (free)
4. bright. red. rainboots. (free)
5. a pair of brand-new red polka-dot toms ($3)

.

nice loot, but pretty typical streetside fare. what we've really lucked out on has been art. a couple of weeks ago we snagged the top painting, now hanging in our kitchen, for $5 from a moving sale on atlantic ave. the lower painting, which was finished in 1965 according to its signature, was snapped up at a little brownstone sale near prospect park for $10 (a little steep from my cheapo perspective, but gary didn't hesitate). it's nice to have some canvases on our otherwise scruffy walls.

p.s.: is anyone else in new york dying for block party season to end? the events are cute at first, but my head is about to explode from what's got to be 65 dcb hip hop. let it stop! (does this make me officially No Fun?)

it is here to stay

2010-06-17T15:37:00.004-05:00

photo: david cesarino

tuesday after work g and i walked down to the east village, a neighborhood we rarely visit, for some banh mi, cupcakes and used booking (hey, it's the east village). the real object of the night, though, was stargazing. yeah, you heard that right - stargazing in new york city. every non-rainy tuesday night during the summer, members of the amateur astronomers association haul their giant telescopes up to the high line for a few hours of free stargazing.

the amateur astronomers were friendly and enthusiastic, and totally willing to answer a barrage of repetitive questions. i've never been into "space stuff" or astronomy, and i think this was probably only the second or third time i've even looked through a telescope, but it was really moving. i'm still astounded that you can look through a little (big) lens and see the texture of the moons and count the rings of saturn.

plus, it's romantic and stuff. makes me happy to live in this city, this little (big) city filled with light pollution and amateur astronomers and coconut-chocolate cupcakes, where i can hold hands with my person and soak up the sunset over the hudson and look at moon craters and smell the sea.

happy bloomsday!

2010-06-16T11:29:00.012-05:00

here's some ruddy irish goodness in honor of bloomsday. it'd be nice to wander the streets of dublin again, but i'm not complaining about celebratory guinness in brooklyn. gary and i have a glorious evening planned: pints at o'connor's followed by so you think you can dance and my first attempt at earl grey cookies. i suppose i could have chosen a more loyal tea than earl grey, but hey, sláinte mhaith. anyone else have bloomsday plans?

thanks to everyone who commented on sunday's post - who knew it would be so hard to make friends as an adult? (julia, i would love to get together - email me anytime!). today i had lunch in the park with two co-workers, and it was so refreshing to have some unscripted time with fun girls. i think that most people really do like to be contacted and asked to do things (except jerky people, and who wants to be friends with them anyway?), it's just a matter of working up the guts to ask. really, what is there to lose?

allons-y

2010-06-13T17:05:00.009-05:00

wonderful weekend with one of my best friends in the world. bread and cheese (alpine carroway - surprisingly yummy) picnic on the water yesterday, and coffee and brioche in prospect park today - it went by way too quickly. we've known each other since we were twelve years old, and though we haven't lived in the time zone for over five years, our friendship hasn't changed. she knows me better than just about anyone, and spending time with her is like going home. she's moving to washington, d.c. in august, so some roadtrips are definitely on the agenda.

since moving to new york at the beginning of the year, i've been working on taking care of higher-order concerns. getting a job, finding an apartment, money management, finding a happy balance living with g, trying to stay sane at work. while things are still far from totally stable, i've relaxed enough now that i can start thinking more about how - forgive the phrase - to better cultivate happiness.

one of the biggest, most important things i'm trying to figure out is how to make friends. who knew it could be so hard? i'm a fairly shy, reserved person at the outset, but i've always had plenty of good friends. going to school and traveling are great ways to meet people and build relationships, but now that i'm living on my own in a new city it's difficult.

there are some really interesting, sweet people my age at work, and the mission lately has been "operation befriend coworkers." coffee breaks and lunch in the park are nice, but somehow i always feel like i'm hitting on people! i'm looking into book clubs, classes, volunteering, and casting a wider net through friends-of-friends, which is a little scary for an introvert like me.

anyone have any suggestions or ideas for making friends in a new city? what has worked for you?

the weekend in food

2010-06-07T11:04:00.002-05:00

measured in food alone, it was a very good weekend. saturday was the first csa pickup of the season, and we loaded up on veggies: kale, spinach, lettuce, red and white chard, hakurei turnips, green garlic, scallions, bok choy. i made an awesome green apple-turnip-candied walnut salad, a big old mess of leaves salad with lemon and green grapes, and a really simple but delicious leafy greens quiche from this straightforward recipe.

and, obviously, cinnamon rolls and chocolate croissants with iced coffee on sunday, because why on earth not?

feels good to have a full fridge to venture into the week with. on a food related note: if you're in brooklyn this summer, there's a films series at spoke the hub about food politics and urban food distribution systems throughout the country. worth checking out if you're in town.

art can be a wonderful life

2010-06-06T20:25:00.007-05:00

fearsome hot summer of the past few weeks chased away by thunderstorms.

thinking about painting again for the first time in a long time.

chuck close, commencement address:
“I’d like to say something to the parents of the art majors. This is probably not what you had in mind, you know? You hoped maybe – I don’t know, maybe medical school, maybe a degree in law, but I want to tell you that a life in art can be a wonderful life. Artists live better at near-poverty level income than yuppie bond traders do at much larger income.”

bean town

2010-06-03T11:00:00.006-05:00

better late than never, eh? my trip to boston last month was wonderful. too good for words. maybe that's why i've been holding off on writing about it - it was just way too much fun to encapsulate here. but i'll try. there were: sailboats, croissants, cobblestone walks, joyful reunions, adventures in seafood, sailors in uniform, sunny sunny morning walks, turquoise flea markets, seeing and photographing the oldest (blank) in america again and again, beautiful river water smell, vintage silver subway cars, swan boats, french lycee. lots of coffee and tea. lots of walking. lots of talking. a much-needed break.

tonight

2010-06-01T12:54:00.001-05:00

ask and ye shall receive. 8pm, patagonia soho: 180 south

2010-05-25T14:41:00.001-05:00

photo: chelsea at frolic via abby try again

roadtrip, anyone?

happy monday!

2010-05-24T10:45:00.004-05:00

oooeee, trying to keep it together this week. i'm straddling the line between holding down the fort and completely losing my shit. but the looong weekend is on the horizon, so i'm taking deep breaths.

boston photos to come. meanwhile, i'm looking forward to b.e.a. parties all week. catching up with friends from the minnesota indies. a little sci-fi/horror action at coney island this weekend. guzzling homemade lemonade like it's my job.

how do you stay afloat during the week?

pacifika showcase

2010-05-21T09:23:00.010-05:00

may is asian-pacific heritage month, and the nmai is sponsoring the pacifika showcase, a series of films that explore contemporary indigenous experiences and perspectives. friday night i went to the opening event, the u.s. premier of a maori film called the strength of water.

it was raw and poignant, with touches of magical realism, relayed evocatively through a child's point of view without being sentimental. really, really beautiful - absolutely recommended if you get a chance to see it.

yesterday i stopped in for a few shorts from new zealand, samoa and hawai'i: taua, the turtle and the shark, stones, haku inoa. it was wonderful to see such incredible variety - in story, language, aesthetic, film type/quality. in the evening i went back for bran nue dae, a film based on a hugely popular australian musical. big, splashy, bold - all of the usual bright accoutrements of an upbeat musical, with an undercurrent of cultural and political challenge (which i suppose most good musicals have as well).

*note: if you're in new york, the museum is doing daily screenings of two hawai'ian short films: rolling down like pele and american aloha: hula beyond hawai'i. they're at 1:00 and 3:00 on weekdays, which is a little difficult for 9-5ers like me, but there's a 5:30 showing that i'm hoping to catch this thursday. totally free, and worth a try if you're at all interested in film or the pacific. starting june 7th they'll be doing a brazilian film series. what an amazing resource this is.

books on the brain

2010-05-18T16:08:00.006-05:00

currently reading vietnamese writer nam le's short story collection, the boat. isn't that just the most stunning book cover? that beautiful, milky, color-inverted wave. the shading, the typeset. parfait. if you're as compulsive about book covers as i am, check this out:86 beautiful book covers

also worth your time: free mini-books from featherproof press. download, print, enjoy. my favorites are dads, peanuts and the amazing gro-beast, and shooting music.

the intern cracks me up.

do you like graphic novels? i'm a big fan of :01 ("first second") books. some recommendations: robot dreams, koko be good, the amazing remarkable monsieur leotard, cat burglar black, brain camp. can't wait for zita the space girl to come out.